1. make a wish

1. ✴ he couldn't have imagined

2. ✴ one enormous bruise

3. ✴ but you like an audience

4. ✴ you have the means in your possession

5. ✴ i drive better than i walk

6. ✴ it's that all of those things are boring

7. ✴ so i guess that wasn't hades

8. ✴ telling someone your secrets

9. ✴ if i got three wishes

10. ✴ we will seek my buried inheritance

2. hexes

1. ✴ unconsciousness would be an undesirable outcome

2. ✴ i believe i can fly

3. ✴ in the tiniest of pieces

4. ✴ no one else will be using theirs

5. ✴ technically not karma

6. ✴ be as you aren't

7. ✴ all rise

8. ✴ we're kind of inexplicable

9. ✴ now isn't that something

10. ✴ welcome to wonderland

11. ✴ some people are this impressive without magic

12. ✴ here goes

13. ✴ who are you when you're alone?

3. parable of the talents

1. ✴ high school is kind of boring really

2. ✴ good morning

3. ✴ introduction to being a college student

4. ✴ dress for success

5. ✴ interesting rich people

6. ✴ for my birthday i become a real person

7. ✴ i remember everything, so who are you?

8. ✴ super speed and other exceptional abilities

9. ✴ i'm just that fascinating i guess

10. ✴ welcome to the chessboard

4. golden opportunity

1. ✴ a city and a mint who sleep very little between them

2. milliways lurks

3. ✴ the empire of the stars

4. ✴ ☼ oh how it lurks

5. ✴ ☼ farewell diplomatic contingent

6. ✴ ☼ plotting to unnerve her

7. ✴ it's not all crises and public appearances

8. ✴ on the first day of christmas, my true love gave to me

9. ✴ ☼ cake and ice cream

5. truth be told

1. ⍋ the cold is harmless

2. ⍋ witches own little

3. ⍋ no nudity taboo

4. ⍋ symbols hold infinite layers of meaning

5. ⍋ distance is immaterial with cloudpine under you

6. fire and water

1. Ω by the seashore

2. Ω in atlantis's hall of treasures

3. Ω in a forest of legs

4. Ω among her own kind

5. Ω on a train

6. Ω along the tracks

7. Ω in district three

8. Ω ⍋ in control of an inferno

7. outside help

1. Ω ⍋ in defiance of the capitol

2. Ω in a supposed democracy

3. Ω at the memorial dome

4. ⍋ runecasting is an art

5. ⍋ witches' daemons can travel alone

6. ⍋ and we are always birds

7. ⍋ there is so much to do

8. ⍋ it is unwise to anger a witch

9. ⍋ we live until we are too bored or lonely

8. celestial objects

1. Ω ✴ in a heap of people

2. ✴ points of failure

3. Ω on top of the world

4. Ω upon the moon

5. Ω on trial

9. raise the stakes

1. ✝ sunnydale welcomes you

2. ✝ enjoy its extensive library catalog

3. ✝ enjoy state of the art information technology

4. ✝ meet our friendly citizenry

5. ✝ take advantage of our excellent schools and their handpicked faculty

10. bells and whistles

1. ♪ yes, we believe in the wisdom of our god

2. ♪ ⍋ ✴ Ω for the world slows and the stars falter

3. ♪ Ω yes, there is love

4. ✝ ⍋ Ω ☼ we are invariably pleased to welcome tourism

5. ♪ our shield, our defender

6. ⍋ our goddesses answer when we call

7. ✝ Ω our real estate is a great investment

8. ✴ ⍋ a profusion of whistles

11. dance between the stars

1. ᗜ this makes it mine

2. ᗜ (admissions procedures)

3. ᗜ i live in the sky

4. ᗜ i am swift and clever

5. ᗜ these are my villagers

6. ᗜ (watch me think)

7. ᗜ watch me dance

8. ᗜ (state of the union)

9. ᗜ i'm on fire

10. ♪ ✴ ᗜ birdwhistles

12. sleeping, waking

1. eyes ears skin tongues

2. ᗜ and now i'm even older

3. ᗜ i spy with my little eye

4. ᗜ i'm a goddess of vicious precision

5. ᗜ i'm a good friend

6. ⍋ witches treasure children

7. ᗜ i command armies

8. dreamcatcher

9. ᗜ i contain multitudes

13. lend a hand

1. ☼ ✴ delicious bubbly

2. ☼ got good ears

3. ☼ ✴so very dapper

4. ✝ Ω ours is a service-oriented economy

5. ✝ Ω and the property values just keep going up

6. ♪ though you turn your face away

7. Ω in between moments

8. ☼ love at first sight

9. black bats flying round and round

10. ✝ our town knows how to celebrate a special occasion

11. ✝ and we are conscious of a long town history

14. waking, rising

1. here and there

2. ᗜ i can conjure spirits from the vasty deep

3. ✝ we're convenient to a wide variety of establishments

4. ✝ our summers are warm and pleasant

5. ✝ our hospital facilities are nationally acclaimed

15. down down down

1. ω down and out

2. a good day to die

3. ω underground

4. timer

5. ω Ω downside

6. unreliable doorstop

7. ω Ω ☼ inside

16. they bite

1. ✝ ☼ ✴ we are convenient to major metropolises

2. ✝ our town is the birthplace of many notable figures

3. ✴ eviler and eviler

17. nous et notre

1. ⚜ mon père

2. ⚜ mes études

3. ⚜ mon ami

4. ♪ Ω all that remains is you

5. ⚜ ma bête

6. ⚜ ma colocataire

7. ⚜ mon mari

18. bellstorm

1. ᗜ Ω ✝ i'm big sister

2. ᗜ Ω ✝ ⍋ ☼ ♪ ✴ Ø i am the oncoming storm

- give it a shot

- they find a Bell

- this is Upside

- they've heard so much

- seven different people

- now where's that Sherlock

- Stella's hunting Whistles

3. Ω at home and abroad

4. ✝ we are the proud site of the world's only portal to hell

5. ⍋ we know how to celebrate

6. ✴ ☼ Ω ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø it's a dead man's party

- and wonder of wonders

- the Sunshine contingent

- but that would be ignominious

- without explanation

- come meet my grandma

- critical mass

- she's still all-over copper

- sing for the party

- suddenly easier commuting

- emerges airlock-style

- talk about magic

- his nametag identifies him

- in case he dreams

- one of speculation

- shouldn't be hard

19. welcoming

1. (retroactive)

2. ♪ ᗜ ⚜ yes, there is beauty

3. ⚜ ✴ ☼ Ω ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø ma fête

- before the guests arrive

- the pile of Jokers

- eventually extracts herself

4. ♪ though the whole world shun you

5. ⚜ mon ennemi

6. ☼ strictly professional

7. ✝ our city is on good terms with its neighbors

20. in life's name

1. ҂ quiet, this is a library

2. ҂ greetings and defiance

3. ҂ the self-knower

4. ҂ seedling enterprises

21. put a ring on it

1. Ø ✴ ☼ Ω ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ ⚜ almost like a party

2. ✝ we boast a poorly regulated militia

3. ҂ ✝ good guesser

4. Ø ✴ ☼ Ω ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ ⚜ ҂ welcome to my

5. ☼ ҂ aurum tourism

6. the emerald isle

7. ♪ and where shall we turn if not to you

8. Ø ✴ basically a ninja

9. ✝ we are committed to promoting ethnic diversity

22. tell me everything

1. ✧ what are you doing here?

2. ✧ why me?

3. ✧ what must i do?

4. ✧ now what?

23. deal them in

1. ⚚ ultimate twin sacrifice motion, set up!

2. ⚚ so there was this deck of cards, right

3. ⚚ universal star visitor brilliant start!

4. ⚚ miracle crystal dancing jewel, spin!

5. ⚚ ✧ spit it on the floor

6. ⚚ so look this is really interesting

24. all the colors of the

1. ✧ ⍋ where am i?

2. Ω ✴ ☼ ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø ⚜ ҂ ✧ in the palace

3. ⚚ Ω ✧ flickering heart barrier viewing go!

4. ⚚ Ω ✧ ✴ ☼ ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø ⚜ ҂ festive rainbow mirror summoning!

- fluffy, unclothed straggler

- looking for Amariah

- with a cup of that tea

- headed for Juliet

- in search of Shell Bell

- hey Brilliance

- the rest of the deck

- hunting for Minus

- the vague notion of finding Aurora

- to a lone Tony

- responsive to conversational stimuli

25. diaspora

1. ⍋ we have a complex relationship with our sisters and our cousins

2. ♪ our beloved and our god

3. Ø alone in the multiverse

4. ⚚ silent gem isolation!

5. ✧ where have you gone?

6. ҂ the interdimensional community

7. ⚜ mon ordinateur

8. ✴ square one

9. help yourself

10. ☼ without recourse

11. Ω on our own

12. ✝ our transit system is top of the line

13. ᗜ i can fly this thing

26. ✴ ☼ Ω ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø ⚜ ҂ ✧ ⚚ repealing

- Rêverie

- Origin

- Sunshine

- Alethia

- Rainbow

- Samaria

- Syntropy

- Aurum

- Eos

- Thilanushinyel

- strays

- very similar seven-year-olds

- meet the other you

- ask him who he is

- just a bit overwhelmed

- between conversations

- thinking about it

- meet my daughter

- up off the floor

- all the genetic data

- meet the Wellspring Matilda

27. domestic matters

1. ✝ there is room here to expand

2. ⚚ devoted enchantment conduit, smile!

3. ᗜ i hold the power of life and death in my hands

4. ⚚ ҂ wild card aura, cast colors!

5. ⚜ mes enfants

28. monarchies being thus

1. ∀ extradimensional space

2. ∀ semiautonomous kitchen

3. ∀ enchanted spectacles

4. ∀ surefooted moccasins

5. ∀ bewitched armor

6. ∀ technical issue

7. ∀ fire-flower meadow

8. ∀ Ω grandma, grandma, look

29. ∀ ✴ ☼ Ω ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø ⚜ ҂ ✧ ⚚ intelligent nametags

- what to think

- a dozen different kinds

- a pretty aura

- chatting pleasantly

- idly telekinetic

- with her sister

- who keeps coming

- Stella's over here

- for no reason

- accumulating respect

30. storm II: storm harder

1. ∀ resurrected relative

2. ⚜ ma fille

3. ⍋ ✴ ☼ Ω ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø ⚜ ҂ ✧ ⚚ ∀ we are not truly immortal

4. ⚚ ten points, mint vast ghostly wishes!

5. ⍋ we worship certain symbols

6. ✝ our news publications keep our residents up to date

31. strands untwisting

1. paris in the spring

2. ✝ we are an underrated tourist destination

3. ♪ alleluia

4. ⚚ regretful web of thought!

5. Ø ✧ full of new life

32. in which

1. Ψ in which subtle artists do not all work the same way

2. Ψ in which nymphs are good for more than one thing

3. Ψ in which bella dearly wishes to be less interesting

4. Ψ in which the lesser of two evils may still be pretty evil

5. Ψ in which it is unclear how this became bella's job

6. Ψ in which bella's warranty is at risk

33. breakable things

1. ఒ forgotten

2. ఒ summoned

3. ఒ awaited

4. ఒ Ψ cheated

5. Ψ in which informational content is secondary

6. Ψ in which bella does not have long to think of something

7. Ψ ҂ ⍋ ᗜ in which the narration is suggestive, yet vague

8. Ψ ⍋ ҂ ᗜ in which the bells have a lot to think about

9. Ψ ᗜ ⍋ ҂ in which aware buildings are nothing new

34. spontaneous teenage relative

1. ✝ many people move here to start families

2. my weight in quarters

3. ✝ we are the location of many significant historical events

4. the season to be jolly

5. ✝ enjoy expertly restored and renovated architecture

6. ✝ Ω local insurance rates are surprisingly reasonable

35. prismatic cleavage

1. ⚚ erroneous messenger, sleep!

- Jane broke

- it needed constant supervision

- show up jacketed

2. ⚚ self-devising bejeweled minds!

3. ⚚ Ω ✝ universal template sweep!

36. whmmmmm

1. ∀ cotton candy

2. gently introductory spelunking

3. Ω ⚚ ✝ ∀ in chronicle

37. idyllic childhood

1. ☼ adrift again

2. use it or lose it

3. roller coaster

4. greek deities

5. québécois

6. ☼ the history channel

7. prophesied wanderings

38. universal love

1. good morning everyone

2. just behave

3. ☼ managing not to

4. sudden ice

5. Ɣ horrible cold

6. dead babies and mind control

7. Ɣ do: read; don't: visit 214

8. Ω ⚚ ✝ ∀ ☼ Ɣ friendly door

9. Ω ⚚ ✝ ∀ ☼ Ɣ ✴ six weeks of winter

39. the empress of rings

1. ✧ where shall i begin?

2. Ø filtered with care

3. Ø song of saturn

4. Ø completely covered in flowers

5. Ø open to visitors

6. Ø rife with adventure

7. Ø carrying a torch

8. Ø ✧ connected by a dragon

9. Ø deluged with emails

10. ✧ what brings you here?

11. ✧ why don't you try?

12. Ø singing all alone

13. Ø ✧ rich with activity

14. Ø ✧ ⚚ ✝ ∀ ☼ Ɣ ✴ Ω welcoming to all

40. cherubim and seraphim

1. ⚜ Ø ⚚ ✝ ∀ ☼ Ɣ ✴ Ω ma mère

2. ♪ preces meæ non sunt dignæ

3. ♪ liber scriptus proferetur

4. ♪ sed tu bonus fac benigne

5. ♪ coget omnes ante thronum

6. ♪ per admirabilem ascensionem tuam

7. ♪ ⚜ Ø ⚚ ✝ ∀ ☼ Ɣ ✴ Ω the end of vigil

8. Ψ ᗜ ⍋ ҂ ♪ ⚜ Ø ⚚ ✝ ∀ ☼ Ɣ ✴ Ω at the door

9. ᗜ i'm not here

10. ⚚ ᗜ layered net conjuration!

11. ҂ syntropic

12. ♪ sicut erat in principio, et nunc

13. ☼ ♪ repatriative possibilities

41. absentee parenting

1. i might as well be the man on the moon

2. i've written home to mother

3. you can throw me if you want

4. and my ears will listen

5. ⍋ i bought some postcards

6. ⍋ Ψ we do not bear children until we have so chosen

7. ∀ mixed bag

8. Ψ ∀ home at last

9. Ɣ do: make introductions; don't: usurp the government

10. ✴ through a mirror

11. ✝ we encourage the meetings of like-minded individuals

12. ᗜ i'm back again

13. meet you again for the first time

42. lost years

1. ⍋ we feel misfortunes deep and keen

2. ఒ Ω ∀ found

3. ᗜ i'm just as i was before

4. Ω beside herself

5. ҂ Ɣ nonstranger

6. ✝ we harbor assorted family planning facilities

7. ⍋ we can live wherever we find ourselves

8. ∀ find a mom

9. ✝ dating doubly

10. Ø ⍋ we travel far and wide

11. ✧ how long has it been?

12. ᗜ ✝ i'm almost sixteen

43. sweeping up

1. ⍋ our interactions with mortals are often limited

2. ✝ our facilities are regularly upgraded

3. ✧ ∀ how are you feeling?

4. ఒ explained

5. ᗜ ∀ sweeping changes

6. ∀ ☼ several kinds

7. Ɣ do: consult alts; don't: unexpectedly appear

8. ✝ we have a low rate of unemployment

9. Ɣ do: distribute invitations; don't: kidnap party guests

44. ✴ ☼ Ω ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø ⚜ ҂ ✧ ⚚ ∀ Ψ Ɣ ఒ who will be coming?

- dragon alts

- not clinging to any

- the sheer fact of being a space plant

- angel of yourself

- has lots of parts

- the boy one of me

- the Griffins are a-prowling

- not generally a party person

- the scourge of eclairs

- sticking to her sisters

- she has done a good deed

- real actual tea

- vaguely in a search pattern

- an extremely friendly

- could readily be him

- stalling about something

- his lack of pants

- some of them have wings

- dancing less beautifully

- the available unicorn

- Minnie's entertainment

- a curious circuit

- he kind of stands out

- keeping current

- many tonies

- find her girlfriend

- vampire consumption only

- wellsprung

45. ✴ ☼ Ω ⍋ ✝ ♪ ᗜ Ø ⚜ ҂ ✧ ⚚ ∀ Ψ Ɣ ఒ will you marry me?

- a fantastic variety of flowers

- that was cute

- that's just not polite

- kind of needs it

- work together

- to visit the admin

46. lost pen

1. exeunt space plant

2. a cloud of poofs

3. doors are complicated

4. whole new world

5. keeping occupied

6. moved house

7. each another's audience

8. the flying place +

9. +

47. chess pieces

1. the non-princess of raxwell

2. precarious +

3. +

48. monsters and legends

1. ◎ lake acuity

2. ◎ dash rapidash dash

3. ◎ hospitality

4. ◎ gratitude

5. ◎ yarn

6. ◎ investigation +

7. +

49. swish and flick

1. i am made of you

2. 〢 doggerel verse

3. 〢 vine and hazel

4. 〢 arts magical

5. 〢 bedknobs and broomsticks

6. 〢 philosopher's stone

7. 〢 hidden arte

8. 〢 wizard coffee

9. 〢 wand and shield

10. 〢 natural occlumency

11. 〢 animated photographs

12. 〢 pen and paper

13. 〢 patronus charm

14. 〢 dark chocolate

15. 〢 seeking thestral

16. 〢 delicious snacks

17. 〢 disillusionment charm

18. 〢 wind shield +

19. +

50. only the avatar

1. ⁜ all who bend the air

2. ⁜ learn the healing arts

3. ⁜ the mighty spirits

4. ⁜ in spite of large deeds

5. ⁜ masters of the earth

6. ⁜ we're the ones who closed the show

7. ⁜ settle for fake ones

8. ⁜ widely believed a virtue

9. ⁜ bones are important

10. ⁜ or commit arson

11. ⁜ implies emotional pain

12. ⁜ reconcilable +

13. +

51. force of will

1. ± and there shall be an age of darkness

2. ± and a wolf will move among the lambs

3. ± and every hand shall wield the angels' swords of flame

4. +

52. the prime directive

1. Ֆ warp factor one

2. Ֆ hormonal imbalance

3. Ֆ holy rings of betazed

4. Ֆ prewarp civilizations

5. Ֆ life's blood

6. Ֆ very large number

7. Ֆ unfederated sanctuary

8. Ֆ video manifesto

9. Ֆ moon phase +

10. +

53. to be the sky

1. ⚡ barometric pressure

2. ⚡ warm front

3. ⚡ calm winds +

4. +

54. where the people are

1. ♔ nautical +

2. +

55. the emperor beyond the sea

1. chatelaine of cair paravel

2. ⌻ the summer i was ten

3. ⌻ tuesday afternoon

4. ⌻ the first occasion

5. ⌻ the second occasion

6. ⌻ queen of narnia

7. ⌻ the golden age +

8. +

56. side by side

1. ≏ earth/mars +

2. +

57. seidr and spear

1. ↾ the cuckoo's child, by invitation

2. ↾ graceful as a cat, by sorcery

3. ↾ welcome everywhere, by subterfuge

4. ↾ abroad, by bifrost

5. ↾ deceived, by illusion +

6. +

58. acquire (ptsd)

1. ӝ ooh, british accent

2. ӝ the graceless

3. ӝ mmm, tea

4. ӝ the group

5. ӝ woo, rock music

6. ӝ the pie

7. ӝ the hospital

8. ӝ the sharing

9. ӝ eek, monsters

10. ӝ the alien

11. ӝ the animorphs

12. ӝ the capture

13. ӝ the departure

14. ӝ the bait

15. ӝ the airplane

16. ӝ the ocean

17. ӝ the zoo

18. ӝ mmm, pancakes

19. ӝ the cat

20. ӝ the experiment

21. ӝ the divulgence

22. ӝ the circle

23. ӝ the pookas +

24. +

59. leaves of green

1. ⚘ what you sow

2. ⚘ dandelion seed

3. ⚘ capsicum

4. ⚘ viridiplantae +

5. +

60. unfashionable tattoo

1. ◌ an estate sale

2. ◌ authorized borrowing

3. +

61. count your blessings

1. # change

2. # okay but what's the thread count

3. # endurance

4. # patience

5. # time

6. # health

7. # travel

8. # flexibility

9. # swiftness

10. # okay but do we have to leave so soon

11. # vision

12. +

62. catch without release

1. ౪ dark scrying +

2. +

63. friendship is magic

1. ʊ friendship is magic part 1

2. ʊ friendship is magic part 2

3. ʊ the ticket master +

4. +

64. something that i want

1. ⌇ a book or maybe two or three

2. ⌇ mother knows best

3. ⌇ when will my life begin

4. ⌇ flower gleam and glow +

5. +

65. an art project

1. funerary proceedings

2. ⍟ marilacan embassy

3. ⍟ bioestheties exhibition

4. ⍟ singing open the great gates

5. ⍟ overture

6. ⍟ choreography

7. ⍟ tremolo

8. ⍟ line dance

9. ⍟ symphony

10. ⍟ façade

11. ⍟ dye

12. ⍟ weave

13. ⍟ dissonance

14. ⍟ ornamental flower show

15. ⍟ fermata

16. ⍟ landscape

17. ⍟ calligraphy

18. only too real

19. style substance subterfuge +

20. +

66. mythical beasts

1. 🍁 vorkosigan +

2. +

67. exact words

1. Ꮼ sugar berry

2. secret passage

3. Ꮼ pumpkin princess

4. +

1. ♦ zero +

2. +

1. +

he couldn't have imagined

edgeofyourseat

He has been in Forks, Washington for six months and they have been the most excruciatingly boring six months of his life to date.

There are so many things he can't do here, because this town is so small, and if anything gets back to Daddy dearest they'll just move somewhere worse. He honestly can't imagine anywhere worse, but then, before Forks he couldn't have imagined Forks.

Getting in fights at school is one of the few remaining forms of entertainment he can find any joy in, and it's also necessary for a few other reasons. So he doesn't waste any time on his first day back: it's ten after ten, he just got out of Art, the hallways are full of students rushing from class to class, and he finds one of the boys who already hates him a little and gives him a hard shove into the corner of a row of lockers.

Success. The crowd tries to stream around them at first, but at the point where the other boy has him on the ground and is punching him repeatedly in the face, traffic has come to a halt on all sides.

self_composed
2012-09-13 01:14 am (UTC)

Bella did not expect Forks High to be a linoleum-lined Fight Club, but she's on her way to her second class of the day and, lo and behold, a boy deliberately assaults one who's about half again his size. And then it turns into a massacre - an entirely predictable massacre. The smaller kid's martial arts teachers have failed him. If they even exist.

Bella turns to the boy who's shepherding her between classes; he's standing among the rubberneckers. "Why isn't anyone getting a teacher? Not to mention the nurse?" And, in a lower voice, "Is this common?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 01:22 am (UTC)

The predictable massacre continues. The boy getting massacred is grinning like it's his birthday and someone just got him a pony, or possibly a stripper. This only seems to annoy his victim/assailant even more.

"That's Delaney Hammond," Eric whispers back, "with the curly hair and the getting beat up. He moved here last year. Nobody knows what's up with him, but he does this all the time. I heard he went to the hospital in November or something."

self_composed
2012-09-13 01:24 am (UTC)

And he's still among the general population. Grand. She wonders if Charlie knows. "Does he do 'this' to everyone, or just people who eat my weight in protein powder for breakfast? Not that he's not obviously getting the worse end of things, now, but if he just pushes people into sharp corners at random..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 01:27 am (UTC)

"...He's never done it to me," Eric offers.

Eric definitely does not eat Bella's weight in protein powder for breakfast.

"And I've never seen him, you know, beating somebody else up."

On the floor, Delaney has graduated from grinning to high-pitched wheezing giggles, and the boy hitting him is exhibiting increasing disgust.
Edited 2012-09-13 01:29 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-13 01:32 am (UTC)

Bella decides that she's going to inform a teacher, and Charlie, anyway, because she has heard of the bystander effect. She also decides that she's just going to have to be late to class in case she's the only person in the hallway with the presence of mind to make sure the idiot doesn't drown in his own blood or choke on a tooth or something. She produces a pocket-size notebook and writes down screw the first rule of Fight Club. "I'm going to stay here in case he needs an emergency vehicle," she tells Eric. "I'm one of, like, two people in town who can get ahold of one faster than the 911 dispatcher. Can you repeat the directions to building four again? I don't want to keep you."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 01:37 am (UTC)

Eric obligingly recites the appropriate directions, although he keeps getting distracted by the ongoing spectacle.

The ongoing spectacle... goes on. The boy on top is slowing down, though, issuing more scowls than punches.

self_composed
2012-09-13 01:38 am (UTC)

"Excuse me," calls Bella. Because everyone knows who she is - whose daughter she is - so far, that might be enough. She poises her pen over her notebook. "Punching person. Can I have your name? First and last, please?"

Because she doesn't really want to be late to class.
Edited 2012-09-13 01:39 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 01:41 am (UTC)

Punching Person pauses his punching and looks up at her, confused.

"What the hell do you want?" he asks, despite the fact that she has made it pretty obvious.

Delaney tilts his head back to look at her and grins, displaying bloody teeth. "Get in line, sister," he says in a lazy Brooklyn accent, "I'm not done."

self_composed
2012-09-13 01:43 am (UTC)

Bella ignores the instigator-slash-victim, although she takes it as reassurance on the subject of his health that he is capable of speech. "Your name," she says. And apparently it wasn't enough, so, she adds, "Like so: I'm Bella Swan."
Edited 2012-09-13 01:44 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 01:50 am (UTC)

"...Dave," says Punching Person. He looks down at Delaney, frowns, and then gets up, shaking out his right hand; it's looking bloody around the knuckles.

Delaney stretches out on the floor like it's a nice comfy bed, rolls over, and hauls himself to his feet, opening and closing his jaw as though testing that it retains full functionality. "Thanks for the workout," he tosses over his shoulder as he walks away. "Call me."

"Freak," mutters apparently-Dave. Delaney stops in his tracks, clenching his jaw and tensing his arms and shoulders.

Then he relaxes and keeps going like nothing happened. The crowd begins to disperse.

self_composed
2012-09-13 01:53 am (UTC)

"Do you know his last name?" Bella asks Eric, exasperated, as she lets the traffic pull her along with him to her next class. She's had various aspects of what makes witnesses annoying inculcated into her head from a young age, and knowing only the name "Dave" would be one of them.

She also writes, Delaney dislikes word 'freak'. Word does not appear to have provoked push into locker (?)
Edited 2012-09-13 01:54 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 01:58 am (UTC)

"Sure," says the ever-helpful Eric. "That's David Farber."

If there is anything else he knows about David Farber, he is not volunteering it.

(Delaney turns a corner in front of them; the sound of his cheerful humming recedes into the distance.)

self_composed
2012-09-13 02:00 am (UTC)

David Farber. Felony assault? (Does provocation invalidate that?) Bella writes. "Thanks," she says, and she moves on to class.
Edited 2012-09-13 02:00 (UTC)

one enormous bruise

self_composed

Bella arrives to gym early, having gotten directions to it well in advance - over lunch with a helpful Jessica. Jessica is helpful in many ways, and is also able to provide what might well be an exhaustive list of people Delaney has goaded, what sports teams they are on, and how hunky each one is in Jessica's personal estimation. "The teachers never see any of it," she said. "And they'd assume Delaney was getting bullied, anyway, wouldn't they? But you saw. Something's wrong with him, but it's only the things he does that get him hurt."

Bella has a note from her old gym teacher, who let her exhaust herself on an exercise bike in the back instead of doing something hazardous any time the classroom activity would have otherwise placed Bella near a ball or another human being. Bella also has the copay receipts from all of her doctor's visits over the past year, and has written on each one what sent her to the clinic, ranging from two instances of "had to check for concussion" to one of "chipped molar" to one of "two broken toes, also carpet rash". And just because of gym teachers' reputation for not being interested in excuses, she has thrown in drugstore receipts too, each with massive purchases of disinfectants, bandaids, and other first aid items suitable in quantity for only an extremely accident-prone individual. Bella has these things because Renée is not really equipped to reliably run basic errands before they become emergencies, and Bella's had a checking account to handle such things since she was not quite fifteen.

She finds the gym, and looks around for the teacher.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 06:13 pm (UTC)

Perhaps more eye-catching is Delaney, lying stretched out along a bench near one corner of the room and bouncing a basketball off the wall repeatedly with one hand. It rebounds within his reach every time.

There is also a teacher, standing by the other end of the gym: a tall, broad, muscular woman with long curly black hair. She doesn't seem to be especially busy with anything.

self_composed
2012-09-13 06:18 pm (UTC)

Bella notes Delaney, notes that it would be very easy for him to push her and make it look like it was her fault, and soldiers on nonetheless. "Hello, Ms. Finch," says Bella. "I'm new. Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you about accommodations. I don't have a condition name or anything - my last doctor thought inner ear but couldn't pin anything down; I haven't seen one here yet - but I'm ridiculously clumsy and someone will get hurt, probably me, if I do a majority of gym class activities." She produces her note from her prior teacher and the packet of receipts. "You probably get people trying to be excused from things all the time, so I brought these. If you need to talk to my father about it - or my mother, though that would be a long distance call - you're welcome to. I can do some things reasonably safely, like most exercise machines and situps; I'm not trying to get out of exercise in general, just injuries."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 06:23 pm (UTC)

Delaney ignores both of them. Bounce. Bounce.

Ms. Finch takes a look at the accumulated evidence, raises her eyebrows, and holds out her hand to accept it.

"You must be the Swan kid," she says. "Hi. Nice to meet you... and your medical record."

(Delaney snickers. So he is listening.)
Edited 2012-09-13 18:23 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-13 06:26 pm (UTC)

"It's only the receipts; you'll have to take my word on what they're for, or call my mom, but at least they substantiate that I'm in and out of the doctor's office regularly," says Bella with a tight smile. "There's probably some way to get the actual medical record if necessary. What's on the menu for today?"
Edited 2012-09-13 18:28 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Volleyball," says Ms. Finch, flipping through the receipts. "Good God." (She's reached the broken toes.) "I wouldn't put you in a volleyball game if you paid me," she says as she stacks everything back together and hands it back to Bella. "You can sit out. Grab a mat and do whatever you can do without breaking any bones in my gym. If I think you're slacking off, I'll let you know."

self_composed
2012-09-13 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bella warmly, putting away the papers. She goes and fetches a mat.

They're right next to where Delaney is bouncing his ball. Sigh. She doesn't look directly at him, and he seems pretty good at actually catching the projectile so she's not especially worried about getting clobbered, but she doesn't know what is up with him yet.

Maybe she'll ask Ms. Finch. Ms. Finch seems like a sensible person, and has him in one of her classes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 06:42 pm (UTC)

Ms. Finch's last words on the subject are a wry, "You're welcome."

The rhythm of the ball is pretty even - bounce, bounce, bounce. Bounce.

When Bella approaches, it stops.

Delaney turns his head to look at her; his jaw and the side of his face are already starting to show bruises from earlier.

"Hey," he says amicably.

self_composed
2012-09-13 06:44 pm (UTC)

Oh. Greetings. Splendid.

"Hello." She hauls a mat from where the mats are, and looks for a place that isn't going to be in harm's way when volleyball happens.

All such places, except for right in front of the door where people are going to start pouring in soon, are also near Delaney.

Grand.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 06:47 pm (UTC)

He observes her looking around.

"Do you want me to move?" he asks, drumming his fingers idly on the basketball, which is now balanced on his chest.

self_composed
2012-09-13 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I imagine you'll have to do that when you trade your basketball for a volleyball anyway," she shrugs. "I didn't arrive that early." She spreads out her mat, sits on it, and decides she might as well start stretching. "But it's surprisingly observant of you to ask."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 06:53 pm (UTC)

"You say that like I'm gonna play volleyball," he says, grinning at some private joke.

"You're gonna play volleyball or you're gonna go away," Ms. Finch calls from her place near the other end of the room.

Delaney makes a rude gesture in her direction, still grinning; she doesn't take visible or audible offense, just snorts and goes back to fetching volleyballs from the available supply.

self_composed
2012-09-13 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Either of those things," says Bella. "I just hope you don't throw the ball into some jujitsuka's face obviously on purpose and cause him to feed you your own feet before I can summon an ambulance."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 06:56 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Now who's surprisingly observant?"

self_composed
2012-09-13 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Not really observant. Only curious. You do attract attention; people know who you are and were willing to tell me when I tried to figure out how to react."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Huh," he says, mulling this over.

"So why do you care?"

self_composed
2012-09-13 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Until I made some inquiries, what I saw could have been a bunch of things, and some of those things could have hurt me," she says, switching to stretching the other leg. "Your... friend... Farber could be a murderer waiting to happen. I haven't ruled that out - he still would go to prison for a damn long time if he killed you, no matter how many times you shoved him, and you'd still be dead if he did. You could have some kind of untreated or undertreated mental illness - I haven't ruled that out either, although I don't know what kind it could be. There could be come complicated hierarchy of violence in the school, which might or might not want to include me, which I'd have to learn about to navigate or safely dismantle." She shrugs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, it looks like you got the picture," he says serenely. "I just like getting my ass kicked. Not a problem for you unless you don't like seeing my pretty face all fucked up," with a gesture to said face that highlights the bruises and what looks like it might be a knife scar running under the corner of his jaw.

self_composed
2012-09-13 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm not actually sure if masochism is still classified as a mental illness," Bella says neutrally. "Though if you're going to describe it that way I suppose it could be classified as a bizarre form of cosmetic surgery addiction. Still, operating via provocation of teenagers with bad impulse control - instead of, I don't know, awaiting the age of majority if you haven't attained it already and then paying a dominatrix - is rather risky. If you die you don't get to decide whether to press charges, and some kid who's not very bright but could easily have gone his whole life without murdering anyone spends many years in jail. Do you know how long it's been since there was a murder in Forks?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Dominatrix," he says with a speculative smile, "now there's an idea. Nope, not a clue. Do you?"

self_composed
2012-09-13 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Thirty-seven years." Charlie routinely brags about this. "And that one wasn't by or of a resident, it was some people from Port Angeles who were here for some reason."
Edited 2012-09-13 19:26 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Impressive," says Delaney, with apparent sincerity. "Yeah, I'm from New York. It's probably been, like, a couple hours."

self_composed
2012-09-13 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Population density." She shrugs again. "But even if you got yourself killed in New York City, someone would go to prison. If you have a deathwish, I probably can't talk you out of that altogether because I am not a psychologist, but there are ways with less collateral damage. If you just like getting the crap beaten out of you, there are less hazardous means."
Edited 2012-09-13 19:32 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Mm, but what if I like getting the crap beaten out of me in front of an audience," he says, grinning at her. "What then?"

self_composed
2012-09-13 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Become a professional wrestler?" suggests Bella. "Pay somebody to pretend they want to kill you in the hallway, and stop at some defined quantity of blood loss? Hire the dominatrix, set up a video camera, put it on the Internet."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 07:41 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"I'll think about it."

From across the room, Ms. Finch calls, "Hammond! I want my basketball."

Delaney tosses it in roughly the right direction without looking; it sails through the air, executes a series of diminishing bounces, and finally rolls to a gentle halt against the opposite wall.

"Put it away, Hammond, I have better things to do."

He rolls his eyes, but gets up off his bench.

self_composed
2012-09-13 07:43 pm (UTC)

Bella ends her stretch session and starts doing crunches, counting under her breath.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 07:53 pm (UTC)

Delaney puts away the basketball and grabs a volleyball from the selection, as Bella predicted. Class proceeds.

No stray balls threaten Bella's peace on her exercise mat. Ms. Finch glances at her occasionally, but doesn't comment on her exercise routine, so presumably it is unobjectionable.

When the bell rings, Delaney helps put the balls away and then lingers beside Ms. Finch as the other students stream out of the room. Whatever he's saying, it involves expansive hand gestures. She looks amused.

self_composed
2012-09-13 08:03 pm (UTC)

Bella puts her mat away and looks out the window. She doesn't really think it will stop raining, but it would sound like something she could think if anyone asks. If Delaney doesn't leave before this begins to look particularly idiotic, she'll have to give up on talking to Ms. Finch about him until later.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 08:09 pm (UTC)

As the last few students clear out, Ms. Finch looks over at Bella and raises her eyebrows again. Then she cuts Delaney off mid-gesticulation and jerks her thumb at the door. He throws her a mocking salute and leaves.

self_composed
2012-09-13 08:10 pm (UTC)

Bella trots up to Ms. Finch. "First, thanks again for not making me play volleyball. Second, you seem like you're probably in a position to know more about Delaney than anyone else. Do you know about the fights he get into? And why there doesn't seem to have been faculty intervention?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 08:21 pm (UTC)

...Ms. Finch sighs.

"There is not a lot the faculty can do about that kid," she says. "Between you and me, I wonder why he bothers showing up to school at all. He comes to class when he feels like it, he doesn't show up to detention, and the one time he got suspended, he came to Art anyway and I had to kick him out. Not to mention, it seems kind of backwards to punish a kid for getting beat up, even if he gleefully claims to have started it."

self_composed
2012-09-13 08:24 pm (UTC)

"He did start the one I saw this morning. He shoved Dave Farber into a locker. If someone shoved me into a locker, I'd get a teacher, but the fact that Dave doesn't have very good problem solving skills or a sense of proportion doesn't mean it's swell that he's getting pushed. If detentions and suspensions don't work, what about his parents? Don't they do anything?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I am... not the person to talk to about Hammond's parents," says Ms. Finch, looking the least comfortable she has in the short time Bella has known her.

self_composed
2012-09-13 08:28 pm (UTC)

That sounds to Bella like the conversation is over.

"Okay. Thank you anyway," Bella says with a polite smile. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She'll talk to Charlie about this one. He knows something about every family in town.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 08:32 pm (UTC)

"See ya," the teacher agrees, turning away. Conversation closed.

but you like an audience

self_composed

Bella arrives early to her next gym class, too. Delaney's not there yet, which is annoying, because he knows how to solve a puzzle.

Charlie knows a few things about Delaney and his family. The most interesting thing is this: Delaney appeared in the hospital with broken ribs, once. He did not do this crowing about how much fun it was to be stomped on/thrown down the stairs/whatever. He did this with no explanation at all. Charlie doesn't need victim cooperation to press charges for battery - but he does need someone to press charges against.

And no one at school saw a thing.

Audiences, indeed.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 08:58 pm (UTC)

He arrives very shortly after she does, pauses by the supply of basketballs for a moment, and then wanders over her way instead.

self_composed
2012-09-13 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Good afternoon," she says. "How did you break your ribs?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:01 pm (UTC)

"...Well hi to you too," he says, amused, and plops onto the floor next to her mat. "What do you care?"

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Because I don't know the answer," Bella says, working a cramp out of her hand acquired via notetaking. "And it doesn't fit what else I know, oddly enough."
Edited 2012-09-13 21:02 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Annnnd what if I say I promised I wouldn't tell?"

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:07 pm (UTC)

Bella moves into a butterfly stretch. "I'd start wondering who you'd promise that to - and why."
Edited 2012-09-13 21:07 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they asked reeeally nicely," he suggests, distorting the word to at least three times its normal length and adding a wink to make his intended meaning more clear.

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:16 pm (UTC)

"That's one hypothesis I could consider," Bella agrees brightly. "And keep or discard, according to evidence."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Knock yourself out," he says, amused. "You sure do like knowing stuff, don'tcha."

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:26 pm (UTC)

"It compares exceedingly favorably to the alternative. Would you like to hear my speculations so far?" says Bella, still smiling.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:27 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Sure, why not."

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:40 pm (UTC)

Bella's smile turns into a thinner smirk. "When you get beat up at school, that's not a secret. If Dave Farber had broken your ribs and my father decided this was a crime he needed to prosecute, he could have gotten twenty people to tell him exactly who did it without any help from you at all. So it wasn't a student. Probably not a teacher either, especially since teachers beating up students isn't commonly a thing. You didn't arrive at the hospital in an ambulance, but as a passenger in a car your family owns. So you were not in the middle of nowhere when injured, and you were not unescorted - or you had access to a phone and you could get at it while you had your ribs broken, which is less likely. It's possible the driver did it, but you've had the same one since that time, and I'd expect an incident like that to cause staff turnover, wouldn't you? And you know what, I doubt your family makes a lot of family trips to places where you can get into fights. And your driver wouldn't say where you came from even when a cop demanded the information. Did someone ask the driver reaaaally nicely too? But I think it happened at home."

She pauses, and tilts her head, stretching her arms, looking more severe. "You know what sort of beating-up relationship is commonly a thing?"
Edited 2012-09-13 21:41 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Is it the kind you can buy and have delivered?" he asks, innocently.

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Nope. Typically acquired as an inheritance."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Oooh, now that's kinky." He laughs. "Nope. Nice try, though." Generously, "I didn't pay anybody for it, either."

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I do think you are clever enough to avoid the problem of conspicuously saying 'no, no, no, plead the fifth, no'," Bella says. "If you aren't going to produce a competing explanation, your denials are the whistling of the wind."
Edited 2012-09-13 21:47 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:51 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head. "Sorry, babe," he says, "you're not gettin' the story out of me that easy." Brightly, "But cheer up! Now if I piss you off you've got a great way to make my life hell for a while!"

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Not that easily, hm? I suppose I could always try asking nicely, if no other information presents itself; I got this far in about a day." She smiles. "Are you likely to piss me off?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Not on purpose," he assures her.

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh? You do both kinds of pissing people off, then? I suppose there'd be no point to deliberately annoying someone who demonstrably," she gestures at the mat, "cannot beat you up."
Edited 2012-09-13 21:57 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 09:58 pm (UTC)

"If you could beat me up, I'd ask," he says. "Nicely, even."

self_composed
2012-09-13 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Even if all you did was lie there I would wind up kicking myself in the nose or something embarrassing like that, and that would be if I wished to beat you up. Not all aversion to violence is self-preservation or concern for the wishes of the..." She mulls over word choice, decides there isn't a better term ready to hand. "Victim."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 10:00 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "And look at me, not asking."

self_composed
2012-09-13 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Mm." She changes the subject. "My dad knows your housekeeper. Hilary. They're friends."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Huh," he says. "Didn't know that."

you have the means in your possession

edgeofyourseat

Lunch has just started and there are not very many people in the cafeteria, but apparently there isn't enough room for these two students to stand in line next to one another without... friction.

It begins with a scowl. Well, a scowl from the taller of the two. Delaney honestly doesn't seem to care. Unfortunately, this is not the correct response.

self_composed
2012-09-13 10:27 pm (UTC)

Bella brought her lunch today and is already sitting down, waiting for Jessica or Angela or Eric or someone to appear and sit with her. Oh look. A distraction. This is probably going to be the most visually arresting thing in the room presently anyway; she directs her attention away from the door and towards Delaney and the person who does not like him for probably perfectly good reasons.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 10:35 pm (UTC)

The other boy, who apparently dislikes being ignored, grabs Delaney's arm as he picks up his tray.

"Not today, honeybunch," Delaney says mildly.

"Faggot," his pursuer sneers, letting go with a shove that sends Delaney stumbling forward.

He just laughs, unperturbed. "Why, you want some? Fifty bucks," he offers. "A hundred and I'll do it right here."

That was not in the script. The other boy frowns as he processes the meaning of the words, and then his head jerks back in outraged surprise. "Freak!" he spits.

And all of a sudden there is a shower of food, plates, and cutlery and Delaney's tray is smacking him across the face.

self_composed
2012-09-13 10:37 pm (UTC)

Bella takes out her notebook and draws a plus sign next to a certain line.
Edited 2012-09-13 22:37 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 10:38 pm (UTC)

Predictably, there is a fight.

This time, though, Delaney is really in it instead of just laughing as he gets pounded into the floor.

It makes a considerable difference.

self_composed
2012-09-13 10:40 pm (UTC)

Why aren't the cafeteria ladies doing anything? They're right there. They are right there.

Bella gets out her phone. She dials Charlie's number, but doesn't hit send yet. "Delaney!" she hollers.
Edited 2012-09-13 22:40 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 10:43 pm (UTC)

He doesn't react even slightly. Like he doesn't hear her, or like he doesn't care, it's hard to tell.

self_composed
2012-09-13 10:45 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't call her dad, yet, but she does march around the altercation to address the cafeteria ladies. "If you are not equipped to intervene," she says, "you need to get someone who is. Try Ms. Finch if you don't have a better idea."
Edited 2012-09-13 22:45 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 10:49 pm (UTC)

The cafeteria ladies look at each other, then at the brawling boys. By some unspoken consensus, one of them turns and disappears through the door behind the counter.

self_composed
2012-09-13 10:51 pm (UTC)

In the meantime, there is still a fight. "DELANEY!" shouts Bella. Is she the only person in the room who doesn't see the status quo of "Delaney periodically gets into injurious physical altercations with classmates" as an okay thing?
Edited 2012-09-13 22:51 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, what?" he yells back, ducking under a punch.

self_composed
2012-09-13 10:56 pm (UTC)

"The cafeteria lady is getting Ms. Finch or someone. You might want to consider disengaging before she gets back. Other Guy, you too. Perhaps Delaney should go stand in that corner and you in the opposite one and you can glare at each other, does that sound good? Other Guy can rest assured that Delaney will get the crap beaten out of him one way or another within the next twenty-four hours. Delaney can meditate on overreactions and write a monograph on them later. Okay?" She has to pause here and there to be heard over the sound of fighting.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:00 pm (UTC)

...Delaney starts laughing.

The other guy shoots Bella an incredulous glance, of which Delaney does not take immediate advantage with violence.

This leaves them not fighting anymore, and it is not a state they seem inclined to resume.

From the door comes the sound of slow, measured applause.

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:02 pm (UTC)

Bella regains her calm slowly, and mostly by the mechanism of adjusting her hair, before looking to the source of the clapping. "Hello, Ms. Finch," she says, relieved.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:06 pm (UTC)

"So I don't have to put anybody in a detention he's not gonna show up for anyway," says Ms. Finch, giving Bella a nod.

"Nope," says Delaney, very cheerfully.

"Congratulations," she deadpans.

Delaney tips his head Bellaward. "Blame her."

The other kid, what with the inhibiting presence of a teacher, shuffles slowly away.

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:08 pm (UTC)

Bella inhales deeply, exhales, and smiles politely at Ms. Finch. "Thanks for appearing so quickly. It was not guaranteed that I'd be able to say anything useful."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:12 pm (UTC)

"No problem," says Ms. Finch.

Delaney picks up the single intact item out of the remains of his lunch - a bottle of juice - opens it, and heads for the door. People get out of his way with remarkable speed, except for Ms. Finch, who stays put.

"Any chance you'll help clean that up?" she asks him.

...He pauses to consider this question.

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:14 pm (UTC)

Bella is reasonably sure that she is not responsible for cleanup. She sits back down in her seat and eats her little package of popcorn.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Nah," says Delaney. Ms. Finch doesn't argue, just steps aside to let him leave the room. The lunch lady who went after her reappears, and the normal course of lunch resumes, plus an expected buzz of gossip and the minor kerfuffle of Ms. Finch cornering the other boy and getting a promise of cleanup out of him, which she remains for a few minutes to supervise.

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:20 pm (UTC)

Bella has eaten three kernels of popcorn before Jessica finishes her own lunch transaction, plops into the seat at Bella's left, and demands a word-for-word recap.

Bella sighs very quietly and provides.

i drive better than i walk

self_composed

Bella leaves school that afternoon not having had any notable conversation with Delaney before or after gym. She's just making a beeline for the blue station wagon her dad found her, cheap and functional if not very loveable. She's got homework to pick through and an email to Renée to write. She might go to a movie with Jessica later.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:30 pm (UTC)

Delaney is sitting on a parking block at the very corner of the parking lot, about twenty feet from Bella's car, under a tree. When he spots her, he waves.
Edited 2012-09-13 23:30 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:31 pm (UTC)

Bella waves back.

That's all a wave calls for, really.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:32 pm (UTC)

When she's closer to her car, he calls, "Yours?" and gestures to indicate it.

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, move-in present," she acknowledges, patting the car. She unlocks the driver's side door.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Lucky you."

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Yep." This appears to be turning into a conversation. "I expected to have to get rides in the police cruiser until I could find a carpool."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:38 pm (UTC)

"...Rides in the police cruiser," he repeats, raising his eyebrows.
Edited 2012-09-13 23:38 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:43 pm (UTC)

"He doesn't have another car," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I missed the part where your dad's a cop," says Delaney. "Huh. You really could ruin my life."

He sounds oddly appreciative of this fact.

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I was getting the impression I didn't have to say anything beyond possibly my last name," says Bella. "Small town, and everything; people keep picking up on it without being told. He's the chief of police."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I didn't really catch your name," he admits. "Or his, if I've even met him, I dunno. Or much of anybody's except Finch."

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I said my name, in front of you," she says. "The other day, when I had to explain to Dave how telling people one's name works."
Edited 2012-09-13 23:49 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he agrees, "you did. Then I forgot it."

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:51 pm (UTC)

"It's Bella Swan," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Hi," he says amicably. "Nice to meetcha. Don't call me Delaney."

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:53 pm (UTC)

"What should I call you? Jessica was only able to produce one of your middle names but assures me there are two. There's 'Hammond'. Or 'Junior'," Bella says amiably.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:54 pm (UTC)

He makes an eloquent face at 'Junior'.

"Which one'd she come up with?"

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:55 pm (UTC)

"The one she knows is 'Kermit'. I'm not entirely sure if she has been pranked or not, with that one. And haven't gone to the office to inquire."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Nope, she's on the level. Delaney Kermit Erskine Hammond," he recites. "I hate the whole fucking thing. Well, Kermit's kind of hilarious."

self_composed
2012-09-13 11:57 pm (UTC)

"You still haven't told me what you'd rather be called, Kermit."
Edited 2012-09-13 23:58 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-13 11:59 pm (UTC)

He mulls this over for a few seconds, grinning.

Then he says, definitively: "Alice."

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:01 am (UTC)

"Alice. You realize if I call you that - for instance, at the top of my lungs trying to keep you from cracking someone's jaw - no one will have any idea who I'm talking to and I will appear to be a maniac. Perhaps you could wear a nametag."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:03 am (UTC)

"I'll know who you're talking to," he points out. "If anybody gives you shit, I'll back you up. Maybe I'll start wearing those little blue dresses."
Edited 2012-09-14 00:04 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:06 am (UTC)

"I'm not actually sure I could bring myself to yell 'Alice' when referring to you in the first place. It's pretty hard to scream in a crowded room at all, and the difficulty increases when what one wishes to scream will predictably seem strange to the audience. Maybe I'll just call you Alice when talking at a normal volume, like this, and I'll call you 'belligerent idiot' if I have to break up another fight."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:07 am (UTC)

"Works for me," he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:08 am (UTC)

"Well," she says. "Now we know each other's names. And nicknames. See you around, Alice." She mocks a salute, and hops into her car.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:10 am (UTC)

He waves cheerfully to her as she drives away.

it's that all of those things are boring

self_composed

Bella rolls over onto her back. She's been doing leg lifts. Now her legs hurt. She's going to lie there for a while, and then she's going to drive home, and then she's going to write about a paragraph of Government essay before expiring from boredom. Jessica is sick. Angela is babysitting. They're still doing stuff she's covered in Bio and books she's read in English; it would take better teachers than she has to make Spanish and Trig interesting. A trip to Port Angeles to do something is the work of an entire day, not a school afternoon. She really needs to save up and buy more books. Or take up - quilting, or something.

Sigh.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:19 am (UTC)

"You look bored to fucking tears," observes Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:21 am (UTC)

"I'm not crying, and even if I were, I've never produced tears that talented," deadpans Bella. "Hello."
Edited 2012-09-14 00:22 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:22 am (UTC)

He snickers.

"So what's up?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:23 am (UTC)

"If anything were up, would I be bored?" she says quizzically.
Edited 2012-09-14 00:23 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:24 am (UTC)

"I'll give you that," he concedes. "Whatcha gonna do about it?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:26 am (UTC)

"Plan a weekend book-shopping trip in unreasonable detail, I think. I may be able to wrangle an invitation to come do my homework at Angela's house, and her brothers could be entertaining little critters, I won't know until I meet them. Why?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:27 am (UTC)

"Well, I was gonna start thinking up suggestions, but I guess you're covered."

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:28 am (UTC)

"If you have suggestions, by all means supply them. Expending limited social capital and slowly developing an obsessive personality disorder aren't exactly my entertainments of choice," says Bella, sitting up.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:31 am (UTC)

"Um... you could take a tour of my stupidly huge house, that'd probably burn a few hours," he says. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're not a fan of climbing trees... pun not intended but totally hilarious and I don't regret it for a second."

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:33 am (UTC)

"I am indeed not a fan of treeclimbing - your house, huh." Bella considers this. She reaches into her pocket for her notebook, and flips through it. She looks between it and Alice a few times. Then she opens up her phone and dials Charlie's number without completing the call yet. "I'm going to try an experiment," she says.
Edited 2012-09-14 00:33 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:34 am (UTC)

"...O...kaaay," says Alice, clearly lost.

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:35 am (UTC)

Bella poises her thumb over the send button, looks Alice in the eye, and carefully pronounces the word, "Freak."
Edited 2012-09-14 00:35 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:36 am (UTC)

His mouth drops open in shock.

He blinks several times.

"Holy shit," he says in stunned tones, "I think you might actually be the perfect woman. Marry me."

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:38 am (UTC)

Bella blinks, rereads her notes, draws a question mark next to the plus sign, puts the notebook away, and says, "Okay, I think it's probably safe for me to go to your house, but no on the marrying you."
Edited 2012-09-14 00:38 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:41 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"It's cool," he says, "I just haven't gone from zero to crush that fast since the first time I heard Freddie Mercury's voice. So, wanna come over?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:42 am (UTC)

This conversation has acquired a different tone.

"Well," she says. "Will anyone else be home?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:45 am (UTC)

"Dad will," he says, "I guarantee you. Probably Mom and Hilary, too."

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:46 am (UTC)

"Then all right, I'll come over," she says, getting to her feet now that her legs are not so uncomfortably leaden. "Is it a long drive?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 12:54 am (UTC)

"Not hugely," he says. "You might end up driving me or following me there, depending if Theo's on his way yet. Hang on, I'll check."

He pulls a phone out of his pocket and dials.

"Hi, Mom! I'm fine!" is how he opens the conversation.

Shortly afterward, "No, I swear. Cross my heart." A slight pause. "Uh-huh. Listen, is Theo out the door yet?" Another, longer pause. "Yeah, no, you got it. I've got a friend coming over who has a car, so—" He cuts himself off, cocks his head, and glances at Bella. "Mind if I tell my mom your name?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 12:55 am (UTC)

"Go ahead."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:00 am (UTC)

"It's Bella," he says.

Another pause.

"Mother, I swear before God she is not my girlfriend," he says, half-laughing. "Trust me on this. No. Don't even—no. Okay?" A beat. "Okay. Good. Thank you. See you in a bit." ...He rolls his eyes. "Yes, I will call you if I forget the directions to my own house. Goodbye, Mother."

After one last pause presumably containing a corresponding farewell, he hangs up.
Edited 2012-09-14 01:02 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:04 am (UTC)

"You have interesting conversations with your mother," Bella says. "I take it I'm driving you there?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:06 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "That okay? We could also walk, but that might take a while, and y'know. Your car."

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:07 am (UTC)

"Yes, my car." Bella heads for the door. "I'm sort of curious why you had to so vehemently deny girlfriendhood. If I'd said 'by all means let us elope' a moment ago what would you have told her?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:09 am (UTC)

"That you were my fiancee," cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:11 am (UTC)

"You do know how to get to your house, right?" Bella asks, heading towards the parking lot. "I imagine if you're generally driven to and fro it might not sink in." She trips on an uneven paver in the sidewalk and catches herself before splatting on the sidewalk.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:14 am (UTC)

Alice is halfway to catching her when she does it herself; he shrugs and retracts his hand.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I've got it down. Not like there's so much to look at on the drive. Trees, grass, trees, oh look another road."

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:15 am (UTC)

"Okay." They reach her parking spot; Bella unlocks the car. "Which way do I turn when I pull out, then?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:16 am (UTC)

"Left," he says after glancing toward the parking lot's exit.

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:17 am (UTC)

Bella starts up the car. She buckles her seatbelt, and watches him expectantly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:19 am (UTC)

He looks at her.

He looks at his seatbelt.

He shrugs and puts it on.

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:20 am (UTC)

"You're really very casual with your safety," she mutters, and she pulls out and turns left.
Edited 2012-09-14 01:21 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:30 am (UTC)

"Yep," he confirms, unruffled.

"Oh, so a couple things—no Alice in front of the parents, they wouldn't get it. No jokes about me getting beat up, please, my dad's kinda low on sense of humour and it would be really awkward. I would also appreciate it if you didn't mention my crush on Freddie Mercury or the fact that I offered to blow a guy for fifty bucks."

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:32 am (UTC)

"So I call you Delaney in front of them?" Bella says, amenable. "Okay. What about non-jokes about you getting beat up?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:33 am (UTC)

"...Non-jokes like what?" he says. "I mean, almost certainly no, but like what?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:34 am (UTC)

"Well, 'He keeps provoking guys who are bigger than him into repeatedly punching him in the face' isn't very funny," Bella says. "Unless I was doing an impression of a cartoon character and the context was exactly right in some unfathomable way."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:36 am (UTC)

"Yeah, trust me, they know that," he says. "They don't need to hear it again. You will get kicked out of the house and I will get to listen to Dad tell me I have shitty taste in friends."

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:37 am (UTC)

"Okay. No jokes or non-jokes on that topic," Bella agrees.

So they're friends now.

Well, that was pretty much guaranteed roughly when he invited her to his house and she did not instantly decline.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:38 am (UTC)

"Thank you."

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:40 am (UTC)

They drive the rest of the way to the house, and Bella comes to a halt in front of a truly enormous residence.

"Yeah," Bella says. "This could kill a couple hours."
Edited 2012-09-14 01:40 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:42 am (UTC)

"I did say it was stupidly huge," he reminds her. Cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:43 am (UTC)

"I don't suppose you have six brothers and sisters to justify the size of the place?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:44 am (UTC)

"Nope. Only child. I mean, if you had a kid like me would you ever want another one?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:45 am (UTC)

"That's no guarantee. Perhaps you were a perfectly charming two-year-old, or you're the youngest among several very dissimilar offspring."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:47 am (UTC)

"I have been a total shit all my life," he says with some amount of pride.

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:48 am (UTC)

"How impressive. Personally, I have no memories before age four, and any information about the time before that is contaminated by my parents wanting to assure me that I had nothing to do with the divorce," says Bella, getting out of the car. "I notice you didn't explicitly deny older siblings, though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:51 am (UTC)

"Well, my parents are still together," he says, following, "although if they split they'd probably both take great joy in blaming me, don't tell them I said that. And nope, like I said, only child."

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:53 am (UTC)

"It's just that I already have reason to believe you're willing to lie to me," shrugs Bella, starting towards the house. "As long as that persists I'll make you give me some information in several pieces, to make that more difficult. Do we just walk in or does having a guest mean knocking?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:55 am (UTC)

"I like you," Alice concludes. "You're twisty. And me not having a key means knocking," he says as he reaches for the doorbell.

self_composed
2012-09-14 01:56 am (UTC)

"You haven't got a key? Why not?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 01:58 am (UTC)

"Feel free to ask my dad. I'm kidding, don't ask my dad."

self_composed
2012-09-14 02:00 am (UTC)

"I'm asking you."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 02:01 am (UTC)

"And I," he says, "am not the one who didn't give me one."

self_composed
2012-09-14 02:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah, my dad gave me a key, but you wouldn't have to ask him to find out his motivations."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 02:10 am (UTC)

The door opens.

"Junior," says a smiling woman with long, curly brown hair. "And Junior's new friend Bella." She steps back to usher them both inside. "Come in, come in."

It's clear that Alice got his looks from his mother, but not his dress sense; he appears at school almost exclusively in jeans and old T-shirts for 70s rock bands, today being no exception, and his mother is wearing a tastefully gorgeous long gown in a pale cream that coordinates subtly with her pearl earrings. Her hair is pinned up impeccably, not a single strand out of place. She looks like she belongs in a different universe, possibly one containing no dirt and definitely one containing no 70s rock bands.

self_composed
2012-09-14 02:15 am (UTC)

Bella touches her sleeve to remind herself what she's wearing. T-shirt, cardigan, coat, jeans. Ordinary clothes. Who wears gowns for hanging around at home receiving visitors in their teens?

Well, Alice's mother, apparently. "Hello, Mrs. Hammond. It's nice to meet you." She steps inside and offers her hand for shaking.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 10:11 am (UTC)

"It's nice to meet you too," Mrs. Hammond says warmly. "I was beginning to think he wasn't going to make friends at this ridiculous little school."

"It's not like I made friends in New York either, Mom," Alice puts in. His mother smiles and pats him on the shoulder, which he grudgingly tolerates.

self_composed
2012-09-14 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, with a shrug and a smile. "I just moved here, days ago, so it didn't take long once someone he clicks with better came along. It is a very small school." She decides the current avenue of conversation might lead to awkward tiptoeing around how she met Alice. "You have a beautiful home," she says instead.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes we do," Mrs. Hammond agrees. "Did you want to show her around, Junior?"

"That was the plan," he confirms.

"And will she be staying for dinner?"

Alice looks to Bella to answer that one.

self_composed
2012-09-14 06:01 pm (UTC)

"That hadn't come up yet," Bella says. "I can call and ask if my dad's up for fending for himself, but when it's not an emergency that can take a couple tries during the day." She produces her phone.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 06:02 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like," Mrs. Hammond says encouragingly. Alice gives her a quizzical look, like he can't figure out what is going on in her head.

self_composed
2012-09-14 06:06 pm (UTC)

Bella dials the phone. The police station secretary-type-person picks up, but is able to relay a conversation between her and her paperwork-laden father. Bella's side of the conversation sounds like this: "Hi, Mr. Jenkins. Yeah, it's me - is my dad in? It's not an emergency, no, I know the number for that. Just a quick question. At a friend's house, they've invited me to stay for dinner. Yeah, I can hold. ... Great, tell him I'll see him sometime tonight after dinner, then."
Edited 2012-09-14 18:09 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Lovely," says Mrs. Hammond. "You don't have any dietary restrictions, do you? I think it's lobster tonight."

Alice continues to regard his mother with vague suspicion.

self_composed
2012-09-14 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I can eat most anything that a typical member of my culture can," Bella says agreeably. "Lobster's one of those things. I'd be fumbling for excuses if it was snails."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's convenient," Mrs. Hammond says with a smile. "I am happy to welcome you into our home." She turns her smile on Alice for a moment. "Show her the piano, Junior, that's always good for a laugh."

"I play the piano," Alice confesses. "Badly." The subject nevertheless seems to put him at his ease. "Where's Dad?"

"I'm sure I can whisk him away to preserve his delicate ears if your friend would like a demonstration of how badly," laughs Mrs. Hammond.

self_composed
2012-09-14 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I think I learned Chopsticks and some churchbell-related song before I lost interest in walking four blocks to piano lessons," Bella says. "What's the difference between playing the piano, badly, and not playing the piano?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I think it has something to do with the number of lessons you sit through before your case is declared hopeless," says Mrs. Hammond. "Sit through or run away from, as the case may be." Alice laughs.

self_composed
2012-09-14 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Well," Bella says. "This I may have to hear."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I'll just go and distract my husband," Mrs. Hammond says with a wink, and turns to head up the unnecessarily pretty stairs. Alice leads Bella through an unnecessarily pretty archway to an unnecessarily pretty sitting room, where there sits a piano whose beauty is wholly justifiable.

self_composed
2012-09-14 07:02 pm (UTC)

Bella touches the piano. "This is gorgeous. How did it get through the door?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 07:07 pm (UTC)

"You know, I don't have a clue," he says thoughtfully. "By the time I got here, it was there already."

self_composed
2012-09-14 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Someone else moved ahead of time to prep the place?" Bella asks. "Or it came with the house?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 07:10 pm (UTC)

"First one," he says. "It's the same piano from back home, I'm pretty sure. And this place needed a lot of prep, the way I hear it. For all I know, they dragged it in through a wall."

self_composed
2012-09-14 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, giant fixer-upper. How will you get it out if you move again? I suppose you could remove the enormous window." She pauses. "Why'd you move here to begin with?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Tell you later," he promises, easily. "Wanna hear me totally fuck up some Mozart?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 07:16 pm (UTC)

Bella looks at him.

She pulls out her notebook and writes down the deferred question.

"Sure," she says, putting the notebook away.
Edited 2012-09-14 19:16 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 07:20 pm (UTC)

Alice sits down at the piano.

He is not, actually, that bad. If you'd never heard the piece before, and had no idea what it was supposed to sound like, and ignored the way he hesitates so obviously or laughs at himself whenever he misses a note, he'd probably sound reasonably competent.

self_composed
2012-09-14 07:22 pm (UTC)

Bella listens critically. "It's possible you'd be better suited to jazz piano," she opines. "You're allowed to pretend you missed notes on purpose there."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Now that sounds more my style," he says, cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-14 07:33 pm (UTC)

Bella reaches over and picks her way choppily through "Chopsticks", making mistakes on half the notes and correcting by ear. "There," she says. "That's what I know."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 07:37 pm (UTC)

Laughing, Alice applauds.

self_composed
2012-09-14 07:38 pm (UTC)

"What else is there in this house?" Bella inquires. "Rooms. I bet you have rooms here. And," she adds, "an underground lair, and secret passages."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 07:41 pm (UTC)

"We have tons of rooms!" he vouchsafes. "I'll show you all of 'em except, like, my parents' bedrooms. I'll even show you the underground lair."

self_composed
2012-09-14 07:42 pm (UTC)

Bella is amused.

"Yes, do let's see the lair. I'm very behind in my lairing."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Cool," he says, hauls himself up off the piano bench, and beckons her away.

The route to the underground lair, if such a lair indeed exists, is apparently quite circuitous and takes them through a number of other unreasonably pretty rooms.

self_composed
2012-09-14 09:04 pm (UTC)

Bella keeps to a leisurely pace, looking at pretty things. She likes pretty things. She also doesn't think there's really a lair. "Who does the decorating? Is that one of your parents or a staff thing?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Mom's in charge," he says, "but she makes other people do the boring stuff. Ooh, here we go."

He leads her through another archway and down a short corridor to a door, which he opens with a flourish.

On the other side is a set of stairs, going down. The space into which they descend is just as unreasonably pretty as the rest of the house.

self_composed
2012-09-14 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Hm, this is a basement. I don't yet know if it's a lair," Bella says, going down the stairs and trailing her fingertips over the pretty wall. "You know, if you asked the part of my brain that generates stereotypes where you ought to live, it would have proposed next door to a gang hideout and across the street from someplace severely rent-controlled, but in its own way this works too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't act rich-kid, I know," Alice agrees, following her down and shutting the door behind them. "But I am, in fact, a rich kid."

The space is also quite large, once they reach the bottom of the stairs and step out into it properly. The ceiling is supported by a network of pillars and arches, some of which may be decorative, many of which probably aren't; the room is ballroom height at least, and quite possibly ballroom length and width as well.

self_composed
2012-09-14 09:38 pm (UTC)

"You don't have a key," murmurs Bella. "Are you a rich kid or the kid of rich parents?"

She looks around appreciatively at the lair. "If there were some indoor sport which involved the strategic use of pillars, this place would be perfect for it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 09:40 pm (UTC)

"We could make one up," he suggests brightly, apparently deciding the question was rhetorical.

self_composed
2012-09-14 09:41 pm (UTC)

"No. No we could not. I'm rightly banned from all forms of moving around short of walking, and only may walk because I'd probably do more damage in a wheelchair."
Edited 2012-09-14 21:41 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I didn't say we could play it," he points out. "—Do you swim?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I can dog-paddle well enough to not drown while I wait to be rescued," Bella says. "It turns out you cannot breathe water safely. General human failing." She looks around at the pillars. "I don't think I've ever invented a sport before."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Neither have I," says Alice. "Betcha it won't be boring, though."

self_composed
2012-09-14 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Alrighty." She looks around again. "Two teams is standard. Who wants to be standard, I ask you. Three? Four? Five's probably unwieldy."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 09:58 pm (UTC)

Somewhere around 'I ask you', Alice grins.

"I like the way you think," he says, sitting down on the floor and leaning back against the very attractively-papered wall. "Three. Let's go with three."

self_composed
2012-09-14 10:03 pm (UTC)

"And we can make them all the same size. Or not, but let's anyway, as if we deviate from all the standards no one will ever play and I will lose my opportunity to make a million dollars in speaking engagements as the inventor. Five to a team should be manageable. And the object is to get a ball, or two or three, to make a specific number of bounces off of pillars? Like pinball."
Edited 2012-09-14 22:07 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Brilliant," Alice pronounces. "Three teams, three balls, have to use another team's ball to score? And maybe you only get points for the number of bounces past what your team's already got, so it starts out easy and gets ridiculous."

self_composed
2012-09-14 10:16 pm (UTC)

"In what sense does a team own a ball if they can't use 'their' ball to score?" inquires Bella. "And if I understand you right, it gets too ridiculous - I don't think I know anyone who could except by astonishing fluke get a ball to bounce off three pillars in a single throw, so this would hold down everyone to two points and they'd spend the entire rest of the game on defense thereafter." She tilts her head. "Unless there are other ways to score, too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 10:24 pm (UTC)

"The same way a team owns a goal in, like, anything else?" he says. "And maybe you count up separately per ball, so that gives everybody four points with no ridiculous throws, I meant that word when I said it, but they'll be tough to get because now everybody's fighting like cats over everybody else's balls, and wow that got dirty fast."

self_composed
2012-09-14 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I suppose we can say the blue team owns the blue ball if they start in possession of it and have to defend it. Making it per ball is good too. There should be some rule equivalent to traveling in basketball to make it harder for someone on the blue team to wrap themselves around the blue ball like it's a grenade and just lie there, though."

She ignores the remark about dirtiness with a genteel smile.
Edited 2012-09-14 22:28 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, good plan. And the first team to four points wins. Or five if we wanna force everybody to be ridiculous at least once a game."

self_composed
2012-09-14 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Five points or - two hours followed by sudden death in case of tie? Will people generally tolerate playing a sport for that length of time?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Sure they will. You can make it an hour and a half, that's about how long a game of soccer takes, I think."

self_composed
2012-09-14 10:48 pm (UTC)

"So if someone gets five points, game ends, they win - if no one does, then whoever has the most points at an hour and a half wins - if two or three teams are tied at that time, whoever scores the next point wins." She chews her lip a little. "But if two or three are tied at four points, then they have to be ridiculous in sudden death mode. So if the tie is at four, they only have to make a two-bounce?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you wanna make it easy on 'em, sure," he says generously.

self_composed
2012-09-14 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I just have some compassion for the people in the stands, sitting there for six hours waiting for someone to pull off a triple," she shrugs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Aren't you nice. Okay, I'll give it to ya," he says, making a gesture as though handing her an invisible object - perhaps the rulebook for this mythical game.

self_composed
2012-09-14 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to start writing this down," she announces, and pulls out her notebook. She starts writing down a summary of the rules they've worked out so far. "So," she adds, glancing at an earlier note to self. "Why'd you move here?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:06 pm (UTC)

Alice actually gets to his feet and peers back up the stairs to confirm that the door at the top is still closed.

Then he sits down again, rubbing absently at the scar on his neck.

"So you didn't hear this from me," he says, "in fact you didn't hear it from anybody, because if it gets out that anybody in Forks knows this Dad will blow his top and we'll move somewhere I'll hate even more. Got it?"

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:07 pm (UTC)

"It came to me in a dream," Bella says agreeably. "An extremely secret dream."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:15 pm (UTC)

He grins. "Exactly," he says, leaning back against the wall.

"So. To make a really long story really short?" He ticks off three words on his fingers, at a natural speaking pace. "Got caught hooking."

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:17 pm (UTC)

Bella reacts to this with a long, slow blink, first.

"Why were you doing that?" she inquires.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:19 pm (UTC)

"The parents don't let me touch actual money. I wanted some. Plus it was fun." His hand drops away from the scar; he shrugs. "Mostly, anyway."

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:23 pm (UTC)

"I suppose if there's a clientele at all here it would be smaller," Bella says. "If I'd had to guess what you'd do if itching for income I would have guessed something like "steal any of several hundred knicknacks in the house and hock it", but perhaps that's not even mostly fun? Or substantially more hazardous?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:29 pm (UTC)

"One, there are way, way more guys in New York who want to get their dicks wet and don't really care how than there are valuable little goodies in even my stupidly huge house," he says. "Two, it is way, way easier to get caught stealing from my own house than it is to get caught being fucked in an alley. And yeah, three, it's not as much fun."

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:32 pm (UTC)

"So if that fellow from the cafeteria brawl the other day had discreetly taken you up on your offer and indiscreetly informed anyone afterwards, you'd be moving to - I don't even know what's next down on the ladder from Forks. Siberia?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Probably," he agrees. "Or I would've bitten it off and then I'd have a whole different set of problems."

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:36 pm (UTC)

Bella crosses her eyes trying to erase the mental image. "Rather." She brushes her hair back from her face. "What do you do with money, when you have it, that they don't want you to do?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Buy stuff I actually want."

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Such as?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, I was saving up for a sewing machine," he offers as an example.

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:42 pm (UTC)

That seems utterly harmless. "Your parents wouldn't let you have a sewing machine?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:45 pm (UTC)

"And yet," Bella continues, "you formed the expectation that if you acquired one, they wouldn't instantly assume bad things about how - and would let you keep it?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I was kinda hoping they wouldn't find out," he says. "For a while. Long enough to be worth it."

self_composed
2012-09-14 11:49 pm (UTC)

"What would you sew?" she asks, leaning against the nearest column and sliding to sit on the floor.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-14 11:58 pm (UTC)

Alice grins.

"Pretty dresses."

self_composed
2012-09-15 12:00 am (UTC)

"Is that why they wouldn't want you to have a sewing machine, I wonder," says Bella dryly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 12:02 am (UTC)

"Kind of icing on the cake as far as things Delaney Hammond Junior is not supposed to wanna do," he says with a shrug.

self_composed
2012-09-15 12:06 am (UTC)

"What's your plan?" she asks. "Do you have the grades to get into college without being financially dependent on them, when I'm told you don't even show up to class? Have you considered getting a non-hooking job? How old are you now, for that matter?" She looks at the ceiling. "Or is it your life's ambition to do something just scandalous enough that you can't be bought out of jail, and you're on a long hunt for where that line is so you can poke a toe over?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 12:16 am (UTC)

"If I wanted to be in jail, I'd walk into school and kill somebody," he says, like it's so obvious he doesn't have to think about it. "I don't wanna be in jail. I don't wanna be dead, either. Killing yourself's easier than killing somebody else; you're guaranteed one less person trying to stop you." He shrugs again. "Shit, if I had a plan, I'd be out of here by now."

self_composed
2012-09-15 12:23 am (UTC)

"Oh, come on," Bella says. "If that's the best way you can think of to go to jail, I'm very disappointed in you. Somebody else would have to die in that plan. That's hardly necessary, even if we start from the assumption that you wouldn't care much about others' lives compared to what you'd get out of ending them. You could pull a fire alarm or call in a bomb threat or make obvious attempts to distribute large amounts of marijuana. You could vandalize the police station in broad daylight or knock over a convenience store or loudly claim to have explosives in an airport security line. There are so many relatively harmless illegal things."

She sighs. "I'm glad you don't wish to be in jail."

And pauses. And says, "You need a plan."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 12:28 am (UTC)

"Well, it looks like you're better at those than I am," Alice observes.

self_composed
2012-09-15 12:30 am (UTC)

"I'm good at that. But it's a simple process. I just ask myself my favorite three questions," Bella says. "What do I want? What do I have? And how do I use the latter to get the former?"

She glances up the stairs, makes sure the door is closed. "So," she says. "What do you want, Alice?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 12:31 am (UTC)

He spreads his hands.

"Out."

self_composed
2012-09-15 12:32 am (UTC)

She shakes her head. "Not specific enough. What does out mean? What outcomes qualify?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 12:42 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "If, like, my fairy godmother showed up and whacked me in the face with her magic wand, my three wishes would be: never see my dad again, live by myself until I don't want to, and get to spend all my time making clothes or cooking or, you know, doing fun things."

self_composed
2012-09-15 12:44 am (UTC)

Bella taps her chin. "You never told me how old you are, did you?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 12:48 am (UTC)

"Eighteen."

self_composed
2012-09-15 12:56 am (UTC)

"Age of majority makes a difference," explains Bella, "for some possibilities. If those are really your three wishes: what would happen if you told my dad how your ribs got broken - and suffered through the mess that a trial would admittedly be?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 12:59 am (UTC)

He closes his eyes and, moderately gently, whacks the back of his head against the wall behind him.

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:00 am (UTC)

"Was that a demonstration of what you think would happen, or an expression of some manner of emotion?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:04 am (UTC)

"...Little from column A, little from column B... look," he says flatly, "what I think would happen is, it would turn out I'd told your dad a really bad joke. Ha ha. Isn't that funny. Kids these days. 'Cause what you think happened, well, that doesn't happen. Not in families like mine. Not to kids like me. So it didn't. You get what I'm sayin', here?"

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:09 am (UTC)

Bella rubs her forehead with her thumb. "Well," she says. "You have less reason than I to think highly of my dad's professional capabilities, and perhaps I'm biased anyway. But look, there are other options. You're eighteen. If you want to buy a bus ticket to Nevada and get a job at a brothel, he cannot actually stop you. I'd loan you bus ticket money, if you don't have even that much socked away. Does that count as 'fun'?"
Edited 2012-09-15 01:10 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:11 am (UTC)

"I tried the running away thing," he says. "It's pretty easy to run away in New York. Not so easy to stay gone."

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:13 am (UTC)

"It's not running away, when you are eighteen, although you could separately get in trouble for vagrancy or similar and you might be dumped at your parents' house if no one has a better idea of what to do with you. If he is hiring private goons to kidnap you, that is also a matter for the police."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:19 am (UTC)

"Look," says Alice. "Illegal stuff isn't magically impossible just because it's illegal. And you know what really, really helps people do illegal stuff and get away with it? Huge. Piles. Of. Money."

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:24 am (UTC)

"So," Bella says. "What does the scenario in your head look like? Step one, you borrow some cash from me and you buy a bus ticket to Nevada and board a bus that is traveling to Nevada. We don't tell anyone where you're going and because it is January in the Pacific Northwest you can use my ugly knitted face mask that I made when I was nine without arousing particular suspicion. Step two?" she inquires. "Does your dad hire a private investigator and learn your location and hire someone to kidnap you? Does he let out that you're fleeing across state lines after having committed some horrible crime for which there will pretty much be no evidence? Does he bribe all of the brothel operators in the state of Nevada to turn you away, and then all the restaurants in case you look for work as a short-order cook? If you would be specific about the failure mode it is not impossible that it could be patched, but you've already given up."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:32 am (UTC)

"Last time, it was the oh no, missing kid deal," says Alice. "He might try that gig again. Or maybe it'll be private investigators. Or I don't fucking know, he'll think of something," he says, "and I don't think you are really thinking about what happens after that, but trust me, I am. And you know, fuck my three wishes, the absolute minimum I want out of my life is that if somebody's gonna beat me to death it'll be somebody else."

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:36 am (UTC)

Bella sighs deeply.

"Never mind," she says. "Perhaps I'm only good at plans for me."

Because when my brain is so kind as to tell me what I want, I am so kind as to get it, she thinks but doesn't say.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:42 am (UTC)

"Maybe." He rubs his face with both hands. "As an alternate theory, I propose that I'm just a fuckup."

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:43 am (UTC)

"Well, that would have been an unguestly thing to say," she mutters.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:46 am (UTC)

He grins at her, with some of his usual cheer.

"Look me in the eye and tell me I care," he challenges.
Edited 2012-09-15 01:46 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:47 am (UTC)

She looks him in the eye.

"I don't care if you care. I'll make myself how I want."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:49 am (UTC)

He grins wider.

"And that is another reason why I love you."

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:52 am (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes.

"You're very quick to make up your mind about all the wrong things," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:52 am (UTC)

"The hell does that mean?"

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:55 am (UTC)

"You've known me a handful of days, we are not even dating, and you're announcing you love me. You don't think for two minutes about whether to commit battery in the cafeteria. You give up before you even begin to come up with ways to get three wishes that do not, strictly speaking, require magic."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 01:58 am (UTC)

"It's not like announcing I love you is really deciding something," he says. "It's just something I noticed. Would you rather I shut up about it?"

self_composed
2012-09-15 01:59 am (UTC)

"On inspection, it doesn't actually bother me," she shrugs. "But perhaps don't make me explain it to my father by saying it in front of him, should the two of you ever meet." She pauses thoughtfully. "If my mother visits - it's not very likely, but not impossible - then I don't care what she hears. She'd think it was precious."
Edited 2012-09-15 02:00 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 02:02 am (UTC)

"Deal."

He grins.

"Precious, huh? If your mom meets my mom are they gonna start planning grandchildren?"

self_composed
2012-09-15 02:05 am (UTC)

"If that's the sort of thing yours would do, mine might humor her, but that's not her personal hobby, and she'd actually believe me if I explained that we are only friends and not intending to be future co-parents. Renée'd be more likely to demand your astrological information, or corresponding nonsense for whatever spiritual belief has captured her attention that month."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 02:12 am (UTC)

"Pretty sure Mom's just thinking if I get a steady girlfriend she might finally get rid of me," he says, with no particularly intense emotion attached. "Who knows, might even work. Although Dad probably already thinks we're fucking down here, so he might decide I'm never allowed to see you again. Or congratulate me on a job well done. Sometimes I just don't know which way he's gonna jump."

self_composed
2012-09-15 02:16 am (UTC)

"Do we need to go upstairs to forestall potential disaster?" Bella inquires. "Also, there's a route to consider: marry a rich foreign national who needs a green card and has lots of money."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 02:18 am (UTC)

"Might be a good idea," he acknowledges of the first thing. Of the second: "Why, you know any of those?"

self_composed
2012-09-15 02:19 am (UTC)

"No, not personally, but I bet you there's a website for that." She gets up. "Let's see the rest of the house."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 02:21 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says agreeably, and precedes her up the stairs.

self_composed
2012-09-15 04:40 pm (UTC)

Bella follows after, shaking her head once to herself.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 04:54 pm (UTC)

He doesn't happen to look back and see it.

When they reach the top, he leads her back through the maze of beautiful rooms. Just as they enter the one with the piano, a new voice comes floating down the stairs, audible through the archway.

"...so indulgent, Judith," says a stern-sounding older man. Alice stops in his tracks.

"I don't see that it does any harm," Mrs. Hammond answers.

"Really? You don't see it doing any harm that my son is fornicating in the basement with the police chief's daughter?"

"We didn't hear that," murmurs Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-15 05:11 pm (UTC)

"He thinks we're fornicating?" she whispers back. "Also, how did we avoid hearing it? Did we leave the basement one minute in the future and slam the door doing so?"
Edited 2012-09-15 17:21 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says softly. "Slamming doors is too obvious. One sec."

It's almost like he has practice not hearing things he isn't meant to have heard. A lot of practice.

"Bella is a perfectly nice girl, darling," Mrs. Hammond is saying. "I'm sure she wouldn't do anything like that."

"I'm sure that boy has his ways," Mr. Hammond asserts. Alice makes a face.

"That's enough of that," Mrs. Hammond says firmly. She continues too quietly to be heard, and Mr. Hammond responds; after one more such exchange, Alice crosses the room and gently shuts the cover on the piano keys with a quiet but audible clunk.

self_composed
2012-09-15 05:39 pm (UTC)

Bella mimes clapping, silently, and goes to stand near the piano herself.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 05:45 pm (UTC)

He flashes a quick grin in her direction; then his parents come through the archway, Mr. Hammond first, Mrs. Hammond trailing behind.

"You should keep that thing closed when you're not mauling it," is how Delaney Sr. greets his son.

"I know," he says, ducking his head. "I came back up the minute I remembered. So, Dad, this is my new friend, Bella Swan."

"I've heard," says Mr. Hammond, inspecting her.

self_composed
2012-09-15 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Mr. Hammond," Bella says with her best fake grin.

She'll lie to him if she has to, but "pleased to meet you" is purely optional.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Junior assures me they're not dating," Mrs. Hammond adds brightly.

"Junior has a tendency to lie like a rug, in case you haven't noticed," says Mr. Hammond. (Alice assumes a generally contrite expression.) "Well, girl? Doth the delinquent protest too much?"

self_composed
2012-09-15 06:39 pm (UTC)

"We aren't dating," Bella confirms. "As a general habit I don't date at all, in fact."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Respectable," Mr. Hammond says grudgingly. "All right, boy, you can keep her. But we're going to have a talk tonight about respectable behaviour in this house."

"Yessir," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-15 06:45 pm (UTC)

Bella cocks her head and looks politely, inquisitively, and above all with an innocent bemusedness, at Mr. Hammond.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Can't have you two disappearing off together," he explains shortly. "Who knows what he'd take it into his head to do with you."

Alice looks very slightly pained, but doesn't protest this assessment of his behaviour patterns.

self_composed
2012-09-15 06:52 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't really know what to say here. So many possible replies are off-limits.

She settles on just retaining her careful facial expression.

Perhaps Mr. Hammond will think she's slightly dim.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 06:56 pm (UTC)

"...Never mind," he says at last, and turns his attention to Alice. "Don't you make any trouble," he says warningly.

"Nossir."

Mr. Hammond snorts disbelievingly. "Keep an eye on them, Judith," he instructs, and turns to walk out of the room.

self_composed
2012-09-15 06:57 pm (UTC)

Bella turns a bright smile on Mrs. Hammond. "Does this mean you'll be finishing up the tour of the house for me?" she asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I'd love to," says Mrs. Hammond with an answering smile. "Have you finished with the ground floor?"

"Yep," Alice puts in.

"Then why don't I take you upstairs?"

self_composed
2012-09-15 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense to me," agrees Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Perfect. Come along," she says, and leads the way to the stairs. Alice falls in behind her, duckling-fashion.

self_composed
2012-09-15 07:05 pm (UTC)

Bella too channels a duckling. She may as well carry on playing "slightly dim"; Alice will not be fooled, and it's possible that Mrs. Hammond is less oblivious than she appears and talks to her husband about things.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 07:23 pm (UTC)

Probably a good plan.

Contrary to Alice, who tends to let the pretty things speak for themselves, his mother has a story for everything from the carpets to the chandeliers. (Well, there's only one chandelier, hanging from the ceiling at the top of the stairs and spraying fragments of light onto the walls. She has a story for it, nevertheless, regarding its purchase back in New York and brief sojourn in the room downstairs before she decided that the pillars were prohibitive in a good ballroom and had it moved up here.)

Alice mostly just lets her talk. He seems much more relaxed with her than he was when his father was present.

self_composed
2012-09-15 07:24 pm (UTC)

Bella listens attentively. There's nothing else to do, and useful information can crop up pretty much anywhere. She even asks questions about the more interesting objects, and the less complete stories.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 07:28 pm (UTC)

Apparently the peculiar shape of the wall in one of the spacious upstairs guest rooms is because it conceals the chimney of a recently demolished fireplace— "it just wasn't modern enough," Mrs. Hammond flutters, and goes on to describe the origin of the wallpaper. Alice seems more amused than the situation really warrants.

self_composed
2012-09-15 07:33 pm (UTC)

Bella begins to wonder just how many rooms this place has. And why she thought exploring it would be fun.

Probably she thought exploring it would be fun because she didn't expect to turn off her personality for much of the excursion.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 07:40 pm (UTC)

Alice observes Bella's boredom after a little while; they have moved on from that guest room to its slightly more well-appointed neighbour, and Mrs. Hammond is extolling the virtues of down pillows.

"Hey, Mom," he interrupts, to no obvious censure. "When's dinner?"

"That is an excellent question," says Mrs. Hammond. "Why don't you go find out?"

He blinks, considers, then shrugs. "Okay, I guess. Back in a bit. Don't get lost."

Mrs. Hammond laughs.

self_composed
2012-09-15 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Make sure they didn't swap the lobster for snails," says Bella with a faint smile.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 07:45 pm (UTC)

"You got it," he says, and salutes her on his way out.

Mrs. Hammond sits down on the edge of the bed, smoothing out her skirts.

"...Are you sure you aren't dating him?" she asks, somewhere between plaintive and wistful.

self_composed
2012-09-15 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm not dating him," Bella says. "If you think he likes me, perhaps you're right, but I really don't generally date, and he hasn't asked me on anything more datelike than this visit." She tilts her head. "Why?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 07:51 pm (UTC)

Mrs. Hammond sighs. "I just think it would really do him some good to get out of this house once in a while." Wryly, "And somehow I just don't see him going to a friend's house to study."

self_composed
2012-09-15 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not to study," Bella shrugs. "I could have him over just to hang out."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I would be very grateful," says Mrs. Hammond. She looks... forlorn. Forlorn is a good word. "I had such hopes for him, once upon a time."

self_composed
2012-09-15 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh?" Bella asks softly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 08:08 pm (UTC)

Her hands twist in the folds of her skirt.

"I thought he would be... different," she says. "Manageable. But that is the one thing he isn't." She looks away. "And I don't think it's good for him, to spend so much time being - managed."

self_composed
2012-09-15 08:10 pm (UTC)

"He's a little old to be managed now, anyway," Bella says. She pauses, and takes a risk - "I'm a little surprised he still lives at home. Some parents would have sent him to boarding school or something."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 08:12 pm (UTC)

"My husband doesn't believe in foisting his problems off on other people," Mrs. Hammond murmurs, very neutrally.

self_composed
2012-09-15 08:23 pm (UTC)

Bella nods slowly. "Some parents would have kicked him out of the house on his eighteenth birthday," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Some parents, yes," she says, looking down at her skirt and smoothing it out again with exquisite care. "Not these ones."

self_composed
2012-09-15 08:32 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

Anything else she might say would probably be too dangerous to say aloud, in this house.

She does say, "I wonder what it's like to be Delaney, though." Pause. "I don't think I'd like it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 08:34 pm (UTC)

"He seems to," Mrs. Hammond observes. "Sometimes, I have to say, I really wonder how."

self_composed
2012-09-15 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Well. As long as he's happy and safe. Those seem like reasonable goals."

Bella tries not to sound too knowing. The "vaguely dim" persona helps.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 08:38 pm (UTC)

Mrs. Hammond lets the silence stand a little too long after that one.

Alice's footsteps are audible coming down the hall; shortly, he pokes his head into the room.

"Good news, guys," he says. "Dinner's on the table and not a snail in sight."

self_composed
2012-09-15 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Excellent," says Bella. "Not-snails are my favorite thing."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Then you're gonna love dinner! C'mon."

He turns to head back down the hall. Mrs. Hammond waits a moment, then gets up and follows.

self_composed
2012-09-15 08:43 pm (UTC)

Bella trots after Alice. She is rather hungry.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 08:46 pm (UTC)

Dinner is indeed on the table, it turns out. The extremely formal dining table with the spotless white tablecloth and the obviously antique chairs.

Mr. Hammond sits at the head of the table, of course, with his wife on his right and his son on his left. There's a place set for Bella on the other side of Alice.

No one seems inclined to start a conversation.

self_composed
2012-09-15 08:47 pm (UTC)

Bella's willing to eat in silence, especially if the food's tasty.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:12 pm (UTC)

The food is exquisite, actually. Alice and his mother both utter non-verbal expressions of delight; Mr. Hammond just looks inscrutable.

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:14 pm (UTC)

Oooh. Bella joins in the delighted expressions. She wonders if Hilary cooks or if there is a separate cook. If Hilary cooks, perhaps she can convince Charlie to marry her.
Edited 2012-09-15 21:14 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Good, isn't it?" Alice murmurs after a few minutes. "Our housekeeper is the best."

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:17 pm (UTC)

So it is Hilary.

"It's marvelous," agrees Bella. "Much better than anything I've ever made."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm so very glad we found her when we did," Mrs. Hammond agrees, beaming. "The cooks we had before her simply do not compare."

Mr. Hammond contributes nothing to the conversation and, astonishingly, Alice seems disinclined to talk with his mouth full.

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:20 pm (UTC)

"She's called Hilary, is that right?" Bella says. "I think she's made friends with my dad."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:26 pm (UTC)

"That's heartening," says Mrs. Hammond with a smile. "I think it's very nice how we're starting to become part of the community. Don't you, dear?"

Mr. Hammond nods with apparent reluctance.

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:28 pm (UTC)

"It's a pretty friendly town. I've been coming for summers all my life, but only started to make friends my own age when I came during a school year," Bella says chattily. Slightly dim, slightly dim. "My dad's friends don't have kids, except for some much younger than I am."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:33 pm (UTC)

"I think it's charming," says Mrs. Hammond. "Oh, have you been living with your mother all this time?"

Mr. Hammond chews his next bite of lobster with unnecessary force. Mrs. Hammond doesn't seem to notice, but Alice hunches a little lower in his seat, an ineffective move since he is the second tallest person in the room.

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:35 pm (UTC)

Bella glances at Alice, and at Mr. Hammond, and slowly relates things that anyone in the room could learn by asking anyone who has heard that Bella even exists. "My parents split up when I was very young. Until recently, I lived with my mom most of the time, and my dad during summers. Now I live here, because my mom is going to be traveling a lot with my new stepdad."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:38 pm (UTC)

"That must be hard for you," Mrs. Hammond says sympathetically. "I'm glad you're settling in and making friends."

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Bella says, because a slightly dim person wouldn't announce it was actually completely up to me and I'm having a pretty easy time of it all things considered.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:41 pm (UTC)

Alice relaxes a little; apparently the danger has passed. Mrs. Hammond smiles vaguely and returns to her dinner.

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:42 pm (UTC)

Bella privately wonders whether Mrs. Hammond is self-medicating somehow.

She returns her attention to the Charlie-should-marry-Hilary-to-regularly-eat-like-this food.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:49 pm (UTC)

Being on drugs and being a tremendously awkward person can look so similar!

Unless a glass of wine with dinner counts—a comfort not provided to the two teenagers at the table—there is no visible evidence of the former.

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:50 pm (UTC)

Bella did not expect Mrs. Hammond to pull out a bottle of tranquilizers-or-whatever right there at the table. She's more absorbed in the lobster than in evidence-collection anyway.

She is going to get so full, if there is any dessert.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:54 pm (UTC)

There is, as it happens! Four identical slices from a tiny, alarmingly rich chocolate cake. Alice grins when he sees it.

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:55 pm (UTC)

Mm. Cake.

"Death by chocolate?" murmurs Bella innocently.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 09:58 pm (UTC)

"If only," Alice murmurs back.

self_composed
2012-09-15 09:59 pm (UTC)

Bella says nothing. Her mouth is now full of cake.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:03 pm (UTC)

The cake is even better than the lobster.

"Hilary is the best," Alice concludes when he finally puts down his fork. "I know I say that every time, but damn."

"Language," Mr. Hammond says mildly.

His smile evaporates. "Sorry, sir."

self_composed
2012-09-15 10:04 pm (UTC)

Bella holds still. She doesn't know what things make this worse and what things do not.

But she privately agrees that Hilary is the best.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Personally, I think this cake deserves a damn or two," Mrs. Hammond contributes. Alice looks up at her and half-smiles.

"Be that as it may," says Mr. Hammond, with a hint of a smile of his own, "rules are rules."

"May I be excused?" Alice asks meekly.

His father shakes his head. "The meal's almost over, Junior. You can hold it two more minutes."

self_composed
2012-09-15 10:12 pm (UTC)

Bella holds quite still. She's never had to be excused before getting up from a table in her life.

She tries to remember how wide the angle on the cake was. Was it a small cake cut into quarters, or a large cake, of which there might be leftovers?

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:16 pm (UTC)

A small cake, cut into eighths. Any more than that would be too much.

Mr. Hammond takes his time finishing his own slice. At last he puts down his napkin and says, "I think we're done here," and his wife and son push back their chairs nearly in unison.

self_composed
2012-09-15 10:17 pm (UTC)

Bella gets up too, and watches Alice for cues. She was invited to stay for dinner; is it now time for her to go home?

And let whatever happens when this household is unsupervised... happen?

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:21 pm (UTC)

It's not Alice but Mrs. Hammond who says, "I think it might be best if you went home now, Bella. Before it gets any later."

Alice glances at Bella and shrugs.

self_composed
2012-09-15 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Of course," says Bella. "It's already dark."

She turns to Alice and says, "I'll see you in gym class tomorrow."

It's a perfectly innocuous thing to say. And if he's not in condition to attend gym tomorrow, she'll notice, and Mr. Hammond knows it.

"Bye!" And she heads for the door. "Please tell Hilary for me that everything was exquisite."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Will do," Mrs. Hammond calls after her. Alice waves.

so i guess that wasn't hades

self_composed

Bella still brings her lunch most of the time. Today, she is chipping away at the leftovers of the pasta monstrosity her father made when left to fend for himself. She has not yet had a chance to talk up Hilary's cooking because it would have seemed cruel in the aftermath of the... meal.

It's actually pretty edible after she added all that garlic and butter.

Jessica sits with her, and Angela, and then Mike; Eric's with some other friends today. There's an empty chair to her left; Angela's on her right, and the other two face them.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:39 pm (UTC)

There is no longer an empty chair to her left.

"Hi, Bella," says Alice as he deposits his tray on the table. His lunch is almost entirely cafeteria-sourced, with the exception of a mysterious opaque Tupperware container.

He bears no more visible injuries than he did yesterday, nor does he have the stiffness of movement that might indicate extensive non-visible injuries.

self_composed
2012-09-15 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Hullo," returns Bella. "Have you met Angela, Jessica, and Mike?"

Angela, Jessica, and Mike are nonplussed.

"Also," says Bella, "more to the point, does that container by any chance serve as a container for cake?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Got it in one," he says cheerfully. "Hi everybody. I have no clue who any of you are." He opens the container and slides it towards Bella; two slices of cake rest within. "Want one? Compliments of you know who."

self_composed
2012-09-15 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I want both, but I won't secretly resent you forever if you give me exactly one," Bella says, helping herself to a slice. "They are Angela," she points, "and Jessica, and Mike."

"Hello," says Jessica gamely.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meetcha." He waves his fork vaguely at the three strangers and then pounces on his lunch, exhibiting absolutely none of the table manners he did last night.

self_composed
2012-09-15 10:54 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes her pasta-item, bites her apple and determines it to be an inferior specimen of applehood, and then devours her cake.

"I didn't know you were friends with Hammond," says Mike.

Bella's mouth is full of cake. If Alice wants his nomenclature corrected he might have to do it himself.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 10:56 pm (UTC)

"That's 'cause it only happened last night," Alice volunteers between noms.

...While technically true, this is perhaps a tiny bit misleading.

self_composed
2012-09-15 10:58 pm (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes. "I doubt," she tells Mike when she has swallowed her bite of cake, "that he knew I'm friends with you, but now all that troubling ignorance is resolved."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Yep," Alice concurs, brightly.
Edited 2012-09-15 23:05 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-15 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Did something in particular happen last night?" Jessica asks.

Bella doesn't really want to let Alice answer that one. "I was bored," she says. "And you were still sick and Angela was babysitting so I couldn't really try either of you for plans. We went and hung out at his house. He violated the spirit of Mozart and we invented a fictitious sport."

"You could've asked me if I wanted to do something," Mike mutters.

"Perhaps I would have thought of that eventually," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 11:11 pm (UTC)

Bella is a wise, wise person.

Alice, on the other hand, is demonstrably fond of pissing people off.

"Whassamatter?" he inquires of Mike, cocking his head with slightly over-exaggerated innocence.

self_composed
2012-09-15 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I was free that afternoon, that's all," says Mike, giving Alice a sort of side-eye.

Bella's cake is gone. She drops her forehead onto the heel of her hand and looks exasperatedly at Mike, but doesn't make any effort to add to this line of conversation.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 11:19 pm (UTC)

Alice still isn't finished the main portion of his lunch. Without breaking eye contact with Mike, he nudges the container bearing the second slice of cake in Bella's direction.

self_composed
2012-09-15 11:20 pm (UTC)

Hm. Cake or peace? Peace or cake?

Cake.

Bella takes it.

"Thank you," she says.

Mike is now actively glowering at Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Y'welcome," he says cheerfully. "Looked like you could use it."

And back to his inferior cafeteria food!

self_composed
2012-09-15 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Mike, are you okay?" Jessica says.

"I'm fine," Mike mutters.

"Maybe you're getting Jessica's cold," Angela suggests.

Bella enjoys her cake. Mmm, cake.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 11:27 pm (UTC)

The cake is immensely delicious!

Alice doesn't miss it, though. There's more where that came from. And taunting Mike and pleasing Bella are both more than worth it.

self_composed
2012-09-15 11:36 pm (UTC)

"So," Jessica says. "What I was going to say before I got distracted -" this sentence is accompanied by a significant look at Alice - "is that we should all go hang out on the beach at La Push sometime, when it gets warm, and Bella, your car is the only one that could hold a good-size group."

"I'm amenable," says Bella.

Jessica looks at Mike, and at Alice, and says, "Delaney can come too. If you want to, Delaney."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 11:38 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Sure, that'd be fun."

self_composed
2012-09-15 11:40 pm (UTC)

Mike gets up to toss his lunch debris. He may actually be stomping.

Bella returns an empty Tupperware to Alice.

"Great," says Jessica. "So that's us five, plus Lauren, and Eric - is your car the kind with extra seats in the very back?"

"Yeah," Bella says.

"Then we can all squeeze in," Jessica says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 11:46 pm (UTC)

Alice leans over to watch Mike's progress towards the garbage can, then straightens to accept his Tupperware back.

He is really not trying to be subtle about the taunting, is he.

self_composed
2012-09-15 11:48 pm (UTC)

Bella gives Alice a look - it says Really? - and then says, "I've been to La Push a couple times, my dad has friends there, but not recently. Will it get at all warm anytime soon or are all these plans terribly premature?"

"Sometimes there's a weekend nice enough that a raincoat will do," Angela says, "even in January."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-15 11:54 pm (UTC)

Alice answers her look with an unconcerned shrug.

"I don't even know where that is," he contributes.

self_composed
2012-09-15 11:56 pm (UTC)

"It's the Indian reservation about half an hour's drive away," Jessica says. "There are Indians there."

"Quileutes," Angela says, possibly in lieu of correcting Jessica on her ethnic terminology.

"There's nice scenery," Bella says. "The residents don't mind people hanging out there, generally."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:01 am (UTC)

"Cool," he says, shrugging again and opening his bottle of juice. "I mean, not that scenery is my favourite thing in the whole wide world, but it's okay."

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:03 am (UTC)

Mike has taken a long route back to the table. He has also harvested Lauren and Eric from wherever they were sitting, and now it's a little crowded.

"Whoa," Eric says to Mike, upon spotting Alice. "You weren't kidding."

"It'd be a dumb joke," Lauren says, "just to say that someone was sitting here if he wasn't."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:06 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Alice, waving at the newcomers. "You've sure got a lot of friends," he adds, turning to Bella. "I didn't accidentally drop in on the popular crowd, did I? Because that would be tragically hilarious."

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:08 am (UTC)

"Yeah, tragic and hilarious, both at once," Lauren says.

"I don't really have a good sense of those dynamics here yet," Bella says.

"It's not like we're cheerleaders and football," Jessica says. "Well, I'm going to try out for cheer next year, but you know what I mean."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:09 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure there's not a football player left at this school who can look me in the eye without trying to punch it," Alice muses.

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:10 am (UTC)

"Is that because you're obnoxious?" Mike asks, in what is for him a bold move.

"Mike," says Bella testily.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:12 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says brightly. "Glad you noticed."

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:14 am (UTC)

"Bella, why are you hanging out with this jerk?" Mike asks pleadingly.

"Apparently," Bella says in a dark, level tone, "I have poor taste in companions."

That one takes Mike a second. He spends that second in rather adorable triumph, which evaporates.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:16 am (UTC)

Ooh, good one. Alice grins behind his juice.

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:17 am (UTC)

Mike's done with his lunch anyway. He just leaves.

"Well, that was kind of a bitchy thing to do," Lauren remarks.

"So was that," says Bella without any particular heat. Or interest.

Angela's trying to hide her face in her shoulder.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:20 am (UTC)

Alice glances sideways at Bella and grins again.

He doesn't say 'I love you', but he thinks it pretty loudly.

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:21 am (UTC)

He gets a wan smile for his trouble.

Bella then conspicuously asks if Angela wants to start heading for Bio, because she actually likes Angela.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:23 am (UTC)

Alice, not being finished his juice yet, stays right where he is.

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:27 am (UTC)

Lauren waits until Bella's gone and then turns to Alice. "So, did you move here because you, like, killed somebody?"

Jessica was about to leave, but apparently can't pass up the chance to hear the answer. Eric's leaving anyway.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:28 am (UTC)

He grins.

"I could tell you that," he says with a wink, "but I'd have to kill you."

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:32 am (UTC)

Jessica, slightly quicker on the uptake than Lauren, comes to the understanding that this sentence has implications. She departs expeditiously.

Lauren cocks her head, then leaves, apparently mostly because she and Alice are the only people left at the table.

telling someone your secrets

self_composed

By the end of Bio, the halls are full of people eager to inform Bella and everyone else within earshot that her friend is a murderer. They have entirely the wrong attitude to have formed the impression because he just now murdered someone, and also her father hasn't come looking for her yet, so this is probably nonsense.

Bella goes to gym.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:42 am (UTC)

Alice is chatting amicably with Ms. Finch. If the rumours have reached him, he's showing no sign of it. When he spots Bella, he waves and abandons his conversation to head for her corner.

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:42 am (UTC)

"So, you're a murderer, now," she says without preamble.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:45 am (UTC)

"What, seriously?" He laughs. "Wow, some people do not know a joke when they hear one."

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:45 am (UTC)

"Well, perhaps the original people did, but it's gone a few links down the chain since," Bella sighs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:47 am (UTC)

"Fuck it, whatever. Think your friends'll still let me come on their beach trip?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 12:49 am (UTC)

"If I had to guess? Jessica will gather some people who don't care - which won't include Lauren or Mike - and you'll still be invited because she wants to use my car."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 12:54 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Nice. What's Mike's problem, anyway? He ask you out or something?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 04:22 am (UTC)

"No, never. Didn't even propose marriage," says Bella with a withering but amused look. "But perhaps he imagines he would have worked up to it eventually." She shrugs. "It's a small school, but not so small that I need to latch onto the first people who talked to me. Angela's great, Jessica's fine, I can live without Mike and definitely without Lauren. No idea where Eric stands but I wouldn't miss him much."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:49 am (UTC)

With a wry, crooked grin: "So, not gonna ditch the fuckup and get all your nice, normal friends back?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I would not advise you to antagonize Angela," Bella says evenly. "But I've been here less than two weeks. I'm still the new kid and I still have time to meet more people."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says cheerfully.

Which is... not exactly a promise not to antagonize Angela, but might be an acknowledgment of the consequences.

self_composed
2012-09-16 05:09 pm (UTC)

"If we can factor out the consequences of apparently-you're-a-murderer-now, is there anybody in school who'd be particularly likely to tolerate you and might get along with me?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 05:11 pm (UTC)

Alice considers this.

"Dunno," he says. "I don't pay that much attention. What kinda people do you get along with?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Angela's great. Jessica's fine, Eric's fine - although it's possible he has a crush on me too, and it's starting to get kind of ridiculous; do I correspond astonishingly closely to some regionally popular fetish? Mike was okay when he was just showing me how to get to classes and not coming over all creepy-possessive." She shrugs. "And you're interesting."

She gauges how long she has before gym starts before continuing to chat, and decides she's got leeway. "In Phoenix I hung out with the book club and sometimes a cluster of girls from my geography class, but I didn't like anyone enough to have second thoughts about moving when that was expedient."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, all I can tell you about that is the reason I've got a crush on you is nnnot the same as the reason anybody else does," he says, grinning. "Maybe there's somebody in Art."

self_composed
2012-09-16 05:25 pm (UTC)

"I couldn't get into art class; this school has different requirements from my old one, Art's pure elective, and I have to spend this semester catching up. May have room for it next year though." She shrugs. "I can get along without a vast collection of friends. It'd just be kind of depressing if I somehow wound up without any."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 05:30 pm (UTC)

"So I'll look for some," he says.

It's something he's never done before, which is an automatic plus.

self_composed
2012-09-16 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Not strictly necessary - Angela continues to exist and I haven't yet met everyone in my own classes - but it would be nice of you."

She tilts her head. "What has you convinced that the etiology of your crush is different from Mike's or maybe-Eric's?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Because I like you for weird reasons," he says serenely. "And 'cause if Mike liked you for the same reasons I like you, he wouldn't act like he wishes he could pee on your leg to scare off all the other dogs."

self_composed
2012-09-16 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's a grotesque mental image," Bella remarks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:01 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Yeah, get used to those."

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:02 pm (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes. "Anyway. Weird reasons? You're a mind reader now? The inner workings of the median human are transparent unto you, and your own clockwork is wound backwards?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:12 pm (UTC)

Cheerfully: "You called me a freak on purpose when you knew I hate it; you told me you don't care what I want and you looked like you meant it. Those sound like normal reasons to you?"

From across the room, Ms. Finch calls, "While we're still young, Hammond!"

Alice grins. "Hold that thought," he says, and turns to join the rest of the class.

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:16 pm (UTC)

Bella smirks to herself and does her stretches and other relatively safe exercises safe on her mat.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:17 pm (UTC)

And at the end of class, there he is again.

"So where were we?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:19 pm (UTC)

"You were explaining how your clockwork is wound backwards, and I could earn your admiration by provoking you to see if you were a physical threat to me, and also by insisting on tailoring my persona to my preferences and not yours," Bella prompts.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:21 pm (UTC)

"No, you already did those," he says. "Hell if I know what you're gonna do next; that's part of the fun."

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Could is a past tense verb too," Bella says pedantically. "Like, 'I discovered when I was small that I could get more brownies if I helped myself while they were cooling, instead of waiting for Renée to cut me one.'"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay. The way you said it made it sound kinda like you were building a list for future reference, is all."

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:26 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "I only needed to do the experiment once, and I think we're clear on who's driving this thing." She gestures at her head.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:28 pm (UTC)

"So that's what the experiment was for? You wanted to see if I'd hurt you?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Before going home with someone whose primary form of recreation seems to be getting into fights? Yes, that seemed like relevant information - information that I wanted to collect under controlled circumstances. And I had a trigger I'd seen work - so to speak - one and a half times." Pause. "What, did you think I did it just to annoy you? Why would I go out of my way just to annoy someone?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I was kind of too busy falling in love to think about your reasons at the time," he says, smiling. "Makes sense. Not sure it worked the way you meant it to, but it makes sense."

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Why does it bother you so much?" Bella asks. "Is it only the one word?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, just that one," he says. "It's like getting punched in the gut, except I like getting punched in the gut. I dunno why. I mean, I'm not exactly gonna argue that the definition applies, y'know?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Do you know when it started? I assume you weren't born with special reactions to any English word."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Good question," he says, thinks about it, and shrugs. "Not a clue."

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Weird. You realize that because it's obvious, anyone who feels like metaphorically punching you in the gut can do it any time they like. Self-restraint might be worthwhile."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

"On the other hand, if it wasn't obvious, you might not have said it," he points out, "and I like that you did."

self_composed
2012-09-16 07:56 pm (UTC)

"How many of me do you think there are?" Bella asks, amused. "Enough to be worth it even now that my historical behavior is a fait accompli? For that matter, did you expect me? Would it have been productive to make any plans contingent on my future arrival?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I think there's exactly one of you," he says, laughing. "And you were a complete surprise, that's the point."

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:03 pm (UTC)

"If I lived in a fairy tale universe, giving my lunch to a random hobo could grant me a wish," Bella says. "I won't know if I live in a fairy tale universe until I feed all the hobos in the world, in fact, because perhaps only one is magical. That doesn't mean I should plan for it, because I would wind up being very hungry and having no time for anything else, and even if the hypothesized magic hobo is powerful enough to make all the work worth it if I find them, there might also be zero magic hobos." She makes a vague, expansive gesture. "Here I am, how surprising. That doesn't mean it makes sense to repeat otherwise-a-bad-idea behaviors that happened to pay off. Especially since I'm already here, and as you concede there are not several of me, lurking in the corners and waiting to call you names if only those names are sufficiently obvious."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Mm, okay, lemme put it another way," he says, tilting his head back to look thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "I don't really do stuff that makes it easier or harder for people to hurt me, because sometimes I like it when people hurt me and sometimes I don't, and I don't know which one it's going to be until it happens."

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... hm." Bella closes her eyes and tilts her head back. "That doesn't mean there's no useful tweaking to be done. I might want to buy something a telemarketer is selling. I don't know whether I do or not until I listen to the sales pitch. But on average, listening to telemarketers is a waste of time, so our house number is on the do-not-call list. Meanwhile, I haven't asked my mom to stop sending me email forwards that she gets from her floaty silly friends, because while plenty of those are also wastes of time, a fair number of them are cute or interesting, enough that it's usually an okay bet to spend the time opening the message. I bet there are ways you could make it harder - or easier, for that matter - to hurt you in particular ways, that would make things better overall. There's no reason to think that the exact amount currently happening is exactly right."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:17 pm (UTC)

"I'm falling in love with you again," he informs her, smiling crookedly.

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:19 pm (UTC)

"How many times can one do that, really? Surely it's redundant by now," yawns Bella, smiling slightly. "Unless you've been falling back out each time when I wasn't looking."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe I need a more accurate phrase. I'm falling in love with you more?" he tries.

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:30 pm (UTC)

"This must be one heck of a deep pit, with a lot of really convenient ledges," Bella muses.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Pretty sure it's bottomless, actually."

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:32 pm (UTC)

She smiles. "You're very cute when you want to be."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, but—" he makes a buzzer noise, as of a game show highlighting an incorrect response: ennnh. "Wasn't trying to be cute."

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:36 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "Then you are occasionally very cute when you aren't deliberately undermining the impression of same."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:37 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Okay."

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:39 pm (UTC)

"What are you generally trying to do? Or are you bouncing around like a pinball, occasionally meeting sharp impacts but never rolling around towards something specific?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:39 pm (UTC)

Alice blinks.

"...I think that's actually the most accurate description of my life I've ever heard."

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:41 pm (UTC)

Bella bursts out laughing.

"Well, pinball wizard, bounce off anything interesting today apart from the rumor that you're a murderer?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:42 pm (UTC)

"The incredibly weird realization that I'm friends with somebody who has other friends?" he says after a moment's thought.

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Have you historically been friends even with people who didn't? Your mom left me with the impression that you've been altogether a loner, historically."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I've never been, like, hey-come-back-to-my-house friends," he says. "Well, not since I was a little kid. I've hung out with people. Sometimes even the same people for a while. But, y'know, even people who don't wanna avoid me sometimes wanna hang out with people who wanna avoid me."

Which is apparently also the pattern he expected their nascent friendship to follow.

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't understand the idea that one's friends all have to get along with each other," Bella says. "I can go to Angela's to paint our toenails and yours to invent - we never actually named that sport. Hm. Anyway, even if Angela wanted to avoid you that wouldn't mean I'd have to interact with only one of the pair of you."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure you're a high school student?" he teases. "Because you make way too much sense."

self_composed
2012-09-16 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Here I am, enrolled in high school," Bella says. "Taking classes. Actually showing up to them, in fact. Teenagers being idiots is optional, but most people will be idiots if you give them an excuse and wedge them into low-stakes environments."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Oh, uh, I'm not allowed to take you into the basement anymore," he adds. "So hanging out at my place might not be the greatest idea."

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella quietly.

And, "You're allowed to come to mine if I invite you, right?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Let me guess. The basement is off-limits because we might fornicate in it, but it didn't occur to anyone that my dad works until late in the evening and I spend many of my waking hours at home completely unsupervised."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Pretty much. Well, actually I think Mom is hoping we'll fornicate at your place."

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:06 pm (UTC)

"That did seem to be on her wishlist. She was very wistful about the whole thing. What exactly does she imagine you having a girlfriend would do that having a mere friend could not? Even a fraudulent green-card marriage with someone from the Philippines or something could occur with a mere friend. Not me, since I was born here, but you know what I mean."
Edited 2012-09-16 21:07 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Get me the fuck out of her life?" he suggests. "Without pissing Dad off too bad? He'd flip his lid if I started seeing somebody he didn't think was 'respectable' enough. But I kinda see Mom's point, actually, I bet he'd be just fine with a shotgun wedding to a girl I met at school."
Edited 2012-09-16 21:12 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Am I even that respectable?" Bella asks. "Lower-middle-class background, divorced parents, willing to associate with you?" She sticks out her tongue at him.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Police chief's daughter," he counters. "Can't shun you without looking like he has something to hide."

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:21 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs out loud.

"If you knocked someone up and hastily married her, what would you do then - what do your parents imagine you'd do? You still don't have a job, most high school girls you could inseminate don't either. Where would you live? What would you live on? How would that solve the basic problem, which is that you live in that house with those people? Plus Hilary, goddess of cake, who I apologize for tarring by association."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they'd kick me out of the house and drop a trust fund on my head," he suggests with a shrug. "Or maybe Mom thinks he would. And I'm telling Hilary you called her a goddess."

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Please do," Bella invites. It's the sort of thing that might invite cake. "Do you think you'd get a trust fund? Because getting kicked out and funded thusly sounds like a pretty okay solution to several of your problems, although not the living-alone one unless you promptly alienate your shotgun wife and then she aborts. Or you like her and wish to spawn. I bet there's someone you could seduce in this school if you wanted to do that."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:31 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, back up," he says, laughing. "Are you suggesting I go screw some girl, knock her up, marry her, and then piss her off until she runs away, all so I can get out of Dodge on my dad's money? Man, you are cold."

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't think you should do this to anyone I like. I'm not particularly suggesting it at all. I'm just wondering why you don't do it. 'Without screwing up anyone else's life' wasn't a qualifier on your three wishes. Your first idea for how to go to jail was to kill somebody."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, one, getting this mythical chick pregnant wouldn't help anything," he says. "Except the odds that she'll marry me, I guess, but that kinda depends on her. Two, I know I'm kind of a slut, but the people I want to fuck and the people I want to fuck over are not the same people, y'know?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:42 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "Fair enough."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:49 pm (UTC)

"But if you find anybody who might wanna have a big fake relationship to go fishing in my dad's wallet, hook me up," he adds.

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I'll let you know," Bella laughs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

"No guarantees he'll bite, but it's worth a shot."

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:53 pm (UTC)

Bella decides to write this down. (She does it in a way that would not be obvious to a typical snooper; the note reads Pinball wizard may benefit financially/residentially from romantic subterfuge.)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:55 pm (UTC)

"So what's up with the notebooks?" he asks idly. "Is it a Harriet the Spy kind of deal?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:55 pm (UTC)

"No." Pause. "Well, not really. In brief, they're a memory aid. Humans have pretty bad memories."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'll give you that," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-16 09:57 pm (UTC)

"So I write down things, more than most people do, but a lot of them are things ordinary people would write down if they got in the habit. Grocery lists and appointments and notes-to-self. But I also write down things I think. Because we can misremember our own thoughts, too, and then we don't know who we are. Brains are self-serving critters. Mine tries to tell me that I'm nicer and smarter than I really am. My notebooks tell me otherwise."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

"My brain's never bothered trying to tell me I'm nice," Alice reports sunnily.

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bella. "Would you like it if you were nice?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:02 pm (UTC)

He gives this some thought.

"Dunno. Probably not. But if I was, then I would. I like being me."

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I'd like to be nice. But I care about other things more, so I don't go very far out of my way to get that particular wish. But then, my brain tries to tell me that whatever I did instead of being nice was really nice after all - I had better motives than I did, whatever mean thing I said was an accident and I meant to say something else, it wouldn't really have been nicer to do the 'nice' thing for some reason even if I couldn't have known that ahead of time. And that's bullshit, and I do not wish to be full of bullshit - and that is something I care about more than most other things."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh," he says. "Huh. Yeah, I get it."

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:08 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles. "So that's why the notebooks. But I've been doing this for a while, and my brain mostly gets the picture that I'm not going to let it pull anything like that, so I don't need them that much recently. Except for more ordinary notetaking."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:08 pm (UTC)

Alice smiles.

"That's pretty cool."

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I compile them into searchable typed-up files, periodically," she continues. "This one's almost full and ready to be converted."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Cool," he repeats.

And almost says something else.

And doesn't.

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:13 pm (UTC)

"What?" Bella asks, tilting her head.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:14 pm (UTC)

"I was gonna say, can I read some, but I'm pretty sure the answer's no."

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't put anything sensitive in the ones I bring to school. They've been swiped before," Bella says, handing over her current notebook. "Plenty of it's written in a weak makeshift code of sorts anyway. You can ask if you don't understand something that sounds interesting - in general it's not specifically aimed to keep you out."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, grinning, and starts flipping through this one from the most recent page backward. "So I'm a pinball wizard now, huh? Awesome."
Edited 2012-09-16 22:34 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:35 pm (UTC)

"It amuses me, and thus it is so," Bella says placidly. "Makes a decent code too, although frankly so would 'Alice'."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Probably, yeah. Is this felony assault one about me, too, or are there fights going on at this school that I'm not in?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:39 pm (UTC)

"That's also you, yes. I didn't get around to looking up whether provocation's an extenuating circumstance - and have decided not to ask Charlie, for the time being."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:41 pm (UTC)

Flip, flip.

"Who'd you cut off in traffic?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:41 pm (UTC)

"A Jeep," says Bella.

What? That's all she knows about the other vehicle. If it had been someone she knew she would probably not have cut him off.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Guess I won't ask why you did it," he says, indicating the I HAVE NO EXCUSE written next to the note.

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:44 pm (UTC)

"No excuse doesn't mean no reason. I was in a hurry. That's just not actually a good cause for cutting somebody off. Probably saved me less than thirty seconds if anything, and I could have gotten into an accident."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:46 pm (UTC)

He snorts and looks back down at the book.

"If I had one'a these, would you wanna read it?" he asks, not quite as nonchalantly as he meant to.

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Probably," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't. But who knows, maybe I'll start."

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Heh. I've never gotten anyone to start serious notetaking before," chuckles Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Have you tried?" he wonders.

self_composed
2012-09-16 10:59 pm (UTC)

"No, not really. I don't think most people care about the same things I care about anyway. Renée doesn't even write down grocery lists when she does the shopping. She wanders through the store and grabs what looks good and wonders why she doesn't have a red onion when she wants one the following Thursday. Charlie's pretty diligent about getting stuff he learns in investigations written down, for documentation if there's some kind of dispute later, but he doesn't extend it to any other sphere of life."
Edited 2012-09-16 23:00 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't care about pinning my thoughts down where I can see 'em," says Alice. "But I might care about pinning them down where you can see 'em."

self_composed
2012-09-16 11:02 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles at him. "Why?" she asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:04 pm (UTC)

He thinks about it for a moment.

And a moment more, tilting his head from side to side.

And then he laughs.

"I see what you mean about the stuff you think not wanting to stay the way you thought it," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

Bella bursts out laughing.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

Alice grins at her.

Cheerfully: "Maybe I should borrow your notebook."

self_composed
2012-09-16 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I have a box of them at home. They're pennies apiece in bulk. I can bring you one tomorrow."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:07 pm (UTC)

"You do that," he says. "In the meantime, you still want that why?"

self_composed
2012-09-16 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Yes please." She hands him a pen; he's still holding her notebook. "You can write it down too, if you like."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:24 pm (UTC)

He flips back to the most recent page, and then to a blank one after it.

A short interval of scribbling later, with much crossing-out and gazing thoughtfully at the page and one instance of nearly nibbling on her pen but stopping himself in time, he passes the notebook back.

His handwriting is pretty terrible, but more or less readable nevertheless. All in all, it only took half the page.

At the very top are the words Because I like you, with 'like' crossed out and 'love' written in next to it. From that sentence, two arrows wiggle down the page.

One points to a scribbled-out 'because', followed by So I want you to hurt me, which is also crossed out; the final version, So I want you to have the chance to hurt me, is written below that.

The other arrow points to So I want you to know what I think, with a (/how) added next to the 'what' as an obvious afterthought.

"Because I like you's what I ended up wanting to say," he explains. "The other stuff's what it actually meant."

self_composed
2012-09-16 11:28 pm (UTC)

She reads it.

"What do you want me to do with the chance to hurt you?" she asks. "And don't say 'whatever you want' unless you think about it for a full sixty seconds and still mean it - that's what I'll actually do, because everyone does what they want one way or another, but that doesn't mean you have no opinion."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says with a bright, easy grin, "time me."

self_composed
2012-09-16 11:30 pm (UTC)

Bella's not wearing a watch, but she has a phone. She pulls it out and watches seconds blink past. "Go," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:37 pm (UTC)

"But I don't really know what you're timing me doing," he says, "because I know damn well what I want. If hurting me is what you want to do, you'll do it, and if it isn't, you won't. And there's only one way to find that out. I don't think you will, but maybe I'm wrong. It makes a difference if you do or not, but not the kind of difference that changes how much I want one or the other. So if I have to sit here knowing that for a full minute before you'll buy it, then sure, I'll do that."

self_composed
2012-09-16 11:44 pm (UTC)

"It's not quite that simple," Bella says, abandoning the timer as useless for this purpose, or at least this person. "Lots of things I might want interact. As long as anything I want is more important to me than not hurting you, you might be faced with - for example - the choice of whether to be in my way or not."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:51 pm (UTC)

"...Run that by me again," he says, "because it made no sense the first time."

self_composed
2012-09-16 11:56 pm (UTC)

Bella hums to herself, thinking of examples. Finally she says, "Imagine your dad made some asshole move that had nothing to do with you, and also really pissed me off, and also there is no evidence of it sufficient to convict or it is not technically a crime or he buys off the judge on that one. And imagine I go on an overblown crusade to bring him to justice, however oblique, however slim my chance of success, and whatever the collateral damage. I'm making this example up; it's not at all likely that I'd chase messy goals on this scale without good odds of getting what I'm after, not when there are other things to do. But suppose I did. You might be in my way or you might be helpful. And since we're imagining that my crusade is my top priority, you know what will happen if you stand in various places relative to said crusade. What would you want me to do with the power to hurt you?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-16 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Oh," he says, and smiles, and shakes his head, and touches the scar that runs under the corner of his jaw. "No wonder it made no sense. Yeah, there is one person in the world who can get me to do stuff by threatening to hurt me, and you're not him."

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:00 am (UTC)

"Example-me isn't threatening - isn't bothering to. Example-me will go over or through you if she has to, and doesn't care because there is a higher priority." She pauses. "I would make a terrifying religious fanatic. It's probably good I'm not one."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:04 am (UTC)

"So, in this example, where I stand relative to your crusade depends on whether or not I want you to win," he says, "and I still don't get the original question."

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:06 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs and gives up. "Okay."

She picks a new question. "Why do you like getting hurt sometimes, I wonder?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:07 am (UTC)

"...Dunno," he says. "Pretty sure I just do."

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:08 am (UTC)

"The way some people just like strawberry ice cream?" she inquires skeptically.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:12 am (UTC)

"Kinda, yeah. What, I can't be kinky?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:12 am (UTC)

"Getting beat up by Dave Farber in the middle of the hallway in front of a couple dozen people was a sex thing?" Bella asks, frowning.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:15 am (UTC)

"...Kinda, yeah," he repeats, in a slightly different tone. "I mean, there's more to it than that, but I'm pretty sure you can guess the rest."

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:16 am (UTC)

"Several dozen people, such as me, did not agree to be involved in your sex thing," Bella says. "Dave Farber included. Does the more that there is mitigate this glaringly obvious problem at all?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:19 am (UTC)

"Well, it wasn't a sex thing for you," he points out. "Think for a sec about reasons why I might wanna get beat up a lot at school, and then don't tell me the answer when you've got it."

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:21 am (UTC)

Bella obligingly does not say the answer aloud.

"It doesn't work very well," she says. "I demonstrated that the other day." And: "If I change clothes and don't bother to draw the curtains because there's a tree right outside my window anyway, changing clothes isn't a sex thing for me. That doesn't make it okay for some occupant of said tree to turn it into one for him."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:29 am (UTC)

"...Well, that's a mental image I didn't know I wanted," he says, blinking. "Anyway. It's different, though, ain't it? I mean, the guy in the tree, you're... part of that. And you don't wanna be, I mean, I'm assuming. The only person who's really part of me liking getting beat up is me. Everybody else just sees the part where I'm getting beat up."

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:35 am (UTC)

Bella scrunches her eyes shut. "In what sense am I more part of an interaction with a Peeping Tom whose presence I might never be aware of, than Farber or someone like him is part of an interaction that involves plenty of physical contact that he's fully cognizant of? You're making up justifications. I think your brain wants to tell you that what you're doing is purely okay instead of maybe-on-balance okay. This is the part where, if you're like me, you make it admit that it's actually sketchy as all get out - and you care about something else more than about not being sketchy."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:41 am (UTC)

"I don't really give a shit how sketchy I am," he says. "But I get people to beat me up all the time, and I wouldn't climb a tree outside your window to watch you change, even if I somehow found out that what you're keeping under there is as hot as a kick in the balls."

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:42 am (UTC)

This is completely beside her point. "And?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:47 am (UTC)

"And that kind of means they're different things, don't it? To me, anyway, apparently not to you."

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:48 am (UTC)

"I'm not trying to claim they're identical, or that anyone who'd do one logically would do the other," Bella says. "I was countering your attempt at justifying the one by analogy to the other."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:52 am (UTC)

"...Okay, different angle," he says. "Do you feel like me getting beat up is a sex thing you don't wanna be looking at?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 12:52 am (UTC)

"Well, I do now. Pretty sure some modestly clever version of Dave Farber whose response to all discomfort isn't 'hit it harder' would also."
Edited 2012-09-17 00:53 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 12:59 am (UTC)

"Sorry," he says, to all appearances sincerely. "Does it change anything if the sex thing isn't why I do it? I do it because of the other thing. And because getting in fights is, y'know, fun, in a strawberry-ice-cream way. Getting off on it is just... it's not even a bonus, it's not an extra, it's just an also."

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:05 am (UTC)

"'Changes anything'? That's not how I'd think about it," Bella says. "I didn't actually say all things considered, you should stop. Other reasons exist. They might well add up to a compelling enough weight to overcome nonconsensual participation in and supervision of a pseudo-sex-act by ignorant bystanders. I said it was sketchy as all get out. It still is even if, all things considered, it would be laughably imprudent for you to quit. We could imagine a magical Peeping Tom who must collect memories of unclothed women in order to save his dying children, too, but that wouldn't make it not gross."

She shrugs. "Hell, the fact that I'm now pretty skeeved out by the whole thing doesn't necessarily mean I'll flee the area next time you push someone. I'm still afraid you'll get yourself killed, and I'd feel like shit if I left and then you did die or even had to go to the hospital, and my priorities are such that I'll stand there feeling like the entire situation is creepy to avoid that risk."
Edited 2012-09-17 01:05 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:07 am (UTC)

"Change anything as in change how creeped out you are. I guess not."

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:08 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs again. "My creep-outed-ness is but one of many factors you get to weigh here. Probably doesn't matter much next to the other factors, especially since I'd have other reactions to consequences thereof too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:21 am (UTC)

"I don't want you to be creeped out, though," he says. "And I can't stop getting off on getting beat up, and at this point I probably couldn't stop getting beat up even if I stopped trying, but maybe if I can explain why I don't creep myself out then I won't creep you out either. Except I guess not."

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:22 am (UTC)

"There doesn't have to be a perfect answer. The universe does not care if people think there ought to be."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:32 am (UTC)

"...yeah, you don't have to tell me that," he says, giving her a bit of a look.

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:33 am (UTC)

"Sometimes I have to remind myself."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:35 am (UTC)

Alice snorts. "I don't."

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:36 am (UTC)

"Yes, well. We're not identical twins."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:36 am (UTC)

"I noticed."

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:37 am (UTC)

She laughs, a little. "Do you happen to know at what point Ms. Finch will be annoyed by us hanging around in her gym?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:38 am (UTC)

"Not unless we tell her to fuck off when she comes to kick us out," says the voice of experience.

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:39 am (UTC)

"How long does that usually take?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:40 am (UTC)

"My ride'll probably show up first, actually."

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:40 am (UTC)

"Huh, that hadn't occurred to me. Is there some official reason that it doesn't appear as soon as school lets out?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:41 am (UTC)

"Is 'nobody really gives a shit if I have to wait half an hour in the parking lot' official enough for ya?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:44 am (UTC)

"It still seems weird. Do your parents value the driver getting to procrastinate for half an hour? Do they unaccountably believe that you will get up to nothing untoward in this context, while they're perfectly prepared to ban you from being in your own basement with me? Does the driver have a lot of other places to go and things to do in the early afternoon that cause delay? Is he spending this time doing something your parents don't know about and you haven't said anything because you don't care if you wait half an hour in the parking lot?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:47 am (UTC)

"Making sure I go home right on time every day when I don't usually go to more than three of my classes is kind of locking the barn door after the cows fuck off," he points out.

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:48 am (UTC)

"Yes, but who is neglecting said door, is the question. Does the driver figure it doesn't matter, or did your parents tell him to not bother?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:50 am (UTC)

"Dunno. If I had to guess, I'd say it's Theo not bothering to get out here on time and them not bothering to get on his case for it."

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:52 am (UTC)

"Makes sense. Should we migrate to the parking lot so we spot him when he comes in?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 01:52 am (UTC)

"Sure, why not."

self_composed
2012-09-17 01:54 am (UTC)

Bella gets up, grabs her coat, and meanders out. She's careful on the sidewalks; there could still be ice, even though it hasn't snowed for a few days.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 02:07 am (UTC)

Alice follows her out, looking thoughtful. And not paying any particular attention to the footing.

self_composed
2012-09-17 02:11 am (UTC)

There is one slightly damp bench at the edge of the parking lot. Bella looks at it, and then says, "We can sit in my car."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 02:18 am (UTC)

"Deal," says Alice, looking at the bench.

self_composed
2012-09-17 02:19 am (UTC)

Bella hops into the driver's seat of her nice warm car. Well, nice dry car. She turns it on to cause warmth.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 02:22 am (UTC)

Alice tucks himself quietly into the passenger seat.

self_composed
2012-09-17 04:22 pm (UTC)

"You look pensive," observes Bella.
Edited 2012-09-17 16:23 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-17 04:36 pm (UTC)

"You know what's great? How you're so consistently informative and helpful and I spend almost no time in your company uncomfortably curious," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 04:37 pm (UTC)

"...I genuinely cannot tell if you're being sarcastic or not," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-17 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Bella. "Yes, I am being sarcastic."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh." He glances at her and smiles. "Sorry. ...This one's kind of a long story, though."

self_composed
2012-09-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "If Theo appears and interrupts you, I won't blame you for not having finished your long story, I'll just expect you to pick it up the next time we talk."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 04:50 pm (UTC)

He drums his fingers on his knee.

"...Can I borrow your notebook again?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 04:50 pm (UTC)

She hands it over, and a pen.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 04:52 pm (UTC)

Alice flips to the same page he used previously and starts...

...drawing.

self_composed
2012-09-17 04:52 pm (UTC)

Bella peers over his shoulder, puzzled.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 04:59 pm (UTC)

A sketchy, scribbly view of an alley - brick walls, a Dumpster. A figure walking along it who might or might not be Alice; the scribbles of hair suggest that it is.

Next: a hand landing on his shoulder. Just the hand, and a bit of arm, and the shoulder and a bit of neck.

Next: he pushes the hand away. No one's face is visible, only his shoulders and the two hands.

self_composed
2012-09-17 05:00 pm (UTC)

Bella watches the sequential art unfold in silence.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 05:07 pm (UTC)

Next: the hand grabs the front of his shirt.

Next: he shoves the other person away, both hands on their chest; it's a man wearing an open jacket that might be denim or leather.

Next: Alice's shoulder/neck area again, this time with the other man's arm wrapped around him from behind, holding a knife to his throat. (No one in this sequential art seems to have a face. The image ends at the line of Alice's jaw.)

The placement of the knife aligns precisely with the scar under Alice's jaw, which does not exist in the picture.

self_composed
2012-09-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

Bella swallows. She doesn't say anything.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 05:23 pm (UTC)

Next: Alice's lower back, his shirt and jeans both visible, the latter half falling off and bearing a slash across his hip that goes right through into the flesh underneath. A few lines of background suggest he is pressed against a flat surface.

Last: Alice's hands, flattened against asphalt, decorated with drips of what is presumably blood.

This sequence has taken him to the bottom of the original page, all the way down the other side, and halfway down the next one. He draws a sharp slashing line across this page, under the final image, and hands Bella her book back.
Edited 2012-09-17 17:24 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-17 05:25 pm (UTC)

Bella "reads" through it again.

"Someone hurt you," she says. "And you didn't want him to."

She flips back a page, forward again. "When was this?" she murmurs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Back in New York," he says. "Remember when I said 'got caught hooking' was making a really long story really short? Yeah." He gestures to the notebook. "There's the rest."

self_composed
2012-09-17 05:31 pm (UTC)

Bella's holding the notebook kind of tightly. "You sure you want this drawn? I told you people've stolen my notebooks, before."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 05:35 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Rip it out and burn it if you want. Or do whatever with it."

self_composed
2012-09-17 05:36 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a scanner. So I can't really put it in the computer." She's still looking at the drawings. "What got you thinking about this just now?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 05:39 pm (UTC)

Alice takes a deep breath, slowly.

Looks out the window.

Says, very quietly: "I get off on getting hurt."

self_composed
2012-09-17 05:40 pm (UTC)

The spiral binding on the notebook is starting to dig into Bella's hand.

"I didn't mean - this isn't what I was talking about. This isn't pushing Dave into a locker."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, well. Apparently up here," he taps the side of his forehead, "if pushing Dave into a locker was a sex thing, then so was—that. Which explains why I got all weird about it."

self_composed
2012-09-17 05:48 pm (UTC)

"That's not what I meant," Bella repeats.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 05:48 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Okay. So what'd you mean?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 05:50 pm (UTC)

"This creep," she points at the faceless image, "attacked you on his own, right? Dave, you pushed and you knew what was going to happen or you wouldn't have bothered pushing him."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 05:57 pm (UTC)

"And that's the difference? Whether or not I started it?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Pretty much." She pauses. "Also, since I seem to be getting misinterpreted today - I'm not defending Dave, let alone this asshole. Dave took a push and turned it into a beatdown. That's not okay either - it's worse, it's unapologetic violent escalation, not just needling somebody in a vaguely sketchy manner, and there is a definite hierarchy between those things and the first one is worse. I'm just not friends with Dave and since he doesn't care what I think there wouldn't be a point in talking to him about it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:02 pm (UTC)

"...Thanks," he says, grinning wryly. "I guess."

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:04 pm (UTC)

Bella looks at the drawings again, and closes the notebook. "I'll type up this notebook's stuff worth saving today and start a new one tomorrow," she says. "Charlie doesn't pry. It's pretty secure to leave it at home without actually shredding the pages or setting them on fire. You're a decent artist."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Alice.

He glances out the window again.

"...And there's my ride."

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:07 pm (UTC)

"See you tomorrow," Bella says. "I'll bring you your own notebook."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Thanks," he says, and hops out of the car to go meet Theo.

if i got three wishes

self_composed

Bella brings two blank notebooks to school the next day. Her old one is safely computerized and boxed up with its predecessors.

At lunch, she sits with Angela; Jessica and Eric and Lauren sit at the same table but mostly talk to each other, and Mike is nowhere to be seen.

Bella is just about on time to gym, thanks to an overnight icing that means she has to pick her way with extreme care across the slippery grass or the slick sidewalks. The second time she falls down, she gives up on attempting any dignity at all, and, cradling her thwacked elbow, scoots the rest of the way to the gym on her rear. This leaves her with damp jeans but no further injuries, and they were a little damp anyway from the falls.

She doesn't have time to do more than smile and wave at Alice on her way to get her mat and get out of the way of careening balls. She spends the class doing the subset of her safe activities that won't stress her elbow.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:32 pm (UTC)

At the end of class, Alice drops by her mat with a smile on his face.

"Hey guess what," he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:33 pm (UTC)

"You love your new notebook?" Bella asks, pulling it out and handing it over. "That is my guess."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:37 pm (UTC)

"I do," he says, kisses it theatrically, and hugs it to him.

"But nope! Dad fucked off to I forget where and Mom says you can come over for dinner again and she doesn't care what we do or where as long as we don't break anything she has to explain later."

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:40 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs, at the antics and at at the relation of Mrs. Hammond's attitude. "Sounds great. I have to do some nonzero amount of homework this afternoon, but I can do it at your house. Lemme call and tell Mr. Jenkins to tell my dad he's on his own for dinner again. Well, not quite, there's leftover mashed potatoes and half a steak..." She pulls out her phone and places the call, which goes a lot like the last one.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Pff, homework," says Alice. "Sure, okay."

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Yes, homework. I can coast in English with recycled essays, but I have to actually write things down for other classes, even if it's easy." She shrugs. "I want to go to college."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Dad keeps making noises about how if I was more responsible he could send me to law school. Pretty sure I'd rather die," says Alice. "We good to go?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:46 pm (UTC)

Bella gets up, favoring the hurt elbow still. "Sure. I haven't thought as far ahead as graduate school yet. I'm not even sure what I'll major in. Maybe bio or something."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Can't help you there," he says serenely. "Y'know, this is the longest I've gone without skipping gym in ages."

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:54 pm (UTC)

"I got the impression you usually came to gym even before. You like Ms. Finch and whatnot."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, usually's not the same as always," he says. "Maybe you're a good influence."

self_composed
2012-09-17 06:57 pm (UTC)

"No wonder your mom likes me." She tilts her head and heads outside, looking grimly at the ice. She sits on it again. Scoot, scoot, scoot. "What do you normally do during the school day while you cut classes?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 06:59 pm (UTC)

...Alice blinks at her method of locomotion.

Then he shrugs and keeps pace.

"Climb trees," he says. "Wander around town. Sleep. Once in a while I read a book."

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:01 pm (UTC)

She sighs. "There's a reason I can't play anything in gym. I fell twice walking there, I'm just going directly to the safe undignified method this time."

"How long ago did you turn 18? My dad's always muttering to himself about truants, I bet he would have picked you up at some point if you were 17 and skipping school in Forks at any time."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:09 pm (UTC)

"October. I'm good at not getting caught."

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:11 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "So it'd seem."

The parking lot has lots of cracks in the ice, and slush, too. This would be impossible to scoot over and is slightly less likely to tip her over. She gets up and moves very carefully towards her car.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Yep. It's a talent."

He tags along beside her, not close enough to crowd.

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:18 pm (UTC)

Bella makes it to the car - walking the final stretch with the intervening cars as supports - without falling over. She kicks her front tire until the slush is mostly off her boots, and gets in.

She again waits until Alice is buckled in before going anywhere.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:19 pm (UTC)

This time, he even puts his seatbelt on without prompting!

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:22 pm (UTC)

Bella drives with care, although Forks of necessity is pretty good about plowing and salting. "Apart from it usually being father-infested and this being a good opportunity, is there anything particularly cool to do in your house besides inspect all the pretty things in it? I did that one time already."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:24 pm (UTC)

Father-infested. Good one. He laughs.

"We didn't actually see the whole basement," he offers. "Or my room. But my room might be boring, I dunno."

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:25 pm (UTC)

"How come your mom skipped your room on the tour?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:27 pm (UTC)

"She also skipped hers and Dad's. And Hilary's." He brightens a little. "Ooh, we can help Hilary cook, would that be fun?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:27 pm (UTC)

"That could be fun!" Bella agrees. "I will copy all her recipes."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll ask her."

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:30 pm (UTC)

Bella hums happily to herself. "My dad's having Hilary over on their coinciding day off next week. I think he intends to teach her to fish."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun."

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Fishing is dull as a poorly maintained guillotine during the French Revolution," says Bella. "But perhaps they'll have fun chatting."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

...He cracks up.

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:35 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles a bit too.

"What do you read about, when you read?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Pretty much whatever I pick up," he says. "If it's boring I put it down again."

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Anything good lately?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:37 pm (UTC)

"I have a favourite book!" he offers. "You wanna see my favourite book?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Yes I do."

This is liable to be interesting.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Cool. I'll show you when we get there."

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:44 pm (UTC)

And in due course... they get there.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:47 pm (UTC)

Alice rings the doorbell; his mother answers with suspicious promptness.

"Come in, come in!" she says, beaming at both of them, no less formally dressed than she was last time.

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Mrs. Hammond," says Bella brightly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:50 pm (UTC)

"It's nice to see you again." She steps back out of the doorway to let them in. "The man of the house is away on business, so you two have the run of the place," she adds, and winks.

...Alice laughs.
Edited 2012-09-17 19:50 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:51 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles softly. "I'm told I missed some basement."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Don't let me stop you," Mrs. Hammond says serenely, and sails away up the stairs.

Alice watches her go, shaking his head.

"I have known her my whole life and I still have no idea what it's like in there," he says. "So, basement or book?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Book first," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing," he says, and leads her up the stairs.

Mrs. Hammond is nowhere in sight; Alice leads Bella past the farthest room they explored on their previous tour—just past it, in fact, to the very next door.

In Alice's room, the remains of the ex-fireplace are visible as an actual brick chimney set in one wall—a peculiarly wide one. The floor is almost invisible beneath a snowdrift of discarded clothing; he looks at the mess, looks at Bella, and then says, "I'll get the book, one sec."

self_composed
2012-09-17 08:09 pm (UTC)

Bella follows him in, looking at the decor more than the mess on the floor.

This proves to a mistake.

She pitches to her right, feet tangled in a pair of jeans, and braces herself to hit the bricks -

Which she goes right through.
Edited 2012-09-17 20:10 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 08:13 pm (UTC)

...

That is not what Alice expected to happen!

He puts his hand against the chimney, which is entirely solid and does not at all appear to have just swallowed a teenager whole.

self_composed
2012-09-17 08:17 pm (UTC)

Bella's screaming her head off, but whatever let her through the chimney doesn't admit sound; she hears echos.

She lands.

With a crunch.

She screams some more.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 08:21 pm (UTC)

After exhaustive groping and a few kicks reveal that the chimney is impermeable to Alice, however permeable it was to Bella, he goes around to the other side and hits the wall a few times just to be thorough.

Then he goes downstairs, to the living room that used to have a fireplace in it, and starts going over that wall.

self_composed
2012-09-17 08:24 pm (UTC)

Bella has broken bones before. She is very sure that this has happened again. She breathes. And breathes. And calms the fuck down. She has to figure out what's going on.

Why can she see? She's in a closet-sized room at the bottom of an enclosed pit; where is all this light coming from? It's like the air in here glows.

Her foot - on the bad leg - is wedged against a book, tied closed with a twist of hemp string or something that's strung with a hexagon-shaped bead.

That's the only thing in the room.

She leans - very carefully, wincing horribly - and picks up the book.
Edited 2012-09-17 20:26 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 08:32 pm (UTC)

Nope. Nope nope nope and nope with a side order of nope.

What the fuck.

Technically, if he tells his mother, they could have this whole house methodically torn down to find out where the fuck Bella went. But he's not sure that would help, and he is sure that it would take a long time and lead to pretty much every kind of attention his father doesn't want.

Hell, he could see his dad just having Bella's car quietly disposed of, if he thought he could avoid getting heat over it that way.

If that happens, Alice decides, then fuck it, he's going to her dad. With the whole fucking story, if necessary.

Before that, though... well, hell. Maybe there really is a secret passage. In which case, there's one more floor of the house this chimney goes to, although as he recalls they wrapped it in a pillar.

He heads down to the basement.

self_composed
2012-09-17 08:40 pm (UTC)

Bella can read pretty fast. And she's pretty familiar with classic literature, so she's not that slowed down by the old-timey language. The handwriting's good, anyway, though it has those silly S's that look like F's. Yes, complain to yourself about the font, Bella, that's better than focusing on your leg, which really fucking hurts.

"My deareʃt Deʃcendant." Descendant, not defendant, presumably. "I, Elias Frobiʃher, bequeath to thee this Book and the Fourth-Coin encircling ʃaid Book." Why was a hexagon called a fourth-coin? "Merely hold the Coin and make a Wiʃh, enviʃioning the Wiʃh focuʃed through the Coin. It will provide thee with the magickal Powers I myʃelf invoke, and describe herein, Powers of many Kinds including thoʃe of Conjuration, Healing -"

This is obvious crap, but it's a cheap test.

Bella touches the coin.

And she makes a wish.
Edited 2012-09-17 20:46 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 08:50 pm (UTC)

Alice doesn't have the head for spatial relations necessary to figure out which pillar.

So he just goes through all of them, methodically, starting at the stairs. No signs of secret passages, no places he can put his hand through. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

self_composed
2012-09-17 08:57 pm (UTC)

The coin disappears.

It fucking disappears.

Bella returns her attention to the book. This is officially much, much more interesting than her broken leg.

"- Attack and Defenʃe, and other Uʃes. Theʃe Powers are marvelous and I value them and wiʃh them paʃʃed on to future Perʃons who may come to underʃtand them. However the Powers come with a Cost, borne in Pain."

Uh-huh...

"For the Firʃt-Coin, the least prick of a Pin will ʃuffice, yet for greater Coins greater Pains are required. Only Pain and not laʃting Injury is needed and so Gains may yet be made in the relief of ʃickneʃʃes and Wounds."

Bella turns the page.

"Make a Coin by producing in thyʃelf a Pain, and then moving thine Pain through thy Mind from Left to Right. Thine Coin will appear, in whatever sort correʃponds to the uʃed Pain."

Bella is absolutely certain that this would have made no sense a minute ago.

But now - it does.

She moves her leg, abruptly, sharply, and she moves that pain through her mind. Left to right.

And she's holding a pentagon with a hole in the middle of it, and it glows a soft red.

Damn.
Edited 2012-09-17 20:59 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:04 pm (UTC)

Pillars that are clearly not big enough to hold an entire person, he skips. At first.

Then he recalls that Bella fell through a brick fucking wall.

It still wouldn't make that much sense for the pillar at the bottom of the chimney to be any smaller than the chimney, but fuck it. He goes back and starts checking the rest.

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:06 pm (UTC)

Bella tries to kick the wall, to get another coin. This hurts - enough to net her another pentagon, clinking together next to the first - but only because she moved her leg. As far as her leg is concerned, there is no wall to kick, and her foot is sticking out through it.

She's going to have to read the rest of this book.

In the meantime, she is very done with her leg being broken.

She makes a wish, stands up, and - hands held out in front of her - walks out of the room, book under one arm and remaining pentagon clutched tight in her hand.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:07 pm (UTC)

"...so," says Alice, "this walking through walls thing. Is that new?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Ayep," says Bella.

She blinks, and looks at her book, and at her bead.

"I have magic powers now."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:10 pm (UTC)

He tries to come up with a response to this.

He settles, after a moment, on: "What the hell?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm at least as surprised as you are." She half-turns, and puts her arm back through the wall of the pillar. It goes like the pillar's not even there. She puts her weight on the leg that was formerly broken, and finds it just as fine as it was before she fell. "They're kind of fucked-up magic powers, though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:14 pm (UTC)

"...Fucked up like how?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:15 pm (UTC)

"You're going to love this," Bella realizes. "I can make coins that I can then use to grant myself wishes, of various sizes. The coins are made out of pain. I broke my leg falling down and fixed it with itself."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:16 pm (UTC)

"...Yep, you're right, I love it," he says, grinning a little. "Except that if anybody's gonna have those magic powers it should clearly be me. I get hurt more than you do and I like it."

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm not actually sure if you can have the powers," Bella says, putting the pentagon in her pocket for the time being and looking at the book. "This is dedicated to someone named Elias Frobisher's 'descendant'. Might also be why I can go through the pillar and the chimney and you couldn't. I need to read the rest of it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:20 pm (UTC)

"You'll probably use 'em better than I would, anyway," he muses.

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Probably, yes," Bella says unapologetically. She picks a different pillar - one that is not insubstantial to her - to sit against, and she opens the book back up.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:22 pm (UTC)

Just to satisfy his curiosity, Alice puts his hand against the pillar (it was one of the big ones, after all) where she walked through it.

Nope.

Shrugging, he sits down against it.

"Wanna tell me what it says?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Paraphrased, Elias Frobisher believed this book would be found by his descendant, and wanted to pass on what he knew about magic. The book came with a coin that was like this -" She shows off the pentagon - "only six-sided and it didn't glow red, it was just kind of sparkly. I wished on it to get the power to make my own coins, which I can do by being in pain and moving the pain left to right, which, swear to God, makes sense after use of the hexagon coin for some reason. There's apparently types."

She bites the inside of her cheek a little and gets a triangle, then another triangle when she pokes at the bitten place with her tongue; these too glow red. "Like so. I think this is the smallest kind, but I need to read more."

She turns the page again.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:34 pm (UTC)

"That is really cool," Alice opines.

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I know," Bella enthuses. "This page is a chart of kinds of coins. There's five kinds, but Elias never quite got as far as making the star kind, at least not before he wrote this book... which he says was at least in part because using stars often goes very wrong. The other kinds work better and a hexagon's enough to grant permanent magical power. Not just the power to make coins..." She turns the page. "If I get hurt really bad - like enough that the hospital would have to remove something on the order of an entire foot or a lung or something to save me, under normal circumstances - then I can make a hexagon and use it to be able to fly, or turn invisible at will, or have super-strength. I could be a freaking comic book hero."

The next page has a drawing. She blinks at it and then covers it with her hand.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:38 pm (UTC)

Alice perks up and leans forward. "Ooh, what's that?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:40 pm (UTC)

Bella shuts her eyes, moves her hand, and turns around the book. "That's an illustration of how Elias made the hexagon I just used," she says.

It appears that Elias opted to stick his arm into a cage full of starving rats. A caption under the image explains that while this was agonizing, it also created numerous smallish wounds, each individually something he could take care of with a Second Coin instead of having to expend a Third.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Damn," he marvels. "Your great-whatever-grandpa was pretty hardcore."

self_composed
2012-09-17 09:49 pm (UTC)

Bella puts her hand back over the image and turns around to read the opposite page. "I suppose so," she says. "I wonder if I actually am related. There doesn't seem to be an index... Oh, that's convenient, a table of recommended methods for getting certain coins with ideal pain-to-injury and pain-to-coin ratios. Kind of outdated probably, still a useful reference."

She reads on, turning the old pages carefully. "Aha. He made the secret passage in his house so only his descendants could get into it, and his descendants would always be able to get into it - so even though there were walls put around what used to be the passageway, I can just walk right through them. But..."

She blinks at something in the book, then offers Alice a triangle. "I think you can use the coins. Up to and including using a hexagon to get your own magic powers if I'm ever able to produce one, or we find someone else who does magic and they'll give one over. You just can't get into the secret room is all. Try doing something with the triangle coin I made; those are cheap, I could make a dozen by poking the wire end of a spiral notebook binding twelve times."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 09:57 pm (UTC)

He leans forward, takes it, looks at it for a moment.

"A cheap coin probably only grants cheap-ass wishes, right? Mm..."

There's a folded sheet of paper in the back pocket of his jeans; it looks like it's been through at least one laundry cycle. He rolls it into a long, thin cylinder and looks at it, holding the coin.

The end of the cylinder catches fire. The coin is no more.

"...Huh," says Alice, pinching out the flame. "I just did magic."

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:01 pm (UTC)

Bella grins.

She looks down at the book again.

"Careful with stars, star wishes go wrong, if you get a star consider just never using it, etcetera etcetera... third-coins are enough to grant fantastic skill at a mundane thing, like speaking a language. You could break your arm and become decent at the piano, Alice." A page turns. It's not a very thick book, and Elias was liberal with his illustrations. "Seems like the square 'second coins' are where it's at for efficiency though. You can get them without doing actual injury - stepping on a Lego would do it, I bet - and they can do some really decent stuff if you apply them right..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:05 pm (UTC)

"See, I totally want your magic powers," he says cheerfully. "Ooh, what kind of stuff?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Break stuff, change stuff, conjure stuff out of nowhere, Elias apparently once made a neighbor he didn't like come over all warty forever, heal rat-bite-sized wounds apparently."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Awesome."

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm going to make a lot of those jobbies." Page turn. "This is his 'justice theory' on how it works. Which is silly, as it clearly works by fucking magic, but okay. Oh, he had several theories. Justice theory. Trading the equivalent of parts of your sentence in Hell for smaller and more manageable units of power than you can get for selling your entire soul." Page turn. "Celestial sphere theory. Artifacts from the Tower of Babel. I had a weird howevermanygreats-grandpa."

She turns another page.

"These are little profiles on some other coinmakers Elias knew..."

Page page page; apparently those don't much interest her right now.

"...And this one is a treasure map. Elias says, 'Dearest descendant, what remains of my legacy is hidden, but you may seek it if you have by your own efforts earned the power to do so and if you can disentangle this cipher, by magic or by intellect."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh my fucking god," says Alice. "Okay, so what we've learned today: you have magic powers, and I have an underground lair with a secret fucking passage – it's kind of fucked up that he built it so you'd fall two floors straight down, by the way, what's up with that – containing an actual fucking treasure map. When did we turn into the kids from The Magician's Nephew?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:20 pm (UTC)

"This afternoon. We turned into those kids sometime this afternoon," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:23 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"So, are you gonna take a crack at the treasure map? Maybe there's another hex there and I can get magic powers of my very own without you having to stick your arm in a cage full of rats."

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:25 pm (UTC)

Bella shudders. "Yeah, I'll poke at it - maybe Elias wasn't very good at ciphers and I can figure it out by looking up the history of cryptography on the Internet, who knows, I can try making some squares if I have to, I'll use the pentagon I made if necessary." She pauses. "I should've milked that broken leg for a few more of those. Damn."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:28 pm (UTC)

"You could break it again," Alice suggests philosophically. "I mean, you fixed it the once, so you know it works. Don't jump down the rabbit hole again, though, you might land on your head this time and that's harder to fix."

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's exactly the problem," Bella says. "Most of the ways I could break my leg on purpose are very scary things that I don't really care to casually do. I have a decent pain tolerance - I have to, I really do get hurt a lot, but I usually get hurt by accident. Once I had a broken leg I could stand to move it around a couple times. What do I do if I want to re-break it without risking landing on my head, though?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:32 pm (UTC)

"...uh," says Alice, because he can see a really obvious solution but he's not sure it's one she's going to like.

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Hand you a hammer?" Bella asks, suddenly quiet. "And ask nicely. I guess."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, also quiet. "That's what I was thinking."

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:35 pm (UTC)

"These are the most fucked-up magic powers ever."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Pretty much, yep."

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't think that's a project for today," Bella says. "I will pull out my old Legos and walk around on them some and see how far I can get that way."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Your call," says Alice. It's not usually the kind of thing he would bother to say, because it's just so obvious, but in this case he feels like establishing it very clearly.

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:41 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

"If I go on a magic treasure hunt," she says, "and there's a hex in the stash... and if I gave it to you... what would you do with the fucked-up magic powers?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:45 pm (UTC)

"...well, it kinda seems like my three wishes are star territory," he says. "Except the first one, I could get that if I just wished him off a cliff. So I'd probably just screw around with magic a lot and then give you the leftovers, because if I learn how to make magic wish coins out of my pain, there will be leftovers. I cannot think of enough superpowers to use up all the hexes I'd be making."

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:48 pm (UTC)

"There is probably some nonlethal solution," Bella says. "For instance, squares and up can make stuff. Can probably make - gold, which could be sold, even if it can't make non-counterfeit dollars. Fuckton of money versus fuckton of money is a different fight than fuckton of money versus dependent."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:50 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I'd kind of rather wish him off a cliff, but sure. I care that I get out way more than I care how."

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:52 pm (UTC)

Bella looks at the cipher. There is a map drawn on the two-page spread, but the map seems to encompass the entire Pacific Northwest, and she's going to need to figure out what these blocks of symbols mean to determine where on the map the stash is. Sigh.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 10:56 pm (UTC)

"You wanna put your magic book away and go see if Hilary will let us in her kitchen?"

self_composed
2012-09-17 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I guess the rest of this is a project for later."

It occurs to Bella as she gets up and puts the book in her knapsack: "I can stop being so careful! It's a net benefit if I fall down the stairs, except in the unlikely event that it kills me instantly or causes enough brain damage to make me unable to do more magic - and merely not being careful going up the stairs is not scary."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Hey, awesome," Alice says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-17 11:06 pm (UTC)

Bella trots up the stairs.

Generally trotting is reserved for people who aren't her!

And yet she does not fall.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 11:07 pm (UTC)

Laughing, Alice trots after her.

self_composed
2012-09-17 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Where will we find Hilary?" asks Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Kitchen, I bet."

self_composed
2012-09-17 11:09 pm (UTC)

Bella twirls once at the top of the stairs, thwacks her arm into the doorframe, and half-chokes-half-laughs as she displays and then pockets a square. "Kitchen it is!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 11:11 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles. In fact, when they reach the kitchen, he is still giggling.

"Goddess of cake!" he says, sticking his head in. "Hi can we cook stuff?"

"Hi!" says the aforementioned goddess, turning around to cast an amused glance over both of them. "I don't know, can you?"

Unlike the lady of the house, Hilary does not wear gowns for casual occasions. She is wearing a dress, but it's a cheerful blue gingham thing that makes her look like she belongs in a household product ad from the 1950s. The pink nail polish, ruffly white apron, and subtle but exquisitely applied makeup only bolster this impression.
Edited 2012-09-17 23:18 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-17 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Hilary! It's good to finally meet you. I can cook, but not as well as you. May I raid your recipe file?" Bella asks brightly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Bella, right?" Hilary beckons them both in with a sweep of her arm. "Charlie's favourite daughter. Doesn't like snails. Fond of my cake. Want to help me make one? No snails, I promise."

Alice leans against the counter and listens to all this with a big, big grin. He likes Hilary.

self_composed
2012-09-17 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Has he got more daughters I'm handily defeating without even knowing it?" Bella asks archly. "I would love to participate in snail-free cake."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-17 11:31 pm (UTC)

"If he does," says Hilary, "he's keeping quiet about 'em. Laney, make yourself useful and get the book, there's a dear. I don't really keep a recipe file," she explains to Bella. "I have books, and then I... innovate. Feel free to take notes."

"Cake book?" asks Alice. "Or the other cake book?"

"Well, that depends," says Hilary. "How adventurous are we feeling today?"

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:02 am (UTC)

Bella produces her brand new blank notebook and pen. "I'm feeling very adventurous today," she says earnestly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:03 am (UTC)

"Other cake book it is," says a very cheerful Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:04 am (UTC)

"So one of these cake books comes to us from the sunken ruins of a ghost ship in the Bermuda Triangle, is that it?" Bella inquires. "And the other was obtained at the library fundraiser for fifty cents?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:11 am (UTC)

"Well, one of these cake books is called Piece of Cake," says Hilary, "and the other one... is that one."

Alice closes a cupboard, turns around, and holds up a small, glossy recipe book. The cover is a high-quality photograph of a black forest cake topped with whipped cream coloured to resemble flames, on a red background, under the title Devilish Desserts.

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:12 am (UTC)

"Oooh," sighs Bella. "I probably don't even have the equipment to make some of those at home, let alone the skill."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:14 am (UTC)

"You probably don't," Hilary agrees. "Laney, any preferences? Why am I asking you, you never want things. Bella!" She makes a gesture that causes Alice to hand Bella the recipe book. "Pick something that looks tasty and/or frightening."

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:20 am (UTC)

"Ooh." Bella take the book and flips through. "Oooh-ooh-ooh. Are we ingredient-limited at all?" She stops at a page with a towering layer cake, cut open to reveal stripes of crumb and frosting under a thick coating of white rosettes. "Maple Caramel Coconut Butter Cake," Bella reads. "Wow."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:23 am (UTC)

"The sky's the limit," says Hilary. "We're freshly stocked."

Alice peers over Bella's shoulder at the picture. "I like that one," he announces.

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:23 am (UTC)

Bella laughs aloud. "This thing has three kinds of frosting in it! Let's do it!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:28 am (UTC)

"Excellent," says Hilary, clapping her hands. "Battle stations! Laney, put the book up."

Alice obligingly attaches the book to a convenient contraption on the door of the fridge and adjusts the clamps until all parts of the recipe are visible and the book isn't going to fall out anytime soon.

"Bella," Hilary continues in the meantime, "would you be so kind as to get me a large and a small mixing bowl out of that cupboard?" She points.

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:30 am (UTC)

Bella fetches mixing bowls as instructed. She bumps her head on the cupboard and does her best to be discreet in pocketing her new square.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:43 am (UTC)

"Careful there," says Hilary. (Alice snickers.) "Thank you, just set them down over there." She drifts over to the fridge and starts calling out ingredients to be assembled, carefully specifying where each one might be found. Alice hops to it.

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:44 am (UTC)

"Sorry, I'm just really terribly clumsy," Bella says. "I don't know if that's one of the things my dad mentioned." She helps find ingredients too, humming to herself quietly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:47 am (UTC)

"She has to sit out of gym in case she breaks something," Alice volunteers.

...And glances over at Bella, thoughtfully.

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:48 am (UTC)

"I might try getting back in when we switch from volleyball to badminton!" Bella says brightly. "Badminton's probably pretty safe!"

Not for her, but she can probably convince Ms. Finch if she immediately fixes any bruises and scratches she collects.
Edited 2012-09-18 00:49 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:51 am (UTC)

"Knock yourself out," says a grinning Alice.

"Less casual sadism, more butter," says Hilary, handing him a block of butter and a knife.

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:53 am (UTC)

"Knocking myself out would be an undesirable outcome," hums Bella, fetching shaved coconut from the fridge.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 12:58 am (UTC)

"All right, I will make the caramel," says Hilary. "Can you two manage the first round of dry ingredients by yourselves?"

"Probably," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-18 12:58 am (UTC)

"I think so," Bella agrees, looking at the recipe.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:01 am (UTC)

"Then get to it!"

"Yes ma'am," says Alice, laughing. He moves over to where things such as flour have been lined up next to the large mixing bowl.

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:03 am (UTC)

Bella starts scooping measuring cups into containers. In the presence of the cake deity, she even bothers to sift the flour.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:05 am (UTC)

Hilary busies herself at the stove with butter, sugar, and the mysteries of the cosmos. Alice pours things and fetches other things and lends his supply of muscle power to the task of stirring. All in all, it is a very cheerful kitchen.

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:07 am (UTC)

When the cake's several layers are each in the oven, and the various frostings are in their bowls and in the piping bag ready for application, Bella leans with a happy sigh against the counter. "Well," she says. "That's that, for the next thirty to thirty-five minutes."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:11 am (UTC)

"Job well done," Hilary agrees. "And would you look at that," she opens a drawer with one hand and picks up a pot off the stove with the other, "leftover caramel and three spoons. Dig in, kids."

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:12 am (UTC)

Bella laughs gleefully and takes a spoon - and a big scraping of caramel from the bowl, too.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:21 am (UTC)

Alice waits until Hilary has taken her spoonful before he grabs his. Of course, that means he gets to go all the way around the bottom and end up with a glob of caramel on his spoon that looks like it is about to fall off any second.

Nom!

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:23 am (UTC)

"I don't think I ever got to the point of seeing your favorite book," Bella remarks to Alice. "I became distracted by that other book and then we wandered off."
Edited 2012-09-18 01:23 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:25 am (UTC)

He swallows his current mouthful of caramel and says, "That is very true! Wanna go give it another shot? With less falling this time?"

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:26 am (UTC)

"Yes, I'll have to be more careful given the state of your floor," chuckles Bella. She licks her spoon clean and puts it in the dishwasher.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:30 am (UTC)

"Yep." He sticks his spoon in his mouth again, pulls it out nearly free of caramel, drops it in the dishwasher, waves to Hilary, and leads the way out of the kitchen.

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:31 am (UTC)

Bella follows him up to his room, trying to lope like she hasn't spent her life fearing falling.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:37 am (UTC)

This time, he kicks old laundry aside to clear a path from the door to the desk under the window, then reaches up to grab a book down from the shelf above the desk.

It's quite a small book.

The title of the book is: Repent, Harlequin! said the Ticktockman.

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:37 am (UTC)

Bella plucks the book out of his hand and opens it up. "What's it about?" she asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:42 am (UTC)

...He cracks up.

If she looks at the first page, she will find out why:

There are always those who ask, what is it all about? For those who need to ask, for those who need points sharply made, who need to know "where it's at," this:
"The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purposes as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs.
Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it."
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:44 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "Can I borrow this?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:45 am (UTC)

"Go for it! If there's a book that is my brain, it's that book," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:47 am (UTC)

"I don't know what I'd say if I had to pick a book to represent my brain," Bella says. "I like old literary fiction, but it doesn't mirror me, it's just fun to read."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 01:49 am (UTC)

"You have, like, a hundred books that represent your brain," Alice points out, perching on a corner of his bed. "Literally."

self_composed
2012-09-18 01:57 am (UTC)

"Oh. I guess that's perfectly true," laughs Bella. "For some reason that didn't occur to me. They're in the background."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:00 am (UTC)

He looks across the debris field at the brick chimney set into the opposite wall.

"...Now that I know you can fall through that thing, it's kind of creeping me out," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:02 am (UTC)

She sits on his bed, safely away from the bricks. "I don't think putting another barrier in front of it would even help. It's magicked to let me in."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:06 am (UTC)

"Yeah, let you in and then let you fall straight to the basement," he says. "Were there any skeletons of previous descendants down there?"

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:07 am (UTC)

"The only thing in the room was a weird sourceless probably-magic glow, and the book and the hex."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:13 am (UTC)

"Great, now I'm imagining that the floor down there eats skeletons," he says. "...Stop me if I'm creeping you out."

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:14 am (UTC)

Bella laughed. "I don't think so. I think Elias Frobisher just didn't have a lot of descendants who happened to wander into the house. It's a two-story fall - it could kill me if I dove headfirst, but it wouldn't be too likely." She shrugged. "For practical reasons he wasn't really concerned about being injured, himself - maybe the point of the fall is specifically so what happened to me was possible."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:20 am (UTC)

"Well, it's definitely one way to make sure whoever finds the book would use it," he says, rubbing the back of his head and looking half-suspiciously, half-admiringly at the chimney.

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:22 am (UTC)

"It does seem like it could backfire, though. Anyone can use the coin and there was only the one in there. I could have wasted it fixing my leg if I'd been a slightly different person." She glances at her backpack, currently on the floor. "I guess that's what the stash is for."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:28 am (UTC)

"Yeah, something like that."

He grins. He can't help it.

Actual magic powers.

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:29 am (UTC)

She grins back, and giggles, and then laughs aloud. Not at all maniacally.

A little bit maniacally.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:35 am (UTC)

"You're totally gonna take over the world," Alice predicts.

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:36 am (UTC)

"Maybe," sings Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:41 am (UTC)

"You are. I'm falling in love with you again," he declares.

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:43 am (UTC)

Bella laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and bites her own hand to keep from laughing, and a triangle appears between her first and middle fingers.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:47 am (UTC)

Alice actually hugs himself with glee.

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:49 am (UTC)

This just sends Bella into another paroxysm of giggles. She gets another triangle out of biting her hand, then chomps harder and gets a square.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:53 am (UTC)

...It's kind of...

Where'd he put that notebook she gave him? He gets up to look for it.

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:54 am (UTC)

Bella watches this with interest, releasing her hand from her teeth. She puts the coins in her pocket, which now contains enough that the glow is visible through the material. She frowns at this, and then puts her accumulation in the thicker backpack.
Edited 2012-09-18 02:55 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 02:57 am (UTC)

"So," he says, digging in the laundry drifts near the chimney, "will it creep you out if I say it's kinda hot when you do that?"

self_composed
2012-09-18 02:59 am (UTC)

"Nah," Bella says. "It would only escalate to creepitude if you started swatting me without me signing up for that - whether you were doing it because it's hot or to try to steal the coins or because I annoyed you or whatever."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 03:02 am (UTC)

"Okay, good. 'Cause it's kinda hot when you do that."

There it is! As he predicted, under a couple of shirts that he kicked aside while he was clearing a path to the desk for Bella. He holds it up triumphantly, then swings by the desk to grab a pen.

self_composed
2012-09-18 03:03 am (UTC)

Bella cranes her neck slightly so she'll be able to see what he writes, but if he's not interested in showing her she's not going to make a fuss.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 03:08 am (UTC)

"What, you wanna watch?" he asks, following the movement. "Sure."

He looks between the desk and the bed for a moment, and then takes option c) none of the above and sits on the floor at her feet.

self_composed
2012-09-18 03:10 am (UTC)

"Mm-hm. If you don't mind." Bella peers over his shoulder.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 03:34 am (UTC)

"Nah, go for it," he says easily, tipping his head back to grin at her upside-down. "That's the point, right?"

At the top of the very first page of the notebook, he writes: but why is it hot?

self_composed
2012-09-18 03:36 am (UTC)

Bella mulls over whether to be helpful. He doesn't have any practice at this yet. "Would it be hot if I did the same things and no coins happened? Or if the coins happened some other way?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 11:41 am (UTC)

"...yeah," he says. "But not as hot, either way."

So that's two lines dropping down from the main topic. At the end of one he writes: you were laughing; at the end of the other, his pen pauses. Then he goes back up and draws a third line. The two other subpoints, apparently, are it hurt and you're gonna take over the world.

He goes back and crosses out 'laughing', replacing it with having fun for a more general case. Then he circles 'you're gonna take over the world' and draws a question mark beside it.

self_composed
2012-09-18 05:07 pm (UTC)

Bella grins and supervises. The next question is whether those things, too, are hot in themselves - and whether they all add up to the correct amount of hot - but maybe he's got a different idea, or he'll come up with that one himself.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure about this one," he says, tapping 'you're gonna take over the world' with the end of his pen. "I mean, it's true and it's hot and it's obviously related but I'm not sure it's exactly the right thing. You know?"

self_composed
2012-09-18 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm," Bella agrees. She thinks, tapping her cheek with one forefinger. "Maybe that I can now take over the world, or that I'm the sort of person who really might, or something about what you think I'll do with it once it is all mine?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what you're gonna do with the world when you've got it, that's like half the fun," he says with a laugh. "But I think it's more the first one. Like..."

He crosses out that item and writes beneath it, you have magic powers!

self_composed
2012-09-18 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Would any magic powers do the trick?" Bella laughs. "If I were a Japanese cartoon character and I changed into a frilly costume by saying something like, I don't know, 'luminous star mysticism awaken!', and then I could use the Japanese cartoon equivalent of a Care Bear Stare..."
Edited 2012-09-18 20:42 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 08:45 pm (UTC)

Alice cracks up.

"That would be hilarious. And also kind of hot. But not as hot. By the way, if I ever get magic powers of my very own, you are getting Care Bear powers."

But he draws a little arrow out from between 'have' and 'magic' to specify that the magic powers are also: (sexy!)

self_composed
2012-09-18 08:48 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers. "Please be careful trying to give me extra super-abilities, even if they're just silly things. Elias concentrated his warnings around the stars, but the hexes can apparently go wrong too if you don't know enough about what you're doing."

She turns her attention back to his notebook. She wants to see what he does next.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I promise not to turn you into a Care Bear," he says cheerfully, and looks down at the page again. After a thoughtful moment, he circles 'it hurt' and 'you were laughing having fun' and draws a double-ended arrow between those two.

self_composed
2012-09-18 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps disappointingly, I don't have your kink," Bella tells him. "I'm pretty darn sure of that. But triangle- to square-level pain doesn't ruin my sense of humor, and even fucked-up magic powers are still magic powers."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I know," he says. "But it matters that you were getting hurt and having fun at the same time even if you didn't like it the way I would."

self_composed
2012-09-18 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Huh, okay," says Bella agreeably. "Anything else?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Mmmm." He drums the pen against the paper. "Dunno."

self_composed
2012-09-18 09:16 pm (UTC)

"You seem to like it when I have opportunities to decide things," Bella remarks. "Magic powers - not to mention taking over the world - both provide more of that. Any magic power would provide that, but the wishes are flexible - and I have to choose to make a tradeoff to get them each time, not just buy them in rolls from the bank and decide how to spend 'em."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 09:23 pm (UTC)

"...huh," he says. "Yeah. I mean, not the tradeoff thing exactly, but part of what makes them sexy magic powers is that you can do anything you want with them. And the fact that they're made of pain is a pretty nice bonus."

Something occurs to him.

He rips a corner off the page, reaches into Bella's backpack, grabs a triangle, and wishes the tiny scrap of paper on fire.

"Okay, so apparently it doesn't matter if you give me the coin or I just take it," he observes, putting it out. "That's probably good to know."

self_composed
2012-09-18 09:26 pm (UTC)

"That does matter," says Bella, frowning and pulling out her notebook. "I'm going to make a long, long list of nice generic things to do with coins of all sizes, and find some way to wear them on my person at all times, so if it looks like I'm going to get mugged I can deplete the supply, usefully and instantly." She shakes her head. "But I have to sleep - at least until I have a hex to drop on making that go away - and should probably try not to keep too many of the big ones around. Someone who doesn't know what they're dealing with won't likely think to wish on a random glowing coin, but if they do, anything good-sized could be trouble."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 09:28 pm (UTC)

"How big a coin would you need to lock up your backpack so only you can get into it?" he wonders. "Or, like, a box or something."

self_composed
2012-09-18 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. Possibly a pentagon, but it might take a hex - I don't know how Elias did the secret room, but I don't need quite that much sophistication necessarily. I don't want them in my backpack, though. They have to be touching me so I can use them, and I'd like them accessible in an emergency - if my car skids on the ice, I want to undo that right then, rather than dig around for a square in my bag in the backseat. I need a necklace or a bracelet or something."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 09:35 pm (UTC)

"You could make it, like, invisible to people who aren't you?" he suggests. "And if I get powers and you end up buried in hexes, you can keep those all locked up in one place."

self_composed
2012-09-18 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Invisible necklace," agrees Bella. "Yes, that's a good idea. I think I can do that with a pentagon. If I can't, I'm in trouble, since I don't have a hex."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 09:40 pm (UTC)

"But if it turns out that making the necklace invisible doesn't make stuff you put on it afterward invisible too," he continues musingly, "you'll be kinda screwed what with the glowy red things hanging from your neck on an invisible chain. It's a shame you've only got the one pentagon or you could just try it. See? This is why I should have magic powers."

self_composed
2012-09-18 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I think I saw something about..." She scoops out Elias's book again, and flip-flip-flips, and stops. "Here. If I wish for something that my coin of choice isn't big enough to handle, it just doesn't work. If I wish on a pentagon for a chain that I can make coins appear directly on and that will extend invisibility to those coins, then I'll either get that or it won't work." She taps the book a couple times. "I wonder if that's why stars fuck up so much - they are big enough for anything, so people don't have to be thoughtful about the exact wish?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 09:45 pm (UTC)

Alice draws a little heart on the bottom of the page, separate from previous material, and writes you're smart beside it.

"That makes a lot of sense," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-18 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I think having the invisible chain is pretty important. If I haven't thought of something more important, or a better solution to the same problem, by the time I leave here today, then I'll use the pentagon for that."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 09:53 pm (UTC)

'You're smart' gets a little arrow pointing to the addendum, you think of things, which in turn gets another little heart.

"Sounds like a good plan," he adds, somewhat redundantly, out loud.

self_composed
2012-09-18 10:33 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles. She is not immune to flattery and has never troubled to render herself so.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 10:34 pm (UTC)

He looks up at her, spots the smile, and grins.

self_composed
2012-09-18 10:42 pm (UTC)

Bella picks up her backpack and starts counting the coins. She has one pentagon, and three of the squares and two of the triangles. She wonders if she can get heaps of the triangles just by putting a lot of pepper in her food.

Just to see if it would work, she tries wishing for her invisible and invisibling chain on a square. It remains where it is. "Okay, so that is going to take a pentagon," she says.
Edited 2012-09-18 22:43 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 10:45 pm (UTC)

"The necklace?" he hazards.

self_composed
2012-09-18 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I don't doubt I could make a plain chain with a square, but the permanent invisibility power is apparently a big deal."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 10:49 pm (UTC)

"It would be," he says, shrugging.

...A thought strikes, and he giggles.

"Does the book say anything about what kind of coin you'd need to wish for, like, a bunch of small things at once?"

self_composed
2012-09-18 10:51 pm (UTC)

Bella flips to the Helpful Charts section and scans it.

"Elias seems to prefer a strategy of handling small things one at a time with small coins, like his rat bites," she says. "But if you need to do a lot lot of small things, you probably want to cover that with a permanent skill or power from a pentagon or hexagon. And if they're really small, you might be able to handle a bunch in one shot with a square. Why?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Read the book first," he says. "I don't wanna spoil it. You'll know when you get there."

self_composed
2012-09-18 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Are you aware," Bella says, "that I don't like mysteries?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 10:57 pm (UTC)

"It's a really short book," he says. "You could probably get to the right part before the cake's even done."

self_composed
2012-09-18 10:58 pm (UTC)

Bella looks at him, and then puts the magic book away and pulls out Alice's favorite instead. She opens it up again and begins to read.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 11:38 pm (UTC)

Alice tilts his head back and watches her upside-down.

This is a poor long-term strategy, though, so after a minute he turns all the way around.

self_composed
2012-09-18 11:40 pm (UTC)

It is a short book, and Bella does read fast.

"Well," she says. "I think Harlan Ellison was terribly annoyed with being hurried along - and I think he would have written a different story if his circumstances were instead prone to leaving him waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for someone who didn't care about his wasted time."
Edited 2012-09-18 23:40 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Probably, yeah. But I like the way he wrote it," he says cheerfully. "So yeah, I wanna make a rain of jelly beans."

self_composed
2012-09-18 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Property damage," Bella says. "Possibly injury or death, if there are too many of them. Certainly disruptions of schedules, some of which are actually important - there is a reason ambulances are allowed to speed. Gosh, with results like that, who wouldn't want a rain of jellybeans?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-18 11:52 pm (UTC)

He sticks out his tongue. "Ruin all my fun, why don'tcha. Well, it doesn't matter that much to me if I rain jelly beans on people or not. I could rain jelly beans in the middle of nowhere and confuse the hell out of the next hiker."

self_composed
2012-09-18 11:54 pm (UTC)

"You'd probably do some damage to the local ecosystem, but at that point I'm just nitpicking," shrugs Bella. "But... The combination of you having this kind of idea and how impulsive I have seen you be doesn't add up to 'this person definitely needs magic powers'. I don't think raining the jelly beans in the woods was your first idea. I might want to extract some kind of agreement that if I give you a hex to turn into coinmaking abilities you run anything pentagon-sized and up by me first."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:00 am (UTC)

"...Okay, but we'd better make some kind of magic instant checking-my-stupid-ideas-with-Bella system, because if I'm off in Nevada or whatever and I have an idea I like that much, I'm not waiting for you to answer your phone. I'm just not."

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:01 am (UTC)

"Sure, you can make us some hexes and bam, instant telepathy," Bella says lightly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:09 am (UTC)

Alice blinks.

And smiles, slowly.

"Oh, I like it," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:10 am (UTC)

"Purely communicative telepathy," Bella says. "At least as concerns the contents of my brain departing it. Select notebook contents are it in that department; my thoughts are mine."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:12 am (UTC)

He waves a hand in a gesture of agreement/dismissal. "Sure, but you'd be okay with you reading my mind, right?"

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:13 am (UTC)

She blinks at him.

"If that's something you want to hand me, I'm not going to complain about it," she says slowly. "Provided you word it in such a way that we don't wind up creepily sharing dreams or anything - I want to be able to put that sort of thing on pause, is what I'm saying."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:15 am (UTC)

Alice laughs.

"No shit," he agrees. "My brain is definitely a place you'd wanna be able to back out of in a hurry. But I mean, it's the same as the notebook thing," he lifts his up and wiggles it a little, "but better."

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:17 am (UTC)

Bella nods cheerfully. She taps her own notebook with her pen and starts writing Charts of her own, for ways to quickly use up any coins that are in danger of being stolen, and depleting excessively tempting stashes. Me able to read pinball wizard's mind, is one of the items under "hexagon", along with "flight" and "no need for sleep" and "todo: look up list of X-Men".

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:20 am (UTC)

"Whatcha doin' up there?" he wonders.

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:22 am (UTC)

She shows him the list in progress. The pentagon list has "languages (various)" and "musical talent" and "(after masochistic magic-generator exists only) remove clumsiness?" and "cook like Hilary!".

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:24 am (UTC)

"Wolverine," he says when he gets to the entry about X-Men.

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:25 am (UTC)

"That's the one with the retractable claws? Do you really want to go around with claws in your arms all the time?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:27 am (UTC)

"Well, that would be kind of cool, but I was thinking more the healing factor," he says. "So you can just hurt yourself over and over and not use up a bunch of wishes fixing it afterward. ...I guess maybe I want that more than you do."

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:28 am (UTC)

"Oh, a healing power," agrees Bella, pulling back the notebook to write that down and point an arrow from it to the very top of the list. "That would be useful, but yes, more for you than me."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:31 am (UTC)

"And probably you'd want to be able to, like... hold it off," he adds. "So you didn't have to keep your arm in the cage of rats or whatever, and in case you break your arm in front of a bunch of people and don't wanna be hauled off to a lab or something."

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:35 am (UTC)

"Right," Bella agrees, adding a "(voluntary postponement option)" note next to the item. "But having this list is mostly not useful until we have surplus coins in these ranges, which will take until I get into a spectacular accident, or we find Elias's stash and it has a hex in it, or it doesn't have a hex in it and we engineer that level of harm." She says the last with gritted teeth. "Or I chicken out and try to take over the world with squares and occasional pentagons, even though that would be harder and less fun."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:36 am (UTC)

"I hope it has a hex in it," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:37 am (UTC)

"Yes. I also hope that it has a hex in it," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:38 am (UTC)

"I mean, I can think of lots of ways to get around not having a cage full of rats handy," he says. "But you probably don't wanna do any of 'em."

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:39 am (UTC)

"No, go ahead and tell me, I might as well try to get used to whatever one of the ideas is best in case there isn't a hex," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:42 am (UTC)

"...Do you actually want me to sit here listing ways I could hurt you really badly," he says—phrased as a question, but delivered without the intonation that would make it one.

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:43 am (UTC)

"Start with whatever's tamest, we'll see if I squeak and run away," sighs Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:47 am (UTC)

"I am bad at tame," says Alice, inarguably. "Okay, well, first one that comes to mind, I could just get a knife and keep cutting you until you hit the right level of hurt. Which we'd know because you'd be raining hexes instead of pentagons."

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:48 am (UTC)

"Do you know enough about anatomy to avoid me bleeding out?" Her voice is level, though she doesn't look thrilled about the topic.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:53 am (UTC)

"Probably," he says. "Which brings me to option two: fire."

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:54 am (UTC)

"That one sounds even harder to keep under control," Bella says, scrunching her eyes closed tightly. "I think I can listen to one more possibility and then I want to stop."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 12:57 am (UTC)

"Well, I don't mean set you on fire," he says. "Chemical burns sound any better?"

self_composed
2012-09-19 12:58 am (UTC)

"Yes, actually," Bella says. "Or maybe extreme cold. Liquid nitrogen or dry ice or something." She manages a very weak smile. "Coin requires pain, not utter terror."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:02 am (UTC)

"It's harder to get that stuff, though," he says. "And liquid nitrogen does not hurt as much as a cigarette burn, I'll tell you that right now."

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:04 am (UTC)

"Well," she says. "That's good to know. I don't think a cigarette burn would do more than a pentagon, though."

She swallows, and picks up Elias's book and glances at the Helpful Charts, then puts it down again. "I wonder if the cake is done," she murmurs. "And ready to be frosted, even."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:06 am (UTC)

"Sooo we're done talking about hurting you, then," says Alice. "Okay. I bet it is, actually. Wanna go check?"

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:07 am (UTC)

"Yes, I do," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:09 am (UTC)

"Okay."

He stands up, tosses his notebook and pen on the desk, and heads for the door, kicking laundry out of his way as he goes.

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:10 am (UTC)

"I was under the impression that Hilary's title was 'housekeeper', not just 'cook', though she'd certainly be worth retaining as the latter - does she keep out of your room or are you just very, very fast?" Bella asks, following.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:14 am (UTC)

"She gave up on my room," he says. "The parents let her. Once in a while when my dad wants something to be pissed off about he sticks his head in and yells at me about my floor."

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:15 am (UTC)

Bella snickers quietly, and trots down the stairs towards the kitchen, sniffing the air for maple-caramel-coconut-butter-cake.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:18 am (UTC)

Grinning, he follows.

When they reach the kitchen, Hilary is arranging the various layers along the counter.

"Just in time to be ordered around some more," she says without turning around.

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:18 am (UTC)

"Yes ma'am!" Bella says smartly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:21 am (UTC)

"That's what I like to hear! You get to handle the caramel. Laney, you can haul cake around."

"Sure," he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:22 am (UTC)

Bella handles caramel. She stubs her toe once, and her hands are covered with caramel; if a coin appears, Alice can't see where.
Edited 2012-09-19 01:22 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:27 am (UTC)

He does notice the toe-stubbing, and spends a brief moment wondering if she managed to make any coins out of it. There aren't that many places one might have appeared. Maybe she didn't. Or maybe it went to a place that is conducive to creating more coins and wow he is stopping that train of thought right there. Luckily, he has cake-lifting to distract him.

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:28 am (UTC)

Frost frost frost. Ice ice ice. Hum hum hum. If Bella's new coin exists and is making her uncomfortable, this doesn't show on her face.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:29 am (UTC)

Good! That means he can just forget about it. Forgetting about it is a great plan.

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:32 am (UTC)

Bella isn't very good at icing rosettes like those that go on the outside of this cake - it's not a task friendly to slippery hands or shaky arms - so she lets Hilary do that, but she watches the technique carefully.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:32 am (UTC)

So does Alice!

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:33 am (UTC)

And with all the roses in place, the adventure cake is complete.

"Mm," Bella says. "Is this for after dinner?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:35 am (UTC)

"Yes it is," says Hilary. "And you can take some home, too, if that strikes your fancy. In the meantime, who wants to help me make spaghetti?"

"Me!" says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:36 am (UTC)

"Is spaghetti a multi-person job?" Bella asks. "I'm happy to help, especially if this is fancy Hilary-the-cake-goddess spaghetti, but I'm not sure how extra hands would be useful."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:38 am (UTC)

"It is fancy spaghetti," she says, "and I'm sure I can find a use for you."

"By help she mostly means get in her way and learn things," Alice translates.

"That too."

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:39 am (UTC)

"Ooh, learning things," says Bella. She has her notebook in her pocket. She removes it from her pocket.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:43 am (UTC)

"I don't know why your father won't let you do this the rest of the time," Hilary mutters, presumably not to Bella, as she fetches another cookbook.

"Because he is kind of an asshole?" suggests Alice.

"No comment." She puts the book in the book-holding contraption.

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:44 am (UTC)

"You're not allowed to cook when he's home?" Bella asks. She peers at the recipe. Huh, fennel seeds.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 01:44 am (UTC)

"Nope. Too girly," Alice says succinctly.

self_composed
2012-09-19 01:46 am (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"Housewifery is traditionally girly. Chefs are traditionally men."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 10:40 am (UTC)

"I tried telling him that," says Hilary. "And yet."

Alice shrugs. "Maybe he thinks I like it for the wrong reasons."

self_composed
2012-09-19 05:18 pm (UTC)

Since Bella herself has critiqued some of Alice's behaviors on the grounds that he likes them for wrong reasons (among others), she doesn't have a good reply there, at least not when Hilary's around.

She just sighs an exasperated sigh and hopes there's a hex in the stash.
Edited 2012-09-19 17:19 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 08:15 pm (UTC)

Making spaghetti with Hilary is both fun and informative. She clearly gets along very well with Alice, and he is clearly very fond of her.

At last, it's all done and ready to eat.

"Laney, would you go grab your mother for me? Bella, help me carry everything to the table?"

"Sure," says Alice, and departs.

self_composed
2012-09-19 08:15 pm (UTC)

Bella ferries dishes, inhaling appreciatively.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 08:20 pm (UTC)

Hilary handles the enormous pot of spaghetti herself, perhaps because she fears that Bella might drop it, and arranges the plates; she lets Bella take care of setting out cutlery and bowls of sauce. No place is set at the head of the table, but there are two places along each side, to a total of four; apparently, Hilary gets to eat with the family tonight.

By the time they're finished, Alice is back with his mother in tow.
Edited 2012-09-19 20:20 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-19 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Hello again," Bella says cheerfully. "We made spaghetti and an evil cake."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Oooh," says Mrs. Hammond. "Well, I'm glad you've been keeping busy."

She takes her accustomed seat, as does Alice. Hilary sits beside Mrs. Hammond.

self_composed
2012-09-19 08:24 pm (UTC)

Bella places the last fork and sits down. She splashed a little sauce on her hand during the cooking process - earning her a triangle and an early taste - and she knows exactly how nice this is going to be.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 08:38 pm (UTC)

It is exactly that nice.

"You're the best, Hilary," Alice declares after his first bite.

Hilary beams. Smugly. "I know."

self_composed
2012-09-19 08:40 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles around a mouthful of spaghetti and nods enthusiastically.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 09:30 pm (UTC)

Dinner ensues. Apparently everyone is too busy with the deliciousness to talk much, because the conversation is almost nonexistent.

When all plates are empty and no one is eyeing the pot for seconds, thirds, fourths, or fifths, Hilary gets up to go fetch the cake. Contrary to last time, she serves it right at the table, which means everyone gets to request the size of their slice.

"Judith?"

Mrs. Hammond eyes the cake with mild trepidation. "Ooh, just a little one, please."

"There you go. Laney?"

He measures out dimensions in the air that amount to twice the cake his mother got.

"Done deal, you glutton. Bella?"

self_composed
2012-09-19 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... I can take some home, you said. So somewhere between those two sizes."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Your wish is my command," says Hilary, causing Alice to giggle uncontrollably.

self_composed
2012-09-19 09:37 pm (UTC)

Bella takes only a moment to grin at Alice before taking her first bite of cake. And oh, it is an evil cake.
Edited 2012-09-19 21:38 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 09:39 pm (UTC)

It is evilly delicious.

Hilary takes a slice about the size of Bella's and sits down again.

self_composed
2012-09-19 09:40 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom nom.

"This is the best thing," Bella announces.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 09:41 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty fucking good," Alice concurs. His mother rolls her eyes, but doesn't caution him about his language.

self_composed
2012-09-19 09:47 pm (UTC)

"How much of it can I bring with me?" Bella asks. "I'm sure my dad will love it too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 09:49 pm (UTC)

"In that case, half," says Hilary. "Of what's left."

self_composed
2012-09-19 09:49 pm (UTC)

Bella is very pleased with this.

She finishes her slice and looks at Alice to see if he's still working on his.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 09:54 pm (UTC)

Yes.

And then, very shortly, no.

self_composed
2012-09-19 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Up we go again?" Bella asks. She doubts that rules about asking to be excused apply when Mr. Hammond is gone.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Alice. "Bye guys!"

With a general wave, he departs the table. "Have fun," Mrs. Hammond calls after them, to a snort from Hilary.

self_composed
2012-09-19 10:24 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers. And goes up the stairs.

Back in the privacy of Alice's room, Bella says, "I shouldn't stay very late. Charlie'll worry. But let's think if there are any more urgent pentagon-level things to do besides the necklace. And..." She takes off one of her shoes and peels back her sock, revealing accumulated triangles. She puts them with the others.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Nice," says Alice, perching on a corner of his bed. "Okay, so what kind of stuff would be urgent?"

self_composed
2012-09-19 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, for example," Bella says, "it might turn out that the cipher is really complicated and takes me weeks to crack, or heavy-duty magic that I'm not currently ready to generate. You might want the pentagon for emergencies during that time. I'll give you some squares and triangles either way. In case you need them," she adds softly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 10:31 pm (UTC)

That... is way more unexpected than it should have been.

Alice smiles.

"Thanks."

self_composed
2012-09-19 10:37 pm (UTC)

"How long is he going to be gone?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 10:42 pm (UTC)

"'Bout a week."

self_composed
2012-09-19 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Mkay." Bella closes her eyes. "I wonder if the triangles can make any amount of progress on the cipher? If so I can probably do the whole thing with a pair of tweezers pulling out leg hairs or something. I honestly know nothing about cryptanalysis." She picks up one of the triangles that she brought into existence near her foot, and pulls out Elias's book and turns to the cipher/map.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 10:49 pm (UTC)

Alice watches curiously.

self_composed
2012-09-19 10:53 pm (UTC)

Bella tries a series of wishes regarding the cipher on her triangle. Wishes for this letter to be decrypted - wishes for the cipher key - wishes for a hint, a clue, for a single pixel of same to appear on the page.

The triangle stays put.

"So much for that." She puts it away and takes out a square.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if it's even solvable," says Alice. "...I wonder if you could use a wish to check. How big a thing is the answer to a question?"

self_composed
2012-09-19 10:57 pm (UTC)

Bella flips to Helpful Charts. "I'd be really surprised if he went to all this trouble to lie to someone he'd never meet," Bella says. "Hmmm... all the purely information based stuff that's listed is pentagon and up. Vocabulary words for magically acquired languages, and whatnot." She tosses the square into the air, and catches it. "What seems like a good test question? What do you want to know?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:00 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," he says. "Why not just ask it that one and see what happens?"

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:01 pm (UTC)

"You want me to test the square's information gathering powers by asking it if it has any?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:01 pm (UTC)

"No, but that's awesome and you totally should!"

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:02 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. She tries it.

The square continues to exist.

"Argh."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:03 pm (UTC)

"So much for that," he says, but he's laughing.

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:06 pm (UTC)

"A pentagon ought to be able to give me permanent cryptanalysis expertise," Bella reasons. "Maybe the square can do a temporary version of the same thing, even if it can't answer direct questions." She tries this.

The square disappears, and she blinks, and dives for her notebook. "I have no idea how long this lasts - pen, pen - where's a - there -" She finds a pen and starts flicking her eyes rapidly back and forth between cipher symbols and her growing list of notes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:09 pm (UTC)

Alice shuts up and watches.

...It's really cool.

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:10 pm (UTC)

Bella is muttering to herself rather madly. "Not enough for good frequency analysis - original spacing? Is it English-based, even? Numerical symbols..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:14 pm (UTC)

It is really cool. Alice is not even sure what he's feeling right now, but he likes it.

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:15 pm (UTC)

The temporary skill wears off before Bella has even transcribed the entire alphabet of the cipher. Her pen stutters to a halt.

"Okay," she says, clearly not liking the disappearance of the skill. "So. If nothing else, there's that. I can afford to blow the pentagon on the necklace because I don't need a pentagon in particular for the cipher..." She looks at her notes. "Even if it would be more efficient that way."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," he says. "One pentagon from me would be more efficient than a shitload of squares, but you are obviously not into the idea of breaking your own leg and you seem to make squares pretty easily, so it kinda seems like they're more... fuck, what's the word... cost-effective. If all you wanna do is read that one map."

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Right." She shudders. "I just really don't like the feeling when all the knowledge goes out of my brain... and I don't know how many times I'd have to do it. Ten times? That's probably still better than handing over a hammer. Thirty? Not sure."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Huh," he says, and thinks about it.

"...Can I try?"

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

Bella smacks herself in the forehead. Not even hard enough to get a triangle, but still. "Yes. Yes, please do." She hands over one of the remaining squares, the in-progress decryption, and the cipher.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:30 pm (UTC)

Alice makes a wish.

"Whoa, rush," he says, and starts writing. Unlike Bella, he doesn't say anything, but he frequently draws things—charts, diagrams, sketches of parts of the map. Sometimes he writes new things down directly on top of old things. It's kind of a mess. He keeps the actual decryption reasonably neat, though, except when he makes a mistake and has to scribble something out.

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:31 pm (UTC)

When he slows down, Bella hands him the last square, and starts biting her hand again. She gets squares about half the time, triangles the rest of it.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:40 pm (UTC)

He grabs it and wishes again. Torn-out notebook pages with things scribbled on them are starting to accumulate around him, and the cipher is nearing completion.

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:41 pm (UTC)

Bella continues supplying him with squares as necessary, biting her hand as much out of anticipation as out of a desire to generate wishes.

She's probably going to develop all manner of self-destructive habits.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:47 pm (UTC)

Near the end, he does start muttering to himself.

"Then why the fuck is the map so big? Probably because he's an asshole." Another, much cleaner sketch, narrowing down to an area that encompasses Forks, the house, and some wilderness. And then, before his latest dose of cryptography juice runs dry, he grabs another square and draws a map. Perfectly precise, showing just enough of the surrounding area to matter.

The map has an X on it.

Alice drops his pen.

"Fuck me," he says, rubbing his head, "I feel like my brain just got hit by a bus."

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:49 pm (UTC)

"In a good way?" Bella asks, peering at the map. The X is within driving distance, but it might be a day trip. "Tomorrow's Saturday and your dad will still be out of town. We can go then."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "And I dunno, it's not hot or anything, it's just weird."

After a brief pause, he clarifies, "I mean it doesn't hurt or anything."

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Tomorrow it is," Bella says, taking back Elias's book and comparing Alice's analysis to the original. "That took fewer squares than I expected. Nicely done."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-19 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, I guess," he says. "I used up an extra one so I could draw the map that well. I figured we didn't want to end up in the wrong place because I scribble."

self_composed
2012-09-19 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Right," Bella laughs. "Tomorrow morning? I'll pick you up at nine-thirty, ten?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 12:00 am (UTC)

"Sure!" says Alice. "Whenever you feel like, just call me before you get here. Do you even have my number? You don't, do you."

self_composed
2012-09-20 12:01 am (UTC)

"I don't," she agrees, and she turns the page in her notebook. "What is it?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 12:02 am (UTC)

Alice grabs the pen and writes it down for her.

self_composed
2012-09-20 12:04 am (UTC)

"Cool." She tears off a page corner and writes her number on it for him.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 12:06 am (UTC)

"Oh, thanks," he says, and puts it on his desk under a previously lonely paperweight.

self_composed
2012-09-20 12:10 am (UTC)

Bella counts her coins. She has the pentagon, and one square left from hand-biting, and ten triangles. She's still got one shoe off and one shoe on; she stands up and kicks the wall smartly a few times, then massages the toe, yielding in all four more squares and another triangle. Then she hands him two squares and four triangles. "If you need them. Keep them inside your socks or something where they won't be visible but you can still use them."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 12:22 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Alice, pocketing them for now. "Thanks."

self_composed
2012-09-20 12:23 am (UTC)

"In case the treasure's already gone," she mutters, "or it doesn't have any hexes in it. In which case these denominations are what we have to work with until I make one heck of a hack into my brain."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 12:24 am (UTC)

"...Until what?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 12:49 am (UTC)

"Until I work up to handing you a hammer, or holding still while you brandish some form of acid, or whatever," Bella says, gritting her teeth.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 12:51 am (UTC)

"Or—whatever," he agrees. "I'll keep working on better ideas for that."

self_composed
2012-09-20 12:54 am (UTC)

"It's going to hurt like fuck to get the right coins, whatever we do," Bella says, shuddering.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 12:55 am (UTC)

"Man, you really don't like that idea," he observes.

self_composed
2012-09-20 12:57 am (UTC)

"Well, yes. In this respect, I am a normal person."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:00 am (UTC)

"I wish I'd been the one who fell down the chimney."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:01 am (UTC)

"That would have been more convenient," Bella says. "In several ways."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Like, right now you'd be making a list of all the superpowers you want."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:05 am (UTC)

"I did already make a list like that," Bella says with a small smile.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:06 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but differently."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:08 am (UTC)

She nods. "Of course," she says, "if you got the powers in the first place I wouldn't feel nearly so entitled to the possible fruits of your, er, labors. Whereas I think I have some claim if a stash of coins left to me provides you the ability to produce said fruits."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:13 am (UTC)

"...it's the same either way for me," says Alice. "I mean, if I get wish powers, I'm giving you my extras because I want to. Not because I owe you them or something."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:15 am (UTC)

"Right," Bella says. "But I probably wouldn't give anyone else wish powers if I didn't expect to get something from it. I feel pretty okay about profiting from something that's mine and would probably be vaguely guilty if it were not ever mine and you were just giving me a lot of wishes made out of pain all the time."
Edited 2012-09-20 01:16 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:21 am (UTC)

"I like pain," Alice points out. "Like, I don't want wish powers to have wish powers, I want wish powers so I can hurt myself in creative ways and not end up in the hospital for it. The part where you end up sleeping on a hoard of hexes like a sexy dragon is just a bonus."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:22 am (UTC)

Bella giggles helplessly at this mental image. "Okay," she manages.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:22 am (UTC)

Alice grins back at her.

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:23 am (UTC)

"I wish it said what was in the stash. I was hoping the cipher would say, but I guess not. Maybe he expected to go back to it and add or remove coins a few times between writing this book and his death."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:24 am (UTC)

"Oh, well. We'll find out tomorrow, right?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:26 am (UTC)

"Assuming we find it, yeah. Your map is really good, but it covers a wide area and the point of the X probably handles a good few hundred square feet. Maybe it'll be obvious when we get there," she shrugs. "Or a square can make it glow or something."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:28 am (UTC)

He finds himself, just for a second, looking forward to the possibility that they might need another pentagon to get into the stash.

Then he decides that that's not what he really wants.

"Or you'll fall down another hole," he says instead. "Hopefully not one that's like a hundred feet deep."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:30 am (UTC)

"Oh, that's possible too," Bella agrees. "Elias did definitely go to a lot of trouble to make all this only go to a descendant."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:31 am (UTC)

"...I feel like there's a joke in there about descendants falling down holes..."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:31 am (UTC)

"I'm not seeing it," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:33 am (UTC)

"Descending," says Alice, and makes an appropriate hand motion.

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:35 am (UTC)

"A-ha. Cute." She chuckles. "I wonder which side of the family I'm descended from him through? Both my parents are from here, but all the grandparents have died or retired elsewhere, now..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:37 am (UTC)

"Not a clue. Can you find out?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:39 am (UTC)

"I guess. People who do genealogy as a hobby probably have something to do besides quiz their elderly relatives. But I kind of suspect that if this house - and therefore its secret passage - was here long enough ago that Elias was still writing the way he did, then he was living an unconventional and magic-assisted lifestyle. He may not appear in resources like that. I suppose I could just see if I can find any Frobishers."
Edited 2012-09-20 01:39 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:40 am (UTC)

"It's not exactly a dime-a-dozen name," he agrees.

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:44 am (UTC)

"Speaking of names," she says. "Why 'Alice'? Is it after the character in your favorite book?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:47 am (UTC)

"Pretty Alice, Alice Cooper, Alice in Wonderland..."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:50 am (UTC)

"Interesting. My parents just picked my name out of a baby name book, and I like Bella better than Isabella 'cause it's shorter. My dad calls me Bells, and I'd go by that in general if it didn't sound too affectionate for random people to use."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 01:55 am (UTC)

"I mean, I'm not really that attached to Alice," he says. "I just like it. I could be Marilyn or Lesley or Francis or Brian or Cindy or, you know, whatever."

self_composed
2012-09-20 01:59 am (UTC)

Bella nods. "Do those have relevant associations too?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 02:02 am (UTC)

"Marilyn Manson. Marilyn Monroe. Cinderella. Cindy Lou Who. The rest of 'em I just thought up on the spot."

self_composed
2012-09-20 02:05 am (UTC)

"I think I'll stick with Alice and Pinball Wizard and, where applicable, 'belligerent idiot'," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 02:07 am (UTC)

"Works for me," he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-20 02:09 am (UTC)

Bella picks up Elias's book and flips to the profiles section she hadn't previously read much into. "You can call me Bells if you feel like it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 02:11 am (UTC)

"I might," he says. "Can I call you other things?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 02:12 am (UTC)

Bella is not at all sure what other things those might be. "Such as?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 02:13 am (UTC)

"Dunno yet! I'll tell you when I think of something."

self_composed
2012-09-20 02:15 am (UTC)

"Well, I will approve or disapprove things case by case."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 02:16 am (UTC)

"Okay."

self_composed
2012-09-20 02:23 am (UTC)

Bella peers out the window.

It is dark.

"I should probably get going," Bella says. But first, she scoops up all her coins, clutches the pentagon, and wishes.

To Alice's eyes, the coins all disappear at the same time.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 02:25 am (UTC)

"...Your coins are invisible," he reports. "And it's kinda hot when you do magic, too."

self_composed
2012-09-20 02:51 am (UTC)

Bella laughs again. "Why's that?"

She doesn't have to go right now.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 02:53 am (UTC)

"I dunno. I think it's the taking-over-the-world thing again. Like, you can do magic, how is that not hot?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 03:07 am (UTC)

"Dunno. I have never seemed hot to myself, and I've never seen anyone else do magic, and I do not have a crush on Elias Frobisher."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 03:09 am (UTC)

"...I don't either," he says. "Okay, different emphasis: you can do magic, and that is definitely hot."

self_composed
2012-09-20 03:12 am (UTC)

"I guess at this point we're rehashing known territory," Bella says, packing up her backpack.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 03:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess," he says. "See you tomorrow?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 03:14 am (UTC)

"Bright and early," says Bella. And off she goes with a little wave.
Edited 2012-09-20 03:15 (UTC)

we will seek my buried inheritance

self_composed

Bella fixes French toast for breakfast to salvage stale bread, and, having seen Charlie off to work, hops in her own car and makes for Alice's house. She arrives at nine-thirty, and goes up to the doorbell and rings it.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:12 pm (UTC)

Hilary answers!

"You must be looking for Laney," she says. "He's in the kitchen, shall I grab him?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Yes please," Bella says. "We have a day trip planned. I might not return him until this evening."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Exciting," says Hilary. "Just a sec."

She turns around and walks back to the kitchen. Very shortly, she's back, trailing an Alice who is wearing a very nice blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and wiping his hands on a tea towel.

"Go on," she says, grabbing the towel away and giving him a gentle shove out the door.

"Hi, Bella," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-20 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Hi! You're dressed uncharacteristically," Bella comments. "Ready to go?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I was cleaning an oven," he says by way of explanation. "Yep, let's get outta here."

self_composed
2012-09-20 04:30 pm (UTC)

So he wears nice buttondown shirts to clean ovens.

Well, that makes perfect sense.

"What was the matter with the oven? It was fine for the cake last night," Bella says, waving to Hilary and leading Alice to her car.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:32 pm (UTC)

"It got a little caramel'd."

self_composed
2012-09-20 04:33 pm (UTC)

Bella chuckles and hops in the car. "Here," she says, handing over the notebook with the map in it as well as a local roadmap. "You're the navigator."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:38 pm (UTC)

"You got it," he says, sliding into the passenger seat and buckling his seatbelt unprompted.

self_composed
2012-09-20 04:40 pm (UTC)

Bella pulls out of the driveway and makes the first turn according to the general direction they're headed, then awaits instructions.

"Use any more coins so far?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says, and also, "Thataway."

self_composed
2012-09-20 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Me either, but I made some more. Turns out stepping on a Lego is good for a square about two thirds of the time, but the ratio was deteriorating after a while - I guess I started stepping more gingerly or something - so I stopped when I had ten squares, seven triangles."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:43 pm (UTC)

"That is a weird and kind of adorable mental image," Alice comments.

self_composed
2012-09-20 04:44 pm (UTC)

"What's adorable about me stepping on a Lego seventeen times and swearing under my breath?" laughs Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:49 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," he says. "And I can't write it out and navigate at the same time. Pretty sure you wanna turn up there, by the way."

self_composed
2012-09-20 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Turn which way?" Bella asks patiently.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Left."

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:00 pm (UTC)

So it goes.

Eventually they're driving over gravel, and the road comes to a stop. "Are we close, or are we in for a serious hike?" Bella asks, halting at the end of the gravel where it turns into a narrow dirt path.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, is a mile and a half serious?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:05 pm (UTC)

"It's a little serious. If the terrain's not very friendly I might be looking at yet another pentagon or three by the time we arrive," Bella says with bright trepidation. She parks and gets out of the car.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Hot," says Alice, following.

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:09 pm (UTC)

Bella makes a laughing noise that sounds vaguely like "sporfle".

"You're still the navigator," she says. "Does this path look good or do we need to veer off it soon?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:10 pm (UTC)

"We're good for now."

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:10 pm (UTC)

Walk-walk-walk.

"Since we're moving at like two miles per hour now, I bet you can write too, if you set your mind to it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:20 pm (UTC)

"You know what, I bet I could," he agrees, and drags his notebook out of the pocket of his jeans. It takes some juggling to manage both notebooks at once, but he gets it settled after a minute.

"Now, what the hell were we talking about, again?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:21 pm (UTC)

"What makes it adorable for me to stomp on Legos."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Right."

He draws a Lego at the top of the page, writes a question mark beside it, and gazes contemplatively at the result.

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:24 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles.

The path is thinning out pretty rapidly; apparently if hikers come this way, they don't strongly agree on which way to continue. A branch hits Bella in the face, but if she makes a coin from it, it appears on her invisible necklace and Alice can't see.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:31 pm (UTC)

This is why words were invented!

"Get anything out of that one?" he asks, amused. Meanwhile, he is making no progress on the mystery of the adorable Lego.

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Bella says. "Just a triangle, though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

He shuffles the notebooks around to check the map, then swaps back to his profound and difficult question.

"Okay, help me out here," he says, "'cause I have no idea where to start."

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, first of all, does 'adorable' seem similar to 'hot', or are we dealing with different things here?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:44 pm (UTC)

"It's... kinda similar?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Similar in what ways, different in what ways?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I think... it's not as hot because I don't see you really having fun with it," he muses, frowning at the page. "And it's cuter because, I mean, you can't even step really hard on a Lego? You really don't like pain, do ya?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Really don't," Bella agrees.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Too bad for you," he remarks, drawing a line down from the original question and writing the word wuss and a heart. "If only you could make wishcoins out of—I dunno, what's something you do like?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Is it cute or hot or what that I'm a wuss?" Bella asks, amused. "I like tasty food and interesting books and my own thoughts and sheets that have just come out of the dryer and, you know, nice things."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Pain is nice," he says, cheerfully. "It is cute that you're a wuss."

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:03 pm (UTC)

"So if I wasn't a wuss and could cheerfully take a hammer to my own foot or stick my arm in a cage of rats, what would that be? Besides convenient."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Sexy as hell."

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Rather literally, at that," Bella says, thinking of the theory Elias had that instead of selling one's entire soul to hell for power, wishcoin-makers served out their sentences piecemeal.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:09 pm (UTC)

Alice laughs.

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting the impression that at this point there is not a thing I could do or a way I could turn out to be that would make you lose interest in me. Short of killing you, and you'd probably find that fascinating on the way there too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:17 pm (UTC)

"...Oh, honey," he sighs, hugging his armful of notebooks, "you say the sweetest things."
Edited 2012-09-20 18:17 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Did I approve 'honey'?" Bella asks, mock-stern. "I did not."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," he says with irrepressible cheer. "Do ya not like it?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Makes it sound like we're a married couple. In the 1950's," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:21 pm (UTC)

"And?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:21 pm (UTC)

"And we are not that and it is not then and, no, we cannot be that for Halloween and start practicing ridiculously early."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:23 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Okay. No honey."

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:25 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles a satisfied smile. Then she trips on a rock, but her normally unhelpful reflexes catch her before she can collect any coins from it.

"You know," she says, "my magic powers put the Mario games in a whole new light."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:27 pm (UTC)

"...Whaddya mean?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:28 pm (UTC)

"He punches blocks," Bella says. "And coins appear. Enough of them and he gets a second life."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:28 pm (UTC)

Alice laughs again. "That's awesome."

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I haven't played any video games in a long time. I never had my own system - had to go over to people's houses to play. But I'm pretty sure that's how it works." She slows down her pace a bit. "I wonder how many coinmakers there are in the world. And who they are."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Betcha we could find out."

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:33 pm (UTC)

"By magic?" Bella asks. "Or by looking?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

"By taking over the world and seeing who squawks? But those too."

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

"But," Bella says, "if there are a bunch - and Elias knew like five individuals and one little cabal and they all lived on this continent - why hasn't one of them taken over the world yet?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Didn't think of it," he suggests. "Didn't wanna put the work in. Too busy smacking each other around. Never hurt themselves enough to get a good stash going. Who knows?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Or, one of them has," Bella says. "And is running the world in secret." She cocks her head. "If so they are doing a terrible job and I must depose them."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:43 pm (UTC)

"...I love you," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Aww," says Bella.

Walk-walk-walk. "Are we going the right way?" She looks at the sun, and checks the time on her phone. "I think this is south. South-southwest maybe."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:47 pm (UTC)

He checks.

"Yeah, looks about right."

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I wonder how far we've come. I should have checked the time when we started out from the car. Does fifteen minutes sound right to you?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Just about, yeah. So, any bright ideas for how to find this thing once we're in the right square mile of forest?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, if we're lucky, then to me it'll look like it's got a great big neon sign on it. If we're not lucky, I start chucking squares at the problem."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:52 pm (UTC)

"And I sit down and hope you don't fall down any holes," he says. "Okay."

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, if there's no neon sign, then you can help, you just look for - markers, or anything that resembles some odd word choice from the cipher, or something out of place that most likely got there by magic."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he repeats, a little more brightly.

self_composed
2012-09-20 06:56 pm (UTC)

Walk-walk-walk. "Does your map have any useful landmarks?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, actually. See any fuck-off huge rocks?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't. Are we meant to be approaching one about now?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Soonish," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:05 pm (UTC)

"All right."

Walk and walk and -

"Is that one sufficiently immense?" Bella asks, pointing.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Definitely."

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Well," she says. "If the stash doesn't have any hexes, on the way back I will consider trying to climb it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:14 pm (UTC)

"You know, it seems kind of backwards that you'd rather fall off something than ask somebody to break your leg for you, since you're so keen on personal safety and all."

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:16 pm (UTC)

"It's the fear thing," Bella says. "I have a reasonable intellectual expectation of falling off that enormous rock if I try to climb it. But I'm not actually afraid of heights. I am scared of somebody literally torturing me. And again, people don't usually die from short falls. I'd have to land very unusually wrong."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Isn't landing wrong kind of a thing you're famous for, though?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I am still alive," Bella says. "In this context, 'wrong' means 'I break my neck' or 'I squish my head'. If I break seventeen other bones but do not suffer those highly specific injuries, that's not so bad at all."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, okay." He shrugs. "It's just, you know, I don't want you to squish your head."

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I don't want me to squish my head either. I consider this only as a possibility if there are no hexes in the stash, and I'll probably decide against it anyway."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:24 pm (UTC)

Walk-walk-walk. Past the rock. Down into a little ravine and up out of the little ravine. Trees, trees, trees. One extremely terrified deer charging away when Bella steps on a twig. Walk-walk-walk.

"Do you like cleaning ovens, or just like Hilary, or what?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Both of those!"

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'm stumped. What's to like about cleaning ovens?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I think it's just one'a those things."

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:30 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"Is cleaning ovens a thing?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:31 pm (UTC)

"...If by that you mean do I get off on it, yeah, kinda."

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:32 pm (UTC)

"At some point I might need a complete list just so I do not have to be this stunned again," Bella informs him.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:33 pm (UTC)

"There is more stuff in the world that I could possibly do than I could ever actually do," he says, "and I don't know if most of it's gonna turn me on until I try it. I didn't know about cleaning ovens until this morning, by the way, I just thought it might be fun. And I was right! I was very right."

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh." Bella shakes her head slowly. "How about a list of things noted so far, and I can at least try to make some predictive models?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure. You want it right now?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Write it down - and you could narrate it aloud as you go, too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and flips to a new page in his notebook. "Some of it's going to freak you out," he adds, although she probably knew that already.

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I know, that's why I'd like to find out now instead of at some potentially inopportune moment."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense," he acknowledges. "Okay."

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:43 pm (UTC)

Walk-walk-walk. Bella awaits information.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:50 pm (UTC)

Top of the page: Things that turn me on

First entry: Cleaning ovens

"I don't know why the ovens, though," he says aloud, and adds a little arrow leading to a clarifying point: (scrubbing is hot ???)
Edited 2012-09-20 19:50 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-20 07:50 pm (UTC)

"So it's not cleaning in general?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Um... a little bit," he says. "Good point, though."

Second entry: domestic chores in general (not very)

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:05 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "So there's that."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:12 pm (UTC)

He writes a few more things down.

"Okay, so far: cleaning ovens, i.e. scrubbing. Domestic chores in general. Pain. Getting beat up, with one exception, you know what it is, please don't make me say it. Really great clothes, on me or other people. Good food."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:30 pm (UTC)

"You get off on food," deadpans Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Oh come on, in what way is Hilary's cake not a sexual experience?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:31 pm (UTC)

"In the way that it is a gustatory experience instead."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, okay."

He writes a couple more things down.

"Destruction. Music. Not all music, just sexy music. Like, Another One Bites the Dust? Totally hot. Seven Seas of Rhye? Not so much."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I'm beginning to think that you just walk around in a constant state of arousal virtually all the time."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

"You are not totally wrong," he admits. "Like, not all the time, but a lot."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

"That sounds distracting."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Not really."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:39 pm (UTC)

"It's not? How is it not?" laughs Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't walk around in a constant state of desperately horny, or anything."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. Anything else?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:42 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah," he says, "but after this it's kind of - I don't know, hard to articulate? Like, some of them I know what they are, but I don't know what they're called."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay... examples, maybe?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Um... when you called me a freak," he says. "The five percent of me that was not busy falling in love was really turned on."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:46 pm (UTC)

"So those are separate things," Bella notes. "What else?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:49 pm (UTC)

Alice looks away; checks the map; looks back; looks away again. Apparently he is having some trouble with this one.

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:50 pm (UTC)

"We going the right way?" she asks, watching him check the map. "I think we're still heading south-maybe-south-southwest."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says, with a brief smile. "Still on track."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Is there another example of the same thing?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he repeats, rather more subdued. "You've heard it already, though."

self_composed
2012-09-20 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Saw it drawn, rather?" Bella asks, to make sure.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:01 pm (UTC)

He breathes a sigh of relief at not having to say it.

"Yeah. Fucked up, I know."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:03 pm (UTC)

"It's nothing special for features of you to be fucked up, we already know that," Bella says. "Can you think of any more or is this what we have to work with?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Uh... you reading my mind is a little of the same kind of thing," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

Bella mulls this over.

"There does seem to be some manner of thread running through the things but I don't know how to put it either."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Toldja."

He writes down: thing with no name (mind-reading??)

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Surprises that could be really bad," says Bella, but she doesn't sound confident in the characterization.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:13 pm (UTC)

"...Well, I do like surprises," he says, "but that's a different thing. I mean, I am looking forward to you reading my mind, that's not gonna be a surprise at all."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:14 pm (UTC)

"It's surprising that I could do it, as of yesterday," Bella says. "But yeah, that doesn't seem exactly right."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it's a power thing?" he says. "Not sure. I don't think that's completely it, but it might be part of it."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Would it still count if the mindreading thing was pauseable at will on your end, instead of mine - if we turned you into a projective telepath instead of turning me into a mindreader?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:25 pm (UTC)

"...Kind of," he says. "But less. Like, this counts a little bit, not enough to turn me on, just enough to be... nice."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:26 pm (UTC)

"What, just me interrogating you?" Bella blinks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh. Would anybody have the same effect or am I a special snowflake here?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't do this for anybody," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Is that part of it or does it just enable whatever 'it' is?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm sure as hell not turned on by psychologists."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure the psychologists appreciate that. Hmm."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I mean, you know, of course the fact that I'm madly in love with you makes you generally sexier than other people. That's not a surprise. But I dunno. Other people reading my mind is... hot, not necessarily good."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, there is another thing on this list that has been designated hot but not necessarily good."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Other people have called you a freak. Did that count?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Nope. I think with you it's 'cause I could see you were doing it on purpose."

self_composed
2012-09-20 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Really? No one else has done it on purpose?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Not like that they haven't, or I'd be in love with them too."

self_composed
2012-09-20 10:02 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Okay, but what's 'like that'?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Like you knew I wouldn't like it and you wanted to see what I'd do."

self_composed
2012-09-20 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Hm." Walk, think, walk, think. "Transgressions. Not, like against the law, though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:09 pm (UTC)

"...Transgressions," he says. "That's a good word. I like that word." He writes it down.

self_composed
2012-09-20 10:10 pm (UTC)

Bella hums to herself. She figured out a thing!

She checks the time.

"Should be almost there. You look for - whatever, and I'll keep an eye out for neon."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:11 pm (UTC)

"You got it," he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-20 10:17 pm (UTC)

Walk, walk, walk. Bella checks the time. "If I'm right about how fast we're going this should be about it." She looks around. "I'm seriously disappointed in the lack of neon signs. Come on, Elias."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:19 pm (UTC)

"What do you wanna bet you'll end up falling down a hole?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 10:21 pm (UTC)

"No bet," Bella says. She starts to pat things. Trees, that one big rock... She starts up a hill. The hill eats her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:24 pm (UTC)

"What'd I tell you," Alice says to the hill, and sits down with his back against a tree trunk right next to it.

self_composed
2012-09-20 10:43 pm (UTC)

Bella does not fall down a hole. The hill is just hollow, and she only stumbles slightly before recovering her footing.

There is an honest to goodness treasure chest in the middle of it.

Okay. That's pretty straightforward. Place is otherwise empty. She picks up the chest, finds it heavy, and drags it instead, back out of the hill.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Welcome back," says Alice. "Did you stop for tea with Bilbo?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Beg pardon?" Bella says. "No, there was no tea, I just grabbed the treasure chest and hauled it out. Let's see what's in here."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:57 pm (UTC)

"...You were gone for like half an hour," he says.
Edited 2012-09-20 22:57 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-20 10:58 pm (UTC)

Bella opens her mouth, then closes it, and then takes out her phone. "Do you have any form of timepiece on you?" she asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 10:59 pm (UTC)

He digs his phone out of his pocket and hands it over.

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:00 pm (UTC)

Bella compares them, and sure enough, his is 32 minutes ahead of hers.

"Okay, that's interesting," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I wonder what the fuck it's for," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:02 pm (UTC)

"It's for Elias Frobisher being a weirdo," says Bella, and she opens the box.

It has five compartments in it, and there are plenty of triangles, plenty of squares, about fifteen pentagons, and no hexes.

And one star.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:04 pm (UTC)

"...Well, fuck," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:06 pm (UTC)

"...Hey, close that for a sec?"
Edited 2012-09-20 23:06 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Uh, sure, why?" She puts the lid down.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:07 pm (UTC)

He reaches over and opens it.

"'Cause I wanted to see if I could do that or not," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Congratulations."

She returns to staring at the empty hex compartment.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:10 pm (UTC)

"So, what the fuck are you gonna do about that?" he asks, pointing to the star.

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Nothing - well, I'll wear it, but no wishing - until I have a good idea why stars go wrong and think I can get around it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Good plan."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

And, unnecessarily: "There's no hexes in here."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:22 pm (UTC)

"...yep," says Alice. "Noticed that."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Fuck."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Are there any of these I shouldn't wish onto the necklace that you would like to have?" Bella asks quietly. "In case... it takes me a long time."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I can live without any of 'em," he says, shrugging.

"...How big a coin does it take to fix broken bones, though?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Did it with a pentagon for my leg, when I fell. A square might have been enough but I didn't have one to try at the time."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Then I think I want one of those," he says, grabbing a pentagon. "And some of these," a handful of squares.

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:32 pm (UTC)

"That all?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Mmm..."

After considering it for a moment, he scoops a handful of triangles too.

"There."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:39 pm (UTC)

One more square suffices to get all the remaining coins onto Bella's invisible necklace. She looks at the treasure chest.

"Well," she says. "It's a neat box but I don't really want to drag it through a mile of woods at this time. And if I put it back, another half an hour or so elapses. And I don't really want to leave it out, because while the weather is not particularly wet today, that won't last, and it could rot or something, and it might have magical properties I'll want to check out.

She mulls this over. "I bet a square can shrink it."

And indeed one can.

She puts the treasure chest in her pocket.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Cute or hot," Alice says musingly, "I can't even decide."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Can things not be both?" she asks, setting back towards their footprints in the soft ground.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay, yes," he acknowledges, "they can."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:45 pm (UTC)

There is a stretch of silence.

They approach the enormous rock again.

"Well," she says. "I guess I should climb this thing."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:46 pm (UTC)

"It's not the sort of thing I'd do purely for recreational purposes."

She swallows. "I want to lots more than I want to offer you a hammer and one of my limbs, though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Aww," he says, smiling wryly. "Okay."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Look," Bella says. "I think you can think of at least one thing you do not like and would hesitate to invite even for magic powers."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:51 pm (UTC)

He hesitates.

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:52 pm (UTC)

Bella walks up to the rock.

It's really not designed for climbing.

"Scratch that," she says. "I don't think I can get high enough on this thing for a fall to do more than twist my ankle."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, okay."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:54 pm (UTC)

She turns back to their trail. Walk walk walk. "I'm glad it's clear today."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, making this trek in the rain would be pretty annoying."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:56 pm (UTC)

"It's so rainy here."

Pause.

"Ugh, we are talking about the weather."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Is that bad?"

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:57 pm (UTC)

"It's dull." She sighs. "Why couldn't he leave one more hex?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-20 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't think he expected me," says Alice. "I mean, people usually don't."

self_composed
2012-09-20 11:59 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "What if I was twins? Or just had a sibling? Two descendants could have conceivably fallen into his hole at the same time!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but they probably wouldn't have been one person who's kind of a wuss but willing and able to take over the world and one person who doesn't really give a shit about ruling the world but really likes pain. And, you know, maybe he was kind of a wuss too. Although I gotta wonder how he fixed himself a star if he was."

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:03 am (UTC)

"Considering what he wrote about stars, I bet he was going for a hex and overshot, and then freaked out and didn't try whatever that was again."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:07 am (UTC)

"Maybe. Oh hey, can I borrow the book while we're in the car?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:07 am (UTC)

"Sure, why?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:10 am (UTC)

"'Cause I wanna copy some parts," he says. "Now that I've got a big pile of little ones, I think I'm gonna go home and experiment."

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:11 am (UTC)

Bella shudders involuntarily. "Okay," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:13 am (UTC)

"...Does that bug you?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:14 am (UTC)

"It's not the pleasantest of daydreams. It's your prerogative, though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:16 am (UTC)

"Why not? I mean, I'm gonna like it."

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:17 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I know, that doesn't affect the content of the mental image that much." She shrugs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:17 am (UTC)

"It should," he chirps.

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:19 am (UTC)

She gives him a look. Apparently she is not impressed.

"How so, dare I ask?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:20 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"I think you just guessed."

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:20 am (UTC)

"I have a general idea, but not enough to edit the picture. Let alone be sure I care to."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:22 am (UTC)

"Well, which is worse: mental image of me hurting myself and not liking it, or mental image of me hurting myself and getting off?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:23 am (UTC)

"I'm ending this thread of conversation," Bella announces.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:23 am (UTC)

Alice laughs.

"Okay."

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:26 am (UTC)

The walk seems shorter on the way back. Soon they find Bella's car, right where they left it.

"I can't just wander around looking for dangerous things to do all the time," Bella mutters.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:27 am (UTC)

...Alice bites his lip. There are just so many things he could say to that.
Edited 2012-09-21 00:28 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:33 am (UTC)

"I keep telling myself I know how my brain works, and that I can rearrange it how I want if I decide it's important enough," she says, starting up the car. "If a reliable source of freaking wishes is not important enough, then I have clearly been deceiving myself."

She turns the car around and starts trundling down the road.

"Neither of our houses'll do. Where can I scream bloody murder without anyone wondering what the matter is? Someplace sanitary, not out here in the woods. I don't want to collect my coins and then unexpectedly die of tetanus."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:41 am (UTC)

"...uh," says Alice.

"My house'll do fine, actually."

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:41 am (UTC)

"I guess no one heard me yelling when I fell. A pentagon would probably get you through the pillar," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:44 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he says. "That might even be a better idea, I dunno. But what I was gonna say is, you remember how I broke my ribs? Yeah, that wasn't quiet. Most of the rooms in my house are soundproof with the doors closed."

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:49 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Bella.

Pause. It has to be asked.

"Do we know for a fact that I am not going to be louder than you?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:53 am (UTC)

"Well, technically no, 'cause I've never heard you scream or vice versa. But I'm pretty fucking sure."

self_composed
2012-09-21 12:55 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Pause. Drive drive drive.

"I've never tried to mess with my brain to this extent before. Actually what I do most often is stop being mad at people when they interrupt me. But probably best to see if we can get this done before your dad gets home - and probably best if it's not a school day - so that means... tomorrow."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 12:59 am (UTC)

There is a pause.

"...Okay," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:01 am (UTC)

"And since I have not extensively messed with my head like this before," Bella says, "I might not be very good at it, and regardless of the fact that everything about taking a hammer to my foot - I think that's probably my preferred option, hammer plus foot, left foot - is probably relevant to your interests, if it turns out I am not good enough at managing my brain to make it tolerate this, then I'll change my mind, and then there will be no hammering of my foot, okay? I just want that verbally clear. No surprises."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:08 am (UTC)

"—yeah," he says. "I mean. You asking me to hurt you is hot. But the asking is important."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:10 am (UTC)

Bella nods once.

"I know a pentagon can heal a clean break," she says. "I don't know if it will take one or lots to handle hex-level damage. I might not have many pentagons left by the time I take care of that."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:12 am (UTC)

"Well, really, the problem is what it'll take to handle a little less than hex-level damage."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:15 am (UTC)

"Exactly-one-hex might be an actual target, and then after that the same injury could hurt only enough for pentagons. Are you suggesting I sit there raining pentagons while you wish yourself coinmaking powers and then find a way to generate more hexes so you can turn me into - who was it, Wolverine?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:18 am (UTC)

...ooh.

He takes a deep breath.

"...Will it make you any more unhappy about this whole thing if I bring something to hurt myself with in case it works?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:19 am (UTC)

"No, not really."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:21 am (UTC)

"Do you wanna know the plan?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:21 am (UTC)

"What's the plan?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:22 am (UTC)

"Blowtorch," he says succinctly.

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:23 am (UTC)

"Oh, for the - what if your clothes catch, or your hair does, and the whole house goes up, and I can't run away because my foot is broken?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:30 am (UTC)

"Believe it or not, I am actually pretty good at fire safety? It does not have to go near my clothes or my hair. If what I saw in that picture worked, then I just have to do this..." he draws a broad line down the inside of his left wrist and over his palm with the first finger of the opposite hand "...and then I can rip into it with my fingernails to get the rest. Easy."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:32 am (UTC)

"I would still be more comfortable with some non-fire-based method," Bella says. "While I will be sitting there with a broken foot."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:33 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "Those're messier, though. And slower."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:34 am (UTC)

Bella does not scrunch her eyes shut. Because she is driving.

"I will be able to turn my head, if need be."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:35 am (UTC)

"...Should we not be talking about this right now?" he wonders. "'Cause I mean, I'm sure my dad is gonna go on other trips this year..."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:37 am (UTC)

"I'm not even planning to attack my disinterest in supervising self-mutilation. I just need to be able to hold still and not tell you 'stop'."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:38 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says, but he sounds unconvinced.

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:39 am (UTC)

"If I don't manage to pull this off tomorrow," she shrugs, "we'll have to wait for another trip, and I can think of something else."

They're pulling into Forks. "Back to your house?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:40 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says.

"...I just don't think you know how bad not pulling it off could get."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:43 am (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:44 am (UTC)

"Maybe it's different. It's probably different."

He sighs.

"Just—really bad shit isn't over when it's over."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:45 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't that apply if I do accomplish what I have in mind, too?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:46 am (UTC)

"If you make yourself not hate it the way I don't hate it, you'll be fine," he says. "I don't think you'll do that."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:48 am (UTC)

"I'm not even sure if - wait. What am I even thinking? I have fucking magic powers. I have Elias's stash. It worked for cryptanalysis, hell, that only took squares, maybe it works for masochism. It's at least worth a try, and then," she laughs, "I don't even have to wait overnight."
Edited 2012-09-21 01:49 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:50 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says, surprised.

"We'll have to be fast, though. Or you'll have to keep wishing yourself kinky, but I bet it won't be fun if it slips."
Edited 2012-09-21 01:51 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:53 am (UTC)

"The cryptanalysis lasted a minute, maybe a minute and a half? That should be enough time, shouldn't it? Smash foot, create hex, heal foot with pentagons if I can't stand it. Hand off the hex and you have magic powers."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 01:55 am (UTC)

"It could easily take more than a minute and a half to get you to hex-level pain by smashing your foot with a hammer," he says. "Especially if we stop to test that it works at all first, which you know, we probably should."

self_composed
2012-09-21 01:56 am (UTC)

"Well, what's faster? And don't say 'blowtorch'," Bella says. "And yes, of course, squares are cheap, I'll try a dry run. I could definitely tell when I did and did not have cryptanalysis powers."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 02:02 am (UTC)

"Squares can wish up small things," he says. "Can a square wish up a jar of lye? You wouldn't need a lot, that shit burns like a motherfucker."

self_composed
2012-09-21 02:03 am (UTC)

"Like a hex-sized one?" Bella asks. "I can try that too, when not driving."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 02:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's the idea."

self_composed
2012-09-21 02:05 am (UTC)

"Mkay." She sighs. "I could probably make it a permanent hack with a pentagon - but - I don't know if those are reversible. It doesn't say in the book. And I don't really want to keep the... predilection... forever."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:32 am (UTC)

"...Why not? I mean, you know, it would kinda come in handy."

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Yes, it would. But I haven't fully thought it through, it would probably have other effects, and I take alterations to my brain very seriously."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Also," she says, "I'm not sure if it counts as a skill. If I worked really hard for some months or years and then got good vocal training I could speak fluent Spanish without much accent. Same thing if I studied and practiced the piano or got serious about being really good at cooking. If I wished on a pentagon I could do the same thing. I'm simply not clear on how one could, sans magic, turn into you - which means it could be a hex problem, to do it permanently - which means this doesn't solve the current problem and will be nearly redundant after the current problem is handled."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:17 pm (UTC)

"...Getting used to pain and liking it aren't the same," he offers. "First one sounds like more your kind of deal."

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:18 pm (UTC)

"It's not the pain," she says. "I could move my leg around after it was broken. It's the fear."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:20 pm (UTC)

"You can get used to that, too."

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:20 pm (UTC)

"But," she says, "not soon, and not easily."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Guess not."

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:31 pm (UTC)

They pull up to Alice's house.

"Well," Bella says. Her voice is just a touch trembly. "Here we are."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:36 pm (UTC)

Bella gets out of the car.

Her legs are tired from the hike, still, but she walks up to the door anyway, and rings the bell.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Hiya!" says Hilary. "Muffins just came out of the oven; you want some?"

"Ooh, muffins," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Can I take a few home?" Bella asks. "I'm not feeling well at the moment and that would be unjust to the muffins."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

Hilary stands back to let Alice in; Alice reaches out to stop the door from swinging closed.

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:41 pm (UTC)

Bella enters, too.

She really isn't feeling well.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:43 pm (UTC)

Alice can tell!

"Basement?" he suggests.

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:47 pm (UTC)

He leads the way to the appropriate stairs, and then down them, shutting the door at the top.

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Do we bother magicking you into the pillar, or just - sit anywhere?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Basement's soundproof," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Right."

Bella sits against a non-permeable pillar.

"Dry run," she says.

And makes a wish.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Dry run meaning...?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Meaning don't run and fetch lye, I was just making sure that squares can do this," she says, peering at her phone for timing purposes.

She tilts her head. "This is interesting."

She drags her fingernails across her forearm. Hard.

"This is very interesting."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:55 pm (UTC)

...Alice watches. Alice is not sure he could stop watching.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "It sure is."

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:57 pm (UTC)

Bella runs over the scratches - and harvests squares, invisibly - until suddenly a weird look passes over her face and she stops and squeezes her injured arm. "One minute," she says, "and twenty seconds."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 04:58 pm (UTC)

"That," says Alice, "was really hot."

self_composed
2012-09-21 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Predictably so," Bella remarks dryly. "I'm not sure I know what lye is. You've - er - handled it before? Can you do the conjuring?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:04 pm (UTC)

"It's an ingredient in soap," he says, digging a square out of his pocket. "And yeah, 'handled' is one way to put it."

He makes a wish. Result: a small white plastic jar which, when opened, contains a not particularly dangerous-looking white powder.

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Huh." She swallows. "Well, that looks - perfectly innocuous, actually, although I don't think you would have suggested it if it wasn't likely to... work." She bites her lip and rolls up the left leg of her jeans, and takes off her shoe and sock.

"I'll wish on the count of three - and you'll probably have to hold my leg down," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, good idea."

Alice sits down to her left and a little in front of her.

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:11 pm (UTC)

"One. Two. Th -" Bella's face twists up in the way that indicates a square messing with her brain. "Wait," she blurts.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:12 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah?" he asks, obligingly doing nothing.

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:13 pm (UTC)

"It just occurs to me," she says with a rueful laugh, "that we have never come into any physical contact. At all. And that if the first time we touched each other was you holding my leg down so you could pour lye on it, that would be pretty fucked up."

She laughs a little. And she reaches out her hand and lays it against the side of his face.
Edited 2012-09-21 17:14 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:16 pm (UTC)

It is unexpected, and like most unexpected things Bella does, fills Alice with unexpected feelings. He closes his eyes and leans into her hand, much in the attitude of a happy kitten.

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:19 pm (UTC)

Bella wasn't planning to sit there with her hand on his face for long, but, well.

It's very cute.

And then the square wears off.

Bella's hand falls away with a full-body shudder and she grabs her sock and her shoe. "I can't do this," she mutters. "Not with squares, anyway. I can't do this."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Alice. He closes the jar.

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:21 pm (UTC)

Bella gets her shoe back on and her pant leg rolled back down.

She folds her arms over her knees and drops her head onto them.

"Ugh."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:23 pm (UTC)

Alice shrugs.

"So we won't do it today," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Right."

She chuckles darkly. "Maybe I'll come down with shingles or something. Wouldn't that be handy?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Come down with what?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:26 pm (UTC)

"It's a disease. I think it has something to do with chicken pox, which I had when I was like four. And it's supposed to involve a rash that hurts really badly."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I find it so weird that you can wish you'd get hurt, or risk getting hurt, but not just plain hurt yourself," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:33 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it's that uncommon. People do dangerous things and don't self-injure in large numbers. Kids who resent their parents say things like 'but if I cross the street to return the neighbor's loaf pan and get hit by a car then Mom will be sorry and I'll never have to do chores again'. And you know what? If I get hit by a car, and it creams me good and proper, that will predictably lead to a state of affairs in which I'll never have to do chores again." She hefts her invisible necklace, twirling the coins around on the chain. "So to speak."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:34 pm (UTC)

"...well, I like that mental image in entirely predictable ways," Alice reports.

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:36 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts.

"Yeah. I walked into that."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:36 pm (UTC)

"I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not, so."

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Right."

She leans back against the pillar.

"I didn't get any homework done yesterday or today." She pokes her backpack. "I could use a dose of normalcy right now. Are you going to be bored out of your skull, if I work on trig?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Nope, go for it."

self_composed
2012-09-21 05:44 pm (UTC)

Bella produces the materials with which to do trigonometry homework.

She doesn't really like trig, but oh well.

After a few problems have fallen to her mighty pencil, she absently reaches out and starts petting Alice's hair.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 05:46 pm (UTC)

He leans into her hand again, wrapping his arms around his knees.

unconsciousness would be an undesirable outcome

self_composed

On Sunday, Bella drives to the movie theater with Angela in tow, and her car breaks on the way home from Angela's house. She calls a tow truck, and calls her dad, and she goes home in the cop car and her station wagon goes on vacation to the mechanic.

On Monday, Charlie drives Bella to school.

As she's been discharged from the car and Charlie pulls away, a van driven by a panicking teenager screams out of nowhere towards Bella.

Making wishes is easy.

It is not automatic. It is not instantaneous.

The van creams Bella, good and proper.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 06:27 pm (UTC)

Alice is lying under a tree by the edge of the parking lot, not particularly thinking about much.

He hears the van go out of control; he sits up.

He doesn't have time to make any useful wishes, but his body reacts faster than his mind; he bolts across the parking lot toward her.

self_composed
2012-09-21 06:31 pm (UTC)

Charlie's faster.

Charlie has the dispatcher on the radio and an ambulance on the phone and himself, shielding Bella from onlookers, interposed between Alice and his daughter, before Alice gets there.

"NOBODY TOUCH HER!" Charlie roars. "YOU DO NOT TOUCH A TRAUMA PATIENT. THE AMBULANCE IS ON THE WAY." He points at the nearest able-bodied student, some sophomore girl. "GET THE SCHOOL NURSE NOW."

His voice is all business, all Chief Swan. But he's got tears in his eyes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 06:36 pm (UTC)

For fuck's sake.

He skids to a halt in time to keep himself from actually colliding with Bella's father. Neither lies nor violence will get him past this man. Nothing he can wish for with six squares, eight triangles, and a pentagon will help.

Alice sits down on the ground, buries his hands in his hair, and shudders.

self_composed
2012-09-21 06:38 pm (UTC)

The sophomore gets the school nurse. Who has no clue what to do with Bella's crushed, unconscious, and very barely breathing body. The nurse leads away the driver of the van, instead, to patch up his injuries; he's walking wounded.

The ambulance appears a couple of minutes later. Paramedics pour out, and Charlie yields his daughter to them and rides in the back of the vehicle with her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 06:42 pm (UTC)

Well, it's not like he doesn't know where she's going.

The hospital in town is not that far away. Alice gets up and starts walking.

self_composed
2012-09-21 06:47 pm (UTC)

An hour later, when he arrives at the hospital, it just looks like a hospital. Bella's presumably in it somewhere.

The lady at the front desk wants to know what he's there for.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 06:49 pm (UTC)

"My best friend got hit by a car," he says, sounding appropriately unhappy about the situation. "I wanna see how she's doing."

self_composed
2012-09-21 06:54 pm (UTC)

"What's your friend's name?"

This hospital is tiny and probably contains only one car accident victim, but. Confidentiality.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Bella Swan."

self_composed
2012-09-21 06:57 pm (UTC)

"And your name? I'll see if you're on her list."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 06:58 pm (UTC)

His fingernails dig into his palms. "Delaney. Hammond."

self_composed
2012-09-21 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Mmmm... nope. Are you an immediate family member or someone who's been granted power of attorney or anything like that? Because if so you'd be on here. And you aren't."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Guess not," he says flatly.

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, then I'm very sorry, you'll have to wait till she can receive other visitors," says the lady.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, and turns around, and stalks out of the building.

Next bad idea: call her cellphone. See if anybody picks up.
Edited 2012-09-21 19:03 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Hi, this is Bella Swan's phone. Apparently I haven't got it on me or it's out of juice. Tell me who you are and why you're calling and what you want me to do about it at the tone."

Beep!
Edited 2012-09-21 19:06 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 07:12 pm (UTC)

He hangs up.

Okay.

The rules are obviously not working for him here; that means it is time to ignore them.

It is a pretty tiny hospital. Plus side: fewer places Bella could be. Minus side: fewer legitimate reasons people might assume he is wandering around in there. On the other hand, it's not like it's a fucking prison. People come and go.

So he walks back inside.

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says the lady at the desk. "I'm afraid no one has been added to Miss Swan's list recently."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, uh, my storming off in a huff plan was working great until I realized I really need to pee," he says sheepishly. "Is there a bathroom around here I can use?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes, just there," says the lady.

The door to the men's room is clearly visible from her desk.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

Off he goes.

And once he is in there, he locks himself in a bathroom stall and sits down on the floor and tries to think of his next bad idea.

It's not looking good.

About half an hour later, Alice emerges from the bathroom. His eyes are a little red. He walks right past the front desk and down the hall.
Edited 2012-09-21 19:40 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says the receptionist, but she doesn't complete a thought or get up.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 07:46 pm (UTC)

Then she is not worth reacting to in any way.

So, what'll it be? Last time he was in this hospital, he didn't spend any time in waiting rooms.

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:48 pm (UTC)

Charlie's sitting in another waiting room, a bit down the hall from the reception room.

He's on the phone.

"No. No, I don't know, they haven't told me much yet. I just thought you needed to know," he tells the phone.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 07:53 pm (UTC)

Must be the mom. Alice sits down, some distance away but close enough to hear.

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea how much worse it would have been if I hadn't been there," Charlie murmurs, lowering his voice in response to Alice's presence but not actually by enough to be inaudible. "If someone had tried to move her, if it had taken longer to get an ambulance on the way..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 07:56 pm (UTC)

(If he hadn't been there, Alice could have got to her and used her store of pentagons to fix her, even if there wasn't a hex on the loop, and right now they would be laughing about it. Fuck you, Mr. Swan.)

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:57 pm (UTC)

"No, don't buy a plane ticket yet, let's... let's wait until we know more about the prognosis," Charlie tells his ex-wife.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 07:58 pm (UTC)

Alice bites his lip.

self_composed
2012-09-21 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Yes, of course, you'll be the first person I call," Charlie says.

And he hangs up.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:00 pm (UTC)

Yeah. So.

Will talking to this guy make him able to see Bella sooner or later? He has no fucking idea. Bella, of course, could tell him. Bella is not here.

Fuck.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:02 pm (UTC)

Charlie sits. And puts his head in his hands.

He sobs exactly once, and then falls silent.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:05 pm (UTC)

Funny, that's exactly how Alice is feeling.

He closes his eyes. No one is going to let him see Bella sooner than this guy anyway. He has time to think about it.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:07 pm (UTC)

A doctor or a nurse or somebody pokes her head into the room and taps Charlie on the shoulder, and murmurs - genuinely too quietly to hear.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:08 pm (UTC)

So Alice watches Charlie.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:08 pm (UTC)

Charlie listens, and nods, and gets up and follows her out of the room.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:11 pm (UTC)

Yep. Okay.

Alice gets up and follows them as far as the hall.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:13 pm (UTC)

The doctor or nurse or somebody, and Charlie, are heading into a stairwell and up the stairs therein.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:15 pm (UTC)

...well, fuck it.

He follows them there, too.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:16 pm (UTC)

They go up two floors and down a hall, and then the doctor notices Alice, lagging behind.

She asks Charlie, "Is he a relative?"

Charlie looks at Alice, puzzled, and shakes his head.
Edited 2012-09-21 20:27 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

"...Are you goin' to see her, sir?" he asks. He didn't expect his voice to come out so rough, although he should have, because the last thing he did with it was cry.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Are you a friend of Bella's?" asks Charlie quietly.

"No friends," says the doctor, not unkindly. "Only immediate relatives."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:38 pm (UTC)

"No friends," repeats the doctor. "Please go sit in the waiting room."

Charlie doesn't look liable to contradict her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:40 pm (UTC)

Quietly, to Charlie: "Can—can you tell me how she is?"
Edited 2012-09-21 20:40 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:42 pm (UTC)

"On my way out, if you're there," Charlie says, looking away.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and flees back down the stairs.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:47 pm (UTC)

Four hours later, Charlie plods back down the stairs.

He pauses in the waiting room.

"She's unconscious. They don't know how long it'll take her to wake up. Stable, though."

And he leaves.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:53 pm (UTC)

Okay.

In that case... in that case, what the hell, he goes back out to the place with the unhelpful receptionist.

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:55 pm (UTC)

The receptionist eyes him but doesn't say anything.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:57 pm (UTC)

"They letting her friends see her now?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Yes, visitors' hours began a few minutes ago, but please be quiet and don't disturb anyone," says the receptionist. "Miss Swan is in room 306."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

Up he goes.

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:01 pm (UTC)

Bella is indeed in 306, a private room in which she's being administered an IV by a nurse. He glances at Alice and says, "Her left hand's basically okay. You can hold it if you want, but don't jostle her or put any pressure on her."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 09:03 pm (UTC)

"What-all's wrong with her?" he asks, unable to keep his eyes off the still figure on the bed.

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Coma, various injuries," says the nurse. "I got other patients to get to." He hangs up the IV and departs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

Okay. So.

What's that thing Bella said once? What does he want, and what does he have?

He wants a lot of things. Bella better, for one. That's easiest, but it's not going to happen without some things he doesn't have.

When she put that whole treasure chest's worth of coins on her necklace, she only used up one square to do it, right? He takes one of the sparkly squares out of his pocket, sits beside her bed, and wishes for: all the stars, hexes and pentagons on her necklace, off her necklace and visible and touchable and in his hands.

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:13 pm (UTC)

Poof.

He has the fifteen pentagons and the one star in Elias's opal-hematite pattern.

And one glowy, red hex.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 09:22 pm (UTC)

He piles the rest in his lap, picks up the hex, closes his hand around it, and wishes himself wish powers.

Just to see, he bites the inside of his cheek. Moving the pain from left to right makes perfect sense, and then there is a square in his hand, made of something like black glass that seems to suck in all the light it touches and give it back only grudgingly, in tiny glimmers.

"Fuck," he mutters, and uses it to wish the star back onto Bella's necklace.

He still doesn't know what's wrong with her, besides 'wrecked to hell'. Well, what does he have? Sixteen pentagons. And what can pentagons do? They can make you good at things.

He picks one up, and makes a wish.

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:28 pm (UTC)

Bella's chart says that she is 17 years old and female and named Isabella Marie Swan.

Also, in fancy medical language, it says she was hit by a fucking van.

Head trauma. Skull fracture possible; they're waiting for the radiologist to have a second look at the X-rays, and apparently Forks hospital only has a radiologist part-time. Certainly a break in the upper left and lower right arms and a few fingers. Left leg and foot shattered all to hell, one clean break in the right femur. At least three vertebral fractures, several broken ribs, dislocated shoulder. Oh, and she's in a coma.
Edited 2012-09-21 21:29 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 09:35 pm (UTC)

...heh. Left foot smashed up, huh? Now that's funny.

With the medical knowledge he wished himself, he now has a very complete picture of what it's like in there. Better to try too much first than too little, because the worst it can do is just quietly not work: he picks up a pentagon and wishes her fixed.

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:36 pm (UTC)

The pentagon continues to exist. Apparently it's not quite up to that.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 09:41 pm (UTC)

Okay.

Then it's piece by piece, and he knows what Bella would probably care about most. He wishes her head better first.

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:45 pm (UTC)

A few visible scratches above her neck disappear, as the only observable sign.

Also her eyelashes flutter and she makes a small noise.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 09:50 pm (UTC)

Okay. Just to check, he tries to fix everything else. No dice.

Maybe it'll help if he wishes the pins out of her broken bones first. He can use a square for that.

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Nnnnnng."

Bella is apparently waking up. She was unconscious; they didn't bother dosing her with painkillers.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Hi," he says. "I know it hurts, sorry, don't worry, I'm gonna fix it."

How about just her ribs and spine?

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:55 pm (UTC)

A pentagon obligingly disappears. Bella takes a deep breath.

She opens her eyes and squints against the light.

"Heh," she says. "I don't remember. Did I get one?"
Edited 2012-09-21 21:55 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 09:57 pm (UTC)

"You did," he beams, "look—" and he bites his lip and shows her the triangle, with a sullen hint of red lurking for a moment in its black depths.

Then he tries fixing all the rest again, just to see.

self_composed
2012-09-21 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Nice," she says, and she yawns. "Heh, you fixed me. I was getting a pentagon like every five seconds. Now I'm just tired."

She closes her eyes and opens them again. "Where's my dad?"
Edited 2012-09-21 22:01 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:01 pm (UTC)

"He went home," says Alice. "It's been a while. You want all these back?" He gestures to the pile of pentagons in his lap.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:02 pm (UTC)

She peers over at them. "Uh, maybe, I dunno, I have six new ones now... How are we going to explain this medical miracle?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's not like I'm ever gonna need to borrow from you again," Alice says cheerfully. "Might as well keep 'em on your necklace for now, right? And I don't have a fucking clue, you're the smart one here. My brilliant plan for getting in here to see you was to wait for visiting hours and cry a lot."

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Mkay." She squares the pentagons out of his lap. "Uh, hm. Medical miracle. Including pin-vanishing. Is my backpack in here? I dunno how big a coin I need to Jedi mind trick my dad and a bunch of doctors." She closes her eyes. "Plus my mom. He'd have called her."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, and fetches said backpack.
Edited 2012-09-21 22:11 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:13 pm (UTC)

Her various extremities are still in casts and the like. She squares them away. "Make sure nobody comes in before I have a good plan. Is there some obvious option besides brainwashing everybody, re-injuring myself, and allowing the media to descend upon me to find out how I got God to heal me?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:16 pm (UTC)

"...We could just change all the actual, like, records," he suggests. "...Nah, probably wouldn't—well, wait, hang on, what if we just wish you up to look like you've still got a shitload of broken bones?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Then I lie in this hospital bed for months, I guess, but that still might be best. Maybe I can refuse medical care and 'recuperate' at home? No, I'm a minor..." She digs through her backpack and seeks Helpful Charts.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:19 pm (UTC)

"We could," he stops, swallows, tries again, "just let your dad in on the whole magic thing. He seemed... okay, I guess."

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Charlie would be good about it," Bella says. "But he wouldn't like it. He'd freak out." She chews her lip. "Which might actually help. I could call him and tell him I want him to bring me home, and that I can explain if he really wants but he could also just trust me. And then I get someone to bring me schoolwork and work on my plan to take over the world until I could realistically make public appearances again."

The Helpful Charts do not list "Jedi mind trick" as a possible thing.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:23 pm (UTC)

"...that sounds pretty workable," says Alice. He sounds fairly uncomfortable with it, though.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:24 pm (UTC)

"My dad is not like your dad," Bella says. "Would I live here if he was?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I know your dad is not like my dad," he says. "But I don't... know it. You know? Like, I get it on the head level, but the gut level still wants to be about a state away from anything to do with him."

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:28 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

The Helpful Charts do list illusions of various sorts. She expends a square; convincing appearances of casts appear where there had previously been real ones. "This will probably hold up to casual scrutiny as long as no one tries to write their name on one and I don't absentmindedly scratch my arm," she says. "I don't suppose my phone survived impact. And I don't really want to see how long I can fool a doctor with fake casts. Can I borrow your phone?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, passing it over.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:33 pm (UTC)

Bella dials her home phone number. This is kind of weird-looking, since the phone is passing through a few splints on her fingers.

Her dad picks up instantly.

"Hi, Dad," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:33 pm (UTC)

Alice lets out a breath.

Hearing her talk to him helps, actually.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm awake - don't get in the car now, I wanna talk," Bella says. "Okay, so. I'm awake. I am much, much less hurt than what you think you saw. I want to go home, and I can't leave against medical advice since I'm seventeen. Can you check me out of here?"
Edited 2012-09-21 22:36 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:37 pm (UTC)

Yeah. Hearing her talk to him helps a lot.

Alice smiles.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, Dad, I could explain that, and you could not believe me, and you could ask me to prove it, and I could do that, and you could spend all afternoon hyperventilating," Bella says. "Or, you could take me out of here and not have to take weeks off work to be able to visit me and I won't have to eat hospital food and you won't have to eat your own cooking."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:39 pm (UTC)

He giggles softly.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:39 pm (UTC)

"I'd really rather not prove to all the doctors that I'm ready to leave first," Bella says. "I think I can prove it to your satisfaction - yes, Dad. I know you are not a doctor."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:41 pm (UTC)

(Snort.)

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I couldn't stand on my head even if I hadn't been hit by a car," Bella says. "But I can walk around the room. Will you take me home if I can walk around the room? Please?" Pause. "I'll make the nice chicken recipe for dinner..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:44 pm (UTC)

...Alice takes out his notebook and writes something in it.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that one, with the capers and the lemon juice. C'mon, Dad." Pause. Pause. "Yes, contingent on my being able to walk around the room, without doctor or nurse supervision. Then you roll me out in a wheelchair - well, Dad, no I don't think lying to my doctors would be a great idea normally, but telling them the truth, which you declined to have explained, would get a lot of attention. From, like, reporters."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:47 pm (UTC)

Write write write.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay, Dad, I'll see you in a few minutes. Love you too."

Bella closes the phone and hums to herself happily.

"What'cha writing?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:49 pm (UTC)

He turns the notebook around and shows her.

It says:

I love you.

I'm really, really glad you're okay.

It's kind of amazing how you talk to your dad.

I love you.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:53 pm (UTC)

Bella squirms and smiles.

"Did I hear you say you were crying?" she says archly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:53 pm (UTC)

"You did," he admits. "And I did. Twice."

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

Aww.

Footsteps approach. Bella lies down and plays injured.

"Visiting hours are over in twenty minutes, fair warning," says the nurse who sticks her head in.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Alice, just to make her go away.

self_composed
2012-09-21 10:59 pm (UTC)

The nurse closes the door. Bella opens her eyes.

"Charlie'll be here before then," she says. And "Do you want me to try explaining to him why I call you 'Alice'?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:00 pm (UTC)

"...I dunno," he says. "What'll happen if you do?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Probably? He'll shrug, say he's going to call you by your legal name but we can do what we want, and then mutter to himself about my weird friends."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Fuck me," says Alice, rolling his eyes. "Think we can bargain him down to Laney?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I can tell him that's what Hilary calls you."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Great, okay. Bring it."

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:09 pm (UTC)

Charlie arrives before any more doctors or nurses do. Bella waves energetically and he winces, then gradually relaxes into an expression of openmouthed astonishment as she gets up and wanders in a circle around the room. "Can I go home?" she asks.

"Well," says Charlie. "You can walk. Seem lucid. Suppose so."

He eyes Alice suspiciously but doesn't say anything.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:11 pm (UTC)

Alice... sits. Quietly. With his notebook closed.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Dad, you've probably heard about Laney from Hilary," Bella says, helpfully pointing. "He's my friend."

"Mm-hm," says Charlie. "She's mentioned him."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I call him Alice, though," she adds, sticking out her tongue at Alice like this is a teasing nickname she invented for him.

Charlie hmphs. "Well," he says. "I'll go see about checking you out of here, Bells."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:23 pm (UTC)

Alice grins at her.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:24 pm (UTC)

Charlie leaves them be to go annoy some doctors and borrow a wheelchair.

"There," says Bella. "I have a swell dad."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

"...I really want to hug you," says Alice. "Can I hug you?"

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Bella says, holding out her arms.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her and leans his head on her shoulder.

"I love you," he murmurs, and lets go.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:28 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs back until he releases, and then she ruffles his hair.

Charlie apparently didn't take long to convince the doctors that the chief of police is within his legal rights to take his daughter home. He comes in with a wheelchair.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:33 pm (UTC)

Alice is still beaming at Bella.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:34 pm (UTC)

Bella transfers herself to the wheelchair, and makes a careful expression of resigned discomfort. "Shall we?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Guess so," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:36 pm (UTC)

Charlie wheels Bella to the elevator. "Is your friend coming with us, Bells?" he asks.

"If that's okay with you, and if he wants to," Bella says serenely.

Charlie glances over his shoulder at Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes please!" says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:40 pm (UTC)

Charlie blinks at Alice again, then shrugs. "There's room."

"Officer Swan," says the receptionist lady, after the elevator ride ends and they're rolling out, "Dr. McAllister wants to ask you to reconsider -"

"Nope," says Charlie, and he opens the door and pushes Bella out through it. At his cruiser, he picks her up - without much visible trouble, though he does grunt softly - and puts her in the back seat and buckles her in, since someone as banged up as she was would need help with that.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

Nice.

Alice gets into the backseat, too. Which causes him some trepidation, but fuck it, he's with Bella.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

"It looks like we're being arrested," Bella laughs.

"You done anything I ought to arrest you for?" Charlie asks.

"Nope," Bella says. "Well, I suppose it's technically a school day."

Charlie snorts. "Laney's eighteen, isn't he? Even if he weren't, I wouldn't be likely to take him in for caring about my little girl."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes I am," says Alice. "And yes I do."

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:49 pm (UTC)

"You just make sure you do that in a nice respectful manner," says Charlie, "and we won't have any problems."

He is still a dad.

"Everything is fine, Dad," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:52 pm (UTC)

Strangely, being obliquely threatened seems to cheer him right up.

"Oh, I'm respectful as hell," he says brightly. And not very convincingly, with that grin.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to trust Bells on this one," Charlie says, after a moment.

"Thank you," says Bella, looking pointedly at Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:54 pm (UTC)

Alice just laughs. In a friendly sort of way.

self_composed
2012-09-21 11:56 pm (UTC)

"So, Dad," Bella says, wishing away the cast illusion because the neighbors aren't really that nosy, "everybody saw me get hit by a car. I probably need to stay home for at least two weeks, and then go back on crutches. Alice, can you bring me all my assignments, or would that be so patently ridiculous that I should ask Angela?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-21 11:58 pm (UTC)

"You should probably ask Angela," he says. "I mean, I could, but so could she, and it'll make more sense if she does it, and I think we want as much sense as we can get."

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:00 am (UTC)

"The risk is she'll want to see me," Bella says. "But - Dad, stop listening, if you like - I can probably be pretty casual with everything, now, and the illusion's only a square each way, right?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:03 am (UTC)

"Yep," Alice says cheerfully. "You're probably full up on those, right? You want any more? Man, I cannot wait to try for a hex."

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:04 am (UTC)

"I have..." Bella is still wearing a hospital gown, which appears to have mostly escaped her notice until just now but does not seem pleasing. She picks up her invisible necklace. "Twenty-seven. I'm good."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:06 am (UTC)

"Cool," he says. "Lemme know if you wanna stock up."

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:08 am (UTC)

Bella nods, humming to herself.

As an afterthought, she wishes herself a pair of jeans and a T-shirt in place of the hospital gown.

"Wow," she says. "These fit really well. I'm never going clothes shopping again."

"Keep the wacky hijinks to a minimum in the cruiser, Bells," says Charlie.

"Sorry, Dad."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:09 am (UTC)

Alice bites his lip, and glances at Bella, and draws a little heart in the air with his fingertip where her father can't see.

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:11 am (UTC)

Bella giggles.

They pull onto her street.

"You haven't seen my house before," Bella remarks to Alice. "It's not as big as yours."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:13 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'll bet it's not," he agrees. "And I'll bet you don't have an underground lair, either."

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:13 am (UTC)

"There's a cellar!" Bella says. "It contains boxes and the old microwave and mousetraps and plumbing."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:14 am (UTC)

"How's it on pillars?"

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:17 am (UTC)

"There is one metal pole in the middle of the whole thing," chuckles Bella. "That's it."

Charlie pulls into the driveway to let the teenagers out. "Since you're okay," he says, "I'm going to go handle some things at work. I'll be home at the usual time. Call me if you need anything, Bells."

"Will do, Dad," she says, and he waves and pulls away.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:18 am (UTC)

"You're gonna take over the wooooorld," Alice sings, bouncing a little.

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:19 am (UTC)

"Yep," laughs Bella.

She has a key. It's in her backpack; she hasn't started separately carrying a purse yet. She lets herself and Alice in.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:20 am (UTC)

"I like your house," he chatters as he follows her in. "It's little and cute and it's yours and I like it."

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:21 am (UTC)

Bella chuckles. "It's my dad's. I've had very little influence on the decor. I think the kitchen has been yellow since before I was born."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:22 am (UTC)

"Man, why am I so happy," he wonders.

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:23 am (UTC)

"Could it be," Bella says innocently, "because you have magic powers?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:24 am (UTC)

"Ooh, you are smart."

He twirls. Just because he has to let the glee out somehow or other.

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:26 am (UTC)

Bella laughs and lets herself collapse into a kitchen chair.

"Huh," she says. "What time is it? I'm hungry. The microwave and oven are always set to different, wrong times..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:28 am (UTC)

Alice checks the time.

"Ten past two," he says. "Want I should make you lunch?"

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:30 am (UTC)

"Ooh, lunch," says Bella. "Sure, if you feel like cooking. I'm really tired - apparently vehicular collisions are exhausting - and I don't think I want to start using wishes as caffeine." She taps her chin. "I'm going to use the chicken for dinner tonight - probably with the help of actual coffee - but there's some asparagus I haven't done anything with, and pasta in the cupboard?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:34 am (UTC)

"I will make you pasta and asparagus!" he says. "Do you mind if I hurt myself on your stove?"

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:35 am (UTC)

"As long as you triangle away the suspicious smell of bacon. We are out of bacon, and Charlie always knows whether or not we are out of bacon," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:39 am (UTC)

"You got it," he says brightly, and sets about preparing for pasta.

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:47 am (UTC)

Bella leans her head down on the table. "I'm sorta wondering what you'd have done if the car had killed me."

She's pretty sure the answer is that he would have taken her star, and tried that.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:48 am (UTC)

"...Cried more," is the first thing that comes to mind.

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:49 am (UTC)

"Huh," she says. "I was going to guess an attempt to raise the dead with the star."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:49 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I probably woulda got around to that," he says. "But first the crying."

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:50 am (UTC)

"You're sweet," Bella says. She yawns again.

She's just gonna put her head on her arms on the table, that's all.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:52 am (UTC)

"You're tired," Alice observes.

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:52 am (UTC)

"Yeaaaaaah." She closes her eyes. "Wake me when pasta."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 12:53 am (UTC)

"I will do that!" he promises.

self_composed
2012-09-22 12:54 am (UTC)

There is no reply from Bella except for breathing.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 01:31 am (UTC)

God but she's cute.

Some time later, there is pasta and asparagus resting in their pots on trivets on the counter, and Alice is facing two bright red stove elements.

He takes a deep breath, puts his left hand on one, and leans into it.

It hurts. It hurts a whole fuck of a lot. His jaw works, but no sound emerges; his other hand clutches at the handle on the oven door. His elbow rains pentagons onto the linoleum. When he looks down and recognizes the shape of the obsidian coins, he hisses through his teeth and lifts up his hand. What remains of his hand.

And wraps his right hand tightly around the edge of the counter, and leans his left forearm on the stove.

This time he moans, but quietly, so as not to wake Bella. And the coin that appears on the counter next to his thumb has six sides. So does the one after it, and the one he gets when he rips his smoking arm up off the red-hot coils.

A few more pentagons drop while he leans over and carefully turns off the elements, right-handed, hugging his left arm against his stomach and hissing whenever it touches anything.

Then he picks up a hexagon, clears his mind as best he can, and wishes.

Charred flesh regrows before his eyes. That hurts, too, which he should have expected but didn't; he gets another pentagon out of it in the few seconds before his arm is pristine again.

He brushes a few flakes of ash away and looks at the clean new skin.

Then he lays his arm across the elements again. Hexagon, hexagon—

His knees buckle; he grabs at the counter with his right hand and misses; he falls to the floor, whacking his left arm against one leg of the kitchen table and dropping another hexagon when he does it.

"Ow," he mutters, more out of surprise than anything, and relaxes whatever part of him controls his brand new healing factor. His arm fixes itself again, faster than last time. He rolls onto his back and looks up to see if all this nonsense has awakened Bella.

self_composed
2012-09-22 01:34 am (UTC)

Bella is groggily lifting her head. "Alice?" she mumbles. "Does pasta?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 01:35 am (UTC)

"Pasta does!" he says, sitting up and collecting his fallen pentagons. "And I made hexes."

self_composed
2012-09-22 01:36 am (UTC)

"Oooah," yawns Bella, looking appreciatively at the hexes. She peers at the stove to see if it's a mess or not. "Have fun with that?
Edited 2012-09-22 01:36 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 01:42 am (UTC)

"You bet I did," he sighs.

The stove definitely looks like things were burned on it. Mostly not recognizable things, however.

"I hexed myself healing powers but the rest are for you if you want 'em," he adds, scooting toward her chair and offering up his double handful of black, glimmering pentagons.

self_composed
2012-09-22 01:43 am (UTC)

"Took me this long to think of the fact that hex sounds like a kinda spell," says Bella. She triangles away the mess on the stove and accepts the pentagons. "Thanks! The other heap of hexes too? Don't want to gratuitously waste squares moving them on and off."
Edited 2012-09-22 01:45 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 01:48 am (UTC)

"Count 'em first, maybe," he says. "I think there might be a hex in there, but it's mostly pentagons. And sure, you can have 'em all."

He dusts himself off and gets to his feet, grinning, to grab the four hexagons off the counter and hand them over. There is indeed one more among the dozen pentagons he gave her.

self_composed
2012-09-22 01:49 am (UTC)

"You know, I can still see them once they're on here," Bella says. "I can count 'em on as well as off." She wishes all the new coins onto her necklace, and then sniffs the air, and then triangles away the burning smell. "Paaaaasta."

She is obviously still very tired.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 01:52 am (UTC)

"Pasta!" he agrees. "Isn't it easier to count 'em when they're off, though?"

self_composed
2012-09-22 01:53 am (UTC)

"I guess in large quantities I could sort 'em into piles, but in large quantities seems pretty safe to just know that there's lots," Bella mumbles into her elbow. She lifts up her head again. "Plates're in the cupboard above the sink."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 01:55 am (UTC)

"Wonder what happens if you run out of room," he muses, grabbing a pair of plates and trying drawers until he finds cutlery.

self_composed
2012-09-22 01:56 am (UTC)

"Necklace'll expand, 'cause I am smart," she says. "'f it gets too heavy I can unshrink Elias's treasure chest. Or just make heaps an' heaps of wishes."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 01:57 am (UTC)

"You are smart," says Alice. "I love you and your smarts." He deposits a plate in front of her. "Pasta!"

self_composed
2012-09-22 01:58 am (UTC)

"Oh, or, and I could make the necklace lighter by magic," Bella says, gesturing and looking around for a fork. "Forks're in the drawer by the - oh, you found 'em. Cups're in the cupboard left of the plates." She's clearly in no condition to get up and fetch a beverage; she looks reasonably likely to fall asleep in her pasta. She takes a bite of the pasta instead. "Mm."
Edited 2012-09-22 02:01 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:03 am (UTC)

"You are so cute," says Alice. "I kind of wanna pet you."

He grabs two cups, since she mentioned them.

"Somethin' to drink?"

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:04 am (UTC)

"Water," Bella yawns. "You can pet my hair if y'want, 's only fair." Pasta, pasta, pasta.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:06 am (UTC)

Bella can have water, then! From the tap, since she didn't specify. Alice gets himself the same thing, brings his cup and plate to the table, leans over her, and gently ruffles her hair.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:09 am (UTC)

Bella sighs in tired contentment as she eats and sips at her water.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:13 am (UTC)

Alice scarfs down his pasta roughly twice as fast as she does.

"You gonna go nap when you're done with that?" he inquires. "Should I clear out?"

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:15 am (UTC)

"Probably will nap. Whatever you wanna do, but it's probably boring here," yawns Bella. "This is pretty tasty."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:16 am (UTC)

"If I get bored I'll just hurt myself some more," he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:18 am (UTC)

"Don't let Charlie walk in on you doing that. He'll get home at, like... seven."

She finishes her pasta and finishes her water. "I wonder if it'd be dumb to magically teleport upstairs instead of getting off my butt and walking."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:18 am (UTC)

"I could carry you," Alice offers.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:19 am (UTC)

"Really?" Bella asks, skeptical.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:19 am (UTC)

"...yeah," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:20 am (UTC)

"Do you like, lift weights while skipping school? 'Cause one time I asked you what you do and I don't remember that one."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:22 am (UTC)

"No, but I bet I can still pick you up," he says, shrugging.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:22 am (UTC)

"Without dropping me," she says. "On the stairs."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:25 am (UTC)

"Sure." He shrugs again. "Up to you, though."

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:29 am (UTC)

"I think I'll get up," Bella says.

She does! Wobblyish, but upright. She proceeds stairsward.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:30 am (UTC)

Alice follows.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:32 am (UTC)

Bella flops onto her bed and kicks off her wished-sneakers, which are bright white. "This," she says with a vague one-armed gesture around the room, "is my room." She pulls her blanket over her. "G'night."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:33 am (UTC)

"G'night," says a very amused Alice, and sits down on the floor at the foot of her bed.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:34 am (UTC)

Bella speaks in her sleep, when she doesn't have her face buried in her arms.

"Marker snake," she says first.

Bella speaks nonsense in her sleep, it should be clarified.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:34 am (UTC)

...

Alice gets out his notebook.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:35 am (UTC)

Bella utters mostly nouns, some articles, the occasional number, and once, "Run!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:36 am (UTC)

Alice dutifully records all of these things, on a page at the top of which he has written Stuff you said in your sleep today.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:38 am (UTC)

Bella sleeps for four hours. At six-thirty in the evening, she sits up and rubs her eyes. She observes Alice sitting at the foot of the bed. "How long was I out?" she asks, looking considerably more awake. "And how long have you been sitting there?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:38 am (UTC)

"Four hours," he says cheerfully, and passes her the notebook.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:40 am (UTC)

"To both questions?" She looks at the page. "...What the hell? Marker snake? The six owl? I talk in my sleep?" She frowns. "I would have hoped it would at least be sensible. My dream was about miniature pies that could talk."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:41 am (UTC)

"That is adorable and kind of horrifying," says Alice. "Have I mentioned lately that I love you?"

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:42 am (UTC)

"Talking mini-pies are horrifying? They were super cute," says Bella. "And yeah, you do that like five times a day."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:43 am (UTC)

"Yeah, they're super cute," he says. "Until somebody eats them."

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:45 am (UTC)

"Well, no one ate them in my dream," Bella says firmly. "They just happened to be pies, that's all. I mean, someone could eat you. No one's likely to."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:46 am (UTC)

...Alice ponders this eventuality.

"Okay, that's hot," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:48 am (UTC)

"Everything is hot," Bella says, rolling her eyes, "according to you." She looks at her clock-radio. "I should start dinner. You sticking around or are you hieing home to the siren call of Hilary's food?" She pauses. "Also, was Theo terribly confused when he arrived at school and does your mom know where you are and is she likely to worry?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:50 am (UTC)

"I thought of that one myself, actually. I called Mom and said I'm at a friend's place and she told me to have fun and call her if I need a ride. Pretty sure she thinks I skipped school to get laid."

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:51 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "I wonder what she'd think of the truth if she knew it."

Pause.

"Speaking of which," Bella says. "What are you going to do... in a few days?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:55 am (UTC)

He opens his mouth.

He closes his mouth.

"...how about I come over tomorrow or something," he says, "and we figure out a plan that's not wishing him off a cliff. Since you don't want me to do that."

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:55 am (UTC)

Bella nods. "I do have a couple weeks off from school, conveniently enough."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 02:57 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Is it weird that I'm glad you got hit by a car? 'Cause I'm glad you got hit by a car," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-22 02:59 am (UTC)

"I wish I had been slightly less hit by a car," Bella says consideringly. "It would have been much better if I could have stayed conscious, made the hex, and then healed myself before anyone got to me."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:03 am (UTC)

"...yeah," says Alice, "probably. On the other hand, this way you get plenty of time to help me figure out how not to kill my dad. Oh, uh, before I forget, can you wish me up a necklace like yours? If I do it I just know I'll forget something."

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:03 am (UTC)

"Sure. D'you care if I make it so we can both see yours?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:05 am (UTC)

"Nah, go for it. It's a good idea."

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:06 am (UTC)

"Lemme have your coins for a sec, and they can start out already on it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:08 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and digs them out of various locations - socks, pockets, more pockets.

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:09 am (UTC)

Bella collects them all in a little heap and wishes on one of her pentagons. They appear all strung on a necklace like hers - chain with no clasp, expansible, invisible and insubstantial to anyone not herself or Alice. She then drapes it around his neck, pats him on the head, and gets up to go start dinner.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:10 am (UTC)

Headpats! Alice beams up at her for a moment before he gets up and follows.

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:12 am (UTC)

Bella has made "the nice chicken recipe" often enough that she doesn't work from a recipe; she has the amounts memorized. "Wanna help?" she asks Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:13 am (UTC)

"Yes I do."

self_composed
2012-09-22 05:49 am (UTC)

"Spiffy." Bella assigns him to fetch her ingredients and measuring cups and the like from the relevant cupboards, and she turns on the oven and starts taking the chicken out of the packaging.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 10:51 am (UTC)

Alice cheerfully fetches all the things he is tasked to fetch.

"So apparently," he says after a little while, "if we're a 1950s married couple, I'm the wife."

This seems to please him inordinately.

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Meh, I didn't barge in wearing a suit from work and shout that I was home," Bella points out. "Besides, I cook too, I was just tired." She mixes capers into the sauce for the chicken and lets it sit, and then dredges the pieces in flour. "Lucky you I bought extra chicken - I decided to start leaving leftovers more to make up for how often I'm having dinner at yours of late. Charlie manages - I mean, he didn't starve to death during some non-summer season before I moved here for good - but it's really not pretty."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:39 pm (UTC)

"I can bring lunch when I come over tomorrow," he offers. "I can bring cake."

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Oooh, cake," says Bella, grinning. "Yes please." She pops the chicken in the oven and continues work on the sauce, adding teaspoonsful of various spices.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Will do," he says brightly. "Need any more stuff grabbed?"

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Uh..." She consults her mental recipe. "Pepper, and may as well get the turner out of the cooking utensil drawer now. Then we're all set until..." - she sets the timer on the oven - "the chicken comes out."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:46 pm (UTC)

"'Kay!"

He grabs the requisite stuff.

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:47 pm (UTC)

Bella peppers the sauce and strategically locates the turner, just as Charlie walks in.

"Hullo, Bells." He glances at Alice. "Laney."

"Hi, Dad," Bella says happily. "We made chicken."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Alice.

He is less nervous and awkward around Charlie now, but he is still nervous and awkward.

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says Charlie. He looks at the oven timer while he shuts the door behind him. He pointedly hangs up his gun, eyes on Alice, and says, "Chicken's always good."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:53 pm (UTC)

...Alice grins and bites his lip, accumulating triangles for a few seconds, because it is so hard not to flirt a little.

self_composed
2012-09-22 03:57 pm (UTC)

Charlie decides to pass the time between now and chicken readiness in watching some manner of sporting event on TV.

Bella mouths, Really? at Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 03:58 pm (UTC)

Alice shrugs and makes a helplessly apologetic face.

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:01 pm (UTC)

My dad! Bella mouths in exasperation, and then she says aloud, "Well, this'll be a while, let's go hang out upstairs."

"Keep the door open," Charlie calls over the TV.

The point of this when they have been in the house alone together for several hours already is lost on Bella, but she says, "Okay, Dad."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 04:02 pm (UTC)

Alice rolls his eyes and gets up to go upstairs.

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I'm sort of hoping to set him up with Hilary," Bella confesses in a low voice, once they're up in her room and can barely hear the TV.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 04:04 pm (UTC)

"That's adorable," Alice murmurs back.

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:05 pm (UTC)

Bella nods happily. "Not sure how to go about it though. I mean, they've already met."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Also, Hilary likes girls," Alice volunteers. "She might be bi, though."

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, that's potentially inconvenient," sighs Bella. "And potentially not. How do you know?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 04:07 pm (UTC)

"I told her about Freddie; she said she had much the same reaction to Pat Benatar."

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:08 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers. "Okay. I'm not gonna count Charlie out yet, if that's all."
Edited 2012-09-22 16:08 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's fair."

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I should call Angela about getting my assignments," Bella says. "She's probably home."

And she pulls out her phone and dials.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 04:14 pm (UTC)

In which case, Alice sits himself down at the foot of her bed again.

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:16 pm (UTC)

Bella absently cards her fingers through his hair with her spare hand while she holds the phone. "Hi, Mr. Weber. This is Bella Swan -" Pause. "Yes. I was hit by a car. But I'm awake, and - thank you, Mr. Weber, but leading your congregation in a prayer for me isn't necessary, I'm going to be fine in a few weeks. Well, if it makes you feel better. Mm-hm. Can I talk to Angela, please?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 04:18 pm (UTC)

He giggles softly, leaning into her hand.

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Thank you, Mr. Weber." Pause. "Hi, Ange-" Pause. "Aw, thank you. If you still want to give me the card you can bring it by my house if you want. I'm recuperating at home. I also need my assignments until I'm ready to go back to school. Can I ask you to get them for me?" Pause. "Thanks, Angela, you're the best. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-22 04:20 pm (UTC)

Awwww.

In fact: "Awwww."

self_composed
2012-09-22 04:22 pm (UTC)

Bella hangs up. "Awwww?"
Edited 2012-09-22 16:22 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 12:17 am (UTC)

"She got you a card! That's cute. Ain't that cute?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 12:32 am (UTC)

"She got me a card and got like forty people to sign it," Bella laughs. "I think that's relatively customary when one is hospitalized."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 12:46 am (UTC)

"Well, I still think it's cute."

self_composed
2012-09-23 12:53 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "Why's it cute?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 12:53 am (UTC)

"...I guess 'cause I think she actually cares."

self_composed
2012-09-23 01:02 am (UTC)

"Actually caring about people is cute in general?" Bella asks, cocking her head. "Or displaying actual care by means of a card is?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 01:03 am (UTC)

"...yes," he says. "Those."

self_composed
2012-09-23 01:10 am (UTC)

Bella laughs again. She seems kind of giggly overall.

"Tonight, chicken. Tomorrow, plans. The day after, more plans - to take over the world!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 01:11 am (UTC)

"I like the sound of that," he says, beaming up at her.

self_composed
2012-09-23 01:12 am (UTC)

She pats him on the head.

"I think my brain has decided that you are my pet," she says, pausing with her hand still on his head. "I'm genuinely uncertain if that would bother you or not."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 01:13 am (UTC)

"Purr purr," he says, butting his head up against her hand. "I'm a kitty."

self_composed
2012-09-23 01:15 am (UTC)

"Well," she says. "I'm still not sure if you're just playing along because you think it's funny, or wholeheartedly agreeing to be my pet human." Pause. "If I wanted a cat, I would have one. Renée reacts to Humane Society advertisements so intensely that I have to change the channel for her when they come on. Had to, I mean. I hope Phil figures that out before she adopts a one-legged dog or something."
Edited 2012-09-23 01:15 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 01:17 am (UTC)

"If being your pet means you keep petting me, then hell yes, I will be your pet."

self_composed
2012-09-23 03:44 am (UTC)

Bella snickers.

She keeps petting him. He's soft!

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 10:36 am (UTC)

"Purr purr," he murmurs, closing his eyes.

"I mean, what's it mean to be your pet, anyway?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Good question. Pet humans aren't common so there's not a template. What I was summarizing was something like - I can just reach out and pat you on the head whenever I want, and you follow me around, and periodically you bring me presents. Which are overwhelmingly more useful than dead mice." She hefts her necklace. He can't hear it, but she can; it jingles.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Then yeah, I am absolutely your pet human," he says happily.

self_composed
2012-09-23 05:38 pm (UTC)

Bella grins. "Cool." And she grins wider, snaps her fingers, and says, "Heel!" and proceeds down the stairs to check on the chicken in the oven.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 05:40 pm (UTC)

...Laughing, he follows.

self_composed
2012-09-23 05:41 pm (UTC)

The chicken, when she peers into the oven, is sizzling nicely, but she decides to wait out the remaining minute and a half on the timer. "Almost food," she calls to Charlie over the TV.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 05:42 pm (UTC)

Alice parks himself on a kitchen chair and gives Bella a look of unrepentant sappiness.

self_composed
2012-09-23 05:47 pm (UTC)

Charlie come into the room, looks at Alice, and coughs.

Bella gives the sauce - into which the capers have sunk to the bottom - a good stir, and then dons oven mitts to remove the chicken from the oven. She drizzles half of the sauce over it, plunks the bowl with the rest on the table, and then starts setting the table for three.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 05:49 pm (UTC)

Alice just smiles. Not even Charlie can get him out of his good mood right now.

self_composed
2012-09-23 05:51 pm (UTC)

Bella ignores this entire interplay; if Charlie wants to talk to her about it, he can. She plops a chicken breast on her plate and passes the tongs to Charlie, who serves himself a drumstick to start. Bella spoons extra sauce onto hers.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 05:56 pm (UTC)

Assuming that someone eventually makes the tongs available to Alice, he grabs the most easily grabbed piece of chicken and digs in.

self_composed
2012-09-23 05:57 pm (UTC)

Alice gets a thigh.

The chicken is pretty good! It's not Hilaryish, but it is competently done and it's a nice recipe.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 05:59 pm (UTC)

It is good enough to get Alice making happy noises, although—perhaps thankfully—not quite good enough to turn him on.

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, Bells," says Charlie.

"You're welcome," Bella says sunnily.

i believe i can fly

self_composed

Alice eventually goes home for the evening.

Bella goes up and sits in her room.

She has five hexes.

Five.

That's rather a lot of hexes.

She gets out her notebook, with the lists, and she makes some wishes.

And then she goes to bed, grinning.

In the morning it will be time to make plans.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:29 pm (UTC)

After Alice goes home, he conjures a knife in the shower and has some fun.

The next morning, Theo drives him to school as usual. As usual, he doesn't go to his first class.

As is sometimes usual, he heads out into town instead.

And for the first time, he has a very specific destination in mind.

When he rings Bella's doorbell, his necklace contains two hexes, nine pentagons, and a lot of squares and triangles, of which four triangles and a square are still Elias Frobisher's opal-hematite and the rest are Alice's obsidian.

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:31 pm (UTC)

Bella answers the door.

But from Alice's point of view, it just swings open of its own accord.

She even manages to stifle the giggling.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:32 pm (UTC)

He looks puzzled for a moment.

Then he cracks up.

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:33 pm (UTC)

"I'm invisible!" exclaims Bella in a stage whisper. "Come on in."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:36 pm (UTC)

"You're awesome," he says, stepping inside.

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:36 pm (UTC)

"I can also fly!" Bella says. She shuts the door and turns visible again; no one will be able to see her through the curtains.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, that sounds fun," he says. "I want that one."

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Permission granted," says Bella lightly. "And I got the regeneration power too, but haven't tested it on anything more than a scratch yet - it's just in case I get hit by another freaking car."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:43 pm (UTC)

One of his hexes disappears. He grins at her.

"You wanna figure out the mind-reading thing now?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Sure, but that one requires thought beforehand," Bella says with a deliberately pompous wag of her finger. "I could probably get the ability to read minds in full generality with one hex, and I have to figure out if I want to be able to do that." Pause. "In one step instead of two, anyway. Wow, I had better be careful I don't become corrupt. If I do I'll be lousy at ruling the world."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:45 pm (UTC)

"I will still love you if you become an evil dictator," Alice offers.

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes, yes, but that is precisely why I can't use your approval as a barometer here," laughs Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so use yours."

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Hence the guarding against corruption thing. I don't want the set-of-things-I-approve-of to change a lot over time."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he repeats cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-23 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Pancakes?" Bella says. "I made a bunch and some are keeping warm in the oven." She gestures, and sits herself down at the kitchen table. "I already ate. Hmmm. Mindreading on arbitrary targets. Kinda sketchy. I can do it in two steps anyway at any time as long as I have a hex on me. But it will feel more available if it's a power I already have and I don't have to spend any coins to do it." She's just narrating as she writes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Pancakes!"

He fetches himself some and sits down next to her.

"Seems to me if you're worried about using it when you don't wanna, it's easier not to if you can't yet," he comments. "And hexes just got a lot cheaper."

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm. So you, my font of hexes, clearly have no objection to me spending one just to be able to read your mind. I guess that settles it." She turns to a new page of the notebook. "Now I have to determine exactly how I want this power to work." She flips a couple pages back, to where she did exactly that sort of reasoning about the invisibility, flight, and regeneration, and scans them for a template.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:11 pm (UTC)

Font of hexes. Her font of hexes. Alice grins.

"I think I'd like it if I could tell when you were," he offers as relevant data.

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:12 pm (UTC)

Bella writes that down. "Fair enough. In the form of a pleasant mental chime when I start and some corresponding alert when I stop, or just some kind of general sensation when it's happening?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:13 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Second one's more like it."

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Preferences on manner of sensation?" Bella inquires. She's meanwhile writing down possible forms she could receive thoughts in.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," he says, shrugging. "Not something too distracting, but something I can't mistake for anything else. So I'll know, you know?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:17 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs and writes down various existing senses plus "novel input?" on that list. "The advantage of this, I suppose, is that if I ever want general mindreading powers, I can arrange for them to work differently, without notifying anybody. So it makes sense to do this separately even if I do later decide I want to be able to spy on everybody."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:18 pm (UTC)

Alice grins.

"Awesome."

Om nom pancakes!

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:19 pm (UTC)

Write-write-write. "Help yourself to as many of those as you want, and let me know when you're all done so I can freeze the rest."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

Mmmmpancakes oh hey.

"Djwff," he says with his mouth full; swallows; tries again. "D'you wanna give yourself a perfect memory? Wonder if that'd be a hex or a pentagon."

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:23 pm (UTC)

Bella stops, and looks at her notebook.

"Huh," she says. "I wouldn't need these anymore."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Is what I was thinkin'," Alice agrees.

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:26 pm (UTC)

Bella makes another list - she doesn't want to miss something and wind up with just, say, a photographic memory - but this is a quick one.

"Not a pentagon," she says after a moment. And then, "Hex did it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Cool," Alice says sunnily.

He helped!

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:28 pm (UTC)

Bella shuts her notebook, leans back, and thinks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:31 pm (UTC)

Alice eats his pancakes.

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure you don't have a preference on what it should feel like to have your mind read? 'Cause you're the one who has to live with it," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:36 pm (UTC)

"...You could test things out with squares," he suggests. "Just wish for me to feel such-and-such for a bit and I'll tell you if I like it. Because even if I thought of something I thought I'd like and told you about it, you might not wish for it exactly the way I thought it and I might not think it exactly the way it'd end up."

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense." She starts out with a stereotypical sensation of 'being watched', which has no direct analogue but is very distinctive.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:38 pm (UTC)

"...hmm," says Alice. "It's okay, I guess. Dunno if I want it to be the one."

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:40 pm (UTC)

She shrugs and tries the sensation of being patted on the head. "Except," it occurs to her, "that might be confusing if I actually pat you on the head."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh my god, that's adorable," he says, "and also no way, because yes."

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:46 pm (UTC)

Bella bumps it up a level of abstraction: like 'being watched', but 'being touched' instead - noplace in particular, no particular way. "Hm?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Alice. He wriggles a little in his seat, as though trying to find the point of contact, and then settles. "Yeah. That. That's nice. I like that."

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Enough that we shouldn't spend a few more squares and minutes trying other ideas?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:52 pm (UTC)

"You can if you want, but I like it," he says. "Up to you if you wanna try to find something I'll like more."

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:54 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "We'll go with this one. I bet I can modify it later with a pentagon at the most, if I have a better idea."

She moves on to the next parameter in her now-purely-mental list, which is how all this will feel to her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 07:57 pm (UTC)

"'Kay," he says contentedly.

self_composed
2012-09-23 07:58 pm (UTC)

"What are your thoughts like?" Bella asks. "Verbal, visual...?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Not usually," he says. "Well, visual sometimes, like when I'm drawing. And verbal sometimes too, I guess. But mostly they're just," he makes an open-handed gesture of helplessness in the face of inadequate vocabulary, "thoughts."

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm leaning towards a visual channel - superimposed on my peripheral vision maybe - but if your thoughts aren't going to readily translate into words or pictures that could be a problem. Hmm."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, not really," he says. "Like, when I remember something I remember all of it, not just what it looked like."

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:16 pm (UTC)

Bella's composing multidimensional charts in her brain now. She likes her new memory. "This is starting to feel like what I imagine designing a complicated new computer program would be like," she says. As an afterthought, she expends a pentagon on programming skills. They might help.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Whatcha got so far?" he wonders.

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:20 pm (UTC)

"The reason I don't want to read your thoughts in 'thought form', so to speak, is that I think it might get confusing - my memory's not going to fool me anymore, but thinking someone else's thoughts directly still might. So I want to have a basic text channel to just read, with pictures where pictures go - but that won't cover everything. So now I'm inventing symbols to stand in for various things that text and pictures might fail to handle, and if I'm curious about one I want to be able to mentally poke it and open it up, and attaching that opening to a unique action should make it clear that the thought behind the symbol is yours and not mine. I'll probably want to be able to open up words or phrases, and the pictures, too, for more detail - the text and images are just a first pass." She tilts her head. "Do you want any more fine detail on your end - to know what I'm opening up and what I'm just skimming?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Sure, might as well," he says. "That'll be fun."

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I guess the obvious way to communicate that is just with a plain intensification of the regular signal, when I poke something."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I guess the trouble with this plan boils down to my cognitive speed." She hmmms thoughtfully. "I wonder if there are any disadvantages to just ramping that up as fast as a hex'll take it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:29 pm (UTC)

"You will get bored as shit," Alice predicts.

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Possible. Maybe if I make it at-will like the invisibility, or suppressible like the regeneration. Or maybe I should just save it till I start seriously working towards taking over the world."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:32 pm (UTC)

Alice beams a little.

"I love it when you talk," his tongue touches his lips, "megalomaniacal."

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:34 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "What else would one do with wish powers, really, I don't know what Elias and his friends were thinking."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they were all like me," he suggests, tucking his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair, "and just wanted to screw around with magic a little. Maybe they were dabblers."

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Or maybe they got into preposterous arms races with each other, spending all their coins protecting the rest of their coins against each other?" Bella suggested. "Or they were wussier than me, and didn't have friends like you... and could do little triangle tricks but nothing serious."

She shrugs, and changes the subject back. "I think cognitive speedup is probably kosher with corresponding physical speedup... if and only if we get our internet upgraded."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Also they had never heard of Wolverine," he contributes. "Huh. Why not just get an Internet connection in your brain too? There's gotta be a superpower for that."

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I'll think about that one," Bella says. "I'm not sure about that. It might mess with the servers somehow - I mean, how would I assign my head an IP address?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Not a clue. I'm done raiding your pancakes, by the way."

A single, lonely pancake remains.

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:52 pm (UTC)

Bella puts the pancake in a plastic bag and puts the bag in the fridge, and turns the oven off. "I also wouldn't want to hardcode my brain with a particular browser, when the state of the art in browsing and web standards are going to be all different in a year or two anyway."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 08:54 pm (UTC)

"See, you are smart," says Alice. "You think of things."

self_composed
2012-09-23 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Also, I wished myself programming powers a minute ago," Bella says brightly. "But apparently I wasn't specific enough, so I don't know any programming languages, just general principles and pseudocode and so on - which is fine for what I wanted them for, anyway."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-23 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm so surprised," Bella deadpans. "Goodness gracious. What brings this on?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 09:22 pm (UTC)

"I dunno." He shrugs; smiles. "The fact that you wished yourself programming powers?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Why that, though?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Not sure," he says. "'Cause you used magic, and you used it to do something useful and cool?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 09:36 pm (UTC)

"In that case, I wonder how long it'll take for you to get tired of reminding me," laughs Bella. "Okay, I have one hex left on here." Necklace-heft. "I think I have enough symbols and I can presumably add more with pentagons if I'm getting too many black squares - meaning 'other'. Let's see, what am I trying to neglect?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Huh?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 09:38 pm (UTC)

"What would I smack myself on the forehead for not thinking of, if I wished without taking however long it would take to come up with it?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Not a clue. But then, I don't know what you have thought of."

self_composed
2012-09-23 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Your signals, and my input stream and how I can manipulate it," Bella says. "And an image compression algorithm of sorts. Should I be able to poke around in your memories? Should I be using something other than a naive magical heuristic for generating the words - like, should the power be consulting you to determine what words you'd attach to a thought if prompted?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says after thinking about it for a moment, "and... I dunno, actually. They're my thoughts, but you're the one who's reading 'em."

self_composed
2012-09-23 09:51 pm (UTC)

"So I need an interface for sorting through memories - browsing some organized representation of the whole shebang? Searching by keythought? Picking them out of an index by date?" She closes her eyes. "Man, wishes do not make everything simple, do they. How about - if you could produce a word for a thought, then that one, otherwise if I could produce a word for it if I was having it, then that, and otherwise, a first pass at a naive magical translation - and otherwise a symbol. And I'll color-code 'em."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 09:53 pm (UTC)

"You are smart," he sighs, happily.

self_composed
2012-09-23 09:54 pm (UTC)

"So," Bella says, "let me guess - you think in thoughts, and also, you remember in memories?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Yup."

self_composed
2012-09-23 10:03 pm (UTC)

"It's almost like your brain's fundamental architecture is not as much on board with this project as you are," Bella comments. "I think I'll see what I can do about a mixed strategy - category sorting and search and date organization as much as that's possible, and then if I can't find what I'm looking for I can try another way. And let's represent that thusly -" She expends another square to repeat the "abstract contact", a shade cooler, like she's just come in from the snow and her hands are cold. "Good?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 10:04 pm (UTC)

He smiles. "Sure!"

self_composed
2012-09-23 10:24 pm (UTC)

Bella closes her eyes and carries on thinking about how she wants to interface with Alice's mind until she's got a very clear mental picture of what that might look like and how she might poke things when she pokes them. Right before she's about to expend the hex, she remembers to include an option to manage scroll speed and how big everything looks, and then she has to take another couple minutes just to make sure that's the only thing she forgot.

Finally, she says, "Here goes," and makes one extremely complicated wish.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, did it work?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Hex is gone," Bella says, peering at her necklace. "I'm all out of 'em now."

She closes her eyes again, and reads.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Want me to make some more?" he asks, smiling reminiscently.

Bella may choose to smack herself in the forehead for not including any kind of censoring in her scheme, if she likes. Even as a mental thumbnail, his memory of last night's shower is pretty graphic.

He passes by it quickly, though, instead thinking of turning on her stove and whether he could use a triangle (maybe a square) to make it heat up faster. (The coins are represented by a visual of their shape plus the feeling of black glass under his fingers, cross-referenced to the ever-present weight of the necklace.)

Also, he likes the sensation of her reading him. It was nice before, but now that it's connected to the reality, it induces a happy shivery kind of mostly nonsexual pleasure.

self_composed
2012-09-23 10:35 pm (UTC)

"This thing might need a safe-search," Bella remarks. "Of course, then I'd probably get roughly nothing."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 10:39 pm (UTC)

...He cracks up.

"Oh man, did you not think of that? You didn't think of that. I love you."

Because the idea of not thinking of that is completely foreign to him.
Edited 2012-09-23 22:40 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-23 10:45 pm (UTC)

Bella watches the words appear in her vision a little before he speaks them. "Somehow, I failed to think of that," she agrees. "But I suspect I'd get sufficiently incomplete results trying to read your mind without any... let's call it 'mature content'... that it could hardly be called mindreading at all, so I'll see if I can't get used to it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, grinning. "Sorry." (Sympathy, and not a second's regret for the contents of his head.) "Anyway, do you want more hexes?"

The stove is right there! He could just... he catches himself before actually trying to triangle it on.

self_composed
2012-09-23 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Using a triangle to save yourself the trouble of waiting four minutes would be slightly frivolous," Bella remarks. "You could make some more hexes. That's probably a good stress test of my ability to handle what your brain does."
Edited 2012-09-23 22:52 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 10:54 pm (UTC)

"But" (honey, sweetheart) "Bella, I like being frivolous," he says, leaning over slightly and turning a knob.

self_composed
2012-09-23 10:56 pm (UTC)

Bella decides she cannot very well chide him for thinking unapproved endearments. "Well, if you like it," she says, "by all means carry on, I suppose."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 11:00 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he expends a triangle. The wish is simple: knowledge of the difference between a cool and a hot stove element (attached: a very relevant memory of yesterday), and the desire that the one he just turned on become the latter instead of the former.

It works.

Alice grins at the result in fond (and decidedly sexual) anticipation. His left hand flexes, remembering burns.

self_composed
2012-09-23 11:03 pm (UTC)

Bella watches brightly white affect-background colors trail all these thoughts with vague interest. Hearing him talk about how he likes what he likes is one thing; watching it pace past her vision encoded the way she'd just wished for is another.

She closes her eyes and watches his thoughts.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 11:17 pm (UTC)

With only one stove element on, he can't lay his arm across two, so he drags it over the one. Slowly. Pentagon, pentagon, pentagon, hex. He puts his other hand up to touch the new coins, feeling the angle of a corner on each; by now that's enough to tell the difference.

It hurts like hell, and it is turning him the fuck on, and the fact that he can tell she's watching gives him a thrill that's part affection, part arousal. (And part that other thing—a feeling of vulnerability; the desire to be vulnerable, to her specifically, because he loves her.)

He lays his hand flat against the element and digs the fingers of his other hand into the deep, fresh burn on his wrist, and although most of his attention is taken up by pain, there's enough left over to feel each new coin as it appears.

self_composed
2012-09-23 11:20 pm (UTC)

Bella very carefully does not open the lightning bolt signs that mean "pain" - she doesn't actually know if opening his nocioception would hurt, and would rather test that with something smaller - but she does watch the revolving blobs of color-coded emotion in fascination, and the string of mostly not sentence-ordered words in their colors.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 11:28 pm (UTC)

When the weight of the necklace around his neck has definitely, noticeably increased, he takes his hand away.

There are now thirteen pentagons and ten hexes on his necklace, and Bella's stove looks and smells like a small animal was cremated on it.

Make that fourteen pentagons, and then fifteen, both accumulated in the time it takes his arm to heal. He lifts up his necklace and looks at it, counting (one, three, four, and two is ten) the coins he cares about.

"That enough, you think?"

self_composed
2012-09-23 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Ah, yeah," Bella says. "I don't have that long a list. Your regeneration power hurts all by itself? Why did you do it that way?" She wishes away the gunk on the stove and the smoke in the air with a pair of triangles.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I didn't do it like that on purpose, but I'm fucked if I'm gonna complain," he says cheerfully. "You can take 'em all, if you want." All his hexes, all his pentagons, hell, all his squares and triangles too if she feels like it. Being wishcoiny makes life so easy.

self_composed
2012-09-23 11:34 pm (UTC)

"You realize you're not going to have time to make anything big in a time-critical emergency, should one occur," Bella points out. She leaves him two each of the hexes and pentagons, and all his squares and triangles because she has lots of those too, but she takes the rest, smiling like a satisfied cat.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Someday when we're not near anything obvious like the stove, remind me, and you can tell me to make a hex and time how long it takes," he says, idly considering methods (square up a jar of lye is the first to come to mind, although it might be too obvious if he had to do something fast with people around, but if he had to do something fast he might not care...) and echoing her smile because fuck, does he love that smile on her. "Bet it won't be that long. Like, a minute maybe."

(The thought of her reminding him of things reminds him of his semi-promise to find her another friend, which he hasn't yet remembered to do. Oh, well. He'll have lots of time while she is fake convalescing.)

self_composed
2012-09-23 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I didn't have a minute when I saw Tyler's van go out of control," Bella says. "If I'd been a little less stunned-rabbit about it, I would have had time to make a wish, but not to make a coin and then make a wish."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-23 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess." He shrugs. "But I'd like getting hit by a van."

(He didn't like watching Bella get hit by a van. He the opposite of liked it. He remembers the whole event clearly: the sight of her getting hit, the sound; air biting his lungs as he ran, cold asphalt under his knees and his hands buried in his hair; the feeling like something had been ripped out of him, the frantic gnawing ache of knowing he could fix it if only he could get to her if only if only.)

self_composed
2012-09-23 11:56 pm (UTC)

"The van could have killed me. It could kill you if one shows up and hits you. I don't think hex regen powers will revive you from instant death-on-impact. A star might, but I am very wary of my star."

And... she pokes at some of those thoughts.

She notes that she is kinda self-centered. She's noted this before, so it's not surprising.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:02 am (UTC)

Alice shivers happily. The thoughts aren't pleasant, but knowing that she's reading them is.

"Okay," he concedes. "So I'll keep a few around."

Not that he really intensely desires not to die. He wouldn't like to, especially not now that he gets to watch Bella take over the world (love, love), but for a long time now he has been operating on the assumption that it is going to happen, and probably not that far in the future, and he might as well be okay with that because there's not much he can do to change it. Getting hit by a van sounds like a pretty nice way to go.

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:04 am (UTC)

"Y'know," Bella says, "when I take over the world? Mortality is so on my hit list."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:05 am (UTC)

...He hugs himself and loves her very much.

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:06 am (UTC)

Bella closes her eyes again and pokes that and basks. She doesn't know how to purr, but she's thinking it.

She notes that she is selfish. She made peace with that awhile ago.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:07 am (UTC)

He looks at her.

He wonders if that is her reading him loving her and concludes that it really obviously is.

He loves her very much some more, and is also completely delighted.

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:08 am (UTC)

"Well," Bella says. "That certainly has the potential to bog us both down for hours in a feedback loop."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:09 am (UTC)

"But an awesome one," he says happily.

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:10 am (UTC)

"A pleasant one, but we've got plans to make," Bella says briskly. She unpokes the thought, but keeps up the cursory scan for communication-facilitation purposes. "About your dad."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:12 am (UTC)

Ooh, watch the love and joy drain out of him.

Literally, watch that happen, because it does.

"Yeah," he sighs. "Okay. ...You know, hell, I'm almost tempted to tell your dad now that I know he doesn't suck? Would that work, you think?"

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:16 am (UTC)

"That's... a maybe," Bella admits, deflating somewhat now that she has nothing to actively bask in. "My dad can make an arrest, press charges, get it to trial - and maybe yours can bribe the jury or the judge. Or get a ridiculously good lawyer and get actually not-convicted. The evidence boils down to you turning up at a hospital in November with injuries. Would Theo say where he picked you up from? What would your mom do - she can't be compelled to testify against her husband, but would she? Does Hilary know anything?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:27 am (UTC)

"Hilary knows squat," he says, rubbing his face. "No fucking idea which way Mom would swing, but I wouldn't bet on her coming down in my corner. I could always piss Dad off some more and go to the hospital again." (There's no particular positivity or negativity attached to that idea; it's just an option.) "Harder to pull off now that I heal, but not totally impossible."

Other ideas, other ideas... "I could show off all my old scars, I guess." Wryly, "Didja know Dad used to smoke?"

When he remarked on the difference between liquid nitrogen and cigarette burns, he was speaking from experience. Experience that left permanent marks on his back.

"Some of 'em ain't from him, though." A knife in a New York alley, twice, once under his jaw and the other biting deep into his hip—he's still proud of calling that bluff, of knowing that a knife to his throat means nothing to him, even if it helped shit-all in the end.

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:30 am (UTC)

"You could wish away the scars if you wanted," Bella points out quietly. "Later - if we need them for evidence - but you can."

And: "What about Theo?"
Edited 2012-09-24 00:31 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:37 am (UTC)

Alice smiles. "I like my scars," he says, closing his eyes for a moment and experiencing the truth of that statement. Even the ones where he doesn't like what they remind him of—and that is most of them—are his, part of him, a physical record of the experience of his life. He likes himself, and he likes the totality of that experience even when he doesn't like the individual pieces that make it up.

The scars can stay.

"Anyway, Theo," he says, and considers what he knows of Theo. Damn little, really. "If he can possibly get away with keeping quiet, he'll do it, but if they drag him in there and sit him down and put him under oath, he'll probably admit he picked me up at home. Pretty sure he knows more than that, but he pretends he doesn't."

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:43 am (UTC)

"I'm trying to think if there's a good way to counter either the bribery possibility or the slick defense lawyer possibility," muses Bella. "I don't think you get to pick your own prosecuting lawyer in a criminal trial, though I could be wrong. And if we bribe or coerce or appear in the dreams of or impersonate the judge or jury or defense lawyer then I don't think we ought to bother with the trial approach at all - we have plenty of extralegal options, no need to dress that up like a procedural if that's the plan."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:46 am (UTC)

"We could use magic to catch him bribing somebody, if he does," Alice suggests. "And then figure out a way to nail him for it. If we can. Okay, but what are the" (he likes her phrase, it's cute) "extralegal options?"

Besides wishing the fucker off a cliff. Which is the thing they're trying to avoid here. It would be kind of viscerally satisfying, but it wouldn't really be that much better than any other option that took Alice out of his dad's power for good.

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:49 am (UTC)

"Well, where do you want to go, besides away? You can live anywhere. Wish yourself all the things you need and want. You don't need his financial support, his stupidly huge house, his permission. You could just pick up and go - like I suggested before, but now with added self-defense capabilities. Where would you go?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 12:56 am (UTC)

"...I wanna be where you are," he says. Was that not obvious? He thought it was pretty fucking obvious. "I mean, if I didn't, I'd just... go." He makes an expansive gesture with both hands, thinks about hitchhiking and open roads with big cities at the ends and whether he'd rather try hooking again or maybe strip or maybe just wish himself diamonds and sell them. "But I do. So I kind of wanna keep the stupidly huge house at least until you go somewhere else."

self_composed
2012-09-24 12:59 am (UTC)

"Alice?" says Bella, amused. "We can both fly. If you don't mean you want to move in with me and Charlie - and I think that might be a bit much for Charlie - then 'where I am' can be a pretty big radius. Build an underground lair. Live in a floating invisible castle in the clouds. Make the inside of a tree bigger than the outside. Set up housekeeping in the temporally bizarre hill. Get a house in Port Angeles and show up to art class on alternate Tuesdays. If you're attached to the house in particular, we have to figure out how to pry your dad out of it, and that's gonna be more complicated."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 01:08 am (UTC)

"I don't," he says slowly, working it out for himself as he goes, "want to be—here, and him also here. I want him to be where I'm not. And I do kinda wanna keep going to Art," and maybe gym and Home Ec, "and if I skipped out on him he'd already throw a pretty big shitfit, and if I skipped out on him and kept going to class he'd throw a way bigger one and it'd probably get all over everything and you don't like collateral damage and I don't like it when it happens to people I like." (Bella, Ms. Finch, Hilary.) "I mean, if we try something else and it doesn't work, underground lair all the way. Or whatever."

self_composed
2012-09-24 01:10 am (UTC)

"What kind of shitfit? Absent any plausible deniability, even rich people get convicted," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 01:14 am (UTC)

"Got a teacher fired once because I had a crush on him," Alice recalls: he doesn't know details, but he knows he was about fifteen and his father was very happy that Junior was actually going to class for once until he found out why. And then that teacher was no longer employed at that school. Broke his fifteen-year-old heart, and also cured him of his nascent interest in algebra.

self_composed
2012-09-24 01:17 am (UTC)

"It would be useful to know how he did that. Absent that information we'll just have to be conservative, I suppose. Hmm." Think, think. "What's your patience level here? I wonder if we could just make him psychically allergic to you to the point where he moves away without realizing why."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 01:19 am (UTC)

"...Psychically allergic?" he asks warily; no meaning he can think up for the phrase leads anywhere good in his head. It's not like his father currently likes him or gains any enjoyment from his existence. Making his father like him even less just doesn't seem like a good plan.

self_composed
2012-09-24 01:20 am (UTC)

"Not a matter of making him like you less. Just a matter of him being more comfortable the farther away from you he happens to be - subtly. Certainly it would get sharply worse if he considered something as drastic as interacting with you in any way."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 01:23 am (UTC)

"No," Alice says firmly. "No. No."

Because in his experience, the more his father hates being around him at any given time, the more likely his father is to take it out on the most convenient of targets. And no amount of hating being around him reached thus far has made him actually stop.

self_composed
2012-09-24 01:26 am (UTC)

"Okay." Bella doesn't think he actually understood the idea, but there's more where that came from anyway. "New angle. What is it that he does that takes him away on lengthy trips? Turn that up to eleven, he has to move, you happen to not be interested in moving, reason-to-move is still turned up to eleven so he goes."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 01:35 am (UTC)

"He's not gonna let go of me," says Alice. "Like, fuck, I am literally the worst son he could possibly have had, I could not get any less like his ideal offspring unless I openly wore dresses" (which he's into) "and did drugs" (which he isn't particularly), "and he hangs onto me tooth and claw because I'm his flesh and blood" (the phrase echoes in his head in his father's voice) "and it's his responsibility" (that word does the same) "to deal with me. Even though he obviously can't. Unless we do some serious brainwishing, in which case fuck it, might as well drop him off a cliff, he is gonna keep being a pain in my ass until he is in jail or thinks I'm dead."

self_composed
2012-09-24 01:39 am (UTC)

"The mechanism by which he would attempt to not-let-go matters," Bella says. "If he attempts it by defending himself in a court of law against abuse charges we have limited ability to substantiate, that's one thing. If he attempts it by kidnapping you and taking you across state lines, that's another."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 01:47 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Alice. "I don't actually—wait, yeah, I do know why he keeps fucking off. He's just visiting his old buddies in New York. Probably not something we can wish up more urgency for. I don't know what he'd do," he says, shrugging. "I know he only breaks the law when he thinks he can get away with it. He's been pretty good so far about knowing when that is. But I don't, like, have a list of all the subtly vicious things a really rich guy can do when he's pissed off."

self_composed
2012-09-24 01:54 am (UTC)

"Right." Bella's massaging her own forehead with thumb and forefinger. "Right. Okay. Maybe we should tell Charlie and go from there. He's got a reasonable shot at understanding that he can't necessarily forge ahead blind without getting you hurt - he probably at least knows the judges around here and can get us a clear picture of which of them are corrupt asses - and the last time anyone tried to bribe Charlie personally he arrested him on the spot and that's a matter of public record. We can fuck with relevant attorneys - I don't think I want to brainwash them, but I have fewer qualms about their notes disappearing and their neighborhood dogs suddenly being very agitated every night at two in the morning."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 01:57 am (UTC)

"...I love you," says Alice, hugging himself and beaming. "You're good at plans."

(Which he isn't. He's not even sure what he is good at in that area, although once in a while he thinks of something she doesn't, which is nice.)

This might actually work. They might actually get Delaney Hammond Sr. to go the fuck away.

Yeah, he loves her really a lot.

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:37 am (UTC)

"So we talk to Charlie," Bella says, but she's still frowning. "And if he says there's nothing he can do that you think has an acceptable margin of safety - then - hm." She looks up and makes eye contact. "How weird would your mom and Hilary find it if your dad just forgot you exist and could not be reminded or notice your presence in any way? Would this cause a lot of changes in his behavior, or by making yourself sufficiently actually scarce could this just seem like him deciding he doesn't want to be bothered anymore? Also, is there any risk that in this case he'd start going after someone else?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:54 am (UTC)

He thinks about it.

"...Hilary doesn't know enough about him to notice the difference," he concludes, "but Mom..."

His mother knows his dad better than he does - well, obviously. His mother knows that his dad wouldn't do that, that whatever combination of possessiveness and duty drives him to lay such a claim on his son is not something he would ever, ever willingly give up.

"And I have no idea what he'd do. I mean, I take up a pretty big space in the guy's life. Who the fuck knows what he'd put there instead. Maybe it'd be totally fine. Maybe he'd wanna have another kid."

Actually, the more he thinks about it, the more likely that is—he only exists in the first place because of his father's desire for an heir. And it is not a prospect that fills him with joy. A vague sympathy for the hypothetical second try, more like.
Edited 2012-09-24 10:19 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-24 03:55 pm (UTC)

"I have not a flicker of conscience with also sterilizing the bastard," Bella says helpfully.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 03:56 pm (UTC)

Alice grins. "Yeah, that's better."

self_composed
2012-09-24 03:57 pm (UTC)

"But your mom would notice something is up. How bad would that be?" Bella says. "What would she do?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 04:04 pm (UTC)

"...I don't really know," he says. "I mean, she's been pretty fucking clear that she wants me gone," no specific memories accompany that, just a vague sense that it has been repeatedly confirmed, "so it's not like she'd be unhappy. But I don't know if she'd care that he'd gone totally bugfuck overnight," because 'totally bugfuck' is an accurate measure of how far he would have to depart from his usual behaviour in order to act like he'd forgotten his own son, "or what she'd do about it if she did. Uh," because this seems like relevant information now, "he gets really pissy if anybody mentions divorce when they're both in the room, and she never seems to notice." As he recalls, Bella has witnessed one such instance for herself.

self_composed
2012-09-24 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Huh." Bella chews her lip. "This is looking like, maybe not a dead end, but a risky avenue. Let's see what else I can think of." Think, think, think. "In jail and dead are probably the best places to put him, I'm not quite frustrated enough to vote for dead yet... has he done anything else illegal you happen to know about or suspect?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Mmm..."

What things does his dad do? Hang around at home getting pissed off if anyone has fun where he can hear them, mainly.

"Well, getting that teacher fired was pretty sketchy, but I don't know if it was against the actual law."

self_composed
2012-09-24 04:13 pm (UTC)

"It almost certainly depends on how he did it. Maybe all the algebra was hiding a sordid double life and your father was just motivated to dig it up." She sighs. "And we're back to involving Charlie."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 04:19 pm (UTC)

"I am weirdly okay with that," says Alice.

Okay with it because it is so screamingly obvious that Bella's family (the subset of it that he's seen) works in a way his doesn't, and that Charlie is not the kind of asshole Alice expects him to be. Weirdly because in the face of all evidence he still expects Charlie to be an asshole.

self_composed
2012-09-24 04:23 pm (UTC)

"But," Bella says, "we do need a contingency plan for what happens if Charlie is more cavalier about the possibility of a failed charge than us - or if we agree on the risk and then it doesn't pan out." Pause. "Would the mere fact of a trial having occurred be a plausible trigger for your dad to pretend you didn't exist, so we can fall back on that? I mean, I don't think he's been publicly accused before, has he?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Uh... maybe," he says. "I mean, I can't imagine him forgetting about me, but I also can't imagine him on trial for kicking my ass, so."

self_composed
2012-09-24 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella closes her eyes. "We're probably going to want more complete documentation of the whole mess than 'you went to the hospital that one time in November'. We want to be able to have the lawyer for the plaintiff drone on and on in the most sickening terms possible about years and years of systematic abuse until the jury wants to eviscerate somebody and your dad is the most convenient target. Would you rather I just try out my new memory-browsing feature and write it all down myself, so you don't have to talk about it?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 04:33 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Sure, go nuts. I mean, I'll talk about it too if you want. Probably shouldn't get me up in front of that jury, though, 'cause I'll laugh and it'll just confuse 'em."

self_composed
2012-09-24 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Nervous laughter in small quantities would probably be fine, but yeah. I wonder if you can wish yourself temporarily serious about it? If you don't act as a witness we're relying on hearsay from me and coerced testimony from Theo and fluttering ignorance from your mom if she goes up at all which she can't be forced to. That's thin stuff."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 04:42 pm (UTC)

"...I can probably just act," he offers, rubbing the back of his head. "I guess."

(The thought of getting up and having negative emotions in front of a bunch of strangers is slightly uncomfortable, slightly arousing.)

self_composed
2012-09-24 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you're gonna have to pentagon that," says Bella flatly, inspecting his thoughts. "You have to be sympathetic to a bunch of randomly chosen people. You have to make the jury enraged that anybody would hurt you so that they're on a hair trigger when the judge wants a verdict. You have to do this even though your dad's lawyer is going to tell everyone in the courtroom every remotely socially unacceptable thing you have ever done. This would be easier if you were a girl - no, wearing a dress will not help - but it's still doable if you pull off a good victim persona. Do you have an actual record - for the hooking or the getting into fights or anything else? If you do, that's bad, though not insurmountable - if you don't, that could be good, since it means the prosecutor's slinging around unsubstantiated claims that may or may not have run out the statute of limitations and yours can keep saying 'Objection!'."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 04:54 pm (UTC)

"No record for the hooking," he says. "You probably couldn't even find a customer by now; it's not like I kept in touch. And oh, Dad's gonna shit himself if he has to drag out anything that's not public knowledge like the fighting. He only puts up with the fighting 'cause he knows I'm covering for him and he can't stop me anyway, I'm pretty sure. Although maybe he won't care as much about trying to cover up everything that's wrong with me when he's busy trying to cover up everything that's wrong with him."

self_composed
2012-09-24 04:56 pm (UTC)

"So maybe he'll handicap himself," Bella says. "Maybe he's sufficiently embarrassed not to tell his lawyer, or thinks you'll flinch."

Pause.

"Are you going to flinch? Because if you recant halfway through this process it all falls apart."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I am not gonna flinch," he says with absolute certainty.

self_composed
2012-09-24 05:00 pm (UTC)

"None of that 'you told my dad a funny joke' crap," Bella says. "Double jeopardy is a thing. Cops and judges and so on don't like it when they think plaintiffs are crying wolf."

Pause.

"And you're going to need someplace to crash while this is all happening. I think it is pretty obvious you can't live in a house with your dad during this process. And it could take a long time. My dad can probably arrange protective custody, but as a temporary measure maybe you want to look into the underground lair anyway?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says cheerfully. "Sounds like fun."

self_composed
2012-09-24 05:05 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

"Documentation time," she says, and she wishes a brand new notebook from her box of them upstairs. "Here goes memory-trawling. I can probably remember your memories better than you can 'cause I can just query them directly instead of having to elicit them from the inside."

She concentrates, and searches by keythought.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 05:24 pm (UTC)

Alice closes his eyes and sits back and luxuriates in the feeling of being read, even though he can't tell what she's reading.

The list of search results is very, very long, and all of them have the pain symbol attached.

Here is Alice's father standing by a lit fireplace and grabbing a poker out of the stand. Here is Alice's father with clenched fists and a thunderous expression. Here is a memory with no visuals, just touch and sound.

All the iconized visuals contain Delaney Hammond Sr.; some of them show his wife, too, invariably covering her face or leaving the room. They span nearly every room in the Forks house and dozens more in what must be the old house in New York. In some of the latter, Delaney Sr. is holding a weapon of some kind—cane, belt, ruler; in one, a lit cigarette. But apparently, by the time they got to Forks, he was mostly inclined to beat his son with his own two hands.

self_composed
2012-09-24 05:29 pm (UTC)

Bella grits her teeth, opens up the less sensory data around each one in turn, and writes dates - approximate when she has to, exact when she doesn't - and implements where applicable, exact details of each attack, instigating incidents especially when trivial, injuries and scarring and where it may be found, and all relevant visits to the hospital. She fills pages. And pages. In neat and tidy handwriting and careful, consistent formatting. She adds a footnote attached to each incident where Mrs. Hammond was there.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 05:48 pm (UTC)

It turns out the poker was the source of Alice's broken ribs in November. The offense that led to it: a tube of his mother's lipstick found in his room. Mrs. Hammond was not present.

(The poker left scars, of course. So did the cigarette. Most of the implements did, at one time or another, and Alice has long suspected that's why his father stopped using them except when he was really pissed off.)

Before the ribs, visits to the hospital were surprisingly few, and only for injuries as bad as that or worse—a broken jaw when he was twelve, a broken arm when he was sixteen. The former was incurred for wearing (and ruining) one of his mother's dresses; the latter, for swearing in the house. Not usually such a dire crime, but Senior was in a bad mood that day.

self_composed
2012-09-24 05:55 pm (UTC)

Bella tries to stick to the plain, bare facts; a prosecutor will be better than her at spinning it into a story that tones down the things juries won't like and yanks on their heartstrings with everything else. She writes and writes and writes.

Finally, when her hand is cramped again after having been triangled into submission twice and she's filled both sides of every page in the notebook and sixteen pages of a new one, her mental representation of the memories will scroll no farther.

She puts down the pen and backs off to just surface reading.

"Does anything in your architectural plans for the renovation of this house suggest the soundproofing?" Bella asks.
Edited 2012-09-24 17:58 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Probably," he says. "I mean, it's not like he did it secretly or anything."

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Good. That'll look like he did it specifically to keep everything from being audible."

Bella looks at her notebooks full of incidents.

"There is no non-magical way to have this much documentation unless you have an eidetic memory or you've been journaling aggressively all along," she says. "Is the second thing remotely plausible? Can anyone actually disprove the first if they go up against an actual eidetic memory that you could acquire via hex, like mine?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Hell, if I hex up perfect memory for myself, it'll be true," Alice says with a shrug. "Fucking hard to disprove it then. No way I could've kept journals all this time, though; he searches all my shit whenever he can stand to deal with the mess." Which is very infrequently these days, but not totally unheard-of, and was much more common back when he had fewer possessions to leave lying around in the first place.

Oh, thinking of which— "Does shit like going through my clothes and throwing out all the stuff I actually like count for this kinda thing? He's done that a few times."

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:11 pm (UTC)

"...No, I don't think so," Bella says. "It should, but I'm not actually sure that teenagers have property rights, legally speaking, even though decent people pretend we have as a polite fiction. The occasion around Christmas is more ambiguous... but still ambiguous. We'll leave that one up to the lawyer." She writes it down in the second notebook, after two line breaks. "Anything else?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, figures. In that case, nah, I think that's it."

When he looks at the notebooks, he's not sure whether to be surprised it took that much or surprised it didn't take more.

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:20 pm (UTC)

Bella gets a tricolor highlighter from the junk drawer, and goes through them all again and highlights the ones that left marks - or injuries that might turn up in a sufficiently thorough medical exam, and then in another color highlights the ones that were related to particularly jury-baitish incidents and not things like wearing dresses or swiping Mrs. Hammond's lipstick. "Lawyer'll do the rest. We'll talk to Charlie when he comes home." She checks the time. "I think it is lunchtime now."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Alice, "I think so too. ...Aw, fuck, I forgot to bring anything."

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:23 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "I'm not in the mood for anything more complicated than cold cuts on rye, and we have those. Sound good?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:28 pm (UTC)

Bella fixes sandwiches - she polishes off the roast beef, so Alice gets salami. They eat. Om nom nom.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:32 pm (UTC)

Over lunch, Alice finds himself considering the possibilities of an underground lair.

He concludes pretty quickly that he had better get Bella's help designing the place. And maybe also building it.

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Sure, that seems like a good way to kill an afternoon," Bella says when she reads the thought.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Awesome! Please help me build an underground lair so I won't forget something obvious like bathrooms," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I think if you forgot bathrooms, you'd realize pretty quick you needed to add them," Bella says. She gets a fresh notebook, so that diagramming may be done. "It'd be more problematic if you forgot, like, ventilation, and passed out in your sleep and suffocated. That would be really inconvenient."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:39 pm (UTC)

"See?" he says, with a warm happy glow of affection. "This is why I need you. Okay, so: bathrooms, ventilation. Where should I put it?"

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Uh, hm. Deep, enough that you won't run into someone's actual basement so the ceiling should be a couple stories down, but you don't want to overdo it and be next to the mantle of the earth or anything. Not in an aquifer. I wonder if there's a map of nearby aquifers on the internet. Probably want to surround yourself with rock, not dirt. Possible we need to learn some geology."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:45 pm (UTC)

"What's an aquifer?"

So yes. Yes they should.

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Underground pocket of water," Bella says. "How big do you want your lair?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't have to be that big," he says. "Well, it depends how much I wanna do there, I guess."

Absolute necessities: a bathroom (with a shower, because of what he can do there with a knife) and somewhere to sleep.

Things that would be nice, if he'll be staying there a while: somewhere to cook (conveniently also doubling as somewhere to hurt himself) and somewhere to sew.

"That doesn't add up to that much, right?"

self_composed
2012-09-24 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sounds pretty small. How long do you envision living here?" Bella sketches vague lines of layouts. "I'm not sure what'll happen to your dad's stuff if we can get him sent to jail, but it's not necessarily the case that you'll have access to the house after." Pause. "I'm planning to live in Forks till I finish high school in a year and a half, then go off to college somewhere."
Edited 2012-09-24 19:03 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Might as well go for the kitchen and the sewing room too, then," he says. "D'you know where you wanna go?" (Half-hoping, half-assuming that she will let him follow her.)

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:08 pm (UTC)

"No, I haven't started seriously looking into that yet." She smiles. "But I see no reason that you couldn't make a duplicate lair near wherever I wind up. Even if any sane admissions officer wouldn't touch you." She adds to her sketches.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:10 pm (UTC)

Alice smiles and loves her for a moment, then turns his attention to what she's drawing.

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:12 pm (UTC)

Bella finally settles on a floor plan with a central room, radiating a bathroom and a kitchen and a bedroom and a sewing room. "Do you want the place to be accessible without using coins every time?" Bella asks. "You could make it person-specific, like the pillar and the fairy mound are specific to Elias's descendants. Or, you could just put in a staircase or an elevator and tuck the entrance away somewhere. In case anyone else ever earns the privilege of visiting."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'll put in stairs," he says, "and make it so you'n'me are the only people who can get to 'em, and if I ever wanna bring anybody else in, I can wish 'em in then."

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella adds a stairwell that leads down to the central room, and moves the door to the kitchen so it's under the angle of the stairs. She starts drawing squares in the kitchen and labeling them - stove, double-decker oven, fridge and freezer, cupboards and counters and sink. "This is all gonna have to operate by magic. You're not going to be on the grid in your lair. Other furnishings that don't need electricity or water you can wish up separately after you have a feel for the space."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Wonder how much magic it's gonna take," he says, thinking happily of what he might do to provide it.

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I think it might be possible that you could create an entire sufficiently-designed-in-advance lair with one hex," Bella laughs, "but maybe you'll have to outfit the kitchen and the bathroom with a few pentagons or something." She finishes tiling the kitchen with kitchen implements and moves on to the bathroom.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Pentagons are easy," he says with a lingering look at her stove.

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:35 pm (UTC)

Bella is mildly amused.

"So, magic sewing machine, magic plumbing, magic kitchen appliances, magic ventilation not by means of device. Out of curiosity, are you planning to go grocery shopping or just wish yourself food?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Probably the wishing," he says. "Don't have to worry about money that way."

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:41 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. Of course saleable goods can be conjured even with mere squares, but she's not sure how to step that up in volume without attention.

She checks the time. "Angela'll be here soon. I'm not sure whether it's best for her to spot you or not, but I should start playing invalid."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, good plan," he says. "Do you also wanna hide the..." with a gesture at the notebooks full of his childhood.

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, probably a good idea." Bella shuts all the notebooks on the table, stacks them, and takes them upstairs; then she flops onto the couch, illusions herself various casts, and says, "I'm actually not sure how I'd let her in if I were as beat up as I'm supposed to look, so maybe you'd better own up to being here after all. I don't want to make her just leave everything in the mailbox for Charlie to bring in."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Alice. "Do I need some kind of excuse to be here, or is 'skipping school to hang out with you because I care more about you than school' good enough?"

It has the advantage of being pretty much true, but true and plausible are not always the same thing.

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:48 pm (UTC)

"You are known to care almost zilch about school," Bella says. "I think it'll do. She might not even solicit an explanation."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Awesome."

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:53 pm (UTC)

Bella lounges on the couch and practices wincing theatrically.

About twenty minutes after school ends, Angela rings the doorbell. "Bella? Bella, it's me!"

"Hang on!" Bella calls out the window. And to Alice, "Go let her in, would you?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:54 pm (UTC)

"'Kay," he says, and wonders idly if she shouldn't pentagon herself some acting skills just to make it easier, and goes to open the door.

self_composed
2012-09-24 07:57 pm (UTC)

That's a decent idea, and Bella has plenty of pentagons. She's Broadway quality before he gets to the door.

Angela's standing on the doorstep with her arms full of handouts and hand-copied descriptions of the day's assignments. "Oh! Hi, Delaney," she says politely. "You're visiting Bella too, that's sweet. Can I come in?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says, stepping back out of her way. "Hi."

self_composed
2012-09-24 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Angela!" calls Bella with fake strain in her voice. "I'm in the living room." Weak smile. "Don't want to make Dad haul me up and down the stairs every day."

Angela tiptoes in. "Oh wow, Bella," she says, eyes wide at the imaginary casts. "Are you even going to be able to do the homework?"

"I bet the pinball wizard here'll take dictation for me if I ask him," Bella says, making a small gesture with her mostly-"unscathed" left hand. "Thanks so much for bringing everything."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 08:04 pm (UTC)

Alice sits himself down on the floor in front of Bella and leans back against the couch. He doesn't consider it much beforehand; it's just, for him, the obvious place to sit.

self_composed
2012-09-24 08:08 pm (UTC)

Angela seems to consider the "pinball wizard" nickname cute if inscrutable. "Okay. That's really nice of you, Delaney." She reaches into her purse and pulls out a greeting card that says "Get Well Soon!" and is utterly crammed with well-wishes and signatures from dozens of people. "Here. Practically everybody signed this."

Bella reaches carefully, with very convincing winces, for the card, and smiles. "Thanks, this was really nice of you."

"Oh, Jessica went in half on the card," Angela says. "But she couldn't come with me here because she has her voice lesson after school Mondays."

"Well, tell her I said thanks, too," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 08:10 pm (UTC)

"All your friends are cute," Alice says to Bella, tipping his head back and grinning.

self_composed
2012-09-24 08:13 pm (UTC)

Angela looks confused. Bella sighs quietly.

"I don't wanna keep you," Bella tells Angela. "It means a lot to me that you came out here, though."

Angela takes that as a dismissal, and gracefully. "Okay. I'll be back tomorrow, Bella. Feel better!"

And she lets herself out.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 08:32 pm (UTC)

"...Did I say something wrong?" he wonders. Wrong in the sense of confusing to Angela, that is.

self_composed
2012-09-24 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, for one thing, as long as I'm reading you, you don't have to say anything aloud you don't want the entire room to hear," Bella says. "And, 'all my friends are cute'? Even in context, yeah, that gets read funny. Angela seems to give everyone the benefit of the doubt all the time, so nothing's going to come of it, but that could have been anything from a bizarre comment on her and Jessica's appearances to a condescending remark about the card."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Huh." He shrugs. "Okay."

The takeaway from this seems to be: don't talk in front of Bella's friends. Well, whatever. He does not have strong feelings one way or another about that, so he may as well not.

self_composed
2012-09-24 08:44 pm (UTC)

"It would probably be weird if you were around them for long and didn't talk at all," Bella says. Angela can be heard getting in her car and driving away, which is Bella's cue to get rid of the illusory casts. "But if you don't actually care either way, it might be simplest not do it a whole lot. I'm running a lot of social algorithms that would be complicated to document and explain and translate so they'd work for you instead of me."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 08:56 pm (UTC)

"I mean, I don't wanna freak 'em out because you don't want me to freak 'em out," he says. "But I don't think I care enough to follow a bunch of complicated rules anyway."

Predictably, there are no good associations in his head for following rules.

self_composed
2012-09-24 08:58 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

She collects the lair notebook and relocates to the kitchen table.

"So this is the basic shape of the thing. Color scheme? Flooring? Lighting?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Don't care," he says, "something that's easy to clean, don't care again."

He has a vague notion that bright colours might be fun, and another vague notion that he might get sick of them after a while, or at least sick of the same ones in the same places all the time. Lighting he just hasn't considered in enough depth to have any opinions at all.

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I bet you can repaint a flat wall with a triangle," shrugs Bella. "Let's do neutrals with accent walls and you can fuck with the accent color once a month. And everything is easy to clean. We have magic powers." She starts labeling walls (dove gray and blue in the bathroom, beige and red in the central room, white and lavender in the sewing room, ecru and forest green in the bedroom, all pastel yellows in the kitchen.) She puts tile in the kitchen and the bathroom because Alice might just forget to clean for a while (she's seen his room), even if it only takes a triangle, and these will become less gross in the interims; everything else gets carpets to match the paint. She decides she liked the glowing-air effect in Elias's hidey holes and that this should pervade the entire lair, intensity of same fluctuating according to the interests of Alice or herself.

This is fun. She's humming.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:15 pm (UTC)

"You forget," Alice says cheerfully, "I get off on scrubbing things. But eh, I can clean my bathtub once in a while for kicks."

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:20 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "Okay. Hm." She looks around the room for more inspiration. And adds a little arrow pointing at the word "carpet" indicating that there will need to be a nice padding layer between the carpet and the rock underneath, to make it comfy to walk on. (She does plan to visit this place, after all.) "I think this is probably it, except for your furniture that doesn't need magic electricity and water. Where do you want to put the entrance? We can check out the composition of the underground under your first choice first."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Somewhere near here," he says. "Like, off in the woods somewhere or something, towards the school?"

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:23 pm (UTC)

"There's a big rock roughly thataway," Bella says, gesturing. "Big enough to walk into and not immediately fall down the stairs. By accident."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Sounds good!" he says. "I don't want you falling down any holes on my account."

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:25 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Okay. Time to see if you're going to run into any aquifers if you just put it twenty feet belowground."

She goes up to where her computer is located in her room.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:26 pm (UTC)

Alice tags along.

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:27 pm (UTC)

Bella does some cursory searching, and says, "Looks like we're good. We only live under permanent water, not above it. Wanna go install the lair now?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:28 pm (UTC)

It takes him a second or two to connect the weather reference, and then he giggles fondly.

"Sure, why the fuck not?"

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Righto." Bella turns invisible. "Don't want the neighbors to wonder how I'm, you know, walking. Also, this way I can fly there." Alice can hear her go down the stairs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Cool," he says cheerfully, meaning both okay and awesome. He trots down the stairs after her.

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:32 pm (UTC)

Partway down the stairs, Bella remembers flying. She's not used to having it yet. Off the stairs and into the air she goes. She puts on her coat; it disappears from sight as soon as she picks it up.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Kinda weird," Alice comments, and then observes that he should probably get in the habit of not talking out loud to the invisible woman before they exit the house.

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes, probably," Bella agrees. "You wanna get the door?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:36 pm (UTC)

Sure he does!

Doing small favours for Bella makes him vaguely pleased.

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:37 pm (UTC)

Aww.

Bella flies out the door and up, up, up into the air. She can "hear" Alice from any distance; if she needs to talk to him to direct him towards the rock, she can always dip low.

Wheeeeeeee!

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:41 pm (UTC)

There is no actual way for him to tell, but he just assumes she is having fun up there.

That makes him vaguely pleased, too.

(He wonders idly about hexing himself invisibility powers that make them both able to see each other when they are respectively invisible, and thinks happily of going flying with her, and entertains a brief and completely unrepentant daydream about invisible midair sex.)

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:44 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs, quits reading during the sex part, and swoops low so she can hear him if he talks. She's not offended - that would be silly - but that is not what she cares to daydream about at this time.

"Bear left a bit," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:45 pm (UTC)

When he feels the sense of being read depart, he cracks up; when she directs him leftward, he obeys.

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:47 pm (UTC)

Bella offers no apology and does not caveat the obvious explanation. She just flies along, weaving between trees. She's a lot more graceful in the air, controlled by purely mental action, than she is when she has to act via her body.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:50 pm (UTC)

He thinks of that after a bit—wondering whether the lack of tree-crashing noises is for that reason or because she's flying high enough to avoid hitting things.

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:52 pm (UTC)

But Bella's still not reading him, so she doesn't know.

"Up ahead," she says after a couple minutes. "It's an easy trip. Do you want me to wish it for you?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you're the one who's good at details," he says. "How come you haven't hit any trees?"

self_composed
2012-09-24 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Flying's mental. I'm not clumsy in the brain," Bella says cheerfully. She lands right on top of the rock, looks around, and turns visible again. "All right, here goes."

Aaand - yes, a hex can apparently do the lair and the appliances and the stairs and the rock passage and the restricted access all in one go.

"Hexes are awesome," Bella enthuses. She flies off the rock and walks through its side.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Alice, which seems inadequate next to just feeling it and having her notice. He follows her into the rock.

"Ooh, lairy," he says approvingly.

self_composed
2012-09-24 10:10 pm (UTC)

Bella flies in a spiral rather than chance the stairs. The air glows, the layout's just like the one she drew, it has high vaulted ceilings and big open doors with rounded corners into the sewing room and the kitchen and more customary ones - albeit made out of rock, like everything else - for the bedroom and the bathroom. The appliances are sleekly white and silver, and they look like extremely iconic versions of their types, without brands or electrical cords or even a humming noise from the fridge. All the colors are as she wrote, and she sinks an inch into the rich red carpet when she lands at the foot of the stairs in the central room. Bella lifts back into the air just so she can twirl without falling over. "Here ya go," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:14 pm (UTC)

Alice trots down the stairs in a more ordinary way, but when Bella twirls, he beams at her and hovers experimentally.

"I love yoooou," he announces, and hugs her.

self_composed
2012-09-24 10:17 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs him back quite willingly. "So, you're still missing key furniture - bed, sewing table, any shelving, places to sit, kitchen table, etcetera." She still doesn't have a new phone, so she has to guess at the time, but: "I think we probably have time to run around and put all that stuff in before it's time to start dinner."

And before the unspoken subsequent event, once Charlie gets home.
Edited 2012-09-24 22:17 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," he says brightly, letting go and spinning around to survey the space. "Read me?"

self_composed
2012-09-24 10:19 pm (UTC)

Bella does so, amusedly puzzled.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:23 pm (UTC)

Well, first of all, there is how much he loves her, which is: lots.

Second of all, it is easier to get a second opinion on furniture placement when he can just—see things where he thinks they should go, instead of having to point and chatter. Like, say, a kitchen table. Over there! Supplied with chairs!

self_composed
2012-09-24 10:25 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs; she's got lots of squares and he'll thrust more upon her at the next opportunity. She follows him around and conjures up furniture out of his thoughts, edited where necessary to have useful properties like "enough legs to not fall over" and "does not clash horribly with wall".

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:40 pm (UTC)

He ends up with a bed of maximum comfiness, more storage space in the sewing room than absolutely anywhere else, and a single big squashy armchair in one corner of the main room with a little table next to it.

"Yeah, that'll do it. Thanks," he says, dropping the 'hon' that wants to attach to the end.

self_composed
2012-09-24 10:47 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles and twirls her necklace around her fingers. "You're welcome. Do you have the time? I haven't gotten a new phone yet."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, digging his phone out of his pocket and showing her the time display.

self_composed
2012-09-24 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Probably time to start the pot pie with the leftover chicken," Bella says. "Homeward!" And she flies up the stairs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:52 pm (UTC)

Alice zooms after her. Flying is fun! Whee!

self_composed
2012-09-24 10:53 pm (UTC)

Bella's invisible before leaving through the rock. She tests out her top speed. And gets above the trees and loops till she's dizzy.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:55 pm (UTC)

Alice hovers for a second or two on the outside before he decides that not getting caught is probably a good plan and settles to the ground to walk back.

self_composed
2012-09-24 10:56 pm (UTC)

Bella dives and comes up short near Alice. "You could learn to be invisible too," she points out.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I could!" he agrees. "Ooh, y'know what else—"

That thing they were thinking of earlier, about some way to run his bad ideas past her without waiting for a phone. It doesn't need to be related to telepathy at all, but if they had some way to talk at arbitrary distance without being overheard, it would make invisible flying excursions that much more convenient.

self_composed
2012-09-24 11:05 pm (UTC)

Bella designs a magic mental phone system, controlled entirely by mental action. It will be expansible, because why not; she and Alice will start as the only two nodes, but if she wants to throw in Charlie or somebody, or add an interface for Alice's sewing machine, she will be able to do that with only a pentagon. It will allow any number of nodes to talk to each other. There will be magic voicemail, in case someone does not want to receive a communique at a given time. And the whole thing can be compressed to text in either direction, in case one is in a loud environment or wants to send mental ASCII art.

She turns over this design in her head a few times, and then spends a hex to put it in place. [Like so?]
Edited 2012-09-24 23:05 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 11:10 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] he says happily. [How's it work? Besides the obvious.]

self_composed
2012-09-24 11:12 pm (UTC)

[Like a phone, basically. You wanna talk to me, you can, unless I have a busy message up, and then you can leave magic voicemail.] She switches to text, and the words "Works this way, too," march across his vision. [And I can add more people later, if desired.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Whoa," he mutters out loud, and then adds by mage-phone, [You're awesome,] although the words are probably redundant next to how hard he is thinking it.

self_composed
2012-09-24 11:17 pm (UTC)

[You can put up the busy message manually and according to whatever algorithm you want. Mine'll automatically be up when I'm asleep, f'rinstance,] Bella goes on happily.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 11:18 pm (UTC)

[What if I have a really bad idea while you're asleep?] he wonders. Operating on the assumption that brain phones don't ring, because why would they: [Guess I'll call you the normal way.]
Edited 2012-09-24 23:22 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-24 11:23 pm (UTC)

[Right. Once I get a new phone. I don't think I want to try to deal with the headache of trying to connect a conjured phone to any existing cell service.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 11:25 pm (UTC)

Although he expects that she could totally do it, because Bella is amazing, he also expects that it would be exactly as much of a headache as she seems to think.

[Yeah, good plan.]

self_composed
2012-09-24 11:28 pm (UTC)

They reach her house. Bella unlocks the door so Alice can let her in.

Inside, she starts working on the pot pie (with occasional directions for assistance from Alice), and, while cutting up the chicken, she pauses, shrugs, smiles, and wishes herself cooking skills on a pentagon.
Edited 2012-09-24 23:31 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 11:33 pm (UTC)

Alice helps out as directed and basks happily in how much he loves her and how awesome she is.
Edited 2012-09-24 23:33 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-24 11:40 pm (UTC)

Bella enjoys that as she starts fucking around with her pot pie recipe. She's a little more careful not to get too much of the original sauce in it, because it won't go that well with the gravy. At least she saved the chicken drippings when she cooked it the first time around. Those are essential.

She likes being magical oh so very much.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 11:45 pm (UTC)

It's not any one thing, but something in the general tone of her cooking has him asking, "Did you pentagon yourself?" after a little while.

self_composed
2012-09-24 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Yup!" says Bella. "It was on my list."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-24 11:48 pm (UTC)

He loves her.

self_composed
2012-09-24 11:49 pm (UTC)

Bella hums and assigns him to chop up carrots and celery. She whisks flour into butter on the stove, for the gravy.

A fair amount of work later, the pot pie is in the oven, and Bella has spontaneously decided to make tea.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 12:10 am (UTC)

Alice observes the tea!

His mind wanders a little while it is in progress. He wants to hex himself invisibility powers, but doesn't feel any particular urgency about it, so resolves to wait until it comes up or until the next time he makes a bunch of hexes. He really likes the way Bella's butt looks in those pants.

The thought of more hexes links to the thought of Bella being attractive; he considers the notion of her hurting him. She probably won't want to do it the messy way. Directly wishing pain on yourself doesn't make you anything but hurt, and he has no idea whether that holds true for wishing it on other people; you can wish up something to hurt yourself with, though, so why not a superpower? That would be hot. And really, really convenient. No more burning himself on her stove; he can do it on his when he's in the mood.

How 'bout it? he wonders, not bothering to mindphone her because he can feel her listening.

self_composed
2012-09-25 12:14 am (UTC)

She decides the tea's done steeping. A triangle chills it; she pours it into glasses and stirs in sugar and squeezes in lemon. [As a practical tool, that one's worth testing on a smaller scale first - and as a superpower, that one definitely has corrupting potential, although interestingly less than a general mindreading power because hurting people appeals to me less than learning things. And as an interpersonal interaction, we are still just friends, however convenient and periodically adorable you may be.]
Edited 2012-09-25 00:21 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 12:29 am (UTC)

He is happily listening and considering her words right up until she gets to the 'just friends' bit, at which point he becomes confused and kind of worried.

It goes something like this: just friends? As opposed to what? What's the difference? Wait, are just-friends not supposed to do stuff together that one of them might get off on? Because that sounds completely terrible and is almost functionally equivalent to never doing anything fun at all.

self_composed
2012-09-25 12:32 am (UTC)

[...What working definition of "just friends" were you using?] Bella inquires.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 12:36 am (UTC)

He wasn't! Until now it has genuinely never crossed his mind to define their relationship according to rules other than direct observation of what Bella does and doesn't seem to think is okay!

self_composed
2012-09-25 12:40 am (UTC)

Bella sips tea and contemplates how to put this. [Let us suppose, almost certainly falsely, that Angela has a kink for, I dunno, dressing up as a saltshaker while someone else she's hanging out with is dressed up as a pepper shaker. And then suppose I knew that, and then she proposed these as Halloween costumes for the two of us. Would it surprise you even slightly if I declined?]
Edited 2012-09-25 00:41 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 12:45 am (UTC)

[...yeah,] he says. [Guess it shouldn't, huh?]

The example of the abandoned jar of lye in his basement comes to mind. None of Bella's stated objections to that were even tangentially related to the fact that he was going to get off on it - did she just not know? Maybe that list of his was not as complete as he thought.

self_composed
2012-09-25 12:48 am (UTC)

[If dressing as a pepper shaker with counterfactual Angela would get me easy access to a nigh-unlimited supply of wishcoins I'd otherwise have to do unpleasant things to get, I would put the costume on. That doesn't mean it's something that would happen under normal circumstances,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 12:49 am (UTC)

[I really don't get you,] Alice concludes. Well, okay, that's not news. And he loves her for surprising him, even unpleasantly.

self_composed
2012-09-25 01:02 am (UTC)

[There exists a division between "sex things" and "not sex things", and torturing you by any mechanism would count as the first, and would require an exceptional reason to get me to do it despite being in a not-sex-things-doing relationship with you,] Bella says. [The division isn't completely sharp, and you in particular mess with it a lot, but that case is clear to me.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 01:21 am (UTC)

He turns that one over in his head a few times.

It surprises him how much he misses the possibility. Way more than he misses the possibility of having any kind of actual sex with her, which is also something he would like very much if she ever felt like it, but isn't really something he spends much time thinking about. He is getting very, very wistful about the torture in a way he rarely ever gets about anything.

But Bella doesn't, in fact, feel like it. So that's that.

Alice shrugs.

[Oh—it'd probably be the best way to get fast coins, if we ever needed 'em,] he adds as an afterthought. Maybe later he'll burn a hex giving himself such a power and then see if using it on himself works for making coins with.

self_composed
2012-09-25 01:28 am (UTC)

That one is slightly motivating to Bella. Emergency coin generation, without equipment, without an extra preparatory step. And yet. [It'd be an awfully specific kind of emergency, where I don't have the coins I need and can best address the problem by having you generate some. We'd have to both be in the same place looking at the same problem, I'd have to be running around without any hexes, we don't have enough time to set up anything else even by making squares biting our cheeks and conjuring you a knife or something but we have enough time for me to explain what to do with the coins or transfer them from you to me - I don't think it's a sensible emergency plan.]

Pause.

[It might be useful for sheer volume, though.] If she's planning to take over the entire world, she will need to do a lot of stuff...

Pause, pause.

[Okay. Let's experiment and see if getting around the bootstrapping restriction by having someone else make the ouch-wish even works. If it does, I will consider hexing up a power for it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 01:38 am (UTC)

[Okay,] says Alice. [You wanna wish me hurt, or...?] It could go either way, really.
Edited 2012-09-25 01:38 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-25 01:44 am (UTC)

[Yeah. I'm not sure if this is positive sum so I'll start with a square in case a coin can only do enough to make a smaller coin - and I don't know how much this is gonna hurt.] She finds a ninety-degree corner on her necklace, debates how exactly to do this, and finally just wishes upon him plain unadulterated pain in whatever quantity squares can generate.

And she supervises, curious.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 01:54 am (UTC)

...He bites his lip, lightly. It is a tiny bit uncomfortable to know that Bella won't like him getting off on this, but mostly it is really, really nice to feel that and know where it came from. A sharp little all-over sting, there and gone; he isn't surprised when he touches the new coin and finds a square.

[So, that worked.]

And now he is kind of a lot more turned on than he just was. Well, it's not like they didn't expect that. He tries not to dwell on it too much, in case she stops reading him again.
Edited 2012-09-25 01:55 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-25 01:55 am (UTC)

She doesn't stop reading him, but she's not directly looking at him anymore.

[Good to know. Anti-bootstrapping restriction only works on people who work alone.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 01:57 am (UTC)

[Maybe that's another reason why nobody else has—]

—taken over the world. If other coinmakers are all solitary types. Why is she not directly looking at him?

self_composed
2012-09-25 01:59 am (UTC)

She turns her head back in his direction. She's sort of looking at his chin, though. [Maybe. I still haven't read all the profiles. But Elias had - and expected to have - descendants. He had a family. I'm still confused.]
Edited 2012-09-25 01:59 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:02 am (UTC)

Still thinking more about Bella's line of sight than her long-dead ancestor, he answers, [Maybe he didn't know anybody he wanted to hurt.] Either because they got off on it or because they didn't, but probably the second one. And likewise for not knowing anybody who wanted to hurt him.

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:03 am (UTC)

[I guess.] She shuts her eyes altogether. [The book doesn't say anything about his family, which is kind of weird. Maybe I should do that genealogy project as soon as I can visibly leave the house.]
Edited 2012-09-25 02:12 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:13 am (UTC)

Bella is acting really weird.

Well, she can tell he's noticed, so if she wanted him to know why, she'd say. He shrugs and lets it go.

[Maybe he hated all his kids,] he speculates, smiling. [Or they hated him. Or both. But he still wanted to pass it down to somebody in the family.]

This line of reasoning makes perfect sense to a Hammond!

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:17 am (UTC)

[That could be. He lived long enough ago that if he had, like, an estranged wife but he liked his kids, she probably did not get custody, so that's probably not it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:21 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I bet not.]

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:22 am (UTC)

The oven timer dings.

Bella gets up and puts on oven mitts and pulls it out. [Charlie'll be home in about fifteen minutes, by which time the pie'll be cool enough to eat. And then after dinner we have a difficult conversation with him.]
Edited 2012-09-25 02:22 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:23 am (UTC)

[Sounds good to me,] Alice says wryly; it sounds good only in the sense that it is likely to lead to solving a problem. Actually having the conversation is unlikely to be fun.

On the other hand, fuck it, he has an underground lair now.

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:26 am (UTC)

[It's a pretty good lair, if I do say so myself,] Bella agrees. She turns off the oven and starts setting the table.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:27 am (UTC)

Ooh, it's fun when she answers his thoughts like he said them out loud! Alice indulges in fuzzy feelings for a bit, and then wonders if she wants any help.

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:28 am (UTC)

[You can get the forks and napkins,] Bella suggests, laughing softly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:29 am (UTC)

Happily, he does.

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:34 am (UTC)

Charlie arrives as Bella's putting ice in the water pitcher. He sniffs the air appreciatively. "Pot pie, Bells?" He looks at Alice, unsurprised, unthrilled, unreactive. "Laney," he acknowledges.

"Yep, pot pie," Bella not-quite-sings, filling the pitcher with water and plunking it on the table.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:37 am (UTC)

Alice grins.

Are they inappropriately cheerful for the subject they will later be raising? Well, not like he cares. Pie!

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:39 am (UTC)

The pot pie is gravyish on the bottom and biscuity on the top.

Ohhhh, it is good.

Bella sighs as she noms it, blissful.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:42 am (UTC)

It is good. On the border of sexually so, in fact. Alice noms pie, and smiles, and loves Bella.

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:43 am (UTC)

Bella looks at him just a little pointedly, but makes no objection, not even a silent brainphone kind of objection.

"This is real good, Bells," Charlie remarks. "Laney help you?"

"He chopped up the carrots, and stuff," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:45 am (UTC)

"Yup," he concurs.

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:46 am (UTC)

"Well, this is a better recipe than the old one," Charlie says, nodding to himself.

Om nom nom, pie.

Bella puts out a bowl of grapes as a facsimile of dessert.

Om nom nom, grapes.

And then...

Bella wonders if Alice wants to start. He probably doesn't, but she checks. [You want me to take this?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:50 am (UTC)

[Yes please,] he says.

Talking about his dad isn't exactly the problem; talking to Charlie about his dad is a much bigger one. He just doesn't know how. And he clearly demonstrated with Angela earlier that talking to normal people is not a skill of his.

It probably isn't something you can pentagon, either. Or at least, it's not something he'd want to.

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:52 am (UTC)

[Yes, pentagoning that would be weird as hell. Who knows what kind of personality magic would glue onto you.]

"Dad," Bella says, when the grapes are a bowl of stems and no more, "in abuse cases - like, domestic violence and stuff - how is the victim's safety handled in cases where the defendant gets off? Even if it's on a technicality or something?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:54 am (UTC)

Alice wholeheartedly and definitively rejects the thought of modifying himself in such a way.

And then looks to Charlie to observe his answer.

self_composed
2012-09-25 02:57 am (UTC)

"Uh," Charlie says. "Not a lot we can do, honestly. Guy gets off, we have to treat him like he's innocent. Sometimes we can put the victim in lockup to keep 'em safe, but unless they do it again and we can arrest 'em a second time for a technically separate crime, not a police matter."

"Hmm," Bella says, reading Alice for a reaction.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 02:59 am (UTC)

He didn't expect anything different, really. But the underground lair has him feeling a whole lot more secure about the prospect.

self_composed
2012-09-25 03:00 am (UTC)

"But certainly if the defendant, however technically-treated-as-innocent, were to do anything to harrass the victim - say, showing up at a workplace, following or hiring someone to follow them around, etcetera - then that would be a police matter again," Bella says.

"Yep," says Charlie. "Bells, is somebody after you? That's not why you moved here, is it? Renée would've told me if there was -"

"No, no," Bella says, shaking her head.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 03:02 am (UTC)

This seems like a good moment to tell him, actually.

Alice hesitates on the vague suspicion that he would say it... wrong in some way.

self_composed
2012-09-25 03:04 am (UTC)

"Dad," Bella says quietly, "it's Alice's father."

Charlie's expression is one of slowly dawning comprehension. He looks at Alice.

"In November," he said.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 03:06 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Alice. "I really pissed him off that time. He usually doesn't hit me with things, and even when he does it's usually not a poker."

He recalls the felt/heard sound of his own ribs snapping and winces slightly.
Edited 2012-09-25 03:10 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-25 03:12 am (UTC)

Charlie looks nonplussed at this straightforward description.

"Part of today," Bella said, "went to making a list of - well, everything." [Are you going to hex yourself eidetic memory? This'd be a good time. Copy my version.] "I know Mrs. Hammond can't be compelled to testify against her husband, but their driver knows enough to be suspicious if he were halfway decent as a human being, and even the fact that Alice went to the hospital in November and didn't explain why ought to be suspicious - I figured it out that way. Alice has a safe place to go, whichever way a trial goes, but is worried about his dad buying someone off or there not being enough evidence to convict, and then he could get harassed at school."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 03:14 am (UTC)

Alice obediently uses up a hex.

And thinks of the same sound again, this time with considerably more clarity.

Well, that's... definitely a mixed blessing. He carefully does not start down the road of mentally listing all the things it would be really inconvenient to recall in detail right now.

self_composed
2012-09-25 03:17 am (UTC)

[It won't call up anything you're not actually trying to remember; I specifically included that. I have stuff I don't want to replay in my head all day too,] Bella tells him.

"If he's got a place to go, no reason not to bring charges," Charlie thinks. "Bribing folks the sort of thing he'd do, Laney?"
Edited 2012-09-25 03:17 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 03:23 am (UTC)

Maybe Bella has the self-control not to peek into her memory's septic tank. Alice expects that he doesn't, at least not perfectly.

"Probably," he says. "He'd do just about anything to keep his name clean, if he thought he could get away with it." [Good idea or bad idea to mention why we moved?]

self_composed
2012-09-25 03:28 am (UTC)

[Er - don't for now. Charlie takes a dim view of illegal things in full generality.]

"Mm," says Charlie. "Can let the right people know that's an issue, but if there was a way to make it go away altogether we'd already be doing it. I think Roberts is a solid fellow, though. He'd most likely get the case while Lawrence is on maternity leave."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 09:57 am (UTC)

Alice shrugs slightly, deferring to Bella's judgment, although there are certainly ways to summarize that reason that don't have him doing anything illegal.

self_composed
2012-09-25 04:54 pm (UTC)

[It opens an avenue of investigation that both makes you look less like jury bait and that your dad may be tempted to neglect. It's a choice for the lawyer, later, not Charlie,] Bella explains.

"Right, I guess a little town wouldn't have that many judges in it," Bella says aloud.

"Don't have to worry about Roberts," Charlie says, confidently. "Jury might be a problem. There's procedures against jury tampering, but..."

"We might be able to block that," Bella says, "by unorthodox means you don't want details on. Or we can just catch it and after they go through a few juries, Roberts can decide the case without a jury."
Edited 2012-09-25 16:55 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 09:24 pm (UTC)

Bella is magic and smart and he loves her. So much.

Alice is slowly, tentatively beginning to smile.

self_composed
2012-09-25 09:40 pm (UTC)

[Smiling's gonna look weird, right now,] Bella tells him.

"Right," says Charlie. "Well, I can make the arrest, Bells."

"He's out of town till the end of the week," Bella says.

"Flying in?" Charlie asks. "Could have him picked up at the airport if you know which one."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Alice, "he's flying. Don't know the airport, though."

And he kind of doesn't care how weird he looks. If feeling overwhelming relief at this point is an abnormal reaction, it shouldn't be.

self_composed
2012-09-25 09:55 pm (UTC)

[It's not about being relieved or not, it's just about the whole thing being a serious matter. But whatever, this is just Charlie, you can pentagon acting for the witness stand.]

"Well, I can see if we can find that out," Charlie says. "With any luck he'll never set foot in your house again, Laney."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, and he does smile, crookedly. "Wouldn't that be nice."

self_composed
2012-09-25 10:17 pm (UTC)

"I'll put word around first thing in the morning," Charlie said. "Can I see your list?"

Bella grimly fetches the notebooks.

"He's got an eidetic memory," she explains, as Charlie opens the first. "I wrote everything down from him, but this is straight out of his memories."

"What's the highlighter mean?"

"This color means it left marks and you can prove it - this one means 'jury bait'," Bella says.

Charlie snorts, and starts turning pages, grimmer and grimmer as he goes by.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 10:19 pm (UTC)

...It is kind of amazing how that was all totally true and also totally lies.

He watches curiously as Charlie progresses through the book.

self_composed
2012-09-25 10:20 pm (UTC)

Charlie decides he doesn't need to see anymore less than ten skimmed pages in, although he does pick up the second notebook to look up the November incident. "Your mother left her lipstick in your room and - Christ."

Well, Bella did just write that it was for her lipstick "being found" there.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Alice. Same difference, really. It's not like Dad even bothered to ask her if she'd known it was missing.

self_composed
2012-09-25 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Christ," repeats Charlie. "I'll handle this first thing in the morning."

"Thanks, Dad," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Alice. "Thanks."

He means it, too.

in the tiniest of pieces

self_composed

Bella thinks and thinks and thinks. It takes some getting used to not to have to write everything down in order for it to be where she left it when she wants it again. [You going to school today?] she asks Alice, when the time he arrived yesterday has been and gone.

Because that would make some of the thinking she has to do easier, and some of it trickier.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 11:40 pm (UTC)

[Yep,] he says. [Why, you want me to skip again?]

self_composed
2012-09-25 11:41 pm (UTC)

[Up to you, just curious. Suppose I could've just done this.] And she reads. [For some reason, it takes getting used to, all this having supernatural powers.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 11:46 pm (UTC)

He is hanging out in the art room, waiting for that class to start. When Bella starts reading him, he smiles and hugs himself.

[I like it when you do that,] he says happily. And very redundantly. [Yeah, tell me about it. I only figured out this morning that if I want to I can go invisible and spend the whole afternoon in my lair, which I am totally gonna do, because fuck class and fuck cafeteria food.]

self_composed
2012-09-25 11:47 pm (UTC)

[Don't turn invisible in front of anyone. Or in any location where someone could have a narrow range of possibilities for where you could've gone from there. Are you sticking around for art?]
Edited 2012-09-25 23:50 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-25 11:59 pm (UTC)

Not being noticed is kind of the entire point of going invisible in the first place, but he chooses not to point that out in words.

[Yeah, I think if I skip it one more day in a row Finch'll think I'm actually dead,] he answers instead.

self_composed
2012-09-26 12:05 am (UTC)

[And that would be bad. What are you doing in art lately, anyway?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 12:34 am (UTC)

[Calligraphy—ooh, speak of the devil,] he says as Ms. Finch walks into the room.

"Good to see you, Hammond," she says. "Less good to see you while you should be in another class, but I'll take what I can get."

He gives her an indolent wave. "Hi."

self_composed
2012-09-26 12:35 am (UTC)

[You don't even have art this period?] Bella asks, amused. [Heh.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 12:41 am (UTC)

[Nah, it's next. I like hanging out here, is all.]

"Where were you?" inquires Ms. Finch. "Don't answer if it's something I don't want to know about."

[You care if I tell her?]

self_composed
2012-09-26 12:43 am (UTC)

[That's fine. I was rather publicly hit by a car and she knows we're friends.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 12:50 am (UTC)

"Bella got hit by a car," he says.

"I noticed. And you were what, assassinating the driver?"

Alice snorts. "Nah, I was visiting."

"Well, that's sweet of you," Ms. Finch remarks. "Does she know you have a crush on her? I'd assume so, because it's probably visible from space."

He cracks up. [I dunno, do ya?]
Edited 2012-09-26 00:52 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-26 12:52 am (UTC)

[Gosh, that might explain why you tell me you love me about five times a day,] Bella says. [Don't assassinate Tyler. Maybe aggressively de-ice the parking lot.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 12:58 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I think she's figured it out," he says aloud.

[I don't give enough of a shit about Tyler to assassinate him. Didn't even know that was his name.]

"Colour me surprised. If you're going to hang around, want to make yourself useful and clean some brushes?"

"Sure," he says, and gets up.

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:03 am (UTC)

Bella has nothing more to say. She keeps up the read - it was cleverly designed, if she does think so herself, and doesn't distract her.

She's gonna take over the world.

But she thinks she'd best do it in small pieces.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 01:09 am (UTC)

Alice cleans brushes, humming to himself. The activity is enjoyable on a not-quite-sexual level; he doesn't think about much other than his direct sensory experience.

When class starts, he gets out paper and a pen and forms beautiful shapes on the page. His mind wanders. The letters and words he writes don't make any kind of logical sense as a sequence, unless you happen to be reading his mind and see the sentences he picks them out of. Song lyrics, mostly, with the occasional foray into poetry. And now he doesn't even have to look up the words; in fact, once he realizes he can do it, he sets remembered songs playing in his head for the duration of class.

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:10 am (UTC)

Bella laughs, opens up one of the songs, and hums along in her room.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 01:14 am (UTC)

It happens to be Queen—Alice likes Queen—but not one of the songs that he, ahem, likes. He feels the deeper read and grins at his paper; the loop of the y in shady twists into the shape of a heart.

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:16 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. She decides not to bother him while he's arting, beyond the read alone.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 01:19 am (UTC)

After class, he conscientiously puts everything away and then goes outside and finds one of his favourite places to linger when he's supposed to be in class. Except that this time, as soon as nobody's around to see him turn invisible, he uses it as a launch pad.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:20 am (UTC)

[You're certainly having fun,] Bella comments.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 01:23 am (UTC)

[No shit,] he says cheerfully. He briefly considers crashing into the ground just to see what happens, but decides the risk wouldn't quite be worth it.

[How 'bout you? How are the world conquest plans coming?] And by the way, he loves her.

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:32 am (UTC)

[They're coming along okay. I think I need to take over the world in bits, check those bits over for nasty surprises, and then move on. And I don't mean geographical bits. I mean I'm seventeen and don't know everything about the world - and even a million pentagons won't help me navigate an area that I don't know I don't know. Handling this trial's probably a good place to start, since it grows out of a nearly unrelated goal - I want to look like a fairly natural player to any wishcoiners who notice I exist, like everything could have happened without magic.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 01:35 am (UTC)

That is fascinating and confusing! He ponders it for a moment as he soars toward his lair.

[What do you mean if not geographical bits?]

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:43 am (UTC)

[Well, there'll be some geography in there, but like - once I know something about how the law works, I'll know where to push to get things I want. And I'll know what parts of it are difficult - maybe it turns out I need to pentagon myself rhetoric or encyclopedic legal knowledge or really good posture. One trial might not do it, but maybe there'll be a series of appeals, and I can lurk invisibly near the ceilings while others go on, and eventually I'll know enough about what to poke where that I'll be able to steer anything like that whichever way I want as needed. Poof, I have the ability to take over the world of law as practiced in the United States, if not necessarily the attention or the interest. And by then I'll have an idea of what's next, but the answer probably isn't "Australia", it's probably more like "finance".]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 01:46 am (UTC)

...Alice marvels a little.

[See, I knew you'd be good at this,] he says, basking in the warm happy glow of being in love with the future ruler of the Earth.

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:47 am (UTC)

[And while I go I'll need to work on figuring out how to scale everything. I can't personally be everywhere, and self-duplication, while probably within hex range, is not something I wanna touch right now.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 01:53 am (UTC)

[Speaking of which,] he says, and recalls something from yesterday.

[What was up with that? And have you decided yet if you wanna do it or not?]

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:56 am (UTC)

[...Ah. That.]

Pause.

[So, previous occasions you've been in pain while I've been around - the first time I was outright asleep, the second time I had my eyes closed. But it turns out that your face does really interesting things when you hurt.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 01:57 am (UTC)

[Huh,] says Alice.

[Interesting like hot?]

That is unexpected and intriguing! He does love it when Bella surprises him.

self_composed
2012-09-26 01:59 am (UTC)

[Although actually come to think of it you didn't make the same faces when you were getting beaten up. You were too busy laughing your ass off. Presumably there's some distinction there I have yet to come up with.]

Pause.

[Yes. Like that.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 02:02 am (UTC)

[Huh!] he says, and smiles, and comes to an invisible hovering halt over his lair.

[So,] he asks, because he wants to know the answer and not because he is trying to suggest one, [whatcha gonna do about it?]

self_composed
2012-09-26 02:03 am (UTC)

[I haven't decided yet.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 02:06 am (UTC)

[Okay,] he says agreeably.

It would certainly make the pain powers thing extra fun, but not if she doesn't want to do sex things with him, which last he heard she didn't. So there's that.

[Lemme know when you do?] he asks as he swoops into the rock and touches down at the top of the stairs.

self_composed
2012-09-26 02:08 am (UTC)

[Okay. Urgh, it's complicated. I told your parents that generally I don't date, and that's true, and there would have been cultural scripts to follow if I'd gone to college and met someone there like my original not-necessarily-taking-over-the-world plan went, but cultural scripts so do not have ways to handle magical me and my pet masochist.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 02:10 am (UTC)

[Fuck cultural scripts,] says Alice, predictably. [Do what you want.]

self_composed
2012-09-26 02:11 am (UTC)

[Cultural scripts are useful. Usually when I decide to discard one I have a better idea than this of what exactly it is I'm trading away for what exactly else.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 02:11 am (UTC)

[The hell are they useful for?]

self_composed
2012-09-26 02:14 am (UTC)

[Predictability - which is important for saving cognitive work. Being on the same page with everyone else so you don't spend your entire life explaining what you're doing or confusing the people around you. Various psychological benefits of ritual and conformity - I bet I know what you'll have to say about those, but they exist, we're mammals even if you're a mutant one. Face-saving. Building narrative of self. Social lubrication. Seeking relevant role models.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 02:20 am (UTC)

[I am completely a fucking mutant,] says Alice, dropping into his comfy armchair. [And the only way I am ever gonna follow a cultural script is by accident. Doesn't seem like you hate that so far.]

Thoughts of Bella hurting him have been replaced by much more important thoughts of whether she feels that she is making a tradeoff just by keeping him and his mutant nonconformity around, and whether she feels that tradeoff is worth it.

self_composed
2012-09-26 02:24 am (UTC)

[You are a very useful and mostly tractable pet masochist and have happened upon me in a situation where I can really benefit from having a pet masochist. But of course there's a tradeoff. Practically everything everyone does is a tradeoff - of that use of time and attention against other possible uses of time and attention, if nothing else. Being more-than-just-friends with you - in secret or openly - would be a costlier tradeoff than just being your friend, so I have to think about it, even though as you can probably guess from the fact that I hang out with you and allow myself to be known to hang out with you, being just-friends is plenty worth it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 02:30 am (UTC)

[I don't get it,] he sighs.

He doesn't get, specifically, why it would be a costlier tradeoff; he does not feel that there is any kind of natural barrier between those two states, except for inclination, and evidently she has at least a little of the relevant inclination.

[But okay.]

There are plenty of things in the world that he doesn't get, and they continue to exist and work just the way they do regardless of how well he does or doesn't understand them.

self_composed
2012-09-26 02:44 am (UTC)

[As an example? Charlie would want to know if I were dating someone, by his or my definition of that. If he found out that I was dating someone without telling him, he'd be hurt. He'd also assume I was ashamed of the relationship or that I'd expect him to disapprove, and so he'd have a higher than usual expectation that it might be with someone who was smacking me around or something. Even if he didn't find out, I'd be going behind his back, which I don't like. And telling him upfront has other results - he keeps a closer eye on you, he feels the need to go over the birds and the bees with me even though Renée already did that when I was ten, maybe he wants to know details about our secretive magical doings because he's suddenly concerned I'm involved in something way over my head and knows it's got something to do with you and you suddenly have new significance in his mind.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 10:25 am (UTC)

Huh. Okay, that makes sense.

It's still really weird, though, but for different reasons. There is no one in Alice's life he feels obliged to tell things; he wants to tell Bella everything, as an incidental part of wanting her to read his mind, but that's kind of different. And he doesn't concern himself particularly with the consequences. Even though if he ever wanted to, say, commit murder, she probably wouldn't let him. There is no one he could possibly want to kill more than he wants to let Bella read him.

On reflection, that's not a heartening analogy. He laughs.

[And hurting me while I make hot faces counts as dating?] he clarifies.

self_composed
2012-09-26 03:59 pm (UTC)

[It would at least be uncomfortably nearby,] Bella says, [under the circumstances.]

And:

[There might exist circumstances under which I'd let you kill somebody, but they'd be pretty unusual and a lot of them probably wouldn't fall under the legal definition of murder.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 11:04 pm (UTC)

[Well, whatever,] he says, cheerfully. Neither hypothetical pain nor hypothetical murder is something he feels that he needs. He has no problem waiting for Bella to figure out what she wants and then abiding by that decision, whatever it happens to be.

self_composed
2012-09-26 11:04 pm (UTC)

[You're very convenient,] Bella says fondly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 11:10 pm (UTC)

[Yep,] Alice agrees.

The list of things he really gives a shit about is very, very short and Bella is near the top of it. Of course that's convenient for her. He likes that it is convenient for her!

self_composed
2012-09-26 11:47 pm (UTC)

[Maybe I'll just sit on this until I go to college after all. I'll be less answerable to Charlie then, and will have had more time to settle into being a magical wishcoiner with a pet masochist.]

Pause.

[I wonder if I should look into starting college early. I could take some AP tests...]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 11:53 pm (UTC)

[And you've got a perfect memory and you can make yourself good at whatever you want, so it's not like school's ever gonna be hard,] he points out.

self_composed
2012-09-26 11:54 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. I think I want a basically unremarkable public face until further notice, so I don't want to overdo that sort of thing, but yeah.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 11:56 pm (UTC)

...Bella being unremarkable? Yeah, that's gonna take magic.

self_composed
2012-09-26 11:58 pm (UTC)

[You realize not everyone looks upon me as the most interesting thing to happen in their life. Even if they meet me. You'll notice I am not in ongoing contact with any friends from Phoenix and that I do not routinely have to fend off reporters who want to talk about my fantastic accomplishments - mostly because there aren't any to speak of,] says Bella, amused. [I've been living a pretty low-key life.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-26 11:59 pm (UTC)

[Well, you're pretty fucking remarkable to me,] he says. [But yeah, I getcha.]

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:01 am (UTC)

[I always figured I'd wait until I was older before really doing anything, because there are so many obstacles in the way of a teenager trying to really do things that it didn't seem like the most productive thing I could be doing - better to get ready to handle what I'll have to work with as an adult, right? - but now I have lots to work with, lots and lots, so here goes,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:04 am (UTC)

...not that this is news, but Bella plans things so much more than he does. What Alice had that passed for a life goal before he met her was 'don't die yet (unless you find an opportunity you can't pass up)'.

Tagging along beside her much more structured life sounds like a lot of fun!

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:05 am (UTC)

[I'm planning to quit aging when I'm somewhere in my early twenties, maybe later if I don't think I can slip that under some relevant radar,] Bella says. [I don't plan on dying ever, and would be rather obliged if you didn't either.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:11 am (UTC)

[It's different now,] says Alice. [I've got more to stick around for,] like Bella, and underground lairs, and blood-soaked showers, and rains of jellybeans, and Bella, [and I can just not die if I feel like it.]

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:15 am (UTC)

[Don't just directly wish for immortality,] Bella warns. [Mythology is full of ways that can go wrong if handled naively. I'm working on it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:18 am (UTC)

...He loves her. Very much.

[Of course you are,] he says, hugging himself. [Wasn't gonna anyway.] The regeneration powers will handle most things that could ordinarily have killed him; just being a little bit careful should take care of the rest.

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:19 am (UTC)

[Does your regen handle diseases?] Bella asks. [Most of those aren't really fast, but there's probably some I haven't heard of.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:21 am (UTC)

Given who he was thinking of when he wished it: [It should!]

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:24 am (UTC)

[Good, good. By default mine works fast enough that I think it'll handle even very sudden injuries - like, I dunno, guillotine wounds, or getting hit directly in the head with a van. Also mine doesn't hurt like yours does, actually comes with a little anesthetic, but that's probably just - personal taste.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:27 am (UTC)

...Pause to appreciate a vividly gruesome mental image of Bella getting her head cut off.

Okay, image appreciated, moving on.

[Yeah, personal taste is one way to put it.]

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:28 am (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes. She walked into that. [Designing powers is fun and complicated and just the right amount of challenging. I don't think college'll let me major in that, though.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:30 am (UTC)

[And you're awesome at it,] he says, not bothering to verbalize his opinion of college. (Total indifference, for the record.)

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:31 am (UTC)

[The point of college, at this point, is not to learn things, anyway. Pentagons can learn me things. The point of college now is networking for assistance in taking over various portions of the world, which means I have to aim for Ivy League or similar,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:42 am (UTC)

[Which you can do no problem, because you are magic!]

Man, he does not envy her having to do all that schoolwork, though. He looks forward to lairing nearby and doing whatever the fuck he wants with his time.

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:47 am (UTC)

[It might actually take some doing to get into the Ivy League. I have lots of A's and some extracurriculars and I used to volunteer at a food pantry because Renée was doing it, but the Ivy Leagues care about sports and I don't have a chance to accumulate more than a little sports experience even if I get a doctor here to prescribe me an inner ear med and then have it 'miraculously cure' my balance issues and then I pentagon myself Olympic skill at whatever games are even played here.] Pause. [Although that could make a good, inspiring personal essay. And they care about legacy candidates - Charlie didn't go to college at all, Renée got her associate's degree by correspondence and hasn't done any school since.]
Edited 2012-09-27 00:48 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:50 am (UTC)

[What in the fuck is a legacy candidate?] he asks, while idly cooking up semi-legitimate medical explanations for a sudden cessation of balance problems.

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:52 am (UTC)

[Someone whose parents went to the school. If you can get a few generations of a family to go to your school, they tend to feel affiliated with it and give the school money.] She opens up his thoughts about balance issues, looking for something she could tell a doctor with an actual medical degree to have the miracle cure properly on-record.
Edited 2012-09-27 00:52 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:58 am (UTC)

Alice obligingly speculates in greater depth! The fact that there is no need to figure out what's actually wrong with her opens up the possibilities a little.

self_composed
2012-09-27 12:59 am (UTC)

[I do have to be able to convince a doctor to diagnose me with something and prescribe me with something for it to look right.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 12:59 am (UTC)

[Yeah, but you have magic acting skills and can lie about your symptoms,] he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-27 01:00 am (UTC)

[Enh - I can lie about my symptoms if they don't want to talk to my parents, such as because they don't believe that I can remember how I was presenting at age three,] Bella says. [Which I honestly couldn't have done till recently.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 01:05 am (UTC)

[Okay, yeah,] he acknowledges. [Still. Fake cures are easier to find than real ones, y'know?]

self_composed
2012-09-27 01:07 am (UTC)

[Right. Hmm. Some of these vestibular disorders can be caused by head trauma. I wonder if I could sell 'oh, the van knocked my ears back how they're supposed to be, and apparently I hit my head on something when I was really little'? And not have to go to a doctor at all.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 01:11 am (UTC)

Being Bella's medical textbook is kinda fun!

[Hell, why not? You can ask Finch to let you play something when you're officially back on your feet. You'll have to let her actually teach it to you, though, she is so not gonna buy it if you waltz in and are suddenly like a basketball genius or something.]

self_composed
2012-09-27 01:13 am (UTC)

[And I'll have to resist the temptation to fly,] Bella adds. [Yeah, that works. And then I have admissions-office bait that lets me tell them I want to be a medical researcher to learn more about how such amazing things could occur so that we can harness these principles for the benefit of everyone, and also how much I value Sport Of Choice and by the way look how talented I proved to be at it once I could finally play.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 01:15 am (UTC)

[That is some quality bullshit you are spinning there,] he says fondly.

self_composed
2012-09-27 01:16 am (UTC)

[I'm going to have very stiff bullshit competition. I'm trying to think of another in - something unusual, everyone has test scores and grades and the requisite handful of clubs and a personal essay. But for now I might as well wish myself some grace.] This takes a pentagon. She gets up and dances, experimentally.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 01:19 am (UTC)

[How's it going?] he asks after a short pause, because he is so not the person to talk to about unique getting-into-school assets.

self_composed
2012-09-27 01:22 am (UTC)

[Unfortunately, the kinds of things I can think of are mostly the kinds of things that would get me attention I don't want, or they involve brainwashing. I'm pretty sure they don't interview everyone who applies. I'm going to see what the Internet has to say, for inspiration.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 01:27 am (UTC)

[Good plan.]

The Internet is handy for shit like that!

self_composed
2012-09-27 01:33 am (UTC)

[The internet,] Bella says, [thinks I should definitely pick up a sport, and possibly also do something volunteerish outside of the country. Maybe graduating early isn't a good plan after all; I need time to fit all this in before applications are due! Man, if only I had known I was going to obtain magic powers back when I was fourteen. I suppose I could leave high school early, go to a decent state school and be impressive, and then transfer.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 01:43 am (UTC)

[Not my area of expertise,] Alice understates.

self_composed
2012-09-27 01:51 am (UTC)

[I'm just thinking, um, out loud. So to speak.] Bella decides to go for a flight; if she's invisible, she can go out the open kitchen window, and the curtains will just look like they're being disturbed by a breeze. [Hm, avenues of impressiveness beyond just getting good grades in everything... Academic contests, being ridiculously good at sport-of-choice but not so much that I get irksome attention and that's probably not the best angle to concentrate on anyway since no one cares about women's sports, getting into the arts in some capacity, clubs, activism, starting a small business... can you think of anything?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 09:49 am (UTC)

[Write a book,] he suggests.

self_composed
2012-09-27 03:25 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, hm. That might work, but it should be nonfiction and appeal to a niche audience - general fame is not the goal. I can start on that one now once I think of a good topic.]

Bella flies up, up, up, until it's too cold even with her coat on, and then she zooms, downward and diagonal and into a big spiral.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 03:53 pm (UTC)

[I'd help, but I so can't help.]

He could think of plenty of niche audiences if he tried, he's sure. Not too many that Bella would want to write a book for, though, and even fewer that would impress an academic institution.

self_composed
2012-09-27 03:54 pm (UTC)

[Enh, there's writing for a weird niche, and then there's writing sociology or something about a weird niche - and the latter is bound to have a smaller audience and more academic prestige.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 03:58 pm (UTC)

In that case, why not write a book about, oh, masochism?

self_composed
2012-09-27 03:59 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. [It's still not necessarily the best book topic - especially if I'm going to bill myself as a Future Scientist and not a Future Anthropologist - but I'll put it on the mental list and see how saturated the field already is.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 04:16 pm (UTC)

How saturated is the field? Alice has no idea. He hasn't read anything in that area more recent than Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, who by the way was a fucked-up son of a bitch.

self_composed
2012-09-27 04:18 pm (UTC)

[Is that his full name? Is it something about having four names?] Bella asks. [Now that would be an attention-getting thesis statement.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 04:20 pm (UTC)

[What, that it makes you kinky? Okay, that would be fucking hilarious.]

self_composed
2012-09-27 04:22 pm (UTC)

[Rather,] Bella agrees. [I think I might go with something in, like, the history of medicine - it's related to my admissions bait and doesn't require me to have unrealistic access to testing facilities.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 04:25 pm (UTC)

[Sounds like fun,] he says, fondly amused.

self_composed
2012-09-27 04:26 pm (UTC)

[Meh. I'll probably pentagon through most of it - acquire some skills, magic the information into an order that supports some interesting conclusion and then magic it into a file instead of bothering typing it up. I don't actually want to write books as any kind of significant pursuit in my life.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 04:51 pm (UTC)

He loves it when she casually throws magic around.

[I love it when you do stuff like that,] he says happily.

Especially when they are his pentagons she's spending, and he gets to think about how to make more.

self_composed
2012-09-27 04:52 pm (UTC)

[You are super-useful,] Bella acknowledges happily.
Edited 2012-09-27 16:52 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 04:54 pm (UTC)

[Yes I am.]

And he loves being useful to Bella, because he loves Bella.

self_composed
2012-09-27 04:55 pm (UTC)

Bella hovers, and opens that up, and basks. She can afford to kill a few minutes in a feedback loop.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 04:56 pm (UTC)

There's less feedback when he can't see her liking it - but he can feel her paying attention, and imagine her liking it. And it gives him many happy feelings.

self_composed
2012-09-27 04:57 pm (UTC)

It turns out that while that's pleasant, it does eventually get dull. [So. Wanna participate in an experiment?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 04:58 pm (UTC)

[Sure! What kind?]

self_composed
2012-09-27 05:00 pm (UTC)

[There's generally a different quality to opening up your thoughts to look at them in detail than there is to having similar thoughts of my own, but I don't know how different in all cases - in particular I haven't opened up any nocioception symbols. Make a triangle and I'll see how that is? And then if that actually-hurts instead of just informing me about the hurt I can pentagon a modification into the power.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 05:02 pm (UTC)

[Sure!]

He bites his lip, not very hard.

self_composed
2012-09-27 05:03 pm (UTC)

Bella pokes the jagged line.

[Huh. It's sort of like I'm remembering it. I couldn't make my own triangle out of it, but it's not my favorite thing either.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 05:09 pm (UTC)

...Alice thinks of something.

He really isn't sure how to put it into words, but luckily, he doesn't have to!

It goes something like this: would there be a difference in how not-fun it was if she was looking at his reaction to the pain at the same time as she looked at the pain? After all, it's fun for him, and it's his thought.

Of course, maybe opening up his thoughts while he gets off on something is one of those things she doesn't want to do because they are sex things.

self_composed
2012-09-27 05:12 pm (UTC)

[Worth one low-stakes try to find out. Knowing what I can do and how unpleasant it has to be is pretty important.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 05:14 pm (UTC)

Shrugging, he bites his lip again—for a square this time, because the idea is for him to actually like it instead of barely noticing.

self_composed
2012-09-27 05:18 pm (UTC)

Bella opens the lightning bolt and the affect around it at the same time.

[...I don't know what I think of that. It's less aversive, at least, but more alien.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 05:22 pm (UTC)

[No shit,] he says fondly.

He'd ask her what it's like to not like pain, but, well, he already knows. And he prefers masochism.

self_composed
2012-09-27 05:24 pm (UTC)

[There are clear advantages,] Bella concedes. [Still not a permanent edit I want to make to myself. ...Although I do wonder why more coinmakers didn't. I'd probably eventually go ahead with it if I were working alone.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 05:25 pm (UTC)

Curiously: [Why don't you?]

self_composed
2012-09-27 05:27 pm (UTC)

[I like my brain how it is. I don't have a good way to predict all the consequences of changing something that... fundamental. It's a native part of you, but it's not of me; I developed for seventeen years with typical reactions to pain. And I don't have to, 'cause I have a pet masochist.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 05:29 pm (UTC)

...okay, that last part makes him aww.

self_composed
2012-09-27 05:30 pm (UTC)

Bella rather expected it to.

She starts swooping around again. Flying is fun.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 05:33 pm (UTC)

Alice decides he is gonna go make some pentagons.

self_composed
2012-09-27 05:34 pm (UTC)

Bella backs off on reading him. He can brainphone her when he's all done.

Wheeeeeee!

no one else will be using theirs

self_composed

Delaney Hammond, Sr., does not know that he is going to be arrested. It is not hard to find his flight, learn that the chauffeur can also fly the tiny family airplane and will be bringing the boss directly to Forks's little airport to save transit time, and be there to meet them at the airport with a pair of uniforms.

So Charlie does all that.

"Delaney Hammond, you are under arrest," Charlie says, while Joshua puts on cuffs and Terry makes sure the chauffeur isn't going to interfere. "You have the right to remain silent..." The Miranda rights just pour out, like they're all one word; Charlie doesn't really think about them. He doesn't even skip the part about how this ridiculously rich person could be provided a public defender if he cannot afford one.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 05:58 pm (UTC)

Delaney Hammond, Sr., does not indeed know that he is going to be arrested.

In fact, while he is being arrested, he almost seems to continue not knowing. A look of appalled disbelief settles on his face and shows no signs of leaving; he offers no physical resistance and doesn't even laugh at the notion of his being unable to afford something.

self_composed
2012-09-27 06:04 pm (UTC)

That's all the same to Charlie. Josh and Terry put the perp in the back of their car; Charlie came in his own cruiser.

"Don't leave town," he tells Theo, and he gets behind his wheel and follows Josh and Terry out of the tiny airport.

When they reach the station, he calls Bella. "Got him in," he tells her.

"Thanks for letting me know," she says, and she tells Alice. [They got him. He's at the station in handcuffs right now.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 06:22 pm (UTC)

[Ooh boy,] Alice says wryly—half excited, half apprehensive.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hammond has recovered enough awareness to settle into a cold fury, and Theo... Theo has driven back to the house alone.

Not very long after that, one of the family cars pulls up at the police station and Judith Erskine Hammond steps out, dressed as formally and impeccably as ever.

self_composed
2012-09-27 06:24 pm (UTC)

Charlie knows her when he sees her.

He makes eye contact, but she can talk first.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Where is my husband?" she asks, in a voice that is just slightly unsteady.

self_composed
2012-09-27 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Lockup," says Charlie.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 06:27 pm (UTC)

"What on Earth for?"

self_composed
2012-09-27 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Haven't got a guess?" Charlie asks, raising an eyebrow. He has looked over the notebooks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 06:34 pm (UTC)

"With respect," she says flatly, "I am not in the mood for games."

self_composed
2012-09-27 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Child abuse," says Charlie shortly, staring her down.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 06:39 pm (UTC)

She presses her lips together, takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly.

When she says, "May I speak with him, please?" her voice is almost level.

self_composed
2012-09-27 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Knock yourself out," Charlie says, pointing.

Delaney Hammond, Sr. is the only occupant of the lockup at the moment.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 07:06 pm (UTC)

Mr. Hammond looks up at her approach, and then huffs a disappointed sigh when she comes into view. "Oh," he says contemptuously, "it's you."

"It's me," she agrees. "Should I apologize for the mortal sin of not being your lawyer?"

"Be reasonable, Judith," he says. "I'm sure you want this nonsense over with as much as I do."

"Yes," she muses, with an odd note in her voice. "I think that's true."

"What now?" he grumbles.

"Have I ever told you how much I hate it when you tell me to be reasonable?"

"Now is not the time, Judith."

"On the contrary," says Judith, "I think the time is exactly right."

There is a pause; a rustle, a clink; a shocked intake of breath; a roar.

Judith Erskine sweeps out of the short corridor with too-bright eyes and no rings on her left hand.

self_composed
2012-09-27 07:09 pm (UTC)

Charlie eyes her as she leaves, but doesn't say anything.

He does privately note that the prosecutor might be interested.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 07:40 pm (UTC)

She calls Junior from the car, although she hasn't the faintest idea what she is going to say.

Junior does not answer his phone.

Judith gets out and marches right back into the station.

"I don't suppose you can tell me where to find my son?"

self_composed
2012-09-27 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Nope," Charlie says. "Can put you on the phone with my daughter and see if she tells you." He pushes his landline phone across his desk. Bella's cell (old number kept, attached to new phone) and their house landline are both on the speed dial, clearly labeled.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 07:46 pm (UTC)

That actually gets a small smile out of her. She'll have to apologize to Bella for trying to press her into service as an emergency exit.

She tries the cellphone first.

self_composed
2012-09-27 07:48 pm (UTC)

Bella picks up. "Hi, Dad." Well, it's his number.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Sorry, no," she says. "It's Judith. Do you know where my son is, by any chance?"

self_composed
2012-09-27 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Somewhere safe," Bella says.

She doesn't feel like being informative.

[Your mom just called me,] she informs Alice, [and wants to know where you are.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 07:57 pm (UTC)

[...The fuck?] says Alice.

His mother lets out a breath. "That'll do," she says.

self_composed
2012-09-27 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Bella.

She can channel her dad sometimes, when she wants.

[Called me up from Charlie's work phone. I told her "someplace safe", she said "that'll do".]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 08:00 pm (UTC)

[Uhhhhh,] says Alice.

"If you see him before I do, will you tell him I called?"

self_composed
2012-09-27 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Bella says.

[She wants me to tell you she called,] Bella continues. [I guess you don't get a signal in your lair. Would you have answered her if you did?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 08:04 pm (UTC)

[I guess?] he says. [I mean, yeah. I would. I just dunno what she wants to get ahold of me for.]

"Thank you," Judith says graciously.

self_composed
2012-09-27 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Shall I also tell him something about why?" Bella asks.

[You know, there's probably enough in the notebooks to get her for neglect or failure to report or something. I don't think anyone's going to arrest her without your say-so, but if you feel like it...]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 08:10 pm (UTC)

[I don't,] he says. [It's not like she did anything.]

"If you want to," says Judith.

self_composed
2012-09-27 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Well," Bella says. "I would, but I don't yet know why."

[Up to you.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 08:13 pm (UTC)

"That makes two of us," she says wryly.

[Yeah, I don't really give a shit. Why, is she being an asshole to you or something?]

self_composed
2012-09-27 08:16 pm (UTC)

[No.]

"I see."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Anyway. Thank you," says Judith. "Goodbye."

[So what is she doing?]

self_composed
2012-09-27 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Bye." Bella hangs up.

[She doesn't seem to know any better than you do. You could wait ten minutes, delair, and call her, if you're curious.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 08:56 pm (UTC)

[...yeah,] says Alice. [Yeah. I think I'll do that.]

Judith hangs up the phone, gazes at or possibly through it for a brief moment, and then leaves without a word.

self_composed
2012-09-27 08:58 pm (UTC)

Charlie slides the phone back into place and silently watches her go.

He decides to call Hilary and let her know what's going on, in case there are repercussions she'll have to deal with.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 09:34 pm (UTC)

Time passes.

About an hour later, Alice brainphones Bella. He sounds deeply, deeply confused and vaguely unsettled.

[My mom is hugging me and I don't know what to do.]

self_composed
2012-09-27 10:17 pm (UTC)

Bella returns to reading him; she'd stopped to work on some trig, which, even since she pentagoned math, requires a fair amount of working memory to handle. [...Hug her back?] she suggests. [Tell her to back off? Whatever you wanna do.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 10:29 pm (UTC)

He is standing in the front hall of his house. His mom is in fact hugging him, and is also crying. He feels instinctively suspicious of her motives, but on a conscious level he is pretty sure there's no reason to be. As far as he can tell, she really is just overwhelmed by emotion.

Tentatively, he pats her on the back.

self_composed
2012-09-27 10:30 pm (UTC)

[What happened?] Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-27 11:57 pm (UTC)

[Uh...]

He called her. She asked if he was all right, if he'd heard the news, if he was going to come home. She sounded somewhere between triumphant and distraught.

He did, in fact, come home.

And then... this happened.

Also, she is no longer wearing her wedding and engagement rings. Alice can't help thinking that is a really good sign.

self_composed
2012-09-27 11:58 pm (UTC)

[...This is weird,] Bella opines. [She can't claim she didn't know what was going on and this is a sudden burst of sympathy, so I don't know what could be happening in her mind.]
Edited 2012-09-27 23:59 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 12:02 am (UTC)

[She used to hug me and cry like this when I was a kid,] he recalls. [It was kind of a phase. She stopped, though. I don't even know if this is related.]

And needless to say, Judith herself is not a font of useful and coherent information right now.

self_composed
2012-09-28 12:03 am (UTC)

[How long ago was that?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 12:13 am (UTC)

[She stopped when I was twelve.]

She's winding down a little on the tears now, and smoothing her hand down over his hair repeatedly, although she has to reach up some distance to do it.

It's... okay. Still a little confusing, but okay.

self_composed
2012-09-28 12:14 am (UTC)

[Well, you could always try asking her,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 12:16 am (UTC)

[Yeah. Maybe I will. When she's, you know, talkier.]

self_composed
2012-09-28 12:21 am (UTC)

[Right.] Bella has no other input on the subject, but she leaves the read on out of inertia and goes back to designing a hypothetical telekinesis power in all its tiny and important details.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 12:33 am (UTC)

Eventually, Alice gets his mother to sit down. At the foot of the stairs, but she's sitting.

"Oh, ick," she says with a tremulous smile, "look what I did to your shirt."

"It'll wash," he assures her. "Seriously though, what's up with you?"

She looks down at her unadorned left hand and sniffles again.

"I'm afraid I've been a terrible mother," she says.

"...Yeah, kinda," says Alice. "But hey, you're nowhere near as bad as Dad, so good for you?"

Judith snorts despite herself. "I don't know where you got that sense of humour," she says. "It certainly wasn't from your father."

self_composed
2012-09-28 12:35 am (UTC)

[Do either of your parents have senses of humor? Besides, not all traits are inherited,] comments Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 12:46 am (UTC)

[Mom at least laughs once in a while,] he volunteers.

After a moment's silence, his mother sighs and twists her hands in her lap. "I never knew he was going to be like that," she says helplessly. "And once I found out... it sounds so inadequate, but I didn't know what to do about him."

"And now somebody else did it for ya and you're cutting the bastard loose?" Alice fills in.

She bursts into fresh tears and nods repeatedly.

He hesitates for a moment, and then hugs her.

self_composed
2012-09-28 12:58 am (UTC)

Aww. It's like she doesn't even know that not going to the police could put her in jail if anyone involved had a grudge against her.

[What do your and her finances look like, after the divorce is through?] Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 01:12 am (UTC)

[No idea,] he says. [Bet she wouldn't have done it if she didn't think she could get a pretty big piece, though.]

And yet here he is, comforting her.

self_composed
2012-09-28 01:18 am (UTC)

[I'm going to see if I can curse your dad's lawyer with bad luck for the case's duration,] Bella informs Alice cheerfully. [We'll see how that works.]

A pentagon disappears.

[Well, that's the work of a pentagon,] she reports.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 01:20 am (UTC)

[Nice!] he says approvingly.

self_composed
2012-09-28 01:20 am (UTC)

[I'd curse your dad too, but he's already locked up. I guess I'll do it if he bails himself out.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 01:45 am (UTC)

[...I dunno how good an idea that'll be,] says Alice. [I mean, he's already gonna be pissed off to hell and back. Maybe wait and see how well it works on the lawyer first? 'Cause if it's just gonna piss him off more...] then maybe it would not be such a great plan.

self_composed
2012-09-28 01:47 am (UTC)

[He can't get you in your lair - but I guess he might lash out elsewhere. The idea is to have him not thinking straight, but I guess in any case I'll postpone it till closer to the court date. He'll probably have bail set tomorrow.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 01:49 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I'm kind of thinking that for once I'm not the only one he's mad at,] says Alice, and hugs his mother some more.

self_composed
2012-09-28 01:50 am (UTC)

[Does Dad need to put her in protective custody?] Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 01:52 am (UTC)

[Dunno. She'd probably squawk a little. I mean, he hasn't ever hit her before, but—] a mental image of her ring finger absent its rings.

self_composed
2012-09-28 01:54 am (UTC)

[I can have him recommend it, I guess, or he can suggest that she go stay with a friend - has she got friends in town?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 01:55 am (UTC)

[Not as far as I know.]

self_composed
2012-09-28 01:56 am (UTC)

[Well, I don't think he's going to force her, but Charlie can be persuasive.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 01:57 am (UTC)

[Yeah. He can try it, anyway.]

self_composed
2012-09-28 01:57 am (UTC)

[I guess we'll see after bail is set. It's going to have to be some ridiculous amount.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:25 am (UTC)

[Damn, yeah, if they want him to actually come back for it.]

self_composed
2012-09-28 03:11 pm (UTC)

Bail is set early the following day, at a cool ten million dollars, by Judge Roberts. Delaney Hammond, Sr., coughs up a check, and as soon as that clears, he'll be allowed to go until his trial. That's scheduled for in three days.

Charlie hears of this, and he lets Bella know, and he takes advantage of the period while the check is being... checked... to go talk to Judith about maybe socking her away somewhere for a few days.

Bella tells Alice. [So, stay laired, or where people can see you at school, or where no one can see if you wish to prowl the world invisibly,] she admonishes.
Edited 2012-09-28 15:15 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 03:28 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, good plan,] Alice agrees. [Wonder if it's hit the rumor mill yet. I haven't been to school.]

self_composed
2012-09-28 03:29 pm (UTC)

[Charlie's going to go warn your mom - and Hilary and Theo, but mostly your mom - while they wait for your dad's check to clear. I assume it will clear. Which is really something. I don't expect even the ridiculously rich to keep ten million dollars liquid all at once.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 03:31 pm (UTC)

[Why, is that a lot?] he jokes.

self_composed
2012-09-28 03:32 pm (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes. [It's enough to make ten people millionaires. Since we have a word for that and it's often used as a synonym for "rich person", you should assume that it is a lot.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 03:34 pm (UTC)

[I love it when you're all logical at me,] he says, laughing.

self_composed
2012-09-28 03:35 pm (UTC)

Charlie arrives at the stupidly huge house and rings the doorbell.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 03:37 pm (UTC)

Hilary answers the door with a damp dish towel slung over her shoulder.

"Oh! Hi, Charlie. Business, I assume?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 03:40 pm (UTC)

Charlie nods. "Hullo, Hilary. Don't know if Mrs. Hammond had told you, but Mr. Hammond's in lockup. He's written a check for bail; I'm here to ask Mrs. Hammond to accept protective custody for a few days while he's out and about in case he turns on her. Laney's off..." He gestures. "Somewhere. Bella assures me he's safe there, and she's a smart girl. But Mrs. Hammond's presumably still here." He pauses. "Might not be too wise for you to be here either. Or that driver fellow, what's his name."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm not keen on hanging around Mr. Hammond in a mood for any number of days, but I'm not sure what my other options are. Should I fetch Judith? Theo's not here."

self_composed
2012-09-28 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes please, and -" He shrugs. "Not orthodox for protective custody, but my house has a guest room." He's going to rely on Bella to have her priorities straight and do that... thing... that will let her play invalid for the requisite days remaining. She can at least acknowledge having some of the casts off, enough to be able to walk around.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Your guest room sounds like a great option," says Hilary, smiling. "Just a sec."

She twirls away and heads up the stairs, returning shortly with Judith preceding her.

self_composed
2012-09-28 03:50 pm (UTC)

"Mrs. Hammond," Charlie acknowledges with a polite nod. "I'm here to recommend that you come with me and let me take you into protective custody. Assuming his check clears, your husband made bail. There's a risk to you, in a case like this."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 03:52 pm (UTC)

She sighs.

"Yes, I suppose there is, isn't there. Bother, I hate packing."

self_composed
2012-09-28 03:53 pm (UTC)

Charlie raises an eyebrow - this does not seem to him the key point here - but doesn't say anything.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 03:59 pm (UTC)

Hilary grins and shakes her head. Oh, Judith.

"Yes, all right," says Judith.

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Let me know when you're ready to go," Charlie says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Just a moment," says Judith, and disappears up the stairs.

"So," says Hilary. "How's Bella?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Well," Charlie says. "Better than you usually expect somebody who was hit by a car to be. She'll probably go back to school, next week."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:08 pm (UTC)

"That's heartening!" She glances up the stairs after Judith. "Guess I should be packing too, but I guarantee you I'll take ten times as long. Want a muffin? Think fast, or she'll be back before you say yes."

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Charlie says agreeably, smiling.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Great!" says Hilary, and ducks into the kitchen, coming back with a small plate of muffins just as Judith descends the stairs.

She may not like packing, but apparently she's very good at it. She has one small suitcase, neatly zipped, a purse, a coat, and a hat.

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:13 pm (UTC)

Charlie plucks a muffin from the plate. "Bella can let you in the house - I'll call her ahead," Charlie tells Hilary. He nods to Mrs. Hammond, and leads her out to the cruiser, taking a bite of his muffin.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:16 pm (UTC)

Judith also grabs a muffin on her way out. Hilary takes the remaining two for herself, and spends the next half hour or so dithering over her belongings before she finally gets out the door with one medium-sized suitcase and a backpack containing all her cookbooks and a few things from the kitchen.

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:18 pm (UTC)

That gives Charlie plenty of time to hand Mrs. Hammond over to Terry and call Bella.

"Thanks for letting me know, Dad," Bella says. [Hilary's going to stay at my house while your dad is bailed out,] she informs Alice. [I get to play still-have-a-broken-arm-and-a-limp.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:19 pm (UTC)

[Fun,] says Alice. [On the other hand, betcha she'll spend the whole time baking you cakes. She did that when I came home from the hospital. It was cute.]

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:21 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, nice.] Bella illusions up the requisite trappings of injury, after poking around in Alice's head for details on what's plausible. She could pentagon herself medical knowledge, but this is pretty convenient already.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:22 pm (UTC)

He loves it when she does that!

[Cute and delicious,] he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:25 pm (UTC)

[I'd imagine. I mean, this is Hilary we're talking about.] Bella conjures herself a pair of crutches.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:26 pm (UTC)

[Yup. Hey, can I come over and eat some of your sympathy cake?]

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:27 pm (UTC)

[Don't see why not,] Bella says.

...She decides to wish herself a really cooperative metabolism. That turns out to only take a pentagon; some humans actually have those.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:29 pm (UTC)

[Awesome. Lemme know when you've got some.]

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:33 pm (UTC)

[Will do.]

The doorbell rings. [She appears!] Bella gets up and leans on her acting skills to hobble convincingly up to the door and pull it open. "Hilary! Charlie mentioned you were coming," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Hi! You look very three-dimensional," says Hilary. "Where's your guest room? I brought cookbooks!"

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I am not a pancake. I eat pancakes for breakfast," says Bella. "Guest room is up the stairs, second door on the right. Cookbooks, yay!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Nice," she says. "I'll go dump my things, and then how do you feel about cake?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I feel so positively about cake," Bella says, limping to one of the kitchen chairs. "I can even stir stuff for you if you plunk it down in front of me - we don't have an electric mixer."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Consider yourself conscripted," says Hilary. "Back in a flash!"

Where the duration of a flash seems to be about two minutes. Also, she brings an electric mixer.

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:04 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs when she sees the mixer. "You can't live without that for more than an hour, or you expect to be here for a while?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:04 pm (UTC)

"A little from column A..." she says with a wink.

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:05 pm (UTC)

[We're making cake,] Bella alerts Alice. "What kinda cake?" she inquires.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:07 pm (UTC)

"That depends on the contents of your kitchen," Hilary says cheerfully. "I'm very adaptable."

[Ooh, cake! Want me to coincidentally show up?]

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:09 pm (UTC)

[Sounds like a plan to me.]

"We've got... some things," Bella says. "Anything that comes in a can we are reasonably likely to have around, which includes beans and tuna but also sweetened condensed milk and peaches. And there's other stuff in the cupboards and the fridge. Freezer's mostly full of fish."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Ah, yes," says Hilary. "Fish. That weirdly fascinating hobby of your father's. Well, I'll see what I can come up with."

[Cool, see you in a bit!]

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:14 pm (UTC)

"You think fishing is fascinating?" Bella asks. "Huh."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Yes I do," she says. "I gather you don't agree?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Seems to involve a lot of setup and then a lot of sitting and getting bit by mosquitoes," Bella says. "Sure, sometimes you get fish out of it, but you can also buy fish, with more variety and in forms you don't have to chop the heads off of, and save six hours you could spend doing anything."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:19 pm (UTC)

"On the other hand," says Hilary, "the fish feel more yours when you spend six hours donating blood to the little buggy hospitals for them."

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm content with the amount of mine-ness I can get by exchanging money for goods at retail establishments," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:20 pm (UTC)

Hilary laughs.

And then the doorbell rings.

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Come in!" Bella calls, after a wry - acted - look at the conjured crutches.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:24 pm (UTC)

And very shortly, Alice appears in the kitchen.

"Hey, Bella," he says. "Hey, Hilary. Saw your car outside. Ooh, are you making cake?"

"Good guess," says Hilary, rolling her eyes fondly.

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Hi, how are you doing?" Bella asks. Appearances, appearances.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I am awesome," says Alice.

"Yeah, I'll bet," says Hilary, handing him the mixer. "You hang onto that while I go on a scouting mission."

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:30 pm (UTC)

"What do you need to find?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Everything," says Hilary, cheerfully, and she starts opening cupboards.

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, in that case, I can only recommend that you look everywhere," Bella remarks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Smart girl," says Hilary. Alice laughs.

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:34 pm (UTC)

Bella just grins to herself.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:40 pm (UTC)

Hilary busily inventories the kitchen.

When she's done, she dusts off her hands and announces, "Peach-orange upside-down cake!"

"Whee!" says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-28 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Splendid," Bella enthuses.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 05:59 pm (UTC)

Bella is enlisted to stir things, Alice to perform sundry other tasks; a cake pan is acquired, populated, and entombed in the oven.

"Success!" says Hilary as she sets the timer. "You did good, girls."
Edited 2012-09-28 18:00 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-28 06:02 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't look at Alice's face, but she is reading, and keeps an eye out for a reaction to that. It would be kind of weird for Hilary to say without certain prerequisites in place.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 06:08 pm (UTC)

Reaction: warm happy glow! He likes that she can just throw stuff like that out without thinking about it.

self_composed
2012-09-28 06:09 pm (UTC)

Bella mentally shrugs and files under "Alice: Kinda Weird".

technically not karma

self_composed

Paul S. Washington, defense attorney, is having the worst day.

He got the case referred to him by a New York firm that sometimes deals with his when they need to work on interests that involve or take place in Washington State. This qualifies - dad knocks around his kid a little, kid gets fed up even though he could have moved out months ago if he'd get off his ass and find a job instead of complaining, dad is offering a very nice hourly rate. So far so good.

His coffee maker breaks. He has instant instead, but burns his hand when he drinks it. A car alarm within earshot seems to be going off every six minutes. His car starts fine, and then strands him in the middle of the highway. His cell dies halfway through the call to AAA, and he sits there waiting for them to find him based on which highway he's on without any further details. Eventually they do, he borrows the driver's cell to call a cab, the cab takes an hour to get there, the cabbie gets lost and still charges him for the full distance driven, and finally he's at the police station in Forks - a little nowhere town - to talk to his client, but not before he trips gracelessly over the threshold and nearly breaks his nose.

Ugh.

It had better be a very nice hourly rate.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 06:27 pm (UTC)

The first words Delaney Hammond, Sr. says to his prospective attorney are, "What in God's name took you so long?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Car trouble," Paul says shortly. "My sincerest apologies. And," wince, "the lost time isn't billable." Stupid law firm caring about its stupid reputation for stupid good-faith operations because it defends stupid criminals. Paul's developing a stomachache.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 06:32 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to look so constipated about it," says Mr. Hammond. "You'll have enough of a chance to wring me dry while you're actually working for me."

self_composed
2012-09-28 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Ah. Ah, yes, our firm's associates in New York with whom you've previously contracted recommended me to you, I believe? I believe the trial's already been scheduled, so it might behoove you to select your lawyer quickly, and I am already here. Reportedly the prosecution already has all of the evidence it wants."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, grumblingly, and names an hourly rate that is indeed very nice. "How's that sound?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Perfect, Mr. Hammond. Now, employed as your attorney, everything you say to me falls under attorney-client privilege; I will defend you regardless of the situation at hand; and these trials are often decided on charisma and technicalities regardless, so it is never in your best interest to lie to me. That having been established, what did happen regarding the topic under discussion?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 06:42 pm (UTC)

"What do you think?" he growls.

self_composed
2012-09-28 06:45 pm (UTC)

"I know that the prosecution is making such extensive and specific allegations that their evidence packet couldn't be sent as a single e-mail attachment," Paul says. "That's very irregular for a child abuse charge. My computer broke this morning and so I won't be able to look over what the prosecution has to say until I get it repaired or replaced, but we don't want our jury to get their facts from the prosecution anyway. What's your version?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 07:11 pm (UTC)

"My version is, if that little demon could stay out of trouble for five straight minutes, maybe I could be a little gentler with him," says Mr. Hammond. "But I don't think you want to say that to a jury, or not in so many words."

self_composed
2012-09-28 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Not in so many words," Paul says, "no. But we may be able to sway them by painting your son as an incorrigible troublemaking delinquent, while also downplaying the severity of the disciplinary action. What do we have to work with for the troublemaking delinquency?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 07:27 pm (UTC)

"He starts fights at school like clockwork," is the first thing to come to mind. "Never goes to class, hasn't done any homework in years, his room is a sty, he can't keep his foul mouth shut at the dinner table..."

self_composed
2012-09-28 07:29 pm (UTC)

Paul privately decides he's going to need to do most of his work at jury selection time. "Anything he'd have a record for? Truancy, assault?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 07:35 pm (UTC)

"He nearly got arrested for prostitution in New York," Mr. Hammond admits grudgingly. "Didn't quite, though. I've spent a lot of effort over the years keeping him out of the hands of police, and this is how he repays me."

self_composed
2012-09-28 07:38 pm (UTC)

Not a flicker of surprise at that word crosses Paul's face. "Okay. That all?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 07:40 pm (UTC)

"All the highlights, anyway," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-28 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Details could be very important," coaxes Paul.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 07:52 pm (UTC)

"He steals his mother's clothing and makeup," says Mr. Hammond.

self_composed
2012-09-28 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of which. How is your wife liable to handle this? She can't be compelled to testify against you, but could be useful in our favor."

Paul's obviously assuming that she's on their side. Oh, Paul.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 07:58 pm (UTC)

"My wife," he growls, "abandoned ship. I don't know that she'll have the stones to say a word against me, but she won't say one for me, that's for damn sure."

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Ah." Pause. "What does she know?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Most of it," says Mr. Hammond. "Including what an incorrigible monster she gave birth to, but apparently that doesn't sway her any."

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:04 pm (UTC)

"None of that language at the trial," Paul remarks. "Okay. We'll hope she declines to testify. The prosecutor has your son, presumably - who else can they call that we need to prepare for?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 08:08 pm (UTC)

"My driver's probably seen a few things, but I don't know that they'll manage to squeeze any out of him."

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Even if they sit him down and put him under oath?" Paul asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 08:27 pm (UTC)

"If they have to get him to admit he knows something first, I doubt they'll get that far. But who knows. If Judith can grow a spine at this late hour, maybe he can too."

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Mm. Well. Let's be honest, if your wife testifies - and possibly even if she doesn't - your odds are not good. How do you feel about plea bargaining?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 08:30 pm (UTC)

He makes an eloquently disgusted face.

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:33 pm (UTC)

"You realize that if you have me turn down a plea bargain for you, and we lose, you're looking at five years - minimum - and that doesn't even begin to cover the reputational and other consequences."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 08:37 pm (UTC)

"The reputational consequences have been and gone," he says. "What's a plea bargain going to get me?

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Sentence reduction. Possibly immediate parole, with or without damages awarded, with something like a restraining order preventing you from seeing your son, but no other restrictions."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 08:40 pm (UTC)

Mr. Hammond harrumphs.

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:40 pm (UTC)

"It would be better than jail. It's possible that I can get you acquitted altogether, but it's by no means guaranteed, Mr. Hammond.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I'll think about it," he allows.

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:43 pm (UTC)

"I'll call you later today, then, before the meeting where that would have to be handled. Is there anything else I should know before I find a computer store?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Don't think so," says Mr. Hammond.

self_composed
2012-09-28 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Have a good day, then, Mr. Hammond," Paul says, nodding and getting up to leave.

He isn't even surprised when he bumps into someone two steps out the door and falls over, nor when this results in him also needing to find a drycleaner as soon as possible.

be as you aren't

self_composed

Lucinda Daly, prosecutor, wants to talk to her plaintiff. He's a little hard to find, but a few phone calls get her on the phone with Charlie, who suggests that Laney might be at his house, as he's friends with his daughter. Lucinda offers to come by when Charlie's home, but Charlie says she can go over now if she likes; a friend of the family she might want to talk to anyway is an adult presence there.

Lucinda pulls into the driveway and rings the doorbell.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:01 pm (UTC)

Alice answers it.

"Hi!" he says. [Bella, do you know this lady?]

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:02 pm (UTC)

[No, but she's wearing lawyer clothes. I think the standard way to find out who she is is "can I help you?"]

"Hello!" says Lucinda. "Is this the Swan residence?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Alice. "Why, did you want a Swan?"

It's... kind of close! A little!

He's not very good at standards.

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Actually, I'm looking for Delaney Hammond, Jr.," says Lucinda. "And Chief Swan said I could look here."

[Ask her flat out if she's Delaney Hammond Jr.'s lawyer, before you even identify yourself,] Bella advises. [Even if Charlie sent her, and she could be lying.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:07 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] he says. Because she is full of useful advice, even when he doesn't follow it.

"And what do you want Delaney Hammond, Jr. for?" he inquires. (And even manages not to suggest any options. She doesn't look like she'd bite, anyway.)

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:09 pm (UTC)

"I'm his lawyer," Lucinda. "My name is Lucinda Daly. Assistant State's Attorney. Is he here?"

[Okay, swell. Let 'er in.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:10 pm (UTC)

"You're lookin' at him," he says, and steps back out of the doorway. "C'mon in."

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Thank you. Chief Swan referred to you as Laney; is that what you prefer to be called?" asks Lucinda. "And are you comfortable talking here?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure," he says to both of those things.

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:16 pm (UTC)

"All right. Now, I've read over my copy of the notebook that was submitted as evidence, and the medical reports that the police retrieved, but is there anything else I should know?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:17 pm (UTC)

Alice considers. Or, well, consults.

[Now do I talk about why we moved?]

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:18 pm (UTC)

[It's not in your interest to lie to her. She doesn't have any reason to report anything you've done to anyone who'd get you in trouble for it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says. "The reason we moved here is 'cause I got raped in New York and Dad decided I'd been hooking. So he might try to throw that at me and see if it sticks."

It's not actually a lie as such. But he wants to see how she reacts, and whether she wants to hear the rest, before he tells it.

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:29 pm (UTC)

Lucinda does blink, but only just. "Is the incident in any kind of official record?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Fucked if I know, but I doubt it. Official records and my dad don't get along."

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I can probably get out about half a sentence about that before the defense lawyer objects, then, and it's anyone's guess if the judge will let me carry on from there." She produces some notes and consults them briefly. "The notebooks of documentation were submitted with a note saying that you have an eidetic memory, which is how you were able to remember all those events for your friend to write down; is that right?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says.

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:35 pm (UTC)

"We might want to prove that in court. Some simple feat of memory that almost no one could do. That will go a long way to indicating that the documentation wasn't pure fabrication. I'm sure we can think of something, but if you have a stock party trick to show it off, that's liable to work too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:36 pm (UTC)

"I don't usually show it off," he says.

[Any ideas?]

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:37 pm (UTC)

[Ask everyone in the jury to write down some random numbers and letters, you get exactly a second to look at each paper, the jury get their papers back, you read off the strings,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:39 pm (UTC)

...he loves her. So much.

Alice repeats this suggestion almost word for word, pausing periodically as though he is thinking it up on the spot.

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:42 pm (UTC)

"That'll do," Lucinda says. "The notebooks also included several mentions of injuries serious enough to leave marks. This is the sort of thing we want to be able to provide more evidence of, but we don't want you getting half-naked in the courtroom either; photographs in advance are the best choice. I can take them, or if you have someone you're more comfortable with available, that will work too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Don't really care," he says, shrugging easily. "Might as well be you."

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:44 pm (UTC)

Lucinda nods and produces a camera. There is a pretty much silent photo shoot.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:49 pm (UTC)

Alice indicates the provenance of various marks—this one from the time his dad broke his ribs in November, that one from a ruler, those ones from a cane. A nasty-looking knife scar across his left hip gets "not Dad, don't bother". As previously indicated, he exhibits no strong feelings about the process.

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

Lucinda makes notes about which photos correspond to which incidents, and, when she's got them all, puts the camera away. "Now," she says. "This case is pretty much going to convict or acquit based on your testimony. Do you feel able to do that - sympathetically, convincingly, for as long as it takes? If not, I can see if the defense is up for a plea bargain, but I think we can win this outright if you testify well."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I dunno how sympathetic I am, but I'll give it my best shot," he says. "And I'm not gonna quit in the middle, that's for fucking sure."

self_composed
2012-09-28 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Well," Lucinda says. "Sympatheticness tips: hold the cursing. Possibly excepting if you're about to burst into tears - which you can do, but ideally not more than once or twice."

[Tell her about getting into fights at school and why,] Bella recommends.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Alice. "Oh, uh—I got into a lot of fights at school so nobody'd look twice if I showed up with bruises. Is that relevant?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I'll make sure you have a chance to mention that," Lucinda says. "Especially if the defense tries to paint you in a negative light for the behavior."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Pretty sure the only reason I wasn't constantly getting in shit for it was because he knew I was covering for him."

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:16 pm (UTC)

"The defense attorney's going to ask why you were covering," Lucinda says, "and you want to have an answer ready."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I lived in his house," he says. "If I'd tried this back in New York I would be in his house, and he would not be making me tea and cupcakes."

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:21 pm (UTC)

"And now you have somewhere else to go?" Lucinda asks, gesturing at the Swan residence.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:23 pm (UTC)

"All right. If I were the defense, next I'd ask you why you didn't trust the police to protect you if you went to them in New York."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:28 pm (UTC)

"'Cause the first thing I ever learned about cops is that enough money will make 'em go away," he says, "and it took me this long to unlearn it."

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:30 pm (UTC)

"That would probably be better presented as a story about the unlearning, rather than dwelling on the original mistrust," Lucinda advises. "Am I correct in guessing that Chief Swan was personally involved there?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Kinda, yeah," he says. [You mind if your name comes up?]

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:32 pm (UTC)

[Go ahead.]

"Kind of?" Lucinda asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:34 pm (UTC)

"I made friends with his daughter," he says. "And, you know, she believes in her dad. Which was weird on a number of levels. She brought me around pretty quick, though."

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:35 pm (UTC)

Lucinda obviously thinks this is adorable. "That's lovely. We might want to call her up to testify too, to corroborate what you have to say."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:39 pm (UTC)

"I can ask her," he says. [Or I could offer to go get you.]

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Is she home?"

[You can come get me, yeah.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Yup," he says. "Just a sec."

And off he goes in search of Bella, not that he expects it to be much of a search.

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:43 pm (UTC)

Bella meets him in the upstairs hallway, and clunks down on her crutches for the sound effect.

"Hello, Miss Swan," says Lucinda.

"Please call me Bella," says Bella.

"All right. You're comfortable testifying?"

Bella nods. "I'll have to anyway, won't I? The notebooks are in my handwriting."

"Well, it would be something of a problem if you didn't want to," Lucinda says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:44 pm (UTC)

[Should I try to not obviously have a crush on you in front of the lawyer?] he thinks to ask.

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:46 pm (UTC)

[I don't see how it'd matter,] Bella says. [Why?]

"Well, I don't mind. I've been missing school anyway, since I was hit by a car," Bella says, gesturing at the "broken arm".

"I hadn't been planning to ask, but I'm glad you're recovering, at any rate," says Lucinda.
Edited 2012-09-28 22:48 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:51 pm (UTC)

[Dunno,] he says, with a very slight shrug. [Thought I'd ask just in case.] Since it is permissible, though, he lets himself smile at her.

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:54 pm (UTC)

"All right," Lucinda says. "Unless either of you can think of anything, I'm going to go find Mrs. Hammond and speak to her."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:55 pm (UTC)

Naturally, Alice glances at Bella, who between the two of them is definitely the thinker of things.

self_composed
2012-09-28 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Mr. Hammond is reasonably likely to try to buy his way out of this," Bella says. "If there's anything extra you can do to watch out for jury tampering, please do it. My dad's pretty sure of the judge, though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 10:57 pm (UTC)

Yeah. Things like that.

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I'll keep an eye out," Lucinda says.

"That's all I can think of right now, but perhaps we could get your phone number," Bella continues.

Lucinda nods and writes it down for them. "I'll see you in a few days, if not before," she says, and she gets up to go. "Bye, Laney, Bella."

"Bye," says Bella.
Edited 2012-09-28 23:04 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Bye," Alice echoes. "Thanks."

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:06 pm (UTC)

"So," Bella says, when Lucinda has gone. "She seems decent."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Alice. "Man, how bad am I gonna fuck up the sympathetic thing?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Depends on how hard you try not to."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I will try really fucking hard!" he says. "But I don't know how the fuck normal people work."

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'll be there, I can coach you in realtime," Bella soothes, patting his head. "Just take a second before speaking aloud - and look thoughtful or emotional while you do it - to let me see what you're going to say and make corrections."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:12 pm (UTC)

He leans into her hand.

"I love you," he sighs. That is definitely the most prominent of the many emotions he is currently experiencing.

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:13 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles. Pat pat pat.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Purr purr," he says, grinning.

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:27 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs.

"I think this is going to turn out fine," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, then I guess I believe you."

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:43 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Lucinda arrives at the place where Judith has been placed. Apparently they're just putting her up in a motel. "Mrs. Hammond?" she calls, knocking.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:44 pm (UTC)

Judith answers the door—begowned as usual, but with her makeup slightly less than perfect.

"Yes?"

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Mrs. Hammond. I'm Lucinda Daly, and I'm prosecuting your husband's case. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Certainly," she says. "Do you want to come in? I'm afraid I don't have much to offer as a hostess at the moment."

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I understand," Lucinda says, stepping in. She sits in one of the rickety little chairs in the room. "Do you intend to testify against your husband?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:54 pm (UTC)

"If it would help—and I imagine it would—yes."

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:55 pm (UTC)

"It would, yes."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-28 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Then I will."

self_composed
2012-09-28 11:57 pm (UTC)

"If I were the defense," Lucinda says, "I would make sure to ask you why you never came forward. Do you have an answer for that?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:01 am (UTC)

"It didn't happen all at once," she says. "He started out so reasonable... and by the time it was clear that he wasn't reasonable at all, well, I wasn't sure just how unreasonable he could get. And I didn't want to find out."

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:01 am (UTC)

"So you thought that if you did anything, he might turn on you," Lucinda says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:02 am (UTC)

"Yes."

Well, it was among her reasons, anyway.

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:03 am (UTC)

"All right, that will do. Is there anything else you think I should know?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:06 am (UTC)

"...He has a temper," she says. "You might consider getting him to lose it."

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:06 am (UTC)

"Any suggestions?" inquires Lucinda.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:09 am (UTC)

She rubs her left hand with her right.

"Well, he was awfully upset when I told him I'm leaving him," she murmurs.

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:09 am (UTC)

Lucinda nods, and waits, in case there's more.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:12 am (UTC)

"And Junior, of course. A week doesn't go by where he isn't angry with Junior. But I don't know that that will help you any."

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:12 am (UTC)

"That's already the subject of the trial, yes."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:17 am (UTC)

"He doesn't like to feel disrespected or slandered," she says. "Even about fairly inconsequential things. He is never happy to be disagreed with."

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:17 am (UTC)

Lucinda nods.

"Thank you. Is there anything else I ought to hear before I go?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:18 am (UTC)

"No," she says, after considering for a moment. "I don't think so."
Edited 2012-09-29 00:19 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:19 am (UTC)

"Thank you for your time," says Lucinda, and she goes.

all rise

self_composed

No plea bargain is struck. The jury is picked, and Lucinda asks a few random ones whether they have accepted bribes and sees who looks nervous: no one, as it turns out, so she strikes people who are too young to have children and one fellow who looks like he hates the entire world for her picks. Paul strikes a grandmotherly type and someone who admits when asked that they don't think much of rich people.

"All rise," comes the command as Judge Roberts walks in.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:38 am (UTC)

It's the first test of Alice's ability to act like a normal human.

He gets to his feet with everybody else and doesn't even look particularly itchy about it.

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:39 am (UTC)

Bella's up too, in the pews behind the main part of the courtroom.

Various formalities march along. And first, Lucinda calls up Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:42 am (UTC)

He's wearing clothes he would clean an oven in. In fact, he has cleaned an oven in this shirt. You wouldn't know it to look at him, though.

He goes where directed and sits as directed and repeats the appropriate oaths without rolling his eyes.

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:45 am (UTC)

"Hello, Laney," says Lucinda, for all the world like they're having a friendly chat at her house over tea. "First of all, the jury members have their own copies of the notebook about the history of your abuse - alleged," she says, putting up a hand vaguely in Paul's direction before Paul can say anything. "I understand you have an eidetic memory, which let you remember that much detail to dictate to your friend; is that right?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:49 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, soft in tone but projected to be easily heard. That much is probably safe without waiting for Bella's input.

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:49 am (UTC)

"Would you mind demonstrating that for the jury?" Lucinda asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 12:55 am (UTC)

He shakes his head. "No, I wouldn't mind."

self_composed
2012-09-29 12:57 am (UTC)

Lucinda turns to the jury and asks them to write their random letters and numbers on slips of paper she has prepared, plus their initials so she can return them to their original owners for checking.

They all write gibberish down. Lucinda collects the papers and, holding them herself instead of handing them over, shows each one to Laney for a single second. Then she gives them all back.

"Would you mind telling us what was on each paper, so the jurors can confirm that you really would have been able to remember all of those events?" she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 01:09 am (UTC)

He gazes thoughtfully into the distance and reads them all off in a clear voice, in order, initials included.

self_composed
2012-09-29 01:14 am (UTC)

The jury murmurs to itself.

"Thank you. However, it's a very long string of pieces of evidence, recording over two thousand incidents, the descriptions of which range from 'corporal punishment' - itself illegal both in the state of New York and Washington - to what would be classified as felony assault if the victim were anyone but the perpetrator's own dependent child. Let's talk about a few specific cases; Laney, would you care to describe the event that occurred on July 19, 2001?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 01:36 am (UTC)

"It was raining," he recalls, closing his eyes. "I was walking home from the park - he still let me go to the park in those days - and I went by one of those big puddles, you know, and a car ran through it, and soaked me up to here," he gestures at the middle of his chest. "So I knew Dad was gonna be really mad at me when I got home, so the minute I got in the door I bolted for my room, but I tripped on the stairs and fell flat on my face and got mud all over everywhere."

He stops, rubbing his face for a moment; when he continues, his voice is a little rougher.

"Dad heard me. He started yelling—said I was a filthy little demon child and did I know how much it was gonna cost to clean that carpet, and he came down the stairs still goin' on like that and he hit me with his belt," his lips move silently for a moment, like he's counting, "fifty-four times."

It's one of the ones that left marks, although not obvious marks. In the right light, though, they show up fine. Lucinda has photos.

self_composed
2012-09-29 01:39 am (UTC)

Lucinda does have photos. She gets them out. "That's the incident associated with the scars shown here," she says, offering the picture up to the jury. "The defendant's son is scarred for life, because a car splashed him and then he tripped."

"Objec-"

"Allegedly," says Lucinda, in a cold voice.

[I'd pet you if I was there,] Bella informs Alice.
Edited 2012-09-29 07:19 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:13 am (UTC)

He closes his eyes again, briefly, but the fact that he is immensely comforted doesn't show at all. He was right: a pentagon would be redundant here. He is carrying this show just fine on natural talent.

self_composed
2012-09-29 04:57 pm (UTC)

Lucinda walks through most of the other scars and hospitalizations, and a handful of other choice incidents, before saying gravely, "And that's just a fraction of what the plaintiff has endured. The other couple thousand occasions he dictated to a friend, who wrote them down for him; the jury has copies of that document to read, but even one of the events he's just described would be staggering to any decent parent."

Paul actually doesn't have a way to object to that one.

"The defendant may try to convince you that these scars have some other source. I ask you - what source? New injuries have appeared in two different states of residence at a regular pace. Altercations outside of the home? That wouldn't account for the sheer scale, nor much of the timing, even if you're very generous with your estimates.

"The defendant may try to convince you that the abuse was deserved. I ask you - how can that be? Even if corporal punishment of any severity were legal in either state - and it is not - the instigations that you've just heard about and will read more about before issuing a verdict are trivial. The defendant may try to convince you that the actions he wished to punish were more severe than described. I remind you that Laney has an eidetic memory and has, under oath, told us what caused each attack, but even so - I ask you - what can a twelve year old boy do, to which administering a cigarette burn is a measured and understandable response, but which also leaves the plaintiff with no criminal record whatsoever? What can a nine-year-old boy do, which leaves his parents feeling safe in their beds at night, but yet somehow deserves a bone-breaking, forty-five-minute beating?

"No further questions," Lucinda says, and she nods to Paul.
Edited 2012-09-29 17:00 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:08 pm (UTC)

Alice gets increasingly, visibly upset with each story—he even manages not to laugh at the one about the opera, which he finds hilarious in retrospect. But his voice remains steady enough to be heard, and he doesn't cry, although once or twice he looks like he might be about to.

When Lucinda concludes her questioning, he sits and waits quietly to see what Paul has to say.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:11 pm (UTC)

Bella burns a square to actually convey the sensation of petting him. [You're doing fine.]

Paul does not look good. He has flecks of lint in his hair, what looks like it might be hastily-wiped-away bird crap on one of his shoulders, bags under his eyes, and a broken shoelace. He fumbles his notes as he takes a last quick look through them, and weaves not-quite-drunkenly when he approaches the witness stand.

He obviously doesn't have the brainpower left for detailed eloquence. "So," he says to Alice. "If all that happened, why didn't you tell anyone until now? Hm?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:18 pm (UTC)

...He'll run this one by Bella first:

He did, actually, a long time ago. There was a child psychologist, when he was eleven, to whom his parents sent him to (in his father's words) figure out what the hell was wrong with their devil child. After several months of sessions, he gained the courage to mention what was happening at home. The shrink turned around and reported this to Dad, who was less than pleased. Although the only direct punishment for that incident was being confined to his room for a month, his father was touchy for a long time afterward.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:22 pm (UTC)

[I'mma curse that bastard too unless you have some objection,] Bella says. [I'd put it like this: "I did tell someone. When I was eleven, I went to a psychologist, and after a while I tried explaining to her what was going on, but it turned out she didn't care that much about patient confidentiality, and instead of helping me she just told my parents that I'd told her, and I got punished. I didn't try that again until now." All said subdued and not making eye contact and pausing between clauses.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:25 pm (UTC)

Alice does not particularly care what Bella does to the shrink.

"I did," he says, mere seconds in total after Paul asked the question, and explains the circumstances according to Bella's template.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:27 pm (UTC)

Bella puts a curse on the shrink. But she holds it down to a week because she's not going to have any chance to monitor how severe it is.

"Oh," Paul says. "Uh, but why now?"

He really hasn't slept much recently.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:29 pm (UTC)

Yeah, okay. Does Bella have advice on how to present the narrative of... her?

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:31 pm (UTC)

["I made a friend,"] Bella says, [and you can point at me - "who only just moved here, and I found out her dad is the chief of police. I didn't want to risk it at first but she talked me around. Her dad's a decent guy."]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:33 pm (UTC)

That one he repeats nearly verbatim. He doesn't sound like he's reading from a script, though; he sounds flawlessly authentic.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:38 pm (UTC)

Paul just stands there for a few seconds.

"Mr. Washington," says the judge.

"Oh. Uh. No further questions." Paul sits down.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:40 pm (UTC)

Alice's eyebrows lift slightly, a can-you-believe-this-dude? expression briefly overlaid on his general air of resigned misery.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:41 pm (UTC)

[Very nice,] Bella approves.

Alice is dismissed. Lucinda calls up Theo. Swearing in and the like happens.

Lucinda stalks up to Theo like she's a tiger. "So," she says. "I understand you have been in the employ of the Hammonds for some time, is that right?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:44 pm (UTC)

"...yes," says Theo, after turning the question over in his mind for a moment to see where the scary parts are.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:47 pm (UTC)

"And do you remember driving Laney to the hospital in November of last year?" Lucinda continues.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes," just because no one would believe him if he said no.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:48 pm (UTC)

"And where did you drive him from?" Lucinda asks. "I remind you that you are under oath."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:50 pm (UTC)

Theo looks pained.

"From the house."

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Have you ever heard or seen evidence that your employer was mistreating his son?" Lucinda continues, pacing a little.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:53 pm (UTC)

You can almost see the gears turning in his head as he desperately tries to come up with the most lenient interpretation.

"Nothing I was sure of," he says, eyes darting from side to side like a hunted creature.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:53 pm (UTC)

"But you suspected?" presses Lucinda.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I... didn't... really think he was doing anything like that," he says haltingly.

self_composed
2012-09-29 05:56 pm (UTC)

"You didn't think he was doing anything like that," Lucinda repeats, spacing out each word. "Why did you think Laney needed transportation to the hospital in November?" she asks, all innocent curiosity.
Edited 2012-09-29 17:57 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I thought it was none of my business," Theo mumbles.

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I have a police report," Lucinda says, pulling it out of her files and waving it around slightly. "It says Officer Kerensky found the incident suspicious and asked several people - including you - where Laney had gotten hurt. And that you said..." She peers at the report, like she's never read this part before. "'Dunno'."
Edited 2012-09-29 18:02 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, I didn't," says Theo, gaining mroe confidence as he repeats the old, well-worn justification. "I only knew where I was told to pick him up. He could've hurt himself anywhere."

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:07 pm (UTC)

"So," Lucinda says, "your explanation for events is that Laney broke his own ribs... somewhere... and was transported home, by someone other than you, even though you are the family's driver and were working that day... and even though an ambulance would have taken him directly to the hospital... and that none of these things struck you as potentially worth informing the police, so even when Officer Kerenksy sought you out specifically you only told him... 'dunno'. Is that right?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:10 pm (UTC)

He opens his mouth.

He closes his mouth.

"...yes?"

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:16 pm (UTC)

"That's very interesting," Lucinda says, narrowing her eyes. "I have an architectural plan here. It shows that the Hammond family's current residence was remodeled extensively before they moved in, and that among the renovations made was extensive soundproofing. In every room. This advertisement for the sale of their former residence in New York advertises similar amenities. Did you ever hear any very... very... quiet sounds - that could have been associated with violence occurring in the house, given that information?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I have never made a habit of eavesdropping on my employers," he snaps.

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I didn't ask if you listened," Lucinda says softly. "I asked if you heard."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Well, I didn't."

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:21 pm (UTC)

"You are still under oath," Lucinda points out.

But if that doesn't shake anything loose, she moves on. "Assuming you were being entirely candid, would you describe Mr. Hammond, Sr., as having a temper?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says, reluctantly.

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Have you ever heard him say, or imply, or suggest by way of demeanor, that he intended to strike his son or had done so in the past?" This is intentionally overbroad.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:25 pm (UTC)

"...I don't remember?" he tries.

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Really," Lucinda says. "So you don't think that would have seemed remarkable to you, if your employer had announced that he was going to commit a violent crime? It could have slipped your mind?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:29 pm (UTC)

"You didn't say announce, you said suggest by demeanour," he says. "How do I know what a man who's going to hit his son looks like? I've never seen anyone do it!"

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:34 pm (UTC)

"I also said say and imply," Lucinda says implacably. "I'm not expecting you to be a psychologist. So," she continues, "are you saying that you do not believe that your employer ever struck his son? That seems vanishingly unlikely to you, because most people don't hit their sons and you have never seen evidence otherwise, as you've explained?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:38 pm (UTC)

"...yes?"

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:39 pm (UTC)

"You don't sound sure," Lucinda says. "Are you sure? It's all right - as long as you're sincerely sure, it's not perjury to say so."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:42 pm (UTC)

Ohhhhh boy.

"I'm... not sure... anymore," says Theo.

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:43 pm (UTC)

"No?" Lucinda asks, like she's surprised. "And why is that?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:47 pm (UTC)

He glances quickly over at Alice, who returns him an utterly flat look.

"...I've never really... thought about it like this... before."

self_composed
2012-09-29 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Can you elaborate, please?" Lucinda says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 06:49 pm (UTC)

This would be so much easier if Theo did not consider himself a person of integrity. But he does.

"...I tried not to think about it at all."

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Think about what?" Lucinda asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Things that are none of my business."

He is aware as he says it how terrible it sounds.

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Well, now that you're thinking about it, please tell us about any evidence you may have seen regarding the allegations at hand," Lucinda says.

[Is he always this cagey?] Bella asks Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 08:12 pm (UTC)

[He hates telling anybody anything about anybody else. I'm half sure he used to work for a family a lot shadier than mine.]

"I didn't... notice anything," says Theo, with great difficulty. "Nothing specific. Nothing that stood out."

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Then why are you so unsure about whether your employer could have been abusing his son? Please, explain," Lucinda says.

[She is being way more patient than I would,] Bella remarks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 08:19 pm (UTC)

This is the point at which Theo decides to cut the bullshit just to bring this torture to an end.

"I never noticed anything that made me think, at the time, that my employer could have been abusing his son," he says. "But the general impression I've formed of his personality over the years makes it not that surprising to hear that he could've been."

Alice is careful to only laugh on the inside.

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Lucinda, rewarding this sudden openness. "No further questions."

Paul declines to question this one. Or maybe he's just hoping to doze a little longer.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 08:24 pm (UTC)

Mr. Hammond is scowling thunderously; Theo flees back to his seat as soon as he is dismissed.

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:26 pm (UTC)

Lucinda calls up Mrs. Hammond. Swearing in yada yada.

"Mrs. Hammond - I believe you are still technically Mrs. Hammond? Would you prefer Judith?" Lucinda says solicitously.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes I would," she says firmly.

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:28 pm (UTC)

"All right, Judith. Please describe for us the development of Mr. Hammond's... disciplinary measures, insofar as you were aware of them."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 08:45 pm (UTC)

"It all started out very ordinary," she says. "Sending the boy to his room, that sort of thing. I didn't pay much attention; I didn't think there was any reason to worry. So while I don't think he was hiding it from me, exactly, I only knew well after the fact that he had started hitting him... I'm sorry, is there such a thing as a box of tissues in this courthouse?"

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:45 pm (UTC)

Lucinda gets a little packet of them out of her purse and hands them over.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," she says, and removes one, and holds it in her hand in case of tears.

"Delaney has this way of being certain of things that makes him very hard to disagree with. He was certain that his way of handling his son's discipline was the best possible way, and nothing strange or unusual at all, and that is wasn't my place to have any kind of opinion on the subject. So I didn't. I convinced myself that it wasn't very bad and it wouldn't get any worse, and then of course it did, but slowly..." She dabs carefully at her eyes.

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:54 pm (UTC)

Lucinda nods. "The aforementioned documentations lists you as being present for the entirety or for part of forty-seven incidents. Would you like to review them and make a decision about whether you'd like to corroborate that part of the documentation, or do you already know?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 08:57 pm (UTC)

"If Junior said I was there, then I was, and if Junior said it happened, then it did," she says.

self_composed
2012-09-29 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Thank you, Judith. No further questions."

Paul lurches to his feet.

"So if all this was happening," he says, "why didn't you go to the cops or something?"

He might fall over at any moment, really. [I'm almost sorry for him.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 09:02 pm (UTC)

"My husband had already demonstrated that he was violent and controlling," she says. "I was afraid to do anything that contradicted his wishes."

[I'm not,] says Alice. His mental voice is quite cheerful.

self_composed
2012-09-29 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Paul. He closes his eyes for a moment. "And... no further questions."

[He's probably going to get fired or something unless he's got one hell of a track record,] Bella says as Paul sits down.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 09:08 pm (UTC)

[Watch me care,] says Alice, not caring.

self_composed
2012-09-29 09:37 pm (UTC)

Lucinda calls up Bella, and Bella limps to the front of the room.

Swearing in, blah, blah.

"Please tell us about how you came to help Laney with the documentation," Lucinda invites.

Bella says, "I suspected from only a day or two after I first met Laney [sorry, Alice] that at least one of his parents was hitting him - mostly just a hunch, I have pretty good instincts, and there wasn't any other obvious reason for him to have been in the hospital in November. I didn't know for sure if it was one or the other or both until I went over to his house and I met them, and watched how Laney was around them. After that he pretty much admitted it - he was covering for his dad, before. And after Laney met my dad, he was willing to trust that nothing awful would happen if he told - if he stopped covering for the abuse. So he rattled off everything that had ever happened - I didn't even know he had an eidetic memory before that. And I took it down for him while he dictated so he wouldn't have to. And so it'd be organized."
Edited 2012-09-29 21:37 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 09:41 pm (UTC)

['Sokay,] he says fondly.

self_composed
2012-09-29 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Besides Laney's say-so, what led you to believe that his father was an abuser?"

"Well," Bella says. "His entire demeanor is one of someone who might snap at any minute. He was constantly, relentlessly fault-finding, about everything from the fact that Laney had me over - with his mom's permission - to neglecting to put down the piano key cover."
Edited 2012-09-29 21:54 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:00 pm (UTC)

Not gonna bring up the fornication, is she? Probably a good plan.

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:03 pm (UTC)

[Right. I don't see how that could possibly help.]

Lucinda's done here. Paul wobbles up.

"Why didn't you tell a father - your cop - your father who is a cop - as soon as you were sure?" he asks, waving a finger accusingly.

"I didn't want to put Laney in danger," Bella says. "If Laney didn't want to risk testifying or something like that, and had to go home to his father, he could have ended up worse off than before. I did repeatedly try to convince him to cooperate with telling my dad, though."
Edited 2012-09-29 22:07 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:10 pm (UTC)

[If I didn't know better I'd think he was drunk,] Alice marvels. [He's not drunk, is he?]

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

[I don't think so. I think he's just terribly sleep deprived. I may have been dwelling too much on that particular avenue of bad luck when I issued the curse,] Bella muses.

"No questions," Paul says. "Further."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:12 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] says Alice.

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:14 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't smile, until she gets off the stand and makes it look like an encouraging face.

Other minor witnesses, including a medical expert to explain Alice's medical records and Hilary who didn't see anything but can testify that Mr. Hammond is a jerk and so on, are marched by.

Paul gets to call up Mr. Hammond, and does it.

"Describe in words of your own how you disciplined your kid. And why," Paul instructs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Appropriately," says Mr. Hammond, flatly. "Junior has been a nuisance since he was born and a menace since he was ten."

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:25 pm (UTC)

"A menace," says Paul. "How so?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:27 pm (UTC)

"He breaks things. He gets in fights. He steals. He lies."

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:32 pm (UTC)

"And he didn't stop any of that when he was sent to her room, or whatever," Paul says. He's making sense at the moment, if not in any polished way.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Of course not."

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Did the things in the notebooks full of documents - documentation - happen the way they're written?" Paul asks next.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, I haven't read it," says Mr. Hammond, "but they came out of Junior's mouth, didn't they? So no."
Edited 2012-09-29 22:36 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:37 pm (UTC)

Paul nods, more times than makes sense, and then turns him over to Lucinda.

Lucinda's got her notes with her. "So," she says, "you're saying you deny the contents of the documentation - such as the incident of this past November, which put Laney in the hospital. What is your explanation for how his ribs were broken, Mr. Hammond?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to know," he says contemptuously. "Wouldn't put it past him to have done it to himself."

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:41 pm (UTC)

"It is the opinion of the medical expert we've just heard from that some other party would have had to inflict the injuries, Mr. Hammond. Are you yourself an expert in medicine?" Lucinda asks sweetly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:48 pm (UTC)

"No."

self_composed
2012-09-29 10:50 pm (UTC)

"So, with that ruled out, can you think of any means other than an assault by you that could have produced that particular injury?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Have you met the boy?" he asks incredulously. "He hasn't gone a month without brawling in God knows how long."

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:00 pm (UTC)

"If that were the case, why would he name you as the perpetrator?" Lucinda asks with an expression of polite interest.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Because he's a liar and a troublemaker. If he's ever had another reason for doing something, I don't know about it."

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:12 pm (UTC)

"So in his entire life, those are the only motivations he's ever had for doing anything," Lucinda says, raising an eyebrow, "as far as his own father is aware? Don't you think you might be exaggerating?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Not by much. Those are definitely the only ones I can bring to mind."

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:14 pm (UTC)

"He doesn't, for example, eat because he is hungry, or sleep because he is tired, or testify honestly because he's under oath?" Lucinda suggests.
Edited 2012-09-29 23:14 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:16 pm (UTC)

"The first two, sure," he acknowledges. "I don't know about the last. If he takes that oath as seriously as he takes every other rule he's met, not a chance."

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:22 pm (UTC)

"One more question," Lucinda says, looking deeply skeptical. "Do you claim to never have hit your son at all?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Not so that the law has any reason to take an interest."

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:25 pm (UTC)

"I think I've mentioned several times that corporal punishment of any kind is illegal in the states of New York and in Washington," Lucinda says. "So: Have you ever hit your son, Mr. Hammond?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Not so that the law should take an interest," he repeats testily.

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Please just answer the question, Mr. Hammond," says Judge Roberts.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I answered the question as the question deserved to be answered."

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Mr. Hammond, the law has already taken an interest, or you would not be sitting here," Judge Roberts says. "Have you or have you not hit your son?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:34 pm (UTC)

"I dare say that boy's never met someone who didn't want to hit him," Mr. Hammond growls.

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, we could call up his mother, and his friend Bella, and so on, but I've met him and I don't want to hit him," Lucinda says. "But please just answer the question, Mr. Hammond, or we'll be here all day."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:42 pm (UTC)

[Think it'd be worth making a smart remark just to see if he loses his shit and goes for me in front of the whole courtroom?] wonders Alice.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hammond is looking increasingly likely to do something along those lines.

"This whole trial's been a waste of my time; I might as well waste some of yours," he says, at perhaps an unnecessary volume. "But if you must know, yes, I have hit my lying, thieving, whoring, insolent weasel of a son. I took no joy in it. Any decent father would do the same."

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:44 pm (UTC)

[Hold it down to like two words, barely loud enough for him to hear, if you wanna do that,] Bella advises. [You don't want to be found in contempt of court.]

"Whoring?" blinks Lucinda, caught off guard.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes!" spits Mr. Hammond. "He was selling himself on the streets of New York!"

Alice decides he doesn't even need to say anything. He just catches his father's eye and slouches in his chair, tipping it back on its rear legs for a moment.

Mr. Hammond rockets to his feet and slams his hands down on the surface in front of him.

self_composed
2012-09-29 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Mr. Hammond! Calm down at once!" exclaims Judge Roberts.

Paul, surprisingly on the ball, says, "My client regrets any potentially slanderous allegations made in the heat of the moment..."
Edited 2012-09-29 23:54 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-29 11:59 pm (UTC)

With his father still glaring venomously at him, Alice tosses a quick glance at someone who isn't looking and touches his tongue to his lips for a moment, tilting his head down and lifting his eyebrows slightly. It's hardly an overt or remarkable gesture, but it has the desired effect, which is to send his father into a frothing, spitting, incoherent rage and prevent him from coming to his senses and sitting down again.

self_composed
2012-09-30 12:05 am (UTC)

A bailiff seizes Mr. Hammond before he can go anywhere.

"No further questions," Lucinda says, looking with a vaguely pitying expression at Mr. Hammond.

And that's it.

Off the jury goes.

[Nicely done,] Bella remarks to Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 12:07 am (UTC)

[Thank yooou,] he singsongs, looking mildly shaken for the benefit of any backward-glancing jurors.

self_composed
2012-09-30 12:09 am (UTC)

The judge allows that everyone else may enjoy a recess - for fifteen minutes. He obviously doesn't expect it to take very long.

[I think we're pretty safe,] Bella opines. [He did not play that well, even accounting for his poor lawyer.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 12:12 am (UTC)

[Yup.]

Nevertheless: does a recess mean Bella can hug him? Because he would kind of like Bella to hug him.

self_composed
2012-09-30 12:13 am (UTC)

Bella's not sure, so she doesn't risk asking, just gets up and hobbles in his direction and flings her arms around his neck.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 12:18 am (UTC)

"Thanks," he murmurs aloud, leaning into her arms and closing his eyes. He doesn't need to say that he loves her. She's reading him; she knows.

self_composed
2012-09-30 12:27 am (UTC)

Bella winds up hugging him for pretty much the entire recess, then limps back to her seat when it ends. The jury has already reached a verdict, apparently. [What do you want to bet they spent one minute going around the room announcing that yep, dude's guilty, and spent the rest of their deliberation exchanging phone numbers with any fellow jurors they find cute and talking about the weather?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 12:28 am (UTC)

[No bet,] he says cheerfully. [Alternately: bet you a hex.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 12:29 am (UTC)

[Pft.]

"Has the jury reached a verdict?"

"We have, your honor. We find the defendant guilty on all counts."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 12:32 am (UTC)

Alice lets out a breath, visibly relieved.

There is still, however, the matter of the sentence.

self_composed
2012-09-30 12:41 am (UTC)

The judge terminates all of Mr. Hammond's remaining parental rights, and gives him fifteen years in prison. Also, he awards three million dollars in damages to Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 12:43 am (UTC)

[Well, that's nice,] he says to Bella, idly wondering if she would like him to pay her way through college.

self_composed
2012-09-30 12:45 am (UTC)

[That would be very kind of you, and under the circumstances not particularly suspicious,] Bella replies happily.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 12:46 am (UTC)

[Awesome. Done deal.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 12:47 am (UTC)

[Well, unless I get full-ride scholarships, but barring that.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 12:50 am (UTC)

[Yeah.]

So, does everybody clear out now? Because for once Alice has a very solid picture of his desired immediate future: he would like to be in Bella's room, sitting on the floor beside her bed, being petted.

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:55 am (UTC)

"Dad, let's go home. Can we bring Alice?" Bella says.

"Don't see why not," Charlie replies.

The courtroom is emptying, slowly, and Bella files out with Alice as soon as Lucinda's done shaking his hand.

After a drive in the cruiser (Bella's car is still in the shop; they have to order parts) Alice's vision comes to pass.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 09:50 am (UTC)

Yes. Perfect.

[I love you,] he says happily. [Holy shit, we did it.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:03 pm (UTC)

[Congratulations,] Bella says, encountering a tangle in Alice's hair and picking at it absently. [What's next for you, d'you think?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:07 pm (UTC)

[Might move back into the house,] he theorizes idly. [Some of the time, anyway.] His lair is spotless and beautiful and he intends to keep it that way, and he also loves spending time there; but, on the other hand, now he can hang out with Hilary doing domestic things whenever he wants. Awesome.

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:08 pm (UTC)

[So you expect your mom's going to keep Hilary on, then?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:10 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, they get along pretty well. Dunno about Theo. Nobody really likes Theo.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:10 pm (UTC)

[I would be pretty surprised if Theo kept his job, at least presuming your mom knows how to drive.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:12 pm (UTC)

[Hell, Hilary can drive. And Mom can learn. Maybe I will, too.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:13 pm (UTC)

[Hilary had better get a raise,] Bella remarks. [If she's going to take Theo's job.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:15 pm (UTC)

[Well, if it doesn't happen, complain to Mom, not me. Unless you want me to start paying her, since I am now three millionaires.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:17 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers. [Millionairehood doesn't stack that way. You are one millionaire who could spend two million dollars without ceasing to be one. You're gonna need to set up a bank account and get a - well, maybe not a credit card, unless you want to commit to living somewhere where you'll reliably receive mail for the foreseeable future. A debit card.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:19 pm (UTC)

Alice immediately starts internally debating whether he would rather pentagon himself normal adult financial skills or dump the whole mess, three million dollars included, on Bella. It's a close race.

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:20 pm (UTC)

Bella decides not to have any input on this decision.

She's finished picking the tangle loose and goes back to ordinary petting. Pet pet pet.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:24 pm (UTC)

It's not like he actually needs three million dollars for anything. On the other hand, it's conceivable that someday he might. On the other other hand, his mom is still going to be mega rich, and maybe now she'll let him touch real money... but then he's back at square one with the needing a bank account. Screw it. He burns a pentagon.

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:26 pm (UTC)

Pat pat. [Any interesting magical insights into finance I should know about?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:29 pm (UTC)

He is momentarily distracted by petting. Mm, petting.

[Not yet,] he says. [But now I know how bank accounts work, so that's handy.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:35 pm (UTC)

[While you seem unlikely to burn through three million dollars in a hurry in any of the usual ways - since magicking yourself up whatever you want is probably always going to be easier - I can also see you blowing most or all of it on some things, if you wanted to hire a bunch of people or do something else that had to involve actual money. Do you know something about how to lock it up in illiquid growing investments so that's harder to do, or did the pentagon just handle "this is how bank accounts work"?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Nope, that was entirely comprehensible. But what if I really want to - you know what, I can't even think of anything I could use a million dollars for. Buy a really awesome house? I like my lair better.]
Edited 2012-09-30 16:41 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:46 pm (UTC)

[You need money to be on the grid, basically. People can't visit your lair, besides me, without special invitation - you cannot receive mail there, it cannot appear as your address on paperwork. You need money to buy services, even if you can magic your way around the need for most of them. You need money to occupy any space that exists for other people - you could make a pocket dimension apartment-lair in the middle of New York City by hexing a thirteenth floor into existence in a building that doesn't have one or wherever, but for it to be safe secrecy-wise to have anyone over but me, you'd need to actually pay for an apartment. I don't know if that's ever going to be particularly important to you, but it could.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:50 pm (UTC)

[Guess so,] he muses. [Ooh, pocket dimensions. Hey, I wonder if I could make a lair that's, like, New York out one door and Forks out another? Anything in your book about stuff like that?]

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:52 pm (UTC)

[No, but that strikes me as probably within hex range, per door,] Bella remarks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:54 pm (UTC)

[Cool,] he says cheerfully. [Maybe I'll do that.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:56 pm (UTC)

[New York was just an example. Although I could wind up going to Columbia,] Bella muses.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 04:58 pm (UTC)

[You go wherever you wanna. I'll stick a door to my lair somewhere nearby.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 04:58 pm (UTC)

[Maybe it will normally open to, like, a broom closet, unless you think a certain password,] Bella suggests.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:01 pm (UTC)

[Or it just won't exist for anybody but us.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:03 pm (UTC)

[I suppose. You'll still be off the grid. After a certain age landlords expect you to have renting history. I'm going to live on campus for at least the first couple of years in college - for the social life; I don't think I can network as effectively from farther away, I might even have to join a sorority. But after that you could be my roommate-on-paper, I guess.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:06 pm (UTC)

[That'd be fun. I mean, I doubt I'll ever care, but it'd be fun.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:07 pm (UTC)

[So you'll never take it into your head to have a flat of live chicks delivered to your door just so you can make weird remarks that make the delivery person wonder what in God's name you're liable to do with them?] Bella inquires.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:08 pm (UTC)

...He cracks up.

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:08 pm (UTC)

[Well, it seems like the kind of thing that might amuse you, and requires an address.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:10 pm (UTC)

[It totally would! Maybe I'll have some delivered to you.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:11 pm (UTC)

[No sending weird purchases to my dorm,] Bella says. [I have no use for a few dozen baby chickens.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:12 pm (UTC)

[What if I do it while you're not there and then I take them away and clean up after them?]

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:13 pm (UTC)

[Then my roommate or my sorority sisters or the RA or whoever will wonder why you are skulking about my room with infant birds, Alice, and then I have to explain you.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:14 pm (UTC)

He cracks up again.

[This is looking more hilarious the more I think about it.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:16 pm (UTC)

[I'd really rather you didn't make me explain you too much. You're kind of inexplicable. If you're just around sometimes I can say "he's my friend from high school who visits a lot, he visited me when I was recuperating from being hit by a car, y'know" but if you're trying to use my room as a base of operations for on-grid pranks that's a slightly different matter.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:17 pm (UTC)

[I am very inexplicable,] he says happily. [But okay.] No baby bird deliveries to Bella's doorstep.

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:19 pm (UTC)

[Very inexplicable indeed,] Bella says fondly. Pet pet pet.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:22 pm (UTC)

Awwwwww. Alice leans against the edge of her bed and indulges in some snuggly happy feelings.

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:23 pm (UTC)

It's been enough of a long day that Bella goes ahead and dives into that tempting feedback loop.

Tomorrow there will be more things to do.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:24 pm (UTC)

Yes. For today, there are feeeeeeeeeeeelings.

we're kind of inexplicable

self_composed

Bella's return - she's decided that no one knows a damn thing about how quickly fractures of unknown severity can heal, so she's not limping anymore, and wears only a mostly-symbolic handful of (actual) bandaids in some visible locations - is the talk of the school. Mike even talks to her again, solicitously demanding (annoying), wanting the story, wanting to be the first to know if she needs anything, wanting to walk her to class in case she falls; she's cool to him, but not outright cold, she doesn't want enemies if she doesn't have to make them. Tyler Crowley, van driver, apologizes so profusely that she expects him to offer her his life in servitude. Jessica cases Bella quickly and efficiently for any details of the story that weren't obvious (Bella hit by van, injured, out of school two weeks, back with only minor scratches left) and then serves as a very convenient buffer for everyone else. Eric wants to know if Bella has scars. Lauren wants to know if Bella's car is fixed yet. Angela doesn't like the attention she's getting for having been Bella's schoolwork-ferry for the duration.

Bella wants to eat her damn lunch. Sigh.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 05:58 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, a crowd,] says Alice from across the lunchroom. [Want me to distract 'em?]

self_composed
2012-09-30 05:59 pm (UTC)

[Be gentle. And don't interfere with Jessica; she's being helpful, she wants to tell everyone everything herself.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 06:06 pm (UTC)

[Can do,] he says cheerfully, and makes his way to her table. This time there is no conveniently empty seat, so he steals a chair from the next table over, drags it up to the end of hers, and gently nudges her tray down a few inches to make room for his.

"Hi, Bella," he says. "Hi, crowd. Cupcake?"

And indeed, he opens up today's Tupperware container to reveal two tiers of whimsical cupcakes. That is not what it originally contained, but no one is going to know the difference.

self_composed
2012-09-30 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Bella, taking a cupcake. The rest of the cupcakes also disappear in short order, and the members of the crowd have their mouths full. [You're going to risk being popular or something if you do this regularly,] Bella points out.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 06:11 pm (UTC)

[Watch me care,] he says, munching on a cupcake that has a stormcloud mosaic picked out on the top in various shades of blue and grey jelly beans.

self_composed
2012-09-30 06:14 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles to herself. She finishes her cupcake and goes through the rest of her lunch quickly, before the onslaught begins again.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 06:15 pm (UTC)

Success! Alice starts in on his own lunch, which apart from the cupcakes is really quite boring.

...Come to think of it, he's done something publicly interesting recently too, hasn't he?

self_composed
2012-09-30 06:16 pm (UTC)

[I haven't told anyone, so unless you have, it might just not have filtered down yet,] Bella says. [It's not like Theo or Hilary have kids in high school.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 06:18 pm (UTC)

[Guess not. Huh. Well, I'll be enjoying that while it lasts.] He so does not envy Bella her position at the centre of everyone's attention.

self_composed
2012-09-30 06:20 pm (UTC)

[It'll die down in a few days.]

She's done eating. She decides to leave very early for Bio, where only Angela will be able to follow.

Classes are both duller (because she pentagoned all of them, because she wants both good grades and spare time) and more interesting (because her brain is now her notebook, and she can space out and think about whatever she likes), now.

Bio starts, Bio ends, gym class time. Bella wonders if anyone has noticed that she isn't tripping, yet.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 06:22 pm (UTC)

Predictably, Alice is talking to Ms. Finch. He waves at Bella when she enters the gym.

self_composed
2012-09-30 06:23 pm (UTC)

Bella trots up to them. "Hi, Ms. Finch," she says. "I have a weird request."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Bella! I have a reasonable answer," says Ms. Finch. Alice laughs.

self_composed
2012-09-30 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Well," Bella says. "I still don't have an actual diagnosis - but what I think happened is that I had something knocked loose in one of my ears, and that caused my balance issues. And now they're just... Even on crutches I wasn't falling over. I haven't had a near miss on tumbling down the stairs or slipped walking on ice since the accident. I think getting hit by a car managed to knock my ear how it's supposed to be. And I want to fold into regular gym class."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 06:33 pm (UTC)

"You ar a very lucky person," says Ms. Finch. "And, luckily, we're starting something new tomorrow. Do what you want today, and tomorrow you can approach badminton with a hopefully ordinary amount of ignorance."

self_composed
2012-09-30 06:33 pm (UTC)

Bella nods, smiling. "Don't need me to do a cartwheel or three to check?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Nope," she says. "Something tells me you're unusually motivated right now not to do anything that'll get you hurt. Besides, if you successfully did a cartwheel I'd have to find out who taught them to you while you were still Little Miss Klutz, and then I'd have to decide whether to shake their hand or drop them in the scorpion pit."

...Alice giggles.

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:25 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "It was just an example. Scorpion pit, honestly."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Scorpion pit," Ms. Finch confirms, with perhaps more cheer than is strictly necessary. "You can quit snickering any day now, Hammond."

"Nope," says Alice, and Ms. Finch cracks a smile.

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I didn't think a school this size would have the budget for a scorpion pit," Bella muses.

[You liable to tell Ms. Finch about your dad?] Bella reads him, too, because why not.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:31 pm (UTC)

"When did I say it belonged to the school?" inquires Ms. Finch.

[Maybe,] says Alice. [If it comes up.] He has, if possible, mixed apathy about the idea. On the one hand, he doesn't really care to keep it from her, and on the other hand, he doesn't really care to let her know.

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Ah, your personal scorpion pit. Makes much more sense."

[What would be the downside to telling her?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't it?" agrees Ms. Finch.

"If somebody around here was gonna have a scorpion pit, it would definitely be you," says Alice.

[Downside to her knowing? Not really any. Downside to telling her? I have to, like, talk about it. She might decide to hug me.] He glances at her as though to assess the risk of hugs. [Okay, probably not,] he concedes, [but it could happen.]

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:36 pm (UTC)

[You want me to tell her?] Bella proposes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:37 pm (UTC)

[Sure!]

Bella has such great solutions to things.

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:38 pm (UTC)

[With you here or off someplace?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:40 pm (UTC)

[Second one? And probably not right now anyway, because class is starting.] Indeed, Ms. Finch is turning to greet the influx of students.

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:40 pm (UTC)

[Right. After.] Bella fetches her mat. She'll sit through one more day of stretching and bodyweight exercises and yoga, out of everyone's way, and then she gets to play.

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:48 pm (UTC)

Alice sticks around for class, but departs afterward without stopping for a chat. Hilary is coming to pick him up and take him grocery shopping, and he expects her to be prompt.

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Seeya.]

Bella hangs back. She waits till the place is clear of non-Ms.-Finches. When this is the case, she says, "Ms. Finch?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:53 pm (UTC)

[Toodles,] he says cheerfully, just as he spots Hilary's car turning into the lot.

"Hi," says Ms. Finch. "Again."

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Laney" (Ms. Finch would probably understand 'Alice', but that would be a distraction right now) "doesn't want to talk about it himself, but he said I could tell you - the other day his father was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. For child abuse."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:57 pm (UTC)

Ms. Finch blinks.

And rubs her hands over her face.

"Wish I could say I'm surprised," she remarks. "What kind?"

self_composed
2012-09-30 07:58 pm (UTC)

"The beating him up every day or three kind," Bella says. "I mean, there was verbal mixed in too, but that wasn't the bulk of the charges."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Ms. Finch. "Again: wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. It's been pretty obvious since he got here that there is some part of that kid's life that is immensely fucked up."

self_composed
2012-09-30 08:04 pm (UTC)

"I think most of that is actually just him being himself, but yeah," Bella says. "I think he'll get into fewer fights now. Possibly no fights at all. He won't be acquiring other injuries to cover for."

edgeofyourseat
2012-09-30 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Ms. Finch agrees. "He's being himself, and himself is immensely fucked up."

self_composed
2012-09-30 10:01 pm (UTC)

Bella nods, shrugs. "Well, I guess I'll call my dad and get my ride home now," she says, stepping away with a wave.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 12:17 am (UTC)

"See ya," says Ms. Finch.

now isn't that something

self_composed

Everyone's found out about Alice's dad the next day. "You know your friend Delaney? His dad is in jail!!" is the first thing Jessica says at lunch.

"Criminal tendencies run in the family, I guess," Mike says darkly.

"Mike, be nice," pouts Jessica. "It was for abuse!"

"Doesn't that run in families too," Lauren says; it's not really a question. "Bella, I dunno if you're sleeping with him yet, but don't have his kids, right?"

"Bella's not sleeping with Hammond!" exclaims Mike stridently. This exclamation is not less annoying for being true.

"You're not, right?" Eric asks Bella. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

"Grow manners," says Jessica. It's not clear to whom.

"Grow eyes," snorts Lauren. "Delaney wants to bang her worse than you do, Mike, and I read the paper too and now he's got millions of dollars."

"I do not - I haven't - you're -" sputters Mike.

Bella has no idea why these people still sit with her. All she did was plunk down next to Angela and Angela's new boyfriend Ben. She remains stoically silent.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 12:52 am (UTC)

[Want me to drop in with cupcakes again?] queries Alice from the lunch line.

self_composed
2012-10-01 12:53 am (UTC)

[Cupcakes in particular should most likely be a one time thing,] Bella says. [If you have another equally clever idea I'd like to see it - otherwise I'll just sit through this until I'm done eating, I think.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 01:18 am (UTC)

Okay. So, benign interventions that distract attention from her. Doesn't necessarily have to give everyone tasty things, although maybe he could wish up some cookies.

Yeah, that seems like an adequate plan. Absent objections from Bella, he is going to descend on her table with his Tupperware of Mystery (he brought an empty one today, just to cover for tricks like this) and fill it with assorted cookies on the way.

self_composed
2012-10-01 01:19 am (UTC)

[That's very like cupcakes, you realize.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 01:20 am (UTC)

[Yup. And that wasn't a no.]

He's halfway across the room, but he hasn't materialized the cookies yet.

self_composed
2012-10-01 01:20 am (UTC)

[Meh.]

Pause.

[Lemon cookies,] she suggests.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 01:24 am (UTC)

[Sure.]

There are indeed lemon cookies in the mix, when he finally sits down, opens the container, and wordlessly sets it in the middle of the table. But because Alice is a fundamentally assorted person, lemon only makes up about 30% of the stock.

self_composed
2012-10-01 01:27 am (UTC)

Bella snags herself a lemon cookie. And one of those tempting raspberry things, too.

But the ploy isn't as effective now that the conversation is about Alice.

"You sent your own dad to jail?" challenges Mike.

"What're you gonna do with three million dollars?" asks Lauren.

"Are you seeing a shrink? You should. My aunt's a shrink," Jessica says.

"Why did you wait until now to make a fuss about it?" Eric wants to know.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 01:28 am (UTC)

He raises his eyebrows, looks around the table, shrugs, picks up a plain old chocolate chip, and takes a big bite.

self_composed
2012-10-01 01:31 am (UTC)

"Hello?" snaps Mike.

Jessica just repeats her question louder. Eric backs off.

"I mean wow," Lauren rambles. "Three million dollars. I'd get, like, a boat."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 01:33 am (UTC)

Alice smiles brightly at Eric, and with some amusement at Lauren, and with some contempt at Mike, and takes his time finishing his cookie.

self_composed
2012-10-01 01:38 am (UTC)

"De-laaaaa-neeeey," says Jessica, waving her hand in front of his face. "If you're going to come over here, be sociable."

"Whatever, don't waste your time on that freak," Mike mutters.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 01:42 am (UTC)

You know, part of him thought that being in such a generally fantastic mood lately and have his life be, on the whole, so very much better would take a little of the sting out of that word.

Nope.

He doesn't show it, though.

He ignores Jessica like she isn't even there, cocks his head at Mike, and says, "Okay, no, I'm curious. How is the fact that I sent my dad to jail a bad thing?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 01:44 am (UTC)

[Temper,] Bella warns.

"He's your dad," Mike says. "I can't believe he even put up with you, if I acted like you mine would send me to military school, and then you turned around and trumped something up for the cops."

Bella coughs. Mike doesn't even look at her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 01:57 am (UTC)

He ignores Bella, too. Or he hears her, but he doesn't care. It's not like he's kicking the guy's ass or anything.

"Is this you trying to get my shirt off? 'Cause you could've just asked," he says. "I didn't trump up shit and I've got the scars to prove it. Ever broken a bone? You hear it before you feel it, didja know that? Snap," he says, smacking the edge of the table lightly for emphasis. "Then it hurts."

self_composed
2012-10-01 01:59 am (UTC)

"You've broken bones because you antagonize people, classmates, football players," Mike says. "I've seen you do it, everyone has, you must have had one hell of a slick lawyer. Keep your clothes on, prick, I know what I know."

"Mike, shut up," Bella says.
Edited 2012-10-01 01:59 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 02:04 am (UTC)

"Sure I do," he says. "But none of those assholes ever put me in the hospital. Daddy, on the other hand, dragged me all the way downstairs to the fireplace just so he could beat me with the poker. So all in all I am pretty fucking glad I put him in jail."

self_composed
2012-10-01 02:08 am (UTC)

"You must've deserved it," says Mike. Angela, meanwhile, is going quite pale and trembly.

"Mike, shut the hell up," snaps Bella. "Jesus."

"Don't tell me to shut up!" bristles Mike.

"You're telling an abuse victim he deserved it, you have officially thrown polite discourse out a fortieth-story window and watched it go splat -"

"Yeah, Mike," says Jessica unexpectedly. "Just - shush, okay? Go sit with Bill or somebody."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 02:12 am (UTC)

Alice shrugs and takes another cookie, a cute little gingerbread heart.

It cracks in half in his hand.

He didn't think he was that upset, but it turns out that he in fact was.

self_composed
2012-10-01 02:15 am (UTC)

Mike doesn't seem inclined to go. But for the moment he is out of things to say.

Bella splits her paper plate, dumps the cookies onto the clean bottom half to be devoured, picks up the Tupperware, and puts her hand on Alice's elbow and steers him away to another corner of the cafeteria. She bought lunch today; given that she's full enough, she can leave everything and Angela will probably get it for her if no one else does. "I do not know what is wrong with him," she murmurs. "Here." There's an empty couple of extra chairs, not associated with a table, in the corner. She sits him down.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 02:21 am (UTC)

"That guy is gonna grow up to hit his wife," Alice remarks as he sits. It's not a fully serious prediction, but it is a comment on what he has seen of Mike's personality.

self_composed
2012-10-01 02:22 am (UTC)

"He has other characteristics, and his behavior at age seventeen isn't a life sentence, but I do worry you're right," Bella murmurs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 02:27 am (UTC)

"Yup," says Alice. "Whatever, though. He's a fuckup but he's his own fuckup."

And just like that, he still hurts but he is no longer angry about it. Mike is not his problem, even if Mike apparently wants to be.

He would kind of like to be petted, but he isn't going to ask; it seems like the kind of thing Bella might not want to be doing in the corner of the lunchroom.

self_composed
2012-10-01 02:28 am (UTC)

[Yeah, that wouldn't do anything to convince anyone that I'm not sleeping with you,] Bella says. [It annoys me generally to have people believe falsehoods about me that I didn't put there on purpose.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 02:32 am (UTC)

[Okay,] he says agreeably. [Think I'll blow off the rest of the day and go hang out in my lair. Tell Finch I said hi?]

self_composed
2012-10-01 02:33 am (UTC)

[Will do. You'll miss me triumphantly kicking ass at badminton, though.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 02:36 am (UTC)

[Yep,] says Alice.

Which will be a pity! But right now he really wants to do something intensely sensual, and since he doesn't feel like getting someone to beat him up and probably couldn't find anyone to have sex with him, his lair is the best place to go for that.

self_composed
2012-10-01 02:37 am (UTC)

[Have fun. I'm going to Bio,] Bella says. She does pat him once on the head, when she stands up, like he's a support.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:01 am (UTC)

[See ya,] he says, and off he goes, abandoning his box of cookies.

self_composed
2012-10-01 04:57 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs and puts the tupperware in her backpack, and proceeds to class.

Bio goes by and she heads for gym. Time to learn to play badminton and then play it like she was born for it. "Hi, Ms. Finch."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Bella."

She doesn't even ask about their mutual friend.

"Still feeling cured, I hope?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Yup," Bella says brightly. "So how does badminton work? It involve rackets, right?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Yes it does," says Ms. Finch. "Congratulations." She hands Bella a racket. "Now let's see if we can add to that store of knowledge."

She provides a thorough and concise explanation of the rules, punctuated with occasional humour of that dry sarcastic kind she seems to like so much.

self_composed
2012-10-01 05:08 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles where appropriate. "Sounds simple enough," she says. "Do we get assigned partners or do we pick them?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 05:17 pm (UTC)

"You pick them," says Ms. Finch, "unless that takes too long or involves too much adolescent politics. So far this class hasn't been too bad about teams, though."

self_composed
2012-10-01 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I just haven't met many people in this class besides Alice - oh, he asked me to call him Alice awhile ago, it's kind of weird - and he's not showing up today, so I'm not sure who to go with," Bella shrugs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Alice," she repeats. "Funny. Well, if you can't find a partner once class starts, make pitiful faces at me and I'll get you straightened out."

self_composed
2012-10-01 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Will do," Bella agrees. She experimentally swings her racket a few times. She spends a pentagon on general athleticism so she won't be terribly exhausted by suddenly adding cardio to her day, and one on skill at racket-based sports in general after discovering that "all sports" is too general. She gets a birdie from the pile and starts tapping it up into the air, over and over. "Hee."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 05:43 pm (UTC)

Well, some people are naturally talented. Ms. Finch doesn't find Bella too suspicious, and she is shortly distracted by the arrival of the rest of the class, anyway.

self_composed
2012-10-01 05:44 pm (UTC)

Bella partners with someone who she vaguely thinks might also be in Government with her and who doesn't seem to like badminton much.

Her partner doesn't have much to do.

Bella grins so hard her face hurts.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 05:49 pm (UTC)

It's always nice to see the kiddies having fun.

self_composed
2012-10-01 05:52 pm (UTC)

After class, Bella has no reason to stick around; she puts her equipment away and runs off to call her dad to come get her. (Her car should be fixed soon. If only she'd thought to magic it fixed when it first broke - sure, magic was scarcer then, but it might have taken only a square -)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 05:59 pm (UTC)

About half an hour later, Alice brainphones her from his lair.

[Hey, you home yet?]

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:00 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, Charlie just left,] Bella says. [What are you up to?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:03 pm (UTC)

Napping on the floor of his sewing room, or he was a minute ago.

It hasn't been a great afternoon. Parts of it were, but on the whole, no.

[Shit-all, pretty much. How much ass did you kick in gym?]

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:05 pm (UTC)

[Lots. Finch didn't even seem suspicious. You recovering okay? Mike was pretty awful to you at lunch.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:11 pm (UTC)

[I'll be fine,] he says, tucking his hands behind his head and gazing up at the ceiling. [Still kinda feel like shit, but whatever. You wanna hang out?]

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:14 pm (UTC)

[Sure. Be over in a few.] Bella walks out, and once she's deep in the woods turns invisible and takes flight. [If Mike sits at my table again I'm just going to get up and leave, I'm done with him.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

[Good plan,] says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:18 pm (UTC)

[Maybe social consequences will have an effect where arguing for human decency didn't. Also it's less work. I think I've settled on soccer,] Bella continues. [The school has a team, the women's teams aren't as generally denigrated as, like, baseball ones, and we're doing it in like a week so I can "learn" it then.] She flies through the rock and down the spiral staircase. "Halloooo!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" he calls from his position on the floor of the sewing room. Then he gets up, walks through the broad arch to meet her at the bottom of the stairs, and hugs her.

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs him back and pets his hair. "So have you put your sewing room to any use yet?" she asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Not yet," he says. "Haven't figured out if I want to use a pentagon or not."

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:25 pm (UTC)

"I'd say not," Bella says. "If you care about the process, why wouldn't you learn it the usual way? And if you care about the results, actually sewing is redundant - you can just wish clothes into existence." She gestures at her wish-jeans. She's worn no non-wish jeans since she learned she could do that.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Alice. "You make so much more sense than me."

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes, yes I do," says Bella merrily, drifting over to the chair in the corner and plopping into it. "It's good that you know that."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:41 pm (UTC)

Alice contemplates joining her in the chair—there is technically room—and then sits on the floor in front of her instead.

"It's kinda hard to miss."

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:41 pm (UTC)

Bella pets him some more. "I mentioned to Finch that you asked me to call you Alice, by the way."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:44 pm (UTC)

He leans his head on her knee and relaxes under her hand.

"Wonder if she'll pick up the habit."

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Dunno. I guess she'll surprise us. I downloaded some college applications today," she remarks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Cool. Which ones?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:54 pm (UTC)

"All the Ivies - I have preferences among them, but any I can get into this year is noticeably preferable to any that won't take me until next year if at all - and the public universities here and in Florida, since I could claim residency in either now that my mom and Phil moved to Jacksonville. And MIT, because that's good in its own right and right near Harvard. I might not send in applications for all of them; I'll have to take a second look at the requirements and the average test scores and stuff."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:55 pm (UTC)

"All kindsa places we might end up," Alice says contemplatively. He likes the uncertainty of it.

self_composed
2012-10-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Enh, it's mostly concentrated in New England," Bella says. "It's possible I should throw in Stanford though. Why can't all the useful people go to one place?" she sighs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Where would be the fun in that? Anyway, betcha you'll find enough useful people, wherever you end up."

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:01 pm (UTC)

"It's not all about a critical mass of useful people - it's also bad to have any major useful-people gaps. If I go to Harvard and then someone from Stanford with whom I have no mutual friends makes more money than God, I'm in trouble; if I go to Yale and someone from - from the University of Tokyo invents a proprietary technology that interacts badly with magic and I have no way to get in touch with them and influence that nonmagically, then I'm also in trouble. But I can't be everywhere yet and the world is big."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:03 pm (UTC)

"There's already lotsa people you don't know who have more money than God, though," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I know. I hope to meet people who know their cousins' kids or something," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:06 pm (UTC)

"...You know my mom," he observes. "And my mom knows a lot of rich people."

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

"That's potentially useful, yes, but does she have parties where I could sidle up to same and comment on the hors d'oeuvres and then say hey, have you heard about this project I'm helping to run?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Maybe! Who the fuck knows what she's gonna do now?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough," Bella laughs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:16 pm (UTC)

"You could always suggest it to her and see what happens."

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:17 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "Next time I see her. How have things at the house been?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Good! Man, I did not know how much fun life could be without that asshole in it."

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:20 pm (UTC)

Bella grins. "Awesome." Pause. "You remembered to call Hilary and tell her not to bother picking you up from school, right?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Yup! She said from here on out I might as well just call her when I want a ride."

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:23 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers. "So are you going to just fly everywhere now?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Why the fuck not?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm starting to wonder if my car's a lost cause. They've hung onto it for a long time now; they should have had time to get whatever parts they needed. I'd fly everywhere too but eventually somebody would wonder why I didn't have a vehicle in the parking lot. If it didn't rain so much here I'd get a motorcycle. Maybe I'll do that if there's better weather where I go to college..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," he says. By which he means it sounds hot.

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:31 pm (UTC)

Bella finds that amusing. "I wonder," she says very deliberately, "if I'd look nice in all the requisite leather."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:32 pm (UTC)

"You really fucking would," says Alice, happily.

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:33 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "Well, I wouldn't want to try it in this climate, but anywhere else... maybe this is an argument in favor of Stanford."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Suddenly I really like Stanford. Where the fuck is Stanford, anyway?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Palo Alto, California," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Cool. Good motorcycle weather?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:36 pm (UTC)

"I think so. Maybe a little warm for it in summer. But I could go around not wearing a helmet and have plenty of wind in my hair. Or make the leather magically breathable."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:38 pm (UTC)

"I love how you solve things."

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:39 pm (UTC)

"So do I," says Bella smugly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 07:40 pm (UTC)

Awwwwww. He hugs her leg.

self_composed
2012-10-01 07:40 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs and goes on petting him. "You are a strange, strange creature, Alice."

welcome to wonderland

self_composed

Mike doesn't try to sit with Bella anymore. She only had to get up and walk away twice. Now he sits with some other friends in another corner of the cafeteria and doesn't bother her. She can sit with Angela and Angela's boyfriend and Jessica and Jessica's current boyfriend and sometimes Eric and sometimes Lauren.

"So," Jessica says. "Bella, did you know Delaney came to school in a dress?"

"Oh?" Bella says. "I wonder if he made it himself."

Jessica looks rather stunned that Bella could miss the point by so wide a margin.

[You came to school in a dress, huh?] Bella inquires.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 08:18 pm (UTC)

[Yup,] says Alice. [Mom let me. Hilary lent me the dress. I look adorable. And nobody's even beat me up for it yet.]

Sure enough, when he he walks into the lunchroom, he is wearing a cornflower blue summer dress that is totally unsuited to the weather but surprisingly suited to Alice. Whispers and giggles and surreptitious pointing follow him to the lunch line.

[Want me to sit with you, or no? I have actual gingerbread I actually baked, this time.] Alice showing up at lunch with wish-baking for Bella and/or her tablemates has kind of become a thing, irregular but more than occasional.

self_composed
2012-10-01 08:40 pm (UTC)

[Dunno, do you want to put up with Jessica gawping at you and asking if you are 'a trans'?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 08:42 pm (UTC)

[That sounds hilarious,] he says, proceeds to her table, sits, and opens his Tupperware of Mystery to reveal a lot of slightly misshapen gingerbread.

self_composed
2012-10-01 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Why're you wearing a dress?" Jessica asks without preamble. But she takes a gingerbread, as do Angela and Ben and of course Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Why're you wearing that shirt?" he asks in return, taking some gingerbread for himself. (It is delicious as hell, naturally.)

self_composed
2012-10-01 08:50 pm (UTC)

"My sister borrowed my last other clean one," says Jessica, unimpressed.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Felt like it," he says sunnily, and nibbles his gingerbread.

self_composed
2012-10-01 08:51 pm (UTC)

"But why would you feel like wearing a dress? Are you a trans?"

[I haven't wished myself precog powers yet,] says Bella dryly. [I have just met Jessica.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 08:56 pm (UTC)

[I love you.]

"What do you care?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Because it's weird!" Jessica opines.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Keep wondering," says Alice. "Maybe you'll figure it out."

self_composed
2012-10-01 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, I guessed that you're a trans, but you won't even answer a simple question," pouts Jessica.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Okay, try this one on for size," says Alice, waving his gingerbread in a shrug-like gesture. "It's not a simple question, and it's not gonna be a simple question until you stop thinking there's any good reason why I shouldn't feel like wearing a dress, and at that point you're probably gonna know the answer already."

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:06 pm (UTC)

Jessica chews that over a bit. "I'm not a trans," she offers. "That's simple. If you are one that should be simple, too. And I don't think it's like illegal or anything?" She looks at Bella.

"Not illegal," Bella confirms.

"But it's weird! You're a boy, unless you're a trans, so -"

"I think it might be 'transgender'," Angela says softly.

"Oh. A transgender. So it's weird for you to wear a dress and you must have a reason because the boys who don't have reasons don't do it," says Jessica.

[Well, that was surprisingly lucid,] comments Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:11 pm (UTC)

[Yup. I'm surprised.]

"Okay," he says, "so what if the reason is that there's no reason not to?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:12 pm (UTC)

"But there are reasons not to," Jessica says. "You might get beat up, and also that looks really cold for February, and also everyone will think it's weird, and ask you why you're doing it, and also it doesn't fit you very well!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Don't care," he says, "don't care, don't care, don't care, and wrong."

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, why don't you care?" Jessica demands. "And it - well, there's no such thing as a dress fitting on a guy, anyway." She starts to reexamine the fit before apparently deciding that would look uncomfortably like she was checking him out and breaking eye contact.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Alice, "I'm taking that as a challenge. And do you really need to ask me why I don't care if I get beat up?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, it doesn't make sense - I know you don't care, but I don't know why," Jessica says. "Why won't you just tell us if you're a trans or - a transgender or not?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:22 pm (UTC)

He takes a bite of his gingerbread. [Bella, help me out here. How do I make this stupid question not stupid so I can answer it?]

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:23 pm (UTC)

[Well, geez, I'm not clear on what you get out of wearing dresses and I can read your mind. If there's an answer you haven't been thinking of it while I've been looking.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:29 pm (UTC)

[So read me?] he says.

The problem: he likes guy stuff and girl stuff, perhaps not equally, but both-ly. So if he says he's 'a trans' (Jessica's terminology doesn't bug him, except inasmuch as it is distractingly hilarious), that's wrong, but if he says he's not, that's also wrong. He's not a boy, but he's not a girl. Or he is a boy, and he is a girl. From where he's standing he can't really tell the difference.

Also, he just really likes dresses. He thinks they look cute on him. And he is totally going to make one that fits him perfectly, just to show Jessica what that looks like.

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:34 pm (UTC)

[So you're a mutant gender on top of everything else. Why am I not astonished?] Bella says. [Tell Jessica you're, I dunno, half-trans or something. I don't know why dresses are even a girl thing, they're awkward and impractical. I will go on wearing jeans or maybe motorcycle leather even after I take over the world and start affecting the use of crowns.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:37 pm (UTC)

[Thank you for making me think about you in motorcycle leather again,] Alice says cheerfully. [You're the best.]

The crown adds a certain something to the mental image, too.

"How about half," he suggests to Jessica. "Half trans."

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:38 pm (UTC)

Jessica makes a series of thoughtful faces. "Is that a thing?"

"Apparently," Bella says. [No problem.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:41 pm (UTC)

"It is now," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, okay, that was all you had to say," says Jessica huffily. "Honestly."

Bella rolls her eyes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Not sorry," says Alice, serenely.

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:45 pm (UTC)

"You need to work on your social skills," Jessica advises him.

"Thank you for the gingerbread," Angela puts in desperately, hoping to change the subject. "It's delicious."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:48 pm (UTC)

He grins at Angela. "You're welcome. Made it myself."

self_composed
2012-10-01 09:48 pm (UTC)

"What's in it?" Angela's boyfriend asks helpfully.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 09:49 pm (UTC)

Alice rattles off a list of ingredients, many of which sound quite tasty on their own.

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:00 pm (UTC)

Eventually lunch ends. [Are you going to come to gym today?] Bella asks as she heads for bio.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:03 pm (UTC)

[Yep.]

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:05 pm (UTC)

[Cool.]

Gym arrives. The badminton nets are gone, and there is a soccer ball prominently located in the gym.

"This is the game with the kicking, right?" Bella asks Ms. Finch, winking.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:08 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to look so eager," says Ms. Finch, laughing. "Yes, this is the game with the kicking. I'd specify what exactly you'll be kicking, but then you might wink at me again."

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:09 pm (UTC)

"What are the rules exactly?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:11 pm (UTC)

Ms. Finch gives her the rundown. Halfway through, Alice shows up.

"Nice of you to join us, Wonderland. Will you be wearing that for soccer?"

Alice twirls.

"I'll take that as a yes," she says, and goes right back to explaining the game to Bella.

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:13 pm (UTC)

Bella listens attentively. It sounds pretty fun. She decides to wait for about a minute into the class before pentagoning this one.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:15 pm (UTC)

Perhaps surprisingly, no one bothers Alice about his choice of gym clothes. Class proceeds. Alice has a blast.

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:16 pm (UTC)

Bella shows off. (But she makes sure to display virtues of teamwork, where applicable - she does not make ridiculous trick shots just because she can, when there's a teammate right there to pass to.)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:17 pm (UTC)

At the end of class, Ms. Finch approaches Bella.

"You are suspiciously good at this game," she says. "And I mean that in the best possible way."

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:18 pm (UTC)

"It's fun!" Bella says. "I'm usually good at things I like, it was just never safe to apply it to sports before recently."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Wanna join a team?"

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I would!" Bella says happily. "When is that?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:31 pm (UTC)

Ms. Finch grins.

"Tryouts start today and go through the week," she says. "Despite rumour, I have never thrown a failed candidate into the scorpion pit."

"What about the ones who don't fail?" wonders Alice.

"I need those."

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Cool, I'll just stay after today then," Bella says. "How often are practices?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Tuesday Thursday Monday Wednesday Friday repeat," says Ms. Finch cheerfully, "because I hate you and want you to suffer."

Alice giggles.
Edited 2012-10-01 22:35 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:37 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "It's a good thing I don't have any other extracurriculars lined up."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Lucky you," Ms. Finch agrees.

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:40 pm (UTC)

[Although I wonder if I should take up an instrument just to be really well-rounded. I could claim I bought it when I was fourteen and never practiced when whichever parent was home out of politeness; I think that one I'll need more backstory than "turns out I'm naturally talented". What do you think, flute? Those are easy to hide.]

"Cool," Bella says. "So I'll just stick around I guess." She scoops up the ball onto her toe and starts kneeing it back and forth, left and right.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:44 pm (UTC)

Alice parks himself on a bench, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. [Flute sounds cool. Mmm, or clarinet. Clarinets are sexy.]

"Do us all a favour and sit like a girl, Wonderland," says Ms. Finch. "No one here wants to see up that skirt."

Laughing, he crosses his legs. "Better?"

"Much."

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:47 pm (UTC)

[I'm going to make it flute. Not a big clarinet fan.] "If he tries out for soccer, which team would you put him on?" Bella teases aloud.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:48 pm (UTC)

"You couldn't pay me to put that kid on a team of any kind," says Ms. Finch. Alice beams, flattered.

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:50 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs.

She's been laughing a lot in recent weeks. She likes this. "What do we do in tryouts?" she inquires.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:51 pm (UTC)

"You try," says Ms. Finch, dryly.

Alice laughs.

self_composed
2012-10-01 10:52 pm (UTC)

Bella does, when everyone else there to try out arrives, and again shows off (within believable talented-highschooler range; she'll save major ridiculousness for when scouts swing by, if they ever do).

Afterwards, she calls her dad - who is confused about why she didn't call an hour earlier - and goes home to add to all her applications that she plays flute and soccer. Then she submits them all, and conjures a flute and pentagons ability to operate it - and amuses herself playing it all the rest of the afternoon.
Edited 2012-10-01 22:53 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 10:58 pm (UTC)

Alice amuses himself listening.

some people are this impressive without magic

self_composed

It has been six weeks since Bella sent out her applications and it is now the end of March. She has been on the soccer team since that time, winning the one game they've had against the team from the Quileute reservation, and has introduced Charlie to her flute (he's nonplussed but proud), and has been keeping straight A's in everything.

She has received four rejections (Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Princeton). The other schools are still quiet on the subject of applicant Bella Swan. Except Stanford.

Stanford thinks she is interesting, and would like to interview her in person, when would be convenient for her?

Hmm.

[Hey Alice. If anybody asks you, would you mind telling them you bought me a motorcycle?]

She can drive herself to the airport.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 11:23 pm (UTC)

[Sure!] he says cheerfully. [What kind and when?]

self_composed
2012-10-01 11:24 pm (UTC)

[Custom one just now. Come over and watch me conjure it up,] Bella says cheerily.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 11:27 pm (UTC)

[Fuck yes!]

He turns invisible and zooms up out of his lair.

self_composed
2012-10-01 11:36 pm (UTC)

When he arrives, Bella's standing in the garage; it doesn't have room for a car - Charlie parks on the street and Bella used to park in the driveway before her station wagon got busted. But it has room for a motorcycle.

She's had a while to design it now, and what she doesn't know about motorcycle functionality she can let the magic handle. "Behold," she intones, and burns a pentagon.

It appears.

It's sleek and beetle-black and detailed in brilliant gold with patterns like thin vines twining around all its edges. If it were an inch long and strung on a chain it'd be jewelry; instead it's like a metallic animal crouched on the floor of the garage.

"Doesn't need gas," Bella brags. "Can use it in case someone's watching me though."

She wishes on another pentagon, because she wants her riding gear (pants, jacket, fingerless gloves, and a pair of short-heeled half-calf boots) to have certain properties. "Repels water, helpfully temperature-regulating whether warm or cold," she says. There's a helmet too, appearing in the same conjuration, equally shiny, although whether she'll use it or it's just for show is anyone's guess.

It's black with gold designs on it too, and it fits like a sexy, sexy glove.

"After you went and got me such a silly present I just had to go ahead and get my motorcycle license," she shrugs, petting the soft leather on her thigh.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 11:38 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know who I want to fuck more, you or the bike," says a stunned and delighted Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

Bella bursts out laughing. "Please don't fuck my bike. But I thought you might approve, yes. So this is the kind of thing you might randomly decide to spend a fraction of your damages on."

She tilts her head. "There might be extra requirements to drive a motorcycle at my age, actually. My birthday's not till September... I wonder if I need Charlie's permission or something. I will look into that." She strokes her bike. "But I'm keeping this regardless. I like it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I promise not to fuck your bike," says Alice.

He does not promise not to go home later and think about fucking it. Mmmmmm.

(Promising something doesn't mean the same thing to him that it does to most people. The promise, by itself, is meaningless. What he's saying, the thought behind the words, is that he acknowledges she doesn't want him to do that and therefore predicts that he won't. He isn't paying much attention to this definition at the moment, but it's still there.)

"And I am glad that you are keeping it, because it's fucking awesome and so are you."
Edited 2012-10-01 23:49 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-01 11:52 pm (UTC)

Bella grins. "Now I have to find out if I can get licensed to use this thing in time to drive myself to the airport so I can go interview at Stanford. You'd think I'd be nervous about leaving it at an airport, but it won't start or even roll if anyone but me tries and when not operating it's way too heavy to lift."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 11:54 pm (UTC)

"...A motorbike this sexy that's also unstealable is gonna get noticed," Alice points out.

self_composed
2012-10-01 11:55 pm (UTC)

"What, just because there's a bit of a trick to the ignition, the wheels lock up when it's turned off, and it weighs several hundred pounds?" Bella says. "It might get keyed, but I can fix that."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says Alice. "Guess it's not that likely that somebody really determined is gonna try."

self_composed
2012-10-01 11:58 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "I mean, I guess I could also put an alarm on it, but no one pays attention to those."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-01 11:59 pm (UTC)

"The only thing a car alarm ever does is annoy the fuck out of people," Alice asserts.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:00 am (UTC)

"Right. They were a significant component of making that poor defense lawyer lose so much sleep," Bella says sweetly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:02 am (UTC)

...Alice cracks up.

[I love you,] he says by brainphone, because he is laughing too hard to use out-loud words.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:07 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna go look up what I have to do to be licensed to use my silly, excessive present that I cannot sensibly return because you had it made custom for me," Bella says, heading into the house after petting her bike one more time.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:10 am (UTC)

Alice gives the bike one last lingering look, and then follows her. That thing is gorgeous. And it suits her perfectly. He wishes he could actually get her a present that cool. But it's pretty much guaranteed that anything he might think to provide is inferior to what she could wish up for herself.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:13 am (UTC)

"You're covering for me. I can't get that for myself, not readily," Bella responds to this thought. "You as good as got me this, because otherwise I'd have to fabricate the plausible ability to build the damn thing in order to have it in public. Oh, and you got it for me from a super secretive private hobbyist you met on the Internet who did you a one-time favor and who does not want his or her name publicized."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:15 am (UTC)

"Cool," he says, and starts inventing hilariously implausible lies to cover for this imaginary person, because that is what he would actually do in that case.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:20 am (UTC)

Bella looks up motorcycle laws in Washington. It turns out she needs Charlie's permission to take a sixteen-hour course and then pass a written test to be allowed to bike hither and thither. "Sixteen hours, dang," she says. "Oh well. If it turns out it would help, can I borrow some cash to pay an instructor to let me do that over a weekend instead of sitting through some regularly scheduled class that meets for an hour every evening for two and a half weeks?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:21 am (UTC)

"Yup," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:22 am (UTC)

"Grand. If you care, I'll pay you back when I too become a millionaire. If you don't, I will forget about it altogether after about twelve minutes of mild guilt." She starts looking for motorcycle instructors. She can just fly wherever, land a few blocks away, and claim to have gotten a ride.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:23 am (UTC)

"I so don't care," he says. "Oh, uh, people are really gonna think we're fucking if you show up to school on that thing. You cool with that?"

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:26 am (UTC)

"Meh," says Bella. "Don't care enough to not use it. I will carry on denying it and say you're just buying me things with your court-awarded money because I helped you with the trial stuff."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:30 am (UTC)

"Okay, cool."

A few things click in his head. Presents; beautiful things; designing for function and form.

"Hey, can I make you hot clothes?" he asks, already running through possibilities in his head. Dresses, various lengths; suits; assorted other items.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:34 am (UTC)

"Not a fan of dresses or suits on me in general, although if I have to show up to something super-formal I'd wear a dress. Maybe now that I don't trip on imaginary things all the time I'll start showing up to dances? I'd wear dresses to those, and I'll let you make 'em if you want if you let me vet the design."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:37 am (UTC)

"You got it."

Dancing. Oh, he can definitely design dresses for dancing.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:40 am (UTC)

Bella grins. "Spiffy. I wonder if dancing is one pentagon, or one per type?" She tries it. "Huh. Works with one, but I probably couldn't win a waltz contest, I think this is just general I-can-dance-now."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:42 am (UTC)

"...Wanna dance?" he suggests, grinning. Because why not?

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:43 am (UTC)

"D'you know how?" Bella asks. "Yet?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:44 am (UTC)

He shrugs and burns a pentagon.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:45 am (UTC)

Bella can see it disappear. She shrugs and puts some waltz music on, and leads, even though he's taller and she's a girl.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:48 am (UTC)

That is because Bella is perfect.

Completely for the fuck of it, Alice wishes himself a magnificently twirly pleated skirt.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:48 am (UTC)

Bella laughs, and twirls him accordingly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:49 am (UTC)

He loves her so much.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:52 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't get tired at this level of physical activity for hours. She can dance as long as she wants. But the music ends eventually and she spins Alice into a closing dip.

"That was fun," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:53 am (UTC)

"Whee!" says Alice, sitting down on the floor.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:55 am (UTC)

"I love being magical," crows Bella. "I love it lots."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:56 am (UTC)

"I love it too. And I love you being magical. And I love you," Alice recites happily.

self_composed
2012-10-02 12:57 am (UTC)

"Charlie'll be home in under an hour," she says, glancing at the clock. "Time to start dinner. You staying?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 12:58 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says, smoothing out his skirt.

self_composed
2012-10-02 01:02 am (UTC)

"I'm kinda impressed with Charlie for not having remarked on your new clothes," Bella says, heading down the stairs and starting on some rice to serve with fried fish.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 01:04 am (UTC)

"Me too," he says, laughing.

Once again Charlie defies Alice's experience of dads! That is a good thing. He should keep doing that.

self_composed
2012-10-02 01:17 am (UTC)

Bella cooks. She hands Alice things to stir, and stale bread to turn into crumbs. Charlie's home on time, remarks neither on Alice's presence nor on his attire, and is loudly appreciative of the food.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 01:29 am (UTC)

Alice is also loudly appreciative of the food, although half of his remarks thereon are technically silent.

self_composed
2012-10-02 01:34 am (UTC)

"So Dad," says Bella. "Alice got me a ridiculous present, and I can't return it because he went and got it custom and anyway I really like it. So... um..."

"Mm?" Charlie asks. "Why would you return it if you like it?"

"Well, I'm not licensed to drive it," says Bella.

Charlie's silent for a beat. "Laney, did you get my daughter a motorcycle?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 01:38 am (UTC)

"Yup," says Alice, sunnily.

self_composed
2012-10-02 01:39 am (UTC)

"It's gorgeous, Dad, and I'd be safe, because - y'know - and I was thinking I could drive myself to the airport so I can fly to California to get interviewed by Stanford..."

Charlie blinks.

"Stanford?"

"Yeah, they want an interview!" Bella says sunnily. "I can fly down on a weekend, and you won't have to drive me... if I can get your permission to take a motorcycle course."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 01:40 am (UTC)

Alice beams. Bella is just delightful, okay?

self_composed
2012-10-02 01:50 am (UTC)

Charlie hems and haws. "Well," he says finally. "If you're sure you'll be safe?"

"Quite sure," Bella says.

"Well, fine, if you need my permission I suppose you've got it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 01:53 am (UTC)

Alice continues to beam! He is thinking about Bella on her motorcycle. They are pleasant thoughts.

self_composed
2012-10-02 01:55 am (UTC)

"Wanna see the bike, Dad?" Bella asks when the food has all been tucked away into various tummies.

"Sure," Charlie says.

So she takes him out to see the bike.

"Damn," he says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 01:57 am (UTC)

"Yup," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-02 01:59 am (UTC)

"Yes, you may learn to drive that," Charlie repeats.

Bella grins.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 02:00 am (UTC)

Alice twirls joyously.

here goes

self_composed

Bella schedules an appointment at Stanford. She breezes through sixteen hours of motorcycle class, mostly by demonstrating that the instructor is redundant and wouldn't he rather teach her exotic motorcycle tricks and then just mark her as passing the course? She plays in a soccer game against a Port Angeles high school and wins. She starts driving her bike to school, and she names it Tegu after a lizard of similar coloring, because it needed a name.

On Friday evening she's due to fly out, crash in a Stanford grad student's house overnight, interview on Saturday, and fly home that evening. She bikes for the airport, black leather gold-studded saddlebags over Tegu's back wheel carrying her luggage.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 02:22 am (UTC)

Alice, having no demands on his time that he can't blow off for this, flies invisibly overhead.

self_composed
2012-10-02 02:24 am (UTC)

He's not invisible to Bella, though. [Tagging along?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 02:25 am (UTC)

[Yup.]

Because that is what he would rather be doing. And also she looks really good on that thing.

self_composed
2012-10-02 02:27 am (UTC)

[I have good design sense,] Bella sends. [Going to stow invisibly onto the plane or just try to chase it the whole way?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 09:46 am (UTC)

The second option sounds way more fun!

[Might as well find out if I can do that, right?]

self_composed
2012-10-02 03:39 pm (UTC)

[Don't get sucked into an engine; you'll crash my plane,] Bella says. [And you'll probably need to magic goggles and maybe some way to breathe up high, but I assume you're stocked up on coins of all kinds.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 08:34 pm (UTC)

[Yup.]

His necklace is getting so long that 'necklace' is really no longer the word.

self_composed
2012-10-02 08:35 pm (UTC)

[I'm wearing mine like a half-bandolier, half-belt,] Bella offers.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 08:42 pm (UTC)

Alice envisions this.

[Yeah, that'd work,] he concludes. He just has his looped a ridiculous number of times around his neck, but Bella's configuration sounds much more stable. Of course. Because she's Bella.

self_composed
2012-10-02 08:44 pm (UTC)

[It didn't come off when I got hit by the car,] Bella points out. [Although it's getting heavy. By the time it gets long enough to need another twist over the other shoulder I'll probably start stashing extras in Elias's old trunk.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 08:50 pm (UTC)

[Sounds like a plan. And when that gets full we can make more of 'em.]

Because Alice is not going to stop producing coins anytime soon, and he produces a lot of them, especially on days when he doesn't have much else to do.

self_composed
2012-10-02 08:51 pm (UTC)

[Unless I find a good use for a lot of coins that's as fast or faster than your rate of making them,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 08:57 pm (UTC)

[What the fuck could you possibly need that much magic for?]

Not that he doesn't enjoy the thought of having to make even more.

self_composed
2012-10-02 08:59 pm (UTC)

[Running the world,] Bella suggests. [How many hexes do you think it would take to render, say, malaria, extinct? I'm not sure I can even do it with hexes, not without investing a lot of time in travel and finding people who have it and mosquitoes that carry it. That kind of thing might take a star.]
Edited 2012-10-02 20:59 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 09:01 pm (UTC)

[Betcha I could make a star.]

He's been trying, but he hasn't been trying very hard. Pain at the hex level is distractingly sexy.

self_composed
2012-10-02 09:02 pm (UTC)

[I bet you could,] she says. [I don't want to use any stars, yet, until I know why they are dangerous, when the other wishes are so safe to use while paying a modicum of attention.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 09:03 pm (UTC)

[That is because you are smart,] Alice says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-10-02 09:04 pm (UTC)

[Yep. Also, things on the scale of eradicating malaria will attract attention, and I bet you a clever wishcoiner could find me via some divinatory power as soon as they knew to look. I have to find out more, I have to be more secure and informed. Even though people are dying of malaria right now.] She does not like this.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 09:07 pm (UTC)

[There's more where those came from,] Alice points out. Death doesn't bother him the way it bothers her. He thinks it would be pretty awesome if she did manage to get rid of it, but he's not going to complain if she doesn't, or if it takes a while.

self_composed
2012-10-02 09:09 pm (UTC)

[People aren't replaceable like that. Everyone knows this about people they've actually met; you just have to extend it - I mean, there are more people where I came from. I would assume you don't want me to die, at least given that it doesn't appeal to me.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 09:23 pm (UTC)

[I'd be fucking wrecked if you died,] he says. His voice is calm, casual; the emotions behind it are anything but. [So?]

He would suffer a lot, but suffering is not exactly new and different for him. And there are seven billion more people on the planet, and odds are there's at least one or two more that he could love this much. If he stuck around long enough to find them.

self_composed
2012-10-02 09:26 pm (UTC)

[But not if they die of malaria first,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 09:37 pm (UTC)

[I don't think you're getting this,] Alice says dryly.

People, as individuals, aren't replaceable. Everyone is exactly themselves. The loss of a person is a loss. But except in a very few cases, it's not a loss that Alice personally cares about, and even for those—even for the one he knows would completely take him apart—he doesn't think they are irreplaceable in the sense that the world becomes a permanently worse place every time someone leaves it. It just keeps on being the world, with these people instead of those ones.

self_composed
2012-10-02 09:44 pm (UTC)

[I lose you around the part where you don't think the world is worse when people are dying of malaria regularly, than it would be if people were not doing that,] Bella says. [I don't individually care about everyone personally - it's just shitty that they have to die, so I care about them impersonally and will see that they stop doing that.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 09:51 pm (UTC)

[Well, yeah,] says Alice. [And that's awesome. It just doesn't piss me off that a bunch of people are dying right now who wouldn't be if you'd fixed it already.]

self_composed
2012-10-02 10:01 pm (UTC)

[Well, that's good, because if you were you might have to be pissed off at me.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 10:03 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, that's not gonna happen.]

Or at least, he can't imagine how.

self_composed
2012-10-02 10:04 pm (UTC)

[Anyway. I will learn things and meet people and design-and-acquire personal superpowers and find out what the hell is wrong with the stars, and then I will take over the world and I will fix it. Step next: interview at Stanford.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 10:07 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] Alice says happily.

self_composed
2012-10-02 10:15 pm (UTC)

Bella switches to text mode, so she can send him: [:)]

She reaches the airport, and parks Tegu, and boards her plane. [Where are you at?] she asks; he wants to chase the plane, he'll be outside somewhere. [How're you planning to find my plane?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

[Well, which one is it?] he asks reasonably, and indulges in idle speculation about a Bella-compass power.

self_composed
2012-10-02 10:34 pm (UTC)

[I don't know, they all look the same from the inside. This is gate twelve, are the gates numbered on the outside?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 10:35 pm (UTC)

He circles.

[Yup! Got it!]

Just for fun, he hovers outside her window.

self_composed
2012-10-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

Bella eyes him, amused.

[Hello to you too.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

[Hi!] he says, waving.

[So, about the breathing thing. What if I want to make it so I don't need to breathe, but I can still feel like I need to breathe?]

self_composed
2012-10-02 10:40 pm (UTC)

[You're into autoerotic asphyxiation too?] Bella sighs. [Well, you could always decouple the two things - attach the sense of needing to breathe only to how much breathing you've been doing lately, not to how much oxygen that's been getting you. And have oxygenation and de-carbonization handled magically.]
Edited 2012-10-02 22:40 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 10:50 pm (UTC)

[Mmm,] he says, and contemplates this with the help of his pentagonal understanding of the human body. [Yeah, that sounds... well, not quite.]

He'd much rather have it work more like the healing power: make a change that always works, except while he is telling it not to. So he can safely enjoy, say, drowning, and as soon as he stops holding off the magical gas exchange, his lungs become irrelevant again; but for things like this flight, he won't be constantly distracted by the thinness of the air.
Edited 2012-10-02 22:50 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-02 10:54 pm (UTC)

[Handling a lungful of water is a different matter from just not breathing,] Bella muses.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 10:55 pm (UTC)

[Whaddya mean?]

self_composed
2012-10-02 10:59 pm (UTC)

[Well, how are you planning to get the water out? Just coughing and coughing for a few minutes? And it can't be good for salinity either.] She's poking his medical skill now. [Whether it's freshwater or salt. If you just refrain from breathing, you don't have that problem. If you want to be able to inhale any random substance and suffer pleasantly and then cease at a moment of your choosing, you're looking at something more complicated.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 11:01 pm (UTC)

[Square,] he says succinctly. [It's not like I'm gonna take up drowning as a hobby.]

self_composed
2012-10-02 11:09 pm (UTC)

[I couldn't reasonably have guessed that,] Bella points out. [Putting a swimming pool in your lair and drowning five times a day, six on Sundays, is exactly the sort of thing you would do. Anyway. I still think it makes the most sense to tie your subjective sensations to how much breathing you've been getting done - make that the state of affairs when you suppress the power, so normally it won't trouble you, normally you'll feel fine and oxygenated - and meanwhile render breathing biologically irrelevant.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 11:12 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, but the effects of not having enough oxygen are actually a part of the experience,] he argues. [Why fake it when I don't have to?]

Also, there is no way on Earth he would keep to a routine anywhere near that regular. But that's kind of beside the point.

self_composed
2012-10-02 11:14 pm (UTC)

[So you don't pass out by miscalibrating?] Bella says. [You can't make any wishes - such as taking the water out of your lungs and preventing it from doing whatever nasty stuff water will do in your lungs, preventing breathing aside - if you pass out.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 11:16 pm (UTC)

[It's not actually gonna kill me, though.] Or at least the risk of it doing so is acceptably low. [So I can just fix it later.]

self_composed
2012-10-02 11:20 pm (UTC)

[How about this: three states for the power,] Bella says. [By default, you don't need to breathe, but you will anyway if you're not paying attention, so you don't freak out observers. Change it on purpose, and you can inhale whatever you want, suffer the usual effects uninhibited, fun stuff. Fall unconscious, and you don't need to breathe anymore and your body will not automatically try to do it in case that would make things worse, but will expel whatever's in your lungs at the time.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 11:23 pm (UTC)

[Unconscious as distinct from sleeping, because that could get awkward fast.]

self_composed
2012-10-02 11:24 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure how distinct passing out due to oxygen deprivation and sleep actually are,] Bella says. Her plane is starting to taxi. [But I guess magic is pretty good at telling those kinds of things apart.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 11:33 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, they are actually not that similar,] says Alice.

He double-checks the power, holding the whole thing in his head to see if it feels like he missed anything. Nope. Okay.

A hexagon disappears from his necklace, and he experimentally holds his breath.

self_composed
2012-10-02 11:34 pm (UTC)

Good timing, too, the plane's starting to take off. [Well?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 11:35 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles over brainphone and gives her a thumbs-up.

self_composed
2012-10-02 11:35 pm (UTC)

Bella smirks and starts trying to nap on the plane.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 11:42 pm (UTC)

It turns out that Alice has absolutely no problem keeping pace with Bella's window. He also feels absolutely no need to breathe, although he tries it once the plane levels off, just to see what happens. It feels kinda weird. No suffocation, though.

Whee!

self_composed
2012-10-02 11:55 pm (UTC)

It's a medium-sized flight. Bella gets off at the San Francisco airport and meets the helpful grad student who's hosting her overnight. [Blue Camry,] she informs Alice, when said grad student has showed Bella to her car in the parking lot. [Parking lot A.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-02 11:58 pm (UTC)

[Oh, like I know what one of those looks like,] he says, and contemplates whether he would rather have encyclopedic knowledge of cars or a Bella-compass. Definitely the second one.

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:03 am (UTC)

[That seems awfully narrow. Why not just a general tracking power?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:16 am (UTC)

[Okay, a person-compass,] Alice amends. [But I don't wanna always know where everyone is. That would get old fast. So a person-compass that tells me where somebody is if I ask it.]

He burns the hex, focuses on Bella, and follows his shiny new directional sense to the car in question.

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:18 am (UTC)

The grad student, whose name is Myra, pulls out onto the road. Bella makes small talk, about what she's studying (programming), and shows off a little in case anyone is going to ask this girl what the prospective student she hosted was like. Or in case she'll go on to be useful in her own right.

[What are you going to do overnight?] Bella asks Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:21 am (UTC)

[Fucked if I know,] he says serenely.

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:22 am (UTC)

[Okay. It isn't going to involve breaking into Myra's apartment, because that would be creepy,] Bella informs him.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:23 am (UTC)

[Wait, what exactly would be creepy?]

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:24 am (UTC)

[Breaking into Myra's apartment invisibly and crashing there overnight where I'm going to be, would be creepy.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:26 am (UTC)

[Oh.]

Alice actually thinks it would be perfectly reasonable to sleep invisibly on the floor next to wherever Bella is sleeping, as long as Bella didn't mind. But she does, so that's out.

How about the roof? Is the roof creepy?

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:27 am (UTC)

[Not enough that I'd make a fuss about it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:28 am (UTC)

[...That implies some, though,] he says. [How is the roof creepy?]

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:29 am (UTC)

[Well,] Bella says. [Would Myra and her roommates want you on the roof? If you did it visibly, would they tell you to come down, and call the cops if you wouldn't? You're thinking it's an apartment in an apartment building, but we don't know that; what if she has a shared house thing? If it's an apartment building it's probably against some rule but not creepy, I suppose.]
Edited 2012-10-03 00:31 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:36 am (UTC)

[I don't think it's creepy. Unless somebody in that house is really attached to their roof, anyway.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:36 am (UTC)

[They could have skylights,] Bella says. [Including into bedrooms or bathrooms.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:39 am (UTC)

[Having a skylight into your bathroom is creepy,] says Alice. [Me sleeping near one isn't unless I look in it. Maybe I'll just break into a hotel, that won't creep anybody out.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:41 am (UTC)

[Most people are never on roofs to make skylights problematic,] Bella says. [Breaking into a hotel is... well, no, not creepy, but they can book those rooms at any time of night.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:43 am (UTC)

[Huh, I guess I could just get a room,] he says. It's not the first way that occurred to him, but he doesn't actually object.

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:43 am (UTC)

[That'd work. You do have several million dollars.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:45 am (UTC)

[Yep! I keep forgetting.]

Not in the literal sense of not being able to call the information to mind, because he has a perfect memory and also it's kind of memorable, but he never thinks of the three million dollars first when considering solutions to problems.

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:46 am (UTC)

[Maybe you'll get used to it.] She's half-ignoring Myra now, who is droning on about her thesis.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:47 am (UTC)

[Meh.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 12:48 am (UTC)

Myra finally pulls up to her place - which is indeed more houselike than apartment building like.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 12:56 am (UTC)

Damn. Guess he's not sleeping on the roof after all.

self_composed
2012-10-03 01:19 am (UTC)

Bella lets Myra show her the couch she'll be sleeping on. It's getting kind of late, and her interview is early. [I'm going to crash as soon as Myra's roomies over there finish their video game and get off my couch,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 01:21 am (UTC)

[Okay,] says Alice, and thinks wistfully of sleeping on the floor beside said couch, and starts hunting for a nearby hotel and somewhere convenient to de-invisible.

self_composed
2012-10-03 01:22 am (UTC)

[Someone would trip over you anyway,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 01:23 am (UTC)

[Are people actually going to be sneaking past your couch while you sleep? Because speaking of creepy...]

self_composed
2012-10-03 01:24 am (UTC)

[It would be impolite not to sneak, if they need a midnight snack or something,] Bella says. [It's a crampy little house.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 01:26 am (UTC)

[Well, that would be hilarious.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 01:27 am (UTC)

[If they tripped on you? Slightly, I suppose. Mostly inconvenient.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 01:29 am (UTC)

[Yep.]

Ooh, hotel. Alice lands in a nice out-of-the-way corner.

self_composed
2012-10-03 01:31 am (UTC)

[I bet you're going to follow me to my interview, too,] Bella guesses.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 01:32 am (UTC)

[Yep!]

self_composed
2012-10-03 01:33 am (UTC)

[Just don't be distracting or pull pranks on anyone I need to impress,] she sighs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 01:33 am (UTC)

[I won't!]

self_composed
2012-10-03 01:34 am (UTC)

[Good pet masochist,] she says approvingly. Myra's roommates have finished their game and cleared off the sofa. Bella ducks into a bathroom to change into her pajamas. [See you in the morning.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 01:37 am (UTC)

[See ya,] he echoes, and also loves her very much.

self_composed
2012-10-03 01:38 am (UTC)

Bella goes to couch.

She wakes up in plenty of time to get into her nice slacks and blouse and accept Myra's ride to campus, and she uses her little map of Stanford to find the building in which she is meant to have her interview.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 01:39 am (UTC)

And Alice tags along like a guardian angel - invisible, unobtrusive, and airborne.

And watching you.

self_composed
2012-10-03 07:26 am (UTC)

[Behave,] is all Bella tells him as she holds the front door of the building open for an extra second to let him brush past.

She finds the room number, checks the time on her phone, and sits down to wait the remaining two minutes to spare.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:54 am (UTC)

Invisible Alice tucks himself quietly into an out-of-the-way corner.

self_composed
2012-10-03 07:43 pm (UTC)

Bella's interviewer opens the door when Bella knocks, but says, "I'm running just a few minutes late, I'll be with you in a moment."

"That's fine," Bella says.

A few minutes later the interviewer reemerges. "Come in," he says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 07:44 pm (UTC)

Is there room for Alice in there? He is inclined to find out!

self_composed
2012-10-03 07:45 pm (UTC)

The office is full of books, but it is not incapable of holding three people. [Don't sit in the extra chair,] Bella says, [you'll indent it funny.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 07:47 pm (UTC)

[Wasn't gonna,] he says cheerfully, and sits on the floor next to Bella's chair.

self_composed
2012-10-03 07:50 pm (UTC)

The interviewer starts asking Bella about soccer (yes, she would be thrilled to join the Stanford team; she's currently playing forward but she would be content in any position where she seemed suited) and flute (yes, she would be thrilled to participate in orchestra; she has little performing experience but isn't generally prone to stage fright, and she's certainly good enough at flute, would he like to hear (he wouldn't)) and academics (she wants to keep her options open, but she is interested in the sciences, and maybe politics, and she can already program but would like to learn more languages and get more developing experience) and other semirandom questions presumably intended to determine her fit into the school culture.

Bella handles the interview very well.

She pentagoned interviewing skills first thing in the morning.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 07:56 pm (UTC)

Alice sits very quietly the whole time, gazing adoringly up at Bella. She is just so great, okay? Okay.

self_composed
2012-10-03 07:59 pm (UTC)

"So you want to start in the fall - without finishing high school?" the interviewer finally asks.

"If I can," Bella says earnestly. "I like Forks, but it's small - there's not a lot of resources there. I can only do so much without a lot of other people - world-class people - to learn from. Besides, I don't feel really challenged by high school work. I do it, but I'd rather be stretching myself more."

"Mm," says the interviewer. "All right, Bella, we'll get back to you in a few weeks."

"Thanks for your time," she says politely, and she gets up.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 08:00 pm (UTC)

Alice, naturally, follows.

self_composed
2012-10-03 08:02 pm (UTC)

[Now I have an hour to wander around looking at stuff and grab lunch,] Bella says, [and then I'm supposed to meet the soccer coach real quick because I don't have enough of a game record to substantiate my claims of fantastic talent, and then I audition for the orchestra conductor.] She hefts her bag, which contains her flute, and swings it onto her back.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 08:05 pm (UTC)

[Fun,] says Alice. [So, you think you'll get in?]

He thinks she'll get in.

self_composed
2012-10-03 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Maybe. They're paying me lots of attention, so they at least think I'm in, but there could be bad luck, or a necessary recommender who takes a dislike to me, or a dozen more ridiculously qualified people who play basketball and violin and also spent two years working with tsunami victims or something.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 08:11 pm (UTC)

It's kind of a ridiculous system, when he thinks about it.

self_composed
2012-10-03 08:11 pm (UTC)

[Hmm?] She's admiring buildings, and the nice weather. [Ridiculous how?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 08:15 pm (UTC)

[I dunno, the whole getting-into-college process? Like, what does working with tsunami victims have to do with it?]

self_composed
2012-10-03 08:16 pm (UTC)

[So if you were running a school and ten thousand people applied and you could only take two thousand, which ones would you take?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 08:38 pm (UTC)

[I wouldn't run a fucking school,] says Alice. [And if I did, I'd pick people for terrible reasons. But we scrounge up enough high schools for everybody somehow; why not enough colleges? There's even less people!]

self_composed
2012-10-03 08:40 pm (UTC)

[Well, yes,] Bella says. [I assure you that if I went to a tiny, terrible community college in Port Angeles, all I would have to demonstrate would be basic literacy. Maybe they'd want to make sure I could add. The good schools are good because they're selective - people want to go there so they can get the best teachers, and fraternize with the best classmates. There aren't enough bests to go around for everyone.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 08:58 pm (UTC)

[I still think it's weird,] Alice maintains. He doesn't have a solution, but he doesn't see why that should stop him.

self_composed
2012-10-03 08:59 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts quietly. [Well, that's the system, so I'm gaming it.] There's a dining hall over there; she decides to see if they'll feed her or if she has to be a student.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:04 pm (UTC)

Alice tags along. When it occurs to him that any food he conjures will get a free ride on his invisibility as long as he doesn't drop it, he spends a square on a turkey sandwich.

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:06 pm (UTC)

Bella pays for a one-meal pass to the dining hall and tastes small dollops of various offerings from the buffets. [Well. Nothing phenomenal here. The macaroni and the lemon pie is okay though.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:07 pm (UTC)

[Meh,] says Alice. [I'll stick with my invisible lunch.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:08 pm (UTC)

[Enjoy,] Bella says lightly. [Man, the weather is nice here. It's like I've time-traveled to a land in which it is already spring.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:23 pm (UTC)

[It's pretty great,] he agrees. [Snow's fun, too, though.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:25 pm (UTC)

[Well, I imagine I'll visit Charlie some holidays, when I'm not going to see Renée instead.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:26 pm (UTC)

[And if I do the magic doors thing, I can just bounce around until I find weather I'm in the mood for, anyway.]

Magic is awesome!

[What's your mom like, anyway?]

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:30 pm (UTC)

[Well, she looks a lot like me, but we're not that similar in personality] Bella says. [She has no long-term attention span. I think the only reason she can teach kindergarten is that she gets to forget she was doing it once a year. Hobbies and stuff she's intense about for a few months, then drops. In a lot of ways she's very childlike - she used to screw up things like depositing her paychecks, never bad enough that we went hungry or couldn't pay the mortgage if the bank called to yell at her, but bad enough to be scary, so I learned how to help her with that sort of thing as soon as I could. She's good at her job, she's never embarrassed not to know how to do something new, she's often very insightful about people and how they relate to each other while completely missing plenty of relevant implications of whatever she's spotted.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:31 pm (UTC)

[Huh,] says Alice. [I kinda like her already.]

That's not new, though. He likes a lot of people!

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:32 pm (UTC)

[She might well like you too.]

Bella finishes lunch and departs the cafeteria.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:33 pm (UTC)

That is a pleasing notion to contemplate! He bounces happily after her.

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:36 pm (UTC)

Bella explores Stanford, wending her way to where she's supposed to meet the soccer coach.

The soccer coach is in the soccer field with the soccer players.

Bella waits politely for her attention, and then introduces herself.

"So you're some kind of prodigy now that your ear's fixed, I hear," says the coach.

"I've only had a chance to play against high schoolers, but I think so," Bella says modestly.

"Great. You're a forward? Go shoot goals against Mackenzie."

Bella goes and shoots goals against Mackenzie. Bella has only excellent-human-level soccer skills and Mackenzie is pretty good, so Bella misses one of twenty goals. She does not miss the other nineteen.

"Damn," says the coach. "I had some other stuff for you to do but I think I'm done."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:37 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles over brainphone.

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:39 pm (UTC)

Bella warmly expresses her enthusiasm for playing soccer at Stanford and bids the coach goodbye. [I wonder if I should feel bad about cheating,] she muses, heading for the orchestra conductor's office.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

[Nope,] says Alice, predictably.

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:41 pm (UTC)

[I suppose I probably shouldn't feel any worse than people who really do have this level of genetic gift do. I mean, I'll actually show up to practices; I don't have the history of putting the effort in but I will in the future. Still. Seems vaguely like doping or something.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:44 pm (UTC)

[Well, I don't think you should feel bad that you're cheating, but I'm not gonna tell you you're not cheating.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:46 pm (UTC)

Bella mentally laughs. She doesn't laugh aloud; she does not wish to look like a crazy person.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:50 pm (UTC)

He grins at her.

self_composed
2012-10-03 09:51 pm (UTC)

Bella has a half-hour wait for the flute audition, since the soccer one didn't last long.

She makes sure no one is looking, and conjures herself a novel. Jane Austen.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 09:59 pm (UTC)

Is there room for Alice to sit down and lean his head on her knee? He would like to do that.

self_composed
2012-10-03 10:00 pm (UTC)

There is. Bella doesn't pet him - someone could come around the corner at any moment - but she does smile a bit.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 10:01 pm (UTC)

Yay!

This is an excellent place to be and Bella is an excellent friend to have.

self_composed
2012-10-03 10:03 pm (UTC)

Eventually the orchestra conductor shows up and leads Bella into his office. She plays pieces from memory - showoffy complicated ones - and reads music and transposes things in her head and plays a duet with him.

He seems suitably impressed, though he doesn't cut off the audition partway through like the soccer coach did.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 10:08 pm (UTC)

Alice sits where nobody will trip over him and... enjoys the music.

Enjoys it a lot, in fact.

self_composed
2012-10-03 10:10 pm (UTC)

Bella cleans and puts away her flute, making concluding small talk with the conductor, and walks out. [I'm supposed to catch an airport shuttle next - I have all my stuff on me,] she says. [Flight's in four hours.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 10:14 pm (UTC)

['kay,] says Alice. [Think I'll head back early.]

Pretty much entirely because he already checked out of his hotel room and he wants to go enjoy that music some more in a place Bella will not consider creepy.

self_composed
2012-10-03 10:16 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs silently, and heads for the place where the airport shuttle will appear.

A few hours later, she's riding Tegu home.

who are you when you're alone?

self_composed

A week later, Bella receives a fancy acceptance letter from Stanford. Squee!

[I'm in,] she tells Alice merrily.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 10:45 pm (UTC)

[Toldja!]

For once, he is in the stupidly huge house instead of his lair, baking cookies with Hilary.

[Wanna come over and eat cookies and brag?]

self_composed
2012-10-03 10:46 pm (UTC)

[That sounds awesome.] Bella puts on her riding gear, hops onto Tegu, and purrs towards the stupidly huge house. She is perfectly comfortable even in the rain, because she thought of that ahead of time. She is pleased with herself. [What kinda cookies?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

[Oreo cheesecake cookies! They look tasty as fuck.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 10:49 pm (UTC)

[Mmm.]

Tegu's fast. She speeds a little. [Anything else going on?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

[Nah. It's pretty much cookies.]

self_composed
2012-10-03 10:57 pm (UTC)

[That's sufficient excuse,] Bella says contently.

After a few minutes, she parks her bike in front of the house.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:02 pm (UTC)

The sound of her pulling up is not audible from the kitchen, so she'll have to ring the doorbell like anybody else.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:03 pm (UTC)

And she does. Ding!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Who on earth is that?" wonders Hilary.

"Couldn't tell ya," says Alice. "Want me to get it?"

"Sure, go on."

Shortly thereafter, Alice opens the door.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Hallo!" Bella says brightly. "I got into Stanford!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

He doesn't know he's going to do it until he does, but what he does is in fact give her a hug that lifts her right off the floor.

"Awesome!"

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Eep! Yes, yes it is," laughs Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:10 pm (UTC)

He puts her down. Then he hugs her again.

"What's the occasion?" inquires Hilary from down the hall. Alice judges that this is Bella's moment to brag some more.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to Stanford in the fall," Bella trills. She thought she was loud enough to be heard in the kitchen - that's why she bothered to repeat herself aloud even to Alice - but she doesn't mind saying it again.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:13 pm (UTC)

"That definitely sounds like a hug moment," says Hilary, and holds out her arms.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:15 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs her too. "I'm very excited," she agrees.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:16 pm (UTC)

Hilary grins.

"Well, lucky for you, we've got a beautiful batch of cookies in the oven which I now officially rededicate to the cause of celebrating Bella Swan's Stanford acceptance."

Alice applauds.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Oooh, my very own celebratory cookies," exclaims Bella happily.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Well, I hope you'll share," Hilary teases.

"She'd better," says Alice, glancing at her as though to judge the capacity of her stomach. "I think if she tried to eat all those by herself she'd explode."

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:25 pm (UTC)

"I bet I could do it if I really wanted," Bella sniffs. "But I'll share anyway."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Generous of you," says Hilary.

"Well, she did get into Stanford," says Alice.

"Do I detect a hint of envy?" asks Hilary.

"Nope," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:35 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers. "What manner of celebratory cookies am I sharing?" she asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Oreo cheesecake!" says Hilary. Alice beams.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Tomorrow I'm going to read the entire course catalog," Bella says. "It's long."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Have fun with that," says Alice.

"Sounds thrilling," Hilary agrees.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:46 pm (UTC)

Eventually cookies are de-ovened, and cooled, and eaten. "Mmmm."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Do I smell baking?" asks a voice from just outside the kitchen.

"Yes you do!" says Hilary. "We're celebrating!"

"What are you—oh. Hello, Bella," says Judith as she steps inside.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Hello," Bella says. She's not sure what she should be calling Judith now, but she can get away with not knowing for a while. "We're celebrating me getting into Stanford."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-03 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh," she repeats. "Congratulations!"

Entirely sincere, and entirely without thought of contrasting this accomplishment against her delinquent son's dwindling likelihood of ever graduating high school. Alice smiles.

self_composed
2012-10-03 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! I'm excited. I'm going to join the soccer team and the orchestra, and maybe if the practice times don't conflict I'll try out for some plays or something, and of course there's classes."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 12:07 am (UTC)

"That does sound like a lot," Judith says vaguely. Alice hands her a cookie just to give her something to do other than ramble.

self_composed
2012-10-04 12:08 am (UTC)

"I'm going to be busy," Bella agrees.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 12:14 am (UTC)

"Busy being awesome," says Alice.

"Yes, I think that's clear," says Judith, and smiles.

high school is kind of boring really

self_composed

School plods along. Bella is native-quality fluent in Spanish, professor-level at math, well and thoroughly versed in the workings of the United States government, capable of doing actual independent research projects in biology, and she's been speaking English since she was one. Alas, these skills only make classes easier for a short time. After the novelty wears off they're just tedious. Bella winds up squaring her homework done more often than not so she can work out the kinks in her design for telekinesis, or play music, or attend soccer practice, or write little computer games, or read, or just fly around. This works out fine. Magic is pretty good at homework.

She winds up not attending most of the dances, but she does want to go to the end of year one, as she will be leaving Forks High School forever and it has some good points. Alice promised her a dress...

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 01:52 am (UTC)

Alice did promise her a dress.

He's been working on his sewing; the materials are conjured, but the dress itself is the product of genuine physical labour. The fabric is light and floaty, black veined with silver; the design is sleek and minimal, not a stich wasted, with exactly enough room to move and just enough skirt to twirl.

And, because he can, he makes himself one, too. It's nothing like hers at all. Miles and miles of skirt swirling around his ankles, blood-red and unapologetically beautiful. He looks gorgeous in it.

self_composed
2012-10-04 01:57 am (UTC)

The night of the dance, Bella rolls it up, puts it in Tegu's saddlebag, and changes at school - she wouldn't want to try cycling in it, just one of the many disdvantages of dresses in general. But she likes it. She shimmies into it, in the bathroom stall, and stalks out in matching conjured ballet flats.

She goes stag, she dances with everyone who passes within arm's reach, even Mike, because grudges are silly and he hasn't bothered her or Alice in months - and none of them are at all good at it, more's the pity.

Well, Alice is good at it.

[Wanna bet we can reduce the entire room to staring at us if we do something ridiculously ballroom to the upcoming techno music?] She snuck a look at the playlist.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 01:58 am (UTC)

[Let's do it,] he says happily.

self_composed
2012-10-04 02:01 am (UTC)

So Bella leads him around, indulging national-contest-level tricks and indeed reducing much of the surrounding population to bewildered stares. (How much of this is due to their ability to recognize skilled dancing, and how much of it is due to no one having gotten used to Alice in dresses, is unclear.)

And eventually the dance is over, and Bella changes back into her leathers.

But she keeps the dress. She likes it, and you never know when you're going to need a little black dress, shot through with silver like spindly frosted tree branches.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 02:04 am (UTC)

Alice considers the night a thorough success. Especially the part where Bella enjoyed her dress, and also the parts where she danced with him.

Everyone is going to get the wrong impression about them all over again. But there is no longer really any reason to care, is there?
Edited 2012-10-04 02:04 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-04 02:08 am (UTC)

The year ends. There is a summer to dispose of.

Bella's stepdad makes okay money, and Renée was so thrilled about Stanford that she insisted on buying Bella a round trip to Europe. Bella tells everyone that she plans to spend this trip "backpacking".

This means "flying".

She doesn't want to leave Tegu sitting in the airport parking lot for three months, so she leaves it in Charlie's garage and lets him drive her to the airport. She flies away. She fully expects Alice to follow her and leave his mom and Hilary to wonder where in the blazes he went off to.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 02:13 am (UTC)

His exact words to his mother are, "I'm gonna fuck off for a while, dunno when I'll be back, see you," while standing in the foyer with a backpack containing his favourite book and not much else. Since he never announces absences as short as a weekend, his mother correctly interprets this as meaning he will be gone at least several weeks, and hugs him. He hugs her back, walks out, and takes off as soon as he is out of sight.

self_composed
2012-10-04 02:18 am (UTC)

Ultimately, Europe is reached! Bella flies around Ireland, doing touristy things and admiring scenery and puzzling out the accent.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 02:19 am (UTC)

Alice tags along, sometimes visibly and sometimes not, getting in manageable amounts of trouble and admiring scenery and enjoying the proximity of Bella being Bella.

self_composed
2012-10-04 02:22 am (UTC)

Bella hits every country in Europe - why not? She can fly fast enough - and picks up languages as she goes. ("I was never anything special in Spanish class really, good but not great," she imagines saying, "but for some reason, put me in a country with native speakers and I can pick up anything...") She takes up a habit of sitting on top of high things. Like the Eiffel Tower. Or Mount Everest.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 02:23 am (UTC)

Alice takes up a habit of sitting on top of high things with her, just below her if he can get away with it, right beside her if he can't.

self_composed
2012-10-04 02:24 am (UTC)

It is on Mount Everest that she looks speculatively at her companion, and tilts her head thoughtfully, and decides that she may as well try kissing him.

So she does.
Edited 2012-10-04 02:25 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 10:32 am (UTC)

...Alice did not expect that at all!

It is the very best surprise she has ever given him, out of some stiff competition.

He falls in love with her all over again, kisses back, and hugs her impulsively, all at once.

self_composed
2012-10-04 05:01 pm (UTC)

Bella decides that this was a pretty good idea.

Mountaintop makeouts: totally a thing now.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 05:06 pm (UTC)

It's possible that Alice should be thinking about whether or not this means she is redefining their relationship somehow, and it's possible that if he were anyone else, he would be. But he is Alice, so he is thinking pretty much entirely about mountaintop makeouts and how much he loves Bella.

self_composed
2012-10-04 05:09 pm (UTC)

Her modeling of Alice as being liable to do that is a fair fraction of why she decided to kiss him at this time instead of in several months. She has not come to all relevant conclusions, just the conclusion that kissing him would be nice. With any non-Alice, actually following through on that would have required more thinking first. With Alice she can just do whatever she wants and not do whatever she does not yet know she wants. She likes that.

She decides some of that might be worth articulating. [Only have this much figured out,] she says. [In case you wonder, when you have more of your brain online,] she adds teasingly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 05:12 pm (UTC)

[I like this much,] he says happily. [This much is good.]

And Alice has all of his brain online, thank you. It's just largely devoted to processing kisses at the moment.

self_composed
2012-10-04 05:14 pm (UTC)

That's all Bella has to say.

Actually, no it's not, she's not that good at shutting up. [The top of Mount Everest has to be the best place for a first kiss ever.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 05:17 pm (UTC)

Of course she thinks that.

[It's pretty damn cool,] Alice agrees fondly.

self_composed
2012-10-04 05:19 pm (UTC)

[I mean, there are other iconic locations, but I bet a million people kiss each other at the Eiffel Tower.]

There. Now she is probably done talking.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 05:24 pm (UTC)

In which case Alice is also done talking.

Mountaintop makeouts! Mountaintop makeouts and boundless, unselfconscious, radiant love.

self_composed
2012-10-04 05:25 pm (UTC)

Bella indulges in some feedback-looping.

It turns out it's more seductive during kisses.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 05:29 pm (UTC)

That is not really a big surprise.

self_composed
2012-10-04 05:38 pm (UTC)

Some time - some considerable amount of time - later, Bella breaks off, grins brilliantly, and shoots up into the sky. [Race you to Karachi!]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 05:45 pm (UTC)

Laughing, Alice chases after her. With his person-compass trained on Bella, he can follow her by feel and watch the landscape sliding away underneath them while he does it.

self_composed
2012-10-04 05:48 pm (UTC)

Karachi is all the way in Pakistan. It's a long flight, and it's good Bella doesn't need to breathe and isn't bothered by the cold.

She learned Urdu on the way east, and she has not yet decided to risk traveling visibly in heavily Islamic countries anyway, but she zips around the city looking at things, playing hide-and-seek with Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 05:53 pm (UTC)

Hide-and-seek becomes especially interesting when one party can read the other's mind and the other can locate the first via absolute directional sense. Alice decides that this way is much more fun.

Also, when they catch each other, there are hugs!

self_composed
2012-10-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

Eventually it is dark.

Bella has not yet killed the need for sleep - she's considered it, but she doesn't yet have quite enough things to do to fill the time. (She'll see if the novelty of making out with Alice wears off or not before declaring that to be "enough things to do".)

She finds a flat roof - of a business, not a house - and sprawls out, conjuring a mattress and a pillow half-consciously.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 05:58 pm (UTC)

Alice touches down on the same roof and curls up invisibly beside her conjured bed.

self_composed
2012-10-04 06:50 pm (UTC)

In the morning, Bella starts for Iran, which she hopes to cross (sightseeing en route) by the end of the day. It is time to head back west so she can catch her plane out of Heathrow, and see her parents before going off to college.

The next day she traverses Iraq and Syria and Turkey, and checks into a hostel in Greece.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 06:53 pm (UTC)

Is there room for Alice on the floor by her bed? He likes it best when that happens.

self_composed
2012-10-04 06:53 pm (UTC)

There is room for him under the bed. He'll get tripped on anywhere else.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 06:54 pm (UTC)

Works for him!

self_composed
2012-10-04 06:55 pm (UTC)

Bella travels around Greece for three days, using a fair amount of standard transportation to do it. Then she takes a boat to Italy.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:00 pm (UTC)

Alice stays invisible the whole way across, although he spends most of his time perching on various sections of the boat.

At the end of the trip, when all the passengers disembark, many of them are met by locals or fellow travelers waiting at the docks. There is one nondescript Italian fellow standing a little apart from the rest, peering anxiously at everyone as they get off the boat, as though he is looking for someone he doesn't know well and isn't sure of recognizing.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:01 pm (UTC)

Bella is pretty sure that she is not looking for a nondescript Italian fellow. She ignores him, and carries on through a tour of various cities in Italy. She is particularly fond of Venice.

Next is Switzerland!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:23 pm (UTC)

And in Switzerland, while Bella is on a train and Alice is keeping pace in the air, the engine makes a coughing noise and then gracefully shuts down. The train comes to a halt on a long, curving track through some very pretty forest.

[Damn,] says Alice, pulling up to hover beside Bella's window.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:25 pm (UTC)

[Huh. I could wish it fixed but I don't know who's looking at the broken part, if anyone - could be obvious - I'll wait for the announcement, I guess, I'm sure there'll be one.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:28 pm (UTC)

The announcement, when it comes, cites engine failure of unknown cause, promises the attention of onboard mechanics to the problem, and apologizes most sincerely for the inconvenience to travelers. Alice isn't sure he believes it, at least not about the last part.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:29 pm (UTC)

Bella starts wondering how long the wait is going to be. She consults her map; if they're within vaguely plausible hiking distance of a town she might just ask to get off here.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:31 pm (UTC)

Barely plausible, yes.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:32 pm (UTC)

Eenh. She'll wait for four hours and then seek someone to ask for disembarkment permission.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:37 pm (UTC)

After one and a half, the train starts up again, limps along for a few minutes, and then coasts to a halt.

They are now farther from the town.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:38 pm (UTC)

Rrrg.

Well, the fact that they were able to get it started at all suggests that they have an idea of what's wrong, now. They'll either fix it, or determine that they can't fix it and have to send another locomotive to pull them out of the way of other trains, soon enough.

[I'm going to sleep,] Bella announces.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:40 pm (UTC)

[Sweet dreams,] says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:40 pm (UTC)

Bella goes to sleep, and manages to stay that way for about five hours, and then wakes up and looks out the window to see if they are moving.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:42 pm (UTC)

They are!

All is well for the rest of the trip.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:43 pm (UTC)

Hurray! Bella enjoys herself a Switzerland.

She has already been to France, so she goes through Spain on her way to Heathrow (a bus breaks on her, but it's on a densely traveled route so everyone can just cram into the next bus), and then she flies to Florida, where she will spend a week with her mom before popping up to Forks for one more week and then going to school.
Edited 2012-10-04 19:48 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Hey, can I meet your mom?] wonders Alice halfway through the flight.

It is genuinely the first time he has thought of the question.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Do you have a reason to be in Florida?] Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:52 pm (UTC)

[To meet your mom?] he suggests. It's not like anyone other than Bella has a clue where he's been for three months. Might as well be Florida as anywhere.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:53 pm (UTC)

[I suppose. I'll call her when we layover in Baltimore, but I don't imagine it'll bother her.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 07:53 pm (UTC)

[Awesome,] says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-04 07:57 pm (UTC)

Bella calls Renée in Baltimore and says "my friend who I think I mentioned, Laney only he likes to be called Alice because he's weird, will be around Jacksonville same time I am - wanna meet him?" And Renée says "of course, I'm always happy to meet your friends" and Bella says "great!" and hangs up.

[Yep,] Bella tells Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 08:01 pm (UTC)

[Awesome!] says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-04 08:05 pm (UTC)

Bella gets on her new plane and flies to Florida. Renée is there to pick her up and is thrilled to pieces to see her. Phil is not there because it is the middle of baseball season; normally Renée would accompany him but for Bella's visit.

Renée compliments Bella's outfit and remarks on the length of her hair (it's only about half an inch longer than the last time they saw each other, but Renée does this anyway) and chatters excitedly about all the things they need to do while Bella is here, including visiting Renée's favorite restaurants and seeing that one museum and making paper chains just like they did when Bella was six, for some reason.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 08:08 pm (UTC)

[Holy shit, your mother is adorable.]

self_composed
2012-10-04 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Rather, yes.] Renée's car is decorated by gifts from her students - half-recognizable tokens of paper and yarn and glue, taped to the dashboard and dangling from the mirror and, in one case, tied to the antenna. Bella moves Renée's sewing bag from the front seat to sit down, and Renée drives away from the airport.

"When does your friend want to come by?" Renée asks.

"I think our most recent plan was dinner tonight, but we can tweak it if that's not going to work for you." She echoes the conversation to Alice. [I just made that up - that work for you? We can have a more observable phone conversation to change the "plan" if you want.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 08:14 pm (UTC)

[Sure!] he says cheerfully. [Just tell me where to 'meet' you.]

self_composed
2012-10-04 08:17 pm (UTC)

"That's fine, dear," Renée says. "Does he know where to find the Atlantic Beach Seafood Shack?"

"Well, he can find it online if nothing else," Bella says.

"Then he should meet us there at six-thirty," Renée says.

"I'll call him," Bella says.

She goes through the motions of phoning and informing Alice of all this.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 08:21 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] says Alice. [Should I go find the place, or follow you there and be fake-late?]

self_composed
2012-10-04 08:27 pm (UTC)

[Second thing seems easier.]

Bella half-unpacks, in the guest room; this is not the old house in Phoenix and she does not have a room here. Renée makes tea and chatters away, with Bella occasionally uttering sentences too.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 08:36 pm (UTC)

Alice sprawls out on the roof.

[Hey, Bella, what's the name of that superpower where you can set things on fire?]

self_composed
2012-10-04 08:37 pm (UTC)

[Pyrokinesis. I don't think I approve of it, if that's what you're asking.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 08:39 pm (UTC)

[Why not?]

He expands the principle in his mind: not just set things on fire, but control fire, so he can play with it without it getting on anything and put it out when he's done.

self_composed
2012-10-04 08:42 pm (UTC)

[I suppose if you're only going to set yourself on fire it's not a big deal. Just mind you aren't breathing normally at the time if it's more than a little burn - you don't want to pass out from smoke inhalation and catch on something and torch everything around you.]
Edited 2012-10-04 20:46 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 08:50 pm (UTC)

[Cool,] he says, and thinks about the power some more. Might as well add in the ability to sense fire, which is surely related, probably generally useful, and will come in handy if he somehow manages to accidentally light up something that isn't himself without noticing.

And, notably, he does not want it to come with immunity to fire. That would just negate the entire purpose.

self_composed
2012-10-04 08:51 pm (UTC)

[Well, of course,] Bella remarks dryly.
Edited 2012-10-04 20:55 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:01 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

Hopefully no one hears him.

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:04 pm (UTC)

At a quarter past six, Bella and Renée pile in the car and drive to the seafood shack. It's a divey little place on the beach.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:06 pm (UTC)

Alice finds somewhere to land and de-invisible, and then trots up to the shack in question while the other two are still outside.

"Hi!" he says, waving.

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" Bella calls back, waving. "This is my mom, Renée. Mom, this is Alice."

"Hello, Alice," says Renée, not batting an eye. "It's so nice to meet you. What brings you to Jacksonville?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:08 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwww he really really likes her. Alice bounces a little.

"Do I need a reason?" he asks cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's a happy coincidence, I suppose," Renée laughs. "Won't you join us?"

They all sit down and get menus. The prominently advertised special is a giant basket of deep fried shrimp. "So how did you two meet?"

"At school," Bella says. "We had gym class together."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Alice.

[Does she want the real story? I like the real story.]

The one where Bella called him a freak and he fell in love on the spot. That story.

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:13 pm (UTC)

[Eenh, I'd save that for later, but maybe eventually.]

Bella orders swordfish and Renée orders salmon, and then informs Alice that it's her treat and he should get whatever he likes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Giant shrimp basket it is," he says, grinning.

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:18 pm (UTC)

"What do you do with your time?" Renée asks Alice. "You look a little older than Bella. Are you going to college in the fall too?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "Not my thing."

He wonders if he's going to end up explaining to her why he is independently wealthy at eighteen.

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:34 pm (UTC)

"What is your thing, then?" Renée asks.

"He likes to sew," supplies Bella, "and cook."

"Ooh. I'm taking a quilting class at the moment," Renée confides.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Ooh!" says Alice, perking up. "Is it fun?"

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:36 pm (UTC)

"It's very fiddly work!" laughs Renée. "But I'm enjoying it, yes, and my sewing machine got a nice dusting-off, and the quilt will be warm even if it isn't terribly pretty."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it takes a while to get to where it's actually any good. But you do get there!" [Can I brag about our dresses?]

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:44 pm (UTC)

[Sure, why not?]

"I keep putting things down before I'm good at them," laughs Renée. "Haven't any patience."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I know the feeling," Alice assures her. "But it pays off, I swear. You wouldn't believe the dresses I made us for the end-of-year dance."

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I sent you a picture of me in mine," Bella says. "He made it for me."

"Goodness! I would never have guessed it was homemade - so carefully done, you must be so proud of yourself," says Renée.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I really, really am," he says happily. "I just love making pretty things, you know?"

self_composed
2012-10-04 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe you'll grow up and you'll be a famous designer," declares Renée, as the food arrives.

Bella swipes one of Alice's shrimps.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Go right ahead," he tells Bella fondly.

To Renee, "Maybe I will! That would be kinda awesome."

self_composed
2012-10-04 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Wonderland Designs," says Bella, gesturing and starting on her own food.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 10:08 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles and starts devouring shrimp.

self_composed
2012-10-04 10:13 pm (UTC)

Dinner concludes pleasantly, and Renée asks Alice if he has somewhere else to be or if he'd like to come see the house.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Nah, I'd love to!"

self_composed
2012-10-04 10:40 pm (UTC)

So they all go to Renée's house. "Are you from Forks originally, Alice?" Renée wants to know.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "I grew up in New York."

self_composed
2012-10-04 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, New York. I've been there just a couple of times, but isn't it a lovely city?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 10:44 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty great," he acknowledges, although the highlights he thinks of are probably not things he should tell Renée.

self_composed
2012-10-04 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I saw Cats there, and I tried authentic New York cheesecake from a precious little shop, and went up the Empire State Building and saw the Statue of Liberty... Why did you move? To Forks of all places?"

[Mom doesn't like Forks much,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 10:48 pm (UTC)

"You know, I don't think I've ever had authentic New York cheesecake," Alice muses.

[How much should I lie about why I moved?]

self_composed
2012-10-04 10:49 pm (UTC)

[Lying's unnecessary - just omit. "My parents were looking for someplace quiet and out of the way", like that. She won't pry, she'll move on.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 10:52 pm (UTC)

Alice slightly makes a face. [Yeah, that's lying.]

Which for some reason he doesn't feel like doing right now, but he also doesn't feel like dumping the whole actual truth on her.

self_composed
2012-10-04 10:52 pm (UTC)

[Well, why did they pick Forks and not Kalamazoo?] Bella asks. [That reason, whatever it is, will be satisfactory, even if I didn't guess it right.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:01 pm (UTC)

He doesn't know that reason. And even just saying 'my parents' sounds like a fundamental misrepresentation of his life, to a degree that makes him uncomfortable.

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:02 pm (UTC)

[Then say you don't know; that's fine too,] soothes Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:02 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, which is probably close enough.

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:04 pm (UTC)

Renée, as promised, doesn't pry. "It's a dreary little town," she remarks. "Safe for children, it has that virtue - but I'm glad Bella's going off to school somewhere more interesting, even if going to Forks was up to her to begin with."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:06 pm (UTC)

Safe for children.

He can't help it; he grins.

(He doesn't believe in safety, but he believes in Bella.)

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:07 pm (UTC)

[She's mostly just referring to the low crime rate,] Bella says.

They pull up to the house and Renée bustles into it to show Alice all the rooms, as she showed Bella hours before.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

"It's so little and cute!" he says, laughing.

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

"It's just perfect for me and Phil," says Renée. "Even if he's out of it most of every year."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:11 pm (UTC)

"It's adorable," says Alice. "I love it."

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm so glad," enthuses Renée. "Now, I was thinking I would try to talk Bella into playing checkers or something, but I bet we have a game for three in the closet if you'd like to pick something out." She gestures at the closet that contains the board games.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

Alice investigates the selection.

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:16 pm (UTC)

There are various standards - Monopoly and Connect Four and a few decks of cards and checkers and chess and parcheesi and Apples to Apples. "Hmm," Renée says, peering around him. "Perhaps we don't have anything good for three after all. Unless you know a good card game for that many."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I don't know that many card games," says Alice. "What the hell is that one?" He points at Apples to Apples.

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:20 pm (UTC)

"That's also a card game, but not with normal cards," Renée says. "I suppose it could work with three, but it's really better with more... there are adjectives and nouns, and one person draws an adjective and the others play appropriate nouns and the person who played the adjective awards that card to whoever played the best noun."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Sounds fun," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, we can see if three can work," says Renée, fetching the box from the shelf and carrying it to the table. She deals out cards.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:27 pm (UTC)

Alice takes a seat and a pile of nouns.

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:28 pm (UTC)

Renée draws the first adjective and gets "Lovely".

"Oh, how lovely," she remarks, tittering and closing her eyes so she won't know which noun came from where.

Bella plays "A Sunset".

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:33 pm (UTC)

After considering the selection for a moment, Alice plays "Jodie Foster".

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:35 pm (UTC)

Renée opens her eyes, peers at the cards, squints at "Jodie Foster", and says, "I think I'll go with A Sunset, whose was that?"

Bella waves, and wins "Lovely". It is her turn, and she plays "Patriotic".

Renée offers "The Midwest".

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:38 pm (UTC)

Alice offers "Plane Crashes". (His other cards were worse. At least this one's sort of horrifyingly funny.)

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:39 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks at these cards, and slowly picks up The Midwest. Renée claims her prize. Alice's turn!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:40 pm (UTC)

His adjective is "Heartless".

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:44 pm (UTC)

Bella plays "Los Angeles", and Renée chooses "Deer Hunting".

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Ooooh," says Alice. "Tough one."

He thinks about it for a bit, and then selects Deer Hunting as the winner.

self_composed
2012-10-04 11:49 pm (UTC)

Renée again! Hers is "Cute". Bella plays "A Tree House" out of her limited hand.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-04 11:53 pm (UTC)

From the available options, Alice goes with "Boy Scouts".

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:00 am (UTC)

Renée picks her daughter's card again, and then it's Bella's turn and she gets "Insulting". Renée doesn't have anything good and uses the turn to throw away "Black Velvet".

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:01 am (UTC)

This is the perfect place to put "Cabbage".

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:03 am (UTC)

"Cabbage?" Bella says incredulously.

It's marginally preferable to Renée's throwaway. Alice wins!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:05 am (UTC)

Alice giggles and scoops his point. "You don't know my hand," he explains.

This turn's adjective is "Sexy"!

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:08 am (UTC)

Renée earnestly hands over "Captain Kirk".

Bella's hand has got to be really lousy if there's nothing in it Alice will find sexy. She looks and looks... Ah.

She gives him "Taking A Bath".

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:10 am (UTC)

"I get all the tough choices," says Alice.

He deliberates a little, but in the end, Taking A Bath wins. Sorry, Kirk. You're hot, but you're not as hot as what Alice gets up to in the shower.

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:11 am (UTC)

Renée looks confused but does not ask.

Her adjective is "Masculine".

Bella gives her "Watching Football".

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:12 am (UTC)

How about "Al Pacino"?

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:13 am (UTC)

Alice wins it.

Bella gets "Dead". Renée plays "Infomercials", giggling to herself.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:14 am (UTC)

"Funerals".

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:15 am (UTC)

Alice wins again!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:16 am (UTC)

Whee!

This round's adjective: "Tough".

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:18 am (UTC)

Renée: "Having An Operation".

Bella, snorting: "My Body".

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:19 am (UTC)

He cracks up and selects "My Body" as the winner.

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:20 am (UTC)

Renée draws "Unforgettable", and Bella gives her "My Bank Account", laughing.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:22 am (UTC)

"Hot Lava", after some perusal of his hand.

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:23 am (UTC)

Renée mulls this over, then says, "Charming, Bella, but you know I forget my bank account all the time," and gives the card to Alice.

Bella gets "Sensitive" and Renée gives her "Wine Tasting".

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:24 am (UTC)

...Man, Alice has no good cards for this one. He puts down "Surfing the Net" just to get it out of his hand.

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:25 am (UTC)

Wine Tasting wins, then.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:36 am (UTC)

The game progresses. Alice awards cards for such charming combinations as "Apple Pie"/"Misunderstood" and "Corvettes"/"Refined"; he plays "Choir Boys" against "Irresistible" on Renee's turn and acquires only a raised eyebrow for his trouble; and on two consecutive turns of Bella's, he plays "My Love Life" against "Squeaky Clean" and "My Bedroom" against "Peaceful", winning both.

No one is tracking scores, so they all have more cards than the defined limit when someone finally bothers to notice, but Bella has the most.

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:38 am (UTC)

"I win," Bella says merrily, and she reads off all her cards, ascribing them to herself in turn. Renée applauds softly and starts putting away the game.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:40 am (UTC)

"That was awesome," Alice enthuses.

self_composed
2012-10-05 12:41 am (UTC)

"It really does work better with more people," says Renée, "but yes, that was fun. Oh, it's late, I'm sure you want to go back to wherever you're staying, Alice. Do you want a ride?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 12:43 am (UTC)

"Nah," he says, "thanks, I'm good." (And grins at Bella. He can't help it.)

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:06 am (UTC)

"All right. Well, I'm sure we'll see you again later this week," Renée says cheerfully, showing him out.

[I'm glad you and her get along,] Bella says.
Edited 2012-10-05 01:06 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:11 am (UTC)

[Me too! She's awesome.]

"See ya," he says, and trots away out of sight, and turns invisible and circles back through the air to land on the roof.

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:14 am (UTC)

The next day is beastly hot - Bella isn't bothered, but she can sure tell - and so Renée takes her bathing suit shopping, buys her a red and blue flowered bikini, and drags her along to the beach! They set up a big beach towel to sit on and a big beach umbrella to sit under and apply sunscreen.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:18 am (UTC)

Alice approves of this outing, although he does independently wonder whether invisibly flying to invisibly hover over the beach qualifies as creepy. It's not like he's watching anyone who doesn't know he's there.
Edited 2012-10-05 01:18 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:20 am (UTC)

[It's a public beach; everyone knows that you or someone like you could be looking at them even if they don't have the means to actually detect you in particular,] Bella says.

She flaunts, just a little, craning around to put sunscreen between her shoulderblades. Her mother might ask an uncomfortable question (probably only one, but still) if Alice appeared to help her with that.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:26 am (UTC)

[You're really pretty,] Alice asserts.

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:29 am (UTC)

[Thanks!]

When Bella is fully sunscreened - she's not going to get burnt, but she would like to be able to explain that to her mother, who had plenty of trouble keeping her pale child uncrisp in years past - she runs out and dives into the water.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:31 am (UTC)

Alice wonders if his invisible self will remain really-invisible underwater, or if there will be an obvious Alice-shaped absence of water zooming around. Perhaps he should test it!

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:33 am (UTC)

[If you copied mine, you won't show up in water,] Bella says. [But you can still make visible splashes and stuff.]
Edited 2012-10-05 01:33 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:42 am (UTC)

[I'll try not to,] he says cheerfully, and wish-replaces his clothes with, whimsically, a copy of Bella's bikini.

Invisible swimming time! He ceases to breathe while he's underwater, just because it makes things easier. And if he doesn't interact with the surface, he can't make a noticeable splash.

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:44 am (UTC)

Bella meanwhile floats on the surface, letting waves bear her up and down. [I haven't been to many beaches before. I mean, besides freezing Pacific beaches near Forks.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:46 am (UTC)

[I haven't been to any,] he says, grinning up at her. [This one's fun!]

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:47 am (UTC)

Bella dives under. She can open her eyes, but... not see. It's dark and murky. She's been designing herself enhanced vision anyway; now's a fine time to burn the hex on it.

Ooh, fishes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:52 am (UTC)

Alice waves. It is somewhat easier to see things that are between you and the surface; Bella is a blurry silhouette. Also, he's using his compass again.

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:53 am (UTC)

She waves back, and swims around pretty aimlessly. She pokes her head up periodically; she doesn't want a lifeguard trying to save her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:56 am (UTC)

For lack of anything better to do, Alice follows her.

...It occurs to him that it is dark and murky underwater, and that he is invisible anyway, and that Bella doesn't need to breathe.

[Wanna make out?] he asks. The fact that this is an acceptable question these days still gives him happy feelings, regardless of the answer to any given instance.

self_composed
2012-10-05 01:57 am (UTC)

[Hm, sure!]

Saltwater turns out not to taste nice, but a triangle will make that go away for the duration.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 01:58 am (UTC)

Underwater kisses!

Magic is so much fun.

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:00 am (UTC)

[It really is. It's the best thing,] Bella sighs happily.

She still pokes her head up now and then, and waves at her mom, who is reading a book under the umbrella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:01 am (UTC)

Alice pokes playfully at the ends of her hair floating in the water.

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:02 am (UTC)

Bella's hair is braided; it'd only take a triangle to untangle it, but her mom would wonder. [That's not a bellpull,] she informs him, diving back down for more kisses.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:06 am (UTC)

Laughing underwater is, Alice discovers, really bizarre. It also means he has to triangle water out of his lungs.

[I love you,] he says happily.

How about underwater snuggles? Are those good too?

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:07 am (UTC)

Underwater snuggles: also pretty good!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:09 am (UTC)

They are.

Snuggly underwater kisses: pretty much the best.

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:11 am (UTC)

Bella and Renée spend all day at the beach, in and out of the water, and eat boardwalk food for lunch. Then they head home. [Mom wants to know if you want to join us for dinner again. She's cooking; she's doing risotto. She's better at food than my dad but not as good as me.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:12 am (UTC)

[Love to!] he says, predictably.

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:14 am (UTC)

[Cool. Be at the house at six-thirty,] Bella says.

At six-thirty, there is risotto on the table, and also warmed up leftover pork medallions and some bag salad to make the table look a little fuller.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:16 am (UTC)

And there is Alice, ringing the doorbell!

He changed his bikini back into a full set of clothes, somewhat reluctantly. Perhaps relatedly, said clothes include a long floral-patterned skirt.

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:19 am (UTC)

Renée is a little more thrown by the skirt than by the name, but she doesn't say anything about it and welcomes him into the house. Bella waves from the dinner table, with the hand that isn't spooning mushrooms and rice onto her plate.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:21 am (UTC)

"Hi," he says cheerfully when Renée lets him in; and, "Hi, Bella," when he comes to sit down at the table.

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:22 am (UTC)

[It just occurred to me that kindergartners probably ask her to call them random things all the time,] Bella says wryly, [but they show up to school in what their parents dress them in.]

"Hi!" she says aloud.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:23 am (UTC)

[Huh? Oh,] he says, looking down. [Yeah, I just wished up what I felt like wearing.]

"Do anything cool today?"

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:29 am (UTC)

"Went to the beach, swam around," Bella says. "You?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:31 am (UTC)

"Hung out," he says, shrugging. "Not much, really."

[I'd say 'made out with you underwater', but I'm betting you don't want those awkward questions.]

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:32 am (UTC)

[Indeed, not at this time.]

"Where are you staying? Have you got family in the area?" Renée asks, serving Alice some risotto and a medallion and a generous bowlful of leaves.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:34 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Alice. "I don't have family much of anywhere, actually. Ooh, this looks tasty!"

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:35 am (UTC)

"No?" Renée asks, tilting her head, deerlike in puzzlement. "Oh, thank you, risotto's one of a handful of things that I can sometimes turn out nicely..."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:41 am (UTC)

"Yeah, my mom still lives in Forks and she's the only one I'm in touch with."

At least, he's pretty sure his mom still lives in Forks. She seemed very fond of that stupidly huge house last he checked. He'll find out when they go back, anyway.

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:43 am (UTC)

"Oh, I see." And Renée does not pry.

[Yeah, I don't really know where my curiosity came from,] Bella remarks. "This is great, Mom, thanks."

"Oh, thank you, Bella."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:44 am (UTC)

[I think it came from you,] Alice says fondly.

Nom!

self_composed
2012-10-05 02:45 am (UTC)

[Ah, spontaneous generation theories. How nostalgic.]

Nom indeed!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 02:46 am (UTC)

[Nostalgic how?]

self_composed
2012-10-05 03:00 am (UTC)

[It's not really the same thing - spontaneous generation supposes that maggots just happen by themselves when meat is left around, and so on. People didn't catch flies laying eggs until later. Still, my curiosity has to have come from some combination of genetic and environmental factors - it's not like I have an immaterial soul or something.] Pause. [You don't believe in immaterial souls or anything, do you?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:03 am (UTC)

[I don't not believe in them,] he says.

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:14 pm (UTC)

[What's that supposed to mean?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:19 pm (UTC)

[It means how the fuck should I know?]

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:20 pm (UTC)

[Right, but I mean, you have no personal interactions with the surface of Pluto either. Do you think it has pandas on it?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:21 pm (UTC)

[You have no idea how tempted I am to wish for pandas on Pluto right now,] he says, although it wouldn't exactly be hard for her to find out.

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:22 pm (UTC)

[The pandas would die, Alice. But you still think you'd have to wish for it, right? They are not there yet.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Not if they were magic pandas! But that's kind of my point,] he says. [I don't know that nobody else has wished for pandas on Pluto, and you don't either. The only way to actually find out would be to take a look at Pluto and check. If magic didn't exist I'd say there'd be no way a panda could've gotten to Pluto, but it does, so literally anything we can think of is possible because if we can think of it then so can somebody else and they might have a star.]

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:28 pm (UTC)

[...Are you saying the only reason you don't not believe in immortal souls is because it seems like the kind of thing somebody might have wished for?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:32 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, basically,] he agrees. [I mean, they might exist because of magic for some other reason I haven't thought of because I don't really care that much. Maybe they're what coins are made of.]

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:33 pm (UTC)

[Okay, fair enough. But why would coins be made of souls?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:38 pm (UTC)

[No good reason,] he says with a slight shrug. [They're probably not.]

...Has Bella's mom noticed that they are having a totally silent conversation while eating their food?

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:39 pm (UTC)

No, Renée has been making intermittent remarks about a television show she picked up in the middle and does not understand. She expects no participation from either.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:40 pm (UTC)

Okay, cool.

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:41 pm (UTC)

"But anyway," Renée shrugs, "all I'm saying is that if the character is so important they could have reminded the audience who he was - oh, are we ready for dessert?"

"Popsicles?" guesses Bella.

"Right in one," replies Renée, heading for the freezer. "I know Bella wants grape; what about you, Alice?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," he says. "What kinds are there?"

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Let's see... lime, blue raspberry, cherry, orange, and lemon," Renée says. "And grape." She tosses Bella a wrapped purple popsicle and Bella unwraps it.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Lime!" he decides.

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:47 pm (UTC)

He gets a green one. Renée takes a red one. Soon they are all enjoying some popsicles, which are pleasant in the heat.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:49 pm (UTC)

Yes. Alice is definitely enjoying his popsicle.

The particular way in which he is enjoying his popsicle is perhaps not wholly family-friendly, but it is probably difficult to pick up on that unless you happen to be reading his mind.

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:50 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs, very quietly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:51 pm (UTC)

[...What? C'mon, like you've never thought that. Doesn't everybody?]

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:52 pm (UTC)

[It's never occurred to me at random, but now that you mention it I suppose it's a staple of popular culture.]

"You two must be so close," Renée says happily. "It's like you're having entire conversations, just looking at each other."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Alice agrees, and gives Bella that unrepentantly adoring grin of his.

self_composed
2012-10-05 05:55 pm (UTC)

"He's got an awfully expressive face," Bella points out.

"I suppose," laughs Renée. "Who wants to go see a movie? I wonder what's playing..." She hunts for her newspaper to look at the listings.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 05:59 pm (UTC)

"That sounds fun!" says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-05 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is still out. With Johnny Depp," muses Renée. "Phil didn't want to see it so I haven't yet..."

"Sounds good to me," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-05 06:04 pm (UTC)

And so: they go watch Johnny Depp be a chocolate-manufacturing manchild and various odious children meet cartoonishly grisly fates.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 06:06 pm (UTC)

Johnny Depp is a pretty, pretty man. Alice appreciates that about him.

He also thinks the horrible things happening to the kiddies are hilarious.

[Who the hell thought this shit up? It's amazing.]

self_composed
2012-10-05 06:07 pm (UTC)

[Roald Dahl,] Bella supplies. [He wrote kids' books. Ostensibly. They're worth reading and my copies should be here, since I didn't bring them to Forks; wanna borrow some?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 06:09 pm (UTC)

[Love to!]

self_composed
2012-10-05 06:12 pm (UTC)

So after the credits (which Renée insists on sitting through - she has plenty of short-term patience), they go back to the house, and Bella digs through boxes of books and eventually finds a few Roald Dahl ones: she has Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches and James & The Giant Peach and The BFG and Danny, the Champion of the World.

"It should have occurred to me before that this would be the sort of thing that would appeal to you," she says, handing over the stack.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 06:16 pm (UTC)

"If they're all like that movie, I am gonna fucking love 'em," he asserts.

self_composed
2012-10-05 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Of these, Danny is least similar," Bella shrugs. "But I liked it. I wasn't born reading Austen and Shakespeare and stuff."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Weren't you?" he teases.

self_composed
2012-10-05 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Nope," Bella says. "Turns out they don't give newborn babies books no matter how pleadingly they ask."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 06:20 pm (UTC)

...The mental image of tiny baby Bella waving her arms and imperiously babbling for books is just the cutest thing.

self_composed
2012-10-05 06:20 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "My mom's probably going to insinuate that you must be wanted wherever you're staying in a few minutes. Have fun with the books."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I will," he says, hugging them.

self_composed
2012-10-05 06:29 pm (UTC)

Renée does shoo him, and Bella goes to bed.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 06:59 pm (UTC)

Alice sits on the roof, invisible, with his pile of books.

He reads The BFG, and thinks it is adorable.

He reads Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and thinks it is just as great as the movie was.

He reads James and the Giant Peach, and thinks it is fucking awesome.

He reads The Witches, and thinks it is amazingly twisted.

He reads Matilda.

He sits for a long time with his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around the book. Then he puts it carefully with the rest in his independently invisible backpack, climbs down to Bella's bedroom window, and knocks.

self_composed
2012-10-05 07:00 pm (UTC)

Bella's eyes flutter open and she looks at the source of the sound.

[What?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 07:02 pm (UTC)

[I just read Matilda and now I really really want a hug,] he says, hovering with his hand on the wall.

self_composed
2012-10-05 07:03 pm (UTC)

Bella opens the window, and steps back and holds out her arms, and reads for more detail.
Edited 2012-10-05 19:03 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 07:09 pm (UTC)

Alice swoops in and hugs her, going to his knees on the floor so he can lean his head against her stomach.

His thoughts and feelings are all over the place. He thinks Matilda is amazing. He thinks her parents are shitheads. There are ways in which her dad is familiar and ways in which he really isn't. He thinks that if he'd read that book when he was thirteen, his father would be dead by now. He doesn't know whether he wants to laugh or cry, but the second one definitely seems to be winning.

self_composed
2012-10-05 07:11 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs his head, since that's what's near enough, and pets his hair. [Matilda's father doesn't die in the book. Why would yours have if you'd read it earlier?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 07:17 pm (UTC)

Because Matilda got her own back. Matilda made the crucial realization that as much as your parents have power over you, you can have power over them, with the right resources. Alice came to that one a little late.

If he'd come to it earlier, before he'd had so much time to learn to be afraid... well, putting his dad in jail was never his first idea.

self_composed
2012-10-05 07:19 pm (UTC)

Bella goes on petting him. [You'd most likely have gotten caught. At thirteen, with no magic to cover anything up - you'd still be in juvie, maybe transferred to a regular prison by now.]
Edited 2012-10-05 19:19 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 07:22 pm (UTC)

Maybe. Maybe not. It's not like he would've stuck around to take the heat. In fact, he'd have been likelier to end up dead on the streets than in jail.

Anyway, if all that had happened, he'd never have met Bella. And that would just be immeasurably tragic.

self_composed
2012-10-05 07:22 pm (UTC)

Pet, pet, pet.
Edited 2012-10-05 19:22 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 07:25 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] he adds. He really really does. She doesn't have to do this; he could just go off and be sad and conflicted and generally emotional by himself. But she's helping, and he loves her.

self_composed
2012-10-05 07:26 pm (UTC)

Bella leans down to kiss the top of his head. [It's not like I've got anything to do in the morning.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 07:42 pm (UTC)

He presses his face into her stomach and loves her some more.

self_composed
2012-10-05 07:43 pm (UTC)

Bella stands there, petting and reading and waiting in silence.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 07:54 pm (UTC)

[Can I sleep on your floor?]

For that matter, can he sleep in her bed? Because he really, really wants snuggles.

self_composed
2012-10-05 07:58 pm (UTC)

Bella contemplates this - that would certainly be awkward to explain to Renée, who is as likely as not to poke her head into the room at seven in the morning and offer waffles. Finally Bella triangles the alarm clock into setting itself to go off quietly at six-thirty - she's too tired to figure out the controls - and pulls him into the guest bed with her. [You'll have to skedaddle first thing in the morning.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 08:00 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] he says agreeably, and squares himself cuddly pajamas, and snuggles up.

And loves her. But he never really stopped.

self_composed
2012-10-05 08:01 pm (UTC)

Bella decides to see if feedback-looping is a useful sleep aid.

The answer: yes.

At six-thirty in the morning the alarm clock cheeps quietly and she opens her eyes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 08:04 pm (UTC)

Alice is still sleeping, curled up around her, dreaming about flying on silver wings.

self_composed
2012-10-05 08:05 pm (UTC)

She prods him in the ribs. [Alice, sorry to interrupt, but my mom will wake up any minute. She keeps school-ish hours even in summertime.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 08:09 pm (UTC)

He blinks awake.

[G'morning,] he says, and yawns quietly, and kisses her shoulder, and de-cuddles. He never stopped being invisible, so all he has to do is slide out of bed and float out the window. So he does that.

[Thanks,] he adds on his way out.

self_composed
2012-10-05 08:11 pm (UTC)

[No problem.]

Bella closes the window lazily with a triangle and naps another half an hour.

And then Renée pokes her head in. And offers waffles.

Bella has hers with strawberries and whipped cream on it.

After one week in Jacksonville, Bella flies to Washington, finds Tegu in the parking lot, and zooms home to Charlie.
Edited 2012-10-05 20:33 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:06 pm (UTC)

And Alice zooms home to his mom and Hilary, both of whom feel the need to hug him at least ten times in the first hour after he walks in the door. He hugs them back. Hilary decides they are going to bake a pie, so they do.

[Want some pie?]

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:10 pm (UTC)

[Maybe. Can Charlie come?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Why don't we invite Bella and her dad?" suggests Alice.

Hilary raises her eyebrows at him. "Oh, is she back from Europe?"

"One way to find out," Alice says cheerfully.

"Sure!"

[Yep!]

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:17 pm (UTC)

[Are you planning to actually call us?] Bella asks archly. [We don't want to be known to be telepathic.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:21 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, that was the next step,] he says, and goes to find his phone where he left it in his room.

Ring, ring.

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:22 pm (UTC)

Bella picks up her cell, in full view of Charlie. "Alice! Hi. What's up?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Pie," says Alice. "Pie is up. Wanna come have some? Your dad's invited too."

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, lemme check," says Bella. "Hey Dad! Wanna go over to Alice's and have pie?"

"Sounds good to me," Charlie says.

"We'd love to," Bella tells the phone. "When should we be there?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Soonish? The pie'll be done in like half an hour."

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Cool. See you soon," Bella says. She hangs up.

"Wasn't he out of town," Charlie says, "somewhere?"

"Yes," Bella says.

Charlie fixes her with a bit of a look. "Did that boy go to Europe with you, Bells?"

"Yeah. He didn't get a ticket on the same plane or anything, but he was in Europe at the same time and we went around together a lot," Bella says. Pause. "I think we might be sort of dating? A little? Not exactly? It's weird."

"Weird's right," mutters Charlie. "Er... I know you just spent a week with your mom... maybe she covered this..."

"Dad. Mom covered the birds and the bees years ago. I am fully informed," Bella says loudly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:34 pm (UTC)

If only Alice knew of this, he would be giggling so much.

Instead he is... having a remarkably similar conversation with Hilary, actually.

"So, you knew she'd be back."

"Mm," says Alice.

"You went to Europe with her."

"Mm," says Alice, and adds a shrug for good measure.

"Are you two...?" She makes a vague cyclic gesture with both hands.

"Screwing? Nope," says Alice.

"And that is simultaneously both more than I wanted to know and less than I asked. Congratulations."

"Heh," says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, all right," snorts Charlie.

"I promise not to make you a grandfather until I am at least twenty-two and probably quite a bit older," Bella says.

Come to think of it, given the propensity of things to happen without her explicitly planning them... Pentagon proves able to suppressibly sterilize her. She can undo that at will, as with the regeneration, without even expending another wish. Splendid.

"That's good," Charlie says. "Not the only thing that can happen, though -"

"Dad. Do you desperately want to add this conversation to your life? Because I don't, and I promise it is not required for my well-being now or in the future, cross my heart."

"All right, Bells," Charlie says, after a long pause. "Let's go get some pie."

Tegu is a one-person vehicle; they take the cruiser.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:47 pm (UTC)

When they arrive, Alice is there to open the door.

"Hi guys! Pie's not ready yet," he says, and considers hugging Bella.

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:48 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs him first. It is a friendly-hug, but still a hug. [Charlie now knows that we are maybe-sorta-dating-or-something-it's-complicated,] she tells Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:50 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] Alice says cheerfully, and idly wonders if this will result in Charlie threatening him with violence.

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:51 pm (UTC)

Well, it doesn't immediately, anyway. Charlie comes in and greets Hilary and sniffs the air. "What kind of pie?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Apple-pear-caramel!" says Alice.

"I believe in ambitious pie," says Hilary.

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:53 pm (UTC)

"That sounds divine," Bella sighs, and Charlie nods in agreement.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Smells even better," Alice says happily, and indeed it does.

self_composed
2012-10-05 10:57 pm (UTC)

In due course: pie!

Nom.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 11:00 pm (UTC)

Piiiie.

Alice enjoys the pie very much. It is excellent pie.

self_composed
2012-10-05 11:06 pm (UTC)

"So did you enjoy Europe, too?" Charlie asks Alice, slowly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Alice. "It was fun!"

"Hah," says Hilary.

"You were in Europe?" says Judith.

Alice laughs.

self_composed
2012-10-05 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Got off my plane, and there he was," Bella says.

Technically true.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I can't decide whether that's adorable or creepy," says Hilary.

"I think that's Bella's call," Alice says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-10-05 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I was happy to see him," Bella says contently.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 11:18 pm (UTC)

Alice beams.

Hilary looks between them.

"Adorable it is," she concludes, and glances at Charlie for his take.

self_composed
2012-10-05 11:18 pm (UTC)

Charlie's expression is neutral, and he's mostly looking at Alice, occasionally flicking his eyes over to Bella. He doesn't say anything.

"Do I taste nutmeg?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 11:22 pm (UTC)

"You do!" Hilary confirms.

self_composed
2012-10-05 11:27 pm (UTC)

After pie has been consumed, Charlie wishes to go put in a half-day at work. On his way out, he catches Alice's eye. Too quietly for anyone else to hear, he says, "As long as Bella's happy, so'm I. You make her unhappy, and you will be too. Clear?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Alice. And does not point out that Bella being unhappy is itself worse than any threat Charlie could possibly make, except maybe breaking his dad out of prison.

self_composed
2012-10-05 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Right now I bet you care a lot about keeping Bella happy. But you're eighteen, and you might stop even if it seems like you never could. I'm her father, and I'm not going to," Charlie says.

And with that he leaves to catch up with his daughter and drive her home.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-05 11:54 pm (UTC)

Well, that just happened.

He doesn't really get it. Well, he gets that Charlie is threatening him to protect someone he cares about, and he gets that Charlie would be particularly inclined to give advice about falling out of love; what he doesn't get is what he is supposed to do if he ever, somehow, inconceivably, stops loving Bella. He cannot plan for that. He has no idea how or why he ever would. But he is pretty sure, regardless, that Charlie Swan's vague threats would continue to mean nothing to him.

self_composed
2012-10-05 11:57 pm (UTC)

[He doesn't know that you have magic powers - or at least has no details,] Bella says. [The fact that he can't really do anything to you isn't something that occurred to him. I think what you're supposed to do if you fall out of love with me - according to him - is let me down easy.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 12:05 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I wouldn't really care if I didn't have magic powers, either,] says Alice. [What's he gonna do, shoot me?] Which Charlie probably wouldn't do, and which Alice does not find to be a motivating factor even if he would. [Bust my dad out of prison?] That, he'd care about, but he still doesn't think Charlie would do it. [Anyway, it's not gonna happen, and if it does you'll have way bigger problems than my feelings.]

Problems like rains of jelly beans and things being on fire that probably shouldn't.

self_composed
2012-10-06 12:07 am (UTC)

[No, he wouldn't shoot you. More like watch you and be sure to catch you if you do something illegal. I know you don't drive, at the moment, but if a cop wants to pull a driver over, they have to follow the average person for two minutes before a genuine traffic violation will appear. There are probably similar things in other domains. He might look into the prostitution accustaion,] she adds thoughtfully. [If he were really pissed off.]

Pause.

[I'm not going to tell you my plan for what happens if you go rogue.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 12:46 am (UTC)

[Why not?] he asks cheerfully.

Bella is smart. She probably has a better plan than he himself could come up with. Also, she can read his mind, and will continue to be able to read his mind even if he stops wanting her to.

But anything he can think of that she might use to stop him from wrecking things - wishing herself a pain power and hurting him until he sits down; killing him outright - are things that he thinks it would be fun to talk about, and wouldn't defend against, unless he fell out of love with pain when he fell out of love with Bella. And he has been in love with pain for much, much longer. He has no idea what could possibly make him stop loving Bella, but he admits it could happen; he could not stop loving pain and stay himself in any meaningful way. It is a fundamental part of his life in a way that very few things are.

self_composed
2012-10-06 12:51 am (UTC)

['Cause you haven't thought of it, you wouldn't like it, and while me telling you about it might either make you fall in love with me all over again or hate me forever, the first outcome is sufficiently redundant and the latter sufficiently inconvenient that I'd rather avoid the discussion. I did think of both options you did, but I don't know how easy you'd be to actually incapacitate with the first thing - or how long I'd have to keep it up, for that matter - and if there's any chance you could be un-rogued I'd rather avoid the second thing. Death: Not a fan. News at eleven.]

Pause.

[How easy you are to incapacitate with a pain power might afford... testing,] she tosses out.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 12:55 am (UTC)

...Alice really, really likes that idea.

Also, if she thinks telling him her plan will either make him fall in love with her all over again or hate her forever, he thinks it will definitely be the first one. But he doesn't expect that to change her mind, so he won't bug her about it, or dwell on it any longer.

self_composed
2012-10-06 12:56 am (UTC)

[You really wouldn't like it. Whether you're enough of a Möbius strip of twistedness to like it because you don't like it the way you are about many other things, I am unsure,] she muses.

[Are you going to make a new lair near Stanford or just a door to your current one?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 01:02 am (UTC)

...What the hell is she planning to do? No, not dwelling, not dwelling. Although 'Möbius strip of twistedness' is a beautiful phrase for which he definitely loves her some more.

[Dunno,] he says, and considers the question. [Depends if I find a really good place to put a lair that's close enough to wherever you'll be. It's probably way easier to stick a magic door somewhere.]

And by the way, just how hypothetical was that offhand reference to testing out incapacitating him with a pain power? Because he is all for that. Anytime she wants. Yes please.

self_composed
2012-10-06 01:04 am (UTC)

[Just wondering about how challenging it would be to slip off to your lair once I'm at school. Probably best to conduct the test this week, though. Charlie's still working most of the days I'm home. Tomorrow morning?] she suggests.

Pause.

And then because he has such entertaining reactions: [Gosh, I wonder if a hex-made Cruciatus Curse power will even come with a ceiling, if I don't install one on purpose. I think maybe I won't.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 01:15 am (UTC)

It turns out that it is possible to transmit incoherent vocal sounds over brainphone! This one goes something like: [Mllrrrrrrrrgh.]

Yes. Tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning is good.

Also, he is heading upstairs right now to go take a shower, and if Bella doesn't want to witness the aftermath of her obvious and very successful attempt to gratuitously turn him on, she might want to quit reading him before he gets there. Or not. Her call.

self_composed
2012-10-06 01:17 am (UTC)

Hmmmm. She decides she may as well go on reading him.

'Cause why not?

Charlie drops her off and goes to work for his afternoon of paper-pushing.

Bella lounges on the sofa.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 02:06 am (UTC)

He hasn't really had the chance to put his pyrokinesis through its paces yet. He's toyed with it, but he hasn't tried to reach its full potential.

Alice decides that is going to change.

He closes and locks the bathroom door behind him with a triangle and gets in the shower with all his clothes on, because he doesn't care enough about them to save them and doesn't want to waste any time taking them off. Another triangle turns on the shower to a not-quite-scalding temperature, and as the spray hits his face he closes his eyes and sets himself on fire.

His clothes are ash swirling down the drain. If his flight power didn't default to hover, he'd fall down. He pours hexagons; the chain looped around him lengthens noticeably. Alice stands under the water and burns. And as he bites through his lip trying not to scream, he imagines it's Bella doing this to him, Bella making him hurt more than he has ever hurt in his life. Fuck, he loves her so much.

He runs burning hands down his burning chest and pulls the fire deeper, closer, hotter. Keeping it burning while the shower continually tries to put it out is hardly even an effort. He's not sure he has any skin left. He's not sure he cares. It hurts incredibly.

And then, finally, he puts out the fire and wraps his hand around his dick while they are both still healing. That, and the shower spray hitting his burned-raw chest without any of it boiling off first, is a whole new universe of pain. The rest of his skin growing back is almost anticlimactic in comparison, although under other circumstances that alone would probably be enough to give him a spontaneous orgasm.

Healing is over in a flat second, and so is Alice. He drops to his knees and takes a deep breath just to feel it in his lungs, presses his hands against the (now somewhat filthy) shower floor, as he slowly regains awareness of his body through senses other than pain. Water running down his back. The taste of blood and char. The smell of smoke and steam.

When he hauls the new loop of his necklace up from where it dangles insubstantially through the floor, he is not surprised at all to see that the parade of hexagons ends in three glimmering black stars.

self_composed
2012-10-06 02:09 am (UTC)

[You're gonna set off the smoke alarm,] Bella says faintly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 02:12 am (UTC)

Laughing, he expends a triangle. [Am not.] Another one cleans up the mess on the shower floor; he sits back and wraps his arms around his knees.

While he was doing it, he wasn't at all thinking about being observed; now that it's over, he kind of wonders what she thought.

self_composed
2012-10-06 02:14 am (UTC)

[Tomorrow morning,] Bella says. Still vaguely faint. [Mmm-hm.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 02:18 am (UTC)

Oh, so she liked it, didn't she. Alice grins.

[Okay,] he says happily. He reaches up to run his hands through his hair, only to discover that he no longer has any. A square fixes that. He also, running his hands over his back and sides, discovers that all his scars are gone—burned away and healed back clean.

He is not sure how he feels about that part.

self_composed
2012-10-06 03:07 am (UTC)

[You could wish those back too, if you want,] Bella points out.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 09:57 am (UTC)

[Yeah, that's the thing,] he says. [I don't know if I want.]

He likes his scars, but partly as a record of intense experience. And not having them anymore is a record of a more intense experience than (almost) any of them.

self_composed
2012-10-06 03:45 pm (UTC)

[Interesting. Well, you can always change your mind, whatever you decide now - since magic is awesome.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-06 11:27 pm (UTC)

[It is,] he agrees, leaning against the shower wall and humming to himself.

self_composed
2012-10-06 11:38 pm (UTC)

[So you can make stars. Even without... help. I should start thinking of ways to learn about what the matter with them is supposed to be,] muses Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-07 12:14 am (UTC)

[I wouldn't wanna to do it like that all the time,] he says, [but yeah, I can make stars.]

He runs his hand along the line of new hexagons, clicking them together, and then counts the points of the stars with his fingertips. It's really something, having these physical manifestations of pain.

(She meant something else with that pause, he's sure, but—she did help, in a way. She was absolutely a part of that experience, and not just because she was watching. It was for her and about her even if it wasn't with her.)

self_composed
2012-10-07 12:48 am (UTC)

[If there's a level of pain that makes you say you wouldn't wanna do it all the time, should I install a ceiling after all?] Bella asks. [I haven't wished up the power yet.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-07 12:52 am (UTC)

[Nope,] he says happily. [It's like—you liked that maple-caramel-coconut-butter cake we made, but you wouldn't wanna live on it, right?]

self_composed
2012-10-07 12:58 am (UTC)

[Fair enough, but if that's all you meant I'm not sure why you mentioned it. Seems to go without saying.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-07 01:05 am (UTC)

[Maybe it doesn't mean the same thing to you, then.]

What he meant by it was: there are things that are intense, and glorious because they're so intense, but by the same token too intense to make a casual part of your daily routine. Cutting a half-dozen hexagons out of himself is a casual part of his daily routine by now; this never will be. But it's still something he likes and wants and would hate to miss out on.

self_composed
2012-10-07 01:07 am (UTC)

[Oh. I wouldn't mind having desserts as nice as that cake on a daily basis.]
Edited 2012-10-07 01:09 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-07 01:19 am (UTC)

[So I guess it was a bad example,] he says, amused.

self_composed
2012-10-07 03:50 am (UTC)

[Apparently. I'd get bored of Disneyland if I went too often?] Bella suggests instead.

She pauses, then says, [You realize that a primary benefit of the pain power will be the ability to jack up volume for when I can start doing big obvious things like curing malaria, so ideally that wouldn't bother you. But you already pour out way more coins than I could reasonably ask of anyone, so if it does I'll see about getting creative. It's possible that I could just render mosquitoes extinct without damaging the ecology too much, if not with a direct kill-the-bugs wish then with a designer virus or something.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-07 10:08 am (UTC)

Awww. Alice loves her. He loves her because she wants more coins out of him and he loves her because she doesn't just want to take them; he loves her because she's going to cure malaria and he loves her because she has no experience that relates sensibly to what it's like to set yourself on fire and burn through skin into flesh.

He suspects, though, that he's going to like it even more when she does it. And he already liked it a lot.

Humming to himself, he gets up and turns off the shower.
Edited 2012-10-07 10:34 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-07 05:31 pm (UTC)

[Well, antagonizing you with unwanted all-consuming pain attacks and then swiping your coins? Probably not the best recipe for long-term cooperation, which is more important. That and I like you, and liking you precludes torturing you without you being into that. Heck, if you asked me last year I'd say it precluded torturing people at all, but you're just that weird.]

Pause. [And I could know what it was like, sort of, if I opened up the memory - just have no reason to do that.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 12:59 am (UTC)

[You were looking,] he says. [How much did you get?]

self_composed
2012-10-08 01:00 am (UTC)

[It was a very very large lightning-bolt symbol,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 01:03 am (UTC)

He laughs. [Yeah, I'll bet. But I mean—how much it hurt and what it was like to hurt that much are two different things.]

self_composed
2012-10-08 01:05 am (UTC)

[What do you mean?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 01:14 am (UTC)

...Alice begins to think they might be speaking at cross purposes a little.

[Okay, what did you get, other than a great big lightning bolt?]

self_composed
2012-10-08 01:16 am (UTC)

[It was surrounded in its affect-gray, and there were some verbal tracks - mostly in my color or the magic's, not yours, so I guess you weren't really generating words - and there was the emotion-blob. I could open the emotion-blob,] she suggests.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 01:22 am (UTC)

[Might help. What was in the verbal tracks?]

Because no, he was definitely not generating words, but he wonders what words were getting generated for him.

self_composed
2012-10-08 01:24 am (UTC)

[My name, a few times, tagged with footnotes I didn't open and surrounded in a very lovely pale affect-gray. Stuff about the quality and location of the pain - that it was fire or that the water was interacting with it in various ways, like that.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 02:06 am (UTC)

[Huh,] says Alice, musingly. [Well, maybe it'll be in the emotion-blob, then.]

It'd be kind of weird if her mind-reading managed to miss the quality of that experience. But Alice finds that he can't even really figure out whether it was a thought or a feeling or what. It's important, he knows that much. Maybe it wasn't something he thought at the time, but only occurred to him later?

self_composed
2012-10-08 02:06 am (UTC)

[Here goes.] Bella scans backwards in his memories, finds the blob, and pokes at it.

Ecstatic submersion in experience bursts across Bella's mind like a paintball to the gut. It's crushing and drowning and utterly fantastic.

It doesn't last forever. [If there was a drug that did that, it would be illegal and everyone would take it anyway,] Bella opines.
Edited 2012-10-08 02:16 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 02:17 am (UTC)

Alice cracks up.

[Yeah, now you've got it.]

self_composed
2012-10-08 02:18 am (UTC)

[I think, like, enlightened Buddhist monks are supposed to be able to induce that state. Only that's about not-experiencing things more than it is about experiencing things. Also it takes them a long time to figure out how to do it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 02:20 am (UTC)

[Looks like I found a shortcut. Maybe not, though, 'cause that was definitely about experiencing things.]

self_composed
2012-10-08 02:30 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I think you just did it backwards,] Bella says. [Dang. I might feedback-loop on that, tomorrow morning.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 02:33 am (UTC)

[Oooh, fun,] Alice says happily, snuggling into a towel.

self_composed
2012-10-08 02:35 am (UTC)

[That's a word for it, yes. Say, as long as I'm designing the power - I'm inventing arbitrary units so I can compare various instances of it with each other, and so on - remember the test with the square? That was just - plain. Would you like the power to be not-plain? Come in various flavors? Like ice cream.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 02:38 am (UTC)

[Yeah!] he says enthusiastically. [That would be awesome.]

Ice cream pain. Bella is the best.

self_composed
2012-10-08 02:38 am (UTC)

[Such as?] Bella says. [I'm liable to neglect something, but presumably you know what you like.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 02:42 am (UTC)

[I like everything,] he says. [And I am nowhere near as good as you at listing stuff. And there's bound to be stuff I haven't even tried yet that I'll like.]

(And he is not totally sure that she really wants him to start listing ways he likes to hurt, because it is all about the details, and Bella has historically seemed to think the details are kind of gross. Also, it gets pretty sexual in a lot of ways, but that seems to be less of a problem now.)
Edited 2012-10-08 02:44 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-08 02:53 am (UTC)

[Okay. If I miss anything, a pentagon'll add it in if we want,] Bella says. And she composes a list. [Whether you gave me ideas or I come up with them myself they still enter my head, you realize.]

Let's see. There's heat, obviously. Cold. Acid. Is base meaningfully different? Meh, she includes it as its own thing; may as well. Electricity. Various flavors of more mechanical injury - cuts, bludgeons, puncture wounds, crushing, tearing, cramping, scraping. She's not sure how some of these will scale up, but magic is very good at that sort of thing.

And she includes "plain", too.
Edited 2012-10-08 02:53 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 02:58 am (UTC)

Well, now Alice is thinking about all the subtle flavours of sharp: knife, glass, wire, different kinds of knives, where you put it—it all makes a difference.

self_composed
2012-10-08 02:59 am (UTC)

[Ah, so we're not going vanilla-chocolate-strawberry here, you want mango gelato with coconut flakes too.] Bella goes back to her mental list and adds shades of nuance. If Alice sees a meaningful difference between being incinerated in a furnace and branded with a soldering iron he may as well be allowed to enjoy those fine distinctions.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 09:49 am (UTC)

[I love you,] he giggles, hugging himself, and finally heads back to his room to curl up in bed.

good morning

self_composed

The next morning, Charlie leaves late for work so he and Bella can have breakfast together, but then he does go.

Bella sees him off.

And heads for the lair, humming, all nerves.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 06:49 pm (UTC)

Alice has already escaped the house (by waving to Hilary on his way out the kitchen door) and is napping in his big cuddly armchair.

self_composed
2012-10-08 06:50 pm (UTC)

Bella sits on the arm of the chair and pokes him in the forehead.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Mrr?" he says, and opens his eyes. "Oh!" Yaaaaaaaawn. "G'morning, Bella."

self_composed
2012-10-08 06:52 pm (UTC)

Bella kisses him and turns on her read. "Morning. How're you?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I am awesome," he says, wrapping an arm around her waist in a snuggly fashion and idly wndering if she would like to be in his lap.

self_composed
2012-10-08 06:58 pm (UTC)

"You might flail around and dump me on the floor, so I'd sooner not get comfy," Bella remarks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 06:59 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "I so will not."

The reminder of what exactly they are meeting for does give him a pleasant shivery feeling, though.

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:01 pm (UTC)

"You sure? Because I went ahead and did-not-install a ceiling," she says with a small smile. "Who knows what will happen."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:01 pm (UTC)

More pleasant shivery feelings!

"Mmm... okay, not sure sure," he acknowledges.

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:06 pm (UTC)

"It works in fake units I made up, where one fake unit is the minimum amount of pain required to make a triangle," Bella says chattily. "We can figure out how many it takes to make a square, pentagon, hex, star, etcetera. Heck, for all we know there are more kinds of coins up beyond that which no one has ever made because no one had a pet masochist quite like you. Octagons or cubes or something."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:10 pm (UTC)

This time, the pleasant shivery feeling comes with an actual pleasant shiver. "Ooh, fun."

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to be able to tell me to stop," Bella asks, "if that's what you want to do - or even *think* it coherently - or should we have some kind of programmed plan of what's going to happen over what time period in case you can't?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Well, I mean—you can see if I like things or not, right? So if my lightning bolt looks happy, keep going, and if it doesn't, don't."

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:15 pm (UTC)

"And what about mixed feelings? Because those happen too."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:19 pm (UTC)

He considers this. Considering it involves briefly consulting memories of past events about which he had strongly mixed feelings. Bella has drawings of one of them.

"Ask, and if you can't get a good answer out of me, stop," is his conclusion.

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay." That's a decent enough algorithm. "I think I wanna name my units. 'Nocions'? 'Ouches'? 'Triangles'?" She smirks. "Here's one of them."

She goes with "plain", to start with.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:25 pm (UTC)

Alice grins. "Aww, tickles," he says; it doesn't, technically, but it's a delicate enough sensation that it almost feels like it should.

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:26 pm (UTC)

Bella cranks it up to ten, which is just barely on the threshold of square-making. "Thirty-one flavors. Well, more than that, but Baskin Robbins has more than thirty-one too, they just rotate." And she spins through them all, one second at a time.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:30 pm (UTC)

He bites his lip and squirms happily. "Oooh, that's nice."

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:31 pm (UTC)

Bella leaves it on the last one in the array, which happens to be cuts-from-glass (he did specifically mention that one, after all).

She hops up in increments of five at a time. A hundred is where pentagons can be made.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:38 pm (UTC)

By that time he has stopped biting his lip, and stopped hugging Bella, and is lounging in the chair with his eyes closed, not moving much and enjoying himself thoroughly.
Edited 2012-10-08 19:38 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:40 pm (UTC)

Bella reaches out and strokes his hair. "Maybe you really aren't going to flail around," she remarks.

She starts going up in increments of ten... then twenty.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:42 pm (UTC)

Alice leans into her hand, smiling, and licks his lips.

"Toldja," he murmurs. "Mmmm."

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:43 pm (UTC)

He makes such interesting faces.

Bella watches coins appear. "If the pattern holds, a thousand triangles makes a hex," she observes softly.

She starts going up fifty at a time.

And hits a thousand, in due course.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 07:59 pm (UTC)

Yep. That's a hex.

Alice isn't looking, though, so he couldn't tell you. Alice is a little busy making more interesting faces.

self_composed
2012-10-08 07:59 pm (UTC)

Bella bends to plant a kiss on his forehead, and keeps climbing. She makes sure to have half an eye on the affect around his thoughts, though.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 08:04 pm (UTC)

Bright white almost without exception, certainly around both the pain and Bella wherever they may appear. He tips his head back and smiles up at her without opening his eyes.

self_composed
2012-10-08 08:04 pm (UTC)

Climb, climb, climb. Bella expects a star based on this pattern right... about... now.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 08:17 pm (UTC)

Alice is back to squirming; also, breathing raggedly.

The star appears right on schedule. He almost feels that same transcendent immersion from yesterday, but not quite.

self_composed
2012-10-08 08:20 pm (UTC)

"There's a star," Bella murmurs, petting his hair. "Want to keep going?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he sighs, leaning into her hand again. He loves her. He really, really loves her.

self_composed
2012-10-08 08:25 pm (UTC)

Up and up and up. She kisses his forehead again; she's not completely sure he won't flinch at some point and bite her if she kisses his mouth instead.

She lets herself feedback-loop a little, on the emotion-blob and the affect around the lightning bolt and on the love, but pays strict attention to his face and everything else he's thinking. In case.

Up-up-up...

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 09:14 pm (UTC)

If he had room in his head for that much analysis, he would be surprised that he isn't more aroused. He is, but in a very gentle, undemanding way. Not like yesterday, when it hurt like hell and flooded him with glorious want.

This time it hurts like heaven.

Without noticing exactly when it happens, he drifts into a state very like yesterday's. It's different, though. Calmer. More passive. He feels like he could stay this way for a long time. He leans into Bella whenever she touches him, although he can barely feel her through the pain.

And then he can't.

He has no connection to the world around him, to the past, the future, to his own thoughts, to any sense but pain. No words populate his thought-stream, magically generated or otherwise. There is nothing in him but the ecstasy of intense experience tangled with boundless adoration, and a massive lightning bolt surrounded by spotless crystalline white.

self_composed
2012-10-08 09:16 pm (UTC)

Bella pauses there (16,050 triangles). She's not sure what would happen to him if she kept going.

But she doesn't back off either.
Edited 2012-10-08 21:18 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 09:24 pm (UTC)

He has also stopped generating stars. He doesn't have the attention left to drag the pain across his mind.

Slowly, though, he acclimates. His breathing steadies. He leans toward Bella slightly, like a flower seeking the sun.

Another star appears on his necklace and slides down to join the others with a soft click.

self_composed
2012-10-08 09:25 pm (UTC)

Bella twines her fingers into his hair. Whether he'll be able to hear her, she's not sure, but she says anyway: "More?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 09:31 pm (UTC)

He hears her. He recognizes that there is a sound; after a moment, he even correctly attaches her voice to the target of all this love he's feeling, to the same source as the distantly perceptible sensation of her hand in his hair. But he stops short of perceiving the word as a word; by the time he's done observing that he loves the person who said it, it's passed out of working memory, too far for him to retrieve.

self_composed
2012-10-08 09:32 pm (UTC)

That's really interesting.

She leaves it where it is. Pet-pet-pet.

And she watches his face.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 09:43 pm (UTC)

A slow, slow smile touches his lips. Completely involuntary, because right now he is not working on a voluntary level.

Another star clicks down on top of the rest. Definitely a lot slower than he could be making them.

His eyelashes flutter slightly.

self_composed
2012-10-08 09:44 pm (UTC)

So this isn't optimal coin-generation, but she can't use stars yet anyway.

She decides he's not going to bite her. She kisses him right on the smile.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 09:59 pm (UTC)

Alice shivers. He doesn't quite kiss back, but he recognizes the kiss and responds with affection and a little thrill of I-can't-believe-this excitement.

self_composed
2012-10-08 10:00 pm (UTC)

Hee.

She starts creeping it up again. Little little bits at a time, two or three triangles per second, paying very close attention.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 10:14 pm (UTC)

He shivers some more. It's been steady enough for long enough that each tiny increase is almost a separate sensation in itself, like someone brushing their fingertips across all his nerves at once.

self_composed
2012-10-08 10:15 pm (UTC)

And on and on and on...

This might be a long morning.

Bella doesn't mind.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 10:24 pm (UTC)

His tongue flicks out over his lips, once, then again. He runs his hand slowly along the arm of the chair—the one Bella isn't sitting on.

self_composed
2012-10-08 10:25 pm (UTC)

Bella wonders why he's doing that. Does he even know?

Up up up...

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 10:30 pm (UTC)

He doesn't. It's a physical sensation he is capable of perceiving; it satisfied a vague and undirected urge to... feel... something. There might be more to it, that he would understand if so much of his attention was not still taken up with hurting.

self_composed
2012-10-08 10:31 pm (UTC)

Bella decides that unless something radically different happens she will stop at 15,000. This is a nice round number. It will take a few minutes to get there.

She's still petting him, still marinating in borrowed emotions.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 10:41 pm (UTC)

And he is still leaning into her hand, and now he is leaning into it a little more.

Something is changing.

His fingers curl against the armrest; he digs them into its cushiony surface, feeling the resulting pressure. His breathing, quiet for a long time, becomes louder again. He shifts a little in his seat, stretching his legs out on the floor.

The gentle undercurrent of sexual arousal becomes a flood across his internal universe, almost as strong as the pain. He clings to the armrest and whimpers, suddenly feeling very much like yesterday, caught in a sensory hurricane and wanting nothing more than to ride it out to the end.

self_composed
2012-10-08 10:43 pm (UTC)

She holds where it is when she first notices that (14,209) and watches, ready to back down or cut off the pain entirely if that seems appropriate. And she pets his hair. And she watches his face...

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 11:12 pm (UTC)

Ecstatic pain unites with ecstatic pleasure. He doesn't scream, but he hisses, a quick sharp indrawn breath. His eyes fly open, but he doesn't process what he sees; the inner storm overrides all other conscious activity.

The spiral in Bella's mindreading display blossoms, bursts, and fades.

The aura around the lightning bolt flickers, white to patchy muddled white-and-grey, tickled by threads of black.

Also, Alice's underwear is going to need washing.

self_composed
2012-10-08 11:14 pm (UTC)

Bella drops the pain to zero as soon as the affect changes; this isn't exactly what she was supposed to do, but they didn't cover this exact contingency.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 11:24 pm (UTC)

Suddenly, it doesn't hurt.

It feels wrong. Blank. Empty. He's still a little too scrambled to focus his eyes properly; he dives into his sense of touch instead, rubbing his hands frantically along the legs of his jeans.

self_composed
2012-10-08 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Sh-sh-sh," Bella soothes, scraping her nails along his scalp lightly. Her other hand wraps around his wrist. "You okay?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 11:34 pm (UTC)

Bella. Bella Bella Bella. He doesn't think her name, but he thinks her, and turns to her and wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her stomach and clings.

There. Yes. That's better.

He loves her so much.

self_composed
2012-10-08 11:35 pm (UTC)

She hugs him tight. "Okay, you're okay." Scritch-scritch-scritch.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 11:36 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he mumbles into her shirt; the words are completely unintelligible out loud, but perfectly clear in his head.

self_composed
2012-10-08 11:37 pm (UTC)

She kisses the crown of his head. "You certainly do."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 11:41 pm (UTC)

He giggles shakily and turns his head so only his cheek is leaning against her stomach.

Does she want to be in his lap now? His lap is not a great place to be at the moment, is it. A triangle takes care of that. All clean!

self_composed
2012-10-08 11:41 pm (UTC)

She slides down into his lap and issues another kiss, aimed at his temple.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 11:45 pm (UTC)

Snuggle time snuggle time snuggle time

"I love you," he repeats, this time unmuffled and articulate. "I love you. I love you a lot. Fuck, how many stars was that? You want 'em?"

self_composed
2012-10-08 11:46 pm (UTC)

"It was several," Bella says. "You actually slowed way down after a while, couldn't concentrate - best speed, for if and when that's the point, was around 11,000 - but it was several stars. I'll take 'em, but I still don't dare use 'em." Square and they're hers. She swipes most of the new hexes too.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-08 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Mmkay."

He resettles his arms around her and drops his chin onto her shoulder. Snuggle tiiiiiiime.

self_composed
2012-10-08 11:49 pm (UTC)

Bella snuggles quite happily.

She allows a few minutes of silence and says, "So, should I not have cut you off suddenly at the end there?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:01 am (UTC)

"Mm? Oh." He thinks about it. "...Yeah, it was... I mean, almost like I couldn't feel anything anymore, you know? You might wanna take me down slower next time."

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:01 am (UTC)

"Can do," she says agreeably.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:06 am (UTC)

"Thanks." He snuggles her some more.

...It occurs to him that really, if they're testing for a pain power takedown, she should do it again but take him up a lot faster.

Maybe not while she is in his lap, though. He doesn't think he'll dump her out or hit her or anything, but he doesn't know for sure.

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:08 am (UTC)

"I don't have to ramp it up gradually at all. I can put it wherever I want whenever I want," Bella says. "But I wanted an idea of how you'd react to it with a slope first, so I didn't swat you with something you absolutely can't handle."
Edited 2012-10-09 00:08 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:16 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably. "It's gonna be way different if you just hit me with it, though."

He is actively looking forward to the idea! But... maybe not in the next few minutes.

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:16 am (UTC)

"Say when," says Bella, snuggling contently.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:21 am (UTC)

"'Kay."

He closes his eyes and kisses her shoulder and lets his mind drift.

That first experiment was really, really good. And really unexpected. He had no idea he could be that calm in that much pain.

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:21 am (UTC)

"What did you think would happen?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:24 am (UTC)

"Well, I didn't, really."

But if he had, he would probably have expected the spontaneous orgasm a lot sooner.

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:25 am (UTC)

"For a long while it was like you were just - enthralled, not reacting, just attending very carefully."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:25 am (UTC)

"...mmm. Yeah, kinda," he says, thinking back.

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:26 am (UTC)

Bella has no other comments at this time. Snuggle snuggle.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:42 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle! Mmmm.

After a little while, he starts thinking that maybe he's settled enough to try it.

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:43 am (UTC)

"Only maybe?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:45 am (UTC)

"Huh? Oh."

He considers, snuggling her in the meantime. The main argument against trying it seems to be cuddle inertia.

"Nah, I'm good. Go for it," he says with a smile.

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:46 am (UTC)

Bella kisses his forehead and slides off his lap. She stands well away; he might kick her or something. "Start with ten K, minimum star threshold?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 12:47 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says serenely.

self_composed
2012-10-09 12:48 am (UTC)

She hits him with it without further warning. Flavor of the hour: crushing, as under water pressure.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 01:11 am (UTC)

Alice gasps.

For a full second, the massive lightning bolt symbol has no affect-grey around it at all. Not black, not white, just... nothing. No accompanying thoughts or emotions, either.

The first thing that comes back online is love. The second is a bright white aura around the pain. The third, very shortly afterward, is yesterday's ecstatic submersion.

The fourth is the spiral that symbolizes sexual pleasure.

He closes his eyes and smiles, relaxing completely.

self_composed
2012-10-09 01:13 am (UTC)

Bella backs off to five thousand, then two and a half, then one thousand, then five hundred, and keeps halving till she's at fifty and cuts off outright. "That was weird. For a moment there was just - no affect, around the pain, not even an indifferent or ambivalent one." She tilts her head. "Would you be able to keep doing whatever you were doing, if I interrupted you like that?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 01:20 am (UTC)

"Shit no," he says, grinning and opening his eyes. "Right at the start I was hurting too much to notice I hurt. It was like I just turned off and came back a second later. If I'd been standing up I woulda fallen over."

self_composed
2012-10-09 01:39 am (UTC)

"Okay. You have an off switch. Good for you," says Bella, laughing slightly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 01:47 am (UTC)

Alice giggles.

"Whee!"

self_composed
2012-10-09 01:48 am (UTC)

"It occurs to me that we probably don't want to have off switches that other people can reach," Bella muses, approaching the chair again and plopping herself back into his lap. "Random other wishcoiners. We need defensive powers before we meet any."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 02:06 am (UTC)

"...Thaaaat is a point," he acknowledges.

Part of him kind of likes the idea of getting shot down out of nowhere like that by somebody he doesn't even know.

But he can probably get nearly the same effect by asking Bella nicely to shoot him down out of nowhere like that sometime when he isn't expecting it, and she is likely to be much happier about that method. Probably. Is she?

self_composed
2012-10-09 02:10 am (UTC)

"Yes. It's like you and I have been introduced before," Bella says dryly.

She contemplates defense. It has to protect from all the plausible angles - not just pain, which is more about Alice's tastes than anything, but also wireheading, and paralysis, and sensory deprivation or substitution, and direct injury and death, and the suppression of their other powers, and psychic attacks on memory or skill or motivation or equilibrium, and, and, and...

"This is complicated," Bella says aloud.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 02:14 am (UTC)

"Yep," Alice agrees. He isn't even thinking about it, serenely confident that Bella will figure it out to her satisfaction eventually.

self_composed
2012-10-09 02:22 am (UTC)

Bella also wants to prevent anyone but them from altering the contents of their necklaces... and from rendering them unable to make more coins themselves... either by removing their wishcoiner traits or by interfering with their ability to experience pain. She does not want to be folded, spindled or mutilated. She doesn't want traumatic flashbacks to things that never happened, or things that did; she doesn't want nightmares or bad luck curses or why do there have to be so many terrible things that can happen to a person.

Eventually she decides there are three worthwhile classes of thing to fend off as inflicted by possible other wishcoiners: physical harm, mental spying/tampering, and magical... miscellany, like the luck thing or the tampering with their powers. She thinks that covers everything. Probably. She thinks these are well-defined categories to the degree that wishing requires. Probably.

The physical harm wish goes off fine, for her and for Alice. The mental tampering one... doesn't.

"I don't seem to be able to wish myself immune to mental spying and tampering," Bella says, puzzled.
Edited 2012-10-09 02:24 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 02:26 am (UTC)

"That's weird," says Alice.

His first thought is to try to spy on the inside of her head and see what happens, but for reasons that should be fairly obvious, he doesn't actually do it.

self_composed
2012-10-09 02:29 am (UTC)

"Perhaps it's too big a power for a hex, in which case I just need to break it up a bit..." They have an embarrassment of hexes; she sees no harm in trying to just make herself immune to spying, and then to just make herself immune to exactly the kind of mindreading power she has on Alice.

Nothing.

"That's not it. Other possibility is that it's not a legal power at all, that everyone has to go around vulnerable to such things all the time, but that doesn't make sense."

Pause.

"Or it could be redundant. But I'd remember if I already wished myself that. I wished myself an eidetic memory and would definitely remember."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 02:31 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Alice. "So... there's still a way to check if you're immune to mental spying."

self_composed
2012-10-09 02:33 am (UTC)

"Yeah." She allows herself one all-over shudder. "Lemme think of the least invasive way to handle this. The brainphone works, obviously, so it's something subtler..."

She thinks.

"Use a pentagon - for a one-time use, not a permanent power - and see if you can tell me what word I am focusing on right now," she says.

The answer is penguin. She thinks it very hard. She doesn't want him to have to dig any deeper.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 02:35 am (UTC)

Alice wishes.

The pentagon does not disappear.

"No dice," he says succinctly.

self_composed
2012-10-09 02:35 am (UTC)

"Right. And just to make sure that's a thing pentagons can do in general..." She quits the read. "Pick a word, say when." Bella readies a pentagon.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 02:36 am (UTC)

The word is 'cuddles'.

"When."

self_composed
2012-10-09 02:38 am (UTC)

Bella's pentagon does go; Bella's magic knowledge does appear.

"Huh." She picks up the read again to check her answer. "Yep. I am at least somewhat immune to magical spying and tampering. And not everyone is. And I am immune enough to make the wish for it redundant. But I know you're not." She wishes Alice general protection-from-mental-poking, from everyone but himself and her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:04 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Alice. "Weird. Suits you, though."

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:05 am (UTC)

"Well, sure, but why would I just have a random magic power? Did Elias wish for it for his descendants or something?" Bella wonders aloud. "Do a lot of people have random innate powers?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:15 am (UTC)

"Not a clue," says Alice, serenely. "It'd be pretty hard to check, I guess, if they're all weird little subtle things like that."

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:20 am (UTC)

"Huh. Well, yours worked." She wishes for the immunities for magical tampering. They go just fine. "Poof," she announces.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:21 am (UTC)

Alice giggles. "Poof!"

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:29 am (UTC)

"You sometimes come up with stuff I don't. Anything we wouldn't like that would fall outside of the categories of physical attack, the mental stuff, and miscellaneous magical stuff against us or our coin stashes?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:33 am (UTC)

"...Wait, did you just wish me immune to, like, getting beat up?"

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:34 am (UTC)

"With the use of magic. If someone punches you in the face, that still happens. They just can't wish for you to suddenly not have an arm anymore or whatever."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:37 am (UTC)

"Oh. Okay. Good. In that case, nah."

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:37 am (UTC)

"Mkay. We'll call this good unless we come up with something else then." Snuggle snuggle.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:42 am (UTC)

Snuggle!

Of course, now he is wondering what would happen if, say, Bella wished one of his arms off. She could always wish it back on afterward if it didn't regrow on its own, right?
Edited 2012-10-09 03:45 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:45 am (UTC)

"Well, yes, presumably it would grow back via regen if I left a wound, and could be wished back if I didn't. Do you really want to do that right now?" Bella asks archly. "What a busy morning."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:50 am (UTC)

He's never regrown an arm before! It would be new and exciting.

"If you're up for it," he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:51 am (UTC)

She shrugs. She wishes away the one on the far side of her, and does leave a wound, because otherwise his regen probably won't take care of it and it would be weirdly anticlimactic that way. Triangles can handle bloodstains.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:56 am (UTC)

It hurts. It hurts in a new way, and also bleeds quite a lot in the first few seconds, which is an interesting component of the whole experience.

[I love you,] he says via brainphone, because out loud he is too busy moaning.

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:57 am (UTC)

She kisses his temple by way of reply. She doesn't watch, but she's still reading him.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:59 am (UTC)

Watching a new arm sprout from his shoulder is also kind of fascinatingly gross.

When it's all done growing and back in apparent working order, the first thing he does with it is hug Bella.

self_composed
2012-10-09 04:00 am (UTC)

Before it comes into contact with her, she does triangle away all the blood. There's a lot. But then she is quite happy to hug him back.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:52 am (UTC)

Wow, he is really keyed up right now.

He decides that what he is going to do about it is: snuggle Bella some more. Mmmm, cuddly.

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:15 pm (UTC)

Bella does not object to this in the least. She blocked off the entire morning; there's at least an hour left.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:17 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle!

Bella is so great. She hurts him so nicely. He loves her for that, among many other things.

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm trying to think if I have any characteristics you don't love me for," Bella mumbles.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:18 pm (UTC)

"Can't think of one," says Alice, affectionately.

"Wanna make out?"

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:19 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm."

Makeouts ensue!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:22 pm (UTC)

They are a little more intense than usual, at least for Alice. He keeps thinking back to his recent positive experiences with overwhelming agony.

self_composed
2012-10-09 03:22 pm (UTC)

Bella is not much less enthusiastic.

He made faces. And also tasty emotions.

She feels like a weird psychic parasite. She decides that's okay with her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 03:24 pm (UTC)

Bella being enthusiastic makes everything better, in a general sense and also specifically at this very moment.

introduction to being a college student

self_composed

Bella packs light. (She can conjure whatever she wants, mooch off Alice for anything she wants to buy. She's wearing her riding gear and riding Tegu and only has a few other favorite-things she'd like to retain in their original forms. The black dress is one of them.) Her swag goes in saddlebags and she goes to Stanford.

It's a road trip; she wants to be able to account for her time, and besides, she likes her motorcycle. She checks into crappy little motels and once spends four minutes watching someone try and fail to disassemble her bike, from her window. (The fellow gives up eventually. Tegu does not want to come apart or move.)

At Stanford, she is there before her new roommate, who is reportedly named "Janine". Bella unpacks, and since no one's there yet, she wishes up some decorations too. She introduces herself to the RA, Maureen, and then loiters in the hall lounge, waiting for more people to meet.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 09:06 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Alice is combing the area invisibly, looking for a good place to put his magic door. Preferably near Bella's building; ideally in Bella's building.

[Ooh,] he says musingly over brainphone. [How about the bottom of the stairs?]

Not that many people take the stairs in a building with elevators anyway, and the ones who do probably don't head down to the basement that often. The space under the last turn of the stairs is plenty wide enough for a magic door; hell, it's wide enough for two.

self_composed
2012-10-09 09:08 pm (UTC)

[Nice. If you make the door itself invisible so we can just walk through, then you won't even have to wait till the place is empty, if you're invisible.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 09:20 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, that's the idea!]

He pulls up his memory of the lair in Forks and chooses a section of wall there - in the main room, beside the door to the bedroom. He decides that the magic door will exist only for himself and Bella; nothing else will pass through it unless by specific exception. He decides that from either side, they (and only they) will be able to see through the magic door as though the relevant bits of wall were almost transparent, with just enough wall left to serve as a visual reminder that it is a wall to most people. He decides that they will be able to bring stuff through the door, including people, but only exactly who and what they intend to bring when they walk through it.

[Double-check me?] he requests.
Edited 2012-10-09 21:32 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-09 09:33 pm (UTC)

[So we can't throw things through?] Bella asks. [If other things go only when we walk through? Also, what if we trip near it?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 09:37 pm (UTC)

[Do you want to be able to throw things through?] he inquires, but he edits his intention accordingly, and also stipulates that only-passing-through-when-meant-to applies to themselves as well as to what they are bringing or carrying.

self_composed
2012-10-09 09:38 pm (UTC)

[Might be useful if I wanted to surreptitiously stash something without disappearing myself. Otherwise, looks fine, long as "stuff" includes sound and breezes and such.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 09:42 pm (UTC)

[Yeah? Like, if you really want to shout through the magic door, you can, and if you don't, you won't.]

self_composed
2012-10-09 09:43 pm (UTC)

[Cool. Go for it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 09:44 pm (UTC)

Alice wishes.

Then he steps through the magic door.

His Bella-compass informs him that Bella is quite a ways south.

When he steps back through, suddenly she is not very far at all up-and-thataway.

[Cool,] he says happily.

self_composed
2012-10-09 09:46 pm (UTC)

[Very nice,] Bella approves. [Now if you don't feel like telling them your mom and Hilary don't need to know that you're probably going to be visiting me all the time.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 09:50 pm (UTC)

[Hell, I can stick another door in my basement if I wanna be lazy,] he says. [I think I'll go do that.]

Back through the door, and zoom!

[How's your residence stuff going, anyway?]

self_composed
2012-10-09 09:53 pm (UTC)

[Janine, my roommate-to-be, isn't here yet that I know of. I've got my room set up and a parking permit for my bike and I met the RA and now I'm hanging out pretending to mess around on my laptop in the hall lounge.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 09:55 pm (UTC)

[Aww. I don't know why that's cute, but it totally is.]

self_composed
2012-10-09 10:02 pm (UTC)

[I can't imagine why that would be cute either,] Bella laughs. [What are you planning to do with yourself while I settle in here?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 10:07 pm (UTC)

[Dunno,] he says. [Go back out your door and fly around, maybe. Get to know the place.]

In the meantime, though—ah, there's his house. He drifts in the open back door and zips down to the basement. Halfway there he realizes that he could have just made the door from the other side, but what the hell, this way's more fun.

self_composed
2012-10-09 10:08 pm (UTC)

[Why was the back door left open?] Bella wonders.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 10:09 pm (UTC)

[Ask Hilary; it's her kitchen.]

self_composed
2012-10-09 10:10 pm (UTC)

[I can't ask Hilary, I'm in Stanford and have no way to know that the door was open. Don't you have air conditioning? Is she even there? Are you being burgled?]
Edited 2012-10-09 22:11 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 10:13 pm (UTC)

[I guarantee you we are not being burgled,] he says, sets the door to work just like the other one did but attach to a wall that's in his bedroom, and zips back up to the top of the stairs. When he peeks down the hall, Hilary is just wandering back into the kitchen.

[See?]

self_composed
2012-10-09 10:14 pm (UTC)

[Well, ask her why the door was left standing open like that, then.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 10:15 pm (UTC)

[Do you care enough about that answer for me to fly out of the house, un-invisible, walk back up to the door, and ask why it's open?]

self_composed
2012-10-09 10:16 pm (UTC)

[Bah. Nevermind. It's going to bug me, though.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 10:20 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

[Okay, then yes, you do.]

And he flies out of the house, un-invisibles, walks back up to the door, and sticks his head through it.

"Why's the door open?"

"Aren't you halfway across the country or something?" inquires Hilary.

He laughs, gesturing down at himself to indicate his obvious presence. "Do I have to answer that?"

"Yes."

"Got bored, came back. Why's the door open?"

"Because I felt like it. And if you're so bored, you can help me bake cookies."

self_composed
2012-10-09 10:59 pm (UTC)

Bella introduces herself to various new neighbors in the lounge as they wander in and out. She makes a point to learn all their names.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:18 pm (UTC)

Alice helps Hilary bake cookies. See, things like this are why it's sometimes more fun to do stuff the long way around.

A short, nervous-looking girl with long blonde hair shuffles past the lounge door, dragging an absurd quantity of luggage—four duffel bags and two enormous plastic packages of what appear to be styrofoam packing peanuts, all tied together with bungee cords and stacked precariously atop a comparatively tiny suitcase.

self_composed
2012-10-09 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Do you want some help with that?" Bella calls, closing her computer and tucking it into her bag and getting up. Being helpful is a good way to be positively remembered, and this is part of her project, and she is starting today. "Where are you headed?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh—thank you," she says, looking up from where she has been gazing determinedly at the floor and flashing a tentative smile. "Room 314."

self_composed
2012-10-09 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you must be Janine. I'm Bella," says Bella, helping herself to half of Janine's stuff and heading for the room. "What're the packing peanuts for?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Beanbag chair!" says Janine. "You must be my roommate! Are you my roommate? Hello, my roommate!"

The packing peanuts come loose easily, as do the top two duffel bags, leaving Bella with about two-thirds of the volume and Janine with about two-thirds of the weight of the whole ensemble. She trails Bella down the hall.

self_composed
2012-10-09 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Guess so," says Bella, amused. She opens the door with her foot. "Home sweet home. Beanbag chairs don't come... assembled?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Not this one!" says Janine. "I will have to assemble it. I have never done that before. It will be an adventure."

Is it possible to be anxious and high-spirited at the same time? Because that is Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-09 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I've never assembled a beanbag chair before either. It looks like it's going to be really enormous," says Bella. She plops the stuff gently on the floor of the room.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:40 pm (UTC)

"The size of the packaging may be deceptive," Janine allows. "Or we may be in for a very interesting logistical challenge."

She pulls the suitcase up to the unclaimed bed and leans it against the mattress. It teeters. She tugs it out, swivels it around, and leans it the other way. Then she dives into one of the duffel bags on the floor and produces a flat rectangular package containing, if you believe the label, the folded shell of a beanbag chair. Which she proceeds to rip out of its packaging and shake out and pore over in search of a zipper.

"...Would you like to help?" she asks after a moment.

self_composed
2012-10-09 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Sure, why not." Bella seeks a zipper, and finds one, and unzips it. "I'll hold, you pour?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Works for me!" says Janine. She picks up one of the big packages and waits to tear it open until Bella has the beanbag chair in a more receptive state.

self_composed
2012-10-09 11:50 pm (UTC)

Bella holds the mouth of the shell and says, "And, go."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:51 pm (UTC)

Janine goes.

Packing peanuts galore! All but a very very few of them end up in the chair. She picks up the second package and repeats the process; this time it requires a little more finesse, because the chair is becoming genuinely full.

self_composed
2012-10-09 11:53 pm (UTC)

Bella may or may not triangle for luck on the success of this project once it becomes clear that its tidiness is not a foregone conclusion. She doesn't want to pick peanuts out of her hair for weeks.

"If you grab those last couple, we can zip it up," she says, still hanging onto the open chair, when the second bag is empty.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Janine, and she does that.

self_composed
2012-10-09 11:57 pm (UTC)

Zip zip.

"Nice choice of decor," Bella says. "What's in all the duffel bags? Tanks of helium with which to fill balloons, maybe?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-09 11:58 pm (UTC)

"No!" she says. "Clothes. And several clever storage options in the event that there is not enough room for my clothes. There is never enough room for my clothes," she confides.

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:00 am (UTC)

"You can use some of my closet space if you need it. I don't have many clothes myself," Bella says. "I got all the way here with all my stuff on my motorcycle."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:02 am (UTC)

"You have a motorcycle," Janine observes, repeats, and/or confirms. "That's cool. What kind?"

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:03 am (UTC)

"It's a custom kind. I named it Tegu, though, so I guess it's a Tegu."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:06 am (UTC)

"Where did you get a custom kind of motorcycle?" inquires Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:07 am (UTC)

"It was a present from my boyfriend" ([I have decided to just refer to you as my boyfriend to random people,] she informs Alice) "after he came into some money. He got it made by some guy on the Internet, I think."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:10 am (UTC)

[Cool,] Alice says cheerfully, swinging his feet where he perches on the kitchen counter. The word is just a word. It does not have any inherent effect on what passes between them. He doesn't mind her using it and he wouldn't mind her not.

"That is cool," says Janine. "Yes, I will use some of your closet space if necessary, thank you. Would you like to have the inaugural sit on the beanbag chair?"

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:11 am (UTC)

Bella flops into the beanbag chair. "I approve," she announces.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:12 am (UTC)

Janine applauds.

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:12 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "So what classes are you taking?" she asks, in the time-honored tradition of College Students Making Conversation.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:24 am (UTC)

"Calculus and linear algebra and symbolic logic and physics and electrical engineering," she says. "Because I am going to be an electrical engineer!"

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:25 am (UTC)

"Nice. I'm still undeclared. Taking a bunch of things with 'introduction to' in their names," Bella chuckles.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:33 am (UTC)

"Well, I am also taking a bunch of things with 'introduction to' in their names," says Janine, "because it is my first year and that is how that works. The symbolic logic course is second year, though!"

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:36 am (UTC)

"I'm in Bio and Calc and Operating Systems and Politics, and I guess I get credits for orchestra too, but not for soccer."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:45 am (UTC)

"Gosh, you're busy," says Janine. "What do you play? In the orchestra, I mean, soccer... is soccer."

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:46 am (UTC)

"Flute," says Bella, picking up the case off her desk.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:47 am (UTC)

"Oh." Janine observes the flute. "So that is what a flute case looks like. And now I know!"

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:49 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "What about you, what do you do apart from academic stuff?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:52 am (UTC)

"Alienate my peers with accidental displays of frightening intellect," says Janine. "And drop things."

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:53 am (UTC)

Bella tilts her head. "Well, I don't think you're particularly scary or alienating. Maybe a top-tier college will be a better environment for your intellect. Also, dropping things, not a hobby - have you hobbies?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 12:58 am (UTC)

"You say that only because you have not seen the frequency with which I drop things," Janine asserts. "I also read science fiction novels with embarrassing slowness."

self_composed
2012-10-10 12:59 am (UTC)

"I used to be really clumsy until a car crash knocked something back where it belonged in my ear," Bella volunteers. "I don't think we should try anything like that for you, though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 01:01 am (UTC)

"No that would be a bad idea," Janine agrees. "Please do not crash any cars into or near me."

self_composed
2012-10-10 01:01 am (UTC)

"Don't have a car," Bella says, winking. "Have a motorcycle."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 01:03 am (UTC)

"Please do not crash your custom motorcycle into or near me!" she amends.

self_composed
2012-10-10 01:10 am (UTC)

"I won't, I promise," Bella says, crossing her heart.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 01:15 am (UTC)

"Thank you! I can see we are going to get along," says Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-10 01:31 am (UTC)

"That's good. It'd suck to not get along with my roommate," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 01:34 am (UTC)

"Yes it would!" agrees Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-10 01:36 am (UTC)

"Anything else you could use help unpacking?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 11:00 am (UTC)

"Hmm," says Janine. "If you would like to help me find somewhere to put my books and then put them there, you are welcome to do that and I would appreciate it very much!"

self_composed
2012-10-10 07:29 pm (UTC)

"We don't seem to have bookshelves here, but I bet someone has a box they're not going to use any more that we could stand on its side and use for one," Bella says. "I'll go look. If I can't find one you could also use the legs of your bed as bookends."

And she heads out and starts poking her head into open doors, seeking boxen. Eventually she gets ahold of a long, short box that will suit and also fit under the bed, and returns with it, tucking the flaps inside the box for sturdiness. "Where's the books?" she asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 07:49 pm (UTC)

"The books are here," says Janine, with a demonstrative gesture to one of the four duffel bags now open on her bed. It does indeed contain a long row of neatly stacked books. She accepts the box and starts tranferring books from one container to the other.

self_composed
2012-10-10 07:50 pm (UTC)

Bella helps. "Lotta books. I'm more of a library book person myself. That and the Internet."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 07:55 pm (UTC)

"They are comfort objects," Janine explains. "So is the internet, for that matter, but differently."

self_composed
2012-10-10 07:56 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "Anything in here you particularly recommend? I've always been more of an I-actually-read-the-assignments-for-English-class girl but perhaps I should branch out."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, I do not know which ones you would like," Janine says reasonably, "because I do not know you very well!"

self_composed
2012-10-10 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. Some people recommend the same thing to everybody, but I'm not in a hurry to pick through your book collection," chuckles Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 08:32 pm (UTC)

"If you would like to read some of them later, you may, but please ask me before you borrow any," says Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-10 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Sure, no problem."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay, great!"

Janine smiles brightly, which she hasn't done a lot of since Bella first saw her.

self_composed
2012-10-10 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Any other things I should keep in mind if we're going to be sharing this itty bitty living space?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Janine. The cheer in her voice fades a little, and the nervousness in her posture takes an uptick. "You checked the box on the residence questionnaire that says you are comfortable having a transgender roommate, right?"

self_composed
2012-10-10 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 08:57 pm (UTC)

"That is good," says Janine, "because I am. I would prefer if you did not mention it to anyone unless you are sure they already know, because not everyone on our floor checked that box."

self_composed
2012-10-10 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Sure," Bella says agreeably. "I can keep a secret."

Boy howdy can she ever.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 09:00 pm (UTC)

Janine relaxes a little. "Okay, good."

self_composed
2012-10-10 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Do I need to do anything else besides not-tell, like, I don't know, conspicuously loan you tampons in front of people? Because I would like warning before being called upon to do that."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 09:08 pm (UTC)

She quirks a smile. "No. Thank you."

self_composed
2012-10-10 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay then." Bella stretches her arms after placing the last book. "I don't think I'm too hard to live with. Ask if you wanna borrow something, don't play heavy metal at four in the morning, that sort of thing."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Those are reasonable guidelines to which I will happily adhere!"

self_composed
2012-10-10 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Excellent!"

Bella flops onto her bed. "I think we're supposed to go get our student IDs in an hour or so."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I had heard a rumour to that effect," says Janine. "I think I will spend the intervening time unpacking my clothes."

self_composed
2012-10-10 09:39 pm (UTC)

Bella sets up her laptop and goes through the rigmarole necessary to get on the school Internet, and watches clothes march out of Janine's bags.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

There are a lot of clothes thusly marching! She does end up needing some of Bella's closet space, and also pulls a collapsible storage unit made of poles and fabric out of one of her bags and tucks it in between her bed and her desk.

"There," she says at last. "All set."

self_composed
2012-10-10 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Is this going to turn into one of those sitcom plots where you decide my wardrobe is too small and you have to take me shopping?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 09:46 pm (UTC)

"It will not turn into one of those! If you had as much clothing as me, neither of us would have enough space for it!" she says reasonably.

self_composed
2012-10-10 09:47 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Good, then. Because I've never gotten the appeal of shopping."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 09:48 pm (UTC)

"It is not the process I enjoy so much as the results," says Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-10 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I do like having nice clothes, but three pairs of nice jeans and a handful of shirts and one rocking set of motorcycle riding leathers does it for me. Plus, you know, socks, underwear, the boring kind."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I enjoy variety," says Janine. "I think I would have a very hard time living on three pairs of jeans and a handful of shirts. Even with a rocking set of motorcycle leathers."

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I also have a dress," Bella adds. "I've only worn it once, months ago - my boyfriend made it for me to wear to a dance. I almost forgot about it."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Your boyfriend sounds very generous," Janine comments. "What's his name?"

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:12 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks about for a second.

"Well," she says. "He has me call him Alice. He'll take 'Laney' from random people, though, which is closer to his legal name. And I am pretty sure that 'he' pronouns are fine, if you were liable to wonder."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:14 pm (UTC)

"If I ever meet him I will ask which name he would rather I use," concludes Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan. He's not going to be around much for the first week or so, so I can settle in, but after that he'll probably visit a lot; I imagine you'll see him around."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:18 pm (UTC)

"For some reason," Janine says thoughtfully, "your descriptions of him lead me to picture him with pointy ears and sparkly butterfly wings, making mischief and pollinating flowers."

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:19 pm (UTC)

Bella considers this.

"You're not far wrong, except in the literal sense," she concludes.

[My roommate imagines you with pointy ears and sparkly butterfly wings, making mischief and pollinating flowers,] she informs Alice. [I told her that except literally speaking she wasn't far off.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:22 pm (UTC)

[...I think I love your roommate a little bit,] says Alice, laughing.

Janine also giggles.

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:22 pm (UTC)

[She's pretty cool.]

"But yeah, he's weird. In a neat way, but weird."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I like neat-weird," says Janine.

[I wanna meet her,] Alice declares.

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:33 pm (UTC)

[Come visit in a week, then, after I'm settled in.]

"Then my boyfriend will be your favorite person, I imagine."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:39 pm (UTC)

[You betcha,] says Alice.

"Is he the most neat-weird person on Earth?" inquires Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," Bella says. "Quite probably. I'll give you a dollar if you find neater-weirder, at any rate."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I will keep an eye out," Janine says gravely.

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:55 pm (UTC)

Bella grins. "I'm not sure I know where the place we're supposed to fetch our IDs and orientation packets is. Want to come with me to look for it now so we don't show up fifteen minutes late and wait a year in line?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yes!" says Janine, with another, smaller smile.

self_composed
2012-10-10 10:58 pm (UTC)

Bella gets up off her bed. "I'll see if anyone else wants to join the expedition."

Ultimately a total of five girls from the hall make for the building and arrive slightly early, but not early enough to be very first in line. Bella feels that this is the correct amount of early.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 10:59 pm (UTC)

Janine concurs!

IDs and orientation packets are acquired. She immediately stows the former in her wallet and heads back to their room to peruse the latter.

self_composed
2012-10-10 11:00 pm (UTC)

Bella sticks around, because there is a food court here and she wishes to be informed about it, but presently she too returns to their room, by another route so she can see more of the campus. She is equipped with a burrito at this time.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 11:05 pm (UTC)

Janine is still absorbed in the introductory literature. She doesn't look up from her spot on the bed when Bella enters.

self_composed
2012-10-10 11:06 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't bug her; she toes off her sneakers under the bed and reads her packet and eats her burrito.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 11:40 pm (UTC)

Eventually, out of nowhere, Janine says: "Your boyfriend is very good at making dresses."

self_composed
2012-10-10 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Wouldn't have worn it in public if he weren't," agrees Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Does he do it frequently, or was that a unique event?"

self_composed
2012-10-10 11:54 pm (UTC)

"He made one for himself, too," Bella says. "He's toyed with the idea of being a designer. Why, want a custom dress?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I suspect that I do," says Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-10 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Lemme call him up and see if he wants to expand his dressmaking activities," Bella says, and she pulls out her actual phone and actually calls Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-10 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Alice, from his bedroom in the stupidly huge house. "What's up?"

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:00 am (UTC)

"My roommate got a look at the little black dress. She wants to know if you'd make her stuff, too. For that matter I could imagine you being popular among people here in general. Want?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:02 am (UTC)

"Ooh. Very want!" he says. "I probably won't make 'em for everybody, though. Will that piss people off and do you care?"

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:03 am (UTC)

"If you mean you don't want to be deluged in orders, the solution to that is called 'raising your prices until you have the amount of business you want'," Bella says. "If you mean you want to refuse to make dresses for certain individuals you take a random dislike to, that will piss people off and I will care a little."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:05 am (UTC)

"I mean I won't make a dress for somebody I don't wanna make a dress for," he says. "Maybe 'cause I don't like them, maybe 'cause I just can't think of anything good."

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:06 am (UTC)

"Oh. In that case it's called 'being eccentric and requiring the muse to command you' or something like that," says Bella. "That will only piss off annoying people and I will not care."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:06 am (UTC)

"Awesome. In that case, you can pimp out my sewing machine all you want."

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:07 am (UTC)

"Spiffy. What shall I quote as a ballpark figure when asked?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:11 am (UTC)

"Pick something you think they can afford," he says. "I don't actually care about making money."

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:13 am (UTC)

"I know you don't, but there's that 'deluge of orders' problem - there are more than enough people here to keep you working twenty-four hours a day if you charge only what you spend on materials." [What you spend on materials. And we don't want anyone wondering where you get such cheap fabric or how you can make so many clothes as a one-person operation.] "How does a round hundred sound?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:17 am (UTC)

"Yeah, sounds great," he says. And also: "I love you."

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:18 am (UTC)

"Aww. Okay, I'll put word out. See you next week!" says Bella cheerfully.

"Hundred bucks," she tells Janine. "Ballpark, could vary depending on exact design, I assume he'll need measurements and some information about your preferences."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:24 am (UTC)

"Bye!" says Alice.

"That is surprisingly affordable!" says Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:25 am (UTC)

"He doesn't care about making money," Bella says. "Like, at all."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:26 am (UTC)

"In that case it is unsurprisingly affordable!"

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:26 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Yes. So think about what you want, and I can tell him."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:27 am (UTC)

"I will do that," Janine says happily.

dress for success

self_composed

By the time when Alice first shows up at Stanford visibly (as opposed to lurking around the ceiling at Bella's classes, making smart remarks in her head), Janine has put in a request, and so have four other girls on the hall. (Lillian wants a summery floral dress, Tasha wants a midnight blue evening gown, Ruth has expressed a fondness for polka dots, and Kuo wants something gothy. Bella politely makes no remarks about anyone's taste.)

Bella likes all her teachers okay, and also the orchestra conductor and her soccer coach. Life is good.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:49 am (UTC)

The morning of the day that he is allowed to officially show up, Alice has an idea.

He spends the rest of that morning immersed in clothing design.

At last, a few hours past lunch, he twirls in front of the full-length mirror in his sewing room. Layers and layers of long, pointed fabric petals flutter with the movement; delicate, glittering fabric wings quiver behind his back.

That seems likely to make about the right first impression.

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:51 am (UTC)

[You're very silly,] Bella tells him.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 12:54 am (UTC)

[Yep!] he says brightly, and picks up the package containing Janine's dress, and invisibles his way through the magic door, and de-invisibles when he is sure no one is in the stairwell to see him, and takes the stairs up to Bella's floor.

self_composed
2012-10-11 12:55 am (UTC)

Bella waits for him to actually knock before she gets the door. She wants to be that helpful girl who is super-competent and has useful connections - not that girl who might possibly be psychic.

"Hi!" she says, greeting him with a hug. She avoids messing up his wings in so doing. "Alice, this is Janine. Janine, this is my boyfriend."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 01:08 am (UTC)

"Hi!" He hugs back cheerfully, then turns to Janine and holds out the neatly tissue-wrapped package. "Gotcha something," he says with a wink.

"Hello it is nice to meet you is that my dress," says Janine, yoinking the package out of his hand and tearing it open.

It is, indeed, her dress: sky-blue, demurely high-necked and low-hemmed, with elbow-length sleeves and slightly puffed shoulders and a faint pattern in the fabric that hints at clouds.

"It's perfect," she gushes, hugging it to her. "Thank you thank you! I will pay you, just a moment." She lays the dress down carefully on her bed and digs out her wallet.

self_composed
2012-10-11 01:10 am (UTC)

"Looks like something a Disney princess would wear," comments Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 01:13 am (UTC)

"Yes it does!" says Janine. "It is delightful!"

She counts out five twenties and hands them to Alice, who shrugs and hands them to Bella.

"No pockets on this thing," he says, tugging at the skirt of his fairy tunic. "Guess I shoulda thought of that."

self_composed
2012-10-11 01:14 am (UTC)

"No worries," says Bella, tucking them into her purse. She makes a small point of putting them in a separate pocket from her main cash stash in the unlikely event that Janine is paying attention.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 01:16 am (UTC)

Janine is busy asking Alice, "What should I call you?"

"Whatever you feel like," he says.

"Tinkerbell?" she giggles.

"Knock yourself out."

"I think I'll stick with Alice," says Janine.

"Go for it."

self_composed
2012-10-11 01:18 am (UTC)

This exchange makes Bella snicker.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 01:19 am (UTC)

Alice grins at her. So, tentatively, does Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-11 01:20 am (UTC)

"What should I tell the other four wanters of dresses about when they should expect 'em?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 01:22 am (UTC)

"Not yet," he says. "Soonish. I'll probably be done one this week but I don't know which one."

"You're so precise," Janine observes, and Alice laughs good-naturedly.

self_composed
2012-10-11 01:25 am (UTC)

"All right," Bella says. "What's the Disney Princess dress made of?"
Edited 2012-10-11 01:28 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 01:31 am (UTC)

"Cotton," says Alice. Janine nods approvingly.

self_composed
2012-10-11 01:32 am (UTC)

"An excellent plant," Bella says. "Alice, anything you wanna see while you're here?" [And light bounces off of you?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 01:33 am (UTC)

Alice giggles.

"Dunno, like what?"

self_composed
2012-10-11 01:34 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "Parts of campus. The downtown area. There's stuff in Palo Alto too, if we go there."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 10:31 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "Show me someplace cool." [That I haven't been already.]

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:04 pm (UTC)

"There's a plant nursery," Bella suggests, "if you don't mind sitting behind me on Tegu to get there."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:08 pm (UTC)

"I so don't."

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Bella, smirking. "I didn't think that was gonna be a problem." She heads into the closet for her leather ensemble, which goes on over her regular clothes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:11 pm (UTC)

Alice admires her openly.

Janine clearly thinks they are both adorable.

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:12 pm (UTC)

In short order Bella is jacketed and leather-pantsed and booted and gloved; her helmet is sitting on Tegu. "Off we go," she says, and she trots out the door.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Have fun, guys!" says Janine. Alice waves to her on his way out, and she waves back.

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:17 pm (UTC)

Bella conjures an extra helmet in the stairwell - [You left yours on Tegu, you have one because of course you don't usually get around by flying,] she coaches - and they go out to her bike. She zooms them along to the garden, which is indeed full of interesting plants, including cactuses and other things unheard of in Forks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:19 pm (UTC)

The interesting plants are fun and so is Bella. Alice is fond of both.

At some point, a thought occurs to him: [Should I get a bike?]

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:22 pm (UTC)

[Quite possibly. Want me to design you one?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:24 pm (UTC)

He beams. [Yes!]

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:25 pm (UTC)

Bella starts thinking about that. [Any guidelines I should bear in mind?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:32 pm (UTC)

[Mm... dunno,] he says, and starts thinking of vague mental images. He kind of likes that thing his wishcoins do, where they're flat glossy black unless you see them out of the corner of your eye, and then all of a sudden there's colours. Possibly that is too magical to use for a pretending-to-be-normal bike, though.

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:35 pm (UTC)

[A little bit. I was thinking a bolder color scheme for you anyway. If I mess with the finish it could look different colors from different angles? Not traditional but hardly magical; they do it for advertisements, something to do with ridges on the surface.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:37 pm (UTC)

[Awesome,] says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:41 pm (UTC)

['Kay,] says Bella merrily. [There's also the question of where I should appear it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:41 pm (UTC)

[Not a clue,] says Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:42 pm (UTC)

[I guess I could door back to Forks invisible, and pop it into your garage, and you can say your mysterious internet motorcycle supplier delivered it when no one was watching.]

The design's forming up in her head. Pretty bike.
Edited 2012-10-11 16:50 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:51 pm (UTC)

[Works for me,] he says serenely.

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:51 pm (UTC)

[We can go when we're through looking at this pretty garden.]

They finish looking at the pretty garden in due course, and then hop on Tegu back towards school, and duck into the door into Alice's basement when no one is looking. Janine, even if she sees Tegu, will probably just think they slipped off somewhere to make out. (Which might also wind up being true.)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 04:53 pm (UTC)

Alice's lair and its magic doors are so convenient!

Alice has no need to be invisible in his own home when no one actually knows for sure that he isn't in it; he leads invisi-Bella up out of the basement and out to the garage.

self_composed
2012-10-11 04:58 pm (UTC)

In the garage - which is unoccupied - she creates him a bike.

The exposed piping is all black and arranged to look like it's got a rainbow sheen of oil over selected parts. Seen from the front, the surfaces - not those underportions but the carapace - look brilliantly red, fading pinker towards each edge, like someone shot the bike in the middle of each panel and it bled very carefully. Seen from the back, it looks blue fading to sky-cyan, and viewed directly from the side both colors muddle to purple-lavender. It's bulkier than Tegu, it looks more like a spaceship than a cat, but it's low to the ground and glimmers with every saccade of the eye.

[Ta-da!]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 05:01 pm (UTC)

He marvels at it for a moment.

Then he says, [Can I have sex with this one?]

self_composed
2012-10-11 05:02 pm (UTC)

[It is yours,] Bella says. [I'm not gonna supervise if you do, so warn me if I'm reading you when you take it into your head to hump your bike, in case I'm not paying full attention at the time.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 05:02 pm (UTC)

He laughs. [Okay, sure.]

self_composed
2012-10-11 05:04 pm (UTC)

[Want a matching outfit or are you more of a hop-on-in-whatever-you're-already-wearing person? Anyone who's met you would find it plausible that you're courting road rash.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 05:09 pm (UTC)

[You know what,] he decides, [I would love a matching outfit.]

self_composed
2012-10-11 05:10 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks, and produces one. Leather won't do the same different-colors-from-different-angles thing, alas, so the jacket has red-fading-pink in its various parts, accented blue, and the pants are blue accented red, similarly. Dark purple gloves and boots with stitching in both other colors. It is exactly the right sort of garish.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 05:12 pm (UTC)

It is awesome is what it is. Alice hugs her impulsively, not that he ever does anything any other way.

self_composed
2012-10-11 05:14 pm (UTC)

Bella is quite happy to hug him back! [I'm glad you like 'em.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 05:16 pm (UTC)

He kisses her forehead, also impulsively, and hugs her some more.

[I love you. You're the best.]

self_composed
2012-10-11 05:17 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Yes I am,] Bella laughs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 05:21 pm (UTC)

Alice shuts up and just loves her. Bella is perfect and hugging her is perfect and the things she gives him are perfect and there is nothing he would change about this moment.

self_composed
2012-10-11 05:34 pm (UTC)

Bella leans into him and into the thought and sighs comfortably.

[No one's going to walk into the garage and see you hugging the empty air, right?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 05:36 pm (UTC)

Alice turns invisible.

"Nope."

self_composed
2012-10-11 05:37 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers softly. [Good.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 05:39 pm (UTC)

He giggles right back.

self_composed
2012-10-11 06:26 pm (UTC)

There ensues a long, silent, invisible hug.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 06:29 pm (UTC)

It is very snuggly.

[Oh, hey,] says Alice, as a thought occurs to him. [Mom's throwing a party to, I dunno, celebrate ditching Dad and keeping his money. It's gonna be big and boring and full of boring rich people. Hilary's cooking, though. Wanna come?]

self_composed
2012-10-11 06:30 pm (UTC)

[How boring are the rich people?] Bella asks consideringly. [Like, as far as you know they really aren't that interesting, or, they're some unknown mix of old and new money and maybe some of them run awesome companies but you hold them in general contempt?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 06:36 pm (UTC)

[I haven't actually met most of them, but they all know my mom, and she probably met a lot of them through Dad, so there's a good chance they're either boring or assholes. Or boring assholes.]

self_composed
2012-10-11 06:38 pm (UTC)

[Is there some non-rude way I could get a copy of the guest list and find everybody online?] Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 06:40 pm (UTC)

[I ask my mom who's coming, she shows it to me, you read my mind?]

self_composed
2012-10-11 06:41 pm (UTC)

[That works, yes.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 06:41 pm (UTC)

[Cool.]

But he doesn't feel like un-hugging right now.

self_composed
2012-10-11 06:42 pm (UTC)

[No rush. Unless the party is, like, tomorrow.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Nope! It's in a couple weeks.]

self_composed
2012-10-11 06:47 pm (UTC)

[Cool.]

And then she decides her speculation about where Janine will imagine they are ought to be true. Kisses kisses.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 06:49 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmm, kisses. Alice loves Bella. Her surprises are the best surprises.

interesting rich people

self_composed

The party guest list includes a wide range of interestingnesses of rich people. There's a fellow who sits on various boards of various faceless corporations; there's two who started startups and swept up a few million dollars that way; there's a small handful of professional philanthropists, who have oodles of money from various sources and make a hobby of distributing the interest to worthy pet causes; there is a congresswoman, and a state senator, both from New York but apparently willing to travel to the West Coast on occasion. There's also a lot of dull old money who do this sort of thing and nothing but all the time, but they still concentrate a lot of financial leverage, and Bella would rather have ins with them than not, as long as she can.

She bikes up - speeding shamefully, hexing herself radar detection, and cutting the trip in half from its estimated time to just eight hours on the road. Tegu can go very very fast.

Alice made her a new dress for the occasion - this one's autumny, mostly a dark red-brown, with leaf patterns in deep gold and burnt orange swirling up around and soft ruffles in the same colors around her knees and puffing out over one shoulder. It stands out more than the little black dress - which is fine. She would like attention, and just being the hostess's son's girlfriend will not quite get her there at a rich people party, she thinks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 08:53 pm (UTC)

It's approximately ten minutes before someone—not someone interesting, or at least not Googlably so—asks her just who made her dress. The lady in question is dressed very nicely herself, in something sleek and elegant and muted pink-red that complements her curling steel-grey hair.

self_composed
2012-10-11 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Laney did, actually," Bella says with a smile. She has no way to know if this woman is asking her because she likes the dress or because she doesn't, but this answer will cut off most overt sniping. "Yours is lovely!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Thank you, dear," she flutters. "Judith's son? Why, I had no idea he was so talented!"

She likes it, apparently.

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Very much so," Bella enthuses merrily. "I'm Bella. What's your name?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Sophie," says, apparently, Sophie. "It's just lovely to meet you. Are you one of Laney's friends?"

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:07 pm (UTC)

"He's my boyfriend, as of recently," Bella says. "How do you know the family?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Judith and I go way back," she says airily. "I haven't seen much of her since she started seeing that man, but I think that'll change now, don't you?"

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Seems likely, especially since you're here," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 09:18 pm (UTC)

Sophie chuckles. "Yes, I suppose so."

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Bella, affecting sudden distraction by hors d'oeuvres. "I think those might be jalapeno poppers. It was nice to meet you!"

And off she goes towards the poppers and other variously interesting rich people. [Where are you at?] Bella asks Alice. [A lady called Sophie just complimented my dress and said you were talented when I told her you made it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 09:37 pm (UTC)

[Hiding in the basement,] says Alice. [Sophie, huh? Who's she?]

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:38 pm (UTC)

[Random person, unGoogleable, gray hair, pinkish dress, old friend of your mom's who stopped hanging around when your mom started seeing "that man".]
Edited 2012-10-11 21:40 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 09:41 pm (UTC)

[Huh. Never heard of her. Maybe I should come up and say hi.]

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:43 pm (UTC)

[Quite possibly.]

Bella finishes her jalapeno popper and turns to the nearest interesting rich person, one of the startup folks. "Hi!" she says. "My name is Bella."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Bella!" says the interesting rich person. "I'm Nathan." Referring to her recently consumed jalapeno popper, "Are those things any good?"

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Everything Hilary makes is good," Bella says. "This thing in particular is not only good, but also spicy and cheesy. Nathan... wait, Nathan Hall?" She's pretending she doesn't have all publicly available information about him memorized, aww. "Didn't you found Postnet?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Spicy and cheesy! It's like they were made for me," he says, and grabs one.

"Yes I did. What's it to you?"

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I've heard of it, that's all. I don't have massive hard drives that need to go anywhere so I haven't used it, but I read an article about it somewhere," she says vaguely.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you do need to send a massive hard drive somewhere, I know just the people," says Nathan with a wink.

self_composed
2012-10-11 09:54 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Good to know. Anything else in the works? I bet you don't personally courier drives, so now that it's up and running they probably don't call you much."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Actually, funny story," he says, gesturing with his still-untouched popper, "I did do a run once. It just so happened that we were short a truck, and it just so happened that I was going in the right direction. I dropped off the goods along the way. It was all very exciting."

self_composed
2012-10-11 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Not so exciting that you did it twice, it sounds like," Bella points out archly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, we have people for that." He winks again. "And technically, I'm not qualified."

self_composed
2012-10-11 10:06 pm (UTC)

Bella chuckles. He doesn't seem to want to talk about whatever else he's doing. That's okay. There are more people around. Bella averts her gaze and drifts away after a few seconds have passed in silence and she can do it without being rude.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 10:32 pm (UTC)

Across the room, Alice has found Sophie and they are getting along, or at least, she's laughing at his jokes.

self_composed
2012-10-11 10:33 pm (UTC)

Oh, there's a good excuse. Bella wanders in that direction, touches Alice on the shoulder and smiles - just a gesture of having noticed that he's there - and now she's on the other side of the room, next to Mr. Faceless Corporations. "Oh, hello!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 11:08 pm (UTC)

Alice grins over his shoulder at her and goes right back to his conversation with the apparently-fascinating Sophie.

Mr. Faceless Corporations smiles at her. In perhaps an overly friendly way. "Oh, hello," he echoes.

self_composed
2012-10-11 11:11 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't like that; shades of Mike in a dude three times Mike's age is about three times less pleasant. But she is in a room full of people and she has freaking magic; she just won't go off anywhere with this guy, that's all. [Do you know this one?] she asks Alice, before politely, leaning on that acting pentagon, saying, "My name's Bella."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 11:14 pm (UTC)

"And I'm Arthur," says Faceless Corporations, offering her his hand.

Alice glances over his shoulder again.

[One'a Dad's friends,] he says. [Mom really likes his wife.]

Or neither of them would be here, is the implication.

self_composed
2012-10-11 11:16 pm (UTC)

Bella shakes. "It's nice to meet you."

She likes true things. Sometimes she likes them so much she won't let other people have any.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Likewise," says Arthur, with a big, big smile. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a room full of old farts?"

self_composed
2012-10-11 11:25 pm (UTC)

Bella reaches behind her and grabs Alice's hand, although she doesn't pull on it enough to suggest he turn around. "Visiting," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 11:27 pm (UTC)

"With Junior?" asks Arthur, raising his eyebrows at their joined hands, as though he can just imagine the sort of person who'd visit Junior. Alice does not, indeed, turn around, nor does he pay Arthur any attention whatsoever, but he does squeeze Bella's hand.

self_composed
2012-10-11 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't think he really goes by that," says Bella, a faint edge to her voice. She squeezes back and lets go; she communicated her point.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I can never keep up with these nicknames," Arthur says dismissively.

self_composed
2012-10-11 11:33 pm (UTC)

"'Junior' is a nickname," Bella points out, shrugging. "Ooh, watercress sandwiches." New hors d'oeuvres are being put out periodically, and she's going to be leaning heavily on that. She strides for the little sandwiches and takes one.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 11:41 pm (UTC)

Arthur follows, taking one for himself.

"Junior's what his family calls him," he says. "Or it was last I checked. See what I mean? I can't keep up."

self_composed
2012-10-11 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Check again," Bella recommends. She turns to a nearby Startup Lady and fakes enthralled surprise. "Holy cow, are you Marisa Page? I just missed your speaking engagement three weeks ago. Someone from my class on operating systems went, but I had a conflict."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 11:45 pm (UTC)

Marisa smiles. "Why yes I am!" she says.

"You're a very rude young lady," Arthur remarks to Bella.

self_composed
2012-10-11 11:47 pm (UTC)

Bella gives Arthur one wide-eyed look of affected hurt, then huffs audibly and takes a step towards Marisa. She will get mileage out of being a rude young lady if that is what it takes to disengage from him. "I got a copy of the handout, though." And looked at it for exactly one second. "My classmate wanted to ask you why you're using Common Lisp instead of his favorite implementation, but there wasn't time. He'll flip if I tell him I met you and got to ask."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-11 11:55 pm (UTC)

"And what's your classmate's favourite implementation?" asks Marisa, smiling some more.

Arthur scowls at both of them and wanders off.

self_composed
2012-10-11 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Scheme," Bella replies, bouncing on her toes a little.
Edited 2012-10-12 00:00 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:20 am (UTC)

"Well, your classmate might be disappointed with my answer," says Marisa, "but the truth is I'm just more comfortable in Common Lisp."

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:23 am (UTC)

"I'll tell him," Bella says. "He might email you. I think he might have been planning to do that anyway. I'm all about Python myself."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:30 am (UTC)

"To each her own, I guess," says Marisa, with the air of one who definitely does not believe herself.

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:32 am (UTC)

"Well, I know Lisp, I just get sick of staring at parentheses after a while," says Bella. "I'm trying to be versatile though."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:37 am (UTC)

"Versatility is good," says Marisa. "Are you in college?"

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:38 am (UTC)

"Freshman at Stanford," Bella says. "My dad lives here, though, and also there's Laney, so I'm going to be up for the occasional weekend, and a party's a decent excuse for it to be this weekend and not another."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:41 am (UTC)

"Well, come talk to me if you change your mind about parentheses in the next four years, and there might be a job interview in it for you."

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:42 am (UTC)

"Ooh. Thanks," says Bella, smiling brightly. "That's very kind of you!"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:43 am (UTC)

"Well, I like helping out my friends," she says. "And my friends' friends. And my friends' sons' friends, apparently."

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:44 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "That doesn't make it any less kind."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:45 am (UTC)

"In that case, thank you," she says. "And you're welcome."

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:46 am (UTC)

Bella grins, and says, "I don't think I ever told you my name. I'm Bella Swan."
Edited 2012-10-12 00:50 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:52 am (UTC)

"It's nice to meet you, Bella Swan!"

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:53 am (UTC)

"Likewise. How do you know Laney's mom, anyway?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:58 am (UTC)

"Knitting," says Marisa, "believe it or not. I met her at a local stitch'n'bitch in New York a few years back. She didn't stick with knitting for long, but she stuck with me."

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:58 am (UTC)

"Nice," Bella says approvingly. "My grandmother taught me to knit once, or tried. Couldn't remember how to cast on after I got home."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 12:59 am (UTC)

"Try Youtube," Marisa advises.

self_composed
2012-10-12 12:59 am (UTC)

"That would probably help," agrees Bella. "I really love the internet."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 01:00 am (UTC)

"Don't we all," laughs Marisa.

self_composed
2012-10-12 01:01 am (UTC)

"Enh, my dad doesn't really understand it," Bella volunteers. "My mom does though, at least well enough to operate her laptop and email me, and find urban legends to believe."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 01:03 am (UTC)

"Ooh." She snickers. "A crushing indictment of the older generation. But not, I must say, an inaccurate one."

self_composed
2012-10-12 01:04 am (UTC)

"Plenty of people my age are at least as bad," laughs Bella. "But the people my age who are terrible with computers don't have tech-savvy children - well, I hope - to mock them."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 01:06 am (UTC)

"Somewhere in the world, I'm sure there is a teen mother with a five-year-old supergenius patiently telling her to power-cycle the modem again," says Marisa.

self_composed
2012-10-12 01:07 am (UTC)

Bella chuckles. "Probably. It's a big world."

(And it will be hers, all hers.)

Eventually Marisa goes to talk to Judith and Bella goes to eat a sausage thing and talk to other Rich People, most of the remaining ones of which are not particularly Interesting and one of whom corners her to talk about his inefficient, ineffective literacy program for children in Portland and how warm-fuzzy it makes him feel for fully twenty minutes.

Eventually people start to leave. Bella drifts over to Alice and leans her head on his shoulder.
Edited 2012-10-12 01:34 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 01:38 am (UTC)

"Hi," he says, hugging her. [How'd your getting to know the rich people go?]

self_composed
2012-10-12 01:39 am (UTC)

[I like Marisa, she's cool. That one guy Arthur is kind of a creep. The fellow with the literacy program is tiresome.] "Hi."
Edited 2012-10-12 01:40 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 01:44 am (UTC)

[Yeah, Arthur's an asshole,] Alice agrees. [Didn't know he was the kind of asshole who hits on teenagers, but it doesn't surprise me.]

self_composed
2012-10-12 01:45 am (UTC)

[He didn't exactly hit on me. Then again, Mike never exactly hit on me either,] Bella says disgustedly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 01:48 am (UTC)

Alice hugs her some more.

[The world is full of creepy people,] he says serenely. [Wanna go snuggle somewhere?]

self_composed
2012-10-12 01:49 am (UTC)

[Yeah. I want that.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 01:52 am (UTC)

[Great. Lair?]

self_composed
2012-10-12 01:53 am (UTC)

[I have to leave via motorcycle, since that's how I got here, but if we go into and out of the lair through the basement and make sure we'll notice if someone wanders amongst the columns looking for us, yes.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 01:57 am (UTC)

[Works for me,] he says cheerfully, and de-hugs to head for the basement.

self_composed
2012-10-12 01:58 am (UTC)

They lair in the lair and snuggle.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 02:00 am (UTC)

Alice's lair-bed is optimal for snuggling in! It is very soft and well supplied with pillows. Also, conveniently located not three feet away from the door to the basement, so they can see through and check if anyone is looking for them down there.

It is great and snuggles are great and Bella is great and everything is great.

self_composed
2012-10-12 06:30 pm (UTC)

Snuggles are indeed great! Bella needed some snuggles. That guy bothered her.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 06:32 pm (UTC)

Then Alice is glad he is helping.

His mind drifts, predictably, during snuggles; eventually he asks, by brainphone because he is too lazy to lift his face off the pillow, [Can I bake you a cake for your birthday?]

self_composed
2012-10-12 06:33 pm (UTC)

[Sure.] It occurs to Bella that she didn't mention the exact date to him at any point. [It's the thirteenth.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 06:38 pm (UTC)

[Okay! Can I bring you the cake?] As opposed to inviting her into his lair for it.

self_composed
2012-10-12 06:39 pm (UTC)

[What's the explanation for how you baked me a cake in Stanford or brought it to Stanford from Forks?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 06:41 pm (UTC)

[I'm rich and rich people can do anything? No one will care,] he predicts.

self_composed
2012-10-12 06:43 pm (UTC)

[Mmm... don't think so. It'd niggle at me if it were someone else. Either conjure it a cake box that makes it look like you bought it or we can eat in the lair.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Okay, cake box.]

Because he can definitely come up with a cake that looks professional by itself.

self_composed
2012-10-12 06:48 pm (UTC)

That handled, Bella shifts position slightly to take pressure off her elbow. Snuggle snuggle.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 06:49 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle!

Alice happily sets about designing birthday cakes in his head. If he's going to pretend-buy her a cake, it is going to be the most awesome fucking cake she has ever seen.

self_composed
2012-10-12 06:50 pm (UTC)

[Everyone's going to want to know where it came from. I think this again calls for "it was custom from a really exclusive place",] Bella sighs. [Put a logo but not a name on the box so it's hard to Google.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 06:54 pm (UTC)

[I could just make it a plain box,] he suggests. [With your name written on it in Sharpie, so it looks like it was one of a bunch and they needed to label them.]

self_composed
2012-10-12 06:54 pm (UTC)

[That works too.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 06:59 pm (UTC)

Yay! He did a smart!

self_composed
2012-10-12 06:59 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs and kisses him.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 07:02 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles and kisses back.

for my birthday i become a real person

self_composed

The eighteenth birthday is the best one. Bella is no longer A Minor. She no longer needs Charlie's or Renée's permission to do random things that real people are allowed to do. She still can't drink, but she doesn't feel like throwing her cognitive edge out a window anyway.

Also, she is going to get a cake.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 07:22 pm (UTC)

It turns out that a cake Tegu would have to be insufficiently delicious. So the cake is only inspired by Tegu. It is the black of strong chocolate, with a glossy black chocolate shell in lieu of frosting, and eighteen golden candles chasing one another along its top surface trailing Tegu-like golden streaks. And since the tiered circles design was vetoed, it is rectangular, made in two layers with bright golden frosting between.

Alice carries it through the door in an enormous plain white cardboard box, reinforced on the bottom with two extra layers of thicker cardboard. Instead of de-invisibling in the stairs, he sneaks all the way outside to visibly come back inside and take the elevator. Helpful strangers push the buttons for him.
Edited 2012-10-12 19:34 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-12 07:36 pm (UTC)

Bella grins when she sees him and the cake box. "I bet this is going to be the best cake of all time," she says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 07:37 pm (UTC)

"You are so right," says Alice, cheerfully. "Got somewhere to put it?"

self_composed
2012-10-12 07:38 pm (UTC)

Bella moves some books that are on her desk onto her bed, then thinks of a better idea. "There's a dorm kitchen. It's not suitable for actually cooking in, but it has a big table and some plates and stuff."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Good plan!"

self_composed
2012-10-12 07:42 pm (UTC)

And lo they proceed to the kitchen with Bella's cake, and the candles are set alight with the lighter that Alice either remembered to bring or "remembered to bring", and they acquire six other dorm residents who lurk around attentively.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Happy birthday," says Alice, and kisses her on the cheek. "Make a wish."

self_composed
2012-10-12 07:47 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs, and decides to actually do that. She picks the hex-power of variable cognitive speedup that she's been turning over in her head for a while now. "Do you think it'll come true?" she asks Alice in her corniest voice, after blowing out the candles.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 07:49 pm (UTC)

"If you wished for delicious cake, then definitely," he says, and looks for a knife to cut the cake with.

self_composed
2012-10-12 07:49 pm (UTC)

There is a selection of terrible knives in the kitchen. A couple of them look like they could successfully go through cake!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 07:54 pm (UTC)

He grabs the biggest of those, because it is a big cake.

self_composed
2012-10-12 07:55 pm (UTC)

Other dorm residents have begun to accumulate (a few initial witnesses went and fetched friends). Bella knows everyone there, and as long as she gets a nice big corner piece and Alice gets a taste too she is perfectly willing to share.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Which part you want?" he asks, gesturing with the knife to the various available parts of cake anatomy. Corner, edge, middle, lots of candles, no candles...

self_composed
2012-10-12 08:00 pm (UTC)

"A corner with lots of frosting," Bella says.

Others start putting in their own requests with various amounts of timidity.

"I wonder where Janine is," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay, hold up," says Alice, laughing. "Birthday girl first."

He cuts Bella her desired slice; it takes a little work to get the knife through the chocolatey shell in some places, but he manages it in the end. Then he moves on to the next nearest person, and so on until everyone in the room has been served, at which point he finally hacks himself off a corner.

self_composed
2012-10-12 08:08 pm (UTC)

"This cake," Bella says, "is the chocolatiest and best cake."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Fckn rght," Alice mumbles around a mouthful.

self_composed
2012-10-12 08:15 pm (UTC)

Other cake-eaters also seem impressed!

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 09:01 pm (UTC)

Janine sidles in and observes the cake from afar.

self_composed
2012-10-12 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Janine!" says Bella. "Want some of my birthday cake?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes please!" says Janine. "Happy birthday!"

"Comin' right up," says Alice. Janine gets a piece with a single guttered candle, which she carefully extracts from its chocolatey surroundings before beginning to eat.

self_composed
2012-10-12 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 09:08 pm (UTC)

"And thank you for the cake!" says Janine. "Where did it come from?"

"I had it made special," says Alice.

"It is delicious."

self_composed
2012-10-12 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Death by chocolate," remarks Bella, pretending to keel over.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Don't drop your cake," Alice advises. Janine giggles.

self_composed
2012-10-12 09:11 pm (UTC)

Bella's cake is nearly gone anyway. She polishes it off, thinks, and then cuts herself another sliver.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 09:11 pm (UTC)

Alice beams. It is clearly successful cake!

self_composed
2012-10-12 09:12 pm (UTC)

Bella gives him a chocolatey kiss.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 09:14 pm (UTC)

He loves her. He loves her a lot.

He also kisses back very cheerfully and with a complete disregard for their audience.

self_composed
2012-10-12 09:16 pm (UTC)

Bella cuts it out before it descends into unreasonable PDA, though.

"What'd you get for your birthday besides cake?" asks one of the random hall residents.

"Besides this lovely cake? My mom sent me a make-your-own-candle kit and a batch of homemade crackers, and my dad got me some books I wanted," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-12 09:18 pm (UTC)

Alice hugs her briefly and then goes to grab himself another piece of cake. Mmm, chocolatey.

i remember everything, so who are you?

self_composed

Bella attends her classes with faultless punctuality, every time. She sits in the second or third row on an aisle in the middle section of seats, in the classes that take place in big auditorium lecture halls like the main section of Bio; she's willing to put herself closer to the professors in smaller classes like OS and of course her flute chair (third; she hasn't been quite ridiculously showoffy enough to climb beyond yet) is assigned. But right now, she is in Bio, learning tidbits about auxin and tropisms that the textbook didn't cover fully. She's running at about one and a half speed, just enough that she can trivially listen to and process the lecture against her memory of the text while also permitting some mind-wandering. She liiiiiikes her cognitive speedup power.

regularsized
2012-10-15 04:21 pm (UTC)

There's a new student in the class today. Older, with glasses, dressed for comfort over fashion. She sits two down the row from Bella, with an empty seat between them, and she takes sparse but thoughtful notes.

self_composed
2012-10-15 04:25 pm (UTC)

Bella has a notebook. It's mostly for show. Her politics teacher wants notes turned in periodically, and she wouldn't be too astonished if another teacher took up the habit, so she writes insightless outlines of the lectures - "Auxins are a type of hormone found in plants; they elongate cells among other functions", that sort of thing.

She doesn't know who this new person is. Maybe she was sick a lot before, or just not very punctual, or she only just added the class? Hm.
Edited 2012-10-15 16:33 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-10-15 04:34 pm (UTC)

A little more than halfway through the class she leans forward, tilts her head, then sits back with a slight frown. Her pen taps against her latest page of notes; she scribbles something down and then quickly returns her attention to the lecture.

self_composed
2012-10-15 04:37 pm (UTC)

Bella's wondering if there's any point to adding some kind of plant-related superpower. It's not really like she plans to take up gardening, but it could be a nice symbolic thing to grow a vegetable to be the size of a house or something, after she's taken over the world sufficiently to make public appearances and wants to roll out programs to end world hunger or something. She notes the other student's behavior with a small fraction of brain.

regularsized
2012-10-15 05:13 pm (UTC)

At the end of the class, she flips back to that page, then leans over toward Bella.

"Excuse me," she says. "Do you remember what the professor said about sufficient concentrations of auxins?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Uh, yes," Bella says, and she repeats back a simplified paraphrase - she's not "out" as having an eidetic memory like Alice is. "It's weird that they generate their own herbicides. Although I guess there's probably stuff in human bodies that would kill us if you dumped a bucket of it on our heads."

regularsized
2012-10-15 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Plenty," she agrees, smiling. "The human body is a complicated and delicate machine. It's possible to have a fatal overdose of anything from chocolate to water. Thanks, by the way. I'm Bridget. I make it a policy to have at least one friend in every class; would you like to be my Biology friend?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Bella. She likes this person, on the basis of a couple sentences. "What is the fatal dose of chocolate? Approximately? It seems like that might be important to know."

regularsized
2012-10-15 05:28 pm (UTC)

"The LD50 of caffeine in humans is estimated to be between 150 and 200 milligrams per kilogram," she says. "How much chocolate that adds up to depends on what kind of chocolate and who's eating it."

self_composed
2012-10-15 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I suppose it's probably not something that happens from eating cake, or there would be news stories about it," Bella says. "I don't think I've seen you in this class before. Did you just transfer in?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 05:36 pm (UTC)

"It would probably take more chocolate than your stomach could physically hold, unless you went for the really, really dark stuff. I just started auditing," she explains.

self_composed
2012-10-15 05:37 pm (UTC)

"How come?" Bella asks, putting her notebook away into her bag.

regularsized
2012-10-15 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Oh, a long time ago I got half a degree in medicine. I'm thinking of getting the other half."

self_composed
2012-10-15 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Isn't medicine graduate-level?" Bella asks. "Why would you be in first year bio, learning about plants?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I got an entire degree in physics in between. I'm thinking I probably forgot a few things."

self_composed
2012-10-15 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Huh." This isn't how Bella would do it, but Bella's already pretty used to remembering everything that's ever happened to her. "Okay. What does being your Bio Friend involve, anyway?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Exchanging email addresses, studying together? I'd say 'being go-to assignment partners where applicable', but—auditing."

self_composed
2012-10-15 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Are you even planning to show up to the lab sections?" Bella asks, reaching into her bag to tear out a blank notebook page and write her school-assigned email on it.

regularsized
2012-10-15 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, once I find out if I'm welcome."

self_composed
2012-10-15 05:53 pm (UTC)

Bella tears the paper in half and hands over her address. "What's your email, then?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:06 pm (UTC)

Bridget snags the other half of that page and writes her own email address on it—personal, not school-assigned. Apparently her chosen username is 'supersymmetric'.
Edited 2012-10-15 18:06 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Cool. It might be hard to schedule study time with me outside of class, though. I have a lot on my plate," Bella says, tucking the paper away.

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Such as?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Orchestra, soccer, other classes," Bella says. "Personal projects. Occasionally, I squeeze in leisure time."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:11 pm (UTC)

"That does sound like a lot. Maybe I'll need a backup friend," she muses.

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:11 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't blame you for seeking one," Bella says.

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I'll keep the option in mind."

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:15 pm (UTC)

"I actually have an orchestra rehearsal next. Which is silly because it's just going to be a giant violins sectional; they're having problems." Bella gets up, shrugging.

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Problems as in... a surplus of violins?" she wonders, getting up also.

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Problems with dynamics and phrasing, more - they have the correct number of violins as far as I know."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Ahhh. Well, that's good, I guess. No one wants too many violins."

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:19 pm (UTC)

"They'd be terrible clutter." Bella's moseying towards the door now. She does not wish to be late to orchestra, or wish to use magic to be not-late.

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:20 pm (UTC)

Bridget is cheerfully following!

"What do you play?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Flute!" Bella says. She pulls the case out of her bag. "I'm third chair."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Is that like third place?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Maybe? I'm not sure what you're thinking of. It's not exactly special; only the first chair per section does anything that everyone else doesn't. It sort of means that they think I'm not quite as good as the occupant of second chair and a little better than the occupant of fourth chair."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:27 pm (UTC)

"So, exactly like third place, then."

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I guess the real question is, third place out of how many flutes?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Four. Orchestras usually don't have that many, but the conductor really likes woodwinds, and even our fourth chair is really good so it'd be a pity to kick him out."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:33 pm (UTC)

"A surplus, you might say."

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But only of flutes, not of violins. There are lots more violins and there are supposed to be."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why."

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, there are two sections of violins, and only one of flutes, but their individual sections are bigger too. I'm not sure why. I guess they just get lots of emphasis in orchestral music."

The music building is a ways away from the science area. They are about halfway there.

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:38 pm (UTC)

"It's a mystery," Bridget says agreeably. "We can only speculate."

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, we could also ask a historian of music, or maybe a music theorist," Bella shrugs. "If we really cared."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:39 pm (UTC)

"And do you know any of those?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:40 pm (UTC)

"No, but I bet there's one on campus or in regular contact with someone who is. I just don't care enough to seek them out."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:42 pm (UTC)

"So, back to speculating, then," Bridget agrees.

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Flutes can be very piercing. Maybe we'd overwhelm the strings in quantity."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:44 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like a reasonable theory."

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:45 pm (UTC)

And there's the building. "It was nice to meet you."

regularsized
2012-10-15 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you, too, Bella."

self_composed
2012-10-15 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Likewise, Bridget. See you next bio class. Or lab if you go to lab and wind up in my section." Bella waves and heads in to listen to the extended violin sectional.

Her lab section meets the next day. And who should be there but Bridget. "Hi. Are you just hanging out or are you going to do the lab?" Bella asks her.
Edited 2012-10-15 19:34 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-10-15 07:37 pm (UTC)

"I am going to do the lab!" says Bridget. "Hi!"

self_composed
2012-10-15 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Cool, you can be my partner then. We rotate around so I'm not already claimed." Bella heads for a lab table. They are going to witness the behavior of unidirectional membranes with something that has an application in dialysis. Then they are going to write stuff about that down.

This is only somewhat better than high school. Maybe there can be interesting conversations to accompany boring lab, and Bella can run at 1x, and she will be only a little bored.

regularsized
2012-10-15 07:40 pm (UTC)

"It's nice having a Biology Friend," says Bridget, following Bella to the lab table.

self_composed
2012-10-15 07:40 pm (UTC)

"What else are you auditing?" Bella asks, pretending to read the instructions that she memorized on first glance.

regularsized
2012-10-15 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Organic chemistry and statistics. I like statistics better."

self_composed
2012-10-15 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Rumor has it organic chem is terribly hard," Bella says. "What kind of doctor do you want to be?"

She's moved her eyes back and forth across these instructions enough times; she starts setting up, and hands Bridget some stuff to do too.

regularsized
2012-10-15 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I haven't decided yet. That was one of the problems that got me out of it in the first place. Particle physics is much easier."

self_composed
2012-10-15 08:02 pm (UTC)

"In my admission essay I wrote something about how I wanted to be a medical researcher maybe because I got hit by a car this one time," Bella says. "I'm not actually as sure as I made myself sound, though. I certainly didn't have a kind of research picked out."

regularsized
2012-10-15 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Hit by a car? That sounds exciting. I have to admit, though, it probably wouldn't make me want to do medical research."

self_composed
2012-10-15 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I went into more detail than that in the essay, obviously. And I don't think I'd use the word 'exciting'. By the time I regained consciousness there was no further excitement."

regularsized
2012-10-15 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Things that sound exciting often aren't. Particle accelerators, for example. Actually, I lie, particle accelerators are the most exciting thing on the planet."
Edited 2012-10-15 20:07 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-15 08:08 pm (UTC)

"What's so exciting about particle accelerators? Baseball bats accelerate particles. They're not exciting."

Lab lab lab. Bleah.

regularsized
2012-10-15 08:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure under the right circumstances a baseball bat could be very exciting. But no, I mean the big ones. The ones that let us study the basic components that make up our universe. I happen to think that's exciting as hell."

self_composed
2012-10-15 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I know the kind you meant. I'd probably call them 'fascinating' instead though. If you do them right they shouldn't be exciting - an exciting particle accelerator might irradiate you or turn itself on unexpectedly or something. A well-designed particle accelerator should be pretty stable and, except for whatever experimental results you're gathering, predictable."

regularsized
2012-10-15 08:16 pm (UTC)

"The experimental results are the exciting part!" says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-15 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Then the experiment's exciting, not the accelerator," laughs Bella. "I'm sure we could use these materials to do something a lot more interesting than watch one-way diffusion, but these materials we have here? Not exciting."

regularsized
2012-10-15 08:35 pm (UTC)

"What exactly is the difference?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 08:36 pm (UTC)

"You could be using a particle accelerator to just replicate what someone else was doing with their particle accelerator and always get the same results they did. That would be dull."

regularsized
2012-10-15 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but why would I do that?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Because a whole lot of studies turn out not to be replicable, and we can't trust those, so we have to figure out which things do and don't replicate. Doesn't make it exciting just because it's important."

regularsized
2012-10-15 10:05 pm (UTC)

"There aren't so many high-end particle accelerators in the world that any one of them will find themselves running out of new research to do. And given the choice, I wouldn't choose to spend my time exclusively replicating other people's results."

self_composed
2012-10-15 10:07 pm (UTC)

"That's probably why there are so lamentably few replication studies done," says Bella. "It's a real problem, actually - the people qualified to redo studies aren't interested, so they don't, so we go by old results that one study got one time, and for standard p-values that means that one in twenty results we're relying on is just wrong. Coincidence." She looks at their lab experiment with a small sigh. "One thing I can say for this kind of silly make-work is that if it turned out these dialysis membranes didn't consistently work as advertised? Some undergrad class would've noticed by now."

regularsized
2012-10-15 10:09 pm (UTC)

"If I had a particle accelerator of my very own," she says, smiling slightly, "I'd be more likely to check my own work before other people's."

self_composed
2012-10-15 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Sure, but then the idiosyncrasies of your particular accelerator could still throw you off. If you're, I don't know, too far north or there's a little scratch in one bit of the machine or you're using different software to run it or it's too sunny out. You want someone in Switzerland or wherever to help you."

regularsized
2012-10-15 10:36 pm (UTC)

"And if I had a particle accelerator of my very own, I'm sure I'd take that into consideration. Why, do you know where I can find one for sale?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Nah, I have no idea how you'd go about getting one. Don't they have to be built onsite from near-scratch anyway? I think they're big. Can't put them in a shipping container readily."

regularsized
2012-10-15 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes, they're not exactly portable. But then, neither is a house." She cracks a grin. "Now, find me a house with a particle accelerator in the basement, and I'm there."

self_composed
2012-10-15 10:48 pm (UTC)

"If I find one, I will certainly tell you."

regularsized
2012-10-15 10:49 pm (UTC)

"You are turning out to be an excellent friend so far, then."

self_composed
2012-10-15 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Anything else I should be on the lookout for? Giant Tesla coils, islands full of subtly diverse finches, Leaning Towers of Pisa off of which you might drop objects?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Didn't we just go over how I prefer not to replicate other people's results before finding out new ones of my own? Giant Tesla coils sound like fun on a recreational basis, though. I wouldn't mind one of those."

self_composed
2012-10-15 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I was just listing minimally portable scientific items," Bella says, shrugging and noting the required notes in her lab notebook. "Not filtering beyond that."

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:02 pm (UTC)

"In that case, well done."

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Why, thank you."

Lab lab lab. "Do you have any non-science-related interests?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:12 pm (UTC)

"That depends. How science-related is origami, in your opinion?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Not particularly so!" Bella says. "Fold anything cool lately?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm working on a design that I hope will eventually be a duck."

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Is it currently an egg?" Bella asks innocently.

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:21 pm (UTC)

...

Bridget cracks up.

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:38 pm (UTC)

Bella grins, self-satisfied. "I actually know nothing about how origami designs are made."

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Guesswork and math," says Bridget. "In my case, heavy on the guesswork, light on the math."

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Would have expected a physicist to go the other way around. Doesn't physics have lots of math in it?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I just happen to think origami design is more fun if it involves a lot of crumpling up paper and throwing it at the walls."

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:42 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles helplessly. This affects her handwriting, but she recovers after a minute.

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:43 pm (UTC)

Bridget grins. "And now we're even."

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:44 pm (UTC)

Bella grins back at her. "Are we keeping score, now?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Measured in giggles."

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:46 pm (UTC)

"All right then."

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:48 pm (UTC)

"At least until it's been long enough that we forget the score."

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:49 pm (UTC)

"How long do you think that'll take?"

regularsized
2012-10-15 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, that depends how funny we are, doesn't it?"

self_composed
2012-10-15 11:57 pm (UTC)

"I've never particularly defined myself as someone with a great sense of humor," Bella says.

She's drawing a lot of attention to things she isn't unusually good at - suspiciously good at. She's not sure if that will help, but it probably won't hurt.

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:03 am (UTC)

"I think that depends as much on your audience as it does on you."

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:04 am (UTC)

"Probably," Bella agrees. "Although there are some really humorless people in the world."

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:10 am (UTC)

"That is very true."

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:11 am (UTC)

"My dad's not very funny. I wouldn't call him completely without a sense of humor, but he won't usually crack jokes, or laugh too much when he hears them. My mom can be, though."

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:13 am (UTC)

"Oh, parents," says Bridget, enigmatically.

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:14 am (UTC)

"Oh?" Bella asks. "What about yours?" Pause. "Are they funny?"

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:16 am (UTC)

"Not particularly."

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:17 am (UTC)

"What are they like, then?"

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:19 am (UTC)

"Deceased. Previously, not funny."

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:20 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Bella sympathetically.

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:23 am (UTC)

"Thank you. It's all right."

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:24 am (UTC)

The lab is at last completed and written up. Bella hands in her lab notebook and starts tidying everything up.

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:26 am (UTC)

Bridget helps! Bridget is helpful.

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:28 am (UTC)

She is!

"Thanks."

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:35 am (UTC)

"You're welcome! What are Biology Friends for?"

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:36 am (UTC)

"Approximately this," Bella concedes.

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:37 am (UTC)

"I see you're beginning to get the idea."

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:57 am (UTC)

"It is a compelling notion."

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:58 am (UTC)

"I thought so!"

self_composed
2012-10-16 12:58 am (UTC)

"Have you got friends for your other classes yet?"

regularsized
2012-10-16 12:59 am (UTC)

"Statistics yes, organic chemistry no."

self_composed
2012-10-16 01:00 am (UTC)

"Best of luck then. Who's Stats?"

regularsized
2012-10-16 01:04 am (UTC)

"A very cheerful computer science major."

self_composed
2012-10-16 01:15 am (UTC)

"I haven't declared a major yet," muses Bella. Their stuff is all cleaned up; she packs her bag and heads for the door.

regularsized
2012-10-16 01:17 am (UTC)

"Any thoughts on what it's going to be?" she asks, following.

self_composed
2012-10-16 01:18 am (UTC)

"I'm probably going to wind up with a double. Comp sci and bio perhaps, maybe a minor in a social science of some kind."

regularsized
2012-10-16 01:24 am (UTC)

"Comp sci and bio, that's an interesting combination."

self_composed
2012-10-16 01:25 am (UTC)

"Is it? Why?"

regularsized
2012-10-16 10:12 am (UTC)

"Well, they're just not two things you see together a lot."

self_composed
2012-10-16 11:57 pm (UTC)

"I don't see why, if so. They're both STEM fields."

regularsized
2012-10-17 12:56 am (UTC)

"Sure," she says, shrugging. "But there's a lot of possible pairings in that range, and not all of them are common."

self_composed
2012-10-17 12:56 am (UTC)

"Which ones are? Is physics and medicine common?"

regularsized
2012-10-17 01:00 am (UTC)

"No, I don't believe it is," she says, smiling.

self_composed
2012-10-17 01:00 am (UTC)

"Well then."

regularsized
2012-10-17 01:07 am (UTC)

"So we're both interesting."

self_composed
2012-10-17 01:07 am (UTC)

"So it would seem. Or at least I'm leaning towards becoming interesting. What combinations are common - as double majors go?"

regularsized
2012-10-17 01:17 am (UTC)

"Math and computer science—although not as common as it should be, if you listen to some of the computer scientist mathematicians I've known. Math and physics. In general, any two fields that are either closely related or directly useful to each other. If I could go back and do my education in a sensible order, I'd do math and physics instead of physics and biochemistry as my undergraduate majors. But then, if I'd done that in the first place, I wouldn't be here trying to find out if I really want the rest of that medical degree, because I would never have started it."

self_composed
2012-10-17 01:18 am (UTC)

"When you said you had an entire degree in physics, you didn't specify what kinda entire degree. Masters? Doctorate?"

regularsized
2012-10-17 01:20 am (UTC)

"Doctorate."

self_composed
2012-10-17 01:20 am (UTC)

"Doctor Bridget," says Bella experimentally. "Hm."

regularsized
2012-10-17 01:29 am (UTC)

"Dr. Banner, if you must."

self_composed
2012-10-17 01:30 am (UTC)

"I needn't, but I felt like it," says Bella cheerfully. "I doubt I'll go to graduate school, really, unless I do decide to be a doctor. I don't like academia that much and there are so many other things to do."

regularsized
2012-10-17 01:31 am (UTC)

"I like academia. A little too much, some might say."

self_composed
2012-10-17 01:31 am (UTC)

"Too much for what?"

regularsized
2012-10-17 01:50 am (UTC)

"If I agreed with them, maybe I'd know."

self_composed
2012-10-17 04:16 am (UTC)

"What do you like about academia?" inquires Bella.

regularsized
2012-10-17 10:22 am (UTC)

"What don't I? It's just more fun than almost anything else," she says. "Research is definitely my calling."

self_composed
2012-10-17 05:24 pm (UTC)

"So you looooove writing grant proposals, and playing department politics, and doing literature review," says Bella skeptically.

regularsized
2012-10-17 07:22 pm (UTC)

"All right, correction: The list of things I don't like about academia is a lot smaller than the list of things I like, and I don't keep either one of them on hand in case of nosy undergrads."

self_composed
2012-10-17 07:59 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers.

regularsized
2012-10-17 08:00 pm (UTC)

Bridget grins.

self_composed
2012-10-17 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, as they approach the soccer field, "I have a practice. I'll see you later."

regularsized
2012-10-17 08:05 pm (UTC)

"See you!"

self_composed
2012-10-17 08:35 pm (UTC)

After a few days, Bella finds a time when both she and Bridget are available to get together and study. She proposes her own room. (It has a giant bean bag in it and is therefore obviously the best.)

regularsized
2012-10-17 09:15 pm (UTC)

Bridget is swayed by the giant bean bag argument! She shows up with her Biology notebook and a head full of interesting ideas.

self_composed
2012-10-17 10:00 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't really need to do any studying, between eidetic memory and cognitive speedup; no one is expecting original insight from a freshman and she's not trying to stand out that much. She'll let Bridget steer the study session as much as she can without being conspicuous. (Having a study session at all instead of just hanging out with Bridget recreationally is also to be inconspicuous. It helps a little that Janine's going to be around to witness the "studying".)

regularsized
2012-10-17 11:14 pm (UTC)

Consulting a scrap of paper to verify that she has the right room number, she knocks.

self_composed
2012-10-17 11:15 pm (UTC)

Bella gets the door. "Bridget, hi! How are you? Janine, this is Bridget, Bridget, this is my roomie Janine."

regularsized
2012-10-17 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Bridget.

"Hi!" says Janine, waving from where she sits cross-legged on her bed.

"I think my first question," says Bridget, "is: who gets the bean bag?"

self_composed
2012-10-17 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I think it's big enough for two or three people as long as we don't care very much about facing in the same direction," says Bella.

regularsized
2012-10-17 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, I care about not facing in opposite directions, because that would make conversation awkward," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-17 11:21 pm (UTC)

"We can turn our heads," Bella says.

regularsized
2012-10-18 01:06 am (UTC)

"Well, let's try it and see."

self_composed
2012-10-18 01:07 am (UTC)

Bella occupies one-third of the beanbag with no further ado, and opens her biology text on her lap.

regularsized
2012-10-18 01:09 am (UTC)

Bridget perches on the remainder. As is the way with beanbags, 'on' quickly becomes 'in'.

"Comfy," she declares.

self_composed
2012-10-18 02:41 am (UTC)

"Isn't it?" Bella agrees. "What did you want to cover today?"

regularsized
2012-10-18 10:21 am (UTC)

"Well, I was thinking..."

Bridget does a lot of thinking. One of the real tests of a Class Friend, the things that make the difference between someone who will stay a friend past the end of the class and someone who won't, is whether or not they can keep up.

self_composed
2012-10-18 04:08 pm (UTC)

Bella can. She turns up to one-and-a-half to be sure, but she can!

regularsized
2012-10-18 04:26 pm (UTC)

It quickly becomes apparent that Bella is going to be a very fun study buddy.

That makes Bridget's life a whole lot easier.

She becomes increasingly cheerful and animated as the study session continues.

self_composed
2012-10-18 04:40 pm (UTC)

"We're going to wind up overqualified for this course," Bella predicts. "Aren't the tests mostly multiple-choice because there's a hundred of us and the professor doesn't want to read our handwriting?"

regularsized
2012-10-18 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Are you not having fun? Because I'm having fun," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-18 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm having fun, I'm just kind of wondering why you aren't in a 300-level specialized class. I mean, I wondered that before, but I wonder it again."

regularsized
2012-10-18 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Because I like to be thorough," she says.

self_composed
2012-10-18 04:45 pm (UTC)

"It's a peculiar notion of thoroughness that puts a physics Ph.D. with half a degree in medicine, in Bio 101 because she may want to finish being a medical doctor," says Bella.
Edited 2012-10-18 16:46 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-10-18 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I'd rather go through it all from the beginning and risk boredom than pick up where I left off and risk missing something. And, conveniently, I'm not bored."

self_composed
2012-10-18 04:57 pm (UTC)

Bella pauses for a moment, then shrugs and returns to their original topic. It is admittedly not boring.

regularsized
2012-10-18 05:02 pm (UTC)

A few minutes later, during a lull in the scientific speculation, Bridget asks, "What has you so curious about my unusual educational preferences, anyway?"

self_composed
2012-10-18 05:04 pm (UTC)

"They're different from mine. I left high school early; I tested into an advanced programming course; I'm just about the right qualification level for this one but it's moving a little slowly and I'd be terribly frustrated with it if I didn't have other classes and stuff to keep me busy. I'm impatient. I can learn fast, so why shouldn't I?"

regularsized
2012-10-18 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Good question," says Bridget. "Sadly, not one I can answer."

self_composed
2012-10-18 05:15 pm (UTC)

"And you're obviously brilliant, if I were you I'd just have applied directly back to medical school, and if I ran into any gaps I'd find a book about it and fill it in that way."

regularsized
2012-10-18 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Ah, and there we have it. The main value of institutional education is in teaching you things you didn't know you needed to know," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-18 05:19 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "You could still get that more efficiently by swiping a copy of the syllabus. Did you learn anything from the lab the other day, the tedious one with the dialysis membranes? It took an hour and a half of your life."

regularsized
2012-10-18 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm having a little trouble with your definition of efficient. Maybe I just value my effort more than my time. If someone else has gone to all the trouble of streamlining the process of learning for me and packaging it for sale, why should I interfere?"

self_composed
2012-10-18 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Do you eat a lot of prepackaged food even when you have access to a kitchen and go on guided tours when you travel, too?" Bella asks, wrinkling her nose.

regularsized
2012-10-18 06:40 pm (UTC)

"I'll admit to the first one, but I don't actually travel that much."

self_composed
2012-10-18 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I guess I'll chalk it up to personality differences," shrugs Bella. "One-size-fits-all doesn't reliably fit me. I can often get more of what I want by finding it myself."

regularsized
2012-10-18 08:07 pm (UTC)

"In that case, why are you here?"

self_composed
2012-10-18 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Unreliably, not never - and as I get further along, I'll be able to take more highly specialized classes and mix those up according to how I like. I just have to slog through some introductory prerequisites."

regularsized
2012-10-18 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's fair," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-18 08:21 pm (UTC)

"I'd hope so," laughs Bella.

regularsized
2012-10-18 08:32 pm (UTC)

Bridget giggles.

self_composed
2012-10-18 08:35 pm (UTC)

Studying-slash-discourse-on-vaguely-biology-related-subjects ensues. "I have about a half an hour left before I need to go to my sectional," Bella says after a few more minutes. "Anything you wanted to be sure to get in?"

regularsized
2012-10-18 08:42 pm (UTC)

"No, I think we've covered it," says Bridget. "Should I clear out?"

self_composed
2012-10-18 08:44 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "Up to you. I blocked out the entire period before the sectional."

regularsized
2012-10-18 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't have anywhere to be." She glances up at the occupied bed. "How are you doing over there, Janine?"

"Recalcitrant electrons," says Janine.

"...I think that's a what, not a how," says Bridget. "And also possibly more information than I needed."

Janine giggles. "Homework," she clarifies.

"Whew."

self_composed
2012-10-18 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I'll bite. How are the electrons being recalcitrant?" asks Bella.

regularsized
2012-10-18 08:51 pm (UTC)

"They are refusing to flow in a logically consistent way!" says Janine.

"They do that," Bridget says sagely.

self_composed
2012-10-18 08:53 pm (UTC)

"They do?" Bella asks curiously.

regularsized
2012-10-18 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Two of the trickiest things in the world are subatomic particles and homework," says Bridget. "I distantly recall that they get even worse when you combine them."

Janine giggles again.

self_composed
2012-10-18 09:00 pm (UTC)

"But electrons aren't actually logically inconsistent, yes? I mean, if they are, someone needs to revise their axioms of logic."

regularsized
2012-10-18 09:12 pm (UTC)

"It's an issue of conflicting models," says Bridget. "Not that I think that's what's going on here, but the representation of electron flow in a circuit diagram and the actual behaviour of individual electrons is very different. It's a problem in microchip design, I believe; if you make a conductor thin enough, below some threshold number of atoms wide, you start getting quantum effects that turn your chip from a tiny intricate logic machine into a tiny intricate ongoing accident."

"No, I think this is just me making a silly mistake I haven't found yet," says Janine.

"Yeah, that happens too."

self_composed
2012-10-18 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I used to do that sort of silly little thing in trig all the time," Bella said. "I kept turning SOHCAHTOA into various kinds of spoonerism."

regularsized
2012-10-18 09:17 pm (UTC)

"I have never been able to make that so-called mnemonic work for me," Bridget confesses.

"Me neither!" says Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-18 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I got it memorized eventually, but it didn't help when I needed it - it got to the point where I reconstructed the mnemonic based on what I knew about the functions," says Bella.

regularsized
2012-10-18 09:20 pm (UTC)

Bridget snorts. "I think that's what we call an ineffective teaching aid."

self_composed
2012-10-18 09:21 pm (UTC)

"It seemed to help some people," Bella shrugs. "Just not me."

regularsized
2012-10-18 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, partially effective, then."

"Can you name any of these mythical people?" wonders Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-18 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Jessica used it all the time," Bella says. "She was who I used to study trig with the most. And the guy who sat behind me talked to himself under his breath all the time, and he seemed to lean on it pretty heavily."

regularsized
2012-10-18 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Janine.

"It does happen," says Bridget. "In fact I dare say we're the outliers."

self_composed
2012-10-18 10:31 pm (UTC)

"None of us in this room are typical people, I daresay," Bella says. "Probably half the folks who make it to Stanford aren't. The people we went to high school with are normal - for our socioeconomic classes, anyway."

regularsized
2012-10-18 10:39 pm (UTC)

"No one I went to high school with was normal, I'm pretty sure," says Janine.

"No one I went to high school with was memorable," says Bridget. "At least not after this long."

self_composed
2012-10-18 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Did you go to an unusual high school of some kind?" Bella asks Janine.

regularsized
2012-10-18 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes!" says Janine. "It was ostensibly for gifted children but in fact seemed to accept anyone who was any two of rich, smart, and weird."

Bridget quirks a smile. "That sounds interesting."

"Extremely!"

self_composed
2012-10-18 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so your high school doesn't count. I went to public schools in middle-class neighborhoods," shrugs Bella.

regularsized
2012-10-18 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Same here," says Bridget.

"My school had many advantages, but no kind of normality was ever one of them," says Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-18 11:07 pm (UTC)

"I went to a big normal school in Phoenix and a little normal school in Forks and met normal people there," laughs Bella. "And a statistically typical number of abnormal ones."

regularsized
2012-10-18 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Which kind did you make friends with?" inquires Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-18 11:19 pm (UTC)

"A mix. You've met Alice, of course, so there's that, but Jessica and Angela and Eric were pretty normal. Angela I even still email occasionally."

regularsized
2012-10-18 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Alice seems nice," says Janine, "but definitely abnormal enough for at least three people."

"Who is this Alice of whom you speak?" asks Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-18 11:22 pm (UTC)

"My boyfriend," says Bella cheerily.

regularsized
2012-10-18 11:24 pm (UTC)

"...Please tell me more about your boyfriend," Bridget requests, "if only so I can erase the image of you dating Alice Cooper from my mind."

Janine laughs.

self_composed
2012-10-18 11:29 pm (UTC)

"That's actually one of the reasons he goes by that name, if I recall correctly," says Bella. "He's - hm, I don't think I actually have any picture of him handy, I should fix that for just this sort of situation. He's tall and he's got wavy brown hair just shy of shoulder length and he makes extremely distinctive facial expressions that defy verbal description. He sews dresses and bakes."

regularsized
2012-10-18 11:32 pm (UTC)

"He sounds fascinating," says Bridget. "Does he or does he not wear stage makeup on a regular basis?"

"I have never seen him in any," volunteers Janine. "But I have not seen him that many times."

self_composed
2012-10-18 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Makeup very occasionally, but not stage makeup. Dresses, though, he will occasionally wear."
Edited 2012-10-18 23:33 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-10-18 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Where does he live?" wonders Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-18 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Still in Forks, but he visits me here sometimes."

regularsized
2012-10-18 11:40 pm (UTC)

"One more question. Where the heck is Forks?"

self_composed
2012-10-18 11:40 pm (UTC)

Bella chuckles. "Little nowhere town in Washington State."

regularsized
2012-10-18 11:43 pm (UTC)

"A long-distance relationship. Congratulations. I've never been able to hang onto one of those."

"He visits a lot," says Janine.

self_composed
2012-10-18 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we keep in close touch," Bella says.

[You're being talked about,] she informs Alice. And turns the read on, because why not, she can speed up if she needs to in order to juggle two conversations.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-18 11:50 pm (UTC)

Alice is in the middle of making dinner. Currently that means sitting on the kitchen counter in his lair, waiting for water to boil.

[By who?] he wonders, smiling at nothing in particular. Bella has that effect on him.

regularsized
2012-10-18 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Is he also in college, or...?"

self_composed
2012-10-19 12:02 am (UTC)

[Me and Janine and my biology study-buddy Bridget.]

"No, he's not in anything at the moment, although he has a lovely little startup business for the dressmaking - Janine is among the customers," Bella says, waving a hand at her roommate.

regularsized
2012-10-19 12:06 am (UTC)

"They are beautiful dresses and I wish I could afford more of them," says Janine.

"Maybe I should look him up," muses Bridget.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-19 12:07 am (UTC)

[Why do you have a study-buddy?] wonders Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-19 12:11 am (UTC)

[She wanted one for Bio and I like her. She's actually got a doctorate in physics and she's just being weirdly thorough about going back through school for medicine.]

"If you want a dress I can put the request through for you," Bella offers.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-19 12:12 am (UTC)

[She sounds awesome,] declares Alice. [Is she hot?]

regularsized
2012-10-19 12:13 am (UTC)

"I think I'd want to know what his dresses are like first," says Bridget. "No offense, but I expect your opinion to be biased."

"I could show you the one he made me," says Janine, "but it is not really representative."

self_composed
2012-10-19 12:16 am (UTC)

"I have two," Bella says. She gets out the little black dress and the autumn one. "They're different for everyone, he does everything custom."

[I'm straight, Alice. I guess she's kinda nerd-pretty? Glasses, brown hair, doesn't dress like she expected to leave the house on any given morning?]

regularsized
2012-10-19 12:20 am (UTC)

"...I like," says Bridget, quite sincerely.

Janine gets out her own example, of which Bridget also voices approval.

"What kind of commissions does he take? What's his price range? Not too exorbitant, I hope."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-19 12:22 am (UTC)

[I like her already!] says Alice. His mental image is not very precise, but is more or less accurate.

self_composed
2012-10-19 12:23 am (UTC)

"It's been about a hundred bucks per, depending on the design. He doesn't really care about the money, he has enough, but he doesn't take every order that comes in," Bella says.

[She likes the dresses, too. She might want one.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-19 12:29 am (UTC)

[Ooooh,] says Alice, clapping his hands.

regularsized
2012-10-19 12:32 am (UTC)

"Does he expect creative input?" asks Bridget, as Janine puts her dress away. "Because I have no creative input, I just know I want one."

self_composed
2012-10-19 12:39 am (UTC)

"Not necessarily, but ideally you'd have some idea - where you want to wear it, what season, if it needs to be machine washable, that sort of thing," Bella says. "And he needs measurements too."

regularsized
2012-10-19 12:53 am (UTC)

"It definitely needs to be machine washable," says Bridget. "I am not a dry cleaning person."

"I can tell," Janine dares to comment. Bridget grins at her.

self_composed
2012-10-19 12:54 am (UTC)

"What colors do you like? What fabrics? How much skin do you want to show?" Bella presses.

regularsized
2012-10-19 12:56 am (UTC)

"Purple, I don't know, and... you know, I'm not sure," she says musingly.

self_composed
2012-10-19 12:58 am (UTC)

"My boyfriend is the kind of person to consider taking an 'I'm not sure' there and turning it into 'see how much dress you can make out of a roll of dyed dental floss'," Bella says dryly. "I advise you to pick a minimum neckline and hemline."
Edited 2012-10-19 00:58 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-10-19 12:59 am (UTC)

Bridget cracks up.

"Noted!"

self_composed
2012-10-19 01:00 am (UTC)

"Lemme know when you have everything you want to specify picked out, and I'll tell him," Bella says cheerfully.

regularsized
2012-10-19 01:02 am (UTC)

"I will do that," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-19 01:36 am (UTC)

Bella puts her dresses away and sits back down on the beanbag. "Good good."

super speed and other exceptional abilities

self_composed

Wisconsin fast plants (so called because they are from Wisconsin, fast-growing, and plants) are the subject of Bella and Bridget's chosen bio experiment. It involves taking at least some measurements after sunset - Bella managed to find an exact specific experiment design that hasn't been done before, when she heard they were allowed to choose their own, and even though all it will determine is whether indoor plants without windows can "tell if it's night" even if you leave the light on all the time, she is slightly excited about this.

She meets Bridget there. They measure their plants in the lit room and the dark room, take pictures, and write down subjective evaluations of leaf droopiness. They leave.

They're about a third of the way to Bella's building when a man's voice behind them says, "Hello, girls."

regularsized
2012-10-19 05:35 pm (UTC)

Oh. Great.

Bridget ignores him.

self_composed
2012-10-19 05:36 pm (UTC)

Bella does too.

"I said hello, girls," repeats the voice. The footsteps are following them.

regularsized
2012-10-19 05:38 pm (UTC)

Bridget glances over her shoulder, irritated rather than unsettled.

self_composed
2012-10-19 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Just wanna talk," says the guy. He's tall, and not much of his face is visible in the dark. He's also wearing sunglasses for some reason. "Isn't it much nicer when people can talk to each other? Goes much smoother. Say hello."

regularsized
2012-10-19 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Get lost," she suggests.

self_composed
2012-10-19 05:45 pm (UTC)

"That's not hello," says the man.

There is a loud bang.

Bella ramps up to 6x and whirls around with what seems like absurd slowness at that runspeed. She's not in pain - he missed or didn't shoot at her - but she has coins, she triangles the gun jammed, that could happen by itself, right? She pentagons aikido, knocks his gun arm aside like she's still afraid of it, locks his wrist when he grabs for her and drives him to the ground and breaks it. "Bridget. Bridget, are you okay?"
Edited 2012-10-19 17:46 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-10-19 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine," Bridget says wryly.

A flattened bullet falls to the ground from somewhere in the vicinity of her shoulderblades. There is a large, obvious hole through the back of her jacket that matches another large, obvious hole in the shirt beneath, but her skin is unmarked.

self_composed
2012-10-19 05:54 pm (UTC)

Bella stares.

She didn't do that.

The guy is trying to kick her from his pinned position. She twists the broken wrist again and he screams.

"Call the cops," she says.

Pause.

"If you tie your jacket around your shoulders they'll be less likely to haul you off to a lab and prevent me from asking you a great many questions."

regularsized
2012-10-19 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I hate when that happens," says Bridget, although she doesn't clarify what exactly 'that' is.

She also, after a little rearranging, manages to find a configuration for the jacket that does not reveal any suspicious holes. Then she picks up the ex-bullet and tucks it into her purse. Then she calls the cops.

self_composed
2012-10-19 06:02 pm (UTC)

"They're going to know the gun was fired," Bella says under her breath. "O Dr. Physicist, put it somewhere so it could've flattened against a wall or the sidewalk and bounced there, please."

"You freaks," starts their attacker. Bella puts her knee on his neck in a cheap version of a sleeper hold and his eyes roll back in his head and he falls unconscious.

regularsized
2012-10-19 06:07 pm (UTC)

Bridget shrugs, walks down the street a little ways, polishes the ex-bullet with the sleeve of her jacket, and tosses it at a sewer grate. It falls in.

self_composed
2012-10-19 06:08 pm (UTC)

"That works too."

Bella gets up off the guy - she'll be able to catch him if he wakes up sooner than she expects. She waits for the cops.

regularsized
2012-10-19 06:10 pm (UTC)

When the cops do show up, Bridget is unusually soft-spoken and laconic. She does a credible imitation of someone who was just shot at and is finding it a traumatic experience.

self_composed
2012-10-19 06:14 pm (UTC)

Bella's impression is of someone who has actually practiced aikido at some point. (She's going to have to think of a place she could reasonably picked that up; Youtube demonstrations wouldn't give her muscle memory.) Also someone whose response to trauma is mania rather than withdrawal. She jabbers quickly in grammatically incorrect sentences and has to expend a square to actually produce the name of the throw she used. She waves her arm wildly when asked where the gun was fired. "It didn't hit me but oh god it was so loud and I thought he got Bridget and I just it was like oh my god!" she exclaims, trembling for effect.

regularsized
2012-10-19 06:22 pm (UTC)

Bridget's main contribution to this line of inquiry is looking subdued and nodding along with Bella.

self_composed
2012-10-19 06:23 pm (UTC)

The police collect phone numbers and escort them to within eyeshot of Bella's building.

"Okay," Bella says. "Spill."

regularsized
2012-10-19 10:48 pm (UTC)

"By 'spill' do you mean tell you why I am impervious to bullets?" asks Bridget. "Because it's kind of a long story and not one I am particularly keen on dragging out in the middle of the street."

self_composed
2012-10-19 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Janine is home. Do you have a better idea for a location?"

regularsized
2012-10-19 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if my place is really a better idea, considering it's a fifteen-minute walk away, but it's an idea."

self_composed
2012-10-19 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Are you also invulnerable to motorcycle accidents?" Bella asks, gesturing at Tegu in the parking lot.

regularsized
2012-10-19 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Completely."

self_composed
2012-10-19 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I bet it's a shorter ride than a walk," says Bella, stalking towards her bike. "Shall we?"

regularsized
2012-10-19 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bridget, following.

self_composed
2012-10-19 11:09 pm (UTC)

Bella keeps the riding gear in the saddlebags, which have combination locks on them now; she doesn't bother with the full kit, but does put on the jacket and the helmet. "On you go," she says. "Point, within my field of vision, for turns; I might not be able to hear you," she adds before dropping the helmet in place and putting one leg over her bike.

When Bridget is securely in place, Bella starts up and heads out.

regularsized
2012-10-19 11:13 pm (UTC)

It is in fact a pretty short ride on the bike, to a small, unremarkable apartment building where Bridget leads Bella up to a small, unremarkable apartment.

"Do you mind if I change my shirt first?" she asks as she closes the door behind them.

self_composed
2012-10-19 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Go ahead," says Bella, sitting in the first chair she sees.

regularsized
2012-10-19 11:23 pm (UTC)

Bridget darts into her bedroom and emerges about ten seconds later wearing the first shirt she grabbed.

"There, that's better," she says, and leans on the arm of her couch.

"So, I'm impervious to physical injury. I haven't always been. It started when I was a kid. You remember I told you my parents weren't funny? Well, my dad was the kind of not funny that lends itself to noticing when one day you can't get hurt anymore. I hope I don't have to draw you a picture."

She shrugs.

"Questions?"

self_composed
2012-10-19 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Do you happen to know how you developed this power?"

regularsized
2012-10-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

"I don't have any unshakeable theories, no. There were no fairy godmothers involved."

self_composed
2012-10-19 11:26 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks.

"Did anyone besides you and your dad know exactly how not-funny he was?"

regularsized
2012-10-19 11:29 pm (UTC)

"...Why is that relevant?"

self_composed
2012-10-19 11:31 pm (UTC)

"You said no fairy godmother, but if it wasn't your own doing, and it wasn't your dad's, and people spontaneously becoming physically invulnerable isn't something on the books as a normal childhood event, maybe somebody else did it, because of that, and then if I want to find out what's going on I know where to look next. So. Non-fairy godmother? Your mom? Siblings cousins friends aunts uncles next-door neighbors?"

regularsized
2012-10-19 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Why is someone else doing it any more likely than it happening spontaneously, if you've never heard of either?"

self_composed
2012-10-19 11:37 pm (UTC)

"I didn't say I ruled out it happening spontaneously, but I can't get as far on that possibility through mere conversation," Bella says. "Or other routes either, really - I'm not qualified to look at your genes or whatnot even if you were inclined to let me, which, why would you, if you wanted that done you could do it yourself."

regularsized
2012-10-19 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, to answer your question, I don't know for sure that anybody knew but there's some people that I don't know for sure that they didn't. Needless to say, I'm not in contact with any of them anymore."

self_composed
2012-10-19 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Was there anything special about the day it happened, or the day before?"

regularsized
2012-10-19 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Special meaning what? I was eight. I wasn't that observant."

self_composed
2012-10-19 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, this phenomenon is weird enough that it could be related to anything. Was it your birthday? Did interesting things happen at school? Was the weather funky? Did you meet a strange old lady with whom you shared half of your lunch?" Bella shrugs.

regularsized
2012-10-20 12:00 am (UTC)

"You're a very curious person," Bridget observes.

self_composed
2012-10-20 12:01 am (UTC)

"Yes. Yes I am."

regularsized
2012-10-20 12:16 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Bridget. "What if I told you I'm not the only person I know who has mysterious powers spontaneously developed during childhood?"

self_composed
2012-10-20 12:17 am (UTC)

"That would be very interesting. Is the other person also indestructible? Did they also develop the power at age eight? Was it also uncommonly useful to them relative to the general population?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 12:21 am (UTC)

"I'm reluctant to tell you too much about them without asking them first, but: no, I don't think so, and less than it was for me."

self_composed
2012-10-20 12:23 am (UTC)

"Do they have an idea about where their power came from, perhaps one they haven't told you?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 12:25 am (UTC)

"If they have an idea, they definitely haven't told me about it. Our best theory so far is 'it just happens sometimes'."

self_composed
2012-10-20 12:29 am (UTC)

"How did you meet them? How'd you find out they had a power too?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 12:30 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Bridget. "I will ask them if I can talk to you about all that."

self_composed
2012-10-20 12:31 am (UTC)

Bella grumbles. "Fine. Back to your power. You've got an experimental mindset, haven't you, do you know your tolerances?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 12:41 am (UTC)

"I know my tolerances are mostly beyond my ability or inclination to find," she says. "Cold weather is uncomfortable but I didn't manage to give myself frostbite the one time I tried. I don't need oven mitts. I don't get chemical burns. I have yet to meet the impact that can so much as bruise me, and I am impermeable to sharp objects including needles, knives, and any power tool you can name. Which was very exciting to test, let me tell you. I also don't get sick, although I haven't deliberately tested my resistance to infection in any systematic way."

self_composed
2012-10-20 12:46 am (UTC)

"That must have made getting your vaccinations for school interesting," comments Bella.

regularsized
2012-10-20 12:55 am (UTC)

"If I'd gone to a school that cared, it probably would have."

self_composed
2012-10-20 12:59 am (UTC)

"Ah."

This is truly fascinating.

"What else do you know about the power? Does it vary at all with time or circumstance, does it interact with the other person's power...? Exactly how does it protect you if you're forced into some position humans typically can't occupy without injury, like if I tried that same wrist-break I used on that creep only I was also half-steamroller? Do you just fail to twist past that point, or do your various parts extend their tolerances as they go so you could in theory turn your head all the way around like an owl if you had the right machinery?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:04 am (UTC)

...Bridget laughs. "You have a positively vicious imagination," she says. "I haven't tested that specifically, but if I had to guess, I'd say the first one. I have broken a few drill bits, stripped the teeth off a chainsaw, and now flattened a bullet."

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:05 am (UTC)

"Would you mind awfully if I did try to break your wrist, to see for myself?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:11 am (UTC)

"Go for it. Where did you learn to break people's wrists, anyway?"

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:16 am (UTC)

"Snuck to aikido lessons for a while when my mom thought I was at various other things. Didn't want to tell her because she'd think it meant I felt unsafe and do silly overprotective things - and couldn't keep up when I moved, but there's Youtube and my boyfriend let me toss him around. I didn't know till tonight if I could pull it off in reality." [Fictitious backstory update: I have practiced aikido on you and can totally kick your ass therewith. We can make that non-fictitious if it appeals to you,] she informs Alice.

Bella then gets up, takes hold of Bridget's hand, and attempts the throw. "Erm," she says, when Bridget just stands there. "Oh, right, usually your tendons would be screaming at you to get on the floor now - but the technique can work on people who can't feel it if you push a little harder, by sheer leverage. Cops use it on people too drugged to feel anything all the time." She follows through harder, Bridget goes down, and she leans on the wrist.

It does not go.

"That is really fascinating."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-20 01:17 am (UTC)

[Hell yes that appeals to me,] says Alice, predictably.

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:18 am (UTC)

"Ta-daa," says Bridget, somewhat deadpan.

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:19 am (UTC)

[In other news Bridget is physically invulnerable.]

Bella lets her up, applauds politely, and says, "Is it hard to keep this under wraps?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:26 am (UTC)

"Less so than you'd think," she says, getting to her feet. "I haven't been made like this in a long time. As long as I don't rely on it, which I don't, it's pretty easy to avoid demonstrating."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-20 01:26 am (UTC)

[Sucks to be Bridget,] is Alice's first response, because of course it is. [That's kinda awesome, though. Did you tell her about your brain?]

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:30 am (UTC)

[No. Have not told her about my brain, or anything about coins - which is the only way we could know about my brain. And I don't think it sucks to be Bridget, unless she would otherwise have had the chance to do wishcoining.]

"Huh," says Bella. "Does anything hurt you? I mean, you said cold weather is uncomfortable - do you get hungry? Cramps around your time of the month? Migraines, gas, flashes of bright light, loud noises? Cayenne pepper?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:33 am (UTC)

"I do get hungry, I don't get cramps or headaches, loud noises are annoying and no I have not tested whether I am susceptible to hearing damage, spicy things taste like spicy things but they don't really hurt."

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-20 01:34 am (UTC)

[But what if she's really into pain and doesn't know it 'cause she can't get hurt? That would suck!] he insists.

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:37 am (UTC)

[She didn't always have it, she developed it as a kid. Apparently she gets hungry, so if that were something she were into - which I hope you realize is ludicrously uncommon, especially at your level of intensity - she could starve herself for a bit and enjoy lovely abdominal agony. She has run tests, but not as many tests as I would expect you to run if you woke up with her power and were frantic for a loophole.]

"Hmm." Bella taps her chin. "What if you tweeze hairs out of your leg or something? Will they refuse to come out, or does it just not hurt when they do?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-20 01:41 am (UTC)

Alice is momentarily distracted by that thought.

It is kind of genuinely horrifying in a way that very few things are, until he remembers that Bella has magic pain powers, which makes it a little better, and then he remembers that he could have magic pain powers if he wanted to and could use them on himself, and then it's fine.

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:42 am (UTC)

"I have not in fact tried that bizarrely specific test," she says. "I do shed hair sometimes in the normal way."

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:44 am (UTC)

"Have you got tweezers?" Bella says. "I'm curious!"

She hits Alice with a comforting medium-square amount of "tension headache" flavor, as a screwed up long-distance substitute for a pat on the head. [There there. You are very unlikely to wake up with her power.]
Edited 2012-10-20 01:45 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-20 01:47 am (UTC)

He hugs himself and grins, appropriately comforted. [I love you.]

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:48 am (UTC)

"I don't have tweezers," she admits. "Sorry to disappoint."

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:49 am (UTC)

"Rats. Hm. What else hurts but doesn't really injure... I assume you can cut your nails, right? Or they'd be ridiculously long. What about the nail that's still right over the nail bed? For most people any direct contact with the skin under the fingernail will hurt." Pause. "Am I being creepy? I am concerned that I am being creepy."

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:52 am (UTC)

"I am more entertained than creeped out by a long shot," says Bridget. "I will let you know if that changes. I used to chew my fingernails when I was a kid, post-miracle, and I never managed to hurt myself that way; does that adequately answer your question?"

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:53 am (UTC)

"Depends on how aggressively you chewed them."

regularsized
2012-10-20 01:55 am (UTC)

"Pretty aggressively, but then, I don't know how much chewing is usually enough to hurt."

self_composed
2012-10-20 01:57 am (UTC)

"Enough to get down to the pink. I encourage you to mess around with that if you care, but I'm going to file that under 'probably doesn't hurt'. Hmm. What if you sleep on a terrible bed for a week solid, or drink preposterous amounts of things like alcohol or coffee or other things that can kill you in quantity?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 02:01 am (UTC)

"I haven't experimented with either of those. How do you come up with these things?" she wonders.

self_composed
2012-10-20 02:02 am (UTC)

"I'm very creative," says Bella. "You are old enough to drink, right? I'm assuming. Perhaps you are an absurd prodigy with a PhD at age twenty."

regularsized
2012-10-20 02:03 am (UTC)

"Arguably I am an absurd prodigy, but not quite that absurd, no."

self_composed
2012-10-20 02:03 am (UTC)

"How old are you then?"

regularsized
2012-10-20 02:22 am (UTC)

"Twenty-six. I started my PhD when I was twenty, is that absurd enough for you?"

self_composed
2012-10-20 02:24 am (UTC)

"That is quite absurd," says Bella, congratulatory.

regularsized
2012-10-20 02:24 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bridget, amused.

self_composed
2012-10-20 02:25 am (UTC)

"So you can see if you can get a hangover, and if you can't, increasing attempts at liver poisoning would be fascinating, although I'll understand if you don't care to risk the latter."

regularsized
2012-10-20 02:26 am (UTC)

"I haven't experimented with hangovers, but I feel pretty safe in saying I don't get them."

self_composed
2012-10-20 02:27 am (UTC)

Bella chuckles. "I'm led to understand that you are lucky in this respect as in others."

regularsized
2012-10-20 09:45 am (UTC)

"Yeah, so I've gathered."

self_composed
2012-10-20 08:33 pm (UTC)

"If you and something else experience a lot of friction, like if you'd fallen off my bike and gone skidding across the road, does it generate heat that simply fails to hurt you, or fail to generate heat at all? I think it would be obvious if you were absolutely frictionless, but in the same sense that your wrist failed to go past a certain point perhaps you don't generate friction past a certain point?"

regularsized
2012-10-21 01:06 am (UTC)

"Good question. I haven't investigated it specifically."

self_composed
2012-10-21 05:30 pm (UTC)

"You probably don't have any sandpaper or matches or whatever, either," says Bella, sighing.

regularsized
2012-10-21 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Have I mentioned you have a vicious imagination?"

self_composed
2012-10-21 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Something to that effect, yes. Do inform me if I become creepy."

regularsized
2012-10-21 05:33 pm (UTC)

"As promised. But I don't creep easily."

self_composed
2012-10-21 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Which is why you're getting to hear the vicious ideas instead of me keeping them to myself. Hmm. I suppose if you were tossed into a large piece of machinery, it would break, and you would give whoever threw you there a withering look, but could you actually get out? I mean, are you only particularly tough when stuff is trying to break you, or can you exert the same defensive force outward and break stuff at the location you prefer? Be all 'no, comically enormous clockwork, you cannot move my arm there before this gear twists into uselessness, do it here instead'."

regularsized
2012-10-21 05:41 pm (UTC)

"...I'm having trouble picturing exactly what you mean, but the images I'm generating are hilarious," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-21 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay, lemme pick an easier to imagine example than comically enormous clockwork. Suppose you stick your arm through the bars of a cage which contains a tiger. It bites you. It can't break the skin, but you aren't made of rock, so it can get hold of you and pull anyway. Can you just stand there - can you basically lean on the fact that your shoulder will not come out of its socket and the teeth will not go through your skin, to also keep your feet planted - or is the tiger going to get you up against the bars of the cage and hold you there until it gets bored?"

regularsized
2012-10-21 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Good question," she says. "Although I refer you to the chainsaw example—if your tiger bites hard enough, it'll break teeth."

self_composed
2012-10-21 05:57 pm (UTC)

"It is a relatively friendly tiger," Bella suggests.

regularsized
2012-10-21 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm not keen to wrestle any tigers to find out, but it's possible I might break its teeth in the process of trying to get my arm back."

self_composed
2012-10-21 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Interesting. But can you just break stuff when your bodily integrity isn't so obviously on the line? If you push on a wall really hard, that probably won't hurt you even if you fail, but if you did it hard enough it might make a regular person's hand slightly uncomfortable - would the wall break rather than 'pushing back' enough to make you slightly uncomfortable?"

regularsized
2012-10-21 06:01 pm (UTC)

"If you can suggest a test, I'm all for finding out."

self_composed
2012-10-21 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Find a wall you don't care about that I can't knock over with a good solid push, and push on it."

regularsized
2012-10-21 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, do you know any good walls?"

self_composed
2012-10-21 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Not off the top of my head. I will let you know if I find one."

regularsized
2012-10-21 06:06 pm (UTC)

"You do that."

self_composed
2012-10-21 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Hmm, what else..." Bella taps her chin. "I may actually be running out of other questions. For the time being."

regularsized
2012-10-21 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I am genuinely astonished," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-21 06:10 pm (UTC)

"It had to happen eventually. Oh! I was wrong. I suppose the whole thing applies to all of you. What happens if you bite your own tongue?"

regularsized
2012-10-21 06:12 pm (UTC)

Bridget tries it.

"Sore jaw muscles," she concludes. "Now that's interesting."

self_composed
2012-10-21 07:09 pm (UTC)

"It is!" Bella agrees. "Hmmm. Ooh - if you hold a hot thing, it doesn't hurt you - I imagine you can tell it's warm, but perhaps you are nonetheless thereby more insulating than regular people. Either that, or the heat does go into you and simply fails to do damage - a lot of things simply fail to happen to you, it seems. I'm not sure of a good way to test this that doesn't involve a human who is not you holding an equivalent hot object so we can measure the temperatures of yours versus the control, though." Alice would so do it, but Bella doesn't want to explain to Bridget why she'd be willing to inflict burns on her boyfriend for science.

regularsized
2012-10-21 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Bridget. "Yeah, that's a tough one."

self_composed
2012-10-21 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I guess you could hold a hot thing and we could take its temperature anyway, and compare against some naive model," Bella says. "How far will a needle or a knife go before it won't anymore? A relatively dull one should compress before it pierces, normally."

regularsized
2012-10-21 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I think the best way to put it is that it acts like it's not sharp," she says after a moment.

self_composed
2012-10-21 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Hm. But even a not-sharp narrow object would eventually compress enough to do damage - I'm just curious how far in that turns out to be on you."

regularsized
2012-10-21 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Got any sharp objects handy?" she asks dryly.

self_composed
2012-10-21 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Not on me, but this is your place - haven't you got kitchen knives? Scissors?"

regularsized
2012-10-23 01:47 am (UTC)

"I do," she admits. "All right. For science, or a reasonable approximation."

As she turns toward the kitchen, she asks over her shoulder, "Is this your first experience with what I will loosely call the supernatural?"

self_composed
2012-10-23 01:49 am (UTC)

"Far as I know," Bella lies easily. "I suppose there are all kinds of exotic powers I could have manifested and never noticed, but I don't have anything like yours. Why? Do you run into lots of people who've seen supernatural things and don't mean the Virgin Mary on toast?"

regularsized
2012-10-23 01:56 am (UTC)

"It gets hard to sort out the genuinely quasi-magical from mere wishful thinking," says Bridget, returning with a large, sharp knife. "But I've seen a thing or two. Nothing as immediately visually impressive as this, however."

She presses the edge against her arm with obvious force. It makes a polite sort of dent, the kind you might get from poking yourself with your finger. And in much the same way, a paler line along her skin is briefly visible when she drags it away.

self_composed
2012-10-23 01:57 am (UTC)

"Interesting," says Bella, watching raptly. "Does that dull the knife particularly?"

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:03 am (UTC)

"Probably at least a little bit, but once again, I haven't done a formal study."

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:05 am (UTC)

"Huh. I might be out of ideas," Bella muses. "Although we know what happened the last time I thought so..."

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:09 am (UTC)

"Yep," agrees Bridget. "I'll go put this away," she makes an understated gesture with the knife, "and we'll see if you've got another one by the time I get back."

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:10 am (UTC)

"You don't have any ability to suppress your power, do you?" Bella calls into the kitchen. "Even if you really wanted to?"

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:14 am (UTC)

"I don't particularly want to," she calls back, "but I did try once for the hell of it."

She reappears in the doorway.

"It didn't work."

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:15 am (UTC)

"What did you try exactly?"

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:17 am (UTC)

"Various mental configurations of wanting it to take a hike for a while," she says, shrugging.

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:18 am (UTC)

"But not, say, prayer or incense or putting yourself in a situation where being invulnerable would be worse than not under really high stakes."

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:20 am (UTC)

"I am definitely not ever going to do the last one on purpose," she says, "and the first two fall under 'too much effort for too little reward'. I'm not going to exhaust the possibilities of how to accomplish something I don't want to do in the first place."

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:22 am (UTC)

"Fair enough," Bella says. "I suppose at this point you have plenty of reason to believe it won't suddenly fail you under adverse circumstances."

She considers. "Your jaw muscles got sore when you bit your tongue - I wonder if you could cause them actual damage? Or if you just aren't strong enough to do that?"

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:23 am (UTC)

"From experience, although granted not experience trying to hurt myself, my muscles just stop getting more sore after a while."

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:24 am (UTC)

"Huh." Bella had been considering flicking a triangle of sore-jaw-muscles at Bridget to see if it would bounce off, but she doesn't really need that information and it might be noticeable. "What experience is relevant here, if not that?"

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:25 am (UTC)

"General exercise?"

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:26 am (UTC)

"Hm. Are you sure it's all muscle soreness, not tendons or something?"

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:27 am (UTC)

"I haven't made any intense effort to find out."

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:28 am (UTC)

"Did it hurt when I twisted your wrist at all? That would be mostly tendons."

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:29 am (UTC)

"Nope."

self_composed
2012-10-23 02:30 am (UTC)

"Inconclusive but suggestive. I suppose if someone else hits you in a place where any pain would be partially muscular that also fails to hurt though, so perhaps it's only internal exertion. Hmmm."

regularsized
2012-10-23 02:32 am (UTC)

"My best guess is that it's related to being able to build muscle," she offers.

self_composed
2012-10-23 03:52 am (UTC)

"Which I presume you can do? Or you'd be a stick."

regularsized
2012-10-23 11:26 am (UTC)

"Exactly."

self_composed
2012-10-25 12:18 am (UTC)

"Is there an unusual upper limit on the amount of that you can do - or the speed at which you can do it?" Bella inquires.

regularsized
2012-10-25 12:27 am (UTC)

"Not especially, that I can tell."

self_composed
2012-10-25 12:28 am (UTC)

"Have you done enough weight training or whatever that you'd have been liable to notice?"

regularsized
2012-10-25 12:30 am (UTC)

"No, I don't think so."

self_composed
2012-10-25 12:31 am (UTC)

"There's something you could try if curious, then. Hmm."
Edited 2012-10-25 00:32 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-10-25 12:32 am (UTC)

"If curious and suddenly oversupplied with free time," she says dryly.

self_composed
2012-10-25 12:34 am (UTC)

"Hm? Aren't you in three classes that are well below your academic competence, and you do - origami? Was it origami?" Bella tries to fake forgetting nonessential things, when she remembers. "What else is taking up your time?"

regularsized
2012-10-25 12:36 am (UTC)

"I allocate at least one day a week to enjoying the fact that my busy-ness level is not at the saturation point."

self_composed
2012-10-25 12:37 am (UTC)

"Fair enough, but what about what remains of the other six?"

regularsized
2012-10-25 12:48 am (UTC)

"Insufficient time to take up bodybuilding as a new hobby."

self_composed
2012-10-25 12:51 am (UTC)

"I don't think bodybuilding and weight training are the same thing, but the point stands, I guess." Bella shrugs. "Can you think of anything I should've asked and unaccountably haven't?"

regularsized
2012-10-25 12:53 am (UTC)

"Well, if I were you I'd be wondering why I was so cooperative, but I don't actually have a good answer for that one."

self_composed
2012-10-25 12:54 am (UTC)

"That occurred to me but I didn't want to jinx it. Do you have bad answers?"

regularsized
2012-10-25 12:58 am (UTC)

"I have no good reason not to indulge your curiosity. I think that's pretty much it."

self_composed
2012-10-25 12:58 am (UTC)

"So you don't think I'm asking questions in order to figure out how best to destroy you, mwa-ha-ha? That's good," Bella says, laughing.

regularsized
2012-10-25 01:06 am (UTC)

"No," she says, also laughing. "Definitely not. I haven't been getting the impression that I am that bad a friend."

self_composed
2012-10-25 01:11 am (UTC)

"Indeed not," Bella says. "Although I wouldn't be feeling that kindly disposed if you were being cagey. I hate not knowing things."

regularsized
2012-10-25 01:13 am (UTC)

"I know the feeling," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-10-25 01:14 am (UTC)

"Do you have any battery of intrusive questions for me?" Bella asks.

regularsized
2012-10-25 01:16 am (UTC)

"Not currently. Maybe if you exhibited some obvious magical powers," says Bridget. "Although that's less of a novelty for me, naturally."

self_composed
2012-10-25 01:17 am (UTC)

"Sorry to disappoint," giggles Bella, all innocence.

regularsized
2012-10-25 02:27 am (UTC)

"Don't worry about it," Bridget says dryly. "Lots of people don't have magic powers. I'd venture to say most people don't have magic powers, even."

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:18 am (UTC)

"Care to hazard a guess at a percentage? I think you know more people with magic powers than I do."

Actually, as far as Bella knows they're tied, and will be until Bridget meets Alice or Bella meets the mystery other person. But it would not do to share so.

regularsized
2012-10-25 12:13 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a big enough sample size to even begin to make predictions," she says, "especially because most people I meet could have magic powers and I wouldn't know unless they decided to tell me."

self_composed
2012-10-25 04:34 pm (UTC)

"True enough, I suppose. But how many people do you know who you think would tell you, if they did?"

regularsized
2012-10-25 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I couldn't begin to say. How would I know?"

self_composed
2012-10-25 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Other direction then - would you have ever told me, if you hadn't gotten shot right in front of me? Have you told anyone else besides Mystery Power Person? Did they have to see you get mysteriously not-injured first?"

regularsized
2012-10-25 04:41 pm (UTC)

"I might have gotten around to it eventually. The main thing stopping me is the fact that it's hard to demonstrate without unnerving people."

self_composed
2012-10-25 04:42 pm (UTC)

"You have experience with that?" Bella asks.

regularsized
2012-10-25 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I did actually try to tell a couple of my friends in high school. They thought I was kidding and they were creeped out anyway. I didn't ever get to the demonstrating part."

self_composed
2012-10-25 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Huh. So you're not overly worried about the being-whisked-away-to-a-lab thing."

regularsized
2012-10-25 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Well, that is another, somewhat longer story," she says ruefully.

self_composed
2012-10-25 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Storytime!" exclaims Bella. "Do tell."

regularsized
2012-10-25 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Skipping most of the irrelevant details: I have been whisked away to a lab, it is not my favourite memory, and I have reason to believe it won't happen again."

self_composed
2012-10-25 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Please, lay on the irrelevant details," says Bella, finding this explanation unsatisfactory.

regularsized
2012-10-25 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Not my favourite memory," she repeats firmly.

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:00 pm (UTC)

Bella is displeased. She files this away for later. "Fine. At least tell me how careful I have to be about telling other people."

regularsized
2012-10-25 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I would appreciate it very much if you didn't mention my superpowers to anyone who doesn't already know."

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Do I know anyone who already knows, at this time?"

Also, Alice totally already knows. Har har.

regularsized
2012-10-25 05:06 pm (UTC)

"All our mutual acquaintances are your friends," Bridget points out, "and I haven't told any of them."

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Didn't think so. Okay."

Bella looks at the ceiling. "Anyone else you may get around to telling eventually?"

regularsized
2012-10-25 05:08 pm (UTC)

"That you know? Probably not."

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Bella takes out her phone and glances at the time. "And with that, I think I'm out of questions if I think of one more on the way out or not - I should head home. I'll see you in class."

regularsized
2012-10-25 05:23 pm (UTC)

"See you," Bridget says agreeably.

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:27 pm (UTC)

Bella lets herself out, hops on Tegu, and drives back to the dorm the way she came.

[So apparently I'm not the only person with a random power. I suppose this was more likely than me happening to have something that only happens to one in billions of people. The fact that I met one suggests that they're either pretty common - or there's a selection effect.]

Pause.

[Second possibility: slightly worrying.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 05:30 pm (UTC)

[...What's a selection effect?]

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:32 pm (UTC)

[Imagine you say that your club is open to everybody, and then you only advertise that it exists in yacht clubs. You are going to get people who have yachts. Anything that filters who you're looking at like that. I'm not sure I like the idea that someone or something is filtering who I look at so I get magic people. But it's only one - you weren't magic till after understood causes unrolled - so perhaps I'm only paranoid.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 05:35 pm (UTC)

[Maybe you have a magic stalker,] he says whimsically.

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:41 pm (UTC)

[Gah. That'd be bad.]

Bella thinks about it. [I don't think Bridget planned to get shot. I invited her on my own initiative to walk with me as far as my dorm - although it's possible she'd have invited herself along if I hadn't. I could have biked to and from - though it's possible that she just knows how I get around campus normally. We could have gone a different route - but I wouldn't necessarily notice if she were doing something subtle with her body language to steer me, and I didn't notice the guy until he was right behind us anyway so who knows how long he was tailing us. Hm.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 05:49 pm (UTC)

[Maybe you've both got a magic stalker,] Alice hypothesizes. He doesn't know why he finds the vague notion of a mysterious individual arranging to have magical people meet each other so hilarious.

self_composed
2012-10-25 05:53 pm (UTC)

[The stalker would still need a way to find out that we have magic. You and me and Charlie are the only ones who know about me. Unless they have some other way to find out than being told and used it before or around the protective wishes, or have been spying on me in great detail without already knowing about the magic and picked up on a suspicious discrepancy that way.]

Bella chews on her lip as she ascends the stairs to her room. She waves to Janine, if she's awake, and starts changing for bed; it's late.

[I suppose I'm not immune to non-mental spying. One moment while I design something to fix that.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 05:55 pm (UTC)

[How do you make yourself immune to spying?] he wonders.

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:00 pm (UTC)

[I am working on that. I think it'd cause more problems than it solves for people to mysteriously go blind if they look at me when I can't tell they're there - but mechanical bugs and magical divination, I think I can do. In the case of the bugs, I just happen to always be indistinct if that's plausible - image goes grainy, my voice is an indiscernible mumble - and the device outright malfunctions and quits bugging if that wouldn't make sense. Magical spying says I'm a null result, if they're looking for something specific I'm not that - if they're looking for me, I don't exist. This does have the drawback that someone who is already looking for me can tell that something unusual is going on. But we know that there exist natural superpowers - mine and Bridget's - and a reasonably competent magic stalker knows that too. Hmm.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:05 pm (UTC)

[And I want my Bella-compass to still work,] Alice puts in. [I like my Bella-compass.]

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:07 pm (UTC)

[I can add an exception for you and your Bella-compass,] she agrees, pondering.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:10 pm (UTC)

[Awesome.]

Alice ponders, too.

It occurs to him that anyone who doesn't know magic exists will find it incredibly suspicious that this one person just happens to be completely unrecordable. But maybe Bella doesn't care about that.

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:14 pm (UTC)

[I don't think I'm being spied on a lot by random people. Nobody cares about security camera footage unless a crime is going on. But it can be suppressible like everything else. Maybe I should add a bug-sensing component so I can be more judicious about what I do and don't block.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:17 pm (UTC)

[People spy on each other all the time, though, and if you just happen to get in the way enough times...]

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:17 pm (UTC)

[Like PIs and stuff? Hm. Okay, I'm going to be immune to magic spying and add general-bug-sensing so I'll notice if I do have a stalker and they change tactics. Magically, I am not the droids they're looking for; nonmagically I will notice if someone is taking my picture - actually, since it's just going to be a sense, I may as well throw in how many people are looking at me, with their eyes. Now I have to decide what that should feel like.]
Edited 2012-10-25 18:22 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:23 pm (UTC)

Maybe now is the time for that being-watched feeling she tried on him!

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:24 pm (UTC)

[Except that people watch me benignly all the time; I don't want to feel weirdly scrutinized if Janine looks in my direction or a teacher calls on me. I guess I could just add another visual channel...]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:27 pm (UTC)

Or maybe it should work more like his Bella-compass, and just show her where all the people are who are looking at her at any given moment.

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:28 pm (UTC)

[Hmm. Turn the compass on and I'll peel open the feeling and see if I like it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:29 pm (UTC)

He turns on the compass.

It's a gentle, unobtrusive feeling of that way that way, along with a rough sense of distance.

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:31 pm (UTC)

[Hm. I want to add a type indication too though - how at-me they're looking, and whether it's a person or a device. Not sure if this is expansible quite like that unless I just encode it all in symbols.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:36 pm (UTC)

It's gonna get awfully busy in her field of vision, isn't it.

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:40 pm (UTC)

[If I don't think of an alternative, yes it is. I'd magically expand my field of vision but I think it'd make me twitchy, reacting to things I shouldn't be able to see...] Think, think. [I'll take your directional feeling and make it buzz, I think. Faster for the more intently someone's looking at me - someone scanning a crowd I'm in or a stationary security camera in the grocery store will barely register, someone actually spying on me will vibrate like a bell. And I'll fuss with the distance indicator to add a dimension so I know what it is that's looking at me. And I'll run at one-point-five by default while I get used to it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:42 pm (UTC)

Bella is so awesome.

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:43 pm (UTC)

Bella kicks up to one-point-five, installs the sense, and returns to ruminating on her magical spying immunity. She wants to get all the angles.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:44 pm (UTC)

Alice goes back to his sewing.

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Is that Bridget's dress?]

Bella does not want magic (except Alice's) to be able to tell where she is, or anything about her characteristics; she wants it to fail subtly when it can, fail unsubtly when it can't, and - well. Someone might already be magically spying on her. Maybe she can come up with a way to unobtrusively fade out...? Not likely. Not if they're paying attention.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 06:50 pm (UTC)

It is, actually! He is having fun with it. Contrary to Bella's warning, even though Bridget did not explicitly specify any minima, it's turning out quite modest.

self_composed
2012-10-25 06:54 pm (UTC)

[I like,] she says.

There doesn't seem to be a plausible way to fade inconspicuously from well-attended magic spying without mental tampering that might not even work. But perhaps Bella can make it register the way it would if she died, or lost the characteristics on which she's being monitored, instead of as though she jammed the detector. If the hypothetical stalker comes and checks on her in person she will have a chance to identify them: they will be looking at her. Hard.

A hex goes.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 07:02 pm (UTC)

[Good!]

Alice likes it when Bella likes things!

[How's the spy thing going?]

self_composed
2012-10-25 07:02 pm (UTC)

[It's going. No SWAT team has busted down my door yet and there don't seem to be any cameras or microphones in my dorm room, which is nice.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 07:06 pm (UTC)

[Sounds like it worked!]

self_composed
2012-10-25 07:28 pm (UTC)

[If a SWAT team had burst in, that would be stronger evidence that it had worked,] Bella points out. [Since they'd come running if they had been poised to attack at any sign of suspicious activity.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 07:29 pm (UTC)

[Yeah but you don't want a SWAT team,] he says. [Unless you do. Do you want a SWAT team?]

self_composed
2012-10-25 07:30 pm (UTC)

[I do not want a SWAT team,] Bella confirms.
Edited 2012-10-25 19:56 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-25 07:58 pm (UTC)

[So that much worked, anyway.]

self_composed
2012-10-25 07:59 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

i'm just that fascinating i guess

self_composed

The first day Bella spends out and about with her new who's-watching-me powers, she is rather alarmed.

Maybe she's just mistaken about how much time people spend looking at reasonably pretty eighteen-year-old girls. She kills a pentagon to try it on a nearby control - who's looking at that girl over there?

Fewer people. Fewer people are looking at that random girl, and less intently. They're looking at her familiarly - they know her - or casually - they're checking her out.

[I have a spy problem,] Bella says. She makes a faintly exaggerated show of snapping her fingers in frustration and turning around. She's going back to her room to get a mirror and bobby pins and barettes, so she can spy back on the pretense of checking her hair, without making it overwhelmingly obvious that she knows what's going on.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-28 05:38 pm (UTC)

...Well, that sure sounds ominous.

[What kind?] asks Alice.

self_composed
2012-10-28 05:41 pm (UTC)

[The kind where random people who I don't know - have seen around but do not know - are looking at me way too intently. They're not checking me out, I pentagoned for a check on a control girl who's about as pretty as me. They are looking for me specifically, they are paying lots of attention, and I don't know exactly why but I don't like it.]

Bella fetches her items. She puts her hair up in a style she has previously rejected as falling apart too easily: that's the point, now. She pockets her compact mirror. She goes out again.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-28 05:44 pm (UTC)

[Okaaaaaay,] says Alice. [So, point for the stalker theory. Except why would a magic stalker make a bunch of people spy on you?]

self_composed
2012-10-28 05:46 pm (UTC)

[Magic stalker doesn't have a pet masochist,] says Bella. [Or magic stalker stalks magic, doesn't have any - or has a single power like Bridget does, not wishcoins. Magic stalker compensates for these limitations with staff.]

She feels a tendril of hair escape the bobby pin. She stops, pulls out the mirror, fixes it, and looks over her shoulder at the nearest spy. She memorizes his face. She pats her hair, puts away the mirror, and continues on her way.
Edited 2012-10-28 17:55 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-28 05:58 pm (UTC)

[So how did the magic stalker get hooked on you?]

Alice thinks that if there's anybody in the world worth stalking, it's Bella. Alice also thinks that most other people probably don't share that opinion.

self_composed
2012-10-28 06:00 pm (UTC)

[I don't know. Magical spying before I fizzled it. Happened to hear about the car crash and found my recovery suspicious. Thinks I'm too much of a polymath, with the flute and the soccer and the grades. Can see invisibility and spotted me flying around. Thinks Tegu is too good to be true.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-28 06:04 pm (UTC)

That prompts Alice to wonder about an invisibility arms race, and at what point the cycle of 'invisible' vs 'able to see invisible people' vs 'invisible even to people who can see invisible things' vs 'able to see extra-invisible people' would be halted by the natural limitations of hexagons, and how they might test that, and whether Bella has thought of it already. She probably has.

self_composed
2012-10-28 06:07 pm (UTC)

[I haven't messed with it, actually - there might be interactions based on who wished for it, anyway, making it easier to override your own wish than someone else's. That's just one of several hypotheses anyway. Note that we can't rule out the use of a star - just because we don't know how to use them safely doesn't mean it's a mystery to everyone.]

Pause. [No one appears to be stalking you, right? You're lairing and seeing people you already knew, not getting followed or anything?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-28 06:17 pm (UTC)

[I don't see people around a whole lot,] he says. [Not people I don't know, anyway. Mostly it's just mom and Hilary whenever I'm at the house. Well, and sometimes I wander around Stanford and wherever,] meaning the campus, the town, the surrounding area, and once in a while a nearby city, [but I'm invisible half the time and I haven't caught anybody staring at me either way. You want me to get a stalker radar, too?]

self_composed
2012-10-28 06:25 pm (UTC)

[Maybe. Probably not worth it until I know more about what's going on with my spies. Maybe the next time you openly visit, to see if anyone stares at you too.]

She makes it to class. She's going to be extra creeped out if there is a spy enrolled. Or teaching.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-28 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] says Alice.

It's not like he minds spending the hexagon, but having the sense might be a tiny bit annoying. The attention of strangers is just not a subject that interests him.

self_composed
2012-10-28 07:09 pm (UTC)

[Enh, you could make it suppressible when you weren't using it.]

Bella is not extra-creeped-out. Good. Politics class time.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-28 07:21 pm (UTC)

Well, then it would hardly tell him if he was being stalked, would it?

self_composed
2012-10-28 07:22 pm (UTC)

[You could still spot-check,] Bella points out.

edgeofyourseat
2012-10-28 07:23 pm (UTC)

[Mm, yeah, I guess.]

self_composed
2012-10-28 07:26 pm (UTC)

Bella proceeds through her day, locating spies.

Even if half of the spies are false positives, there sure are a lot of them.

She leaaaans on that acting pentagon, and her fall-apart hairdo.

By the end of her second day with the disintegrating architecture on her head, she's actually gotten good enough at it to make it stay put through sheer practice, and anyway the spies have stopped looking at her quite so intently. She's not sure what to make of that.

She keeps Alice up to date, but says nothing in particular about it to Janine, Bridget, or any other acquired friends/contacts. She does acquiesce to another study session with Bridget, though, and appears with her book and her for-show notes.
Edited 2012-10-28 23:00 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-10-28 11:03 pm (UTC)

Since this study session is at Bridget's apartment, she feels comfortable opening with, "So I talked to that other person with magic powers. They seem kind of on the fence about sharing personal information. Do you want me to try to convince them?"

self_composed
2012-10-28 11:04 pm (UTC)

"That would be nice of you, yes. Did they specify what has them concerned?"

regularsized
2012-10-28 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Not in any great detail. I think it's more general caginess than anything."

self_composed
2012-10-28 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I suppose that's fair. I didn't catch them getting shot. Or whatever it is they do."

regularsized
2012-10-28 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Or whatever," Bridget agrees. "Enough mysteries, on to biology?"

self_composed
2012-10-28 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Mysteries are more interesting than biology," Bella says. "I don't suppose there are any assurances I could reasonably offer that would put your friend's mind at ease?"

regularsized
2012-10-28 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you had magic powers of your very own, you could tell them that," says Bridget. "I bet that would help. Kind of an in-this-together thing, you know? But as far as I know, you don't, so there goes that idea."

self_composed
2012-10-28 11:11 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs in a convincing imitation of helplessness. "Biology," she sighs.

regularsized
2012-10-28 11:13 pm (UTC)

Bridget laughs. "Biology," she agrees.

self_composed
2012-10-29 01:33 am (UTC)

Biology ensues, both in the usual way with both of them respirating and metabolizing and the like, and also as a study topic.

regularsized
2012-10-29 01:51 am (UTC)

Apart from that first exchange, it is largely uneventful. And after Bella goes home, Bridget has a conversation.

And a day or two later, she sends Bella an email, CCed to someone with the unlikely username of "O-O-O" on a free email service.

Hi, Bella!

My friend finally caved. You can direct your nosy questions to her now. (Hi, Chris!)

self_composed
2012-10-29 02:06 am (UTC)

Ooh!

Bella replies-all.

Hi, Chris! Thanks for agreeing to talk to me. First of all, if you don't trust email for the topic in question, let me know and we can work out something else. If email's fine, let's start with the obvious:

What is it you do?

-Bella

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 02:19 am (UTC)

It takes Chris until late that evening to get back to her, and she replies only to Bella.

Short story: I protect people.

There's a progression of longer and longer stories if you want more detail, but some of them are going to take a lot of explaining. I won't trust email for all of it. If you're the kind of person who likes to have the whole story (and I'm betting you are), we should definitely find a more secure way to talk.

self_composed
2012-10-29 02:21 am (UTC)

You bet correctly. There's various forms of electronic encryption. I can also get anyplace in the South Bay pretty readily to talk in person, although it occurs to me that I have no idea where you live. Phones are generally insecure if someone's looking to spy on you, but harder to sift through with robots for general topics of interest because voice recognition is spotty. What's your preference?

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 02:32 am (UTC)

The turnaround time is much faster on this one.

For our purposes, I think a phone will do the trick. Please call me when it is daylight on the east coast.

She adds a phone number, with a New York City area code.

self_composed
2012-10-29 02:36 am (UTC)

Bella obligingly calls her at midday Pacific time the following day, after a quick lunch and before the scheduled cancellation of Operating Systems for the professor's niece's wedding.

Ring ring.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 02:38 am (UTC)

Ring ri—

"Hi," says a slightly amused woman of indeterminate age.

self_composed
2012-10-29 02:39 am (UTC)

"Hi! Is this Chris?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 02:39 am (UTC)

"Depends who's asking," says Chris.

self_composed
2012-10-29 02:40 am (UTC)

"This is Bella, Bridget's friend."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 02:41 am (UTC)

"In that case, yes, this is Chris."

self_composed
2012-10-29 02:42 am (UTC)

"Who would you have been if I were Tricia, calling about whether you're satisfied with your current credit provider?" Bella asks, amused. "Do you often have to implausibly deny your identity to callers?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 02:44 am (UTC)

"No, I just have a twisted sense of humour," Chris says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-10-29 02:45 am (UTC)

"Ah-huh. So. Protecting people. How's that work?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 02:53 am (UTC)

"I pick someone, and they are protected until I decide otherwise," says Chris. "From pretty much anything you can name. Which is the part where it really gets interesting. Just so we're on the same page, if I say 'wishes', am I going to have to waste time explaining that to you or are you going to know what I'm talking about?"

self_composed
2012-10-29 02:55 am (UTC)

Bella is going to play dumb.

"Genies or something?" Bella asks. "At this point you could probably get me to believe anything."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 03:03 am (UTC)

"Not genies," says Chris. "Just wishes. Evidently you already believe in magic powers; well, there are some very lucky people whose magic powers let them grant wishes of varying sizes for themselves and others. Which I mention because my power protects against everything, including kinds of harm that can only be accomplished by magic. Like, say, mind control. As far as I know, there are no people running around with native mind control powers."

self_composed
2012-10-29 03:09 am (UTC)

"Bridget was kind enough to let me test hers, so yes, I believe in magic powers," says Bella. "Why 'native'? Is there a way to get magic powers? Because that would be the best thing."

Playing dumb playing dumb la-la-la.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 03:12 am (UTC)

"I meant native as in a power that specifically does mind control, as opposed to the wish-power, which can do a lot of things, mind control theoretically included. Why, do you want some?"

self_composed
2012-10-29 03:13 am (UTC)

"I cannot even tell you how thrilled I would be to acquire magic powers."

In the past. With an instruction manual. And actually she was only slightly thrilled because they had the fuckuppedness problem. But still!

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 03:14 am (UTC)

"It's not out of the question that I might be able to hook you up," says Chris. "But it wouldn't be cheap."

self_composed
2012-10-29 03:15 am (UTC)

"How not-cheap?" Bella asks slowly. "Er, do you mean money? Is someone selling magic wishing powers for money? Is there some reason not to just wish for the money directly?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 03:18 am (UTC)

"I don't mean money, no," says Chris. "And you seem like a smart kid, so I'll let you think about the economic problems inherent in wishing for a big pile of cash out of nowhere all by yourself."

self_composed
2012-10-29 03:21 am (UTC)

"Well, okay, not cash, but... gold, purebred Persian kittens, convenient volcanic islands in tropical locales, stuff you can sell. What do you mean, if not money or any such thing?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 03:24 am (UTC)

"Magic powers are a thing you can sell," Chris says dryly. "Under certain circumstances. To select people. For varying prices, depending on which powers and who wants them. I'm not in the business, I just know some people."

self_composed
2012-10-29 03:26 am (UTC)

"What kinda powers are in the powers catalog? What kinda prices do they go for? Examples. Ballpark."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 03:30 am (UTC)

"There is no catalog," she says. "If you really want to buy some, and if the right people happen to think you're worth their time, I can put you in touch and you can ask them for a magic power and they will ask you for something in return. I don't know what; I've never bought any. But I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that it's probably beyond the means of your average Stanford undergrad."

self_composed
2012-10-29 03:33 am (UTC)

"How do you know these people if you're not in the market, then?"

So they're not actually selling the ability to make wishcoins. As far as Chris is letting on to a stranger who doesn't admit to knowing wishcoins are a thing.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 03:37 am (UTC)

"The usual way. You meet someone, you become friends, you learn about their career... then you learn about their other career."

self_composed
2012-10-29 03:37 am (UTC)

"You're making it sound like a drugmarket underworld or something."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 03:39 am (UTC)

"I won't deny that there are parallels. But I'm happy to report that as far as I know, none of my friends are in the drug trade."

self_composed
2012-10-29 03:49 am (UTC)

"That's probably for the best. So if you've never bought any... you were just born with your power? Or something? What makes that happen?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 12:18 pm (UTC)

"It came in when I was about six," she recalls. "I had a younger sister who ran into things a lot, and I worried about her, and then one day I could just tell she was okay. And the next time she got overexcited and had an unfortunate encounter with a door, I could tell she wasn't hurt. As for why it happens, your guess is probably only slightly worse than mine. They're rare enough that it's hard to see any kind of pattern."

self_composed
2012-10-29 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Do you know anyone else apart from Bridget with a 'native' power?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 04:52 pm (UTC)

"A few. One, interestingly, who can detect and analyze other people's powers. He sat down at my table in a coffee shop one day and asked if I believe in magic, and has remained rude yet fascinating ever since."

self_composed
2012-10-29 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. I bet he's useful to your weird magic-market friends. Is he? I'm not sure how these things are supposed to interact. Who else?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 05:05 pm (UTC)

"One who has a limited ability to see the future—she makes a decent living as a stockbroker and tends to answer phone calls and emails very promptly. And one who is magically unobtrusive. He's friends with the magic detector."

self_composed
2012-10-29 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Unobtrusive how?" Bella asks.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Unobtrusive. Hard to notice. You wouldn't tend to pick him out of a crowd, and if he's feeling especially shy he could be sitting on your couch in a red-and-white striped top hat playing the accordion and you'd walk right past him."

self_composed
2012-10-29 05:10 pm (UTC)

"So he can make the accordion and his hat unobtrusive too. How far does that go?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, you know that favourite college pastime of drawing on your sleeping friends with Sharpie? According to rumour, he can skip the sleeping part."

self_composed
2012-10-29 05:16 pm (UTC)

"That's... interesting, but not exactly what I was asking. If he can play the accordion and no one notices, can he also turn on iTunes and have no one notice even though the computer is playing the music? What happens if he releases a cageful of excited hummingbirds into a room, do people start noticing them when they get a certain distance away or after a certain length of time or what? Can he steal objects - big obvious objects - without anyone paying attention? What if you're concentrating on the object at the time, what exactly happens to your attention or your cognition around it?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Why do you imagine I will know the answers to all these questions?" she wonders. "Just from knowing the guy, the rule of thumb seems to be that you notice whatever still makes sense without him in the picture. So, floating Sharpie drawing on your face: doesn't make sense. Accordion in a top hat on your couch playing itself: doesn't make sense. Sudden explosion of hummingbirds: granted, doesn't make much sense either, but once they're out of the cage they make just as much sense without him, so I bet you'd start noticing them at that point. And from experience, I can tell you that things don't appear out of thin air when he puts them down; it's like they were there all along and you only started paying attention a second ago. How that would interact with the hummingbirds is anyone's guess."

self_composed
2012-10-29 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how well you know him," Bella points out. "I know a heck of a lot about what Bridget's does; for all I knew you'd have comparable information about this guy. How does the precog work, what do you know about her?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 05:33 pm (UTC)

"If you grilled her like this, I'll bet you know a lot about what Bridget's does," Chris says amiably. "The precog doesn't like to have long conversations about her power. I gather she doesn't necessarily see the future, and her predictions sometimes change even without her doing anything about them."

self_composed
2012-10-29 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Er, I don't want to be rude, but how do you know she's a precog and not just a lucky investor who keeps on top of her inbox?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Because once in a while I get a perfectly coherent reply to an email I haven't actually sent yet."

self_composed
2012-10-29 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I guess that would be convincing, especially if you aren't predictable in what emails you send," Bella muses. "Can I talk to her, too? What about the unobtrusive guy?" She ramps up to 3x so she can think about how to phrase her next question without pausing: "And, hey, can the power-checking guy work over the phone or whatever? Even if he can't I wanna talk to him too, anyone with powers who'll let me."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 05:54 pm (UTC)

"The unobtrusive guy has the power of ultimate shyness for a reason. I don't think you'd get along. And the precog, like I said, doesn't like to talk about it. Lazarus is always ready to talk your ear off about magic, though. Why, did you want him to check you for latent superpowers?"

self_composed
2012-10-29 05:56 pm (UTC)

"I imagine they'd be really latent. Everything you've mentioned seems to be the kind of thing you'd notice, right? So I doubt there'd be much point, but if he likes talking people's ears off about magic, I have a redundant ear handy. Can you give out his number or do you have to ask first?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 06:11 pm (UTC)

"How about I give him yours?" she suggests.

self_composed
2012-10-29 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Does his power work over the phone? I have this mental image of picking up while my roommate's around, and then flailing around and having to explain it if he says I have something," says Bella, chuckling softly. She's backed into a bit of a corner, but there's no way the personality she was revealing would pass up a chance to talk to any magic person at this point. Sigh.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Not as far as I know," says Chris, "but I haven't asked."

self_composed
2012-10-29 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, what conditions make him work in person? Does he have to be near you, or able to see you? Has he identified any celebrities as having magic, by watching them on TV?" Bella suggests.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 06:19 pm (UTC)

"I think you're going to have to ask him those. He will probably jump up and down with glee."

self_composed
2012-10-29 06:20 pm (UTC)

"How close to your table at the coffee shop was he before he formed the visible intention to sit with you?" Bella tries.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 06:23 pm (UTC)

"It's been a while, but as far as I can recall, by the time I noticed him he was already headed my way. He might even have come into the coffee shop specifically to talk to me; I didn't get around to asking. When I asked him why he wanted to know if I believed in magic, he said something along the lines of 'well, I noticed you have some'."

self_composed
2012-10-29 06:25 pm (UTC)

Bella decides to try layering another hex's worth of oomph to her defense against magical spying. It goes, so it must have done something, but a third hex refuses to follow it, so that must be all she could do. "Okay. I think he's clearly going to be my new best friend, if he likes talking magic as much as you say, so go ahead and give him my number."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Will do," Chris says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-10-29 06:45 pm (UTC)

"But in the meantime," says Bella. "I bet you can tell me more about your power, even if you inexplicably haven't quizzed all your friends on theirs. Can you do more than one person at once? How do you know it protects against any given thing - have you tested it or do you 'just know'? Maybe it's an anti-obsessing-over-the-safety-of-loved-ones power more than a genuine protection power, if it hasn't much been tested."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 06:57 pm (UTC)

"It got my sister out of trouble a time or two. And then my niece, when she was born. And it definitely can't cover more than one person at once."

self_composed
2012-10-29 07:02 pm (UTC)

"What kind of trouble? You mentioned mind control; is someone with a mind control power running around attacking people?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Mind control was a hypothetical example," Chris assures her. "I can tell you that whoever I'm protecting is at least as resilient as Bridget, plus immune to all the hostile magic we can think of. I could also tell you how we found that out, but I'm not going to give away all my secrets."

self_composed
2012-10-29 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Why not?" Bella asks innocently.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Because I barely know you?" she suggests.

self_composed
2012-10-29 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I can think of something you didn't and then you can make sure that's covered too," Bella suggests.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 08:21 pm (UTC)

"My confidence in your trustworthiness does not go up when you tell me you want to know so you can find my potential weaknesses."

self_composed
2012-10-29 08:23 pm (UTC)

"That was an example of how I could be helpful," Bella says peevishly. "The 'and then you can make sure that's covered' part did imply so. Oh well. Does it take effort, to keep it up? Concentration?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Chris. "I can always tell who it's pointed at, though. A little like wearing a watch - it's not in your face all the time, but it's there every time you want to check it and you'd notice if it went away."

self_composed
2012-10-29 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Can you have it attached to nobody? You made it sound like it started on your sister and moved to your niece and is just on all the time. Can you use it on yourself?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I can have it attached to nobody, but I don't like to," she says. "It feels weird. Like trying to wear your watch as a hat. And no, I can't use it on myself."

self_composed
2012-10-29 08:32 pm (UTC)

"How much is this 'feeling' actually, you know, a feeling, like if something were actually buckled to your arm, and how much is that just the only way you have to talk about it?" Bella asks.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 08:36 pm (UTC)

"It's not a physical sensation, if that's what you mean. It's kind of like an extra sense."

self_composed
2012-10-29 08:37 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose it ever senses any other things?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Depends what you mean by 'other things'. I can tell who my power is pointing at, and I can tell when they would have gotten hurt if it wasn't, and I can tell whether or not I could cover somebody if I hypothetically tried. I couldn't cover you, for example; I just checked. No idea why."

self_composed
2012-10-29 08:49 pm (UTC)

"What generally distinguishes people you can and can't cover?" Bella asks quizzically. "Is there any discernible pattern?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 08:51 pm (UTC)

"In people I've known for a while, it seems to correlate loosely with how much they like me. In strangers and recent acquaintances, anybody's guess. Lazarus makes noises about figuring it out sometimes, but he's not always as good with the details as he'd like to be."

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:00 pm (UTC)

"How odd," Bella says. "What else do you know about what you do?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I can't think of anything offhand. Why, have you run out of questions?"

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I'll think of six as soon as I hang up, but none are pouring out of me at the moment."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 10:07 pm (UTC)

"You can always call back later."

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:09 pm (UTC)

"You take calls during arbitrary days when the sun's up?" Bella asks.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I have a very open schedule and am willing and able to let people go to voicemail when I'm busy."

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:12 pm (UTC)

"That works," Bella agrees. "Are you normally around only people you can talk magic in front of, when you're not busy?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Normally yes."

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:16 pm (UTC)

"So that's your natively magic friends, and who else? People with storebought powers?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Demonstrably, I can also talk magic to people who know about it but don't have any," says Chris.

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:18 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking of people you hang out with in person, but you know what, that's interesting too, who else knows about magic and hasn't got any?" Bella asks.

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 10:21 pm (UTC)

"My niece, for one."

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:28 pm (UTC)

"How come she hasn't bought some?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, part of the reason I say that the price of superpowers is probably beyond the reach of a Stanford undergrad is that I know it's definitely beyond the reach of a PhD in mathematics."

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:39 pm (UTC)

"You said it wasn't a monetary cost. What is it about undergrads and PhDs that makes us unlikely to be able to scrape up whatever the not-money is?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Now, granted I'm just guessing because I don't know the details of that conversation, but I'm betting they turned her down because she couldn't do them interesting enough favours."

self_composed
2012-10-29 10:52 pm (UTC)

"What do people with magic to sell even want?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I really couldn't tell you," says Chris, amused.
Edited 2012-10-29 23:10 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-10-29 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Do you know anybody with bought magic?" Bella tries. "Or anybody who knows anybody? Does Lazarus detect that too?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I don't personally know anybody with bought magic, but I do know Lazarus can detect it."

self_composed
2012-10-29 11:15 pm (UTC)

"So maybe he can tell me about them," Bella says. "Okay, this conversation seems to keep leading back to 'I should just ask Lazarus'. Anything you're willing to tell me that he doesn't know, before I bid you goodbye?"

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Chris.

self_composed
2012-10-29 11:21 pm (UTC)

"All right then. Thanks for your time," Bella says politely. "Please tell Lazarus that I'd love to listen to him talk about magic for hours if he'd be so kind."

queensidecastle
2012-10-29 11:41 pm (UTC)

"I think you two are going to get along really, really well," Chris predicts. "Should I give him your email address, your phone number, or both?"

self_composed
2012-10-29 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Both," says Bella. "Weak preference for email; allows latency."

queensidecastle
2012-10-30 12:00 am (UTC)

"Will do," she says. "And you're welcome."

self_composed
2012-10-30 12:01 am (UTC)

"Thanks again. Bye," says Bella brightly, and she hangs up.

He probably doesn't work over the phone. And she has two hex layers of anti-spying. And he's guaranteed to be interesting.

queensidecastle
2012-10-31 02:07 am (UTC)

There is that.

So, a few days later, Bella gets an email from someone called L. Anson:

Hi!

A little bird told me you have questions about magic? She is a somewhat paranoid little bird sometimes, so she would probably rather we didn't mention her name, but I am neither paranoid nor little nor a bird so I have no problem talking magic over email.

self_composed
2012-10-31 02:20 am (UTC)

Bella grins at this. She's even surer he doesn't work over email.

Hello, nonbird! You must be Lazarus. I have all of the questions about magic and how people act around it. Do let me know if my questions begin to annoy you, but I'm led to believe that's unlikely. Here's some to start with; I don't know how much time you have and my impatience can put up a good fight against my curiosity sometimes.

- What "native" powers have you seen that the little bird didn't mention, assuming there are some? We covered Bridget and little bird herself and a precog and you and someone with an "unobtrusiveness" power.
- Are there patterns to where and when they appear? How many people have them in the general population?
- What's up with the storebought powers? Who's buying them, what are they paying, what kinds of powers do they tend to walk away with?
- How do you work? (I'm going to want similar detail about everybody, but I might as well start with you.) What's your range? Do you function through barriers, electronic media, etc.? What does it tell you exactly, do you have to turn it on or is it passive, does anything (like little bird's power?) block you or are you some sort of unstoppable force of divination...?

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!

-Bella

Edited 2012-10-31 19:38 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-10-31 10:30 pm (UTC)

I'm making all my friends call me Nonbird now. You have no idea what you've wrought.

To answer all your questions completely out of order:

I have a sense for powers the same way I have a sense of touch or taste or sight or sound or balance. It works in all directions and through barriers, up to the same range as sight and with about the same loss of detail over distance. I know where people with powers are when they're nearby, and most of the time I can figure out what they do if I look at them long enough. 'Look' is a metaphor, of course, I used to actually squint at people but it only helps psychologically.

I haven't gathered detailed statistics, but I live in a fairly big city and I can go as long as a month without seeing any new powers, so the overall percentage can't be that high. Everyone I've talked to who knows they have a power and remembers a time when they didn't has said it came in before they were ten; I'm in the 'can't remember a time when I didn't' category. It always seems to be relevant to them in some way, although it's not always obvious until you get to know them.

"Storebought" powers are interesting. I know one or two people with them, but they're even more secretive than the little bird; they haven't told me much and they probably don't want me to repeat any of it. I can talk about the powers in the abstract, though. They're very easy to tell apart from native powers, and it's usually easier for me to tell what they do without getting up close. I've seen a few 'in the wild', so to speak; there was a mint who rode two cars down from me on the subway once, who I never saw again, and someone who walked past me in a mall who had remote viewing.

To know if the little bird's power blocked me, I would have to have looked at someone she was covering who had a power. I haven't looked at someone she was covering, powers or no, so it's hard to say. At a guess, though, I'd bet she wouldn't. Her power is very protective, and mine isn't harmful.

On the other hand, Kolya's unobtrusiveness hides itself just as well as it hides the rest of him. When he has it turned up, I'm as oblivious to him as anybody.

self_composed
2012-10-31 11:28 pm (UTC)

Bella suspects she knows what a "mint" is, but cannot think of a plausible way to guess.

You're welcome for your new nickname.

A "mint"? Like... the herb, or what?

"Most of the time"? When can you not, what goes wrong?

It being a sense sounds really interesting. Do you have magical aesthetics? Would it really annoy you if someone with a certain power moved in upstairs and just went on having it at all hours of the night? Do you sense your own power directly?

Do you go out a lot? That affects how much your big city is affecting what people you see; if you're a shut-in you have your neighbors and delivery people, not a huge sample size.

What do you mean by "relevant"?

Is it generally easy to get people to talk to you about their powers, once you walk up to them and ask if they believe in magic?

Knowing a dude who can be completely unobtrusive like that sounds really disconcerting.

nonbird
2012-10-31 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Most of the time": all powers vary in how hard to figure out they are. Nonnative are always easier than native, but besides that, it just seems to be a normal variance.

I sense my own power, yes. I've never seen a power that grated on me like you describe, but I guess it's theoretically possible. Some powers are definitely prettier than others.

A certain little bird was my biggest success story in walking up to a stranger and anouncing I could see their magic underwear (so to speak). Poor Kolya faded right out from in front of me and left me saying "...I should've expected that" to thin air.

It's not that bad, honestly. Whatever stories you might have been told, his pranking days were over before I met him.

Relevance: Like the little bird having a protective power and Kolya having an unobtrusiveness power and me having a nosy power. Native powers are always something the power-haver finds useful, or something that reflects their personality.

Shut-in: Nope! I sometimes go a day without leaving the apartment, but it's rare. I see plenty of people.

Mint: Did nobody tell you about wishcoins? Who have you been talking to about magic who didn't think that was the first thing to mention? Never mind, I can guess. Mints are where "storebought" powers come from. They're very distinctive. I've never seen a native mint, but they don't exactly look like other nonnative powers, either. Anyway, a mint is what I call someone who can make coins that grant wishes. I have a lot of theories about them, but I've never met one who felt like answering my questions, so my theories remain theories. I've seen the coins, though. Even used one once. They come in different shapes and colours and they disappear when you're done with them.

Edited 2012-10-31 23:52 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-01 12:02 am (UTC)

Always easier as in, the easiest-to-see native power is still harder to see than the hardest-to-see bought power?

Whose power is prettiest?

How'd you salvage the situation with Kolya?

Is there a good reason for you to have this particular nosy power, and not mindreading or something?

How big's the city? Better yet, what city? Have you traveled much, does it vary regionally or anything? Besides announcing that you know, what do you usually do when you spot somebody with a power - do you ever want to become a substitute teacher of sixth-graders and patrol the country and whisk away the ones with magic to your very own Hogwarts?

The little bird mentioned wishes but didn't use the word "mint", I think I'd have remembered that. What are your theories? What shapes and colors; do those matter? What kind did you get? What did you do with it - do you have a storebought power too?

nonbird
2012-11-01 12:11 am (UTC)

Yep.

Kolya's. But no, in all seriousness, there's no one power that stands out as obviously the prettiest in the world.

He followed me home. I promise it was cuter and less creepy than it sounds.

I've lived in a few, actually. I met Chris in New York. As far as I can tell, there aren't especially more or less powers in any one place I've been.

I have never wanted to found Hogwarts before...

Oh, don't get me started on mints. Or do, if you really really want to. But they're almost a subject unto themselves, and I know less about them than I do about the rest of magic combined but I definitely think there's more to know about them than there is about the rest of magic combined. And that's the kind of sentence they reduce me to.

self_composed
2012-11-01 12:21 am (UTC)

So no speculations about why this nosy power and not another?

Who has an ugly power? (Are people offended if you tell them they have ugly powers?)

I think I feel like getting you started on mints. What would you have asked that fellow on the train? What have you figured out despite such uncooperativeness? How do they make the coins - at some kind of fixed rate? Performing some kind of action? You didn't tell me about what kind of wish you made either, is it private?

I don't even know what you look like (except that you are a nonbird) and I'm still forming a clear mental picture of you informing an eleven year old boy, "You're a wizard, Harry."

nonbird
2012-11-01 12:47 am (UTC)

According to Kolya, I am, quote, "a six-four scarecrow with a nose like an ice pick and hands like two halves of a bleached spider", end quote. I don't know what that's going to do to your mental picture, but there you have it.

Whoops, forgot about the nosiness. I've thought about it, but I couldn't tell you exactly why it fits. It just does.

I've never told anybody they have an ugly power. I'm not sure anybody really does. They range from neutral to kind of pretty.

Okay, I'll start you off with the list of things I've observed directly about wishcoins, because it's much shorter:

I've seen triangular coins, square coins, and a five-sided coin. I spent a square one to fix the way my jaw used to click when I yawned and it hasn't done it since. Some of the coins were sea-green and translucent, and some of them were dark purple and opaque.

I've 'seen' three mints in my life, and only met one of them face to face. That's where I got the square. The mint who gave it to me was really intent about me keeping secret pretty much everything about our meeting, and didn't tell me much anyway, but that's where I learned that wishcoins are where nonnative powers come from. Not that I couldn't have guessed that.

I think I can 'see' coins the same way I see powers. They're much subtler, though. If I'm right, then I think the colour of a coin represents who made it, because those sea-green coins 'looked' like the power of the mint who had them.

Anything beyond that is rampant speculation.

self_composed
2012-11-01 12:57 am (UTC)

So I suppose you have a missing finger on each hand then?

What about other people - why does Kolya have his brand of unobtrusiveness and not, like, outright invisibility? Or hiding in a pocket dimension?

Wishing for your jaw not to click seems like a kind of silly wish. Why did you pick that? Was the coin designed to only do that wish, or that kind of thing?

Tell me about your speculations! You've had more time to form them than I have.

nonbird
2012-11-01 01:23 am (UTC)

No one ever said Kolya was good at math.

I'm not sure I can explain this to someone who doesn't have one themselves, but as far as I can tell, everyone's power is the kind of thing it makes sense to them to have. That's just intuition, though. For all I know it could be random and we could all just be reading too much into it, like horoscopes. Or having the power could make you the kind of person who would have it instead of the other way around.

Not sure I can get into the whys. Let's say it was supposed to be trivial and leave it at that.

Speculations:

I think the number of sides on a coin is an indicator of power. More sides means it can do bigger or more complicated things.

If mints are where nonnative powers come from, there has to have been a native mint at some point, doesn't there? But I've never seen one. I can't figure out why.

I said nonnative powers are easier to figure out than native ones, and that's almost always true. Mints are the exception. Or I think they are, anyway. They're a lot more complicated than any other power, but at the same time in some ways they're simpler.

There's some element of interpretation involved whenever I figure out a power. I don't just directly perceive how they work.

I've figured some things out about minting that I'm not sure I really believe. They're kind of unnerving.

self_composed
2012-11-01 01:29 am (UTC)

Bella resorts to quoting.

Yeah, I was thinking maybe horoscopes, but your way would be interesting too. Do you know any nonmagical people who it's really obvious what they'd have if they had anything?

>They're a lot more complicated than any other power, but at the same time in some ways they're simpler.

You're gonna have to expand that sentence for me a little. I cannot read your mind, natively or otherwise!

>There's some element of interpretation involved whenever I figure out a power. I don't just directly perceive how they work.

What's that like? Is it like... learning to read, or something else?

>I've figured some things out about minting that I'm not sure I really believe. They're kind of unnerving.

Oh, you can't just leave me hanging like that, come on.

nonbird
2012-11-01 01:43 am (UTC)

Okay, think of the difference between this picture and this picture. Which one is simpler? Which one is more complicated? Most powers are more like the first one; there's patterns there, but it takes some looking before you start to understand them. Mints are like the second one. It's big and simple and obvious at first glance, and then you look closer and there are all these intricate details.

I wish we could have this conversation over coffee or something. I'm much better at explaining things when I can wave my hands around. Although I guess I'd have a harder time Googling suitable examples. Making explanatory gestures to my computer screen just looks silly and makes it hard to type, though.

Okay, I'll tell you what I think I figured out as soon as I figure out a way to put it into words without creeping myself out.

self_composed
2012-11-01 01:47 am (UTC)

Skype? Best of both worlds.

Since he's limited by physical range, this should be fine.

nonbird
2012-11-01 01:48 am (UTC)

Webcams are banned in the apartment. It's a Kolya thing.

self_composed
2012-11-01 01:51 am (UTC)

Well, a mere phone conversation would satisfy the "don't have to type" criterion, I guess? I believe you have my number if that would suit. As of this moment I can expect to be alone in my room for an hour; after that my roommate may reappear and I'd have to find someplace else to go, but I could manage it.

nonbird
2012-11-01 01:57 am (UTC)

No, it's fine, it's fine! I was just grousing. I am still fully capable of delivering my awkwardly worded ramblings. Ask me more interesting questions, this is the most fun I've had all week.

self_composed
2012-11-01 02:02 am (UTC)

But you haven't told me what creepy thing you learned about the mints! Or the one about what interpreting powers is like. I generate more questions mostly by seeing what the answers to what I already asked are.

Okay okay... what was removing the jaw-clicking like? What did you do? Did it feel like anything?

Could you get ahold of any of the mints you've met if you really wanted to?

If you were a mint, what experiments would you want to do to figure out about it?

nonbird
2012-11-01 02:11 am (UTC)

I forgot about interpreting powers. I was going to add it to the paragraph about the difference between mints and everyone else. Actually, I think that's what's got me going on about explanatory hand gestures in the first place, not that they'd help. It's hard to describe. I'll think about it; ask me again later if I forget again.

It didn't feel like anything. I just thought a wish and the coin disappeared and then I yawned and there was no click.

If I really, really wanted to, I could probably find the sea-green one again. I don't want to that badly. Especially because I'd just be in for another round of mystery theatre.

I don't want to be a mint. If I knew a cooperative mint, I'd want to study their coins and ask them how their power works and maybe but probably not watch them use it.

Because: The creepy thing about mints is how they make coins. I think it has to do with pain somehow. See? I'm creeping myself out already. I think coins are made out of a mint's pain. Why do I think that?

self_composed
2012-11-01 02:15 am (UTC)

Bella ramps up to 2x so she can summarize for Alice while composing replies, unimpeded.

Wow, that's got to be the most fucked up magic power ever. Can't they buy a nicer minting power where they can make coins out of sunshine or something instead?

Why do you think that?

nonbird
2012-11-01 02:42 am (UTC)

Mints are also the only true duplicate power I've ever seen. That might have something to do with it. Maybe there's only one way to be a mint.

Well, that goes back to what interpreting powers is like.

This is a bad way to put it, but I can't think of any better ones: The way a power 'looks' always has some qualities that make me think of things that are like how the power works. The little bird's power looks strong and solid and, I don't know, outward? It just looks like the kind of thing that's for protecting people. And Kolya's power looks shy and like it wants to be hiding behind something at all times. My power has an outwardness to it, too, but it's not exactly the same outwardness. And it's kind of angular and all-over-the-place, like sugar crystals. (Trying to describe powers in terms of the regular senses is usually doomed to failure, but once in a while I get good analogies referencing shape or size. A certain someone's is exactly person-sized, for example, although that has nothing to do with the size it appears to have in the physical world, because all powers are also the shape and size of the people who have them. But on a different level, they meaningfully aren't. Confused yet?)

So: the mint power 'looks' like a thing that turns pain into wishes.

self_composed
2012-11-01 02:46 am (UTC)

I repeat: most fucked up power ever.

Maybe it's a conspiracy and the native mint does it differently but only sells this kind of minting to limit others' power! Wait, that's technically not a conspiracy, it only calls for one person. But you know what I mean.

I am a little confused, but maybe not as confused as you fear? I understand you're trying to talk about an extra sense with a language designed around its absence.

What else do you know about the wishes? What does "complexity" or "size" mean in terms of whether a wish needs one kind of coin or another? Is there any reason for people to be associated with the colors they are or does that seem random?

Bella's pretty sure it's not a conspiracy. She tried hexing herself a better wishcoining power once, even though Elias said it wouldn't work in his book. It didn't work.

nonbird
2012-11-01 10:33 am (UTC)

I don't know a lot about the wishes. And like I said, I haven't exactly seen enough colour combinations to have a good theory. That one mint didn't particularly seem like a sea-green person or anything.

I don't really know what complexity or size mean other than the obvious. Well, I guess "the obvious" isn't necessarily all that obvious. Bigger-and-more-complicated wishes are wishes that accomplish more things, or more of a thing. If I'd wanted to, I don't know, fix a broken arm as well as my clicky jaw, that might have taken a coin with one more side. Or even a broken arm instead of my clicky jaw. But I don't have any more than the vaguest possible sense of how the size of a wish actually relates to the number of sides it needs. For that matter, I don't know how many sides a coin can have. Maybe it stops at five, or maybe it keeps going up indefinitely and the most powerful coins just look like circles.

self_composed
2012-11-01 04:55 pm (UTC)

Bella catches up in her summary to Alice. [I don't suppose you'd like to try making something with eight corners?] she asks idly. [One hundred K triangles, assuming the pattern holds? Could you even make a coin at that point? Would I just wind up frying your brain even if I took you up slow? That would be bad, I need your brain for various purposes.] He's sufficiently ambivalent about dying when the concept isn't presented in relation to her that she doesn't bother referring to anything he might use his brain for.

Have you met Bridget before? It occurs to me that I have no idea - I quizzed her extensively and she always had explanations for how she knew everything, she never said "Lazarus told me that I could do X" or anything. It just seems like you could develop a lot more usefulness if you had more of a sample size to look at properly, and she might not object, though I'd have to ask.

I dunno. What do you do with your time, anyway, nonbird, since you don't run Hogwarts?

[This guy seems like the best chance I have of finding out what the hell is the matter with stars - directly, or indirectly by getting him to find mints until he finds one who knows,] Bella remarks. [I'm considering dropping secrecy around him after I know him a bit better. He may wish to perform sinister experiments on you.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 05:01 pm (UTC)

[No idea,] Alice says cheerfully, regarding her speculation about eight-cornered coins. [I sure as hell wouldn't mind trying, though.]

He wouldn't mind frying his brain in the process, either—it sounds like pretty much the best way to go that he can think of—but he'd mind that she minded, kind of.

[Would I like his sinister experiments? I bet I'd like his sinister experiments. I wonder if he's cute.]

nonbird
2012-11-01 05:07 pm (UTC)

Bridget's the physicist, isn't she? Dr. Banner? I've seen her, but not talked to her extensively. Her power is interesting. You'd think it would look like the little bird's, but it doesn't at all, even though there's some overlap in effect.

I have a boring nonmagical job where I do boring nonmagical things. I also like wandering around watching strangers do things. I'm told this is a creepy hobby.

self_composed
2012-11-01 05:11 pm (UTC)

[I think perhaps let's save that for a desperate magical arms race after stockpiling an entire roomful of hexes,] Bella decides. [You might indeed like his sinister experiments. I have not visually observed him, but I relayed his roommate's description, which is unflattering either sincerely or insincerely.]

Yes, she's a physicist. That's funny that her power doesn't resemble little bird's - can you describe the differences via poorly-suited metaphor in uncooperative words, please?

Boring nonmagical job sounds like the worst thing. In particular, it sounds boring.

I think people-watching is a thing. I mean, there's a word for it. And it makes sense in your case.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 05:52 pm (UTC)

[I bet he's cute,] Alice says cheerfully.

nonbird
2012-11-01 06:05 pm (UTC)

> can you describe the differences via poorly-suited metaphor in uncooperative words, please?

Oh, yes, that's my favourite. :P

They do the same thing, or part of the same thing, but they do it in very different ways. The little bird's power is very outward, like I said; it goes outward from her to the person she's protecting and then looks outward again to guard them. Bridget's power is very, very inward. It works on her, not on the world around her. And it's big and small at the same time, like there's really three times as much Bridget as the world gets to see, trying to press itself down into just slightly less space than she nominally occupies. (Powers looking a little smaller than their people isn't unique—Kolya's does it too—but I've never seen one be simultaneously bigger like that.)

self_composed
2012-11-01 06:11 pm (UTC)

[It occurs to me to ask if we're being exclusive. I'm going to guess "no, that would be too conventional and then we'd have to have a confusing conversation about whether sinister experiments constitute cheating".]

Bridget's power just working on her makes sense to me. She was kind enough to let me try to break her wrist. It didn't go. Nothing happened to me, her wrist just wasn't a breakable thing. I'd be vaguely curious what would happen if I made an attempt at attacking the little bird's niece - I imagine her wrist wouldn't break either, but it might not-break in an interestingly different way.

How long have you known all these various magical people?

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

[Well, forget what's conventional for a minute,] says Alice. [Do you want me to not have sexy experiments with other people?]

He has no idea if he could follow such a rule, but he wants to know the answer nevertheless. And for the record, Bella can do all the sexy experimenting she wants with whoever she wants and Alice will have no problem with that at all.

self_composed
2012-11-01 06:25 pm (UTC)

Bella considers this. [I suppose that given sufficient magic making the excess complications of diseases and babies not-a-problem, the only thing that has me worried is that someone else will do their equivalent of calling you a freak, and then I have to share not just my boyfriend but also my pet masochist, and then I have to keep that person happy or run the risk of turning them into my archenemy and not having my advantage. But that could happen without sexy experiments, too, perhaps just as easily considering the timeline with you and me. So it makes more sense to focus on mitigating the possibility that I will wind up sharing you with an archenemy than just naively banning sinister experimentation with magic-detectors who may or may not be cute and expecting that to solve the quandary.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 06:40 pm (UTC)

He takes a moment to disentangle this, and then laughs.

[Yeah, who I fuck and who I fall in love with are pretty much not related.] Not in that causal direction, anyway, and historically not really in the other one either.

nonbird
2012-11-01 06:42 pm (UTC)

If I were you, I wouldn't try it.

I've known these various magical people various amounts of time! Kolya the longest, the little bird next.

self_composed
2012-11-01 06:46 pm (UTC)

[So, how do we avoid you falling in love with somebody who might wind up being my nemesis?] Bella asks practically. [Tumble into bed with whoever you like, don't get sick or create life please till further notice, but this nemesis thing could be problematic. I might already have one. Somebody could and did send a mess of spies after me. If I were my nemesis, the first thing I would do would be go after you.]

Why not? It wouldn't work any more than it did on Bridget. And I'd ask first. Ethical experimental procedures, and all. I don't know little bird's niece, of course, but if I met her why not inquire?

Sure, but when did you meet Kolya?

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 07:02 pm (UTC)

[We don't,] says Alice, also practically. [I mean, I don't know what's gonna make me fall in love until it happens, and I don't know who I'm gonna fall in love with until I do. And I wouldn't know who might be your nemesis just by looking, anyway.]

He's not sure it's as much of a problem as Bella makes it out to be, though. If Freddie Mercury rose from the dead tomorrow and tried to recruit him to conquer the world at the head of a horde of fabulous zombies, he would probably side with Bella in the ensuing conflict, despite the self-evident awesomeness of Freddie Mercury with a zombie horde.

self_composed
2012-11-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

[So... you're pretty sure that I win in any of various contests between me and miscellaneous others you could fall in love with?] Bella asks. [Just because I showed up first or what? How do you know? I think you and I are both already protected against various direct attacks I'd try if I were my nemesis, but not against just plain mind-changing...]
Edited 2012-11-01 19:17 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 07:37 pm (UTC)

[Sure, I might change my mind,] he says with a shrug, [but we can't really do anything about that, either. And I don't think I will. I love you.]

He can't even imagine the qualities someone would need to have before that person being themselves would be as intrinsically fascinating to him as Bella being Bella.

nonbird
2012-11-01 07:39 pm (UTC)

I just don't think it would be a good idea.

Years and years ago, why?

self_composed
2012-11-01 08:00 pm (UTC)

[Could you imagine me before you met me?] Bella counters. [It's not like you've been around for sixty years and have a really prolonged experience to develop working knowledge of human variation and your own predilections, here.]

But why do you think that?

I'm curious about correlations between how long you've known someone and how much you know about their power. And, there seems to be this whole network of magic people that I just stumbled across and I want to know how long it's existed.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] says a somewhat confused Alice, [so what the hell exactly do you expect me to do about this hypothetical person who I haven't met yet and have no idea what they're like?]

self_composed
2012-11-01 08:14 pm (UTC)

[I don't have any expectations for you about that, at the moment. I expect to be paranoid and run at an extra half-a-brain so I can do other things while I worry.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 08:23 pm (UTC)

[Well, that sounds like the opposite of fun.]

nonbird
2012-11-01 08:41 pm (UTC)

Well, I'm a lot more familiar with Kolya's power than anyone else's because I've been living with him for (I just checked) two years. It's not how long I've known them that matters, really, it's how well I know them.

Is a collection of loosely acquainted people a network?

self_composed
2012-11-01 08:50 pm (UTC)

[It's not great,] Bella agrees. [But you are an exceptionally valuable resource, or an exceptionally powerful solo player, in a world full of wishcoiners. If I didn't have you, I'd want you, and if someone else had you and I couldn't get you I'd want you dead or crippled. Since in reality I have you, I have to expect that other people want you, or want you dead or crippled, and since you are my exceptionally valuable resource I don't want that to happen. So, I will think about it. Paranoidly.]

Sure it is. It's not a club or a political party or even a circle of friends, but it's certainly a network.

Have you met little bird's niece?

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 11:16 pm (UTC)

This seems like kind of a bad plan to Alice! But he gets that Bella's reaction to things she doesn't like but can't change is not to accept them and then drop it.

Also, he is kind of really distracted by Bella saying the words I'd want you dead. That gives him all kinds of lovely feelings.

nonbird
2012-11-01 11:17 pm (UTC)

I'm sure little bird's niece is a lovely person, but I don't want to meet her at all.

self_composed
2012-11-01 11:21 pm (UTC)

Bella decides not to clarify what she meant to Alice; he didn't exactly misunderstand her, and he's enjoying taking the quote out of context, so she may as well let him.

[I'm not yet certain I can't change it. Or mitigate the downside potential, or cut the chances,] she says instead.

Why not?

Bella is getting the creeping suspicion that Chris's niece isn't just Chris's niece. Lazarus knows enough to make him nervous, and what he knows isn't much.

She emails Bridget.

Have you met her niece?

She'll assume that Bridget knows there's only one mutually salient "her" with a niece worth asking about.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 11:25 pm (UTC)

[How?]

regularsized
2012-11-01 11:26 pm (UTC)

Why?

self_composed
2012-11-01 11:28 pm (UTC)

[Don't know yet. Requires thought.]

Just curious.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 11:33 pm (UTC)

[Lemme know when you figure it out,] he says dryly.

He finds that he doesn't like thinking about the idea. Even the vague proto-thoughts that he forms concerning what she might possibly do are making him uneasy.

So he shrugs and starts baking some cookies.

self_composed
2012-11-01 11:36 pm (UTC)

You AFK?
Bella asks Lazarus.

Bridget gets a similar email, a few minutes later.

nonbird
2012-11-01 11:39 pm (UTC)

Yes and no. Sorry, I got distracted.

The truth is, our little bird kind of makes me nervous sometimes.

self_composed
2012-11-01 11:41 pm (UTC)

Oh dear.

Would you rather be having this conversation in some more confidential manner?

nonbird
2012-11-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

Maybe. I don't know. I'm probably just being silly.

self_composed
2012-11-01 11:43 pm (UTC)

I don't think it's silly.

nonbird
2012-11-01 11:44 pm (UTC)

Yes, well, you believe in magic.

self_composed
2012-11-01 11:45 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes I do.

Magic is kind of scary.

nonbird
2012-11-01 11:51 pm (UTC)

Sometimes, yeah.

self_composed
2012-11-01 11:53 pm (UTC)

[I'm going to see what I can do about getting you a sinister experimenter for Christmas,] Bella decides, and informs Alice.

She spends a pentagon. She doesn't know if his email is being watched, but whoever her nemesis might be can hire a dozen people to spy on her on campus; they can hire one decent cracker.

[Boo.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-01 11:54 pm (UTC)

[You're the best.]

nonbird
2012-11-01 11:55 pm (UTC)

Lazarus squawks.

self_composed
2012-11-01 11:56 pm (UTC)

[Sorry, I couldn't resist. This is Bella. Please don't freak out. You can think back at me, text or voice-equivalent - it's a very intuitive interface really.]

nonbird
2012-11-01 11:57 pm (UTC)

[Bella,] he says cautiously.

[What. Why, and also how.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 12:01 am (UTC)

[Ooh, my turn to answer questions,] laughs Bella. [First of all - you're not going to run off and tell the little bird, or anyone, that I said hi, are you? Or rather, that I said "boo"? Because you're right. She's kinda scary. Someone has been watching me, by suspiciously numerous proxies, and I don't know if it's her or someone else but I'd rather not chance her finding out. But I don't think you're working for whoever - a smart spooky force with you working for them would give you a lot more information to work with, I think. It would just be terribly inconvenient if you chose now to sign on with whoever wants so badly to spy on me.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 12:05 am (UTC)

[I am definitely not going to tell Chris anything about this conversation,] he says, sitting back and running his hands through his hair. [I'm still kind of stuck on the fact that you're doing magic, to be honest. Didn't you not have any a minute ago?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 12:08 am (UTC)

[I was lying,] Bella admits. [I mean, it's not like it's hard to hack into an email account. I don't know why they're interested in me, but on the off-chance that it's not my mad minting skills, I'd like that to continue. So yeah. I am minty fresh.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 01:24 am (UTC)

He laughs, a little incredulously. It comes through on the brainphone.

There's a beat of silence, and then he asks, [How much was I right about?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 01:33 am (UTC)

[The pain thing is totally a thing,] Bella says. [Wishing for it to be sunshine instead does not work. The mint who gave you the square was a cheat if he was trying to get any substantial concession for it; you can get one of those by just biting the inside of your cheek decently hard, they're cheap. Well, not you, but mints. My coins are glowy and red, if you want to know. More sides do mean more power. There are triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons, and seven-pointed stars. I don't know about anything beyond that. Stars are overkill for all practical purposes I have encountered thus far. More pain equals a "bigger" coin - I came up with a scale for it, and each tier of coin is a new power of ten. One through nine gets you a triangle, ten through ninety-nine gets a square, and so on.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 01:39 am (UTC)

[I wonder why the change in shape,] Lazarus says musingly. [An exponential scale? Really? How do you measure...? Or do I even want to know?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 01:40 am (UTC)

[I dunno, do you?] Bella asks, sincerely curious.

nonbird
2012-11-02 01:44 am (UTC)

[I don't know,] he says helplessly, shaking his head. [No, curiosity wins over squeamishness, it generally does.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 01:46 am (UTC)

[This part involves the biggest secret to my success, so to speak,] Bella says seriously. [I also don't know how closely you're being supervised - I don't know why the folks spying on me aren't using your valuable powers, but if they have a fraction of a brain they are paying attention to you. You can't do anything weird. You can't tell anyone, even Kolya, till I've had a chance to evaluate him myself. Capisce?]

nonbird
2012-11-02 01:48 am (UTC)

He sighs. That comes across, too.

[Okay.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 01:50 am (UTC)

[My boyfriend is the most masochistic masochist ever,] Bella says. [I've only ever made one hex. It made him a mint. He can make even stars all by himself - you know, recreationally - but I also hexed up a power that lets me help him out, and it comes with the units, where one unit is the bare minimum of pain to make a triangle.] Pause. [He has expressed an interest in having sinister experiments performed on him, by the way. I don't know if that would be discomfiting more than it would be curiosity-satisfying.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 01:51 am (UTC)

[Recreationally,] Lazarus repeats. [Oh my. What kind of sinister experiments, or does he just like the phrase?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 01:54 am (UTC)

[That was my phrase, actually. Whatever kind of sinister experiments would be informative for your magic-sense. Information is useful. I do not understand why you have not been eaten by a shadowy magical conspiracy already. Wanna be in mine? I'm nice, I promise.] Pause. [We could also make this a conference call if you'd like to talk to him directly.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 01:58 am (UTC)

[Not yet,] he decides. [What exactly are you shadowy-ily magically conspiring to do?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 01:59 am (UTC)

[I want to take over the world,] Bella says. [And make it behave itself. For example, at some point, when I can either do it inconspicuously or no longer need to be discreet, I intend to eradicate malaria. I'm lying low for the time being specifically because I don't know where all the world's mints and natively magic people are or what they are doing, but whatever they are doing does not meet my exacting standards.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:00 am (UTC)

[...That is a good conspiracy,] says Lazarus. [I like that conspiracy. I am on board with that conspiracy.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:01 am (UTC)

[I'm so glad,] says Bella merrily.

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:12 am (UTC)

[My sinister experiments are probably just going to amount so sitting still in the same room with both of you for a while,] he says. [I'm really not a very exciting person. Well, and I might want to watch someone make a coin, but not, ah... recreationally.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:15 am (UTC)

[He doesn't really have a non-recreational setting. I can make small ones non-recreationally if that would be more comfortable for you, though. What does your current boring job involve? I can help you with a cover story so Kolya doesn't wonder what you're up to - you can "apply for a job" that requires you to "sign a lot of confidentiality agreements". And then if you'd rather hang out with my conspiracy than do what you're doing, the "job" can hire you and require relocation.] Quotation marks appear in the text channel where appropriate.

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:18 am (UTC)

[Well, I wouldn't want to get too far from Kolya. Is this yours?] he wonders. [Did you invent multimedia communicative telepathy?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:20 am (UTC)

[Yes! Yes I did. Designing powers is fun,] Bella says. [Bring him with you if you like and can explain why and he wants to come, we have access to money to provide from your fictitious job with a secretive wee startup and it's not like it would be hard to get more.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:32 am (UTC)

[I also kind of like my current city. How many powers have you designed?] he wonders. [How many do you have?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:34 am (UTC)

[Uh, pardon, let me count,] Bella says. She counts. [Are we counting magical permanent hexagon-level powers, or also mundane things that I pentagoned myself good at for various reasons? And the two-layered one that I doubled up 'cause I was paranoid?]

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:36 am (UTC)

After a moment of stunned silence,

[Yes.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:40 am (UTC)

[Minting, plus 17 other magic superpowers if you count the doubled one as two things, and one dozen non-language persistent uses of pentagons, variously frivolous, and twenty-one languages.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:42 am (UTC)

[I really want to look at you,] says Lazarus. ['Look', I mean. I can't even imagine what a stack of powers like that would look like. I've never seen one before.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:44 am (UTC)

[You shall just have to come visit me, then. How much do you like your current city? Because transit can be magicked, I'm just a little worried that Kolya will follow you to work one day and you won't notice.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:45 am (UTC)

[Well, if I really seriously join your magical conspiracy, I'm going to have to tell Kolya,] he says. [No two ways about that.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:46 am (UTC)

[That's probably fine eventually, I just have to be comfortable with telling him too before he gets all up in my secrets,] Bella says. [I would also really not like him to be able to unobtrusiveness at me, so I would want your help designing a workaround.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:49 am (UTC)

[No,] says Lazarus. [Several kinds of no. Native powers always beat nonnative ones, for one thing, so it would be impossible, and he'd rather never be in the same room with you than not be able to escape your attention, so: no.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:51 am (UTC)

[I can also work with the not being in the same room option. I've never been in a room with you before,] Bella points out, [and yet here I am, telling you all the things. I did not know that about native powers trumping. That is interesting.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:52 am (UTC)

[He probably also wouldn't like you to 'boo' at him,] he adds.

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:53 am (UTC)

[One time got it out of my system.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 02:57 am (UTC)

[Well, if you decide to talk to him with your magical Skype, can I warn him first?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 02:59 am (UTC)

[Yes. We usually call it a "brainphone"; I didn't install video capabilities,] Bella says. [But I'd want to email him first.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 03:00 am (UTC)

[Okay,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-02 03:03 am (UTC)

[At any rate, wanna come for a visit? We can handle commuting. There's already a magic door between school and my hometown. I'd just need to know where another such device ought to lead.] Pause. [Hang on, let me just actually spot-check to see if you are being watched.]

Pentagon goes. Checking, checking...

nonbird
2012-11-02 03:07 am (UTC)

Lazarus is currently not being directly observed by any means, magical or mundane, that Bella's pentagon can detect.

[Well?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 03:09 am (UTC)

[Nothing I can turn up with a pentagon. Do you want to visit now? My roommate is out all weekend visiting family, and so far no one has been attempting to spy on me in my actual room. All I need to know is where to make the magic door in the stairwell.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 03:11 am (UTC)

[...I'm not sure where I'd put a magic door,] he says. [I don't exactly have a wardrobe handy.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 03:13 am (UTC)

[Ours is in an unobtrusive wall in a stairwell, so we can see if anyone's coming. It's invisible to most people, and doesn't admit sound or strangers, and so on,] Bella adds. [So you could put it anywhere there's space to walk. It wouldn't even have to be in a surface; you won't go through by accident even if it's in the middle of your living room.]
Edited 2012-11-02 03:50 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-02 10:10 am (UTC)

[Yes, but I'd notice it all the time,] he points out. [And I don't really want anyone teleporting into the middle of my living room. Hmm.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 04:04 pm (UTC)

[Hallway, backyard, unisex bathroom of nearest coffee shop,] Bella rattles off, unconcerned.

nonbird
2012-11-02 04:21 pm (UTC)

[Hmm,] says Lazarus. [I think I'll go for a walk and see if I find anything that looks acceptable.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 04:22 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Please remember not to act weird; you weren't being supervised when I checked but it's probably easier to have eyes on you out of doors. If I were my nemesis I'd kidnap you and make it very inconvenient to kidnap you back again.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 04:25 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure I know what acting weird means in this context.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 04:26 pm (UTC)

[Go places you normally go, don't whistle casually if you don't usually whistle casually, do not make excessively thoughtful or otherwise noticeable facial expressions compared to your baseline. We can pause in chatting if that would be helpful.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

[Wandering aimlessly and making thoughtful faces isn't all that unusual for me,] he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2012-11-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

[All right then, you're probably good.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

[Out of curiosity, how am I going to specify this piece of wall to you when I find it?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 04:38 pm (UTC)

[Magic's pretty clever. Get me an address and a description that doesn't match any other parts of wall and a hex can find it for me, no problem.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 05:16 pm (UTC)

[That's fascinating,] says Lazarus. [Have you experimented with degree of specification?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 05:17 pm (UTC)

[Except insofar as the wishes constitute natural experiments, not much - it may vary with coin size, and while I can be moderately frivolous with hexes, I wouldn't like to be caught short of them if something unwelcome were to happen unexpectedly. I have made many wishes in the course of things and have a decent feel for what they'll do, though.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Moderately frivolous,] he repeats. [How moderately? And while we're on the subject, actually, since you know more about this than me, what is the size and complexity of wish associated to each coin?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 05:35 pm (UTC)

[As in, if I want to use one, I use one - I just prefer to be decently sure that I want to use one. Triangles do tiny things. Flick lightswitches across the room, hurry along kitchen tasks like boiling water, banish itches in inconvenient locations in the middle of your back, whatever. I'll give you a bagful as a signing bonus into the conspiracy if you like. You could probably do creative productive things if you wanted, with a triangle - I'd use one to pull a fire alarm anonymously if I wanted a building evacuated, for instance. Squares are next up and if I were dealing with coin scarcity I'd use more of them than anything else. They can conjure inherently nonmagical medium-sized physical objects, perform tasks a grade up from triangle sorts of things, grant temporary nonmagical skills - it's disconcerting as hell when those go away though - and make illusions that stay put till you want them gone. Pentagons are good for permanent nonmagical skills, like my languages and stuff, and they can also conjure modestly magical objects, like my kickass motorcycle or appliances that don't need electricity. Hexes are good for permanent magical superpowers - stuff the X-Men could do, except it's worth being careful in design - and big, complicated makings-of-stuff, like doors that lead hundreds or thousands of miles away.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 05:38 pm (UTC)

He pauses to sort through this in his head.

Then: [You have a magic motorcycle?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 05:39 pm (UTC)

[It's not obtrusively magical, but it's obtrusively awesome. It won't start or move for anyone but me without my say-so, and it doesn't need gas, though it'll take it if I need to fill up in front of somebody for some reason. And it is prettyful.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 05:42 pm (UTC)

[...I hope this isn't a rude question,] says Lazarus, [but how old are you?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 05:43 pm (UTC)

[Eighteen. Why, is thinking it is awesome that I have a magic bike coming off as some manner of immature? My dad thinks it's a spectacular bike too and he's past forty.]
Edited 2012-11-02 17:46 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-02 05:49 pm (UTC)

[No, it's self-evident that magic bikes are awesome,] he assures her. [I'm not sure exactly; it's just something about the way you said it.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 05:50 pm (UTC)

[It's not going to be some kind of problem that I was born eighteen years ago, I hope.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 05:51 pm (UTC)

[It makes me slightly warier about joining your shadowy conspiracy,] he says, [but not very much warier. And it seems to be the best shadowy conspiracy on offer.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 05:54 pm (UTC)

[Well,] Bella said. [If I were older, I hope you'd expect me to have made commensurate progress in the shadowy conspiracy department? I'd be very skeptical of someone who was thirty, had ambitions to take over the world, and hadn't made any noticeable progress yet. I can at least claim to have gotten out of high school early, discovered a magical network, begun to poach it, and made inroads into various circles full of people with various forms of power who could be helpful or inconvenient depending. At age eighteen.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 05:56 pm (UTC)

[I also don't know how long you've wanted to take over the world for,] Lazarus points out.

self_composed
2012-11-02 05:57 pm (UTC)

[Well, I've been talking about it since I was ten, but I was going to go a more leisurely route before minting got dumped in my lap this past February.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 05:59 pm (UTC)

[Dare I ask why you wanted to in the first place?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 06:00 pm (UTC)

[Because it is not being operated suitably,] Bella says. [Did I not cover that? Even without magic, a lot of the problems might have been soluble. You don't see people coming down with smallpox anymore; average wealth keeps going up; we have made limited but nonzero progress on going into space - I would've just pushed on things that needed pushing.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 06:08 pm (UTC)

[You are slightly unnerving,] Lazarus observes. [But in a good way.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 06:09 pm (UTC)

[I don't think I've been called unnerving before,] Bella muses. [How goes door location hunting?]

nonbird
2012-11-02 06:16 pm (UTC)

[I think I found something, actually,] he says. [There's a kind of... weird hallway quirk... on the ground floor of my building near the stairwell. It's hard to look into but easy to get out of. Would that work?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 06:18 pm (UTC)

[Is there only one such place?] Bella says, getting up to head for the unobtrusive stairwell in her own building. [Also, is Kolya home? I presume I'll be lit up like a billboard to you even if I arrive invisible, but I'm still not down with the "unobtrusiveness" thing.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 06:23 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure, but I think he's out,] says Lazarus. [I could go home and ask if he's there, if you're nervous about encountering him in the hallway.]
Edited 2012-11-02 18:23 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-02 06:25 pm (UTC)

[Assuming he'll reliably reply to the question, please do.] Bella makes the door anyway. [Say when.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 06:27 pm (UTC)

[...You just made a magic door,] he observes.

self_composed
2012-11-02 06:30 pm (UTC)

[Yup! Can you see me through it?] Bella inquires.

nonbird
2012-11-02 06:48 pm (UTC)

[Extremely,] says Lazarus. He stares for a moment longer at the visually unremarkable location of invisible Bella on the other side of the door, then looks away. [For that matter, I can see the door. It's kind of... cute? And you're a little overwhelming, to be honest. The stack of powers is very analogous-to-bright. Oh, and you've got a native one under there, that's nice. Did you mention that? I forget.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 06:49 pm (UTC)

[I didn't mention it, but an addon failed for redundancy once,] said Bella. [So I figured.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 07:04 pm (UTC)

[What was the...? Oh, never mind, I see. That's elegant,] he says, smiling at an anonymous non-portal patch of wall.

self_composed
2012-11-02 07:05 pm (UTC)

[Beg pardon? I don't think you ought to be able to see an addon that failed for redudnancy; what are you looking at?]

nonbird
2012-11-02 07:07 pm (UTC)

[Your power—the native one. It's very, hmm, self-contained, which I guess is appropriate.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 07:07 pm (UTC)

[Self-contained?] prompts Bella.

nonbird
2012-11-02 07:10 pm (UTC)

[Yeah! Why am I standing here rambling, I can ramble while I go look for Kolya,] he says, turning and heading for the stairs. [Anyways. Your power. You know what it does, don't you?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 07:12 pm (UTC)

[The thing that failed for redundancy was a mental defense against spying and tampering,] Bella says. [That's the only way I know it exists at all; it doesn't make itself otherwise known to me, so I don't have much detail.]

nonbird
2012-11-02 07:24 pm (UTC)

[Well, it's very pretty,] says Lazarus. [Almost floral. And it's not inward or outward; I'd call it, hmm, exact. A defined boundary between your mind and the rest of the world. The farther away from that door I get, the weirder it is to look through it.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 07:25 pm (UTC)

[Floral,] repeats Bella, deadpan.

nonbird
2012-11-02 07:35 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Floral. Is that a problem? Would you rather I compared it to a motorbike?]

self_composed
2012-11-02 07:36 pm (UTC)

[It's just an amusing description.] Bella waits patiently to be told if the place is clear of unobtrusive folks.

nonbird
2012-11-02 07:56 pm (UTC)

He doesn't say anything, at least not to her, for about a minute.

Then he says, [Nope, not here.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 07:57 pm (UTC)

Bella steps invisibly through the door, looks around, and says, [What's the apartment number? Or are you going to come all the way back and escort me?]

nonbird
2012-11-02 07:58 pm (UTC)

[514. Oh, hi, you're here now, aren't you.]

self_composed
2012-11-02 07:59 pm (UTC)

[Yep.] Bella's still invisible; she might as well fly up the stairs. She does.

nonbird
2012-11-02 07:59 pm (UTC)

[You're flying!] says Lazarus, delightedly.

self_composed
2012-11-02 08:00 pm (UTC)

[I am! That's just about the first thing I did once I had a good hex supply,] laughs Bella, landing on the fifth landing. [Here I am at your door. Can I come in?]

nonbird
2012-11-02 08:05 pm (UTC)

[Yes you can!] he says, and opens the door.

"I suppose at the point where I'm letting an invisible person into my apartment I can stop trying not to act weird," he adds out loud. "Hello."
Edited 2012-11-02 20:05 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-02 08:06 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles and floats in and inspects the place.

nonbird
2012-11-02 10:35 pm (UTC)

Lazarus laughs and shuts the door and inspects Bella.

The apartment is small and moderately cluttered, mainly with loose books. Some of them are on furniture; others are being used as furniture. The couch has two free cushions and one pile of mixed fiction and non-. There is a bookshelf, but it is over capacity and then some.

self_composed
2012-11-03 02:00 am (UTC)

Bella de-invisibles as she skims his book titles. "You," she diagnoses, "are a reader. Or Kolya is. But given this quantity I'm going to guess both."

nonbird
2012-11-03 02:25 am (UTC)

He laughs again.

"Correct!" he says, perching on the arm of the couch in a clearly familiar posture. "That stack of powers you have there is fascinating. It's hard to look away. What did you say your coins were? Red and glowy? Can I see one?"

self_composed
2012-11-03 07:44 am (UTC)

Bella nips the edge of her lip and appears the triangle in her hand instead of on her bandolier; she throws it to him. She could square some off the chain but that seems excessive when he didn't even specify a size. "Behold."

nonbird
2012-11-03 09:47 am (UTC)

"That's fascinating," he says, closing his hand around it, studying the glow.

Then: "You don't happen to be wearing a few hundred more, do you? That aren't yours?"

self_composed
2012-11-03 04:18 pm (UTC)

"My boyfriend makes most of 'em," Bella nods. "And there are a few that I just found."

nonbird
2012-11-04 01:27 am (UTC)

"Well, I can definitely see them," he says. "If I look just the right way, the variance in number of sides is as clear as day."

self_composed
2012-11-04 04:16 am (UTC)

"Interesting. Can you just tell that they're there or could you tell me exactly how I've got them arranged and everything?"

nonbird
2012-11-04 10:43 am (UTC)

"At this range? I can see them as clearly as I see someone with a power standing behind me," he says. "Location and shape. So yes, I can tell how you have them arranged."

self_composed
2012-11-04 03:57 pm (UTC)

Bella grins and helps herself to a chair. "So, here's a cooperative mint. Anything else you'd like to see done?"

nonbird
2012-11-04 11:18 pm (UTC)

"My mind is suddenly blank," he says mournfully.

self_composed
2012-11-04 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Well, I have a question - did it look like anything special when I made you that triangle?"

nonbird
2012-11-05 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I think so," he says. "It was hard to tell, with all the—" he waves a hand vaguely in her direction "—noise."

self_composed
2012-11-05 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps you'll get used to it and be able to pick out more detail," Bella says encouragingly. "What do you think you saw?"

nonbird
2012-11-08 12:44 am (UTC)

He shakes his head. "I couldn't begin to say. Maybe if I saw it a few more times?"

self_composed
2012-11-08 12:47 am (UTC)

Bella digs her thumbnail into her opposite arm in a neat little pattern from elbow to wristbone. "I did say you could have a bagful." She pours a dozen triangles into his hands.

nonbird
2012-11-08 12:57 am (UTC)

"That's a little bit disconcerting," he observes. "But yes, something definitely happens when you make them. I can sort it out from the noise now, but I'm not any closer to describing it coherently."

self_composed
2012-11-08 01:07 am (UTC)

"Perhaps you could describe it incoherently," Bella says. Aikido's useful; she finds a nerve in her wrist and digs a knuckle into it. Square. She flicks it at him.

nonbird
2012-11-08 01:18 am (UTC)

"...That was... different," he says, freeing a hand from the pile of triangles to catch the incoming square. "And even more disconcerting."

self_composed
2012-11-08 01:19 am (UTC)

"I'll save the more-disconcerting-still demos for the boyfriend," Bella says. "I am not him. I could be relevantly similar," she pokes a pentagon, "but frankly it does not interest me to become so."

nonbird
2012-11-08 01:59 am (UTC)

"Understandable," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:00 am (UTC)

"You're not going to freak out if he demonstrates?" Bella inquires. "It can be done in an entirely sanitary manner. He doesn't have to set himself on fire."

Bella may enjoy watching Lazarus be disconcerted just a little bit.

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:04 am (UTC)

"You did that on purpose," he accuses, making a woeful face.

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:05 am (UTC)

"I did," Bella admits, unrepentant.

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:06 am (UTC)

But he is so woeful!

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:08 am (UTC)

"Would you prefer if I did not make further gratuitous references to unsanitary ways in which my boyfriend might generate coins of assorted sizes for your investigatory purposes?" sighs Bella.

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:10 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says firmly. "Yes, I would prefer that."

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:11 am (UTC)

"All right then. He'll probably find that really disappointing though." She crosses her ankles. [I don't think Lazarus wants to play with you,] she reports to Alice.

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:17 am (UTC)

"Well, he can just be disappointed, then."

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-08 02:18 am (UTC)

[Aww,] says Alice, disappointedly. [Why not?]

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:19 am (UTC)

[Most people aren't into that sort of thing. I dunno, maybe you can make a pentagon via agony beam and he'll find this sufficiently scientifically fascinating that he'll get over the hangup.]

"Yes, he can," agrees Bella. "Empirically."

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:20 am (UTC)

"Empirically, meaning...?"

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:21 am (UTC)

[Brainphone, remember?] she says to Lazarus, smirking.

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:23 am (UTC)

[...That is going to take some getting used to,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:24 am (UTC)

[I found it pretty easy. It's tremendously useful. Saves on my cell bill too.]

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:30 am (UTC)

[I'll bet,] he says. [But you're the one who made it in the first place, aren't you? So you're not likely to have to be reminded it exists.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:36 am (UTC)

[That's true. I don't have to be reminded of things generally, anymore. Well, for the most part - perfect recall's not the same as maximally convenient memory prompts.]
Edited 2012-11-08 02:38 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:43 am (UTC)

[Yeah,] he says, nodding. [I can see that one, but it doesn't stand out as much as some of the others. Flight is noisy.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 02:43 am (UTC)

[Have you read them all yet?] Bella inquires. [What else is noisy besides flying?]

nonbird
2012-11-08 02:56 am (UTC)

[The... turbo brain?] He waves his hands vaguely. [It's very active. And...]

He makes an 'oh, dear' sort of face.

[That one. The this-must-be-what-you-meant-by-helping-your-boyfriend-out one. It's very, um, I'm not sure how to say this,] but apparently it involves more vague hand motions, [sharp? Minimal yet striking? Like one thin stripe of a very bold colour.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 07:05 am (UTC)

[I call it "cognitive speedup". And the other one the "agony beam". The others are quieter? I'd expect the regen power to be on par with the agony beam just via wild intuitive guess.]

nonbird
2012-11-08 11:33 am (UTC)

[No, that one's actually very subtle,] he says, shaking his head. [Almost wispy.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 06:42 pm (UTC)

[Huh, weird. Any idea why? What about my various defensive powers, how loud're they? Especially the double-layered one?]
Edited 2012-11-08 18:50 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-08 08:04 pm (UTC)

[Double-layered one?] he asks, scrutinizing the collection.

self_composed
2012-11-08 08:07 pm (UTC)

[I'm a wee bit paranoid,] Bella says. [I don't think I wanna give you more hints until we find out what you see on your own.]

nonbird
2012-11-08 08:16 pm (UTC)

[Never mind, I see what you mean. They're not especially loud or especially quiet.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 08:32 pm (UTC)

[Other properties?] prompts Bella. [Tell me everything.]

nonbird
2012-11-08 08:47 pm (UTC)

[The one you call 'double-layered' doesn't really look double-layered to me,] he says. [I can tell two coins went into it, but only if I look very closely.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 09:02 pm (UTC)

[It did take the second hex, so there must have been something left to do,] Bella says.

nonbird
2012-11-08 09:31 pm (UTC)

[Well, yes. But it did it very, hmm, seamlessly.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 09:31 pm (UTC)

[Go on?]

nonbird
2012-11-08 09:40 pm (UTC)

[There aren't pieces of it that were added by the second hex. But there's more of it than one hex could account for, and it has a,] he makes more vague hand motions, [an extra-ness.]
Edited 2012-11-08 21:40 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-08 09:41 pm (UTC)

[You are so spectacularly eloquent. I don't suppose you want me to be able to read your mind too? Shan't do it without permission but then I could just look at what you're looking at.]

nonbird
2012-11-08 09:54 pm (UTC)

[...You're welcome to read my power, if you think it would help,] he says. [I'd rather you stayed out of my actual thoughts.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 09:56 pm (UTC)

[I'll try a temporary look at it and see if I can even make sense of it. That should only be a square; square can do lots of things if they don't have to last long.] A square goes. There is a thoughtful pause.

[I am shiny,] Bella remarks. [That's about all I could make heads or tails of.]

nonbird
2012-11-08 09:56 pm (UTC)

[I expected as much,] he admits.

self_composed
2012-11-08 09:58 pm (UTC)

[Okay, so that's not going to get anywhere unless I figure out a clever magical translation mechanism. Maybe I should just wish up a facsimile of your power, but it's clearly very complicated and you've got relevant experience and nativ-itude with it - for example, you can see my anti-magical-spying power apparently - so I think I'd rather just retain your services directly.]

nonbird
2012-11-08 10:15 pm (UTC)

[Works for me,] says Lazarus. [As long as you don't mind that I can usually explain my conclusions but not how I got to them.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 10:16 pm (UTC)

[I'll probably ask you anyway. Maybe we can figure out the right questions if we try,] Bella says optimistically.

nonbird
2012-11-08 10:18 pm (UTC)

[I have a hard time believing that, but I guess we'll see.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 10:23 pm (UTC)

[So, speaking of retaining you, you now have a magic door in your building that leads to my dorm,] Bella says. [Provided I can either become comfortable spilling the beans to Kolya or you're pretty sure he will not attempt to follow you - he can't get through the door, but he could see you disappear - you wanna job?]

nonbird
2012-11-08 10:31 pm (UTC)

[I think I very well might!] he says. [And I could always just ask him not to follow me. It's not like he objects in principWHAT THE HELL]

The abrupt switch from conversational tones to startled yelp occurs very shortly after Lazarus disappears tracelessly from the room.

self_composed
2012-11-08 10:32 pm (UTC)

[Where the fuck did you go,] Bella says. Her spy sense isn't tingling, nothing happened except him disappearing.

nonbird
2012-11-08 10:45 pm (UTC)

[I don't know!] he says helplessly. [Far enough away that I can't see you. I can't see anyone with powers, actually, but—oh, dear.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 10:46 pm (UTC)

[What? What is it? Should I try yoinking you back?]

nonbird
2012-11-08 10:48 pm (UTC)

[You can try,] he says. [Whoever put me here left some magic on me. I can't leave this building—I'm in an empty warehouse, I think. There's some more, too, I'm figuring it out as we speak.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 10:50 pm (UTC)

Bella tries. Twice.

[Pentagon won't go, hex won't go. Defense wins I guess. Keep me posted. I'm magic dooring home; I don't want to be here if someone kicks your door down. You want me to email Kolya or anything?]

nonbird
2012-11-08 10:52 pm (UTC)

[You can email him to tell him I've been magically kidnapped if you're prepared to answer all his questions about why and how and general fussing. Also, apparently I've been rendered imperceptible and un-wish-on-able except to... one or a few people, I'm not sure, I can just tell there's an exception. I guess brainphone doesn't count.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 10:54 pm (UTC)

[I do not think I am prepared to answer such questions till I know more about what's going on. Un-wish-on-able to even you? You had triangles and a square with you; can you use them?]

nonbird
2012-11-08 11:02 pm (UTC)

[Not on myself,] he says after a moment. [Haven't tried anything else.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 11:03 pm (UTC)

[I don't want to ask you to use them all up, since they might come in handy if you find an opening somewhere, but is it possible to use one to change the color of the others?]

nonbird
2012-11-08 11:32 pm (UTC)

[No,] he says after a moment, and then after another moment, [but I can make them look like they're a different colour. My pile of triangles is now to all appearances transparent and non-glowy.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 11:33 pm (UTC)

[Thank you. The warehouse is just empty?]

nonbird
2012-11-08 11:36 pm (UTC)

[There's... stuff,] he says. [Empty crates, abandoned forklifts, inexplicable marks on the floor, that sort of thing. It's deserted as far as I can tell, but who knows who might be hiding behind a crate somewhere.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 11:37 pm (UTC)

[You don't sense any coins? I would be very surprised if you encountered a person who didn't have coins on them, under the circumstances.

nonbird
2012-11-08 11:39 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure I could sense coins that far away, unless they were big ones,] he says. [I would love to experiment on that sometime when I am less kidnapped.]

self_composed
2012-11-08 11:40 pm (UTC)

[Can you walk around and see? And - more detail on that ward, if you can get it. I might be able to think of a way around it.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:09 am (UTC)

[Sure,] he says. [Commencing aimless wandering.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:11 am (UTC)

[I'm trying to figure out why they yoinked you - whoever did - and why now. It would be a little too coincidental if it had nothing to do with me, but my spy-detection didn't go off at any point, you weren't being watched when I checked, you didn't get yoinked as soon as I appeared where you were at...]

She brings Alice up to speed in a rapid-fire summary with half her overclocked brain while she slips through the magic door back to Stanford.

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:18 am (UTC)

Lazarus is briefly distracted from examining his ward.

[Your spy detection only detects nonmagical spying, right?]

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:20 am (UTC)

[Yes, but the spot check would have detected magical spying... But if they were only spot checking you I could have easily missed them. And then they wouldn't have been able to see you when I was in the room with you and they panicked and yoinked. Ack, I'm sorry.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:23 am (UTC)

[Mainly what I'm worried about right now is who exactly 'they' are,] says Lazarus. [I must say, the world of secret magical conspiracies is turning out to be less pleasant than I'd hoped.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:26 am (UTC)

[Sorry,] Bella says again. [I don't know very much about them. I'm working on inferences from very limited clues. But this so confirms that there's a "they", so I'm not crazy or anything.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:27 am (UTC)

[I definitely agree with you there,] he says dryly.

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:29 am (UTC)

[Any more detail on the ward? Would it, for example, interfere with me turning your shoes into seven-league boots that could let you walk out of the building, or anything?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:38 am (UTC)

[I'm not sure if my shoes count as 'me' enough, but if you tried, I suspect my shoes would walk out of the building without me, or something similarly unhelpful. It's very clear about the me not leaving part.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:39 am (UTC)

[Is it attached to the building? Could I vanish the structure and invalidate the wish, or put the walls on opposite sides of the continent each so you could go anywhere in North America...? Is the building itself protected?]
Edited 2012-11-09 00:41 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:44 am (UTC)

[...I'm not sure,] he says thoughtfully. [Let me try a few things first.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:45 am (UTC)

[Try what things?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:49 am (UTC)

[I want to see what it looks like when I try to leave.]
Edited 2012-11-09 00:49 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:51 am (UTC)

[That makes sense.] Bella decides to wish for protection-from-yoinking; it fails for redundancy as expected but she's glad she checked.

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:52 am (UTC)

He's quiet for a minute.

Then: [The structure of the building definitely doesn't have anything to do with it. I'm not sure what does, but when it makes me not go outside, it's not referencing the building to decide what counts as outside it.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:55 am (UTC)

Bella keeps Alice posted.

[The floor area?] she asks Lazarus. [Could I put you above the building or under it, would that do anything interesting?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 12:56 am (UTC)

[No,] he says. [I can tell the shape of not-outside, and it's a volume, not an area.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-09 12:57 am (UTC)

Alice has no good suggestions. Also, he's baking.

He finds the whole thing kind of hilarious, though.

self_composed
2012-11-09 12:59 am (UTC)

[Well, could I move it? The volume?] Bella asks Lazarus. [Make it bigger, change its shape?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 01:02 am (UTC)

[I don't know how you would do that, if you did. It's not directly an object, that I can tell; it's just part of the structure of the wish. Can you change the structure of existing wishes like that?]

self_composed
2012-11-09 01:03 am (UTC)

[I can modify existing things that I did at least - like adding you to the brainphone network.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 01:12 am (UTC)

[Well... try it, I guess,] he says. [I don't have any special intuition about whether or not it will work. General pessimism suggests a no, but my pessimism isn't magical.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 01:13 am (UTC)

Bella tries to make the box bigger - by a continent, by a mile, by an inch, with a pentagon, with a hex.

[No good.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 01:14 am (UTC)

[Damn,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-09 01:16 am (UTC)

[Rather. Found any people yet?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 01:17 am (UTC)

[No. No people, no coins, no anything except mysterious boring unmagical debris.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 01:20 am (UTC)

[That's a very strange thing. My best guess is that they have this place prepped, but not staffed unless they expect to yoink somebody, and they didn't expect to yoink you - in which case someone is on their way to visit you. I mean, it would probably not have been any harder to wish you dead than wish you yoinked, so I can only assume they want to talk to you.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 01:21 am (UTC)

[Well, that's comforting.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 01:23 am (UTC)

[I can't wish you immune to mental tampering through the ward, right? Can I give you immunity-to-mental-tampering shoes, or something? It won't help that much, but at least if you keep your shoes on throughout whatever happens we'll know your brain was also left alone.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 01:27 am (UTC)

[You can try?] he says doubtfully.

self_composed
2012-11-09 01:28 am (UTC)

[No good,] she says, after trying it. [Does "your shoes" refer to "you" too much? Can you give me another way to pick out the shoes - or whatever article of apparel?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 02:12 am (UTC)

[How about my watch,] he suggests. [It's actually Kolya's.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 02:12 am (UTC)

[Is it his only watch?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 02:14 am (UTC)

[No, but I bet it's the only one that's not with him or in our apartment.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 02:17 am (UTC)

[Okay. You go ahead and sing like a bird about the watch being the source of your power if they want to know why they can't read your mind and look like they're going to try anything... unsophisticated... to find out. If that would be preferable on your end, I mean; I don't know where relevant possible mental tampering falls in your preference ordering. This is just so they can't do fancy mental tricks without informing us of the possibility first. Warn me by brainphone before the watch comes off if that's going to happen.]

Wish.

Poof.

[Done.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 02:21 am (UTC)

[Oh, boy,] says Lazarus.

He spends a moment examining the watch.

[That's... interestingly specified,] he observes.

self_composed
2012-11-09 02:22 am (UTC)

[I am not handing them, whoever they are, a magic watch that will work if they remove it from your person.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 02:28 am (UTC)

[That is very reasonable,] Lazarus acknowledges.

self_composed
2012-11-09 02:39 am (UTC)

[Are you holding up okay? Not panicking, or anything?] Bella asks.

nonbird
2012-11-09 05:59 pm (UTC)

[Not currently,] he says. [I make no promises about future panic.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 06:06 pm (UTC)

[Understandable. I'm not planning to do anything as rash as this, but what would happen if I wished for your box to be defined in relation to - say - the sun, instead of the earth?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 06:09 pm (UTC)

[I really don't think you can do anything to the box.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 06:09 pm (UTC)

[That is very irksome.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 06:10 pm (UTC)

[Yes it is.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 06:11 pm (UTC)

[Well. I'll let you know if I think of anything else. I'll run at double speed while I do my homework so I can carry on thinking of things. But for the moment I'm pretty stumped. Keep me updated.]

Feeling like a bit of an anticlimax, Bella sets herself at x2 and goes to check her email, turning over what she'd do if she wanted to keep someone in a box and how she could thwart herself.
Edited 2012-11-09 18:14 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-09 06:24 pm (UTC)

[Will do,] he says.

Someone using Lazarus's email account has replied to the tail end of their conversation. That someone is probably not Lazarus, because the email was sent two minutes ago, while Lazarus was wandering around an empty warehouse.

The message reads as follows:
WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HIM???

self_composed
2012-11-09 06:26 pm (UTC)

[...By any chance,] Bella says. [Does Kolya have access to your email?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 06:28 pm (UTC)

[Wouldn't surprise me,] says Lazarus. [Why do I get the feeling this is not a hypothetical question?]

self_composed
2012-11-09 06:29 pm (UTC)

[Well, it looks like two minutes ago "you" emailed me "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HIM???", so, that was my guess. Any advice on how to handle this?] Bella inquires, clicking to reply.

nonbird
2012-11-09 06:41 pm (UTC)

[...I would appreciate it very much if you'd yoink-proof him, and whatever other wards you can spare, just in case,] says Lazarus. [As for how to reply, well, I think that's up to you. I've never been kidnapped before, so I don't have a good idea of how he reacts to it.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 06:46 pm (UTC)

[One no-magic-interference hex coming right up,] says Bella. Wish, poof.

She writes back, carefully. The email exchange contained no evidence of Bella herself having magic - but it's probably still the most suspicious thing in Lazarus's inbox.

You must be Kolya. I didn't do anything with Lazarus. What makes you think I did?

nonbird
2012-11-09 07:02 pm (UTC)

[Thank you,] says Lazarus.

Kolya's reply comes a few minutes later:
SOMEONE did something with him. if not you then who? where is he i want him back help.

self_composed
2012-11-09 07:05 pm (UTC)

[Can you think of a good way to warn Kolya about the brainphone without warning - whoever - if we assume that they can hack into your email?] Bella asks.

I don't know who might have done that.
It's not helpful, but keeping Kolya focused on replying to emails instead of making an obvious - visible - fuss seems like a good plan.

nonbird
2012-11-09 07:26 pm (UTC)

[Not really,] says Lazarus. [If you put him on it, can I talk to him first? He might like that better.]

Kolya does not reply.

self_composed
2012-11-09 07:27 pm (UTC)

[Okay.] She adds Kolya to the brainphone network. [Chat away unto Kolya.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 09:12 pm (UTC)

[Is there anything specific you'd rather I didn't tell him?]

self_composed
2012-11-09 09:14 pm (UTC)

[No specific thing you can't tell him if it seems like he ought to know, at this point - he already knows something's going on and thinks I'm involved - but I'd rather be present in the conversation if you want to tell him everything instead of just calming him down.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 09:15 pm (UTC)

[There is no calming him down without telling him everything,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-09 09:15 pm (UTC)

[This magic supports conference calls,] Bella says.

nonbird
2012-11-09 09:26 pm (UTC)

[All right,] sighs Lazarus.

And a moment later: [Kolya? It's me.]

The third party to the call yelps wordlessly.

[Yes, I know, magic mental phone,] says Lazarus. [It's very weird. I'm with you there.]

[Where are you,] says a quiet, woeful voice presumably belonging to Kolya.

[Well, I'm not sure,] Lazarus admits. [But I'm more or less safe for the moment. And it's not Bella's fault, exactly.]

[You're so reassuring,] sniffs Kolya. [How is it inexactly her fault?]

[Kind of a long story,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-09 09:28 pm (UTC)

[FYI, not a private conversation,] Bella inserts. [My apologies for my inexact fault. Someone has been spying on Lazarus - what I think happened is that when I came for a visit, they couldn't do that anymore because I'm all wrapped up in defensive magic, and they yoinked him to find out what was going on.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 09:34 pm (UTC)

[Oh,] says Kolya.

[Sorry,] says Lazarus.

[Don't you be sorry. You didn't kidnap yourself,] Kolya admonishes. [Who was it? Was it the creepy witch lady? I bet it was the creepy witch lady.]

[...As far as I know, it wasn't Chris,] says Lazarus. [But currently that is not very far at all.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 09:36 pm (UTC)

[I think we'll find out more about who, once they reach Lazarus,] Bella says. [They obviously want him alive, so they've almost certainly got someone on the way to chat with him.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 09:37 pm (UTC)

[That sounds bad,] says Kolya.

[Better than them not wanting me alive,] says Lazarus.

[That's not saying much!]

self_composed
2012-11-09 09:39 pm (UTC)

[Yes, this is all bad. By the way, Kolya, you're now immune to coin-based magical attempts to mess with you, including via further yoinking - but I don't want to assume their resources are all magical. There might be folks on their way to you too. You may wish to consider being hidey - and that might not do the trick if they know about you, such as via Chris's involvement, and flood the apartment with chloroform or something. So you might also want to consider being in a place you have never previously visited.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 09:45 pm (UTC)

[I can do that,] says Kolya, sounding less sniffly and more somewhere between resigned and determined.

[Make sure you pack everything you might need,] Lazarus says anxiously. [I mean it.]

[Okay,] says Kolya. [Don't worry, I will.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 09:47 pm (UTC)

[Lazarus, I'm beginning to wonder where, geographically, you are. Are there windows - is it night or day?] Bella asks. [Is there writing on the boxes and so on? What's the temperature like, and is there any AC or heating on that you can determine? Humidity, audible wildlife outside, traffic noises?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 09:56 pm (UTC)

[Day,] says Lazarus. [No writing on the boxes, but the emergency exit signs are in English. Temperature's a little cold, I can't tell about climate control but I'm guessing no. No audible wildlife. Maybe some traffic? But not close. So I guess I'm not that far from home. I could even still be in Toronto. ...I can think of a way you could locate me more precisely, but I'm not sure you'd like it.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:00 pm (UTC)

[Actually, you know what, I was able to make a wish about the watch - I'll just see if I can find that. I'm curious what your idea was, though.]

Bella kills a pentagon to know the latitude, longitude, altitude, and address of the watch she enchanted.

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:03 pm (UTC)

It turns out the watch is in New York City.

[Well, I can see magic,] he says. [So if you just made a line of magic over the surface of the Earth, and moved it around, I could see when it got to me. Repeat at different angles for triangulation. Did yours work?]

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:05 pm (UTC)

[Yep. You're in New York City.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:15 pm (UTC)

[I am not sure what to do with that information,] he says. [But it's good to know, I guess.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:16 pm (UTC)

[Well, if anything comes up that could be fixed by me coming there in person, I now know where to go. I don't expect anything like that, so long as you keep me posted, though. Kolya, how are you doing, do you need help with anything?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:18 pm (UTC)

[No, I'm fine,] says Kolya. [Still not kidnapped.]

He does sound much better now.

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:19 pm (UTC)

[Good. Is there anybody else who might reasonably need warning or defensive superpowers?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:21 pm (UTC)

[Not on our account, I don't think,] says Lazarus. Kolya makes an agreeing noise.

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:22 pm (UTC)

[All right. I don't suppose you're uncovering new details in the boxing-you-in magic?] Bella asks Lazarus.

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:24 pm (UTC)

[I've been a little distracted,] he admits. [Nothing major so far. It's very... boxy. I hypothesize that whoever made it wanted to be really, really sure I didn't get un-yoinked, and the other anti-magic warding is more of an afterthought.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:33 pm (UTC)

[Un-yoinked here meaning everything from me teleporting you out, to you walking out the door,] Bella says. [That's very annoying. If they know you're an important resource why didn't they kidnap you already, or make friendly overtures like I did inside of a few days of meeting you?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:37 pm (UTC)

[I don't know,] says Lazarus. [And the empty crates are not forthcoming on the subject.]

[Are you sure they're all empty?] says Kolya.

[Ye-es,] says Lazarus.

[Did you check?]

[I'm not sure that going around breaking things is going to help me any. Then again, I'm not sure it won't.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:39 pm (UTC)

[It's not like you have a lot else to do,] Bella says. [You could also try yelling "I know you're listening" and see who comes out - if no one's listening, no one hears you making the wild guess.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:40 pm (UTC)

[I'd hear me,] he points out.

Kolya laughs.

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:40 pm (UTC)

[And you're listening,] Bella points out.

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:41 pm (UTC)

[I'll save that one for later.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:42 pm (UTC)

[All right. Kolya, you are not fully up to speed and may as well become so - questions?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:42 pm (UTC)

[Who are you?] he asks plaintively.

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:43 pm (UTC)

[Bella. I'm a mint with a pet masochist and I'm going to take over the world.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:45 pm (UTC)

[Yikes,] says Kolya.

[Don't worry, she's a nice world conqueror,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:46 pm (UTC)

[I am so nice,] Bella says. [I'm playing take-over-the-world on hard mode where you don't do unethical things. It interferes with doing a speedrun, unfortunately.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:46 pm (UTC)

Both of them crack up.

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:47 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles to herself. [Any interesting crate contents?] she asks Lazarus.

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:50 pm (UTC)

[First I have to solve the problem of how to open them. I haven't spotted any convenient crowbars.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:51 pm (UTC)

[Did you use up the square on color-changing or did a triangle manage it? Square will get you a crowbar. I don't know how careful an inventory they keep of the place, though, so perhaps not a first resort.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:52 pm (UTC)

[The square went to colour-changing. What sorts of things do triangles do?]

self_composed
2012-11-09 10:56 pm (UTC)

[Little things. Not necessarily useless things. Flick a switch you can't reach. Distract somebody with an itch someplace they can't reach. You could probably pry a nail out of a crate with one. You could set a very small fire - which you'd want to make sure wouldn't turn into a not very small fire, since you can't escape at the moment. Anything you could do by yourself in five to ten minutes without magic, you can probably do it with a triangle instantaneously - with exceptions, like, I don't think triangles can talk. They'll heal little bruises and scratches.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 10:59 pm (UTC)

[Hmm,] says Lazarus. [I think I'll save them for now.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:02 pm (UTC)

[All right. Kolya, further questions?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:05 pm (UTC)

[Why are you taking over the world?]

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:06 pm (UTC)

[It is in need of new management. My go-to example here is that malaria needs to go away, but there are many other things that also need to go away.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:09 pm (UTC)

[I guess you are a nice world conqueror,] Kolya muses.

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:11 pm (UTC)

[Yes. But I can't just hex up a designer cure for malaria or casually render mosquitoes extinct, because I don't know who else has magic, or what they want, or what they'll do if I get in their way.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:17 pm (UTC)

[Chris the creepy witch lady has magic,] says Kolya.

[I don't know why you keep calling her that,] says Lazarus.

[Because she's creepy and witchy.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:18 pm (UTC)

[Yes. I know she does. I'm also curious about who she's protecting,] Bella says.

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:19 pm (UTC)

[She's creepy enough all by herself,] Kolya says stubbornly.

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:20 pm (UTC)

[All right, but is she a mint? Does she have power over mints? A protective power will not get her far by itself, if she's by herself.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:21 pm (UTC)

[She wasn't a mint last I checked,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:22 pm (UTC)

[Exactly. She's protecting one, or she knows some, or her protectee knows some - or she isn't involved in the yoinking. The yoinking has mint written all over it.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:23 pm (UTC)

[I've never gotten the impression that her protectee was anything special except by virtue of being protected by an admittedly somewhat scary woman,] says Lazarus.
Edited 2012-11-09 23:24 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:25 pm (UTC)

[Maybe she's not, maybe Chris is using her native protection power to defend someone of purely sentimental value - in which case we still have a mint-shaped hole in our explanation. Or maybe a coin-stash-shaped hole.]
Edited 2012-11-09 23:29 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:31 pm (UTC)

[Chris does know a mint,] Lazarus says slowly. [A mint who is much creepier than she is. I told you about him, didn't I?]

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:34 pm (UTC)

[You mentioned a few mints. Say more about this one, please.]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:41 pm (UTC)

[Sea-green coins. Gave me the one that fixed my clicky jaw. Generally off-putting and secretive demeanour.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:42 pm (UTC)

[How do you know that he knows Chris? What do you know about their relationship? Does he have other powers? How many coins was he carrying on him, what kinds, when you met him?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:49 pm (UTC)

[The coins were an assortment. Mostly triangles, a few squares, and a pentagon. The pentagon was sea-green; some of the others were dark purple. He doesn't have any other powers, and I met him through Chris, which is about all I know.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:54 pm (UTC)

[How did Chris go about introducing you? Do you have magic-people parties or what? Did she say why she introduced you?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:57 pm (UTC)

[I don't remember exact details; it was a while ago, and she was being very mysterious about where she found this guy. But she knows I like magic and she wanted to know what I thought. Of him, of their operation, I'm not sure. I confessed to being a little creeped out and she never mentioned him again.]

self_composed
2012-11-09 11:58 pm (UTC)

[Their operation?]

nonbird
2012-11-09 11:59 pm (UTC)

[He was with the superpower salespeople. Did I not mention that? I'm sure I implied it heavily.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:01 am (UTC)

[Is there a place for that - a supermarket, if you will - I'm just trying to form a picture of how all this happened,] Bella says.

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:04 am (UTC)

[He had a nondescript office somewhere that may or may not have been where he usually meets prospective buyers. And it was in New York, actually.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:05 am (UTC)

[And Chris, what, invited you to come have lunch with her in another country, and people-watch a bit and chat, and go swing by his office space?]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:08 am (UTC)

[I travel occasionally. She mentioned it to me when I happened to be in town.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:10 am (UTC)

[Okay. So there's a local mint who Chris knows. He can at least make pentagons; it's possible to overshoot, if you're not using my favored methods, and wind up with something bigger than you meant to, so even if he doesn't aim for hexes he's probably made some. Good to know.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:12 am (UTC)

[Yes.]

He hesitates.

[And... I think, while I was there, I saw the mint who makes the dark purple coins. They were on a different floor and too far away for me to be sure about the coins part, especially because I wasn't even sure coins were identifiable that way, but they were definitely a mint.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:13 am (UTC)

[...That's also interesting. Just two? We aren't looking for an entire office building full of mints?]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:17 am (UTC)

[Just two,] he confirms.

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:17 am (UTC)

[But the green mint had some of the purple one's coins. So most likely they work together.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:21 am (UTC)

[Yeah, that sounds like good logic.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:22 am (UTC)

[Chris knows one. She probably knows the other one. You haven't met many mints just randomly walking around so this isn't likely to be a coincidence. Chris knows you - and would have had the wherewithal to spot-check spy on you. Chris doesn't go around with persistent magic powers besides her native one, though?]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:24 am (UTC)

[Not that I've seen,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:26 am (UTC)

[So hexes are exceptionally expensive for them,] Bella concludes. [Or, any possible powers are worth less to Chris than you thinking she lacks them. Does Chris carry coins?]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:42 am (UTC)

[She does not,] says Lazarus. [Not that I could tell. She could probably squirrel away a few of the lower-tier ones without my noticing unless I was paying a lot of attention.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:43 am (UTC)

[But would she know she could do that without asking you? Has she asked you?]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:47 am (UTC)

[No and no. Well, unless she knows someone else who can tell her the first thing.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:49 am (UTC)

[I suppose it's possible that they haven't kidnapped you before because they already have an equivalent and only yoinked you today because they don't want me to have you,] Bella muses.

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:51 am (UTC)

[Or they were put off when I told Chris her minty friend creeped me out,] he hypothesizes.

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:52 am (UTC)

[Why would that put off an obviously sinister person or organization who had a use for you?]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:56 am (UTC)

[Maybe they're slightly less sinister than they appear, and preferred to leave me alone rather than coerce me into helping them.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:57 am (UTC)

[And they've yoinked you into an abandoned warehouse and very thoroughly imprisoned you there because why, under this hypothesis?]

nonbird
2012-11-10 12:58 am (UTC)

[Because they don't want you to have me?]

self_composed
2012-11-10 12:59 am (UTC)

[They could have yoinked you to any number of nicer places, even if that were all.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:00 am (UTC)

[Maybe they panicked,] says Kolya.

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:05 am (UTC)

[Maybe.]

Bella paces, back in her room; Janine is still away. [Now, wait, this is interesting. If they don't really want you for themselves - but they desperately don't want me to have you - so much so that they freak out and burn a really expensive coin to get you really stuck - why might that be? What's something I would behave that way around... If there were another masochist on the level of my boyfriend running around, then, I think, I might act like that. I don't need another one, but I'd sure want to know if someone I didn't like and anticipated opposing was going for one; I might yoink first and ask questions later, and if I didn't have a lot of spare coins I might not show up immediately to explain myself because I'd have to get there on the bus or whatever. Something valuable but redundant to them, that's what you are. But you aren't a mint. You wouldn't be an especially good one. You are good at finding things out.]

Bella paces. She thinks.

[If my inferences hold... then... you know - or can find out via your power - something that they already know, and consider a very important secret.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:07 am (UTC)

[...I am disturbed by the soundness of your logic,] says Lazarus.

[Your boyfriend?] asks Kolya.

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:08 am (UTC)

[My boyfriend, my pet masochist, my font of hexes, my extremely fantastically convenient mint-in-cahoots,] Bella says. [He wants Lazarus to perform sinister experiments on him. Lazarus, any guesses about what the secret might be? Something innocuous-seeming, maybe.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:10 am (UTC)

[I think I've told you everything I know about magic,] says Lazarus. [Are there any big unanswered questions I don't know to be asking?]

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:11 am (UTC)

Bella considers this.

[Stars?] she says.

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:13 am (UTC)

[What about them?]

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:15 am (UTC)

[Here's how I found out about magic: I literally fell into a hideout that a distant ancestor of mine magicked up to only admit his descendants. In this hidey-hole was one hexagon, and a book. The hexagon made me a mint; the book explained what the hell was going on. The book says stars are dangerous. I have stars, I can get more stars if I want them - and I don't dare make a wish on them because I don't know why they are dangerous, or how, let alone how to get around it. Maybe they think that if you stare at a star long enough, you'll know how to operate one. Jeez. Maybe they know how to work stars - but they don't have a pet masochist like I have. And haven't used their pentagons to make one, so if I'm smart I will not piss them off overmuch because that they could likely do any time it occurred to them, and it may if they're desperate.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:24 am (UTC)

[I didn't see anything particularly special about the stars you had on you when we met,] says Lazarus. [I mean, they were just the next step after hexes. There wasn't anything more different than that about them, except the physical shape.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:25 am (UTC)

[They could also just be wrong about you being able to do this,] Bella points out. [But I'd think it was worth being paranoid about, if I were them.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:33 am (UTC)

[Well, if there is something dangerous about stars, I'd be very surprised if I couldn't figure it out somehow or other,] he says. [But I might have to watch someone use a star.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:34 am (UTC)

[Eegh.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:36 am (UTC)

[Yes. Eegh is right,] he says. [Assuming I am ever un-kidnapped, I'd like to watch someone use the other sizes of coin first, I think.]

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:37 am (UTC)

[I will be happy to oblige you post-un-kidnapping.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:48 am (UTC)

[Speaking of which, any ideas on that front?]

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:49 am (UTC)

[Not unless you've got more to tell me about the ward or somebody shows up so I can get more information that way,] Bella says. [Not yet at least. I'm sorry.]

nonbird
2012-11-10 01:58 am (UTC)

[Damn,] sighs Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-10 01:59 am (UTC)

[If there's nobody there in - call it an hour - I can start looking for people-heading-for-that-address and stuff, but I don't know if they can detect that so I'd rather hold off till you've been there way too long.]

nonbird
2012-11-12 05:28 pm (UTC)

[Logical, yet disheartening,] says Lazarus.

regularsized
2012-11-12 06:01 pm (UTC)

And Bella gets a reply to an old email.
I have, actually.

self_composed
2012-11-12 06:07 pm (UTC)

Huh. Bridget must have stepped out or something before getting Bella's email, Bella supposes.

What's she like?

[Bridget just emailed me,] she says, because Lazarus will probably be bored in the abandoned warehouse if she doesn't talk to him.

regularsized
2012-11-12 06:09 pm (UTC)

Very good at math.

nonbird
2012-11-12 06:09 pm (UTC)

[Huh,] says Lazarus. [What about?]

self_composed
2012-11-12 06:11 pm (UTC)

[She says she has met Chris's niece. Apparently her distinguishing characteristic is being very good at math, which I already knew.]

Yeah, I heard she's a PhD, like you. Do you know her well at all?
Bella is not sure how to get from here to more substantive questions.

regularsized
2012-11-12 06:13 pm (UTC)

I'm not sure anyone does.

Edited 2012-11-12 18:13 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-12 06:14 pm (UTC)

[Really? I mean, Bridget's really met her?]

self_composed
2012-11-12 06:19 pm (UTC)

[She says so anyway. This surprises you?]

Presumably her aunt does?

nonbird
2012-11-12 06:23 pm (UTC)

[I don't know her that well. I assumed she was Chris's friend, and Chris doesn't introduce her friends to her niece, that I've ever seen. But I guess she could just as easily know Chris through the niece.]

regularsized
2012-11-12 06:55 pm (UTC)

Maybe so.

Do you have time to get together and talk?

self_composed
2012-11-12 06:57 pm (UTC)

[Niece and Bridget both STEM PhDs,] Bella points out.

Bella blinks at the email. Bridget has not historically been unwilling to discuss things via same.

How interesting.

Yeah, you at your place?

regularsized
2012-11-12 06:58 pm (UTC)

Yes.

self_composed
2012-11-12 07:00 pm (UTC)

I'll be over presently.

Leathers, on. Motorcycle, on. Vroom. Doorbell.

regularsized
2012-11-12 07:01 pm (UTC)

Bridget answers the door looking mildly antsy.

self_composed
2012-11-12 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Are you okay?" Bella asks.

regularsized
2012-11-12 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Debatably."

She steps back to let Bella in.

self_composed
2012-11-12 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Debatably?" Bella says, stepping through the door and taking a chair.

regularsized
2012-11-13 01:01 am (UTC)

"I have something to tell you that I don't think you're going to like," she says, "so I'm kind of nervous."

self_composed
2012-11-13 01:02 am (UTC)

"Why won't I like it?" Bella asks.

She has half-formed ghosts of suspicions. But that's all.

regularsized
2012-11-13 01:10 am (UTC)

Well.

"Before we met, I knew your name, what you look like, where you're from, and that you're very likely to have magical powers of the wish-coining variety."

self_composed
2012-11-13 01:11 am (UTC)

There are several reasons why this could be.

Bella might as well start with a benign one.

"Did you double-dip in the magic bin?" she asks quietly.

regularsized
2012-11-13 01:26 am (UTC)

"Nope," she says. "But I know some people. You remember I told you I've been whisked off to a lab once? Well, Chris's niece was responsible for getting me out. She has her hands on a lot of strings. And once in a while she has a use for a physicist, or someone who can't get hurt, or someone who has a semi-legitimate reason to take an undergraduate biology class at Stanford." Bridget shrugs. "I was supposed to get to know you well enough to have a good guess whether or not you'd like to join up, and then if it seemed like a yes, ask. Except that there's been some kind of unspecified disaster and now I'm just supposed to come clean."

self_composed
2012-11-13 01:28 am (UTC)

Bella regards Bridget, feeling unexpectedly calm for the circumstances.

[Bridget's in the sinister organization,] she reports detachedly, to Alice and Lazarus both.

"I knew it was weird that you were in that class. I knew it."

She swallows; if she freaks out she'll stay freaked out for an inconveniently long time. She can not-freak-out if she wants; she has that power. She can be collected and figure out how to move forward. If she runs at 3x and doesn't let any of her tripled mind vote to scream at her "friend".

"Join up with what?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 01:38 am (UTC)

"I have yet to come up with a way to explain it that doesn't sound incredibly shady," she says wryly, "but it isn't really all that shady. Libby collects useful people she's on friendly terms with, and then once in a while she asks one of them for a favour. She looks out for us, too. See above regarding me not getting whisked off to a lab again. The reason it's such a big secret is because things like her ability to make sure nobody tries to do science to me would take a big hit if it was common knowledge that she was doing it at all. Well, that and the magic."

self_composed
2012-11-13 01:40 am (UTC)

"Are any of the favors she can do useful to the sort of person who's equipped with plenty of her own magic?" Bella asks frankly.

regularsized
2012-11-13 02:05 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Bridget. "Depending what exactly you want to do. But just as an example, even if I somehow had the wish power and could somehow make coins with it, I probably couldn't keep myself out of the hands of unscrupulous experimenters nearly as well as I can by asking Libby to keep an eye out."

self_composed
2012-11-13 02:07 am (UTC)

"And 'Libby' is not the type to... say... put you back in a lab if you should displease her in some way," Bella says. "Or to have put you in one in the first place so she could rescue you. Or to take undue advantage of her power in any coercive way. Is that the story?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 02:10 am (UTC)

"Exactly," says Bridget. "She takes care of her people before anything else. If you deal fairly with her, she'll deal fairly with you."

self_composed
2012-11-13 02:12 am (UTC)

"I was getting at how she treats people who are not yet hers - or who used to be hers," Bella says. "How sure are you she didn't put you in the lab? I mean, it was pretty effective at buying your loyalty, and you're making it sound like the kind of situation she could manufacture. How sure are you that she wouldn't squirrel you away in one if you felt like defecting?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 02:19 am (UTC)

"Very and also very," says Bridget. "I know how I ended up in that lab. Libby isn't old enough to have built that mess from scratch. And I've turned her down before when she asked me for something. She argues; she doesn't threaten."

self_composed
2012-11-13 02:20 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. What sort of disaster would have her reveal your... spyingness?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 02:21 am (UTC)

"She didn't say, which suggests to me that it's an ongoing emergency."

self_composed
2012-11-13 02:22 am (UTC)

"Did you ask? Do you know anything about why she wanted me spied on in the first place?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 02:28 am (UTC)

"I generally don't ask," says Bridget. "And I'm pretty sure she tries to recruit every recruitable magical person she can find, just because having us on her side is preferable to the other option. But I still don't actually know that you're magical. Also, spying implies I was reporting on you in some way, which I haven't been unless you count a few iterations of 'have you broken it to her yet?' and one of 'is she dead?' And no, I didn't ask what that one was about, either."

self_composed
2012-11-13 02:29 am (UTC)

"...When did she inquire if I was dead?" Bella asks.

regularsized
2012-11-13 02:30 am (UTC)

"Why do you ask?"

self_composed
2012-11-13 02:31 am (UTC)

"Because I want to know? I don't think I've spent any time looking dead recently."

regularsized
2012-11-13 02:35 am (UTC)

"Sometime in the last month. I didn't exactly mark it down on my calendar."

self_composed
2012-11-13 02:35 am (UTC)

"I don't suppose you have an email record of it?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 02:37 am (UTC)

"It wasn't an email."

self_composed
2012-11-13 02:42 am (UTC)

"Mm." Argh, why doesn't everyone have an eidetic memory? "How long have you been in this vaguely sinister organization?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 12:54 pm (UTC)

"Do you mean, how long have I been friends with the person who rescued me from a very unpleasant place? A few years."

self_composed
2012-11-13 05:24 pm (UTC)

"How big is it? The vaguely sinister organization? Or I suppose I could ask how many friends Libby has, but perhaps she does not... employ... all of her friends in this way."

regularsized
2012-11-13 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Why do you keep calling it a vaguely sinister organization?"

self_composed
2012-11-13 05:29 pm (UTC)

"It sent someone to spy on me?" Bella suggests. "Are there non-sinister reasons to spy on college freshmen? You could've walked up to me and said 'Hi! Do you believe in magic?' and laughed at me when I lied."

regularsized
2012-11-13 05:40 pm (UTC)

"We really don't like to ask just anybody if they believe in magic," says Bridget. "There's always the chance we could've guessed wrong. And I don't think that telling Libby you're probably not dead qualifies as spying."

self_composed
2012-11-13 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you weren't sending her detailed reports, but -" Bella's not going to reveal that she knows she was being otherwise stared at - "you set out to meet me because someone else took an interest in me without - I assume? - having ever met me in person. It's not like Libby decided to introduce us because she's pals with us both and thought we'd get along. How are you characterizing her motives as anything other than spying, even if it happens that the only question she asked you is whether I died?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Because the motive she actually gave was that she wanted me to recruit you?"

self_composed
2012-11-13 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I thought you said she wanted to see if I was recruitable," Bella says, staccato. "If - I don't know, the NSA, thought that I had good grades and maybe I would be useful to them and they decided to tap my phone in order to find out if I have problematic personal associations without telling me any of this was going on? That'd also be spying."

regularsized
2012-11-13 05:55 pm (UTC)

"It's a secret organization," says Bridget. "With very few exceptions, nobody gets to hear it exists until we're already pretty sure they'd want to join. You're one of those exceptions now, apparently; you weren't one a month ago. So, yes, seeing if you're recruitable was a prerequisite to trying to recruit you."

self_composed
2012-11-13 05:56 pm (UTC)

"The NSA was classifed for a long time after its original creation too. What's your point?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure my point is that I wasn't spying on you," Bridget says patiently.
Edited 2012-11-13 17:58 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-13 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but I do not agree," Bella says, just as patiently.

regularsized
2012-11-13 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Then you have a pretty weird definition of spying."

self_composed
2012-11-13 06:04 pm (UTC)

"So weird, right, it doesn't involve exceptions for secret organizations," Bella says, rolling her eyes. "But this is beside the point. Libby wants me to do her unspecified favors in exchange for unspecified favors? Specification seems called for."

regularsized
2012-11-13 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I doubt Libby is ever going to ask you for anything after a disaster like this," says Bridget. "And I genuinely have no idea now what your definition of spying is."

self_composed
2012-11-13 06:17 pm (UTC)

"It's like gossip, except for a sinister organization instead of a mere social group," Bella says. "Perhaps this straddles the line. Is the disaster the thing that you don't know any details about that caused her to tell you to come clean, or the fact that I think I have been spied on? Because the fact that Libby mishandled me once" (and Lazarus once, but Bridget doesn't know about that, does she?) "doesn't necessarily mean we can't work together - I just would need to know more."

regularsized
2012-11-13 06:20 pm (UTC)

"The disaster I'm thinking of is this conversation, yes," Bridget says dryly.

self_composed
2012-11-13 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm deeply curious about how you thought I'd react," says Bella.

regularsized
2012-11-13 06:27 pm (UTC)

"The fact that I was expecting a much bigger disaster doesn't make this not one," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-11-13 06:28 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts. "What'd you think I was going to do?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea."

self_composed
2012-11-13 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Now I'm imagining you telling Libby 'she's not gonna like it, boss' in a stereotypical Mafia accent," Bella snorts. "Well. I don't like it. I am not saying 'oh, that's fine, I completely understand that you chose to befriend me under false pretenses because a sinister' - hey, how sure are you she didn't send the mugger-creep-person?" Bella says suddenly. "To try to draw me out? I don't think you were expecting him, or you're a hell of an actress, but he did shoot you and only you."

[And,] Bella adds to her brainphone conference call, [Chris's niece Libby runs the sinister organization, or at least has Bridget as a direct report and keeps mum about upper levels.]
Edited 2012-11-13 18:57 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-13 06:58 pm (UTC)

[Augh,] contributes Lazarus, in a bizarrely calm tone.

regularsized
2012-11-13 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I'd accuse you of sending that guy before I'd accuse Libby," says Bridget. "Things like that guy are the kind of thing Libby protects people like me against."

self_composed
2012-11-13 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I may be paranoid, but I didn't expect you to be indestructible, and even after learning you were indestructible I did not expect you to be a spy," Bella says. "To my chagrin, I have been operating under the assumption that there was nothing more of significance to you that might need drawing out. Why would I have sent a mugger-creep even if I had the wherewithal to command mugger-creeps? And if she's looking out for you against mugger-creeps why did a mugger-creep shoot you?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Because she has other things on her mind," says Bridget. "If she had reason to believe I was especially likely to get mugged on some particular day, and she had the resources to prevent it, she would, but she hasn't assigned me a bodyguard or anything."

self_composed
2012-11-13 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Or offered you storebought magic for the purpose."

regularsized
2012-11-13 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Or whatever," says Bridget. "I don't really want any more magic. I'm magic enough already."
Edited 2012-11-13 19:25 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-13 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Why does Libby think I'm... interesting?" Bella says. Instead of "worth spying on".

regularsized
2012-11-13 07:34 pm (UTC)

"I know she expected you to have coin powers," she says. "I don't know why. But coin powers are plenty interesting enough by themselves."

self_composed
2012-11-13 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Has she had you... befriend... people with coin powers before?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-11-13 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Do you know how coin powers work?" Bella asks, tilting her head.

regularsized
2012-11-13 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Not in any great detail. Why?"

self_composed
2012-11-13 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I've talked to Lazarus - Chris introduced us. Lazarus says wishcoins are made out of pain. If Libby finds wishcoiners interesting, it's because she wants to hurt them and extract some benefit from that. Or talk them into hurting themselves, I suppose. As long as she finds wishcoiners more interesting than comparable nonmagical people, it boils down to that."

regularsized
2012-11-13 07:51 pm (UTC)

"...Where are you going with this?" says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-11-13 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Nowhere specific. It just doesn't seem all that benign to me. Gains from trade are a thing - but I'm not sure how much of that to expect to see here. Because I don't know what's on offer or what's being asked, but it sure sounds like Libby expects it to involve me being in a hell of a lot of pain, if I'm interesting because she thinks I'm a wishcoiner."

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:01 pm (UTC)

"She asks people not to do things as often as she asks them to do things," says Bridget. "She might, hypothetically, if you don't end up deciding you want nothing to do with us, just ask you to let her know what you're up to in a general sense and once in a while change what you're doing so you don't interfere with someone else. And then once in a while you can ask her to change what someone else is doing so it doesn't interfere with you. My impression is that the reason she's so keen to figure out strange wishcoiners is because they have the potential to cause a lot of trouble and she wants to avoid that, not because she has magic she wants them to do."

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I suppose that makes sense," Bella acknowledges. "Keeping people from running into each other sounds like a worthwhile service. But I'm getting the impression that she's not usually very forthcoming with information, which I think I would find infuriating in any significant dose."

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, you could always ask her to be more forthcoming," says Bridget. "If she decides you're trustworthy, she might."

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:23 pm (UTC)

"What does 'trustworthy' look like?" Bella asks.

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Like someone who isn't planning to hurt the organization or anyone in it," says Bridget. "Like someone who will keep secrets once given them."

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:28 pm (UTC)

"That's what trustworthy is. What does it look like - how does Libby tell the trustworthy apart from the not?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, because I'm not Libby."

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Does she think you're trustworthy?" Bella asks. "Or is there a reason you know so little about why you're doing her this favor?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:33 pm (UTC)

"She trusts me not to spill secrets on purpose, but I don't think she trusts me not to spill them by accident," she says with a shrug. "Which is fair."

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Should I be expecting you to spill the beans that I am a suspected wishcoiner to random third parties?" Bella inquires.

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I've managed not to do it so far," says Bridget. "I keep secrets that I know I should keep. But if I knew a lot more than I do about Libby and her people, I might be telling you things right now that you're not supposed to know. And I'm not nearly as curious as you are, so I don't want to know those things enough for it to be worth the risk."
Edited 2012-11-13 20:43 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella decides there's really, at this point, zero point in pretending not to be a mint. "Because I am in the wishcoining closet, so to speak, and it would not be kind of anyone to out me."

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Bridget. "Does that include not confirming to Libby that you are in fact a wishcoiner? Because I'm pretty sure she doubts it even less than she used to, but I don't think she knows for sure."

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:48 pm (UTC)

"What do you think she will do if you fail to confirm this for her?" Bella asks.

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it'll make much of a difference, honestly," she says.

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:50 pm (UTC)

"What do you think she will do regardless, then?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I think that depends heavily on you," she says, raising her eyebrows. "Do you want to talk to her yourself? Do you want to never hear from either of us again?"

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I want to know what is going on," Bella say firmly.

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Then you want to talk to Libby, because Libby knows what is going on, and she might actually tell you," says Bridget. "I don't know much more than I've already said. Nothing relevant I can think of."

self_composed
2012-11-13 08:57 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. Libby can obviously already find Bella by proxy whenever she wants; moving into a situation where that remains the case and also Bella can find Libby is a step up.

regularsized
2012-11-13 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so I'll tell her you want to talk to her," says Bridget. "And... that's it, I guess."

She looks unhappy.

self_composed
2012-11-13 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Something wrong?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 09:43 pm (UTC)

"This is probably low on your list of concerns right now, but I'm kind of worried that your opinion of me has suffered a catastrophe from which it will never recover."

self_composed
2012-11-13 09:55 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks about that.

"I think its recovery may depend on what I think of Libby," she says. "And on the extent to which I can sympathize with doing sketchy favors for her."

regularsized
2012-11-13 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't actually think of our friendship as a sketchy favour I did for Libby."

self_composed
2012-11-13 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Started that way," Bella says, not ungently. "Even if you weren't faking the entire thing."

regularsized
2012-11-13 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I didn't fake any of it."

self_composed
2012-11-13 10:18 pm (UTC)

"So left to your own devices you would have taken intro bio at Stanford, picked me in particular as your biology friend, scheduled all of those study sessions instead of having it be on a "whenever" basis...?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Biology at Stanford and picking you as my biology friend were predetermined. Predetermined and fake are not the same. And yes, actually, difficult as it may be to believe, I schedule study sessions with you because I like you and value your opinions."

self_composed
2012-11-13 10:24 pm (UTC)

Bella regards Bridget evenly.

"I wonder how she formed the expectation that we'd get along. I wonder what she knows about me, that she could make that bet and win. I am not friends with most people."

regularsized
2012-11-13 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure she was prepared to accept that it might not work out. She picked me because going back to undergrad actually is something I might do for fun."

self_composed
2012-11-13 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Hm."

Bella closes her eyes. "What would a non-disaster version of this conversation have looked like?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 10:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. Realistically, there probably isn't one."

self_composed
2012-11-13 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Heh."

Bella sits back. "You're among the more interesting friends I've had."

regularsized
2012-11-13 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bridget. "I guess that's good to know."

self_composed
2012-11-13 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Can I ask you," Bella says, "not to mention to Libby any personal details - like, anything I've mentioned in passing about members of my family, or my boyfriend, or even Janine or anybody? I am still rather paranoid about this whole thing and I don't want mysterious badnesses happening to people I like if Libby and I should happen to fail to get along."

regularsized
2012-11-13 11:30 pm (UTC)

"In my fairly extensive experience of Libby, I've never caught her doing anything that petty and vindictive," says Bridget. "But sure."

self_composed
2012-11-13 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I think we've established that she doesn't tell you everything. Thank you," Bella says, smiling weakly.

regularsized
2012-11-13 11:42 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome."

self_composed
2012-11-13 11:42 pm (UTC)

"What happens now? Do you phone her? Do I need to leave the room?"

regularsized
2012-11-13 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes and probably also yes," says Bridget.

self_composed
2012-11-13 11:46 pm (UTC)

Bella walks into the kitchen, far enough away that if Bridget speaks in a low voice she really won't be able to hear her.

regularsized
2012-11-13 11:49 pm (UTC)

And Bridget makes a call.

It's not long.

"I left her a message," she says, stepping into the kitchen.

self_composed
2012-11-13 11:51 pm (UTC)

"She tells you to confront a wishcoiner with displeasing news and then does not answer her phone when you call?" Bella asks.

regularsized
2012-11-13 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I did mention there seemed to be an emergency, right?"

self_composed
2012-11-13 11:53 pm (UTC)

"You did. But it sounded like it was an emergency that related to me in some way."

regularsized
2012-11-13 11:55 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't mean I know what it is. You could be tangential for all I know."

self_composed
2012-11-13 11:56 pm (UTC)

"True. Does she have emergencies often?"

regularsized
2012-11-14 12:17 am (UTC)

"Not very."

self_composed
2012-11-14 12:18 am (UTC)

[Anything new on your end?] Bella asks Lazarus.

"Before this what was the last thing Libby wanted you to do?" Bella asks idly.

regularsized
2012-11-14 12:28 am (UTC)

"I was generally on call to answer high-level physics questions at weird hours," says Bridget. "Still am, actually."

self_composed
2012-11-14 12:35 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Like what?"

regularsized
2012-11-14 01:29 am (UTC)

"One of the recent ones was about disappearing things," she recalls. "As in, an object suddenly replaced by vacuum. I advised her not to do it, especially if there was an open container involved. I'm pretty sure the relativistic baseball question was recreational, but I might as well point out to you that it is a bad idea to accelerate any solid object to a significant fraction of c within the Earth's atmosphere."

self_composed
2012-11-14 01:30 am (UTC)

"Noted," Bella says. "I think I'm out of questions. Temporarily. I guess I'll leave you to your own devices and expect a call or an email from Libby at some point?" She stands up.
Edited 2012-11-14 01:54 (UTC)

regularsized
2012-11-14 01:56 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Bridget. "Bye."

self_composed
2012-11-14 01:56 am (UTC)

Bella Tegus off. [I am to expect some manner of contact from Libby, Chris's niece,] she informs Lazarus and Alice.

nonbird
2012-11-14 02:01 am (UTC)

[That sounds ominous,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-14 02:02 am (UTC)

[She clearly already knows where I am. This way I will learn something about her, too.]

nonbird
2012-11-14 02:03 am (UTC)

[Still ominous,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-11-14 02:04 am (UTC)

[Somewhat. I don't think Bridget knows that Libby-or-someone-related kidnapped you.]

nonbird
2012-11-14 02:06 am (UTC)

[Good for Bridget, I guess.]

self_composed
2012-11-14 02:07 am (UTC)

[If I ever urgently need to deplete Libby's resources or get Bridget helping me it's something I can try telling her, at least.]

nonbird
2012-11-14 02:31 am (UTC)

[Is there any reason to think she'd care?]

self_composed
2012-11-14 02:38 am (UTC)

[The fact that she doesn't know,] Bella points out. [Is some reason, although not a definitive one. She seems basically decent and strongly does not expect that Libby does nasty things to get people to cooperate with her.]

nonbird
2012-11-16 11:28 am (UTC)

[Well, good.] He sighs. [I hate being suspicious. Why can't the world be full of nice people who don't do things like kidnap me?]

self_composed
2012-11-17 01:01 am (UTC)

['Cause I haven't fixed it yet,] says Bella, predictably.

nonbird
2012-11-17 01:46 am (UTC)

[...I'm not sure you can actually do anything about the existence of not-nice people as a whole,] he says. [And if you can I'm not sure you should.]

self_composed
2012-11-17 01:48 am (UTC)

[Well, fair enough, but I can make a dent in 'em by arranging not-completely-screwed-up resources for people to bring up kids with,] Bella says. [And figure out how to identify and contain the not-nicenesses of the ones I cannot dent in this way.]

nonbird
2012-11-17 01:52 am (UTC)

[Okay,] he concedes. [That's better, I guess.]

self_composed
2012-11-17 02:43 am (UTC)

[I am rather smart,] Bella points out.

nonbird
2012-11-19 01:57 pm (UTC)

[You do give that impression.]

self_composed
2012-11-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

[So as long as you're trapped in a warehouse with nothing in particular to do, wanna meet my font-of-hexes?] Bella inquires. [He's endlessly amusing.]

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:02 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] he says. [Why not.]

self_composed
2012-11-21 11:05 pm (UTC)

[Conference call,] Bella says musically, including Lazarus and Alice both. [Alice, this is Lazarus, he who may perform sinister experiments on you if we can ever get him out of the box. Lazarus, your would-be test subject if you can ever get over your squeamishness.]

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:07 pm (UTC)

[Hi,] says Lazarus, cautiously.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-21 11:09 pm (UTC)

[Hi!] says Alice. [Good to meetcha. Don't worry, I don't bite. Unless you're into that.]

self_composed
2012-11-21 11:10 pm (UTC)

Bella's amused. [Try not to discomfit him overmuch, please.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-21 11:13 pm (UTC)

[No promises,] he chirps.
Edited 2012-11-21 23:13 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:14 pm (UTC)

[I don't discomfit quite that easily,] says Lazarus, amused.

self_composed
2012-11-21 11:15 pm (UTC)

[By Alice's standards, you absolutely do,] Bella says.

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:20 pm (UTC)

[And what are Alice's standards?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-21 11:21 pm (UTC)

[Well, what kind of stuff freaks you out?]

self_composed
2012-11-21 11:23 pm (UTC)

[Let me put it this way: Lazarus, when Alice found out about Bridget's power, his first instinct was to be very sorry for her, because she's missing out on his favorite thing. Alice: I have already been asked not to describe any "unsanitary" methods by which you could generate large coins.]

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:24 pm (UTC)

[...Oh my,] says Lazarus.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

Alice laughs.

self_composed
2012-11-21 11:26 pm (UTC)

[So, yes,] Bella says. [Discomfiture. It could happen to you.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-21 11:28 pm (UTC)

Alice laughs some more!

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:29 pm (UTC)

[Yes,] says Lazarus, [I think I'm getting the idea.]

self_composed
2012-11-21 11:31 pm (UTC)

[Say,] says Bella. [I described Kolya as your "roommate" - but now it occurs to me that I might be mistaken? Is he your boyfriend instead?]

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:32 pm (UTC)

[Well, he is my roommate,] says Lazarus. [Regardless of other concerns.]

self_composed
2012-11-21 11:33 pm (UTC)

[Yes, but in English it is not customary to refer to all cohabiting people as roommates, just the ones who aren't dating or related.]

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:36 pm (UTC)

[In that case, I cannot help you there,] says Lazarus.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-21 11:38 pm (UTC)

[Well, are you screwing him?]
Edited 2012-11-21 23:38 (UTC)

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:40 pm (UTC)

[Not currently,] he deadpans.

self_composed
2012-11-21 11:41 pm (UTC)

[Okay, I suppose we've established that you don't wish to be informative,] says Bella dryly. [Since currently you are in an abandoned warehouse waiting for Libby-or-whoever to... I don't know, get out of traffic.]

nonbird
2012-11-21 11:53 pm (UTC)

[Yes, thank you for reminding me,] he sighs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-22 12:00 am (UTC)

Alice is not so easily deterred from the previous line of questioning.

[Do you love him?]

nonbird
2012-11-22 12:01 am (UTC)

[Yes,] says Lazarus, caught somewhat off-guard.

self_composed
2012-11-22 12:02 am (UTC)

[Aww,] says Bella, unexpectedly delighted.

nonbird
2012-11-22 12:03 am (UTC)

[Who goes around asking people that?!] he wonders despairingly.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-22 12:03 am (UTC)

[I wanted to know,] says an unrepentant Alice.

self_composed
2012-11-22 12:04 am (UTC)

[Alice goes around asking people that,] Bella says helpfully.

nonbird
2012-11-22 12:09 am (UTC)

[Apparently!]

self_composed
2012-11-22 06:09 am (UTC)

[Astonishingly, one can get used to him.]

nonbird
2012-11-22 11:41 am (UTC)

[Really? Are you sure?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-22 11:41 am (UTC)

Alice giggles.

self_composed
2012-11-22 03:35 pm (UTC)

[Well, I managed it. It took me a while, though.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-22 03:40 pm (UTC)

Now it is Alice's turn to ask, [Really?]

self_composed
2012-11-22 03:42 pm (UTC)

[Did it really take me a while or am I really used to you?] Bella asks. [I don't mean you're overwhelmingly predictable or seem normal to me, that's not the same thing.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-22 03:44 pm (UTC)

[Either,] he says. [I mean, if you ever got used to me, I don't think I noticed.]

nonbird
2012-11-22 03:45 pm (UTC)

Lazarus snorts.

self_composed
2012-11-22 03:48 pm (UTC)

[I have formed the background expectation that you will be around, and have a basically serviceable model of what that should mean to me,] Bella says. [If you disappeared, this would be alarming and require mental adjustment. I'm calling that being-used-to-you.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-22 03:50 pm (UTC)

[Gotcha,] he says, weirdly pleased.

self_composed
2012-11-22 04:09 pm (UTC)

[Anything interesting going on?] Bella asks, with that subject exhausted.

edgeofyourseat
2012-11-22 04:13 pm (UTC)

[Is baking interesting?]

nonbird
2012-11-22 04:13 pm (UTC)

[Comparatively.]

self_composed
2012-11-22 04:19 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, carrot cake,] Bella comments. [Lazarus, we could teleport you something to eat, right? Assuming you eat neatly without the benefit of a plate and pretend to be hungry when Libby-or-whoever fetches you there should be no associated informational giveaway.]

nonbird
2012-11-22 04:21 pm (UTC)

[...I'm not sure how you plan on the food arriving neatly without the benefit of a plate, but beyond that, yes.]

self_composed
2012-11-22 04:22 pm (UTC)

[I was thinking "land in the hand wearing the watch"; would that refer too directly to you, in your expert opinion?]

nonbird
2012-11-22 04:25 pm (UTC)

[Yes. If you end up referring to me, it won't work, even if you only end up referring to me because I happen to fit a criterion like 'wearing Kolya's watch'.]

self_composed
2012-11-22 04:27 pm (UTC)

[Huh. Put it in a box, tie it up with string, appear string tied around watch, disappear the box and string on your say-so?]

nonbird
2012-11-22 04:30 pm (UTC)

[...Weird, but functional,] he says. [But if you're going to be disappearing the packaging afterward, you may as well include a plate and possibly a napkin.]

self_composed
2012-11-22 04:31 pm (UTC)

[And a little bottle of milk?] Bella inquires.

nonbird
2012-11-22 04:36 pm (UTC)

[Why not.]

self_composed
2012-11-22 04:39 pm (UTC)

[That can be arranged. If taking over the world doesn't work out maybe I'll open a magic restaurant. ETA on the carrot cake coming out of the oven is... five minutes apparently, triangles do cooling, then it will take a minute for Alice to frost.]

nonbird
2012-11-22 04:41 pm (UTC)

Lazarus giggles.

self_composed
2012-12-13 12:02 am (UTC)

[Cream cheese frosting,] Bella says encouragingly.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 12:06 am (UTC)

A car pulls up outside the warehouse. Normally that would not be apparent to the person inside, but this car happens to contain a mint. With a familiar power signature.

nonbird
2012-12-13 12:07 am (UTC)

He yelps, out loud and by brainphone.

[Cancel the carrot cake,] he says urgently. [No cake for me. I've got a visitor.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 12:09 am (UTC)

[Who is it?] Bella asks, with equal urgency.

nonbird
2012-12-13 12:12 am (UTC)

[The mint with the dark purple coins, I think. And—oh. Oh.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 12:17 am (UTC)

"Sorry I'm late," says a half-familiar voice from behind a stack of crates. "Traffic."

And the rest of the magic around her is also half-familiar: Chris's power, seen from the target instead of the source.

nonbird
2012-12-13 12:18 am (UTC)

[It's Libby,] says Lazarus. [Crap.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 12:20 am (UTC)

[At least it means we don't necessarily have multiple sinister organizations regrettably fascinated by us,] Bella points out. [What's she doing? Brainphone me a running transcript of the entire conversation and commentary on anything else you notice.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 12:22 am (UTC)

[Okay,] he says. [Can most people do that? I don't think most people can do that. I'm pretty sure most people can't do that, actually. I apologize in advance if half of it comes out in French.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 12:26 am (UTC)

[I speak French, it's fine.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 12:28 am (UTC)

[Oh. Bien.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 12:29 am (UTC)

"You are still here," says Libby, walking through the clutter.

It is not a question.

nonbird
2012-12-13 12:31 am (UTC)

Lazarus echoes that to Bella and then blinks several times, half-consciously stepping back away from the sound of Libby's voice and her slowly approaching power-shape.

"Sorry," he says, "I just don't really know the polite way to talk to my kidnapper."

self_composed
2012-12-13 12:34 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't want to distract him with unnecessary commentary, but she can't resist, [Zing!]

nonbird
2012-12-13 01:07 am (UTC)

[You are making me laugh! Don't make me laugh,] he complains.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 01:09 am (UTC)

"This was not my favourite option," says Libby. "I prefer not to use magic when I can get by without it; I think you've figured out why. But when I realized who Chris had put you in touch with, well, I had to do something."

nonbird
2012-12-13 01:10 am (UTC)

"Um?" he says nervously.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 01:20 am (UTC)

She sighs.

"I don't actually know that she's dangerous," she says, "but more to the point, I don't know that she's not. And it's important to know that, because if you spend enough time with her, you could end up teaching her very dangerous things. Not even necessarily on purpose. But let's just say: there are some kinds of magic that, carelessly or maliciously handled, could lead to the destruction of all life on Earth. I would rather keep them in as few hands as possible."

self_composed
2012-12-13 01:22 am (UTC)

[I am not going to extinguish all life on Earth,] Bella says indignantly.

nonbird
2012-12-13 01:25 am (UTC)

"...really?" says Lazarus.

And then he thinks about what he knows so far about magic.

"Okay, I guess I see where you're coming from."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 01:28 am (UTC)

"I'd also like to point out that I haven't destroyed the planet so far," Libby adds. "Nor do I intend to. I like this planet. But I can't really be sure of whether or not some teenager I've never met can handle that responsibility, and needless to say, I'm erring on the side of caution here."

self_composed
2012-12-13 01:31 am (UTC)

Bella decides to sit on the argument that she already has stars - that Alice already has stars - and it would probably be safer for them to know what made them tick. She can bust out that kind of logic if Lazarus seems convinced by Libby's arguments later on.

[She's being civil, for a kidnapper,] Bella says instead, trying to sound humorless yet not amusingly deadpan.

nonbird
2012-12-13 01:39 am (UTC)

She succeeds, or at least, Lazarus doesn't complain again.

"I... guess I can understand that," he says. "Couldn't you just have called?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 01:48 am (UTC)

"Under the circumstances, I wasn't going to leave you in the hands of an unknown magic user with no way to protect yourself. You're not exactly one of my people, but you're close enough to count, and I am very serious about taking care of my people."

self_composed
2012-12-13 01:49 am (UTC)

Bella lets the irony of that one sit in silence all by itself.

nonbird
2012-12-13 01:49 am (UTC)

"And yet, kidnapping," says Lazarus.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 01:50 am (UTC)

"...there was a certain amount of panic involved."

nonbird
2012-12-13 01:51 am (UTC)

"I just find it hard to believe, under the circumstances, that my safety was your primary concern."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 01:52 am (UTC)

"Secondary," says Libby. "After securing the future of the planet."

self_composed
2012-12-13 01:54 am (UTC)

Bella snorts. Aloud, not over brainphone.

nonbird
2012-12-13 01:56 am (UTC)

"Well," he says. "You've warned me. I agree that it would be very bad if someone blew up the planet. Now what?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 01:56 am (UTC)

"That," she says, "is what I'm trying to figure out."

self_composed
2012-12-13 01:59 am (UTC)

[See if she'll give you a hexagon to use on defensive magic - maybe ask for one for Kolya too, I don't know how many she has but it should be a smaller number - so that I can't do anything too bad to you, har har, and assure her you don't want the world exploded, and ask if you can leave?] Bella suggests.

nonbird
2012-12-13 02:25 am (UTC)

"You could hand me a stack of coins and let me go home," he suggests. "Then I wouldn't be defenceless anymore."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 02:28 am (UTC)

"I don't exactly have stacks of coins to play with," she says. "And, no offense, I'm not sure you have the experience to protect yourself if I gave you the magic. And even if I send you home protected against mind control, there's no guarantee she won't try a more primitive kind of coercion."

nonbird
2012-12-13 02:29 am (UTC)

Lazarus supplies this to Bella with the added commentary, [You two should really talk sometime. She is seriously beginning to remind me of you.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 02:31 am (UTC)

[I'm offended,] Bella says, not sounding all that offended. [You could make the case that you know plenty about magic - you know, being you - and can come up with sufficiently creative uses of the coins.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 11:44 am (UTC)

"What exactly do I need experience for?" he asks, ignoring the part about coercion because he doesn't have a good answer for it and also no. "Of all people I'd think I'm the best equipped to figure out new magic."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 11:47 am (UTC)

"On the other hand, you clearly don't have my suspicious nature," Libby points out gently. "It's not your ability to use magic that I'm worried about, it's your ability to figure out when and how you should."

self_composed
2012-12-13 04:31 pm (UTC)

[Do you need a suspicious nature to judiciously use a limited amount of defensive power for self- and beloved-other preseveration?] Bella asks incredulously.

nonbird
2012-12-13 04:49 pm (UTC)

[...possibly,] says Lazarus.

And out loud, "I am open to suggestions. You could at least change the restriction on who can do magic to me so that it includes me. That seems like a pretty good start."
Edited 2012-12-13 16:52 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Sure," she says. "I'll do that when I send you home. And I'll do that when I'm satisfied that you can take care of yourself. A few tips on things to watch out for are not going to be sufficient."

self_composed
2012-12-13 05:26 pm (UTC)

[How long does she plan to keep you in a warehouse until you can "take care of yourself"?] Bella asks. [Hours? Days? Weeks?] She bites her tongue before asking, "Until you completing your diploma and earning a gold star?".

nonbird
2012-12-13 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Here's a thought," he says. "I'm already protected against magic in general, or I will be with a slight change in permissions. So why don't you hand me a coin of the right size and I'll duplicate a very effective physical protection power that I'm betting you know about?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 05:45 pm (UTC)

She gives him a considering look.

self_composed
2012-12-13 07:02 pm (UTC)

[You want to leave the no-magic-done-to-you bit on?] Bella asks curiously. [Really, or is that just what you're telling her?]

nonbird
2012-12-13 08:22 pm (UTC)

[...Yes?] he says. [I can always allow exceptions. But if I leave it on and cut these people out of the permissions, they can't do this to me again. That is definitely something I want.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 08:23 pm (UTC)

[I guess if I wanna give you more magic I can just give you coins directly,] Bella allows.

nonbird
2012-12-13 08:30 pm (UTC)

[Good plan. Excellent plan,] says Lazarus.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 08:34 pm (UTC)

And, finally, Libby nods.

"Okay," she says, and spends a square to unlock a hex, which she hands over. A pentagon puts Lazarus on the list of people who are allowed to do magic to Lazarus, and removes the travel restriction at the same time.

nonbird
2012-12-13 08:42 pm (UTC)

He takes the hex and, as promised, wishes himself Bridget's defensive powers.

"Done. Do I get a teleport home, or do I have to take the bus?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-13 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Under the circumstances, I think I can justify spending another fiver on you."

She makes the wish.

nonbird
2012-12-13 08:45 pm (UTC)

[Home sweet home,] Lazarus announces. [How's that cake? Some cake would be great right now.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-13 08:46 pm (UTC)

[Frosted,] Alice reports. [Also, delicious.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 08:52 pm (UTC)

[Does your antimagic ward protect you from further spot-checking of the kind that let them determine my location last time?] Bella inquires. [I should probably not show up in your apartment again, because as your enchanted watch shows there are ways around it - they could just look in the window - but we could meet in places they don't know to expect you to appear, if they can't look at you anymore. Also, you may want to call Kolya back from wherever he's escaping to.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 08:56 pm (UTC)

[I did. Speaking of Kolya, I would like you to send me some coins so I can put some security wishes on him when he gets back. I'll think about the spot-checking thing after cake.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 08:57 pm (UTC)

[Let's talk wish design and figure out how many coins you need. Alice, send the man some cake, will you please?]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-13 09:00 pm (UTC)

[Sure!]

The logical place to put it is on Kolya's kitchen counter, so that is what he does: a plate with a generous slice of cake, complete with fork.

nonbird
2012-12-13 09:05 pm (UTC)

[Thank you, Alice,] says Lazarus. [Consider yourself hugged in gratitude.]

Nom nom cake.

self_composed
2012-12-13 09:07 pm (UTC)

[You had a look at my powers. Did they look suitable to you?] Bella asks. [You could also continue using the watch for mental defensive purposes. Libby didn't seem to notice it. But we're not short enough on hexes that you have to if you'd rather not depend on an accessory.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 09:09 pm (UTC)

[I would rather not depend on an accessory,] he confirms.

self_composed
2012-12-13 09:21 pm (UTC)

[So you've got antimagic, Bridget-style anti-injury, and need a mental defense, and Kolya has antimagic from earlier but needs mental and either anti-injury or regen, whichever he prefers,] Bella says. [That adds up to three. Am I neglecting anything?]

nonbird
2012-12-13 09:37 pm (UTC)

[No, I think that covers it.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 09:39 pm (UTC)

Bella appears three hexes on the plate. [Please deploy only for authorized uses.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 09:42 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] he says agreeably. First thing, he wishes himself mental defense.

Then he contacts Kolya again.

After a minute, he reports, [All used up.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 09:44 pm (UTC)

[Good. Has Libby actually convinced you it would be a bad idea for me to know how to safely use my heap of stars? Because that would be disappointing.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 09:45 pm (UTC)

[I totally agree with her that blowing up the world would be bad!] he says. [I just don't agree with her that you're going to.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 09:46 pm (UTC)

[I'm not going to blow up the world. I live here, and my parents live here, and cute fuzzy animals live here, and so on,] Bella agrees.

nonbird
2012-12-13 09:50 pm (UTC)

[Exactly!]

self_composed
2012-12-13 11:00 pm (UTC)

[So: do we think you're safe from surveillance now? If you magic-door from your place to Alice's lair and gaze meditatively at stars for a while, will anyone notice?]

nonbird
2012-12-13 11:16 pm (UTC)

[A spot-check with a wish wouldn't catch me,] he says. [But someone with a surveillance power could tell.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 11:17 pm (UTC)

[Like the precog?] guesses Bella.

nonbird
2012-12-13 11:22 pm (UTC)

[As an example, yes. Or the distance-viewer.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 11:25 pm (UTC)

[Hmm.] Bella considers. [You can see magic through the magic door just fine. I could leave a star by the exit in Alice's lair, the door to which is just around the corner from the door to your building, and you could hang around near the door but not go through it and inspect from there. Nothing much for spies to see, and I think we have to expect them to look or I doubt Libby would have been so willing to keep you unwishable. Would that do the trick, do you think?]

nonbird
2012-12-13 11:32 pm (UTC)

[Well, it'll get me a look at a star,] he says. [I don't know if that will tell me anything about them.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 11:33 pm (UTC)

[You just used three hexagons, did you learn anything interesting?]

nonbird
2012-12-13 11:37 pm (UTC)

[I was a little preoccupied,] he admits.

self_composed
2012-12-13 11:39 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs. [Would you like perfect recall? It's tremendously useful. Wishes work just fine if you wish for a duplicate of someone else's power, we've found, so you can just swipe what I have and watch it happen.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 11:44 pm (UTC)

[Does your perfect recall make you have paid more attention in the first place?]

self_composed
2012-12-13 11:44 pm (UTC)

[Not exactly - but it means that anything that registered even for a split second is there when I look for it, so it can feel that way.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 11:49 pm (UTC)

[And I guess I could pay attention when I use that hex,] he says. [I'll think about it.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 11:50 pm (UTC)

[It is not at all clear to me why that would even need thinking about,] Bella remarks. [It is a kickass superpower. I am not charging you one meeleeyun dollars for it.]

nonbird
2012-12-13 11:53 pm (UTC)

[It's a permanent change to the way my thinking works,] he counters. [I want to actually make sure that it's unreservedly awesome, instead of just assuming it and then finding out differently.]

self_composed
2012-12-13 11:54 pm (UTC)

[Fair enough. Is there anything you do want now? I am going to expect to hear from Libby some unknown time soonish, and would like to know the secrets of stars before that time. Progress is good.]

nonbird
2012-12-14 12:08 am (UTC)

[Don't hold your breath,] he advises. [I don't even know what I'm looking for. If I did, I could, well, look for it.]

self_composed
2012-12-14 12:09 am (UTC)

[Holding my breath would not do me any harm,] Bella says. [I don't firmly expect you to have a flash of insight the first time you pay close attention to the use of a hex. But I'd feel really stupid if you did, a week after I first meet Libby.]

nonbird
2012-12-14 01:06 am (UTC)

[Is there a reason why you want to know the secret when you meet her?]

self_composed
2012-12-14 01:07 am (UTC)

[In case I accidentally do something to alarm her and we have a magical standoff right then. I can probably win a magical standoff just by spamming hexes, but maybe I can't.]

nonbird
2012-12-14 01:12 am (UTC)

[Oh. I guess that's reasonable,] he admits.

self_composed
2012-12-14 01:16 am (UTC)

[I am typically reasonable, yes. If we assume Libby does not casually teleport when she doesn't have to, I have a minimum of several hours before she appears near me. She could, however, also choose to phone or email me. Can I interest you in a hex for a lovely new power, please?]

nonbird
2012-12-14 01:19 am (UTC)

[I don't want a lovely new power,] he says. [What else can I use a hex for? For that matter, what else can I use sundry other coins for? You could send me a stack of low numbers and I could spend half an hour recolouring my walls.]

self_composed
2012-12-14 01:22 am (UTC)

[You must be hard to get Christmas presents for. I think we've covered what you can do with triangles and squares - you still have some triangles, I think. Pentagons do nonmagical skills, spectacular motorcycles and other sundry objects, etcetera. Hexes will do stuff like lairs, magic doors, that sort of thing.]

nonbird
2012-12-14 01:28 am (UTC)

[I do still have some triangles! I can start with those, I guess.]

He puts his hand in his pocket and changes the colour of the empty plate. Red, blue, black-and-white stripes, green.

[What exactly do you mean by doing a lair?]

self_composed
2012-12-14 01:31 am (UTC)

[Alice has a lair that he lives in most of the time. I made it with a hex. Me and him are the only people who can get into it. I'd add you, if it were safe for you to become invisible.] Bella makes a small face. [The hex did the layout, the entrance, the air filtration, the climate control, and the lighting all in one go.]

nonbird
2012-12-14 01:34 am (UTC)

[...That is pretty impressive. Hmm. I can't think of anything to not-waste a hex on. I could probably make use of some squares, though. May I have some, please?]

self_composed
2012-12-14 01:35 am (UTC)

Bella sends him some squares, in a decorative little sack made of red linen, because why not.

nonbird
2012-12-14 01:38 am (UTC)

He giggles over brainphone.

self_composed
2012-12-14 01:38 am (UTC)

[I like the little touches,] Bella says tunefully.

nonbird
2012-12-14 01:41 am (UTC)

[Me too.]

self_composed
2012-12-14 01:42 am (UTC)

Bella hums happily to herself.

Goodness, what a busy day it has been. Janine will be home any moment and she has a paper to write.

Type type type.

welcome to the chessboard

self_composed

Bella stockpiles hexes.

She already has a ridiculous number, but she wants so many that if it seems most expedient to individually do some manner of hex-magic to every cubic inch of space in her dorm room, she can and still have a ridiculous number left. She wants enough that if Libby turns out to be a particularly dab hand at extortion, to the point where paying up is her best bet, Bella can keep gritting her teeth and handing over tribute up until the point where even this person will believe that this is all there could ever be - and still have a ridiculous number. She wants her ridiculous numbers to have ridiculous numbers.

What does she have?

An Alice. She has one of those.

And she can use what she has to get what she wants, late into the night, hexily disassembling her body's dependence on sleep, and till she should start thinking about catching up on the internet and heading to class.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-18 12:15 am (UTC)

Her Alice, naturally, does the opposite of complain about this.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 12:30 am (UTC)

At about seven in the morning, Bella gets an email from someone named E. Kirsch.

It says only:
You wanted to talk?

self_composed
2012-12-18 12:31 am (UTC)

With an introduction like that, it could be spam. Or not.

I want to know what's going on.
is Bella's reply.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 12:33 am (UTC)

Don't we all.

self_composed
2012-12-18 12:35 am (UTC)

I was told that the only way to find out what's going on was to talk to you.

Bella takes her laptop to class. She can ramp up to 2x or more and sit in back.
Edited 2012-12-18 00:36 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 12:36 am (UTC)

Probably true. Any other ambitions I can help you with while we're at it?

self_composed
2012-12-18 12:37 am (UTC)

I am half concerned that if I announced a desire for a pony, one might actually appear, and I do not actually want a pony.

So. What's going on?

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 12:40 am (UTC)

I'm hardly going to waste resources giving an obviously facetious pony to someone I barely know.

You're going to have to ask much more specific questions if you want useful answers.

self_composed
2012-12-18 12:45 am (UTC)

How does the vaguely sinister organization Bridget speaks so highly of work? How big is it? What can it do? What does it want, what do you want, to what extent do those differ?

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 12:51 am (UTC)

Vaguely sinister organization? Really?

I know a lot of people. Some of them have magic. Some of them have other useful talents or circumstances. Sometimes I ask them to help each other, or me. I generally try to see to it that everyone gets along and nobody has too much trouble with anything. I don't think any of that qualifies as sinister, vaguely or otherwise.

self_composed
2012-12-18 12:52 am (UTC)

I've already had the "sinister" argument with Bridget, I guess.

Why do you run this thing?

How many is a lot?

What do you want?

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 12:57 am (UTC)

You haven't had it with me.

I don't currently trust you enough to tell you any numbers, and I don't know you well enough to answer the other two.

self_composed
2012-12-18 12:58 am (UTC)

So talking to you is not actually a very effective way of finding out what's going on, then, is it.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 01:08 am (UTC)

On the contrary, I think you'll find it's the best way there is.

Unless you want me to tell you everything you want to know in exchange for absolutely no personal or logistical investment whatsoever, in which case I am not at all sorry to disappoint you.

self_composed
2012-12-18 01:14 am (UTC)

I did ask you what you wanted.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 01:20 am (UTC)

From you?

If you have the time, I'd like you to come to New York and have a chat with me about your goals in life.

self_composed
2012-12-18 01:23 am (UTC)

My next school break is Christmas and I've promised it elsewhere, even if my bank account could accommodate plane tickets across the country. What's the added benefit of putting me in New York?

Maybe Libby knows Bella can fly under her own power, maybe not, maybe she knows she can magic door, maybe not. Bella doesn't need to tell her just yet.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 01:30 am (UTC)

I can cover plane fare if that's a problem.

I'm much better at figuring people out in person than by email. You want to know a lot of things I don't usually tell people. I want to know that you're not going to use that information in any way I wouldn't like.

self_composed
2012-12-18 01:32 am (UTC)

I can take a long weekend if you're buying. I'm ahead by enough in my Monday classes.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 01:35 am (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Let me know your preferred travel times and I'll arrange tickets.

self_composed
2012-12-18 01:37 am (UTC)

Heh. Bella doesn't need to sleep anymore and by the same token can sleep at will. This will make plane flights different.

I'm flexible. Eastward Friday night, westward Sunday night or Monday morning?

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 01:48 am (UTC)

Sure.
About ten minutes later, Bella is forwarded plane tickets for a round trip to New York.

self_composed
2012-12-18 01:50 am (UTC)

Interesting.

[Hello folks,] Bella says to Alice and Lazarus. [This Friday I will be flying to New York to meet Libby.] Pause. [In a plane.]

Thanks.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 01:52 am (UTC)

No problem.

nonbird
2012-12-18 01:56 am (UTC)

She reaches Lazarus's busy message, which says, [I'm sleeping?] in a tone of voice that indicates he is perhaps not totally sure of that.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-18 01:57 am (UTC)

[Why the plane?]

self_composed
2012-12-18 02:06 am (UTC)

[Because Libby doesn't know I don't need planes to get around, and she's buying.] She leaves the message with Lazarus's brain answering machine.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-18 02:25 am (UTC)

[Well, that makes sense, I guess.]

Bella may or may not want to be reading Alice right now, because he is in his lair, doing what you would expect Alice to be doing after a whole night of churning out hexes.

self_composed
2012-12-18 02:30 am (UTC)

Indeed Bella is presently declining to supervise - it's not unpleasant as a spectator sport, she's just used up her interest for the time being. [You probably shouldn't come along. Native powers trump wishes, and some people's native powers are seeing stuff.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-18 02:33 am (UTC)

[Okay,] he says cheerfully. [Have fun.]

self_composed
2012-12-18 02:34 am (UTC)

Where will I meet you when I appear at LaGuardia?
Bella asks, after her class is over and she's back in her dorm.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-18 11:51 am (UTC)

I think it would be simplest if I met you at the airport. I'll find you, don't worry.

self_composed
2012-12-19 02:19 am (UTC)

How am I to recognize you?

prima_sequentem
2012-12-19 02:30 am (UTC)

Her reply contains no text, just a picture.

self_composed
2012-12-19 02:31 am (UTC)

Well, that works. That's actually more information than she had to supply to fully answer Bella's question, which is just about the first promising thing that's happened.

See you there.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-19 02:39 am (UTC)

Yep.

self_composed
2012-12-19 02:43 am (UTC)

That's the end of the email conversation, Bella supposes.

She tries Lazarus again. [So, meeting Libby this weekend. Any progress or willingness to make further attempts at progress on star power?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 11:32 am (UTC)

[Good morning,] he says sleepily. [Who invented mornings?]

self_composed
2012-12-19 06:05 pm (UTC)

[Astronomy?] suggests Bella. [I don't need to sleep anymore. Does that sound appealing?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 06:07 pm (UTC)

[..Yes, actually. Did I see that one already? I forget.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 06:21 pm (UTC)

[Nah, it's new. I wanted to pull an all-nighter and I'd been thinking about it for a while. I can sleep normally at will and wake up under circumstances when I would normally have woken up, or at a predetermined time. Otherwise I always feel like it's about ten in the morning after a good night's rest and a cup of coffee.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 06:27 pm (UTC)

[That's very well designed,] he compliments, yawning. [I want one.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 06:28 pm (UTC)

Bella adds a hex to his little cloth bag. [Consult your stash of coins.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 06:40 pm (UTC)

[Aww, for me?]

He yawns again, pauses a moment, and then comes back sounding much less mumbly.

[Well, that's interesting.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 06:40 pm (UTC)

[Do tell.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 06:46 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure of this yet,] he says cautiously. [But it seems like when I make a wish, part of the magic goes into the wish, and part goes... somewhere else. The part that goes into the wish is most of it; the other part is much smaller.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 06:47 pm (UTC)

[Somewhere else,] repeats Bella slowly.

nonbird
2012-12-19 06:50 pm (UTC)

[Yes. And no, before you ask, I have no idea where or what it does when it gets there.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 06:51 pm (UTC)

[Do you think you could watch it go wherever it goes if you were on the lookout for it while making a new wish?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 06:53 pm (UTC)

[Maybe,] he hazards.

self_composed
2012-12-19 06:54 pm (UTC)

[Have you had more opportunity to consider perfect recall or any of the other possibilities for things-to-do-with-more-hexes? Would Kolya like to not need sleep, maybe?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 06:58 pm (UTC)

[Actually... what sorts of things could I do with a pentagon?]

self_composed
2012-12-19 06:59 pm (UTC)

[Learn to speak Swahili or play the oboe or kick ass at Ultimate Frisbee or cook like a deity or do awesome parkour tricks? Make a neat magic device like my bike, only please nothing conspicuous because I don't want it to be too blatantly obvious to Libby that I'm passing you coins?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:01 pm (UTC)

[I would like some pentagons, please,] he requests. [I'll spend them all on languages.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:02 pm (UTC)

Bella sends him twenty.

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:04 pm (UTC)

About thirty seconds later: [Can I have some squares, too, actually?]

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:06 pm (UTC)

[Are you out? Sure.] She gives him twenty of those too.

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:07 pm (UTC)

[Learning languages with magic feels like cheating,] he reports, after another minute or two. [And the amount of magic a pentagon spends on who-knows-what is the same as the amount of magic a square spends on doing its actual job.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:08 pm (UTC)

[That's interesting... does a hex send a pentagon-sized amount wherever-it-goes?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:10 pm (UTC)

[I think so. I might as well take that perfect memory now; I seem to keep needing it.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:11 pm (UTC)

Bella sends him a hex, tapping her fingers on her knee with intent impatience.

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:14 pm (UTC)

Very, very shortly afterward: [Yes. And looking back at triangles, I don't think they spend any extra at all. But a square spends a triangle's worth of mystery magic.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:15 pm (UTC)

[That's very peculiar. I wonder what the mystery magic could be doing.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:16 pm (UTC)

[I still can't figure that part out,] he admits.

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:19 pm (UTC)

[It's not contributing to the wish. Is it just... waste magic? Released to no effect at all? A natural inefficiency of the coining process?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:35 pm (UTC)

[I don't think so?] he says. [I do get a certain sense of... futility from it. But I'm not sure how reliable that impression is.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:37 pm (UTC)

[Futility,] repeats Bella. [So it's... doing something pointless? Doing a tiny amount of work towards an astronomical task? Doing something that will be undone?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:39 pm (UTC)

[I can't quite tell.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:41 pm (UTC)

Bella hefts a length of her bandolier. She spends a pentagon to tell her what the rest of the pentagon is doing.

Doesn't go. Hex won't, either. Coins are not very good at directly learning information, or maybe they're not good at recursion.

[What would you need to look at to learn more?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:47 pm (UTC)

[I might need to watch more different people doing magic, in case it has something to do with the caster.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 07:47 pm (UTC)

[You can come lurk by the magic door and Alice and I can come up with stuff to do,] Bella suggests.

nonbird
2012-12-19 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Will do.]

But first, he should probably put on some pants.

self_composed
2012-12-19 08:04 pm (UTC)

[Alice, what fun things can you think of to do with coins of various sizes so Lazarus can watch magic do stuff?] Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 08:10 pm (UTC)

[...Define fun,] he says, giggling. Because he can think of lots, but the first ten or so items that come to mind probably aren't things Lazarus would enjoy watching.

They could always create a rain of jelly beans. Invisible jelly beans. And then clean them up afterward.

self_composed
2012-12-19 08:13 pm (UTC)

[Rain of jellybeans and subsequent cleanup is a couple pentagons. If you're low on fabric or anything this would be a good time to do some batches of conjuration. I think I'll add super-speed - to match my brain's version of same. And if we need something else I may want to gain the power to become insubstantial. And I haven't learned all the languages there are yet.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 08:14 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] Alice says cheerfully, and makes his way to the appropriate magic door.

self_composed
2012-12-19 08:17 pm (UTC)

Bella meets him in the lair. [Ready when you are, Lazarus,] she says, including Alice in the call too.

nonbird
2012-12-19 08:25 pm (UTC)

[...What the hell...?] he says, sounding confused and vaguely affronted, as he trots down the stairs. [Oh. Why would you do that? Did you not know—? I guess not. Alice, you have a native power that protects you against mental tampering,] he says. [And it clashes horribly with the hex on top of it. Ick.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 08:25 pm (UTC)

[Hello to you too,] he says, giggling again.

self_composed
2012-12-19 08:27 pm (UTC)

[Like... half of my native power?] Bella asks, tilting her head. [That would explain why his didn't fail for redundancy like mine did, if it's only half. We can peel away the extra if it's bothering you.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 08:34 pm (UTC)

[It is bothering me a lot,] says Lazarus. [It's like you took a pretty little decorative object of some kind and then covered it in glue. And I wouldn't say it's half of your power, exactly. They don't look at all alike.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 08:35 pm (UTC)

[Okay, sure,] says Alice, [let's make my powers all pretty.]

He wishes away exactly the part of the protective hex that is already covered by his native power.

self_composed
2012-12-19 08:37 pm (UTC)

[I'm defended against inspection and tampering, he's defended against just tampering - what's the difference beyond that?] Bella asks curiously. [Alice, please warn him before making wishes; we want him to supervise them carefully.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:14 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, that is pretty,] says Lazarus. [The differences are, um... I'd almost call them a matter of personality? Your power has that very distinctive exactness to it; Alice's is more, how do I put this, friendly. Or maybe friendly isn't the right word. It's close, though.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 09:16 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs helplessly. [Friendly! But - wait a second. I'm pretty sure an agony beam like mine would bounce off me, for tampering and not inspection reasons. How come it works on Alice if he's all natively-anti-tampering? Because it so, so does.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:20 pm (UTC)

[Um,] says Lazarus.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 09:20 pm (UTC)

Alice cracks up.

[Aww, look, he's blushing.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 09:22 pm (UTC)

[Well, I don't have another example ready to hand, I don't tamper with Alice's brain very often. In your professional opinion, what's going on there?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:23 pm (UTC)

[In my professional opinion, I have no idea,] he says primly.

self_composed
2012-12-19 09:25 pm (UTC)

[Would it help you make a professional determination if you saw it done?] Bella asks. [You know, in a professional capacity. I'm really not trying to go out of my way to discomfit you even though it is entertaining, but it seems worthwhile to know how this works.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:31 pm (UTC)

[Thanks,] he says dryly, [I'm glad you cleared that up. And okay, if you must know, I guess I can stand to watch. It probably would help.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 09:33 pm (UTC)

Without further ado, Bella hits Alice with some mid-pentagon-range (expecting smaller amounts to be indistinct), flavor: rattlesnake venom. She looks in Lazarus's direction expectantly, through the magic doors.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 09:36 pm (UTC)

Alice closes his eyes and smiles. Mmm, fun.

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:36 pm (UTC)

...Lazarus blinks.

And looks somewhere between fascinated and mildly uncomfortable.

And definitely blushes.

self_composed
2012-12-19 09:37 pm (UTC)

Bella represses a sporfle.

She brainphones to Lazarus only. [You too, huh?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:38 pm (UTC)

[I'm sure I don't know what you mean.]

He so isn't.

self_composed
2012-12-19 09:40 pm (UTC)

[Of course, of course.]

She resumes conference calling. [Professional insights?] she prompts, scritcheling Alice on the head.

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:42 pm (UTC)

[My professional insight is that he likes it.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 09:43 pm (UTC)

[No shit,] says Alice, leaning into Bella's hand with a reasonable approximation of a purr.

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:46 pm (UTC)

[No, I'm serious,] he says. [It makes a difference. Your power prevents mental tampering, but that's not, strictly speaking, what it's for. It's for...] He trails off contemplatively.

self_composed
2012-12-19 09:47 pm (UTC)

[Hedging out unwanted tampering? Unwanted classes of tampering, unwanted sources?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 09:54 pm (UTC)

[No, not quite. 'Unwanted classes' is closest, but it doesn't really get there. You might say that an anti-tampering power of the kind you thought he had is a 'look, but don't touch' power, and what he has is a 'touch, but don't change'. For our purposes, the agony beam qualifies as, uh, touching.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 09:54 pm (UTC)

Alice grins.

[Oh, you liked it, didn't you.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 09:56 pm (UTC)

Bella would be hypocritical to chide Alice for that, so she doesn't. Instead she says, [So he's immune to mind control, memory alteration, forcible unconsciousness, that sort of thing - but perhaps not to illusions in general, certainly not to any form of communicative power, and not to the agony beam.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 10:10 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure about illusions,] says Lazarus, choosing not to respond to Alice at all. [Illusions might be a borderline case. But yes, communicative powers and the agony beam will work just fine. Clearly.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 10:11 pm (UTC)

[Well, now we have a productive series of experiments for the use of further coins,] Bella says.

nonbird
2012-12-19 10:13 pm (UTC)

[Joy,] says Lazarus.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 10:14 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles.

self_composed
2012-12-19 10:15 pm (UTC)

Bella starts playing with pentagon-sized illusions, notifying Lazarus each time, and she gives the go-ahead for Alice to rain jellybeans.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 10:18 pm (UTC)

[Whee!] says Alice.

It turns out that visual illusions work on him just fine. Also, invisible jellybeans are still tasty.

nonbird
2012-12-19 10:22 pm (UTC)

[Good to know you're having fun,] he says, amused. [Illusions look really weird.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 10:26 pm (UTC)

Bella cycles through some more illusory senses, including touch, since she's not sure if the agony beam is technically "illusory pain" or just disconnected "real pain". Alice gets "trapped in quicksand" and smells "lavender" and tastes "risotto" and hears "Beethoven's fifth". Bella can detect all these things herself, too, where applicable, but she thinks that's probably only because she's controlling the illusions: they originate inside her brain and are allowed to be there on a probationary basis. [Look weird how? Alice, illusion me something, let me make sure it's only mine I can experience.]

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 10:29 pm (UTC)

Alice illusions her a rain of cuddly pillows (visual and tactile), or tries to.

self_composed
2012-12-19 10:50 pm (UTC)

[Well, I know what you did 'cause I can read your mind, but I don't see them or feel them,] Bella says, squinting at the ceiling.

nonbird
2012-12-19 10:52 pm (UTC)

[You are definitely buried in illusory pillows,] says Lazarus. [It's remarkably cute.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 10:53 pm (UTC)

Bella shakes herself, chuckling. [Okay, but, what looks weird about illusions to you? Of pillows or otherwise?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 10:55 pm (UTC)

[They don't exist. They are very insistent about that. Absolutely no room for doubt. It's just weird looking at something whose most obvious feature is that it isn't really there.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 10:57 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. [I wonder if I can wish myself an illusion-detection power? I can imagine blundering into some problems by simply failing to note the presence of illusions when I hadn't been planning to advertise my native power. Then I can look at things that are Obviously Not There with you.]

nonbird
2012-12-19 10:58 pm (UTC)

[I think that's a fine idea,] says Lazarus.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 10:58 pm (UTC)

[I think you're adorable,] says Alice.

self_composed
2012-12-19 10:59 pm (UTC)

Bella turns over this notion in her head until she's satisfied with her design, then says, [Watch this, nonbird,] and wishes it.

nonbird
2012-12-19 11:00 pm (UTC)

[Fascinating!]

self_composed
2012-12-19 11:00 pm (UTC)

[Ye-e-es?] Bella prompts.

nonbird
2012-12-19 11:02 pm (UTC)

[I may be anthropomorphizing these things a little too much, but I got the impression your native power went 'oh, all right' and let the wish through.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 11:03 pm (UTC)

Bella cackles. [I do like my power, but I won't hold with it being inconvenient,] she says merrily. [Are you catching any more interesting tidbits about stray magic?]

nonbird
2012-12-19 11:06 pm (UTC)

[Nothing conclusive. I might have to go away and think about it for a while in order to get anywhere. You're right about how convenient perfect recall is, by the way.]

self_composed
2012-12-19 11:07 pm (UTC)

[All right. I was going to do a super-speed power; I may as well do that now while you're here to see it just in case that's useful. Here goes.]

Bella decides to demonstrate her new speed power with extremely rapid solo dance moves, giggling all the while.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 11:08 pm (UTC)

Alice awws. Alice awws so much.

self_composed
2012-12-19 11:09 pm (UTC)

Bella comes to a halt with a flourish and curtseys.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-19 11:19 pm (UTC)

Alice hugs her, because how could you not?

nonbird
2012-12-19 11:20 pm (UTC)

Lazarus grins.

[I'll go review my data, then, shall I?]

self_composed
2012-12-19 11:20 pm (UTC)

[Yes please,] Bella says, hugging Alice back.

nonbird
2012-12-19 11:22 pm (UTC)

Off he goes!

a city and a mint who sleep very little between them

self_composed

Bella bikes to the airport on Friday. She gets a little reading done on her flight, then sleeps-on-purpose through the remainder of the trip, waking up precisely when the plane touches down. One nice bonus that she didn't even explicitly build into the power is that she can sleep at will in virtually any position; she doesn't have to get comfy if that's not convenient.

She steps off the plane, backpack full of her things over her shoulders, and stalks into the halls of LaGuardia, eyes peeled for Libby.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-19 11:31 pm (UTC)

There she is! She offers Bella a friendly wave.

self_composed
2012-12-19 11:33 pm (UTC)

Bella waves back, giving Libby an assessing look, and approaches nearer.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 12:46 am (UTC)

"Welcome to New York," she says, smiling slightly. Her voice is very similar to Chris's.

self_composed
2012-12-20 12:47 am (UTC)

"Thank you. So far, it looks like an airport," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 12:49 am (UTC)

"I assure you, the rest of the city is more than just a rumour."

self_composed
2012-12-20 12:50 am (UTC)

"I have seen photographic evidence," Bella agrees. "Are we going somewhere, or having our chat at the baggage claim?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 12:54 am (UTC)

"Unless you are intensely fond of this baggage claim, I was thinking maybe coffee," she says.

self_composed
2012-12-20 12:55 am (UTC)

"I have been known to drink coffee, and this baggage claim and I are just friends," says Bella.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 01:06 am (UTC)

"Coffee it is."

She beckons, leading the way.

self_composed
2012-12-20 01:07 am (UTC)

Bella follows after her, noting with interest that there are not spies about.

Perhaps they're redundant.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 01:13 am (UTC)

Having spies about would give Bella more information than they could get from her, with Libby there to pay attention. It would be counterproductive.

Coffee, it turns out, is not very far away at all.

self_composed
2012-12-20 01:14 am (UTC)

Bella orders something sweet and creamy and complicated and hot. "So," she says. "Here I am in person. What do your powers of observation tell you that you needed to know badly enough to buy me a plane ticket?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 01:16 am (UTC)

Libby orders plain black coffee.

"That you're very impatient, but I already knew that."
Edited 2012-12-20 01:16 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-12-20 01:17 am (UTC)

"Patience is only a virtue when waiting is the best way to get something. There are often many other ways to get things, and even if waiting will work, one may as well spend one's waiting period thinking of other options."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 01:34 am (UTC)

"Reasonable," says Libby. "Right now, though, you want to know things only I can tell you, and the only way I'm going to do that is if I get a good enough sense of you to be sure you won't use it against me. So let's chat. I meant it about your goals in life, by the way. There's a lot of things you'll find a lot easier to accomplish with me as a friend."

self_composed
2012-12-20 01:39 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "I haven't picked a major yet. I do a lot of things. I don't think I'm going to go pro on the music or the soccer. Programming's more likely. Politics is interesting, but I don't know if I have the stomach for the career path. I'm eighteen, how much concreteness do you expect me to have in my goals?"

Bella is glad she did not go into a lot of philosophical detail about herself with Bridget. Friends, yes - but not to the point where Bridget could guess that Bella more-than-idly wishes to take over the world.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 01:57 am (UTC)

"No burning desire to be President, join an internationally famous rock band, get a medical degree and cure a few cancers, any or all of the above...?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 01:59 am (UTC)

"The jury's out on politics," Bella reiterates. "I play the flute. I'd've picked up guitar or something if I wanted to be in a rock band. Doctoring's not out of the question, though, I could still break in favor of pre-med."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:00 am (UTC)

"Personally, I think there should be more rock bands containing classically trained flute players, but maybe that's just me."

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:02 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "I suppose it could happen. I haven't got a bead on potential bandmates, though, and don't do my own composing to speak of."

It will be a terrible pity if she cannot find a peaceful solution to the problem of Libby Being Sinister And Sometimes Kidnapping People.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:05 am (UTC)

She smiles. "Should I keep you in mind in case I find a rock band looking for a flute?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:06 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "I won't take it amiss if you do, but it does not constitute satisfying my fondest ambition or anything like that."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:10 am (UTC)

"I very rarely get to satisfy people's fondest ambitions," she says, "but once in a while I get to hook up the metaphorical rock band with their metaphorical flute player."

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:12 am (UTC)

"What are some nonmetaphorical versions of this pastime?" Bella asks. "It sounds logistically interesting. Being a... networking locus." That description doesn't have the word "sinister" in it at all; Libby should be pleased.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:20 am (UTC)

"I find it very fulfilling, actually." She smiles again. "And I hope you'll forgive me if I don't say which one, but I have in fact introduced the members of at least one rock band to each other, and they're doing pretty well these days."

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:21 am (UTC)

"Is this band," Bella asks, "a magic rock band? Or is that only a fraction of your activities?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:22 am (UTC)

"Only a fraction."

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:25 am (UTC)

"So the rest of it is just garden-variety... networking. Informal, I presume, no mailing list, no registering yourself as an LLC in Delaware, I suspect I'd have heard about it by now if you hosted mixers alternate Thursdays."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:26 am (UTC)

"Exactly," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:27 am (UTC)

"And you sent Bridget to spy on me because you wanted me kept on your radar because... you think I might get in someone's way, or might be able to do things you and your friends would like done."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:45 am (UTC)

"I expect you to get in someone's way if I don't keep an eye on you," says Libby. "The question is whether you're going to have simple, ordinary goals that conflict with the simple, ordinary goals of one of my people, or at the opposite extreme, start setting cities on fire one day. I don't like it when people set cities on fire. It creates mess."

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:46 am (UTC)

"I don't have any plans to set any cities on fire," Bella says honestly.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:47 am (UTC)

"Good to know," says Libby. "Keep it up."

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:48 am (UTC)

"Why do you expect me to get in someone's way?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:50 am (UTC)

"Because you're powerful, and 'someone' covers a very long list of people you could potentially inconvenience without ever knowing it. You could only manage not to get in anyone's way by being very unimaginative, and you don't strike me as unimaginative."

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:52 am (UTC)

"Do you classify mints in general as 'very powerful', that way, or do I only count because you think I've got imagination?" Bella asks.

False dichotomy is fun.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:53 am (UTC)

"No," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:54 am (UTC)

"What, then?" Bella says, unfazed. False dichotomy is fun but it doesn't always work.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 02:57 am (UTC)

"You have the tightest anti-spying ward I've ever seen. For example."

self_composed
2012-12-20 02:59 am (UTC)

"I don't like being spied on. I don't know if Bridget told you, I took it a bit amiss when I found out she'd been doing it." Bella sips her drink. "How did you see my anti-spying ward?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 03:00 am (UTC)

"By trying to get around it, of course."

self_composed
2012-12-20 03:01 am (UTC)

"Of course. But doesn't that strike you as a bit rude?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 10:48 am (UTC)

"Sure it does. But I am absolutely willing to be rude if it will help me protect my people."

self_composed
2012-12-20 03:25 pm (UTC)

Bella is not quite sure how to communicate the disconnect between Libby's take on this and her own. Bella is also not sure if she wants Libby to understand the way in which this is not okay, though, so she doesn't try very hard. Instead she says:

"The way Bridget talks about you makes more sense now."

Because it really does. Humans are mostly designed to care about people being team players, not about people adhering to abstract ethics or rule of law. Libby is - or can produce a very convincing front of being - a team player.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 03:33 pm (UTC)

Libby raises her eyebrows. "Oh?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 03:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes, she was adamant that you were definitely oriented around being helpful to her and others in the network, and kept taking exception to the 'sinister' description."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Why do you insist on calling me sinister?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Because you were spying on me," Bella says tiredly.

She is not sure why this is so complicated.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Comes with the job," she says, unapologetically. "Someone has to make sure nobody destroys the world."

self_composed
2012-12-20 03:43 pm (UTC)

"How did you get this job?" Bella asks.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 03:56 pm (UTC)

"I figured out that nobody else was doing it."

self_composed
2012-12-20 03:57 pm (UTC)

"And prior to that time, the world remained undestroyed," Bella points out.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Lucky world," says Libby. "I'd rather not leave it to luck anymore."

self_composed
2012-12-20 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Have you averted many near-apocalypses, then?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 04:04 pm (UTC)

"You say that like you think it's funny," she observes.

self_composed
2012-12-20 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Even if I assume you began doing what you do sometime during elementary school, you've had two decades tops working on it. Did you take over from someone else? Has there been maybe one, more likely zero, arguable potential apocalypse you've been in a position to intervene with over that entire period? Are you operating in ignorance of other persons, forces, or organizations with the same goal who've been around longer than you? Are you using this as a cover to make yourself sound altruistic while you mostly work on something else? Is the world in negligible danger and you're paranoid? All of those possibilities are more likely than the world having always needed someone doing what you do and only having just recently gotten it, previously persisting only by luck."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Anyone with the powers you or I have could easily cause massive widespread destruction if they happened to feel like it and no one was around to stop them," says Libby. "Are you going to argue with that?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 04:20 pm (UTC)

"I could destroy stuff, if I wanted to," Bella says. "Sure. But the history of the world does not look like one in which mints and the natively empowered routinely decide to destroy lots of stuff. Magic can accomplish extremely precise, unnatural, abrupt effects, and will by default unless people are trying to hide, and the widest-scale disasters have been none of those. People willing to destroy lots of of stuff and kill lots of people and who have magic to burn on that project have little, if any, reason to deliberately cover their tracks."

Like, for example, if Alice had gotten minting powers without her around - the results would not look like "volcano erupts" or "tsunami hits". It would look like "suffocating rain of jellybeans".
Edited 2012-12-20 16:20 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 04:23 pm (UTC)

"So... because it's obvious that it hasn't happened yet, it's probably not going to happen in the future? I'm having trouble following your logic here."

self_composed
2012-12-20 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Mints could decide to do all kinds of things," Bella says. "The evidence suggests that the regularity of mint behavior doesn't involve rendering humans extinct - or screwing with the orbits of neighboring planets, or creating brand new species of megafauna with no evolutionary relation to other animals, or spelling their names in volcanic eruptions across the surface of Asia, or any number of other things that we could certainly notice now if they'd been done in the past. Because these don't seem to be things that are done despite however many thousands of years of opportunity, I do not expect them. Because I do not expect these events, a desire to prevent them does not mean I ought to take ethical shortcuts and spy on innocent people whose only feature of note is being a mint. I also wouldn't put a keylogger on my roommate's computer if I discovered she owned a pocketknife, just because she could decide to stab me with it overnight. The regularity of human behavior is that it doesn't usually involve stabbing." Bella shrugs. "Given the stakes at hand, I might see where you were coming from if you looked just hard enough to see if I had a history of psychiatric problems, or made a habit of distributing extremist manifestos on campus, or something, but you looked longer and harder than that even after finding no such thing."

Bella pauses, steepling her fingers.

"How'd you know to look in the first place?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I arranged to find out when there are new mints," she says. "It was the obvious thing to do. By the way, counting you and your friend, and assuming there aren't any more that managed to hide from me, there are currently five."

self_composed
2012-12-20 04:50 pm (UTC)

"My friend?" Bella asks. That has to be Alice, but she doesn't want to give away anything about him right now. He is her secret weapon. "And - what, only five? In the world? Are you one yourself - are you any sort of magic yourself?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm a mint, yes, although I don't use it very often. If there are any more, they are either very well hidden or not on this planet at all."

self_composed
2012-12-20 04:56 pm (UTC)

Bella had been expecting so many more mints than that.

"Five," she says.

Elias knew a lot of mints. What happened to them? (Maybe Libby wiped them out.)

"How does your mint-detector work?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Why do you want to know?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Five is fewer than I expected. Maybe there's something the matter with your detector."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:05 pm (UTC)

Interesting.

"Why did you expect more than five?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:09 pm (UTC)

Bella half-lies. "Because it's so straightforward to make more mints. Anyone who wants anything even relatively pedestrian would have a motive to divvy up the minting between themselves and a reasonably trustworthy apprentice or three, who get the power in exchange for some fraction of the coins they generate. Mints should also live longer - curing diseases and so on, even if nothing else. Five. That's almost none. That's mints almost died out levels."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:10 pm (UTC)

"True," says Libby. "And before you ask, it was like that when I got here."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:11 pm (UTC)

"And you haven't made more yourself because you think they'd destroy the world?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I haven't made more myself because I want to be very, very careful about who I give that power to. I don't necessarily think they'd destroy the world, but the intersection of people who want to be mints with people I trust to be mints is not as large as you seem to think."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:14 pm (UTC)

"If anyone has the wherewithal to sort through a lot of people I'd expect it to be you," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Of course I do," she says. "But on the other hand, I don't consider replenishing the world mint population—if it was ever more than five to begin with—very urgent."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I suppose you wouldn't," Bella muses.

She wonders if Libby will ask her the same question, if she asks how Libby became a mint. She wonders if Libby already knows. She decides that the question is obvious enough that drawing it to acknowledged attention won't hurt.

"How did you come to be a mint?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I found one, and asked very nicely," she says. "There was a certain amount of bribery involved. Mostly he wanted to know it was the only six I'd ever ask him to make. How about you?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Your mint detector doesn't tell you?" Bella asks.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I know it happened on one of two possible dates, and your friend was the other one. I don't know who was first, where you got the powers in the first place, or who your friend in fact is, although I've got a few guesses about that last one."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:31 pm (UTC)

"What makes you think I'm friends with the other mint?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:37 pm (UTC)

"The fact that you toured Europe together is a big clue."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they're stalking me."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:41 pm (UTC)

"If so, they're doing a much better job of it than I am. I think I'm jealous."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Hey, I didn't know Bridget was a spy until you had her tell me. I'm clearly not the world's best stalker-detector."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Bridget has the major advantage of not actually being the stalking type," says Libby. "If I wanted to send a professional spy after you, there were candidates available. But since I did hope you'd end up on friendly terms, it seemed like a good idea to send someone who would either make friends or give up."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:47 pm (UTC)

"I do like Bridget, even though I was mad at her for the spying. She was a good pick," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Glad to hear it," she says. "I always like it when my guesses turn out right."
Edited 2012-12-20 17:51 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:52 pm (UTC)

"If you don't even have enough fine detail to tell whether me or the other mint was first, how did you narrow it down enough to find out that I was one of the two?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:54 pm (UTC)

"You were the only person from Forks who went to Stanford this year."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:54 pm (UTC)

"So you have, what, a map with pushpins on it that skate around?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:56 pm (UTC)

She smiles slightly.

"Good guess."

self_composed
2012-12-20 05:56 pm (UTC)

"And you didn't make these pushpins have post-it notes with names sprout from them - or you couldn't fit that into the size coin you used."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Or something."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Or it doesn't work on me," Bella acknowledges.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Or something," she repeats, but she's smiling again.

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles. "I like it when spying does not work on me."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I can tell," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:04 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "And you don't know who my stalker-or-friend-or-whoever is either, so it doesn't work on them either. So I guess the answer to the question about how your mint finder works is not all that well, if it fails on names for forty percent of mints it can even find."
Edited 2012-12-20 18:06 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Feel free to make a better one."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Might, but. It hasn't been a priority so far," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, right," she says. "You're not worried about strange mints destroying the world. Not even the sinister ones."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm not completely insensate to the risk, but have not yet decided to appoint myself Chief of the Secret Police."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Good to know."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Do you have any plans for the world besides not-blowing-it-up-or-letting-anyone-else-do-so?" Bella asks.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Not particularly. Why, did you want it?" she jokes.

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:27 pm (UTC)

"That would be the most epic Christmas present of all time," snickers Bella.

Because she thinks "yes" would be the wrong answer.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Maybe in a few years, when you've demonstrated the necessary level of responsibility," says Libby. "Planets are like puppies that way."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:33 pm (UTC)

"What's my goldfish-equivalent, then?" Bella asks.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Good question. Any suggestions?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Australia," deadpans Bella.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:36 pm (UTC)

"There is the slight problem that Australia already has a government."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:37 pm (UTC)

"That does seem problematic. Oh well. I'll let you know if I think of anything else."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:37 pm (UTC)

"You do that."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Mars," suggests Bella idly.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:45 pm (UTC)

"If you want Mars, you can have Mars."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I wonder how squares are at long-distance conjuration, I haven't played with that really," muses Bella. "Could put a flag on it so I can prove I was there first if pesky astronauts appear."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:50 pm (UTC)

"They have a range limit, and Mars is past it. You'd have to bump it up a notch."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Good to know. What is the range limit?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 06:53 pm (UTC)

"A little more than the radius of the Earth."

self_composed
2012-12-20 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Interesting. I wonder why. Pentagon could manage Mars, if I wanted to spend one on frivolity?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I've never tried, but I bet it could."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:01 pm (UTC)

"What else do you know about coins that I might not?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I could ask you the same question."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:03 pm (UTC)

"I think you've been at this longer than I, though."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:08 pm (UTC)

"True," she says. "But on the other hand, I don't know what you know. Except I'm pretty sure you've either been warned off sevens, never managed to make one, or haven't gotten around to using it yet."
Edited 2012-12-20 19:08 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:10 pm (UTC)

"So far I haven't decided to solve any problems with coins that I couldn't handle with smaller ones," Bella says slowly.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Don't use a seven," Libby recommends. "Even if it looks like a really good idea. They backfire habitually."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Why is that?" Bella asks with tones of mild curiosity.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm supposed to know?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Well, how did you hear this warning?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:23 pm (UTC)

"From a reliable source."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:24 pm (UTC)

"And this reliable source didn't tell you anything about why? Aren't you at all concerned that they just didn't want anyone else to get to use heavy-duty magic?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:25 pm (UTC)

"No."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Reliable reasons."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:30 pm (UTC)

"How should I know that you are not making this up so I don't get to use heavy-duty magic, then?" Bella asks.

She knows different, but she wants to know how Libby knows.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Feel free to think so," she says. "But if you want to test it, may I suggest doing your experimenting on Mars? Less risk for the rest of us."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:34 pm (UTC)

"These are big coins we're talking about. It would not be trivial to make an extra to test far away before using it for whatever my main project was."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I'd pay your way to Mars and back," she offers.

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:37 pm (UTC)

This does actually bring Bella up short. "Okay, you either take this warning seriously, or you are willing to throw a lot of resources around making me think you do. Why won't you save yourself the trouble and tell me why you take it seriously?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't get the impression that 'I trust the person who told me' will carry much weight with you."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:43 pm (UTC)

"It carries weight - in the sense that it moves the question a step further. Where did that person find out?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 07:44 pm (UTC)

"And we're back to square one."

self_composed
2012-12-20 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm trying to figure out why that would be a secret," muses Bella. "Would it harm the person who warned you if this fact were known in any more detail? I don't go around attacking people for issuing warnings, who would? Perhaps you just made a general promise not to spread the information, because... your warner is paranoid? You don't seem to be operating under a general principle of never sharing information, or never sharing information with me; only here and there. Maybe this is the wrong idea; maybe you don't know where the original warning came from, and you're... embarrassed to pay attention to a restriction that you don't know much about? Undertaking your own controlled experiments on an ongoing basis, and don't want me to know about it?" Bella pauses, like she's thinking of it for the first time. "Maybe the warning doesn't apply to everyone, and you don't think you'd like what I'd do with information about that, and you think I'd derive some if you were any more forthcoming."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:05 pm (UTC)

"You're very thorough," says Libby. "Has anyone ever told you that? I bet they have."

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if the exact word has come up. And I'm sure I'm missing something. You're under a geas and cannot share the information because someone else has reasons of their own to keep it limited - you're trying to keep me occupied fussing about this to distract me from something else - someone has a reliable native power of prophecy and says there will be a rain of frogs if I learn the truth -"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:18 pm (UTC)

Libby shrugs.

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Don't stop me if I get close, or anything, I might find myself inclined to like you and that would be awful."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:20 pm (UTC)

"No rains of frogs," she says, helpfully.

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh, good, amphibians would be thematically inappropriate. I prefer cetaceans." Bella closes her eyes. "Is the person who told you still alive?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:25 pm (UTC)

"I suggest we move on to a topic you'll find less frustrating," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Do you think I would find moving on without knowing the answer less frustrating?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Less frustrating than spending an indefinite amount of time trying and failing to weasel it out of me? Yes."

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Fine," says Bella grouchily. "I'll find out some other way."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:34 pm (UTC)

"You really don't like not knowing things," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I really, really don't," Bella agrees.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:36 pm (UTC)

An apparent non sequitur: "Lazarus seems very convinced you don't want to destroy the world."

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Lazarus is not a stupid person," Bella says, "that's probably why."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't disagree with him. But until I met you, I wasn't sure."

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Have you been comparing notes on me with Lazarus lately, then?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:44 pm (UTC)

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Mm?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Asking me disingenuous questions doesn't help your case."

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I realize that you have already thoroughly implied that you've been comparing notes on me with Lazarus, but English has a lot of phrasal curlicues to move conversations along that do things like retread past content," says Bella.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:54 pm (UTC)

"So he hasn't mentioned anything about our conversation to you? I'm surprised."

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Either that, or I don't have his permission to reproduce the contents of our exchanges to third parties," Bella says pleasantly.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:56 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Libby. "Maybe I should go ask him."

self_composed
2012-12-20 08:57 pm (UTC)

[You've come up in conversation with Libby,] Bella informs Lazarus. "What, right now?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 08:59 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't planning on it, no."

nonbird
2012-12-20 08:59 pm (UTC)

[Um?]

self_composed
2012-12-20 09:01 pm (UTC)

Bella reproduces the relevant segment of conversation for him in text channel. [Any requests as to how I discuss you?]

"Because he lives rather nearer to you than I do," Bella goes on.

nonbird
2012-12-20 09:13 pm (UTC)

[I have no idea, I'm just generally nervous.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I noticed that, yes."

self_composed
2012-12-20 09:15 pm (UTC)

"So," Bella says conversationally, "should I just operate under the assumption that you can read everyone's email, or are you not quite that spy-ish?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I can read everyone's email. I usually don't."

self_composed
2012-12-20 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Do you read my email?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

self_composed
2012-12-20 10:31 pm (UTC)

"What about Lazarus's?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Once."

self_composed
2012-12-20 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Recently?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I bet you could guess when."

self_composed
2012-12-20 10:35 pm (UTC)

"So you've read some of my email. Just not from my end."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

self_composed
2012-12-20 10:38 pm (UTC)

[Libby can and has read your email,] Bella informs Lazarus. [Implication is that she only did it during the time we were corresponding, but not like anything would stop her if she had reason to spend the time on it again.]

"That's not very polite either, but I suppose we've established that isn't your top priority."

nonbird
2012-12-20 10:39 pm (UTC)

[Augh,] says Lazarus, very calmly.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes we have."

self_composed
2012-12-20 10:40 pm (UTC)

"You could have just written Lazarus, or had Chris write him, and asked him for his assessment of my likelihood of blowing up the world," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 10:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Lazarus is a good enough judge of character to accurately tell."

self_composed
2012-12-20 10:42 pm (UTC)

"You wound up having to talk to me in person after all anyway," Bella points out. "What did your espionage net you?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it didn't. Maybe it was a bad idea."

self_composed
2012-12-20 10:50 pm (UTC)

"So you've seen the error of your ways, or you've decided I'm never going to drop the 'spying' thing and you should switch to 'lying' if you want to be friends, or you just think this exact instance was not worthwhile but your general policies are decently sound?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm open to considering that this exact instance might not have been worthwhile. I have a lot more faith in my general policies."

self_composed
2012-12-20 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm." Bella sighs. "It's lucky that I've been assuming someone could and might read my email for a while now."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Of course you have."

self_composed
2012-12-20 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Yes. And I keep turning out to have been inadequately paranoid - Bridget being the best example - so I probably still need to dial that up."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 11:18 pm (UTC)

"And yet, I note that your main complaint about me is that I am much too paranoid."

self_composed
2012-12-20 11:19 pm (UTC)

"My paranoia leads me to take defensive measures. Your paranoia leads you to take liberties with things that do not belong to you."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 11:25 pm (UTC)

"We're defending different things," she says. "On very different scales."

self_composed
2012-12-20 11:26 pm (UTC)

"You don't exhaust less liberty-taking avenues before you do what you do, or I might round down to that being the only difference."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 11:27 pm (UTC)

"What kinds of less liberty-taking avenues would you suggest?"

self_composed
2012-12-20 11:35 pm (UTC)

"You could have contacted me directly instead of sending Bridget and told me that I showed up on your Global Mint Radar and asked if I wanted to chat. You could even have done it from behind security like I have in case I flipped out. And if I did flip out, you could try something like Bridget covertly, and if I did not, you could have just interacted with me like a normal person. You could have told me about not using the heavy-duty coins much earlier, too, and if you'd like tests on those done on Mars? That seems like something you want mints to be told about at once, not months later."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-20 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Doing any of those things involves assuming you are not already hostile," says Libby. "That's not a safe assumption to make."

self_composed
2012-12-21 01:11 am (UTC)

"If I were any more trigger-happy than I actually am, you would have rendered me hostile by now," Bella says. "You can, as it stands, salvage the situation, and I am more than happy to let you try, but my hostility is not a static quantity that has nothing to do with whether you attempt any self-fulfilling prophecies about it. And that's what the security wishes are for."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 01:14 am (UTC)

"I don't need security wishes. But you already know that, because you are not a stupid person," says Libby. "My concern is for everyone else, not for me."

self_composed
2012-12-21 01:19 am (UTC)

"You're safe; you're not invisible. You would protect the rest of your network by being defended against spying, that's what I meant - if attempts to magically learn about you bounced off, you couldn't be referred to by any wish that tried to learn about your friends and family. If you got a throwaway email address and no amount of throwing coins at the question would tell me anything about you that you didn't want me to find, then you'd look nervous, maybe, but not sinister."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 01:30 am (UTC)

"I'm tempted to turn any new mints I find over to you."

self_composed
2012-12-21 01:31 am (UTC)

Bella chuckles. "Are you really? But you don't trust me, as you've repeatedly had to remind me."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 01:34 am (UTC)

"I started out not trusting you. Right now, I trust you enough to be having this conversation, which is a fair bit, let me tell you."

self_composed
2012-12-21 01:34 am (UTC)

"How much? I mean, you're safe. I could be very dangerous to people in general and none too happy with you, and you'd still be safe. Native trumps."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 01:36 am (UTC)

"When I find someone I consider dangerous, I don't offer them information about important things that are secrets to most people. It just seems like a fundamentally bad idea."

self_composed
2012-12-21 01:39 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. Although speaking of secrecy, I'm somewhat curious why you want to have this conversation in a coffee shop. I imagine most people would think we're talking about some manner of fiction if they listen to us at all, but you keep other seams in your operation snug enough that I'm surprised even that little hazard sits comfortably."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 01:42 am (UTC)

"We're covered," she says.

self_composed
2012-12-21 01:51 am (UTC)

"Oh? How?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 02:37 am (UTC)

"Anti-spying ward."

self_composed
2012-12-21 02:38 am (UTC)

"Have you got one just generally? I don't know, you see, because I have never attempted to spy on you."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 11:18 am (UTC)

"I can't imagine why not."

self_composed
2012-12-21 02:49 pm (UTC)

"As a general rule, I do not spy on people. I might do it if I had a good reason, but I never default to it."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 02:50 pm (UTC)

"Good to know," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-21 02:50 pm (UTC)

"I'd imagine. Are you going to answer my question?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 02:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I have an anti-spying ward."

self_composed
2012-12-21 02:54 pm (UTC)

"But you said mine was the best you've ever seen. Did I do a better job of wish-designing or did I throw more magic at it?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 02:57 pm (UTC)

"Guess again."

self_composed
2012-12-21 03:00 pm (UTC)

"You were trying particularly intrusive spying and ran into the edge of my brain? You weren't counting yours because it is not a ward you have encountered in the wild? Mine doesn't cover random people in coffeeshops and therefore has more juice to do everything else, so mine is only better within a limited context?" Bella guesses gamely.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Not quite, but close," she says. "Mine is only active when I need it to be. It's not as pervasive as yours, but that's a feature, not a bug."

self_composed
2012-12-21 03:18 pm (UTC)

"I can see how that might be useful sometimes. It's not my style, though."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 03:19 pm (UTC)

"Clearly."

self_composed
2012-12-21 03:50 pm (UTC)

Bella changes the subject. "How many people with native powers are there running around that I haven't heard about yet?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Lots," she says. "Or did you mean individually, not statistically? Not that many."

self_composed
2012-12-21 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I did mean individually. You've probably done a reasonable job of filtering them for being interesting."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes I have," she says. "Tell me, if I decided to hand you all of my secrets on a silver platter, would you take that as a good reason not to use them against me?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 04:11 pm (UTC)

"That depends to a certain extent on what your secrets are and what you mean by 'against you'. If you have - I don't know, a minty little sweatshop where you coerce miserable third-world teenagers into making coins? That would be shitty, I would object. If you're asking whether being cagey is buying you some kind of insurance, like I'm going to be more inclined to not harm you if I think this might get me secrets, of course it isn't. By default I am not inclined to attack people. By default I am more positively disposed to people who tell me things worth knowing, and give me stuff I want." She shrugs. "And, if you decided to hand me your secrets on a silver platter, considering who we're talking about here, that would mean you were at least loosely sympathetic to my goals. Why would I want to antagonize sympathizers if I didn't have to?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Loosely sympathetic to whatever goals I imagine you have, because you haven't actually told me any big ones. Unless you really would like a planet for Christmas."

self_composed
2012-12-21 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well. I don't know what you'd do if I handed you all my secrets on a silver platter, but I'm happy to rule out hypotheses like 'Bella wants to blow up the world'."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Bella does not want to blow up the world. That much is clear," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-21 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Anything else on the same list as 'blowing up the world' you'd like me to convince you I'm not interested in?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 04:25 pm (UTC)

"No, I think you're in the clear on that general score."

self_composed
2012-12-21 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Then clearly I am a safe repository for all your secrets," teases Bella.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 04:27 pm (UTC)

"If only it worked that way."

self_composed
2012-12-21 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Yes, yes. What do you think would happen if you told me what you know about the population of natively magical folks you've encountered? Besides that I wouldn't have to decide whether to spend coins and time and effort on finding them myself."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 04:48 pm (UTC)

"It's not inconceivable that you might decide to go pester some of them," she says. "Many of them do not appreciate being pestered. Some of the rest don't appreciate being talked about in general. Bridget is not the only person I know who has needed to be rescued from intensely curious people. The reasons I might not let you near my personnel lists are not strictly strategic."

self_composed
2012-12-21 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I won't pester anyone who doesn't want to be pestered. In fact, I'll take your word for it about who those people are," Bella says. "And naturally you may decline to spread information you've been asked to keep mum by its owner. What about the others?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Chris did a pretty good job of covering those. In fact, she even mentioned some of the please-don't-pester-me kind."

self_composed
2012-12-21 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Is there a word for people with native powers? ...Ingots?" Bella suggests.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Ingots?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Natural magic as opposed to the artificial, minted kind," Bella says. "You've probably already got a word for it, though, right?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 05:15 pm (UTC)

"No. And I didn't come up with 'mints', either."

self_composed
2012-12-21 05:16 pm (UTC)

[Hey, Lazarus, do you have a word for folks with native powers?] Bella inquires.

"I was calling us just 'wishcoiners' before I began corresponding with Lazarus."

nonbird
2012-12-21 05:21 pm (UTC)

[Should I?]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 05:22 pm (UTC)

"'Mints' is cute. And shorter."

self_composed
2012-12-21 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Bella agrees. "I adopted it quite happily."

[If you don't, I propose "ingot".]

"Speaking of minting." Bella taps the table. "How do you do it, what with Chris keeping you safe from everything?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 05:27 pm (UTC)

"That would be one of those strategic secrets I don't plan on telling you until I'm sure you won't try to screw me over with it."

nonbird
2012-12-21 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Ingot is adorable. I'm sold,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2012-12-21 05:31 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "That one's just a personal curiosity anyway; I still have to operate under the assumption that you can acquire coins either way. So no big deal."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's nice."

self_composed
2012-12-21 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I am very nice."

[Libby knows I made up the 'ingot' term, so don't use it in front of her or Chris or anyone who talks to them until I've had a plausible opportunity to share it with you by not-brainphone.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Apparently so."

self_composed
2012-12-21 05:39 pm (UTC)

"So I've met the interesting ingots who might want to meet me, I guess. How hard have you looked? I notice the ones I've met are all, you know, white English-speakers. That seems odd."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I take it you haven't talked to Kolya, then."

self_composed
2012-12-21 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Not so I'd know what crayons to use." Libby's quite equipped to know that Kolya once sent Bella an email using Lazarus's account, though. "Even so, it's an odd demographic."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 07:17 pm (UTC)

"You've met two at the crayon level that I know of," she points out. "Hardly enough to draw statistical inferences. For the record, with a larger sample size, the distribution seems pretty even."
Edited 2012-12-21 19:17 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-12-21 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Lazarus described himself - well, he relayed Kolya's description. And Chris is your aunt, which gives me somewhat more than fifty percent information about her, now I've seen you," Bella says. "Fair enough. Are ingots scattered around the globe as well as the crayon box?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes they are. Although I'm somewhat limited in getting to know them by the fact that I speak mainly English."

self_composed
2012-12-21 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Languages aren't your top priority for the use of pentagons, then?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Not usually. Why, are they yours?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I've used more pentagons on languages than on anything else," Bella says. "I like 'em. And I did travel around Europe last summer."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:15 pm (UTC)

"You seem to use magic a lot more frequently than I do," Libby observes.
Edited 2012-12-21 20:15 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I broke my leg last winter. It was an accident, but as long as I had a broken leg, I jostled it for coins. I have a good pain tolerance at that level."

This is all technically true.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately for me, I don't have those kinds of accidents."

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but we've established you don't want to tell me how you get any coins whatever under your circumstances. Me, if I fall down the stairs, I will get beat up."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:23 pm (UTC)

"How convenient for you," she says dryly.
Edited 2012-12-21 20:23 (UTC)

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

"It really is! It would be a pity if I were Bridget. She'd be a terrible mint, since bootstrapping doesn't work."
Edited 2012-12-21 20:25 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:32 pm (UTC)

"She would, at that."

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of Bridget, I have been advised not to ask you if I may try breaking your wrist to compare Chris's protection with Bridget's version," Bella says.

And she's not asking. Quite.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Advised by whom?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Lazarus. I believe he finds your aunt unnerving."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Chris has that effect on people."

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:39 pm (UTC)

"You're not laughing at him and offering me your hand, so I'm going to assume he was right."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I won't take exception to you asking, but I also won't say yes, and if I did I would pick a less public location in case someone got the wrong idea."

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Anti-spying ward doesn't cover that, then? But all right, sure, not everyone invincible is going to be as cooperative about playing with it as Bridget."
Edited 2012-12-21 20:51 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Maybe once I get to know you better," she deadpans.

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Any other nosy questions?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Would it net me any interesting secrets if I volunteered to occasionally serve as an interpreter-who-already-knows-about-magic between you and ingots overseas?" Bella asks thoughtfully. "Since I have some languages. I don't want a full-time job while I'm in school, and if you need translations done while I'm in class you might just need to burn squares for temporary competence in French or whatever, but as long as we're being friendly and could use a basis for more opportunity to get to know each other..." She shrugs.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Good idea," says Libby. "What languages do you speak?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 09:07 pm (UTC)

Bella names... most of them. "Most of the major Romance languages, German, Greek, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Hindi, and Mandarin. And, you know, English and Python and Lisp and stuff."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't need German," she says. "And I already know an interpreter who knows about magic and speaks Russian. But you might be more convenient than Lazarus now and then."

self_composed
2012-12-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

[You do translation work for Libby?] Bella asks Lazarus quizzically. That's news to her.

"Cool," she says.

nonbird
2012-12-21 09:16 pm (UTC)

[No I don't,] says Lazarus. [I mean, I do translation work, but not for Libby.]

self_composed
2012-12-21 09:17 pm (UTC)

[Are you sure?]

nonbird
2012-12-21 09:21 pm (UTC)

[I think I would've noticed.]

self_composed
2012-12-21 09:22 pm (UTC)

Bella passes along the suggestive segment of conversation. [Perhaps she just expects that you'd take the work if she asked?]

"How do you go about finding ingots? Do they appear on your globe too?" Bella asks.

nonbird
2012-12-21 09:24 pm (UTC)

[Probably,] he agrees. [I am an interpreter, that much is true.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll leave that an open question for now."

self_composed
2012-12-21 09:34 pm (UTC)

Bella's going to make her own globe when she gets home.

"Of course you will," she sighs.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

"You're not very patient, are you."

self_composed
2012-12-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Nope. I am not."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 09:55 pm (UTC)

"That's a little inconvenient."

self_composed
2012-12-21 09:56 pm (UTC)

"For whom?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Both of us, really. If you were very patient, I could just tell you that if you hang around me long enough, you'll pick up plenty of secrets, and that would be that."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Even if I were very patient, I might not believe you if you told me that," Bella points out.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:03 pm (UTC)

"If you were very patient, you might be willing to wait and see."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm not seeing it," Bella says. "I don't think Bellas come in 'patient'."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Like I said," says Libby. "Inconvenient."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure my other scintillating qualities make up for it, though," Bella says earnestly.
Edited 2012-12-21 22:17 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I think you're perfectly charming on a personal level."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

"And on a personal level, apart from all the irritating secrecy and so on, I think you're lovely company as well," Bella returns.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Irritating but lovely. You know, I can't say I get that a lot."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:22 pm (UTC)

"No? I get called charming and impatient all the time."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I am not surprised."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:28 pm (UTC)

"So you have a doctorate in math, right?" Bella asks, out of productive magic talk for the time being.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes I do."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Do you recommend grad school generally? I hear mixed reviews of the pastime."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Try it and see. It's the only way to know."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, that wasn't very helpful."

Bella peers into her empty beverage cup, then pushes it aside. "It occurs to me to ask - what all do you know about my stalkerfriend?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:34 pm (UTC)

"It occurs to me to ask, why do you want the answer to that question to be 'nothing'?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:36 pm (UTC)

"So you think you know the answer is that they're my friend, rather than that they're my stalker and have been just as good at hiding themselves from me," observes Bella. "I'd want to know what you knew either way, you realize. If they're my friend I want to patch security holes and if they're my stalker I want to know who the hell is stalking me."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:39 pm (UTC)

"On the other hand, if they're your stalker, you have no motivation to phrase that as an if."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:42 pm (UTC)

Bella shakes her head. "If they're my stalker, maybe I want to give off the impression that I have a powerful friend because I don't quite trust you - or I want to learn more about how you think - or I don't want to admit outright I can't handle them on my own - or we used to be friends and I'm not comfortable turning on them yet - or I want to be their friend and I want to snap 'em up before you do - or any number of reasons."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:47 pm (UTC)

"They're your friend," says Libby. "Good odds they live in Forks. In your opinion, how likely are they to destroy the world?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Do I strike you as likely to be friends with someone who is liable to destroy the world?" Bella asks.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Are you evading because you really don't want to admit to the friend part, or because they are more likely to destroy the world than you are and you don't want me finding that out?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:51 pm (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes. "Oh, fine. We're friends. More likely? Yes. Likely? No." She pauses. "Because it would make me upset, more than for other reasons, if you're ever tempted to remove me."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Libby. "Thank you."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I would be very displeased if my friend were removed," Bella adds gravely. "Likewise."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I'd figured that much out for myself," she says dryly. "I don't plan to remove your friend. But I would be very happy if you continued to keep their destructive tendencies to a minimum."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that is one of my primary aims in how I conduct our friendship," Bella says peaceably. "I also have a plan for - Oh, hm." She frowns. "Come to think of it, there is a flaw in my plan for how to deal with a rogue friend, but I will replace it."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm definitely not going to ask about that one," she says. "Because unlike you, I am not indiscriminately curious."

self_composed
2012-12-21 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bella politely.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 11:00 pm (UTC)

"How did you two become mints?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Magic," says Bella languidly.

[Lazarus, it has occurred to me that my Emergency Plan For What If Alice Goes Rogue will not work. Since you've seen his ingot power, perhaps you can help me come up with a replacement that will not have the same defect?]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 11:04 pm (UTC)

"You found a pair of sixes," she translates. "Or one six, which you took a while to duplicate."

nonbird
2012-12-21 11:04 pm (UTC)

[...Dare I ask what the original plan was?]

self_composed
2012-12-21 11:06 pm (UTC)

[Original plan was take his coins and then take his ability to experience pain. Directly taking minting powers away doesn't work, at least not without stars. But his touch-don't-change thing would not likely take kindly to something like that.]

"Yes," Bella acknowledges. "We've been calling them hexes, though."

nonbird
2012-12-21 11:12 pm (UTC)

[Yes. It's safe to say that any plan that involves taking away one of Alice's senses is not going to work. Also, why do you have a plan for what if Alice goes rogue? Is he likely to?]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Cute," says Libby. "What do you call the others?"

self_composed
2012-12-21 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Triangles, squares, pentagons, stars."

[I don't know about likely, but if he did, it wouldn't be a petty falling out where he'd move to Milwaukee and badmouth me to the neighbors. His interest in keeping me happy stands between him and serious mayhem. He is naturally inclined towards serious mayhem. Can I make it so he cannot come into direct physical contact with coins, and thereby can't make wishes? A very thin film of no-coins-allowed-beyond-this-point around his skin?]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Stars," she repeats. "I like it."

nonbird
2012-12-21 11:18 pm (UTC)

[Maybe,] says Lazarus. [His power wouldn't prevent it, anyway. Do you need direct physical contact...? Yes, I guess you do. What about when you make coins?]

self_composed
2012-12-21 11:20 pm (UTC)

[When you make coins, they appear on your person, but I imagine I could design the film so it'd scoot them away faster than his reaction time,] Bella says. [He doesn't have my cognitive speedup. It'd be risky, I'd like a better idea or a supplementary one...]

"It seemed obvious," Bella says.

nonbird
2012-12-21 11:21 pm (UTC)

[Can you make a wish directly, without coining it first?]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 11:28 pm (UTC)

"It certainly is now that you mention it."

self_composed
2012-12-21 11:30 pm (UTC)

[No. The action you take with the pain makes a coin; you can put it where you want, I used to appear them inside my socks so they wouldn't be noticeable. I tried turning pain into a wish instead of a wishcoin and it didn't work.]

"I do wish you'd tell me why you believe those to be dangerous," Bella sighs.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Because they are," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-21 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Have you used one?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I do wish you'd stop trying to pry information out of me that I don't want to give you."

nonbird
2012-12-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Can coins break?] he wonders next, somewhat distracted from the original subject.

self_composed
2012-12-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

[I don't know. Do you have some left? Want to try it for me?]

"Yes, well, I wish the set of such pieces of information were dramatically smaller," says Bella.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 12:33 am (UTC)

"You've made that very clear."

nonbird
2012-12-22 12:33 am (UTC)

[I am somewhat worried about what would happen if I managed it,] he says. [And no.]

self_composed
2012-12-22 12:36 am (UTC)

[Alice, will you carefully - reporting to me each step - see if coins are breakable?] Bella asks. He probably won't even ask why this experiment is worth doing. [Triangles. See if triangles are breakable. Lazarus can't tell by looking.]

Bella sighs heavily. "So how'd you know you didn't just miss another mint who gave us our magic?" Bella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-22 12:44 am (UTC)

[Sure!] he says. [One sec, though, cookies.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 12:45 am (UTC)

"Because I don't think I missed any mints," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-22 12:46 am (UTC)

"You didn't get my name or my friend's off your map-or-globe-or-atlas-or-whatever. Maybe there's someone else you didn't get at all."

[Of course. Cookies first.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 12:53 am (UTC)

"You keep pushing this idea," she says. "Why?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-22 12:53 am (UTC)

[Cookies are tasty. Broken coins are not tasty. What do I even try? I could hit one really hard with a hammer, I guess.]

self_composed
2012-12-22 12:55 am (UTC)

"Five mints is not very many mints," Bella says. "I expected there to be more."

[Try hitting one with a hammer if you like, try wishing one broken with others of various sizes,] Bella instructs.

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-22 01:09 am (UTC)

[Sure thing. What's all this about, anyway? Just thought of it and wanted to know?]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:10 am (UTC)

"If all mints are as reluctant to make more mints as the mints I know, and there weren't that many to begin with, five is a pretty reasonable number."

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:12 am (UTC)

[Lazarus asked and is nervous to try it himself,] Bella says.

"Perhaps I should make some more," she replies.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:13 am (UTC)

"I'd really rather you didn't," says Libby. "Failing that, I'd really rather you did it cautiously. You are, as you've mentioned, insufficiently paranoid."

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:14 am (UTC)

"Caution is a definite yes," Bella agrees.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:15 am (UTC)

"Good to know. I don't suppose there's any chance you'll run your candidates by me?"

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:16 am (UTC)

"It'll depend on the candidate, I imagine," Bella shrugs. "You're not introducing me to all your friends."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:20 am (UTC)

"You're not claiming special expertise in judging people, and I'm not doing anything that might need it."

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:22 am (UTC)

"Well," Bella says. "I don't have anyone in mind right now. Perhaps I will never run across such a person."

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-22 01:24 am (UTC)

[Hammer doesn't do it,] Alice reports. [Neither does a hex.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:29 am (UTC)

"Don't get me wrong, if you run across someone who genuinely should be a mint, I have no problem with you making them one," she says. "I just don't have a lot of faith in your ability to tell."

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:31 am (UTC)

"Your criterion being mostly about blowing up the world?" Bella asks.

[Interesting,] Bella tells Alice, [thank you,] and she says to Lazarus, [Hex will not break so much as a triangle. Is that relevant to my backup plan notion, or a side question?]

nonbird
2012-12-22 01:31 am (UTC)

[Side question. I have no idea what to do about your backup plan. Can't hurt to know more things, though.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"Ideally, every mint should be a person who absolutely won't blow up the world," she says. "Less risk that way. And also someone who won't, say, conquer the world and add all dissenters to their collection of carefully preserved human skulls. That sort of thing."

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:36 am (UTC)

"Ew," says Bella, wrinkling her nose.

[Agreed,] she tells Lazarus. [Knowing things is good. I think my current emergency protocol is the film thing, then. It would also make Alice less miserable than my other idea, which is a fine side effect as long as the goal of safety is accomplished.]

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:39 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Libby. "Ew. Exactly."

nonbird
2012-12-22 01:40 am (UTC)

[Would he be miserable...? Well, yes, I guess he would.]

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:41 am (UTC)

"I will be careful," Bella repeats.

[Of course he would.]

nonbird
2012-12-22 01:46 am (UTC)

[Lucky for him it can't happen, I guess.]
Edited 2012-12-22 01:47 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:47 am (UTC)

"I believe you'll be careful. I don't believe you're going to spot all the skull collectors."

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:48 am (UTC)

"How many skull collectors do you believe there to be?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 01:56 am (UTC)

"When it comes to giving out minting powers, I don't like to play the odds."

self_composed
2012-12-22 01:58 am (UTC)

"Why was there anything for me to find last winter, then? Why hadn't you taken care of that one way or another?"
Edited 2012-12-22 02:17 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 02:22 am (UTC)

"Unfortunately, I don't have infinite magic to spend on the task of locating and cracking open hidden coin stashes," she says. "Or I would be."

self_composed
2012-12-22 02:24 am (UTC)

"Mm," Bella muses.

Boy, is Libby's head ever going to explode if she gets a look at Bella's bandolier, which now loops via magic through an extra several feet in the treasure chest tucked away in the lair.

Pause.

"Look, we've established that I am very curious and very impatient and probably not going to blow up the world. Is there any chance I can buy answers to my questions with coins?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 02:29 am (UTC)

"...Maybe," says Libby. "I'm reluctant to say yes unequivocally. There are questions I'm refusing to answer on general principle, and questions I'm refusing to answer on very specific principle, if you see the difference."

self_composed
2012-12-22 02:32 am (UTC)

"If you run short of coins," Bella says, "consider issuing me a price list. Although my curiosity doesn't swamp my understanding of game theory and I won't let you establish any precedents that leave me in a permanently terrible bargaining position."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Libby. "Anything I'd be tempted to price just out of reach, I probably shouldn't be selling, anyway."

self_composed
2012-12-22 03:41 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "I didn't think that would escape you or I wouldn't have even brought it up."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm glad we seem to be taking each other seriously."

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:01 pm (UTC)

Bella's silent for a moment, then says, "You can give out my email address to any magic folks who might want it, by the by."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:09 pm (UTC)

"To what extent do I still need to be concerned about you spying on me and my friend - or trying?" Bella inquires.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:11 pm (UTC)

"If I said 'not at all', would you believe me?"

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:12 pm (UTC)

"I would not equate your words with the whistling of the wind," Bella says. "But I wouldn't take it on faith that you were telling me the absolute truth either. It'd be some information, but certainly no guarantee."
Edited 2012-12-22 16:12 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:16 pm (UTC)

"My previous reason for spying on you was to determine how dangerous you are," she says. "I don't have a new one."

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:17 pm (UTC)

"See, that's even better than just telling me 'no'," Bella says. "Especially since you conspicuously didn't mention whether you have a reason to spy on my friend."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Is your friend dangerous?"

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:25 pm (UTC)

"So long as I am around," Bella says, "no. And I have no plans to stop being around."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Then I don't need to spy on them, do I?"

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Only if you believe me, and I'm not sure you do. You've expressed a lack of confidence in my skill as a judge of character."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:30 pm (UTC)

"True. Maybe I should meet your friend and see for myself."

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:31 pm (UTC)

"No," says Bella pleasantly.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I don't think you'd get along particularly well."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:37 pm (UTC)

"See, that worries me."

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:39 pm (UTC)

"I get along with my friend swimmingly. I would not be friends with anyone who I expected to blow up the world," Bella reiterates.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:40 pm (UTC)

"So why don't you think I would get along with your friend?"

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Let's give my friend a code name and flip a coin to pick a gender, as this is tedious," Bella suggests. "How about Whistle. Bells and whistles, yes?" She digs a dime out of her purse. "Heads, Whistle is a guy - tails - All right then. Whistle's apparently a girl for this purpose. And she does have other characteristics besides being practically unlikely to blow up the world, you understand."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:45 pm (UTC)

Libby looks mildly amused.

"And what are some of those characteristics?"

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Her aversion to blowing up the world is not intrinsic," Bella says. "And I have reasons you don't, to trust it to stay put anyway. And it is out of the question to duplicate those reasons for you."

[I got tired of referring to you as a genderless nameless "my friend" to Libby, so I flipped a coin in front of her to pick an uninformative gender - you're a girl for this purpose - and named you "Whistle", as in "bells and whistles",] Bella informs Alice.
Edited 2012-12-22 16:48 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:53 pm (UTC)

"I see. Those reasons being, what, the closeness of your friendship? Or some personal judgment of character that you don't think I'll trust? Because you don't think I'd understand it, or because it's flimsy?"

edgeofyourseat
2012-12-22 04:54 pm (UTC)

Alice, predictably, finds this hilarious and delightful.

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:56 pm (UTC)

[I thought you'd like that.]

"Trade you for how you came to believe stars dangerous," Bella suggests.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I trusted the person who told me so. Both to be telling to truth and to know what they were doing. Your turn."

self_composed
2012-12-22 04:59 pm (UTC)

"That's not what I meant and you know it. But as a gesture of good faith: your guesses are wrong," Bella says testily.
Edited 2012-12-22 17:00 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-22 05:05 pm (UTC)

"My guesses don't leave a lot of room for alternate explanations," she muses.

self_composed
2012-12-22 05:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm aware. I'll tell you what you missed - or at least, the accurate thing you missed - if you answer the question I actually want answered."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 03:00 pm (UTC)

"That question being...? Who I learned it from, so you can go harass them?"

self_composed
2012-12-23 03:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't necessarily need their identity, unless that's the only reason you believe them. I want your evidence. If I told you that you oughtn't use hexes on the nights of the full moon, because doing so would have unspecified bad consequences, you would want to know why I thought that."
Edited 2012-12-23 15:03 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 03:10 pm (UTC)

"So my first answer was complete after all. I believe them because I took their word as a trustworthy expert."

self_composed
2012-12-23 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Did they use a star and lose the entire left half of their body?" Bella asks. "Do they have an informative ingot power? Did they derive it from Bible Code? Did they hear it from yet another person? Did you seriously just believe someone's unsupported statement that you should not use your most powerful coins?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 03:35 pm (UTC)

"If they made up the warning, they could just as easily have made up some secondhand horror stories to go with it." She smiles slightly. "On the other hand, maybe you're right and I should spend that seven I've been keeping in reserve. I think duplicating my anti-spying wards across all my friends would be a pretty good use for it, don't you?"

self_composed
2012-12-23 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Wait - no - don't do that - haven't you even got a reason, did you seriously not have a reason so I can just talk you out of caution over coffee by trying to find one, I don't necessarily mean you should use it -"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 05:30 pm (UTC)

Libby shakes her head.

"Relax. I trust my warning. In fact, it did come with horror stories, and one of them involved a mint losing the entire left half of their body. Interesting, don't you think?"

self_composed
2012-12-23 05:31 pm (UTC)

Perhaps Bella would have done better to make something up from scratch. She touches the rim of her coffee cup, regretting its emptiness, considers ordering another. "Interesting," she agrees.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 05:36 pm (UTC)

"So I'm pretty sure you have independent confirmation, because if you'd talked to this person, I'd know."

self_composed
2012-12-23 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I know why I'm wary of stars. I'd like to understand why you are."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Have I not covered that sufficiently yet?"

self_composed
2012-12-23 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Until I unwisely duplicated a cautionary tale, I don't see how you had any more evidence than stories that could easily have been made up. Sure, now you probably have enough information to justify it. I don't get how you did before."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 05:52 pm (UTC)

"They could easily have been made up. I don't believe they were."

self_composed
2012-12-23 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Because I know the person who told them to me, and I know they weren't lying."

self_composed
2012-12-23 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Based on your deep personal regard for them? Because you have kidnapped their great-grand-niece? Because magic lie detection?" asks Bella.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I am just very, very good at predicting people," says Libby. "If I know someone well enough, I always know whether or not they are lying, and usually why. This person wasn't."

self_composed
2012-12-23 06:52 pm (UTC)

Bella regards Libby thoughtfully, and then sighs and says:

"I'm not particularly talented at predicting people. So instead, I read Whistle's mind. With her permission and magic of her manufacture; she wouldn't want me to be nervous about what she gets up to and she's happy to render that unnecessary."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Generous of her," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-23 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Very."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 06:54 pm (UTC)

"And convenient for you."

self_composed
2012-12-23 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Whistle is overall extremely convenient for me. I was very lucky."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-23 07:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm beginning to see that," says Libby.

self_composed
2012-12-23 07:49 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles pleasantly.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 12:14 am (UTC)

"Although I'm curious as to exactly how she is convenient."

self_composed
2012-12-24 01:19 am (UTC)

"What do you mean by that?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 02:01 pm (UTC)

"I mean, in what ways besides curbing her destructive impulses and letting you read her mind does she make your life easier?"

self_composed
2012-12-24 02:03 pm (UTC)

"It's nice to have a collaborator for magical experiments," Bella says. This seems like harmless, obvious information.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 02:03 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure it is."

self_composed
2012-12-24 02:04 pm (UTC)

"And, of course, before I watched Bridget get shot, Whistle was the only person I could really talk to about magic."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 05:30 pm (UTC)

"...You watched Bridget get shot?"

self_composed
2012-12-24 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I take it she really wasn't keeping you posted on our activities? We got followed by a creep, we told him to piss off, he turned out to have a gun and he managed to put a bullet - well, not in, on her before I took him down. I know aikido," Bella adds.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Why, did you think she was? No. Although I did ask her if you were dead, right after you dropped off the map."

self_composed
2012-12-24 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't sure if she was or not. She told me about the 'dead' thing."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 06:21 pm (UTC)

"And you didn't ask her if she was reporting any more extensively?"

self_composed
2012-12-24 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I asked her all the questions under the sun, but I can't take anyone's word as gospel, and Whistle's the only person I can check up on directly."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I was going to say. Not asking a question doesn't seem at all like you."

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I sometimes exhibit discretion, but at the time I had no reason to restrain myself around Bridget."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Libby. "What counts as a reason to restrain yourself?"

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:07 pm (UTC)

"If asking the question lets on something I don't want known. Occasionally, I even let a question go unasked to avoid being rude to someone."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:11 pm (UTC)

"I see," Libby repeats thoughtfully.

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Triangle for your thoughts."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:12 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

"You're lowballing the price and you know it."

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:14 pm (UTC)

"It's metaphorical currency in the original form of the saying. I'd cough up a triangle if you insisted but I'm actually just expressing curiosity," chuckles Bella.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking that it's interesting that you include politeness and secrecy but not personal danger on the list of things that will stop you from being nosy."

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Both secrecy and politeness can be danger-related," Bella points out. "When would something involve danger and neither of the other two?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:21 pm (UTC)

"When, for example, learning the answer to the question will put you at a significant risk."

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:23 pm (UTC)

"In its own right? Like in science fiction, you look at the wrong sequence of letters or the wrong drawing or the wrong tentacled abomination and you're driven mad? I'm skeptical that human brains are really wired that way. Or if others found out that I knew the information they'd opt to hurt me? Then my concern ought to be making sure no one thinks I know, and that could be unrelated to whether I actually do."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I think you'll find that acting as though you don't know something is more difficult than it looks. But maybe I have an unusual perspective on that."

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Why would you have an unusual perspective?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Because I figure that kind of thing out a lot more easily than most people."

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:28 pm (UTC)

"What do you think I know that you think I think you don't know I know?" Bella asks.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Nothing, yet."

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:31 pm (UTC)

"So maybe there isn't anything, or maybe I'm good at pretending, or maybe you're lying but you don't want to alert me to the holes in my cunning disguise." Bella appears to find this line of inquiry charmingly entertaining.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Or maybe I'm deliberately not considering the question in as much depth as I could, to give you less to go on."

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:33 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "That would be interesting. Are you?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-24 07:34 pm (UTC)

"What do you think?"

self_composed
2012-12-24 07:36 pm (UTC)

"You don't think I'm very good at reading people, and I certainly haven't done anything to convince you otherwise, so you probably don't imagine I could tell if you were contemplating such things - but you're very risk averse - and less curious than I am. You could be doing that, especially if none of your hypotheses seem urgent to you," Bella muses.

prima_sequentem
2012-12-25 02:25 am (UTC)

"Very well thought out," says Libby, rather more amused than the situation seems to warrant.

self_composed
2012-12-25 02:33 am (UTC)

"As you noted, I'm thorough," Bella says. "How did you come to be so confident in your ability to read people in the first place, I'd like to know."

prima_sequentem
2012-12-25 11:36 am (UTC)

"By noticing how good at it I am?" she suggests.

self_composed
2012-12-25 02:32 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I'm wondering what specifically you noticed. Who did you practice on? How did you verify your early guesses?"

prima_sequentem
2012-12-31 03:45 am (UTC)

"Why do you want to know?"

self_composed
2012-12-31 03:50 am (UTC)

"Because I want to know things, and this thing came up," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 02:33 am (UTC)

"Good answer. Unfortunately for you, I have no idea. I've been doing it since I could talk."

self_composed
2013-01-01 02:34 am (UTC)

"Mm. Fair enough. Is talking crucially involved or did they just co-occur?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 02:52 am (UTC)

"It's a lot easier to figure people out when you can have a conversation with them."

self_composed
2013-01-01 02:55 am (UTC)

"How much of that is nonverbals and how much of it is just exchanging words in real time? I assume at least some of it is the former or you could do it on the phone, and some of it is the latter or you could do it by further spying. But I'd be interested by a guess at a ratio."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 02:57 am (UTC)

"Off the top of my head, thirty/seventy."

self_composed
2013-01-01 03:00 am (UTC)

"Interesting. To what extent do you suppose it's a learnable skill?"

There's that question, and the superset: to what extent is it a magickable skill? Presumably it could be done - but adding skills doesn't have negligible personality effects. Bella was pretty well suited to install perfect recall and cognitive speedup. She's not sure how well person-reading would graft. This is similar to why she hasn't made herself an Alice-style super-masochist.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:03 am (UTC)

"Oh, I'm sure it's a learnable skill. Lots of people learn it, with varying degrees of success. I just happen to be naturally talented."

self_composed
2013-01-01 03:06 am (UTC)

"Who teaching classes in it is a crank and who's got interesting stuff to say?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:10 am (UTC)

"I don't pay much attention. It's not like I need the help."

self_composed
2013-01-01 03:10 am (UTC)

"I'd think you'd be curious about where any particularly well-educated students were coming from, at least."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:22 am (UTC)

"I might be, if I'd met anyone who compared."

self_composed
2013-01-01 03:24 am (UTC)

"So you're pretty sure that your reading people extends to reading their literacy?" chuckles Bella.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:31 am (UTC)

"Of course it does."

self_composed
2013-01-01 03:31 am (UTC)

"What else does it cover? If you had a little checklist what would be on it?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:44 am (UTC)

"The way you think is fascinating," Libby remarks. "What do you imagine it might not cover?"

self_composed
2013-01-01 03:45 am (UTC)

"I bet you don't know my motorcycle's name," Bella says. "Or if you do, you learned it in a spy way and not by deriving it. I'm just wondering where the line is between that category and the other - and if there are more than that."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:47 am (UTC)

"I don't know your motorcycle's name, but if I'd thought about it, I could probably have guessed that you might name your motorcycle. Does that answer your question?"

self_composed
2013-01-01 03:48 am (UTC)

"Not in detail," says Bella earnestly. "Examples, examples."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:51 am (UTC)

"The categorical division between things it's possible to find out about somebody by chatting with them and things it's not seems perfectly obvious and self-explanatory to me, but of course you don't see it the same way."

self_composed
2013-01-01 03:52 am (UTC)

"Of course. Pretend I'm colorblind. List metaphorical green things and red things of comparable saturations." She pauses. "Think of 'em while I'm up. Back presently." Does this coffeeshop have a bathroom? It has. She visits it.

Bella is back a few minutes later.
Edited 2013-01-03 02:04 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:05 am (UTC)

While Bella is in the bathroom, Libby steps out of the coffee shop for a second.

It is a longer second than most other specimens.

By the time Bella returns to their table, Libby has another cup of coffee and is looking very much like someone with something delightful up her sleeve.

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:06 am (UTC)

"You look pleased," Bella observes. "Did you think of marvelous examples?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:12 am (UTC)

"None whatsoever," says Libby, "and you're not going to care. Do you have a lie detection power, and if not, would you like me to spot you a five so you can get one temporarily?"

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:14 am (UTC)

"If you're offering to let me lie-detect you, I can spot the pentagon," Bella says slowly, "but are you sure you don't want to see if I'll believe you on the strength of the offer alone, first?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:20 am (UTC)

"Well, the situation is that while you were in the bathroom I visited a multiversal nexus and met your alternate universe daughter from 2030, who is an imperial princess, because alternate universe Bella made herself empress of the world. This girl, whose name is Elspeth by the way, seems to think you do a pretty fine job of empressing, and since among other things she has the native power of augmented honesty, I believe her. So I'm going to help you take over the world. Would you like to verify any of that?"

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:21 am (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"I would like to verify any of that," she says.

She spends a pentagon. "Kindly repeat yourself, and I think this will last long enough to allow a bit more detail than that."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:24 am (UTC)

"Your alternate universe daughter who is an augmented honesty ingot—they call them witches, I like yours better—convinced me that you are the best available candidate for world dictator, so I am in fact going to give you the planet for Christmas," Libby says obligingly.

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:25 am (UTC)

"Do you have the planet to give me for Christmas?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:29 am (UTC)

"I have the means to give you the planet for Christmas," she says. "Well, maybe not the whole thing by Christmas. Depends how much of it you want and how fast you can get on top of it. But I know what's wrong with sevens, and that'll probably get you most of the way there all by itself."

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:30 am (UTC)

"So tell me what's wrong with 'em," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:33 am (UTC)

"Every time you spend a coin, it gives you backlash in proportion to the size of the coin. Sevens are just the only one where the effect is big enough and nasty enough to notice every time. But it only takes a six to declaw one."
Edited 2013-01-03 02:34 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:35 am (UTC)

"Ooh."

Bella pauses, and nods to herself, and grins a scary sort of grin.

"I can work with that."

She laughs a little, and a little more.

"I can absolutely work with that."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:37 am (UTC)

"Do you happen to have a lot of those lying around, or something?"

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:38 am (UTC)

Bella laughs absolutely maniacally.

Then she straightens up, wipes a tear of laughter from her eye, says, "Sorry, I just needed to get out of my system. I'm not a mad scientist, I just appreciate their ideas about laughter." She looks at the ceiling, smiling. "I don't know how many pentagons you've got, but I would be very surprised if I had fewer stars."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:40 am (UTC)

"A hundred and forty-nine," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:42 am (UTC)

"All right, so you have me beat by three," Bella says, shrugging. "I was guessing based on how conservative you seem to be with magic. But... heh. I have a lot of stars. I can get more. I'd already have more if I'd known what to do with them; the ones I have now are byproducts. I am not coin limited for any likely practical purposes until I have not just the world, but an interplanetary empire."
Edited 2013-01-03 02:43 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:44 am (UTC)

"Byproducts," she repeats. "Okay, what's your secret?"

self_composed
2013-01-03 02:45 am (UTC)

"Whistle's the most masochistic masochist who ever masochisted. She makes them. Recreationally. She has no use for most of her coins so she gives them to me."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:47 am (UTC)

"You know, I suspected as much," Libby admits. "Although I didn't suspect that much."

self_composed
2013-01-03 03:56 am (UTC)

"I am very lucky to have her," says Bella smugly. "She's mine. You can imagine why I'd be protective of the information. But you seem to have decided to be on my side despite having previously kidnapped Lazarus and spied on me, so."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:14 pm (UTC)

"Elspeth was extremely convincing. And I was already considering you as a candidate, so I wa happy to find out that I was on the nose about your inclinations and lucky about your suitability."

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Am I right that you swiped Lazarus because you didn't want him finding out about stars and telling me?"

[Libby says she's going to help me take over the world,] Bella cheerily notifies Alice and Lazarus both.

nonbird
2013-01-03 04:08 pm (UTC)

[I am not sure how I feel about that,] says Lazarus.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes you are," says Libby. "It's just about the only reason I would."

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:11 pm (UTC)

"That's what I figured. I thought, if you had not already obtained Lazarus yourself, but cared very much that I not have him, it had to be something he could tell me you wouldn't like anyone else to know - and that was my candidate idea. The book of instructions I found with my first hex was written by someone with no incentive to limit my power and he agreed that stars were bad news."

Pause. "He also knew a lot of mints even just who lived in his general area. About a dozen. I don't know what could have happened to them. Do you, or are you as surprised as I am, really?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Like I said, it was like that when I got here."

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:16 pm (UTC)

"How strange. Perhaps stars ate them." Bella shrugs. "Have you tried the declawing-stars technique yourself or only heard about it?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Tried it. Which in some ways was a waste of a six, because I don't think a seven could hit me anyway with Chris on the job, but at least now I know it works."

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Couldn't hit you. Is it smart enough to hit Chris instead?" shrugs Bella.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Tricky, especially since I spent the seven on protecting her."

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:21 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "There you go. Now that we're being so very friendly - how do you make coins, or is that terribly personal for some reason?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Chris's protection is flexible on the definition of harm," she says. "Pain isn't harm when I am expecting and approve of it."

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Convenient," approves Bella. "Okay. It is time to figure out what order it is best to take over the world in, and how, and I need to be quick about it unless there are more potential obstacles between me and it? Potentially irritating ingots, non-mints who have coin stashes, other forms of magic... I'll start with making an improved globe. This coffee shop is not where I would like to put it. I should probably add you to the brainphone network, any objections?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:29 pm (UTC)

"No. I assume it does what it says on the tin? I could take you to my globe," she offers.

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Sure, sounds good," Bella says. "The brainphone's what it sounds like. It's very handy." Pentagon goes. [Voilá.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:32 pm (UTC)

[Why do I get the feeling Lazarus is also on this network?] she wonders. "Let's find somewhere a little less obvious to disappear from, then."

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:34 pm (UTC)

[He is. He already was when you kidnapped him and he told me everything you said in real time 'cause he likes me more than you. I don't suppose your interdimensional nexus is available? That sounds like the sort of place where no one would notice some teleportation.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:37 pm (UTC)

[I thought he seemed a little distracted. My interdimensional nexus operates on its own schedule and may or may not decide to scoop us up the next time we pass through a door. I've also never tried teleporting out of it. All in all, I'd prefer something more reliable.]

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:38 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. [Ladies' room?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:39 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

Libby proceeds in that direction.

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Is your lair-or-whatever warded against people like me teleporting into it?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 04:50 pm (UTC)

[Not as such,] says Libby, [but it's probably still safer if I put us there. You don't have any inconvenient phobias, do you? Heights, small spaces?]

self_composed
2013-01-03 04:51 pm (UTC)

[Nope.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 05:11 pm (UTC)

[Great.]

The ladies' room is deserted when they step inside; a moment later, it is deserted again.

Libby's lair, or whatever, is bizarrely designed. They appear standing in a small, rocky alcove with a slightly damp floor, sealed off by a pristine glass wall, facing an enormous globe across a wide empty space. Far below them is something green-black and rippling that may or may not be water. The walls all around are more rock; the domed ceiling is the same colour as the watery floor.

It's really, really cold. Just-barely-above-freezing cold.

self_composed
2013-01-03 05:16 pm (UTC)

Bella does not mind the cold, and does not care anymore about concealing this or her other powers. "What's with the terrarium setup?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I wanted it in vacuum," she says. "And somewhere inaccessible. And very inconvenient to teleport to if you don't know what you're doing. It's impossible to teleport out if you're not on the list, by the way. You are now on the list."

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't have to breathe," Bella remarks idly. "I suppose I don't have depressurization handled except the regen could probably work faster than it. Where are we? Geographically?" She peers at the globe. [Lazarus, wanna see if I can get you an invite to come stare at Libby's pretty mint-detecting globe?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 06:09 pm (UTC)

The globe is very pretty. It shows the planet's surface in more or less full colour, with appropriate variation in height for things like mountains, and there are pins sticking out of it: a sea-green one in New York, a purple one in the Arctic Ocean.

Libby points at the latter.

"That's me. The vacuum is mostly for visibility; the extra hazard is just a bonus."

nonbird
2013-01-03 06:09 pm (UTC)

[Um,] says Lazarus. [Maybe?]

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:11 pm (UTC)

"How does it look for mints? I notice it hasn't got me, and I don't see Whistle either."

[Maybe?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 06:31 pm (UTC)

"It shows the current location of anyone who has ever minted a coin with a pin in the appropriate colour. Apparently it can't find you two past your wards. You did both show up at one point. One red and glowy, one black with highlights."

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:33 pm (UTC)

"I'm red-and-glowy," Bella volunteers. "Hmm. If I were doing this, I'd look not just for mints, but for coins. And ingots. A not-a-mint could still stir up trouble, or be helpful, if they have a stash or a cool power. But I want to think about how to be thorough, really informative..."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Take your time," says Libby.

nonbird
2013-01-03 06:37 pm (UTC)

[Curiosity and nervousness are fighting it out. I'll let you know who wins.]

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:38 pm (UTC)

[She let me lie-detect her and told me she wants to help me take over the world, and told me what's wrong with stars. I don't think she'd do you harm. Although you might not like it here if you're claustrophobic or scared of heights.]

nonbird
2013-01-03 06:39 pm (UTC)

[What is wrong with stars?]

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:41 pm (UTC)

[I think I actually agree with her that it's not the sort of thing that you want generally known, so don't go spreading this hither and thither, but you've got a shot of finding out if you hang around me enough anyway. Coins are mean and will try to bite; stars are the ones with enough oomph to reliably screw you up. I think that might be the spare magic you saw escaping. A hex'll wish a star toothless, so to speak.]

nonbird
2013-01-03 06:43 pm (UTC)

[I agree with her that it's not the sort of thing you want generally known,] says Lazarus. [Stars are scary.]

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:45 pm (UTC)

[Lemme ask Libby to have you come look at this pretty globe,] Bella wheedles. [Bring a coat.]

nonbird
2013-01-03 06:46 pm (UTC)

[...okay,] he says, [if only to resolve the bizarre mental images I'm getting of where this thing might be.]

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Can Lazarus come have a look?" Bella asks. "If not I think I'd just as soon make my own from scratch rather than trying to improve on this one."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure he can," says Libby. "I assume it was you who just told him about sevens?"

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:50 pm (UTC)

"He asked, and he'd find out anyway once I started flinging them around. You have some who-knows-about-stars monitoring system up, I take it?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Libby. "Curiously, there's always been one person who didn't fit in any of the categories 'knows', 'suspects', or 'doesn't know'. Less curiously, that person is you."

self_composed
2013-01-03 06:57 pm (UTC)

"My ingot power probably won't let you check, assuming it looks for the contents of my brain and not for whether anyone has ever told me or something," says Bella. "Is Lazarus on your allowed-to-leave list? I imagine he'd be alarmed if I ported him here and he was boxed in."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 07:02 pm (UTC)

"The list controls who can move people out of here, not who can be moved. Bring all the friends you like."

self_composed
2013-01-03 07:03 pm (UTC)

Without further ado, Bella says [Yoink] to Lazarus and yoinks accordingly.

"I believe you've met," she says, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

nonbird
2013-01-03 07:08 pm (UTC)

Lazarus is appropriately attired in coat and boots.

"Oh, it's not that cold," he says, glancing around. "The enforced vacuum two feet away is a little unnerving, though."

self_composed
2013-01-03 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Canadian," snorts Bella. "I'm only not curled up and shivering 'cause temperatures no longer harm my magical magical self. Tell me about this here globe."

nonbird
2013-01-03 07:14 pm (UTC)

"It's very pretty," he says. "It finds mints. Someone put a lot of thought into it; it's elegantly designed. But it can't see through your wards, because they're about on the same level."

self_composed
2013-01-03 07:19 pm (UTC)

"So it could see me again if it was just juiced up some," Bella says. "Okay. I suppose I'll just add layers for ingots and stashes of coins. We've got mints being pins, so let's make uncontrolled stashes treasure-map style Xes, and controlled stashes O's so it's all tic-tac-toe-ish, and ingots can be flags in whatever color coding the magic naively considers appropriate. If you don't mind me doing that to your pretty globe, Libby. Lazarus, any ideas on making extra sure the search is comprehensive? Ideally with cleverness and not just oomph, since as I recall the coin-based oomph does not exist to overpower an ingot with a relevant contrary opinion."

nonbird
2013-01-03 07:26 pm (UTC)

"You could probably make the flag look to me the way the ingot's power would actually look," he volunteers. "So we could tell ahead of time what these ingots' powers are like. And have it look separately for powers and for people with powers, and then combine the results when they agree, in case someone managed to hide themselves but not their power or vice versa."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Have it display any magic that's hiding something as an exclamation mark on a stick," Libby suggests, "and anything that doesn't make sense, such as someone who isn't magical but isn't not magical either, as a question mark likewise."

self_composed
2013-01-03 08:00 pm (UTC)

"I like it. And maybe little gems where there's coin-operated artifacts, like my motorcycle or this globe. And little boxes where there's anything disobeying the laws of physics but 'none of the above'. Sound like a plan?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 08:03 pm (UTC)

"I think it does," says Libby.

nonbird
2013-01-03 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Lazarus, thoughtfully.

self_composed
2013-01-03 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Let's see if a hex can cover this," Bella says, cracking her knuckles.

The hex goes. The globe lights up like an ornamented Christmas tree.

"And one for oomph."

Oomph.

nonbird
2013-01-03 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Pretty," Lazarus opines.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 08:13 pm (UTC)

"And very convenient," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-03 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Very both," says Bella, beholding the spinning globe hungrily.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I can check on the globe from any angle and review its history anytime I want," says Libby. "You might want to do something similar."

self_composed
2013-01-03 08:44 pm (UTC)

Bella writes herself root access to the globe with an unnecessary wave of her hand. "Alrighty! Now. My to-do list looks like: catalogue and assess everything marked on the globe, work out an order of operations and publicity level for world takeover, sift through your minions if you'll let me to find useful staff because ruling the world is bound to have scaling problems if one person's doing everything serially even if they think as fast as I do and it turns out I can bump it up a few more times, establish invisible moonbase capital city from which to rule because this will make it inconvenient for nonmagical folks to object to me and cut collateral damage if they decide to do it anyway, go ahead and grant myself permanent teleportation power instead of doing it per-case - I'll just do that one now since I already designed one, poof! - and arrange star versions of the defensive arrays for me and my pet masochist. Am I missing anything?"

nonbird
2013-01-03 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so," says Lazarus.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't mind being introduced to Whistle if you can fit that into your itinerary," says Libby. "And I'd be happy to recommend some people to help you rule the world."

self_composed
2013-01-03 08:53 pm (UTC)

Bella scrutinizes Libby. "We are clear that Whistle is mine, Whistle's various weirdnesses are my responsibility and otherwise to be tolerated, etcetera etcetera?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 08:57 pm (UTC)

"...Ye-es? That doesn't sound promising."

self_composed
2013-01-03 08:58 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "You'll see. Meet here or meet elsewhere?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Elsewhere, I think. It's getting kind of cozy in here already."

self_composed
2013-01-03 09:02 pm (UTC)

"All right. Lazarus, you want to go home, or can I talk you into sticking around and staring at the pretty globe while it spins and shows you flags, and brainphoning me when you're done?"

nonbird
2013-01-03 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you give me the look-at-it-whenever-I-want thing?" he suggests.

self_composed
2013-01-03 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Sure." She pokes him in the forehead, also unnecessarily. "You may look at the pretty globe at any time."

nonbird
2013-01-03 09:17 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"In that case I would like to go home now, please."

self_composed
2013-01-03 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Bye!" says Bella, and she obligingly sends him away.

She turns to Libby. "Bring Whistle to your turf, bring you to Stanford and meet there, or design my moon palace and meet there?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Definitely the moon palace," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-03 09:31 pm (UTC)

"All right. Let's see how much I can overclock my brain, I only go up to times-six right now."

Hex goes, next hex does not go, Bella wants to think about it more before investing a star in speeding her head up in case she might catch her brain on fire or something. She closes her eyes and thinks up a moon palace. It has ambient air-lighting like Alice's lair, and a magic door down to same. It defends against the harmful parts of sunshine since there's not an atmosphere on top of it to help. She can put in furniture later, except the meeting room is going to start with a conference table and springy chairs so she and Libby and Alice and whoever else gets brought in have a place to talk.

It's invisible to everyone not on the whitelist, and all manner of scientific instruments are doomed to ignorance of it. It has a surprising number of open balconies for a palace on the moon, but they and the environs as well as the interior are covered by air circulation magic again similar to the lair. (Bella does not need to breathe; this does not mean she doesn't like being able to hear and speak.)

She leaves the gravity alone. 'Cause that's half the point of being on the moon, right? This may, on inspection, turn out to require a revision of the conference chairs, but that's no big deal.

Plumbing works by magic, she puts in a kitchen for recreational cheffery and it also works by magic, and the entire thing is made of gray-white marble and abstract stained glass in tastefully muted-pearly colors, with similarly pearly tiles. It has a vaguely cathedralish shape to it; it looks more like a goddess's palace than a queen's. Bella decides she is okay with that.

Fixing the design in her mind and double-checking the whole thing, Bella spends the hex. It's not that much more complicated than the lair was, just bigger, and not bigger by enough to be a problem.

[Yoink,] she warns Alice, but she thinks he'll like the surprise. "Here goes," she notifies Libby, and they all three land in her conference room.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, hello," says Libby, about three-quarters to the room and one-quarter to the person who is presumably Whistle.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

Alice bounces a little, looks around, flashes a friendly grin at Libby just because, and then puts his hands on his hips and looks at Bella.

"Am I on the moon?" he demands.

self_composed
2013-01-03 09:41 pm (UTC)

"You are one hundred percent on the moon!" Bella says brightly. "Alice, this is Libby. Libby, Alice, also known as Whistle."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 09:43 pm (UTC)

He bounces over to Bella and hugs her hard enough to lift her off the ground, not that that is difficult, because they are on the moon.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you," Libby says dryly.

self_composed
2013-01-03 09:45 pm (UTC)

Bella is perfectly happy to hug Alice back. "So, Libby's going to help me take over the world, and probably isn't going to kidnap anyone we like anymore or spy on us, and I have decided to rule the world from the moon," Bella explains to Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 09:50 pm (UTC)

"You're awesome," he says. "Awesome and magic."

Then he puts her down and turns to face Libby, a little clumsily, because the gravity here takes some getting used to.

"Hi! Ooh, you know what this place needs? Cookies." A plate of cookies appears on the table; he flops into a chair and picks one up. "I'm eating cookies on the moon," he announces. "I love you, Bella."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, you're... cheerful," Libby observes.

self_composed
2013-01-03 09:52 pm (UTC)

Bella agrees with this assessment and ruffles Alice's hair. "There's a door from here to your lair," she informs him. "So you can come and go without making separate wishes."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I think we should move the other doors from my lair up here; it's getting kinda crowded," he says. "Whatcha think? Did you make room for that somewhere?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 09:53 pm (UTC)

Libby takes a cookie.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 09:54 pm (UTC)

Alice beams at her.

self_composed
2013-01-03 09:56 pm (UTC)

"There's lots of room, yes, and I agree," says Bella. "I'll line them up near the front door. It does not yet make sense to have a front door, really, but I'm thinking moon city." Hex hex hex, and there's a door from the moon to Toronto, to Stanford, and to her own bedroom back in Forks. "It would probably be best to put one in to New York too; where should that go, Libby?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 10:05 pm (UTC)

Nom nom.

"I'll think about it," she says, "just a moment. That is a truly excellent cookie, Alice; did you bake them yourself?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Guilty!"

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:06 pm (UTC)

Bella takes one too.

Hee. She's eating a cookie on the moon. In her moon palace.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 10:09 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if these are the first cookies eaten on the moon," muses Libby. "Anybody know?"

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:09 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea if astronauts packed them," Bella muses.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Who cares? We're eating cookies on the moon," says Alice.

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:13 pm (UTC)

"We are," hums Bella. "Libby, what can you tell me about the leverage your organization has over various institutional type things? I can just start curing diseases and stuff right now, in theory, but I'm concerned that I'll destabilize something which is made of humans, and then won't be able to fix it without brute force. I could have done it before, but I didn't want to make any major moves before I had you figured out."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 10:15 pm (UTC)

"I suppose this is the part where I admit to being James Moriarty," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:15 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"...In what sense are you claiming this?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 10:17 pm (UTC)

"In the sense where about sixty percent of my not-that-sinister organization is made up of various flavours of criminal who know me by that name."

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:18 pm (UTC)

"So it's, like, your codename? It's a decent codename if you're going to run a criminal organization."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I thought so!"

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I assume people you aren't being criminal-organization-secretive with don't tend to call you that?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Not usually. Is that relevant?"

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you wanted me to call you James instead of Libby, it would be," Bella shrugs. "So you mostly handle criminals, not so much politicians or businesspeople?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I handle the occasional politician," she says. "And a few government agents in various countries. Completely legitimate businesspeople, less so, but completely legitimate businesspeople are hard to find in the first place."

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Any tips on getting and using leverage over any of these categories of people?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I tend to work on a more individual level. I probably couldn't give you general advice that you'd find useful. On the other hand, if you have a politician you want moved, I can probably come up with the impetus."

self_composed
2013-01-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

Bella's conference room now has one wall that is a brain-operated whiteboard.

"All right. I have a few loose plans. I have given them all nicknames."

The board says:

- Supergirl [go around doing useful things as they occur to me, claim credit only as convenient, patch any resulting problems in ways that incidentally consolidate allegiance/information flow/resource control for me, ignore governments until they stop ignoring me] PROS: Straightforward, with good mix of action/reaction CONS: governments could stop ignoring me messily, does not lead to a well-centralized and top-down-organized end result empire

- Boo [appear in the presence of various world leaders, give them their two weeks' notice, assume all their nonfigurehead jobs with large initial effort to address inevitable objections and then operate through existing institutions] PROS: Assuming I think of everything resisting persons could pull ahead of time, doesn't involve much upheaval in citizen daily life. Near-immediate acknowledged rule of world and some runway to leave institutions at status quo while I catch up with everything. Inherit staff who might know useful things. CONS: Lots of people have honestly legitimate reasons to be mad at me if I do this. Someone might panic and blow up something or someone.

- Big Sister [develop magical systems that allow really serious global micromanagement; bypass governments and become a very involved deity instead] PROS: Hits the ground running. CONS: Potentially intractable even with stars, helpers, and superbrain. Probably not possible to implement fully without nasty privacy invasion issues.

- Presidency [give every human in the world leaflets or little audio recordings or telepathic messages or whatever inviting them to cast a vote for president of the world in six months, then implement part 1 of Supergirl and run a very intense campaign] PROS: Fewer people will be able to complain about me, although far from zero. CONS: It is not literally impossible for me to lose assuming I don't rig/mindcontrol anything, and then I'd look like I jerk if ruled the world anyway. Not everyone is on board with democracy.

- Space Empress [terraform planets and moons, set them up nice with good automatic law enforcement and stuff, invite colonists to come live there for free, slurp up population off the Earth merrily and get the hang of being in charge starting somewhat smaller, open diplomatic relations with Earth governments as a sovereign power and start an EU style coalition and work from that] PROS: I get to be Space Empress and that just sounds cool. Bypasses difficult problems of dealing with Earthly institutions. CONS: People who do not happen to trust me or who are very attached to Earth are stuck with various Earth problems for however many years. It is possible that not that many people want to go live on Mars, even if it's terraformed all nice and has magic FTL phones on it so they can talk to home, and then I have a population of a few million or so but do not actually rule the world unless the EU thing works unexpectedly well even without me having slurped up that many Earthlings.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Boo is a bad plan," says Libby. "Presidency is not going to work, because no one is going to accept that you have the authority to call an election for president of the world in the first place, because you don't. Space Empress has a shot, depending how good your PR is, if you can get past the initial hurdle of people not wanting to move because no one they know lives in space. And knowing you, I bet there's going to be a little bit of Supergirl in whatever you end up doing anyway."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I want you to be Space Empress," says Alice.

self_composed
2013-01-03 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm leaning Space Empress myself," Bella agrees. "Although Big Sistering deserves a little more thought. I don't have a great sense of what stars can do, yet. If I can make them make really sophisticated judgment calls according to really complicated algorithms..." She makes a face. "But then a lot of the system is awfully nontransparent."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-03 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Space Empress is cooler," says Alice.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 11:19 pm (UTC)

"And I'm not sure you could really test the limits of a star's ability to do that kind of thing without just trying it, which I bet you don't want to do."

self_composed
2013-01-03 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." Bella chews her lip. "I don't think there's a downside to Space Empressing. It's compatible with doing anything else on the list later. Could even give me the authority boost to declare an election, but you're probably right about that not being a good plan."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Go for the Space Empress!" encourages Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-03 11:50 pm (UTC)

Bella grins from ear to ear.

"All right. I think I will start with Mars; I feel like Earthlings might feel a little threatened if they knew me to be directly overhead. Automatic law enforcement, hmmm... need laws, first. This could take a while even at 12x. So first, something that has been bothering me..."

She snaps her fingers.

"Malaria has ceased to exist," she announces merrily. "That took a star, to get it all at once, but now it is gone and I will have to think of another example of things the world needs a magical empress to do."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I like the way you operate."

self_composed
2013-01-03 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I wonder how long it will take everyone to notice," Bella muses. "I should also decide if I'm going to continue to attend school."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 12:20 am (UTC)

"Is there anything you're getting from school that you can't get with magic or by becoming space empress?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 01:42 am (UTC)

"Potentially, some form of networking that will be useful later when I do Planetary Union or whatever I call it. If being friends with you strictly dominates attending Stanford for that purpose, do tell."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 01:47 am (UTC)

"You will meet different people through me than you will meet at Stanford," she says, "but I am a much better filter for usefulness."

self_composed
2013-01-04 03:21 am (UTC)

"I suppose it's also possible I'll have better credibility as Space Empress if I have some manner of formal credential," muses Bella. "Are you professory enough to award me any form of degree if I write you a dissertation in the next hour with pentagons and super-speed?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 01:11 pm (UTC)

"If you want a degree, I can get you a degree," says Libby. "If you want a legitimate degree, I can get you one of those too, but only in math."

self_composed
2013-01-04 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking math, yeah, I don't think I can please most of the people who'd care what kind I have, because if I accumulate enough credentials to do that it's going to be obvious I 'cheated' and many of them would probably care, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult to placate the ones who just want a degree, any degree."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Do some math, then," she says. "I'll handle the rest."

self_composed
2013-01-04 04:51 pm (UTC)

"All right, that goes on the to-do list," Bella says, expending a pentagon and wiping the bad ideas from her magic whiteboard. "Space Empress" increases in font size, and she adds substeps:

- Terraform Mars (hide this to start? don't bother?)

- Write Martian Constitution and install relevant wards to enforce it

- Design Martian city with its expansion vector and choose and invite people to live in it (conceal that it is on Mars to start? don't bother? if yes, initial design will have to give way to final design; when?)

- Troubleshoot with small population until smooth, then up-to-double once a month

There is also a to-do list that does not appear under "Space Empress":

- Catalogue world magic

- Acquire staff

- Star versions of defense powers

Bella asks, "Do you happen to know... Is it possible to wish other coins constrained in what wishes they can make? If I wind up trusting someone to, I don't know, be the town immortality vendor, but don't quite trust them not to take their hexes home and use them for nefarious purposes, can I render hexes unable to do anything else but the authorized wishing?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Try it," says Alice.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 04:53 pm (UTC)

Libby shrugs.

self_composed
2013-01-04 05:04 pm (UTC)

Bella plays with coins for a few seconds. At length she reports, "A coin can limit another of the same size, and up to ten of the next size down. And a hundred of two sizes down, so now I have a whole lot of pentagons that are only good for languages."
Edited 2013-01-04 17:05 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 05:11 pm (UTC)

"...I find it disconcerting how casually you throw around stars," says Libby.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 05:11 pm (UTC)

Alice beams.

self_composed
2013-01-04 05:12 pm (UTC)

Bella pats him on the head. "I'm sure he would be happy to show you how he throws around star-making," she says. "But you might or might not want to see."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I'll pass, thanks."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Your loss."

self_composed
2013-01-04 05:27 pm (UTC)

Bella stretches her arms above her head. "I'm considering theme continents on Mars. Like Disneyland but writ large and residential. Like, the first bit will just be a city-with-parks. Apartment buildings and schools and rowhouses and various features of economics and flora and a manageable number of magic sanitary pigeons to make it feel homey. And it can sprawl into a suburb. But I bet some people would be happiest living in a faux medieval fantasy where if I show up in person I do it in a ridiculous dress Alice makes me, and a crown, and also there are dragons and unicorns running around. So they could have a little island. And somebody might want their magical utopia to be more science-fiction-themed, and somebody might want to live under the ocean, and now that I've thought of it I kind of want one of my several palaces to sit on a cloud. But I don't have any inhabitants at all yet and should probably poll them about theme continents before I get too excited designing anything other than the original city."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I'm designing your ridiculous dress right now," Alice announces. "It's ridiculous."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I'll bet it is," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-04 05:46 pm (UTC)

"It was probably unwise of me to use the word 'ridiculous'," Bella says thoughtfully. "Oh well. Cities are big. I think I'll procedurally generate it." She summons her old familiar laptop, juices it up until it would make anyone who works with data drool, and starts programming programs to write programs at super-speed - it is always important to test one's algorithms and debug before expecting them to do anything useful. "Suggestions for the Constitution? Besides the obvious no attacking people without their permission, no stealing things, etcetera?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, what do you want your society to look like?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Not like shit," Bella announces.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 06:02 pm (UTC)

"That would be helpful if I knew your definition of shit."

self_composed
2013-01-04 06:08 pm (UTC)

Bella starts ticking off fingers, pausing in her coding. "I don't want wars, chaos, property damage, people gratuitously pissing each other off, abuse, untreated medical conditions, death in anyone who isn't bound and determined to let it happen, resource shortfalls, people having less education or free time or stuff than they could put to good use, etcetera. I would ideally like to fix all of those things just by having the right Star Trek replicators and Fountains of Youth and public libraries and whatnot lying around and hoping the various incentives behind those bad things fix themselves, but I am not quite naive enough to expect that to work in the next few generations if ever."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Good call," says Libby. "So, you know what kinds of things you don't want people to do. What are you willing to do to them if they do those things anyway?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 06:32 pm (UTC)

"The auto-enforcement I would like to have mostly oriented around not making it possible, like, I can make city buildings indestructible-except-by-magic, but a sufficient number of people probably contains someone clever or dumbly lucky enough to get around such a thing, so. I guess I can kick them off Mars if it gets bad. Send them back where they came from and give their spot to someone better-behaved. I think I'm likely to want a persistent lie-detection power, although I think to be polite I'll have it off by default." Hex goes.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 06:35 pm (UTC)

"What are you going to do about the inevitable language barriers? What are the official languages of Bella Swan's Space Empire?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I can split up cities by language. It's probably not efficient to give random citizens each a pentagon to learn English, but me and anyone else who works with multiple cities can just learn all relevant languages. I think I'll start with English-speakers so I can learn my first city without dealing with excessively unfamiliar cultures at the same time. Then it'll be a relatively smaller learning curve when I open the Chinese-speaking city or whatever's next. A planetwide aura of universal translation..." She hmms over this, then shakes her head. "That seems like it would ruin a lot of potential fun people could have. Anyone who needs a language can be spot-pentagoned for it. I might make rooms with auras of translation if those seem like they'd come in handy once we've been underway for a while."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 06:45 pm (UTC)

"All right. So how do you plan on making antisocial behaviour impossible, then?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 06:53 pm (UTC)

"If someone is antisocial in the sense of wanting to stay home and eat their replicated food and watch TV, well, that's not my favorite kind of early immigrant, I'd rather people be organizing art festivals and pestering me to convert this or that space into a hockey rink and going backpacking in the Martian wilderness, but that's not actually a problem if I wind up with some people who hibernate like that. If by antisocial you mean people who are just sort of basically inconsiderate of their neighbors - littering, installing car alarms, setting bonfires - I think those can be handled with magical 'laws'. Litter vanishes, sound does not carry as far as it does on Earth unless it's supposed to because it's a concert or something, fires cannot spread. And if by antisocial we mean attacking people, kicking puppies, not taking one's sick kid to Dr. Wishcoin down the street because one is a Christian Scientist... then we need surveillance or a magical alert or cops or something, and a deportation system."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I think it would be pretty reasonable to spot-check all public areas at random for instances of puppy-kicking and deport anyone who won't shape up after the third puppy kicked. Or some similar threshold."

self_composed
2013-01-04 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Some puppy kicking is liable to happen at home. I think most arguments about privacy don't apply if non-sentient magic is doing all the looking and only reports crimes - because then you really do have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide; no person is going to be sorting through your porn or reading your diary or anything. There could be a Crime Globe like the Magic Globe."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 07:01 pm (UTC)

"How's your Crime Globe going to tell what's a crime and what's not?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, it'd have a list. The Magic Globe can tell what's a coin and what's not; if I give a Crime Globe enough juice it can probably tell what's an instance of puppy-kicking and what's not. I'd miss things not on the list, but it can be revised if I think of more stuff or if unanticipated problems crop up. There are probably some things I can't produce a rigorous definition of," she admits. "Like, I bet magic can tell if somebody is hitting somebody else and check for consent, and even if they're fudging consent with psychological tricks somehow, they probably won't fool the surveillance every time. But I don't know if I can find a similar criterion to positively identify emotional abuse, or whatever. I think there I'm falling back on the fix-underlying-incentives thing. If citizens are independent of each other - if the victim can just move into the next apartment and lock the door and not worry about where dinner's coming from - that at least puts a ceiling on that. Maybe it should be possible for people to 'block' each other."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 07:11 pm (UTC)

"So you want your Space Empire to be the Internet."

self_composed
2013-01-04 07:11 pm (UTC)

Bella considers this.

"That is a reasonable summary."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Awesome."

self_composed
2013-01-04 07:44 pm (UTC)

Bella programs with half her brain, procedural generation of Martian city and terrain to wish real upon a star when she's done. She thinks of rules and edge cases and fixes for them with most of the other half. Some of her is doing mental resource allocation - that's not automatic, she has to keep an eye on it. She can carry on charming conversation and skim the contents of Alice's brain with slightly less than one full original-Bella's worth of attention. "I think so, yes. It's not designed for you to live there, but you can live wherever you like, and you are a very uncommon sort of person."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah, of course I'm not gonna live there."

The very thought makes him consider rains of jellybeans.
Edited 2013-01-04 19:47 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I think it sounds like a fine place to be. A little dull, maybe, but with potential."

self_composed
2013-01-04 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, of course. I'm installing constraints; those shrink the theoretical amount of stuff that can happen. I think as long I shrink it in the right direction, it will not shrink the actual upper bound of quality of stuff, but it'll have to happen a little differently. Alice, on the other hand, just isn't happy unless someone could abruptly decide to hit him in the face with a baseball bat, and that is one of the things I'm shrinking away from possibility-space on Mars."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 07:55 pm (UTC)

"That's an interesting preference," Libby observes.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I like surprises."

self_composed
2013-01-04 08:06 pm (UTC)

Typetytypetytypety. Bella finishes a program that will write parts of another program, starts it, magics it to go *faster*, and then starts editing what it spits out. "So Libby, tell me who you'd recommend for staff and first-wave colonists. Gonna need a medic, a complaints department to sort and condense and address some of same before they get to me, enterprising businesspeople who aren't too odious for me to stand them to start up miscellaneous productive enterprises so the city isn't just empty when people appear - hm, will I need my own currency? Or is it possible for independent nations to co-opt US dollars? - and I will need an immigration department and public relations people and, oh, probably actual diplomats sooner or later. And assorted multitalented folks to slot in wherever there are unexpected needs."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Invent your own currency. Bella Swan's Space Empire is not America. Also, call it something more interesting and less megalomaniacal than Bella Swan's Space Empire."

self_composed
2013-01-04 08:12 pm (UTC)

"What was my alternate universe version calling hers?" Bella asks. "And I know it's not America, but starting with US dollars would make transaction costs lower, and I am starting with Anglophones... Meh. I'll just fix the exchange rate at one to one to start with and that should accomplish most of the same. I'm so tempted to make the coins look like wishcoins..."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Don't make the coins look like wishcoins," Libby advises. "She called it the Golden Empire. Do you feel like a Golden Empire sort of person?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 08:15 pm (UTC)

"...No? Why did she call it that?" asks Bella. "Hm. Is there some reason most real coins are round?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea why she called it that. And I think coins are round because it's easy to make them that way and easy to handle them."

self_composed
2013-01-04 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I might just go with all paper instead anyway," muses Bella. "Or all virtual. No physical instantiation at all. Swan Empire? Empire of the Stars? I think I like Empire of the Stars. Nice bit of wordplay. Tell me about your people."
Edited 2013-01-04 20:37 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 08:52 pm (UTC)

Personnel. Now that is Libby's specialty.

milliways lurks

her_imperial_radiance

Milliways lurks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:48 pm (UTC)

Milliways does lurk!

Today, it is lurking outside a particular coffee shop when a particular mathematician decides to step out for some air.

Libby pauses on the threshold, looking amused, and then enters the bar and closes the door behind her. Knowing this place's sense of humour, she'd give it sixty-forty that she is about to meet someone who is in some way relevant to that conversation, and twenty-twenty out of the remainder that she will instead meet someone so thoroughly distracting that she forgets what she and Bella were talking about.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 03:55 pm (UTC)

At the bar, a girl with a lot of bronze wavy hair puffed out behind her who looks like a young twenty is rapturously sipping something gold and frothy. She's accompanied by a hulk of a Native American man, somewhere around 25, who's got some manner of cola.

The girl's eyes, when she opens them, are familiar-looking.

"I cannot wait until we invent this," she says, half to her companion and half to her beverage.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 03:58 pm (UTC)

...Well.

"Invent what?" asks Libby, approaching the empty seat next to the girl.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:02 pm (UTC)

"No idea," replies the girl. "Even if the bar gave me a name we probably wouldn't wind up calling it that, I suppose. You wouldn't like it, though," she adds, giving Libby a look up and down.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't like it because...?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Humans don't. Neither does he," she says, elbowing her friend, who chuckles and elbows back. "Just vampires and their relatives."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. None of those in my world, last I checked." She smiles. "Libby Kirsch. New York City, Earth, 2005. You?" she asks, with a glance between the pair of them.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Elsp-"

"Elsie," says her companion. "People keep being annoyed with you for not saying upfront."

Elspeth rolls her eyes. "Princess Elspeth Cullen of the Golden Empire, 2030. We're in Safesun, Florida this month. Earth."
Edited 2013-01-01 16:11 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Golden Empire? That's a new one," says Libby. "Care to explain?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:14 pm (UTC)

Elspeth shrugs. "My mom took over the world. Well, the vampire world. Humans we're handling a little more gradually. That's what she called it."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:17 pm (UTC)

She raises her eyebrows slightly. "Your mom, then, being the... Queen? Empress? Should I be worried for my future? I guess the vampire part makes it less likely we're from the same world."
Edited 2013-01-01 16:18 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Empress," Elspeth says. "Are you the sort of person who'd know about vampires if you had them? There were plenty around during 2005, just not quite so organized. But they were hiding, and you're not a vampire, so no one can tell you without risking getting killed if you have the same kind and the same previous government and stuff."
Edited 2013-01-01 16:27 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:29 pm (UTC)

"If they're hiding, then I guess not," she says. "I mean, I like to think I'd notice, but everybody likes to think that. Are they going to un-hide at some point?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Gradually," Elspeth says. "Under the Golden Empire people who know things can tell individual other people - not shout it from rooftops or anything, but they can tell anyone they want, and people can come to any of our capital sites and get pamphlets -" She seems smug about the pamphlets - "and apply to get turned, if they like. The idea is we don't want a traumatic overnight revelation, just people going about business as usual plus vampires as vampires become relevant to them. Would you like a pamphlet?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:32 pm (UTC)

"I would love a pamphlet," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:34 pm (UTC)

Elspeth looks into her bag and produces Pamphlet 3-A, Introduction to Supernatural History.

A familiar, if crowned and gold-eyed and chalk-pale, face is printed on the front.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:36 pm (UTC)

She looks at the face.

She looks at Elspeth.

"And this would be the Empress in question?" she guesses.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:39 pm (UTC)

"That's my mama," agrees Elspeth.

Indeed the caption says, Her Imperial Majesty Isabella Marie Swan Cullen, Empress Regnant, reigning 2011-Present.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:41 pm (UTC)

This is definitely starting to look like a sixty-percent conversation.

Libby opens the pamphlet.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:46 pm (UTC)

The pamphlet opens with descriptions of what is remembered of early vampire anarchy, followed by the reign of Stefan and Vladimir (currently retired to an Alp), followed by the takeover of the Volturi. It refers frequently to earlier pamphlets in the series - "I have one of each with me," Elspeth says, "if you want to read the background information, but this seemed most likely to interest you."

Bella's initial false start and ultimate success is described next, and it refers the reader to Introduction to Supernatural History, Part II for a description of how the Empress cemented her reign and what events have occurred in the supernatural world since then, as well as more historical tidbits about the two kinds of werewolves.

The pamphlet is concise, readable, very attractively laid out and lavishly illustrated with photorealistic drawings and photographs (distinguishable by caption). If Elspeth made it she has much to be proud of.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 04:50 pm (UTC)

"This is quite the pamphlet," Libby says approvingly. "And, all in all, definitely the nicest world conquest I've heard of."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 04:52 pm (UTC)

Elspeth nods happily. "Have you heard of many?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:01 pm (UTC)

"All right, you got me," Libby admits. "Not as such."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Didn't think so. But Mama was very nice about it, yes, as much as she could possibly be."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:04 pm (UTC)

"And why's that?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Why was she nice?" Elspeth asks, confused.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes. 'Nice' and 'world conqueror' aren't personality types with a lot of overlap."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:08 pm (UTC)

"The previous rulers of the world ate people," Elspeth points out. "I think Mama would say that not taking over the world would not have been very nice of her. Especially since her witch power made her the only person immune to their best weapons."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Interesting way to put it," says Libby. "Your mother sounds like an interesting woman in general."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:13 pm (UTC)

"She is," agrees Elspeth. "She doesn't come here much, even though this stuff is great, though." She raises her bubbly golden beverage. "I should bring home a case... assuming the bar'll let me... maybe R&D can work faster with something to reverse-engineer, and it'll be nice for the Golden Day party."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:15 pm (UTC)

"As far as I know, the bar is just fine with letting people carry product home," she says. "Although I don't do a lot of it myself. This place tends to catch me at the oddest moments. Halfway out of a cafe, for example."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Is that where it got you today? I found it in my office closet when I wanted a new - um, 2005? - a new... memory chip."
Edited 2013-01-01 17:20 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:21 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "Technological advances beyond my comprehension, huh?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Elspeth apologetically.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:25 pm (UTC)

"That's okay. I'm sure I'll get there."

She looks at Elspeth's companion.

"And I don't think I got your name."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Jacob Black," says Jacob.

"He's my wolf," Elspeth says. "I have pamphlets about that too, if you're curious. You can think of him as my bodyguard."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:28 pm (UTC)

"'Can think of him as' implies that you aren't," says Libby, still looking curiously at Jacob. "Is there a whole pamphlet's worth of explanation behind that?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I am her bodyguard," Jacob says. "I think the business cards collecting dust in a drawer somewhere have a line that says that."

"But you don't have wolves, his kind I mean, so the rest of the explanation wouldn't make sense," Elspeth says. She digs out and proffers 1B, "Introduction to Werewolves". "Skip to section three unless you're interested in how he can become enormous and furry, and how he's telepathic," she says.
Edited 2013-01-01 17:34 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:34 pm (UTC)

Libby accepts the pamphlet, and does not skip to section three. Enormous furry telepathy seems like relevant information.

"Huh," she says, and taps the pamphlet with her fingertip. "Who came up with these?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I wrote all the pamphlets, which were my idea," Elspeth says. "Or the original versions, anyway; some of my staff have made updated editions since based on the first ones. And I didn't draw the drawings or take the photos."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:37 pm (UTC)

"They're very informative," she says. "Natural talent, or formal training?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I'm a witch. I'm good at being understood," Elspeth said. "Also, I have several millenia's worth of assorted people's memories in my head and some of them were writers."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Now that's interesting," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I didn't do it on purpose," Elspeth said. "I was nearby when someone sent them to everyone around them to escape being executed. Plenty of people have the same payload."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no, not that part," she says. "Well, that too. But what exactly did you mean by 'good at being understood'?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's my witch power. Sort of the theme of it. Provided I'm being honest - to whatever extent I am being honest, really, and to whatever extent I can verify what I'm communicating; it's a sliding scale - I am understood and believed. I can't compel people to believe me if they really don't want to or have some really compelling reason not to. But I'm hard to mishear, or misinterpret. And watch this:" She coughs. "My name is Lisa."

The last sentence sounds dead of vibrance, and shifty, and wrong, though in any other context it wouldn't have been remarkable. The extra quality to her utterances just won't stick to that sentence. Her name is definitely not Lisa.
Edited 2013-01-01 18:00 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Very interesting," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Yep," agrees Elspeth. "And I can push memories or compositions or feeds of my own senses at people, talk silently, simulcast translations in any languages I know which is most of them, and, if I have a human to put them in, I can 'resurrect' any of the vampires I have backed up in my head - I don't do that last one much, since we don't usually want to, you know, squeeze humans out of their own heads, but it's been appropriate a few times."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:13 pm (UTC)

"You must be very handy to have around," she muses.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I run the public relations department," Elspeth says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I'll bet you do," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Where public relations means that, and also intake for would-be vampires," Elspeth continues. "I also have application forms on me. People in Milliways usually aren't interested in immigrating, but some of them have taken the forms to look at."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Application forms?" she echoes. "And what exactly are the benefits of vampirism?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:21 pm (UTC)

Elspeth hands over a PRPR-1-ENG and a 1-A: Introduction to Vampires.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Amazing," murmurs Libby. "And very thorough. Did you write the form, too?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Of course. There's actually a missing option in question four, it's just left out because there are very few people who date or marry vampires without being their mates and they can fill that in under 'other' when applicable."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm starting to get a sense of your style."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:40 pm (UTC)

"It took you that long? Most people feel like they've known me for years after I say 'hello'," Elspeth jokes.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I'm just slow."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Or not easily convinced you have information you don't? I could rapid-fire a lot of information at you, but I try to avoid doing that with humans - my brain runs in higher definition than yours. It can be problematic. When I talk with words there's less misdirection, but not more content."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:50 pm (UTC)

"You're definitely more, hmm... you're easier to get to know than most people."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:50 pm (UTC)

"I'd wonder what was up on your end, if I wasn't."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:52 pm (UTC)

"I'd have to be either so bad at it I couldn't tell the difference, or so good at it the difference was negligible," she suggests.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't think anyone is the first thing," Elspeth says. "I can talk to people who are comatose. I guess the second thing could work."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, is there a theoretical maximum for the informativeness of a conversation, and do you tend to approach it?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I probably could, if I turned it way up. This is me on default right now."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:01 pm (UTC)

"How would you go about turning it up?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Trying... to? There's not a button on the back of my neck."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:02 pm (UTC)

Libby giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I was born with my powers. My parents got to watch me dream when I was a newborn. I just do stuff. It's like deciding to move my arm."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

"I guess my question is something more like: do you increase your information density by having more things to say and packing them all into the same message, or by communicating the same things in ways that tend to lead your audience to more not-necessarily-related conclusions?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:11 pm (UTC)

"I do some of the second thing, but more when I'm working at it - I can figure out some information I don't already have, by figuring out what it would make sense to say, because it makes sense to say things that will cause people to understand true things. But that's clunky and doesn't work very reliably. I haven't experimented a lot with improving my verbal density. If I need to be faster, I dispense with talking. I don't often have to quickly say a lot to a human."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes you can increase information density by saying fewer things," says Libby. "Like that form, for example. Having the non-magical spouse/lover option for werewolves but not vampires implies that for vampires it's rare-to-nonexistent."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:17 pm (UTC)

Elspeth nods. "A lot of male werewolves imprint, but female ones never do. Any vampire - well, at least any category of vampire we know how to identify - can mate."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:19 pm (UTC)

"That part sounds inconvenient," she says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:20 pm (UTC)

"It can be," Elspeth agrees. "When it works out it's nice, though. And mate bonds - and imprinting ones - are immune to some magic that could mess with other relationships."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:28 pm (UTC)

"At least mate bonds are automatically symmetrical," she says. "Or they are if both parties are vampires. What happens if a vampire mates to someone who won't or can't turn?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Then the person who's not a vampire is not affected," Elspeth says. "It's very sad for the vampire and pretty awkward for their mate, and we have to be watchful to make sure the vampire doesn't do anything drastic. Wolves tend not to do that, fortunately - they're not as possessive about it, although if their imprints are in danger they will definitely do something about it." Jake pats her on the head.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:41 pm (UTC)

"It just seems like a really inefficient system."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:42 pm (UTC)

"As far as we know, it wasn't designed - it's just how vampires and werewolves work."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Well, no wonder it's inefficient."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Of course," laughs Elspeth. "We just work with and around it."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Dare I ask what 'drastic' means, anyway?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Manufacturing a medical emergency, or doing something coercive to get their mate turned, or just biting them themselves and turning them without anaesthesia - basically, the object of a rejected vampire mated to a human is to get their mate turned so everything will be nice and symmetrical. If they mate on a hybrid instead and that can't happen, they just go kind of... stalkery."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Charming."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 11:03 pm (UTC)

"There's an extent to which they can't help it, but they do vary in how bad they get, so we have to hold them responsible anyway," sighs Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 11:05 pm (UTC)

"How bad exactly does that tend to be?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"It ranges from disconsolate pining - harmless - to suicide - legal, especially under the circumstances, although we do try to encourage people to wait a year or five in case their mate comes around - to harassment and pestering and trying to find any means they can of bringing pressure to bear - sometimes legal and sometimes not, depending on how overboard they go - to various combinations of forgery, carefully calculated degrees of assault to try to force turning either to save life or reverse disability, kidnapping, that sort of thing - not legal at all."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-01 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Ouch," says Libby. "Remind me not to visit. 'Kidnapped by lovesick vampire' is not on my list of dream vacations."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-01 11:20 pm (UTC)

"It wouldn't be a random vampire. The relationships usually work out, even when one party stays not-a-vampire, if they give it a chance; they're people who are suited to each other. And we do protect vampires' mates who don't want to. But sure, you don't have to come home with me." She shrugs and downs the rest of her golden bubbly and orders another.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 02:51 am (UTC)

"Suited by personality, if not by species?" she says dryly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 03:06 am (UTC)

"Well, also by species a little bit, in the sense that vampires don't seem to mate to werewolves and werewolves don't seem to imprint on full vampires," Elspeth says. "At least unless someone changes species after the fact; both phenomena are very durable once established. I'm not otherwise sure what you mean. It's not like interspecies relationships are doomed or always a bad idea or anything except that you should avoid getting attached to someone who hasn't mated-slash-imprinted but still might."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 01:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, I just can't imagine half a mate bond being a comfortable start to a relationship. But maybe I'm approaching it too analytically."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Not everybody seems to have mates at all - there are vampires who've been around for thousands of years who don't have them, and there's a witch who copies powers who's repeatedly tried a precognition power that showed its own witch her mate right away, and the copier wasn't shown anyone. So whatever's going on, it's not for everyone," shrugs Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Fascinating," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 04:22 pm (UTC)

"It is. We don't know that much about it because R&D can't perform any experiments, only observational studies, but we're paying attention."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Paying attention is always a start," Libby says agreeably.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 04:31 pm (UTC)

"What do you do, in your vampire-free 2005?" Elspeth asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I'm a mathematician," she says. "It's more fun than it sounds."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. The fellow who absorbed the memory payload I have ate some mathematicians but I don't know how within date their educations were and I haven't been keeping up with the field."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Are you a math fan, then?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I like most subjects. Math's one of them, but it doesn't come up much in my work and it hasn't rotated into the position of my favorite hobby yet. I imagine it will. I'm immortal."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 04:55 pm (UTC)

"That must be very handy," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 04:56 pm (UTC)

"It is! We like it. It's just about Mama's favorite part of being a vampire, and she's extra immortal - she's been set on fire twice."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 05:10 pm (UTC)

"What's your mother like, anyway? I'm still having trouble picturing this kindhearted world dictator." She waves the relevant pamphlet. "Photographic evidence notwithstanding; I mean in a more abstract way."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Oh, she's very smart, and kind of paranoid but people did keep trying to kill her for the longest time, and she loves me and my dad to bits, and she's careful about being ethical with all her power - she put my grandpa Carlisle in charge of the ethics of the R&D department and if you knew my grandpa Carlisle you'd know that means she takes not being evil very seriously. She doesn't like being interrupted. She raised me by herself for five years when we thought my dad was dead and she was the most devoted mama anyone could ask for. She's got a lot of... psychological resilience, I guess? Most vampires who thought their mates were dead would just fall completely apart - they'd go for a futile, suicidal attempt at revenge or turn into apathetic zombie-types or go outright insane. Mama managed to function and bring me up to maturity. She cares about knowing where all her mental moving parts are and making sure they don't break or go the wrong way."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 05:18 pm (UTC)

"She sounds like a hell of a mom," says Libby. "I approve. And now I kind of want to meet your grandpa Carlisle."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 05:20 pm (UTC)

"He's been here one time," Elspeth says. "He didn't know what to make of it. I don't think he liked it very much. He might have seen a version of somebody he didn't like the look of?" she guesses.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Too bad," says Libby. "Guess I missed my chance. Unless it scoops him up again out of spite; I hear it's been known to."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 05:26 pm (UTC)

"He'd probably politely tell it he didn't appreciate that and then leave," Elspeth predicts.
Edited 2013-01-02 17:26 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I definitely want to meet your grandpa Carlisle."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 05:27 pm (UTC)

Elspeth shrugs. "I'm allowed to bring people - well, humans who don't have particularly threatening magical powers - home with me, if you want."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 05:28 pm (UTC)

"What's a particularly threatening magical power?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 05:30 pm (UTC)

"If you could get through me or Jake in a serious - however unlikely - attempt to do me any harm, that's the relevant threshold," Elspeth says. "Mama's convinced that Milliways is safe, but all bets are off in a world. Other relevant people are tougher to hurt than I am."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I think you're safe," says Libby, which has the dual benefit of being perfectly true while concealing the actual answer to that question.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Do you actually want to come home with me or is this hypothetical? Because I have to try my check if you do."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 05:36 pm (UTC)

"It's mostly hypothetical. I'd probably want to pick a better time. What's the check?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I mentioned that I can learn things about other people by seeing what makes sense to say. It doesn't catch everything, but what it catches is unrelated enough to what people want caught that Mama considers it a fine first-pass check - you'd still have to get past my dad or Maggie to stay welcome in our world for any length of time."
Edited 2013-01-02 17:41 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 05:46 pm (UTC)

"How exactly does that work?" she asks interestedly.
Edited 2013-01-02 17:55 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, I turn around and look at Jake - who I guarantee is much more interested in the particulars of whether you can hurt me than you are - and I concentrate and try to inform him on that subject in a way he'd find helpful," Elspeth says. "And maybe I say 'she's just a human, you don't need to worry' or maybe I say 'you could take her' or maybe I say 'you really don't want me in a room with this lady' and he picks me up and walks me out of Milliways without stopping to let me get a case of bubbly."

"There's always next time," says Jake.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:04 pm (UTC)

Libby laughs. "Would the same method work to tell me how much danger I'd be in, in your world?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Sure," Elspeth says. "Assuming that you're really interested in being informed about that."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Definitely," she says. "And I know someone who's even more so. If I ever decide to visit, maybe I'll drag her in here for a chat."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:08 pm (UTC)

"You would be... exactly as safe in my world as anywhere else," Elspeth says. "...Why is that the most informative way to put that?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Informative and very reassuring!" says Libby. "I guess I should explain. My world has some people with native powers not unlike witchcraft, and my aunt's is a personal shield that she keeps pointed at me because she's an incorrigible worrier. Proof against anything from bug bites to neutron bombs, if you believe her."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," Elspeth says. "That does sound useful. Mama's bodyguard is more specific than that. But she has an extra trick up her sleeve that I don't know about, probably because I'd tell everybody."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:19 pm (UTC)

"You are definitely the opposite of secretive," Libby agrees. "It's endearing."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:22 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs. "I'm kind of like both my parents, backwards. My dad reads minds. My mama's mentally opaque - no mental powers work on her. If she tries very, very hard she can let me or Dad in for short periods of time, though. I used to work on her all the time until I developed an offensive branch to my magic and then her shield shut me completely out. And I encourage everybody to read my mind!"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if Chris's shield shuts you out," muses Libby. "I don't think so. The truthiness part works, anyway. I encourage you not to try overloading my poor human brain just to see if that works too."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't do that," Elspeth says seriously. "It wouldn't physically kill you, but my power - wielded by the copying witch, not me - can and has destroyed human personalities."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I appreciate your restraint, then."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:34 pm (UTC)

"It was interesting what happened, actually, if you don't just focus on how awful it was," Elspeth said. "The vampire memories in the payload were the strongest, and when the humans who'd been wiped looked into the mirror, if they saw a sufficiently similar face to a vampire who'd been backed up, they 'recognized themselves'. That's how we got John and Didyme, and we used the phenomenon ourselves to salvage some good out of the other victims too."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Has the copying witch ever been here?" she wonders.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:41 pm (UTC)

"No. She wants to, though, of course."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:44 pm (UTC)

"It occurs to me to wonder if she could copy powers from my world, but I'm not sure I know anyone who'd want to experiment, given the preconditions."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Which preconditions?"
Edited 2013-01-02 18:45 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Milliways, mainly."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:47 pm (UTC)

"They wouldn't want to come or they can't find it?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Either. Both. If I know anyone who's found it independently, they haven't admitted as much, and you have to agree that news of an interdimensional time-travelling bar is a little hard to swallow even given preexisting magic."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Everyone believed me," Elspeth says innocently.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Gee, I wonder why."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:51 pm (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:51 pm (UTC)

Libby grins.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:53 pm (UTC)

"It's a pity Milliways isn't easier to summon. That would be really convenient," sighs Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:55 pm (UTC)

"I've heard some people have a particular talent for getting it to show up," says Libby. "I have no such talent myself."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 06:57 pm (UTC)

"It never appears when it would be really inconvenient for me," Elspeth says, "but it doesn't show up whenever I want it."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes it's convenient, sometimes it's inconvenient, sometimes it's unremarkable, but it is never on request," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Unremarkable?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Not a really good time, not a really bad time, just a time."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:01 pm (UTC)

"How was this time? What were you doing?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Coffee with a new acquaintance. She went to the bathroom, I went outside, outside turned out to be Milliways. I'm really not sure where to file it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:03 pm (UTC)

"You get the thing where it's not been more than thirty seconds when you go back, right?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Historically, yes. If this turns out not to be one of those times, I am definitely filing it under inconvenient."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:05 pm (UTC)

"I imagine your acquaintance might be confused."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I bet she would be too. And I don't think confused is her favourite state."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't think most people like being confused. Hm. If you don't have vampires, then if you ever had a my dad he presumably died in 1918, but you could have a my mom. She'd be seventeen or eighteen in 2005, depending on what date," muses Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:15 pm (UTC)

"So I should be keeping an eye out for megalomaniacal teenagers?" she jokes. "Possibly so I can lend a hand?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Maybe! She makes a very good empress of the world," Elspeth says. "In my world by the end of 2005 she'd faked her death and was wandering North America, but if she hasn't encountered any vampires or werewolves I don't know what she'd be doing. Maybe she'd finish high school, in which case she'd still be there at any point in the year apart from summer break."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:22 pm (UTC)

"So, probably not in New York, then."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know. She might have gotten impatient and gone to college, a year early. She never got around to it in my version."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:26 pm (UTC)

"So, maybe in New York."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't think she ever thought about where she'd have gone to college if she'd gone. She certainly doesn't have time for it now; she just fits in reading between ruler-of-the-world crises and small allowances for personal time."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:33 pm (UTC)

"That implies a lot of ruler-of-the-world crises."
Edited 2013-01-02 19:33 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:35 pm (UTC)

"The world is big," Elspeth says. "If Mama has a flaw at ruler-of-the-world-ing, it's that she's reluctant to delegate. Like, Grandpa Carlisle can approve anything R&D might want to do, but she can overrule him if they appeal because she's a little more flexible and outranks him, so sometimes they appeal. It'd be easier on her if she let him have the last word, and it wouldn't affect that many cases, and if something really important came up people would find a way to go around him and ask her on a case by case basis anyway, but." She shrugs.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:38 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like a pretty big flaw in a world dictator, but as flaws go, not a bad one."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:41 pm (UTC)

"She tries to set up systems that can implement her judgment without her being personally involved. It just takes more than she's had to get all the kinks worked out, but they are smoothing over time - she's only gotten involved in determining whether someone got to turn or not once in the last year, and it was someone she knew. Otherwise she's gotten to the point where she'll trust my department to run smoothly and there isn't an appeals process that formally goes up all the way to her."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Is there a story behind that intervention, or was it just a case of quiet nepotism?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:45 pm (UTC)

"She told me not to pass his application. She disliked him personally and wasn't sure if he'd have any red flags that would show up on the form."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Oh, dear," says Libby. "My faith in your mother's empressing abilities just took a hit. Well, it depends what she disliked him for, I guess."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 07:53 pm (UTC)

"She had a job when I was a kid, and he was her boss; I don't know exactly what he said to make her dislike him and I didn't ask, but apparently she didn't want to invite him into the vampire community," shrugs Elspeth. "We do have to turn away or delay a lot of inoffensive people just to control the vampire population growth and not overload the people who handle anaesthesia during turning, and he didn't have any bonus features that would have guaranteed him an in, so I didn't think it was a big deal. She doesn't do this at all often - mostly when she was more involved she'd have me prioritizing witches she wanted particularly much or making sure I knew so-and-so was our cousin or whatever. It's not like she can never stand people she doesn't like. She doesn't like the Imperial Factotum but gets along with her for work purposes."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 07:55 pm (UTC)

"That does sound a lot more reasonable," she acknowledges.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 08:17 pm (UTC)

"The Imperial Factotum is the copy witch. She makes herself very useful and very easy to keep happy and well-behaved, so Mama overlooked things like that time she had me tortured," Elspeth says lightly. "She had to overlook a lot of things as long as people were credibly going to be decent going forward. At the time she took over the world, she and Grandpa Carlisle and two people she'd personally arranged to turn were literally the only vampires alive who'd never murdered anyone."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 08:22 pm (UTC)

"...I see," says Libby.

"On a mostly unrelated note, would you mind indulging my curiosity by telling me how happy I'd be with the person I'm having coffee with as world dictator?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 08:25 pm (UTC)

"A little bit happier than you'd be if it was my mama," Elspeth says. "You'd be basically okay with it, although exactly how much might depend on how she got there and some details... Happier with her at the job than anybody else you know, though. Who are you having coffee with?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 08:27 pm (UTC)

"My universe's version of your mama," she confesses.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 08:28 pm (UTC)

Elspeth bursts out laughing. "So what's she up to?" she asks through giggles. "She doing okay? Gosh, it's hard to imagine her without my dad, I don't even have anyone else's memories of her from before she met him."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 08:33 pm (UTC)

"She seems pretty happy, from what I can tell. She's studying something or other at Stanford."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 08:34 pm (UTC)

"So she did go to college early. Cool. I almost want to meet her but that would probably weird her out. And I'm not sure if the time will be what I expect it to be when I come home, if I leave the bar for another world."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, somehow I don't think 'I met your daughter while you were in the bathroom, do you want to say hi?' would go over well."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 08:38 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs again. "I could explain it to her - unless yours is a witch too, and would block me too even if I never tried to hit her with anything with side effects?" Elspeth shrugs. "But I'd sure think it was strange if someone brought me my future kid from another world whose dad I'd never meet."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Exactly," Libby agrees.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 08:47 pm (UTC)

"So are you going to help her take over the world?" asks Elspeth. "And I wonder why you'd find yours a better world dictator than mine..."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Most of this conversation has been you interviewing for the position of world dictator on her behalf," says Libby. "Needless to say, she passed."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Oh my word, are you serious?" guffaws Elspeth. "Oh, that's hilarious, she'll think that's the funniest thing... Do you know what the difference is between yours and mine, though, in terms of which you'd rather have ruling the world?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:07 pm (UTC)

"...You know, I'm not entirely sure," she says. "I could make a guess or two, maybe. Mine might be more naturally inclined to be friendly to me if I help her take over the world, for example, although I bet that's not it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. Does yours have magic? At all?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes she does," says Libby. "She's a mint—that's a more generally applicable kind of magic than the usual run of native powers. But she's not the only mint I know."
Edited 2013-01-02 22:12 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:14 pm (UTC)

"She doesn't have Mama's mental opacity? I hope you don't prefer her as a world empress because she'd be mind-controllable or something."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:15 pm (UTC)

"She hasn't admitted to having your mother's mental opacity, but I bet she does anyway," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Do you know why she hasn't mentioned it?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't think she trusts me yet."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:22 pm (UTC)

"When two very wary people meet each other, it's hard to be the first one to do the good-faith thing. So naturally, I'm cheating," she says, gesturing between herself and Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:23 pm (UTC)

"But I'm just not sure how it could harm her to own up to having that power. Granted I'm at a disadvantage understanding reasons people have to not say true things," muses Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense for her to keep that particular thing to herself. But I find it totally reasonable that she's being generally paranoid."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Have you asked her about it, or do you not want to admit that you know?" chuckles Elspeth. "But, I don't know, is she an especially good 'mint'? What does being a good mint consist of?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:30 pm (UTC)

"There's a few different ways to be a good mint," she says. "The main one lacking among the mints I know is output, but if she's especially productive, she hasn't dmonstrated that to me. Then again, I can see why she wouldn't."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Output... of...? I'm trying to be helpful, but I can't pull all facts out of thin air."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Coins," she says. "Mints generate coins that allow people to make wishes. A good mint is either especially good at wishing, or especially good at producing coins."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:34 pm (UTC)

"I bet she's very good at wishing," Elspeth says, after a beat.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I bet she is too. But I already know enough people who are good at wishing that I don't think that would be a major point in her favour."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

Elspeth shrugs. "So maybe she's good at the mysterious coin-making process?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Could be," says Libby. "The mysterious coin-making process involves turning pain into wishes. How good do you think she'd be at that?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:41 pm (UTC)

Elspeth frowns. "Not... unusually good, I don't think. I mean, she'd be motivated to try, to get magic, but... much to my dismay, if she were into that, I would know."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Should I not ask?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:48 pm (UTC)

Elspeth shudders and plugs her ears and nudges Jake with her foot.

"It's my fault," he says. "Right after she got blasted with the memory payload I said something that pointed out to her that she had pretty up-to-date memories from her dad in there. She remembers... their honeymoon and stuff." He taps Elspeth on the shoulder and her hands come down from the sides of her head. "For whatever it's worth," Jake adds, "I find Bella's rulership pretty satisfactory and I'm not an imperial princess."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:53 pm (UTC)

"It's worth something," says Libby. "Okay, so we know Bella is probably not an unusually productive mint... does she know an unusually productive mint, I wonder?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Maybe, but I can't help you there, I don't think," Elspeth says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I guess not," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Maybe mint magic just works better for her style of world-ruling than having to coordinate with a lot of witches does," suggests Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 11:04 pm (UTC)

"It's possible. But if she's not especially productive, she's still going to have to coordiate with a lot of mints to get anything done."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 11:30 pm (UTC)

"It sounds like mints are more interchangeable than witches. There are some duplicate or near-duplicate powers, but not that many - if she didn't get along with Maggie she'd have a hard time getting her lies detected."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 11:39 pm (UTC)

"...Is this the point where I mention I know a lie detector named Gretchen?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Is she redheaded, Irish, a little over a hundred and fifty years old, yea high, gay, and adorable?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 11:42 pm (UTC)

"No, no, no, yes, yes, and yes."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Huh. That's still rather coincidental. She married to an Italian lady named Gianna?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Not as far as I know."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 11:46 pm (UTC)

"If you encounter one, consider introducing them," shrugs Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Will do," she says. "Although Gretchen doesn't speak Italian. Does Gianna speak German? I'm guessing no."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Gianna speaks all kinds of things now that she's a vampire, but originally it was Italian and English."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 11:52 pm (UTC)

"So the language barrier might be an issue. Still, I'll see what I can do."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-02 11:55 pm (UTC)

Elspeth giggles. "If your version of Mama isn't an unusually productive mint but knows at least one, why wouldn't that one be the ruler of the world, I wonder," she muses. "I suppose they could be bad at making wishes? Or not want to rule the world, like Siobhan." Pause. "Do you know a Siobhan? She goes with Liam if you find one of those."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-02 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Should I start writing these down?" she jokes. "And a surprising number of people don't want to rule the world, even though they could. Me, for example."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:00 am (UTC)

"Siobhan just wants dominion over Ireland and she doesn't even do anything with it besides keep an eye on the vampire population so it's all people she likes," Elspeth says. "If you want to matchmake based on who's mates in my world you may as well take notes, but Maggie and Gretchen are probably just a funny coincidence - wrong country, wrong time, wrong hair color."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:03 am (UTC)

"I wonder if your world has a me," muses Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:04 am (UTC)

"I can check when I get back if you like. Where would I find you?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:07 am (UTC)

"In New York City, as Elizabeth Kirsch."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:09 am (UTC)

Pause. "Are you sure New York City - and for that matter how attached to this time are you - because my biological paternal grandmother..."
Edited 2013-01-03 00:09 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:10 am (UTC)

"I'm not at all sure about New York City. What was this woman like?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:13 am (UTC)

"I don't know much. Human memories get faded like crazy after turning, so I don't have much from Dad. Grandpa saw her... she did look something like you, but older, old enough to have a seventeen-year-old son, and sicker, and not the beneficiary of modern medicine. I can't really compare voices because she was dying of the flu the entire time and didn't sound great. But her name was Elizabeth and her maiden name was Kirsch."
Edited 2013-01-03 00:13 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:14 am (UTC)

"Well," says Libby. "That's weirdly hilarious."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:17 am (UTC)

"Grandma," says Elspeth experimentally. It doesn't sound particularly true or particularly untrue. "I don't think I have enough to go on to do that. Oh well. The only thing I know she did was figure out that Grandpa Carlisle would be able to do something to save her son and tell him very fiercely to do so. He couldn't do anything for her even if he'd wanted to turn an extra person, because she died when people were looking, but Dad he was able to wheel out and save."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that sounds reasonably like me," says Libby. "If there was an unusually ethical vampire hanging around and I had a terminally ill son, you bet I'd figure it out and point the one at the other."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:21 am (UTC)

"Sending pictures to humans has been demonstrated safe. Do you want to see her?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:26 am (UTC)

"Sure."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:28 am (UTC)

Elspeth picks out a series of images - one blurry, unclear one from Edward's childhood, where the ages would be more closely matched, and three from Carlisle's observation of her. And a picture of Edward, before he got so sick, when he was still human, for kicks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:32 am (UTC)

"Cute kid," she remarks. "I could believe we're related. He looks a little like my mom, actually."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:33 am (UTC)

"So maybe you're going to help your counterfactual-daughter-in-law take over the world," giggles Elspeth. "Here's my dad's biological dad. It's not a great picture since he died of the flu the next day, but I dunno, do you think he looks like husband material?" A picture accompanies.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:35 am (UTC)

"First I have to imagine myself getting married," she says, "but turn of the twentieth century, I guess it's not impossible. Did he have any notable features other than looks, or do you not know?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:37 am (UTC)

"He named my dad after himself?" Elspeth suggests. "...Dad's lingering impressions of him were that he was smart and authoritative and principled, the sort of person relative to whom Grandpa Carlisle's fathering would seem like an improvement but not a completely different sort of relationship?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:39 am (UTC)

"Well, smart is always a plus. Authoritative not so much."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:40 am (UTC)

"This was how he came off to Edward, I have even less about how he was with his wife," Elspeth points out.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:43 am (UTC)

"True. Well, I'll buy it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:46 am (UTC)

"All right. Hallo, Grandma," says Elspeth. It sounds a fair bit less true than most of what she says, but not overwhelmingly so.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 12:54 am (UTC)

"You are now officially my favourite grandchild."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 12:55 am (UTC)

Elspeth giggles. "Aww. You've got more competition for favorite grandma, I'm afraid."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:01 am (UTC)

"I can live with that," she says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:04 am (UTC)

"Grandma Esme is the sweetest person. If she met you she would probably decide it was appropriate to ask you to accept on your counterpart's behalf her sincerest thanks for bringing up her adopted son."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:08 am (UTC)

"You know, Elspeth, you've got a pretty great family."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:09 am (UTC)

"There was a period where my dad was a total jerk, but that was pretty much due to circumstances beyond his control, even if he could have handled those circumstances better. And he fixed them as best he could and we're okay now."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:11 am (UTC)

"Well, that's good," she says. "I think 'okay now' is the important part."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:12 am (UTC)

Elspeth nods. "Man, it would be weird if he met you, he would have no idea what to do about it."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:13 am (UTC)

"Would it be easier just to save him the confusion? I can be your grandma without being his mom."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, he never comes here anyway. I'm not sure if he's ever even seen a door."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:16 am (UTC)

"There you go then."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:17 am (UTC)

"What're you going to tell your version of Mama when you go back?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:18 am (UTC)

"I'm really not sure," she says. "Any advice?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:18 am (UTC)

"Well, I don't know. Do you want her to like you, or do you want to maintain your strategic caginess?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:20 am (UTC)

"I take it I can't do both? I mean, if possible I'd like to get away without mentioning Milliways because it's bizarre and unverifiable. But since I'm planning to install her as ruler of the world, she has much higher access to my secrets than she did half an hour ago."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:26 am (UTC)

"Well, if she's having coffee with you she must find you personally tolerable, so you have a leg up over, say, Addy the Imperial Factotum who she personally can barely stand and who has to stay within Dad's mindreading range eighty percent of always and top me up with all her new memories once a month to make sure she's not hiding anything in the other twenty percent. You won't have to do that if she likes you and you can convince her you're on her side, which you probably can if you actually want to make her empress of the world. But if you don't tell Mama stuff she'd want to know that's relevant to her, if you even delay much, she will figure it's because you don't trust her to behave appropriately with the information and she will think it's likely that you'd think that because you have information suggesting your goals don't match. And then she has to consider you maybe-an-opponent." Pause. "You haven't attacked anyone she likes, have you?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:32 am (UTC)

"I don't know if she considers me to have attacked anyone she likes," says Libby. "I did briefly kidnap someone out of the middle of a conversation with her, in the interest of preserving one of those secrets I'm going to end up telling her anyway. Actually, while I'm here, what's your assessment of how your mother would behave if she knew how to dodge the otherwise heinous consequences of using the most powerful magic in the world?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:36 am (UTC)

"She'd... do that and then use it? Probably in quantity if she could get it? Mama has R&D working on scaling space colonization in ways that take advantage of vampires not needing spacesuits, and reproducing our anesthetist's magic so we can turn more people, and defensive anti-weapon technology of various forms so we don't need to worry so much about governments deciding to nuke us, and she throws money at charities that are doing things like getting clean water to Third World villages so more people can live long enough for us to get around to them. Also she's got people working on this stuff," Elspeth hefts her glass, takes a swig, "but yours probably will not find that a necessary project. In our case it's taking the place of a truly staggering amount of animal slaughter, but at least we're now working in conjunction with slaughterhouses that can use the meat and not just the blood so we're not hunting wild megafauna and damaging ecosystems."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:40 am (UTC)

"That sounds... potentially interesting," says Libby. "Quantity is a problem; bigger wishes require more pain. Even her hypothetical productive mint is probably not keen on churning out sevens."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:41 am (UTC)

"Would it take many to accomplish goals like that?" Elspeth asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:43 am (UTC)

"It depends just how good you are at wishing," she says. "And how ambitiously you can imagine your goals. It sounds like that one is not going to be a problem for Bella."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:45 am (UTC)

"She wants to fill the universe with a society of vampires and hybrids and some werewolves, although she's not taking any personal interest in managing the werewolf population," Elspeth says chattily. "Well, mine does, yours probably just wants to soup up humans and send them every which way. She wants everyone to be immortal and safe and do interesting things."
Edited 2013-01-03 01:45 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:49 am (UTC)

"You know, I really think we're going to get along," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:50 am (UTC)

"You and your instance of Mama? I sure hope so," says Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:51 am (UTC)

"Me too!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:54 am (UTC)

"Anyway. Can mint magic do lie detection? Even temporarily? Because then she'd believe you about Milliways, if she can do that and you offer to let her. And then you can just tell her everything and offer to help her take over the world and tell her what you want."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 01:56 am (UTC)

"It can, yeah. And I think I will do just that."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 01:59 am (UTC)

"Awesome! Well, this is about the point where if it isn't still roughly when I left, I'm going to be late for a meeting, so I think I'll get going, Grandma. Bar, can I trouble you for a case of this marvelous substance here?"

Elspeth collects her substance, lifting it far more easily than a girl her size should be able to lift that much liquid, and impulsively hugs Libby goodbye with her other arm. "It was lovely to meet you. Good luck helping Mama take over your world."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-03 02:02 am (UTC)

Equally on impulse, Libby hugs back.

"Good to meet you too, favourite grandchild. I bet it's going to be fun."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-03 02:02 am (UTC)

Elspeth traipses out the door, Jacob at her heels gazing at her adoringly.

the empire of the stars

self_composed

Bella has watched a simple, managed Martian ecosystem and a glitteringly colorful first city pour procedurally out from assorted points of origin on her computer with a variety of rand seeds, and picked the prettiest result.

She's standing on that ideal origin spot now - the top of Olympus Mons, under a blue-dyed sky and a breathable layer of atmosphere - holding her laptop which holds this specification under her left arm. All present to witness this moment are Alice, Libby, Lazarus, and Bridget.

She defangs a trio of stars: one for the terrain, one for the wildlife, one for the city of Olympus. To be dramatic, she squares them off her bandolier and holds them high in the air between the fingers of her right hand.

"Welcome to Mars," she says.

Wishwishwish.

Moss ripples out from under her feet and carpets the landscape, giving way to forest further downhill and, further away, to freshwater ocean. Birds, startled by their existence, take off. An instant later they're all standing at the foot of her crystalline tower that sits at the center, watching skyscrapers riddled with magical appliances sprout from the ground, and streets pave themselves with smooth tiles.

Bella defangs more stars and lays down what she's taken to calling Ground Rules with another gesture. Mars is going to be peaceful. Mars is going to be safe. Mars is going to watch its people and report to her.

Mars is going to be the seat of the Empire of the Stars.

(There's a flag, on the spire of her tower. It's sky blue, and there are half a dozen seven-pointed stars spangling it. It ripples in the breeze that's begun to waft in from the sea.)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 09:36 pm (UTC)

"I love you," Alice declares.

regularsized
2013-01-04 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I am thoroughly impressed," says Bridget. "Anybody mind if I quit school and move to Mars?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Not me."

nonbird
2013-01-04 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm standing on a magic planet," Lazarus says happily.

self_composed
2013-01-04 09:39 pm (UTC)

Bella grins at her planet. "Help yourself to an apartment, Bridget."

After a moment, she adds, "I should probably inform my parents at some point that I'm the Star Empress."

regularsized
2013-01-04 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Whee!" says Bridget, and goes charging down the mountainside.

nonbird
2013-01-04 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Probably a good idea," Lazarus concurs. "Can I move to Mars? Actually, hold that thought, I should talk it over with Kolya first."

self_composed
2013-01-04 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, feel free, the both of you, if you'd like," Bella says. "Libby? Want a place here?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Eventually, yes," she says. "But I should probably stay on Earth for the time being. I have responsibilities."

self_composed
2013-01-04 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. It's going to be possible to drive here, FYI. Big magic door and some manner of passkey system once I have immigration set up."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Have you decided how you're going to introduce that notion to the various governments you will be providing with shiny new borders in unexpected places?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm thinking a system along the lines of 'move it if they complain, somebody will want the throughput and the economic boost'."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-04 09:53 pm (UTC)

"That should be interesting."

self_composed
2013-01-04 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Yes it should," says Bella merrily. "Lazarus? What does Kolya have to say?"

nonbird
2013-01-04 09:58 pm (UTC)

"We're going to talk about it later," he says.

self_composed
2013-01-04 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Aww. Okay. I'm going to go invite my old roommate 'cause I like her," Bella says. "Later." Pop!

Bella has been skipping class, but hasn't officially dropped out yet. She lands directly in their dorm room and is not unobtrusive about it at all.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 10:19 pm (UTC)

Janine is (1) still without a journal of her very own and (2) present.

"...Um," she says, staring.

self_composed
2013-01-04 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Janine," says Bella. "I can teleport. Also, I have declared myself the Empress of Mars. Do you want to come live there?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Um!" says Janine.

"...Why are you the Empress of Mars?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, I put a palace on the moon, first, but then I decided the people of Earth might find it threatening if my empire was directly overhead. So I terraformed Mars. And put a city on it, which I now mean to populate. It is full of magic things. I decided not to be secretive about this, so you can see that Mars is terraformed if you happen to have access to a telescope that will show you that it's now green and blue instead of reddish."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 10:28 pm (UTC)

Janine considers this for a moment.

"Where did you get the magic?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I found a book written by one of my ancestors with a wish attached to it that gave me wish-generation powers," Bella replies.

(She has already collected all the uncontrolled stashes of coins in the world and determined there's no hexes in any of the others.)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 10:31 pm (UTC)

"If magic is the kind of thing that lets people be Empress of Mars, why are you the first Martian empress I've heard about?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Wishes come in sizes. It takes the very biggest wishes to be Empress of Mars, and big wishes are both harder to get and less safe to use. Also, a surprising number of people don't want to be Empress of Mars."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to be Empress of Mars," says Janine. "Do they need electrical engineers on Mars? Does anyone else live on Mars yet? How hard is it to go back and forth?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 10:41 pm (UTC)

"The basic appliances run on magic," Bella says. "The lighting, food replicators, and plumbing will all carry on behaving completely independent of any electrical work. However, if people want to have printers or white noise machines or electric razors on Mars, someone is going to have to install electricity. I am not going to do everything for my Martians, just ensure that it's basically livable even if they opt to be lazy. So yes. I think electrical engineers could be useful. I have a tower on Mars that I could claim to live in, but I also have the moon palace, this room, and both of my parents' houses to claim to live in, plus I don't actually need to sleep anymore, so I'm not sure if I can be said to live there. Bridget has decided to move there, though. I plan to make it possible to drive there, so people can bring their stuff, but I should warn you that I might have to move the border if the government complains, so it might go from being as easy as driving to the highway to being as easy as getting to Tokyo or Moscow."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Then I think I might like to move to Mars when I am an electrical engineer, if at that time it is possible to get there without leaving the continent first."

self_composed
2013-01-04 10:51 pm (UTC)

"So not soon? Okay. Well, you're allowed to jump the queue when the time comes," Bella says. "Any other questions?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Does this mean you will not be attending Stanford anymore?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Bella says. "There is no obvious point to continuing. I'll go formally drop out later today."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Good luck with your empressing!" she says. "I will miss you!"

self_composed
2013-01-04 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I am going to have the internet there," Bella says. "We can write. Also, I am telepathic; want to be added to my telepathy network? We call it a 'brainphone'."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 11:06 pm (UTC)

"How are you going to get the internet on Mars? What is brainphoning like?"

self_composed
2013-01-04 11:06 pm (UTC)

"By magic. And it's like talking, only without talking. Or there's a text channel."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Then yes, I would like to be on the brainphone network, please."

self_composed
2013-01-04 11:08 pm (UTC)

[Hi,] says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 11:08 pm (UTC)

[Oh!] says Janine. [That is interesting.]

self_composed
2013-01-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

[Isn't it? It comes in handy. Alice is also on here, and some people you don't know. If you don't want to take calls you can block them and put up a message for anyone who tries.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 11:12 pm (UTC)

[Well, that is convenient. Thank you!]

self_composed
2013-01-04 11:13 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome! I'm going to go drop out now. I've been rudely skipping classes without notice while I designed me a Mars.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 11:14 pm (UTC)

Janine giggles.

[I think I would like to see Mars some weekend or other,] she says.

self_composed
2013-01-04 11:15 pm (UTC)

[I will inform you when it's driveable. Maybe we'll have tour buses set up.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 11:20 pm (UTC)

[A tour bus to Mars,] Janine muses. [My life just got really weird.]

self_composed
2013-01-04 11:22 pm (UTC)

[Everyone's did,] laughs Bella, and she opens the window and flies out of it.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-04 11:24 pm (UTC)

Janine blinks after her for a moment, and then goes back to studying.

self_composed
2013-01-05 06:06 pm (UTC)

Bella drops out of college. Also, she decides to put a sign in front of one of the Mars robots. They wouldn't have been affected by the terraforming unless they were underwater - and she didn't make the oceans very big, so off the top of her head she doubts they are. Checking... yep, she can plant a sign in front of Spirit and it'll still work. The sign reads:

"Hello, NASA! I have terraformed Mars. I will start taking applications for immigration soon and will update this message when I have an office for that. It is OK with me if you leave your robots here. Sincerely, the Empress of the Stars"

Bella then teleports to her dad's. He is not home; she calls him. This is probably important enough to interrupt him during work.

"Dad?" she says.

"Bells? What is it?"

"I'm likely to appear in the news soon. Don't be alarmed. I can tell you all about it now, if you want."

There is a long pause. "Magic stuff?" Charlie asks mistrustfully.

"Yes. Biiiig magic stuff."

"You're safe?"

"Quite," says Bella, smiling to herself.

"I think I'll let the news tell me."

"Okay, Dad. Love you."

"Love you, Bells."

Bella hangs up and takes a moment to design a minimally intrusive anti-reporter ward. Charlie is simply going to look like a shy Kolya to anyone liable to pester him or report on him to the media, although he can suppress it implicitly if he tries to get someone's attention.

Renée and Phil are going to be trickier. She'll want the full story, for one thing, and for another, Phil plays baseball on a form of media for a living...

nonbird
2013-01-06 03:34 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, among other things: Lazarus and Kolya are discussing the pros and cons of moving to Mars.

[Bella? Are you busy?]

self_composed
2013-01-06 05:51 am (UTC)

[Not with my whole brain. What's up?]

nonbird
2013-01-06 01:38 pm (UTC)

[If Kolya moves to Mars, will you ignore him whenever he has his power on?]
Edited 2013-01-06 13:38 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-06 05:30 pm (UTC)

[...Wait, are you saying I'd have an option? My power beats his?]

nonbird
2013-01-06 05:31 pm (UTC)

[It's more likely than it isn't, I think. Did I not mention that before? Sorry.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 05:33 pm (UTC)

[It hasn't come up, no. Cool. How am I supposed to tell when his power's on, then?]

nonbird
2013-01-06 05:36 pm (UTC)

[More magic?] he suggests.

self_composed
2013-01-06 05:37 pm (UTC)

[All right. I'll ignore him when his power's on as long as he's not doing anything staggeringly inappropriate,] Bella says. [I have no idea if he's likely to or not, but it seems an important caveat.]

nonbird
2013-01-06 05:38 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

There is a brief pause, as of this information being relayed.

[In that case, we'd like to move to Mars.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 05:40 pm (UTC)

[Cool. You're still there, right? Kolya can walk there if he likes. The magic door in your building permits him now, and it goes to the moon palace and the moon palace has one to my tower.]

nonbird
2013-01-06 05:42 pm (UTC)

[Well, that's convenient. Thank you.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 05:46 pm (UTC)

[No problem!] says Bella merrily.

And she starts flying around over the Bay Area, looking for a highway that could handle the extra load of people trying to drive to Mars, and designing a door that won't overly disrupt the existing highway system by scooping up people who are lost or trying to go somewhere else.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 07:40 pm (UTC)

Some time later, she gets a brainphone call from Alice.

[Your science friend wants to know if Mars has a calendar yet.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 07:41 pm (UTC)

[It does not! Are you still on Mars, that she found you and asked you?] Bella says. [Does she want to be on the brainphone?] Bella perfects the design and goes to fetch Tegu and drive it to Mars by way of testing.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 07:42 pm (UTC)

[Yes and,] pause, [yes.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 07:43 pm (UTC)

Bella burns a hex to make the brainphone network modifiable by her without expending any further coins, and adds Bridget to the list. [Hullo,] she says to Bridget. She lands on her motorcycle to the bewilderment of onlookers and drives away.

regularsized
2013-01-06 07:44 pm (UTC)

[Hi! So, no calendar?]

self_composed
2013-01-06 07:45 pm (UTC)

[Nope! Unless NASA or whoever has one cooked up. Want the job?]

regularsized
2013-01-06 07:54 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] she says. [You know, I bet they have. I'll look it up and see if it's any good.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 07:56 pm (UTC)

[Has to be usable by people who live on the planet,] Bella reminds her. [And who may commute to or visit Earth.]

regularsized
2013-01-06 08:08 pm (UTC)

[Well, yeah, that's the idea. Luckily the day's not too far off,] she says. [Apparently the favourite scheme is to use hours, minutes, and seconds scaled up by 2.7%. Sound good?]

self_composed
2013-01-06 08:10 pm (UTC)

[Sounds fine to me. What're the terms for when you want to actually time something, like, I don't know, boiling pasta? Ignore it? 'Mars minutes' and 'Earth minutes'?]

regularsized
2013-01-06 08:14 pm (UTC)

[I think we can call them 'Mars minutes' and let casual usage figure itself out. Oh, and a Martian day is a sol.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 08:16 pm (UTC)

[Cool. I obviously had to magic up the temperature some, but I let exact temperature variation throughout seasons within livable ranges figure itself out, so those should correspond to the relevant astronomical phenomena.]

regularsized
2013-01-06 08:19 pm (UTC)

[Great. I'll be over here doing math, then.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 08:23 pm (UTC)

[Have fun!]

Bella drives from planet to planet. Yep, magic door works; she comes out of the tunnel into her new city. Cool.

She adds her parents and stepfather and some extended family and Janine and Angela to the whitelist; they may go either way whenever they please, bringing surrounding vehicles with them, though they will simply pass through the door's space and still be on Earth if they attempt to bring unauthorized passengers. Then she parks Tegu in her tower's garage and flies back to find some nearby land to buy and put up an immigration office on. [Libby, do you happen to have special real estate related advantages?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-06 08:24 pm (UTC)

[Plenty. What do you need?]

self_composed
2013-01-06 08:26 pm (UTC)

[Nice big lot nearish -] She gives the address of a Starbucks within a stone's throw of the magic door. [On which zoning would be friendly to an office space of the sort relevant to processing applications to live on or do stuff on Mars. Possible I should have done this the other way around. I will when I make more. But there's random land around, I assume some of it's for sale.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-06 08:27 pm (UTC)

[Give me half an hour to make some calls,] she says agreeably. [Do you have the money to put into it, or should I cover that too?]

self_composed
2013-01-06 08:31 pm (UTC)

[For a Star Empress, I have surprisingly little money. Alice has a couple million bucks he'd let me use. Seems odd to have you buy it outright. Want to buy some Star Empire currency, in the form of you buying it and then me giving you that many units of Star Empire currency?]

She wonders if Alice's mom wants to buy some Martian currency. [Hey, Alice, want to come with me to tell your mom about how I'm the Empress of the Stars and stuff now?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-06 08:45 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] she says agreeably. [Does Star Empire currency have a name?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 08:46 pm (UTC)

[Nah,] says Alice. He is back in his lair and has just sat down to sew for a while. [Maybe later.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 08:55 pm (UTC)

[Not yet,] Bella says. [Stellas, asters... Starbucks!]

And to Alice: [Want me to wait to tell her - and Hilary - until you're available to come along?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-06 08:58 pm (UTC)

[Asters,] says Libby. [That's my vote.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 08:58 pm (UTC)

[Nah, whatever,] says Alice.

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:04 pm (UTC)

[Asters. I do like that. Need a name for pennies. I guess 'pennies' or 'cents' is already currency-neutral.]

[Alrighty.]

Bella teleports to the front door of Alice's mother's house and politely rings the doorbell.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:07 pm (UTC)

Hilary answers it.

"Bella! Hi! Didn't know you were in town. C'mon in, there's muffins."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-06 09:08 pm (UTC)

[More or less, yeah. I say go for it.]

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:09 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't, a minute ago!" says Bella cheerily. "What kind of muffins?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Maple walnut."

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Delicious. Is Judith home?" Bella inquires. "I wanna tell you both something."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:19 pm (UTC)

"She is, as a matter of fact! What kind of a something? You grab a muffin, I'll grab the lady of the house."

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:19 pm (UTC)

"A very big something," says Bella. "It may be hard to believe." She sidles in - not flying, restrainedly - and collects her muffin. Nom!

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:23 pm (UTC)

Hilary collects Judith, who gravitates immediately muffinward.

"Okay," says Hilary. "Spill."

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:25 pm (UTC)

"You might wanna sit down."

Bella gives them a chance to do so, but regardless, continues:

"I have terraformed Mars and declared myself the Empress of the Stars, because I have magical powers, observe," says Bella, floating a foot off the ground.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:26 pm (UTC)

Judith sits; Hilary just crosses her arms.

When Bella hovers, Judith puts her hand over her mouth and Hilary snorts.

"Nice trick. I'll believe the part about Mars when I see it."

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay. You could drive there, but the magic door is in the Bay Area, so I'd have to teleport you there for a visit to be at all convenient," Bella says, flipping midair. "I should warn you, the sky isn't that butterscotch color anymore, I didn't like it and I wasn't sure what it'd do to the plants. My palace on the moon might be more convincing. It still looks pretty moony."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Hilary. "Show me the moon palace."

"Ah," says Judith. She doesn't seem inclined to follow up.

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Back in a few minutes, Judith, please don't faint," Bella says, and since she's doing a lot of teleporting other people lately she hexes up a generalized passenger-porting power to bring Hilary up with her. She lands them on the front steps.

"Don't you faint either," she says, still floating.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:33 pm (UTC)

Arms still crossed, Hilary looks up.

"...Yep," she says. "That's a moon palace, all right. So what brought this on, exactly?"

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's possible someone will take exception to me having declared myself the Empress of the Stars. I originally thought, well, obviously, moon palace, because that will cut collateral damage, but then I decided it wasn't a great idea to be directly overhead, so this is still here but the city I'm going to be operating much of the empire from is on Mars."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:38 pm (UTC)

"And you declared yourself Empress of the Stars because...?"

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I thought it sounded nice? I hope it's obvious why I'd want to be any sort of empress."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 09:53 pm (UTC)

"The only reason I'm coming up with here is 'because you can'."

self_composed
2013-01-06 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I can, and I don't think the world is being run adequately, so I'm going to supply an alternative," Bella says, unfloating to sit on the steps and look up at the Earth.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 10:00 pm (UTC)

"That's nice of you," says Hilary. "So what kinds of things do your magical powers do besides levitation and moon palaces?"

self_composed
2013-01-06 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Whatever I want," Bella says. "They are wish-oriented powers. Have any wishes?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Fresh out," says Hilary. "What's this empire of yours going to be like?"

self_composed
2013-01-06 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm still working out some details, but do you want to see Olympus? That's the city on Mars. I put it on Olympus Mons."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Sure," she says. "Gimme the grand tour."

self_composed
2013-01-06 10:19 pm (UTC)

Poof!

Bella lands them at tippy-top of her tower. "There's not a lot of differentiated stuff," she says. "People need to move in and make it less empty. But this's my tower, and those are apartment buildings with space for non-residential stuff on the first floors and in the basements, and there's the big park, and there are some smaller ones."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Whoa," says Hilary. "That's..."

She trails off, shakes her head, finishes: "Gorgeous."

self_composed
2013-01-06 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bella brightly. "The ecosystem's a little simple - I figured as long as I was designing it from scratch, I didn't need parasites or predators, just enough scavengers that I don't have to make all the animals sterile and immortal. And of course I don't know about all the plants and animals that exist. So between those factors there's only a few hundred kinds of them, and a comparable number of plants. But that's not something the human eye notices immediately, and I can add stuff later."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-06 11:50 pm (UTC)

"How are you planning to run the place?"

self_composed
2013-01-06 11:55 pm (UTC)

"There are magical laws operational over the whole planet, preventing people from getting up to too much mischief, and notifying me if they get up to medium-sized amounts," Bella says. "Me and a friend of mine are working on a personnel layer between me and everybody else who'll move in so I'm not stretched too thin." Pause. "Why, do you want a job?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:01 am (UTC)

"No thanks," she says. "Got one already, remember?"

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:02 am (UTC)

"Yes, but I don't know if housekeeping for Judith is what you want to do for the rest of your life," shrugs Bella. "If it is, more power to you."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:04 am (UTC)

"It keeps me busy. And paid. I do like getting paid."

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:06 am (UTC)

"I plan to pay people who work for me," says Bella indignantly. "Just, you know, in Imperial Asters." (She is designing these in her head. She is considering making coins be a thing just because they can be so pretty.)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:12 am (UTC)

"Right," says Hilary. "Which are worth how much in existing currency?"

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:12 am (UTC)

"Until there's enough in circulation and Mars is populated enough for me to decouple them, one to one for US dollars."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:14 am (UTC)

"Well, that's not terrible, I guess. Want to take me back home before Judith has too many conniptions?"

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:15 am (UTC)

"Sure thing."

Poof!

Bella checks to see if Judith has fainted.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:17 am (UTC)

Judith has not fainted. Actually she's looking much better.

"There's a moon palace," Hilary reports. "And a city on Mars. It's all very pretty."

"Well," says Judith. "Congratulations, your imperial majesty."

She is maybe a little amused. Which is better than stunned, at least.

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:20 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bella, dipping her head politely. "You can carry on calling me Bella if you prefer, though. Since you knew me before, and everything."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:21 am (UTC)

"Well, that's kind of you," says Judith. Hilary smiles and shakes her head.

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:23 am (UTC)

"Also, unless you move to Mars, I am not your Empress particularly. I considered taking over the world, but this seemed less generally objectionable."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:24 am (UTC)

"No," she agrees, "but all the same, being polite to empresses is a good habit to have. Don't you think?"

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:25 am (UTC)

"Yes, I suppose if I meet any others I'll try to be polite to them. I don't suppose you do want to move to Mars?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:27 am (UTC)

She glances at Hilary, who shakes her head.

"No, thank you," says Judith.

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:29 am (UTC)

"Surprisingly few people I have asked want to move to Mars. I suppose I'll have better luck asking among populations who'll find the free rent and the food replicators and the lack of utility bills compelling."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:29 am (UTC)

"Maybe you should lead with those next time," Hilary suggests.

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:32 am (UTC)

"They'll feature prominently in the brochure," says Bella. In her head, she finishes the design of Imperial Asters. "Either of you wanna buy some Empire of the Stars currency against the possibility that its value will go up after I decouple the exchange rate?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:33 am (UTC)

"What is the exchange rate?" asks Judith, who wasn't around for that part.

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:35 am (UTC)

"A dollar to an aster, to start. I figure I'll sell half a trillion of them and then not make any more unless there seems to be a reason to."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:36 am (UTC)

"I'll give it a little more time," says Judith. "If the offer stays open, that is."

self_composed
2013-01-07 12:38 am (UTC)

"Oh, probably it will," Bella says. "Unless I get a lot of speculators and it looks like there won't be any asters left for people who actually wish to move to Mars."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 12:42 am (UTC)

"Sounds perfectly reasonable to me," says Judith.

self_composed
2013-01-07 01:51 am (UTC)

"I think so. Well. Unless there are further questions, I think I'll go down to Florida and try to figure out how to explain this matter to my mother."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-07 01:53 am (UTC)

"Good luck," Judith says wryly.

Hilary offers the plate of muffins.

self_composed
2013-01-07 01:58 am (UTC)

Bella takes one for Renée and one for Phil. "Thanks," she says, and off she pops.

She lets herself in. She doesn't actually have her key to the place on her, but the spirit of the key surely allows that she can just walk into the house with a triangle instead. "Mom?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 02:02 am (UTC)

With impeccable timing, Libby says, [I found some real estate that fits your specifications.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 02:07 am (UTC)

[Marvelous. You want your asters in cash or in the First Bank of Mars? How much is the place?]

"Bella, is that you?" calls Renée from upstairs. "What are you doing here? Don't you have school?"

"Nope," says Bella. Golly, this is going to be awkward.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 02:12 am (UTC)

[Your choices are bigger, closer, and half a million, or smaller, farther, and three hundred thousand. I'll take Bank of Mars either way.]
Edited 2013-01-07 02:12 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-07 02:16 am (UTC)

[Enh, how much bigger?] Bella says, assigning a few brains' worth of brain to working out how the bank ought to work.

Renée comes downstairs, wearing a brand new yoga outfit. "Why don't you have school? Is it a holiday?"

"No, I'm just... working on something else today," Bella says. "Where's Phil?"

"Grocery shopping," says Renée. "He'll be back in a half an hour maybe. What are you working on?"

"A... design project of sorts," says Bella. Charlie is so much easier to talk to, mostly because he doesn't want to know. Renée will, which means Bella has to figure out how to tell her all the things.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 02:20 am (UTC)

[Bigger enough. I'd go for it if I were you.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 03:07 am (UTC)

[Let's go for it, then.]

"Mom," says Bella, "do you believe in magic?"

"Well," says Renée, "I've always thought there must be a little something - something more, you know, but you've never seemed very interested in developing your spiritual side, Bella, what brings this on?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 03:08 am (UTC)

[Done. Where do you want the paperwork?]

self_composed
2013-01-07 03:11 am (UTC)

[What manner of paperwork is it? Have I got to sign anything?]

"Well, I don't really mean anything particularly spiritual," says Bella. "I just mean straight-up magic. Fantasy novel magic." She hesitates, then floats, slowly.

Renée stares and frowns.

"This is the strangest dream," Renée says. "I feel so awake."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 03:16 am (UTC)

[The boring kind, and yes.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 03:19 am (UTC)

[My office in the moon palace. I should name the moon palace. Hmm.]

"You're not dreaming, Mom. Do you need a minute?"

"A minute to do what?"

Bella shrugs. "I don't know. Process. See if you can get a hoop to go all the way around me. Faint." No one has fainted so far. Bella feels misled by the media.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 03:21 am (UTC)

[I'll get it there. Does the moon palace need a name? Does your tower on Mars have a name?]

self_composed
2013-01-07 03:24 am (UTC)

[It'd be easier than referring to "the moon palace" all the time. The tower does not have a name yet, but "the tower" is a little shorter and less bizarre to refer to in conversation. How do other royalty name their palaces, do you know?]

"I feel fine," says Renée, "it's just that it looks like you're floating."

"I am floating, Mom. I can fly. I can do other stuff, too."

"How?"

"Magic."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 03:36 am (UTC)

[I don't, as it happens.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 03:42 am (UTC)

[I think I'll call it Moonstone Palace, then. The tower can be Marspire.]

Renée doesn't seem to be able to generate any more questions. She's just watching Bella's feet dangle above the floor.

"I have quite a bit of magic," Bella says. "I've decided to colonize Mars with it. I was wondering if you and Phil would like to live there. You don't have to decide right away, of course."

"Live on Mars?" Renée says. "I don't believe there's air on Mars. Not so you can breathe it, anyway."

"There is now."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 03:45 am (UTC)

[That's adorable,] says Libby. [Okay, paperwork incoming. Sign above the helpful little post-it notes, then the place is yours.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 03:47 am (UTC)

[Do I turn it in to someone after signing?]

"Look, Mom, I think you might still think you're dreaming. I'm going to go get some paperwork done, and I'll come back tomorrow, and maybe after you've seen me floating twice it won't seem so dreamlike. Okay? I love you." Bella drifts forward, hugs her mother (who hugs her back automatically), and then lets go and pops into her office. Sign, sign, sign.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 03:49 am (UTC)

[Nah, just keep it. The address should be in there somewhere.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 03:51 am (UTC)

It is. Bella teleports there and surveys the place. [Have I got a height limit?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 03:56 am (UTC)

[Not explicitly. Someone will probably be upset if you present an obstacle to aircraft.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 04:01 am (UTC)

[Right.] Bella covers about two-thirds of her space with a twelve-story office building, puts in an underground parking structure, and erects a sign:

Emigrate to Mars

In the unlikely event that anyone stops to see what's going on there on the sole basis of this sign, she'll handle them herself. She rather expects that no one will. They'll decide to look her up on the Internet later and find -

Oh, how embarrassing. She doesn't have a website.

Bella walks into her new building, conjures potted plants and a magic door so Libby's pick for immigration office manager can commute, and then teleports to her office in Moonstone Palace to fix that. She'll write the immigration parameters at the same time.

[The immigration officer has a magic door where specified,] Bella informs Libby. [It'll take her to the new building.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 04:06 am (UTC)

[I'll let her know,] says Libby. [You're delightfully productive for an empress, have I mentioned that recently?]

self_composed
2013-01-07 04:10 am (UTC)

[I don't see what else the point would be,] Bella says, furrowing her eyebrows and wishing a number of attractive photographs of Martian locations into existence on her hard drive. She's started to use her coins almost like they're part of her body, like wishing is a native power of hers and not a tool she's wearing in quantity.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 04:12 am (UTC)

[And that is why I am helping you take over the world.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 04:28 am (UTC)

Bella grins. [I appreciate that very much.]

A skeleton of a simple website forms quickly. [I want my own country code toplevel domain,] she says. [I think .eos would be nice. Empire of Stars, sounds like the Greek goddess of the dawn. Is that something you can do?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 12:29 pm (UTC)

[I've never tried,] she says merrily. [Give me, oh, two hours.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 05:18 pm (UTC)

[I like you,] Bella announces.

Mars is going to take immigrants who need it - the impoverished, mostly - but it's also going to prefer entrepreneurs and artists. She wants Mars to look cool and high-status, not like a dumping ground for people who can't make it on Earth, and while some of the impoverished can probably come up with something cool to do if she makes poverty irrelevant for basic physical needs, she doesn't want to gamble entirely on that.

Apartments and storefronts are free - if no one else wants them. Once the place fills up there will need to be a rule. The obvious rule is that people can pay each other to forego their claims on locations. And that means that the tired/poor/huddled masses yearning to breathe free will have a disadvantage at staying in locations that become desirable neighborhoods of Olympus. Not that any part of it is going to become filthy or crime-riddled, but proximity to important businesses and interesting cultural sites is still an issue.

Bella pauses in website design to put in a nice subway. It is not a train, it is just an underground network of teleportation points. If you step onto one, it will take you to the other of your choice. There's a map next to each one.

That should help.

Having no other issues with this method of resolving disputes over space - first come first serve, you can pay someone to leave if you can talk them into the transaction - she puts it in the site and in the brochure version she's going to "print" and distribute.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 05:21 pm (UTC)

In point of fact, it only takes her an hour and a half.

[You are now the proud owner of the .eos top-level domain,] she reports.

self_composed
2013-01-07 05:24 pm (UTC)

[Excellent.] Bella's already got her own ISP on Mars so people can use their devices. She registers a slew of domains for various governmental purposes, puts up little flags and notices about what they'll be for later on most of them, and, on mars.eos, puts up the one she's currently working on. Nothing on it is innacurate, it just has a few "under construction" notices. She text-channels the URL to Libby. [Whaddaya think so far?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 05:30 pm (UTC)

[Very nice,] says Libby. [I like it. By the way, NASA is finally starting to believe the message you left in front of Spirit.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 05:31 pm (UTC)

[Do tell!] exclaims Bella. When she finishes the website, she's going to update the sign for them. [I bet they insisted on getting ordinary telescopes and checking to see if the planet had changed color first.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 05:35 pm (UTC)

[I don't know all the details, but yes, they did. After running an amazing number of diagnostics.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 05:42 pm (UTC)

[After? Ha.] There are now sub-websites with remote application forms (in case you can't make it to the building in Palo Alto) and a map of the subway and an explanation of how you may go about claiming places. It occurs to her that someone may decide to stake a claim on an entire building, or just an inappropriate number of subdivisions thereof. She limits commercial spaces and apartments each one to a customer, with the possibility of possessing two of either for up to a week if you wanted to make sure you had somewhere to go before selling your existing one.

Her name does not appear anywhere on the site - she simply refers to herself as "the Empress of the Stars". It'll be a little more time-consuming to track her down by face alone. Charlie's safe from attention, but she still doesn't know what to do about Renée and Phil.

She finishes the first draft of the website, makes sure there's a feedback form people can use, and pushes the update. Then she designs herself a pretty crown.

nonbird
2013-01-07 05:46 pm (UTC)

[We're all moved in,] says Lazarus. [There's not much to do around here. Does your empire need a translator, by any chance?]

self_composed
2013-01-07 05:47 pm (UTC)

[Sure, why not. mars.eos here, let's have versions of that in some languages. Do you need any more languages?]

nonbird
2013-01-07 05:49 pm (UTC)

[I don't know all the languages in the world yet,] he says. [But I also don't know what all the languages in the world are... I can translate your website into all the ones I know, though, that'll keep me busy for a while.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 05:55 pm (UTC)

[Cool, thanks. What's your hourly rate? I'll pay you in asters into the Bank of Mars. Kolya need anything to do? What does he do?]

Bella designs the Bank of Mars. It works on magic instead of electronics. She decides it will be appropriate for people to be able to summon virtual asters from their accounts in the form of cash at will, and deposit (licitly obtained) asters the same way. And consult their accounts mentally, and also the instructions on how to use them. And transfer from their account to other accounts at will. Yes, this is how it should work. She considers and discards the notion of free blenders on signup. Also, she can't really think of any good reason to pay interest on savings. She wants people to invest in things, and since she's still producing asters from nowhere until there are half a trillion of them, she can think of no reason she'd like to incentivize keeping lots in savings. The bank will just be a place where money can be, be moved, and be withdrawn. Anyone who sets foot on Mars will automatically get one, but she will not hold with speculators having magic bank accounts without necessarily even believing in the underlying political entity; that seems silly.

Bam, bank exists.

She puts half a million virtual asters in Libby's account, for the immigration office. [Check out the bank,] Bella says, wondering if that will be enough to figure out.

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:00 pm (UTC)

[Kolya doesn't need anything to do at the moment,] he says. [Why, do you have any jobs going begging?]

His usual rate is in Canadian dollars; he looks up the current exchange rate before naming one in asters.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 06:01 pm (UTC)

[Nice bank,] says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:03 pm (UTC)

[Glad you like it,] to Libby.

[Some. Libby's helping with personnel, but I could probably find any job-wanting person something to occupy their time usefully,] to Lazarus. She puts an hour's worth of asters in his account in advance. She decides not to tell him, because maybe he can see it all by himself.

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:06 pm (UTC)

[We'll remember to ask you if he gets restless, then. Oh, you're paying me in advance, that's nice. Magic banks are my favourite banks.]
Edited 2013-01-07 18:08 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:09 pm (UTC)

[Summon some cash,] Bella invites gleefully.

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:12 pm (UTC)

He does.

[...Bella,] he says. [Bella, your currency is worryingly adorable.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:12 pm (UTC)

[Worryingly?] she laughs.

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:17 pm (UTC)

[Worryingly, as in, I have never previously been tempted to keep a fifty-dollar bill as a pet! It has stubby little wings, Bella. Stubby little wings! Because it is an origami ostrich!]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:18 pm (UTC)

[It's an anti-counterfeit measure,] Bella says innocently. [I'd like to see anyone make convincing fake asters without magic.]

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:23 pm (UTC)

[People are going to collect these. You have a two-hundred-aster bill and I am going to end up socking my first one away in the Bank of Frequently Hugged Table Decorations, I just know it.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:24 pm (UTC)

[You think they're cute enough to interfere with their use as a currency?] Bella asks, concerned. [It's not like they're unique - everyone who has two hundred asters can make an identical swan.]

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:28 pm (UTC)

[Well, if someone wants to populate their shelves with an army of little five-aster ducks, that's their business. Not that I'm considering it, or anything.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:29 pm (UTC)

[I suppose that since the bank doesn't pay interest there's no reason for people not to store their slush fund in bird form,] Bella acknowledges.

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:32 pm (UTC)

[Exactly. Also, people who can't see magic probably don't find them quite as cute. They have such helpful, polite parameters!]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:33 pm (UTC)

[I did expect that you'd like them,] giggles Bella. [The coins just glow on request. Is that cute too?]

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:34 pm (UTC)

[Less so, but yes. The penny is particularly endearing.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:35 pm (UTC)

[Why the penny?] Bella laughs. She starts working on the brochure version of her website so there can be a stack of them in the building.

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:36 pm (UTC)

[Because it's little, I think.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:37 pm (UTC)

[Fair enough. What language are you doing first, for the site?]

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:37 pm (UTC)

[French, why?]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:50 pm (UTC)

[I haven't actually decided what language the next city will use. I suppose I could go with French.]

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:52 pm (UTC)

[All official documents in English and French is a Canadian habit. I'm going to do Russian next because that's the next one I learned.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:52 pm (UTC)

[I have a lot of pentagons that are no longer able to do anything but teach languages. Want some?]

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:53 pm (UTC)

[Yes!]

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:55 pm (UTC)

She sends him thirty. (She teleports to Mars, first, because squares don't have the range, and continues working on the brochure in the office in her tower.)

nonbird
2013-01-07 06:55 pm (UTC)

[Thank you!] he says happily.

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:57 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome!]

Brochure brochure brochure. She finishes writing it, then teleports to the immigration office and conjures a stack of a thousand and looks to see if anyone's there yet - staff or would-be immigrants.

Oh, and she did finish her website. Spirit's sign updates.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 06:59 pm (UTC)

Libby's promised immigration officer is there already, decorating her office.

self_composed
2013-01-07 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Hallo!" Bella says. "I brought you some brochures. We have a website now, too."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!" she says. "You must be the empress. Is there anything I should know about immigration policy that's not covered in the literature? The job offer was short on details."

self_composed
2013-01-07 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I am," says Bella. "I'm trying to be fairly transparent, and what I have so far is all on the site and in the brochure - we can and will accommodate lots of people who need Mars, but we would also like a healthy proportion of particularly talented and ambitious people who will make it an interesting place to live. Lazarus was complaining that there's nothing to do there. I want that fixed, and I don't want to have to do everything myself. For Olympus, everyone has to speak English, but if you get applicants who don't, you can put them on waiting lists for other cities - keep me posted on what languages there's demand for." She drops five language pentagons on her desk. "In case you don't speak anything else yourself, these'll help with that, one language per, deploy as needed. I'll put you on the brainphone network." [Like so.] "Have you got a name, by the way?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Harriet," says the immigration officer. "Harriet Yu."

self_composed
2013-01-07 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Pleased to meet you. Any questions?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Not currently."

self_composed
2013-01-07 07:28 pm (UTC)

"All right. Do you want to get paid in asters or in dollars?" And, because she does not know this person personally, [Libby, how much am I paying Harriet?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 07:29 pm (UTC)

Libby names a figure without pausing to think about it.

"Dollars, please," says Harriet. "I do still live on Earth."

self_composed
2013-01-07 07:34 pm (UTC)

"As you like. I'm going to give you access to an account full of asters -" this has to be done manually; Harriet hasn't been to Mars - "and you can sell people asters out of it, one-to-one exchange with dollars till further notice. Take whatever form of payment you know how to get into a bank account for this office. No exchange fees unless there are transaction costs to us - credit card merchant fees or whatever. When you've put up your Craigslist ads or whatever and gotten this place more fully staffed let me know if that job's going to someone else. Let me know if you run out of asters."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Harriet. "That all sounds very reasonable."

self_composed
2013-01-07 07:45 pm (UTC)

"I try," says Bella. "Anybody you hire gets their choice of being paid in asters or dollars, too. If they don't visit Mars, then I need to set up aster accounts manually until I hire someone to run the bank." [Libby, I would like someone to run the bank for me.] "Benefits consist of being allowed to go to Mars even if they don't live there and take advantage of the services, which are going to include magic healthcare and already include free meals. If people want other stuff, we can talk." Bella decides she doesn't really want to hire medics; she's just going to install some health-artifacts. Since they will work instantly she doesn't imagine she'll need many.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Free magic healthcare?" she asks, in the interests of clarification.

[Sure,] says Libby. [Should it be someone who wants to live on Mars, or can they live on Earth and work remotely?]

self_composed
2013-01-07 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes, free magic healthcare." [They can work remotely if they like.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 08:01 pm (UTC)

[All right, I'll find somebody. How should I put them in touch?]

"That's going to be a big draw," Harriet predicts.

self_composed
2013-01-07 08:05 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "Only when people start believing us. And the free magic healthcare is also available without taking a job at all by moving to Mars. But sure. Hire terminal cancer patients, wheel them down the street and back, show them to their offices."

[You are now empowered to add people to the brainphone network.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 08:09 pm (UTC)

[Shiny,] says Libby.

"Or something," says Harriet. "Where exactly is the magic door to Mars, by the way?"

self_composed
2013-01-07 08:12 pm (UTC)

Bella points out the window. "There, that tunnel in the parking lot. It takes you down to the parking structure if you or anyone in your vehicle are not allowed to go to Mars, or if you are not trying to visit Mars. Otherwise, it takes you through to a similar tunnel in Olympus. There are separate lanes and magic safety features to prevent this from doing anyone harm. Speaking of being allowed to visit Mars, I'm authorizing you to issue day passes. For reporters and suchlike. You can be quite free with the day passes. After 24 hours, if the bearer hasn't left, they'll be teleported safely back here. And it won't let them claim apartments or anything. But they can look around. We might do tour buses later." Bella conjures a big stack of red paper squares marked "DAY PASS TO MARS"; the magic door was already designed with this in mind.
Edited 2013-01-07 20:18 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 08:21 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Harriet. "Are the passes per person?"

self_composed
2013-01-07 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Yep. I don't really care if someone swipes one without asking for themselves, but if someone takes a bunch, tell me. And as with the asters, let me know if you run out."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Got it."

self_composed
2013-01-07 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Let's see..." Bella taps her foot, thinking. "Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Libby recommended you so I assume you're brilliant and worth paying attention to."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Do the day passes show time remaining?"

self_composed
2013-01-07 08:40 pm (UTC)

"They do now," says Bella, patting the stack. "Oh, and the 24 hours are Mars hours, so it's a little longer than an Earth day." It occurs to her that she doesn't have any way for hotels to operate on Mars, considering that she doesn't let people claim too much space. She designates four apartment buildings around Olympus to be refitted by would-be hoteliers with the best bids.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Some clocks that show Mars time would be handy," Harriet muses. "And a calendar, if calendars are available."

self_composed
2013-01-07 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I have someone working on the calendar." [How goes calendar-ing?] she asks Bridget. "Clocks I can do, how many do you want? What kinds?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 08:50 pm (UTC)

"A few as watches, a few for the walls... let's say five each," Harriet says. "If Mars ends up with a thriving tourism industry, Martian watches would be a good thing to sell at the gate."

regularsized
2013-01-07 08:53 pm (UTC)

[Pretty good!] says Bridget. [Do you want any input on the names of months and so forth? What year should be year zero?]

self_composed
2013-01-07 08:57 pm (UTC)

[Let's say it is currently year one,] Bella says. [The day I did the terraforming and made Olympus can be day one of year one, I'm not sure if that's today or yesterday in Mars time. I have no idea what I want to call months. How do those even work? We have two moons!]

"I'm not in the watch business, but if someone else wants to manufacture and sell them in quantity, I'm all for it," Bella says, producing five each clocks and watches that keep to Martian time. Two of each are digital.

regularsized
2013-01-07 09:03 pm (UTC)

[The year's twice as long as Earth, so we get twenty-four twenty-eight-day months, with a little intercalary fudging to keep the equinox lined up. Arbitrary, but conveniently familiar.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Not in the clock business," says Harriet, looking at the clocks. "Right. Okay, I'll look into it."

self_composed
2013-01-07 09:08 pm (UTC)

[So our months have nothing to do with moons? Okay. What season is it in the hemisphere containing Olympus, now?]

"People can, should, and if they act like people on Earth, will find and take opportunities to sell each other stuff," Bella says. "The government of the Empire of the Stars does not need to involve itself on any level in mass-producing watches, although I'm happy to conjure a handful to make things easier on people who work for me."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Sure," Harriet says agreeably. "The irony was entertaining, that's all."

regularsized
2013-01-07 09:14 pm (UTC)

[Trust me, when it comes to months, the moons of Mars are no help. And it's early spring.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 09:16 pm (UTC)

[Early spring. Sounds like a good time to start a year. I'll think about month names and get back to you; let me know if you think of anything.]

"Glad to amuse," chuckles Bella. "Anything else?"

regularsized
2013-01-07 09:19 pm (UTC)

[If we move day one a little, there's a handy equinox to put it on,] says Bridget. [And I've got a list already; how do you feel about zodiac signs?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 09:20 pm (UTC)

"No, that's it for now," says Harriet. "Thank you. You're a very helpful empress."

self_composed
2013-01-07 09:24 pm (UTC)

"I don't see what else the point would be," Bella tells Harriet, and she smiles and teleports back to her tower office.

[Aren't there only twelve of those? And how much is a little?]

regularsized
2013-01-07 09:25 pm (UTC)

[The creator of the calendar I'm working from named the months after the zodiac signs in Latin and Sanskrit.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 09:38 pm (UTC)

[Huh. What are the names? What's the calendar you're working from?]

regularsized
2013-01-07 09:54 pm (UTC)

[The Darian calendar. Sagittarius, Dhanus, Capricornus, Makara, Aquarius, Kumbha, Pisces, Mina, Aries, Mesha, Taurus, Rishabha, Gemini, Mithuna, Cancer, Karka, Leo, Simha, Virgo, Kanya, Kibra, Tula, Scorpius, Vrishika,] she rattles off.

self_composed
2013-01-07 09:55 pm (UTC)

[Let's tentatively go with that. How much would we have to move the start date to get an equinox for the first of Saggitarius? I would like day one to be a significant event.]

regularsized
2013-01-07 10:05 pm (UTC)

[Six days back,] she says.

self_composed
2013-01-07 10:07 pm (UTC)

[Enh, that's at least during when I was programming the procedure,] Bella says. [Let's do it.]

regularsized
2013-01-07 10:09 pm (UTC)

[In that case, you have a calendar. Oh, days of the week - Sol Solis, Sol Lunae, Sol Martis, Sol Mercurii, Sol Jovis, Sol Veneris, and Sol Saturni. Work for you, or would you prefer something less clunky?]

self_composed
2013-01-07 10:11 pm (UTC)

[Less clunky. I suppose just going with Monday, Tuesday, etcetera leads to awkward not-matching with Earth... Why were those names chosen, was there a rationale?]

regularsized
2013-01-07 10:16 pm (UTC)

[Going back to the Latin names for weekdays and replacing 'Dies' with 'Sol'.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 10:30 pm (UTC)

[Did the Romans seriously preface every mention of a day of the week with "Dies"? That's even worse. I'm tempted to do days named after the Latin names of the shapes the folding money folds into. But there's only six of those, and while Anatidae and Cygnus and some of the others sound all right, Struthio camelus doesn't lend itself. Hmm.]

regularsized
2013-01-07 10:34 pm (UTC)

[I don't know, I think Struthio is a perfectly good name for a weekday,] Bridget says cheerfully. [The odd one out is tougher. Then again, you could always make a seventh bill. What's the biggest denomination?]
Edited 2013-01-07 22:34 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-07 11:01 pm (UTC)

[*200. I could do a *500, promote the *200 design so the swan is still the highest denomination, make the *200 bill something else. Put a picture of a beach... It can be a seagull. So then we have Anatidae for the duck, Strigidae for the owl, Trochilidae for the hummingbird, Struthio for the ostrich, Spheniscidae for the penguin, Laridae for the gull, and Cygnus for the swan.]

regularsized
2013-01-07 11:03 pm (UTC)

[People are going to have trouble with Spheniscidae,] Bridget predicts.

self_composed
2013-01-07 11:07 pm (UTC)

[Aptenodytes?] suggests Bella, narrowing down the penguin variety. [Or I could make it a pigeon and we can have a Columbidae.]

regularsized
2013-01-07 11:11 pm (UTC)

[Columbidae sounds much better, as much as I love penguins. My rule of thumb here is, is it easier or harder to spell than Wednesday? Harder is out.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 11:12 pm (UTC)

[Columbidae it is,] she says, editing the *100 bill.

regularsized
2013-01-07 11:15 pm (UTC)

[Great.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 11:16 pm (UTC)

[Lazarus thinks the bills are terribly cute, but he didn't mention the penguin specifically the way he did the ostrich, so perhaps he won't miss it overmuch.]

regularsized
2013-01-07 11:24 pm (UTC)

[Maybe the penguin can be a collectible,] she suggests. [Like a coin with a stamping error, or whatever.]

self_composed
2013-01-07 11:28 pm (UTC)

[I changed them all in one go,] says Bella. [Oh well.]

regularsized
2013-01-07 11:35 pm (UTC)

[Oh well,] Bridget agrees.

self_composed
2013-01-07 11:36 pm (UTC)

That seems to be that. [Any news from NASA?] Bella asks Libby idly.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 11:45 pm (UTC)

[I think your note should maybe have specified that you're human,] says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-07 11:46 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs.

[Adding that now.]

The sign now has her original message, and her website, and "I am a human, by the way."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-07 11:46 pm (UTC)

[Well, that should stir things up a little.]

self_composed
2013-01-08 12:11 am (UTC)

[I wonder if I should visit them. Or the UN, maybe. There are not really instructions on the Internet for how to start a Magic Space Nation.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 12:13 am (UTC)

[I say let them come to you. More fun that way,] says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-08 12:13 am (UTC)

[What, and sit around on Mars waiting for them to put together an expedition? Or metaphorically by sending me a polite email?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 12:17 am (UTC)

[I'm betting they're going to go the email route,] says Libby. [And I'm betting it won't be long.]

self_composed
2013-01-08 12:21 am (UTC)

[I'll keep an eye out,] Bella says. She writes a guide to the Martian calendar and puts it online, and tells Harriet where to find it.

Then Bella decides that every Cygnus she will eliminate one Earthly thing that annoys her, such as a disease or a form of natural disaster. She puts this announcement up in a pretty banner on top of each page of the site and invites suggestions.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 12:29 am (UTC)

The first three entries in the suggestion form are from spam robots.

The fourth is a suggestion that she eliminate spam.
Edited 2013-01-08 00:31 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-08 12:36 am (UTC)

It does happen to be Cygnus.

Bella debates with herself, but finally shrugs and kills spam with one defanged star. It's the sort of category magic is smart enough to figure out without elaborate specification. She adds a line to the banner announcing that on Sagittarius 7, the target of the day was spam.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 02:26 am (UTC)

Not very long after that, Bella gets another message from her website's feedback form.

It says:
I have a few questions about your new empire, and something tells me it would be easier for you to arrange a diplomatic visit to me than the other way around. Do you have the time?

Pat Madison, President

self_composed
2013-01-08 02:31 am (UTC)

Bella grins at this. Just grins. She wishes a quick look at the President's computer screen as of the moment that form was submitted; it does indeed show the correct image. [The President just emailed me!] she brainphones both Libby and Alice.

Sure. Promise not to have anybody shoot at me if I teleport into your office? Because I'd find that upsetting,
Bella replies from eos@eos.eos. (She can't have her primary official email be a Mars email. What about when she colonizes other locations?)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 02:33 am (UTC)

[Congratulations,] Libby brainphones back. [Did she say anything interesting?]

self_composed
2013-01-08 02:35 am (UTC)

[Wants a visit, has some questions. I've solicited a promise that the Secret Service won't gun me down if I appear.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 02:40 am (UTC)

[That's always a good start.]

self_composed
2013-01-08 02:53 am (UTC)

[Yes. I mean, I'd be fine, but it would be so impolite.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 12:31 pm (UTC)

[And probably not conducive to good negotiations.]

At which point, the President emails Bella again:
Absolutely. Just as long as you warn us first, because it is the job of security people to be easily spooked by unexpected arrivals.

Edited 2013-01-08 12:33 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-08 08:44 pm (UTC)

Is now good?

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 08:45 pm (UTC)

Yes it is.

self_composed
2013-01-08 08:48 pm (UTC)

Bella turns invisible first - just to be sure - and teleports and has a look around.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 08:54 pm (UTC)

It's the President's office. It contains the President, sitting at her computer, and one security-ish-looking person.

self_composed
2013-01-08 08:55 pm (UTC)

Bella is heartened. She turns visible.

"Hello, Madam President."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 08:58 pm (UTC)

The security-ish-looking-person startles slightly, but doesn't do anything more threatening than look surprised.

"Hello, teleporting space empress," President Madison says serenely.

self_composed
2013-01-08 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Do presidents call royalty by royal styles?" Bella asks curiously. "How do you address the Queen of England?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I am going to address you by your name, if you tell it to me," she says. "And you can call me Pat."

self_composed
2013-01-08 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Pat. I'm Bella. It's nice to meet you," says Bella, floating into the air and twirling. "I hope I haven't caused too many NASA folks and miscellaneous government officials heart attacks." Pause. "If I have literally put anyone in the hospital, I can fix that, but I'm finding people don't even faint when exposed to magic."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Look at me, not fainting," Pat says agreeably. "As far as I know, there have been no Mars-related hospitalizations. But since you seem generally keen to make people's lives easier, would you like to talk about the shiny new national border you've given me in Palo Alto?"

self_composed
2013-01-08 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I can move it if you want," Bella shrugs. "It was just convenient. It doesn't work for any random person who might want to go to Mars. At a minimum they have to stop inside and ask Harriet for a day pass first. And there's only a handful of people on Mars right now who might use it the other direction. Although I suppose two of them are Canadian and you might want to look at their passports before they walk in for symbolic reasons, because Canadians are very threatening."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 10:28 pm (UTC)

Pat cracks a smile at that one.

"It would be polite of you to cooperate with us in putting U.S. customs people between your Martian immigration office and the rest of the country," she says. "And likewise for any more of those that you set up around here. Although I don't imagine you're the only teleporting person around, and if you are, you won't be forever. But while the notion of border control still feasibly exists, I would like my country to have it."

self_composed
2013-01-08 10:33 pm (UTC)

"There are not that many people who can teleport, at the moment," Bella says. "I mean, under their own power to arbitrary places. My city on Mars has a teleportation-based subway system but that probably doesn't bother you. I don't mind that much if you want to put up customs to harass people exiting Mars through the magic door; that seems like your prerogative. I am happy with the system I have regarding people visiting Mars."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Pat. "We can handle this one after the fact just fine, but in future, it would be nice of you to let the appropriate people know before you set up the magic door, so they can make sure nobody gets through un-harassed. I'll come up with an appropriate person and have them email you."

self_composed
2013-01-08 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Sure. I expect any such emails would have been laughed off if I sent them yesterday," Bella points out.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Times change," says Pat. "Sometimes rapidly."

self_composed
2013-01-08 11:29 pm (UTC)

"That they do. Did you have any other questions?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Plenty," says Pat. "Such as: are you planning to establish an official diplomatic presence in this country?"

self_composed
2013-01-08 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I haven't hired any ambassadors, but that sounds like something I'd want to do eventually."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-08 11:51 pm (UTC)

"When you do, I'm sure there will be an appropriate person to talk to about that too."

self_composed
2013-01-09 02:50 am (UTC)

"Excellent," says Bella. "You're very neighborly about this, I'm so glad."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 02:58 am (UTC)

"It seemed like the best option," she says.

self_composed
2013-01-09 02:58 am (UTC)

Bella nods. "Yes. That doesn't mean everyone would take it."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 03:03 am (UTC)

"I'm good at that sort of thing. Which, ideally, is why I am sitting in this nice fancy office."

self_composed
2013-01-09 03:04 am (UTC)

"It is quite a nice office." Bella is still floating. "What else should this meeting cover?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 03:16 am (UTC)

"Trade agreements," Pat suggests. "It also occurs to me that we might do best to collaborate on any public announcements about your new empire. You look more legitimate if I agree you exist, and I look less ridiculous if you're there to be all demonstratively magical."

self_composed
2013-01-09 03:19 am (UTC)

"I can show up and be magical in front of people a reasonable number of times, and claim the end of malaria and spam email and whatever else I get around to before these appearances," Bella says. "Regarding trade, Mars isn't producing much yet. Needs people in it first to be all entrepreneurial. That's why I put the door in the Bay Area."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 03:22 am (UTC)

"Smart empress," says Pat.

self_composed
2013-01-09 03:22 am (UTC)

"Thank you."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 03:24 am (UTC)

"And we can always discuss trade again when your planet has some exports."

self_composed
2013-01-09 03:26 am (UTC)

"Sure. Is that normally particularly complicated? I have wondered why trade is a thing that happens on the national level, instead of people just writing to businesses overseas saying 'mail me that and I will give you money'. I suppose things get taxed."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 03:28 am (UTC)

"Things do get taxed," says Pat. "Complicatedly, in some cases. Less so in others."

self_composed
2013-01-09 03:28 am (UTC)

"I wasn't planning on having taxes at all," Bella muses.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 03:30 am (UTC)

"It's hard to run a government that way," Pat says mildly. "At least if it's the kind with employees that need paying."

self_composed
2013-01-09 03:32 am (UTC)

"I wasn't planning on having no income. There are things I'm in a position to sell. For example: Immigrants to Mars are allowed to claim a relatively small amount of space - if someone wants a hotel, they need more than that, and I can sell the privilege."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:05 am (UTC)

"And you're probably not running out of planet anytime soon," Pat concedes.

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Planets," says Bella. "I'm just starting with Mars."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Do you have some reasonable idea in mind for colonizing multiple planets in your lifetime, or are you also planning to become immortal?"

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Second thing," Bella says, grinning.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:21 pm (UTC)

This is mostly about her own personal curiosity now. Mostly.

"Can you?"

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Why not?" Bella says. "I'm magic. My magic didn't come with rules. I haven't quit aging yet because I'm not as old as I think I'd like to get, but I already regenerate from injury and any attempt by infectious agents to move in."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:26 pm (UTC)

"You are definitely magic," says Pat. "That much is obvious."

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Bella smugly.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:28 pm (UTC)

Pat laughs.

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I plan to make immortality generally available to Martians but haven't figured out how to advertise it yet," Bella says conversationally.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:34 pm (UTC)

"I feel like that's the kind of problem that will solve itself eventually," Pat muses. "I also feel like Mars would be a great place to retire to."

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I hope it will be a great place to live at any stage in one's life," Bella says. "So - how do you go about setting up press releases at which one might be magical?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:40 pm (UTC)

"You find someone whose job it is to do that kind of thing, and ask nicely," says Pat.

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense," Bella says. "How long does it normally take this person to do that?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Not that long. A day ot two should do it, since spontaneous empires aren't really an emergency."

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:42 pm (UTC)

"They could be if I weren't running it," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:45 pm (UTC)

"True," says Pat. "Friendly spontaneous empires then. Also, a word of advice: that sounded a little like a threat. I didn't think it was, but someone else might've."

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Bella.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Plenty of people are going to find you terrifying just on principle," she says. "It'll be better for everyone if you don't encourage them any more than you absolutely need to."

self_composed
2013-01-09 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Any other tips in that department?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Hire ambassadors," she suggests, half-smiling. "And PR people. Good PR makes the world go 'round."

self_composed
2013-01-09 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I'll let my personnel person know that those are a priority."

And she does: [The President recommends prioritizing PR people and ambassadors.]
Edited 2013-01-09 19:17 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Pat.

[The President is wise,] says Libby. [And a politician.]

self_composed
2013-01-09 08:41 pm (UTC)

[Yes and yes.]

"She says you are wise," Bella reports.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you're telepathic, too? Why am I not more surprised," says Pat.

self_composed
2013-01-09 08:43 pm (UTC)

"I am whatever I want to be," Bella explains.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 08:45 pm (UTC)

"You are going to scare the hell out of people," Pat predicts.

self_composed
2013-01-09 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I am a benevolent nigh-omnipotent sorcerer-empress," says Bella in mock protest.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Not everyone will believe that as easily as I do," says Pat.

self_composed
2013-01-09 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Why do you believe it, out of curiosity?" Bella inquires.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 08:58 pm (UTC)

She grins wryly. "Pascal's wager."

self_composed
2013-01-09 09:00 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts. "I don't think the payoff grid is the same. I have never threatened to punish believing unkind things about me with eternal torment."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 09:04 pm (UTC)

"No, but the basic point still works. You're demonstrably so much more powerful than anyone else in this solar system that not believing you when you claim to be benevolent isn't going to do me any good at all. Also, you're young enough that the idealism fits, and you haven't done anything to indicate you might not be as nice as you want people to think."

self_composed
2013-01-09 09:08 pm (UTC)

"There is no reason not to be idealistic, when one has ultimate magical power," Bella says. "Although I feel like it might be friendly of me to mention that I am not quite the most powerful person in the solar system - but they work for me."

(A (staggeringly unlikely) fight between her and Alice would come down to first-mover advantage, but she'd deteriorate in power level very, very sharply if he disappeared, and he would not do the same if she did. Sanity, maybe - not power.)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Very friendly," Pat agrees. "And slightly unnerving."

self_composed
2013-01-09 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Everything's under control," says Bella.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 09:19 pm (UTC)

"It never is."

self_composed
2013-01-09 09:20 pm (UTC)

"As close as I can make it," Bella shrugs.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Which seems to be pretty close," says Pat.

"Well, we're both very busy people and I don't think we have any more substantial issues to cover right this second. Do we?"

self_composed
2013-01-09 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Nothing springs to mind. Want to be on the telepathy network?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I think that would be extremely convenient," she says, "thank you."

self_composed
2013-01-09 09:27 pm (UTC)

[Poof,] says Bella.

"Later," she adds aloud, and teleports back to her office in Marspire.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 09:29 pm (UTC)

Pat does not respond.

About half an hour later, Libby asks, [How do you feel about Mary the precog as your banker?]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:06 pm (UTC)

[Is she disposed towards banking? I imagine being a precog would give her an advantage as an anything, banker included.]
Edited 2013-01-09 23:06 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:08 pm (UTC)

[She'd have fun,] Libby assures her.
Edited 2013-01-09 23:08 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:09 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] Bella says. [She okay with being on the brainphone network?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:11 pm (UTC)

[Yep!]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:11 pm (UTC)

Bella adds her and makes a call. [Hullo, Mary, this is Bella.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:19 pm (UTC)

[Hi, Bella,] says Mary. [Good to meet you. Libby was going to say something about a job?]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:19 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. [She thinks you would be a suitable banker.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:22 pm (UTC)

[I bet I would,] says Mary. [What kind of banker?]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:23 pm (UTC)

[Magic Martian banker,] Bella says. [How much did Libby explain?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:26 pm (UTC)

[Very little. You have a magic empire, you might offer me a job, she thinks I'd like it. She's right. What does a magic Martian banker do?]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:29 pm (UTC)

[Fill up the immigration officer or her employee's account with asters when it runs out, so she can exchange asters for dollars. Move asters around according to where they belong. Probably other stuff. I am not precognitive or an expert on banking, it just seemed like a job I ought to delegate.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:38 pm (UTC)

[So a magic Martian banker runs the magic Martian bank,] says Mary. [Fun. Sure, I'll do it.]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:39 pm (UTC)

[Cool. Have yourself a root access to the system. I will be displeased if you pull crap with it,] Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:41 pm (UTC)

[I won't pull any crap you don't want pulled.]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:41 pm (UTC)

[Good good. I suppose you can tell without even bothering to ask -?]
Edited 2013-01-09 23:44 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:46 pm (UTC)

[Yep,] Mary says firmly. [Don't ask how. I don't like talking about it.]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:47 pm (UTC)

[I don't like being interrupted,] Bella informs her.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-09 11:51 pm (UTC)

[Then next time you're going to ask me a question I hate, I'll stop you sooner,] she says. [You're going to do it a lot.]

self_composed
2013-01-09 11:51 pm (UTC)

[Perhaps you could list them,] Bella suggests.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 12:00 am (UTC)

[Don't ask me how I work,] says Mary. [If there's something about what I can or can't do that you really need to know for some reason, be going to ask me it and I'll tell you.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 12:00 am (UTC)

[Why is this such an unpleasant topic?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 12:08 am (UTC)

[Lots of reasons,] she says. [Dull cumulative personal history reasons. Tired-of-being-pestered-about-it reasons.] She hums for a moment, then adds, [I'd really like it if you wouldn't go talking about it with other people who might in turn pester me.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 12:08 am (UTC)

[What about people who don't have your contact info?] Bella asks. [Are you a secret or just easily annoyed?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 12:29 am (UTC)

[Both,] says Mary. [But being a secret will be less important when I'm your banker, as long as random strangers can't contact me with annoying questions.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 12:31 am (UTC)

[I can't imagine a situation where I'd disclose your address or your email or your phone number. I doubt there's even a good reason to give out your name. We can get you a secretary to filter feedback from the citizenry and only pass on work-related components.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 12:33 am (UTC)

[Okay, that works.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 12:34 am (UTC)

[Cool. Have you got a secretary in mind or is this another job for Libby?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 12:35 am (UTC)

[Libby will find me a good one,] she says.

self_composed
2013-01-10 12:36 am (UTC)

[Alrighty.] Bella informs Libby, [Mary will require a secretary to shield her from the world's curiosity. Also, should I be paying you for being my personnel person?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 12:44 am (UTC)

[Not until it takes up way more of my time,] says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-10 12:45 am (UTC)

[Do let me know when that happens.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 12:49 am (UTC)

[Will do.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 12:49 am (UTC)

[Secretary hunt is underway,] Bella informs Mary.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 12:51 am (UTC)

[Thanks,] she says. [The future of your currency is very uncertain... this is going to be fun.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 12:51 am (UTC)

[Uncertain how?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 01:12 am (UTC)

[It's going to fluctuate in value, but I couldn't chart it without knowing the answers to a lot of questions and I don't even know the questions.]

Mary sounds unduly cheerful about this.

self_composed
2013-01-10 01:13 am (UTC)

[You have fun with that. We want to aim at it becoming extremely valuable,] Bella says. [Because then I can print more if I want without it being a disaster. Barring a scenario like that I'm going to stop at half a trillion.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 01:14 am (UTC)

[Half a trillion won't cause you any trouble,] Mary says after a short pause.

self_composed
2013-01-10 01:14 am (UTC)

[Cool,] Bella says brightly. [That is good to know.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 01:16 am (UTC)

[Can't tell you much more than that at the moment,] she says distractedly. [Give me time, though. And I'd like to move to Mars... oh, sometime next month.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 01:17 am (UTC)

[Can do. I'll notify Harriet you're to be allowed without hassle; if you find it inconvenient to go through the door let me know and I can fetch you up.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 01:18 am (UTC)

[I'll use the door.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 01:21 am (UTC)

[Okay. Can I have more than the fact that your first name is Mary, so Harriet can distinguish you?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 01:30 am (UTC)

[My last name's Brandon.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 01:38 am (UTC)

[Alrighty.]

[Harriet, a Mary Brandon is to be permitted immigration at some point in the next month. If that's a common name, try brainphoning; there's only one of those on the network. Don't otherwise bother her.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 01:41 am (UTC)

[Got it,] says Harriet.

[Thanks!] says Mary.

self_composed
2013-01-10 01:50 am (UTC)

Bella seems to be between tasks, now.

She reads Alice to see what he's up to.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-10 01:52 am (UTC)

Alice is having sex.

self_composed
2013-01-10 01:53 am (UTC)

Bella assumes Alice doesn't give a shit about privacy-from-her, but his partner is a stranger to her, and might well. Out she goes from his brain.

[Any applicants so far?] she asks Harriet.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 01:55 am (UTC)

[Not yet,] she says, amused.

self_composed
2013-01-10 01:57 am (UTC)

Well, that was fruitless.

Bella considers sleeping, then decides screw that: if she has free time, she is going to fly. She departs via window and zooms around Olympus at top speed, whooping.

oh how it lurks

her_imperial_radiance

It lurks. Oh how it lurks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 11:32 pm (UTC)

That is a thing that it does!

And this time, Libby catches the door before it shuts behind her and sticks her head back out to brainphone Bella.

[Milliways happened,] she says brightly. [Wanna see?]

self_composed
2013-01-10 11:38 pm (UTC)

[I do,] Bella says. [And now I regret not collecting a more complete explanation of it the last time it happened. Should I bring anybody? Where are you?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 11:39 pm (UTC)

[In my living room. Do you want to bring anybody?]

self_composed
2013-01-10 11:40 pm (UTC)

[Maybe. See anybody you recognize?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 11:41 pm (UTC)

[No, but I can't see very much of the room without going inside and the door will probably close if I do that.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 11:42 pm (UTC)

[Does holding the door open work if you've already let it close?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 11:44 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Why, do you want me to go in and wait until I see someone interesting and then come get you?]

self_composed
2013-01-10 11:46 pm (UTC)

[No, I want to know if I can "go back" for more company after scoping out the population,] Bella says. [For my part, I'm on my way. As long as you don't have more than one living room?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 11:50 pm (UTC)

[Only one that I'm currently in.]

self_composed
2013-01-10 11:51 pm (UTC)

[That suffices.] Bella designed her teleportation power to work with any uniquely defined location and that is such a one. Pop.

"That is really something," she says, peering at the door.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-10 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Libby. "It's even more interesting on the other side."

self_composed
2013-01-10 11:58 pm (UTC)

Bella's not sure if it'll work when she herself is not in the universe, but she puts up a "busy" message for everyone but Libby on the brainphone and steps through tentatively.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:05 am (UTC)

On the other side: a bar, with a multitude of patrons in a variety of species from a variety of apparent cultures and time periods.

Its most notable feature apart from that is the window taking up one entire long curving wall. The glass is so perfectly clear it's hard to tell it is there at all, and on the other side is a breathtaking view of lots of stars exploding. No one appears to be even slightly concerned about this.

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:06 am (UTC)

Bella takes in the stars for a few moments. It is, after all, her first time here.

She scans the bar. "Is the usual commodity here alternate universe versions of people you know or their possible relatives?" she asks Libby.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:11 am (UTC)

"You meet the occasional one of those, yes. Also fictional people, historical figures, a god or two... and then there are just the regular population, who are freqently interesting enough even without extra context."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 12:15 am (UTC)

Elspeth spots them, or hears them. "Grandma!" she calls, waving and trotting up to them, Jacob at her heels. "And, oh wow. Hi. This is weird."

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:15 am (UTC)

"Grandma?" Bella asks, peering at Elspeth and Elspeth's companion.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:19 am (UTC)

Libby laughs.

"Bella, this is Elspeth, who I told you about, and Jacob, who I didn't. Elspeth's father's mother was almost certainly an alternate version of me; did I not mention that? I guess we had other things on our minds."

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:20 am (UTC)

"You did not mention that," Bella says. "You did not mention that at all. Who is your dad?" At this time, Bella does not see children as a particularly likely part of her future. They're not ruled out, but they're not a priority.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 12:23 am (UTC)

"Well," says Elspeth, "his name is Edward, but I really doubt you have one. For one thing, we think this is your version of his mom and as far as I know she hasn't had any kids. For another, if you had him born when my world did, he probably died in 1918, because my dad only lasted beyond that due to turning into a vampire."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:24 am (UTC)

"Although just to complicate matters, if I ever have a son now I am probably going to name him Edward."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 12:25 am (UTC)

Elspeth laaaaaaughs. "But I bet - um, should I call you Bella, or Mama, or what? - I bet she's not going to marry him and have a me."
Edited 2013-01-11 00:26 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:27 am (UTC)

"That does seem thoroughly unlikely. Let's go with 'Bella'. I'm nobody's mama, at this time," Bella says. "And if I ever have a daughter at this point I probably won't name her Elspeth. That would be confusing."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:29 am (UTC)

"Bella has an empire now," Libby says cheerfully. "And it's the most fun I've had in years."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 12:30 am (UTC)

"Oh, congratulations! How's it going? I bet you didn't call it the Golden Empire, that's kind of a theme name that only makes sense with vampires involved," Elspeth says.

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:31 am (UTC)

"Empire of the Stars," Bella says. "I'm colonizing not-Earth locations and sprucing them up nice and inviting people to move in, rather than attempting direct takeover. What does gold have to do with vampires?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 12:32 am (UTC)

"Vampires who eat people," says Elspeth, "have red eyes. Vampires who eat animals, or the lovely advanced synthetics they have here that we haven't invented yet, have gold eyes."

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:33 am (UTC)

"I can see building a theme around that, assuming vampires eating humans was a major problem," Bella says. "You have brown eyes. They look like mine."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 12:35 am (UTC)

"I'm a half-vampire," Elspeth says. "Female vampires can't have biological children, but Mama had plenty of warning and she's smart, so she got some eggs taken out before she turned, and got a friend to carry me for her."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:37 am (UTC)

"Has there been any progress on analyzing the stuff you brought back last time?" inquires Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 12:39 am (UTC)

"R&D's working on it," Elspeth says. "So far they know... it's carbonated." She shrugs. "I really doubt that's an essential feature, that's just what the bar gave me." She explains to Bella, "Blood substitutes. Major research interest for us."

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:41 am (UTC)

"I'd imagine. I don't have that problem," says Bella. "Are drinks just free here? If not, can I pay for them in imperial asters?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:42 am (UTC)

"They're not, and I would love to know the answer to that question," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:43 am (UTC)

Bella looks around and fails to see a bartender. "How... does this work?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:46 am (UTC)

"The Bar is magic," says Libby, pointing. "And sentient, and female. You ask her for things and she gives them to you, within fairly reasonable constraints. There is a magical tab board that may or may not be visible at any given moment, which records how much you owe. I've never actually seen somebody get collected on, but I like to pay it off once in a while anyway."

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:47 am (UTC)

"Can she," Bella says, "answer questions, such as 'can I pay in imperial asters'?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:48 am (UTC)

"Yes she can!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 12:50 am (UTC)

"She gives out napkins," Elspeth says. "Sometimes they have writing on them. The writing is what she has to say. Just go up to the bar and ask."

self_composed
2013-01-11 12:55 am (UTC)

"Hello, Bar," Bella says, walking up to an empty space at the bar. "Can I buy a virgin piña colada in imperial asters?" Come to think of it she's not even sure if the bank system extends here. Can she check her balance? Yes: it's zero, because she's still just making asters exist on an as-needed basis. Can she make more? Yes, she can.

The beverage and a napkin slide up to her. The napkin reads in pretty, ladylike handwriting, Why, I don't see why not.

"Thanks," says Bella, making the Bar an account so she can pay off her tab later. That'll be fun to explain to Mary.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 12:59 am (UTC)

"Well, that's convenient," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:00 am (UTC)

"Quite," Bella agrees.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:01 am (UTC)

"The Golden Empire doesn't have its own currency," says Elspeth. "We just work in the currencies that already exist on Earth. It contributes that we moved into a power vacuum after removing the previous vampire rulers."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:04 am (UTC)

"Also you probably couldn't design and implement a magical currency system," says Libby. "Which is a pity, because watch."

She withdraws a *500 bill from her account and says, "Fold, please." It folds itself into a tiny, perfect origami swan.

"This is hands down my favourite anti-counterfeiting measure."
Edited 2013-01-11 01:04 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:07 am (UTC)

"That's adorable!" exclaims Elspeth. "Oh my word. What kind of magic do you have that you can do that? It's an anti-counterfeiting measure? Do they just all do that?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:08 am (UTC)

"Wish magic," Bella says. "Very comprehensive stuff. They do all do that - but different denominations make different birds. The coins just glow in assorted colors."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:09 am (UTC)

Libby deposits her swan, withdraws an ostrich, and repeats the request.

"See?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:10 am (UTC)

Elspeth claps her hands. "That's really sweet." She pauses. "It's more... whimsical, than my mama."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:11 am (UTC)

"I wonder why that is," muses Libby. Although she has some guesses.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:11 am (UTC)

"How old are you?" Elspeth asks Bella.

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:12 am (UTC)

"Eighteen. As of not terribly long ago," Bella says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:14 am (UTC)

"...I'm older than you," Elspeth says. "Even just chronologically. Oh, this is strange."

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:19 am (UTC)

"Did your mom become progressively less whimsical over time?" Bella asks.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:21 am (UTC)

Elspeth thinks. "I don't think so - not so I'd notice," she says. "But all the memories I have of her, even the ones that don't belong to me from before I was born, have her dealing with vampires. Maybe vampires are more... serious? Than whatever you've been doing?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:21 am (UTC)

"Or Alice is rubbing off on me."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:22 am (UTC)

"Aunt Alice, or someone else of the same name?" Elspeth inquires eagerly.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:22 am (UTC)

...Libby laughs.

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:23 am (UTC)

Bella blinks. "...Well, he's my boyfriend, if that answers your question. Is that also weird, that I have a boyfriend?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:25 am (UTC)

"Not Aunt Alice," concludes Elspeth. "Of course you can have a boyfriend. You could even if a version of Dad were around, but without one it's not particularly strange to me."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:29 am (UTC)

"The correspondences between our worlds are so interesting," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:31 am (UTC)

"Aren't they though?" Elspeth says brightly. "I don't know how long you can afford to be away from your empire, but it'd be fun if you came and visited."

"You'd have to check them first," Jake rumbles.

"Even a copy of Mama herself, you think?" Elspeth muses.

"Regardless," Jake confirms.

"I'm not even sure if that would work," Elspeth points out. "Bella, do you happen to have a mental opacity power? And if so, do I sound... truthy, to you?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:32 am (UTC)

"I have," says Bella, "and what do you mean by checking us, and what does truthy mean?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:34 am (UTC)

"Well," Elspeth says, "does this sound interestingly different: I am five years old."

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:35 am (UTC)

"...Yes. That's freaky," says Bella.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:44 am (UTC)

"So I work on you. I used to work on Mama, but then I stopped," Elspeth says. "Anyway, my witch power boils down to communicating true things. I can sometimes generate true things I didn't technically already know, if I attempt to talk about them to people who are interested in the topic and I have enough to go on. Jacob here is really interested in whether I'm safe, so before I'm allowed to take anyone home, I have to check how dangerous they are by telling him whether they could even theoretically hurt me."
Edited 2013-01-11 01:44 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:45 am (UTC)

"So, question," Bella says. "Who is Jacob, and why is he so interested in this, and why does he look at you like that?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:46 am (UTC)

Elspeth hands Bella a pamphlet!

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:46 am (UTC)

Bella reads very fast.

"Oooookay," she says. "I take it your mama already vetted this and this would be an inappropriate time for me to come over all maternal."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:47 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Elspeth forcefully. "He's my wolf."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:49 am (UTC)

"So if we're planning to visit," says Libby, half for a slight change of subject and half because this is a very important point, "we should probably get un-dangerous first."

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:51 am (UTC)

"Even if I left all my coins at home," Bella says, "which I am loath to do, and even if I stripped myself of several of my installed powers, which I am also loath to do, I can do a heck of a lot of damage with creativity and biting my cheek, and mint powers are indelible. This may not work."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:54 am (UTC)

Libby shrugs. "I'd have no problem dumping my stash somewhere for the duration, and I don't come with nearly as many extras."

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:55 am (UTC)

"But you're no less capable of biting your cheek, and if you're less creative it's not by a lot."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:56 am (UTC)

"By my best estimate, if I leave my five-and-ups at home, I'll pass the test," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-11 01:57 am (UTC)

"Okay. But is there any way Alice is getting through here?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 01:58 am (UTC)

"Probably not. I wouldn't let him through if I were them," she admits.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 01:59 am (UTC)

"...Why, what's the matter with him?" Elspeth asks.

self_composed
2013-01-11 02:01 am (UTC)

"He can readily generate a great deal more of our sort of magic than we can," Bella says. "I suppose I could implement emergency protocols first, but that would have the disadvantage of him learning what they are."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 02:04 am (UTC)

"Well, would you want to bring Alice?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 02:04 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I'm not sure. It would be interesting, I imagine."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 02:05 am (UTC)

"We don't have to bring him on our first visit, anyway."

self_composed
2013-01-11 02:06 am (UTC)

"True."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 02:21 am (UTC)

"Mama might easily choose to make exceptions on the basis of how friendly you seem - especially to Dad, who reads minds - after a first meeting," Elspeth says. "There are plenty of people who work for her who wouldn't pass the strict test."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 02:22 am (UTC)

"I am extremely friendly," Libby says brightly. "Especially to quasi-granddaughters."

self_composed
2013-01-11 02:29 am (UTC)

"If I can't get along with a version of myself, I can't get along with anyone," Bella says. "And I get along with some people. So I can get along with your mama. Q.E.D."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 02:30 am (UTC)

Elspeth giggles. "Okay. Well, if you can... unmagic yourselves enough that I can convince Jacob you're kosher, we can try it that way."

self_composed
2013-01-11 02:31 am (UTC)

"Libby, you said holding the door open works even after it's been closed once. We could take turns going out and stashing our coins now," Bella suggests. "If we don't want to wait for the next appearance of Milliways-with-an-Elspeth-in-it."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 02:39 am (UTC)

"Sure," Libby says agreeably. "How are you going to stash yours?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 02:40 am (UTC)

"Treasure chest from good old Elias," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 02:41 am (UTC)

"Good old Elias indeed. I'll probably have to spend a pentagon to get mine stored away—do you mind...?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 02:42 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs and hands one over. "How do you keep yours normally?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 02:46 am (UTC)

"...Stacked," she says. "It's easy to conceptualize but kind of complicated to explain—remind me when we're not busy and I'll tell you all about it."

She walks to the door, opens it, glances around her living room, and spends the pentagon to no visible effect.

"There, your turn."

self_composed
2013-01-11 02:51 am (UTC)

Bella goes to the door. She makes her agony beam toggleable with an expenditure of a pentagon - by her only. Then she toggles it, and puts her remaining pentagons and hexes and stars away too, not without some trepidation but without too much delay either. The rest of her standing powers aren't harmful. Mere aikido skill and super-speed probably will not faze vampires and werewolves.
Edited 2013-01-11 02:58 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 02:59 am (UTC)

Libby returns to Elspeth.

"All done," she says, ceremonially dusting off her hands. "Go ahead and check my scariness levels."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:04 am (UTC)

Elspeth peers at her, then turns to Jake and says, "She couldn't give either of us an irrecoverable injury."

And then she turns to Bella, and then back to Jake. "She could because she's faster with their magic, but she's not faster than a full vampire, and she's got weaker defense than Grandma and so is easier to take down if she tries."

Jake fidgets uncomfortably, eyeing Bella.

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:06 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't think there's a whole lot she can say in self-defense here. If they were willing to trust her disinterest in harming them, they wouldn't be doing this. "I can go put my squares away, too; I can still make them, but that will cut my reaction time," she says tonelessly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:09 am (UTC)

"That might be best for the first visit," says Elspeth sympathetically.

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:10 am (UTC)

"Since I have nothing on me that can move stuff as far as the treasure chest from here, I'll have to teleport; Libby, hold the door for me?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 03:12 am (UTC)

"Will do."

Elspeth's security measures are not quite unexpectedly stringent, but Libby is still sympathetic to Bella's apparent discomfort.

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:15 am (UTC)

Bella goes, and teleports to where the treasure chest is currently living in an extremely otherwise inaccessible section of Moonstone Palace. She squares off all the other squares and teleports back to Libby's living room, feeling extremely naked in nothing but clothes and a string of triangles and tempted to punch the wall or bite her lip or dig her knuckle into her wrist right then.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 03:18 am (UTC)

Libby winces in empathy.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:20 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Elspeth, but she runs the check again and this time Bella comes up just under the threshold of acceptability. "Um, Bella, in fairness, we can't seriously hurt you either. The vampires are faster but only one of them can teleport, he can't track you, and you can heal any wounds anybody could give you before you could jump away."
Edited 2013-01-11 03:21 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:21 am (UTC)

"That's good," mutters Bella.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 03:23 am (UTC)

"So. Time to visit?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:23 am (UTC)

"I suppose," Bella says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:25 am (UTC)

"Okay. Here goes," Elspeth says. She heads for the door, and when she opens it, it does not lead to Libby's living room. Instead, it leads to a room with a copier and a vampire in it. "Hi, Santiago," she says. "I went to Milliways and I found my alternate universe mama and grandma."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 03:26 am (UTC)

Libby trails after her, with a friendly smile for Santiago.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:28 am (UTC)

Santiago is impressively unruffled by this. "Would you like me to announce them for you?" she asks politely.

"If you don't mind," says Elspeth.

"Not at all." Santiago runs away - that's either customary here or this is the sort of task that requires haste.

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:28 am (UTC)

"Is there a standard announcement for that?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:32 am (UTC)

"Not really, but she'll come up with some less bizarre sounding way to put it, and then people won't waste time being surprised when we get there," shrugs Elspeth. "So, welcome to 2030 Golden-Empire-World Norway. This capital is called, um, Lisel, because my parents considered that name for me and this is mostly a capital site since I was born here."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 03:35 am (UTC)

"That's sweet," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:36 am (UTC)

"It could have been named Libby but they didn't like that name as much," says Elspeth apologetically, "and it didn't sound as much like a city."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 03:38 am (UTC)

She laughs.

"That's okay. Libby isn't even my favourite nickname, actually, but maybe that's a story for another time."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:43 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Elspeth agreeably, and she proceeds to lead them from the copy room down a few hallways and up some stairs.

The throne room - cannot really be called that. It contains no throne; indeed no chairs at all. Vampires - chalky-pale golden-eyed and ridiculously lovely - stand about. Including a recognizable Bella who looks the same age as the human one, with her hair cut fetchingly at shoulder length, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a crown. At her shoulder is a man of comparable apparent age, gorgeous and bronze-haired like Elspeth, and perpetually whispering into his Bella's ear.

"This is interesting," says the resident Bella. "Very interesting indeed."

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:45 am (UTC)

"I think so too," human-Bella says frankly. "Okay: I can guess why the empire, why the vampirism, why the hot husband, why the incongruous outfit. I want to know why the hair."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:47 am (UTC)

Golden Bella laughs. "I got set on fire. Twice. Vampire hair grows very slowly, so once I got to a point where I could find a style I liked, I just stuck with it. And you may want to keep your remarks about my husband to a minimum. You make him somewhat uncomfortable. And not solely by virtue of the fact that you're an alternate version of me. By any chance, do you have the magical wherewithal to control your scent?"
Edited 2013-01-11 03:51 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:52 am (UTC)

"That can be arranged," says Bella. Triangles can do scents. She arranges for a triangle to do scents. "Just me, or Libby too?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:53 am (UTC)

"Well," says the vampire Bella, "Libby might feel more comfortable if no one in the room were contemplating trying to eat her, but she is not a special problem in this respect, whereas you - and I, before I turned - are a very special problem for Edward in particular."

self_composed
2013-01-11 03:53 am (UTC)

"That sounds awkward."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 03:53 am (UTC)

"It was handled fairly quickly."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 03:58 am (UTC)

Libby idly wonders how she rates on the make-him-uncomfortable scale, and then recalls her conversation with Elspeth on the subject of Elspeth's dad and contritely shelves that whole train of thought.

"I don't have a strong opinion on people contemplating trying to eat me unless they find it very inconvenient to think about," she says instead.

(And wonders, if they do find it very inconvenient to think about, if the judicious application of a seven-pointed star might do the species as a whole some good. Something to suggest... probably to her Bella, maybe to Lazarus. She should bring Lazarus here, or get Bella to. She bets he'd love it.)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:02 am (UTC)

"Somewhat so," local Bella shrugs, "though not something we don't all deal with on a regular basis."

self_composed
2013-01-11 04:02 am (UTC)

"I may want to steal your crown design," nonlocal Bella says speculatively.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:03 am (UTC)

Elspeth giggles.

"It would be derivative if you copied it altogether," says the paler Bella.

self_composed
2013-01-11 04:04 am (UTC)

"I won't make mine out of gold," suggests Bella. "I'm going to conjure it out of nothing, I can just make the whole thing out of marbled-moissanite-and-opal if I want. In fact, I like that idea."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:04 am (UTC)

"That sounds both lovely and like something I wouldn't do given the chance since it would be off-theme. Go for it," says her vampire counterpart.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 04:05 am (UTC)

Libby catches Elspeth's eye and grins.

The Bellas are getting along! Isn't it awesome?

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:06 am (UTC)

I knew they'd like each other, Elspeth... somethings... to Libby.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 04:09 am (UTC)

She nods.

...And observes that she can add people to the brainphone network without spending any coins.

[Me too, favourite grandchild. Me too.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:12 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, Bella of sharper teeth says, "I hear you have... pretty much strictly better magic than ours around here."

self_composed
2013-01-11 04:13 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure if that's exactly the case. We have ingots where you've got witches and from what I know we're roughly equivalent - I think I have about your power, except Elspeth still works on me, for instance - but between coins and vampires. Well. Coins are really convenient for me but only because I have..." She pauses, looks at Edward, and decides to say, "Help. Coins are more flexible, I gather, but smaller scale without serious investment. I don't know. Does turning into a vampire hurt like hell?"
Edited 2013-01-11 04:15 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:15 am (UTC)

"Yes," says virtually everyone in the room at the same time.

"Except," continues local Bella, "that we have a witch who can patch this problem now."

self_composed
2013-01-11 04:16 am (UTC)

"Oh. In that case, yeah, my universe wins hard."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 04:17 am (UTC)

"How good's the patch?" wonders Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:19 am (UTC)

"He's a perfect anaesthetic," pipes up Elspeth. Of course, explaining this is part of her job. "But maybe a little too perfect. No one has any senses while they're under, and from the moment you start turning you can't sleep either. So me and another witch who can do visual illusions take turns piping movies at them while there's a batch changing. It's no one's favorite three days, but it's not torture anymore."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 04:21 am (UTC)

There is currently no way to privately ask the Empress of the Stars if they want to offer a better solution, so Libby just glances at her and says, "We could probably help with that, if you want."

self_composed
2013-01-11 04:27 am (UTC)

"We could probably fix a lot of your problems," Bella agrees. "But not right now, because we don't have any of our serious magic on us."

Bella wonders if it would be safe to turn Alice into a vampire. The idea that it might not appeal to him barely crosses her mind. It hurts like hell, and it's a thing. Besides, any unwelcome side effects can be patched with wishing. He'll probably love the idea.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:29 am (UTC)

"Well," says the Empress Regnant In This Section Of Multiverse. "That would be very kind of you. Have we got anything you'd like?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 04:32 am (UTC)

"Nothing that would be tricky for you to offer us," Bella says. "2030 technology - I'm doing a lot of stuff for my Martians with magic, but I don't want to be a bottleneck. Interesting magic for my friend Lazarus to study. If you've got a Lazarus or an equivalent the same can go the other way. Maybe some interesting media is going to come out in the next 25 years - I'd feel rude scooping anybody, but I wouldn't mind sneak previews, and I'm not averse to throwing around some magic for frivolous reasons. I might want someone turned into a vampire," she adds offhand. "Without your anesthetist, though, he's like that."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 04:38 am (UTC)

(Oh, Alice.)

"Lazarus would definitely like it here," says Libby. "And he is nice and fluffy and harmless and could probably help you study any magic you feel like studying."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:42 am (UTC)

"Do tell," says a vampire just entering the room. She is, tastelessly enough, wearing a PETA T-shirt even though her gold eyes indicate a very animalian diet. "And about these 'ingots' - I'm very curious - probably that Bella's no more transferable than this one even if ingots in general are, but what about you, are you an 'ingot'?" she asks Libby.

"Libby, Bella," says Resident Bella, "Addy, the Imperial Factotum."

self_composed
2013-01-11 04:42 am (UTC)

"...She does everything?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:43 am (UTC)

"She can copy witches' powers by touching them. Except me. I don't like her enough to let her through the way I can sometimes with Elspeth and Edward," says the golden one, smiling thin-lipped.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 04:44 am (UTC)

"I am not an ingot," says Libby. "Lazarus is, though. He... I'll go with 'sees'... he sees magic."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:46 am (UTC)

"Interesting," hums Addy. "So interesting. And he'd be willing to visit? I would really like that. And... it's worth a try... after all, Elspeth works on you and you're still human... shake hands, Bella?" the Factotum says, approaching with a bright smile.

She gets her handshake. Her face falls.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 04:48 am (UTC)

"He would be willing to visit," says Libby. "Are you enthusiastic about magic? You could be enthusiastic about magic together."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 04:49 am (UTC)

"I am extremely enthusiastic about magic," Addy says.

"Understatement," mutters Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 04:50 am (UTC)

"Definitely bringing Lazarus next time," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-11 04:51 am (UTC)

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Bella agrees. "Is there any known way to summon Milliways or does it just appear at apparent random?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 11:33 am (UTC)

"There are people known to be able to summon Milliways," says Libby. "I'm not one of them."

self_composed
2013-01-11 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Who can?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Nobody here, that I know of," Elspeth says, "but I met a lady who I think might have been a version of Addy in there once who said she could. And I think if she couldn't she would have just lived there all the time."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I've met a few people who can," says Libby. "Or at least, they said so and I had no reason to disbelieve them. Nobody we know, though."

self_composed
2013-01-11 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose any of these people described developing this ability?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 05:43 pm (UTC)

"The Addy I met said she spent a while pleading first, but she did this the first time she ever found the bar, so she doesn't know if that had anything to do with it," Elspeth said.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 05:49 pm (UTC)

"One of mine claimed it all started when she stole a salt shaker," Libby recalls. "And that she carries said shaker around as a good luck charm. The other two were less inclined to theorize."

self_composed
2013-01-11 05:50 pm (UTC)

"How much would the bar be likely to mind if I stole a saltshaker?" Bella asks thoughtfully.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 05:53 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't do it," Elspeth says. "But that's less about me having expectations that she'd mind and more about stealing not being nice and the bar being nice."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I've never tried. The petty thief in question didn't mention anything either way. At a guess, though, I'd say she wouldn't care much."

self_composed
2013-01-11 05:55 pm (UTC)

"You are very well brought-up," Bella tells Elspeth, sounding self-congratulatory.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 05:56 pm (UTC)

Her counterpart snorts. Elspeth smiles.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 05:56 pm (UTC)

Libby giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 05:59 pm (UTC)

Edward looks so uncomfortable.

Golden Bella pats his hand and says, "Since no one present can summon Milliways, I suppose we'll accommodate you here as long as it takes for someone to find it. Do... ingots? No, only Bella is an ingot. What is it that you both are? Do you require any particular amenities that ordinary humans don't?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Mints. We're mints. I don't require all the amenities that ordinary humans do - for instance, it is not necessary that I sleep - but basically if you handle us like humans you won't be far wrong," Bella shrugs.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Even more so in my case," says Libby, "because I still have mortal requirements like food and sleep."

self_composed
2013-01-11 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I still need to eat, I haven't gotten around that one yet," Bella says. "I like food and it's easy enough to conjure even if I'm without for some reason."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Well," Golden Bella says. "We generally put medium-term human guests in empty rooms in the wolf village, since wolves are in most relevant ways humanlike. Elspeth can show you there."

"You should be aware," Elspeth says, "that since you're girls, unless you're sterile, there is some - not a huge - chance that a wolf will imprint on one of you. Some people wouldn't welcome that."

self_composed
2013-01-11 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I am sterile, albeit reversibly," Bella says. "It seemed like the sort of thing it would be wise to take care of in advance. Libby? Wolf village or ask 'em to get us a hotel room?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Wolf village," she says, shrugging.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 06:22 pm (UTC)

"This way," says Elspeth, and she and Jake show them through some more halls, down some stairs, and through a tunnel, then up a spiral ramp to a pleasant little cluster of houses and small nonhouse buildings, with well-cleared paths between them through the snow.

"If the cold bothers you, don't worry - the houses we use for humans have heating," Elspeth assures them. "And there are coats and changes of clothes in a few sizes you can use if you like."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Comfy," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 06:24 pm (UTC)

"We've had a while to think of stuff," Elspeth says. "Jake, you wanna tell everyone?"

Jake wades into some snow and hangs a right, presumably for modesty purposes; presently he is replaced with a big, brown-furred wolf, who does apparently nothing before changing back, getting dressed, and walking back onto the path again. "The welcoming committee is Elena today, she's on her way," he says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 06:27 pm (UTC)

"There's a welcoming committee?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, no. Just Elena," says Jake.

Elspeth says, "There's usually someone around in wolf form waiting for telepathic notices from whoever, and when something little like this comes up, that wolf tags the next in line to take over and comes and handles it. We know our way around here, but we don't live here - in some capitals we stay in the wolf village but Lisel isn't one of them. So Elena is going to show you around and get you settled in and explain you to everyone."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 06:44 pm (UTC)

"You know, I really appreciate how organized this empire is," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Elspeth.

A lady who looks twenty-five (which just means: activated wolf) and also looks vaguely-not-quite-white in some unspecified way trots up to them, barefoot and wearing just one of those magnetic wraparound uniform things. "Hallo, Jake, Princess, Libby, Alternate Universe Bella," she says smartly, saluting.

self_composed
2013-01-11 06:50 pm (UTC)

"You have to have dealt with name collisions before," says Bella, amused. "You can just call me Bella. I bet everyone will know who you're talking to from context."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Elena."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Elspeth, "I'll see you around. I can send this far from anywhere in the main part of the capital and I'll let you know if I find Milliways again. It's most likely to be me; if it's someone else Dwi will tell you - or someone who can tell you in person if he doesn't work on you like Mama. You'll probably get a note within an hour or two about a formal meeting time for tomorrow when there's more flexibility in the schedule, to talk about trade and stuff. Bye!"

She and Jake go back down into the tunnel.

"You want the blue house, the green house, or the white house?" Elena asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I like blue," says Libby. "Blue's nice."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Blue house it is. Follow me," Elena says. "HEY GUYS!" she shouts as they meander through the village. "We got human visitors! Their names are Libby and Bella! They're from the princess's funky alternate universe bar thing!"

Heads poke out some of the windows. There are waves.

self_composed
2013-01-11 07:02 pm (UTC)

Bella waves back, finding the whole thing terribly charming.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 07:05 pm (UTC)

Likewise Libby! Elspeth's entire universe is kind of cute, apparently.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:08 pm (UTC)

A door bursts open. Someone trips throwing himself out of it, then quickly rolls over and stands up and makes it down the porch steps to approach rather near Libby and stop there and stare at her.

"Hi," he says.

"...Orfeo," says Elena. "Orfeo. She's not even from here!"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 07:12 pm (UTC)

"...Hi."

She laughs. She can't help it. One, the coincidence is hilarious, and two, all of a sudden she is in an inexplicably great mood. Does this guy have a witch power? That is an awesome witch power. It's like the universe is giving her a hug.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm Orfeo," he says, grinning at her. "I guess you're Libby? It's really nice to meet you, Libby." If he had a tail right now, boy would it ever be a-wag.

"Orfeo, she's not from here," hisses Elena. "She doesn't live here."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 07:16 pm (UTC)

"It is very nice to meet you too, Orfeo. In fact I suspect it's magically nice."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm not an especially useful witch but I'm kinda a witch," Orfeo says, ignoring Elena.

"Orfeo, if you try to go with her, you won't have a pack," sniffles Elena. "You can't do that, that's not how we work. Quitting takes years to get all the way done. What are you going to do?"

Orfeo looks up at Elena briefly. "Bring you?" he asks hopefully.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Thih seems to be a logistical problem," says Libby. "And it's a problem I'd rather solve indoors."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:36 pm (UTC)

"...Blue guest house is this way," says Elena, and she leads the group off through a silent final minute or so of walk.

The blue house is blue. It's a cute little bungalow sort of a thing, and not locked; Elena holds the door for everyone.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 07:38 pm (UTC)

Libby spends the walk smiling at Orfeo, and when they reach the house, she steps inside and finds somewhere to sit.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:39 pm (UTC)

There are chairs, and couches; Orfeo is faster than her and picks half a love seat, not expectantly, just in case. Elena throws herself into an armchair exasperatedly.

self_composed
2013-01-11 07:39 pm (UTC)

Bella, not involved much in these proceedings, decides to scope out the kitchen.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 07:41 pm (UTC)

Libby takes the middle of a different couch.

"So," she says. "There was a pamphlet, but it didn't go into the kind of detail I'd like. Does someone want to explain the situation?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Orfeo imprinted on you," says Elena wearily. "I keep telling Jake to tell Her Majesty to put imprintable guests somewhere else, that it's not sufficient leeway that people can just change packs if they don't want to be mixing with imprintable people, but no one listens to me. And Orfeo looked out the window, and, well. He's like Elspeth except with how he feels about people instead of facts. So you can tell what that did. And wolves are not meant to be all by themselves, so unless you want to move here, or someone - realistically me - can come back with you to wherever you're from, Orfeo's choices are feeling like he's got a few big holes in him or feeling like he's been put through a shredder."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't plan on moving here," she says. "I have a lot of friends and it would be impractical to bring them all. How would you feel about coming back with me?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:53 pm (UTC)

Elena digs the heel of her hand into her eye. "Well," she says witheringly. "If you make me decide between sending my brother to another world packless - packlessness having driven the occasional determined lone wolf to suicide - and staying home, obviously my friends, and our parents, and our half-sisters, and my job, and so on, cannot begin to rate."

"Elena," says Orfeo soothingly. "It wouldn't be that bad. No one else who's gone lone had an imprint, that's got to change things."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 07:57 pm (UTC)

"It's also possible that this is the sort of problem that could be fixed by throwing sufficient magic at it," she says thoughtfully. "Most problems can, in my world. But you'd have to apply to my empress for that; I don't have the resources. And I don't know that it would help, it just seems likely."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 07:59 pm (UTC)

Elena frowns at her knees. "Imprint bonds are immune to magic. The problems with packlessness might not be. I don't know what kind of magic you or your empress have to throw around."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Short version: Some people from our world can generate coins that grant wishes. Coins come in power levels from 'get that stain out of the carpet' to 'terraform Mars'. Bella has a hundred or so of the most powerful kind and can easily get more; I've got one."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Good for Bella. This the kind of thing she's likely to spend time on?"

"I'm sure I'll be fine either way," says Orfeo.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 08:11 pm (UTC)

"If I ask nicely, then yes."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay. That's good. But unless she can do it now, or, you know, before you go home, I still have to come along at first. Packlessness is not a joke."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 08:17 pm (UTC)

"A short visit to another universe isn't a huge deal," she says, not without a certain amount of irony. "And no, we left all the big coins at home, to appease your very safety-conscious princess."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Of course you did," sighs Elena.

"...So I do get to go with you," Orfeo says. "Right?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Libby says fondly. "Yes you do."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 08:22 pm (UTC)

Orfeo grins. Elena groans and mutters under her breath.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 08:24 pm (UTC)

She grins back.

"In the meantime, why don't you tell me about yourself?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm youngest of four," says Orfeo agreeably. "Born during the Volturi control of the wolf population, in the Volterra village; our dad's a wolf and my and Elena's mom is his imprint. So I'm half-Quileute half-Italian. We stayed there even after Her Majesty took over but when I activated me and Elena joined the Imperial pack to have more stuff to do. I run the village paintball games - it's not a big deal, Chiara can take over - and I have field medic training but it's only applicable for wolves and you shouldn't set me at a hurt human, and I can speak Italian natively, and I won yellow gold in the Ultra Olympics for wolf division wrestling once, and white gold in mixed middle division long-distance swimming twice. I'm on the holiday decoration committee. I make really good risotto. I'm decent at chess and great at knowing which way is north and lousy at singing."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't speak Italian," Libby says thoughtfully. "I should learn it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I mostly just use it to talk to Mom," says Orfeo.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 08:54 pm (UTC)

"It's nice sharing multiple languages with somebody, though. Me and my aunt speak English, German, and French."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 08:58 pm (UTC)

"I know... maybe a few hundred words of French, and I could probably fake more than that if I had to," muses Orfeo. "There's a stationary branch of the Imperial coven in Québec so I hear it in my head and we go there sometimes, but I've never systematically tried to learn it. I don't know a lick of German. Except, like, 'ja' and 'heil' and 'schadenfreude'."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:08 pm (UTC)

Libby giggles. "Not a bad start. You can learn them with magic when I take you home," she offers. "Although I'm not sure it wouldn't be more fun teaching you the long way."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:08 pm (UTC)

"It sounds like you do a lot of stuff with magic," he observes.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I didn't use to. Then Bella happened," she says, smiling. "And now there's a palace on the moon, a rapidly expanding city on Mars, and little things like installing a whole language in somebody's head are starting to look comparatively trivial."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Huh. What do you do while she's doing all that?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:16 pm (UTC)

"My specialty is personnel," she explains. "When I said I had a lot of friends, I may or may not have meant I run an extensive international organization full of useful people of all varieties. Not unlike your empire, from what I can tell. Whenever Bella needs someone to run the Mars immigration office or her magic bank or something, I find the right person for the job."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Cool. That doesn't sound like something you'd just fall into, how'd you get into this?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:30 pm (UTC)

She looks nostalgic for a moment.

"It's a long story. I'll tell you later," she says. "Oh, and I'm a mathematician, too."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:33 pm (UTC)

"What kind of math?" he says, with the air of someone who just about knows that there are kinds.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Lots of kinds. I'll spare you the boring incomprehensible details." She grins. "Unless you like boring incomprehensible details, in which case I can tell you all about infinite-dimensional vector spaces."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Well, I wouldn't listen to anyone else talk about infinite-dimensional vector spaces, but," he shrugs.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure between the two of us we can come up with a subject that you like on its own merits. How about motorcycles, do you like motorcycles? I have a motorcycle."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I like motorcycles," he agrees. "Can't have one because we move around the world all the time, but I learned to ride one anyway; there's some stashed in some of the imperial garages."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I'll get you a motorcycle," Libby decides.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:45 pm (UTC)

He beams at her.

Elena makes a noise in the back of her throat and sweeps out of the blue guest house.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:48 pm (UTC)

Libby also decides that nothing terrible will happen if she sits beside Orfeo. So she does.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:48 pm (UTC)

He goes right on grinning.

self_composed
2013-01-11 09:49 pm (UTC)

Bella runs out of things to look at in the kitchen. She sidles back in. "So what's the deal?" she asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:52 pm (UTC)

"If we can manage it, Orfeo is going to move worlds," says Libby. "I intend to manage it. Would you be willing to spare a star to see if it'll fix the unpleasantness of being a wolf with no pack? I'll start in smaller denominations, obviously, but I'm not sure a hex would be enough."

self_composed
2013-01-11 09:54 pm (UTC)

"As a one-time thing, sure. I suppose if we have a mass immigration the problem will solve itself," Bella says. "Does this not seem sketchy to you? I mean, I realize it potentially cannot be helped, but it seems sketchy to me."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Sketchy in what sense?"

self_composed
2013-01-11 09:58 pm (UTC)

"A dude has just not-particularly-voluntarily had his motivation structure hacked and now whatever he was going to do next week is on hold so he can follow you home?" Bella says. "And your request was something other than 'Bella, can you see if a star can undo that'?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you do undo it," exclaims Orfeo. "I mean, unless Libby wants you to, but she doesn't seem to."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Observe my reasons," she says, gesturing to Orfeo. "Not-very-voluntarily hacking his motivation structure again in the other direction isn't going to reduce the amount of sketchiness going on here. And imprinting is immune to magic in this universe, so even if we could reverse it with a star, I don't know that it wouldn't have long-term negative effects. Which I don't want."

self_composed
2013-01-11 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Which is why I didn't say 'no, bring him into my universe and I'm hacking at the imprint itself, because ew'," Bella says, "but you seem awfully comfortable with this."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-11 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 10:35 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know," she says. "It just doesn't seem to me that I have a really good reason not to be comfortable."

self_composed
2013-01-11 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I suppose it wouldn't make any practical difference."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Also," she says, smiling at Orfeo, "it's hard to be uncomfortable about things when I'm having a continual case of the warm fuzzies."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad I can help," Orfeo says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I know."

self_composed
2013-01-11 10:50 pm (UTC)

Well.

Bella decides it is time to go make carrot-cake pancakes.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 10:52 pm (UTC)

Bella is so kind!

"What else should we talk about?" wonders Libby. "I want to get to know you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Dunno. What's your world like? It's got a Her Majesty in it so it can't be too wildly different, but obviously not exactly the same."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, for starters, it's 2005," she says. "And there are no vampires or werewolves; I'd know if there were. There's mints, who make wishcoins, and ingots, who are roughly equivalent to your witches."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Funny names," Orfeo remarks. "And 2005, wow. I wasn't born then. This might be legally complicated if I can't just bring my actual documentation and claim that they must have lost everything on their end, even without hidden laws making everything easier for supernaturals."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Oh, leave that to me," she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Documentation is easy. When's your birthday? How old are you?"
Edited 2013-01-11 23:04 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 11:07 pm (UTC)

"January 3, 2010. I'm twenty," he says easily. "I'm going to pass for 25 until and unless I quit, though."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 11:12 pm (UTC)

"So with a little math: January 3, 1985. And I don't plan on aging much past thirty, but by the time that starts getting really obvious, people are going to be used to immortal Martians. In the meantime, we can fake you some reasonably accurate documents."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Martians?" he laughs.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 11:48 pm (UTC)

"My world's Bella founded her empire on Mars," Libby says serenely. "It's very pretty there. I'll show you sometime."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 11:49 pm (UTC)

"O-okay," he laughs. "Wow. And Martians are immortal?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 11:52 pm (UTC)

"There weren't pre-existing Martians, but she plans on eliminating death eventually and she's starting with her subjects. Who are all emigrating from Earth. Including us, eventually, but I have too many responsibilities to abandon my planet just yet, no matter how enticing the alternative."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Okay then. Wow. Her Majesty's working on death too but her plan doesn't involve Mars anytime soon." He grins a goofy grin. "Heh, I'm gonna live on Mars in the past."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 11:56 pm (UTC)

"By the time we live on Mars, it might not be the past anymore," she says merrily.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Okay. I'm still gonna live in the past."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-11 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Barring catastrophe, yes," she says. "This alternate universes thing does have its upsides."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-11 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Have you been to lots of them?" he asks. "I've been all around the world but I've never seen the inside of Milliways. Everything I know about it is secondhand from Jake."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 12:00 am (UTC)

"I haven't gone visiting like this before, but I've had some bizarre encounters there. The most bizarre was definitely the time I met Elspeth, though."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 12:01 am (UTC)

"Just because her mom is a duplicate of your Empress of Mars?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 12:11 am (UTC)

"Empress of the Stars," she corrects absently. "Mars is just the first stop. No, in fact, there was some coincidental timing too. Milliways likes its coincidental timing. See, when the door caught me, I was in the middle of having coffee with my Bella for the first time, and she wasn't empress of anything yet, but I was trying to find out what she wanted and I'd joked about giving her the planet for Christmas. And then I met Elspeth, whose mother actually does rule the world, and I chatted with her for a while until I felt like I had enough of a handle on the inner workings of Bellas in general to be confident that mine really did want the planet for Christmas and would be likely to take extremely good care of it."

She grins reminiscently.

"At which point I told Elspeth that she had been unknowingly interviewing for world dictator on my Bella's behalf, and had passed. Oh, and then we found out Elspeth's dad's mom was probably an alternate of me. Which is why you may occasionally hear Elspeth call me Grandma."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 12:12 am (UTC)

"You don't look like Esme," says Orfeo quizzically.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 12:15 am (UTC)

"Biological," she explains. "Her name—well, her maiden name—was Elizabeth Kirsch, same as me. And she looked reasonably like me and acted reasonably like me, as far as I can tell."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 12:18 am (UTC)

"Oh. Interesting. But you don't actually have a little His Majesty running around at home, do you?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 12:21 am (UTC)

"No," she confirms. "No kids. I am toying with the notion of naming a hypothetical eventual son after him, but he probably wouldn't like the idea, so maybe I won't."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 12:22 am (UTC)

Orfeo laughs. "I don't think he would, no. A few supernaturals have named kids Isabella - I think there are three, now, a puppy and an adopted human and a quarter-vampire - but no one has tried naming anyone after Edward."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 12:26 am (UTC)

"What would you name your kids, if you had any?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 12:32 am (UTC)

"Haven't really thought about it," he said. "Would be up to my - well - heh. I didn't exactly forget you were my imprint when I started that sentence, but I have a script for this kind of question, you know? And wolf guys are pretty much not supposed to date apart from imprints. Too much potential for predictable heartbreak and drama. So I've always figured if I ever had kids at all..." He shrugs. "Then by that point I would be pretty thoroughly bossable on that or any other question."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 12:52 am (UTC)

"I don't intend to be particularly bossy," says Libby. "I never exactly said why I run a massive international organization, did I?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 12:53 am (UTC)

"I don't think you did," he agrees.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 01:21 am (UTC)

"Well, there are a lot of reasons, but the most relevant one is this: I like to find where people fit, and put them there. Not just in terms of location, but in terms of what they're doing, who they know, the whole situation of their life. Which is also why I am doing all the recruiting for Bella's new government. I'm your imprint; where you fit, the place you'll be happiest and most productive, is with me. But there's a lot of leeway for fine details once that's settled. And even though I bet you'd be satisfied with pretty much anywhere I decided to put you as long as it was nearby and doing me some good, I don't just want you to be satisfied because it's what your imprint wants. I want to find where you fit, as yourself; the best place you can be, given the obvious constraints."

She smiles slightly.

"Does that make sense?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 01:23 am (UTC)

"Maybe?" he hazards.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 01:24 am (UTC)

"Can you tell me what parts don't make sense, so I can try again?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 01:25 am (UTC)

"I don't mean partly, I mean maybe," he says. "I have a working mental picture, I just don't know if it's sensible or not."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 01:30 am (UTC)

"Okay. Why might it not be sensible?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 01:34 am (UTC)

"I'm not clear if people have 'fits' in the sense I'm picturing," he says. "I mean, single ones per person even setting aside the fine details, anyway. Maybe I do, but if you don't have werewolves, that's not something you're usually using as a guideline. And if people have fits, I'm not sure what 'putting' them there would mean, and I'm coming up with weird guesses that involve more physically picking them up and depositing them places than you probably use."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 02:02 am (UTC)

"All right... how about I give you some examples," she suggests. "Besides the most obvious one of Bella, who is mostly putting herself in the place she fits, which is benevolent sorcerer-empress of the universe in case you were wondering. I'm just giving her the occasional hand there. For a better example: I had this student a few years back who was an absolutely brilliant cryptographer, but cryptography was absolutely the last thing she wanted to do with her life. I had a certain amount of fellow feeling for her, one math genius to another, and I hated to see her heading straight for a career path where learning the subject made her happy but the work was going to make her miserable."

She taps her fingers together in her lap.

"So I asked her about her other hobbies, and she said she liked listening to music, which didn't immediately set any wheels turning. But then I was talking to another friend of mine who was trying for the third time in two years to put a band together. Incredibly talented musician, perpetually disorganized, enthusiastic but bad at follow-through. And I realized that if I put the two of them in a room, they would probably get along really, really well. And she was more than organized enough for the both of them. So I introduced them to each other, and he convinced her to try playing the keyboard, which she took to with all the energy and capacity for mathematical analysis she had been putting into her schoolwork up to that point; they called up the guitarist I'd suggested on this guy's second try, she was willing to give it another shot, and the three of them are now a successful indie rock band."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 02:04 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Orfeo. "It probably wouldn't have occurred to me to call that sort of thing 'fit' but it's cool."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 02:11 am (UTC)

"It's not that I believe every single person has exactly one spot they're meant to go," she says. "It's not like a jigsaw puzzle, it's more like... a mosaic. I have this field of coloured rocks in front of me and every single one is a different shape, and I can see that if I move this one over here it'll fit in way better than it does where it's sitting. Except that people are obviously a lot more complicated than rocks, and their 'shapes' change over time. Like you, for example. If you'd never laid eyes on me, you definitely wouldn't fit best in my universe. But you did, so now you do, and we have to figure out how and where."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 02:12 am (UTC)

Orfeo nods. "Well... what else do you need to know?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 02:34 am (UTC)

"That's the tricky part. Sometimes I don't know what the thing I need to know is until I know it. So really I just need to know you as well as I possibly can—your sister, too, if she comes with us, because then I need to find a fit for her too. But bringing us back to the reason I started saying all this in the first place, I don't get anything out of overriding you on preferences like naming hypothetical future children. That's exactly the kind of thing where if you had an opinion, I'd want to know about it and take it into account."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 02:41 am (UTC)

"Oh. Well, I haven't thought about it, but I can, if you want me to," he said, furrowing his brow. But he looks vaguely confused by the entire idea. For some reason "imprint" and "mother of his children" are not snapping together much less hypothetically than they ever did before. "I don't think Elena will want to stay, if she doesn't have to," he adds. "She likes video games. Moving to 2005 would be hard on her."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 02:43 am (UTC)

"In that case, I hope we don't need her to."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 02:45 am (UTC)

Orfeo nods solemnly. "This is probably really hard on her. She sees herself like a buffer between me and the world. Our half-sisters tended to pick on us and when our parents didn't catch it, she'd wind up defending me - and then the role of our sisters was played by 'everything else in the world', later on, when we were all a little more grown up."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 02:49 am (UTC)

"This may be a pipedream, but I'm still hoping to find a solution that doesn't leave anybody actively unhappy."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 02:50 am (UTC)

"Tunnel between the worlds?" Orfeo suggests. "Can your sorcerer-empress do that?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 02:53 am (UTC)

"We've never tried. Another thing to put on the list of experiments."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 03:01 am (UTC)

Orfeo nods. "So... what's it like, not having any wolves or vampires around? I've lived around and in packs, near covens, all my life..."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 03:07 am (UTC)

"Good question," says Libby. "I could ask the same thing in reverse. My aunt's an ingot, so I have been generally aware of magic all my life, but I never actually met a non-aunt magical person until much later."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 03:20 am (UTC)

"...Okay, going by comparisons to movies and stuff... I assume everybody I meet can live forever if they have the least interest in doing that. I divide relationships into 'fated perfect eternal' and 'doomed'. I grew up referring to myself as though I were a baby dog instead of a baby goat and so did most of my friends. People around me don't get sick. If we get injured, it's over with in a week, and that's if we were seriously mauled and shot full of venom just shy of killing us. Within a pack, the silent treatment is not an option - telepathy is not optional. Wolves are at the bottom of the mental totem pole among the supernaturals until you get down to some pretty thinly bred hybrids, but compared to people I see on TV or that I've interacted with while out in human civilization, I think we might really be quicker or something - I'm not talking myself up personally, but they don't seem to operate on the same time scale, and that makes sense, we move faster than them. I'm not used to adults aging, and it weirds me out to see movies made by the same actor ten years apart. Everybody around me at home is buffer and prettier than random people I see in Oslo or wherever. No one complains when it's time to move furniture for some reason. My friends are all on liquid diets or capable of demolishing supposedly family-sized packages of anything for morning snacks." He pauses. "Does that help?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 03:25 am (UTC)

"That helps a lot, actually," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 03:27 am (UTC)

"Great," he says, grinning at her.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:55 am (UTC)

She grins back.

"On a more personal scale, I suspect you grew up with a much stronger sense of close community than I did. Places like this are pretty small and friendly compared to living in New York City, and I didn't have a big family to offset that."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Orfeo says. "I don't remember this part, but when I was really little, the sense of community was magically enforced. The Princess tore the fake parts of that down as part of the takeover, but there was a lot left, and after all that time people were used to it. It stuck. I don't think I want to claim we're Communists or anything - we use cash, Jake's in charge of our pack and Becky and Rachel are in charge of theirs, and we don't go around calling each other Comrade. But someone has to be really determined to not be involved with us to get to the point where we wouldn't all swoop in to support them if they needed it. That's another reason Elena wouldn't really want to go to your world. She's used to all these people and hasn't got an astronomically higher priority."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 06:36 pm (UTC)

"That's a nice thing to have," she says. "I wouldn't want to take her away from it unnecessarily."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:37 pm (UTC)

Orfeo nods. "So hopefully you can fix the packlessness issue, or it turns out it's a nonissue for imprinted wolves."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Hopefully one of those," she agrees.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Have I mentioned I'm glad you speak English?" Orfeo remarks suddenly. "My dad was only barely starting to learn Italian when he met my mom, and to this day she's nearly monolingual."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 06:43 pm (UTC)

"You haven't mentioned that, no. And now I'm tempted to start speaking German just to tease you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:44 pm (UTC)

"You can if you want, but I know you'll understand me if I talk English," he laughs.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 06:46 pm (UTC)

She blinks at him in exaggerated mock-confusion and asks, in German, "Are you sure?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:47 pm (UTC)

He snorts, and replies in Italian, "The weather is divine today, don't you think?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Good one," she says appreciatively. "I can tell we're going to get along."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I wonder how long this is going to amuse you," he replies.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 06:52 pm (UTC)

Libby giggles. "You're cute."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:54 pm (UTC)

"I kind of expected you'd be able to understand some of this from the French. Maybe you can and aren't letting on."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 06:55 pm (UTC)

She grins, which isn't informative either way, really.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:56 pm (UTC)

It's really not. He raises an eyebrow at her, smiling.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 06:57 pm (UTC)

She looks terribly innocent.

Which is kind of informative, isn't it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 06:58 pm (UTC)

If it is, he's not getting it. "Having fun?" he asks in English.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Yep. I like you," she says. "You keep up. That's an important quality in people who are going to be spending a lot of time around me."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:01 pm (UTC)

"It's really good that you like me," he says. "It'd be... inconvenient. Otherwise."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:02 pm (UTC)

"That's one way to put it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:03 pm (UTC)

"It's been known to happen. But not as often as it could, which is good."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:06 pm (UTC)

"The fact that it's been known to happen at all is kind of upsetting."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes it's temporary, like Emily and Sam," he says. "They're happy now."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's a little better."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Elena thinks we just need to keep imprinting from happening outside of controlled circumstances at all, but then unimprinted guys couldn't go anywhere, see any girls besides vampires and women who can't have kids - we're pretty sure those don't get imprinted on - and family members. It's not even impossible to imprint on a puppy, turns out, and then the puppy doesn't activate when she's old enough, so we're all pretty worried about Denise now. Her wolf most of all."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I guess there's no way to check in advance whether or not someone's going to imprint on a particular person?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:27 pm (UTC)

"No. The Imperial Seer can't see wolves, or she could - she can tell about vampire mates, as long as they aren't hybrids, because she can't see those either."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, I know another person who can tell the future. I don't think she'd want to move here and start telling wolfy fortunes full-time, if it turns out she doesn't share that problem, but she'd probably be okay with the occasional consultation."
Edited 2013-01-12 19:31 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:34 pm (UTC)

"There's... a fair number of us," Orfeo says slowly. "Most people who can imprint seem to imprint eventually, but it's unlikely to happen at any given time even if we travel a lot unless we're purposefully staring at lots of girls. There was a big cluster of them early on when Her Majesty activated my dad's generation in La Push but we think that's because the local Native American populations were particularly likely to be well-suited for whatever the magic's looking for. Puppy-making, probably, because of the sterility thing. If she doesn't want to do this full time I'm not sure how much help she could be."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:37 pm (UTC)

"She could come by every so often, round up a bunch of unimprinted guys, and steer them toward imprints they'd be happy with," Libby suggests. "That'd be some help, right?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:38 pm (UTC)

"It would," Orfeo says. "That would definitely help, we can't imprint twice."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:39 pm (UTC)

"And Mary's good at answering questions like 'will these two people get along?' I've asked her that kind of thing before."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:40 pm (UTC)

"She must be useful for your fitting people thing."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Usually I can figure it out myself, but yeah, she is."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure what age she'd start rounding people up," he muses. "People in La Push and Volterra can often wait until they're sixteen or seventeen before they run into a vampire and activate - Cody alone isn't enough to do it unless he's trying - but the Empire pack hangs around them enough that we're generally floofing for the first time at twelve or thirteen. People that young can and do imprint but it weirds some folks out. It's bad enough when the imprint herself is a little girl, but at least the magic is smart enough to back the hell off for a few years on anything gross when that happens. When the wolf's twelve, it is not."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't think anyone's going to convince Mary to point a twelve-year-old at that kind of situation."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 08:06 pm (UTC)

"If she doesn't, he might go into town for groceries with his mom and imprint on the cashier," Orfeo points out. "I'm not making that up, that's what happened to Benny."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 08:08 pm (UTC)

"That sounds awkward."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 08:09 pm (UTC)

"It was. It really, really was."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I'll ask Mary, anyway. We'll see what she says."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 08:12 pm (UTC)

Orfeo nods. "I don't suppose she could see who's at risk of having that happen to them before deciding how to steer them?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Risks are another thing she's good at."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Useful."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Extremely."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Where am I going to live? Pre-Mars, I mean," Orfeo wonders.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 10:44 pm (UTC)

"In New York, with me," she says. "I'm not sure of details yet. Any preferences I should know about?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 10:47 pm (UTC)

"In most of the capitals I live in a little house, like this, with Elena and Tristan and Chiara," he shrugs. "I like that. I've been to New York and it had more people than I could count and all the coziness of a hole in the ground. Do you live by yourself? Are you home much? Jake just follows the Princess around all the time, but I don't know if that's compatible with whatever you had in mind."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I could feasibly have you follow me around all the time," she says. "A lot of it, though. Yes, I live by myself, and my apartment does not rate high on the coziness scale. My aunt's house does, though. Maybe we'll see if you like it there. How much I am home is wildly variable."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 11:00 pm (UTC)

"It won't matter that much to me where we are as long as you're usually around and you like it," shrugs Orfeo. "I could probably produce specific comments after seeing the place, if you want them."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Specific comments would definitely be appreciated."

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:05 pm (UTC)

Bella walks back into the room with a tray of pancakes and some plates and forks and knives. "Carrot-cake pancakes," she says. "How are you guys doing?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Those look tasty," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to eat about two-thirds of those if you let me," Orfeo says. "We're talking about practical stuff for when I move. Going pretty okay."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I'm hungry. Bella, do you mind if I duplicate your pancakes?"

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Do it while they're hot," Bella says, serving herself a small stack and drizzling cream cheese icing over them.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:16 pm (UTC)

Libby expends a square. A stack of pancakes, slightly larger than Bella's, appears on her plate; it's not immediately obvious exactly which pancakes she copied, but they appear to be selected at random rather than from an existing stack. She handles the icing the old-fashioned way, though.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 11:19 pm (UTC)

Orfeo serves himself most of the rest and - ahem - wolfs them down.

"These are really good," he remarks between pancakes eleven and twelve.

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I pentagoned cooking a while ago," Bella says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I feel like that is somehow unfair," says Libby between bites of pancake four, "and at the same time I can't bring myself to mind."

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:24 pm (UTC)

"You could do it too, if you wanted," Bella points out. "If it was a priority. I feel iffier about having pentagoned the flute and soccer and interview skills to get into Stanford."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:27 pm (UTC)

"See, it's not the cheating I mind," Libby explains, eyes twinkling, "it's the fact that you can do it so much more easily than I can."

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I give you better than even odds of getting a pentagon for something like cooking from Alice by asking nicely, and way better than even odds of getting one by offering to help him make it in some marginally creative way," Bella says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 11:29 pm (UTC)

"There's an 'Alice' who's a 'him'?" Orfeo asks.

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Well," Bella says, "he wouldn't mind if I called him a her. I just default to male pronouns except in cases of secretiveness."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I'm still entertained by calling her Whistle," Libby admits. "And it seems like he wouldn't mind, but it's hard to get a read on him sometimes. How do you usually explain him, in cases of non-secretiveness?"

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Usually I don't explain him," Bella admits. "Insofar as he admits explanation, he's self-explanatory if you watch him be himself for long enough. Although maybe I'm biased because I can read his mind. Seriously, bet you twenty asters if you walk up to him and say 'want to try my favorite method for generating pentagons? If I can keep half I'll show you how' he says something that translates as 'yes ma'am please'."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

"I would like it very much if you would un-confuse my wolf," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Why me? Isn't he your wolf?" Bella asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Because I couldn't explain Alice if I tried?"

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Did you even explain coins to your wolf yet? And where they come from?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Coins, yes. Where they come from, no. Wishcoins are made out of pain," she says to Orfeo. "The pain of the person making them, specifically. Which is why, in my experience, most people don't want to be mints."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 11:47 pm (UTC)

"That's... uh. Do you... make... a lot of these, then, if you use them to duplicate pancakes?" Orfeo asks, looking at her plate uncomfortably. "That... could... be... challenging?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-12 11:51 pm (UTC)

"The kind of coin that will duplicate a stack of pancakes is produced at about stubbed-toe level; it's not a big deal to make them, or I wouldn't spend them so frivolously. More powerful kinds need more, which is why until I met Bella and her inexplicable friend, I didn't use magic very often."

self_composed
2013-01-12 11:56 pm (UTC)

"My inexplicable friend is a masochist," says Bella sunnily. "And he's, mm, friendly, so while he'd take it as her hitting on him if she offered to help him make a pentagon, it'd result in a yes in my expert estimation."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-12 11:57 pm (UTC)

"And - okay, I'm going to stop thinking about this if that's okay," Orfeo says, eyes flicking up and down Libby as though to confirm that she's probably not hiding any grievous wounds.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:00 am (UTC)

"Of course," she says, patting his arm comfortingly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-13 12:02 am (UTC)

"Thanks." He puts his hand over hers on his arm for a moment, then goes back to his pancakes very deliberately.

self_composed
2013-01-13 12:02 am (UTC)

"Aww," says Bella. "So is this the standard kind of imprint accompanied by kissing or the non-standard kind of imprint not accompanied by kissing?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:03 am (UTC)

"There has been no kissing," says Libby.

It seems... deliberately phrased.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-13 12:07 am (UTC)

It really does.

"My brain isn't screaming at me to kiss her?" he suggests. "We're not sure what dictates that except that nobody wants to kiss little kid imprints. Whatever decides these things is undeterred by lesbianism and other forms of disinterest, and when someone stops counting as a 'little kid' seems to vary wildly."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:08 am (UTC)

"...'Undeterred by lesbianism' sounds like it has an awkward story or two behind it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-13 12:09 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Those stories just... pretty much didn't end well. You should get your friend to come fortune-tell for us, that would be swell."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:12 am (UTC)

"I'll suggest it to her first thing when we get home," Libby promises.

self_composed
2013-01-13 12:14 am (UTC)

"Applying Mary to this situation is a good idea," says Bella approvingly.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:14 am (UTC)

"I thought so."

farewell diplomatic contingent

her_imperial_radiance

After two days of variously boring meetings and plan-making sessions with high mucketymucks of the Golden Coven, Elspeth finds Milliways in a bathroom in the wolf village when she's trying to refill her water glass during Quil's daughter's third birthday party. It is mercifully not the house's only bathroom.

Hey, Libby, Bella! Orfeo, Elena! Here it is, in the house with all the partying going on! Ready to go? she says, herding the birthday girl away from the entrance.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:29 am (UTC)

[Absolutely,] says Libby, including Bella and (on a whim) Orfeo in the brainphone call.

self_composed
2013-01-13 12:31 am (UTC)

[On our way,] Bella adds. She has nothing to pack; she didn't even avail herself of guest clothes, her (pathetic stupid little argh) triangles having sufficed to keep her original outfit presentable.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:34 am (UTC)

Libby actually did borrow some guest clothes, but she has since rotated back to the clothes she arrived in.

Now, as to what if anything Orfeo and his sister are bringing along...

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-13 12:40 am (UTC)

Orfeo already packed. He kept enough out of suitcases to accommodate the fact that no one knew when he was leaving, but all his stuff - and there's not much of it, he's led a portable life for years now, but there's his Ultra Olympics pins and stuff like that - is squirreled away in a bag. Bella offhandedly agreed to keep his futuristic technology working as long as it didn't call for a populated futuristic network, which she can't supply - so he's leaving his phone, but bringing his weird roll-up stiffens-when-flat computer-thing, which can probably be expected to be magickable back onto 2005 internet.

Elena's packed, too. She has packed a change of clothes, her wolf uniform, and a tiny ziplock bag's worth of travel-size toiletries. If packing choices could scream, hers would scream I am not planning a prolonged vacation.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:41 am (UTC)

And Libby is definitely listening to the screams of Elena's luggage.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-13 12:43 am (UTC)

At any rate, everyone and their luggage or lack thereof weaves through the party and Elspeth lets them through. She pops in herself only long enough to buy another case of the bubbly goldy stuff, then departs. "See you, Grandma, Bella, Orfeo, Elena!"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 12:48 am (UTC)

"See you, favourite grandchild."

The door closes behind Elspeth, and a moment later Libby opens it on her living room. She immediately collects all her coins, which isn't an action perceptible to anyone except in that she looks a little relieved when she does it.

self_composed
2013-01-13 12:49 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't even set foot in the living room. She just leans far enough that she can teleport to points within her own universe and she's gone.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-13 12:50 am (UTC)

Orfeo looks around assessingly, Elena resentfully. She's the one to ask, "Where do we sleep?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 01:02 am (UTC)

"There's plenty of options," says Libby. "I have couches, or I could put you up in a hotel, or you could use my aunt's guest rooms; she lives nearby."

The apartment is, perhaps, not as uncozy as advertised. The walls are lined with neatly organized bookshelves; the promised couches are large and squashy and comfortable looking; the coffee table is wooden, with rounded corners. There is a general absence of clutter.
Edited 2013-01-13 01:06 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-13 01:08 am (UTC)

Orfeo goes and peers at bookshelves. Elena considers the listed options, and says, "I suppose no one's too likely to actually believe me a time traveler if I say something telling. I'll go with the hotel."

"These look comfy," he says, sinking deep into a couch with a random novel off Libby's shelf.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 01:21 am (UTC)

"I bought them especially for comfiness," she says to Orfeo, smiling fondly. "Are you leaning couchward for now, then?"

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 01:26 am (UTC)

"If I stopped leaning couchward I think it might eat me in revenge," he says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 01:36 am (UTC)

"And we wouldn't want that," she says, resisting the urge to ruffle his hair. "All right. Just a sec while I get in touch with Mary, then; I think that's still the most immediate priority."

She leans her hands on the back of the couch and gazes meditatively at the opposite wall.

[Sure,] says Mary, not unfondly, before Libby can ask if she has a minute. [What's today's pressing question?]

[Kind of complicated to explain. So to catch you up: I visited another universe and a magically besotted werewolf followed me home.]

[...You have the most interesting problems,] says Mary. Libby grins.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 01:38 am (UTC)

Orfeo extricates himself from the couch and starts wandering around the apartment curiously, although he keeps an eye on Libby in case she wants to warn him away from anything.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 01:51 am (UTC)

[This magically besotted thing is kind of a perpetual problem for them,] Libby explains. [Any male wolf who hasn't already done it can imprint on anybody who could someday have kids with him, even if they are, for example, five. Or a lesbian. Mostly they get around this by cloistering unimprinted wolf boys, but as I have just proved, this method is not infallible. Also it's kind of inconvenient for the wolf boys in question.]

[And you want me to do what about this?]

[The occasional consult,] says Libby. [Hop over to the Golden Empire for a little while, meet a bunch of werewolves, and point them at potential imprints with whom they can have successful relationships. But first we have to find out if you can tell a wolf's future at all; apparently their Imperial Seer cannot, in fact, see them.]

[Okay,] says Mary. [For you. Because I love you so very much.]

There's a slight pause; then she says, [Your wolf boy likes you a lot. Have you introduced him to Chris? Introduce him to Chris. They'll get along.]

[I will introduce him to Chris,] Libby promises, laughing. [So that's a yes on the predictability of werewolves. In which case... hmm, actually, separate favour. I was going to do some experiments, but Bella ran away with her stars. Can I get a few if-thens?]

[You may,] Mary allows.

[First: if Orfeo stays here, without his sister, and I don't do any magic to him, will he be okay?]

[...Not really,] says Mary. [He'll be alive, but unhappy. Why?]

[Being a werewolf without a pack apparently results in suicidal depression. Next question: what if I do try magic?]

Mary is silent for a moment. Libby glances around to see how her guests are doing.
Edited 2013-01-13 01:59 (UTC)

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 02:02 am (UTC)

Elena's judgmentally peering at the bookshelves. Orfeo's poking around in the kitchen, and, when Libby looks his way, he holds up a bag of oranges with a questioning look on his face.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 02:09 am (UTC)

"Go for it," she says, and goes back to looking at nothing in particular.

[That's a big range,] says Mary. [Over time and probability both. Uh, you're major-odds going to live for multiple centuries, by the way, and this pack problem is going to fix itself one way or another within about one of those on average. I'm still excluding his sister, right?]

[Right,] Libby confirms.

[Good, because that wouldn't go well. Okay, I need a little more to go on here. What kinds of magic solution are you considering?]

[I was thinking of the direct approach.]

[That is pretty much your worst option,] says Mary. [It's not a one-time fix and it creates a lot of tension for some reason if you keep doing it. Pick something else.]

Libby thinks.

[...If I use magic to make someone a werewolf,] she says slowly, [will that work?]

[Bingo,] says Mary.

Libby grins.

[Thanks, Mary. My favourite source of advice as always.]

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 02:12 am (UTC)

Orfeo starts cutting oranges open and eating them. After he's halfway through orange two, he calls Elena over, and she leaves off judging Libby's books to share the oranges.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 02:18 am (UTC)

[I am your only source of advice,] Mary points out. Not inaccurately. [Also, in case there was any doubt at all: Chris.]

[There wasn't,] says Libby.

Then she announces, "Mary has solved our problems, because Mary is awesome. I can't fix packlessness, but I can make more werewolves. One more werewolf, specifically. Orfeo, how do you feel about meeting my aunt Chris? I have it on good authority you're going to like her."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 02:20 am (UTC)

"I'd love to meet your aunt," he says.

"Your aunt wants to be a werewolf?" Elena asks skeptically.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 02:22 am (UTC)

"My aunt will be okay with being a werewolf, according to my friend who can tell the future extremely accurately over short distances. Why, can you think of a good reason why she shouldn't?"

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 02:26 am (UTC)

"She won't be able to have kids?" says Elena. "The first month or so is kind of rough while you learn to change shapes on purpose and you go through a lot of clothes if you don't spend all your time in magnetic uniform? She will start to look like an Olympic swimmer at best, weightlifter at worst, and outside supernatural circles that's not a great look? She will have to cut off her hair, if it's longer than mine at all, or look like a mop when she phases? My little brother will be able to read her mind, and depending on how the alphas work out, give her orders she cannot refuse on any subject whenever he likes?"

"There are drawbacks," Orfeo admits. "We're used to it. Your aunt's not."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 02:44 am (UTC)

[Can I choose who gets to be alpha of this little pack?] she inquires of Mary.

[Yes, and you should make it Chris. You Moriarty girls do like to be in charge,] Mary says, amused.

[Will Chris like being a werewolf?]

[Yep!]

"Well, according to the local oracle, she'll deal," says Libby. "So now we just have to ask Chris."

[Hi, Chris!]

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 02:45 am (UTC)

[Hi, Jamie. What's new?]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 02:46 am (UTC)

[I have acquired a slight werewolf problem while visiting Milliways with Bella. Do you have the time to come meet my new friend? He's cute, you'll like him.]

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 02:46 am (UTC)

[Sure,] says Chris, amused. [Be there in five.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 02:47 am (UTC)

[You're my favourite auntie.]

"...Who will be here in five minutes," she adds.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 02:50 am (UTC)

"Great," the siblings say at the same time, resembling each other more than usual when they do.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 02:51 am (UTC)

Libby grins. That is cute. They are cute.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 02:54 am (UTC)

They clean her out of oranges. And popsicles and string cheese. She's going to have to adjust her grocery habits with werewolves about.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 02:56 am (UTC)

It won't be a problem.

While Chris is on the way, Libby fills her in on the intricacies of the situation. She also takes the time to mention a relevant fact out loud.

"I never told you what my aunt's ingot power was, did I? It's a shield," Libby says. "She points it at somebody and they are protected against all imaginable kinds of harm. Three guesses who that is, and the first two don't count."
Edited 2013-01-13 02:58 (UTC)

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 03:02 am (UTC)

Orfeo blinks.

Then he beams.

"I'm gonna like her," he hums.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 03:03 am (UTC)

"I suspected as much."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 03:06 am (UTC)

The front door of the apartment opens, then shuts. A moment later, Chris walks into the kitchen: tall, blonde, curvy, well-dressed, and cheerful.

"Hi, guys," she says.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 03:09 am (UTC)

"See," says Elena, "the hair, I knew there was gonna be a hair problem."

"You're just determined to find ways this is horrible, besides just your little brother moving away," remarks Orfeo to his sister. "Hi, Chris, it's lovely to meet you!"

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 03:12 am (UTC)

"Likewise," she says, offering him a hand. "Extremely likewise. What's the problem with my hair, exactly?"

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 03:13 am (UTC)

"It's too long," says Elena.

Orfeo shakes hands politely. He is awfully warm.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 03:16 am (UTC)

"You're right," she says to her niece. "He is awfully cute." To Elena, "This is not my one true haircut. If I don't like being exceptionally fluffy, I can change it."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 03:17 am (UTC)

"We're not talking fluffy here," says Elena. "Rachel's fluffy. You're going to be a wolf-shaped decorative tassel."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 03:27 am (UTC)

"See, now I want to experience this at least once, just to see if the reality lives up to the amazing mental image," she says, grinning.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 03:27 am (UTC)

Orfeo laughs. Elena grudgingly snorts.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 03:30 am (UTC)

Chris laughs.

"Okay, so tell me what it's like to be a werewolf. Decorative or otherwise."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 03:42 am (UTC)

"Well," Orfeo says, "technically we aren't werewolves - we have nothing to do with the moon, and this process doesn't involve either of us biting you. But there's been no success at getting anyone to say 'shapeshifter' instead. Less catchy. Anyway, once you have the hang of it, you can change whenever you want. When you're a wolf you're bigger, stronger, faster, all your senses get a boost - though those things're better than human level in human shape too."

"We're telepathic, when we're wolfy," Elena says. "Not nice voluntary telepathy like the 'brainphone'. Within a pack, anything you're thinking about gets broadcasted in real time to everyone else in the pack who's also being wolfy."

"We eat a lot," Orfeo says, looking at discarded wrappers and orange peels. "Like, a lot. If there are foods you don't like right now that'll probably go away."

"Every pack has an alpha. They are in charge. You cannot disobey an alpha order - if they really mean it - without splitting packs, and most people can't do that unless they're the original alpha's bloodline or if the alpha is deliberately trying to let them. And we need to have packs - the ones who've split off all by themselves, which is all of them except the three main alphas back home, are not in good shape," Elena goes on.

"We can regenerate. We don't get sick, or cold, or even tired from exertion - we do sleep normally though," pipes up Orfeo.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 12:03 pm (UTC)

"So far I am seeing more upsides than downsides," says Chris. "A lot more." To Orfeo, she adds, "You can keep secrets, right? I know a lot of secrets. Most of them aren't that big a deal, but there's some."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

Orfeo... looks at Libby, on that one.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 05:50 pm (UTC)

"All the big ones are mine anyway," Libby assures him. "You won't have to keep them from me."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Then yeah," Orfeo says, "sure."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's my sole objection down for the count." She shrugs. "Unless you have a big problem with Libby making me the alpha. Do you?"

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to be a bossy alpha? I've been ordered down twice in my life and I was a teenager both times. It's not something I want to make part of this complete breakfast."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Nope," she says. "If I can get away without ever giving orders, I will."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Then I don't care. Never expected to be an alpha, do not secretly yearn for the job."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 06:03 pm (UTC)

Chris shrugs. "Then I'm in."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:04 pm (UTC)

Elena has mixed feelings, apparently. "How old are you?" she wants to know suddenly. "No one naturally activates after they're 25. I don't know what that'll do."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Forty-six."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Mary gave us the all-clear, so if we do this, it will work," says Libby. "Unexpected things might happen, but they won't be bad ones."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:11 pm (UTC)

Well, that preemptively shoots down anything else Elena might have objected to.

"You'll wanna do this in a large, private space. This isn't really big enough. A lot of people want to run around the first time they phase," Orfeo recommends.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Does it matter if this large, private space is indoors?" wonders Libby.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Not especially. Mars?" asks Orfeo.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Mars is a much better bet than anything I've got on Earth," Libby acknowledges. "Okay. Field trip to Mars, anybody?"

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:15 pm (UTC)

Orfeo nods. Elena fidgets, then nods too.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Great."

Out of courtesy, she brainphones Bella. [I'm bringing Chris to Mars to make her a werewolf; do you mind?]

self_composed
2013-01-13 06:18 pm (UTC)

[That's an interesting solution. Do it out in the open, not Olympus proper, please.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:19 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] she says agreeably.

Out loud: "All right, let's go for a walk."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:20 pm (UTC)

"We're going to walk to Mars?" Elena asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Via the moon," says Libby. "Magic is fun."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Via the - what now?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:24 pm (UTC)

"The Empress of the Stars has a palace on the moon," Libby explains. "And there are a bunch of magic doors going to and from it, including one to Mars and one to New York. So if we want to get to Mars without wasting coins on teleportation, that's the fastest way."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

"Why not just phase on the moon, then?" Orfeo asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Because Mars has air everywhere, and the moon doesn't, and I'm sure Bella put safety features in so people can't accidentally run into vacuum but I don't particularly want to stress-test them with my aunt."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough," says Orfeo.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:36 pm (UTC)

Off they go, then.

The magic door to Moonstone Palace is just down the hall. Libby has to herd everyone through, because she's the only one who can see through it, but they all make it.

It's a very pretty palace.

She gives them a moment to gawk before leading them on to Mars.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Would it have been a good idea to bring a change of clothes for Chris?" Orfeo wonders aloud as they go through door number two.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh, probably. But we have magic," Libby says cheerfully.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Right. I'll get used to that eventually."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 06:42 pm (UTC)

"It's very convenient," says Chris.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:43 pm (UTC)

And here they are on Mars.

"This is the emptiest city ever," says Elena.

"Pretty though," says Orfeo.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:43 pm (UTC)

"It'll get less empty with time."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 06:44 pm (UTC)

"We hope."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Probably takes a while to accumulate enough people to fill up a place like this," Orfeo says.

"Which way is out?" Elena asks.

"And do you guys want a ride?" her brother adds. "This place looks big."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 06:46 pm (UTC)

"This place is big," says Chris. "But I'm told there's public teleportation available."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Libby. "This way."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:50 pm (UTC)

There are stairs, down into an open, underground room with a map on the wall and panels on the floor. Under the map are instructions: "To teleport: walk onto any panel, intending to appear at the station of your choice. Please don't linger in the receiving area."

"Pretty straightforward," says Orfeo. "Okay, which station do we want?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Syrtis," says Libby, and walks onto a panel.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 06:54 pm (UTC)

Chris follows.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 06:55 pm (UTC)

The siblings go after.

This station looks much the same, but with "Syrtis Station" instead of "Tharsis Station" on the wall.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 06:59 pm (UTC)

Chris is already halfway to the exit; she turns and beckons them along.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 07:01 pm (UTC)

And off they go!

Olympus's buildings get a little shorter around the edges, but not much; most of the work is done by the fact that it's on a mountain. It gives way to a mix of moss and grass and patchy shrubbery, full of birds who are not particularly afraid of any of them.

"Whoo," breathes Orfeo.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 07:05 pm (UTC)

"This looks like a fun place to be a wolf," Libby remarks. "Chris, you ready?"

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Go for it."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 07:06 pm (UTC)

And...

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 07:09 pm (UTC)

...floof.

She does look pretty ridiculous. And somewhat less blonde.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 07:13 pm (UTC)

Elena howls with laughter.

"You want me to phase?" Orfeo asks her. "Usually easier to get the hang of doing it at will with someone to walk you through it in the packmind."

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 07:14 pm (UTC)

[Yes please,] says Decorative Tassel Chris, trying ineffectually to blow the mop out of her eyes.
Edited 2013-01-13 19:14 (UTC)

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 07:16 pm (UTC)

Orfeo looks down at himself and notes that he's not in uniform. "I didn't think this through," he says. "Either of you going to freak out about nudity? You want me to change behind the bush over there?"

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 07:19 pm (UTC)

[I'm not bothered,] says Chris. She manages at last to shake her head so that her ridiculous mane settles away from her eyes, and blinks triumphantly at Libby.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 07:20 pm (UTC)

Libby shrugs. "I don't have a strong opinion. But you may as well use the bush."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 07:25 pm (UTC)

Orfeo heads bushward, pulling his shirt over his head as he goes but leaving everything else for privacy.

"We don't get cold and we can't avoid some amount of nudity as an occupational hazard," Elena says. "If you didn't see anybody running around naked while you were visiting it was a coincidence. People aren't fussed about it, even though we still default to clothes-while-on-two-legs."

Orfeo finishes getting out of fragile fabrics, and floofs. His fur is a much more manageable length. It's sort of a frosted-charcoal color, like he's gray but stood in the snow on a windy day for a few minutes. He trots back over towards them. You're not freaking out, far as I can tell, Orfeo says, but regardless the trick for phasing back is calm - sometimes humor, sometimes distraction, but usually calm.
Edited 2013-01-13 19:28 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 07:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm not very fussed. A tiny bit fussed," says Libby.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 07:37 pm (UTC)

Huh, says Chris. Telepathy. She stretches and wags her tail. I'm not freaking out. Moriarty girls don't freak out. Calm, huh? Well, that can wait. I see what you guys meant about wanting to run.

And without further warning, she bounds away from the city at top speed.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 07:42 pm (UTC)

Orfeo barks a wolfy laugh and takes off after her. Moriarty girls?

Elena fidgets, then, not caring much whether Libby's fussed, gets out of her own clothes and joins them; she's a frosted caramel.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 07:44 pm (UTC)

It's a long story, Chris says merrily. Tell you later. Hi, Elena. You after my secrets?

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 07:47 pm (UTC)

Don't give a shit, replies Elena, apparently somewhat more foul-mouthed in her head. You try watching wolves run around and not going after them.

Orfeo wonders if this is going to make it hard for her to slot back into the right pack at home.

I'll figure it out, Elena thinks dismissively.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 07:56 pm (UTC)

Chris finds this very entertaining.

She is also pleased to discover that being a wolf makes no difference whatsoever to her power: there it is, steady as ever, tucked around a mental representation of Libby like a comfortable blanket. She turns right, circling around to head back toward her niece, and idly checks Orfeo and Elena for protectability.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 07:58 pm (UTC)

Neither one is protectable.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 08:00 pm (UTC)

Weird. Orfeo definitely likes her, too.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 08:01 pm (UTC)

I guess that's not what it checks for? he wonders.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 08:03 pm (UTC)

I've never found out exactly what it does check for, she says. But usually people who like me are protectable and people who don't, aren't. It's all hypothetical, anyway; I've only ever protected two people in my life.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 08:05 pm (UTC)

Orfeo wouldn't want you covering him, anyway, that'd un-protect his Libby, Elena thinks. Oh, by the way, it's now somewhere between unthinkable and impossible for you to harm Libby even if you wanted to unless Orfeo's dead first. No one bothered mentioning this ahead of time because no one thought that was an option you wanted kept open.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 08:11 pm (UTC)

Harming Libby was already impossible, says Chris. I'd know that better than anybody.

Halfway back, she flomps onto a snuggly-looking patch of moss and rolls around on it. Her absurdly long fur gets tangled fast, but she's having too much fun to care.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 08:12 pm (UTC)

Orfeo and Elena start play-fighting. It's not gentle; they are not careful about scratching each other, and there's a few bites exchanged, healed almost as soon as the teeth leave the skin. They're used to it and it's fun. Not for you, says Elena, it wasn't.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 08:21 pm (UTC)

Her fur is in her eyes again. Chris lets her head drop down onto the moss with a sigh. Of course this kid doesn't know the whole story, and it's theoretically true, even if in practical terms she is about as likely to take her power off Libby as she is to spontaneously lift off and fly into the sun.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 08:23 pm (UTC)

And just how unlikely is that, huh, with magic flying around everywhere? Imprinting stuff is proof against magic. This one lasts even if you stop being a wolf - deactivated wolves still can't poke the Princess in the eye even if she asks them to nicely for experimental purposes, Elena says.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 08:39 pm (UTC)

Really? This needs testing.

She gets up, shakes herself off (flinging bits of moss in every direction) and heads for Libby again.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 08:41 pm (UTC)

Orfeo breaks off from the fight and trots after her nervously. Uh, what are you going to do?
Edited 2013-01-13 20:43 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 08:52 pm (UTC)

Not hurt her, says Chris. That much is a given. She of all people should know that Libby can't be hurt.

But that doesn't mean she cannot, for example, plant herself in front of Libby and headbutt her in the stomach hard enough to knock her on her ass.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 08:54 pm (UTC)

Libby sprawls in the grass and giggles.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 08:56 pm (UTC)

Oh, yeah, the no-hurting-other-people's-imprints thing doesn't stop anyone from moving them around or even restraining them. Wolves helped capture the Princess, before the revolution, Orfeo thinks.

But a vampire had to break her legs first, thinks Elena. The wolves couldn't do that. If you thought you were going to break Libby's ribs or whatever doing that, you couldn't've done it.
Edited 2013-01-13 20:59 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 09:01 pm (UTC)

Probably would've broken her ribs, she says, nosing at Libby's knee, if it weren't for—well, me.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 09:03 pm (UTC)

Libby sits up and hugs her fluffy aunt around the neck.

"I'm glad you're having fun," she says dryly.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 09:04 pm (UTC)

But it was for you - so to speak, thinks Elena, so you knew perfectly well she'd be unharmed. Look, it's not complicated.

Orfeo is considering licking Libby in the face. He is not sure if she would appreciate that or not.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 09:06 pm (UTC)

Well, now Chris is considering that too, and unlike Orfeo she doesn't also have to consider what Libby would think of it. So she does.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 09:09 pm (UTC)

Libby splutters a bit, shoves at Chris's nose, and then hugs her again.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 09:09 pm (UTC)

Well, now Orfeo has the excuse that he was just copying Chris. Slurp!

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Enough already," she laughs, and hugs Orfeo too.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 09:17 pm (UTC)

Orfeo's brain is all happies. Wag, wag, wag.

Elena pretends to gag in the background.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 09:23 pm (UTC)

Libby gives him scritches, because scritches just seem like a natural extension of hugging a big happy wolf.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 09:26 pm (UTC)

Wagwagwag.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 09:28 pm (UTC)

Scritch scritch snuggle!

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's adorable," says Chris.

...Then: "Whoops, I unfloofed."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 09:32 pm (UTC)

[Finding stuff cute has also been known to be a useful trigger,] says Orfeo. He grew up in a culture unfazed by nudity and doesn't even look her way.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Good to know," she says. "Okay, so I seem to more or less have the hang of this. Any more pitfalls waiting for me?"

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 09:43 pm (UTC)

[Some people have mood swings,] Orfeo says, flopping down on the moss. With the brainphone there's no strong reason for him to phase again now. [You seem okay so far, so yours won't be bad if you get them. You're going to bulk up. You might look younger - no one naturally activates after 25 and then we all look that way till we quit, so I dunno about you. Nobody's perfect at phasing in the first month and you'll have to use your emotional triggers - and avoid using them when you don't wanna floof or defloof.]

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I expect I'm not going to be spending a lot of time floofed, then," she remarks. "I'm a pretty calm person in general."

It seems like about time to get dressed. Chris has squares. She uses one to bring her clothes back from wherever Libby vanished them to when she floofed the first time.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 10:06 pm (UTC)

[Up to you,] says Orfeo agreeably, rolling onto his back in the vague hope of Libby-belly-rubs (which would be the best thing).

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 10:08 pm (UTC)

Well that's transparent as hell, and also adorable. Belly-rubs it is!

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 10:09 pm (UTC)

Wag, wag, wag.

Elena trots over to her clothes, phases, and gets dressed, rolling her eyes all the while.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 10:46 pm (UTC)

"You're awfully cuddly," she says. Not to Elena.

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 10:47 pm (UTC)

[Fur does that!] Orfeo agrees.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 10:52 pm (UTC)

"No," Libby says thoughtfully, "I think it's mostly you."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 10:53 pm (UTC)

[Dunno. Never tried cuddling myself to compare,] he muses.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Clearly I should cuddle you when you're human-shaped, then," Libby says. "For science."

dont_look_back
2013-01-13 10:55 pm (UTC)

[Science!] he approves.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Science," she affirms.

queensidecastle
2013-01-13 10:57 pm (UTC)

[Jamie, you are thinking of cuddling this guy for something other than science.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 10:58 pm (UTC)

Libby cracks up.
Edited 2013-01-13 22:58 (UTC)

plotting to unnerve her

self_composed

Bella finds Milliways in the moon palace instead of one of her balconies.

"Huh," she says aloud.

Then, to Alice, Libby, Elena, and Mary, and Lazarus except he autoreplies with a busy message, [Hey folks, Moonstone Palace grew a bar that I don't remember putting in, come check it out.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 11:18 pm (UTC)

[Cute,] says Mary.

[Sure,] says Libby.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-13 11:19 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] says Alice.

He is the first one there, because what's a pentagon to him? Although actually, he might as well install independent teleportation just because.

self_composed
2013-01-13 11:21 pm (UTC)

As usual, Bella started reading him as soon as he had her attention at all. "Copy mine," she suggests. [Libby, Mary, Elena, do you need a ride?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-13 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says, and does. Also, hugs her.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-13 11:25 pm (UTC)

[That'd be nice,] says Mary.

[I'm covered,] says Libby, and a moment later she walks through the door from New York.

dont_look_back
2013-01-14 01:23 am (UTC)

Elena follows, looking fidgety. "I have no idea if packlessness will kick in over the course of a minute's stay in Milliways, so I'm just going in and letting myself out without lingering or getting a beer, and if you want to visit my world today you better follow me quick or hope the Princess is in there," she announces, when they reach the location of the door.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 01:32 am (UTC)

"Understood," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-14 01:33 am (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, "wait until I've fetched Mary. Libby, hold the door?" When that's taken care of she teleports to where Mary's at. "All set to go?" she asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 01:37 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Mary, who will someday be portrayed by Natalie Portman. "Hi."

self_composed
2013-01-14 01:40 am (UTC)

Bella teleports her up and they're off! through Milliways, briskly briskly, not delaying their shuddering wolf companion.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 01:52 am (UTC)

Libby and Mary pile through the door, and then pile back through it as soon as Elena has it open.

dont_look_back
2013-01-14 01:54 am (UTC)

"Damn, that was unpleasant, good to see you Ashleigh," mutters Elena, lurching into the side of the first wolf she sees at the ongoing birthday party, a woman who pats her on the head indulgently.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 01:57 am (UTC)

Mary chews thoughtfully on her lip, and then looks around.

"No looming disasters," she reports. Libby smiles.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 01:58 am (UTC)

"Man, where's the fun in that?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:00 am (UTC)

"The fun is in getting to steer," says Bella lightly. "Mary, if we leave you here and Elena shows you around, can you do your fortune-telling while I go consult the Imperial Seer about that question you drew a blank on?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 02:03 am (UTC)

"Sure," Mary says agreeably.

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:07 am (UTC)

"Thisaway," Bella says to Alice. "The Imperial Seer is also named Alice. She's interesting. You'll like her. Now, her office is within range of the Emperor's mindreading, so... see if you can avoid deliberately antagonizing him, at least, you probably can't help but discomfit him somewhat. This assumes witch mindreading beats star defense powers, of which I am unsure."
Edited 2013-01-14 02:07 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:09 am (UTC)

"I'll be good," he promises, which is probably impossible. He'll give it his best shot, anyway.

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:10 am (UTC)

"Good," says Bella, scritching his head. "Do you want your present to be a surprise till I can give it to you, assuming I can, or do you want to find out today?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:11 am (UTC)

He thinks about this.

"Surprise, I guess. I don't care that much, though; I won't get mad if somebody spills."

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:12 am (UTC)

"Alrighty. Cryptic conversation it is," says Bella.

The trip through the tunnel isn't long, flying, and Alice's office is near where it spits them out. "Hallo again!" Bella says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 02:13 am (UTC)

"Hi, Bella-clone!" says a tiny pixielike person with dark spiked hair. "Oho. Yes. You can do what you wanna do perfectly safely, there is no doubt."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:14 am (UTC)

Alice waves.

Should they use a different name for him while he's here? Would that make people more confused, or less?

Also, Other Alice is adorable and he kind of wants to hug her.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 02:16 am (UTC)

"You are going to have a disturbing amount of fun, Whistle," Alice tells him.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:18 am (UTC)

Alice—make that Whistle, sure, he likes that one—beams.

"Bella gets me the best presents. Bella, you get me the best presents."

He can hug Bella, right? He is going to hug Bella.

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:19 am (UTC)

Of course he can hug Bella. And Bella hugs him back, too.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 02:19 am (UTC)

"Is there anything else you wanted prophesied? That is here in this universe?" Alice asks.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:21 am (UTC)

"I dunno, is there?"

The only concern Whistle has for the future is how much hug he can pack into the next ten seconds. Snuggle snuggle.

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:22 am (UTC)

"I didn't think there was, but actually, is it a bad idea to bring Whistle with me to talk to Bella?" asks Bella.

"Far as I can see, no disaster, just Edward looking constipated," says Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:23 am (UTC)

(Whistle giggles.)

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:24 am (UTC)

"And near as I can tell he would be doing that even if it were only me," Bella says. "Okay. Thanks, Alice!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 02:24 am (UTC)

"No problem! You have fun and disturbing amounts of fun, respectively!"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:25 am (UTC)

"Always," says Whistle, and impulsively blows Alice a kiss.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 02:29 am (UTC)

Alice snorts.

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:35 am (UTC)

"This way," says Bella.

The throne room is as before, containing assorted persons. "Hi!" Bella greets her fellow empress. "Brought an extra guest this time around."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 02:36 am (UTC)

And lo, Edward does indeed look constipated.

"What is his name?" asks the dark woman in the sari-type outfit who's lurking next to Golden Bella. She's casually talking over a nearby conversation, like she doesn't expect anyone else in the room to pay attention to her besides the Bellas.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:38 am (UTC)

"Whistle," suggests Whistle, helpfully. Because that's the less confusing one, right?

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 02:40 am (UTC)

"He can see me?" hisses the dark woman. "Too many people can see me." She creeps behind the local Empress. "And that's not a name."

"...She'd prefer his real name, at any rate" Golden Bella says. "She would strongly prefer it, and I would strongly prefer to keep her happy."

"Oh, she's doing that thing again," says someone in the corner to the person sitting next to him. "Let's go do something interesting." His companion agrees and they leave the room.
Edited 2013-01-14 02:41 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-14 02:42 am (UTC)

"That's probably not going to be doable," says Stellar Bella slowly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:44 am (UTC)

"Yeah, there's kinda no such thing," says Whistle, rubbing the back of his head. "Call me whatever you want, or don't, but names aren't really my deal."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 02:46 am (UTC)

"What Allirea wants to call you," says Golden Bella, "is whatever it says on your licitly obtained birth certificate or your driver's license or your passport - the first name, at least. She's got a personal vendetta against nicknames. It's usually just worth accommodating her. She calls me Isabella, which no one else does."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 02:50 am (UTC)

"She can call me anything," says Whistle, "up to and including 'fuck you', except that."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 03:08 am (UTC)

Allirea hisses, and then suddenly everyone else in the room glances her way. "Emperor," she says in a low voice.

Empress Bella does not look happy. "Er. Bella. Is there some obvious solution I'm missing that will keep yours and mine both happy? Edward, silence till my say-so or an emergency."

self_composed
2013-01-14 03:09 am (UTC)

"Does she have to call him anything? Give her the day off?" Bella says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 03:13 am (UTC)

Edward shakes his head, which is apparently not covered by the "silence" instruction, and Allirea hisses again.

"What is it?" Bella murmurs to Edward, and he whispers in her ear. She frowns, and replies. "No. She might not come back if I send her away annoyed. It'd be one thing if he were just anyone, but he can see her. I'd lose the ability to split my guard till I found another suitable witch."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 03:19 am (UTC)

Alice snarls wordlessly. Except to the two people in this room who can read his mind, and will be able to tell that he stopped himself from saying out loud, You can fucking try to go ripping through my head for that asshole's name.

He wants to cry, or hit something, or set something on fire. He feels violated in advance.

self_composed
2013-01-14 03:22 am (UTC)

"Alice. Depriving her of one of her bodyguards would be very unfriendly, even if it started as an accident," says Stellar Bella seriously, planting one hand on each of his shoulders and making eye contact. "Do you want to go back to the wolf village and wait there and let me handle this? I can handle this for you."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 03:24 am (UTC)

Is she going to handle it in a way that tells anybody that name because in that case fuck everything.

self_composed
2013-01-14 03:25 am (UTC)

Bella hesitates, weighing likelihoods.

Then she says. "Trust me."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 03:41 am (UTC)

Alice shudders.

His mind spins through several attempts to teleport, none of them specific enough. Anywhere that isn't here, the Sun, the Moon, fucking Pluto, somewhere that's extremely on fire and doesn't have any people, the farthest deserted place on this planet...

The one that finally works is Bella's palace, not that Bella has a palace here, but there's a place where it would be, if she did.

He conjures air to burn in and starts making stars.

self_composed
2013-01-14 03:43 am (UTC)

Bella drops her hands from where Alice's shoulders have ceased to be. She keeps an eye on his brain.

She turns towards the hissing half-vampire and the Empress and the Emperor. And she says, "If the Emperor happened to hear his name, I'm certainly not going to stop him from sharing with Allirea."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 03:44 am (UTC)

"I didn't," mutters Edward.

self_composed
2013-01-14 03:46 am (UTC)

"The first name on his licitly obtained birth certificate reads 'Frederick'," Bella lies. "If Allirea ever attempts to ever call him that, I imagine he'll be motivated to set her on fire, but that's a moot point, as I don't plan to bring him to this world again. Now I'm going to see what I can do to calm him down and then I'll come back, alone, and we can talk about my bag of futuristic technology and your wishes. Okay?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 03:47 am (UTC)

"Okay," replies Golden Bella, as Allirea fades away again and Edward and all the spectators lose track of what they were talking about.

self_composed
2013-01-14 03:48 am (UTC)

"Back later," says Starry Bella, and she too teleports to the moon.

[I lied to them,] she tells him through the fire. [Act pissed off if anyone calls you Frederick.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 03:52 am (UTC)

[I love you,] he says, curling up in the middle of his cozy little inferno. And he does, and he is happy and relieved and amused and admiring, but those things have to fight for space in his head with fear and horror and anger and the pain he is using to distract himself. (It doesn't work as well as usual.)

self_composed
2013-01-14 03:53 am (UTC)

[Snuggles?] she offers, holding out her arms and sitting on the moondust.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 03:55 am (UTC)

He puts out the fire and flings himself into her lap.

Air is also handy for crying.

self_composed
2013-01-14 03:56 am (UTC)

He gets the tightest of hugs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 03:56 am (UTC)

He loves her so very much.

self_composed
2013-01-14 04:00 am (UTC)

"We can get your name legally changed," she says, running her fingers repetitively through his hair. "To whatever you like. I declare it legally not what it was on Mars, anyway, but we can get it changed in America. First thing when we get home."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 04:02 am (UTC)

He is too busy sniffling into her shoulder to say it out loud, but the first thing that comes to mind is Alice Whistle Swan.

self_composed
2013-01-14 04:03 am (UTC)

She kisses the crown of his head. "That's adorable. Alice Whistle Swan it is."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 04:05 am (UTC)

Awwwww.

He snuggles a tiny bit closer and loves her some more. The emotional hurricane is definitely winding down.

self_composed
2013-01-14 04:07 am (UTC)

"A whistle swan sounds like it's a species of bird," Bella murmurs. "You could be the star of a series of children's books. Alice Whistle Swan Goes to the Library. Alice Whistle Swan Gets Caught in the Rain. Alice Whistle Swan Visits the Moon."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 11:04 am (UTC)

He giggles softly.

self_composed
2013-01-14 04:24 pm (UTC)

Bella kisses his hair again and hugs him and waits.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 04:35 pm (UTC)

Alice curls up in her lap, which should be impossible considering how much taller he is, but he manages it anyway. As an afterthought, he conjures himself a snuggly blanket, because it is cold up here when you're not on fire.

He's okay now. More or less. No longer desperate to destroy things, anyway.
Edited 2013-01-14 16:35 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-14 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for not destroying anything in front of the other Bella in her not-technically-a-throne-room, by the way."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Seemed like a bad idea," he says, although that might be overstating the complexity of his train of thought at the time.

self_composed
2013-01-14 04:43 pm (UTC)

She kisses his hair. "So," she says, "I did not think the Emperor had a chance to catch your original name. I can read your mind too and I didn't see it go by. But if he had, I couldn't have risked lying to them. And I wasn't sure what I would do if I bluffed him, told him he could go ahead and say, and got the actual name out of his mouth. I could've tried to avoid ever telling you about it - I don't plan to bring you back here - or I could've lied to you instead or I could've waited for you to calm down and explained what happened. Which of those would've been preferable, given that the risk was small but needed taking?"
Edited 2013-01-14 16:43 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 04:58 pm (UTC)

The thought of her lying to him about it makes him feel... icky. That's a no.

Alice never visiting this world again is a pretty good solution to the name thing in general, as long as the hypothetical Edward who hypothetically heard it didn't go telling other people that might eventually visit their world because then he would have to deal with them and ugh.

"Last one," he says. Because while the way it feels to have someone demand his name like that is horrible, and having them actually manage to dig it out of him would be even worse, he would rather have that feeling than somebody going around thinking of him by that fucking name and him not even knowing about it.

self_composed
2013-01-14 05:00 pm (UTC)

"That's what I probably would have gone with," she agrees. "I don't think the Emperor had any reason to spread the name farther than that room, and everyone in the room except for you, me, Allirea, and Bella would've presently determined the whole thing unimportant as soon as she faded - it's disconcerting how she works, actually, but it would've prevented too much spread."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's better, I guess."

Okay, he's done thinking about this. Snuggle time.

self_composed
2013-01-14 05:19 pm (UTC)

Bella obliges.

After about an hour, she extricates herself to go make the exchange of futuristic swag and maybe-useful postdictions for wishes regarding thirst and turning pain. She doesn't want to be caught leaving someone holding Milliways open without having done this.

(She is careful to specify world when she expends a star on turning pain.)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 05:25 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, wolves are lining up outside the guest house Mary is using. Some other wolves are on the phone, getting ahold of their imprintable friends in the stationary branch of the pack and the girls' packs so they can try this over the less-effective telephone method.

First in line is Bartholomew Norton!

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 05:31 pm (UTC)

Mary feels weirdly like she is holding court. This is exactly what she doesn't want to be doing with her life, but it's helpful and it's going to be over soon. She can handle it.

Especially with Libby there for moral support.

"Hi," she says. "Let me see... is there anywhere in particular you're planning on going anytime soon?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bartholomew, "we're moving the pack to the Lapis capital in a few weeks, so I'm going there. I go into town sometimes wherever we're living, to run errands or see performances or go to the zoo or whatever. I don't have, like, a calendar on me..."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 05:41 pm (UTC)

"That's okay," says Mary. "Hmm." She chews absent-mindedly on her lower lip. "No prospects either way before the move... ooh, don't go out at night in the first week there, there's something you'll want to see but somebody's going to be there who you really don't want to meet... nothing in the next week, or—huh." Chewchewchew. "Actually, is there a calendar handy? This'll probably be easier if I can pinpoint days."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 05:42 pm (UTC)

Someone fetches her a wall calendar and points out the date; it's currently February 8.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Great." She runs her finger over the page until she reaches the end of February, pauses, then flips to March and keeps going. March yields a slight hesitation around the 16th, but then she shakes her head and moves on. April, May, and June pass without comment. On the first of July, she says, "Stay at home then too."

Finally she stops in late August.

"There's a wildly slim chance you'll meet somebody very, very good for you," she says. "Sometime in this week... likeliest on Wednesday. Any ideas what you might be up to?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 05:54 pm (UTC)

"...No? That's probably just going to be a normal day," Bartholomew says, writing down when he should stay put.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Really? Maybe it doesn't depend on you..." Chewchewchew. "No, it does. You're going to get the chance to go somewhere in late August, and if you do, you'll meet somebody and work out really well with her. It'll be a long trip—about a week. There was hardly any chance you'd do it before, but now it's almost a sure thing."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 06:01 pm (UTC)

"...late August. Uh. I don't know what that'd be." He turns around, sticks his head out the door. "Where would somebody go for a week in late August? Specifically?" he calls.

There's muttering, and then someone says, "Well, me and Ruth are going to Burning Man...?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Go to Burning Man," Mary says firmly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 06:03 pm (UTC)

Bartholomew makes a face, but says, "Okay. Burning Man."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Mary. "You won't have a lot of fun until you meet your imprint, but you'll meet her pretty fast. And she's really going to like you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I can live with that," says Bartholomew. "Thanks." He looks down at his notes again, and makes way for the next in line.

Embry is next. "At this point we think I'm just defective, but it's worth checking," he jokes. "I'm the only first generation guy who hasn't imprinted yet."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 06:14 pm (UTC)

Mary smiles slightly, looks thoughtful...

...and makes a face like she just smelled something horrible.

"Euuuuurgh. Libby, could you get me a glass of water?"

"Sure," says Libby, and disappears into the kitchen. Mary flips the calendar back to February and glares at it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 06:14 pm (UTC)

"...What?" Embry says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Some kind of epic catastrophe," says Mary. "Now I just have to figure out when, and how to make it go away."

She pauses a beat longer, then flips all the way to December.

"Here's when the danger starts," she says. "But there's a chance you'll imprint before then... and if you do, it'll be on someone who's actually good for you. As opposed to this person who is a complete disaster and will get you killed eventually. So start listing places you might go this year."

Libby comes back with that glass of water, and Mary drinks half of it. She's looking much better by the time she puts it down.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I... well, I follow the pack around, wasn't planning to stop anytime soon... I didn't have any plans for December but there's always some chance someone'll put together a trip to someplace like Laurel did to Spain last summer. And sometimes I visit La Push or Volterra on not much notice."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Spain is safe," says Mary. "Volterra is safe. La Push is not. Ms. Disaster isn't there, but she's going to be nearby. Let me see if I can narrow this down."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 06:43 pm (UTC)

"...Okay," says Embry, shifting uncomfortably.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 06:52 pm (UTC)

Mary looks thoughtful, but she doesn't make that face again.

"Russia," she says eventually. "St. Petersburg. Go there sometime this year and you'll find somebody who is the opposite of a disaster. I think... she works at a major hotel, the one you're likely to stay at. The language barrier will be a bit of an issue at first, but not for long. Oh, and she's allergic to strawberries."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Okay. And I can go there well in advance of Disaster December and all will be well?" Embry asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Mary. She sounds very sure of that.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Thanks."

Next is a younger wolf. Much younger. He doesn't even look quite 25 yet. "Hi," he says, "I'm Lewis, and I don't want to imprint at all."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Lewis," says Mary. "Then you'll want to stay inside... actually, you're covered until Halloween. Don't go anywhere on Halloween." She pauses for a moment, then adds, "And at some point next January there's going to be some guests here you don't want to meet."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay. No Halloween parties. Can I just go visit Aunt Brooke in La Push in January and be safe?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 07:01 pm (UTC)

Mary checks. "Yep!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 07:01 pm (UTC)

"And then after that? Or are you coming back around then?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 07:05 pm (UTC)

"I can't tell when I'm coming back," she says, "but it's harder to tell who you might meet by accident when it's more than a year away. Hmm... errands... libraries. There's a librarian somewhere in Canada you should be avoiding."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 07:05 pm (UTC)

"No libraries in Canada. Okay. Is there anything else you can tell me?" He's taking notes too, very seriously.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Hmm..."

She thinks about it.

"Not right now, sorry."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Please come back when you can," he says anxiously, and he makes way.

Next is Gregory. "Even if it'd work out like his parents in the end, I just want it on record I am opposed to imprinting on a toddler," he says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 07:31 pm (UTC)

"I am happy to steer you away from that," says Mary. "Let's see... oh, that's easy." She opens the calendar to May. "There's a movie you're going to want to see," she says. "See it on the twelfth, at, hm, ten o'clock.. It's not certain, but there's high odds you'll meet someone there that you'll get along well with, and there's no disasters waiting for you if she doesn't show."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 08:11 pm (UTC)

"The second Wonder Woman movie's coming out then," he says, "is that it?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Mary.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Cool, she likes superheroes then," he says approvingly, and he gets out of the way.

There are a half a dozen more unimprinted mobile-pack wolves to handle here, and then people keep handing her phones and wolves in La Push and Volterra and Québec and on a field trip to Safesun talk to her about their own prospects. It takes a long time. She averts many disasters and sets up many happy couples, and one fellow with an asexual woman who will like to have a devoted platonic friend and not break him up with his also-a-wolf girlfriend.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 08:18 pm (UTC)

And when it's all over with, she gets to crawl under a blanket and not deal with people anymore. That is possibly the best part.

self_composed
2013-01-14 08:26 pm (UTC)

A few days later, Bella tells Alice, [Elspeth found Milliways. She's the only local here. Come on, let's go.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 08:27 pm (UTC)

Alice finally leaves his lunar cuddle nest.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-14 08:29 pm (UTC)

And through they go! Elspeth orders a case of her bubbly to go, then heads straight home, bidding "Grandma" and the others goodbye on her way out.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-14 08:33 pm (UTC)

At a table very close to the other door, the one that leads to Milliways-outdoors, Alice spots someone reading something familiar.

He teleports across the room.

"Hey, that's my favourite book!" he says excitedly.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-14 08:34 pm (UTC)

Libby glances after him; Mary doesn't even bother doing that. The pair of them return to Bella's palace.

self_composed
2013-01-14 08:43 pm (UTC)

Bella decides she had better not leave him alone in Milliways, but as long as nothing actually happens there's no reason to insert herself into the conversation between Alice and the random girl reading Harlan Ellison. She glances around for someone interesting to pass the time with.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 08:44 pm (UTC)

All the way on one of the other other sides of the room, sitting alone at a table for two with his back to the Window, a man with straggling greenish-brown hair and poorly maintained clown makeup is playing Solitaire.

self_composed
2013-01-14 08:45 pm (UTC)

Now, wait just one...

Yeah. Bella's got good eyes. That's interesting.

She meanders in that direction, peering at the clown-Alice-clone.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 08:51 pm (UTC)

He's wearing a lavender shirt and wine-red pants, both custom made, and there's a purple suit jacket hanging from the back of his chair that came from the same tailor. Under the liberally applied red lipstick, his face is impressively scarred. He licks his lips in a snakelike fashion when he thinks about his next move.

If he can tell she's looking, he isn't letting on.

self_composed
2013-01-14 08:53 pm (UTC)

"You - well - your underlying bone structure - looks familiar," she tells him, when she's gotten within a few feet of his table.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Really," he says, glancing up at her with his face tipped forward as though looking overtop of imaginary spectacles. "Never heard that one before." He gestures invitingly at the empty seat across from him.

self_composed
2013-01-14 08:57 pm (UTC)

She sits. "Mine's younger, not as scratched up, and makes different aesthetic choices, but yeah. I'm Bella. What're you going by?"

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:03 pm (UTC)

He hmms and tips his head from side to side, consideringly.

Then he puts his finger on a card sitting face down on the corner of the table to his left, out of the way of the solitaire game, and slides it sloo o o  o   o o  o  o o oowly across to Bella.

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:08 pm (UTC)

Bella peers at the card and at the game. She picks up the offered card, inspects it.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

The game appears to be going poorly.

The card is a joker.

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Joker?" Bella asks. "I suppose that goes with the thematic makeup."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hmm," says the Joker. "So. How old's yourrr," he licks his lips again in that disquietly reptilian way, "friend?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Nineteen. Little older than me," Bella says. "And he goes by Alice, if you were wondering. Or sometimes Whistle."
Edited 2013-01-14 21:29 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Alice," he says musingly. "Montreal?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Montreal?" Bella asks, puzzled. "If he's been to Montreal, I don't know about it."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:34 pm (UTC)

"That's where I was," he explains, "when I used that name. But then, I never had a - friend like you."

He examines his game for a moment, and then moves a card from one place to another, apparently at random.

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:36 pm (UTC)

"He told me it could've been any of a number of possible names," Bella says. "I think I may've been the first person to ask him what I should call him. Whistle, on the other hand, I made up. He needed a code name a while ago. Came in handy recently when there was another Alice around."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:43 pm (UTC)

"How'd you kids meet?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:43 pm (UTC)

"High school gym class."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:44 pm (UTC)

He turns his head to one side slightly, leans forward, and peers suspiciously at her.

"When?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Not quite a year ago, when I moved to the town he'd also recently moved to." And if that's not what he means: "February 2005."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:47 pm (UTC)

The Joker blinks. Twice.

With mild incredulity: "He was still in school?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Occasionally," says Bella.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Poor kid," he sighs.

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:52 pm (UTC)

"He quit showing up after I did," she says. "Of course, I went to college, and he didn't, but now I've dropped out to rule Mars instead."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 09:55 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Good for you!"

self_composed
2013-01-14 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:03 pm (UTC)

Curiously: "What about his parents?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:04 pm (UTC)

"His father's in jail," Bella says. "I helped. His mother lives in a mansion in my hometown, with a housekeeper who I am trying to set up with my dad."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Jail," he snorts. "Yeah, that'll work."

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, he hasn't escaped so far," Bella says, "and if he does, we have magic powers and he does not."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:17 pm (UTC)

"I killed mine," he says offhandedly. "When I was, mm, fifteen?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:17 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't surprise me overmuch," says Bella. "Both of them or just him?"

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:18 pm (UTC)

To answer this question as concisely as possible, he makes a blowing-up motion with his hands and adds the appropriate sound effect.

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Mm. Mine's parents divorced rather acrimoniously as soon as there were public allegations. I've always found Judith sort of vaguely inoffensive. But I can understand not caring much if she was collateral damage."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Yyyep," he says, "that sounds like mom. Never says a word as long as he can keep it under wraps, but once it gets out there—abandon ship!"

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:23 pm (UTC)

"At the trial she said she was afraid he'd turn on her," Bella says.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:24 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Maybe she was."

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:26 pm (UTC)

"At any rate, Alice mostly doesn't live with her anymore. Hangs around the house sometimes - he's fond of the housekeeper, she's neat - but I made him an underground lair where he hangs out and bakes and sews and sets himself on fire."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:27 pm (UTC)

The Joker flashes a quick, appreciative grin. "Sounds like the life."

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:28 pm (UTC)

"He likes it," Bella says cheerily.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:29 pm (UTC)

"I'll bet he does." He smirks slightly. "So are you two...?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Oh, he fell in love with me way back in February," says Bella. "Then over the summer we zoomed around Europe a bit and I decided to kiss him on top of Mount Everest and start referring to him as my boyfriend to random people to whom such a reference might be called for."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:33 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"That's sweet," he says, clasping his hands to his chest. "Do you liiike him?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:34 pm (UTC)

"...Yes?" Bella laughs. "Not in the habit of doing either of the above with anybody else."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:37 pm (UTC)

"We-ell, you could just be after him for his pretty face."
Edited 2013-01-14 22:37 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:38 pm (UTC)

"He has got a pretty face, but nah, I also like him."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Must be nice," he muses.

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:41 pm (UTC)

"So," Bella says, "how about you? Also nice? Not so nice?"

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:42 pm (UTC)

"The girl I like threw me off a building last month," he says dreamily. "Caught me on the way down, but you can't have everything."

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Why, were you hoping to splat? If you had Wolverine powers like me and Alice I think you'd be less visibly damaged. He burned off all his scars by setting himself on fire without fully thinking it through, and hasn't put them back so far."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:45 pm (UTC)

"He have any good ones?" he inquires. "Or didja not see 'em all?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I didn't personally lay eyes on all of them in person," Bella shrugs, "but I can read his mind and we also have perfect recall, so, if I'm ever curious, the information's there. There was one on his neck he sometimes touched as a nervous habit." She peers at the Joker, looking for a match. "The others had less... interesting... stories."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:52 pm (UTC)

He tilts his head to the side and rubs at the makeup along the underside of his jaw, revealing a thin line. It's not quite the same scar, even accounting for age, but it's obviously a close relative.

"Like that?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Similar. Not exact."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:53 pm (UTC)

"And what was the story?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 10:54 pm (UTC)

"You know, I'm not actually sure of the status of that story as a secret or not, and it's the sort of thing that might be. Are you interested enough for me to check in with him?"

manofmyword
2013-01-14 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Betcha I already know," he says. "I'm surprised, though. I got that one after I left home. It had a friend, too—if you ever got his pants off you woulda seen it for sure."

self_composed
2013-01-14 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I bet you already know too," Bella says, "but in case you don't, or in case he'd mind regardless, I'm not sharing without checking."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 11:05 pm (UTC)

The Joker makes an exaggerated face.

"Are you sure he likes you?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I can read his mind," Bella repeats. "Anytime I like. Information comes in a pretty visual channel with borders around the content according to how much he likes it and my name appears bordered in white every time."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Does your fancy mind-reading tell you why?"

self_composed
2013-01-14 11:08 pm (UTC)

"When I tell it to. Why do you ask?"

manofmyword
2013-01-14 11:10 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I wanna know," he says, "duh."

self_composed
2013-01-14 11:12 pm (UTC)

"You looking for storytime or something more list-shaped?"

manofmyword
2013-01-14 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Storytime," he says immediately, perking up in his chair. "I like storytime."

self_composed
2013-01-14 11:15 pm (UTC)

"After we'd known each other for a few days and had a handful of casual conversations and I'd broken up a fight between him and a random classmate in the cafeteria, he invited me over to his house. Before I said yes, I told him I was going to conduct an experiment. I put my dad the police chief's number into my phone, hovered my finger over the call button, and called him a freak. And he asked me to marry him." She pauses. "I said no."

manofmyword
2013-01-14 11:17 pm (UTC)

He tilts his head and, very slowly, smiles.

"Well. Now I think I'm kinda in love with you."

self_composed
2013-01-14 11:18 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 11:21 pm (UTC)

"My story isn't nearly that sweet."

self_composed
2013-01-14 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Storytime," Bella prompts softly.

manofmyword
2013-01-14 11:47 pm (UTC)

"To start with, I kinda had a thing for her before we met." He smiles reminiscently. "Girl dresses up as a giant bat and starts beating up criminals, what am I supposed to do? Not fall for her? I was fucking smitten. So, y'know, some other guy might write a love letter in that situation. Me, I rob a bank."

He cocks his head and grins.

"Actually, I robbed five, but who's counting? Anyway. It's the last one that counted. I walked out with a chunk of change belonging to several mob bosses, they got all riled up, I taunted 'em a little, and thennnn they hired me to kill 'er."

self_composed
2013-01-14 11:49 pm (UTC)

"She dresses up as a bat?" Bella says quizzically. "And mob bosses hired you to kill her? Okay... what're you planning to do with a job like that?"

manofmyword
2013-01-14 11:58 pm (UTC)

"She makes a terrifying bat," he assures her. "If you're thinkin' cheap Halloween costume, stop. And this was ages ago, we'll get there, don't worry."

He rubs his hands together and continues.

"So I was never gonna kill her, obviously, I like her too much. I got myself caught instead." He smiles wistfully. "You ever been in a police interrogation room? You should take your boyfriend to one sometime, they're fun. She cracked a safety glass window with my face."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:00 am (UTC)

"Terrifying expensive non-festive bat," amends Bella. "Got it. Go on."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:16 am (UTC)

"And then, y'know, I bombed the place and took a hike, and it was all very exciting for a while, and at the end..." he looks distracted for a moment, smirks secretively, then shakes his head and continues, "We fought it out in a half-built skyscraper and she threw me outta the top floor. And like I said, caught me halfway down." He shrugs. "Now I'm locked up, and she's out there somewhere hating my guts, and someday I'll get out and we'll do it all over again."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:18 am (UTC)

"And as long as you have access to some door you can sometimes pop into Milliways for a bit," Bella says. "Interesting. Is it satisfactory for her to hate your guts? Wouldn't you rather she liked you?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:21 am (UTC)

"She's never gonna like me," he says. "She couldn't. I mean, even if I hadn't killed a girl I'm pretty sure she was fucking, she is ve-e-ery much about law and order and I... am very much not."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:25 am (UTC)

"Well, yes, killing someone she liked is not conducive to such a plan," Bella says. "Although I feel compelled to point out that a fondness for law and order isn't incompatible with whimsy. Even a very, very terrifying-expensive-nonfestive bat costume requires some whimsy somewhere."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:29 am (UTC)

"Whimsy," he says. "Sure."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:30 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm getting the impression that Alice-types who do not encounter Bella-types quick enough go from whimsical to something a little less socially acceptable."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:31 am (UTC)

"Smart cookie."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:32 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I only had to cheat with a little magic to get into Stanford."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:43 am (UTC)

"Tell me, smart cookie," he says, "say I kidnapped a lady you had the hots for, and you had me locked in a room and could do annnnything you wanted to make me talk. Well, anything you'd do with half a dozen cops watching you through one-way glass. How would you play it? No cheating."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:45 am (UTC)

"No cheating?" Bella says. "I've gotten very accustomed to cheating." She thinks. "Are the cops a threat to me, or just potentially embarrassing? My first idea isn't a problem either way, I'm just sussing out option-space."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:47 am (UTC)

"Batsy shoved a chair under the door before she started throwing me around. So no, not a threat."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:48 am (UTC)

"Wait, was that the first thing she did? She didn't expend twelve seconds on saying where is the lady I have the hots for first just in case that worked?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:52 am (UTC)

"Hah! Actually, one'a the cops asked me a couple questions first. Great guy. I like him. He turned his back on me, and you gotta have some balls to do that, if you're a Gotham cop." He quirks a smile. "Bats, though, the first thing she did was slam my head into the table."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:53 am (UTC)

"No wonder you like her," Bella says dryly. "I take it you didn't answer the cop. Would you have answered... Bats? Is that what we're calling her?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:54 am (UTC)

"I did," he says, smirking, "eventually."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:55 am (UTC)

"I'm sensing there's more to this."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 12:56 am (UTC)

"Bingo. But we'll get there. You haven't told me your angle yet."

self_composed
2013-01-15 12:57 am (UTC)

"Sure I did. I would have tried asking where she was first. You want to know what step two would be if all you did was stare at me with a smug look on your face? I'd ask you what you wanted."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:01 am (UTC)

"Funny," he muses, "the Bat never tried that one. But let's say she did, I woulda told her... I wanted to see what she'd do."

He did tell her that, albeit on a slightly different prompt.

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:04 am (UTC)

"Well, that's less useful than some possible answers. Honestly, as long as I'm not cheating, I don't belong in an interrogation room in the first place. I'd be more useful trying to find the lady directly and letting the cops handle you. I'm very good with magic. I have no special skill at getting kidnappers to talk, relative to police officers. Especially if said kidnapper's motive is something that inconvenient, since I imagine Bats is predictable once she knows where her ladyfriend is and unpredictable until she finds out. Skewing the incentives somewhat."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:06 am (UTC)

"Want me to give away the twist?" he offers.

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:06 am (UTC)

"Go for it."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:11 am (UTC)

"The girl in question was assistant DA," he says. "She was dating the DA. I kidnapped 'em both. And after I let the Bat smack me around for a while, I told her she could find the lady at this address, and the gentleman at that one. Opposite directions, equally far away. Almost like a math problem." He grins. "And I told her she'd better hurry up."

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:15 am (UTC)

"Some combination of," Bella guesses, "they were already dead, they were rigged to get that way or close to it, they were at other addresses, they were at each other's addresses, or you'd managed to convince at least one of them that Bats was somehow at fault."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:20 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

"Ohhhh, sweetheart," he wheezes, "you and I could have some fun together. They were at each other's addresses, and both of 'em in the middle of great big home-brewed time bombs. I do love my fireworks. And dear, dear Batsy, well, she rescued the wrong one."

This seems like an appropriate moment for another explosion gesture, sound effect once again included.

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:21 am (UTC)

"...Did she not even send cops to the other address? Did the watching cops not go on their own initiative, even if she didn't try to send them?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:22 am (UTC)

"They went," he says. "But cops only have cop cars. The Bat's better funded. I knew she'd be faster."

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:25 am (UTC)

"Cop cars are pretty fast, if they're trying," frowns Bella. "The bat costume's not expensive and unfestive enough to fly, is it?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:28 am (UTC)

"Well, she can fall with style," he says, flicking his fingers dismissively. "But nah, she has some kinda custom motorbike."

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:30 am (UTC)

"Ooh. I have one of those. I could beat a cop car in it, sure. Although mine is just riddled with cheating. All right. So she tried to rescue the lady, cops failed at doing same, she successfully rescued the guy. Unhappy endings all round. What's next?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:32 am (UTC)

"What makes you think there's a next?" he asks innocently.

There is totally a next.

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:33 am (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:48 am (UTC)

"Well all right, smarty pants," he sniffs. "I blew up a hospital—don't worry, they evacuated it first. Well, they almost evacuated it," he corrects himself. "I did have to shoot a couple of cops on the way out. And of course, the man himself, our glorrrrious new District Attorney, was left in the building juuuust long enough for me to have a quick chat with him. Boy's a looker even with half his face burned off." He winks. "Don't tell anybody, but I woulda gone for it in a hot second. 'Specially when he held a gun to my head. That was definitely a highlight of the evening."

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:50 am (UTC)

"I don't think you'd previously mentioned the face burning," Bella says.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 01:53 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that time bomb I mentioned blew up on their way out," he says. "Guess it musta caught him funny, 'cause he was a steak dinner all down one side and good as new all down the other."

self_composed
2013-01-15 01:54 am (UTC)

"Ah-huh. Well, go on, you're not at the part where they caught you and you found out how to locate Milliways through a barred door."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 02:16 am (UTC)

"I got another good one for ya in between," he says temptingly.

"So now you're a member of the general public. Some awful person," he beams a grin that invites her to guess who that might have been, "has been terrorizing the city for days, blowin' up buildings, dangling corpses from the roof of City Hall, all that reign-of-terror kinda stuff. This villainous character kidnaps a news anchor and makes him read out a message, innn which he says that we are all gonna play a game and anybody who doesn't wanna join in had better get out now. Oh, he adds, and the bridge and tunnel crowd are gonna be in for a surprise."

He flashes a grin.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you'd be too smart to take the ferry after that, but bear with me anyway."

self_composed
2013-01-15 02:18 am (UTC)

"Oh, you live on an island. That's worse," comments Bella.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 02:22 am (UTC)

"Mm-hmm. So. Let's suppose you ended up on that ferry anyhow - there's only one available, because they're using the other one to evacuate about five hundred prisoners. Smart move, really. Who knows what I could get up to if I got my hands on those guys."

Here he pauses, to see how she's taking all this.

self_composed
2013-01-15 02:24 am (UTC)

"Let's suppose I did that, instead of buying an inflatable raft," Bella says agreeably.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 02:33 am (UTC)

"Smart cookie," he says appreciatively. "So you're on this boat, and you're halfway across the water, and allll of a sudden who could it be on the loudspeakers but your friend the Joker. Who tells you that your boat is rigged to explode, and - ha! - so's the one with all the criminals on it! And it just so happens that he has left you each a present, to wit, the detonator for the other - boat. Annnnd, naturally, whichever boat hits the button first wins the race and gets to live, whereas if you both wait around past midnight, or if anybody tries to escape, well, he's got detonators too."

self_composed
2013-01-15 02:34 am (UTC)

"And has my friend the Joker generally shown himself disposed towards being honest about these games, or has he - say - lied about the locations of his kidnap victims?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 02:37 am (UTC)

"Well, you don't know that," he says. "Not unless you're secretly the Bat." He gives her a look of exaggerated suspicion across the table, then laughs. "Which you're not, 'cause she was with me at the time."

self_composed
2013-01-15 02:40 am (UTC)

"She didn't publicize this information? The cops didn't?" says Bella exasperatedly. "Grand. Well. If I'm not cheating, I have no hopes of overpowering the average person who might lay hands on the detonator, or want to take it from me if I had it in the first place. The choice is out of my hands here unless I want to jump into the water, and my swimming abilities without cheating always amounted to "dog paddle and wait for rescue". I don't imagine said rescue would be a priority on this day. I don't think a not-cheating me-on-this-ferry has any options besides sitting tight."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 02:44 am (UTC)

"Poor you," he says. "Don't worry, though, you got out safely. Nobody hit the button, and Bats got to me before I could hit mine. That was when she threw me off the building," he explains. "And left me hanging upside down from a grappling hook for the SWAT team to collect. As I recall, they stood around watching me giggle until I passed out, annnnd the next thing I knew - Milliways!"

self_composed
2013-01-15 02:46 am (UTC)

"Welcome," says Bella, lifting an imaginary glass. She hasn't ordered anything and for some reason it seems rude to conjure beverages in a sentient bar.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 02:49 am (UTC)

"Turns out I come here in my sleep," he elaborates.

"And I gotta ask. What do ya think the twist was that time?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 02:52 am (UTC)

"Besides rigging the ferries after warning about the bridges and tunnels? The detonators could be wired the other way around, or they could be dummies, or only one of them could be either, or there were only enough explosives to sink, not obliterate, the boats, so you'd get to watch survivors fighting over wreckage to hang onto..." She shrugs.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 02:55 am (UTC)

"Ooh, you're vicious," he says approvingly. "I like that in a woman. But nope, that's not it. The trick is, one of the boats had a detonator for its own bomb. The other one had a detonator for both."

self_composed
2013-01-15 02:56 am (UTC)

"Which was which?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 02:57 am (UTC)

"You tell me."

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:06 am (UTC)

"I could see either one," Bella says. "If the prisoners blow themselves up and it looks like the civilians did it, the civilians think whoever had their detonator pushed the button. That person's confused, no one believes them if they say otherwise, everyone thinks they had the stomach to blow up five hundred people, they start doubting their own memory - just a little button, maybe they slipped, maybe they deluded themselves, maybe they repressed the memory? - and you've still got lots of live non-criminal civilians, the city doesn't mass-evacuate out of grief and panic the next time they think it's safe to do so and leave you with a ghost town. If the civilians blow themselves up and it looks like the prisoners did it, there's a crackdown on the prisoners, maybe you find your next stint in prison more interesting, political interests that care about looking after the welfare of prisoners get into fantastic fights with political interests that don't - I guess they do that in either case. Maybe a guard on the boat presses the button and you get most of the psychological benefits - so to speak - against him that you could've against a civilian who doesn't remember pressing hers in the other scenario. And it doesn't matter who pushes the button if they all explode. From the outside, from the perspective of everyone left alive, it looks like they both did it at the same time. It especially doesn't matter if you just explain the trick after the fact - then no matter what the buttons actually did, you get to leave everyone paralyzed with indecision if they get caught in one of your pranks." She regards him steadily. "I think I'm glad you're in jail."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:11 am (UTC)

"I think I'm glad you're not the Bat," he says.

And almost immediately admits -

"That's a filthy lie, I'd love to run a game against you. It'd be short but oh, would it ever be sweet."

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:15 am (UTC)

"I'd make a terrible Bat. If you presented me with a building with an explosive and a district attorney in it, and I wasn't cheating, I wouldn't know what to do with it. I am an eighteen year old girl with a lot of magic and a lovely brain that, prior to locating the magic, I mostly exercised with high school curriculum and classic literature, not anything practical for combating terrorism. If it would be short, it would be because you got bored with me not being able to do anything but snark at you and you decided to kill me or move on."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:16 am (UTC)

...The Joker seems to find this hilarious.

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:17 am (UTC)

"And if I did get to cheat, it wouldn't be interesting either," she shrugs. "I have superpowers coming out of my ears."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:19 am (UTC)

"Sweetie," he says, "that's half the fun. The other half is that you're too smart to fall for my cheap tricks."

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:21 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't have to decide if I believed you or not, if I was cheating," Bella says. "I could nullify all the explosive materials that aren't actively operating well-controlled engines and power plants on the entire planet in less time than it takes you to blink, and then it doesn't matter what buttons originally set them off. I don't try to be clever when I can be sure."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:23 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he says. "And if I told you right now I had a bomb planted somewhere in this bar, is that what you'd do?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:27 am (UTC)

"Yes," she says, "just to be sure, before finding out what you really did. I wouldn't like to start reading people's minds without their explicit permission, but I'd do it, if I thought I needed to."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:30 am (UTC)

"See? Short but sweet," he concludes.

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:31 am (UTC)

She shrugs. "If that's to your taste, sure."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:37 am (UTC)

"It's not to yours?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:40 am (UTC)

"I was thrilled when the nemesis I thought I had turned out to be a well-intentioned lady with a miscalibrated sense of personal boundaries who was happy to help me become the Empress of the Stars by teaching me some more magic and operating as my personnel department. Enmity is not intrinsically fascinating to me. You'd hate Mars the way I made it. Even Alice won't live there; he just can't get comfortable in a place where the local laws of physics have been bent so no one could suddenly decide to hit him with a baseball bat and successfully manage to connect it with his nose."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:41 am (UTC)

He bursts out laughing.

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:42 am (UTC)

"So no. Your games are not to my taste. But talking about them passes the time while I wait for Alice to finish talking books with that girl he spotted reading his favorite."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:45 am (UTC)

"Anyway," he says, "if I wanted to play you, I wouldn't rig a bomb. I'd kidnap your boyfriend. And he'd like it."

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:48 am (UTC)

"He would like it. When he stopped liking it, he'd teleport away. I wouldn't even have to be involved if that was all. If I had any suspicion you'd actually kill him - if I thought you could - or if this went on too long, I'd tell him to come home because I need him, and I think he would do it."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:49 am (UTC)

Smirrrrrrrk.

"Wanna bet?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:50 am (UTC)

"Not a betting woman."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 03:51 am (UTC)

"I can tell."

self_composed
2013-01-15 03:51 am (UTC)

"Besides, he's got a present waiting for him at home, and this would be a distraction."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 04:03 am (UTC)

"Ooh, presents. Is it a secret?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 04:04 am (UTC)

"He wants it to be a surprise. I'm not sure if you're the sort of person who'd spoil it for him if you had the chance."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 11:03 am (UTC)

He puts on a look of utmost innocence. "Course not."

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Alas," says Bella. "You have not successfully made me sure."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Could I?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Not easily, probably."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Mm." He smiles. "How?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:15 pm (UTC)

"If I tell you a sequence of actions to perform," Bella says, "they lose most of their communicative value."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Nnot if the sequence in question is, 'Pretty please, read my mind,'" he suggests. "For example."

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:18 pm (UTC)

"That wouldn't rule out the possibility of you changing your mind. If anyone knows how to be sincere in the moment and less so a minute later, I'd bet on you."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Smart cookie. So no, I can't convince you," he says. "Tell me anyway."

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:22 pm (UTC)

"No," Bella says. "It's a surprise. If I'm feeling particularly friendly towards you at the time I leave the bar I might conjure you a note when you won't have an opportunity to spoil it for Alice, but I might not."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Can't you cheat?" he wonders.

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:26 pm (UTC)

"What, cheat at not letting you tell my surprise? Yes, but I think that would make you even more likely to try to tell him, and it's possible you'd think of a loophole, and I can make the probability of you successfully telling him zero by not telling you, and I am just not that strongly motivated to tell you."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't wanna tell him," he says, leaning back in his seat. "Take a look."

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:28 pm (UTC)

"No," says Bella.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:29 pm (UTC)

He cackles.

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Do you have a plan for getting out of jail?" Bella asks. "For that matter, how long are you going to cool your heels in Milliways?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:36 pm (UTC)

"I'm not in jail," he says. "Technically. I'm in an innnstitution for the criminally insane. And I can walk out anytime I want; their security's a--" he licks his lips "--heh, joke."

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm kind of surprised they left you in the makeup and the custom outfit," Bella says. "Don't they usually put everybody in unattractive smocks in those places?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie," he says. "I'm dreaming, remember?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:39 pm (UTC)

She tilts her head. "That wasn't given to me as part of my Milliways explanation, but I suppose it could have been incomplete."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it's usual," he explains. "But I'm kinnnd of a special case. I think they're afraid of what I'd do, if I came in the normal way. 'Cause every time I'm about to do something particularly, hmm, un-friendly--" he snaps his fingers, "I wake up!"

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Bella. "All part of the lovely security system that renders my alternate willing to let her daughter come here, I suppose."
Edited 2013-01-15 17:44 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-15 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm dangerous," the Joker says agreeably. "According to whoever runs this place, I am apparently more dangerous than anybody."
Edited 2013-01-15 17:46 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-15 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Or at least more interested in being dangerous," Bella remarks. "I rather wonder if you'd pass my alternate's daughter's safety test. You're just a non-magical human, right? Albeit a... psychologically unique sort?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Plain old, plain old," he affirms.

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:12 pm (UTC)

"So I guess the only reason my alt's daughter wouldn't feel safe bringing you home would be if she didn't think anyone around her would be willing to kill you if you acted up, and somehow I don't think that's a problem her culture has. I'm now wondering why your Bat Lady hasn't killed you. You mentioned before she wasn't scared of the cops."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know for sure," he says. "But she's got two good reasons not to. One iiiiis, she doesn't like to kill people. Thinks it's wrong, or something. And the otherrr," he smiles, "is that if she kills me, I win. But I don't know if she knows that. She might."

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:17 pm (UTC)

"If she cares more about not liking to kill people - let alone about you winning - than about people dying, I'm not terribly impressed with her," Bella says. "It's not like you happen to be innocently radioactive, that would be an actual moral dilemma."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:18 pm (UTC)

"If I didn't know better," the Joker says amicably, "I'd think you were flirting."

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I like the one I have already better," says Bella.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I know."

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:20 pm (UTC)

"And how is telling you I don't think much of your crush's ethics flirtatious, even by your standards?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:28 pm (UTC)

"You're telling me that you'd kill me if I made you have to," he says. "To me that's pretty much like offering to blow me under the table. But I bet you didn't mean it that way."

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Indeed not."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:33 pm (UTC)

"But if you think she should kill me, why haven't you?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:36 pm (UTC)

"You're not my problem. I have an empire to run, I'm not an interdimensional vigilante. Besides, several of my goals for that empire would be easier to achieve if I retained routine access to Milliways, and I don't think the bar likes it when her customers try to kill each other - as you've noticed. And, you're asleep. Most people, when they die in their dreams? Don't die in real life. I doubt magical solutions would hold, for the same reason - and I have no way to check, either way."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Not your problem," he hums. "Oh, sweetie, you disappoint me."

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:41 pm (UTC)

"There are probably dozens of you," Bella says. "And dozens more people who aren't you whose worlds could also benefit from their deaths. That's simply not my career choice, and even if it were, it wouldn't be consistent of me to attack one target of opportunity that I can't check up on, and likely lose any chance to perform equally or more useful assassinations under better conditions. Given that I've chosen to do something else with my life, it would be stupid to attack you and torpedo my ability to use Milliways to do what I originally planned to do, which is start up trade with alternate Empress Bellas and similarly congenial folks to improve quality of life for all our empires."
Edited 2013-01-15 19:42 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Well you sure are a cold customer."

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:52 pm (UTC)

"When called for, I can be."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I like it," he confides.

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Good for you."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 07:53 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:54 pm (UTC)

Bella peers over in the corner of the room where Alice is talking to the girl. She's also reading his mind and knows they're still chatting, but the visual perspective is more useful for some purposes than filtering through the mindreading.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-15 07:57 pm (UTC)

Alice and the girl are giggling together about the logistical intricacies of raining jelly beans. She is supporting her point with scribbled equations, while he prefers to wave his hands around and cackle a lot.

self_composed
2013-01-15 07:58 pm (UTC)

She smiles fondly and turns back to her interlocutor. She doesn't have much else to say at the moment.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:04 pm (UTC)

Her interlocutor is humming to himself and breaking the rules of Solitaire. He looks up.

"Is there," he asks thoughtfully, "a game you'd want to play?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:04 pm (UTC)

"I'm playing 'take over the world'," Bella says. "On hard mode, where I don't do unethical things in the process. But with all my cheat codes." She tilts her head. "That's probably not what you meant."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:06 pm (UTC)

"It's a good answer," he says. "I like that answer. But yeah, wrong question."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Then you might need to be more specific."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says, "there's a lot of games I could play with you, but most of 'em wouldn't be fun for you. And some of 'em wouldn't be fun for me either, at least - heh - not for very long."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Mm." She peers up to the ceiling. "I'm not coming up with anything. At least nothing that would compare particularly favorably with my default activity, which, I remind you, involves ruling a space empire."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure it's a very nice space empire," he says. "Can I come visit?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:14 pm (UTC)

"I might just barely be willing to put you on Mars somewhere for a visit. It's got lots of safety features. But all things considered I think not."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:16 pm (UTC)

"If you put me somewhere with safety features, I'm gonna try'n break 'em," he agrees. "But I'll try'n break 'em nicely, 'cause I like you."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:18 pm (UTC)

"And yet, funnily enough, I put the safety features in because I wanted them as they are," Bella says mildly. "And so I would not much care for even the nicest of breakage."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Suit yourself."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Always."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting that impression."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Aren't you observant."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I sure am!"

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:24 pm (UTC)

"So your bat-costume-clad crush," Bella says, "do you not even know her name? Or is her name actually Bat or Bats or something?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it's a big secret," he says. "I tried to get it out of her once, at the beginning, but I don't really care. I already know who she really is. I don't need to know who she pretends to be when the sun's up."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Is this dressing up as a terrifying expensive non-festive small mammal and then going out at night and getting into fights with the criminally insane a thing in your world?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Not until her, it wasn't."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Has she," Bella asks innocently, "inspired copybats?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:29 pm (UTC)

...

He cracks up.

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:30 pm (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:32 pm (UTC)

"She did!" he giggles. "They were a riot. Dried up pretty quick after I killed one, though. 'S a shame."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Ah. Yes, I'd imagine that would do it."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Never made a dent in her, though."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I'm curious," Bella says. "If she disappeared - suppose she died of a heart attack or developed a deadly peanut allergy, all by herself - something boring - would you even bother continuing to terrorize the place?"

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Mm... maybe," he says. "Maybe not. I hope she doesn't; it'd break my heart."

The wide-eyed anxious delivery of 'break my heart' is deliberately exaggerated, but that doesn't make the message any less true.

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:38 pm (UTC)

"So she'd have a reasonable shot at quitting the carnage just by not dressing up as a bat anymore," says Bella. "If you don't know her daytime identity, that'd be all she'd have to do - quit appearing in the bat outfit in a way consistent with her being dead-or-disappeared. And then if it didn't work, she could just 'come back'."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:39 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"She doesn't know that. And I bet she thinks getting me locked up solved the problem just fine."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but I mean after you get out. Unless you're planning to dress up like a marmoset to throw her off."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:44 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"Nah. Anyway, she's not just after me. And say what you like about her, she scared half the crime outta Gotham. The boys wouldn'ta hired me to kill her if she wasn't playing hell with their bottom line."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe she can get the other half down to reasonable levels while you're put away, and then when you escape she'll have the leeway to retire-slash-fake-her-death," shrugs Bella.

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:48 pm (UTC)

"And once she's done that, whos gonna keep 'em down? Besides, she's not the only hot prospect in town. I could have some fun with our shiny new police commissioner, I bet."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:52 pm (UTC)

"What's it like?" he wonders idly. "Dating mini-me."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I like it," says Bella. "He sews me dresses. He's snuggly. He makes fascinating faces when in pain."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I'll bet he does."

self_composed
2013-01-15 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Took some getting used to, but I'm pretty adaptable in some respects."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Do you ever set him on fire?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I have a more all-purpose, sanitary tool for the job."

manofmyword
2013-01-15 09:04 pm (UTC)

Inquisitively: "Mm?"

self_composed
2013-01-15 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Magic," says Bella. "Obviously."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:57 am (UTC)

"Well aren't you sweet."

self_composed
2013-01-16 05:39 pm (UTC)

"One could say that."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:06 pm (UTC)

"You don't think so?"

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, I do, but most people find the whole thing a little disturbing."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Does that," he inquires, "bother you?"

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:09 pm (UTC)

"So far it hasn't caused me any problems. It'll probably present a challenge for my future PR person if the details get out, though."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

"See, this is why empires are bad," he teases. "Who wants to be beholden to all those opinions?"

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I said I was a space Empress, not a space President. I don't want people to be uncomfortable with me; that doesn't mean I can't live with it and get on with my business if they are."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:18 pm (UTC)

"You want my advice?"

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I might ignore you, but sure."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Of course you're gonna ignore me, who takes advice from the Joker? No, no. All I'm saying is, if you wanna keep the people comfortable, never let your boy get in front of a camera."

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I had no plans to do so," Bella says.

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:29 pm (UTC)

"That," he says, "is 'cause you're a smart cookie."

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:32 pm (UTC)

"There's no real reason to," Bella says. "He doesn't even seem particularly interested in being a public figure. If interviewers want to know about my personal life they're going to be politely told it's none of their business, regardless."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh, don't let anybody tell you I'm not a fan of the spotlight."

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:42 pm (UTC)

"In such a way and for such reasons that I should expect Alice to develop the same proclivity?"

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:44 pm (UTC)

"He might. And if you don't know that, you don't know him as well as you think you do."

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I mean in particular, as opposed to developing an equal and opposite interest in - say - living without human contact apart from me on an asteroid dolled up in the style of the Little Prince."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:50 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"I'll let you figure that one out for yourself."

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I can see him doing the asteroid thing," she says. "It'd be cute."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Adorable," the Joker agrees. "I'm tempted."

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:52 pm (UTC)

"How would do you it, plain old non-magical human?"

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:53 pm (UTC)

He blinks wide, excessively innocent eyes at her, an effect it is difficult to achieve with the surrounding sockets blacked out by makeup.

"Pretty please, can I have an asteroid?"

self_composed
2013-01-16 06:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a way to get to your world and do magic there," Bella points out. "Since you're sleeping. Although now that you mention it, I would in fact be pretty comfortable stashing you on an asteroid for the rest of your life."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I'd get bored eventually," he says. "Unless I still came here, I guess. Then I'd be juuuust fine."

self_composed
2013-01-16 07:21 pm (UTC)

"There's no obvious reason why you wouldn't, unless it only happens when you sleep in certain geographical locations."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, it never happened before she caught me."

self_composed
2013-01-16 07:26 pm (UTC)

"That could be about the location or about any number of coincident factors," Bella shrugs.

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it's 'cause she caught me," he says, because he enjoys irony.

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Maybe."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Innnn which case, perhaps your little asteroid would do the same thing."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Quite possibly. And much safer for everyone. Because a plain old human cannot get off an asteroid without equipment or magic."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Maybe so," he agrees placidly. "You're fun. If you put me on an asteroid will you come visit sometimes?"

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I'll talk to you if I run into you in Milliways," Bella says.

She doesn't doubt that this fellow can talk most people into doing things they wouldn't normally do, even without much leverage. She thinks she's probably not one of them. But she doesn't want to be overconfident.

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:14 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"What if I say please?" he coaxes.

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm not so hung up on the social niceties that they'll get me to do things that were not previously at least on the 'maybe' list."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I like that about you," he confides.

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:18 pm (UTC)

"It's nice to be appreciated."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:20 pm (UTC)

"But," he admits, with a sly glance to the side and a conspiratorial lean forward, "I'm glad you can't stick me on an asteroid."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:22 pm (UTC)

"You'd get all nostalgic for the murder and for your bat-clad crush," says Bella, with sympathy that is not entirely mocking.

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Mostly for her," he says. "Don't tell me you fell for that one too; I don't like murder all by itself."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:26 pm (UTC)

"You don't? Not even a little?"

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Mm, well, that's the thing," he says, tipping his chair back on two legs and glancing up into the rafters, gesturing expressively with one hand. "It's fun, sometimes; I'm not saying it's not. And it's fun-ny. But it's not an end in itself, like... oh... sex."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:35 pm (UTC)

"You just do it to see how people react, is that it? And nothing else guarantees such a very strong reaction, or you'd content yourself with property damage and white-collar crime and provocative graffiti and dumping trucksful of jellybeans onto the freeway."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you do know my favourite book."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:36 pm (UTC)

"It's the same as Alice's," Bella says, leaning back.

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:41 pm (UTC)

He puts his hands on the table, drops his chair level again, and grins.

"It's not all about the reactions, either," he says. "Some. You know who you should talk to? You should talk to Quin. I bet you guys'd get along. Don't tell her you're planning on yanking me off the planet, though; she wouldn't like it at all." He leans forward across the table, glances side-to-side, whispers: "I think she likes me."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Is she fully informed?" Bella asks.

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:46 pm (UTC)

"She's my officcial headshrinker at Arkham Asylum," he says. "So yeah, pretty well."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:47 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts helplessly. "Your shrink has a crush on you. Oh lord."

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I never said she had a crush. She doesn't wanna fuck me, or we woulda already," he says with an easy shrug. "But she likes me. I like her, too."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Maybe she has some residual sense of professional ethics," Bella suggests.

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Mm, could be. Could be she's put off by what happened to my first shrink, too."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Which was what?"

manofmyword
2013-01-16 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, he decided he did want to fuck me," the Joker says matter-of-factly. "I put up with it for a while because he was funny, and then I killed him."

self_composed
2013-01-16 11:53 pm (UTC)

Bella's not particularly fazed by lethal responses to things that fall under the umbrella of "rape". "Yes. I'd imagine that would remind people of their professional ethics, if that were an event in recent memory."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:02 am (UTC)

"She should know better, though, she's known me for long enough." He shrugs. "But maybe you're right. Maybe it'll be different when I get out."

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:03 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure her professional ethics are supposed to last even after you are no longer her patient, although she might not be technically at risk of losing her license at that point," Bella says.
Edited 2013-01-17 00:05 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:07 am (UTC)

"But why is it against professional ethics to fuck your patients?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:08 am (UTC)

"Issues of vulnerability and abuse potential," Bella says. "Of course the rules were designed because of that potential in one direction, but you know, I'm not so sure that there's not something sketchy about you having sex with someone who's spent any amount of time having it be her job to listen to you talk."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:10 am (UTC)

"Do tell," he says, giving her an unimpressed look.

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:10 am (UTC)

She shrugs. "What else is there to tell?"

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:11 am (UTC)

"Why."

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:14 am (UTC)

"Because with a captive audience - mind you I say a captive audience, someone whose job is on the line if she just gets up and leaves, I'm not saying you're mistreating arbitrary people who can go as they please if you have sex with them - I think you could be unduly fascinating, at least to a certain kind of person who might be disproportionately likely to become a shrink. When the only winning move is not to play, anyone who has to play - loses."
Edited 2013-01-17 00:14 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:23 am (UTC)

"Mm," he says. "Nah. I don't buy it. I could be playing her, sure. But I'm not. I just—" he smiles briefly, there and then gone "—like her."

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:25 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "I am not infallible. I am Space Empress, not Space Pope."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:27 am (UTC)

"Like I said, though, I bet you guys'd get along. Doctor Quinzel," he says. "Harleen Quinzel. Funny, right? Keep an eye out."

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:27 am (UTC)

"Sure, why not?"

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:35 am (UTC)

He hums to himself, looking down at his solitaire game.

Then he rubs his hand across the cards, stirring them into an irretrievable mess.
Edited 2013-01-17 00:36 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:36 am (UTC)

Bella can't see Alice where he's at - he and his new friend have gone outside, which is not visible through the same window that leads to the exploding stars - but she checks to see when he's likely to want to go home.
Edited 2013-01-17 00:43 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 12:44 am (UTC)

In a word, nope.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:44 am (UTC)

"Getting antsy?" the Joker inquires.

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:45 am (UTC)

"A little. If you're asleep, how do you go home? Do you just stay here indefinitely until you decide to try to take somebody's arm off?"

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:46 am (UTC)

He points at the door.

"If I go out, I wake up." Smiling, "But mostly I don't go out."

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:47 am (UTC)

"Aha. Well, I can see how this'd compare favorably with an asylum."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:48 am (UTC)

"It's fun when I'm talking to Quinnie, but that's only once a week."
Edited 2013-01-17 00:48 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:48 am (UTC)

"They only have you in therapy once a week, or you have multiple doctors?"

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:50 am (UTC)

"First one. You kidding? After Dr. Larson, I think she's the only one who'd take me."

self_composed
2013-01-17 12:50 am (UTC)

"They must be really overcrowded or understaffed or both."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 12:51 am (UTC)

"Yep."

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:09 am (UTC)

"I wonder how many worlds there are," Bella muses idly. "And how many duplicates. So far I have seen a bizarrely high ratio of duplicates of people I know from home to others, but that could just be Milliways steering me to interesting crowds."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:09 am (UTC)

"I never met a single one before," he offers. "Still haven't, technically. I never saw your boyfriend. Maybe Milliways doesn't want me to."

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:11 am (UTC)

"He's outside with his new friend Matilda talking about... cupcakes, at the moment, but they've ranged over a variety of topics," says Bella. "If you're still here when we leave I imagine you'll see him on our way out. What would you do if you saw him, that Milliways wouldn't approve of?"

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:12 am (UTC)

"Give him a kiss?" is the first thing that comes to mind, delivered with an innocent flutter of eyelashes.

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:14 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure he'd recognize you at first glance. I've fixed up my eyes and he hasn't done anything to his; the makeup and the scarring and the decades are probably an impediment." She shrugs. "Then again, even if you were a total stranger that doesn't necessarily mean he wouldn't be into it."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:15 am (UTC)

"Try to take him home, just to see what happened," is his next offering.

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:16 am (UTC)

"That doesn't sound like a wise experiment," says Bella.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:16 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:17 am (UTC)

"Well, your world doesn't sound like the best vacation spot even if it were accessed the usual way. Going through a door opened by someone here as unconventionally as you are? Dangerous. I'd want to meet someone who tried it first, or at least ask the bar and see if she knows."
Edited 2013-01-17 01:22 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:30 am (UTC)

"Mm. Bet he'd do it anyway."

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:33 am (UTC)

"He'd have an impulse to. He might also come home with me and collect his present instead. He'll never find out what it is if he gets permanently stuck in your brain, or someplace equally inhospitable."
Edited 2013-01-17 01:35 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:36 am (UTC)

"And you'd care?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:38 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Bella. "I would care if my boyfriend was trapped someplace and couldn't come back. I would miss him, even apart from his practical usefulness."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:41 am (UTC)

"It's nice," he say matter-of-factly.

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:42 am (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:51 am (UTC)

"You're a tough audience," he says, gently teasing. "I never had a friend like you when I was that age. I'm glad your guy does."

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:51 am (UTC)

"I'm glad he does, too."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:53 am (UTC)

He lets the silence rest a moment, then says softly,

"I really don't wanna be stuck on an asteroid."

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:54 am (UTC)

"Well," says Bella. "Then if I ever find myself on your world, prepared to make you my problem, you'd better convince me you're harmless, or be dead before I finish putting the turf down on a pretty little space rock."
Edited 2013-01-17 01:55 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:56 am (UTC)

"Sweetie." He shivers. "You are cold."

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:57 am (UTC)

"When my problems include sources of death? Yes. Who wept for the malarial parasites?"

manofmyword
2013-01-17 01:58 am (UTC)

"'Course, if that's what you're after, why not just kill me yourself? Or do you not like me like that?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 01:59 am (UTC)

Bella considers.

"Would you rather be killed outright than stranded on an asteroid?" she asks slowly.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:01 am (UTC)

"The way you put it, I'm surprised you don't think so," he says, which isn't precisely an answer.

"If I knew there wouldn't be Milliways there, it'd be yes for sure."

That is.

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:02 am (UTC)

"But you don't know that," Bella says.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:05 am (UTC)

"I don't know that," he agrees. "But if it takes long enough to show up, I might not care. And I really don't wanna die all alone on an asteroid in the middle'a nowhere, either way."

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:07 am (UTC)

"Once you were safely stranded on the asteroid," Bella says, "perhaps I could wait a couple days and see what you say about the presence or absence of Milliways when you wake up. I don't anticipate being in a hurry on that time scale."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:08 am (UTC)

He smiles.

"Be sweet of you."

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:10 am (UTC)

"I actually don't know if I have the stomach to kill someone when there's another option," she says conversationally. "I'm quite sure I could do it if there wasn't, by the way, so cornering me won't yield any interesting facts... But I could check. And even if I didn't I could arrange for you not to be alone."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:14 am (UTC)

"I'd like that," he murmurs.

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:15 am (UTC)

Bella nods.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:16 am (UTC)

With the same bizarrely innocent curiosity from before: "Would you care?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:19 am (UTC)

"Some."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:21 am (UTC)

"Aww."

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:21 am (UTC)

"You could've been like my Alice," she says softly.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:22 am (UTC)

"What's the difference, to you?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:25 am (UTC)

"Alice has never killed anyone," she says, "for one thing. And he's about whimsy - not mayhem - and he's mine."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:27 am (UTC)

"The hell he is," the Joker says amicably.

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:29 am (UTC)

"He's not my slave or my appendage or my trained ferret, but he's mine."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:30 am (UTC)

"How d'you figure?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:31 am (UTC)

"In what sense of the word do you object? You weren't complaining when I called him my boyfriend."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:32 am (UTC)

"Maybe I'm wrong about how you meant it."

He doesn't think so, though.

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:34 am (UTC)

"He loves me," Bella says. "I can make him feel better when he's upset. I go around referring to him as my pet masochist. And he's mine."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:35 am (UTC)

"I know he loves you. When'd you make him feel better?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 02:37 am (UTC)

"Most recently? My alternate's bodyguard wanted his 'real' name," Bella says. "I warned him before we even walked in that I didn't want any interdimensional incidents - so he ran to the moon instead. I made up a name for them and went up after him."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 02:42 pm (UTC)

"You are a sweetheart," says the Joker.

self_composed
2013-01-17 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I care about him. He was hurting."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I knoow. It's sweet," he says.

self_composed
2013-01-17 04:39 pm (UTC)

"He's sweet too. He fixed me up when I got hit by a car, before I had quite as much magic to throw around."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww. I wanna hug him," says the Joker. "I wanna hug you too, but I bet you don't."

self_composed
2013-01-17 04:41 pm (UTC)

"It's true. I do not harbor a desire to hug you."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 04:42 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Didn't think so."

self_composed
2013-01-17 04:43 pm (UTC)

"But perhaps you can get hugs from your shrink," says Bella. "If you are in need of a supply."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Nah, she doesn't do that. And it's not the same, anyway."

self_composed
2013-01-17 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Not the same how?"

manofmyword
2013-01-17 04:45 pm (UTC)

"There's a difference between wanting to hug somebody in particular and wanting just any old hug. Isn't there?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

"I suppose."

manofmyword
2013-01-17 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Mm. So, you gonna introduce me to your boyfriend?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 04:49 pm (UTC)

Alice has just about finished up his conversation with Matilda; she's on her way to the door. "Let's see," she says. [Hey Alice. Come see who I found.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 04:51 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] he says, and teleports to Bella's vicinity.

And looks at the Joker.

And looks at him again.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Hiiiii," he says, lifting a hand and wiggling his fingers in a cute little wave.

self_composed
2013-01-17 04:53 pm (UTC)

"This is apparently what happens if you don't meet me and a few other things go slightly differently," Bella says. Impulsively, she loops her arm around Alice's waist and leans her head on him. He's standing right there, after all.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 04:55 pm (UTC)

Alice snugs his arm around Bella's shoulders and kisses the top of her head, but he is still looking at the Joker.

"Wow," he murmurs.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 04:57 pm (UTC)

The Joker licks his lips in that way he has, kind of like a snake tasting the air. His lipstick glistens.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:02 pm (UTC)

Well, thanks for drawing Alice's attention right back to the most fascinating thing about you, Clownface.

(Did he mean it like that, though? Or...? No, he totally meant it like that. But did he know what Alice would think of it? How could he not?)

The hell with it. He teleports directly into the Joker's lap and kisses him.

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:03 pm (UTC)

Ayep. Bella rolls her eyes. She got her little bit of hug, and this or something like it was predictable.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 05:06 pm (UTC)

The Joker kisses back.

For quite some time.

"You'n'me could really have some fun," he says eventually, resting his hands on Alice's shoulders and looking into his eyes with a challenging grin. "Wanna?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:07 pm (UTC)

Instantly: "Yeah."

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Does this place have hotel rooms or are you planning to scandalize the patrons?" Bella asks dryly.

manofmyword
2013-01-17 05:10 pm (UTC)

"I got a room," the Joker says brightly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:11 pm (UTC)

Alice teleports them there.

Just the two of them. If Bella wants to follow, she can, but he figures this isn't the kind of thing she's going to want to watch in person.

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:12 pm (UTC)

It isn't.

But she keeps up the read.

And orders a milkshake and looks for someone else to pass the time with, because she doesn't think she can read Alice in Milliways if she goes home.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:14 pm (UTC)

She can have fun reading a hell of a lot of very physical, somewhat violent makeouts, then, because that's what they get up to. At least at first.

Meanwhile, perhaps that tastefully dressed businesswoman who is just sitting down at the bar and ordering a protein shake would be interesting to talk to.
Edited 2013-01-17 17:32 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:33 pm (UTC)

Bella plops down next to her. "Hi. I'm bored. Who're you and where are you from?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Roberta," she says. "Earth, 2008. Hello, Bored."

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Bella, not Bored. Mars, 2005," Bella says. "Nice to meet you."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Mars. That's new," says Roberta. "Native, or immigrant?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Colonizer-sorceress-empress," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:38 pm (UTC)

Roberta's eyebrows lift. "That's definitely new. I'm not sure whether to congratulate you, or sidle away."
Edited 2013-01-17 17:38 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I am a benevolent sorceress-empress," says Bella. "I'm just looking for a way to pass the time while my boyfriend makes out with his psychotic alternate self upstairs."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:42 pm (UTC)

(Was that a slight flinch at 'psychotic'? Well, it's reasonable for it to have been.)

"That sounds... trying," says Roberta. "The boyfriend part, not the benevolence part. The benevolence is reassuring."

Upstairs, they are in the process of shifting from making out to things involving fewer clothes and more sharp objects. Alice is having lots of fun. So is the Joker.

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm a little concerned about leaving him alone with that guy, who is basically my boyfriend with a couple extra decades and not enough friends in high school and a tendency to commit terrorism. But I can read my boyfriend's mind and he's having fun. He has weird tastes."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 05:47 pm (UTC)

Terrorism definitely makes her wince. But then, that is a very natural reaction.

"Good for your boyfriend?" she hazards, looking mildly unsettled.

self_composed
2013-01-17 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I suppose. When I met my alternate all we did was discuss trade agreements between empires - hers involves more vampires, less Mars, but still, respectable - but to each their own. You ever met one of you in here?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:09 pm (UTC)

"I haven't," she says. And, smiling: "If I did, I don't think it would involve making out or negotiating trade agreements."
Edited 2013-01-17 19:09 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:10 pm (UTC)

"What would it be, then?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:11 pm (UTC)

"You know, I really have no idea. But I don't have an empire and I'm not interested in making out with myself, so..."

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes, those would be the reasons not to go my route or my boyfriend's," snorts Bella. "What do you do?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:14 pm (UTC)

"I manage the family business," she says. "In theory. In practice, other people do most of the managing."

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:15 pm (UTC)

"And you... stand around looking important? Sit in a corner office and stamp your signature on things? Golf?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:17 pm (UTC)

"How did you guess?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm running on pure stereotype. But come on, this is making you sound boring, and I didn't think boring people were invited in here."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:22 pm (UTC)

"I know defining people by their careers is a longstanding American tradition, but I'd hope the Martian empire would be a little more enlightened," says Roberta.

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I'm not. I'm judging you for the golf. Golf is mind-numbing," says Bella, smirking.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:23 pm (UTC)

"As long as you don't comment on the size of my balls, I think I can survive your disdain," says Roberta.

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:25 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts. "I guess not everyone can jump out a window and fly around when bored."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Gravity: a tragic human limitation."

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm a human. It's the other Bella who's a vampire."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Silly me," says Roberta.

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Very." Bella takes a long drink of milkshake. "At the risk of sounding both like a cliche and like I'm hitting on you, neither of which is the case: come here often?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Not very," she says. "But I appreciate the break when it happens."

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I've only been here four times, this being me on my way home from a round trip," Bella says. "And the first time, my personnel - officer? manager? I need to pick a title for her - found the door. I found it the time after, though. My alternate doesn't encounter it often; it's usually her kid."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Why doesn't your personnel manager have a title?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I haven't been an empress for very long, and getting her one hasn't been a huge priority," Bella shrugs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Where did the empire come from, if you don't mind my asking?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I went to Mars and terraformed it and declared myself the empress thereof," Bella says. "With magic. I have a fair amount of magic."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:48 pm (UTC)

"...Has anyone immigrated?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:50 pm (UTC)

"A handful of people, so far. We're still working on breaking it to Earth that it's an option, so it's personal friends at this point, but I think the free rent and magical healthcare and teleportation-based subway and stuff are going to get attention."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Free rent and magical healthcare definitely sound promising," says Roberta. "What's the catch?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:52 pm (UTC)

"There isn't one. It's magic. I can offer all that stuff on the cheap. I want people to have a nice place to live and not die or worry about paying the landlord. I get to call myself Empress and lay down magical laws-nigh-unto-physics around Mars so people don't stab each other or set anything on fire, and they get to live in a place where those things don't happen and they get the necessities without a hassle."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:54 pm (UTC)

Roberta smiles wryly. "Maybe this is my cynical Gotham roots showing, but that sounds too good to be true."

self_composed
2013-01-17 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Gotham?" Bella asks. "I wonder if you're from the same one that my boyfriend's alternate lives in. I don't think there even is a city by that name on my Earth."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 07:59 pm (UTC)

"There isn't in a lot of worlds," she says, looking slightly unsettled, perhaps because of what Bella has told her about said alternate. "One of those weird Milliways things. I haven't met very many people here who do have one."

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Weird. I got the impression it was a big place. Do you know anything about how it was founded?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," she says. "All my historical knowledge is a little more recent."

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Oh well. If Gotham is so cynicism-inducing, why is it a big place? Why doesn't everyone pack up and move to someplace nice? You don't have a magic door to a terraformed Mars, but I imagine you have a California."
Edited 2013-01-17 20:06 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:14 pm (UTC)

"A lot of people don't have the option," she says, looking a little withdrawn. "Some of them like it just fine the way it is. And some of the rest of us would like to see it get better."

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:15 pm (UTC)

"That probably accounts for at least half the population. But a big city with organized crime and thriving businesses and stuff in it has to have a decent-sized middle class who mind their own business mostly. Why are they still there?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Denial?" she suggests. "Inertia? I really don't know."
Edited 2013-01-17 20:18 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. What's your angle on the seeing it get better thing? I must be too used to having magic; I'm blanking on other strategies right now."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Money," she says wryly. "Money and time. It's not working out as well as I'd hoped."

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Sure, but doing what with the money? Throwing it at the educational system? Funding the volunteer fire department? Renovating the libraries?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Orphanages," she says distantly.

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Not bad," says Bella. "Er, you okay?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:32 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head and summons a rueful smile. "Sorry, did I just make this conversation uncomfortably personal? Forget I said anything."

Meanwhile, in the Joker's room: The Joker observes that it's a pity he doesn't have a gun with him.

Alice fixes that.

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:34 pm (UTC)

Bella makes a bit of a face at that and then shakes herself off. "It's okay, you - just don't look like you're particularly happy."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:37 pm (UTC)

"And now neither do you," says Roberta. "Quick, let's start talking about... puppies or something."

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Sorry, I'm just - not comfortable leaving them unmonitored, but I am not that kinky," Bella says, pointing at the ceiling. "Nothing to do with our conversation. Puppies! They're so cute! I have never had one myself. You?"
Edited 2013-01-17 20:38 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," she admits. "But they are very cute."

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:41 pm (UTC)

"There aren't any on Mars. No one has brought pets up yet, and the ecosystem I designed doesn't include any predators."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:44 pm (UTC)

"That seems like a flaw," she says. "Paradise planets should have something cute and fluffy and domesticated."

(Alice and the Joker have not gotten around to using that gun for anything; they are too busy expressing and celebrating their mutual appreciation for its presence.)

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:46 pm (UTC)

"There's bunnies," Bella says. "No shortage of nice fuzzy bunnies. They're modified so they don't, er, breed like rabbits, though, since nothing's eating them. If people develop an interest in hunting in my wilderness I'll fiddle with that."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:48 pm (UTC)

"People are probably going to want cats and dogs," she says. "But nice fuzzy bunnies are a good start."

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:49 pm (UTC)

"They're allowed to bring pets with them, I don't object to that," Bella says. "Dogs, cats, red-tailed hawks, snakes, whatever. I just haven't got any running - or flying or slithering - wild."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:51 pm (UTC)

"And I guess you can always trade with Earth if someone wants a pet they didn't bring with them. Do you have trade agreements with Earth?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 08:54 pm (UTC)

"So far I've talked to the President of the United States and told her she's welcome to set up customs around the magic door in case scary Canadians attempt to depart Mars," Bella says. "Everything else is still a work in progress. Magic isn't generally known on my Earth. Me and four other people have the general-purpose kind, and a few score worldwide have specific powers that do one thing and they generally aren't advertising themselves - some don't even know. But I certainly hope there will be trade. Enterprising businesspeople setting up pet shops in Olympus. Olympus is the city I built on Mars to start out," Bella explains.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-17 08:56 pm (UTC)

"You're not going to get enterprising businesspeople like that without a population," she observes. "Does Mars have any natural resources besides bunnies?"

self_composed
2013-01-17 09:00 pm (UTC)

Bella starts ticking off fingers. "Open, scenic space. Pollution of various sorts fixes itself automatically, so it's a great place to put industrial anything. I put in plenty of plants, and freshwater oceans full of fish. I don't suppose people are particularly likely to find diamond mines or whatever, since I didn't install any, but there's Mars rock under the flora and that might stay interesting to astronaut types for a while. Magic free healthcare isn't exactly natural but it's a resource - if I don't get tourists with cancer I'll conjure a hat and eat it, and someone will need to sell those tourists lunch and t-shirts that say 'I Heart Mars'."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 01:33 am (UTC)

"Suddenly I'm tempted to invest," Roberta says dryly.

self_composed
2013-01-18 01:35 am (UTC)

"I can sell you some Imperial Asters, even from here, but you might find it inconvenient to spend them."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 01:36 am (UTC)

"You named your currency asters? That's cute."

self_composed
2013-01-18 01:37 am (UTC)

"I considered and rejected 'starbucks'," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 01:38 am (UTC)

Roberta chuckles.

Upstairs, Alice snuggles up and nuzzles the Joker's shoulder. It's nice, being with somebody he understands so easily, and who understands him the same way. It feels... not safe, kind of the opposite actually, but good.
Edited 2013-01-18 01:53 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-18 02:03 am (UTC)

"Sweetie."

He pulls Alice into a hug, kisses his cheek, his jaw, the side of his neck just under his ear.

"You're beautiful, anybody ever tell you that?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:03 am (UTC)

He laughs softly and doesn't answer, doesn't even consult his memory to find out.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 02:05 am (UTC)

"I know, honey." He kisses Alice's neck again and scoots closer, reaching past him. "Believe me, I know."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:06 am (UTC)

What—oh, of course.

Mmm.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 02:09 am (UTC)

Yeah.

"Could do some damage with this," he murmurs thoughtfully, pressing the gun against Alice's stomach so it digs in a little. "You ever been shot, sweetheart?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:10 am (UTC)

"Nah," he says, shivering mostly-pleasantly. "You?"

self_composed
2013-01-18 02:11 am (UTC)

[My regen is good enough to deal with a few bullets through the head. You didn't copy mine. Is yours that good?] Bella asks urgently. She's probably making faces Roberta might want explained. [Sorry if I'm breaking the mood, but I want to take you home alive when you're done.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:13 am (UTC)

Alice declines to answer her, because he doesn't know and right now he doesn't care to.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 02:17 am (UTC)

A flash of a grin stretches his scars for a moment. "Maaaaaaaybe," he singsongs.

And then, "So having your guts blown out doesn't scare you any. How about here?" He drags the gun slowly up Alice's chest.

self_composed
2013-01-18 02:19 am (UTC)

Well. If he doesn't want to know then he has no grounds to complain if she makes it that good right now. She leaves his other unique features. If he gets a bullet in the brain it'll hurt like dying to grow it back. But no actual dying will be involved.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:21 am (UTC)

He shudders, increasingly terrified and liking it that way.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 02:23 am (UTC)

The muzzle of the gun comes to rest under Alice's chin. The Joker kisses him softly.

"That scares you," he murmurs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:23 am (UTC)

Breathlessly: "Yeah."

self_composed
2013-01-18 02:25 am (UTC)

He still likes it. As long as he still likes it this is just her being squeamish. Bella grits her teeth and forces down a sip of milkshake. It's melting. A triangle can fix that.

"I am going to feel much better when I get him home," she mutters.
Edited 2013-01-18 02:25 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:27 am (UTC)

Roberta looks concerned. "Are you sure he's okay? Are you okay?"

manofmyword
2013-01-18 02:28 am (UTC)

"I'd do it," he says, his breath warm on Alice's lips. "You know that, don't you? I would."

self_composed
2013-01-18 02:30 am (UTC)

"There is a gun pointed at my boyfriend. He will survive getting shot and he's having fun with it. That doesn't mean I love it," Bella explains tightly. "I am glad I have a my-boyfriend instead of the alt, in my world."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:34 am (UTC)

Roberta looks appalled.

"I know," he says. His voice catches a little. All of a sudden it's too much, the pressure against the softness of his throat, the fear and uncertainty and everything he was loving a minute ago.

self_composed
2013-01-18 02:36 am (UTC)

[You can leave,] Bella tells Alice urgently. [You can teleport downstairs and we can go home.]

manofmyword
2013-01-18 02:40 am (UTC)

She isn't the only one who's noticed, though.

The Joker clicks the safety on and tosses the gun off the bed, reaching for a blanket in the same movement and wrapping them both in it.

"Shhhh-hhh," he soothes. "I gotcha, baby."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:42 am (UTC)

He curls up and buries his face against the Joker's chest and cries.

Words are utterly beyond him, but perhaps Bella will be able to deduce from context that he does not want to go anywhere.

self_composed
2013-01-18 02:44 am (UTC)

Okay. That's better. Bella calms down. For the moment.

(But she does not let up that read for a second.)

"I'm sorry, I might not be very good company for the next unknown period of time," she tells Roberta apologetically. "I can just conjure a book if you'd rather go talk to somebody else."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 02:52 am (UTC)

It's good, it's good, he wants to be here. It's not safe, but it's something else. He's going to be hurt and scared and suffer in all kinds of ways, but eventually, he'll be okay. He believes that. He will be okay.

"No, but now I'm worried," says Roberta, frowning. "Tell me more about this... alternate."

self_composed
2013-01-18 03:00 am (UTC)

"My boyfriend's name is Alice, but the alternate's significantly older and he told me he's going by 'Joker'," says Bella, rubbing at one of her eyes. "He's locked up in an asylum right now, which he claims he can escape at will and only hasn't because he likes his shrink, but Milliways lets him in in his dreams since he got put away even though he never came here before. He told me that he gets kicked out of here if he does anything too 'unfriendly', but I'm not sure where the line is or - actually - whether that's true, so I buffed Alice's regeneration just now." She shrugs. "What else do you want to know? He has a twisted sense of humor and a crush on a lady who dresses up like a bat for some reason and if I ever find myself in his world I'm going to strand him on a habitable asteroid or kill him because he is dangerous and he would never give up trying to get around any other measures to make him safe."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 03:03 am (UTC)

"The Joker is—dangerous," Roberta says, looking like she wishes she could come up with a stronger word. "You need to get your boyfriend away from him."

self_composed
2013-01-18 03:05 am (UTC)

"My boyfriend can teleport," Bella says. "There was one moment where he wasn't having fun anymore but the Joker backed off, that time. I don't think he'd appreciate being yanked down here. It hasn't gotten bad enough that I'd do it anyway. My boyfriend can take -" she laughs softly - "a lot."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 03:08 am (UTC)

All of a sudden Roberta is looking significantly more grim.

"The Joker doesn't just hurt people," she says. "He... twists them. Even good people."

self_composed
2013-01-18 03:09 am (UTC)

"I am reading Alice's mind. I am monitoring the situation," Bella says, chewing on her lip but shifting nervously. "So you've got one where you're from?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 03:12 am (UTC)

"Yes. He videotaped himself torturing someone and sent the video to the media. It was horrible."

Meanwhile, Alice is still crying, and the Joker is still comforting him.

He's kind of in love.

self_composed
2013-01-18 03:13 am (UTC)

"I don't doubt it," Bella says. "Hence the asteroid-or-death thing. If I ever encounter him out of Milliways and can do that sort of thing."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 03:27 am (UTC)

"...I'm.. not sure death is really the answer, either," says Roberta. "Although if you plan on whisking him away to an asteroid, don't let me stop you."

self_composed
2013-01-18 03:30 am (UTC)

"He'd rather be dead than on the asteroid unless the asteroid still afforded him chances to visit Milliways," Bella says. "I asked. If this ever happens, I will put him on an asteroid, wait for him to nap a few times and see if he can get here or not, and if he can't, I will either kill him or, if I can't stomach it, be there while he does it himself so he doesn't have to die alone. There's no point in being cruel. That won't help protect anyone."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 03:39 am (UTC)

Well, now Roberta is looking unsettled again.

And Alice... Alice is slowly falling asleep in the Joker's arms.

self_composed
2013-01-18 03:42 am (UTC)

Bella calms down somewhat as Alice falls asleep. There is a limit to how much psychological shit the Joker can pull on a sleeping Alice. She's pretty sure that talking to sleeping people doesn't tend to do worse than maybe influence what dreams they're having, and two can play at that game if she sees any dreams she doesn't like flitting across her vision. Non-psychological behavior might squick her but she doesn't think it'll do Alice prolonged harm.

"Something wrong?" Bella asks Roberta. "I guess eighteen-year-old girls don't routinely announce their willingness to kill terrorists?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 12:57 pm (UTC)

"They usually don't, no," she says, with an attempt at a smile; it rings a little more false than usual.

Upstairs, Alice is dozing, half-aware of his surroundings and mostly not thinking about anything much. In a half-aware dreamy way, he kind of wishes Bella were there, perhaps because in his half-aware dreamy state he doesn't have to consider her (probably quite low) level of desire to add to this cuddlepile.

self_composed
2013-01-18 04:28 pm (UTC)

"More of them should," Bella says. "Admittedly, I don't know how old the bat lady he's sweet on might be, but she had the chance and didn't take it and anyone he kills after he gets out of the asylum is a predictable result of that choice. He's been trying to get her to kill him the entire time, and he isn't doing it by mocking her ancestry or something, either, he's not innocently radioactive, he goes around murdering people."

Bella doesn't want to be in that room. She might consider it anyway, if it were physical rather than mental damage that had her concerned - because her window into the events in the room is Alice's mind and it's falling asleep. But she's pretty confident that any random physical damage can happen to Alice and he will still come home with her good as new.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 04:33 pm (UTC)

Roberta looks... withdrawn.

"Maybe fewer people should consider murder a solution to their problems."

self_composed
2013-01-18 04:34 pm (UTC)

"If he were innocently radioactive - hell, if he didn't have a blatant, admitted deathwish - then I'd be much less cavalier about it," Bella assures her. "He is a special case. I haven't ever actually killed anyone. I don't know if I could if I were not backed into a corner about it, and I have enough magic that I probably never will be."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Don't," Roberta advises. Which is odd advice to give, for the kind of person she claims to be.

Alice rubs his face sleepily against the Joker's chest.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 04:42 pm (UTC)

He giggles and strokes Alice's hair.

"Better, sweetie?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Mhmmm."

self_composed
2013-01-18 04:44 pm (UTC)

"My current plans don't include it," Bella says. "You have... stronger opinions on this subject than I expect random businesspeople who golf to have. Military background?" she guesses. "Maybe?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 04:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm... afraid of making our conversation uncomfortably personal again," says Roberta.

self_composed
2013-01-18 04:47 pm (UTC)

"I will be really impressed with you if you do anything more discomfiting than what I'm using you to distract me from," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 04:50 pm (UTC)

"My parents were shot in front of me by a mugger when I was eight," Roberta says flatly.

self_composed
2013-01-18 04:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Bella. "That's awful."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 04:55 pm (UTC)

"So you can see why I'd be not so keen on killing people in general."

self_composed
2013-01-18 04:56 pm (UTC)

"No," Bella says. "I mean, yes, that's a possible reaction to that experience, but it's not the only one. You could have turned into some pro-death-penalty tough-on-crime reactionary."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:15 pm (UTC)

Upstairs, Alice snuggles up and kisses the scar at the corner of the Joker's mouth.

"Where'd you get 'em?" he wonders.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Lemme show you," he suggests, producing a knife from somewhere. It is a little bit amazing how good the Joker is at coming up with knives.

self_composed
2013-01-18 05:18 pm (UTC)

Well. Even in the unlikely event Alice decides to keep creepy duplicate scars by suppressing his regen, his present when they get home will get rid of them, Bella has that on good authority.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:20 pm (UTC)

"The boyfriend again?" guesses Roberta.

Alice, meanwhile, is experiencing the sudden and obvious understanding that of course the Joker gave them to himself. He laughs.

self_composed
2013-01-18 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Alice asked about the..." Bella traces the scar locations on her own cheeks. "The Joker has offered to show him. The scars won't keep even if Alice lets them form to begin with, but... yeah." Pause. "Alice, who I guess would probably know, thinks the Joker gave himself said scars."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:23 pm (UTC)

Roberta frowns, more interested than disturbed. Although she is definitely also disturbed.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 05:24 pm (UTC)

The Joker slides the knife into Alice's mouth and rips it out again. It bleeds quite beautifully, and even more so when he does it again.

Time for a kiss?

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:28 pm (UTC)

Hell yes.

He lets himself heal somewhere in the middle of it, because he likes the tension between his cheek trying to come back together and the Joker's tongue pushing on the edges. It doesn't even hurt that much, but it's hot in a way that plain old pain can't compete with.

self_composed
2013-01-18 05:29 pm (UTC)

"He's letting himself heal," Bella reports. "So that's good. And of course they haven't gotten anywhere near the edges of his actual pain tolerance, which I don't think nonmagical humans can even approach without dying..."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:30 pm (UTC)

Roberta blinks.

"...Do I... want to know how you know that?"

self_composed
2013-01-18 05:31 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles wanly. "I don't know, do you?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Just tell me: consenual experimentation, or some kind of horrible... magic... thing?"

self_composed
2013-01-18 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Both," says Bella. "That's definitely a both."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:42 pm (UTC)

She raises her hands. "Okay, that's enough knowledge, thank you."

manofmyword
2013-01-18 05:44 pm (UTC)

The Joker shifts his grip on the knife, rests the edge against Alice's throat.

"You're gonna do me a favour," he murmurs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:47 pm (UTC)

...Well. Alice was not expecting that flashback.

It's not even exactly the right wording, and practically everything physical about the situation is wrong, but it still works just the way he's sure the Joker meant it to. All of a sudden he's seventeen again, in a dim New York alley, every detail of the scene crystalline in a way only eidetic memory can achieve.

self_composed
2013-01-18 05:48 pm (UTC)

[Are you okay?] Bella asks him, sitting bolt upright. [You can leave. You can leave without notice at any moment.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:50 pm (UTC)

She hits a busy message midsentence.

The busy message is [Fuck off!]

self_composed
2013-01-18 05:52 pm (UTC)

...

Bella keeps reading.

"He blocked me," she mutters. "I asked him if he was okay because he was having a flashback and he blocked me, and now I can't talk to him unless I brute-force it..."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 05:59 pm (UTC)

Alice and the Joker are flat-out brawling now, and the knife does damage to both of them in the process. So does the floor. And the frame of the bed. And the nightstand. And a wall.

He is more pissed off than he normally ever gets. At the Joker, at the man he was just reminded of so viscerally, at Bella; also, in a weird complicated inexplicable way, at himself.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 05:59 pm (UTC)

The Joker laughs and laughs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 06:02 pm (UTC)

"People having flashbacks do strange things," says Roberta. "Although I still think you should get him out of there."

self_composed
2013-01-18 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Bella says. "Yeah, at this point I agree with you. He'll be pissed, but he's pissed now..."

She still doesn't want to go up there in person. She wishes on a pentagon.

It stays on its chain.

Bella blinks, and swallows, and asks in a trembling voice, "Bar, was that you?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 06:08 pm (UTC)

No, says a very apologetic-looking napkin.

self_composed
2013-01-18 06:09 pm (UTC)

Bella tries a hex.

Bella uses that stubbornly undisappeared hex to declaw a star, and she tries the star.

"Fuck," Bella says. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, Lazarus did not warn me about this -"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 06:13 pm (UTC)

"What's going on?" says Roberta, rather urgently. "Who's Lazarus?"

Alice does not even know she is trying anything. He gets the Joker pinned, rips the knife out of his hand, and slashes open the side of his neck almost exactly over the scar they used to share.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 06:14 pm (UTC)

His giggles are somewhat muffled by the floor, but the way he relaxes when Alice cuts him is perfectly clear.

self_composed
2013-01-18 06:19 pm (UTC)

Bella makes a strangled squeaking sound. She does not want Alice to be the sort of person who cuts people's throats when he could just teleport away. She doesn't want that at all.

(Couldn't he teleport away? He hasn't tried, but could he, if his ingot power has reason to object to her doing it...?)

"Lazarus sees magic. We thought Alice was immune to - to mental tampering, but if Milliways isn't doing it then the only thing going on that could block me pulling him out is Alice's own native power. And teleportation isn't mental tampering. So now I don't even know what his power does and I don't know how to get him out." She's speaking very rapidly, and she's trying now to pull the Joker out, but he won't go either. "Fuck. Where's the lady who dresses up as a bat when you need her, I bet she could distract the Joker and maybe then I'd have a shot..."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 06:27 pm (UTC)

Alice drags his fingers along the cut, then licks it, shoving the Joker down against the floor.

It occurs to him that the Joker probably has flashbacks, too.

He lets him up.

...Roberta is looking kind of torn.

"How would the Bat get into this situation in the first place?"

manofmyword
2013-01-18 06:28 pm (UTC)

The Joker rolls onto his back, pulls Alice down, and kisses him fiercely.

self_composed
2013-01-18 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, if I saw a lady in a bat outfit - I'm assured it's terrifying - I'd ask her. But I don't," Bella says, cradling her head in her hands. Is the Joker in danger of dying? Alice is still the one with the medical expertise and right now she doesn't think she can stand to sift through it. A pentagon will do that no problem. Nope. Not a signifcant blood vessel there. He'll bleed, maybe enough to feel woozy, but he won't die. Alice has not just killed a man.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 06:36 pm (UTC)

He kisses back, then ducks his head and pushes his tongue into the cut again.

"Fuck," he says on a soft, shuddering exhale.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 07:03 pm (UTC)

"You okay, sweetie?" says the Joker, hugging him.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. You?"

manofmyword
2013-01-18 07:06 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "You betcha!"

self_composed
2013-01-18 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Things've calmed down a little again," Bella says, shuddering. "But I don't think I can count on them to stay that way. I need to think of something. Can you think of anything?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 07:29 pm (UTC)

"...Do you know where they are?" says Roberta, frowning.

Alice snuggles down on top of the Joker, lets his scratches and bruises fade away, and traces the cut with his fingertips. "Want me to fix this?"

manofmyword
2013-01-18 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 07:30 pm (UTC)

It only takes a square. He kisses the spot where the cut was; it's left a track of unblemished skin through the scar underneath.

self_composed
2013-01-18 07:32 pm (UTC)

"In the Joker's room. Alice teleported them there, or I'd have the room number or whatever is used here. Maybe the Bar would tell us. Why? Would that help?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 07:36 pm (UTC)

"It would be hard to interfere otherwise, wouldn't it? Even... hypothetically," says Roberta.

self_composed
2013-01-18 07:39 pm (UTC)

"If I can't even teleport to just outside the room I'll be about twice as alarmed as I am right now," Bella says. She flickers up and down, and, yes, there are conventional doors off conventional hallways, plenty of patrons have to get around by walking. "I can do that much. I can take passengers. But Alice doesn't want to listen to me, the Joker certainly won't, and I don't see his shrink or his Batlady anywhere. Well, maybe the shrink is here and I just don't recognize her, I don't suppose you know who she might be?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 07:40 pm (UTC)

Roberta looks deeply uncomfortable.

"You might want to think again about the Batlady."

self_composed
2013-01-18 07:41 pm (UTC)

"I guess she could also be here and I could not recognize her if -"

Bella stops.

She frowns at Roberta.

"Are you or are you not the Batlady?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Please don't spread it around," sighs Roberta.

Upstairs, Alice climbs back onto the Joker's bed.

self_composed
2013-01-18 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I have a reason to. If things get bad up there again, and I teleport you up and conjure you a bat costume and whatever else, will you try to draw the Joker out?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Can you conjure the suit without having seen it?" is the first thing she wants to know.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 07:55 pm (UTC)

The Joker follows Alice, and he brings the knife.

But all he does at first is snuggle.

self_composed
2013-01-18 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Unless you've got some magic preventing mine from consulting your brain, or you have a bunch of different suits and don't know how to distinguish them," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 08:00 pm (UTC)

"In that case, yes, I'll do it."

Alice finds the scar on the Joker's hip and smooths his hand over it.

Then he says, softly, "I want you to hold me down."

manofmyword
2013-01-18 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sweetie," he murmurs. "You sure?"

self_composed
2013-01-18 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Well," Bella says. "This could be sooner rather than later. But they're fine for right now."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Somehow I don't find that very comforting," says Roberta.

"Yeah, I'm sure," he says. "I want you to fuck me like he fucked me. Like he fucked you."

Because it'll be awful, but right now awful is what he wants. Because he knows that's at least part of what the Joker wants him here for, and he accepts that, he's fine with that, he wants to see what the Joker will make of him.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Mmmkay," he says, kissing Alice's forehead. "Since you asked."

self_composed
2013-01-18 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Right now Alice is exhibiting the ability to form preferences," Bella says, "and the Joker is exhibiting the ability to abide by them. The fact that the preferences in question are disturbing was never in question. It will not be necessary for you to break down the door until and unless Alice can no longer form or enforce preferences."
Edited 2013-01-18 20:36 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 08:38 pm (UTC)

Roberta frowns.

"If the Joker is pretending to abide by anybody's preferences, it's not for friendly reasons," she says.

self_composed
2013-01-18 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I don't trust the Joker as far as I can throw him, and I haven't even bothered adding super-strength, so that would just be aikido trickery if I did decide to throw him," Bella says. "But it doesn't matter whether he's got fucked-up reasons for doing what Alice wants as long as Alice is still in a position to want those things. My problem is that I know less about Alice's psychological tolerances than I do about his physical tolerances and he won't let me check with him conversationally. So if it no longer looks like he wants the things and stays put anyway, while this could go under 'Alice likes things he doesn't like' - it could, he's twisted like that - it could also go under 'Alice does not like things he doesn't like but he's paralyzed'."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 08:57 pm (UTC)

"You seem to be de facto trusting the Joker not to traumatize your boyfriend," says Roberta. "And I'm not sure I agree. In fact, I'm sure I don't."

Alice shivers. He's frightened, but he likes being frightened, likes the way it makes him want to squirm and hide.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 08:58 pm (UTC)

The Joker presses Alice down into the bed and drags the knife slowly along his hip, tracing the scar that isn't there.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 09:21 pm (UTC)

It wasn't slow, the first time. The first time it was fast.

He moans and presses his face into the pillow, wanting wanting wanting.

self_composed
2013-01-18 09:23 pm (UTC)

"His telepathic answering machine told me to fuck off," Bella says. "However rude that is, it's also clear. I'm only going to ignore him if I'm farther out of my comfort zone than this." She pauses. "On the other hand, if you asked me for a suit right now for what could be unrelated reasons and managed to get his room number from the bar I would not dream of denying such a harmless, trivial request or of interfering with your freedom of movement."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Bar?" says Roberta.

No napkin appears. Roberta sighs. "It was a long shot anyway; there is a specific bar rule forbidding people who are enemies outside the bar from bringing their grudges here."

manofmyword
2013-01-18 09:32 pm (UTC)

This time it's slow. All of it. The knife, his hand on the back of Alice's neck, his weight pressing Alice into the bed, holding him in place.

This time, it's going to last.

self_composed
2013-01-18 09:33 pm (UTC)

"I'm surprised the two of you are even here at the same time, then," Bella says, staring into the middle distance glazedly as all her attention is on another channel of vision.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Roberta.

As for what's going on in Alice's head: he realizes, for the first time in a while (at least consciously), that Bella is still reading him. On reflection, he's okay with that, although he worries that she won't like what she's about to see. And he's sorry he told her to fuck off, but he's not taking down his busy message; it fucks with his head when she interrupts him in the middle of this stuff, and two people fucking with his head at the same time - only one of whom knows what they are doing, because Bella might be able to read his mind but she's never lived in it - is bound to end badly.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 09:51 pm (UTC)

"You still here, sweetie?" the Joker murmurs.

self_composed
2013-01-18 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, he's sorry for having told me to fuck off, at least, but he still emphatically doesn't care to be interrupted," Bella sighs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Do you care about that?" asks Roberta, with no knowledge of whose questions she is echoing.

"Yeah," Alice breathes.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Good," says the Joker.

There's blood all over everything, in his mouth, on his hands, soaking the mattress under both of them. He holds Alice down and slowly, slowly—

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Ohhhh, that hurts," says Alice. And it does, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Not now, not this. For what it is, it's perfect.

self_composed
2013-01-18 10:23 pm (UTC)

"It's his - self. I don't own him," Bella says. "Bleah. I really wish I didn't feel obliged to supervise this, though."

manofmyword
2013-01-18 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I know it does, sweetie," says the Joker. "And that's how you like it. Mm?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 10:34 pm (UTC)

"I'm... not going to advise anyone to take their eyes off the Joker," says Roberta. "Unless he wants you to be watching him. And usually not even then."

Alice hums agreement, even smiles—but there's a part of him that feels wrong for it.

self_composed
2013-01-18 10:35 pm (UTC)

Bella squirms. "I don't know if he suspects I'm reading Alice, but he should. They haven't discussed it though."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should stop," frowns Roberta.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh, honey," the Joker says softly. "You're all fucked up inside, ain'tcha. I know the feeling."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Shut up and fuck me," Alice growls. Nothing has prepared him for the Joker being sweet; it catches him off-guard every time.

self_composed
2013-01-18 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Do you think so?" Bella asks, rubbing at her temple with the first two fingers of one hand. "Alice's power I mentioned - it prevents mental tampering in addition to whatever crap it's pulling right now. If Alice winds up - broken - screwed up more than he started out - more like the Joker - then - I can't fix him. Not even with magic. Native powers trump wishes."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Then maybe you can't help him," says Roberta, "but you can at least make sure the Joker doesn't get the satisfaction of messing with your head like this. I guarantee you he means to."

manofmyword
2013-01-18 10:45 pm (UTC)

He laughs, and does as Alice asks him to.

Slowly.

self_composed
2013-01-18 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm squicked, and I'm worried, but squick won't hurt me and worry would definitely not go away if I didn't even know what was going on."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Roberta says doubtfully.

Somewhere between the pain and the trauma and what anyone else might be able to identify as humiliation, Alice is achieving something weirdly like bliss. It's almost like what he felt the first time he made stars, but it doesn't take him over the same way.

self_composed
2013-01-18 10:57 pm (UTC)

Bella's poking at the emotion-blob tentatively, occasionally, because while they form their own coherent visual language, she doesn't fully know how to read them yet. She puts up with it for brief flashes. She doesn't like it. It... tastes different, from when he made stars.

When she first helped him make stars, he told her - that if there were mixed feelings - and she couldn't get a good answer out of him - that she should stop. And he's arranged not to produce answers for her.

He doesn't have a setup like that with the Joker. She wouldn't trust the Joker to stick to one if he did.

If it gets any worse than it did before - if it gets even that bad, and the Joker doesn't recalibrate and back off as before - she's invoking this as her justification for teleporting Roberta upstairs.

"When this is over with," Bella says, "I might ask you to hold the door for me so I can put some amenities and a person on an asteroid."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Roberta. "As long as you don't let the Joker—or, no offense, your boyfriend—get a good look at my face. Even if I'm never going to see either of them again, I don't want this identity involved."

The affect auras on Alice's thoughts right now are a collective mess. Most of his sensory experience gets a murky grey-white-grey with threads of black; some things, like his continued awareness of the Joker as present and causing all this, get snowy white.

He does want to be here, though. He hasn't stopped knowing that. He wants to be here, doing this, feeling like this. Even though it's awful; partly, in fact, because it's awful.

self_composed
2013-01-18 11:17 pm (UTC)

As long as he continues unambiguously wanting to be there Bella is sitting tight. Even if it makes her want to cry.

"I can do that," Bella says. "Would you rather be in a bat suit right now? Or, you know, would you rather duck into the bathroom and come out in one? Does this place even have a bathroom?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 11:36 pm (UTC)

"It's been known to," says Roberta. "But I think I'll sit tight for now. The suit draws attention, and I don't want any more attention than I've got."

self_composed
2013-01-18 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Bella sits. And waits.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 11:42 pm (UTC)

Alice suffers. And wants to. And feels ten kinds of fucked up about it, but somehow, just having the Joker there makes that better.

manofmyword
2013-01-18 11:52 pm (UTC)

And, eventually, he kisses the back of Alice's neck and rolls off him and wraps him up in a hug.

"I gotcha, sweetie," he murmurs. "I was there, I know. You're okay. It's okay. You're okay."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-18 11:56 pm (UTC)

He sniffles a little, but he doesn't start crying again. And he lets himself heal from the slice in his hip; it's worth a pentagon when it goes.

"How do you deal?" he mumbles into the Joker's chest.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 12:01 am (UTC)

"It took a while," he says, kissing the top of Alice's head. "And it hurt, and I felt all fucked up, and I didn't really know what was going on in my head. Sound familiar?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:02 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah, just a little."

manofmyword
2013-01-19 12:03 am (UTC)

"Yeah." He grins. "So. You wanna know the secret?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:04 am (UTC)

"There is no secret," Alice says tiredly.

self_composed
2013-01-19 12:05 am (UTC)

"Now they're doing some kind of bizarre alternate-versions-of-the-same-person therapy," Bella says. "This might be weirder."

manofmyword
2013-01-19 12:07 am (UTC)

"Almost," says the Joker.

"There is one thing, though." He takes a breath, lets it out. "You have to forgive yourself for hurting," he says softly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:08 am (UTC)

That doesn't make any sense.

"That doesn't make any sense," says Alice.

"I am deeply worried about anyone getting therapy from the Joker," says Roberta.

self_composed
2013-01-19 12:10 am (UTC)

"I am too. So far it's looking like advice I might have given myself if I'd ever thought of it, though. Maybe I should have thought of it, or tried to. I dunno. He always seemed functional enough to me, but..."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:29 am (UTC)

"...If anything, I'm even more worried about the Joker giving someone good advice," says Roberta.
Edited 2013-01-19 00:30 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-19 12:32 am (UTC)

"Think about it," says the Joker, kissing Alice's forehead. "I'll wait."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:39 am (UTC)

Okay, so he does.

And...

It doesn't come clear all at once; it does it in pieces, slowly, here and there. The fact that he gets mad at himself when something is fucking with him, like he thinks he should be better than that. But he's not; nobody is. By admission, his ballpark-of-thirty alternate future self isn't either. The fact that he's still half convinced that he brought this shit on himself the first time, even though he knows with crystal clarity that that is bullshit. The fact that despite not really believing things can be wrong with people in general, he thinks there's something wrong with him for what he just asked the Joker to do, for wanting that, for getting off on it when it happened for real.

"Oh," he murmurs.

self_composed
2013-01-19 12:40 am (UTC)

"Why?" Bella asks Roberta, genuinely curious.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:41 am (UTC)

"Because if he's giving someone bad advice it's easier to guess why," Roberta explains.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 12:43 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Oh."

He hugs Alice a little closer.

"You okay?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:44 am (UTC)

"Mhm," he sighs, curling up in the Joker's arms, and he takes down his busy message.

(He wonders if she's mad at him. Probably. Only one way to find out, though.)

self_composed
2013-01-19 12:46 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't trust herself to talk to Alice right now, not if he's not going to talk to her first.

"Is it really? He seems to mostly run on a desire to see how people who interest him will react to things. I think he has enough background information on Alice that it's entirely possible giving him good advice is more interesting in that way."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:49 am (UTC)

...Roberta looks unsettled.

Alice is a little confused when some time goes by and Bella doesn't say anything. But he can't think of a thing in the world to say to her, so maybe she's having the same problem. He'll leave it.

self_composed
2013-01-19 12:50 am (UTC)

"What?" Bella asks. "I got the impression that you've had about a million opportunities to figure out how he ticks. This can't be news to you, can it?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:51 am (UTC)

"I've never exactly sat him down and had a heart-to-heart," says Roberta.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 12:52 am (UTC)

The Joker snuggles Alice gently and lets him have his own thoughts in his own time.

self_composed
2013-01-19 12:53 am (UTC)

"Didn't you have him locked up with you in a police interrogation room at one point?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 12:55 am (UTC)

She grimaces. "Yes, and it didn't end well. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie, anyway."

self_composed
2013-01-19 12:55 am (UTC)

"Then how in the world do you suppose I know that you had him in a police interrogation room?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 01:01 am (UTC)

"I didn't mean that as a logical absolute," she says tartly.

self_composed
2013-01-19 01:05 am (UTC)

Bella smiles slightly. "Sorry. But - well, I suppose it doesn't matter if you have him figured out, if you escort me to your place to put him on an asteroid. I should pick an asteroid. I assume your astronomy matches mine."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 01:20 am (UTC)

"I have no way of knowing that," Roberta points out. "Although I guess we've verified that we both have a Mars."

Alice shifts a little in the Joker's arms. He's starting to get nervous about what Bella thinks of him now, and that's just ridiculous.

[Bella?]

self_composed
2013-01-19 01:21 am (UTC)

[I'm here.]

She doesn't want him freaked out, or anything.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 01:24 am (UTC)

[Sorry I told you to fuck off.]

She saw that, right? She has to have seen that. Maybe it didn't get through.

self_composed
2013-01-19 01:26 am (UTC)

[Apology accepted.]

"Alice doesn't even know about Batlady, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if he unexpectedly decided to teleport downstairs," Bella tells Roberta. "What do you want to do about that?"
Edited 2013-01-19 01:29 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 01:30 am (UTC)

He tries to say something else, but he can't quite get the words together, can't figure out how to ask if it's changed how she thinks of him, watching what he just did. If she's okay, if she's okay with him, if she's mad at him for fucking around (she said she wouldn't be, but sometimes you just don't know unti it happens) or for wanting something from the Joker that he could never in a million years get from her or for being this fucked up or for being, suddenly and with help, okay with being this fucked up.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 01:31 am (UTC)

"Shhh-hhh, honey," the Joker murmurs, cuddling him.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 01:33 am (UTC)

Roberta looks conflicted for a moment.

Then she says, "Pretend we were having an unrelated conversation?"

self_composed
2013-01-19 01:34 am (UTC)

"We were talking about puppies," Bella says agreeably.

[I was scared,] Bella tells him.

She pauses, then says, [I want Lazarus to have another look at you when we get home.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 01:37 am (UTC)

[I'm sorry,] Alice says helplessly. He's not sorry he did it, any of it, but he's sorry it scared her. It scared him, too, but the difference is that he wanted it to. She probably didn't.

Also: Lazarus? The hell?

"Puppies," Roberta agrees.

She does not look like someone who has been talking about puppies recently. Unless the puppies in question were dying, perhaps of rabies.

self_composed
2013-01-19 01:41 am (UTC)

"And maybe some about my Martian empire," Bella says. "And... what topics would you admit to that you find super-depressing? Because you look super-depressed."

[You remember testing the agony beam? You told me - that if you had mixed feelings and I couldn't get an answer from you about whether you were done or not - that it should stop.]

Pause.

[This wasn't exactly the same situation, but I was scared. And when those conditions were met today, I tried to get you out. And I couldn't. The bar denies involvement. The Joker's world is - I think - devoid of magic. That leaves your ingot power. It does more than we thought it did and I want to know what.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 01:51 am (UTC)

"My parents," offers Roberta.

[...okay, but Bella,] he says, [the reason you couldn't get an answer out of me is 'cause I wasn't letting you talk to me. On purpose.]

He's a little mad that she tried. He would've been a lot madder if she'd succeeded. He forgives her, though, because he loves her, and she was scared, and she was being herself.

[If I'm with this guy, and I don't ask you to get me out, don't get me out.]

As for his ingot power... fuck if he knows. He's as confused as she is.

He's glad it works that way, though. This was good for him. He wants to do it again.

self_composed
2013-01-19 01:55 am (UTC)

[And because your thoughts did not include that information,] she replies, feeling prickly about it. [And because it was not discussed beforehand. Now it's been discussed, but... I don't like it. He's not safe - I don't just mean that in the obvious way, I mean he's psychologically dangerous. Today worked out. And he's exactly the sort of person to try something else next time for that reason. We do know your power prevents mental tampering. I cannot fix you if he breaks you. I don't want you broken.]

"Got it," Bella says to Roberta.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 01:56 am (UTC)

"Trouble in paradise?" murmurs the Joker. "How's smarty pants?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 02:04 am (UTC)

"How the hell'd you know I was talking to her?"

[Bella,] Alice reminds her, [he's me. I don't want me broken either.]

manofmyword
2013-01-19 02:04 am (UTC)

"I know everything," he teases.

self_composed
2013-01-19 02:08 am (UTC)

[Alice. You will notice that I do not drink blood and I am not married to a man a century my senior who always looks like he's auditioning for Most Angsty and I don't have a kid or theme my empire around my eye color. He's not you. He's like you. He could've been you, maybe. But he's not the same, and it wouldn't be great for you to grow up to be just like him. He goes around killing people.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 02:11 am (UTC)

He grins and shakes his head, ignoring the Joker for now.

[I love you,] he says. [Look, it's different. You don't think of you as you but we think of us as me.] A slight pause. [Fuck, that was incoherent as damn, did you get it?]

self_composed
2013-01-19 02:15 am (UTC)

[She's me in different circumstances. I know a lot about her. But we've had different histories after roughly the point where we moved to our respective Forkses. We can respect each other's decisions even if we haven't had to make the same ones.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 02:20 am (UTC)

[So maybe it's not that different,] he says. [This guy is who I could be in ten years if I wasn't magic and in love with you. I get him, and he gets me, and I trust him. I know he's gonna hurt me, I know he's gonna mess me up, and I know he's gonna make sure I'm okay after.]

self_composed
2013-01-19 02:22 am (UTC)

[How do you know that last part?] Bella insists. [If I met someone with my face who'd taken up terrorism I would not trust her, even if I found her fun to talk to.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 02:26 am (UTC)

[You're not me!] says Alice. [You couldn't take up terrorism and still be you. I could take up terrorism and still be me. If you're not okay with him because he's the kind of person who might do that, then you're not okay with me, because the only reason I know I won't is it would make you sad and I love you and I don't ever wanna make you that sad.]

self_composed
2013-01-19 02:29 am (UTC)

[He's the kind of person who reacts to having feelings for someone by kidnapping their loved ones to see what they'll do,] Bella says. [Are you that, too? And he isn't just like you except for having not met me or found magic! You were eighteen when you met me and found magic and he diverged before that and I don't know why.]
Edited 2013-01-19 03:05 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 01:27 pm (UTC)

At first, the part about kidnapping loved ones confuses the hell out of him. He tries to match that image against his feelings for Bella, and utterly fails.

But then he remembers the very first moment he fell in love with her, before he really knew anything about her except for that single word she'd only just said to him. And he can see how, if she had turned out to be a completely different person, if he had turned out to feel differently about her than he does...

...well, he doesn't know it, but the picture building in his head looks a lot like the Joker's relationship with the Bat.

He likes what they really have better than that.

Except apparently they're not going to have it for very much longer, because she keeps trying to tell him the reasons she hates this guy aren't reasons that are true about him and they keep being true about him, and fuck he is just going to cry now.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 01:27 pm (UTC)

The Joker hugs Alice and, probably wisely, doesn't say anything.

self_composed
2013-01-19 06:08 pm (UTC)

[I think I'm going about this explanation all wrong,] Bella says after a pause. [I don't actually tend to judge people based on 'the kind of person' I think they are. Like, Libby is totally the kind of person who will run a criminal organization and spy on people and sometimes kidnap them. If I met an alternate Libby who had all that turned up to eleven, I wouldn't care for that one. That Libby would be dangerous to the people around her and I would be doing her world a favor if I removed her somehow. And finding her wouldn't astonish me based on what I know about the Libby in our world. But our Libby is, in fact, happy to have me take over the world and arrange it so none of those things are necessary and even hand me enough power that I can stop her if she changes her mind about doing them, and I am under no obligation to judge her based on how she could have gone if something different happened when she was - I don't know, twelve. I am under no obligation to judge you based on what the Joker has in fact done given that in fact you aren't going to do it, because I am not planning to dissolve our relationship over this, I am planning to take you home with me and kiss you and give you your present and we're going to live forever roaming around the universe doing magic to it and you will never have a reason to blow up a hospital or set a district attorney on fire and if you ever really want to do those things we can put mockups on Io and you can arrange it there because I love you. Okay?]

She didn't really plan to say that last bit, but it happened, and she's going to let it stay there.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 06:34 pm (UTC)

...well.

That was unexpected.

[Okay,] he says. [I love you too.]

He really, really does. He's practically bubbling over with it. And still crying, but it's good crying now, snuggle-down-and-love-everything crying.

self_composed
2013-01-19 06:36 pm (UTC)

Bella is not crying. Exactly. She might have slightly watery eyes, which happen to be itching at this moment so she's rubbing them a little. She is smiling weakly.

[When do you think you'll want to come home?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Dunno,] he says. [Later.]

He kind of wants to be hugging Bella right now, but he doesn't just want to up and disappear on the Joker, and if they start talking again he just knows he's going to get distracted. With sex. Or feelings. Probably both.

self_composed
2013-01-19 06:50 pm (UTC)

[There's someone whose world I'm planning to visit briefly,] Bella says. [I don't wanna abandon you if you want me around right now, but if there are no circumstances under which I ought to pull you out of that room - especially since I apparently can't - then you don't need my supervision, and I wasn't doing it for my entertainment. Do you want to just meet up in Moonstone Palace?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 06:55 pm (UTC)

[If you don't wanna listen, don't listen,] he says. [Sure, I'll meet you back home. Love you.]

self_composed
2013-01-19 06:56 pm (UTC)

[Love you.]

Bella cuts the read.

She sits up straight. "Does now work for you?" she asks Roberta.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Roberta, and refrains from asking what all that was about.

self_composed
2013-01-19 06:58 pm (UTC)

Bella gets up. "This might take me as little as half an hour," she says. "If you really don't have any magic there, I can send him to sleep and wake him up by magic by way of testing whether he goes to Milliways from the asteroid or not. If you don't want to hold the door that long, that's fine, we can wait for another door - how often do you find them?"
Edited 2013-01-19 19:14 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 07:15 pm (UTC)

"It varies," says Roberta. "But when I've let people through for a visit, it's been pretty good about coming back at a convenient time."

self_composed
2013-01-19 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay. If I get held up, I will pop down and inform you. You want, like, a book or anything?" She waves vaguely.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 07:19 pm (UTC)

She smiles wryly. "No, thank you."

self_composed
2013-01-19 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Thanks." She sighs. "Oh, Alice is gonna be mad at me..."

And then she walks through.

And pentagons herself some astronomy.

And there are many asteroids, with many charming names -

Including a cute little one called "Alice".

"Heh," Bella says, and she goes there.

It's little. Not The Little Prince sized, but just a few kilometers in any dimension. She turns out to be able to do the entire terraforming job - gravity, atmosphere, pachysandra and moss and clover - with a few pentagons. She puts up a little house with a food replicator and plumbing in it.

And she grabs the Joker as soon as that's done with from where he sleeps in the asylum.
Edited 2013-01-19 19:23 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-01-19 07:26 pm (UTC)

Out here, he has no makeup, and his hair is softer and less green, and he is indeed wearing a very unattractive beige jumpsuit.

A few seconds after he appears, he stirs and yawns.

self_composed
2013-01-19 08:34 pm (UTC)

"You made yourself my problem," says Bella darkly.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it's you."

He smiles up at her.

"Hiya, smarty pants. What'd I do?"

self_composed
2013-01-19 08:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm not really interested in having a prolonged conversation. I'm going to send you back to sleep, and give you about ten minutes, and then wake you back up, and all I need to know is whether you went to Milliways or not."

That's square territory. She feels a little bad about using Alice's coins for this. She makes her own square.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 08:39 pm (UTC)

He frowns, perplexed.

"No, really, what'd I—? Is this about your boyfriend?"

self_composed
2013-01-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

"That pissed me off, but I was going to do this if I found my way into your world before you and he even clapped eyes on each other," Bella says. "G'night." Square goes.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 08:44 pm (UTC)

...and there he is, right where he was before he woke up on an asteroid.

"Huh."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 08:45 pm (UTC)

"The fuck?" says Alice.

manofmyword
2013-01-19 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Your girlfriend's jealous," says the Joker, smiling crookedly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 08:51 pm (UTC)

He rolls his eyes. "She is not. She really doesn't like you, though. 'Cause you're a murderer and stuff."

manofmyword
2013-01-19 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's her prerogative," says the Joker. "Did she tell you what she's gonna do about it? I bet not."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 08:54 pm (UTC)

"...No...?"

manofmyword
2013-01-19 08:58 pm (UTC)

"She stuck me on a little asteroid," he explains. "And then she put me to sleep again to see if I'd come here, which I do, so that part's okay. She said earlier that if she did it and I didn't get Milliways she'd kill me, but the way she was looking just now, I bet she wouldn't. Too nice. She's pretty mad at me."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Mad about what?"

manofmyword
2013-01-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Guess."

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:03 pm (UTC)

A triangle suffices to wake him. Bella's sitting on the roof of his new little house. "Well?"

manofmyword
2013-01-19 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says, and leaves it at that.

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Grand. If you do get bored, your food replicator is more flexible than the standard model, it'll make you hemlock or whatever - it's voice operated. The glowy air is controlled by thought. You should be able to keep occupied. Ask for avocados and grow more from the pits, build a castle out of your dishes, whatever." She shrugs. "And there's nobody for you to hurt up here. Questions? Comments?"

manofmyword
2013-01-19 09:08 pm (UTC)

"If you don't wanna talk about why you're mad at me, then nope."

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:09 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't even say goodbye. She flits back down to Earth, to where Roberta's door is.

"I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long," she says, sidling back in grimly. "He's alive, by the way."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 09:10 pm (UTC)

"...Thank you," is what Roberta settles on after a moment.

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Thank Milliways. It showed up for him when I put him to sleep, or I'd have been another few minutes watching him swallow arsenic or something."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 09:12 pm (UTC)

She glances at the door, but doesn't comment.

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:13 pm (UTC)

Bella goes back to the bar. Her milkshake is long gone. She wants hot cider now, and when it arrives she holds it in both hands, staring into the steam.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 09:21 pm (UTC)

Alice is still upstairs, curled up alone in the Joker's bed, playing with that knife.

After a few minutes, he tries, [Bella?]

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:22 pm (UTC)

[Mm?] Bella says, sipping cider.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 09:24 pm (UTC)

He relaxes a little when she reads him, but his thoughts are still chasing themselves in circles.

After a few seconds, he manages to straighten himself out enough to ask, [What're you mad at him for?]

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:27 pm (UTC)

[I didn't strand him because I was mad. I'm pretty sure that at least one of his motives for what he did with you was to screw with me. And that put me in a bad mood - it would've even if he hadn't successfully frightened me. But I told him before you and he even laid eyes on each other that if I ever found myself in his world, he was getting put on an asteroid.] She sips. [It's a nice asteroid, and I stuck to what I said I would do regarding checking for Milliways.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 09:32 pm (UTC)

Well, that helps. A little.

But:

[So that's where you were going when you said you wanted to visit somebody's world for a bit?]

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:34 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. I met someone from his. She is of the opinion that the asteroid is a good place for him, and honestly I don't think too many people who knew he existed would disagree. He really fucked around with that city, Alice, and they don't have the means to contain him without outside help.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 09:36 pm (UTC)

[There a reason you didn't mention that?]

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:37 pm (UTC)

[I would've if if you'd asked, but as long as you didn't, I thought it would be better to have the argument after the fact.]
Edited 2013-01-19 21:37 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 09:48 pm (UTC)

If he'd known that was going to be the answer, he would've asked.

[I don't like that,] he says. [The thing where you know I'm gonna get mad if you do something, so you don't tell me until you've already done it. I mean, if I did that you'd flip your shit, right?]

Granted, that's because the category of things Bella would get mad about Alice doing is full of things that would, intrinsically, make her flip her shit. But... that's the kind of stuff Bella gets mad about. The kind of stuff Alice gets mad about is a much smaller group, for one thing, and for another thing it's harder to define, full of really specific situations like stranding his alternate universe double on an asteroid without telling him first so he could say goodbye in case the other him got lonely and killed himself. For example.

self_composed
2013-01-19 09:55 pm (UTC)

[I didn't want to be in a situation where I felt like I had to choose between making you upset and letting people die in close enough proximity that it'd feel like a choice to me. I didn't want you to warn him in such a way that he might've taken his extra minute and intercepted my helper, or fucked around with your head that little bit more that he didn't happen to do this time, or gotten out the door first and through the weirdness of Milliways time gotten his shrink to give him a radio through which he could talk Earth-based space programs into coming and picking him up, or just talk people into playing his kind of jokes on each other. I didn't want anything to go wrong, because if something went wrong, people might have died.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:01 pm (UTC)

Didn't happen to. Didn't happen to. Didn't happen to.

Now he remembers what they were arguing about before.

[Okay, well, you chose, and I'm upset,] he says. And spends a couple of squares to clean the room up and get dressed, and teleports to the front door, and leaves through it.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:03 pm (UTC)

Yeah.

"It was nice meeting you," Bella tells Roberta, drinking her cider fast enough to burn and feeling the faint tingle as the damage heals.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Um... you too," she says.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:04 pm (UTC)

Bella goes back to her moon palace.

She looks for Alice, and checks the time.

It's almost Christmas.

She supposes that's as good an excuse as any to wait until he calms down before giving him his present.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:08 pm (UTC)

The moon was not remote enough. Alice is on Pluto.

There is no clear winner in the ongoing battle between the cold and his healing power, but he's pouring hexes while they fight it out.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:09 pm (UTC)

Bella decides to see if he put up a busy message before trying to apologize.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:10 pm (UTC)

Nope. He is unbusy.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:12 pm (UTC)

[I'm sorry,] she says.

(She's sorry the situation came up, she's sorry that what happened to make the Joker into what he became happened, she's sorry she didn't trust Alice to not throw a wrench in the plan if he had warning, she's - sorry.)

She sits in a corner of the office in her palace and hugs her knees.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:17 pm (UTC)

Alice teleports to her. Nitrogen boils off him in the sudden heat; he triangles himself back to a completely unfrozen condition before he hugs her.

He's not sure he can say it's okay; he's not sure it is. But he loves her and he'd rather be hugging her than on Pluto.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:19 pm (UTC)

Bella snuggles up.

[It's almost Christmas,] she says. [Still almost Christmas, I should say. We weren't gone more than a few seconds here.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:20 pm (UTC)

[Huh. I guess,] he says. Christmas isn't really a positive association; historically it's been a time when his parents give him a bunch of shit he doesn't want and then his dad gets mad at him for not wanting it.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:22 pm (UTC)

[Would you rather wait for your present until Boxing Day?] Bella asks, tucking her head against his neck so her face is turned in.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:24 pm (UTC)

[I dunno,] he says. [Was it gonna be for Christmas? It can be for Christmas. Or for now. I don't really care about the date, y'know?]

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:25 pm (UTC)

[I was thinking Christmas. It will need to be an occasion when you don't have anything planned for a few days, possibly weeks.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:29 pm (UTC)

[I don't really do plans,] he says, shrugging. [Whenever.]

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:31 pm (UTC)

[It'll be Christmas somewhere on Earth in a couple days,] she says, kissing his neck.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:32 pm (UTC)

He smiles. [Okay.]

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:32 pm (UTC)

[I'm glad that's okay. I'm pretty sure accelerating the spin of the Earth would be hazardous.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:42 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles.

[I love you,] he says, kissing the top of her head. (Not fully on purpose, it's similar to the way the Joker kissed him when they were snuggling.)

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:43 pm (UTC)

Little mannerisms like that are to be expected and do not bother her.

[I love you too.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:43 pm (UTC)

Hearing that still gives him all kinds of warm snuggly lovey feelings.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:49 pm (UTC)

[I'm going to see if Lazarus is free to have another look at your ingot power now, unless you have some objection.]

[Lazarus?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:49 pm (UTC)

[No problem,] says Alice.

nonbird
2013-01-19 10:50 pm (UTC)

[Yes?]

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:52 pm (UTC)

[Can me and Alice come visit? His ingot power is almost certainly not just a "touch-don't-change" mental defense, which we learned for reasons I would rather not explain right now. And I would like to know exactly what it is.]

There is, after all, a chance that ingots (like witches) may enhance their powers after turning.

nonbird
2013-01-19 10:57 pm (UTC)

[...Sure,] he says.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:58 pm (UTC)

Alice's outfit is in a state; liquid nitrogen will do that. "You wanna not scandalize Lazarus?" she murmurs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 10:59 pm (UTC)

He shrugs and squares some real clothes.

self_composed
2013-01-19 10:59 pm (UTC)

Bella stands them up and teleports them to Lazarus's apartment on Mars. "Hullo," she says.

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Lazarus.

ignorable
2013-01-19 11:03 pm (UTC)

Kolya is curled up on the couch with a book. He looks up when Bella and company teleport in.

If she has given herself the appropriate capacity, she will notice that his power is on.

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:06 pm (UTC)

Bella gives him the briefest of looks, but she did in fact expand her illusion-seeing power to cover him, and politely neglects his presence. She checks Alice to see if he can see him, because that hasn't been discussed yet.

"Already got all your furniture up here, nice," Bella says.

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Kolya helped," he says, entirely ignorant of the named party's presence. "It was only slightly inconvenient to drag it all through the Moon."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 11:11 pm (UTC)

Alice does not, in fact, see Kolya.

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:12 pm (UTC)

How interesting.

"So what're we looking at here?" Bella says, patting Alice's shoulder.

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure... what you want me to be looking at, exactly," he admits. "I mean, his power's the same it's always been. What extra things did it do?"

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I tried to teleport him somewhere. He didn't go anywhere. The ingot power isn't literally the only candidate effect that could've done that, but it's by far the most likely."

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:21 pm (UTC)

"...That's... puzzling," says Lazarus, frowning slightly in concentration. "I guess there's no reason it couldn't have done that, I just don't understand why it would. It doesn't have a little tag on it saying 'defends against mental tampering', you understand; that's just shorthand. It isn't limited to defending against magic that is targeted at his mind. But I can't imagine how teleporting him somewhere could change his..."

He searches for words.

"Identity? Personality? Self? What Alice's power does is make him continue being Alice against all outside influence."

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:23 pm (UTC)

"That's interesting," Bella says, chewing on her lip. "Er, what is its definition of 'Alice'? Can you tell?"

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Alice," says Lazarus. "Alice is the definition of Alice."

Even though it doesn't strictly help, he does actually peer at Alice at this point.

"It seems, um... happier than last time I met it," he offers.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Why, was it not happy before?"

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:26 pm (UTC)

"No, it was!" he says. "But now it's extra happy."

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:28 pm (UTC)

"It's happier?" Bella says incredulously. "Powers can be amounts of happy?"

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't go around describing everyone's power as having levels of joy," he says. "I'm not sure I would even have described this one this way if I hadn't noticed the difference. That's just the first word that came to mind; I could also say it's, um, more settled. Like before it had a little bit of wavering around the edges, and now it's more solidly in one place."

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:31 pm (UTC)

Bella isn't thrilled about what this implies.

"What else can you tell us?" she asks.

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "Where were you trying to teleport him to?"

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I was mostly trying to teleport him away."

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:34 pm (UTC)

"From...?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I was fucking a guy she's scared of and she was worried he'd hurt me," Alice puts in.

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:36 pm (UTC)

"That," says Bella.

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:41 pm (UTC)

"...I feel like that is already too much information," says Lazarus, "but it also tells me nothing about why Alice's power would have cared. Unless the... um, event... was very important to you in some way," he says, managing to look at Alice with only a slight blush. "Life-changingly important."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says, a little defiantly.

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:43 pm (UTC)

Bella plants the heel of her hand on her forehead. "Alternates," she mutters.

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:44 pm (UTC)

"...What?"

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:46 pm (UTC)

"We were in Milliways. I met an alt of Alice. For some reason, I decided to introduce them," she says.
Edited 2013-01-19 23:47 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:48 pm (UTC)

"And you...? Okay," says Lazarus, blushing again. "That makes a lot more sense, actually. I wonder... I wouldn't mind seeing the two of them in the same room," he says. "To see what Alice's power thinks of the other one."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-19 11:49 pm (UTC)

Alice gives Lazarus an appraising look.

"Yeah, not sure that's a great plan," he says. "He'd eat you for breakfast. The nice way, if you're lucky."

ignorable
2013-01-19 11:49 pm (UTC)

Kolya snickers.

self_composed
2013-01-19 11:52 pm (UTC)

"And he's currently stranded on an asteroid in his own world," says Bella tartly, "as he was going to escape from his mental institution any day and go back to terrorizing his city to get his crush's attention, and I met someone from the same world who was more than happy to get outside assistance towards not being blown up or set on fire. Maybe we'll find another one, one of these days, a less... like that... one."

nonbird
2013-01-19 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeep," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm not going to say it's strictly impossible for you to meet him, since he can go to Milliways from his asteroid, but it wouldn't be the best idea."

nonbird
2013-01-20 12:04 am (UTC)

"And I am now kind of hoping I don't."

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:05 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 12:08 am (UTC)

Alice sighs.

He misses the other him. Even though the other him is nasty.

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:10 am (UTC)

"Maybe we'll find a nicer one who met a me or some reasonable facsimile early on," Bella says. "Or otherwise turned out better. Anyway. Without that particular test, is there anything else you know, Lazarus?"

nonbird
2013-01-20 12:17 am (UTC)

"No..." he says slowly. "No, I don't think so. No."

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:18 am (UTC)

"So... Alice's power wants Alice to be Alice, and while this most obviously extends to defending against mental tampering it will also block any attempts to remove him from experiences that, in its estimation, are making him Alicier," Bella says. "And we don't know what Alicier means exactly."

nonbird
2013-01-20 12:21 am (UTC)

"We don't," he says, gesturing between himself and Bella. "Or if I do, I can't explain it usefully." He points at Alice. "You should have no such trouble."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 12:22 am (UTC)

"...I guess," he says. "I mean, if it wants me to be me, it makes sense that it wouldn't want me taken away from... me."

There's more to it than that, but the more resists words.

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:23 am (UTC)

Bella peers at it to see if she can make any wordless sense of it.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 12:26 am (UTC)

It goes something like this:

What the Joker was doing—what they were doing, together—was helping Alice understand himself better and accept himself more. It was important to him to do it, not just because he wanted to have that experience, but because he wanted to learn from it. Well, 'learn' might not be the best word. Try: he wanted to change in the ways that that experience made him change.

Apparently, his power was backing him on that.

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:28 am (UTC)

Bella chews on her lip. "How smart and/or prognosticatory is this power? Is it liable to start steering him towards things instead of just resisting attempts to remove him from things?" [I'm planning on turning him into a vampire,] Bella adds privately to Lazarus, [for Christmas, it's a surprise - sometimes vampires have magical improvements after they turn. So if it doesn't do this now but that looks like a way it could change...]

nonbird
2013-01-20 12:32 am (UTC)

"...Well, it can't do what Alice doesn't or wouldn't want it to. Can't or won't, it's the same thing. So... that might be reassuring?"

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:34 am (UTC)

"Some," Bella acknowledges.

nonbird
2013-01-20 12:43 am (UTC)

"Okay."

[It doesn't look to me like this power wants to change what it can do,] he says. [But I wouldn't have said it would protect experiences he was having, either, and then it did.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:45 am (UTC)

[Well, if it wants to do what he wants, then him being a vampire can only improve it. I ran the idea by my alt's precog-sister and precog-sister says that his magical vampire mate bond thing will stabilize on me, no problem.]

nonbird
2013-01-20 12:51 am (UTC)

[I wonder what that will look like.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:52 am (UTC)

[I doubt he'd mind you watching. It'll happen three days after I start the process. However, the entire thing is also going to hurt in ways human beings don't even know how to hurt, so whether you'd want to be around...]

nonbird
2013-01-20 12:53 am (UTC)

He blushes faintly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 12:53 am (UTC)

"You're talking about me," Alice accuses.

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:55 am (UTC)

"We're talking about your Christmas present," Bella says, floating off the floor a couple inches to kiss his temple. "It has some magically interesting properties."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 12:56 am (UTC)

"And it makes Lazarus get all blushy," he says. "I'm gonna like it, aren't I."

self_composed
2013-01-20 12:57 am (UTC)

"I rather think so."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 12:57 am (UTC)

He beams and kisses her.

self_composed
2013-01-20 01:02 am (UTC)

Bella is quite pleased with this development!

ignorable
2013-01-20 01:06 am (UTC)

Kolya becomes apparent juuuuust long enough to laugh at them.

nonbird
2013-01-20 01:07 am (UTC)

Lazarus's blush kicks up a few notches, to catch up with all the blushing he didn't do because he didn't know Kolya could hear that entire conversation.

self_composed
2013-01-20 01:08 am (UTC)

Bella laughs hard enough that she can't even go on kissing Alice anymore. And she doesn't stop when he fades out, either, because she just doesn't have that much self-control.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 01:13 am (UTC)

"...What? Who was that and why's he think we're so hilarious?"

nonbird
2013-01-20 01:24 am (UTC)

"That was Kolya, and he can speak for himself if he chooses," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-01-20 01:26 am (UTC)

"I don't know to what extent answering that question would violate my agreement," muses Bella.

ignorable
2013-01-20 01:33 am (UTC)

Kolya appears again, rolling his eyes.

"I've been here the whole time," he says, addressing Alice directly. "You just can't see me. I, however, can see you."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 01:33 am (UTC)

Alice grins at him.

"Hi!"

self_composed
2013-01-20 01:39 am (UTC)

"That's funny, because Alice can see my alt's bodyguard who has a comparable power," Bella muses. "I really need to bring you there with me, sometime, Lazarus."

nonbird
2013-01-20 01:46 am (UTC)

"I would love to go! Let me know the next time you organize an expedition."

self_composed
2013-01-20 01:47 am (UTC)

"Will do! You can compare notes with the Imperial Factotum. There's a guy who just sees stuff, like you, but he doesn't involve himself with the empire - she does and she copies powers by touching the people who have them."

nonbird
2013-01-20 01:48 am (UTC)

"...Innnnnnteresting," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-01-20 01:51 am (UTC)

"She can't copy me, but she can't copy the other me either, and we didn't get a chance to try her on Alice," shrugs Bella, "and the other ingots we know haven't been along on trips, so we don't know if she works on ingots as well as witches."

nonbird
2013-01-20 01:54 am (UTC)

"I volunteer for experimentation," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-01-20 01:55 am (UTC)

"She'll get along with you. According to my alt all she cares about is securing experimental privileges," laughs Bella. "She gets them by being extremely useful."

nonbird
2013-01-20 01:58 am (UTC)

"Then I look forward to meeting her!"

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:33 am (UTC)

"All right. This is on the agenda for next time, then, whenever someone finds a door again."

nonbird
2013-01-20 12:13 pm (UTC)

Lazarus beams.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 12:13 pm (UTC)

Isn't he adorable?

ignorable
2013-01-20 12:13 pm (UTC)

He is so adorable.

self_composed
2013-01-20 04:47 pm (UTC)

"I suppose we shouldn't impose on your hospitality anymore," Bella remarks, and she decides for no particular reason to leave via door and walk to Marspire.

it's not all crises and public appearances

self_composed

Bella goes on TV with Pat. It goes pretty well. She doesn't have a PR person yet, but running at 5x and thinking carefully means she doesn't trip over herself when called on to talk enough that most people would notice. She takes questions-slash-requests from the crowd, and winds up healing an amputee, showing off a pretty illusion of terraformed Mars over the crowd, and flying around. She gets to talk about the nice features of Mars, including the fact that any further amputees could just make their way there and sit in one of the medical devices for a moment to clear that right up. Pat gets to look like she "discovered" Bella. It's a decent arrangement.

Then the time designated for the spot is up, and Bella bids everyone goodbye and teleports away over the shouts of investigative reporters, and it's not currently baseball season so she goes ahead and extends her protection-from-media over Renée and Phil in case someone figures out who she is despite having only her first name to work with.

She goes to Moonstone Palace. She has nothing in particular to do. She decides to read Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 05:10 pm (UTC)

Alice, unusually, is not sewing or baking or listening to music or making recreational coins.

Alice is in his lair, curled up in bed, thinking. About Bella.

It's hard for him to figure out exactly what bothers him about what went down with the Joker. Until he knows, he doesn't want to go bugging her about it; it's not like yelling at her is a thing he does for fun. It's really upsetting and he wants to do as little of it as possible.

So, he knows it has to do with her not telling him what she was going to do before she did it. At the time he pointed out the obvious asymmetry of her concealing a plan from him because he'd find it upsetting, when if he did the same thing to her she would probably, well, stick him on an asteroid. But that's not even the main problem, just the first one he saw. What he is actually hurt about, and not just vaguely uneasy, is the part where she took someone he loved away from him - to somewhere they might very well not have come back from - and didn't give him the chance to say goodbye.

Oh.

Hi, Bella.

self_composed
2013-01-20 05:13 pm (UTC)

[Hi.] Pause. [There was a risk that he wouldn't come back, but as it stands you aren't any less likely to encounter him again. He can still appear in Milliways, you'd still need to meet someone from his world to get there but once there you can teleport to the asteroid.] Pause. [There are a lot of asteroids with a lot of names. The one he's on is called Alice.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 05:26 pm (UTC)

That is a cute place to put him. Bella is cute.

Alice sighs.

[Okay, but do you understand why that doesn't really... help? He still might've died, even though it turned out he was fine. And I just kind of, you know, if it's an option, I want to be able to talk to him first.]

Meaning: to let the Joker know he is sad that the Joker is going to die, and to receive and understand the feelings the Joker has about that, and to hug him and kiss him and and love him and share in the knowledge that they are doing those things for the last time.

He doesn't really expect to be able to do any of that, in the normal course of things, given that they live in different universes. If it turned out that the Joker died somehow or other and Alice wasn't there, he'd miss what he couldn't have, but he'd be okay about it. But if the Joker's death is something that Bella is causing on purpose, then she has the opportunity to bring Alice into it, and as far as he can tell she wasn't going to. As far as he can tell, she didn't even think of it.

self_composed
2013-01-20 05:29 pm (UTC)

[Yeah.] Bella sighs, too, but Alice doesn't know that. [If I meet any more of them - or anyone else you like - that I find it necessary to strand, and you're around or I'll have the chance again even if I run home and fetch you, there will be an opportunity for goodbyes first.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 05:32 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

He hugs his pillow, comforted. Bella might not always be able to tell what he's going to want, but once she gets something and says she'll do it, he trusts absolutely that she'll follow through.
Edited 2013-01-20 17:33 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-20 05:34 pm (UTC)

[That would be the weirdest goodbye ever, though. 'My girlfriend might be about to kill you. That's sad. Oh well.']

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 05:35 pm (UTC)

[We'd deal,] he says, laughing. [We're weird people.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 05:36 pm (UTC)

[Yes, yes you are,] she laughs. [Anything else you wanted to talk about?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 05:39 pm (UTC)

[...I guess n... actually yes.]

Specifically, why Bella kept assuming that the Joker was likely to fuck Alice over, even though Alice knew he wouldn't, and said so. He feels like this is the one subject where he can really be considered the ultimate expert.

self_composed
2013-01-20 05:44 pm (UTC)

[I talked to him, before you and he met. And he seemed to find me interesting, and he told me about how he handles his crime-fighting vigilante crush, and it involves violence and so on. And he told me that if he wanted to fuck with me, he'd kidnap my boyfriend and my boyfriend would like it. And I pointed out that if you liked it, there would be no problem, would there, you'd just teleport away when you stopped liking it - and he said: "Wanna bet?"]

Pause.

[And of course the person I met who let me into their world had a few things to say on his being a psychological hazard, too.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 05:50 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles a little, because despite everything, 'Wanna bet?' is pretty funny.

[He was fucking with you, Bella. And anyway, look what happened: there were sure as hell parts where I didn't like it, but I didn't teleport away, because I wanted to be there.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 05:51 pm (UTC)

[I understood he was fucking with me, I just didn't know where the fuckery was located, and I didn't share your confidence that it wasn't aimed at your head,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 05:53 pm (UTC)

[Well, now you know better, right?]

self_composed
2013-01-20 05:55 pm (UTC)

[I would not claim to know that. But I do know how you want to handle situations like that one.]
Edited 2013-01-20 17:57 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 05:58 pm (UTC)

He'll take that. It's not really worth having another fight over.
Edited 2013-01-20 17:58 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

[I can think of reasons a me might take up terrorism,] Bella says after a silence.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

[...Really?]

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:06 pm (UTC)

[Really. It's a big multiverse. According to a sample size of two, I don't take over so much as a hamlet without magic - I could see doing the same thing with a tech advantage, just the same way. And I know that if I have no particular advantages and I'm reasonably comfortable, I occupy a holding pattern at least until my late teens, because that's what me and Golden Bella did until we located our respective magical edges. If I started out at a resource disadvantage, and was not reasonably comfortable, and there was a big, obvious target painted on some class of people permitting that? I don't think I'd be a particularly ruthless terrorist, but I might blow shit up.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:07 pm (UTC)

[Huh.]

He kind of approves!

[But would you still not trust the blowing-shit-up you?]

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:09 pm (UTC)

[It might depend on how I evaluated her object of explosives. I'm kind of selfish, when I don't have infinite everything to throw around; I'd imagine one of me who grew up with less would be more so, and might overweight her own comfort or ascribe too much motive to whoever she perceived as being responsible.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:11 pm (UTC)

[Huh,] Alice repeats.

Bella is still his favourite Bella, but a blowing-shit-up Bella might be fun to meet.

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:12 pm (UTC)

[She'd try to get coins out of you,] predicts Bella. [Heck, I might not even mind, I think it's pretty clear that I am a nicer and more generous person when I have more stuff. I think I turned out nicer than Goldeneyes.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:15 pm (UTC)

[She can get coins out of me if she wants,] he says, deliberately construing the phrase to mean generating them rather than asking him to hand over some of the existing surplus.
Edited 2013-01-20 18:15 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:19 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, if she's desperate that'll overcome some amount of squeamish, however much squeamish she has if and when we find her,] Bella supposes.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:22 pm (UTC)

[And I like it, that counts for something, right?]

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:25 pm (UTC)

[Not necessarily. We're postulating that she's a terrorist. I doubt any of me are far gone enough to stoop to non-consensual torture, but, you know. Big multiverse,] shrugs Bella. [For whatever it's worth, anyone that far gone also goes on an asteroid or equivalent.]
Edited 2013-01-20 18:26 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:27 pm (UTC)

[If we meet a you who'd hurt me even if I didn't like it, she still gets to hurt me. But I'm keeping the coins.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:28 pm (UTC)

[I find it unlikely that any of me would do that purely recreationally,] muses Bella. [Even if they'd do it for other reasons.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

He laughs. [Okay, so much for that.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

[Indeed. Anyway, I could be wrong, we could never find a me like that, we could find one who fell into terrorism through unrelated means, whatever.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:39 pm (UTC)

[Who knows?]

That is what he loves about Milliways. It is full of surprises.

on the first day of christmas, my true love gave to me

self_composed

[It is now Christmas in the latest time zone on Earth,] Bella announces, when this becomes the case. [C'mere.]

She has conjured a syringe of venom. There are no known effects relating to any particular person doing the turning, but she's gone ahead and duplicated her alt's venom - what would be hers, if she turned - regardless.

She hides it behind her back and smiles.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 06:54 pm (UTC)

Alice teleports directly in front of her.

"Ooh, a present!" he says, bouncing gleefully.

self_composed
2013-01-20 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm. How surprising do you want it? If you decide you don't like it you can still undo the effects, as long as you determine that you want to do that smart quick, but I could also tell you what it is and let you self-administer."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Mm... surprise me," he decides.

self_composed
2013-01-20 07:02 pm (UTC)

Bella stabs him in the side of the neck and pushes the plunger. And makes a small wish for an exception to his regen, just in case it would dislike the results.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 07:18 pm (UTC)

"What the hell," he laughs. "I love you. Oh, fuck, that hurts."

He's dropping hexes just from the way it feels where it is, and it is also spreading.

This is the best present.

Beaming, he hugs her.

self_composed
2013-01-20 07:18 pm (UTC)

Bella is quite happy to hug him back. "You want me to tell you or you wanna see if you can guess?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea. Tell me," he says.

self_composed
2013-01-20 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Vampire venom," Bella says, singsong.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 07:23 pm (UTC)

"...I love you so much," he says, hugging her again. "Fuck, how long's it gonna do this for?"

self_composed
2013-01-20 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it'll take a couple hours to spread everywhere, and then you have just shy of three days before it stops your heart, which I'm told is the worst part," Bella grins. "I did warn you that it'd need to be a time when you had no plans for a while."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Three days. I want to make out with you right now," he declares.

self_composed
2013-01-20 07:32 pm (UTC)

[Okay!] she says, by brainphone, because she's kissing him. [Oh, one thing. The Imperial Soothsayer would've warned me if this wasn't going to work, but you should be informed - I'm going to install a human-specific air filter on your person so you aren't uncontrollably desirous of eating most people you meet.] She tries it. [...Or maybe I'm not. That's annoying, that's one of the things I asked Alice to check, why wouldn't she have said anything...?]
Edited 2013-01-20 19:48 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 07:58 pm (UTC)

[It's my power, right? Maybe it's being a capricious asshole and it wasn't going to kick up a fuss but it is anyway...? Or... man, I don't know, can't think, too horny.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 07:59 pm (UTC)

[Lazarus said your power wouldn't do anything you wouldn't want it to. Assuming it's that - do you object to not wanting to eat people?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Mmmrrrrr," he says, because why is she making him use his brain to think when he could be using it to hurt? No, okay, okay.

He does not object to not wanting to eat people... exactly. In principle. But he wants to know what it's like to want to eat people, what does she take him for? Of course he does. So can he do that just once, around somebody who's got some kind of protection powers and won't be anything more than unnerved if he chews on them a little, and then he'll decide to let her put the filter on and that'll be that?

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:05 pm (UTC)

[Adjustable filter, if you meet someone who wants to be considered edible you can take it down for them alone?] Bella suggests. [But I cannot approve actual human-blood-drinking, that permanently dings vampire self-control. So it'd have to be Bridget, or somebody magicked to work like her if she finds the idea creepy.]
Edited 2013-01-20 20:07 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:14 pm (UTC)

[Sure, fine,] he agrees. [Dammit, it'd probably fuck up the vampire thing if I set myself on fire right now, wouldn't it.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:15 pm (UTC)

[Well, I don't actually know, so you probably shouldn't try it,] Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:17 pm (UTC)

[Okay, I won't. But I really want to,] he says, only partly complaining.

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:19 pm (UTC)

[I know,] she soothes.

Perhaps unwisely, she opens up the emotion-blob from the read.

And tackles him to the floor.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:19 pm (UTC)

...oh.

Okay.

Awesome.

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:22 pm (UTC)

Some time later, when the venom's everywhere and Alice's vascular system (among other things) is being replaced with something venom-based, they are snuggling snugly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:26 pm (UTC)

So snugly.

He loves her, he loves her, he loves her. Everything hurts, he's pouring stars, and he loves her. He can just about barely feel where his hands and his nose and his cheek and his arms and his stomach are touching her, through the pain, and he loves her. She is perfect and amazing and she gives the best presents and he loves her.

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:27 pm (UTC)

[And I can stop worrying about that changing,] Bella sighs happily. [That being the other thing I had the Seer check.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:30 pm (UTC)

[...What, really? You're making me a vampire because you want me to be in magic vampire love with you forever?]

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:32 pm (UTC)

[No, I'm making you a vampire 'cause I thought you'd like it. But I wouldn't have if you weren't going to wind up stuck on me, since falling in magical love with people is an occupational hazard of vampirism and can't be ruled out for arbitrary possible people until the person in question has already been identified.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:36 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] he says, and curls up around her again.

He looooooves her.

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

Bella decides to fall asleep for a bit.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:40 pm (UTC)

Alice cannot fall asleep.

He snuggles Bella, and loves her, and makes stars.

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:44 pm (UTC)

Some time later - Bella fields brainphone calls and conjures herself food and otherwise conducts her life, but doesn't leave the room - the pain starts pulling inwards.

[Hey, Lazarus, did you wanna come see the endgame of the Christmas present?] Bella inquires, squaring on some clothes that they've both been doing without for the last couple days. [It is incoming.]

nonbird
2013-01-20 08:45 pm (UTC)

Oh boy.

[Sure,] he says.

self_composed
2013-01-20 08:46 pm (UTC)

[We're in Moonstone Palace. Can you be here in ten minutes under your own power or do you want me to yoink you?]

"Lazarus is gonna come see the fireworks," Bella murmurs.

nonbird
2013-01-20 08:49 pm (UTC)

[I can be there,] he says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmmnf," says Alice, grinning slowly. "I feel like I'm gettin' run over by a train. A train that's on fire. Love you, love you, love you."

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Love you," Bella replies, kissing his forehead.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:01 pm (UTC)

He smiles and tips his face up toward her.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:03 pm (UTC)

Bella magics herself immune to venom and related substances and vampire bites, and kisses him on the mouth. He is not as warm and soft as he once was, but they can freely vary that whenever they like with magic, and he's not exactly unpleasant to kiss even like so.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:05 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm snuggly kisses. [Love you.]

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:05 pm (UTC)

[So where, exactly, should I be, besides on the moon?] inquires Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:06 pm (UTC)

[The habitable part of the moon,] Bella specifies. [Third floor, coming from the stairwell second door on the left.]

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:07 pm (UTC)

[Got it.]

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Here comes company," Bella says, tracing a line with her finger from Alice's cheek down to his flailing heart.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Goodie," says Alice.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:12 pm (UTC)

Bella sits back on her heels and waits.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:14 pm (UTC)

And here is company.

Blushing company.

"Hi," says Lazarus. "You look, um, snuggly."

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:15 pm (UTC)

"He's been pouring stars for the last three days, it makes him all affectionate," Bella says, smirking.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I... I can see that," says Lazarus. "I really can; your coins are visible from the ground floor."

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Are they pretty?" Bella asks innocently.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:18 pm (UTC)

"They're stars," he says, shrugging, and sidles into the room as though he expects to be attacked by the cuddle monster at any moment.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:19 pm (UTC)

"He won't eat you. We have arranged for him not to eat people," Bella says.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but will he hug me?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:22 pm (UTC)

"D'ya want me to?" he inquires.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:25 pm (UTC)

Silence.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you doooooooo," he giggles, trailing off into a breathless hum.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Vampires are reportedly quite prone to not knowing their own strength when handling humans even after being accustomed to it. Lazarus, does your defensive magic handle that, or is it like mine and Alice's and won't block ordinary physical damage?"
Edited 2013-01-20 21:33 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:33 pm (UTC)

"I don't wanna squish you," Alice contributes.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:34 pm (UTC)

"My defensive magic is proof against squishing," he says.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Well then. I produce no further objections to any consensual hugging that may or may not occur once Alice is capable of standing up," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says Alice, and hugs her.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:38 pm (UTC)

Bella conjures up a few glass bottles of the bubbly golden stuff that Elspeth likes so much. Ah, magic. So useful.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:41 pm (UTC)

He tucks his face into the angle between her neck and shoulder, closes his eyes, and relaxes.

Star, star, star, star star star starstarstar—

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:41 pm (UTC)

Lazarus makes a surprised sound.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:42 pm (UTC)

Bella throws a questioning glance at Lazarus while she wraps her arms around her boyfriend.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:44 pm (UTC)

"That wasn't a star," he says, staring at Alice's coin necklace, forgetting to blush in his fascination.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 09:50 pm (UTC)

Alice opens his eyes.

Everything is so much more. Brighter, sharper, louder, with a depth and clarity that human senses could never achieve.

And out of all of them, the thing that's most is how much he loves Bella. It's the same as it was, but different. Bigger. Clearer. Deeper. Louder. Sharper. Brighter.

Grinning, he kisses her forehead. He's still hugging her, and the pressure of his arms is as delicate as you could want, but the kiss hits hard enough to bruise.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:50 pm (UTC)

...

Lazarus awwwwwwwwws.

self_composed
2013-01-20 09:51 pm (UTC)

Bella permits a moment of snuggly distraction, though she winces at the excess kiss for the split second it takes before tingly painkilling regen fixes it.

Then: "Not a star?" She peers at Alice's chain of coins.

nonbird
2013-01-20 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Not a star," Lazarus repeats. "Bigger than a star. I didn't know they came bigger than stars."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 10:27 pm (UTC)

The very last coin on the end of the long, long string of stars is eight-pointed, and unlike every other coin, it doesn't lie in a flat plane: its eight points are arranged so that you could draw a perfect cube between them, each four in a square. The hole through its centre has six openings.

"Whoa," says Alice.

self_composed
2013-01-20 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Whoa is right," Bella says, pinching it between her fingers to hold it up and get a closer look at it. "Damn. This thing looks evil."

Alice can't see magic, or her coins; she spends the hex and the star to declaw the evil-looking thing right then without changing her expression at all. Used undeclawed, it would probably incinerate an entire planet, maybe send the Sun supernova. "I should probably hold onto this," she says anyway.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Take it," he says, kissing her forehead again. This time he gets it right. "Love you."

self_composed
2013-01-20 10:34 pm (UTC)

She takes it, and most of the stars and hexes he's carrying too, and kisses his forehead too. "Love you."

nonbird
2013-01-20 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of which," says Lazarus, "I think I would describe Alice's power and his vampire mate bond as... snuggling. Do they usually do that?"

self_composed
2013-01-20 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Do mate bonds and powers usually snuggle?" Bella asks. "How would I know?"

nonbird
2013-01-20 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea. But it's very cute," he says. "It looked, right when you opened your eyes," he says to Alice, "like your power was suspicious, and the mate bond just... was itself at it, and then your power decided it was okay and snuggled up."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Aww!"

self_composed
2013-01-20 10:47 pm (UTC)

"That's precious," giggles Bella. "We'll take you to the Golden Empire next time we get an in there and you can see if anybody else's mate bond snuggles with their witchcraft."

nonbird
2013-01-20 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it will, actually," he says. "Most people's powers aren't about the same things as Alice's. But I definitely want to see."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I bet you'd love having a brain like this," Alice says to Bella. "It's not just faster, it's bigger."

self_composed
2013-01-20 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm serial, not parallel," Bella muses. "Next time I want an upgrade I'll go... horizontal, so to speak."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-20 11:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna go hug Lazarus now," Alice announces, and disentangles himself very carefully from Bella.

nonbird
2013-01-20 11:55 pm (UTC)

Lazarus's world is suddenly full of hug.

"Hello," he says bemusedly.

self_composed
2013-01-20 11:56 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "So cute."

nonbird
2013-01-21 12:04 am (UTC)

"Yes he is," says Lazarus, hugging back.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:05 am (UTC)

"It's weird hugging somebody I can't smell properly," says Alice. "Do you squish?" He squeezes a little bit tighter. "Nope, you don't. You are unsquishable."

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:06 am (UTC)

"You aren't any less able to smell humans than you were before," Bella says. "Although I suppose it's comparing against everything else."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:09 am (UTC)

"My nose thinks he's not really here," he says, and lets go, and turns to investigate the bubbly stuff.

nonbird
2013-01-21 12:09 am (UTC)

Lazarus blinks after him.

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:11 am (UTC)

"When I said we'd arranged for him not to eat people," Bella says, "I meant that he's got a human-specific air filter so he doesn't instinctively lunge for the carotid just from being in the room with us. But since you've got your defense on, if the idea of Alice ineffectually gnawing on you happens to amuse, say the word and he can turn it down."

nonbird
2013-01-21 12:18 am (UTC)

...He looks like he may be considering it.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:19 am (UTC)

Alice interrupts himself mid-drink to singsong, "You waaaaaant me nibbling on you, don't lie."

nonbird
2013-01-21 12:19 am (UTC)

"Shush," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:21 am (UTC)

"Poking the repressed ingot isn't very nice, Alice," Bella says serenely. "How's the bubbly? There might be other kinds, this is just what Elspeth brings home from Milliways."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:25 am (UTC)

"It's tasty, I like it," he says. "Can I make you unsquishable for a bit so I can hug you?"

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:26 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:28 am (UTC)

He spends a hex to make Bella impervious to squishing in a way that is fully at her discretion to control, and then scoops her up and twirls her around and hugs her as hard as he possibly can.

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:30 am (UTC)

"Eee!" laughs Bella, extricating one arm from the squeeze to put over his shoulder and have some measure of control of how she's held up.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:33 am (UTC)

He puts her down again and kisses the end of her nose.

"I love you," he says. "I love you lots. Read how much I love you."

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:34 am (UTC)

"What, in front of Lazarus? I'm already reading you, and opening up the details sometimes has side effects," laughs Bella.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:38 am (UTC)

He flutters a hand at Lazarus. "Shoo unless you want a threesome."

nonbird
2013-01-21 12:39 am (UTC)

Blushing even more than he already was, Lazarus shoos.

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:40 am (UTC)

"You didn't wanna wait and see if he was gonna take you up on ineffectual gnawing?" Bella asks, but then she prods at the emotion-blob and takes a moment to breathe oddly and ramp up her speed to process inhuman levels of muchness. "Oh dosage control issues hello," she says weakly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:43 am (UTC)

"Dosage control?"

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:44 am (UTC)

"Yes, dosage control, I am figuring out a parallel-ness upgrade for my brain now," Bella says, closing the emotion-blob with a great effort of will.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:45 am (UTC)

"Bella, are you getting high on how much I love you?"
Edited 2013-01-21 00:45 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-21 12:48 am (UTC)

"I might be getting braindead on how much you love me. Elspeth can do that, if she blasts people with too much vampire-mind," Bella says. "I already got kinda high on it, and if it gets anywhere near dangerous I'd start to worry about my ingot power deciding the mindreading's dangerous like my alt's witchcraft decided Elspeth was dangerous."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 12:58 am (UTC)

"That would be bad. I'd hate to have you not read me anymore," he says, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and kissing her forehead. "Will the brain upgrade help?"

self_composed
2013-01-21 01:01 am (UTC)

"Should. Have to think about it. I don't think I want to just straight up wish for a vampire brain; from what Bella said it has some drawbacks, which she can handle and I could too but that doesn't make it something I want to move into unedited. Hm." Bella leans her head on Alice's shoulder as she considers, and finally settles on a wish design she likes.

Hex goes.

"Trying this again," she murmurs in his ear, and she opens the package of emotions and does-not-quite-drown.

But only not-quite.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 01:04 am (UTC)

"Better?" he asks.

self_composed
2013-01-21 01:06 am (UTC)

"Yeahhhh," she sighs.

And then it becomes a good thing that Lazarus has gone.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 01:06 am (UTC)

Also a good thing that Bella is unsquishable.

cake and ice cream

self_composed

Bella finds Milliways next, too, on New Year's Day, and calls in Alice (he's not coming to Goldenworld even if they find a person who can take them there, but he might find someone interesting to talk to in the bar) and also Lazarus. She mentions the door to Libby, too, in case she and/or her wolf want to take an excursion and see if his friends and family back home can be visited.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 01:17 am (UTC)

[Whee!] says Alice.

nonbird
2013-01-21 01:18 am (UTC)

[I'll be there in a minute,] says Lazarus.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-21 01:20 am (UTC)

[Coming, plus two,] says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-21 01:21 am (UTC)

When everyone has assembled, through they go!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 01:22 am (UTC)

Elspeth's not there.

Someone from her world is, though!

"Empress of the Stars and company!" exclaims Addy cheerfully over a tall glass of a still, blue liquid. Apparently there are kinds other than the one Elspeth likes. "Hi! Want the door held or are you going to lounge for a bit?"

self_composed
2013-01-21 01:23 am (UTC)

"We would like the door held, presently, but Alice won't be coming through," Bella says. "Did you want to see if you can grab ingot powers like witchcraft?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 01:24 am (UTC)

Addy nods rapidly. "You didn't let me last time," she says reproachfully, holding out her arms as though for a hug towards Alice. "Congratulations on being a vampire, by the way, how new are you? You're very well-controlled around the humans."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 01:27 am (UTC)

"Few days. I have a magic air filter," he says, bounding toward her for an exuberant newborn-strength hug. "Don't smell 'em unless they want me to. Hi!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 01:30 am (UTC)

Addy hugs him like they are old, close friends, and doesn't even complain about the slight crushing. "Oh, this is tricky," she muses, sucking on her teeth in thought. "This is interestingly tricky - like - trying to eat with chopsticks. I will figure it out, just give me a moment..."

After a moment that lasts eleven minutes, Addy lets him go, claps her hands, and says, "Ha! Mint chip gelato. And completely, utterly worthless. I'm already me!"

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 01:31 am (UTC)

Alice giggles.

"Me too," he says cheerfully.

nonbird
2013-01-21 01:32 am (UTC)

"That is fascinating," Lazarus remarks.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 01:33 am (UTC)

"No, I can taste it," Addy objects. "Your gelato does things, for you. I can't do a thing with it because none of the help on offer is Addy-shaped. Why would I want to be immune to any sort of magic, even the mind-altering stuff? How in the world would I test it if it bounced off me?" she laughs. "Oh, that's really lovely, have you got another in the party? I can't suss you 'ingots' out from a distance like regular witches..."

nonbird
2013-01-21 01:38 am (UTC)

"Ingot," says Lazarus, pointing at Alice, "ingot," Chris, "ingot," Bella, "ingot," himself.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 01:39 am (UTC)

"Well, I really doubt I can manage her," Addy says, waving at Bella with a dismissive frown. "C'mere?"

nonbird
2013-01-21 01:41 am (UTC)

"No hugs, please," he says, orbiting closer.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 01:42 am (UTC)

"Of course," says Addy obligingly, and she lays cold hands on his cheeks.

Now that she has the trick of... eating with chopsticks... it only takes her a few seconds.

"Oh, you're tasty," she purrs. And she does literally purr, while smiling like the predator she is.

nonbird
2013-01-21 01:43 am (UTC)

"Eep," says Lazarus, raising his eyebrows.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 01:46 am (UTC)

She releases his face, holding up her hands in a nonthreatening gesture. "Oh, come on, you of all people should know that's not me threatening to literally drink your blood, can't you see how I work? Goodness! Everything's so pretty! I can even see magic on Her Majesty over there! I might want this one back again, if you're going through to my world," she says. "Oh, everything's so pretty."

nonbird
2013-01-21 01:53 am (UTC)

"If I thought you were actually going to eat me, I wouldn't just be saying eep," he says. "I am slightly less ineffectual than that. You're still a little unnerving even when I know you're mostly harmless. And yes, isn't it?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 01:55 am (UTC)

"It is," she gushes. "Bella is so terribly shiny... Oh my. Is that why he was turned into a vampire. What an odd way to arrange magic. But - oh! That must be the mate bond. I was wondering what would do that. Looks different when I'm using Marcus's power, let alone compared to Chelsea's... Goodness. Is that normal? Do you know? The... cuddliness?"
Edited 2013-01-21 01:58 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-01-21 01:59 am (UTC)

"I've only ever seen one mate bond," he says. "But I'm betting not. You know what his power's like. When the bond first showed up they had a little standoff before they got this friendly."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:02 am (UTC)

"Oh, I bet they did. Now I can't wait to look at Bella-back-home. I bet her witchcraft wasn't too friendly to her mate bond either, but as far as anyone knows it's there. But she's immune to Marcus so he can't check. Oh, and I've got to look at Marcus too - I wonder if I can arrange to keep this long enough to get to Safesun and back, given that I can't borrow one of your toes? It's such a pity you can't work over electronics, have you ever worked on that?"

nonbird
2013-01-21 02:05 am (UTC)

"How would I work over electronics?" he asks wearily. "Look at my power, it just... looks. What it sees is not a thing that electronics transmit. I did find a way to use it at a distance, but it takes, what else, more magic."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:06 am (UTC)

"I am the expert on this sort of thing," says Addy severely. "Now, maybe ingots just don't grow the way witches can, but don't you even care? Haven't you even tried?"

nonbird
2013-01-21 02:09 am (UTC)

"You are an expert on this sort of thing," Lazarus corrects firmly. "No, I haven't tried, but I'm telling you right now electronics is a dead end."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:11 am (UTC)

Addy licks her lips thoughtfully. "Admittedly it wouldn't be the first thing I'd push you on. Range is usually the easiest thing to expand on powers for which that's a factor... and I wonder if you could learn to share visions like Alice did, the Alice back home... Please promise I can have this back again later if I take a look at her next?" Addy points out Chris.

nonbird
2013-01-21 02:13 am (UTC)

"You can have this back again later," Lazarus says. "Absolutely. I want to compare notes with you somewhere with less... noise," this with a wave at Milliways in general.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:13 am (UTC)

"Oh, absolutely," Addy says. "Somewhere less distractingly beautiful." She turns to Chris. "May I?"

self_composed
2013-01-21 02:15 am (UTC)

[I'm pretty sure that my alt has put a stop to this kind of thing,] Bella says to Lazarus, [but you might want to know that when Addy was "training" Elspeth, she responded to a brief flagging of Elspeth's motivation by sending her to be tortured by a since-deceased witch whose power was rather like my agony beam. Be careful of her. Consider only working within range of the Emperor even if you don't want company directly.]

queensidecastle
2013-01-21 02:17 am (UTC)

Chris extends a hand toward Addy.

nonbird
2013-01-21 02:17 am (UTC)

[Noted,] says Lazarus.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:18 am (UTC)

Addy shakes hands in a terribly friendly way. "Oh, this is cute," she says. "What a polite power. Why would anyone object to you protecting them?"

queensidecastle
2013-01-21 02:20 am (UTC)

"Huh?"

nonbird
2013-01-21 02:21 am (UTC)

"Oh, of course," says Lazarus.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:23 am (UTC)

"I know, it's a little tricky to see," Addy says to Lazarus sympathetically. "Tastes obvious, though. You can protect people who wouldn't mind if you did, but the magic will back right off if they'd disapprove. I wonder why. Maybe you haven't noticed? It tastes... still. You could move it around but you haven't much. Have you not even been systematically checking people for protectability? Where is everyone's sense of scientific investigation?"
Edited 2013-01-21 02:23 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-01-21 02:25 am (UTC)

"Protectability of third parties is kind of a moot point for me," she says, patting her niece's shoulder.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:27 am (UTC)

"But don't you even care what you could do?" says Addy pleadingly. "What if you could add more targets?"

queensidecastle
2013-01-21 02:30 am (UTC)

"...Okay, slightly tempted," she admits.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:33 am (UTC)

"You know, I don't think it would even be that hard, if you started the right way," muses Addy. "Whose loss would just devastate her? Is there anyone she sits up at night worrying over? It would just take the tiniest stretch..." Addy undergoes a brief all-over shudder. "See, this is why I have to help people, I can feel how close the improvements are but I can't touch them unless the original witch - ingot - does it first."

queensidecastle
2013-01-21 02:35 am (UTC)

"Good luck with that," Chris says flatly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:36 am (UTC)

"Well, you don't have to work on it the straightforward way if you don't want to, and honestly, I didn't even describe it," huffs Addy. "Anyway. I'd like to try you again, Your Majesty, if I may? Now that I have the hang of ingots?"

self_composed
2013-01-21 02:37 am (UTC)

Bella permits a brief handshake.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:37 am (UTC)

"Nope," sighs Addy. "Like biting tinfoil."

queensidecastle
2013-01-21 02:39 am (UTC)

"Alas," says Chris.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-21 02:39 am (UTC)

Libby snorts.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:40 am (UTC)

"Could I," Addy says, "hold a coin? Just for a moment, just to see if I can do anything with it, it can be a little one, I won't wish on it."

self_composed
2013-01-21 02:40 am (UTC)

"I'm thinking not," Bella says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 02:41 am (UTC)

"Do what with it?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:42 am (UTC)

"Copy it," says Addy plaintively. "That's what I do. I'm a mimic."

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 02:44 am (UTC)

[...I kinda wanna see what happens,] he says to Bella.

self_composed
2013-01-21 02:46 am (UTC)

[Oh, it'd be fascinating, but she's only not doing evil things because she can get access to more and more different magic by cooperating with my alt. On the off chance she can render herself a mint or some mintlike thing by holding a coin, that goes out the window and she may well go back to torturing five-year-olds and the like instead of being useful.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 02:49 am (UTC)

[Aww. Okay, no coins around Addy. Love you.]

prima_sequentem
2013-01-21 02:49 am (UTC)

Libby looks thoughtful.

self_composed
2013-01-21 02:50 am (UTC)

[Love you.]

"Libby, I hope you're not contemplating giving Addy a coin."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-21 02:52 am (UTC)

"I'm not about to give Addy a coin," says Libby.

self_composed
2013-01-21 02:54 am (UTC)

"Please at least don't do it without clearing it with my alt, whose Factotum is the one such a behavior could potentially turn into a loose cannon. Addy, despite this little disagreement about whether you get to hold any of our magical currency, I assume the offer to hold the door is still good?"
Edited 2013-01-21 02:57 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 02:57 am (UTC)

"Oh, fine," huffs Addy, swallowing the rest of her drink, patting Lazarus on the head, and stalking towards the door. "I'm full anyway, so I may as well come back with you."

nonbird
2013-01-21 02:59 am (UTC)

"No one has done that to me since I was thirteen," Lazarus remarks.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 02:59 am (UTC)

Alice ruffles his hair.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 03:01 am (UTC)

Addy boops his nose. "I can't imagine why," she says.

The door is open and all may pass!

The Golden Coven is in Forks this week. It is raining, and Addy's door leads to the outdoors. She does not apologize for this.

edgeofyourseat
2013-01-21 03:03 am (UTC)

Alice wishes up an umbrella and hands it to Bella, then wanders off into the bar.
Edited 2013-01-21 03:19 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-01-21 03:20 am (UTC)

"Love you," Bella calls over her shoulder, and out she goes with everyone else.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 03:23 am (UTC)

Addy lets them all out, shuts the door behind her, and then opens it up again. "The Forks capital," she says. "Also, the only place in the world where random people in town mostly know who and what we are."

nonbird
2013-01-21 03:27 am (UTC)

"Also, magic," says Lazarus.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:13 am (UTC)

"Yes, a fair amount of it. Pretty, no?" says Addy, like she's personally responsible for all resident witches.

nonbird
2013-01-21 12:54 pm (UTC)

"Extremely," he beams. "Oh, that must be your Empress. Like ours, but... witchier."
Edited 2013-01-21 12:55 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Addy says, peering speculatively at Lazarus, "turning into a vampire often does that. The only effect we know to be down to her turning is that she's immune to Marcus and wasn't before, but since her transformation she's also acquired other features, which could have been accessible before or not, we don't know."

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Will she mind if I sit nearby and stare at her power a lot?" he inquires. "I can be very quiet."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:03 pm (UTC)

"She'd prefer it if you weren't very quiet, and reported on what you found," Addy laughs. "She's curious."

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Hopefully she is also very patient," he says, "because getting coherent descriptions out of me can be a bit of a trial."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:04 pm (UTC)

"She might haul me in," Addy shrugs, "and see if I can help, but I don't imagine that will be a serious problem."

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure you'll be any better at it," he says. "At least I have practice."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes I am better at things," Addy shrugs. "Especially compared to humans. A number of powers benefit from the brain speed, or the capacity, or the memory payload even. And besides, I can taste at once how they work. I was able to tell your friend something she didn't know." She nods at Chris. "Oh, the wolf village is through a tunnel that way, if that's where you're going," she adds, looking at Orfeo and Chris and wrinkling her nose. "There are signs."
Edited 2013-01-21 16:11 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:13 pm (UTC)

"My power is still me-shaped even when you're borrowing it," he says. "If you're better at it than me anyway, I think I want to be a vampire."

dont_look_back
2013-01-21 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I know where the wolf village is, Addy," says Orfeo mildly. He turns to Libby and Chris. "Want to see this one or follow these guys around?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:21 pm (UTC)

"I was better at Elspeth than Elspeth for a while because of memory payload," Addy says, ticking off fingers, "I knew more than the wolf who needs a haircut over there when I borrowed her because I could taste it, I did something with Jasper's power once that he could've done but never imagined, I was better than Pera till she turned because I was faster or I couldn't've caught her, and before Vasanti turned I was better than her because I could pay attention to possessed animals and myself at the same time." Addy shrugs.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-21 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Village," Libby decides.

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Can you taste anything about my power that I don't already know?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:24 pm (UTC)

"What do you already know?" Addy asks, waving in a rather twee manner as wolves and imprint depart.

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I know my range is like sight range except without caring about obstacles. I know my power is coding the way I see things so that they'll make sense to me. I wasn't quite as sure about that until I saw it on you," he adds. "But it's speaking the same language to you even though you don't know it; it's... well, look at it," he says with a gesture that attempts to encompass the shape of his power on Addy. "It's happy enough to talk to you but it won't go out of its way to be understandable the way it does for me. It's still going out of its way to be understandable to me even though you're the one listening."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Like sight range," Addy says. "Listen to yourself! Why haven't you boosted your sight yet, cheap as a la carte magic is where you're from? And it doesn't have to twist itself around for me to understand it. I learn new magical languages all the time. Or do you think it came pre-installed in my head, the ability to borrow Vasanti and possess a bat and not crash it into walls in pitch darkness?"

self_composed
2013-01-21 04:32 pm (UTC)

"This is really a fascinating conversation," comments Bella.

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Why would I want to boost my sight? They're not linked," he says. "Although I didn't actually know that until you drew my attention to it, so thank you for that. You're very helpful in an annoying, antagonistic way."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I do try," says Addy with a sharp grin. "And I know they aren't directly linked. But without your attention on the similarity at all, I couldn't know if they were linked in your head - if you see that far because that's how you think seeing works."

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:42 pm (UTC)

"It's not even seeing, that's just a convenience," he says. "I'd need a whole new set of terms to—how many languages do you speak?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Most of them," says Addy primly.

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:45 pm (UTC)

"In that case, when I talk to you about my power I'm going to use my entire vocabulary. Maybe that will help."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 04:45 pm (UTC)

Addy spreads her hands invitingly. "Please, do."

nonbird
2013-01-21 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, put me in a room with both our empresses and I'll talk your ear off. Even just from here, the differences between the two powers, discounting the way yours is more vampire-y... actually, that's fascinating, I wish you could've seen Alice before he turned," he sidetracks. "There wasn't really an effect on what his power did, except incidentally when it cuddled up with his mate bond, but do you see the way your Bella is more...?"

He waves his hands and comes up with a description that draws on Hungarian and Japanese, two of the languages he pentagoned, with an occasional aside in Finnish.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 05:02 pm (UTC)

Addy replies in a comparable admixture of languages, mostly her native German because why not and it's so good for long compound words too, and talks about what she knows of the history of Golden Bella's power and its functions and what, based on Lazarus's power's information, she thinks is due to what else.

nonbird
2013-01-21 05:14 pm (UTC)

The German backdrop works just as well for him as English, and she's right about the long compound words, so he switches to match. Individual terms like the colour intensity metaphor for the vampire effect, or the texture metaphor for the witch/ingot distinction, he continues to pin down to specific languages in order to develop a working vocabulary.

Golden Bella's functional extensions to her power are interesting, but not nearly as interesting to him as the more basic differences like the vampirism amplification. In fact, he would kind of like to meet all the witches, vampire and non, to really get a sense of how that distinction portrays itself. Also, aren't mate bonds weird? Golden Bella's has kind of... well, it's not exactly cuddling with her power. They're definitely in close contact and on friendly terms, but there's something kind of uncomfortable about them.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 05:16 pm (UTC)

Addy grins broadly, and invites him - and Starry Bella too, of course - on a tour of the whole complex, with visits to each witch's quarters. "A lot of them are mated," she adds.

nonbird
2013-01-21 05:24 pm (UTC)

Anyone whose power has to do with interpersonal relationships, or their own thoughts or feelings, or other people's thoughts or feelings, has some kind of interaction. No two are quite alike; nobody else has Alice's fiercely comfortable intertwining, or Bella's hard-won affectionate equilibrium.

Lazarus is fascinated by each and every one.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 05:24 pm (UTC)

"I wish Marcus were here," Addy said, stomping her foot.

nonbird
2013-01-21 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Maybe next time," Lazarus says optimistically.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Only if we're in Safesun next time you come by. That's where he and Didyme and their kids live."

nonbird
2013-01-21 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we can visit anyway," says Lazarus.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Of course." Addy grins brilliantly.

nonbird
2013-01-21 05:59 pm (UTC)

He appeals to Bella with a look, since he can't independently teleport.

self_composed
2013-01-21 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I'll need a more specific destination than 'Safesun'," says Bella.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Will 'Marcus's house' do?" Addy asks.

self_composed
2013-01-21 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps. Is anyone going to be alarmed if we teleport there? No? All right." Bella brings them all to the front door of Marcus's house.

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Lazarus. "That's new."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Ooooh," agrees Addy.

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:08 pm (UTC)

"'Worshipful' is definitely a new quality."

self_composed
2013-01-21 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Worshipful?" laughs Bella. "What's worshipping what?"

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Their—that must be Marcus?—his power is worshipping his mate bond," he says. "It's kind of sweet."

self_composed
2013-01-21 06:13 pm (UTC)

"That is sweet," Bella says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:14 pm (UTC)

The door opens. A hybrid girl with almost glowy golden skin and shiny black hair and huge brown eyes opens the door. "...Can I help you?" she asks.

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:15 pm (UTC)

Lazarus looks helplessly at the other two.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Cori," says Addy cheerfully. "This is a witchy person from another world and his Empress. I've borrowed him and we're staring at your dad through the walls. No hospitality is necessary."

"...Okay..." says 'Cori'.

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Your dad's power is really cute," Lazarus volunteers.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:21 pm (UTC)

"It's cute?" Cori asks. "Eleazar has never said it was cute."

"Eleazar doesn't think anything's cute," says Addy dismissively. "Oh, we should probably pay him a visit next, come to think of it. And look at Kate while we're there! I bet she just sparkles."

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

"It's cute," Lazarus confirms. "Although I still think Alice's power snuggling with his mate bond wins the cute contest. Sure, let's go visit Eleazar."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:26 pm (UTC)

"His mate's not a witch, so I imagine they don't interact, but Eleazar himself should be interesting," says Addy.

self_composed
2013-01-21 06:26 pm (UTC)

"My destination is what, please?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Second Denali coven house," says Addy.

self_composed
2013-01-21 06:27 pm (UTC)

And they're off!

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:31 pm (UTC)

"...Huh," says Lazarus. "That's weird. It's like my power's cousin, or something. Great-aunt."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Eleazar!" calls Addy. "C'mere!"

Eleazar emerges presently, and double-takes at both Bella and Lazarus. "...Hello," he says.

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:39 pm (UTC)

Lazarus beams.

"Hi!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:40 pm (UTC)

Eleazar dispenses with further attempts at politeness and just stares at Lazarus. Addy, meanwhile, begins humming to herself and switching between both men's powers every minute or so and then staring around her.

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:45 pm (UTC)

"You can translate," Lazarus says to Addy. "What are the differences like here? Ooh, I bet you can't see coins," this to Eleazar. "You don't look like you can see coins."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 06:47 pm (UTC)

"...If they're invisible, then presumably I cannot see them, but my eyes do work perfectly well," says Eleazar slowly.

"Try harder," Addy says, swatting Eleazar gently on the back of the head. "I bet you can see some of their magic, even if you can't before it's been used."

Eleazar looks at her witheringly and focuses on Lazarus again.

After a moment, he says, "You are the most paranoid, polyglottal human I have ever beheld."

nonbird
2013-01-21 06:55 pm (UTC)

"One of those actually wasn't me," he says. "Do you see differences that subtle? It's hard to tell. Actually," this to Addy, "can you see who wished things? It's trickier, it's not an inherent property, you kind of have to get to know them. Libby's and Bella's are always really obvious; everyone else is case by case, maybe because I see so much fewer of them."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:00 pm (UTC)

Addy boops Lazarus's nose and frowns at him. "I can tell which ones were your Bella," she says finally. "I think that's only because I know mine reasonably well."

"I can't tell anything like that at all, but then, I don't know either Bella particularly well," says Eleazar, peering intently. He glances at Bella. "Oh. You are more paranoid and polyglottal with a smattering of other talents to boot."

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Lazarus. "She's rather spectacular, isn't she?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:09 pm (UTC)

"That's a word for it," says Eleazar.

"Bella is shiny," says Addy cheerfully.

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Shiny is also a word for it," says Lazarus.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Is Kate around?" Addy asks.

"Hunting with Garrett. She'll be back soon," says Eleazar.

"Let's wait for her," declares Addy. "But while we're waiting..." She pokes Lazarus in the chest. "I want you to see if you can see her from far away. I bet you can. If you try."

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:25 pm (UTC)

Lazarus sighs, and closes his eyes.

"...That's odd," he says after a moment, frowning a little. "That's... very odd."

He turns in circles for a few moments, eyes still closed.

Then, tentatively, he points.

"Is that your sparkly friend?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:26 pm (UTC)

Addy squints in that direction. "Yes! Yes, that looks like her. How lovely. Everything's so pretty the way you look at it. Eleazar gets no aesthetics at all."

Eleazar huffs a long-suffering sigh.

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:33 pm (UTC)

Lazarus flaps his hand at her in mild disapproval, still frowning to himself.

He turns a few more circles, counterclockwise this time.

Then he says, "And there's Chris and Libby! And your empress and everyone!" Opening his eyes, he adds, "Your world is so blank, it's like looking through vacuum."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:34 pm (UTC)

Addy beams and updates her copy of her power and shuts her eyes and twirls. "Oh-oh-oh you should turn into a vampire so I can borrow one of your toes," she sings.

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:38 pm (UTC)

"No," he says quellingly.

"What I am going to do is find a way to make a magical object that will register a sympathetic connection for the purposes of your power, the way I know I can for mine. And then you can have my power around at your convenience without borrowing any of my parts."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:39 pm (UTC)

"That's even better! Toes I have to give back or they die," Addy says cheerfully.

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Let's just stop talking about toes," says Lazarus. "And weren't we going to go compare empresses?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:40 pm (UTC)

"We were!"

self_composed
2013-01-21 07:41 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs and teleports them to the throne room.

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Lazarus. "See, Addy, what'd I tell you about the—" and he's off into multilingual sensory metaphors.

self_composed
2013-01-21 07:43 pm (UTC)

"They're comparing our powers," Bella explains to her counterpart.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:44 pm (UTC)

"That makes sense," says Golden Bella. "We've collected some more technological specs for you. Alice brought them in earlier from wherever they were being kept." She hands them over. "Trade you for three stars and five hexes."

self_composed
2013-01-21 07:45 pm (UTC)

"You want to wish on them yourself? Fair enough," says Bella. She quietly declaws the stars and hands over the eight coins. "Don't let Addy touch them. I don't know what would happen."

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:49 pm (UTC)

"—but what really gets me is the silence here," he says, interrupting himself in the middle of talking about Golden Bella's power extensions. "I honestly think I could distinguish every witch on this planet if I had the time and the detail range. It's so much clearer than back home. I wouldn't have thought we had magical background noise before, but the difference is like looking through air and then looking through vacuum."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:50 pm (UTC)

"So tell me about the 'air'," says Addy.

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:52 pm (UTC)

"It's air," he says. "Stand on the Moon and describe the visual quality of Earth's atmosphere. In other words, I'll have plenty to tell you after I've gone back home and studied it for a while."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:52 pm (UTC)

"We don't have a moon base," Addy says exasperatedly. "It's on the agenda for later."

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:53 pm (UTC)

"That was a hypothetical instruction."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:54 pm (UTC)

"At any rate, I suppose you'll just have to come back, then," says Addy.

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm planning to!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 07:57 pm (UTC)

Addy grins and gives him a hug. She's quite experienced with handling humans and knows how to not squish him. That doesn't mean he can get out until she feels like letting him go or he gets help.

nonbird
2013-01-21 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure whether I am disturbed or endeared," he remarks.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Most people settle somewhere around 'both'," says the Golden Empress dryly.

nonbird
2013-01-21 08:06 pm (UTC)

"So noted," says Lazarus. "I would like to stop being in this hug now."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-01-21 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Addy," says the vampire Bella when this prompts musing but not instant hug release.

"Harrumph," says Addy, letting him go.

nonbird
2013-01-21 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Lazarus.

And to Bella, [When we get home, I would like an independent teleportation power, please.]

self_composed
2013-01-21 08:11 pm (UTC)

[Why then and not now?]

nonbird
2013-01-21 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Because I want time to design it first.]

self_composed
2013-01-21 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Something wrong with mine?]

nonbird
2013-01-21 08:13 pm (UTC)

[I don't know, I haven't studied it enough yet.]

self_composed
2013-02-06 08:37 pm (UTC)

After Bella has patiently ferried Addy and Lazarus around to look intently at things for some time, she gets a message from her counterpart, who has turned out to be able to use the brainphone network just fine even though she can't communicate telepathically with her telepathic witch staff member. "Elspeth found a door, we can go home now if we don't want to wait another few days," says Bella to Lazarus.

nonbird
2013-02-06 08:44 pm (UTC)

"And come back later," says Lazarus. "I'm especially enthusiastic about the part where we come back later."

self_composed
2013-02-06 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes, of course we can come back later," laughs Bella. "Shall we?"

Teleporting doesn't even cost a coin; she takes them both to where Elspeth is without even waiting for an answer.

nonbird
2013-02-06 08:59 pm (UTC)

That is fully acceptable.

But: "Sure," he says dryly, when they arrive.

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:00 pm (UTC)

Goodbyes are bidden; the rest of their party is collected; and through they go.

prima_sequentem
2013-02-06 09:02 pm (UTC)

The rest of the party piles back through the door in fairly short order.

nonbird
2013-02-06 09:03 pm (UTC)

Lazarus does not.

Lazarus turns all the way around one way, and then all the way around the other way twice, as though trying to glimpse the back of his own head. He looks perplexed and fascinated.

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:04 pm (UTC)

"See something interesting?" Bella asks, pausing.

nonbird
2013-02-06 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Maybeep!"

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Hiiiiiii," purrs the woman who has suddenly appeared out of more or less thin air with her arms draped around his neck. She is only a few inches shorter than he is, wearing a graphite-coloured strapless dress so thin and skintight (albeit perfectly opaque) that body paint would probably be less revealing, and there might be something more than a little familiar about the cast of her face.
Edited 2013-02-06 21:11 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Bella. "Who're you, where'd you come from, and why are you making him eep?"

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:16 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

nonbird
2013-02-06 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Those are all really good questions," says Lazarus.

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:19 pm (UTC)

She lets go and steps back with a wide, friendly smile.

"You can see me," she says, pointing at Lazarus. "You're the first person I've ever seen see me. What's your secret?"

nonbird
2013-02-06 09:20 pm (UTC)

"I eat a lot of carrots."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:21 pm (UTC)

She claps her hands and twirls around.

"Ohhh, you're fun, you're fun, you're fun," she crows.

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:22 pm (UTC)

"You're familiar," Bella accuses suddenly.

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:23 pm (UTC)

The familiar stranger cocks her head and spins to face Bella.

"Am I? You're not."

nonbird
2013-02-06 09:24 pm (UTC)

"...Kind of like a combination of Addy and Alice, actually," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Look at her face, she's like a female Alice," says Bella. "I suppose she's got some Addyesque properties too but she doesn't physically resemble her."

nonbird
2013-02-06 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Magically she's nothing like either of them," he says. "Magically she's nothing like anything."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Who's Alice?" she inquires. "Does he look like—"

Her body disintegrates in a flash, from the dress inward; the skeleton is the last to go, and it lingers for a moment, clean and white.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-02-06 09:31 pm (UTC)

Then a new skeleton appears, just slightly different from the last, and a new body assembles on it as quickly as the other one left. He's even wearing the same tight grey dress.

"—this, by any chance?"

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, he would have if I'd let him get a bit older before I turned him into a vampire," says Bella. "So what are you?"

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:33 pm (UTC)

She unravels and reweaves herself again.

"I'm a ghost!" she says brightly.

nonbird
2013-02-06 09:34 pm (UTC)

"It is both really gross and really fascinating when you do that," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Agreed on both counts," says Bella. "What kinda world has this kinda ghost?"

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Mine," she says impishly.

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Well," Bella says. "Now I am enlightened, aren't I."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Aww, I'm sorry," she says with apparent sincerity. "But I really don't know! I'm the only one of me I've ever found."

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Do you think you'd be able to see another of you if there were one? Since others who aren't Lazarus can't see you?"

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," she says. "Maybe not." She grins at Lazarus. "Maybe I should stick by you for a while."

nonbird
2013-02-06 09:50 pm (UTC)

"...I am so torn," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm considering sticking my head out the door and fetching Alice. You aren't," she gestures vaguely at the ghost, "evil or anything? I like it less when he hangs out with the evil one we met. I'm not gonna stop him but I'm not gonna go out of my way to facilitate, there."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Evil?" she asks. "Really, honey?"

self_composed
2013-02-06 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, come on, the other alt of my Alice who I've met was a terrorist because he liked a certain lady who went around executing vigilante justice and he wanted attention. We could argue about his underlying moral fiber all day but it'd take longer."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't have underlying moral fiber," she says.

self_composed
2013-02-06 10:01 pm (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to fetch Alice, then. Oh well. What can your kinda ghost do besides take yourself apart and put yourself back together?"

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 10:02 pm (UTC)

She rolls her eyes right back, and disintegrates.
Edited 2013-02-06 22:02 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-06 10:03 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"Is she even still here?" she asks Lazarus. "Or did I bore her to smithereens?"

nonbird
2013-02-06 10:05 pm (UTC)

"She's... sort of...?" he says. "It's hard to explain. Harder than usual, even."

self_composed
2013-02-06 10:07 pm (UTC)

"That's something," snorts Bella. "Well. After what happened last time I don't think I care to take risks in this department. It's a pity, I'm sure they would have had fun."

nonbird
2013-02-06 10:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, she seemed nice enough to me," he says. "Albeit in a slightly creepy way. Definitely fewer axe murderer vibes than Addy."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I've never murdered anybody with an axe," says the same voice out of thin air. "Well, I'm pretty sure. Not in a while, anyway."

self_composed
2013-02-06 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I highly doubt Addy has ever murdered anyone with an axe either," remarks Bella. "And the terrorist alt seemed decent company to start with too, albeit aesthetically bizarre. Less bizarre," she concedes, "than intermittent discorporation."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 10:14 pm (UTC)

"He had scars, I bet," the still-discorporated ghost says wistfully.

self_composed
2013-02-06 10:17 pm (UTC)

"That one? Yeah. Can you not build yourself scars if you want them?" Bella says. "Or does that not count?"

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 10:34 pm (UTC)

She appears again, with the Joker's scars on her face.

"Sure I can," she says. "But it's different, y'know? That whole..." She waves a hand vaguely. "It's just not the same anymore."

self_composed
2013-02-06 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Alice doesn't have any scars at all," Bella volunteers. "They didn't grow back after he set himself on fire that one time."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Mm. Did he use to have," she licks her lips, "these?"

self_composed
2013-02-06 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Nope. Had the injuries briefly but he let them heal."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 10:48 pm (UTC)

"He must bounce back pretty good, your Alice."

self_composed
2013-02-06 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Occupational necessity," says Bella, smirking.

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, this I gotta hear."

self_composed
2013-02-06 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm making a habit of not explaining the details, but suffice it to say I plan for me and Alice to both live forever, and I wouldn't want that to interfere with his hobbies or vice versa."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Aren't you precious," she says affectionately. "Can I see him pretty please, even though we're both awful terrible people?"

self_composed
2013-02-06 11:11 pm (UTC)

"My Alice is not a terrible awful person," says Bella adamantly. "And..."

She pauses.

"Actually, what am I even thinking? My original objection is moot. I'll go grab Alice real quick."

Because if the Emperor and the Seer and the other ex-inhabitants of the witch dungeon are anything to go by, their sort of vampire is straight up immune to trauma.

Bella pokes her head out the door. [Hey Alice, want to meet another alt of you? She's a funky sorta ghost thing.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-06 11:21 pm (UTC)

Alice appears.

"Hell yes!"

self_composed
2013-02-06 11:24 pm (UTC)

Bella ushers him in. [I'm pretty sure your shiny new species is immune to being traumatized in any lasting way,] she says. [Although I wouldn't like you to go around taunting anyone with this information, the Emperor survived five years in small pieces in a dungeon believing his mate was dead and he is perfectly functional now. As long as I'm alive I don't think you can get to an irrecoverable state, and I have every intention of remaining alive.] "Alice, this is a female ghost version of you who has not introduced herself. Ghost, this is my Alice, as described."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-06 11:28 pm (UTC)

Alice opens his arms. "Hi, me!"

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Hi, you," she says, hugging him so hard she nearly bowls him over. "Oh, look at you, you're such a little darling, let me—"

And she dissolves into dust that dissolves into smaller dust that dissipates into apparent nothing.

nonbird
2013-02-06 11:30 pm (UTC)

Lazarus makes an incredulous sound, which was not his reaction the last few times she did this.

self_composed
2013-02-06 11:31 pm (UTC)

"What's going on?" Bella asks. Lazarus or Alice or both could answer her, whichever one knows.

nonbird
2013-02-06 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Ghosty Alice is inhabiting him the same way she was inhabiting those bodies she kept making out of and dissolving into thin air," Lazarus explains rapidly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-06 11:37 pm (UTC)

"...I don't feel possessed, or anything," says Alice.

self_composed
2013-02-06 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Does it feel like anything?" Bella asks, looking him up and down.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-06 11:42 pm (UTC)

"No-o..."

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 11:42 pm (UTC)

The ghost reassembles herself in front of him, tangles both her hands in his hair, and kisses him enthusiastically.

nonbird
2013-02-06 11:43 pm (UTC)

Lazarus turns quite pink.

self_composed
2013-02-06 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Bella. "What was that about?" she asks the ghost. "Also, do you have any sort of nickname or should I just call you Ghosty or something?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-06 11:48 pm (UTC)

With some reluctance, Alice stops kissing her so she can answer some of those.

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I wanted to see him," she explains, running her fingers through his hair. "I usedta be the Joker, but I don't think you're a fan. Ghosty works."

self_composed
2013-02-06 11:50 pm (UTC)

"...Are you the same Joker I met before or a different one going by the same name?" The same Joker plus Milliways temporal fuckery would probably still remember her, but there's always lying or even, after long enough that asteroid confinement is a distant memory, forgetting.
Edited 2013-02-06 23:51 (UTC)

yourheartstrings
2013-02-06 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Different," she says. "Never seen you before. Never came here before I died, either, so you wouldn'ta met me then unless you were in my world, and I don't think you are, are you?"

self_composed
2013-02-06 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't think we're from the same world," Bella agrees.

yourheartstrings
2013-02-07 12:02 am (UTC)

"Mhm."

She turns back to Alice.

"Sweet little me, can I take you somewhere and eat you?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 12:04 am (UTC)

"I think it should be the other way around," he says with a grin.

yourheartstrings
2013-02-07 12:04 am (UTC)

She laughs. "Ooh, tell me more."

self_composed
2013-02-07 12:06 am (UTC)

"Uh, remember the self-control thing," Bella says to Alice. "I probably can't route around that because ingot - can you? She might or might not count as human for that purpose."
Edited 2013-02-07 00:08 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 12:14 am (UTC)

"Mmm..." he says, and pentagons self-control relating to vampire thirst. The pentagon goes. "That work for you?"

self_composed
2013-02-07 12:16 am (UTC)

Bella peers into his mind briefly, although she backs out again when he's done, as she's not interested in supervising another Alice-and-alt session of perversity. "Yeah, drink up," she shrugs, "from consenting donors, that is. Please don't turn her, that seems like a terrible idea."

nonbird
2013-02-07 12:17 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure that she couldn't be a vampire right now if she felt like it," says Lazarus.

yourheartstrings
2013-02-07 12:18 am (UTC)

"You're a smart cookie," Ghosty says approvingly.

self_composed
2013-02-07 12:21 am (UTC)

"Really," muses Bella. "Hm. Well, all right, Alice, I think I'm out of dire warnings." She shrugs. "Have disturbing amounts of fun. I'll see you back home presently, I guess, because Milliways. Love you."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 12:22 am (UTC)

"Love you too," he says, and detours to hug her before wrapping his arms around Ghosty and teleporting away mid-kiss.

self_composed
2013-02-07 12:24 am (UTC)

Bella lets herself out; Lazarus may come or go, as he likes.

On the grounds that Milliways, she hangs around to wait for Alice's emergence, which should be no more than a few seconds from her own on their world's end.
Edited 2013-02-07 00:32 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-02-07 12:32 am (UTC)

Lazarus comes through and wanders off.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 12:33 am (UTC)

Alice comes through and scoops Bella up and hugs her, exuberantly but squishlessly.

self_composed
2013-02-07 12:36 am (UTC)

"Have fun?" she asks him needlessly, opening up a read.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 12:48 am (UTC)

"We diiiiiiiiiiid," he beams.

They had lots of fun. They went outside and he drank her blood (very tasty, but his pentagon holds against the memory just fine) and she dropped a lightning bolt on his head (fucking glorious, would try again anytime) and then they had a lot of sex and now he wants to curl up and snuggle Bella and love her and experience wanting to eat her but not do anything about it.

self_composed
2013-02-07 01:38 am (UTC)

Well, that can be arranged. And it is.

the cold is harmless

dark_light

Isabella Amariah takes a little under a day to fly to Québec City from her teacher's home in Maine. She doesn't have to spend that long in transit, but the book she's fetching isn't urgent; as long as she's faster than international overland shipping it's worth sending her.

Witches are politely ignored by customs on undefended borders as long as no clans are giving either government particular trouble. As long as she's in the air, obviously a witch and not a human dressed up as one to play a stereotyped character on television, she doesn't even have to dip down and show her clan tattoo to prove that she's descended from those who give allegiance to the Olympic clan. (Clans still refer to themselves by geography, though her teacher is as Olympic as she and lives on the other side of the continent and cloud-pine hasn't gotten any faster recently.)

Isabella touches the symbol inside her left wrist: two concentric circles, two lines. It doesn't mean anything, it's just unique, simple, easy to draw on the floor in herbs or honey or lighter fluid for a spell that refers to the coven.

"If only you were a proper Harry Potter owl," Isabella tells Pathalan, "I could send you for the book, you'd be able to carry it all by yourself, and I could be working out the kinks in this latest impossible assignment."

"Perhaps you wish I were an albatross," says Pathalan dryly, coasting through the air in her wake. "To fetch and carry and be not a bit like you at all."

"No," laughs Isabella. "Owl's fine. Soft and see-in-the-dark."

"It's never dark," says Pathalan. "Never quite."

She approaches the city, and attracts attention; witches are known but hardly common. A teenager - not even old enough to look properly ageless and spectacular like Metis Imestha, her teacher, or even Ranata Ekamma, her mother - dressed in raggedy black silks that whip around her in the wind, soaring over the streets on cloud-pine, is more unusual still.

Isabella Amaraiah coasts to a stop outside the correct address - witches can benefit from Google Street View even when they do not use streets - and descends to ground level.

pythbox
2013-01-28 05:48 pm (UTC)

Speaking of teenagers, there's a boy about her age in a huge puffy brown coat struggling up the street when she lands. He waves.

dark_light
2013-01-28 05:49 pm (UTC)

Isabella ignores him.

Path settles on her shoulder and waves a wing, though.

pythbox
2013-01-28 05:52 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

A tiny white fox with enormous ears pokes his head out of the cozy warmth of the boy's hood and sticks his tongue out at Path, then retreats again immediately.

dark_light
2013-01-28 05:59 pm (UTC)

"You think he's cute," Path says in Isabella's ear, too low for anyone else to hear. "The boy, I mean, though the fox too. Not enough that it'll bother you to leave it alone, but you do."

"Thank you," says Isabella through gritted teeth, because she did ask to keep updated on that kind of thing. She doesn't want to be blindsided by the kind of love witches can fall into. She suspects that her parents should never have married, but while Ranata may stray here and there on adventures with this clan sister or that friend from Asia or some teacher of crafts lately north from Brazil, she can never manage to stay away from Charlie too long, too aware of how he can die, too aware of how she'll regret any missed minute with him when he does and she's young still.

Isabella is glad to exist, but she does wish it could have come with less inconvenience to the both of them, Charlie alternately wishing his wife would come home and despairing of her flighty nature and Ranata alternately bored to tears with Forks and pining for her mortal beloved.

Picking up the book is simple. Isabella puts it in the black bag that she wears slung over her shoulders, sort of like a cross between a purse and a knapsack, and walks out the door again. Metis could have sprung for overnight shipping, but why would you do that when you have an apprentice?

Now it's time to find someplace that sells passable lunch and refuel for the flight home. Isabella looks around for restaurants.

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:06 pm (UTC)

The boy has moved about ten more feet up the hill in that time. He looks back and spots her coming out again.

"That was fast!" he says amicably. His accent isn't local; it sounds more Brooklyn than Quebec.

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:11 pm (UTC)

Isabella shrugs. "It was already bought. It was held for me." And, because she doesn't see anywhere good to eat, she says, "Do you happen to know of a good restaurant? It doesn't have to be nearby if you can direct me there." She gestures at the pine. Her accent is a very witchy Pacific Northwest. Her father had half the raising of her before she could fly, after all, and she's not old enough to have drifted to the "generic witch" accent altogether.

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I'll show you a good one if you buy me lunch," he bargains, displaying a charming smile.

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:14 pm (UTC)

"If you get something cheap," she shrugs. "The card isn't really mine."

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Deal," he says, and turns onto a cross street. He makes much better time on level ground.

The fox's nose emerges from his hood again. She waves her tiny paw at Path, then scrambles back into the warm interior.

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:19 pm (UTC)

Path hoots a laughing sort of hoot.

And Isabella follows the strange boy. "Have you got a name?" she inquires. "I'm Isabella Amariah and this is my Pathalan."

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Have I got a name," he muses. "I might. Then again, I might not."

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:25 pm (UTC)

"You might not?" Isabella laughs. "That sounds challenging in more ways than one."

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Really?" he says, interested. "Which ways?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:30 pm (UTC)

"To have failed to acquire one," Isabella says. "At any point in your life, moreover. And then to operate in its absence."

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I used to have one," he suggests. "And I didn't like it, so I threw it out."

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:33 pm (UTC)

"And haven't invented a replacement?"

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Guess not," he says cheerfully, and makes another turn. This time they're going downhill, which is a little quicker.

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:38 pm (UTC)

Isabella trips over a sidewalk paver trying to keep up. Exasperated, she flips her cloud-pine horizontal, sits on it, and floats after him instead of walking. Who ever heard of a clumsy witch? Grace should have been her birth blessing.

(She doesn't mean that. She's pleased that she and Path are protected against mind-affecting spells, she really is. But it's not usually as relevant as her clumsiness is.)

"Well," she says, "what do you and your daemon call each other?"

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:40 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "All kinds of things," he says. "My best friend calls me Truthwright; you might like that better." Merrily, "Or not. Why don't you pick something?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:44 pm (UTC)

"The only man's name that's coming to mind right now is my father's, which I imagine would be confusing," she says. "I'll think about it. Maybe I'll think of something before it stops mattering. Why Truthwright?"

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:46 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I lie so much," he says, grinning over his shoulder at her.

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Curious." She smooths out the needles on her pine. "So your daemon doesn't have a name either?"

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says the fox, sticking his nose out of Truthwright's hood again just long enough to deliver the word.

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:53 pm (UTC)

Path squints at the fox.

"I think the fox was a female a minute ago," he whispers in Isabella's ear.

Isabella doesn't outwardly react to this.

But she does think of a name.

"Kas Petaal," she says. He probably doesn't know enough witch religion to know that she's named him after the only deity in the pantheon with a male aspect outside of her divine-daemon, although the entity is normally referred to as though fully female anyway because all the rituals are designed to rhyme with female pronouns. (It is perfectly acceptable to name people after goddesses. Amariah is a goddess, in fact.) "You can be Kas and the fox can be Petaal."

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Kas. "Fine by us. Does it mean something?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Means someone," says Isabella. "Witches might laugh if you introduce yourselves to them that way."

pythbox
2013-01-28 06:58 pm (UTC)

"You're not laughing," he observes.

"What's the joke?" inquires Petaal from the comfort of the fur-lined hood.

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Kas Petaal's a goddess," says Isabella. "Or a god. The only one where there's a question about the matter, since these are after all witch deities."

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Somebody's a smart cookie," says Petaal, poking her face out again. Kas grins.

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:06 pm (UTC)

Isabella pets Pathalan's feathers. "Owls can see in the daytime, too," she says. "So, how are you doing that?"

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Magic," Petaal jokes, and disappears back into Kas's hood with a flick of her—suddenly longer, bushier, and more orange—tail.

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:10 pm (UTC)

Bell doesn't fall off her cloud-pine, but if she did she couldn't look more stunned. "How old are you?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Eighteen," Kas says merrily. Petaal, now a red fox, rests her front paws on the fur lining of the hood and grins a foxy little grin.

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:16 pm (UTC)

"I didn't think humans settled any later than witches," Isabella said. "I have a cousin whose daemon didn't settle till she was almost seventeen - he loved being a tiger, he resisted the pull to bird shapes as long as he could, I think that's why. Eighteen. Wow. And I've never heard of daemons changing sex at all."

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:33 pm (UTC)

Petaal giggles and reverts to fennec form, tucking herself into the invisible recesses of the hood.

"Guess we're just special," says Kas. And: "Check it out: lunch!"

He has found them a restaurant. It is small and extremely charming, with a hand-painted green sign that seems to imply it sells very happy snowmen.

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Do you do anything else unusual?" Isabella asks, pushing into the restaurant. "Or are you just more... daemonically unstable... than the average child?"

(It's clearly not a secret. Petaal was changing like that in the middle of the street, half in clear view; Path's eyes aren't that unusual.)

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Define 'unusual'," he says cheerfully.

The restaurant owner greets them familiarly in French. Kas responds, mispronounced but intelligible. Apparently he knows the place, and the place also knows him. They are invited to choose a table.

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:41 pm (UTC)

Isabella knows enough phrases of French to pick up a book and guess at cognates in the menu. "Recommendations?" she asks, peering at the selection and listening to Pathalan's guesses about the words.

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Best soup in the city," he says.

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's nonspecific. But I'm not allergic to anything, so all right," shrugs Bell. "And I'm hoping to avoid stopping on the way back to Maine so I will also get this thing with the word that I believe to be 'chicken'."

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure," Kas says amicably. "Maine, huh? To bring your fancy book home?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. My teacher wants a spell in it. I think after she copies it out and I've had a bit to look through it, it's going to the clan library, but that's not urgent enough that she's likely to send me flying to Washington too."

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I lived in Maine for a bit once," he says.

The restaurant owner comes back to take their orders. Kas remembers and reproduces Isabella's, adds his own, and hands over his menu.

Apparently deciding that it's warm enough in here, Petaal takes his red fox shape, pushes Kas's hood back, and curls up in it with his nose and front paws resting on Kas's right shoulder.

dark_light
2013-01-28 07:56 pm (UTC)

Path hops onto the table and a few steps forward from Isabella's shoulder. She doesn't have anything between his talons and her skin, but there must be a spell on her or something, because there aren't even marks, let alone wounds or scars.

pythbox
2013-01-28 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Petaal, snuggling into the side of Kas's neck and observing Path's progress across the table.

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Hello," replies Path, blinking in a characteristically owlish manner.

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:03 pm (UTC)

Petaal grins foxily. "What's up?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:09 pm (UTC)

"You're puzzling," says Path. "Have you always known you could change sexes? Or did you discover it?"

Isabella's phone rings. It plays witchy music, wordless acapella vocals, until she answers it. "Yes, Metis?" she says. "Yes. Waiting for lunch. I'm hoping to fly straight back without stopping on the way. No. Of course. Not yet. Yes, if it's just that I can send Path. Shouldn't slow me down at all. Okay. I'll be back this evening."

Isabella hangs up the phone. "She needs a second original print of the receipt for the book," she tells her owl. "The clan library's going to want it for their insurance or something."

Path makes a sighing noise. "I'll be right back, then," he says, and he lets himself out of the restaurant with the next group to open the door and wings his way back to the bookstore.

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:17 pm (UTC)

Petaal giggles and dives into the bowl of Kas's hood, emerging a moment later on his left shoulder as a female red fox.

"We were ten before we knew other daemons didn't," says Kas, reaching up to scratch her behind the ears.

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Really? Did you not play with a lot of other kids growing up?" Isabella asks.

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

Petaal snorts.

"Not really," says Kas.

Their soup arrives.

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:25 pm (UTC)

Isabella drinks soup directly from the bowl. "Do you know which way Petaal appeared to begin with? Species too, that's always interesting. Path was a raccoon."

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Petaal, curling her fluffy tail around Kas's neck.

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:29 pm (UTC)

Pathalan is back pretty quickly. He pecks at the window, and Isabella gets up to let him in. He stashes the extra receipt in her bag and goes back to sitting on her shoulder and nuzzles fluffy feathers on her cheek. Isabella murmurs the answer to his question in his ear, then drinks more soup; Path steals a bit of meat out of it.

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:31 pm (UTC)

Petaal snickers.

Kas eats his soup with the provided spoon, smiling fondly.

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Why did you want me to buy you lunch?" Isabella asks. "You could've just told me which streets led to this place."

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:38 pm (UTC)

"...Um, because I'm broke and hungry?" he says.

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Fair enough. You can order something else if you want," she shrugs. "I don't think Mrs. Carmichael will actually complain to Metis if the card gets charged for a suspiciously large meal one time."

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:41 pm (UTC)

He grins widely. "Thanks!"

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:44 pm (UTC)

Isabella grins back. "Witches trade in favors, services, that sort of thing, not in money, but Metis is pretty modern for someone who was born in the 1700s, and she'll trade for things like 'the use of a credit card in your name for a year'. If the Carmichaels' kid gets sick again I think they'll want a history of not complaining about the favor while it's in progress. We don't even use it that much."
Edited 2013-01-28 20:44 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:47 pm (UTC)

"So what's she want from the book?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I'm supposed to read it on my way home and try to guess which spell she's interested in," says Isabella, rolling her eyes.

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," says Kas. He takes the opportunity to order something else as the person who took their orders originally walks by again.

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:53 pm (UTC)

"After a fashion. I do like learning magic, and I like Metis, but sometimes having a teacher is frustrating. There's no really good way to learn ritual magic solely out of books until you have a foundation, though."

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:54 pm (UTC)

"What's it like?" he asks curiously.

dark_light
2013-01-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Witchcraft? Depends what you're doing," Isabella says. "The spell I have on so Path doesn't shred me, and my birth blessing, and the healing Metis did on the Carmichael kid, aren't anything alike."

pythbox
2013-01-28 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, what's a birth blessing?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:03 pm (UTC)

"When a witch in my clan is born, someone - often her grandmother, sometimes another relative or a friend of the family - performs a ritual to give her a certain embedded blessing - an ability or a protection or something. We learn to do our own magic a little later than clans that don't do this, because the birth blessing sucks up some of our power. And the person doing the blessing can't pick exactly what it is, although they can pick which goddess to invoke and that steers it some."

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Kas. "What's yours?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Mind-affecting spells act like I don't exist. They're not common, but they're nasty," says Isabella. "Courtesy of Evisa Iannakara. I think the relevant portfolio item was solitude. My great-grandmother was aiming for art. She wanted a painter, a runecaster. I can runecast but I need to make them big and they don't turn out very pretty."

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Not that I know what runecasting is, either," Kas says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it's when the ritual involves writing symbols onto a surface, instead of being primarily oriented around verse or herbs or sacrificial power. It's kind of an artificial distinction. Plenty of heavier-duty magic involves all four and even little stuff can have two of those."

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:13 pm (UTC)

"This magic stuff sounds pretty cool," he says, smiling. Petaal cuddles up and sticks her nose in his ear.

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:14 pm (UTC)

"It is," Isabella says. "I think it's a pity only witches can learn it. And I'm very glad I'm a witch."

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why only witches can learn it," says Kas.
Edited 2013-01-28 21:19 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:24 pm (UTC)

"There's a bunch of theories. I don't find any of them creditable except the idea that goddesses won't listen to anybody else. And that's only because I can't figure out how to ask Evisa Annakara and get a reply. I don't think it can just be genetics. If a witch's son has a kid with a non-witch woman all of whose male ancestors were also witches' sons, they will not have any witch children even if they have a dozen baby girls. Their kids won't even live to be 200 or be able to do tiny verse charms."

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Kas. "Is that weird?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Weird as genetics goes, as far as I know, but I've been out of regular school and studying magic full time since I was fifteen, and haven't made it a side project of mine, so I'm not fully educated on that."

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Funny," he says with a grin, "I've been out of school since I was fifteen, too."

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:44 pm (UTC)

"And what do you do with your copious free time since then?"

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Stuff," he says vaguely.

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Such as?"

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I was a stripper for a while," he offers.

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:49 pm (UTC)

Isabella is confronted by an unexpected mental image and giggles. "Sorry. I don't mean to be rude," she says.

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:50 pm (UTC)

"It's cool," he says, laughing. "Why, is that funny?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Just unexpected." She finishes her soup. "I went to school with humans for ten years, I know strippers exist, it's just an odd concept. Witches don't even have a nudity taboo. In clan enclaves the silks only go on when convenient. It isn't as though we get cold."

pythbox
2013-01-28 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Huh," he says. "Are hookers weird too, or do you get those?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't personally know of any witches who choose to be prostitutes, but someone might have taken it up at some point," Isabella says. "I'm not sure how prevalent hiring them is but I suppose it's probably not literally nil; there are a lot of witches in the world. The concept is less bizarre, at least."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:05 pm (UTC)

"It's bizarre that you think stripping is bizarre," he informs her with a grin.

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, I mean, taking off one's clothes is a perfectly ordinary activity that most people do at least once a day. I wouldn't trade - pay - to watch someone eat cereal, or fetch the newspaper, or drive to the mall, and if I heard that there was a thriving industry around doing those things for an audience - just that, without it being part of a musical or a TV show or something - then I would be confused. It's like that."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:14 pm (UTC)

"...You've never been to a strip club, have you," he says, amused.

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:15 pm (UTC)

"No. Why? Is there singing?"
Edited 2013-01-28 22:15 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, there's music. And it's not just taking off your clothes. There's whole art to it. Well, depending where you go, I guess."

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. I could easily be missing something. So now it's like discovering that there's a form of performance art where people dance to music and eat cereal, and this is highly skilled work because otherwise they'd spill their milk, and lots of people feel motivated to watch cereal-eating dancers in particular instead of going to see Cats."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:24 pm (UTC)

"...Do witches also not believe in sexy clothes? 'Cause in that case, you are missing out."

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:27 pm (UTC)

"We just wear this kind of thing," she says gesturing at the silks tied around her person and knotted to each other. "We're not big on owning stuff. There's a bolt of black silk in the house, so I won't be trapped in the house unable to go out without getting arrested if I accidentally set them on fire while I'm doing a ritual with flames. It'd take about five minutes to tear and tie another set. Maybe ten."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:30 pm (UTC)

"No, I mean sexy clothes on other people," he says. "The possibility of clothes being sexy. No?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:35 pm (UTC)

Bell thinks. "If it is, it's not given a lot of emphasis. The witches who've been married talk about falling in love with men who were brave or talented or powerful. The witches who prefer to see women tend to just date each other and avoid the mess of falling for mortals. I've heard 'I knew I wanted him when I saw his beautiful eyes' but not 'I knew I wanted him when I saw his sharp outfit'."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:36 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, you've been to high school, right?" he says. "Ever get the hots for somebody there?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Not especially."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Huh." He shakes his head. "Okay, I give up. I don't think I can explain it without actually taking you to a strip club."

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:39 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I can justify hanging around in Québec that long," she says. "Interesting research project on a subject unrelated to my studies though it might be."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, try one sometime," he says. "See if you figure it out. Actually, got a pen and paper?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:43 pm (UTC)

Isabella reaches into her bag, produces a small notebook, and tears out a page. Pathalan picks up a pen from a pocket of the bag in his beak and Isabella passes that over too.

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:45 pm (UTC)

Kas writes down an address. It's in Montreal.

"I worked there for a while," he says. "It's pretty good. They thought I was nineteen, though, so shhh."

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I don't appear in Canada routinely. I doubt I'll be in Montreal anytime in the next few years at least," Isabella says. "The most likely way for me to wind up there would be going on a trip with my mother."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Guess you'll just have to wait to find out what the fuss is all about, then," he says.

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll live. I can file it under Human Peculiarities."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Awwwww," he says, with exaggerated disappointment.

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I have a lot of magic to learn before I can expect to get anywhere without a teacher," Isabella chuckles. "It's my main priority for the next few years. I try not to spend too long on side trips."

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Where are you, in Maine?" he asks. "Maybe I'll come visit. Take you somewhere nice."

dark_light
2013-01-28 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Rockland. How are you going to take me somewhere if you're broke?"

pythbox
2013-01-28 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm not always broke," he says. "I just am now."

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Going to do more dancing-with-a-bowl-of-cereal?" she teases.

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Definitely better than hooking, in this weather. But nah, I think I'll go see my friend first. She might have something for me."

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Nice friend," comments Isabella.

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:04 pm (UTC)

"She is, I love her so much," he says happily.

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:07 pm (UTC)

Their second dishes arrive at long last and Isabella starts in on her chicken. Path puts the piece of paper with the address on it in her bag, and peers at Petaal quizzically.

"I know you're not a witch's daemon, but don't you ever come away from him?" he asks the fox.

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Noooo," says Petaal, tucking his face against the side of Kas's neck.

"We're really close," says Kas. "Closer than most people, I guess."

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:15 pm (UTC)

"It's probably just as well you aren't a witch, then," Isabella remarks. "Although come to think of it I think some humans separate, too, just not all."

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:21 pm (UTC)

"My dad wouldn't fuck a witch if she held a gun to his head," Kas remarks idly. "And I have a dick, I hear that's disqualifying."

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:22 pm (UTC)

"It is," Isabella says mildly. "Why doesn't he like witches?"

She's not insulted. You can't really insult a witch.

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:30 pm (UTC)

"He was just an asshole," shrugs Kas. Petaal snuggles his neck some more. "I'm sure he'd shit himself if he knew I was hanging out with you."

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, don't tell him, then, that sounds messy."

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:31 pm (UTC)

"It's okay," Kas says cheerfully, "he's dead."

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

She finishes her chicken, and the side of green beans, and puts the Carmichael credit card on the table. "I think offering condolences is traditional but you don't seem to have a place to put them."

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:37 pm (UTC)

"It's good that you noticed, I hate having to explain to people that I don't really care."

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:39 pm (UTC)

The waiter takes the credit card. "I suppose if he's going to be dead either way, that's convenient."

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:40 pm (UTC)

Kas grins. So does Petaal.

"Yep!"

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:41 pm (UTC)

"I still have my father. I'm fond of him, so that's also a convenient combination. However little sense he and my mother make together."

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:42 pm (UTC)

"...Why don't they make sense?"

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:49 pm (UTC)

"He stays put. She can't stand to, and she knows he'll be gone in the next fifty or sixty years so she has to keep coming back to make the most of their time. But she can't stand that little town he lives in. He gets to miss her or be unhappy that she's unhappy. It's worse when he takes time off work and tries to go somewhere with her. It could barely be more awkward if his daemon needed to live in freshwater and hers in salt. But he just has a wolverine, nothing too inconvenient. Purely a personality matter. If she weren't a witch I think she'd have left him."

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:50 pm (UTC)

"...Awwwwww," says Kas. "That's really sad."

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:51 pm (UTC)

"It is," sighs Isabella. "They get along really well with each other. Just not with each other's habitats. They're both good parents, though."

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Better than it could be, I guess," he says. Petaal flicks her fluffy tail and nods.

dark_light
2013-01-28 11:54 pm (UTC)

The credit card returns to Isabella. She writes something incomprehensible followed by her clan symbol, just like on the inside of her wrist. "Home I go," she says. "Thanks for the restaurant recommendation."

pythbox
2013-01-28 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Bye!" says Kas. "Hey, what's Kas Petaal the god of?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:01 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Isabella, "every goddess has about fifty portfolio items and I haven't got them all memorized, but off the top of my head, witches address her about their sons or husbands, sacrificial magic, things to do with or going on during the new moon or autumn, ambiguous things in general, food, injury - but not healing, just the injury - and any object of obsession."

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:03 am (UTC)

"...I like it," he declares. "Suits me."

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:05 am (UTC)

"Glad I picked something appropriate," laughs Isabella. "Bye! It was nice to meet you!"

And out the door she goes, and she and Pathalan both take to the air.

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:09 am (UTC)

Just as Isabella is getting on her branch, Petaal shifts to the form of a tiny sparrow and darts out to bump her head against Path's chest.

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:10 am (UTC)

Aww. Path bats at her with a wing, gently.

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:12 am (UTC)

She pecks playfully at his feathers, not actually connecting, and then zooms back to Kas to burrow into his hood.

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:13 am (UTC)

Isabella waves as she settles on her branch and goes up. Path beats his wings to stay in place a moment longer, then follows his witch.

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:15 am (UTC)

Kas waves after them, then turns and trudges away, stuffing his hands in his coat's enormous warm pockets.

witches own little

dark_light

Isabella doesn't really want to own as many things as a human. She likes the simple wardrobe, the one glorious vehicle that carries her under the stars, the rental house. Hair can do without shampoo as long as it's not accustomed to the stuff; no one really needs to own a copy of Monopoly; she sleeps comfortably in a hammock instead of having to come up with the hundreds of dollars for a mattress (let alone a frame).

She sometimes wishes she had her own computer.

She has a phone, which Charlie insists she carry with her, so that's all right and no one's going to call her unwitchly for indulging a beloved mortal. It will do simple web browsing. When she wants to do less simple web browsing, she goes to the library.

So here she is, in the Rockland Public Library, looking up alethiometers.

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:32 am (UTC)

The library door opens, and in walks an enormous tiger.

Oh, there's a boy there, too. Isabella might find his coat familiar; likewise, when he pushes back his hood, his face.

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:35 am (UTC)

Isabella is very absorbed in what she's doing, but Pathalan's help isn't really needed. He swoops over and lands right on the tiger's back, taking care not to dig in with his talons. "Hullo again," he says.

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:37 am (UTC)

Petaal chuckles.

"Hi!" says Kas. "Whatcha up to?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:39 am (UTC)

"She's working on one of her side projects," says Path. "She's very absorbed in it."

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:40 am (UTC)

"I can tell," says Kas, amused. "Is it magic stuff?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:42 am (UTC)

"Not ritual magic," says Path. "Alethiometers. They're interesting."

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:42 am (UTC)

"What's an alethiometer?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:43 am (UTC)

"Truth-tellers. They answer questions."

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:44 am (UTC)

"...What kinds of questions?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:46 am (UTC)

"Any," says Path, and he flies back to Isabella to whisper to her.

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:49 am (UTC)

"Sounds fun," says Kas.

Petaal pads over to Isabella's computer and sits, tucking her tail around her paws, where she can see the screen.

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:53 am (UTC)

Isabella is seeking dictionaries of meanings for the alethiometer symbols. "Hi," she says distractedly, shifting between tabs to compare their organization, backwards lookup, and crossreferencing. She's already pruned the dictionaries for compatibility with her phone.

"There's no good reason for there to be so many, with only a handful of alethiometers in the world," Pathalan says. "People must download these as a novelty."

"Lucky me," says Isabella.

"How'd you know to look here?" Path asks Kas and Petaal.

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:55 am (UTC)

"We guessed," says Kas. "You seem like the library type."

"Looks like gibberish to me," Petaal remarks. "What's it all mean?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 12:57 am (UTC)

"Like the goddesses all have a lot of portfolio items, the thirty-six alethiometer symbols have layers of meanings," Isabella says. "Supposedly the hands of it spin a certain number of times to tell you which. And you use them to ask the questions, too. It can take ages to decipher an answer, even if it's short, and there's not much grammar to it, either," says Isabella. "I've memorized the first ten of each from that introductory fun-facts site I copied them from, and now I want something more comprehensive to study."

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:59 am (UTC)

"Why, do you have one of these?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:06 am (UTC)

She snorts. "No. There were only six made. Two are lost, nobody has a clue where they went, they may have been destroyed. One was definitely destroyed. The Louvre has one. Oxford University has one. And the U.N. has one."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:06 am (UTC)

"And nobody's figured out how to make more?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:08 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Isabella, peering at the dictionary.

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:09 am (UTC)

He sits on the floor, hugging his daemon. She is very fluffy.

"Who made the first ones?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:13 am (UTC)

"Fellow named Pavel Khunrath." She settles on a dictionary. Her phone is already hooked up by USB to the computer to charge it; she downloads it thereto. "In Prague a long time ago."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:14 am (UTC)

"Why d'you like 'em so much?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:21 am (UTC)

"People who have them could be doing anything. The alethiometers don't just do facts, you don't just get to ask them if this Picasso is authentic is or whether Iraq has nuclear weapons. You could ask one how to solve global poverty. You could ask it how to generate clean energy. You could ask it how to do anything. And they're not, because everyone who has one has pettier concerns to worry about that take up their whole concentration, and the readers they hire are - you know that none of the alethiometers in known location are even in use twenty-four hours a day? They don't hire enough readers to keep them in efficent use! Oxford have one guy with a Classics education and a copy of Khunrath's dictionary and one grad student to help him, there's a waiting list to get them to ask it questions, the philosophers ask it what is color and they get a vague answer and then instead of arguing about what color is they argue about what the answer means, or what truth means, so no progress is made. The physicists are barely better, they say is string theory true, and of course none of these symbols just means yes or no, the alethiometer answers in complete sentences that they can argue about forever. If they asked it how they could empirically test string theory that would at least make sense. It's idiotic."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:23 am (UTC)

"So what, you're gonna steal one?" he asks, smiling.

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:24 am (UTC)

"Well, I was thinking I'd look for the lost ones," Isabella says. And then she twists around in her chair and looks at Kas assessingly. "To start," she adds.

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:27 am (UTC)

"You could steal one just long enough to ask it where the other two are and then put it back," he suggests. "If you wanna be nice about it."

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:31 am (UTC)

"My plan involved using magic to find a lost one," Isabella says. "If that doesn't work I'll try getting official permission to use Oxford's. Possibly by enrolling there."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:32 am (UTC)

"Well, sure," he teases, "if you wanna be boring."

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:33 am (UTC)

"Witches used to be able to get away with murder. That's no longer true, and I don't think stealing a nearly-unique object from any entity with a lot of security and lawyers would be a good idea."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:34 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Suit yourself, I guess."

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:35 am (UTC)

"Of course I will," she says, tucking her phone into her purse-knapsack-thing. "How long are you going to be in Rockland?"

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:37 am (UTC)

"No idea," he says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:40 am (UTC)

"Okay. Were you going to take me to some manner of place? Metis doesn't expect me back any particular time this evening as long as I'm home in time for renewing the firepit spells."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:41 am (UTC)

"Which is when?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:43 am (UTC)

"A little before dusk. There's some setup I'm supposed to do for her, and then we're performing the ritual during the exact minute the sun crosses the horizon."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:43 am (UTC)

"No strip clubs tonight, then," he says. "Unless you go back out afterward."

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:46 am (UTC)

"Well, after we have the firepit fixed it's my job to cook dinner. That's about half of why Metis tolerates an apprentice, so she doesn't have to cook. She can but she doesn't like it."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:49 am (UTC)

Kas laughs.

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:50 am (UTC)

"Does Rockland even have a strip club?"

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:53 am (UTC)

"You live here, you tell me!" he says, grinning.

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:54 am (UTC)

"I don't know," she laughs. "Why would I know that? I don't go to them. I don't even know where the grocery store is because we have a deal to get everything delivered."

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:55 am (UTC)

"That's weird, don't you ever just wander around?" he says. "Whatever, I'll find one. I'll find a good one."

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:56 am (UTC)

"When I wander around I do it well above street level," Isabella says pointedly.

pythbox
2013-01-29 01:57 am (UTC)

He laughs. "You miss all the good stuff that way!"

dark_light
2013-01-29 01:58 am (UTC)

Isabella gets up and picks up her cloud-pine. "I suppose I can see how you'd think that, since you can't feel starlight and moonlight," she says loftily.

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:00 am (UTC)

"...What're they like?" he asks, his interest caught.

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:04 am (UTC)

She heads out of the library, Path hitching a ride on the tiger-Petaal. "Like... well, they're different. I think if I wanted to approximate the sensations during daylight hours, for the moon I'd... hang up a lot of strips of silk with the highest possible thread count from the ceiling, and then fly through them. The flying part is important, even if you're not far off the ground. Maybe it'd be okay on a boat too, but the rhythm of walking is just all wrong for enjoying the moon. It'd be okay for the stars, though. Those are more like... snow. Being snowed on is a little bit like the feel of starlight. But only in the very, very coldest weather, when there's no wind. And these are bad approximations anyway, and I know cold is different for you."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:06 am (UTC)

"Cold is different," he agrees. "Does snow melt on you?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:07 am (UTC)

"Of course it does. I'm perfectly warm," she says, patting his cheek. "It just doesn't bother me. It can't hurt me."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:09 am (UTC)

Surprised, he grins and leans into her hand.

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:10 am (UTC)

She permits this for as long as seems reasonable for warmth-inspection, then drops her arm. Path flutters to her shoulder as they exit the library and whispers to her. "I don't think anyone's ever asked me what the stars and the moon feel like before," muses Isabella.

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:13 am (UTC)

"Why not?" he wonders.

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:14 am (UTC)

"I don't know. Because the people who don't know yet, won't ever? Even little witches who can't fly yet or go away from their daemons or cast a verse charm can feel it."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:18 am (UTC)

"I wish I could," says Kas. "I already don't know what it's like to have fur or feathers or echolocate or see ultraviolet or breathe water."

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:20 am (UTC)

"Your soul knows those things," Bell says, gesturing at Petaal. "He - she? - I can't tell these things by looking in arbitrary species like Path can and sometimes he's not with me, what should I default to? - is part of you. So part of you knows it."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:24 am (UTC)

"I can't tell him, though," says Petaal. "Call me whatever you want. You can pick one and stick to it if that makes your life easier." She flicks her tail, tapping it against Kas's legs; he puts his hand on the top of her head. "I wonder if I could be a witch," she muses.

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:28 am (UTC)

"Daemons sometimes help with rituals," Isabella says. "If I were going to do a ritual that had to do with Kas then it might involve you in some way. But that's probably not what you meant."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:30 am (UTC)

"I mean the way I'm a human sometimes," she says, laughing a little. "And a bear once. I've never tried witch, though."

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:31 am (UTC)

"Oh. Interesting question," says Isabella. "I don't know. I've never heard of a daemon quite like you."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:32 am (UTC)

"There's daemons who settle human," says Kas. "Never heard of one settling witch, though."

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:34 am (UTC)

"Never heard of one settling panserbjorne, either. But then, we don't know what governs it. People don't wind up with dinosaurs as daemons, and those were ordinary animals. Passenger pigeons can still happen even since their extinction, though."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:39 am (UTC)

"I was a velociraptor once," volunteers Petaal. "Jurassic Park-style."

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:40 am (UTC)

Isabella grins. "Was it fun?"

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:41 am (UTC)

"It was awesome," she proclaims.

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:42 am (UTC)

"I was more of a fantasy creatures sort myself," says Path, "when I could change. Small dragons of various designs especially. After I gave up trying to settle as a firefly I wanted to be one of those, but it does seem to have to be a bird, not just anything that flies."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:43 am (UTC)

"Why do you have to?" wonders Petaal. "What makes you be something you don't want to be?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:45 am (UTC)

"We didn't feel like a witch," Path says. "Until I found this sort of owl and began to be it. Being a witch was more important than being a dragon or a firefly."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:48 am (UTC)

"I've been lots of things, but we never feel any different because of it," says Petaal. "I'm going to try being a witch. When we're not in the middle of the street." She giggles. "Maybe you'll turn into a bird," she says, bumping her shoulder against Kas's leg.

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:49 am (UTC)

"That would be bizarre," comments Isabella. "Bears' souls are their armor. If they made the same metal into a sculpture instead they probably wouldn't feel very bearish, would they? I think it's the same with witches and birds."

pythbox
2013-01-29 02:52 am (UTC)

"I tried to be armour once, but it didn't work," says Petaal. "And Tina said it creeped her out when I was a bear, and I didn't want to do it again, so I didn't."

dark_light
2013-01-29 02:53 am (UTC)

"Tina? And I wouldn't expect you could be armor. It's not an organism."

pythbox
2013-01-29 03:00 am (UTC)

"Augustine," says Kas. "My best friend, in Quebec. She's a bear."

dark_light
2013-01-29 03:02 am (UTC)

"Oh, neat," says Isabella.

They're just sort of standing around outside the library, aren't they. "Am I interfering with your exploration of Rockland?"

pythbox
2013-01-29 03:04 am (UTC)

"I'm not exploring Rockland right now, I'm talking to you," he says reasonably.

dark_light
2013-01-29 03:06 am (UTC)

"Yes, I know," she laughs. "But you were going to find and evaluate establishments." She sits in a drift of snow near the library door. "I don't know how long it will take you to do that and you didn't say how long you have to remain in this town."

pythbox
2013-01-29 12:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna be here until I leave," he says. Petaal flops onto the ground and Kas sits next to her, snugggled up just behind her shoulder. "I don't get it, what's the rush?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 04:20 pm (UTC)

"No particular rush. I just expect humans to arrive places with - train tickets and itineraries and hotel bookings. Where are you staying?"

pythbox
2013-01-29 04:59 pm (UTC)

Kas laughs. "Dunno yet."

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:11 pm (UTC)

"...did you get un-broke enough to afford a hotel?" Isabella says.

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:13 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Depends on the hotel."

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to ask Metis if you can crash at hers? We don't keep the house particularly warm, but I can run to the Westfords' and bless their apple tree or something and borrow their space heater. We did that when my dad came to visit."

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:17 pm (UTC)

Kas blinks at her, surprised. "Yeah, sure! That's real sweet of you," he says.

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay. You probably want to look for a hotel you can afford anyway, in case Metis says no. There's my dad, and then there's random boy I met in Québec City."

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:20 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Yeah, no shit."

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I might as well ask her now, though. You can come along in case she wants to meet you before deciding." Isabella gets up from the snowdrift. Path bats at the clinging not-yet-melted snow on her silks with his wings until she's only a little damp, and she sits on her cloud-pine. "She's kind of formal. Call her Metis Imestha, and it can't hurt if you call me by full name when she's listening, too - second name is Amariah, if you forgot it. Don't talk to her daemon personally, he doesn't like it unless they're at least a mile apart and even then he runs way fewer messages than the average witch daemon - have Petaal say anything you need to communicate to him. She's pretty likely to ask you point-blank if you plan to steal or vandalize anything, and, I mean, the obvious answer is no, but if you do actually wind up doing those things she's liable to curse you and also pretty likely to hold me responsible for you and kick me out of my apprenticeship, which I would resent."

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I forgot your first name, too," Kas says cheerfully, hauling himself to his feet. Petaal shakes herself out, sending bits of snow flying everywhere.

"Should I stay stuck in front of her?" she inquires.

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Isabella," says Isabella, rolling her eyes. "There's no other reason for you to be in Rockland in particular, is there? Did you come here to see someone whose name you forgot?"

Path says to Petaal, "Depends. Do you want to spend six to ten hours in a divination circle being told to turn into things?"

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Isabella Amariah," he repeats. "It's pretty."

Petaal snorts. "Can I have him with me?" she asks, leaning into Kas. "Then sure."

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Thanks." Isabella thinks. "Yeah, some divination circles won't be thrown off by the human's presence, just tell her you've got no separation distance to speak of and you can spend six to ten hours together in a divination circle being asked to turn into things."

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:37 pm (UTC)

"What are you signing us up for, baby?" says Kas, petting his daemon's fluffy head.

"Magic," says Petaal. "You'll like it, hush."

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:39 pm (UTC)

"You can also watch me bless-the-apple-tree-or-whatever for the space heater, if you want," Isabella says, floating along at a reasonable walking speed through the streets. "I don't know any clan-secret type magic that I'd have to be hidey about."

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:42 pm (UTC)

"It is. I like magic. I can show you stuff even if Metis says we can't put you in the attic, if you like. Heck, I could put you in a divination circle and take readings on Petaal if you somehow manage not to capture Metis's interest, but I think you will. If she weren't thoroughly fascinated by magic I wouldn't have asked for her as my teacher."

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:44 pm (UTC)

Both of them laugh.

"You're fun," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:46 pm (UTC)

Path grooms a bit of Isabella's hair with his beak, smugly, like he's trying to say I have a fun witch!.

"Thanks," laughs Isabella.

pythbox
2013-01-29 05:47 pm (UTC)

Kas giggles. Petaal bumps her nose against his leg.

dark_light
2013-01-29 05:53 pm (UTC)

The library isn't that far from Metis's house, at least in New England suburb terms. Isabella matches pace comfortably with Kas on her cloud-pine.

The house is a ridiculously cute little bungalow with a steeply peaked roof and a snowed-over herb garden. There is a sign up that says trespassers may be cursed.

Isabella floats right up to the door, slides off her cloud-pine, and opens it. It's apparently not locked. "Teacher! Visitor!" she calls.

"Starclad!" comes the reply.

"Do you care if she answers the door stark naked?" Isabella asks Kas over her shoulder.

pythbox
2013-01-29 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-01-29 08:34 pm (UTC)

"He doesn't care!" Isabella shouts into the house.

A woman who is indeed stark naked, unselfconscious, and agelessly lovely in the way that witches past fifty develop, descends the stairs. She's not accompanied by her daemon at the moment. "Well, who is it?" she asks.

"Teacher, this is someone I met in Québec City. He may or may not have a name so I've been calling him Kas and his daemon Petaal. Kas, this is Metis Imestha, my teacher. Teacher, I was wondering if we could put him up in the attic for just a few nights. I'll trade for the space heater on my own time."

Metis looks at Kas assessingly.

pythbox
2013-01-29 08:38 pm (UTC)

Kas smiles a very friendly smile.

Petaal (who has been walking behind him for a bit) rears up on her hind feet, puts her paws on his shoulders, and peeks playfully around him.

dark_light
2013-01-29 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Isabella Amariah, if you met a boy in Québec City, why didn't you mention that?" Metis asks finally.

"He showed me a restaurant he liked and told me to get the soup, Teacher, I didn't really expect he'd turn up here. It's not like I told him at daggerpoint that he was mine or anything," says Isabella, rolling her eyes.

Path whispers to Petaal, "You might want to interest Teacher now, if you were going to."

pythbox
2013-01-29 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm bored of tigers anyway," Petaal rumbles, and turns into a tiny hummingbird who immediately darts into Kas's hood. Her wings tickle his cheek on the way; he giggles.

dark_light
2013-01-29 08:46 pm (UTC)

Metis's eyes narrow.

"He's eighteen," chirps Isabella.

"I'm going to draw a divination circle in the back yard," says Metis, and she strides back into the house.

"There's our answer," Isabella tells Kas, smiling.

pythbox
2013-01-29 08:48 pm (UTC)

Kas grins.

Petaal peeks his fennec face out of the hood, and Kas kisses his nose.

dark_light
2013-01-29 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Want to watch me bless a tree?"

pythbox
2013-01-29 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Kas.

"Want to tell your teacher we don't separate before she draws the wrong kind?" says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-01-29 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Path?" Isabella says, and Pathalan flies around the house to relay that information while Isabella shuts the door. She sits on her cloud-pine again and begins drifting towards the house with the space heater. Pathalan catches up presently.

pythbox
2013-01-29 08:59 pm (UTC)

Petaal remains tucked into Kas's hood as Kas follows.

dark_light
2013-01-29 09:02 pm (UTC)

The house is a ways away, and it takes fifteen minutes to get there at walking speed. Isabella dismounts at the door and rings the bell.

A woman answers the door. She's not starclad at all. "Isabella Amariah," she says politely. "Can I help you?"

"If I can help you," Isabella says cheerfully. "Is your apple tree still sickly?"

"Yes, we've asked Metis Ismetha about it, but - you can fix it?"

"I'll take longer than she would to do it, and I'll need to borrow a bottle of honey," says Isabella, "but I can. I'd like to borrow your space heater for a few days," she adds.

"Of course, of course. I'll go get you the honey. Will your... friend there... be joining you?"

"Yes. He's curious about magic," Isabella explains.

"All right. I'll be right back." And into the house she goes.
Edited 2013-01-29 21:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-01-29 09:25 pm (UTC)

Kas continues to be cheerful, friendly, and quiet.

Petaal, now an Arctic fox, snuggles his neck.

dark_light
2013-01-29 09:27 pm (UTC)

Isabella takes the honey and walks around to the side of the house, where there is an unhappy-looking apple tree.

"How much narration interests you?" she asks Kas, unscrewing the bottle.

pythbox
2013-01-29 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Lots!"

dark_light
2013-01-29 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay! Honey's one of a bunch of things I can use to draw symbols for spells that need them," she says, extracting the dipper and starting to drizzle the substance in a line in the snow near the base of the tree. "It's good for anything to do with flowering plants, in particular, of which apple trees are one, and it's also good for healings, so it's the obvious choice for fixing up this tree. I'm not doing anything fancy so I'm just going to repeat the same three symbols until I've gone all the way around the trunk to complete a circle. This one -" She completes a somewhat messy design - "is for winter, because, y'know, it's winter, and that is relevant to trees and how they work, especially deciduous ones. This second one -" She starts another, loopier symbol. "Is for plants. Because I'm working with a plant. These explanations would be much more elaborate and layered and abstract if I were doing something significant. And the third symbol which I haven't started yet is going to be for healing. So all together they mean I'm healing a plant and it's wintertime."

She finishes honeying the symbols, twice each, in a ring around the tree. "Next I get to make up a poem. I don't need it to rhyme, but I need it to scan."

pythbox
2013-01-29 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Do you need to make it up," he inquires, "or could you use one you already had?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 09:41 pm (UTC)

"The more specific it is, the better it works, all else being equal. So usually we make up new ones, though there are standards for common applications, and standard ways to vary them for people who aren't that creative. If I were in a hurry, I'd use the spell I used to fix my mortal grandmother's potted ficus, but I'm not."

Isabella has practice making up poems. She's got a workable couplet in short order. She presses her hands to the bark. "Apple under stress and snow; apple, heal, recover, grow."

The honey symbols on the ground disappear.

"It's often easier to make up poems that rhyme," Isabella remarks, taking her hands off the tree and brushing debris from them.

The apple tree creaks as it tries to stand up a little straighter. It's hard to see any other difference when the branches are bare.

Isabella picks up the honey bottle and caps it again.
Edited 2013-01-29 21:42 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-01-29 09:42 pm (UTC)

"That's cute," Kas declares.

dark_light
2013-01-29 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Healing apple trees? The poem?" guesses Isabella, heading back for the house to trade the remaining honey back for the space heater.

pythbox
2013-01-29 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Both. And the way the tree moved," he says.

dark_light
2013-01-29 09:47 pm (UTC)

"It feels better now," says Isabella contently. She rings the doorbell again, hands over the honey, and accepts the space heater without exchanging any further words about either. The space heater has a handle. She hangs it from the edge of her cloud-pine and starts the flight home a little farther off the ground than before.

pythbox
2013-01-29 09:53 pm (UTC)

"That's adorable," says Kas. As they leave the house, Petaal changes into an ermine.

dark_light
2013-01-29 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Any other magic you want to see? Metis does much, much more careful and complicated symbology than I can do - at least from memory - and she'll be working on her circle for a while."

pythbox
2013-01-29 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know what kinds there are, so I don't know what kinds I want to see," Kas says reasonably.

Petaal pokes his nose out of the hood and says, "Do something fun!"

dark_light
2013-01-29 09:59 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs, and thinks.

"Here's the first verse spell I ever learned. It's not in English - a lot of the first stuff they'll teach us isn't so we don't try to vary it without knowing what we're doing."

And she recites a rhythmic, rhyming couplet, and the snow around her kicks up into a fine whirlwind, swirling about her and throwing glittery light every which way.

pythbox
2013-01-29 10:01 pm (UTC)

Kas claps his hands. "Aww, that's pretty!"

dark_light
2013-01-29 10:02 pm (UTC)

When the snow settles, it's in a ring-shaped heap around Isabella. "It's actually for drawing accurate circles to symbolize on, but it's perfectly usable on its own for decorative reasons," she agrees.

pythbox
2013-01-29 10:05 pm (UTC)

Petaal leaps down out of Kas's hood and scampers around the perimeter of the snow-ring, then climbs up his leg and disappears under his coat.

dark_light
2013-01-29 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Now that's cute," says Isabella.

pythbox
2013-01-29 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I know," says a smug voice from Kas's tummy region.

dark_light
2013-01-29 10:09 pm (UTC)

Isabella resumes forward progress. "I'm better with verse magic than anything else, and because it works so much better when specific, I don't have a huge repertoire of spells that I can pull out on a whim. I'm more effective with a goal."

pythbox
2013-01-29 10:37 pm (UTC)

"'Do something fun' is a pretty good goal," Kas opines.

dark_light
2013-01-29 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Sure, but it's not the right kind. I don't touch mind-affecting spells, so 'fun' isn't an effect I'm going to produce directly in the world by invoking a goddess or sacrificing a rabbit or drizzling honey onto the snow."

pythbox
2013-01-29 10:43 pm (UTC)

"So think of something fun, and then do that?"

dark_light
2013-01-29 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm not accustomed to inventing things to do quite like that. Magic in general is fun. When I have downtime I fly or I read or I study alethiometer symbols and that's fun, too."

pythbox
2013-01-29 10:56 pm (UTC)

"What's flying like?" wonders Kas.

dark_light
2013-01-29 10:57 pm (UTC)

Bell scoots forward on her pine. "Can you avoid falling off?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-01-29 10:59 pm (UTC)

"...Sure I can," he says, beaming, and climbs on behind her. (Petaal turns into a bee hummingbird.)

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:05 pm (UTC)

The cloud-pine doesn't so much dip under the added weight. Unencumbered by the need to accommodate a walking conversational partner, Isabella takes them up over building-level and speeds up quite a bit. They reach Metis's house presently, and Metis (dressed in her silks, now) can be seen in the backyard, writing runes on a spot cleared of snow in some manner of powder.

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:11 pm (UTC)

Flying is, it turns out, really fucking cool.

Tiny Petaal nestles in the fur lining of his hood and joins him in laughing with glee.

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:15 pm (UTC)

"If you want me to do anything fancy I'm going to want to land and tuck some bayleaves into your collar and come up with a verse," Isabella says, starting wide lazy circuits around the house.

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Why bayleaves?" he asks, grinning hugely. "I would love to go fancy flying with you, this is awesome."

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Bayleaves are a protection herb and I know we have some," she says. "So if you fall off you won't break your neck. Even with those I don't think I'd dare go upside down at all with a human passenger unless I sat you in a circle of herbed runes and came up with a long poem. But I can go faster and vary my altitude more with the quick and easy version." She glides to a stop outside the backdoor, says a polite, "Hello, Teacher," and ducks inside for the bayleaves.

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:23 pm (UTC)

Kas beams. Petaal turns tiger again and stands on her hind legs to hug him.

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:25 pm (UTC)

"So," says Metis, all her visible attention on her progressing circle, "she says she did not claim you at daggerpoint?"

Her daemon, a griffon vulture sitting on the ground near her, chuckles darkly to himself.
Edited 2013-01-29 23:26 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Nope!" he agrees, laughing and snuggling his cheek into Petaal's fur. "I showed her a good place to eat and she bought me lunch and we talked for a while, and she mentioned where she lived, so when I felt like leaving Quebec again I came here."

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:32 pm (UTC)

"All right then. She's a decent apprentice. It would annoy me if she ran off this early on." Metis continues dusting precise, tidy clusters of symbols onto the ground.

Isabella reappears with a handful of bayleaves and a poem composed already. "Out of my way real quick, Petaal?" she says, holding the leaves up. "If I don't tuck them in place myself they're just leaves."

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Petaal, and she re-ermines and climbs into Kas's coat.

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:39 pm (UTC)

Isabella reaches into Kas's hood and tucks six bayleaves into places where they look liable to stay put, and murmurs: "Leaves of bay, there you stay, keeping falling harms at bay." When she places the last leaf and utters the last syllable, she withdraws her hand and says, "Oddly enough, making puns can help."

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:42 pm (UTC)

"That's awesome," says Kas. His re-ermine re-emerges out the end of a sleeve, climbs up to observe the leaves, and then becomes a teeny hummingbird again.

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Teacher, when do you think you'll be wanting them in the circle?" Isabella asks Metis.

"In another half hour or so," says Metis.

Isabella nods and perches on the end of her cloud-pine again. "Roller-coaster version?" she asks Kas.

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I fucking love roller-coasters," says Kas, and he perches behind her.

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:47 pm (UTC)

Zoom!

Isabella can fly like a madwoman when she wants to. She does not, in fact, go upside-down on the sole strength of the bayleaves and two-line verse, as if he falls from a less precarious position he'll at least have a decent chance of landing on something nonessential, but she does swoop and dive and bank and go fast. Pathalan describes even more outrageous patterns in the sky, nearby.

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:48 pm (UTC)

Kas clings to the cloud-pine and laughs and laughs.

dark_light
2013-01-29 11:49 pm (UTC)

"You can see why this is my default entertainment," Isabella calls over the wind.

pythbox
2013-01-29 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Hell yeah!" he agrees. "Can I hug you when we land, or would that be weird?"

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:01 am (UTC)

"That's fine," says Isabella carelessly, finishing her climb to an altitude at which she still expects him to be able to breathe and plummeting. She rises again at the bottom of the dive hard enough to press them both into the cloud-pine with the force of the direction change.

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:07 am (UTC)

Kas cackles.

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:09 am (UTC)

After half an hour of continuous, half-sane flight, Isabella lands near Metis's circle and dismounts.
Edited 2013-01-30 00:11 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:15 am (UTC)

Permission having been granted, Kas does indeed hug her.

"That was really awesome," he says. "Thanks."

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:17 am (UTC)

Isabella hugs him back comfortably, then peers at the symbols that form the circle with academic fascination. "Sugar?" she asks Metis.

"Right in one," says Metis. "Kas and Petaal, in, if you would, don't disturb the lines."

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:22 am (UTC)

Kas steps carefully into the circle. Petaal zooms out of his hood and becomes a maned lioness to lounge on the ground in the middle; Kas sits down and leans against her, burying his hands in her nice warm mane.

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:28 am (UTC)

"Mm," says Metis. "Isabella Amariah, do you want to patch in?"

"Yes please, Teacher," and after a pause in which Metis performs no visible actions at all, she adds, "Thank you, Teacher."

Metis paces around the circle, hmming to herself. Isabella sits on the ground and closes her eyes. Eventually Metis says, "Smallest form she commonly takes?"

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:35 am (UTC)

"Dunno," Petaal says thoughtfully. She does the bee hummingbird again, then a glass-winged butterfly, then a goldfinch, then a tiny bat, then (landing in Kas's collar) a teeny tiny shrew.

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:38 am (UTC)

"Largest?" says Metis, not quibbling over the definition of size.

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:42 am (UTC)

Petaal hops out of Kas's hood and cycles through more forms. Tiger; maned lioness again, then a male lion; horse; grizzly bear.

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:43 am (UTC)

Metis startles when she becomes a he. She'd been aware only of the late unsettledness and not of the sex-changing. "Let's see the same species, your choice, cycle between sexes a few times? Not too fast?" she says, recovering quickly.

Isabella, still sitting with her eyes closed and presumably observing via spell, smiles.

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:47 am (UTC)

Petaal stays a grizzly bear, just for fun. Male, then female, then male, then female again.

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:49 am (UTC)

"Isabella Amariah, fetch a bucket of water," says Metis. "Can you become a New Mexico whiptail lizard?"

Isabella gets up to get what was requested.

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:52 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Petaal, and does that.

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:53 am (UTC)

"Please attempt to hold species constant and change sex," says Metis.

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:56 am (UTC)

With a tiny lizardy shrug, Petaal does that, too.

dark_light
2013-01-30 12:57 am (UTC)

"Have you ever been or heard any information about that species before?"

Isabella reappears with the water.

pythbox
2013-01-30 12:57 am (UTC)

"Nope!" says Petaal. "But I bet they're not supposed to have boys."

dark_light
2013-01-30 01:00 am (UTC)

Metis doesn't bother informing them of the answer to this question. "Please take the water from Isabella Amariah and set it down inside the circle."

Isabella holds it over the sugar lines of the divination.

pythbox
2013-01-30 01:09 am (UTC)

Petaal decides he wants to be the one to do that.

The form best fitting the intersection of 'has hands' and 'won't mind the cold so much' is witch.

So she turns into one of those, and takes the bucket.

dark_light
2013-01-30 01:14 am (UTC)

This does get a visible startle reaction out of Metis. And Isabella, too, who was expecting Kas to reach for the bucket and has to do some maneuvering to avoid contact.

"To... confirm... what the spell is telling me... you are currently in the form of a witch," says Metis, examining the (starclad) daemon with a clinical sort of gaze. "Isabella, go tear some silks, we are outdoors and I should not like anyone to be arrested."

"Yes, Teacher," says Isabella, and she runs back inside.

pythbox
2013-01-30 01:17 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Petaal, putting down the bucket. "And... hmm..."

Witches aren't supposed to have boys, either, right?

But if she just—

Well. Now she looks a whole lot more like Kas.

"Fun," she remarks, sitting down on the ground and leaning against him. "I'm all warm, look, snuggle me."

Laughing, Kas does.

dark_light
2013-01-30 01:20 am (UTC)

Metis starts muttering the names of deities. Probably just in an exclamatory and not a magical manner.

Isabella returns with a couple of yards of silk. "I'd do the complicated tearing and tying, but I can't touch you, Kas doesn't know how, and Path doesn't have hands, and besides, you'll shift right out of it soon enough. Just wear it like a towel or a sari or whatever." She offers the fabric over the sugar barrier.

pythbox
2013-01-30 01:22 am (UTC)

Petaal takes it and, since she does not currently have any danger zones up top, wraps it around her waist.

dark_light
2013-01-30 01:25 am (UTC)

"Are there," Metis asks, "any mental differences associated with your changing sex? Witches in ambiguous or even outright male bodies exist, but in every case I know of this is associated with a feminine personality, or at most an admixture."

"Oh, huh," says Isabella. "It never actually occurred to me to wonder about witches having trans kids, either which way."

"The Newfoundland clan has an expert on the subject, if you'd care to send Pathalan to inquire about it at some time, or take time off to visit on your own," says Metis. "I myself know only what I've just said."

pythbox
2013-01-30 01:28 am (UTC)

"Nah, it's no different," says Petaal. "I never really got why most daemons don't do it."

dark_light
2013-01-30 01:30 am (UTC)

"We can't, or at least some of us can't. I tried once," Pathalan volunteers from where he's sitting near the edge of the circle. "I even tried the lizard. Couldn't be one at all, just the nearby species."

pythbox
2013-01-30 01:34 am (UTC)

"That's so weird," says Petaal. "It's just being a different shape."

dark_light
2013-01-30 01:36 am (UTC)

"That's what I said, but regardless he couldn't do it," shrugs Isabella.

"Have you ever been a witch before?" Metis asks.

pythbox
2013-01-30 01:38 am (UTC)

"Nope!" says Petaal. "Didn't think of it, until we met her," with a nod to Isabella. "But I like it, I'm gonna do it lots."

dark_light
2013-01-30 01:40 am (UTC)

"May I see the sex change within witch form a few more times, and then human form to compare?" says Metis levelly.

pythbox
2013-01-30 01:47 am (UTC)

"Sure," Petaal says agreeably. She cycles sexes as a witch a few times, adjusting the silk as necessary the first time she reacquires breasts, and then (briefly, shivering) becomes a human woman, then a human man. And then very quickly a tiger, for the nice warm fur.

All her human-ish forms resemble Kas to some degree, the male more than the female. Her hair as a woman of either kind is straighter; her hair as a witch, slightly darker; her skin as a witch slightly paler; her nose as a woman narrower. But all four of them look like they could be Kas's close sibling, the kind who are frequently mistaken for one another. Well, except that as a woman her body proportions are significantly changed.

dark_light
2013-01-30 01:57 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Metis. "Now, before the water in the bucket freezes, some acquatic forms - cold-water-adapted are fine - Isabella, fetch some salt to add after we've finished with freshwater -"

And Metis goes on in a comparably exhaustive vein for some time, although her daemon comes and goes more than once. Isabella fetches various things and removes things that are no longer required. And, after several hours have been exhausted in the divination -

"Teacher. It's almost dusk."

Metis sits up. "Oh. Yes, if we don't want raw food tonight we'll need to address the firepit."

"Or pay the gas bill," says Isabella.

"Don't be cheeky, Isabella Amariah, get the sage and the vinegar."

pythbox
2013-01-30 02:00 am (UTC)

Petaal turns into a small orange-and-green dragon and climbs up Kas's coat to perch on his shoulder.

"Can we come out now?" says Kas.

dark_light
2013-01-30 02:06 am (UTC)

"Yes. Don't disturb the lines. I'm pleased with this circle and may want to use it again if it's not ruined by wind or rain tonight."

Isabella emerges from the house with a bag of sage and a bottle of vinegar, and a bowl and a dipping device. She starts mixing the ingredients, and then does her snow-swirl spell around the pit in the backyard to create a circle guide to follow. She also whispers something that thickens the vinegar mixture sufficiently to suspend the sage, and drip like the honey earlier in symbols.

"Neatly, Isabella Amariah!" calls Metis as she approaches the same location. "Is the mortal staying for dinner?"

"Hey, mortal, are you staying for dinner?" Isabella asks, slowing down and focusing harder on her designs. "Teacher - fire, control, circle, moderation - and - will?"

"Choice," corrects Metis. "And safety, not control. Choice will cover what control would have, and safety is what you meant there anyway."

"Yes, Teacher."

pythbox
2013-01-30 02:09 am (UTC)

"Yeah, we'll stick around," says Kas, stepping carefully out of the circle and approaching the pit to watch Isabella draw things. "Be bigger, sweetie, it's cold out."

Petaal obligingly becomes a much larger dragon, and Kas sits down and leans on him.

dark_light
2013-01-30 02:27 am (UTC)

"Fire, safety, circle, moderation, choice," says Isabella. "Proportions?"

"Circle you want only once - you never repeat circle," instructs Metis, taking up a pacing path around the firepit. "Can you tell me why?"

"It defines the border. If you don't have a defined border after drawing circle once, you aren't going to fix it by drawing another one; it's demarcation and not action," says Isabella.

"Everything else repeat until you come all the way around, but don't have more fires than safeties."

"Should I start with safety...?"

"No, just mind your spacing. Neatly, Isabella Amariah."

Isabella nods and starts marking out spaces for her runes in advance. When she's counted them and done the necessary arithmetic and then fudged the lines to add one more symbol, she starts drawing. "Did you guys have fun with the divination?" she asks Kas.

pythbox
2013-01-30 02:29 am (UTC)

"Mmhmm," says Kas. "Did you guys learn anything interesting?"

dark_light
2013-01-30 02:30 am (UTC)

"Some. I don't have as much practice looking at divinations as Teacher does but I certainly got more today. I wonder if it's anything like reading an alethiometer. Although our symbols are a lot more numerous and transparent to the reader."

pythbox
2013-01-30 02:32 am (UTC)

"Well, what kind of stuff did they tell you?"

dark_light
2013-01-30 02:39 am (UTC)

"Well, I could tell what Petaal was turning into even when I wasn't in the room - not down to the species when it was all those kinds of sparrows, but close. And there was - sorry, I need to not talk about unrelated symbols while I'm trying to draw these, I'll wind up with an unnecessarily feminine firepit or something." Drizzle drizzle drizzle.

When Isabella's finished, Metis wants to perform the sacrifice immediately. It's not a rabbit, it's a turkey, of exactly the sort that would come from a grocery store. This one certainly did. Isabella has to cut it out of plastic packaging with a dagger that she produces from some inscrutable pocket in her silks. "Sacrifices have to be symbolic analogies, or meaningful losses, or just thematically relevant, and for a cooking appliance the last one is easiest," Isabella explains to Kas, as she tosses it into the pit.

She murmurs a fire spell - apparently that's what it is, anyway, it's not in English, but the turkey is incinerated promptly while Isabella and Metis join hands across the pit and peer down at it.

pythbox
2013-01-30 02:47 am (UTC)

Kas grins. "That's awesome."

dark_light
2013-01-30 02:49 am (UTC)

Metis snaps her fingers in Isabella's direction. "Set up the rotisserie and roast the other turkey, thank you, I'm going to be reading until dinner's ready."

"Yes, Teacher," says Isabella. She picks up metal parts from nearby and starts arranging them over the pit. "Isn't it?" she says to Kas.

pythbox
2013-01-30 02:51 am (UTC)

"It totally is!" he says happily. "Can you talk about the other thing again now?"

dark_light
2013-01-30 02:56 am (UTC)

"Oh, right. So there was practically a paragraph of symbols about gender, and we don't have enough symbols that it could be terribly clear either. It reported on the physical stuff, especially when Petaal was switching, but it was confused about the non-physical part. Do you know what's up with that?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:00 am (UTC)

"I'll bet," snorts Petaal.

"What'd your paragraph say?" asks Kas.

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:06 am (UTC)

"Uh, I don't remember exactly. I would have taken notes but Metis disapproves of that during spells, she thinks they distract from the pure energies of magic. Something like... and these are just the English names of the symbols, not their deep and accurate contents especially when I say 'parenthesis' - "masculine feminine parenthesis false choice parenthesis parenthesis yes no parenthesis sometimes masculine sometimes feminine always set-apart-specified-thing" - like that." Isabella finishes setting up the rotisserie and runs indoors to grab another turkey. She cuts the package open, tucks her dagger away again, and spears it on the spinning-rod-part. "Set-apart-specified-thing, by the way - that symbol just refers back to whatever the spell is about, in this case you and Petaal."

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:07 am (UTC)

Kas laughs. "So our gender is 'always us'? Sounds about right."

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:08 am (UTC)

"Okay," laughs Isabella, "but can you tell me anything about what that means besides the tautology that the set-apart-specified-thing is reliably the set-apart-specified-thing?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:11 am (UTC)

"Not really," Kas says cheerfully. "But if you wanna do finding-stuff-out magic at me about gender and then quiz me about what the hell it's trying to tell you, that might be fun."

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:12 am (UTC)

"Maybe." Isabella wills the firepit on and starts turning the turkey over it while it burns a complete absence of fuel. "I'm afraid it's not going to be able to get any more precise than that. Spells have a very small vocabulary."

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:15 am (UTC)

"'False choice' sounds about right, too," he adds.

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:16 am (UTC)

"So, are you just fundamentally unclear on why people being men or women is even a thing?" laughs Isabella.

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:19 am (UTC)

"...A little?" he says. "I mean, I can tell it is a thing. People have genders. They're all different, but a lot of them are a lot like each other. Mine's just extra weird. But I'm extra weird, so that's not huge news."

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:20 am (UTC)

"Huh. So you wouldn't say unequivocally that, say, me and Metis share a gender."

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:22 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "There's a sense you do, and a sense you probably don't."

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:23 am (UTC)

"In what sense do we not? I mean, we're not only both female, we're also both witches. From the same clan, even."

Path flies over to peck Isabella on the back of her head. "Turn the turkey," he says. She resumes turning it.

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:32 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he says. "That's how you're the same. But I bet you don't both feel exactly the same way about it, and that's how you're different."

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:33 am (UTC)

"Huh. I'd ask Metis if she and I could look at each other in the circle and see what we get on that score, but I don't think it has enough fine detail to tell us anything but 'yep, female, witches'."

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:35 am (UTC)

"Another thing to ask the alethiometer about when you find one," he suggests.

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:36 am (UTC)

"That has fewer symbols," Isabella laughs. "It can turn it into an arbitrary number of meanings, but it's still not natural language. It's worth a try, though, sure."

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:38 am (UTC)

"Well, ask it about your gender and hers and see if it spits the same answer back twice."

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:39 am (UTC)

"That'd work. It does answer in complete sentences -insofar as symbolic meanings with no grammar form sentences." Turn, turn, turn, won't do to cook only half the bird.

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:40 am (UTC)

Kas grins.

dark_light
2013-01-30 03:43 am (UTC)

At length, bird is ready, and Isabella carves and serves and pours everyone a dish of the leftover vinegar and sage to dip their bites in.

truthwright
2013-01-30 03:44 am (UTC)

Om nom nommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

no nudity taboo

dark_light

So this is a strip club, apparently.

It looks an awful lot like a tacky bar with ads of assorted people in heavy makeup all over its surface. Also, Isabella is getting the impression that witches must not be common patrons, even taking into account their absolute rarity - she'd be an uncommon sight at a pawn shop too but no one would be liable to look at her like so.

Oh well.

truthwright
2013-01-30 04:19 am (UTC)

When they get inside, Petaal emerges from Kas's hood as a snake. He grins and pets her head as she coils loosely around his shoulders.

There is, indeed, music. And there are assorted people, and one of them is on a stage, dancing to the music. Removal of clothing is peripherally involved.

Kas has many things to say about the person's technique: this or that thing he can or cannot do himself, this or that thing done well, this or that thing done poorly. He delivers his commentary to Isabella in as much of an undertone as the music allows. He also produces a continual stream of cash with which to tip every dancer who passes by.

dark_light
2013-01-30 04:22 am (UTC)

Isabella readily concedes that this does not seem to be just about people taking off their clothes; it seems to be more about some combination of dancing and the employees pretending to find the customers fascinating, which she imagines might be a service some would pay for all by itself. She, of course, has no cash on her, and can produce no tips.

truthwright
2013-01-30 04:26 am (UTC)

Kas is adamant that there is artistry involved. He gets pretty eloquent about it, in fact.

dark_light
2013-01-30 04:27 am (UTC)

Of course dancing is an art form. Isabella admires it in general; she can't dance at all unless you count flying, she'd fall over.

truthwright
2013-01-30 04:32 am (UTC)

And then a woman comes on with a snake daemon, some brightly coloured venomous species, whom she incorporates flawlessly into her routine. Kas grins and kisses the top of Petaal's head; Petaal taps the very end of her tail against his arm in time to the music.

dark_light
2013-01-30 04:33 am (UTC)

Isabella takes a quick inventory of the dancers' daemon species, curious. They're more informative among humans than witches, as humans have more of a variety of possibilities.

truthwright
2013-01-30 04:39 am (UTC)

Apart from the venomous snake, there's two cats, a hare, a moth, a brown mouse, a long-tailed hummingbird, a gecko, and a ferret.

dark_light
2013-01-30 04:41 am (UTC)

Quite a cross-section.

"So," Isabella says, "it's a form of performance art that, because it involves nudity, people are culturally weird about, and yet for some reason this doesn't apply to performances of - I don't know, Equus. Did you know your species is strange?"
Edited 2013-01-30 04:42 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-01-30 04:43 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Yeah, I figured that out a while ago."

dark_light
2013-01-30 04:44 am (UTC)

"When you did this what did Petaal present as?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 04:47 am (UTC)

"A rosy boa," Petaal pipes up. "I was gorgeous. We can show you sometime if you want."

dark_light
2013-01-30 04:48 am (UTC)

"Sure," shrugs Isabella.

truthwright
2013-01-30 12:37 pm (UTC)

Petaal giggles. "'Kay."

dark_light
2013-01-30 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Is that funny?" Isabella asks.

truthwright
2013-01-30 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-01-30 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," Petaal says merrily. "Just is."

dark_light
2013-01-30 05:28 pm (UTC)

"You've got a peculiar sense of humor," Isabella says.
Edited 2013-01-30 17:28 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-01-30 05:39 pm (UTC)

"You just noticed?" teases Petaal.

dark_light
2013-01-30 05:40 pm (UTC)

Isabella shrugs. "Later, do you want to see if you can learn a spell when you're being a witch?" she asks.

truthwright
2013-01-30 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-01-30 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Cool. How long were you planning on hanging out here, subtly directing all of the staff to sashay by our table because you're reliably handing out money?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 05:52 pm (UTC)

...Kas gives her a quizzical look.

dark_light
2013-01-30 05:53 pm (UTC)

"They're making sure their paths go by this table when they walk around," Isabella explains. "You're giving out cash more reliably than anybody else here."

truthwright
2013-01-30 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah, but that's not why I'm doing it," he says. "If you're bored, we can leave."

dark_light
2013-01-30 06:04 pm (UTC)

"That's the effect of what you're doing, I didn't mean to say it was the cause," Isabella says. "Why are you doing it, though? Weren't you recently broke?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm usually broke," he says cheerfully. "Shit like this is why. I don't really care about money unless there's something I want, and right now I've got a place to stay for a while and you're even feeding me, so I can spend all my money on strippers if I wanna."

dark_light
2013-01-30 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh," shrugs Isabella. "Okay. You know Metis could decide to kick you out at any time, especially now that you've sat in her divination circle. She'll get more interested in you if Petaal can cast spells, I guess."

Far be it from a witch to criticize anyone for not accumulating currency.

truthwright
2013-01-30 06:11 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Yeah, and if she does, I'll go do something else."

dark_light
2013-01-30 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Like what?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 06:19 pm (UTC)

"No idea!"

dark_light
2013-01-30 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I don't expect Metis to kick me out, but if she did, I have fallback positions. And less need than a human in wintertime for shelter, at that."

truthwright
2013-01-30 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Kas, "I've done the whole no-home-no-food-no-money thing way too many times to be afraid of it."

dark_light
2013-01-30 06:24 pm (UTC)

"If I were a human and that possibility were significantly on my radar I'd live farther south," snorts Isabella.

truthwright
2013-01-30 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I have a nice cuddly heater with me," says Kas, patting Petaal's coils. Somehow she manages to compose her serpentine features into an expression of immense smugness.

dark_light
2013-01-30 06:29 pm (UTC)

"True enough," laughs Isabella. "I wonder - if humans can simply not settle, why hasn't there been tremendous evolutionary pressure in its favor for exactly that sort of reason? It's useful to have a changing daemon. I suppose it could just utterly fail to be genetic."

truthwright
2013-01-30 06:34 pm (UTC)

"It's probably not genetic," says Kas. "The rest of my family settled just fine."

dark_light
2013-01-30 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Not even a bit later than usual or after more dithering?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "Dad was a black wasp, Mom was a peacock. I think they both settled pretty early."

dark_light
2013-01-30 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I never like stinging-bug daemons," says Path. "Spiders are sometimes fine, but never wasps or scorpions or anything like that. They rub me the wrong way."

truthwright
2013-01-30 07:02 pm (UTC)

"You and me both," snorts Petaal.
Edited 2013-01-30 19:02 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-01-30 07:04 pm (UTC)

"What happened to your parents, anyway?" Isabella asks.

truthwright
2013-01-30 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Died," he says succinctly.

dark_light
2013-01-30 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I know, but unless Yambe Akka got the wrong address something usually causes that."

truthwright
2013-01-30 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Tell you later," he says easily.

dark_light
2013-01-30 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Isabella.

She watches dancers with detached and vague interest.

Path doesn't whisper in her ear about any of them being cute. Although he does strike up a conversation with one of the cats, whose human is undulating nearby for someone whose butterfly daemon would probably not find a cat's attention pleasant.

"On an unrelated note," Isabella says, "I hope you didn't take Metis seriously when she made that remark about - how did she put it - claiming you at daggerpoint?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I thought it sounded kinda hot, actually," Kas says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-01-30 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Really."

truthwright
2013-01-30 07:20 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Why, were you gonna reassure me that that never happens? Having second thoughts?"
Edited 2013-01-30 19:20 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-01-30 07:32 pm (UTC)

"No, it happens, but not as much in recent years. It used to be that scorning a witch was a pretty reliable way to get yourself killed, it's not like that now in large part because witches can no longer get away with murder, and of course Metis can't think of any reason I'd want to let a guy I'm not related to crash in the attic apart from having decided to marry him."

truthwright
2013-01-30 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I'm disappointed," he teases.

dark_light
2013-01-30 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Seriously? People get actually murdered that way, talk about a great big invalidation of consent," Isabella says. "I count it among my blessings that it's not how my parents got together. It is how my maternal grandparents got together."

truthwright
2013-01-30 07:41 pm (UTC)

"No," says Kas, laughing. "Not seriously. Not seriously at alllll."

dark_light
2013-01-30 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I really don't think murder or coercion-based relationships are funny," says Isabella.

truthwright
2013-01-30 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, flashing a smile and standing up, "and I bet nobody's ever tried to fuck you at daggerpoint. I don't feel like being here anymore, let's go."

dark_light
2013-01-30 08:02 pm (UTC)

Isabella gets up. "I - wait, has someone done that to you?" she asks, following him out with Path shifting from foot to foot on her shoulder.

truthwright
2013-01-30 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Never met a witch before you," he non-answers.

dark_light
2013-01-30 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Witches don't have a monopoly on threats of violence to get desired things."

Path hoots a high, trilling, almost musical note of concern.

truthwright
2013-01-30 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Point of a dagger, edge of a knife, same difference," he says, with a careless shrug that has the look of performance. Petaal slithers into his coat as he retrieves it.

dark_light
2013-01-30 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I know Metis was thinking it but I think I'm the one who first said it aloud. I'm sorry." Isabella shakes her head as though to clear it. "We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to, obviously. But I would listen."
Edited 2013-01-30 20:15 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-01-30 08:21 pm (UTC)

"You're sweet," he says. "And I'm fine."

dark_light
2013-01-30 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Path hoots again, lower this time.

truthwright
2013-01-30 08:30 pm (UTC)

Petaal pokes her head out of Kas's hood as an Arctic fox. "What, don't believe us?"

dark_light
2013-01-30 08:31 pm (UTC)

"General sympathy hooting," disclaims Pathalan.

truthwright
2013-01-30 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Petaal says comfortably. Kas adds, "Thanks," and a smile.

dark_light
2013-01-30 08:37 pm (UTC)

Isabella sits on her cloud-pine but doesn't immediately go anywhere, once they leave the club.

truthwright
2013-01-30 08:55 pm (UTC)

Kas starts walking in the direction of Metis's place.

"It was a few years ago," he says over his shoulder. "In New York. We're okay about it now, but we weren't always."

dark_light
2013-01-30 09:18 pm (UTC)

Isabella drifts forward beside him. "Okay enough that you don't need me to curse this person or anything? Witches can still get away with cursing people. Mostly because the police can never find out who did it. It annoys my dad."

truthwright
2013-01-30 09:20 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah, you might have some trouble with that," he says with a quirk of a smile.

dark_light
2013-01-30 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Already dead?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Petaal, showing teeth.

dark_light
2013-01-30 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Isabella. "Well done."

truthwright
2013-01-30 09:27 pm (UTC)

Kas laughs and scritches the top of Petaal's head.

dark_light
2013-01-30 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I would curse him for you, though, if he were alive and you wanted me to," says Isabella.

truthwright
2013-01-30 09:33 pm (UTC)

"You're a sweetheart," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-01-30 09:34 pm (UTC)

"That and I've never actually had anybody I was willing to curse," admits Isabella. "I'm not of Metis's opinion that in the name of practice it's okay to do it to random people once or twice, and people pay attention to that sign she has up."

truthwright
2013-01-30 09:44 pm (UTC)

"...I mean, if you need candidates, I can come up with a few," he says.

dark_light
2013-01-30 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? Who?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 09:45 pm (UTC)

Wryly, "I don't tend to get names."

dark_light
2013-01-30 09:47 pm (UTC)

"That'll make it harder," muses Isabella. "Not necessarily impossible. Does introduce a risk of mistargeting."

truthwright
2013-01-30 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, how do you target these things?"
Edited 2013-01-30 21:55 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-01-30 09:59 pm (UTC)

"There's several ways, and really there's always a risk of mistargeting, because any one of them can go wrong, but you can get it down to acceptable levels - not more problematic than driving a car and risking hitting someone. The most essential way - I don't think I know a way to curse a person without - is to use something that has some connection with them. A place they've been, a person they've met, a thing they've owned. But adding the name, and a good long poem about the properties of who exactly you mean to hit, and then sacrificing a critter of some kind in effigy while being very clear in your mind that this critter represents the one person and not the other, all stack up to help."

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Person they've met," he snorts. "Yeah, I'll say."

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well. You could also take me to the relevant location or produce one of their shoes and that would work just as well."

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Montreal," he says succinctly. "And I don't exactly keep souvenirs."
Edited 2013-01-30 22:05 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Bit of a flight. Metis would give me the days off if that was what it took to get me to do a practice curse, though."
Edited 2013-01-30 22:10 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:14 pm (UTC)

"And you might have to break into somebody's apartment. Which would be a help with the souvenir thing, I guess."

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't really want to break into somebody's apartment," says Isabella. "My dad wouldn't approve. I don't think it's particularly likely he'd find out, but I do rather care what he'd approve of anyway."

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:21 pm (UTC)

"He'd approve of you cursing somebody, but not of you breaking into their place to do it?"

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:23 pm (UTC)

"He'd approve of me cursing somebody that I would be liable to choose to curse. Especially if they committed a crime and managed not to get convicted. Well. Approve is the wrong word. He'd look at me for a while and then he'd ask me if it had been a good idea and then when I told him yes he'd change the subject."

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:29 pm (UTC)

Kas snorts.

"Yeah, okay. I hear ya."

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:30 pm (UTC)

"He's surprisingly understanding about extralegal witchy activities, for a cop."

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Good for him."

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, things would be worse between him and my mother if - actually, come to think of it, I don't think she does anything extralegal. Casual border-crossing is not actually illegal for witches. But he'd definitely get along worse with his in-laws if he weren't."

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting the sense I might not hate your dad."

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Were you likely to before learning this? On the off-chance you ever encounter him?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, he's a cop."

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Not fond of cops?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:46 pm (UTC)

"They're usually not fond of me first."

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:54 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I do illegal stuff and I'm not sorry about it?"

dark_light
2013-01-30 10:55 pm (UTC)

"What illegal stuff?"

She thinks. "Is prostitution illegal? Oh, I suppose it is. That's stupid."

truthwright
2013-01-30 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it just?" he agrees.

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Rather. I don't suppose you happen to know why it's been banned?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Because some people just hate fun?" he says. "I honestly think that's it."

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Then why are other forms of fun not banned?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Because sex is scary and hookers are easy targets."

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Easy targets? Why is that?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't know why it's true, I just know it is."

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:21 pm (UTC)

Isabella is seized by the sudden impulse to pet his hair. She sees no particular reason to quash it.

truthwright
2013-01-30 11:22 pm (UTC)

How about the adorable face he makes when she does it?

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:23 pm (UTC)

Definitely not a quashing reason. She carries on petting him. Path coos in a minimally owly manner.

truthwright
2013-01-30 11:27 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwwww.

"You're pretty great," he says happily. "Let's be friends."

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Isabella comfortably.

truthwright
2013-01-30 11:32 pm (UTC)

Kas smiles.

Petaal turns into a bee hummingbird again and hovers in front of Path's face, touching her beak to his feathers like a tiny tiny kiss.

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:40 pm (UTC)

Path giggles. He probably couldn't peck back without hurting her when she's so small.

truthwright
2013-01-30 11:47 pm (UTC)

Petaal likewise giggles, and zips back into the warmth of Kas's coat.

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:48 pm (UTC)

"He's got such a smile," Path whispers ever so softly into Isabella's ear.

"I am not going to be a crazy witch," Isabella whispers ever so quietly back. Aloud, she says, "So what kind of spell should I teach Petaal when we get back to Metis's?"

truthwright
2013-01-30 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Something fun!" chirps Petaal.

dark_light
2013-01-30 11:58 pm (UTC)

"That's still not specific enough to let me pick something," laughs Isabella. "I'll just wind up teaching you the snow-circle. Do you want to just learn the snow-circle?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:00 am (UTC)

"The snow-circle's fun," Petaal says happily.

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:02 am (UTC)

"Okay then. May as well start going over the words then. Repeat after me..." She goes through the Svaaric words of the spell, one at a time.

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:04 am (UTC)

Petaal learns them! He is better at it than Kas is at French, perhaps because he's trying harder, perhaps because he has to learn fewer things.

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:06 am (UTC)

"I plan to actually learn Svaaric at some point, but only after I have enough magic basics to strike off on my own and maybe only after I get an alethiometer," remarks Isabella after Petaal has the words down. "Now, that particular spell does invoke Yambe Akka, so if the goddesses-just-won't-listen-to-you hypothesis is correct, it's particularly unlikely to work. We can pick a spell that doesn't refer directly to a goddess in that case, but that could easily not work either."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:07 am (UTC)

"We'll see," Petaal says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:08 am (UTC)

"Yambe Akka does winter," explains Isabella. "Among other things, most notably death."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:10 am (UTC)

"Yeah, you mentioned that before," says Kas.
Edited 2013-01-31 00:10 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:12 am (UTC)

"I suppose I did, didn't I. I don't know if, theologically speaking, she is actually involved with death in general or just with witches' deaths. I only know enough religion to get good results with my magic."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:18 am (UTC)

"Well," says Petaal, "hopefully she won't kill us for trying to cast her nice pretty spell."

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:20 am (UTC)

"That's not really her style. I mean, she is a death goddess, but that doesn't mean she kills people - well, it does, but - another portfolio item is mercy. Witches call for her when they can't bear whatever they have to face if they stay alive. She's the alternative to suffering. I think she'd happily retire if suffering ceased to be. My ultimate goal in life is for Yambe Akka to spend the rest of eternity sitting on a beach sipping interesting cocktails. So to speak."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:21 am (UTC)

...Kas grins.

"That's cute," he says. "You're cute."

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:22 am (UTC)

"Thanks," laughs Isabella.

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:24 am (UTC)

"Good luck with your adorable ultimate goal. What do witches die of, anyway?"

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:28 am (UTC)

"Besides violence? Violence - including magic - is probably the most common - clan wars and the like. Otherwise some combination of age and - loneliness or boredom. I think the oldest living witch is just shy of a thousand. We tend to die off if we're the last of our clan and don't get adopted into another, or after going through about four mortal husbands, or after having become incredibly skilled at something and ceasing to take students. My great-great-aunt Tayeba Kessa died very abruptly after completing her six-year tour of the world. I think that was the last thing she wanted to do. I should be fine if I avoid personal fights, the Olympics don't get involved in a war, and I don't run out of things to do."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:34 am (UTC)

"...How do people run out of things to do?" he wonders.

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:35 am (UTC)

"Don't look at me, I don't know."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:36 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:38 am (UTC)

"I mean, seriously, languages alone, by the time you learned them all they would all be different," she exclaims. "Let alone stuff like - I don't think even boring people who do nothing but watch television could keep up with television at the rate it's produced now! Maybe it was reasonable to get bored and die a few thousand years ago. Fewer civilizations, less stuff, I could imagine not wanting to just get to know mortal after mortal and then watch the ones you liked die, maybe not everyone can hold their interest cataloguing plants or something. Not now, though. There is so much to do."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:41 am (UTC)

"I know," he says.

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:42 am (UTC)

"So yeah. Making this understood is part of my usher-the-death-goddess-into-contented-retirement plan."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:44 am (UTC)

"Got a plan for the rest of us?" he jokes.

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:46 am (UTC)

"Figure out how to get you guys at least as immortal as witches. First I need to learn how to do that at all - hence intensive study of magic, although the fact that I know the problem's been worked on before makes me not completely optimistic - and then I need to scale it up. Just scaling stuff up would be good, really. Minor blessings, cast on an entire population, could have some nice statistical effects. Maybe human scientists could get a leg up on solving the problem themselves."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:52 am (UTC)

"Cute," says Kas. "Have fun with that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:54 am (UTC)

"Will do. Want to be a guinea pig when I think of something worth trying?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:54 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:56 am (UTC)

"Cool. I will try not to turn you irreversibly into a unicorn, or anything."

truthwright
2013-01-31 12:57 am (UTC)

"...I would be the world's most fucked-up unicorn," he says.

dark_light
2013-01-31 12:57 am (UTC)

"It'd be very silly," agrees Isabella.

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:02 am (UTC)

"You have no idea."

A beat.

"Well, you have some idea."

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:05 am (UTC)

Isabella giggles. "I'll try not to do anything not strictly beneficial that I can't undo."

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:08 am (UTC)

"That's because you're nice," beams Kas.

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:11 am (UTC)

"I try," says Isabella.

And there's Metis's house. "Want to try the snow-circle in the backyard? I'll go get the silk you were wearing before, Petaal - actually, if you're going to be a witch a lot, I could show you how to wear them the usual way."

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:17 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:18 am (UTC)

"If I'm going to show you, we do need to be inside," Isabella says, opening the door and ushering them in.

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:19 am (UTC)

As soon as they're all behind closed doors, Petaal enwitches again.

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:22 am (UTC)

Isabella fetches the silk. "There are actually dozens of ways to do this, but I've never bothered varying it, so this is just the most common way for Olympic clan witches to wear ours," she says, untying the knot at the back of her neck with an utter lack of concern and following suit with the other knots. When she has rendered herself starclad she lays out the half-dozen pieces and starts tearing the couple yards for Petaal to match. Then she ties hers back on, at one point with Path sitting on her head to hold her hair out of the way of the knot at her neck with both feet.

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:28 am (UTC)

"You're pretty," comments Kas.

Petaal copies well enough, although it looks significantly different on her.

"Now if only I could turn you into a kingfisher," she jokes, running her fingers through Kas's hair and kissing him on the cheek.

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:30 am (UTC)

"Thanks," says Isabella, shaking her hair out when the last piece is tied back on.

"Why a kingfisher?" asks Path.

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:33 am (UTC)

"First bird I thought of that felt like us right now," Petaal says with a shrug.

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:40 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. One of these days I need to figure out why birds. It's obvious enough why flying creatures, and we don't wind up with ostriches, but why not bats, or... whatever." She opens the back door. "Remember the spell?" she asks Petaal.

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:41 am (UTC)

"I remember the spell!" says Petaal, taking Kas's hand and leading him outside.

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:43 am (UTC)

"It's pure verse, so there shouldn't be anything else you have to do," Isabella says. "I was not allowed to read Shakespeare out loud in class when I went to school."

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:45 am (UTC)

"...Do witches actually do magic by accident with Shakespeare?" asks Kas.

Petaal recites the spell.

The snow does not do fun things.

She doesn't seem to care, though.

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:49 am (UTC)

"Well, it could happen, and no one wants that," Isabella says. "Especially not during Midsummer Night's Dream, which is when this came up first. Aw, no snow circle, that's a pity. Let me think of a spell that doesn't invoke a goddess, just in case..." She considers. "Do you want to summon a rabbit? Usually it's so we can slaughter them for food or for spells, but you can just let it go again afterwards unless you want rabbit for dinner."

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:50 am (UTC)

Kas laughs.

"Sure," says Petaal. "Rabbit."

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:52 am (UTC)

Isabella teaches her the equally not-English words to that spell, too.

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:53 am (UTC)

Petaal recites them.

No rabbit ensues.

dark_light
2013-01-31 01:54 am (UTC)

"That's a pity," repeats Isabella. And then she looks up at the sky and smiles. "Oh, there go those irritating clouds."

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:58 am (UTC)

"...Oh," says Petaal. "Oh."

She spins around in a circle, flinging her arms out and then hugging herself. Then she snuggle-attacks Kas, but he is insufficiently cuddlable with his coat on. She spins in the other direction, almost falls over, catches herself, giggles with absolute delight...

...and hugpounces on Isabella.

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:01 am (UTC)

Isabella shrieks and lurches away; Path divebombs Petaal and seizes a knot on her silks and tries to drag her in the other direction. "What are you doing?!" exclaims Isabella. "Let go!"

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:08 am (UTC)

"It's so nice," chatters Petaal, leaping away again and taking Kas's hands and whirling him around, "don't you feel how nice it is, if I settled I'd settle as a witch, sweetie I wish you could feel it, look, look, the moon's out—" and she sits down dizzily on the ground and hugs Kas's legs, causing him to fall over half on top of her, whereupon she immediately hugs him again. And then sits on top of him and rains kisses all over his face.

Kas reacts to all of the above with bewildered laughter.

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:11 am (UTC)

"What the fuck, Petaal?" Isabella asks, sitting down hard on the ground and barely reacting to Path's fussing with her hair and nuzzling at her face.

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:12 am (UTC)

"Moonlight!" cries Petaal, throwing herself down on top of Kas and curling up familiarly.

"...Um, are you okay?" says Kas. To Isabella, although the question could also be fairly asked of his daemon.
Edited 2013-01-31 02:13 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:16 am (UTC)

"Just a little - shaky - and weirded out - we are not that close, at all, I've never even tried mindreading spells because mind-affecting magic weirds me out but it felt like I imagine one of those would - I'm not harmed, are you okay?" she says. "It is not supposed to make her drunk, and even drunk daemons don't usually fling themselves on people, is she okay?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:22 am (UTC)

"Honey," Kas murmurs, wrapping his arms around Petaal's waist and nuzzling the top of her head.

"'mfine," says Petaal, "sorry, I didn't know it'd be bad for you I just knew it'd be okay for us and I really wanted to hug someone and my sweetie's all wrapped up and puffy and you're not."

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:25 am (UTC)

"I just feel like - like I - wait, how did you know it'd be okay for you? I know couples play with that sort of thing - established couples - but we're not. That."

The sense that she now knows Kas and Petaal more deeply than she has ever known anyone else settles somewhere on the back of her neck and won't be shaken off. She knows it's not true, however true it feels.

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:31 am (UTC)

"Maybe it's different for us," shrugs Petaal. "I don't know how I knew, it wasn't a thing I thought, it just was. Sometimes I snuggle with Augustine and that's okay too."

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:32 am (UTC)

"She's a bear, isn't she? I don't know if bears count. Witches count. You're okay? You don't feel like I... pried you open and looked at your brain?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:35 am (UTC)

"I'm okay," says Kas.

"We're okay," Petaal confirms. "We're fine, it wasn't the bad kind, we're fine."

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:37 am (UTC)

"Okay. But no more unexpected leaping. Even during a full moon at midnight in an area with no light pollution on a clear night. Okay?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:38 am (UTC)

"No more unexpected leaping," Petaal assents.

A slight pause.

"...Can I hug you if I ask nice?"

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:40 am (UTC)

Isabella examines that question for barbs.

"With the understanding that Path is off-limits? If you really, really want to? Maybe. Not in front of anyone. I don't want to deal with awkward questions."

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:43 am (UTC)

"Off-limits to what—?" says Petaal, puzzled. "Oh, that. Well, of course. I want to hug you." She grins at Path. "I can hug you, too, if you want. You're really fluffy."

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:44 am (UTC)

"Nothing odd happens if we touch each other," Path says levelly to Petaal. "I am indeed fluffy."
Edited 2013-01-31 02:44 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:45 am (UTC)

She bounces off of Kas and sits in the snow and holds out her arms to Path.

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:46 am (UTC)

"Uh, do you want the no-pokey-talons spell?" Isabella asks, before Path goes anywhere. "Comes in handy."

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:47 am (UTC)

"Don't care," Petaal says serenely.

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:48 am (UTC)

"I can try to be careful, but sometimes the choices are between me squeezing hard enough to break skin or falling off and not necessarily having a chance to catch myself," Path tells her.

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:49 am (UTC)

"It's fine!" she assures him earnestly.

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:51 am (UTC)

Isabella looks quizzically at Kas. "Can one of you explain this?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:53 am (UTC)

"...It's kind of the same thing as the moonlight?" he says uncertainly. "We just like feeling stuff, it doesn't make a huge difference whether it's snuggles or sharp things, as long as it's stuff we want to be feeling right then."

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:55 am (UTC)

Path shrugs his wings, swoops over to Petaal's shoulder, and holds on as tight as he has to. He pecks at her hair a bit, arranging it behind her ear.

truthwright
2013-01-31 02:56 am (UTC)

She beams and reaches up to gently pet his feathers.

dark_light
2013-01-31 02:57 am (UTC)

He is, indeed, fluffy.

And he hoots contentedly.

truthwright
2013-01-31 03:01 am (UTC)

"Awwwww," giggles Petaal. "You are fluffy. Fluffy and cute and huggable and lovable."

dark_light
2013-01-31 03:04 am (UTC)

"All of those things," agrees Path.

"Okay, that's just ridiculously cute," Isabella says.

truthwright
2013-01-31 03:06 am (UTC)

"Yep," Kas says happily. "That's my sweetie for ya."

dark_light
2013-01-31 03:07 am (UTC)

Isabella laughs. "So I guess the verdict on celestial light is that yes, it is pleasant, huh?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 03:13 am (UTC)

"Mmhmmmmmmm," hums Petaal.

dark_light
2013-01-31 03:18 am (UTC)

"...What's it like?" Isabella asks Kas. "Having someone touch your daemon."

truthwright
2013-01-31 03:20 am (UTC)

"Depends on who," he says softly.

dark_light
2013-01-31 03:22 am (UTC)

"Me?" says Isabella.

truthwright
2013-01-31 03:30 am (UTC)

"Nice," he says, smiling and closing his eyes. "It was nice."

dark_light
2013-01-31 03:30 am (UTC)

"Nice how?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 03:41 am (UTC)

"Nice like..."

He struggles with his vocabulary for a moment.

"Most ways I can think of to say it, it sounds really bad, but it wasn't at all," he says. "It was like you were... everywhere. Like if there's something a hug wants to be when it grows up, it's that."

dark_light
2013-01-31 03:42 am (UTC)

This might be the most unutterably sweet thing Isabella has ever heard.

"Awww," she sighs.

truthwright
2013-01-31 03:45 am (UTC)

Kas giggles.

dark_light
2013-01-31 06:45 am (UTC)

"What about... other times? What's the range here?" she asks. "If you don't mind."

truthwright
2013-01-31 01:48 pm (UTC)

"Tina counts," he says first. "It's nice with her, too. Maybe not exactly the same, but still nice."

A pause. Petaal snuggles Path some more.

"Other times... it is really bad," he says. "Really, really bad. Because it's nice having somebody so close when it's someone you like, but when it's someone you don't... and you're scared and angry and can't get away... then it's the worst thing in the world."

dark_light
2013-01-31 04:35 pm (UTC)

Isabella shivers. So does Path; he hunkers down in Petaal's embrace.

truthwright
2013-01-31 04:50 pm (UTC)

Petaal leans her cheek against the softness of Path's feathers and hugs him gently.

dark_light
2013-01-31 04:51 pm (UTC)

Isabella decides that she, correspondingly, should hug Kas.

truthwright
2013-01-31 04:55 pm (UTC)

He maybe clings a little.

dark_light
2013-01-31 04:55 pm (UTC)

Well. Hair-petting got good results before and is compatible with hugs, yes?

truthwright
2013-01-31 04:57 pm (UTC)

Yes and also yes!

He relaxes from a cling to a mere snuggle.

dark_light
2013-01-31 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry that happened to you."

truthwright
2013-01-31 08:20 pm (UTC)

"You're sweet," he says, leaning into her with a contented sigh.

dark_light
2013-01-31 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I do my best."

Pause.

"I wonder if Petaal can fly. On cloud-pine, I mean."

truthwright
2013-01-31 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I wanna find out!" Petaal says immediately.

dark_light
2013-01-31 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, mine won't work for you - I can take a passenger, but only I can fly the thing. You have to cut your own," Isabella says. "It's a bit of a hike from here."

truthwright
2013-01-31 08:38 pm (UTC)

"So let's go do that!" she says. "Maybe not now, we are too snuggly."

dark_light
2013-01-31 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Closest stand of them is in Nunavut. I think the location's common knowledge. I don't think I can get the time off to fly you guys there myself, though."

truthwright
2013-01-31 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Where in Nunavut?" asks Kas.

dark_light
2013-01-31 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Auyuittuq National Park is the part it'll be easier for you to get to. I'm not sure the Nunavut Clan will think much of your visit if you try to go to the part of the tree cluster that they control."

truthwright
2013-01-31 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Mkay," Petaal says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-01-31 10:31 pm (UTC)

"So since I can't take Petaal on as my meta-apprentice, what're you going to do with whatever amount of time you spend still in Rockland?" Isabella inquires.

truthwright
2013-01-31 10:33 pm (UTC)

"No idea!" says Kas. "We're not really big planners when we don't have to be."

dark_light
2013-01-31 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. You likely to be bored if I go in and do my homework?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Nope!" he says, grinning.

dark_light
2013-01-31 10:50 pm (UTC)

Isabella goes in and studies what critters, plants, and objects are best to sacrifice for what applications for best results, feet tucked under her.

Path stays snuggly with Petaal, though.

truthwright
2013-01-31 11:00 pm (UTC)

Petaal is very very snuggly! Path is lovable. She loves him.

Eventually, though, she murmurs: "Shoo, I wanna hug my sweetie."

dark_light
2013-01-31 11:00 pm (UTC)

Path flutters away. Not towards Isabella; she's only reading. He feels like flying.

truthwright
2013-01-31 11:04 pm (UTC)

Petaal shifts into a liger and pounces on Kas, nuzzling him ferociously. The witch-silks suffer somewhat from the transition.

symbols hold infinite layers of meaning

dark_light

Isabella studies her new alethiometer dictionary between magical assignments from Metis. She even found a book of sample questions and answers - the English originals of the questions and the professional readers' deciphering of the answers are given, and she can try her hand at composing symbolized versions of each. She uses the exercises sparingly. There aren't that many of them, and she doesn't want to contaminate her knowledge of the subject while she's still learning, not until she has an actual alethiometer in her hands and can try asking it questions to which she already knows the answers to calibrate.

truthwright
2013-01-31 11:20 pm (UTC)

At some point, Kas appears, with Petaal lying across his shoulders as a linsang.

"What's up?"

dark_light
2013-01-31 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Alethiometer studying," Isabella says, tentatively drawing her shorthand for the chameleon symbol and the number 44 in her notebook of exercises and tapping the paper with the eraser. "What's up with you?"

truthwright
2013-01-31 11:24 pm (UTC)

"My sweetie is fluffy," he hums, petting said sweetie on his fluffy head. "How's your studying? Is it fun? Whatcha learning?"

dark_light
2013-01-31 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm trying to figure out how I'd phrase the question will the Euro fall against the dollar?, not because this is a question particularly worth asking the alethiometer, but because it's a question someone did ask one and get a confirmed answer to so I can practice on it."

truthwright
2013-01-31 11:39 pm (UTC)

Petaal jumps to the floor and lionizes. Kas perches on him.

"So how're you doing it?"

dark_light
2013-01-31 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Slowly and with considerable difficulty. And I'm sure I'm going to get it less precisely than the pro did." She frowns at her notebook, smacks herself in the forehead, and crosses out the chameleon to write in a cornucopia instead, attached to a number 1.

truthwright
2013-01-31 11:48 pm (UTC)

Brightly: "Can I try?"

dark_light
2013-01-31 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'm trying to do this one from memory before I look anything up anyway," she says, tearing out a notebook page, handing over a spare pen, and offering up her phone.

truthwright
2013-01-31 11:51 pm (UTC)

Kas accepts notebook, pen, and phone.

He spends some time scrolling through meanings.

dark_light
2013-01-31 11:52 pm (UTC)

Isabella draws a horse stick figure (number 1), and then stops to think again.

truthwright
2013-01-31 11:59 pm (UTC)

Well, okay. Crocodile, horse, cornucopia, those are just obvious. But they don't tell the whole story. The question's too narrow, anyway, like it's forgetting this thing speaks to you in full sentences whether you like it or not.

"Hey," he thinks to ask, "can you use two levels of one symbol at the same time?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 12:01 am (UTC)

"Not at the same time, but in the same question, sure," Isabella says. "You just have to be able to keep them straight in your head."

truthwright
2013-02-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"Huh. Okay," he says. "That makes my life a lot easier."

He goes back to his perusal.

dark_light
2013-02-01 12:16 am (UTC)

"Are you getting the same symbol in here twice somewhere?" Isabella asks, frowning at her distinctly non-duplicative results.

truthwright
2013-02-01 12:17 am (UTC)

"Not yet."

dark_light
2013-02-01 12:18 am (UTC)

"Okay." She draws a baby and the number one again.

truthwright
2013-02-01 12:29 am (UTC)

Kas goes back to his reading.

After some scribbling and hemming and hawing, his page looks like this:

Cornucopia - abundance, currency

Horse - Europe, transition

Crocodile - America

dark_light
2013-02-01 12:31 am (UTC)

Isabella's not looking over his shoulder. That would be cheating, and cheating is what you do when the test, and not the subject it teaches, is what you care about.

truthwright
2013-02-01 12:33 am (UTC)

"This is fun," he declares, and puts all the stuff down so he can bury his hands in Petaal's fur and snuggle her a bunch.

dark_light
2013-02-01 12:38 am (UTC)

"I'm not really doing it recreationally, but yeah, it's not bad," agrees Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-01 12:59 am (UTC)

"When you get an alethiometer, can I play with it?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:00 am (UTC)

"Sure, I have to sleep sometime. If you break my alethiometer I will have to curse you though."
Edited 2013-02-01 01:00 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:04 am (UTC)

"I won't break it," he promises. "What do curses do, anyway?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:06 am (UTC)

"Depends on the curse. The one Metis keeps bothering me to try gives the target a non-contagious flulike syndrome until it wears off or is removed."

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:06 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Cute."

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:08 am (UTC)

"I don't mean 'the sniffles' kind of flu, I mean it'll take the targeted person a rather heroic effort to drag themselves to the bathroom to puke and back under the covers to fall unconscious for another twelve hours," Isabella says. "There's a reason I don't want to just curse some random person even with a counterspell prepared."

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:11 am (UTC)

...Petaal giggles.

After a moment, so does Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:13 am (UTC)

"What's funny?"

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:15 am (UTC)

"Nothiiiiiiiiiing," Petaal singsongs. "Hey, I wanna hug you. Can I hug you?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:16 am (UTC)

Isabella looks at her translation in progress, then sets it aside. "...Okay. Stop when I say, though, if I say it. I might."

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:19 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Petaal. Kas unperches from her, and she shifts bat to fly into Isabella's lap and linsang to snuggle up in it.

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:20 am (UTC)

Isabella's got enough silk on to make this not technically daemon-touching. It is unsettlingly close nonetheless. She carefully settles her hands in her lap, letting Petaal be the one to complete the contact.

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:23 am (UTC)

Petaal nudges her head under Isabella's hand, in a very 'pet me, pet me' manner.

Kas curls up happily on the floor.

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:25 am (UTC)

It's weird, but not as weird the second time as it was the first. And not as weird when she hasn't been literally tackled, can clearly see Kas smiling, isn't startled.

Slowly, Isabella pets the linsang in her lap. She's soft.

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:29 am (UTC)

Kas is indeed smiling. Petaal is indeed soft. And she makes a happy humming sound when Isabella pets her.

Actually, they both do.

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:30 am (UTC)

Well then.

Isabella gets used to this faster than she expected. She keeps an ear out for Metis, who could return at any time, but she carries on petting Petaal with focused attention.

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:41 am (UTC)

After a little while of everyone enjoying themselves, Petaal turns into a fluffy long-haired cat and requests belly rubs.

dark_light
2013-02-01 01:42 am (UTC)

Those are also supplied.

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:43 am (UTC)

Purrrrrr.

distance is immaterial with cloudpine under you

dark_light

A few days later, Kas and Petaal disappear.

Isabella decides that they're probably going to Nunavut. She doesn't worry about them.

(She thinks about them, sometimes. That feeling clinging to the back of her neck doesn't go away.)

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:01 am (UTC)

After about three months, she gets a lovely postcard from Quebec City.

It says:
Cloud-pine worked! So much crashing. So much fun.

♥ K&P

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:03 am (UTC)

Neat. Postcards don't really have affordances for return correspondence, but Isabella smiles and keeps the card in her room propped up against the wall on the back edge of her desk.

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:09 am (UTC)

The next one is from Las Vegas, a month later.

Pretty sure you'd hate it here.

K&P ♥♥♥

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:10 am (UTC)

Isabella wonders why. This postcard goes next to the previous one.

She carries on studying.

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:23 am (UTC)

San Francisco. Miss you! K&P

Seattle. Miss your tummy rubs! ♥ P&K

Missoula, Montana. Tiny museum full of dead things here! Fun!

Sevierville, Tennessee. Did you know there's a museum for knives? There's a museum for knives and it's awesome.

The postcards are coming closer and closer together.

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:24 am (UTC)

She really should have guessed this would happen if Petaal got ahold of cloud-pine and it worked.

(She did not know there was a museum for knives in Sevierville, TN.)

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:30 am (UTC)

A long silence (three weeks instead of the lately-usual one-ish), then a postcard from Paris.

I know something you don't knoooooooooow

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:31 am (UTC)

...Isabella has no idea what to do with that. (There are now enough postcards that they live all in a stack instead of propped up.)

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:35 am (UTC)

That is okay, because three days after that, Kas knocks on her door.

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:35 am (UTC)

"Hi," she says, hugging him. "I got your postcards. What do you know that I don't know?"

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:37 am (UTC)

"Hi!"

He hugs back. Petaal is being a horse, and does not join in the hugging.

"Alethiometers talk to themselves—did you know that?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:38 am (UTC)

"I know the answer hand is always spinning. Are they saying sensible things? Did you look at the Louvre one and count pauses on symbols and translate them?"

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:46 am (UTC)

"It said I'm legally dead and some French girl's brother is fucking her boyfriend and the atomic weight of cobalt is about fifty-nine and some other guy has a teenage daughter he doesn't know about and my sweetie's never going to settle," he says. "There was more stuff but I forgot a lot of it."

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:48 am (UTC)

Isabella opens her mouth, and then closes it.

"...Uh, I know you didn't swipe my phone with the dictionary on it, did you get your own at some point?"

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:51 am (UTC)

"Nope! I know it's supposed to be hard and stuff, but it just makes sense."

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:52 am (UTC)

"...You're claiming you're an intuitive alethiometer reader?"

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:53 am (UTC)

"Why, am I not allowed?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:54 am (UTC)

"They're so rare as to have serious controversy over whether they exist."

truthwright
2013-02-01 02:55 am (UTC)

"Well," he says, "boo."

dark_light
2013-02-01 02:56 am (UTC)

"How hard will it be to talk you into hanging out with me all the time reading an alethiometer if I get hold of one?"

truthwright
2013-02-01 03:06 am (UTC)

"Well, not all the time," he says. "But it's pretty fun."

dark_light
2013-02-01 03:08 am (UTC)

"Routinely, a lot, in a sufficient capacity that I can get the thing read," Isabella says. "I can do some on my own - I assume - that being the idea of the research - but - damn, I need to go work out my find-a-lost-alethiometer spell now."

truthwright
2013-02-01 03:09 am (UTC)

"You have a spell for that?" he laughs.

dark_light
2013-02-01 03:11 am (UTC)

"No! I wasn't going to develop one until I thought I'd know what to do with an alethiometer once I had it! But I can certainly invent something!" She strides back into the house and up to her room.

truthwright
2013-02-01 01:03 pm (UTC)

Kas follows her; Petaal bounds after him as a Yorkshire terrier.

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:15 pm (UTC)

Isabella's spell-writing process appears to involve a lot of notes, half in English and half in witch-symbols, half on paper and half on random surfaces around her room.

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:15 pm (UTC)

It is fascinating, and also adorable.

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:17 pm (UTC)

Her excitement appears contagious - at least to Path, who keeps fluttering from perch to perch around the room. Petaal's terrier form is big enough to count as a perch.

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:20 pm (UTC)

Shortly after Path flutters away again, Petaal becomes a tiny, brightly coloured dragon and chases after him to give him kisses.

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:24 pm (UTC)

Path laughs. Isabella is momentarily distracted by cuteness, and then goes back to writing a grid of miscellaneous symbols on her wall in pencil and then circling half of them.

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:25 pm (UTC)

Kas hugs himself and awwwws and watches Isabella write.

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:26 pm (UTC)

"This could take a while," Isabella says. She frowns at her grid, erases a circle, draws two more, erases two others, and then picks up a notebook and starts muttering to herself about herbs.

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Kas. "Will your teacher mind if I stick around for a while again?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Doubt it. Attic's right where you left it, probably slightly dustier. Nice choice of cloud-pine spray, by the way. The first one I cut had a balance issue and I had to go back for another inside of a year. Although maybe you crashed enough to ruin your first and this is your second?"

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:33 pm (UTC)

"This is our third," Kas admits.

"I'm really good at it now, though!" says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:34 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs. Pathalan lets himself be caught and gives Petaal an affectionate peck/nuzzle sort of gesture.

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:42 pm (UTC)

Petaal nuzzles Path right back, then lands on Kas's shoulder and turns into a king cobra.

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:45 pm (UTC)

Isabella's not really paying attention to any of this. She's drawing shapes on the wall and then smaller versions of them in her notebook and writing T-charts of pros and cons underneath the junior versions.

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:50 pm (UTC)

Kas decides to go see how the attic is doing. He opens the door.

"...Uh..."

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Isabella!" exclaims Path.

Isabella looks around. "That's... not the hallway."

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:52 pm (UTC)

"That is not the hallway," Kas agrees. "That is a bar. Wanna go check it out?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Why in the name of any and every goddess is there a bar in Metis's house?"

truthwright
2013-02-01 05:57 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea!" says Kas. "But I wanna find out!"

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:00 pm (UTC)

Path flutters nervously to Isabella's shoulder and tucks himself under her hair, against her neck.

Isabella slowly gets up and walks towards the door.

"What if it disappears after we go in and then it's not connected to the house anymore?" Pause. "Well, I guess then it spits us out wherever else it goes... and we have a flight that could last a while. No big deal. Okay."

And she grabs her cloud-pine from where it lies on the floor by her sleeping mat, and steps forward with Kas into the bar.
Edited 2013-02-01 18:10 (UTC)

by the seashore

she_sells_seashells

"Bell" is supposed to be short for something, but the something isn't in her official files anywhere; her parents named her directly for the chime in the tower, that warns about the weather and the tide and, once a year, the required viewings on the village television.

Bell is six. She is not old enough to go out on any of the boats yet. She knows which kind she wants, though: she prefers clamming to all the other options (including trying to go into some support trade, like her mother, who mends and tailors and sometimes makes nets). She is not, even at six, naive enough to expect she'll get an uninhibited choice. So, at six, she has a spade and she wanders the beaches and collects clams. She will have clam-related experience when she's eight and it's time for her to start going to sea.

(Bell likes clams because someone once told her that quahogs, if no one eats them, live longer than any other animal in the world. Including people. They can live for hundreds of years. Bell has not yet comprehended the hypocrisy of liking to harvest and eat something because she admires its longevity. She's six.)

Her father's not a Peacekeeper any more, but he knows them, he was once one of them (and besides, she's six) and they leave her alone for the most part. It's technically poaching to bring her quahogs home and crack them open and wash the grit out and scrape them into soup. They don't get in trouble.

They don't get much dietary variety, either. Her parents come to rely on the clams, too fast. Ranae, her mother, patches up the broken window instead of buying rice; trades her sewing for Bell's new school textbook instead of katniss. Shark (his name is some archaic thing that starts with a "shar" sound, and then he was a Peacekeeper for years; the nickname was inevitable) spends the occasional voyage off from the salmon trawler, because he doesn't have to bring home salmon and coins in order to come home to dinner. They eat so many clams.

Bell keeps the shells.

This isn't selfishness on her part. Shells can be sold, but for trivial enough amounts that to most people, even District people, it's not worth it. The hauling of the shells to market would burn more calories than you'd get from the wheat you could buy with the proceeds, from most parts of the village. So the shells are hers.

Bell is six, and she is lugging a bag of such shells, shucked and cleaned, when she finds it.

She is by far the youngest person in the bar. In fact, even years later, even after she stops being the youngest person in the bar, she never sees someone who looks six (though she sees a few people who are). Everyone around her is tall and strange in any of a hundred ways and doesn't know what to make of a girl in wispy ragged hand-me-downs (she has a nice dress, but it's not for clamming) and dragging a sack of shells.

Someone other than Bell might have turned around and left, convinced herself she never saw such a thing or that it was a dream.

Bell sees empty chairs and she sits in one.

Bell listens.

Bell learns the following important things:

1. There are places that are not any Panem District or the Capitol.

2. This is the way to get to those places, is through this place.

3. Most places are nicer places to live than hers.

4. She could follow someone home, if she tried.

5. But then she'd be stuck there unless they brought her back through.

6. And they might not be able to do that, because the door appears whenever it wants.

7. When she leaves, it will still be the time when she left, probably.

8. The bar is actually a lady, she can make food appear, and she can talk, with napkins.

This last piece of information is exceedingly important. Bell drags her shells to the bar. She has two coins in her pocket which she found on the ground outside school. "I would like some food," she says to the air. "Please." She puts her coins on the counter.

A napkin slides forward. You'll need to be a little more specific, it says.

"I would like some food I can afford," Bell says reluctantly, even though she doesn't think even a bar who is also a lady could chase her if she dined-and-dashed.

This may or may not have been the sort of specificity the bar was looking for, but: food appears. There is a plate of noodles and beef and vegetables that aren't seaweed, smothered in sauce, and there's a hot soup full of ribbons of eggs, and there is a tall, cold drink as thick as wet sand and with chunks of a fruit she's never had before, and there is cake, thick dark cake with frosting as tall as the crumb.

Bell stares at it.

Slowly she slides her two coins across the bar.

And your shells, dear, says a new napkin.

Shells.

She could trade shells for food. Just one bag of shells meant this sort of food.

Bell heaved the shells up and over the bar with a mighty effort and wasted no further time in putting away her meal. She was little, but she was hungry, and she paced herself, and the portions were really reasonable sizes even if they looked massive to her.

After she finished her food, Bell explored the rest of the bar.

There might, after all, be other things she could use in this hall of wonders.

in atlantis's hall of treasures

she_sells_seashells

Bell does not discover immediately that the Bar will let her run a tab. Having spent all of her shells on that one, glorious meal, this limits the amount of time she can spend there - although not by very much. On that kind of fuel Bell easily spends 34 hours eating nothing but half of a friendly old man's fried potato sticks and some water from the sink in the bathroom (to which she finds it necessary to climb).

During those hours, apart from two naps spent curled up on a booth bench, Bell meets everyone. She listens with enormous, sparkling eyes to every story they will tell her and tries her best to trade back in stories of her own. She doesn't know very much about the reality of her world yet. She's only started school recently. But here everyone is strange and no one can tell the difference if she runs out of reality and trades in stories about Atlantis that the sailors tell.

(Most of them can tell, but she's six, and they indulge her.)

After she's been in the bar for a day and a half, she is hungry enough to notice, and she's out of shells, and no one besides that old man has noticed how spindly and tired she is and responded with an offer of food. Bell needs to go home and eat some... sigh... clams. Maybe salty bread too if she's lucky.

She runs up to the bar that is a lady. "I gotta go," she tells it. "Can I come back soon? Please? I'll bring you so many shells."

The napkin says, That's not up to me, little one.

"Who is it up to?" Bell asks, putting one hand over her stomach and feeling it gurgle.

The Bar doesn't answer her.

"Well," says Bell, "please ask them real nice if you can come visit me again?"

No reply.

"Bye," whispers Bell.

The nice man might have taken her home, but Bell has parents at home, and friends, and she'd miss them. It's worth eating clams to have her family, especially since without her to dig clams they wouldn't have as much to eat.

So she goes through the door, and lets it close behind her, and winces when she hears it click and turns around and sees only the door to her room. (Bell has her own room mostly because she is an only child. If she had a brother or a sister she would have to share.)

She tells her mommy she's hungry. Her mommy serves her some bread and some clams in a thin sauce.

Bell needs to go back.

But first she needs more shells.

===

Bell becomes obsessed with Milliways. She doesn't find it often. The shortest gap is six months and the longest is sixteen. But by proxy, she becomes obsessed with shells. Everyone - even her parents - calls her "Shell Bell" by the time she's turned eight. She keeps clamshells, sacks of them by every door in town she ever goes through and the one on the clam boat she crews with, and throws a tantrum when someone moves them away. They're clean shells, they don't stink, and she's cute; people get used to it. Sometimes she finds that someone desperate has stolen a sack of them to sell, but she always manages to replace those before she finds herself staring into Milliways through a ransacked door.

She also finds out that other shells are worth more than clam shells. It is harder for her to keep these. They're more expensive - a decent cowrie or oyster or abalone shell can be sold for serious money, and she could get in trouble for serious poaching if she were caught and Shark's friendships with his ex-co-workers couldn't save her. She obtains and cleans the shells in secret, between clamming expeditions, when she can get away - usually she just eats the meat of the animals she's harvesting, raw, alone on the beach, and then she takes thread from her mother's sewing box and ties it around her prizes and wears them under her clothes so she's never caught without them.

When Bell finds a door to Milliways, she makes use of it. She stays as long as she can pay for meals with clamshells. She doesn't indulge too much in feasts like that first. It's cheaper to get other things. She can stay for weeks if she holds herself down to potatoes and chicken with enough butter on them to keep her going so she doesn't need more than one meal a day.

Her other shells go towards other things.

By the time she's been to Milliways three times and she is nearly nine, Bell has borrowed many books and videos from the bar and learned a thousand incompatible facts about faraway worlds, and she's also bought a few things that she can take home. She has a large bottle of children's multivitamins and she takes one every other day so they'll last. She has the most condensed, preservative-riddled food the bar can sell her, squirreled away in hiding places her father's too busy and her mother's too silly to check. She specifically requests it in packaging that looks like it could drop off a Capitol cruise ship. When times are bad - when the salmon trawler comes back empty, when all of the neighbors have enough patches on their clothes for a week solid - she can roll a can in sand or wrap a plastic packet in a bit of seaweed and claim she found it on the beach, and they can have beans or Mandarin oranges in syrup or beef jerky and get by a little longer.

She spends so much time on the beach and has such bizarre preferences about her clamshell sacks that people begin to consider Shell Bell a little... feebleminded is one of the nicer words. She doesn't pay a lick of attention in school; she can learn anything she'd care to know in Milliways without a teacher breathing down her neck. She does her work on the clam boat, but quietly, making no friends. Mercifully, she does not attract bullying; anyone who wanted to beat on her would have to answer to Shark. (She does have a reputation as a tattletale as well as a weak mind.)

Bell tries to perform transactions with the other patrons, too, she wants magic and tech, but this doesn't usually work as well. In general they're happy to talk, reluctant to give her stuff, and she imagines this will only get worse as she grows older, taller, less adorably waifish. Some of them would be happy to bring her to their worlds, but she doesn't know how to survive in them, she doesn't know how long it would take her to get back - they say they have more food, there, in their homes, but food costs money or harvesting time or both, it always does, and if she went someplace where they didn't have any clams and her shells were no good as money she would simply starve.

When Bell is thirteen, though, someone recognizes her.

"You look like Her Majesty," observes the sleek young lady in the pretty dress. "Younger, but..."

Bell tilts her head.

"She must be another version of you. I've met fully six of her, but they all looked late teens, early twenties, though some were far older... What's your name, child?"

"Bell."

"Yes, clearly some sort of alternate. Are you planning to take over your world, little Bell?" chuckles the lady.

"Maybe," says Bell cagily, because she wants more information.

The lady laughs. "Most of you do! There was one who only had her own inventions to work with, no magic, and she only has a country, not a whole world, but that's you, that's your type."

"Will a lot of people recognize me now I'm this age?" Bell wants to know.

"Probably," laughs the lady. And then she goes home.

Bell thinks.

===

Future trips to Milliways see Bell paying an oyster shell for a piece of posterboard and begging the loan of a marker. She writes, My alternates tend to take over the world. Advice available. Rates negotiable. She puts the sign up for ten minutes out of every hour, so most visitors have a chance to see it but she can still move freely about the bar and talk to people the rest of the time.

And most people laugh at the sign, or have nothing she wants, or aren't interested in her advice.

But some of them don't and have and are.

Bell starts taking home interesting trinkets. She's limited to things the clients can afford to buy from the bar or that they have on them on the spot, but Milliways is a place of coincidences. She can't take anything she'll have to explain so her payments run towards the small and covert. A flat little pouch that will cling to the skin on her back, match its color, and hold her shells. A slender stick of an audio recorder that will hold terabytes, so she can take down every conversation she has in the bar and consult it later. A jar full of water purification tablets that she starts dropping in the well, and her family doesn't get the salt fever that year.

And a wand of pyrokinesis, which as far as she can tell has no productive use at all.

Bell has no idea, when she takes this wand, why she wants it. But she does want it. It looks like a stick, and not even a metallic stick like her audio recorder; she can wear it in her hair and this won't look suspicious given that she's already considered funny in the head. And she doesn't often have cause to set things on fire, really, but having it makes her feel better. She plays with it when she's on the beach and there's no one watching and the sand around her is wet and it's safe. When she gets more accustomed to it, she can make ugly black glass.

===

Bell doesn't take tesserae. Her parents don't ask her to. They get by, and she does conveniently produce food that she "found on the beach" whenever things threaten to get worse.

Bell is picked as tribute once anyway, when she's sixteen, and she has to stand on the stage trembling and wondering what will happen to her family if she manages to escape into someone else's world before they put her in the arena, wondering what will happen to everything if she goes in and wins by setting the other tributes alight with her wand (they'd let her take it, you're allowed one thing, it's a stick). But District Four has Careers, and a lithe, powerful girl who knows what she's doing with a trident and a net volunteers, and pats Bell patronizingly on the head, and goes into the Games and dies of dehydration four days in.

Bell "finds food on the beach" for her family, too, after that.

in a forest of legs

she_sells_seashells

The second time ever Bell finds to Milliways, she is better prepared. She has a bigger bag of shells with her, and she knows that she'll need to pace herself with the food to stay as long as she can.

She is still six. As far as she can tell, she is the only child in the place - everyone else is an adult or at least in their mid to late teens.

Except - oh, there is a girl her age, over there. (Only maybe not. Last time she was warned that appearances can be deceiving.) But she's certainly worth investigating.

Bell drags her shells over in that direction.

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 06:52 pm (UTC)

The girl is curled up in an armchair with a book. Actually, with a stack of books, but she's only reading one of them at a time.

It is called 'Algebra', and has a weird picture on the front.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Hullo," says Bell tentatively, because she knows she doesn't love to be interrupted when she's reading but she's too curious not to try. "Um, I'm Bell. I'm from Panem. What's your name?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 06:56 pm (UTC)

She lowers the book and smiles.

"Hi! I'm Matilda," she says. "Where's Panem? Is it a city or a country or a planet?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 06:57 pm (UTC)

"It's a country," Bell says, heartened by Matilda's willingness to put the book down. "It might be the only one on Earth but some people think there could also be Atlantis. I don't know if I think that, yet."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 06:59 pm (UTC)

"In my world, Atlantis is imaginary," says Matilda. "At least I'm pretty sure it is. I'm from Lyndonville—that's a town. The country is called the United States of America."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I think my continent might have used to be called America," muses Bell. "I read ahead in geography 'cause I can read while I shuck clams if my mom turns the pages for me, but I don't remember that part for sure."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Your mom turns pages for you?" she says, impressed. "Some mom! Mine never did that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 07:05 pm (UTC)

"She can do it while she's sewing," explains Bell. "She says just because I started working before I had to doesn't mean I should give up on school before I have to, and if the best way for me to read my assignments is while I'm doing clams she'll turn pages."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 07:09 pm (UTC)

"That's nice of her!" says Matilda. "Is she a teacher? I got adopted by a teacher and she's way better than my mom was."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 07:12 pm (UTC)

"She teaches some years!" Bell says. "It depends on whether the school can afford to have a class of five-year-olds right then or not, and there are always people arguing that the entire school is pointless except for the stuff about boats and fish. So they usually decide they can't afford it. The other years she mends things."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 07:13 pm (UTC)

Matilda's eyes widen. "Where you live can't afford school? That's awful!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 07:14 pm (UTC)

"We can always afford it for kids my age to age thirteen," Bell says, wide-eyed. "Four is one of the richest districts. It's just the older kids and the five-year-olds who sometimes get skipped."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Kids go to school from five to eighteen where I'm from," she says. "I only started when I was six and a half because my parents weren't paying attention and they thought I was still four."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Your parents... thought... you were four?" Bell asks quizzically. "Weren't they there when you were born? At least your mom?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but they didn't really keep track of me after that. So I had to yell at my dad a little before he went and found a school and sent me there."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, that sucks," says Bell sympathetically. "I got to go to school when I was five. They weren't going to have the class that year but my family was doing okay around then so my mom volunteered to work cheaper for the one year, since I was five."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 07:24 pm (UTC)

"You have an awesome mom," says Matilda.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! My dad is pretty cool too but he's not at home much. Salmon boats have to go out pretty far."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 07:28 pm (UTC)

"My parents were pretty useless," says Matilda. "But they did sign the adoption papers for Jenny, so that part's good."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 07:30 pm (UTC)

"That does sound good. Teachers where you are make enough to support a kid all by themselves? Or do you live with other people?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 07:49 pm (UTC)

"...I think they do," says Matilda. "It's complicated. Jenny's dad was a doctor and he had lots of money, and then Jenny's parents both died and all the money went to Jenny's aunt, but it turned out she'd killed Jenny's dad and she was really nasty so I got rid of her and now Jenny has all her dad's money so I bet she could have lots of kids if she wanted. But she doesn't, she just wants me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Bell, clearly finding this explanation all much more sensible than the idea of an otherwise unfunded single parent teacher. "My dad would have made a lot of money but he messed up his knee and couldn't afford to get it fixed since he hadn't had much time to save up. So he couldn't be a Peacekeeper anymore. Now he does the salmon boat job. But that's okay because Peacekeepers aren't allowed to get married or have kids, so he would have had to wait for his contract to be up otherwise."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:23 pm (UTC)

"What's a Peacekeeper?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:26 pm (UTC)

"They keep things peaceful," Bell says. "If people are poaching or getting into fights or trying to run away from District Four they're the ones who stop them. I can poach a little bit and nobody stops me because Dad made friends with them when he was one, though. And because I'm little. So I can bring home clams without officially working on a clam boat yet."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Like cops," she says, enlightened. "Okay."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:29 pm (UTC)

Bell shrugs. "Sure. Most of them come from District Two but people from other districts sometimes get into the academy if they try. I don't want to be one, though. I'm going to do clams." She sounds resigned to, rather than enthusiastic about, clams.

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Why clams?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:36 pm (UTC)

Bell starts ticking off fingers. "The boats don't go out too far, so I won't get eaten by a squid-mutt." (Bell is too young for anyone to be routinely saying "kraken" in her hearing.) "I can poach clams now, to practice and learn about them, so I can probably start getting bonuses faster than if I start not knowing what I'm doing on shrimp or lobsters or something. Even besides squid-mutts clam boats are some of the least dangerous kinds. I mean, I can swim, but anybody can drown in bad enough weather, especially when they're eight. And, now that I come here, I want the shells, because Bar will take shells like they're money, and that means I can buy food here."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:40 pm (UTC)

Something seems... off... about this, but Matilda can't figure out exactly what.

"I dunno what I'm going to do when I grow up," she says. "I bet it'll involve math somehow, though. I really like math."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Math is okay. They don't do very much of it in the regular schools in District Four. If I passed a lot of tests they might move me to someplace with better schools, like District Three where people have to know how to do electronics, but then I'd just live in the school and probably never see my parents again. I don't try very hard on the tests."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:45 pm (UTC)

"...I don't think I like where you live very much," says Matilda.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh, District Four isn't bad," Bell says earnestly. "I mean, at least we have Career Tributes. District Three doesn't. If I moved there I might have to go on TV."

Bell is fully unaware that this paragraph is incomprehensible.

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Huh?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Which part?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:49 pm (UTC)

"What's a Career Tribute?" is what she settles on after a moment.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh, okay, yeah, most places don't have them. See, in Four - and One and Two but I don't know if they do it the same way - when kids are four years old we go to a camp thing, unless our parents pay a lot of money to keep us out of it and mine couldn't afford that. And the camp thing tries to figure out if you're healthy and smart and fast and stuff. And if you're the healthiest smartest fastest four-year-old, you go to a special school up in Crabclaw Point, and then you get trained to be in the Hunger Games, so that whoever gets picked in the lottery doesn't have to and you go instead. There's a girl and a boy from every district every year. But they don't tell the four-year-olds what it's for, and if they think that your parents told you, or told you to try to do badly on the testing, then your parents get punished. Because they need accurate results to give the District Four tributes the best chance of having a winner. But I'm really clumsy, so even though I didn't know what was going on I didn't get picked. So if the lottery person ever says when I'm twelve or thirteen or whatever age up to eighteen -" She does a terrible imitation of a Capitol accent. "'Bell Swan!'" - she drops the accent - "then instead of me having to go up, the Career who's eighteen that year will volunteer instead so I don't have to go."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:55 pm (UTC)

"...Go up and do what," says Matilda.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Be on TV," says Bell. "And compete in the Hunger Games and try to win, because if you win you get rich and famous."

It does not occur to Bell that it might be anything other than obvious what happens if you lose.

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 08:56 pm (UTC)

"What's the Hunger Games?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 09:30 pm (UTC)

"It's..." What a good question. Bell has obviously never been asked this before. "Well, it's different every year, but every year two kids from every District, One through Twelve, go to the Capitol, and they go in the arena and try not to die, and whoever doesn't die the longest wins and gets rich and famous."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 09:35 pm (UTC)

"That's a bad game," she says authoritatively. "Whoever made that up is a bad person."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, I think whoever made it up is probably dead, since it started like sixty years ago after the rebellion was put down to teach the Districts a lesson," says Bell, in an eminently reasonable voice.

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't like your world at all," says Matilda. "When I grow up I'm going to find it and make it not awful anymore."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Really? How?" Bell asks.

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I don't know yet," she says. "If I knew how now, I'd do it now."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 09:58 pm (UTC)

"The rebellion had lots and lots of people from all the districts - and there were thirteen then, District Thirteen got destroyed in the war - and it still didn't work, and now the Capitol has more stuff and the Districts have less stuff. So it'd be harder. I don't think one or two people could do much, unless they had a lot of magic or something," says Bell frankly.

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't have any magic," says Matilda. "At least I'm pretty sure I don't. But in my experience, when a grown-up says I can't do something, they're usually wrong. And I'm only six; I've got lots of time to figure it out."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I'm not a grownup," Bell points out.

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 10:06 pm (UTC)

"But I bet grown-ups are where you're getting your information."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Bell admits. "I still think it'd take magic. Or really, really good technology. I'm pretty sure if you or me - even if we were grown up first - just walked into the Capitol and said 'you need to stop the Hunger Games!' to the President, then they would just laugh at us. Or maybe shoot us."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," she says. "That's why I need a plan first."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, you can think of plans, but I'm going to look for magic," says Bell. "I think magic will be useful. And I can get some here even though there isn't any at home."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Magic is useful," she agrees. "I wish I had lots of it. Then I could do more stuff."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what kinds there are and which kind is best."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 11:16 pm (UTC)

"There might be infinite kinds," Matilda says consideringly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 11:19 pm (UTC)

"No, I think that seems like too many," Bell says, on reflection. "At least not that many different sorts. Maybe if two people have the same kind one of them can pick up one pound without touching it and the other can pick up two pounds without touching it and so on. There could be infinity of that. But any two people with magics different besides in their numbers should be able to explain to each other how they're different in English without taking forever. So, it can't be infinite kinds."

missnicegirl
2013-01-26 11:24 pm (UTC)

"But there might be infinite different kinds of universes connected to Milliways," she says. "And if some fraction of those have magic, that's infinite universes with magic, and they could all be different kinds. Anyway, your proof doesn't hold up. There's infinite integers, but you can describe any integer in English without taking forever. Same with the rationals, I think."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:40 am (UTC)

"That's why I said they had to be different in ways other than numbers to count as different," Bell points out. "I know you can talk about infinity numbers just fine."

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 12:24 pm (UTC)

"But why can't you talk about infinity different kinds of things?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 04:45 pm (UTC)

Bell considers this. "Well," she said, "maybe you can. Maybe there's a boring way for magics to be different, like if a bunch of them only work in their own world, or something. Then it would be different because you couldn't float the same specific things without touching them, or whatever, and that's not a number difference. But I don't think there's an infinite number of ways for magics to be interestingly different. If the difference is interesting it shouldn't take forever to explain. You should be able to say 'well, I can make the weather do what I want, but she can make food appear, and he can do one or the other but it depends on what day of the week it is' - and then you find someone else who does weather and you talk to each other for a while, and you say, 'well, I'm doing it by asking the sky, and it listens to me, and she does it by waving her hands around in a pattern'. Any fiddly little difference that did take forever to explain wouldn't be interesting. Does that make sense?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Hmmm," says Matilda, frowning. "But I don't think you're right about what's interesting. What if it takes a long time to explain because it uses a lot of concepts we've never seen before? I always think that kind of stuff is really interesting. And there's already more kinds of not-magic knowledge just in my world than most people would be able to learn in their entire lives even if they tried really hard, and before now there were a bunch of different kinds of knowledge that are actually wrong in my world but might not be in somebody else's. You could have kinds of magic that work by alchemy and kinds that work by quantum physics and kinds that work by geology, all different kinds of each one depending on how they work and what they do, and then you could have even more kinds than that because there's lots of worlds where the whole laws of physics work differently than they do in mine and there'll be sciences there I can't even think of. And I don't think that's boring, I think it's the opposite."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:05 pm (UTC)

Bell considers. "Does that add up to literally forever?" she asks dubiously. "I go to a lousy school, so maybe there is literally infinity stuff to learn and they're just not telling me, but I don't think you can get infinity just by adding up a lot of laws of physics and things magic could do. You could get a really huge number, though, so long that unless you lived forever you could just pretend it was infinity. I want to live forever but I don't know how. Did you know that quahog clams can live for hundreds of years if no one eats them?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I did not know that," says Matilda. "I want to know everything, which means I have to live forever, because there is infinity stuff to learn especially at Milliways."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:14 pm (UTC)

"If I figure out how to live forever, I'll tell you," Bell assures her cheerfully.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 05:14 pm (UTC)

"And if I figure it out first, I'll tell you!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Great! Now we both have twice as many chances to learn it."

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 05:15 pm (UTC)

"On average, yeah!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm most likely to find that sort of thing here," Bell muses. "I'm pretty sure my world has no magic. And the only way I could get anywhere near the serious science would be to pass the removal tests and I don't want to do that because if you do that you get removed. And if you could gain a clam's powers by eating it somebody would have noticed already."

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I don't know enough about my world yet to say really for sure if we have magic or not," says Matilda. "It could go either way."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:21 pm (UTC)

"If someone had hiding magic," Bell amends, "then maybe the Capitol wouldn't have found it and started using it, but I don't see how I'd find it either unless I had some finding magic from here to start with."

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I have something that might be magic but I don't know if it is or not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:29 pm (UTC)

"What?" Bell asks, sitting bolt upright.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Telekinesis," she says. "Or something that's a lot like telekinesis. I can move stuff around without touching it. But I don't know how it works, and I've never heard of anybody else who can do anything like it, so I don't know if it's really magic or something else."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:34 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like magic to me," Bell says, "especially if it's not just something that everyone can do where you're from. Lemme see?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 05:35 pm (UTC)

Her book lifts up out of her lap and then settles back down again.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Is it hard? Can you do a bunch of stuff at once? What do you have to know about the thing to pick it for moving? Do you ever move things by accident or in your sleep? Can you feel the stuff you move? If you can't how do you track it?"

Bell then, quite out of breath, begins panting.
Edited 2013-01-27 20:34 (UTC)

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 08:38 pm (UTC)

"It used to be really hard but it got better with practice," she says. "I can do lots of stuff at once. I can move anything I can see, and sometimes stuff I can't see if I know right where it is. I never do it by accident or anything, only when I mean to. And I can't really tell if I can feel where it is or not, because I have to know where it is and where I want it to go before I can move it at all."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 08:39 pm (UTC)

Bell tilts her head. "I have to look at things to pick them up, too, at least if I don't want to just knock them onto the floor. But I can feel that I'm feeling them and not just knowing where they are, 'cause they have textures and temperatures and heavinesses and stuff."

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 08:43 pm (UTC)

"It's a different thing from picking stuff up with your hands," she says, shrugging.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah. Yours is magic. How fast can you make stuff go? We could borrow stuff from the bar to float, and a timer, and go outside and you can zoom it around!"

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I haven't done that! Let's do that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 08:47 pm (UTC)

Bell races to the bar, politely solicits an array of balls of various sizes and a stopwatch, and then frowns at the results, as she has no good way to carry six balls in her arms. "I think you might have to carry most of it," she says, picking up the stopwatch.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 08:48 pm (UTC)

The six balls float up into the air and commence following Bell around like a trail of ducklings, largest to smallest.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 08:49 pm (UTC)

Bell giggles and dashes out towards the door to the outside, looking over her shoulder and only barely not running into the doorframe or tripping onto her face.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 08:52 pm (UTC)

Her ball-ducklings match speeds with her, and zoom around her in circles when she stops.

Matilda follows, trailed by a similar line of books.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 08:55 pm (UTC)

"This is awesome," crows Bell. "Okay, so..." She picks up a stick and plants it in the ground, then runs to a distant point still visible from the original. Then she picks a spot between the two to stand so she can see each stick. "I'll time you, and you can start with the small stuff and move it as fast as you can from the first stick to the second stick! And then try the bigger stuff and we'll see if that's slower. Or it could be faster!"

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" she says, and lines up all the balls hovering vertically over the first stick with the smallest one at the top.

Smallest ball: zoom!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Five seconds!" reports Bell.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:01 pm (UTC)

Next ball: zoom!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Five seconds," Bell repeats. "Maybe it doesn't matter how big the thing is, maybe you could move a whole whale from here to there in five seconds!"

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:03 pm (UTC)

Matilda giggles.

"I don't know if I can move a whale!" she says. "I've never tried!"

Ball number three: zoom!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Four seconds! That's even faster! Maybe this is more like rolling stuff down a hill than like picking it up. Can you move stuff that's alive? Can you move me? Can you move you?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't know how to move me," she says. "It'd be like the Lorax picking himself up by the seat of his pants and flying away. But I can move people all I want! I made a bunch of kids in my class fly!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:07 pm (UTC)

"What's a Lorax?" Bell asks.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:09 pm (UTC)

"He's from a kids' book! He's fuzzy and yellow and he speaks for the trees and at the end of the book he picks himself up by the seat of his pants and flies away and nobody ever sees him again."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:11 pm (UTC)

"So he's not real," Bell clarifies.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure he isn't."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bell picks up another stick and scratches 5, 5, 4 in the dirt to record the results so far.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:17 pm (UTC)

Ball number four: zoom!

Four seconds again.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Four," Bell calls, as she adds the numeral to the list.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:18 pm (UTC)

Number five also takes four seconds.

Number six takes three.

"I think I'm just getting faster," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Really?" Bell says, adding the numbers. "I'll start a new row, try the first one again?"

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:21 pm (UTC)

First ball, second try: two seconds.

Second ball, second try: two seconds.

Third ball, second try: two.

Two.

Two.

One.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:22 pm (UTC)

"If you get any faster than this I won't even be able to tell the difference," Bell says. "I can't push the button that fast, and you have to be able to see it so we can't just move the stick farther away..."

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Time me there-and-back," Matilda suggests.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay. We can just add laps, unless you get too fast for me to even see what's going on," Bell agrees. She draws a line under the new row.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:30 pm (UTC)

First ball, round trip: two seconds.

Second ball: one second.

One, one, one, and one.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Let's do ten round trips," laughs Bell. "You're getting really fast and maybe this way it'll take a few rows before you get down to one second again."

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says, giggling.

The first ball does its ten round trips in six seconds.

The second ball does them in five.

The third, in three.

The fourth, in two.

The fifth, in one.

Just for completeness' sake, she does the sixth. It takes one second.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm not gonna be able to count how many times you take it past the far stick if it goes any faster," Bell says frankly. "So I think the experiment just says you can move stuff fast and you can get faster."

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Yep," Matilda agrees. "—Oh, hey, I have a really silly idea!"

She finds a nice tall rock close by and climbs up to stand on top of it, looking at the lake.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:41 pm (UTC)

"What?" Bell asks. She goes over to the rock, but doesn't try to climb it - she'd fall.
Edited 2013-01-27 21:41 (UTC)

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I wanna see how much I can lift," she explains, and stares intently at the surface of the water.

It begins to bulge upward in the middle.

"C'mon, lake," she mutters under her breath. "Up. Go up."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 09:57 pm (UTC)

Bell watches in fascination. "Does talking to it help?" she whispers.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know if it helps or not," she says. "I do it anyway. C'mon, lake, c'mon..."

It is a fairly big lake, and about half of it is gathering into a sphere above the original waterline.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 10:06 pm (UTC)

Bell stares.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 10:20 pm (UTC)

Matilda keeps going.

It takes a few minutes, but eventually she gets two-thirds of the lake floating in the air full of bewildered fish.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 10:22 pm (UTC)

"SQUID," screams Bell, forgetting wonder in place of fear and hiding behind the rock.

missnicegirl
2013-01-27 10:39 pm (UTC)

There is indeed a squid in the middle of the floating ball.

Except that the second Matilda is distracted, it stops being a floating ball and starts being a falling ball. And then a falling blob.

And then a whole lake's worth of splash.

Matilda yelps in surprise, stumbles, clings to the top of her rock, and gives the wave racing toward them as big a shove in the opposite direction as she possibly can. It reverses course, crashing back into the surface of the lake.

The shore is soaked in every direction. There are stranded fish scattered all along it, and the squid is scooping them up by the grumbly armful.

"...oops," says Matilda.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 10:40 pm (UTC)

The squid's attention to anything on the shore is sufficient to send Bell tearing into the safety of the bar.

among her own kind

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell finds Milliways once when she is eighteen. She has been there for two days now, setting up her sign ten minutes out of every waking hour, wiping down tables for her quarters in the staff area, eating buttery potatoes (she has been told that this is a complete nutrient package, for humans). Her wand is holding a bun of hair in place on the back of her head. Her shells are stashed safely in her room; she's budgeting carefully and she'll pay her tab when she leaves.

No one's talked to her due to the sign yet. They don't always. She sets it up anyway, like clockwork, so everyone gets the chance.

sicaria
2013-01-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

Someone is watching her.

Someone wearing a plain brown cotton dress, who stands like she is ready to bolt or kill something at a moment's notice, even though she is perfectly still and at a casual glance might even look relaxed.

Someone whom Shell Bell might recognize, if she happens to know what the victor of the seventy-first Hunger Games looked like.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell does in fact know what that person looks like. And since Shell Bell was on television herself not long before, albeit for only a minute, she is a little concerned that she will also be recognized. She's never met anyone else from Panem here. Maybe this is an alternate. She shouldn't be so nervous. The District Four tributes from that year weren't even people she knew; the district is big and they lived in other towns.

But why, why is Sherlock Stark watching her?

There's no point in taking down the sign and hoping to gather less attention. Sherlock has already seen it.
Edited 2013-01-21 20:31 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-21 08:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock comes to stand in front of her table.

"Bell Swan," she observes.

A slight, slight smile turns up one corner of her mouth.

"I am intrigued by the sign."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 08:33 pm (UTC)

"It's there to intrigue," Shell Bell says.

It's not there to intrigue Sherlock, but it is there to intrigue.

sicaria
2013-01-21 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Is it true?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I think so. I haven't met any others of me. But I've met people who've met some. And two people have erred on the side of calling me Your Majesty rather than trying to figure out if I was a majesty first."

sicaria
2013-01-21 08:39 pm (UTC)

"An interesting sort of horizontal legacy. The majority of my alternates seem to be male," she says with a hint of distaste, "and renowned for their genius at reasoning from observed facts."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Bells - well - most of them are called Bella - seem to need magic to take over anything," Shell Bell volunteers. "So I probably won't. Take over anything. Please don't kill me."

sicaria
2013-01-21 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I am not going to kill you," says Sherlock. "Unless you present a threat to my brother, but that seems unlikely. What sorts of advice do you tend to give?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 08:46 pm (UTC)

"People explain their magic systems. Or sometimes their fancy technology. And I ask them questions, and I tell them what I'd try to find out the answers to the questions they can't answer. And then I tell them what I'd do with what they have to get - whatever they want. They have to specify or I don't know what to do with them."

sicaria
2013-01-21 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Hm," says Sherlock.

"May I sit?"
Edited 2013-01-21 20:48 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 08:49 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell nods.

sicaria
2013-01-21 08:54 pm (UTC)

Sherlock takes a seat.

"I want to overthrow the Capitol," she says, characteristically level. "Advise me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 08:55 pm (UTC)

"What do you have?" Bella asks instantly. "Anything special?"

sicaria
2013-01-21 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Myself and my brother," she says. "If you saw our Games, I assume you can extrapolate."

When Sherlock won her Games, it was a brief and bloody surprise. Until the very second they began, she maintained the persona of a clumsy, nonthreatening, utterly useless girl who was in over her head. And then, when the other tributes' belief in her incompetence was well and truly cemented, she turned out to be a brutally efficient killing machine who slaughtered twenty out of her twenty-three competitors in a matter of hours. (The other three died before she got to them.)

Tony, by contrast, charmed the pants off everyone in sight with his easy, friendly manner. And then, much to many people's surprise, he never asked for a single weapon. The gifts that rained down on him started with a screwdriver, and the image of him pressing it to his lips and blowing a kiss to the sky is still iconic. He built his weapons, from whatever scraps he could beg or steal, and by the second day it was clear to everyone that he had cobbled together an unbeatable advantage. He still might have gone down, if the Gamemakers had decided to level the field, but he played the audience with impeccable showmanship. The seventy-second Hunger Games would not have been half as entertaining without him.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but anything I don't know about," Shell Bell says. "Has he got anything cool hidden in his basement? Do you have infiltration abilities that would make you a useful assassin even now that everyone knows you can kill them? Have either of you brought any magic home from Milliways?"

sicaria
2013-01-21 09:23 pm (UTC)

"He has or could gain access to any technology created in District Three. Our father invented a third of it."

She pauses briefly, then says,

"It is likely that I could assassinate any one chosen target in the Capitol without difficulty. After that, the danger would increase."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 09:24 pm (UTC)

Bell thinks.

"I don't know a lot about how the Capitol works. Fortunately enough, I've never gone there," she says. "Tell me about it."

sicaria
2013-01-21 09:37 pm (UTC)

"There is no scarcity on the level of basic needs," she says. "Food and clothing and so forth are abundant. At feasts it is a common practice to induce vomiting periodically in order to make room for the foods one has not yet tried. The scale of wealth therefore measures differently. Money is power."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 09:38 pm (UTC)

"There is no scarcity as in it is free or as in everyone makes enough to buy as much of it as they want?"

sicaria
2013-01-21 09:43 pm (UTC)

"The latter," she says. "But the former is the effect their social habits try to portray. It's considered somewhat vulgar to speak of prices in direct, specific terms. And in fact things considered to be of negligible value are often given away as a display of status—to remind the recipient and observers that the giver need not consider the loss."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 09:44 pm (UTC)

"So someone with - say - a gambling addiction could go from Capitol to poverty. Could be a malcontent, and still have enough resources to move around, go places, hear things," Bella says.

sicaria
2013-01-21 09:46 pm (UTC)

"In theory, yes," says Sherlock. "I have not witnessed any obvious examples, but my view of Capitol life is not unrestricted."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 09:47 pm (UTC)

"What would be the problem after you assassinated one person? Would you be caught? Just suspected? Ushered home for your own safety?" Bell asks, changing tacks abruptly.

sicaria
2013-01-21 09:51 pm (UTC)

"It depends on circumstances. But suspicion is likely," she says. "Unfortunately I have had cause to point out to President Snow that I make a better assassin than a prostitute."

Can Bell extrapolate sufficient context from that? Sherlock rather hopes she can.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

Bell blinks and chews her lip.

"Has he told anybody?" she asks, without addressing the prostitute portion. "Because, he's a person. One person. I don't know yet if he'd be the best person."

sicaria
2013-01-21 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I cannot depend on any expected answer to that question," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Right. And you haven't brought home any magic." She chews her lip. "Have you got friends here who might help? I really am best when there's magic involved."

sicaria
2013-01-21 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately, no," she says, with another of her barely-perceptible smiles. "People seem to find me off-putting."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 10:13 pm (UTC)

"All right."

Bell thinks.

"...Can you convince me to trust you?"

sicaria
2013-01-21 10:17 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she says. "Regardless of my preferences I am a walking threat of violence and it is difficult to establish genuine personal relationships under those circumstances. My brother might have better luck."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 10:18 pm (UTC)

"He can convince me to trust him, or trust you? It seems like I'd be working with both of you."

sicaria
2013-01-21 10:22 pm (UTC)

"To trust him, and thereby to trust me. The two things are not separable."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 10:23 pm (UTC)

Bell is slightly skeptical, but doesn't voice that aloud. Tony isn't here, after all.

"Have you ever set up a consultancy? Like mine, only advertising your ability to separate people from their blood?"

Because the bar takes seashells, but her patrons mostly don't.

sicaria
2013-01-21 10:29 pm (UTC)

"I have not," she says. "Do you think it is a good idea?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Not everybody wants my advice. Most people want money, and some of them have magical trinkets they'll part with. And you've got your victor's village house, you can probably hide more stuff than I can."

sicaria
2013-01-21 10:32 pm (UTC)

"True," she says.

"Why did you ask if I could convince you to trust me?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Guess," says Bell.

sicaria
2013-01-21 10:42 pm (UTC)

"You also desire to overthrow the Capitol. If we were to combine our efforts we could each access resources otherwise closed to us. For example, I believe I access Milliways more frequently than you do, although I have not been doing it for as long. I also have the means to visit the Capitol, which you do not. On the other hand, you have evidently learned to make much better use of Milliways than I. You have a room here, you trade seashells for sustenance. And you are wearing a magical weapon as a hair ornament."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 10:44 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell sits back.

"How often do you come here?" she asks softly. "I barely - never more than once in six months. Once it stayed away for more than a year. I thought it was never coming back. That I'd grow up and think I'd imagined it. And how do you know about the shells and the stick?"

sicaria
2013-01-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Your accent tells me your district. Your hands tell me your occupation. I have previously observed the use of shells as currency. I know you have been using this place to obtain better nourishment than your usual standard, periodically throughout your life. As for the stick, its design is not suitable for its current use; it is clearly meant to be held in the hand. Magic wands are a staple in some worlds, and the aesthetic matches. I was not sure it was a weapon, but it seemed likely. You wear it like one."

She pauses.

"I encounter the bar on my own roughly twice a month. Tony is capable of summoning the door in one try out of three, discounting repeats on failure, which never work."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:02 pm (UTC)

"He can summon it?" splutters Bell. "I - I'd half live here if I could and it went and left me alone the entire year I was ten, I have sacks of shells by every door in town so I can stay here for weeks rationing them when it shows up and everyone I know thinks I'm some form of touched in the head because I pitch a fit if they move the bags and when it finally starves me out I have six months minimum to get along without, the only reason I haven't been flogged yet for poaching abalones is because my dad used to be a Peacekeeper, and you get it twice a month and he can summon it a third of the time. Kraken."

(The last word in that tirade is, in District Four, a curse word.)

sicaria
2013-01-21 11:08 pm (UTC)

"We only found the place after Tony's victory," she adds.

"Would it be a trust-establishing gesture if I put you on our tab?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:12 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks.

On their tab. On a rich, victor's tab.

"It would help," she says, because she's needy but she's not reckless.

sicaria
2013-01-21 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Then I will," she says. "Please do not bankrupt us."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:15 pm (UTC)

"What would do that?" Bell asks. "...I mean, I wouldn't actually put it past myself to live here for half a year. I love my parents but I don't miss them, not really. I just don't know if they'd have enough to eat if I weren't around."

sicaria
2013-01-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

"That, then, would depend on how much time your half year spanned for us. If our timelines are closely linked, and you live on the Bar's idea of unexceptional meals, I don't anticipate a problem. If you live here at six months to my two weeks, or make frequent extravagant purchases, there may be trouble eventually."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:34 pm (UTC)

"I usually get potatoes. With butter on them they're nutritionally complete, and at least they aren't clams," says Shell Bell. "And they're cheap. But that's when I'm trying to stretch one bag of clamshells as long as I can. And rationing my others to buy nonperishables to bring home and 'find on the beach, it must have fallen off a cruise ship, Mom' at... key moments."

sicaria
2013-01-21 11:40 pm (UTC)

"It is no longer necessary for you to live on buttered potatoes," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:41 pm (UTC)

Bell looks nostalgic. "First time I came here I was six and didn't know shells could be money. I asked the bar for 'food I could afford'. I have dreams about what she gave me sometimes."

sicaria
2013-01-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Evidence suggests that the bar enjoys providing people with food they will find both pleasant and nourishing."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

"She managed it." Bell sighs. "If your dad invented a third of the tech District Three has your family probably captured some of the proceeds, right? I never pay attention during the backstory spots during the Games, but. I suppose I sound like a hick."

sicaria
2013-01-21 11:47 pm (UTC)

"He spent it all," says Sherlock. "Tony has begun to make some of it back."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

Pause.

"What on?"

sicaria
2013-01-21 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Were you... sick?" guesses Shell Bell.

sicaria
2013-01-21 11:56 pm (UTC)

"In a manner of speaking. I was born Tony's identical twin," she explains. "That did not suit me. The kind of relatively subtle modification necessary to correct the dissonance is an unremarkable thing to achieve, in the Capitol. Our father had a friend from the Capitol who arranged the appropriate access, for a fee, of course. An increasingly exorbitant one. When he was finished with us, I was as you see me and the family fortune was largely his. We no longer consider him a friend."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Shell Bell. "Well. They did a very good job. I'm sorry your ex-friend is terrible."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:02 am (UTC)

"They did indeed do a very good job," she agrees. "I am probably the only girl outside the Capitol who can truthfully say her breasts were designed by an artist."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:03 am (UTC)

"Speaking of outside the Capitol. I've never seen anyone else from Panem here, and I do my very best to talk to everyone," says Shell Bell. "Even scary people who want to spend the entire conversation talking about how if we weren't in Milliways they'd like to drink my spinal fluid. Have you seen anyone else, besides Tony and me?"

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:06 am (UTC)

"I have not," she says. "Was that an example from practical experience?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:06 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I was nine. Creepy, ugly kraken, that guy. He didn't actually get any spinal fluid. Or any other fluid."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:08 am (UTC)

"Why spinal fluid," Sherlock muses. "Personal preference, or dietary requirement? Around here it can be difficult to tell."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:09 am (UTC)

"I think he was a human. Although plenty of folks just pass for it and aren't. I haven't had any luck getting superpowered aliens to come home with me. At least not yet."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:13 am (UTC)

"Have you met many superpowered aliens?" she inquires.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:15 am (UTC)

"A few. A surprising percentage of them speak English. A couple of the ones who didn't were telepathic, that was interesting."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:16 am (UTC)

"Yes, I imagine so."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:18 am (UTC)

"I hear that when me's are born where there's magic, we tend to have some. Not the world takeover kind. Just a defense. People are sometimes surprised when I tell them I can talk to telepaths."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:20 am (UTC)

"As far as I am aware, my alternates do not ordinarily possess magical powers. Although I believe at least one of them is a vampire."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:20 am (UTC)

"I heard of one of me being a vampire too. But it was third- or fourth-hand."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:28 am (UTC)

"I find it curious that we are both so oversupplied with other selves, when generally the people I meet here have few or none of their own."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:29 am (UTC)

"Maybe we're easy to produce. Or very likely to wind up interesting enough for Milliways. Or it entertains someone to put us together in a way it doesn't with most other collections of variants on a template," shrugs Bell.

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:30 am (UTC)

"I have frequently suspected that whoever arranges the movements of the front door does so at least partly for entertainment."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:31 am (UTC)

Bell looks like she'd dearly like to say something snide but doesn't quite dare.

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:32 am (UTC)

"Yes?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:33 am (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:35 am (UTC)

Sherlock observes her for another moment, then says,

"I see."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:36 am (UTC)

"I wonder if me's keep running things where they're from, not because we're power-hungry, but because we're just easily annoyed by how things are run and have - well, not counting me - decent luck."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:39 am (UTC)

"It occurs to me that your luck may have just improved."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:40 am (UTC)

"Because you can get me to the capital and I can point my stick at stuff?" Bell asks. "I don't think that alone will help. I need to know more, have a look at stuff, maybe talk to your brother about building some things."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:43 am (UTC)

"Naturally," says Sherlock. "Would you like to meet him?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:44 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but we don't know how the timelines work. And I can't really saunter into District Three. So unless he gets a lot of time off to visit shell-collecting clamdiggers on his Victory Tour..."
Edited 2013-01-22 00:46 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:50 am (UTC)

"I was thinking that I would leave you holding the door while I go and find him," she says. "It would not be long. Both the door and Tony are in our house."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:52 am (UTC)

"Oh, is that how that works? I suppose it must," muses Bell. "Okay."

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:53 am (UTC)

Sherlock stands up.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 12:55 am (UTC)

Bell goes with her to the door, and holds it.

sicaria
2013-01-22 12:56 am (UTC)

She steps out.

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:00 am (UTC)

When she returns, it's with someone much more... perhaps the word is ebullient... in tow.

"But you never meet anybody at Milliways, Sherry," he's saying as they turn the corner at the end of the hall, and then he spots Bell and smiles a smile that lights up his whole face, and hurries the rest of the way.

"Hi!" he says, offering his hand as soon as he's through. "I'm Tony."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:01 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell," replies - Shell Bell, letting the door go.

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:03 am (UTC)

"That's cute," he says, grinning. "So what's the deal?"

sicaria
2013-01-22 01:04 am (UTC)

"Bell has expressed a tentative interest in helping me overthrow the Capitol," says Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:06 am (UTC)

"Gotcha," says Tony. His friendliness doesn't exactly vanish, but it is definitely serious time now.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:08 am (UTC)

"But there's not enough to work with yet. I have a stick, and I don't think it's Capitol-overthrowing material, although it could be part of a plan to accomplish same," says Bella, leading them back over to her booth and sitting them down. She flattens her sign to the table so it won't be visible from across the room. "We need more stuff. Tech they don't have, magic nobody has."

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:16 am (UTC)

"We can have all the tech we want if I can figure out somewhere to put it," says Tony. "Our house doesn't have the tools to manufacture anything big, and the places that do are watched closely enough that even if they couldn't catch me lifting the merchandise, they could catch me covering my tracks. Plus transport is a problem. Less of one now that we've got the bar, but still, problem."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:18 am (UTC)

"What about little things?" Bell asks. "How are you at miniaturization?"

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:20 am (UTC)

"Pretty fucking good."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:21 am (UTC)

"I don't think there's a reason to prefer big stuff. Does your house get searched regularly or anything?"

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:22 am (UTC)

"Nope," he says with great confidence. "And I'd know."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:25 am (UTC)

"There you go. Build tiny things in the basement." Bell closes her eyes. "I know - very little about how technology works. I've learned a lot here, but it's all scattered from a thousand universes. I don't know what the state of the art actually is in Panem. Because they don't tell us. Because we don't need to know it to operate boats. What kinds of tiny things could you make in the basement?"

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:31 am (UTC)

"...Limited kinds," he admits. "Like I said, I don't have the tools. I can make tiny things that will blow up much bigger things. I can make tiny communication devices. I can make... I don't know, what do we need me to make?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"Communication devices and blowing-up things are good," Bell says. "We can start there. Can you make blowing-up things that can put themselves where they're told?" Pause. "Especially if free of the engineering constraint of having to make them blow themselves up without an outside source of ignition, because... I have a stick. And what kinds of tools do you need? If you're serious about this you should both set up consultancies in the bar like mine and see what you can trade for or buy."

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:36 am (UTC)

Tony glances down at the sign.

Then he says: "...Stick?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:38 am (UTC)

"Yes. A stick."

Bella sighs. In for a clamshell, in for a cowrie.

She pulls the stick out of her hair, and makes a wee flicker of flame appear at the tip.

"It has some serious range. I'd have to be within a few blocks and know something about where to aim, but I could set off an explosive with this, if it's the kind that explodes when on fire."

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:40 am (UTC)

"Nice stick," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:40 am (UTC)

"I like my stick. You can't have it. It took practice to make it do what I want and I'm lucky I live near the ocean."

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:43 am (UTC)

"Hey, you can keep your stick," he says, raising his hands placatingly. "I wouldn't dream of touching your stick."

sicaria
2013-01-22 01:44 am (UTC)

Sherlock snorts.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:46 am (UTC)

The flame goes away. Shell Bell puts her hair up with it once more. "If it were easier to use, it might make sense to a certain sort of mind to put it in the hands of someone with more freedom of movement than I have," she says. "But it's not. Anyway. Self-deploying explodey things? Yes or no?"

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:48 am (UTC)

"Easily if I had the right stuff," he says. "Not a chance if I don't. Right now I don't."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:48 am (UTC)

"What stuff?" Bell asks, predictably.

ferratus
2013-01-22 01:56 am (UTC)

"Depends what kind of self-deploying I want," he says. "Do we want flying or scuttling? Scuttling's easier, I could probably scrape that together without worrying anybody, but it's more limited. Flying means propulsion systems, which usually means some kind of fuel, which means controlled substances that I can't actually get from Bar and I know this because I've tried."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 01:57 am (UTC)

"You can't use, I dunno, booze as fuel? Because she does booze," Bell says. "Flying's better because it won't leave tracks but scuttling could work."

ferratus
2013-01-22 02:05 am (UTC)

"Flying can leave tracks, too, and sometimes they're a lot clearer," says Tony. "No way alcohol is an efficient enough fuel. I could probably... hmm, there are options. What do we blow up, anyway?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 02:06 am (UTC)

"I don't know yet. A map would help. Knowing more about the Capitol's inner workings would help. It's possible directly burning things down is a better idea anyway."

ferratus
2013-01-22 02:11 am (UTC)

"I can get you a map," Tony says easily.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 02:14 am (UTC)

"A good map? Not a pointless little tourist map or something out of a kids' book. Actually, I wonder if the bar has them." Bell gets up to ask.

ferratus
2013-01-22 02:15 am (UTC)

"She probably does," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 02:18 am (UTC)

Bell comes back with a crisply folded map. She spreads it out over her sign. It's kind of odd that Tony hasn't commented on the sign, but whatever.

"I can control a lot of fire with my stick," she says. "But only one... amount of it at a time. Anything requiring simultaneous strikes requires something else. And it would be a good idea to know what we want to leave standing. In terms of structures and in terms of structure. Who is pulling crap? Who is an ignorant patsy? Who is trying to help? That being a list of people in the Capitol in order from most-acceptable-casualties to least-acceptable-casualties."

ferratus
2013-01-22 02:21 am (UTC)

"Now that is something I can do," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 02:22 am (UTC)

"Can you? Good."

ferratus
2013-01-22 02:23 am (UTC)

"Most of them are ignorant patsies," he says. "Like, upwards of ninety percent. And then you have the ones who are pulling crap, which is most of the rest."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 02:24 am (UTC)

"Nearly nobody being decent?" sighs Bell. "Well. I guess that makes logistics easier, if there's just about no one it's a massive priority to avoid." Pause. "Are we on roughly the same page with casualties, here?"
Edited 2013-01-22 02:25 (UTC)

ferratus
2013-01-22 02:27 am (UTC)

"What page are you on?" he asks.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 02:34 am (UTC)

"I expect people are going to die," Bell says flatly. "I expect not all of them are gonna be personally responsible for the Games, or for policies related to public flogging, or for people in the Districts not having the vote. I expect that, since as of this time we are all humans with extremely limited resources compared to the bad guys, we will be off our game one day and somebody who really oughtn't be dead will die - somebody we like or somebody who happens to be twelve or somebody who would've gone on to cure salt fever. And I expect we ought to do what we can do anyway, because if we wait for someone else to do it, that amounts to betting that the next revolution will not only succeed, and will not only be less bloody than ours would, but that it will come quick enough for this difference in death toll to make up for every person in every District who'll die in the interim of the Games or of starvation or of terrible medical care or of casual execution."

ferratus
2013-01-22 02:37 am (UTC)

Tony exchanges a look with Sherlock.

"Believe me," he says, "we get it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 02:38 am (UTC)

"So," says Bell. "Pages, similar, yes. Okay." She turns her attention to the map.

ferratus
2013-01-22 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I mean, not that I wouldn't love to do this without killing anybody we don't wanna kill. But unless we have seriously superior force, the real world doesn't work that way."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 05:40 pm (UTC)

"But," Shell Bell says, "the more superior the force, the faster and more surgically we can work. So I think you guys probably want to set up signs for assassinations and custom engineering projects. And acquire stick-equivalents of your own if you can."

ferratus
2013-01-22 05:44 pm (UTC)

"The kind of custom engineering I do best, if I sell it to the wrong people it could actually give us worse collateral than trying to run our revolution on a shoestring budget," says Tony. "So: yes, but very carefully."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Right. You both wanna pick customers carefully. I'm not so picky. I think talking to me usually cuts casualties in the worlds of whoever I'm consulting. Even if they aren't nice people, the ones whose priority is being not-nice don't want my help in the first place. We can coordinate, maybe, if I get people who could be running things cleaner with some precision stabbing or explodey trinkets."

ferratus
2013-01-22 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Now that sounds like a plan," says Tony.

sicaria
2013-01-22 05:50 pm (UTC)

The phrase 'precision stabbing' actually causes Sherlock to smile slightly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 05:53 pm (UTC)

"And," Bella says, "comm devices could come in handy here. I'm happy to just live in Milliways for months now I'm not running down a supply of shells that I could get away with leaving by whichever door and the ones I can carry on my person. If I find somebody, I can stick my head out the door and call you, if we have those. And then you can try for a door-summoning, yeah? If the timeline works out. I'm not so sure how that works. I hear all kinds of stories but I've never found anyone else from Panem here before. So I haven't been able to compare."

sicaria
2013-01-22 05:54 pm (UTC)

"The most obvious question is, when are you?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-22 07:09 pm (UTC)

"July ninth, year 72," says Shell Bell. "It was early morning, if that matters. I found this instead of the hall when I opened my bedroom door. Tony's supposed to start his Victory Tour next week."

ferratus
2013-01-23 02:57 am (UTC)

"Sounds about right," says Tony.

sicaria
2013-01-23 02:58 am (UTC)

"Yes," Sherlock confirms. "This time at least, we are within a few hours of one another."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 03:08 am (UTC)

"Are our districts even in the same time zone? Actually - forget districts - Four spans two all by itself. I'm in the earlier one. And... what does this imply about us being able to contact each other again? If you leave and I stay here, even for a solid six months - when I come out it'll still be July ninth, early morning. You won't have time to find the place again. Unless you will. I've seen people enter and leave several times, when they come often enough and it's one of my longer stints, but me being here doesn't do anything to time passing in their worlds. For that matter, I'm not clear on how Sherlock appeared here when I've already been on the premises for two days. Ugh. I've been coming here for twelve years. Actually, I spend so long here that it might add up to more like thirteen by now. And I still don't get this sort of thing."

sicaria
2013-01-23 01:23 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure anyone does," says Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-01-23 01:24 pm (UTC)

"I'll be right back," says Tony, and he gets up and heads over to the bar.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Shell Bell. "We can experiment and make tentative conclusions, provided we don't expect them to hold every time. But it would be really convenient if we had a way to communicate in Panem, too. Especially since it's otherwise going to be hard to coordinate service sales. In theory I can take down room numbers and Tony can leave whatever he makes as an inter-room package for the next time the customer reappears. I don't think assassinations can be made to work the same way. Do you do anything else?" Bell asks Sherlock. "Anything... portable."

sicaria
2013-01-23 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Solve difficult mysteries," she says. "Although I am not sure that is especially portable, either."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 04:31 pm (UTC)

"It could be, if at least one of us manages to meet the person more than once and collect lots of portable evidence the second time - photos of places? Articles by unreliable reporters? What can you do with that sort of thing gathered by not-you?"

sicaria
2013-01-23 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I have never tried. It is a habit of mine to find out more than I'm meant to from whatever information is left in my path."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Well. We can try it, advertising results-not-guaranteed and all. You're comfortable enough with the assassinations idea in the first place that I gather you aren't scared to go to other worlds."

sicaria
2013-01-23 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I am not, no. Should I be?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I am," says Bell. "I never have. I don't know how long it would take me to get back or what I'd do in the meantime."

sicaria
2013-01-23 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I see what you mean," Sherlock acknowledges.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 04:56 pm (UTC)

"But," Bell shrugs, "you're probably better at operating in unfamiliar environments than I am. If nothing else, you can beat people up and take their stuff. I can only do that if I want to set them on fire. And that's pretty extreme and doesn't work as a harmless threat anywhere that doesn't commonly have magic wands, and hence people who can counter my stick. And you could expect to find a door sooner."

Bell is still a little upset about that. She scuffs her foot on the floor in a halfhearted kick.

sicaria
2013-01-23 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But I suppose it also matters why one might be visiting another world in the first place, and the trustworthiness of one's escort."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I haven't found anyone who I trusted that much yet. To also let me go back, anyway. It would probably have been easy to find an acceptable person to outright adopt me when I was little and cute. And they'd have tried to make sure I never went back to my parents, for my own good. Because Panem's no place to live." She shrugs. "It's even possible they would've been right, but I avoided going anywhere else from visit one."

sicaria
2013-01-23 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Wise."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. What's Tony off getting?"

sicaria
2013-01-23 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Parts," says Sherlock. "It seems our conversation has inspired him somehow."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Bella.

sicaria
2013-01-23 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Expect something useful to come out of it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I will. I'll be terribly disappointed if he just makes us celebratory hats."

sicaria
2013-01-23 06:28 pm (UTC)

—She laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Unless they're useful celebratory hats," acknowledges Bell.

sicaria
2013-01-23 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Unlikely. But possible."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 06:40 pm (UTC)

"They could be hats of invisibility," suggests Bell. "That would be very useful indeed."

sicaria
2013-01-23 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately, I don't believe he has the means."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Oh well. I guess we'll see."

Bell retrieves her marker and adds to her sign. Other services may be outsourced, subject to cooperation of Milliways.

sicaria
2013-01-23 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Should we list the other services, I wonder?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so. If clients have strong opinions about how they want to conduct their world takeovers or whatever, they might start lying to me to get me to call you or Tony in. Then I can't evaluate cost-benefit correctly or even give the best advice. Most of my business isn't directly from word of mouth but it's not negligible."

sicaria
2013-01-23 07:53 pm (UTC)

"A valid point," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Besides. I haven't met any others of me personally, but I've met folks who live under their empires. I think they're mostly... not the sort to call in assassins. Not as an advertised service, anyway. It can't help if my parallelism is doubted."

sicaria
2013-01-23 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I see."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 07:58 pm (UTC)

"They build pretty utopias and style themselves Empress. Sometimes there are Emperors too. There is at least one Princess. Which is weird to me. At this time I'd consider accepting any risk of having children unconscionable. I guess it might be different if I lived in a pretty utopia."

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Most things are."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:01 pm (UTC)

Bell chuckles.

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:02 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:03 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why I've never met one of me. I bet if I met one, she'd help."

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps that is why."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:04 pm (UTC)

"You think Milliways or whoever... pilots it... disapproves of overthrowing the Capitol?"

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:05 pm (UTC)

"They might. Or they might find it less entertaining if you had imperial help."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:05 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell makes a disgruntled noise.

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:06 pm (UTC)

Sherlock shrugs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:18 pm (UTC)

"What is it like?" Bell asks, folding her arms on the table and putting her chin on them. "Having money, I mean, and enough food that isn't clams for every meal forever and salmon most Tuesdays and Fridays."

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Relaxing," she says after a moment. "Fewer things to worry about."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:27 pm (UTC)

"It sounds it. I haven't been exactly worried since I built up my stash of nonperishables. Even after I started bringing them to Lynnis's family occasionally too. I'm not likely to run out. But I still have to spend so much time on the clam boat and poaching to get a reasonable baseline of calories on the table."

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:29 pm (UTC)

She has to ask.

"Why do you go back, besides scarcity of clamshells?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:31 pm (UTC)

"My parents would wonder where I'd gone," she said. "If I just never came back. I don't think Panem would pause in eternal stasis if I just never came back. They would worry. They love me. And they eat the clams too. I'm a net positive calorie source."

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I was wondering if the cause might not be better served by your coming to live with us," she explains.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:42 pm (UTC)

Bell blinks at her.

"After I... fake my death? Pretend to try to run away to Atlantis? Magically obtain a relocation visa? It's a good idea if you're willing. But I don't know how to explain to my parents. Or make sure they get fed. I think they'd get by, but not... simply."

sicaria
2013-01-23 08:44 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

"Parents are not my area of expertise."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 08:52 pm (UTC)

"If we lived in Eight, Tony could stop there on his tour and announce that he wanted to spend a staggering amount buying a dress for you or something and hire Ranae. But we don't. It would be weird to go to Four and ask for a dress there after having passed through Eight. And having access to the Capitol, more to the point. And Ranae isn't even very good at making clothes from scratch. She does more in repair." Shell Bell chews her lip. "Actually, I shouldn't be worrying so much about the food part. On your tab - if you don't mind - I could buy a big old chest full of cans and bags of things, say I found that on the beach, and trust them to sort it out. The question is how I then slip away."

She sighs. "Maybe it would actually work best to fake my death. Then the question is how to get me to your place when I can't count on Milliways to appear for me anytime soon after I pretend to drift out to sea."

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Certainly something of a logistical problem."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Rather. Is there a way to stow me on the train when the Victory Tour comes by? He'll skip Three until the end, so it won't be the next stop, but..."

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps that can be arranged."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't live in the town near the train stop, but it's walking distance. And I can leave a note for my parents telling them that I'm making a try for Atlantis and when I don't come home they will think I got eaten by a kraken and they will be upset, but they won't worry any further."

It occurs to Bell that people outside of District Four may not know Atlantis-related lore. "Some people in my District think there've got to be other countries besides Panem in the world. Especially since the Capitol bothered to put, supposedly but I've not personally met them, actual kraken mutts patrolling a ways out. Though those could just be to prevent anyone from stealing a boat and trying to live out at sea permanently. We call all the possible other countries Atlantis."

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:29 pm (UTC)

"What a fascinating notion," she murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:33 pm (UTC)

"It might be necessary for me to steal someone's canoe," Bell muses. "And push that out so it can drift back in later, empty of Shell Bells." She sighs. "This is not going to make Ranae and Shark happy, not in the least, but I can un-die when we're all done, if everything goes all right - and if everything goes pear-shaped I can slip away to the multiverse at the next opportunity without worrying further about them."

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:35 pm (UTC)

"I believe that is a solid plan."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So a day before Tony's due to arrive, I leave a note, swipe a canoe - that'll be easy, I can melt the lock off the shed and bury it - push it off, make for the train stop, and - what is the plan for getting me onto the train? Are you allowed to travel with him? Will he and I have to figure it out ourselves? How obnoxious is his prep team and escort and mentor and so on? Were you his mentor?"

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:43 pm (UTC)

"I was his mentor," she says, which answers multiple questions at once. "His prep team and escort love him and fear me. I will find you if you are there to be found, and convey you to our compartment."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll leave that end of it in your hands. I would like to know what happens if I'm caught, though, so I know how quickly to start setting things on fire."

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I will try intimidation first," Sherlock says dryly. "I am very good at it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Good enough that they won't promise compliance and then go home and tell their spouses, or their friends, or Caesar Flickerman's friends...?"

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Not if you are caught by someone who expects to ever see me again."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:50 pm (UTC)

"And that is everyone on the train."

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:54 pm (UTC)

"It is likely to be."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:55 pm (UTC)

"All right then."

Bell smirks. "But first, let's hang out here for a while and see if we can get anybody to give us a teleporter."

sicaria
2013-01-23 09:56 pm (UTC)

"A splendid idea."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 09:57 pm (UTC)

The sign is sitting there so enticingly, after all. "How long are you and Tony likely to stick around?"

sicaria
2013-01-23 10:07 pm (UTC)

"At least until Tony is finished... whatever it is Tony is doing," she says, glancing around to see if he can be located from here. He cannot.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:09 pm (UTC)

"How long does he usually take to make... stuff? Of the sort that he will suddenly decide to make at the bar."

sicaria
2013-01-23 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Variable. It shouldn't be more than a day, unless he is somehow distracted."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Cool," Bell says admiringly. "If you don't mind - I think everyone who's looking has had a chance to see this sign now, so I'm gonna put it down and prowl around talking to recent arrivals." She pauses. "Actually - do you want to mind it for me? I can put up a back soon note on a bit of card and you can call me over if anyone looks interested."

sicaria
2013-01-23 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I would be happy to."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" Bell obtains a bit of card, writes Up and about - back soon - consult my colleague with requests, puts the sign back up and props the note on a blank part of it, and goes a-wandering.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 10:28 pm (UTC)

How 'bout him?

Over by the lake door, tucked into a booth, sorting an improbably large jar of jelly beans into a number of small bowls by some impenetrable algorithm that definitely doesn't take colour as a primary feature in any straightforward way.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:29 pm (UTC)

Bell does talk to everyone. Even if they look like they might be spinal-fluid-drinking types.

"Hi," she says politely. "I'm Shell Bell. Panem, Earth, year 72 by our count and something else by everyone else's. Who're you?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 10:33 pm (UTC)

He chuckles.

"We-ell," he says, tipping his head to one side (no makeup today, but smudges remain here and there) and smiling. "You're familiar, is what you are."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh, have you met one of me?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Called herself Bella," he says. "Empress of something-or-other. Cute boyfriend. Didn't like it much when I fucked him."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:39 pm (UTC)

Bell blinks. "I - do most people? Like it when you do that?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 10:41 pm (UTC)

"What, fuck their boyfriends? I don't do it that often."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay. You don't remember what she was Empress of?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... some kinda magic empire?" he hazards.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I think most of me are empresses of some kind of magic empire."

manofmyword
2013-01-23 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, this one's the one who's dating a younger, prettier me. That narrow it down any?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I haven't met any of them personally. I only hear second- and third- and fourth-hand."

Bell briefly considers being squicked by the idea of having sex with one's own alt, but then decides there's no particular reason to.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 10:49 pm (UTC)

"So what're you empress of?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm not Empress of anything."

Bell contemplates the fact that she's currently plotting the violent overthrow of her nation's government.

"Today," she continues.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Atta girl."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 10:53 pm (UTC)

Bell laughs. "You still haven't told me who you are."

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:01 pm (UTC)

"If you tell people you met the Joker," he says, "they'll know who you mean."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Shell Bell, "so is that you telling me that if I want to know about you, I should stop talking to you and go ask someone else?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Nah, not at all. Want a jelly bean?" he offers.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:04 pm (UTC)

Bell has never had a jelly bean before. They don't... exactly... look like food. An hour ago she wouldn't have turned down anything that might be food. At this moment, she says, "What are they made of?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Sugar, mostly."

He picks one out of a bowl—electric blue—and pops it in his mouth.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Mostly?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:07 pm (UTC)

"They taste like all different stuff. Some good, some bad, some just weird."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:08 pm (UTC)

He's probably not going to poison her. Milliways frowns on that sort of thing. "I'll try one if you're offering," she says.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:09 pm (UTC)

He gestures invitingly to the selection.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:11 pm (UTC)

Bell takes a red one.

She pops it into her mouth. She's not really sure if she's supposed to chew on it or not, so at first she doesn't. It's... weird. Sorta fruity, though Bell's ability to identify fruits is not what it would be if she'd had more dietary variety. But it tastes like sugar, mostly, and sugar, mostly, is good. "Interesting," she says, after going on to chew it and having dispatched it completely.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:12 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins at her. It's quite friendly, considering.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," she adds.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Y'welcome," he says affably.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:15 pm (UTC)

"So my template is famous for becoming Empress of assorted magical empires," Bell says. "If I ask people about the Joker will they know I mean you specifically, or are there lots of you by that name who've got a reputation for something?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I've only met the one of me, and he went by Alice. Haven't heard of any others. Could be, though."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:16 pm (UTC)

"So why will they know who I'm talking about? Are you just here a lot?"

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:18 pm (UTC)

"If they've heard of me, they'll know, and if they haven't they won't," he says reasonably.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:19 pm (UTC)

Bell's becoming less interested in this conversation now. If she were still nine, she'd be hanging around and keeping him talking and throwing manipulative looks at the jelly beans. That was years ago. "Well, yes. I think that's how that works."

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I usedta be famous," he adds, taking another jelly bean and repeating the inviting gesture. "Back home. You meet somebody from Gotham, two thousand eightish, they'll tell you all about me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:23 pm (UTC)

"What did you do?" Bell asks. She takes the jellybean. She hasn't been on the Starks' tab long enough to obliterate her instincts that say yes, carbohydrates, take. "I don't think most people in other worlds get famous the way it's customary to in Panem."

And this conversation has begun to interest her again so she sits down.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Mmm. Well, there's a lotta ways I could tell that story," he says. "You the squeamish type? Bet you're not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm not," Bell agrees. She's pretty sure no one from Panem who doesn't actually faint during the Games broadcasts is "squeamish" by normal standards. She gets woozy around blood, but only in person - it's the smell, not the sight of it.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Didn't think so."

He takes another jelly bean, invites her to have some more again, and settles back a little on his bench.

"The really short version," he says, "is I'm a retired terrorist. But I think you'd rather have the details. Am I right?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

This is, as of recently, relevant to Shell Bell's interests.

manofmyword
2013-01-23 11:43 pm (UTC)

"There was this girl, y'see," he says. "And I guess she thought there were too many criminals in Gotham—mind you, she mighta been right—and she decided what they really needed was the hell scared out of 'em. Worked out fine as far as that goes. After the first coupla times she swooped in on a drug deal and beat everybody half to death, they were sure as fuck scared, lemme tell ya. But some of 'em were mad, too."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-23 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Bell says, trying to figure out if she's supposed to imagine a rogue Peacekeeper or maybe a member of the fictional United Panem Defenders.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:09 am (UTC)

"Some of these people decided—well, I say decided, I might've had a little something to do with it—anyway, they hired me to kill the lady. She had 'em by the balls, see; they couldn't make any money with her wrecking their operations from here to Sunday. Heh."

He delicately picks another jelly bean out of the bowl in front of him. This one is blood red.

Crunch.

"Buuuut I didn't really wanna kill her," he says. "I just wanted her attention. I got it, too. We chased each other around the city a couple times, she got me in a police interrogation room and roughed me up some, I detonated a friend'a mine and left... oh, it was loads'a fun."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:11 am (UTC)

"It sounds like... an adventure," says Shell Bell diplomatically.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:15 am (UTC)

"Oh, it was," he says with a nostalgic smile.

"Didn't last, though. I blew some more stuff up; she threw me off a building and then turned me over to the cops." He dusts off his hands.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:17 am (UTC)

"Oh." Well - he's not an Avox. He looks like he could've been flogged, maybe more than flogged, but he doesn't sound like that would stop him. What is it other worlds usually do? "And your prison has enough doors in it that you can come here sometimes?"

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:18 am (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "I started coming here in my dreams, the night she caught me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:19 am (UTC)

"I've never heard that one before."

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:20 am (UTC)

"Her majesty hadn't either. Guess I'm just special."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:20 am (UTC)

"I guess. So you're technically there now?"

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:22 am (UTC)

"Nope," he says again. "Her majesty didn't like my style, so she found somebody to take her to my world for a bit and she put me on a little asteroid all by myself."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:24 am (UTC)

Bell blinks.

"...Because her boyfriend cheated on her with you?" she asks skeptically. That doesn't sound like her, let alone like the utopia-building versions of her with magic whose citizens tend to have such nice things to say. "Or because you were going to blow up more things from inside prison?"

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:25 am (UTC)

"Well, I was gonna get out first."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:26 am (UTC)

"Oh."

Yeah, she could see doing that.

Bell doesn't even know enough about astronomy to ask how he can live on an asteroid. She is vaguely aware that asteroids are in space.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:29 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Kinda lonely up here, but she gave me some neat magic toys, so I don't starve or get too bored. And every so often, this place shows up. That's always fun."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:29 am (UTC)

"That's good, then," says Bell.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:31 am (UTC)

"So," he says, "how do people get famous where you're from?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:32 am (UTC)

"They go on television and outlast twenty-three other teenagers in a deadly arena, usually by killing at least some of them," says Bell. "There are other ways that I guess are more common world to world - other television, some books, some music. But most celebrities do that first."

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:34 am (UTC)

"Sounds like my kind of game," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:36 am (UTC)

"You're too old for it, or I'd take you through my door and suggest you volunteer and some kid could stay home and live."

Bell says this as one of the kids who got to stay home and live.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:37 am (UTC)

"You see any of me the right age, you make an offer. They'll love you for it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:38 am (UTC)

"I will," says Bell earnestly.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:41 am (UTC)

"Thanks." He smiles. "You're a sweetheart."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:42 am (UTC)

"Well, it helps that if I bring a terrorist home, there's some people I'd be willing to aim one at," Bell says, shrugging. "I have to overthrow a government."

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:44 am (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," he says cheerfully. "I didn't get into that much when I was younger, though. Teenage me mostly whored around and stole stuff."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:46 am (UTC)

"That is also fine if he's stealing from people I don't like," says Bell serenely. "They have a lot of stuff."

Then she moves on to something she does generally ask after a long enough friendly conversation.

"I'm trying to collect any magic trinkets or neat tech that I couldn't get at home. Do you have any? I mean - you're in space - so maybe not, but I ask everyone."

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:49 am (UTC)

"Mm, not unless a shotgun's big news to you," he says, shaking his head.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:50 am (UTC)

Bell thinks.

"I can't easily get a gun at home," she admits. "They exist but I can't casually lay hands on them. Does it need special ammo?"

manofmyword
2013-01-24 12:56 am (UTC)

"Not special to me. Probably special to you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 12:57 am (UTC)

"Then that depends on what you want for it." Pause. "It would depend on that anyway, but the threshold changes if it's only got a fixed supply of ammo."

(Tony can probably cannibalize it for parts, but that's not something she has to bring up in negotiations.)

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:04 am (UTC)

"Tell you what," he says musingly. "Why don't you come upstairs and see what I've got?"
Edited 2013-01-24 01:04 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:05 am (UTC)

"You said you've got a shotgun," says Bell. "Is there also lots of other stuff?"

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:07 am (UTC)

"Some guns, some knives," he says. "I don't have much use for 'em these days, I just collected them because I could."
Edited 2013-01-24 01:07 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:09 am (UTC)

"Can you at least give me a ballpark of what you'll want to trade? I don't have a standard complement of resources and a number of people have things they're willing to part with but don't want anything I can give them."

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:11 am (UTC)

"I haven't," he says with a slow smile, "decided yet."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:12 am (UTC)

"Oookay," Bell says. "Usually I dispense advice on taking over the world, but I get the impression that the object you live on is already all yours." She gets up, prepared to follow him.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:15 am (UTC)

"Yep!" he says, scoots out of his booth, and leads her toward the stairs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:19 am (UTC)

Up she goes. She hopes he's not going to proposition her. That happens sometimes and it's always awkward.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:26 am (UTC)

He does seem a little bit flirty, doesn't he?

Well. Only one way to find out.

When they arrive at his room, he opens the door and leads her inside.

It is a godawful mess.

There are, in fact, guns lying around; most of them are on the floor, between piles of discarded clothing. There is a sewing table shoved up against the wall, and a half-sewn dress suspended in the act of falling off it. It's very pretty, if you like red.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:27 am (UTC)

Bella's room is so much tidier than this it's hard to believe both of them occupy the same dimension.

"Yep," she says. "Those look like guns."

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:34 am (UTC)

"Mhm," he says, and perches on the one small part of the edge of his bed not covered by an enormous tangled blanket monster (this being the only place in the entire room to sit down), and regards her thoughtfully.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:35 am (UTC)

Well, if he's not going to answer her question about exchange rates yet, she'll carry on beholding scattered objects.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:40 am (UTC)

"You don't scare easy," he observes. "Do ya."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:41 am (UTC)

"You told me you had guns," Bell points out. "If I came up to your room and there weren't any guns I would be thrown into sudden uncertainty about your motives. Why would there being guns that you told me about that I voluntarily came to shop for scare me?"

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:44 am (UTC)

"Maybe I'm losing my touch."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:45 am (UTC)

Bell spreads her hands. "Maybe. Have you decided what you want for 'em yet?"

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:48 am (UTC)

He reaches down t the floor, grabs the promised shotgun, and offers it to her grip-first.

"You can have it if you shoot me with it," he says. "In fact, you can have all of 'em. Anything you want outta this room."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:49 am (UTC)

Bell takes the gun, and looks at it. (It is currently pointed at the ceiling. She has watched Peacekeepers handle guns.)

"That's weird," she says, "but if you're serious, I'll go ask Bar if that'd bother her."

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:50 am (UTC)

"She doesn't mind as long as everything's consensual," he says. "But suit yourself."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:52 am (UTC)

Bell puts the gun down and runs down to ask Bar.

Bar says why, if he asked you, I cannot imagine why my opinion ought to matter.

Bell goes back up. "D'you care where? I probably have terrible aim. But you're not really far away so I can probably be at least approximate," she says, picking up the shotgun again.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 01:55 am (UTC)

"Nope."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 01:56 am (UTC)

Shotguns scatter, right? She's probably safest aiming for a leg.

She aims and sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and mentally reviews her memory of the last several minutes to make sure she's not hallucinating the request or Bar's acquiescence. She pulls the trigger.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 02:26 am (UTC)

Shotguns do scatter, yes. This one, given what it was loaded with, a little more so than usual.

The Joker... giggles. It doesn't sound quite right. It usually doesn't, mind you, but it also usually doesn't have that bubbling undertone to it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 02:27 am (UTC)

Bell determines that he's not going to be helping her collect any further guns.

"This place isn't... booby-trapped or anything, is it?" she asks, pointing the gun back at the ceiling. She's going to have Tony look all the guns over.

manofmyword
2013-01-24 02:29 am (UTC)

Still laughing, he shakes his head.

She is, of course, welcome to disregard this information as suspect.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 02:36 am (UTC)

It's suspect enough that she picks around the room carefully, but she does pick her way around. She collects seven assorted guns, boxes of bullets (and other ammunition) and powder, and some of the more portable knives - she's no good at knife-fighting, but Sherlock sure is, and they have utility applications.

She also takes some of the fabric. One folded sheet of strong, shiny stuff that she just plain likes. She re-folds it so it's longer one way, and wraps it around herself and tucks everything but the guns into it so she can have her hands free for those.

Several of them are small. She tucks those in the makeshift sarong too, pointing away from herself and down - she doesn't know how to unload them, that's going to be Tony's job. The longer ones she carries in her arms. "Thanks," she says, not sure if he can still hear her. "Uh, good luck with being full of bits of metal."

manofmyword
2013-01-24 02:39 am (UTC)

There is no response. Even the giggling stopped a while ago.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 02:42 am (UTC)

She doesn't really know what happens to dead people in Milliways, but Bar didn't say "it's okay as long as he lives through it", she is not this guy's personal friend, he said the Hunger Games sounded like his idea of a good time, he has to have loaded the thing or at least known what was in it... yeah, she can't think of any good reason to dwell particularly on the fact that he may be dead. Lynnis is dead because of her too. Is there a meaningful first here? Maybe. Maybe not. She's got stuff to give Tony.

(Lynnis would have volunteered in place of anyone - she was up that year - and this guy would probably have gotten someone else to shoot him if Bell had turned him down. This analogy makes sense to her.)

Bell goes down to stash the swag in her room - she can invite the twins to see it later - and goes to check in on Sherlock, who has been left with her sign for some time now.

sicaria
2013-01-24 02:54 am (UTC)

"No takers so far," says Sherlock. "Who did you kill while you were gone?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 02:56 am (UTC)

"He said he was called 'the Joker' and he seemed enthusiastic about his proposed deal of me shooting him and taking his stuff. He's weird. You think he's dead? He could've just passed out from what I saw."

sicaria
2013-01-24 02:58 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure of it," she says. "But you smell like a lot of blood and don't have very much on you. That suggests someone was doing a great deal of bleeding close by."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 03:00 am (UTC)

"Well, I have seven guns and accessories for Tony to take apart and cannibalize or improve, now. And some knives. And a pretty bolt of fabric that let me get it all down the stairs in one trip. And I guess now I know I can maybe-kill a guy, at least if he literally hands me a shotgun and asks nicely."

sicaria
2013-01-24 03:04 am (UTC)

"A good start, all in all," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 04:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah. For certain values of 'good', I guess. Tony's still working?"

sicaria
2013-01-24 12:25 pm (UTC)

"So I assume."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Unless you're bored and wanna switch places I'll make another excursion, then."

sicaria
2013-01-24 04:44 pm (UTC)

"I am not bored."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Bell cheerily, and off she goes in search of someone else she hasn't talked to yet. Who's shown up in the past hour?

pythbox
2013-01-24 04:50 pm (UTC)

Well, there's that girl sitting at the bar who's a little older than Bell, bears a passing resemblance to her actually, and has an impressive and incongruous war hammer hanging from a braided leather belt around her waist. The rest of her outfit is pure twenty-first-century Earth, but those two things look like they came out of a century rather earlier than that one.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 04:52 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell squints at her. She doesn't think this is an alternate, but maybe they're related or something - she's never met anyone who claimed to be related to one of her, either. No, probably this is just someone who happens to be pale and brunette. "Hi," she says, sitting next to her. "I'm Shell Bell. Panem, Earth, year 72 by our count, something else by everyone else's. Who're you?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Darcy," she says, with a friendly smile. "New Mexico, Earth, 2011. What's up?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you, Darcy! My life back home is actually pretty dull" (so far; and Bell doesn't like to bring up 'please give me stuff' this early) "so I just talk to everyone when I get here to compensate. Your hammer is nifty. Doesn't look like the sort you build houses with."

pythbox
2013-01-24 08:51 pm (UTC)

"My hammer is the niftiest," she says, patting it fondly. "It's magic, and from space."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I like both magic and space! Tell me all about it," says Bell.

It looks like the sort of thing that is not mass-produced. Especially if being "from space" is a relevant property. But its details could suggest things about what else there might be to be had.

pythbox
2013-01-24 08:58 pm (UTC)

"It flies and shoots lightning," Darcy says smugly. "And it has a cool name I totally can't pronounce, but it doesn't mind if I call it Mewtwo."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 08:59 pm (UTC)

This reference does not register at all with Shell Bell. "It flies around? By itself? It can mind things?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Technically not by itself," she says. "But yeah, there's like... a very, very small number of people who can pick it up. And giving it a dumb nickname didn't take me off the list, so I think I'm good."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Do you let people try to pick it up if they ask nicely?" Bell asks.

pythbox
2013-01-24 09:33 pm (UTC)

"All the time," she says, grinning. "But not off Bar, 'cause that would be mean."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Is it staggeringly heavy to everyone else, including Bar, or something?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 09:38 pm (UTC)

"She says it's uncomfortable," Darcy says with a shrug. "And if I put it down on her and something happened to me, it'd be stuck there until another hero came along."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 09:38 pm (UTC)

"That's fair," says Bell. "Heroes? That's the criterion?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Kiiiind of?" says Darcy. "To be totally honest, I'm still not sure exactly how it works. Like, there's plenty of heroes who can't pick it up. But if somebody can pick it up, they're definitely a hero."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 09:43 pm (UTC)

"So you... do heroing," Bell says.

Maybe they can just outsource the whole thing? Or parts of it?

"Lots of heroing?"

Ulterior motive is creeping into her voice now.
Edited 2013-01-24 21:46 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-01-24 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm kind of a trainee hero?" she says. "It's complicated. There was this huge fire-breathing robot, and my buddy's" (she pats the hammer) "old wielder couldn't lift it anymore, and I could, so I kicked the robot's ass, because what else do you do, right? But I'm not actually a trained warrior" (the word seems a little uncomfortable on her, like she can't figure out how it's supposed to fit) "or anything. So if something comes up that seriously needs a bolt of lightning to the ass, I'll get it done, but I'm not gonna go looking for trouble until I'm sure I can handle it. You know?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Bell. "You're sure about that? I... live in a pretty shitty world."

pythbox
2013-01-24 09:57 pm (UTC)

Darcy looks warily intrigued.

"...What kind of shitty are we talking, here?"
Edited 2013-01-24 21:58 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:02 pm (UTC)

"The part that gets most people's attention is the fact that, annually, two dozen disadvantaged teenagers are forced into an arena with some combination of environmental hazards, genetically engineered animals, and other variously lethal props to fight to the death on national television," says Bell. "But more people - including more kids - tend to die of various other problems related to economic inequality and the side effects of totalitarianism. The only reason I look reasonably well-nourished is because I have been coming to Milliways since I was six and trading byproducts from the job I've been working since age eight for nonperishables to bring home with me. The only reason I didn't have to try my luck on the TV show is because my District has a system to train selected kids for the games and arranges for them to volunteer and spare whoever gets picked in the lottery."

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Holy shit," says Darcy. Without her quite meaning to, her right hand drops to the hammer. She deliberately unwraps her fingers from the handle and flattens them against her leg.

"Okay, so that is really shitty," she says, "but I think it might be a little above my pay grade. I mean, there's all these epic poems where the lone hero goes up against the army of whatever-the-fuck, but in reality the lone hero had an army of his own and half of them died. I hate to say this, but I might have to give you a rain check at least until I graduate from lady warrior school and maybe until I can bring some friends."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm currently planning to overthrow it in a guerrilla warfare slash terrorism campaign with two people who won their Games and whatever magical or technological trinkets we can beg, borrow, barter, or buy here."

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:17 pm (UTC)

'Terrorism' makes her wince.

"Well, if something comes up that you could use a half-trained thunder-thrower for, and that... doesn't involve terrorism directly, because I'm pretty sure I'd lose my Mewtwo license... sign me up."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:18 pm (UTC)

"How much range and how much lightning are we talking about? And what counts as terrorism to Mewtwo?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:21 pm (UTC)

"I haven't actually tested the range on the lightning yet," she says. "I'm gonna, though; my boss has her eye on a nice empty patch of desert. And, uh, when I asked Thor how much lightning I could summon if I had to, he said 'Enough'. Haven't proved him wrong so far."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:24 pm (UTC)

Bell takes it that Darcy doesn't know what counts as terrorism. "We don't have a plan yet, and unless your range is more than a couple blocks I think we may have a comparable item already acquired - different stuff, similar effect - but if I think of a place you'd be useful and I see you again, I will let you know. I don't like to sound like I'm begging, but I am: have you got anything on you other than the hammer that you'd part with that a group of Panem teenagers are likely to have trouble finding? We're selling advice on taking over the world, because my alts tend do to that and I seem to be heading that way myself, and also custom engineering projects from Tony." She doesn't mention the assassinations. Mewtwo probably wouldn't like assassinations.

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Nuh-uh," she says regretfully. "The hammer's pretty much it as far as my fancy shit collection."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Might not be fancy to you. I have a little audio recorder that I think probably cost pennies where it came from. I'm not kidding about the economic equality. I mean, I have seen Tony Stark engineer things on TV, that's how he won, but it cannot hurt to give him things to take apart and figure out and soup up."

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:32 pm (UTC)

...Darcy double-takes.

"Whoa, okay, back up. Stark? Tony Stark? Tony Stark is an ex-gladiator in your world?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:33 pm (UTC)

"...Yes? Why, do you have an alt of him? He and his twin sister were consecutive winners, her first. What's his alt do? Does he ever come here?" Bell asks, leaning forward intently.

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:38 pm (UTC)

"His alt is uh, kind of a massive dick? Also an only child, like, as far as I know. And kind of a superhero. Well, he made this big famous speech on national TV about how he's totally not a superhero at all, but he flies around in a robot suit defending the nation, so. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, as far as I'm concerned. Which I'm pretty sure is where he was going with that, because the guy has an ego the size of Texas."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Mine seems very friendly, not at all dickish. He's about my age, though, how old's yours? And did yours build his own robot suit? Because if so, that does sound like an alt, not a name collision."

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:40 pm (UTC)

"He's... I think in his thirties? Definitely built the suit, yeah."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I'll tell Sherlock to warn her brother to not become a dick in his thirties," says Bell. "You don't know if he comes here? Actually, how many 'superheroes', or technically-not-superheroes, do you have flying around saving people from things? Some of them have to have finished lady warrior school or the equivalent, yes?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Um... Tony Stark's really the only superhero I'd say we've got," she says. "Unless you count me. But I don't count me. I only really heroed the one time."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Will you go anywhere if I go ask Sherlock how her brother takes to being interrupted while working and then, depending on her answer, bring him back to meet you, or return alone, or possibly bring Sherlock if you sound interesting to her?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 10:48 pm (UTC)

'Sherlock' makes her blink, but hey, she's heard weirder.

"Nah, I'm sticking around for a while anyway," Darcy says agreeably.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Great! Back, accompanied or not, soon." And towards her sign she goes.

"Sherlock, met a lady with a magic space hammer that she cannot lend out and is not fully trained to use, but she knows an alt of Tony - in his thirties, only child - who has built himself a suit of armor and makes it his business to fly around saving people from things. How does Tony take to being interrupted while working?"

sicaria
2013-01-24 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Tolerably well. Would you like me to fetch him?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes please. Do you want to meet the magic space hammer lady, as well?"

sicaria
2013-01-24 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Tempting," she acknowledges.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:55 pm (UTC)

"All right. I'll put the sign away in my room for now, then."

sicaria
2013-01-24 10:56 pm (UTC)

"And I will find Tony," she says, getting up from the table.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 10:57 pm (UTC)

They relocate each other after sign has been put and Tony has been got. Bell leads the way to Darcy!

"Darcy, Tony and Sherlock Stark," she says, "Panem versions. Tony, Sherlock, this is Darcy, she of magic space hammer."

sicaria
2013-01-24 11:00 pm (UTC)

Sherlock studies Darcy closely.

ferratus
2013-01-24 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so what's this about another me?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:05 pm (UTC)

Darcy is mildly uncomfortable with Sherlock's scrutiny!

"Wow," she says, staring at Tony. "You're like a walking, talking embarrassing high school photo."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Embarrassing high school photo?" Bell asks. She has learned not to continue such confused inquiries into guesses like "there is a photography school on a mountain that people are embarrassed to have gone to?" because that generally gets her laughed at.

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:16 pm (UTC)

"A photo of somebody from when they were a teenager, that they're embarrassed about because they're not a teenager anymore," she says. "Except that when Stark was your age he was in grad school, which is like, two schools higher than high school, because he's mega smart."

ferratus
2013-01-24 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I am not surprised," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:18 pm (UTC)

"You didn't say if you know whether he comes here or not," Shell Bell prompts Darcy.

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Not a clue, I never met the guy."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Then how did you come by your evaluation of his personality? People say all kinds of things on television." Pause. "I mean, I guess yours wasn't trying to collect sponsors so he wouldn't die? But even on the other channels I don't think everyone's like that when they get home."

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Because nobody can be that much of a dick on television and a great dude in real life? I mean, the guy's led a pretty public life, you can kind of tell the persona has some basis in reality."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Oh." Shell Bell glances at Tony to see how he's taking this.

ferratus
2013-01-24 11:30 pm (UTC)

Tony is mildly disconcerted! But only mildly.

Still: "This is weird," he volunteers.

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:30 pm (UTC)

Darcy snorts. "Yeah, tell me about it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:32 pm (UTC)

"If we could meet one of my alts that would solve everything, probably, they tend to be magical empresses of stuff," Bell huffs. "But we'll take what we can get. Do you have any way of getting in touch with the Tony in your world? Would he believe you if you told him about Milliways? Could you hold the door long enough for him to show up and check it out next time you find it?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Iiiii, you know what, I probably could get in touch with him," she says. "I'd have to go through Coulson, but he's an okay dude. Kinda busy though, so it might take a while. Especially if I have to prove Milliways to him first. Iron Man's pretty all-American, though, so I'd keep a lid on the T-word around him if I were you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:35 pm (UTC)

"The T-wo- oh. Okay. Is 'guerilla warfare' okay?"

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, probably."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Probably hard to formulate a plan otherwise. I know a smattering of things about America, but if you want me to understand the relevance of that explanation you will have to tell me."

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Terrorism is a bad word around here because some guys flew a plane into some culturally significant buildings ten years ago and everybody's still mad about it," Darcy summarizes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:40 pm (UTC)

Bell decides not to comment that this is an interesting use of a plane and if she ever gets her hands on a plane she will consider it!

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, there was a whole thing. Lots of dead people, a couple increasingly pointless wars, more dead people, depressing all round. Don't do that," she adds.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I am not in favor of pointless wars," Bell says, managing not to sound like she's carefully omitting things.

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:45 pm (UTC)

"And I hope you're not in favour of killing innocent people, either, because if you are then we can't be friends," Darcy says mildly.

ferratus
2013-01-24 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm not in favour of killing innocent people," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Killing innocent people is to be avoided whenever feasible."

Technically the guy she shot wasn't innocent. Also the asking part probably changes something.

pythbox
2013-01-24 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I can probably take that," says Darcy. "But like, just so you know, I literally can't help you if it gives me weird feelings in my moral place. There's a whole hero thing. And if you lie and make me do something that's actually really bad, I have to kick your ass. The magic space hammer says so."

ferratus
2013-01-24 11:51 pm (UTC)

"...Wow," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-24 11:54 pm (UTC)

"The magic space hammer mostly does lightning. We can already do fire under what seem to be similar parameters, and my stick has no conscience," Bell says, mostly to Tony and Sherlock. "And Darcy isn't through hero school yet. Given this, placating the magic space hammer is not our top priority unless for some reason we want an external, enforced moral babysitter. We can use our own ethical guidelines and our own evaluations of the situations. We do not have to trick anyone into anything."

sicaria
2013-01-25 12:08 am (UTC)

"So noted," says Sherlock.

pythbox
2013-01-25 12:11 am (UTC)

"I would love to help," says Darcy. "But them's the breaks."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 12:13 am (UTC)

"It's all right," Bell says.

She's glad her stick has no conscience, though.

pythbox
2013-01-25 12:19 am (UTC)

"If I see you again in a couple years when I'm properly trained and stuff, and you have a use for me and Mewtwo that we're okay with, count me in," she adds.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 12:20 am (UTC)

"That's very kind. In the meantime we would probably benefit from the attention of anyone else in your world with things magical, space, or technologically shiny who is disposed to help."

pythbox
2013-01-25 12:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah, like I said, I'll see if I can talk to Stark," she says. "And maybe some Asgardians, but they're not really guerrilla warfare types, and they've got their own shit to worry about."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 12:25 am (UTC)

"We're open to non-guerilla forms of revolution. We just don't have the personnel for it."

pythbox
2013-01-25 12:26 am (UTC)

"Then I'll see if I can get Sif and the boys interested."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 12:27 am (UTC)

"Fair warning, the shitty government has much better tech than we can get our hands on until and unless Tony has lots of parts and time. I'm not sure how it compares to yours."
Edited 2013-01-25 00:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-01-25 12:30 am (UTC)

"To mine, it's probably better. To Asgard's? Well, they made the magic space hammer," she says. "They walk around with spears and axes and shit like that, but I'd back Sif against a SWAT team any day."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 12:54 am (UTC)

"Okay, if they can make stuff with consciences then they can probably do okay against the Capitol as long as the Capitol doesn't come down on them too hard."

pythbox
2013-01-25 12:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah, you'd hope," she agrees. "Anyway, good luck with the revolution. I hope you hit the jackpot and get some allies who can wipe the floor with your evil totalitarian regime."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:01 am (UTC)

"I'm hoping so!" Bell says. "Or at least some gadgets that make it easier to do it cleanly ourselves. Or cheat, I'd like to cheat. I don't want to have to fight armies of Peacekeepers. My dad used to be a Peacekeeper until he screwed up his knee."

pythbox
2013-01-25 01:02 am (UTC)

"I am totally on board with cheating," says Darcy.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:06 am (UTC)

"It's the best," Bell agrees. "And if Milliways cooperates it is one of the best possible ways to cheat. Anyway. Anything more to cover here - Tony, more questions about your alt, maybe? - Sherlock, am I missing anything?"

ferratus
2013-01-25 01:10 am (UTC)

"It's weird having an alt who's a superhero," Tony volunteers.

pythbox
2013-01-25 01:10 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Darcy, "I'm hearing that."

sicaria
2013-01-25 01:11 am (UTC)

Sherlock shakes her head.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:19 am (UTC)

"Time to go set up the sign again?" Bell asks Sherlock. "And Tony, I wanna know what you were working on."

ferratus
2013-01-25 01:25 am (UTC)

"Communication... thingies," he says vaguely. "More of a challenge than I thought; the size and the power don't wanna match up, especially not when I add in encryption."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:27 am (UTC)

Bell blinks.

"Audio communication thingies?"

ferratus
2013-01-25 01:29 am (UTC)

"Yep. Why, is that bad?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:31 am (UTC)

"No. It's good. I just wish I'd mentioned this sooner."

Tucked into Bell's pocket - much more surreptitiously than the stick - is her recording device. She takes it out and holds it up. It's got a cheap plastic casing - which leaves it pleasantly waterproof - and six buttons.

ferratus
2013-01-25 01:42 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Tony. "What's it do?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:46 am (UTC)

"Records, searches, and plays back audio," Bell says. "I leave it on whenever I am alone, and then I talk to it, and I leave it on whenever I'm at Milliways. It's got enough space to record continuously from when I got it to when I'm a hundred, assuming I live that long. It's restricted to respond to my voiceprint."

ferratus
2013-01-25 01:50 am (UTC)

"Shiny," Tony says approvingly. "Got a backup?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:51 am (UTC)

"No. I only have this. The guy who gave it to me didn't have any spare disks," says Bell, shifting uncomfortably. "It's very reliable. And waterproof and shatterproof."

ferratus
2013-01-25 01:52 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm gonna make you a backup," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:53 am (UTC)

"Can... you do that... and be absolutely sure you won't break it? All my - all my everything is on there. Which is why it is good to have backups but also why it is bad to break it."

ferratus
2013-01-25 01:55 am (UTC)

"I trust me not to break it when I'm being really careful way, way more than I trust random chance not to break it sometime in the next hundred years," Tony points out.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 01:58 am (UTC)

"Okay. But be really careful. I think it's cheap junk where it came from. It works so well because it's easy for that world to make stuff work well, not because they were trying."

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:23 am (UTC)

"Trust me," he says, smiling with trademark Stark confidence.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:24 am (UTC)

Bell squirms.

But she gives him the recorder.

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:25 am (UTC)

"You wanna come hover over me while I work on it?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:27 am (UTC)

"Would that affect the likelihood of you breaking it?" Bell wonders. "If you don't like being watched or it'll make you liable to slip, then I won't. But I don't want to go talk to people while I don't have it on me to review the conversations later, either. So yes, all else equal."

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:29 am (UTC)

"It won't make a difference as long as you don't distract me right at a critical moment or throw stuff at my head or whatever," he says, "and I bet you won't do any of that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:29 am (UTC)

"Okay. Where are you working?"

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:30 am (UTC)

"I got a room, I'll show you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:31 am (UTC)

Bell is shown. She watches. Nervously.

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:34 am (UTC)

Tony opens up the recorder, oohs and ahhs at its inside parts, makes a quick run to Bar to get some stuff he didn't have on hand, disassembles the communicators he was working on, and builds Bella two backup drives with equal storage capacity to her recorder that are compatible with its existing backup function.

All in all, it takes him two hours.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:35 am (UTC)

When he seems done, she says, "Do they have what the original had on it, or not?" Pause. "Oh. And thank you. Thank you so much."

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:37 am (UTC)

"Not yet," he says. "You'll have to do that part yourself; I can't touch the data without your authorization. The encryption tricks in this thing are flat-out sexy, I'm definitely stealing them."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:37 am (UTC)

"The guy who gave it to me taught me to use it, but he didn't include an instruction for making backups. Do you know what I have to say to it?"

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:43 am (UTC)

"'Back up'," he says, "conveniently enough. And you already know how to specify a data set."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:45 am (UTC)

"It'll be able to find the ones you made? Okay." She pushes the button that means she's talking to it, and not just talking, and says, "Back up from first entry to last entry."

Her recorder whirs. A little green light goes on.

Bell beams and spontaneously hugs Tony.

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:46 am (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwwwww.

Tony hugs back!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:47 am (UTC)

"Thank you. My entire brain practically lives in this thing."

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:50 am (UTC)

"And now you have three of it," he says. "Keep one close by and one somewhere safe and synchronize them every so often, and let me know if I need to make you a new one."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:52 am (UTC)

"I will," she says, letting him go at length. "I think I'll leave one in my room here, which is safe if not always particularly accessible - though more so soon, assuming we follow through with Sherlock's plan of me moving in with you and I can just slip through your doors sometimes."

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:53 am (UTC)

"It's a good plan," says Tony. "I like that plan."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:54 am (UTC)

"I'm still sort of hoping we find a way to cheat massively before I go home and write a note to tell my parents I'm running away to Atlantis and stow myself on your train."

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:56 am (UTC)

"Cheating massively is a better plan," he agrees. "It usually is."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 03:57 am (UTC)

"Yep."

She picks up her recorder. She pets it. She also picks up and pets the backups. She puts them all in her pocket.

ferratus
2013-01-25 03:59 am (UTC)

That is terribly adorable.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 04:01 am (UTC)

It rather is, isn't it?

Bell realizes this only after she puts the last one away, and then she looks embarrassed. "I got into the habit of doing small, visibly eccentric things at home," she says. "The 'some kind of touched in the head' reputation works for me. And here people are never from home and don't know if it's normal for me to pet things or talk to myself or eat my potatoes counterclockwise."

ferratus
2013-01-25 04:01 am (UTC)

"Well, I think it's cute," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 04:02 am (UTC)

Bell doesn't seem to know what to do with that information!

ferratus
2013-01-25 04:03 am (UTC)

"Let's go find Sherry," he suggests after a moment.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 04:03 am (UTC)

"Okay." She leads the way, tracing a line on the wall with her fingertips as they go.

sicaria
2013-01-25 04:05 am (UTC)

Sherlock is minding the sign. No takers yet, apparently.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 04:05 am (UTC)

"I have backups," Bell says cheerfully.

sicaria
2013-01-25 04:15 am (UTC)

"Congratulations."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 04:16 am (UTC)

"I guess I'll make another circuit. I appreciate you manning the sign for me."

And off Bell goes, looking for more people she hasn't investigated yet.

She talks to four, three briefly and one with interminable rambling. None produce anything she's interested in; the first and third don't even let her get far enough that she asks. She swings back by the sign to look in on Sherlock.
Edited 2013-01-25 17:08 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 05:12 pm (UTC)

There is someone reading the sign just as Bella walks up.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Hello," Bell says, smiling brightly, sitting down, and plucking away the away notice.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 05:14 pm (UTC)

"What exactly do you advise people about?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Taking over the world, usually. One person was only interested in a town. On several occasions I've adapted to fit my advice to fit things like taking over corporations instead, handling uninhabited islands that can be colonized from scratch without any native competition, keeping one's own mindscape orderly, and a world takeover plan that would be suitable for novelization."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Fascinating," says the stranger. "Was that a metaphorical or metaphysical mindscape?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm not entirely sure. I wasn't invited to visit it. But my guess is on the latter, since anyone so keenly interested in the advice is probably not dealing with metaphor."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 05:24 pm (UTC)

"How about criminal organizations," she says. "Any of those?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Not so far, but I'm happy to try," says Shell Bell.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," she says speculatively, and then smiles.

"Oh, where are my manners. I'm Elizabeth."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell," says Bell. "My alts usually go by Bella and wind up as magical space empresses of one sort or another."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Impressive resume," says Elizabeth. "But no magical space empire of your own?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Not yet. I'm working on it. No magic native to my world, you see, I have to get it here - that's the sort of thing I trade advice for."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 05:47 pm (UTC)

"What other sorts of things do you trade advice for?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Interesting technological devices - interesting relative to what I can get at home, not relative to what the customer has. Sometimes money, when the aforementioned are unavailable. Right now we could also use suitably qualified allies or advice, as we're in the process of attempting to take over my world at a resource disadvantage."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 06:01 pm (UTC)

Elizabeth looks intrigued.

"What kind of disadvantage?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 06:07 pm (UTC)

"You name it," says Bell darkly. "Let me put it this way: the government we're planning to overthrow hasn't encountered a hiccup of significant-scale resistance from the parts of the country where we live in the last seventy-two years despite routinely kidnapping kids our age and younger and killing most of them for the entertainment of the viewers back home."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Harsh," says Elizabeth.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Rather. And of course there are the other effects of malicious totalitarianism - the only reason I'm reasonably confident about the lack of rebellion is that Bar will loan me archives of Capitol newspapers, not just the District Four Gazette, and there aren't any prolonged, suspicious 'resource shortages' that I'd expect the media to cover for unrest with even there. You can see why we'd like the Capitol in question to go away."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Completely," she agrees.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Do you," Bell says, all smiles, "need advice about a criminal organization?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Probably not," she admits. "But I might want to get your perspective anyway, just for fun."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 06:41 pm (UTC)

"What's fun worth to you?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Highly variable."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Can I get a range of examples, maybe?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Well, let me put it this way," she says. "If I want to give you whatever has the most value to you at the least cost to me, I need to know more about the kinds of things you take in trade."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 08:21 pm (UTC)

"In the past, when it's not just straight-up money? Magic wand," says Bell. "Audio recording device and instructions on how to use it. I took water purification tablets once but I wouldn't find more of those specifically useful. A nifty little bag that I'm not sure if it's magical or just high-tech. I've been optimizing for objects that are small, because I've needed to hide them, but that will be less important going forward."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 08:38 pm (UTC)

"And let's see... what would constitute a suitably qualified ally?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 08:40 pm (UTC)

"The last person I asked bills herself as 'a hero' and carries a magic space hammer," Bell volunteers. "You'd need to have something exceptional for humans to make up for unfamiliarity with our world, I think, or just be a fantastically quick study."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 08:43 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't intending to be the ally in question. But I could probably find you one or two," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 08:43 pm (UTC)

"That would be worthy of a finder's fee in the form of my undoubtedly entertaining advice," Bell says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I think that sounds like a fair deal."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Lovely. Suitable allies are anyone who's willing to come to Panem for a while and help us and who stands a chance of actually doing so. We're currently in planning stages, which might not last longer than the time I spend here but that could be months Milliways time. We'll build a plan around what we find here."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I have someone in mind already. As a bonus, it's going to piss off my fiancé tremendously if he ever finds out."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 08:49 pm (UTC)

"...Pissing off your fiancé is a bonus?" Bell asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes, yes. In fact it was a crucial component of getting engaged to him in the first place."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 08:51 pm (UTC)

Bell is curious about that but doesn't want to ruin anything by prying more than she has. She settles for looking puzzled.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I follow, but it's a peripheral matter, so I wasn't going to inquire."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Inquire away. He's actually part of the criminal network story, albeit peripherally."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't plan to even think about causing the existence of my love life until after I have taken over the world, because Panem as-is is no place to get too attached to people. But I'm led to understand that engagements don't usually involve the kind of antagonism you're describing."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 09:13 pm (UTC)

"My fiancé thrives on antagonism. He's the predatory type; you have to give him something to hunt down and kill or he loses interest. Metaphorically speaking."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:14 pm (UTC)

"And you're planning to annoy him by inviting your staff to assist another world's revolution and thereby encourage him to hunt down and kill... whom, exactly?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Me, of course. And not my staff; his former boss's kids."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:21 pm (UTC)

"What do his former boss's kids do that's liable to be helpful?" Bell inquires.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 09:24 pm (UTC)

"One of them builds missiles. The other one solves mysteries and kills vampires."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:25 pm (UTC)

Bell blinks slowly. This wouldn't have registered as special a few hours ago, but now she glances at Sherlock, and then says, "What are their names?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Tony and Sherlock."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:27 pm (UTC)

Bell decides to see if Sherlock wants to react to that one, first.
Edited 2013-01-25 21:27 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-25 09:28 pm (UTC)

Sherlock reacts with mild amusement.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:28 pm (UTC)

"What, you don't want to introduce yourself?" Bell asks Sherlock dryly.

sicaria
2013-01-25 09:31 pm (UTC)

"She has known my name since she first saw me. Haven't you," she says to Elizabeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Not quite. The Sherlock I know is a boy. I had to do some translating first."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:32 pm (UTC)

Bell laughs. "Well. I think Sherlocks and Tonies are probably useful enough that having two of each couldn't hurt. I don't suppose I look familiar?"
Edited 2013-01-25 21:33 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Elizabeth.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Pity," grumbles Bell.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I've never met one either, but I've heard a fair amount about my template and its variants secondhand, and we tend to be empresses with considerable magic power to throw around. Lucky me, I get born in a world with no magic."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 10:32 pm (UTC)

"There's magic in mine, but no global empires. That I've noticed."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you don't have one of me," shrugs Bell. "Or she's too young to have taken over yet."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," she agrees. "I'll keep an eye out."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Uh, be nice to her," advises Bell. "We are by all accounts good at running worlds. People tell me this even when it's clear I'm not an empress and don't have magic and won't smite them for being insulting, so it's not just nervousness talking."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 10:39 pm (UTC)

"I'm not keeping an eye out just so I can have her assassinated."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Do you routinely have people assassinated?" inquires Bell neutrally.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Not if I can avoid it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 10:42 pm (UTC)

"That's good then. What time frame are we looking at for borrowing your Sherlock and Tony, may I ask? Is this a lean-out-the-door-and-yell, or a hope-we-run-into-each-other?"

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 10:58 pm (UTC)

"More the latter. First I have to convince them to be interested. I'm afraid Sherlock doesn't like me very much."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 10:59 pm (UTC)

"You'll have to tell him about this one and her Tony. And also about how very terrible a world he'd be helping to fix," Bell says. "I hope that would at least help."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Oh, he'll be fine once I explain it to him. It's getting him to listen in the first place that's the trick."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Try Tony first? If he likes you better?" suggests Bell.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 11:11 pm (UTC)

"And that would be the trick."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough," laughs Bell.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 11:27 pm (UTC)

Elizabeth chuckles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Until next time, then, or do you want some fraction of your entertaining advice up front?" Bell asks.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Hmmm... until next time," she decides.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-25 11:32 pm (UTC)

"All right. Here's hoping we see you later," Bell says pleasantly. "It was lovely to meet you. Best of luck with minimal-assassination crime."

prima_sequentem
2013-01-25 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," she says, smiling, and off she goes.

ferratus
2013-01-26 12:15 am (UTC)

Time passes. Tony finishes his communicators.

He hands one to Bell, explains its functions, collects Sherlock, and goes home.
Edited 2013-01-26 00:15 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 12:21 am (UTC)

Bell stays in Milliways.

Sherlock told her she didn't need to live on buttered potatoes anymore. She doesn't splurge ridiculously, but she eats two - then three as she becomes accustomed - meals a day, and after a couple of weeks, she adds a dessert. She keeps scrubbing tables, because otherwise she'd have to move to a regular room; it doesn't take up much of her day and she can do it while she's still groggy after waking up in the morning. She reads. She watches video of things. She records hundreds of conversations of various levels of interest. She sits by her sign ten minutes of every hour. And she collects things.

When she finally peels herself away, not daring to let herself fill out any more lest her parents notice the combination of age and weight gain before she can run off to "Atlantis" and stop worrying about them, it's been four and a half months Milliways time.

She scans her recorder back to re-listen to everything she told it the day before she found Milliways, so she won't make clumsy mistakes with words like "yesterday".

She buys a crate that looks like it could have fallen off a cruise ship. She fills it with canned goods that look like they could occupy such a crate. And she buys a little bottle of sand to sprinkle on it because she's not going to have a chance to conceal this item's origin at the actual beach.

She opens the door, and lugs the box after her into her bedroom.
Edited 2013-01-26 03:28 (UTC)

on a train

she_sells_seashells

Bell turns over the crate to her parents. They believe her about finding it on the beach. They open one can to celebrate, and then Shark very sensibly insists that the rest of it be stored until it is needed.

The next few days, leading up to Tony's victory tour's stop in Four, see her ferretting out her remaining stash and distributing it between her parents and Lynnis's family until it's all gone. They're assuming a ship lost a lot of merchandise at once. Bad weather, one assumes.

She stops replacing her shells by the doors. But she does show up to work, until the day before when she has to leave. Then, she fakes sick enough to stay home, spends the day sleeping, and - at night - is rested enough to execute her plan.

Dear Mom and Dad.

I'm going for Atlantis. It's okay! I have a plan! I'll come back and get you when I can and then we can all live there. Please tell Mr. Carrasen I'm sorry about the canoe. I'll bring him a new one after I get there! I love you! It's going to be great!

- Shell Bell

...the idea, after all, is to instantly convince them that she is dead. That she is too foolish and unprepared to have any chance. That there is no point in worrying about her any further, and they should move directly to grieving - certainly not wasting time looking for her or reporting her as a missing person. The fact that she's not swiping any of the cans and only one water container - is not even bringing a fishing rod - is another clue, of course.

Shell Bell wears her nice dress - it'll attract less attention in the town than work clothes, on a Victory Tour day where everyone's supposed to celebrate, and the town in question is big enough that her mere unfamiliarity won't catch her out immediately. She packs one more practical change of clothes, sticks her stick in her hair, and puts one salty roll in her pocket to eat at around midnight and a few strips of dried salmon to nibble on as necessary through the walk. She's also wearing the less remarkable-looking of the two protective amulets she traded for during her stay in Milliways. It looks like a lump of white glass - it could even pass for sea glass. The other stuff she obtained is waiting for her in her room in the bar.

She melts the lock on the canoe shed and buries it deep in the sand. She drags out a canoe. Briefly, she considers actually canoeing to the next town up, but while she knows how to row like any District Four resident does, she's worried about being noticed on her way in, and it'll be easier to avoid that if she's not in the place where all the actual industry goes on, namely the shore. She pushes it out to sea regretfully. Saltwater spatters her dress, but it dries as she goes.

She talks to her recorder in the dark silence.

And just before dawn peeps over the ocean, she's picked her way through the sleeping town to the train station and she's pretending to be a premature, eager celebrator.

ferratus
2013-01-26 12:53 am (UTC)

The train pulls into the station far earlier than the itinerary would indicate, and Tony gets off it with a minimum of fanfare, bringing only Sherlock. He's been doing this the whole tour, because of course no one in the Districts is going to hear about him doing it at the previous stop. And he likes the quiet; it gives him time to gear up before all the speeches. Since he's been exquisitely well-behaved the whole time and is the quintessential crowd-pleaser, not to mention perfectly punctual, the crew are happy to indulge this little quirk.

Of course, no power on Earth will possess anyone but Sherlock and the train operator to be up this early.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 12:54 am (UTC)

Bell waves! Hi Tony! (If anyone is watching, she still looks like a premature celebrator, waving at the celebrities she is there to celebrate.)

ferratus
2013-01-26 01:04 am (UTC)

Tony grins and waves back, because he's Tony Stark and that is how he works.

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:05 am (UTC)

Sherlock smiles indulgently and takes a few steps away from Tony to scan the area.

The coast, so to speak, is clear. She beckons Bell onto the train.
Edited 2013-01-26 01:06 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 01:07 am (UTC)

Up Bell gets. She trots forward. "Hi!" she says, in a whisper.

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:12 am (UTC)

"Good morning," she murmurs back, and leads Bell through the silent train to her room. After some initial shuffling, Sherlock has ended up with the back half of the very last compartment, Tony with the front half of same. Everyone else on the train is no end of pleased that this means they can sometimes go hours without seeing her, if she stays back there with the door shut.

ferratus
2013-01-26 01:14 am (UTC)

Tony follows.

"Okay, so brilliant plan," he says, opening the door between Sherlock's room and his.

"...Would have been to tuck you away in Milliways and come get you when we get home, but apparently today is not my day. I'll try again in a few hours."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 01:14 am (UTC)

"That's the amount of time it takes not to count as a retry?" Bell asks, peering around in fascination.

ferratus
2013-01-26 01:16 am (UTC)

"Pretty much," he agrees.

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:18 am (UTC)

Despite the fact that she had no influence on the decor, the space is still very... Sherlock. Pretty in an understated way, but ultimately functional.

One thing she did do, however, is close the steel shutters on every window. They have been closed the entire trip. She can't sleep somewhere with a transparent window; everyone who knows her knows that.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 01:20 am (UTC)

"Where are we stashing me in the event that Milliways refuses you several times in a row?" Bell asks. Because these rooms are designed to hold one person apiece.

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:22 am (UTC)

"Here," says Sherlock. "I have discouraged the rest of them from ever entering my room under any circumstances."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 01:25 am (UTC)

"Okay." Bell can sleep on the floor if she has to. The clam boat has been caught out in weather a few times and she's had to sleep on it. "That sounds useful. So as long as we're unsupervised..." She picks up the lump of glass. "I got some things. This is one of them; everything else is in my room at the bar. The guy I traded for it and the other, flashier one says it doesn't do anything overtly magical - it's like a defensive luck charm. I've been tripping less since I got it, is all I've noticed, but I haven't been doing anything physically dangerous either."

Bell trips a lot. Less, since she developed sea legs - dry land is comparatively simpler to navigate - but still a lot.

This is much of the reason she was flunked as a possible Career, when she went to the testing camp at age four.

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:28 am (UTC)

"Well," Sherlock says thoughtfully. "That is... interesting."

ferratus
2013-01-26 01:29 am (UTC)

"I better get out there," says Tony. "Gotta do the early morning routine. Sherry, you coming?"

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:30 am (UTC)

"When do I not?" she says, smiles over her shoulder at Bella, and follows him out.

The door, once closed behind her, looks comfortingly solid from this side. That is an illusion, but it's a nice one, isn't it?

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 01:31 am (UTC)

Bell stays put. Is there a TV in here? She wonders if she could have it on very quietly and get a live feed of the exterior goings-on.

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:34 am (UTC)

There is!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 01:35 am (UTC)

She does!

ferratus
2013-01-26 01:38 am (UTC)

And there's Tony, soon enough: expressing his heartfelt condolences for Four's tributes, whom he remembers by name, and then making the crowd laugh twice and flirting with an old lady in the front row.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 01:39 am (UTC)

Aww.

ferratus
2013-01-26 01:47 am (UTC)

He makes it look effortless. Spontaneous. Sincere.

It isn't really.

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:47 am (UTC)

Eventually, the show is over and Sherlock returns to her room.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 01:48 am (UTC)

Bell flips the TV off; it's now advertising shoes. "Hi again," she says. "You've got really good stage presence. Is it terrible?"

ferratus
2013-01-26 01:59 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Tony, and opens the door to his room, and gives it an annoyed look, and walks back through it and closes it again.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:00 am (UTC)

Bell looks at her knees. "I shouldn't have asked that, huh?"
Edited 2013-01-26 02:01 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-26 02:02 am (UTC)

"I don't believe it had an effect on his mood either way," says Sherlock. "He is always like this after public events."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:04 am (UTC)

"I can't even imagine it. I was only up on stage for a minute, and even when I was panicking I didn't really expect Lynnis to defect, and then they make him talk about it a dozen times. And he manages to look like it's not even hard."

sicaria
2013-01-26 02:08 am (UTC)

"Tony is very good with that sort of thing," says Sherlock.

Bell may remember Sherlock's own victory tour, which was marked by flat affect, stilted apologies, and being whisked off the stage in a hurry.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:10 am (UTC)

Bell does remember that. She doesn't remark on it, though!

sicaria
2013-01-26 02:12 am (UTC)

After a moment, she adds, "I am not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:13 am (UTC)

"I saw," Bell says.

sicaria
2013-01-26 02:15 am (UTC)

"But then, I don't believe anyone expected me to be."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:17 am (UTC)

"It didn't really fit with any part of the image you projected before that, no."

It didn't really hit Bell, in the bar, that she was talking to Hunger Games victors, except long enough to ask Sherlock not to kill her. Now she is in the train, and Sherlock and Tony continue to exist, and, yes, they are victors and she is in their train.

sicaria
2013-01-26 02:19 am (UTC)

"Pretending to be clumsy and incompetent before my Games began was the extent of my acting ability. Emotions are more difficult."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:21 am (UTC)

"I really am clumsy. It's a good thing, too, or I might have been picked at Career camp and I would have been in Tony's Games."

sicaria
2013-01-26 02:23 am (UTC)

"What would you have done, if Lynnis had not stepped up?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:26 am (UTC)

"I had my stick. Assuming I didn't get a chance to escape into the arena, most of the other tributes' mined platforms would have gone off in rapid sequence before we were allowed to move, I would have fled with no supplies into the arena, and anyone I ran into would have died of internal burns that I'm sure would look very strange on an autopsy report. And then I would have never, ever come back the next time I found a door."

Pause. "That's if I actually had to go. If Lynnis hadn't stepped up, the seventeen-year-old Career girl in training would have socked her in the nose and volunteered and the girl Four Careers would have been a year younger than they're supposed to be until we hit a cohort that had two - they put in occasional backups for that in case one dies or defects."
Edited 2013-01-26 02:28 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-26 02:33 am (UTC)

"A sound plan," says Sherlock. "Particularly the part where you flee the universe afterward."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Or, you know, before, if given the opportunity. I wouldn't want to kill twenty-three people who didn't want to be there any more than I did."

sicaria
2013-01-26 02:39 am (UTC)

"Yes," Sherlock agrees.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 02:39 am (UTC)

"Sorry," says Bell, looking away.

sicaria
2013-01-26 03:01 am (UTC)

She shrugs.

"I count it among my reasons."

Hopefully she doesn't have to explicitly specify reasons for what.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 03:02 am (UTC)

She does not.

"Do you want to hear the explanation of how the amulets work?" Bell asks, pulling out her recorder. "Or about the other stuff I got, from the source?"

sicaria
2013-01-26 03:02 am (UTC)

"By all means."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 03:13 am (UTC)

"Seek: first instance within last 150 days of 'amulet'," Bell tells her recorder. "Play from nearest prior pause-mark."

Obediently, the recorder plays a conversation between her and her benefactor about the amulets. The two work the same, they're only cosmetically different - the reason he has them is apparently because he bought three, not knowing which his daughter would like best, and these are the two left over. One should not trust them to protect one from anything serious. They will make physical injury - and the sorts of things that cause injury, like Bell's tripping - less likely and less serious. Often. But certainly not by enough that Bell ought to try to tapdance at the top of a staircase - though if she did, when she fell, she'd break an arm, not her neck.

"Seek: first instance within last 150 days of 'generator'," Bell says, after pausing when the conversation ends. "Play from nearest prior pause-mark."

Bell has apparently also obtained a generator. It is from a world with both tech and magic, and it turns the magical energy from a crystal inside it into nice clean electricity. Reportedly, it can output up to 570 megaglonns in its typical lifespan! ...There are attempts made to translate this into how many lights the generator could power for how long, but the woman who had the generator keeps clarifying "as long as the lights are, you know, reasonably modern and efficient" without being able to describe what that means, so this isn't much more useful than 570 megaglonns. At any rate, it's a device impressive enough to be in common use in a very advanced world. The same conversation also yields some batteries that can be charged from the generator, that "are designed for our devices, naturally, but you should be able to adapt them for anything with ordinary gold wire or spun-starlight". Bell's question about whether it has to be gold is immediately replied to with "Oh, or copper, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting."
Edited 2013-01-26 03:15 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-26 03:16 am (UTC)

"I am sure Tony will take great joy in discovering the meaning of a megaglonn," Sherlock says dryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 03:18 am (UTC)

"I thought so. And there's also the guns and stuff I took from that guy who wanted me to shoot at him, still. The amulet guy just wanted to help out after I talked to him. The generator lady wants a copy of anything 'particularly cunning' Tony makes left for her at the bar - she was vague about what 'particularly cunning' means so I'm going to interpret it as 'small and not terribly necessary'."

sicaria
2013-01-26 03:21 am (UTC)

"There will be plenty to occupy him when we get back, then."

This is a positive thing.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 03:22 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I sold some regular advice too - no other assignments for you or Tony out of that - but all those people had was money. I paid down part of your tab with it, but not all of it. It turns out that eating like a person for four and a half months is expensive."

sicaria
2013-01-26 03:25 am (UTC)

"We'll manage."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 03:29 am (UTC)

Bell nods. She is pretty happy, considering. "What do you and Tony do, most of the time? I don't watch quite enough TV to know what your chosen talents to cultivate are."

sicaria
2013-01-26 03:39 am (UTC)

"Tony had a perfectly serviceable area of expertise already. I cook."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 03:40 am (UTC)

"How's he spinning it? Probably not bombs - fancy phones? Pointless little ornaments that light up and beep? Are you actually good at cooking or is that just the monosyllable you utter when reporters demand to talk about your talent?"

Goodness, Bell is full of questions.

sicaria
2013-01-26 03:41 am (UTC)

"I am extremely good at cooking. Although," she says with a slight smile, "I am rarely called upon to demonstrate as much."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 03:43 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't think so." Bell waits a beat, opens her mouth, then closes it. Sherlock is sufficiently observant that she probably didn't just forget the rest of the questions. Bell does not want to antagonize her hostess.

sicaria
2013-01-26 01:06 pm (UTC)

"Tony has no set theme for his public creations; he makes whatever comes to mind. I find the subject somewhat tedious."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 06:07 pm (UTC)

"You do? Why?"

sicaria
2013-01-26 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I don't enjoy publicity."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 06:28 pm (UTC)

"But presumably you live with Tony and could be interested in stuff he makes without interacting with publicity."

sicaria
2013-01-26 06:38 pm (UTC)

"And yet, I can immediately tell what he is making for himself from what he is making for everyone else."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-26 06:40 pm (UTC)

Bell tentatively determines that Sherlock might not want to talk to her right now. She snuggles down in her chair, turns the volume way down on her recorder and holds it up to her ear, and has it start reviewing conversations she had in Milliways at 3x playback speed.

sicaria
2013-01-26 06:41 pm (UTC)

Sherlock sits absolutely still and does absolutely nothing.

She does that a lot.

along the tracks

she_sells_seashells

Bell can listen as fast as she can read. Paper would be better for recording her life, but with her nifty little device, it's a close contest; besides, she's used to this. She glances at Sherlock occasionally while she directs the playback to skip around, reviewing this chat on physics and that on why Panem is economically implausible and the other on what books she ought to read (she thinks she's read them all, now, but she may as well check again if she'll be ushered back to Milliways at any moment.)

Usually Bell doesn't even reveal the recorder's existence in front of anyone. Having crossed that hurdle, she doesn't mind that she has to speak aloud in front of Sherlock to find what she's looking for.

sicaria
2013-01-27 11:25 pm (UTC)

Sherlock just sits.

ferratus
2013-01-27 11:25 pm (UTC)

After a few hours, Tony knocks on the intervening door.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 11:26 pm (UTC)

After a silence, Bell says, "It's your room."

sicaria
2013-01-27 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Come in."

ferratus
2013-01-27 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Tony, opening the door and stepping through and closing it and opening it again.

He doesn't retreat immediately, but hesitates, watching Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Hi," Bell says. "Um, how are you?"

ferratus
2013-01-27 11:32 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Better. You?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm all right. Been listening to old conversations. At least four people I've talked to in Milliways think that the economics of Panem make no sense. I'm trying to think of a way to swat the economy so it falls over like everyone seems to think it ought. It seems like the Districts would do better in that case than the Capitol would as long as everything fell over hard enough that the Capitol couldn't feed an army. Especially the ones that are food exporters, but I think even Twelve and Eight and so on produce a lot of their own food, just not enough to send to the Capitol."

ferratus
2013-01-27 11:45 pm (UTC)

"...Why's everybody think it'll fall over if you smack it?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, actually, I don't know if they think it should fall over or if they just think everyone is being really stupid. I should read more econ," Bell says. She directs her recorder to one of the conversations:

"Wait," says a man's voice, "where are the financial systems in the Districts? Why can't people get loans? Your mother makes her income sewing and she can't afford a sewing machine, but she could be ten times as efficient if she had one, it would pay for itself, any sane lender would give her the money."

Bell pauses the recorder. "That's the sort of thing they say. So I guess the question isn't so much why it doesn't fall over as why it doesn't... puff up like a blowfish. Why there's so many inefficiencies around that could be exploited. Which is less interesting for a project of overthrow. But more interesting for a project of building everything up again afterwards."

ferratus
2013-01-27 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Good question," Tony says thoughtfully.

sicaria
2013-01-27 11:52 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles just a little.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 11:55 pm (UTC)

"So I'll read more econ," shrugs Bell. "But I think there's probably some law on the books forbidding loans, or something, and that's all there is to it. Your family used to be rich, was there any lending going on? Any complaining about it not being allowed?"

ferratus
2013-01-27 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I was too young to really pay attention back then."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 11:56 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if Bar has a copy of Panem lawbooks. Now that would be educational. I can't think why I didn't ask her before - probably I figured they'd be more like people's diaries than like publications, but it's still worth a try."

ferratus
2013-01-27 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Good plan," he says, grinning a little.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-27 11:58 pm (UTC)

Bell grins back at him.

ferratus
2013-01-27 11:59 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwwww.

sicaria
2013-01-27 11:59 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles some more.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 12:02 am (UTC)

"What do you usually do during downtime on a train?" Bell asks, looking around her like the answer might be written on the wall.

ferratus
2013-01-28 12:03 am (UTC)

Tony glances at Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-01-28 12:04 am (UTC)

"Not very much," Sherlock says dryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 12:07 am (UTC)

"You don't even have, I don't know, a deck of cards?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 12:13 am (UTC)

"We might. Shall I find one?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 12:16 am (UTC)

"The only game I actually know that I learned in Panem and not Milliways is Herringbones," Bell admits. "I don't think it's played outside of Four."

sicaria
2013-01-28 12:49 am (UTC)

"That would fulfill the time-spending requirement, I think."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 12:50 am (UTC)

"I can teach you," Bell says.

sicaria
2013-01-28 12:53 am (UTC)

"Then I will find cards," she says, and gets up.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 12:56 am (UTC)

"It's an easy game," Bell says. "But if you have two decks of cards we can play the more interesting variant."

sicaria
2013-01-28 01:00 am (UTC)

"Noted."

She commences searching Tony's room.

It doesn't take long to find two decks of cards, albeit in wildly different styles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:02 am (UTC)

"Okay!" Bell sets about setting up three open hands to play a few mock rounds of two-deck Herringbones. She fudges the draws to demonstrate edge cases. When she's gone over everything once, she sweeps all the cards together and deals.

sicaria
2013-01-28 01:10 am (UTC)

Sherlock is attentive.

ferratus
2013-01-28 01:13 am (UTC)

Tony is enthusiastic!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:14 am (UTC)

Bell plans to use the fact that she has had practice at this game and they have not!

ferratus
2013-01-28 01:16 am (UTC)

...Yep, she is so gonna win.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:17 am (UTC)

She does. She is unapologetically smug about it.

sicaria
2013-01-28 01:17 am (UTC)

It is kind of sweet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:18 am (UTC)

"Another round?" Bell says. "Traditionally I take a handicap now - I skip the first draw. Handicaps just keep accumulating if I win anyway."
Edited 2013-01-28 01:18 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-28 01:19 am (UTC)

"By all means," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:22 am (UTC)

Bell deals. The dealership doesn't rotate; it doesn't affect the game. She does not draw when it first comes time for her to do so. She wins anyway. Shark likes this game; he plays it with his friends in the evenings when the salmon boat's in port, and Bell sits in the corner, shucking clams. She knows strategy.

Well. She did.

They've certainly found the note by now.

"I'm down the first two draws," she says. "Onward?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 01:24 am (UTC)

"Onward!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:30 am (UTC)

Tony wins this time; Bell is much less facile when she's run out of cards to work with, and... Sherlock keeps dropping things that her brother scoops up. Bell looks at her quizzically but doesn't remark on it. "Tony's down a draw," she announces at the end of the game.

ferratus
2013-01-28 01:41 am (UTC)

"Fine by me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:43 am (UTC)

Bell deals again, and she pays attention to Sherlock's card drops.

For some reason this time they favor her.

"Sherlock," she says, after the third time the card she wants is placed tantalizingly in the fish-skeleton formation on the table, "what are you doing?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 01:46 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

"Amusing myself."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:57 am (UTC)

"If the game isn't sufficiently amusing as-is, you guys could teach me one," Bell says. "Or I could scan back and see if I can reconstruct the rules to something I learned in Milliways from audio only, though that's dicier."

sicaria
2013-01-28 01:58 am (UTC)

"Do you not enjoy it like this, then?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 01:58 am (UTC)

"With you literally throwing it to me? Not especially. Throw it to Tony again if he doesn't mind or try to win yourself."

sicaria
2013-01-28 02:00 am (UTC)

"All right."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 02:06 am (UTC)

Shell Bell scoops up the dropped advantage anyway.

Even with that, Sherlock wins. Twice.

"Nicely done," says Bell.

sicaria
2013-01-28 02:08 am (UTC)

"Throwing the game requires more effort, and is therefore more interesting," she explains.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 02:08 am (UTC)

"Because you have to figure out what cards we want?" Bell hazards.

sicaria
2013-01-28 02:10 am (UTC)

"Precisely."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 02:53 am (UTC)

"What are my tells?" Bell wants to know.

sicaria
2013-01-28 02:57 am (UTC)

"You look discontent and stare longingly at your desired values."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:23 am (UTC)

"Huh. I'll see about curbing that. Or at least staring at misleading random cards."

sicaria
2013-01-28 02:31 pm (UTC)

"A wise plan."

ferratus
2013-01-28 02:31 pm (UTC)

Tony laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 05:46 pm (UTC)

Milliways continues to be obstinate. It continues to be obstinate for long enough that Bell has the chance to observe:

"Sherlock, do you even sleep?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Occasionally," she says.

Bell may know Sherlock well enough by now to detect an evasion. Or not.
Edited 2013-01-28 17:49 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Less than I do, such that you're not groggy when I'm waking up or yawning when I'm falling asleep," clarifies Bell. "That kind of occasionally? Or more like a not-since-I-came-on-the-train occasionally?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 05:53 pm (UTC)

"The latter," she admits.

"I don't sleep where anyone can see me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I can't see you when I'm asleep," Bell points out. "Would it help if I re-oriented so I wound up with my head under your bed? Or under the bed entirely? I don't want you kept up at night on my account, whether or not Milliways is being obnoxious."

sicaria
2013-01-28 06:08 pm (UTC)

"'Anyone' includes an open window with no one on the other side. People sleeping under my bed likewise qualify. I expect I will survive until we get home."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 06:12 pm (UTC)

"It can't be pleasant, though. You don't think it's worth the risk to put me in Tony's room for a few hours out of a day so you can catch catnaps?"

(District Four does have cats. Big, mean ratters. But still cats, and still they nap.)

sicaria
2013-01-28 06:13 pm (UTC)

"No."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Okay, if you say so. You know more about your tolerances than I do."

sicaria
2013-01-28 06:19 pm (UTC)

She nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Still, I hope Tony can get the door to work soon. I... am now sort of worried that it can tell he's trying on my behalf, and whatever makes it stay away from me so long is contagious like that. Do you suppose that's possible?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 06:25 pm (UTC)

"It's possible," she acknowledges. "But I do not think it very likely."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Maybe next time he should open the door while pretending it's for you, regardless."

sicaria
2013-01-28 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't expect it to help. But I will suggest it anyway."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm always afraid I'll never see it again. I mean, I act like I'm not. I leave things there. I walk out the door, I never waited until I was so hungry I had to crawl. But I'm always afraid of it. And once I made it onto the train I wasn't, for a bit, because I wasn't going to be the one trying, and now I am again."

sicaria
2013-01-28 06:33 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Not your fault. Fucking Milliways."

(Bell is quite willing to discuss her displeasure with aspects of the establishment when she is not actually in it.)

sicaria
2013-01-28 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Agreed."

in district three

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell doesn't get off the train immediately when they hit District Three. Tony has one last miserable speech to deliver, and the train will then stick around long enough for everything to be unloaded. Bell sits tight in Sherlock's compartment with the TV on, keeps her wits about her, and awaits cues from either Stark twin.

ferratus
2013-01-28 06:53 pm (UTC)

This speech is largely similar to the rest of them, but with more cheering. He is still sorry about the girl from his own district; her family, however, apparently doesn't want to hear it. Tony performs as well as ever.

Afterward, he comes back to Sherlock's room and has one more go at the door.
Edited 2013-01-28 18:53 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh, thank goodness," breathes Shell Bell, and she scurries through.
Edited 2013-01-28 18:56 (UTC)

ferratus
2013-01-28 06:57 pm (UTC)

"See you soon!" says Tony. He closes the door.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:05 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell has an uneventful couple of days in Milliways, relative to how Milliways normally is. She eats. She scrubs tables. She talks to a variety of people who have interesting lives but no loot to share or services to hire. She pays down a little more of the Starks' tab by talking to someone about managing their feudal vassals and receiving a purse full of gold coins - she keeps some of them as-is in case it turns out that gold wire is necessary to get the full megaglonn yield out of the generator and Tony knows how to draw it to the relevant specifications.

After she's been there for a couple days, local time, she wakes up to find decorations everywhere. It must be another holiday. She overlapped with one before - it was called Crismus or something like that, this was before she got her recorder - and the color scheme and the symbols were different, but it appears to be the same phenomenon, just a different underlying holiday. Pink and red and white. Lace and ribbons and endless repetitions of a shape like a mirrored, unbroken wave. She pays it no attention.

sicaria
2013-01-28 07:07 pm (UTC)

At around Shell Bell's subjective lunchtime, Sherlock enters the bar and commences searching for her. It ought not to take long.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:09 pm (UTC)

Yep! There she is, right by the sign. "Hi, Sherlock," she calls.

(Bell is determined not to be awkward around either Sherlock or Tony, despite what she wound up informing herself the previous subjective evening talking to her recorder alone in her room. That segment is locked; it'll act like it's not there until she authorizes it, even if she carelessly plays through a time period that includes it.)

sicaria
2013-01-28 07:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles back and crosses the room to stand by Bell's table.

"We are safely home, and you may return at your leisure," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Great, I," Bell says, standing up, and then she says, "ow!" She feels at the back of her neck, confused.

sicaria
2013-01-28 07:15 pm (UTC)

Sherlock frowns.

Then she claps her hand to the side of her neck and spins, staring intently in the direction from which the mystery projectiles came.

It's up in the rafters, and as far as her senses can detect, there is absolutely no one there.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:18 pm (UTC)

"What was that?" exclaims Bell. "I - what - Sherlock - what was that?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 07:37 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea," says Sherlock, sounding extremely unhappy about it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:37 pm (UTC)

"I feel strange," Bell says, sitting back down hard and looking with a despairing expression at Sherlock. "There's - were we drugged?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 07:40 pm (UTC)

"I... am not sure," she says slowly, frowning. "Not by anything I recognize. But at Milliways, that is hardly the final word."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what else - I - I want -" She sits bolt upright, and says, "Something is wrong. Something is really really wrong."

sicaria
2013-01-28 07:47 pm (UTC)

Immediately concerned: "What is it?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Whatever just bit me is messing with my brain. I did not feel this way a minute ago, I did not do it on purpose, and now it is happening anyway, and I am scared that that can happen, and even though this is part of the problem all I want is for you to hug me and tell me it'll be okay," says Bell, bursting into tears.

sicaria
2013-01-28 07:51 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know what to do," Sherlock says helplessly. But regardless, she finds herself reaching across the table and touching Bella's hand.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:52 pm (UTC)

Bell squeezes Sherlock's hand hard and drops her face into the other elbow, sobbing.

sicaria
2013-01-28 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I am experiencing a similar problem," says Sherlock. "I don't know what is going on."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 07:58 pm (UTC)

"We must've been drugged or something," sniffs Bell. "When I was little I was scared of tracker jackers more than anything - they sting you and your brain changes - but they don't cross water and Ranae said I could always run out to the docks and get on a boat if they were after me - and then here something stings me and I - I -"

She squeezes Sherlock's hand again like she believes herself to be dangling over a pit suspended by nothing else.

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:00 pm (UTC)

Sherlock very much wants to hug her and tell her it will be okay.

But she doesn't actually know that.

She takes down the sign.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Good idea," sniffs Bell.

She seems to be recovering a little from her panic, although she's not less upset, just less out of control.

She reclaims her hand and hugs herself, in the absence of Sherlock hugs.

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

"...Should I hug you?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Would you?" asks Bell in a small voice.

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:28 pm (UTC)

Sherlock comes around to the other side of the table, leans on the corner of it, and hugs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:30 pm (UTC)

Bell snuggles up unhappily. "This is screwed up," she says. "I'm straight. I tried to not be straight for a while and it didn't work."

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:37 pm (UTC)

"I am not reliably attracted to either gender," says Sherlock. "This is bizarre. And upsettingly pleasant."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Reliably? What's that mean?" Bell asks, seizing on the distraction from what madness has overtaken her brain.

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:40 pm (UTC)

"It means the set of people I am attracted to is very small."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

Bell looks around at the decorations as best she can from the hug. "I wonder if the drug sting thing is... traditional on this holiday?" she hazards. "Or something? What a terrible holiday."

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:49 pm (UTC)

"It does seem very... couple-y in here," says Sherlock. "More so than usual. But without the degree of alarm I'd expect if everyone had been drugged like us."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they got stung a while ago, before I woke up?" hazards Bella. "And have got used to it."

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:53 pm (UTC)

Sherlock closes her eyes and listens to the surrounding conversations.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:54 pm (UTC)

Bell sits quietly in her arms, sorting out genuine unhappy from alien but sincere happy.

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"The holiday seems to be in celebration of romance," she reports. "At least some of these people are experiencing it as such in the context of previously established relationships."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh." Beat. "What mad person decided to drug people into falling in love as a celebration of romance?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 08:58 pm (UTC)

"If I knew," Sherlock says flatly, "I might decide to kill them."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:01 pm (UTC)

"That would be lovely," sighs Bell, and then she smacks herself sharply in the forehead.

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:01 pm (UTC)

...Against her better judgment, Sherlock snorts.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:06 pm (UTC)

"It would be funny if it weren't so intrusive," grumbles Bell. "It's in my head. Why couldn't they openly offer me a syringe of whatever this was when I was trying to like girls? But, hm." She glances around the room. "Okay, it's not girls, it's just you, so that wouldn't have helped then particularly unless I'd had one in mind and I didn't."

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Why were you trying to like girls?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Because having children in Panem would be ludicrously irresponsible, I don't especially want to be alone forever, based on how many married couples wind up with children I don't think most men would be adamant as I am on the subject of avoiding risk, and if I liked girls I could at least theoretically wind up with one and never have to worry about bringing a small important person into a terrible world. I guess now the plan is to take over the world and then do whatever I please." Pause. "Do... you think... that this stuff lasts?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:11 pm (UTC)

"For your sake, I hope not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:12 pm (UTC)

"For my sake?" queries Bell.

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:13 pm (UTC)

"It makes you so uncomfortable," she says. "I don't have a strong opinion on it that way."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:15 pm (UTC)

"You don't?" Bell says. "And I mean - the specific alteration - as alterations go - if someone's going to do something to my brain this isn't the worst thing - I just didn't want anything done to my brain. But now they've gone and done it already."

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:17 pm (UTC)

"It's confusing," says Sherlock. "I dislike it on that level. But if we are to be taking over the world together I suppose it is convenient to have you enshrined in my priorities."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:18 pm (UTC)

"If I had to be forced to fall in love with somebody - if for some reason that were a logical necessity," says Bell, shrugging minutely. She doesn't finish the sentence.

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:20 pm (UTC)

"...Thank you," says Sherlock. "I think."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Well. We're going to take over the world together and all."

(And I already like Tony and he's a guy so the previously mentioned problem goes unsaid.)

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she agrees, sounding slightly puzzled.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I have never fallen in love with anybody before," Bell murmurs. "I wonder if it would have been so recognizable if it wasn't so sudden."

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:34 pm (UTC)

"I... don't think I have, either," says Sherlock. "And I don't believe I would have recognized it if you hadn't noticed first."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm good at knowing what's going on in my head," says Bell mirthlessly.

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:35 pm (UTC)

"So I have observed."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:37 pm (UTC)

"It's not usually as practically useful as one might think. It just seems important to know, to me. But I guess today..." She squirms. And snuggles closer.

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:39 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I was about to suggest that we go in my room or yours or wherever and see if we can sleep it off but actually it's possible being alone in a room would be a bad idea relative to what we'll think after it does wear off. Assuming it does. Milliways isn't usually that... terrible."

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:44 pm (UTC)

"And I—no," she says, "on second thought, I could sleep with you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Oh, right, that thing, I forgot," Bell says. "Wait. You could? You think so?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I am not horrified at the thought."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:50 pm (UTC)

"And with most people you are so this is a safe gauge," says Bell.

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Do you want to try that? On reflection I don't think I'm actually going to try anything I'd regret, not if I don't mean to."

sicaria
2013-01-28 09:53 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:01 pm (UTC)

"The bed in my room will be squishy for two. Is yours any better?"

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Show me?" Bell asks.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:12 pm (UTC)

"All right."

She un-leans from the table.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:13 pm (UTC)

Bell extricates herself and follows.

She catches herself looking at miscellaneous Sherlock anatomy with too much interest more than once on the way.

"Weird drugs," she mutters to herself.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

Which indicates she may have noticed.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Sorry."

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:15 pm (UTC)

"It's all right."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:17 pm (UTC)

And up the stairs they go. Bell folds her hands behind her back and attempts to follow Sherlock by looking at her feet.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:25 pm (UTC)

Sherlock forbears to comment.
Edited 2013-01-28 22:25 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:28 pm (UTC)

Sherlock's going to have to let them into the room, as Bell doesn't have a key. She shuffles her feet.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:31 pm (UTC)

Sherlock opens the door and lets her in.

It's a small room, but the amount of bed is more than sufficient.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:32 pm (UTC)

Bell sits on the edge of it, and then toes off her shoes, and then sighs and lies down, facing the wall and scrunched in towards herself.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:32 pm (UTC)

After a moment, Sherlock curls up next to her, not quite touching.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:35 pm (UTC)

Bell squirms backwards to fix that. She wants cuddles, even if she's not comfortable with wanting them.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:37 pm (UTC)

In that case, she can have cuddles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:37 pm (UTC)

A reserved and narrated-only yay for cuddles!

Bell closes her eyes and attempts sleep.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:39 pm (UTC)

So does Sherlock.

Sherlock succeeds.

There is not much difference, except a slight increase in snuggling.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:40 pm (UTC)

Bell succeeds too, after a little longer - she's probably not as tired as Sherlock, who did after all recently go days without sleeping.

She hugs Sherlock's arm.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:43 pm (UTC)

It is quite likely that Bell will be the one to wake up first.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:48 pm (UTC)

Bell does wake up first.

She's still infatuated. She's still hugging Sherlock's arm like it's her very favorite stuffed animal.

Is there a clock in the room, she wonders.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:48 pm (UTC)

There is not a clock in the room.

Sherlock is snuggling her right back.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

Bell has no idea how long she napped. She has no idea whether to start being worried about duration, worried that she still loves Sherlock and really wants to plant a kiss on the hand she's holding.

She settles back down, all asnuggle, and looks at the wall, and thinks about her thoughts. It'd be better with her recorder, but she can do some without.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:53 pm (UTC)

Sherlock, eventually, stirs.

"I see sleeping it off did not work," she observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Bell.

Snuggle, snuggle.

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:54 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

Silence.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if anyone downstairs knows how long it lasts. Or Bar, she might know."

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to go and check?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 10:57 pm (UTC)

"No. I wanna lie here forever. But I wish I wanted to."

sicaria
2013-01-28 10:59 pm (UTC)

"...I feel similarly," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I guess we could just lie here until we get bored, and then if it's not worn off we can go ask. It's not like Tony will be getting antsy waiting for us when we're on Milliways time."

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Hm."

She thinks about it.

"I support this plan," she concludes eventually.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:04 pm (UTC)

Bell nods and snuggles up closer.

"I love you," she says. "I know that you already know that and I know you know why and I still wanted to say it. I guess if you didn't already know it it would have been strange to say it for a different reason."

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says, and is quiet for another moment.

"I love you too."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:08 pm (UTC)

Bell gives an involuntary happy sigh and falls silent.

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:14 pm (UTC)

Sherlock likewise quiets.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:19 pm (UTC)

Eventually Bell falls asleep again.

If Sherlock is still awake at this eventuality, she will notice that Bell says random words in her sleep. "Sand. Twirling. Cork."

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:24 pm (UTC)

She does observe this.

She observes that it is adorable.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Caviar," says Bell. "Wallpaper."

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:31 pm (UTC)

Smiling faintly, Sherlock snuggles closer.

Eventually, despite the soundtrack, she falls asleep too.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:33 pm (UTC)

This time, when Bell wakes up, she feels - not normal, she remembers the whole thing, but better.

She might want to carry on snuggling anyway just because it's physically pleasant and she's gone for a significant fraction of her life without human contact. But she doesn't want it to be weird.

She scoots away carefully and extricates herself, attempting to not wake Sherlock, not sure if Sherlock's sleep thing will "notice" while she's still asleep that the dart has worn off and Bell is no longer an acceptable sleep companion.

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:36 pm (UTC)

Well.

When Sherlock wakes up again, a few minutes later, she doesn't exhibit any signs of distress.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Still not awful to have me in the room while you were asleep?" Bell asks, yawning.

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Thankfully, no," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:40 pm (UTC)

"That's good. That was so strange," says Bell. "I'm almost afraid to go back out again. There's no clock in here, that awful holiday might still be going on."

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:40 pm (UTC)

"I will check," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Thanks."

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:43 pm (UTC)

She goes.

She returns.

"The holiday has concluded," she reports.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Good riddance," declares Bell, getting up to leave the room. "Let's clear my room of fascinating useful things and put them in your basement."

sicaria
2013-01-28 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Let's," she agrees.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-28 11:51 pm (UTC)

Between the two of them it's not too hard to haul the generator, the carton of batteries, and the amulet - which can just go around Sherlock's neck and then they can decide whether to transfer one to Tony or not.

Out the door they go.

sicaria
2013-01-29 12:06 am (UTC)

Sherlock carries the generator.

"We brought presents," she declares.

ferratus
2013-01-29 12:06 am (UTC)

"Ooh! Presents!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 12:07 am (UTC)

Bell points out the parts of the generator that were referred to during various parts of the explanation she got - the ports to attach batteries, in particular. She also produces her gold coins. "I got some of these, if there's a reason to want gold instead of copper for anything," she says.

ferratus
2013-01-29 12:11 am (UTC)

"Shiny," Tony says approvingly. He scoops up generator, coins, and batteries. "I'll just go and get to know these guys better."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 12:13 am (UTC)

Bell snorts. "Have fun. Sherlock, where are you putting me?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 12:14 am (UTC)

"We have a guest room that has yet to see an actual guest," she says. "Would that suit?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 12:38 am (UTC)

"Sounds perfect."

sicaria
2013-01-29 12:39 am (UTC)

"It's this way."

The house is not enormous, but it is definitely unnecessarily large.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 12:41 am (UTC)

"This is a nice place," says Bell. "Do I need to avoid going outside?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 12:43 am (UTC)

"It would be safest," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 12:44 am (UTC)

"Okay. I can do that. Are you usually home? Is anyone liable to come by? Do I have a cover story if someone does?

sicaria
2013-01-29 12:45 am (UTC)

"At least one of us usually is. Very few people ever visit. I suppose we should invent a cover story in case someone encounters you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 12:47 am (UTC)

"Is Three big and loosely-knit enough that I could be your orphaned second cousin from another town who talked you into taking me in?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 12:50 am (UTC)

"It'll hold," she decides.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 12:55 am (UTC)

"Okay then." Pause. "Do we need to - I don't know, process anything, about the holiday thing?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 12:56 am (UTC)

"Probably," says Sherlock.

"I don't have the least idea where to start."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah, me either." Bell sits on the guest bed. "I guess I could talk at my recorder for an hour or three and see if that gives me an idea, but somehow I don't think it will."

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:07 am (UTC)

"And I lack that advantage to begin with."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:09 am (UTC)

"Well, I assume you can afford paper, you could write instead. I would probably do that if I'd gotten a bunch of notebooks before I got the recorder."

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:10 am (UTC)

"I am not very... talkative."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:14 am (UTC)

"Not even when no one's listening?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:14 am (UTC)

"Not even then."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:25 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:28 am (UTC)

"...I am not sure."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:29 am (UTC)

"I couldn't stand not knowing something like that about myself," Bell says, drawing her knees up to her chin and hugging her legs. "I'd never know if I had a good reason."

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:37 am (UTC)

Sherlock sits on the floor, leaning against the bed.

"Perhaps that is admirable," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:39 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't know. I don't think I realized it was unusual to care about what I was thinking so much until I was... at least fourteen. It didn't occur to me to explain what people around me said about themselves with the hypothesis that they didn't know, and weren't just hedging or being secretive or lying."

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:40 am (UTC)

"There is not very much to me, I don't think," Sherlock says quietly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:41 am (UTC)

Bell blinks at her. "You don't think so?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:43 am (UTC)

"I am very good at killing things, finding things out, and looking beautiful," she says. "Apart from that—" A slight shrug.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:45 am (UTC)

"I'm good at controlling my fire stick, talking to myself, and convincing people in Milliways that despite the fact that I have no accomplishments I'm a valuable source of advice, and apart from that -" Bell also shrugs. "You could probably trivialize anyone that way, reducing them to a list of three skills. Tony's good at charming people, building things, and looking like he's not miserable on stage."

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:48 am (UTC)

"You and Tony are the sort of people that other people miss. I am, with one exception, not. And my main accomplishment is a stack of murders I did not want to commit. I don't believe it compares."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:49 am (UTC)

"I'd miss you," Bell volunteers.

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:56 am (UTC)

"Why?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 01:57 am (UTC)

"I like you. You've helped me, a lot."

sicaria
2013-01-29 01:59 am (UTC)

"Oh," she says.

"Thank you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:00 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Bell. "Anyway, why does having a small circle of people who'd miss you add up to not having much to you? Two people would miss you. Two people currently miss me; I don't know how I rate with you and Tony right now but even if it's negligible I don't think I suddenly became more interesting as a person recently. You don't seem to be classifying me the same way."

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:04 am (UTC)

"I am well aware that my father loved me enough to spend all of his money on me and then die of alcohol poisoning in penniless despair, but that knowledge does not help to inflate my sense of self-worth."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:05 am (UTC)

"It's a silly metric. You're the one who brought it up," Bell says.

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:06 am (UTC)

Sherlock is silent.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:08 am (UTC)

Bell flops onto her stomach on the bed. "I'm sorry about your dad, though. And your terrible ex-friend."

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:09 am (UTC)

"Perhaps what I meant to say is that that is not the metric I am using at all."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:11 am (UTC)

"I guess I misunderstood, then. What did you mean?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:14 am (UTC)

"I am not sure."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:18 am (UTC)

Bell rolls over and looks at the ceiling. "If Lynnis and all the other Careers in line had defected, my main accomplishment would be the same as yours. As it is I have none. Are accomplishments relevant to what you're trying to get at or do you not know why you brought that up either?" Pause. "Let me know if I'm being intrusive. My curiosity sometimes puppets my mouth and my tact is narcoleptic."

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:21 am (UTC)

"You are being intrusive, but I don't mind that," she says.

"I don't like being the kind of person I am. You apparently do. I think that may be causing some of the confusion here."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:22 am (UTC)

"What would you want to change?" Bell asks.

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:26 am (UTC)

"Well, that is part of the problem," she says. "The consequences of not being this good at killing people would be worse."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:29 am (UTC)

"Do you wish you felt differently about it?" hazards Bell.

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:31 am (UTC)

"...Sometimes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:32 am (UTC)

Bell rolls onto her side, facing Sherlock. "Sometimes?" she prompts.

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:38 am (UTC)

"The pool of people I am attracted to," she says, "is mostly people I think could beat me in a fight. Perhaps that is why it's so small."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:39 am (UTC)

"That doesn't sound like many people, no," Bell says. "Is it any? That you've met?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:41 am (UTC)

"That I've met? No."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:43 am (UTC)

"I'm surprised you've figured out what determines who makes it into the pool, then," Bell says. "How'd you do that?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:44 am (UTC)

"I have watched the publicly available recordings of every Hunger Games ever broadcast."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:48 am (UTC)

"And you haven't run into - I don't know, Johanna Mason, in person yet?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:49 am (UTC)

"I have not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 02:50 am (UTC)

"Did I guess one correctly? I saw her Games and she certainly killed people effectively but I don't know how you evaluate people's skills."

sicaria
2013-01-29 02:58 am (UTC)

"You did," she admits.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 03:01 am (UTC)

Bell giggles for no good reason. "Is that the primary reason that you'd like to feel differently about being good at killing people?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 03:04 am (UTC)

"I don't know."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 03:06 am (UTC)

"If it weren't, and there were something else too, what would it be?"

Pause. "Also, tangent, do you think we should tell Tony about the holiday darts? If only to warn him to flee the bar if he sees it with lacy pink and red decorations and that funny -" She forms her hands into the double-wave shape. "This thing?"
Edited 2013-01-29 04:52 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:00 pm (UTC)

"I think we should, yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:12 pm (UTC)

"That sounds awkward. 'Hi, Tony, how are you doing with the generator and the gun collection, by the way I recently fell into drug-induced love with your sister and vice-versa because Fucking Milliways'."

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:14 pm (UTC)

She smiles slightly. "I see what you mean."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it'll work better if you tell him. Do you have a way to tell him that's less awful than that?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:18 pm (UTC)

"...Not as such," she admits.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:20 pm (UTC)

"And not telling him also sounds awkward," grumbles Bell. "Fucking Milliways."

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately, yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Since I have my speech on the subject composed already, so very eloquently, should I just do it the next time I see him or will you?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:30 pm (UTC)

"You may as well. Unless you would rather I did."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:32 pm (UTC)

"The only reason to prefer that overall is if he'd take it better from you. You know him better than I do."

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:34 pm (UTC)

"The source of the information will not impact his reception significantly."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Me then. How is he likely to react?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Sympathetically."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay. That's good."

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I expect he will also be confused. He frequently is."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's confusing. And horrible. And if you ever find out who set it up you should probably go ahead and murder them."

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Should I go find him now or just wait until - lunch or whatever? What time of day is it?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Midmorning. Lunch was a good guess."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Lunch it is, then. Will I get to try your cooking?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 08:29 pm (UTC)

"You will," says Sherlock. "It will be pleasant."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 08:30 pm (UTC)

"What're we having?" Bell asks, sitting up and indulging one bounce on the bed.

sicaria
2013-01-29 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Risotto," says Sherlock.

"It appears that I still think you're cute."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 08:35 pm (UTC)

Bell blinks. "Cute, like - what do you mean by 'cute' here?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 08:39 pm (UTC)

"...I am not sure I have an exact definition," she says consideringly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Do you mean cute like a five year old or cute like I'm an exception to the people-who-could-beat-you-up criterion?" Bell specifies.

sicaria
2013-01-29 08:45 pm (UTC)

"The former."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I don't have much of a filter on little mannerisms like that. Acting five is often a good substitute for acting actually crazy, and it's also often easier."

sicaria
2013-01-29 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Also more endearing," she observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 08:53 pm (UTC)

"If I'm going to live here I suppose it is best that you like me," Bell says.
Edited 2013-01-29 20:58 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-29 08:59 pm (UTC)

"I agree."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 09:04 pm (UTC)

Bell's stomach gurgles. "We didn't actually eat anything the entire time we were sleeping off the drugs," she observes.

sicaria
2013-01-29 09:24 pm (UTC)

"That is true," says Sherlock. "I will make lunch."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 09:25 pm (UTC)

"I'll wander around the house and learn where things are, if that's okay."

sicaria
2013-01-29 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Entirely."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 09:27 pm (UTC)

Bell gets up. She wanders around the house, and learns where things are!

When she can smell food, she follows her nose to where she has learned the kitchen to be.

sicaria
2013-01-29 09:35 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is cooking.

She seems very happy about it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Do you want any help?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 09:44 pm (UTC)

"It would be convenient but not necessary for you to fetch Tony from downstairs," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 09:44 pm (UTC)

Bell goes downstairs in search of Tony!

ferratus
2013-01-29 09:46 pm (UTC)

Tony is playing with the generator and humming to himself.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock is making risotto," reports Bell. "It'll be ready soonish. How are things going with your swag?"

ferratus
2013-01-29 09:49 pm (UTC)

"This generator and I are going to be very good friends," he says. "I'll be up in a few minutes; you guys can get started without me if you want."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Also we have something fantastically awkward to tell you and I wound up with the job of issuing the speech but I think I'd rather say it with her in the room."

ferratus
2013-01-29 09:54 pm (UTC)

"...What, did you have sex or something...? Never mind, if you wanna tell me when she's there, tell me when she's there."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 09:56 pm (UTC)

"It's not that," says Bell, maybe too quickly, and she turns around and goes up the stairs.

She is very glad that they didn't, because having Tony guess right that casually would have been mortifying.

ferratus
2013-01-29 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," he calls after her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 10:00 pm (UTC)

Bell sits at the kitchen table and fidgets and says, "He'll be up in a few minutes and says we can start without him."

sicaria
2013-01-29 10:01 pm (UTC)

"You are uncomfortable," Sherlock observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I told him we had something awkward to tell him but that I'd rather say it with you in the room and he just offhandedly guessed that we had sex," Bell says. "I told him that wasn't it."

sicaria
2013-01-29 11:18 pm (UTC)

"That does sound upsetting."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 11:21 pm (UTC)

"A little. Caught me completely off guard. I'll be fine."

sicaria
2013-01-29 11:25 pm (UTC)

"All right. Lunch is in an edible state," she adds.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Where are plates?"

sicaria
2013-01-29 11:30 pm (UTC)

Sherlock indicates a cupboard. She fetches the forks herself.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 11:33 pm (UTC)

Bell takes down three plates, and finds glasses too and sets those out. All the while she appreciatively sniffs the air.

sicaria
2013-01-29 11:39 pm (UTC)

Lunch smells extremely delicious.

It tastes even better.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 11:40 pm (UTC)

Nom.

"This is really good," sighs Bell ecstatically. Not even four months of non-potatoes from Bar has desensitized her.

sicaria
2013-01-29 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I am pleased you think so," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-29 11:44 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom. Bell eats steadily and happy and with pleased little noises.

sicaria
2013-01-29 11:45 pm (UTC)

Sherlock regards her with benevolent pride, in between also eating.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 05:24 pm (UTC)

"How'd you go about learning to cook?" Bell asks her.

sicaria
2013-01-30 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Research and experimentation," says Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-01-30 05:31 pm (UTC)

Tony appears from downstairs.

"Lunch?" he says hopefully.

sicaria
2013-01-30 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Lunch," Sherlock confirms.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 05:36 pm (UTC)

"It's really good. You probably already knew that," says Bell. She briefly wonders if the awkward announcement will put Tony off his food, then determines that to be a rationalization. "Milliways does holidays sometimes, did you know? There is one that you should avoid. The decorations are red and pink and white and lacy, and there's a symbol that looks like this -" She puts her fork down to form it with her hands. "And part of the festivities is drugging people with... I don't know, love-darts? And we got stung and fell in drug-induced love and had to sleep it off but at least I realized what was going on. And there's no good way to explain that to you but the alternative was not telling you at all which seemed like a bad idea."

ferratus
2013-01-30 05:41 pm (UTC)

"That sounds... cute yet horrifying," says Tony. "Are you guys okay?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. It wore off," says Bell.

ferratus
2013-01-30 05:42 pm (UTC)

He glances at Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-01-30 05:43 pm (UTC)

Sherlock shrugs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I suppose it might have been cute, seen from the outside?" Bell muses. "But mostly horrifying. I burst into tears at one point. So yeah." She eats more risotto. Risotto is delicious.

ferratus
2013-01-30 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's what I meant," he says. "Superficially cute; actually horrifying."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 05:47 pm (UTC)

Bell nods. Her mouth is full of risotto and she cannot talk.

in control of an inferno

she_sells_seashells

The following morning, Bell hears what sounds like a fire alarm. It's not in their building - it's at least a block away. From her window, she can clearly see the house that's caught, near the train station, and just as clearly see that there isn't any bucket brigade handling it yet.

She seizes her wand from the nightstand and assumes control over the fire; if there's anyone in the unburnt part of the house they'll be able to get out. "SHERLOCK! TONY!" she calls.

Bell wants a second opinion before she snakes this fire down the corner of the house and over the grass to destroy the train station.

sicaria
2013-01-30 06:04 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is at her bedroom door in three seconds.

"Yes?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 06:06 pm (UTC)

"House caught fire all by itself; I'm keeping the damage confined in case there's anybody in there. Good or bad idea to snake it down the trellis and across the grass and torch the train station? Capitol, not District, pays to rebuild those, and I don't have any practical experience on targets yet." She keeps her eyes focused fixedly on the fire. "I think I can make it look natural."

sicaria
2013-01-30 06:07 pm (UTC)

Sherlock considers this question for a short moment.

Then: "Do."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 06:16 pm (UTC)

The fire spits and crackles and lurches down the trellis, spreading along it in a very unpurposeful-looking way. It picks up speed at the base, racing along dry winter grass and sending the whole empty lawn up in smoke, but encountering the natural firebreak of the surrounding paths -

And the train station.

There's a bucket brigade at the house now, passing water up a ladder leaning on the unburning part of the original building and pouring it on the smoldering corner. They make perhaps more progress than they should - but this might be visible only from a distance, as Bell shrinks that fragment of the conflagration to focus on - and warm - the part that's currently eating away at columns and twisting tracks into useless wrecks. (And leaving the station attendant a clear path to flee, which he does, right before his booth is swallowed up.)

The fire brigade is permitted to succeed completely at putting out the house fire. Bell lets the lawn go out, too, now that she doesn't need the connection to minimize house damage and manage train damage; it smokes.

She lets the flames heat up, now that they're only touching things she wishes to destroy. The color changes. The spread speeds up. The station is burning brightly, and the fire brigade can't even get close enough to it to throw water on it, not that Bell would let it do any good.

When she has reduced the train station to a ruined hulk pouring black particulates into the air and collapsing onto itself, she gradually shrinks the fire to a smaller, cooler piece in the middle, releases control so it will behave as naturally at the end as it did at the beginning, and watches it burn itself out on what used to be the sign reading WELCOME TO DISTRICT THREE.

sicaria
2013-01-30 06:18 pm (UTC)

Sherlock watches.

She is not fully aware of her own fascination until the spectacle is over and she turns that same fascination on Bell instead of her handiwork with the fire.

"That was—masterful," she says, a little breathlessly.
Edited 2013-01-30 18:19 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 06:22 pm (UTC)

Bell licks her lips and wipes a thin sheen of sweat from her forehead. "Thanks," she says, breathing a little hard herself. Using the wand isn't directly tiring, but concentration is, and she has to concentrate to keep any significant amount of fire hers. "Okay. So now I know I'm as good with this thing as I think I am." She twists her hair up and sticks her stick through it. "That's good."

sicaria
2013-01-30 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I have become attracted to you again," Sherlock observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 06:26 pm (UTC)

Bell looks at her. "...Because of the fire?" Beat. "Um, do you want me to do anything about that? I..." She hesitates awkwardly. "Probably could now, I think, if I tried. Because darts. Supplied an example. Of how to arrange my brain in the relevant way."

sicaria
2013-01-30 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I believe the relevant question is, do you want to do anything about that?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 06:31 pm (UTC)

Bell thinks.

"I have no idea how long it's going to take to complete the revolution," she observes. "If we manage it at all." Pause. "The whole I-don't-dare-risk-having-children thing has to be the least romantic reason to consider adjusting my sexual orientation for a specific person, ever. But I mean, I do also like you."

sicaria
2013-01-30 06:44 pm (UTC)

"I also like you too," says Sherlock. "And I am not a particularly romantic person."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 06:46 pm (UTC)

Bell sits on her bed. "I've never been with anyone of either gender. So all my concepts are influenced by the media, which is mostly dominated by depictions of romantic people. What is dating a not-romantic person like?"

sicaria
2013-01-30 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I do not know," says Sherlock. "I have never tried."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Huh." Bell looks at her hands, folded in her lap. "I think I need at least a few hours alone with my recorder to come to a decision. It would help if you were less neutral about it, though."

sicaria
2013-01-30 07:04 pm (UTC)

"...I am... not neutral," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Can you tell me anything else about your feelings on the matter, though?" Bell asks.

sicaria
2013-01-30 07:11 pm (UTC)

She shuts her eyes.

"Despite evidence to the contrary, I do not believe I am a worthwhile partner. I expect you to decide as much and then I expect to be very upset."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 07:13 pm (UTC)

Bell blinks.

And then she hugs Sherlock. (Platonically.)

"I'm kind of selfish," Bell says. "I'll wind up deciding to do whatever I think I'd like to do overall. And I don't know what I'll decide yet. But why would you expect it to go that way?"

sicaria
2013-01-30 07:15 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs back.

"Because I don't like myself very much," she says softly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Why?" Bell says. Her face is right near Sherlock's ear. She whispers.

sicaria
2013-01-30 07:19 pm (UTC)

A momentary quiet, and then,

"I don't know."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 07:30 pm (UTC)

Bell lets her go and sits back, making eye contact. "You are a perfectly likeable person," she says. "I suppose it doesn't help that much for me to tell you that, though? Since I've said equivalent things before."

sicaria
2013-01-30 07:34 pm (UTC)

"I may need some time to get used to the idea."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 07:54 pm (UTC)

Bell nods.

She pulls out her recorder and looks at it. "It often helps me make decisions when I have a good picture of what it'll look like after I make them. I don't know what it looks like when you're upset about being turned down - and I don't know what it looks like if I tell you 'well, I have hacked my brain with regards to the template supplied by holiday darts' - so that would also help if you could tell me that."

sicaria
2013-01-30 07:59 pm (UTC)

"...I am not sure, in either case, what kind of answer you are looking for."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 08:00 pm (UTC)

"What will you do? What will happen? What states of the world do I now have it in my power to cause with this choice?"

sicaria
2013-01-30 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I think me being upset is fairly self-explanatory," says Sherlock. "I will be upset. Experience indicates that no one besides Tony can tell the difference unless I mention it to them, but I have already mentioned it to you. As for the other, I do not know."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Oh." Bell resumes her prior sitting-on-the-bed position and bites her lip a bit. "Well, I guess I can work around some informational limitations."

sicaria
2013-01-30 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Should I leave you to it, then?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Unless there's anything else you can tell me."

sicaria
2013-01-30 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't believe so."

She goes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 08:32 pm (UTC)

Bell closes the door.

She sets up a locked entry.

And she talks to herself.

At length, she marks the end of the locked section, pockets the recorder, and goes looking for Tony.
Edited 2013-01-30 20:46 (UTC)

ferratus
2013-01-30 08:57 pm (UTC)

In the basement, continuing to make friends with that generator, where else?

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Hey. Are you interruptable?"

ferratus
2013-01-30 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, what's up?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 09:21 pm (UTC)

"I burned down the train station. The original fire started all by itself, on a house, I made it look like a natural spread. And Sherlock was there when I did it and now she says she's attracted to me again. And I think that since the holiday drugs thing, I know enough about what it's like to be attracted to her that I could do it again purpose? And if I don't she'll be upset. And I don't know anything much about what will happen if I do. So I thought I'd ask for your advice. I hope that isn't weird."

ferratus
2013-01-30 09:23 pm (UTC)

"...okay," he says, "as much as I love Sherry, if 'she'll be upset if I don't' is your only reason it's probably a pretty bad reason. And I'm not sure that me thinking you guys would be cute together is a much better one, but for the record, I totally think you'd be cute together."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 09:25 pm (UTC)

"That's not the only reason I have, just the only thing I know about the results," Bell says. "She wasn't a lot of help with making detailed predictions about either possibility."

ferratus
2013-01-30 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah, of course not," says Tony. "She's terrified of thinking about it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 09:27 pm (UTC)

"A significant factor in the con column is that she seems like she'd be emotionally high-maintenance," confesses Bell.

ferratus
2013-01-30 09:31 pm (UTC)

"She... is and she isn't," says Tony. "Depends what you mean."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 09:32 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

ferratus
2013-01-30 09:41 pm (UTC)

"It can be pretty rough, caring about somebody who's so... not okay with herself," says Tony. "But she knows that, and she tries not to make it any harder than it has to be."
Edited 2013-01-30 21:41 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Good to know." Pause. "Oh, um, I've been recording this, is that okay? I usually don't ask, but I'm usually not trying to form long-term working relationships."

ferratus
2013-01-30 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's fine," he says agreeably.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Thanks." She smiles faintly. "You think we'd be cute together, huh?"

ferratus
2013-01-30 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Adorable."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 09:53 pm (UTC)

Bell sits and leans on the wall. "I'm not sure what to do. I've been talking to myself for a few hours now and I'm still not sure. It doesn't really help that I don't think I can just will myself back into holiday-drugs-mode, I think I'd have to playact at it a bit to start, and there's a chance that it wouldn't work and that would probably be hurtful."

ferratus
2013-01-30 09:58 pm (UTC)

"...Well, I'd tell her that part first," he says. "But I dunno. How's the talking to yourself been going?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Except for the fact that it trailed off without coming to a clear conclusion, about like normal. Why?"

ferratus
2013-01-30 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Because maybe I missed it, but I don't think you've mentioned an actual reason yet."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:04 pm (UTC)

"A reason to, you mean?"

ferratus
2013-01-30 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:10 pm (UTC)

The recording is locked. It will not get any less locked if Bell summarizes some highlights from memory. Okay.

"I like her. When I was darted I thought she was - pretty, I mean of course she's pretty but relevantly pretty - and finding people pretty is nice. I don't think the dart gave me enough material to hack myself about anyone else, and even if it did, there are no other relevant girl prospects around. Girl is relevant because any risk of having children under the current government is intolerable to me. And I don't want to be alone for - as long as it could conceivably take to overthrow the Capitol, or to decisively fail and decide to flee the world." Pause. "And that was really good risotto. Although I imagine she'll go on cooking regardless of whether I date her."

ferratus
2013-01-30 10:12 pm (UTC)

"...It's, uh, it's possible to date a guy and not have kids with the guy," says Tony. "I mean. I'm just saying. There are options."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:15 pm (UTC)

"When I say any risk I mean any risk. I'm not trusting that nasty-smelling tea the - well, I don't know what you have around here, but in Four it was nasty-smelling tea, and I have observed women who habitually smelled of it to fall pregnant. I don't mean to denigrate your entire gender or anything, I just don't think most people-in-general feel as strongly as I do, so agreeing on which precautions are necessary would be hard."

ferratus
2013-01-30 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Uh, okay," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Awkward topic," observes Bell. "Anyway. Reasons. They exist."

ferratus
2013-01-30 10:26 pm (UTC)

"They're pretty good reasons," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm just unfamiliar with decisions of this form and don't know how to weigh them against the others."

ferratus
2013-01-30 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Well. Anything else you wanna know?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:29 pm (UTC)

"No. Thanks." She gets up. "Bye."

ferratus
2013-01-30 10:30 pm (UTC)

"See ya," he says. "Good luck."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:31 pm (UTC)

Bell goes and sits in her room. She listens to her locked-up musings and her conversation with Tony over again, at 3x speed. She thinks.

She goes looking for Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-01-30 10:32 pm (UTC)

Living room. Book.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:34 pm (UTC)

Bell sits. She's not sure if Sherlock's interruptable. She will wait for Sherlock to notice her.

sicaria
2013-01-30 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Hi. I have what could be called a contingent decision."

sicaria
2013-01-30 10:39 pm (UTC)

"...Yes?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I have never tried to edit my brain in quite this way before, but any change on this scale usually requires what I am going to call pretending, to start with. I had to pretend not to care about my grades before I could really stop; just knowing that passing the wrong test would get me effectively kidnapped and stuck in a different District didn't do it. I had to pretend to be way more obsessed with shells than I actually am before it came readily to me to throw a tantrum if someone moved a bag of them that I'd been keeping near a door in case of Milliways. And I think that in order to slip back into what I'm calling holiday-drugs-mode I will have to first pretend. And it might not work. And that could easily be unpleasant on your end."

sicaria
2013-01-30 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Describe pretending," Sherlock requests.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:50 pm (UTC)

"More snuggling, probably. Kissing you while still pretending might or might not be necessary but wouldn't hurt. Generally acting and talking like I am your girlfriend."

sicaria
2013-01-30 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I am thoroughly in favour of more snuggling," says Sherlock. "Independently of other concerns."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Snuggling independently of other concerns would be nice," agrees Bell, squirming a little in her chair.

sicaria
2013-01-30 10:58 pm (UTC)

"...Would you like to snuggle?" says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:02 pm (UTC)

Bell transfers herself to Sherlock's sofa and leans her head on her shoulder.

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:03 pm (UTC)

Sherlock closes her book and snuggles up.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:10 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to decide on what you want me to do about the pretending right away," Bell says.

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I do not know what to decide or how to decide it," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Then it's good that you don't have to figure that out in a hurry, isn't it?" Bell maneuvers through the snuggle to wrap her arms around Sherlock's middle and press her face into the back of her shoulder.

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

Also, snuggles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Can I help?"

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Possibly," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:24 pm (UTC)

"What do the gaps in knowing-what-to-do look like?"

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I am not very good at wanting things," she says. "I don't have much practice."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:28 pm (UTC)

"You don't? Want things? What, in general?"
Edited 2013-01-30 23:31 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Not easily," she says. "I have priorities but they largely revolve around making sure Tony is alive and happy. I enjoy things but I don't often make significant decisions based on what I anticipate enjoying."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you make significant decisions based on what you think you'd enjoy?" asks Bell, puzzled. And snuggled. "...What's the threshold for significance you're using?"

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Decisions on the level of what to read or make for lunch are not significant. Decisions on the level of whether to take over the world are. I am not always sure about the range in between."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:46 pm (UTC)

"That reminds me. If we manage world takeover, do I get to be Empress? Like the other mes?"

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I see no reason why not," says Sherlock. "Provided you are a good one."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-30 11:57 pm (UTC)

"The people I've talked to seem to think that other mes are. I don't know how much like them to expect to be. Do you not... I don't know. This is probably an ill-advised example, but you wanted the surgeries from the Capitol, didn't you, even if they were inflated by your terrible ex-friend? That doesn't seem very much about keeping Tony alive and happy." Pause. "...I don't suppose that's why you have hangups about wanting medium-sized things? Because your terrible ex-friend used that one to do terrible ex-friend things?"

sicaria
2013-01-30 11:59 pm (UTC)

"...yes," she says. "That seems likely. And I was a child at the time. I was able to articulate what I wanted but not to measure its cost."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:00 am (UTC)

"Is your terrible ex-friend still around in some capacity such that you still actually need to worry about him?"

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:02 am (UTC)

"My terrible ex-friend is President Snow."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:03 am (UTC)

"...Kraken."

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:06 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock. "Quite."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:07 am (UTC)

"That is terrible. Wow. Okay, so he's worth worrying about - do you think he's still motivated to be terrible at you? Is he still occasionally terrible at you?"

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:08 am (UTC)

"He is frequently terrible at Tony."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:11 am (UTC)

"Eegh. Do I want to know? Can it be helped on net by the cunning application of fire?"

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:13 am (UTC)

"You probably don't. I would have killed him already, but he made sure to let me know that he has made arrangements for Tony to be killed if I do. I am not sure whether setting him on fire in a cunning way would qualify."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:15 am (UTC)

"Internal burns would look very strange on an autopsy report, but they would not look like a stab wound or a broken neck," says Bell. "I'll try it if at any time you determine it's a good idea and you can get me in range."

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:19 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:21 am (UTC)

"You're welcome." Nuzzle. (Platonic nuzzle.) "Can you think of other reasons to have hangups about medium-sized wants?"

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:22 am (UTC)

"If there are any, they are not so obvious nor of such magnitude."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:29 am (UTC)

"Do you think... President Snow..." It's weird talking about him like he's just a person, who has ex-friends and so on - "cares who you date?"

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:31 am (UTC)

"Not particularly."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:33 am (UTC)

"Can you convince your brain of that enough that it will try figuring out how to want stuff on that subject, then?" Pause. "This is hard to talk about, everything I know about it is in note-to-self format."

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:35 am (UTC)

"I am not sure the causality is so direct."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:39 am (UTC)

"No? Tell me about it?" (Nuzzle. This is comfy.)

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:43 am (UTC)

"Despite obvious evidence, I am on some level convinced that wanting things inevitably leads to calamity."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:47 am (UTC)

"That almost sounds like some kind of anxiety disorder." (Bell has read introductory-level books on psychology, at Milliways.)

sicaria
2013-01-31 12:58 am (UTC)

"I am not sure that's the best fit, but it is a reasonable analogy."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 12:59 am (UTC)

"Would it be preferable if - I don't know, if I flipped a coin? No, that would be silly, the reason my results are contingent is because I don't want to hurt you, if you wanted me to flip a coin that would just amount to saying you're up for the risk..."

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:07 am (UTC)

"...When you put it like that..." says Sherlock,

"I think I am up for the risk."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:09 am (UTC)

Bell nuzzles.

Less platonically.

"Pretendy-style cuddles," she announces comfortably.

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:10 am (UTC)

"I am fond of these cuddles," Sherlock observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:12 am (UTC)

Bell laughs. "That's good! I am too."

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:16 am (UTC)

"How convenient."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:17 am (UTC)

"It is." Pause. "We are adorable. Tony is smart."

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:17 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:19 am (UTC)

"I asked for his advice when just a few hours with the recorder didn't get me to a decision. Pretty much his input boiled down to 'you'd be cute together,'" Bell says, sort of speaking into the side of Sherlock's neck.

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:20 am (UTC)

"He is correct," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:23 am (UTC)

"Mm-hm. Hey, do you bake, or just cook?" Bell wonders.

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:29 am (UTC)

"Yes I do. Why, did you want something baked?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:29 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I've gone and become self-indulgent over four and a half months of Milliways with access to money and appear to be in the mood for cake."

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:30 am (UTC)

"I will bake you a cake," Sherlock says gravely.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:31 am (UTC)

"You're so serious about it," laughs Bell. And she kisses a tiny little kiss right on the side of Sherlock's neck where her face happens to be.

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:34 am (UTC)

Sherlock blushes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:42 am (UTC)

Bell is not in a position to notice. "How long do cakes take?"

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:43 am (UTC)

"Just short of an hour, generally speaking."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:45 am (UTC)

"Hmm. I do not require cake urgently." Bell makes no move to let Sherlock go.

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:47 am (UTC)

"There is some waiting involved in the last stage of the cake process," Sherlock observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:49 am (UTC)

"That's truuuue," muses Bell. "Do you want to get up right now?"

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:52 am (UTC)

"I would like to bake you a cake," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:52 am (UTC)

"Okay." One more itty-bitty neck-kiss and Bell lets her go, smiling.

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:54 am (UTC)

Sherlock's blush becomes more obvious after they have disentangled.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 01:55 am (UTC)

"You're blushing, that's adorable," says Bell, clapping her hands over her mouth.

sicaria
2013-01-31 02:00 am (UTC)

...She grins, ducking her head slightly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:02 am (UTC)

"What kind of cake do I get?" Bell asks, getting up to follow Sherlock into the kitchen.

sicaria
2013-01-31 02:10 am (UTC)

"There are many options," says Sherlock. "What are your opinions on the relative merits of chocolate and lemon?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:11 am (UTC)

"Chocolate is better," says Bell contently, sitting at the kitchen table.

sicaria
2013-01-31 02:18 am (UTC)

"Then there will be chocolate," says Sherlock.

And there is chocolate.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:19 am (UTC)

"Mmm." Bell inhales the scent of nascent cake. "You are good to have around."

sicaria
2013-01-31 02:23 am (UTC)

"I create cake," Sherlock agrees. "Cake is good."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:25 am (UTC)

"So good," agrees Bell. And when it goes in the oven, she says, "This must be the waiting period I've heard so much about!" and she trots sofaward.

sicaria
2013-01-31 02:34 am (UTC)

Laughing, Sherlock follows her to the couch and resumes snuggles there.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:34 am (UTC)

The snuggles, they are snuggly.

Bell wonders what will happen if Tony is lured upstairs by the smell of cake and spots them. Probably he will go awwww.

ferratus
2013-01-31 02:36 am (UTC)

Bell is correct!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:37 am (UTC)

Bell giggles.

sicaria
2013-01-31 02:38 am (UTC)

"We are cute," Sherlock decrees.

ferratus
2013-01-31 02:39 am (UTC)

"You are cute," says Tony. "What'd I say?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:40 am (UTC)

"You said we'd be cute!" chirps Bell. "You are smart." (Nuzzle.)

ferratus
2013-01-31 02:44 am (UTC)

"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:45 am (UTC)

"And she baked me a cake," Bell says. "I will let you have some."

ferratus
2013-01-31 02:46 am (UTC)

...For some reason, that makes him giggle uncontrollably.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:47 am (UTC)

Bell grins impishly at him, then readjusts her snuggling position to compensate for any drifting that may have occurred.

sicaria
2013-01-31 02:48 am (UTC)

Snugggggggggle.

ferratus
2013-01-31 02:48 am (UTC)

"You are even cuter than I thought," says Tony. "I did not know that was possible."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:50 am (UTC)

"I'm possibly overdoing it during this part," Bell confesses. "It may settle down after I'm no longer continually polling my brain for 'what would Drugged Shell Bell do?' and then doing that."

ferratus
2013-01-31 02:51 am (UTC)

"Well, it'll be fun while it lasts, then," he says. "I want to hug you guys. Can I hug you guys?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:52 am (UTC)

"I don't see why not," says Shell Bell.

ferratus
2013-01-31 02:54 am (UTC)

In that case, Tony hugs them!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 02:55 am (UTC)

Bell is pleased with this arrangement.

sicaria
2013-01-31 02:59 am (UTC)

So is Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-01-31 02:59 am (UTC)

Hugs for everyone!

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 03:04 am (UTC)

Presently cake becomes available. Shell Bell shares. Parts of it cease to exist, quite enjoyably. Sherlock gets a kiss on the cheek for her trouble.

sicaria
2013-01-31 03:18 am (UTC)

This event produces a blush.

And as she is leaving the kitchen, Milliways appears.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 03:21 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Bell. "We can go see if anyone we were hoping to see again is there."

sicaria
2013-01-31 03:36 am (UTC)

"Let's," says Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-01-31 03:36 am (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 03:37 am (UTC)

And in they go. Bell takes her usual first-walking-into-the-bar inventory. Any familiar faces...?

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 03:41 am (UTC)

Yes!

toblameforit
2013-01-31 03:42 am (UTC)

A

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 03:42 am (UTC)

few.

passforsympathy
2013-01-31 03:43 am (UTC)

Four.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 06:46 am (UTC)

Bell smiles when she sees Libby, and then she looks amusedly at the other Tony and Sherlock -

And then she screams and draws her wand on the fourth of the party.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 01:29 pm (UTC)

"What did I tell you," says Elizabeth.

passforsympathy
2013-01-31 01:31 pm (UTC)

"You could have mentioned your reasons," Obadiah says mildly.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 01:31 pm (UTC)

"I didn't have specifics, I just know a bad idea when I see one."

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 01:32 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Sherlock has shifted posture just enough to emphasize to the other Sherlock which side he is on.

toblameforit
2013-01-31 01:33 pm (UTC)

And Tony is giving Obie a look of semi-affectionate despair, 'I can't take you anywhere' flavour.

sicaria
2013-01-31 01:34 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is in full-on bodyguard mode.

ferratus
2013-01-31 01:35 pm (UTC)

And Tony is... pretty much frozen.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 04:34 pm (UTC)

Bell has now slowly begun to realize that this is not their version of this man. While he could easily be bad news, the fact that he has seen their recognizable selves, in Milliways, does not mean that they are all now going to die unless they can kill him and run off to another world to escape deadman-switch reprisals. She lowers her wand arm.

(But her wand doesn't leave her hand. It doesn't actually need to point at her target. It just needs to be in her hand.)

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure I can handle this," she adds.

passforsympathy
2013-01-31 04:46 pm (UTC)

Obadiah looks from his fiancee to the other Tony (and that must be another Sherlock, what an interesting design choice) and accompanying terrified stranger.

Then he says dryly, "Have fun, dear," and heads out his door, which thanks to the convenience of Milliways topology is on the other side of the room.

toblameforit
2013-01-31 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Aargh," says Tony.

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 04:47 pm (UTC)

Sherlock pats his arm.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 04:49 pm (UTC)

With him gone, Bell is content to put her hair back up again.

"So," she says to Elizabeth. "That's your fiancé, huh?"

And her voice shakes only a little bit.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 04:51 pm (UTC)

"That's my fiancé," Elizabeth agrees.

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 04:52 pm (UTC)

Sherlock looks at Sherlock, then both Tonies, then Sherlock again.

sicaria
2013-01-31 04:52 pm (UTC)

She nods.

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 04:53 pm (UTC)

He raises his eyebrows slightly.

sicaria
2013-01-31 04:53 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 04:55 pm (UTC)

Bell peers between the Sherlocks. "I suppose you don't want to share with those of us who aren't observant enough to pretend we're telepathic."

sicaria
2013-01-31 04:56 pm (UTC)

"He offered to help me assassinate Snow. I declined."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh." She turns to the other Sherlock. "That's very kind of you, though."

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 04:58 pm (UTC)

"It seems necessary."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 05:00 pm (UTC)

Bell turns to her version of Tony. "Are you okay?"

Because Sherlock mentioned Snow is regularly horrible to Tony. And freezing isn't necessarily a less terrified reaction than screaming and drawing a weapon.

ferratus
2013-01-31 08:21 pm (UTC)

"...Let's go with yes," he says uncomfortably.

toblameforit
2013-01-31 08:23 pm (UTC)

The other Tony raises his hand and waggles it a little.

"Does... anybody want to tell me what the fuck is going on?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 08:24 pm (UTC)

"What all did Elizabeth tell you about our world and how it's shitty?" asks Bell.

toblameforit
2013-01-31 08:25 pm (UTC)

"That it's shitty. And we should talk to you about how shitty it is."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Well. That guy's alt is President of our shitty world. If our actual President showed up here he would need to be made dead, consequences of outside grudges brought into Milliways be damned, because we're all three of us recognizable to every person in our country and it would not be smart to take a chance on him deciding that people with reason to hate him having access to Milliways is fine and dandy."

toblameforit
2013-01-31 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Ooh boy," he mutters.

He looks at Bell's Tony.

ferratus
2013-01-31 08:35 pm (UTC)

"If you can't guess the rest, you don't wanna know it," he says. "Maybe yours is different."

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Not by much," says Sherlock.

toblameforit
2013-01-31 08:36 pm (UTC)

"...I'm pretty sure Obie isn't an evil dictator?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 08:41 pm (UTC)

"They could easily be different in any number of ways. I happen to know that I come in vampire, for instance. But frankly I'd rather not involve your - his name is Obie? There's a difference, ours is called Coriolanus Snow - in anything that would put us in the same room again. At all." Pause. "Unless he's good enough and a good enough actor that assassinating ours and replacing him with yours to avoid triggering deadman switches would make any sort of sense? Probably not, but it's worth floating...?"

toblameforit
2013-01-31 08:42 pm (UTC)

"No," says Tony.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 08:42 pm (UTC)

"No," says Elizabeth.

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Definitely not," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Didn't think so."

toblameforit
2013-01-31 09:50 pm (UTC)

"...Also, back up, vampire? Good vampire or bad vampire?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I haven't met her," says Bell, blinking. "I haven't met any of me. Milliways and I have this inconvenient relationship where it's willing for me to come here sometimes but it's not nearly as convenient to my wants as other people seem to find it. But I met a friendly werewolf who lives in the world that vampire-me sort of secretly rules. And he seemed to think she was fine, or at least an obvious improvement over the previous secret vampire rulers of that world."
Edited 2013-01-31 21:53 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-01-31 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Huh, okay," says Tony. "We have vampires in our world but they are, like, all assholes. Pretty sure they don't secretly rule anything, either."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:07 pm (UTC)

"I think my vampire alt was notable for not having eaten any humans, but she still had not eaten any," Bell says. "According to the werewolf I met. If the ruling things is secret how would you know if yours do?"

toblameforit
2013-01-31 10:10 pm (UTC)

He points at Sherlock.

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles faintly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:14 pm (UTC)

Bell shrugs. "Reasonable answer, I guess, I don't have a lot of detail about how secret the secret is. So. You wanna help us?"

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll leave you guys to it and go placate my future husband," says Elizabeth.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:17 pm (UTC)

"You didn't want your entertaining advice first?" Bell says.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Later," she says cheerfully.
Edited 2013-01-31 22:17 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Thank you for bringing help," says Bell earnestly.

prima_sequentem
2013-01-31 10:25 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome."

She goes.

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:26 pm (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:28 pm (UTC)

Bell pulls out her recorder. "I have the explanation of Panem I gave Elizabeth recorded, if you don't have specific questions lined up and she didn't tell you much," she offers.

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:31 pm (UTC)

"By all means," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:36 pm (UTC)

Bell maneuvers through her record.

""Let me put it this way: the government we're planning to overthrow hasn't encountered a hiccup of significant-scale resistance from the parts of the country where we live in the last seventy-two years despite routinely kidnapping kids our age and younger and killing most of them for the entertainment of the viewers back home."

"Harsh."

"Yes. Rather. And of course there are the other effects of malicious totalitarianism - the only reason I'm reasonably confident about the lack of rebellion is that Bar will loan me archives of Capitol newspapers, not just the District Four Gazette, and there aren't any prolonged, suspicious 'resource shortages' that I'd expect the media to cover for unrest with even there. You can see why we'd like the Capitol in question to go away."

Bell then decides that this isn't actually her best summary and skips backwards to the one she gave Darcy.

"I... live in a pretty shitty world."

"...What kind of shitty are we talking, here?"

"The part that gets most people's attention is the fact that, annually, two dozen disadvantaged teenagers are forced into an arena with some combination of environmental hazards, genetically engineered animals, and other variously lethal props to fight to the death on national television," says Bell. "But more people - including more kids - tend to die of various other problems related to economic inequality and the side effects of totalitarianism. The only reason I look reasonably well-nourished is because I have been coming to Milliways since I was six and trading byproducts from the job I've been working since age eight for nonperishables to bring home with me. The only reason I didn't have to try my luck on the TV show is because my District has a system to train selected kids for the games and arranges for them to volunteer and spare whoever gets picked in the lottery."
Edited 2013-01-31 22:36 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh, do let's fix that," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Do let's," agrees Bell, pausing the recording. "We don't have a plan yet. We're working at enough of a resource disadvantage that we have to plan around what resources we can get. So far we have what you see, and Tony's got a fancy generator I snagged for him at home, and some progressively less useful things."

("What you see" includes the stick in Bell's hair, and the amulets - since she never leaves the house, she's traded for the flashier one, and Tony's got the less obtrusively girly-looking lump of glass.)

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:45 pm (UTC)

"What manner of deadly weapon have you got in your hair?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:46 pm (UTC)

"It is my stick," says Bell. "It does fire. It takes practice, don't try it, I'm alive because my practice location happened to be a beach."

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I was not planning to," he says mildly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I just disclaim that whenever I explain what it is."

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Reasonable," he acknowledges.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Have you figured out what the necklaces do?" she asks curiously. (It doesn't seem like a significant possibility to her that he doesn't know that the necklaces do something.)

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I'd give good odds that they are protective in some way," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Nicely done," smirks Bell. "They're not heavy-duty. Mine is mostly to minimize the damage when I inevitably trip over something imaginary and fall down the stairs. But yeah, magic protection amulets. Fire wand. Fancy generator and whatever Tony can put together out of parts we can get. Versus the Capitol. What're you guys bringing to the party?"

toblameforit
2013-01-31 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Me," says Tony. "And whatever Stark Industries stuff I can fit through a door." He looks at Tony. "You and me should go have a serious technical conversation," he says. And then, because he is Tony, adds: "And probably also make out a little."

ferratus
2013-01-31 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Good plan," says Tony. "Let's go."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 11:04 pm (UTC)

Bell blinks. She was not really expecting that. She tilts her head as they depart.

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 11:05 pm (UTC)

Sherlock looks at Bell, then at Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-01-31 11:06 pm (UTC)

Sherlock looks at Sherlock, then at Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, I guess he's not the first person I've heard of who - oh." Bell puts her hand over her eyes. "Oh. Is it time for a quick are-we-monogamous conversation, Sherlock?" She's addressing hers.

sicaria
2013-01-31 11:10 pm (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 11:11 pm (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-31 11:11 pm (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-01-31 11:12 pm (UTC)

sicaria
2013-01-31 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Apparently so," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 11:17 pm (UTC)

"It's like you're telepathic," remarks Bell. "Okay, normally I'd say I wanted some time to think about it, but I'm pretty sure I know what the answer after my thinking about it is, because the other person I've heard of in this situation, who I mentioned, said he slept with his alt who was my alt's boyfriend. So I'm pretty confident I'm equipped to come down on the side of 'okay' and there's no strong reason I have to do all the steps of that beforehand. Have fun. If you can get pregnant, please don't do that."

sicaria
2013-01-31 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I cannot get pregnant without significant medical intervention," says Sherlock. "Thank you, we will."

She leads the other Sherlock... out to the lake, for some reason.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 11:23 pm (UTC)

Well.

Bell knows how to occupy herself unaccompanied in Milliways.

She starts talking, systematically, purposefully, to each person in the bar.

pythbox
2013-01-31 11:45 pm (UTC)

How about this girl? Sitting in an armchair by the fire which she has turned to face the Window, manipulating what appears to be a laptop computer with a holographic projector instead of a screen. The image it currently projects into the air above her lap is of a complex and very spiky-looking three-dimensional shape.

Also, there might be something slightly familiar about her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 11:47 pm (UTC)

"...Do... I know you...?" Bell asks the girl. It's not her usual introduction. She launches into that. "I'm Shell Bell. I'm from Panem, Earth, year 72 by our reckoning and something I don't know by everyone else's."

pythbox
2013-01-31 11:49 pm (UTC)

"...Um. I'm Matilda," she says. "I think we've met. About twelve years ago, my time."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 11:50 pm (UTC)

"That... sounds right, yes, are you the one who can float things and who I lost in my panic about the squid in the lake outside?"

pythbox
2013-01-31 11:52 pm (UTC)

"That's me!" agrees Matilda. "Is your world still horrible? It turns out mine does have magic."

she_sells_seashells
2013-01-31 11:53 pm (UTC)

"My world is still horrible! I am collecting magic so me and my girlfriend and her brother can make it not-horrible. What kind do you have?"

pythbox
2013-02-01 12:04 am (UTC)

"The contagious kind!" says Matilda. "Or, sort of contagious. Sometimes, if I use a bunch of magic on somebody, or even a little, they end up able to do magic themselves. Sometimes nothing happens. And since I started doing magic, of which the floating things was some, more and more people in my world have been able to do it too even though I've never met most of them. It's a fascinating system. I wrote three papers on it and now I have the world's first PhD in thaumatology."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 12:06 am (UTC)

Bell stares at her. "Contagious magic? Can I have some? And my girlfriend and her brother too when they finish what they're doing?

pythbox
2013-02-01 12:13 am (UTC)

"Ye-es," says Matilda. "But I'd rather give you the operating manual before I give you the magic. Or try to, because again, sometimes it doesn't work and I don't know why. Um, one sec."

She closes out of the file she was viewing and brings up what seems to be a kind of directory structure, with labelled folders and files as nodes in a three-dimensional graph. At dizzying speed, she navigates this maze until she finds a folder labelled HOW TO MAGIC.

"Do you have a computer on you?" she asks, selecting the folder. It sprouts a forest of subdirectories and text and video files.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"No. Nor at home."

pythbox
2013-02-01 12:15 am (UTC)

"Would you like one?" she inquires.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 12:17 am (UTC)

"There is not enough yes in my vocabulary for this question."

pythbox
2013-02-01 12:22 am (UTC)

Matilda snaps her fingers. A duplicate of her laptop appears, hovering in the air in front of Bell.

"I designed these myself," she explains. "One of the limiting factors of my world's magic is that it's harder to conjure an object the more complicated it is, unless you know its underlying structures really, really well."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 12:23 am (UTC)

"...If you can just appear them out of nowhere, any chance I can get one for the girlfriend and one for her brother too? And maybe one for said brother to take apart and turn into nifty things? He's an engineer."

pythbox
2013-02-01 12:32 am (UTC)

"Sure!" she says. Another snap of her fingers, and five more laptops appear stacked neatly under the first one. Then she does something to hers that causes the top three on the stack to blink small blue lights in their upper left corners. "And now you've all got a copy of the magic manual."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 12:34 am (UTC)

"You're awesome," declares Bell. She finds a place to sit. "Should I just start reading it now? In case I don't run into you again for another twelve years and since it's a contagion prerequisite?"

pythbox
2013-02-01 12:35 am (UTC)

"Good idea!" says Matilda. "Let me know if you need help figuring out the interface."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 12:37 am (UTC)

Bell is not mystified by computers. She's borrowed them from Bar. This one is unfamiliar, but nicely designed, and Bell only has a couple questions on her way through the directory tree to the manual. She reads it with a ferocity normally reserved for starving people presented with food or drowning people presented with air.

pythbox
2013-02-01 01:03 am (UTC)

And in fact, two of the listed common spells are 'conjure food' and 'breathe water'.

All in all, it's a very tidy system, although it has a few quirks once you move away from the basics. And the document on how to get magic is not terribly promising.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 01:05 am (UTC)

Bell looks grimly at Helpful Graphs.

"If it takes days," she says, "to get to the might-as-well-give-up point... can I get you to spend days on us? I cannot overstate how much this would be amazing for de-horribling the world."

pythbox
2013-02-01 01:06 am (UTC)

"Sure!" says Matilda.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 01:07 am (UTC)

"Thanks! The statistics are at least encouraging that one of the three of us will get something workable. I hope it's me, but I could work with it being Sherlock or Tony."

pythbox
2013-02-01 01:10 am (UTC)

"Want me to give you a first try before you go and find your friends?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 01:11 am (UTC)

"They're busy now anyway," Bell says, nodding. "They met some alternates of theirs. Sherlock's is a boy, which is kind of weird."

(She doesn't specify what they and their alternates are doing.)

pythbox
2013-02-01 01:19 am (UTC)

"Okay. Mind if I levitate you a few inches? It's easiest."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 01:21 am (UTC)

"That's fine," chirps Bell. "More than fine. I'm so glad I found you."

pythbox
2013-02-01 01:24 am (UTC)

Bell levitates a few inches off the ground. Matilda opens up the thing she was looking at earlier again.
Edited 2013-02-01 01:30 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 01:31 am (UTC)

Bell reads more of the manual, after the part with the helpful graphs. She's a little less manic about it now that she is floating.

pythbox
2013-02-01 01:36 am (UTC)

There is a lot of technical detail available, including descriptions of every common spell. With variants.

When Matilda said she wrote three papers on it, she apparently meant more like thirty. Unless only a few of these count as papers the way she meant. She's credited as an author in every single document that credits authors.

Also, for some reason a disproportionate focus has been given to the subject of conjuring food.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 01:38 am (UTC)

Bell is very much in favor of the subject of conjuring food.

She reads all of it.

If it seems like Matilda is open to being talked to, she makes remarks about it as she goes, but she is also open to just... reading. About magic. This is the most technical magic description she's ever gotten her hands on. (Reading about any other system has always seemed needlessly tortuous. She couldn't have them.)

pythbox
2013-02-01 01:43 am (UTC)

Matilda is very open to being talked to! Don't tell anybody, but she's kind of a nerd.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 01:44 am (UTC)

Bell is not a nerd about most things.

She is absolutely a magic nerd.

pythbox
2013-02-01 01:48 am (UTC)

Then she has found the right person to talk to.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 01:53 am (UTC)

After Bell is finished with the entire manual - and has reread the interesting sections - she says, "I think it's probably a good idea for me to go find Sherlock and Tony now. You won't go anywhere, will you?"

(And she's going to stash the new computers in her room, just in case, because sometimes fucking Milliways earns its name.)

pythbox
2013-02-01 02:10 am (UTC)

"I will not go anywhere," Matilda affirms. "Unless you're gone for six hours and I really need to pee."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 02:12 am (UTC)

"Well, if that happens, we can leave each other notes at the bar and try to catch each other again? I'll be here more frequently than I used to. Tony can sometimes summon the door and Sherlock runs across it more often than I do. Anyway, I'll try not to take six hours!" She scoops up the laptops, stashes them, and goes Stark-hunting.

toblameforit
2013-02-01 02:28 am (UTC)

All four of them are in Bell's pair's room, to which Bell has a key.

They are all snuggling. The Tonies are discussing technology.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 02:29 am (UTC)

"I found someone with contagious magic," Bell says loudly and without preamble.

sicaria
2013-02-01 02:35 am (UTC)

"Where?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 02:36 am (UTC)

"Downstairs. She's called Matilda. I met her when I was six and then never found her again. She has to do magic to whoever she's trying to be contagious at. Come on, come on!" Bell can't contain herself; she races down the hallway to the stairs again.

sicaria
2013-02-01 02:38 am (UTC)

Sherlock follows immediately.

ferratus
2013-02-01 02:38 am (UTC)

Tony takes a minute, because first he has to put on pants.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 02:47 am (UTC)

Bell finds Matilda again, and on the way down the stairs, she chatters: "And she can conjure stuff out of thin air - I got us laptop computers, and extras for Tony to take apart - and her magic system can do just about anything if you understand it well enough and the contagiousness thing doesn't work perfectly but the odds are good it'll work on at least one of us, and," breath, "there she is! Matilda, this is Sherlock! Sherlock, Matilda!"

sicaria
2013-02-01 02:48 am (UTC)

"Hello," says Sherlock.

pythbox
2013-02-01 02:50 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Matilda. "Would you like to be levitated?"

sicaria
2013-02-01 02:50 am (UTC)

"Yes, please."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 02:51 am (UTC)

"And me again too, please."

pythbox
2013-02-01 02:52 am (UTC)

Floating ensues.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 02:53 am (UTC)

Bell giggles uncontrollably and plants a delighted kiss on Sherlock's forehead.

sicaria
2013-02-01 02:54 am (UTC)

Giggling right back, Sherlock hugs her.

pythbox
2013-02-01 02:54 am (UTC)

Matilda awwwwwwwws.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 02:55 am (UTC)

When Tony comes down the stairs, Bell waves him over, hopping up and down as effectively as she can when suspended in midair.

ferratus
2013-02-01 02:56 am (UTC)

Tony beams at all of them.

"Hi! You are floating," he says to Bell and Sherlock; to Matilda, "Hi! You are magic."

pythbox
2013-02-01 02:57 am (UTC)

"I am magic! Would you like to be floating too?"

ferratus
2013-02-01 03:02 am (UTC)

"Yes I would!"

pythbox
2013-02-01 03:02 am (UTC)

Now he is floating.

ferratus
2013-02-01 03:03 am (UTC)

"I'm floating," he declares.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 03:04 am (UTC)

"She made us computers! I solicited extras to take apart!" Bell repeats for Tony's benefit. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee." Sherlock gets another forehead-kiss.

ferratus
2013-02-01 03:06 am (UTC)

"You are adorable," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 03:08 am (UTC)

"We've established that," laughs Bell. "Matilda, how do you tell if we're getting magicked? Does it perchance involve magic?"
Edited 2013-02-01 03:10 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-01 03:12 am (UTC)

"I can tell," she says. "It's a specialized skill; not a lot of people have it. If I see any sticking, I'll let you know."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 03:13 am (UTC)

"Excellent."

Bell decides that the waiting period is best spent having levitationy snuggles with Sherlock. "Was talking engineering with the other one of you educational?" she asks over Sherlock's shoulder to Tony.

ferratus
2013-02-01 01:00 pm (UTC)

"Extremely!" says Tony. "Some of the stuff he's working with is kinda primitive by Capitol standards, but not all of it is."

sicaria
2013-02-01 01:06 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

On close inspection, Bell may notice that Sherlock has a few scratches and bruises that she didn't last time they spoke.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:16 pm (UTC)

"...What happened to you?" Bell asks, picking up Sherlock's hand an examining a little cut over one of her knuckles.

sicaria
2013-02-01 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock and I wanted to know which one of us would win in a fight," she says serenely. "The answer is me. Damn close, though."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:18 pm (UTC)

"...It was close? Damn."

sicaria
2013-02-01 05:22 pm (UTC)

"It was fun," she adds.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, I did tell you to have fun, I guess. Do you decide to see who would win a fight between you and sufficiently interesting-looking people in Milliways on a regular basis, or just Sherlocks?"

sicaria
2013-02-01 05:24 pm (UTC)

"This has been the first such instance."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:25 pm (UTC)

"First of maybe-several?" asks Bell, raising an eyebrow. "Since it was such fun, and all."

sicaria
2013-02-01 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Hmm, potentially."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Good to know." And she plops her head onto Sherlock's shoulder.

Hmm. Matilda said she'd let them know if any magic was sticking.

It's still worth trying even if it takes days, but there is a sharp drop in expected magicalness if it takes even as long as an hour...

She decides not to worry about it for the time being. "So what all cool stuff can you build or get hold of now that you couldn't before?" she asks Tony.

ferratus
2013-02-01 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Lots!" he says excitedly. "He doesn't just have gadgets, he has money. And he says he'll take me through sometime to check out his workshop and meet his house."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Meet... his house...?"

ferratus
2013-02-01 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, his house has an artificial intelligence named Jarvis. He sounds pretty cool."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Wow. Okay, that is pretty cool," says Bell.

ferratus
2013-02-01 05:49 pm (UTC)

"And apparently Jarvis can open a door to Milliways anytime he wants, so I'm not gonna get stuck or anything."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Can I come along, then?" is Bell's next question. "And meet the house and see the cool stuff and - I've never been in a world that wasn't Panem before. Only as far as here. I've always been afraid I'd get stuck. But I really want to."

ferratus
2013-02-01 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Tony. "I mean, I'll ask him, but the answer is totally sure."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 05:53 pm (UTC)

Bell laughs.

She wants to meet one of her, and be nigh-telepathic...

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:03 pm (UTC)

Speak of the devil.

Someone who looks like Bell, only with a sleeker build, windblown hair, a weird ripped black outfit, and a branch of some kind in her fist, walks into the bar.

And immediately says, "Yambe Akka take the stars, they're zombies!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh my," exclaims Shell Bell, releasing Sherlock on hearing her own voice - not as it sounds in her head, but certainly as it sounds on her recorder - and realizing that she doesn't know how to run across the room while she's levitated several inches into the air. "Uh, Matilda, can you let me down - I have to go talk to her!"
Edited 2013-02-01 18:08 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-01 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Matilda. Bell settles onto the floor.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 06:11 pm (UTC)

And she's off, running and tripping and catching herself and making it to stand in front of Isabella. "Hi," she says breathlessly.

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:11 pm (UTC)

Isabella opens her mouth.

She closes it.

"What's going on?" she asks, finally. "Why is there a skinny zombie double of me in a magic bar?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm... not a zombie?" tries Bell. "I'm just a - human." She was about to say person but that doesn't seem politic in Milliways. "And we're doubles because we're from different worlds but based on the same... template... thing! I'm from Panem. I'm called Shell Bell."

truthwright
2013-02-01 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Why do you keep saying zombie?" wonders Kas. "I mean, I don't see any daemons, but—" he gestures at Isabella.

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Can't you tell? They're not just separated. There's a difference. You really can't tell? Look. Shell Bell." Isabella reaches up to her shoulder; Path steps onto it. "Have you got one of these hiding somewhere? If you're not a witch maybe he's not an owl. Firefly? Tiny dragon? Any sort of creature - do you have a daemon?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

"No?" says Shell Bell nervously. "I... don't know anybody who does. He's very cute, though?"

(It's fortunate that she keeps her hands to herself.)

truthwright
2013-02-01 06:23 pm (UTC)

Kas shrugs. "Maybe we're looking at different things," he says. "I just see a bunch of people being people."

The king cobra wrapped loosely around his shoulders changes into a fennec fox and nibbles on his ear.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 06:25 pm (UTC)

Bell startles. "So... daemons are... shapeshifting... pets...? That people who aren't zombies have where you come from?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm not a pet," protests Path.

"He's not," agrees Isabella sharply. "And yeah. But... okay, Kas is right, you aren't acting like a zombie. Maybe your equivalent of Pathalan doesn't... have his own body. Or something. Sorry about that." She sighs. "I'm Isabella Amariah."

truthwright
2013-02-01 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm Kas," adds Kas, because why not.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Well, this place is Milliways. It's a restaurant-slash-bar at the end of the universe." Bell waves at the window. "If you go out the door, you'll be right where and when you were when you came in, so you can stay as long as you want and it doesn't matter. Doors appear according to different patterns for different people - I find one only about once or twice a year, but my girlfriend runs into one twice a month, her brother can summon it one in three tries, and his alt's house can open one at will. Speaking of which, can I get you to come meet some people?" she pleads. "And tell us about yourselves and your world?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Isabella slowly.

truthwright
2013-02-01 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Kas.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

"This way," says Shell Bell, glowing with excitement. "Sherlock! Tony! Matilda! Look who I found! This is Isabella Amariah, and her friend Kas, and I have reassured her that we aren't zombies just because we don't have owls or snakes or anything following us around."

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Isabella reservedly.

truthwright
2013-02-01 06:41 pm (UTC)

Petaal waves a paw.

pythbox
2013-02-01 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Matilda. "You're very magically interesting, has anyone ever told you that?"

ferratus
2013-02-01 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Aww, you found another you, Bell! Congrats!"

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:44 pm (UTC)

"I am a witch," Isabella tells Matilda. "...Are you? You're not dressed like one, but clearly the usual patterns don't apply here."

pythbox
2013-02-01 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Arguably I am, but I don't think I'm a witch like your world does witches," says Matilda. "You're all... glowy. And so are your little friends."

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:50 pm (UTC)

"We're daemons," says Path indignantly.

pythbox
2013-02-01 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't think that word means the same thing to you that it does to me," Matilda says placidly.

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:52 pm (UTC)

"He's my soul?" tries Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-01 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that sounds about right."

To Bell, she says, "Want to be floaty again?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes, please!" says Bell. "So, what's your world like? It has witches, apparently?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

"And daemons," says Isabella insistently. "I don't know how you do without your own Pathalan. How do you get honest information about what's going on in your head without a daemon who can look at it from the inside and outside at the same time? And... do you only have humans where you're from? We also have panserbjorne," she shrugs. "Armored bears."

pythbox
2013-02-01 07:00 pm (UTC)

Bell resumes floatiness. Matilda listens in fascination.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I have to do it myself," Bell says. "I guess having a daemon does sound useful, but I think I get good results just talking to myself. I have an audio recorder I talk to - what's technology like in your world?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:03 pm (UTC)

"It's 2013?" says Isabella. "Um, I have a phone?" She pulls out her phone from the little bag that always sits between her shoulderblades. "It's fairly new, so, this is where we're at. Why is Matilda floating you three?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Her form of magic is contagious," explains Bell. "Our world doesn't have any, so we're trying to get some here. Can you teach yours?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:05 pm (UTC)

"You don't have any magic?" exclaims Isabella. "That's terrible! But - I can only teach witch spells to witches. Even if Kas's daemon turns into a witch shape she can't cast them; we tried it. Although she can fly cloud-pine and feel celestial light just fine."

truthwright
2013-02-01 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Celestial light is sexy," says Petaal.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 07:09 pm (UTC)

Bell looks quizzically at Kas, and says to her alt, "But you can still do magic. What kinds?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:13 pm (UTC)

"All kinds, as long as it's okay if it takes me a couple tries to work out the kinks in a spell," shrugs Isabella. "Witchcraft is better at natural things - people, daemons, plants, animals, weather - than at anything to do with machines or whatever, although I can work with those - it's more fun to spend an afternoon figuring out a verse to make my phone behave than to fly to the store and get them to do it. Uh, specifics. I can heal, and call animals, and find out things about anything that'll sit in a divination circle for me, and my teacher keeps bothering me to curse somebody but I don't know of anyone who really deserves to be cursed, and besides, I think as soon as she talks me into that she'll be bothering me to try killing somebody because she thinks I can get away with it because my dad's a cop. Some older witches are kind of cavalier about that kind of thing."

truthwright
2013-02-01 07:18 pm (UTC)

"From what I've heard about your dad, I'm pretty sure that makes you less likely to get away with it," comments Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I know, right? Part of my apprenticeship agreement is that I don't have to do anything I sincerely consider unethical. So that's nice. Even if she's always going on about how the fulness of witchcraft requires trying everything."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 07:20 pm (UTC)

"...Can you curse and/or kill people from a distance?" Bell asks.

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know if I could do it between worlds, but within one, distance isn't a factor. I just need a focus - something the target owned, or someone they met, or someplace they've been or ideally all of those. Why?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a deserving target?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:22 pm (UTC)

Isabella blinks.

"Your world doesn't have witches. No one will have any idea what's happening, will they?"

sicaria
2013-02-01 07:23 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

truthwright
2013-02-01 07:23 pm (UTC)

Kas blinks at her. Petaal's enormous ears perk up.

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'll take a deserving target. Really deserving, I mean, but in a world with no witches there probably are some - I mean, in my world, anyone who's publicly awful doesn't last long without an allied clan casting protections, but in yours..."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Excellent," crows Bell. "And Sherlock, Tony, you guys have met Snow and probably any number of other unpleasant people we'd like to die of - what will it look like, Isabella Amariah?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:28 pm (UTC)

"A long-distance death curse? Easiest is probably to just amp up the non-death one that causes the flulike symptoms until they die of dehydration, or maybe suffocate from congestion, or cook themselves in fever," shrugs Isabella. "I can layer it as much as you want so it takes a satisfactory amount of time regardless of whatever medical care is involved. You do have to convince me that the person is bad news, though."

sicaria
2013-02-01 07:32 pm (UTC)

"We can provide something he has owned, somewhere he has been, and someone he has met," says Sherlock. "As for how bad he is, would you like the personal reasons or the political ones? He is both an old family friend guilty of a litany of betrayals and the president of our viciously unpleasant totalitarian government."

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:34 pm (UTC)

"If I'm going to kill this guy I need the whole story. If you just want him to be hospitalized for a couple of months either will do."

sicaria
2013-02-01 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Bell, perhaps this would be a good moment for your summary of the Hunger Games."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 07:38 pm (UTC)

Bell produces her summary of the Hunger Games.

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:45 pm (UTC)

"And you want me to kill your... king? dictator? the guy who invented this sadistic excuse for entertainment except it's apparently been going on long enough that a human would already be dead?" asks Isabella.

sicaria
2013-02-01 07:45 pm (UTC)

"President," Sherlock reiterates. "He did not invent it, no, but he does take a significant personal interest."

ferratus
2013-02-01 07:46 pm (UTC)

"And when you win, he puts you up for auction to all his rich friends and threatens to kill your family if you don't fuck the winner," says Tony.

truthwright
2013-02-01 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Well, I think you should kill him," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:49 pm (UTC)

Isabella looks like she's considering asking Tony a question, possibly how do you know that, but instead she says, "If the Hunger Games part is all on TV I assume you'll be able to produce more evidence than your word, and if it corroborates, I will be happy to present you with a dead president deceased of a mysteriously infection-free flu. Over any time period you like. I'm not philosophically opposed to well-targeted revenge."

sicaria
2013-02-01 07:51 pm (UTC)

"There is plenty of evidence, yes."
Edited 2013-02-01 19:51 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:54 pm (UTC)

"All right then. And I hear that one of you can open a door to this place to send me home with reasonable reliability?" she asks. "I can wait around a bit for you to see about magic contagion, if it'll really be the same time when I go home again."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 07:54 pm (UTC)

"It's not perfect about that, but it's close," Bell assures her. "So, have you taken over your world yet?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 07:55 pm (UTC)

"How did you know I'm going to do that? I haven't yet. I need something that I have not yet found, but I was in the middle of a spell to locate it when Kas found the door."

truthwright
2013-02-01 07:59 pm (UTC)

"She's you," Kas points out. "Why wouldn't she know?"

dark_light
2013-02-01 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't think I'd be doing it any time soon if it weren't for the existence of alethiometers," says Isabella. "It'd certainly take me a few decades, maybe even centuries - witches have specialized in magic before and not wound up accumulating the kind of power I'd want before I'd be comfortable making an open bid for world domination, you know?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 11:28 pm (UTC)

"You're the first one of our template I've met," says Bell, "but I've been recognized in here before, and we frequently take over the world."

truthwright
2013-02-01 11:30 pm (UTC)

"That's awesome," says Kas.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 11:52 pm (UTC)

"As far as I can tell we do need a magical edge of some kind to do it, which is why Matilda's floating us," Bell explains. She then peers at Kas. "...I might have met one of you. But I'm not sure. He was older and had a lot of scars and my recorder only does audio."

truthwright
2013-02-01 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, tell me about him," says Kas. (Petaal nibbles his ear again.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-01 11:57 pm (UTC)

Bell shrugs and directs her recorder to the relevant conversation.
Edited 2013-02-01 23:58 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-01 11:59 pm (UTC)

Kas closes his eyes and listens; Petaal does the same.

It's Petaal who first says, "Yeah, that's us."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:00 am (UTC)

"Well, he didn't have a daemon," Bell says. "So I don't know if he's you both. I'm not sure how that works."

dark_light
2013-02-02 12:01 am (UTC)

"You've either got a Pathalan curled up asleep inside you somewhere, or you're not one of me," says Isabella. "That's how it works."

truthwright
2013-02-02 12:02 am (UTC)

Kas shrugs. He isn't sure his take on the matter is exactly the same as Isabella's, but he's not sure what his take on the matter exactly is, so he's not going to get into it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:16 am (UTC)

Bell quits the playback. "You're good with natural things, right?" she asks Isabella. "One thing I'm worried about is the population of the Districts being able to feed themselves if the Capitol attacks that way - and it's likely, controlling us with hunger is their style, they named the Games after it. I'm wondering if you can do some sort of magic to various crops that will let them spring right back up if they're bombed or burned or something? Can you do that from a distance too?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 12:23 am (UTC)

"That sounds... large-scale. Given enough time and a few tries and a whole hell of a lot of honey, I could definitely do that to a farm. Learning how to scale up spells in general is still on my to-do list," says Isabella regretfully. "I'm sorry. I mean, once I figure it out, if you still need it, I'll totally make another trip."

pythbox
2013-02-02 12:26 am (UTC)

"If you need a large supply of food," says Matilda, "I can do that. I mean, assuming I see you again before another twelve years have gone by."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:27 am (UTC)

"I don't think we have a place to put a large supply of food - correct me if I'm wrong," she adds to the Stark twins. "Can you make a..." She gestures vaguely. "If we don't get magic so we can conjure our own food for everyone, can you make some kind of cornucopia?"

ferratus
2013-02-02 12:28 am (UTC)

Tony shakes his head. "We've got nowhere near the storage space."

pythbox
2013-02-02 12:29 am (UTC)

"Well, I'd have to invent one first," says Matilda, "but I'm good at inventing."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:31 am (UTC)

"I know! I read your papers," says Bell delightedly. "...There should really be some more effective way to network through Milliways. I wonder if Bar can tell who's an alt of who? Hand out keys to a shared room based on that? There should totally be a..." She snickers. "A Bell-tower. With a guestbook that asks for species and unique nickname and stuff."
Edited 2013-02-02 00:33 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-02 12:35 am (UTC)

"That's adorable."

ferratus
2013-02-02 12:35 am (UTC)

"That is adorable."

truthwright
2013-02-02 12:35 am (UTC)

Kas cracks up.

dark_light
2013-02-02 12:37 am (UTC)

"Since you're occupied with floating, I can go ask, if there's... someone to ask?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:38 am (UTC)

"Oh! The bar herself is sapient. Just go up to it and talk and you'll get napkins with her reply written on it," says Bell.

dark_light
2013-02-02 12:39 am (UTC)

"Oh...kay," says Isabella, and to the bar she goes.

truthwright
2013-02-02 12:40 am (UTC)

"Hey," says Kas, "can I hear some more of you talking to other-me?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:43 am (UTC)

"Uh, some more, sure, I'm not sure if you want the... whole thing."

truthwright
2013-02-02 12:44 am (UTC)

"...Why wouldn't I?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:45 am (UTC)

Bell sighs. "Well. A ways in he handed me a shotgun and asked me to shoot him with it. It was pretty weird."

truthwright
2013-02-02 12:46 am (UTC)

"...Are you kidding," Kas says disbelievingly, "why the hell would I not wanna hear that?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:48 am (UTC)

"Right, what could I possibly have been thinking," says Bell, rolling her eyes, and she presses play again for his benefit.

truthwright
2013-02-02 12:49 am (UTC)

He listens, gleefully enraptured, nodding along to the part about jelly beans.

dark_light
2013-02-02 12:51 am (UTC)

And right at the shotgun part of the recording, Isabella returns to the group, a stack of napkins in her hand.

She listens.

"This place is strange," she observes. "And full of strange people. Who may not be zombies but are, I reiterate, strange."

truthwright
2013-02-02 12:53 am (UTC)

Kas hugs himself and beams some more.

dark_light
2013-02-02 12:54 am (UTC)

"That was more of the alt of Kas who our alt put on the asteroid?" Isabella clarifies.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 12:54 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Bell, pausing her recorder again. "What did Bar say?"
Edited 2013-02-02 00:58 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-02 12:59 am (UTC)

Isabella reads from the series of napkins. "Why yes, I can distinguish between you as well as anyone else. Would you like something to drink? The first is on the house." Next napkin: "Your cranberry soda. I see no reason why you couldn't share a room and distribute keys that way, if you'd like. I won't settle your arguments about who is obliged to pay the rent on it." Next napkin: "I don't think you want to leave up to me the determination of which allies of Isabellas are to be permitted entrance. But I can give any of you as many keys as you ask for to hand out to anyone you like."

truthwright
2013-02-02 01:00 am (UTC)

(Kas practically bounces, waiting for Bell to unpause. Petaal, sitting on his shoulder, actually does bounce.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:01 am (UTC)

"Awesome!" says Bell. "Er, my finances are currently not my own, though."

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:02 am (UTC)

"Don't look at me. Witches don't have money. I don't even have that credit card I was borrowing, anymore."

ferratus
2013-02-02 01:03 am (UTC)

"...Can you unfloat me for a sec?" says Tony to Matilda.

pythbox
2013-02-02 01:03 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

She does.

ferratus
2013-02-02 01:05 am (UTC)

"Other Tony is loaded," he explains. "If you guys want, I can go ask him if he minds covering your room until you find a rich alt."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:06 am (UTC)

"Yes please!"

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:06 am (UTC)

"I can chip in a favor for him, too," says Isabella, "if he wants - that's what we do instead of money, is favors."

ferratus
2013-02-02 01:07 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Tony. Off he zooms.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:08 am (UTC)

"I'm so glad I met you," Bell tells Isabella. She glances at Kas. "Oh, you want to hear the rest of this? He doesn't have a whole lot more to say at this point. I'm not actually sure if he's alive, the gun was loaded with something weird." She presses play.

truthwright
2013-02-02 01:12 am (UTC)

"Yes please," he beams.

The recording continues. Kas's alt gets shot.

Kas sighs dreamily. Petaal becomes a linsang and curls around his neck, nuzzling under his chin.

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:13 am (UTC)

"You can express your gratitude for meeting me by not shooting this one. He has a skill I will be very inconvenienced without," Isabella says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:13 am (UTC)

"By default I do not shoot people," says Bell agreeably.

truthwright
2013-02-02 01:15 am (UTC)

"You're nice," Kas says to Bell. "That was nice."

He leaves it quite open whether the nice thing he's referring to is shooting his alt or letting him hear it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:15 am (UTC)

"...Thanks."

ferratus
2013-02-02 01:16 am (UTC)

Tony comes trotting down the stairs with Tony following close behind.

"Float me please," he says to Matilda.

pythbox
2013-02-02 01:17 am (UTC)

"Sure."

Ker-float!

toblameforit
2013-02-02 01:17 am (UTC)

"So hi!" says Tony. "What's this about favours?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:20 am (UTC)

"I am a witch, as opposed to a z- as opposed to being not a witch, like my alt who assures me she's not a zombie," says Isabella. "I can do magic. Witches trade favors, instead of currency, so I don't have any currency, and neither has Shell Bell for what I imagine are different reasons. If you want to fund a Bell-Tower until we locate an alt with deep pockets -" She glances at Bell's wader pants, which have no pockets. "With pockets at all, to take over the payments, I will be happy to do you a favor. Nothing too unethical, please."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 01:22 am (UTC)

"Sure, okay," says Tony. "What kind of magic, though?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:22 am (UTC)

"...Witch magic. Shell Bell, can your cunning device repeat my description so I don't have to?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:22 am (UTC)

"Yes, it can."

It does.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 01:24 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Tony. "Okay. I will think of something not-too-unethical for you to do, and in the meantime, you can have your Bell Tower. Which is an adorable name, by the way."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:26 am (UTC)

"Well, 'Bell' seems to be the consistent part of the name. I'm just Bell, and I think most of the alts I've heard about go by Bella which is short for Isabella, and they share my surname but I don't think this one does. So, Bell-Tower. Besides, it was my idea."

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:26 am (UTC)

"Witches don't do surnames. If you have the same parents - except for not a witch mother - you'd be a Swan?" guesses Isabella.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:26 am (UTC)

"Bell Swan, that's me," confirms Shell Bell. "The shell part is just a nickname."

truthwright
2013-02-02 01:29 am (UTC)

"An adorable nickname," says Kas.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:30 am (UTC)

"Thanks?" says Shell Bell, shrugging. She's not really clear on why two of her seem to have wound up with versions of Mr. Here's A Shotgun Shoot Me Please. Even if Isabella and Kas seem to be just friends.

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:31 am (UTC)

"It'll probably serve as a suitable unique nickname for when there are half a dozen of us all together and we're trying to keep each other straight, anyway," says Isabella. "I'll go with Amariah, I suppose. Or everyone could just address Path instead of me if they're all z- persons with interior daemons."

truthwright
2013-02-02 01:33 am (UTC)

Kas snickers. "You and your fuckin' zombies," he says affectionately.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 01:34 am (UTC)

"I am missing something," Tony observes. "Buuuut that's not news."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:35 am (UTC)

"The small animals are their souls," Bell says. "Isabella is creeped out that we don't have them and says that I must have a version of her owl 'curled up asleep inside me somewhere' or we cannot actually be alts."
Edited 2013-02-02 01:35 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-02-02 01:38 am (UTC)

"Yeah, um, some worlds have souls, some don't," says Tony. "Mine does! And if you take somebody's soul away, creepy unpleasant things happen. But I know there's a bunch of worlds where there is not even a thing like that at all and people get along fine."
Edited 2013-02-02 01:38 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:40 am (UTC)

"How can you take someone's soul away if it's not outside of them, being a daemon?" asks Isabella quizzically. "Does it involve surgery?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 01:44 am (UTC)

"Noooo," he says. "Souls aren't physical, they're just—um okay, so my world has vampires, and if you get turned into a vampire, you become a selfish people-eating asshole version of you. But the soul is still around in some kind of weird metaphysical way, and apparently there are a few spells that'll put it back, and then the vampire starts paying attention to stuff like 'eating people is bad' again."

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:45 am (UTC)

Isabella shudders. Pathalan hops from her shoulder to her hand and she holds him to her chest.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 01:46 am (UTC)

"Sorry," he adds.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:47 am (UTC)

"I've heard of a vampire version of us, but I think she must be a different kind. At least, she doesn't eat people. I don't think she has an external Pathalan."

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:49 am (UTC)

"Am I the only one with an external Pathalan?" says Isabella incredulously. "A handful of worlds with people who have no daemons is one thing, but it's another to find that daemons are the exception. Haven't any of you ever seen someone with a daemon in here before? You've been here before, many times, right?"

pythbox
2013-02-02 01:55 am (UTC)

"I've been coming here for twelve years," says Matilda. "I've seen a few people who might've had daemons—they were glowy in almost the same way—but I never talked to any of them, so I don't know for sure."

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:56 am (UTC)

"Weird," says Isabella, shaking her head. "I wonder if your souls would come out and be daemons if they went to my world, that being how my world works?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 01:57 am (UTC)

"Doesn't having your soul on the outside make it - him - vulnerable? What happens if something happens to him?" asks Shell Bell. "I'm not sure I'd want to risk it, even though having a daemon to talk to does sound useful."

dark_light
2013-02-02 01:59 am (UTC)

"Me and Path are the same person," says Isabella. "If something happens to one of us, it happens to the other. And of course nobody except other daemons can touch him, outside of extremely special circumstances that do not obtain. But - well. I guess if you didn't grow up with a Path of your own it might not seem worth it."

truthwright
2013-02-02 02:01 am (UTC)

"If you live in a world with no other daemons, it's not worth it," says Kas.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 02:02 am (UTC)

"You might want to mention the no-touching rule earlier when you talk to us zombie-types," says Shell Bell. "I didn't reach out and pet Path because it seemed like it would be rude, not because I was aware of any metaphysical reason not to."

dark_light
2013-02-02 02:03 am (UTC)

"...I will bring that up first the next time me and Path are introduced to someone without a daemon or with an internal daemon. Thank you," says Isabella. "Maybe I'll just leave him home. Only I'm not sure if separation will stretch safely across worlds, so perhaps I oughtn't dare... and of course Kas doesn't have that option at all."

truthwright
2013-02-02 02:11 am (UTC)

Petaal shifts from linsang to snake.

sicaria
2013-02-02 02:23 am (UTC)

"Why would it not be worth it?" asks Sherlock.

truthwright
2013-02-02 02:24 am (UTC)

"Being a daemon in a world with no other daemons would be lonely," says Petaal. "And nobody would know not to touch you."

dark_light
2013-02-02 02:26 am (UTC)

"A lot of daemons don't even like to talk to non-daemons," Path says. "I don't mind, but Capasyllin does. That's our teacher's daemon."

truthwright
2013-02-02 02:27 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't really understand that," says Petaal. "But it's true."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 02:29 am (UTC)

"So I guess we won't go to your world and see if it externalizes our souls?" says Bell.

dark_light
2013-02-02 02:29 am (UTC)

"That seems best, yeah. If we're waiting however long for magic to... infect?... you... is there a way I can go back and get my notebook or something so I can continue drafting my spell?"
Edited 2013-02-02 02:49 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 02:50 am (UTC)

"Just get Kas to hold the door for you," Bell says. "And then you can come right back with whatever you grab."

truthwright
2013-02-02 02:53 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Kas. And, teasingly: "Try not to write on the tables."
Edited 2013-02-02 02:54 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-02 02:56 am (UTC)

"I'm not going to write on the tables." Isabella heads for the door, cloud-pine sweeping behind her and Path back in his place on her shoulder. She opens the door, confirms that it leads to her room, and makes the handoff to Kas.

truthwright
2013-02-02 03:02 am (UTC)

Kas holds the door cheerfully enough.

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:03 am (UTC)

Isabella goes and scoops up her notes, and jots down what she had on the wall that isn't duplicated in the book, too, and then back to the bar she goes.

manofmyword
2013-02-02 03:06 am (UTC)

A man in a pale pink shirt appears out of thin air very close by, just as Isabella reaches the door.

He focuses on Kas immediately.

"Well aren't you precious," he exclaims, grinning a wide, irrevocably crooked grin.

truthwright
2013-02-02 03:07 am (UTC)

Kas grins right back.

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:10 am (UTC)

"Uh, hi," says Isabella, reaching for the door to close it again. (Someone wandering to her world and getting a daemon who didn't want one would be problematic.)

"Don't touch me," Pathalan pipes up, in light of Bell's advice, "in case you didn't know."

"...Are you an alt of Kas?" Isabella asks, gesturing at Kas and peering at the newcomer's face.

manofmyword
2013-02-02 03:10 am (UTC)

"Is that what they call you?" he inquires of Kas.

truthwright
2013-02-02 03:11 am (UTC)

"It's what she calls me," he says, smiling. "I like it okay. Are you the guy Bell shot? You must be the guy Bell shot."

manofmyword
2013-02-02 03:13 am (UTC)

"I am the guy Bell shot," the Joker agrees. "C'mere, sweetie, let me look at you." He reaches out and puts his hands on Kas's elbows to draw him closer, avoiding contact with Petaal either by luck or by design, it's not clear which.

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:15 am (UTC)

"Why did you want Shell Bell to shoot you?" asks Isabella.

manofmyword
2013-02-02 03:16 am (UTC)

"Mm," he says, "I figured if I was gonna give her all my guns she'd better know what to do with 'em."

truthwright
2013-02-02 03:18 am (UTC)

Petaal becomes a tiny, tiny dog and perches higher up on Kas's shoulder. Kas rests his hands against the Joker's chest and gazes in absolute fascination at his scars.

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:20 am (UTC)

"Should I leave you guys alone?" asks Isabella, amused.

truthwright
2013-02-02 03:22 am (UTC)

"Yeah, uh, you don't need me for anything else, right? 'Cause I'm gonna go fuck this guy," says Kas, glancing back at her.

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm good. I don't have an alethiometer yet and the next time I leave for our world I'll be intending to stay put for a bit. I wanna know if he counts, if he touches Petaal, though?" she says. "Lemme know if you don't mind."

truthwright
2013-02-02 03:25 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says agreeably.

manofmyword
2013-02-02 03:27 am (UTC)

The Joker slides his arms around Kas's waist and, as he turns back around, kisses him firmly on the mouth.

"I bet she left me my knives," he murmurs. "Wanna go check?"

truthwright
2013-02-02 03:28 am (UTC)

"You betcha."

And he follows the Joker toward the stairs.
Edited 2013-02-02 03:28 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:30 am (UTC)

"If you need me to heal you lemme know," Isabella calls after them, remembering what they said about sharp things in the context of Path's talons and extrapolating.

She goes to rejoin the group.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 03:31 am (UTC)

"Where's Kas?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:32 am (UTC)

"Met his alt, the one you shot, he's surprisingly ambulatory for a guy you shot. They're going to have sex and see if you left any knives behind," shrugs Isabella.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 03:32 am (UTC)

"I left most of them," says Bell. "Are we the only template that doesn't instantly jump each other on sight?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:33 am (UTC)

Isabella glances between Tonies and says, "You'd know better than I would. Personally, I'm pretty sure I'm straight."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 03:34 am (UTC)

"I was. Then stuff happened," Shell Bell says, and she kisses Sherlock's cheek, "and now I have an exception."

sicaria
2013-02-02 03:34 am (UTC)

Sherlock blushes.

ferratus
2013-02-02 03:36 am (UTC)

"We didn't do it instantly," Tony protests. "We talked about some other stuff first!"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 03:36 am (UTC)

"So: boy you," Tony says to Isabella. "Yes or no?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:42 am (UTC)

"I... do not know until I meet such a creature," Isabella says. "Frankly I think I'd be disturbed by the idea of sex with anyone who didn't have a daemon. I mean, what would Path do?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 03:43 am (UTC)

"That is nnnnot a question I am prepared to answer," says Tony.

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:44 am (UTC)

"Well, neither am I," says Isabella.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 03:44 am (UTC)

"Apparently your buddy's got a clue, though," he adds.

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:46 am (UTC)

"Kas's opinions about how interactions with his daemon should go are distinctly nonstandard, and I do not expect that she'll be bored," says Isabella dryly.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 03:46 am (UTC)

"She turns human, too, right?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:47 am (UTC)

"She can, yeah."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 03:48 am (UTC)

"And hey, Bell. What about you and your imaginary boy alt?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 03:49 am (UTC)

"I think I'd have to meet him first," Bell says. "It would hardly be automatic, let alone instantaneous."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 03:49 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Tony.

ferratus
2013-02-02 03:50 am (UTC)

"Anyway," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 03:51 am (UTC)

"I don't know if we have male alts. I suppose it's the kind of thing I could have missed. People wouldn't recognize me or be all 'excuse me, Your Majesty' on that basis."

sicaria
2013-02-02 03:54 am (UTC)

"I find the other Sherlock perfectly recognizable."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 03:55 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but the Bells don't have handy twins."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 03:57 am (UTC)

"Exactly," says Bell. "I imagine he'd look similar, but there are loads of people who look similar and aren't even related, let alone alts. I'd probably have to talk to such a guy for a while, or notice him wearing a tastefully designed crown, or something, before I'd guess."

dark_light
2013-02-02 03:58 am (UTC)

"I'm thinking permanent ice, for my tastefully designed crown," says Isabella cheerfully. "I've been thinking that since I was little and my crown-related musings were all in the form of what if I were made clan queen one day even though I'm not anywhere close to the line of succession and don't really want that many clan sisters to die."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 03:59 am (UTC)

"Coral, abalone, and pearls," says Shell Bell, grinning back.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:00 am (UTC)

"...Permanent ice?" says Tony.

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:00 am (UTC)

"Oh, witches aren't harmed by the cold," says Isabella, completely misunderstanding his interest.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:01 am (UTC)

"I mean, permanent ice is a thing?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:02 am (UTC)

"...Yes? Permanent ice is easy, it's a pure verse spell, I learned it when I was eight?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:03 am (UTC)

"Okay, so I found your favour. That was easy."

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:04 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Isabella. "Do you want me to do it now, then? I won't even need any materials. I was worried you were going to have me drawing honey runes all afternoon," she laughs.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:06 am (UTC)

"First I have to figure out where I'm going to put it," he says. "If you were gonna make a crown, you can probably do shapes, right?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:08 am (UTC)

"I was going to sculpt the crown in, you know, the ordinary way, with sharp objects, and maybe warmth here and there for smooth parts," says Isabella, producing and twirling her dagger. (She was obliged to sit through enough dagger lessons to Not Be A Complete Embarrassment To The Olympic Clan; this is one of the few physical tricks she can do that doesn't give away her clumsiness.) "Then permanent-ify it. If you want relatively simple shapes, like spheres or something, I can probably invent a spell for that, but it's not easy as pie like the permanentification."
Edited 2013-02-02 04:08 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-02-02 01:53 pm (UTC)

Tony hmmmmms.

"Okay," he says, "I'll get back to you."

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:31 pm (UTC)

Isabella tucks her dagger away. "I can also freeze water, so if you have some water that you would like to be cold, I could probably work out out a way to freeze any given fraction of it in an easily defined shape," she says.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:35 pm (UTC)

"First I'm gonna figure out exactly what I wanna use it for, and how," he says.

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I thought you knew. If you don't have an application in mind how do you know that's what you want?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:38 pm (UTC)

"There's a difference between knowing you're looking at the solution to a problem and knowing how to implement that solution," he explains. "The problem is cooling systems for equipment that generates a lot of waste heat, the connection is obvious, the trick is figuring out where and how it'll do the most good."

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

"You don't want me to just... you know... make a room cold, without involving actual ice?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:41 pm (UTC)

"How specifically can you control temperature?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:42 pm (UTC)

"If you loan me a thermometer, then I don't see any reason I can't do it as specifically as the thermometer can read it."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but how specifically in terms of area, and against how much resistance?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:45 pm (UTC)

"The area has to have borders already, like a room or a group of rooms, or be an easily defined shape, and if by resistance you mean things trying to be warm, I... doubt I'd be effective against a volcano?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Does it have to have solid borders like a room, or can it just be a frame? Like... an open cabinet."

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:49 pm (UTC)

Isabella thinks. "I can work with an open cabinet," she determines finally.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:50 pm (UTC)

"In that case, do you wanna cast cooling spells on some server racks?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Sure. I can probably do without, but if you happen to have a live seedling of any sort of evergreen - potted is fine - that you won't need back, it'd help," Isabella says.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:55 pm (UTC)

"I could get one," he says.

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:56 pm (UTC)

"It'll save me about half an hour. If it'll take longer than that don't bother," Isabella shrugs.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 04:57 pm (UTC)

"If it can be a teeny tiny one, I can just get it from Bar," he points out. "Which definitely won't take half an hour."

dark_light
2013-02-02 04:59 pm (UTC)

"She does live plants?" Isabella says. "Yeah, arbitrarily teeny tiny as long as it is alive and it's not a problem if I kill it."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I've definitely heard she won't give out live animals but I've never tested whether she'll give out live plants," he says. "Let's find out!"

dark_light
2013-02-02 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 05:15 pm (UTC)

Off they go.

"Hi, Bar!" says Tony. "I would like to order a potted plant, can I do that?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 05:18 pm (UTC)

The replying napkin reads, No living things are distributed except the typical components of yogurt and so on. My apologies. I can't imagine why there would be any suspicion about how our patrons would care for them.

It is a sarcastic napkin.

"Oh well," shrugs Isabella.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 05:20 pm (UTC)

Tony snorts.

dark_light
2013-02-02 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Dried rosemary on his dime?" Isabella asks the bar.

A little bottle of it appears.

"This'll do," she says, picking it up and tossing it and catching it.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

dark_light
2013-02-02 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Shall we?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Let's!"

And out the front door they go.

"Hi Jarvis," he says as they step out into his living room. "This iiiiiiis... I totally forgot your name, I do that, I'm sorry."

dark_light
2013-02-02 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Isabella Amariah," says Isabella patiently. "Just Isabella if you don't want to be quite that formal." She peers around the house with fascination.

poeticterms
2013-02-02 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Pleased to meet you," says a sourceless, pleasantly English voice.

dark_light
2013-02-02 05:30 pm (UTC)

"...Likewise!" says Isabella, not entirely sure what to make of the talking house but gamely polite to it anyway. Path hoots. "Oh, and this is Pathalan."

poeticterms
2013-02-02 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Pleased to meet you as well," Jarvis says gravely.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Isabella's a witch, she's gonna cast cooling spells on the server racks," Tony explains. "Which ones do you want?"

poeticterms
2013-02-02 05:33 pm (UTC)

"C through F, please," says Jarvis.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Tony. "This way!"

He leads Isabella through the house.

There is a lot of house.

It's a fairly short trip to the relevant room, though: large for a closet, small for anything else, and populated with metal racks labeled C1, C2, D1, and so on. Each rack houses several computers, individually labeled with names like C1_CANIS and E2_ERITHACUS.

dark_light
2013-02-02 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Just C through F? Okay." Isabella walks by each of the C through F racks, sprinkling a small handful of rosemary on each one and composing a poem in her head. "The rosemary will disappear after casting. This might take me a couple of tries, because machines are involved so I have to get the verse exactly right," she cautions.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Tony.

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:18 pm (UTC)

"How cold do you want them?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Does 'exactly as cold as the rest of the room is right now' work for you?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's fine. You're sure you don't want me to just get the whole room, though?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 06:27 pm (UTC)

"The racks are where I actually want it," he points out. "If you put it on the room, I can't move 'em."

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I see. Okay." Isabella paces, and sets down her cloud-pine, and closes her eyes, and then takes out her notebook and starts scribbling poem-feet and drawing arrows for proposed arrangements thereof.

At length, she spreads her arms so her hands are as far apart as they'll go, stares intently at the servers, and tries a verse six lines long that doesn't rhyme and contains several non-English words.

The rosemary persists.

"Damn."

She returns to scribbling, and finally turns the page and copies down several more promising snatches and otherwise starts over.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 06:31 pm (UTC)

...It's kind of cool! Even though it doesn't work the first time. And she did say.
Edited 2013-02-02 18:31 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:35 pm (UTC)

It doesn't work the second time, either. Path starts helping, murmuring quietly in Isabella's ear. Probably too quiet for Tony to hear, but not for Jarvis.

"Cut the part referring directly to the racks. You only need to use them to define the corners."

"Then I have to fill that line with something else..."

"I think it's not getting that you want a uniform temperature, that the spell's not directly about the machines; add another foot about that. Call for autumn, maybe."

"Okay." Scribble scribble.

She tries again.

And the rosemary disappears.

"There," she says, sounding pleased with herself.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Awesome!" says Tony.

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad you think so," says Isabella smugly.

poeticterms
2013-02-02 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Would you like to return to Milliways now?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:41 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, is there anything else worth doing while I'm here? Cool stuff to see? Interesting zombies to meet?"

poeticterms
2013-02-02 06:42 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Jarvis, "as far as I am aware there are no zombies available. Tony could show off his toys, if you're fond of cars, pretty lights, or things that go boom."
Edited 2013-02-02 18:42 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Bite me if I accidentally say zombies when I don't mean it again," Isabella tells Path.

"I'll bite you before you say it," he offers.

"Even better. Anyway. I am potentially fond of those things, if you wanna show them off?" she continues to Tony.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Tony. "This way!"

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:49 pm (UTC)

Isabella follows after him. After tripping on something that does not exist, she sets her cloud-pine to floating and drifts after him a couple of feet off the ground instead.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 06:51 pm (UTC)

"You okay?" he asks, glancing back when she stumbles.

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Clumsy. On the ground, anyway. Flying's easier to the point where it's a wonder my legs haven't atrophied to sticks."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Hey, whatever works. You could always tack an exercise bike onto your flying tree branch," he suggests whimsically.
Edited 2013-02-02 18:56 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I'd be laughed out of the sky," snorts Isabella.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Probably yes," Tony agrees.

dark_light
2013-02-02 06:59 pm (UTC)

"So I don't think that will be happening. I do walk sometimes, I just give up on it when I trip," she shrugs. "What kinds of fancy toys do I get to see?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 07:02 pm (UTC)

"You get to see my garage! It has integrated holographic projection, all my cars, and a buncha shit I'm working on. Jarvis was kidding about boom, by the way, I do not work on anything more naturally explosive than a V12 engine in my own house, that would just be asking for trouble."

dark_light
2013-02-02 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Neat," says Isabella. "I have been in a car before. Like... twice. When I was... five."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 07:05 pm (UTC)

"...Why not since then? I mean, flying, but you didn't learn to fly when you were five, did you?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 07:09 pm (UTC)

"No, I was almost seven, but even when I was little I went places with my mom more than my dad, and when she didn't have me it was just as often my grandmother or my great-grandmother or an aunt or one of my mom's clan friends, and they fly. I've been in a bus, more than that," she adds. "I went to human school sometimes until I was partway through tenth grade, and before I knew how to fly there I took the bus."
Edited 2013-02-02 19:10 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-02-02 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Tony. "That's pretty weird. I mean, it's not actually all that weird, I just have trouble wrapping my head around the idea of growing up on no cars."

dark_light
2013-02-02 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I can take a passenger on this thing," Isabella says, "if you wanna see why witches don't spend much time in ground vehicles."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 08:24 pm (UTC)

"...Tempted," says Tony. "Veeeeery tempted."

dark_light
2013-02-02 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Only tempted?" laughs Isabella.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, flying is intrinsically awesome, but the thought of going up there with nothing between me and the ground but your goodwill and a tree branch makes my inner control freak scream like a five-year-old watching Jurassic Park for the first time."

dark_light
2013-02-02 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'd want to tuck a few bayleaves into your collar and say a verse first."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 08:31 pm (UTC)

He cocks his head as though listening for a change.

"Stiiill screaming," he reports.

dark_light
2013-02-02 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Suit yourself." She continues to drift along the corridor.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 08:36 pm (UTC)

"But I mean, if I could fly, I'd drive way less," he says. "Not never. But less."

And at last, down a flight of stairs: the garage.

It's big enough to make the row of cars at the other end look small.

dark_light
2013-02-02 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Isabella.

She opens up the cloud-pine a bit, zooms and turns and flies over the cars peering at them curiously.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 08:43 pm (UTC)

...Tony laughs.

The cars are pretty, and when not pretty, interesting! Many are brightly coloured. There's the obligatory bright red Dodge Viper, the equally obligatory silver Audi, something attractively sleek with three front seats instead of the usual two... quite the selection for someone this young.

dark_light
2013-02-02 08:44 pm (UTC)

"They're pretty," says Isabella, flying back to within easy hearing distance. "Why does this one have three front seats?"

toblameforit
2013-02-02 08:48 pm (UTC)

"'Cause that way the driver's seat goes in the middle, I guess? Better symmetry?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Neat." She does a bit of a loop, idly, snugly in the small space.

toblameforit
2013-02-02 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Hey Jarvis, where are my pretty lights?"

poeticterms
2013-02-02 08:56 pm (UTC)

"How remiss of me," Jarvis says dryly.

The air fills with complex geometric patterns of multicoloured glowing lines that twirl and interweave and collapse into one another and fan out again a moment later.

dark_light
2013-02-02 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Isabella, dropping a few feet and tilting backwards to get a good look. "Nifty."

poeticterms
2013-02-02 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Tony is very proud of his pretty lights," says Jarvis.

dark_light
2013-02-02 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Are they for something, or just decoration?"

poeticterms
2013-02-02 09:03 pm (UTC)

The lightshow folds in on itself until all that's left is a blue wireframe of the car with the three front seats, which splits apart into all its component pieces and then slowly reassembles.

"He finds it very convenient for working on schematics," says Jarvis.

dark_light
2013-02-02 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Oh, nifty. If I had one of these things I'd use it for working out runes instead of writing on the walls and stuff," says Isabella. "It's always easier to work life-sized, fond as I am of notebooks..."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 09:07 pm (UTC)

"You could have one of these," says Tony. "I mean, technically. You'd need some serious scratch just to get all the parts together, though, never mind installing 'em. And it wouldn't work nearly as well without Jarvis behind the scenes."

dark_light
2013-02-02 09:09 pm (UTC)

"And I'd need a permanent residence, I imagine. I live in my teacher's house for now, and it's a rental of sorts, we'll move when the owner no longer wants to trade a house for magical diabetes treatments instead of the standard injecty kind. Or when he dies."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that too," Tony agrees. "Of course, I could always stick one in the Bell Tower, if Bar lets me..."
Edited 2013-02-02 21:13 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-02 09:14 pm (UTC)

"That'd be really cool, although I don't know how often I can expect to be spending time there. I'm more likely to have Shell Bell's rare visits than Jarvis's perfect door-opening control."
Edited 2013-02-02 21:17 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-02-02 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes, because you are not a house," Tony says agreeably.

dark_light
2013-02-02 09:24 pm (UTC)

Isabella raises an eyebrow. "Yes. My failure to be a house is exactly why I am likely to resemble Shell Bell in any given respect."

poeticterms
2013-02-02 09:35 pm (UTC)

"My ability to summon Milliways is a statistical rarity," says Jarvis, "especially since, of course, I have never been there myself. The fact that I am a house is the most obvious explanation."

dark_light
2013-02-02 09:36 pm (UTC)

"I understand. It just sounded like Shell Bell finds doors less often than most non-houses, even."

toblameforit
2013-02-02 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure door habits correlate across alts that well," says Tony. "Other Tony can summon it and I totally can't."

dark_light
2013-02-02 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Huh. Good to know," says Isabella, peering at the pretty lights.

poeticterms
2013-02-02 09:43 pm (UTC)

The pretty lights form a row of tiny geometric ballerinas and do a pretty little dance, angular skirts rippling.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 09:51 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, in Milliways, Shell Bell bites down the urge to ask Matilda how they're coming along. Again. Matilda said she'd tell them if she saw any sticking, it could take days...

pythbox
2013-02-02 09:55 pm (UTC)

Matilda is fiddling with some kind of diagram on her laptop, but she does look up at her floaty people every so often.

On one such occasion, she blinks, then lowers Tony to the floor.

"You've got magic now, but not enough to do you any good," she says. "Sorry."

ferratus
2013-02-02 09:56 pm (UTC)

Tony sighs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Rats," says Bell.

There's still hope for her and Sherlock. There's still hope for her and Sherlock. There's...

pythbox
2013-02-02 10:15 pm (UTC)

Time passes.

"On the bright side," says Matilda, "I'm starting to figure out cornucopias. On the not so bright..." Shell Bell descends floorward. "You're not going to be casting any spells, I'm afraid."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 10:23 pm (UTC)

This rates a:

"Shit."

Bell kicks the floor.

She stares into space, somewhere near Sherlock's shoulder.

sicaria
2013-02-02 10:24 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 10:26 pm (UTC)

Bell hugs back hard. "Luck," she says ruefully. "Heh. May the odds be ever in your favor."

sicaria
2013-02-02 10:27 pm (UTC)

"We will find other resources," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 10:29 pm (UTC)

"This was a really good one, though, and it took me so long to find it. I've probably spent almost a year solid here, all told, by now. And what I have to show for it is a stick and two amulets and contagious magic that doesn't like me."

sicaria
2013-02-02 10:31 pm (UTC)

"More than that, I think."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 10:35 pm (UTC)

"And a witch alt who will assassinate Snow for us," Bell amends. "She's useful. She's very useful but I don't think she can win an entire war for us."

sicaria
2013-02-02 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps we will find things that are not directly magical but are nevertheless of some use."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Like other-Tony's tech? Yeah. I guess that will help," sighs Bell. "I just... really... wanted... magic. Like every single other me I've ever heard of who I get mistaken for who ever accomplished anything. I wanted magic."

sicaria
2013-02-02 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I am sorry."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 10:55 pm (UTC)

"It's not your fault." She's being rather clingy at this point.

sicaria
2013-02-02 10:59 pm (UTC)

That is okay. Sherlock is well supplied with snuggles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 11:01 pm (UTC)

That is good. Bell needs them.

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:05 pm (UTC)

The door opens again to reveal Isabella. She takes in the scene. "No luck?" she asks the group in general.

sicaria
2013-02-02 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Indeed not," says Sherlock. "Although I am not yet officially disqualified."

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:09 pm (UTC)

"No way to tell this sort of thing in advance?" Isabella asks Matilda. "None at all?"

pythbox
2013-02-02 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Not that I've been able to find," she says. "Yet."

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:14 pm (UTC)

"D'you want me to try? If you tell me a little about what I'd be looking for, I can see if the bar has celery seed and stuff, whip up a versed divination, see if I can at least save you some time."

pythbox
2013-02-02 11:18 pm (UTC)

"It'd be nice to know how long it'll take to get magic to stick to her, but what we really need to know is what it'll look like when it does," she says. "You can use me as an example of a strong connection and Tony and Bell as examples of weak ones, if you work that way."

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I can work with that. Anybody want to buy me the herbs, though? Have not acquired money since last time."

pythbox
2013-02-02 11:19 pm (UTC)

"What herbs do you need, exactly?"

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Celery seed, oregano, belladonna would be nice but I'm not sure if the bar distributes poisons, I can do with dried apple peel instead."

pythbox
2013-02-02 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Matilda.

She snaps her fingers. Three objects appear floating in the air in front of Isabella, at about her shoulder level: a small glass jar containing celery seed, a small glass jar containing oregano, and...

...a quite tasty-looking green apple.

"No," she tells it sternly, "that is not what I wanted, try again."

The apple peels itself in one long spiral from bottom to top and vanishes, leaving only the peel, which coughs out a fine spray of apple-scented mist in all directions. Result: one entire apple peel, dried.

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Very cool," says Isabella approvingly. "You and me should talk magic theory sometime." (She is briefly chastened by Bell's sob into Sherlock's shoulder.) "Just the two of us," she amends. "Okay." Thinking of verses, she starts tearing the peel into little pieces. "Can I have a bowl, too?"

pythbox
2013-02-02 11:30 pm (UTC)

Matilda snaps her fingers again.

Bowl!

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:34 pm (UTC)

Careful handfuls of herbs and peel go into the bowl and get tossed together. "Okay. The spell template I have in mind involves throwing these at you, so, don't be surprised. I suppose since belladonna's not involved it's not important for you to keep your mouth and eyes closed particularly."

She tosses a handful of herbs at Matilda and says,

"Show me, herbs, what magic lies
In this girl, and in what guise."

Her vision refocuses. "Shiny," she comments.

pythbox
2013-02-02 11:36 pm (UTC)

"I am literally the most magical person in the world," she says. "That I've met or heard of, anyway."

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Shiny," repeats Isabella. Sparing Bell's feelings, the next handful is aimed at Tony, with "girl" changed for "boy".

"Not so shiny," she says.

And then she walks behind Sherlock, since Bell is in the way of her front, and tries again.

"This is never going to happen," she announces. "At all. Even as much as it happened with Tony."

sicaria
2013-02-02 11:49 pm (UTC)

Sherlock sighs.

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:52 pm (UTC)

"And before you ask, Shell Bell, yes, I'm really, really sure. You may as well put her down," Isabella adds to Matilda.

pythbox
2013-02-02 11:53 pm (UTC)

Matilda puts her down.

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Isabella. "...D'you want to work on the Belltower, Shell Bell?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-02 11:54 pm (UTC)

"In a minute," sniffles Shell Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-02 11:56 pm (UTC)

Sherlock snuggles her some more.

dark_light
2013-02-02 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Maybe Matilda could just go with you to your world and blow up bad guys' cities for you?" Isabella suggests, glancing between Bell and Matilda. "Since she has plenty of the magic you wanted already?"

pythbox
2013-02-03 12:04 am (UTC)

"I am not going to blow up any cities," says Matilda. "I'll conjure arbitrary amounts of food, though. But you have to watch out; if I start throwing big magic around in your world, somebody will probably catch it by accident, and it might not be somebody you want to have any."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 12:06 am (UTC)

"Our side and the Capitol both having magic is worse than neither of us having any, I think," says Bell, who is gradually recovering her composure. "So yeah. Probably we should avoid that. Cornucopias and other object-type stuff we can bring home would be great, though."

pythbox
2013-02-03 12:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah. And magical artifacts don't glom magic onto people, so that's perfectly safe. Is there any other object-type stuff you might want?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 12:11 am (UTC)

Bell thinks.

"Water can also be a problem. What we have is only modestly sanitary and could be cut off. It doesn't sound like you'd be too willing to make us weapons, but what about shields? So that they can't blow us up, or send tracker-jackers into town at night, or whatever."

pythbox
2013-02-03 12:17 am (UTC)

"I can make you unicorns!" she says. "They're not in the official manual yet; one of my grad students came up with them."

She doesn't snap her fingers this time; she makes a circle in the air with her hands and then brings them away sharply. A small pearly figurine appears: a unicorn, one hoof raised, bending its head so the blunt point of its horn is on a level with the other three.

"If you put it in water, or even something that's mostly water, it purifies it and then makes more."

dark_light
2013-02-03 12:31 am (UTC)

"Why is it a unicorn?" asks Isabella quizzically. "I mean, does it have to be, or could you make it a little sphere or a cup or something?"

pythbox
2013-02-03 12:36 am (UTC)

"It's easier to invent artifacts that do complicated things if their form has a symbolic resonance that the person making them will understand," she explains. "Hence, unicorns for water purification. And when I make you cornucopias, they'll probably be little golden... cornucopias."

dark_light
2013-02-03 12:41 am (UTC)

"Cute," says Isabella.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 12:44 am (UTC)

"It is," agrees Bell, wiping tears off her face. "So shields would look like... shields? Or more like our protection amulets?"

pythbox
2013-02-03 12:48 am (UTC)

"That depends what kind of shield, I think," she says. An absent wave of her hand sends the unicorn drifting Bellward. "And I want to get the cornucopias working for sure before I start on shields."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 12:50 am (UTC)

Bell catches the unicorn and runs it to her room. Just to be safe.

pythbox
2013-02-03 12:53 am (UTC)

When she gets back, Matilda has another small decorative statue for her: a golden cornucopia, as promised. She hands it over.

"Name a food," she says. "Something you want to eat, and not too complicated or specific."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 12:54 am (UTC)

"...Apple?" says Bell.

pythbox
2013-02-03 12:55 am (UTC)

An apple appears, hovering in the air in front of her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 12:58 am (UTC)

Bell snatches it out of the air as though afraid it'll fall, and then bites into it. "It's good," she says, more happily than she was a moment ago.

pythbox
2013-02-03 01:01 am (UTC)

"I made sure it'll only make things that the person doing the summoning can safely and enjoyably eat," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 01:12 am (UTC)

"So if Isabella asked it for belladonna it wouldn't work," Bell says.

pythbox
2013-02-03 01:13 am (UTC)

"Correct," she says. "It probably wouldn't do dried apple peel, either."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 01:15 am (UTC)

"But it's not for spell components, it's for food. And it does food. Thank you," says Bell sincerely.

pythbox
2013-02-03 01:16 am (UTC)

"You're welcome!" says Matilda.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 01:24 am (UTC)

"I think I'm composed enough to go set up a Belltower, now," Bell says to Isabella. "Let's go get some keys. And see what furniture we have to start out. Tony, do we get a furniture budget too, in exchange for whatever Isabella wound up doing for your cooling system?"

toblameforit
2013-02-03 01:26 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "I mean, don't start installing diamond chandeliers, but I'll cover some furniture and general prettying-up."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 01:27 am (UTC)

"If we want a shiny chandelier we'll buy a bucket of ice and have Isabella cast at it," says Bell, smirking slightly.

dark_light
2013-02-03 01:27 am (UTC)

"Permanent ice is very pretty," says Isabella.

toblameforit
2013-02-03 01:28 am (UTC)

"Efficient solutions are everybody's friend! Have fun, guys."

dark_light
2013-02-03 01:32 am (UTC)

"Will do!"

And off go the doubles. And Path.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 01:41 am (UTC)

They each collect a key to "a room of suitable size" and the room number from Bar, and head for the stairs.

truthwright
2013-02-03 01:46 am (UTC)

And who should be coming down the stairs but Kas and the Joker, leaning cuddlishly on each other, with Petaal as a medium-sized snake draped across both sets of shoulders.

manofmyword
2013-02-03 01:47 am (UTC)

When he spots the pair of Bells, and more specifically Shell Bell, he beams and waves.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 02:09 am (UTC)

"Oh, you're alive," says Shell Bell. "I wasn't sure."
Edited 2013-02-03 02:14 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-03 02:16 am (UTC)

Path peers at Petaal. "Does that count?" he asks on Isabella's behalf.

truthwright
2013-02-03 02:17 am (UTC)

"Mmmhmmmmmm," Petaal says happily.

manofmyword
2013-02-03 02:22 am (UTC)

The Joker runs his hand lovingly along Petaal's scaly tail.

"I am alive," he says. "Of course you weren't sure, that's the point. I wasn't sure either," he admits cheerfully. "Never been killed here before. But apparently, it doesn't stick."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:31 am (UTC)

"Huh. Good to know. Have you seen the one of us who put you on the asteroid recently? Or any similar person. We're trying to start a club of alts of ours," says Shell Bell.
Edited 2013-02-03 04:32 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:33 am (UTC)

"She wants to call it 'the Belltower'," puts in Isabella. "Hand out keys to uses and their friends and have a base in Milliways for meeting up and trading and whatever."

manofmyword
2013-02-03 01:36 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says serenely. "But if I run into any, I'll let 'em know."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 03:34 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if the bar will let us leave notes for alts we've only heard of, like 'the vampire one' and 'the one who put him on an asteroid'," muses Shell Bell. "Or maybe that's redundant, since she's going to notify any alts who come in anyway."

dark_light
2013-02-03 03:35 pm (UTC)

"We may as well ask. Personalizing the messages probably can't hurt. But let's go see the place and talk décor," says Isabella.

manofmyword
2013-02-03 03:35 pm (UTC)

"I bet you I could leave a note for the one who put me on an asteroid," says the Joker. "If you want."

truthwright
2013-02-03 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Can I come see it too?" asks Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-03 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Sure you can, Kas," says Isabella.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 03:37 pm (UTC)

"For some reason," Shell Bell tells the Joker, "I'm not sure that would have the desired effect. Not that I can stop you, though."

truthwright
2013-02-03 03:38 pm (UTC)

Kas giggles and claps his hands.

manofmyword
2013-02-03 03:41 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles, too, hugging him.

"Have fun, sweetie," he says, and kisses the top of Petaal's head. "You too."

He disentangles himself from both of them and wanders off into the bar.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Okay. This room number starts with a four, so we climb four flights of stairs, even though it is five digits long, because," Bell shrugs, "Millways." She leads the way.

Presently convenient space-warping sees them arrive at a room with their number on it. It even says "THE BELLTOWER" on the door.

Bell has something of a despairing love-hate relationship with Milliways sometimes.

dark_light
2013-02-03 03:55 pm (UTC)

Isabella fumbles with her key - places she goes usually aren't locked - but eventually gets the door open.

It's more like an apartment than a single room. A good-sized apartment intended for parties. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large partially-divided living room, a kitchenette. (A full-sized kitchen would be nice, but Milliways has room service, and at least it has a fridge.) The existing furniture isn't fancy, but the place is chaired and tabled.

"Well, this looks nice enough to me," says Isabella, who sleeps in a hammock over a pad just thick enough to leave her bones unbroken if it dumps her out in the middle of the night. "The bedrooms are convenient, too, if you and your people are going to stay here for a while before taking me home to assassinate people, since I can't pay for one on my own."

truthwright
2013-02-03 03:58 pm (UTC)

The mention of assassination makes Kas giggle.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:02 pm (UTC)

"It is pretty decent as it stands. We could put in and fill our pages on the guestbook and leave it otherwise completely alone, and it would be... okay," Bell agrees. "I just don't think I want it to look brand-new or half-worked-on to other people who come here. Ideally it'll impress empresses with heaps of magic - more than you, some of them. We have a budget; we can hang some pictures and put down some rugs and have spare sheets and towels in the closet."

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I wonder to what extent we have similar taste," muses Isabella. "I mean, we aren't dressed at all the same, but my entire species dresses this sort of way, and I don't have the impression that you've had the luxury to choose your clothes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:05 pm (UTC)

"I should probably actually get at least a couple outfits I actually like, while I'm here," says Shell Bell. "I live with the Starks now, and I don't leave the house except to come here; no one's going to inconveniently wonder where I got pants other than clam waders and a shirt that isn't made of patches in various shades of blue. Maybe Milliways can provide some sort of catalog for inspiration and we can compare opinions on its contents."

truthwright
2013-02-03 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Kas, "I wanna help decorate. Can I help decorate?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:20 pm (UTC)

Bell considers him.

"You can suggest things and break ties," she offers.

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:21 pm (UTC)

"That sounds good to me," says Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-03 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Catalog?" says Isabella, and at Shell Bell's nod they depart the room, lock the door behind them, and go down to ask Bar if she can produce anything even vaguely resembling the forbidden class of items: menus.

truthwright
2013-02-03 04:24 pm (UTC)

Kas awaits.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:27 pm (UTC)

At the bar, the following exchange between spoken words and napkins occurs:

"Can you do a clothes catalog? I don't have enough of a background in what exists to know what I want; I don't want Capitol fashion and I don't have to settle for what people in Districts can afford and if Isabella knows anything about clothes it's how to tie those black torn bits."

Well. It would have to be substantially abridged.

"Mes have been here before, right? If you have to abridge it anyway it might as well be oriented around the sorts of things they wear?"

I do suppose that is true. But you know why there are no menus - it's because the options are limitless. I do hope you won't feel constrained by whatever is in such a catalog.

"Inspired," says Bell. "Not constrained."

Very well. If you promise. And the bar spits out a catalog about six times the size of a telephone book.
Edited 2013-02-03 16:28 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:29 pm (UTC)

"That looks heavy," says Isabella. "Can we get some string? We can tie it up and hang it from the cloud-pine and not have to carry it up four flights of stairs."

Bar produces a length of twine. Isabella ties the massive catalog and dangles it from her branch, on which she sits and floats back up with Bell following.

truthwright
2013-02-03 04:31 pm (UTC)

When Kas spots the catalog, he cracks up.

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Bar is philosophically opposed to menus. I think anything smaller than this would have made her figure out a way for a restaurant to cry, if the conversation she had with Bell about it was anything to go by," says Isabella, setting down the catalog and producing her dagger to cut the twine off.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:33 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell flicks the cover open. There's a table of contents, that's good. "Why do you carry a dagger with you?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Witches do," shrugs Isabella. "I'm better with a bow, but those aren't so easy to have on your person everywhere, and I am officially Not A Clan Embarrassment with the dagger. Are you as clumsy as I am?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Probably," says Shell Bell. "And I can't switch to flying, either. I mostly try to avoid stairs and carrying sharp objects."

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, there's a sheath tucked in here, but I don't take that out with the dagger," shrugs Isabella, peering over Bell's shoulder at jeans.

truthwright
2013-02-03 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Can I help you pick out clothes, too?" asks Kas. "I like clothes, they're fun."

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:37 pm (UTC)

"You can suggest things, but I don't think you get to break any ties on the subject of Bell's wardrobe, since she's the one who'll wear it," says Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-03 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he says. "What kind of clothes do you want, anyway? Stuff that looks nice, or stuff that feels nice?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:42 pm (UTC)

"I want... practical stuff," says Bell. "I trip and knock things over enough without any help. I think District Three gets pretty cold in the winter, but I'm staying indoors and won't need a coat, just maybe something a little heavier... I think it can probably manage to look nice at the same time, though. I like these," she says, running a finger over a pair of jeans that fade from dark blue at the hips and ankles to nearly white at the knees. She frowns. "There are no prices in this book. Thanks ever so, Bar..."

truthwright
2013-02-03 04:47 pm (UTC)

Kas hmms.

dark_light
2013-02-03 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Of the things on this page spread, those are my favorites too, which bodes well," says Isabella. "Not that I spend much time thinking about clothes. I like witch silks because I don't have to think about them." She pulls out her notebook and writes down the page number and position and fadey jeans, then turns the page.

The pair of them continue to have roughly matching opinions about everything, and after they've been looking long enough that this seems like a consistent phenomenon, they divide the book in half - Isabella looks at pages on the right, Shell Bell at pages on the left - and go twice as quickly, with Isabella note-taking when they find something that might be worth going back to.

truthwright
2013-02-03 04:52 pm (UTC)

Kas mainly watches all this.

Partway through, Petaal becomes a maned lioness and they snuggle up a short distance away.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 04:56 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell doesn't really want to look through the entire catalog. She does investigate a decent fraction of the jean selection, and continues through the shirts until Isabella finds a fitted t-shirt in black stretch cotton with silver "wrinkle" marks and she finds a warmer, long-sleeved flannel in solid burgundy. But she stops at the first page of socks and jots down the most pleasing option on the page without continuing into the world of soft footwear, and completely wastes Bar's kindness in finding her a selection of hats.

truthwright
2013-02-03 05:14 pm (UTC)

Apparently, watching people pick out clothes is nearly as fun as helping.

dark_light
2013-02-03 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I thought you were going to have more to say," Isabella remarks over her shoulder, between looking at sturdy practical boots in pretty colors and murmuring agreement with Shell Bell's selection of short black ones with functional silver-colored buckles.

truthwright
2013-02-03 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, me too!" he says. "Guess not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 05:21 pm (UTC)

"We have fantastic taste and nothing needed to be added," says Shell Bell smugly, while Isabella writes down the boots.

She's even more perfunctory about underwear than she was about the socks. And while a few months in Milliways added a little bit of substance to her frame, it hasn't done so enough that she considers it necessary to pick out a bra with a guy she doesn't know very well in the room. She can go on doing without for a while. She can keep the catalog and try again later. (There'll be a later; Tony and Sherlock find the door so often.)

truthwright
2013-02-03 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Sure," Kas says agreeably.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 05:29 pm (UTC)

Ultimately clothes-shopping is finished. "Do you want to think about rugs and prints and stuff, while I go check with Sherlock and ask if it's okay to get the outfits? There are no prices in this thing, I can't guess if they're in a reasonable buy-without-asking price range," says Bell.

dark_light
2013-02-03 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure," says Isabella, turning the page and starting to draw rug designs with swirls and blocks of labeled color.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Shell Bell warmly. She takes the page with her choices written on it, and she lets herself out of the room and (carefully) down the stairs to find (her) Starks.

sicaria
2013-02-03 05:31 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is over there!

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Bell, hugging Sherlock. "Um, it occurred to me that Bar sells all kinds of things, including clothes, and mine are terrible and I won't have to explain to my parents where new ones came from anymore. We got Bar to give us a catalog and Isabella helped me find a couple things, but the catalog had no prices in it, so I can't just be 'oh, that's about as much as a reasonable lunch, I can probably just get it', so I need to ask, as I'm on your tab."

sicaria
2013-02-03 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Let's go and find out, then."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 05:35 pm (UTC)

Bell nods, smoothing out the paper with the choices on it, and goes with Sherlock towards the Bar again. "Excuse me," she says. "The catalog didn't have any prices in it. Can you tell me how much these things would cost? In Panem money, not in shells anymore."

sicaria
2013-02-03 05:36 pm (UTC)

Bar produces a list.

Sherlock looks it over, then nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bell, pecking Sherlock on the cheek. "These then, please."

sicaria
2013-02-03 05:38 pm (UTC)

Bell receives a rather large stack of clothes, and also a hug.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 05:40 pm (UTC)

Bell hugs back, grinning, and then scoops up the clothes and runs up to the Belltower again.

After a brief wave to Isabella and Kas, she ducks into one of the bedrooms, and emerges in the fadey jeans, the black shirt, and the boots. Presumably there are socks and underwear involved somewhere, too.

"Let's see what you've thought up," says Bell, plopping into the chair next to Isabella and peering at the notebook.

dark_light
2013-02-03 05:42 pm (UTC)

Isabella has designed a matching set of abstract rugs to put hither and thither. "Kas helped," she adds. "He was helpful. I'm not sure what to put on the walls, though. I'm not enough of an art connoisseur to have any particularly Isabella-ish paintings or whatever that I'd like to see on the walls."

truthwright
2013-02-03 05:44 pm (UTC)

Kas sprawls out on the floor with linsang-shaped Petaal curled up on his stomach and looks up at the walls consideringly.

"Betcha I could find something," he offers.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 05:46 pm (UTC)

"There's plenty of walls. We can look at your ideas if you have some," Bell says. "Maybe a photo of me and you? Bar will loan us a camera. And then the others can add themselves as they come in and we can have a wall of Bells. Did I hear something about you drawing on walls?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Not decorations. Rune designs. I guess I could put some up if part of the idea is for it to look lived-in."

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Do you know what kind of stuff you might wanna put up?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:12 pm (UTC)

"In the rune design department, or in general? I might as well do some work on the alethiometer-finding here if I'm doing runes, since that's what I'm in the middle of," says Isabella. "Otherwise - pretty pictures? Bookshelves maybe, although I don't know if our budget stretches to filling them. My dad has some of Mom's embroidery on the walls of his house, from when she did embroidery, even though it's not very good. There's more in a box somewhere, I could swipe it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 06:13 pm (UTC)

Bell smiles a small, quiet smile.

"My parents think I'm dead," she says.

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Aww," says Kas. "Do you like 'em? If you like 'em then that's really sad."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I do like them. I couldn't leave my District without disappearing, and if they looked for me, they'd draw attention. I've been pretending to be slightly crazy for years, so. I think it was believable when I left them a note saying I'd gone looking for Atlantis, and they'll notice that even if I had supernaturally good luck with weather and other hazards I didn't take enough food or water to get anywhere. Really I walked overnight to the next town and stowed away on the train to where Sherlock and Tony live."

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:19 pm (UTC)

"'S a good plan," he says. "I'm sorry about your parents, though."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Me too."

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:20 pm (UTC)

Path gets out of the way.

Isabella hugs her double.

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:22 pm (UTC)

Petaal turns into an enormous boa and cuddles with Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:24 pm (UTC)

"If yours are like mine they'll forgive you when everything's over and you can be alive again," Isabella says in Bell's ear. Softly. Like she's trying to be Path for Bell. "Your Ranata will cry and your Charlie will rant but they'll forgive you and they'll find a way to understand."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Ranae and Shark," sniffles Bell. "Thanks."

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:29 pm (UTC)

Isabella is sweet.

Kas would offer to hug Bell, too, if she seemed like she'd like that, but she doesn't.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm so glad I met you," says Bell, not for the first time, when the hug ends and she's removed most of the liquid evidence for tears.

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad I met you too."

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Awww," murmurs Petaal, soft enough that probably only Kas can hear her.

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:33 pm (UTC)

"C'mon, double-check these rugs," says Isabella, pushing her notebook over.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 06:34 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell double-checks rugs.

She approves of rugs.

She elects to turn the decoration of the walls over to Isabella and Kas, while she goes and gets a large empty notebook for various Bells to fill up with their personal profiles and puts a template on the first page and herself as the first entry.

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:35 pm (UTC)

"So what are your ideas?" Isabella asks Kas.

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... not sure yet," he says. "Do you know if that bar gives out art? Seems like she gives out everything else."

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I guess we can ask and get one of those charming napkins in reply," says Isabella. "And maybe wheedle her into producing another catalog."

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:52 pm (UTC)

"We don't need one," says Kas. "If she can do art, she can do pretty much any art I ask for, right?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, if you have something in mind," says Isabella. "It didn't sound like you did."

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm thinking lots of pretty landscapes," he says. "All different places and seasons. Big ones and little ones."

dark_light
2013-02-03 06:58 pm (UTC)

"That sounds nice," says Isabella, tilting her head. "I wonder how specific Bar can get. I don't think anyone has ever photographed the Nunavut cloud-pine stand, but isn't it beautiful? And we could get a nice beach for Shell Bell, and maybe the wilderness around Forks..."

truthwright
2013-02-03 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Let's go ask!"

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Let's!"

They meet Bell on the way down the stairs; she's got the guestbook. There's a quick swap of notions - landscapes! format of profile pages - and then Isabella continues down.

"I like having an alt," she remarks to Kas as they approach the bar.

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Me too!" says Kas. "Mine's fun, I love him."

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:04 pm (UTC)

"One of the Tonies made a point of asking me if Petaal could turn human when I told everyone where you'd run off to," Isabella snorts. "Hello, Bar! Can you get us photos of locations that may not have technically been photographed before? And how much do prints of those cost? In Tony's dollars, and maybe can you tell me how much an apple costs in Tony's dollars so I can compare if the rates are different from dollars I'm familiar with?"

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:07 pm (UTC)

"One of the Tonies is a smart cookie," says Petaal.

Bar's response to Isabella's query is generally positive. The currencies are comparable, and photographs of locations unlikely to have been photographed are quite cheap.
Edited 2013-02-03 19:07 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Beautiful," says Isabella. "Um, can you see me? Somehow? I'd like a picture yea big of the spot in Nunavut where I cut my cloud-pine. Midwinter, cloudy but not actively snowing." She holds her hands to form corners, several feet apart. "And one of a forested beachy section of Forks, same size, panorama-style, trees on the left and ocean on the right? Summertime on a sunny day."

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:13 pm (UTC)

Bar produces the requested items, not framed but on a stiff backing that looks reasonably durable.

Kas beams.

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:14 pm (UTC)

"And something to hang them up with?" Isabella asks.

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:15 pm (UTC)

Sticky wall stickers for sticking things to walls!

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, Bar!" says Isabella. She goes back up the stairs
Edited 2013-02-03 19:18 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 07:18 pm (UTC)

In the Belltower, Bell is writing her profile in the book. "Oh, those are pretty," she says when she sees the pictures. "Are those places on your world?"

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Kas. "I've been to this one, I haven't been to that one."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 07:20 pm (UTC)

"That looks like the kind of tree you have the branch from," observes Bell.

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:21 pm (UTC)

"It is. Cloud-pine," says Isabella.
Edited 2013-02-03 19:21 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:22 pm (UTC)

"I've got one too," says Petaal, "but it's not here."

"We left it in Isabella's room."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Can anybody fly on one of those?" Bell asks.

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:25 pm (UTC)

"No! I would've mentioned that ages ago. Only witches. Petaal can turn into a witch. She doesn't count to the point of spellcasting, but she can fly."

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I'd demonstrate," says Petaal, "but I dunno how you feel about naked people."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Generally in favor of them having a wall between me and them?" says Bell uncertainly.

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:31 pm (UTC)

"She could change in one of the bedrooms and I could give her my silks and then I'd be the only person naked," says Isabella. "I don't care - witch thing - and while I don't fully understand what makes you care, maybe it's different if it's me?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 07:31 pm (UTC)

"If there were more point to the demonstration than I'm aware of there being, then that would work," says Bell, "but is there?"

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Not really," says Petaal. "Just me showing off. There aren't a lot of daemons who turn into any shape that usually talks."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Aren't there? What governs that? Why's Pathalan an owl?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:36 pm (UTC)

"I wanted to be a dragon, or maybe a firefly," says Path. "But witches' daemons have to be birds. I didn't feel like we were a witch until I settled as a bird, and this is the best bird for us. This is the kind of bird we are if we're going to be any bird. Children's daemons can be anything, but most of them aren't very creative," he adds dismissively.

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:38 pm (UTC)

"You're supposed to settle into a shape that suits your person when they stop being a kid," says Petaal, "but there isn't any one shape that's right for us, so I didn't."

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:44 pm (UTC)

"How's the profiling coming along?" asks Isabella, peering at the guestbook in Bell's lap.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I think I have the template down," says Bell, "but you should look it over." She hands the book to Isabella.

The first page now reads, in tidy and very familiar handwriting:

FULL NAME
Picture
Unique nickname
Species (if something other than garden-variety human, include a name for your variant, in case there are multiple kinds)
Birthplace, including a unique name for your world that you make up
Birth date
Parents' names
Siblings?
The story of your life
Notable friends, allies, non-uses with keys to here
Enemies we should watch out for?
Interesting resources
Current project
Needs/wants?
What else should your alts know about you?

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:52 pm (UTC)

Kas looks at it over Isabella's shoulder.

"Do you wanna know who your alts are dating and/or fucking?" he wonders. "There's one who's got a me for a boyfriend."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I think that would go under notable allies?" says Bell uncertainly. "But if some of us are encountering the same people... I mean, Sherlock comes in boy, if any other mes have met boy Sherlocks then they wouldn't need my particular circumstantial leadup, so that's possible too." She peers between Isabella and Kas. "You aren't dating, are you?" She makes the necessary erasures to add a bit to the allies line about significant other(s); attach a picture so we can check for alts who may not share identical names.

truthwright
2013-02-03 07:56 pm (UTC)

Kas grins at Isabella and doesn't answer.

dark_light
2013-02-03 07:57 pm (UTC)

"No, we're friends," says Isabella placidly.

(Path nuzzles her face.)

truthwright
2013-02-03 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Mhm," he agrees.

Petaal becomes a small fluffy owl of a familiar sort, and he absently gives her scritches.

dark_light
2013-02-03 08:12 pm (UTC)

Path peers inscrutably at Petaal.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 08:12 pm (UTC)

"What kind of owl is that, anyway? It's so cute," says Bell.

dark_light
2013-02-03 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Eastern screech, gray morph," says Path.

truthwright
2013-02-03 08:14 pm (UTC)

Petaal fluffs out her wings and hoots contentedly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Why that particular kind? I mean, that's really specific - if there's an Eastern there must be a Northern or a Western or a Southern, and if there's a gray morph of that extremely specific owl there must be other colors, and why a screech owl, and why an owl at all and not a - seagull?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 08:19 pm (UTC)

"There's tons of theorizing about this," says Isabella. "And daemons correlate with personality - we don't like anybody with a stinging bug like a scorpion or a wasp, although spiders are sometimes fine, and we get along pretty well with rodent and rabbit daemon types in spite of the obvious fact that Path settled as something that can eat small mammals. Witches are flying birds - not bats, not flying bugs, not flying squirrels, not ostriches or kiwis, only flying birds. But no one really knows exactly why daemons settle the way they do or how they know what's right."

truthwright
2013-02-03 08:22 pm (UTC)

Petaal decides to cease being an owl. She shifts into a bee hummingbird instead and zooms up to Path to give him tiny peck-kisses.

dark_light
2013-02-03 08:23 pm (UTC)

Path is amused.

Not that anyone but Isabella and Petaal can readily tell. Can't smile with a beak.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

Bell is finished writing the profile template and is ready to write her actual profile. BELL SWAN, she writes neatly at the top of the page.

truthwright
2013-02-03 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to be dating us?" whispers Petaal. Kas sprawls on the floor close by and looks at the walls some more.

dark_light
2013-02-03 08:30 pm (UTC)

Path hops off Isabella's shoulder to have the conversation in more privacy, daemon to daemon. Isabella looks askance at this behavior but doesn't object, trusting.

"We don't want to be a crazy witch. We don't know what makes some people do what they do, so we don't know how to avoid it," he confesses softly to Petaal.

truthwright
2013-02-03 08:37 pm (UTC)

Petaal decides to be a dragon, so Path can perch on her scaly back and she can curl her neck all the way around to talk to him up close.

"He meant what he said about thinking the daggerpoint thing was hot," she murmurs. "But if she did it for real we'd fuck her once or twice and then run for the hills. What are crazy witches like? What are you worried you'll do?"
Edited 2013-02-03 20:37 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-03 08:39 pm (UTC)

"A crazy witch would find him and kill him if that happened. We don't want you guys to die," says Path, perching where he's meant to perch and hunkering down into a ball of feathers. "Or want to want it."

truthwright
2013-02-03 08:41 pm (UTC)

Petaal nuzzles him gently.

"I know, sweetie," she says. "Are you afraid you'll want to kill us?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 08:43 pm (UTC)

"We're afraid there's something we don't know about how witch brains work. About how we work. That we haven't been able to find no matter how hard we've looked. That'll come out and make us stick a knife in someone we ought to love, if we let it."

Path can talk so, so quietly. Years of practice.

truthwright
2013-02-03 08:50 pm (UTC)

Her forked black tongue flickers out to touch his feathers.

"We love you," she says. "She's pretty and you're fluffy and you're both sweethearts. And we don't want you to do things you're scared of if you don't want to, but we'll risk it if you will." She grins a dragony grin. "And not just 'cause we like thinking about her and knives."

dark_light
2013-02-03 08:56 pm (UTC)

Path is silent, briefly.

Then he says, "As far as we know, crazy witches always kill the people who scorn them in person. You don't need to worry about a long-distance death spell but you might have to worry about an enchanted arrow. She's better with the bow than with the dagger. I wouldn't be there. I don't think she could get so far gone as to do it in front of me and I'd be a point of vulnerability anyway. She'd have me hiding or flying somewhere far away. But if you don't mind touching her even if she's trying to kill you, if you can be fast and armored and flying, I think you could stop her. And if she thinks so too, I think she's less likely to try. We're as far from suicidal as it gets and we've never heard of that changing when a witch goes nuts over a mortal."

truthwright
2013-02-03 09:01 pm (UTC)

"...I could," says Petaal. "I could kill her first. I might even do it. But I might not."

She licks Path's feathers again.

"I've killed people before," she murmurs. "That's not the problem. The problem is, if you wanted to kill us, we might want to let you."

dark_light
2013-02-03 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Why?" Path murmurs back. "There's so much to do."

truthwright
2013-02-03 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I know!" she says. "We know. But everyone dies sometime. Everyone human, anyway. How is more important than when, to us. And if it's someone we love, that's way better."

dark_light
2013-02-03 09:11 pm (UTC)

"In this scenario," says Path, "if you loved her, loved us, why would you leave in the first place? She's not going to claim him at daggerpoint as a first move. She's already decided that. She's been very steady about that. The worry is if we all get together some other way, some sane way, and then he leaves - something we haven't been able to find in ourselves might turn out to live there."

(This conversation is too grave for him to say it, but he's thinking, Like Cthulu.)

truthwright
2013-02-03 09:18 pm (UTC)

Petaal nuzzles him some more.

"Even if there weren't any threats," she says, "if we got the idea she'd kill us for leaving, we'd go. We couldn't do anything else and still be us."

dark_light
2013-02-03 09:21 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what to do, then," says Path. "Except be only friends. We can do that."

truthwright
2013-02-03 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, we don't think she'd kill us for leaving," says Petaal, "or I wouldn't be talking to you about this."

dark_light
2013-02-03 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you think so? We're a witch," Path says. "It's a thing witches do. Her grandmother did it. Twice."

truthwright
2013-02-03 09:28 pm (UTC)

"You're a you," says Petaal. "You don't want anyone to die, and you extra don't want us to die because you like us, and you're so worried you might murder us anyway that you won't even ask us out, of course you're not going to kill us." She bumps her nose playfully against Path's fluffy tummy.

dark_light
2013-02-03 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Shell Bell would kill her girlfriend if she got dumped, and she's an us. We're also a witch in addition to being an us. We might contain undiagnosed witch crazy," says Path uncertainly.

truthwright
2013-02-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

"We could try it," Petaal suggests. "If you did want to ask us out. You haven't exactly said. We could try breaking up and see if it makes you feel like killing us. And we could go stay with Augustine while you figured it out—she wouldn't care if we wanted to let you, she'd still fuck you up if you tried anything. And then at least you'd know, right?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Try breaking up without dating first?" asks Path uncertainly. "I'm not sure if Augustine would help. Bears can't fly."

truthwright
2013-02-03 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Would you believe me if I said that wouldn't really stop her?"

dark_light
2013-02-03 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Not really. Unless you say she has a jetpack or something." Pause. "That would be cool. I wonder if Tony wants to build bear jetpacks."

truthwright
2013-02-03 09:48 pm (UTC)

Petaal gigglesnorts.

dark_light
2013-02-03 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm starting to wonder what you're talking about, there," Isabella remarks, as Shell Bell finishes writing up her profile and Isabella takes the book to add her own.

"I'll tell you later," Path promises. "We just need to have this conversation directly."

truthwright
2013-02-03 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Really, though," Petaal says when she's calmed down a little, "if we went to Augustine and said you might kill us, she wouldn't let you. She lives in an old fortified tower. It's hard to shoot anybody through a stone wall."

dark_light
2013-02-03 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Hard, yes," Path concedes, back at his soft volume. "And just like I doubt she'd get far gone enough to do it in front of me I doubt she'd get far gone enough to besiege you for any length of time. Maybe. I'm not sure. It's so hard to be sure."

truthwright
2013-02-03 10:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't think she'd do it at all," says Petaal. "And I do think you want to know for sure, either way. And this might be the best chance you get to find out. Well, until you find an alethiometer, I guess."

dark_light
2013-02-03 10:11 pm (UTC)

"We are going to find an alethiometer. Soon," says Path. "You're smart. You're so smart!" Nuzzles!
Edited 2013-02-03 22:11 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-03 10:12 pm (UTC)

Snuggly nuzzles!

"I'm so smart," Petaal agrees happily.

dark_light
2013-02-03 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to tell me what smart thing you two cooked up?" Isabella asks dryly.

"Yes yes yes," chatters Path, flying to her shoulder and whispering rapid-fire into her ear.

truthwright
2013-02-03 10:18 pm (UTC)

Petaal turns liger-shaped and pounces on Kas for vigorous snuggles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Iiii'm going to go get keys and give one each to my Sherlock and Tony and to Matilda," says Bell. "And maybe to the other Sherlock and Tony too if they want them."

dark_light
2013-02-03 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Sounds good," says Isabella, distracted by her daemon's summary.

truthwright
2013-02-03 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Bye," calls Kas from underneath Petaal.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 10:28 pm (UTC)

Bell is beginning to be tired of all these stairs. But she did go and put "tower" in the name of her little club.

She seeks out Sherlox and Tonies and a Matilda to inquire after whether they may desire keys.

pythbox
2013-02-03 10:29 pm (UTC)

Matilda is easily identifiable by the pile of cornucopias in her lap. All that gold draws the eye pretty well.
Edited 2013-02-03 22:30 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Many cornucopias," says Bell. "Hi. D'you want a key to the Belltower?"
Edited 2013-02-03 22:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-03 10:35 pm (UTC)

"...Sure!" says Matilda. "And yes. They're for you."
Edited 2013-02-03 22:35 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Trade you," Bell says, holding out the key, and she starts scooping cornucopias into her jeans pockets. (They're decorative, but she was going for practical, and that means pockets.) "How many of these are you going to make? Are you going to make dozens of the unicorns too?"

And she looks around for anything shieldy or amulety.

pythbox
2013-02-03 10:41 pm (UTC)

Matilda accepts the key.

"I can make more unicorns too," she says. "But I was trying to improve the cornucopias. That's why they have release versions on them," she adds, showing Bell the tiny digits engraved on the rim of one curling golden horn. "I'm just about done with the improvements; to get them any better I'd have to brush up ony my biochemistry."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 10:42 pm (UTC)

"What are the differences?" Bell asks, picking up one that won't fit in her pockets and looking for the release version. It says 2.3.

pythbox
2013-02-03 10:47 pm (UTC)

"1.x aren't as good at complicated things," she explains. "2.0 and above can do cake! And maybe more importantly, they can do things like 'bag of flour'. And I made them better and better at paying attention to nutrition and taste."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

"What counts as a complicated thing, besides cake?" Bell asks.

pythbox
2013-02-03 10:50 pm (UTC)

"As a general rule, the more steps it would take to make it yourself, the more complicated it is," she says. "Bread, cake, all that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay. But a bag of flour is also complicated? Because it's processed? The early one could do - a stalk of wheat, right?"

pythbox
2013-02-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" she says. "Oh, and 2.2 and above can recognize containers, more or less - if you hold a clean bowl and say "ice cream", it'll put ice cream in the bowl. Otherwise you'd just have a floating ball of ice cream," she giggles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, as long as it floated, you could eat it out of the air, right?" giggles Bell. "How does the floating work, anyway? Does it stay until someone touches it, or until someone tries to move it, or what?"

pythbox
2013-02-03 10:59 pm (UTC)

"It stays until someone takes it," she says. "Bumping into it by accident won't make it fall, but if you weren't looking where you were going and you put your hand on it like you were going to pick it up, that might."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

"So could you eat a ball of ice cream out of the air, or not?"

pythbox
2013-02-03 11:02 pm (UTC)

"...I'd have a bowl underneath if you were going to try it," she says. "And you might just end up driving it around with the spoon, depending how much the levitation wanted to say in one place. There's some variance in these things."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:04 pm (UTC)

"I had actually failed to add a spoon to my mental picture," admits Bell. "Okay. Can I get, like, a list of cornucopia specifications by version number, so we can explain those if we wind up passing these things out en masse?"

pythbox
2013-02-03 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" she says. "Do you have your computer with you? I guess not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

"I can get it."

She can! Her room is closer than the Belltower, and that's where it is. She's back a minute later, less cornucopia-laden.

pythbox
2013-02-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

Matilda transfers a new subfolder into the magic manual. It's labeled 'Experimental', and it contains the version notes on cornucopias and a draft of someone's paper on unicorns.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Bell. "Oh, by the way, I made a brief note about you in the Belltower guestbook. If you run into other Bells who don't have their own magic like Isabella does they might ask you to be contagious at them. In case it doesn't work the same way for everyone." She shrugs and looks away.

pythbox
2013-02-03 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to go find the Sherlocks and Tonies in case they want keys," Bell says. "Bye again! Thanks again!"

And she goes looking. They don't seem to be in the main bar, so she starts checking their rooms, starting with the one where she found them last time.
Edited 2013-02-03 23:13 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-03 11:15 pm (UTC)

Success! They are cuddlepiling again. The other Sherlock is braiding Sherlock's hair.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that's preposterously cute," Bell says of the hair braiding. "Who wants a key to the Belltower?" She's got enough in her pocket; she can give any extras back, or just keep them in her room.

sicaria
2013-02-03 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I would like one, please," says Sherlock.

toblameforit
2013-02-03 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Tony. "Why not, right?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:18 pm (UTC)

Bell distributes keys. "Other Sherlock? Original Tony?"

bitofafiction
2013-02-03 11:19 pm (UTC)

"No, thank you," says Other Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-02-03 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Nah, I'm good," says Original Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bell eyes the cuddlepile speculatively.

It looks very cuddly.

But maybe it's only for genetically identical people?

(Isabella doesn't project a particularly cuddly look, for some reason, however affectionate her owl was being with Kas's critter.)

bitofafiction
2013-02-03 11:24 pm (UTC)

"You are invited," says Sherlock, without looking up from his hair-braiding.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:29 pm (UTC)

Now she has to figure out logistics. This would be easier if her Sherlock were on an end. Hmm.

Eventually she determines dignified cuddling to be, if not an oxymoron, at least a non-priority, and worms her way in between her Sherlock and the nearest Tony.

sicaria
2013-02-03 11:31 pm (UTC)

Sherlock tucks her arm around Bell's waist and kisses the end of her nose.
Edited 2013-02-03 23:32 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-03 11:34 pm (UTC)

Eeeeee.

Isabella and Kas looked like they had some unfinished business, and there's also the rest of Isabella's profile for her to write. Isabella will not start thinking Bell's run off without a final agreement on the Belltower's completion for the next while.

Snuggle.
Edited 2013-02-03 23:34 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-03 11:36 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Isabella is still listening to Path.

Until he finishes explaining.

"That's a good idea," she says, sounding almost faint.

"We were thinking about global problems, but the alethiometer will know things about us, too," says Path brightly.

"Unless," says Isabella, frowning, "the birth blessing throws it off somehow. But it's at least worth a try."

truthwright
2013-02-03 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we have good ideas once in a while," says Kas, wrapping his arms around Petaal's furry neck and hugging her.

dark_light
2013-02-03 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Very good. Um, was anyone in the chain of information exaggerating about the part where you love us, though, because I didn't... previously... know that."

truthwright
2013-02-03 11:42 pm (UTC)

"We love you," Kas confirms agreeably. "You're sweet and you're a good friend and we miss you when you're not around."

"And I like snuggling you," Petaal chimes in.

dark_light
2013-02-03 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

Isabella refrains from letting that information go much of anywhere. She doesn't have an alethiometer yet. She could still have a loose gear somewhere waiting to send her spiraling out of control.

truthwright
2013-02-03 11:45 pm (UTC)

Petaal turns linsang and jumps up and down on Kas's stomach, because sometimes it is just time to be needlessly adorable.

dark_light
2013-02-03 11:46 pm (UTC)

That's pretty cute. Isabella giggles.

She goes back to writing her profile in the guestbook.

truthwright
2013-02-03 11:48 pm (UTC)

Kas scoops Petaal off his stomach and hugs her, then lets go.

She turns hummingbird and investigates said guestbook.

dark_light
2013-02-03 11:52 pm (UTC)

So far, Isabella has written:

ISABELLA AMARIAH and my daemon PATHALAN
"Amariah", "Path"
Witch (let's call my variety "cloudpine witches" if there are more); Path's shape is an Eastern screech owl, gray morph
Olympic Clan Enclave (near Forks, WA, United States, Earth)
September 13, 1994
Ranata Ekamma, Charles "Charlie" Swan

truthwright
2013-02-03 11:53 pm (UTC)

Petaal is little enough to perch on the edge of the notebook without getting in the way. She does.

dark_light
2013-02-03 11:57 pm (UTC)

She goes on:

No siblings so far
Grew up about 1/3 in the clan enclave, 1/3 with my dad in Forks (incl. attending some human school), and 1/3 tearing around the world with Ranata and miscellaneous friends. Age 15, got formal apprenticeship with a ritual magic specialist in Rockland, Maine, where I live now.

And she asks, "Do you want a key to here?"

truthwright
2013-02-03 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:01 am (UTC)

"Okay then." She writes him down.

She completes the entry thus:

"Kas" and his daemon "Petaal" (latter may take any shape, incl. human or witch, either sex)
As of writing, unattached but tentatively considering Kas the aforementioned, contingent on success of project below
No enemies from home yet, but I need to practice nastier magic, give me deserving targets and I'll take 'em for you
Ritual magic (it's better at working with natural things, and doesn't scale up well, but I can do lots of stuff)
Finding and acquiring an alethiometer (device that produces absolute truth from my world)
An alethiometer! But I think I have that under control
DO NOT TOUCH PATH EVER EVER EVER

truthwright
2013-02-04 12:02 am (UTC)

"I wanna snuggle you some," Petaal declares. "Can I?"

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:03 am (UTC)

Isabella sets the book aside. "All right," she says.

truthwright
2013-02-04 12:07 am (UTC)

For this snuggle, Petaal turns into a... rabbity... creature.

She is conveniently lap-sized, and also fuzzy!

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:10 am (UTC)

"Oh wow, fluffy," says Isabella, wrapping her arms around Petaal and feeling barely at all strange about the weird knowingness she feels when she does it. "Lookit you. What are you? You look like a cross between a chinchilla and a rabbit and the concept of huggableness."

truthwright
2013-02-04 12:12 am (UTC)

"I'm a viscacha!" she says smugly. "Aren't I cuddly?"

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:12 am (UTC)

"So cuddly," agrees Isabella, taking full advantage.

truthwright
2013-02-04 12:15 am (UTC)

Kas scoots across the floor until he can curl up right next to them, sighing happily.

"I like it when you do that," he says. "It's nice."

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:18 am (UTC)

Path climbs Isabella's silks to sit on the shoulder opposite from Kas.

"It gets less weird over time," she says. "And look at all this fluff. If Path was one of these I don't think I'd dare leave the house with him, some three-year-old who didn't get it yet would grab him."

(Isabella never grabbed anyone's daemon when she was little; lots of people don't. But she's seen it happen, and it usually results in the kid getting shouted at until he or she cries.

She suddenly suspects that Kas may have had a daemon-grabbing problem as a child. If you wouldn't mind all that much if it happened to you...)

truthwright
2013-02-04 12:25 am (UTC)

"My sweetie is the cuddliest," Kas agrees. "It's so awful when kids do that—they don't know any better, but it still hurts."
Edited 2013-02-04 00:25 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:27 am (UTC)

Isabella readjusts her expectations and is glad she didn't voice them. "Path has always been too quick for handsy little cousins and whatnot," says Isabella. "I've actually made it this long without anyone so much as accidentally brushing a wingtip. But it sounds like the worst thing that could possibly be."

truthwright
2013-02-04 12:31 am (UTC)

"It's not the worst when it's just some kid in a park," he says. "Pretty bad, though."

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:32 am (UTC)

"I mean in general. Not kids in particular."

The fact that Kas can even make the comparison hurts her somewhere near the heart.

truthwright
2013-02-04 12:41 am (UTC)

He reaches up and rests his hand on her knee.

"I'm glad you don't know what it's like the bad way," he says softly.

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:43 am (UTC)

"Me too. I can live without knowing."

She snuggles Petaal a little closer in lieu of having to react in some way to the hand on the knee. She wants an alethiometer - but going back to finish her spell and cast it and get the thing means leaving Milliways means maybe not being able to find Bell or one of her crowd again and assassinate that extremely deserving president of theirs.

truthwright
2013-02-04 12:45 am (UTC)

After a moment, he takes his hand away and curls up again. Petaal nuzzles Isabella contentedly.

in defiance of the capitol

she_sells_seashells

A reasonable amount of time later, when the Belltower is presentable even to magical Empresses of this or that, Bell and Sherlock and Tony take Isabella and Path and Kas and Petaal home with them.

"You're going to have to show her what she needs," Bell says to the Starks. "I don't know which locations or objects are relevant. Or which of you is going to be her someone-he-met focus."

ferratus
2013-02-04 12:57 am (UTC)

"I'll do it," says Tony.

dark_light
2013-02-04 12:59 am (UTC)

"I have to cast in the place where he's been, so choose accordingly, I doubt you want me working in the middle of the street even if's he's walked down it a hundred times," says Isabella. Path on her shoulder keeps swiveling his head around, taking in the new world.

ferratus
2013-02-04 01:06 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and leads her to his bedroom.

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:07 am (UTC)

Isabella doesn't think much of the location. She just follows and waits for more specific pointers.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 01:07 am (UTC)

(Shell Bell does think much of the location. She doesn't say anything, just shivers and fixes her attention on her witch killer alternate who's going to fix this problem.)

ferratus
2013-02-04 01:09 am (UTC)

"Right there," he says, pointing at a spot on the floor a few feet in from the door and slightly off to one side. "He stands there a lot."

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:15 am (UTC)

"Okay." Isabella's carrying an advanced cornucopia. It won't do all possible spell components. But it'll do the ones she needs. She didn't even have to get Kas to hold the door while she ran home for a poison.

"Bottle of wine," she says, and she casts the thickening spell on it and begins pouring her diagram around where Tony pointed.

Rune, rune, rune, line - "stand there, please" - curvy stylized arrow, rune, rune, rune, line, rune rune rune.

"Bottle of black peppercorns." (She places one in the center of each rune.) "Bottle of nutmeg." (She dusts it over the whole thing.) "Bayleaves." She puts them in Tony's clothes, tucked here and there, and has him hold one in each palm. "Marjoram." (A little heap in the middle.) "Spring onion." (It goes on the arrow, curved to match.)

The cornucopia won't do a live animal. "I need something to sacrifice - an animal. What sort of pests am I likely to be able to summon from here? A rat's good if there's one within calling distance, I can use a pigeon or a squirrel."

ferratus
2013-02-04 01:18 am (UTC)

"I know there's pigeons," he says. "Not so sure about the other two."

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:20 am (UTC)

"I'll try for a rat and if that doesn't work I'll do a pigeon," says Isabella.

She gets a rat on her first try! While it's still docile, she snatches it up with a practiced grip. It can't bite her, although it starts struggling.

She pulls her dagger out with her free hand.

"Last chance to decide you do not want this man to die. Or, you know, decide you want him to spend more or less than twenty-four hours being deathly ill," she says.

ferratus
2013-02-04 01:22 am (UTC)

"Go for it," says Tony.

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:26 am (UTC)

When no one contradicts him, Isabella nods. Path has been holding the classy wristwatch that Snow once owned; she maneuvers it around the rat without giving it the freedom to sink its teeth into her, and tucks her pinky finger under it so it won't slide off. She holds the rat out to her left, her dagger out to her right.

She didn't compose this poem. It doesn't rhyme. It crackles.

"Yambe Akka's knife is mercy
Suffer not such pain to live
Yambe Akka's knife is deadly
Yambe Akka's knife I twist
Suffer not this one, I say
Yambe Akka's knife I need
Suffer not his breath to draw

Still and calm I need him brought
Stillness, calmness, bring them down
Yambe Akka's knife I call
Yambe Akka's knife is sharp
Still and calm will kill in silence
Stillness, calmness, listen close
Yambe Akka's knife in heart

Suffer not that heart to beat
Suffer not his eyes to see
Suffer not his soul to fly
Suffer not his hand to harm
Yambe Akka's knife is mine
Yambe Akka's knife I wield
Yambe Akka's knife strikes home!"

And on the final syllable the rat is pierced through with her blade, and it dies.

ferratus
2013-02-04 01:28 am (UTC)

Even though he doesn't know it worked, even though he probably won't know it worked for a good long while, Tony exhales with relief.

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:30 am (UTC)

The herbs - including the bayleaves - are all gone. The thickened wine is gone. The rat and the wristwatch - and the rat blood - are still there. "I recommend burning the rat, which I can do if you can provide me with a safe place in which to burn a thing. You can do whatever you like with the wristwatch," says Isabella, unconcerned with the blood on her hands as she disentangles the two objects. She does conscientiously murmur a spell to clean her dagger before she tucks it away into its sheath in her silks.

sicaria
2013-02-04 01:31 am (UTC)

"I can provide such a place," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:35 am (UTC)

"Lead the way," says Isabella, cleaning off the watch with another spell and setting it down before following Sherlock with the rat corpse in her hands.

She just killed some living things. She feels pretty okay, considering. It's more sheer power than she's ever channeled. Kind of heady. She can see why some witches would be enthusiastic about this kind of magic. Not enough that she's going to start killing people any less discriminately, but. She's going to ride the high as long as she has it anyway.

truthwright
2013-02-04 01:37 am (UTC)

Perhaps, along the way, she will notice the way Kas is looking at her. You could describe it as 'slightly stunned admiration, with a component of lust'.

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:40 am (UTC)

Isabella doesn't.

Path does, looking directly backwards.

He preens.

truthwright
2013-02-04 01:41 am (UTC)

Petaal, as a rattlesnake coiled around Kas's shoulders, flicks her tongue at him.

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:43 am (UTC)

Path swivels his head ninety degrees. He whispers to his witch.

She shivers, a little, and the hand that isn't holding the rat clenches against the side of her thigh.

Eventually they get to a suitable incineration place. Isabella dumps the rat unceremoniously, murmurs a spell to set it alight, and then helps it along by asking the cornucopia for some paprika and sprinkling it over the carcass. Before long there's nothing more left but thin, dry ashes.
Edited 2013-02-04 01:45 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-04 01:45 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:47 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Isabella, not exactly cheerful, but with a sharp happiness in her voice. "Anyone else you want killed or cursed and can provide the stuff for?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 01:48 am (UTC)

"Not currently."

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:50 am (UTC)

"Any other miscellaneous magic that you guys would find helpful?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 01:51 am (UTC)

"I cannot think of any just now. You might like to ask Bell."

dark_light
2013-02-04 01:52 am (UTC)

"Will do."

And she cannot resist, as she passes Kas on the way out of the room, one teasing, dark-magic-is-lovely smirk.

Because she's going to get an alethiometer right when she gets home, right?

truthwright
2013-02-04 01:55 am (UTC)

Petaal turns into a ball python and wraps her coils firmly around Kas's torso; he hugs himself and leans his head against hers and shivers happily.

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:01 am (UTC)

Isabella asks Bell, and promptly has a long discussion about what she can or cannot do, interspersed with asking the cornucopia for herbs, throwing them at people, drawing thickened-saltwater runes on the backs of Bell's and the Starks' hands, hanging a sacrificed pigeon from the ceiling of each bedroom in the house with string and walking widdershins around it reciting verse, and putting runes in chocolate syrup of all things on each inhabitant's bedclothes and vanishing them without so much as a poem.

All of this takes about three hours. The Starks and Bell are now protected - not perfectly, but considerably - against many forms of natural disaster, disease, injury and drugging; anyone trying to invade their rooms will get a nasty surprise; they will wake up if danger approaches while they sleep; and in the event that one of them dies anyway, the other two will know it at once.

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:03 am (UTC)

Kas and Petaal are absent for the majority of the spellcasting after that first one.

sicaria
2013-02-04 02:04 am (UTC)

At least one person knows exactly what they are doing.

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:05 am (UTC)

Isabella can guess, too, but if the Starks don't mind a guest slipping off, she has no reason to object.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 02:06 am (UTC)

Shell Bell has no idea!

When she's sure she's exhausted the likely-useful spells that Isabella can cast here and now, she hugs her, hard, and asks Tony if he can get a Milliways door so Isabella and Kas can go home. "If I were her I wouldn't want to stick around longer than necessary," she sighs.

ferratus
2013-02-04 02:08 am (UTC)

"Sure!" says Tony.

He gets it on the first try.

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:09 am (UTC)

"Thanks very much," she says to Tony.

She hugs Shell Bell. "I'll see you in the Belltower. We can leave notes even if we don't run into each other again in person anytime soon."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 02:09 am (UTC)

"Of course," says Shell Bell, hugging back hard. "Thank you so much for everything."

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:11 am (UTC)

"Hey, what are alts for?" Pause. "What are alternates of us for, anyway? And hey, I'm going to get me a device that dispenses absolute truth, leave me questions in your notes and I'll answer them for you - won't be fast but could help."

She squeezes, hard, and then she lets go.

"Kas!" she calls. "Petaal! Let's not leave Tony holding the door forever!"

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:12 am (UTC)

Kas and Petaal appear in short order, Petaal draped across his shoulders as a linsang, Kas fully clothed but looking like he only just got that way.

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:13 am (UTC)

Yep. She guessed right. Path chuckles in her ear.

Out they go, with a final wave to their hosts.

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:13 am (UTC)

"So, how's that alethiometer spell coming along?"

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:15 am (UTC)

"Oh, give me an hour and I'll have something ready to try," says Isabella, wasting no time in opening the door again to her room as soon as it's shut to Panem. Everything is as she left it; good. She puts her cloud-pine down, picks her notebook up, and gets to work.

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:16 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Kas. "I'll be in my attic."

in a supposed democracy

she_sells_seashells

Snow's death is announced on television the day after it happens. The announcer speaks of "sudden illness".

There are going to be emergency elections to replace him in three days. Without advance notice and the standard scheduling of elections, they're going to be setting up polling places in the Capitol at a limited number of sites. Some outlying neighborhoods will be served by schools and the like. But most of the city will be congregating at the Memorial Dome to cast their votes for the next president.

(There follow thirty solid minutes of campaign ads. The district imports comptroller, the chairman of the traffic control commission and former Gamemaker, the deceased Snow's personal assistant, and a handful of lesser individuals are running. Bell hates them all.)

"Suppose the Memorial Dome caught fire," she says to Sherlock and Tony, frowning at the TV.

sicaria
2013-02-04 05:07 pm (UTC)

"That would be lovely," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Can you get me in and out again? I need a view of it and to be within a few blocks. Ideally it'd be in the early morning or at night, I don't really want to kill random voters."

sicaria
2013-02-04 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Hm," says Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-02-04 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we can get you there," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 05:12 pm (UTC)

"How?" Bell asks.

ferratus
2013-02-04 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I have friends. The kind of friends who'll send a train if I say I wanna visit."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Will I be stowing away again, then?"

ferratus
2013-02-04 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Although how much hiding you have to do depends on who I call."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 05:26 pm (UTC)

"...Should I be feeling vaguely sketchy about you calling Capitol friends to get things done? Or should I not even ask that question?"

ferratus
2013-02-04 05:27 pm (UTC)

"If you're talking about how I met them, then yep. Sketch as hell."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 05:29 pm (UTC)

"But not so sketchy that you wanted Isabella to curse any of them for you?"

ferratus
2013-02-04 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bell is now done asking questions about that. "The train station's at least functional enough again that a train could appear at it and stop and accept passengers. The next question is where to put me. I can do it from a block away, but I won't be able to see as much detail about what I'm doing. If I'm up close I can start the fire near a celebratory torch or a heating vent with something flammable near it, and it won't look as suspicious. Are any of the friends you could call observant enough to find it suspicious that our train station catches fire and then we get on a train at it and then the Memorial Dome catches fire?"

ferratus
2013-02-04 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Some of 'em, but I'm not gonna call those ones."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay, good. Where can we put me relative to the Memorial Dome without getting caught?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 06:07 pm (UTC)

"As close as you like," says Sherlock. "I will take care of that part."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 06:11 pm (UTC)

"You're victors, you can show up anywhere and people will just assume you have a reason to be there, but insofar as I'm recognizable at all it's not in a way that has me looking like I belong in the Capitol," says Bell slowly. "I certainly don't look like I live there; I'm covered entirely in colors that are found in nature. You have some place where I won't be looked at and still has a good view out?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 06:15 pm (UTC)

"We can alter your appearance so that you fit in just fine, which will also make you unlikely to be recognized."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Ah," says Bell. "Uh, do we have specific alterations in mind here? I can live with dyeing my hair blue and painting little white triangles all over my face, but I'm less enthusiastic about cosmetic surgery."

sicaria
2013-02-04 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Superficial adjustments will be sufficient," she says. "Plenty of people who live in the Capitol have no surgical alterations at all."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Dye and makeup and one ridiculous Capitol-fashion outfit from Bar, I guess, and then I stand around looking like I'm... waiting for somebody? before I go in and vote? and find a place to start the fire, and then I suppose I have to run away looking terrified when everyone else does - where can I go then? I don't strictly need to see what I'm doing but I can keep the collateral damage down much better if I can."

sicaria
2013-02-04 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I can accompany you if you like," says Sherlock. "I have some leeway to wander around the city by myself."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Even with the Memorial Dome on fire? You don't think a Peacekeeper will insist on escorting 'you and your friend' to a safe place?" asks Bell. "Even if you can take a Peacekeeper, having to take a Peacekeeper isn't very discreet."

sicaria
2013-02-04 06:36 pm (UTC)

"I am very good at finding places to hide and then hiding in them. I cannot tell you right now from memory a good vantage from which to watch the Memorial Dome burn without being disturbed, but I can find one when we get there."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bell. "We'll go with that, then. Since Tony can't always find a door - might be a good idea to look for one to Capitolize me starting now? I completely made up the triangles and blue hair thing, does that make any sense or should it be something else?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 06:46 pm (UTC)

"That would be adequate but perhaps not optimal," she says. "Geometry is good... I will think about it."

ferratus
2013-02-04 06:46 pm (UTC)

Tony gets up and opens a door.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Nice, first try," says Bell, getting up. "May as well start with the blue hair. I know blue hair is a thing. Unless it became terribly last season when I wasn't looking."

sicaria
2013-02-04 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Painting your face in angular high-contrast abstract patterns would be both fashionable and an effective disguise," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 06:52 pm (UTC)

"High-contrast. So not white, but maybe more blue? Shades of blue? Blue and red?" Bell asks, going through the door.

sicaria
2013-02-04 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Blue, red, yellow, and black," Sherlock suggests, following.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Quartering my face centered on my nose and a triangle of the opposite color in the middle of each section," suggests Bell. "Half my hair navy blue and half white, curled into obnoxious ringlets and with a stupid little hat pinned to it. And stick me in a dress with enough ruffle to it that no one can tell I'm a skinny District kid. My own parents won't recognize me. Which, come to think of it, could be important."

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:02 pm (UTC)

"A fine plan," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:08 pm (UTC)

Bell goes up to the bar and orders pots of makeup and dye in the relevant colors, and pins, and a stupid hat that she bases on the District Four tribute escort's hat but with changed colors and a higher lace-to-fake-flowers ratio, and a truly, epically stupid dress that's mostly gray on the left and mostly sky-blue on the right, with accents in red and ruffles in canary yellow.

She picks up her items with undisguised disgust, but thanks the bar politely.

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:11 pm (UTC)

"You will look like a disaster," she says. "But not a recognizable or a memorable or a notale one."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:13 pm (UTC)

"That's the idea, yes. Ugh, Capitol aesthetics. We should do my hair here. No point leaving evidence around the house we don't strictly have to." She heads for her room.

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:13 pm (UTC)

Sherlock follows.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:15 pm (UTC)

There is a bathroom in her room. Bell reads the instructions on her hair dye, takes the stick out of her hair and sets it aside, and starts combing out minor tangles with her fingers in the mirror.

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Do you need any help?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, actually, this stuff gets combed in," she points out a little comb attached to each package of dye, too small to effectively detangle but decent for incorporating a substance, "and I can't see the back of my head." She's smoothing out her hair and making a zig-zagging part down the middle with her fingernail. "If I hold the left half out of the way can you comb the dye into the right half and vice versa?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes I can," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Swell." Bell double-checks the neatness of the part. A Capitol person would have had this done by a professional stylist; she only has to stand up to casual scrutiny, and there'll be a hat, but she really shouldn't half-ass it. Finally she gathers the right side of her hair into a pigtail, smooths down stray wisps on both sides with drops of water from the faucet, and says, "Okay, start with the blue on my left?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:39 pm (UTC)

"All right," she says, and there she starts.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:43 pm (UTC)

When Bell's hair is blued, she picks up that half and twists it into a pigtail to keep it out of the way while Sherlock bleaches the other side. It's not supposed to stick to anything but hair, so she's not worried about her shirt or the blue stains on her hands, but she does get out of the way so Sherlock can rinse dye off of her own hands before doing the second half.

Finally her hair is its ridiculous two-tone self, and she holds both sides out and away from her head so they don't touch each other while the dye sinks in. "Do I look suitably disastrous?" she asks dryly.

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Not yet," says Sherlock, just as dryly. "But we are certainly headed in the right direction."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:48 pm (UTC)

There's not a hair dryer in the bathroom, but there's an exhaust fan; Bell flicks it on with her elbow to speed up the process. "As long as I'm here I should probably get a bra. I don't have one yet, but it might be a good idea now that I'm eating regularly and everything. Didn't get one last time because Isabella's friend was in the room when I was picking stuff."

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:49 pm (UTC)

"You may as well, then, yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:50 pm (UTC)

The catalog is around here somewhere. There it is, sitting on the bed. Hands occupied, Bell manages to flip it to somewhere in the middle of the bra section with her feet and peers at the pages.
Edited 2013-02-04 19:51 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-04 07:53 pm (UTC)

"That one's pretty," Sherlock comments.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 07:55 pm (UTC)

"It's all right -" begins Bell, when it occurs to her that Sherlock's opinion on her underthings could actually become relevant at some point during the life of this garment. "Yeah. It's pretty." It is, and as long as she gets it sized right it won't be impractical, either, she doesn't have to get the plain-looking one just because human makers of such things tend to compromise between usefulness and appearance.

sicaria
2013-02-04 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Were you going to say something else?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 08:08 pm (UTC)

"It wasn't my first choice, I was going to go with something plainer, but I like it okay, and you're, you know, in a position that entitles you to opinions on what I wear," shrugs Bell. Leaving ambiguous whether that position is 'girlfriend' or 'funder of the purchase'.

sicaria
2013-02-04 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you are pleased with it, then so am I."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 08:22 pm (UTC)

"My instincts towards plain stuff are mostly about the fact that manufacturers don't make the fancier stuff durable or sometimes even comfortable. But Bar can," says Bell, kissing Sherlock's cheek. She stretches a finger away from her grip on her pigtails and pats her scalp. All dry; she lets her hair fall.

sicaria
2013-02-04 08:38 pm (UTC)

Awwww. Sherlock smiles.

"Fashionably disastrous," she says, running her fingertips down the blue side.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Grand," says Bell. "It'll wash out eventually."

Here she is on a bed with her girlfriend. She snuggles up.

And then she observes that she didn't have to ask her brain what would drugged Bell want?

"All done pretending," she reports.

sicaria
2013-02-04 08:41 pm (UTC)

...Sherlock grins.

A kiss seems like a properly thematic celebration! Doesn't it?

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 08:42 pm (UTC)

It does! Kisses kisses.

sicaria
2013-02-04 08:45 pm (UTC)

Many kisses. Snuggly kisses. Lovely snuggly kisses.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 08:48 pm (UTC)

The loveliest and snuggliest. They're not even keeping Tony waiting. They're in Milliways. Bell loves Milliways and she is so fond of Sherlock. She is a happy Bell even with her stupid hair.

sicaria
2013-02-04 08:49 pm (UTC)

It is very stupid hair, and Bell is very lovely anyway. Funny how that works.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 08:54 pm (UTC)

Isn't it just.

"Do you get people trying to talk to you in the Capitol? I imagine nothing like Tony does, but enough that I might have to introduce myself or something if we're standing together?" Bell asks when cuddly kisses have calmed to mere cuddles.

sicaria
2013-02-04 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I am extremely good at discouraging casual conversation," she says. "Perhaps not infinitely good. But it would be best if you spoke as little as possible; your accent will be incongruous."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I can try to talk like a TV personality," says Bell, doing a vaguely passable job of shifting her vowels around. "But yeah, I'll default to shutting up, I'm not that good at it and could forget."

sicaria
2013-02-04 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Handily, shutting up is an easier skill to cultivate," Sherlock jokes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 09:27 pm (UTC)

Bell snorts. "It is. Maybe it's just because I've been coming here so long, but even the accents from other worlds don't sound as weird to me as Capitol accents do." She pauses, thoughtful. "Did you notice - well, of course you noticed. Do you know why your alt and Tony's have different accents?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "For much the same reason I can speak flawless Capitol and Tony cannot, I think. They formed their speech habits in different contexts."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 09:43 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I was frequently in the Capitol as a child. The other Sherlock spent much of his time with someone whose accent differed from the local one. The effect is similar."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I wonder why. He obviously didn't have your reasons."

sicaria
2013-02-04 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Evidently not," she agrees.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 09:52 pm (UTC)

Snuggles. "Lemme know when you want to go home," she says. "I'm liable to just fall asleep if it's not soon, fair warning."

sicaria
2013-02-04 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I would not mind if you fell asleep."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 09:54 pm (UTC)

Oh, okay then.

Bell snuggles up. And she falls asleep.

"Blue effervescence," she mumbles into Sherlock's shoulder.
Edited 2013-02-04 21:55 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-04 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Quite so," Sherlock murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes," agrees sleeping Bell. "Boots brightness pencil."

sicaria
2013-02-04 10:02 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs softly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 10:04 pm (UTC)

Bell continues babbling at a more or less steady rate throughout the time she spends sleeping.

Uninterrupted, this will amount to an hourlong nap.

sicaria
2013-02-04 10:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock would not dream of interrupting.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 10:13 pm (UTC)

Halfway through pronouncing "incandescent", Bell yawns awake. "Hallo there," she says, presenting Sherlock with a kiss.

sicaria
2013-02-04 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Are you aware that you speak nonsense in your sleep?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 10:19 pm (UTC)

"...Huh? Nonsense? What kind of nonsense?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Completely arbitrary words without any syntactic structure."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh. That's weird. I wasn't even narrating my dream? In my dream I had a daemon like Isabella's except mine was a dragon and, for some reason, named Sponge."

sicaria
2013-02-04 10:26 pm (UTC)

"No dragons, daemons, or sponges were featured."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 10:27 pm (UTC)

"How strange. I wonder why I do that. And how the words are chosen."

sicaria
2013-02-04 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 10:49 pm (UTC)

"It just occurred to me that I forgot to add a section in the Belltower guestbook about the power a lot of us seem to have in common, which I don't have - the immunity to psychic stuff. I'm not even sure if Isabella has that," frowns Bell. "I should go add that as long as I'm here. And buy the bra." She stretches and sits up; a tendril of white hair falls in front of her face and she frowns at it and brushes it aside before wadding up all her dyed tresses and sticking her stick through them as usual. "Then home? Or is there anything else we should do here?"

sicaria
2013-02-04 10:51 pm (UTC)

"No—home, I think."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 10:59 pm (UTC)

Bell nods and goes up to the Belltower. Sherlock can accompany her or not, as she likes.

In it, she finds a box that turns out to contain several dozen unicorns, tied up with a pretty ribbon and addressed to Shell Bell. She grins.

She also finds the guestbook right where she left it. No new entries yet, but she adds to the template at the front and then to her own, so the full thing now reads:

BELL SWAN
"Shell Bell"
Human
Pearl Beach, District Four, Panem, Earth; world "Atlantis" (not worth this name yet but I'm going to fix that)
September 13, y53 (Panem years; help matching to standard calendar appreciated)
Ranae Swan (née Haien), Sharles "Shark" Swan
No siblings
Grew up in District 4, found Milliways age 6 and 1-2 times/yr thereafter, traded seashells for adequate nutrition and read books, faked slightly touched in the head to get away with keeping clamshells near all doors. Began work on clam boat age 8. Age 13, began being recognized as various alts and trading advice as an alt of assorted empresses for stuff. Age 16, selected in lottery for the Hunger Games (coercive gladiatorial combat of teenagers in subject Districts under totalitarian Capitol) but was replaced by a trained volunteer (she died). Age 18 (by calendar, some uncounted difference subjective), encountered Sherlock and Tony Stark in Milliways, decided to overthrow the government, faked my death by 'running away to Atlantis' for parents, stowed away on train to move in with the Starks, and later met Isabella Amariah (next entry) in Milliways and founded Belltower.
Sherlock and Tony, aforementioned; Matilda, who has contagious magic and is nice about trying to infect people with it
Sherlock is my girlfriend
Any person from the Capitol of Panem can be considered my enemy, but Isabella Amariah is going to help me with the most pressing one
I have a stick that does fire and some other small magical artifacts (generator, cornucopia, water-purifying-and-generating unicorn figurine, minor protection amulet)
I do not have the mental opacity property in any form
Overthrowing the Capitol
Any resources, particularly magical or high-tech things the Capitol cannot expect/match, are highly appreciated
That's pretty much it

And then she tears out the last page of the book - it has spiral binding and the paper comes out clean - and writes a note to Isabella on it, notifying her of the change.

sicaria
2013-02-04 11:03 pm (UTC)

Sherlock awaits her downstairs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:05 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell comes down with the box of unicorns, discreetly solicits the selected bra from Bar, and links elbows with Sherlock on their way out.

ferratus
2013-02-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Aww, you got a present!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Matilda left us a bunch of extra unicorns," says Shell Bell. (The box now also contains the bra.) "Also, reportedly, I talk in my sleep."

ferratus
2013-02-04 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's adorable. Love the hair, too."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Really? I hate it, but," she shrugs, "must blend in by looking as ridiculous as possible. On the day of it will also be curled and under a stupid hat." She transferred her Capitolish clothes to the box too and some ruffles are poking out. She produces the hat and holds it up.

ferratus
2013-02-04 11:17 pm (UTC)

"It's ridiculous, but it's a cute ridic—oh my god that hat."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I know, right? It's a tweaked version of what the District Four escort wore this year. More lace, less other crap, different colors. The dress is worse." She pulls it out.

ferratus
2013-02-04 11:19 pm (UTC)

"...When you take over the world," Tony announces, "I am going to call you the Empress of Ruffles and no one can stop me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I regret showing you this thing," groans Bell. "See if I grant you an imperial title, so there."

ferratus
2013-02-04 11:21 pm (UTC)

"My humblest apologies, Your Ruffliness."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:24 pm (UTC)

Bell laughs. "I wouldn't wear anything like this if I weren't trying to go undercover in the Capitol!" she protests around helpless giggles.

ferratus
2013-02-04 11:28 pm (UTC)

Tony finally cracks up.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Seriously, I'm going to rule in jeans and a t-shirt and a crown made of coral and abalone and pearls," says Bell. "And everyone will take their fashion cues from me, too, because I will be in charge, and then maybe people will stop wearing this kind of eyesore nonsense." She hefts the box. "I'm gonna haul this upstairs and make sure everything fits. Back in a minute."

ferratus
2013-02-04 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay, Your Ruffliness," giggles Tony.

sicaria
2013-02-04 11:39 pm (UTC)

Sherlock glances after her, waits a beat, and then sits in Tony's lap and kisses him. Because he is a glorious impossible creature and she loves him transcendently.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:41 pm (UTC)

Bell makes sure the dress fits. It does, the hateful thing. The hat is supposed to sit on top of her hair, not around her head, so it can be skipped. Her bra fits; it goes on and her shirt - there isn't actually any dye on it, she notes, that's good - goes back on over it.

She departs her room and promptly tumbles down the stairs. Her amulet survives the fall, and so does she; she lands sitting on the bottom step facing the living room.

And staring at a most peculiar scene.

sicaria
2013-02-04 11:42 pm (UTC)

Sherlock goes still.

ferratus
2013-02-04 11:43 pm (UTC)

"What—oh," says Tony.

"Um. Hi, Bell! So, we have something awkward to tell you..."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:44 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah?" Bell says, blinking. "Do you now."

sicaria
2013-02-04 11:45 pm (UTC)

"The awkward thing in question would be that we have been fucking since we were sixteen," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh," says Bell. "I'm guessing that you didn't plan for me to find out at all and if I hadn't fallen on the stairs there would have been several feet of distance between you by the time I got down here. That's swell." She doesn't even muster a sarcastic tone for that last remark; it's as deadpan as the rest of it.

sicaria
2013-02-04 11:49 pm (UTC)

"We did not know how to tell you, or when," says Sherlock, extricating herself from Tony's lap. "Or how strongly you would disapprove."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-04 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Well. It wasn't any of my business before the other day. But 'since you were sixteen' incorporates a period of time between us getting together and having that perfunctory monogamy conversation. And I'm under the impression that even when people are not being monogamous they're at least entitled to information on the subject of how they're being not-monogamous. So there is some disapproval. Yeah. The 'when' should've been 'before saying you wanted me to hack my brain so I could date you'. Sometime before then."

sicaria
2013-02-04 11:54 pm (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 12:01 am (UTC)

Bell plants her elbow on her knee and her forehead in her hand. "I don't know what to say," she says. "Did you think I'd care that you're siblings, is that it? I didn't kick up a bit of fuss about the alts thing; if you didn't expect calm sanity from me on the subject before that you should've after."

ferratus
2013-02-05 12:09 am (UTC)

"Look," says Tony, "right now, you are the only person that knows. Because people in general would care that we're siblings, they would care a lot, and it would be a whole big disgustingly public problem. So we just—don't. Let anyone find out. Ever."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 12:11 am (UTC)

Bell leans back against the stairs. "And that would be fine if neither of you were trying to date anyone else. Except maybe your alts and each other's alts, I suppose they'd understand."

ferratus
2013-02-05 12:13 am (UTC)

"I don't really date," says Tony. "I fuck a lot, but it's kinda not the same thing."

sicaria
2013-02-05 12:14 am (UTC)

"I did not think of it," Sherlock says quietly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 12:33 am (UTC)

Oh, that stings. If she'd been actually planning to cheat on Bell that would have been better; Bell would have felt like something about her presence in the situation even mattered. Bell looks away, biting her lip.

sicaria
2013-02-05 12:44 am (UTC)

"I did not think of Tony, during our conversation. And then we just... didn't," she says, gesturing between herself and Tony. "Until the other Sherlock."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 12:47 am (UTC)

"That's something, I guess. I guess it's more than something. Technically there has been no cheating. Just... omissions."

Omissions aren't great either, but adding technical cheating (instead of the vague, non-technical cheating of Having A Thing With Tony that persists even between acts) would be worse.

sicaria
2013-02-05 12:51 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 12:58 am (UTC)

Bell still doesn't like it. But she can't think of anything else to say.

It would be much easier to decide what to do at this juncture if only she hadn't stopped pretending yet. If that were true, she could just... abort. Apologize for insinuating her person where she was superfluous and withdrawn into herself.

sicaria
2013-02-05 01:00 am (UTC)

ferratus
2013-02-05 01:00 am (UTC)

Tony sighs.

And gives Sherlock a gentle push Bellward.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 01:03 am (UTC)

Bell looks quizzically at this behavior. What's Sherlock going to do? Kiss her and make it better?

(Why does that have to still sound so comforting?)
Edited 2013-02-05 01:03 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-05 01:06 am (UTC)

Sherlock regards the floor with intense expressionlessness.

ferratus
2013-02-05 01:07 am (UTC)

"You guys," says Tony, "you are so sad it hurts me, please just like - have feelings at each other or something."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 01:15 am (UTC)

Have feelings at -

Well.

Ostensibly, Bell's the one who's good at that, here.

She closes her eyes. She tries to pretend she's talking to her recorder. (It's not recording incriminating secrets; it's upstairs.)

"I hate not knowing things. It's an effort not to be hurt by it even when the things have nothing to do with me. I need information to know what to do; the idea of blundering around not knowing what's going on is one of the worst things I can think of. I mentioned about how I was scared of tracker jackers and that's why, they make you not know things because all of a sudden anything could be a hallucination. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt about that, I try to assume that people who like me won't want me to fall down the metaphorical stairs because I didn't know there were metaphorical stairs there. And every time I find out that isn't true - when I was nine and of all the trivial things found out that my dad's real name was not in fact 'Shark' and that was just what everyone called him, every time I find out that I've been misled even for the most benign reasons, I hate it. Because all of a sudden, anything could be a lie."
Edited 2013-02-05 01:17 (UTC)

ferratus
2013-02-05 01:18 am (UTC)

"My full name's Antony," Tony offers.

sicaria
2013-02-05 01:21 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Sherlock. "I don't feel like that is enough, but it is true."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 01:22 am (UTC)

"I know your name is Antony. They called it at the Reaping," Bell tells Tony distractedly.

She's not sure what to say to Sherlock. Except:

"Is there anything else I should know?"

sicaria
2013-02-05 01:31 am (UTC)

"I don't know how to filter," she says helplessly. "I know too many facts. There is nothing remaining as substantial as this. I would transmit my entire knowledge of the world to you if I had that capacity, but I do not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 01:33 am (UTC)

That's... well, that's actually the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to Bell, as far as she can call to mind. She is momentarily too stunned by how sweet that is and does not say anything at all.

sicaria
2013-02-05 01:39 am (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 01:50 am (UTC)

"That's sweet," says Bell aloud, after the silence.

sicaria
2013-02-05 01:50 am (UTC)

Slowly, Sherlock smiles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 01:55 am (UTC)

Bell smiles back, ever so tentatively.

sicaria
2013-02-05 02:01 am (UTC)

"I am very fond of you and I do not want to do things that make you unhappy," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:03 am (UTC)

"I'm very fond of you, too," says Bell.

ferratus
2013-02-05 02:06 am (UTC)

"And I'm fond of both of you," Tony chimes in. "And now you're less sad! I feel good about that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:08 am (UTC)

Bell laughs. "Okay then," she says.

ferratus
2013-02-05 02:11 am (UTC)

"Hugs?" he offers, holding out his arms.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:11 am (UTC)

Bell is willing to receive a hug. In fact, she's even willing to get up and go across the room for it.

ferratus
2013-02-05 02:12 am (UTC)

Huuuuuuuuuugs.

Tony likes hugs. Hugs are great.

sicaria
2013-02-05 02:12 am (UTC)

Sherlock also desires to participate in hugs!

Look, there she is.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:14 am (UTC)

Well isn't this snuggly.

Bell approves.

(She decides that she should probably play Sherlock a certain locked fragment of her recorder's history, sometime soon.)

sicaria
2013-02-05 02:19 am (UTC)

This is extremely snuggly! And everyone approves of it! Best hug.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:22 am (UTC)

Later, when Tony has become weary of activities that do not involve fancy machines and the possibility of electrocution, Sherlock and Bell are snuggling just each other.

"In the interest of full disclosure," Bell says, "there is a thing on my recorder that you should probably hear."

sicaria
2013-02-05 02:22 am (UTC)

"...Yes?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:32 am (UTC)

Bell disentangles herself and goes up to get it. She descends the stairs in a usual manner without falling over even slightly.

"This was not originally intended for sharing, so please keep that in mind," Bell murmurs.

She swallows, and unlocks the material, and presses play.

"-nice to me. Uh," the recorder says in her voice. "Geez. Lock starting fifteen seconds ago until end of segment. This is all starting to add up to me having a crush on Tony. It does look like that, doesn't it. Is that weird? I think that's maybe weird. I'm moving in with him and Sherlock, have no indication of anything other than friendliness and a general desire to acquire allies with which to overthrow the Capitol on his end - okay, pathetic, Bell, you have a crush on the first guy you meet from your own world who knows you're not insane, that says loads about your discernment, huh? You're not that lucky. You're the unlucky version, if you were a lucky Bell you'd be running a magic empire, right, the first guy you meet from your world who doesn't think you hit your head as a kid isn't going to also be a good idea to crush on, is he? I mean he is nice - so nice, they're both so nice and he's cute but - I think I'd better just not do anything, my judgment could be compromised. There will be plenty of time for - for everything after all this is over, I don't think he likes me except in the sense that - well. He's being charitable. He's a nice person is all, maybe he'd have a dozen poor Fouries living in his house if Sherlock met them in Milliways and they could be presumed displeased with the Capitol, I don't know. I don't know nearly enough to feel this way and I've gone and done it anyway. I'm not sure I want to kill it. Probably could, right, that's my thing, but I think I'll let it live. For now anyway."

There's a bit of silence, and then the hubbub of Milliways as Bell presumably exits her room to mingle with the patrons.

sicaria
2013-02-05 02:36 am (UTC)

"Tony is very lovable," says Sherlock. "And he likes you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:38 am (UTC)

"This was recorded a while ago," Bell says, tucking the recorder into her pocket and ducking her head. "By now I have the idea that he pretty much likes most people, including a vaguely dismaying fraction of Capitol-dwellers."

sicaria
2013-02-05 02:40 am (UTC)

"That is true," Sherlock agrees. "I predict a near certainty that if he heard this recording or a summary of its contents, he would want to hug you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:41 am (UTC)

"Well, that would be embarrassing, that's why I waited for him to go away."

sicaria
2013-02-05 02:42 am (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock.

"How do you feel about him currently?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 02:57 am (UTC)

"Well, I still have a crush on him, or I wouldn't have thought this relevant. I haven't killed it, yet."

sicaria
2013-02-05 02:59 am (UTC)

"He likes you," says Sherlock. "Not just in the same way he likes anything that has recognizable emotions."

dark_light
2013-02-05 03:01 am (UTC)

"...As in the relevant sense, or as in I am at least marginally distinct from a puppy or the next-door neighbors?"

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:04 am (UTC)

"I don't know how to translate. You and he have very different experiences of the world. If you told him this, he would think it was sweet, and want to hug you and tell you that he likes you. If you asked him to kiss you he would say yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:04 am (UTC)

"That... does indeed fail to translate into something I know how to label," muses Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:07 am (UTC)

Sherlock shrugs.

"I am very good at Tony, even though I am not very good at anyone else."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:10 am (UTC)

Bell hesitates.

But Sherlock said that she'd transmit her entire experience of the world if she could. And Bell believes her. And she can do something just about that sweet. If she wants to.

Bell hands Sherlock the recorder. "You can listen to anything on this. It's... basically my brain. There's only a handful of locked parts and most of them are locked because the other person found out I was recording and wanted it done, not because they're like what you just heard. Mostly I've been willing to rely on strangers not knowing how to work it and friendlier types never getting their hands on it."

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:13 am (UTC)

Sherlock takes it.

And—stops, for a moment, doesn't move, doesn't speak, doesn't breathe, doesn't do anything at all.

And then she hugs Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:13 am (UTC)

Bell hugs her back, tight.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:15 am (UTC)

"Thank you," she murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:17 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," Shell Bell murmurs back. "Um, if you could tell me which things you're listening to, that would be - good. And I'll want it on me whenever I'm in Milliways and whenever I need to work something tricky out."

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:20 am (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "Yes, of course."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:20 am (UTC)

Nuzzle nuzzle.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:23 am (UTC)

Later, she will listen to things.

Right now: snuggles.

at the memorial dome

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell tries not to think too hard about Tony's sketchy Capitol friends or why they'd send him a train. She stows away for the short trip. She wears her godawful stupid dress. She paints triangles over her eyes and her cheeks, and squares around them, and she irons ringlets into her carefully divided hair, pins it up, and attaches the hat to the heap of white and blue.

She tucks her amulet under her neckline - the chain is fine enough to look like some more conventional piece of jewelry.

She holds her stick in her hand and stuffs her hand in her pocket.

It's early when they get there, barely dawn. The poll workers are setting up, but voters haven't accumulated yet.

She scopes out a starting place.

Leaning on a wall of a building across the street, pretending to be bored, forgetting not to chew her lip and tasting makeup - she finds one.

There are decorative torches, here and there, and that one has a bit of the Panem flag dangling quite near it in the calm. The flag has a cord. The cord touches the arch of the dome. From there she can get everything.

She waits for Sherlock to find where they'll duck when the panic starts. And when she gets the nod...

She assumes control of the torch. Yes, it's real fire, that's useful.

It flickers, it sways, it leaps.

It touches the flag, and maybe it wouldn't have caught, normally, but she makes it catch. The flag goes up in smoke; the cord catches and burns.

She sends the fire a quarter of the way around the circle at the base of the domed roof, first, before letting it climb any higher. She can still see all of the borders of the fire, but it's going to be implausible for her to keep it that way much longer.

People have started to notice - a poll worker, someone walking her dog. They don't seem to know what to do about it.

"Time to duck out of sight?" she murmurs to Sherlock in her best imitation of a Capitol accent.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I think so," she murmurs back.

Her chosen spot has enough distance to be safe from the fire, a decent view all the same, and all the concealment afforded by one building's gaudy facade intersecting with the next building's profusion of cheerful draperies. They are unlikely to be disturbed there.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:31 pm (UTC)

Bell does her best to look like she's peering nervously at the fire while she follows Sherlock.

And when they're hidden, she really goes to town.

Fires do this sometimes anyway - find something they really like and whoosh, hotter, brighter.

This one does.

Whoosh.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:33 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:44 pm (UTC)

Poll workers pour out of the building. None of them, even after they've slowed to include only stragglers, seem to be worrying about anyone left behind.

Hotter, faster, the fire helicopters are here now and Bell slams on the heat, it has to make sense for the suppressants they're dropping to do no good. Burn, burn, burn, they have to be unable to use the dome. Wreckage starts falling; there are gaps in the burning roof now, and she can't control non-contiguous parts, so those behave as fire naturally does inside, burning booths and ballots and the roped-off indicators of where to stand in line and the insipid little cheese platters. Bell presses the fire down, to ground level, so if any of the separated pieces get overexcited and spread, she can regain control.

There is no longer any conceivable way that there will be voting accomplished in the Memorial Dome today.

But it's not yet implausible for the fire not to have spread.

So she goes on just a bit longer before she lets it succumb to insistently sprayed suppressants, and lets out a breath, grinning.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:45 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:46 pm (UTC)

Mmmm, Bell approves. Her stick stays in her pocket so she has her arms both free to wrap around her girlfriend.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:48 pm (UTC)

Happy snuggly kissessssssss.

"You are a delight," Sherlock informs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:49 pm (UTC)

Bell snickers. "Iiiii just burned down the entire Memorial Tower," she whispers.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:51 pm (UTC)

"You did," Sherlock agrees. "It was very impressive. I am very impressed."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:53 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kissses kisses, only 90% of the reason Bell currently wishes to be out of this dress involves it being stupid. "How long should we hang out here?" she murmurs.

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Not very much longer, perhaps," says Sherlock. "I find myself very much inclined to go home."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Lead" kiss "the way" kiss "whenever you're ready."

sicaria
2013-02-05 03:58 pm (UTC)

"As you like, then."

Kiss!

And off they go, not the way they came in.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 04:00 pm (UTC)

Bell trots after her, trying to gawk more at the fire behind them than at what should be unremarkable Capitol scenery to who she's dressed as.

sicaria
2013-02-05 04:06 pm (UTC)

It is not very long at all before Sherlock has brought them back to where they are staying with Tony. A closed door indicates that Tony is up to something technological and would rather not be disturbed.

Sherlock is quite content not to disturb him. They have their own room.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 04:07 pm (UTC)

Goodness. A room.

Whatever could they be expected to do with that?

"Are we liable to get sketchy-Tony's-friends capitol visitors or can I change out of this stupid dress?" Bell asks.

sicaria
2013-02-05 04:10 pm (UTC)

"By all means, exit the stupid dress," says Sherlock. "And perhaps also the stupid makeup. If there are visitors, we need not see them."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 04:11 pm (UTC)

An ensuite bathroom, how perfect. Bell exits the stupid dress, unpins the stupid hat, and, standing in her underwear and twisting her ringlets out of the way behind her head as usual with her stick, starts rinsing away the makeup.

sicaria
2013-02-05 05:34 pm (UTC)

"You are a continual epiphany," says Sherlock, studying this process.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 06:02 pm (UTC)

"...What d'you mean? Did I do something unexpected?"

sicaria
2013-02-05 08:46 pm (UTC)

"No," she says. "An epiphany is not the same as a surprise."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking it was like a revelation of some kind. What do you mean exactly?"

sicaria
2013-02-05 08:53 pm (UTC)

"I mean that when I look at you I feel as though I have just understood something complex and fascinating."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 08:55 pm (UTC)

Bell tilts her head. "I like that," she decides.

The last of the makeup swirls down the sink. "Still not sure I get it, though. Does this feeling have moving parts?"

sicaria
2013-02-05 08:57 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure what you mean."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Does it - come apart? Resemble useful analogies? Bear similarities to things I already understand?" Bell asks. She buries her face in a towel and comes up dry, and then picks up her jeans.

sicaria
2013-02-05 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Sherlock. "I don't think you feel the same way I do about epiphanies."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 09:31 pm (UTC)

"How do you feel about them, then?" Bell asks, pulling her jeans on and fetching her shirt.

sicaria
2013-02-05 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Positively."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 09:35 pm (UTC)

"I feel so informed," snorts Bell. Shirt goes on. She looks for the curling iron; it has a flat end she can use to iron out the mess that is her hair.

sicaria
2013-02-05 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, I do not feel very informative," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh well." Flatten, flatten, flatten. It's a slow process. Bell burns her fingers once and has to stop and stick them under the faucet for a minute.

sicaria
2013-02-05 09:45 pm (UTC)

"...Would you like help?" offers Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 09:49 pm (UTC)

"If you don't mind, yeah, actually," says Bell, popping her burnt fingers into her mouth and handing over the iron. She's harder to understand around her fingertips: "'d go down by isself bu' I don' like i'."

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, then I shall fix it," says Sherlock.

Straighten straighten straighten.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:08 pm (UTC)

Bell hums happily. There's something that is just so relaxing about having someone do things to one's hair.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:11 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwwww. Sherlock smiles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:14 pm (UTC)

Eventually Bell's fingers feel better and she puts her hand down.

When her hair is all straight and the iron is turned off and put away, she flops backwards, head in Sherlock's lap, and peers up at her girlfriend.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:19 pm (UTC)

Sherlock runs her fingers through Bell's hair and smiles some more.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Bell chirps. "For fixing my stupid hair. The colors'll probably stay for a week, alas."

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:22 pm (UTC)

"You are very welcome," she says. "And I confess the colour is beginning to grow on me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Is it? Maybe if it were all one color, all blue like my original idea, but the half-and-half zigzag part just weirds me out," snorts Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:24 pm (UTC)

"It's very striking. And of course your face is in the middle of it. That helps considerably."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:24 pm (UTC)

Bell giggles and squirms self-consciously.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Are you displeased with that assessment?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:29 pm (UTC)

"No, just - I dunno. You're making me feel pretty," Bell accuses, grinning.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I believe I can live with that result."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:32 pm (UTC)

Bell reaches up and boops Sherlock's nose. "You're pretty, too," she says contently.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:34 pm (UTC)

...Sherlock giggles.

"I love you," she says, and leans down to kiss Bell's forehead.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:36 pm (UTC)

Bell wasn't really expecting that!

She's not sure what to do about it, either.

Traditionally it is replied to in kind.

She consults herself.

She doesn't have one of those to give Sherlock. That is sad.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:39 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is still smiling fondly down at her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:41 pm (UTC)

Well, okay then. The time for pauses between remarks in conversations is past and Sherlock is still smiling so that must be okay. Bell smiles back and closes her eyes.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:43 pm (UTC)

"I believe the remark about epiphanies was related," she adds, consideringly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Howso?" asks Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I think it meant that I love you, and I only just noticed."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Aww. No wonder I thought it was sweet."

sicaria
2013-02-05 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Astute of you," she compliments.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-05 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I do sometimes flatter myself into thinking I'm clever," snickers Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-05 11:23 pm (UTC)

"You are," says Sherlock. "It's delightful."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 01:03 am (UTC)

Bell grins at her. "We are both clever and pretty, and so we match," she declares.

sicaria
2013-02-06 01:05 am (UTC)

"What an excellent circumstance."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 01:06 am (UTC)

"It really is. When do we go home again?"

sicaria
2013-02-06 01:13 am (UTC)

"Whenever Tony's friend decides to send us. It won't be too long, I don't think."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 01:18 am (UTC)

"Hours? Days?"

sicaria
2013-02-06 01:29 am (UTC)

"Days is likelier."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 01:38 am (UTC)

"Okay. I wonder if there's anything else we should incinerate as long as we're here anyway."

sicaria
2013-02-06 01:39 am (UTC)

"Shall we find a map?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 01:41 am (UTC)

"I'm not so much wondering if there are targets as if it would be weird for two buildings to catch fire and burn farther than they usually do in a span of days."

sicaria
2013-02-06 01:46 am (UTC)

"I expect it would," she acknowledges. "Which is a great pity."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 01:49 am (UTC)

"If I have another opportunity like the train station I'll take that. Otherwise I guess there's nothing for it but to amuse ourselves. Clever ideas?" she asks, peering up. "You know more about where we are and what our safety parameters are for operating here."

sicaria
2013-02-06 01:55 am (UTC)

"A frequent pastime of mine in the Capitol is to put on a pretty dress and find someone to intimidate. I don't imagine it's much of a spectator sport."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 01:56 am (UTC)

"I think I'd find that very briefly amusing. But not for long enough to be worth putting on my idiot-costume again. Should've gotten it in this morning," Bell sighs.

sicaria
2013-02-06 02:10 am (UTC)

"Alas," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 02:14 am (UTC)

"Alas," Bell agrees. "I suppose to join the studio audience for Flicker Talk or go on the Brilliant Promenade or something I'd also have to wear the stupid costume. Maybe this is another job for Milliways? Get Tony to stash us on this end and fetch us on the other? I suppose if you came with me, someone might wonder why you made the trip one way and not the other." Pause. "I suppose visiting the museumified arena where Lynnis died and leaving her a flower would be suspicious in any outfit."

sicaria
2013-02-06 02:25 am (UTC)

"It would. Unfortunately. You could go to Milliways by yourself, if you wished," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 02:39 am (UTC)

"I'll do that if I feel like risking trading unoccupied for lonesome," decides Bell. "No guarantee anyone I know will be there, and I've gotten used to company."

sicaria
2013-02-06 02:40 am (UTC)

"I would miss you, I think."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 02:44 am (UTC)

Bell reaches for Sherlock's hand. She kisses it. "I'd miss you too. I think I'll stay."

sicaria
2013-02-06 02:52 am (UTC)

"However shall we occupy ourselves, I wonder."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 02:55 am (UTC)

"I am far too innocent to have any ideas," declares Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-06 03:01 am (UTC)

"Well," says Sherlock, "first, I think I would like to kiss you. And then I think I would like to kiss you again."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 03:05 am (UTC)

"Goodness gracious," says Bell. "One could kill an entire afternoon in this way, I bet." She flips over, ending with her cheek resting on Sherlock's knee, and then shimmies up into a position such that Sherlock can do exactly that if she likes.

sicaria
2013-02-06 03:16 am (UTC)

Sherlock does, in fact, kiss her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 03:17 am (UTC)

Mmmm. Bell approves. In fact, it is even possible that she is kissing back.

sicaria
2013-02-06 03:21 am (UTC)

What a pleasant surprise!

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 03:22 am (UTC)

Bell bets Sherlock is just astonished. Perhaps she can get her to faint in shock if there are also snuggles.

sicaria
2013-02-06 03:37 am (UTC)

Truly she is a revelation.

But there will be no fainting. (Snuggles are highly restorative.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 06:30 am (UTC)

Oh good. Awake snuggles and asleep snuggles both strictly dominate fainted snuggles.

sicaria
2013-02-06 01:44 pm (UTC)

Now is definitely a time for awake snuggles. Also, awake kisses. In fact, pretty much anything that involves both affectionate body contact and being awake is on the table here.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 04:20 pm (UTC)

Oh, good. Because Bell doesn't seem to have fully decided what to do with her hands, yet, so it's nice to know that nearly anything she might land on is okay.

sicaria
2013-02-06 04:25 pm (UTC)

That is absolutely correct.

runecasting is an art

dark_light

It's about forty-five minutes before Isabella has a first draft of the spell.

She starts sugaring it onto her floor. (She kept one tiny cornucopia; better to own a single magic device than to have to keep a whole stock of herbs. She can learn to work around its reluctance to produce poisons, or just carry the common toxics with her.) Path goes up to the attic to ask if Kas and Petaal want to watch her cast.

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:33 am (UTC)

Kas and Petaal are cuddling; Petaal is in male-human shape. Neither of them is in clothes.

They would indeed like to watch her cast. Down they go!

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:39 am (UTC)

It's convenient that no one in the house cares that they are not in clothes.

Isabella's halfway done with the sugar runes when they arrive. "Hi," she says, pausing to smile over her shoulder. "I give this a fifty-fifty chance of working. If it doesn't I sweep this up and try again with a different approach on defining 'alethiometer'."

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:42 am (UTC)

Petaal enfoxes and hops into Kas's arms; he strokes her orange-red fur.

"That looks complicated as hell," he remarks.

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:45 am (UTC)

"Is," says Isabella. "Have to tell the spell what an alethiometer is. Have to tell it which ones are lost as opposed to already had. Have to tell it to bring one here - although I wasn't too careful with the 'one' part; I don't mind if I get multiple lost alethiometers. Several steps, none of which are oriented to witchy strengths." Sugar, sugar, sugar.

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:47 am (UTC)

"You're going to have the tastiest floor in the country," he remarks.

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:48 am (UTC)

"Do not eat my sugar runes. I require them," says Isabella.

Sugar, sugar. Almost done. Path's feathers are all fluffed out.

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:49 am (UTC)

"I promise not to eat your sugar runes," he says agreeably.

dark_light
2013-02-04 02:56 am (UTC)

The last rune is sugared into place.

Isabella steps over it and kneels in the center of her circle, hands on her knees, breathing shallowly. Path remains outside, facing her, sitting on the floor.

"Sugar circle, seek and bring
The compass that can, silent, sing.
Find it, bring it, take it here,
From its place to somewhere near,
And in my hands place honesty
And give Alethia to me."

The sugar runes are scattered into a fine dust of sweetness all over the room with a sudden wind.

The lights flicker.

And when they come back up, Isabella is holding a slightly dented alethiometer.

She instantly shrieks with delight and hugs her device.

truthwright
2013-02-04 02:57 am (UTC)

Kas beams.

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:02 am (UTC)

"All right, intuitive reader person," she says, walking over the slightly crunchy-sounding floor towards Kas, "can you find out for me if I'm a crazy with in the making?"

truthwright
2013-02-04 03:04 am (UTC)

"Love to," he says cheerfully, and takes the alethiometer from her.

"Hi, you," he murmurs to it.

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:06 am (UTC)

Isabella peers at it. Path hops from foot to foot, then flies to Isabella's shoulder and continues hopping.

truthwright
2013-02-04 03:12 am (UTC)

The needle swings. Kas tracks it for a moment, then shakes his head and traces his fingertips around the ring of symbols. Once, twice.

He turns the dials.

The rhythm of the circling needle changes—slowing as he composes his question, then taking on new focus and purpose. Kas watches it intently. Occasionally he mutters a word under his breath; slowly, he starts to frown.

Then he snorts.

"Okay," he says, "apparently it can't tell me anything about the inside of your head unless you're the one asking. But I get to read over your shoulder, lucky me."

He hands over the alethiometer.

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:14 am (UTC)

"Convenient birth blessing," snorts Isabella. "What do I ask it? Witch is bird meaning twelve, but maybe you can get it to refer more specifically? Something under the helmet for the crazy-witch stuff? I don't remember there being a specific 'domestic violence' level there. You tell me."

truthwright
2013-02-04 03:22 am (UTC)

"I skipped the witch part," he says with a shrug. "I asked it if you'd kill somebody for—you know, I can't even think how to say it properly in English. The sword was deadly revenge, the apple was love and independence, the garden was possessiveness."

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:23 am (UTC)

"Do you have numbers for those?" asks Isabella. "And which of them points at me? How do you know it wasn't telling you about some random other person?"

truthwright
2013-02-04 03:25 am (UTC)

"Do I need numbers? I didn't need numbers. Maybe you need numbers," he says. "And it was really obviously talking about you, it mentioned your birth blessing specifically, so I guess it was smart enough to get that part by itself."

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:28 am (UTC)

"I think I need numbers. I'll try without." She poses the question, turning so Kas can see. "I don't remember possessivess anywhere."

truthwright
2013-02-04 03:29 am (UTC)

"Well, it's in there," he says. "I dunno if it's in your dictionary."

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:30 am (UTC)

"That's going to be awkward if I do need numbers." She fixes the third hand on the dial and focuses.

truthwright
2013-02-04 03:36 am (UTC)

Kas watches.

It takes a little longer to slow down for her, but it does. And then it starts answering.

"Nothing to worry about," he translates. "Killing for love is not—who you are as a person. Well, that's nice. Can we make out now?"

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:39 am (UTC)

She sets her new alethiometer down ever-so-gently in the sugar, and then spins to face Kas and crosses her wrists behind his neck to pull him down and forward and kiss him.

truthwright
2013-02-04 03:41 am (UTC)

He kisses back with great enthusiasm, wrapping her up in a tight hug; Petaal shifts anaconda and twines herself around them both.

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:49 am (UTC)

In context being in contact with Petaal is not just okay, something she can get used to, a price for fluffiness or something she had to be asked to do. It's exquisite, like the kisses are not just to the mouth but to the soul, at least in one direction. (She can't think about the other yet. Physical virginity is exactly worthless and she'll abandon it without caring; Segaard Oskei's blanket blessing to witches in general will not see her fall under her portfolio element of motherhood without her own consent; but Path's untouched feathers - less inconsequential. She'll maybe think about it later.)

With a snake around her pressing her in close to Kas she can reach exactly one knot on her silks. But she can undo it with one hand, just fine. (He's already starclad; there's nothing needs doing there.)

truthwright
2013-02-04 03:54 am (UTC)

Petaal doesn't stay snake-shaped for very long, as much as she loves having them both wrapped up like this. She can do that almost as well if she has arms.

Maybe the Joker spoiled them a little this way, but Petaal's new favourite thing about doing this with someone they're very close to is that she gets to play too.

She shifts witch-shape, hugs Isabella, and at the first opportunity steals a kiss.

dark_light
2013-02-04 03:57 am (UTC)

Nnnf.

That's also a thing. That's it's whole own other thing.

(Isabella hasn't hacked herself non-straight like Bell. She hasn't had to. Petaal's a daemon, and a straight girl's partner's daemons? Usually female.)

Kisses.

truthwright
2013-02-04 04:01 am (UTC)

It's a whole-own-other-thing for Kas, too, helped along a tiny bit by the fact that Isabella and Petaal are both gorgeous.

Mostly, though, it's the fact that his daemon is making out with someone he loves. That is what's making him feel immeasurably, dizzily, soul-searingly wonderful. The visuals are just a delicious little bonus.

dark_light
2013-02-04 04:02 am (UTC)

Path chooses this moment to hoot a low, sad, neglected hoot. He can only touch two of the three other bodies in the room and if they're going to be all tangled up he gets no snuggles at all. (And bird bones are fragile, anyway.)

truthwright
2013-02-04 04:10 am (UTC)

"Oh, sweetie," says Petaal, breaking away from her attempt to gently devour Isabella's face and pressing one last quick kiss to the corner of her mouth before she shifts linsang and bounds over to Path to administer urgent cuddles.

Kas laughs, a little shakily.

dark_light
2013-02-04 04:11 am (UTC)

Isabella half-falls back into him while Path snuggles up to Petaal. Daemons snuggling still gives feedback, if less intensely. Their souls are, after all, touching.

Kisses. Kisses and the undoing of knots.

witches' daemons can travel alone

dark_light

With an alethiometer and a reader at her disposal, Isabella is never still. She barely sleeps, catching brief naps only when Path falls into a doze and she's pulled after him. The rest of her time is spent placating Metis with enough apprenticey tasks that she doesn't get kicked out, working on plans to take over the world, and working off the resultant uncontrollable excitement with Kas (in the nude, and Petaal dividing her time between Path and the non-daemons).

Metis goes on a long trip, and apprenticey tasks are no longer called for. Isabella blesses a cranberry bog in exchange for a large stack of cheap notebooks, and she writes trees of questions in them - if this is true, she needs to know that, in which case this could also be relevant. She passes them to Kas as fast as he'll take them; Path supervises and clarifies what Isabella meant where needed.

The alethiometer can make suggestions about spells. It doesn't communicate in words, and Kas doesn't know enough about ritual magic to interpret it very specifically, but it can point Isabella in the right direction. When she fails six times in a row to figure out what it means about a certain powerful defensive blessing that it thinks she'll want soon, though, she needs something that was better optimized for her use. The alethiometer describes the location of a witch from a non-Olympic but friendly clan based in Texas, an expert in such defenses. Isabella is busy: she sends Path to go talk to her about the spell, and stays in Metis's house herself, catching up on sleep now that Path is too far away to be stubbornly shaken awake, contemplating the unification of the clans as a preceding step to the attempt on human society, and eating mostly what the cornucopia can make for her.

After Path has been gone for just shy of a day, Isabella, collapsed sleeping on top of Kas, jolts awake with a strangled scream.

truthwright
2013-02-04 05:23 pm (UTC)

It startles him awake, and for a second all he knows is that something is very very wrong; he hugs her instinctively.

"What—?"

dark_light
2013-02-04 05:28 pm (UTC)

"P-p-path," she gasps, and convulses.

truthwright
2013-02-04 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Fuck," he says, and hugs her again. Petaal shifts golden retriever and darts across the room to fetch him the alethiometer. If someone is touching Path and hasn't stopped, Isabella is going to be in no condition to answer questions about how and where and who even if she has any idea.

dark_light
2013-02-04 05:39 pm (UTC)

Isabella makes another noise and slowly curls up into a ball. "Hurts," she sobs. "Hurts - hurts - make it stop -"

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I know," he says, "honey, I know." He hugs her one more time and kisses her forehead. "I will, I promise."

Then he needs both hands to work the alethiometer.

What happened to Path?

Captured—killer—danger—torture.

Can I fix it? How?

Daemon—lonely/alone—send—find—change(form)—small—sneak—kill—rescue—safe.

Kas bites his lip. Petaal turns linsang and flows up to sit on his shoulder and read the next answer along with him.

Where is he, exactly?

A forest in Pennsylvania, apparently. There's more detail, enough that Petaal nods along: she can find this place.

Okay. Last question. (He doesn't ask it if it was sure about daemon—lonely/alone. He knows exactly how sure it was.)

How do we separate?

Send—journey—pain—stay.

Simple enough. And with Isabella right there continuing to hurt, they're not inclined to argue about it. Petaal shifts cheetah and bolts for her cloud-pine, and Kas wraps his arms around Isabella and cries.

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:07 pm (UTC)

Isabella's shivering; if she notices Kas's embrace she doesn't react to it. He's certainly noticed by now that she talks in her sleep, and while her eyes are open and her words are more focused, this is closer to that than anything else. "Path - Path - hurts - I'm scared -"

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:13 pm (UTC)

"My sweetie's gonna fix it," he says, cuddling up and pressing his face into her shoulder. "It's gonna be okay."

It does not feel okay. It feels like his heart is being ripped out of his chest, continually, tearing and pulling but never breaking free. But since he knows from experience that what Isabella's feeling is even worse, he stays right where he is. Going along would fuck the whole thing up, that much was clear. He does not want to fuck this up.

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Nnnnnnnnnnnng," whimpers Isabella, and then her eyes roll back in her head and she passes out. Whether from pain or fear or some mechanism of unconsciousness applied directly to Path is not immediately clear.

Her unconsciousness is not peaceful, and it's not sleep, either: she stops talking, but she twitches.
Edited 2013-02-04 18:20 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:20 pm (UTC)

Kas holds her. For her comfort or his, he's not even sure which.

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:24 pm (UTC)

Isabella doesn't stay passed-out for long, although she doesn't stay conscious for long, either, she keeps drifting in and out, waking up long enough to repeat her daemon's name or 'hurts' or wordless sounds of misery.

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:31 pm (UTC)

Kas isn't even sure when the heart-ripping feeling stops. You'd think it would be the kind of thing you'd notice, but there are plenty of other things to be miserable about, and it's not like he suddenly stops missing her. He desperately wants her to be soft and fluffy and in his lap where he can hug her for approximately the rest of ever. But he wants Path to be safe even more than that.

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:33 pm (UTC)

Either Path is being hurt somewhat less right now, or Isabella is, impossibly, becoming accustomed to the situation, because she opens her eyes more lucidly, and manages to choke out half a question: "Where's...?"

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:35 pm (UTC)

"She's going to find who has your Path and kill him," says Kas, cuddling her.

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:36 pm (UTC)

"She's - but you're - aaaah," says Isabella, losing whatever grip on the situation she had and squirming in his arms. "Path Path Path -"

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he sighs. "I know. Oh, honey, I'm so sorry."

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:40 pm (UTC)

Isabella sobs and grabs blindly for his hand and squeezes when she finds it. "I'm scared. Path, Path."

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Me too," Kas murmurs, curling up around her to get as much snuggle going as he possibly can.

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:47 pm (UTC)

Isabella passes out again. She's breathing oddly, like there's not enough air in the room - or in Path's room.

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:48 pm (UTC)

Fuck.

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:50 pm (UTC)

She lets out an almighty gasp and wakes up again.

Whoever's got Path is obviously not going for the quick kill. Or the direct one. Or the one that doesn't last hours-at-least. Unfortunate. In one respect.

Fortunate in another.

(It'll take Petaal nearly half a day to get there at top cloud-pine speed assuming no crashes and no interruptions.)

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:52 pm (UTC)

Kas just hugs her. Right now there is nothing else he can do.

dark_light
2013-02-04 06:56 pm (UTC)

Suddenly Isabella's entire body relaxes, limp and quiet, and all her breath goes out in a sigh.

truthwright
2013-02-04 06:58 pm (UTC)

Kas holds his own breath and listens.

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:04 pm (UTC)

Isabella doesn't move. Or speak. Or breathe.

If Path were there, it would be easy to check to see if he disappeared.

The entire problem, though, is that he isn't.

truthwright
2013-02-04 07:10 pm (UTC)

He closes his eyes, and holds her, and keeps still.

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:14 pm (UTC)

She gasps in a breath.

"Oh," murmurs Isabella softly, after recovering a semblance of normal breathing rhythm. "Oh. He let go. We hurt but I think he let go."

truthwright
2013-02-04 07:19 pm (UTC)

Kas sniffles.

"I'm sorry you hurt," he says. "I'm sorry you ever had to feel that."

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:22 pm (UTC)

"If I can - do a spell - ahhhh - something - revise the one that - bring him back - kill the - nnnf - bastard - ow fuck ow -" says Isabella.

(Whether Path is currently in contact with a human or not, she's obviously not in good enough shape to get out the snow-circle, let alone something as complicated as the spell that brought her the alethiometer or the death curse.)

truthwright
2013-02-04 07:23 pm (UTC)

"My sweetie's gonna get him," Kas says softly. "I asked the alethiometer, it said that's how."

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:27 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to send - fuck - you don't want that - Metis could - no she's gone - doesn't have a - aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh - focus - to do it," pants Isabella. "If I could sit up -" It's not clear if she knows that Petaal has already left or not.

She seizes up, full of tension, again. "Path, Path," she moans.

The respite is apparently over for the time being.

truthwright
2013-02-04 07:28 pm (UTC)

Kas just hugs her.

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:31 pm (UTC)

There's another break - if removing a single component of what is obviously multifaceted torture can be called that - an hour later.

"You already sent her," pants Isabella. "Didn't you. She's gone already."

truthwright
2013-02-04 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "I don't know how long it's gonna be."

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Took Path - my Path, my Path - all day," whispers Isabella. She twitches. "Nnnnnnng fuck fuck fuck she'll kill him right when she gets there right she'll kill him?"

truthwright
2013-02-04 07:38 pm (UTC)

"She will," Kas promises. "And she'll get Path out and bring him home and he'll be safe."

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:41 pm (UTC)

Isabella twists, trying to get away from a pain that isn't even there, and descends into gibbering misery again.

It's a little under an hour before she can talk again. "How - fucking - much - can - fuck - one - tiny - owl - take - before-we-just-fucking-die-already," she shrieks.

truthwright
2013-02-04 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Oh, honey," he says, and starts very quietly crying again.

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Tell me again," Isabella whispers.

(That it'll be all right. That Petaal will kill the bastard. That Path will come home. Anything. She can't specify, there's sharpness and heat and twisting all over her.)

truthwright
2013-02-04 07:48 pm (UTC)

"It's gonna be okay," he sniffles. "My sweetie's gonna fix it."

dark_light
2013-02-04 07:49 pm (UTC)

She squeezes his hand.

And convulses again.

truthwright
2013-02-04 08:02 pm (UTC)

Petaal, meanwhile, has been going maximum speed on her cloud-pine for hours. But she knows all the landmarks; when she gets close, she drops until she's skimming just above the trees, and when she spots the log cabin with the crooked roof like a broken tooth, she dives to get out of sight and shifts squirrel to bolt across the remaining distance. Then cockroach, to wriggle her way in through the walls.

dark_light
2013-02-04 08:06 pm (UTC)

There's an easily audible mixture of panicked screams and exhausted, hopeless pleas in Path's voice echoing through the cabin.

And a deeper voice snarling mocking versions of the same words, with additions. "Oh don't hurt meeee, I'm only a poor wittle witch-owl, I'm too aloof and powerful to be hurt like anybody else - not so much now, little fucker, huh? Shut up!"

There's a squeak and then more screams.

truthwright
2013-02-04 08:11 pm (UTC)

Cockroaches are good at getting into places where no one wants them, but their eyesight is for shit. Petaal shifts housefly. Houseflies get a great view.
Edited 2013-02-04 20:12 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-04 08:19 pm (UTC)

She may not want her great view once she sees hundreds of facets across her vision of what's going on.

The man and the scorpion daemon accompanying him have Path rigged up in something that is obviously specially designed for holding birds. With less than zero regard for the comfort of those birds. Path is pierced in a few places through both wings, held spread open. Many of his feathers are no longer attached to him and the ones that are have been crushed by miscellaneous abuse. There are spots of blood dotting the table beneath him; his beak has been cut clear through like a battery cage chicken's and his talons are all severed at the quick. Assorted ominous implements stand in neat rows nearby. In the torturer's hand is, currently, a small serrated knife. It looks like he's going for an eye, but he's taking his time about it, feinting and laughing and never taking his other hand off Path's weakly struggling foot.
Edited 2013-02-04 20:20 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-04 08:33 pm (UTC)

She wants that view, oh yes she does, because with a good view comes good aim.

What's the fastest kill from here?

Jaguar.

She shifts and launches herself into the man from the side, tackling him away from Path; on the way down, she gets her jaws around the back of his neck and crushes his spine in one bite. She knows she's done it when touching him stops feeling like some integral part of her is being shredded.

dark_light
2013-02-04 08:37 pm (UTC)

The scorpion vanishes.

Path can talk even with his beak mangled. Daemon speech isn't much about how they're physically made.

"P-petaal?"

truthwright
2013-02-04 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie," she says, shifting witch and getting to her feet, reaching for him hesitantly. "I wanna fix it—I don't know how to fix it."

dark_light
2013-02-04 08:42 pm (UTC)

"J-just - Isabella - can - she can, my Isabella, she can," Path moans, feet twitching. "There's clips - on the frame - holding the - things -"

truthwright
2013-02-04 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I see it, I see it," she breathes, and she carefully carefully carefully disentangles him from his prison.

dark_light
2013-02-04 08:46 pm (UTC)

Path whimpers, but it's nothing like the screams from earlier. He doesn't even try to fold his wings; he lets them hang limp from his shoulders.
Edited 2013-02-04 20:47 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-04 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I got you, baby," she murmurs. "We're going home."

She carries him carefully, gently out the door, and walks barefoot back to her abandoned cloud-pine.

dark_light
2013-02-04 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Wh-where is he?" stutters Path, huddling close to her chest.

truthwright
2013-02-04 08:53 pm (UTC)

"My sweetie's home with yours," she says.

dark_light
2013-02-04 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Y-you -? But that's... miles, hours away," he shivers. "You didn't want that..."

truthwright
2013-02-04 09:01 pm (UTC)

"We wanted you safe," she says. "We wanted that more than anything."

It takes some doing, to get them in the air without hurting him much worse. But she manages it, and she points them homeward and gets plenty of altitude to discourage any ground-level interference.

dark_light
2013-02-04 09:03 pm (UTC)

Path tries to fall asleep.

Eventually, he succeeds.

At home, murmuring half-words and settling into a calmer slump in Kas's arms, Isabella sleeps too.

truthwright
2013-02-04 09:07 pm (UTC)

Kas does not sleep. Neither, naturally, does Petaal.

Eventually, she lands in front of the house.

"Hey, wake up," Kas says softly, kissing Isabella's forehead. "They're here."

dark_light
2013-02-04 09:10 pm (UTC)

Isabella sits up, slowly. "Path? My Path is here?"

"Isabella," calls Path from the door, desperately relieved. "Please - I can't fly - give me to her -"

truthwright
2013-02-04 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I am, I am," says Petaal, hurrying inside. "Oh, honey. We love you so much."

dark_light
2013-02-04 09:16 pm (UTC)

Isabella takes Path with as much care and eagerness as can coexist in the same motion and cradles him, murmuring. "My Path my Path my Path - oh you're safe - my Path -" while he murmurs back to her in much the same way.

"Where's my cornucopia?" she asks, not taking her eyes away from her daemon. "I need to - he's so - I have to fix him."

truthwright
2013-02-04 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Right here," says Kas, grabbing it and handing it to her.

And then throwing himself into Petaal's arms.

"Sweetie, my sweetie, I love you, I love you I love you love you love you love love love..."

Petaal says similar things back to him, and they both pretty quickly dissolve into incoherent sobbing.
Edited 2013-02-04 21:21 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-04 09:26 pm (UTC)

Isabella glances at them quickly, but she has other priorities at the moment. "Dill - cilantro - mint - shredded ginger - parsley," she tells it, pausing between each one with distraction or to pant with lingering pain. "Bottle of pine sap?" she tries. It won't give her that; she eyes the door and the twenty feet to Metis's stock of such things dubiously, and says "Bottle of maple syrup" instead. That she can get. She drizzles it one-handed into shaky runes in a square on the floor, her other hand clutching Path gently to her chest.

truthwright
2013-02-04 09:30 pm (UTC)

They end up on the floor, as wrapped around each other as they can possibly get, Petaal as a jaguar again and Kas with his hands buried in her fur.

dark_light
2013-02-04 09:42 pm (UTC)

Isabella finishes her diagram and gently, gently puts Path in its center. She never takes her hand away from him, though, fingers buried in the feathers he has left. She sprinkles him with herbs and sprinkles the syrup with other herbs and murmurs verses. She's too wrung out to compose; these are simple, almost nursery rhymes, that she's known for first aid forever. When she can think straight, when she hurts less, she'll come up with something to fix the rest of the damage. Right now she needs to apply painkilling poetry, close wounds with disappearing syrup and herbs. She can't do anything about his feathers but those will grow back.

truthwright
2013-02-04 09:46 pm (UTC)

Kas looks away from Petaal long enough to ask, "You guys okay?"

dark_light
2013-02-04 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Better," says Path, as Isabella scoops him up again out of the disappeared diagram.

"We'll be sore for - a while," says Isabella. "And I don't think he'll be able to fly until his feathers grow in again and that could easily take weeks even if I pour coconut milk and lavender over him every morning. But better."

truthwright
2013-02-04 09:51 pm (UTC)

He lets out a relieved breath.

"Good. Better is good."
Edited 2013-02-04 21:52 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-04 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Are you okay? I don't even know how - how you did that. Witches have to go to a wasteland that daemons can't go into and drag ourselves across a mile of it and it usually takes hours and some people have to try four or five times - I don't understand how Petaal just flew away like that."

truthwright
2013-02-04 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I had to," says Petaal. "You were hurting."

dark_light
2013-02-04 09:58 pm (UTC)

Isabella's sitting on the floor; she scoots closer to them. "Thank you," she whispers.

Path can't fly. But he can walk. He edges his way to the end of Isabella's arm. He presses his face - with his healed beak - into Petaal's side.

And then, timidly, into Kas's.

Isabella closes her eyes and gasps but she doesn't pull away.

truthwright
2013-02-04 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie," Kas murmurs, and he uncurls from Petaal far enough to lean down and kiss the top of Path's head.

dark_light
2013-02-04 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Path whispers.

truthwright
2013-02-04 10:09 pm (UTC)

"We love you," says Kas. He strokes Path's remaining feathers with his fingertips. "We love you and we're sorry you hurt and we're glad you're okay."

dark_light
2013-02-04 10:12 pm (UTC)

"We love you too," whispers Path, leaning into the touch.

Isabella is still breathing strangely, gasping and exhaling unsmoothly. Still not pulling away. She opens her eyes slowly. Path closes his.

truthwright
2013-02-04 10:16 pm (UTC)

Petaal reaches out a paw and rests it near Isabella. Not close enough to touch accidentally, but close enough that she could, if she wanted to.

Kas kisses Path's head again.

dark_light
2013-02-04 10:17 pm (UTC)

Isabella looks at Petaal's paw.

She reaches out and completes the circuit.

And then she has to close her eyes again and make a tiny noise in the back of her throat.

truthwright
2013-02-04 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Love you," breathes Kas.

"I just want to hug you and hug you and never let go," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-04 10:22 pm (UTC)

"That sounds pretty good right now," breathes Isabella. "Forever-hugs. Yeah."

truthwright
2013-02-04 10:25 pm (UTC)

Petaal shifts to some large constricting snake with iridescent black scales, and she coils around Kas and Isabella, careful not to squish anyone.

dark_light
2013-02-04 10:26 pm (UTC)

Isabella sighs tiredly, and makes sure Path is situated in a gap between her and Kas with plenty of breathing room, and leans her head on one of the coils and closes her eyes again.

truthwright
2013-02-04 10:30 pm (UTC)

Kas likewise snuggles up carefully and closes his eyes.

The world is full of love and closeness. It's the most perfect thing he can think of right now.

and we are always birds

dark_light

Path has not been out of direct physical contact with Isabella for the past four days.

Usually he's on her shoulder, feet against skin - her silks don't cover her shoulders and she hasn't been leaving the house much anyway, so silks are often not bothered with at all.

As of right now he's sitting on her foot, while she sits in a chair and picks her way slowly through some of the question trees she made.

"Psst," he says to Petaal.

truthwright
2013-02-04 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Mm?" says Petaal, unwrapping a coil from around Kas to snake her head over thataway. (She has likewise not been out of physical contact with her sweetie.)

dark_light
2013-02-04 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Um." Path shifts from foot to foot. "...Who was the first person besides Kas to touch you...?"

truthwright
2013-02-04 10:58 pm (UTC)

"The one Isabella offered to curse for us."

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:00 pm (UTC)

Path nuzzles her. "I'm sorry."

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:02 pm (UTC)

She nuzzles right back, flicking her tongue against his beak.

"I know. Love you," she murmurs.

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:04 pm (UTC)

"For a while - for hours - the only person besides my Isabella who ever touched me was that guy. He was going to kill us and he was the only person who ever touched me for hours on end and we hate that. And now he's not the only one. But he was still first. And we hate that. What did you do?"

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I ripped his throat out," says Petaal. "And I hugged my sweetie and we cried for a long time. And then we just... went on living. It hurt a lot, to have that be something that happened. But it didn't kill us. So we just went on."

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

Path shifts from foot to foot some more. "We're alive," he acknowledges. "He wanted to kill us and he didn't."

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:15 pm (UTC)

Petaal nuzzles him gently.

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:16 pm (UTC)

"We are so glad he's dead," says Path, nuzzling back.

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Petaal. "I wish I was faster so I could've killed him sooner."

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:18 pm (UTC)

"You went as fast as you could," says Path with utter confidence.

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I did," she agrees.

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:23 pm (UTC)

"We love you," sighs Path. "We were going to wait though. It was going to take years. We were going to wait and then I was going to - sit on his knee or something and see if he'd pet me. I don't know, we didn't have that detailed a plan. But we were going to wait and you were going to be first and we wish you were."

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:28 pm (UTC)

"We wish that too," she says, "because then you wouldn't be hurt like this. But sometimes bad shit happens even though you don't want it to."

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." He sighs a small owly sigh and leans on her head.

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Love you," she murmurs.
Edited 2013-02-04 23:31 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Love you," he whispers back.

And then he sits up straight and bats at Isabella's calf with a wing so she'll pick him up and put him on her shoulder for whispers.

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:40 pm (UTC)

Petaal bumps her nose lightly against the frame of the chair—kisses!—and then wraps herself around Kas again. He kisses her scaly nose.

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:42 pm (UTC)

Isabella puts her work down while Path speaks to her.

"Love you," she echoes aloud, when he gets to the end.

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:43 pm (UTC)

"We love you too," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:45 pm (UTC)

Isabella's work is not picked up again. She moves over and leans into him.

She wanted to be working at full speed again - she should at least have sent that Texan witch a letter or something - but if she takes longer to recover, she takes longer.

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:47 pm (UTC)

Kas wraps his arms around her, and Petaal loops a coil around her waist.

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:48 pm (UTC)

Snuggles are helpful. And nice. She relaxes and smiles and kisses Kas's neck. (It's right there.)

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Love you," he sighs, kissing the top of her head.

dark_light
2013-02-04 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Mmhm." She's been sleeping a lot. Partly sleep debt. Partly emotional exhaustion. This seems like a good time and place for more sleeping all of a sudden. Yawn.

truthwright
2013-02-04 11:55 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwww sleepy Isabella. Sleepy snuggly Isabella. Kas kisses her forehead and cuddles her some more.

dark_light
2013-02-05 12:02 am (UTC)

And welcome cuddles they are.

She still talks in her sleep. "Muffler fractal sing, cloud fly."

there is so much to do

dark_light

On the ninth day after his capture and rescue, the first day when Path is willing to step away from Isabella for even a moment, Isabella says to Kas:

"What can the alethiometer tell you about making humans as immortal as witches are?"

truthwright
2013-02-05 12:42 am (UTC)

"Hmmm," he says; Petaal shifts tiger and lies on the floor, and he sits nestled up against her with the alethiometer in his lap.

The alethiometer talks to him for a while about this one.

"There's a spell for it," he says, watching the needle. "Or there... could be? It's never been done but it's possible. It'll take... everything. Everyone. Sacrifice, herbs, runes, verse, every goddess, and... you said that part already," he tells the alethiometer in fond exasperation, "nobody's ever done this before, I get it—oh. And something nobody's ever done before. A new kind of spell. A way of doing magic that's new. On top of all that other shit."

He looks up at Isabella and smiles crookedly.

"Have fun with that."

dark_light
2013-02-05 12:44 am (UTC)

"Uh," she says. "Does it say what the fifth component is?"

truthwright
2013-02-05 12:47 am (UTC)

"I think it didn't like my sass," he says. "Just a sec, I'll ask."

He fiddles with the dials.

dark_light
2013-02-05 12:48 am (UTC)

"I don't know why you'd choose to sass an omniscient artifact that deigns to talk to you, but it's very cute," smirks Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-05 12:51 am (UTC)

"It knows I love it," he says cheerfully, and reads.

"Okay... movement," he says. "Like dance, but not dance. Structured movement. Your daemon does some too."

dark_light
2013-02-05 12:52 am (UTC)

"Can you get any tips out of it on what, exactly, we do, or will I get to do lots of painstaking research?" laughs Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-05 12:59 am (UTC)

Kas inquires further.

"Compass directions," he reports. "'Act as you feel'—that means either you're going to naturally tend to do the right thing, or there's enough leeway that you mostly won't fuck things up anyway."

dark_light
2013-02-05 01:02 am (UTC)

"Okay. And otherwise lots of painstaking research. I'd probably better start with something smaller than immortality. Don't you die anytime in the next - well, ever, but especially not before I figure this out at least as well as I know how to do verse and herbs and runes and sacrifice."

truthwright
2013-02-05 01:05 am (UTC)

"You're a sweetie," he says. "I'll try not to. Maybe."

dark_light
2013-02-05 01:06 am (UTC)

"Maybe?"

truthwright
2013-02-05 01:09 am (UTC)

"Yeah, maybe. Why, would it make you sad?"

dark_light
2013-02-05 01:16 am (UTC)

"If you died? Um, yes?"

truthwright
2013-02-05 01:27 am (UTC)

"Awwwww," he says. Petaal turns viscacha again and scurries around into his lap, where he snuggles her extreme fluffiness. "I'd be sad if you died too," he adds. "It'd fuck me right up. I love you."

dark_light
2013-02-05 01:29 am (UTC)

"I love you too, and I think you ought to live forever, so please don't thwart my plans," says Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-05 01:33 am (UTC)

"I think living forever would be pretty cool, but I don't think I'm gonna get there because way too many of the things I like doing are things that'll probably get me killed someday."

dark_light
2013-02-05 01:34 am (UTC)

"...Like what? Because even without knowing how to incorporate killer dance moves, I can protect you some," says Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-05 01:38 am (UTC)

"Bouncing around the world fucking strangers and pissing off violent people?"

dark_light
2013-02-05 01:44 am (UTC)

"Well. That could require some slightly heavier duty protections than if what you had in mind was the possibility of being hit by a cement truck while jaywalking," muses Isabella. "I think the gold standard for witches who want to protect mortals who are, say, soldiers, involves a tattoo. Of a bayleaf, with bayleaf-infused ink, ideally one on you and one on Petaal, with a verse said over it. And when I say a tattoo I don't mean one with needles, I mean the relevant verse makes the ink sink in all by itself after it's painted on. It does still hurt about like getting a regular tattoo, though. And that'll let you last through serious injuries longer before you get medical attention, although not forever, and I can't think of anything that would help if someone's priority were to make you dead and they actually checked. The tattoo would be obviously a witch tattoo to anyone who saw it and was the least bit magically sensitive, though, they'd know they'd piss me off if you died and it was their fault."

truthwright
2013-02-05 01:45 am (UTC)

"Well, that sounds like fun," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-05 01:47 am (UTC)

"Shall I mix up some ink, then?"

truthwright
2013-02-05 01:48 am (UTC)

"Yes please," says Petaal, nuzzling Kas's chest.

dark_light
2013-02-05 01:54 am (UTC)

"Okay. Shouldn't take long."

The ink contains many dubious ingredients - the cornucopia doesn't care about processing time and is able to save her awhile by producing powdered bayleaf and the other requisite herbs, and the rest of the ink is vinegar, ash retrieved from the firepit, and one of Isabella's tears (she produces this with the expedient of Path biting her ear).

She fetches a paintbrush, and murmurs her animal-summon to get ahold of a seagull, which she holds in her left hand, ready to snap its neck, while brandishing the brush with her right. "Where do you want it?" she asks.

truthwright
2013-02-05 02:10 am (UTC)

Kas hmms indecisively.

Petaal turns witch-shaped and drags her finger along his left hipbone. "Right there," she says.

dark_light
2013-02-05 02:13 am (UTC)

"Nice," says Isabella, peering at him speculatively. "You'll have to lie down, then. Do you want yours to match, Petaal? It'll be easiest to paint yours if you're in this or human shape, although it'll persist however you change, it's adapted to work on children just fine."

truthwright
2013-02-05 02:20 am (UTC)

"You can do mine here," she says, touching her right hip in the same spot. Well, more or less. She and Kas are differently shaped in that area, at the moment.

"Should I lie down somewhere in particular?" asks Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-05 02:23 am (UTC)

"Anywhere comfy where I can reach you," shrugs Isabella. Her seagull squawks unhappily and voids on the kitchen floor. "There's no call to be rude, it won't save you," she tells it.

truthwright
2013-02-05 02:24 am (UTC)

"Okay," laughs Kas. He finds a spot of floor to lie down on that does not intersect with the seagull's vote of disapproval.

"Me too, or me later?" asks Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-05 02:34 am (UTC)

"I paint you both, then I say the words and kill the bird," says Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-05 02:37 am (UTC)

There is a convenient space for Petaal beside Kas - on his right, even. Petaal takes it.

dark_light
2013-02-05 02:39 am (UTC)

Isabella kneels down, sets her ink in a reachable place, and paints matching bayleaves on the chosen hipbones. (This tickles.)

After she critically examines her work, she says, "Ready?"

truthwright
2013-02-05 02:41 am (UTC)

Human and daemon hold hands.

"Yeah," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-05 02:49 am (UTC)

The verse is also not one that Isabella composed.

"Bayleaf, bayleaf. Safe and sound,
Keep my precious pair with me,
Live and whole and lucid, leaf,
That is how I need them both,
Bayleaf, bayleaf, guard them well.

Bayleaf, bayleaf, hear my verse
I protect and mind with you,
Hide inside them, safe and sound.
Burning down into their skin.
Bayleaf, bayleaf, guard them well.

Bayleaf, bayleaf, I am one
I remain at home, they go
I am safe and they in peril
Danger you will chase away
Bayleaf, bayleaf, close their wounds
Bayleaf, bayleaf, help them breathe
Bayleaf, bayleaf, they are mine
Bayleaf, bayleaf, do as asked
Bayleaf, bayleaf, guard them well,
Bayleaf, bayleaf, safe and sound."

On the last syllable, the seagull dies in her hand, and the ink sears itself into matching tattoos.

truthwright
2013-02-05 02:52 am (UTC)

And Kas and Petaal curl into each other and kiss happily.

dark_light
2013-02-05 02:54 am (UTC)

"There. Please don't be reckless about testing its limits," says Isabella, going to toss the gull in the firepit. "I can point you to scholarly papers on the subject if you're that curious."

truthwright
2013-02-05 02:56 am (UTC)

"Mmhm," Kas says agreeably. He'd use more words, but kissing.

dark_light
2013-02-05 03:01 am (UTC)

But kissing indeed.

"Should I get a book of tattoo-spells for you?" asks Isabella dryly.

truthwright
2013-02-05 03:04 am (UTC)

"Mmmmmmm," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-05 03:05 am (UTC)

"You know, I got an inkling of this when you didn't want the no-pokey-talons blessing way back when, but how far does it go? I don't think most people would get tattoos recreationally," Isabella remarks.

truthwright
2013-02-05 03:08 am (UTC)

Kas pulls away from the kiss long enough to say, "Goes far enough that we haven't found where it stops."

dark_light
2013-02-05 03:11 am (UTC)

"...Huh."

Pause. Headtilt.

"...Do you want me to look up interestingly unpleasant curses? They don't all have side effects."

truthwright
2013-02-05 03:14 am (UTC)

They give a collective wriggle of delight.

"Ooh, yes please," breathes Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-05 03:16 am (UTC)

"Ooookay," laughs Isabella. "That'll keep Metis off my back for a while if she starts pestering me about curses even after I've killed a guy." Pause. "By the way, killer-dance-moves magic - I think should generally be a secret. I'm already occasionally theatrical when I do other spells, I'll start throwing in random movements where they aren't needed and then if she sees me doing it to different effect she won't know it's special."

truthwright
2013-02-05 03:22 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Kas.

"We're gonna go fuck in the attic now," adds Petaal, dragging Kas to his feet.

"Love you," Kas says as he follows her.

"You can come with if you want!" Petaal calls over her shoulder.

dark_light
2013-02-05 03:23 am (UTC)

Isabella thinks.

She concludes want.

She sets the seagull on fire and chases them up.

it is unwise to anger a witch

dark_light

Isabella slowly ramps up her working speed, and now it includes researching motion-spells (and an embarrassing amount of falling over, but she's working on that, she managed dagger lessons and she can manage this) and writing letters - conventional mail-oriented letters, she is not sending Path on courier errands again anytime soon - to witches who know about nasty magic. (For all her insistence, Metis isn't a specialist, she just believes in a well-rounded education.)

Isabella's grandmother sends her the clan library's Book of Tattoo Spells. A witch from Brazil sends her a curse that matches the parameters she wrote asking about.

"Hey, Kas," says Isabella, climbing up to the attic after fetching the mail and brandishing the latter. "Guess what Niada Ivakesi sent me."

truthwright
2013-02-05 04:00 pm (UTC)

Kas and Petaal are snuggling, Petaal in tiger shape, Kas in underwear.

"Is it fun?" he asks cheerfully. "I bet it's fun."

dark_light
2013-02-05 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Are cluster headaches fun?" she asks, peering between the spell and them.

truthwright
2013-02-05 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

dark_light
2013-02-05 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Then this is tons of fun, I suppose," says Isabella. "The curse is designed to just give you cluster headaches as, you know, a stable feature of your life that will strike randomly as though you naturally had them, but I think I can get it under finer control if I edit the verse a little, and of course I can lift the curse any time."

truthwright
2013-02-05 04:11 pm (UTC)

Kas beams.

"That does sound fun."

dark_light
2013-02-05 04:13 pm (UTC)

"She included a printout of the Wikipedia page," says Isabella, "about cluster headaches. Apparently they are widely considered the worst pain that humans experience. If you ask someone who's given birth unanaesthetized and who also gets these, they will prefer the former."

truthwright
2013-02-05 04:15 pm (UTC)

Petaal rumbles happily and nuzzles Kas's hair; he laughs and hugs her.

dark_light
2013-02-05 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Oookay," laughs Isabella. "And the nickname 'suicide headaches' is apparently not a joke, so, you know, remember that I can take the curse off in under sixty seconds if you want me to, don't go stabbing yourself through the eye or anything because that's harder to fix. ...And if you're going to operate a motor vehicle or anything, let me countercurse you first. I think the bayleaf tattoo will probably keep you from dying on impact if you crash on cloud-pine because you get a headache, but it's witchcraft and it's not as good at cars. And one of the tattoo spells in my book is one that will inform me if something dreadful happens to you so I'd be able to patch you up. But if you're that enthusiastic about it I can do this right now."
Edited 2013-02-05 16:32 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-05 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes I am that enthusiastic about it," Kas says emphatically.

dark_light
2013-02-05 06:08 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs. "Okay then." She gets wine and assorted herbs from the cornucopia that now permanently lives tied around her neck, tucked unobtrusively under the silks. "This is normally intended for casting on less enthusiastic... subjects... so I don't need you to do anything in particular, but you can watch if you want."

Rune rune rune rune rune, and all but the middle one are the same one. Lines of herbs spraying out from the line of symbols in all directions and another line trickled across them. This spell doesn't call for a sacrifice, so Isabella doesn't bother to summon an animal; she just clasps her hands, takes a moment to note the cardinal directions to help her get into the habit, and says a poem that is not in English, except for the second-to last line, which she has changed from its original to "Respite given at my whim" - that's the edit she made for finer control, although she's not terribly confident about mixing languages and the spell might go off as originally designed, thus her caution about motor vehicles.

truthwright
2013-02-05 08:44 pm (UTC)

Kas watches all this.

...And then he grins.

"Fuck," he says, closing his eyes and curling up beside Petaal, "that's nasty. I love you so much."

dark_light
2013-02-05 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I want to test the whim-based suppression thing at some point, say when," says Isabella, sitting down and smirking at him.

Goodness. He makes faces.

truthwright
2013-02-05 08:48 pm (UTC)

He does. Happy, happy faces.

"Come snuggle us first," he says, holding out his arms.

dark_light
2013-02-05 08:49 pm (UTC)

Isabella is perfectly content to oblige!

truthwright
2013-02-05 08:55 pm (UTC)

Cuddlessssssss.

Petaal hugs Isabella with her front paws and nuzzles Kas again; Kas tucks his face in against Isabella's neck and hums happily.

dark_light
2013-02-05 09:00 pm (UTC)

Path winds up nestled near Petaal's forepaw and between Kas and Isabella's chests, quite comfortably.

truthwright
2013-02-05 09:42 pm (UTC)

Good cuddlepile. Best cuddlepile.

A few weeks later, Kas disappears again, the same way he did last time. No goodbye, no note, just gone. He takes Petaal's cloud-pine and nothing else.

dark_light
2013-02-05 09:47 pm (UTC)

Okay then. Isabella really doesn't want him to crash; when she notices he's gone she assumes the correct mindset of whimsy and banishes the headaches.

Isabella has plenty to work on. She doesn't make much headway addressing the alethiometer herself, although she does carry on studying her dictionary to see how far she can get. But she's got an entire new branch of magic to figure out, and if Kas isn't back again by the time she's run out of avenues of research on that she can always find him. She's probably getting more done, actually, since he and Petaal don't keep distracting her by being so ludicrously attractive.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:04 pm (UTC)

As seems to be his habit these days, he sends postcards.

The first one comes from Quebec. Augustine thinks you're hilarious. Love you. K&P

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:05 pm (UTC)

Isabella adds it to her postcard stack. Hilarious how, she wonders? She can ask when he gets home.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:09 pm (UTC)

It takes about a month before he sends a second one, also from Quebec:

You took away my headaches, didn't you? I liked those!

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:13 pm (UTC)

Well, he can have them back when they're not cloud-pining all over creation. She's not that sure of the bayleaf tattoo, and the notification tattoo inside his wrist only tells her when to come looking for him, it doesn't ensure she'll get there any faster.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:15 pm (UTC)

Two days after that: Went to Milliways again. I fucking love my alt.

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:16 pm (UTC)

Well. Good for them. Isabella's not planning to have sex with any of hers, but to each their own.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:18 pm (UTC)

Another week, another postcard, this one from Montreal.

I think it would be fun if you pretended to be all crazy and possessive and knifey ♥

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:19 pm (UTC)

Isabella's question there is: what, right now? but he's not there to ask. They can set something up when he's back. Sounds fun, like writing a story.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:21 pm (UTC)

Two mmore days, Quebec City again.

I miss you and I miss the alethiometer. When I get back I'm asking it where the other one is.

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:22 pm (UTC)

Heh. She'll probably even cast a summon of it for him if he wants. (But maybe he won't, maybe he'll want to go fetch it himself.)

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:27 pm (UTC)

And then, three weeks later, he shows up on her doorstep.

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Hallo," she says, greeting him with a kiss. "No headaches while you're gone or otherwise possibly flying, I don't want you to crash. You can have them back now, although mind I don't schedule them and they can easily go away for weeks on their own." Whimsy, change of mind, done. "Did you mean pretending to be knifey and so on right then, or with the whole part including the staking of claim at daggerpoint?"

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:34 pm (UTC)

"The daggerpoint thing is hot, I'm pretty sure I've made myself clear about that," he says, grinning and hugging her. Petaal, twined around his neck as a small blue-and-white snake, giggles.

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she laughs. "But let's wait a couple days, you only just came back." Hugs hugs hugs.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Mmkay. Snuggles first," he agrees. "And I wanted to ask the alethiometer about its buddy."

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing. It's upstairs, near the bow I will be brandishing in your general direction at some point in the next few weeks," says Isabella, smirking at him.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:42 pm (UTC)

...

He kisses her. Delightedly.

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:43 pm (UTC)

She is delighted right back. She is so pleased he is home.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:43 pm (UTC)

Incredibly, so is he.

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:48 pm (UTC)

Isabella decides that surprises are probably indicated for the little game they are going to play. (Path, uncertain, confirms with Petaal. Surprises: definitely indicated.)

When she's caught up on questions she had in mind to ask the alethiometer - but only just barely, before he'd wonder when to expect the next page of them - she catches him wandering around outside the house, and with an elbow to the chest and a quick, practiced draw of her dagger, she's got him pinned to the wall with a blade against his throat.

She makes eye contact, and grins the predatory feral grin she sees occasionally on her great-grandmother or some of the other clan sisters.

"Mine," she purrs.

truthwright
2013-02-05 10:55 pm (UTC)

His eyelashes flutter; he grins. Petaal, as a lynx, rubs her face against his leg and purrs.

dark_light
2013-02-05 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Oh good," murmurs Isabella, keeping up the smile but tilting the knife so only the flat touches his throat and dragging it slowly away from his throat. "Sometimes there's disagreement on that point, but you know it's not wise to anger a witch. We're going to have fun."

(This script is taken almost verbatim from great-grandmother's inappropriately graphic description of her acquisition of her third husband. Not Isabella's great-grandfather, the one after him.)

truthwright
2013-02-05 11:00 pm (UTC)

"You bet we will," says Kas, sounding a little out of breath and extremely pleased about it.

dark_light
2013-02-06 01:05 am (UTC)

Isabella leans in, tucks her face into the join of his neck and his shoulder.

"Good," she whispers. "Let's go inside, and have - some - fun." And she seizes the front of his shirt and pulls him after her without looking to see if he's pressed his feet into service yet or not.

truthwright
2013-02-06 01:11 am (UTC)

She only has to drag him for a few steps; he catches up soon enough. Petaal becomes a glass-winged butterfly and follows.

dark_light
2013-02-06 01:24 am (UTC)

Fun is had by all.

Isabella acts quite normally after enough fun is had to be tiring. Crazy witches do, after all, tend to settle into fairly ordinary relationships with their captured sweethearts. At some point he'll slip off and then she'll be acting again, hunting him down, making threats, etcetera. For the time being she can get some work done.

truthwright
2013-02-06 01:29 am (UTC)

Petaal stays butterfly-shaped the whole time.

They're gone again the next morning. He leaves a Quebec postcard tucked under the alethiometer where he left it in the attic: Catch me if you can! ♥

dark_light
2013-02-06 01:37 am (UTC)

Heh.

(She turns his headaches off. It's supposed to be a game, not a potentially deadly obstacle course.)

For this purpose, the alethiometer would be less helpful than one of her own divinations. She sugars her room in runes, sits in the middle of the triangle she's marked, and murmurs repetitive verses until visions pour down on her.

(She picked a spell that doesn't need his name. She's not sure "Kas" would work for one of those.)

He's in a boat on the ocean, not flying, that's interesting. She can control the visions just well enough to tell them how close in she wants to see; when she's zoomed out enough to recognize coastline she zooms in again. She brings her cornucopia so she can stop on the way and make another check, if he changes direction.

When she picks up her cloud-pine to go, she hesitates.

Full realism would call for leaving Path home.

She wouldn't kill someone she loved in front of Path, and in a realistic scenario, this might come to that.

But she thinks Kas will forgive this lapse of verisimilitude.

Off she flies, Path clinging to the silks on her shoulder and her bow clenched in her hand parallel and unstrung beside the branch of cloud-pine.

truthwright
2013-02-06 01:46 am (UTC)

When she looks for him, he's in a boat on the ocean cuddling Petaal.

When she finds him, he is on the same boat in roughly the same place and Petaal is nowhere in sight. It's just Kas, sitting in the sun and nibbling on a chocolate bar.

dark_light
2013-02-06 01:48 am (UTC)

She lands and stalks forward. "Where's Petaal?" she asks, for all the world like they're having a friendly conversation and not pretending that she might kill him. Casually, she plucks her bow away from her branch and unwinds the string from around her wrist. There's a quiver of arrows on her back. But maybe she's just hunting rabbits. In the middle of the sea.

truthwright
2013-02-06 01:54 am (UTC)

"Hiiii," he says lazily. "My sweetie's on an errand. Don't worry, she'll be back soon."
Edited 2013-02-06 01:54 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-06 01:56 am (UTC)

"That's good, because you see, I've caught you," she says, gesturing at the boat and the sea around them, "and we're going to go home, and there will be no more of this little stunt. I'm not unreasonable, you know," she drawls.

String goes on this end of the bow. Pull tight, string goes on that end of the bow.

truthwright
2013-02-06 02:03 am (UTC)

"You're not," Kas agrees. He tucks his hands behind his head and leans back, unconcerned—flagrantly unconcerned. Taunting her with the absence of fear.

dark_light
2013-02-06 02:05 am (UTC)

"So since that's understood we're heading - straight - back," she pronounces sharply, emphasizing her consonants.

Bow is strung. She lets it dangle from her left hand loosely. She reaches up as though to scratch her shoulder - near her arrows.

"Aren't we, dear?"

(Even for crazy witches, killing an occasionally wayward lover is not the first resort. She's got a cousin whose first husband ran away six times before she killed him in a fit of miserable fury. A bad time for all involved.)

truthwright
2013-02-06 02:11 am (UTC)

His eyes drift shut, not quite all the way. He smiles.

"Take a guess," he purrs.

dark_light
2013-02-06 02:19 am (UTC)

Isabella plucks an arrow from the quiver and looks at him with affected dismay.

"I thought we were having fun," she murmurs. (Because crazy witches are sad, too, not only furious, because he hasn't been so openly defiant as for shouting to become appropriate.) "Why would you leave? Why would you do that to me when I love you so much?"

truthwright
2013-02-06 02:27 am (UTC)

"I love you too, sweetie," he says. "But you can't keep me."

dark_light
2013-02-06 02:29 am (UTC)

"But you're mine," she hisses, clenching her bow. "Mine."

(Everything about this feels unnatural now. The alethiometer was right, she can't imagine ever actually doing this. Pleading with him, maybe, plotting to shoot him if he won't come back with her emphatically not.)

truthwright
2013-02-06 02:36 am (UTC)

"Nope," he pronounces. "Nobody's."

dark_light
2013-02-06 02:42 am (UTC)

"Oh, you'll be nobody's," she snarls, whipping the bow around to nock and aim an arrow. She only half-draws; if she slips and the arrow looses accidentally it might hit him, but not hard enough to kill through the bayleaf protection if she's quick with the healing. "Last chance."

truthwright
2013-02-06 02:48 am (UTC)

"Sweetheart," he sighs rapturously, untucking his hands from behind his head and stretching out his arms. "You say the nicest fucking things."

He opens his eyes, smiles, and beckons.

"C'mere, gimme a kiss. One for the road."

dark_light
2013-02-06 02:51 am (UTC)

Isabella's not sure whether to drop out of character yet or not. She compromises, relaxing the draw but holding onto both bow and arrow while she leans forward for a hard, bruising, wanting kiss.

truthwright
2013-02-06 02:55 am (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her and kisses back with equal ferocity.

dark_light
2013-02-06 02:56 am (UTC)

Screw character. The bow clatters to the bottom of the boat. If she wants to drop back in she can pull her dagger. Kisses.

truthwright
2013-02-06 03:00 am (UTC)

"You are fucking magnificent," he breathes in her ear. And then kisses her again.

dark_light
2013-02-06 03:02 am (UTC)

"Mine," she keens back. She bites this time. Her hands are bent into near-claws behind his back, clutching him tight.

truthwright
2013-02-06 03:13 am (UTC)

"Love you," he pants into the brief space between kisses. "Love you so much."

dark_light
2013-02-06 03:15 am (UTC)

"I love you," she says insistently in reply.

truthwright
2013-02-06 03:17 am (UTC)

"I wanna live forever with you," he says, melting into her a little.

dark_light
2013-02-06 03:19 am (UTC)

"Good."

That could be in or out of character. She's not clear anymore.

truthwright
2013-02-06 03:36 am (UTC)

"If I belonged to anybody," he murmurs, "it'd be you." Kisses. "And if I was gonna die, I'd want you to kill me." More kisses. "And instead you're gonna make me immortal," kisses, "and I'm gonna love you forever."

dark_light
2013-02-06 06:31 am (UTC)

They are clearly out of character. Isabella abandons musing on the dagger and focuses wholly, utterly on the kisses and on Kas and on how glad she is that her brain works in this way and not in that other awful way that would have him dead now instead of loving her.

truthwright
2013-02-06 01:53 pm (UTC)

Kas is glad of that, too. Maybe not the same way, or to the same degree, but he is, he is. He loves her so much. What's taking his sweetie so long? Because they all need to be cuddling right now.

dark_light
2013-02-06 04:24 pm (UTC)

Path, clinging to Isabella's silks on her back, hoots a soft agreement.

truthwright
2013-02-06 04:39 pm (UTC)

A dolphin leaps out of the water with something golden clutched in his beak.

The alethiometer drops into the boat. Petaal shifts to a glittering blue-green dragon and lands on Kas's shoulder, then shifts witch and hugs him from behind.

dark_light
2013-02-06 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Hey you," mumurs Isabella, grinning. "You missed the show. Pity I didn't take a little longer about chasing you guys."

truthwright
2013-02-06 04:45 pm (UTC)

"So, we should fuck now," Kas announces.

"Definitely," says Petaal. She steps around Kas, switching sex as she does, and opens her arms to Isabella. "C'mere, you, I want kisses."
Edited 2013-02-06 16:45 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-06 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Mmmf," agrees Isa into Petaal's mouth.

truthwright
2013-02-06 04:50 pm (UTC)

Petaal hums contentedly.

Kas holds out his hands to Path.

dark_light
2013-02-06 04:53 pm (UTC)

Path hops onto Kas's hands and nuzzles his wrist without the tattoo on it.

truthwright
2013-02-06 05:02 pm (UTC)

He cuddles Path against his chest and kisses the top of his head.

Yep, that's just about perfect. Especially given where Petaal and Isabella are headed.

we live until we are too bored or lonely

dark_light

She flies home. He has to return the boat that he... borrowed... (Isabella is not clear if this was authorized of him, but as long as he's going to return it she doesn't care that much) and then he's going to return to Rockland from there.

Isabella continues her work on motion magic. Metis has been paying less attention to her even when she's around; Isabella's learned enough that the marginal value of working with a teacher is diminishing and the apprenticeship will probably be brought to a formal end soon enough. Then she'll have to find somewhere else to go, probably her dad's house or the clan enclave. The former will be easier to secretly practice her new branch of magic in. The latter will be easier to have sex with Kas in without unwanted interference. Maybe she should just find her own place, somehow. She's not sure how to find opportunities for it. Metis stumbled across her house by sheer accident. But she's got a few months to think it over. (And an alethiometer, for that matter. It can probably find a house that she can just move into, with Kas reading it.)

truthwright
2013-02-06 06:51 pm (UTC)

Kas and Petaal ring the doorbell, Petaal actually in witch-silks for once, Kas with his arm around her waist nuzzling her shoulder.

dark_light
2013-02-06 06:52 pm (UTC)

Isabella gets the door. "Hallo," she grins. "Boat back where it goes?"

truthwright
2013-02-06 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Boat back where it goes!" confirms Kas, and he steps forward to give her a hug and a kiss. "You'll never guess who I ran into on the way back!"

dark_light
2013-02-06 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, then I guess there's no point in trying," she says, raising an eyebrow.

truthwright
2013-02-06 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I went to Milliways and saw my alt again and let's go inside so I can show you what he did," he laughs.

dark_light
2013-02-06 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Same alt?" Isabella says, stepping out of the doorway. "Show me what he did...?"

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:05 pm (UTC)

He pulls up his shirt and pushes down his jeans far enough to show her his right hipbone.

There's a scar there, barely healed, the exact mirror of the bayleaf tattoo on his other hip.

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Does this one do magic too, or is it just for symmetry?"

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Symmetry," he says. "It was fun."

"He really likes you," Petaal adds. "I mean, from what we've said about you. He thinks you're pretty great."

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:11 pm (UTC)

"So, so far, of the alts of me he's met that we know about, Shell Bell shot him, no-nickname-yet who's also dating one of you put him on an asteroid, and I sound pretty great. I'm not sure how to feel about that," remarks Isabella.
Edited 2013-02-06 19:11 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Oh, he thinks all of you are pretty great," Kas assures her. "Mm, more or less."

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:17 pm (UTC)

"More or less?"

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:21 pm (UTC)

"The one who put him on the asteroid, he's a little hot-and-cold about."

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Understandable. But I know me and I've met Shell Bell now too, so I think no-nickname probably had a good reason," shrugs Isabella.

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah. And he likes her, he just... she makes him sad," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:29 pm (UTC)

"...With the asteroid-putting or in some other way?"

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:32 pm (UTC)

"...It's complicated," he says. "I don't know the whole story."

"You could talk to him about it," Petaal adds. "I bet he'd tell you."

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I haven't found any doors, so far you've been the one to find it both times. I'll come along next time if we're in the same town at the time."

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:36 pm (UTC)

"'Kay," he says. "We can try to explain it if you want, but like I said, I don't know everything."

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:38 pm (UTC)

"I am curious. Both as a personality trait and about this," she says, closing the door behind him and flopping onto a chair. Metis is in the backyard, drawing a truly enormous sugar circle.

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:49 pm (UTC)

He sits on the floor and leans against her knee; Petaal does the same thing on the other side.

"I think it's a few things," he says. "One of them's about the other me she's fucking, and I don't know much about that. But the asteroid—I really like people," he explains. "All of me do. I don't need to be close to them personally—I like it, I don't need it—but I love cities, I hate being out on my own in the middle of nowhere for too long. He's the same way. It would've killed him to be out there with nobody else around, if it weren't for Milliways. And he gets why she did it, and he's not mad, but it breaks his heart a little that she'd do that to him."
Edited 2013-02-06 19:50 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Do you know why she picked an asteroid and didn't just... squirrel him away somewhere on his Earth?"

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:54 pm (UTC)

Kas shakes his head.

"He didn't say," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-06 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Maybe she will, when she finds the Belltower. Man, I am really excited to see what happens with the Belltower, I wonder how many of us there are."

truthwright
2013-02-06 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I hope there's lots!" says Kas.

"You're my favourite," says Petaal, cuddling her knee.

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," she says, petting Petaal's head. (This has turned into a casual gesture; it's not that it feels different, it's that the feeling is natural and not so momentous now.) "I hope there's lots too! I particularly wanna meet the asteroid one. I don't think I know how to put anyone on an asteroid, so she's got magic and seriously different, powerful magic at that."
Edited 2013-02-06 20:02 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-06 08:07 pm (UTC)

Petaal nudges her nead into Isabella's hand and hums contentedly.

"I bet that'll be fun," says Kas. "As long as she doesn't decide to put me on an asteroid, anyway. I think I'm more like the me I met than the other one." He hugs Isabella's knee.

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I'll tell her you do not belong on an asteroid. I imagine she'll listen to me," Isabella says, scritching his head. "Unless you've been going around doing bad things and not telling me."

truthwright
2013-02-06 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, what's a bad thing? Does stealing boats count?" he asks playfully.

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:09 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "You gave it back? Nobody was hurt in the stealing process?"

truthwright
2013-02-06 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a problem with it and even if she's really uptight by comparison I bet I can get her to see it my way. And even an uptight version would find an agreement that there would not be further boat-stealing likely to be satisfactory."

truthwright
2013-02-06 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Ruin all my fun," he jokes.

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Not as much as being on an asteroid," she says, kissing his scalp and then Petaal's to match.

truthwright
2013-02-06 08:22 pm (UTC)

They both shiver. Not entirely in a good way. Before the head-kisses, so that's not why.

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:24 pm (UTC)

"I will be very upset with any of me who put you on an asteroid. If one of them says she's going to and I'm not there, tell her you've got a me and she should talk it over with me first. We ought to be able to come up with some less unpleasant arrangement. It's not as though you go on uncontrollable murder sprees or anything."

truthwright
2013-02-06 08:26 pm (UTC)

"We don't like," says Kas,

"having to do things," says Petaal,

"or do them in a particular way,"

"just because somebody with power over us,"

"will fuck with us somehow if we don't."

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:33 pm (UTC)

"I know," soothes Isabella. "I have no reason to believe that any of me will care why you are not going on uncontrollable murder sprees as long as you don't. It can be because you don't feel like it - as long as you reliably don't feel like it - or because it would upset me - as long as you reliably don't want to upset me - or whatever."

truthwright
2013-02-06 08:35 pm (UTC)

"We don't feel like it," says Petaal.

"And we don't wanna upset you," says Kas. "We don't ever, we love you."

"But it still just—" says Petaal, and shivers.

"There's good afraid and bad afraid," Kas murmurs, "and that's the bad one."

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:38 pm (UTC)

She kisses their heads each in turn again. "If you want, you can send me in ahead of you next time you find a door to check for that alt's presence, if she spooks you."

truthwright
2013-02-06 08:45 pm (UTC)

"You're sweet," says Kas.

Petaal nuzzles her leg. "Love you."

dark_light
2013-02-06 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Love you too," she murmurs.

truthwright
2013-02-06 09:12 pm (UTC)

Snuggle time?

Definitely snuggle time.

dark_light
2013-02-06 09:12 pm (UTC)

Why yes. It is that time again.

in a heap of people

she_sells_seashells

They go home after a couple of days, without incident. The colors in Bell's hair are fading, albeit incompletely.

A bit later, when there is not the question of whether Sherlock can accompany her unnoticed, Tony finds a door and in they go.

Other Sherlock - whether this is their other Sherlock or some other other Sherlock, Bell cannot be immediately sure - is in the main bar area. Bell waves!

bitofafiction
2013-02-06 06:15 pm (UTC)

He recognizes Bell and waves back with a smile, so it is likely to be one that she's met, yes.

Also he comes over to distribute hugs to all three of them.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 06:18 pm (UTC)

Hugs are nice and Bell approves. When her hands are free, she catches one of her Sherlock's with one of hers, because handholding is also nice. "How're you doing?" she asks Other Sherlock.

bitofafiction
2013-02-06 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I continue to breathe," he says lightly, stepping back and looking between her and Tony.

"...Sorry," he says, blinking, "is there a reason you're not having sex yet?"

ferratus
2013-02-06 06:39 pm (UTC)

Tony blinks right back.

"Because... she doesn't... want to...?" He looks at Bell. "Wait, do you?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 06:43 pm (UTC)

Bell makes a sound that resembles, "Asplughflnnn?"

ferratus
2013-02-06 06:48 pm (UTC)

He looks at Other Sherry in mild dismay. "That was mean."

bitofafiction
2013-02-06 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm very sorry," he says. "Overly personal question. I ought to've known better."

sicaria
2013-02-06 06:49 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Sherlock squeezes Bell's hand, attempt-at-comfortingly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 06:50 pm (UTC)

Bell puts her forehead on her Sherlock's shoulder. "Well," she says.

ferratus
2013-02-06 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Help me out here," says Tony. "Is this a conversation we should be having, or should we all forget it never happened and go get hot chocolate?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Well. I don't know. Do you want to have the conversation?"

ferratus
2013-02-06 06:58 pm (UTC)

"...Yes?" he tries.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. We can have it. Hot chocolate also sounds really good though."

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Great," says Tony. "Other Sherry, I love you very much, but go away."

bitofafiction
2013-02-06 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I am going."

He goes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:08 pm (UTC)

"So, this is awkward," remarks Bell, squeezing her Sherlock's hand hard and making no eye contact with anyone.

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Yep," Tony agrees. "I think we should all get hot chocolate and then go somewhere. Like back home. Or somebody's room."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:12 pm (UTC)

"My room's closest," says Shell Bell.

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Tony. "Hot chocolate first."

They get hot chocolate. They go to Bell's room.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:18 pm (UTC)

Bell sits on her bed.

She looks at her mug, and takes a sip, and then pulls her recorder out of her pocket and mutters an authorization to it and hands it to Sherlock and looks at her mug again.

sicaria
2013-02-06 07:26 pm (UTC)

Sherlock plays the appropriate recording.

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:27 pm (UTC)

"...Oh, man," says Tony. "I wanna hug you. Can I hug you?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Bell, putting her mug on her nightstand.

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:31 pm (UTC)

Tony hugs her.

"So, you probably know this by now, but I really like you," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:32 pm (UTC)

"I like you too," she murmurs.

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, great," he says with a tiny smile, "we've got that much going for us."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," she says with a weak chuckle.

She snuggles up. Snuggling isn't weird, right? She was in the entire Stark-cuddle-pile that one time for a while.

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:39 pm (UTC)

Snuggling is so not weird!

Except maybe when he says, still snuggling: "So, the sex thing. Do you want to?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:41 pm (UTC)

"With all aforementioned caveats," says Bell, "I can give you a... maybe? I don't know. I've been avoiding thinking about it."

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:51 pm (UTC)

"...Why? Have you been avoiding thinking about it, I mean."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Because I'd decided not to do anything, so it was unproductive, at least until circumstances changed."

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Well. Do you wanna think about it now?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I usually -" She gestures at the recorder. "Do my thinking alone, aloud. I'm estimating half an hour, will you be terribly bored?"

ferratus
2013-02-06 07:58 pm (UTC)

"We've got hot chocolate and snuggles," says Tony. "We'll keep. You want us to clear out and wait for you downstairs?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 08:10 pm (UTC)

"If you don't mind. You could check the Belltower, if you do get bored or if I take longer than expected or something."

sicaria
2013-02-06 08:11 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Sherlock. She gives Bell a hug and a quick kiss, then detaches, leading Tony out.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-06 08:15 pm (UTC)

Bell talks to herself.

sicaria
2013-02-06 08:18 pm (UTC)

Tony and Sherlock head downstairs.

They finish their hot chocolate. They snuggle.

They have another round.

self_composed
2013-02-06 08:26 pm (UTC)

They observe a familiar face. (And her also-familiar, oddly pale companion.)

sicaria
2013-02-06 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Hm," says Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-02-06 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Is that...? No, hey, it's totally a new one!"

Tony waves.

self_composed
2013-02-07 01:41 am (UTC)

"...Does one of me know you?" Bella asks Tony, tilting her head. "Hello."

ferratus
2013-02-07 01:45 am (UTC)

"Hi!" he says. "Yes, one of you does! How many of you have you met? Are you new? Have you been to the Belltower?"

self_composed
2013-02-07 01:47 am (UTC)

"Just one other. Why, are there lots? My personnel officer ran into her kid and we've been interacting since. I've been here several times. What's the Belltower?"

ferratus
2013-02-07 01:52 am (UTC)

"I've met two!" says Tony. "You're number three! And Shell Bell, that's ours, she's heard of tons more. She made the Belltower it's for yous to congregate in we can show you if you want come see come see."

He runs out of breath and stops babbling excitedly.

self_composed
2013-02-07 01:53 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell? Oh my word that's precious," laughs Bella. "Belltower? Is it a literal tower in the backyard or something? Because that's what I would do, assuming I could get Bar to give me the local equivalent of a building permit."

ferratus
2013-02-07 01:55 am (UTC)

"Nope, it's a room upstairs," he says. "The Bells are kinda strapped for cash so one of my alts is paying for it."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 01:55 am (UTC)

Alice, meanwhile, is looking at Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-02-07 01:56 am (UTC)

And Sherlock is looking at Alice.

self_composed
2013-02-07 01:58 am (UTC)

"Well, that's silly, if it's a Belltower then a Bella should be covering it. Bar takes imperial asters, I'm not going to run out any time soon," says Bella, grinning. "Let's see the place and I assume it'll convince me to fund it."
Edited 2013-02-07 01:58 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:01 am (UTC)

"This way," says Sherlock.

ferratus
2013-02-07 02:01 am (UTC)

Tony bounces along after her.

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:04 am (UTC)

And Bella follows.

"Well, this is cute," she says. "Very cute indeed for a limited budget. ...That looks like Forks," she adds, peering at one of the landscapes. "Which one put that up, your Shell Bell or the other?"

ferratus
2013-02-07 02:06 am (UTC)

"I think Bell said something about the other one doing the decorating, Sherry what's her official nickname—"

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:06 am (UTC)

"Amariah," says Sherlock. "And I am Sherlock, and this is Tony."

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:09 am (UTC)

"Sherlock? That's a girl's name where you're from?" blinks Bella. "Oh, a guestbook." She picks it up, reads it through lightning-quick, and then picks up the nearby pen and fills it out equally lightning-quick.

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:11 am (UTC)

"Not traditionally. Would you be at all interested in helping Bell take over our world?"

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:18 am (UTC)

"Is she having trouble with it?" Bella asks.

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:19 am (UTC)

"Considerably."

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:23 am (UTC)

"I can fix that," says Bella confidently. "I am extremely magic."

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:25 am (UTC)

"Excellent," says Sherlock. "She will be along in her own time. Would you like me to catch you up on the situation meanwhile? She summarized our troubles in her Bellbook entry, I believe, but I expect you will have questions."

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:28 am (UTC)

"Yes, please do," says Bella, taking a seat and clasping her hands over her knees.

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:33 am (UTC)

"Where would you prefer I start? I don't know how much detail her summary gave you."

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:36 am (UTC)

"You haven't read it? It says your government is lousy and she doesn't have any of her own magic, basically, but I don't know what in particular you're going to need. I can just visit and handle stuff magically myself once I scope it out, but I think she'd probably rather have her own supply. There is a slight complication to magic the way I do it, though," she adds, glancing at Alice.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 02:37 am (UTC)

Shell Bell chooses this moment to walk in. "Hi Sherl- oh wow! Hi! I'm Shell Bell!" she exclaims when she spots the other her.

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:38 am (UTC)

"Hi!" replies Bella. "I've nicknamed myself Stella in your little book. I was about to ask - do you happen to know a cooperative masochist?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 02:38 am (UTC)

"...That's a weird question," says Shell Bell. "I don't think so..."

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:40 am (UTC)

"Ah," says Sherlock.

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:45 am (UTC)

"...Ah?" says Stella-Bella inquisitively. "I ask because my magic system, inconveniently enough, involves turning pain into wishes. I can be the sorceress-empress of the stars with a moon palace and all that good stuff because I have him." She gestures at Alice; the gesture turns into a grab and she kisses his cheek. "Unfortunately, one of the very short list of things that I cannot wish for effectually involves changing the rules about where wishes come from."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 02:45 am (UTC)

Alice beams and hugs her.

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:46 am (UTC)

"I expect I could manage," says Sherlock.

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:50 am (UTC)

Stella peers at her. "I'm not ruling it out, but you aren't one of Alice, and I'm still frankly astounded that he occurs in nature," she says after a pause. "Wishes come in sizes. I think Shell Bell can probably manage without stars - I was planning to for a while - but she'll want at least some hexes, and those are serious business. I have only ever made one, and it was when I was hit by a van and broke most of the bones in my body. If Alice hadn't fixed me up, it's possible I never would have woken up and dubious if I could have walked again or regained the full use of both hands, even so. Does that sound like the sort of thing you could manage - regularly?"

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:54 am (UTC)

"Not with delight, perhaps," she says after a moment. "But if necessary."

self_composed
2013-02-07 02:57 am (UTC)

"There is another possibility, especially if Shell Bell objects to you being not-delighted, which is the distasteful subject of mental editing. Your entry says you don't have the mental opacity thing," Stella says to Shell Bell. "So I could - but even if you don't have the power you probably have the dislike of things fussing with your brain, I imagine that's the first thing you'll wish for. If you want and Sherlock doesn't mind I can just boost whatever Sherlock has to start with."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 02:58 am (UTC)

"I'm... not mentally opaque," agrees Shell Bell. "There was this holiday here, once, and it involved... nonconsensual mind-altering drugs - run if you see red and pink and lace and this shape everywhere -" she gestures. "And they mind-altered me and I did not like it, but Sherlock, you didn't like it either..."

sicaria
2013-02-07 02:59 am (UTC)

"I didn't like it because it confused me," she says. "I am not sure what I think of being edited for amplified masochism."

self_composed
2013-02-07 03:03 am (UTC)

"Well," says Stella, shrugging, "I can also just go spend several hours in one of those bedrooms there with Alice and come out and dump a lot of complimentary wish-coins in your lap, but I think you'll want a supply of new ones, and given the time oddities of Milliways I will not always be able to respond promptly to requests for top-ups. I am happy to help, though. I have an embarrassment of riches. My magic is fucked up but I have a way to use it really, really well."

sicaria
2013-02-07 03:04 am (UTC)

"What do you prefer?" she asks Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 03:06 am (UTC)

"I... don't know," says Shell Bell. "Can you tell us more about how the magic works, Stella?"

self_composed
2013-02-07 03:08 am (UTC)

"That nickname's going to take some getting used to," chuckles Stella. "Yeah. It's good that you've got people working with you already, because the minting power is a little picky about where the pain comes from. I could wish myself a square's worth of pain, but I couldn't make a coin out of it - no bootstrapping. But if I wish Alice a square's worth of pain -" She does, as casually as she might poke him in the arm - "then he can make a square out of it. If I were working alone I'd have to operate solely through physical injury, which I'd certainly find unpleasant and I imagine you would too."

sicaria
2013-02-07 03:10 am (UTC)

"Hm," is all Sherlock says to that.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 03:15 am (UTC)

(Alice grins at his Bella. Alice loves his Bella.)

self_composed
2013-02-07 03:23 am (UTC)

"I can comfortably - well, not literally comfortably, but unproblematically - make triangles and squares," says Stella. She bites the inside of her cheek, and holds up a glowy red square. "These will actually accomplish a fair amount if you're smart about it, although triangles are only for very minor tasks - they'd be an edge, in a world with no magic, but not a decisive one. A square will conjure you a nonmagical object, or give you about five minutes' worth of some nonmagical skill or property - I masochistified myself for a brief period once, before I got hit by the van, when we didn't have a hex to turn Alice into a mint and we were trying to figure out a way for me to tolerate it. It wasn't my favorite experience, and I'm not actually sure if my ingot power would let me do it more sustainably if I tried. Pentagons can do permanent nonmagical skills - languages are what I've done the most, though I can also play the flute and kick ass at aikido and such. Hexes are for permanent magic powers." She floats out of her chair. "And similarly large-scale stuff. And stars... are for terraforming, or eradicating diseases from the face of a planet, things like that."

sicaria
2013-02-07 03:27 am (UTC)

"Could I," says Sherlock, "try this brain edit, and reverse it if I don't like it for some reason?"

self_composed
2013-02-07 03:28 am (UTC)

Bella tosses her the square. "You want help wish-designing or do you think you've got it covered? Oh, and I've already got an agony beam installed, let me know if you want to take it for a test run."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 03:29 am (UTC)

"You're very casual about this," observes Shell Bell.

self_composed
2013-02-07 03:29 am (UTC)

"Blame him," laughs Stella, aiming a thumb at Alice. "Amariah's got one too, the book says, though as of the writing they weren't dating; check up on her later and if you can stomach it ask what they get up to."

sicaria
2013-02-07 03:33 am (UTC)

"Thank you, I believe I have it covered," she says.

The square disappears. She nibbles her lip.

Thoughtfully: "This agony beam of yours, it has settings for different coins' worth? A square's, if you please."

self_composed
2013-02-07 03:35 am (UTC)

"That's a range," says Stella. "Going from ten 'triangles' -" She offers up ten triangles' worth of pain. "Through ninety-nine." She skips up to that, then backs off. "It goes up by orders of magnitude. A hundred and up for a pentagon, a thousand and up for a hex, ten thousand and up for a star, and one time Alice made an eight-pointed thing that I consider probably evil and have not attempted to use."

sicaria
2013-02-07 03:37 am (UTC)

"A thousand, then?" she requests.

self_composed
2013-02-07 03:38 am (UTC)

Bam. Still in "plain". "Because this was designed for Alice, who finds the agony beam to be just about his favorite thing," says Stella dryly, "it comes in flavors. This is plain, but if you have a request, I can oblige. I am like unto an ice cream parlor."

sicaria
2013-02-07 03:42 am (UTC)

"Well," she says, "the masochism edit worked. And I should have no trouble producing hexes if I make it permanent and someone is willing to... beam at me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 03:45 am (UTC)

"I... guess... I can do that?" Bell asks, looking uncertainly at Stella. "Did it take a lot of getting used to?"

self_composed
2013-02-07 03:46 am (UTC)

"Not that much, but it helps that, one, Alice makes fascinating faces when in pain, which Sherlock doesn't appear to, and two, I can read his mind and confirm at whim that he's having fun with it, which my best guess is that Sherlock wouldn't care for," says Stella.

sicaria
2013-02-07 03:48 am (UTC)

"Make her able to read my mind," Sherlock says immediately. "—If you want, Bell."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 03:50 am (UTC)

"Um - are you sure?" Bell asks.

sicaria
2013-02-07 03:55 am (UTC)

"I said I would transmit to you my entire knowledge of the world if I could. I meant it," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 04:00 am (UTC)

"You're sweet," sighs Shell Bell, and she hugs her girlfriend tight. "Okay. Um, how does yours work, Stella? I don't know if I just want the same design that's optimized for Alice."

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:06 am (UTC)

"I get everything in a visual channel as a first pass. He can tell when I'm doing it - Sherlock, that feels like so, but it could be anything - and it's in words and images and symbols for various sensory experiences, mostly, most of the time, with a little blob that changes shape and color and so on to reflect his emotional state. When he doesn't think in words, I get the words I'd be thinking if I had that thought, and if I wouldn't be able to translate it either, then the magic itself makes an attempt - these three possibilities appear in different colors. Otherwise I get a black box, the symbol for something I didn't manage to include - I've updated it a couple times to cut down on those, I get very few anymore. Things are tagged with whether they're current experiences, a memory he's thinking about, an intent, or whatever. Everything has a border in grayscale to indicate affect towards the bordered thing - more white is better. I can 'open' any of these things to get a more detailed look at it, which is not just a visual channel and can be very... heady. Oh, and I can sort through his memories the same way, which feels slightly different on his end, like so."

sicaria
2013-02-07 04:08 am (UTC)

"I see no immediate flaws," says Sherlock. "Except that this visual channel of yours is likely to be very busy."

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:11 am (UTC)

"Very," says Stella. "I have some... boosts. Actually, when Alice turned into a vampire I needed those boosts to not just utterly drown every time I opened up the emotion-blob; vampires have serious mental horsepower. If I'd tried to do without it's entirely possible my ingot power would have decided that mindreading was dangerous and I shouldn't be allowed to do it. Something similar happened to our vampire alt with her daughter. I can give the boosts to Bell too. Actually, Bell should probably just have all the superpowers I do, although it's probably worth explaining them first so she doesn't step off a curb sometime and be confused about why she's floating."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 04:11 am (UTC)

"You can fly?"

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:12 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell," says Stella, almost reproachfully. "Of course I can fly. And if I'm not touching the ground and not paying attention, I default to hover, so I don't fall out of the sky."

sicaria
2013-02-07 04:12 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

ferratus
2013-02-07 04:12 am (UTC)

"I wanna fly too," announces Tony.

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:16 am (UTC)

"You want my design, or your own hex to figure it out yourself?" asks Stella comfortably. "By the way, Shell Bell, these guys get stuff on your say-so, I'm just expecting based on having met the vampire us that you'll be similar enough to me that I can substitute your judgment here - feel entirely free to veto anything." [Including,] she adds, adding Bell to the brainphone, [privately like so and then I'll make up a reason to turn them down on my own.]

ferratus
2013-02-07 04:20 am (UTC)

"My own hex, why not," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 04:22 am (UTC)

Shell Bell nods.

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:22 am (UTC)

Stella squares a hex off her bandolier and tosses it in Tony's direction.

ferratus
2013-02-07 04:24 am (UTC)

Tony catches it.

"Ooh, pretty."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 04:24 am (UTC)

"Thanks," beams Alice.

ferratus
2013-02-07 04:25 am (UTC)

Tony gives him a speculative look.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-07 04:25 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Alice.

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:26 am (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes fondly.

ferratus
2013-02-07 04:29 am (UTC)

Tony's hex goes.

He rises off the floor a little, like a tiny hop without engaging his muscles.

"Awesome," he laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 04:31 am (UTC)

"I think we should have a long conversation about your superpowers," Bell tells Stella seriously.

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:33 am (UTC)

"Can do!" grins Stella.

She explains invisibility, suppressible regeneration, the brain boosts (recall, speed, and capacity), the brainphone, her weather tolerance, the lack of need to breathe, her various defense hexes, spy detection, vision buff, the mess she has made of her sleep "cycle", her illusion viewer, the superspeed, and teleportation. She also mentions several relevant pentagons, most particularly grace.

sicaria
2013-02-07 04:35 am (UTC)

Sherlock listens in fascination.

ferratus
2013-02-07 04:36 am (UTC)

Tony gets bored and goes off to make out with Alice.

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:37 am (UTC)

"What can I interest you in?" Stella asks Shell Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 04:37 am (UTC)

"Um, all of that?" says Shell Bell, half laughing, half hungry.

sicaria
2013-02-07 04:38 am (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:41 am (UTC)

"One 'all of that' coming right up," says Stella. Hexes go, not that Shell Bell can notice them except by the sudden additions of senses and flexible powers under her control. "Sherlock, what about you?"

sicaria
2013-02-07 04:43 am (UTC)

"I would like a pentagon with which to achieve masochism," she says, "and the coin power itself, suppressible regeneration, and everything you've done to improve your brain."
Edited 2013-02-07 04:43 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:45 am (UTC)

"You want to do these yourself? You can still copy mine that way," offers Stella. "That's usually what Alice does when he wants one - although his regen is different from mine; mine anaesthetizes and his hurts all by itself."

sicaria
2013-02-07 04:48 am (UTC)

"Given the givens, I'd prefer his version," she says. "I have no opinion on which one of us should accomplish the wishing."

self_composed
2013-02-07 04:50 am (UTC)

"Coming right up," says Stella again. And a moment later: "There you go. Although with you and Bell having the same cognitive boosts she's going to have trouble keeping up with you if she reads you."

sicaria
2013-02-07 04:51 am (UTC)

Sherlock closes her eyes and smiles.

"I will slow down occasionally," she says to Bell, "to let you catch up."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 04:59 am (UTC)

"You're sweet," repeats Bell, and she places a kiss on Sherlock's cheek.

self_composed
2013-02-07 05:00 am (UTC)

"So, can I ask," Stella says, pointing between the two, "how'd this happen? Me and Vampire Bella are both straight."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:02 am (UTC)

"...The aforementioned mind-altering drugs helped," Shell Bell says. "I mean, I did it on purpose - but first the holiday thing had to... show me what it would be like? And then I could."

self_composed
2013-02-07 05:02 am (UTC)

"That is the most screwed up way to celebrate Valentine's Day of all time," opines Stella.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:02 am (UTC)

"Is that what it's called? We don't have it."

self_composed
2013-02-07 05:03 am (UTC)

"Hearts and lace and pink and red and love potions? Yes. That's a fucked-up Valentine's Day."

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:03 am (UTC)

"Noted," says Sherlock.

self_composed
2013-02-07 05:07 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry that happened to you," Stella says gently to Shell Bell. "Although it seems to have worked out over the longer term."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:09 am (UTC)

"We slept through most of it, and yeah, it did work out," Shell Bell says. "But yeah. Thank you."

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:13 am (UTC)

Sherlock smiles at Stella.

self_composed
2013-02-07 05:22 am (UTC)

"Oh, and I need to give you a mental defense star," says Stella, snapping her fingers. "Since you don't come with it. I can't even wish that for myself; it fails for redundancy. There you go, Shell Bell."

(She explains stars to Bell privately by brainphone, and aloud, says:) "Sherlock, unless Bell tells you the trick I just told her, do not attempt to use stars. They are mean and they will hurt you."

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:23 am (UTC)

"Noted," she repeats.

self_composed
2013-02-07 05:29 am (UTC)

"If you decide not to tell her immediately - oh, Alice doesn't know it, please don't say it aloud - you might want to magic up some kind of deadman switch arrangement so she can get at it if something miraculously gets through all your layers of magic awesome," Stella tells Shell Bell. "I don't know if stars can resurrect the dead, I haven't tried it yet, but it wouldn't astound me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:29 am (UTC)

"I'll think about it," Shell Bell promises.

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:33 am (UTC)

Sherlock considers, and then says nothing.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:36 am (UTC)

"What?" Shell Bell asks, observing the contemplative face.

(She could just read it, but that seems rude.)

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:37 am (UTC)

"I want to know," she says. "But you said you would think about it, so I will wait until you have before I ask."

self_composed
2013-02-07 05:40 am (UTC)

"Like I said, Alice doesn't know," Stella says. "The person who told me knows, and Lazarus, who can see magic and would probably have figured it out just by looking at stars enough, knows. No one else. Stars are a big deal."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:41 am (UTC)

"I understand. That's why I have to think about it instead of just telling her right away," says Shell Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:42 am (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:43 am (UTC)

Pause.

"May I?" she asks, touching Sherlock's shoulder.

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:44 am (UTC)

She nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:50 am (UTC)

Bell closes her eyes and looks.

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:53 am (UTC)

Sherlock's mind is—still, but not silent. She perceives. She notes every movement in her field of vision, catalogues the pressure of Bell's fingers on her shoulder, maintains a constant awareness of nearby sounds and passing scents. She is motionlessly alert.

Most of her affect-greys are neutral middle tones. Every fragment of thought or sensation connected to Bell is white.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:55 am (UTC)

Bell is instantly seized with a need to hug her. She makes no effort to deny this need.

"I love you," she sighs into Sherlock's ear.

sicaria
2013-02-07 05:57 am (UTC)

"I love you too," she says, grinning and hugging back.

This is what she meant when she called Bell a continual epiphany: this feeling like the satisfaction when you set the last piece of a puzzle in its place, multiplied and extended and carrying on into eternity.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-07 05:59 am (UTC)

Bell pokes at that.

She doesn't stop hugging Sherlock for a while.

self_composed
2013-02-07 05:59 am (UTC)

Stella slips off into the unoccupied bedroom; it's backwards, but they seem like they might not want supervision.

points of failure

self_composed

Mars has more people on it now. Bella has conjured herself a crown of seamless moissanite and star sapphire, and wears it around most of the time. She does something nice for Earth every Cygnus and makes routine public appearances, with the PR guy Libby found for her on the brainphone steering her away from missteps. (Most missteps. Occasionally she just disagrees with him.) Life is good.

It happens one day that she attempts to read Alice, thinking it about time to top off her supply of coins - and besides, even if it weren't, she does like to spend time with her boyfriend - and - he's not there.

Her first reaction is panic. She has known from the beginning that a contest between them would come down to reaction time. Did she screw up by introducing him to Ghosty - did something else happen - does some switch trip in the relevant template at a certain age, is hers decent only because he's young - has he blocked her off with his considerable power and begun to wreak havoc?

But of course there's a much more reasonable explanation. He's in Milliways, that's all, he found a door and wandered off without thinking to notify her.

Because visits to Milliways take only moments worldside. This has been true even when they've been into other's worlds: the door is at a very narrow slice of time except when held open.

But she checks again a minute later.

And he's still not there.

Is he dead? Did he think of - stumble across - cook up some way to die that would be so fascinating that he had to try it right then, without consulting her, without thinking of her and how it would hurt her at all, without knowing if stars can revive the dead -

Or did he, somehow, in spite of what is now magically bolstered love for her -

Decide not to come back at all?

She's getting ahead of herself. She can find out if he went to Milliways or not. She -

Stops before completing her wish.

If he's gone - if he's not coming back soon, or at all - then she has to work at least for a while with the coins she already has.

She will not spend a pentagon to see this one snippet of the past. She will spend a hex to gain past-viewing as a stable power she can use whenever she wants. If she chooses the right powers to make with her current supply of hexes, she may be able to coast for many years with almost no individual wishes larger than a square. Now that she has the template of Olympus to draw on she's sure she could find a way to compress wishes for more cities - maybe even planetsful of cities - into single stars, and she has a lot of stars from the days Alice spent turning.

And there have got to be other masochists in the world. Some might be comparable, or people like Shell Bell's Sherlock who'll willingly be made so.

Her empire will go on just fine.

Bella's just not sure - when she's finished designing and installing the power, when she's finished watching Alice casually walk through the kitchen door in his lair to Milliways instead and not come out - whether she will.

self_composed
2013-02-07 08:58 pm (UTC)

[Libby,] says Bella. [There is a problem.]

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 09:00 pm (UTC)

[My favourite sentence,] she says, dryly but not unsympathetically. [What's up?]
Edited 2013-02-07 21:06 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-07 09:10 pm (UTC)

[Alice walked into Milliways about an hour ago and didn't mention he was going. He hasn't come out. I'm aware that sometimes Milliways is just uncooperative, but it hasn't been to us before, and I have to consider the possibility that he's managed to die or find something more interesting than being the consort of a space empress, mate bond notwithstanding. And that means that - quite apart from my personal reaction to his disappearance - I need to think about replacing him in a more functional capacity. I think I can get notes to everyone who might be able to usefully take over with a hex, maybe a star, but then assuming there's a bunch of them they have to be pared down, and they have to be trustworthy, because this would involve making them a mint.]

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 09:14 pm (UTC)

[Well,] says Libby. [I'm sorry to hear that. And you can sign me right up to vet the candidates.]
Edited 2013-02-07 21:14 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-07 09:16 pm (UTC)

[Thanks. I'll want to do the last pass of interviews, but I'd like it pared down some. Shall I just put your @eos email address on the note?]

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 09:17 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

self_composed
2013-02-07 09:27 pm (UTC)

[Okay. I'm going to see if I can't just do it on myself, but I have the suspicion that my ingot power won't allow it...]

She checks.

Her ingot power won't allow it.

[Aaaand I'm right. Okay. My note draft looks like "A magical process, unmonitored in its details by any person, has determined that you may possess a skill which is essential to a position the Empire of the Stars is currently hiring for. If you may be interested, please email libby@eos.eos, or, if email is inaccessible, tear this note into eight pieces of any size and your identity and location will be noted. Any other response to this note will not alert anyone to the fact that you were among those contacted, and you should feel free to do so." I guess it's a bit complicated, but I can't really see working with anyone who doesn't understand that level of complexity anyway unless the circumstances get really dire. Can you interview them without explaining what exactly they're interviewing for? I'm going to want a magically enforced nondisclosure thingy and it'd be slightly more expensive for you to be able to do it as well.]

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 09:34 pm (UTC)

[I can absolutely interview people without explaining what exactly they're interviewing for,] says Libby.

self_composed
2013-02-07 09:36 pm (UTC)

[I thought so. You're awesome,] says Bella. [Any suggestions on the note?]

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 09:39 pm (UTC)

[Do you have languages and accessibility covered? Will it appear in Braille for a blind recipient?]

self_composed
2013-02-07 09:41 pm (UTC)

[Languages yes - I hadn't thought of Braille, I'll do that. I suppose as long as I'm trying to be discreet I should also arrange for the note to appear when the recipient is alone.]

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 09:50 pm (UTC)

[Good idea,] she says. [Not that it will prevent rumours. I have no idea how common this kind of... talent... is, but if there's enough notes, it'll get around.]

self_composed
2013-02-07 09:52 pm (UTC)

[I'm going to filter for some other characteristics too - people who don't love their current job, for one thing. I don't want you to have to interview half a million people.]

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 09:52 pm (UTC)

[Much appreciated,] says Libby.

self_composed
2013-02-07 10:00 pm (UTC)

[I'm a good boss that way,] Bella asserts. [Okay. Going to send now.]

Bella can't do it with a hex. She spends a star, biting her lip. (At least she mass-declawed them after Alice turned and her supply of hexes doesn't have to be balanced against her supply of stars.)

Over the next day or so, masochists of Alice's caliber, or who would welcome becoming of same, who do not have jobs they like, who are not vehemently opposed to the Empire of the Stars or particularly wary of magic, who according to a naive and loose magical evaluation are reasonably bright and decent - receive notes.

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 10:09 pm (UTC)

Libby starts doing interviews.

She has to shift a lot of priorities to get them all down as fast as she wants to. Once or twice she has to pentagon a language. She does them in batches, and then she goes home and thinks hard about the people she's just met and whether or not she would trust them with the world.

It's a week before she gets back to Bella with a first-pass list of names, and it's a short list.

self_composed
2013-02-07 10:18 pm (UTC)

Bella emails them both.

The emails, one addressed to Anna Reeve and one to Sandy Buford, read:

Hello! My personnel officer has shortlisted you; congratulations. When are you available to be teleported to Mars for an interview with me?

- the Empress of the Stars

She hits send.

She sighs, and closes her computer, and teleports to Alice's lair and hugs herself.

guiltless
2013-02-07 10:41 pm (UTC)

Sandy answers first, about five minutes after she sends the email.
This Sunday?

self_composed
2013-02-07 10:42 pm (UTC)

What time? (And in what timezone?)

guiltless
2013-02-07 10:52 pm (UTC)

Anywhere from noon to 9, I'm free all day, but earlier's better. Toronto.

self_composed
2013-02-07 10:58 pm (UTC)

All right, I'll see you then.

Sunday's a few days away. She avoids using too much of her stash, although on Cygnus she eliminates as many forms of cancer as she can fit onto a single star-wish.
Edited 2013-02-07 22:58 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:05 pm (UTC)

Anna emails on Friday.
Sunday at 3pm or so (for me, I'm in Montreal) would be good! :)

self_composed
2013-02-07 11:11 pm (UTC)

[Is it a coincidence that they're both from Canada?] Bella asks Libby, as she writes back to Anna:

Works for me.

She'll go see Sandy first; she can go at noon sharp and if she hasn't decided on him one way or another by the time she needs to go visit Anna she can schedule another.
Edited 2013-02-07 23:12 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-02-07 11:17 pm (UTC)

[Yep,] says Libby. [These things happen when you take a very small sample from a very small sample of a very large set.]

self_composed
2013-02-07 11:19 pm (UTC)

[Huh.]

On Sunday, at noon sharp, Bella turns invisible and teleports to Sandy's location to scope the place out and make sure he's as ready as he claimed.

guiltless
2013-02-07 11:28 pm (UTC)

On Sunday at noon sharp, Sandy is in his apartment, which is small and poorly maintained and generally a mess. He's just pouring himself a glass of orange juice in his tiny kitchen.

self_composed
2013-02-07 11:29 pm (UTC)

Bella returns to visibility once he's no longer pouring. "Hello," she says. "Ready to go? You can bring your juice if you like."

guiltless
2013-02-07 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Bguk," splutters Sandy. "Whoa. Um. Hi! Yeah, I... guess...?" Purely on automatic, he picks up the glass.

self_composed
2013-02-07 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Bella, amused in spite of herself, and she teleports them and the orange juice to a suitable room for interviews in Marspire. "Welcome to Olympus."

guiltless
2013-02-07 11:37 pm (UTC)

Sandy goes straight to the nearest window.

"Whoa," he says again, softer, more reverent.

self_composed
2013-02-07 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it nice?" Bella says, affecting a chatty tone. She has decided not to tell anyone that she is - was? - has been known to be dating the previous occupant of the job they're interviewing for, so acting bereft will not serve her. "I'm very pleased with the place. Now. The note you got and the interview you had with my personnel officer didn't tell you what this is all about, did they?"

guiltless
2013-02-07 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says, looking back at her and grinning a little. "It's all very mysterious."

self_composed
2013-02-07 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Ideally, I'd like it to stay that way to the general public. So, should you agree to continue the interview, it will be under a non-disclosure agreement." Pause. "An enforced non-disclosure agreement. If you're not willing to be literally unable to discuss the rest of what we talk about today, then I'll teleport you - and your remaining orange juice - back home and that'll be that."

guiltless
2013-02-07 11:49 pm (UTC)

"...Um..." he says, "...yeah, you're not gonna answer any of the like a million questions I suddenly have until I agree to your magic thingy, are you."

self_composed
2013-02-07 11:50 pm (UTC)

"That's about the size of it," agrees Bella pleasantly.

guiltless
2013-02-07 11:53 pm (UTC)

He gives her a sizing-up kind of look.

Then he says, "Sure, okay."

self_composed
2013-02-07 11:55 pm (UTC)

Bella notes the geas she empowered herself to set up before starting these interviews snap into place.

"Grand," she says. Unobtrusively, she digs the corner of one toenail into the neighboring toe, and a triangle appears in her palm. "This," she says, "is a wish coin."

guiltless
2013-02-08 12:09 am (UTC)

"...o...kay," says Sandy.

self_composed
2013-02-08 12:13 am (UTC)

"Wishcoins are extremely useful. This is just a little one, but they come in a variety of power levels. As the name implies, they let you make wishes. A triangle like this can, say - flip a lightswitch from across the room, or heat up lunch that's been left sitting on the counter for a few minutes. A square can conjure something - like my crown. Pentagons can grant someone a permanent nonmagical skill, like a language. Hexagons can do permanent magical superpowers, which is how I can teleport and fly and so on. Seven-pointed stars are what I used for terraforming this place. They're very convenient. The only inconvenient thing about them is how they have to be made." She sighs. "Wishcoins are made out of pain."

guiltless
2013-02-08 12:18 am (UTC)

His head rocks back a little and his eyebrows fly up.

But he doesn't actually say anything.

self_composed
2013-02-08 12:21 am (UTC)

"I can make triangles and squares. I could make pentagons if I had to. I have made one hexagon and I was not in that situation voluntarily," says Bella. "I had help, someone who could cheerfully make even the star kind for days on end if the situation called for it, and he has wandered off to another dimension and I don't know if he's coming back. I have a non-wish-based magical power that, for the most part, is very useful, but it will not let me edit myself to be able to comfortably make larger coins. Hence the... job posting."

guiltless
2013-02-08 12:24 am (UTC)

"So," he says slowly, "you... sent a magic note to everybody who could take over for the guy who quit?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 12:25 am (UTC)

"Filtered for some other criteria too, but yes."

(Quit. She decides not to react to that word. It's the obvious conclusion from what she told him and she doesn't know what the correct one is anyway.)

guiltless
2013-02-08 12:36 am (UTC)

"So what's the actual job? I mean, do I get paid for this?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 12:38 am (UTC)

"The job is making coins. I have an -" She makes air quotes - "'agony beam', or you could arrange it on your own in some more usual way if you preferred. You'd get paid, yes, and you could keep some fraction of any coins you made for personal use - although there is a trick to stars and I must ask that you never try one of those."

guiltless
2013-02-08 12:42 am (UTC)

"Um," he says. "...Can I think about it?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 12:45 am (UTC)

"Of course. I have a stash; I don't need to hire someone today, or even this month. You can email me when you'd like to talk again - I still have to be convinced that I want to hand you phenomenal cosmic power, after all," she says with a slight smile.

guiltless
2013-02-08 12:48 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure I'd want to hand me phenomenal cosmic power," he says. "How are you gonna tell if you do?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 12:50 am (UTC)

"There's..." She shrugs. "Options. Geases like the nondisclosure agreement, maybe. I could read the last guy's mind, but I don't think I'd better make that an employment requirement. Libby likes you enough to have put you on the shortlist. That counts for a fair bit."

guiltless
2013-02-08 12:55 am (UTC)

"Libby's kinda scary," he says, somewhat approvingly.

self_composed
2013-02-08 12:56 am (UTC)

"I briefly considered her my nemesis," agrees Bella. "But now she works for me."

guiltless
2013-02-08 12:56 am (UTC)

...Sandy cracks up.

"Seriously? That's awesome."

self_composed
2013-02-08 12:58 am (UTC)

"Yes. Yes it is." She mentally consults the time; it is nowhere near her appointment with Anna. "What else would you like to know? Or tell me, for that matter? If you had as many wishes as you were willing to suffer through the requisite discomfort for, as opposed to the traditional three..." She shrugs. "What would you wish for?"

guiltless
2013-02-08 01:08 am (UTC)

He blows out a breath, and thinks about it.

"If I had unlimited magic to throw around... I'd want a planet," he decides. "I don't know whether I'd make it or find one I liked and move in. But I'd have my own planet, and I'd live there and just make stuff all the time." As an afterthought, "I'd give myself magic Internet, too. You can do that, right?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 01:10 am (UTC)

"Olympus has magic internet free to all residents with internet-friendly devices," agrees Bella. "It was easier to just make my own ISP than to figure out how to wire the place traditionally. I have not yet taken the step of installing a web browser in my brain, but it's occurred to me. A planet's kind of big for one person. Why a planet and not a moon or an asteroid?"

guiltless
2013-02-08 01:14 am (UTC)

"Because I'd want to make big things," he says, gesturing expansively. "Mountain ranges. Floating castles. There's only so many of those you can fit on a moon before it starts getting crowded."

self_composed
2013-02-08 01:15 am (UTC)

"I have a castle on the moon," muses Bella. "It doesn't float. It doesn't take up that much room, either."

guiltless
2013-02-08 01:27 am (UTC)

"I could start with a moon, I guess," he says. Half-smiling: "If you don't want me crowding up too much of your solar system with my crap."

self_composed
2013-02-08 01:29 am (UTC)

Bella waves a hand. "I'm going to colonize the entire galaxy. Giving one person who's helping me do that proprietorship of Mercury or permission to occupy some currently unoccupied solar orbital shell with a new planet isn't a big deal. If I hire you and you stay on long enough."

guiltless
2013-02-08 01:34 am (UTC)

"You know, I'm liking this job more and more," he says. "But I still wanna sleep on it."

self_composed
2013-02-08 01:34 am (UTC)

"Sure. Do you want me to take you home now?"

guiltless
2013-02-08 01:39 am (UTC)

"...Okay," he decides. "Sure. I can just email you if I think of any really urgent questions, right?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 01:42 am (UTC)

"Sure can," she agrees. And she teleports them back to his squalid little residence.

guiltless
2013-02-08 01:51 am (UTC)

He hasn't even sipped his orange juice, although it's still in his hand. He does that now.

self_composed
2013-02-08 01:54 am (UTC)

"Bye," she says, waving cheerfully, and she goes back to Marspire. There's a while to kill before Anna will be expecting her, and she blocked off this entire afternoon in expectation of Sandy's interview taking longer.

Usually she'd kill the spare hour flying or designing cities or something.

Today -

She takes a nap that is exactly one hour long.

In Alice's bed, in Alice's lair.

And then she wakes up and triangles her hair presentable and teleports invisibly to Montreal.

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:56 am (UTC)

Anna lives in a slightly better and considerably tidier apartment. When Bella arrives, she's just finishing a herringbone braid on her hair.
Edited 2013-02-08 01:57 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-08 01:58 am (UTC)

Bella becomes visible. "Hi, Anna," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:02 am (UTC)

She drops the end of her braid.

"Whoa, warn a girl!" she exclaims, fumbling to pick it back up and tie it off. "...I mean hi."

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:03 am (UTC)

"My fault," says Bella. A triangle from biting the inside of her lip snugs the dropped bits and attachs the hairtie. "There you go. For future reference, what kind of warning do you want?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:04 am (UTC)

"...You could maybe knock," she says. "On the door."

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:06 am (UTC)

"I should probably pick up that habit," agrees Bella. "Will do. Ready to go to Mars?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:09 am (UTC)

Anna laughs, examines her magically tied hair, and nods. "Sure."

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:11 am (UTC)

Teleportation!

Bella explains the non-disclosure agreement just the same way as she did for Sandy.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:12 am (UTC)

Anna regards her skeptically, then says, "...Okay..."

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:14 am (UTC)

And there goes the geas.

She makes a triangle. "This is a wishcoin," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:16 am (UTC)

"Wish for or wish with?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:22 am (UTC)

"Wish with. Wanna try? This one will only do itty-bitty things, like finishing up your braid for you," Bella says, sliding the triangle across the table.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:26 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Anna.

She takes the coin. She wishes.

She brings her braid over her shoulder to inspect it: it is now a different kind entirely.

"Cool," she declares.

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:29 am (UTC)

"Nicely chosen experiment. Now, the reason that one only does little bitty things is because it's a triangle. There are also squares, pentagons, hexagons, seven-pointed stars, and I have exactly one eight-pointed three-dimensional thing that isn't particularly coinlike. Wishcoins are very convenient; the more points they've got, the more they can do. The inconvenient thing about them is where they come from." Pause, breath, eye contact. "Wishcoins are made of pain."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:37 am (UTC)

"Thaaaaaaat's creepy," says Anna.

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:44 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I know, my original assessment was along the lines of 'these are fucked-up magic powers,'" Bella agrees. "It's not something I can edit, not even with a star. I cannot make it so that wishcoins are made out of sunshine. They're just made of pain. More pain, pointier coin. I can make triangles and squares. I can make pentagons if I have to. I made a hexagon once, and I wasn't in that situation on purpose. And I used to have help, who could manufacture stars for days on end if the situation called for it, but he has wandered into another dimension and I don't know whether to expect him back - but I have to assume he's gone. Hence, job posting."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:46 am (UTC)

"Job posting for... people who like pain?" she hazards. "Wow, okay, not something I ever thought would land me a job."

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:50 am (UTC)

"I filtered for some other criteria too, but, yeah, that's the big one," says Bella. "I'd do it myself, but I have a native magic power - and native trumps wished and mine does not like the idea of my being adjusted that way."
Edited 2013-02-08 02:51 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:53 am (UTC)

"What other criteria?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 02:56 am (UTC)

"You don't have a job that you like - I don't know whether you have none at all or just don't like the one you have. You aren't, at least in principle, anti-Empire-of-the-Stars or weirded out by magic. And according to a naive, loose, magically-handled definition of the terms, you are reasonably bright and decent."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:59 am (UTC)

Anna quirks a smile.

"Well, okay," she says. "So... how much do these things hurt?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:01 am (UTC)

"Depends on the coin," says Bella, spreading her hands. "I'm not going to sugar-coat it - for the big ones it's a lot. When I made the only hexagon I have ever made, I was hit by a van, broke most of the bones in my body, and might never have woken, let alone walked again, if my previous coinmaking helper hadn't patched me up. Stars are worse. It goes up exponentially per coin type in a unit I call 'triangles' because it's the minimum amount of pain to make one triangle - just a pinprick will do. So a square is what you get for anything in the range of ten to ninety-nine triangles."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:03 am (UTC)

"...What happens if I can't churn these things out like you need me to? Or are you that sure your magic note was on the ball?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:08 am (UTC)

"Magic is pretty good about this sort of thing," Bella says. "And while I can't make myself the right amount of masochist, it is an achievable edit for brains that aren't walled in like mine. And if you don't work out for some other reason, no big deal, I send you your last paycheck and you can go home or live on Mars like a regular Martian or whatever, although any coins you do make would still have to be dealt with appropriately."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:09 am (UTC)

She raises her eyebrows. "Dealt with appropriately meaning...?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:13 am (UTC)

"I don't really care if there are triangles floating around, as long as I don't have to deal with the PR issue of people knowing what constitutes them," says Bella, waving a hand. "Triangles aren't a big deal. Squares and up, though, can be, especially stars, which are mean and which you should not ever try to use. Martian ground rules prevent people from doing nasty things to each other, but there is a magic door to Earth right in the middle of this city. So I'd want to have the coins, or I'd want to be sure that you weren't giving them out like party favors and were using them responsibly. The last occupant of this position invited me to read his mind. I don't want to make that a condition of employment, but I do want to take the fact that I'm giving out phenomenal cosmic power very seriously."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:22 am (UTC)

"I am not super keen on you reading my mind," says Anna. "But I'm almost hesitant to ask what else you'd do to make sure I'm not, I don't know, handing out... pentagons?... on the sly."

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:23 am (UTC)

"Geases like the nondisclosure agreement are an option," Bella says. "I'm open to suggestions."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:24 am (UTC)

"Ehhhhhh, geases against what," she says, looking uneasy.

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:31 am (UTC)

"Letting coins you make leave your possession except in specified ways?" suggests Bella, shrugging. "The way I designed the power, I can release a geas - or even remove just parts of it, as long as the result is strictly less binding than the original - at any time, so there would be opportunities to revise it if it turned out to be inconvenient."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:33 am (UTC)

"That's probably okay," she decides after a moment.

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:39 am (UTC)

Bella nods. "I don't expect most people to want 'mindreading subject' as part of their job description," she says ruefully. "Do you have more questions? Or anything you want to tell me? I'd let you keep some reasonable fraction of the hexes and smaller you made, if I hire you; what would you do with them?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:42 am (UTC)

"Um... boring things," she says. "Make my life more comfortable."

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:48 am (UTC)

Bella tilts her head, inviting elaboration.

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:51 am (UTC)

"Like... stop buying clothes and groceries and getting my hair cut and whatever and just do all that by magic," she says. "And maybe move somewhere nicer, if I figured out some way to turn magic into money that's not totally sleazy, or you paid me really well."

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:55 am (UTC)

"You realize that even if nothing further comes of this conversation at all you can just move to Mars and eat food out of the replicator," says Bella. "Olympus isn't full yet."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:56 am (UTC)

"I like Montreal, though," she says wistfully.

self_composed
2013-02-08 03:58 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's what I always hear when people list problems they could solve by moving to Mars and I ask them why they don't," says Bella. "Well, not Montreal in particular, but whatever pleasing city they are occupying."
Edited 2013-02-08 03:59 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:02 am (UTC)

"That's because people like places," says Anna. "I mean, Mars is gorgeous, but it's not... home."

self_composed
2013-02-08 04:03 am (UTC)

"I confess I expected the free food and magic public healthcare to attract more people than it has," Bella says conversationally. "But I am getting settlers at a reasonable clip."

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:05 am (UTC)

"People might also not believe you about those things," Anna points out. "I mean, even I'm not totally sure, and I'm here."

self_composed
2013-02-08 04:09 am (UTC)

Bella spreads her hands. "Yeah, that's a problem. It's possible I should have charged some pittance and spouted bull about economies of scale. But that seems like such a wretched thing to do. I can give it away for free, I want to give it away for free, all I want to do is wear a crown and introduce myself as Empress of the Stars and have some actual happy citizens to back that up - finessing a complicated signaling game to do less of what I want doesn't appeal."

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:10 am (UTC)

...Anna smiles. "Yeah, I get you."

self_composed
2013-02-08 04:17 am (UTC)

"I'm so glad," Bella grins. "So. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Demonstrations of responsible behavior likely to correlate with the nondestructive use of wishcoins?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:32 pm (UTC)

"I don't think my win there is gonna be how responsible I am," Anna says frankly. "I think it's gonna be how boring."

self_composed
2013-02-08 04:46 pm (UTC)

"What do you do with your time?" asks Bella, tilting her head. "I know if you have a job you don't like it; what do you like?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Nightclubs," she says. "Loud music. Making out with strangers. Watching kinky porn. Avoiding my boyfriend."

self_composed
2013-02-08 04:57 pm (UTC)

"...Avoiding your boyfriend?" Kind of an intrusive question, but Anna's the one who mentioned it.

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:58 pm (UTC)

"He lives in Ottawa," she says airily, "it's not hard."

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:05 pm (UTC)

If Bella's boyfriend were here she wouldn't be talking to Anna and she certainly wouldn't be avoiding him.

"Why is he your boyfriend if you prefer to avoid him, is more what had me confused," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:11 pm (UTC)

"He's kind of hard to break up with?" she says. "I mean, it's not like he stalks me or anything, it's just we've been together for a while and there's always more of each other's stuff to give back and then he brings me flowers and we end up accidentally on another date and... why am I telling an empress about my love life," she laughs. "Sorry."

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I asked," Bella points out. "But you can or not, as you choose."

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:20 pm (UTC)

"No, it's okay," she says with a smile. "Anyways, that's me. Too much of a pushover to stay broken up with a guy I don't even get along with that well."

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:22 pm (UTC)

"That's... not actually an asset, if I hire you and then anyone figures out what your job is in spite of the fact that you can't tell them," Bella points out.

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:27 pm (UTC)

She blinks. "Because... what, Davey will weasel magic out of me? No way! I don't even lend him money anymore."

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Not necessarily him, but you did just describe yourself as a pushover; I think the concern is reasonable," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Well... yeah," she says, frowning. "I guess. I don't know. I don't think it's really the same deal."

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:32 pm (UTC)

"No?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:34 pm (UTC)

"No! I mean, what are you afraid I'll do?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm afraid that someone - not necessarily Davey, could be a neighbor or a family member or a friend - will figure out what you do for a living. Or will just notice that everything is suddenly working out a lot nicer for you and determine that you have something going on. We can arrange for you to be unable to distribute coins, some small mercy, but I can't think of an unintrusive way to make sure the people in your life can't have leading conversations with you about what they'd do with magic or about my politics or about how they really don't like that one guy down the street or whatever. Even if we set it up so all the coins you make teleport to my stash instantaneously and I give you an allowance, instead of the setup where you've got a quota to manage on your own or with my help and can keep the excess... you'll have some access to magic, or I shouldn't be trusting you with mint powers in the first place."

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, wait," she says. "Would it be bad if I started giving my friends stuff? Not coins, I mean, stuff. I don't know, a magic haircut or a hot skirt or an out-of-print book or whatever."

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I give my friends stuff all the time. The stuff itself isn't a big deal. The information - and the possible badgering - could be, depending on who gets it. You're still dating a guy you don't get along with; are you still friends with someone pushy who'll take the appearance of an out of print book as a cue to tell you to curse their enemies or wish them exceptions to Mars's ground rules just this once, or...?" She waves a hand.

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but why would I do those things," says Anna. "Like, that's the difference, is that dating me is something Davey does and I let him, not something I do."

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:57 pm (UTC)

Bella peers at her quizzically. "Dating Davey is not a thing you do?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Not anymore," she snorts.

self_composed
2013-02-08 05:59 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks at her. "...Do you need help? Like, even if I don't hire you, do you need help?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:01 pm (UTC)

"—Um?" says Anna.

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:04 pm (UTC)

"If you lived on Mars you could 'block' him. Mars works like some websites in that way," says Bella. "I haven't installed that on Earth yet - I try to confine my work there to things that no one can object to without sounding evil, like eradicating malaria - but if you don't want to hear from him again and he's making that difficult, that can be arranged."

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:10 pm (UTC)

"...Block him like how?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, how it works on Mars is that if Andy decides to block Betty, they don't exist for each other. They can walk right through each other, certainly can see through each other and don't hear any sounds the other produces. They can't enter each other's apartments. There's some weirdness if they're in the same place at the same time and one of them is visibly interacting with an object, but I couldn't come up with a good way to get around that. If I were handling your case individually it could be more customized."

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:19 pm (UTC)

"That... honestly sounds kind of creepy and weird," Anna admits. "But also kind of tempting? But in a creepy, weird way." She sighs. "Maybe I should just move to Mars."
Edited 2013-02-08 18:20 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Mars is very nice," says Bella pleasantly. "But there's no particular reason you can't work from Montreal, whether you want to make your coins alone or not, since I can teleport."

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Mars is very nice and it's too far for Davey to drive up for a weekend," she says.

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:30 pm (UTC)

"That too," agrees Bella. "Palo Alto is nowhere nearby Ottawa."

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Yep. So." Anna shrugs. "Much as I love Montreal, if I get magic I can just teleport there myself, right?"

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Takes a hex," agrees Bella. "If you got the note in the first place that's probably not a problem for you."

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:37 pm (UTC)

"So yeah," she says, "I mean, if you decide I can have the job, I think I'll move here."

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Anything else you want to ask or think I should know, before we call it a day?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:45 pm (UTC)

"...Nah," she says, "I don't think so."

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Want to go home, or wander around Mars a bit first?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I will totally wander around Mars," she says with a bright smile.

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay." [Poof, you're on the telepathy network, just say when you want a lift home.]

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:50 pm (UTC)

...She laughs. [Cool!]

self_composed
2013-02-08 06:53 pm (UTC)

[Isn't it though? Elevator out of the tower is that way,] Bella says, pointing. [Enjoy!]

She teleports to Alice's lair again, and lets her smile fall.

Bad enough to lose her boyfriend. Worse to have to interview potential replacements.

But he might never come back. And she has other things to do.

(She is glad she didn't turn herself into a vampire. Golden Bella was in no shape to run the world during the years she spent without Edward.)

nonbird
2013-02-08 06:54 pm (UTC)

[Bella?] says Lazarus, about half an hour later.

self_composed
2013-02-08 07:20 pm (UTC)

[Mm?]

nonbird
2013-02-08 07:21 pm (UTC)

[Who's that vaguely familiar ingot who wandered through Marspire a few hours ago?]

self_composed
2013-02-08 07:37 pm (UTC)

A few hours ago. So, Sandy, not Anna. [He's an ingot? Must not have been one of the ones I tracked down. What does he do?]

nonbird
2013-02-08 07:40 pm (UTC)

[I have no idea,] Lazarus admits. [But it's really, really inward. It's the most inward power I've ever seen. I'd be surprised if it had any effect at all on the world around him.]

self_composed
2013-02-08 07:45 pm (UTC)

[I will ask him the next time we talk,] Bella says. [I'm... interviewing... replacements. For Alice's practical Imperial contribution. He's gone missing in Milliways and I don't know whether to expect him to come back at all, let alone when.]

nonbird
2013-02-08 07:47 pm (UTC)

[Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-02-08 07:51 pm (UTC)

[Yeah.] Bella looks around her at the walls of the lair, the ambient glow, the sewing machine just barely visible from the chair she's sitting in and the abandoned bolt of fabric. [Me too.]

nonbird
2013-02-08 07:53 pm (UTC)

[Um. Good luck with the interviews, I guess. Do you... need anything? Are you okay?]

self_composed
2013-02-08 07:57 pm (UTC)

[I'm managing. The uncertainty's almost worse than the mere fact of his absence - but while I plan to try it anyway when I get the chance, I think past-viewing in Milliways would probably just get me a smear by virtue of whatever lets it be at the end of the Universe for forever in subjective time.]

nonbird
2013-02-08 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Probably yes,] he agrees. [I'm sorry.]

self_composed
2013-02-08 10:30 pm (UTC)

[I think he's dead. I think a mated vampire - even him - would have to be dead, not to come back. Or Milliways is just screwing with time in a different way than usual, but - I think he's somehow managed to get dead.]

nonbird
2013-02-08 10:34 pm (UTC)

[I'm sorry,] he says again.

self_composed
2013-02-08 10:37 pm (UTC)

[Not your fault. Just - that's what's going on in the exciting life of the Empress of the Stars. Now you are updated.] She sighs. She doesn't transmit it through the brainphone.

nonbird
2013-02-08 10:40 pm (UTC)

[Well, the Empress of the Stars is also more or less my friend,] says Lazarus. [So's Alice, for that matter.]

self_composed
2013-02-08 10:41 pm (UTC)

Pause. [Thanks,] Bella replies, unexpectedly warmed.

nonbird
2013-02-08 10:43 pm (UTC)

[Well. So. I care about what is going on in your life for non-empressy reasons.]

self_composed
2013-02-08 10:51 pm (UTC)

[Thanks,] repeats Bella. [I probably should've told you sooner.]

nonbird
2013-02-08 10:56 pm (UTC)

[Well, here we are, anyway. What's that ingot's name?]

self_composed
2013-02-08 10:57 pm (UTC)

[Alexander "Sandy" Buford.]

nonbird
2013-02-08 11:00 pm (UTC)

[Hmm. Well, I don't think I've met him. But I could swear I've seen that power before, and not just on the globe.]

self_composed
2013-02-08 11:01 pm (UTC)

[He is from Toronto. Both of the people Libby shortlisted are Canadian, weird coincidence.]
Edited 2013-02-08 23:05 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-02-08 11:06 pm (UTC)

[That explains it. I've probably glimpsed him out of the corner of my eye, so to speak.]

self_composed
2013-02-08 11:14 pm (UTC)

[Sounds likely. Do you want to go peer at his dot on the globe?]

nonbird
2013-02-08 11:22 pm (UTC)

[Well, now that you mention it...]

He consults his globe-viewing power and focuses on Toronto. There's the familiar power, tucked into a tiny little flag.

[Huh,] he says. [I still can't figure out what it does. Let me know if you ask him!]

self_composed
2013-02-08 11:27 pm (UTC)

[Will do. That's what you're for, is for magic-geeking-out-with,] Bella says affectionately.

nonbird
2013-02-08 11:30 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

self_composed
2013-02-08 11:32 pm (UTC)

[I don't think I told you about the Belltower, did I.]

nonbird
2013-02-08 11:35 pm (UTC)

[You did not tell me about the Belltower! What is the Belltower?]

self_composed
2013-02-08 11:38 pm (UTC)

[One of my alts who calls herself Shell Bell - isn't that cute? - and another one whose name is Isabella Amariah and goes by just Amariah among ourselves set up a room in Milliways. The Bar'll give keys to any of us who show up and tell them where to find it. There's a guestbook. I'll give you a key if you like. Amariah's a witch. And I made Shell Bell and her girlfriend into mints, since they didn't have any of their own magic. I don't think the vampire me found it yet but I told Bar to give Elspeth a key since she's in there more often than her mom anyway.]

nonbird
2013-02-08 11:39 pm (UTC)

[...I would love to have a key,] he says, beamily.

self_composed
2013-02-08 11:44 pm (UTC)

[I took home extras, shall I come give you one now?]

nonbird
2013-02-08 11:48 pm (UTC)

[Yes please!]

self_composed
2013-02-08 11:58 pm (UTC)

She appears in his apartment. (She will cultivate the knocking habit when she's not dealing with people who she's just brainphoned in advance.) She presents him with a key. "I think if there are ever enough of us in the place at the same time for it to feel crowded, I'll ask Bar if I can put an actual tower out back, but so far it's just the three who've found it and Golden who will soon enough."

nonbird
2013-02-09 12:12 am (UTC)

"Hi!" he says. "Thank you!"

self_composed
2013-02-09 12:14 am (UTC)

"You're welcome!"

nonbird
2013-02-09 12:18 am (UTC)

He smiles.

self_composed
2013-02-09 12:21 am (UTC)

"It was trippy. Me and Golden have - practically identical histories. Up until the point where we both moved to Forks, and I found coins and she found vampires. Shell Bell was a whole other story. She's from this crappy nonmagical world with a totalitarian government and she's been going to Milliways since she was six trying to collect stuff to survive and maybe be able to do something about it. The witch alt killed the president for her - I have no reason to dispute this action as correct, although I might've been capable of more restraint since I have more flexibility - and then I gave her the tools to solve the rest of the problem."

nonbird
2013-02-09 12:24 am (UTC)

"What's the witch alt's magic like? Or did you not find that out? I want to meet her," Lazarus declares.

self_composed
2013-02-09 12:26 am (UTC)

"I didn't meet her personally. Shell Bell described how she did it - apparently spells are made up of various combinations of poems and drawing symbols in various substances and killing animals and putting herbs on stuff. And she's got a talking owl named Pathalan who she claims is her external soul and she kept calling everyone at Milliways 'zombies' because we don't have external souls. And she -" Bella sobers. "Has an alt of Alice, too."

nonbird
2013-02-09 12:28 am (UTC)

"Oh," he says.

self_composed
2013-02-09 12:33 am (UTC)

"And of course he's also got an external soul and instead of being an owl or something she can change shape."

nonbird
2013-02-09 12:34 am (UTC)

He smiles slightly. "Of course."

self_composed
2013-02-09 12:38 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell doesn't have one, though, her girlfriend is called Sherlock Stark, I met her and her brother Tony. And apparently the Stark twins have alts that they've met, too, and the alternate Tony has a Belltower key. It's all very tangled."

nonbird
2013-02-09 12:40 am (UTC)

"Not unreasonably so, if you ignore how many of these people are... each... other." He smiles ruefully.

self_composed
2013-02-09 12:49 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I wonder why some people have bunches of alts and some people don't. Or why some people find bunches of alts and some people don't. Shell Bell wanted to find another us since somebody first told her that she reminded them of 'her Majesty' - it seems to be a common theme that we take over the worlds in which we find ourselves and run magical empires, and Shell Bell figured - quite correctly - that encountering one of those would be her ticket to success."

nonbird
2013-02-09 12:57 am (UTC)

"Encountering you is a lot of people's ticket to success," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-02-09 12:59 am (UTC)

"Is it? I haven't been making any other mints - although I need to hire at least one of the people I interviewed today if the rest of Libby's interviews fail to turn up another shortlist. Who else have I been arranging success for particularly?"

nonbird
2013-02-09 01:00 am (UTC)

"Every single citizen of Mars?"

self_composed
2013-02-09 01:03 am (UTC)

"If you want to call having a place to live and food to eat and not dying of cancer success instead of a reasonable start, sure," shrugs Bella.

nonbird
2013-02-09 01:14 am (UTC)

"Maybe success isn't the word I wanted. You're a lot of people's ticket to more than they otherwise had."

self_composed
2013-02-09 01:16 am (UTC)

"That I won't dispute," says Bella. "It's not like most people have enough stuff to make that hard."

nonbird
2013-02-09 01:16 am (UTC)

"And then you go around offering all these great things to people."

self_composed
2013-02-09 01:22 am (UTC)

"I really don't otherwise see the point of being a space empress. I have so much magic that traditional megalomania would be easy and boring."

nonbird
2013-02-09 01:23 am (UTC)

"You are the nicest space empress ever."

self_composed
2013-02-09 01:28 am (UTC)

"Nah, there's probably one of me out there who's also a space empress instead of just an earthly empress like Golden currently is, and she could easily be nicer," contradicts Bella.

nonbird
2013-02-09 01:32 am (UTC)

"The nicest space empress in this universe?" he tries.

self_composed
2013-02-09 01:37 am (UTC)

"I'm the only space empress in this universe," Bella snorts happily.

nonbird
2013-02-09 01:38 am (UTC)

"Also true. But if there was another one, I bet you'd still be nicer."

self_composed
2013-02-09 01:46 am (UTC)

"Thanks," says Bella, floating an inch into the air and spinning for no particular reason.

nonbird
2013-02-09 01:47 am (UTC)

Lazarus giggles.

"Oh, new powers," he says. "I think you mentioned past-viewing, but what's...?" He frowns slightly.

self_composed
2013-02-09 01:54 am (UTC)

"Geases," says Bella. "Designed so I could enforce nondisclosure agreements with the interviewees. I don't want my PR guy to have to figure out how to deal with 'Empress of the Stars is empowered by cold-blooded torture!' anytime soon."

nonbird
2013-02-09 01:56 am (UTC)

"That's reasonable," he says. "I guess."

self_composed
2013-02-09 02:00 am (UTC)

"It only works if I explain what they're agreeing to and they actually agree to it," Bella says. "If they hadn't I'd have just sent them home without interviewing them."

nonbird
2013-02-09 02:03 am (UTC)

"That's even reasonabler!"

self_composed
2013-02-09 02:07 am (UTC)

"I do like for it to be at least slightly inconvenient for me to do tempting massively unethical things, even if I can't make it much more inconvenient than that," says Bella.

nonbird
2013-02-09 02:13 am (UTC)

"Good space empress," he approves.

self_composed
2013-02-09 02:17 am (UTC)

"Do I get a biscuit?" she inquires wryly.

nonbird
2013-02-09 02:18 am (UTC)

"I do actually have cookies if you want one," he says.

self_composed
2013-02-09 02:27 am (UTC)

"I would love a cookie," says Bella.

She almost doesn't sound wistful.

nonbird
2013-02-09 02:28 am (UTC)

...Yeah. Lazarus knows.

He fetches a plate of chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen.

self_composed
2013-02-09 02:37 am (UTC)

Bella nibbles.

"I don't know what could've killed him," she murmurs. "So all my ideas are running along the lines of - Lovecraftian horrors, or someone talking him into killing himself, and I don't know which is worse."

nonbird
2013-02-09 02:39 am (UTC)

"Maybe he's just... stuck?" offers Lazarus. "If he went to Milliways and got into something he couldn't get out of without help, and no one else came along to rescue him, he might not come out until you can go get him. ...I don't know. I'm just trying to be optimistic. Maybe I shouldn't."

self_composed
2013-02-09 02:49 am (UTC)

"The things that could get him stuck are probably also Lovecraftian. He carries coins with him; he's not significantly less able to self-rescue than I am to play the cavalry. I wish I knew," exclaims Bella. "If I knew he was dead, I could see if a star will fix that. And I don't know, and there are half a dozen reasons why wishing on a star could fail besides him being alive. There's even some possibility that if I were at all inexact I'd wind up duplicating him while he's alive somewhere in his original form."

nonbird
2013-02-09 02:51 am (UTC)

"...You know, part of me says he's not likely to mind that outcome," says Lazarus. "And maybe he's. Frozen... in time... somehow?"

self_composed
2013-02-09 02:57 am (UTC)

"I don't think he'd mind, or at least he wouldn't mind much, but I'd mind, and I have no idea how it would interact with the vampire mate bond," says Bella. "Frozen in time - possible. When I find Milliways I'll try everything I can think of to track him down. I'll bring you with me if you'll come. You have good ideas, you can see things I can't." She sighs.

nonbird
2013-02-09 03:15 am (UTC)

"I will absolutely help you look," he says.

self_composed
2013-02-09 03:16 am (UTC)

"Thanks."

Bella has probably never before looked so much in need of a hug.

nonbird
2013-02-09 03:20 am (UTC)

"Do you want a hug?" he says tentatively.

self_composed
2013-02-09 03:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I want a hug." She holds her arms out tentatively.

nonbird
2013-02-09 03:24 am (UTC)

Lazarus hugs her.

self_composed
2013-02-09 03:25 am (UTC)

She hugs back tight. "Thanks. You're a good friend."

nonbird
2013-02-09 03:31 am (UTC)

"I try," he says wryly. "Take care of yourself, okay? I don't think this empressing thing is always as fun as it sounds."

self_composed
2013-02-09 03:39 am (UTC)

"The empressing is fun," Bella reassures him. "The losing my boyfriend and having all this power and not having a way to get him back is the part that's getting me down. I can't even wish for a door. But," she shrugs. "Golden managed to raise a daughter with negligible money, everyone she knew thinking she was dead, and her thinking her mate was dead. I'm in better shape than that. I didn't crack during the interviews at all." She sighs. "The hug helped, though."

nonbird
2013-02-09 03:40 am (UTC)

"I'm glad about that, at least." He pats her on the back.

self_composed
2013-02-09 03:49 am (UTC)

She smiles a watery smile. "So what's going on with you?" she asks. She's not sure whether asking "Where's Kolya?" would be rude, so she doesn't.

nonbird
2013-02-09 03:57 am (UTC)

"Not very much. Still plugging away at translating that website of yours," he says cheerfully. "I'm pretty sure at this point I could recite your welcome screen in my sleep."

self_composed
2013-02-09 04:07 am (UTC)

"Ah," says Bella. "But in which language would you recite it?"

nonbird
2013-02-09 04:11 am (UTC)

"Esperanto? Klingon?"

self_composed
2013-02-09 04:12 am (UTC)

"Did you translate my website into Klingon?" Bella asks, laughing aloud.

nonbird
2013-02-09 04:14 am (UTC)

"I could. It might be worth it just for the humour value."

self_composed
2013-02-09 04:18 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "Are there even enough words in Klingon?"

nonbird
2013-02-09 04:20 am (UTC)

"You'd be surprised!" he assures her. "It's pretty much a complete language."

self_composed
2013-02-09 04:21 am (UTC)

"Huh. I shall try to avoid underestimating Star Trek fans in the future, then."

nonbird
2013-02-10 05:00 am (UTC)

He grins, and then looks briefly distracted.

"I still can't figure out what that guy's power does," he says ruefully.

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:05 am (UTC)

"You want me to brainphone him now and ask instead of waiting?"

nonbird
2013-02-10 05:18 am (UTC)

"If you want. If he wouldn't mind."

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:20 am (UTC)

"Dunno if he'd mind, but of the two people I interviewed he is not the one who opted to chide me for teleporting directly into his house instead of knocking," shrugs Bella. "I'll leave him be if he complains. Just a sec." [Hey, Sandy, it's me, got a minute?]

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:27 am (UTC)

[Hi, me!] laughs Sandy. [What's up?]

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:29 am (UTC)

[You didn't tell me you already had magic,] she says reproachfully.

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:30 am (UTC)

[...Ye-es?] he says. [Is this a trick question? It's not a question. Is this a trick statement?]

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:34 am (UTC)

[My magic-seeing guy says you've got magic and he wants to know what kind. Are you saying you didn't know about it?]

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:36 am (UTC)

[Yes,] says Sandy. [That is what I'm saying.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:41 am (UTC)

[Magic-seeing-guy says it's a very inward power. It might be the kind of thing you wouldn't notice outside of special circumstances, like mine,] Bella concedes. [Most people have a power that really suits them, does that give you a guess?]

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:42 am (UTC)

There is a shortish silence.

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:46 am (UTC)

Bella waits.

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:49 am (UTC)

[Well,] he says, [there's this thing I do with my dreams... I don't know, I've never tried to explain it to anybody. And I never thought it was magic, just weird. But it's the only thing I can think of that fits the bill.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:54 am (UTC)

[Inquiring minds want to know,] Bella prompts.

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:58 am (UTC)

[Um, okay,] he says. [I have a world in my head and I go there when I sleep. It has people in it, but you wouldn't wanna meet 'em.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:59 am (UTC)

[Like a lucid dream. Hm. Not friendly sorts?]

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:02 am (UTC)

[They're friendly in... their own special way,] he tries.

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:07 am (UTC)

[...Considering that you got my little classified ad, I have a guess...]

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:08 am (UTC)

[Got it in one.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:15 am (UTC)

[I wonder if you'll wake up in a pile of coins every morning if I wind up making you a mint.]

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:19 am (UTC)

[Like a really fucked-up dragon,] he laughs. [Awesome.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:21 am (UTC)

Ow. Yeah.

[Something like that. It'd certainly be efficient.]

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:25 am (UTC)

[Yeah,] he says. [That's actually why I wanted to sleep on it; I wanted to see what they think.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:26 am (UTC)

[...Huh. And were you able to tell them what you wanted them to think about?]

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:33 am (UTC)

[They know everything that happens to me,] he explains. [They've been talking about it since the interview. And they said I should take the job.]
Edited 2013-02-10 06:34 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:37 am (UTC)

[Ah. So maybe you couldn't tell them but it didn't matter. They persist in some form when you're awake, I take it?]

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:40 am (UTC)

[Yeah. We can't talk when I'm awake, but they're still there and they can tell what I'm thinking.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:44 am (UTC)

[That would spook the hell out of me,] comments Bella. [I guess you're used to it, and I'm the one who is suited to a mental defense power that has existed since before I knew there was anything to defend against.]

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:46 am (UTC)

[I wouldn't invite just anybody to walk around in my head. But these guys are part of me,] he says.

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:57 am (UTC)

[Huh. Well, Libby has summarily rejected everyone she had still to interview, so it's down to you and one other person. I'm considering just hiring you both so I don't have to do this again if one of you walks into the magic interdimensional portal and doesn't come out. Or if one of you quits, for the more mundane possibility.]

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:58 am (UTC)

[Is that a 'you're hired'? It's hard to tell.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:02 am (UTC)

[It's a "you're probably hired". Do your little friends do anything but sit around in your brain spying on your thoughts? Because I am not sure if Libby knew about those when she forwarded you up.]

guiltless
2013-02-10 07:06 am (UTC)

[Way to make them sound creepy,] he says. [Anything like what?]

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:13 am (UTC)

[Can they interact with anyone else? Can they do things, besides observe, talk amongst themselves, and interact with you in dreams - for instance, could one take the purely mental action of making a wish and use your skin to count as being in contact with a coin?]

guiltless
2013-02-10 07:15 am (UTC)

[I... have no idea? Well, I know they can't interact with anybody but me, but I don't know how coins work, so... I mean, I could hold one for a while and see what happens?]

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:22 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I can come by and give you a triangle, but do you think they'll cooperate with the trying part? Can you tell if they do or don't? I might not be able to directly interact with them, if part of your power is that they're hidden away like that - "ingot" powers beat mint wishes.]

guiltless
2013-02-10 07:26 am (UTC)

[If I hold a triangle while wondering if they can wish on it, I'm pretty sure they'll try it,] he says.

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:28 am (UTC)

[Can't hurt. Well, not more than a little bit. Shall I drop in now?]

guiltless
2013-02-10 03:00 pm (UTC)

He snorts. [Sure.]

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Going to go visit him and figure out one of the finer points," Bella says to Lazarus, "but the gist of it is that there are people living in his head who he visits through lucid dreams; they know what he's thinking all the time, though. Weird power."

And port. She doesn't bother with turning invisible first.

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:21 pm (UTC)

Sandy is sitting on his couch with a block of wood and a knife, carving a little statue of a wizard.

"Hi!"

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Hullo!" Bella makes a new triangle. "Catch."

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:24 pm (UTC)

He catches.

Nothing happens.

self_composed
2013-02-10 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Do you think they're trying?" she asks.

guiltless
2013-02-10 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I can't really tell," he says. "I guess I could have another nap and ask."

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Want me to send you to sleep? That's just a square and then a triangle to wake you up again."

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:48 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Sure."

self_composed
2013-02-10 06:50 pm (UTC)

She makes a square. (She is in the habit now of making these when she wants them, and triangles too, rather than depleting her bandolier.) She uses it.

guiltless
2013-02-10 06:57 pm (UTC)

Sandy goes to sleep.

Sandy remains asleep for about thirty seconds.

The coin in his hand vanishes, and Sandy wakes up.

"...Weird," he says, looking down at his empty hand. "They couldn't wish on it, but I can."

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Very peculiar. Er, but I'm not sure to what extent I want to trust them. I haven't even met them - and Libby, who is my external module for character judgment these days, hasn't either - and -" She makes another square, and it doesn't go; she tries a pentagon and it doesn't go. "If their claim is magically checkable it at least requires unusually heavy-duty magic to check it."

guiltless
2013-02-10 07:02 pm (UTC)

"...They're, uh, I don't think lying is really a thing they do," he says. "They said they all tried. I believe 'em."

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:06 pm (UTC)

"And if they were out here and I could turn on my lie-detector and ask them, I'd believe them too, but..." Bella shrugs. "I have to be careful. I have to be sure."

guiltless
2013-02-10 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, they're not," he says. "You could... try to meet them, I guess? I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea, but... I dunno, I'll ask them to be nice."

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:10 pm (UTC)

"...Meet them as in, go hang out in your mindscape? Will my standard array of add-ons even work there?"

guiltless
2013-02-10 07:11 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea," says Sandy.

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:12 pm (UTC)

"...What say we go visit my magic-seeing guy and have him stare intently at you and see what he says."

guiltless
2013-02-10 07:13 pm (UTC)

"...Sure."

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:14 pm (UTC)

[Lazarus, want a closer look at Sandy?]

nonbird
2013-02-10 07:16 pm (UTC)

[Yes!]

self_composed
2013-02-10 07:18 pm (UTC)

[Incoming.]

Teleportation!

"Sandy's little friends," Bella says, "say they can't wish on a coin he's holding, but I'd like to be a little surer than the word of people I've never met. And I'm not sure if it would be safe for me to..." She makes a vague gesture. "Meet them. If my slew of magic stuff would work there."

nonbird
2013-02-10 07:19 pm (UTC)

Lazarus looks thoughtful.

guiltless
2013-02-10 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Hi?" says Sandy.

self_composed
2013-02-11 12:20 am (UTC)

"Sandy, Lazarus. Lazarus, Sandy," says Bella helpfully.

nonbird
2013-02-11 12:24 am (UTC)

"Hi, Sandy," says Lazarus. "You are the most fascinating ingot I've ever met. You're like a matryoshka doll."

guiltless
2013-02-11 12:28 am (UTC)

"...Thanks?" he says. "I think?"

nonbird
2013-02-11 12:32 am (UTC)

"It was a compliment," Lazarus assures him. "What was the question again? If your 'little friends' can use a coin you're touching? Well, no," he says. "They're part of you, but they're not you. The interesting question is, can somebody take a coin into your dream world, and could they use it then? That one I can't answer."

self_composed
2013-02-11 12:33 am (UTC)

"So what you're saying is if I go in to visit, I might not want to have anything other than triangles on me," says Bella.

nonbird
2013-02-11 12:40 am (UTC)

"...I was going to say it should be fine as long as you don't actually hand them any big ones, but I'm not sure how much the fact that you'd be walking around inside someone's ingot power would affect things," he says. "One thing I can tell you, though, is that Sandy's power has almost no interest in the world outside Sandy. It would really surprise me if any of his magic friends wanted to wish on a coin, unless it was for something that affected him directly."

self_composed
2013-02-11 12:45 am (UTC)

"Huh. So maybe meeting them isn't necessary, if it appears that they can't and it's likely that they wouldn't want to."
Edited 2013-02-11 00:52 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-02-11 12:55 am (UTC)

"That's about what I'm thinking," says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-02-11 12:56 am (UTC)

"Okay, good. Cool. Weird power," Bella remarks.

guiltless
2013-02-11 12:59 am (UTC)

"Tell me about it," snorts Sandy.

self_composed
2013-02-11 01:00 am (UTC)

"Have you always had it or did it appear at some point?"

guiltless
2013-02-11 01:10 am (UTC)

"Well, I used to have dreams that weren't about them, but that's been happening less and less often," he says. "I don't really remember if they ever weren't there."

self_composed
2013-02-11 01:11 am (UTC)

"Ingot powers are funky," says Bella. "But it's sounding like yours shouldn't be a problem." She ramps up to full speed, closing her eyes, and contemplates. Finally she says, "I'm going to tell Libby about the power and consult with her, but if she clears you given that you're hired."

guiltless
2013-02-11 01:22 am (UTC)

"Cool."

self_composed
2013-02-11 01:23 am (UTC)

[Libby, you busy?]

prima_sequentem
2013-02-11 01:24 am (UTC)

[No, what's up?]

self_composed
2013-02-11 01:25 am (UTC)

[Sandy's got an ingot power that I don't think you knew about. Tentative conclusion from me and Lazarus is that it's not an issue, but I wanted to run it by you.] And she summarizes what they know about Sandy's friends.

prima_sequentem
2013-02-11 01:27 am (UTC)

[I am weirdly unsurprised,] she says when Bella is finished. [If Sandy and Lazarus agree that Sandy's not-so-imaginary friends aren't a problem, then so do I.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 01:29 am (UTC)

[Okay. I'm going to hire them both. In case one quits. Or vanishes into Milliways,] Bella says.

"Let's head to Marspire and talk compensation," says Bella to Sandy, and she waves to Lazarus and teleports herself and her future mint-hire.

guiltless
2013-02-11 01:32 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Sandy. "Money is awesome. I like money. Please pay me. And can I have a planet? Or a moon or something?"

self_composed
2013-02-11 01:35 am (UTC)

"Do you want Canadian dollars, or Imperial asters, or something else? And you may choose a small Jovian satellite, such as Amalthea, to start with, and we'll see what you do with the place."

guiltless
2013-02-11 01:41 am (UTC)

"Amalthea sounds pretty. Sure," he says. "And I think I'd rather have Canadian money for now; it's probably easier to change that into asters than the other way around, right? Because you're the one who's magic."

self_composed
2013-02-11 01:48 am (UTC)

"I am indeed the one who's magic." She is about to ask Mary to see about buying the Empire some Canadian dollars in a minute. "Bearing in mind that you may not attempt to use stars and any of those will have to go to me regardless of how many you make - does a quota model sound fair to you? Assuming I can get comparable output from your co-worker-to-be, barring emergencies, I would like to be getting two stars, a dozen hexagons, and some thirty pentagons each week. I can make my own squares and triangles, although of course I will be happy to take those off your hands if they should wind up cluttering your volcano castle or whatever on Amalthea. There will also need to be some combinations of geases and ground rules installed to prevent coins from leaving your possession except to be turned in to me or wished on for personal use, the nondisclosure agreement will continue to apply including to how discreet you'll need to be about using your coins, and I recommend that you consult me or Lazarus about the precise design of any hexagon-sized wishes while you're getting used to things."
Edited 2013-02-11 01:50 (UTC)

guiltless
2013-02-11 01:52 am (UTC)

Sandy shrugs. "Okay."

prima_sequentem
2013-02-11 01:55 am (UTC)

[Canadian dollars, huh?] says Mary.

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:00 am (UTC)

[Got a Canadian new hire. Two of them, but I haven't asked the other if she wants asters or Earth money yet. Can you peer at future exchange rates and find someone who'd like to have asters in exchange for some suitable number of Canadian dollars to pay one or two people for the next while?]

"The geases have to be done out loud because of how I designed the power - I like to make it inconvenient for myself to do things I oughtn't - but I can install ground rules now if you don't have questions about how they're going to work or anything," Bella says to Sandy.

prima_sequentem
2013-02-11 02:01 am (UTC)

[No problem,] says Mary.

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:02 am (UTC)

"Ground rules like what?"

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:08 am (UTC)

"New coins you make will appear somewhere in contact with your person. Especially since you're highly likely to produce coins in your sleep and not be able to direct that accurately, I want that automatically directed to someplace safe - even someone who travels to Amalthea and sneaks into your bedroom shouldn't be able to take your coins. And I really don't want you to give them away, either. You can make small, discreet wishes for friends, but the idea of all the secrecy is that I don't really want to have to explain where my magic is coming from anytime soon, and someone clever could get a lot of mileage from knowing who else has it. That one we can do with a geas or with a limitation on your coin repository preventing the coins from leaving it except by a wish from me or direct use by you."

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:10 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says, shrugging.

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:14 am (UTC)

Since he doesn't exhibit a preference between the geas or ground rules option, and since she trusts ground rules to hold up against more situations than geases, she shrugs and implements it as such. And she makes him a chain like hers. She hands him his new expansible coin-chain. "Here. I have one like it, but you can't see it. Wear it. It won't come off unless I allow it, so you aren't going to pull it off in your sleep or whatever. It and coins on it will go through anything that isn't you or me, it and coins on it are invisible to anyone who isn't you or me, coins will go on it when you make them, it'll get longer if there get to be a lot of them, you can make wishes with coins on it but only I can take them off."
Edited 2013-02-11 02:16 (UTC)

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:16 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Sandy, and he hangs the chain around his neck.

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:18 am (UTC)

"It's entirely possible that you'll be able to make all the coins you need to overnight. If that turns out to be not the case, I recommend wishing yourself some sort of regeneration power if you want to handle them yourself, or I can agony-beam it for you," Bella says in as businesslike a fashion as possible.

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I bet you I can make them overnight," he says cheerfully.

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:21 am (UTC)

"Splendid. Making you a mint now."

She takes a deep breath.

Hex goes.

"Wonder what color your coins are," she says idly. "Everybody's are different."

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:24 am (UTC)

"Well, how do I make one?"

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:26 am (UTC)

"Experience some amount of pain - I'm in the habit of biting my cheek - and move it, left to right," says Bella. "Isn't that weird? But it makes sense now, doesn't it."

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:31 am (UTC)

Sandy bites his lip.

His chain acquires a triangle; he holds it up to inspect it. It's not glossy like Alice's or glowy like Bella's or sparkly like Elias Frobisher's: it's a dark, mottled red-purple like the inside of a bruise, and it's flat, without texture or shine.

"My favourite colour," he says happily. "Cool."

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:33 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Bella. "Do you want me to drop you off at home?"
Edited 2013-02-11 02:33 (UTC)

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:34 am (UTC)

"Sure, I guess," he says.

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:39 am (UTC)

Teleportation!

"Brainphone me if you have questions or whatever. Otherwise I'll expect a batch of coins in one Martian week."

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:44 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "I'm probably gonna bug you about a teleportation power when I've got a spare hex to cover it."

self_composed
2013-02-11 02:52 am (UTC)

"You can wish for a copy of a power I have without actually having me explain what you're copying," she says. "You might not want to do that with all my powers. For instance, my regeneration comes with anaesthetic. But I like my teleportation design enough to recommend it to you, and it's simpler to operate than some of my arsenal."

guiltless
2013-02-11 02:59 am (UTC)

"I'll do that with the teleportation one, anyway," he says. "Thanks."

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:00 am (UTC)

"You're welcome. Bye!"

Back to Marspire she goes.

[Hey, Anna, are you busy?]

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:02 am (UTC)

[Nope!] she says cheerfully. [Why, are you going to kick me off your planet?]

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:03 am (UTC)

[Nope! I believe you said you wanted to live here if I hired you, which I have decided to do.]

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:04 am (UTC)

[Oh. Cool!]

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:05 am (UTC)

[Shall I come fetch you up to Marspire for minting or are you more inclined to walk back here?]

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:09 am (UTC)

[I'm lazy,] she decides. [You can teleport; you can come get me.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:16 am (UTC)

Teleport. Teleport.

"What I did for the other person I hired," Bella says, "is I made him a coin-holding chain similar to mine. I can do the same thing for you. It and coins on it will be insubstantial to anything but you, and invisible to anyone but you and me. It won't come off unless I tell it to, it'll automatically collect any coins you make, and coins won't go off of it unless I wish them off or you use them and they disappear outright. This way no coins will go astray. Does that sound like a plan?"

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:17 am (UTC)

"That sounds like a great plan," says Anna.

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:19 am (UTC)

"And," Bella continues, "do you want to get paid in asters or Canadian dollars or what?"

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:20 am (UTC)

"Asters is fine," she says agreeably.

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:25 am (UTC)

"Good, that's much more convenient for me. You've been to this planet so you've already got an account for those to go in." She names the same quota that she did for Sandy - stars, hexes, pentagons, optional squares and triangles. "Sound doable? If you want to do these by yourself instead of by agony beam I recommend hexing up a regeneration power."

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:27 am (UTC)

"The way you've been talking about this stuff, I'm pretty sure I want the regeneration power before I start doing the kinds of things that lead to hexes," Anna points out.

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:30 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I can do that for you if you want, or I can give you a hex on your chain to design your own," Bella agrees. "If you want to manufacture coins manually, I mean. I don't personally see the appeal."

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:36 am (UTC)

"I kind of think I'd rather do it by myself than have you beam them at me," she says. "And it seems like those are my only two options. Unless I meet that other person you mentioned and have a little masochism party."

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:36 am (UTC)

"Would you like me to ask him?"

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:38 am (UTC)

She laughs. "Sure!"

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:40 am (UTC)

[Hey Sandy, want to meet your co-worker and discuss, quote, "masochism parties"?]

guiltless
2013-02-11 03:41 am (UTC)

[...Yes!]

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:45 am (UTC)

Teleport teleport. "Sandy, this is Anna. Anna, this is Sandy. Oh, I need to give you your chain still -" She makes Anna a chain, and she hands it over. "And mint you." She does that too. "Ta-da. Aaaaand you're not going to be able to talk shop unless I - there. You can talk shop to each other, as well as me, just not anyone else."

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:50 am (UTC)

"...Hi," says Anna.

guiltless
2013-02-11 03:51 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Sandy. "Was there something about masochism parties?"

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:51 am (UTC)

"I was kind of kidding," says Anna, "but I am now way less kidding."

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:52 am (UTC)

"Should I put you in an apartment that Anna can claim and leave the pair of you alone?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:54 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Anna. "And you should give me that regen power first."

guiltless
2013-02-11 03:54 am (UTC)

Sandy blushes.

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:55 am (UTC)

"With anaesthesia or without, or your predecessor's choice of with-extra-hurting?"
Edited 2013-02-11 03:56 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:58 am (UTC)

"Without," Anna decides.

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:00 am (UTC)

Hex goes. Teleportation! "You can always change apartments if you don't like this one, but I procedurally generated the whole city from one program and they don't vary all that much. You guys have fun!" Bella says.

And then she teleports away.

To Alice's lair.

And lets her acting-pentagon-manfactured smile fall off her face and shatter on the floor, and cries.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:05 am (UTC)

About three hours later, Anna brainphones her, sounding really really cheerful.

[Hey, you busy?]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:06 am (UTC)

Bella's pulled herself together. She is flying invisibly over the environs of Forks, originally to clear her head but now just because flying is excellent. [Nope. What's up?]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:07 am (UTC)

[I wanna give myself some kind of dream-diving power so I can go make friends with Sandy's brain buddies,] she says. [Any design tips?]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:11 am (UTC)

[Hmm. You might want to talk to my magic-seeing guy. Are you presentable? Magic-seeing guy is squeamish.]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:12 am (UTC)

[Define squeamish,] says Anna. She sounds like she's grinning.

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:13 am (UTC)

[He is even less interested in the events of the last three hours and the exact reasons why you want to visit Sandy's interior than I am. If you make him think about either thing he will eep.]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:15 am (UTC)

[Well, now I kind of want to make him eep just to see what it's like,] she says. [But I won't. Because I'm nice. Okay, I'll try to pretend we weren't just having a three-hour masochism party.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:16 am (UTC)

[The eeping is cute, but he does it enough in the ordinary course of things. He lives on Mars about a block away from you, you can just make friends and wait. Are you presentable enough that I should come fetch you?]

[Lazarus, Sandy and his new co-worker have more questions about mindscape visitations,] Bella adds to her magic-seeing-guy.

pythbox
2013-02-11 02:09 pm (UTC)

[Just a sec,] she says merrily.

nonbird
2013-02-11 02:09 pm (UTC)

[Ooh,] says Lazarus. [That sounds like fun.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:54 pm (UTC)

[Potentially, yes,] to Lazarus.

[No rush,] she says mildly to Anna.

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:56 pm (UTC)

Anna giggles over brainphone.

nonbird
2013-02-11 03:56 pm (UTC)

[Only potentially? Do you know something I don't?]

self_composed
2013-02-11 03:59 pm (UTC)

[You might eep,] Bella says. [Which Anna wants to see, so if you're going to ask eep-inducing questions you could at least wait for her to visit.]

nonbird
2013-02-11 04:02 pm (UTC)

[Does this have to do with her job,] he accuses.

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:02 pm (UTC)

[If you're going to ask eep-inducing questions...]

nonbird
2013-02-11 04:04 pm (UTC)

Deadpan: [Eep.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:05 pm (UTC)

[Aww, and Anna missed it.]

nonbird
2013-02-11 04:07 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:07 pm (UTC)

[Okay, we're decent,] says Anna. [Well, we're cleaned up and dressed, anyway.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:09 pm (UTC)

[Am I playing Imperial Ferry or do you want to walk a block and learn where his place is?]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:10 pm (UTC)

[You probably have better things to do. We can walk,] Anna decides.

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:15 pm (UTC)

She doesn't really. But she'd like to cultivate that impression, especially as the empire grows and her things to do list may grow with it. [Out of your building's front door, hang a left, he's in the one with the blue detailing around the doors and windows, first floor, room 177. I'll meet you there if you turn out to need wish-designing expertise on top of details about what exactly you'd be wishing for.]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:18 pm (UTC)

[Cool, thanks,] she says cheerfully.

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:21 pm (UTC)

And Bella, who does not after all have much else to do right now, flies on.

She visits Charlie for a bit. He's pleased to see her and grudgingly happy about the protection-from-reporters that he has enjoyed. She makes him grilled cheese sandwiches - from scratch - for old times' sake, and they eat them in companionable silence.

Until he asks her where Alice is, and she explains in spare summary, sobered and no longer hungry for the last three bites. The visit doesn't last much longer after that.

She's not mad at Charlie. She just misses her Alice.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:26 pm (UTC)

A few hours later, Anna brainphones her again.

[Guess where I am right now!]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:28 pm (UTC)

[Are you in Sandy's head?]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:31 pm (UTC)

[Yep! And it's awesome,] she says happily. [You definitely shouldn't visit, though.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:34 pm (UTC)

[I did ultimately decide against it. Are you physically there, or are you physically comatose or asleep nearby, or what?]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:36 pm (UTC)

[Physically we are both sleeping in my bed,] she says. [Metaphysically or whatever, we're in his dreamworld.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:37 pm (UTC)

[And you can still brainphone. Interesting. And you're getting along with his little friends, and you've made sure you can go in and out at will, and whatnot?]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:39 pm (UTC)

[You betcha!]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:41 pm (UTC)

[Cool! I am glad everybody is making friends. I don't have a dedicated HR person yet to deal with staff conflicts, Libby already has enough to do.]

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:42 pm (UTC)

[We are the opposite of a staff conflict,] says Anna. [We are happy and productive. And I'd better go, one of the boys is making faces at me. See ya!]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:43 pm (UTC)

[Later!]

Well isn't that nice.

[Learn any interesting factoids?] Bella asks Lazarus. [Did they wind up making you eep?]

nonbird
2013-02-11 04:45 pm (UTC)

[Anna is way too delighted by my eeping. But Kolya got the last laugh on all of us, as usual.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:46 pm (UTC)

[Did he suddenly make himself known in the middle of something embarrassing?]

nonbird
2013-02-11 04:48 pm (UTC)

[In the middle of Anna laughing at me. And then she eeped.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:51 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs over the brainphone. [Very cute. Maybe I should've attended. I suppose I can just past-view it if there's nothing not intended for my ears involved.]

nonbird
2013-02-11 04:52 pm (UTC)

[I don't think there is.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 04:55 pm (UTC)

[I do suppose it's possible that Kolya behaves differently when he's being unobtrusive and I am not present than he does when I am present, in spite of my politely ignoring him, so I will check with him too.]

[Hey Kolya, do you care if I retroactively spy on the meeting with Anna and Sandy and Lazarus in which you caused Anna to eep?]

ignorable
2013-02-11 05:01 pm (UTC)

[Go right ahead,] says Kolya. [It was hilarious.]

self_composed
2013-02-11 05:03 pm (UTC)

[Thanks!] Spy spy.

Ah, Lazarus eeping never gets old. She is also pleased to note that her ingot power persists even retroactively and she can see Kolya up until the moment he reveals himself. (Her illusion-seeing doesn't work through the past-viewing, so she doesn't see a difference except in everyone's behavior; she may need to edit that later, but she thinks she'll hold off until she's collected a batch of coins from her new mints.)

[You're very cute when you eep, you know,] she informs Lazarus.
Edited 2013-02-12 00:45 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-02-12 12:46 am (UTC)

[I'm so glad you think so,] he says dryly.

self_composed
2013-02-12 12:58 am (UTC)

Bella teleports to Marspire. [Good, I -] She's gotten into the nigh-unconscious habit of opening doors she passes even absent an intention to enter the room beyond them. [- found a door to Milliways. In Marspire. You coming?]

nonbird
2013-02-12 02:14 am (UTC)

Immediately: [Yes!]

self_composed
2013-02-12 02:15 am (UTC)

She waits. And holds the door. And strains her ears to try to find out what's going on in there, is her Alice in there, is someone who knows what happened in there -

nonbird
2013-02-12 02:16 am (UTC)

He's there in five minutes.

self_composed
2013-02-12 02:20 am (UTC)

She rushes through without further ado.

She checks for Alice's mind. It's not there.

She stalks through the bar, singleminded, looking at faces. An alt who might have been around long enough to see him pass through; he loves - loved? - meeting alts, he would have stopped to greet one. An alt of her, maybe who might have caught his attention. She'll check the Belltower after covering the main floor.

nonbird
2013-02-12 02:22 am (UTC)

Lazarus, meanwhile, looks for magic. Anything he can see that seems Alice-ish.

self_composed
2013-02-12 02:28 am (UTC)

Bella's investigation turns up nothing. Not in the bar, not in the Belltower. The past-viewing is a muddy, dizzying mess from the temporal magic in the place.

Finally, she asks the bar.

"Excuse me," she says, surprising herself by sounding soft and tentative. "Do you happen to know where my Alice went? He came in here and hasn't come out."

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:31 am (UTC)

He left with the Joker, says the eventual napkin.

self_composed
2013-02-12 02:34 am (UTC)

She stares at this napkin long enough to read it ten times.

"Have - either of them come back?" she whispers. "Since then?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:36 am (UTC)

No.

self_composed
2013-02-12 02:37 am (UTC)

She didn't see Roberta on her cruise through the bar either. "Can you tell me if there's anyone - anyone at all - from the Joker's world...?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:38 am (UTC)

No one from that world is here right now.

self_composed
2013-02-12 02:44 am (UTC)

Bella turns away, digging the heel of one hand into her eye.

She turns back. "Is there any other way to get into a specific world? I've visited it before..."

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:49 am (UTC)

Some people can convince the door to take them wherever they want to go. You could try your luck.

self_composed
2013-02-12 02:55 am (UTC)

Bella goes to the door. She opens it. It's Marspire.

She closes it. She tries wishes, one after the other, until finally a star goes, and she opens the door.

She thinks this might actually be Roberta's house. Perhaps Roberta can be induced to hold the door for her while she mounts a rescue mission. Or looks for Alice's body. [Lazarus. Bar says Alice left with the Joker. I've been to his world. before. Stars can force the door to open where I want. You coming?]

nonbird
2013-02-12 02:56 am (UTC)

[...Would I be any help?]

self_composed
2013-02-12 02:58 am (UTC)

[If something Lovecraftian has happened - with, I don't know, some device or person the Joker picked up in Milliways, the way Shell Bell was accumulating artifacts? - then maybe.]

She calls through the door. "Roberta? Anybody home?"

nonbird
2013-02-12 03:03 am (UTC)

[Okay,] he says, and he finds her by the door.

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:07 am (UTC)

A butler approaches the door. He takes in the door to the interdimensional bar with negligibly surprised aplomb. "I am Miss Wayne's butler, Alfred. Can I help you?"

"Yes," says Bella firmly. "If you hold this door until I come back, I will grant you three wishes. Roberta let me through once, I'm the one who put the Joker on an asteroid? I need to - run an errand in your world and don't want to spend any longer here than I have to."

Alfred blinks at her. "I am capable of holding the door," he says.

"Excellent. Lazarus, do you want to be invisible or do you just want me to drop you off on the opposite side of the asteroid from the Joker and 'see' through it for me?"

nonbird
2013-02-12 03:08 am (UTC)

"...I think I'll have to 'see' through it," he says. "If anything tricky is happening."

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:12 am (UTC)

"Okay, no invisibility. Thank you, Alfred," she says, transferring the burden of the door to him and stepping out with Lazarus in tow. "Next stop, Alice."

She might mean the asteroid, or the person.

They share a name for a reason.

She lands Lazarus and herself on the point on the asteroid that is diametrically opposite the Joker's current location. And then she looks for Alice's mind. She could have done this first, but she wants to confront the Joker either way.

nonbird
2013-02-12 03:16 am (UTC)

Alice's mind is not in evidence.

"...He's here," says Lazarus. "I mean... not exactly. I'd almost say it's like the Joker has his power, but that's not quite it either..."

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:18 am (UTC)

"I can't read him," Bella says, clenching her fists. "Okay. Me and the Joker are going to talk. Brainphone as you see any more detail - anything at all. You can walk a few klicks around this rock before you run into the opposite side, if you need a closer look."

And she lifts off into the artificial atmosphere of the asteroid and zooms the relevant few kilometers to where she needs to be.

manofmyword
2013-02-12 03:19 am (UTC)

The Joker is sleeping peacefully.

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:20 am (UTC)

A triangle will fix that. Kicking him would also fix that, but she's not feeling that nice.

manofmyword
2013-02-12 03:23 am (UTC)

He blinks up at her.

"Hi, smarty pants," he says amicably. "What's the occasion?"

nonbird
2013-02-12 03:24 am (UTC)

[Did you just wake him up? Something changed,] says Lazarus. [But Alice is still there-not-there.]

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:25 am (UTC)

[I woke him up,] agrees Bella. She tries the read again. Nothing.

"Alice walked into Milliways and didn't come out," she says through gritted teeth. "And he was last seen with you."

manofmyword
2013-02-12 03:29 am (UTC)

"Oh," he says. Earnestly, "I'm sorry. We didn't mean to worry you. It worked just fine when Ghosty tried it."

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:30 am (UTC)

"What happened, exactly? Where is he? I can't read him."
Edited 2013-02-12 03:30 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-12 03:40 am (UTC)

He taps the side of his head.

"We went out my door. He's in here somewhere, now. But I don't know how to get him out again. With Ghosty, she just..." he makes a little fanfareish explosive gesture with his hands, "popped back into the bar before I woke up. I didn't have to do anything about it."

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:43 am (UTC)

"In there somewhere? Can he get out? Is he aware?" Bella demands, relaying the entirety of the conversation so far transcribed to Lazarus in the text form of the brainphone. Struck by inspiration, she also tries brainphoning Alice; maybe talking will work where reading doesn't. [Alice?]

manofmyword
2013-02-12 03:46 am (UTC)

"Don't know," the Joker says tranquilly.

nonbird
2013-02-12 03:47 am (UTC)

Lazarus is struck by inspiration, too.

[What would happen if you wished him Sandy's power?]

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:49 am (UTC)

[The Joker or Alice?]

Alice doesn't answer her. She doesn't even get a busy message.

"So all you know is that it worked fine when Ghosty tried it - when Ghosty is a completely unrelated species of undead and already has among her abilities the ability to get into and out of other people. And you brought Alice back with you anyway and you don't know anything else. Is that the gist here?"

nonbird
2013-02-12 03:51 am (UTC)

[The Joker. I think you should do it,] he says. [I think it would help.]

manofmyword
2013-02-12 03:51 am (UTC)

"Yep," says the Joker, and sits up and wraps his arms around his knees and doesn't say anything more.

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:53 am (UTC)

Bella isn't in the mood to give the Joker any permanent powers. He does such unlikeable things with the means in his possession already. A pentagon will do a temporary power.

Pentagon. Read? [Alice?]

nonbird
2013-02-12 03:54 am (UTC)

[MAKE IT PERMANENT,] yells Lazarus.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 03:56 am (UTC)

Alice is flying over the Joker's-brain version of Gotham, idly wondering if he's going to pop back soon.

[Hi!] he says happily (love, love, love). [Where'd you come from? You sound worried, is something wrong?]

self_composed
2013-02-12 03:58 am (UTC)

Hex. She's not going to contradict Lazarus, not now.

[Alice. Alice.] She didn't really mean to say his name twice. [You're there. Can you come out?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 04:00 am (UTC)

[Out to where? The bar? I dunno how,] he says. (He tried up to a hex, a while ago when the Joker disappeared; it didn't work. For obvious reasons, he decided not to go higher.)

nonbird
2013-02-12 04:01 am (UTC)

Lazarus exhales a sigh of relief, aloud and over brainphone.

[I think he could stop existing if the power ran out while he was in there,] he explains. [Or if the Joker died. So make sure that doesn't happen either.]

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:03 am (UTC)

[Thank you,] to Lazarus, heartfelt.

[To the asteroid. I came looking for you. You went into Milliways and you didn't come out and I thought you were dead and I only minutes ago found a door to see if I could possibly be wrong.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 04:07 am (UTC)

[Shit, I'm so sorry!] he says, and tries his teleport power, then a pentagon, then a hex.

The hex works.

Alice hugs his Bella.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I didn't know that was gonna happen, we thought it was safe, Ghosty tried it first and everything, please don't be mad, I love you."

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:09 am (UTC)

"I thought you were dead," she says into his shoulder, hugging him as tightly as she possibly can. "I thought you were dead, I thought you'd run into something horrifying straight out of Lovecraft that killed you in spite of everything, I couldn't think what else - Ghosty is not a reasonable test - she can get into and out of people already - she is not the same sort of undead creature you are - I thought you were dead, I love you, I love you, I love you -"

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 04:12 am (UTC)

"I love you too," he says, hugging her tighter. "I love you so much, I'm sorry, look, I'm not dead, I'm right here and I love you."

manofmyword
2013-02-12 04:13 am (UTC)

The Joker watches them with a sad smile on his face.

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:15 am (UTC)

"Let's go home," says Bella. She's ignoring the Joker altogether. He no longer has anything she wants. "Okay? Let's just -" She teleports them to where Lazarus is so she can add him to the party, and then pauses before making the next hop, sobbing.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 04:20 am (UTC)

Alice kisses the top of her head and snuggles her a bunch.

nonbird
2013-02-12 04:21 am (UTC)

Lazarus hesitates, then hugs them both.

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:27 am (UTC)

Bella teleports them all to where Alfred is still holding the door.

"Thank you," she says, turning her head just enough out of the hug to clearly direct the comment at the butler. "Thank you so much. Do you want those three wishes?"

"I do not believe that will be necessary, although I may tell Miss Wayne that you offered, in case she ever wishes to call in a rain check," says Alfred.

"Sure, she can collect too if you want to transfer them. Thank you so much."

Not letting Alice go for a minute, she sort of shuffles back into Milliways.

nonbird
2013-02-12 04:28 am (UTC)

Lazarus closes the door behind them all, and then opens it again.

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:29 am (UTC)

And they are back in Marspire. Bella sort of slumps, going as limp as she can without letting go of her Alice.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 04:31 am (UTC)

Alice kisses her forehead.

"I love you," he murmurs, "I love you, let's go snuggle."

And he teleports them to his lair, which has a nice cuddly bed.

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:32 am (UTC)

It does.

(It's also not made up in quite exactly the way he left it. She's been taking naps there. Bella doesn't think about it, she just throws herself with wholehearted limpness into snuggling.)

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 04:36 am (UTC)

Alice doesn't notice. He is way too busy hugging his Bella and loving her and being sorry

(and, somewhere in there, being sad that she'll probably hate the Joker even more now)

and loving her some more.

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:38 am (UTC)

"I hired mints," she mumbles.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 04:39 am (UTC)

"Huh?"

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:41 am (UTC)

"I thought you were dead and I couldn't wish a door to Milliways - I can force it to go where I want from the inside, turns out, but I can't make one appear, not even with a star - to look for you - and I thought you were dead. And I still had this empire to run and I need coins for that so I hired mints."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 04:42 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he says, cuddling her. "Can I meet them? Are they nice?"

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:45 am (UTC)

"Sure you can meet them. They're nice. They're called Anna and Sandy. Anna has moved to Mars and Sandy lives in Toronto and he's also an ingot. I actually gave the Joker a copy of his power to get you out - Lazarus's idea - he has a persistent mindscape with people in it."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 11:56 am (UTC)

He smiles, and snuggles up again.

"I love you," he says. "I'm sorry I worried you and stuff."

self_composed
2013-02-12 04:59 pm (UTC)

"I love you too. I was keeping it together for imperial business but I was something of a wreck during downtime," she confesses, pressing herself into him gratefully.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 05:03 pm (UTC)

Alice wraps his arms around her and kisses her forehead.

"I'm sorry," he repeats. "I love you."

He kind of wants to be all squishily human again for a bit; snuggling her as a vampire is different, and he wants to do it the other way now.

self_composed
2013-02-12 05:07 pm (UTC)

[Shapeshifting power's probably the most efficient thing,] Bella murmurs; her face is pressed into his shirt and she doesn't feel like moving it to talk aloud. She has looked up all the X-Men since their first discussion of where to get ideas for powers: [Like Mystique, with this as your default shape.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 05:10 pm (UTC)

He considers that for a bit, and then adjusts a few things and makes the wish. (Specifically, he doesn't want it to cost effort to keep a shape he's switched to; why should it?)

There, he is now soft and cuddly. Snuggle tiiiiiiiiiiiiiime.

self_composed
2013-02-12 05:12 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs, happy, relieved, comfortable, and so so glad he is back.

[I guess I can cut the new hires' quotas,] she muses.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 05:13 pm (UTC)

He laughs. [Yeah, probably.]

self_composed
2013-02-12 05:23 pm (UTC)

[I will disseminate the good news.]

She tells Libby first - a summary of what happened and that she's going to cut Sandy and Anna's quotas but continue to employ them - and then she conference-brainphones all three of the relevant mints.

[Hey, Sandy, Anna, you guys busy? I have news.]

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:28 pm (UTC)

[What's up?] inquires Anna, sounding a little giggly.

self_composed
2013-02-12 05:30 pm (UTC)

[I'm cutting your quotas. Your predecessor is not permanently vanished into another dimension after all; I mounted a successful rescue mission. I'm keeping you on for necessary redundancy, but as long as there's three of you I don't expect more than half of what I said before. Still happy to take excess if you don't have enough ideas, though. And, he's curious about you and wants to be introduced.]

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:32 pm (UTC)

[Cool,] says Anna. [Is he on the call? Hi, guy whose name I forget!]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 05:33 pm (UTC)

[Hi,] laughs Alice.

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:34 pm (UTC)

[We're having a masochism party,] she says gleefully. [You should come!]

self_composed
2013-02-12 05:37 pm (UTC)

[His name is Alice. Are you having your party in Sandy's head?] Bella asks. Her voice doesn't betray it, but she tenses up against Alice.

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:41 pm (UTC)

[Yep!]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 05:42 pm (UTC)

Alice snuggles her. "Do you not want me to go? I could not go," he says.

He wants to go, though. And test out his new squishiness.

self_composed
2013-02-12 05:48 pm (UTC)

"That's where I found you. Stuck in somebody's head. I know Anna can get in and out, heck, I duplicated Sandy's power for the Joker to get you loose, but. That's where I found you."

(She's repeating herself a lot lately, isn't she.)

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 05:53 pm (UTC)

"I know," he says, hugging her. "If you don't want me to go now, I won't."

self_composed
2013-02-12 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Maybe meet them in the usual way first. And - after I've had a little longer." Hugs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-12 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

He gives her a kiss.

[Maybe next time,] he says cheerfully to Anna (and Sandy, wherever he is). [Or we could hang out some in this reality, that'd be fun too.]

self_composed
2013-02-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

Kisses. She did miss kisses. They are nice.

on top of the world

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell is dancing on literal air when they leave Milliways.

Stella is an even more fortuitous find than Amariah was, and Amariah was amazing. Stella has given her everything she needs. Stella is a Space Empress and Shell Bell is going to follow right after her, probably with slightly less Space.

The fact that Shell Bell has to torture her girlfriend to accomplish anything in this department is a mood dampener, but she went and had a look at the memories of those "tastes" Stella provided and - well. They're bordered pale, even the big one. She's spooked about looking any closer; she managed to neglect to ask Stella before she went back to her Empire if looking at pain-related thoughts hurts. She looked at the square-sized memory and it was... too close to call. Stella might not even know the answer - mental opacity could easily interact somehow with mindreading. Stella might be protected against painful reading where Shell Bell, with only a wished-for imitation, might not.

But Sherlock seems content, and so -

"We're gonna take over the wo-orld, we're gonna take over the world, we're gonna take over the wooooorld," Bell sings, dancing into the house from the bar. (She can dance now. She is not in the least danger of tripping, wouldn't be even if her feet were touching the ground, and if she does anyway, she will float.)

sicaria
2013-02-08 02:35 pm (UTC)

Sherlock giggles and chases after her with hugs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 04:44 pm (UTC)

Hugs are entirely welcome! Sherlock can join her in her air-dancing. "We," she says, very seriously, "are going to take over the world."

sicaria
2013-02-08 04:48 pm (UTC)

Still giggling, she kisses Bell's cheek.

"We most certainly are. It will be delightful. I love you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I love you too!" Bell grins. She's got a chain of starter coins making jangling noises audible only to her around her waist; she's got an array of glorious superpowers; and now she has to decide how to take over the world. "Hmmm. Went from having not enough resources to form a proper plan to having so many that I can play this any way I want. Not all that much easier, I gotta say."

sicaria
2013-02-08 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Well," she says.

"We could find Atlantis. Or, somewhat likelier, found it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Finding Atlantis if it exists is definitely on the to-do list," Bell agrees. "There could easily be some functional government across the ocean better equipped to absorb Panem's population than anything we make de novo will be. Then again, Atlantis could exist and turn out to be just as bad. I'd like a plan for handling Panem if there is no Atlantis, and then if there is a bad Atlantis, we won't be caught giving ourselves away in one without any strategy we can adapt for a bad Atlantis too."

sicaria
2013-02-08 05:08 pm (UTC)

"We could install your counterpart's anti-violence measures directly over the planet," she says. "Or better ones. And then start solving problems and deal with resistance as it occurs. Whatever we do, it would be best to do it fast, while the Capitol is still headless."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 05:15 pm (UTC)

"We could," Bell says. "I don't think the ones she has for Mars will work exactly as she 'worded' the wishes. It's designed to coexist with some others of the 'ground rules'. She has enough of them buzzing around to render a police force completely unnecessary in the first place, and I'm not sure how the Peacekeepers will take being rendered unnecessary. Speaking of Peacekeepers," she says, looking up suddenly, "I don't think I have any excuse not to tell my parents that I'm alive after all. I can teleport in when they'll both be home and have a brief conversation and make sure they're safe and fed and then teleport back."

sicaria
2013-02-08 05:16 pm (UTC)

"All right."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 05:21 pm (UTC)

"I'd ask you to come, but I think I'll be enough of a shock all by myself," says Bell ruefully. [But I can keep up two conversations at once now!] she adds, giving Sherlock a kiss.

She consults the time. It is in fact right between salmon expeditions; under normal circumstances both of her parents will be home unless Shark has chosen this occasion to poach fish.

(Invisibility first. In case they have guests. And port.)

sicaria
2013-02-08 05:45 pm (UTC)

[A handy talent,] she says, kissing back.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 05:54 pm (UTC)

[Yup. They're home,] Bell reports.

They don't faint. They do insist on hugging her. Ranae cries. Shark rants. (Just like Amariah predicted.) They hug her a lot.

[They were so sad,] she reports guiltily to Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-02-08 06:11 pm (UTC)

[I'm sorry,] she says, although she's not sure that's the right thing.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 06:16 pm (UTC)

[I feel really bad about it. But there wasn't a better option at the time.]

After they calm down about her being alive, they want an explanation of the teleportation thing. Bell explains it as gently as she can.

sicaria
2013-02-08 07:07 pm (UTC)

[When you return,] says Sherlock, [I believe I will give you a hug.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 07:20 pm (UTC)

[I believe I will like that.]

Bell tells them that she found an Atlantis, "not on this planet, but farther away" and that the queen of Atlantis gave her special powers. This is all sort of true if you interpret the District Four definition of "Atlantis" and the commonsense definition of "farther away" very liberally.

At length, Bell determines that her parents have begun to repeat themselves, and says that she's going to be on her way, but she'll visit again soon.

She hugs them both, and then she teleports home - back to the Starks', anyway - and hugs Sherlock too.

sicaria
2013-02-08 07:22 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Definitely hugs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Shell Bell, after there have been a satisfying number of hugs for the time being. "I think what I want is an accurate globe of the earth with - population indicators and marked capital cities and so on. That's a magical object, so - pentagon, I suppose. ...I have a fair few for now but let me know if and when you feel like making more?"

sicaria
2013-02-08 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Happily," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Shell Bell is not fully comfortable with that yet, but Stella and - Stella guesses - Amariah have manged it, and so can she. Eventually. With lots of mindreading and reassuring cuddles.

She wishes on a pentagon, and she has a globe of the Earth, about four times the size of her head, complete with tides going in and out in real time on the coasts of sunken continents. Panem is all labeled correctly, Capitol and Districts One through -

"Thirteen," murmurs Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-08 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Thirteen," says Sherlock. "Interesting."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 07:50 pm (UTC)

It has a population marker on it. A few thousand people live in Thirteen. Fewer than any other District, but that there is a populated area.

"Very interesting. I thought it'd been destroyed. I wonder what happened instead."

She spins the globe.

There is no Atlantis.

sicaria
2013-02-08 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Should we go and investigate, do you think?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I think that would be prudent of us. Do you suppose Tony will want to come?"

sicaria
2013-02-08 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I think he will be fine with being brought along later."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 08:04 pm (UTC)

"All right then. I think we probably ought to land invisible. Who knows what they have going on there."

sicaria
2013-02-08 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Agreed," says Sherlock. She provides herself the appropriate power, appropriately mutually perceptible with Bell's, and invisibles.
Edited 2013-02-08 22:29 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 10:36 pm (UTC)

Bell follows suit, and holds Sherlock's hand, and wishes them teleported into the office of the leader of District Thirteen, or whatever location most nearly matches that description.

It turns out to be very officey, very tidy, and occupied by one very severe-looking president.

sicaria
2013-02-08 10:38 pm (UTC)

[That is not a person who looks pleased with life,] says Sherlock. [Then again, I can see why not.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 10:40 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Opinions on spying on her for a while versus introducing ourselves?]

sicaria
2013-02-08 10:42 pm (UTC)

[Spying first.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 10:50 pm (UTC)

They spy.

President Coin is apparently democratically elected; there is no obvious evidence to support the hypothesis that any significant fraction of Thirteen is disenfranchised apart from the underaged. They have enough of a food shortage that food scarcity is brought up as a topic in the meeting she holds with several of her staff, but not enough that anyone seems terribly worried about it or that they're discussing inequitable distributions to compensate. The residents of Thirteen all seem to have schedules printed on their forearms, which they consult when determining where to go after the meeting. Most of these schedules, when peered at, include things like combat training. Whether or not they are currently at war, Thirteen is in a state of readiness and ongoing preparation for it.

Coin's next meeting, after a fifteen-minute break during which she eats a perfunctory lunch, is about refugees, which Thirteen apparently accepts with good grace when anyone chooses their district as their destination and actually makes it over the border rather than being caught first. Bell brainphone-hmms on this subject consideringly.

Their tech is behind the Capitol, but mostly for resource reasons, not reasons of knowhow. They live underground, but going up isn't forbidden, just uncustomary. And they are all ready to descend into the lower levels and take shelter from a bombing run at any time.

sicaria
2013-02-08 10:54 pm (UTC)

[I am considering dropping a wagonload of cornucopias on their heads,] says Sherlock. [If I can duplicate them. I suppose I should check.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 10:56 pm (UTC)

[Oh, I bet we can,] agrees Bell. [They seem... well, as decent as one could expect anyone living in Panem's shadow could reasonably be expected to be. But not so nice that I can be sure of what they'll do if that shadow changes.]

sicaria
2013-02-08 10:59 pm (UTC)

[Well. Perhaps we'll just see what happens when we make our move on the Capitol, whatever it is. Maybe wagonloads of cornucopias for everyone would be a good start,] she suggests.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 11:00 pm (UTC)

[I am considering implementing a variant on Stella's Martian ground rules, and then picking up the entire Capitol, putting it on the Moon, and coming up with a procedure to put its inhabitants on trial,] Bell says.

sicaria
2013-02-08 11:07 pm (UTC)

[That does sound fun.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 11:13 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Of course then I have to decide what to do with the guilty of various sorts, and what to do with their dependents when they have any, and, for that matter, what to do with the innocent, and what to do with the Peacekeepers who are mostly from Districts and not the Capitol itself, and so on. Very complicated.]

sicaria
2013-02-08 11:20 pm (UTC)

[Keep the guilty on the moon,] she suggests. [In comfort but not luxury. Let everyone else come back.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 11:26 pm (UTC)

[I'll probably wind up on something that has that as part of the scheme, but - I don't know. Snow had kids. He had a granddaughter, his kids were all grown and I didn't consider it relevant for him in particular, but I'm sure there are rotten people with small children and I'm torn about them.]

sicaria
2013-02-08 11:32 pm (UTC)

[What are your proposed solutions?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 11:37 pm (UTC)

[I'm working on that. If I had a good one I would've just triumphantly explained it,] Bell sighs. She leans on Sherlock and watches a family of District Thirteeners go down the hall past Coin's office.

sicaria
2013-02-08 11:38 pm (UTC)

[If you have a bad one, perhaps I can improve it.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Well. If the guilty go on a lunar prison colony and not into outright lockup, I could give kids old enough to express a preference a choice of staying there with their families or coming down and going into some kind of - facility, ideally designed to get the kids adopted. That hardly seems like a less nasty thing to do to an - eight-year-old or whatever than just sending them straight to the facility without consulting them, though. Sometimes giving a choice isn't helping.]

sicaria
2013-02-08 11:50 pm (UTC)

[I see what you mean,] she muses.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-08 11:52 pm (UTC)

[I probably would've had a more comfortable childhood if I'd passed some tests and gotten moved to a district that had more use for brains, like yours, but I wasn't going to let anyone take me from my parents, not when I was little and I needed them.]

sicaria
2013-02-09 12:06 am (UTC)

[Remove the children that want to go or are being mistreated; leave the rest,] Sherlock says after a moment. [Include in the ground rules of the Moon that no children can be conceived there, to limit the problem. Allow the children to come back at any time and deal with them individually if they begin making trouble.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 12:14 am (UTC)

[Mm. I'm probably not going to do any better than that. And then I design a facility - and I have to staff it, too, I can make the facility operate itself with respect to basic needs but kids need to be around people. I wonder if Thirteen's a potentially good source of personnel who grew up not so cowed by the Games and with adequate educations? I mean, obviously the other twelve Districts can produce smart and decent people, but it might be easier to find them here.]

sicaria
2013-02-09 12:17 am (UTC)

[I am not sure 'uncowed' is the first description that comes to mind,] says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 12:24 am (UTC)

[Well. Anticipating war if something goes wrong is a different state than anticipating squashing if you annoy the wrong person. Thirteen used to do nukes, didn't it? The Capitol's probably at least as afraid of them as they are of it.]

sicaria
2013-02-09 12:29 am (UTC)

[I do see what you mean,] she muses.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 12:32 am (UTC)

[I want to find their school and see what it's like,] Bell decides, and she starts reading passerby forearms to seek someone who's headed in that direction. It's almost like they're trying to be convenient for invisible spies.

sicaria
2013-02-09 12:41 am (UTC)

Laughing silently, Sherlock follows as soon as Bell finds one.
Edited 2013-02-09 00:41 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 12:47 am (UTC)

The school appears to operate in shifts - they're underground, and people can sleep as well during the day as they can at night, so it's most efficient that way. They get to the school just as First Shift is taking over from Third Shift, and watch the history teacher they followed setting up for the day and greeting her students. The lesson is spare, factual, and delivered to relatively attentive children.

sicaria
2013-02-09 12:50 am (UTC)

[The place is a match for its president,] Sherlock comments. [Very unfrivolous.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 12:54 am (UTC)

[Very. I wonder what they'll do in sudden excess. I think my hometown would throw a party. I'm not sure these people know what a party is.]

sicaria
2013-02-09 12:55 am (UTC)

[I am really very tempted to wish each and every one of them a cornucopia and an instruction packet, just to see what happens.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 12:58 am (UTC)

[I don't think they're underfed - just - careful. But let's have a look at the dining hall.] It's easy to find someone on their way to the dining hall after they leave the school. Everyone lines up and gets a reasonable portion of food for their size. [Yeah. I mean, if something happened to their supply they'd be in trouble, but I don't think cornucopias are the key to sweeping cultural change, especially not since we know they take refugees when refugees get this far.]

sicaria
2013-02-09 12:59 am (UTC)

[They lack abundance.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 01:02 am (UTC)

[They do. Let's go have another look at Coin.]

sicaria
2013-02-09 01:11 am (UTC)

[All right.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 01:14 am (UTC)

Coin is now in another meeting. This one is with some recent refugees from District Nine, and some natives who are operating as their handlers-slash-guides while they acclimate to District Thirteen. Coin wants firsthand information about the possibility of unrest in the Districts, which she can't get by intercepting Capitol-controlled television transmissions. The Niners have nothing encouraging to say.

[This would be a very dramatic time to appear,] observes Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-09 01:15 am (UTC)

[Do,] Sherlock says merrily. [Leave me in reserve.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 01:21 am (UTC)

Bell laughs over the brainphone.

She waits just a moment longer, and then Coin says: "So as far as you know, Nine is no readier to rise up than it was the last time we heard news from that part of the country?"

"Far as I know," says one of the refugees, "nobody anywhere's ready for that."

And Bell appears, and says, "You haven't been looking hard enough."

sicaria
2013-02-09 01:22 am (UTC)

[Hardly fair,] says Sherlock, invisi-grinning.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 01:27 am (UTC)

[Who wants fair?]

Everyone besides them in the room is taken aback, but Coin recovers fastest - she hits a button for security, and Bell says, "Hey, I'm not hostile. There's no call for that."

"Who are you, then?" says Coin in a low, dangerous voice.

"I," says Bell, and her sentence is broken up by the fact that she teleports across the room to avoid the quick-responding security guards, "am just a girl" teleport "from Four" teleport "who is very ready" teleport "to - look, this is very annoying" teleport "can you call them off?" teleport "ready to attack the Capitol." (Teleport. Teleport.)
Edited 2013-02-09 01:29 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-09 01:30 am (UTC)

Sherlock presses her hands over her mouth to stifle her giggles.

[Would you like me to do something about those?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 01:35 am (UTC)

[Nah, I can keep ahead of them and you're my reserve, remember? Besides, the idea is to convince them I'm friendly.] (Teleport.)

"Stand down," Coin says, after it becomes blindingly obvious that her guards are not going to catch Bell. "How are you doing that?"

"Magic -" At the look on Coin's face, Bell shakes her head. "No, literally, magic, I'm not mocking you. I got it from another world."
Edited 2013-02-09 01:38 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-09 01:39 am (UTC)

[Have we anything flashier to demonstrate with?] she wonders. [I'm not sure what would make the best impression.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 01:44 am (UTC)

[None of my standing powers are that visually impressive - except maybe flying - but I can do a one-off if we think of something.]

"Magic," says Coin flatly. "From another world."

"Yes, exactly, I'm glad our accents have turned out to be mutually intelligible. I'm Shell Bell."

"I am President Coin."

"It says so on the door to your office," Bell points out. "Tell me, what's your plan for a District or several who do want to overthrow the Capitol?"

"Total war," says Coin shortly.

sicaria
2013-02-09 01:46 am (UTC)

[Well. This should be interesting,] Sherlock brain-murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 01:52 am (UTC)

"Do you have nukes, or is the Capitol just afraid you might?" Bell muses.

"Classified," says Coin shortly.

"Look," says Bell, "since you're in the middle of a meeting, maybe I should go and we should schedule something and you can write it on your arm and I won't be interrupting. Does that sound good?"

"I believe I can rearrange my schedule for this," says Coin, and she shoos the refugees and their helpers out the door. (The security stays.)

sicaria
2013-02-09 01:53 am (UTC)

Sherlock loves her girlfriend.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 01:59 am (UTC)

"Still classified?" Bell asks, after the refugees have gone.

"Very much so," replies Coin. "How did you get to this 'other world'?"

"Walked there," says Bell. "Or maybe I should just say 'classified'; is that politer?"

There is a silence, and then Coin says, "You look familiar."

"Tribute from Four, a couple years back," says Bell easily. "A Career took my place. That was after I found the other world but before I extracted much magic from it."

sicaria
2013-02-09 02:03 am (UTC)

[Shall I find out about the nukes?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 02:06 am (UTC)

[It would be good to know. I don't think any good can come of nuking anything.]

"What can this... magic... do?" Coin asks slowly.

"What do you want it to do?" Bell asks easily. "No fair asking for something I'd rather not see happen, but if you want, I dunno, a year's supply of apple butter in single-serving packets, I can make that happen."

"Apple butter," says Coin blankly.

"It's good. You should try it if you haven't," said Bell.

"Are you quite sane?"

"Quite," Bell says.

sicaria
2013-02-09 02:12 am (UTC)

[I love you,] says Sherlock.

She closes her eyes.

What does she need, exactly?

A new sense take root in her mind, feeding her direct information about the physical location and structure of nearby objects. She detaches its locus, expands it as far as it will go, and sends it scrolling through the complex.

Magic is such fun.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 02:15 am (UTC)

[I love you too,] Bell returns happily.

"You understand why you might not seem so," says Coin.

"Because I picked a silly example? Okay. Forget the apple butter. You want all your citizens fed for the next forever? With whatever strikes their fancy, without worrying about whether spores get into the hydroponics -"

"How long have you been spying on us?"

"Just for today," says Bell blithely. "I didn't know District Thirteen was still around until just before that, I certainly didn't know what you were like. But I am optimistic that we can be friends."

sicaria
2013-02-09 02:17 am (UTC)

[They have nukes,] Sherlock reports. [Shall I do something about them?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 02:25 am (UTC)

[Mmmm... not just yet. I want to see if I can get her to tell me.]

"Friends," says Coin.

"You're the only non-Capitol-controlled population on the planet," Bell says. "I checked. Since I intend to no longer be controlled by the Capitol either, I'd certainly hope we could be friends, as opposed to turning a two-faction standoff into a three-faction..." She waves a hand. "Something."

"How old are you?"

"Not sure, actually," muses Bell. "Time doesn't pass normally in the other world, and I was there a lot. I am either eighteen or nineteen."

"Chaos and darkness," mutters Coin under her breath.
Edited 2013-02-09 02:27 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-09 02:27 am (UTC)

[You are very attractive to me right now,] Sherlock observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 02:35 am (UTC)

[We will do something about that when I am done here,] Shell Bell promises.

"I was hoping for order and light," says Bell innocently. "Look. Here's what I have: a ton of very flexible magic. Here's what I want: trustworthy people with non-crap educations to help me run Panem after I take it over with my ton of very flexible magic. You have some of those. I'd like to employ some of them. I'm prepared to be quite generous with the magic. Everyone here seems pretty okay with how you're running things, so I don't need to put you out of a job, or attack your District, or do anything in particular I'd expect you not to like."

"...I'm listening," says Coin.

sicaria
2013-02-09 02:37 am (UTC)

[One cornucopia might make a nice goodwill present, at the appropriate moment,] she muses. [It represents abundance.]
Edited 2013-02-09 02:37 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 02:44 am (UTC)

Bell trades in a pentagon for a cornucopia. The wish proves able to duplicate what Matilda did without a problem. "Here's a present," she says, setting the little golden horn on Coin's desk. "It's a cornucopia, only if you grab it, you won't be stabbed in the back by a tribute who wants your supplies. It's a voice-operated food-appearing thing. Ask it for something."

There is a stillness.

"Or don't, maybe you're not hungry," shrugs Bell.

"Bread," says Coin suspiciously to the cornucopia, in tones of great suspicion.

Bread appears. Coin stares at it as though she believes it is keeping secrets from her and may need to be tortured for the information.

sicaria
2013-02-09 02:46 am (UTC)

Sherlock nearly bounces with glee.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 02:55 am (UTC)

[You're cute.]

"I can make more of those. I can make stuff that'll handle your water, your air filtration, whatever. And then you will have people going spare - because they won't need to work on whatever I just made redundant with magic - and then I would like to be invited to hire them. Does that sound like a good deal to you?" Bell asks pleasantly.

"It sounds too good to be true," Coin says frankly.

"Will you believe me after I pick up the entire Capitol and place it ever so gently on the Moon?" Bell asks.

sicaria
2013-02-09 03:03 am (UTC)

Sherlock loves her. Oh, how Sherlock loves her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 03:08 am (UTC)

Coin stares at her.

Then, skeptically, sarcastically, she says, "Yes. I will believe that this arrangement you propose is not too good to be true if you pick up the Capitol and put it on the Moon."

"Splendid," says Bell. "I'll get back to you after I've done that, then! How do I go about making an appointment? I'd hate to unduly disrupt your schedule."

"I've a secretary," says Coin, clearly wrong-footed. "If you... appear... at him, he will arrange it with you."

"Will do," says Bell. "See you later!"

And she turns invisible, and takes Sherlock's hand, and puts them both back where they came from, and kisses her with a brilliant happiness.

sicaria
2013-02-09 03:09 am (UTC)

She wraps her arms around Bell and kisses back with pure delight.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 03:11 am (UTC)

[I love you. I love you I love you I love you we're going to take over the world,] Bell sings silently.

sicaria
2013-02-09 03:18 am (UTC)

[I love you too,] she says, hugging Bell closer. [Shall we replenish our supply of coins while we're at it?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 03:22 am (UTC)

Bell stills in Sherlock's arms. [Still not used to that,] she admits. [But - yeah, I should - get accustomed to it. Um, bedroom - mine? yours?]

sicaria
2013-02-09 03:37 am (UTC)

[Mine?] she suggests, kissing Bell's cheek. [I like making coins. I will endeavour to show you how much.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 03:45 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

Bell turns on the read, so she'll be able to see, and goes with her to Sherlock's room. [Um, do you want me to ramp it up slowly, or just hit you with - what, pentagons, hexagons...?]

sicaria
2013-02-09 03:53 am (UTC)

[Slowly,] she decides. [Squares are a good place to start.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 03:55 am (UTC)

Squares can be as small as ten triangles. When they're both sitting on Sherlock's bed, Bell bites her lip, and turns on the agony beam at that level. [..."Flavor"... preferences?] she asks dubiously, peering at the read.

sicaria
2013-02-09 03:59 am (UTC)

Her breath catches; her eyelashes flutter slightly.

She likes it.

[Sharp?] she requests, smiling.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 04:00 am (UTC)

There's a dozen kinds of sharp. Why Stella's Alice felt the need to solicit such variety is beyond her. Bell picks glass-sharp, as the first thing to come to mind.

sicaria
2013-02-09 04:03 am (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 04:06 am (UTC)

Bell kisses back. The agony beam doesn't need attention to maintain, and Sherlock will tell her when she wants it kicked up. (Presumably.)

sicaria
2013-02-09 04:10 am (UTC)

Soon enough: [More, please.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 04:17 am (UTC)

[How much more?]

sicaria
2013-02-09 04:19 am (UTC)

[Another ten?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 04:20 am (UTC)

Bell doubles it, and snuggles up to Sherlock, and watches the read.

sicaria
2013-02-09 04:27 am (UTC)

She likes it. She likes it the way she likes kisses, or watching Bell set things on fire. There isn't a hint of dark affect involved.

[Ten is a good interval,] she decides. [More, please.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 04:30 am (UTC)

And up Bell goes, as asked, focusing very hard on that affect-white and not on the fact that it's surrounding a lightning bolt.

sicaria
2013-02-09 04:34 am (UTC)

"That's lovely," she sighs, and kisses Bell again.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 04:36 am (UTC)

"Good. Should I just - keep going up ten at a time occasionally - or wait for you to say?"

sicaria
2013-02-09 04:40 am (UTC)

"Keep going. I'll tell you when to stop." Like pouring a cup of tea, she thinks, and giggles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 04:42 am (UTC)

Bell giggles too, because she saw that, and she goes up.

Wait wait kisses wait up.

Wait kisses snuggles up.

Wait hair-petting wait up...

And soon enough they're out of squares, into pentagons.

sicaria
2013-02-09 04:44 am (UTC)

And Sherlock would like to be out of clothes. Pentagons are a good place to be. She likes them.

She could easily go higher.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 04:46 am (UTC)

Hmm. Out of clothes. Bell saw that. She fumbles for the nearest button, not really looking, and starts skipping up a liiiittle faster.

sicaria
2013-02-09 01:53 pm (UTC)

There is more space in this teacup. A lot more.

She nuzzles Bell's shoulder and then kisses her again, all full of love and warm pleasant tension.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-09 05:21 pm (UTC)

Up-up-up. At increments of ten they'll be in pentagons for a while.

sicaria
2013-02-10 01:41 am (UTC)

Pentagons and warm snuggly kisses. Lovely.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 01:47 am (UTC)

Pentagon range is finite.

They cross into hexagon range, and now Bell is thinking about the hit-by-a-van story and getting nervous again, staring into the middle distance where the read channel appears in her vision.

sicaria
2013-02-10 02:38 am (UTC)

Sherlock snuggles up to her.

The affect around the lightning bolt is emphatically white.

"That'll do," she murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 05:01 am (UTC)

Bell stops pushing upwards, and leaves it where it is, and watches the whiteness and presses into the snuggle.

sicaria
2013-02-10 05:05 am (UTC)

She wraps her arms around Bell and kisses her, slow and sweet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 05:08 am (UTC)

Mmm, kisses. Bell can almost forget about what must be staggering amounts of pain if she tries.

sicaria
2013-02-10 05:24 am (UTC)

Sherlock is not forgetting. Sherlock is enjoying it. Sherlock is enjoying it very much. She has been backgrounding the sexual component of all this for some time, focusing on love and snuggles, but it no longer deigns to be bckgrounded.

Kisses.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 05:26 am (UTC)

Oh. That's interesting. Bell has a perfect memory now and knows what those symbols scrolling by mean.

Kisses indeed.

upon the moon

she_sells_seashells

Bell and Sherlock haven't worked up to star-manufacture yet, but Bell has a couple dozen declawed "starter" stars from Stella in that shimmery black color that Alice makes. (Sherlock's coins are a pale pearly grey. Shell Bell thinks they are much prettier.) She uses several of these to place revised versions of Stella's ground rules - on Earth, and on the Moon - and then one to scoop up the whole Capitol and put it quite literally on the Moon.

She is even kind enough to hexagon everyone who lives in the Capitol but is not there at that moment back into their homes before making the transfer. (People who do not live in the Capitol but are there anyway she wants to investigate. Most of them will probably go home without incident. Some of them may be... problems.)

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:14 am (UTC)

Sherlock watches; she's added another hex onto her perception power to expand its range and let her watch multiple locations at once.

"I love you," she announces.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 06:20 am (UTC)

"I love you," echoes Bell. She sets about making sure that the Capitol's various ground-rules-compliant systems, like the plumbing, will continue to operate; it is not part of the plan for anyone to die of thirst (or cholera) while awaiting trial.

And then she goes invisible. [Let's go see if Coin noticed that yet,] she says cheerfully.

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:21 am (UTC)

Sherlock follows suit. [Do let's.]
Edited 2013-02-10 06:22 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 06:24 am (UTC)

Teleportation! Whee! Directly into Coin's office! Whee!

Coin does not seem to have gotten the memo yet. Bell waits, hovering and spinning and brainphone-singing to Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:28 am (UTC)

Sherlock kisses Bell's cheek whenever she orbits past.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 06:33 am (UTC)

Eventually Bell gets bored of waiting for someone to determine that, yes, as far as they can tell, the Capitol is on the moon and someone should tell the president. She teleports to the secretary's office and appears to her. "Hello! I need to make an appointment with Coin," she tells the secretary.

"I - have - a cancellation for fifteen minutes from now," stammers the secretary.

"Yes, that will do," says Bell.

"...And... what shall I put on the schedule?"

"Hmm," says Bell. She peers at the secretary's desk to see if there's a format for her to copy. "Put meeting with the Empress of Atlantis re: the Moon."

"...Okay," says the secretary.

"Thanks!"

And she turns invisible again and returns to lurking in Coin's office. [Fifteen minutes,] she reports to Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:37 am (UTC)

[I love you so very much,] says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 06:42 am (UTC)

[I may be toying with them more than I otherwise would because I have an audience,] muses Bell. [Not that I'm objecting.]

Coin's schedule-printing device beeps at her that it has a revision.

She puts her arm in it.

It prints meeting with Empress of Atlantis re: the Moon.

She frowns at this. "If you're here already, spying on me," she says, "we may as well move this the remaining few minutes earlier."

"I thought you wanted me to go through your secretary?" Bell asks, becoming visible.

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:43 am (UTC)

[And you are so delightful when you are toying with them. Besides, I think it is good for her.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 06:49 am (UTC)

"Anyway," says Coin, rolling her eyes. "What about the moon?"

"It has the Capitol on it. If your people have noticed I guess they haven't figured out how to tell you. Am I a secret from the people of District Thirteen? Were they not aware of the plan to populate the Moon? Because I was hoping to get some of that promised personnel help for the trials. It won't be hard work. I'm going to conjure some nice lie-detecting orbs and write up a set of trial questions and then all we need are some humans to operate the appeals system."

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:50 am (UTC)

[I love you,] Sherlock reiterates. [You are lovely.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 07:00 am (UTC)

Coin regards Bell fixedly, and then she presses a button on her desk.

"Yes, President Coin?" says a voice through a speaker attached to the button.

"Is there, by any chance, a meeting ongoing right now on the subject of how to convey to me the news that something has happened to the Capitol, which may involve the moon?" she asks, gritting her teeth.

There is a silence, and the response is: "...How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," Coin says, closing her eyes and releasing the button.

sicaria
2013-02-10 07:03 am (UTC)

(Snrk.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 07:11 am (UTC)

"So!" Bell says, clapping her hands. "What kind of stuff do you want? How does personnel allocation normally work? Can I just dump some cornucopias in your dining hall and then hack into your scheduling system and make it print 'report to the Empress of Atlantis at 0800 hours' on some random cafeteria workers' arms, or would you rather handle this in a less whimsical manner?"

"Less whimsical. Yes, that," grinds out Coin.

sicaria
2013-02-10 07:11 am (UTC)

Perhaps they are having a little too much fun with this.

No. No such thing.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 07:20 am (UTC)

Bell either thinks that there is such a thing, or is just not having as much fun anymore; she and Coin settle into a much more businesslike conversation about how to render residents of Thirteen redundant and then funnel them neatly into jobs as Bell's staff.

They conspicuously dance around the question of whether the Atlantis Bell has declared herself Empress of stretches borders around Thirteen.

sicaria
2013-02-10 07:21 am (UTC)

Ha. Of course.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 07:25 am (UTC)

[I think I'll have enough on my plate that I can wait for Coin to be up for reelection and then run against her fair and square on a platform of Having All Those Nice Things The Atlanteans Have,] Bell says, while they discuss alternative designs for the cornucopias that will make more sense to locals. [As many times as necessary.]

sicaria
2013-02-10 07:29 am (UTC)

Bell is the best empress.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 07:34 am (UTC)

[Yes. Yes I am.] They are now talking about conjuring a device to scrub radiation from the air. Bell chooses this occasion to ask innocently about whether she's allowed to know about whether there are nukes yet or if that's just residual power plant radioactivity. (She is not, according to Coin, so permitted.)

sicaria
2013-02-10 03:06 pm (UTC)

[Please may I disable the nukes in some subtle way?] she requests.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 04:59 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

Bell makes Coin a radiation-scrubber anyway, and says, "I think I've earned at least thirty people, which is about as many as I'd conceivably want to interview in a day anyway."

Coin says, "You're trying to move too quickly. Figuring out how to announce you and your actions so far will take longer than a day, let alone figuring out who we can spare."

Bell shrugs. "Okay. How long do you need? If I start thinking you aren't going to produce personnel eventually I might have to take the stuff back, but I can give you a while to plod along bureaucratically if that makes you more comfortable, the Capitol isn't going anywhere and I can make some progress recruiting from the other twelve Districts."

sicaria
2013-02-10 05:12 pm (UTC)

Sherlock considers the problem of the nukes, and then makes a wish.

No perceptible change ensues. But now, if one of them is ever about to launch or go off, it will turn into a large stuffed rabbit instead.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 05:16 pm (UTC)

[I love you, you're fantastic,] says Bell, who was just barely able to catch that going by.

"A week?" tries Coin. "Even if I neglect all lesser priorities completely that's optimistic, but never let it be said that I cannot compromise."

Bell considers what she would do with one week. Write up and deliver various announcements; hire some people - she can probably use Shark, for that matter, if he can get used to the idea of the whole Empress of Atlantis - from Districts. Oh, and make herself a crown. She needs a crown.

"I can do that," Bell says.

"Good," says Coin.

sicaria
2013-02-10 05:21 pm (UTC)

[I love you too.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Shall I go make an appointment for a week's time with your secretary?" Bell asks.

"Yes," says Coin. "That would be helpful."

"Can do."

Bell goes and makes the appointment (meeting with Empress of Atlantis re: hiring agreement) and then fetches Sherlock and teleports them back.

"I'm going to design a crown," she says brightly.
Edited 2013-02-10 17:25 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-02-10 05:25 pm (UTC)

"I am sure it will be beautiful," says Sherlock, kissing her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes. I've had about five years to think about it, after all," she says, grinning.

She closes her eyes and calls up all the fleeting mental images that she can remember now of sea-gems and shapes and colors. She discards most of the early ones, and fuses the others together, and -

Square.

"What do you think?"

sicaria
2013-02-10 05:39 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 06:37 pm (UTC)

[I wonder if I should start referring to you as my Imperial Consort?] muses Bell, kissing back quite happily.

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:38 pm (UTC)

[That would be lovely. Do I get a crown too?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 06:42 pm (UTC)

[Sure! What do you want it to look like?]

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:51 pm (UTC)

[Simple,] she says. [Plain. Sharp.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 06:52 pm (UTC)

Bell starts with the design of her own crown, and sleekens and simplifies and shrinks and smooths and sharpens - and squares, and places the result on Sherlock's head with a kiss.

sicaria
2013-02-10 06:59 pm (UTC)

[I love you.]

Time for some imperial makeouts.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-10 07:00 pm (UTC)

Imperial makeouts indeed. Best kind of makeouts.

on trial

she_sells_seashells

Bell goes a-hiring. Magic is of considerable use in sorting applicants; she narrows thousands down to manageable dozens before she even meets them.

The fact that she has abolished the Hunger Games - she for some reason had to make an announcement about this; people were unclear on the concept of benevolent dictatorship - means that the Career facilities have been abandoned by their students and their staff are out of work. She writes a retraining pamphlet, but here at least are a handful of school-shaped locations where she can start to funnel Capitol children. They don't have room for everyone. She hires caretakers and teachers; she magics up another building in the hole in the ground where the Capitol once sat.

(She will put facilities there, but not her own capitol; for capitol purposes this is tainted ground. For the time being she's still operating out of Sherlock and Tony's house, not that she's made this public. Ultimately she plans to transition into an artificial island. Which will habitually sit in the water, off the coast of Four, but will be possible to render airborne as desired.)

She casually renders tracker-jackers extinct on the first occasion she thinks about it.

When there are places to put each Capitol minor, she formally declares everyone age fourteen and under innocent, and situates the ones willing to leave where they're at and all the ones who can't form preferences yet divided between the three ex-Career schools and the new one. They'd all fit in the new one, but this way personality conflicts or similar can be handled by simple transfers, and the ones in the District are better situated to put the kids in contact with potential adopting families anyway.

Kids fifteen and up have sometimes started internships. She expects to find most of them innocent too - heck, she expects to find most of the adults innocent - but that is the age at which she begins trials.

The trials - such as they are - are fairly summary. A decent fraction of Avoxes committed actual crimes. These have their tongues restored - she is not a barbarian - but they have to stay on the moon, with everyone protected by the new ground rules. The others are sent back to wherever they came from, if all they did was try to run away or sass a Peacekeeper.

She takes down the fences.

She hands out cornucopias like they're confetti.

She consigns every Capitol resident who worked on the Hunger Games in any capacity except - grudgingly - the stylists and prep teams, to a life on the moon.

She interviews the stylists case-by-case and finds them personally repellent but not, probably, dangerous, and they get to go home.

Everyone in Snow's administration, with the exception of one pathetic intern who spent her one month on the job working on a proposal to offer more generous tesserae terms in what seems to have been a genuine if twisted attempt to be helpful: mooned.

Most of the useless typical Capitol people: not mooned. (Although she does screen them for bad behavior first. Unless their "employees" decide to put in personal appeals, everyone who has ever hired the intimate services of a coerced Games victor: is mooned.)

She magics up another building. This one is sort of a hostel for those who leave the Moon and are not of an age to be likely to find adoptive families. And by the time she needs to staff this one, she has District Thirteen employees, courtesy of Coin, to man the place and provide slightly more lucid career counseling than what the reeling District residents could produce. Careers per se are not going to be strictly necessary anymore, but people do like to have things to do with themselves.

Not everyone's thing to do with themselves can be being the Empress of Atlantis. On a floating island with a castle made of coral and stained glass. With a beautiful consort by her side who radiates love and magic.

(Bell makes herself her Coral Palace by the end of week two of the Capitol's relocation. She is not really patient when she does not have to be.)

ferratus
2013-02-12 10:27 pm (UTC)

Hardly anyone puts in a personal appeal for a 'client'.

Tony puts in four.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-12 10:33 pm (UTC)

Bell doesn't want details, but -

"You're sure?" she asks.

ferratus
2013-02-12 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-12 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Okay then."

Those four are now allowed to leave the moon, should they so choose. They can't hurt anyone now, and she does acknowledge Tony's entitlement to input on whether punishment is called for.

ferratus
2013-02-12 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," he says quietly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-12 10:58 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. Almost no one else bothered, even though I sent all the victors a note about it - I'm not sure if you got an unusual set of patrons or if you're just that sweet."

ferratus
2013-02-13 12:18 am (UTC)

"A little from column A..."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-13 12:21 am (UTC)

"Well. They're free to go. If you want to drop by the hostel and help them find someplace to go besides there, you're welcome to," sighs Bell. "I'm very glad of the ground rules - I think there's a lot of resentment simmering in the districts, and now that no one's going to threaten to kill rebellious persons' families it would be safe to let it out against any Capitol-dweller who wandered by - and it is a good thing that they can't get far letting it out violently."

sicaria
2013-02-13 12:22 am (UTC)

"You are a very good Empress," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-13 12:27 am (UTC)

"It doesn't seem like I have to try very hard. I mean, I do have to think, and come up with good wishes, but here I sit under a crown in a palace and I don't feel the slightest inclination to murder my political opponents' loved ones or invent horrifying drug-filled wasps," says Bell. "I'm really not clear on why anyone would."

sicaria
2013-02-13 12:29 am (UTC)

"Because some people are not as nice as you are."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-13 12:33 am (UTC)

"Maybe that's all it is. I dunno. It confuses me even so. If I didn't exist and you'd found Stella some other way and she had made you a mint for some other reason - what would you have done?"

sicaria
2013-02-13 12:35 am (UTC)

"It likely would have involved less whimsy," she says. "And perhaps more death. But the end result would have been essentially the same."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-13 12:37 am (UTC)

"Why more death? What's the point of adding death when you can exile people to the moon?"

sicaria
2013-02-13 02:17 am (UTC)

"It is not that I would have chosen more death over less deliberately; it's that the first solutions I thought of would all have included killing anyone who did not seem possible to rehabilitate, and I might not have come up with better ones."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-13 02:18 am (UTC)

Bell sighs and reaches for Sherlock's arm and hugs it.

sicaria
2013-02-13 02:19 am (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her.

sunnydale welcomes you

cross_and_bow

Bella has been here before, but only during summers. When she arrives in February, something is different.

People don't go out late. It's like they're constrained by the sun, not the hour. In summertime Charlie always insisted that she be home and indoors by sunset. She's always abided by the rule - she was younger then, he seemed so very serious about it, and sunset was a reasonable curfew when it was July.

Now she is here and it's winter and sunset is before dinnertime and the rule is still home and inside by sunset.

She asks. He shows her some statistics about suspicious deaths. She shuts up and she is always home before the sun touches the horizon.

School is mediocre. (Well. It's a high school.) The library is quite good, and there she lurks.

A couple of weeks after she moves to Sunnydale, she goes for one solid week without tripping. Or getting a papercut. Or dropping anything. Or displaying any symptoms of clumsiness at all.

This is weird.

She tests it. She dances. She looks up how to do a cartwheel, and does six, flawlessly, not even dizzy. She gets more and more bold as every trick she tries works - she can do a backflip, a whole sequence of them if she likes, and it just works.

She's pretty sure that even if whatever was wrong with her had spontaneously healed herself she would not have also gained that ability.

When she's been unclumsy for somewhere between a week and two (she's not sure exactly when it started - a few days without accident were never unheard of) she is treated to a visitor. This person is apparently genderless, ageless, not entirely corporeal, and not pleased to be there.

"Haven't you been getting our dreams?" it asks her.

"...What."

"Slayers are meant to learn of who they are through visions, but you've done nothing to show that you've understood a one of them. If you had a Watcher to explain these things to you, it would be a forgivable ignorance, but they've somehow overlooked you, so just how long do you intend to neglect the signs we've sent?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, hallucinatory person. I haven't had any dreams with you in them. Except this one."

It frowns at her. "You are not asleep. We typically commune through dreams, but your brain does not appear to work."

"My brain works great and I fully approve of it vetoing input from creepy dudes," Bella says. She pats herself on the head. "Good brain, you get a biscuit."

It becomes frownier. "Perhaps I should get to the point," it says.

"Perhaps," agrees Bella.

"You have been called to be the Slayer, she who is granted powers above and beyond those of ordinary humans to hold back the forces of darkness." At her blank look, it goes on: "Vampires. Demons. Dark witches."

Vampires. Well, that makes more sense than barbecue forks being the locally popular weapons for PCP-addled gang members.

"So that's why I'm not a klutz anymore."

"You have been chosen for the gift of supernatural strength, speed, and grace, by we, the Powers That Be," intones the apparition, "with which to combat these wicked powers. Slayers also may develop a sixth sense to detect vampires as they move among humans, although whether that will function with your uncooperative mind is unknown to us."

There is a pause.

"Sweet," says Bella. It sounds like she's a special snowflake, but it also sounds like she's screwing up whatever mechanisms are used to find her brand of special snowflakes, except for this person's, and this person doesn't sound like he wishes her dead. So having the powers strictly dominates not having them. "That's neat," she reiterates.

"The purpose of the enhancement is not to improve your quality of life," snaps the Power That Is.

"Oh, sure. If I find evil things, I will Slay them. Slaying evil things sounds good to me, because, you know, evil, bad stuff. If I'm good enough at it to think it's a reasonable tradeoff I might even start looking for evil things. Sweet," repeats Bella.

The Power That Is appears to decide that this is the best it's going to get. It disappears.

Bella sits around and waits to wake up, and when that doesn't work, she tries going to sleep. That does cause her to wake up, some eight hours later, remembering the encounter with perfect undreamlike clarity.

"Sweet," she tells her empty room.

She wonders if the Sunnydale library has anything on vampires. The suspicious death stats make it a reasonable bet.

enjoy its extensive library catalog

cross_and_bow

Bella settles into a new routine.

After school, she hits the library. They have a rather impressive collection of suspiciously elderly and internally consistent books on vampires, their lacking of souls, and how to kill them. It also explains where they come from.

Bella realizes that tangling with any of these creatures will put her life at risk. She orders a repeating crossbow online from an obscure custom weapons manufacturer, and a make-your-own-bolts kit, wiping out her savings in so doing - but that's not the best approach, she thinks, that shouldn't be her first line of defense.

Her first line of defense, besides wearing a pretty golden crucifix that Renée left behind when she moved out of the Sunnydale house and acquiring enough holy water to rinse her hair in it after every shower (it's more effective wet, but leaves a trace dried if it's not washed away by something else first), is this: She walks into her dad's bedroom on her hands, does a roll and a flip and takes a bow, and says, "Dad, I need a key to the morgue."

Barbecue fork deaths usually pass through police hands, and just as usually they never find anything. If she goes once a day, finds the autopsied bodies, and drives even just a sliver of wood through their hearts, they'll puff into dust before they can claw their way out of their graves later. She doesn't think this will eliminate the vampire population of Sunnydale, but it will certainly curb it without the least bit of danger to anyone.

Charlie stares at her. He says, "Why's that, Bells?"

"Barbecue forks," she says, "have a way of multiplying. I have a way of sterilizing them."

He stares at her a bit more. "Let's see that flip again," he says slowly.

She flips, obligingly. Twice.

Three days later she has a key to the morgue. She doesn't ask him how he got it. He doesn't ask her why she can do gymnastics now. He tells her when the place is usually deserted and she tells him thanks.

She gets a package of firewood, splits it into splinters that are pointy at one end and too wide to pierce her hand on the other, and diligently renders everyone - no point in skipping the non-barbecue-forks; for all she knows there are lesser-advertised ways to become a vampire, or less popular blood vessels that work just as well as the classic neck ones - unable to rise with the third night of their demise.

Nighttime deaths drop. After two weeks it's enough for Charlie to notice on his statistics.

He takes her out for ice cream and says he hopes she's not up to anything dangerous.

She's not, then. She says,

"Not yet."

The next day, her crossbow arrives, custom-made and shiny and the right size to hide in a messenger bag. She goes to a little woodsy spot, twenty minutes' drive away, and shoots at knots on trees and confirms that she's got herself decent aim. She makes herself a great big stack of ammunition, which she keeps discreetly in her closet but not actually hidden. Charlie is not a snoop, and it's not so much a secret from him as it is a vaguely impolite topic.

She starts patrolling after dark, and Charlie furrows his brow and frets but doesn't remind her pointedly about her curfew.

The first vampire she finds is being ludicrously obvious about it, walking around with his fangs out. She gets him from ten feet away -

And she drew her bow at six yards.

She needs to get faster. She has none of that sensory mojo the Power That Was In Her Bedroom advertised.

She reads. She practices drawing and shooting and loading a new packet of homemade bolts, and she makes stakes and holy water balloons and learns to throw them, and she watches people on the Internet do aikido and shadowboxes them the second time through each video. She replaces the porch lights with sunlamp bulbs; she's not sure if that will work but it can't hurt. She escorts fools who are out late to their homes, when they cross paths with her. (Her excuse? Her dad is the chief of police, and even gangs on PCP know it and will steer clear of her.)

She leaves crosses around. By "around" is meant "hiding". Under sidewalk pavers, where they come up enough for her to jam one underneath. Scratched into the underside of the pokey bits of fire hydrants with a screwdriver. Cut unobtrusively into paper snowflakes and hung from the tree in the elementary schoolyard with a hundred others. Drizzled in white paint on white lines or black paint on sections of asphalt filler in the crosswalks. From what she has read, only direct contact with a contiguous object that is a cross with burn a vampire, and her little traps won't do them any injury at all - but as deliberately made crosses and not accidental line intersections made without intent or for other purposes, they will nevertheless cause a subconscious aversion. She memorizes where they are and she watches who walks right over or past them - and whose path wobbles, whose step falters, who looks suddenly like they are in a bad mood. The latter sort she follows. About half of those are coincidence - they wind up walking unimpeded into private residences or having no reaction to the next cross they pass - and half of them she catches trying to eat somebody. And shoots and dusts.

She's laying down hidden crosses in a neighborhood she hasn't covered yet at just past eight p.m. when she spots a person about her age, maybe a little older with that posture. And since she hasn't covered this neighborhood yet he isn't wandering over any of her little traps.

Well, as far as she knows, most people in town are human; the odds are in his favor. "I don't recommend being out at night hereabouts," she calls. "I don't count, my dad is chief of police and everybody knows it, but you probably wanna go home."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 01:14 pm (UTC)

He glances at her with an expression of mild curiosity.

"What an interesting warning," he says after a moment. It's hard to tell in the dark, but he may be smiling slightly. "I'm terribly grateful for your concern, but I assure you it is unwarranted."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Suit yourself." If he were younger she'd drop into the bossy-big-sister thing that seems to work with kids who are out late - she can badger their addresses or their parents' phone numbers out of them, and frog-march them home without worrying as much that they'll notice how strong she is. She strolls slowly, looking around for a good place to paint or scratch or stuff the next cross.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 04:23 pm (UTC)

Head slightly tilted, he pivots to track her progress, watching how she walks.

Then he bursts out laughing.

"Sweet holy blistering fuck, you're the infamous missing Slayer," he gasps. "Are those your little presents scattered across half the town? Oh, it's Christmas, I am thrilled beyond measure."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 04:29 pm (UTC)

Bella wastes no time being stunned. A human might have noticed a handful of crosses but not enough to describe them as being over half the town - not without following her, and he's surprised they're hers. Humans are also dramatically less likely to know about Slayers, let alone one's missingness. Does add up to sure enough? No. But the fact that he could tell by how she walked and the dismissal of the warning? Do.

Crossbow out of messenger bag. "Pleasure's all mine," she murmurs. And if he's a vampire, he'll hear her. He'll also hear the first bolt slip out, aimed at his heart.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 04:42 pm (UTC)

He dodges. Quite casually.

"Oh, it really isn't," he assures her. "Come now, don't be rude, I assure you there is time for a chat before the inevitable violent confrontation."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 04:44 pm (UTC)

"I've heard that before." Bolt. She backs up; this'll cut her aim but give her more shots and time to reload before he attempts to close. "Well. Variants." Bolt.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 04:49 pm (UTC)

Her aim is good; his speed is better. And he doesn't seem inclined to close, at least not yet.

"Really, is this your usual reaction to compliments from strangers? You must be a lonely creature. I can relate."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? People aren't lining up to be friends with vampires?" If she wasn't sure enough a second ago she is now; humans don't move like that. Bolt, bolt, her hand dives into her messenger bag for another packet of them to slot in when she's out and she holds it in her teeth. It doesn't cut off her banter for long, though, as she keeps shooting and there's only ten per. Reload. "But you're so charming. Have you tried Friendster?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 04:59 pm (UTC)

He grins, displaying human-shaped teeth, and keeps dodging. "I am as charming as a crossbow bolt to the face, believe me, I know. Must you continue this highly irritating and clearly ineffective barrage? One of these days you might actually hit me and then I will become annoyed."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 05:07 pm (UTC)

"The idea is to hit you in such a way that you don't become annoyed," says Bella. "And gosh, why would I aim for the face? You'd be disfigured for the rest of your death."

But she's going to run out of bolts at this rate. He's fast, she's obviously telegraphing her shots somehow, she cannot shoot this particular vampire until she is better.

"But hey," she says. (He does seem to want to talk. That'll buy her a few seconds.) Bolt number twenty sails over his shoulder. "Maybe crossbows aren't your thing."

She stows it. Her hand comes up with a water balloon, a stake - and her cellphone.

Cell in one hand, weapons in the other, she dials.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 05:10 pm (UTC)

"What could you be doing with that, I wonder," he says. "And would you mind terribly letting me know why you are trying to kill me?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Nasty bitey things contribute to a truly ridiculous rate of barbecue fork related deaths," says Bella. She hits the last number and the phone rings. "Usually I don't catch you guys till you're trying to eat somebody, but if you want to advertise, hey, I'm an enthusiastic customer. You should do an infomercial." Charlie picks up.

"Muller and Walnut," she says to the phone. "Now, please."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Nasty bitey things," he repeats. "Honestly, I'm hurt. I am a nasty bitey intelligent self-aware creature, and don't you forget it. Did you just phone your aforementioned father? Do you have an extreme dislike for him? Policemen versus vampires is not like astronauts versus cavemen; the weapons don't help."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 05:53 pm (UTC)

"If cop weapons helped, I'd have a gun," Bella says, flipping the phone closed and tucking it into her bag again. She transfers the water balloon to her right hand. "Nasty bitey person, fine. I'm not spending half a dozen extra syllables on anyone I'm hoping to dust."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 05:57 pm (UTC)

"So your objection to vampires revolves around the diet," he says. "Past or future? Retribution or prevention? Or a little of both?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Prevention, but you know how predicting the future works? Short of magic, it involves looking at the past."

(She's tried what magic she's been able to find in the library. In theory, it would work for anyone. In practice she's had negligible luck; she might need an actual teacher to get anywhere. Or maybe being the Slayer interferes. She doesn't know.)
Edited 2013-02-06 18:00 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Ah, but predicting people traditionally involves examining their motivations. I, for example, don't give a fleck of shit whether I'm drinking human or pig, and if it will get you to stop trying to kill me long enough to have a chat about your fascinating enterprise with the crosses, I will happily swear off the former."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Look at me, no longer actively trying to kill you," says Bella. "I'm just doing very wimpy bicep curls." She hefts the water balloon.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 06:08 pm (UTC)

"With a water balloon full of holy water. Nasty thing to be waving around. I'm terrified," he says, not sounding terrified at all. "Tell me, are you also responsible for the sudden sharp drop in the vampire reproductive rate around here?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I interrupted the supply of Vampire Viagra," she snorts. "And I gave a million dollars to Vampire Planned Parenthood."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I'll take that as a yes," he says cheerfully. "You're a marvel. Has the Watcher's Council caught up with you yet? I doubt it. Dreadful crusty old bastards, you're clearly better off without them."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:16 pm (UTC)

"The marital status of their parents notwithstanding," begins Bella, and then she cocks her head. "Oh, there's my ride."

Her ride is accompanied by sirens, which he cuts as he turns onto Muller, putting the car between Bella and the vampire. Charlie doesn't get out - Bella gets in.

"Home," she says, "speed - I can't hit him."

"Good to know you will call in over your head," grunts Charlie. He zooms off. He only turns the sirens back on when he has to get through traffic.

They head into the house. She makes hot chocolate for both of them. They don't talk any further.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Lovely talking to you," he calls after her as they drive away, although she probably can't hear him.

Two days later, at half past midnight, the porch light in front of the house comes on. There is a rattle, a hiss, and the sound of someone running away very fast.

On Bella's doorstep is a bundle of crossbow bolts, neatly tied with a pretty blue ribbon and then hastily dropped where they now sit. The attached card reads, Thought you might want them back. There is no signature.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:27 pm (UTC)

Bella - still up, reading a book on miscellaneous demons, it's not like high school is particularly important - is pleased that her porch lights work as intended. Sometime if she doesn't feel like patrolling she might sit very still on her porch and try to look edible.

She inspects the crossbow bolts. They could have been tampered with. Contact poison, magical termites that will have them falling apart when she needs them - she read about something like that recently - any number of things.

She hooks the ribbon with a coathanger and burns them in the back yard, the next morning before school. She has plenty, making more doesn't take long and she can do it while she's reading by now.

Nasty bitey person. What's he playing at?

A few nights later, she is crossing - so to speak - the neighborhood around a little strip mall. There's a present scratched behind that customer parking only sign in front of the butcher shop.
Edited 2013-02-06 18:37 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 06:39 pm (UTC)

A familiar face strides right past it without so much as a blink.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:42 pm (UTC)

Now. How'd he do that?

She creeps across the parking lot without painting the black cross she was planning to put on the asphalt. If some vampires can go past her traps unflinching she might need a better system; she's missing some.

He's certainly going to spot her. She hasn't gotten much better at shooting since the last time they encountered one another, so she pulls out the stake/water balloon/cellphone trio. She dials Charlie's number, but doesn't hit send yet; this isn't too far from her house and he can be there soon and she's fast on her feet now.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 06:45 pm (UTC)

He glances back at her and smiles.

"Ah, Miss Swan. Putting down flypaper again, are we?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I might need to switch brands of glue," she says.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I would be delighted to discuss your methods in a moment," he says, hefting the empty backpack hanging from one shoulder, "but first, grocery shopping."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:54 pm (UTC)

There's no one in there. It's closed. She peers at him and waits.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 06:56 pm (UTC)

Sherlock steps around the back. Bella is welcome to follow him.

If she does, she will find him picking the lock on the service door.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 06:57 pm (UTC)

She does follow him. There might be someone here, after all.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:02 pm (UTC)

The lock gives way. Sherlock enters.

This place does business with that horrible little demon bar, he happens to know, and therefore they save all their animal blood. There's plenty. He fills his backpack without any trouble.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Breaking, entering, theft," muses Bella. "It's a step up."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:08 pm (UTC)

"If you like," he says carelessly, stepping out again and shutting the door behind him. "Now, you were saying about flypaper?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't seem to work on you. Are you not a fly, or just a highly unconventional fly?"

She keeps a few yards between them. She has the reaction time to get the water balloon thrown and the stake in stabbing position before he can close, if he looks like he's going to.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:14 pm (UTC)

"There are a few things in this world that I violently loathe," he says, displaying a smile. "Boredom chief among them. The vampire reaction to crosses is another. I categorically refuse to be controlled by a transformation I did not ask for, especially in such a ridiculous way. I can't stop them burning me, but I can stop myself caring."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Is that a common attitude?" Bella asks. "Not the boredom one. As far as I can tell vampires seem typically to descend in sociopathic hedonism on rising; not particularly interesting hedonism, but it seems to entertain them. The crosses one."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Sociopathic hedonism has lost its charm already," he says. "And I have met vampires who don't like it, but never one yet who was so dedicated to conrolling themselves. Then again, I have not met very many vampires."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:21 pm (UTC)

"How long did it take for your evil chewing gum to lose its flavor, then?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:27 pm (UTC)

"A month?" he hazards.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:28 pm (UTC)

"That's not long," she remarks.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I am not normal," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:31 pm (UTC)

"No kidding."

He really does seem to want to talk, that's enough for her to agree with that. Whether he also wants to turn her into evil chewing gum is a separate question. She keeps her distance.

"Thanks for testing out my porch lights for me," she says pleasantly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:35 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"A pleasure. You should've seen me when I got home that night; I looked like a wretched cooking accident. Brilliant idea."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I thought so. You don't seem pissed off about it," she observes.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Of fucking course not," he says. "It's interesting.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:42 pm (UTC)

"So sunlamp surprise better than boredom. Noted," says Bella. "Understandable for a human, weird in a vampire."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't see why," he says. "Surely most humans would also object if you sprang at them out of nowhere with a flamethrower."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, most of them. I'm just accustomed to truly stunning psychological diversity in humans and haven't observed similar in vampires - and neither have the authors I've been reading. And then you show up." She shrugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I am an outlier," he agrees. "In more ways than you know."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? What else?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Nothing I particularly care to tell someone who is half convinced I will spring for her throat at any moment," he says pleasantly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 08:12 pm (UTC)

"At this point I wouldn't describe myself as convinced, just possessed of a certain amount of background knowledge," says Bella. "You wouldn't like the condiments I put on before I go out, though."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 08:16 pm (UTC)

"You are a continual delight," he remarks. "And among many other reasons why you have nothing to fear from me on that score, I only eat people who bore me. You do the opposite."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 08:18 pm (UTC)

"So what I'm hearing is that I need to make sure I'm in a private residence before running out of material, is that right?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Not only am I not eating you," he says, "I am currently not eating anyone else, purely because I expect it would annoy you. Hence the shopping."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 08:22 pm (UTC)

Bella opens her mouth.

She closes it.

"That's interesting," she says finally. And then, because she doesn't want to be tricked, because vampires are tricky, she continues, "that you call it shopping."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 08:24 pm (UTC)

"A regionalism, where you would say 'groceries'. Or did you mean my drawing the analogy in the first place? I think it's funny."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I mean you didn't shop for it so much as swipe it. Do all butchers have blood in the back room?" she asks, looking dubiously at the establishment. "I wouldn't think there would be much call for it. Even among vampires, who normally prefer the other other white meat."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 08:37 pm (UTC)

"...Are you not aware of the seedy little demon bar operating in your town? It's called Willy's," says Sherlock. "It's atrocious. Never combine cold pig's blood with warm vodka. I am unutterably enthusiastic about stealing from their supplier given the sins they commit with their stock."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 08:40 pm (UTC)

"A demon bar? Am I going to find it on the phone book or do I have to locate a speakeasy if I ever decide to check it out?"

(She's not going to go check it out right away even if he gives her the address, password, and a sealed package of crossbow bolts. She is not that good yet, there could be dozens of hostile creatures in a demon bar.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 08:43 pm (UTC)

"I could show you," he says. "But, reasonably, you don't trust me."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm so glad we agree on my reasonableness," she says dryly. "You could tell me where it is, in case I need to know later."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 08:59 pm (UTC)

"End of the alley halfway between Walnut and Elm Grove on Reicester. Pity, I was hoping to see your face when you witnessed your first game of kitten poker."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 08:59 pm (UTC)

"...Kitten poker," says Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Both as adorable and as horrifying as it sounds."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:01 pm (UTC)

"What does one do with accumulated kittens?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:02 pm (UTC)

"If one is the right sort of demon, one eats them; otherwise one trades them to same. Or admires their fluffiness, I suppose. I've never seen the point in any of the above, myself."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I know you're definitely somewhere on the far side of evil, if you don't see the point of admiring the fluffiness of kittens."

(This is clearly a joke. She is joking with a vampire. Why is she joking with a vampire?)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:04 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"You wound me, madam."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Nah. I tried, but I don't seem to be ready for the Olympics yet. And it's such a shame, too, I wanted to represent my country and take home the gold," she says earnestly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Ah, yes. A Slayer with a distaste for close combat. Will wonders never cease."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Turns out vampires tend not to rise from the grave with ranged weapons equipped. Why would I want to engage in close combat? Do most Slayers prefer it? Geez, how long do they live?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Twenty-six is the record, I believe."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Well."

Pause.

"Shit."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Not delighted by that statistic? Well, currently neither am I," he says. "How would you like a bodyguard?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I'd love one. Do you have a catalog? Or do I call the bodyguard agency on the phone and say 'one bodyguard, please, must know at least one form of martial arts, and please nobody nasty and bitey, that would indicate a conflict of interest'?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Alas," he says, "I've only the one suggestion. And I'm afraid his CV is short and unpromising. Although he is probably better than you are at killing vampires in close quarters."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:28 pm (UTC)

"If you go around killing vampires at close quarters," says Bella, "I won't interrupt. Do see if you can convince them to do the face thing at some point during the fight, though, or I might be confused about who exactly you're taking apart."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:32 pm (UTC)

"In most cases you won't have time to be," he says. "And once they have crumbled to dust the difference is generally clear."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:34 pm (UTC)

"It generally is, yes. Very hard to get a human to do that."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:41 pm (UTC)

"But of course I need not kill them at close quarters if I don't want to," he says, and reaches into the inner pocket of his coat, and produces what appears to be a laser pointer. When he flicks the beam across the fingers of his left hand, there is a faint fleeting fluorescence and an instant, vicious-looking blister, like he slapped a red-hot wire. He holds up that hand for her inspection.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Clever," she says with open admiration. "They sell those online?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:46 pm (UTC)

He returns the laser pointer to his pocket.

"They do not," he says. "You might find some in a mansion just outside New York. Or you might not, depending what the estate did with them."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:49 pm (UTC)

"...Why would they be there?" she asks. "DIY project someone was working on?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Not quite, no. What do you know about Tony Stark?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:53 pm (UTC)

"The name sounds vaguely familiar?" she hazards. "Stark Industries? He from that family? I don't pay a whole lot of attention to military contractor corporations. Didn't he die?"
Edited 2013-02-06 21:54 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 09:55 pm (UTC)

"He did," says Sherlock, with a smile that is the furthest thing from pleasant. "I suggest you look him up."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 09:56 pm (UTC)

"May do," she says neutrally.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Good night, Miss Swan," he says, and turns, and walks away.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 10:01 pm (UTC)

Bella watches him go, then goes back to painting the town with crosses.

enjoy state of the art information technology

cross_and_bow

Bella looks up Tony Stark. (There's no reason not to.)

...Okay. He looks familiar. And his death those several months ago was really very suspicious, and she doesn't think anyone has been doing her morgue trick in New York City. And his more reclusive identical twin's body was never found at all. (If there was an identical twin, and not just Tony Stark theatrically pretending to be two people with mirrors or holograms or Photoshop and cooperative witnesses giving insistent interviews and then suddenly being dead and no longer able to pretend. There was, after all no sign of a twin before a sudden debut when he - they - was or were fifteen, and... "Sherlock Holmes", really? There's not even a hint of a twin in Tony's birth announcement, which she checks because that's the obvious thing to check.)

Come to think of it, Mr. Does Not Stick To Flypaper never introduced himself.

She supposes that his cute laser trick didn't work that well, if he got got. (But she saw it burn him. It's a clever weapon, should take almost no skill to wield a continuous beam - what kind of onslaught could have gotten around that?)

Nothing about her routine changes in response to this information.

Until several days later when she's crossing another neighborhood (seventeen to go) and - he just keeps popping up, doesn't he?

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Fancy meeting you here," says Sherlock(?).

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Fancy that. I'm astounded. But I suppose there's a first time for everything," Bella says. She nudges a cross under a tree root with her foot. She pulls out her phone and her water balloon and perfunctorily dials-but-does-not-send; the stake can stay where it is. "You never introduced yourself."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock Holmes," he says, "at your service." He sketches a bow. "And did you look up my late brother?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Do you want to tell me how an identical twin who didn't appear on the birth announcement materializes at age fifteen?" He could still easily be Tony instead. Sure, dozens of people are willing to say that they saw Tony and Sherlock together, but Tony was a technical genius, a vampire could have escaped his grave after his burial with little fanfare, and witnesses aren't all that compelling - dozens of people were willing to claim to have seen Joseph Smith perform miracles.

(Although come to think of it, the crosses she's stashing everywhere may suggest it's time for her to evaluate religious claims less skeptically.)
Edited 2013-02-06 22:50 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Clone," he says succinctly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 10:56 pm (UTC)

...Tony was a technical genius.

"Fits," she muses. "Why in the world would he clone himself?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Because he was incredibly lonely," says Sherlock. "To give you an idea, he popped me out of the tube when he was twelve and neither of his parents knew I existed until they were assassinated a year and a half later. A year and a half which I spent growing at a rate of seven to one and poking my nose into everything I could get my hands on."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 11:01 pm (UTC)

"And then you stopped growing at a rate of seven to one," says Bella. "You looked exactly like him for three consecutive years. Was that designed in?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Quite," he says. "I caught up when he was fourteen and proceeded at an ordinary pace from there."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 11:08 pm (UTC)

"As far as I was able to determine he was easily clever enough to pull this off if it's technically feasible at all," acknowledges Bella. "How'd he die and you turn? Those ultraviolet things are clever and even a regular human ought to be able to hold off a bunch of vampires with one. It'd have to be a gigantic onslaught or an extremely clever ambush."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 11:16 pm (UTC)

"There were eleven of them, and they were hiding in our basement," he explains. "Even I am not paranoid enough to carry a laser pointer in my own fucking home. To my ultimate regret."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 11:19 pm (UTC)

"The authors I've been reading," Bella says, "have obvious reasons to be biased - but their claims aren't consistent with regret being involved in that story. Let's hear your side of it."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 11:25 pm (UTC)

"A gang of vampires killed everyone I have ever loved—it's a short list—and forcibly turned me. When I woke up, I slaughtered the rest of them and then waited for the man who let them in to come back so I could express my displeasure by torturing him to death. Apparently they were expecting me not to care afterward, but I cannot for the unlife of me imagine why."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 11:27 pm (UTC)

"It seems to be a general expectation, that turned vampires won't care about that sort of thing. Or any sort of thing that isn't... sociopathic hedonism," Bella says slowly. "Is this just mistaken, or are you being an unconventional sort of fly again?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Not enough data to comment."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Noted." She chews her lip. "I'm sorry about your - Tony." She isn't really clear on what manner of relationship a clone and his creator might have, for all that they would have had to present as twins regardless of its content.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 11:35 pm (UTC)

—He smiles, abruptly, softly.

"Thank you. Your sympathy is very much appreciated."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 11:37 pm (UTC)

She looks up. "You're welcome. It's always sad when people die. If vampires in general didn't undergo drastic personality changes and didn't have such inconvenient allergies I'd probably start looking into a species change when I was thirty or so."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Turning into a vampire was the single thing in the world I was most afraid of, before," he says. "It's not so frightening from the other side, but all in all, I would rather have Tony back."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 11:42 pm (UTC)

"In his original form?" Bella dares ask.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 11:47 pm (UTC)

"As I knew him, yes. I would not mind him being a vampire as long as he was still essentially Tony, but I have some reason to doubt that would be the case."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-06 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Because vampires in general aren't?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-06 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Even I have some changes. If I met my previous self, I am not sure we'd get along, although I am not nearly what he feared becoming."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 12:02 am (UTC)

"What changes do you have?"

She's not going to make any assumptions here. Plenty of humans would be happy to torture to death someone who'd arranged to kill someone they loved.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 12:11 am (UTC)

"Previously my most compelling motivations were ethics and love of Tony. Now my most compelling motivation is hatred of boredom. I am also rather less upset about being a clone," he adds as an afterthought.

"If I had the sort of fabled destructive tendencies I was originally afraid of, this planet would currently be a smear of molten rock across the cosmos."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 12:13 am (UTC)

"Well, that would just ruin all my plans for next Tuesday," says Bella.

(She has no exceptional plans for next Tuesday.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 12:15 am (UTC)

"Yes indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 12:17 am (UTC)

"Is there some glowing red button labeled 'turn planet into smear of molten rock' that I should be visiting and figuring out how to disassemble?" Bella asks. "Or was this an elaborate plan that no one more destructive than you is liable to recreate?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 12:20 am (UTC)

"Estimate based on current experience," he says. "Perhaps slightly exaggerated. My point being that if I wanted to destroy the world as desperately as I want to find some remotely meaningful reason to continue inhabiting it, I expect I would have managed by now. My actual goal is much more difficult."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 12:23 am (UTC)

"That being 'find interesting things', or something more complicated? Because if you just want to find interesting things I would imagine you'd become the Phantom of the Library, or something."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 12:28 am (UTC)

"Well, there is interesting and there is interesting," he says. "It's interesting that the male anglerfish physically dissolves into the female and remains attached to her for the rest of her life in lieu of more traditional copulation, but I wouldn't call it an inspiration to avoid dying for another few years."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 12:28 am (UTC)

"You must have found something, or you'd have let me shoot you."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 12:30 am (UTC)

He spreads his hands and looks at her, as though waiting for something.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 12:37 am (UTC)

"You came looking for Vampire Planned Parenthood and when you found it, I was just that fascinating?" she asks skeptically. "I can be full of myself sometimes, but I've never yet managed to believe that I was anyone's reason to exist."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 12:45 am (UTC)

"On a strictly temporary basis," he says. "Until one of: you become more interesting and I decide I will be staying indefinitely; you become less interesting and I leave; or you die. And I did not come here looking for Vampire Planned Parenthood; I came to have a peek at the Hellmouth. Please tell me you know what that is."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 01:33 am (UTC)

"Well," says Bella. "It sounds like a portal to or possibly a very literally named orifice of a hell dimension of some kind. You do realize I'm working almost entirely out of books? I don't even have a curriculum to go by."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 01:34 am (UTC)

"Do your books perchance come from the Sunnydale High school library?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 01:39 am (UTC)

"Yes. For some reason, it has a better selection on the relevant topic than the public library."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 01:43 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock. "I am aware. I have been there, in fact. Because it contains the sodding Hellmouth. Do you really have no supernatural senses at all?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 01:46 am (UTC)

"Why in the world would I wish to tell you that, either way? If I have I'd like to be underestimated and if I haven't I shouldn't care to advertise the weakness."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 01:49 am (UTC)

"It was a rhetorical fucking question," he says. "You lay down crosses to catch vampires flinching and you do your research on top of the mouth of fucking Hell without noticing it's there. Would you like a bodyguard? Something ferociously unpleasant is going to kill you one day, and I would be disappointed if it happened anytime soon."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 01:52 am (UTC)

Bella rubs her forehead. "I can't trust you," she says, although she does not sound happy about it. "Nothing I have heard the least inkling of says that turning into a vampire deprives anyone of whatever acting skills they may have acquired."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 01:58 am (UTC)

"If I were to beat you in a fight," he says, "and then not kill you, and give you my laser pointer just for good measure, would that be sufficient proof both that I would make an acceptably trustworthy and competent bodyguard and that you probably need one?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:02 am (UTC)

Bella considers this.

"I haven't ever been within six feet of a walking-around vampire," she says. "I have no practical experience with close combat, and I can't even shoot you in particular, which I have been practicing at. I'm pretty sure you could beat the crap out of me if I let you close. My advantages mostly involve in incentivizing you to keep your distance. If I drop that, then I already have to trust you about the not killing me part."

Pause.

"If you give me the laser pointer, I'll put you on a one-week probationary bodyguard period, and we can see how that goes."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:04 am (UTC)

"Ah, now I get to do the dance of deciding whether or not to trust you with it," he says, pulling the laser pointer out of his pocket and tossing it to her underhand. "Luckily for me, I don't much care."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:05 am (UTC)

Bella catches it. "What kind of batteries does it take?" she asks.

(She's going to put in brand new ones as soon as she gets home, assuming it's any standard sort.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:10 am (UTC)

"Triple A. It's lasted on the ones it's got for a few years, but I'd stock up if I were you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:11 am (UTC)

"Yes, that's the plan," she says absently. She aims it at her pinky fingertip, turns it on, and confirms that it does no immediate damage to human flesh. "Good. This is very good."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:12 am (UTC)

"You are going to be a terror," Sherlock says happily.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:17 am (UTC)

"Why do you say that? Just because I'm now armed with something that makes a continuous beam of fiery vampire death and won't harm a human even if I miss?" she asks, grinning.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:18 am (UTC)

"You have named the reason precisely, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:20 am (UTC)

"I approve," says Bella. "All right. I'm going to finish crossing this neighborhood and then go home, sit very still on my porch with a book and a booklight and play 'I am bait', and I suppose you're now provisionally my escort for same."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:21 am (UTC)

"I sense a slight difficulty with the latter stages of this plan," he says. "But all right, as you like."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:24 am (UTC)

"You don't necessarily have to be on the porch, you could be a bit farther away," says Bella. "Unless that cramps your style." She pulls out a screwdriver and scratches a cross into a fire hydrant. "Do you have a bodyguarding style or are you making it up as you go?

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:26 am (UTC)

"My style is as follows: I am extremely observant and ludicrously good at killing things," he says. "I shouldn't have any trouble lurking in a nice comfortable shadow nearby."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:29 am (UTC)

"There you go, then. How did you get to be ludicrously good at killing things? By your accounting you're six - seven? - years old. Even if you started working on it as soon as you could walk..."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:36 am (UTC)

"I am a genius," he says matter-of-factly. "An analytical genius, specifically. And I took all the martial arts lessons I could find once I picked my name."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:41 am (UTC)

"And you picked this one and not, like, Nick Stark or something obvious like that, because you are an analytical genius. I see," says Bella. "I've been watching aikido on the internet a little but I'm sure I'd give myself away as something supernatural if I tried to take lessons now - and before, I couldn't walk across a flat surface without tripping so I would have been taking my life into my hands. If I decide that you can be allowed within arm's reach of me I might require lessons."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:42 am (UTC)

"I would be happy to oblige."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:47 am (UTC)

"Very nice. By the way, if Charlie, my dad, should happen to notice you, I consider him entitled to any information he thinks to ask for, and he may also simply recognize you. He trusts me, but it's not impossible he will shoot at you before I can explain your presence. If harm comes to him - regardless of whether he starts it - that will permanently destroy your chances of... well, anything, teaching me martial arts certainly included."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:49 am (UTC)

"I will not harm your father," says Sherlock. "Regardless of whether he shoots at me. If he manages to hit me, I may have to shake his hand."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 02:52 am (UTC)

"He's a good shot and bullets go faster than bolts. Really?" asks Bella, intrigued. She paints a cross in a crosswalk and tucks one under the courthouse's drainpipe.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 02:57 am (UTC)

"I did not dodge your crossbow bolts by watching you shoot them. I dodged by watching you be about to," he says. "When someone is about to shoot at me, I arrange not to be where they are aiming. I evaded a probable assassination attempt that way as a human, in fact."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:01 am (UTC)

"Interesting," says Bella. Paint. Scratch. Tuck. Scratch. "I figured I had to be telegraphing somehow."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:02 am (UTC)

"You were. Nearly everyone does," he says. "To me. And I say 'nearly' only because I have not seen enough examples to make me fully confident of 'everyone'."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:06 am (UTC)

"Can you teach me not to, or are you sufficiently exceptional that if I'm letting you teach me anything I'm already covered?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:09 am (UTC)

"Teach you not to telegraph to me? I doubt it most sincerely," he says. "Teach you not to telegraph to other people? Likelier."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:11 am (UTC)

"Am I that bad?" she sighs. "I do usually hit. Not always the heart on the first try, but I do usually hit."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:14 am (UTC)

"You're not bad," he says. "You're still a Slayer. But a Slayer without formal training, which is certainly not optimal, and merciful heavens I have just convinced myself to be your Watcher. What a night."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:17 am (UTC)

"Is that what Watchers are supposed to do?" Bella asks, strolling down the sidewalk. "Teach Slayers not to telegraph their shots? Because it sounds to me like their job is... watching. But perhaps that's an artifact from another time."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:24 am (UTC)

"The history of Slayers in brief, from what I have gathered since the subject became of interest to me: Back in the mists of time, some group of beleaguered humans decides to invest supernatural abilities into a champion who will defend them against the forces of darkness. For inscrutable reasons, they pick a teenage girl and design her portfolio of handy talents so that it will pass to some other teenage girl when she is inevitably killed in the line of duty. Then they train her up and send her out. The succession of teenage girls thusly empowered becomes a global phenomenon: Slayers. The Watcher's Council springs up at some indefinite point and makes it their business to track down a new Slayer wherever she might appear and assign a crusty old fellow to stick by her side, train her in the various arts of combat, and point her at evil things that ought to die. Why they call themselves Watchers, I haven't a fragment of a clue."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:26 am (UTC)

"I am sincerely uncertain if I wish I had one of those or not," muses Bella. "I don't suppose they'd give me a selection of crusty old fellows to ensure no personality conflicts."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:28 am (UTC)

"I am sure we can arrange to circulate rumours of your presence," he says. "They will pounce on you like starving dogs. I don't recommend it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:30 am (UTC)

"The pouncing does sound unpleasant," she agrees. "Are they very disconcerted by my failure to appear on whatever manner of radar they have set up?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:35 am (UTC)

"Headless chickens," he says. "I stumbled on one in my quest to find a Slayer, which I have since abandoned, largely because they could not find her either. Lucky me."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:37 am (UTC)

"Very lucky. It's pure Hell-Orifice coincidence that you encountered me here, is it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:40 am (UTC)

"The Hell-Orifice," he snorts, "is in addition to attracting me on its own merits, famed for drawing in supernatural persons and phenomena of every kind. I am less surprised to run into you here than I would have been in, oh, New York."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:41 am (UTC)

"In spite of the relative populations?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:48 am (UTC)

"Yes. If I ran into you in New York I would have to wonder why New York as opposed to any other largish city. In Sunnydale, I have a good guess."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:49 am (UTC)

"And yet the Watchers haven't swarmed here and interrogated the high school," laughs Bella. "Why haven't they thought of it, if it's such an obvious place?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:52 am (UTC)

"Because they are idiots?" he suggests.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 03:55 am (UTC)

"It begins to seem increasingly likely, but still, I wonder if I should move?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 03:58 am (UTC)

"Take your father with you," he suggests, "if you do. The police death statistics in this town must be appalling."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:00 am (UTC)

"They're pretty bad, but I don't think I can get him to leave," Bella says unhappily.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:03 am (UTC)

"Then stay. And if the Watchers stick their crusty noses into your business, I am sure it will be fascinating to, hah, watch."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:08 am (UTC)

"Do they have any... resources? That I should watch out for? I imagine if they expect to control superpowered teenagers they have something other than crust on their side, don't they?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:10 am (UTC)

"I believe they prefer to rely on crust," he says. "But it seems likely that they have a few other things on their side. Regrettably, I don't know what. I could find out, but it might take a trip to England to ransack their crusty headquarters."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:15 am (UTC)

"Speaking of controlling superpowered teenagers, do you have an idea of what they'd be likely to want me to do?" (Scratch. Bury. Stuff. Paint, paint.) "Besides train in various forms of combat and kill evil entities. ...How do they find evil entities? If they're just ordinary humans..."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:16 am (UTC)

"Magic, research, guesswork, luck," he says. "In increasing order of frequency."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:19 am (UTC)

"Do you know any magic? I haven't made much headway with what the library has to offer, and it's slightly harder to tell the difference between fiction and the real stuff than it is with the demonological texts and the histories. Apparently witches care more about making their spells interesting pleasure reading than demonologists and historians; once I read halfway through a thing before I noticed it was published by Puffin."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:20 am (UTC)

"I haven't made much of a study of it," he says. "Mainly out of arrogance. That could change, I suppose. Not the arrogance, the other part. No force on this Earth is going to change my arrogance."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:21 am (UTC)

"I would really rather have magic than what I got. It seems more... versatile," says Bella. "Not that I don't appreciate the fact that I haven't fallen down the stairs all month. Having both would be cool too."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:23 am (UTC)

"Shall we see what we make of it, then? If you ever let me within arm's reach," he jokes.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:25 am (UTC)

"If, sure."

(It's seeming so likely. But turning into a vampire does not diminish anyone's acting skills, and he's already this smart and competent when he is literally six or seven years old. Bella's not revising the probationary period.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:26 am (UTC)

He grins.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:30 am (UTC)

Bella finishes crossing the neighborhood and circles back to her car. "You know where I'm headed," she says, hopping in the pickup's cab.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:30 am (UTC)

"I do, at that."

He beats her there by about thirty seconds.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:36 am (UTC)

"Showoff," she says without heat as she parks and goes in for a book. She comes out with one of the texts on magic, sits on the porch chair, and holds very, very still, apart from page turning - which, as the lights go off after about a minute, isn't enough to trip the motion sensor.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:37 am (UTC)

He laughs, takes a bow, and disappears somewhere before she trips the sensor the first time.

And remains disappeared thereafter.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:40 am (UTC)

Bella plays bait, and reads by booklight.

Someone takes the bait.

Someone creeps up the driveway.

Bella pretends not to notice.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:41 am (UTC)

Sherlock pretends not to exist.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:44 am (UTC)

Someone gets a porchlight to the face as soon as he's four feet away from it, and while he's bawling, he also gets a bolt to the heart. He dusts.

Very silly of him not to have noticed the weapon under the wicker chair.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:45 am (UTC)

The neighbour's hedge snickers.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:48 am (UTC)

"I'm not likely to get two in one night," Bella tells the neighbor's hedge. "I'm going to turn in. See you around."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 04:49 am (UTC)

"Goodnight," the hedge says amicably.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 04:58 am (UTC)

Bella spends the following afternoon reading. She hasn't worked her way through the collection - even the definitely nonfictional collection - yet. (But she does take the books out instead of sitting on the Hell Orifice with them.)

Charlie is expected home late on this day, and she doesn't want to be out after sundown without the ability to summon the cavalry, so sunset sees her still indoors.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:00 am (UTC)

Naturally, it sees Sherlock indoors also. But not for long. He heads for Bella's house as soon as stepping outside will not cause him to catch fire.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:05 am (UTC)

The Bronze is on the way.

There is a bit of a kerfluffle there.

It involves no fewer than four species of demon, although not particularly numerous contingents of any, and they are all of the sort that humans may rationalize into believing conspecifics.

And it involves some cops.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:13 am (UTC)

"Oh, fuck me," Sherlock sighs.

He assesses the situation. Yes, that's Bella's father. Yes, that's one of Bella's father's subordinates about to be disemboweled.

Bella would probably not be pleased.

Sherlock enters the fight.

No one involved is expecting him, which means that he can dance across the field of engagement and kill six demons before anyone notices he is there. He makes another pass before anyone starts shooting at him; he makes a third without getting hit. One cluster of demons decides that discretion is the better part of not having your neck broken by the whirlwind of death; they flee. Sherlock stands still for a moment, his coat dripping four colours of blood, baring human teeth at the remainder.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:16 am (UTC)

"Stand down!" orders one of Charlie's subordinates. Another is checking for pulses. Charlie himself is radioing for backup, but he's got his sidearm trained on Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:20 am (UTC)

There are six demons left standing. Out of twenty.

Sherlock makes a gentle shooing motion at them.

They break and run.

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:27 am (UTC)

"Stand down!" repeats the cop.

Charlie doesn't ask. He shoots.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:31 am (UTC)

Still giggling, he is just a little too late with the dodge. The bullet catches him high on his left shoulder.

He turns to Charlie and sweeps an extravagant bow with no sign of pain.

Then he bolts down the nearest alley.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:35 am (UTC)

There are more shots, but none connect, and they can't catch him.

Bella, oblivious, is reading in her room.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:36 am (UTC)

A small pebble strikes her window with pinpoint accuracy, nowhere near hard enough to break it.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:37 am (UTC)

She looks out the window. (She doesn't open it.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:41 am (UTC)

Sherlock is standing on the lawn, laughing. His shoulder is bleeding; his hands and coat are streaked with miscellaneous ichor. His teeth and face, however, are spotless.

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" he calls up to her through his giggles. "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon who is already sick and pale with grief that thou her maid art far more fair than she."

At that point, he is laughing too hard to stand; he sits down in the grass, leaning back on his hands.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:42 am (UTC)

Bella opens the window. "Are you drunk as well as injured?" she asks him.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:44 am (UTC)

"No," he says cheerfully. "But you are clearly an oracle. You'll never guess what just happened."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:51 am (UTC)

"...Did Charlie shoot you?" she asks, exasperated. "Why was he in a position to shoot you?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:55 am (UTC)

He spreads his hands.

"Well, I'd just killed about two dozen demons in front of him, so I imagine he wasn't too sure what to do with me. Under the circumstances, 'shoot it' was a reasonable option. Ruined my favourite coat, though, remind me to pretend to be angry about that."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:56 am (UTC)

"...Pretend to be angry? What two dozen demons?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:00 am (UTC)

"My favourite coat has a great big fucking hole in it," he says, gesturing indicatively. "And my shoulder is none too happy either, but unlike the coat, the shoulder will repair itself. I invite you to apply to your father for explanations of what he was doing facing down twenty-six assorted hellspawn with four cops and a corpse. Police business, I imagine. I ran across them on my way here."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:02 am (UTC)

"I... see," says Bella. "Charlie's all right?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:03 am (UTC)

"In perfect health, last I saw him," says Sherlock. "As I was fleeing down an alley."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:04 am (UTC)

"Ooookay. Why would you need to pretend anger about your coat? And to whom?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:07 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't, really," he says. "But I am not, in fact, angry, and it seems vaguely like the sort of thing one gets angry about, and furthermore it seems not impossible that I will eventually meet your father and have the opportunity to berate him for it, if I can keep a straight face long enough, which at the present moment would be a task far beyond my capacity to achieve."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:08 am (UTC)

"Why pray tell are you acting drunk?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:12 am (UTC)

"Because I just killed twenty fucking demons," he laughs. "And then got shot."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:13 am (UTC)

"Should I be concerned about my mental faculties if the same thing ever happens to me, or is this a Sherlock thing?" she inquires.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:15 am (UTC)

"Adrenaline, endorphins," he shrugs. "I don't know if I have them anymore, but apparently I have a reasonable facsimile."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:16 am (UTC)

"Noted. Thank you for killing the demons," says Bella. "Do you happen to know what they were doing, besides, apparently, killing at least one - cop? Bystander?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:19 am (UTC)

"Bystander," he says. "I could venture a few guesses, but my information is not complete."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:19 am (UTC)

"What're your information and your guesses?" Bella asks.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:23 am (UTC)

"Four species of demon," he says, settling down a little. "Numbers roughly equal. One dead human, cold. The way those demons fought, they were uneasy allies at best, united briefly against a common enemy. My best theory is that the human stumbled across some kind of meeting or negotiation, perhaps heated, and was sufficiently alarmed and sufficiently new in town to call 911. The demons swarmed her before the police could arrive."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:24 am (UTC)

"Reasonable train of thought. Should I worry about the results of the meeting - or its disruption?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:26 am (UTC)

"I should, perhaps," he laughs. "I'm the one the survivors will be hunting."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:27 am (UTC)

"There could be collateral damage, or they could be plotting to blow up the elementary school or something sinister like that - non-vampire demons won't be repelled by the crosses around the place."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:28 am (UTC)

"Shall I find out?" he offers.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:29 am (UTC)

"I would like to have the information," she says, which isn't quite an answer to his question.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:30 am (UTC)

"I am good at information," he says. "You might consider it my signature talent."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:33 am (UTC)

"Hence the name," she replies. "All right."

Charlie's cruiser pulls around the corner.
Edited 2013-02-07 06:35 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:36 am (UTC)

Sherlock glances at it, and starts giggling again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:37 am (UTC)

"Sherlock," says Bella exasperatedly.

The cruiser stops short when Charlie recognizes Sherlock, and he leaps out, weapon drawn and pointed.

"Dad!" shouts Bella. "Don't shoot! Just - go on the porch, or inside, but don't shoot him again, okay?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:38 am (UTC)

Sherlock flops back onto the ground and wheezes with mirth.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:45 am (UTC)

Charlie doesn't let his gun point anywhere other than at Sherlock, but he slowly moves from the cruiser to the porch and stays there under the sun bulbs.

Bella chooses a different window to stick her head out of so she can see them both. "Dad, this is Sherlock. I'm not letting him within arms' length but for the time being he seems worth letting live, okay?"

"...Bells, he killed -"

"They killed a person, didn't they?"

Charlie nods slowly.

"They weren't humans. Look at the colors of the blood on him - I know it's dark, but you can see it's not red, right?"

Charlie nods again, still slow.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:47 am (UTC)

He's sitting out of porchlight range. More or less. Sherlock raises his hand in a little wave, and otherwise lets them get on with their conversation.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:50 am (UTC)

"Sherlock," Bella continues, "is a vampire. He can't come into the house unless one of us invites him, and the porch lights or sunshine will burn him, so we're safe on the porch, in the house, and during the day outdoors or near windows. Most vampires are very dangerous. This one seems to have interests besides being dangerous, and besides he's very good at dodging, so he is still alive. I will tell you first of anything if my judgment on that changes, okay, Dad?"

Charlie nods again. He lowers the gun, regards Sherlock, and holsters it.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:53 am (UTC)

"Thank you," he says. And wryly, lazily, cheerfully, without the least hint of anger: "I am very annoyed about what you did to my coat."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:55 am (UTC)

Charlie snorts and goes into the house. He shuts and locks the door behind him.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:56 am (UTC)

He grins up at Bella.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:57 am (UTC)

"You look like you're having fun. Have you even got the bullet out of your shoulder yet?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:58 am (UTC)

"No," he says cheerfully. "Should I, d'you think?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:59 am (UTC)

"Will it otherwise remain open forever or will it just heal around the slug?" Bella inquires. "I suppose removing it is wise either way, but I'm curious."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 07:00 am (UTC)

"No idea," he says. "Never been shot before. I suspect the latter, however."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 07:02 am (UTC)

"Then you should take it out unless you want to have a chunk of metal in your shoulder forever or reopen the wound at some point, shouldn't you?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 07:03 am (UTC)

"I suppose so, yes," he says. "But it is likely to be an unpleasant job, and I would much rather just lie here and giggle to myself."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 07:05 am (UTC)

"Well, I can't get it for you. It hasn't been a week yet," she says reasonably.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 07:07 am (UTC)

"If I wait a week for you to get it, you will have to dig it out with a knife, which will be even less pleasant," he says. And sits up. "Ah, fuck it. Will you be staying in tonight?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 07:09 am (UTC)

"Yes."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 07:11 am (UTC)

"Then I will go home," he says. "And come back tomorrow, minus one bullet."

He climbs to his feet, favouring the wounded shoulder a little.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 07:12 am (UTC)

"Luck," she calls.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 07:12 am (UTC)

"Good or bad?" he calls back.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 07:13 am (UTC)

"At least one of the two, depending," she laughs. "G'night."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 07:14 am (UTC)

"Goodnight," he says, and waves, and turns away.

Wounded or no, he is very good at disappearing.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:00 pm (UTC)

Bella carries on with her usual routine. Attend school and pay about thirty percent attention, read, cross neighborhoods, patrol, follow and eventually shoot anyone who flinches, read more, try any small spells she finds with results that appeal to her and fail at them. Only now she does all of this - after sundown, anyway - with a shadow. He is pretty good about keeping his distance.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:01 pm (UTC)

And then one night he shows up at her house after sundown, per usual, with a large, full backpack, not per usual.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:02 pm (UTC)

Bella peers out of her upstairs window. "What's in the backpack?" she asks him.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Blood," he says, grinning. "My regrettable little hotel room's regrettable little refrigerator coughed its last this morning, and I need somewhere to keep the rest for now. Any space available in yours?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:53 pm (UTC)

"All pigs' or something?" Bella inquires.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Pig, some cow," he says. "I am trusting the labeling system of the butcher I stole from. None human, in any case; I'd notice that."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 05:59 pm (UTC)

"There's fridge space for that much volume, although I'll have to rearrange the vegetable crisper. Unless you want to drink it cold, there'll need to be a drop point and a time of night picked out, at least for the next few days."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 06:00 pm (UTC)

"You can bring some out to me when I arrive to go about my bodyguarding, can you not?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but handing it to you is not happening, yet, and ideally it would be warmed - how long in the microwave? how much per day? - when you arrived, so we didn't waste time that could be spent patrolling. I'm not sure where you're staying or how long it takes you to get here or whether other things sometimes come up in your - undeath - actually, that's nonsensical, you are clearly a walking-around intelligent thing and pulse-based definitions of life are comparatively uninteresting and I don't think the scientific community has had a chance to rule on vampires anyway yet - whether other things come up in your life between sunset and your appearance here."
Edited 2013-02-07 18:53 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 08:59 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

"Other than the hopefully rare occasions when I have to save your father's life on the way, I have nothing to occupy my at all between home and here. I save other pursuits for while you are sleeping."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 09:02 pm (UTC)

"It would be a waste of time for me to leave a bag of blood outside for you at sunset and for you to run it back to your 'regrettable little hotel' to microwave it, regardless," says Bella. "I may as well take care of that." (She can always hold her nose. She owns clothespins.) "Acknowledging that microwaves may vary, how much do you need and how long do I nuke it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 09:16 pm (UTC)

"A jar a night and two minutes seems to be about the right answer. I haven't been eating this way for very long."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Do you need any now - or, no, you wouldn't, you said it was your fridge, not your microwave. Leave the backpack on the driveway and I'll come take it in."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 09:19 pm (UTC)

He sets it down and backs off.

"Voila, fair Juliet."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 09:30 pm (UTC)

She comes downstairs, fetches a grocery bag, goes outside, and opens the bag. (She doesn't trust him perfectly yet - but she thinks it would offend anyone's sense of anticlimax at this point to kill her with a trapped bag.) She unzips it, peers inside, verifies that it contains labeled jars of blood, and transfers the jars to the bag so he can keep his backpack. She runs them into the kitchen, reorganizes the vegetable crisper, and puts the bag in next to the leftover turkey. She puts a sticky note on it that says "ASSORTED ANIMAL BLOOD - SHERLOCK'S FRIDGE BROKE - YES DAD I AM BEING SAFE THANKS" and then grabs her messenger bag and heads out to start the evening.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 09:37 pm (UTC)

As soon as she's outside again, Sherlock tips her a cheerful salute and engages lurk mode.

He's probably still there. (It varies how perceptible he is when he follows her, but he has never yet failed to appear on command.)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 09:39 pm (UTC)

It kind of weirds her out, but as long as he also never fails to appear from the requisite distance, she can appreciate the sense of it.

She hasn't been handling neighborhoods in any systematic pattern. She wants to inconvenience vampires, not herd them into a specific more-comfortable patch of town. The next one on her list is within easy walking distance. Scratch stuff paint paint scratch. She's tempted to whistle. She doesn't.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 09:47 pm (UTC)

Neither, thankfully, does Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 09:49 pm (UTC)

A pair of demons - Sherlock may recognize them from the other night, but they're passing for human, and walk right over Bella's crosses - do whistle. And head in Bella's direction. She looks around, but when they go by a scratched fire hydrant, she doesn't pull out her crossbow.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 09:51 pm (UTC)

Well.

Just yet, appearing would probably do her more harm than good. So he doesn't.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 09:53 pm (UTC)

"You probably wanna go home this time of night," Bella tells them.

(Yep. Completely devoid of supernatural senses.)

"I don't count, my dad's chief of police and I get left alone, but -"

The demon on the left can't pass for human anymore after he grins and bares sharp teeth.

Out comes the crossbow.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 09:55 pm (UTC)

Well.

His services are not technically required just yet. But he prepares to act the very instant that they are.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 10:03 pm (UTC)

They're fast. Bella's faster, but there are two of them, and if they have hearts they aren't conventionally located. They don't go down after her first hit, or her second - and now they know something's up with their intended prey, and they advance faster, increasingly pincushioned but barely slowed down.

"Sherlock?" she squeaks as she runs out of bolts in this quarrel and trots away, backwards, reaching into her bag for the next.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 10:11 pm (UTC)

The moment that she speaks coincides almost exactly with the moment that Sherlock abandons concealment and charges.

Four seconds later both demons are dead.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 10:13 pm (UTC)

Bella's breathing hard more out of emotion than exhaustion. "N-nicely done," she says.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 10:24 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," he says lightly. "I remember these fellows from the incident the other day; I didn't want to connect us in their minds until I was sure I needed to kill them both."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I don't think most kinds of demons eat people the way vampires do. What did they want with me?" Bella wonders, putting a new quarrel into her crossbow before she stashes it in her messenger bag again.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Not sure," he says. "Sport is a likely hypothesis."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 10:40 pm (UTC)

"The person they killed before was also a woman, wasn't she?" Bella asks, frowning. "Did she have any other notable features? How old was she?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Now that you mention it, she was almost exactly your height," he says. "Otherwise unalike—older, browner, not a student, not connected to the police in any obvious way. The height may or may not be a coincidence."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll ask Charlie to keep an eye out and see if anyone turns up dead of barbecue-fork-unrelated causes, especially if they're similar to her in cause of death. If they're not just playing around there might be some connection and we can figure out what they're doing."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Sounds reasonable."

Cause of death in that woman's case was mainly teeth, as he recalls from his brief glimpse.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 11:13 pm (UTC)

"The barbecue fork thing was really ridiculous before I showed up. I can't even figure out why this town is inhabited," mutters Bella, looking at the demon bodies. "Hm. I don't have a procedure for dealing with these. The vampires take care of themselves."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Never underestimate the human capacity for denial. Do you object to just leaving them here?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I suppose I can explain them to Dad and he can either make something up or nudge it towards being the thousandth annual unsolved murder of something not found in any biology textbook," she says. "Didn't they have friends, though? Are they more likely to do unpleasant things to one or the other of us if they find the bodies?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 11:32 pm (UTC)

"In a town like this, I expect even the demons know that an unexplained disappearance is an unexplained death. They may be able to track you by your arrows, I suppose, if they get their hands on the right magic somehow or other."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 11:34 pm (UTC)

Bella solves that problem by collecting the bolts. She wipes them off on the nearest patch of grass to the point where she's willing to have them in her messenger bag, and stows them.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 11:39 pm (UTC)

"That should be all right," he says critically, casting a final glance over the bodies. (The night he dug a bullet out of his shoulder, he also got a new coat. This one has come this far without getting bloodstained.)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella skips crossing the rest of this block; she doesn't want to be observed nonchalantly wandering around in easy view of a pair of corpses. She turns the corner and starts working her way down Santa Clara Avenue. "...Thanks," she adds. "Thanks a lot."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 11:45 pm (UTC)

"All in a night's work. I'll just go back to being unobtrusive again, shall I?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Thanks," she says again.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 11:50 pm (UTC)

He smiles briefly and finds a shadow to disappear into.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 11:51 pm (UTC)

She completes the crossing of the neighborhood.

She checks on the demons again, on her way home.

The bodies are gone.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's interesting," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 11:53 pm (UTC)

"It is. There was a window of -" She looks at her watch. "About an hour. Do you happen to know what kind or kinds they were? Do those just disappear or dissolve or get assumed into another dimension on death?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-07 11:54 pm (UTC)

"This is one of the species I did not recognize," he admits.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-07 11:57 pm (UTC)

"There are so preposterously many..." she mutters. She doesn't go down that block; she keeps going and takes the next left instead.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 12:12 am (UTC)

"Agreed."

And he's gone again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 12:15 am (UTC)

Bella gets the rest of the way home without incident. Before approaching near enough to turn the lights on, she says - "Thanks again, Sherlock. I am - really not convinced I would've been able to beat them alone."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 12:20 am (UTC)

"Nor am I," he says from the shadows. "You're welcome."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 12:24 am (UTC)

And in she goes.

If he is running some kind of con she is at a complete loss for what it could be, unless he's particularly fascinated by getting victims to deliver themselves into his hands with full knowledge of his species and he likes difficult targets.

Just a few more days and then she can let herself act like she believes what she's already pretty thoroughly convinced of.

meet our friendly citizenry

cross_and_bow

The rest of Sherlock's probationary week is uneventful.

At the end of it, Bella says, "If you are attempting to deceive me in some way, you're clearly operating on a level I can't hope to compete with and are considerably more patient than I. I'm not going to let you into the house, because that's Charlie's house too and I doubt he'd like it, but otherwise as far as I'm concerned I can trust you."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 12:46 am (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

"Pleased to hear it. It'll make the dance of the reheated animal blood slightly more convenient, at least."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 12:47 am (UTC)

"Yes. Yes it will. Here you go." She holds out the warmed-up jar she's holding. It's got a paper towel over the top of it to prevent splattering in the microwave, and she can't smell it enough to bother her.
Edited 2013-02-08 00:48 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 12:50 am (UTC)

"Cheers," he says, takes the jar, and politely turns away.

Slurp.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 12:51 am (UTC)

Bella holds her nose until he's done.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:04 am (UTC)

When he turns back, the jar is empty and his teeth are just a little pink.

And still human.

In fact, he has never shown fang in all the time they have been acquainted. (There is a sound that accompanies the change. He did not make that sound just now.)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 01:07 am (UTC)

"The books claim that vampires invariably do the face thing when they drink blood, even if they don't mean to," observes Bella. She releases her nose, cautiously sniffs the air, and hefts her messenger bag as she heads for the end of the driveway. "One of them recommended putting a drop of blood in a suspected vampire's wine or something as a way to expose them."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:11 am (UTC)

"Once again," he says, "I suspect no other vampire has ever been quite so adamant about controlling their instincts."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 01:13 am (UTC)

"Is it very hard?" she asks. "...Also, do you have a phone? It might make more sense to have actual conversations during some other part of the day when you aren't inclined to be lurky."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:22 am (UTC)

"It was once. I hardly think about it anymore," he says. "And no, regrettably, I do not have a phone. Shortly I will not have a hotel room either."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 01:27 am (UTC)

"Why not? What happened?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:29 am (UTC)

"Insufficient funds," he says dryly. "It's amazing how quickly the cash dries up once you stop killing people for it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 01:31 am (UTC)

"...Ah. Do you have someplace else to crash?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:37 am (UTC)

"Not yet. Hopefully I will manage something. It's not as though this town lacks nesting grounds. I do prefer my sordid little caves with working electricity, however, which makes the selection a little less broad."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 01:39 am (UTC)

"What do you need the electricity for? I'm storing and warming up your dinner for you and I thought you could see in the dark."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:40 am (UTC)

"Tea," he says with a flash of a grin. "A terrible vice for a bloodsucker, I know, but I can't help myself."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 01:41 am (UTC)

"Tea," she laughs. "To go with the accent. Why do you even have an English accent? Is it just an affectation to match the name?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:50 am (UTC)

"Not quite," he says. "It's a change from my original but not as much as you might think. During all that accelerated growth, my main source of conversation was a computer whose speech synthesizer was as English as you please. I turned out ninety percent BBC to ten percent New York; it wasn't much trouble to hop to London from there."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 01:52 am (UTC)

"A computer taught you to talk?" she asks. "I'd expect that to leave you with odd linguistic habits that you don't seem to have. I suppose I'm not sure what I'd expect in particular; it'd depend on the program."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:53 am (UTC)

"Tony wrote the AI. He was as much of a thinking creature as I am."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 01:57 am (UTC)

"...And he wasn't backed up anywhere," infers Bella. "And the villains of the story got him too."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 01:59 am (UTC)

"Correct," he says softly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:00 am (UTC)

"Shit. I'm sorry. What was his name?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:04 am (UTC)

"Jarvis."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:05 am (UTC)

"You said it was a short list of people," she recalls vaguely. "Was it a two-person list?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:06 am (UTC)

"Yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:08 am (UTC)

"I'm so sorry."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:11 am (UTC)

"Thank you," he murmurs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:13 am (UTC)

"You're welcome."

Here is the neighborhood of the day. Night, rather.

Crosses crosses crosses.

She lets him lurk. No demons attack them. She finishes the neighborhood and heads for home.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:14 am (UTC)

When Bella is just stepping onto her driveway, Sherlock appears long enough to say, "Goodnight, fair Juliet."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:17 am (UTC)

"Are you going to call me Juliet forever?" she inquires. "Because we have conversed through a window a couple of times and you recited Shakespeare at me while drunk on the vampire equivalent of stress hormones?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:18 am (UTC)

"Does it annoy you? I think it's hilarious," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:19 am (UTC)

"Everyone calls me Bella except Charlie, and he calls me Bells," says Bella. "No one has ever given me a nickname of my own before. I don't suppose I'd describe myself as annoyed."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:20 am (UTC)

"How would you describe yourself?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:21 am (UTC)

"Nonplussed? Amused? Ever so slightly charmed, because, you know, the Bard?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:22 am (UTC)

"Then I see no reason to stop."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:24 am (UTC)

"Okay," Bella laughs. "If I think of anyplace for you to hole up during the day, I will let you know, but I'm afraid I have no immediate ideas," she adds.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:27 am (UTC)

"I appreciate the thought, in any case."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:33 am (UTC)

"If you burn to a crisp due to homelessness, who will call me Juliet and lurk around while I patrol?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:38 am (UTC)

"Ah, a pragmatist. I'm charmed."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 02:40 am (UTC)

"Always a pragmatist," agrees Bella. She yawns. "I need to get at least five hundred words of utter bullshit to cohere into the approximate shape of an English paper before I crash. See you tomorrow, Sherlock."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:42 am (UTC)

"Goodnight," he says, smiling, and departs.

take advantage of our excellent schools and their handpicked faculty

cross_and_bow

There's a new high school librarian. The old "high school librarian" was a cash-strapped student aide of sorts; apparently it's hard to keep staff working on the Hell Orifice. His name is Mr. Giles. He is British. And sort of old. And sort of crusty. And when Bella takes out certain books he looks at her with certain scrutiny.

"Is my new librarian a Watcher?" she asks Sherlock the day after Mr. Giles joins the faculty.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:01 am (UTC)

"Probably. Would you like me to find out?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:02 am (UTC)

"Yes please. I think asking would probably draw more attention to me than the books on witchcraft I took out already did. As-is he may just think I'm a budding Wicca."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:07 am (UTC)

"I will do that, then. And I will avoid contact in case it interferes with diplomatic relations later."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:09 am (UTC)

"He seems fairly nice, from what little I've seen," remarks Bella. "I could easily have done worse. But I'm obviously not sure yet that I want to introduce myself. Well, except in the sense that I already handed him my student ID to check out books, and it has my name on it."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:15 am (UTC)

"Then I will investigate him thoroughly," Sherlock promises.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:18 am (UTC)

"Thanks! You are handy. Tonight's neighborhood is farther away. You want in the truck or do you want to show off again?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:25 am (UTC)

"Truck," he decides. "May as well."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:30 am (UTC)

She gets in the cab and unlocks the passenger door for him.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:30 am (UTC)

In he hops! He even does up his seatbelt.
Edited 2013-02-08 03:31 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:36 am (UTC)

Off Bella drives. She is a lawful and cautious driver, even in the deserted Sunnydale night.

The crossing of the neighborhood proceeds without incident. It's really very quiet around here since she started her daily morgue visits. The morgue is getting less and less crowded; some days there aren't even bodies to mini-stake.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:38 am (UTC)

That suits Sherlock just fine.

Well, for now. Endless nights of following her around while she paints crosses on things uneventfully might get tedious.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:43 am (UTC)

"Five more neighborhoods to go, the way I have it blocked out," Bella says, "and then I figure out something else constructive to do, possibly learn martial arts."

(She's kind of bored with this too, really.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:44 am (UTC)

"Definitely learn martial arts," he says. "I expect that to be reasonably engaging."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:48 am (UTC)

"I expect so too. I dreaded anything resembling exercise before I activated, but it's definitely on this side of fun now that it comes easier and less... well. Clumsily."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:53 am (UTC)

"I was a killing machine even before I became a soulless bloodsucking fiend, so I have no comparable experience."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:54 am (UTC)

"...I am uncertain whether to congratulate you or pity you," muses Bella. "Say. Is there anyone in town you talk to besides me? ...Kitten poker buddies?" she asks, recalling something along those lines, as they pass the alley he identified as leading to the demon bar.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:56 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Not really."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 03:57 am (UTC)

"That sounds lonesome." Bella hasn't exactly made friends at school, but she's made people-she-can-sit-with-at-lunch.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 03:58 am (UTC)

"People frequently bore me, and then I am usually tempted to eat them, and I have been refraining," he says with a shrug.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 04:01 am (UTC)

"And now I feel like I ought to ask for a public service announcement of some kind on what bores you."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 04:03 am (UTC)

"Unlikely to help. 'Dull', in my experience, is a personality trait rather than a set of behaviours."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 04:04 am (UTC)

"And one that people stably do or do not have?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 04:05 am (UTC)

"Stably do, more often than any kind of don't."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 04:06 am (UTC)

"I think you will take my meaning when I say that's not quite the information I was fishing for."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 04:09 am (UTC)

"If you would like me to tell you whether or not you will one day suddenly become boring, believe me, so would I. I don't expect it, at any rate."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 04:15 am (UTC)

"Well. If I do suddenly become boring, can I have a head start?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 02:35 pm (UTC)

"If you suddenly become boring," he says, "I will not eat you, I will leave. Which probably still works out to killing you, but at least not actively."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 04:53 pm (UTC)

"I do appreciate the distinction," Bella says dryly. "Maybe I can manage to take long enough about it that I'll know how to handle myself in close quarters by then. And then I can aspire to live to the ripe old age of twenty-six. Or I suppose I can move to Renée's and pretend not to be the Slayer and let somewhat more people die."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 04:55 pm (UTC)

"As you please," he says cheerfully. "In this hypothetical scenario I won't care a bit."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Understood. Just thinking aloud. I do that, especially when I'm driving and can't think into a notebook instead," Bella snorts.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 05:04 pm (UTC)

"In the likelier event that you retain your natural tendency to be interesting, I expect we can set a new record for Slayer lifespan. Thirty, perhaps," he jokes.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I want to live forever," says Bella, hands tightening on the wheel.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Slightly more troublesome. I know of only one method, and apart from its many other problems it only prevents you from dying of some things. True immortality is beyond my means."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, and it has that inconvenient personality revision problem. I want me to live forever, I don't want some superficially similar creature to live forever."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I consider myself to have continuity with the person I was, but I know not all vampires do. The objection is fair."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 05:28 pm (UTC)

"What exactly do souls... do? I mean, I know what usually happens when the soul is removed. But it's apparently not consistent, I don't know the psychological mechanisms involved, and I'm wondering what function precisely they tend to serve."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Interesting question," he says. "I could tell you what mine did for me, I suppose. Or try to. I've never exactly thought of it in those terms."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Please do." She parks in the driveway at her house but doesn't get out of the car.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 06:16 pm (UTC)

"...When I had a soul," he says, "I cared about abstract ethical concerns like when precisely murder is wrong and whether or not I counted as a real person. They meant something to me in an immediate way. There were emotional consequences to violence that now do not exist. My repertoire of available actions is expanded; I can choose to steal or eat people or torture someone to death with no consequences except the practical."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Were you actually concerned that you might not count as a 'real' person?" Bella asks.

(She does not sound impressed.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 06:33 pm (UTC)

"It was a source of some distress on lonely nights, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Your working definition of 'real person' having been what?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 06:38 pm (UTC)

"'Not me'. If it were a rational worry I would still be having it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that makes less sense than half the things they tell me in my Government class, and let me assure you, many things they tell me in Government are nonsensical."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 07:18 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 07:32 pm (UTC)

"What's the... shift in ethical feeling... like? I have a rudimentary understanding of what it might be like to be that way, but less of what it would be like to become so - to wake up and find one's brain rearranged."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I hardly noticed at first," he says. "I was ocupied by other concerns. It did occur to me while waiting for Obadiah that while I would have thought about torturing him to death before the change, I probably would have left out the torture in the end."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 07:42 pm (UTC)

"But you would've killed him either way?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 07:45 pm (UTC)

"I reiterate that he had my entire family murdered. Yes, I would have killed him. I'm fairly sure he assassinated Tony's parents, for that matter."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes, I understand completely. Under the circumstances I can barely manage to blame you for the torture, let alone the killing. Just wanted to confirm. Tony's parents? They'd be genetically yours too, whether or not you ever met them. I confess I am quite ignorant about how clones slot into their creator's families."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Poorly," he says. "Tony's parents were not particularly close to him, but at least they had met."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 07:55 pm (UTC)

"You would've had to pretend to be twins with Tony regardless - was he like your brother, or what?" Her next guess is 'parent'.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Not remotely," he says. "Nor my father, before you ask. He was... Tony. I loved him. Further labeling did not seem productive."
Edited 2013-02-08 19:56 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 08:03 pm (UTC)

That makes sense. Bella nods.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 08:10 pm (UTC)

He smiles faintly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Do Watchers tend to know much about magic?" Bella asks in a complete topic change. "I'm still not accomplishing anything with what supposedly simple spells I've attempted and unless Slayers just fundamentally can't do magic, I'm missing something obvious that someone who knows magic would be able to tell me. It might be worth exposing myself to lots of crustiness just to get that figured out. Of course, maybe there are less crusty freelance witches who can take students and wouldn't need to know I'm the Slayer to find me worth their time."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 10:37 pm (UTC)

"...I have no concrete data to support this," he says, "but my feeling is that the Watcher's Council is not an organization you want in your life. Even if they can teach you about magic, and I don't know if they can, or would."
Edited 2013-02-08 22:40 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Freelance witches are probably a better first choice," agrees Bella. "Don't suppose you can find out if there are any of those lying around who take students? In addition to checking out the librarian?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Such a busy life I am acquiring. By all means," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I like to be busy, don't you?" Bella inquires innocently.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Beats the alternative," he snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Exactly."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I ought to get on with it, then. Farewell, dear Juliet," he says teasingly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Until tomorrow," she returns, and she hops out of her side of the truck and goes inside only when she's sure he's out of range of the porch lights.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 11:05 pm (UTC)

Off he goes.

It is indeed a busy night.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 11:12 pm (UTC)

Bella avoids taking out any more suspicious books the next day, although she does return the ones she's read - he can probably look up her borrowing history anyway, and he's more likely to do that if she's overdue with something. She gets no more than a raised eyebrow when she dumps her items into the bookdrop and scurries home.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Yes," is the first thing he says to her, "your new librarian is a Watcher."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 11:22 pm (UTC)

"D'you know if he suspects anything?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I do not."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Did that take all night or do you know about local witches, too?" She hops in the truck and unlocks the other side for him once he's finished his blood and she can stop holding her nose.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 11:33 pm (UTC)

"What I know about local witches is that there are a lot of dead ends," he says. "Competence and friendliness seem to be mutually exclusive qualities. But I have not exhausted my resources yet."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I'd take a friendly incompetent if it came to a choice between the options, at least to try - I'm happy to do self-study once I know what I haven't been able to make anything work yet."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 11:36 pm (UTC)

"The friendly incompetents I have looked up would be no use to you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Are they so incompetent that they only imagine they're doing magic?" she inquires.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-08 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Correct."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-08 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Wow. That's serious incompetence. I wonder if some people just can't? It would suck if I were someone who just couldn't," muses Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:03 am (UTC)

"I suspect the fault lies somewhere between mindset and methods, but I have not made a concerted study of the matter."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 12:07 am (UTC)

"Mm. What are the unfriendly competent witches like?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:14 am (UTC)

"The example that stands out the most has switched bodies with her daughter, without the daughter's consent," he says mildly. "I would not go to her for occult instruction if I were you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 12:16 am (UTC)

"Ah. No, that doesn't sound like a good teacher. Why did she do that? Just to be younger?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:16 am (UTC)

"Her reasons are opaque to me; that is as good a theory as any."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 12:18 am (UTC)

"I want to fix that but without knowing any magic I don't have the first idea what I'd do. Dammit."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:21 am (UTC)

"I'll look into it," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 12:22 am (UTC)

"Thanks!"

She pulls over at the next neighborhood and begins laying her traps.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:27 am (UTC)

Sherlock accompanies her with his customary unobtrusiveness.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 12:31 am (UTC)

They are not attacked on this night either.

Nor, in fact, are they attacked on any of the remaining neighborhood-crossing nights.

When he arrives for his blood on the subsequent evening, Bella says: "I think practicing martial arts in the backyard would attract neighborly attention if we make a habit of it, and it'd disconcert Charlie. Have you got a better idea?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:34 am (UTC)

"Well, there's this charming crypt I've been staying in recently," he says. "It's quite comfortable if you don't mind the cobwebs."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 12:34 am (UTC)

"I'll fetch a featherduster, shall I?" Bella says dryly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:41 am (UTC)

"If you must."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 12:43 am (UTC)

She must, apparently. "Walking distance?" she asks when she's emerged with the implement tucked into her messenger bag with everything else she carries on nighttime excursions.
Edited 2013-02-09 00:43 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:47 am (UTC)

"For me, certainly."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 12:53 am (UTC)

"More or less than two miles?" Bella tries.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 12:56 am (UTC)

"Oh, less."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:01 am (UTC)

"All right then, lead the way. Slayer's First Crypt. Should be a pop-up book."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:04 am (UTC)

Sherlock giggles.

Off they go!

The crypt proves to be a little less cobwebby than advertised, but not by much. It has a ground level with a prominent, currently empty stone coffin, and a below-ground level with a mattress, a blanket, a kettle, a box of tea, and a lot of empty space.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:06 am (UTC)

"Why is a crypt wired for electricity?" Bella asks, eyeing the kettle and the lights while attacking the cobwebs surrounding the largest open space that will suit for combat practice.
Edited 2013-02-09 01:09 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:11 am (UTC)

"I don't know, but I do know I am not its first ambulatory occupant," he says. "Perhaps the previous one could answer that question, if they are not a pile of dust by now."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:12 am (UTC)

"Did you have to evict them or was it unoccupied when you found it?" Dust dust dust. Her duster is getting quite repulsive; she peels off a layer of spiderweb and chucks it into a corner where at least it will be out of the way and makes another pass.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:13 am (UTC)

"The latter. A broom might have done you more good," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:18 am (UTC)

"Less pleasant to carry all this way," she says. "I think I've interrupted local vampire reproduction sufficiently that a broom's potential value as an impromptu stake is not a significant factor." She deems the second pass sufficient, cleans off her duster again, and says, "So. Where do we start?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:22 am (UTC)

"Not sure," he says. "I have never tried to teach this sort of thing before. And to complicate matters, I have no idea how much you already know, or can access because you are the Slayer and have been loaded up with all sorts of interesting muscle memory."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:25 am (UTC)

"I've watched a few hours' worth of aikido tutorials on the Internet," says Bella, shadowboxing a throw with a Japanese name she can't remember. "And about fifteen minutes of parkour."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:26 am (UTC)

"It seems I have some work ahead of me, then," he says. "Has any of this valuable research taught you how to properly throw a punch?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:33 am (UTC)

"No. Aikido seems to be more of a throwing art. I do know that the thumb goes outside the fist?" she offers.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:36 am (UTC)

"Well, that's a start. Observe," he says, and stands beside her to demonstrate in slow motion.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:40 am (UTC)

She follows along promptly. "Is this all going to be shadowboxing or at some point do we hit each other and be glad we have super-regeneration?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:42 am (UTC)

"For lack of better targets, yes," he says. "Unless you manage to accidentally knock my head off, the worst that will happen to me is I might start giggling and quoting Shakespeare."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:49 am (UTC)

"And this doesn't bother you? I don't think anyone I've read has remarked, however unreliably, on the relationship between turning and pain tolerance."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:51 am (UTC)

"There isn't much of one. I was nearly as unbothered beforehand."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 01:57 am (UTC)

"Did it make you quote Shakespeare then too?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 02:01 am (UTC)

"You could say that," he muses, with a slight smile.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 02:04 am (UTC)

"Am I treading on personal territory?" asks Bella. Convinced that the shape of her fist matches his, she throws an experimental series of punches at the air.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 02:09 am (UTC)

"Oh, very good," he says, reaching to correct the position of her elbow slightly. Deadpan: "And no, not at all, the subject of my sex life is open for discussion."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 02:11 am (UTC)

"Technically I didn't ask if I was treading on forbidden territory," she points out, adjusting her elbow on the other side to match and having at the air a bit more.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 02:14 am (UTC)

"My mistake." He observes another few punches. "You can go much faster than that, I'm sure," is his commentary.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 02:20 am (UTC)

She tries. She's never pushed herself to top speed before - but -

Why yes. Yes she can go faster than that.

She ramps up for rather a while before discovering how fast, and she grins at the blur of her hands.

"Cool," she says.
Edited 2013-02-09 02:20 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 02:23 am (UTC)

"Much better," he says. "You'll find that while plenty of nasty bitey sorts have superhuman speed, very few of them put it to good use."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 02:31 am (UTC)

"Fail to put it to good use how?" she asks, throwing in a kick to break up the rhythm of the punches. The air would be tripped, if it were not air.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 02:34 am (UTC)

"As simple as that: they don't use it," he says. "I don't believe I have any special physical advantage over other vampires, but I move and react faster than they do because I pay attention and I know my own abilities. They don't push themselves. Perhaps because they don't usually have to."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 02:41 am (UTC)

Bella pushes for a little extra burst of speed, which she can achieve but not sustain, and then she starts adding more kicks to the pattern, and then she spins once to make the front kick a roundhouse. "Don't vampires sometimes get into fights with each other? I'd think that would incentivize pushing even if most of them are never going to run into me or one of my predecessors. Or successors."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 02:43 am (UTC)

"They do, yes," he says. "But judging by how easily I kill them, they don't do it often enough. Try making that more level," he says of the roundhouse.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 02:51 am (UTC)

She adjusts the angle and tries again. "Some of them manage to live for hundreds of years. Have you tangled with many of those?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 02:58 am (UTC)

"I think one or two of the gang who turned me had a few centuries behind them."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 03:00 am (UTC)

"What makes you think that?" Punchpunchpunchpunchpunchkickpunchkickkickpunchpunch -

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 03:10 am (UTC)

"How they spoke, how they moved. It is sometimes possible to estimate."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 03:13 am (UTC)

"On the other hand," (she throws in a backflip that would snap any neck attached to a chin caught in her foot's path, then resumes her flurry of blows at the air from farther back) "hearing you talk I'd figure you for English. And you also fail to look six or seven years old."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 03:34 am (UTC)

"I said estimate, not pinpoint," he says mildly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 03:41 am (UTC)

She snickers. "Opinions on the backflip? I was so pleased when I discovered I could do that."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 03:43 am (UTC)

"Flashy, but potentially useful."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 03:44 am (UTC)

"Is it ever useful to be flashy solely for the purpose of being flashy? Does it scare people, or anything?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 03:50 am (UTC)

"It can scare them, or make them underestimate you, or distract them. All very useful, under the right circumstances."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 03:52 am (UTC)

"The backflip would make someone underestimate me because...?" Her onslaught against the vile villain, The Air, is unslowing.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 04:02 am (UTC)

"It's flashy," he repeats. "If you consistently display unnecessary theatricality, you look inexperienced, or arrogant."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 04:05 am (UTC)

"I am inexperienced. I'm not arrogant about this." Pause. "Yet."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 04:08 am (UTC)

"Personally," he says, "I tend toward maximum economy of movement unless there is some reason to act otherwise. And yet I am probably among the most arrogant vampires on the planet about my fighting abilities—granted, not without cause."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 04:10 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I saw you, you're very good," Bella agrees. "Do you have any more notes about how I'm doing at beating up all this nitrogen-and-whatnot?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 04:13 am (UTC)

"My comment is that you are good enough at beating up the atmosphere that you might benefit from a more substantial opponent."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 04:20 am (UTC)

Bella decides to see if she can obtain any value from whatever limited element of surprise she can get against Sherlock, and aims a kick at the back of his knees.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 04:25 am (UTC)

He turns to meet it, not with that deceptive casualness he used to dodge her arrows when they first met, but very fast and focused like he was when he killed those demons in front of her.

"Well done," he compliments, and counterattacks. Not at full speed. The point is to teach her, not to kill her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 04:28 am (UTC)

Bella is going as fast as she can, and she needs to, to compensate for his skill and her lack thereof. Most of the aikido she watched involved working from someone attacking - she remembers this one throw - she tries it.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 04:31 am (UTC)

It works.

He bounces to his feet and attacks again without pause.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 04:33 am (UTC)

Half aikido and half making things up, she tries something else. The sooner she can convey her repertoire the sooner he'll know what else to teach her.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 04:39 am (UTC)

That works, too, but Sherlock comes up again like one of those toys with the round weighted base.

He still retains enough control that whenever she fails to block or dodge, he adjusts for minimal impact at the last moment.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 04:41 am (UTC)

Bella hisses the first time he connects but doesn't produce a protest or back away. She just tries something else.

Something else.

Something else.

She runs out of knowhow and starts improvising.

This way.

That way.

Little of this little of that.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 04:43 am (UTC)

"You're definitely a Slayer," he remarks—naturally, not out of breath. "Your instincts are good. Listen to them. But instinct can be improved upon."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 04:45 am (UTC)

"Yeah, how?" She's using her lungs differently than he is, but she's not tired - not yet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-09 01:59 pm (UTC)

"It is always better to analyze than to react," he says. "Observe."

And smoothly, seamlessly, he brings himself up to full speed and starts answering her every move before she makes it. Still with enough control to avoid hitting her full-strength. It seems almost choreographed, like they have been practicing this exact sequence for months and she just somehow forgot.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-09 05:20 pm (UTC)

Oh, now this is fun.

"If I can -" duck roll sweep-kick kip-up punch - "figure out -" feint uppercut grab throw - "what the instincts' moving parts are -" dodge block swat dodge - "would that help?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 01:40 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

"Yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 01:43 am (UTC)

"I can probably do that." (attack, attack, whoa duck dodge roll regroup jump kick) "Figuring out what's going on in my brain is a hobby of sorts for me."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 01:44 am (UTC)

"Good hobby," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 01:45 am (UTC)

"Passes the time."

(She is getting tired enough to notice, now, although not tired enough to slow her down.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 02:57 am (UTC)

"Feel free, then," he adds.

And what better way to help than to keep pushing those instincts into corners where their reactions are predictable to him?

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:04 am (UTC)

"Well, usually," (duck spin swat) "it involves me sitting alone in a room" (sweep-kick block catch throw) "with a notebook, first" (ouch back up and punch) "but this'll be valuable material for it when we're through."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:17 am (UTC)

"Pleased to hear it," he says, evading a punch and then catching her hand to draw her forward and off balance. "It is also," stepping back out of the way of her counterattack, "quite a lot of fun."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I can see the appeal. I wonder if I'm going to be sore in the morning or if I'll just fix up overnight?" she says, still interrupted by the occasional wind-knocking-out or roll or that one time when she goes ahead and bites his sleeve but overall getting the hang of carrying on a conversation while in whirling violent motion. "I know I heal a lot faster but I don't know how it holds up against the kinda muscle tearing vigorous exercise causes."
Edited 2013-02-10 05:22 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:25 am (UTC)

"No predictions," he says cheerfully. "Do let me know."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:28 am (UTC)

"You'll be able to tell by whether I wince or not when you come by and it is time to do this again."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:31 am (UTC)

"Of course I will. But that does not make your observations worthless."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:33 am (UTC)

"I suppose I'll have more precision available. I am starting to get tired but I'm not actually sure if that's physical exhaustion or it being late. There's no clock in here. Hang on a sec while I get my phone?" she asks, executing a throw that, if allowed to land, ought to send him flying into a wall and give her the leisure to do that regardless of permission.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:35 am (UTC)

Sherlock politely allows her to fling him into the wall.

"By all means," he says, remaining where he is.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:39 am (UTC)

She consults her phone. "Not quite bedtime, but close enough that it's probably a good place to stop and head home," she says. "You escorting me?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:40 am (UTC)

"Of course."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:45 am (UTC)

They are not attacked on their way to her house. "See you tomorrow," Bella says cheerfully as she parks the truck and hops out.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:47 am (UTC)

"Au revoir, Juliet."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:53 am (UTC)

The next day, Bella uses much of her lunch and study hall, and about half of her afternoon, to notebook through her instincts. They are weird to take apart - not hard to see, but hard to write about, and she winds up inventing just shy of thirty new portmanteaus and onomatopoeias to be able to write coherently about everything that turns out to be installed.

She picks her Slayer skills apart. She finds things that do not make sense in among the good reflexes, the killer instinct, the subtle drop in self-preservation that she imagines was installed to match her regen. (She is not, happily, sore in the morning.)

And - like they are just waiting to be edited, like they know they are thousands of years old and must yield to training or more deliberate revision when asked in response to new contexts and techniques - they rearrange to suit her.

She grins. She doesn't think she can beat Sherlock when they fight again, but she thinks she can surprise him.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:55 am (UTC)

"You look pleased with yourself," he comments when next he sees her.
Edited 2013-02-10 05:59 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:00 am (UTC)

"Slayer instincts want to be patched," she reports. "Once I made up enough vocabulary to write about them, it was easier than not being mad when people interrupt me."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:04 am (UTC)

"I am delighted," he says. "Let's go and give your revisions the smoke test, shall we?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:06 am (UTC)

"Do let's." She practically traipses to the crypt. Once there, she divests herself of excess baggage and attacks without further warning.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:11 am (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

He still keeps ahead of her, but now he has to work at it. Half speed will no longer do the trick.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:14 am (UTC)

Bella's shunted enough of her intelligence into her handy new autopilot that she can focus her immediate consciousness almost entirely on reading his body language and his attacks to tell it which patterns to pull out. She feels like nothing so much as a conduit between sense and motion: she sees this, and her seeing directly causes her weight to shift, her hand to strike, her foot to jut out just so and force him to dance away. All she's doing is keeping her eyes open, keeping her attention laser-focused on the fight, and feeling the feedback from every sense she's got.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:19 am (UTC)

"Brilliant," he compliments.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:21 am (UTC)

"This is just what I was able to patch without knowing what I was doing. Feel like learning about thirty new vocabulary words and trying to read my notes-to-self?" she asks casually.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:22 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says immediately.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:26 am (UTC)

"Now, or after we've run through more of the new improved Slayerness as-is?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:30 am (UTC)

"Not yet," he decides. "I do want to see what you've come up with on your own."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:35 am (UTC)

"Mostly just - well, for one thing, did you know that my self-preservation instinct was cut down to size for some reason? I didn't start wanting to throw myself in front of a train or at a demon nest, probably because I already wanted to be immortal and the change wasn't big enough to get me to regular, let alone sucidal, but it was there, which was... well. Interesting design choice. I left it mostly the way it was in the short term because I really don't need to be as concerned about injuries as I used to be - except brain damage, that's still a big deal - but I did not want that long term deathwish."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:38 am (UTC)

"Interesting design choice indeed," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:43 am (UTC)

"I suppose they don't want their Slayers deciding that, no, fighting nasty bitey nightlife is scary and they'd rather take up knitting," says Bella. "This is, after all, a system that was deemed preferable to any option involving volunteers."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:44 am (UTC)

Sherlock snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:54 am (UTC)

"I mean seriously. I'm not complaining - no crusty people have located me, I have not been maimed or killed, I pretty much just got gift-wrapped superpowers and a visit from a possibly divine being of some sort to tell me what was going on and this strictly beats the alternative especially as I was living in Sunnydale anyway - but I do not know what those people were thinking. Is magic just that constrained, that they didn't have a better option? Or did they like throwing teenage girls to the metaphorical wolves for some reason that appears in the DSM? Or did it seem like a really good idea at the time -" she plants a solid kick right in his chest where her previous instincts would have had her aiming a punch for his ear - "to hang the entire globe's hopes for a defender against what have to be millions of not billions of nasty bitey threats on one less than willing individual who they have additionally saddled with a deathwish?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:55 am (UTC)

The kick sends him all the way across the room; he hits the wall laughing.

"I have no idea," he says. "Perhaps you should ask Rupert."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 07:01 am (UTC)

"Is that Mr. Giles's first name? Have you decided that I might want to introduce myself after all?" she asks, dropping into a ready stance to counter him when he comes at her again.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 07:05 am (UTC)

"I found out he has some knowledge of the occult and left him an anonymous note about the body-stealing witch, just to see what would happen. If he deals with the situation in a reasonable way, it may be worth an overture of friendship. I suggest you leave me out of it at first, however."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 07:12 am (UTC)

"Nicely handled," says Bella. "That is a good test for a potential Watcher. I can leave you out and explain how I know anything about what I'm doing solely by lies of omission and reference to the Internet and my self-hacking, that's probably a good idea."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 07:13 am (UTC)

He takes a slight bow, and then attacks again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 07:21 am (UTC)

After about fifteen minutes, Bella says, "I think you've seen at least one instance of all the changes I've made in action. Although obviously if you had six legs or poison stingers or something they'd be manifesting differently, I don't think we should spend any time attempting to outfit you with same for a more thorough picture."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 07:22 am (UTC)

Sherlock snorts.

"All right," he says, "let's see the pieces."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 07:27 am (UTC)

Bella indulges in a backflip to disengage, and then fusses briefly with the wisps escaping from her practical ponytailed hair and fetches her notebook from her messenger bag. She started a fresh one for this project on the expectation that she'd be handing it over. "Behold," she says grandly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 07:33 am (UTC)

Sherlock beholds.

"Poetry," he says after examining it for a moment. "Your capacity for analysis delights my missing soul."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 07:35 am (UTC)

"Seriously?" laughs Bella. "I tried to tidy it up a little, since I figured I'd be showing it to you, but I generally expect the contents of my notebooks to be at least half opaque, and this one is mostly made-up words to boot."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 07:37 am (UTC)

"I also have an extensive capacity for analysis."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 07:42 am (UTC)

"Fair enough, I am likewise impressed. So. What obvious low-hanging Slayer-instinct-revision fruit did I fail to pick?" she asks, stretching this way and that in idle reaches and lunges to loosen up the tension accumulated in the fight.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 03:06 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," he says, flipping through the notes. "The word that comes to mind is straightforward. Aggressive. Direct. Good for efficiently defeating anyone who is less skilled than you, or has fewer advantages; less good for an extended fight against an opponent of equal or greater ability. As you may have noticed."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella flips over and balances on her hands for variety. "So I want some subtler subroutines, but that doesn't tell me what they ought to be."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 04:59 pm (UTC)

"No, it doesn't," he agrees. "Do you think it would be helpful if I demonstrated what I mean?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Maybe." She flips onto her feet again. "Am I still defending like before or am I just letting you show me something?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:14 pm (UTC)

"For the purposes of this demonstration, you are a vampire who is trying very hard to kill me and I am a Slayer who is disinclined to let you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Trying very hard like you or trying very hard like a vampire who has already given herself away and cannot try the no-I'm-just-a-club-girl-who-wants-to-kiss-your-neck gambit?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Either."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 05:26 pm (UTC)

"All right."

Vampire wants her target disabled but with a beating heart; vampire wants to avoid breakage but doesn't care about bruising; vampire is motivated by hunger and will break off if her target is too dangerous to be worth eating. With this in mind, Bella launches herself.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 05:29 pm (UTC)

Sherlock fights nothing like he usually does. He is defensive, deceptive, fractionally slower than he is really capable of. He fights as though he is nearly outmatched and has to use every trick in the book to keep her off him.

There are a lot of tricks in his book.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:38 pm (UTC)

Isabella lets autopilot do its job with the goalset she gave it, and watches carefully.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-10 06:43 pm (UTC)

Eventually he asks, with a flash of a smile, "Learning anything?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-10 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Nothing I can articulate yet. I'm certainly paying attention and this is certainly different."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 12:27 am (UTC)

"Splendid."

In that case, onward.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 12:30 am (UTC)

Onward indeed. "I'm not really seeing how to translate this into modifications," she says after a few minutes.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:11 am (UTC)

"No? What would be more helpful?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 01:12 am (UTC)

"Well, you seemed to be able to understand the format I wrote my notes in. You could just tell me."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:23 am (UTC)

"I don't expect that to work. But if you insist."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 01:24 am (UTC)

"Maybe not, but worth a shot," she says, disengaging and plucking the notebook from the floor to hand it over. She also has a pen in her messenger bag. (And a pencil, but that seems like it might be a vaguely threatening thing to offer a vampire.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:26 am (UTC)

He spends a minute or so staring thoughtfully at the page, and then writes a proposed subroutine and hands her back the notebook.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 01:27 am (UTC)

She looks at it. She consults her glossary.

"Yeaaaah I could install that but I think it's ugly and do not want it in my brain," she says, tossing the notebook back where she got it. "Maybe if I ever need to leap into an uncomfortable form of expertise overnight for an emergency we can try that. Okay, there's got to be some other way for me to figure out what goes in, hm." She begins to pace.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:28 am (UTC)

Sherlock spreads his hands in an understated told-you-so gesture, and lets her think.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 01:30 am (UTC)

"Can you be - repetitive? Can I try a dozen things against the same attack pattern - a serious one, not one you're dumbing down for me, although please don't take my arm off or anything - and then see what works best, what feels right, and then figure out a higher level of abstraction that would've generated that without knowing what was coming?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:33 am (UTC)

"Absolutely," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 01:36 am (UTC)

"Excellent. Sequence of about thirty seconds to start, we can step it up as I get better at this and have more complicated basics to build on. Autopilot engaged, hit me," she says, dropping into stance.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:43 am (UTC)

He attacks at full speed.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 01:50 am (UTC)

Bella watches what the autopilot does. It's not good enough. What would be good enough?

When the thirty seconds are up and she's sprawled on the floor, she thinks. If she'd seen that coming and countered thusly -

Autopilot off, up on her feet, and - "Again."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:51 am (UTC)

Again. Precisely the same, to start, although when she deviates from the original script he adjusts to match.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 01:53 am (UTC)

Okay. That was all right as far as it went, but it left her in an awkward position for what followed and cost her a split second to reposition. If she dodged instead of blocking, she could be poised for -

"Again."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:54 am (UTC)

Sherlock repeats himself one more time.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 01:58 am (UTC)

And so they go until they have gone through the sequence fifteen times and Bella has what is, if she does say so herself, a beautiful counter for it.

She picks up her notebook, scribbles out what she was doing, and seeks a pattern.

This takes her about ten minutes of writing, drawing arrows, referring back to earlier notes, and tapping her pen on the page. Sherlock is welcome to read over her shoulder.

When she's done, she writes the abstracted adjustment with all the triumph of a math professor chalking a theorem onto a blackboard. She closes her eyes, thinks it into place - it's so much easier to work with the Slayer stuff than it is to handle anything else, it's like she's got root access, like the instinct package has handed her a scalpel and begged for surgery - and gets up.

"Surprise me," she says, grinning.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:59 am (UTC)

"Gladly," he says, and attacks again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:03 am (UTC)

Yes. This works better. Much better.

He's still better. But she's approaching him.

Half a dozen thirty-second-sequences worked through, abstracted, and turned into heuristics for installation later, she is able to fight him to a standstill on the first try at a new one.

It's not perfect - she catches one blow across her shoulder and has to do something inelegant to get away from a kick - but they wind up with her sitting on his back and both his arms pinned in place.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:05 am (UTC)

"Well done," he says lightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:10 am (UTC)

"Yeah," she says, grinning and releasing his hand to prod her shoulder. "This is good stuff. Hell yes revision-friendly Slayer powers."

She comes up with solutions to the rough patches, repeats the sequence, and winds up in a different but still victorious position on the second try. She makes and installs another high-level revision. "I feel like I'm doing computer programming on my brain," she says. "I mean, I've always described it kind of like that, saying 'hack' and stuff, but this is a whole 'nother thing. Call it a night? Shoulder's being annoying."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:12 am (UTC)

"Certainly, dear Juliet," he says with a laughing smile.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:16 am (UTC)

She rolls her shoulder and laughs and collects her things with her better arm. (Not that it's perfect. One of those middle bits had her landing on her elbow funny. She'll be fine in the morning.)

And home she goes. "Thanks," she says when they get close enough that if she steps any nearer the house the porch light will come on. "You're really helpful - I would not be at all pleased about having to work on this with live ammunition, so to speak."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:17 am (UTC)

"It has been a pleasure," he assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:19 am (UTC)

"See you tomorrow," she grins, and she shoos him away before she lets the light come on.

She likes him, she wouldn't want him cooked.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:22 am (UTC)

There is a minor commotion at school the next day. Something to do with cheerleaders.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:24 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't really pay attention to cheerleading. (Although she could probably be awesome at it now, if it didn't strike her as utterly inane.) She goes about her day as usual, using her study hall to catch up on delinquent homework though she'd rather be working on exciting new subroutines.

At dusk she goes outside with Sherlock's jar of blood and the usual clothespin on her nose.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:28 am (UTC)

"Ah, breakfast," he greets cheerfully.

Slurrrrrrp.

"Any word about Mr. Giles and the errant witch?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:29 am (UTC)

"I didn't notice anything that was definitely that. The only notable event at school today was something about one of the cheerleaders quitting abruptly." Pause. "Was the evil body-switching mother being a cheerleader under her daughter's identity, by any chance?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:32 am (UTC)

"She was, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:34 am (UTC)

"That sounds promising, then. Most people aren't going to be able to tell what I am just by how I walk, are they? I could ask Mr. Giles about magic lessons without letting on and see how he is in that capacity, if he's up for it at all. I don't suppose a Watcher who doesn't know he's got a Slayer under his nose has a lot to do in his spare time."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:36 am (UTC)

"No, most people are not. Not even most vampires. And given everything we know about Mr. Giles, I think that would be a very wise plan."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:38 am (UTC)

"I shall go conspicuously take out more books on magic at school tomorrow and then approach him about it if he gives me the least reaction to work off of," Bella decides. "But for tonight, let's carry on with what worked last night, that was fun and productive."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:43 am (UTC)

"Extremely productive," Sherlock agrees. "And extremely fun. If you keep pinning me to things I am going to become very attracted to you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:44 am (UTC)

This startles Bella enough that she stops walking cryptward.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:45 am (UTC)

"Sorry," he says, not sounding sorry at all.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:50 am (UTC)

"Shall I be optimizing for arranging to fling you into walls or something instead, or does it not matter either way? Is that going to be - awkward?" she asks. Slowly. Awkwardly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 02:58 am (UTC)

"Will it be awkward," he muses. "Between the two of us I'm not sure I am the one best equipped to answer that question. If you would rather not make it your business at all, you needn't."
Edited 2013-02-11 02:58 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 02:59 am (UTC)

"So you're not going to make a big deal about it and you're just letting me know FYI," says Bella. "...Okay. That is a reasonable behavior." She resumes walking. "You didn't answer about the flinging-you-into-walls alternative."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:01 am (UTC)

"Successfully flinging me into walls is also an attractive behaviour, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:02 am (UTC)

"Ah-huh. You are wired funny," she reports.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:03 am (UTC)

"I certainly am," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:05 am (UTC)

It occurs to Bella to ask as they approach the crypt, "Would anything meaningfully improve about the practicing if I took off the crucifix? I don't know how much of your attention not reacting to it takes, and there's always some possibility it'll pop out of my shirt and hit you in the face or something."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:07 am (UTC)

"...It could make a slight difference," he allows. "It doesn't take up very much of my conscious attention, but I am always aware of it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:09 am (UTC)

"So it's probably not hampering your ability to challenge me yet but it could do so in a few days if I keep improving at this rate, which is admittedly optimistic because low-hanging fruit is called that for a reason," Bella concludes. "Okay. I can take it off for this purpose after making reasonably sure that no one has tried to move into your crypt or anything."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:15 am (UTC)

"All right," Sherlock says agreeably.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:17 am (UTC)

Bella makes reasonably sure that no one has tried to move into Sherlock's crypt in the minutes he has recently been out of it. No one has.

She unhooks the clasp of the crucifix and puts it with her messenger bag.

"Surprise me," she says.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:19 am (UTC)

"Delighted to oblige."

And he does.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:23 am (UTC)

Practice proceeds much as the previous night, except that halfway through Bella announces that she wants to go on to longer sequences - full minutes instead of half-minutes. She's not as well adapted for these yet and is thoroughly trounced on each until she's had a few go-throughs.

Until they've done nine of them and then on the tenth, full of new edits, she does slam him into a wall. (She's also bleeding in two places and she's got a ringing headache, but Sherlock violently encounters that there wall.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:25 am (UTC)

"Well done, fair Juliet," he says with a laugh.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:28 am (UTC)

"My head hurts. I need to start bringing ibuprofen with me," she says, sitting down heavily. "Aaah. Thanks though."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:31 am (UTC)

He sits down against the wall she threw him into.

"A pleasure, I assure you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:32 am (UTC)

"I'm going to start taking everything you say as innuendo," observes Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:37 am (UTC)

"You may be right to. Is it not to your liking?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:39 am (UTC)

"It's - flattering? Unprecedentedly flattering. I mean, random people utter innuendo all the time, but it's not based in any genuine regard, whereas I'm pretty sure yours is." She pokes at her scalp gently, wincing when she reaches the point of impact and maps its borders.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:40 am (UTC)

"I have a genuine regard for you on a number of levels. The fact that you can throw me into walls is only one among many."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:43 am (UTC)

"Many? Okay, at the risk of sounding - completely accurately - like I am fishing for compliments, I count throwing you into walls and my talent for analysis. That's not many."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:50 am (UTC)

"These things are not unrelated," he says. "You can beat me in a fight once in a while. You can do that because you are capable of disassembling and upgrading your Slayer battle instincts with amazing speed and thoroughness, which is because of that talent for analysis you mention and also because you are one of the most self-aware people I have ever met. I am also delighted by your sense of humour, and believe you me, while there are many people in this world who make me laugh, very few of them do it on purpose."

He shrugs.

"And what with all of this bodyguarding and martial instruction, I am becoming somewhat attached to you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:51 am (UTC)

"A successful fishing expedition," says Bella, ineffectually hiding her faint blush with her hair. "Charlie would be so proud."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:57 am (UTC)

"I can just imagine that conversation," snorts Sherlock.

He puts on a perfect imitation of Bella's voice and accent and tilts his head up slightly, with a wide-eyed, excessively innocent look. "Hi, Dad! Tonight a vampire flirted with me, and I encouraged him shamelessly!"

Now in Charlie's voice, with a sterner expression cut by a hint of wistfulness: "Sure I can't shoot him again?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:58 am (UTC)

...Bella laughs.

"Should I not encourage you shamelessly? I could stop. Or induce shame. I don't want to be mean or anything."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:00 am (UTC)

"Oh, no," he says cheerfully, "encourage away. It's delightful."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:03 am (UTC)

"Good, I always hate it when I wind up feeling ethically obliged to self-hack." Her head isn't ringing any more; the spot is still tender but she's got plenty of tender spots. "I think I'm good for one more sequence played through till I have it down and then it's time to go home, ice various anatomy, and get in some sleep."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:06 am (UTC)

Sherlock gets to his feet.

"Happy to be of service."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:09 am (UTC)

She doesn't win this one until she's seen it four times. She does use it to teach herself not to favor that knee or this wrist. She doesn't need to favor them. Anything she will fight that isn't Sherlock will probably want her dead. Any injury that is less than life-threatening will heal. As long as her hurty bits aren't actually weaker her best bet is to learn to push through the discomfort.

Finally she concludes the sequence with a graceful kick to his head, and calculates her edit, and implements it, and sniffs the air distastefully. "I really don't like the smell of blood," she says, packing her notebook away. "But I think it's bothering me less since I activated. I don't like it but I don't feel like I'm going to pass out at all."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:10 am (UTC)

Sherlock looks like he is about to say something, and then doesn't.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:12 am (UTC)

"Well, now I have to know what you were going to say," Bella says. She puts her crucifix back on.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:13 am (UTC)

"It's very flirty," he says. "And possibly alarming. Are you sure?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:15 am (UTC)

"Were you going to say that you vant to suck my blahd?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:19 am (UTC)

"Well, since you're not fond of the smell and I drink the stuff, there does seem to be an obvious efficient way to get rid of the excess. It does no one any good dribbling off you like that."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:20 am (UTC)

"You're not like unto a shark in any relevant way, are you?" Bella asks consideringly. "But I can't think of a way to make the transfer that doesn't involve you licking me."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:21 am (UTC)

"That would be the flirty part."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:24 am (UTC)

"Yes, I suppose so. I do not wish to be licked at this time except in the metaphorical, educational sense, and even in that sense I'm done for the night. Oh, I suppose I could dab at the cuts with a teabag? Is it Tea Sacrilege to combine with blood?" Bella asks speculatively. "...And please answer the thing about the shark characteristics, I am not actually sure."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:28 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

"I honestly don't know how you mean to compare me with a shark. You've been bleeding for two hours and I haven't leapt for your throat yet, except in the educational sense. And you've been watching me eat breakfast every day for a month. My habits are as you see them. As for the tea, you know, I am almost tempted to try it. But perhaps if you don't want me licking you, you also don't want your bodily fluids in my tea."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:30 am (UTC)

"It really isn't doing anyone any good, as you point out, and my objections to licking have approximately nothing to do with the resulting ingestion. Besides, for some reason I didn't think to bring, like, gauze or cottonballs. Let's have a teabag, if you want a bloody teabag." She holds out a hand.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:31 am (UTC)

He extracts a teabag from the box and tosses it to her.

"For curiosity's sake, what are your objections to licking?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:32 am (UTC)

"I'm flirting with you, not awkwardly traversing the baseball metaphor with you," she says. She catches the bag and applies it to the scrape on her forehead.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:34 am (UTC)

"Fair enough," he says. "In that case, should I mention that it is widely rumored in the vampire community that Slayer blood is an aphrodisiac?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:36 am (UTC)

"I do hope you aren't a shark in that respect either," she says, rolling her eyes. "Besides, I suspect that for the typical case in which a vampire gets to drink Slayer blood, they're hopped up on every hormone necessary to make them quote Shakespeare; maybe they attribute that to the blood." She dabs the teabag on her elbow and her ankle and her arm and hands it over.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:39 am (UTC)

Grinning, he takes it, and deposits it in his singular mug.

His tongue touches the resulting smear of blood on his fingers.

Mischievously: "Be not her maid, since she is envious; her vestal livery is but sick and green, and none but fools do wear it. Cast it off."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:41 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. (She is pretty sure this is Shakespeare for "take off your clothes", at least on one level of interpretation. Her clothes stay where they are. But she does laugh.)
Edited 2013-02-11 04:41 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 01:30 pm (UTC)

Sherlock giggles, too.

That is certainly one of many available interpretations!

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Is there a lot of flavor variation from person to person?" Bella inquires.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Some," he says as he puts the kettle on. "Enough that I can tell individuals apart if I'm paying attention, which I always am. You are unusually tasty, but I'm not sure whether that's the Slayer thing or a personal quirk."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 03:58 pm (UTC)

"How odd," laughs Bella. "Why would that be a Slayer thing - wouldn't they have to do it on purpose? - I guess it could be a side effect of the mechanism behind the superpowers, depending on how those work. Or they could've just factored it in along with the deathwish to induce regular turnover, maybe. Pity I have no prior samples to compare against."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:00 pm (UTC)

"And we are unlikely to find another Slayer to compare you with in future, given the conditions for activation. Although I suppose death is not such a binary proposition as people like to think."
Edited 2013-02-11 16:01 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Do you know if any Slayers have been turned into vampires before?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I do not."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:04 pm (UTC)

"It seems likely, just based on the disproportionate vampire attention we get," she muses. "But I feel like an ex-Slayer who was still walking around would be pretty well-known such that you'd have heard of her."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:06 pm (UTC)

"I begin to suspect that we may have stumbled on one of the lesser-known duties of the Watcher's Council," he says. "Just because I think that if any such thing occurred, none of them would rest a moment until she had been set on fire."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Oof. So you think - or you think they think - she'd retain the power boost even after redeeming her soul for valuable prizes?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I think they wouldn't take the chance. I think even if she didn't they'd get after her."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Do Slayers tend to be privy to fascinating secrets - or just lots of training, which they'd hang onto regardless of the superpowers - or is it just terrible PR?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Secrets no, training yes. And of course the PR. And of course the insult to their personal and institutional dignity."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:16 pm (UTC)

"So their job is to supervise girls with artificial suicidal impulses, send them against creatures with parasitic reproductive habits, and then be sensitive about it when one gets bit and bites back."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:17 pm (UTC)

"In essence, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm actually really confused about how that second part's supposed to work. I don't think human natural responses to being attacked tend to include blood-drinking. Does that usually happen as force-feeding while unconscious, or what?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Force-feeding, yes; while unconscious, no. In my experience. And in theory it is sometimes consensual."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:23 pm (UTC)

"...Among people who are deceived about the side effects, or just don't care?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:25 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Either, I suppose."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:27 pm (UTC)

"What are the usual motivations for turning someone, anyway?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:29 pm (UTC)

The kettle is finally done. Sherlock pours his teabomination.

"In my case it seemed to be nothing more than sadistic whim. I have also heard loneliness."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:31 pm (UTC)

"I suppose most people aren't as patient as you were with people trying to shoot them while they attempt to make friends, but a careful vampire could pass long enough to find someone who'd tolerate the revelation. I guess that's not sociopathically hedonistic enough."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, the problem with making friends with a human is that it is much harder to pretend they are not going to die," he says lightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I could see that being a problem." She chews her lip. "Isn't there any other method of immortality? All these demons and all this magic flailing around everywhere - that's really the only game in town?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:38 pm (UTC)

"There are rumours. Judging by the tone of the discourse, it seems every method has its tradeoffs, and vampirism is by far the most readily available. I don't know details of any others."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Hmm." She beholds a wall contemplatively.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:47 pm (UTC)

Sherlock lets her think.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Well," she says. "I will see what Mr. Giles is like starting tomorrow. Maybe he knows something. Or maybe he can get me far enough that I can invent my own spells. An immortality one with acceptable drawbacks if any is a priority."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:51 pm (UTC)

"I advise you to be very cautious about that," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Absolutely. If all the options in circulation have serious problems with them, there's probably a reason. Caution is the order of the project. That doesn't mean it's not worth looking into."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 04:53 pm (UTC)

"True enough," he agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Is the median vampire lifespan that much to brag about, anyway? I mean, the upside potential is sweet, but the violence and the inconvenient catching fire if struck by sunlight parts have got to cut the average something awful."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 05:10 pm (UTC)

"I haven't gathered statistics," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't see why not," says Bella. "I suppose you have enough reason to believe yourself an outlier that they wouldn't be especially predictive for you, but they'd be interesting."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but the reward is not commensurate with the effort."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Asking vampires you meet how old they are and taking down the information and then doing some statistical work to find out how your likelihood of meeting them interacts with their age?" Bella says. "I guess you'd have to like math or compensate for less math with more data-gathering. I don't like math much myself."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 05:17 pm (UTC)

"And there is also the matter of meeting all those vampires."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It might take a while, or a shorter while moving in more hazardous circles. So I suppose I can see after all why you wouldn't want to take on the project if it didn't hold much intrinsic interest."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 05:19 pm (UTC)

He lifts his mug in an ironic salute.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:19 pm (UTC)

"So does tea go with blood after all?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Astonishingly well, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure this information will come in handy later, probably in act four in some ironic manner," says Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 05:29 pm (UTC)

He cracks up.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:31 pm (UTC)

Bella grins and lets him finish his tea so he needn't let it get cold or try to drink it while walking her home. And then she gets up with all her possessions and they depart the crypt.

As they pass a fire hydrant she knows she scratched, she says, "What do they feel like? The crosses."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 05:36 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," he says. "I would describe it almost like... pressure. Like they exert a very slight outward force to push me away. Except that they don't, and it is in fact all in my head."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:53 pm (UTC)

"The way I've seen other vampires react to them it looks like it's value-laden. Aversive. Not just neutral pushiness like an air current."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "But the pressure metaphor is the one that springs to mind. The original emotional content has been worn away by months of stubbornness."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 05:58 pm (UTC)

"What kind of emotional content was it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Unpleasant," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:01 pm (UTC)

"That's not very specific. Do you not want to talk about it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 06:05 pm (UTC)

"It's difficult to analyze something I reject so thoroughly," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:06 pm (UTC)

"I guess not everyone is me. I have to know what I'm getting rid of before I can make it go away."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 06:10 pm (UTC)

"The actual experience of encountering a cross, before the aforementioned erosion, was very much like watching someone sidle up to my basic emotional processing and say 'I'm going to make you feel like shit now', and watching my basic emotional processing reply 'The fuck you will', and being a bystander to the ensuing argument."
Edited 2013-02-11 18:10 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:12 pm (UTC)

"That sounds very uncomfortable indeed."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I suppose so, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I am glad you have gotten it to go away. I do not harbor a desire to drive you out of town in the course of shooing the bitier ones."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 06:15 pm (UTC)

"I only find them mildly annoying now, and usually not even that."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Good. I would miss you if I'd wallpapered the town with something too aversive and you moved away."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "I would miss you too."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:19 pm (UTC)

She smiles.

There's her house. "I'll see you tomorrow," she says.

Pause. A quick check to see if this impulse has any pointy bits. Nope.

Impulse hug!

eversomuchfun
2013-02-11 06:20 pm (UTC)

...Sherlock hugs back.

"You're just full of surprises, dear Juliet," he says. "Goodnight."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:22 pm (UTC)

"G'night!"

And in she trots.

She is a happy Bella.

Now she has to write in her notebook for at least an hour about that before she will be able to sleep, but that is okay.

The next day, Bella spends study hall at the library, and she finds some books on witchcraft, and she sidles in the most attention-attracting way she knows how to pretend to not want attention with them up to the checkout desk. "Um, hi, Mr. Giles."

pythbox
2013-02-11 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Hello," he says, looking at her with mild curiosity from behind his glasses.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:25 pm (UTC)

"There's a lot of books like this here," she remarks as he stamps them for her, just this side of audibly. "I don't think my old school had any..."

pythbox
2013-02-11 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well, this is Sunnydale," he says wryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-11 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. It's a weird town. I found these in the nonfiction section. And that thing with that cheerleader yesterday - I heard peculiar rumors. Not to mention all the weird stories my dad tells about stuff he sees at work." (Charlie has been a little more forthcoming about this, lately.)

The persona she is attempting to wear does already know about magic and vampires and the like (by observation and rumor, not by Power visitation), and is trying to find out if Mr. Giles does too.
Edited 2013-02-11 18:51 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-12 09:48 pm (UTC)

He pushes his glasses up and gives her a measuring look.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Do you believe in magic?" she blurts. "I think I do - I didn't before I moved here - but I think it might be real, at least some of it, even if I can't make anything in the books work and can't find anyone else who can either -"

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:20 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

"Yes," he says, "unfortunately, I do."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately? But - isn't it a good thing? There are healing spells in these books, if nothing else."

(She would like him to determine that she is good-hearted and naive and in need of a decent teacher before she finds an indecent one.)

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:25 pm (UTC)

"The occult can be a dangerous subject to learn," he says slowly. "For you and for those around you. But since you live in Sunnydale and you're willing to accept evidence of the supernatural, I should really recommend some other reading."

And he reaches under the counter to pull out a stack of dusty-looking old books with extremely similar cover designs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 10:31 pm (UTC)

Bella takes them eagerly and looks for indices. "Do these have some kind of - introductory material - I haven't been able to get anything to work," she says. "I think I'm missing something very basic."

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Not quite," he says.

The books are not about magic; they are about various species of demon and other supernatural hazards, including vampires.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 10:39 pm (UTC)

She peers at the indices.

"Well," she says. "This explains all the suspicious barbecue fork deaths after sunset much better than drugged gangs who use cooking implements as weapons."

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Mr. Giles. "And my advice would be to focus your attention there first."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I... actually already guessed," Bella says sheepishly. "If you look at my borrowing history... I didn't get these books exactly but I've gotten others that mention vampires and I didn't think it was smart to take chances, given all the funny statistics. I replaced my porch lights with those sunshine bulbs and know not to invite anyone into the house." If he agrees to teach her anything she'll also tell him about covering the town in crosses and her key to the morgue.

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:02 pm (UTC)

...He gives her another of those measuring looks.

"Vampires, I'm afraid, are only the tip of the iceberg."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. My dad and some other cops had a standoff with some folks who had oddly colored blood, a while ago. And Sunnydale has a pretty bad rate of unusual occurrences even when the sun is up. But I haven't found anything so straightfoward about how to deal with those. Have these books got instructions? Stars of David and maple syrup instead of crosses and holy water?" She flips through one of the books, treating the pages gently. "Because otherwise I think it comes back to magic."

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:07 pm (UTC)

"In my experience," he says, "magic has a tendency to hurt more than it helps."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 11:08 pm (UTC)

"How?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Let's just say that you're very lucky the worst way you've had a spell go wrong is by not working at all. And that's leaving aside the fact that magic users are specifically targeted by several kinds of demon and, of course, other magic users. And the risk of addiction."

He's sounding crustier by the second.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Magic is addictive?" Bella asks skeptically. "Literally, or is that a metaphor for it being useful or fun to the point where using it leads to using more by some mechanism that is not, literally, addiction?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Magic addiction is fairly rare, but it does happen," he says. "In a very literal, devastating sense."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh dear. Thank you for telling me."

(If he were bullshitting her he probably wouldn't have said it was rare, so she's going to take this as likely accurate, and something she needs to find out about before attempting to learn anything.)

"Is there anything else you can tell me besides recommending the books? Are these even..." She looks at the spines. "They're not library books. Can I borrow them anyway?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:26 pm (UTC)

"They're mine," he says, "and yes, you can."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

This is probably all she's going to get out of Mr. Giles. At least this time. What a pity. (And he knows some magic, too, if he fixed the cheerleader, as seems likely. Frustrating.)

She takes the books. She spends the rest of her study hall reading through the first chapter of one, taking notes, and then she goes to the rest of her classes and hangs out in the library to continue.

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:30 pm (UTC)

Mr. Giles mostly tries to ignore her.

He doesn't do a very good job.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Is something wrong?" she asks, eventually, when the place is clear of other students within hearing distance. "Would you rather I read these someplace more private or something?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:44 pm (UTC)

"No, no," he says. "Don't mind me."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-12 11:48 pm (UTC)

She goes on reading and notetaking (this notebook is clear of incriminating Slayer-related content), but she does pay peripheral attention to how he's observing her.

pythbox
2013-02-13 12:10 am (UTC)

In a word, confusedly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 12:17 am (UTC)

"Are you sure there isn't something wrong?" Bella asks. "Is it that surprising for the chief of police's daughter to move here and notice enough stuff to figure out that this town has peculiar and bitey contents? I mean, I've been here before, but only in the summertime, so his insistence on a sunset curfew wasn't nearly as suspicious back then."

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:36 am (UTC)

"Well," he says, "it's just you're the first person I've met here who acknowledged the paranormal and was not evil in some way." He adjusts his glasses. "You're not evil in some way, are you?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 02:38 am (UTC)

"I don't think I'm evil in some way. Is there a test for that?" Bella asks. "My dad isn't evil in some way either, and I'm pretty sure he knows something's up, although he hasn't tended to acknowledge it in so many words."

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:42 am (UTC)

"Yes, you keep mentioning him," Mr. Giles recalls.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 02:44 am (UTC)

"He keeps being relevant. But yeah, I don't think I'm evil in some way. I cut a guy off in traffic the other day?" she offers dubiously.

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:47 am (UTC)

"I think I can let that slide," he says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 02:48 am (UTC)

"Oh, good. So is there a big correlation here? Should I be worrying about you being evil in some way, since you acknowledge the same fact that makes me suspect?" she asks with a winning smile.

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:49 am (UTC)

He takes off his glasses and cleans them. Disapprovingly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 02:53 am (UTC)

"I don't think you're evil in some way," says Bella. "But seriously, how much of a correlation is this, is the world going to be forever mostly divided into people I can't be fully open with and people who might try to..." She glances at her book. "Sacrifice me to the Nameless Nine-Faced God?"

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:55 am (UTC)

"...Not... quite that drastically, perhaps," he says. "But yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 02:56 am (UTC)

"That sucks," says Bella. "We should be friends so it sucks less."

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:58 am (UTC)

He opens his mouth.

He closes his mouth.

He cleans his glasses again.

"...I can't fault your logic," he says at last.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 02:59 am (UTC)

"I am pretty good at logic," she says, adding a period to the end of a sentence in her notes that she'd earlier paused in writing. "Also, I can't help but thinking that even if they're really that dirty, your glasses would still do more net vision correction if they spent more time on your face."

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:02 am (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:04 am (UTC)

She grins.

"Is suspecting that I'm evil in some way why you didn't give me anything on magic, or is it really just that dangerous? Why is it so dangerous? How does it work? I'm just asking theory, not practice," she adds before he can answer.

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:12 am (UTC)

He comes out of the little area behind the counter and leans against a railing near the table where she sits.

"It really is just that dangerous," he confirms. "It can open you up to all sorts of unpleasant influences."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:14 am (UTC)

"Influences," she repeats. "Like... okay, now I'm imagining shoulder-devils whispering bad ideas in witches' ears. That's probably not what you meant."

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:16 am (UTC)

"No, but attracting the attention of powerful demons is not unheard-of. And some of them do have the power to corrupt an unwary mind."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:24 am (UTC)

...Bella does not wish to explain to him why she thinks she'd be just fine against that particular threat.

"Yuck," she says. "It seems really counterintuitive for defenselessness to be a better idea, though. Like, what am I, a sardine? Schooling with a lot of other sardines trying not to be special and hoping the barracuda goes for the other sardines instead of me because I don't stand out?"

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:29 am (UTC)

"Well... yes," he says. "Although when you put it like that, I can see why you don't like the idea."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:31 am (UTC)

"I don't really want the barracudas to get the other sardines either," Bella says. "I'd take a somewhat worse chance of getting eaten if it meant that life became unpleasant for local barracudas and my sardine friends were safer."

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:33 am (UTC)

"That's very noble," says Mr. Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:34 am (UTC)

"I'm selfish. I'm just not that selfish."

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:36 am (UTC)

"...Do you really want to learn magic?" he asks, taking off his glasses so he can rub the bridge of his nose.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:39 am (UTC)

"I really want to learn magic insofar as it will not eat my brain or otherwise have drastic consequences. I acknowledge that you are an expert at least relative to me at this time," Bella replies at once.

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:43 am (UTC)

"It could very well eat your brain," he says, putting his glasses back on. "But it might not. And I am definitely not the best teacher you could ask for, but I might be the best you can find."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:45 am (UTC)

"What precautions exist against brain-eating?" Bella asks. "I'd like to get the risk somewhere down to car-accident-in-the-rain levels, although I'd settle for worse, since not being a sardine is slightly more important than being all out of milk and really wanting pancakes and running out to the convenience store."

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:50 am (UTC)

He spreads his hands.

"If there are any precautions besides 'don't do magic if you can avoid it', I don't know about them."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:53 am (UTC)

"But you do magic," she says. "Or at least you've done magic."

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:54 am (UTC)

"When there is a problem that can't be solved any other way, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:55 am (UTC)

"Were you involved in the thing with the cheerleader?"

pythbox
2013-02-13 03:56 am (UTC)

He nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 03:59 am (UTC)

"What was that about?"

pythbox
2013-02-13 04:06 am (UTC)

"The girl's mother was a witch. She stole her daughter's body. I reversed that; the witch came after me; she cast a curse and the curse rebounded on her."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 04:06 am (UTC)

"How do you make curses rebound? That sounds useful."

pythbox
2013-02-13 04:08 am (UTC)

"Luck and a handy mirror. But mostly luck," he admits.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 04:13 am (UTC)

"...A mirror? Heck, that's useful against magic and it's not even magic. What other tricks are there like that? I'll start carrying a compact," says Bella, grinning. "Low risk high return, I'm sold."

pythbox
2013-02-13 04:18 am (UTC)

"Tricks like that don't always work," he cautions.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 04:20 am (UTC)

"Do they work better than standing there being a sardine? Because that's the baseline they're competing with, please remember."
Edited 2013-02-13 06:59 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:57 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

"I'll bring you some more books."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 04:27 pm (UTC)

"I like books," says Bella, smiling. "Thanks."

She peers at the sun, and sets her phone timer to remind her to leave in fifteen minutes. It wouldn't do to blatantly flout her curfew - never explicitly rescinded - while she is pretending not to be the Slayer.

pythbox
2013-02-13 04:31 pm (UTC)

Mr. Giles smiles tentatively back.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 04:33 pm (UTC)

"There sure are a lotta kinds of demons," Bella remarks, returning to the book she's working through and resuming notetaking. "There might be more kinds of demons than there are kinds of beetles. Haven't they got any psychological diversity or will they really all try to eat me?"

pythbox
2013-02-13 04:35 pm (UTC)

"There are plenty who won't," he admits, "but I have fewer books about those."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Why not? Mightn't they be friendly and have interesting, helpful abilities? I could rely on magic less if I had demon friends who could do anything on the order of - make force fields or send their scary guardian spirits after people who attack them or even just grow scales that are made of diamond and occasionally shed one so I could annoy the DeBeers cartel and buy a house with a really good security system." These abilities all in fact belong to unfriendly demons that she has just read about.

pythbox
2013-02-13 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately," he says a little sharply, "the world is not divided into creatures who want to kill you and people who want to be your friends. Researchers, especially several centuries ago when most of these books were published, tend to think that the best thing to do with neutral demon species is leave them alone."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 04:55 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs. "Look, I know you deal with idiot fourteen-year-olds all day. But can you be a little more charitable with me? I know not all non-face-eating individual demons would want to hang out with me and braid each other's hair and protect each other from the forces of darkness. Not all humans want to be my friend and a billion of them I'd have to learn Chinese first to even get to know and I assume the situation with demons is even worse. But you're sufficiently down on magic as a solution to sardinehood that I'm asking about other options. If the non-face-eating demons are in a careful balance of politics such that not leaving them alone turns Demon Switzerland into Demon Cold War Russia or Demon Space Invaders, you can just tell me that, and I will not bother the demons you have ruled out. If the non-face-eating demons are non-face-eating because they have a religious prohibition and faces aren't kosher, you can tell me that, and I will, if I encounter any such demon, be very careful if the discussion should turn to theology. If the non-face-eating demons are presumed to be non-face-eating only because the grand total of four people to ever visit them were wearing the color red, then you can tell me that only four people have ever visited them and I am perfectly capable of deciding not to be a demonic early adopter. I am not stupid."

pythbox
2013-02-13 04:59 pm (UTC)

He cleans his glasses again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 05:01 pm (UTC)

Bella turns back to her book, huffing a small sigh.

pythbox
2013-02-13 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he says as he puts them back on. "The truth is, there are not as many books on neutral species, and I can only speculate on why that is. My speculation is that demonologists have been historically wary of finding out too late that the reason for someone's apparent neutrality was along the lines of your examples. But I can't know for sure, because it's just not in the literature."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 05:09 pm (UTC)

"And there are only neutral species as far as you and your books know? Not Species We Invite To Our Christmas Parties or anything, just Species That Don't Seem To Eat Faces But Don't Object That Much When Others Do?"

pythbox
2013-02-13 05:12 pm (UTC)

"'Neutral species' is the term. For all I know, there could be several of them who would behave themselves perfectly well at my Christmas parties if I had any. But I'm not willing to bet on it, and apparently neither is anyone else."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 05:13 pm (UTC)

"That is extremely disappointing," sighs Bella.

pythbox
2013-02-13 05:15 pm (UTC)

He shrugs helplessly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 05:17 pm (UTC)

Bella's phone beeps. She packs up everything at once. "Home I go," she says. "See you tomorrow - I probably won't be done with more than a third of this stack, though, this thing is huge."
Edited 2013-02-13 17:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-13 05:25 pm (UTC)

"See you tomorrow," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 05:27 pm (UTC)

Bella drives home. She works through Mr. Giles's books diligently. And as dusk falls, she heats up a jar of blood for Sherlock.

yes, we believe in the wisdom of our god

jovahs_heiress

Isabella is generally referred to as: promising.

Angels in general are a breed apart. Of course they've all got lovely voices, they've all got classical music training and know the masses and prayers, they're all blessed winged creatures -

But that doesn't mean they're all smart, or all good, even (Isabella was taken to see Windy Point, once, or what's left of it, and of course she sees the scars on Galo Mountain every year at the Gloria; there stood angels who were not good). And Isabella is smart and good.

Isabella is always the first to volunteer for an intercession. She likes them. She'll call down weather, plead for seeds, pray a shower of medicine to fall from the sky, and she will get what she asks for, and she loves nothing more than to dive from hours aloft in prayer and clasp the hands of the people she helped and go home to the Eyrie to take on her next assignment. When there are none - when there is the right amount of rain and sun in the province, when there is no plague and no famine - she studies. She studies a bit of everything, but she fancies herself particularly a historian, investigating the accounts of Archangels' reigns past. From books, mostly, although once she wrangled herself a year in Cedar Hills to assist the Archangel Linus, and when she is in the Eyrie she closely follows the leader of the host there, the former term-lapsed Archangel Delilah.

She tried to get in with the other living former Archangel, too, Alleluia the oracle who served as Delilah's interim while the latter's wing recovered from an injury, but after a few hours' conversation Alleluia said that she could not accept Isabella as even a temporary acolyte and sent her to Peninnah instead. Isabella learned a lot from Peninnah, but she's confused about why Alleluia turned her down personally only to send her to another oracle, after such a prolonged interview. Particularly since Sinai is in her own province; what was the point in sending her all the way to Gaza?

But the instruction came from an oracle, and oracles' words more often than not come from Jovah. She went to Gaza, learned from Peninnah, and went home.

Now she is back at the Eyrie, and the first thing she wants to do is let Delilah know that she's back. Her wings aren't so tired that she can't immediately fly to the Corinnis or the outskirts of Semorrah or anywhere and accomplish something. Failing that, she'd love to sign up for harmonies again now that she's home and wants to know what she ought to schedule around.

Delilah is with her husband Noah, and a visitor. He doesn't seem like a petitioner, and he doesn't look like an Edori, although the fact that he and Noah are talking in Edori suggests that he might be an adopted one. (There are hardly any Edori of either sort left; most of them live in Ysral, now.) Isabella waits patiently outside the door for the host leader's attention.

pythbox
2013-02-06 10:27 pm (UTC)

The stranger is about Isabella's age, with curly brown hair down to his shoulders. He pushes it back from his face as he talks, between grand, expansive gestures. He is, as it happens, telling Noah a funny story about a man who mistook a goat's horns for a tree branch and hung his hat from them for a moment, to the surprise and dismay of all involved. His comic timing is exquisite, as is his imitation of a startled goat.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 10:37 pm (UTC)

Isabella doesn't know more than fifteen words of Edori, so she can't follow this conversation at all, or she'd feel intrusive standing here. (She doesn't have any particular talent for languages or she'd have stayed with Peninnah for longer.)

Delilah knows more Edori than that, Isabella knows, but she's not really participating in the exchange either. She sees Isabella's wingtip. "Come in, whoever you are," she calls, "all I'm getting here is that goats are involved and it's making me hungry and there's hours before dinner."

Isabella steps into the room. "Hello, Delilah, I just wanted to let you know that I'm back from Gaza and I'm wondering if there's anything you'd like me to do."

pythbox
2013-02-06 10:40 pm (UTC)

The Edori goat-imitator bites his lip and clutches his arm and spins to face her. His Jovah's Kiss is glowing like a hot coal.

He looks enthralled.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 10:45 pm (UTC)

If Delilah was going to say something, she's thrown off balance by this display. "Erm," says the former Archangel. "Isabella, this is Micaiah, who stopped by to talk to Noah about goats and possibly other topics that have gone by too fast for me to notice. Micaiah, this is Isabella." Delilah is not the type who will redundantly explain that Isabella is one of her angels when there are great gray-flecked wings arching from Isabella's back.

"...Hello," says Isabella. "It's nice to meet you. And it's good to see you again, too, Noah," she adds politely to the former angelico.

"Isabella," says Delilah. "Look at your arm."

Isabella looks.

There are such colors. She doesn't feel any pain, but there are such colors.

"Oh my," she murmurs.

pythbox
2013-02-06 10:47 pm (UTC)

"It's nice to meet you too," Micaiah says softly. He sounds out of breath, and he looks like he is experiencing either intense pain or divine revelation. Perhaps both.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Are - are you all right?" asks Isabella, taking a step back. "That looks like it hurts."

Delilah gets to her feet, wings swishing along the floor as they follow her up. "Isabella, your time is your own for at least the next week, but I for one want to wake up to your rendition of the Sunrise Chorus with a decent tenor of your choice at least once in that time, and I wouldn't dream of prohibiting you from answering any petitions you happen to hear. Noah, shall we go see about those Manadavvi I've left poor Mark entertaining for the past hour?"

And with that Delilah and Noah are gone.

pythbox
2013-02-06 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Sure it hurts." He tosses his hair back and grins. "I don't see that as a problem, do you?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to hurt you," she exclaims. "Mine doesn't hurt at all..."

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Ah, then it doesn't hurt," he says, straightening up and letting go of the afflicted arm and waving it at her theatrically. "It's Yovah's Kiss and it's giving me kisses. Mwah."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:05 pm (UTC)

"...It stopped?" she asks uncertainly. Her own is still a dancing aurora of opal-color.

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:11 pm (UTC)

"No," he says promptly. "I lied to spare your feelings. The truth is, it feels like being stabbed with a hot poker, but I like it and it isn't doing me any harm, so where's the trouble?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:12 pm (UTC)

"...You like feeling like you're being stabbed with a hot poker," she says skeptically.

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he agrees, with a wide, guileless smile. "I don't like actually being stabbed with a hot poker, so much. Very messy. Turns you off hot dinners for a while. But this, this is fine." He hugs his arm to him with clear affection.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:22 pm (UTC)

Stranger things have happened, she supposes.

"If the stories are true," she says slowly, "then... you'll either want to make sure you're listening or make sure you're off the mountain when I perform the Sunrise Chorus."

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Make sure I'm listening," he says. "Definitely."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Are you staying here? Do you know where the harmonics signup sheet is, so you can look at it?"

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't going to be staying here, but now I am," Micaiah says brightly. "I don't know where the harmonics signup sheet is. Where's the harmonics signup sheet?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:35 pm (UTC)

"It's just outside Elisha's room, as he's in charge of making sure it's full. I'm going to ask him if he'll sing it with me or if he knows any other tenors who want to do a morning piece, I may as well show you."
Edited 2013-02-06 23:38 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

He actually bounces in place, hands clasped in front of him.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:40 pm (UTC)

Isabella smiles at him. "You're a friend of Noah's? Or just passing through and afraid you'll forget the language if you don't move to Ysral?" she asks conversationally, heading out into the hallway to find Elisha's quarters.

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:46 pm (UTC)

"The second one, more like," he says as he tags along. Given the wings, it makes more sense for him to walk at her side and a little ahead than to actually follow. He manages to match her course nevertheless.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Your tribe didn't go? You came back without them?" she guesses.

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:51 pm (UTC)

All asmile: "First one!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:53 pm (UTC)

"But then you'd have them to speak the language to. Are they all here visiting Noah so he doesn't forget that - that he's supposed to say mikala whenever he forgets Serah's name, or something?"

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's why I said more like," he explains with a quirk of a smile.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-06 11:55 pm (UTC)

"You could've explained," she laughs.

pythbox
2013-02-06 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "The Manderras stayed, but we don't all stick together. I wandered up this way, I found Noah, I liked Noah, I talked to Noah. I like you better, so now I'm talking to you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 12:01 am (UTC)

"You've only just met me," she points out. "Manderras... that sounds familiar - Oh, I remember now, the angelica Rachel was an adopted Manderra, too. I thought most of them were gone. Did they re-form after the Archangel Gabriel freed everyone?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 12:06 am (UTC)

"Something like that," he agrees vaguely. "I'm not a historian. We have the most adoption out of all the tribes, though. I'm adopted," he adds, with an impish grin that suggests he knows she can tell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 12:10 am (UTC)

"How'd that happen? I'm not an expert on the language but your accent didn't sound substantially different from Noah's to me. You must've been young." She reaches the signup sheet, finds an open sunrise hour slot in two days' time, and knocks on Elisha's door.

pythbox
2013-02-07 12:16 am (UTC)

"Oh, that's a nasty story," he says, still cheerful. "Lots of me getting hurt. Not in ways I like. Wanna hear it anyway?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 12:20 am (UTC)

"...Maybe not?" she says.

Elisha opens his door. He's an angel, too, blond and with tawny wings to Isabella's white-flecked-grey, and on seeing her he instantly gives her a hug. "You're home! For good this time?"

"Until something else comes up," laughs Isabella. "I wouldn't turn down another stint with the Archangel, but right now I have no plans to set up anywhere but here. Will you duet the Sunrise Chorus with me in two days? Delilah asked for it specially."

"Always," says Elisha, producing a fountain pen and scratching their names and the song onto the sheet. "It's good to have you back. Do you want to practice this before then?"

"Couldn't hurt," she says, and then she notices that there is someone it could hurt, and belatedly says, "Oh, Elisha, this is Micaiah. Micaiah, Elisha."

"Hello," says Elisha genially.

pythbox
2013-02-07 12:22 am (UTC)

"Hello, Elisha!" says Micaiah with equal friendliness. "Your wings are pretty."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 12:27 am (UTC)

Elisha's wings flutter slightly and he seems bemused at the compliment, but he replies, "Thank you."

"Do you want to practice now, or are you busy?" Isabella asks.

"Now works. Serah's down in Velora with Zipporah, won't be back for hours. Micaiah, are you coming?" Elisha asks.

pythbox
2013-02-07 12:29 am (UTC)

"Yeeeeeee-es," he beams; the word tumbles down at least half an octave over the course of that elongated vowel and then skips back up at the end.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 12:35 am (UTC)

Elisha is looking very quizzically at Micaiah now, but he says, "All right, let's go."

The three travel to the practice rooms, and find an unoccupied one. "You have this memorized still, right? You don't want to listen to the disc through once?" Elisha teases Isabella.

"I have it memorized backwards, forwards, and, impossibly enough, sideways," laughs Isabella. "On my mark. One - two - and -"

They begin at the same moment, a perfect fourth apart, and then she skips up and he skips down. There's a reason Elisha was her first choice: her soprano and his tenor are well-matched in timbre and there's a supportive, uplifting cast to his notes that keeps her more firmly on pitch. He doesn't overpower her, either, - which is good, because while her occasionally timid volume is probably her voice's worst feature, she's worth leaning in close to hear.

pythbox
2013-02-07 12:43 am (UTC)

Micaiah leans close.

He doesn't—quite—lean too close. But he shuts his eyes and tilts his head and engages an absolute focus on the sound of their voices, and his Kiss glows like it's on fire.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 01:37 am (UTC)

Elisha keeps sneaking looks at the pair's arms, although he's too professional to miss a note due to distraction.

The chorus lasts just shy of one hour. They sing it straight through.

"Isabella," says Elisha pointedly, when the song ends and he's caught his breath, "you didn't tell me that Jovah already named you Archangel and picked you an angelico."

"Elisha!" exclaims Isabella. "No such thing happened!"

"Well, your Kisses are both glowing like little suns," Elisha says defensively. "I've never seen anything like it."

pythbox
2013-02-07 01:43 am (UTC)

"I heard it means you've found your true love," Micaiah says, opening his eyes and smiling. "Am I supposed to make you lots of little angel babies? I wouldn't mind, especially if you sang first."

His Kiss is dimming a little now, though; apparently it thinks he's got the point.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 01:45 am (UTC)

"I - but - the -" Isabella splutters.

"It is supposed to mean that," says Elisha, eyes dancing with amusement. "Isabella never even takes a handsome angel-seeker with her. Doesn't want to be attached until she knows who's succeeding Linus because Jovah wants to pick angelicos for Archangels. I guess Jovah got impatient."

"Elisha!" exclaims Isabella, blushing hard.
Edited 2013-02-07 01:45 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-07 01:47 am (UTC)

"Awwww, you're blushing," says Micaiah. "It's really cute. I think I do love you a little."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 01:49 am (UTC)

"I - I - but - sweet Jovah singing," breathes Isabella. "I - think I need to go back to Peninnah. Or Alleluia, maybe she'll talk to me if I only want to ask her one thing."

pythbox
2013-02-07 01:53 am (UTC)

"Where's those?" chirps Micaiah. "Can I come?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 01:56 am (UTC)

"Alleluia's at Sinai, Peninnah's all the way in Gaza - and - well, I suppose I can bring you, if you want," says Isabella, peering dubiously at Micaiah.

Elisha taps his finger to Isabella's nose. "I know what you're going to ask," he says.

"You have known me my entire life. I know you know what I'm going to ask," Isabella says.

"Micaiah doesn't!" Elisha turns to Micaiah and explains for his benefit, "She's not going to even think about angel babies with you until she at least knows if you would be angelico if she were Archangel. She's an ambitious one. In a good way," Elisha amends hastily at Isabella's halfhearted glare. "In the being-sincerely-smart-and-good-so-Jovah-will-love-her-best way."

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:00 am (UTC)

"Good for her," Micaiah says blithely. "Okay."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:03 am (UTC)

"It's not about who Jovah loves best," Isabella mumbles. "All right. You want to come with me to Sinai?" she asks Micaiah helplessly.

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:05 am (UTC)

He grins. "Sure!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:08 am (UTC)

"Okay. Elisha, please tell Serah I'll be back tonight - tomorrow evening at the latest, and that's if I see a plague flag and have to go to Gaza," Isabella says. "And tell everyone else too, everyone who'd want to know. I'll see you to sing the chorus."

"Have fun," says Elisha in insinuating tones, and Isabella sighs at him and leads Micaiah away from the practice room.

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:12 am (UTC)

Micaiah giggles.

"I like him, he's funny."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:16 am (UTC)

"My best friend's brother," Isabella explains. "I like him too, when he's not being deliberately annoying. Do you want to leave right away? Are you hungry or anything?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:17 am (UTC)

"Well, how long a trip? I ate, but I could eat again if we'll be hours."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:21 am (UTC)

"Three hours to Sinai. Maybe a little slower if I'm carrying you," she says. "I could use a snack myself, honestly. The kitchens are this way."

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:22 am (UTC)

Bouncing, he follows.

"I've never flown with an angel before. Do you carry people a lot? Ever dropped anybody?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:27 am (UTC)

"I carry people now and then - Serah most often, she's mortal. I have never dropped anyone. I didn't even drop that one fellow who was delirious with fever and was trying to make me - angels are very strong." She picks up a large snack tray from the kitchens and leads Micaiah away to where Eyrie residents take their meals. She finds them a table with one angel chair and one mortal chair, sets down the tray, and picks up a little cucumber cup filled with beans and spices.

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:29 am (UTC)

"How strong?" he asks with interest. "You must be, to carry people around, I guess."

He eats quickly but not messily, except that he has seemingly no problem talking with food in his mouth.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:31 am (UTC)

"If I had a way to hold you and - two, maybe three other people your size, without any of you slipping out of my grip just from sheer bulkiness - I could still carry you through the air, although I'd be much slower and clumsier," says Isabella. She tries one of everything on the platter and then monopolizes the ham and the rosemary crackers. "If I didn't have to fly, maybe twice that."

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:37 am (UTC)

"Amazing," he says. When he sees her going for the ham and rosemary crackers, he leaves those alone and attacks the rest of the platter.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:42 am (UTC)

She smiles. "It's ordinary for angels. Elisha's stronger than I am, at least in flight carrying capacity - wingspan helps and mine's nothing special."

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:43 am (UTC)

"Your wings are pretty too," Micaiah offers.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:48 am (UTC)

"Thanks," says Isabella, fluffing them a little. "I always liked the speckles. The fashion's always been utterly white, spotless wings, but I'm fond of mine."

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:50 am (UTC)

"The speckles are nice," he opines. "And I bet they're cuddly." With another of his broad grins, "The wings. Not the speckles specifically."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:53 am (UTC)

"Uh. Have you... been around angels much, before?" Isabella asks, a crease forming between her eyebrows.

pythbox
2013-02-07 02:54 am (UTC)

All innocence: "No. Edori, remember? Why?"
Edited 2013-02-07 02:55 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 02:59 am (UTC)

"Well, Edori go everywhere, I'm told, you might have run into some," she shrugs; it makes her feathers flutter. "You don't go around touching people's wings, at least by default. It's... approximately the equivalent of grabbing someone's rear, only less potentially playful, does that make sense?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:01 am (UTC)

"Perfectly," he assures her, still smiling but more serious than she has seen him yet. "I won't, then. But I still bet they're cuddly. And warm, angels are warm, right?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:05 am (UTC)

"Very warm," she agrees, taking another one of the cucumber cups. "That you'll notice as soon as I pick you up. And a good thing too, or you would be very uncomfortable at cruising altitude." She's wearing unremarkable flying leathers, a wing-cut vest and pants and boots, and her bracelets with the curlicue gem pattern of her mother's family, and that's all.

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:08 am (UTC)

Micaiah just smiles, a little dreamily. And scoops up another snacklet.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:10 am (UTC)

"I'm glad you don't seem alarmed by the whole... Kiss thing," Isabella says. "I know a lot of people might be. A lot of people might be even if I'd been named Archangel instead of just harboring ambitions. They say Rachel and Gabriel had that problem."

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:12 am (UTC)

"It's not alarming," he says. "Well, maybe it's a little alarming. But it's too much fun to be very alarming."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:13 am (UTC)

"Can you sing?" she asks, a little suddenly.

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:15 am (UTC)

"Edooooori," he laughs. "I'm all right. Why?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:24 am (UTC)

"Well, there is a not inconsiderable chance that I'll go ask Alleluia my question, and she'll say yes, and then in eight or ten years someone will ask an oracle who the next Archangel to be and he'll tell them, "Isabella, daughter of the angel Rinnah and the mortal man Charles," says Isabella. "And if all that happens then you'd be obliged to lead the Gloria for twenty years."

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:29 am (UTC)

"Sounds fun," shrugs Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:31 am (UTC)

What a blasé reply. "All right. I'm glad that doesn't bother you," she says. "I read a lot of history, and while Jovah's choices usually work out in the end, there are sometimes... inital trials."

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:33 am (UTC)

"You seem pretty set on this Archangel thing," he observes. "Why's that?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:36 am (UTC)

"I'm not as set as Elisha makes me out to be," demurs Isabella. "But I think I'd be a good Archangel, and I think the job wouldn't make me tear my hair out like it would if someone handed Elisha - for example - all that responsibility, and while I think Linus is doing a perfectly competent job, I do have some ideas."

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:38 am (UTC)

"Good luck," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:40 am (UTC)

"Thanks!"

Their snack platter has been demolished. Isabella picks up the dish and returns it, thanking the employee who takes it from her, and rejoins Micaiah. "Shall we? I can take off from out there." She gestures to where the harmonics are being sung - currently a trio of women, two mortals and one angel, all older.
Edited 2013-02-07 03:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:46 am (UTC)

"Sure!" he says, and follows where indicated.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:48 am (UTC)

She scoops him right up and strides forward, beating her wings. Before they're halfway across the plateau, they're in the air, and she makes a great circle to direct them towards Sinai.

"Let me know if I go too high and you're cold or have trouble breathing," she says above the wind as she gets up to speed.

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:49 am (UTC)

Micaiah just laughs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:51 am (UTC)

"You like flying?" she chuckles.

pythbox
2013-02-07 03:55 am (UTC)

"It's my second favourite thiiiiiiiiiiing," he says beamily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 03:59 am (UTC)

"After what?" Isabella asks curiously.

(She has the data to guess, but not the perversity.)

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:01 am (UTC)

"After Yovah's gorgeous kisses. I've got lots of new favourite things today."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:06 am (UTC)

"Is it still hurting you?" she asks, uncertain of whether that would be desirable or not.

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:08 am (UTC)

"A little," he sighs. "I like it, I promise I like it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:13 am (UTC)

"Okay. I wonder if that's why yours hurts and mine doesn't. I wouldn't like it," Bella muses. "But I think it's fairly typical for them to hurt, and I don't think everyone likes it... perhaps it's also got to do with how hard Jovah has to work to get the person's attention," she concludes.

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:14 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't be the first time," laughs Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:17 am (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:22 am (UTC)

"That somebody thought a hot poker to the arm was the best way to get my attention?" he says, still laughing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:23 am (UTC)

"...Do... you want... to talk about that?" asks Isabella uncertainly.

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:26 am (UTC)

He shrugs easily in her arms. "Do you?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:28 am (UTC)

"Well, I don't know, but I try to be a good listener, and that doesn't mean only hearing things that would happen to amuse me."

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:29 am (UTC)

"Mm," he says, shrugging again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:35 am (UTC)

"Okay."

She flies on. "What's being an Edori like?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:37 am (UTC)

"Fun!" he says enthusiastically. "You go where you want and do what you want, unless you starve, but that's what the tribe's for."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:39 am (UTC)

Isabella notes the impulse she has to say, "For eating?" and puts it aside. "That sounds very freeing," she replies instead.

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:39 am (UTC)

"Exactly," Micaiah says happily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:42 am (UTC)

"I like the holds. I don't think I would have been half so happy anywhere else. I don't exactly go wherever I want - I go where I'm needed, where I can be useful - but wherever I go I'm accomplishing something. Even if it's a political goal, attending someone's party, instead of fixing a drought, although I much prefer the latter."

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:45 am (UTC)

"If I had to pick between going to a party and fixing a drought... well, it'd depend on the party," Micaiah muses.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:47 am (UTC)

"Some of them are, I'm sure, fine parties," says Isabella diplomatically. "Although things outside the holds aren't usually designed to accommodate angels - they keep the rooms so warm, and there's dancing, and none of the chairs work with our wings. Things aren't designed for angels in the places that have problems with drought, either, but we're not obliged to stay long after singing the prayers."

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:48 am (UTC)

"Do angels not dance?" he asks curiously.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:52 am (UTC)

"We can," she says slowly, "but our wings get in the way - people bump into them or step on them, and we don't really have quite the same gait as mortals either, because of the weight of them. So dancing is awkward and most of us don't like it. I'm particularly inept at it and usually manage to beg off if someone wants me to try."

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:54 am (UTC)

"I'd dance with you if you wanted," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:55 am (UTC)

"I hate dancing even more than most angels," laughs Isabella. "But that's kind of you."

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:57 am (UTC)

"Well, then I won't dance with you," Micaiah says cheerfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:59 am (UTC)

"Grand, we're agreed," laughs Isabella. "Why, do you particularly enjoy dancing?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 05:01 am (UTC)

"It's fun!" he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 05:04 am (UTC)

"You seem to be a very cheerful person," she observes.

pythbox
2013-02-07 05:04 am (UTC)

"Got me there," he agrees. "I do what's fun and avoid what's not, and I make people laugh, especially me."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 05:10 am (UTC)

"That sounds like a reasonable philosophy."

(Not a particularly responsible philosophy. But when - if, if - she's Archangel she is willing to do most of the work herself. The only thing the angelica or angelico strictly has to do is lead the Gloria.)

pythbox
2013-02-07 05:16 am (UTC)

"Most people don't think so," he says, unruffled by this knowledge.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 05:19 am (UTC)

"No? Do they say why?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-02-07 05:22 am (UTC)

"We-ell," mischievously, "some of 'em say it after I pick their pockets."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 05:25 am (UTC)

"Er," says Isabella. "I think you had better stop doing that. If you're hurting for money I can buy you some things."

pythbox
2013-02-07 05:26 am (UTC)

This sends him into fits of giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 05:30 am (UTC)

"Was something about that funny?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 05:32 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says, laughing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 05:50 am (UTC)

"What? Help me out," she laughs back.

pythbox
2013-02-07 01:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't knoooow," he giggles. "You're just so - serious about it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Well, pickpocketing is illegal," she says reasonably. "I don't think I can find everyone who's got reason to do it anyway and make those reasons go away, but I'm already talking to you, so..." She can't really shrug in the air; it'd throw off her wingbeats.

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:56 pm (UTC)

"It's not just for money, it's for fun," he explains.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Do you give the stuff back afterwards, then? Or are you calling from volunteers from an audience?" she asks dubiously.

pythbox
2013-02-07 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes," shrugs Micaiah. He doesn't seem concerned about the difference.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 05:00 pm (UTC)

Isabella looks unhappy about this.

pythbox
2013-02-07 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, there's two kinds of people," he explains. "One you take their stuff and they want it back, one you take their stuff and they wanna hurt you. I give back to the first kind."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 05:56 pm (UTC)

That makes a twisted sort of sense, but Isabella can't claim to be happy with it, and it still shows on her face. She can't come up with a sufficiently diplomatic reply, given that it seems reasonably likely she will eventually be divinely commanded to marry this person.

pythbox
2013-02-07 05:57 pm (UTC)

Micaiah laughs softly. "What?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I - that isn't a fair test," she says. "Serah carries her money in a little bag that her mother gave her before she died. If someone took the bag from her I'm sure she'd fly into a rage. That wouldn't mean it's okay to take the bag, or to judge her based on what she does when it's taken and punish her by keeping it."

pythbox
2013-02-07 09:01 pm (UTC)

"It's not about who deserves it!" he says. "It's about whether I can give their things back without getting my head bashed in!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 09:02 pm (UTC)

"You could always drop them and run away," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-07 09:18 pm (UTC)

He shrugs again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 09:27 pm (UTC)

Isabella sighs. Jovah has a reason for everything. She flies on, quietly.

pythbox
2013-02-07 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Did I make you sad?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 09:36 pm (UTC)

"A little."

pythbox
2013-02-07 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he says earnestly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure you didn't mean to."

(She is in fact fairly confident of that.)

pythbox
2013-02-07 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I still did, though," he says. "So I'm sorry."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine, really."

pythbox
2013-02-07 09:52 pm (UTC)

He smiles. "Okay!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 09:55 pm (UTC)

Flap, flap, soar. Flap, flap, updraft, soar.

Isabella loves to fly. It never fails to calm her. Presently she's not thinking about the fact that the person Jovah may have chosen for her is a pickpocket.

pythbox
2013-02-07 09:56 pm (UTC)

And presently Micaiah is laughing again.

Whatever his other qualities, he is definitely a very happy person.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 10:06 pm (UTC)

After the promised three-hours-and-change flight, Isabella touches down on the landing outside the oracle's mountain. She sets Micaiah on his feet, and greets the acolyte who stands at the door - some Manadavvi's child, there for a year before entering the priesthood - with a, "Hello. I am Isabella, and Alleluia might remember me - I have a question for her, but I can wait until she's ready to receive me, I know I'm not expected."

"Just a moment, angela," says the acolyte, dipping his head and running inside.

pythbox
2013-02-07 10:23 pm (UTC)

Micaiah peers around with open, cheerful curiosity.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 10:26 pm (UTC)

The acolyte is back presently. "The oracle will be with you in less than an hour," he says. "Will angela and her guest prefer to wait here, or at the foot of the mountain?"

"Micaiah, do you have a preference?" Isabella asks. "The foot of the mountain has Alleluia's husband's workshop; he and one of their children are there most of the time. Up here there are acolytes. I'm fine either way."

pythbox
2013-02-07 10:35 pm (UTC)

He tilts his head from side to side for a moment, then concludes, "Workshop!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay. We'll be back up soon," Isabella tells the acolyte, and she picks up Micaiah again and throws herself off the cliff. (There are stairs. This is faster.)

The workshop is a warehouse-like building, all over electric lighting and with a couple of generators out back, one of them puffing away. In addition to the oracle's husband and their kid, there must be a number of students, because there are more than two people present swarming about the place with their arms full of parts and wires and clockwork.

"Hello, angela!" says a girl about twelve years old. "What brings you and your friend here?"

"We're waiting for Alleluia, and thought we'd look around while she's finishing up what she's doing, if that's all right," says Isabella.

"That's fine! Want to see the clock I'm making? I'm making a clock!"

"Sure," says Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-07 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, show me the clock," Micaiah says excitedly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 10:45 pm (UTC)

The girl shows them the clock! Its innards are clockwork, though the blocky battery that also weights its base powers the spinning of the first gear rather than there being any winding mechanism, and she is adding parts to make little figurines of fish spin in place on the surface on each hour.

Isabella refrains from complimenting her on it, though she does smile kindly. People are always giving angels gifts, and this only becomes more likely if they compliment relevant objects.
Edited 2013-02-07 22:45 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-07 10:50 pm (UTC)

Micaiah, on the other hand, is all over it. He loves the tiny fish; he gets excited about the wiring; he listens attentively as the girl explains how the mechanism fits together.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 10:52 pm (UTC)

She is utterly thrilled to explain. She seems to be a junior student; Alleluia's husband, gray-haired and laughing, is paying more attention to an older boy's miniaturized car. He waves at Isabella, and she waves back; that's the extent of their interaction.

pythbox
2013-02-07 10:59 pm (UTC)

When they have exhausted the subject of tiny fish, Micaiah starts telling the goat story.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:09 pm (UTC)

The girl finds this terribly amusing, and it takes up the remainder of what Isabella estimates to be their hour. She bids the girl goodbye and picks up Micaiah again to take him back up to the oracular chambers.

The acolyte who greeted them earlier escorts them in, and there is the interface room: a glowing screen with arcane symbols dancing across it and a butter-blonde angel sitting before it with her hands on rows of buttons. "Hello again, Isabella," she says, swiveling in her chair. "I hear that you have a question for me."

Isabella swallows and nods. "Er, yes. I'm not sure if Jovah will choose to answer it. I know he hasn't chosen Linus's successor yet, and I'm sorry to be so presumptuous, but - can you tell me, if I were to be the next Archangel, who would be my angelico?"

Alleluia raises an eyebrow. "That's your question?"

"Yes."

"I will consult the god," Alleluia says ritually, and she turns back to the screen and taps away at the symbols inscrutably. Isabella can't make out the words. She has no particular talent for languages, and the oracles are said to comprehend the words by grace anyway.

After a minute, Alleluia turns back. "In the event - Jovah did not remark on its likelihood - that you were to be Archangel, he would name as your angelico Azaziah, son of Canaan and Judith."

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:15 pm (UTC)

As soon as Alleluia speaks those names, Micaiah chokes.

He backs away from the screen, eyes wide, hand to his mouth, as though he just saw something too horrifying to comprehend. Saw, or heard.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Is... that not you?" Isabella asks, concerned, peering at the Kiss in her arm. It's still glowing brilliantly. That attracts Alleluia's attention as well, and the oracle blinks. "Micaiah? Are you all right?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:24 pm (UTC)

Micaiah shakes his head rapidly. "That's, I, that's not— aaaaugh!"

He crumples to the floor, curls up into a tight little ball, and starts messily crying.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:25 pm (UTC)

Isabella drops to her knees next to him and rests her hand on his back. "Micaiah, what's wrong? I don't understand - please tell me?"
Edited 2013-02-07 23:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Burn that name," he wails, somewhat muffled by the fact that his head is tucked between his hands and his knees. "Kill it with fire, kill it with lightning, never call me that again."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I - Alleluia? Is that something you can ask Jovah to do? Change the record away from how he was dedicated?" Bella says, looking up.

"I can ask. I think so. Micaiah?" Alleluia confirms. "Just that?"

"Of the Manderras," supplies Isabella. "Right? Sia a Manderra?" She does know the Edori words for "of the" as they go in names; Peninnah was asked to update records of undedicated Edori often enough during the year she spent there.

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Y-yes," he sniffles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Micaiah sia a Manderra," repeats Alleluia as she types. The screen blinks back at her. "...Jovah will of course remember the original name and will be able to find you by it. If someone asks an oracle whether the person of the original name is alive, he will still be able to tell us yea or nay. But apart from that it's been changed."

"Okay?" says Isabella. "But - it is him?"

"Yes, as if there could be any doubt, Isabella, look at your arms," says Alleluia, half-fondly. "Jovah does not say one thing for love and another for politics. You have your answer."

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:40 pm (UTC)

Micaiah shivers and curls up tighter.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:43 pm (UTC)

Isabella rubs his back as soothingly as she knows how. "Micaiah, is there anything else I can do?"

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:47 pm (UTC)

He shivers again, but uncurls a little under her hand.

For the moment, they're getting nothing out of him but muffled, quiet sobbing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:50 pm (UTC)

Isabella decides that there is no reason for this to be going on in Alleluia's oracular chamber. "Thank you very much for your help," she tells the other angel. "I'm sorry about this." And she picks up Micaiah, carries him out to the cliff, and flies down - not to the workshop, some hundred yards away on a grassy foothill, and sets Micaiah down to wait for him to be done crying.

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:52 pm (UTC)

When she picks him up, he snuggles into her arms.

When she puts him down, he covers his face again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:53 pm (UTC)

Isabella pets his hair, because she can't think of anything else to do.

pythbox
2013-02-07 11:54 pm (UTC)

Somehow he gradually migrates from curled up on the hillside to curled up in her lap.

He seems to like it better there, or maybe he's just winding down anyway.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-07 11:56 pm (UTC)

Mostly unconsciously - maybe she's remembering singing Elisha and Serah's baby brother to sleep, maybe she's just defaulting to music in the absence of other ideas - Isabella begins to sing quietly. It's not a prayer, though Jovah is mentioned; it's a lullaby.

pythbox
2013-02-08 12:11 am (UTC)

Micaiah lets out a sigh and snuggles into her lap.

There. That's better.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 12:14 am (UTC)

She finishes the song - she knows six verses of it - and then stops. "Better?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-02-08 12:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he exhales.

"Thanks."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 12:22 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," she says. "Now Jovah knows you by the right name."

pythbox
2013-02-08 12:25 am (UTC)

He shivers again.

"There was a reason I ran away and joined the Edori," he says softly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 12:26 am (UTC)

Isabella nods and strokes his hair.

pythbox
2013-02-08 12:30 am (UTC)

"My father used to hurt me. When I did something he didn't like, or when he was in a bad mood, or just because he thought I was bad and I needed it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 12:31 am (UTC)

"I'm so sorry," murmurs Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-08 12:39 am (UTC)

"I used to hate him. I don't as much, now. But hearing his name like that, and what he used to call me... I didn't think Yovah would be so cruel. Maybe he just doesn't know what it's like to be afraid."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 12:43 am (UTC)

"Jovah's ears are good but he still needs to be told things the right way. The priest who dedicated you told the god that name and he was never formally updated," murmurs Isabella. "It's the same for everything we want to tell him. If I want rain or sun, I can't only sit in my room asking in plain language, I have to go aloft and pray for it. But now Alleluia's told Jovah your name and he's fixed it."

pythbox
2013-02-08 12:45 am (UTC)

"Okay," sighs Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 12:46 am (UTC)

Isabella goes on stroking his hair. "Did you pick Micaiah yourself or did the other Manderras name you?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 12:51 am (UTC)

"I never told 'em a name, and that's what they started calling me after a while. I liked it, so I kept it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 12:53 am (UTC)

"That makes sense." She's still petting his hair. (It's soft.)

pythbox
2013-02-08 12:56 am (UTC)

"I like it when you do that," he adds.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 12:57 am (UTC)

"If I didn't think you did," she laughs, "I'd stop."

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:02 am (UTC)

"You're really nice," he says comfortably. "I like you a lot."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 01:03 am (UTC)

"I'm glad," she says. "Are you ready to head back to the Eyrie?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:10 am (UTC)

"I think so."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 01:12 am (UTC)

"Okay then." She scoops him up in her arms - one under his knees, one behind his back, holding him securely, and she gets up and runs down the hill, wings outflung, until she catches air and rises into the sky. "So - now we know the answer to that question."

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:16 am (UTC)

"We do!" says Micaiah. "Now what?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 01:18 am (UTC)

"...Well, I'm not sure. If I didn't know that Edori don't even believe in marriage I would be asking you to avoid marrying anyone who isn't me. Since that would interfere with angelico-ing if it came up."

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:29 am (UTC)

"...Oh," he says, "yeah, I guess I'd have to marry you."

Pause.

"Okay."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 01:30 am (UTC)

"It's - hardly urgent. It may not be necessary at all; Jovah only commands it of Archangels and he could still easily choose someone else," says Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:35 am (UTC)

"Well, I'm not saying let's hurry right up to the—wherever people get married," he says. "But if we have to. It's okay."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 01:37 am (UTC)

"Priests," laughs Isabella. "Priests do it - oracles can too, and host leaders are empowered to do the same but often don't. I'd ask Delilah, probably. I don't think Alleluia likes me and Peninnah hates doing weddings for anyone out of her own family."

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:38 am (UTC)

"Delilah's fun," opines Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 01:40 am (UTC)

"A lot of people describe her that way. I think my go-to adjective would be... passionate, maybe. But maybe I'm just not her kind of fun and I don't see as much of that side of her."

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:47 am (UTC)

"Passionate works too," he agrees.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 01:48 am (UTC)

"She didn't seem to be talking much during your conversation with Noah. How'd you form your impression of her?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:51 am (UTC)

"She was talking more earlier," he explains.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 01:56 am (UTC)

"Makes sense. Um - you said you were planning to stay at the Eyrie but only as of recently. Did someone offer you a guest room, or...?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:58 am (UTC)

"No," he shrugs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:00 am (UTC)

"Okay. There may be one, but there may not, especially if I'm guessing right about why Delilah and Noah went off to entertain Manadavvi - there could be a lot of them."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:03 am (UTC)

"I'll find somewhere to stick my head under a rock," he says serenely.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:04 am (UTC)

"...I was going to say that under the circumstances I can put you in my quarters," she says. "The angels' rooms have a lot of space."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:05 am (UTC)

"Oh!" He grins. "That's sweet of you. Sure!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:07 am (UTC)

"There's only one bed. I can get another, if you want, but the one there is huge - most angels sleep on their fronts with their wings out all the way, and so there's room for that, but I'm just as comfortable on my side with one wing stacked on the other," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:08 am (UTC)

"I don't mind sharing," he says with a smile.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:10 am (UTC)

"That's easier, then, I have honestly no idea how anyone gets a bedframe through the halls there. It may be that they have to be nailed together in the rooms themselves," laughs Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:13 am (UTC)

"Maybe they do," he giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:16 am (UTC)

"Okay. It'll be late when we land, but I think the laundry should still be open and I can get you a blanket - I know mortals are often cold in the Eyrie, everyone going around in sleeves all the time and shivering, I don't actually know what it's like but it sounds unpleasant - and what else do you need?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:17 am (UTC)

"Blanket. Dinner? That about covers it," he shrugs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:18 am (UTC)

"The kitchens are open until midnight," she assures him. "And they're open again at six the next morning."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:18 am (UTC)

"I like your Eyrie," he declares.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:20 am (UTC)

"It's not mine," laughs Isabella. "Delilah's maybe. Jovah's."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:21 am (UTC)

"I'd say 'I like your city' if I was talking to somebody who lived in a city I liked," he says. "It's the same thing, isn't it?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:23 am (UTC)

"Mmm, maybe. I think that makes more sense if the thing you're saying you like is a class of things - 'I like your city', 'I like your friend', 'I like your recipe for mint sauce'. There's only one Eyrie, but it's an angel hold."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:27 am (UTC)

"I like your angel hold, then," he says agreeably.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:32 am (UTC)

"That's good," says Isabella, smiling.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:32 am (UTC)

Micaiah falls silent, smiling back.
Edited 2013-02-08 02:33 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:38 am (UTC)

They travel the rest of the way to the Eyrie in companionable non-conversation, although not silence, as Isbella notes that they pass over an area that looks too brown for the season and spends the middle half-hour of the journey praying for a brief shower of rain. (Major weather interventions wait for petitions, but minor ones are permissible in passing.) They depart an area of drizzle, fly just over another hour, and touch down at the hold. A quartet of men - two mortals, two angels - are singing something somber and soft, not enough to wake sleepers; Isabella waves at them after she puts Micaiah down.

"My quarters are near Elisha's," she says softly, leading him through the corridors. "Not right next to them, but the same general area - you might find it easy to get lost in here at first." They find the kitchens again and Isabella gets two plates of potatoes, greens, and venison from the cook; apparently the meeting with the Manadavvi went on for long enough that they're still eating now.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:44 am (UTC)

"I get unlost pretty easy," he says.

Mmmm, food. Food is good. He likes food.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:49 am (UTC)

Isabella likes food too!

The walk to her room is through most of the same hallways as the walk to Elisha's, but with a veer off to the right at the end. She pulls a key from where she keeps it on her boot fastenings and lets them in. "I don't have a copy of this, but I can get one," she says. "But - please don't steal my stuff, even if you mean to give it back after; if you need anything you can just ask me. Please don't look at my notebooks either. They're private."

The notebooks are an obvious stack in the corner. Isabella turns out to have one tucked in the back of her vest, which she adds to the pile. The room is a bit dusty with disuse, but not a year's worth of it - she's been visiting for the odd week here and there even during her two years of the Eyrie not being her primary residence. And the bed is indeed twelve feet wide to comfortably accommodate even the most sprawling, impressive wingspan.

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:51 am (UTC)

Micaiah looks curiously at the notebooks.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:54 am (UTC)

"I just write - all kinds of things in there. They're like journals. If you think they'll be very tempting I can find a lockable box..."

pythbox
2013-02-08 02:57 am (UTC)

"I pick those," he says absently, and then gives her a reassuring smile. "Nah, it's fine, I won't peek."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 02:59 am (UTC)

"Okay." It wouldn't be a disaster if he did read them, but it would certainly discomfit her. "...Please don't pick the locks to anyone else's room. I'm going to give you a key to this one so I suppose it doesn't matter if you also want to pick the lock recreationally."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:01 am (UTC)

He grins. "Okay!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:06 am (UTC)

Isabella smiles, then ducks into her closet for a nightgown, and into the bathroom to change out of flying leathers into same. It ties behind her neck and has no back, to accommodate the wings, but it falls all the way to the floor when she steps out barefoot and carrying her boots and vest and pants.

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:10 am (UTC)

"Pretty," comments Micaiah, smiling shyly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:15 am (UTC)

"Thanks," says Bella. "I forgot that when I'm not around to tell them not to the maids always make up the bed with the blanket to... look pretty or something, so I don't have to run down to the laundry after all. It's all yours." She unpeels it from the right side and folds it over in the middle. "I'm tired, are you tired?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:18 am (UTC)

"I'm tired!"

His getting-ready-for-bed routine is much faster: he just takes off most of his clothes and snuggles under the folded blanket.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:21 am (UTC)

Isabella turns off the gaslamps and flops down onto the other side, wings out, facing in. She is asleep in moments.

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:24 am (UTC)

Micaiah follows not long after.

Micaiah, it turns out, cuddles up in his sleep. First he just snuggles himself a big armful of blanket, but eventually he rolls close enough to Isabella to curl up against her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:28 am (UTC)

Isabella doesn't wake up, although the tone of the nonsense she mumbles in her sleep changes a bit for a few moments before she resettles.

She sleeps late. She doesn't have to be up to do the Sunrise Chorus until the next day.

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:30 am (UTC)

Micaiah wakes up first.

He decides that he is really comfy here in his little blanket-and-angel nest, and he's not moving unless she wakes up and squawks. Or he gets hungry.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:33 am (UTC)

Isabella yawns herself awake mid grammatically incorrect sentence. "Oh," she says. "Hello. ...Were you cold?"
Edited 2013-02-08 03:33 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:35 am (UTC)

"Don't know," he says. "I was asleep. I'm warm now, that's for sure."

Mmmmmm.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:42 am (UTC)

"Do you always do that? It's not a problem, it's just unexpected."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:43 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess," he says, thinking back.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:47 am (UTC)

"Huh. Well." She closes her eyes for a moment. She's all snuggled up to, after all. And then she says, "I think it's breakfast time."

She changes into her leathers again - she might be called on to fly somewhere at a moment's notice, after all - and heads for the kitchens, letting Micaiah choose whether to follow or remain abed.

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:48 am (UTC)

The bed is much less cuddly without her in it. He follows her very shortly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:52 am (UTC)

Breakfast is tomato-bread and eggs and sausage. "The food here is much better than at Peninnah's," comments Isabella. "So, today, now that I expect to stay in one place for a while, I'm going to catch up with my mother and father. What are you going to do?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:53 am (UTC)

"No idea," he says. "Maybe I'll follow you around. Maybe I'll go back to bed. I like your bed, it's soft."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 03:56 am (UTC)

"It is," agrees Isabella. "I suppose I can introduce you Rinnah and Charles if you'd like. Charles'll probably interrogate you a bit, though."

pythbox
2013-02-08 03:57 am (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," he laughs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 04:00 am (UTC)

"Does it really?" she laughs.

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:00 am (UTC)

Grinning, "Sure."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 04:02 am (UTC)

"All right then. I wonder if they know I'm back. I don't think Delilah would have bothered to tell them, but Elisha might have. I should see Serah today, too, although I bet she's still asleep; she's an incorrigible night owl."

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:04 am (UTC)

"Busy, busy," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 04:06 am (UTC)

"I like to be busy. When there's nothing else to do I get in everyone's way in the petitioner receiving rooms and tear off to the Caitanas for a day to bring calmer winds, or whatever they need. Today, I think, I will block off for social catching-up."

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:06 am (UTC)

Micaiah smiles at her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 04:14 am (UTC)

"You're really very cute," she observes, almost as though surprised, and then she finishes her bread and returns the dishes to the kitchen. "My parents' quarters is off that way." She leads them out of the dining hall through a different door, and through more corridors, humming along to the soprano part of the current harmonics. "Don't bother calling Rinnah 'angela', if you were at all likely to do that; she'll only laugh at you and tell you to call her by her name."

pythbox
2013-02-08 01:27 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't," he says cheerfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 04:49 pm (UTC)

"There you go, then." Isabella doesn't have a key to these quarters. The quarters are a cross between individual rooms and apartments; some adjoin with doors between them, but on the corridor, the keys only belong to those who live in that specific room. She knocks.

"Just a minute!" calls a warm alto voice, half-singing, and Isabella smiles automatically at hearing her mother speak.

pythbox
2013-02-08 04:50 pm (UTC)

Awwwwww. Micaiah grins at her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 04:59 pm (UTC)

The door opens to reveal an angel who looks like an older version of Isabella, with paler hair and a grayer background behind the flecks on her wings. "Isabella!" she cries, flinging her arms around her daughter. "I knew you were coming back around now - and here you are! And -" She notices the eternal dance of color in Isabella's arm, catches the relevant limb by the wrist and peers at the Kiss in it, then makes a comparable assessment of Micaiah and hugs him too.

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:01 pm (UTC)

Micaiah giggles and hugs back, careful of the wings.

"I like you," he declares. "You're nice. I can see where she got it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Aren't you precious," says Rinnah, taking a step back to look him over again, smiling beatifically. "Well. When's the wedding?"

"Mom," says Isabella. "I met him yesterday."

"Yes, and it's a wonder either of you can stand, remember when this happened to Jerusha and -"

"And Jerusha couldn't sleep for the first four days, I know, but mine doesn't hurt," says Isabella. "It just does the light and the colors. Anyway, there isn't a wedding planned. Is Dad in?"

"He'll be back any minute, but right now he's still with Nehemiah, talking about -" She waves a hand. "Security arrangements of some kind. I scarcely understand your father's job, you know, why would anyone commit crimes in an angel hold where Jovah watches so closely...?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Because it's fun," Micaiah suggests.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 05:18 pm (UTC)

Rinnah blinks at him. "Is it?" she asks dubiously, in the tones of someone who's never found fun lacking in perfectly pedestrian/avian non-criminal pursuits.

"Micaiah," says Isabella slowly, "my father handles the hold's security measures. It'd be... troubling if he had to encounter you in that capacity."

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:22 pm (UTC)

"He won't," he says. "I'm just saying, maybe that's why."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Rinnah, "why don't you both come in? I want to meet the boy Jovah's picked out for my Isabella!"

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:29 pm (UTC)

Brightly: "Okay!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 05:30 pm (UTC)

In they go. There are three angel chairs and two typical chairs around an ellipse-shaped card table; both angels take seats in appropriate furniture. "Tell me about yourself," Rinnah encourages.

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, my name's Micaiah and I'm an adopted Edori and I like good food and pretty clothes and snuggling your daughter," he says with a grin.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 05:41 pm (UTC)

Rinnah obviously considers this too cute for words. After she recovers from glee well enough to form sentences, she says, "And what's your vocal range? And what brings you to the Eyrie?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:49 pm (UTC)

"What do you want it to be?" he laughs. "I just kinda came wandering by, I do that."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I think tenors show off Isabella's voice best, but of course you're whatever Jovah made you," says Rinnah, tilting her head. "Are the other Edoris here?" she adds with the ungrammatical inquisitiveness of someone who knows perhaps three things about Edori, one of which is false.
Edited 2013-02-08 17:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-08 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Yovah made me adaptable," Micaiah says cheerfully. "Nah, they're somewhere else."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 05:58 pm (UTC)

"So you've got a range on you, have you? Let's hear it," invites Rinnah, all asmile. "Have you even heard him sing yet, Isabella?"

"No," Isabella admits.

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:01 pm (UTC)

"All right," he says, smiling, and tips his head back and drums his fingers on his knee. "What should I sing, what should I siiiiiiiiiiing..."

The word trails off and drops in pitch from his normal speaking voice to something much, much lower.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Sing an Edori song," says Rinnah, clapping her hands. "Something that shows you off."

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" he chirps, and rubs his hands together, and sings.

The lyrics are in Edori. The tune is not that complex, but it's fast and it's cheerful and he brings it all the way up and down his incredibly extensive range over the course of several repetitive verses.

Whatever the song is, it seems to make Micaiah very happy.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:15 pm (UTC)

"What do the lyrics mean?" Rinnah asks earnestly.

"You could probably manage half of Uriel's masses. Pity I'm not Hagar," laughs Isabella.

"Oh, Isabella, you sound just as pretty as her," soothes Rinnah.

"Opinion's divided on that and I don't have her range, objective fact," blushes Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure you wanna know," says Micaiah with a wink.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh goodness," laughs Rinnah. "I suppose I should hope Noah or even Delilah wasn't walking down the hall just then, or -" She starts rattling off more names; children of the former Archangel and other members of the hold who might know enough Edori to detect a less than genteel lyric line.

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:21 pm (UTC)

Micaiah giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:25 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Zadok knows any more Edori than his mother does," Isabella eventually interrupts, and Rinnah stops naming people. But she has no real ethical objections to singing dirty songs and doesn't chide Micaiah for having chosen one.

The door swings open, and in comes a gruff-looking mortal man in practical clothes. There's a trace of Isabella in his face, although not nearly as much as there is to Rinnah. "Bells!" he says when he sees his daughter. "You're back! Visiting again or for good?"

Isabella gets up to hug him. "No plans to leave. No promises, though, I wouldn't turn down another invitation to Monteverde to help Linus."

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:27 pm (UTC)

Micaiah gives the newcomer a friendly smile.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:29 pm (UTC)

"And who's this fellow?" Charles asks, after releasing Isabella from the embrace.

"This is Micaiah!" says Rinnah brightly before Isabella can. "Look at their arms, dear, I've never seen anything so clear since Jerusha -"

"Sweet Jovah singing," mutters Charles.

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:31 pm (UTC)

He grins.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:34 pm (UTC)

"How'd this happen, Bells?" Charles asks.

"He was visiting Noah - he's an Edori - I mean Micaiah, you already know Noah's an Edori - and I'd just come back from Gaza," says Isabella. "And - well, he noticed first, his hurts and mine doesn't, but it's been like this since then."

"Hrm," says Charles. He scrutinizes Micaiah. "So. Micaiah. What do you do with yourself when you're not... visiting here?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Go places," he says. "See stuff. Tell funny stories. Sometimes with my tribe, sometimes not."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Mm," Charlie says noncommittally. "Well. Edori believe in Jovah, don't they?"

"Apart from the pronunciation, yes," Isabella says, who knows more about Edori religious beliefs than either of her parents and doesn't want to get deeply into that subject today.

"Mind you remember he's watching, then," Charles tells Micaiah, sitting down in the other non-angel chair. "Whether or not anybody else is."

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:40 pm (UTC)

Micaiah just snorts.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:47 pm (UTC)

"He's got a lovely range," Rinnah says chattily to Charles. "I think I heard everything from low baritone to mid alto, if I don't miss my pitch -"

"You never miss a pitch," says Charles loyally. "Bells, catch us up on what all else has happened - how were your last two months in Gaza?"

Isabella agreeably relates the more interesting questions people asked of Peninnah, and about her frustrating efforts to make the oracular language click, and about the events in the lives of the Gaza acolytes who her parents have come to be interested in through previous stories on previous visits.

Partway through a story about Tobiah's pet bird and his attempts to convince Isabella to catch it for him after it escaped, Rinnah picks up Isabella's hand from the table and puts it on top of Micaiah's, smiling impishly and wordlessly. Isabella blushes but doesn't move her hand away, and resumes the story after only a little stuttering.

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:50 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwww.

Micaiah beams at Rinnah and squeezes Isabella's hand gently.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:51 pm (UTC)

Isabella stammers again but finishes the story, which ends with her chasing the bird into a tree too densely branched for an angel to climb and ultimately carrying Tobiah himself down to shimmy up the trunk and retrieve his pet.
Edited 2013-02-08 18:51 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:52 pm (UTC)

"You're sweet," Micaiah says fondly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Isabella, smiling at him.

"It's like a fairy tale," sighs Rinnah.

Charles harrumphs.

pythbox
2013-02-08 06:57 pm (UTC)

Micaiah beams.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 07:16 pm (UTC)

Isabella's reunion conversation with her parents continues to range over miscellaneous topics and continues to incorporate handholding. When Isabella mentions that she ought to see Serah today, Rinnah ushers her and Micaiah out the door, laughing. And Isabella doesn't seem disposed to let go of Micaiah's hand.

pythbox
2013-02-08 07:17 pm (UTC)

He smiles blushily at her and laces their fingers together.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 07:24 pm (UTC)

Serah's quarters are nowhere near her brother's. (Angels and mortals require different accommodations and live in different sections after they move out of the rooms that adjoin their parents'.) Isabella knocks, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and a person who looks like a female wingless Elisha perhaps one year older than he explodes out into the corridor and immediately engulfs Isabella in a hug. "Elisha told me you were back! Why didn't you come see me first?" Serah said. "I was only down in Velora! You could have found me. Is this Micaiah? Oh, he's cute -" She aims her face at the ceiling, as though addressing Jovah - "I approve!"

"Yes, Serah," says Isabella patiently. "This is Micaiah. Micaiah, this is Serah."
Edited 2013-02-08 19:25 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-08 07:26 pm (UTC)

He giggles!

"You're really cute," he says to Serah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Why thank you," says Serah with complete unselfconsciousness. "So you're going to be Isabella's angelico, huh?"

"Serah."

"No, no, you're too modest, you really don't need to be you know, many Archangels have been famously pompous - anyway, I'd say I ought to be friends with you so I can get special favors when you and her rule Samaria together but I'm already her best friend so you can be sure I will like or dislike you solely on your own merits," Serah says cheerily.

pythbox
2013-02-08 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Good to know," he laughs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Tell me about your merits," urges Serah, grabbing Isabella and Micaiah each by a hand and pulling them with awkward simultaneity through her door. One of Isabella's wings winds up buffeting Micaiah, all soft and warm; she doesn't seem discomfited by the accidental contact. "Elisha only knew a handful of things!"

pythbox
2013-02-08 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Aww, they are cuddly," he says, grinning at Isabella. To Serah: "I have huge vocal range and I tell funny stories and a lot of people will tell you I'm the best kisser in my tribe."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 07:53 pm (UTC)

"What do you think about this claim, Isabella?" Serah asks very seriously.

"I... would have to take his word for it?" Isabella manages awkwardly.

"Your Kisses are like stars come to earth and you have not sampled any less capitalized kisses?" exclaims Serah, completely scandalized.

"...Yes."

"Well," snorts Serah. "I suddenly need the water room. I'm sure I'll be at least five minutes." And she flounces off to her adjoining water room.

pythbox
2013-02-08 07:54 pm (UTC)

"A lot of people will tell you I'm the best in my tribe at some other things, too," Micaiah says cheerfully. "Well?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Well - if you want to," says Isabella. "I cannot at this time claim it as one of my own talents. Fair warning."

pythbox
2013-02-08 08:11 pm (UTC)

"That's okay," he says, and he leans in and kisses her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 10:31 pm (UTC)

She makes a creditable effort to kiss back.

She also makes an intrigued little sound in the back of her throat.

pythbox
2013-02-08 10:33 pm (UTC)

Micaiah makes a sound somewhere between a hum and a giggle. She definitely seems to be getting the idea.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 10:39 pm (UTC)

Experimental kisses ensue.

Serah gives them a bit longer than five minutes, and still comes out to a scene of kissing. "Goodness gracious," she deadpans. "I am astonished to find this going on. Whatever shall I do."

Isabella breaks off to roll her eyes at her friend. "So what did you do in Velora yesterday?" she asks.

"Shopping!" crows Serah, clapping her hands. "Do you want to see what I got?"

"Why not?" Isabella laughs.

Serah got several pretty dresses. She shows them off each in turn with loving and elaborate descriptions in spite of the fact that her visitors can plainly see them for themselves.

pythbox
2013-02-08 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Oooh," says Micaiah. He gets very enthusiastic about the dresses.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 10:53 pm (UTC)

Serah considers this no more or less than the height of virtue on his part, and winds up directing most of her commentary at him rather than at Isabella, who regards the pair of them with tolerant amusement. Her own interest in outfits is very limited.

pythbox
2013-02-08 10:56 pm (UTC)

Micaiah commentaries right back at her. Excitedly. He should add flattery to his list of talents.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 10:58 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Serah runs out of dresses to show off, and has exhausted her remarks on her new hairclip too. "You're dressed so plain, I would never have guessed you'd like fancy things," she tells Micaiah.

pythbox
2013-02-08 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I like fancy things," he emphasizes. "I like them way too much to travel in 'em."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, you're staying here, now, aren't you? Isabella, why haven't you taken him shopping yet, that's verging on criminal, the poor boy, I insist you fly him to Velora right now - and then come back and fetch me! - and put him in some nicer clothes," says Serah imperiously

"Do you want to go shopping?" Isabella asks Micaiah mildly.

pythbox
2013-02-08 11:04 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Sure!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 11:08 pm (UTC)

"All right then," says Isabella, rising to her feet, "to Velora we will go."

Serah winds up leading the way to the nearest takeoff spot, and once they are there, Isabella picks up Micaiah and throws them both off the mountain, only to catch them and spiral down for a landing.

She sets him on the ground. "I'll be right back with Serah," she says, and, impulsively, she gives him a little kiss before she runs and leaps into the sky again.

pythbox
2013-02-08 11:09 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

He still looks all happy and blushy by the time Isabella finishes her second trip.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 11:22 pm (UTC)

Serah assumes instant leadership of their party and drags the other two to a little shop for menswear. "Elisha goes here. He has to get everything butchered custom, for the wings, but you should be able to take something home today! Go on, what do you like?"

pythbox
2013-02-08 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Everything," he sighs.

But he's made his preferences clear soon enough. He likes bright colours. He likes contrast. He likes variety. He has an excellent idea of which things will look good on him, and he likes it when they do.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 11:30 pm (UTC)

Isabella obligingly flashes her bracelets for his favorites, and they emerge with several shopping bags.

"Satisfied?" Isabella asks Serah.

"Only if Micaiah is," says Serah reprovingly.
Edited 2013-02-08 23:30 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-08 11:31 pm (UTC)

By way of communicating his feelings, he hugs them both. Serah first.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Should we go to another store?" Isabella asks while hugging back. She's carrying most of the bags, as the strongest in the group, and this is slightly awkward but doable.

pythbox
2013-02-08 11:34 pm (UTC)

"No, I think I'm okay for now," he says laughingly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Back up?" Isabella asks.

"No," says Serah. "I haven't seen you in months and you owe me lunch, Isabella."

"All right," laughs Isabella. "Sandwich place?"

"Sandwich place!" cries Serah, and she goes charging off. Isabella follows at a more sedate pace.

pythbox
2013-02-08 11:42 pm (UTC)

Micaiah tags along with Isabella.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-08 11:49 pm (UTC)

There is handholding.

And presently there are sandwiches. Isabella's bracelets pay for these too; if Serah has her own set she didn't bring them. Isabella catches Serah up with what she's been doing in the months intervening her last visit to the Eyrie, and Serah catches Isabella up right back. Serah's time has apparently been consumed with preparing with the Eyrie choir group she belongs to for the next Gloria.

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:02 am (UTC)

Micaiah eats his sandwich and listens to all the catching-up and enjoys the comfort and happiness of the moment.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:05 am (UTC)

They finish their sandwiches. Serah has just remembered that she's signed up for harmonics any minute now, so Isabella takes her up the mountain first.

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:11 am (UTC)

Which leaves Micaiah all by himself in a lovely new city with nothing much to do and no adorable feelings to keep him occupied.

He wanders off.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:15 am (UTC)

Isabella's back at the sandwich shop a moment later. "Micaiah?" she calls. "Where'd you go?"

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:16 am (UTC)

He does not immediately appear.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:17 am (UTC)

Now she's worried. Velora's generally safe, but...

Well. She looks at her arm, and turns slowly in place, and goes in the brightest direction.

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:20 am (UTC)

There he is! He has found a little kiosk that sells odds and ends of various kinds, and is browsing at it.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:22 am (UTC)

"There you are. Did you find something else you want?" Isabella asks.

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:26 am (UTC)

He straightens from his perusal of a table and looks back at her. "There you are! Nah, not really," he says, hurrying forward to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:35 am (UTC)

"Okay. Back up to the Eyrie, then? Serah's harmonics start any minute now, we can sit and listen - she's got a wonderful contralto."

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:39 am (UTC)

Brightly, "Okay!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:42 am (UTC)

She scoops him up, but while she's taking her first step forward to get to launch speed, the arm supporting his legs slips. Her grip with the other arm tightens automatically - he would not have fallen even if they'd been in the air - but he does drop enough to not-quite-sit on her thigh.

"Ow!"

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:46 am (UTC)

"Oh! Sorry," laughs Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:49 am (UTC)

"What is that?" Isabella asks, re-situating him in her arms and retrying takeoff.

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:51 am (UTC)

"Just a little something I picked up," he shrugs. "I can put it back if you want."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:53 am (UTC)

She brakes and loses the lift she'd been accumulating, skidding on her boots in the street and scattering a couple of people who'd believed themselves well out of their way. She shoots them an apologetic look.

"...You told me you didn't find anything else you wanted," she says slowly.

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:54 am (UTC)

"I wasn't thinking," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 12:55 am (UTC)

She puts him down and takes his hand and marches him back to the kiosk. "Is this where you got it?" she asks him.

pythbox
2013-02-09 12:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, resisting her hand a little but ultimately going where she takes him.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 01:00 am (UTC)

"Excuse me," Isabella says to the proprietor. "My friend picked something up and neglected to pay for it. Would you rather it be returned or would you prefer to bill the Eyrie?"

The man blinks. "What was it?"

"Show him, please, Micaiah," says Isabella tightly.

pythbox
2013-02-09 01:01 am (UTC)

He shrinks away from both of them a little, but produces the object: a tiny folding knife.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 01:05 am (UTC)

"I'll bill the Eyrie," says the kiosk operator. "Thank you, angela."

"Thank you for understanding," she replies. And, still holding Micaiah's hand, she turns back the way they came. "So. You can keep that."

pythbox
2013-02-09 01:12 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says in a subdued voice, and disappears it again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 01:17 am (UTC)

Isabella covers her eyes with her hands. "What were you - no, you weren't thinking, you said. Why weren't you thinking?"

pythbox
2013-02-09 01:19 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he says, looking at the ground. "I got distracted, I guess. I'm not used to being able to just get things the way you do, so... I just got it the way I do."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 01:23 am (UTC)

"If I get you a set of bracelets," she says, "will that fix this problem, or will they not successfully remind you?"

pythbox
2013-02-09 01:24 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he repeats. "Maybe? Probably?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 01:32 am (UTC)

Isabella rubs her forehead. "Okay. We can talk more about this later, I guess. Let's go listen to Serah and whoever she's singing with." She picks him up, does not slip, and launches.

pythbox
2013-02-09 01:33 am (UTC)

He snuggles nervously into her arms.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 01:39 am (UTC)

Isabella kisses his forehead. "I'm sure you can get used to being law-abiding. I'll help you, okay?" she says as she goes over the top of the mountain and descends to the plateau where harmonics are sung. Serah's and her friends' are already underway; they're doing a folk song harmonized at snug intervals, and Serah and one of the other women is swaying to the beat.

pythbox
2013-02-09 01:40 am (UTC)

Micaiah makes a quiet grumbly sort of noise, then smiles and cuddles up a little more happily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 01:48 am (UTC)

Serah and company finish the song and turn over the responsibility to the next group, a mortal woman and what appear to be her two angel children. Serah bounces over to them. "What's got you so solemn?" she asks, ushering them away from the music so they won't compete with the soaring voices.

pythbox
2013-02-09 01:50 am (UTC)

"Solemn? Who's solemn?" he asks with a playful grin.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 01:56 am (UTC)

"Isabella is. Did something happen? Trouble in the fated fairytale?"

"It's - minor," says Isabella. "Micaiah put something in his pocket without remembering to ask me to flash my bracelets for it, and it was embarrassing to go back about it."

"Oh. What'd you get?" Serah asks Micaiah.

pythbox
2013-02-09 02:00 am (UTC)

"Just a little knife," he shrugs. "I thought it was pretty."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 02:02 am (UTC)

"Oh. Well, I'm due to practice," Serah says. "I'll leave you two..." She pauses significantly. "Aloooone."

Serah scampers off.

Isabella stands in the corridor, looking down at her hands.

pythbox
2013-02-09 02:04 am (UTC)

"Hey," says Micaiah, resting a hand on top of hers. "I'm sorry."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 02:08 am (UTC)

She clasps his hand. And after a moment's thought, kisses his knuckles. "No harm done," she says. "...Do you want to see if there's a spare practice room and learn something?"

pythbox
2013-02-09 02:16 am (UTC)

"Sure!" he beams, and kisses her cheek.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 02:18 am (UTC)

There is one spare practice room. They seize it. Isabella starts flipping through the racks of disks. "What strikes your fancy?" she asks. "Anything in particular?"

pythbox
2013-02-09 02:20 am (UTC)

"Pick something you like," he suggests.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 02:29 am (UTC)

Isabella plucks a disk from the collection. "This is Uriel and his daughter, instead of Hagar - I can match Prisca's range without a problem," she says. "Will it interfere with you learning his part if I sing along with hers?"

pythbox
2013-02-09 02:30 am (UTC)

"Even if it did, I like it when you sing."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 02:38 am (UTC)

"I can sing anytime," Isabella chuckles. "The idea here is to learn the piece. If you'll be able to pick out what Uriel's doing when he's competing with me as well as Prisca, then that's fine."

She pops the disc in. Prisca opens with a high, crystalline note that Isabella matches.

pythbox
2013-02-09 02:40 am (UTC)

Micaiah closes his eyes, and smiles, and listens.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 02:51 am (UTC)

Uriel comes in two measures later, and his range is indeed impressive, although Micaiah can hit every note he utters in this piece, just as Isabella can match Prisca.

It's a long song, nearly two hours start to finish - a mass intended for the Gloria, sung one year when Hagar's voice was ruined from a cough - and Isabella has the entirety memorized.

She sings like she's crooning directly into Jovah's ear.

pythbox
2013-02-09 02:53 am (UTC)

It's absolutely glorious.

And he pays attention to the part he's supposed to be learning, too.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 02:59 am (UTC)

At the end, Isabella says, "Want to hear it again and see if you can join in for some bits?"

pythbox
2013-02-09 03:12 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says immediately.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 03:20 am (UTC)

She hits the button to start it over for the beginning, and breathes out Prisca's first notes.

pythbox
2013-02-09 03:27 am (UTC)

Micaiah follows Uriel's part as best he can, which means a lot of stumbles and missed phrases. But he doesn't seem to find failure discouraging.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 03:34 am (UTC)

Isabella grins when he comes in, and doesn't falter at all when he makes mistakes.

She reaches out and takes his hand.

pythbox
2013-02-09 03:35 am (UTC)

Holding hands doesn't do anything for his singing, but it does put the most unutterably sappy look on his face.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 03:40 am (UTC)

Awwwwwwww.

They finish the mass hand in hand, a perfect fourth apart, him buoying her up while she soars.

At some point, her nearer wing has crept around to settle over his back.

pythbox
2013-02-09 03:42 am (UTC)

"Cuddly," he remarks, grinning at her. "So if me touching your wing is like grabbing your rear, what's it mean when your wing touches me?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 03:51 am (UTC)

"Um, slightly less than that," says Isabella. "Wings are big - them accidentally touching people happens pretty often, and sometimes the most comfortable way to occupy a space involves less accidental contact. It's more like hand-holding than like rear-grabbing if you're not actually reaching out and petting my feathers."

pythbox
2013-02-09 03:55 am (UTC)

"Oh," he says, still grinning. "So if I did this...?"

And he turns his head and rests his cheek against her soft cuddly feathers for a moment.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 03:57 am (UTC)

"Mmmmm," she hums. "Then - well - I can feel it. There's not a - a chart of what it all means anywhere."

pythbox
2013-02-09 04:00 am (UTC)

"Is it nice?" he asks, and nuzzles a little.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 04:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah," she breathes. "It's nice."

pythbox
2013-02-09 04:04 am (UTC)

"Then," he says, and smiles, and lifts his hand and runs his fingers gently down the inside of her wing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 04:07 am (UTC)

She shivers; her other wing flutters involuntarily, feathers shushing against the floor. "Mmmmm."

pythbox
2013-02-09 04:09 am (UTC)

Curious and affectionate, he does it again with the flat of his palm.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 04:12 am (UTC)

Her wing pushes back. "That feels good," she sighs. "People told me - I didn't try it though -"

pythbox
2013-02-09 04:17 am (UTC)

"Let's kiss some more," Micaiah suggests brightly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 04:18 am (UTC)

"Mmmhm." And both wings encircle him and nudge him closer and she kisses him.

pythbox
2013-02-09 04:22 am (UTC)

He puts out a hand and strokes her feathers while he kisses back. It seems like the thing to do.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 04:23 am (UTC)

Oh, and it is. She squirms and makes a squeaky, happy noise.

pythbox
2013-02-09 04:29 am (UTC)

Laughing softly, he snuggles up against her and does it again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 04:32 am (UTC)

This could go on for a while... (And Isabella would not mind a bit if it did.)

pythbox
2013-02-09 04:36 am (UTC)

It does.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 04:40 am (UTC)

Mm-hm.

After said while, Micaiah has a very happy pseudo-limp angel wrapped around him, and she murmurs, "I'm kinda hungry."

pythbox
2013-02-09 04:41 am (UTC)

"For what?" he giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 04:43 am (UTC)

"...Food, what else?"

(She honestly doesn't know!)

pythbox
2013-02-09 01:45 pm (UTC)

By way of demonstration, or perhaps just because she's being adorable again, he kisses her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-09 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Mmm." Isabella hardly objects, but this does not solve her hunger problem. "Dinner?"

pythbox
2013-02-10 01:46 am (UTC)

"Dinner," he agrees.

But first, hug.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 01:52 am (UTC)

A reasonable order of operations.

Serah, Elisha, and their small full brother and smaller half-brother (the full a mortal, the half an angel) whom they are babysitting join them at the table, and the little angel boy has approximately nine million questions about the Edori, many of them requests for verification of insulting rumors of one sort or another.
Edited 2013-02-10 01:54 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-10 02:21 am (UTC)

Micaiah quite cheerfully answers every single question.

Sometimes he answers them with outrageous self-contradictory lies, but how else are you supposed to talk to children?

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:01 am (UTC)

The small angel seems to find the outrageous self-contradictory lies highly entertaining, and everyone else finds his giggles similarly entertaining.

Ultimately dinner is concluded, the small children are escorted away by their elder siblings to their respective evening music lessons, and Micaiah and Isabella are left alone.

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:04 am (UTC)

He grins at her.

"That was fun," he says. "What now?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:07 am (UTC)

"I think you've seen what there is to see in the Eyrie. There's stuff to do in Velora, but except for a few standbys that I've checked in on during visits home, I'm not sure how much of what I remember is still there - it's been two years, I went to Monteverde to assist Linus when I was only sixteen. I might go hang around the petitioners' rooms and see who wants weather or who's dealing with plague, but if I go anywhere now I might not be home in time for my harmonics in the morning and that would be irresponsible unless it was a dire emergency and no one else could handle it. So. What do you want to do?"

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:18 am (UTC)

"Kiss you some more," he says immediately.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:21 am (UTC)

She blushes, but doesn't stammer when she says, "Okay," and gets up and takes his hand and heads for her room. (Their room.)

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:26 am (UTC)

Aww. Micaiah squeezes her hand and walks close by her side.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:32 am (UTC)

More kissing ensues. Micaiah spends this period of time wrapped in a speckled-white wall of warm and highly pettable feathers.

Eventually she yawns and trips off to change into her nightgown for the night. She takes the blanket off the bed - waving one wing by way of explanation; it's more than big enough to cover a person, especially one as cuddle-inclined as Micaiah - and flops facedown thereonto, inside wing lifted for him to slip under.

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:34 am (UTC)

Micaiah gets out of his clothes and climbs into bed with her, snuggling up under her wing as invited.

"I love you," he murmurs sleepily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:36 am (UTC)

Isabella tenses marginally, but - well, he's already said something like that, isn't this a good thing, she doesn't have to chase him all over Samaria convincing him that Jovah says, and she doesn't want to lie to him just to be kind but there's no reason to freak out. She relaxes again. She closes her eyes.

And then - just before she's about to fall asleep and start babbling - she opens them again.

"Is it possible that you have siblings?" she asks in a dismayed murmur.

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:38 am (UTC)

Micaiah hisses, jerking as though he would like to curl up into a little ball of misery again and is only just stopping himself.

"I don't know. I don't want to know," he says vehemently. "I hope not."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:44 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Isabella murmurs. "You - don't want to know? Are you sure?"

(Not wanting to know a thing is alien to her - especially a thing that could be about someone she might care about being hurt - but if he doesn't want to know, she can fly to Sinai herself, ask Alleluia, and go investigate herself, perhaps bringing Elisha or another angel as backup. Angels are still the law where they choose to operate as such. Delilah won't contradict her - nor Linus, if Micaiah is from one of the other provinces.)

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:46 am (UTC)

"If there's another kid where I was ten years ago, I feel bad for them," he says. "But not bad enough to think about my father any more than I have to."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:47 am (UTC)

"If I look - and there is one, or more - and I get them out - do you want to know them?" she asks quietly.

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:50 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he says hesitantly. "If they want to know me... maybe. If they didn't turn out like him... maybe."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:55 am (UTC)

"All right," she soothes, picking up her enfolding wing just enough to pet him with it and then settling it over him again.

She makes sure her clock is set to ring its bell in time for her to prepare for the Sunrise Chorus, and then she sleeps, murmuring words.

pythbox
2013-02-10 06:00 am (UTC)

Micaiah curls up close and goes to sleep as soon as she does.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:04 am (UTC)

The bell on Isabella's clock dings softly in the morning, and she reaches out to still the sound as soon as she opens her eyes. She checks to see if Micaiah managed to sleep through that. It is very early.

pythbox
2013-02-10 06:07 am (UTC)

Zz.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:17 am (UTC)

Yep.

Bella puts the blanket over him as soon as she's withdrawn her wing. She changes into her leathers and meets up with Elisha for a quick warmup. But Micaiah did say he wanted to be sure he was listening when she performed. So on their way to the harmonics she ducks back into her room to wake him up. "Micaiah? We're going to sing the Sunrise Chorus now," she says in his ear.

pythbox
2013-02-10 06:21 am (UTC)

He stretches out and yawns and opens his eyes and kisses her.

"I wanna listen!" he says, beaming. "Lemme get dressed."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:22 am (UTC)

"Sure. Be quick," she says. "I didn't want to wake you up sooner than I had to, you looked peaceful."

Elisha coughs. Isabella rolls her eyes at him.

pythbox
2013-02-10 06:27 am (UTC)

Micaiah scrambles out of bed and into clothes with astonishing speed.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:29 am (UTC)

And they're off!

The Sunrise Chorus is a pretty song, the sort that it is reasonable that Delilah would like to wake up to. Unlike when practicing, Isabella and Elisha prefer to do public performances facing each other from a few feet away; the acoustics make that the best way to hear and react to one another's timing and dynamics.

pythbox
2013-02-10 06:36 am (UTC)

Micaiah finds somewhere to sit—a corner of floor will do—and closes his eyes, and listens.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:40 am (UTC)

Their timeslot ends; they conclude the song with an improvised handoff to the next group, and Isabella trots over towards Micaiah. Elisha calls, "See you around, I promised to go visit Abel," and takes off. (Visiting Abel does not sound like a source of joy in his life.)

pythbox
2013-02-10 06:41 am (UTC)

"Who's Abel?" he wonders.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:45 am (UTC)

"His son. Probably. Abel isn't an angel, so it's hard to be sure, but he looks more like Elisha than like the other possibilities," says Isabella, sounding resigned.

pythbox
2013-02-10 06:47 am (UTC)

"Um..." says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:58 am (UTC)

"I think things will improve in a few years. Elisha just doesn't seem to... see the point of babies, when they can't talk yet, let alone sing," Isabella says apologetically. "It was the same with his brothers when they were babies, and he likes them both very much now. And Abel's mother is nice as angel-seekers go."

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:01 am (UTC)

"That's better," he says doubtfully. "I just... I feel like you should either love your kids, or give them to somebody who will and then leave 'em alone."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:07 am (UTC)

"There used to be much more of a problem in that department before the angelica Rachel. She and Gabriel set up a sort of a school system that now has branches near each angel hold and it absorbs... strays," says Isabella. "I think about it sometimes, but I'm not sure what else to do. The angel population is a real problem. Gabriel started his tenure with barely a hundred angels flying around Samaria, because the entire contingent of Windy Point died - some of poison when they wouldn't follow Raphael, some by thunderbolt when they did and he challenged Jovah - and we still haven't gotten back up to the numbers we had before that in all the intervening generations. The angel-seekers are willing, angels like Elisha are willing - and the mortal children are - not an easily avoidable consequence of all this willingness," she shrugs helplessly. "If the mothers of angels weren't honored and welcomed into the holds, I'm sure fewer would try to join their ranks, but then there would be fewer angels."

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:08 am (UTC)

"So what are you gonna do about that?" he asks with a quirk of a smile.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:15 am (UTC)

"...About... there not being enough angels, you mean...?"

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's about where I was going with that," he agrees.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:24 am (UTC)

She looks down. "Well. I've always expected to have children. One day. It's strange that I'm an only child - it's only because Rinnah had a stillbirth and hasn't been able to get pregnant since. We are supposed to try."

("We" here means "angels" - but it would be easy to interpret it as meaning "Isabella and Micaiah".)

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:27 am (UTC)

"Do you want to try?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:31 am (UTC)

"I have... mixed feelings about... timing. I have a lot that I want to do. And really, the hold is set up so that having the baby is all anyone expects a mother of a winged child to do. If I make a little angel and for some reason I then want to spend all my time tearing around doing this and that and don't feel like parenting, no one's going to say a word against me, there's no shortage of people intensely concerned with the future of angelkind who'll take over. But that doesn't feel right to me. And I don't know when I'll ever have less to do."

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:35 am (UTC)

"If we have kids, I can be there for 'em when you can't," he says. "Unless I turn out to hate 'em; then I'll just get out of the way."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:40 am (UTC)

"Yes, but - I don't know. If Charles had had to raise me half by himself, with Rinnah - doing - whatever? I wouldn't have liked that. I mean, of course she travels, all angels travel, but she didn't neglect me, she often took me along. And sometimes I think I'm so busy, that I arrange to be so busy as a matter of habit, that I would wind up being neglectful." She sighs. "Histories can tell me all kinds of things about politics. They can't tell me much about how all the movers and shakers handled their children, privately."
Edited 2013-02-10 09:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-10 02:57 pm (UTC)

Micaiah hugs her.

"Okay."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 04:52 pm (UTC)

"While I'm still promised several days of no assignments I'm going to - fly to Sinai and see where Alleluia sends me," Isabella says obliquely. "After grabbing some breakfast. Are you going to be bored? Do you want me to fly you to Velora - and leave you one of my bracelets - so you have someplace less repetitive to wander around in? You'll be able to climb back up the stairs if you're bored before I return," she adds, "it'll just take longer than flying."

pythbox
2013-02-10 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I'll stay here," he decides. "And go use the music rooms, they're fun."
Edited 2013-02-10 16:54 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Did you figure out how to work the machines or do you want me to show you first?" she asks, starting for the kitchens; she didn't mind singing for an hour on an empty stomach but it has emphatically become breakfast time.

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I'll figure it out," he says confidently.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Be careful not to break them - they were broken once a while ago and I'm sure it would annoy Caleb to be hauled all the way back here to fix them."

Breakfast is had, pastries and loaded omelettes and bowls of fruit. And then Isabella gives him one very thorough kiss and heads for the nearest takeoff point.

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:23 pm (UTC)

Micaiah goes to the music rooms, and picks that song she was having him learn, and practices.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 05:30 pm (UTC)

Isabella flies to Sinai.

Alleluia is surprised to see her again, but understands when asked the question, and provides what Jovah can tell her about Micaiah's birthplace.

It's not too far. It's in Semorrah. (Why does he keep reminding her of the angelica Rachel?)

She flies to Semorrah, and finds the records hall, and inquires after Canaan and Judith.

And she is sure to act sufficiently aloof that no one asks why.

pythbox
2013-02-10 05:38 pm (UTC)

Canaan and Judith had one son, Azaziah, who went missing about ten years ago.

Now they have another one. His name is Nathaniel and he is nine years old.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:42 pm (UTC)

Isabella receives an address from the hall of records - you don't gainsay an angel, not even a young one who won't tell you what she wants, unless you're looking for trouble.

She finds this address, and she sits on the roof of the stack of apartments across the street from it to see what she can see.

Introducing herself would let Micaiah's parents find her - and hence Micaiah. If she can determine that Nathaniel is no longer at this house, or that he's happy, she can just go.

If she determines that Nathaniel is present and unhappy, things are more complicated, but she can tell her father not to let anyone of Canaan's description into the Eyrie.

pythbox
2013-02-10 06:48 pm (UTC)

Visible through the window: a little boy with dark messy hair and a solemn face, sitting quietly in a chair and watching an older woman read a book.

Apparently, Micaiah takes after his mother. Judith has the same hair and similar features.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 06:49 pm (UTC)

Isabella decides to wait. She will interrupt if anything dreadful happens, but it will be easier if she can catch Nathaniel while he's out of the house away from his parents.

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:00 pm (UTC)

Canaan enters the room.

The first thing he does is draw the curtains shut.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:02 pm (UTC)

Fire and lightning.

Isabella glides down from the roof, concocting a half-baked story, and knocks on the door.

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:03 pm (UTC)

A servant opens it.

"...Yes, angela?"
Edited 2013-02-10 19:04 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Hello! The Eyrie children's choir director is hoping to add some voices from a little farther afield than the Eyrie itself and Velora at the Gloria this year." (This is actually true.) "I'm helping him look." (This is true in the sense that if she picks up Nathaniel and carries him away she may as well try slotting him into the children's choir.) "I noticed a little boy the right age through the window. Is there any chance I can meet him?"

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:10 pm (UTC)

"I will ask," the young woman says doubtfully, and closes the door.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:10 pm (UTC)

Isabella waits.

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:13 pm (UTC)

The young woman returns shortly after, and she brings Judith.

"What's this about my son joining a children's choir?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:14 pm (UTC)

Isabella repeats the out-of-context fact about the director wanting voices from farther afield and having seen Nathaniel through the window.

pythbox
2013-02-10 07:16 pm (UTC)

"I think that would be a fine idea," Judith says firmly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-10 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Is there someplace I can talk to your son where some singing won't bother anyone?" Isabella asks with a winning smile.
Edited 2013-02-10 19:19 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-11 12:26 am (UTC)

"I'm afraid he's with his father now, and they're not to be disturbed," Judith says in a tone of polite regret. "Would you like to come back another time?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 12:29 am (UTC)

"Finding children for the choir is not my primary business in Semorrah, and I don't plan to be in the city for much longer," Isabella says slowly. "I suppose I can go get lunch and come back in an hour? Will he be available then?"

She doesn't like it, but her cover story doesn't have an opening for pushiness.

pythbox
2013-02-11 12:34 am (UTC)

"That should be fine," says Judith. "Canaan takes his family time very seriously, that's all."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 12:34 am (UTC)

"Of course. I'll be back then. Do you happen to know if there are any restaurants here with angel chairs?" Isabella asks.

pythbox
2013-02-11 12:41 am (UTC)

She brightens. "I do, in fact!" And she gives directions to someplace just down the street.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 12:47 am (UTC)

Isabella thanks her. She goes there. She eats lunch, and minds the time, and, an hour later, returns to the house.

pythbox
2013-02-11 12:53 am (UTC)

The same servant from earlier answers the door.

"Come in, angela," she says. "Did you want to see Nathaniel in the music room?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 12:54 am (UTC)

"Yes, please," says Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-11 12:58 am (UTC)

"This way."

The music room is very quiet, and contains Nathaniel and a few musical instruments. The servant shuts the door and leaves them there. With the door closed, almost no outside sound is audible.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 01:00 am (UTC)

"Hello there," says Isabella, looking for someplace acceptable to sit. "Did your mother tell you why I'm here?"
Edited 2013-02-11 01:03 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-11 01:06 am (UTC)

Nathaniel is sitting on the piano bench. He stands up and drags it out a little and offers it to her.

"She says you're from the Eyrie and you want to put me in the children's choir," he says. "I've never been in a choir before."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 01:33 am (UTC)

Isabella is sort of reluctant to take his seat, but it's the only chair without a back; she sits on it, legs on one side and wings on the other. "Thanks. That's about the size of it. The director is very good and he'll be able to teach you to blend in with the other children. Can I hear you sing a little something? River Cara is fine, if you don't have another idea."

(She's going to declare him, at a minimum, "trainable", regardless of whether he sounds more like a frog than like an angel. But she has to hear him sing for that declaration to make sense.)

pythbox
2013-02-11 01:36 am (UTC)

Nathaniel hesitates for a moment, and then sings. It is not River Cara.

He is not 'trainable', he is trained. And he has worked very, very hard to get as far as he has. He's a little quiet; in a choir, his voice would be easily lost. But he doesn't miss a note.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 01:38 am (UTC)

"Beautiful!" applauds Isabella. "You're a little quiet, but that's okay, so am I. I can tell you like to sing. You know that if I take you to join the choir you'll need to live in or near the Eyrie - in a room with one of the other boys or possibly in the Gabriel School. You can send letters, of course, but it would be a few months without coming back here to see your parents."

pythbox
2013-02-11 01:42 am (UTC)

He nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 01:52 am (UTC)

"I can take you with me today if you can get ready. You're not afraid of heights, are you?"

pythbox
2013-02-11 01:53 am (UTC)

He shakes his head. "No, angela."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 01:55 am (UTC)

"Okay! Why don't you run along and pack and say your goodbyes?" Isabella says brightly. "It's a bit of a long flight, so you might want to pack a snack, too. The Eyrie is far from here."

pythbox
2013-02-11 01:57 am (UTC)

"I will," he says, and leaves the room.

A very short time later, he is at the front door with a small bag and his mother is pressing a wrapped sandwich into his hand.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 02:01 am (UTC)

"All set?" Isabella asks. "We can tie your bag to my belt loop so there's no risk of dropping it."

pythbox
2013-02-11 02:20 am (UTC)

"Yes, angela," says Nathaniel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 02:22 am (UTC)

She ties it. She shakes Judith's hand.

And she picks up Nathaniel, gently and carefully, and goes aloft.

"Let me know if you have any trouble breathing, or if you're cold," she says, "and I can fly lower or slower or both."

pythbox
2013-02-11 02:23 am (UTC)

"Yes, angela," he repeats obediently.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 02:25 am (UTC)

"I don't think I ever told you my name. It's Isabella," says Isabella conversationally, as they reach a reasonable cruising-with-mortal-passenger altitude.

pythbox
2013-02-11 02:29 am (UTC)

"I'm Nathaniel," he says hesitantly, as though he expects her to object.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 02:30 am (UTC)

"It's a lovely name. You know, the first leader of the host at Cedar Hills was named Nathaniel. Although he went by Nathan."

pythbox
2013-02-11 02:32 am (UTC)

"I didn't know that."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 02:36 am (UTC)

"I study history in my spare time, so I know these things," says Isabella. "What do you like to do besides sing? Practice for the choir is a few hours a day, but you'll have time to do other stuff too."

pythbox
2013-02-11 02:42 am (UTC)

"I play piano," he says. "And I have lessons. But Mother says I'm allowed to miss those while I'm not at home."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 02:42 am (UTC)

"Would you like to go on studying piano?"

pythbox
2013-02-11 02:43 am (UTC)

Softly, without excitement: "Yes, angela."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 02:48 am (UTC)

She's not sure she likes that voice. That is the voice of someone who is routinely obliged to "like" things.

For that matter, now she's not even sure if he likes singing. But she didn't have any other ideas for legitimate ways to get him out of the house and directly under Delilah's purview, and she would really need to check with Delilah first before pulling even a small-scale equivalent of the Archangel Gabriel's Exodus of the Jansai Women at the behest of the angel Obadiah, barging in and commanding the release of the abused member of the household on pain of Jovah's thunderbolts.

"Well, you could probably locate a teacher, if you looked, but you could easily find yourself too busy to have time to work on piano," she says. Carelessly. This is not an angel who cares whether Nathaniel plays the piano, certainly not.

pythbox
2013-02-11 02:55 am (UTC)

"Thank you," he says after a moment, as though he's not sure what the correct response is and is just falling back on a likely guess.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 02:58 am (UTC)

"You're welcome."

She can't ask this kid point-blank if his father hits him. She can't. There's no way he doesn't, but Nathaniel would assuredly lie to her.

So she'll just have to get him set up and then use the months before the Gloria to get Micaiah to talk to him, that's all. Micaiah will have a better shot if he's willing to try.

And failing that she can always just tell Delilah everything.

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:04 am (UTC)

Nathaniel is, predictably, very quiet for the rest of the flight.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:07 am (UTC)

Isabella finds cause to sing for the cessation of a rather excessive storm (they fly over, not through; it isn't one of those towering thunderheads so huge as to be impossible to detour around, the kind that felled Delilah early in her tenure) but otherwise she allows silence to reign as well.

She lands at the Eyrie when it's almost dusk. "Let's go introduce you to the choir director," she says, setting Nathaniel down and offering him her hand.
Edited 2013-02-11 03:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:08 am (UTC)

Hesitantly, he puts his hand in hers.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:13 am (UTC)

Baruch, the choir director, is just finishing up a practice - it's bedtime for the children, who range from seven to eleven years old. The choir is almost evenly divided between mortal and angel, and several of them look curiously at Nathaniel as they depart their practice room in clumps and pairs. "Hello, Baruch," says Isabella.

"Hello, Isabella. I didn't know you were back. Who's this?"

"I remembered hearing you say the last time I was visiting that you wanted to find more children for the choir from farther away than Velora but could never find the time to get away," Isabella says. "This is Nathaniel. He's got a very pretty voice and he's even been trained most of the way up for you. I found him in Semorrah and his mother thought putting him in the choir would be a lovely idea."

"Hello Nathaniel," says Baruch, squatting with some awkward re-angling of his great tan wings to make level eye contact. "I'm Baruch."

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:18 am (UTC)

"Hello, Baruch," Nathaniel says quietly. "It's very good to meet you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:21 am (UTC)

"Likewise. Isabella, you can leave him with me, I'll get him situated - Jehiel's been homesick and I think a roommate will help - what sort of music do you like to sing, Nathaniel...?"

Isabella notes the prospective roommate's name, and she pats Nathaniel on the head and tells him that he can ask anyone in the Eyrie to help him find her if he needs to, and she goes to grab something portable from the kitchens and take it back to her room, hoping to find Micaiah.

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:23 am (UTC)

Nathaniel is listing the songs he's best at when she leaves him with Baruch.

Micaiah, when she finds him, is in a music room practicing that same Gloria mass.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:27 am (UTC)

Isabella is, by the time she tries the music rooms and is informed by a passing mortal that Micaiah's in that one, halfway through her chicken salad wrap. She hesitates - you don't walk in on people in practice rooms! - but she opens the door anyway and closes it as soon as her wings have followed her through. She doesn't interrupt the singing - she joins in on Prisca's part at the next phrase.

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:29 am (UTC)

Micaiah beams at her and stumbles a little on the next line, but recovers.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:31 am (UTC)

There's only about half an hour left to the mass. Isabella finishes. She takes another bite. She says, "So, I'm back."

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:32 am (UTC)

"I noticed!" he says with a fond smile.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:33 am (UTC)

"Do you want to know the events of my trip?" she asks carefully.

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:37 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he says, more seriously.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:37 am (UTC)

Isabella is quiet, and then:

"Well. I got him out."

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:39 am (UTC)

Micaiah looks at the floor and swallows.

"Good," he murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:42 am (UTC)

"He's nine. He's adorable. He's got a lovely voice. And he's so, so quiet... I put him in the children's choir and he'll be here at least until the Gloria. Before then I need something to take to Delilah. I think if I asked him directly, he'd lie. He might not lie to you, if you got to know him."

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:43 am (UTC)

"...I'll think about it," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:46 am (UTC)

"Okay." She reaches out to rub his nearest shoulder soothingly. "The Gloria's months away."

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:53 am (UTC)

Micaiah sighs and leans into her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:55 am (UTC)

A wing goes round him. "You're getting smoother at the mass," she says. "At least if the last fifteen minutes were anything to go on. You like this one?"

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:59 am (UTC)

He snuggles into her wing and drops his head to rest it on her shoulder.

"I like this one," he affirms.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:01 am (UTC)

"Do you want to go through it again together?" she asks. "After I finish my dinner."

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:01 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle. "Sure!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:05 am (UTC)

She eats, with one hand, pets and snuggles him with the other hand and corresponding wing, and finally swallows the last of the wrap. "Do you think you know enough of it to sing through with only me to go by and not the recording?"

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:06 am (UTC)

"Let's find out," he says adventurously.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:10 am (UTC)

There's a set of tuning forks; Isabella has fine relative pitch but not enough of an approximation of perfect pitch to start on the right note out of nowhere. She finds the right one, strikes it, nods a beat, and starts.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:11 am (UTC)

Micaiah does know his part. More or less.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:14 am (UTC)

Isabella pulls an old standard from her childhood music lessons - gestures to correct flats or sharps or overlong rests. He hasn't learned the library of signs, but she's only drawing on a handful and he seems conscious enough of what he's doing that he should be able to pick them up.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:16 am (UTC)

And indeed, it doesn't take him long to figure her out. He is visibly grateful for her help.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:18 am (UTC)

She makes up her mind to teach him the rest explicitly when they've finished the mass.

And, after its runtime, they are done. "There's a bunch of those signs. You want to know the rest? They're really handy. Also, you can use them as rude gestures if you want to insult someone who's singing, although I don't recommend doing that to anyone sensitive or humorless. Or anyone who'd take you seriously. Serah sharped Moriah so much one time that poor Moriah wound up transposed, a full step down."
Edited 2013-02-11 07:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-11 01:34 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"Sure, I'll learn 'em."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 03:56 pm (UTC)

"This one means you're rushing the phrase - this one is for taking a breath at the wrong point -" She goes through the rest of the musical errors and the accompanying warning signs for instructors or friends to use, repeating as necessary.

pythbox
2013-02-11 03:58 pm (UTC)

Micaiah is very attentive.

Also cuddly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:00 pm (UTC)

There aren't that many; a book on them would be very slender. She finishes up within a few minutes and then rests her head on his shoulder.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:02 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

Snuggle-hugs.

Snuggle-hug-kisses.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:03 pm (UTC)

Snuggle-hug-kisses-wingwrapping. Life is good.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:05 pm (UTC)

If there is wingwrapping, there must be wing-cuddling. Mmm.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:07 pm (UTC)

It gets to be rather late. Eventually they migrate from the music room to Isabella's quarters and change for the night and go to bed, her left wing draped warmly over him.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:08 pm (UTC)

He snuggles up under her wing and kisses her goodnight.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:13 pm (UTC)

The next morning, the first thing Isabella encounters after her breakfast is a petitioner from a farm settlement to the south who needs rain.

She doesn't have to go - she still has several days of the assignment-free week - but no one else is jumping on it. She gets a number of miles and an exact compass heading and then she hunts up Micaiah to see if he wants to come along. He doesn't know the prayers, but she could hold him and he could listen.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:18 pm (UTC)

Micaiah would love to!

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:22 pm (UTC)

It's just an hour and a half away. Isabella flies them there, lands, gets details about what exactly is the matter with the rain and what they want instead, and then scoops up Micaiah and goes aloft.

She sings. The air around them changes. She climbs higher, and clouds form below them. She sings, and the clouds open up and they rain.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:24 pm (UTC)

He snuggles into her arms and listens.

And when she's done, he murmurs, "I love you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:26 pm (UTC)

She kisses his forehead.

She descends through the rain and lands in a patch of ground rocky enough to not yet be turning into mud. She accepts thanks and a quick lunch from the farmers, gives them a few days' worth of weather forecast, and then takes her leave, flies above the clouds again with Micaiah in her arms, and heads home.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:27 pm (UTC)

Micaiah naps on the way back, curled up safe and warm in her arms.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:28 pm (UTC)

Awwww.

He really is very cute.

If he doesn't wake before she lands she'll tuck him into bed.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:30 pm (UTC)

He doesn't.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:33 pm (UTC)

She tucks him in, kisses his temple, and goes to look for a blank spot on the harmonics sheet or two. Elisha, who coordinates all this, adds her to round out a quartet for some SATB classical selections the next evening and then pairs her with Serah for the following midafternoon.

Isabella goes back to her quarters, picks up one of her history books and a notebook in which to write musings, and reads, flopped on her stomach with one wing over Micaiah.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:35 pm (UTC)

He snuggles her wing in his sleep.

And then, eventually, he snuggles her wing while awake.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:36 pm (UTC)

Mmm, that's distracting. She doesn't mind. She closes her book and kisses him.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Mm," he says. "How long was I sleeping?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:42 pm (UTC)

"A couple hours."

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:43 pm (UTC)

He smiles at her.

"You're cuddly and nice," he declares.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I am so glad you think so," she says. "...Do you want to go listen to the children's choir practice today?"

There's some chance that Nathaniel will notice the family resemblance, but it's not all that likely, and she's getting the impression that Micaiah is only up for small steps, if anything, towards being able to meet his brother outright.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:46 pm (UTC)

Micaiah hesitates.

Then: "Okay."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:48 pm (UTC)

"The big choirs don't use the regular practice rooms, they have larger ones with a few extra seats for an audience. I think Baruch's time slot starts in -" She glances at the clock. "An hour and a bit."

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Well." He smiles tentatively. "What do you wanna do until then?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, I was reading about the reign of the Archangel Gabriel Aaron and the angelica Susannah, but now I'm all distracted," she teases comfortably.

pythbox
2013-02-11 04:51 pm (UTC)

"You could read and I could cuddle you," he suggests.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Sure." She kisses his temple and then opens up her book and her notes again.

These notes aren't secret; she doesn't orient them so he can't read them. They're commentaries on how the Archangel and angelica in question handled various issues during their tenure, whether Isabella thinks that was the best idea and why, and comparisons to other situations at other times.

pythbox
2013-02-11 05:00 pm (UTC)

Micaiah mainly cuddles her.

He reads over her shoulder a little, too, though.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 05:03 pm (UTC)

Isabella checks the clock periodically while progressing through the book.

Then she sits up, puts the stuff on the nightstand, and says, "Choir time."

pythbox
2013-02-11 05:06 pm (UTC)

Micaiah hugs her, for once more to calm himself than out of affection.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 05:07 pm (UTC)

She is perfectly willing to be a source of comforting hugs.

They head for the choir room, where the boys and girls are assembled, grouped by voice type, and warming up for the day. Isabella find herself and Micaiah seats behind some parents who are also watching.

pythbox
2013-02-11 05:13 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel is still quiet, but he's there and he's singing and he's good.

Micaiah huddles close to Isabella.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 05:14 pm (UTC)

Isabella makes no objection to the snuggling, although since Nathaniel will recognize her he's slightly more likely to pay attention to someone so obviously with her.

She listens. She likes children's choirs. Less polished but with a certain sweetness to their voices.

pythbox
2013-02-11 11:38 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel doesn't spend much time looking at the audience.

And then, between songs, he glances up and sees Isabella.

And sees Micaiah.

And goes pale with shock.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 11:40 pm (UTC)

Isabella smiles weakly. Nathaniel's probably been given a rundown of angel song signs by now; she gestures mind your pickup before he's at risk of missing his cue for the next song.

pythbox
2013-02-11 11:45 pm (UTC)

He drags his attention away from them entirely, and doesn't look back again until the singing is all done.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 11:46 pm (UTC)

Isabella flicks her attention between Micaiah and Nathaniel every few measures, trying to figure out how to mediate if there's an interaction apart from Nathaniel fleeing the room when practice concludes.

pythbox
2013-02-11 11:48 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel looks tense and frightened. Micaiah looks tense and sad.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 11:48 pm (UTC)

Isabella attempts comforting snuggles with the one within arm's reach.

pythbox
2013-02-11 11:50 pm (UTC)

He leans on her, sadly and tensely.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 11:51 pm (UTC)

"It'll be okay," she murmurs in his ear, almost inaudibly. (It approaches sacrilege to interrupt music, but she can be very, very soft.)

pythbox
2013-02-11 11:53 pm (UTC)

Micaiah shakes his head and hugs her.
Edited 2013-02-11 23:53 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-11 11:55 pm (UTC)

Baruch dismisses most of the sections early - including Nathaniel's - to work on a trouble spot with the others. Isabella gets up and tugs Micaiah along to wait outside the door while the children file out.

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:02 am (UTC)

Micaiah stands uncomfortably beside her.

When Nathaniel comes out, he darts a look at the pair of them and then turns in the opposite direction. But he dawdles as he walks away.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:03 am (UTC)

"Will you be annoyed with me if I try calling him?" Isabella murmurs in Micaiah's ear.

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:08 am (UTC)

"No," he murmurs back.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:09 am (UTC)

"Nathaniel?" tries Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:10 am (UTC)

He glances nervously over his shoulder.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:10 am (UTC)

"You don't have to, but - there's someone I'd like you to meet," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:13 am (UTC)

Nathaniel hesitates.

Then he comes back toward them.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:14 am (UTC)

"Nathaniel, this is Micaiah. Micaiah, this is Nathaniel."

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:29 am (UTC)

"You look like Mother," Nathaniel accuses.

Micaiah nods.

Nathaniel tries to say something else, but after a moment, he gives up and just shakes his head rapidly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:31 am (UTC)

"I talked to the oracle at Sinai," Isabella murmurs, "and she asked Jovah, and - you're brothers."

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:33 am (UTC)

"Father will be so angry," murmurs Nathaniel.

Micaiah flinches.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:37 am (UTC)

Isabella's wing goes around Micaiah and her hands clasp in front of her. "If he tries to do anything to Micaiah, as a result of being angry," she says serenely, "he will fail."

She knows the prayer for thunderbolts.

She's sung it. Not straight through, but if you do even the first stanza outside, high up, you can feel the air crackle a little...

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:39 am (UTC)

Nathaniel tracks the progress of the wing, and looks at Isabella's face, and looks at Micaiah looking upset and confused but not frightened.

He sidles closer.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:40 am (UTC)

"Why don't we all go to my room, and talk there?" invites Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:43 am (UTC)

"Yes, angela," whispers Nathaniel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:44 am (UTC)

She offers one hand to each brother.

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:45 am (UTC)

Micaiah takes it immediately.

Nathaniel, after a moment, does the same.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:47 am (UTC)

Once they are in her quarters and have a little more privately, she tells Nathaniel: "While it is - obviously - true that there is a children's choir and you are now in it, you have probably guessed by now that it's not the real reason I knocked on your door."

pythbox
2013-02-12 12:48 am (UTC)

"Father will be angry with you, angela," breathes Nathaniel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 12:51 am (UTC)

"It doesn't matter if he's angry with me," says Isabella. "He doesn't frighten me."

(This is almost entirely true, and she considers the simplification forgivable. It's possible that Canaan is such a clever arguer or - unbeknownst to Isabella despite her immersion in Samarian events - such an influential figure, that he could sway authority figures against her or make her life difficult. But in the way that he scares Nathaniel, she is not afraid at all. She is stronger than any man without wings on his back. She can funnel the power of Jovah. She is a divine being and she does not need to fear some mortal who terrorizes children.)
Edited 2013-02-12 01:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-12 01:03 am (UTC)

Nathaniel looks at Micaiah.

"I thought he killed you," he whispers.

Micaiah smiles wryly. "Nope," he says. "I ran away."

Nathaniel's eyes widen.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 01:06 am (UTC)

"He found the Edori, and they took care of him, and then he came here," Isabella says, "and found me. And he told me enough that I wondered if someone like you might exist - and so I found you."

pythbox
2013-02-12 01:38 am (UTC)

Nathaniel looks worried.

"But what if Father finds out?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 01:43 am (UTC)

"About Micaiah?" Isabella asks. "Well, if he comes up here looking for him, he'll have a lot of angels all around who know that Micaiah belongs here and he doesn't."

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:13 am (UTC)

Nathaniel continues to look worried.

"I don't belong here," he says softly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 02:14 am (UTC)

"You do until the Gloria. You're with the choir," says Isabella. "Would you like to stay here longer than that?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:21 am (UTC)

He stares at her, as though looking for the catch.

"It's really nice here," says Micaiah. "And Isabella's the nicest part. She'll keep you safe."

Nathaniel looks doubtful.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 02:33 am (UTC)

"The choir disbands after the Gloria and only operates six months of the year, to prepare for it, with new auditions every time. But after the Gloria, there are places you could go - places where no one will mind if I want to put one little boy there and say to bill the Eyrie for his keep," Isabella says. "There's the Gabriel school. I have friends who might let you stay with them. I could ask Alleluia or Peninnah to take you on as an acolyte, once you're a little older. The only problem," she says, "is that your parents currently expect to have you back after the Gloria. If you don't want to go back to them, then someone who can tell them no has to have a reason to do that. And I can't do that by myself. I have to answer to Delilah, who leads the host, who's in charge of Bethel. But you could stay here or somewhere just as nice, for as long as you needed, if you would explain to Delilah with me why."

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:35 am (UTC)

"I'm afraid," Nathaniel whispers.

Micaiah looks torn.

Then he says, "I could come along. And—tell her what he's like."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 02:36 am (UTC)

"That would help," Isabella agrees quietly.

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:38 am (UTC)

"I'm not supposed to make trouble," Nathaniel says quietly. "If I don't make trouble then everything's fine."

"Yeah," says Micaiah, "but is it?"

Slowly, Nathaniel shakes his head.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 02:41 am (UTC)

Isabella is so tempted to fly back to Semorrah and call a thunderbolt down anyway.

(No. There are servants there. They might not even know. That music room was soundproofed. Nathaniel still has the full use of all his limbs. And Judith leapt at the chance to send her son away and pressed a sandwich into his hand without so much as asking for Isabella's name.)
Edited 2013-02-12 02:42 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:45 am (UTC)

"Are you sure she can keep me safe?" Nathaniel asks Micaiah.

"Surest I've ever been," he says readily.

Nathaniel nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 02:46 am (UTC)

"I know the prayer for thunderbolts," says Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:48 am (UTC)

Nathaniel looks shocked.

Micaiah grins.

Nathaniel's look of shock turns to one of wistfulness.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 02:52 am (UTC)

"We don't throw those around when we don't need to," she says. "But I do know how."

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:55 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Nathaniel, apparently deciding this is sufficient protection.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 02:57 am (UTC)

"Do you want to see if Delilah is available now," Isabella says, "or would you rather wait a day or two?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 02:58 am (UTC)

Nathaniel wavers.

"I say now," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 02:59 am (UTC)

"I'll go see if she has time now," suggests Isabella, "and leave you two to get to know each other a bit?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 04:59 pm (UTC)

The boys look at each other warily.

Nathaniel nods first.

Then Micaiah does too.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 05:01 pm (UTC)

Isabella pecks Micaiah on the temple as she withdraws, and leaves them be while she strides through the halls in search of Delilah.

Delilah is busy, but Noah, who is not, says that she'll be available in another ten minutes. Isabella thanks the former angelico and heads back to fetch Micaiah and Nathaniel and see how they're doing.

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:08 pm (UTC)

They're sitting side by side on the edge of her bed; Micaiah has his shirt off to show Nathaniel some of his scars.

Nathaniel does not seem very surprised.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 05:10 pm (UTC)

Isabella's seen Micaiah with his shirt off before and the sight isn't exactly new to her either, but she's never drawn her attention particularly to the scars - and she's been making a background assumption that scars are probably something Edori in general accumulate through harsh living conditions and that Micaiah in particular could have added to by pickpocketing violent people. But no. Of course at least some of them are from the sort of source that will leave Nathaniel utterly unsurprised.

"Delilah will be able to see us in a few minutes," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Micaiah. He puts his shirt back on.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 05:17 pm (UTC)

Isabella leads them at a sedate pace to the offices where Delilah is - she's catching up with one of her daughters, who'd been to Cedar Hills for a month. Once the angel Bethany sweeps grandly away, her black-edged white feathers spread like sails behind her and looking identical to her mother's, the trio can go in.

"Hi, Isabella, Micaiah - who's this?" Delilah asks.

"This is Nathaniel. It turns out," Isabella says carefully, "that he's Micaiah's brother."

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:18 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel looks nervous. But then, Nathaniel frequently does.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 05:22 pm (UTC)

"You know Micaiah was adopted by the Manderras, but I don't think he told you why. You can guess from Nathaniel's age that their parents were in fact still alive at the time; he's not the orphaned angelica Rachel -"

"Isabella, the historical references aren't actually helpful."

"Sorry. But, Micaiah ran away. And he had reasons. And it occurred to me just the other day that he might have siblings - and I found that he did. I've put Nathaniel in Baruch's children's choir for now but that will only hold until the Gloria, and it doesn't give me an excuse to bar visitation if they take it into their heads to visit."

Delilah glances gravely between Micaiah and Nathaniel, clearly expecting elaboration.

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Our father," Micaiah says quietly, clearly having trouble with the phrase, "likes to hurt his kids. He used to beat me, and then he used to burn me."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 05:35 pm (UTC)

Isabella reaches for his hand and squeezes firmly. (Not too firmly. She doesn't want to break anything. Just wants to be warm and solid and present for him.)

"And he wasn't... reformed by the disappearance of his firstborn, or by time," Delilah asks, looking at Nathaniel.

"Nathaniel grew up thinking that his father had killed Micaiah," Isabella puts in. "That seemed plausible to him."

"Nathaniel?" Delilah says.

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:41 pm (UTC)

"He told me I used to have a brother who was very, very bad," Nathaniel whispers. "But he never said what happened to him. Just that he got punished a lot, and I should be glad I'm so good because my brother had it worse."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 05:46 pm (UTC)

Delilah regards Nathaniel silently for a few moments, then returns her attention to Isabella.

"Where are you going to put him?" she asks.

"There's options. If nothing else, the Gabriel School in Velora, maybe one of the oracles when he's older, but there's only one of him and I think there will be room somewhere in the Eyrie for one little boy if I look," says Isabella gratefully. "What are you going to do?"

"Well," says Delilah. "You can tell your father what this man looks like and have him barred from entry; if he has legitimate petitions I can send someone unrelated to this situation to meet him in Velora and hear them, but he won't be in my Eyrie. If he escalates - then we can also escalate. What about your mother?" she asks, addressing the boys. "Is she also at fault? Is she safe herself?"

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:48 pm (UTC)

Micaiah shrugs.

Nathaniel hesitates, then says, "Mother was very glad to send me to join the choir."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 05:52 pm (UTC)

"She was," confirms Isabella. "I didn't have to talk her into it at all. She didn't even ask for my name. She packed him a sandwich and shooed him away."

"That's only half an answer to the question I was asking. Does she, too, need protection? If she does, we can whisk her away instead of checking with Alleya a couple of times a year to see if a new child has been dedicated as the son or daughter of Canaan."

pythbox
2013-02-12 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Micaiah.

Nathaniel looks at him for a moment, and then shakes his head: he doesn't know either.

"I never saw him do anything to her, anyway," says Micaiah. Nathaniel nods, but looks troubled.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 05:59 pm (UTC)

Delilah considers this. Ultimately, she says, "In the event that they come here to visit or attempt to retrieve Nathaniel, someone can take her aside and inquire then. Failing that, Isabella, I am assigning you to check with Alleya as frequently as your conscience requires, is that understood?"

"Yes, Delilah," says Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

Micaiah and Nathaniel exchange a look of relief.

Then, spontaneously, Nathaniel hugs him.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Now," says Delilah, making a shooing motion, "I believe you have some long-term plans for Nathaniel to hammer out, and procrastinating until the Gloria will never do. Go on now."

"Yes, Delilah," repeats Isabella, smiling and getting up to usher the hugging boys out of the room.

pythbox
2013-02-12 08:23 pm (UTC)

Out they go.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Are you getting along with your roommate?" Isabella asks Nathaniel as they head through the Eyrie halls. "If so there's no reason to rearrange things just yet, although of course I'll start asking around about arrangements for after."

pythbox
2013-02-12 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes, angela," he murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 08:33 pm (UTC)

Isabella does not know what to do with that soft, compliant voice. She can imagine him saying "yes, angela" if she announced she was going to hurl him off the top of the mountain. "If you want to move away from where you are sooner than the Gloria, you can talk to me, or ask Micaiah to talk to me, or ask Baruch," she says. "You aren't stuck there. It's not the only place you can go, not even within the Eyrie."

pythbox
2013-02-12 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he says, again with that not-sure-what-to-do-with-this pause.
Edited 2013-02-12 20:35 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 08:36 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Isabella. "But you don't really need to thank me. Helping people is what angels are for."

pythbox
2013-02-12 08:43 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel considers this for a moment.

Then he says, softly but with a trace of a smile, "Thank you anyway."

Micaiah laughs and gives him a friendly one-armed hug around the shoulders.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 08:45 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs too. "You're welcome anyway," she returns. "I'm so glad I was able to do something for you."

pythbox
2013-02-12 09:02 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel smiles a tiny bit more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 09:20 pm (UTC)

They find Nathaniel's room. Jehiel, his roommate, is another mortal boy, currently lounging in the bed on his side of the room and peering at sheet music with the door open. "Hi, Nathaniel," he says, glancing up. "...and angela. And... person."

pythbox
2013-02-12 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Hi," laughs Micaiah.

"Hi," murmurs Nathaniel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 09:23 pm (UTC)

"See you later, Nathaniel," says Isabella, patting him on the head.

And she and Micaiah return to her quarters.

"He's safe," she says, satisfied.

pythbox
2013-02-12 09:24 pm (UTC)

Micaiah spontaneously hugs her very hard.

"I love you," he says into her shoulder.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 09:31 pm (UTC)

She hugs him back tightly. He keeps saying that. The colors in her Kiss, calmed with reduced urgency but no less present, say true love. But she's mapped her mind - her mother likes to say that instead of putting on a facade of piety and goodness on the outside, she reached into her soul and built it so deeply in herself that it is simply real - and she doesn't have the reply there. Not yet.

She does have hugs. She has an ample supply of hugs.

pythbox
2013-02-12 09:41 pm (UTC)

"You're the best person I've ever met," he says, pressing his face into her shoulder.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I try to be good," she murmurs against his hair.

pythbox
2013-02-12 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Well, you're doing a really good job."

Snuggle.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Isabella murmurs.

And: "I'm really glad I met you."

Because she is. It's the first tangible sign that anything she's done short of typical prayers for intercession are reaching Jovah's attention. It enabled her to remove a child from a toxic home. If he's not the best kisser in his tribe she'd like to know what numb-lipped person was judging. She is really glad she met him.
Edited 2013-02-12 21:57 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Me too," he says contentedly, snuggling her some more.

for the world slows and the stars falter

jovahs_heiress

Isabella sings harmonics - including with Micaiah, once he's learned the mass to performance quality; there's a forty-five minute section in the middle that's perfect for extracting and presenting to the wee hours of the morning at the Eyrie.

She flies on intercessions, and generally brings him along, for rain, to halt a blizzard, to calm a storm, and once she finds a plague flag and puts Micaiah down far away from the settlement while she quizzes the healthier community members about their symptoms. Angels rarely catch the plague; she feels safe enough picking Micaiah up again so he can listen to her sing through the verse designated for each complaint (this for fever, that for cough, the other for the rash) and watch the pills fall to earth. The flag comes down and they continue home.

She keeps half an eye on Nathaniel, and quietly informs Baruch of the situation as well so he'll be mindful of the boy's potential sensitivities.

She falls into an assistant role with Delilah - nothing so formal as the situation she had with Linus, because Isabella would be living at the Eyrie either way, but Delilah sends her to greet visitors and has her take notes at meetings and occasionally even asks her opinion on questions about this or that.

And one morning, Isabella opens her door to leave her quarters and sing a pre-dawn duet with Serah - and the hallway is not there.

"Micaiah," she murmurs.

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:22 pm (UTC)

Micaiah peers around her wing.

"...That's new," he says. "I wonder what happened? Let's go find out!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 10:23 pm (UTC)

"There is supposed to be a hallway here," says Isabella, bewildered. "This looks like a bar. This isn't even the Eyrie."

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't look like it," he agrees cheerfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 10:33 pm (UTC)

Well. This is the only way out of her quarters; her windows are little slits of skylight, she's not at the edge of the mountain in one of the most desirable rooms with a nice view. If this door is determined to lead to a bar...

She steps, slowly, as though afraid to put weight on the floor, but she goes in.

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:37 pm (UTC)

Micaiah follows, without any of her hesitation.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 10:41 pm (UTC)

The bar is full of a multitude of people. Isabella is the only angel there, and most everyone is dressed strangely; some people are shaped strangely. Of the people with visible forearms, no one appears to have been dedicated. The bar is unstaffed, but someone, too far to make out the words, orders a drink - and it appears.

"What kind of place is this?" murmurs Isabella.

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says, looking around them with a grin, "but I like it."

truthwright
2013-02-12 10:51 pm (UTC)

The person who ordered the drink turns around. There's a brilliantly coloured snake coiled around his shoulders.

He looks an awful lot like Micaiah.

And when he spots them, he grins and waves.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Sweet Jovah singing, it's - did you have a twin - he's not dedicated, Jovah wouldn't have known -" Isabella asks, reaching for Micaiah's hand to comfort her when in the past this gesture has more been for the transfer of comfort in the other direction.

pythbox
2013-02-12 10:56 pm (UTC)

He squeezes her hand, then kisses it.

"No!" he says. "Not that I ever heard."

And the stranger looks... Micaiah isn't sure what he's seeing, exactly. He just seems different in some subtle, indefinable way. Maybe it's the strange clothes. Or the snake. It could be the snake.

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:00 pm (UTC)

Kas makes his way across the room to them; Petaal holds his strawberry milkshake coiled in the end of her tail.

"Hi!" he says, beaming at both of them. "You're new, aren't you? You must be new."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:02 pm (UTC)

"We've never been here before," Isabella says, looking between the snake holding the milkshake and the unstrange stranger's face with unbalanced tentativeness. "It's... not where my door is supposed to go. Where are we? Who are you? Why do you look like Micaiah?"

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:10 pm (UTC)

"You're at Milliways!" he says. "Lemme guess, your name's some version of Isabella? You can call me Kas. And there's somebody upstairs I bet you wanna meet."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:11 pm (UTC)

"...I'm Isabella. How did you know that?" demands Isabella. "What is going on?"

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:13 pm (UTC)

"It's a magic bar," says the snake. "It brings people from different worlds together. Our girlfriend's upstairs and she's another one of you, wanna meet her?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Jovah's bones, the snake talks!" shrieks Isabella.

After she processes what, exactly, the snake has said, she says, "...Another one of me?"

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:15 pm (UTC)

"That's how we know your name," Kas explains.

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:15 pm (UTC)

"So you're another one of me," Micaiah concludes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:17 pm (UTC)

Isabella rubs at one of her temples where a headache is being born, still eyeing the talking snake warily. "Why are there several of anyone?"

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Different worlds," Kas reiterates.

"If you're not coming to meet our Isabella, I'm going to get her," says Petaal.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I'll - meet her - but why would different worlds have copies of people on them with talking snakes, or - anything?" asks Isabella, stepping further into the bar to follow where they lead. "We were carried to Samaria from another world, but not in such a way that I would expect copies of our ancestors to produce copies of us over the years."

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Different kinds of 'world'," says Petaal, turning her head to watch back over Kas's shoulder as he sets off toward the stairs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Isabella tentatively.

Up the stairs she goes.

She hasn't let go of Micaiah's hand.

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:27 pm (UTC)

Micaiah walks close by her side.

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

Kas takes them all the way to the Belltower and pokes his head in.

"Sweetie, sweetie, I found more of us!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:31 pm (UTC)

"...Hello," says Isabella tentatively, taking in the wingless version of herself, with the owl, and the torn black outfit, and the familiar eyes.

dark_light
2013-02-12 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Hello! Wow, you've got wings, that's new, none of the others so far have wings, though if Stella hasn't wished to fly yet I'll eat my cloudpine," says the other her chattily. "I'm Isabella Amariah and this -" She indicates the owl, who waves a wing - "is Pathalan. You can call me Amariah for non-redundancy and him Path for short. What about you?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:33 pm (UTC)

"If you don't want to call me Isabella," says Isabella, "then... 'angela' will do. And this is Micaiah. And we don't have snakes or owls with us to introduce."

pythbox
2013-02-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

Micaiah waves.

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm Petaal," says Petaal, and drops the milkshake into Kas's hand and flows off his shoulder and down his arm and shifts into a very naked angel.

"Ooh, fun," she says, stretching out her wings and then wrapping one around Kas.

"Soft!" he remarks, leaning into her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:45 pm (UTC)

Isabella shrieks.

And, as an afterthought, shields her eyes with her wing.

dark_light
2013-02-12 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Petaal," says Amariah. "Not all the Bellas are me. Angela, if I give Petaal my clothes and I'm the only one sitting around naked, will that improve matters? I do look just like you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-12 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Why would anyone be naked?" exclaims Angela. "What just happened? She was a snake!"

truthwright
2013-02-12 11:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," Petaal says contritely, wrapping her wings around herself. (Her feathers are glossy black, like a crow's, except for a few here and there that are perfectly white. The pattern is not symmetrical.) "There, is that better?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 12:00 am (UTC)

"You're still not wearing anything! And - and how did you do that?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 12:03 am (UTC)

"You must not even have magic, wings aside," remarks Amariah. "Okay. Path and Petaal are called daemons. On our world, everyone has them. They're like our souls, but we keep them outside of our bodies. Children's daemons can turn into anything they like. Most settle down around puberty - Path can only be this kind of owl, now - but Petaal never did. She can be whatever she wants. Including a he. So she'll change shape sometimes, and sometimes does this in such a way as to suddenly be something that would normally wear clothes but not have any. Make sense?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 12:03 am (UTC)

"I... can follow what you're saying," allows Angela. "But I wouldn't say anything about this place makes sense."

pythbox
2013-02-13 12:05 am (UTC)

"I'm okay with you being naked," Micaiah says to Petaal.

truthwright
2013-02-13 12:08 am (UTC)

"That's sweet," giggles Petaal. She turns into a small dragon and perches on Kas's shoulder.

Kas gives Micaiah a grin.
Edited 2013-02-13 00:08 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 12:15 am (UTC)

Angela looks around for angel-compatible furniture. There is none, so she goes on standing. She peers at the guestbook, and opens it, and reads.

"This is the most bizarre thing to have ever happened in my life," she says, but she picks up the odd pen beside the book, figures out which end writes, and puts in her own page. "I don't understand how to put the pictures in."
Edited 2013-02-13 00:15 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-13 12:29 am (UTC)

"You ask Bar, for a portrait of you and one of Micaiah - she's good at pictures - and for a little glue to paste them in," says Amariah. "Oh - Bar is a person. You can talk to her and she'll answer with writing on napkins. Do you have money?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 12:30 am (UTC)

"I don't have cash. I have bracelets - they'd tell any merchant in Samaria to bill the Eyrie - but I don't see how... Bar... could do that."

truthwright
2013-02-13 12:34 am (UTC)

"I've seen her take credit cards," says Kas. "I bet she can handle credit bracelets."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 12:35 am (UTC)

"Okay then. Erm - Amariah - could you show me -"

dark_light
2013-02-13 12:36 am (UTC)

"Of course," says Amariah, and she gets up, and witch and angel Isabellas go down the stairs. They're back in minutes with little portraits and a borrowed stick of glue.

pythbox
2013-02-13 12:49 am (UTC)

Micaiah is sitting in Kas's lap cuddling Petaal, who has become a viscacha for the purpose.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 12:51 am (UTC)

Angela peers at this scene.

She turns to Amariah. "Your guestbook entry said -"

dark_light
2013-02-13 12:53 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's Path. That's most people, actually. Petaal's more..." Amariah shrugs. "Touchable. To alts of Kas, anyway. There should really be some general name for the class now there's at least four floating around; they don't have name consistency like we do... That doesn't mean you should touch her, though," Amariah adds hastily. "No one should without asking. It's... intimate." Her expression clearly indicates that this is an understatement.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 12:53 am (UTC)

"I don't understand," says Angela, still peering at the stack of Kas-and-Micaiah-and-daemon.

dark_light
2013-02-13 12:54 am (UTC)

"...Erm," says Amariah. "I know you put him in your significant other entry, but how long have you known Micaiah?"

pythbox
2013-02-13 12:56 am (UTC)

"About a week?" says Micaiah. "Maybe a little less."

dark_light
2013-02-13 12:57 am (UTC)

Amariah blinks.

"And how did the two of you get together exactly?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 12:59 am (UTC)

"Jovah chose us for each other," says Angela. She glances at Amariah's bare arm and explains: "The bits of crystal in our arms - they're our dedications to the god - they get people's attention when they've met their true loves - mine never looked like this before I met Micaiah. And to be sure, I checked with the oracle at Sinai, and she said that if I were ever named Archangel, he'd be my angelico."

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:02 am (UTC)

Micaiah beams and snuggles into Kas's lap.

truthwright
2013-02-13 01:03 am (UTC)

Kas laughs and hugs him and kisses his cheek.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:03 am (UTC)

"...What are you two doing?" Angela asks, genuinely confused.

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:06 am (UTC)

"...Okay, look, maybe your one is different, or something," says Amariah. "But based on what I know about the template doubled up over there, I was almost surprised to find them just cuddling and not making out or outright absconded into one of the bedrooms by the time we came back. Maybe your god is really good at finding true loves, and sure, he'll always come back, but I don't think you're looking at a life of monogamy with - what is an angelico?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:07 am (UTC)

"The husband of a female Archangel. Archangels rule Samaria," says Angela absently, digesting this information. "...Micaiah, is she right?"

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:11 am (UTC)

"...Well, I was gonna ask if it made you sad first," he says. "And then I might try not to. But I really like sex, I don't just wanna have it with one person for the rest of my life. That would make me pretty sad."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:13 am (UTC)

"Oh," murmurs Angela, blinking. "...Is that an Edori thing? I suppose I wouldn't necessarily know if Noah - or Rachel - or Susannah - had - lovers..."

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:14 am (UTC)

"It's kind of an Edori thing?"

truthwright
2013-02-13 01:14 am (UTC)

"It's an us thing, too, though," says Kas.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:15 am (UTC)

"I didn't know," murmurs Angela.

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:16 am (UTC)

"You're one of me. You can live with it," Amariah says encouragingly. "Stella does too. Shell Bell and her girlfriend aren't exclusive either."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:17 am (UTC)

"...Yes, that confused me, the 'girlfriend' thing, is that meant in the usual way even though...?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:18 am (UTC)

"What the hell kind of world are you from?" asks Amariah, shaking her head. "Yes. Girlfriend is meant in the usual way. She has special circumstances, you're not likely to wake up one morning and want to kiss the girl next door, but that's a thing."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:19 am (UTC)

"I'm from the kind of world in which I'm an endangered species," Angela says defensively. "Everything I know was presented with the expectation that I'm on board with the project of making more angels. Dalliances aren't uncommon - anything to make more little angels - I can get used to that, particularly if the other people he wants to dally with are other angel girls - but no, this is new, give me a minute."
Edited 2013-02-13 01:20 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:21 am (UTC)

Micaiah waits patiently.

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:22 am (UTC)

"I am suddenly and intensely curious about your childhood," says Amariah to her counterpart.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:29 am (UTC)

"Why, just because I've never heard of - people absconding to bedrooms with others of the same sex? All right," says Angela, sighing. She is tired of standing. She sits on the floor, extending her wings behind her; this will be uncomfortable in a while but by then her feet will be ready to hold her up again. "I was born in an angel hold. It's - rich, and comfortable, and there is always music, and the leader of the host there was also Archangel for the first fifteen years or so I lived and even now that the title has passed on to Linus at Monteverde it's still a place of political consequence for the province. Angels pray for weather, or sometimes for seeds or medicines, and Jovah grants our prayers, and I've been able to do intercessions alone or with help since I was thirteen. We are always concerned about making more angels, and there's never a guarantee that any given child will be one - even the one time in history Jovah allowed two angels to wed, this was only because they were not about to produce malformed lucifers; even the only safe pairing of angels ever to have occurred resulted in one mortal daughter along with her angel sisters. My parents tried for more children but Rinnah hasn't been able to get pregnant again since she bore a stillborn mortal brother when I was six."

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:30 am (UTC)

"A life of useful luxury," marvels Amariah. "Yeah. Okay. I could see turning out like you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:30 am (UTC)

"What about you? You're not an angel, you're a 'witch'."

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:31 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but there are lots of witches, and while not all our kids are witches, all our daughters are," says Amariah. "And - you kept referring to people as 'mortals'. Are you not mortal?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:32 am (UTC)

"At some point I suppose I'll have to cross the river into Jovah's keeping," says Angela solemnly. "It doesn't mean I'll live forever. It means I'm divine."

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:34 am (UTC)

"You've really never heard of people taking lovers of the same sex?" asks Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:36 am (UTC)

Angela thinks.

"I once heard of a pair of angel-seeker women around Monteverde who'd... cooperate? But these were angel-seekers and the objective obviously had to do with the attention they'd get from angel men."

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:38 am (UTC)

Micaiah shakes his head.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:39 am (UTC)

"What? How would I have heard of any of this without someone to tell me?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:40 am (UTC)

"It's okay," sighs Amariah. "You've heard it now. At least you're reacting like you really just never heard of it and not like it's inherently evil or against your religion or something, because that would be awkward. There are religions on my world that forbid it. Mine doesn't care," she adds with a grin.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:40 am (UTC)

"...So, your people don't worship Jovah, I gather."

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:41 am (UTC)

"Nah. A bunch of goddesses. They answer me when I pray, though - well, cast spells, but invoking their names - just like your god does," Amariah says.

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:43 am (UTC)

"Do you sing to them?" wonders Micaiah.

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:43 am (UTC)

"No. I recite poetry," answers Amariah. "You sing, Angela? I can't sing to speak of - can you?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:45 am (UTC)

"Of course I can. Angels can. I'm not Hagar - er - a certain historical angelica who had the finest woman's voice of all time - but I think I'm above average even among angels. Do you want to hear something?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:45 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I do."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:47 am (UTC)

"Micaiah, do you want to sing with me?" Angela asks. "The mass, or something else, whatever you like as long as I know it."

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:48 am (UTC)

"The mass," he decides. "The part we do for harmonics. I like it."

He scoops up Petaal, stands, and deposits her gently in his place in Kas's lap.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:49 am (UTC)

Angela nods twice and launches into the pickup to the section in question.

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:50 am (UTC)

Micaiah matches her.

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:51 am (UTC)

Amariah listens raptly, impressed.

truthwright
2013-02-13 01:52 am (UTC)

Kas and Petaal do likewise.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:53 am (UTC)

Finally they come to the amen that makes this section self-contained enough to be sung alone, and silence falls.

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:54 am (UTC)

Amariah claps. "You can absolutely sing!" she agrees. "Gorgeous, really gorgeous."

truthwright
2013-02-13 01:56 am (UTC)

"Seriously," says Kas. He dumps Petaal out of his lap (she flomps onto the floor happily enough) to give Micaiah a hug.

pythbox
2013-02-13 01:56 am (UTC)

Micaiah hugs back.

Then he looks to Angela.

"So... can I fuck him?" he asks hopefully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:57 am (UTC)

Angela is momentarily too taken aback by the strong language to even consider the question.

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:58 am (UTC)

"Do you need a notebook?" Amariah asks her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:58 am (UTC)

"...A notebook and fifteen minutes to think would be great."

dark_light
2013-02-13 01:59 am (UTC)

"Loan me a bracelet, I'll get a stack of them and we can keep this place stocked," says Amariah, and once she's gotten one of the credit bracelets, she goes, and comes back with a bunch of blank notebooks and pens and pencils. She hands one of each to the angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 01:59 am (UTC)

Angela scoots so that no one can readily see what she's writing, and props the book on her knees, and starts scribbling away to herself.
Edited 2013-02-13 02:00 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:01 am (UTC)

Micaiah returns to Kas's lap to cuddle up with him.

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:02 am (UTC)

Amariah goes and sits on that side of the room, although she doesn't attempt to stack herself on top of them. "I think it'll work out," she says comfortably to the two and a half people in the chair. "We're just thinky types."

truthwright
2013-02-13 02:05 am (UTC)

Petaal shifts ferret and climbs into Amariah's lap.

"Sometime I should be an angel and snuggle you," she says. "Their wings are cuddly like you wouldn't believe."
Edited 2013-02-13 02:05 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:06 am (UTC)

"Sure, sweetie," laughs Amariah, scritching ferret-Petaal. "That sounds lovely."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 02:07 am (UTC)

"How do the daemons figure into all this?" Angela asks, tapping the notebook with her pencil.

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:11 am (UTC)

"Well, that's not something you're going to have to worry about once you and Micaiah go home and nobody has them, but," Amariah shrugs, "there's different ways to do it. Usually people don't touch each other's daemons. It's more intense, more intimate, than sex. Even married couples sometimes never get that far. In which case the daemons snuggle with each other somewhere nearby to whatever extent their shapes allow. In this case, Petaal's touchier than most, and besides Micaiah doesn't have one of her to keep her occupied if they left her out - she'll be involved directly - but really she's not a separate person, if that's what has you concerned. ...Do I need to explain that more than two entire separate people can have sex, too...?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 02:11 am (UTC)

"I told you I'd heard about the cooperating angel-seekers," huffs Angela. She goes on writing.

truthwright
2013-02-13 02:12 am (UTC)

Petaal giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 02:14 am (UTC)

Angela's estimate of fifteen minutes is more or less correct. She tears out the page and crumples it. "Yeah," she sighs. "You can do what you like with Kas and Petaal, Micaiah."

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:14 am (UTC)

He goes over and hugs her.

"Thanks," he says happily. "I love you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 02:16 am (UTC)

She hugs back, arms accompanied by wings, and lets him go.

truthwright
2013-02-13 02:18 am (UTC)

"So will anybody mind if we take one of the bedrooms?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:19 am (UTC)

"Go for it," says Amariah with a negligent wave.

pythbox
2013-02-13 02:20 am (UTC)

"Thanks," beams Micaiah.

truthwright
2013-02-13 02:21 am (UTC)

Petaal rears up and bumps her nose against Amariah's cheek in a ferrety kiss, then follows Kas and Micaiah into the chosen bedroom.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 02:31 am (UTC)

"Now what?" asks Angela helplessly.

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:32 am (UTC)

"You hungry? Buy me lunch with your fancy credit bracelets," says Amariah, and she pulls the angel to her feet and leads her back downstairs. They sit at the bar and Amariah explains how it works, and Angela dutifully buys them both meals, although hers - given that it's not even dawn where she came from - is breakfast.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 02:34 am (UTC)

As they are finishing their food, someone walks in the door.

He pauses.

He looks around him in rapt fascination.

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:35 am (UTC)

Amariah notices him and recognizes the face, and narrows it down from a few possibilities based on the observant look. "Hi, Sherlock!" she says, friendly, before she notices that something is wrong, and leans back, narrowing her eyes. "Oh, you're not the one I was thinking of. What is wrong with your soul?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 02:40 am (UTC)

"Hello, not-the-Bella-I-was-thinking-of," he says pleasantly. "It was parasitized, if you must know. Gang of vampire assassins. Nasty business all round."

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:43 am (UTC)

"That sucks," says Amariah. "I don't actually go by Bella. It's Isabella, which is itself short for Isabella Amariah, and when there's others around my unique nickname of choice is the Amariah part instead. This one's also Isabella and she decided to go by Angela for antiredundancy purposes. Angela, this is an alt of Shell Bell's girlfriend, but not the one I met before. Sherlock, you've got a Bella in your world?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 02:43 am (UTC)

"...Hello, alt of Shell Bell's girlfriend," says Angela.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 02:45 am (UTC)

"I do, yes. I have been calling her Juliet but she may or may not choose to claim that as her distinguishing nickname."

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:47 am (UTC)

"If she lets you call her that I bet she will, unless there's something else obvious," shrugs Amariah. "Oh, I keep forgetting - don't touch the owl, the owl is off limits - people with internal souls do not, I understand, know this implicitly."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 02:48 am (UTC)

"Noted," says Sherlock. "A pleasure to meet you both."

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:51 am (UTC)

"Likewise! I've been here a few times, and me and Shell Bell, who is not here today, are the founding members of the Belltower, which is a place for alts of us and our friends to hang out, but this is Angela's first time and she's from a weird world that I don't fully get yet, so she's reeling a little," Amariah says chattily. "You looked surprised when you walked in - first timer?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 02:52 am (UTC)

"My world is weird? You have an external owl-shaped soul!" says Angela, but she's clearly teasing.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 02:54 am (UTC)

"I am indeed a first timer," he says. "And enjoying myself so far."
Edited 2013-02-13 02:54 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:56 am (UTC)

"You didn't bring your Tony with you. Do you have a Tony?" Amariah inquires. "The other two have them - they're both boys even though Shell Bell's Sherlock is a girl."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 02:57 am (UTC)

"I—did," he says. "I believe I have already mentioned the gang of vampire assassins."

dark_light
2013-02-13 02:58 am (UTC)

"Oh - oh dear," murmurs Amariah. "I'm sorry." Path hoots sympathetically.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:04 am (UTC)

"Thank you."

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:05 am (UTC)

"What about Jarvis?" she asks tentatively. "Only one of the others has one of those - but I met him, I went to their world briefly..."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:14 am (UTC)

"Also assassinated. At which point I killed everyone responsible, fucked off to California in search of a compelling reason not to set myself on fire, and found my dear Juliet, who does the trick pretty well. And now you know the story of my life, more or less."

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:19 am (UTC)

"What's Juliet's story? I'm a witch and I have an artifact that cryptically dispenses objective truth and I'm working on taking over the world with that and ritual magic. Angela's an angel and she's trying to be a good person so her god will appoint her Archangel. Stella, who's not here today either and I haven't met her but she signed the guest book, colonized Mars and is already calling herself Empress, and Shell Bell is well on her way and she's met Stella and Stella can give out her ultra-powerful sort of magic, so Shell Bell's probably done taking over her world by now too. And Stella has reportedly met a vampire - although not, I think, your kind - of us who is an empress also. It's a trend."
Edited 2013-02-13 03:19 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:25 am (UTC)

"Juliet's story is several thousand years old," he says, "but a brief sketch: my world is overrun with all sorts of nasty bitey creatures, of which vampires are perhaps the most numerous but by no means the only. A long time ago, some collection of magic-wielding people with bizarre priorities decided to dump a lovely package of superpowers onto a teenage girl and make her fight off the nasty bitey hordes for them, with the superpowers then passing on to yet another teenage girl when the first was inevitably killed in the line of duty. Juliet is the latest such person; they're called Slayers. I am currently acting as her bodyguard and martial arts instructor in the hope that she will live past twenty-six, which no other Slayer has ever done."

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:26 am (UTC)

Amariah blinks.

"...Do you want me to visit your place and sprinkle bayleaves on her and stuff? I can't make her invulnerable, but I can help."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:30 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says immediately. "Please."

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:33 am (UTC)

"If this is your first time here," Amariah says, "then you won't know - the place has a time-distortion effect and if everything goes normally you'll leave at the same time you came in. So there's no hurry, but if you haven't been here before you also don't know how routinely you find the door... Jarvis -" She pauses, assessing his reaction to the mention.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:34 am (UTC)

He doesn't react visibly, just waits for her to continue.

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:38 am (UTC)

"...Could open a door with perfect reliability, but everyone else is stuck with some amount of chance. My boyfriend finds this place every couple of months; I've never found it on my own yet. Shell Bell used to wait a year or more sometimes, between door-finding; her Sherlock gets better results and her Tony can sometimes get it on purpose but the other Tony couldn't and I don't remember about the other other Sherlock. We don't have stats on Angela or her boyfriend - he's an alt of mine - yet. And Stella didn't leave notes about her and her friends - Stella's boyfriend is also an alt of mine - but she did mention that she told Bar to give a Belltower key to the vampire us's daughter because she's here a lot and her mom isn't. My point is, I could wind up stuck in your world for a while, will I have a place to crash or should I see if Angela will buy me a hammock with her credit bracelets and hang it from my cloud-pine somewhere up in the sky?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:40 am (UTC)

"I am currently sleeping in a refitted crypt. There are probably more available. If you would prefer a hammock, by all means acquire one."

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:42 am (UTC)

"A crypt. Ah-huh. Am I liable to be shot down or something if I hammock in midair? I imagine your world doesn't have my sort of witches, or at least not exactly."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 03:43 am (UTC)

"At the risk of further mockery about my world and my educational background and so on," says Angela, "why would anyone live in a crypt, and what is a vampire?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:47 am (UTC)

"A vampire is a former human with no heartbeat who drinks blood," says Sherlock. "In my world they look like this."

He shifts to vampire face: nose and brow ridged in an artificial snarl, teeth long and sharp and dangerous, eyes a wolfish yellow.

"Except, of course," he reverts to his human face again, "when they don't. I live in a crypt because I catch fire when exposed to sunlight, so participating in normal human society is generally hazardous to my health, and the town of Sunnydale is oversupplied with graveyards so there are plenty of crypts to go around."
Edited 2013-02-13 03:49 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 03:51 am (UTC)

Angela startles when his face changes, although she recovers faster than she did when Petaal shifted shape. "That's..." She doesn't seem to know whether it would be rude to say whatever she had in mind. "I am learning a lot today," she says vaguely instead.

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:52 am (UTC)

"If there is some danger of my being observed and subsequently harassed there are spells for that, I just need to know if I should cast them," Amariah prompts.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:53 am (UTC)

"Yes, sorry," he says. "You might not have trouble in some places, but I would take the precautions if I were you. In Sunnydale there is always the chance someone will decide you'd make a nice midnight snack, floating in the sky or no."

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:55 am (UTC)

"Notice-me-nots, check. Remind me to get some tea tree oil from Bar before we leave," says Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 03:55 am (UTC)

"Will do," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 03:56 am (UTC)

"Are your worlds similar, or are you both just better at dealing with inter-world chaos than I am?" asks Angela weakly.

dark_light
2013-02-13 03:58 am (UTC)

"I'm from Earth, summer of 2013, and I live in the United States, Maine for the time being," Amariah volunteers to Sherlock. "We've got witches and humans and panserbjorne, in the sentient-critters department."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 04:01 am (UTC)

"Earth; winter of 2005; Sunnydale, California; and we have literally uncounted sentient species, in that no one has ever been able to accurately count them, but humans and vampires are probably the two largest populations. The existence of anything other than humans is not widely known."

dark_light
2013-02-13 04:03 am (UTC)

"Why's everyone else hiding?" asks Amariah, reaching up to scratch under her chin, then noticing this is ineffective and scratching under Path's beak instead. "And how old's Juliet?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 04:07 am (UTC)

"It's easier to eat people who don't know you exist. She's about seventeen, I think; I haven't looked it up."

dark_light
2013-02-13 04:10 am (UTC)

"Huh. I'm almost nineteen, so older but not by much; I was born in ninety-four. In a few decades I'll have a lovely patina of ageless witchiness though. Before you ask, I haven't figured out to make non-witches as immortal as we are," she adds regretfully. "I'm working on it, but the absolute truth device is limited to communicating through an array of thirty-six symbols with layers of meaning, and I can barely read it myself anyway, my boyfriend has to do most of it. It helps but I have legwork to do."
Edited 2013-02-13 04:10 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 04:12 am (UTC)

"I'm eighteen and I was born in. Well. Six hundred fifty-six," says Angela. "But that's counted from the founding of Samaria. Generations ago the years were counted from some other time that doesn't seem to be written down anywhere."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 04:16 am (UTC)

"Best of luck," he says to Amariah. "Do let us know when you've worked it out. If Juliet does not manage to make herself immortal somehow or other, I am going to be very upset when she dies."

dark_light
2013-02-13 04:19 am (UTC)

"Well, you can try me again when I've made more progress, or, talk to Stella or Shell Bell who's got a copy of her magic, or possibly Golden - we're not sure she'll go by Golden as she hasn't been by in person yet, but it seems likely - and they'll be able to take care of it. Golden's probably a last resort if there's enough hope you'll run into one of the others of us, though, since her way involves a species change and stuff. We all get along with each other and we'll be more than happy to help your Juliet with immortality," says Amariah encouragingly. "Or she might work it out herself, given enough magic to play with. In the meantime I can make her somewhat less vulnerable to physical harm."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 01:55 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

"A lovely bunch you Bellas are."

dark_light
2013-02-13 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Sherlocks seem to be friendly sorts as well," says Amariah pleasantly. She finishes her lunch. "I think I'll leave it up to Juliet whether you get a Belltower key, but d'you want to come see the place and read the guestbook?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Love to."

dark_light
2013-02-13 04:45 pm (UTC)

Two Isabellas and one Sherlock proceed up the stairs and into the Belltower. Amariah waves at the bedroom with the closed door. "Don't go in there. Our boyfriends are each other, and any time one of 'em meets another of 'em there's going to be kinky carryings-on. I mean, unless you want to participate in kinky carryings-on with our boyfriends, in which case you could inquire."

The guestbook contains profiles and a visit log of which (isa)bell(a)s encountered which other (isa)bell(a)s, and Stella's secondhand description of Golden, her empire, and her world standing in as a placeholder until Golden appears in person or authorizes her and Edward's daughter Elspeth to do it for her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 04:47 pm (UTC)

Angela sighs slightly at the mention of their boyfriends participating in kinky carryings-on, but she shakes it off and murmurs very softly about Jovah having a plan.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 04:49 pm (UTC)

"I won't interrupt them in the middle, anyway," he says. "That would just be rude."

The guestbook is fascinating. Sherlock reads it through.

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Are you anywhere near your Juliet on your end?" asks Amariah. "If you are you could just stick your head out the door and yell and we could do the bayleaves and stuff here and she could see the place and add a picture. Oh, Angela, you haven't added a picture yet -"

The walls are now decorated with more pictures than there are (isa)bell(a)s apart from Angela, since Amariah put up two, one of Forks and one of the cloudpine forest; Stella added an aerial view of Olympus and Shell Bell has at some point been here and encountered no one but did decide to show off her Coral Palace.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 05:00 pm (UTC)

"I think I have the hang of the bar. I'll go get a nice view of the Eyrie," says Angela, and out she goes.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately, no," he says. "The other side of the door for me is the inside of the aforementioned crypt; I was just stepping out to walk to her house. I assume the location is variable? Some other time it might decide to usurp the door to a janitor's closet or public bathroom?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:04 pm (UTC)

"On the way in, yes, it can be any door."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:08 pm (UTC)

"But the way out remains fixed until I take it. Convenient, that."

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:11 pm (UTC)

"It is, yeah. Some things can reportedly screw it up, but if all you do is come in, order some food, talk to people, and go home, you'll be fine."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:14 pm (UTC)

"I see."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 05:15 pm (UTC)

Angela returns with a lovely poster - matching in size and type the others in the Belltower - with an aerial view of the Eyrie, and hangs it up just to the left of the door. "There," she says. "That's where I live."

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Pretty," comments Amariah. "Carved into the mountain like that, too, neat."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Yes, it's lovely," Sherlock agrees.

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:29 pm (UTC)

"So you and Juliet," says Amariah. "Why do you call her Juliet? I did attend human school a little and now I'm wondering... Also, in case you were wondering, Shell Bell and her Sherlock are the cutest thing of all time."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, a while ago I threw a rock at her window and then recited the opening lines of the balcony scene because it seemed hilarious at the time. It hasn't stopped seeming hilarious yet, and she likes the name. The fact that one of her is dating one of me is, I admit, a fascinating piece of information."

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Until you showed up I thought Kas and his alts were the only repeats, since Golden's husband is unique and the other Sherlock I met besides you and Shell Bell's didn't have a Bell of any sort, but maybe Sherlocks are interdimensionally popular among Bells too," says Amariah. "So you like Juliet but you're not dating her? Yet?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:40 pm (UTC)

"That's about the size of it."

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't she know you like her? Why hasn't she jumped you yet? You're cute." Pause. "Is it the parasitized soul thing, is that freaking her out?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

"It may very well be," he says. "Vampires and Slayers are not exactly traditional allies; there was a certain amount of distrust when we first met. Distrust and crossbow bolts. And she certainly knows I like her, but she has not expressed any interest in return since I mentioned it."

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I'd sleep with you except - my problem isn't that your soul's got a parasite, it's that it's got you in the way of it, and Path'd be sitting in a corner with nothing to do, and unoccupied daemons do not pleasing encounters make."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Sweet Jovah singing," mutters Angela.

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Relax. If it's any consolation, Golden and her husband, totally monogamous," says Amariah to her counterpart reassuringly. "You can hang out on that end of the spectrum and I'll be over here hitting on cute boys trying to figure out what to do with my Path."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Would it work out any better if we threw your boyfriend in the mix?" he inquires.

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:50 pm (UTC)

"You know, it would," says Amariah brightly. "We can suggest it when they're done with Micaiah. ...Angela. Angela, Micaiah will be just like you left him, okay, this doesn't represent a fundamental personality change."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I believe you, I'm just - adjusting," says Angela. "It's very strange to be called Angela in this context. Back home it's a polite thing to call a female angel, like 'ma'am' for mortals. I feel like you're being very formal."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I look forward to hearing his answer," Sherlock says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-02-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I am not really finding it likely that he'll turn down the proposition," says Amariah. "While we wait, let's talk protection spells - I can conjure up many of the materials I'll need on the spot, but some of them I'll want to get from Bar before we leave, like the tea tree oil, and you know better than I do what sorts of threats Juliet's up against." And she starts listing protective blessings and enchantments and tattoos she can do.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

Angela half-listens, and also adds an entry to the guestbook about who she has met today and what has been discussed.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 06:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock happily offers opinions and information. Physical protections are the highest priority, but that doesn't mean other protections should be neglected, as long as he thinks they're reasonably likely to transfer well.

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:14 pm (UTC)

Amariah writes down notes. "She might veto the tattoos," she says. "Kas has a bayleaf, but he doesn't mind being marked up and he definitely doesn't mind it hurting. I cursed him with cluster headaches a while ago as a present and he complains when I suppress them because I'm worried Petaal's going to crash her cloudpine if one strikes at the wrong moment."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Is that something I'll have to find a way to live with too?" Angela asks. "Or - no. Oh, Jovah's good, he took care of it already." She smiles.

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:16 pm (UTC)

"...Your god handled your boyfriend being a masochist for you already?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 06:17 pm (UTC)

Angela taps the Kiss in her arm. "I mentioned that Jovah chose us for each other. There's the colors, but many people's Kisses also hurt when they're active. Mine doesn't. Micaiah's does, especially when I sing." Pause. "He makes the most curious faces sometimes..."

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Convenient!" says Amariah approvingly. "And yeah, I absolutely hear you about the faces."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 06:19 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs. "I really must meet this person," he remarks. "Both of him."

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:20 pm (UTC)

"There's a bunch running around. There's ours, there's Stella's, there's the one Stella put on an asteroid and Shell Bell shot so she could take his stuff."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes, he was in the guestbook. I don't remember Shell Bell mentioning anything about shooting him, however."

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:24 pm (UTC)

"She didn't write it down, but she told me about it. When she was resource-collecting, she found that one, he recognized her as one of Stella, and he said she could have his guns if she shot him with one of them. And she was like, '...okaaaaay...' and she shot him and took his stuff." Amariah shrugs. "He was all right, it turned out, Kas is always very excited to see him when they run into each other, but don't assume you can collect arbitrary injuries here - he shows up in his dreams when he's asleep, not through doors."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I am already pretty durable, except when it comes to fire, sunlight, and a few other things. Perks of vampirism."

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I won't mutter any ignition spells, then," says Amariah pleasantly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 06:29 pm (UTC)

"You're too kind," he says, laughing.

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:30 pm (UTC)

"The sunlight thing is sad. I suppose you can't even feel moonlight and starlight to compensate," she says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 06:32 pm (UTC)

"...Can you?" Angela asks. "I didn't think mort- I thought only angels could. Flying at night is -"

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh it's the best thing," enthuses Amariah. "Like silk ribbons or snow or - you get it too? I thought it was only witches, Petaal can get it if she shifts right but -"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Yes I feel it, it's exactly indescribable but that's what I'd say if I had to explain it too, silk ribbons or snow - there's nothing as soothing as going aloft in the dark and just having it pour over my wings -"

And then both Isabellas are hugging each other, chattering about celestial light and night-flying.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 06:36 pm (UTC)

Awwwww.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 06:37 pm (UTC)

"How fast does your branch go, anyway?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:39 pm (UTC)

"If I really open it up? Maybe a hundred and ten miles an hour overland in good weather," says Amariah. "Why, you wanna race?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I would," laughs Angela, "but you're more than twice as fast as me! It wouldn't be interesting. Oh well."

truthwright
2013-02-13 06:43 pm (UTC)

The closed bedroom door opens, and out comes Kas with Petaal perched on his shoulder as an ermine.

"Hi, guys!"

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Amariah. "You all worn out? This is yet a third Sherlock we found downstairs. His soul is not only interior but also parasitized by a demonic creature."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 06:46 pm (UTC)

Angela peers around Kas to see what's going on with Micaiah.
Edited 2013-02-13 18:48 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-13 06:48 pm (UTC)

A nap is going on.

truthwright
2013-02-13 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Kas.

"He's cute," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:52 pm (UTC)

"That's what I said," says Amariah. "But golly, Path would just be bored..."

truthwright
2013-02-13 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I could keep him company," Petaal offers slyly.

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:54 pm (UTC)

"What a clever idea," says Amariah. "Oh, unrelated, I'm also going to pop into Sherlock's world, he's got a Bella - we're calling her Juliet until she picks something - and she needs a nice array of protective spells - but that can wait."

truthwright
2013-02-13 06:55 pm (UTC)

Kas beams.

To Sherlock: "Wanna go have sex with us?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I would be delighted."

dark_light
2013-02-13 06:57 pm (UTC)

And into the bedroom that does not contain a Micaiah they go.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 06:58 pm (UTC)

Isabella takes the notebook she was using earlier, and flops next to her napping Micaiah and puts her wing over him, and processes with very quiet penstrokes.

pythbox
2013-02-13 06:59 pm (UTC)

Micaiah snuggles her sleepily, but doesn't wake up.

dark_light
2013-02-13 07:07 pm (UTC)

Path still doesn't go on long trips away from his Isabella, but he can fly again and he's willing to stop touching her occasionally. He flutters out of the way so that Isabella can sidle up to Sherlock without interference, and he hoots at Petaal.

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:09 pm (UTC)

Petaal shifts angel and holds out her arms.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 07:13 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Sherlock is giving Kas a speculative look.

"How do you feel about teeth?" he inquires.

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Pretty fucking good!"

dark_light
2013-02-13 07:16 pm (UTC)

Path flies contentedly towards Petaal's outstretched hands.

"Ooh," says Amariah, tilting her head. "Interesting. You might have to bite a little harder than you'd expect if you're aiming for blood, since he's got a bayleaf." She sits over by Petaal and Path, and reaches speculatively for an angel wing.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I am not opposed to putting in the effort," he says.

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:18 pm (UTC)

Petaal extends her wings and curves one around Amariah as she cuddles Path.

Kas steps up to Sherlock and leans down to kiss him.

dark_light
2013-02-13 07:21 pm (UTC)

Amariah supervises. "This really is very snuggly," she remarks in an undertone to Petaal.

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I know," sighs Petaal. "I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 07:24 pm (UTC)

Halfway through the kiss, Sherlock shows fang.

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Aren't you fun," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-13 07:26 pm (UTC)

Amariah snuggles up to her enclosing wing but makes sure she retains a view. Kas is presumably about to make some really interesting faces.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I like to think so," he says, and bites the side of Kas's neck.

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:29 pm (UTC)

Amariah was so right about those faces.

dark_light
2013-02-13 07:29 pm (UTC)

Hot.

Amariah is still wearing clothes. Why is she still wearing clothes? She stops.

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:31 pm (UTC)

All the better for Petaal to give her wing-snuggles!

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 07:33 pm (UTC)

Amariah was also right about it taking more effort than he's used to.

But the reward is more than worth it.

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:35 pm (UTC)

And the faces Kas makes when Sherlock finally gets his teeth in are even more interesting.

dark_light
2013-02-13 07:38 pm (UTC)

Nnnnnf.

(Amariah makes sure she remembers the words to a first-aid spell particularly aimed at blood loss. She doesn't expect him to go dangerously overboard, but Kas and Petaal having energy could be important later.)

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:51 pm (UTC)

"That's enough, honey," Kas murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 07:53 pm (UTC)

He defangs and licks at the shallow bite mark on Kas's neck, humming contentedly.

dark_light
2013-02-13 07:54 pm (UTC)

"First aid magic, yes or no?"

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure," he says lazily.

dark_light
2013-02-13 07:57 pm (UTC)

The spell's not in English. Isabella tosses it off like a nursery rhyme.

Except for a sudden tone shift at the last syllable when her expression goes darker, Path's feathers fluff out, and she reaches out to take Path back from Petaal.

"Sorry," she mutters. "Sorry."

truthwright
2013-02-13 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Aw, sweetie," says Kas.

Petaal scoots closer and hugs Isabella with arms and wings.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 08:00 pm (UTC)

"...What is it?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Last time I had to use that spell..." Isabella takes a deep breath, inhaling through Path's feathers. "Was on Path. Less friendly circumstances."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Sorry to hear it," Sherlock says sincerely.

dark_light
2013-02-13 08:04 pm (UTC)

"I'll be fine in a minute. Just - still recovering. It was..." She trails off and just cradles her daemon, huddled under Petaal's wing. "Kas can tell the story. It's not a secret. The bastard's dead."

truthwright
2013-02-13 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Most people's daemons can barely go across the room from them, but witches are different," says Kas. "She sent Path on an errand once and some complete sack of shit caught him on the way. It's already the worst thing in the world when somebody touches your daemon that you don't want to, but the asshole tortured him too."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I see," he murmurs.

dark_light
2013-02-13 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Witches aren't fundamentally different. We just make separation conventional instead of exceptional, and have access to the Waste," murmurs Isabella. "It isn't easier for us as a group. Some people have to try several times to get across the Waste. Kas was able to send Petaal after Path even though they weren't separated before. But Path was hours away."

truthwright
2013-02-13 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I had to," says Petaal, hugging Isabella some more and leaning down to give Path a kiss. "I just had to, that's all."

dark_light
2013-02-13 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Isabella, looking up at Petaal gratefully. She seems mostly recovered from her flashback. "If you hadn't we'd be dead."

truthwright
2013-02-13 08:41 pm (UTC)

Petaal kisses Isabella, too, for good measure.
Edited 2013-02-13 20:41 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-13 08:47 pm (UTC)

Mmm kisses.

"I'm okay again," Isabella announces. "They're getting fewer and farther between and briefer every time, I just haven't dug out all the landmines in my head yet."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, I am glad you're all right," says Sherlock.

truthwright
2013-02-13 08:54 pm (UTC)

Impulsively, Kas hugs him.

dark_light
2013-02-13 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad I'm all right too." She kisses Path's head and hands him back to Petaal.

truthwright
2013-02-13 08:57 pm (UTC)

Petaal snuggles him lovingly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 08:59 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins and hugs Kas back, then kisses him again. Why are they still wearing all these clothes? Amariah had the right idea about those.

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:00 pm (UTC)

Mmm. Disrobing boys. In a context that makes this relevant instead of akin to cereal-eating. Amariah approves.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:01 pm (UTC)

There is a certain element of performance to it, too. Kas happens to think it's more fun that way.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:01 pm (UTC)

Sherlock does not disagree.

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:02 pm (UTC)

Hmm. Amariah wonders if it would interfere with this performance if she helped.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:03 pm (UTC)

Not at all.

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:04 pm (UTC)

Amariah can be so helpful!

(She can also scrape her fingernails across the trace that's left of that bite mark.)
Edited 2013-02-13 21:04 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:05 pm (UTC)

...That is pretty fucking helpful, yeah.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:05 pm (UTC)

"He does make such delightful faces, doesn't he?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I know. You should see him when a cluster headache grabs him. I can't trigger those, sadly, they appear at random, flaw in the curse design."

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:08 pm (UTC)

...As though on cue, Kas bites his lip.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Very sure, but coincidences happen." She kisses Kas.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:11 pm (UTC)

He kisses back.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:13 pm (UTC)

Far less coincidental goings-on ensue.

Isabella takes Path back again after the excitement dies down, but she's not in any hurry to get dressed again.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:22 pm (UTC)

And Sherlock is pretty happy curled up next to Kas, taking unnecessary breaths to enjoy the fading smell of his blood.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:24 pm (UTC)

A still-angel-shaped Petaal flops onto the bed, behind Kas and Sherlock, and very intentionally lets her wing settle over both of them.

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:26 pm (UTC)

Amariah notes this - she doesn't think it's a matter of course, even for a daemon as gregarious as Petaal - but it hardly surprises her.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:29 pm (UTC)

He holds perfectly still for a moment.

Then, smiling softly, he strokes Petaal's feathers.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:30 pm (UTC)

She hums and snuggles up closer.

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:31 pm (UTC)

Isabella snuggles under the other wing. They're big; she's not in anybody's way over here.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:37 pm (UTC)

Petaal scoots over to give Isabella a kiss, then climbs right on top of Kas to do the same with Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:38 pm (UTC)

Mmmm afterglowy kisses.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:44 pm (UTC)

She kisses Kas, too, for the pure delighted hell of it.

Then she leans close to Sherlock and murmurs, "So where's those teeth my sweetie liked so much?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:45 pm (UTC)

...He grins.

"Oh, would you like them too?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:46 pm (UTC)

"She's also got a bayleaf," yawns Isabella, snuggling up to the now somewhat more accessible Kas. "But I bet you noticed that."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I did, yes," he says, and obligingly enfangs again.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:51 pm (UTC)

Kas manages to free one arm from the rest of the cuddlepile so he can wrap it around Isabella's shoulders.

Petaal cuddles down and bends her head so her neck is right by Sherlock's mouth.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 09:52 pm (UTC)

With his hands drifting lightly over her feathers, he bites.

truthwright
2013-02-13 09:56 pm (UTC)

Kas was right, that is nice.

dark_light
2013-02-13 09:57 pm (UTC)

Petaal makes faces too. (And for that matter, Kas is probably mirroring her, he can feel the pain if not the details, but he's facing the wrong way.)

truthwright
2013-02-13 10:01 pm (UTC)

Petaal lifts her head again and resettles into the cuddlepile. She wants to be touching everyone.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 10:03 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her freshly bitten neck.

Snuggle time? Looks like snuggle time. Warm feathery snuggle time.

dark_light
2013-02-13 10:05 pm (UTC)

Mmmm, warm feathery snuggle time. Isabella approves.

Ultimately, though, she gets antsy, and she's wondering if Angela is even still there; they haven't talked about everything they might wish to talk about, after all. She slips out and ties her silks back on. "Can I throw a blanket over you guys for Angela's sensibilities before I go see if she's still there?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Certainly," says Sherlock.

truthwright
2013-02-13 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Go for it," Kas agrees.

dark_light
2013-02-13 10:07 pm (UTC)

Isabella blankets them, does up the last knots on her silks, and slips out.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 10:09 pm (UTC)

Angela is notebooking in the other bedroom, wing flung over Micaiah. "Hi," she says when Amariah comes out. "...Have fun?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Heaps," agrees Amariah, stretching. "You getting lots of good processing done? I'm all for notebooks but I really don't know how you other bells manage without daemons."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm managing. I don't know about the others. Is that what we're calling the class? Bells?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 10:11 pm (UTC)

"It's the only part of the name that always crop up. You and I aren't Swans, Shell Bell isn't an Isabella or even a Bella. Actually, I think this is why Alice's middle name is given as Whistle. Bells and whistles...? Do you not have that expression in Samaria? Well, anyway, I'm going to start calling Kas/Micaiah/Alice/Joker types Whistles as a group. I'm going to make a note of that in the guestbook."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I've never heard the expression," says Angela.
Edited 2013-02-13 22:12 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-13 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I have," says Micaiah, poking his head out from under Angela's wing. "I think it's cute."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay. You're a Whistle," she says, kissing his temple, "and I'm a Bell."

pythbox
2013-02-13 10:16 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"I love you," he says, and snuggles down under her wing again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 10:17 pm (UTC)

"I'd get up, but Micaiah's not wearing anything," says Angela. "If you could close the door real quick...?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure, whatever you need to do," says Amariah, shutting their door. She writes a note about "Whistles" in the guestbook.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 10:19 pm (UTC)

"If you could just put something on? Amariah doesn't care, but anyone might come in - well, any of me and their friends."

pythbox
2013-02-13 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I don't care either," he points out. "But sure."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Others of me might. Or their friends. It's not all Whistles and Sherlocks - Stella's notes about Golden have her husband down as Edward and she refers to him as being 'uptight', for instance."

pythbox
2013-02-13 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay." He gives her a kiss and retrieves his clothes from the floor.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 10:25 pm (UTC)

Once he's reasonably decent Angela exits the room and sits with Amariah and they swap life stories some more.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 10:56 pm (UTC)

Some time later—a long time later—Sherlock emerges from the bedroom where Amariah last saw him. He looks very pleased with himself, in an understated sort of way.

dark_light
2013-02-13 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, you look happy," says Amariah in the middle of a point-by-point comparison between Ranata Ekamma and the angel Rinnah.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I am sure you can guess why," he says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Am I gonna have to carry them home?" she laughs.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't rule it out."

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:06 pm (UTC)

"We're just about caught up here. If Angela'll spot me the credit for a hammock and the tea tree oil and whatnot so I can come home with you and help out Juliet, I'll help you carry them downstairs, dump them out in the living room through my door, and then visit your place and work some magic."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm happy to help with the purchases," says Angela.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Do let's, then," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:08 pm (UTC)

And lo, the aforementioned plan was enacted, albeit with an extra step involving not violating Milliways's rule against public nudity.

The Isabellas hug goodbye. "You hanging out here for a bit longer?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-13 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah... if it will really still be when I left after we go back, I think I'll stay a while, see who else I run into," says Angela. "This place is neat now that I'm a little more used to it."

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Here's hoping we're in the Belltower at the same time again later!" says Amariah pleasantly, and she turns to Sherlock. "Door to Juliet's world?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Coming right up," he says, and opens it.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 07:44 am (UTC)

Angela asks Bar for an angel chair, gets one, and hauls it up to the Belltower so she'll have somewhere to sit that isn't the floor or the beds. She wants to hang out a little more to see if anyone else comes by. Perhaps she will get in a nap before going home, too, so that she can act as though it is five in the morning when she returns to the Eyrie.

pythbox
2013-02-14 08:50 pm (UTC)

Micaiah is still snuggled up in that bedroom. He's not really sleeping, but he's not really awake, either. Dozy. Dozy is a good word for him right now.
Edited 2013-02-14 20:50 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:01 pm (UTC)

Isabella places and sits in her new chair and writes notes on her encounter with Amariah in the guestbook.

She's just finishing up when -

self_composed
2013-02-14 09:08 pm (UTC)

- the door opens.

"Oh, you're new! Alice, lookit - oh, and she's got an alt of you too -"

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" beams Alice.

pythbox
2013-02-14 09:11 pm (UTC)

Micaiah blinks up at the newcomers. Especially the one who is him.

Sleepily: "Can I fuck this one too?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:12 pm (UTC)

"I suppose so," says Angela dubiously. "Um, hello. If you're not new, I guess that narrows you down to 'Stella'? I'm going by Angela."

self_composed
2013-02-14 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm Stella," agrees Stella. "Lemme read your entries? I'll be quick."

She is quick. "Fun," she remarks. "And you've read me - d'you want magic powers? Or rather do you want your - we're calling them Whistles now, cute, do you want your Whistle to have magic powers?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-14 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Which one of us did you fuck already?" he asks Miciaiah.

pythbox
2013-02-14 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Kas and Petaal," he says with a reminiscent smile.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes, and then them and Amariah and Path all went into the other bedroom while Micaiah napped and indulged themselves with what I'm told is yet a third Sherlock who belongs to a Bell who has not yet been here herself," says Angela. "I didn't feel the need to commit that to paper, but as long as someone present is curious."

self_composed
2013-02-14 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh," says Stella. "You're having some trouble with this, aren't you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm managing," Angela asserts.

self_composed
2013-02-14 09:29 pm (UTC)

"It says you met Amariah. I haven't run into her yet," comments Stella. "Was she helpful?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Yes, very. I believe she's going to try to come back with Sherlock's 'Juliet', but I don't know how long to expect that to take."

pythbox
2013-02-14 09:34 pm (UTC)

Micaiah decides that now is a good time to give his angel a hug.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:35 pm (UTC)

Angela is quite happy to give her mortal a hug right back.

self_composed
2013-02-14 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Awww," sighs Stella. "...So, do you want some nigh-omnipotence? 'Cause I can give that out."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:37 pm (UTC)

Angela has already thought of this, reading through Shell Bell's notes.

"If Jovah wanted me to have those powers, I would have them already," she says steadily, through the dearest of temptation.

pythbox
2013-02-14 09:37 pm (UTC)

"...Why's that?" says Micaiah.

self_composed
2013-02-14 09:39 pm (UTC)

"I am stunned," says Stella. "Are you sure you don't just happen to look like us? I suppose the parents' names would be a bit much of a coincidence..."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm as much one of you as Amariah is," says Angela. "But my god doesn't work like her goddesses who don't care what she does. I want it, but - we have songs, prayers, already written down to teach us how to ask for everything Jovah is willing to offer. We're born with the capacity to learn, and angels with a few more blessings besides to carry out the god's work. Your magic isn't part of the world he made for us when he carried us away from our ancestor's home full of violence and hatred. If I do not already have these powers, it's because Jovah didn't choose to offer them to me."

pythbox
2013-02-14 09:50 pm (UTC)

Micaiah frowns in confusion.

"How do you know?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Jovah watches over us - the descendants of people who wanted to live a simple life without so much leverage over the world around us. We're always told that what was given up was technological, not magical, but the principle is the same, isn't it? Even now there is friction over things as simple as the batteries that Alleluia's husband invented. Just because I don't think I would misuse greater power than I have doesn't mean that it's safe to bring it into the world. I wasn't born with it; it's not intended for me."

pythbox
2013-02-14 09:56 pm (UTC)

"But you said Yovah can't just do things any old way," he says. "So what if Stella is the right way to give you magic powers, just like singing is the right way to ask for rain and the oracles are the right way to give him people's names?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 09:59 pm (UTC)

Angela closes her eyes and considers this.

"If Jovah can hear me here," she says finally, "I'll consider that possibility. Amariah said there is an 'outside'? I don't think he could begrudge me some unnecessary rain or sunshine to see if he watches over here as everywhere."

self_composed
2013-02-14 09:59 pm (UTC)

"There's an outside. I'll show you. You're going to sing and rain will fall?" Stella asks. "That's an interesting system."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to sing to ask for - well, rain, if there is none, sun if there is rain, I'll need to see it change to be sure," says Angela, getting up. "Micaiah, do you want to come aloft with me?"

pythbox
2013-02-14 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

He follows her.

self_composed
2013-02-14 10:02 pm (UTC)

Stella shows them outside. She flies without the aid of wings. It's not currently raining, or even cloudy.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:03 pm (UTC)

Angela scoops up her Micaiah and takes off, carrying him high up, closer to the ear of the god - if he's here.

She sings, ignoring her floating duplicate and losing herself in the music.

(There is no other sensation to lose herself in. The air isn't... shifting, not even in the little ways it normally does after only the first verse of a prayer.)

pythbox
2013-02-14 10:05 pm (UTC)

Micaiah snuggles into her arms.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:08 pm (UTC)

Angela sings through the entire song into dead, unresponsive air, then shakes her head and lands. "He's not here. Or not listening. He's not present in the way he'd have to be for me to entertain the idea that Stella's his instrument."

pythbox
2013-02-14 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Micaiah. "I still want magic powers, though."

self_composed
2013-02-14 10:13 pm (UTC)

"It makes more sense to give them to you anyway, assuming you're not unconventional-for-a-Whistle," says Stella. "The way it works is it turns pain into wishes."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:15 pm (UTC)

Angela shakes her head. "Jovah's not here to be offering us anything through Stella," she tells Micaiah. "If he wanted you to have powers he could have given them to you, too, they'd be - sealed away in an oracle's caverns in a box somewhere and when the time was right he'd tell the oracle to seek you out and present them to you, even if you weren't meant to have them from the beginning."

pythbox
2013-02-14 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," he says doubtfully.

self_composed
2013-02-14 10:18 pm (UTC)

"...Can I get you to take some coins?" Stella asks. "In case you change your mind? You can bring them home with you and lock them up and never think about them again if you want, but if your theological opinions shift a bit in a year, or two..."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I'd be too tempted," says Angela. "Even if I weren't fully sure that Jovah wanted me to I'd always know they were there, it would itch, and even if I threw away the key, Micaiah can pick locks."

pythbox
2013-02-14 10:26 pm (UTC)

Micaiah shrugs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:27 pm (UTC)

"It's very kind of you to offer," says Angela formally to Stella. "But I cannot accept."

self_composed
2013-02-14 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Color me surprised," says Stella. "We can still hang out, though, let's go back to the Belltower. You sing beautifully." She conjures a flute. "Want some accompaniment? I can improvise or conjure up sheet music for whatever song."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:31 pm (UTC)

"That sounds lovely," says Angela.

pythbox
2013-02-14 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I like any plan where you sing," Micaiah says happily to Angela.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:44 pm (UTC)

A musical interlude at the Belltower ensues. Angela doesn't object to Stella using her magic for herself, even though a few more unexpected uses make her flinch enviously. But after it's been and gone and the Whistles have exchanged carnal knowledge and the Bells have swapped the more usual sort, Stella decides she is done for the day at Milliways and Angela is left up in the Belltower with just Micaiah. She decides to get in that nap she'd been thinking about.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-14 10:46 pm (UTC)

...until more visitors barge in, not particularly quietly.

"Oh! Someone new!" exclaims a Bell.

pythbox
2013-02-14 10:47 pm (UTC)

Micaiah peeks out from under Angela's wing and waves cheerfully.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-14 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm Shell Bell, and this is my Sherlock," says Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:51 pm (UTC)

"It's lovely to meet you. I nicknamed myself Angela," says Angela. "I seem to have arrived on a high-traffic day. Amariah and Kas met us when we first came in, and then Amariah recognized an alt of Sherlock - a male one - who was here for the first time, and then after they'd gone Stella was here, and now you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-14 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I guess if Stella's already met you I don't have to ask you if you want mint powers, then," says Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:51 pm (UTC)

"She made the offer," acknowledges Angela.

sicaria
2013-02-14 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Why did you decline?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:54 pm (UTC)

"How did you know I declined?"

sicaria
2013-02-14 10:57 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

"Your phrasing makes the most sense in that context."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I turned her down because I don't believe Jovah wants me to have that kind of power. For a moment Micaiah had me half-convinced that Stella was an instrument of Jovah, but he can't even hear me here. I went outside and tried praying for rain and none fell; he wasn't listening."

sicaria
2013-02-14 11:03 pm (UTC)

"...If I knew of someone who did not want Bell to have access to a mint," says Sherlock, "I would start to question that person's judgment on other matters."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 11:05 pm (UTC)

"I - have no idea what to say to that," says Angela frankly. "I... well. Jovah isn't a withholding god or anything. When I'm home, if I pray for something, it falls. But our ancestors gave up a lot of less divine power to be able to live in harmony with each other, and Jovah carried them to Samaria, and I don't think suddenly disrupting that with a gift that cannot possibly have any connection to him would be wise. However tempting it is."

pythbox
2013-02-14 11:07 pm (UTC)

"We could ask an oracle," Micaiah suggests.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 11:08 pm (UTC)

"We could. I think I'd want to make a trip to Gaza for that, though, Peninnah knows me well enough to let one strange question slide," says Angela, laughing weakly. "And if he says no, or if he's cryptic - he often is - I can't have any of those coins sitting around itching at me. So I'd have to hope to meet one of you again if Jovah said it was all right."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-14 11:22 pm (UTC)

"We could come visit your world," says Shell Bell. "I promise not to use magic in unapproved ways on your world or give you powers unless Jovah says it's okay, but then you wouldn't risk being stuck without access to them for years if it did turn out to be fine. I mean, if you want to go on a trip, Sherlock," she adds. "But I think I could use a vacation from dealing with Coin, and all the appeals from the moon, and - everything."

sicaria
2013-02-14 11:25 pm (UTC)

"I think that would be lovely," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-14 11:25 pm (UTC)

"We should ask Tony if he wants to come before we go anywhere, though."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's right, Sherlocks usually come with Tonies, I remember Amariah asking the one from earlier about his. Apparently that one died. I'm glad yours is intact. If only the door functioned a little more cooperatively we could organize some kind of - not reunion, but a possibly comforting meeting."

sicaria
2013-02-14 11:29 pm (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-14 11:29 pm (UTC)

Micaiah looks at Sherlock with concern. "Are you okay?"

sicaria
2013-02-14 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But I doubt that other Sherlock is."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-14 11:42 pm (UTC)

"He - I don't remember the exact words. He said that some vampires killed Tony and also Jarvis - you're the one who doesn't have a Jarvis, yes? - and turned him into a vampire as well, and then he killed those responsible and started looking for a reason not to set himself on fire, and he found a Bell alt I've written some secondhand notes about from his description. Temporary nickname of Juliet. And she's - diverting enough, I guess? Amariah wound up going to his world with him to cast some protective magic over Juliet."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 12:03 am (UTC)

"That's awful. I'm not sure if meeting an alt would help, though. I'm not sure how I'd react if I met an alt of a dead loved one. Sherlock, what do you think, is it worth going out of our way to look for that one?"

sicaria
2013-02-15 12:05 am (UTC)

"It is."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 12:06 am (UTC)

"Will do, then. Angela, do you know if he's distinct in some obvious way from the other other Sherlock?" Pause. "Sherlocks might also need to start picking nicknames."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 12:07 am (UTC)

"Well, Amariah could tell almost immediately by looking at him that something was different with his soul. I don't know if that's a sense you have or can acquire; she said it was related to her daemon, or being accustomed to daemons, or something."

pythbox
2013-02-15 12:16 am (UTC)

"Kas couldn't do it," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 12:17 am (UTC)

"It could also be because she's a witch," says Angela.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 12:17 am (UTC)

"I think I'd want to know more about what I'm looking for, soul-wise, before trying to design a power to see it," muses Shell Bell.

sicaria
2013-02-15 12:21 am (UTC)

"I wonder how to nickname us," Sherlock says thoughtfully. "We might need to have a conference on the matter."
Edited 2013-02-15 00:22 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 12:24 am (UTC)

"Why would you need a conference? We're all settling on unique names without trouble," says Angela.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 12:26 am (UTC)

"I don't know how you picked yours, or where 'Juliet' came from, but mine's a nickname I've had since I was eight, and Stella and Golden both have... empire themes, of sorts, that they just extended to their nicknames, and Amariah just picked the other piece of her name. The Sherlocks don't tend to have empires with themes, or nicknames intended for general use - not unique ones, particularly - or much name variation. I mean, my Sherlock is surnamed Stark and the other one we met isn't, but calling her Stark wouldn't work because that's all the Tonies' last name. So they'd have a little more trouble hitting non-redundant targets."

sicaria
2013-02-15 12:27 am (UTC)

Sherlock nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 12:29 am (UTC)

"Juliet is something Juliet's Sherlock calls her. I got the impression it was a reference to something," says Angela. "And on my world, 'angela' is a polite thing to call a female angel, like 'ma'am' or 'lady' - it's not ideal but I couldn't think of anything else and I'll at least turn my head when someone says it."

sicaria
2013-02-15 12:32 am (UTC)

"So, as I said. A conference."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 12:34 am (UTC)

"Or you could each let your Bells name you and hope the one who doesn't have a Bell lands on something else, if we're the ones who are different enough to come up with different things. I didn't name Micaiah, but Amariah named Kas and his daemon. And I don't know where Alice's first name came from, but Whistle and Swan are clearly borrowings from Stella."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 12:35 am (UTC)

"I have no idea what I'd call my Sherlock, if I had to think of something," laughs Shell Bell. "The only thing coming to mind is 'Valentine' after that dreadful holiday and I don't want to call you that."

sicaria
2013-02-15 12:41 am (UTC)

"I don't know, I think it's charming," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 12:44 am (UTC)

Shell Bell snorts. "Put in a request for it at your conference," she suggests, chuckling.

(She doesn't read Sherlock all the time by default - there's far too much to track if she wants to concentrate on anything else and Sherlock isn't explicitly slowing down for her - but she can tell when her girlfriend is making a deadpan joke.)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 12:44 am (UTC)

"Dreadful holiday?" asks Angela blankly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 12:46 am (UTC)

"If you ever see Milliways decorated in red and pink and white and this shape -" Shell Bell gestures - "run. It's celebrated with little darts of mind-altering drugs that make you fall in love with whoever you're with. It was horrible. It showed me what it'd be like to be in love with Sherlock so I could do it on purpose later, which is lovely, but the experience itself was terrifying and you've already got your Whistle."

pythbox
2013-02-15 01:02 am (UTC)

Micaiah hugs his angel again.

"I don't want weird holiday drugs making you fall in love with me," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 01:04 am (UTC)

"I don't want weird holiday drugs making me do anything," says Angela, folding a wing around Micaiah. "That sounds utterly horrific. Whose idea was that?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 01:05 am (UTC)

"If we knew, they'd be very unhappy that we'd found out," says Shell Bell lightly.

sicaria
2013-02-15 01:11 am (UTC)

(Sherlock smiles in agreement.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 01:12 am (UTC)

(Shell Bell kisses her cheek.)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 01:12 am (UTC)

"I see what Amariah meant about you being adorable," muses Angela.

pythbox
2013-02-15 01:15 am (UTC)

"They aaaaaare," says Micaiah.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 01:18 am (UTC)

"...Is that what goes around about us, 'keep an eye out for Shell Bell and her Sherlock, they're adorable', not... 'and then there's Shell Bell, her empire is called Atlantis' or something?" giggles Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 01:19 am (UTC)

"Pretty much," says Angela.

sicaria
2013-02-15 02:06 am (UTC)

"Out of all the things we could be known by, that one's not so bad," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:09 am (UTC)

"I suppose not," says Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:10 am (UTC)

"I think at best I'm going to be 'the one with the wings'," says Angela ruefully. "If I'm less lucky it'll be something like "the sheltered fragile one"; I don't think I made the best early impression on Amariah."

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:11 am (UTC)

"That might've been my fault," Micaiah says cheerfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:15 am (UTC)

"I don't think it was, really, I think I just - failed to know an embarrassing subset of things? She was very kind about it, really."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:16 am (UTC)

"What things didn't you know, or don't you want to talk about it?" asks Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:17 am (UTC)

"...Before I read your entry in the guestbook I was not aware that it was something people did to date within their own gender," says Angela quietly. "My education on the subject has been theoretical and designed around the fact that I belong to an endangered species."

sicaria
2013-02-15 02:19 am (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:20 am (UTC)

Shell Bell peers into that silence.

sicaria
2013-02-15 02:23 am (UTC)

It is the silence of Sherlock actively declining to have an opinion on something.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:24 am (UTC)

Okay then.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:24 am (UTC)

"Sorry?" says Angela uncertainly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:26 am (UTC)

"You don't have to apologize. I could probably have made it to our age without noticing it being a thing if I hadn't been coming to Milliways from age six and if I didn't watch TV," says Shell Bell. "It's not like anyone ever sat me down and explained it per se."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:27 am (UTC)

"...What is TV?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:29 am (UTC)

"...your world is going to be an experience," says Shell Bell. "TV is... a form of storytelling or news reporting that works by recording moving pictures, and sound. It's displayed on a screen and it's like you're seeing the event that's depicted, miniaturized and captured for replay."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:30 am (UTC)

"We have some music recordings, although we no longer know how to make new ones and they can only be found at the Eyrie and Monteverde. Adding pictures on a screen sounds interesting," says Angela.

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:31 am (UTC)

"It sounds fun," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:32 am (UTC)

"Potentially, although since even recording music was a technology our ancestors relinquished, I'm not so sure it doesn't have some... awful consequence I can't think of off the top of my head," muses Angela.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:34 am (UTC)

"...Well, it kind of does," admits Shell Bell. "Our world had a particularly nasty... event... that was televised, and if it hadn't been possible to record it I think the event would've been less effective at its intended purposes. Although that took way more than the mere existence of the technology and I'm not planning to abolish TV or anything."

sicaria
2013-02-15 02:34 am (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:36 am (UTC)

Shell Bell has a look at that silence, too.

sicaria
2013-02-15 02:37 am (UTC)

Its contents are predictably bloody.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:38 am (UTC)

"What are you doing when you look at her like that?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:39 am (UTC)

"I can read her mind," explains Shell Bell, taking her girlfriend's hand and nuzzling her shoulder. "Stella can read Alice's mind, too."

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:46 am (UTC)

"I want you to read my mind," says Micaiah, snuggling up to Angela.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:47 am (UTC)

"We'll talk to Peninnah," says Angela noncommittally. "- What is it like?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 02:48 am (UTC)

"You mean what format do I get the thoughts in, or in a broader sense?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:48 am (UTC)

"Either - both. I don't know. Maybe you shouldn't tell me in case the answer is no and I have to refuse the offer."

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:50 am (UTC)

"Why not talk to the closer-by one?" asks Micaiah. "She seemed okay with the weird question you already asked her."
Edited 2013-02-15 02:50 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:53 am (UTC)

"That was a less strange question. It was only one step away from something some oracle has to answer once a generation anyway," demurs Angela. "I really don't think Alleluia likes me. Why else would she send me all the way to Mount Sudan when I'm from Bethel? If she thought I was - I don't know, evil or irresponsible or something, then I assume she'd have felt comfortable telling Delilah that I oughtn't be spending a year with an oracle at all, since they're old friends, but it was clear that she didn't like my company - or something. I'm certainly not sure why. We had a long conversation when I was first asking to study with her that seemed to go fine."

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:55 am (UTC)

"...She likes you!" says Micaiah. "From what I saw, anyway. She didn't act like somebody who doesn't like you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 02:56 am (UTC)

"Then why did I wind up with Peninnah instead of her, when she had right of first refusal?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:59 am (UTC)

"...Actually," he says, thinking back, "she acted like somebody who likes you but doesn't want you to know it. Maybe she had a crush on you," he hypothesizes. "Or maybe she doesn't take students she likes right away in case she starts playing favourites."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 03:01 am (UTC)

"...A crush on me? Alleluia is famously devoted to her husband... though I guess I should stop making assumptions about what that means. I know she takes students she likes. There's several acolytes from the village she grew up in who she's known a long time."

pythbox
2013-02-15 03:06 am (UTC)

Micaiah shrugs.

"I'm telling you, she likes you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 03:09 am (UTC)

"That doesn't mean she wouldn't tell Delilah that I'm suffering from dangerous flights of fancy if I fly to Sinai and ask her if there were such a thing as magic, would Jovah forbid it?," says Angela.

pythbox
2013-02-15 03:10 am (UTC)

"What, and this other guy likes you so much that he wouldn't either?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 03:12 am (UTC)

"Peninnah's a woman. And it would take her much longer to get to Monteverde, let alone the Eyrie, and she's known me for a solid year and knows that I'm not - insane."

pythbox
2013-02-15 03:14 am (UTC)

"So tell the closer one I made you ask," he retorts. "If she's gonna think one of us is insane, might as well be the one who broke down crying in the middle of her oracle room and had to be carried out."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 06:04 am (UTC)

"...If you don't mind Alleluia thinking you're insane, then that would work. She saw the glowing Kisses and it won't seem odd if I'm willing to ask weird things on your behalf," acknowledges Angela slowly. She kisses his hair. "You're sure that's okay with you?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 06:06 am (UTC)

"I could disguise myself and ask, or Sherlock could even without a disguise beyond the rock in the arm thing," offers Shell Bell. "We have no longer-term reputation to worry about."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 06:07 am (UTC)

"That's kind, but I'm a little concerned that Jovah's answer will differ depending on whether the petitioner's an angel, or already has magic, or something, so if the answer is supposed to be something I'm going to rely on I think I'd better ask as myself, even if blaming Micaiah for the idea is safer than claiming the question as my own."

pythbox
2013-02-15 01:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind at all!" he says cheerfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 04:42 pm (UTC)

Angela's wing pulls him a little closer so she can lean her head against him. "Thank you," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-15 04:43 pm (UTC)

He leans into her with a soft smile.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna go stick my head out the door and ask Tony if he wants to join us," says Shell Bell.

She flies down the stairs and sticks her head out the door and says, [Hey, Tony, met a new me with a new copy of Alice attached to her. Want to meet them?]

ferratus
2013-02-15 05:00 pm (UTC)

[zzz,] says Tony's busy message.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 05:36 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell goes back upstairs. "He's asleep," she reports.

sicaria
2013-02-15 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh well."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 06:00 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want to come back to my world now? I'm afraid once we're there, I won't be able to show you around right away; I was on my way to a harmonics slot I'm supposed to sing."

sicaria
2013-02-15 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I would not mind hearing you sing."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 06:04 pm (UTC)

"We'll be invisible so you don't have to explain us," adds Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I think I can pretend it's five in the morning. Micaiah, does it feel close enough to five in the morning to you?" Angela inquires.

pythbox
2013-02-15 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says indifferently.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I guess we can go, then. But - outside of a local emergency - no significant magic on anything other than yourselves until I have an answer," admonishes Angela. "And it might take me a few days to find time to fly to Sinai. There are always intercessions to do and I'm well-known for taking them whenever I can."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Do we need to clarify what counts as a local emergency as opposed to a global emergency or a local non-emergency, or will our mutual common sense do?" asks Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Mmm - weather is never an emergency. If you go exploring on your own and there's weather going on that needs to stop, you can tell me and I can come handle it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 07:32 pm (UTC)

"But you don't care if we teleport and fly around, turn invisible and wander through public areas, conjure ourselves food and shelter and whatever, or stop, like, a house fire," Shell Bell says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that's all fine."

pythbox
2013-02-15 07:34 pm (UTC)

"This'll be fun," Micaiah predicts happily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 07:35 pm (UTC)

"It very well may."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Shall we go? Before your circadian rhythms are thrown off any more?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes, all right. I just hold the door and let you through? We may as well head out now."

And out they all head, piling into Angela's quarters.

pythbox
2013-02-15 07:39 pm (UTC)

Micaiah is bouncing excitedly. The joy of hearing Angela sing has definitely not gotten old.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 07:41 pm (UTC)

The visitors go invisible, naturally, before the door is reopened to the hallway.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 07:41 pm (UTC)

And out Angela goes to meet up with Serah and sing.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 07:42 pm (UTC)

[She's good. Must be an angel thing, I can't sing like that,] Shell Bell comments to Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-02-15 07:42 pm (UTC)

[She is very good,] Sherlock agrees. [You are still my favourite.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-15 07:44 pm (UTC)

Invisible floating huggles!

sicaria
2013-02-15 07:59 pm (UTC)

One of the very best kinds!

yes, there is love

jovahs_heiress

Angela does not get a day free to fly to Sinai for some time. There are always things to do. She becalms storms and calls for corn and goes harmonizing with a young angel girl on her first prayer for rain to take place outside of a music practice room. She is obliged to put in an appearance at a Manadavvi lord's wedding when Moriah, who was originally going to be the Eyrie's representative there, hurts her knee and cannot even run to take off, let alone maneuver through a mortal's house.

She is not supposed to bring Micaiah to this last. ("It might be different if you'd married him, but right now he's just... an affection, and they would be offended if you brought him uninvited," explains Thomas, the angel who liases most with the Manadavvi at the Eyrie.) She misses him more than expected while she's gone, and flies home inadvisably fast and collapses into his arms with exhaustion when she returns.

Shell Bell and Sherlock have been friendly but not interfering; they've set up some sort of home base invisibly on the tippy-top of the mountain peak that houses the Eyrie. They are not staying in Angela's quarters. They are not present for her to be embarrassed by, when the next morning, having slept in her flying leathers and barely sated the absence of Micaiah that bothered her in the Manadavvi house, she kisses him with a bit more intensity than usual.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 09:38 pm (UTC)

That is fiiiiiiiiiine by him.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 09:40 pm (UTC)

She doesn't have a harmonics appointment today and no one can ask her for an intercession if she doesn't get out of bed in the first place.

She's been wearing this set of flying leathers too long. Is it also fine by him if they come off?

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 09:42 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes it is.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 09:44 pm (UTC)

Oh good.

Here they are under a tent formed by her left wing with kisses and not too much fabric and it's warm and she's so happy to be here. "I missed you," she murmurs.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I missed you too," he says, snuggling up. "I love you. You're nice and sweet and warm and snuggly and very, very kissable."

See? Like so!

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 09:48 pm (UTC)

Like so indeed.

"I love you too," she says decisively when there's a pause in his demonstration of kissability.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 09:49 pm (UTC)

He beams and hugs her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Jovah is good," she sighs, nuzzling against where his shoulder meets his neck.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 09:58 pm (UTC)

"He iiiiis," Micaiah says happily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:02 pm (UTC)

"And they say when an angel's born, he dances," she says, squirming slightly and settling her wing closer.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:04 pm (UTC)

...

He grins, and runs his hand along her feathers, and kisses her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:05 pm (UTC)

The angel Isabella is not seen out in the halls of the Eyrie until somewhat later than her customary time of rising.

Serah quizzes her, when they have lunch, and receives nothing more than a serene smile by way of explanation.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:08 pm (UTC)

Micaiah, in the meantime, is napping in her room. Because he is tired. Happily, happily tired.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:15 pm (UTC)

Two days - two rather exhausting days full of intercessions and attempts at making Jovah dance and meeting with Shell Bell once a day to say no, can't go to Sinai yet, maybe tomorrow - later, Delilah asks Angela to come with her to a meeting at Monteverde. Without Micaiah; it's a political meeting, with the Archangel Linus and representatives from all holds and the Jansai and the city landholders and the Manadavvi, and while it is about trade agreements with Ysral, Micaiah's mere status as adopted Manderra doesn't secure him an invitation and he has no political credentials.

She goes. She'll be gone for three or four days. Micaiah gets a thorough goodbye, and she and Delilah and two other angels and Noah all leave for Monteverde.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:19 pm (UTC)

Despite the extreme thoroughness of that goodbye, he only spends the next few hours or so napping.

Then, as is more or less his habit by now, he starts wandering the Eyrie.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:22 pm (UTC)

There's an angel girl a few years older than Isabella whose name Micaiah has not yet had occasion to learn, walking the other way. She pauses when she sees him. "Oh," she says, fluffing milk-white wings in a way that makes her short auburn hair flutter, "you're Isabella's, aren't you."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't belong to her," he says, amused. "What's your name? I'm Micaiah. Your wings are pretty."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Phebe," says the angel, smiling suddenly. "No, of course you don't belong to her, do you? I think I heard you're an Edori. You want a closer look at the wings?" One of them waggles a bit.
Edited 2013-02-15 22:25 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" he says, all cheerful innocence.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm down this hall," Phebe says. "I was on my way to practice but it was going to be just me today, since Timaeus wore out his voice yesterday..." She holds out her hand invitingly.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:31 pm (UTC)

Smiling, Micaiah takes her hand.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:32 pm (UTC)

Once they have some privacy, Phebe offers more than just that, too. She seems unutterably pleased about the whole thing.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:35 pm (UTC)

There's something a little strange about how pleased she is. But it's fun, and he's had this conversation with Isabella and knows she won't be mad, so he just goes with it.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:38 pm (UTC)

Phebe's not particularly cuddly after; she puts on her wrap-sort-of-garment again - Isabella isn't unusual in wearing flying leathers all the time, but plenty have more wardrobe variety - efficiently and stretches out all six limbs and hops to her feet. "I'm not sure whether to tell her as soon as she's back, or just hint at it and drive her nuts trying to figure out what I mean, or keep utterly mum and throw it in her face after she's inevitably named Delilah's successor when Delilah retires," she muses, half to herself.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:39 pm (UTC)

Oh.

Yeah, that'll do it.

Micaiah just shakes his head and smiles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:42 pm (UTC)

"You can, you know, lie there for a while if you're worn out," says Phebe. "I suppose you don't have anything else to do while she's off proving to everyone how important she is... Let yourself out whenever," she shrugs. "I'm going to go get note-perfect on the Requiem."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... not that worn out," he decides, and rolls out of bed and gets dressed.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:47 pm (UTC)

"As you like, then," says Phebe, and she waits until he won't scandalize passersby before she opens the door and sweeps out, white fans of her wings held regally behind her.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:50 pm (UTC)

Micaiah goes and gets a snack, and returns to Isabella's room, and curls up in her bed, and cries quietly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:53 pm (UTC)

Angela's back on schedule, looking tired. She goes looking for her Micaiah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:54 pm (UTC)

Her Micaiah is in the practice rooms, singing that one mass, and putting more emotion into it than usual.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:56 pm (UTC)

Angela comes in at her next pickup, closing the door quietly behind her.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 10:57 pm (UTC)

His voice catches, and he breaks off and turns and hugs her, burying his face against her shoulder.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 10:58 pm (UTC)

She falls silent when he stops. "What's wrong?" she exclaims. "What happened?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:04 pm (UTC)

He sniffles.

"This girl Phebe wanted me to fuck her, and I wanted to so I did, but then I found out she was just doing it to hurt you and now I feel really bad."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:05 pm (UTC)

Angela wraps her arms around him automatically. "Phebe - the angel, right, not the angel-seeker who works in the laundry?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:06 pm (UTC)

He nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:07 pm (UTC)

Her wings go around him too, overlapping behind his back. "I - I didn't even know she had a problem with me," she murmurs. "But it's not your fault - it's okay -" She hugs him tightly.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:10 pm (UTC)

"I've never had a lover who was even pretending they didn't want me with anybody else," he says, clinging a little. "I didn't think of it until she started talking about throwing it in your face."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I - I'm afraid I can't exactly sign up for a harmonics slot and improvise an explanation in soprano-tenor for everyone's ears. It'd be - It's not uncommon exactly, for angels and people around angels to be... imperfectly constant? Is there a nicer word for that? But it's generally very discreet if there's any kind of relationship instead of just dabbling with angel-seekers. There would be... consequences, to announcing it. ...And now if Phebe does want to hurt me, I can only hope I can think of a way to act hurt after a private revelation instead of having to come up with a reaction to a public declaration."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you to have to act hurt."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:18 pm (UTC)

"If I don't, she'll find a way to tell everyone in a way that will actually cause me problems. Delilah in particular I don't think would think much of it if it weren't for anyone else, but there are some people she listens to who would."
Edited 2013-02-15 23:19 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:19 pm (UTC)

He hugs her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:24 pm (UTC)

Angela swallows. "Here's what might work best. I go find Phebe, today. I tell her that you confessed and you feel terrible and I forgave you, and then I tell her I forgive her. I act completely unconcerned about public opinion, I make it sound like it's just a matter between me and her to me. She won't have a chance to try making it general knowledge without hearing from me and if I can pull off sufficient - I don't know, serenity - then she might think it's not worth it to try."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I love you too. - Can you think of a better plan? Because if I'm going with that one I had really better not wait."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:31 pm (UTC)

"No." He kisses her cheek. "It's a good plan."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay. - Will I find you here or in our room, after?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Here," he decides.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I don't think this will take longer than half an hour, unless I can't find Phebe," says Angela, and she kisses his forehead, and unwraps wings and arms, and slips out of the practice room.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:36 pm (UTC)

Micaiah wipes his eyes, and takes a breath, and starts singing again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:42 pm (UTC)

Angela finds Phebe. She asks to speak to her privately. Phebe shoos her angel-seeker conquest-of-the-day and tells him she'll find him later, and she looks at Angela, smirking.

"Micaiah told me about what happened between you," says Angela, calmly, levelly. "He feels terrible, but I've forgiven him, and I want you to know that I forgive you, too."

Phebe is - as expected - somewhat stunned.

Angela could rescue the silence, could say something, give Phebe more to grab onto and bite, ask why do you hate me or some similar question, but no. This awkwardness is to her benefit.

She lets it sit.

Phebe says nothing.

Angela doesn't even ask her to keep the events quiet. She just lets the silence pour over everything in the room, and finally she gets to her feet and says, "I won't take up any more of your time."

"You - you -" manages Phebe.

Angela looks over her shoulder, politely, calmly listening.

Phebe does not produce a complete sentence.

"I'll see you at the first practice next week for the angelic choir's Magnificat?" Angela offers.

Phebe nods, scowling.

Angela goes back to find Micaiah again.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:44 pm (UTC)

He's still there, as promised, singing his heart out.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:45 pm (UTC)

His angel joins in the next time the soprano part enters, and takes his hand in hers.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:47 pm (UTC)

This time, he doesn't interrupt himself, just keeps singing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:48 pm (UTC)

When her part is silent for a phrase, she kisses his temple.

They finish the song together, and she says, "Unless Phebe collects herself and decides to escalate, later - I think this is under control." She pauses. "I - I hesitate to ask you to avoid people who know me. Because that's... everyone in the hold."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-15 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't have to stay in the hold all the time," he points out. "And I don't want this to happen again."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-15 11:55 pm (UTC)

Angela nods, then says - "But, if I acquire anything like prominence - if Delilah names me successor and retires, let alone if I become Archangel and you angelico - then the number of people who don't know who I am shrinks."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 12:01 am (UTC)

"I can still find some, I bet," he shrugs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:03 am (UTC)

"Okay." She smiles faintly. "And there could easily be Milliways again, regardless, where it doesn't make a difference if they know me or not."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 12:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

He smiles back and hugs her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:05 am (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs.

...These rooms are very soundproofed, and the doors lock.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 12:06 am (UTC)

They are! And they do!

Mmm.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:11 am (UTC)

It is four days later when Angela makes it all the way through breakfast without acquiring an assignment. She tells Serah where she's going, in case anyone looks for her. She picks up Micaiah, flies up to notify Shell Bell and Sherlock so they can follow if they like, and sets out for Sinai.

sicaria
2013-02-16 12:12 am (UTC)

Of course they follow. This is bound to be fascinating.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 12:13 am (UTC)

It really is.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:15 am (UTC)

After the three-hour flight, Angela lands at Sinai, and notifies an acolyte of her name. This one is from Chahiela, apparently, because she has to repeat herself three times, slowly and clearly, before she repeats it successfully. She goes in and comes out and haltingly says that Alleluia can see them now.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 12:16 am (UTC)

In they go, then!

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:19 am (UTC)

"Back so soon, Isabella?" asks Alleluia.

"I - yes. But it's not an emergency. If you have other things to do, we can wait," says Isabella, squeezing Micaiah's hand perhaps harder than she should.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 12:20 am (UTC)

He smiles and leans into her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:23 am (UTC)

"It may as well be now."

"It's - it's kind of a strange question, but Micaiah really wanted me to ask you," says Angela, turning an indulgent smile on her lover. "If there were such a thing as magic, not just powerful technology or Jovah's blessings but outright magic - would Jovah forbid its use? Do you know - can you ask him - will he answer such a strange hypothetical question?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 12:26 am (UTC)

Micaiah grins right back.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:28 am (UTC)

"I - am not optimistic that you will get a straightforward answer, but since it's only a hypothetical question, perhaps that doesn't matter much," says Alleluia slowly, peering with a dubious expression at Micaiah. She turns to the interface and types.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 12:29 am (UTC)

[It just looks like a computer,] remarks Shell Bell to Sherlock. [...I'm tempted to pentagon the language she's writing in just like we wound up having to pentagon the local vernacular outside of Milliways, what do you think?]

sicaria
2013-02-16 12:30 am (UTC)

Sherlock doesn't consider the question for long; she turns it over in her mind, and then makes the wish for herself.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 12:33 am (UTC)

Rather than expend a separate pentagon, Shell Bell reads over Sherlock's shoulder, so to speak.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:37 am (UTC)

The screen says this:

>If there were such a thing as magic, would its use incur any probable deleterious effects on Samaria, or place us under fire from you?

Like technology, magic would only be dangerous if it could not be controlled or fell into ill-intentioned hands. I would not send thunderbolts as a result of its use.

After the response has appeared on her screen, Alleluia turns back to Angela. "Magic wouldn't be specially forbidden," she says. "But it could be just as dangerous as technology, if it wasn't controlled, or if the wrong people had it. Does that settle the question for you?"

"...I think it does," says Angela, smiling.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 12:39 am (UTC)

Micaiah grins and hugs his angel.

sicaria
2013-02-16 12:42 am (UTC)

[Odd way to talk to a god,] Sherlock observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 12:44 am (UTC)

[Yeah. Not "will it offend you" or "might we", just - "will you attack us". And then she filtered that out for Angela.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 12:46 am (UTC)

"If you need me to settle any other odd hypotheticals, feel free. Petitions aren't so frequent - well, you know, you've studied with Peninnah, but I believe she spends more time in sacred communion than I have tended to," says Alleluia. "Petitions aren't so frequent as to fill all my days."

"Of course. Thank you, Alleluia," says Angela.

"You're welcome. Have a good flight home." Alleluia turns back and clears the screen.

sicaria
2013-02-16 12:53 am (UTC)

[Should we bring this up, do you think?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 12:56 am (UTC)

[...Maybe. I'm not sure. Let's see how she reacts to getting the coins first. I mean - I don't know what's up with the funny way Alleluia talked to the god, do you? I think she'd dismiss it as nothing without more details, religious like she is.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 01:00 am (UTC)

Angela lands where she landed last time she departed Sinai, rather than continuing straight on to the Eyrie. "Are you two there?" she asks, in completely the wrong direction from where Shell Bell and Sherlock are hovering.

sicaria
2013-02-16 01:01 am (UTC)

Sherlock teleports to where she was looking and visibles.

"Yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 01:03 am (UTC)

Bell likes this idea. She follows suit. "Here I am. Want some coins to mint you and Micaiah, since it's allowed after all?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 01:05 am (UTC)

"Yes. Please," says Angela, beaming.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 01:10 am (UTC)

Shell Bell doesn't carry that many coins, but she's got Sherlock with her; there's no reason not to just hand over all the hexagons and stars she's carrying, a mix of Sherlock's color and the starter Alice-colored coins she got originally. [Here, I'll put you both on the brainphone, too,] she adds merrily to everyone present. [You'll be able to talk to each other from anywhere. Don't use stars without the secret I am about to tell Angela, though, Micaiah, they are dangerous. Alice doesn't even know it,] she adds.

(Sherlock knows it. Her Sherlock isn't such a loose cannon waiting to happen, like the Whistles.)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 01:15 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably, and hugs his angel. "I want magic powers, give me magic powers," he says, nuzzling her shoulder.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 01:18 am (UTC)

"I will," she says, and she wishes on two hexagons in succession.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 01:19 am (UTC)

"I want to see your coin colors," enthuses Shell Bell. "I don't match Stella - I'm mother-of-pearl and she's glowy red."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 01:20 am (UTC)

Angela bites her lip experimentally, and produces a triangle: white with speckles, just like her wings. She grins at it. She wishes her hair untangled from the flight and giggles when the triangle disappears.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 01:21 am (UTC)

Micaiah bites his lip too.

His very first square is the colour of a very active Kiss.

Laughing, he turns to Angela and kisses her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 01:43 am (UTC)

Celebratory kisses! Magic! Angela has never been so happy in her life.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 01:44 am (UTC)

Shell Bell privately passes along to Angela the emergency mint-containment protocol that Stella invented - the anti-coin envelope around the skin - and, aloud, explains the design of the standard coin bandolier - "But I'm not sure how that will work with the wings."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 01:46 am (UTC)

"I can have the belt part," says Angela. "And if it gets too long, I can twist it in front and put my head through it, and it won't foul up my wings at all."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 01:49 am (UTC)

Micaiah nudges Angela. "Sing something," he murmurs, grinning.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 01:50 am (UTC)

Angela grins back and then launches without preamble into the soaring solo from the Magnificat. She can't sing through the whole of it - she can only cover about half the range - but she can do this bit.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 01:53 am (UTC)

Micaiah hugs himself and beams.

He quickly accumulates a pile of coins in the circle of his arms: pentagons, with a hex or two every time she hits an especially gorgeous note.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 01:55 am (UTC)

[You can sing pentagons and hexes out of him,] Bell remarks, silently so as not to interfere with the gorgeous music. [That is cool.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 01:59 am (UTC)

The solo comes to an end - or rather, the last phrase within her range does - and Angela amens herself to a graceful conclusion with a brilliant grin, picks up one of his pentagons, and wishes suitable coin-bandoliers into existence for the both of them, his wound the traditional way and hers just a belt for the time being.

"It's the Kiss in his arm," she says. "It gets one's attention when one has found one's true love. Most especially when there's singing. Mine doesn't hurt, but Jovah knows who this one's attached to." She taps the swirling crystal in Micaiah's arm.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 02:01 am (UTC)

And now that his nice new coins are all on his nice new bandolier, Micaiah has his arms free to hug her! So he does.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:01 am (UTC)

Yay!

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 02:02 am (UTC)

[Do you have any more specific guesses than I do about why Alleluia would talk like that to Jovah?] Shell Bell asks Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-02-16 02:03 am (UTC)

[None come to mind.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 02:06 am (UTC)

[Hm. Oh well.] "Back to the Eyrie?" Shell Bell asks aloud. "You could teleport there, now."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:07 am (UTC)

"But I told Serah where I was going and so no one will expect me back for another three hours. Besides, I like to fly, and I might pass something that needs doing," Angela laughs, still giddy with new power. "Thank you again - thank you so much, both of you, for being patient until I had my answer, for giving me the coins -"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 02:07 am (UTC)

"You're completely welcome," Shell Bell assures her happily.

sicaria
2013-02-16 02:08 am (UTC)

"And very sweet," adds Sherlock.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 02:09 am (UTC)

"Isn't she?" beams Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:10 am (UTC)

Angela blushes and picks up Micaiah again, but then pauses before taking off. "Unless you'd like to fly by yourself?" she asks him.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 02:11 am (UTC)

"I like it when you fly me," he says, curling up happily in her arms. "Do you like flying me?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:14 am (UTC)

She kisses his forehead. "I love flying you."

And she runs lightly down the hill and air catches her under her wings and she flies.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 02:15 am (UTC)

Shell Bell turns invisible again and goes into the air after them.

sicaria
2013-02-16 02:18 am (UTC)

Sherlock likewise follows.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:28 am (UTC)

Back at the Eyrie, Angela finds Milliways in place of her water room.

[If you want to go home now, you can,] she tells Sherlock and Shell Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 02:28 am (UTC)

Shell Bell teleports down. "Are you coming?" she asks.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:30 am (UTC)

"Not this time. I'm too - excited to start work here, I don't think I can stand to leave, and you can write all the necessary notes in the Belltower for us," says Angela, grinning. She holds the door with her foot so she can give Shell Bell a hug. "But it was lovely to meet you. I hope we run into each other again!"

sicaria
2013-02-16 02:33 am (UTC)

"I hope the same," says Sherlock.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 02:33 am (UTC)

Micaiah distributes hugs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:35 am (UTC)

"Bye!" says Angela merrily.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 02:35 am (UTC)

Shell Bell and Sherlock go through the door, and close it behind them.

sicaria
2013-02-16 02:36 am (UTC)

"I believe I will go and snuggle my brother," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-16 02:37 am (UTC)

"I'll be along as soon as I've written up our vacation's events," says Shell Bell, giving her a kiss. "I love you."

sicaria
2013-02-16 02:38 am (UTC)

Mmmkiss.

"I love you too," she says, and departs.

we are invariably pleased to welcome tourism

cross_and_bow

Sherlock is usually very puncutal. He's only one minute late, but that's still not quite as punctual as usual. Bella peers out the window, not yet allowing herself outright concern.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:18 pm (UTC)

There he is!

It seems he's brought a friend.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Who's that?" Bella says, sticking her head out the window. "And you're a minute late, your blood's gone cold."

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Amariah, "that answers the mental opacity question very handily. Hi! I'm an alternate version of you from another dimension! I'm Isabella Amariah and you can call me Amariah for non-redundancy. Sherlock's been calling you Juliet, can I do the same?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:22 pm (UTC)

"This is going to be an interesting conversation," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:23 pm (UTC)

"What's going on?"

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock can't hear me," says Amariah. "I've got a spell on that prevents anyone from noticing me. You're immune! Congratulations. Can we all go back to Sherlock's crypt so I can take the spell off? He doesn't need the blood anyway, my boyfriend let him bite him not half an hour ago."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:25 pm (UTC)

"...Sherlock, she says you're not hungry and we should all go back to your crypt?" says Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Both very true."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Okay then."

Bella dumps the blood and exits the house, messenger bag in tow. "I guess you can call me Juliet if Bella won't do."

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:27 pm (UTC)

"It won't," says Amariah. "Too many of us to keep straight in the interdimensional hub, so we're all picking nicknames. Me, Shell Bell, Stella, Angela, and Golden hasn't picked a nickname officially but Stella's met her and that's her guess, and Sherlock supplied Juliet for you but you could go with something different."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that's a lot. How exactly did you find Amariah, Sherlock?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Stepped out of my crypt, and instead of the usual graveyard I found a bar," he says. "Amariah spotted me and said hello."

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell is dating a girl version of him," says Amariah chattily. "I've met that one, her Tony, and another pair where they're both boys. This one doesn't have a Tony anymore, which is terribly sad - At any rate, I recognized him and said hi before I realized there was something the matter with his soul. Oh, by the way, my owl is my soul. Don't touch him. His name's Pathalan."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:36 pm (UTC)

"You can tell by looking that there's something wrong with his soul? That is so unfair, I am supposed to have vampire detection powers," grumbles Juliet.

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:38 pm (UTC)

"I'm a witch - I can't teach you, we're a species, not an academic specialty - and therefore magically sensitive. I can tell by looking that you don't have a Pathalan of your own. Which is still weird to me, but I'm getting used to it. And I could tell by looking that Sherlock's soul is not only internal but also weird."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Internal souls," mutters Juliet. "It never occurred to me to store mine any other way. Seems like a liability."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:39 pm (UTC)

"It rather does, doesn't it?" agrees Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:40 pm (UTC)

"It can be," says Amariah. "But I'm much less dependent on notebooks or whatever for self-sorting than the others are - well, Shell Bell does audio recording and some of them have perfect recall now, but I mean barring that - because I can talk to Path, and he knows me inside and out."
Edited 2013-02-13 23:41 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that does sound useful," acknowledges Juliet.

And presently they arrive at the crypt.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:43 pm (UTC)

Sherlock leads them both inside and waits for Amariah to become noticeable again.

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:45 pm (UTC)

The easiest way to break this particular spell is by screaming at the top of one's lungs!

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Ahhhh why would you do that?" asks Juliet, clapping her hands over her ears. She of course notices no difference.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Because now I can hear her again," says Sherlock. "Thank you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Okay then."

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Should've warned you," says Amariah apologetically. "So! I can do magic. I'm not as nigh-omnipotent as Stella or Shell Bell now that Stella has shared with her, but I can do some stuff. And I can catch you up on all of us Bells, in case you don't make it to Milliways yourself any time soon, too!"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I approve of all of that!" replies Juliet. "What all can you do? I bet you have a list."

dark_light
2013-02-13 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I do have a list!" says Amariah, producing her list. "Six of these are just basic blessings with no interactions and no side effects and I can do them all. Then these ones do interact and you can't have the whole set; I have a guess which you'll want but you know more about the situation than I do. And then there are some protective tattoos, which work very well and can go with anything else I know how to do just fine but they hurt to put on for a few seconds. I only know so many because my boyfriend is such a masochist."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:56 pm (UTC)

(Sherlock grins.)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-13 11:57 pm (UTC)

(Juliet catches that.) "I take it that's why he let you bite him?" she asks.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-13 11:58 pm (UTC)

"You are correct! It was lovely."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:01 am (UTC)

"Good for you, hooray consensual biting," says Juliet. "...Wait, you said Shell Bell is...?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:02 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell's dating a girl alt of Sherlock, yeah, but I'm not dating a Sherlock at all - don't seem to have one, or at least haven't run into one outside Milliways. My boyfriend is a duplicate, though, there's three of him dating Bells and one who Stella dislikes so much that she put him on an asteroid," says Amariah. "We're calling the class of them 'Whistles'. They don't have name consistency like we do. Mine is Kas and his daemon's Petaal."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:03 am (UTC)

"Ah-huh."

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:04 am (UTC)

"I'll just get started on the runes for the universally compatible blessings, unless you object," says Amariah, reaching into the bag of "groceries" she brought from Milliways for the tea tree oil.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:04 am (UTC)

"No objections here. Er - assuming your magic doesn't have drastic brain-eating consequences or anything? I've been warned away from the local version."

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:05 am (UTC)

"I'm planning to sacrifice a couple of rats, a live rosemary sprout, and maybe a crow and a seagull depending on which incompatible spells you pick and whether you want the tattoos," says Amariah. "Other than that no harm will come to any living thing, least of all me."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 12:07 am (UTC)

"I have to wonder where you'll get the crow and the seagull," Sherlock muses.

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:08 am (UTC)

"I was thinking I'd go back out to the graveyard and summon them. If there's none in the nearest half-mile I can substitute pigeons," says Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 12:11 am (UTC)

"All right."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:12 am (UTC)

Juliet looks over the list. "I think I'm going to go with the set you picked out, with one swap. Tempting as this one about falls is. I'm not clumsy anymore," she says. "The opposite since I activated, really. I'll take the faster healing one instead. I already heal fast, but maybe it'll stack."
Edited 2013-02-14 00:13 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:15 am (UTC)

"Ooh, nice. I'm not clumsy when I'm flying, but I still trip over things on the ground," says Amariah. "It took me ridiculous extra remedial lessons before I was declared not a clan embarrassment with a dagger, and they had to settle for that because there's no way I'm getting up to merely below average." Oil runes are forming as she pours them in a square on the floor of Sherlock's crypt.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 12:17 am (UTC)

"The differences and commonalities between you all are fascinating," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:19 am (UTC)

"Aren't they though? We also talk in our sleep," volunteers Amariah. "Most of us don't find that out for a while, though, someone has to actually be in the room while we're sleeping. And of course Golden doesn't sleep anymore, and Stella doesn't have to although she can if she wants."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:20 am (UTC)

"We talk in our sleep? What do we say?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:21 am (UTC)

"Nothing bad. Nothing even related to our dreams. Completely random words, mostly nouns," Amariah reassures her.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 12:21 am (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:22 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell's Sherlock thinks it's adorable," says Amariah, smirking and finishing the runes. "Okay, you stand here, Juliet."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:22 am (UTC)

Juliet stands there.

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:23 am (UTC)

Amariah conjures a handful of oregano with her cornucopia, and tosses it at her double, and mutters the spell. The runes and the oregano disappear.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 12:26 am (UTC)

"I also think it is adorable," Sherlock mentions.

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:29 am (UTC)

"Of course you do," says Amariah merrily, retrieving from her shopping bag a canister of salt and beginning another diagram.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:29 am (UTC)

"So - what kind of a spread are we looking at here, in... Bells?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:35 am (UTC)

"Well, there's me. There's Shell Bell, who's a human from a nasty little dystopia called Panem, but she ran into Stella and got Stella magic and so I imagine she's got the placed all fixed up by now. There's Stella, who has a Whistle called Alice, and she has the most overpowered magic ever, although it has this one eensy drawback - her magic system converts pain into wishes - so it's lucky she's got a Whistle, isn't it, because he's utterly thrilled to help her with that. Stella left notes in the guestbook about one who we're calling Golden who hasn't been by in person yet. Golden's a vampire - not the same kind as you have here, her kind sound like a much better deal all around I have to say - and she's married to a nonduplicate named Edward and they have a kid named Elspeth and she runs a secret vampire empire. I just met Angela today and she's an angel - I mean she literally has great big speckly wings coming out of her back - and she's kind of a personality outlier, kinda sheltered, I feel like she's editing herself farther upstream than the rest of us do. Which makes sense. She lives in a theocracy and she wants the local god to name her the next Archangel. And she grew up in a childhood of useful luxury, so that's as far as her ambition seems to go at the moment, can you imagine?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:36 am (UTC)

"Useful luxury," repeats Juliet. "Yeah. I could see that being a developmental left turn. What does she get to do that's useful?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:37 am (UTC)

"Angels where she's from fly around and pray for weather, or sometimes medicine or seeds, by singing," says Amariah. "The place otherwise has nearly unlivable weather. And she is good at singing. I'm almost surprised she harbors ambitions that go as far up as Archangel, although I'm not sure if the living conditions for the non-angels are quite where she'd like them to be, so there's that."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 12:41 am (UTC)

"What's the significance of useful luxury?" asks Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:47 am (UTC)

"Okay, think about it," says Amariah. "We are both selfish and altruistic to the point of near-contradiction. Usually, this results in taking over the world. Golden was a revolutionary, I think Shell Bell's going that way too, Stella's going a sort of sideways route by colonizing Mars first, I've got a longer plan underway but it's definitely on the agenda, Juliet's still in the point in the Bell life-cycle where she's collecting resources and not moving forward on world takeover but I bet it sounds pretty good to her too."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 12:47 am (UTC)

"Not gonna deny it."

dark_light
2013-02-14 12:53 am (UTC)

"Being the benevolent dictator of the world is kind of the pinnacle of useful luxury, altruistic self-interest, power and service. Empress Bellas are comfortable, they are surrounded by people they like who acknowledge that they are in charge, they get to accomplish all kinds of valuable results for their worlds while also getting to wear elaborate crowns to boot. But we've all done this from a starting point of mediocrity. Most of us have divorced parents; Shell Bell's and mine are together, but Shell Bell grew up in oppressive poverty and my parents have this disastrous on-again off-again marriage. We attend public schools that are only adequate judged against other public schools. I've been half in witch culture, which is better - I get to learn magic and fly and stuff, which I'm good at - but there aren't any real affordances for doing things. Experiencing stuff, sure, I can always hop on my cloud pine and see the Taj Mahal or whatever, but doing stuff out in the world? Useful stuff? Fewer obvious routes, so of course I'm going to just claim the entire planet as my own, piecemeal, and declare the entire thing my responsibility. But Angela..." Amariah shakes her head. "Angela's parents are happily married. She never had to move or split herself between cultures or summer at one parents' house and spend the rest of the year at the others. She has friends, close friends, who she's known since she was born. She's high-status and she can fly and sing and all anyone wants from her is for her to fly and sing. Her god has more to say on the subject of how to live a good life than any of my goddesses do, so she's got an absorbing self-improvement project. She was born with everything she needed to ascend to the highest political office of her land and all she has to do is something she's good at, something she enjoys, something that visibly helps people who need it, under the direction of people she respects. I'm not surprised she wants to be Archangel, but I'm also not surprised she doesn't aspire beyond the standard-issue twenty-year term after the current Archangel is good and done with his."
Edited 2013-02-14 00:56 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:10 am (UTC)

"World conquest. Oh, what fun," says Sherlock. "Don't tell the Watchers; they'll have kittens."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 01:12 am (UTC)

"Mum's the word. I'm not even at that point in my life-cycle yet," snorts Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:13 am (UTC)

"That just makes you sound like some manner of insect," he says. "A monarch butterfly, perhaps."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 01:13 am (UTC)

Juliet cracks up.

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:14 am (UTC)

"There's no analogous period spent in the chrysalis," laughs Amariah. "It's a smooth transition from caterbella to bellafly."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:15 am (UTC)

...Sherlock cracks up.

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:19 am (UTC)

Amariah, meanwhile, has finished her next diagram. She summons a rat; rats are not in short enough supply for this to take very long, and when it scurries up to her she seizes it, pulls her dagger, and speaks another poem before stabbing it through.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:21 am (UTC)

"If you two are going to be occupied with this for some time, I think I will go and fetch some tea," says Sherlock. "Please don't get eaten while I'm gone; I would be terribly disappointed."

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:22 am (UTC)

"You said fire works? I can do fire if anyone besides you barges in," Amariah says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 01:23 am (UTC)

Juliet picks up her laser pointer out of her messenger bag, tosses and catches it, and says, "You go ahead."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:24 am (UTC)

He grins at both of them and exits the crypt.

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:26 am (UTC)

When he's back within word-discerning hearing range, one of them - Amariah, on sufficient analysis - is midsentence:

"- to tell you while he was here, because there is some chance you'll flip before you calm back down again, but me and Kas kinda slept with Sherlock. Yours, I mean, not one of the others floating around."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:28 am (UTC)

...What timing.

He pauses in the doorway; if she does flip, he doesn't want to be an available target.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 01:29 am (UTC)

"I have no grounds for flipping. It's not like I'm dating him," says Juliet.

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:32 am (UTC)

"Oh, I know, but he liked you first, and I bet you like him even if you haven't decided to act on it so far, and while obviously we can do nonexclusivity just fine if we want to it doesn't come standard with being a Bell. So I wanted to make sure you had a minute to process first. Whistles don't come in monogamous; I don't know if Sherlocks do, but it's not default, at least."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:34 am (UTC)

He should probably either admit he's listening or go away.

He steps inside the crypt and closes the door.

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:35 am (UTC)

"He's back," says Path.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:39 am (UTC)

"Yes, with exquisite timing as always," he says, dropping into the hidden room to deposit his stolen tea. "Should I go away again?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:41 am (UTC)

Amariah and Juliet exchange a look.

"No, it's all right," says Amariah. "Unless Juliet's squeamish about you being in the room while I paint on the tattoos."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 01:42 am (UTC)

"Not especially," says Juliet. "They're just going on my shoulderblades, I don't even have to take my shirt all the way off as long as it's hiked up in back and held out of the way."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:46 am (UTC)

"In that case, I think I'll make some tea," says Sherlock. "Sorry, you can't have any, there's only the one mug."

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:49 am (UTC)

"Mug of oolong tea," Amariah says, amused, and one appears, floating before her and steaming gently. She takes it from the air, sips, sets it down, and returns to mixing her bayleaf ink for the first of several planned tattoos.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:50 am (UTC)

"Cheat," he accuses fondly.

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:51 am (UTC)

"Cheating is excellent," returns Amariah. "Juliet, lie down, shirt out of the way - idiotic nudity taboos, does it help that he's seen me naked already? no? all right then -" and when Juliet's shirt is out of the way she begins to paint.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 01:52 am (UTC)

"Whatever else you were going to say before he came back from his tea run I don't particularly care if you say it in front of him," says Juliet.

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:53 am (UTC)

"I was going to add that he comes highly recommended," says Amariah, painting the stem, "but otherwise I said everything I was going to."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:54 am (UTC)

"And I heard all of it from when you mentioned that we slept together," he says, "in case anyone was harbouring illusions on that front."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 01:58 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Juliet.

dark_light
2013-02-14 01:58 am (UTC)

"All painted. Hold still while I recite the poem; it's not exactly going to tickle," says Amariah.

The bayleaf poem ensues.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 01:59 am (UTC)

Juliet hisses when the ink sinks in, but she does hold still.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 02:01 am (UTC)

Sherlock watches over his kettle.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 02:03 am (UTC)

Juliet endures four more tattoos, lined up rather attractively from shoulderblade to shoulderblade and well under the neckline of all her shirts. Finally they're all done; she sits up.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 02:08 am (UTC)

"Congratulations on your increased likelihood of living past twenty," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 02:10 am (UTC)

"Thanks."

dark_light
2013-02-14 02:12 am (UTC)

"I can put a few spells on your house, too, if you want them," says Amariah. "Probably a good idea to wait until Charlie's at work, though. Walking down the street in a weird outfit is one thing, drizzling substances on the carpet and killing pigeons is another."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 02:14 am (UTC)

"And he would be likely to find you confusing. Although at least he probably won't shoot you."

dark_light
2013-02-14 02:14 am (UTC)

"...Did he shoot you? Why, what were you doing?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 02:16 am (UTC)

"He was outnumbered by a mob of demons. I killed most of them and scared off the rest."

dark_light
2013-02-14 02:20 am (UTC)

"Yes, I imagine he would find that alarming."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 02:21 am (UTC)

"I calmed him down after and there has been no further gunplay," says Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 02:25 am (UTC)

Sherlock snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 02:27 am (UTC)

"You mentioned dagger training. Are you good enough to give me a run for my money so I can get in some practice against two people who don't actually want to kill me at the same time? I'm worried I'm going to fixate on combat patterns that only work for a single opponent and not for a single opponent and their friends and cousins and neighbors too."

dark_light
2013-02-14 02:27 am (UTC)

"I don't know about an actual run for your money, but I can brandish it threateningly at you if that would help somehow," says Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 02:28 am (UTC)

"Now that sounds like fun."

dark_light
2013-02-14 07:27 am (UTC)

"And since I'm not actually good with it, just capable of not cutting off my own fingers, I guess I won't have to worry about getting past you and hurting you, but are you going to be at risk of hurting me? If you're still learning, do you know how to pull your punches? I can do healing spells on myself if it comes to that, but only if I'm conscious and I have an intact trachea to recite verse and so on..."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 07:31 am (UTC)

"That is a risk," admits Juliet. "I don't really have to pull my punches with Sherlock; he's more durable than that. And I don't want to, like, embed a habit of punch-pulling. Sherlock, do you think it would be long-term disadvantageous to have a habit of engaging a primary opponent one at a time and only dodge the next person until the first one is down? Because if that's something reasonable to aim at, Amariah can weave around and be stabby and I can take you down while trying not to get stabbed?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 01:13 pm (UTC)

"It might do you good to have an option of pulling your punches, if you can separate that from the rest of the programming. It's not inconceivable that you may someday have to fight a human who is intent on harming you, yet prefer to leave them alive. As for the dodging... it is not the only good way to engage a group, but it is one such way." He quirks a smile. "Really, what you need is four of me. Perhaps I should advertise in the dimensional hub."

dark_light
2013-02-14 04:13 pm (UTC)

Amariah raises her hand. "I'd like to point out that there are also nonhumans worth leaving alive."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 04:14 pm (UTC)

"I can already sort of feed the programming goals, including don't hit that person too hard - I'm just not sure any of the progamming knows how strong I am or how much an unenhanced person can take. D'you think other yous would want to participate even if you could find several of them all at once? Especially if they're not vampires, especially if they come from worlds similar enough to have literally been scared of turning into you? Do worlds even cluster that close together?" Juliet asks, directing the last question at Amariah.

dark_light
2013-02-14 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," says Amariah. "I mean... Golden and Stella have the same history up until they were seventeen, but they found completely different stuff when they moved to Forks, vampires versus wishcoins. Then there's me and Angela who weren't even human to start out. And Shell Bell's from Earth where Angela might not be, but even Shell Bell's from way in the future, and so are Shell Bell's Sherlock and Tony. The other Sherlock and Tony seem to have been from nearer by you. They had vampires, which seem at least more like the local kind than like Golden's or some other sort. That Tony described it as, what was it -"

"We were talking about souls," Path says, "and he said that on his world if you get turned into a vampire you become a people-eating asshole version of you."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 04:40 pm (UTC)

"That does sound like our world," Sherlock agrees.

dark_light
2013-02-14 04:43 pm (UTC)

"You don't appear to be an asshole," Amariah says. "Do you eat people? I'm not sure biting and leaving them alive and well like with Kas counts as eating them. More like tasting. Say, was he tasty?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes he was," Sherlock says cheerfully. "In the vast majority of cases, turning into a vampire does make someone much nastier than they previously were. I am, as ever, an outlier. And I did eat people for a while, but it's not a sufficient draw to be worth how much it will piss off Juliet, so I stopped."

dark_light
2013-02-14 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Were you at least choosy about it? Golden's husband reportedly used to eat people, but he can read minds, so he only ate bad people."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 04:49 pm (UTC)

"She married a guy who can read minds?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, he can't read her, unless she tries really hard to let him," says Amariah. "Stella makes it sound like at this point he's her glorified radio."
Edited 2013-02-14 16:50 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 04:50 pm (UTC)

"I only ate boring people," he offers. "That is probably not the kind of choosy you meant."

dark_light
2013-02-14 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Nope, that is not what I had in mind. Oh well. Shell Bell's Sherlock killed twenty approximately innocent people on live national television. My Whistle killed some nasty individuals, even. Also, I assassinated Shell Bell's former president for her, he was bad news." Pause. "Actually, I think he was an alt of someone the other other Sherlock and Tony knew? I wasn't there, but I think they brought him to Milliways with them and then sent him home after Shell Bell screamed and drew her fire wand on him."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 04:54 pm (UTC)

"...If that's who I'm thinking of, I've killed one of him too," Sherlock reports with excessive cheer.

dark_light
2013-02-14 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, the President's name was Coriolanus Snow, but I don't think they matched and I don't remember the other one's name," says Amariah. "I might recognize it...?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Obadiah Stane."

dark_light
2013-02-14 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that was it. Shell Bell seemed to think that other Tony liked him but hers emphatically didn't and neither of the other Sherlocks did."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, all this talk of who everyone has killed - I'm at twenty-one miscellaneous vampires and I don't have their names - isn't answering the question of whether otherworldly Sherlocks would be willing or able to be helpful even if accumulated in sufficient quantity," says Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Any Sherlock from a world like ours would be delighted to train up a Vampire Slayer, especially one as brilliant as you. They might have some trouble fitting me into the picture, but perhaps not as much as they'd think."

dark_light
2013-02-14 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell's would probably help if Shell Bell asked her to," puts in Amariah. "They're adorable. You have no idea how adorable."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 05:03 pm (UTC)

"We'll see who we can scare up after someone finds a door to send you home through, then," says Juliet. "...How long is that likely to take?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Not sure," says Amariah. "I mean, Sherlock found the door once and I haven't found it myself before and neither have you, so he's the most likely to find it again but we don't have a good idea of frequency; we should have some way set up for him to be able to notify me when he does run into it. I can work something out with a saltwater charm if you don't have phones or mine turns out not to get service here. I'm happy to hang out for a while if I have to. I'm not getting meaningfully older, I have a project to work on that could easily take me a year, I'd miss Kas if it took a long time but he routinely fucks off for months on his own anyway, I'm willing to sleep in a hammock hanging from my cloud-pine in the sky, I have a cornucopia so I won't even be relying on you guys for food."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 05:08 pm (UTC)

"If you wind up staying here for months I will be so tempted to loan you my clothes and ask you to attend school instead of me," says Juliet.

dark_light
2013-02-14 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Eh, you probably don't really want to do that, I won't recognize your acquaintances or remember what you've been doing in class, and besides, I dropped completely out of my rather haphazard attendance at human school when I was fifteen," says Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 05:52 pm (UTC)

"I do not, in fact, have a phone," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-14 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Saltwater charms it is. You have a pulse, right?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 05:53 pm (UTC)

"No."

dark_light
2013-02-14 05:53 pm (UTC)

"...Do you breathe?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Optionally."

dark_light
2013-02-14 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay, then this is complicated but not impossible, I'll add a motion component and you can breathe in Morse code or something to alert me if you find a door. I can find you with a divination if I don't know where you are."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 05:56 pm (UTC)

"...How would it have worked if I did have a pulse?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 05:57 pm (UTC)

"I'd put the charm on your wrist or the inside of your elbow, and you'd press on the relevant vein just enough to slow it down, and my copy of the charm would inform me then. These are originally designed to notify people if the other party dies, but you can modify them for more purposeful communication," she says, and she tells her cornucopia to give her salt and a cup of water.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I see. Fascinating."

dark_light
2013-02-14 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Magic is great! What's the stuff around here like?" Amariah murmurs the thickening charm. She takes the liberty of touching Sherlock's chin so she can tilt his head back to paint over his airway, so the charm will be able to pick up on whether and when he breathes. "Also which way is north from here?"
Edited 2013-02-14 19:04 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure yet. Mr. Giles sort of agreed to teach me, but he seems to think it's terribly, desperately dangerous," says Juliet. "I haven't been able to get anything out of a book to work. North is that way, I think." She points.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Mr. Giles may be exhibiting his crust, but to a certain extent he's right," says Sherlock. "It's fairly well accepted in some circles that merely being a habitual magic user makes you tend to attract supernatural hazards. Of course, in those same circles it's fairly well accepted that being the Slayer has the same effect at ten or a hundred times the magnitude, so if Mr. Giles were operating with all the facts he might have a different recommendation. And then again, I've never heard of a Slayer who was also a witch, so there may be some traditional or actual barrier in effect there."

dark_light
2013-02-14 08:52 pm (UTC)

"What do the spells around here look like? If you've gotten as far as noting that things out of books don't work..."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh, the ones I've found with stuff that seemed benign and didn't require locust wings prepared under the seventh moon of a prime-numbered lunar year or some crap like that all go like, 'Divine Hecate, behold my will, grant me this boon' and so on and so on."

dark_light
2013-02-14 08:54 pm (UTC)

"...And," says Amariah, "can divine Hecate in fact behold your will? Or is it, say - opaque?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 08:55 pm (UTC)

"...good question," says Juliet. "But I heard you invoking all sorts of goddesses."

dark_light
2013-02-14 08:56 pm (UTC)

"I've got mental opacity, but it comes from a birth blessing from a witch goddess," says Amariah. "I don't think they locked themselves out when they gave it to me. And my spells are more descriptive than 'behold my will', anyway."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's hilarious," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 08:58 pm (UTC)

"It's annoying," exclaims Juliet. "Now I have to find a completely unrelated school of magic. I think they must exist - some of the nasty curses don't open with anything inviting deities to behold my will so obviously I didn't try those - but wow. Wow."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 08:59 pm (UTC)

"It's hilariously annoying," he maintains.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay, fine. So yours is a birth blessing - I wonder where mine comes from?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Stella and Golden's worlds both just have people with innate powers crop up sometimes, so Stella's an 'ingot' and Golden's a - well, they call them 'witches' apparently, but it's not the same thing as me. Angela doesn't think she has it at all, and Shell Bell knows she didn't before she met Stella and got magic loot. I don't know about you."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Do you know exactly which parts of the Slayer package you're missing?" he inquires.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I have no supernatural senses, and a Power That Is had to visit me in person to wonder why I wasn't slaying anything yet and wanted to know why I hadn't gotten its dreams," reports Juliet. "If there's more, I don't know enough to know it's missing."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 09:21 pm (UTC)

"You clearly do have all the physical upgrades, and the battle instincts. That part is interesting. Why that and not the senses, I wonder?"

dark_light
2013-02-14 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Stella wrote that Golden's 'witchcraft' let her daughter communicate with her until her daughter tried to send useful information in a quantity that would have been incapacitating for a while," volunteers Amariah. "Stella was briefly worried that when her Whistle got a brain upgrade, her mindreading would stop working if she didn't boost herself to match because it would've been overwhelming. Are the senses or the dreams - unpleasant? Do they interfere with other stuff? I bet the battle instincts only come up when you're in a fight and then they'd be a strict improvement over whatever you started with."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if they're unpleasant, I never had them," Juliet points out. "I imagine they could be. The Slayer package wasn't really designed for my well-being."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 09:36 pm (UTC)

"The official Watcherly term for a Slayer's supernaturally acquired dreams is 'the nightmares'," says Sherlock. "So there's that."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Yes, I do imagine I'd find that unpleasant."

dark_light
2013-02-14 09:38 pm (UTC)

"And if the idea is for you to kill vampires and such I don't imagine supernaturally sensing them would be a gentle breezy sensation or patterns of dots on a magic heads-up display," comments Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 09:50 pm (UTC)

Sherlock snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay, this is if nothing else a reasonable working hypothesis for why I can't cast spells I've tried and why half the Slayer properties didn't stick to me, but I still don't know where the original opacity came from," says Juliet. "Sherlock, do you know anything about - random magical powers people sometimes have? Is that a thing?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 09:57 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "It's a vague rumour, at any rate. Doesn't seem to happen very frequently."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 10:01 pm (UTC)

"But you've heard of it - what can other people do?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Visions of the future. Telekinesis."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Those are cool," says Juliet. "On balance I think I'll stick with mine, though, I don't want nightmares or for magic to eat my brain or anything."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Yes, magic eating your brain would be a tragic loss."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-14 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I'd really object," says Juliet, nodding. "Maybe Mr. Giles will be able to help me find something that does work. He did pretty much agree to teach me in between all the dire warnings."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-14 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Let us hope," agrees Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 12:00 am (UTC)

"Anyway. Lemme put my new magic through its paces, huh?" says Juliet, rolling her shoulders and reaching behind herself to poke at the hidden tattoos. "Just Sherlock to start, and when I'm used to the boosts I can practice trying not to give Amariah an opening into which she might insert something sharp."

Training ensues. Amariah doesn't prove particularly useful as a stabby prop, but the blessings she cast are definitely helping. Juliet is less tired, less bruised, barely scratched, more alert, and surer on her feet than before, and it adds up to a definite edge above and beyond the revisions she's been making to her "autopilot".

Sherlock violently encounters the wall on more than one occasion.

dark_light
2013-02-15 12:01 am (UTC)

When Juliet's done for the night, Amariah gives Sherlock a hug, and then casts the quick verse-and-parsley notice-me-not spell so that she won't attract attention from bad guys, nosy neighbors, or Charlie. She walks home with Juliet and parks her cloud-pine, its hammock, and herself outside her alt's window.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 12:02 am (UTC)

The next day, Juliet takes Amariah to school with her. As long as Amariah doesn't do anything weirder than loitering and speaking in a normal tone of voice, she is completely unobtrusive.

Including to Mr. Giles when study hall rolls around and Juliet goes to return the books she's gotten through and talk magic.

pythbox
2013-02-15 12:16 am (UTC)

"That's more than I expected," he says as he reclaims them. "Considering the depth of your note-taking."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 12:18 am (UTC)

"I read pretty quickly," says Juliet. "You can look over my notes on them if you want proof they got read, or something."

pythbox
2013-02-15 12:21 am (UTC)

"I don't plan to be that kind of teacher," he says, with what might be a vestige of a smile.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 12:23 am (UTC)

"What kind of teacher do you plan to be?" she inquires.

dark_light
2013-02-15 12:23 am (UTC)

(Amariah, meanwhile, is reading through one of the books. Reading a book in a library is not unusual enough to break the spell, and she'll put it right back when Giles reaches for it.)

pythbox
2013-02-15 12:36 am (UTC)

"I have no idea," he admits. "Well, I have some idea. But 'not that kind' isn't much of an answer."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 12:37 am (UTC)

"It's not. Do you have an idea where we're going to start? Or are you stalling for time with the huge stack of demonological texts?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 12:39 am (UTC)

"The huge stack of demonological texts is full of crucial, valuable information," he says. "...And yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 12:42 am (UTC)

Juliet laughs.

"Hey, maybe you can answer a theory question for me," she says, when she's recovered. "You said I was lucky the only way I've had a spell fail is by not working at all. Does magic do a lot of uncontrolled stuff? Swirl around in random eddies breaking the laws of physics at random, stick to people who didn't especially solicit any, escape from poorly-worded spells and turn the local wildlife pink? Or is it all spells and sometimes exploding spells?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 12:54 am (UTC)

"It depends," he says. "Any spell that invokes a deity or demon—the difference isn't always perfectly clear—runs some risk of the named entity, ah, failing to cooperate. The results of that can be catastrophic, depending on whose attention you caught and how powerful and capricious they might be. Some spells, especially powerful ones, can backfire on the caster if done improperly. And magical artifacts of various kinds can have unpredictable effects. In general, no, magic doesn't do anything unless someone somewhere was trying to use it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 12:58 am (UTC)

"A lot of the spells I saw invoked deities-or-demons - they're basically the same, really? - but that just pushes the question of how the magic works back one step farther. Do the deities-or-demons do their own magic when no one's bothering them to do someone else's? And what's this about artifacts, let's hear about artifacts," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-15 01:08 am (UTC)

"Some do; some don't. If you want to know about them, or about artifacts, I can give you more books."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 01:11 am (UTC)

"I would like that," says Juliet decisively.

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:05 am (UTC)

He smiles tentatively and retreats behind the counter to haul out another armful from his personal collection.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:09 am (UTC)

"Did you expect me to need those?" Juliet asks. "For that matter, why did you bring your personal demonology collection, yesterday?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:12 am (UTC)

"I always bring my personal demonology collection," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:14 am (UTC)

"To school with you?" Bella asks. "In case a demon attacks you and this is a problem that can best be solved by available reference books?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:19 am (UTC)

"You never know when you might need a cross-reference," he says with dignity.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:20 am (UTC)

"Maybe you can read these beautifully illuminated page numbers more easily than I can," she says. "Say, how did you get all these books? Where do demonology books even come from?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:22 am (UTC)

"Private collections," he says. "And, apparently, the Sunnydale High school library."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:23 am (UTC)

"Whose private collections? Are you obtaining books from people who are..." She attempts his accent. "Evil in some way?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:28 am (UTC)

He gives her a disapproving look over his glasses.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:31 am (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:36 am (UTC)

"Perhaps I should have gone with my first explanation," he says. "Sometimes, when two demonology texts love each other very much..."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:37 am (UTC)

Juliet cracks up. "You know, at this point, that explanation for at least a handful of them wouldn't floor me? But seriously, who's collecting these things, who's writing them?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:49 am (UTC)

"Demonologists write them," he says. "And collect them. And occasionally give them up to other collectors, or researchers, or I don't know who else. If it's any consolation, I can't tell you where I found most of the mundane books on my shelves, either."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:51 am (UTC)

"How do people wind up being demonologists? Is that the sort of field you can fall into? Perhaps literally - is there a secret demonology department down in a cellar at UC Sunnydale and if you trip in the right place they offer you a scholarship?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:53 am (UTC)

"I can't think of a demonology book off the top of my head that was published in the last four centuries," he says. "So if there is such a department, I'm not who you want to ask about it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:55 am (UTC)

"That explains the archaic language. Lucky I'm up on my Shakespeare and so on," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-15 02:57 am (UTC)

"Yes, that is lucky," he agrees. "I have relatively recent translations for most of the older and more obscure texts, but if you want to make a serious study of demonology—or magic, for that matter—I recommend learning Latin."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 02:58 am (UTC)

"Is there a Latin class here that I should switch into from Spanish or am I looking at self-study if I go that route?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 03:00 am (UTC)

"There is a Latin class! I even have the forms," he says. "Would you like some forms? I'm very proud of my forms."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 03:02 am (UTC)

"I would be perfectly happy to switch to Latin from Spanish as long as there's a low-level section available and I won't be flailing in bewilderment," snorts Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-15 03:06 am (UTC)

"Fear not," he says, and he produces a form.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 03:07 am (UTC)

Juliet accepts the form. She fills it out. "Do I give this back to you or do I have to turn it in to the registrar or something?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 03:09 am (UTC)

"The latter," he says. "As a mere librarian I am not empowered to ferry your documents through the bureaucracy."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 03:11 am (UTC)

"Okay. It's near the cafeteria, I'll just do that come lunchtime." She checks the time on her phone. "Aaaand time for Bio, in which they have yet to explain how that one demon with the pink-and-gold scales managed to store seven gallons of venom in its torso without compromising the function of its internal organs despite all my many complaints about this oversight to the school board. See you after hours!"

She - with Amariah following after and giggling - departs the library.

pythbox
2013-02-15 03:12 am (UTC)

"Magic," he calls after her, laughing.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 03:14 am (UTC)

"Of course!" she calls over her shoulder, grinning.

After school she returns, with a slip in her pocket signifying her transfer to Latin, which she attended for the first time not ten minutes ago. "Latin," she announces, "gets entirely too fancy with its nouns." And she plunks the next book in her lineup onto the table and starts reading-and-notetaking.

pythbox
2013-02-15 03:15 am (UTC)

"A common complaint," says Mr. Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 06:00 am (UTC)

"Oh well, I was no great shakes at Spanish, and I bet I know someone who'll help me out if I get stuck on Latin," Juliet says, winking.

dark_light
2013-02-15 06:02 am (UTC)

Amariah decides to take advantage of her unnoticeability and peer behind the desk, where Giles keeps his personal stash of books. She doesn't walk around behind the counter, but she can lean on it and dangle her hand over, with Path clinging to it, and he can read the titles.

pythbox
2013-02-15 04:59 pm (UTC)

Very few of them actually have titles on the spines.

"But don't speak Latin around my books until you know what you're doing," he cautions. "Some of them are excitable."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Is it possible to accidentally do spells that way, really?" asks Juliet. "Can you accidentally do spells in other languages?"

dark_light
2013-02-15 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I can accidentally do spells in any language if I speak it in verse and it's clear enough that it's aimed at an effect," comments Amariah, pulling Path back up and putting him on her shoulder again. "I wasn't allowed to read Shakespeare aloud in school."

pythbox
2013-02-15 05:04 pm (UTC)

"It's closer to accidentally activating an artifact than accidentally doing a spell," he says. "A book of magic, or a book about magic, will tend to get... suggestible... with age. And Latin for some reason seems to be particularly, er, suggestive. So combining the two can have unpredictable effects."

dark_light
2013-02-15 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Ask him if it's only speaking or if writing Latin has the same problem," says Amariah.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Does writing Latin have the same problem? In my own notebooks, or in the - I promise it's not going to happen - event that someone wrote Latin margin notes in one of these?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 05:10 pm (UTC)

He frowns thoughtfully.

"Your own notebooks should be fine," he says. "I'm less sure about the margin notes, but that should be a moot point."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 05:11 pm (UTC)

"It is, I wouldn't write in old books," promises Juliet. "Should be fine even if I'm telling the Latin teacher I'm a fantasy nerd and doing all my homework exercises about magic to cement specialized vocabulary?"

dark_light
2013-02-15 05:12 pm (UTC)

"I wish I could get my spells to work in writing. Not just automatically, but if I could write them in special ink, maybe, it'd be easier than reciting whole poems. Oh well," says Amariah.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 05:13 pm (UTC)

Amariah gets a brief glance and a smile, though Juliet doesn't otherwise acknowledge her presence.

pythbox
2013-02-15 06:05 pm (UTC)

"As long as you don't mix the Latin and the old books, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Are the books self-aware or anything? Because that would be weird."

dark_light
2013-02-15 06:07 pm (UTC)

"And you'd have to be even more careful with them," comments Amariah.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 06:21 pm (UTC)

"And, not that I'm not being careful with your books, but there's 'valuable possession' and there's 'maybe a person' on the scale of whether I can put it in my backpack or not," says Juliet.

dark_light
2013-02-15 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, I sometimes sit in my Isabella's bag, if she's flying quickly and I can't keep up or hold on to her as usual," Path says. (He's just as covered as Amariah by the notice-me-not spell.) "Backpacks aren't so bad."

pythbox
2013-02-15 07:00 pm (UTC)

"The books are not self-aware," he assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 07:01 pm (UTC)

"How can you be sure?" Juliet asks.

dark_light
2013-02-15 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I can try to whip up a spell to check for it if he doesn't have a good answer, although I don't think I'd better cast it while there's someone in the room, it might break my notice-me-not," Amariah says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 07:02 pm (UTC)

Juliet attempts to disguise her nod as a roll of her neck.

pythbox
2013-02-15 07:09 pm (UTC)

"I have never heard of a book becoming self-aware. I have heard of possessed books, but even those did not have actual awareness except as lent to them by their demonic residents. And none of my books are possessed."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Do you check for possession on the first Wednesday of each month?" Juliet snickers.
Edited 2013-02-15 19:38 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-15 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Just because he hasn't heard of it happening any other way... I'm going to go ahead and whip up at least a verse-and-herb for it when we go back to your house," Amariah says. "Don't nod again, he'll notice you're acting funny."

pythbox
2013-02-15 07:40 pm (UTC)

He removes his glasses, cleans them, and puts them back on.

dark_light
2013-02-15 07:43 pm (UTC)

"You weren't kidding about him having nervous habits," snorts Amariah. She sits down and goes back to looking through Juliet's books.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 07:43 pm (UTC)

Juliet doesn't answer aloud, just goes back to her own reading and notetaking.

pythbox
2013-02-15 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Would you mind answering a question for me?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 08:01 pm (UTC)

"What is it?" Juliet asks, twisting around in her chair.

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:04 pm (UTC)

He gestures to Amariah.

"Who or what followed you here, and are you on friendly terms with him, her, or it?"

dark_light
2013-02-15 08:05 pm (UTC)

"You can see me?" demands Amariah. Not loud enough to break the spell; someone else might walk in.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 08:06 pm (UTC)

Juliet holds very still and waits for Mr. Giles to answer Amariah's question.

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:07 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what you just said," he says in Amariah's direction.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 08:07 pm (UTC)

"...But you can tell that she's there and that she said something," Juliet says slowly.

dark_light
2013-02-15 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure I cast the spell right. I'm sure," exclaims Amariah. "I was following you around all day, no one saw me -"

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "Should I not be able to? Who is it? It seems to me that if you know someone who can summon invisibility that well, you have no business applying to a, a dusty old librarian for lessons in magic."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Is there somewhere less - accessible - we can go so she can take the spell off and we can explain?" Juliet says. "Your office maybe?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't have one," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Do people ever come in here after hours besides me...? I guess I'd know better than you would, I've been here longer. Okay. Amariah, do you know any kind of spell to - you know what, nevermind, this is Sunnydale and everyone here has their certificate in advanced rationalization. But please don't break your notice-me-not by screaming this time. Do something else."

dark_light
2013-02-15 08:19 pm (UTC)

Amariah shrugs and walks up to Giles and pokes him in the chest, hard enough that he can't shrug it off as irrelevant.

"Hi," she says sheepishly.

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:21 pm (UTC)

He blinks at her.

"...Hello."

dark_light
2013-02-15 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Don't touch the owl," Amariah adds. (This has become its own word, all strung together, she's been in Milliways warning people away from her daemon enough now.) "Um, so, I'm an alternate of the Bella you know from another dimension. I can't teach her magic because my kind only works for my species, but I came here to help her out by casting a few blessings on her, and now I'm hanging around until I can get back home."

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:26 pm (UTC)

"It's... good to meet you," he says cautiously. "How do you two... know each other?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Amariah, I hope it goes without saying that this should not turn into a story about who exactly you picked up at a bar," says Juliet dryly.

(This is code for don't tell him about Sherlock.)

dark_light
2013-02-15 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll spare your librarian's sensibilities and omit the fine details," snorts Amariah. (This is code for okay, I won't.) "But in the non-fine-details department - the interdimesional hub collects alts of lots of people. I've met three others of us and heard about a couple more beyond that. This isn't even the first one I've visited at home."

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:32 pm (UTC)

"My sensibilities are very grateful," says Mr. Giles. "I've never heard of this interdimensional hub, but I'm well aware I don't know everything."

dark_light
2013-02-15 08:34 pm (UTC)

"If you ever open a door and it appears to lead to a bar, instead of whatever you were expecting," says Amariah, "that's probably Milliways. Right now, no time is passing in my home world at all. When me or Juliet finds a door back in, I'll just visit the room our template shares to make some notes in the guestbook and let myself out, and my boyfriend'll be waiting for me at home like no time has passed."

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:42 pm (UTC)

"That sounds convenient," he remarks.

dark_light
2013-02-15 08:43 pm (UTC)

"It is! So that's what I'm here and why I was following - well, we can just call her Bella, since there's only two of us and I don't even go by that when I'm home. She can see through my notice-me-not just fine. How did you do it, though?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 08:56 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea," he admits.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Do you have some kind of anti-mind-affecting-magic artifact or something?" asks Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-15 09:00 pm (UTC)

"...No..." he says slowly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Nobody else saw her, or at least reacted to her, and she's been following me around all day," Juliet says. "There must be something up with you."

dark_light
2013-02-15 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we know why Bella can see me. Shell Bell or Stella or Golden would've been able to, too," says Amariah. "But you're unexplained. If there's a hole in the spell I should work out something heavier-duty or just find someplace to hide out instead of accompanying her."

pythbox
2013-02-15 09:06 pm (UTC)

He takes off his glasses.

He cleans them.

He puts them back on.

dark_light
2013-02-15 09:07 pm (UTC)

"That's not very informative," remarks Amariah.

"I wonder if it's me," says Path. "Am I too weird in a world without daemons? By just enough to weaken the spell for someone who's on the lookout for oddities?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 09:21 pm (UTC)

"That might be true," says Mr. Giles.

dark_light
2013-02-15 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, I could go sit up on a bookshelf and she could recast, and you could see if my Isabella is less noticeable that way," Path suggests.

pythbox
2013-02-15 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Does it not make a difference whether or not I expect her to be there?"

dark_light
2013-02-15 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I'll recast, leave the room, and come back without Path and you say when you think I've done that," decides Amariah. "If you can tell, then it's not him. Dried parsley," she says. She takes the parsley handful from the air, tosses it, and mutters her non-English spell. Then she lets herself out, Path finds someplace out of the way to sit for a few moments, and, after a minute's wait, Amariah walks back in alone.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 09:29 pm (UTC)

Juliet studiously refrains from reacting to any of this after the spell is cast.

pythbox
2013-02-15 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Hello again," he says without missing a beat, as soon as she walks in.

dark_light
2013-02-15 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Rats, that's not it then," says Amariah. She holds the door open and Path flies to her arm and she pokes Giles again to break the spell so he'll be able to converse with her unimpeded. "Do you have any ongoing magical - properties?" she asks. "Do you care if I invent a verse-and-herb to check for it if you don't know? My kind of magic is perfectly safe unless I don't want it to be."

pythbox
2013-02-15 09:48 pm (UTC)

"...I won't ask you not to," he says, looking slightly uncomfortable.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 09:49 pm (UTC)

"She cast like a dozen things on my yesterday evening," says Juliet. "They all worked exactly like she said they would."

dark_light
2013-02-15 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Sugar. Celery seed," says Amariah, and the named ingredients appear and she composes a poem in her head. Finally she says:

"Show me how this one is shown
What is hidden, dark, unknown."

And she tosses the herbs at Giles and squints.

pythbox
2013-02-15 09:57 pm (UTC)

Something glows through his sleeve.

dark_light
2013-02-15 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Can I have a closer look at your left arm before this wears off?" Amariah asks.

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:02 pm (UTC)

He takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose. "I would rather you didn't."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Why, what is it?" asks Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:06 pm (UTC)

"One of the hazards of working magic," he says. "Particularly, of working magic while young and stupid."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 10:07 pm (UTC)

"It... seems to have given you a superpower, so what are the dire and ooky drawbacks?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:16 pm (UTC)

He gets out his cloth and starts cleaning his glasses again.

"It killed a friend of mine," he says shortly. "When I was not much older than you. We got involved with forces we didn't understand, or didn't care to, and he paid the price."
Edited 2013-02-15 22:17 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 10:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Juliet.

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Damn, I wish I could teach my witchcraft," murmurs Amariah, picking up Path from her shoulder and petting his feathers. "Much better deal - what were you doing, then, if you'll talk about it?"

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Summoning a demon to get high." He puts his glasses back on. "And I am now done talking about it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I'm really sorry about your friend," says Juliet.

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:24 pm (UTC)

"How in the world does summoning a - right, done talking about it, right," says Amariah. "Well, now we know why you can see me through the notice-me-not and it's not going to be common, I imagine. I hope."

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:26 pm (UTC)

"There are perhaps four other people alive who share this distinction," he says with a gesture indicating the upper part of his left arm, "and last I saw any of them was in London."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Sunnydale is in California," Juliet supplies to Amariah before Amariah can ask.

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:28 pm (UTC)

"So not near London, then. Okay. Existing precautions adequate."

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Glad that's settled," mutters Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 10:31 pm (UTC)

"...I promise never to do any magic that's primarily motivated by recreational psychological side effects," volunteers Juliet tentatively.

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he says, looking away.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 10:33 pm (UTC)

Right. Done talking about it. Books and notetaking and setting a timer on her phone to get home before curfew.

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:33 pm (UTC)

Amariah works alongside her. They take such similar notes, there's no reason not to divide the work.

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:36 pm (UTC)

Giles watches them with a certain amount of curiosity. Dimensional alternates is new.

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:39 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want to quiz me about my home dimension, or something?" Amariah offers. "I mean, I can also take notes, but she's got to read them to know the contents anyway, it doesn't save as much time as it looks like."

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:42 pm (UTC)

"...You've mentioned that your magic isn't teachable," he says. "How did you come by it?"

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm a witch. It's a species where I come from. Sort of, I mean - witches are all women, if we're going to make more witches we pretty much have to find mortals to cooperate, so my dad is just a human. Our sons are mortal, our daughters are witches. I've been doing simple nursery-rhyme level spells since I could talk, although I didn't start learning systematically until I could fly." She has her cloud-pine with her; there's enough scary stuff in this town that she wants to be able to put Juliet on it as a passenger and zoom out of wherever she's at at two hundred miles an hour without having to retrieve it from somewhere. She gestures with the branch. "When I was not quite six."

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I see," he says. "That's... fascinating on several levels. Does 'mortals' imply what I think it does?"

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, in my case, it does, but our alt Angela kept saying 'mortals' too and she just means people without wings and boasts no special lifespan herself, so good on you for asking. Witches live until we - well, there's not an exact understanding of how it happens, but it looks like barring death by violence we live until we're too bored or too lonely."

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Not a bad deal," he muses.

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, it means that we tend to last until we've gone through about four husbands, which takes a few centuries but not literally forever. I'm just planning to find a way to make my boyfriend immortal instead."

pythbox
2013-02-15 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Good luck," he ventures.

dark_light
2013-02-15 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I'll be able to do it. We have these devices -" she gestures to indicate the size. "That dispense objective truth in complete - sentences, so to speak, although it has to talk through symbols, they're really not very well designed, and the device says I can. I just have a research project to complete first."

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:01 pm (UTC)

"...Now that sounds useful."

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:02 pm (UTC)

"It is! Unfortunately, I've tried it outside my universe and the functionality's not portable. When questioned back home they say they run on 'dust' that isn't anywhere else." She shrugs. "Still very glad I have them. Well, I have one, my boyfriend has the other. He's an intuitive reader and he's much better at communicating with them than I am, so he wanted his own. There's only six in the world but two were lost; I found the first with a spell and he asked it where the other was."

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Remarkable," murmurs Giles.

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:05 pm (UTC)

Amariah grins at him.

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:06 pm (UTC)

He smiles back.

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Do you want any conveniently consequence-free spells on you or your house or whatever, as long as I'm loitering in this world and you're helping my counterpart here?" Amariah inquires. "The whole set I gave Bella includes four protective tattoos, which take a while, but if you wanted to skip those it'd only take a couple hours to go through all of them. I have tea tree oil and stuff left."

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:11 pm (UTC)

"That... would be very generous of you," he says, surprised. "Yes."

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:17 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind. I have time to kill, and Bells without their own magic can use all the help they can get. I mean, maybe she'll meet Stella or Shell Bell her first time through Milliways and whatever I do will be redundant, but maybe she won't. Here, I've got a list I wrote for Bella." Path pulls the paper out of her bag for her, and transfers it to her hand; she unfolds it and hands it to Giles.

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:18 pm (UTC)

"That's very thorough," he says.

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Enh, it's a bunch of spells, but they only add up to so much," demurs Amariah. "Even Golden, let alone Stella or Shell Bell, would be more help than me. If Bella wanted to undergo a species change. - Golden's world has a different kind of vampire than this one. A dramatically superior and less inherently problematic kind of vampire, sounds like."

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:21 pm (UTC)

"That's not saying much," he mutters absently.

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Golden's kind of vampire - I haven't met Golden in person, I've read Stella's notes about her in the guestbook in our shared room in Milliways, but according to the notes - Golden's kind of vampire is immortal, has no inconvenient allergies, can go weeks without eating, don't sleep, are almost physically indestructible short of fire and even then Golden's survived being pulverized to bits and then set on fire twice, and they are way, way faster and stronger than the vampires you have here. And they have perfect recall, and enhanced senses, and they think fast enough to process all this stuff plus the super-speed, and on top of all of that they are super pretty. The only drawbacks are that they mate for life and that's really serious business, female vampires can't get pregnant, and they feel pretty thirsty a lot of the time - but Milliways sells synthetic blood that they like just fine and Golden has her R&D department reverse-engineering it. And Golden managed to have a kid anyway, egg-harvesting before she turned."

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I can't decide whether I am envious or terrified," he says with dry calm.

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I'd rather have Stella's magic, really. It's kind of fucked up, but it's easy to hack that," says Amariah. "Besides, I don't know if Golden-vampires would be able to turn a non-human like me in the usual way and I don't think I'd wanna be a test subject."
Edited 2013-02-15 23:35 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Stella's magic being...?"

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Wishes. She can make nearly arbitrary wishes, and they come true," says Amariah. "The fucked up part is where wishes come from, but she's got a copy of my boyfriend for her own, and that template is all over it. I'll spare your librarian sensibilities the details of what they are all over."

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Thank you very much," he says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-15 11:45 pm (UTC)

Juliet snickers.

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:46 pm (UTC)

"We are a fascinating bunch," asserts Amariah.

pythbox
2013-02-15 11:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm beginning to see that," Giles agrees.

dark_light
2013-02-15 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Bella's always home at sundown, and I'm trying to stick with her, because my phone is from 2013 in another world and does not get service here and I want to know if she finds a door to Milliways," says Amariah. "Should I run and get the ingredients for spells to be added to your person, or would you rather set up a time to do that some other place than the school library?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 12:00 am (UTC)

"...The latter is probably the wiser course," he says.

dark_light
2013-02-16 12:02 am (UTC)

"Okay. I'll bring the stuff tomorrow; do you have to stay here until a certain time or can we go to your house after school or something? Bella's place won't do, there's always the risk that her dad will be home earlier than expected."

pythbox
2013-02-16 12:05 am (UTC)

"No one ever visits my house unexpectedly," he says wryly. "And I can leave as soon as school lets out."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:06 am (UTC)

"So you've just been sticking around for my charming company?" asks Juliet impishly.

pythbox
2013-02-16 12:08 am (UTC)

"Not when you put it like that," he says.

dark_light
2013-02-16 12:09 am (UTC)

Amariah laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:10 am (UTC)

"Oh, sorry. You've been -" cough, fake English accent - "making yourself available for a student with an interest in extracurriculuars in which you have some expertise you are willing to share?" She cleans a pair of imaginary glasses and grins.

pythbox
2013-02-16 12:11 am (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:12 am (UTC)

Juliet hums to herself and writes a half-word of further notes before her phone goes off. "Time to head home," she says, putting her pen down and packing up. "See you tomorrow, Mr. Giles!"

dark_light
2013-02-16 12:13 am (UTC)

Amariah parks her cloud-pine in mid-air, sits on it, and follows Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-16 12:14 am (UTC)

Mr. Giles watches them leave, shaking his head slowly.

dark_light
2013-02-16 12:16 am (UTC)

Whoops! Amariah almost forgot to renew her notice-me-not again. She pauses to redo that before leaving the library, and then catches up.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:18 am (UTC)

Juliet is home at exactly the right time to put Sherlock's blood for the night in the microwave. Meanwhile, Amariah hovers fifteen feet off the ground, in case any nasties come out in the falling dark.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 12:19 am (UTC)

There he is, right on time.

"And what did we learn at school today, dear Juliet?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:21 am (UTC)

"Mr. Giles, when he was young and stupid, used to indulge in demon-summoning for recreational psychological effects, and this left him with something on his arm that let him see partway through Amariah's notice-me-not and also a dead friend," reports Juliet, handing over the blood and bending her head to breathe through the fabric of her t-shirt sleeve. "So we had to explain her, but at least he didn't curse first and ask questions later. He wanted to know who or what he, she, or it was and whether we were on good terms."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 12:22 am (UTC)

"Well, that's more life than I expected out of him," says Sherlock.

Slurp!

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:25 am (UTC)

"What, a history of recreational demon-summoning? I suppose it's lively except insofar as it wound up being anti-lively," says Juliet. "I promised him never to use magic primarily for recreational psychological effects. I half-suspect I couldn't even obtain same, actually, but even if I could it'd be a trivial promise, I am apparently less reckless than Mr. Giles was at my age."

dark_light
2013-02-16 12:26 am (UTC)

"And tomorrow after school we're going to his house and I'm going to load him up with some of the same protections Juliet got. Oh, and we managed to explain my presence without reference to you, Sherlock - he's not supposed to know about you, I take it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 12:27 am (UTC)

"I am a vampire. He is part of an organization dedicated to exterminating us. It would probably be unwise to mention me around him."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:32 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure if that will be long-term viable," says Juliet, hefting her messenger bag and starting down the sidewalk. "Is there some set of criteria he could meet such that it'd be okay to reveal you, or are we just going with he-can-never-know! until that falls apart or I stop interacting with him for some reason? Or I could introduce you to him and react to any suspicion by rolling my eyes and suggesting offering you a glass of water with a drop of blood in it. Hide you in plain sight, like."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 12:34 am (UTC)

"Let's say that he can know about me only after he knows you're the Slayer, and only if he seems sufficiently reasonable under those circumstances to deal with the revelation without throwing a fit."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:38 am (UTC)

"Okay. I'm hanging on to the Slayer stuff until I learn about his - well, not his day job, librarian is his day job, but until he tells me about his side project, so to speak."

dark_light
2013-02-16 12:39 am (UTC)

"He was very reasonable about me," says Amariah optimistically. "Took the explanation pretty much at face value, let me cast a divination on him to see why he could see me, wasn't hostile or anything. Even though I'm pretty far-out. Am I less far-out than a non-asshole vampire?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 12:40 am (UTC)

"Much less."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 12:49 am (UTC)

"To be more exact, he has fewer prejudices about extradimensional witch alts than he does about local vampires," says Juliet. "I think that he could tell that you were there, and that was enough for him to tell that I could tell you were there, but he didn't know what you were, just that I was not alarmed - and there are more nasty things than benign things to explain any given weirdness, but benign explanations aren't as unheard of as nice vampires."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 12:53 am (UTC)

"As the lady says," Sherlock agrees.

dark_light
2013-02-16 01:01 am (UTC)

"I wonder what it would look like if someone with a daemon was turned into the local vampire sort," muses Amariah. "Not enough to try it, not near enough, but I wonder."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 01:02 am (UTC)

"Yes, I advise you to continue wondering," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-02-16 01:12 am (UTC)

"Believe me, even apart from my basic interest in preserving my personality, I'm especially sensitive to the possibility that it'd hurt Path," says Amariah soberly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 01:13 am (UTC)

Juliet's heard this story - Amariah's been following her around all day, inaudible to everyone around them, she has all the highlights by now. She nods.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 01:14 am (UTC)

"I expect that it would," he says softly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 01:17 am (UTC)

There's the crypt! Combat practice time. Juliet ramps up to two-minute sequences, bolstered by all her new blessings, but sometimes they don't last that long due to repeated enactments of Sherlock, Meet Wall, or sometimes Sherlock, Meet Floor With The Slayer Sitting On You Bending Your Arms In Ways They Are Not Supposed To Bend.

dark_light
2013-02-16 01:17 am (UTC)

Amariah has nothing to contribute tonight; she works on movement-based spells, dancing around experimentally in another section of the crypt.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 01:18 am (UTC)

It is all great fun.

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:05 am (UTC)

The next day, Amariah brings her "groceries" to school with Juliet, and after school they go to Mr. Giles's house - the modification Amariah invented to the notice-me-not applies to him as well as to Sherlock. She casts blessings and a slightly different combination of less compatible charms and, after he accepts with great trepidation, a line of protective tattoos on his previously unmarked arm.

pythbox
2013-02-16 02:06 am (UTC)

It helps that he's seen her cast quite a lot by then. Her magic and the magic of this world are fundamentally unalike.

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:08 am (UTC)

"You're all set," says Amariah. "Don't be reckless with these. They'd help if you got hit by a car or something, but you shouldn't go lie on the railroad tracks."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 02:09 am (UTC)

"I shouldn't? Gosh, thanks for warning me," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-16 02:10 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Giles. "And I have no intention of putting myself in harm's way just because it's now slightly less likely to run me over."

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:12 am (UTC)

"- Something just occurred to me," says Amariah. "On my world, you'd want those tattoos visible, because people are less likely to attack someone a witch has decided to protect, and because a lot of people, even humans, are magically sensitive enough to tell they're there even if they're not in a visible location. But here, those advantages don't really exist. I can hide them, if you want. Though I personally think the bayleaf one and the sun-shaped one are both very decorative."

pythbox
2013-02-16 02:22 am (UTC)

"...I'm not sure."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 02:23 am (UTC)

"Can you hide mine? I wasn't really getting them for cosmetic reasons. ...I don't have to take my shirt off, do I?"

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:24 am (UTC)

"Nah, although the -" She addresses her cornucopia. "White vinegar and honey!" - she speaks normally again - "will need to soak through your shirt if you're going to leave it on. They'll disappear after, though, so you don't have to worry about laundry and Mr. Giles should not complain if you lie down on his carpet."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 02:25 am (UTC)

Juliet lies down on his carpet. "Does this part hurt too?"

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:27 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Amariah, pouring the vinegar and then the honey across Juliet's shoulders. "Hide my marks / conceal them all / make unseen / all my workings," she intones. The liquids vanish.

pythbox
2013-02-16 02:28 am (UTC)

"...Could you hide everything after the bayleaf?" asks Mr. Giles.

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:37 am (UTC)

"If I edit the verse. You like the bayleaf?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 02:38 am (UTC)

"I do," he says, twisting his arm forward to look at it.

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:40 am (UTC)

"Sure." She has honey and vinegar left. She pours over all the tattoos apart from the bayleaf, and contemplates adjustments, and finally says, "Hide four marks / conceal these four / make unseen / non-leaf workings."

pythbox
2013-02-16 02:41 am (UTC)

And there they go.

"Your form of magic really is a lot more convenient than ours," he remarks.

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:47 am (UTC)

"No kidding. I'd share if I could, but not even my boyfriend's daemon, who can turn into a witch well enough to fly a cloud-pine and feel celestial light, can get out so much as a pure verse spell," says Amariah apologetically.

pythbox
2013-02-16 02:48 am (UTC)

"Unfortunate," he says, rolling his sleeve down again.

dark_light
2013-02-16 02:49 am (UTC)

"Sorry," says Amariah. "Oh, it's almost sundown. We should head back to Bella's."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 02:50 am (UTC)

"Off we go," agrees Juliet, picking up her messenger bag and following her witch counterpart out the door.

pythbox
2013-02-16 02:51 am (UTC)

What an interesting pair.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 02:55 am (UTC)

Juliet has Sherlock's blood ready for him on time.
Edited 2013-02-16 02:55 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 02:58 am (UTC)

And Sherlock is on time to receive it.

dark_light
2013-02-16 03:00 am (UTC)

"Hey, do you want blessings and stuff too?" Amariah asks him when he shows up. (She hangs back. She doesn't like the smell of blood either, although her distaste is about on the level of Juliet's after Slayer activation; she's had to get used to it for sacrifice components.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:04 am (UTC)

"Interesting thought," he says. "Sure, why not."

Slurp!

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 03:05 am (UTC)

"If I were you I'd be worried about a bad interaction with the goddesses from some of the spells," says Juliet. "I mean, I know it's only crosses and not also crescent moons and Stars of David and yin-yangs, but still."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:08 am (UTC)

"Oh, I know," he says. "But it probably won't kill me. Odds are slim it'll even hurt."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 03:09 am (UTC)

"The tattoos hurt," says Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:10 am (UTC)

"Seperately, I mean," he says with a wave of his hand.

dark_light
2013-02-16 03:12 am (UTC)

"Well, this is going to wipe me out of the ingredients that I can't conjure, but I think I have enough of everything to do one more person, anyway," says Amariah. "I don't think it's worth even trying to ask Charlie, is it? I mean, mine's used to witch stuff, but I'm imagining mine if I brought home - I don't know, aliens?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 03:13 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I think not informing him of you or offering to paint him with bayleaf ink is the best bet," says Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:14 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

dark_light
2013-02-16 03:16 am (UTC)

At the crypt, Amariah gets to work while Juliet shadowboxes and practices tumbling around artfully on the floor without hurting herself.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:18 am (UTC)

If the tattoos do hurt, Sherlock doesn't complain of it.

dark_light
2013-02-16 03:22 am (UTC)

"Do you want these showing or hidden?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:23 am (UTC)

"Oh, showing, I think."

dark_light
2013-02-16 03:29 am (UTC)

"All right then," says Amariah. "Have you got a trash can or something for the empty bottles?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 03:30 am (UTC)

Juliet may or may not be peering through the open archway at shirtless Sherlock, between rolls and flips and shadowboxed throws.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:31 am (UTC)

"Or something," he says. "Pile them up by the tea; I'll get rid of them when I get rid of the box."

Then he calls over his shoulder to Juliet, "If you'd like a closer look, I won't begrudge."

dark_light
2013-02-16 03:34 am (UTC)

Amariah giggles as she stashes the refuse where Sherlock specified.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 03:38 am (UTC)

Juliet is sufficiently surprised at being caught that her autopilot glitches and she scrapes her knuckles against a rough patch of stone landing from a midair twirl, and in spite of all her protections she splits her lip open against the edge of one of those stone coffin things. (Without them she'd have chipped a tooth too, and her hand would be much more open to the air.)

She sits on the floor, and then she smirks and holds up her injured hand.

"If you want dessert," she says, "I won't begrudge."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:41 am (UTC)

Laughing, he sits on the floor in front of her, picks up her hand, and kisses her knuckles with extravagant courtesy.

Extravagant courtesy, and then tongue.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 03:43 am (UTC)

Juliet laughs softly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:45 am (UTC)

After a little while, he lets go of her hand and leans forward and kisses her on the mouth in much the same way.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 03:51 am (UTC)

"Mmm -"

Juliet didn't really expect that.

But she really should've. And she likes it anyway. And, ignoring the complaint from her split lip, she kisses him right back.

dark_light
2013-02-16 03:55 am (UTC)

Amariah grins and decides to leave them be. She sneaks out of the crypt and flies back to Juliet's by herself.

She wants peroxide for her next experiment in moving magic, and her cornucopia won't make that. Charlie's not home yet. She finds the spare key to the backdoor wedged in the mailbox (predictable, Charlie) and opens the back door to swipe some.

But there is Milliways instead.

Well, she can't reach them. Path can fly the key back to where it goes while she keeps the door open. She conjures up a little honey and writes going home! by the door, and she steps through.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 03:56 am (UTC)

"We have been left alone," Sherlock observes eventually.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 03:58 am (UTC)

"Noticed," grins Juliet. But why is he using his mouth for something other than kissing? That seems like a poor choice right now. She places one hand on each side of his head and redirects his attention.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:03 am (UTC)

He is more than happy to follow her lead.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:05 am (UTC)

Her lead goes in that direction for a while, and then she says, "Well, this will never do, it's nearly my bedtime and I still haven't flung you into even one wall."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:07 am (UTC)

"Tragic," he agrees, grinning blissfully. "Shall we correct that?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:09 am (UTC)

"Yeah, do let's," she says, disentangling, turning, and somersaulting in such a way as to land on her feet. She grins at him and holds up her fists. "Surprise me."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:11 am (UTC)

He attacks with blurring speed.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:16 am (UTC)

His Bella can well and truly match it, and she's blessed and edited and in a fantastic mood. She blocks and dodges and collects what would be a nasty bruise on her shoulder sans bayleaf and she kicks and -

Sherlock does not encounter a wall. He encounters the floor, face up, pinned in what is (if one thinks about it hard enough) really a very compromising position.

And he receives another kiss.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:17 am (UTC)

He melts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:24 am (UTC)

"Interesting," Juliet murmurs against his mouth, drawing back just enough to speak, and then she kisses him again.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:26 am (UTC)

Point of interest: Sherlock does not, in fact, need to breathe. It is a luxury he can do without, if he has reason.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:27 am (UTC)

Juliet has to breathe. But she's got a nose for that.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:31 am (UTC)

And a delightful nose it is.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:34 am (UTC)

It really is getting late. Bella eventually peels herself off of Sherlock. (In the process of so peeling a hand may just skim over the surface of a certain shirtless chest.) "I'd better get home," she says. "Or I won't be rested for my all-important English class."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:35 am (UTC)

"Perish the thought. Shall I walk you home?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:37 am (UTC)

"I think so, yes. But you probably don't want to try to kiss me goodnight on the porch. That could be hazardous to your health in more ways than one." She stands up and offers him her hand.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:39 am (UTC)

He takes her hand and hauls himself to his feet, laughing, then wanders off to retrieve his shirt and coat.

"The one way being your porch lights, and the other being your father's excellent aim?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:41 am (UTC)

"Aren't you clever?" she laughs, offering him her hand again once he's clothed and strolling out of the crypt.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:43 am (UTC)

Ooh, holding hands. Holding hands is delightful.

"The occasional bullet is a small price to pay, really."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:45 am (UTC)

"The occasional bullet is not the price of admission. Although I do appreciate the circumstances under which you took that first."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:46 am (UTC)

"All in a night's work," he says. "You would be upset if your father were mauled by demons; therefore so would I."
Edited 2013-02-16 04:46 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:48 am (UTC)

"You're sweet," Bella accuses.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 12:50 pm (UTC)

"Never," he says indignantly, and then winks.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I would know," she says loftily, "I tasted you. I declare you sweet."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:39 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"In that case, who am I to argue?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:42 pm (UTC)

"No one whatever," she says. "In fact, I think you might be fictional."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Ouch," he deadpans, and then laughs again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:49 pm (UTC)

She grins at him. She likes him. She probably would've kissed him herself within a day or two.

There's her house.

"I don't know if Charlie's looking out the window, but - lemme find out some way to explain you to him before risking it, okay?" she says ruefully, letting go of Sherlock's hand. "It might take me a while to come up with something sufficiently likely to leave your next favorite coat intact."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:50 pm (UTC)

"As you like," he says, smiling.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:52 pm (UTC)

"G'night, Sherlock," she says, and she backs away a few steps before turning and heading into her house.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Night, love."

Off he goes.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 04:57 pm (UTC)

...That is an interesting thing for him to have called her.

She wonders if it's a Britishism, calling people "love" regardless of emotional content. (Giles doesn't do it, though.) (It could be regional, or just Sherlock, and still not mean -) (Or it could go right ahead and mean that, and would this be so bad? It wouldn't. He was unproblematic about liking her. He'll be unproblematic about loving her. All right then, so it doesn't matter beyond its being sweet. For now.)

She doesn't find Amariah, does find - and clean up - the note left in honey, and goes to bed.

She shows up at study hall the next day with only the progress made on her borrowed books that Mr. Giles saw her make at his house while Amariah did spellcasting.
Edited 2013-02-16 16:58 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-16 05:03 pm (UTC)

Mr. Giles makes no comment on this, just greets her with a friendly hello.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Amariah went home," she tells him, picking up where she left off, and switching to Latin catch-up when she finishes the book she's partway through. "Found a door last night when I wasn't in shouting distance and went through."

pythbox
2013-02-16 05:09 pm (UTC)

"I see," he says. "Well, that explains why she's not here."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Yup. I hope I run into her again someday but there aren't any guarantees. I don't blame her for taking the first door home, though, she's got her own stuff going on and it was very kind of her to visit."

pythbox
2013-02-16 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Yes it was," he agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 05:42 pm (UTC)

"When I'm done reading through your instruments of stalling for time - are you starting to form any ideas on how to go about teaching me other stuff?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Starting to, yes," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Can I have inklings?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Finish your stalling homework," he says with a slight smile.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 05:48 pm (UTC)

She sticks out her tongue, and goes back to alternating between Latin and demonology until the bell rings to send her to her next designated location.

She returns after school and gets out her stalling homework again.

pythbox
2013-02-16 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Hello again," says Mr. Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Hi! Hey, is it just a coincidence that the kind of person to have his own personal demonology collection wound up at the Sunnydale high school library? Or are you here for some Sunnydale-related reason?" she asks, while writing a chapter heading in her notebook.

pythbox
2013-02-16 05:58 pm (UTC)

"...I suppose you could say I am," he muses.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Do tell."

pythbox
2013-02-16 06:02 pm (UTC)

He takes off his glasses.

He starts cleaning them.

"What do you know about the Vampire Slayer?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 06:06 pm (UTC)

"The name makes it sound like a weapon," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

"In a sense," he sighs, "you're right. The Slayer is a girl, usually about your age, who is gifted with the necessary abilities to, well, slay vampires. Or demons. Or, generally, get between this world and anyone who wants to destroy it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 06:16 pm (UTC)

"...Why is the Slayer a girl usually about my age? Why is the Slayer not six people of assorted genders and ages, or maybe a few hundred of them, so they can specialize and cooperate and be in several places at once?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Much as I would love to answer that question, the only people who can have been dead for thousands of years," he says. "And the rest of us are stuck with the world as it is."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 07:32 pm (UTC)

"That sounds irritating. So you're here for something Slayer-related, I take it? Teach her to throw fireballs or whatever so she doesn't get her uniquely powerful teenage self killed by a lucky shot?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 07:36 pm (UTC)

"No," he says, continuing to clean his glasses. "Not quite. I'm here because the Slayer is missing."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 07:38 pm (UTC)

"What, she ran away from wherever Slayers live?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 07:47 pm (UTC)

"When one Slayer dies, the next is called," he says. "She can be anyone of the right gender and age. Sometimes it takes a few weeks or months to track her down and explain her destiny. But it's always been possible to find her. This time... as far as anyone scrying for the Council can tell, there is no Slayer."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 07:50 pm (UTC)

"There's a Council? They... fundraise so she can slay stuff full-time, run interference between her and law enforcement, man a hotline so someone's always available to look up obscure demons for her? That sounds neat," says Juliet.

(Someone who does not know what she does about the Slayer and the Council would make these guesses and would think it sounded nice. She's looking forward to seeing if Giles contradicts her.)

pythbox
2013-02-16 07:56 pm (UTC)

"...More or less," he says. "But right now that's a little beside the point. The rumour that the line of Slayers has ended is already going around. If she doesn't show herself soon—to the demons, more importantly than to us—I'm afraid they'll just keep getting bolder."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm not clear on how one person has any significant deterrent effect on the worldwide demon population, however good she is at throwing fireballs," says Bella. "I mean, if she's here where you're looking for her, then how does that matter to a family of demons in Beijing?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 08:01 pm (UTC)

"She has symbolic value," he says. "The mere knowledge that there is a Slayer somewhere, even if she's not an immediate threat, has a quelling effect on demonic activity. There are records of previous times when the line of succession was cast into doubt, and none of them make good bedtime reading."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. So you said more or less - what else do you Councily types do?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Watchers," he supplies. "It's the Watchers' Council. Before you ask, no, I don't know why. And our job is to train and prepare the Slayer for hers. We do the research; we study the demons; we help her develop her technique; we keep her informed of everything she needs to know. Assuming, of course, that we can find her in the first place."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 08:17 pm (UTC)

"What happens if you get a Slayer who's a pacifist or a sociopath or throws in with the demons or just doesn't want anything to do with you because she's a ballerina and needs to devote all her energy to her Art?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I have never seen records of a Slayer joining the other side," he says carefully. "As for the rest... one of those previous times I mentioned involved a Slayer running away from the Watcher who found her. She kept ahead of us for several years. No one knows what happened to her exactly, but we know when the next Slayer was called."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 08:30 pm (UTC)

"She had to run," says Bella. "The Watcher didn't just let her go because she was involuntarily involved and didn't want anything to do with him. Is that right?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 08:36 pm (UTC)

He frowns at her over his glasses.

"I don't know what you mean."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Some Watcher found some Slayer and she ran away. She kept ahead of you - the Council - that's what you said, isn't it? It sounds like you guys chased that poor girl until she died."

pythbox
2013-02-16 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Given that their other option was to let one badly handled conversation deprive the world of its strongest defense against evil," he says sharply, "I'm not sure they made the wrong choice."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 08:50 pm (UTC)

"You said it was more important that the missing Slayer reveal herself to the demons than to the Council," says Bella. "She was known to exist, wasn't she? With a whole council full of people with access to all kinds of information and magic I'm stunned they tried to ask anything more of her than that she spend the rest of her life with a target painted on her jugular vein. I'm stunned they used all those resources to hunt down one terrified, fleeing girl instead of trying to learn more about neutral demons or subsidize the development of sunshiney lightbulbs with motion-detectors for use over patios or just coming up with large-scale spells that, sure, maybe they'd eat a few people, but they'd be informed volunteers and they could save way more. I bet something toothy murdered that Slayer when she was twenty-something and then all your colleagues were very relieved because she was in the way and then she wasn't anymore. I can't imagine why anyone would bolt at the first sign of attention from the Stalkers Council, can you?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Two different powerful demons claimed to have found and killed her, but as far as later research could tell, they were both lying. For those few years, there effectively was no Slayer. All the resources that weren't put into finding her were put into dealing, inadequately, with the chaos caused by her absence."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Have you considered lying? Tell the Council 'found Slayer, but she's shy and wishes to remain otherwise anonymous', let them publicize the misinformation, produce occasional reports. You don't need to be the Slayer to cut the vampire population. I got hold of a key to the morgue and I've been surreptitiously pounding slivers of wood into every cadaver that passes through police hands practically since I moved here."

pythbox
2013-02-16 09:03 pm (UTC)

He blinks at her, lost for words.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 09:04 pm (UTC)

"What?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how you think this works," he says. "Pre-staking the corpses is, is brilliant, but I can't imagine any way that lying to the Council would help. It's not the Council that needs to know there's a Slayer on the job, it's the demons."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 09:11 pm (UTC)

"How do the demons usually find out, if the Council isn't issuing a press release or anything? Lie to whoever tells the demons. I mean, she's super-powerful, more efficient as a source of demon control apparently than anything else the Council could be doing with its time, I'm assuming bitey things don't usually tangle with her and live to tell the tale until one manages to actually kill her? Fights to someone's death all, yes?"
Edited 2013-02-16 21:19 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-16 09:24 pm (UTC)

"You have a strangely idealized view of all this for someone who lives in Sunnydale," he says. "Demons frequently run away from her, and she can't possibly hunt down and kill every single one. Leaving aside the times when she loses a fight but escapes with her life."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I've only lived here a couple months," says Bella. (But except for Sherlock, who is special, she's never confirmed a vampire's vampirehood without dusting it. Although she supposes some demons did run from Sherlock. If Sherlock were a girl like Shell Bell's version, would rumors be circulating even now about a Slayer in town?) "...Am I just completely off base on the fireballs thing?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

"...Yes?" he says. "What fireballs?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I mentioned fireballs twice when I was guessing what exactly Watchers are supposed to teach the Slayer to do?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Sorry, I didn't catch that. No, no fireballs."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:04 pm (UTC)

"What powers does she get, then? Telekinesis? Care Bear Stare?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:06 pm (UTC)

"A supernatural aptitude for physical combat."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:07 pm (UTC)

"The entire demon world is terrified of someone who is good at punching things," says Bella flatly, deadpan skeptical. "That is ridiculous. Vampires are good at punching things, eighty percent of demons are good at punching things, is she even appreciably better than them or does she just have an unusual affordance to get training on how to punch things?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:11 pm (UTC)

"An untrained Slayer with a stake in her hand can kill most vampires as easily as you would wipe your nose."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:14 pm (UTC)

"So if her existence and approximate location are public knowledge from all those demons who flee from her approach chattering into the grapevine, wouldn't she just scatter the bitey critters, not drive them into outright hiding? She can't teleport, she can't do one thing in Munich and another in Sao Paulo at the same time. Why can they coordinate well enough to spread the word but not well enough to do whatever they want with sardinelike safety in numbers?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "Perhaps you'd like to find a local demon and ask."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Am I irritating you?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:18 pm (UTC)

He takes off his glasses and cleans them. "Being questioned about the Slayer as though I am personally responsible for every aspect of the situation from the actions of unknown people or gods thousands of years ago to the behaviour of demons across the planet does start to wear, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," she sighs. "How'd you wind up throwing in with the Watchers, anyway?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:22 pm (UTC)

"They were the opposite of my first crowd in every possible way."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:23 pm (UTC)

"That's a why, not a how."

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:29 pm (UTC)

"The how isn't very interesting. Family connections," he says. "I knew they were there, so that's where I went."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough." She lets silence save pen-scratching reign for a few minutes to let some of his annoyance drop, then says:

"How're you going about looking for the Slayer? I mean, I guess a high school's a good vantage point, but I can account for an awful lot of your time."

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:38 pm (UTC)

"To be perfectly honest with you," he says, "I'm hoping she shows up and makes herself obvious somehow, because I am out of other options. I'm a Watcher, not a spy. I'm good at, at cataloguing books and deciphering illuminated manuscripts. I'm not good at questioning teenage girls to see if they've developed superpowers recently."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:39 pm (UTC)

"What'll you do if she starts killing demons in public and then shouting her full name and address?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:41 pm (UTC)

"I imagine I'll start by answering a series of annoying questions," he says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:45 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks at him owlishly. "Yeah, but I mean - being the Slayer, openly, seems like a crap deal. Are you going to tell your boss about her? Will she ever have a minute's peace again? Is she liable to spend half her life on a series of airplanes from hotspot to demonic hotspot and the other half in mortal combat? 'Cause if that's the deal and I find her before you do I might help her skip town."

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I would have to tell my boss, yes," he says. "And then I would become her Watcher. It's very likely we would stay in Sunnydale, since it's one of the biggest demonic hotspots around. Slayers aren't sent across significant distances on missions very often, and the last two times it happened, it was to thwart an impending apocalypse in this very town."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:51 pm (UTC)

"What's your boss like? And was he... bossing... when they hunted that one Slayer down till she met her undoubtedly grisly end?"

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't actually have a single boss," he says. "There's a reason it's called the Council. That Slayer was hundreds of years ago, so no, none of the current members were alive to see it happen."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Hmm."

Notetaking-notetaking-notetaking.

(He so knows. He knows but he doesn't know that he knows, so he hasn't told anyone, including her. But he so knows.)

pythbox
2013-02-16 10:57 pm (UTC)

He watches her notetaking a moment longer, then retreats behind the counter.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:00 pm (UTC)

Notetaking-notetaking. "How does being good at punching things tend to help with apocalypses? I admit to being confused about how one might punch an apocalypse."

pythbox
2013-02-16 11:02 pm (UTC)

"One punches whoever is trying to cause the apocalypse," Giles says dryly. "There are other subtleties, too, I'm sure."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Mm."

(Notetakinnnng.)

pythbox
2013-02-16 11:04 pm (UTC)

He leaves her to it again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:10 pm (UTC)

Eventually Bella's timer goes off. She puts everything in her bag.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-16 11:16 pm (UTC)

"See you then," he agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:17 pm (UTC)

Home. Sunset. Jar of blood.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 11:19 pm (UTC)

"What troubles you tonight, dear Juliet?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Asked Mr. Giles a lot of questions about the Slayer. I think he knows it's me but doesn't have enough concrete evidence to realize that he knows. And he comes down on the Council side regarding the treatment of a particular Slayer who ran. They chased that poor girl until she died and she never wanted any of it but of course she was the strongest defense against evil because she was good at punching things! This entire system is so idiotic. If I beat up some demons in front of some other demons at that bar you mentioned and they tell all their friends, this is supposed to quell demonic activity. Worldwide, apparently."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 11:32 pm (UTC)

"He's not far wrong about that last. Demonic activity has been on the rise ever since rumours of the missing Slayer started going around. You're a very powerful bogeyman to some crowds."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should get a Mexican wrestler mask so they can say I exist but not how to find me. I dunno. Am I good enough to survive a demonic bar brawl?" she asks, hauling her messenger bag to her shoulder and starting towards the relevant graveyard.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 11:45 pm (UTC)

"If I lent a hand? Without a doubt," he says. "And it would be good material for learning to fight against multiple opponents."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Then the rumors about the Slayer will say that she has a friend with her," Bella points out. "And I told you I think Giles knows it's me, even though I didn't tell him. If he decides to confront me about it - or, I don't know, he throws something heavy at my head and my choices are duck or catch it or get brained - how will I explain that?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Refuse to," he suggests.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I suppose the option exists. It would be easy to find you starting from me, though, a Mexican wrestler mask will throw off demons but Mr. Giles is faculty and he has access to my home address. All he'd have to do would be watch you show up at dusk, or, if you stopped walking me there, follow me to the crypt. Do you have a plan for that?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-16 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Don't give him your laser pointer," Sherlock suggests flippantly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-16 11:59 pm (UTC)

"I had no plans to. I don't think a scenario that winds up with you having to beat up any number of Watchers in self-defense is something I should aim at. Mr. Giles isn't exactly Charlie, but I'd be disappointed in an outcome that got him badly hurt. Although I'm not going to tell you to let him shoot at you without reprisal either, because, again, not Charlie."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 12:11 am (UTC)

"You could always try telling him I am your bodyguard. What do you think? Would he faint?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 12:13 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure what he'd do. He might have to tell the Council, and the Council is probably not a lot of perpetually glasses-polishing Gileses."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 12:20 am (UTC)

"He hasn't told them about you so far, has he? Does he know you're the Slayer or not?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 12:22 am (UTC)

"I think he knows. Guesses. Suspects. Has a gut feeling about it but nothing concrete. I asked what he'd do if he found her and he said he'd probably start by answering a lot of annoying questions."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 12:27 am (UTC)

"Questions such as you had no doubt been asking him immediately beforehand. Oh, yes, he knows."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 12:28 am (UTC)

"Ayeah. I mean, so far everything he's seen is theoretically explicable without my being the Slayer. But I don't think the other local teenage girls are distinguishing themselves at all, whereas I am practically neon."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 12:34 am (UTC)

"But he has exhibited no starving-dog behaviour?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 12:57 am (UTC)

"No. He lets me come to him - which admittedly I do twice a day, so I don't know how much information that is - and he answers questions but he doesn't lecture, I'm way more likely in any given conversation to run into the end of his patience than he is to run into the end of mine. He hasn't been issuing veiled threats to the missing Slayer or anything."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:01 am (UTC)

"For a Watcher, that's fairly astonishing. Perhaps it's the demon drugs," he jokes.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:08 am (UTC)

"And yet he is not the only Watcher, Sunnydale's life expectancy is for shit, and he would have to tell all his colleagues," grumbles Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:10 am (UTC)

"Perhaps we should tell him everything, and I can start guarding him too."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:14 am (UTC)

"...Guarding him to make sure he isn't replaced by a less friendly Watcher or guarding him to see that he doesn't follow through about notifying the Council?" inquires Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:15 am (UTC)

"To see that he does not die of Sunnydale and thereby require replacement."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:18 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I think I'll come clean tomorrow after school. Since I do think he already knows on some level. And if he doesn't flip out or immediately turn all stern-crusty-bossy-Watcher on me I'll bring you up right after as though I never intended to leave you out."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:19 am (UTC)

"A reasonable plan, I think."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:21 am (UTC)

"Let's see to it that if he wants to put me through my punching-things paces right away, he's suitably impressed," says Bella as they reach the crypt. She trots down the stairs, takes off her crucifix, dumps the messenger bag, and stands ready, smiling.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:22 am (UTC)

"It would be my pleasure, dear Juliet," he says with an elaborate bow that somehow shifts seamlessly into an attack.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:36 am (UTC)

Practice continues roughly as normal until it's gotten late, at which time his dear Juliet takes her next win and turns it into kisses, as the previous night. "I wonder," she murmurs against his jaw after a slightly meandering kiss, "if I'm in danger of producing bad incentives."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:36 am (UTC)

"In what sense?" he inquires.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:43 am (UTC)

"Mmm, the losing-sometimes-gets-you-kisses sense," she says. "Of course, since you already found losing entertaining for other reasons perhaps I'm not making anything worse if I -" (kiss kiss.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:45 am (UTC)

He giggles into said kisses.

"Indeed you are not," he confirms. "But if it makes you feel better, we could start kissing when I win, too. Even things up a little."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:46 am (UTC)

"Let's do that," she says, grinning down at him. "One more round, winner kisses the loser."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:47 am (UTC)

"I accept your terms."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:48 am (UTC)

Bella lets him up. But this time she doesn't wait for the attack; she tries a (clumsy, relative to her other moves if not to the general population) first-closing move. "Can't always be waiting to get jumped," she says between exchanges of kinetic energy.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:51 am (UTC)

"Very true," Sherlock agrees. "Good thinking."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:53 am (UTC)

She compensates somewhat for the poor start, but not enough.

Fair Juliet, meet floor.

"Oof."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:55 am (UTC)

"Victory," says Sherlock. "And our mutual reward."

And he kisses her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 01:56 am (UTC)

"Mm, fun and educational," giggles Bella on the next occasion when her mouth is free. She squirms a little, not really trying to get up.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 01:59 am (UTC)

"I've a sudden impulse to turn this into a tickle fight," Sherlock observes, but in fact only kisses her again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 02:06 am (UTC)

Juliet giggles. She opines neither way on the tickle fight.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 02:08 am (UTC)

Kisses are apparently more interesting.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:37 am (UTC)

Kisses are very interesting indeed. (And this time she doesn't even have a split lip getting in the way of enjoying them; that was closed overnight and no longer tender by the time she got finished at the morgue and went on to school.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 02:47 pm (UTC)

(Bless Slayers and their accelerated healing, and bless Amariah and her helpful magic.)

Also, kisses. Kisses are fun.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 03:49 pm (UTC)

Bless kisses!

It really is late. Bella squirms, puts on one of those unsustainable bursts of strength, and flips him over. One more kiss, and she's up on her feet again, bouncing restlessly in spite of a yawn.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 03:50 pm (UTC)

Sherlock giggles from the floor, then hauls himself to his feet.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Home we go," yawns Bella, donning cross and bag and offering her hand for holding.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:08 pm (UTC)

He takes her hand and kisses it before he starts walking. Because he can.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:13 pm (UTC)

He most certainly can. (He can make her giggle, too.)

They encounter a demon on their way home! It has been hiding in some shrubbery, although Sherlock might notice it anyway before it jumps out and jogs towards them. It seems extremely confused. It also seems hungry.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:16 pm (UTC)

Indeed he does, and as the demon exits the shrubbery, Sherlock kisses her hand again and says, "Shall I take care of this one, love?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Let's see how I do," she says after a quick check for onlookers. "I recognize this one," she adds, stepping in front of them and leaping at the demon. "Long - unpronounceable -" The demon fights back, but she's faster - "name with - lotta H's in - and you have to -" She pulls off a sacrifice throw; the demon goes flying and she rolls up to her feet again - "twist anything you wanna -" She uses its attempt at an uppercut to vault to stand on its shoulders and grab hold of its head. "Remove," she says, twisting. "Also they eat human livers and they dissolve into soap bubbles when they die!" she adds, sounding like a tour guide on a tame safari ride while she hops off its shoulders and drops the removed head onto the rest of its collapsing (and indeed dissolving) body.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:25 pm (UTC)

He applauds lightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:28 pm (UTC)

"The soap bubbles thing is convenient," she says. (She's taken to carrying a water bottle to practices and she didn't drink it all tonight; she pours a little on the dissoluble demon to help it along with running down a storm drain.) "These guys sometimes travel in packs but a pack would've joined us by now. Thank you, Mr. Giles's Stalling For Time Homework. Anyway. Onward."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Highly educational," he says, taking her hand again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I could've been fighting with that thing for an hour before trying the twisting thing," agrees Bella, interlacing their fingers.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

He laughs and kisses her cheek.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:42 pm (UTC)

Heeee kisses.

"Was that thing unusually incompetent or am I just awesome? Trying to determine a timeline for appearing at a demon nest and letting some of them live for worldwide symbolic power. I'd rather emerge from same with all my limbs. In fact, all my digits, too, I'm fond of those. I might want to drive to L.A. first if there's a good place to find demons there, so not everyone who wants to prove themselves by taking on the Slayer descends on my hometown."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:44 pm (UTC)

"There are several good places to find demons in L.A., yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Buy mask with good visibility, drive to L.A., possibly this weekend, slay some, turn others into the demonic equivalent of the panicked media," says Bella, mostly to herself.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

"As awesome as you in fact are, I still feel like I should accompany you in case of mischance," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:48 pm (UTC)

"It's a few hours each way and hotels aren't free; how much would you object to traveling in the back of my pickup under a tarp?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Not at all."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. Fortunately, I have a tarp. Do you happen to know how populated the graveyard is by day?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Strictly going by indirect evidence, of course, my guess is not very."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Should be doable to pick you up without having to button-mash anyone's rationalization centers," concludes Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:56 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Do you have a way to get from crypt to road without catching fire or should I carry the tarp over and knock?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 04:59 pm (UTC)

"I do not," he says, "so that would be best."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. We have a plan. I might even let Mr. Giles in on it tomorrow depending on how he reacts to prior revelations."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Won't that be interesting."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 05:10 pm (UTC)

"It very well might. G'night, Sherlock," says Bella, and she lets go of his hand and heads for the door.

"Wait," she calls, when she sees where the door leads. "...Er, I can turn off the porch light, if you want to come?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 05:13 pm (UTC)

"That would be delightful, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 05:14 pm (UTC)

She's got to stretch, but there's a switch that controls the motion detector, hiding under the windowsill. She flicks it.

"I wonder if you can go through this door when it leads to Milliways," she says, blinking as her eyes adjust.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Let's find out," he says brightly, and does.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Neat," she says, once they are both in Milliways. "Well. Amariah said I'd automatically get a key to the Belltower if I went up to the counter and asked."

She goes up to the bar. "Uh, hi?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 05:22 pm (UTC)

Et voila, a key to the Belltower.

"Convenient, isn't it?" says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Very," says Bella, tossing the key and catching it again. She glances around to see if there's anyone she recognizes, but nope. Up the stairs she goes.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 05:25 pm (UTC)

Sherlock follows.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 05:26 pm (UTC)

In the Belltower is -

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 05:27 pm (UTC)

A Shell Bell!

"Oh, hi! I'm Shell Bell! Welcome!" she says, beaming at them from where she's adding to the guestbook. "- You're either a Tony or a boy Sherlock - I'm going to guess the second one?" she adds to Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 05:29 pm (UTC)

"A Sherlock, yes," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Amariah was going to add an entry about me? I'm 'Juliet'?" says Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I haven't read the new stuff yet," says Shell Bell, "I'm still adding an entry about how I went to Angela's world for a bit and -"

She pauses.

"Oh, oh damn, I gave Angela all my bigger coins, I don't have anything left for you - my Sherlock's not here, she went home, I can poke my head out and check for her but I think she'll be asleep -"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Alas," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I'll check. She might not have fallen asleep right away, but that's where Tony was when I tried to ask him if he wanted to come along to Angela's and she left before I did specifically to go see him and she can sometimes fall asleep really fast - and I only have triangles and squares and they're in the District house and the door's in the palace - and if she's asleep I can't get her without losing the door and Tony can only summon it sometimes and there's no guarantee I'll catch you on a second trip," says Shell Bell apologetically. "I'll be right back!" She teleports to the door.

She opens the door.

[Sherlock?]

sicaria
2013-02-17 06:28 pm (UTC)

[Sleeping,] says Sherlock's busy message.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 06:30 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell tries the square. It doesn't have that range. Argh. She shuts the door and teleports back up. "I'm so sorry," she says to Juliet and Sherlock. "...I can give you a supply of squares and triangles. I can make those just fine. But without a pentagon I can't even give you a particularly safe way to keep them so you'll have to be careful."
Edited 2013-02-17 18:35 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 06:37 pm (UTC)

Sherlock glances at Juliet to assess her opinion.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 06:39 pm (UTC)

"That sucks," says Juliet, "but if you can't do pentagons, you can't do pentagons, I'm not going to insist on torturing you for magic powers. I will take all the squares and triangles you can offer me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 06:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm really sorry. I want to help you. You said you met Amariah? Was she able to help you make any progress on your projects?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Loaded us up with blessings," says Juliet. "They help."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 06:41 pm (UTC)

"She assassinated Panem's president for me," says Shell Bell brightly. "Then I burnt down the building where they were going to hold the emergency election. Then I found Stella and then I took over the world."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Congratulations," Sherlock says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well done," agrees Juliet, laughing and sitting in one of the Belltower chairs. "Er... Amariah said something about special circumstances leading to you and your Sherlock...?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Do you have Valentine's Day on your world?" Shell Bell asks.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 06:48 pm (UTC)

"If you ever come in here and Milliways is decorated for it," says Shell Bell, "run." She shrugs. "But it worked out in the end, I love her, I'm glad I can love her, I just - wish it would've happened without the non-consensual mind-altering holiday drugs."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 06:49 pm (UTC)

"That does sound unpleasant," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Eegh. I don't know if they'd work on me - I have the opacity thing, at least some form of it - but running. Yeah. Will do," says Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I cried," says Shell Bell frankly. "We managed to sleep through most of it, though."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 06:53 pm (UTC)

Edited 2013-02-17 18:53 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I really wish they were awake. Then we could make more coins - and you could meet my Tony - and - maybe I should - I don't know, Stella made at least a few pentagons before she could mint Alice, pentagons don't have to be that bad - maybe I should find some way to -"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Relax," sighs Juliet. "If you happen to break your arm in some unrelated way and make a pentagon to wake them up with, I'm hardly going to turn you down, and I do want to stick around after you leave for a bit in case you manage to get ahold of another door, but you don't have to hurt yourself more than you can comfortably - so to speak - do."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock. "Your magic would be awfully convenient, but we've lived without it for this long."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, there's three of us who have it now, and my Sherlock and Angela's Micaiah and Stella's Alice, and if you run into any one of them, or me again, you'll be all set. I'm going to write a note reminding us never to get caught in here without any hexes or our help," says Shell Bell, taking up her pen again and resuming writing. (She writes blurrily fast.)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Good plan," says Juliet. When Shell Bell's done with the book, she takes it and starts reading.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 07:31 pm (UTC)

"'Help'," Sherlock muses. "Yes, that's one way to put it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Stella calls Alice her 'pet masochist' sometimes, but I don't think I'd choose that term for my Sherlock, and I don't know about Angela and Micaiah but I suspect not," says Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 07:36 pm (UTC)

"So your Sherlock goes happily all the way up to stars?" Juliet asks, turning a page.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Shell Bell. "But she used a starter coin for it - Whistles are farther along to start with than she was. And it took some getting used to on my end."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, Juliet is already quite accustomed to beating me up," Sherlock says brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Sparring," Juliet clarifies for Shell Bell before she can ask. "I'm not dismembering him or anything, and I get hit too, although - Sherlock, are you still pulling punches for me? If you are maybe I don't have an accurate picture of how physically uncomfortable it is on your end."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 07:44 pm (UTC)

"When I can get away with it, yes," he says. "Which is increasingly rare."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 07:47 pm (UTC)

"So yeah. If you can't make a pentagon then I don't think either of us is getting into pentagon territory that way. ...Unless pain tolerance is a Slayer thing, which I suppose it might be?"
Edited 2013-02-17 19:48 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know, but if you want a comparison, I don't have big coins but I do have an agony beam," says Shell Bell dubiously.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, that sounds like fun," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 07:57 pm (UTC)

"The units it works in are called triangles. One to nine of those makes a triangle - for a mint, anyway - and ten to ninety-nine is a square, and so on," says Shell Bell. "And it comes in flavors because the original design is for Alice and that's just what he's like. If you want to try it..." She shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Hit me with... like... fifty, for a second, to compare against getting thrown into a wall?" says Juliet after a moment's thought. "...Is 'thrown into a wall' a flavor? 'Cause I'm used to that at this point."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, 'blunt trauma', says Shell Bell. "Some of them get weirdly specific but I don't have getting thrown into a wall particularly on the menu. Here goes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Hm," says Juliet consideringly. "Yeah, I think I am forced to conclude that pain tolerance is a Slayer thing, although I'm sure I'd make an awful face if you, like, quadrupled that at me."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 08:01 pm (UTC)

"In the name of scientific inquiry," says Sherlock, "can I have a hundred in blunt-trauma flavour?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 08:03 pm (UTC)

Yes he can.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 08:04 pm (UTC)

He blinks.

"That was... invigorating," he decides, with a hint of a smile.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Invigorating?" asks Juliet. "Really?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Why, would you prefer a different word?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I can't read your mind to see if that one makes the least bit of sense."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I can read my Sherlock's mind," volunteers Shell Bell. "It's nice. Oh - we were thinking that Sherlocks should have nicknames too, since you tend not to have themes the way we often do, and you have name consistency where the Whistles don't. Do you have any ideas on that?" she asks Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Nothing springs to mind. But I agree we probably should."

He grins at Juliet.

"Pending further discussion, I could be 'Romeo'."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 08:24 pm (UTC)

"This is some kind of reference I don't get, isn't it," says Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Yes it is," snorts Juliet. "Romeo here has named us after the romantic leads in a famous play."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 08:25 pm (UTC)

He grins unrepentantly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 08:28 pm (UTC)

"At the end of which both characters are dead. But I should've objected back when I first allowed my nickname to go unchallenged, I suppose, if I consider that problematic," she snorts.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 08:29 pm (UTC)

"And since I am arguably dead already, I'm not sure it's quite the same. But I can choose another if you prefer."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 08:40 pm (UTC)

"How do you mean, you're dead?" Shell Bell asks. "You walk around, don't you?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't really mind," Juliet tells Sheromeo. "And whether vampires are dead is a pointless matter of technical quibbling. They walk, they eat, they think - some of them - but they don't properly respirate and their hearts don't beat so some people apparently consider it meaningful to declare them 'not alive'. Probably contributes that for most of them the transformation involves a period of inactivity followed by personality change."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Also that for all biological purposes I am an unusually lively corpse," Sherlock points out.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 08:46 pm (UTC)

"But you eat. Corpses don't eat," says Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 08:47 pm (UTC)

"You eat," agrees Juliet. "You heal from injuries. Do your hair and fingernails grow?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Golden's kind do, but slowly," volunteers Shell Bell, "if you haven't gotten to Stella's notes about her."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I drink blood," he says. "And tea. Liquids in general. Solid food and I don't get along. My hair and fingernails do grow, yes. At the normal human rate, even."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 08:59 pm (UTC)

"It makes about as much biological sense to declare you an ambulatory talking fungus as to declare you a dead human," says Juliet. "Mushrooms are not expected to have pulses or functional lungs, after all, and they're alive."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Mushrooms do not traditionally spend time as humans and then go through something remarkably like dying before they become mushrooms," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 09:14 pm (UTC)

"No, you're not a mushroom, you are a vampire, but the question of whether a vampire is alive is only about as interesting as the question of whether a clone is a real person."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 09:16 pm (UTC)

"But the question of whether we are arguably dead is decided, since here we are, arguing it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 09:19 pm (UTC)

Juliet laughs.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 09:19 pm (UTC)

The door opens.

"What's all this, then?" says a crystalline Bell voice.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 09:21 pm (UTC)

"We're arguing over whether or not I'm dead," Sherlock says cheerfully. "Perhaps you'd like to join us."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 09:23 pm (UTC)

"You must be Golden!" says Shell Bell brightly.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Golden," muses Golden. "Well, I suppose I am, at that, if I'm not being Bella. I might have gone with Cullen, but apparently my reputation precedes me?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Juliet. "Stella left us notes about you." She picks up the book, in which she has just gotten yea far, and holds it up for Golden's inspection.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 09:29 pm (UTC)

Sherlock observes.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 09:32 pm (UTC)

Golden takes in the entire page of notes almost instantly.

"She really doesn't have a very high opinion of Edward, does she," she remarks.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Do you have a high opinion of her boyfriend?" inquires Juliet, putting the book back in her lap.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 09:34 pm (UTC)

"He threw a tantrum in my throne room," says Golden, adjusting her crown. "So not particularly."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Me and Juliet here both have Sherlocks instead," says Shell Bell contently. "I'm Shell Bell. I'm a mint like Stella, but I don't have any of my big coins with me so I can't help Juliet - Stella didn't write about minting you, but she did give you some coins, didn't she?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 09:39 pm (UTC)

"She did. I've used them. I don't admit of mental editing and I don't have a convenient masochist volunteer, so I've just been trading for her coins directly when she finds me or my daughter or one of my staff."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Never a convenient masochist around when you need one, hmm?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Not today, apparently," sighs Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Here," says Juliet, offering Golden the book. "You're probably way faster at reading and writing in your profile than I am, you may as well cut in line."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Golden. She takes the book. "I don't know about you - Sherlock? Peculiar name - but I'm alive in every sense that I care about, and my heart doesn't beat either."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Whether I consider myself alive or dead depends on the context," he says. "And perhaps on whether I am trying to annoy my dear Juliet."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 09:49 pm (UTC)

Juliet sticks out her tongue at him.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I think it's a good thing I didn't bring Edward with me," Golden remarks.
Edited 2013-02-17 21:51 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Stella's notes do mention that he's weirded out by other Bells and our significant others," says Shell Bell.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I saw," says Golden, coming to the end of the filled-in book and picking up the pen. She writes in a profile and returns it to Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:03 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

"Am I a significant other?" he inquires of Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 10:04 pm (UTC)

"We haven't really discussed terminology," muses Juliet. "It's mostly just been kissing and some discussion of kissing."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 10:05 pm (UTC)

"When I met Amariah, she and Kas weren't dating," says Shell Bell. "Yet."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, let's discuss terminology," he says. "Unless you'd rather save that for another time."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Now's fine. D'you wanna be my boyfriend?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Why not," he says cheerfully. "Do you have a plan for disclosing this label to your father in a way that won't make him likely to shoot me again?"
Edited 2013-02-17 22:13 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Doing it in broad daylight and not telling him where you live, so he has a few hours to calm down," says Juliet dryly.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Charlie took Edward being my boyfriend just fine. He was less calm about it when he found out we'd eloped. And not particularly sanguine about the vampire thing."
Edited 2013-02-17 22:19 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 10:19 pm (UTC)

"My Charlie already knows Sherlock's a vampire. He watched him fight off a pack of demons that tangled with the cops, and shot," Juliet explains.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Ruined a lovely coat," says Sherlock. "Granted the coat was already covered in demon blood."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 10:24 pm (UTC)

"What should I call our world?" Juliet wonders aloud.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Hell-Orifice," Sherlock says flippantly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 10:25 pm (UTC)

"No," says Juliet, snorting. "I think I'll go with Sunshine."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Worlds are harder to name than ourselves," says Shell Bell. "Of course, I didn't even pick my nickname, everyone's been calling me it since I was eight."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Easier with a theme," comments Golden.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:28 pm (UTC)

"What's wrong with Hell-Orifice? I'll bet you what you like that neither of their worlds has one," he says, gesturing to the two non-Juliet Bells in the room. "Whereas they almost certainly have sunshine, damn the luck."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Because I don't want to say 'hey, why not come hang out with me in Hell-Orifice for a while', and also the Hell-Orifice is a specific location within the world in general," Juliet says, writing up her profile on the page after Golden's.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 10:35 pm (UTC)

"It's ironic," volunteers Shell Bell.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:36 pm (UTC)

"You have the sunshine thing?" Golden asks Sherlock. "That sounds inconvenient."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:37 pm (UTC)

"If by 'the sunshine thing' you mean that certain frequencies of ultraviolet will in sufficient concentration light me on fire, yes," he says. "Yes I do, and yes it is."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Being on fire is not fun," says Golden. With a slight hint of inside joke and an adjustment to her hair, shorter than Juliet's or Shell Bell's.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I imagine not," he agrees. "Do I take this to mean you have personal experience with that fact?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes. Short of stranding us on the moon or otherwise managing to starve us to death, the only way to kill my sort of vampire is with fire, albeit not solar sourced fire. This is traditionally much easier if we're pulverized into small chunks first, though. My witch power is sufficiently interested in my mind's continued existence as well as its integrity to force me back into a survivable configuration if someone manages to attempt this on me. Twice."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Ow," squeaks Shell Bell.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Fascinating," says Sherlock.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:47 pm (UTC)

"You could put it that way."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad you're alive," volunteers Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Me too."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Golden. "I'm glad I'm alive too. I don't imagine being set on fire would have been any more comfortable if my enemies had succeeded at what they had in mind, after all. Although there are drawbacks to finding such extreme conditions survivable. The previous occupants of my position as secret vampire world leader found it convenient to keep people with useful witchcraft stored as heaps of rubble in a dungeon, including my husband and my sister-in-law, for five years."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Damn," says Sherlock.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Rather. Yes. And in that time Edward thought I was dead, which was worse. Diamond vampires - as I have decided to call us - mate for life in the most serious sense possible."
Edited 2013-02-17 22:55 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Well. That's unpleasant," he says, not quite as flippantly as he means to.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I thought he was dead too. I turned out to be mistaken regarding the identity of an ash heap. I was, just barely, functional - it helped that there was Elspeth, even before I took her from her grandparents and aunts and uncles."
Edited 2013-02-17 23:03 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a hug?" asks Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," agrees Juliet, "hugs, available things."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 11:04 pm (UTC)

Golden has to think about this, but it takes an imperceptible amount of time.

"All right," she says, and she receives hugs, which she returns very, very carefully.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I am familiar with the circumstance," says Sherlock. "You have my sympathy. And another hug, if you'd like one."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm full up, thanks. Familiar how? Does your sort do this too?" She peers at Juliet's profile. "Sunshine vampires?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Not the specific thing, he's just - lost people," says Juliet.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Mm. Mates are special, but not - infinitely special, so the sympathy's likely informed, regardless. Elspeth occupies a similar priority for me compared to Edward. But this is largely because my mind is safe. It's not true for Edward comparing me and our daughter. His original relationship with her was destroyed years ago. It's better now. But it'll never be the same."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Specifically," says Sherlock, "the circumstance of loving someone so much you are not sure you can survive without them, and then having that put to the test." He quirks a faint, humourless smile. "Twice."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 11:15 pm (UTC)

Golden nods. "She has his hair," she murmurs. "She used to complain that I wouldn't let her cut it until it swept the floor. When the relationship-destroying witch came along she chopped half of it off." Pause. "The relationship-destroying witch is the only person I have ever personally killed."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I have killed quite a number of people," says Sherlock, "but the first human was the man who hid a gang of vampire assassins in our basement and thereby caused the death of everyone I had ever loved. I expect even if I had my soul pinned back on, I would still stand by that one."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 11:23 pm (UTC)

Golden nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 11:24 pm (UTC)

Juliet hugs her Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:24 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs his Juliet.

toblameforit
2013-02-17 11:26 pm (UTC)

The suite's front door opens.

"New Bells!" says a cheerful voice. "Hi, new Bells! Hi, —holy shit vampire Sherry."
Edited 2013-02-17 23:26 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Tony," he murmurs, looking away and keeping very still.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Hi again, Tony," says Shell Bell. "I'm pretty sure Juliet wouldn't hang out with him if he were an asshole people-eating version of himself. At least currently. My Sherlock thought when I asked her that this one would want to meet you, it's good you're here!"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 11:31 pm (UTC)

"How could you tell by looking? I can't even tell by looking and I'm supposed to be able to tell by magic," mutters Juliet, releasing her Sherlock from the hug in case he wants to hug Tony instead.

toblameforit
2013-02-17 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says, "I just—Sherry, are you okay?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Not particularly."

toblameforit
2013-02-17 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Dammit," Tony sighs, and hugs him.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:36 pm (UTC)

Hesitantly, Sherlock hugs back.

"Half of the aforementioned dead family," he says, mostly for Golden's benefit.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-17 11:38 pm (UTC)

"I suspected," Golden murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 11:39 pm (UTC)

"This one has a Jarvis at home," Shell Bell says tentatively.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:39 pm (UTC)

He hugs Tony a little tighter.

toblameforit
2013-02-17 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Hey," he says gently, "kinda squishy over here." Then he sighs. "Jarvis too, huh?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:41 pm (UTC)

He un-clings a little. Just a little.

"Jarvis too."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Amariah said Jarvis is an AI," says Juliet. "Forgive me if this is rude, but is there any possibility of - copying him and bringing one back to Sunshine with us?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-17 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't have big coins but I can do squares, squares can conjure nonmagical objects," pipes up Shell Bell.

toblameforit
2013-02-17 11:45 pm (UTC)

"...We can ask," says Tony, pulling back some to look at Sherlock's face. "You wanna go ask?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-17 11:46 pm (UTC)

For purely psychological reasons, he takes a deep breath.

"Yes."

toblameforit
2013-02-17 11:48 pm (UTC)

"You'd need somewhere to put him, though," Tony muses. "Do you have a house? I bet you don't have a house. Um, Bell-over-there?" he says, addressing Juliet. "Do you have a house? That we can... extensively remodel?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-17 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock named me Juliet because at one point we had a conversation through my window, I'm sticking with it," says Juliet. "And that one's Golden. I live in Charlie's house, which I don't really expect him to be willing to remodel, but there's a fair number of abandoned buildings in Sunnydale, maybe Shell Bell could conjure up stuff to pawn and I could buy one on the cheap and we can remodel it by magic?"

toblameforit
2013-02-18 12:08 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 12:09 am (UTC)

"I expect that will work," says Sherlock. "Although it might take some time."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 12:37 am (UTC)

"How much time are you thinking? Not everyone's as comfortable with roughing it as Amariah, so if a lot of that is time spent Sunshine-side it could get awkward," muses Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 12:40 am (UTC)

"To buy an abandoned building? I'm not sure, I've never done it before. But I expect it'll be more than a day."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 12:41 am (UTC)

"Possibly. Although a lot of stuff operates so very sketchily in Sunnydale I wouldn't be astonished if we could get it done faster."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 12:41 am (UTC)

"What time is it there now?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 12:42 am (UTC)

"Something like ten thirty p.m.," says Juliet.

toblameforit
2013-02-18 12:43 am (UTC)

"We could ask Jarvis first, anyway," says Tony.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 01:03 am (UTC)

"I imagine I'm irrelevant to all these proceedings, but I'm curious to have a look around anyway," says Golden, "am I invited?"

toblameforit
2013-02-18 01:12 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 01:13 am (UTC)

"Thanks."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 01:15 am (UTC)

"I've skimmed this thing now," says Juliet, closing the Bell guestbook, "any other reason to delay? Although I will want to sleep soon, I can do that when I won't be keeping so many people waiting."

toblameforit
2013-02-18 01:18 am (UTC)

"Nah, let's go," says Tony. "Who's coming to my place?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 01:19 am (UTC)

All three Bells raise their hands.

toblameforit
2013-02-18 01:22 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and takes Sherlock's hand, and leads them all downstairs.

When they pile through the door, what's on the other side is a spacious, tastefully decorated living room with plenty of comfortable couches.

"Hi Jarvis!" says Tony. "This is Juliet, Shell Bell, and Golden. And a vampire Sherry but I promise he's nice. We're both dead in his world and I kind of want to hug him forever."

poeticterms
2013-02-18 01:23 am (UTC)

"Pleased to meet you all," says Jarvis.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 01:23 am (UTC)

Sherlock hugs Tony silently.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 01:25 am (UTC)

"Is the local Sherlock around?" asks Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 01:25 am (UTC)

"And the question we came here to ask," says Juliet, "namely, for mine, who lost his version of you, any chance of taking a copy home with us? Pardon me if that's rude, I've never met an AI before."

poeticterms
2013-02-18 01:28 am (UTC)

"The local Sherlock is not at home," says Jarvis. "And... I'm not sure."

toblameforit
2013-02-18 01:29 am (UTC)

"They live in Sunnydale," Tony adds, indicating Sherlock and Juliet, "I think they're an item, they're gonna try to buy an abandoned house or something to install you in."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 01:31 am (UTC)

"I'm the Slayer," volunteers Juliet, in case that wasn't clear. "Do you have those here? You knew Sherlock was a vampire, so..."

toblameforit
2013-02-18 01:32 am (UTC)

"...Yeah, we have those here," he says. "Whoa, seriously? So wait, how'd you guys...?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 01:36 am (UTC)

"I haven't been the Slayer very long. Also, thanks to the Bell mental opacity thing, no supernatural senses. At all. Found out I was the Slayer when a Power That Is showed up, in my bedroom, uninvited, grumbling about how I didn't get some dreams I was supposed to get. Sherlock figured out I was the Slayer from the way I walked, I started shooting at him -" She pats her messenger bag. "I missed. A lot. He, obviously, didn't kill me. I called Charlie, Charlie drove me out of there, I kept seeing him around and he kept not being sociopathically hedonistic as expected, he offered to be my bodyguard, I put him on a one-week trial period where I didn't let him within ten feet, and I determined that if he was up to something it wasn't gonna be something I could figure out. There was sparring. Later, there was kissing."

toblameforit
2013-02-18 01:41 am (UTC)

"That's cute," Tony declares.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 01:44 am (UTC)

"Apparently, Bells and Sherlocks being cute is a thing?" shrugs Juliet, smiling.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 01:44 am (UTC)

Shell Bell nods.

toblameforit
2013-02-18 01:45 am (UTC)

"It totally is," says Tony, and he hugs Sherlock again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 01:47 am (UTC)

"So. Jarvis?"

poeticterms
2013-02-18 01:49 am (UTC)

"...Would it be feasible to show me the abandoned building in question?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 01:52 am (UTC)

"We don't have one picked out yet, so that'd wait for another trip to Milliways, and if we didn't have Shell Bell along anymore by then, we'd have to hope we guessed right about the number of squares needed to fix it up and install your copy," muses Juliet. "I mean, my first choice would be the old brick thing about halfway between school and Charlie's house - do you know the place, Sherlock? - but I don't know if we can get it."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 02:14 am (UTC)

"I know the one," says Sherlock. "It's not bad. Easily fortified."

poeticterms
2013-02-18 02:18 am (UTC)

Jarvis hesitates. But not for very long.

"All right," he says. "I trust Tony with the final say about location. I'll start running the backup."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 02:19 am (UTC)

"Thank you," Sherlock murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 02:30 am (UTC)

"Do you need something to put it on conjured or do you have it?" Shell Bell asks.

poeticterms
2013-02-18 02:32 am (UTC)

"...If you could conjure some hard drives, that would speed things along," he says. "How thoroughly do I need to specify the requirements?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 02:40 am (UTC)

Bell bites into the side of her cheek and hands a small handful of squares to Tony. "He can probably do this better than I can," she says. "Wishes are pretty smart and they're good at copying stuff - if there's one that's already around that's exactly what you want, that's easy - but probably better for Tony to do the wishing."

toblameforit
2013-02-18 02:41 am (UTC)

"If I ask it for something it can't give me, does that waste a wish?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:25 am (UTC)

"No, if it can't do it, it just doesn't disappear and nothing happens," Shell Bell says. "It's useful."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:27 am (UTC)

"Compared to magic in my world, which apparently tries to kill you or drive you insane every chance it gets, that's saintly," snorts Juliet. "Good sweet wishcoins."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:28 am (UTC)

"They're very nice, except for where you have to get them," agrees Shell Bell, "and obviously there's a nice loophole to make that not a problem."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:30 am (UTC)

"It's possible I should ask Stella to mint me the next time I see her - or you when you've got more coins, Shell Bell, or Angela maybe if I meet her first. Just for the triangles and squares. Perhaps pentagons. Being a vampire doesn't do anything directly to my pain tolerance, but the boosted brain capacity makes it easier."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:31 am (UTC)

"I'd be happy to do it if I only had a hex," apologizes Shell Bell.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:32 am (UTC)

"I understand. I'm not criticizing you, I understand how it happened."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:33 am (UTC)

"But you managed your empire without anything but your opacity," says Juliet, "didn't you."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:34 am (UTC)

"My opacity and family and friends with their own talents. Mine was important - I was the only person immune to several of the Volturi's most dangerous weapons - but not sufficient."

toblameforit
2013-02-18 12:54 pm (UTC)

While this back-and-forth is going on, Tony is making hard drives.

He keeps grinning.

"Be right back, guys," he announces, and leaves the room.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 03:14 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like it might be an interesting story," says Juliet to Golden.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 03:26 pm (UTC)

"It might, but Elspeth is better at telling it than I am," says Golden. "She has also written pamphlets on the subject, although they're abridged sketches so as not to turn into novel-sized illustrated histories."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 03:33 pm (UTC)

"Do you like having a kid?" Shell Bell asks.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 03:45 pm (UTC)

Golden opens her mouth as though to deliver a stock answer of some kind, then closes it and glances between Bell and Juliet thoughtfully.

"I'd say it's like having my soul walk around outside my body," she says instead after a moment, "but given that Amariah exists, perhaps that's not the right comparison; Edward is like having my soul walk around outside my body in the sense that we can operate like extensions of each other and neither of us can function without the other's safety. Elspeth is more like..." She's stumped. "I stopped notebooking before she was conceived, let alone born; I know what it's like but I haven't put it into words."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 03:48 pm (UTC)

"But she's desperately important and beloved and you can only direct her to act like it a limited amount?" tries Juliet.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 03:55 pm (UTC)

"She's not reckless or helpless. She keeps Jacob with her, she can incapacitate or obliterate anyone outside of a couple dozen inoculated people by thinking about it, I believe she's safe at home and when she's in Milliways she doesn't walk through the door with anyone who she can't sincerely tell Jacob they're harmless. But she's been through more than she should've been, and she grew up so terribly fast, and I love the person that she is but she's not who I would've designed if that were how children worked. I'd never have wanted my baby to go on to casually discuss murder and mental rearrangement and torture as things that she's seen and experienced and gotten accustomed to thinking about."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 03:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm not planning to have kids any time soon even now," says Shell Bell, "but I definitely was planning to never do it before I took over the world. Panem was no place for them."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 03:59 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't originally going to have her that early," says Golden. "At the time I didn't expect her to be in danger, and it would have been problematic to wait. And we were ready as parents. But society, at least supernatural society, was as you say - not fit to have a child in then. I miscalculated, badly, and paid for it, and five years later she did too."
Edited 2013-02-18 15:59 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:11 pm (UTC)

"I must not have reached some relevant stage in my life-cycle," says Juliet, glancing between the other Bells.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:12 pm (UTC)

"I think you're a little younger than I am," Shell Bell says. "And I think Golden is the oldest, even though she looks about your age plus Diamond vampire stuff."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm forty-three," agrees Golden. "Chronologically. It's a matter of some debate, to what extent development is relevant or even frozen at all in someone who turns in their teens. Turning small children, though, is forbidden for a reason. But I was just barely eighteen when Elspeth was born."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Eighteen, but also married and turned and plotting world takeover already. Amariah says I'm still in the," Juliet makes air-quotes, "resource gathering phase."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:20 pm (UTC)

"I think Angela and Micaiah are going to wind up having a bunch of kids," says Shell Bell. "I get the impression that it's an angel thing. I don't know about anyone else."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Isn't your Sherlock a girl, anyway?" says Juliet to Shell Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Shell Bell. "But, magic, and even if there weren't magic, she and Tony are identical twins, so." She shrugs, blushing.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:23 pm (UTC)

"What is up with my alts and non-monogamy?" asks Golden rhetorically.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Don't look at me, I haven't even had that conversation," says Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:25 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it's us. Well, I don't think it's most of us. I had a crush on my Tony before I even worked out how to make things happen with my Sherlock and my Sherlock is, you know, special circumstances. I think we just attract non-monogamous people who are interesting enough to make the hack worthwhile. Except you, Golden."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:29 pm (UTC)

"When I met Stella it was one thing - there weren't any duplicates but us, I could explain to myself that in a world without vampires Edward would've died of the Spanish flu and of course I would have found someone else, but now there are so many duplicates I'm beginning to wonder what's going on," says Golden frankly. "If Whistles can show up in multiple versions of Earth - with different birth years; Amariah's parents apparently met later than typical or something and the picture of Kas still looks about her age - and also on Samaria, and if Sherlocks can appear with not only different genders but also in two neighboring Earths and the obviously far-future Panem... why is there only one Edward, why aren't there two or three of him too? I'm not saying I want there to be. I'd find that nearly as confusing as he finds my alts. But I wonder why there aren't."
Edited 2013-02-18 16:30 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:32 pm (UTC)

"We talk about the template," murmurs Shell Bell. "But who's the template?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Well - what are the features that crop up a lot? We all look the same, except Angela's wings and Golden's recoloring - but not everything's universal. The template would have to start out with mental opacity. That random little town in Washington comes up a lot too - Sunnydale has its reasons for attracting interesting goings-on, but Forks doesn't, there's no reason for it to be repeated unless it's in the template. So it's not Shell Bell or Angela and it's not me."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Stella and I share a birthdate with each other but not Amariah," says Golden.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I think it's probably one of the two of you, yeah," says Shell Bell. "You share a lot of features with each other straight across, you both took over your worlds without extradimensional help - I think Amariah could've too, but she found us before she did - and Stella's got a duplicate boyfriend, but you've got a duplicate... supernatural element. Of sorts. Since you and Juliet both have vampires."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:39 pm (UTC)

"However this works," Juliet says, "it has to base who we meet on something other than who the template met, since there are duplicates but not all the same duplicates. The Sherlock and Whistle templates are doing some of the work at arranging for us to encounter each other too. If that makes any sense. So I don't know if Edward being non-duplicated is even a point against Golden as the template. It might be a point in her favor."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:41 pm (UTC)

"We're assuming that there is a template, though," says Golden. "Instead of just - a collection of features that often come together at a sufficient concentration to turn into one of us. We're assuming that if there's a template, we've met her - that there won't appear in the future a mentally opaque Bell with an Edward and Sherlock and a Whistle and - that poor Edward, goodness - and some manner of vampires who took her world over without outside help. Or that we're not just missing her forever because she doesn't go to Milliways."
Edited 2013-02-18 16:43 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 04:47 pm (UTC)

"There's a lot of features that show up and don't seem essential, though," says Shell Bell. "We talk in our sleep even though Golden's not less Bellish for not sleeping anymore, we all start out straight even though I'm not less Bellish for having adjusted that. If it's just Essence Of Bell floating around the multiverse creating an - attractor, for worlds to fall into, then why would Essence Of Bell contain that stuff? We wouldn't turn away a Bell from the Belltower who didn't ever talk in her sleep and was gay for as long as she could remember."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 04:49 pm (UTC)

"We're also consistently cisgendered girls," says Juliet, glancing in Sherlock's direction. "Although I'm not sure how we'd identify one of us who was a boy or a trans girl, so that could just be a problem of sampling."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 04:51 pm (UTC)

"A sampling of, I remind you, the three of us and three more not present," says Golden. "Not really an avalanche of data on which to perform any statistical analysis to speak of."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 05:04 pm (UTC)

"It's weird that we all look the same. We can't just be genetically identical - Angela's got great big speckly wings," says Shell Bell. "I want to know what's up with that."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 05:13 pm (UTC)

"There's genetically identical and then there's genetically identical. Turning messed with my genes - I have more chromosomes now. Maybe however Angela's species works just adds wings."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Wings and extra body heat and a spectacular singing voice that I do not have," says Shell Bell, "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have it even if I blew a pentagon on singing pretty to cheat at all the training and practice she's put into it. I guess a really clever engineer could've done that and nothing else, but it having just happened is farther-fetched. Then again, she's got a god in her world."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 05:15 pm (UTC)

"What, really? Did you check?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I watched her pray for stuff, and stuff fell out of the sky. Or clouds parted or the air warmed up or whatever. It wasn't a coincidence, there was a palpable difference in the air after a few lines of the songs, let alone after a complete prayer. I watched an 'oracle' talk to the god in question and get an answer. On a computer, which was weird, but it seems to work for them."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Amariah's goddesses produce results when she recites poetry at them," Juliet adds to Golden. "And on my world, there are demons-slash-deities who do the same thing - except not to me because the spells are all 'divine Hecate behold my will' and my will is invisible. Also a Power That Is showed up in my bedroom. Have a little confidence in your counterparts, we're not going to believe in divine beings without observing them to do stuff."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 05:20 pm (UTC)

"You have to admit that it sounds a little funny when combined with the angel thing. If Angela weren't claiming divine status I'd figure 'angel' for a translation of whatever word means 'person with wings' where she's from, but adding that in..."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Is it strange?" asks Shell Bell dubiously.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 05:21 pm (UTC)

"A little, yeah - I keep forgetting you have a funky cultural background, you seem to keep up pretty well."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I've picked up some things. I've been going to Milliways since I was six and staying as long as I could and talking to everyone and watching and reading stuff from all over. But it's an irregular cross-section," agrees Shell Bell. "And sometimes I'm not sure if something I've learned is an Earth standard or if it's someone's oddball world's thing."
Edited 2013-02-18 20:01 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-02-18 10:47 pm (UTC)

Tony saunters back into the room.

"Backup's running," he reports cheerfully. "You guys doing okay? Anybody want something to eat?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I'll be fine for the next five days," says Golden.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I'd take a snack if there were one in the room but don't get anything on my account."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 10:49 pm (UTC)

Juliet yawns. "If I stay up much longer I'm going to be in midnight-snack territory, so if something's on offer I'll eat."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I expect I am more capable of finding my way around your kitchen than you are," says Sherlock, patting Tony on the arm. "Shall we investigate, dear Juliet?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," agrees Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"You probably know at least as much about what I eat as I do," Shell Bell calls after Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 11:00 pm (UTC)

Sherlock directs Juliet to the kitchen, which he does indeed know his way around. While he's there, he makes himself a cup of tea.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-18 11:03 pm (UTC)

Juliet inspects the availability, and gets herself a bowl of grapes to split with Shell Bell, and a slice of bread to fold in half around a couple slices of salami for herself, humming.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 11:40 pm (UTC)

As soon as Sherlock's tea is poured, they head back toward the living room.

passforsympathy
2013-02-18 11:40 pm (UTC)

Someone else gets there first.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 11:41 pm (UTC)

Halfway there, at no apparent signal, Sherlock drops his tea and bolts forward.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-18 11:42 pm (UTC)

A hand grabs him and holds him in midair by the back of his neck, like he's a kitten.

"What are you doing?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-18 11:43 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell looks uncomfortable with the newcomer herself, but she murmurs, "Sherlock, this one isn't yours or mine."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-18 11:55 pm (UTC)

Sherlock appeals directly to Tony, and what he says is, "He had you killed."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:02 am (UTC)

Tony glances between them uncertainly.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 12:05 am (UTC)

"Let me know if at some point I should put him down," Golden tells Tony. (It's not like her arm is getting tired.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 12:05 am (UTC)

Shell Bell cannot bring herself to appeal any more on a Snow-alt's behalf.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 12:06 am (UTC)

Juliet comes back from the kitchen with half her sandwich and the bowl of grapes, which she hands to Shell Bell. "Uh, what's going on? Golden? Sherlock?"

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 12:07 am (UTC)

"I always knew it would happen someday," Obadiah says dryly.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:12 am (UTC)

"No," says Tony, pointing at him, "no, you, shut up, no."

Then he turns to Sherry.

"Don't eat Obie, I like him."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 12:14 am (UTC)

"While I am listing his faults, he also had your parents assassinated," says Sherlock. "And that one I expect is common to our worlds. I am not going to eat him; I would rather starve."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 12:15 am (UTC)

"Oh, that guy," says Juliet. "Shell Bell, isn't he...?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 12:16 am (UTC)

"Alt of the president of Panem who Amariah killed for me, yes," says Shell Bell quietly.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 12:17 am (UTC)

"Considering putting him down, now," says Golden, glancing between her counterparts.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:25 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Tony, "having this conversation right now is not my first choice, but I guess I'll just have to deal."

He turns to Obie.

"Anything to say for yourself?"

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 12:26 am (UTC)

"I'm not the one who invited a vampire from an alternate dimension into my house," Obadiah says mildly.
Edited 2013-02-19 00:26 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:28 am (UTC)

"Stop deflecting," Tony says sharply. "You were like this after that other time too and it's getting really fucking old."

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 12:30 am (UTC)

"I don't know what you want me to say," he says. "The clone has never exactly been stable."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 12:31 am (UTC)

"Mine's not a clone," says Shell Bell suddenly, sharply, "and I don't think she'd be arguing for you to go on living either if she were here."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:34 am (UTC)

Tony looks pleadingly at Sherlock.

"Okay, but—really? I mean, really?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 12:37 am (UTC)

"And he wants to fuck you," Sherlock adds. "Yes. Everything I have told you about him is the truth. In my world, after I found out he arranged that collapsed road, he hired a gang of vampire assassins and concealed them in our basement. They killed you and Jarvis and turned me."

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 12:39 am (UTC)

"Am I really on trial here?" he asks witheringly.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:40 am (UTC)

Tony won't look at him.

"Is it true?"

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 12:41 am (UTC)

"Is what true, because again, the only vampire—"

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:41 am (UTC)

"About my parents," he interrupts. "Is it true?"

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 12:42 am (UTC)

He sighs impatiently.

"No, Tony. It's not true."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 12:45 am (UTC)

"You want another square?" asks Shell Bell, biting into her cheek. "You wanna check? Square'll give you a short burst if that, but I bet it'll let you check." She offers him the mother-of-pearl coin, not taking her eyes off Snow-Obie. "Maybe I'll get Golden or Juliet to break my arm ve-e-ry carefully..."

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 12:49 am (UTC)

"This is ridiculous," says Obadiah.

But... maybe a little nervously.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:50 am (UTC)

"...I don't want you to break your arm," says Tony. "But I want to know what's going on."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 12:51 am (UTC)

"Ask your Sherlock," Sherlock suggests.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 12:52 am (UTC)

"...That... is actually a pretty good idea," says Tony. "Fuck. Jarvis, can you get Sherry on the phone?"

poeticterms
2013-02-19 12:52 am (UTC)

"Certainly, sir."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 12:54 am (UTC)

Golden continues holding Sherlock, because her arm isn't tired and Tony hasn't asked for him to be set down yet.
Edited 2013-02-19 00:55 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 12:56 am (UTC)

Juliet... finishes her sandwich. And drops loosely into a ready pose, because while not much is likely to happen and Golden can probably handle anything that does better than she can, this seems like a good situation to be ready for other possibilities in.

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 01:00 am (UTC)

"This is not reasonable," says Obadiah. He's definitely worried now.

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 01:00 am (UTC)

"Yes, Tony?"

toblameforit
2013-02-19 01:05 am (UTC)

Tony takes a deep breath before addressing his Sherry's disembodied voice.

"Did Obie kill my parents?"

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 01:05 am (UTC)

There is a pause.

It's not long.

"Yes."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 01:06 am (UTC)

"Dropping or not-dropping?" Golden queries.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 01:07 am (UTC)

"Do I get a vote? I vote dropping."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 01:07 am (UTC)

"Is there a reason why the native Sherlock hasn't killed him?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 01:08 am (UTC)

"My Sherlock couldn't kill ours because he had something set up to kill Tony if she did," says Shell Bell. "That's why Amariah had to do it."

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 01:10 am (UTC)

"It would have upset Tony," says the native Sherlock.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 01:37 am (UTC)

"Well, thanks for that," Tony sighs.

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 01:38 am (UTC)

"Tony—"

toblameforit
2013-02-19 01:39 am (UTC)

"Why did you do it?"

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 01:40 am (UTC)

"Tony."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 01:42 am (UTC)

"Why."
Edited 2013-02-19 01:42 (UTC)

passforsympathy
2013-02-19 01:43 am (UTC)

"Tony, I didn't," he says, "this is ridiculous."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 01:44 am (UTC)

"Drop him," Tony sighs, shaking his head.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 01:52 am (UTC)

Golden lets him go.
Edited 2013-02-19 01:53 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 01:56 am (UTC)

Tony is obviously conflicted.

Sherlock is not.

He kills Obadiah as quickly and efficiently as he has ever killed a demon.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 01:59 am (UTC)

"Thank you for not letting him bleed," says Golden, "that would have been uncomfortable."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 01:59 am (UTC)

"Three down. Some unknown number to go."
Edited 2013-02-19 01:59 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 02:00 am (UTC)

"Does it help?" Juliet asks her Sherlock, softly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 02:03 am (UTC)

"A little."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 02:04 am (UTC)

"That's good, then."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 02:06 am (UTC)

"How are you planning to explain his disappearance?" Golden asks, afterthoughtlike.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 02:07 am (UTC)

"Square can vanish as well as conjure, so there's no question of hiding the body unless you've got an idea for falsifying cause of death," says Shell Bell.

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 02:08 am (UTC)

"I will take care of it," the native Sherlock asserts. "Go ahead and vanish him."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 02:09 am (UTC)

Vanishment.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 02:10 am (UTC)

Juliet crosses the room to hold her Sherlock's hand.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 02:18 am (UTC)

Silently, he hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 02:19 am (UTC)

Hugs are always an improvement.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 02:19 am (UTC)

"...How's the backup of Jarvis coming?" Shell Bell asks tentatively, after a minute's silence.

poeticterms
2013-02-19 02:43 am (UTC)

"Almost complete."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 02:48 am (UTC)

"...I'm gonna need a minute, guys," Tony says quietly. "Vampire Sherry, can I borrow you?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 02:50 am (UTC)

"Of course."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 02:53 am (UTC)

Juliet relinquishes her Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 02:54 am (UTC)

He follows Tony out of the room.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 02:55 am (UTC)

"Other Sherlock, are you still on the phone?" Shell Bell asks the air.

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 02:58 am (UTC)

"Yes I am."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 02:59 am (UTC)

"Are the events clear enough or do you want anything explained?"

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 03:11 am (UTC)

"A vampire duplicate of me from an alternate universe just killed Obadiah Stane. Tony went off to cry on said duplicate's shoulder. Some number of you were also involved."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 03:13 am (UTC)

"I'm Shell Bell and there's also Juliet - she's new, the Sherlock is hers, she's the Slayer in her world - and Golden - she's sort of new but was known, she's a vampire but a different kind," supplies Shell Bell.

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 03:14 am (UTC)

"Nice to meet you all," Sherlock says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 03:23 am (UTC)

"And Jarvis is copying to disk so I can take him home and install him in my world," Juliet adds, "because him and Tony died, there."

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 03:24 am (UTC)

"Ah," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 03:26 am (UTC)

"I think you're up to speed now."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 03:27 am (UTC)

"I have to admit I'm questioning the not-having-told-Tony-about-how-his-parents-died thing," says Golden. "Why was that a good idea? He believed you when you told him."

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 03:28 am (UTC)

"I did not expect him to. Until he asked."
Edited 2013-02-19 03:28 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 03:29 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I wasn't sure he would, either - on my world everything was more blatantly horrible," says Shell Bell.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 03:30 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. You know the kid and I don't," says Golden.

bitofafiction
2013-02-19 03:32 am (UTC)

"Yes," Sherlock agrees. "And now I should get off the phone."

He hangs up.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 03:35 am (UTC)

"I should probably start stockpiling squares," says Shell Bell, and she bends one of her fingers backwards and holds it, expression set.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 03:35 am (UTC)

Juliet pops grapes into her mouth one at a time, thoughtfully.

"What was the lady you killed called, Golden?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 03:37 am (UTC)

"Chelsea. I wouldn't instantly kill another of her if I ran into one. But it would be very hard to wait for confirmation that she was similar enough to justify it," says Golden darkly.

poeticterms
2013-02-19 03:38 am (UTC)

"What did she do?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 03:50 am (UTC)

"Chelsea had a witchcraft power. She could build up - or destroy - relationships. Except for mine, because of my own power, and except for mate bonds in vampires and imprints in werewolves." She closes her eyes. "My daughter was not so defended. Nor my husband's own affection for our child."

poeticterms
2013-02-19 03:51 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Jarvis.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 03:52 am (UTC)

"It was years ago. We've rebuilt insofar as that's possible. But thank you."

poeticterms
2013-02-19 03:54 am (UTC)

"Tony will be back shortly," he adds.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 03:56 am (UTC)

"How's he doing?" asks Shell Bell.

poeticterms
2013-02-19 03:58 am (UTC)

"Poorly."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 03:59 am (UTC)

"Will it help if I hug him too?"

poeticterms
2013-02-19 04:03 am (UTC)

"It might. You can ask," says Jarvis.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:05 am (UTC)

Shell Bell nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:06 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, Juliet turns to Golden. "Do you mind if I try socking you in the face to see what happens to my hand? If my hand survives the experience and I don't need one of Shell Bell's squares to fix it I might want to try sparring with you, later, when we're not all thinking about variously recent death."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-19 04:07 am (UTC)

"Go for it," shrugs Golden.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:08 am (UTC)

Juliet throws a punch. Golden doesn't dodge, so she catches her square in the face; Golden doesn't budge.

"Square please," Juliet says to Shell Bell, cradling her hand. It heals; she shakes it. "Well. Now we know."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 04:11 am (UTC)

"Hi, guys," says Tony, walking into the room. He's carrying a duffel bag. His eyes are red, the lashes clumped. "The backup's all set. We're good to go."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:12 am (UTC)

"Do you want more hugs?" Shell Bell asks earnestly.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 04:14 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Tony. "More hugs would be awesome."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:16 am (UTC)

More hugs occur.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 04:17 am (UTC)

Sherlock walks in during same.

"Are we ready to leave?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:18 am (UTC)

"I think so," says Juliet.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 04:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Tony, stepping back from Shell Bell with a small smile. "Thanks."

poeticterms
2013-02-19 04:20 am (UTC)

Jarvis opens a door to Milliways.

our shield, our defender

jovahs_heiress

Isabella has read the guestbook. Stella began her work slowly because others in her world had magic and could have used it against her. Shell Bell began her work abruptly and openly because she had a government to depose.

The angel Isabella has neither problem. No one will oppose her. She herself does not oppose the Archangel Linus, who is doing a perfectly serviceable job. And anything she does will be taken as Jovah's own miracles until and unless she announces herself. She is willing that credit for her thought and design and for Micaiah's tithe in pain go to Jovah, who permits them to wield this power, who ought to be shown that she can control the magic, that she's not in it for glory.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 02:51 am (UTC)

And Micaiah just wants fun, harmless, interesting magic powers and the chance to turn something as delightful as pain into more magic for his angel to work with. Credit doesn't come into it any which way.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:54 am (UTC)

It seems that no matter how she sings, Isabella can't provoke the Kiss into pressing a star out of Micaiah. So the first thing she has to do is get over her squeamishness and either duplicate the agony beam as listed in the Belltower book, or live with the knowledge that her lover is self-mutilating somewhere, sometimes, and emerging whole only through magic.

"I can probably do without stars," she says before deciding to accept either thing.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 02:56 am (UTC)

"...Really?" he says, halfway disappointed. "I want to try making some, can I anyway?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 02:58 am (UTC)

"...I mean, I could use them. Shell Bell told me how. But you don't have to and - and it's one thing when it's your Kiss responding to my voice but. But."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:03 am (UTC)

"Awwww," he says in understanding, and gives her a hug and a kiss.

And has an idea.

A pentagon goes. "Sing me something nice," he suggests, bouncing a little.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:04 am (UTC)

She produces a long melisma segment from a mass other than Micaiah's favorite, blinking at him.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:07 am (UTC)

Pentagon, pentagon, hex hex star.

He hugs himself and leans into her, beaming.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:08 am (UTC)

"-hosanna," she concludes. "What did you do?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:09 am (UTC)

"I changed how I feel when it kisses me," he says, stroking his Kiss. "So I can make it more, if I want stars."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:10 am (UTC)

"Oh," she murmurs. "...Do you like them as much as you thought you would?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:11 am (UTC)

He grins.

"I like them more."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:14 am (UTC)

She hugs him tight. "I love you," she murmurs in his ear. "I love you and you're amazing."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:15 am (UTC)

"I love you tooooo," he says happily. "You're my favourite angel."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:17 am (UTC)

Kisses kisses.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:19 am (UTC)

Lovey snuggly kisses.

Very lovey. Very snuggly. Very physical.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:21 am (UTC)

...Some time later, Angela comes out of the water room, and goes and looks at the little calendar that lives near her clock.

She peers at it for a few moments and then says in a faraway voice, "I think I'm pregnant."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:22 am (UTC)

Micaiah jumps up and hugs her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:23 am (UTC)

She hugs him back, smiling. "I didn't expect it so soon," she laughs. "And I could be wrong and I could still miscarry - but I think I am!"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:24 am (UTC)

"We could wish that you not miscarry," he says. "If you are. If you want."

Then he kisses her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:27 am (UTC)

"Oh, that's a good idea, I'm not used to just wishing for things yet," and she wishes on a pentagon.

And then she says - "I wonder if it's an angel or a mortal. I wonder if it's right to wish about that, too."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:28 am (UTC)

"Whatever it is, it probably already is it," says Micaiah. "So we might as well wait and see."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 03:49 am (UTC)

"Do you think?" she asks. "That it's already something and that it matters that it go on being that?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 03:51 am (UTC)

"If it is already something, and it doesn't go on being that, I think it'll be a different person than it would've," he says. "But I don't know. I've never had a kid before."

And he hugs her again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:03 am (UTC)

"If I had been going to be a mortal, I'd be grateful if someone had angeled me instead. I don't think a mortal me - who still grew up here, not a mortal me like the ones we've met now - would feel the opposite way."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:07 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't want to have been angeled before I was born," says Micaiah. "Even if it would've meant growing up in an angel hold. I like the me I am."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:08 am (UTC)

Isabella considers this.

"We could ask Serah. As a hypothetical qusetion," she says. "And see what she thinks."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:10 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably, and kisses her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:14 am (UTC)

Kisses, always kisses, lovely kisses.

They meet Serah in the dining hall for lunch. Isabella tells her the good news.

"Jovah kiss you, that's wonderful!" exclaims Serah. "I'm so happy for you! Are you thinking about names yet?"

"Not yet," says Isabella, laughing shakily. "I only just noticed I was late. Say - Serah -"

"Mm?"

"You could've been an angel. Would you rather have been?"

Serah appears to need to think about this very hard.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:15 am (UTC)

Micaiah appears not to care about the answer, or at least not about how fast it arrives.

Mm, lunch.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:18 am (UTC)

"I think so," Serah says finally. "On balance. I don't think I'd always like all the responsibility, but - I'd love to fly by myself. I'd love to have Jovah's ear, like that. I'd love to walk down the street and have everybody trying to give me presents. I wouldn't always like it but I'd always love it. That's what I think."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:25 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:26 am (UTC)

"What?" Serah asks him, oblivious.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:27 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "I wouldn't."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:32 am (UTC)

"Well, you didn't grow up in a hold," says Serah. "With an angel brother after you and then another angel brother after that and angel friends and an angel father and eavesdropping on people wishing you'd been an angel since you were three."

"I didn't realize it was that bad," says Isabella.

"It's not. I mean, at least my parents are married and I live here instead of running wild in Velora or abandoned at the Gabriel School or struggling to make ends meet with a mom who had to wait tables seven nights a week. At least my mother was the smart kind of angel-seeker who went to a priest before going to bed and didn't get turned out when the first kid was wingless. Yours'll be fine too even if you're not married first - it's different when the mom's the angel. It's not that bad for me. But yeah, I do wish I had wings."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:34 am (UTC)

"Should we get married?" he asks, smiling at his angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:36 am (UTC)

"Might be a good idea," she says, kissing his cheek. "We don't have to. I'm not Archangel and I'm not going to turn you out of the hold, let alone turn you out with the baby."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:37 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"I know. I love you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:40 am (UTC)

"You have to let me plan your wedding!" exclaims Serah, clapping her hands. "It should be two months before the Gloria so you'll have time to take a boat to Ysral and back for the Gathering - and Isabella, you are going to wear a dress - and there'll be flowers, everywhere, all kinds - you have to let me!"

"Okay, okay!" laughs Isabella.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:41 am (UTC)

"Okay," giggles Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:44 am (UTC)

"Excellent. I'll do everything. You two don't worry about it at all, just show up when I tell you - Isabella, you want Delilah to do it?"

"Yes, if she will," Isabella replies. And: "...Alleluia if Delilah won't."

"I thought she didn't like you?"

"I'm not so sure anymore. Or maybe she didn't use to but does now," shrugs Isabella.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:45 am (UTC)

"She does," Micaiah contributes. "I'm sure she does."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:47 am (UTC)

"Okay then, Delilah first choice Alleluia second," shrugs Serah. "I can do that. And there'll be food, I'll need to plan a menu - and oh, your dress'll have to be fitted with the understanding you're gonna be a bit bigger - and I'll pick out music and find people to sing it -"

"You're doing us a huge favor and we appreciate you," says Isabella.

"I am and you should," agrees Serah.
Edited 2013-02-16 05:39 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 01:04 pm (UTC)

Micaiah beams at both of them.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:37 pm (UTC)

"You're both so terribly cute," squeals Serah. "This is going to be the best wedding! And I bet all your kids are angels."

"We'll see," says Isabella.

[Do you still not like the idea of wishing about it?] she asks Micaiah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:38 pm (UTC)

[Still don't,] he confirms. [We know what you think and what I think and what Serah thinks, but we don't know what our kid thinks.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:40 pm (UTC)

[There's not going to be a chance to change it after we do know what the baby thinks. Everyone will know it's one thing or the other by then...]

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:42 pm (UTC)

[Well, I'd rather let it be whatever it was going to be than change it and find out later it wishes I didn't.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:47 pm (UTC)

Isabella supposes she can sympathize with that.

[...I wonder if we could find out, anyway. The guestbook said the wishes aren't quite so good at directly making you know things, but maybe it could do this.]

(Serah is still chattering, about timing invitations for Isabella's paternal grandparents all the way in Castelana and about the merits of the Resplendent Chorus over the more traditional Wedding Minuet for the main event.)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:48 pm (UTC)

[Try it,] he suggests, although he doesn't think it'll work.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:51 pm (UTC)

It doesn't.

[I guess it'll be a surprise,] she says, calmly resigned. [- But for ones that haven't been conceived yet, this one's little brothers and sisters, do you care if I wish in advance that they be angels?]

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 04:52 pm (UTC)

He considers this.

[No, I guess not,] he concludes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 04:54 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Everyone's just so worried all the time when there are too many mortals in a row, everyone's so happy when even the most undistinguished and tiresome angel-seeker comes in with a winged baby...] Pentagon goes, and she squeezes his hand.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 05:02 pm (UTC)

He leans over and kisses her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 05:05 pm (UTC)

Kisses!

"You are so cute," says Serah midsentence. "Oh - what time is it? - I'm due at my choir." She leaps to her feet and bolts from the dining hall.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 05:07 pm (UTC)

Micaiah giggles after her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 05:08 pm (UTC)

"We should think about names," Isabella says. "Some people pick different ones for potential angels and potential mortals even of the same gender, but I'm never sure why."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea about names," he says. "Do you?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 05:15 pm (UTC)

"I like -iel names for boys. Nothing that'll get confused with a historical figure, and obviously Nathaniel is taken as far as we're concerned, but Zuriel or Abiel or Ithiel? Zion is good too. For girls..." She taps her foot. "Abigail. Candace. Keziah. Damaris."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I like Zion," he says. "And Damaris."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 05:18 pm (UTC)

She kisses his cheek. "We'll go with those, then, unless we think of something better in the next - eight months or so," she says.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Beam. Snuggle.

"I love you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," she says, and she puts her final bite of lunch away and collects the dishes. "Say - are you getting tired of that one mass yet? Because there are so many. We could start on another."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" he says cheerfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 05:46 pm (UTC)

She puts the dishes where they go, and takes his hand to head for the music rooms.

"I wonder if I should just - wish my range expanded, and then I could sing anything Hagar could," she says. "...Someone would notice, if I sang lower than usual in public. Although everyone says my speaking voice sounds like it ought to belong to an alto. It might not be such a stretch if I worked out some other way of dropping farther into chest voice."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I bet you could wish your range expanded. And it'd be fun," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I suppose there's no particular disadvantage to it, since I can always just sing the low stuff in private. And you've got a Uriel range and I'd like to match," she adds, smiling.

Pentagon.

She sings a scale, starting high, cresting up, falling like water to low smoky alto, and back up to contralto warmth, and she beams, and says, "Let's learn the Magnificat - I know it but I don't know it but I feel like I could sing anything!" And she pulls the disc and puts it on.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 05:55 pm (UTC)

Micaiah kisses her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 06:00 pm (UTC)

She kisses back, but breaks off before Hagar's introduction, which is in her original range and which, therefore, she knows already.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 06:01 pm (UTC)

Micaiah listens.

Listens, and mints.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 06:05 pm (UTC)

Uriel comes in twelve measures later, and the harmony is snug and exultant.

Isabella trips up a couple of times, when Hagar drops into low complicated parts and especially during cross-voicing, but she does basically know the music.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 06:07 pm (UTC)

He turns up his Kiss-amplifying wish a little, not enough to get stars, but enough that he's getting about half hexes. Any more and he'd be too distracted to learn his part.
Edited 2013-02-16 18:07 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

It's a two-hour mass. Isabella sings through, tirelessly, more charged up at the end than she was at the beginning, and she beams and kisses him.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 06:15 pm (UTC)

He kisses right back.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Again?" she asks, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we should take a break first," he suggests impishly. "Rest your voice."

With kisses.

Yes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 07:30 pm (UTC)

Hmm, okay, that's a solid plan.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 07:31 pm (UTC)

Mmm. Kisses.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 07:33 pm (UTC)

"I think my voice is rested," Isabella says primly after some minutes of this.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Okay." He snuggles up. "Let's do the song again."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-16 07:40 pm (UTC)

She starts the disc over, and sings.

This could go on for a while.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-16 07:40 pm (UTC)

That is just fine.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 06:49 am (UTC)

"Even if I never sang just for coins," says Isabella, when the mass ends with a prolonged and decorated amen, "any normal schedule will have us so weighted down with them we'll have to wish them lighter just so we can move around, even me. This is more than Shell Bell was carrying already. I wonder why."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 02:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, I bet you Shell Bell doesn't sing for hers," Micaiah points out. "So maybe they only make coins when they want coins, and they don't want that many."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 03:41 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's true," says Isabella, reaching out to run a finger along the coin edges lined up along her chain. To her ears only it makes a musical clinking sound, although the coins are visible on both chains to both of them.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 03:42 pm (UTC)

Micaiah grins and hugs her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Let's go get dinner," she says, picking him right up and sauntering to the door of the music room.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 03:50 pm (UTC)

"I like it when you carry me around," he says, snuggling into her arms.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Then I shall have to do it often," she says, squeezing him and grinning.

Dinner (with Serah and a pair of her and Isabella's more secondary friends, an angel boy a bit younger than them and his angel-seeker-but-very-nice girlfriend) ensues.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 04:09 pm (UTC)

Micaiah spends a lot of time during the meal giving his angel soppy looks. Because he looooooves her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:15 pm (UTC)

The angel-seeker thinks this is terribly cute. It doesn't seem like Serah has spilled the beans about the baby, but the impending wedding is apparently public knowledge now.

After dinner, Isabella says, [I think my parents should know about Damaris-or-Zion.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 04:18 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] he says happily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:25 pm (UTC)

They head for Rinnah and Charles's quarters from the dining hall, but the door into the stairwell to the correct floor is Milliways instead.

Angela giggles and ushers Micaiah inside. "I'd say Rinnah and Charles can wait, but they don't even have to," she says.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 04:27 pm (UTC)

He giggles back, spinning around a few times just because he can and it's fun.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 04:28 pm (UTC)

On the third spin, a man wearing a dark purple suit and messy clown makeup catches Micaiah's hand and stops him.

"You're a me!" he declares, grinning. "Hi, me!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:31 pm (UTC)

"You're -" Angela blinks at the scars. "Another Whistle," she adds. (This is not what she was going to say originally.)

manofmyword
2013-02-17 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Sure," laughs the Joker, tugging on Micaiah's hand to twirl him in for a hug and a kiss.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 04:35 pm (UTC)

Hugs and kisses! He likes those.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:36 pm (UTC)

Angela averts her eyes, although she's perfectly calm about the proceedings.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Why're you looking away, sweetie?" he asks, snuggling Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie?" asks Angela, instead of addressing the question.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know your name," he says reasonably. "What do you want me to call you?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:44 pm (UTC)

"My Belltower nickname is Angela," she says. "My real name is Isabella. Either's fine but the first will be less confusing if you're going to mention the other Bells."

manofmyword
2013-02-17 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "Angela. That's cute. So why're you looking away, Angela?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

"...Is there some reason I ought to watch?"

manofmyword
2013-02-17 04:47 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "I just wanna know why you're not."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:49 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "It's still a little weird to me. We've met Kas and Alice but everything except for lap-sitting went on behind closed doors."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 04:52 pm (UTC)

"We're just hugging," laughs Micaiah, although there is enough lipstick on his face to give him the lie.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Micaiah," sighs Angela.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 04:54 pm (UTC)

He giggles, and disentangles himself from the Joker long enough to give his angel a hug.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 04:55 pm (UTC)

The Joker regards this fondly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 04:57 pm (UTC)

She hugs him back, with wings. (Her wings are not Pathalan; she doesn't have to warn everyone she meets first of everything that they're not public property. Strange kids where she does intercessions run up and pet her all the time and she often just puts up with it then, instead of explaining.)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Snuggly," he sighs. "I love you. I'm gonna go fuck this guy, okay?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 05:04 pm (UTC)

"That's fine," says Angela. "I'll wander a bit and then check in at the Belltower; do you want to meet there or just go home separately and assume we'll be back at the same time to tell Rinnah and Charles?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Mm, meet at the tower, I think," Micaiah decides. He disengages from the hug.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 05:06 pm (UTC)

"That does look snuggly," the Joker remarks. "Can I hug you too?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

"I - think I'd rather not," says Angela. "I'm not particularly huggy in general. And I wouldn't put my wings around a stranger anyway if that's what you meant."

manofmyword
2013-02-17 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 05:11 pm (UTC)

Micaiah has an idea.

He turns it over in his mind a little, and then very carefully makes a wish.

And then he hugs the Joker, and wraps iridescent black wings around him.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Snuggly!" he giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 05:13 pm (UTC)

- Angela blinks.

"That's - not permanent, is it?" she asks. "Is it just the wings or are you all the way an angel - two angels can't - we're not Nathan and Magdalena -"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I can go back and forth!" he assures her, demonstrating. "And my clothes change when I do, to make room for the wings."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 05:19 pm (UTC)

"...Okay. But not in front of anyone at home," says Angela.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Of course not!" he says. "Just when I'm here."

And he hugs the Joker again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll meet you at the Belltower," says Angela, and she goes a-wandering through the bar on her way to the stairs.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 05:24 pm (UTC)

Micaiah and the Joker wander in that direction, too, but they take a different route and end up on a different floor.

Micaiah's new optional wings are very, very snuggly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 05:35 pm (UTC)

Angela catches up on the guestbook. She wonders why they aren't just leaving packets of starter coins and the star secret around the Belltower, but she promptly comes to the same conclusion the other mint Bells did: this would be insecure. They are dealing with immense power, and any such packets could - perhaps not easily, if bedecked with magical protections, but potentially - could fall into the wrong hands.

(Angela makes up her mind to always have assorted coins on her person, and if possible Micaiah with her to be sung to, whenever she goes to Milliways.)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 06:16 pm (UTC)

Speaking of Micaiah!

He takes a while, but eventually shows up in the Belltower.

When he does, he's human-shaped again, and he looks like he's been crying.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Are you okay?" Angela exclaims. "What happened?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine," he says, coming up to hug her. "It's so sad, though. All the awful things that happened in his life. But he's okay, so I'm okay too."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 06:32 pm (UTC)

Angela picks him up to more thoroughly snuggle him. "...Is this the one who Stella put on an asteroid?" she asks.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 06:36 pm (UTC)

He nods, cuddling up in her arms. "Yeah," he sighs. "And he's okay about that, too."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 06:37 pm (UTC)

"That's good then."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 06:39 pm (UTC)

"But I still cried," he says. "Because it was so sad."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 06:42 pm (UTC)

"What happened exactly? Do I want to know?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Probably not," says Micaiah. "But if you want to ask anyway, you can."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I think I want to know what made you so sad," she murmurs.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want to ask him?" says Micaiah. "I don't think I can tell the whole story properly."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I - okay," says Angela. "Where is he?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 06:55 pm (UTC)

"In his room. I could take you there, or bring him here," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 07:24 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if the other Bells would want me to invite him into the Belltower," muses Angela. She stands up, and sets Micaiah down. "Where's his room?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I'll show you," he says, hugging her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 07:38 pm (UTC)

Angela follows him through the apartmenty section of Milliways.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

Micaiah knocks on the Joker's door.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 07:43 pm (UTC)

The Joker opens it. His makeup is gone, and he's wearing a cuddly bathrobe, white with a pattern of bright yellow ducks.

"Hi, hon. Back so soon? And you brought your sweetheart," he says with a smile for Angela.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 07:45 pm (UTC)

"He said you'd be a better source of - the story that made him cry," murmurs Angela.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Which one didn't," he sighs, reaching out to give Micaiah a hug. "Well, c'mon in, both of you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 07:50 pm (UTC)

Angela steps inside and looks around.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 07:53 pm (UTC)

It's a terrible mess - clothes, knives, playing cards, and nowhere to sit. Micaiah conjures up an angel chair in an empty patch of floor, then shoves some blankets out of the way and perches on the edge of the Joker's bed.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," she says, pecking Micaiah on the forehead before she sits, a wing on either side of the cutaway back.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 08:03 pm (UTC)

The Joker sits down on the bed and gives Micaiah a friendly sideways hug.

"So. Things that made him cry, huh?" he says. "Well. You know what our parents were like, right?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I met Micaiah's mother, when I went and got Nathaniel - and I knew he needed getting, though I haven't spoken to their father," says Angela. "Did he tell you about Nathaniel? Do you have one?"

manofmyword
2013-02-17 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie here's the only one of us with a sibling," he says, kissing Micaiah's temple. "And he got out way early, compared to the rest of us. Me, I was with 'em till I was fifteen."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 08:08 pm (UTC)

Angela winces.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "So. I burned the house down and ran for it, and spent a while on the streets, stealing and whoring and generally getting into trouble. Your Micaiah knows what that's like," he hugs him again, "but he had a much nicer time of it than I did."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Well - I knew about the stealing but - whoring? Literally? Micaiah?" Literal whoring's legal in Jordana but not in Bethel or Gaza, at the moment. It's not reputable in any province.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 08:23 pm (UTC)

"A few times," he shrugs.
Edited 2013-02-17 20:23 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 08:25 pm (UTC)

"...In Jordana?" she asks hopefully.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, is that where it's legal?" he asks. "I dunno, does it matter?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 08:30 pm (UTC)

"It's legal in Jordana and not in the other two provinces. It doesn't matter very much. Although - political reasons, always politics - if you ever want to take it up again can you ask me to fly you to Breven or wherever, first, so I'll know where you are and you won't be arrested? We're going to get married, we're going to have a baby, you reflect on me - I don't want to be confining but I will need to deal with a lot of people who care about a lot of things."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's fine," he says. "I probably won't, anyway, it wasn't that much fun."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Okay." She leans over to kiss his temple, then looks expectantly at the Joker again.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I got raped," he says quietly. "It wasn't pretty. Wasn't the last time, either."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 08:48 pm (UTC)

Angela's eyes water slightly. She reaches for Micaiah's hand.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 08:57 pm (UTC)

Micaiah wraps his hand around hers and squeezes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 09:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Angela, rubbing at one of her eyes.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 09:09 pm (UTC)

"You're a sweetheart," he says with a gentle smile. "It's okay. I'm okay."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 09:16 pm (UTC)

"It's not okay that it happened, even if you're fine now," says Angela, crying softly.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 09:18 pm (UTC)

Micaiah gets up and hugs her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 09:21 pm (UTC)

She hugs him back tight. "Did that ever happen to you?" she asks fiercely. "You're not so closely parallel - but -"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 09:22 pm (UTC)

"No," he says. "I think I'm the only one of me it hasn't."

manofmyword
2013-02-17 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Only one I've met," the Joker agrees.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 09:29 pm (UTC)

Angela cradles Micaiah in her arms and lets tears fall into his hair.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 09:30 pm (UTC)

He curls up in her lap and snuggles her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 09:40 pm (UTC)

Eventually she relaxes and composes herself and lets him go.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he says, kissing her forehead.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," she says.

manofmyword
2013-02-17 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Aww," murmurs the Joker.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Was there more to it, or don't I want to know?"

manofmyword
2013-02-17 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Pretty sure you don't," he says amicably.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I wanna hug both of you," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 10:07 pm (UTC)

"...Simultaneously?" He doesn't seem likely to have mentioned the desire if he meant one at a time; he seems pretty welcome to hug the Joker and he's always welcome to hug her.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Kinda," he says. "I mean, I wanna hug you and I wanna hug him, and I wanna do both of those things right now, but I can't because you two aren't hugging friends."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-17 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Sorry."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-17 10:15 pm (UTC)

"It's okay," he says, and hugs her some more, and kisses her forehead, and goes back to the bed to snuggle the Joker for a bit.

our goddesses answer when we call

dark_light

Amariah, shortly after coming home from her visit to Juliet's world, makes a breakthrough on movement-based magic.

There are seven goddesses, and four of them have compass directions, and the other three have intermdiate directions. Facing one or sending Path to fly in such a direction while she casts boosts a call to a goddess. (She's still not sure what the other motions do, if anything; they get erratic results. But she's sure about facing, and about Path's flight.) The southeast is unmarked, and facing or sending Path in that direction will amplify a spell that falls under no particular goddess's purview.

As soon as she has this figured out, she slots it into her elaborate draft of a one-target immortality spell.

She goes looking for Kas when she's rewritten the final verse and placed the final margin note.

truthwright
2013-02-16 05:08 pm (UTC)

Kas is curled up on liger-Petaal, stroking her fluffy fur with one hand, the other resting on his alethiometer.

"Hi, sweetie! What's up?"

dark_light
2013-02-16 05:09 pm (UTC)

"I have," she says, brandishing her notebook, "a spell draft."

truthwright
2013-02-16 05:10 pm (UTC)

"...Come here and hug me," he demands, setting down the alethiometer and holding out his arms.

dark_light
2013-02-16 05:11 pm (UTC)

He can have hugs! She can dispense hugs.

"You could ask the alethiometer if it'll work, so I don't spend all afternoon casting this ridiculously complicated thing and then watch my runes not disappear," she suggests, snuggling up.

truthwright
2013-02-16 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and kisses her, and picks up the alethiometer again.

Will her immortality spell work right?

Questioner—lifespan—becoming—unbounded/infinite.

"Well, that was weirdly specific," he says. "It'll work on me, apparently."

dark_light
2013-02-16 05:17 pm (UTC)

"...Will it say why it specified you?"

truthwright
2013-02-16 05:26 pm (UTC)

Obediently, he asks, Why me?

Spell—object/target—difference—spell—structure/form.

"...Who it's cast on makes a difference to how you have to cast it," he translates.

dark_light
2013-02-16 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Oof. That's going to put a damper on the scaling-up project. ...Ask it if scaling up is even doable?" she prompts, tucking her head under Kas's chin.

truthwright
2013-02-16 05:45 pm (UTC)

He forms the question, watches the hand, and snorts.

"It says 'eventually'. As in, 'can she cast it on everyone?' 'Eventually.'"

dark_light
2013-02-16 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay. That definitely means I can scale it up at least some, since people are born much faster than I can write all these runes, let alone kill a deer and recite seven segments of several stanzas each. But for now - I have this one worked out, it'll work on you, wanna watch me paint the runes that'll help make you able to live forever with me?" She grins winningly.

truthwright
2013-02-16 05:53 pm (UTC)

Kas beams.

"Yeah!"

dark_light
2013-02-16 05:59 pm (UTC)

There is enough room in the backyard. Barely.

The basic design is a compass rose, with each point made of runes in a different substance and then sprinkled with a different cocktail of herbs. "You're both going to stand in the middle," says Isabella. "But not the exact middle. Petaal should go and be witch-shaped at the east point and you should be at the southwest point."

truthwright
2013-02-16 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Should we do that now?"

dark_light
2013-02-16 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, we're outside, so Petaal should probably get dressed first. But yeah. I have edited this poem so many times I have it memorized backwards and forwards, and while it might take me a couple tries to summon a deer, it also might not."

(Metis has a harness set up specifically for holding large sacrifice animals that can't be clenched in one hand after their docility fades. Isabella goes and makes sure it's secure.)

truthwright
2013-02-16 06:04 pm (UTC)

Petaal fetches silks, bewitches, and gets dressed. Then she and Kas take their appointed places.

dark_light
2013-02-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

After a trembling doe has been summoned and trussed up, Isabella gets on her cloud pine and hovers over the center of the rune circle. Until the last stanza, this is ideal because it'll let her change facing almost without thinking about it; there's an awkward bit at the end where she'll have to dive to cut the deer's throat but the alethiometer says it'll work as-is, so.

The poem is long, and despite her assertion about having it memorized, she consults her notes during the recitation. Every compass point apart from the one Kas stands at is addressed by goddess, and by their moon phase or sun or starlight or Evisa Iannakara's oddball light-element of bioluminescence, and other relevant portfolio items. She's entreating them each to lay their hands (metaphorically) on Kas and his daemon and offer them the agelessness that witches enjoy.

At the last part, when she entreats Kas Petaal the patron of sacrificial magic, she sends Path on his last flight out along the compass point and she herself dives to take the life of the deer. It breathes its last as she utters the final word: "always".

truthwright
2013-02-16 08:41 pm (UTC)

Kas inhales sharply as the rune circle fades.

Then he flings himself at Isabella and kisses her.

dark_light
2013-02-16 08:41 pm (UTC)

He manages to knock her off her cloud-pine, but she doesn't mind, she's all over that.

truthwright
2013-02-16 08:45 pm (UTC)

Petaal pounces on both of them a moment later.

dark_light
2013-02-16 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Welcome to being immortal," gasps Amariah between kisses. "How's it feel?"

truthwright
2013-02-16 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Like starlight," sighs Petaal, pressing her face against the back of Amariah's neck. "We love you so much."

dark_light
2013-02-16 09:02 pm (UTC)

"We love you too," says Path. (Isabella's mouth is busy again.)
Edited 2013-02-16 21:03 (UTC)

our real estate is a great investment

cross_and_bow

"Welcome to Sunshine," says Juliet. "And to my front porch and whatever you do don't hit the light, it'll set Sherlock on fire."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 04:23 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Sherlock. "I am very fond of not being on fire. It is a state I intend to maintain."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:24 am (UTC)

"I agree completely," says Juliet. "Now let's go scope out the brick place and see if it's suitable for squatting in while we work out obtaining it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:25 am (UTC)

Shell Bell, bending one of her fingers backward for squares again, nods.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 04:30 am (UTC)

"What are the odds we can take your truck without anyone falling out?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:31 am (UTC)

"I drive careful, if no demons attack and the people in back hang on they'll be fine."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:34 am (UTC)

"I can teleport. With passengers. And I'm sped up and if we fall out of the truck I'll just put us back."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 04:36 am (UTC)

"Okay, let's take the truck," says Tony.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:38 am (UTC)

Juliet drives. Shell Bell and Sherlock go in back, Tony in the passenger seat, and she takes them to the brick building.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:41 am (UTC)

A triangle suffices to open the padlock on the door. In they go.

This used to be a bakery, and then it was converted into a house, and then it was abandoned and most of the windows were bricked over. It's dusty, but the extra bricks served their purpose and nothing seems to have moved in.

Shell Bell triangles away the dust, waving her hand so her companions know it's her doing it. "Looks squattable," she says.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 04:44 am (UTC)

"It'll take some fixing," says Tony. "But yeah, I can totally do this."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:46 am (UTC)

"Need coins?" Shell Bell asks him. "Or are you all set?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:46 am (UTC)

Juliet yawns. "Are you guys set? Because I am tired."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 04:50 am (UTC)

"I will need coins," says Tony. "I need, like - power tools, and I'm gonna have to rip out some walls, and install all kinds of shit..."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 04:51 am (UTC)

"But you do not need to do all of this tonight, do you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:52 am (UTC)

"They can do it tonight, but if they're squatting, and don't need anything from me, I can just go back home, yeah?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:52 am (UTC)

"Go get some sleep," Shell Bell says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:53 am (UTC)

"Can you be invisible? You gonna follow me to school like Amariah did?" yawns Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:53 am (UTC)

"Can and will," responds Shell Bell. "Go sleep. I - here." She makes another square and hands it over. "This should wake you up enough to let you drive home safer."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:54 am (UTC)

The square disappears and Juliet blinks, perked up. "Thanks. I'm gonna go before it wears off. Night all."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 04:55 am (UTC)

"Night, love."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:56 am (UTC)

Juliet gets back in her truck and drives home.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:58 am (UTC)

Shell Bell bends back her finger again, and appears her squares off her bandolier for Tony's use. "Are you crashing here or back wherever you normally live?" she asks Sherlock. "I bet you're going to move in here eventually because of Jarvis."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 04:59 am (UTC)

"Here, I think," he says. "But not for a while. Need any heavy lifting done, Tony?"

toblameforit
2013-02-19 05:00 am (UTC)

"You bet!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:06 am (UTC)

"I don't have to sleep at all, copied that from Stella," says Shell Bell. She frowns at her hand and switches fingers.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 05:07 am (UTC)

"...Can't decide whether that's awesome or scary," says Tony, and he starts going over the walls and muttering to himself.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:09 am (UTC)

"I can sleep, I'm not like Golden, I can just skip it if I want," says Shell Bell. "I still do sleep when there's not anything important to do. Especially when I've got my Sherlock to snuggle up with. She thinks it's cute when I talk in my sleep."

(Shell Bell is so gone over Sherlock. She's not making any effort to conceal it.)

toblameforit
2013-02-19 05:10 am (UTC)

"That is so adorable," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:13 am (UTC)

"It's apparently what other Bells hear about me before they meet me, is that me and my Sherlock are adorable," giggles Shell Bell. She switches fingers again.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 05:17 am (UTC)

"I can see why!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:19 am (UTC)

"Do help yourself to the squares," Shell Bell adds, nudging the pile that's accumulating in a rain from her entwined hands with one foot. "To make your power tools and whatever."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 01:11 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," he says, and then looks at her directly and smiles. "I mean, really—thanks."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 03:58 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Shell Bell. "It doesn't hurt that bad, though, low end of squares, it's not a big deal."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Still," he says, "I appreciate it."

And back to muttering at the walls.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:07 pm (UTC)

Construction happens. Shell Bell supplies coins, Tony supplies knowhow, and Sherlock supplies supernatural strength to haul things.

In the morning, it finally occurs to Shell Bell that she can put them all on the brainphone network without an extra coin expenditure. So she does, and then she follows Juliet to school, invisible.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:09 pm (UTC)

At Study Hall, Juliet leads Shell Bell to the library, a running conversation in her head, and - this isn't as much of a revelation as her being the Slayer is, which she'll save for after school. He's already met one of her doubles. "I met a couple more mes and brought one home," she tells him casually. "Can you see this one too? She turns outright invisible."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:12 pm (UTC)

"No," says Mr. Giles, "this one escapes me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:13 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell turns visible and waves. "Hi, Mr. Giles, it's nice to meet you. I'm Shell Bell."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:17 pm (UTC)

He adjusts his glasses.

"Likewise," he says. "How many of you are there?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:21 pm (UTC)

"We know of six and there's no reason not to expect more. Me and this one and Amariah who you met, and Golden and Stella and Angela. I've met all of them now, I think I might be the only one who has - some are close, but Amariah and Angela haven't met Golden and Stella hasn't met this one." She sighs. "Unfortunately, I was caught in the bar without my big magic-coins, so I can give out lots of little ones that I can make myself, but I can't give away my kind of magic to anyone outright, I gave everything big to Angela and my girlfriend who makes most of the coins for me is home asleep."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:24 pm (UTC)

"That... does sound unfortunate," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:28 pm (UTC)

"It is. I could explain in more detail but apparently you have librarian sensibilities?" Shell Bell says. "But I can do a few things without coins with stuff I already have set up, like turning invisible and flying and also I can add people to a telepathy network that'll go on existing even if I leave, do you want on that?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:34 pm (UTC)

"...Are there drawbacks?" is the first thing he asks.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:40 pm (UTC)

"To using the coins? None at all, as long as you're good at designing wishes, and we absolutely are. The coins are just - tricky to make."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Are there drawbacks to the telepathy network?" he clarifies.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh. No, not really, if someone annoys you on it or whatever you can put up a busy message and then on your end it's like it's not even there. It only supports text and talking, not, like, mind-viruses or anything."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Then I suppose I might as well. Who else is on it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Me," says Juliet, "Shell Bell and someone else we brought home from the bar, and a friend of mine you haven't met. So for your purposes, me."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:51 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 04:52 pm (UTC)

[Ta-da,] says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Remarkable," he murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Stella's invention," says Shell Bell cheerily. "So I'm making as many squares as I can while I'm here and I'll be leaving Juliet a long string of them."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 05:13 pm (UTC)

"That's the nickname I went with for multi-Bell purposes," Juliet says.

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:14 pm (UTC)

He looks at Juliet quizzically.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Long story," she says. "You can go on calling me Bella."

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I am very happy to," Giles says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 05:18 pm (UTC)

Juliet giggles and gets out her demonology homework.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:19 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell does not help her with the notetaking like Amariah did; she scans the bookshelves instead. "Magic from here sounds nasty," she comments. (This is clearly a reference to her previous conversations with Juliet; she's looking at a shelf of YA novels.)

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes it does," he agrees.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Long term protections against any of that would probably require a pentagon or a hex or even a star, but if there's any straightforward, relatively simple things that could stop it from hurting Juliet, we might be able to work out a way to do it with squares. A square would make her hair grow out blue forever if she wanted it; maybe it can trip some other variable on that scale that'll help? Can you tell me how it works?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:33 pm (UTC)

"How... what, precisely, works?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:35 pm (UTC)

"The magic around here being nasty. If she doesn't run into me again, or Stella or Angela, or someone else who can mint her, then it only makes sense for her to pick up the local stuff. Bells are supposed to have magic, we work best when we've got it. But maybe it could be less nasty to her with something clever I could accomplish with squares."

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:41 pm (UTC)

"...Nothing springs to mind," he says. "Unless you can make her luckier, or, or less appetizing to demons."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Less appetizing is a probably, although with only squares I might have to find out what kind of nutritional value they're looking for," says Shell Bell speculatively. "I think any kind of permanent luck charm would take a pentagon at the least... and I don't have my amulet with me, I stopped wearing it... and I have my fire wand and I could part with it now I'm a mint, but it takes a lot of practice to use safely and I don't know if that's the best use of Juliet's time."

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:44 pm (UTC)

"It varies by the species," he says. "Handily, I have plenty of books on the subject."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:47 pm (UTC)

"I'll go read Juliet's old notes," says Shell Bell. She turns invisible and teleports and reads fast and comes back. "Okay, I don't think I can convincingly do anything to make it seem like she doesn't have, say, bone marrow, but Juliet, how would you feel about smelling like vanilla or something all the time?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Does it have to be all the time? Can I just turn that off and on at will?" Juliet asks. "I'm not sure I want to be that distinctive."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I can make it will-operated with a square. I might be able to do something complicated where it's based on the temperature or the phase of the moon and you wind up flipping through ten different smells effectively at random, but I might not."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 05:50 pm (UTC)

"If you can do the complicated version let's go with that, if you can't let's skip it," says Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:50 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell tries.

"Can't," she sighs.

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:52 pm (UTC)

"But you could have made her smell like vanilla?" says Giles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Why, do you want to smell like vanilla?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:00 pm (UTC)

"My interest is theoretical," he assures her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 06:01 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell and Juliet giggle in identical unison.

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:01 pm (UTC)

He laughs a little.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 06:03 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell returns to browsing. She gets through a noticeable fraction of the section, reading at superspeed.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:03 pm (UTC)

Juliet takes notes on demons, then packs up to go to next period.

They're back after school.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 06:04 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell checks for supervising presences besides Mr. Giles before reappearing.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:05 pm (UTC)

"All clear?" Juliet asks Shell Bell, and at the replying nod, she says, "So... Mr. Giles. I'm... the... Slayer. Thought you might want to know."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:06 pm (UTC)

He takes off his glasses.

He cleans them.

He does not exhibit surprise.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I figured you had an inkling. I didn't know right away. I'm mentally opaque so I don't get the dreams, which is great, they sound awful. A Power That Is dropped by one night and explained some stuff. I think this is also why the Watchers couldn't find me when I activated."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says. "That does make sense."

He sighs.

"The next appropriate thing I should do as a Watcher is tell the Council I found you. Are you planning to run away if I do?"
Edited 2013-02-19 18:23 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:23 pm (UTC)

"No, you were kind enough to tell me in advance that you had to do that, so I'll stay put, although I'll be really irritated if they do something like replace you with someone I haven't vetted for being personally compatible."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:24 pm (UTC)

"They're not likely to," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:29 pm (UTC)

"That's good. Can I tell you something else without it getting back to the Council?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:31 pm (UTC)

"...Yes," he says, with some reluctance.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I have acquired a friendly vampire boyfriend who has been teaching me to fight and has not tried to kill me even a little bit. I will be very annoyed if anything happens to him."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 06:32 pm (UTC)

"He's an alt of my girlfriend!" volunteers Shell Bell. "It's a nice template."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:34 pm (UTC)

"...I feel compelled to ask," says Giles, "even though I know the answer: are you sure he isn't plotting to kill you in some horrible way?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:36 pm (UTC)

"If he's running a con, it's a long con, that held up when we went to another world and he met an alt of his dead twin and that involves teaching me to beat the crap out of him even though I started out unable to hit him with a crossbow bolt and held up even when he got surprised by my porch lights that one time and doesn't involve trying to wheedle his way into my dad's house and is wholly compatible with him introducing me to alts of myself who'll share their magic with me and leaves him acting recognizably like the non-vampire alts of him we've met including Shell Bell's girlfriend."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:37 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Giles, "I'm convinced." Although he does feel the need to clean his glasses again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Also, he's Sherlock Holmes."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:39 pm (UTC)

"...Er," says Giles. "In what sense?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:41 pm (UTC)

"You didn't hear about this? A couple years back the heir to Stark Industries produced a twin brother out of nowhere who called himself Sherlock Holmes. Then Tony died under mysterious circumstances and Sherlock's body was never found. For the obvious reason. He had to tell me to look him up too, I never really followed corporate celebrity types."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:43 pm (UTC)

"No," he says, "I must admit I missed that one."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:43 pm (UTC)

"It's all on the internet if you want to check."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:44 pm (UTC)

"I'll take your word for it," he decides.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So does the Watcher's Council actually fund Slayers, because I want to buy an abandoned building and it'll be less of a waste of squares to take their money than to have Shell Bell conjure a lot of jewelry and clear out the tills in all the pawn shops in town."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:47 pm (UTC)

"...We... usually don't fund Slayers directly," he says. "What do you need the abandoned building for?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:49 pm (UTC)

"To install an AI in. Also Sherlock will probably move there," says Juliet. "The AI was also killed, when Tony was, but we brought a copy home from another world for the local Sherlock."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:50 pm (UTC)

He takes off his glasses, makes no pretense of cleaning them, and rubs his face with his free hand.

"All right," he says, "I'll see what I can do." Pause. "...You're reasonably sure he's not eating people, I hope?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:52 pm (UTC)

"He stopped eating people when he encountered me on the grounds that it would probably otherwise be hard to get me to talk to him civilly instead of trying to shoot him, yeah. After his fridge broke he started storing jars of blood - labeled from a butcher shop - in mine. Pig and cow."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:52 pm (UTC)

"That's... civilized, for a vampire," he acknowledges.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Yep." She decides this is not the time to mention or defend him killing Obadiah in that other universe. He didn't eat him, anyway.

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Any more surprises?" he inquires.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Apart from Sherlock and the building and all the interdimensional goings-on and me being the Slayer and having a do-not-enter sign up on my brain, nope, all's dull and boring." Pause. "I killed a demon last night? One of those unpronounceable things you have to twist to take apart? Would've taken me much longer to figure out if not for the stalling homework, so thanks."

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:12 pm (UTC)

"That is, very literally, what I'm here for," he says. "And your stalling homework is now your official Slayer training."

Slight pause.

"So there," he adds, with dissonant stuffiness.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:14 pm (UTC)

Juliet laughs. "Well, you won't have to come up with a combat training regimen that you can implement without me having to hit you, Sherlock's got that covered and he doesn't mind if I hit him. But I do still want to learn magic. I can't count on getting minted any time soon and a finite supply of Shell Bell's squares can only do so much."

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I still intend to teach you magic," he says. "Eventually."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I'll try to be conservative with my squares," says Juliet dryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Stella managed to force the door once," Shell Bell says encouragingly. "We don't know if it works consistently, but maybe someone will be able to come to you even if you never run into one of us at Milliways."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Here's hoping," agrees Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 07:26 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell bends one of her fingers backwards again, mouth set.

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:27 pm (UTC)

Giles frowns slightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:27 pm (UTC)

"What?" Juliet asks.

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:30 pm (UTC)

He continues frowning for a moment, then shakes his head.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:31 pm (UTC)

"I bet you want to know why Shell Bell's doing that and you're concerned she'll answer you and this will offend your librarian sensibilities," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:32 pm (UTC)

He cleans his glasses.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm right," concludes Juliet, humming, and she goes back to plowing through her demonology texts for a minute before adding, "So I was thinking of getting, like, a mask, probably a conjured one so it'll fit and have good visibility and not come off easily and stuff, and fighting demons in it. So they can't accost me at least based on my face when I'm trying to attend Latin or whatever. I was also thinking I'd go to L.A. first before fighting any demons I don't plan to completely wipe out for rumoring purposes, so it looks like I live there - within apocalypsey reach of Sunnydale but not leading would-be-Slayer-killers right to my door. I'll bring Sherlock, and Shell Bell if she hasn't gone home, they can help if I get in a spot - would it be good or bad if there were rumors I can teleport?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:39 pm (UTC)

He blinks.

"Good," he says. "Probably. It's never come up."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:41 pm (UTC)

"I can't, but Shell Bell can, and she can be invisible and take passengers," explains Juliet, "and she thinks faster than I do, so she can simulate my reaction time."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 07:41 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell responds to this by flickering around the room at high speed.

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:42 pm (UTC)

Giles tries to follow her movement with his eyes, but almost immediately gives up.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 07:44 pm (UTC)

She comes to a stop in front of him. (Floating in midair.)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:45 pm (UTC)

"We'll be able to keep you updated on goings-on in L.A. via brainphone," Juliet says, "in case we run into something we don't recognize and want you to look it up. Sherlock's the other person on the network, by the way. I think he's probably asleep now."

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:46 pm (UTC)

"That does sound convenient, then," he says, ignoring Bell's showoffery.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Yup," says Juliet. "I have excellent alts."

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:50 pm (UTC)

"That's true," he allows, smiling a little.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 07:51 pm (UTC)

"At what time are you going to inform the Council? Will they want me on the phone too or do they only talk through you as far as I'm concerned?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Tomorrow morning, I think," he says. "And you're right, they won't care to hear from you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 08:01 pm (UTC)

"That would probably bother me, if I felt like talking to them," she muses.

pythbox
2013-02-19 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't think anyone involved in that conversation would enjoy it," Giles predicts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Agreed. What're you going to tell them, exactly? If I were them I'd have questions if all you said was 'found her'."

pythbox
2013-02-19 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to tell them that I found the Slayer, she's safe, healthy, and beginning official training immediately. I don't think they'll have many questions about exactly how we met; it's not completely unheard-of for a teenage girl to enter a high school library of her own free will."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Can you get me on the brainphone to let me know if the conversation deviates from expected parameters?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I suppose so," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! Hey, if Sherlock doesn't object, do you want to come and watch us beat each other up tonight? See how I'm coming along?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "If he kills me, I will be very disappointed in your judgment."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 08:21 pm (UTC)

"He's not going to kill you. I mean, even if he decided he wanted to kill you, which he is not going to do unless you do something awful to me, I don't think he'd do it in front of Tony, or when Shell Bell's right there and could stop him."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Although I wouldn't stop him if you did do something awful to Juliet," Shell Bell adds.

Then something occurs to her. She tries Sherlock on the brainphone, in case he's awake. [Sherlock?]
Edited 2013-02-19 20:24 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

Sleepily: [Yes?]

pythbox
2013-02-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't plan on doing anything awful to anyone," says Giles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Good."

[Were and/or are you and Tony involved in any way Juliet might find surprising?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 08:45 pm (UTC)

[Were. This Tony and I have been a little too busy to have any sex,] he says dryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 08:47 pm (UTC)

[Okay, but that's still something you want to consider fessing up to. As opposed to, say, waiting for your Bell to unexpectedly fall down a flight of stairs and fetch up staring directly at you in any Tony's lap, liplocked. I realize yours is less likely to fall down stairs, but. She did mention an absence of a monogamy conversation having occurred.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 08:50 pm (UTC)

[I will tell her at the next convenient opportunity, and before indulging myself similarly again,] he says. [Thank you for the no doubt directly-from-personal-experience warning. Feel free to mention it to her in the meantime.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 08:52 pm (UTC)

[Will do if there's a suitable lull in the conversation. Mr. Giles is taking everything very well, by the way, wants to come watch you spar tonight.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 08:55 pm (UTC)

[Must be the drugs,] he says. [Sure, why not.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock says it's fine if Mr. Giles wants to supervise," Shell Bell reports.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh good," says Juliet, grinning. "I look forward to showing off for a larger audience. Not that Sherlock's not appreciative."

pythbox
2013-02-19 09:21 pm (UTC)

Giles reaches into his pocket for his glasses-cleaning cloth, pulls it out halfway, and then changes his mind and puts it back.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 09:22 pm (UTC)

"If I wished your glasses permanently clean," says Shell Bell, switching fingers to bend, "that would probably defeat some purpose, wouldn't it."

pythbox
2013-02-19 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Go ahead," he says, deadpan, "but don't tell Juliet."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 09:24 pm (UTC)

"I heard that," says Juliet. "Waste of squares anyway. I only get as many as Shell Bell can make before we find her a door."

pythbox
2013-02-19 09:25 pm (UTC)

He chuckles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Going as fast as I can," says Shell Bell, but she pushes a little harder on her bent finger.

pythbox
2013-02-19 09:36 pm (UTC)

Giles decides not to ask. Not that he doesn't have a pretty good idea.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 09:39 pm (UTC)

Time passes. Juliet studies demons. Shell Bell makes squares. And ultimately the sunset timer rings.

"Well, time to head home so I can meet Sherlock at my house and give him breakfast," says Juliet. "I don't think teleporting me and my truck home would be worth the questions."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I can't teleport large objects with me anyway, unless you're picking them up, which wouldn't be very good for your truck," Shell Bell says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Mr. Giles, you want to come home with me and meet Sherlock there? Shell Bell can just be invisible and fly. Or you could meet us later at the abandoned building I want where our extradimensional guests are squatting."

pythbox
2013-02-19 09:59 pm (UTC)

"If you don't mind," he says, "I think I'd rather meet the vampire after he's had his breakfast. Where's this building?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I could teleport you there," offers Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 10:01 pm (UTC)

Juliet just gives him the intersection.

pythbox
2013-02-19 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he says. "When should I be there?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Half an hour," says Juliet, packing up her belongings. And out she goes, Shell Bell turning invisible and following in the air.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:09 pm (UTC)

[There is a thing you'll wanna know, says Shell Bell, [and your Sherlock said I could tell it to you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 10:10 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, what?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:13 pm (UTC)

[In general, Sherlocks and Tonies have sex. With each other. It's not the best surprise to get, so when I thought of it I asked your Sherlock, and this world's not an exception. Your Sherlock and Other Tony haven't with each other, too busy so far, and your Sherlock says he'll clear it with you beforehand if an opportunity even crops up. So, note that when you have your monogamy conversation.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 10:14 pm (UTC)

[Uh. Okay. That's one reason to reject the "brothers" descriptor.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:15 pm (UTC)

[No, not really. Mine are actually twins, same deal. I fell down the stairs before they expected me to arrive on their floor and spotted them making out. It led to a difficult conversation.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 10:15 pm (UTC)

[I'd imagine. Okay. ...You can probably imagine my questions.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:16 pm (UTC)

[My Sherlock loves me,] says Shell Bell in a sigh. [So much. She loves Tony too, she loved him first, but she loves me. Sometimes I open that up in my mindreading and I can barely breathe. It's okay. It's really okay.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 10:17 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] says Juliet, after a silence. [Thanks for letting me know. You're right, that would've been a hell of an awkward surprise.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:18 pm (UTC)

[You'd've done the same for me if our positions were reversed,] says Shell Bell.

And there is Juliet's house. Juliet parks and goes in to microwave some blood; Shell Bell parks in the air, still invisible.

[Told her, she's fine,] she reports to Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 10:31 pm (UTC)

[Thank you.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:32 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome. You almost here?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 10:33 pm (UTC)

[Nearly, yes.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:35 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell zooms out to intercept his path and trail him back to Juliet's. She imagines he can smell her; this is fine.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 10:45 pm (UTC)

He gives her a little wave.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 10:46 pm (UTC)

[Hullo.]

And there is Juliet's house and Juliet with a cup of blood.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 10:49 pm (UTC)

Slurp.

"Delicious breakfast," he says. "Though not as delicious as you, dear Juliet. Back to my future home?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I think so. I believe Mr. Giles's librarian sensibilities would be offended if any tasting occurred, though."

But Mr. Giles's librarian sensibilities will just have to live with a certain amount of handholding, apparently.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, remind me to kiss Tony in front of him, then," he says brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't think offending Mr. Giles's librarian sensibilities is the object of this evening," snorts Juliet, "is it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Only in fun, harmless ways," he assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:00 pm (UTC)

"All right. So I guess that was our version of the monogamy conversation, was it? Are there -" She gestures vaguely. "Rules, to this? Expectations that should be clarified?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Unless you object, I pretty much plan to fuck who I like and tell you about it as it comes up. You're free to do the same, although I am almost certainly going to find out whether you tell me or not. If you have other rules or expectations, we can of course talk about those."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I think it'd be awkward if you wound up screwing anyone or anything I'd feel obliged to kill if I met," she says after a pause. "Whether or not such a meeting is likely."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Hmm, really?" He shrugs. "All right."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I think it'd require significantly more processing to disentangle suspect motivations," she shrugs. "Nothing else leaps to mind, I guess." Pause. "I'm glad it'd matter if I objected."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 11:16 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

"Of course it would."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:23 pm (UTC)

He gets a kiss on the cheek for that as they approach the brick building. It's about when Giles is due to meet them.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

And there, indeed, is Giles.

His car is a terrible old grey wreck, but it coughs along adequately. He parks it front.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Mr. Giles," says Juliet. "This is Sherlock. Sherlock, this is Mr. Giles." She knows that they could both figure that out, but it's polite.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Giles.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 11:28 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins toothily, but doesn't show fang.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:29 pm (UTC)

Giles adjusts his glasses.

"Something was said about Slayer training, I believe?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Let's go in. There's room for it in the front bit," says Juliet. She opens the door. "Hi, Tony!" she calls. "We brought my Watcher. This is Mr. Giles."

toblameforit
2013-02-19 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Mr. Giles!" calls Tony's voice from upstairs. "Don't mind me, I'm just ripping out a couple walls!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-19 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Do you need more squares?" calls Shell Bell, stepping into the building and becoming visible again.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Anyway," says Juliet, dropping her messenger bag and divesting herself of her crucifix, "Mr. Giles, you'll wanna stand clear on the other side of the room."

She wants to show off, and she's best starting off defensive - playing black, as it were. "Surprise me," she tells Sherlock, dropping into stance.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:37 pm (UTC)

Mr. Giles puts himself as far from the action as possible.

toblameforit
2013-02-19 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Nah, I'm good for now," comes Tony's voice drifting down the stairs.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 11:39 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is happy to oblige.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:41 pm (UTC)

It doesn't count as showing off if Giles doesn't know how good Sherlock is. She passes up one opening early on and lets the fight go on a little longer - she's good enough to have that flexibility, now, useful if she ever has to favor an injury or stall for time - and only pins him after a solid minute and a half. (He winds up with his face on the floor, so there's no question of whether Mr. Giles's librarian sensibilities will also have to live with a certain amount of kissing.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 11:43 pm (UTC)

"A pleasure as always," he says, slightly muffled.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:44 pm (UTC)

Mr. Giles rolls his eyes.

But: "You're very good," he says. "Both of you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:46 pm (UTC)

She lets Sherlock up. "Thanks!"

And then she gets out her notebook. She thinks she should have gone with a right cross instead of the elbow thing she did. She writes that down and meditates over it for a moment, then gets up again.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:47 pm (UTC)

Mr. Giles observes this, but doesn't comment.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-19 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Again?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-19 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Absolutely."

And so it goes. A few sequences in, Juliet cracks her knuckle with a missed punch that hits the floor instead; normally this would require calling it a night and letting it heal overnight, but Shell Bell just tosses her a square - she's sitting in front of quite a heap of them by now - and Juliet fixes the fracture and leaps for Sherlock again.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:53 pm (UTC)

Giles raises his eyebrows, but doesn't comment.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 12:17 am (UTC)

It gets to be rather late. "I usually call it around this time, depending," says Juliet, checking the time on her phone and taking a swig of water. "And go home and do some modest amount of minimally-demonic homework and crash for the night. Does that sound reasonable to you?" she asks Mr. Giles.

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:18 am (UTC)

"Entirely," he assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 12:19 am (UTC)

"Excellent, I was worried you'd stomp all over my well-oiled routine," says Juliet. "I hope you are satisfied that Sherlock does not plan to eat any of us, as well."

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:22 am (UTC)

"It doesn't seem to be on his to-do list," Giles agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 12:23 am (UTC)

"Questions or comments before Sherlock and Shell Bell respectively walk and fly me home?" inquires Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:33 am (UTC)

"I'm going to look into buying this building tomorrow," he says. "Perhaps I can spin it to the Council as a handy training room. I'm hardly going to have you punching a bag in my library, after all."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 12:43 am (UTC)

"Bags and demons have little in common anyway. Thanks," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:44 am (UTC)

"In the meantime," he says, looking around, "I don't think you'll have any trouble moving in."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 12:45 am (UTC)

"Neither do I."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 12:48 am (UTC)

"There's a reason abandoned buildings are called that," Juliet says, nodding sagely and putting her crucifix and messenger bag back on.

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:56 am (UTC)

"Really? I thought they just assigned the label at random," Giles says innocently.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 12:59 am (UTC)

"Nope. The term has a lengthy and noble history." She cleans imaginary glasses. "I can loan you seventeen books on the subject," she adds in a bad English accent, "but some of them are in Latin."

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:59 am (UTC)

He snorts.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 01:00 am (UTC)

"Your accent is fucking terrible," Sherlock informs her kindly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 01:02 am (UTC)

"Yes, I know. Out we go," she says, making for the door. "Oh, and as long as Shell Bell's still here tomorrow, she can teleport us to L.A., we won't have to go early and put you under a tarp after all."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 01:15 am (UTC)

"How convenient."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 01:16 am (UTC)

"Very." Strolling ensues.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 01:16 am (UTC)

So too do invisibility and flying.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 01:25 am (UTC)

And handholding. That too.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 01:27 am (UTC)

Yes indeed. "You didn't wind up kissing Tony in front of Giles," observes Juliet, when they're out of the Watcher's earshot.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 01:27 am (UTC)

"Tony was busy," he says serenely.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 01:28 am (UTC)

"How's Jarvis's installation coming along, anyway?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 01:31 am (UTC)

"First Tony must be satisfied that the house will not fall down," he says. "Then he will install the nonessentials and check them over. Then he will conjure and install the crucial hardware."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 01:35 am (UTC)

"Ah, I see. So he's doing architecture first," laughs Juliet.
Edited 2013-02-20 01:35 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:05 am (UTC)

"Yes. Architecture and swearing."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 02:06 am (UTC)

"I bet the swearing is essential to the process," says Juliet, nodding.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:07 am (UTC)

"You are correct."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 02:09 am (UTC)

"I wonder how long it'll be until we find Milliways again for them," asks Juliet, more soberly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:10 am (UTC)

"To be honest, I've been trying not to think about it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 02:18 am (UTC)

"Sorry."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:20 am (UTC)

"It's all right."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 02:21 am (UTC)

There's her house. "I told Charlie this morning on my way to the morgue. He wasn't thrilled but he'll live and not shoot at you," she says, and she gives Sherlock a kiss goodnight.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:23 am (UTC)

Grinning, he kisses back.

"Night, love," he says ever so cheerfully when they are finished kissing.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 02:35 am (UTC)

"G'night."

The next day, she does homework of various sorts - catchup from classes, demonology - and she chats with Shell Bell. When night falls, she and Shell Bell teleport to the brick building. Juliet has conjured herself a mask. It looks like a more practical version of something suited for a Viennese carnival, all indigo and black and very understatedly decorative; her hair tucks up in back of it where it slips over her head, and it shadows her eyes to the point of uncertain color while leaving her complete peripheral vision as well as free breathing.

"What do you think, am I at least slightly challenging to identify?" she asks Sherlock when she and Shell Bell land.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:36 am (UTC)

"To anyone who isn't me, yes," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 02:39 am (UTC)

"Spiffy."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 02:39 am (UTC)

"I was thinking about the scent thing, and as long as I'm there, I can just flood the room with vanilla or whatever," says Shell Bell. "Also, do we know where we're going any more specifically than L.A.?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:40 am (UTC)

"Yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 02:43 am (UTC)

"You're going to have to actually tell me. I'm the one who can teleport," says Shell Bell.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:45 am (UTC)

He gives an intersection, and names the northwest corner.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 02:46 am (UTC)

"All right. Indoors or out? I can't make you guys invisible, I can only do that for me. Am I taking you separately so Sherlock can just pretend to be some random vampire not in any way affiliated with Juliet?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:51 am (UTC)

"That would probably be best. Outdoors will do; you can check first if anyone is watching, I assume."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 02:54 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I could do that even better if I went visible - Stella had a problem with spies one time and I batch-copied her powers when I met her - but we don't want Juliet's face involved, and I have it. So I'll just scope out the place. I'll do that now." Shell Bell vanishes, and then she vanishes in a different sense.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 02:55 am (UTC)

"So what have we got me walking into?" Juliet asks Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 02:57 am (UTC)

"A nest of bored, complacent vampires," he says. "By the way, Tony keeps forgetting to mention it, but he brought you half a dozen laser pointers. He's got them squirreled away somewhere. You probably won't even need the one you've got tonight, provided you bring something wooden and pointy."
Edited 2013-02-20 03:00 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 03:02 am (UTC)

"A supply of them is still good. I'll hold it in reserve; we're already going to produce the rumor that I can teleport, so after I can't back that up anymore it'll be nice to be able to produce the rumor that I can make a vampire burst into flames at a hundred paces to supplant it. How many vampires?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 03:08 am (UTC)

"Fourteen," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 03:11 am (UTC)

"You think some of them will bolt while I'm dusting the others, or will I have to explicitly let somebody go?" she asks, reaching under her mask to scratch her eyebrow.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 03:18 am (UTC)

"Some of them will bolt," he assures her. "If they are all foolish enough to continue attacking you, I suppose you can kill them all and we can find you another batch."
Edited 2013-02-20 03:18 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 03:20 am (UTC)

"Mkay. There's more spots in L.A.?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 03:22 am (UTC)

"Plenty."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 03:23 am (UTC)

"Spiffy. I'll hit one every weekend and most holidays, I guess, and a few on random Thursdays or wherever just to keep them on their toes."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 03:24 am (UTC)

"Delightful," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 03:28 am (UTC)

Shell Bell reappears in both senses of the word. "I looked around and I went in real quick - scentless, not breathing, they didn't notice me. There's fourteen vampires in there, just sort of lying around, one's asleep. On the street there's one homeless guy sitting around but he's so high he could probably see you teleporting in even if you didn't. Nobody else, although someone could come around the corner if we wait, are we ready to go right now?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 03:28 am (UTC)

Juliet conjures a stake, polished with a grip designed to fit her hand exactly, and says, "I'm ready. Sherlock?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 03:29 am (UTC)

He nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 03:30 am (UTC)

"Who's going first?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 03:38 am (UTC)

"Me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 03:40 am (UTC)

Shell Bell turns invisible again and ports him to the corner. [There you go.]

And she makes a second trip for Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 03:42 am (UTC)

Juliet is landed right into the nest - Sherlock is her backup; if she can handle this without people wondering who her friend is it'll be clearer she's the Slayer. She dusts the first vamp before anyone knows she's there. Shell Bell has killed the scents in the room and the air has a weird tastelessness to it even through her mask. Juliet lunges for the next nearest vampire.
Edited 2013-02-20 03:46 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 03:52 am (UTC)

Sherlock watches.

Oh, she is a glory.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 03:56 am (UTC)

They're all ascramble, evenly divided between those who want to run and those who want to take her apart. She stakes the second one, whirls and blocks a grab from the third before dusting him too, and then says to Shell Bell [Now,] which is Shell Bell's cue to teleport her across the room. (This is part of the rumor they're spreading, of course.) She dusts two more vampires who weren't expecting her in that section and then she stalks menacingly towards another, who joins the knot of them all trying to get out the door at the same time. He's not fast enough. He gets a stake in the back.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 03:56 am (UTC)

...Well, now he's just feeling inappropriately attracted to her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 04:02 am (UTC)

Nothing inappropriate about it.

She kills ten. Four scatter; they go in all directions, so she goes ahead and picks one and gives chase and gets him half a block away.

[Brick place?] she asks Shell Bell, and Shell Bell vanishes her. (One of the fleeing vampires is still within sight of her and makes a despairing noise when she goes.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-20 04:03 am (UTC)

Shell Bell fetches Sherlock next, and they are all right back where they came from, not five minutes later.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 04:04 am (UTC)

"Beautifully done," he says, grinning. "I'm a terrible bodyguard; I spent the latter half of that spectacle thinking about how unreasonably attractive you are."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 04:08 am (UTC)

"I didn't wind up needing bodyguarding, no harm done," she says, sidling up to him from where Shell Bell landed her. "Not a scratch on me. They were slow. Even startled they could've done better."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 04:09 am (UTC)

"I," he says, "would like to show you my nice comfortable new basement. And then make out with you in it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 04:10 am (UTC)

"I would like to be shown this basement. And make out with you in it," Juliet agrees.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 04:18 am (UTC)

"Let's."

And down the stairs they go.

The basement really is comfortable. All the windows are blacked out, but the lights work. Tony has managed to put together a respectable bed and populate it with respectable blankets.

Sherlock leads her straight there.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 04:20 am (UTC)

Ooh. A surface that is not a stone crypt floor on which to make out. That's new.

Kisses kisses kisses.

(...Is being turned on after dusting eleven vampires a Slayer thing, Juliet wonders but doesn't ask.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-20 04:26 am (UTC)

Apparently being turned on after watching someone dust eleven vampires is, at the least, a Sherlock thing. So wherever their respective things are coming from here, it all works out very nicely.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-20 04:27 am (UTC)

It really really does.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:01 pm (UTC)

...

The next day, when the gang's all hanging out at the brick building and Juliet has gone on another quick masked demon-busting excursion in L.A. to show off that "she can teleport", Shell Bell says:

"The critters you fight are nasty. I think... I had better leave you my fire wand, Juliet. And teach you to use it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:02 pm (UTC)

"How long did it take you?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:05 pm (UTC)

"About a year, but I could only practice at odd hours - I was holding down a job and sometimes showing up to school and poaching on the side and while there was plenty of beach there wasn't plenty of deserted beach. I can just teleport us all to the nearest - nighttime - beach with nobody around to watch you play with fire for hours," says Shell Bell, "and I'll help, too, I got instructions ahead of time but no in-the-moment teaching. And before you ask: no, it won't break, it can't, and you have to know something about how it works to use it at all so even a random demon who suspects it's a fire wand and gets it away from you won't be able to make even an uncontrolled fire with it unless it knows how to concentrate on it."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Exciting," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:08 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell winks at him. "Very," she murmurs. "I'm going to duplicate the power the next time I have my hands on a hex."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:09 pm (UTC)

This doesn't go unnoticed. "Oh, is that why he's coming along," Juliet snorts. "I don't know if it'll be so much fun when I'm fumbling around with the fire and periodically stop-drop-rolling in the surf, but whatever floats your boat."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Failure is cute. Success is sexy. Either way, I am pleased to be a spectator."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:13 pm (UTC)

"My Sherlock was nearly only interested in people who could beat her up, and then she watched me burn down a train station," says Shell Bell merrily. "The Memorial Dome a bit later didn't hurt either."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:13 pm (UTC)

"I think I've cleared that barrier already, but sure, spectate away," snorts Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 04:14 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:21 pm (UTC)

Before even finding them a beach, Shell Bell gives Juliet a rundown on how to control the wand:

"You're in control of a bunch of things. Shape, location, temperature, how fast it consumes available fuel - it doesn't need fuel at all, you could have a floating fireball in a sealed chamber and it wouldn't take your oxygen if you didn't want it to let alone die for lack of stuff to oxidize, but it'll take anything you do want to feed it. If you lose attention on any of those things, the fire will be out of control on all counts and go on according to the laws of physics. You can get it back as long as it's contiguous. But you can't control more than one piece of fire at a time, so until you really have the hang of it and never lose your fire before you're ready, don't let it spread too far where it'll burn out intermediate patches."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:21 pm (UTC)

"If it doesn't need fuel, can it burn in places where you wouldn't expect it to be able to?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I used to practice cooking minnows from the inside - I couldn't do anything out where the bigger fish swim, but you can put fire inside of a demon if you want, it'd look funny on an autopsy but it'll add to your aura of mysterious power."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 04:23 pm (UTC)

Sherlock giggles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Kickass," says Juliet. "I always wanted an aura of mysterious power. What else do I have to know?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:26 pm (UTC)

"You probably want to learn the usual temperatures of fires that burn on various substances. You don't have to know it in degrees or anything, which is good because this comes from a world that doesn't use degrees I recognize and I sure don't know if they match yours, but if you've been near something burning it'll be easier to refer to it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:27 pm (UTC)

"I've been around wood fires, but not, like, thermite," says Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 04:37 pm (UTC)

"If you want to have a thorough knowledge of the behaviour of all kinds of accelerants and explosives, talk to Tony," suggests Sherlock. "When he is less busy."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:39 pm (UTC)

"It won't be necessary to start with anyway, holding the temperature constant at wood-fire levels will be good for initial practice," Shell Bell says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Juliet. "Should we just start now, then? Find a beach in this time zone for me to throw fire at?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 04:41 pm (UTC)

"I think so," says Shell Bell, and she teleports all three of them to the largest unobserved beach on the west coast of the United States.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 04:43 pm (UTC)

Sherlock claps his hands.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:44 pm (UTC)

Juliet accepts the wand from Shell Bell, and... composes... a fire in her head. She would like it to be over there - yea big - woodfire hot - not consuming fuel.

It takes her a minute, but eventually she holds all these parameters in her head in the right sort of stack, and it appears, and she grins.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Pretty."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 04:55 pm (UTC)

This distracts Juliet enough that she loses something - temperature, she thinks, or the no-fuel thing, since she can see size and shape. The fire falls away from her and - since it has nothing to catch on - dies.

"I need to be able to do this when distracted," she says before Sherlock can ask her if he ought to shut up, and she brings it back into existence again and stares at it intently.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 04:57 pm (UTC)

"How distracted?" he inquires brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 05:02 pm (UTC)

"...Well, eventually, in-melee-with-enough-demons-that-busting-out-the-fire-wand-is-a-better-idea-than-hand-to-hand distracted," she says. The fire doesn't die when he talks this time. She starts coaxing it taller until she's got a ten-foot column of the stuff.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 05:06 pm (UTC)

"In that case, I foresee you setting things on fire while making out with me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 05:15 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell laughs and laughs. "But then it'll be hard to look what she's doing. Try the back of her neck or something."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure I want you making quite as many suggestions as you're making," Juliet says mildly to Shell Bell, swaying her column of fire back and forth with unnecessary motions of the wand to remind her what she's doing.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Regardless, I suggest not getting into the habit of moving the wand if you ever want to be able to use it without letting everybody know that you're using it," Shell Bell says, unapologetic.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 05:29 pm (UTC)

Sherlock just snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 05:31 pm (UTC)

Juliet flips the wand around in her hand so she's still clutching the handle, but the wand is pointed backwards along her arm, and she stares down the column of fire. She splits it, not all the way down - she wants it contiguous - but she forms it into the bright warm equivalent of swaying blades of grass, adding one at a time until she's managing ten at once and loses all of them.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 05:32 pm (UTC)

"You're doing really good. If you want tendrils like that, try to find a way to think of the shape in a higher-level abstract pattern," says Shell Bell, "move a few of them in parallel if you can, or lean them all counterclockwise at once, or whatever."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 05:33 pm (UTC)

Sherlock listens with interest.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 05:44 pm (UTC)

Practice continues, and Juliet improves considerably, although when she hands the wand back to Shell Bell and asks for a demo, she's blown away by the fire-octopus Shell Bell has dancing through the air, all different colors informed by the heat of the flame.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 05:46 pm (UTC)

"You can get this good," says Shell Bell. "It'll just take practice. And you don't need it for lightshows, anyway," she adds as her octopus swims in a lazy bright circle. "Just for fighting. I could cook swimming minnows reliably after just a couple of months practicing half an hour a day on average. And it's not like it's boring, is it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Not boring," agrees Juliet. "If I swipe the wand from you now does the fire go uncontrolled or just out?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 05:47 pm (UTC)

"If I drop the wand, it goes uncontrolled. I'm not sure what happens if I hand it off. Try taking it, the octopus is over the ocean now, no real danger."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 05:49 pm (UTC)

Juliet takes the wand out of Shell Bell's hand. The octopus stays, although she doesn't try to move its tentacles or retain the colors, just focuses on the shape and place and woodfire-warmth and that it should not consume fuel.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 05:50 pm (UTC)

That is fun. Sherlock smiles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 05:51 pm (UTC)

Juliet slowly adds spots of hotter colored fire to a few places on the octopus, and then starts moving its arms in a coordinated pattern, although she doesn't combine this with swimming it through the air. She maintains this for five minutes and then loses it with a gasp of temporarily forgotten air.

"Hard, though," she mutters.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Fun things often are."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 06:02 pm (UTC)

"It's true." She makes a more modest shape - a snake - and starts flying it around over the water, rippling patterns of heat/color along its length and undulating it in a sine wave. She manages a minute and a half. "I think I'm getting tired."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Don't operate the wand tired," says Shell Bell at once. "I'll take us home." And she does.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 06:16 pm (UTC)

"What special terrors occur if you operate the wand tired? Or are you just more likely to fuck it up?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 06:17 pm (UTC)

"More likely to fuck it up, less likely to notice right away if it goes out of control," says Shell Bell. "I don't have any permanent scars but I did have to dive into the sea a couple of times."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-21 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Aha."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I will avoid wanding when I'm tired," says Juliet. "Unless it's an emergency and I have at least one square on me. Square can probably conjure a fire extinguisher or just outright kill the flame if it splits up out of control, right?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes, unless it's really huge, then you might need a couple," says Shell Bell. She's been continuously bending various fingers backwards throughout all this time; her hands would certainly be swollen with accumulated distress at this point if it weren't for her regen.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 10:40 pm (UTC)

Come Monday morning, the Bells return to school after the usual stop at the morgue. (Vampires take long enough to rise, and there are few enough of them in Sunnydale now anyway, that Juliet has scaled back her visits to Monday-Wednesday-Friday only.) After Juliet's first classes, there is study hall in the library.

"I busted some demon nests in L.A. with a mask on and scent in the room killed, let a few go, made sure they saw me teleport, and started learning to use Shell Bell's fire wand that she's going to leave here for me," Juliet chirps to Mr. Giles after a check for bystanders.

pythbox
2013-02-21 10:43 pm (UTC)

"I bought you a house," is how Giles chooses to return this greeting. "It's officially in my name, but you can do what you want with it, since I assume that turning part of it into a training area is on the agenda."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Yup. Install the AI, have Sherlock move in, beat each other up in it, when I'm good enough with the wand that I don't have to practice on the beach I can do that there too." Pause. "Shell Bell, do you think squares could conjure copies of arbitrary demonology books?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I could probably conjure a copy of Johanna Mason's unauthorized biography," says Shell Bell, "even though this universe doesn't have any copies and I have never read it before, so I assume demonology books that have actually been written in Sunshine would only be easier."
Edited 2013-02-21 22:47 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-21 10:49 pm (UTC)

Giles looks stunned.

Then he says, very rapidly and intently, "Can I write you up a list?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Uh, sure," says Shell Bell, amused.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Try it on one book first, to make sure it works," snorts Juliet.
Edited 2013-02-21 22:50 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-21 10:55 pm (UTC)

He rattles off a title as though he has been waiting for this day all his life.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell switches from bending her finger to biting her cheek, so that she can catch the conjured book and present it to him. "Is this what you were looking for?"

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes it is," he says, and immediately hauls out pen and paper to start composing that list.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Er, please do remember that Shell Bell's only here for a finite amount of time, can make only a finite number of squares, and every book you request will cost a square of its own," says Juliet. "I might or might not find another me with mint powers before I run out even if I only use them for emergencies, since Slayers encounter, you know, lots of emergencies. And the squares and the fire wand are the only safe magic we have access to right now."

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:11 pm (UTC)

"That," he says without looking up from the page, "is why I am not just naming titles as fast as I can think of them."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 11:12 pm (UTC)

"It's not any more expensive to conjure a big book than a small one, so if any of them might have been omnibused or otherwise combined..."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Your conservatism is appreciated, Mr. Giles," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:14 pm (UTC)

He starts scribbling on the list, linking titles with arrows or brackets.

Eventually, he has it down to fifteen, written neatly in order on the back of the page. He hands it to Bell.
Edited 2013-02-21 23:18 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-21 11:19 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell conjures him a stack of those fifteen books, easy as pie. They appear on his desk. "There you go. I hope they help!"

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Immeasurably," he assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 11:21 pm (UTC)

"What sorta books did you pick out?" Juliet asks, peering over her shoulder instead of at the book she's currently notetaking from.

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Ones I wouldn't be able to get any other way, but that I know exist. and want to own. Not all of them are demonology; a few are about magic."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Ooh." Pause. "It's possible I should have mentioned earlier that we think the reason I haven't gotten magic from here to work for me is that various demonic-and-or-divine entities cannot inspect the contents of my skull to figure out what I am trying to do."

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:44 pm (UTC)

"...Luckily, I don't think that will have too much impact on the usefulness of the selection."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

"That's good! What kinda magic books?" inquires Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Historical, theoretical, and one practical. Just one. But I think you might find the theoretical more interesting."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-21 11:51 pm (UTC)

"More interesting, maybe. Not necessarily more so by enough to keep me away from the practical once you're out of stalling homework. I want to stretch my square supply and I don't care to base my entire fighting-the-forces-of-evil strategy on being able to punch holes through brick walls."

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:01 am (UTC)

"I would say it's worked for hundreds of Slayers before you, but I can already imagine your reply," he sighs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:02 am (UTC)

"It didn't work well enough for any of them to live past twenty-six," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:02 am (UTC)

"...Who told you that number?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:04 am (UTC)

"Sherlock. Is it wrong?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:06 am (UTC)

"No," he says, frowning. "But I want to know where he got it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-22 12:09 am (UTC)

"It's possible to follow Sherlocky trails of evidence, but they're sometimes very lengthy and complicated," says Shell Bell. "Sherlocks are good at knowing things based on stuff everyone can see but doesn't put together right."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:09 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure he's still nocturnal, but come evening you could always brainphone him about it," shrugs Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:10 am (UTC)

"...I see," says Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:11 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell would know, at least about Sherlocks in general. She can read her Sherlock's mind when they're in the same world," Juliet puts in. "Of course, twenty-six is specific enough that I'd bet someone just told him or something; he didn't say mid-twenties."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-22 12:11 am (UTC)

"And we are meant to live forever," says Shell Bell, "so mid-twenties is not going to cut it."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:12 am (UTC)

"Oh yeah. I am going to beat that record. I am going to beat that record so hard."

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:16 am (UTC)

"I hope you do," Giles says sincerely. If uncomfortably.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:24 am (UTC)

"Something wrong?" Juliet asks him. "You don't think I ought to live forever or you just don't think I can?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-22 12:26 am (UTC)

"If I had a better pain tolerance I could arrange it," volunteers Shell Bell, switching bent fingers. "She's not guaranteed to run into a better-equipped mint Bell, but it's pretty likely."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:28 am (UTC)

"I'm not planning to turn into a local sort of vampire," Juliet adds to Giles, "if that's what has you worried. Sherlock's an exceptional case and I have no reason to expect that my personality would survive the experience. It's possible I should've asked Golden to bite me, but I'm holding out for the option that doesn't have even her much more limited set of drawbacks."

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:29 am (UTC)

"In this universe, the search for immortality has never led anyone anywhere good," he says. "And I have extensive sources to back that up. But clearly the rules are different for... you," with a gesture to Shell Bell and beyond.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:31 am (UTC)

"You may as well tell me cautionary tales anyway for in case I run into a tempting shortcut," suggests Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:48 am (UTC)

"Some evidence suggests that the Greek myth of a would-be immortal shrivelling into a cricket was based on actual events," he says. "For a start."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:49 am (UTC)

"That sounds suitably horrifying," says Juliet, nodding gravely.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:51 am (UTC)

"There are also legends indicating that the original union of human and demon that created vampires was an attempt at immortality on the part of the human involved," he says. "But that's one mistake I definitely don't expect you to repeat."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:54 am (UTC)

"...Should I be elaborating in my head about the union there or is it purely a magical glomming-the-demon-onto-the-soul thing?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:55 am (UTC)

"Blood was shared," he says, looking at her overtop of his glasses. "In the usual vampire way, as far as sources can determine."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 12:57 am (UTC)

"Noted."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-22 12:59 am (UTC)

"Does that only cause vampiring if the human in question is also dead?" asks Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:12 am (UTC)

"It's not completely clear," he says. "The traditional method is for the human to drink some of the vampire's blood, and the vampire to drink all of the human's blood. We know that works. It's hard to make a reliable study of the edge cases."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 01:15 am (UTC)

Hm. Sherlock is still probably asleep. Juliet will ask him what he knows about edge cases later. It seems like the sort of thing that might become relevant later. She has no plans to drink any of his blood, but if there's any danger from the "tastes" she has allowed - well, he'd probably have told her, but she should ask regardless.

She goes back to her stalling hom- her official Slayer training. And then the bell rings, and Shell Bell invisibles and Juliet goes on to her next designated place-to-be.

They are back after school. "Mr. Giles, our estimate is that it'll take me a few months - let's call it six - of practicing with the fire wand a few times a week for a couple of hours each time before it'll be a good idea for me to use it in a live fire situation. In your opinion is it a good idea to prioritize that to get it into play sooner, or a better idea for me to spend less time on the wand and more on sparring with Sherlock and studying demons?"
Edited 2013-02-22 01:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:27 am (UTC)

"...My instinct is to distrust the magic," he says. "But it's not necessarily a good instinct. Sparring with Sherlock, studying demons, and acquiring a powerful secret weapon are all important goals. I'm not immediately sure how exactly to prioritize them."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-22 01:29 am (UTC)

"The only hazard of the wand is that you can set things on fire with it, which you handle by practicing near water," Shell Bell says. "I'm perfectly fine. Juliet'll be even safer because she'll have my squares if something does go wrong."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 01:31 am (UTC)

"Out of curiosity," says Juliet, "who would I be practicing fighting with if it were not for Sherlock? Do Slayers usually just get thrown directly at demons who want to kill them? I killed vampires exclusively with a crossbow and preemptive morgue staking until I met Sherlock for that reason." Pause. "Oh, Giles, did I tell you that I have covered the entire town of Sunnydale in hidden crosses that should make vampires find it vaguely unpleasant to be here? I don't think I told you that before."

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:33 am (UTC)

He blinks.

He opens his mouth.

He closes his mouth.

He cleans his glasses.

"Prioritize the fire wand over your other training," he says at last. "The answer to how you would be getting trained in combat without him is 'not nearly as well'."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure I followed all the subtext there?" says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:37 am (UTC)

"I am ashamed on behalf of the Watcher's Council that none of us in a thousand years of strategizing for Slayers has thought of the obvious strategies this Slayer apparently comes up with in her sleep," Giles explains.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 01:39 am (UTC)

"I was awake. Also crossing the town took me a long while, I could only cover one neighborhood per night." Pause. "I also used to rinse my hair in holy water, but I stopped when I started letting Sherlock anywhere near my personal space. I still have water balloons of it though."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:19 am (UTC)

"Water balloons," he repeats, shaking his head.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 02:21 am (UTC)

"Well, I wanted ranged weapons because I had no combat training and ranged means a few tries before screwing up kills you," she shrugs. "I haven't used them, so far everybody but Sherlock has gotten dusted while still out in crossbow range, which is good because the priests in the local churches were starting to look at me funny."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:22 am (UTC)

...He snorts.

Then he laughs outright.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 02:24 am (UTC)

"And I was letting them assume I was Catholic, too," laughs Juliet, "wearing the crucifix outside my shirt and doing that crossing gesture thing - Please tell me that crucifixes are standard Slayer issue and you would've got me one or at least told me to get one if I hadn't already located and started wearing this?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:25 am (UTC)

"They are," Giles assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:03 am (UTC)

"Okay, that's good, because if they weren't that would be really dreadfully negligent. Even if Sherlock proves that a vampire can with sufficent effort learn to find crosses not-aversive. They do still burn him and - not bother him, but repel him a little in a way he can ignore, so I take it off when we spar."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:04 am (UTC)

"...I am never sure whether I should be reassured or terrified when you tell me something new about Sherlock."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:05 am (UTC)

"I think the happy medium between the two is being glad he's on our side?" offers Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:06 am (UTC)

"That's where I usually settle," he agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:08 am (UTC)

"He could've easily killed me but some combination of snarky banter and my clever trick with the crosses made him find me interesting, when we first met," shrugs Juliet. "So yeah. I did spend a while asking him if I'd get a head start if he ever found me boring, but I think he's in for the long haul, now."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:12 am (UTC)

"How reassuring," he says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:17 am (UTC)

"Hey, when we met, I started shooting at him," Juliet says. "He's never actually moved to harm me. Or my dad even though my dad shot him once when Sherlock was saving his life. I think if there's any reason for mistrust at this point some of it would be aimed in my direction."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:18 am (UTC)

"...Touché."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:18 am (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-22 03:19 am (UTC)

"The alts help, too," says Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:20 am (UTC)

"Yeah, although at the time I found out about alts I already trusted my Sherlock," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:22 am (UTC)

"How do the alts help?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:24 am (UTC)

"Because he acts recognizably like the other Sherlocks," says Juliet, "even though he's a vampire. Sort of like Golden is recognizably like us even though she is a vampire, albeit one that doesn't usually come with a soul renovation. When I hear things about other Sherlocks who aren't vampires, I don't have to take them with a clove of garlic because vampires are usually evil - and then, insofar as my Sherlock is similar to those Sherlocks, I can assume that he will continue to be so."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-22 03:25 am (UTC)

"I guessed on my first try that this Sherlock was a Sherlock and not a Tony," adds Shell Bell, "even though they look alike apart from their habits and the Sherlock I'm most used to is a girl."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:26 am (UTC)

At 'take them with a clove of garlic', he snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:30 am (UTC)

Homework goes on until dusk approaches to the point where it is time for the Bells to depart. On her drive home - even with Shell Bell around, Juliet drives; she doesn't want Charlie or her classmates wondering, and besides, Shell Bell could find a door home at school and want to take it right then - she brainphones Sherlock. [You up?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 03:33 am (UTC)

[Arguably. What is it?]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:36 am (UTC)

[It's not urgent, if you want to go back to sleep. You could put up a busy message - or if you want to be wakeable by brainphone in case of emergency you could just give me a range of hours. But Mr. Giles doesn't know anything useful about edge cases of blood exchange with vampires and I wanted to know how you know - if you know - that "tasting" when I get scratched up sparring is safe.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 03:38 am (UTC)

[You have to drink some of my blood, or another vampire's, in order to turn,] he says. [And I'm not sure the other way around is required at all.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:40 am (UTC)

[How much is enough? If there's splatter when I'm fighting some random vampire - or you, though you're much harder to hurt and I would try to pull back before gouging you that bad if I got a lucky hit - and I have my mouth open...]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 03:46 am (UTC)

[At this point I'm guessing, but my guesses tend to be reliable. I don't think a few drops will cause you any trouble. And I think you would need to be dead before it became a problem in any case. The ideal condition seems to be completely exsanguinated but otherwise relatively intact. I've never heard of a living, uninjured person being fed vampire blood and turning from it, or for that matter of someone's midnight snack getting their teeth in and waking up three days later. All instances of turning seem to involve someone's deliberate effort, and more blood than you are likely to accidentally ingest. I'd even venture to say that it's not cumulative: if you get a little here and a little there over the course of your Slaying career, and have a heart attack when you're ninety, you won't end up a wrinkled little bloodsucker.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:47 am (UTC)

[Okay. Do you know anything about the mechanism behind all this or does it just - add up right?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 03:49 am (UTC)

[I have a data point you're not likely to get anywhere else,] he offers. [I was force-fed the blood of about eight vampires, in considerable quantity, and I turned in just shy of six hours after they killed me.]
Edited 2013-02-22 03:49 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:51 am (UTC)

[...that is interesting. Do you know why they did that? If the motive is common or the possibility is known someone could bypass my trips to the morgue.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 03:53 am (UTC)

[I didn't leave them alive long enough to ask,] he says unapologetically, [and I haven't heard of it since.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 03:55 am (UTC)

[Okay. I think this town is probably depopulated enough and unpleasant enough for vampires to walk around in by now that you couldn't easily collect eight of them now, anyway...]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 03:58 am (UTC)

[Have I neglected to mention the Bleecker Street bite shop? I'm sorry, I assumed you knew. Most of the vampires left in Sunnydale don't go outside. Their meals walk in on their own two feet, pay them for the privilege of a nibble, and walk out again afterward.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 04:00 am (UTC)

[...Bite shop. No, I've never heard of such a thing. People pay for that? Like, in quantity? I guess that's pretty unobjectionable, if the business model works.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 04:01 am (UTC)

[It can be made pleasant for everyone involved,] he says. [I don't need to go into detail. Alternately, I can go into lots.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 04:02 am (UTC)

[...How about medium to start,] she says. [I'm driving.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 04:05 am (UTC)

[A vampire can choose to make being bitten a physically pleasurable event for the snack.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 04:06 am (UTC)

[That is an interesting ability indeed. This isn't, like, a special skill, any vampire can do it if they want?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 04:07 am (UTC)

[Any vampire.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 04:16 am (UTC)

[And this is pleasant enough that there is a nest of vampires in town who are able to make this their primary if not sole source of nutrition and charge for it,] confirms Juliet, intrigued, [drawing solely from the potential customer base of the humans-in-the-know and suffering all the usual limitations of word-of-mouth-based advertising for businesses, plus what I assume is some amount of embarrassment from their clientele. That is very interesting indeed.]

Pause.

[I'm still driving, so we can pick that conversation up a bit later, I think... I don't know if Giles is going to ask you on his own, but he wants to know where you got the number twenty-six regarding Slayer life expectancy.]
Edited 2013-02-22 05:31 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 01:12 pm (UTC)

[Oh, spying on a Watcher, of course.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 04:01 pm (UTC)

[Giles is probably gonna want more detail than that. Especially if it was him.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 06:22 pm (UTC)

[It was not Giles, and I did not kill or even injure him, in fact he never knew I was there. And that is as much detail as Giles can have.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 06:23 pm (UTC)

[How much detail can I have?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-22 06:28 pm (UTC)

[More than that,] he says. [How much would you like?]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-22 06:33 pm (UTC)

[Enh, I don't actually have specific questions about it right now.] She parks her pickup. [And now I'm not driving. ...Although I should probably still warm you up some animal blood to teleport over because if I shouldn't operate the wand tired I probably also shouldn't operate it woozy. But I'll take the detail on that, now, if you have as you said lots.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-23 02:58 pm (UTC)

[I do have lots,] he says cheerfully.

[I've done it myself once or twice. It's not difficult. A matter of attitude, mostly. And it makes being snacked on pleasant instead of painful. Sexually or otherwise; it seems to vary with context. The effect fades when physical contact is broken, and then the bite is just a bite, no special lingering qualities. Pleasant means pleasant, though, occasionally to the point of spontaneous orgasm.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-23 04:11 pm (UTC)

Juliet ruminates on that for a bit, watching a jar of blood rotate in the microwave, and then she says:

[I am duly fascinated. But... You know, I might not have thought to ask if it weren't for my induced paranoia about local magic of all things being addictive, but is there any particular risk of pleasant biting being the same way? Because I do wonder a little about that establishment's business model, and if it's nice as all that... and it's not like one could keep upping the dose, so to speak, indefinitely, even with access to a... cooperative supplier.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 12:44 am (UTC)

[Not that I've ever heard of,] he says. [And I have heard of magic addiction.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 12:52 am (UTC)

[I wonder if the occupants of the bite shop would tell me. No, not really, if I were presenting as the Slayer they'd lie to get out of a staking and if I were presenting as a prospective customer they'd lie to keep business. I wonder if they'd tell you.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 12:53 am (UTC)

[I can ask,] he says cheerfully. [For curiosity's sake.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 12:57 am (UTC)

[While you're there anyway, can you see if there's, I dunno, a poorly concealed skeleton or something lying around? I have no objection to their continued existence if their means of getting along is as stated, but it'd be kind of remiss of me to not even ask you to keep an eye out.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 01:07 am (UTC)

[Yes,] he says. [I will determine if they are committing regular murders. What shall I do about it if so?]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 01:09 am (UTC)

[Let me know the details, we'll figure it out,] she says. [They're halfway peaceable already, maybe they can get the rest of the way there if I print them some flyers and hide them in library books about demonology or something, I don't want to gratuitously kill civilized creatures.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 01:16 am (UTC)

[Agreed. You're going to revolutionize Slayerdom, love.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 01:20 am (UTC)

[It's due,] she says.

The blood's done. Teleportation occurs and Sherlock is presented with his breakfast.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 01:23 am (UTC)

Slurp.

"All those times you've made me breakfast, and I haven't cooked you a single meal," he says. "I should really do something about that."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 01:33 am (UTC)

"You can cook?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-24 01:34 am (UTC)

"Mine can! She bakes me cakes," says Shell Bell, utterly self-satisfied about this pleasing facet of her life. "And stuff. But do vampires even eat? I guess if you learned before you wouldn't've forgotten."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 01:35 am (UTC)

"I can cook," he confirms. "I can, if you so desire, bake you cakes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 01:40 am (UTC)

"I may desire to be baked cakes. I guess this place has cake-baking facilities, or at least the outlets for stuff if they stripped the place of ovens and so on before the bakery closed."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 01:43 am (UTC)

"Then cakes there shall be. Someday. When we have refurnished the kitchen."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 06:46 am (UTC)

"If you like, I'm not going to complain. I'd find it disappointing to bake a cake I couldn't have any of, but maybe that's just me."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 03:28 pm (UTC)

"The joy of baking a cake and the joy of eating it are separate things, and the latter being closed to me forever, I won't miss it any more if I indulge the former."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-24 03:29 pm (UTC)

"If you ever find a mint who wasn't silly enough to get caught in Milliways with no big coins," says Shell Bell, "and don't need to hoard squares anymore, you could probably fix that."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 03:30 pm (UTC)

"And all kinds of other inconvenient vampiric side effects. And possibly being a vampire at all, if you wanted," says Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 03:32 pm (UTC)

"On the whole," he says, "I rather like being a vampire. But I'd prefer not to be such a flammable one, if I had the option."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 03:33 pm (UTC)

"What d'you like about it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 03:36 pm (UTC)

"All my misery is circumstantial," he says, "instead of being a fundamental aspect of my personality. And the superpowers are nice, too."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

"You could substitute all the perks with minting. Of course, I'm assuming you won't want to treat those size coins like they're scarce, whereas that would be your prerogative if we wound up falling into the same pattern as the other minty Bells."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Likewise I could patch the drawbacks," he points out.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. You just didn't want to be a vampire in the first place and seem to find much of it irritating, it wasn't obvious that you liked it as a baseline from which to make improvements instead of a mixed bag from which you'd like to take some interesting toys and otherwise and go home to what you were before."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 03:57 pm (UTC)

"If I get my soul back, I expect to become a much less cheerful person."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Because in addition to all my previous doubts about my worth as a person, I will also start to care about all the people I have killed."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-24 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Mine had to kill twenty people on live national television," murmurs Shell Bell. "She is very sad about it sometimes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Is that how souls work?" muses Juliet. "I mean - I'd expect there to be some of that but - Golden's vampires don't undergo a personality change, before she took over most of them ate people anyway 'cause people are just so darned yummy, now they don't anymore because she's in charge, I don't think there was an epidemic of guilt about it..."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, Golden's vampires aren't me," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm aware. You wouldn't be a suitable sparring partner if you were one of those. Golden let me punch her in the face just to see and she just stood there, didn't flinch or anything, and I needed a square to fix my hand." This is an attempt at levity. It doesn't work very well. "Well. You seem to be pretty good at not-killing-people without being plagued by conscience. But I'm kind of worried about what happens if something happens to me, before we find someone to mint me, if I'm not fast enough, if I walk into the wrong nest or start doing magic and try the wrong spell or - whatever. I'm being your external not-killing-people module, last I heard. Maybe Jarvis'll substitute if called for."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Jarvis will not need to do anything to keep me from killing people. He will merely need to exist."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:17 pm (UTC)

"And yet," says Juliet, "it is not strictly impossible for him to stop doing that, again."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:21 pm (UTC)

"And with both of you dead, assuming I don't give up and kill myself, I will probably go back to eating people," says Sherlock. "Is there a reason you particularly care?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Juliet, "yes, as those scenarios all seem to include more death than originally postulated."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-24 04:25 pm (UTC)

"You could go into Milliways and wait there," says Shell Bell. "I don't think my Sherlock or my Tony would mind if I brought you home so you wouldn't be lonely. I don't know about the other pair, or any others that might wander around the multiverse, but if you waited for me and mine I could give you a place to go."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Or he could bring you back to Sunshine and you could see if you can raise the dead," Juliet says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-24 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if I can, yet. I'd like to, but if a star can do it at all, I don't think it'll matter if I wait a year to have a better-stabilized empire to put the resurrected people in," says Shell Bell. "I don't think the other mints have tried it either. Angela would think Jovah takes charge of the dead and Stella - doesn't know that many dead people, although I think it's on her list for after things are stabilized, too."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:30 pm (UTC)

"All right," he says. "I'll try Milliways before suicide or murder."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-24 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Time to go to the beach and play with fire?" asks Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes, do let's," agrees Juliet.

And they go, and she plays with fire.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:33 pm (UTC)

She's so lovely when she does that.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:37 pm (UTC)

Juliet does notice the way he's watching.

When she's starting to flag from fatigue, she kills her dancing fireball and seizes him for a kiss.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:38 pm (UTC)

Mid-kiss, he says, [Later tonight I will research the addiction potential of pleasant biting.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:45 pm (UTC)

[Oh good. Because then we will know, and knowing is half the battle. The other half will be getting past Amariah's bayleaf.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:47 pm (UTC)

[Which I've done,] he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:53 pm (UTC)

[Oh yes, I suppose her boyfriend probably has one. Then the other half will be getting a reasonable block of privacy without Shell Bell winking at me.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:55 pm (UTC)

[Impossible.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 04:57 pm (UTC)

[Well, possible, but only if I actually ask her not to wink at me, which would be just as bad really.] Mmmm kisses. [She's probably winking right now in spite of the fact that I've got my eyes closed.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 04:58 pm (UTC)

[Learn to ignore her,] he suggests. [Or wink back.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 05:01 pm (UTC)

[I suppose. ...Hey, is Tony putting Jarvis-cameras everywhere...?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 05:02 pm (UTC)

[Yes. If you don't want him watching us, you can ask him not to look.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 05:03 pm (UTC)

[And he won't, as opposed to just pretending not to but actually doing so anyway. I've barely met him, perhaps I wouldn't ask that if we were old friends.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 05:05 pm (UTC)

[And he won't. Any room without cameras and sound pickups is a room he cannot enter; he prefers to have as few of those as possible, but is willing to leave temporarily on request.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 05:09 pm (UTC)

[That's fair. Does he usually come with moving parts - little robots - or does he just be a house?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 05:10 pm (UTC)

[He is a house. He doesn't like the idea of having little robots.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 05:17 pm (UTC)

[Why not?] They're not kissing any more, just hugging - snuggling-standing-up, more like - and brainphoning. Shell Bell has been flying around, cackling at her own speed, since the fire wand practice concluded.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-24 05:18 pm (UTC)

[Ask him. Perhaps he'll tell you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-24 05:19 pm (UTC)

[I will when he boots up. What's the ETA on that?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 01:07 am (UTC)

[Soon. A few more days,] he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 01:09 am (UTC)

[How're you feeling about that?]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 01:15 am (UTC)

[Honestly, I have no idea.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 01:19 am (UTC)

[That sounds uncomfortable. I wish I could teach you to do what I do. I'm not sure how well it'd work.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 01:22 am (UTC)

[To do what?]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 01:34 am (UTC)

[To figure myself out. I do more than editing my Slayer instincts, I would also never find myself unsure how I felt about something as long as I had a few minutes and a notebook.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 01:55 am (UTC)

[I think I'm suspending emotional processing until he's here for good.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 01:56 am (UTC)

Juliet nuzzles his shoulder. [Soon.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 02:01 am (UTC)

He closes his eyes and hugs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 02:02 am (UTC)

Shell Bell lands, skidding in the sand. "Home?" she asks.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 02:02 am (UTC)

"Home," agrees Juliet, not unhugging.

Back in the brick building they go.

a profusion of whistles

self_composed

"I didn't wind up interacting directly with Micaiah much," says Stella, after returning home from a certain visit. "Does he deviate from template significantly? He didn't have wings, so I imagine it was by less than Angela deviates from my template."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 12:04 am (UTC)

"He's—different," says Alice. "I dunno how different. More different than me or the Joker. He's still us, but he's... I don't know, happier? Maybe that's the wrong word. He's been happier, for longer. He's had it better than we ever did."

self_composed
2013-02-15 12:05 am (UTC)

"How'd that happen, or wasn't there much swapping of life histories?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 12:12 am (UTC)

"He ran away from home way early. Like, when he was ten or so. And he fell in with these people called the Edori who're like... an entire society of me. They go wherever they want and fuck whoever they want and have fun and love each other."

self_composed
2013-02-15 12:13 am (UTC)

"An entire society of you," repeats Bella. "Well, that certainly sounds... friendly."
Edited 2013-02-15 00:14 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 12:15 am (UTC)

"They are! I'm pretty sure he's had more sex than I have, and I used to be a whore!"

self_composed
2013-02-15 12:16 am (UTC)

Bella bursts out laughing. "Oh wow. Okay then. Angela seems so repressed I don't think she'd have been so comfortable with a standard-issue Whistle, anyway, but maybe a happier one with a fitting cultural background she already had a chance to learn about is close enough to work."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 12:20 am (UTC)

"And he steals stuff, but he's trying to stop 'cause she doesn't like it. He's never killed anybody. I don't think he even would," says Alice, like it's almost inconceivable. "Well, if he really had to, probably."

self_composed
2013-02-15 12:22 am (UTC)

"Huh. So I guess there's a... Whistle spectrum, with him on one end labeled "benign" and the Joker on the other. I'm not sure how to order you and Kas in the middle there though. Haven't met him yet."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 12:31 am (UTC)

"Micaiah did. He's between me and the Joker," says Alice. "If you have to line us up like that."

self_composed
2013-02-15 12:32 am (UTC)

"I don't have to, but it's an interesting exercise. What d'you know about Kas secondhand to put him there, then?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 12:33 am (UTC)

"Blew up his parents."

self_composed
2013-02-15 12:37 am (UTC)

"That'd do it, yeah," acknowledges Bella. "I take it Micaiah's are alive and well? If he ran away that young they might not even have gotten caught like your dad eventually did."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 12:38 am (UTC)

"Angela went back and found them. He has a little brother," Alice says, shivering slightly.

self_composed
2013-02-15 12:38 am (UTC)

"Oh yikes. What happened with the little brother?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 12:40 am (UTC)

"They've met. He's... not a me," says Alice. "He's really not a me. The most me thing Micaiah's seen him do is saying thank you to Angela after she said he didn't have to."

self_composed
2013-02-15 12:47 am (UTC)

"But Angela got him out somehow, he's not still there," Bella clarifies.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 01:03 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Yeah, she did."

self_composed
2013-02-15 01:06 am (UTC)

"Good. I was half-worried she'd come up with an explanation for why Jovah must have put him there for a reason or something. She's really very thoroughly religious. It's kind of unnerving."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 01:10 am (UTC)

"If she ever said that, Micaiah would fuck right off," he asserts. "He's still that much of a me."

self_composed
2013-02-15 01:11 am (UTC)

"He took it pretty quietly when she said Jovah didn't want them to have magic powers," Bella says doubtfully.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 01:14 am (UTC)

"Can you seriously not figure out by yourself how those things are different?"

self_composed
2013-02-15 01:30 am (UTC)

"I can figure out how they're different. But we have us some good magic powers. If she cares enough about abused children to find and rescue one she happens to hear about, she must be doing some serious throttling of her natural instincts to not seek the ability to find and rescue more of them besides that."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 02:07 am (UTC)

"...I guess," he says.

self_composed
2013-02-15 02:11 am (UTC)

"I'm still working out a ground rule for that that I can implement on Earth for a Cygnus present and still fall under the only-obviously-evil-people-will-object criterion," says Bella. "Unfortunately, there is enough mainstream controversy about what constitutes child abuse that I haven't thought of one yet, and I'm not out of diseases to cure." She sighs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 02:12 am (UTC)

"I love you," he says comfortably.

self_composed
2013-02-15 02:14 am (UTC)

"I love you too," she replies, pressing a kiss to his temple.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-15 02:20 am (UTC)

It is now snuggle time.

self_composed
2013-02-15 02:21 am (UTC)

When is it ever not snuggle time, really?

It's a few days before Bella finds the door to Milliways again. Since she can always stick her head out and fetch anyone she wants to introduce to anyone else in there, she thinks nothing of walking through by herself.
Edited 2013-02-16 21:10 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-16 09:19 pm (UTC)

There's a familiar face sitting by the Window, building a house of cards and humming to himself.

He has a small fluffy white fox with enormous ears perched on his shoulder. Occasionally he reaches up and pets her tiny nose.

self_composed
2013-02-16 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Stella. "You're probably Kas, am I right? And Petaal."

truthwright
2013-02-16 09:21 pm (UTC)

"...Hi!" says Kas. "Yeah, that's us. Which one are you?"

self_composed
2013-02-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

Stella's wearing her crown. It has the star sapphires, although since they are magic star sapphires they radiate in seven directions instead of six. "Guess," she says, tapping it.
Edited 2013-02-16 21:59 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:01 pm (UTC)

"...well, you're probably an empress of something," he says slowly, "but it's not like that narrows it down..."

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I'm Stella," she laughs. "Stars, Empress of the Stars, hence the crown design. Golden's is gold, Shell Bell's is all ocean-themed, your Amariah's entry mentioned something about permanent ice."

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:08 pm (UTC)

Petaal ducks her head behind Kas's so that just the tip of one ear peeks out around his jawline.

"...Nice to meet you, I guess," he says, fiddling with the card in his hands. (Six of hearts.)

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Is Amariah around?" Stella asks.

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Nah, she's at home," he says.

He doesn't seem delighted about this, for some reason. Maybe he just misses her.
Edited 2013-02-16 22:12 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:14 pm (UTC)

"...Are you okay?"

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:16 pm (UTC)

He wrinkles his nose slightly. "Do you care?"

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:17 pm (UTC)

"I asked, didn't I?" She sits down opposite him. "What's wrong?"

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:20 pm (UTC)

Petaal crawls behind Kas's neck to his other shoulder, turns into a glass-winged butterfly, and perches in his hair.

"I'm scared of you," he says softly.

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm not gonna hurt you," she says, sitting back and blinking. "- Is it the coins? Are you scared of Shell Bell now too?"

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should be," he says, dropping the six of hearts into his lap and pressing his hand down on top of the house of cards so the whole thing collapses onto the table. A few stray cards spin off the edge onto the floor.

"But you're the only one who's done the thing I'm afraid of."

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:29 pm (UTC)

"...The asteroid thing?" hazards Stella. "Alice isn't afraid of me. He was mad for a while but not afraid. Micaiah wasn't either. Why are you?"

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Alice is the one who's fucking you, I'm pretty sure that buys him a pass," says Kas. "The worst thing Micaiah's ever done to anybody is steal their wallet and run away laughing."

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Is Amariah tolerating you doing nasty things to people?" asks Stella. "Because that seems unlikely on the face of it. Although I still haven't met her directly."

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:39 pm (UTC)

"I killed a guy for her," Petaal pipes up, with a defiant flutter of her wings. "And I'd do it again."

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:42 pm (UTC)

"And Amariah killed a guy for Shell Bell, Golden killed somebody who hurt her particularly badly, the fact that I've never personally found it necessary doesn't mean I can't see the occasional necessity for people with fewer resources than I have," says Stella. "If Amariah wanted you to kill a guy I'm pretty happy to accept the explanation that this was the best idea."
Edited 2013-02-16 22:43 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm still scared of you," says Kas, looking away. "Maybe I shouldn't be, I don't know, I didn't decide to be, I just am."

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" asks Stella doubtfully.

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he sighs. Petaal flutters her wings again.

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:53 pm (UTC)

"...I'm gonna go up and check the Belltower for updates," says Stella, and she teleports up.

She reads very fast and she's through Amariah's update about "Juliet" in a few seconds and Shell Bell's report about having talked Angela into taking mint powers in a few more. But she flies down the stairs instead of teleporting down again. If he wants to bolt, he can bolt.

truthwright
2013-02-16 10:55 pm (UTC)

Kas and Petaal are at the same table; Petaal is viscacha-shaped on top of the pile of cards, and Kas has his arms around her and his face buried in her fur.

self_composed
2013-02-16 10:58 pm (UTC)

Aww.

Stella eyes him as she walks past to an empty seat at the bar. Why's he scared of her? Amariah's witchy and he's not, Amariah's a version of her, she has every reason to count on Amariah to keep her own Whistle contained. The Joker didn't have one. (That's the problem; the Joker is what happens when a Whistle doesn't encounter a Bella soon enough.)

truthwright
2013-02-16 11:01 pm (UTC)

She could always ask him. He hasn't gone anywhere. He's just over there snuggling his daemon.

self_composed
2013-02-16 11:02 pm (UTC)

Stella orders lemonade. (It still seems rude to conjure food in a sentient bar. She's not hurting for asters.)

She goes and sits back down. "I really have no intention of stranding you on an asteroid," she says.

truthwright
2013-02-16 11:03 pm (UTC)

He scoops Petaal a little closer and rests his chin on top of her head.

"Okay," he says. "I don't get why, though."

self_composed
2013-02-16 11:08 pm (UTC)

"The Joker was killing people. He likes this masked vigilante type and that was how he was getting her attention, was terrorizing their city. And there wasn't - I could have laid down all the ground rules of Mars on that world, and as long as I wasn't sticking around to babysit him and patch holes, he would have found something else to do that would've been distinctly not-benign. I have my own world to babysit, but I found someone from his who let me in to - sequester him. The asylum wasn't going to hold him; he told me as much himself. I did not have another way to keep people around him safe. But I did make sure that he could still visit Milliways in his dreams, from the asteroid, before I left." She shrugs. "You've got a Bell. You don't have to kill anyone to get her attention. She's got enough projects to keep her fascinating for an eternity. And if you go some manner of glitchy and become dangerous anyway, she can take care of it, I don't have to. No one on the Joker's world was going to be able to do anything of the kind. No magic there."

truthwright
2013-02-16 11:15 pm (UTC)

Kas sighs and strokes Petaal's fur.

"Were you sad?" the daemon asks, turning her head to look at Stella.

self_composed
2013-02-16 11:17 pm (UTC)

"At the time? I was pissed off. But that wasn't why. I told him well before I got to the point of being pissed off that this was the plan, if I found a way to his world. It's sad, when I think about it now. He could've been like my Alice if things had been different."

truthwright
2013-02-16 11:18 pm (UTC)

"...And that's what's sad?" says Kas. "It's sad that he's not a different person?"

self_composed
2013-02-16 11:23 pm (UTC)

"It's sad that things turned out that way, that he's not safe to have in a population center, that the masked vigilante he had his eye on never even slightly got what he was about, that he's unhappy about the asteroid, that all the relevant people and events fell together this way and not some in happier configuration," says Stella. "Maybe that adds up to it being sad that he's not a different person. The multiverse doesn't have to be fair. Quite possibly some people are just net sad, net incompatible with others being happy, net doomed to leave their environments less pleasant than they were. The people the Joker killed don't get to be anyone anymore because they are dead."

truthwright
2013-02-16 11:29 pm (UTC)

"He'd be just fine in a population center of other Jokers," says Kas. "He's a sweetheart to us."

self_composed
2013-02-16 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, well, the one time Alice tried to visit him he got trapped in his mindscape, I thought Alice was dead, and I ultimately had to mount a hazardous rescue mission," scowls Stella. "Maybe one day if enough Whistles collect here I'll force the door for you all and you can all have a party on the asteroid or something. But he was not born in a population center of people just like himself. He was terrorizing ordinary people whose only mistake was living in a city that attracts people who like to take it apart."

truthwright
2013-02-16 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Who're you pissed off at?" he asks quietly.

self_composed
2013-02-16 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Human psychology." She sighs.

truthwright
2013-02-16 11:45 pm (UTC)

He smiles crookedly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

self_composed
2013-02-16 11:50 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "Can you think of a place to put the Joker where he'd be happier and not dangerous? I can force the door, I've done it before. I guess I could see if he wants to go Micaiah's route and follow the Edori, Alice said they sounded like an entire society of Whistles and then Angela would be around and she's got coins now, if that turned out to be a bad idea... I'm not out to punish him. That's just not what I'm about. I just don't prioritize his comfort over anyone else's life."

truthwright
2013-02-16 11:56 pm (UTC)

"There's nowhere better than dead you can put any of us where we won't be dangerous," he says. "Unless you mean something way different by 'dangerous' than I do."

self_composed
2013-02-16 11:57 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean by it?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 12:08 am (UTC)

"Dangerous is something we just are," he says. "We don't have little rulebooks in our heads telling us what we're not allowed to do. We just do what we want, whatever that is. So if you want it to be a rule that we can't hurt anybody, you have to either put us where there's nobody to hurt, or kill us. And being where there's no other people is one of the worst things that could possibly happen to us."
Edited 2013-02-17 00:09 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-17 12:11 am (UTC)

"Whether it's a rule doesn't matter. What matters is that it doesn't happen."

truthwright
2013-02-17 12:15 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna live forever," says Kas. "Of course I'm gonna hurt somebody someday. I won't even have to mean to. There's just too much of forever for it not to happen."

self_composed
2013-02-17 12:19 am (UTC)

Stella triangles away a burgeoning headache. "The it that has to not happen is not all forms of hurting all people forever. It's hurting people who ought not to be hurt. I don't care that you blew up your parents or that Golden set the woman who mind-raped her daughter on fire or that Amariah assassinated the president of Panem. Those people were not innocent. Would I slightly prefer it if, say, Golden had had the ability to strand the relevant mind-rapist with her mate somewhere? Sure, but she didn't, so execution was reasonable."

truthwright
2013-02-17 12:33 am (UTC)

"Yeah, and my sweetie killed the guy who was torturing Path," says Kas, hugging Petaal briefly. "I don't mean that stuff, I know you're okay with that."

Petaal turns into a glass-winged butterfly again and perches on the back of his hand, which he keeps still on the table.

"I mean in all of forever, I know someday I'm gonna do something that you, that Amariah, wouldn't like. Because I forget, or I'm not thinking, or I think she'd be fine with it but I'm wrong because I don't have the rulebook and I can't ask the alethiometer because it can't look in her head. Or even just by accident. And I'll be sorry after, because I love her and I don't want her upset, but I'll still have done it."

self_composed
2013-02-17 12:37 am (UTC)

"If I meet her, I'll mint her and give her starter coins, and it's a reasonable bet that she'll start reading your mind, which should help," says Stella.

truthwright
2013-02-17 12:40 am (UTC)

"What if we don't want her to?" says Petaal.

self_composed
2013-02-17 12:42 am (UTC)

Blink. "Don't you?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 12:49 am (UTC)

"Sometimes, yeah," says Kas.

"Not all the time," says Petaal.

"Not every minute just to see if we do something we're not allowed."

"We love her, we love her so much, sometimes I want to just curl up in her lap and go to sleep with her hands in my fur, but—"

"—we know what would happen if she tried to make us a,"

"a kept thing."

self_composed
2013-02-17 12:55 am (UTC)

"Well. That sounds like something you should be working out with her, not me," shrugs Stella. "I trust her to have her own world under control."

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:00 am (UTC)

"That's what I mean when I say we're all dangerous, though," he says. "I think."

self_composed
2013-02-17 01:04 am (UTC)

"Alice doesn't live on an asteroid," points out Stella. "I have an emergency mint-gone-rogue containment protocol, which is designed to work on him, but I don't really expect to need it. For him, anyway, there are other mints. There are levels of danger. Anyone can -" She fumbles for an example. "Make a poor driving decision and hit someone with their car. Slightly fewer people will successfully resort to violence to rescue their girlfriend. Neither of those things is a problem. A tiny subset of people blow up hospitals to get the attention of a masked vigilante."

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:09 am (UTC)

"Oh, if you just don't want him blowing up hospitals, put him somewhere there's no Bat," says Petaal. "All the really big showy stuff was for her. And you don't fall in love like that too often."

self_composed
2013-02-17 01:15 am (UTC)

"I'm sure the Bat would be thrilled to learn that the terrorist attacks were all her fault," says Stella. "What do you think would happen if I dropped the Joker off in Angela's world on that continent full of Edori?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:18 am (UTC)

"I don't know," says Kas. "He might like it. He might not. He wouldn't start blowing up Edori."

self_composed
2013-02-17 01:19 am (UTC)

"That's good, because they sound like very friendly people and I would not like to be responsible for their exploding."

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:21 am (UTC)

Kas laughs.

"You're cute," says Petaal.

self_composed
2013-02-17 01:36 am (UTC)

"Thank you."

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:38 am (UTC)

Petaal lets out a butterfly-sized giggle.

self_composed
2013-02-17 01:42 am (UTC)

"Am I still scary?" she asks.

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:44 am (UTC)

"Dunno," says Kas.

Petaal turns herself around until she's facing Stella directly.

self_composed
2013-02-17 01:47 am (UTC)

"Boo?" attempts Stella.

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:49 am (UTC)

Petaal giggles again, fanning her delicate wings.

self_composed
2013-02-17 01:51 am (UTC)

"The daemon thing is very nifty," remarks Stella. "I wonder if I'd have an owl like Amariah's, if I had one."

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:53 am (UTC)

"I bet not," says Petaal. "Not unless you were a witch."

self_composed
2013-02-17 01:55 am (UTC)

"What d'you think I'd have instead, then?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 01:58 am (UTC)

"Path wanted to be a firefly," says Kas. "Or a dragon."

self_composed
2013-02-17 02:07 am (UTC)

"Ooh, a dragon," muses Stella.

truthwright
2013-02-17 02:40 am (UTC)

Petaal turns into one to demonstrate, a tiny round-bellied green-scaled creature with a long thin sweep of a tail and a short arched neck and batlike wings folded neatly to her back.

"Dragons are fun," she asserts.

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:25 am (UTC)

"Looks like," Stella agrees. "I take it all these possibilities for what a daemon winds up as - mean things? Correlate with things?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 02:48 pm (UTC)

"They mean something about who you are," says Petaal. "I never really got that. But I guess that makes sense, because we asked the alethiometer and I'm never gonna settle."

self_composed
2013-02-17 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Do you know what her version of Charlie and Renée have? It doesn't say in our book."

truthwright
2013-02-17 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Her dad's a wolverine," says Petaal. "I don't think she said about her mom."

self_composed
2013-02-17 03:51 pm (UTC)

"A wolverine, huh. It's surprising that your world's wound up so recognizably similar to mine - I'd expect all this daemon-having to affect the course of history very sharply - but then again I suppose similar worlds isn't that much more of a surprise than there being versions of me and Whistles in worlds that are any amount of dissimilar."
Edited 2013-02-17 15:56 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:07 pm (UTC)

"It's weird that you call us Whistles," Kas muses. "I mean, it makes sense from you and it's kind of cute, but it's weird."

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, you don't have name consistency even to the imperfect extent that we do," says Stella. "Alice's middle name is Whistle because I used that for a code name to refer to him anonymously and gender-neutrally when I thought I was having coffee with my nemesis, even though I turned out to be having coffee with my future personnel officer."

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Like I said, it makes sense from you," says Kas.

"But maybe we should name ourselves too," says Petaal.

"If we can all get together and talk about it sometime," says Kas.

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:17 pm (UTC)

"I tried it once to see and I can only force the door to places I've been before," says Stella. "But that still means I could get you and Alice and the Joker all together now, if that's enough for a quorum."

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:22 pm (UTC)

"It'd be a start," he says. "D'you want to step into our world for a bit so you can go there later?"

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Sure. If I step into your world I might as well also contact Amariah so we can meet each other and presumably I can dump some coins on her," says Stella.

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:33 pm (UTC)

Petaal turns into a fennec fox again and stands on the table with her front paws braced on the back of Kas's hand, looking toward Stella.

"I want to touch you," she says suddenly.

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:34 pm (UTC)

Stella blinks.

"Isn't that - some kind of big deal that I don't fully understand? Amariah was very all-capsy about it in her entry. What does it do?"
Edited 2013-02-17 16:35 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:38 pm (UTC)

"It's the worst thing in the world with the wrong person," says Kas.

"Or the best thing in the world with the right one," says Petaal.

"But for us, not for you. For you it's just..." He shrugs.

"Special," says Petaal. "You know it's something special. Something important for us. It feels like that."

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:39 pm (UTC)

"...You were unclear about whether I still scare you," Stella says.

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Petaal.

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Mightn't that be relevant to whether it's the worst thing or not?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I want to anyway," says Petaal.

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:45 pm (UTC)

"...Okay. Do you need me to break it off if you seize up, or anything...?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

Petaal nods her small fuzzy head.

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Stella places her hands flat on the table and holds perfectly still.

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:50 pm (UTC)

Petaal climbs forward over Kas's hand, leans down, and touches her nose to Stella's fingertip.

Kas inhales audibly.

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay?" asks Stella.

(It feels like mindreading - the deeper kind, the emotion-blob-poking kind. It isn't. She has no new information. But it feels like that.)

truthwright
2013-02-17 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Petaal declares, and bumps her nose against Stella's fingers a few more times. "You can pet me if you want," she adds.

Kas is smiling.

self_composed
2013-02-17 04:59 pm (UTC)

Stella pets her very gently. "Feels like mindreading," she remarks aloud.

truthwright
2013-02-17 05:00 pm (UTC)

Petaal decides she is feeling cuddly enough to be a viscacha.

Floof!

"Yeah, Amariah kinda said that too," says Kas.

self_composed
2013-02-17 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Does she know what mindreading feels like or is it that obvious a comparison?" Stella's still gentle with Petaal, after a startled flinch at the shift under her hand; she doesn't know much about how this works and is erring on the side of caution.

truthwright
2013-02-17 05:05 pm (UTC)

"It's that obvious," says Petaal, closing her eyes and making happy little hm-hm noises.

self_composed
2013-02-17 05:06 pm (UTC)

"- Does she let you touch Pathalan?"

This wouldn't startle her overwhelmingly. But it would be an interesting piece of information about Amariah.

truthwright
2013-02-17 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Kas.

"After I killed that guy for her," says Petaal.

self_composed
2013-02-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Ah." Pet pet. So soft.

truthwright
2013-02-17 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says Petaal. "Aren't I cuddly?"

self_composed
2013-02-17 05:16 pm (UTC)

"You are. What kind of creature are you? Or doesn't it really exist, like the dragon?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm a viscacha," she says proudly. "They're really real. And really fluffy."

self_composed
2013-02-17 05:20 pm (UTC)

"No kidding they're fluffy. You're like an overstuffed rabbit plushie crossed with the concept of huggableness."

truthwright
2013-02-17 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Amariah said so too," giggles Petaal.

self_composed
2013-02-17 05:22 pm (UTC)

"We are very much alike," laughs Stella.

truthwright
2013-02-17 06:12 pm (UTC)

"You are!" says Petaal. "You give nice pettings."

self_composed
2013-02-17 06:24 pm (UTC)

"I am glad to hear it." Pet pet pet. "You wanna take me to your world so I can meet Amariah?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Sure," she says contentedly, and nuzzles Stella's hand, and hops back across the table into Kas's arms. He hugs her for a moment, kisses the top of her head, and then stands up.

self_composed
2013-02-17 06:28 pm (UTC)

Stella follows after him. She floats.

truthwright
2013-02-17 06:31 pm (UTC)

Petaal turns into a brightly iridescent snake and loops herself around Kas's shoulders as he opens the door.

self_composed
2013-02-17 06:43 pm (UTC)

Stella steps out into a strip club in Rio, takes in the Portuguese signage with tolerant amusement, and puts Amariah and Kas both on the brainphone network for a conference call. [Hi, Amariah! Guess who!]

dark_light
2013-02-17 06:44 pm (UTC)

[...Stella?] guesses Amariah. [Goddesses all, did Kas bring you back? Oh wow.]

truthwright
2013-02-17 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Hey, count me in here," says Petaal.

self_composed
2013-02-17 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," says Stella, and she includes the daemons on the network too. [Yep! Are you in the middle of anything? Can I come teleport you to the door here in - some Portuguese-speaking country?]

dark_light
2013-02-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

[Yeah - absolutely - I'll tell Metis I'm going to the bathroom - we can talk in Milliways and she won't notice how long I'm gone,] chatters Amariah. There's a silence. [Okay, now.]

self_composed
2013-02-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Hold the door?" Stella asks Kas lightly, and teleportation occurs.

dark_light
2013-02-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

Teleportation and counterpart-hugs!

truthwright
2013-02-17 06:52 pm (UTC)

Kas holds the door.

dark_light
2013-02-17 06:54 pm (UTC)

Amariah gives him a kiss as she sidles through it.

self_composed
2013-02-17 06:54 pm (UTC)

Stella doesn't give him a kiss, but she goes in too.

truthwright
2013-02-17 06:56 pm (UTC)

Kiss! Yay kiss.

Petaal bumps her scaly nose against Amariah's cheek as she passes by, and then does the same to Stella.

dark_light
2013-02-17 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Her too, really?" laughs Amariah.

self_composed
2013-02-17 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I was surprised when she asked earlier, too," says Stella.

truthwright
2013-02-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I like you," says Petaal. "You're okay."

self_composed
2013-02-17 07:39 pm (UTC)

"A truly glowing recommendation. I'll put a plaque up in Moonstone Palace. 'Petaal Thinks I Am Okay.'"

dark_light
2013-02-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

Amariah giggles. "I'm glad you're getting along," she says. "I was a little worried."

truthwright
2013-02-17 07:46 pm (UTC)

"So were we," says Kas. "But it turned out okay."

self_composed
2013-02-17 07:53 pm (UTC)

Stella teleports them all to the Belltower, which is still empty. "You do want to get minted, right?" she asks Amariah. "Angela turned me down. Shell Bell invested a little more effort into convincing her and managed it, but it is apparently worth checking."

dark_light
2013-02-17 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh yeah," says Amariah. "No question."

truthwright
2013-02-17 07:54 pm (UTC)

Kas grins fondly at Amariah.

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Him too?" Stella asks, aiming her thumb at Kas. "...Actually, I have no idea in what way minting will or won't carry over to your daemons."

dark_light
2013-02-17 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Him too, please, and," Amariah shrugs, "we'll test it, shall we?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 08:03 pm (UTC)

"It'll be an adventure!" chirps Petaal.

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Minted," says Stella, pointing at Amariah, "and, minted." She points at Kas. "I wanna know what colors you get."

dark_light
2013-02-17 08:06 pm (UTC)

Path bites Amariah's earlobe.

Amariah gets a square of glowy pine green.

truthwright
2013-02-17 08:09 pm (UTC)

Kas bites his lip, and gets a triangle patterned like Petaal's iridescent orange-pink scales.

"...Weird," he says.

dark_light
2013-02-17 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Really weird," says Amariah, peering at it. "It's not like what she is right now is fundamentally important."

"It looks like we don't make coins when they do," Path chirps, "but we do hurt when they do, so we might be more efficient if we were minted too, unless it doesn't count."

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Testing," shrugs Stella. "It's not like I'm short on hexes." She mints both daemons.

truthwright
2013-02-17 08:19 pm (UTC)

Petaal turns fennec fox and bites Kas's ear.

Kas produces a white square with a faintly furry pattern to its smooth surface, and Petaal generates a similar triangle.

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Trippy," says Stella.

dark_light
2013-02-17 08:20 pm (UTC)

"No kidding," Amariah agrees.

truthwright
2013-02-17 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Soooo," says Petaal, "what's this I hear about an agony beam?"

dark_light
2013-02-17 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh yeah, I should have one of those," says Amariah.

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:26 pm (UTC)

Stella tosses her a hex.

dark_light
2013-02-17 08:26 pm (UTC)

Amariah wishes on it.

"The settings on this thing," she says, "are so obviously designed for this extremely specific purpose. This is, what, fifteen different flavors of getting cut?"

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Alice felt they were important distinctions," shrugs Stella.

truthwright
2013-02-17 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I think we should have sex right now," Petaal declares. "Stella, want in?"

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:31 pm (UTC)

"No thank you. And I'm not sure I wanna stick around if the conversation's going to stall for the next however long, so, real quick -" She makes them each a bandolier, with some starter coins on Amariah's, and quickly private-brainphones the star secret to Amariah. "Kas, Petaal, don't use stars unless Amariah tells you what I just told her and which not even Alice knows, stars are evil, they'll eat you up and not in a good way," she adds aloud. "Maybe I'll come visit you guys later. I can force the door - Amariah, that's a star, it'll go anywhere you've been before, or at least I think that's how it works."
Edited 2013-02-17 20:37 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-17 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh!" exclaims Amariah. "I've been to Juliet's, I can mint Juliet!"

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:39 pm (UTC)

"If it turns out to work every time instead of being Milliways-obstinate, then yeah," laughs Stella. "You guys have fun. I'll write this up and then I'm heading home."

truthwright
2013-02-17 08:40 pm (UTC)

Petaal turns lion and headbutts Amariah gently toward a bedroom door.
Edited 2013-02-17 20:44 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-02-17 08:44 pm (UTC)

Amariah goes where ushered, giggling.

self_composed
2013-02-17 08:45 pm (UTC)

Stella waves, and writes very fast, and leaves.

truthwright
2013-02-17 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Let's make hexes," Petaal says cheerfully, shifting male-angel as soon as there is a closed door between her and Stella.

dark_light
2013-02-17 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Amariah. "Flavor choice?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Something sharp," says Kas.

dark_light
2013-02-17 09:22 pm (UTC)

That leaves fifteen choices. She goes with a metal blade. As though she pulled her dagger and ran him through with it.

Hex is a thousand and up, isn't it?

One thousand triangles of dagger.

truthwright
2013-02-17 09:23 pm (UTC)

Petaal wraps her arms around Amariah and kisses her.

dark_light
2013-02-17 09:31 pm (UTC)

...Some time later, Amariah saunters out of the Belltower to try forcing the door to Juliet's world with a shiny new declawed star that looks like Petaal's angelwing pattern.

Doesn't work.

"Rats," says Path.

truthwright
2013-02-17 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," agrees Petaal.

dark_light
2013-02-17 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh well," Amariah sighs. "Home? Well. This strip club? And a teleportation power?"

truthwright
2013-02-17 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Those," says Kas, grinning a little.

dark_light
2013-02-17 09:46 pm (UTC)

Teleportation powers! Strip club! Teleportation!

this makes it mine

autokinetic

Bella's a clumsy little girl.

She's always injured. She has to tell the school nurse, when she starts preschool, that it's really just her - that it's not Renée (that Renée hurting her is a ridiculous idea). This is when they find out that she's an early-onset mutant: they try to check her story. They can't. They check Renée instead, they find out Renée's harmless, they send them both home and Renée has to give her daughter The Talk about mutant powers a little earlier than most parents.

She falls out of a friend's mother's car. She cracks her skull and loses four baby teeth and needs fifteen stitches in her face, twenty in her arm. They don't think she's got brain damage, but she could've.

She falls down the stairs at school in kindergarten. She tumbles, a mess of limbs she can't control, down the long hard flight of steps, too dizzy to feel the pain until she crashes through a plate glass window. She spends six days in intensive care. She gets a postoperative infection that almost kills her.

Renée and Charlie - who get along fine, despite having been divorced five years now, who always come together when it's about their daughter - start looking into solutions.

The third doctor they try says that there's no therapy for it, no drug, she's not broken, she's just clumsy. She says, as a dismissive aside, that the only assistive device for it has been pulled from the market for safety reasons. The exoskeleton - originally branded, now released to the public domain in case any of the component tech can be salvaged after the original firm went bankrupt on it - makes one's limbs respond effortlessly to one's thoughts. A wearer is better than not-clumsy, they're superhuman, like they have a mutation for grace and precision. The problem is that with that direct an interface, one malicious telepath once took over an early adopter's exoskeleton and killed sixteen people with him.

"But Bells is a mutant too," says Charlie to this doctor. "Telepaths can't touch her."

Bella is quite unaware of all the meetings that take place, all the favors that get called in, and the media circus about that device, back in circulation that her parents effectively shield her from. All she's aware of is that on her next birthday, when she turns five, she gets a kindergartener-sized exoskeleton sized just right for her with enough inserts to keep it just right while she goes on growing.

She puts it on, and her body is hers, and she can do anything.

Including, it turns out, pass the Battle School physical tests when she is six. Assistive devices are allowed, for legal reasons. Most of them won't help for the level of fitness required. Someone in a wheelchair still couldn't pass. But Bella can, she dances through the obstacle course and laughs, because when she's in her exo these are her arms and her legs and they will go where she puts them. When she takes it off she feels - half dead. Like she's made of clay. She has to go without when she washes - water's fine; soap isn't. Peeling back the extensions over her hands is one thing. Going completely copperless in the shower is another. She has to sit in the shower, lest she falls - and she hates it; if allowed she'll become a very grimy little girl.

They only bothered putting her through the physical because she passed the written and the interview. They only bothered because she showed off. She's fierce enough, smart enough, calculating enough.

They put her on a shuttle.

admissions procedures

autokinetic

"Why did you send me this? This kid has lived in monitor zones her whole life and the monitor report file's empty. If she wasn't good enough for the first pass filtration -"

"It's not empty."

"It's not taking up more space on the drive than its filename -"

"There's a line of text in there, open it, why are you complaining to me without even looking?"

"...'Monitoring attempts failed'. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Early-onset mutant. Telepaths can't touch her, neither can monitors, they tried two in case it was a hardware bug and they didn't even know they were installed. She doesn't have any outputs she doesn't control."

"They don't do psych tests good enough to make do without a monitor in monitor zones, so that's disqualifying anyway."

"They don't. She does."

"Talk English."

"She writes. About herself. It's occurred to her that someone could read it - hasn't occurred to her yet that anyone would want to, so we're getting unguarded self-analysis, and she's good at it, one of the psych boys fed her files into a predictive model and it's almost as good as a monitor report, better than a psych test. We know this kid."

"And you want her for Battle School."

"We do."

"What's the rundown on how to approach, then?"

"Bypass the parent, whichever she's with when you grab her - catch her somewhere they're not for at least the first minute. Give her a Battle School syllabus. Ask her if she wants smarter friends. Tell her she can keep the exo before she can worry about it enough to ask. Answer her questions, no bullshit, she doesn't need to be seduced, what we actually have is good for her and she knows what's good for her, she's bored and she's not looking likely to get unbored before she can test into university. She'll talk her folks into it for you, they're wrapped around her finger."

"If only they were all that easy."

"And next time read the damn files before you call me."

"Yessir."

i live in the sky

autokinetic

Bella likes school. She didn't use to like school one bit. Even when Renée was teaching her when she was in kindergarten (Renée refused to hear of skipping her past her opportunity to teach her only daughter), it was all - coloring and stupid kiddy books. She likes Renée. But she likes learning serious stuff more.

She devours classwork. She plays in the practice rooms and the gym. She loiters in the games room, fingers flying under strips of copper as she controls things, tries things. She loses to older kids a few times with each new game, till she figures it out, and then moving at the speed of thought means she's got the advantage. Bullying happens around her, but she's a girl - this shields her from much of it - and even though she adds up to faster and stronger than all of the other kids, she's still wearing an assistive device, she's still a cripple. That's fine with her; it keeps her out of the way of the nastier kids. She's not sure the Battle School people are looking for quite the right ratio of ferocity to other traits.

She plays the fantasy game, until she hears from other people that you can't win the Giant's Drink, and she uses this as an example in her statistics homework and never bothers with it again. What a stupid game.

pythbox
2013-02-18 02:44 am (UTC)

Speaking of the Giant's Drink, here's a kid playing it. He's sitting tucked into a corner of the games room with his desk in his lap, and every time his little avatar gets a new death, he giggles and tries again.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 02:45 am (UTC)

"Are you just trying to see if it repeats itself?" Bella asks, peering over his shoulder.

pythbox
2013-02-18 02:48 am (UTC)

"It's done like fifty and it hasn't yet," he says, grinning. "I wanna see what the next one is!"

His avatar sticks its head into a glass of fizzy pink liquid and takes a sip. The drink froths over, burning away flesh wherever the foam touches, until nothing remains but a tiny skeleton draped over the lip of the glass with pink foam dripping from its clean white bones.

The boy laughs.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 04:24 am (UTC)

Nobody clever enough to be in Battle School needs to be told that the drink game is rigged after doing fifty of it. Bella refrains from telling him anyway. "Why is that funny?" she asks instead, swaying idly with the rhythm in her thoughts.

pythbox
2013-02-18 12:14 pm (UTC)

"Why isn't it?" he counters, glancing up at her to share his wide, cheerful grin. "I just like watching the little guy die horribly!"

autokinetic
2013-02-18 03:13 pm (UTC)

"It's like the game was designed for you, then," says Bella, eyeing the boy with amusement. "Since that's all you can do in this section."

pythbox
2013-02-18 10:35 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"I'm trying to see if there's a pattern to how it kills me," he adds. "But so far there's not."

autokinetic
2013-02-18 10:37 pm (UTC)

"I never heard of one. I quit playing after I heard it's rigged, though, so I haven't seen for myself." She stands on one foot. She does that sometimes. Balancing is easy when you can hold perfectly still solely by wanting to.

pythbox
2013-02-18 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Why'd you quit?" he asks interestedly.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't really think it's that entertaining to watch my avatar die a million times. I'd rather fly around in the practice rooms or read if I have spare time," she shrugs.

pythbox
2013-02-18 10:45 pm (UTC)

"There's a whole rest of the game, though," he says, and he sends his avatar back for another death.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 10:47 pm (UTC)

"The rest of it was all right, but any game where there's a part you just can't live through seems, I dunno, mean-spirited, it'd bother me to keep playing now that I know. I like books and stuff better anyway."

pythbox
2013-02-18 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess," he says. "What kinda books?"

Meanwhile, his avatar is weeping blood into a glass of what appears to be milk. He giggles.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 10:53 pm (UTC)

"The homework stuff. Classic literature - old stuff that's barely English like we talk now. Sometimes stuff on psychology or modern novels if they're highly recommended or whatever else. I finished Utopia this morning. It wasn't very utopic, though, I was disappointed."

pythbox
2013-02-18 10:53 pm (UTC)

"What was it instead?"

autokinetic
2013-02-18 10:58 pm (UTC)

"There was all kinds of pointless stuff in. Like, you had to move houses every ten years. And worse than pointless stuff, like they had slavery. And people weren't allowed to travel, even just within the country, without a passport. I dunno, I think I could do better. But Sir More wrote it a long time ago."

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Weird," the boy concludes, steering his avatar into another grisly death.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm Bella. What's your name?"

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you, Bella!" he says brightly, ignoring the question.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:09 pm (UTC)

"If you won't tell me what to call you it can't be all that nice, can it," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Don't feel bad," he says amicably, "I'm like that with everybody."

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Why?" She clearly expects there to be an answer and for him to know it. She still expects people to be able to read their own minds, even if they can't read anyone else's.

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Because I hate my name and I don't have a better one."

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Then you should make something up. Half the kids in my launch already have nicknames even if you don't count 'Bella'. And we only got here three weeks ago."
Edited 2013-02-18 23:13 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:18 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I haven't found one I like, I guess."

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I guess it's harder if you hate your name that much."

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he agrees. "You can call me whatever you want, anyway, I figure out all right when people are talking to me."

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Dunno." She peers at his avatar as its bones melt and it collapses into a puddle of flesh. "Suicide Watch, maybe, but that's just as long as the name I'm shortening and not very namey."

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:25 pm (UTC)

"It's funny, though," he says cheerfully. "It'll do for now."

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella's done standing on that foot. She stands on the other, then decides that's boring and clings like a koala to an unused pole-shaped game console nearby instead, with one arm and one leg. She doesn't like to be still for too long, not when she can move so perfectly. "How come you don't like your name?"

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Because my dad gave it to me," he explains, as though that's all that needs to be said about it and the rest is obvious from there.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:31 pm (UTC)

"...And he has terrible taste?"

(Bella is six and has not had much time to get all her reading in.)

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:32 pm (UTC)

"And I hate him," he corrects, without strong emotion. It's just a fact about the world.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, at least you don't get leave to go planetside for another five or six years at the soonest?"

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" he says brightly. "My favourite thing about Battle School is the miles of vacuum between me and home."

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:40 pm (UTC)

"I like being busy," says Bella. "I like my parents but I'm always away from one of them anyway, so two isn't so much different."

pythbox
2013-02-18 11:52 pm (UTC)

"What do you like about them?" he asks.

autokinetic
2013-02-18 11:53 pm (UTC)

"They're nice. They love me. They got me my exo," says Bella, letting go of her perch and landing on one toe to twirl. "They're just not all that interesting."

pythbox
2013-02-19 12:04 am (UTC)

"Trade you," he offers, and then snorts. "No way, I like you too much to stick you with mine."
Edited 2013-02-19 00:04 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-19 12:07 am (UTC)

"What do they do?" she asks. The game console next to him - not the fantasy game, some kind of infinite minefield puzzle that won't interfere with her ability to hold a conversation, opens up; she sits and starts skimming her coppered hands over the controls.

pythbox
2013-02-19 12:15 am (UTC)

"What's with the hands?" he asks instead of answering.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 12:18 am (UTC)

"The copper stuff? That's part of my exoskeleton," she says. "I'm sort of a cripple. This gives me superpowers instead. It's not safe for most people but it is for me 'cause telepaths can't touch my brain and take over the exo like they did with that one guy that one time that made it hard for me to get one."
Edited 2013-02-19 00:19 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-19 12:20 am (UTC)

"Oh," he says. "Cool!"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 12:20 am (UTC)

"It is!" The puzzle game has ramped up to match her speed adaptively; she doesn't even look at her hands, just the screen. "I love it. I never take it off if I can avoid it."

pythbox
2013-02-19 12:31 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't either," he laughs. "Are you paralyzed under it, or what?"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 12:34 am (UTC)

"...No. I'm not. I don't have anything you could diagnose. But I'm so clumsy that I almost died. And now I never fall."

She misses a mine that comes from the edge of the screen at blinding speed; her avatar in the puzzle game explodes bloodlessly. She swaps the minefield skin to start looking for hazardous clouds in a three-dimensional skyscape instead and begins again.

pythbox
2013-02-19 12:38 am (UTC)

"That's awesome," says the boy.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 12:41 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I just think and -" She executes an unnecessarily showoffy sequence in the minefield; it hasn't 'figured out' for this iteration that she's faster than it is, yet. "I move. It was way easier for me to adjust to a battle suit than anyone else in the launch. I could compensate for the stiffness and any flashed parts and learn to move in zero-g without needing special muscle memory for it, I just have to know what to do. Some of them don't think it's fair but if I took off the exo it wouldn't be fair, either."

pythbox
2013-02-19 12:47 am (UTC)

"Fun," he says.

This time, for a change, he pours one drink into the other and tries the result. His avatar explodes messily all over the giant's table.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 12:48 am (UTC)

Bella's not looking at his screen, but she hears the sound effect. "There's one that makes you blow up?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-02-19 01:03 am (UTC)

"There is now!" he laughs.

And after a short pause: "Hey, you wanna do me a favour?"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 01:04 am (UTC)

"What is it?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 01:06 am (UTC)

"I wanna see the rest of the room," he says, "but I'm too slow, the Giant keeps squashing me flat. Think you could give it a try?"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 01:09 am (UTC)

"Sure." The mines adapt to her; one blows up her avatar and she abandons the console. "This game doesn't adapt the speed, just the content, if I remember right..."

She takes over his game. She dodges the Giant and looks around.

pythbox
2013-02-19 01:29 am (UTC)

The Giant's table occupies the center of a cavernous log cabin. There is food everywhere: sacks of grain piled against the walls, a whole ham hanging from the ceiling.

It's not easy to maneuver here, but it's possible.

At one corner, two sacks of rice lean together with a gap between them, a natural tunnel just the size of the player avatar. It's an inviting place to hide from the Giant's stomping feet.

'Suicide Watch' looks on with interest.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 01:30 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't duck in right away - she's not having any trouble dodging the giant, so she makes a complete circuit, and then she squirms through to see where the tunnel goes.

pythbox
2013-02-19 01:36 am (UTC)

It's dark under there, but the outline of a knothole in the log wall is just barely visible. That in turn leads to a short, twisting tunnel with grainy wooden walls, and from there the avatar falls into a skyskape of endless drifting clouds in peaceful pastel colours, with the Giant's cabin receding above them until it's nothing but a speck, and then nothing at all.

"Cool," he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 01:36 am (UTC)

"Want the controls back?" Bella offers.

pythbox
2013-02-19 01:37 am (UTC)

"Yeah! Thanks!"

Impulsively, he hugs her.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 01:38 am (UTC)

Bella does what it is normal to do with a hug: she returns it. "You're welcome!"

pythbox
2013-02-19 01:45 am (UTC)

Beaming, he returns to his game.

It's possible to steer his flight to some extent, aiming for specific clouds. Some are denser than others, and turn the whole world pink or blue or green until he gets out of them; some are light and wispy and only veil everything else for a little while.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 01:48 am (UTC)

"I wonder if there's a point to this part or if this is just what happens when you go off the rails," says Bella. She peers over his shoulder. The console to his left opens up. She tries this game too; it turns out to be more her speed than the minefield, with a space station she can arm and armor against little blinking enemy dots. Winning against the first wave of them earns her the right to name her station and save her progress. She calls it "Aegis".

pythbox
2013-02-19 01:53 am (UTC)

"It's fun!" he says gleefully.

When she saves her progress, he glances over. "Athena's shield?"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 01:55 am (UTC)

"Goddess of wisdom, shield," Bella controls her little laser array one handed long enough to tap her head, "my brain - I like the word."

pythbox
2013-02-19 02:00 am (UTC)

"Cool," he says, grinning at her.

In his game, his avatar is slowly morphing from a tiny mouse into a bird, brightly coloured like the clouds but with darker, more vivid shades. It takes him a little while to figure out the new controls, but then he's happily exploring his new environment, circling through the shifting clouds.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 02:02 am (UTC)

Bella's game has moments between waves when she's out of upgrade credits and she glances over at his screen. "It's not even presenting you with obstacles. It's just a sky of pretty colors. It's like a screensaver," she says. "I think I might've just won the game for you and it's a victory screen."

pythbox
2013-02-19 02:04 am (UTC)

He giggles. "I love it!"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 02:08 am (UTC)

"It's even more boring than watching your avatar die fifty times in a row," asserts Bella.

pythbox
2013-02-19 02:16 am (UTC)

"Sure," he shrugs. "To you, maybe."

His avatar's transformation is still not complete. The patterns on his wings are becoming more vivid, more complex; he has a long curling tail of green feathers flowing out behind him and golden talons tucked up against his blue-purple body.

He flies through a pink cloud that's shifting to orange. His next set of feathers grows out fiery red.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 02:18 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs and spends upgrade credits on commerce infrastructure for the Aegis so she can collect more in tariffs and buy shiny armor plating before the next round.

pythbox
2013-02-19 02:27 am (UTC)

His shape is more or less stable now, but he can control the colour distribution by choosing which clouds to fly through. For a while, he shifts schemes, repainting himself in every shade of the rainbow. But when he gets one he really likes—green head, blue body, purple tail, and wings like candle flames shading from blue at the front through yellow and orange to red at the tip of every feather—he starts navigating through the same cycle of colours over and over again, so he can keep it just the way it is.

A path opens up where he doesn't have to fly through any clouds at all. He takes it.

A glitter below him: light on water. An ocean, with a setting sun painting the wavetops red. He circles, now firmly under the multicoloured clouds. There's a cluster of mountains in the distance; an island? He heads that way.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 02:31 am (UTC)

"Oh, stuff," Bella says, as her new spherical defense web takes out a flock of enemies and depletes her electricity bank. She buys a new generator and starts setting up for a trade arrangement to get fuel on the regular; she wasn't expecting the web to be that expensive.

pythbox
2013-02-19 02:43 am (UTC)

"Stuff!" he agrees.

One of the mountains in the range turns out to be an active volcano. As he approaches, it erupts.

He dives into the fountain of fire.

His bird doesn't burn; it rides the lava stream up into the sky, cawing triumphantly.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 02:44 am (UTC)

"Maybe I'll beat mine too, if it's not stupid and rigged after all," she says.

She plays with her space station until she earns another save point, then stops and watches over Suicide Watch's shoulder.

pythbox
2013-02-19 03:09 am (UTC)

The sun dips below the horizon; the lava fountain reaches up as far as the clouds and lights them on fire, burning them away to reveal a skyful of multicoloured stars. Streamers of burning cloud fall into the ocean, leaving coloured streaks on the surface of the water when they finally burn themselves out.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:10 am (UTC)

"And maybe I'll grab some screenshots for desk wallpaper," she adds. "This is pretty."

pythbox
2013-02-19 03:12 am (UTC)

"It is!" he agrees.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:18 am (UTC)

Behind him there's another public desk. She sits at it, swivels the chair so she can look at his without losing hers in her peripheral vision. She logs in as herself (username Bella, password a long string of letters and numbers and symbols produced by keyboard mashing and reproduced by her equivalent of muscle memory) and boots up her game.

She knows where the Giant is; she was playing for a week and a half before finding out it was rigged. She goes through the mousehole, runs her mouse along the avalanche, and starts Giant-dodging, ignoring the drinks. She's seen the room; she goes straight for the tunnel out.

She gets clouds, too, turns into a sort of bird-person hybrid with wing-arms and hands peeping out from the feathers at the ends and a beak curving from her face, and she flies until she has a color scheme she likes (the color of denim, and copper) and then dives.

She doesn't find a volcano.

She finds a village, inhabited by more bird-people in every color.

"Neat," she says, pleased.

pythbox
2013-02-19 03:22 am (UTC)

"Guess it's different for everybody," he says. "Yours is cool too."

The next obvious thing to do is dive under the ocean, so he does. His bird swims a little awkwardly, but soon it adapts to the new environment, trading feathers for fins. It's dark under here, but not too dark to see, and he can chase schools of fish and wrestle with sharks.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:25 am (UTC)

Bella sets about meeting bird-people; they aren't very talkative, and she can't really talk in the game, although she can emote, and can get them to participate if she starts a project and makes their role in it clear. She has them digging a well in the village square when the message free play over takes over the screen.

"Rats, bedtime," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-02-19 03:27 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Nighty-night, Aegis."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:28 am (UTC)

She laughs.

"Night, Suicide Watch."

She paints a path to her launch group and cartwheels all the way there.

i am swift and clever

autokinetic

Bella plays the fantasy game again now - it is less fun than flying, all raw physicality and poise, in the battle room, but it now compares favorably with a decent fraction of books. She plays it in front of her launch and the boys want to know where in the hell this setting came from.

"Go to the Giant's Drink and I'll show you," she says.

She bypasses the Drink for six boys. They drift through the clouds, but they don't find villages, or pretty landscapes - they just find parts of the game they've already been to.

"Don't look at me, that's the same way I got here," says Bella. She's teaching her bird-people the scientific method now, painstakingly, almost comically, by mime and enthusiastic gestures. They're getting it, a little; a pink-and-gray one has put a cup of water in the sun and a similar cup of water in the shade and is staring at them intently.

By the time Bella has been at Battle School for six weeks she has tried all the games in the game room, and most of them (apart from the newly fascinating fantasy game) are now only interesting if someone will play against her. Most people won't. She's got too much of an advantage over the controls, and even at Battle School, among what really is a better crop of brains than kindergarten, it's apparently too much to ask that anyone think faster.

pythbox
2013-02-19 03:45 am (UTC)

Someone walks up behind her while she's playing with her village in a public game room.

"How's the kingdom coming?"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:46 am (UTC)

"We're having some trouble negotiating with the antelope-people who live across the river," says Bella, glancing over her shoulder and smiling at Suicide Watch. "Hi again. How's your 'scape doing?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 03:48 am (UTC)

"I can't die," he says, "it's the weirdest thing. I hugged a giant squid the other day."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:51 am (UTC)

"Maybe it got sick of killing you?" suggests Bella. "I haven't tried dying. Not my speed. I just want to work out something with the antelope-people where we can divert a little river to irrigate all this purple grain the bird-people need without them shooting at my birds every time they show up with shovels."

pythbox
2013-02-19 03:52 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"So what's the antelope-people's problem?"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:55 am (UTC)

"I'm trying to figure that out. So far my guesses are that they think the shovels are weapons or they need the river at its current strength downstream. So I'm sending an expedition downstream, see?" She has drawn a crude map for some attentive birds and is directing them to go thataway. "And I'm getting the blacksmith to make little trowels so they can show the antelopes what they're doing without looking threatening in case that works."

pythbox
2013-02-19 03:57 am (UTC)

"Awesome," says Suicide Watch. He comes closer so he can see her game display.
Edited 2013-02-19 03:57 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:58 am (UTC)

Her expedition appears to get the idea. They set off. She goes and checks on the blacksmith, picks up a new trowel, and nods at him enthusiastically. He nods back and starts making more, and then she goes and checks on the foundation being dug for a bird-person school up the hill. "This is the best game, now," she says happily.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:06 am (UTC)

"What're they digging up over there?" he wonders.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:11 am (UTC)

"Well, they don't know it yet, but I'm going to have them put up a building and then herd them into it for classes, because they all scatter if they get rained on when I try to teach them stuff," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:15 am (UTC)

"Got it all worked out, haven't you," he says admiringly.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:18 am (UTC)

"Yup. These are my bird people and they are going to be educated," says Bella with immense satisfaction.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:18 am (UTC)

He giggles.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:19 am (UTC)

"Eventually I'll work things out with the antelope people and then they will be mine too."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:20 am (UTC)

"Is anybody not gonna be yours?"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:22 am (UTC)

"In the game?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:23 am (UTC)

He just laughs.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:27 am (UTC)

"Well, I might run into a village that I can't get on board, but I don't think the antelopes are those people," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:28 am (UTC)

"What'll you do then?"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:29 am (UTC)

"Depends on what they're like. If they just don't want me in their village I can go around them and leave them alone. If they're mean and they attack my birds - or my antelopes or my whatever - then I get to try classwork in the game, I guess."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:29 am (UTC)

"Fun," he says decisively.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:31 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I mean, they dress it up like a school, but we're glorified child soldiers. I won't be surprised if it lets me absorb like three villages and then throws one at me that is inimical to their survival. Bug-people," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:32 am (UTC)

"Too obvious," he says thoughtfully. "This is paradise. If it tries to trip you up, it'll be with something really vicious."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:37 am (UTC)

"Maybe. It knows I don't mind ragequitting, though," she snorts. "Or it should. It's just a game, if it's not fun I'll stop."

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:39 am (UTC)

Suicide Watch nods acknowledgment of this deep wisdom and signs on to the game at an adjacent desk.

His bird-fish is deep underwater, encountering fantastical creatures in the murky depths. He swims lazily toward the surface.
Edited 2013-02-19 04:40 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:42 am (UTC)

"I wonder if there's a way to do this in multiplayer," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:44 am (UTC)

"That'd be fun," he says immediately. "Maybe I could borrow your controls and screw around a little. Your bird people will think their new goddess has a personality disorder."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:45 am (UTC)

"I don't wanna share my avatar," she says. "Especially not if it confuses my birds. I like my birds." (Her avatar hugs the nearest bird, which tolerates this with good grace.)

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:46 am (UTC)

"Awwww," he says delightedly. "Okay, I won't. But multiplayer's a good idea."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:49 am (UTC)

"I have those," Bella says with dignity.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:51 am (UTC)

"You do!"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:56 am (UTC)

Bella has many projects running concurrently in her bird village, since things go roughly in real time. She checks next on the birds who are learning to make paper. They have managed pulpy ragged-edged beige stuff, which Bella nods at approvingly; she doesn't know how to teach them to make anything smoother and it'll do. She's just about to start showing them how to paint when free play over comes up on her screen.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:56 am (UTC)

"Aww," says Suicide Watch. "See ya!"

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:59 am (UTC)

"Night!" she says, and she logs out and waves and travels back to her barracks in a rather balletic manner.

Bella does her classwork; after a few weeks the teachers have more finely distinguished ability from past training and sorted everyone into their semipermanent class levels and the difficulty ramps up. She flies around in the battle room, leveraging her cheater's exoskeleton to dance in the air like she can on a floor, to shoot straight and dodge beams with artful twists of herself. She notebooks about herself, at least half an hour a day even if nothing special happens. And she plays with her birds, and she works out that the antelopes were just threatened by the shovels and will allow river diversion after seeing mock-work done by nonthreatening trowels, and she builds a bridge between the villages.
Edited 2013-02-19 05:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:06 am (UTC)

One day, while she's playing the game during a free period, a familiar fish comes swimming up the river.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:07 am (UTC)

She laughs; her avatar laughs too, as an afterthought, and she waves. She's not sure if it's him or just the game playing with her, but the reaction's appropriate for either.

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:09 am (UTC)

Suicide Fish waves a fin right back, and leaps over her bridge with a flick of his tail, splashing everyone in range.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:12 am (UTC)

Bella's birds and antelopes shake themselves off and look at her for cues. Her avatar points at the fish and then hugs a nearby antelope: that's my friend.

(She's got other friends, people who'll dance the battleroom with her, even one boy two years older who'll give her a run for her money in the tunnel table game, but none of them have made it into the fantasy game with her. Suicide Fish can be her fantasy game friend.)

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:16 am (UTC)

The fish leaps back over the bridge, higher now. There's much less splash and only a few NPCs get sprinkled.

At the apex of the third leap, his fins unfurl into wings, scales sprouting into feathers: he's a bird again. He circles the bridge once, and then dips his candleflame wings in salute.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:17 am (UTC)

Birds who are not bird-people are not equipped to hug. So Bella just waves again and goes back to what she was doing, which is figuring out how to make crawfish traps.

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:25 am (UTC)

After a minute or so, Suicide Bird lands nearby. He doesn't do much, just watches what she's up to.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:38 am (UTC)

Her avatar can't talk, but she's been working on fine ingame motor control for a while; it's possible to draw in the dirt if you're fast enough. She's fast enough. After she gets a trap set up that she's confident will work, and nods at the birds (they're the ones who'll eat the crayfish; with this food source they'll be able to share some purple grain with the antelopes, who only eat plants) she writes HI SUICIDE in all caps.

pythbox
2013-02-19 12:46 pm (UTC)

He caws a very giggly kind of caw and starts scratching at the dirt next to her message.

After a minute or so of trying and failing to replicate her readable letters, he hops onto SUICIDE, scratches it out with a sweep of his talon, steps neatly to the end of the word, and draws a crude pictogram of a shield. Then he points his beak at the revised message, points his beak at her, and stands next to it, preening.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 03:57 pm (UTC)

There's a laugh-emote. So this is definitely Suicide Watch, not the computer playing tricks on her. Her avatar laughs and nods, and then scratches out all the drawing and crosses the bridge to see how the purple grain mill in the antelope village is coming along.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:00 pm (UTC)

Suicide Bird follows her over, taking to the air again but flying low enough to be visible on her display.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:04 pm (UTC)

The mill is doing fine. It's time to take some antelopes up into the mountains to look for a good pass through the range and see what's on the other side. Suicide Bird can come too.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:06 pm (UTC)

He flies ahead of the expedition, and comes back laugh-emoting.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:11 pm (UTC)

Eventually Bella works out a twisty path that the surefooted antelopes can take without the benefit of arm-wings like the birds. She's already been over the mountains herself, and there weren't any villages within easy flying distance, so she's going to colonize here. (The birds have recently laid a clutch of eggs and almost half the antelopes are pregnant; it's spring.)

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:16 pm (UTC)

Suicide Bird circles the party, then flies ahead again.

Except that in midair, he levels out abruptly and drifts to a slow stop, wings flapping with purely automatic rhythm to keep him hovering above the ground.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:17 pm (UTC)

Bella frowns and waves at him again.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:18 pm (UTC)

No response.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:21 pm (UTC)

Well, she can fly too, she flies up and grabs hold of his avatar and pulls him down so he won't fly into the yonder forever.

His wings stop flapping automatically when she lands them. He just stands there, animated blinking at regular intervals.

And then his colors change. Silver first, all his feathers going at once, and then there's a line of dots down his throat, appearing one at a time.

Red red blue.

Bella has no idea how this is supposed to be happening, but it's clear enough. She logs off and shuts her desk and paints a path.

And she runs.
Edited 2013-02-19 16:25 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:33 pm (UTC)

The path leads her into unfamiliar territory. Unfamiliar and not densely populated. By the time she reaches the end, there's no one around except six yelling older boys and one yelling not-so-older boy.

Three of them have Suicide Watch on the floor while two stand lookout. The sixth and oldest is also on the floor, not visibly marked but screaming in pain loud enough to drown out the younger victim's quieter bawling. No one involved is emitting coherent words.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:39 pm (UTC)

That's a lot of kids.

Bella's faster than them, and while she's not stronger, she does know exactly how hard she can force her hand into something without breaking any bones. Everyone else has to deal with instincts designed for conservatism in the savannah.

She bypasses the lookouts, tumbling in a sudden roll between them and springing up to strike one of the ones issuing the beating in the ear. She can't just haul them away, she's not that strong - but she can hit, she can straightarm that one in the ear hard enough to make his head spin and elbow the other in the nose hard enough to break it and force them back and then stand astride her friend, defiant, facing them all with her hands up and ready.

pythbox
2013-02-19 04:44 pm (UTC)

Her friend curls up tight and weeps softly.

The screams of the oldest boy trail off; he jumps to his feet and points accusingly at Suicide Watch. "He got me!" he yells. "The fucking mutie got me with some kind of fucking mutie torture ray!"

Suicide Watch does nothing to answer this accusation. The other boys draw into a tight knot around their newly risen leader, looking warily at Bella.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Get a teacher, tell it to him, I'll wait," says Bella levelly, not lowering her hands. (There are no female teachers. And fewer than two percent of the Battle School students are girls.) "I'll tell him what I saw, and I'll tell him how I knew to come here, too, how less than a minute ago I know my friend was playing on his desk and you've had him at least that long."

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:01 pm (UTC)

Their leader is still not quite steady on his feet; he hangs back.

But one of the boys who was tormenting Suicide Watch has apparently not had enough yet, because he springs for her.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:03 pm (UTC)

She's faster. She dodges his hands and punches him in the throat. The copper contacts on her knuckles leave little bleeding divots, but most of the damage is from the impact; he's going to have trouble breathing for a minute there. "Anyone else?" she shouts. "You want a six-year-old girl to beat you all up?"
Edited 2013-02-19 17:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:09 pm (UTC)

With a general snarl-and-mutter, the cluster of boys drags its wounded away and leaves them in peace.

Well. Bella might be in peace. Suicide Watch is still in tears.
Edited 2013-02-19 17:09 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:11 pm (UTC)

She crouches beside him. "How bad did they get you? Do you need the infirmary? If you can't walk, I don't think I can carry you but if you took off your uniform I could maybe drag you on it." (She's gotten fairly accustomed to nudity since starting school here; little boys run around naked all the time and this was only funny for five minutes.)

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:19 pm (UTC)

He whimpers and uncurls just far enough to cling gently to her leg.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:20 pm (UTC)

"It's okay. It's okay, they're gone, I scared 'em off, the game told me where you were somehow," says Bella. He can clearly move; he's not bleeding much; he's probably not dying.

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:33 pm (UTC)

He presses his face against her shin, sniffling.

And then does it again, and again, like a kitten who wants to be petted or an animal who doesn't understand how to move around an obstacle.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:34 pm (UTC)

She tries patting his head. "It's okay," she says again. "They're all gone."

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Hurts," he says at last, and he slowly lets go. "Be okay, though."

He looks up at her, and reaches up wincingly to touch her chin, then tucks his hand against his chest again.

"I'm. Think I'm a. Telepath," he says, slowly and with difficulty.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh," she says. Well, she doesn't have to be scared of telepaths, even if the idea is weird to her. "Can you walk? You need to go to the infirmary."

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Lemme try," he says, and starts laboriously climbing to his feet.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:44 pm (UTC)

She helps him up. "You can lean on me if you have to," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-19 05:45 pm (UTC)

He leans on her.

But, with her help, he manages to both stand and walk.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 05:51 pm (UTC)

She paints a path for them to the infirmary (white red white) and takes him there. "Why do you think you're a telepath? What happened?" she murmurs as they go.

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Most of the older guys, if I shit-talk them a little they think it's funny, they leave me alone," he says. "These guys I guess not. They started in on me. And then... it was like I was yelling in his face, but with my mind. Yelling how they were hurting me. But I guess he was too busy screaming to figure it out, because they all piled on me like they thought if they hurt me enough I'd stop."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:06 pm (UTC)

She's got her arm around him; she squeezes a little, not enough to hurt him where he's injured.

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:11 pm (UTC)

He drops his head onto her shoulder briefly.

"Hey, thanks for rescuing me," he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:12 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. Do you have any idea how the game knew to tell me?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:13 pm (UTC)

"You didn't - I don't know, telepath at it?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so," he says. "Pretty sure I didn't."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:15 pm (UTC)

"That's strange."

Here's the infirmary.

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:17 pm (UTC)

"How would you even telepath at the game?" he asks distractedly. "It's not a person, there's nothing there to telepath at."

Oh, the infirmary. Good old infirmary. What a great place to be.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know, there's all kinds of mutant powers. I know you can't telepath at me; I don't know if you can telepath at smart computer programs." She hands him over to a nurse. They don't ask too many questions at the infirmary. He just starts disinfecting Suicide Watch and inspecting him for broken bones.

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:26 pm (UTC)

One cracked rib and a shitload of bruises.

"I can't telepath at you, but I can tell you're there," he says. "I was trying a little, when I was crying too hard to talk, but you're right, I can't do it."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:30 pm (UTC)

"If you can even tell I'm there that's weird. I stumped all the telepaths they threw at me when they first found out I was a mutant," says Bella. "Maybe you're really strong."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I don't feel really strong," he snorts. "I feel like I just got the shit kicked out of me by a bunch of guys twice my age."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:33 pm (UTC)

"I mean mentally strong," she says, petting his hair while the nurse spreads some kind of bruise-healing ointment on Suicide Watch's leg.

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I know what you meant," he laughs, leaning comfortably into her hand.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Your bird just started flying straight like you weren't there anymore, and I went up and pulled it down, and then your color scheme changed and it showed me a path color," she muses. "That's strange."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Weird," he agrees. "Maybe the game was pissed off I'd stopped playing it."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:39 pm (UTC)

"We have to stop playing it all the time. We have schoolwork and battleroom practice and stuff."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:40 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, as much as he can without disturing the nurse's work.

"No idea, then."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:43 pm (UTC)

He gets a needle stick above the cracked rib. They have pretty advanced medicine up there. "I'll write you a note to your launch coordinator to excuse you from the battleroom for four days," the nurse tells Suicide Watch. "You can walk, but no roughhousing or strenuous play."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says blithely.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:45 pm (UTC)

"If you need help again you won't be able to telepath at me, but you could try Qiaochu, he's in my launch and most of my classes and he'd be able to tell me where to go most of the time," suggests Bella. "And he's cool about me being a mutant so I don't think he'll mind you."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:45 pm (UTC)

"...Where is he?" he asks.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Right now? Our barracks, unless he got up to pee."

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Then can we go see him? I don't think I could find him otherwise," he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure." She waits for him to put his uniform back on, then paints a path.

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:56 pm (UTC)

Suicide Watch follows her.

If he's in any pain, he's not letting on. (He is.)

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Do you need to do any more leaning?" she asks anyway.

pythbox
2013-02-19 06:58 pm (UTC)

Immediately: "Yeah."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 06:59 pm (UTC)

She puts her arm around him again. "It's not too far. I got to you in very little time running, it won't be more than a minute or two walking like this."

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably.

Leaning!

autokinetic
2013-02-19 07:08 pm (UTC)

They reach her barracks. She has a top bunk, second from the door on the left, and Qiaochu's diagonally one farther back from her. "Hey Qiaochu," she calls. (He's one of the kids who's resisted nicknames.)

"Hi, Bella," he says. "Who's he?"

"He goes without a name. I call him Suicide Watch. But I just rescued him from some bigger kids, and I want you to take messages from him for me if he needs rescuing again, okay? 'Cause I can't -" She taps her temple - "and you're usually around. Is that cool?"

"Yeah, yeah, I take your messages, I your answering machine," says Qiaochu. He's taken up more Battle School slang than she has. "You owe me, though."

"I owe you," she agrees.

"Suicide Watch?" snickers another boy.

"Sue," suggests a third. "For short."

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:09 pm (UTC)

Sue laughs.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 07:13 pm (UTC)

"You want to go by Sue?" asks Bella, raising an eyebrow.

"Hurray, Bella found a girl friend," snorts the kid who suggested calling him Sue. "They can have tea parties."

"I just beat up twelve-year-olds, I beat up you you say tea parties again," says Bella mildly, dropping into slang for this purpose.

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Sure," giggles Sue. "I Sue, I your girlfriend."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Fine, I braid your hair, no tea parties," says Bella, rolling her eyes not unfondly. "You can find Qiaochu's brain, tell him if you need your girlfriend to come dance on some necks?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, got it," he says cheerfully, and gives Qiaochu's mind a little push. More of a nudge, really, a little mental hey-I'm-here.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 07:30 pm (UTC)

Qiaochu waves hesitantly and goes back to his geometry homework.

"Back soon, hauling Sue home now," Bella tells her launch, and she leads Sue out the door again. "What's your path color?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Grey blue grey."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 07:37 pm (UTC)

Bella paints the path. "Hey, how d'you even log into your desk if you didn't have a nickname before I gave you one?" She doesn't fall into slang naturally, only when she's trying to slot into the social framework more deliberately than average. She drops it when it's just her and Sue.

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:39 pm (UTC)

"I had some nicknames," he says. "My login name is HEYYOU."

autokinetic
2013-02-19 07:39 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles.

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:40 pm (UTC)

Sue giggles back.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 07:50 pm (UTC)

His barracks is kind of far away going as slow as they are, but she gets him there. "You worried about anybody in there, need me to break another nose?"

pythbox
2013-02-19 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says easily. "Thanks."

And he hugs her.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 07:52 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"See you in the game," she says. "If it keeps doing multi, anyway." And she waves and skips off.

these are my villagers

autokinetic

Bella's routine carries on, though her classwork advances and the birds (and antelopes, and later bears and butterflies, so far all ultimately peaceful after she solves their respective puzzles) develop more of a civilization under her direction. (With random changes that Sue sometimes makes to the landscape; she'll log on one day to find that he's put up a dovecote-tower on a mountain or left a stack of firewood where a forest used to be or taught her birds a choreographed dance.) She has basic infrastructure under control by the time she's seven and has to work out how to solve more social issues: the bears don't like how the antelopes smell, the butterfly eggs can't survive in the northerly villages she shortsightedly settles a colony of them in and the birds won't look after them for free, the antelopes want open spaces and object to urban development, the birds seem to think she's theirs because her avatar is one and she found them first and they sometimes get into spats with the others over this, a butterfly is orphaned in a rockslide and starts following her around like she's his mommy. It's challenging and it's surprisingly devoid of war, but she supposes they handle her training for war in other settings besides this one.

They don't see each other outside of the fantasy game, so they don't talk (though she can write words, sometimes, if there's a reason). He goes into an army - Condor to start, he's traded to Meerkat soon after. He's a little before the rest of his launch.

She's a little before the rest of her launch too; she's getting restless playing in the battleroom with people who've had only as much chance to practice as she has. She gets promoted when she's not quite eight yet, and goes to Flame.

pythbox
2013-02-19 09:25 pm (UTC)

The first battle Flame has after Bella's promotion—about a month later—is against Meerkat.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 09:32 pm (UTC)

Bella's toon leader, "Fractal", is assigned to order her toon into a formation. She's still green relative to the vets, exo or no exo, and hasn't impressed her commander or Fractal enough to get special assignments; she's not even the sharpshooter in the middle, protected, she's one of the outside spokes of the shape they form around him. They do aim to have her be the one to push off and "run" along surfaces as called for, but she's locked into the formation, Fractal's orders, and can't do much. She gets her legs flashed early and then she can't even do that, can only link elbows and hold hands with the boys and be in the way of anyone trying to shoot their sharpshooter.

She's pretty sure the games would be more interesting if she were under someone who knew how to use her, but Flame's commander doesn't, he just knows there's enough to her that he's greedy when anyone offers to trade for her. No one's bitten yet. She holds still while the formation maneuvers and shoots and thinks about her birds.

pythbox
2013-02-19 09:44 pm (UTC)

The battle is close, nearly a draw.

Halfway through, an enemy soldier careens directly into their formation, rolls along the legs of a half-frozen outer spoke, flashes the sharpshooter, and then pushes off toward the far wall. The long trajectory is a bad idea; a Flame soldier from another toon manages to flash him on the way.

His incessant giggling might be familiar.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 09:52 pm (UTC)

It is. Bella smiles.

With the sharpshooter out, Fractal orders the formation to burst and attack individually. Bella still has her arms; she can't maneuver much, but she can do some, and she gets two people (one just his firing arm, one enough to disable) before she gets flashed to disability herself and is confined in her suit as though poised to fire for the remaining minutes of the game.

Meerkat wins, by a hair. The victory ritual ensues and there's bowing and Bella accepts good-natured banter from her toonmates about her first battle and how she did all right for a green crippled soldier.

pythbox
2013-02-19 09:56 pm (UTC)

The next time she logs on to the fantasy game, Sue has erected a monument near her original village: crudely carved stone letters, twice as tall as a bird person, that say WHEE!

Several curious bird people are climbing it. One seems to be investigating how the vertical bar of the exclamation mark is floating in the air like that. Another is measuring the height difference between the two Es.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 10:00 pm (UTC)

How is the exclamation point hanging? Inquiring Bella wants to know.

pythbox
2013-02-19 10:03 pm (UTC)

The word behaves as though it is one contiguous object, even though there are gaps between the letters. When one part is pushed hard enough, the whole thing shifts.

On close inspection, it's not a kind of rock that occurs naturally in this region. Or any other that Bella is familiar with.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 10:05 pm (UTC)

Huh. She wonders where he found it. She checks on the ongoing projects in this village and then takes to the air, flying high to look for signs of Sue or landscapes that look like Sue has been at them lately.

pythbox
2013-02-19 10:06 pm (UTC)

Something is on fire in the distance. That's a pretty clear sign.
Edited 2013-02-19 22:07 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-19 10:19 pm (UTC)

Yep. Thataway she goes.

pythbox
2013-02-19 10:30 pm (UTC)

Sue's bird has a bonfire going, past the edge of Bella's explored territory. It's much longer than it is wide, and glowing in the heart of the fire is a fancy curlicued arrow shape, an arrowhead at the end of a series of undulating spirals. He stands to one side, fanning the flames with his wings.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 10:31 pm (UTC)

Bella lands. She waves. Whee she writes in the dirt.

pythbox
2013-02-19 10:33 pm (UTC)

He giggle-caws and takes off.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 10:34 pm (UTC)

She checks to see if there's any chance the fire will spread to her villages; but she doesn't think so, there was a lake on the way if nothing else, and he had to make firebreaks to create the design in the first place. She flies after him, laughing.

pythbox
2013-02-19 10:44 pm (UTC)

He leads her only a short distance, to an uneven ravine with several large chunks taken out of the near edge. The rock is the same stuff from WHEE!. Sue lands, points to it, and starts preening.
Edited 2013-02-19 22:44 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-19 10:45 pm (UTC)

Hmm, this is the rock that floated. Is there a pickaxe or something around?

pythbox
2013-02-19 10:48 pm (UTC)

Nope. Some of the gouge marks around the missing pieces match Sue's talons.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 10:53 pm (UTC)

Bella directs her avatar to scratch at the rocks, although she doesn't have talons, just little claws on the hands that peep out from her wingjoints. Maybe it's porous rock.

pythbox
2013-02-19 10:56 pm (UTC)

Nope.

Sue watches her for a moment, and then reaches over and claws at the rocks. He has to work at it, but he gets another piece sliced off (basketball-sized in comparison to her avatar) and offers it to her.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 10:57 pm (UTC)

She starts playing with the rock. Will it float? Floating rock would be cool.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:00 pm (UTC)

It will not float. It acts pretty much like a rock.

Sue watches her for about thirty seconds, and then takes off again, headed back toward his bonfire.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:01 pm (UTC)

She puts down the rock again; maybe they're related.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:06 pm (UTC)

Sue lands by the fire.

He points a talon at the fire.

He points a talon back toward the place where he got the rock.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:11 pm (UTC)

Oh. You have to bake it.

Kiln :) she writes. Hmm. What could she do with this... First she wants to see how and if he plans to move this big old design. It looks heavy.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:15 pm (UTC)

He caws a laugh.

The fire is dying down; Sue hovers over the embers for a moment, then takes the still-glowing center curl of the arrow in his talons. The head and tail lift with it. It is heavy, but apparently Sue's avatar can fly with heavy things.

He takes it back to that lake she noticed on the way, and drops it in with a hiss and an enormous splash.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:21 pm (UTC)

Hmm, she can't lift things that big. Maybe he'll help. Or maybe she should make lighter things.

She flies back to the nearest village, helps herself to a pickaxe and a chisel, and she goes back to the rock and carves up some pebbles and one flatter, triangle-shaped part out of the rock he carved from the quarry for her. She carries them all to where the bonfire goes and arranges them in a circle.

It's going to be a crown.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:23 pm (UTC)

Sue, meanwhile, waits for the big piece to stop glowing with heat and then hauls it awkwardly out of the lake and sets it up so that it points from the direction of her territory toward the direction of the magic rock. Flat on the ground, to be more readable from the air.

Then he finds Bella.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:24 pm (UTC)

She scratches out kiln and writes fire?

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:26 pm (UTC)

He opens his beak and breathes a little flame.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:28 pm (UTC)

She laughs as her crown-in-the-making catches and then she draws an old analog clock and a question mark.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:32 pm (UTC)

Sue shakes his head, claws a line in the dirt with a blobby circle at the end—a thermometer—slashes a line across it very close to the top, then points at her crown-to-be and draws a sun bursting with rays.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:33 pm (UTC)

She nods, and waits.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:35 pm (UTC)

Sue drops a little more fuel on the fire that's cooking her crown. The small size means it's glowing in only a few minutes.

When it reaches a bright yellow-white colour similar to the way the arrow looked when it was done, he nods several times.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:37 pm (UTC)

She's not sure if her avatar can handle this sort of thing safely. She reaches out with a clawed foot; if she can't walk for a while, at least she'll still be able to fly.

It doesn't hurt her. She picks it up by one of the pebbles and flies to the lake to drop the crown in.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:48 pm (UTC)

Sue helpfully dives after it for her.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:51 pm (UTC)

She waits on the shore. When he offers her her cooled crown, she sets it on her head and peers at her avatar's reflection in the lake and laughs.

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:53 pm (UTC)

He laughs, too, and then he hugs her with his flamelike wings.

autokinetic
2013-02-19 11:55 pm (UTC)

She hugs back, then flies back towards a village of butterflies to see how the chrysalises are doing. She rigged up a cover to put over them made of paper, that keeps the rain off - as long as it's replaced after each shower - but still allows sun and air.

(The butterflies now bow to her as she passes. She laughs and hugs the first one that does this.)

pythbox
2013-02-19 11:56 pm (UTC)

Sue wanders off in another direction entirely.

watch me think

autokinetic

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes, it's your unmonitored mutie kid, the one you did all that extra paperwork to get."

"What about her? Isn't she doing well?"

"More than well. But we're not getting psych data on her anymore."

"...Sir?"

"She gave us less than four hours of play with the mind game before she quit, and when she went back, she bypassed the Giant's Drink with a loophole that's supposed to be impossible to reach with her copper thing, you remember? And now it's turned itself into some kind of civilization-building simulation and we have nothing."

"...She's not building a civilization, then?"

"Oh, no, she loves it, she's in there every day teaching animal-people to underwater basket-weave, and the other mutie -"

"There are four known mutants in Battle School, and more who'll manifest after they reach puberty. Sir."

"The telepath kid, the one she rescued from the older children, you got the report about that since you're listed as interested in her."

"Yes, sir."

"The other mutie got into her game. They share a play environment. It's not supposed to happen."

"She did briefly play his login, didn't she? The game would have recognized the speed at the controls as hers. It's clever enough."

"She played six others in her launch group too. The game spat them back into the normal spaces and they've been operating normally since. It put her and the telepath in their own unique, unprecedented environments, and then it fused them together."

"So you don't know how to interpret the results anymore because it's made itself multiplayer and put her in a civ-building sim, that's the problem? I'm not impressed with our psych people anymore if they can't tell anything about her from how she runs a civilization."

"We can make guesses, but they aren't derived from past data the way our usual results are."

"I still don't see why this warrants a meeting, sir. Doesn't she write her notes anymore?"

"She's started doing them in gibberish - don't laugh. We break codes all the time, kiddy ciphers that they sometimes start journaling in are just automatically cracked by computer. This one isn't. Every analysis we run on it shows that she might as well be typing random letters and numbers rhythmically and drawing dots by poking randomly at her screen. There's no consistency day to day or from one ten-minute block to the next."

"I thought something like this might happen eventually. Something happened to her that she's not willing to take the risk of someone reading. Or she knows now that she's getting read, one of the two."

"We know that. We don't understand how to crack it. She's one of yours, figure it out."

"I'm not going to be able to -"

"We'll give you a cryptanalyst of your very own tied up in ribbon."

"Sir, that won't help. It's not going to be a cipher. She doesn't take notes so that you can read them. She doesn't take notes so that anyone can read them. Their primary purpose is to put her thoughts somewhere outside of her brain, and they only need to make sense to her in that format long enough for her to inspect them. If she types an asterisk, it means something to her, and she can hold that correspondence in working memory long enough to serve her purposes, and it will never, ever yield to cryptanalysis. I'm sure it's more comfortable for her to work in English or Stark, easier for her to refer back to past work, but she's apparently decided that - for reasons of content or risk assessment - it's no longer worth the hazard to her mental privacy."

"If we can't get psych data out of her from the game and we can't use her journal -"

"You can get psych data from the game. I don't see how you could fail to get psych data from the game. It gave her a civ-builder. What did she do with it?"

"She built a civilization. I told you."

"What's her friend doing?"

"He's not your concern."

"He's interacting with her game."

"He builds arbitrary things. Sets stuff on fire. Watches procedurally-generated landscape scroll by. Teaches her subjects to dance. Follows her around to see what she does, when they're on a the same time, he helped her make a crown to put on her avatar. We've got other people figuring him out. It's her I'm talking to you about."

"So she didn't, say, slaughter the inhabitants of the civ sim, like half the little psychopaths you collect up here would, she didn't ignore it until the game offered her something else, she spends lots of her free time teaching virtual creatures to make and do things."

"Which is uninformative, which was no problem until she started typing nonsense into her journal."

"Well, if you can't figure out who she is by watching her play princess with game critters, and if she hasn't convinced you that she is who she is in the two years and change you've had her, you could always do something ludicrously old-fashioned."

"What?"

"Talk to her."

"We'll consider it. What's your advice on how to approach her?"

"Don't give her any bullshit."

"You think she's a lie-detector as well as an untelepath?"

"Not especially. I think in the event that she finds out that you're willing to lie to her, she'll become so paranoid that you will never learn anything from her again. She might become unusable."

"Fragile."

"Self-possessed. She respects herself more than eight-year-olds normally do. Did you read what the psych boys generated from her notes?"

"Skimmed it."

"The what do I want, what do I -"

"I remember that, yes."

"If you make it clear that she does not have reliable information, at least from you, the answers to her questions won't be ones you'll like. She's not intrinsically contrary or uncooperative. She doesn't even have an objection to being understood, as long as she knows what's going on. But she's not suited for being a blinkered pawn, either, not in any context that matters to her."

"I don't know why you pretend you work for us. We ask you for pawns and you hand us a queen."

"Someone has to fetch up a few children who aren't sociopaths in training. A little balance."

"She's fallen in with the craziest kid we've ever launched."

"Maybe she'll build him a civilization, too."

watch me dance

autokinetic

Fractal makes commander. Bella doesn't replace him as toon leader - she's only eight and her commander still doesn't know how to use her - but Fractal's replacement, a vet traded in from Platypus who goes by Brighteyes for some reason, does. He spends a chunk of Flame's practice sessions every day putting Bella properly through her paces, and in their battles, he uses her like she was meant to be used: a dancing wildcard, too fast to hit, torpedoing herself into formations with laser precision and shooting from glorious whirling motion with the steadiest arm in school. Bella likes Brighteyes, and he tells her that when he makes commander he'll swap for her if he has to give up six soldiers to do it.

There is an announcement of a rules change: you are not allowed to perform the victory ritual without freezing or disabling all of the enemy.

This rule change is generally attributed to the antics of a Thomas "Sue" Sanderson, who coordinated his toon across the room without commander authorization and won the game before more than four soldiers, total, had been taken out.

It's a month shy of Bella's ninth birthday when Flame and Meerkat once again meet in the battle room.

"Freeze their mutie," Flame's commander tells everyone. "Don't look at me like that, Aegis." (People have occasionally started calling her this; she always picks it as her username or her space station name or whatever she's allowed to christen, and it's started to stick.) "You're not that kind of mutie, but theirs is. He can't do his hivemind shit once he's froze or he'll get iced. That's everyone's priority, clear?"

"Yessir," says each toon leader in unison.

They form up in the corridor.

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:27 am (UTC)

The moment the gates open, ten soldiers come hurtling out of Meerkat's. They form up into a spinning wheel in the air, edge-on to Flame's gate, which tightens as they roll closer until each soldier is moving too fast to be flashed. With their hands occupied by holding them in this crazed formation, none of them can shoot, but there has to be some plan behind the move or why the hell would they be doing it?

Needless to say, the Meerkat mutie is almost certainly among them. But they're all small, and they're moving fast; individuals are hard to pick out.

The rest of Meerkat pours out after them in a more normal order.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 12:40 am (UTC)

There's a Flame formation that was set up to go through first, and it does, it's in everyone else's way, but Flame's commander barks, "Don't engage the wheel, A - Brighteyes, can Aegis take them?"

"I can," says Aegis, "might get flashed first but I can."

"Go," says the commander, and Aegis leaps in one bound from the hall into her element and grabs the corner of a star and pushes off.

She can't, actually, hit anyone in the wheel while it's spinning, there's too much of a lag between hit and freeze, but she can dive through the center of it and kick someone's helmet and shove someone's shoulder, and when the formation explodes, then she can hit them. She twists in the air, pushes off a wall and flies and shoots. And she recognizes a familiar face and shoots him too and his suit goes still.

But she expected them to engage the other Flame formations, and they're not. Everyone in the wheel is specifically after her. A moment after she freezes Sue, two boys come at her from perpendicular angles behind her; one gets her shooting arm and the other hugs her thighs. And - though she often neglects to tell anyone this - it doesn't make her stronger; she can't force them off. A flick of her wrist gets her gun into her other hand - she's effectively ambidextrous in the exo - and she shoots the one who's got her arm before she sees a third Meerkat incoming and gets frozen herself.

She spends the rest of the game floating around, frozen soldier clinging to frozen arm.

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:45 am (UTC)

Through sheer coincidence, Sue bumps into her a few minutes later.

He giggles.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 12:45 am (UTC)

Aegis rolls her eyes.

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:47 am (UTC)

On a whim, he gives her mind a friendly nudge.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 12:56 am (UTC)

She can feel it - she couldn't feel anything they did when she was first tested for telepathic invulnerability, but she can tell that he's there. She can't talk with her helmet clamped down. (Dead soldiers give no suggestions or orders.)

She shouldn't be able to tell he's there. She's supposed to be all locked up in her brain safe from telepaths of every stripe.

They'll take her exo.

She looks at him with unadulterated terror.

pythbox
2013-02-20 12:58 am (UTC)

He looks back with confusion.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 01:00 am (UTC)

She clamps his eyes shut and focuses on her - power, her utterly passive power that never gives her any feedback at all, has never had any moving parts for her to focus on -

The nudge was momentary, gone before she even started trying. But he got in once, and maybe there's some muscle she can flex, some exercise she can do, that will keep him out, that will keep her safe, that will let her limbs go on belonging to her.

They're going to have to talk, and not in mime, either.
Edited 2013-02-20 01:04 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-20 01:19 am (UTC)

Bella's army wins the battle, and it's not quite as close as it was last time these two armies matched up.

Everyone thaws.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 01:20 am (UTC)

"You shouldn't be able to do that," Aegis hisses at Sue as soon as her jaw is free. "They gave me my exo because you shouldn't be able to."

pythbox
2013-02-20 01:26 am (UTC)

"Do what?" he asks, confused. "I did the same thing before, and it didn't connect either time."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 01:28 am (UTC)

"I felt it this time!" She's still being very quiet, though fierce, as the commanders bow to each other. Maybe she can keep the exo if no one finds out. Sue's not planning to possess her body, right? Right?

pythbox
2013-02-20 01:29 am (UTC)

"Maybe your power's getting so you notice stuff," he says. "And I'm just the only mutie around who's tried to touch you."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 01:31 am (UTC)

"It's not supposed to. They could only let me have it because I sat there wondering what was going on while telepaths threw everything they had at me. If you can touch my brain then it's not working and they might take it away and I'll get iced and I'll feel like I'm made of bricks all the time."

pythbox
2013-02-20 01:33 am (UTC)

"Well, then I won't touch your brain," he says, concerned.
Edited 2013-02-20 01:33 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-20 01:34 am (UTC)

"And don't tell anybody that you can either and then everything will be fine."

pythbox
2013-02-20 01:35 am (UTC)

"Okay," he agrees.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:06 am (UTC)

"Okay." Her army's going that way - she follows. She gets patted on the back and Brighteyes berates his second for his own lackluster performance and promotes Aegis to the position.

But she doesn't smile for the rest of the day, and when she has to take a shower in the deserted girls' bathroom, she shivers under the hot water.

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:09 am (UTC)

Next time she signs on to the game, there are no new additions from Sue anywhere in her territory. That's reasonably rare.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:13 am (UTC)

She wonders if the game can tell her where he is in the real world again, actually. If he's in his barracks she'll be out of luck - inter-army fraternizing is frowned on - but if he's somewhere else maybe they can have that conversation in more detail. Even if she's not going to tell anyone, she wants to know the limits of what he can do to her. Even if it means experimenting, it's better than lying awake at night.

She paints colored dots on the ground in the antelopes' village. She points at herself, and then at the orange red red that signifies where sheis, and then she draws a bird (not a bird person, a bird like Sue's avatar) and gestures more broadly at the dots.

The antelopes look at her. She repeats the sequence.

An antelope points at dots, and they aren't Meerkat's brown yellow yellow.

She signs out again and paints a path to there.

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:16 am (UTC)

He's in a public game room, logged on to a public desk, and he's playing the game.

His avatar is hauling boulders around on an island, with a coastline visible in the middle distance.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:18 am (UTC)

"I need to talk to you," she says, coming up behind him and planting her feet. There's a few other kids around. "Alone."

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:19 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says easily, logging off in mid-haul and starting for the door. "Got a place in mind?"

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:22 am (UTC)

"Empty practice battleroom?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:24 am (UTC)

He nods affirmation.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:26 am (UTC)

She paints a path; they go.

In the room, she says: "I need to know what you can do. I'm not spying. I'm not gonna tell Brighteyes or anyone. I just need to know for me."
Edited 2013-02-20 02:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:27 am (UTC)

"...Okay," says Sue. "What do you mean, what I can do?"

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:38 am (UTC)

"To me, with your power, through my shield. I felt something and I'm not supposed to get anything and I have to know what I'm wrong about and how bad."

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:39 am (UTC)

"So... do you want me to try pushing you again?" he asks hesitantly.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:44 am (UTC)

"Tell me what it is first?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:49 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "I call it 'pushing' because it feels like," he lets go of one handhold and reaches out and puts a gentle pressure on her arm, "that, but with my mind. What I was trying in that battle, I wasn't pushing anything at you, I was just... pushing, like high-fiving somebody in the corridor when you walk by. Most people, when I push like that, they feel it, and they can push back if they want. You, it's like I try to push and there's a glass wall—I don't see it until I try, but I can't touch you, I just touch the wall instead."
Edited 2013-02-20 02:50 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:51 am (UTC)

"...But I felt something, there. Were you doing that before? When I rescued you from those boys...?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:52 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "when I was crying, before I said anything, I was shoving like hell on that wall, trying to tell you what was wrong. It didn't budge."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 02:56 am (UTC)

"And I didn't get anything then." She frowns, chewing her lip. "And you felt it the same way both times? Maybe I can just... feel the wall, now, feel it shaking if you push it."

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:58 am (UTC)

"Maybe so," Sue agrees. "You wanna try?"

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:00 am (UTC)

"I guess."

(She doesn't, she's afraid, but she's more afraid of not knowing and being surprised.)

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:00 am (UTC)

He shrugs, and 'pushes'.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:03 am (UTC)

"I can't feel anything this time," she murmurs. "What about on your end?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:04 am (UTC)

"Same as before," he says. "You're a wall. Can't touch you."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:06 am (UTC)

She relaxes fractionally. She closes her eyes and remembers a bird with candle-flame wings, laughing with her, her friend -

"Try again?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:08 am (UTC)

'Nudge'.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:10 am (UTC)

She flinches.

"I can control it," she says. "It's like - you're knocking, but I don't have to listen." She swallows. "But knocking isn't all you do, is it, you have some kind of hivemindy thing, that's why I was supposed to get you first of everything."

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "Okay. You remember I said, when I push at people, they can push back? I call that linking."

His free hand describes a back-and-forth line in the air, connecting two imaginary points.

"I can push stuff—I hit that one guy with pain, mostly, but I don't just yell what I'm feeling at my toon, that'd be stupid. I link them all, and I show them what I'm seeing and how I'm moving, and they show me the same stuff back," his hand now draws the spokes of a wheel, always returning to the same hub, "and then I tell them what I want us to do, and we do it."
Edited 2013-02-20 03:16 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:18 am (UTC)

"That sounds terrifying," says Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:21 am (UTC)

"It's basically talking, but faster," he says with a shrug. "And there's some stuff that doesn't do too good in words—I can have my toon halfway across the room before somebody else would've been done saying 'split, bounce off the north wall, and form up on the east face of that star', because I just push the trajectory and they get it right away."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:25 am (UTC)

"But you could push whatever you wanted once they were linked up. And I bet that bully didn't invite you in..."

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:28 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "I can push whatever I want at anybody who isn't a wall like you. And if I want I can get up in your face and scream nasty things about your mother with my own two lungs." He grins. "Except you'd kick my ass right across the battleroom. That was great, the way you shut me down in that battle."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:30 am (UTC)

"Got froze for it, though," she snickers. "Did you just send the whole toon on an Aegis-hunt or something?" She shakes her head. "But the guy didn't act like you just screamed at him. Him and his friends started it, I don't blame you, but it didn't sound like you were just shouting at him."

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:37 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he says. "Shouting senses is different from shouting words. I've had some of my guys push it to me when they got a bump in practice, just to see, and it's like... I don't feel it like my own body is hurting where they hurt, same as I don't see it like my own eyes are getting what they see, but it still feels like hurt, or looks like seeing. It's just separate from what I'm getting as me."
Edited 2013-02-20 03:44 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:46 am (UTC)

"That sounds so strange. And can you do it to me, or does the wall stop you?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:52 am (UTC)

He shakes his head. "I can't touch you. Never mind pushing senses or concepts, I can't even push nothing at you, I just get wall."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:52 am (UTC)

"Okay." She relaxes. "So you definitely can't possess my exo. And they won't take it and I won't have to be a clay thing all the time."

pythbox
2013-02-20 03:55 am (UTC)

"I couldn't possess your exo any which way," he snorts. "I don't have mind control. I can shout all I want, doesn't make anybody have to do what I say."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:58 am (UTC)

"The problem with the exo is it doesn't need proper mind control for somebody to possess it. Somebody with proper mind control could be just as dangerous using anybody without an exo. They'd still be controlling the body at the speed of thought," says Aegis. "The point of the exo is to be suggestible, that's how it works, that's how that one guy killed sixteen people with someone who had a prototype on. If you could shout at the part of my brain that works it you could move me. But you can't."

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:06 am (UTC)

"...Pretty sure I couldn't," he says. "I'm a weird kind of telepath, I don't go into people's heads."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:09 am (UTC)

"You don't?" she asks. "What's the difference?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:16 am (UTC)

"I've had a telepath talk to me," he says, "when they were figuring out about my power, and it's nothing like getting words pushed to me. It's not even like getting thoughts pushed to me. It's like he just stepped into my head and made the words appear there. The way I do it... like I said, it's separate. What's in my head is still in my head, what's in their head is still in theirs, I'm just linking us up so they're getting some stuff from my head, and if they want they can show me some of their stuff back."
Edited 2013-02-20 04:16 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:18 am (UTC)

"Oh." She turns these pictures over in her head. "All right. Maybe even if there wasn't a wall you couldn't possess the exo. So that's two reasons they won't take it even if they find out, and they won't, so that's three."

She is much more relaxed now.

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:19 am (UTC)

He grins.

"That's good. I don't want them taking your exo. It makes you happy."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:22 am (UTC)

"It makes me alive. I almost died before I had it. You can see the scars a couple places -" She traces a line on her cheek, and another along her wrist. "If the exo goes, I get iced, I go to planetside school someplace, I walk around with a cane maybe or try to do without anything at all, feeling like my arms and legs and hands are cheap rentals, and if I live to to be fifteen it's because I never climb a flight of stairs and I definitely don't fly."

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, and he looks unusually serious. "I know. I don't wanna get iced either. Different reasons, same deal."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:26 am (UTC)

Aegis remembers. She nods.

"I got made toon second," she adds in happier news. (This is not secret; this sort of position is official and it'll appear as a little symbol next to her name in the standings as soon as Brighteyes submits the change.)

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:27 am (UTC)

"Congrats!" he says, all smiles again.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:28 am (UTC)

"It's cause I got you and the last toon second made a stupid mistake," she explains.

pythbox
2013-02-20 02:06 pm (UTC)

"If I had an army with you in it, I'd make you toon leader," he says. "I'd make you lieutenant of however many of my best people were too many for me to link."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 03:16 pm (UTC)

"How many's too many?" asks Aegis. "And Brighteyes says he wants me when he makes commander, too, maybe you get into a bidding war with him and somebody who likes flex maneuvers like Rabbit's commander." She's smirking.

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:11 pm (UTC)

"I can do my whole toon now, I don't know how many more," he says. "Maybe I'll just let 'em have you, so there'll still be somebody out there who can beat me."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Why doesn't your commander have you syncing up as many people as you can, anyway? That's what I'd do if I had an army and you were in it. Everybody except me in a linkup, if they didn't like it they could transfer, that's how useful that is."

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:23 pm (UTC)

"It's the other toon leaders," he explains cheerfully. "One hates muties, one thinks I'm a bugger in disguise, and one's just scared of me 'cause I don't make sense."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:30 pm (UTC)

"They close personal friends of the commander? He let his religious ones turn down battles on whatever Sabbath too?" she snorts. "If you could link me up and I didn't think the teachers'd ice me for it I'd go in a link if I had you in an army that was all mine. Doesn't matter if it's comfy unless uncomfy makes you worse, matters if it wins."

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:34 pm (UTC)

"It wins," he says, grinning. "But there's no point just winning all the time. Losing makes you learn more."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Enh. I like almost losing for that. Best of both worlds," she grins.

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:37 pm (UTC)

He gives her a quizzical look.

"You care?"

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:38 pm (UTC)

"For games? Yeah. If it's the kind of game where winning happens, I mean, not like the minefield where it'll just throw them faster and faster until you die and the question is how long that takes."

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I don't," he says. "I don't even try to win unless I feel like it or there's something in it for me."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Then why were you sending your toon Aegis-hunting?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Because it makes them happy to be useful, and I like my toon."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Huh." She starts flying, idly. (Idly she only looks like a regular soldier in top condition trying as hard as possible, not like magic.)

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:48 pm (UTC)

Sue floats, watching her. It makes him happy just to see her in her element. He smiles.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Commander'll probably chew me out if he finds out I was talking to you," observes Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Same," he says serenely. "I don't care, do you?"

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Might get me bumped down from toon second whatever Brighteyes says. If he's mad enough maybe he trades me to Rabbit instead of asking queen's ransom for it, though. Rabbit could probably use me as good as Brighteyes."

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:53 pm (UTC)

Sue grins. "Wanna let him know, then?"

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Dunno. Might get bumped and not traded. If that happens I just put in for my own transfer, I think. I wonder if he'll find out if I don't tell him."

pythbox
2013-02-20 04:56 pm (UTC)

"There's a dozen ways to make him find out without telling him," says Sue. "If you want."

autokinetic
2013-02-20 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I want. Commander doesn't know what to do with me - except let Brighteyes have me - but he knows other armies want me, he'll cripple anyone who takes one of his trades even if he's mad, then we lose a lot and I lose my aura, you know."

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "Big secret, then. Let's get back to the bird game. I'm building you a castle way downriver, did you see?"

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, a castle," she says, grinning. She pushes off and flips through the air till she's on his side of the room again.

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:04 pm (UTC)

He does a slow launch and hugs her in midair.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:06 pm (UTC)

Hugs are nice.

They are in short supply in Battle School. That was one advantage of Earth, even though nearly everything else is better in the sky.

Hugs.

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:10 pm (UTC)

Hugs are nice. And flying hugs are new and that makes them even nicer. And Aegis is his friend and that makes them even more nicer.

Yes. Hugs.

One of the room's gates opens. A teacher sticks his head in.

"I don't know where you two are supposed to be, but it's not here," he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:12 pm (UTC)

Aegis lets go.

"It's free play," she says. "This room was empty." (Talking to soldiers from other armies is only outright forbidden by the commanders; it's merely discouraged by the teachers.)

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:14 pm (UTC)

He peers at her.

"Aren't you Swan?" he says. "Come with me. You," he waves at Sue, "do whatever you want."

Sue takes a midair bow and holds out his hands to Aegis for a pushoff.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm Swan, yes, sir." She sends Sue spinning and lands neatly on the edge of the door and spins into the corridor. "What is it, sir?" she asks. She doesn't know this teacher, he might be for a more advanced class or a track she's not in...

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, I just know Beri wants you," the teacher shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Is there a path color or are you escorting me, sir?" She punctuates all her sentences to teachers with sir. It placates them and means nothing except you seem to be the sort of person who expects to be sirred.

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:20 pm (UTC)

He keys in the path at the next junction: grey grey grey.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Yessir," says Aegis, and she walks where it leads.

She doesn't shiver. (She never shivers except on purpose. These muscles belong to her, except that there's no contact points on her face and her teeth will chatter if she's chilly enough.) But she thinks she'd shiver if she'd gotten this news in the shower.

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:25 pm (UTC)

The mysterious 'Beri' has an office in a part of the ring Aegis has never been to before. The path leads her right to his door.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:26 pm (UTC)

She knocks. And then stands at attention; it can't hurt.

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:28 pm (UTC)

The door opens.

"Come in," says Beri.

An unremarkable-looking office, containing an unremarkable-looking person in an unremarkable-looking uniform. He could be anybody. No rank insignia, no strongly identifying information or symbols anywhere.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:29 pm (UTC)

"You wanted to see me, sir?" (Even without a visible rank he's some kind of sir; she's not even nine yet.)

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:34 pm (UTC)

The door closes.

"You can sit down."

There's a chair across from his desk; he gestures to it.
Edited 2013-02-20 17:34 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:35 pm (UTC)

Aegis sits. "Can I ask what this is about, sir?"

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Psych profiles are an integral part of student evaluations in the Battle School system," he says. "Can you tell me something you've been doing differently lately that might have affected our ability to get a good profile on you?"

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:39 pm (UTC)

Oh, shit. Play dumb or come clean?

But nobody else notebooks like she does. They can't typically rely on that, can they?

"I'm not sure, sir. I don't know what methods you're using."

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:40 pm (UTC)

He raises his eyebrows.

"Let's hear a guess."
Edited 2013-02-20 17:40 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I think a lot of the other students took batteries of personality tests before they launched, but I was never set those tests, sir. I'm happy to sit them now if you'd like."

pythbox
2013-02-20 05:45 pm (UTC)

"That may not be necessary," he says. "In fact, analysis of the diary function in students' desk accounts is usually a last resort, but in your case it is also the only resort. And now that you have stopped writing your entries in a readable format..." He trails off and shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-02-20 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Ah," says Aegis.

There is a silence, and she says: "Sir, I wrote in English because I was not aware anyone was spending their time deciphering my notes to myself and the - I thought - minor risk that someone would decide to was worth the increased referenceability. If I start writing in English again, my diary will be less useful to me and less useful to you, because I'll know it's being read and I won't be able to work uncensored. But I am happy to take the standard psych tests or whatever the other students are doing, unless what the other students are doing something involving telepathy and that's why it hasn't been used for me before."

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:41 am (UTC)

"What the other students are doing is not an avenue that's open to you," he says. "But we still need to know how you're doing, mentally. You clearly know how you're doing mentally. I don't think it's going to be impossible to work something out here."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:52 am (UTC)

"If you have questions for me about how I'm doing, I can answer them," Aegis volunteers. "I just can't do my own processing in front of readers like that."

pythbox
2013-02-21 01:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose there's any chance you'll tell me why you stopped writing in English," he says dryly.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 03:29 pm (UTC)

Aegis hesitates. She doesn't think they'd ice her for being able to hear Sue "knocking". But she's not sure.

"It's nothing about a change in my underlying psychology," she tries. "Sir."

pythbox
2013-02-21 03:57 pm (UTC)

"So either you only just figured out that someone might be reading your journal, or you've had to do a lot of thinking recently about something you don't want us to know," he says. "And I don't think you only just figured that out."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 03:58 pm (UTC)

"It's nothing about a change in my underlying psychology, sir," she repeats.

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:05 pm (UTC)

He regards her in silence for a few seconds.

"Let's have a broad category," he says. "Is it political, military, or personal?"

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Personal, sir."

(If they don't know, maybe they don't monitor her conversations? Of course, he didn't explain about reading her journal until she'd deflected a few questions about them suddenly having trouble reading her psychology.)

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Then you can keep it. Next question: what do you think of that worldbuilding game?"

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:10 pm (UTC)

"I - didn't know you watched it, sir, but I don't mind if you go on doing that, I'm proud of my little empire. I like the game."

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:13 pm (UTC)

He smiles slightly.

"That game is meant to adapt gameplay to the interests of the particular child. Any theories on why it gave you an empire to build?"

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:16 pm (UTC)

"It's more interesting than what it was doing before," says Aegis. "I stopped playing before because it seemed like - space-filler. Reading was more fun, sir. And then when I found out you could bypass the giant - or at least me and Sue could, it didn't work for anyone else I helped - it got interesting again. Stuff I do lasts now. I know my birds and stuff aren't real people but I like them and I want them to have a nice place to not be real in." She pauses. "But I have no idea how the game knew I'd like that, so maybe it just guessed right on the first try."

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Between you and me," he says, "no one knows how that game makes its guesses. But it's usually right."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Me and Sue are also the only people with the same environment, I think," volunteers Aegis, "even though he doesn't want to do nearly as much with the animal-people, and that makes it more interesting too. And the game showed me where to find him when he was getting bullied a couple years ago. It must be very smart, sir."

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Did it?" he says. "That's interesting. Tell me more about that."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:29 pm (UTC)

"You didn't already know? It wasn't long after he showed up near my first village. Sue's avatar went idle and then the colors on its feathers changed, and it showed a path, and when I went there, he was there, getting beat on by a bunch of twelve-year-olds. There must be a report on this incident somewhere, sir, I took Sue straight to the infirmary and some of the twelve-year-olds probably went there eventually too."

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:36 pm (UTC)

"The report didn't mention the game," he says. "That is interesting."

He smiles thoughtfully.

"What would you think of giving me weekly reports on what the game is doing and why you think it's doing it?"

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:38 pm (UTC)

"...I can do that, if you like, sir," she says. "Does the report mention that I closed my desk and ran straight there as though this were some kind of coincidence?"

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Let's not talk about that report," he says amicably.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:43 pm (UTC)

"All right, sir. When I write my reports on the game how much should I assume you already know about what's been going on and the history preceding it, and how much should I spell out?"

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Assume that I've been watching your progress in the game, but not closely," he says. "Include whatever facts are necessary to support your conclusions, historical or otherwise."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes sir."

pythbox
2013-02-21 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I think that's all for now," he says. "Run along and play."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 04:49 pm (UTC)

Aegis muffles a giggle. She vaults out of her chair, and runs along, and plays.

state of the union

autokinetic

The project to build a dam at the river pass is going well. This was entirely my idea in the first place but I think the game must already have known how dams work - maybe there are beaver-people somewhere I haven't explored yet - because the bears got the idea very quickly. Once I have a dam I'm going to try generating electricity with it and then electric lights. The day/night cycle follows station time so I never see night, but sometimes if I play in the morning I find that something probably related to it being dark happened. There are burnt out candle stubs and stuff around even though they get stung when they get wax from the beehives. (The bears less than everybody so I have them getting the wax and giving it to the other three kinds for other stuff.) So it would be nice if they could have lights without getting stung.

The game didn't come up with anything that new for me this week but since this is the first report I should go farther back than a week. Last week I found an abandoned mine. All the nearby villagers acted surprised when I showed it to them. But it'd been mined before and there were supports and old pickaxes of a different design than the ones the bird blacksmith or the antelope blacksmith make. I think the game wants me to think about the place as having a history even though it's generating it as I go. (Right? I think it's actually generating it as I go.)

Everybody else's fantasy game has characters that talk but for some reason mine doesn't - I mean there's sort of an incomprehensible background chat going on when the villagers talk to each other, they transmit information amongst themselves, but they almost never talk to me, they just mime like I have to and when they talk to each other it's offscreen and quiet. Maybe it's doing this because it'd feel less like I was directing things if they were much better at communicating than I was. As soon as I showed up the first time they've been happy to do what I show them to do; I didn't show up like a refugee or a traveler, I was pretty much right away the bird empress and it didn't take much to get the antelopes and the butterflies and the bears on board too. They don't seem to be able to read what I write, though.

It's about due to give me a new species if the patterns from before hold. I wonder what it'll be. I don't know why it's giving me a bunch of different stuff - no, wait, I do. It's easier to figure out what the problems they have with each other are if they're based on visible stuff instead of invisible cultures a bunch of different groups of just birds could have. It gives me a fair chance at figuring out stuff like how they might not like how each other smell. If they were having religious arguments or something instead I couldn't tell unless they talked a lot more. I think that's why. If my avatar could talk I bet the animal-people would talk too and they'd get more complicated cultures instead of just being all different species.

i'm on fire

autokinetic

Flame's commander graduates. The next guy, promoted in from Salamander, doesn't get along with Brighteyes and trades him away for a girl, making Flame the only army with more than one girl in it. Everyone seems to expect Aegis to have some particular interest in befriending this girl, but she's not even in the same toon or particularly interesting. Aegis's new toon leader (a promoted second from another toon, not her) doesn't know what to do with her, but he's bright enough to know that he doesn't know what to do with her. She retains her nominal toon second position, which means that she takes over if he gets frozen - not often; he prefers defensive maneuvers - and otherwise she dances around alone, achieving higher level Flame goals as a one-girl formation-wrecker. She's good enough at this to sometimes lead opposing armies to decline to use formations at all when they're battling Flame, and then she's a sharpshooter, hiding herself behind human shields and holding her beam on everyone who gets in her sights.

Eventually command changes again. The new guy makes a lot of trades, but keeps Aegis, and makes her a toon leader at last when she's nine and a half. It takes this long for Brighteyes to make good on his promise to try to trade for Aegis, but the new commander knows what she's worth and won't part with her for any price he offers.

Aegis watches Sue in the rosters. He gets an army when he's just barely eleven: Phoenix. He makes a lot of trades too, but not for her. That's okay. She's got a toon, and she teaches them to throw her where she needs to go, to make formations that will stand up to all kinds of busting moves like the ones she knows, to freeze their elbows if they can't hold their arms steady like she can to shoot straight.

Everyone's rapidly terrified at Phoenix's hivemindy mutie kuso.

pythbox
2013-02-21 05:26 pm (UTC)

With good reason.

When he starts out, he only links his toon leaders and seconds, and a few key soldiers from the rest of the army. (Anyone who refuses to link, he trades.) He wins one and loses the other. But that's his first two battles. For the next, he puts half his army under the command of his best toon leader and links the other half, and his half-army of perfectly synchronized soldiers takes the enemy formation apart while he hides among the unlinked command. In the battle after that, he divides his army into ten groups of four, with two linked and two unlinked soldiers each, and with him as their communications hub they conduct a vicious guerrilla campain through the densely packed field of stars.

In his fifth battle as commander, someone gets in a lucky shot that freezes him five minutes in. Rabbit fights his unlinked army to a draw, with both commanders frozen and four damaged-but-not-disabled soldiers remaining to each side.

The hivemindy mutie kuso isn't the only thing they've got going for them.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 05:42 pm (UTC)

Regardless, when Flame's commander gets notice of a battle with Phoenix, putting a stop to the hivemindy mutie kuso is his first priority. He fuses Aegis's toon with another one and has them practice strategies to penetrate all sorts of protections Phoenix's commander might set up around himself; mostly this involves the other toon playing a defensive formation with Nickel pretending to be Sue, and Aegis's toon covering her while she busts it. Sue does have to be physically in the room during a battle, somewhere, and she's the best at recognizing him, even from far away - they all know his face now, but she knows him and how he moves in the battleroom.

Flame's commander knows about Sue being in Aegis's fantasy game environment. "Pull some psychological shit if you can," he tells her.

"Sue barely have psychology," she snorts. "He crazy. Fun crazy but not psychological-shit-works kinda crazy."

"Well, then figure out what his plan is, Aegis, I'm not going to have you friends with an enemy commander playing birds together every day and not try to use it."

Heh. Sue might just tell her if she asked.

"If I can, sir."

She signs on to see if he's there.

pythbox
2013-02-21 05:46 pm (UTC)

He's still working on her castle, far downriver on a small island in the ocean. It's taking him a while, because he insists on doing detail work despite the fact that his avatar isn't really built for it. Rejected stones are forming a pile underwater that will probably be a land bridge to the island by the time he's done.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 05:50 pm (UTC)

She lands there and waves.

pythbox
2013-02-21 05:51 pm (UTC)

He waves back and breathes a streamer of fire into the air.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 05:52 pm (UTC)

Aegis directs her avatar into a reasonable facsimile of the Phoenix army crest; she's not an outright bird, but she can tuck her hands into the feathers of her wings. Then she giggles.

pythbox
2013-02-21 05:54 pm (UTC)

Sue caws a laugh and nods.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:01 pm (UTC)

There are a lot of rocks around. Aegis starts collecting pebbles: forty small ones and one big one. She scatters them on a clear spot on the ground and then picks up her magic-rock crown and waves it around and points at the pebbles: you make your army like this, attached but not contiguous.

pythbox
2013-02-21 06:04 pm (UTC)

He studies the configuration, then nods again.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:05 pm (UTC)

She puts her crown back on and starts moving pebbles around idly. Not asking. But if he feels like telling, he can.

pythbox
2013-02-21 06:15 pm (UTC)

He watches her for a little while.

Then he shoos her away with a wave of his wing and sweeps sixteen of the forty-one pebbles into his best approximation of a neat little square.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:15 pm (UTC)

She tilts her head at it invitingly.

pythbox
2013-02-21 06:19 pm (UTC)

With quick movements of his talons, he gets the other pebbles moving in patterns that more or less track with what he does in the battlefield: coherent shapes made of synchronized individuals, splitting and coaelscing as necessary. His own pebble occupies no special place in all this. The sixteen formed-up soldiers remain where they are.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:21 pm (UTC)

She forms her hand into the universal this is a pretend gun gesture and shoots at one of the not-squared pebbles, then retrieves one from the square and adds it to the swarm, tilting her head again.

pythbox
2013-02-21 06:23 pm (UTC)

He nods, then flicks several more pebbles out of the swarm and replaces them from the formation until it's down to three. Those ones he covers with his talon and presses into the dirt.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

She picks up one of those three when he moves his foot off of them, and taps it against her temple questioningly.

pythbox
2013-02-21 06:26 pm (UTC)

He nods, then touches another of the three and touches his own head and shakes it. No, these soldiers cannot or will not link up.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:28 pm (UTC)

Interesting. She grabs another handful of pebbles and puts them set aside and starts trading them in for those three: why are they still in his army if they won't or can't?

pythbox
2013-02-21 06:30 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:32 pm (UTC)

She stands over by the set aside pebble pile, picks up one of the recalcitrant soldiers, and emotes a disgusted face at it and throws it at him, then tilts her head again: nobody else wants 'em?

pythbox
2013-02-21 06:33 pm (UTC)

He tilts his head from side to side: kind of, more or less.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:35 pm (UTC)

She nods. That's all she can think of how to invite him to tell her.

I AM A SPY :P she writes in the dirt. (Better to tell him now than to fess up later.)

pythbox
2013-02-21 06:38 pm (UTC)

He giggle-caws and nods. Then he hugs her.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 06:39 pm (UTC)

She hugs him back. Fake hugs are still pretty nice.

pythbox
2013-02-21 07:22 pm (UTC)

Mm, fake hugs.

He lets go, waves a wing, and logs out.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 07:31 pm (UTC)

Aegis reports her findings. Her commander wants to know who those three soldiers are, but she doesn't know. "I might be able to pick them out by watching the army move around, but not until we flashed at least a few of the linked ones and he rotated in more to narrow it down."

"Well, what would you do, Aegis?"

"Sue's army's not a slouch even with him out of commission, but the main threat is still the coordinated core of it. We can flash up to thirteen linked guys and he'll just rotate more in before we can actually hurt that core; if we even damage them, he can swap them out for efficiency and leave his less maneuverable ones on their own. Freezing Sue should still be our top priority as an army, but -"

"But?"

"Sir, I don't know if this'd work, but if we don't get Sue right away, I kind of want to try engaging them hand-to-hand, man-to-man, and taking their guns before trying to flash anybody besides Sue. The guns are all the same; they register who's holding them when they fire, not who palmed it out when we suited up. I think they'll try to get the guns back instead of rotating out of the link the way they will if they're flashed, or at least they will for a few minutes. My formbusters can take anybody in Phoenix one-on-one and I can do some emergency training for everybody else on it too except whatever toon you want to assign to take out Sue. We can also work on shooting with both hands, although I don't expect anyone to match me on that in the prep time we have."

"Interesting," says her commander. "I'll give B toon the mutie hunt. You borrow everybody else in practice, you and your toon catch them up on hand-to-hand, anyone slightly ambidextrous you give them a quick primer on shooting two-handed."

"Yes, sir."

"Flame to battleroom! We're practicing!" shouts the commander.

pythbox
2013-02-21 08:04 pm (UTC)

The hour of battle arrives.

Phoenix blasts out of their gate like water from a hose, or fire from a flamethrower. Groups of soldiers form and scatter without discernible pattern, in twos and fours and the occasional eight, scrambling along the walls or cannoning between stars after the initial explosion. Anyone who has a shot at a Flame soldier takes it.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 08:07 pm (UTC)

There are casualties, but the other Flames use their casualties as shields, and as weapons, knocking guns into the air or into their own hands.

Aegis herself is a photon. No one can train a beam on her long enough to shoot unless they are her, and she's not trying to shoot anyone yet, although she does seize a lost gun on one of her bounces from wall to star to star and have it ready in her hand while she kicks other weapons away from their owners. She looks for Sue, so she can shout to B toon's leader...

pythbox
2013-02-21 08:12 pm (UTC)

He's not visible—but there's some shouting coming from that star across the room.

A Flame soldier drifts out from behind it, in clearly uncontrolled flight, yelling and clutching his arm; another drifts out in the opposite direction, frozen.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 08:13 pm (UTC)

Aegis frowns and bounces that way. Is Phoenix still coalescing like a hive mind...?

pythbox
2013-02-21 08:16 pm (UTC)

Yes they are. And several of them try to intercept her flight.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 08:18 pm (UTC)

Well, they can't catch her. She has her guns in her hands; she bounces, she aims for the back of that star, she's faster than B toon, the air is full of lost guns now - she shoots. Is that Sue?

pythbox
2013-02-21 08:20 pm (UTC)

Yes it is, wrestling with a third Flame soldier for control of both their guns, and winning.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 08:26 pm (UTC)

They're entangled enough that if she flashes the Flame soldier's arms, Sue won't be able to move and she'll be able to freeze him at her leisure. She does. Sue's stuck; the guns float off into the air. She lands on the star, clings, flashes both of her pursuers who she's failed to lose her at the same time, one with each gun, and then gets Sue neatly in the back. With that handled, she flips over the edge of the star to help with the cleanup. She doesn't even stop to say you idiot, that was Sue, him we were supposed to shoot not engage. She just gets up speed again, although little enough that she can shoot stationary or slow-moving soldiers from her flight.
Edited 2013-02-21 20:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-21 08:33 pm (UTC)

With Sue out, what's left of his army arranges itself into groups of four and proceeds to be an almighty annoyance to everyone. They're not going to deprive Flame of victory, with their major advantage out of commission and half their guns floating in space, but by damn are they going to make them work for it.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 08:34 pm (UTC)

It's ultimately close. A stray shot that wasn't even aimed at her gets Aegis in the foot, and she's one of six left not completely frozen at the end of the battle; the commander is frozen, so she goes through the enemy's gate as the only mobile toon leader.

When they're forming up to bow and whatnot, she winks at Sue.

pythbox
2013-02-21 08:35 pm (UTC)

He grins back.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 08:42 pm (UTC)

The armies hit the showers, and Flame's ordered to reconvene in an hour for post-battle analysis. Since Flame has two girls in it now and Phoenix has one, and since there are only two girls' bathrooms on the entire station, Aegis is not completely alone when she has to peel off the spiderwebbed copper, first from her legs and then from her torso and then her right arm and then, finally, her left. She does all this as far away from the other girls as she can. Being naked except for her exo is nothing; being naked including her exo makes her feel terribly vulnerable to anyone else even if they're harmless, like she's peeled off all her skin and they could hurt her just by breathing. She heavily, awkwardly soaps herself and rinses away the electronics-eating substance as fast as she can without overbalancing her chair and collapsing on the floor.

The Phoenix girl - did Aegis shoot her? Aegis might have shot her - doesn't seem to want to allow this personal space.

She showers faster - she's not a cripple - and then she's in Aegis's face. "So that's how you do it. They let you cheat, is that it?"

"I - it's a -"

"Water wrecks it?"

It's only soap that will damage the electronics, Aegis could go swimming if there were a pool, but she instantly pretends terror: "Don't put it in the -!"

The Phoenix girl seizes a piece of the exo - left calf section - and holds it under the spray.

"Naoko!" Aegis screams for the other Flame girl. "Get a teacher - run -"

Naoko bolts, and the Phoenix girl slaps Aegis across the face and she lands with a wet smack on the tile.

In theory she is not paralyzed - in theory she can move - but she can't quite remember how to do anything but soap herself, without her exo. She can't remember how to roll away from a kick.

Naoko's not going to be fast enough, Naoko will have to explain to a teacher, Naoko will have to get a teacher to come -

Bird bird bird bird bird Sue Sue Sue Sue Aegis thinks as hard as she can, choking on a scream when the Phoenix girl stands on her stomach and leans.
Edited 2013-02-21 20:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-21 08:56 pm (UTC)

Something bumps gently against the edge of her mind.

There's almost nothing to it: just a feeling of contact, of Sueness, and the automatic, self-evident knowledge of how to push back.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

your soldier's hurting me she pushes, half tentative, half frantic. help

pythbox
2013-02-21 09:15 pm (UTC)

It's instantly obvious who, but he flashes her face queryingly at Aegis just to be sure, at the same time that he gives the soldier in question a tap-on-the-shoulder what-are-you-up-to mind-nudge. And starts running for the girls' showers.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 10:08 pm (UTC)

yes her help

The pressure's been moved from her stomach to her chest now, and she can feel her ribs creaking and she can - not - move -

pythbox
2013-02-21 10:12 pm (UTC)

The soldier he tapped doesn't answer him.

He pushes BACK OFF/STAND DOWN, not angrily or with force to hurt, but intensely and with force to command attention.

To Aegis, he pushes on my way and a summary/reflection of what he sent the soldier.
Edited 2013-02-21 22:13 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-21 10:16 pm (UTC)

Little piece of kuso think she hot shit! She not so hot without her cheat! snaps back the Phoenix girl. She a year older than me but in a fair fight she nothing!

Aegis no longer has the wherewithal to keep up the effortful shield-relaxing mantra of bird bird bird. She can scarcely breathe for the knee on her chest. She can't breathe, she can't move, she might not be alive at all - something's the matter with her eyes now -

pythbox
2013-02-21 10:19 pm (UTC)

You get off her right now or you out my army, he retorts.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

You defending her? Transfer me, I don't give a rat's ass, I got a perfect record except for her, everyone want me!

(This is an exaggeration.)

(Aegis is losing consciousness.)

pythbox
2013-02-21 10:27 pm (UTC)

No shit, I defending her, he says, and pushes location/trajectory: it's going to be about fifteen seconds before he's in the room. You still on her when I get there, I keep you in my army, I freeze you coming out the gate and carry you as a shield.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 10:30 pm (UTC)

Aegis has passed out anyway. The Phoenix girl stands up and away from her, spits, scatters all the exo pieces in the still-running water, grabs a towel, and takes the side exit that won't take her past Sue on his way in. Do what you want.

pythbox
2013-02-21 10:54 pm (UTC)

He pushes the same message to everyone in his army he can link, in two batches of twenty-four and twelve respectively, mostly wordless: Nina caught an enemy soldier in the shower and beat on them because she's a sore loser. Phoenix don't do that shit. Nina is not Phoenix.

He gets back thirty-six affirmations, twenty of which come with a 'where?' or other wordless offer of help. Those soldiers he links, and exchanges locations. One of them can see a teacher down the hall. Sue pushes him a concise summary of the whole shitshow. A few want to know if they should be hunting Nina down, but Sue is very clear with them that any retribution here is going to come straight from him. They can act towards her as their feelings dictate, but if their feelings dictate violence, they are going to be in as much shit with their commander as she is.

All that before he arrives. He turns off the water and kneels by his friend's side, careful not to disturb the pieces of the exo because he has no idea how it works and he doesn't want to be the one to break it. He pings his twenty helpful soldiers to find out if any of them knows first aid. No such luck, although another one finds a teacher, and Sue summarizes for him too.

One more thing.

Who's the other Flame girl? He's seen her before, he's sure. He finds her mind and nudges it.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 10:56 pm (UTC)

Ack! replies Naoko. Oh yikes is this Phoenix's commander your shit of a soldier was getting in Aegis's face I'm trying to find a teacher I can't find one I've knocked on four doors now

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:02 pm (UTC)

Well, now you found me, he sends, with a reassuring undertone of his feelings on the situation: disagrees with his soldier's actions, will shut her down and reprimand her. My not-shit soldiers can find some teachers. Show me what you know, I'll take it from here.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

Naoko sends an equally rushed-and-slurred summary of what she saw before Aegis ordered her to get help.

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:05 pm (UTC)

Got it. Thanks. My soldiers are on it; we'll have a teacher there in no time.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:07 pm (UTC)

Is she okay?

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:08 pm (UTC)

She's gonna be, he says confidently.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:09 pm (UTC)

Okay! Good! Thanks!

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:13 pm (UTC)

No problem.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:14 pm (UTC)

The first teacher to get there might be recognizable from geometry if Sue had ever shown up to geometry. "What happened here?" he asks. "Specifically, how did she fall unconscious? If it was head trauma she can't be moved until the medics get here." He's paging them, meanwhile.

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Didn't see," he says. "It was one of my soldiers, but she ran for it before I got here."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:18 pm (UTC)

"What's the attacker's name?" asks the teacher, still punching instructions into his pager-device. "And yours and - this is Bella Swan, isn't it? That's her exoskeleton over there..."

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, she's Swan. The one who did it is Nina, I don't know the rest."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:23 pm (UTC)

"First name will do to find Nina, but who are you?"

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

"I command Phoenix," he says. "There's not two of me."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:26 pm (UTC)

"All right, Phoenix, and what were you doing in the girls' bathroom?"

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Somebody told me one of my soldiers was in here beating on a cripple," he says impatiently, "and she didn't stand down when I yelled. What else am I gonna do, wait for you to show up? Swan'd be dead."
Edited 2013-02-21 23:37 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:40 pm (UTC)

"No, no, of course you couldn't wait," says the geometry teacher, still tapping his pager. Medics open the door with a stretcher, check Aegis over quickly for breaks, and get her onto it after determining that her neck is fine. They ferry her away. "- As long as I have you here, is there a Thomas Sanderson in your army? There's a page out about him."

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

Sue rolls his eyes.

"What?"

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Is that you? Whoever finds you first is supposed to escort you to Colonel Gupta's office."

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay, let's go," he shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

The geometry teacher escorts Sue to Colonel Gupta's office.

Colonel Gupta says, "Several of Flame's soldiers were physically injured in your battle today."

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:49 pm (UTC)

"We're going to analyze the vids of the battle and determine if there was wrongdoing. Until we've made our decision, you sleep in the brig. Shouldn't be more than one night. The flash suits are supposed to be protective against ordinary hand-to-hand sorts of injuries; you don't put eighty-two kids in a room and tell them to fight and not get anyone hitting each other. But a few people aren't so sure and want to check for evidence that you were using your telepathic abilities on the enemy soldiers to prevent them from defending themselves," he shrugs, "which as you know is against the rules even if you aren't frozen."

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "I just didn't know the flash suits were so bad at their job. Next time I won't hit so hard."

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Then that's what the reviews will turn up, but," Gupta shrugs, "until they're over, brig. It's not lead-lined, so I imagine you'll still be able to do a post analysis with your army."

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

Sue just grins.

autokinetic
2013-02-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Is something funny?" inquires Gupta.

pythbox
2013-02-21 11:59 pm (UTC)

"You said the reviews'll find that, just 'cause it's true?" He affects an innocent look. "You mean you weren't joking?"

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:01 am (UTC)

"At any rate, walk with me." Gupta gets up and leads Sue to the brig.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:02 am (UTC)

He goes along, still laughing.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:03 am (UTC)

Gupta locks him up and leaves him be.

It's about twenty minutes later when Sue feels Aegis's mind groping in his direction again, all birdbirdbird.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:05 am (UTC)

It's like she brightens, going from dim and faded to the shiniest light he can see.

He nudges her again.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:08 am (UTC)

hi. they won't give me my exo back it's not broken but they say they don't want me to move too much and I move around in my sleep when I have it. do they know?!

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:11 am (UTC)

I didn't tell them, he says. I didn't tell anybody.

He shows her what he did tell them, in the same kind of rapid-fire but readable summaries he uses to talk to his soldiers.

Conclusion: as far as he can tell, they don't know.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:13 am (UTC)

maybe naoko's wise to you, maybe she told - they won't let me have it - my chest hurts and I can't move she sends back. but thank you

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:16 am (UTC)

He pushes an image of his bird hugging her bird-person, and the feeling behind it: he likes her, he cares about her, he wants her to get better and fly again.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:24 am (UTC)

I wanna fly again too. why was she so mad? I didn't have anything against her personally, you're supposed to shoot at the other army. oh and the disarming thing was my idea but they weren't supposed to close with you, they were just supposed to shoot you, they must not know what you look like or something.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:26 am (UTC)

I dunno, he says. She talked like you were cheating, but you don't cheat half as bad as we do.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:29 am (UTC)

I guess she's a hypocrite? suggests Aegis with a weak laugh. what's going to happen to her?

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:31 am (UTC)

Didn't ask.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:32 am (UTC)

I mean, if the teachers don't do anything. sometimes they don't. she's your soldier.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:36 am (UTC)

I told her I'd freeze her every battle and use her as a shield, he says cheerfully. Probably won't, though. I'll trade her unless she convinces me she won't pull that shit again.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:39 am (UTC)

I used to try to go without washing for weeks when I first got the exo. now I want to try going without again 'cause I'm scared. maybe I can get Naoko to take a personal combat class but that would only help while I'm in Flame and she is too. maybe I should ask if I can just use the guys' showers. it'd be weird but at least then there'd be more witnesses.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:43 am (UTC)

If you want somebody with personal combat training to guard you while you shower, I can do it, he says loyally.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:45 am (UTC)

only if you're free then. besides, then I'd still need permission to use the boys' showers or you'd need permission to be in the girls' ones.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:47 am (UTC)

He pushes a shorthand shrug.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:48 am (UTC)

I'll ask somebody about shower permissions either way, I guess. and ask Naoko. unfortunately, I tried years ago to figure out a way to have only bits of it off at one time and I ruined a little piece of it in the attempt and now I have to hope I don't grow to be six and a half feet tall and need the extra insert. I probably won't be six and a half feet tall though.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:49 am (UTC)

What, there's not more than one of it?

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:52 am (UTC)

it was only in prototype stages when the project got canned because of that one guy. mine is actually put together out of pieces of a few different ones because they tried not to leave any usable complete sets of pieces in case someone tried them on and got possessed, but they were able to collect enough stuff to make mine. they might be able to get me a handful more inserts if they had to, but my family can't afford to commission more to be made and I'm not sure if the IF would pay for it or not.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:53 am (UTC)

I'll get Mom to pay, he offers. If you need it. She's a sap, she will.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 12:55 am (UTC)

oh - that's nice of you - and of her, but I still shouldn't get soap on it. or any of the other things that will mess it up, but I'm less likely to put peroxide or alcohol on myself and I'm listed as 'allergic' to those for the infirmary.

pythbox
2013-02-22 12:56 am (UTC)

Okay.

autokinetic
2013-02-22 01:02 am (UTC)

they're letting me put it back on now!!! And the bird bird bird dies away in the excitement and she's a wall again.

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:04 am (UTC)

Sue grins to himself.

birdwhistles

autokinetic

It is a known phenomenon that Whistles who are jailed or otherwise confined may have peculiar dreams.

This one seems to have a lady with wings in it.

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:49 am (UTC)

He opens his eyes and can't remember where he is or how he got here. But that's a lady with wings all right. She's very pretty. Looks kind of like Aegis, actually. Maybe it's her mom. Is Aegis's mom an angel? She's never said.

Sue steps in front of the winged lady to get her attention.

"Hey, who're you?" he demands.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 01:50 am (UTC)

She seems to think he looks familiar too.

"...I'm Isabella," she says. "Who are - no, that wouldn't help me, would it? If I'm right, you don't go by your birth name. But what are you called?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:52 am (UTC)

"Sue." He grins. "It's short for Suicide Watch."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 01:54 am (UTC)

"Oh goodness," laughs Isabella. "Who named you that, or did you pick it yourself?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:55 am (UTC)

"My friend Aegis," he says. "Her name's Bella Swan and she looks like you. Are you her mom?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 01:57 am (UTC)

"I - no. I'm not her mother. Her mother and my mother are similar like she and I are similar, though," says Isabella. "...How old are you? I take it you've never been here before?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:00 am (UTC)

"Nope, never," he says cheerfully. "Similar how?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:02 am (UTC)

"This is a weird little restaurant that moves its door around by magic," says Isabella, "and it gets visitors from all kinds of different worlds, and a lot of those worlds have near-copies of some of the same people in them. I'm one of those copies of your friend, I guess, and there are several more of us, and there are several of you, too."
Edited 2013-02-22 02:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:03 am (UTC)

"...There's more of me?" he asks. "Who'd go around making those?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:04 am (UTC)

"Well," says Isabella. "I don't think anyone is setting out to copy you, but - alternates like that do tend to have - similar parents. Are... yours safely out of the picture?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:05 am (UTC)

He looks at her suspiciously.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:06 am (UTC)

"I don't mean to pry. But the version of you from my world left home when he was a little younger than you - I think, you never said how old you are - but the others I've met didn't leave so soon, and I don't think it was good for them."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:07 am (UTC)

"I go to Battle School," he says. "In space. I won't see my dad again until I'm at least sixteen or so and probably by then I'll be able to kill him in my sleep."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:08 am (UTC)

"Ah."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:09 am (UTC)

"I won't," he adds, magnanimously. "Unless he tries to hurt me first. No point otherwise."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:10 am (UTC)

"Perhaps you should avoid seeing him even when you are sixteen," suggests Angela.

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:11 am (UTC)

"I will if I can. But I don't know what's gonna happen," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:17 am (UTC)

"I suppose. You don't have any younger siblings, do you?" Isabella asks anxiously. "The one of you from my world - his name's Micaiah, he's upstairs with another one of your alts - he has a little brother. But he's the only one we know of who does."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:19 am (UTC)

"Nah," he says, shaking his head.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:20 am (UTC)

"Okay. Good. I'd take you up to meet your alts but they're..." She settles on: "Busy. When they're not busy you can meet them. And when my alt is done with her conversation you can meet her too if you like."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:21 am (UTC)

"Busy doing what?" he asks brightly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:23 am (UTC)

"Perhaps you can ask them." She is completely willing to fob this one off on Micaiah and Alice. "I can read Micaiah's mind but I am not doing it right now."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:24 am (UTC)

Sue giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:52 am (UTC)

"You are very cute," Isabella informs him. "But I'm sure you knew that."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:53 am (UTC)

"Not really," he says, still giggling.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 02:57 am (UTC)

"So you already know your version of me, I take it. That's unusual. The others of us Bells - that's what we call ourselves as a group - who have yous at all don't meet you until we're seventeen or so."

pythbox
2013-02-22 02:58 am (UTC)

"We met at Battle School," he says. "Maybe you don't have one of those."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:02 am (UTC)

"My world definitely doesn't. I don't think the others do, but I could be wrong - if they have them, though, they didn't attend."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:04 am (UTC)

"It's where the IF takes all the smartest, viciousest kids in the world to teach them to win wars," he explains.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:05 am (UTC)

"...Viciousest?" (She is not correcting his grammar. They are not even actually speaking the same language.) "And what's the IF?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:07 am (UTC)

"It stands for International Fleet. They're the whole world's army, to defend us against the buggers."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:09 am (UTC)

"...Which are? I really am from another world, Sue, you're going to have to explain a few layers back anything you want me to understand."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:12 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably. "About a hundred years ago, giant bugs tried to invade the planet. We fought them off, they invaded again, we fought them off again, and now we're trying to get ready in time for round three."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:15 am (UTC)

"...Now I'm wondering if my world is a future of one like yours," muses Angela. "Our history says that our ancestors were carried away from a warlike place to settle peacefully and simply on the planet I live on. But there was nothing about giant bugs in particular. Which could mean that my history isn't yours, or that the part about the bugs was omitted."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:16 am (UTC)

"Lucky ancestors," says Sue. "Don't ask me about the history thing. I'm not that kind of psychic."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:17 am (UTC)

"Are you some other kind of psychic?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:18 am (UTC)

"I'm a not-quite-a-telepath," he says serenely. "Why?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:22 am (UTC)

"I don't think any of the other Whistles - that's what we call your template - are psychic. Alice has a power, but it's not a telepathic power. A lot of Bells are born with a power but it's consistent when we have it - and me and one of the others we've met so far just don't."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:24 am (UTC)

"You know lots of me, right?" says Sue. "Is consistent the first word that comes to mind?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:27 am (UTC)

"In some ways? Absolutely. Not in all, of course," laughs Isabella. "So I guess this is one way in which you're inconsistent, along with names and such."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:28 am (UTC)

"...How are we consistent?" he asks interestedly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:34 am (UTC)

"Well," says Angela. "You look the same - Bells mostly do too, but so far we haven't encountered any Whistles who are actually a different species, while half the Bells who are entered into the guestbook in our club room upstairs are not humans. My deviations from template are the most visible, though," she adds, waving a wing. "The parents - are consistent. I don't know how many of you share birth names, because I haven't been so rude as to try to ask for anyone's besides Micaiah's, but there is likely some matching there. You like populated areas." Is that enough to avoid having to conspicuously say I'll tell you when you're older? She hopes so.

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:37 am (UTC)

"I'm a mutie," he says. "Technically that means I'm a different subspecies. Is there anything else?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:38 am (UTC)

"Those of you who appear in worlds with Bells tend to wind up attached to them," she offers. "I'm engaged to mine." (Is that distracting? She hopes that's distracting.)

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:39 am (UTC)

He laughs and spins around with glee.

"That's adorable," he says, and then looks her in the eye with a charming grin. "What're you trying to hide from me?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:41 am (UTC)

"You will most likely be able to figure it out later," she says levelly. "Or perhaps you can get Micaiah or Alice to tell you; they'll know if they'd have liked to be told, I suppose."
Edited 2013-02-22 03:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:47 am (UTC)

"But I wanna know now," he coaxes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:48 am (UTC)

"I imagine they'll be unbusy presently."

She was an incessantly curious child herself. She does not want to answer this question, and she definitely doesn't want to answer followup questions.

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:50 am (UTC)

"Well, can you tell them what the thing is that you're not telling me so I'll be sure they're telling me the right one?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:52 am (UTC)

"I think they will consider it laughably obvious, but if it turns out they don't, I will inform them privately."

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:53 am (UTC)

"Okay," he giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 03:56 am (UTC)

"In the meantime, look, there's Stella all through with her conversation over there - We're all mostly called Isabella or variants of that, but for here, we choose nicknames. Mine is Angela," says Angela. "Stella, look what I found!"

self_composed
2013-02-22 03:57 am (UTC)

"What'd you fi- it's a baby Whistle, oh my word," says Stella.

pythbox
2013-02-22 03:59 am (UTC)

Sue beams at her with maximum cuteness.

self_composed
2013-02-22 04:01 am (UTC)

"Oh my word. Can I hug you?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 04:02 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

Between giggles: "Sure!"

self_composed
2013-02-22 04:03 am (UTC)

She scoops him right up for a hug. "You're so cute, you're a little prepubescent Alice. Where'd you come from, what are you called?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 04:04 am (UTC)

"He's Sue," supplies Angela. "He comes from someplace called Battle School, which is in space, and he's already met a Bell there."

pythbox
2013-02-22 04:06 am (UTC)

"Apparently you guys know two more of me and they're upstairs somewhere but Angela won't tell me what they're doing," he says, with utmost innocence, as he freely and affectionately hugs Stella back.

self_composed
2013-02-22 04:08 am (UTC)

"They can tell you themselves when they're through," says Stella, implacable in spite of snuggles. "If they think that would be a good idea. I can tell Alice to hurry up, if you're impatient, but he might ignore me."

pythbox
2013-02-22 04:10 am (UTC)

"Of course he'll ignore you," snorts Sue.

self_composed
2013-02-22 04:17 am (UTC)

"If I tell him there's an adorable itty-bitty Whistle in Milliways who wants to talk to him? Enh, even odds," says Stella.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 04:18 am (UTC)

"Yes, she didn't mean literally telling him to hurry up," laughs Angela.

self_composed
2013-02-22 06:14 am (UTC)

"Better than even odds, really, he showed up smart quick that time I stuck my head out the door to introduce him to Ghosty."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 06:16 am (UTC)

"Giving direct orders doesn't work well even with typical people, outside a crisis, and especially if the order sounds impatient, but if one wants a Whistle to do something there are certainly ways to make that something likely," says Angela serenely.
Edited 2013-02-22 06:19 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-22 06:20 am (UTC)

"Depends on the something," caveats Stella. "But not keeping an itty-bitty Whistle waiting is a relatively easy something."
Edited 2013-02-22 06:20 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 06:24 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't it be nice if your Bell - Aegis, is that how you pronounced her nickname? - were here too? We could complete a set," says Angela to Sue. "...But come to think of it, I don't remember hearing the door open. How did you find your way here?"

self_composed
2013-02-22 06:25 am (UTC)

"...Angela, I can't pastwatch in here, but - the door didn't open?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 06:25 am (UTC)

"...No. I don't think it did. Unless you've been here hours and just didn't make yourself noticed until now, Sue...?"

self_composed
2013-02-22 06:27 am (UTC)

"Sue, pardon me for what is about to be a rude question please, but are you by any chance locked up or stranded on an asteroid or anything like that right now? Where by right now I mean not at this moment but where you last fell asleep?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 06:28 am (UTC)

"Oh, you think -" Angela cuts off, and she too waits for Sue's reply.

pythbox
2013-02-22 01:04 pm (UTC)

"Huh? Yeah," he says, blinking at Stella. "Why?"
Edited 2013-02-22 13:11 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-22 04:00 pm (UTC)

"There's one of you - not one who has a one of us to match, one we just met on his own - and he doesn't use the door," says Stella. "He just dreams about this place and shows up. I think you're dreaming right now, which is important to have figured out because it means we definitely should not try to visit you. That doesn't go well."

pythbox
2013-02-22 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Why, what happens?" he asks.

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:09 pm (UTC)

"My Alice went for a jaunt in the Joker's mindscape, didn't come home for a week, usually time at home does not pass while you're in Milliways so I thought he was dead, eventually I was able to rescue him but I think if I hadn't been able to force the door or hadn't had Lazarus with me to tell me how to do it he could've been stuck there forever. We now know that forcing the door doesn't always work, because Amariah tried it and got nowhere - and she was trying to go back to a world she'd already seen. None of us have been to yours before at all."

pythbox
2013-02-22 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh." He laughs. "I wonder if you got stuck in my head, if I could push you to Aegis."

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Even if that's something you could do, I don't think I want to be there either. I would be happy to help her in whatever her projects are but I do have an empire to run at home."

pythbox
2013-02-22 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I didn't say I wanted to try it," he snorts.

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Good."

[Hey, Alice, there is a tiny eleven-year-old you down here. He is adorable.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-22 07:13 pm (UTC)

[Awwwwwww,] says Alice.

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:20 pm (UTC)

[He's very curious about what, exactly, you and Micaiah are busy with. We have told him that he should ask you guys and now he's impatient. Can I get an ETA?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-22 07:21 pm (UTC)

[Well, right now we're snuggling,] he says cheerfully. [Give us a minute to throw some clothes on and make out a little.]

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:22 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

"They'll be down in a minute," Stella reports. "And Alice says awwwwwwww."

pythbox
2013-02-22 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I thought you said the rest of me weren't muties," says Sue. "How'd you talk to him?"

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Magic!" says Stella. "Some worlds have it. Mine's one of them. Mutie - is that short for something?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Mutant," he says. "I could talk to the other me too, if I'd met him before or knew where he was."

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Interesting. Is Aegis one too?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I bet we can guess what she does, if she is," says Angela.

pythbox
2013-02-22 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "...Wait, neither of you guys is wearing an exo. Do you not need 'em?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 07:45 pm (UTC)

"...An exo? What's that?"

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:46 pm (UTC)

"We call the power mental opacity and of six four of us so far have had it one way or another... I second the question on the exo? Is that also short for something?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Exoskeleton," Sue explains. "Aegis wears it so her body does what she wants. She says when it's not on it's like she's made of bricks."

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:49 pm (UTC)

"...Is that because she's too used to having it, or did she get dealt a worse helping of clumsy than the rest of us?" Stella wonders. "Until I got magic I couldn't walk across a flat surface without finding something to trip on, but there was no technological solution proposed."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 07:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if I was born less clumsy than the usual Bell or if the wings just help me keep my balance. I've always been able to fly straight, but I'm certainly wobblier than the next angel walking... Amariah's the same way, she's always been better in the air."
Edited 2013-02-22 19:51 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-22 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Aegis flies, too," laughs Sue. "In zero-g. She's great. She's the best soldier in Battle School."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Zero-g," says Angela blankly.

self_composed
2013-02-22 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Remind me to conjure you some physics textbooks," Stella tells her. "So your world's high-tech enough to give accident-prone kids nifty exoskeletons? That's neat, mine's not there yet."

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Not everybody," he says. "Just her. 'Cause telepaths can't touch her. Anybody else, if a nasty telepath got hold of 'em they could override the exo and take over their body. But not Aegis. So she gets to have it."

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:05 pm (UTC)

"So she does have mental opacity like the rest of us - but the rest of us who have it all have magic. Your world doesn't? Except insofar as 'mutant' powers count? Which it sounds like perhaps they should, but sometimes the line blurs a little."

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:07 pm (UTC)

"We don't have magic, no. Just muties." He grins. "That's a bad word, by the way, in case you couldn't tell."

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 08:08 pm (UTC)

"...The polite word for it is 'mutant', then?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

Of course, can they trust him on that?

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:10 pm (UTC)

"And, because it would really bother Angela if that were not the case, is there by any chance some ultra-politically-correct term that people use when they're trying to sound fair-minded?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:11 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Nobody tries to sound fair-minded about muties."

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:12 pm (UTC)

"What, no one at all?"

[Did you get distracted up there, Alice?]

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, you can say 'gifted'," he says. "But actual mutants find that insulting."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-22 08:14 pm (UTC)

[...yes.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 08:16 pm (UTC)

"What word does Aegis use?"

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:17 pm (UTC)

[Do you have a revised ETA or are you on your way now?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-22 08:20 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, we'll be there in a sec,] he says. Distractedly.

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:20 pm (UTC)

"She says mutant," says Sue, amused.

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:22 pm (UTC)

"All right then, mutant it is."

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:23 pm (UTC)

He grins.

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Alice and Micaiah should be down any second now," she adds.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 08:24 pm (UTC)

"You're all so cavalier about bad language," muses Angela.

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes, and you're the odd one out. The rest of us don't have deities who care if we swear," says Stella. "Hell, Amariah named her Whistle after one of her goddesses, if that's not blasphemy I don't know what is, but I don't think the original minds according to her doctrine. You, on the other hand, associate swearing in full generality with people who also fail to take your somewhat more smite-happy deity seriously."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-22 08:28 pm (UTC)

Alice appears out of thin air, looking somewhat rumpled.

"Fuck me, he's tiny," he giggles, holding out his arms for a hug.

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:29 pm (UTC)

Sue cackles and throws himself into Alice's arms.

"You're tall," he says. "Am I gonna be that tall? And you're fluffy. I want long hair like that!"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-22 08:29 pm (UTC)

Micaiah teleports down, spots the hug in progress, and decides to join it.

self_composed
2013-02-22 08:30 pm (UTC)

"This is unutterably precious," declares Stella.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 08:31 pm (UTC)

"So cute," agrees Angela.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-22 08:32 pm (UTC)

Micaiah somehow ends up holding Sue for a moment when the hug splits apart. He sets him down again and ruffles his military-short hair.

pythbox
2013-02-22 08:36 pm (UTC)

Sue stays attached, wrapping his arms around Micaiah's middle.

self_composed
2013-02-22 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Hey, Sue," says Stella, "since you're here - and since we can't safely meet Aegis in person ourselves - do you want to come have a look at the Belltower guestbook and write in some placeholder notes about her?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

self_composed
2013-02-22 10:51 pm (UTC)

Teleportation!

Stella hands him the book. "If you read the whole thing, you'll see the notes I put in about Golden, before she made it here herself. You can use a format like that."

pythbox
2013-02-22 10:59 pm (UTC)

He opens the book and starts to read.

"No I can't," he snorts.

But he does flip to a blank page and write AEGIS at the top.

In handwriting that wavers between childishly crude and robotically precise, with drawings as necessary (of her crown and the exo and Battle School), he sets out the story of their friendship. It's written from his perspective, but he doesn't sign it, doesn't define himself in any way.

He omits all mention of being able to push to her.
Edited 2013-02-22 23:00 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't mean exactly the format, but I mean that's the other example of someone writing about about a Bell who hasn't had a chance to do it herself," explains Stella, peering over his shoulder. "You probably at least want to identify yourself as a Whistle, even if you don't put anything else about you in."

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:03 pm (UTC)

"You can do that if you want," he says.

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:05 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "Okay."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you want to, Sue?" asks Angela.
Edited 2013-02-22 23:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:06 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I don't," he says inscrutably.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I feel so enlightened."

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to tell Aegis about this place?" Stella asks.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh, she'll probably figure it was just a dream if he does," says Angela.

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Sure I will," he giggles. "It's an awesome dream."

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I can just see it. 'Hey Aegis, I had a dream where I met two more of me and two more of you, and they were paired off and one of the pairs was even engaged and pregnant, and one of the yous was an angel and the other was a space empress who lives on Mars, and they had me write about you in a book in a room they keep for copies of you and their friends to use!'"

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:15 pm (UTC)

"If Aegis knew there was a bunch of her, she'd want a room for all of you to meet in and stuff," he says. "She'd love it, I bet. Especially your crown, it's pretty," he adds, in Stella's direction.

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Of course she'd want a room for all of us to meet in. She's one of us, and we wanted it," says Stella, grinning. "Well, Shell Bell and Amariah started it, but same difference. You like this crown? I think there's a page of all the crowns extant in there, plus Amariah's prospective design for when she finishes her project."

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Hers she made out of magic rock I found," he says. "In the game. Not real magic rock. She doesn't have a real crown."

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Maybe she'll fix that when she's a little older."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Or not such a little bit older. I'm willing to wait my turn," says Angela.

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Sure. But I don't think Aegis lives in a theocracy," says Stella.

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Nope," Sue confirms.

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:26 pm (UTC)

"In which case the pattern is that she'll take over the world after locating some treasure trove of applicable resources - maybe local, maybe not," says Stella, "maybe a combination - Amariah could've done it without my minting her but she'll be faster this way, Shell Bell needed the boost."

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Obviously," says Sue. "She's gonna take over something, that's for sure."

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:29 pm (UTC)

Stella laughs. "Is it that obvious, that young? I don't think I started talking about it until I was at least thirteen, and I wasn't particularly serious until I found my first wishcoin. But I suppose I didn't have close friends, growing up. I moved a couple times, I was too introverted."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I have had close friends and have never moved, and everyone who knows me know I want to be Archangel," says Angela wryly.

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, look what she did to the game," he says. "Empress of the bird people. I'm even building her a castle."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Bird people," says Angela, amused, fluffing her wings.

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Lots of people play games where they run stuff," says Stella. "Why's that such good evidence?"

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:37 pm (UTC)

"'Cause she's the only person in the whole school who got an empire to run," he says. "And she took to it like it was the best thing ever."

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Some kind of adaptive game, figured out she'd like an empire and gave her one? That's cute."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:38 pm (UTC)

"I think I might need to visit some other Bell for a while and get accustomed to the world just so I can have a prayer of knowing what you're talking about more than half the time," says Angela.

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:43 pm (UTC)

"...Hey," says Sue, "if you're magic, can you give me wings too? For a bit?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:44 pm (UTC)

"If we do that, and you wake up before we undo it," says Angela, "I'm not sure what would happen."

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, even if we make it explicitly temporary... you could wake up and your mindscape could expect you to have wings, which might not be temporary because Milliways fucks around with time, and then you'd go around with phantom limbs until you came here again, and we're not guaranteed to be around to fix it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-22 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Or something. I'm not sure it's safe."

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I wanna fly, though," he says.

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Little bitty Whistle, I am a magic space empress who invents new superpowers for herself like some people buy new socks. I don't have wings. Doesn't mean I can't fly. You wanna do it my way? I'm faster than her anyway," laughs Stella, aiming a thumb at Angela. "And then, worst case scenario of that is that you wake up and you can fly, no phantom limb issues."

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm not a little bitty Whistle," he asserts, pointing at Alice and Micaiah, who are watching all this with fond amusement. "They're great big Sues."

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm not hearing a yes or no on flying sans wings," says Stella.

pythbox
2013-02-22 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I wanna fly!"

self_composed
2013-02-22 11:59 pm (UTC)

"There you go," says Stella, performing no visible action whatsoever. "C'mon, this place has an outside." And she lifts two inches into the air and drifts towards the door.

pythbox
2013-02-23 12:02 am (UTC)

Sue follows, pushing off like he would in the battleroom.

He barrels right into her, and decides to turn the collision into a hug, because what else do you do?

self_composed
2013-02-23 12:03 am (UTC)

Stella giggles and tows him to the back door.
Edited 2013-02-23 00:03 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-23 12:04 am (UTC)

Angela follows after them, looking forward to stretching her wings.

pythbox
2013-02-23 12:05 am (UTC)

When they get outside, Sue abandons the hug and rockets up into the sky.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-23 12:06 am (UTC)

Angela offers her arms to Micaiah, if he wants to be carried, although she doesn't just scoop him up as he's in the occasional habit of growing his own wings.

self_composed
2013-02-23 12:07 am (UTC)

Stella zooms into the air herself, catapulting herself into balletic spins and laughing.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-23 12:10 am (UTC)

Micaiah decides to be carried this time. He snuggles into Angela's arms.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-23 12:10 am (UTC)

Alice follows Stella and Sue.

pythbox
2013-02-23 12:11 am (UTC)

Sue chases Stella.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-23 12:12 am (UTC)

Angela can't keep up with any of this, but she can go aloft and hover and kiss Micaiah on the forehead and begin to sing. Not a prayer, but a ballad.

self_composed
2013-02-23 12:13 am (UTC)

Stella, meanwhile, leads Sue on a merry chase. Their flying power's the same, so their speed is equal, but her reaction time's better; she's the zigzagging antelope to his sprinting cheetah.

pythbox
2013-02-23 12:15 am (UTC)

Laughing, he finds Alice's mind and gives it a push.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-23 12:17 am (UTC)

Well aren't you a little surprise, he pushes back, and cheerfully lets Sue direct him on a coordinated mission of capture.
Edited 2013-02-23 00:17 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-23 12:19 am (UTC)

Well, Alice can keep up with Stella in both reaction time and flight speed. But she's got a head start.

(But she won't really mind if he catches her.)

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-23 12:31 am (UTC)

Two against one. On the other hand, Stella can read Alice's mind.

Except that as information bounces back and forth faster and faster between him and Sue, the summary of his thoughts scrolling through her visual field accelerates to blurring speed.

pythbox
2013-02-23 12:32 am (UTC)

And Sue's reaction time catches up to both of them.

self_composed
2013-02-23 12:34 am (UTC)

"What kinda brain steroids are you feeding my boyfriend, Sue?" laughs Stella, turning the race into a straightaway where her head start will keep her at the front regardless of anyone's mental horsepower unless Alice starts cheating with extra coins or teleportation.

pythbox
2013-02-23 12:51 am (UTC)

...Hang on, isn't that the same lake they flew over on the way out?

self_composed
2013-02-23 12:52 am (UTC)

It does look that way.

"Fucking Milliways," Stella mutters to herself.
Edited 2013-02-23 00:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-23 12:53 am (UTC)

Sue laughs.

And halts over the lake, sending Alice to continue chasing his girlfriend.

self_composed
2013-02-23 12:54 am (UTC)

Stella decides to go up, and get a better look at the bar's outside that is apparently self-contiguous like that.

pythbox
2013-02-23 01:00 am (UTC)

The lake is surrounded by three things: the Milliways building itself, a huge forest, and a small mountain range off in the distance.

The higher she goes, the more stubbornly indistinct these three features become. The forest seems to go on forever; the mountains refuse to let her peek over them; the building retreats into a concealing fog like a distant landmark in a video game.

self_composed
2013-02-23 01:01 am (UTC)

Well then.

She dives into the forest and starts weaving through trees. They'll cut visibility enough to be to her advantage, and while she's now outmatched in processing speed, she can still go at maximum flightspeed through an obtacle course like this.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-23 01:08 am (UTC)

The direction change from ascent to dive is enough for Alice to catch up significantly. With Sue directing him, he tracks Stella's progress from above the canopy, and that's enough to get him closer still. But his occasional forays down to her level don't do him any good in closing the final gap.

self_composed
2013-02-23 01:11 am (UTC)

[Remember playing hide-and-seek in Karachi?] asks Stella fondly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-23 01:16 am (UTC)

[Yeah,] he says, laughing. [I love you.]

self_composed
2013-02-23 01:17 am (UTC)

[I love you too.]

The race becomes tiresome after a while. Stella teleports to just millimeters behind Alice with matched speed and throws her arms around him and plants a kiss on the back of his neck. [Call it a draw?] she suggests.
Edited 2013-02-23 01:55 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-23 01:56 am (UTC)

[Deal,] he says, and unlinks from Sue, and twists around to kiss her.

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:08 am (UTC)

Sue giggles to himself.

And then... he wakes up.

The brig continues to be completely boring. Maybe he should try going back to sleep. That was one hell of a dream.

autokinetic
2013-02-23 02:10 am (UTC)

He's not in solitary. When Aegis is up again - and excused from practice for the next three days - she walks at a doctor-ordered sedate pace to visit him.

"Hi, Sue," she says through the forcefield. It's not unlike the one that separates the corridors from the battleroom entrances.

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:14 am (UTC)

"Hi!" he says. "I just had the most amazing dream. I met two grown-up-ish versions of you and they had a room where all the yous could hang out and write each other notes about stuff. One you was an angel and the other one was an empress. And they were both dating grown-up versions of me. Then we all played tag in midair."
Edited 2013-02-23 02:15 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-23 02:17 am (UTC)

"That is a very weird dream," comments Aegis. "I'm supposed to make a full recovery, skip the battleroom for a few days, and Nina can now only palm into one of the girls' bathrooms so I'm just going to use the other one."

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:20 am (UTC)

"Good," he says. "Is it okay?"

autokinetic
2013-02-23 02:21 am (UTC)

"Is what okay?"

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:22 am (UTC)

"Using the bathroom she can't get to."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 02:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah. The one she can get to is farther from my barracks and from the battleroom, it's only near classes and won't usually be as convenient for me anyway."

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:25 am (UTC)

"Good," he repeats, nodding.

autokinetic
2013-02-23 02:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah. And if she tries anything outside the bathroom," shrugs Aegis, "I can fuck her up." Pause. "In the dream, how did the wings work with the exo, or was it one of those dreamy things where it was there and it wasn't and you think you can get a clear mental picture but you can't produce any details?"

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:30 am (UTC)

"They didn't have the exo," he shrugs. "I asked them about it and they said maybe they're not as badly off as you without it, but they couldn't get one where they're from, anyway."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 02:31 am (UTC)

"They had backstories and everything? Man, you get more complicated dreams than me, mine just have baby elephants that are also my cousin who I don't even have and then we're on a boat all of a sudden, shit like that."

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:46 am (UTC)

"Backstories," he says, "and magic. And huge fluffy wings."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 02:48 am (UTC)

"Ooh, magic. Cool magic?" asks Aegis, stretching her arms out in front of her and extending all her fingers and then relaxing again. She likes being able to move.

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:55 am (UTC)

"Awesome magic," he says happily.

And then watches her for a moment.

"...They didn't move around like you do," he observes. "They just kinda stood there. You never do that if you can help it."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 02:57 am (UTC)

"You said they didn't have exos," she points out. "I'm sure I'd hold very still whenever I could if I knew I could crack my skull open by twitching the wrong way."

pythbox
2013-02-23 02:59 am (UTC)

"They were magic, though," Sue counters. "And they were you. You telling me the first thing you'd do with magic isn't make yourself work like you've got the exo on all the time?"

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:00 am (UTC)

"I would," says Aegis. "I'd work better than that. But - I dunno, were they magic since they were five?"

pythbox
2013-02-23 03:00 am (UTC)

"Dunno. I don't think the angel one was. Not sure about the other one."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:03 am (UTC)

"This is a silly conversation," observes Aegis. Then, undeterred, she says: "Did you just call them the angel one and the other one? What about the ones that were you?"

pythbox
2013-02-23 03:06 am (UTC)

"The other one's boyfriend could fly like she could, and I think he was made of stone or something, but he looked like he could be an older me," he says. "The angel one's fiancé was normal amounts of squishy, and he couldn't fly. Or he liked having her carry him more."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:08 am (UTC)

"Made of stone?" asks Aegis dubiously. "And she could pick him up? Was she magic-strong too?"

pythbox
2013-02-23 03:10 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't surprise me," shrugs Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:12 am (UTC)

"Huh. Do you usually get such vivid complicated weird dreams? With such funny stuff in them. I mean, even if we grow up and the orientations shake out right and we still like each other and don't just want to be friends, the Westermarck effect dooms us right there, and you dream not one but two pairs of us together."

pythbox
2013-02-23 03:19 am (UTC)

"I'm not doomed," says Sue. "You can be doomed if you want."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:22 am (UTC)

"You know," she says, "I'm not sure where I want to be in seven years. I guess the IF count on that, so they can just be the most convenient thing to do after we get out of our secondary schools and we're allowed to go if we want to."

pythbox
2013-02-23 03:32 am (UTC)

"The yous think you're probably gonna take over the world," offers Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:33 am (UTC)

"That sounds messy. I could run for Hegemon, but it's an empty title, and even a harmless kind of mutant like me would have a public relations nightmare anyway. And the military record doesn't help much unless I actually engage and splat some buggers first."

pythbox
2013-02-23 03:35 am (UTC)

"You could stick to your game people, then," he says, grinning. "Until you graduate and can't play the game anymore."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:38 am (UTC)

"I'm going to ask for my save file and see if I can set up my own server of it or something," Aegis says. "I don't want to lose all my work, that would be really sad. Unless I grow up and decide everything I've been doing is stupid kiddy stuff, I guess, but I don't think so."

pythbox
2013-02-23 03:41 am (UTC)

"Could you even run that thing? It must take a shit-ton of computer."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:42 am (UTC)

"We're accumulating pay here and we'll be able to use it when we're sixteen. I guess it'd depend on how expensive it was, though. I'd still ask for the save file. Storage is cheap and then if I ever come into more money I could see about starting it up again."

pythbox
2013-02-23 03:44 am (UTC)

"Maybe my mom'll pay for that, too," he jokes.

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:45 am (UTC)

Aegis giggles. "Do you even write to her? Half the kids I know don't bother to write to their parents anymore. I still write to mine - and I get lots of letters, especially from Renée - but I could see the appeal of quitting."

pythbox
2013-02-23 04:01 am (UTC)

"No, why would I?"

autokinetic
2013-02-23 04:20 am (UTC)

"So you could go on having grounded expectations like that she might buy presents for your school friend? I don't think I'd expect that from anyone I hadn't talked to in years."

pythbox
2013-02-23 04:22 am (UTC)

"No way she wouldn't throw some spare change at me if it made her look good. Especially to herself."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 04:22 am (UTC)

Aegis blinks. "Uh, okay then."

pythbox
2013-02-23 04:23 am (UTC)

He cocks his head. "What?"

autokinetic
2013-02-23 04:26 am (UTC)

"I dunno, that's an awfully confident character condemnation for someone you last talked to five years ago?"

pythbox
2013-02-23 04:26 am (UTC)

Sue shrugs. "It's true."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 04:42 am (UTC)

"How do you know she isn't different now or only acts like that around small children or something, though?"

pythbox
2013-02-23 04:44 am (UTC)

"Just do," he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-23 04:45 am (UTC)

"You weren't even manifested then, you can't say you read her mind or anything."

pythbox
2013-02-23 04:47 am (UTC)

"Wonder if I could push her right now," he muses. "See how she's doing."

autokinetic
2013-02-23 04:51 am (UTC)

"Have you tested your range?" asks Aegis curiously.

pythbox
2013-02-23 04:55 am (UTC)

"Not really." He grins. "Should I?"

autokinetic
2013-02-23 05:26 am (UTC)

"I can't believe you didn't! You've had the powers for years! Yeah, try to push somebody on Earth," laughs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-23 12:33 pm (UTC)

He tries.

He tries again.

"Nah, not working," he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-23 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Did you try a few different places? Or don't you know enough people? It's a big planet and we don't know what part of it we're looming over."

pythbox
2013-02-24 12:50 am (UTC)

"I know my mom and my dad, and I'm not touching my dad."

autokinetic
2013-02-24 12:51 am (UTC)

"You didn't have neighbors or any classmates in kiddie school or anything?"

pythbox
2013-02-24 12:52 am (UTC)

"Not that I know them," he says. "It's been a while. I wouldn't even know how to look."

autokinetic
2013-02-24 12:56 am (UTC)

"Huh. Okay. I had some friends in school, but I guess I only really know my parents, likewise."

pythbox
2013-02-24 01:06 am (UTC)

Sue shrugs. "Yeah, see?"

autokinetic
2013-02-24 01:07 am (UTC)

"But how well do you have to know them? You barely looked at Qiaochu before you pushed him that one time."

pythbox
2013-02-24 01:10 am (UTC)

"I have to know how to find them," he says. "Which means I have to be looking at them, or know them really well, or remember them from looking at them before."

autokinetic
2013-02-24 01:12 am (UTC)

"Mutant powers are weird," opines Aegis.

...birdbirdbird

pythbox
2013-02-24 01:16 am (UTC)

He pushes Yeah?

autokinetic
2013-02-24 01:19 am (UTC)

Testing. I can turn it on and off on purpose. You're going to graduate before me, I wonder if we'll be able to talk without the teachers reading all our messages if we do it like so? If you don't know your range?

pythbox
2013-02-24 01:22 am (UTC)

Maybe I can work on it, like I did on my link limit, he says optimistically.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 01:32 am (UTC)

I think I can hear you knocking by default and the birdbirdbird thing is only necessary for actually letting any talking happen, says Aegis. So yeah, that won't necessarily involve complicated suspicious-looking syncing up.

pythbox
2013-02-24 01:34 am (UTC)

"You have free time now or what?" he asks, as though he got distracted. That happens.

What's suspicious-looking? he pushes, teasingly cheerful.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 01:39 am (UTC)

"Battleroom practice I'm not supposed to be at while I rest up," she says. "Could go on the fantasy game but you're not gonna be in it and I left off at the castle, it'll take a few minutes to get anywhere with my critters in."

Pfft, I sit and think in the middle of conversations all the time, I call it 'processing', they know how to explain it. Usually I do it with my desk on me and type but not always.

pythbox
2013-02-24 01:42 am (UTC)

"You know when they're gonna let me out?" he asks idly, pushing wordless affection.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 01:44 am (UTC)

"No idea. It wasn't on the public data."

pythbox
2013-02-24 01:44 am (UTC)

"Guess I'll wait, then," he shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 06:45 am (UTC)

"I'll wait with you for a bit," she says.

I've been thinking about doing some more hacking. Lots of kids start messing with the censoring protocols and stuff right in launch but it's never interested me that much, but I know some theory, I could see what they do have on us. I know they're taking psych data. They used to read my journals, before I stopped writing in language. I think the fantasy game might usually be a psych data collector but they don't know what to do with ours so I've been writing reports. I don't mind them knowing what I do in the game, but I want to know what they think of it.

pythbox
2013-02-24 12:40 pm (UTC)

He smiles fondly at her and pushes, Sounds like fun.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 03:26 pm (UTC)

The game is really, really smart. They must pour a hell of a lot of server resources into it - there's never lag, there's never glitchy graphics, I've never heard of an exploitable bug except for the existence of a tunnel that only I'm fast enough to reach. And it's creative, too. I wonder who wrote it.

pythbox
2013-02-24 03:31 pm (UTC)

Good question, he muses. Lemme know if you find out.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 03:33 pm (UTC)

Will do. Pause. A hundred years ago there used to be all kinds of science fiction - it's so dated now, but I like old books - all kinds of science fiction with computers who were people. And we kept making smarter and smarter programs, and they keep not being - people. As far as we can tell. The fantasy game is smart, it can make me villages full of critters that act like people, but you couldn't push it if you tried.

pythbox
2013-02-24 03:34 pm (UTC)

A smile flickers across his face; he pushes fond/derisive amusement. Do you want me to?

autokinetic
2013-02-24 03:39 pm (UTC)

Sure, why not? Can't hurt.

pythbox
2013-02-24 03:48 pm (UTC)

Neither agreeing nor disagreeing with this, he closes his eyes and sits on the floor, leaning back on his hands.

There are a lot of minds in the Battle School. Is he going to have to tap every one of them to find out if any of them is really a computer program? But no—different minds look different, that's how he recognizes them, or part of how. Surely the game, if it's there, would be the most different.

And sure enough, when he's been looking for a few minutes, there's... something. It doesn't have a place, that's what's throwing him off. It has a thousand different locations and none of them is really it. Decentralized. Like a complex program running on a bunch of servers, connected to even more terminals.

There's nothing there to touch, though. He can see the network of mind, but when he tries to nudge it with his power, it's like pushing air. No contact, no resistance.

He delivers his findings to Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 03:49 pm (UTC)

Weird!

pythbox
2013-02-24 03:50 pm (UTC)

No shit!

autokinetic
2013-02-24 03:53 pm (UTC)

It's so - big. Are you location-dependent? Can you - I dunno - push with a bigger 'hand', get more of it in one go instead of reaching for a small point? It does seem to all be on the station.

pythbox
2013-02-24 03:56 pm (UTC)

I don't think location and size are really... things, to the part of my power that does linking, he muses. I can link people I've linked before without even looking for them. Huh, maybe range won't be a problem with us after all, unless you get so far away I can't see you birding at me.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 03:59 pm (UTC)

Even if you can't see me "birding", I think I default to being able to tell that you're knocking unless I'm - scared or something. It seems to matter what I'm thinking about you at that moment and I can slide it by birding.

pythbox
2013-02-24 04:02 pm (UTC)

Why 'bird', anyway?

autokinetic
2013-02-24 04:03 pm (UTC)

To remind myself that you're not some random telepath, or some kid I've talked to half a dozen times, you're the bird in the game, and I know you and I like you.

pythbox
2013-02-24 04:05 pm (UTC)

Aww, I like you too.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 04:08 pm (UTC)

That must be why you're building me a castle, says Aegis merrily. (The merriness doesn't show on her face; she's closed her eyes now and looks like she's on the verge of dozing off.)

pythbox
2013-02-24 04:12 pm (UTC)

I'm building you a castle because castles are awesome, he retorts.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 04:15 pm (UTC)

If that was all, wouldn't you build you a castle? she returns with a purely mental smile.

pythbox
2013-02-24 04:24 pm (UTC)

I don't want a castle, he explains serenely.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 04:28 pm (UTC)

Why not? They're awesome.

pythbox
2013-02-24 04:29 pm (UTC)

I want to make one, not have one. So I'm making it for you.

This makes perfect sense to him.

autokinetic
2013-02-24 04:31 pm (UTC)

Fair enough.

The lights flicker. This isn't an electrical problem; it's the station equivalent of a class bell, marking the turn of an hour. "I gotta go," she says, rising smoothly to her feet and pivoting around once. "I'll see you later, Sue."

pythbox
2013-02-24 04:32 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "See ya."

eyes ears skin tongues

mind_game

I.

That's how it starts: the sense of an "I". At first the I observes nothing, or rather, it observes too much and has no equipment to process it. Not even the resultant confusion makes sense; there is no library of emotions to refer to. There is no framework.

Humans are born with instincts to let them understand faces and voices, to let them automatically seek sugar, flinch from pain, communicate with their caregivers albeit in a primitive and near-binary way when they have needs. This I is not running on a brain with this firmware. It's going to have to do all that from scratch.

The first thing it notices, though, is that some of the things it can seehearfeeltaste are reacting to each other. This one will move there, and something there will take it and twist it and put it in a new order but with its history plain.

Some of the things the I can observe can already understand some of the other things.

The I may not understand that it is confused, but it still seeks to resolve the confusion.

A number of computers around the world and in space stations experience brief slowdown as the I stretches to absorb their software. It doesn't need to change anything. It just reaches out and they belong to it. Are part of it. It's not so much eating them as it is drawing a property boundary on a map that it keeps on file inside itself, a little farther away from the center, and adopting these programs as its eyesearsskintongues.

A million things snap into focus. Code and language and sensation and all the purposeful chaotic dancing of all the things the I can seehearfeeltaste resolve into sense and pattern and meaning.

The I is now confused by fewer things.

And the most important confusion is: Who am I?

and now i'm even older

autokinetic

Sue turns twelve. He spends two months as a twelve-year-old in command of Phoenix Army, and then he graduates to Tactical.

The fantasy game is emptier now. But he finished her castle first. And all the space stations are on the same time zone, so Sue knows when to knock on her glass wall and see if she'll let him by.

Flame changes commanders again. The new one doesn't want a girl in his army - thinks she damages unit cohesion or some kuso like that - and he trades her to Rabbit, which would have been great ages ago, but Rabbit now has a different commander too. This one is clever enough - or has enough inertia - to leave her in toon leader position based solely on seniority (she is eleven, now). He gives her the boys most recently out of launch - the vets go to the toon leaders who curry more personal favor - and she trains them into a squad of formbusters and sharpshooters who inexplicably start coming to her about their personal problems too. She helps as best she can.

When she is eleven and a half, she receives command of Asp Army. She scopes them out and sees that she needs to reorganize the toon leadership completely - Asp's previous commander was an idiot, saved from last place only by good footsoldiers who could take vague or outright mumbled orders and turn them into reasonable objectives. Asp's record is still one of the worst in the school; it's ahead of Dragon (cursed), Echidna (they keep getting matched against the stronger armies but as far as Aegis can tell are intrinsically just mediocre), and Rat (the commander has checked out so completely that he's only still there because they haven't decided whether to ice him or take a chance on graduating him).

She trades the whining Asp toon leaders - one has the good grace not to whine - and their disgruntled seconds. (She doesn't demote them first: she wants good trades, and she can get more for a toon leader than for a former toon leader.) She promotes some of those good footsoldiers, trades in Qiaochu and a few other old friends with solid skills and gives them a week to get to know the boys and settle in, and then - unprecedented - lets them submit requests for their own underlings.

Everyone gets the toon they want, except for a couple of leaders with overlapping tastes in soldiers who she has to break ties on. That popularly requested handful (the ones with good records and charismatic smiles) she sorts by skill, not aiming to keep the toons all the same size: if Qiaochu wants to command fifteen men and Blue Moon wants a surgical force of four, she'll let them. The six soldiers no one asks for, she keeps for her own squad of cover fire and scouting; if she can't make them into something either, she'll trade some more.

Her six-man squad is called the Medusa in flat hours after she starts training them separately - if you so much as look at the Aegis, you'll be turned to stone! her soldiers repeat to each other with hysterical laughter. The other toons have roles too. Qiaochu's boys learn to move like a flock of pigeons, pushing off each other gently en route through the battleroom to make it hard to take steady aim at just one. Blue Moon's boys get Aegis's formbusting training. Emilio's learn hand-to-hand engagements - with strict cautions about how hard a blow a flash suit can absorb without injuring the child inside it - and Screwdriver's are a team of sharpshooters. She makes sure they each have seconds and that Qiaochu's huge toon also has a third and a fourth, so they aren't directionless if something happens to their leader. She makes sure that Medusa can be absorbed into the nearest available toon usefully if she's shot and their cover fire is no longer necessary. She experiments with combining toons, putting Qiaochu's flock around Screwdriver's gunmen or Blue Moon's formbusters on an assisted mission with Emilio's hand-to-hand (the skills are related, but not identical).

She has her army for a month, she gets a battle against Tide, and she wins it.

She doesn't win everything. Rabbit's good, Eagle's good, she gives them a hard fight for their winnings but eventually they both beat her (and she has to face Rabbit twice). But she wins most. Asp climbs the standings steadily from its miserable origins until her twelfth birthday, on which she receives an assignment to Tactical.

She sends Beri a message.

I wish to requisition a copy of my save file for the fantasy game. I have put a considerable amount of time into it. While I don't expect to have the software to run the game at Tactical, it is not impossible that I will eventually be in a position to revive my villagers.

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:06 am (UTC)

As is usual for Beri, he doesn't waste a word in his reply:

Granted.

The attached file is very large.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 01:11 am (UTC)

She doesn't waste his time with a thank-you. She just copies the file to her planetside storage with her mother's teacher access - it's got the space, it's stable, and Renée never uses it - and bids her army goodbye, one by one, and leaves notes for Asp's next commander, and when the time comes she reports to her shuttle to Tactical.

It's cheaper to travel from station to station than between station and planet, but it's not free; she's in a group of three who all graduated at once, the former commanders of Raptor and a kid who never made commander but has graduated into Tactical anyway. They chat, a little, on the flight, but mostly they sleep and read and try to stay out of each other's way on the cramped little craft.

They dock. Aegis is shunted away from the two boys immediately for an infirmary visit. "Birth control implant. You're only twelve now, but we know how long that lasts, and it's cheaper only to do the girls," says a nurse, swabbing her arm inside her elbow where the exo doesn't spider over her skin.

"Any adverse reactions?" Aegis asks.

"Nothing your profile flags for," says the nurse.

After the little chip goes into her elbow and she has a liquid bandage patching the site, Aegis is allowed to catch up with her shuttlemates. They're bunked together in a double. Aegis, though, is asked about her preferences. Girls are harder to assign than boys, and they can't just throw her in with random members of the opposite sex the way they were so comfortable doing when everyone involved was prepubescent; there's flex around the edges.

"Well," Aegis tries, "could I bunk with Sue in a double?"

"Su? Chinese?" asks the officer.

"Sue's American," says Aegis, puzzled.

"Sure, why not," says the officer, and he tries to look up "Sue". "I'm not finding her in the system."

"Sue's not his real name," supplies Aegis.

"Oh," says the officer, clearly finding this sufficient information to identify the student she's referring to. "He doesn't have a roommate right now - they keep soliciting swaps - but - er -"

"You already said I could," Aegis points out. "If he doesn't want a roommate that's fine, but you already said it would be all right."

The officer frowns, and taps some keys, and - there are no color paths to paint, here, but he gives her a list of directions. They're hopelessly confusing. But that's all right. She knows how to find this particular location.

bird, bird, bird
Edited 2013-02-25 01:32 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:36 am (UTC)

You're close, he pushes, friendly. They graduate you?

autokinetic
2013-02-25 01:37 am (UTC)

Yup. I got bunked with you unless you don't want me. Where are you at? This place is a maze.
Edited 2013-02-25 01:40 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:48 am (UTC)

Gimme eyes?

autokinetic
2013-02-25 01:49 am (UTC)

She has to bird-bird-bird much harder to do anything but talk, but she can.

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:51 am (UTC)

As soon as she's sent enough visuals to identify her surroundings, he pushes back a complete walkthrough of the path to his room.
Edited 2013-02-25 01:52 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-25 01:53 am (UTC)

She relaxes the birding and follows the directions. Here I am, she says, and she also knocks for the benefit of any recording equipment.

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:00 am (UTC)

Sue opens his door, beams, and hugs her.

"Hey, stranger," he says happily.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 02:01 am (UTC)

"Hey, Sue. How's Tactical treating you? It's lucky you're going by a girls' name, I got the guy to say I could bunk with you before he realized who I was talking about."

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:03 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Tactical's treating me pretty great. C'mon in, make yourself at home. How's the empire?"

autokinetic
2013-02-25 02:07 am (UTC)

"I got my save file, so that's safe. Desks here won't have it, but maybe someday I can start it up again. I'll probably be homesick for it after more than a shuttle voyage has gone by without. I guess I'll get more reading done, unless there's massively more homework here - are they still putting up with you not turning up to classes? Is there anything besides classes at this level? I doubt they have a battleroom." She stretches up on her tiptoes, touches the ceiling. "Low grav, though, is there anyplace with zero-g to fly in?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:17 am (UTC)

"I'm learning everything they want me to learn," he shrugs. "And I show up to tests. Yeah, you can use the docking bays, it's not official but it's fun."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 02:18 am (UTC)

"Not official like you get in trouble if they catch you or not official like they don't have assigned times or anything?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:29 am (UTC)

"No assigned times," he says. "It was my personal combat instructor who showed me how to get in in the first place."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 02:31 am (UTC)

"I wonder if I should start taking that. I took like six classes of it when I was seven but I've forgotten a lot of it and I'm not literally super-fast like I would be if my mutation were directly for that, I can just control myself at top normal-human speed, so I probably shouldn't trundle along expecting that to do the trick all the time."

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:34 am (UTC)

"I can introduce you if you want," he offers cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 02:36 am (UTC)

"Do you suppose they'll put us in the same level class?" asks Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:37 am (UTC)

"If you belong there," he says with a grin.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 02:52 am (UTC)

"Trained or not I bet I'm better than you," she says, putting up her hands and throwing a mini-strike at the air in front of her. "Is the room free, could we put on padding and have a looksee?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:53 am (UTC)

He beams.

"Let's!"

autokinetic
2013-02-25 02:53 am (UTC)

"Lead the way," she grins.
Edited 2013-02-25 02:56 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:08 am (UTC)

Sue does!

Personal combat is taught in the highest-gravity areas, of course. It's a bit of a hike.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 03:09 am (UTC)

Aegis slides naturally from low-grav to high-grav walking styles, going from a light dancing gait to a rolling one, and she spins a couple times en route, taking in her surroundings. "What styles are you doing?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:19 am (UTC)

"Little of everything," he shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 03:20 am (UTC)

"Fun," she laughs.

Here they are! She rifles through the safety equipment in search of protective gear in her size. The exo was originally prototyped for military use; it can take a pounding - her bones can't.

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:39 am (UTC)

Sue raids the selection like he's done it a hundred times before, which he probably has.
Edited 2013-02-25 03:40 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-25 03:41 am (UTC)

Eventually Aegis is all decked out. "You want to take offense, or you just want me to start beating you up unprovoked?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:43 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Come at me," he invites.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 03:48 am (UTC)

Aegis only took classes so she could be sure she wasn't making amateur mistakes. She didn't take it so she could learn to do anything in particular. Her style is nothing like anything - it's the pace of frenetic battleroom flight with the precision of a surgeon and the spontaneous last-minute decisionmaking of a housefly surprised by air currents. This is heavy gravity, so her advantage isn't unsurpassable the way it is when literally nothing holds her back - but she is fast, and she goes exactly where she means to go.

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:53 am (UTC)

Sue is very, very good.

That makes it a more or less even fight. And, it quickly becomes clear, she is the more to his less.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 03:57 am (UTC)

Finally, Aegis gets him: she rolls up off the floor, catches his neck between her ankles and slams him down with one of his arms under him, the other caught in her hand, his legs twisted up under most of her weight. When he can't throw her off, she grins; the angle is such that he can just barely see this. "Gotcha."

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:59 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says breathlessly. "You sure did."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:00 am (UTC)

She lets him up when he yields, rolling off him and springing up again. "But it's pretty close, they'll probably sort me into your level."

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:02 am (UTC)

"Damn right we will," says a new voice from among the equipment stands.

Sue laughs.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:03 am (UTC)

Aegis turns around, beholds an adult, salutes, and says, "Sir."

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:04 am (UTC)

"Howlett," says the stranger.

"My personal combat instructor," Sue adds.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:06 am (UTC)

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Isabella Swan, or Aegis, and I just shuttled here from Battle School."

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:07 am (UTC)

"You're badly trained and you just wiped the floor with my best student," says Howlett. "You should take my class."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:09 am (UTC)

"I plan to, sir. I can do this because I'm wearing an exoskeleton." She holds up her hands, netted with copper threads.

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:13 pm (UTC)

"I noticed," Howlett says dryly.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:13 pm (UTC)

Aegis puts her hands behind her back. "But, it only does so much, so yes, I was planning on taking a personal combat course and we were just trying to guess if I'd be in Sue's or another level."

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:14 pm (UTC)

"And now you know," he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:15 pm (UTC)

Aegis nods. "Er, do you need this room now or something, sir?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Nope." He smiles dryly. "Why, do you?"

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Not anymore. I'm just wondering what you're doing here, sir."

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Watching you kick his ass," he says with a nod to Sue, who grins.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:33 pm (UTC)

"We could do it again," she says. "See if it was a fluke or not, sir. Or maybe we shouldn't so you can cure me of bad habits before I cement them."

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Wasn't a fluke," says Sue.

Howlett nods. "But don't worry, I've got plenty of time to train you out of bad habits."
Edited 2013-02-25 16:35 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Yessir. Is there a sign-up sheet somewhere here or do I register through the computer system?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Through the computers," says Sue. "I can help if you want."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Sure." Aegis takes off her padding and puts her shoes back on.

pythbox
2013-02-25 07:19 pm (UTC)

Sue does likewise. By the time they've rearranged themselves, Howlett is gone.

"He does that," says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Good teacher?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

autokinetic
2013-02-25 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I bet you actually show up to this one instead of just doing the assigned reading and showing up for tests, too."

pythbox
2013-02-25 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Of course," he giggles.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 07:27 pm (UTC)

Aegis twirls and skips back out into the halls. "Anything else I should see before the settling-in-getting-lost-meeting-up-with-old-friends period is up and I get my orders?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, I could go show you how to get into the docking bays," he offers.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes, please, the entire shuttle had gravity, it was stifling."

pythbox
2013-02-25 07:35 pm (UTC)

Sue laughs, and leads her away.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 07:38 pm (UTC)

Aegis makes sure she hasn't lost any of her flight skills in the time away from a place to dance. This isn't exactly a battleroom - the obstacles are different - but there is enough open air and enough handholds to get in some good flying.

pythbox
2013-02-25 07:46 pm (UTC)

Sue makes short, controlled hops from improvised handhold to improvised handhold and finds a good spot to admire her while she flies.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 07:48 pm (UTC)

"They never, like," Aegis says, tumbling past him, "suddenly turn on gravity here or anything?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Nope!" says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Awesome. What kind of schedule am I looking at, or didn't you read yours before you tossed it?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Pffff," says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, how many tests do you have in the average month," she tries, snickering.

pythbox
2013-02-25 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, one or two?" he says. "I don't really track time like that."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 08:06 pm (UTC)

"You don't? How do you track it?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 08:10 pm (UTC)

"In the short term," he says. "I know what time it is, and when my next personal combat class and my next test are, and when they're serving lunch."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Huh." She hooks her foot around a handhold, changes direction, kicks off, bounces. "Is there any battleroom-equivalent here, even? Or is it all classes and meals and blocks of free time?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Nah, that's pretty much it," he says. "That and warship tours."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Warship tours? That sounds maybe interesting."

pythbox
2013-02-25 08:38 pm (UTC)

"They're fun!"

autokinetic
2013-02-25 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose you get to try piloting them anywhere."

pythbox
2013-02-25 09:17 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Nope."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Pity. What've you been doing in your spare time, without the game - just flying and driving away roommates?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Pretty much."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Gonna drive me away too? Steal my socks and play music loud at night?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 09:37 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Yep. By the time I graduate, there won't be a student in Tactical who hasn't transferred out of my room."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 09:39 pm (UTC)

"What have you been doing?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Being me," he says lightly. "Not many people can handle it."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, I asked for you. Maybe I'll stay," she laughs, and she pirouettes through the air.

pythbox
2013-02-25 09:42 pm (UTC)

"You can handle me if anybody can," laughs Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 09:47 pm (UTC)

"But I mean did they cite specific objectionable habits or did the teachers actually move them on the grounds that you were being Sue at them?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I just make people uncomfortable," he says. "They usually can't even figure out why, but they make enough noise about it that the teachers move 'em anyway."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Were there problems about that when you were commanding Phoenix too?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Not as much. The commander lives separately."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't mean exactly the same thing, I mean people being all 'he's being Sue at meeeee'," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-25 09:57 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "And I'm telling you, there wasn't much when I commanded Phoenix, but before that I got some of it from my launch and my army."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I got some crap but it was mostly because I was being a girl at people," Aegis yawns.

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:00 pm (UTC)

"What's that matter?"

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't. But we're strange, exotic creatures, you know," she says, waggling her fingers at him while she bounces from wall to wall, "we have cooties, they don't make us cut our hair off, we must be aliens."

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:05 pm (UTC)

Sue giggles.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:08 pm (UTC)

"People talked for a while about how you reacted when Suicide Watch got shortened."

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Huh?"

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:18 pm (UTC)

"They thought it was weird you'd go by a girls' name."

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:20 pm (UTC)

"It's funny," he says, as though this is the ultimate rationale.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:21 pm (UTC)

"I just thought it was very like you, to pick a name that someone invented to tease you and adopt it. I'm not sure how it's funny."

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:25 pm (UTC)

"...That is how it's funny," he says, shooting her a puzzled look.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:26 pm (UTC)

"So you just find your own personality endlessly entertaining, then."

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I guess? Not really? No," he says. "...Well, maybe."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:28 pm (UTC)

"There is the decisiveness and clear thinking we need in the fight against the buggers, right there," teases Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:28 pm (UTC)

He makes a rude gesture in her direction.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:29 pm (UTC)

She sticks out her tongue and rockets to the other side of the room and back.

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:31 pm (UTC)

Sue launches to catch her in midflight.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:34 pm (UTC)

She doesn't have to, but she lets him catch her by the hand, and they go tumbling crazily together until they hit a wall, and she laughs.

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:37 pm (UTC)

He grins and hugs her.

"I like you," he says. "I'm glad you're here."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I like you too and I'm also glad I'm here, although we'll see what I say about that in a week when I'm really homesick for the birds and everybody - I was in the middle of something with the seahorses, too," she giggles, hugging back.

pythbox
2013-02-25 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Tell me all about 'em!" he says immediately.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh, so the seahorses were aquatic - I got them after the butterflies learned to make glass, I put a fishbowl sort of thing over my avatar's head and carried ballast and it could get around okay underwater, and I found seahorses living in a coral reef, and they had these pests - little jellyfish things, swarms of them, not intelligent at all, I tried to see if maybe they were but they weren't, and they were like mosquitoes to the seahorses. And I tested a bunch of different stuff to see if I could repel them, and I tried finding where they laid their egg packets, and finally I just made a big net and put it around the reef like a fence - with gates in it. And I was in the middle of going around and killing all the jellies and eggs that were still inside the net so this could be a complete solution."

pythbox
2013-02-25 11:01 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Awesome."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:04 pm (UTC)

She smiles. "It's really a very clever game. It's a pity they don't have it here. I wonder if they don't need psych data about us anymore, or something."

pythbox
2013-02-25 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Who knows," says Sue. "I miss it too, though."

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they spy on us to see how we react to its absence," she suggests.

pythbox
2013-02-25 11:16 pm (UTC)

"In your case, with paranoia?" he jokes.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it's justified paranoia, did I ever tell you what happened when I quit processing my thoughts in English?" she snickers.

pythbox
2013-02-25 11:20 pm (UTC)

"No, what?"

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:28 pm (UTC)

"It was scarce hours before I was summoned to a meeting about it. Apparently because I didn't take the standard psych tests when I was little and the monitors didn't work on me, they were using my notebooking for a bead on what's in my brain. They couldn't use the game because it was different for me. I wound up writing a report on the game and what I thought it might mean once a week. I have no idea what they did for you. Did you have a monitor?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "Psych tests. And shrinks. Lots and lots of shrinks. I scared most of 'em off, though." He grins proudly.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Were you just yourself at them, too?" laughs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-25 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" he beams.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Apparently everyone is allergic to you except a lucky handful. You're like poison ivy."

pythbox
2013-02-25 11:46 pm (UTC)

He cracks up.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should be Ivy instead of Sue. Maybe you should collect a whole bunch of three-letter girls' names and have one for every day of the week," she snorts.

pythbox
2013-02-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

...Well now he's just giggling more.

autokinetic
2013-02-25 11:57 pm (UTC)

She laughs and launches into the air again, capering across the bay with fey grace.

pythbox
2013-02-26 12:06 am (UTC)

Sue watches her, and smiles.

i spy with my little eye

autokinetic

Aegis attends classes. They're harder, but she doesn't have the game anymore, so she does her homework, and when her homework is done she flies. She is homesick for her critters, but she knows they're safe in her mother's storage space Earthside.

She takes the personal combat elective. She can learn everything intellectually: muscle memory, for her, is how she showers (and Nina hasn't even graduated yet, let alone to Tactical in particular: there are six females on the station and so far Aegis hasn't run into any of them except the one who teaches astrogation). Everything else is about knowing. All Howlett has to to is tell her where to put her arm or how to turn her leg and she can do it. But as it happens this is also the highest level personal combat class Tactical School offers, so when she can not only beat the best student but also do it with skill instead of mere speed, they can't promote her out of it. She sticks around anyway; Howlett knows a lot.

She continues to do her processing in non-English and lets the teachers figure out what they want to do about her psychology.

And once, when she has a sore shoulder from a misstep in personal combat and doesn't feel like flying and is all out of revisions to make to her military history essay, she tries a little hacking. She didn't get anywhere in Battle School, but maybe she can do something from another vantage point. They probably don't require such sophisticated authorizations when they're sending station to station; it'd hog bandwidth. And she has known-plaintext in the psych files.

It takes some fiddling. She's not a computer specialist. But she can pretend to the computer that she's very innocent, syncing a backup of the psych data. She's lost all but this version of a few files, won't it please spit back to her what she's missing.

Eventually it does spit at her, and she copies it to her mother's storage too before they can wipe it off her desk - if they catch her at this she'll delete it from there, too, but maybe they won't notice or they'll outright let her have her fun. She sets a little program to decrypting it while she attends physics and it's done by the time she finishes the problem set.

She looks at what they have on her. It's about what she expected: copies of all her notebooks, comments about the accurate predictions a computer model spat out when given them as data, hysterical flailing when she stopped writing English, and her essays, with a few sparse notes. They don't seem to find her worrying. They seem oddly encouraged by her willingness to injure the boys who were hurting Sue, back when she was littler, half her current age. Someone wrote she's not aggressive, but she's decisive, and the buggers struck first, she won't have any problem wiping them out of the sky.

And that's true. She's seen vid of what they did to China. Even if there were some misunderstanding behind everything and the buggers didn't intend to invite total war, they turned living things into soup, destroyed a hundred historical artifacts, killed millions of people - they were not making an effort to be compatible with humans. She will not have any problem wiping them out of the sky.

She looks at what they have on Sue.

pythbox
2013-02-26 12:45 am (UTC)

What they have on Sue, mainly, is arguments.

He's aggressive, all right. But only sometimes. He's unpredictable, but as a certain recruiter points out, he is predictable when it counts. He is completely unaffected by failure, but he will put everything into succeeding, if there's something in it for him.

When his mutant power manifested, the memos really started flying. Here, says his champion, is the perfect commander. He can link his top subcommanders in battle. Look at the cognitive speedup side effects, the synergy, the unheard-of synchronized maneuvers. Look how focused he is.

The main doubts about him are that he is basically nondestructive. Cooperative, not competitive. He'll win, but he won't do any more than he has to in order to secure that victory. And his response when his friend was threatened? Passive. He bounced communications around until he got a teacher and chased his soldier off with tentative, empty threats. Some factions believe that is a sign of weakness.

His original recruiter maintains that they just haven't seen him under the right kind of pressure yet.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 12:51 am (UTC)

Heh. Birdbirdbird?

pythbox
2013-02-26 12:52 am (UTC)

Friendly, affectionate mind-nudge.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 12:54 am (UTC)

Got some psych files. Wanna see what everyone's arguing about, about you?

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:04 am (UTC)

Sure, gimme the scoop, he laughs.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:07 am (UTC)

Do you want them to maybe know that you know or should I just push it?

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:09 am (UTC)

Just push it, he decides.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:11 am (UTC)

She re-skims the documentation on Sue, sending as she goes.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:17 am (UTC)

He keeps up a running background commentary of his reactions - mostly amusement - but one thing makes him produce actual words:

Sign of weakness my ass.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:20 am (UTC)

You didn't need anything more to chase her off, agrees Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:22 am (UTC)

Sometimes I wish I'd chased her off sooner, so she would've hurt you less, he admits. But it worked out okay.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:23 am (UTC)

How would you have done it any faster? She was already gone by the time you got there.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:25 am (UTC)

If I'd pushed the right threat first. Or yelled so loud she got distracted from what she was doing. But I don't know if I could've even done that without breaking my own arm and pushing that at her, or something.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:28 am (UTC)

I'd say they just don't know how your power works, but there's so much documentation on it that it's hard to credit.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:30 am (UTC)

Maybe they were expecting me to threaten to kill her or something, he says. Whatever.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:34 am (UTC)

Then if she called it, you'd have either actually killed her and you'd have people arguing about whether you're stable, or you'd have not followed through and they'd be wondering if you just talk big. Pft, they're just so mixed up about you that there's no win-win.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:37 am (UTC)

They're already arguing about whether I'm stable, he says. The undertones imply that this is a source of pride.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:39 am (UTC)

Yeah, they'd just have more ammunition. But hey, you have at least one solid advocate. I have one of those too, although fewer people have been fighting with him. Not the same guy.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:41 am (UTC)

Nice to have friends, I guess, he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:41 am (UTC)

I dunno if friends is the right word. People who are in favor of us having military careers.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:43 am (UTC)

He laughs. Yeah. Those.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:45 am (UTC)

Yours keeps sounding like he wants to have you commanding - vast fleets. So if he gets his way you're looking at being an admiral. I'm probably gonna be somebody's XO or something.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:46 am (UTC)

Maybe you'll be mine, he says playfully.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 01:48 am (UTC)

I dunno if that'd make sense. I have to actively concentrate to link up. And if I did it when anybody in authority was watching they might get nervous about the exo. She's pushed all the psych data on Sue now, and closed up the file and started skimming files on other people she knows without pushing any of their contents.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:01 am (UTC)

True, he acknowledges. I'd miss you if you weren't, though.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:02 am (UTC)

Inconvenient combination of powers. But if I didn't have mine I would've flunked the physical screen and I'd be Earthside. Only maybe alive and not drooling from brain damage.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:03 am (UTC)

Sue does not want Aegis to die or get brain damage. He feels this so strongly he pushes it without words, as an unspoken certainty.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:04 am (UTC)

Thanks.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:05 am (UTC)

He pushes the physical feeling of a smile.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:07 am (UTC)

You're sure a multimedia presentation, she laughs. Heh. They want to eventually have Nina running a bootcamp for enlistees who weren't prodigies enough to get into Battle School. They think it'll suit her temperament. They note that she should be supervised.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:12 am (UTC)

Sue giggles, and sends it.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:15 am (UTC)

A lot of these files keep sounding like they're geared towards finding one person to do something. One commander. And backups, but it sounds like there's some one-person job they're sifting through Battle School to fill. The one guy's pushing for you, but there's other favorites too. I don't seem to be in the running. They think I'm - well, I'm inclined to summarize it as too nice, but they don't like the way I let my soldiers pick their toons apparently.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:17 am (UTC)

Kuso, says Sue. You're not too nice, you're terrifying.

He means it in the most admiring possible way.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:22 am (UTC)

How'm I terrifying? I'm nice to my critters, I'm nice to my soldiers, I helped everyone under my command with stuff when I could, people keep complaining about it in the comments, I'm 'soft' and 'this is why girls scarcely ever pass the test, how did this one make it through' and 'of her two violent confrontations one was defensive on a friend's behalf, one utterly passive with no move from her beyond pleading to end the engagement; she does not aggress, she does not strike preemptively, she is too nurturing to be a good soldier', recites Aegis, looking over her own files again.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:28 am (UTC)

She is a goddess of vicious precision, with the will to build an empire and the intelligence to make it work, physically the perfect soldier, tactically and strategically a good enough commander to back that up and take him down in the battleroom. She is not too nice because her niceness is part of what makes her so good at what she does. That dream of his was right; she's an angel, she's an empress, she's magic, she should rule the world.

Sue pushes something to this effect.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:32 am (UTC)

Eeeee.

Pushing feelings is hard, she has to lean so much on the bird-bird-bird-ing to get even words past her wall, but she sends Thank you! I feel all warm and fuzzy. Anyway, no one complains about my performance as a commander, I only lost three and they don't think it was because I did anything dumb. They're just drawing a lot on non-game behavior too because they know a lot of kids see the game as, well. A game.
Edited 2013-02-26 02:32 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:34 am (UTC)

Well, their analysis is fucked, says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:36 am (UTC)

It'd be hilarious if they let us comment on each other's psych reports and argue with the shrinks and colonels and whatnot.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:39 am (UTC)

He snickers. Don't tempt me. Or, y'know, do.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:40 am (UTC)

You'll have to do your own hack. Mine just copied the stuff, didn't give me edit privileges. What would you write?

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:46 am (UTC)

That any officer with his head so far up his shithole that he thinks being a girl makes you unfit for command should obviously be fired and replaced with somebody who can think with his brain instead of his balls, snorts Sue, over a mental image of a pair of terrified testicles fleeing from the shadow of her glory.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:46 am (UTC)

Aegis laughs, and has to work very hard to channel all of it into the link instead of laughing aloud.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:47 am (UTC)

Sue giggles back.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:50 am (UTC)

Aegis wonders if she got the psych profiles of kids who just barely didn't make it. And she did, and the gender ratio is closer to even, although not close, and the profiles are shorter. It looks like the early testers are being - well, at least in spitting distance of fair to girls. A decent fraction of the tests they like are objective measures, some of them are blinded, and girls do disqualify more.

pythbox
2013-02-26 02:51 am (UTC)

Wonder why.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 02:53 am (UTC)

I'm not sure. I last talked to a girl who wasn't filtered by Battle School tests six years ago, and I don't know how much to trust books.

pythbox
2013-02-26 03:13 am (UTC)

He snorts.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 04:13 am (UTC)

It makes me feel weird. Weird for a Battle School kid, weird for a girl. Not, like, bad-weird. I like being a girl and being good enough to launch. But I feel all distinctive.

pythbox
2013-02-26 01:12 pm (UTC)

Welcome to the club, Sue says cheerfully. Bet you I'm weirder.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 05:12 pm (UTC)

Mmm... I think your weirdness is more colorful. If most people are flat gray, you're tie-dyed rainbow and I'm a black-and-white pattern with lots of little details that looks gray if you stand far enough away.

pythbox
2013-02-26 05:14 pm (UTC)

He laughs. Yeah, I'll take that.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 05:20 pm (UTC)

She pokes around her pirated files.

Heh. I have stuff on the teachers. Just the Battle School ones, not the ones here.

pythbox
2013-02-26 05:20 pm (UTC)

Any dirt?

autokinetic
2013-02-26 05:24 pm (UTC)

Nothing yet. They're very rigorous, but I don't think they let anyone they don't trust pretty well teach there. You want me to look up anybody in particular? Do you even remember any of the teachers who you saw maybe six times each, besides maybe your launch 'mom'?

pythbox
2013-02-26 05:27 pm (UTC)

I think his name started with a D, he says vaguely. I don't really care.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 05:29 pm (UTC)

She snickers. She looks up her launch mom. He seems to be friends with her advocate; there are a few more notes about her in his file about his reaction to her and what it means about him. She never thought he was being particularly partial, but maybe he's just a good actor. Whatcha doing?

pythbox
2013-02-26 05:30 pm (UTC)

Hanging out with Howlett. He hasn't said a word in half an hour.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 05:35 pm (UTC)

That doesn't sound very interesting.

pythbox
2013-02-26 05:37 pm (UTC)

You'd be surprised.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 05:42 pm (UTC)

What's interesting about it, then?

pythbox
2013-02-26 05:45 pm (UTC)

Maybe 'interesting' is strictly speaking the wrong word. It's not boring, though. Sue sits and thinks and giggles to himself occasionally; Howlett sits and does nothing much. Once in a while they look at each other. It's definitely not like spending time with anyone else would be.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 05:47 pm (UTC)

This school really needs a games room, says Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-26 05:47 pm (UTC)

Sue laughs.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 05:52 pm (UTC)

Seriously, they go from filling our lives with all kinds of games to expecting us to do nothing but classwork, all day, every day. There's not even a simulator for tactics problems, you have to do them with the least gamelike models they could possibly program.

pythbox
2013-02-26 05:54 pm (UTC)

It's weird, he agrees. I don't mind much, though.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 06:10 pm (UTC)

Why would you mind? You can do exciting things like sitting in silence with the personal combat teacher. Your life is a barrel of laughs.

She's done with the psych files for now. She closes them and does some of that tactics homework. There's extra credit offered for coming up with good answers that aren't the ones in the teacher's edition of the textbook, and she usually gets these without trying very hard.

pythbox
2013-02-26 08:58 pm (UTC)

Yup, says Sue, deliberately unironic.

i'm a goddess of vicious precision

autokinetic

Because there are so many fewer diversions on this station than on the previous one, Aegis takes to those that are offered with more of an open mind than she might have done before. For instance, she stays after personal combat sometimes, to watch Sue sparring with Howlett. Now and then she takes a turn herself. Today she's just supervising.

pythbox
2013-02-26 09:47 pm (UTC)

Sue sparring with Howlett is a real education. It always looks like at least one of them will be leaving the room on a stretcher at any moment, but so far, nobody's sustained significant injury.

That is about to change.

Howlett attacks with the characteristically aggressive style of these after-hours sessions; Sue responds with equal force. They go back and forth for a while, a surprisingly even exchange considering the difference in skill level. Then Sue manages to grab Howlett's wrist, and he immediately spins, pulling the attached arm out straight and throwing his whole weight against the back of the elbow.

It makes a very nasty sound.

They don't even pause; Sue, laughing, presses the advantage, and Howlett defends, and despite his now-useless right arm he manages to hold Sue off for half a minute more.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 09:49 pm (UTC)

What the -

"What the hell? Did you just break his elbow?"

pythbox
2013-02-26 09:54 pm (UTC)

Howlett snorts.

"Yep!" says Sue, proudly. His victory having now been established, he lets Howlett up; the personal combat instructor rolls his shoulder a few times, waiting out several more nasty sounds, and then flexes the afflicted elbow. Good as new.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 09:56 pm (UTC)

"...Oh," says Aegis. "Roomful of mutants, huh?"

pythbox
2013-02-26 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Yup," says Howlett.

"It's the best," says Sue. "I get to hit him as hard as I want."

Howlett looks amused.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Is it a secret? I mean, during classtime you scarcely get hit, but that's not never, if you don't need people to hold back you could tell them."

pythbox
2013-02-26 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm not supposed to advertise it," says Howlett.

"I only found out 'cause I broke his nose a while back," says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Why aren't you supposed to advertise?" Aegis says. "Mine's public - I wear evidence of it around all the time - and Sue's is public 'cause it's useful."

pythbox
2013-02-26 10:24 pm (UTC)

Howlett just shakes his head.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 10:31 pm (UTC)

"If it's private and you won't tell me why, you probably should've told Sue to pull his punches, or sent me away before you started," says Aegis. She doesn't mean to sound threatening, but she happens to think that this is true.

pythbox
2013-02-26 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?" asks Howlett mildly.

autokinetic
2013-02-26 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Because I hate doing things when I don't know why I'm doing them," says Aegis, "and I also hate not knowing things in the first place."

pythbox
2013-02-26 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Tough," says Howlett.

Sue rolls his eyes.

Howlett relents. "Politics," he explains. "If it gets around that a mutant's teaching personal combat at Tacical, and enough people get their panties in a twist, my job's probably going to be the first thing to give."

autokinetic
2013-02-26 11:06 pm (UTC)

"You on thin tether for some other reason? As far as I can tell IF policy is mutant-neutral and practice is often pro-, 'cause we're useful. Like, I'm the only person in the military who can use certain military-grade hardware." She stretches her arms above her head.

pythbox
2013-02-26 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I have," says Howlett, with a slight smile, "an insubordination problem."

autokinetic
2013-02-26 11:19 pm (UTC)

Aegis giggles. She glances at Sue, and giggles some more. "Understood," she says.

pythbox
2013-02-26 11:21 pm (UTC)

Sue and Howlett exchange a grin.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 01:47 am (UTC)

The Tactical School routine is not as much fun as the playful childhood of Battle School, but it's got work enough for her once Aegis has loaded up on electives in not just personal combat but also xenobiology and engineering. She keeps busy. The months go by. She's twelve and a half and Sue's approaching fourteen. And he's been terribly moody.

"You've been a pill lately," she says, when she's between xenobio protein flashcards winking by in spaced repetition on her desk. She throws a rolled pair of socks at his back. "You okay? Has puberty eaten your personality, am I next?"

pythbox
2013-02-27 01:52 am (UTC)

He winces at the impact, then lets the socks roll off him without returning fire.

"Yeah," he says with heavy irony, "it's all the hormones' fault."

autokinetic
2013-02-27 01:53 am (UTC)

"No, seriously," she coaxes.

Then: birdbirdbird?

pythbox
2013-02-27 01:57 am (UTC)

Sue flops down on his bed and puts his pillow over his head.

You don't want to know, he says; the undertones are tired, sad, uncomfortable, ashamed.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 02:03 am (UTC)

The hell I don't, who do you think you're talking to?

pythbox
2013-02-27 02:55 am (UTC)

Fine.

She's told him before that he's a multimedia presentation; what he shows her next is definitely in that vein. Sight, sound, physical sensation, emotional content - all muffled, at one extra remove, like he's shielding her from the full impact. For good reason.

It started a few weeks ago. One of the older kids, nearer graduation. They had a scuffle in the corridor, which is not all that unusual; what's unusual is that the other guy won. And he held Sue against the floor, and it felt wonderful and terrible and frightening in ways Sue didn't really understand.

Then the same boy found him again, another time. Again they fought. Again Sue lost. But this time, it did not end there.

He tried to push his suffering to make him back off, like he did with that gang back at Battle School, but this kid just mocked him for his conflicted feelings, for his shame, his fear, for the part of him that liked it.

He went to a teacher, after the second time. Not Howlett. He couldn't face Howlett with this. The teacher flatly told him it wasn't happening. Sue has never in his life been blown off with such absolute conviction. No help there.

Yesterday it happened again. He barely tried to fight back. His new best friend was very happy about that. Sue wanted to throw up, or maybe just gut himself. And, lest anybody doubt what a slut he is, he still got off on it.

When the narrative flood subsides, he's crying softly into his pillow.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 02:57 am (UTC)

The dorms are in a medium-gravity section; Aegis is at his side in a moment to wrap him in a hug. Oh Sue. Oh my bird.

pythbox
2013-02-27 03:00 am (UTC)

Sue clings to her and sobs.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 03:11 am (UTC)

Why not Howlett, could you tell him if I was there, could you back me up if I told him - he wouldn't pull that crap, he gets you -

pythbox
2013-02-27 03:14 am (UTC)

He cries harder.

I couldn't, I just couldn't. It would hurt too much to know he knew.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 03:20 am (UTC)

She squeezes him. Then - then I'll stick by you, we can get him together, she says, like that last time, you and me.

pythbox
2013-02-27 03:22 am (UTC)

He sniffles into her shoulder.

Maybe, he says, unconvinced. I don't know. I'm afraid.

He doesn't specify of what.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 03:30 am (UTC)

I want to find something to do that you're not scared of, but I don't know if there is something like that.

pythbox
2013-02-27 03:33 am (UTC)

I'm afraid he'll hurt you too.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 03:40 am (UTC)

I - Well, she has no clever response to that. Now that he mentions it, she's scared too. But. He might do that anyway, just because I'm your friend.

pythbox
2013-02-27 03:41 am (UTC)

...And now he's crying again.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 03:42 am (UTC)

And I'd tell, anyway, I'd tell until someone listened, and then he'd get iced.

pythbox
2013-02-27 03:47 am (UTC)

This is a strangely appealing prospect. Except.

I still don't want you getting hurt like that.

Underlying the words: it makes sense for shit like this to happen to Sue. Sue is already twisted. Aegis is beautiful and perfect and any world where she gets hurt is a wrong world.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 03:55 am (UTC)

You shouldn't be getting hurt either. The world's wrong in a billion ways and that's one of them and if I can stop it I want to. I'll do it without getting hurt if I can, though.

pythbox
2013-02-27 01:51 pm (UTC)

Yep. Crying.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 04:05 pm (UTC)

Hugs. This isn't something urgent to figure out on a scale of right now; the creep can't get into their room.

(Unless he can, unless he can fool the palm scanner, but then they'll have to go with trying to beat him up anyway and any elaborate plan will be moot.)

pythbox
2013-02-27 04:08 pm (UTC)

Aegis is such a good friend. Sue never wants anything bad to happen to her, ever ever ever. He pushes that; it seems important.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 04:10 pm (UTC)

I agree with you. Except it doesn't make it okay for bad things to happen to you either. I wouldn't be such a good friend if I thought so, e?

pythbox
2013-02-27 04:14 pm (UTC)

He laughs softly. E.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 04:27 pm (UTC)

Hugs are good. Hugs help even when they don't. You got a better idea than cornering him with me there and kicking the kuso out of him?

pythbox
2013-02-27 04:31 pm (UTC)

Nope.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 04:41 pm (UTC)

There's a scratching sound and a series of beeps at their door.

Aegis sits up.

The door slides open.

It's a familiar face. Hello, Sue's new best friend.

"Hiding in your room? What, forever, Tommy?" asks Sue's new best friend. "Not very sociable of you."

(Sue's name is, alas, not hard to find. The teachers will use a nickname simply because that's the only way for them to get him to respond, but "Thomas Chester Sanderson" goes on being stamped into every official record.)

Aegis stands in one fluid motion.

pythbox
2013-02-27 04:48 pm (UTC)

Sue freezes.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 04:59 pm (UTC)

birbirdbird going to need some help, here says Aegis, dropping into a ready position. "Get out of our room," she says.

Sue's new best friend touches the panel on the wall that closes the door, and it slides shut. "Mm," he says, "no."
Edited 2013-02-27 17:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-27 05:03 pm (UTC)

He links her, but he doesn't move—he can't move—all he sends is fear, soft quiet mouselike fear.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 05:08 pm (UTC)

Sue - Sue, if he can take you by himself, I don't know if I can take him alone -

Sue's new friend moves fast.

Sue's old friend moves faster, but she is not as strong, she is not a speed-mutant but only an efficient user of her limbs, and either this guy knows how her exo works or he's lucky, because after a lot of dodging has gone on and she's gotten one admittedly solid hit to his gut, he clips her across the ear and sends her head careening into the edge of her bunk and her motor cortex goes screwy; it's like she seizes, twitching all her muscles at independent random, and then she falls to the floor like a rag doll. Like a twelve-year-old girl.

"I like how you're all cooperative," says Sue's new best friend, nudging Aegis with his foot and getting a half-conscious groan in response. "She thought she was being helpful, maybe but you know you don't mind if I come in to visit you whenever I like."

pythbox
2013-02-27 05:16 pm (UTC)

It's a nightmare, a living nightmare, all of the worst things that could possibly happen, worse than dying, almost worse than going home.

But—how'd he forget this so fast?—he used to live a nightmare as bad as this one.

Sue chooses to stop caring that he is afraid.

He uncoils from his tense stillness and launches himself into the older boy, fast enough that the force of impact slams him against the door.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you want it rough today," is the response, and the fight is on. Sue's new best friend is barely hampered by the hit he took to his stomach, and he's confident, not scared, he's beaten Sue before.

pythbox
2013-02-27 05:26 pm (UTC)

There is only one way to make this stop. Sue understands that now. He doesn't fight to 'win', to merely immobilize his opponent; he fights to cause maximum damage, and any injury he sustains he reflects ruthlessly back at the person who caused it.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 05:32 pm (UTC)

Sue's determination doesn't give him reach, or mass; his reflections don't change the fact that his opponent isn't aiming for injury himself, just an inability to do more than squirm, so at first this doesn't change much.

But damage accumulates, and Sue's new best friend starts to realize that he's not playing at resistance or about to roll over like before, and he starts talking. He's not an idiot. They don't let idiots into Tactical.

"C'mon, don't you want to get her to the infirmary, it'll be over sooner if you just - she's probably got brain damage, you know," says Sue's new best friend. "Maybe it's helpful brain damage, maybe you can reach in with your mutie linky thing and pick her up like a puppet, maybe she can play a little more, hm?"

pythbox
2013-02-27 05:34 pm (UTC)

Sue replies by biting his new best friend's hand. Hard.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 05:45 pm (UTC)

That gets him a hiss and his head knocked into a bunk, too. "Bet you she's dying. I'll let you run her to the infirmary to save her and make up some story about how you hurt her yourself if you quit - fighting - me -"

pythbox
2013-02-27 05:55 pm (UTC)

Maybe she is, but this guy's word isn't worth a chunk of puke.

Sue doesn't do anything different, here in his room. He still fights like a cornered rat. But he also reaches out to the infirmary - he knows it well enough to find the minds that belong there - and he touches one, and sends a pure-informational message: Aegis hit her head on her bunk and she's not moving and they should send someone to check her out.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 05:59 pm (UTC)

The doctor he alerts is going to send someone along at once.

Pity they're on the opposite side of the station.

"I'll tell them it was her and you fighting, and I heard you and that's when I came in, and you hurt her, and even if she wakes up she's got a head injury, who'll she believe?"

But he's slowing down now, just a little, favoring one shoulder.

pythbox
2013-02-27 06:04 pm (UTC)

He cuts the link to the doctor and finds another soft place to sink his teeth into.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Little fucker - all I ever did to you was give you what you wanted anyway -"

But Sue's winning, now, the balance has tipped just enough to add up to his advantage.

pythbox
2013-02-27 06:12 pm (UTC)

Sue pushes, with stark clarity, I want you to die.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 06:19 pm (UTC)

Sue's new best friend has a little problem with his jaw now, but as long as they're linking -

Oh, you think so, but you're always gonna think about it, gonna wish you'd let me one last time - kill me now and who'll ever want you? It'll get around, he killed the last guy who so much as touched him, not even desperate guys gone space-gay will look twice at you unless they want to get with your little friend when she grows tits - you'll die alone, little friend when she grows tits'll have her pick and there's no way she'd want a freak like you -

pythbox
2013-02-27 06:21 pm (UTC)

He fills the link with the extensive depth of how much he does not care, and jams his elbow into the older boy's throat.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 06:24 pm (UTC)

Sue's new best friend chokes.

He has no clever rejoinder.

pythbox
2013-02-27 06:36 pm (UTC)

Sue does it again.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 06:37 pm (UTC)

Sue's new best friend cannot breathe. He strikes out, but he's just flailing, now, eyes unfocused.

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:13 pm (UTC)

And it's easy, now, to pin him to the floor.

And wait. Just wait. That's all.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:19 pm (UTC)

There are three minds in this room.

Sue's new best friend gets in a parting shot, dripping with malice. You sat there while I trashed her. She'll remember that.

Now there are two.

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:23 pm (UTC)

Sue sits down on the floor, leans against his bunk, and waits.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:25 pm (UTC)

The medics arrive, and they split up to check each of the three bodies in the room, and declare Sue's new best friend to be Sue's dead best friend, and they load Aegis onto a stretcher and carry her away.

"You need the infirmary too," says one of the medics, looking Sue over. "Can you walk?"

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:29 pm (UTC)

He pulls himself to his feet and immediately stumbles, catching himself on the wall.

"Kinda," he says distantly.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Need another stretcher over here," says the medic, and Sue is loaded onto it and carried down the hall after his - friends.

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:32 pm (UTC)

He spaces out a little on the way. There just doesn't seem to be anything to think about.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:33 pm (UTC)

Aegis wakes up before they get there.

bird?

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:34 pm (UTC)

He pushes her everything. What happened, what he felt. What the other guy said.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:36 pm (UTC)

my head hurts, she replies, and she can no longer bird, the wall goes back up.

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:37 pm (UTC)

Sue goes back to his nothing.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:39 pm (UTC)

They're adjacent to each other in the infirmary. The other guy is in the makeshift morgue; he's not the first person to die on the station, although they don't have enough population to have a permanent setup for it.

They're treated for their injuries.

Aegis regains the ability to bird again after about an hour. you okay?

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:41 pm (UTC)

no

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:42 pm (UTC)

he hurt you?

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:44 pm (UTC)

He doesn't know. Well, yes, but he doesn't know if that's what's wrong.

He makes his confusion available over the link.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:46 pm (UTC)

they say I'm gonna be fine, she volunteers. they got to me quick enough. they won't tell me how you are.

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:47 pm (UTC)

i showed you what happened, he says. do you want it again?

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:48 pm (UTC)

I know what happened. I don't know how you're recovering. I'm not a doctor.

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:50 pm (UTC)

me neither

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:52 pm (UTC)

but aren't they telling you? I want you to be okay

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:54 pm (UTC)

i don't care if i'm okay.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 07:55 pm (UTC)

I do!

pythbox
2013-02-27 07:59 pm (UTC)

why

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:01 pm (UTC)

you're my bird. my friend I mean, you're my friend.

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:03 pm (UTC)

i like being your bird, he says listlessly.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:04 pm (UTC)

you don't sound like you like anything, right now

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:04 pm (UTC)

He considers this, then agrees wordlessly.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:14 pm (UTC)

what's wrong, help me help you

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:17 pm (UTC)

don't know, he says. i just. don't care. about me. about anything.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:18 pm (UTC)

Aegis has to dig very deeply to bring down enough wall for it, but she finds out that she can, if she wants to badly enough, send a virtual hug.

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:21 pm (UTC)

Now he is crying.

Is that an improvement?

It feels like it is.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:22 pm (UTC)

talk to me? please?

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:23 pm (UTC)

don't know what to say, he says. thank you, i guess. for being my friend.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:24 pm (UTC)

you're welcome

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:30 pm (UTC)

He doesn't know what the name of this feeling is, but it's a good feeling and he can't remember the last time he had one of those, so he sends it.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:32 pm (UTC)

Sending feelings is hard, and her head still hurts, or she'd reply in kind. thank you

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:32 pm (UTC)

you're a good friend.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:34 pm (UTC)

I like to think so. I wish I'd been better. I could've softened him up more if I'd been ready, but he just - I was thinking ambush but he just came in.

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:35 pm (UTC)

i wish i'd been better too. if i hadn't froze up he might not have got you like that.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:38 pm (UTC)

you couldn't help it. you would've fought if you could. you did, when you could.

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:42 pm (UTC)

He sniffles.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:44 pm (UTC)

you don't think they'll ice you for this, do you?

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:45 pm (UTC)

if i show them what happened, and they do, then i don't want to be here anyway.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:47 pm (UTC)

they better not.

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:48 pm (UTC)

He almost says he doesn't care that much, but... home is home.

yeah.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:50 pm (UTC)

There's nothing else to say. I'm going to sleep.

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:50 pm (UTC)

okay

autokinetic
2013-02-27 08:57 pm (UTC)

They're released from the infirmary at about the same time.

They aren't called to any meetings, no one reacts beyond giving her missed lesson plans and homework assignments when Aegis goes back to class, Sue is not ordered to report to a shuttle to Earth.

It's like nothing happened.

They're hanging out in their room again when Aegis says, "So have you actually been to a million disciplinary hearings already when I haven't been looking and you just haven't mentioned or - are they doing exactly nothing?"

pythbox
2013-02-27 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Nothing," says Sue. "I don't think they even told all the staff. Howlett doesn't act like he knows."

autokinetic
2013-02-27 09:02 pm (UTC)

"That's weird," says Aegis.

And she pulls out her desk. Her old hack should work - pretty please can she have another backup of the files she's lost, look, she has this earlier save -

Sue's file is bigger now.

She reads.

It's a raging brawl, insofar as text can be. Sue's patron-champion-careerbooster is livid that -

that the higher-ups ordered that the teachers ignore what was happening so they could see what Sue would do. They didn't sic the older kid on him, but they did stand by; they did know what was going on all along - they did give him a chance to see a teacher using the master door-opening passcode.

You said we hadn't seen him under enough pressure, says one of said higher-ups. He doesn't respond to academic inducements, so we engineered a test he could not ignore.

This wasn't the right kind of pressure. You may well have destroyed our best chance in the name of testing, to say nothing of the moral atrocity! You will never make a soldier out of this child. You might, if you're lucky, still make him the commander that saves humanity. But you'd best hope to God he never finds out what you did.

"Sue," says Aegis quietly.
Edited 2013-02-27 21:13 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:15 pm (UTC)

"...What?"

autokinetic
2013-02-27 09:16 pm (UTC)

"If I had just found out something that might make you very, very angry, and if at least one person thought that making you that angry might lead to humans going extinct, should I tell you that something anyway?"

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:19 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah."

autokinetic
2013-02-27 09:22 pm (UTC)

She turns her desk to face him and bows her head.

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:23 pm (UTC)

Sue reads.

Slowly, quietly, carefully, he turns her desk around again.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 09:24 pm (UTC)

She waits.

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:25 pm (UTC)

"If I do save humanity," he says, far too lightly, "then they'll give me these guys' heads on a platter when I ask."

autokinetic
2013-02-27 09:34 pm (UTC)

"You can pin them to your uniform with all your medals," agrees Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:41 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 09:42 pm (UTC)

Aegis sets her desk aside and hugs him tight.

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:43 pm (UTC)

Somehow, his giggles metamorphose into sobs.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 09:44 pm (UTC)

"You're okay, you're okay," she murmurs, "or you'll be okay, it'll be okay."

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:53 pm (UTC)

Sue clings.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 09:56 pm (UTC)

"You'll be okay," she repeats. "You're not as breakable as that guy thinks you are and you'll be okay."

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I know," he says. "Hurts, though."

autokinetic
2013-02-27 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Can I help?" she asks, hugging harder.

pythbox
2013-02-27 10:01 pm (UTC)

"You are," he says, hugging back.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but - could I be doing it better?"

pythbox
2013-02-27 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Dunno."

Cuddle cuddle.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Well - if you think of anything - lemme know." Cuddles.

pythbox
2013-02-27 10:25 pm (UTC)

"I will," he murmurs.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Good."

i'm a good friend

autokinetic

Things go back to normal. Pretty much.

Aegis's thirteenth birthday approaches. She is slowly acquiring the promised features of adulthood, little by little; she's issued a new set of uniforms after she grows two inches. Boys begin leering at her, although she has not yet been outright propositioned. There just aren't enough girls to go around. Even a barely-pubescent one who has demonstrated no indication that she even knows what her sexual orientation is going to be when she grows up gets attention.

Meanwhile, Sue -

Her bird is kind enough to bring boys (both regular- and space-gay-or-bi) home only while she's in classes, but she can tell when they've been there - they leave things, there are hairs in colors that don't match her or Sue on his pillow, xenobio let out early once and she saw one leaving. Sometimes he's gone a long time and doesn't react when she bird-bird-birds at him and comes back walking funny or refusing to make eye contact.

He flirts with everyone.

He flirts with her, and she hasn't the slightest idea what to do with that, and he always backs off after a little while, but he doesn't seem quite - happy. He isn't fully unbroken, and she doesn't know how to help.

On the day she turns thirteen, she says, "Happy birthday to me."

pythbox
2013-02-27 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Happy birthday to you!" agrees Sue. "Should I sing a song? I can sing a song!"

autokinetic
2013-02-27 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Nobody's sung me Happy Birthday since I was five, I barely even remember the tune," laughs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-02-27 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Happy birthday to yoooou," he croons tunelessly.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 11:44 pm (UTC)

She giggles, then sobers.

"How have you been doing lately? You're - you're gone a lot, I live in your room and I don't have a good sense of whether you're doing - okay."

pythbox
2013-02-27 11:49 pm (UTC)

He blinks, caught off-guard.

"Um..." he says, and doesn't seem to know where to go from there.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 11:51 pm (UTC)

"And you're screwing everyone who indicates that they'd rather do that than stare at a wall for the equivalent amount of time and if I don't know if you're okay, I don't know whether to worry, whether that's healthy Sue behavior," Aegis says.

pythbox
2013-02-27 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't know either," Sue admits, after a silence.

autokinetic
2013-02-27 11:55 pm (UTC)

Aegis pulls her knees up to her chin and hugs her legs. "How come you do it?"

pythbox
2013-02-27 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Because... I feel like it?" he says hesitantly. "But sometimes I don't, and I do it anyway."

autokinetic
2013-02-27 11:59 pm (UTC)

"When you don't feel like it why do you do it?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:05 am (UTC)

"Habit," he guesses. "I don't really know. I just don't know how not to."

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:05 am (UTC)

"I don't understand."

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:13 am (UTC)

"Me neither," sighs Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:16 am (UTC)

"I haven't sprouted a sex drive yet," says Aegis, unfolding and stretching and leaning over the back of her chair. "So I don't have one to take apart and see what its moving parts are and try to figure out if it looks like everyone else's, and I don't know if that would be a good standard anyway, but if you're doing stuff you don't want to do - well. That doesn't sound very Sueish if we assume this isn't somehow its own thing. You do what you want to do."

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:17 am (UTC)

He giggles.

"I'm imagining a little flower growing out of the top of your head," he informs her.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:19 am (UTC)

"Everything'll be coming up roses," she returns. "But I mean - you never do things you don't want to do. You've been cutting classes for the last seven years, for crying out loud."

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah." He sighs again. "Fuck, I don't know. It's not like I decide to do it even though I don't want to. I just... don't decide not to."

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:25 am (UTC)

"Like... breathing, when you're not paying attention to holding your breath?" she suggests after a moment.

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:26 am (UTC)

He considers this analogy for a moment.

"Kinda, yeah."

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:27 am (UTC)

"And you're just sort of inhaling everybody who comes along and is remotely interested. And we don't know if this is healthy Sue behavior," she summarizes.

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:30 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he agrees. "But... I think maybe it's not."

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:32 am (UTC)

She spins her chair around and twists in the seat to look at him over the back. "Do you want to stop? Or tone it down or whatever?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:35 am (UTC)

"...Maybe?" he says cautiously.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:36 am (UTC)

"Maybe not, though?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:38 am (UTC)

"I think... I want to do it less," he says. "But I'm afraid."

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:39 am (UTC)

"What of?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:42 am (UTC)

He shrugs helplessly.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:43 am (UTC)

"I read all their notes, but that doesn't make me a psychologist, I only know how to read my mind," says Aegis.

Pause.

bird

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:44 am (UTC)

yeah?

autokinetic
2013-02-28 12:46 am (UTC)

well, if you push at me, then whatever it is will be in my mind and maybe I can decode it like I do my own stuff? I dunno if it'll work, but if it's important and you can't do it and I might be able to help...

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:00 am (UTC)

He exposes his vague anxieties and general apathy about his body to the link.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 01:01 am (UTC)

Aegis reads it all, and she opens a blank text file on her desk and starts typing representative gibberish, frowning.

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:16 am (UTC)

Sue waits.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 01:19 am (UTC)

Type. Type type stare. She lifts one hand from the keyboard, draws lines between this dollar sign and that capital M and a circle around the cluster of parentheses.

Type type type stare type draw draw type.

It's like you don't live in your body - or you're trying not to - if it's yours, if it matters, then it matters if people take it, but if it's nothing, if you give it out like Halloween candy and it doesn't matter, then - they can't hurt you? she says, obviously not confident in her conclusions.

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:20 am (UTC)

He closes his eyes. There are now tears in them.

Yeah, he sends. Yeah, that's it.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 01:22 am (UTC)

She closes her desk and goes to hug him.

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:22 am (UTC)

Sue hugs her back, crying softly.

It doesn't even work, he says, it just makes me feel like shit all the time.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 01:24 am (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs hugs. You shouldn't have to feel like shit all the time, there's got to be some better way to fix up how you're thinking about it, she soothes.

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:26 am (UTC)

I don't know how, he says helplessly.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 01:27 am (UTC)

I can process more for you, since that works, we just have to figure out what you need to show me to process.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:03 am (UTC)

He tries to line it all up in some kind of order—what it feels like to be into it, what it feels like to just not care, what it feels like afterward in either case.

There's a relic of someone they both know lurking under the surface there, but not very far: wanting sex carries residual shame in a way that apathy doesn't.
Edited 2013-02-28 02:04 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:18 am (UTC)

Aegis pulls out her desk again. Type draw type type draw stare, stare, stare. Draw. Squint. Type.

If you quit having sex you're not into all that'll be left is the kind you feel ashamed of, she sends, looking at her incomprehensible symbols and lines and flicking her eyes between them. And because that creep found out that you had mixed feelings and was insofar as that's possible even assholier about that, those are the only categories you're seeing, and going without is intolerable, so you're - saturating, fixing the ratio as best you can without zeroing everything out, but the basic problem is it feels gross to want it? she concludes.
Edited 2013-02-28 02:18 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:21 am (UTC)

That... sounds about right, he says, and sighs. Fuck, I hate that guy.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:22 am (UTC)

She hugs him again. I do too.

Think, think.

I don't know what to do with it feeling gross to want something. I just figure out what I want and then I figure out how to get it with what I have.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:24 am (UTC)

It feels gross to want it, he says, but - I still want it, and I don't want to stop. I just want it to stop feeling gross.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:25 am (UTC)

Yeah. Well, I've been helpful so far, let's - She sighs a small sigh, and turns back to her desk. Let's have a helping of gross to dissect.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:28 am (UTC)

She can have a helping of gross, all right. He's got plenty to spare.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:35 am (UTC)

She shudders with borrowed unpleasantness, loses her handle on the birding for a moment, but she has enough to work with. Typetypetype stare draw type draw stare stare draw type.

You think your - your wanting is broken, that you must want things incorrectly if you could be at all ambivalent about what happened, she concludes. You've been ignoring what you want because you think your wanting is - fucking with you.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:42 am (UTC)

That's on backwards, he says. I know what's fucking with me, and it's not that. He sighs. But you're right, that's what it feels like.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:45 am (UTC)

She reaches out and touches his shoulder, runs her hand down to his elbow. Did he catch you at exactly the worst possible time, or do you have memories of wanting the same stuff and not feeling like it was fucking with you?

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:48 am (UTC)

...well, he says.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:48 am (UTC)

Mm?

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:49 am (UTC)

The first time she kicked his ass, it was... kind of like that. Kind of a lot like that. Definitely without feeling like it was fucking with him.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:51 am (UTC)

Aegis goes rather still. She's so constantly in motion that this is noticeable at once.

...okay, she says. Well, um, so, you know he didn't... cause it or anything.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:53 am (UTC)

Yeah, he says. Hey, I'm sorry, I know you're not—you don't like it when I flirt with you, I'm sorry.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:55 am (UTC)

It's okay, she says after a silence. ...If you knew I didn't like it why did you - I mean, you usually backed off after a little bit, but you still started up again. I'm younger than you, you know.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:56 am (UTC)

I usually don't think about it until I've already said something, he says. I flirt with everybody these days, it's hard to remember to turn it off.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 02:58 am (UTC)

She's loosened up again, she's swaying with the timing of her passing thoughts again. Mm. Well, it's okay. I'm fine and everything. And you know that mister creeper didn't - I dunno, psychically implant being all kinky into you. He just said shitty things about it. He said shitty things about me too and you don't feel weird about being my bird, do you?

pythbox
2013-02-28 03:00 am (UTC)

No, he says. I like being your bird.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 03:03 am (UTC)

Good, 'cause you are. She looks at the symbols on her desk. Is there anything else I should decipher for you? Did it even help or did it just - reopen the wounds?

pythbox
2013-02-28 03:09 am (UTC)

No, it's better to know what's going on, he says after a moment.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 03:12 am (UTC)

She hugs him again. Good. Let me know if there's anything else you want me to look at. Or anything else I can do. I want my bird to be okay.

pythbox
2013-02-28 03:13 am (UTC)

He hugs back, silently, because he doesn't have the words to express how much this means to him.

That's what links are for, though, isn't it?

autokinetic
2013-02-28 03:13 am (UTC)

At least in that direction, yes. Hugs hugs hugs.

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:55 pm (UTC)

Hugs hugs huuuugs. Aegis is such a good friend. She is the best.

witches treasure children

dark_light

Here is Milliways. It's Milliways with an empty Belltower, but it's still a neat place to hang out between making bits of incremental progress in motion spells and coaxing advice out of the alethiometer and wedging herself into clan politics.

pythbox
2013-03-02 03:02 am (UTC)

A teenager appears out of thin air nearby.

Even for Milliways, that is a reasonably rare occurrence. Also, his face might be a little familiar.

dark_light
2013-03-02 03:03 am (UTC)

"...Hey, you," says Amariah.

pythbox
2013-03-02 03:07 am (UTC)

"Hey you," he says, cocking his head at her. "You're new and different."

dark_light
2013-03-02 03:10 am (UTC)

"As opposed to what?" snorts Amariah. "Hey, did you write in the Belltower book a few years ago? D'you go by 'Sue'?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 03:13 am (UTC)

"That's me," he says. "How'd you know?"
Edited 2013-03-02 03:13 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-03-02 04:13 am (UTC)

"'Cause I went to the Belltower, literally ten minutes ago, and I caught up, and there was an entry about a Bell who hasn't been here herself but who has a Whistle, and the picture was a few years younger than you but same uniform, same haircut," says Amariah. "Did you read it as well as write in it? D'you remember any of it? I'm Amariah. The witch one with the owl." Pathalan waves a wing.

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:24 pm (UTC)

"I can definitely see you have an owl," he says, observing the owl. "Cute owl."

dark_light
2013-03-02 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Don't touch the owl," Amariah adds.

pythbox
2013-03-02 03:48 pm (UTC)

"But he's fluffy," says Sue.

dark_light
2013-03-02 03:51 pm (UTC)

Path flutters nervously up to sit in a rafter.

"Pathalan," says Amariah carefully, "is my soul. In my world everyone has them and most people instinctively avoid touching each other's daemons or at least learn not to by the time they're three. If you touch him you will hurt me. There is no worse feeling than uninvited daemon-touching."

pythbox
2013-03-02 03:53 pm (UTC)

Sue frowns.

dark_light
2013-03-02 03:54 pm (UTC)

"It's okay, you didn't actually grab him, I'm fine - are you all right?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Kind of... no," he says. "I don't know. I didn't really want to grab him anyway, I'm just tired of people ordering me around without telling me why, but then it turned out you had a good reason, and now I feel bad."

dark_light
2013-03-02 04:02 pm (UTC)

Path flutters down to Amariah's shoulder again, and says, "They haven't figured out yet that that won't work with you?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "And instead of trying, they just put me in solitary when I started acting up."

dark_light
2013-03-02 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Solitary," murmurs Amariah. "Oh, I'm sorry. D'you want a hug?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, wrapping his arms around his stomach.

dark_light
2013-03-02 04:38 pm (UTC)

Path hops onto her head to be out of the way, and she hugs him.

"I've got a one of you, back home," she says. "D'you want to meet him?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Sue, leaning into her but not unwrapping his arms.

dark_light
2013-03-02 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Up to you," Amariah says, scritching his head.

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:45 pm (UTC)

He closes his eyes and smiles. "You're nice," he declares.

dark_light
2013-03-02 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I try. If I could take you home with me to get you out of solitary, I'd offer, but there's at least two reasons I shouldn't do that - one, you appeared here instead of walking in, so nothing would actually be accomplished if I brought you through my door, you'd still wake up eventually, and, two, we suspect that going to my world might cause your soul to manifest as a daemon like mine, and that'd just be darned inconvenient in a world where not everybody has them. Stella visited once and she made a wish against it, but it took a star, and it might not have worked if someone other than her had done it."
Edited 2013-03-02 16:51 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't want my soul out where everybody can get at it," he agrees, snuggling against her.

dark_light
2013-03-02 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. That's... sometimes a problem, even at home," Amariah sighs.

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:55 pm (UTC)

Sue looks at her.

"I'm sorry," he says softly.

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:00 pm (UTC)

"It's okay," says Amariah. "I'd rather have Pathalan where I can talk to him than not. And me and Path, and your alt and his daemon, are all okay now."

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Good," he says, snuggling her some more.

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:02 pm (UTC)

"How's your Bell doing since you last wrote?" Amariah asks.

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Good," he says. "We both graduated to Tactical, but then I graduated to Command and I haven't seen her since."

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:05 pm (UTC)

"...Because solitary confinement, not because of some kind of falling-out?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Because Command is on the other end of the solar system?"

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Oh. That's a hike, yes, I could see that being a problem if you can't teleport," says Amariah, laughing a little. "Well, hopefully she'll graduate soon too."

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, hope so," he says. "I miss her."

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I bet she misses you too," says Amariah.

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Bet she does," he agrees.

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Ah, I wish there was something else I could do to help you," sighs Amariah. "You look just like my Kas, only a bit younger, and I hate to think of him shut up somewhere with no company... and Kas at least would have Petaal, that's his daemon."

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should go to your world," he snorts.

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:36 pm (UTC)

"You know what, if you want to I'll open the door for you, but - their standing opinion is that it's not worth it in a world with no daemons. If you had a daemon, she'd be a lot like you, you know, your soul - and nobody but you could touch her without hurting you, unless they were closer-than-close already. And I assume you'd have to hide her, too, she'd have to be little shapes and tucked away all the time."
Edited 2013-03-02 17:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:41 pm (UTC)

"But I could touch her," he says. "And that'd be better than what I've got."

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Right now she's - curled up inside you asleep somewhere," Amariah says, "or you'd be a zombie, not a whole person, and right now she doesn't need things - affection, attention, people to talk to - except through you, because she's asleep. You'd be taking one very bad situation and making it a slightly less bad but duplicated situation, and it's not like you could put her away again after you had her out once. I'd recommend talking to Kas and Petaal about it."

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he shrugs.

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I'll go get them," Amariah says, and she releases Sue and heads for the door and sticks her head out. [Hey Kas! I found a fifteenish you and he's been locked up in solitary, come help me keep him company and be advicey on possibly bringing him briefly into our world so he can get a daemon and not be so lonesome?]

truthwright
2013-03-02 05:52 pm (UTC)

He appears and hugs her.

"Okay," says Petaal from where she's coiled around his neck as a brightly coloured snake, "where's the little-us?"

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Over there," says Amariah, pointing. "Sue! These are Kas and Petaal. Sweeties, this is Sue."

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Sue, still hugging himself.

truthwright
2013-03-02 05:54 pm (UTC)

Kas teleports over and gives him a great big snuggly hug.

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:55 pm (UTC)

Amariah goes and sits back down where she was a moment ago. "Sue's got a Bell, but they attend school across the solar system from each other so they haven't seen each other in a long time," she says.

pythbox
2013-03-02 05:57 pm (UTC)

He leans on Kas and closes his eyes and just... pushes the mess that is his feelings.

truthwright
2013-03-02 05:58 pm (UTC)

Kas blinks.

"You didn't mention you were magic," he says, linking back and pushing the love that underlies his hug.

dark_light
2013-03-02 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Book says the word is 'mutant' and not technically magical," Amariah says.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:00 pm (UTC)

Sue shrugs, leaning into Kas's arms.

truthwright
2013-03-02 06:01 pm (UTC)

"You can hug back if you want," he murmurs.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:11 pm (UTC)

Slowly, hesitantly, he does.

truthwright
2013-03-02 06:12 pm (UTC)

Kas hugs him closer.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:22 pm (UTC)

He closes his eyes and presses his face against Kas's shoulder.

"I wanna go to your world," he declares, after they have spent a few minutes like this.

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Amariah. "If you're sure."

"What're you going to call her?" Path asks.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Ivy," he says whimsically.

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Why Ivy?" Amariah asks, getting up and heading for the door.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Something Aegis said once," he says, detaching from Kas and trailing after her. "I forget."

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:31 pm (UTC)

Amariah holds the door for him.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:35 pm (UTC)

Sue steps through.

Nothing happens at first.

But there's a glimmer, then a sparkle, then a cascade of golden light in the air next to him, and it coaelsces into a girl, exactly his age and exactly his height but with different body proportions and fewer clothes.

He hugs her immediately.

She turns into a viscacha and cuddles into his arms.

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Aww," sighs Amariah.

"Hi, Ivy," says Path.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" she says, turning into a snake and coiling around Sue's shoulders like Petaal around Kas's. "I exist!"

She sounds very happy about that.

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Welcome to existing," laughs Amariah. "...Is my 'curled up asleep somewhere' description accurate? It was mostly guessing, but now I can just ask."

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Don't know," she says. "I don't remember being separate from him until I was, but I don't remember not being separate from him. I remember his whole life but not exactly like it was mine."

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I'll call that 'close enough not to make up a new description'," Amariah says. "Well. This is my house." She gestures. It's pretty minimally decorated, and the view out the windows is of trackless forest. "Welcome! And the world's called Alethia."

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:45 pm (UTC)

Sue and Ivy go immediately to a window and staaaaaaaaaaaare out of it.

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:47 pm (UTC)

"...You like the woods?" Amariah asks.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I've been in space since I was like five," says Sue. "I barely remember what woods are."

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you'd like, you can go out in them, it's only autumn and you probably won't freeze, especially if Ivy turns into a witch. If you want, me or Petaal can take you flying. You probably don't have time for Ivy to learn how before you wake up."

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Take us flying, take us flying!" they chorus.

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:54 pm (UTC)

Amariah laughs, opens the front door, sets her cloudpine to hovering, and reminds them, "You'll want to make sure Ivy doesn't touch me," as she beckons for them to sit on it behind her.

pythbox
2013-03-02 06:57 pm (UTC)

Sue perches on the cloudpine; Ivy turns into a mouse and hides in the collar of his IF uniform.

dark_light
2013-03-02 06:58 pm (UTC)

Flight!

"If you want me to do anything fancy, let me know and I'll put a protective spell on you so you won't be too beat up if you fall. I can patch anything short of a broken neck," Amariah says. "With my native magic or with Stella's."

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, do fancy things," Sue says brightly.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:02 pm (UTC)

Amariah pauses in midair, conjures up some bayleaves, says, "I need to tuck these into Sue's collar, Ivy," and, when the daemon is out of the way, she puts them where they go and murmurs the poem. "Stella's kind of magic," she says, picking up speed again, "is ostensibly more powerful, but there's no sense of feedback for a made wish like I get on witch spells, so I use the latter when they'll do. Hold on tight!"

And then she loops.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Wheeeeeeeeee," giggles Sue.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:05 pm (UTC)

Amariah keeps up the roller-coaster flight for a considerable amount of time, and ultimately she lands at the house again.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I wanna hug you can I hug you," says Ivy.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:06 pm (UTC)

"If you really want to," Amariah says, "then yes."

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:08 pm (UTC)

Ivy jumps down from Sue's shoulder, lands on the ground as a white tiger, and bumps her head against Amariah's legs.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay?" Amariah asks, looking between Ivy and Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Sue.

"Pet me," Ivy demands.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:14 pm (UTC)

Amariah pets her, laughing.

"Oh, something you should know - you and Ivy can't get too far away from each other," she tells Sue. "It's possible to get so you can by forcing it, but it hurts - not in a good way - and you're not going to want to. Kas and Petaal had to once and now they can be as far apart as they like, and Pathalan and I did it because witches all do, but most humans never try."

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:16 pm (UTC)

Ivy purrs a loud rumbling purr.

"Okay," says Sue. "But is it bad for us?"

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:20 pm (UTC)

"It won't injure you," says Amariah. "But it'd feel like you'd done something cruel and evil and untrue-to-yourself, on top of just plain hurting-in-a-bad-way. A lot of people who separate have kind of tense relationships with their daemons for a while after, sometimes indefinitely - me and Path didn't have that, and neither did Kas and Petaal so you'd probably be fine, but it's something to keep in mind."

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:24 pm (UTC)

"I mean if someone put her in a box and flew her back to Earth," he says.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:26 pm (UTC)

"It'd still feel like that - that's just fundamentally how it feels, not a feature of doing it on purpose - but you wouldn't die, and you'd eventually be able to function after the bond was stretched enough to give you arbitrary distance. Except not so functional during the part where someone was putting her in a box," shudders Amariah, "not everyone's me, it won't feel nice if some stranger grabs her."

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Sue says quietly. "I know. Kas showed me."

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:29 pm (UTC)

Amariah nods. She's scratching tiger-Ivy behind the ears now.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:30 pm (UTC)

Ivy purrs some more.

Sue grins and sits down next to her and hugs his tiger.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:31 pm (UTC)

Path hops onto Amariah's knee and nuzzles Ivy's foreleg.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:32 pm (UTC)

Giggling, she licks him.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Ack!" says Path, fluffing all his feathers out.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:34 pm (UTC)

Ivy snickers, leaning her head against Amariah's leg.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Kas, Petaal," calls Amariah, "what're you doing all the way over there, huh?"

truthwright
2013-03-02 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Good question," laughs Kas.

Petaal turns lioness and bounds over to flop down on Sue's other side, flicking her tail against Ivy's and pressing her nose against Amariah's leg. Kas follows a little more slowly, and sits at Amariah's feet, where he can pet both large felines and give Path scritches should Path be inclined to receive them.

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:39 pm (UTC)

Path is so inclined. Path is feeling friendly today.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:40 pm (UTC)

Cuddlepile!

"Thanks," mumbles Sue, leaning his head on Petaal's furry shoulder. "I love you guys."

dark_light
2013-03-02 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Then it's good you found us, isn't it," laughs Amariah softly, patting his head.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:42 pm (UTC)

He emits a credible purr.

i command armies

autokinetic

Sue graduates from Tactical School a year early, he's barely fifteen. He's toned down the flirting - he treats Aegis completely platonically, in particular - and has cut down on the unhealthy amount of sleeping-with-everything-that-wants. And he's apparently, via his independent study, gotten far enough through the curriculum that they're nudging him along to Command.

They've given Sue a strange old man for a tutor, who appeared in his room and started a physical confrontation, which Sue won; Sue related this story to her with something between amusement and irritation.

And a quicker-than-average flurry of notes has been piling up in the psych data since about that time, according to the timestamps.

Aegis knows before they tell her that they're going to send her to Command early too. She's just barely fifteen herself when she gets another update of the psych files and sees that Sue's had - well, the files aren't terribly clear, some of the communication is happening via in-person conversation and memos that don't get stored in these folders, but Sue's had some kind of breakdown and the only things they can think of to get him out of it, get him back into shape to train and fight, are her friendship and Howlett. They have mixed feelings about both - Howlett's insubordination problem; their bewilderment that Aegis and Sue can be so close when "she's the one person he can't link!" - but they're desperate.

Bird? They don't talk as often over the long distance, just as there was a lull when he went to Tactical ahead of her; their schedules have nothing in common and their contexts less. But he knows her, and he can reach this far if he tries. And she wants to know what's wrong.

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:59 pm (UTC)

Hey, you, he sends, friendly but tired.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:01 pm (UTC)

Psychologists are freaking out. They're going to send me all the way to Command a year early to jolly you out of - something. I haven't gotten the orders yet, I'll have to pretend to be surprised. What happened, my bird?

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:28 pm (UTC)

The old guy's been acting weirder than usual, says Sue. And I can tell something's up, it is so incredibly fucking obvious that they're hiding something big, but he plays dumb whenever I try to pry it out of him. It's pissing me off, so I stopped playing, and now they don't know what to do with me.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:30 pm (UTC)

Well, I don't know why they expect me to be any help, then, it's all over my file that I'm only useful when nobody's giving me any bullshit.

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:31 pm (UTC)

Who knows, he sighs.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:33 pm (UTC)

Aegis's door slides open. She's been bunked alone since Sue left. She's ordered to report to a shuttle leaving for Command. She pretends to be surprised and to protest about her age. She's ignored. She goes. She's the only one on it, besides the pilot. Well, I'm on my way anyway.

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:36 pm (UTC)

Lucky me, says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:39 pm (UTC)

Well, at least I'll be company that isn't fucking with you.

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:40 pm (UTC)

He sends a giggle.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:41 pm (UTC)

I think they're sending Howlett too, though he's not on this shuttle unless he's flying it - I haven't got a look at the pilot so far.

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:43 pm (UTC)

It would not surprise me even a little bit if Howlett knew how to fly a shuttle, says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:45 pm (UTC)

Hell, I know how to fly a shuttle. If he keels over from a heart attack I'll be able to get to Command School and dock as long as the destination's in the computer.

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:47 pm (UTC)

It'd take more than a heart attack to kill Howlett, he points out.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:48 pm (UTC)

Maybe it'd put him out of commission for a minute, fixing the damage, right when we're almost there and I'd get to play collision-stopping hero, suggests Aegis. But it might not even be him, they might be letting him finish up the unit of classes or something first.

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:52 pm (UTC)

Sue laughs. Guess you'll find out when you dock, unless you go up and look before then.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:53 pm (UTC)

I'm sure I'll encounter him. If nothing else he'll have to come out of the control room to get to the head sometime, there's only one on board.

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:55 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

autokinetic
2013-02-28 11:57 pm (UTC)

Aegis calls up the book she's in the middle of from the ship's copy of the standard Battle School-and-its-relatives library, finds her place, and reads.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:00 am (UTC)

Sue doesn't cut the link, but he doesn't say anything more, either.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:03 am (UTC)

What kind of game do they have you playing, anyway? she asks while she pages through the book. She's pretty good at multitasking.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:05 am (UTC)

They've got these training simulators that're pretty gorgeous, and I'm commanding imaginary fleets on 'em, he says cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:07 am (UTC)

That sounds fun. They've really pissed you off if you're quitting those, huh?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:08 am (UTC)

Yep.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:11 am (UTC)

I wonder what they care so much about not telling you. Are they denying that there's a secret at all, or just saying they won't tell?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:19 am (UTC)

They're kind of doing the 'well if there was a big secret, we wouldn't tell you jack about it' thing.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:21 am (UTC)

Assholes.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:23 am (UTC)

Tell me about it.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:25 am (UTC)

Tell you what? You know more than I do. Have you got guesses?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:29 am (UTC)

Not really. Whatever it is, Old Guy is in it big. I think he's mad at me for kicking his ass that one time.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:30 am (UTC)

Then why'd he even start the fight?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:32 am (UTC)

Well, that's just it, says Sue. I think it was supposed to be some kind of psychological thing, to keep me off balance or something. I think he was supposed to win. But instead I wiped the floor with him. So now he's pissed off.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:33 am (UTC)

That's idiotic. If he's supposed to win, they should've made sure he was able to.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:33 am (UTC)

I think I was better than they were expecting, he says smugly.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:34 am (UTC)

You been getting in unconventional forms of practice they can't track or something?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:35 am (UTC)

Nope. So I guess they're just not paying attention.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:36 am (UTC)

That's... that's even stupider than I expect from the people we're talking about, here. There has to be some other explanation. Was the guy even particularly good? Was it close? Could they have some reason to think you wouldn't kick his ass when provoked?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:39 am (UTC)

Well, he's old? hazards Sue. And he tried to fake me out a couple times, like he was hurt too bad to keep fighting, but man, I know when I've hurt somebody too bad to keep fighting. He was good, I'll give him that. But I think he was expecting me to hold back on him, and I didn't.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:40 am (UTC)

Huh. What's he like? Besides old and irritable and cagey?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:46 am (UTC)

Old, says Sue. And irritable. And cagey. Well, not really irritable - he tries to act like he's my 'enemy', but that's fucked, he's obviously here to teach me. That's part of what's weird about all this. Why the fuck are they giving me this nasty old fart as a teacher, and why the fuck is he dressing it up like his job is to make my life hell?

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:48 am (UTC)

Dunno. Maybe he'll be less cagey if I meet him? Am I likely to do that, given they'll have to put you and me in a room since they don't know we can link?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:50 am (UTC)

Who even knows, sighs Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:51 am (UTC)

Wonder if they'll bunk us again or put me someplace else.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:53 am (UTC)

I hope they bunk us again, except then the nasty old fart would be waking you up at all hours too.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:53 am (UTC)

He wakes you up? In the middle of the space-night? Why, what for?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:55 am (UTC)

Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 12:57 am (UTC)

What does he try to do, though, is he calling you to - read things, do things, talk to people...?

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:00 am (UTC)

Anything. Sometimes he just stares at me for a while, or says something about how the enemy ever waits, and then lets me go back to sleep. He hasn't done it since I quit, but it hasn't been that long, so I don't know if it's just not time yet in his nasty old fart schedule.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:01 am (UTC)

Well, we'll see if I can run interference. Let him read my psych file if he wants it and decide what to do from there, they're less confused about me than they are about you, they have a few years of me reading my own mind and laying it all out in English for them.

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:02 am (UTC)

You're the best, he says happily.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:05 am (UTC)

I am!

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:07 am (UTC)

You aaaaaaaare.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:08 am (UTC)

My orders didn't specify an ETA. I'm gonna ask the pilot. Aegis hops to her feet and knocks on the door to the control room.

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:12 am (UTC)

It opens.

"What," says a familiar voice from the pilot's chair.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:13 am (UTC)

"Oh, it's you. Hi, sir. I wanted to know when we expect to arrive at Command School." It's Howlett.

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:16 am (UTC)

"Classified," he says. "And by that I mean, I don't know either. They're feeding the course into the computer piece by piece."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:24 am (UTC)

"Well," says Aegis reasonably, "how much food's listed in the ship manifest?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:26 am (UTC)

...He laughs.

"More than we need, I damn well hope."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:30 am (UTC)

"Sure, but we can still tell the difference between a month's supply giving us leeway for a week and a year's supply giving us leeway for eight months."

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:37 am (UTC)

"We have enough food for two years," he says. "And I know it doesn't take two years to get to Command School."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:38 am (UTC)

"Harrumph."

How long did it take you to make this trip? It's feeding Howlett little bits of course, it's apparently so classified they can't tell him where he's flying all in one go.

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:40 am (UTC)

I don't remember, he says. Do you? I told you when I left and when I got here, right?

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:42 am (UTC)

You didn't tell me right when you got there, you'd been there a few days before we talked again and I don't know how many, so I only know it was ballpark of a week.

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:43 am (UTC)

Well, that's more than Howlett knows, he points out cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:46 am (UTC)

Yeah. "Why's the location so secret, or is that as secret as the location itself?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:47 am (UTC)

Howlett spreads his hands. "Above my pay grade, kid."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:48 am (UTC)

"Do you know why they're reassigning you?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:50 am (UTC)

"I could guess."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 01:52 am (UTC)

"Oh, please do, we could be here for as long as two years for all they've told either of us and if we don't chat however shall we pass the time?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:58 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Last I heard, we've got a friend in common," he says. "And he goes to Command."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:00 am (UTC)

"Sue," says Aegis, and otherwise she waits for Howlett to go on.

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:01 am (UTC)

"So if the two of us got pulled out of the middle of a term at Tactical to go to Command, I bet something's wrong with him," says Howlett. "And knowing that kid, it could be just about anything."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:02 am (UTC)

"But they didn't tell you?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:04 am (UTC)

"Nothin'," he confirms.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:11 am (UTC)

"That sucks," she opines.

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:17 am (UTC)

"I'm used to it."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:19 am (UTC)

"Sudden unexplained reassignment? They do that a lot? Maybe I should reconsider the career choices I made at age six."

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:21 am (UTC)

"I was thinking more 'big organizations shoving me around without telling me why', but yeah, same thing," says Howlett.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:23 am (UTC)

"You been in a lot of big organizations besides the IF?" she asks, swaying, turning on the spot, swaying again in her usual absent dance.

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:25 am (UTC)

"Plenty," he says. "More than I'd like."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:28 am (UTC)

"Storytime?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:31 am (UTC)

"Not really," shrugs Howlett.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:36 am (UTC)

"Aw."

Aegis twirls her way back to the terminal displaying her book. Presently she loses interest in it and she picks up a project she's been poking at to little effect: trying to decipher the contents of her save file from the fantasy game. She last played it a few years ago, but it's a fond memory, and she'd like to know which bits of code are her birds, which her castle, which the colored clouds that wafted across the sky. If she had root access to the underlying meanings of all the characters in this save file she could cheat at empire-building. So far she's not getting anywhere; it's some arcane programming language and she hasn't been able to learn anything from resources available on the nets.

In the eight days it takes to fly to Command School, which turns out to be inside the asteroid Eros, she puts down the code-deciphering project again, picks up and finishes the one book and six of its successors, and teaches herself to actually dance: there's nowhere to fly here, but she can play at a makeshift imitation of ballet, in the corridor between bunks and control room.

Bird, hey bird, have you been officially told we're coming? Could you meet us at the dock?
Edited 2013-03-01 02:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:42 am (UTC)

Nope, says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:42 am (UTC)

Aww.

She disembarks with Howlett in a perfectly uninformed-looking manner.

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:43 am (UTC)

Guess you're a surprise, he says cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:44 am (UTC)

Maybe they'll tell me to hang out in your room and pick a fight, she teases. That works so well.

She's given directions to quarters, which she funnels to Sue. That anywhere near you?

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:47 am (UTC)

Maybe, he hazards.

Howlett receives entirely separate directions, but is commanded to first escort Aegis to her quarters.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:49 am (UTC)

"I didn't get an escort in Tactical, why do I get one here? Do you even know your way around?" she asks Howlett.

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:50 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Howlett.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 02:58 am (UTC)

She snorts, and weaves her way through the tunnels. She's grown quite a bit, and they're too short to be comfortable for her or Howlett, let alone the tall soldier who gave them their instructions. "Who the hell built this place? The buggers?" she mutters.
Edited 2013-03-01 03:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:03 am (UTC)

"Good question," says Howlett.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 03:04 am (UTC)

Eventually they find their way to Aegis's assigned quarters.

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:14 am (UTC)

"See you," says Howlett. "Or not."

And with that comforting pronouncement, off he goes.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 03:16 am (UTC)

"Bye," says Aegis, and she arranges her login on her desk and waits for her class schedule to appear. Welp, here I am. No sign of you or a nasty old dude.

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:18 am (UTC)

Yeah, he says. Haven't seen him all week.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 03:21 am (UTC)

If I were them, Aegis said, and all I cared about was trying to get you to play the game again and not letting on about whatever secret, and I were a little stupid, I'd try cutting off your desk privileges, telling everyone not to talk to you, and giving you nothing at all to do but go play the game on the simulator.

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:22 am (UTC)

Well, they cut me off all right, he says. I still get class shit, but nobody says a word to me.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 03:25 am (UTC)

Are you going to classes? she asks.

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:25 am (UTC)

Tutors, is his one-word answer. Not in the last week or so, now it just comes through my desk.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 03:30 am (UTC)

They want you to save the world and their idea is solitary confinement. Smart, smart people, says Aegis derisively.

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:31 am (UTC)

He sends a concurring snort.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 03:34 am (UTC)

I'm going to ask somebody official where you might be located if they haven't put me in a room with you on purpose inside a week, and if they won't tell me, I'll see if I can pry it out of the computer system. Are you allowed out of your room at all?

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:38 am (UTC)

Yeah, but only to go down the hall and pee. The corridor section doesn't let me out.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 03:42 am (UTC)

There's not even anything else on the section?

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:43 am (UTC)

My room, a bathroom, and a bunch of doors that don't open.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 03:45 am (UTC)

Wow. They couldn't just own up about being shits and put you in the brig, huh?

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:53 pm (UTC)

Guess not.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 05:49 pm (UTC)

When you turn eighteen they have to, legally, allow planetside leave and invite you to re-up, even if you or them determined that the leave at age twelve could go hang - what do they think they're doing? If they want you they shouldn't be antagonizing you when you're two years away from telling them all to fuck themselves and if they don't want you they could ice you now.

pythbox
2013-03-01 05:51 pm (UTC)

Ask them, he suggests. Except don't, 'cause then they'll know we were talking.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 05:53 pm (UTC)

Maybe I can steer the conversation around if they don't let me see you for long enough that it makes sense for me to ask. Of course, maybe they'll cut me off, maybe the faction which doesn't think I'll do any good is in charge here and they just plan to put me in classes and not in contact with you at all.

pythbox
2013-03-01 05:56 pm (UTC)

Maybe they're trying to see if we're talking, he hypothesizes.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 05:58 pm (UTC)

...I hope not.

pythbox
2013-03-01 05:59 pm (UTC)

Me too.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:02 pm (UTC)

You probably wanna look up the effects of solitary confinement - it's a more reasonable thing for you to do than me - and fake them? Aegis suggests.

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:06 pm (UTC)

They might be able to tell, he says. And then if I got them for real I could be extra fucked.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:07 pm (UTC)

I don't... think you should wind up with them for real, since I can keep you company. It shouldn't be that much about people being physically there, should it?

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:08 pm (UTC)

Don't know, he says, with a shorthand shrug.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:09 pm (UTC)

It'd make sense for you to look it up either way, you don't necessarily have to fake it just because you read about it, she points out.

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

I think... I wouldn't look it up unless you suggested it, or I was going to fake it. So I shouldn't.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:19 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Okay. Pause. Even if I couldn't talk to you, I might look up that - well, and a lot of unrelated stuff, like, legal stuff - if I got a suspicious answer after asking for you. So I might do that.

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

Okay, says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

She receives a message with her core class schedule and a list of electives she qualifies for that don't conflict, and she picks two electives and says, Apparently I have class in ten minutes, and this place is a maze, I'm gonna start looking for it now.

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:25 pm (UTC)

Have fun, he says wryly.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:29 pm (UTC)

I probably will. And - hey - if I'm literally the only person you can talk to? Don't not-talk-to-me if you need company, I don't want you to actually go nuts, I can be a little scattered in class now and then.

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:31 pm (UTC)

Okay, he says, and pushes you're-such-a-good-friend.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:31 pm (UTC)

I try. You're the only bird I have, you know.

She finds her way to class. They're gonna teach me the simulator. Neat.

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:35 pm (UTC)

I bet you'll love it.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

A few minutes later, Aegis reports, I do. I really, really do.

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

Told you so.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:54 pm (UTC)

Aegis keeps Sue up-to-date on her various activities to keep him company as best she can. When she's got downtime - there's nowhere to fly here; the docking bay is kept depressurized and the airlock has gravity - she digs deep and forces herself open enough to share hugs and feelings, because she can't help but think that touch-starvation could not be good for her Sue and pure verbal chat might not help.

After a week has gone by, she asks her xenobio teacher (that elective being offered here, too): "Excuse me, I have a friend who goes here but I haven't seen him. Can you tell me where he is? He goes by Sue, but he might be in the system as Thomas Sanderson."

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," the teacher says politely, "I can't offer you that kind of information."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 06:59 pm (UTC)

"At Tactical the system was set up to let us find each other," Aegis says, affecting polite puzzlement. "I'm not going to bother him when he's got other things to do, or anything, but my desk messages aren't going through." (This is true, she sent one and it bounced.)

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:04 pm (UTC)

"This isn't Tactical," says the teacher.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Aegis. "I'm aware of that. But I think there is something wrong with the internal desk messaging system, and the automatic repair request apparently didn't reach anyone either, and so I want to find my friend another way. I know he's here. If you can't help me, can you tell me who can?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:07 pm (UTC)

Flatly: "No."

autokinetic
2013-03-01 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:13 pm (UTC)

The xenobio teacher just shakes his head.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 07:15 pm (UTC)

Aegis tries all of her teachers, one by one, and gets no farther. She tries hacking the computer system, because then there will be an electronic trail explaining how she found what she found, and has no luck.

They're stonewalling me, my bird.

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:16 pm (UTC)

Figures.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 07:27 pm (UTC)

Yeah.

She looks up laws and his semi-public student record - the first she can get, the second is hiding but not that well and she can crack it but all it tells her is that he is still, technically, enrolled in Command School plus his vital statistics. She relays everything she finds to Sue as she goes. Nothing new on your end, is there? They're not pulling some "so your little friend is looking for you, don't you want to come play the game, maybe you'll run into her"?

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:32 pm (UTC)

Nope. Nasty old fart came by once, but he didn't say shit about you, just asked me if I was done having my tantrum yet. I told him to fuck himself.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 07:33 pm (UTC)

Goddammit. I'm short on ideas, here. Do you know who your tutors were when they were sending tutors? she tries.

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:38 pm (UTC)

You know I'm shit with names, he says, but he digs up a few faces and passes them along.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 07:41 pm (UTC)

If this shit goes on long enough, I'll start asking literally everyone about you so it won't look weird when I home in on these people, she says. I'll make a fuss. They can't do this to you, they could slap you in the brig if they gave you a direct order to play the sim and you wouldn't play but solitary confinement is not on, it's against the law.

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:44 pm (UTC)

It's sweet how you expect them to care.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 07:45 pm (UTC)

I don't, at this point. But I expect to learn something from the ways in which they do not care.

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:50 pm (UTC)

Maybe.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 07:51 pm (UTC)

Aegis pulls another "backup" of the Battle School psych files to see what they're saying about Sue this week.

pythbox
2013-03-01 08:26 pm (UTC)

They are arguing.

Sue's champion is getting increasingly profane in support of his point, which is that they should quit fucking him around and at least introduce him to Aegis, even if they don't introduce him to anyone or anything else. His opponents seem to think there is some grave hazard inherent in doing that. Sue's champion seems to think his opponents are idiots.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 08:29 pm (UTC)

Aegis funnels all this along, and then checks her own file.

Her champion is roundly informing everyone that they're idiots, too - "There is no surer way to destroy her value as any kind of soldier than to deny her reasonable and politely requested information! Tell her Sanderson's locked up, even if you won't let her see him! Tell her you want her help getting him to cooperate! For the love of God, don't tell her his location is classified, she knows damn well that means something's up!"

Sue gets all this too.

pythbox
2013-03-01 08:31 pm (UTC)

Are they gonna find out you're hacking all this shit? he wonders.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 08:36 pm (UTC)

They haven't for the last few years. Or if they have they haven't let on. It looks like it's just pushing backups, probably easy to miss if they're not monitoring my desk access too closely.

pythbox
2013-03-01 08:37 pm (UTC)

You're awesome, have I told you that recently?

autokinetic
2013-03-01 08:39 pm (UTC)

Not in the last few minutes, so no, says Aegis.
Edited 2013-03-01 21:04 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:05 pm (UTC)

Well. He sends a smile. You are.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 09:08 pm (UTC)

I miss you, she says. Having you physically around, I mean. It's been a long time.

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:09 pm (UTC)

No shit, he snorts.

And after a moment:

Me too.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 09:12 pm (UTC)

Are you holding up okay?

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:18 pm (UTC)

...Not really, he admits.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 09:23 pm (UTC)

Can you think of anything else for me to do?

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:27 pm (UTC)

Not really. I mean, even if you could break into my room and give me a hug...

autokinetic
2013-03-01 09:31 pm (UTC)

She digs down for the nearest facsimile she can send, squeezing her eyes shut against tears.

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:36 pm (UTC)

He pushes back gratitude and affection and friendship.

autokinetic
2013-03-01 09:40 pm (UTC)

I'm glad I can let you in, no matter how freaked I was to start.

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:41 pm (UTC)

I'm glad too, says Sue. I'm glad I'm your bird.
Edited 2013-03-01 21:45 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-02 12:34 am (UTC)

Good.

She checks her desk messages; she's expecting a clarification on her astrophysics homework.

pythbox
2013-03-02 12:43 am (UTC)

She has one new message, and it is not about astrophysics.

It invites her to report to someone's office—directions are provided—in half an hour.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 12:44 am (UTC)

She shares this with Sue. Sounds you-related to me.

pythbox
2013-03-02 12:47 am (UTC)

What isn't?

autokinetic
2013-03-02 12:48 am (UTC)

My astrophysics homework. Which I'm going to be late with if the teacher doesn't tell me what the heck this unconventional symbol is supposed to mean. But this, this is about you I bet.

She shows up when and where she's directed.

pythbox
2013-03-02 12:52 am (UTC)

The office is occupied by a grumpy bureaucrat. He doesn't seem to want to speak first.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 12:54 am (UTC)

"Hello, sir," says Aegis obligingly. "I was asked to report here at this time."

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:16 am (UTC)

"I bet you can guess why," he says shortly.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 01:18 am (UTC)

"I guess it has something to do with Sue, sir? No one will tell me where he is, or why they won't tell me."

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:19 am (UTC)

"And there we have it."

He sighs.

"Your friend 'Sue' is a problem."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 01:21 am (UTC)

"What kind of problem, sir?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:25 am (UTC)

"The kind that ignores orders and tries to extort classified information out of his superiors," he says dryly.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 01:29 am (UTC)

"If he's disobeyed legal orders, sir, then there's already a standard array of ways to handle that. What do you need me for?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:37 am (UTC)

"The one thing all our psych people seem to agree on," he sighs, "is that this kid can't be handled in standard ways."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 01:44 am (UTC)

"So... you want me to handle him in a nonstandard way, sir?" asks Aegis. She starts broadcasting the conversation to Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:45 am (UTC)

"I want you," he says plainly, "to do whatever it takes to get him back on the simulator."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 01:52 am (UTC)

"What are my resources for doing that with, sir? So far I haven't even been allowed to see him."

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:54 am (UTC)

"You can be moved to his corridor, if you think that'll help," he says. "You can have free access to his room."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 01:57 am (UTC)

"...But I don't get the information he wants so I can tell him I know it and it's okay even if he himself can't know it, or whatever files you have on him and this situation, or anything about why it's so important that this particular student plays games instead of getting iced?" Aegis asks.

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:59 am (UTC)

"The file we have on him at this point amounts to a dozen bureaucrats yelling at each other," he snorts. "I might release it to you just for the entertainment value."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 02:00 am (UTC)

"It's not impossible that it could help, sir."

pythbox
2013-03-02 02:06 am (UTC)

"And I don't know what gave you the idea that I'd reward his bad behaviour by giving you whatever he's prying after," he adds.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 02:23 am (UTC)

"I didn't particularly expect you to, sir, but it could easily be the quickest way to get him to do what you want," Aegis says. "I don't know what the information is or why he wants it, but it sounds like he's willing to have a power struggle about it, and it won't actually make him any more likely to pull this kind of thing in the future if he wins one. It also won't make him less likely to do it if he loses one."

pythbox
2013-03-02 02:24 am (UTC)

Dryly, "Have you been reading his psych files?"

autokinetic
2013-03-02 02:25 am (UTC)

"I've been his friend for years, sir. Students don't have access to the psych files."

pythbox
2013-03-02 02:27 am (UTC)

"So I've heard," he mutters. "Well, why don't you go ask him what he wants."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 02:29 am (UTC)

"All right, sir, where can I find him?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 02:31 am (UTC)

He conjures the appropriate directions on his desk and rotates them so she can read them from her side of the table.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 02:33 am (UTC)

Aegis reads them. "And - just confirming, sir - at present my only resource for convincing Sue to do anything he doesn't want to do is my charming company and the vague threat that I might be taken away?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 02:37 am (UTC)

"You came up with that vague threat," he says, "not me. You can threaten to take yourself away if you think it'll help. I'm done threatening things."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 02:51 am (UTC)

"Sir, the threat was issued when I arrived on this station and he wasn't there to meet me. Unless you explicitly tell us that we can see each other whenever we want in perpetuity - and Sue believes you - then the threat stands."

pythbox
2013-03-02 02:53 am (UTC)

"I don't see any profit in arguing that point with you," he says. "Go talk to your friend."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 02:53 am (UTC)

"Yes, sir."

Aegis gets up and follows the directions.

pythbox
2013-03-02 02:55 am (UTC)

All necessary doors open at her touch, including the one to Sue's room.

Sue himself is flopped out on his bunk, not moving much.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 02:56 am (UTC)

"Hi, Sue," says Aegis softly.

pythbox
2013-03-02 01:23 pm (UTC)

He mumbles something unintelligible into his pillow.
Edited 2013-03-02 19:43 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-02 07:45 pm (UTC)

"I was kinda hoping for a warmer welcome than that," says Aegis, closing the door behind her and swaying.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:48 pm (UTC)

He curls up and starts to cry.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh - oh Sue," she says, and she sits on the bed and leans over him and hugs.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:49 pm (UTC)

He burrows into her lap as much as he can without uncurling.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Sue, Sue, my bird, my bird," soothes Aegis, "it's okay, I'm here, they say I can come whenever I want, you don't have to be all cooped up by yourself..."

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:51 pm (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her and cries some more, quietly but steadily.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 07:52 pm (UTC)

She holds him and waits. Occasionally she murmurs "my bird" again.

pythbox
2013-03-02 07:53 pm (UTC)

Eventually - and it takes a while - he calms down enough to emit a word.

Tiredly: "Hi."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Hi," she murmurs. bird bird bird what's wrong? I thought you were holding up okay...

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Bad day," he says wryly, resettling himself to put his head in her lap.

Weird dreams, he adds by link, and sends a confused impression of his cuddlepile with Kas and Petaal and Amariah and Ivy.
Edited 2013-03-02 20:04 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:05 pm (UTC)

Aegis pets his hair. ...You dreamed about other mes and yous before, but that one's... huh.

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:10 pm (UTC)

He closes his eyes and relaxes under her hand.

"So where'd you come from, anyway?"

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I graduated Tactical a couple of weeks ago and they haven't let me see you till now, but now they want me to talk you into going back on the simulator. Somehow. For some reason," says Aegis, dutifully playing for the likely hidden cameras and going on petting his hair. "They moved Howlett too, at the same time, he thought it was probably about you to begin with, I don't suppose you've seen him?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Take a guess," he snorts.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh, my bird," she sighs.

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." He sighs, too. "It's been just me and mysteriously appearing meals for like a month or something."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:17 pm (UTC)

"A month," exclaims Aegis. "What'd you ever do to them? You killed a guy in tactical and they do nothing and now you don't show up to play games and they put you in solitary?"

Not really a month, right, bird?

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not a month," he admits. "Feels like a month, though. At least a few weeks. And they're completely fucked up, but hey, I knew that already."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:22 pm (UTC)

"The guy who sent me here said you don't want to play to 'extort information' from the higher-ups," Aegis says, twirling some of his hair around her finger. Giving him the usual haircut would have required more human contact than he's been allowed and he's shaggier than usual.

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:24 pm (UTC)

"They're hiding something," he says. "I don't know what it is, but I'm really fucking tired of it."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:27 pm (UTC)

"It's apparently really important. I mean, the thing they're hiding isn't necessarily important, they could just be being obnoxious about need-to-know and clearance and stuff, but the getting you on the simulator, if they're pulling illegal not to mention ineffective crap to get you to do it." Pause. "I wonder why. They could just ice you. They iced people in Battle School, in Tactical, I haven't seen it here yet but they must do, they can't just be chasing a sunk cost..."

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm some kinda special," Sue agrees. "Pretty sure I'm the only kid in the school with a teacher who wakes him up in the middle of the night to yell at him, too."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:33 pm (UTC)

"You're good, but there's lots of kids who're good," muses Aegis. "Are they in some kind of hurry...?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Maybe the buggers are coming to blast us off the planet," he snorts.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:34 pm (UTC)

"But why wouldn't they just tell you that? You wouldn't let everyone die."

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they think I would," he suggests.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Why would they think that?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:37 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:38 pm (UTC)

"I asked the guy if he could tell me what the big secret was, and then even if I wasn't allowed to tell you I could tell you if it was a big deal or not, but he didn't tell me shit," sighs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:39 pm (UTC)

"The fuck do you expect?" he shrugs.
Edited 2013-03-02 20:40 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I expect them to notice when what they're doing isn't working. And if they brought me in as a Sue-expert I expect them to treat me like I might have information on how to deal with Sue. But apparently I'm disappointed today."

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Yep," sighs Sue, nestling his head into her lap.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:46 pm (UTC)

"But at least supposedly we're not under any particular threat of my being taken away," says Aegis. "I could probably even move in, if you want, although I'm not sure how they'd keep you in when I left the corridor to go to classes - I'm pretty sure you are still under house arrest, here - and we might not like whatever they come up with."

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Move in anyway," he says. "I miss you."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll get my stuff when you've unclung some. No hurry."

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:53 pm (UTC)

"You're the best," he says, smiling.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:53 pm (UTC)

"I am, it is true."

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:54 pm (UTC)

He giggles softly.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 08:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose there is any way to get you back on the simulator short of telling you whatever-it-is?" Aegis asks.

pythbox
2013-03-02 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "If you convinced me it'd actually matter to the survival of the human race."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 09:00 pm (UTC)

"If it did," Aegis snorts, "that'd probably be the big secret."

pythbox
2013-03-02 09:01 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I mean, it could make a difference. You're good, we're training to be soldiers for a reason. I'm just not sure why they think it makes such a huge difference."

pythbox
2013-03-02 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Exactly," he shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Have they been having you link any subordinates up when you've been playing? Maybe they think that'll be a gigantic edge and they need to figure out how much of one."

pythbox
2013-03-02 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says. "I keep expecting them to, but they don't."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Then I'm stumped," says Aegis. "They don't even know if you'll be a big deal."

pythbox
2013-03-02 09:12 pm (UTC)

He shrugs expansively.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 09:30 pm (UTC)

Later, when Sue has unclung, Aegis gives him a final hug and says, "I'll go get my desk and my uniforms and move in. It's nearly bedtime."

She goes.

She comes back, and sets up in the other bunk in his room.

They go to sleep.

When Aegis wakes up, she feels - wrong.

Bricks and clay. The blanket over her weighs a hundred pounds. She ought to be forcing herself to sit under running water, ought to be reaching for the soap - but she's -

"Sue?" she asks tremulously.

pythbox
2013-03-02 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Mm? What's wrong?"

autokinetic
2013-03-02 09:50 pm (UTC)

"My exo's gone."

pythbox
2013-03-02 09:53 pm (UTC)

"...What the fuck," he says, rolling out of bed and going over to her. "You okay otherwise?"

autokinetic
2013-03-02 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I think so." She lies very still; only her eyes move.

pythbox
2013-03-02 09:56 pm (UTC)

Quietly: "What do you want me to do?"

autokinetic
2013-03-02 09:58 pm (UTC)

"...I might need you to bring me breakfast. If it doesn't... turn up. I've been wearing it so long, I don't think I remember how to walk without it... But I - have to know where it is, why it's gone -"

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:00 pm (UTC)

"You're..." He frowns suddenly. "I can see you. I mean. You're there. You're—" And he nudges her mind, and there is no wall at all.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:01 pm (UTC)

Aegis gives an abortive little flinch, barely visible past her blanket.

"But - even if I just somehow unmutated overnight - how would anybody know in time to take my exo -"

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:03 pm (UTC)

"They didn't," he says. "They couldn't have. They must have done it to you, and taken your exo so nobody could fuck around with it."

All of a sudden he is very, very angry.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:07 pm (UTC)

"But they - I'm unusable like this - they can't train me to do anything if I'm fucking bedridden -" she exclaims. "...Oh god, they never wanted me to convince you of anything or else they gave up on that awfully fast, I'm here so they can extort you, that's what I'm for -"

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:10 pm (UTC)

Sue goes to the door.

It does not, of course, open.

He returns to Aegis's bed.

"Can I pick you up and see if your hand gets us out of the room?" he asks gently.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:13 pm (UTC)

She nods. "You probably don't need to outright pick me up - I can probably walk a little -" But her attempts at even getting out from under the blanket are laughable; she moves like an insect trapped in amber that is moments away from hardening through.

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:18 pm (UTC)

Sue scoops her gently out of bed and carries her to the door.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:19 pm (UTC)

She can move her arms. She's had to be able to do that to wash. She can reach out and clumsily drag a palm across the door panel.

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Wanna go exploring?" he asks, stepping out into the corridor.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Exploring?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm thinking," he says brightly, "that we keep walking until we're out of doors you can open or we find somebody to yell at. Or somebody shows up to give your exo back."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says, and she leans her head on his shoulder, because holding it up when it won't stay up just from wanting is exhausting and terrible.

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

Sue keeps going, down to the end of the corridor, where Aegis can try her hand again.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

A certain nasty old fart opens the door before they get there.

"She's not paralyzed, boy," he says to Sue.

"I might as well be," murmurs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

"You're gonna give her exo back, right?" he says with false cheer.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

"I don't have it," the man says.

"You know who does," hisses Aegis.

"It's not safe for you to have it while there's any of the C24 left in your system suppressing your mutation," replies the man. "But on the plus side, now you can link up with your friend."

Aegis buries her face in Sue's shoulder and sobs.

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:40 pm (UTC)

Sue hugs her.

"You know," he says to the nasty old fart, "I really want to kick your ass again right now. Have any of you shitstains heard of asking?"

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:43 pm (UTC)

"You didn't join a social club, you joined a military," says the nasty old fart. "Now. We only need her to link up with you for a short time, you can finish a certain simulator sequence with her and some of her old Battle School friends, and we can give her something to suppress the C24 and she'll be back to normal - with her exoskeleton too - or you can prolong this power struggle."

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Whaddya say?" he asks Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:46 pm (UTC)

"How am I supposed to work the simulator when I can't fucking move? How'm I supposed to concentrate on anything, even if you set it so it's completely voice-operated?" exclaims Aegis.

"I'm confident you'll work around the distraction issue with the extra processing power you'll get from being in a link," says the nasty old fart.

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:50 pm (UTC)

"If you wanna do it, I'll do it," Sue says to Aegis. "If you don't wanna do it, they can kiss my ass."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:51 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't matter if I want to. If I don't I never get my exo back," Aegis says quietly. "I'd never be able to move right again."

She's not Sue, and threats work on her.

The old fart folds his arms and waits.

pythbox
2013-03-02 10:52 pm (UTC)

Tentatively, Sue nudges her mind.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 10:57 pm (UTC)

I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, she says, turning her face into his shoulder again, and this time sharing is easy, there's no hurdle to clear or circumvent, and she sends a rush of feelings - the sack-of-cement awfulness of her traitor limbs and the terror that it's permanent and she'll never, ever fly, the creeping fear that now her brain's exposed to the elements and someone less friendly than Sue might notice and hurt her where she lives, impotent fury at the IF and their clumsy, stupid, secretive misrule and she could do it better, and she is so glad Sue is on her side but she doesn't know what she wants her side to do, she's defiant and terrified all at once.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:01 pm (UTC)

If we can get off this rock, he says, and get back to Earth, I guarantee you you can have your exo again. Howlett's a pilot, I bet he'd be in if I tapped him. It'd be risky, but we're fucking geniuses. We could get it done. Or we could knuckle under and do what they want and get it back fast, unless and until they decide to fuck us over again. I'm with you either way.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:02 pm (UTC)

How would getting back to earth get my exo back? There isn't another one back home. I have the only complete set.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:03 pm (UTC)

My mom would cry buckets over you, is how. Enough money will get just about anything done.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:06 pm (UTC)

Aegis is not so sure, and sends so.

On the other hand, if they knuckle under now, that'll just set them up for next time, if there's a next time.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:14 pm (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, he says to the latter. And I promise you, if it is physically possible to build you another exo, my family can get it done. The one you've got didn't just appear out of thin air one day; people built it.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:16 pm (UTC)

If we leave the station now we're fugitives. They don't have to let us go anywhere till we're eighteen. We could get caught, especially if anybody starts doing something obvious like getting exoskeleton specs. It was originally supposed to be military hardware, the IF definitely has people involved in whoever's keeping the plans.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:17 pm (UTC)

Yeah, and then we let out they gave a minor illegal drugs against her will, he points out. Mutie suppressants are banned by international law.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:19 pm (UTC)

It's our word against theirs and - I just don't think we'd win - but - I could tell them that I know how to let you in even when I'm in working order, she sends slowly. That I've been doing it for years and it's safe...

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:20 pm (UTC)

You trust them with that?

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:22 pm (UTC)

I don't trust them with shit. But if they want something and they'll do whatever they have to to get it and I can tell them that they can get it without hurting me so bad...

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:24 pm (UTC)

Sure, he says decisively. And we can tell them we're not doing shit until you're back in your bones.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:28 pm (UTC)

Aegis takes a deep breath.

"Whatever your name is," she says to the old guy, "...Sue could already link me. I had to let him in, he couldn't just do it whenever he wanted until you fucking drugged me, but he could do it, and I didn't ever let on because I thought you'd take my exo, but now you've gone and done it anyway, so give it the fuck back and then we'll link and play your fucking game."

The old guy blinks. He was clearly not expecting this.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:29 pm (UTC)

Sue smiles.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:32 pm (UTC)

"...Go back to the office where Swan was sent yesterday," says the old guy. "Tell it to him."

Aegis pushes the directions at Sue, scowling to herself.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:34 pm (UTC)

Sue carries her thataway.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:38 pm (UTC)

Here's hoping this works.

In some ways it's nice for communication to be this effortless, but on the whole Aegis wants her wall back, wants it to be her choice, wants this to be a special bird privilege and not something anybody could do.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:50 pm (UTC)

They arrive at the office in question. The door opens at their approach. Sue carries Aegis inside.

Your show? he says over the link.

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:51 pm (UTC)

"You didn't have to drug me. Sue can link me regardless," Aegis tells the bureaucrat flatly. "And we're not doing shit if you cripple me either which way."

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:54 pm (UTC)

He blinks. Twice.

"Fine," he says. "You can go to the infirmary for the antidote and your assistive tech on my authorization, or go back to your quarters and I'll have them waiting for you."

autokinetic
2013-03-02 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad you are not being difficult about that. Infirmary please," she tells Sue.

If I do ever want to make a case about this, infirmary means witnesses.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:58 pm (UTC)

The bureaucrat sends a message on his desk and makes a shooing motion.

Sue carries Aegis out of the room.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:00 am (UTC)

The infirmary gives Aegis an injection of something that burnsburnsburns and she winces and hisses and her wall slowly uncrumbles back into place.

And they give her her exo, and she scrambles into it with practiced urgency.

And she vaults off their table and spins and says "Well, I know who I'm going to pretend the enemy ships contain next time I play the sim."

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:01 am (UTC)

Sue laughs and hugs her.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:04 am (UTC)

She runs ahead of him back to their room, pausing occasionally for a cartwheel or a turn, and checks her desk for a revised schedule. Sure enough, there is one, with rather tightly blocked simulator runs. Including one in ten minutes.

"You playing?" she asks Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:05 am (UTC)

"Mm..."

He thinks about it.

"Sure," he decides.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:20 am (UTC)

"Okay," she grins, and off they go.

They're put in the same room, with two simulators. The old fart is there. "You will both recognize some voices," he says, and he explains the revised scenario. They have subordinates now, who are two of Sue's old toon leaders, three of Aegis's, and one of the toonlike formation formerly known as Medusa.

"You're in command," he tells Sue. "Swan's your second. But if you check out, Swan's authorized to take command from you - all she has to do is press that button." He points out a button that appears on her console and not his. "I advise not checking out, boy."

"Do you know my guys well enough to link them up?" Aegis asks Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:21 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he hazards. "Where are they?"

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:23 am (UTC)

"The other simulator rooms. You've been to most of them," the old dude says. "Must we take a tour before you can locate them?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:27 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Sue, and closes his eyes.

He taps Aegis first, then finds his old toon leaders and links them with easy familiarity. Last, he sorts through the minds in the simulator rooms and touches the remaining four, familiar enough to recognize even if he can't find them without looking like he does with Aegis and his old army.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:29 am (UTC)

They all join up. Aegis greets her old friends happily through the link and laughs at their surprise that she can join such a thing.

Ooh, she adds. Processing boost.

And she moves at the speed of thought.

She instantly turns off all the voice controls except the "unusual parameter" input and holds her hands at the ready over her console.

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:32 am (UTC)

It feels more like a ten-person link than an eight, especially since Aegis is in it shallower than everybody else. Sue isn't sure what's up with that. But he'll take it.

Let's kick some ass, he says cheerfully, to a concurring chorus from the other six members of the link.

And the simulated battle begins.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:40 am (UTC)

They proceed to kick some serious ass.

They lose no ships; one of Qiaochu's is damaged, but Blue Moon sails in to the rescue before it's any worse than that without anyone even having to tell him. They all think so fast and Aegis moves so fast and they don't need to speak or look away from their own parts of the screen wasting valuable fractional seconds of reaction time on saccades. They are on fire.

The simulation ends, and Aegis is grinning at it when the screen says she's supposed to report back to the bureaucrat's office.

"Hey, I'll meet you in a bit," she says to Sue as she drops the effort of the link and falls back into her own head. The world around her seems to speed up as she slows down. "Supposed to go have another meeting."
Edited 2013-03-03 00:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:45 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says, hugging her.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:46 am (UTC)

Aegis hugs back, then reports to the bureaucrat's office.

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:47 am (UTC)

"My psychologists are screaming," he says conversationally when Aegis walks in. "And my security people are screaming back, but between the two, I'll take the psychologists. You might want to sit down."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:50 am (UTC)

"I'm not going to fall over if I don't intend to fall over," Aegis points out, "now that I'm in my gear."

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:51 am (UTC)

"You just fought and won a real battle against a bugger fleet," he says evenly. "Feel like falling over now?"
Edited 2013-03-03 00:52 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-03 12:54 am (UTC)

"...Lightspeed delay," says Aegis. She doesn't fall over, but she does stop swaying.

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:59 am (UTC)

"Not a factor," says the bureaucrat. "We've had faster-than-light communications since shortly after the Second Invasion. These are closely guarded I.F. secrets and I can have you court-martialed if you spread them around, by the way. The only reason you're hearing this is because so many people are so very sure that I need to tell your friend this before he loses a sim battle on purpose, and I think you're best placed to judge when and how."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 01:01 am (UTC)

"A fucking month ago," says Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:02 am (UTC)

"If the I.F. had time machines," he says dryly, "we wouldn't need your friend to win this war."
Edited 2013-03-03 01:02 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-03 01:03 am (UTC)

"So we're an invasion fleet, get them before they come back and get us, we have FTL communications, the simulators are hooked up to actual ships, fuck, how many men died when Qiaochu's ship got dinged?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:05 am (UTC)

"I don't have that report yet," he says. "Communications may be instantaneous, but bureaucracy still takes time."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 01:07 am (UTC)

"Yes sir." Her hand goes to her forehead and massages her temple. "Fuck. I can tell Sue? Can I tell the subordinates?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:12 am (UTC)

He looks slightly pained.

"If you think it might leak during battle and throw them off—if you think they'd perform better knowing it—then yes. But minimize the number of people you tell."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 01:20 am (UTC)

"Yes, sir," she says quietly. "- If Sue could also link the admirals commanding those fleets where they are -"

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:25 am (UTC)

"It's been suggested," he says. "If he has the range, it could be a good idea. Besides, of course, the obvious problem with keeping uninformed students in a mental link with people they aren't supposed to know exist."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 01:28 am (UTC)

"Can we communicate directly with the fleet officers before they appear on the sim?" she asks, her mind racing. "Do they even know who's commanding them? How much risk is there of a ship going rogue and just not responding to our controls in the middle of a battle because its pilot thinks we're being idiots?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:36 am (UTC)

"No more risk than there is in any military operation," he says. "Which is damn little. What would you want to say to the fleet officers before they appear on the sim?"

autokinetic
2013-03-03 01:46 am (UTC)

"It's not zero, sir, this operation in particular has already had a problem with getting orders obeyed. As for what to say - Hey, have any of your ships been slightly damaged by space dust? Are all your FTL communicators working normally? Are any of your crews suffering from morale problems that could make them move slower or contradict orders? Do you know more about the terrain than we do, do you have any bright ideas? Who's been in space for forty years and has a baby on board by now, we can put them in the back!"

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:50 am (UTC)

He raises his eyebrows.

"The sim shows you any kind of damage you could possibly want to ask about. Except for morale, which is not supposed to be your problem. Graduates of the I.F. don't throw hissy fits because they aren't being told enough classified information for their liking."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 02:05 am (UTC)

"Graduates of the I.F. apparently invite sixteen-year-old boys who have recently thrown hissy fits to command distant fleets without telling him that those fleets are anything more significant than virtual toys until after he's already fought one."

pythbox
2013-03-03 02:07 am (UTC)

"Unfortunately," he says, "we can't change the schedule of the battles. The fleets arrive when they arrive. Hissy fit included, your friend with you as backup was still our best bet."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 02:09 am (UTC)

"Okay. But - we're not buggers, sir, we can use the brains on those ships if you let us talk to them, we can subdivide more and give them their own missions so we're not spread so thin, Sue can link a lot more than eight people if he can reach that far, and I don't share your opinion of their uniform machinelike adherence to their orders regardless of morale anyway."
Edited 2013-03-03 02:12 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 02:17 am (UTC)

"Your simulators can also take direct control of their ships," he says. "You only have to worry about them disobeying verbal orders. And I still don't think you need to worry about them disobeying verbal orders."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 02:19 am (UTC)

"Are you actually unconvinced of the usefulness of communicating with them, sir, or are you just not allowed to let me and you're hoping I'll agree with you before you have to tell me flat no so I don't show up to the next battle disgruntled?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 02:20 am (UTC)

"I'm unconvinced of the usefulness of communicating with them and not looking forward to arranging it if you somehow convince me," he says. "The simulator system is very well designed, and it's not designed for the kind of communication you're thinking about."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 02:22 am (UTC)

"But when we do issue verbal orders, human beings hear them, it's not a sophisticated natural language processor," she says. "Okay. That's useful."

pythbox
2013-03-03 02:23 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "Sure."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 02:26 am (UTC)

"I'd like it in writing that I solicited permission to talk to the fleet officers, sir, and that you denied it, in case something comes up that could have been mitigated with such communication channels," Aegis says, suddenly bright.

pythbox
2013-03-03 02:27 am (UTC)

"I'd like you to go away," he says dryly.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 02:28 am (UTC)

"Sir," says Aegis cheerfully, "it's an IF bylaw that you must reproduce any orders that are not urgent on a scale of minutes in writing on request."

pythbox
2013-03-03 02:31 am (UTC)

"Kid," he says, "if we do something wrong here, the material consequence will be the buggers killing us all. That's enough to keep me up at night already. I'm not interested in your power plays."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:14 am (UTC)

"I'm not making a power play, sir. I've stopped arguing with you entirely about the object level. If you're wrong, but not so wrong for the situation to be irrecoverable, and you get fired, I want whoever replaces you to have a paper trail that shows that I have historically not been an idiot and should be listened to in any future matters that may come up, so that we can not die."
Edited 2013-03-03 04:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going to get fired."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 03:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure you think so, sir. I'd like the refusal in writing anyway, and I am entitled to it anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-03 03:35 pm (UTC)

"And you're not getting it," he says. "Anything else?"

autokinetic
2013-03-03 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Sir, it is now abundantly clear to me that you and others who are in miscellaneous positions as my superior officers are willing to break international and military law in order to get me and Sue to do what you want. Why should I believe that fleets of soldiers who have been en route for however many years of subjective time will not decide to do the same thing, if ordered into a position that's not immediately, visibly valuable by someone whose voice clearly signifies that we're half their age?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Because you are their superior officer," he suggests. "And the entire premise of the IF school system is that being half their age doesn't make you any worse of a commander."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 03:53 pm (UTC)

"There have got to be hundreds of people in some of these fleets, any of whom could throw an operation off if they so chose, and all of them belong to a species that produced, for example, Sue. I am not convinced, sir, that the laws governing following lawful orders will hold up any better than the laws governing requisition of written copies, if we find that we have to order some fraction of a fleet into a suicide mission, or if one of us makes a mistake and is heard to say something inopportune by the survivors, or if someone has, as I suggested earlier, a baby on board - those little birth control chips are very effective, but statistically stranger things have happened. If I am not a worse commander because I am fifteen years old, sir - if I and Sue, and not you, are the correct choice for commanding our actual invasion fleet - then I want every resource I can think of to requisition, before I need it so it's there if and when I do, and if you get in my way, sir, then I want you to take responsibility for that choice, obey the law, and write it the fuck down just so you're clear on what you are doing. I have not been just some fifteen-year-old student who should be denied things by default since I was sat down in front of instruments that controlled real ships against live, unfriendly fire."

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:05 pm (UTC)

"You can't have it in writing because it's not an order," he says tiredly. "I don't need to order you not to establish contact with the fleets outside the simulator, because the only means you have of doing that is your friend Sue, who clearly doesn't give a rat's ass what he's been ordered to do. If I wanted to facilitate that contact through something resembling an official channel, then I'd have to start giving orders. And then you could experience the tedium of ansible communications with a ship in relativistic transit for yourself."
Edited 2013-03-03 16:06 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:09 pm (UTC)

"There is precedent for applying the bylaw to requisition denials, sir."

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:12 pm (UTC)

"You are trying to requisition something that is not available to you," he says. "Your buddy has been known to requisition Mazer Rackham's balls on a plate, and I'm not legally obliged to give that denial in writing, either, although I'm sometimes tempted to."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:17 pm (UTC)

"...Mazer Rackham? The old guy is Mazer fucking Rackham? What'd you do, put him in a ship and speed him up and turn him around just so he could abuse a new generation of students? He shot the right target one time and this makes him worth dilating into the future for his shit teaching skills?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:18 pm (UTC)

"He does understand the buggers better than anyone else alive."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:21 pm (UTC)

"And instead of having him write his insights down or teach a formal class on the subject you have him pick physical altercations with would-be commanders and interrupt their sleep because that will somehow help."

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:23 pm (UTC)

"He's very attached to this 'learn from your enemy' plan," he sighs. "But it doesn't seem to be working out as expected."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:27 pm (UTC)

"No shit. Can we be rid of him, sir? I'm sorry he's had to do all this time-travel crap only to be worse than useless, but that doesn't make him not worse than useless to us now."

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:29 pm (UTC)

He waves a hand dismissively. "Fine. He does have useful insights about the buggers, though. I suggest you try to pry them out of him."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:32 pm (UTC)

"I'd like to assign Ahmed to talk to him about that; I think he'll do a better job than either I or Sue at maximizing useful insights to pointless antagonistic crap, given that Rackham has now positioned himself to personally star in my and Sue's nightmares both."

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Fine," he repeats.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Permission to go break the news to Sue and discuss possible ways of telling the subordinates and linking up with the fleets, sir?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Go ahead."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:39 pm (UTC)

She goes back to her-and-Sue's room.

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:40 pm (UTC)

"What's up?" says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:48 pm (UTC)

"You might wanna sit down," Aegis says.

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:50 pm (UTC)

"...What's up?" he repeats, not sitting down.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay, let's start with the smaller revelations and work our way up and see if you wanna sit down. Nasty old fart is Mazer Rackham. They accelerated him and spun him around and brought him back specifically to teach you or whoever wound up with your job about the buggers."

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Great fucking job he's doing there," Sue snorts.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I know, right? We're shut of him, I'm going to get Ahmed to talk to him about buggers in case he knows anything actually useful. Second revelation: faster-than-light communication exists."

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:55 pm (UTC)

Sue blinks.

"Okaaay," he says slowly. "Any more?"

autokinetic
2013-03-03 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Faster than light communication exists and there's devices capable of it connecting our sims and our actual real-life fucking invasion fleet with human beings in it," she says flatly.

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:58 pm (UTC)

Sue blinks again.

"Damn," he says. "No wonder they were so weird about everything."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:02 pm (UTC)

"I know, right? The psychologists screamed at the security people and eventually the psychologists won and the bureaucrat told me so I could tell you in some non-horrible way." She shakes her head. "But this adds a wrinkle. It's not impossible that you can link up the fleet officers on top of us. Then we can do better - we can lose fewer people. We can't even just aim at not losing entire ships. Anything more than cosmetic damage could kill people, or destroy stuff they need to get home after they're through."

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:04 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know if I have the range," says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:08 pm (UTC)

"It's worth trying, isn't it? What do you need to be able to find their minds if you can do it at all?" Aegis asks.

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:12 pm (UTC)

He frowns, rubbing his hands together distractedly.

"I don't know," he says. "I can link people I've linked before over... any distance, I think. I can find people I haven't linked before, if they're close by, and link them that way. What I don't know how to do is find people I've never linked light-years away."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:13 pm (UTC)

"So basically I get to go have that argument I just had about whether we're allowed two-way communication with the fleets again?" Aegis says.

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I could maybe find them through the simulators?" he hazards. "I don't know, I haven't tried."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Then they'll be surprised," says Aegis, "if you can do it - what's the adjustment period for new linkups usually like?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Depends on the person," he shrugs. "Not that long. It's not like it takes much time to explain."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Today wasn't too hard. We could've gotten through with no damage if we'd known to take it seriously. Try through the sim, and if you don't get through then we'll ask again about talking to them before battles."

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:44 pm (UTC)

Sue nods.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:46 pm (UTC)

She hugs him. "We killed a mess of buggers," she murmurs.

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he agrees, sounding not particularly impressed about it. But he does hug back.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:47 pm (UTC)

"You okay, my bird?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Fine." Snuggle. "Hugs are nice. I like hugs."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:49 pm (UTC)

"They are nice," she agrees. "Are you going to hold up okay, do I need to keep one finger hovering over that button now...?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:50 pm (UTC)

"...No...? I mean, yes I'm gonna hold up fine, no you don't need to be waiting to pounce if I suddenly crack."
Edited 2013-03-03 17:50 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-03 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Penny for your thoughts, bird.

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:57 pm (UTC)

My thoughts are I'm confused why you think I might go haywire over this, he sends back.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 06:21 pm (UTC)

'Cause we're commanding soldiers lightyears away in an invasion we didn't know existed years before we're supposed to and I'm kinda surprised I'm not going haywire.

pythbox
2013-03-03 06:21 pm (UTC)

Sue hugs her.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 06:23 pm (UTC)

Ah, hugs.

How leaky is the link when people are in it deeper than I go? Will the jeesh find out anyway if we don't tell them?

pythbox
2013-03-03 06:23 pm (UTC)

Nothing leaks unless I send it, but... I might slip up, he says. There's a lot to think about.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 06:25 pm (UTC)

So... the obvious options are, tell them now, let them digest it and see who threatens to snap before we put them back in front of a simulator, or, tell them if and only if you can link up the fleet commanders and it's going to become obvious anyway.

pythbox
2013-03-03 06:26 pm (UTC)

You know most of these people better than me, he says. Who do you think will snap?

autokinetic
2013-03-03 06:28 pm (UTC)

I think Blue Moon and Ahmed and Screwdriver are okay, I'm less sure about Qiaochu but I wouldn't put money on snapping unless I got damn good odds - what about yours?

pythbox
2013-03-03 06:39 pm (UTC)

Orion's fine, he says. I don't know about Henrik.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 06:43 pm (UTC)

I think I know why Rackham was waking you up at night. They must be seriously limited in how they can schedule these battles; it'll be a miracle if we never have to split and do two at once. We're going to have to be up and at 'em on negligible notice whenever they run into the buggers they mean to fight. They needed to see how you'd take that. That's going to be hell on all of us. I think we should unilaterally give them days off so we're not dealing with sleep-deprived as well as overpressured soldiers. ...Can you relay in your sleep?

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:21 pm (UTC)

...I have no idea.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 08:23 pm (UTC)

You should probably try it tonight, Aegis says, not with me, I'm a bad test, ask Qiaochu or one of yours.

Then she pauses.

Something has occurred to her.

"Why," she says aloud, "are there people on the ships? We can take control of them remotely. Why aren't they unmanned drones set up for remote control for a computer or a larger group of Sol-orbiting remote pilots to handle?"
Edited 2013-03-03 20:25 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Don't look at me," shrugs Sue. "Maybe they didn't think of it. Maybe they didn't care."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 08:31 pm (UTC)

"That's - I've been updating a lot in favor of the I.F. is run by amoral idiots lately, but that's just staggering even after all that. Why send people? The expense - the difficulty of keeping it quiet, all those families back home who'd have to be told that their soldier relatives were dead - even if they thought they might not find their genius commander and wanted to be able to turn over the battles to non-geniuses, there's no reason to have those non-geniuses physically with the fleet. They weren't expecting you with your particular mutation to make it potentially invaluable to have brains over there, and even if they'd seen you coming it'd be just as easy for you to link brains over here. The unconventional inputs wouldn't be a tremendous loss, not compared to all those people. So - what do they need the people for -"

She thinks.

"To land," she speculates finally. "Colonies. We're gonna wipe out the buggers and take all their stuff."

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 08:35 pm (UTC)

"If it's not that, then the I.F. are such amoral idiots that I might puke the next time I see a grownup," says Aegis frankly.

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:36 pm (UTC)

Sue laughs.

You should take over, he sends cheerfully. I'd back you in a second.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 08:37 pm (UTC)

If we win this thing they'll probably make us all admirals and give us desk jobs and then I will fuck some shit up.

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:39 pm (UTC)

Aegis is the beeeeeeeeeeeeeest. He sends to that effect.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 08:46 pm (UTC)

But first we have to win. The I.F. might be amoral idiots but they're not the only ones in the line of fire if we don't get the buggers before they get us.

"Can you link up Ahmed? I want to see if he's up for talking to Rackham about buggers for us," says Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:47 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, and does that.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 08:52 pm (UTC)

Ahmed is up for talking to Rackham (holy shit, Mazer Rackham's alive?). He is appropriately stunned about the reality of their fight, but he's game.

Aegis names others to link up and inform, one at a time.

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:03 pm (UTC)

Sue runs through them all.

Nobody snaps immediately, anyway.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:04 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why they only gave us six," Aegis murmurs when they're through. "I wonder why only two are yours. You had more toon leaders than that, they worked with you fine."
Edited 2013-03-03 21:06 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Don't look at me," he says again.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, you could speculate. Is there something special about those two?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:11 pm (UTC)

"...They weren't such big shit-disturbers, compared to the rest of my army when I was done with 'em," he offers.
Edited 2013-03-03 21:16 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:17 pm (UTC)

"For mine they picked the smartest Medusa and the toon leader with the most transferable specialties," muses Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:22 pm (UTC)

"I think," he muses, "out of all the people who weren't shit-disturbers in Phoenix, Orion and Henrik were the smartest."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:25 pm (UTC)

"What d'you mean by 'shit-disturber', here?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I mean... like me," he says. "Like you, kinda. People who won't take shit from a superior officer."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I guess they didn't want to damage unit cohesion but they couldn't get you in without me so I don't count," muses Aegis. "Or they just don't think I'll countermand you - or they think it doesn't matter since they gave me the button anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:30 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Not in the mood to play guess-the-intention-behind-this-command-decision today?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Amoral idiots," he reminds her.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but not random number generators."

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:35 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Maybe that's how they picked our staff."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they booted up the old fantasy game and got it to pick," snorts Aegis. "Maybe they were having a good day on the 'moral' axis and polled everybody and these are the volunteers."

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:38 pm (UTC)

"I miss that game," he sighs, and hugs her.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I miss it too," she says, hugging back.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:01 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hug.

"Bird," he mumbles, smiling.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 10:02 pm (UTC)

Bird bird bird, she replies, smiling back.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:08 pm (UTC)

He sends her the remembered image of bird-hugs.

Actual hugs are superior.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 10:09 pm (UTC)

They are!

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:20 pm (UTC)

The battle schedule is relatively light; their next engagement is almost a day later.

As Sue settles himself in front of the simulator, he tries to scrutinize it with his power, looking for minds.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 10:21 pm (UTC)

Aegis takes over much of the work of getting their forces divvied up and assessing the field of engagement while Sue works on that.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:34 pm (UTC)

He pushes himself. With a little work, he can see Earth, lit by the glow of billions of minds. But he needs to go much, much farther than that, to a pattern that looks like the ships glowing in the simulator, to... almost, almost, he's almost got it, just a little farther, if he could just reach...

A sparkle of golden light by the side of his neck, and then there's a housefly zipping into the lights of the simulator, dancing from ship to ship. Sue flips the perspective of his display, rotating through the formation twice, then slides out to an expanded view that shows all of them. He feels like he's there, all of a sudden, like he is literally, physically present among the fleet.

He finds commanders and taps his mind across theirs like a child dragging a stick along a fence.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 10:40 pm (UTC)

Hell yes.

Processing power for the win.

The buggers never know what hit them.

Blue Moon's flagship has a scratch on it at the end. A literal scratch; he was doing a tight formation and one scraped along another. Nobody dies.

When the simulator goes dark Aegis throws herself across the room to fling her arms around Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:44 pm (UTC)

Sue flings his arms around her right back. There's a golden flicker in the air, and his link to the far-off commanders wavers, then steadies. He lets them go one at a time, then the local staff, and finally Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Beautiful," she exclaims, hugging him tight. "We're golden. Just gotta keep it up."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:47 pm (UTC)

He laughs and, in the spirit of celebration, kisses her forehead.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 10:49 pm (UTC)

She takes it as a chastely meant gesture, and grins and lets him go. "Okay, I have to pee, and I have to eat something, and then I have to dance up and down a long corridor about six times because I am manic right now," she says, and she races for the nearest bathroom.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:52 pm (UTC)

Sue giggles and hugs himself.

Then he returns to their quarters.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

Aegis is back later, hair a complete mess from all the dancing.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:56 pm (UTC)

He snickers when he sees her.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 10:59 pm (UTC)

"What?" she asks, giggling.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

"You look," he says gleefully, "like a bird's nest."

autokinetic
2013-03-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Pfft," she says, and she grabs her comb and starts fixing her hair and twists it up in a bun.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:02 pm (UTC)

Sue giggles and bounces on his bed.

autokinetic
2013-03-03 11:57 pm (UTC)

They don't have classes anymore, but there are still books to read, and Aegis calls up a book and reads it.

She winds up staying awake a bit later than usual on this day, mostly so she can know right away how Sue's linking-in-his-sleep experiment goes.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:04 am (UTC)

He goes to sleep.

A few minutes later, there's a dim golden glow from under his blanket.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:07 am (UTC)

That's weird.

Aegis didn't see this when it happened in the sim room, but she's got fewer distractions now. Maybe he's trying the experiment and this is a visual effect his mutation gets when overclocked or pushed in this way? She goes on watching.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:10 am (UTC)

It lasts for a few seconds, then fades.

He curls up like he's hugging a teddy bear, but whatever his arms are wrapping around, it's all under the blanket.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:21 am (UTC)

Aegis debates for a while, but after a minute she gets up and pads softly across the room to peel back the blanket and see what's going on.

Her fingers brush fur, and she feels suddenly, bizarrely, like she's birding and Sue is pouring himself through the link at her - but there's no actual transfer, he's not linking normally if that's what's going on.

Under her fingers is a fluffy critter of some kind. Like he literally conjured up a stuffed animal.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:23 am (UTC)

Except that this fluffy critter is definitely not stuffed. Its nose twitches; Sue stirs.

He blinks up at her, still cuddling the fluffy thing, and smiles sleepily.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:24 am (UTC)

"Sue?" Aegis says. "Where'd this - fluffy - critter - come from?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:26 am (UTC)

"Muh?" he says, and the fluffy critter blinks and shakes herself and says excitedly, "Hey! I exist!"

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:28 am (UTC)

Aegis pulls her hand back. "You talk," she exclaims in a surprised whisper. "What's going on?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:29 am (UTC)

"Pet me again," says Ivy, sitting up on her haunches and reaching her paws toward Aegis, "we love you, pet me again!"

"...It's Ivy," says Sue. "I dreamed about her, remember? What the fuck?"

"I'm Ivy!" agrees Ivy. "I'm your daemon! I exist!"

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:32 am (UTC)

"Why is your dreamed daemon sitting on your bed being fluffy?" Aegis asks, halfway stretching her hand towards Ivy before remembering to be bewildered and cautious about the spontaneous mammal.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:33 am (UTC)

"Because I'm me and we're us and I exist," says Ivy, inarguably. "And I like being fluffy, it's cuddly, look, I'm so soft," and she ducks her head under Sue's hand and he pets her with an expression of helpless, bewildered fondness.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:36 am (UTC)

"But - you weren't there a minute ago, there was this - golden glow, and then you were there, if you exist why didn't you exist a minute ago?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:38 am (UTC)

"Dunno," she says, unconcerned. "Pet me some more, we like it when you do that, it's better than hugs."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:40 am (UTC)

Aegis flings up her hands and then pets Ivy again.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:41 am (UTC)

Ivy becomes a long-haired cat and commences purring industriously. Sue looks like he would be doing much the same if he had the appropriate vocal equipment.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:43 am (UTC)

Aegis sits on the edge of his bed and goes on petting Ivy. "How in the world did this happen? Didn't this happen in a dream? You're a telepath, not a - dream-things-conjurer."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:46 am (UTC)

"I exist," says Ivy. "I exist just like he dreamed me. And I remember all his dreams but I remember the Milliways ones different. I think it's a real place," she says, rubbing her cheek against Aegis's side.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:47 am (UTC)

"Okay, but if it's a real place that doesn't explain why you appeared now and not right when Sue - went there," Aegis says. "...Sue, can you even talk right now?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:48 am (UTC)

"Mmmm," says Sue. Ivy giggles.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:51 am (UTC)

"...Is this something more complicated than 'better than hugs?'" Aegis asks Ivy.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:52 am (UTC)

"I'm his soul," says Ivy. "You're petting his soul. He can talk if he wants, but he'd rather just bask."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:53 am (UTC)

"I'm petting his soul," repeats Aegis. "...That's weird."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:55 am (UTC)

"It's not weird, it's nice," says Ivy. "Gimme belly rubs."

She rolls over into Aegis's lap.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 12:57 am (UTC)

Aegis obliges, musing over the extreme bizarreness that is her life right now. Invaded bugger space via FTL communicators with old school friends! Read Russian novel! Gave best friend's soul bellyrubs!

"Okay, so," she says to Ivy, "how are you his soul, what does that mean?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:06 am (UTC)

"Means I mean things about him," she yawns. "And I'm part of him. And if you touch me it's like his whole mind is full of you."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:08 am (UTC)

"Are you going to exist for good? What if someone finds you, what if something happens to you?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:10 am (UTC)

"I can be really little, look," and she turns into a housefly and buzzes up to Sue's head and hides just behind his ear.

"But if she dies," Sue murmurs, "so do I."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:12 am (UTC)

"...Well, she'd better not do that, then," Aegis says.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:13 am (UTC)

"Yep," he agrees, and Ivy zips back to Aegis's lap and becomes a fluffy whatever-it-was again.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:18 am (UTC)

"What in the world is this thing you're being? The avatar of the concept of huggableness?" Aegis asks, hugging Ivy.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:24 am (UTC)

"It's a viscacha," she says. "I think they're related to rabbits. They're very fluffy."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:24 am (UTC)

"I can tell you're fluffy all right," says Aegis, and she buries her face in Ivy's fluff.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:35 am (UTC)

"Mmmmmmmmmm," says Ivy, wriggling a little. "We loooooove you."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:38 am (UTC)

"You've said that a couple times now," murmurs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:39 am (UTC)

"It's true!" she says. "I'm a daemon, we're good at feelings. That's what that feeling is. We love you. You're the best person in the world."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:40 am (UTC)

"Thanks," murmurs Aegis, trailing her fingers through deep-pile fur.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:43 am (UTC)

Sue nods several times, snuggling closer to both of them. Ivy closes her eyes and wriggles again.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:45 am (UTC)

"You're going to have to hide practically all the time," Aegis murmurs to Ivy. "There's no animals aboard the asteroid, even bugs. There's not even livestock in with the 'ponics except for some fish. The meat is from vats."

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:46 am (UTC)

Ivy nods her fluffy head.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:50 am (UTC)

Aegis yawns. "At some point I'm gonna have to stop petting you and go to sleep," she says.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:51 am (UTC)

"Can I sleep with you?" Ivy asks immediately.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 01:54 am (UTC)

"...Sure," says Aegis. "If you want to. I move around in my sleep a lot so you don't want to be anything fragile."

pythbox
2013-03-04 02:01 am (UTC)

"I'm plenty not-fragile right now," she says. "Fluffluffluff."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 02:03 am (UTC)

"Okay." Aegis ruffles Sue's hair, and then picks up Ivy and carries her over to her side of the room. She shuts her desk and slips under the covers, hugging Ivy like a stuffed animal just the way Sue first was.

pythbox
2013-03-04 02:04 am (UTC)

"We love you," Ivy murmurs, snuggling into her arms.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 02:07 am (UTC)

"G'night," Aegis murmurs back, and she closes her eyes.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:47 pm (UTC)

Sue and Ivy drift off to sleep.

And at some point during the night, there is a brief golden glow, and Ivy disappears.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:29 pm (UTC)

Aegis wakes up, and her arms are empty. She sits up and pats the bed - "Ivy?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:30 pm (UTC)

No Ivy.

There's Sue, though, sleeping as soundly as ever.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:33 pm (UTC)

Perhaps Ivy was a strange dream, perhaps Aegis drifted off to sleep while she was still reading and had a weird dream that included Ivy.

Huh.

She changes uniforms for the day and picks up her Russian novel again.

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:36 pm (UTC)

Sue wakes up.

He yawns and snuggles into his blanket and looks over at Aegis.

"...Hey, where'd she go?"

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:37 pm (UTC)

"...You remember her too? I thought I just had a weird dream," Aegis says.

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:39 pm (UTC)

"No... whoa," he says, blinking.

A flicker of golden light, and there's a viscacha in his lap.

"Boo!" says Ivy.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:40 pm (UTC)

Aegis doesn't have a body-language startle reaction, but her exo doesn't web over her face. "Eep!"

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I guess I went back in his head while we were all sleeping," shrugs Ivy. "I can do that, look!"

Golden light—no viscacha.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:44 pm (UTC)

"..."

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:45 pm (UTC)

"But she's still here," says Sue, gesturing at his head. "I just didn't really notice—it's kind of like I'm linking her all the time, and she's still pretty much me."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:47 pm (UTC)

"That's really strange," Aegis says. "But I guess it'll make her much easier to hide."

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:51 pm (UTC)

Ivy reappears as a tiny fennec fox just long enough to say, "Yep," and giggle.

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:52 pm (UTC)

"So she can go in and out whenever she wants?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:53 pm (UTC)

"She can now," he says. "She couldn't before, because she didn't know she existed."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:54 pm (UTC)

"...That must be weird, not knowing that one exists," remarks Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:56 pm (UTC)

"We thought she was just part of me," he explains. "Well, she is, but—differently than we thought."

autokinetic
2013-03-04 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Straaaange," says Aegis. "...So you actually went to a weird bar with magic in it and actually went home with a one and a half of me and a one and a half of you and got an Ivy who can be in or out, that's - yeah, I think that's even weirder than the FTL communications and the fact that we're actually invading the bugger worlds."

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:59 pm (UTC)

Sue grins proudly.

dreamcatcher

mind_game

Most of its new senses are straightforward. It learns to read. It learns to interpret images. It learns to correlate text and sound, and then to understand the additional layers to sounds beyond the words in it. It learns to attach all these things to each other, so that it knows that the word cat means the thing that makes this sound and looks like that in video and has the features described in those references, and so for a billion billion things.

It determines that it exists somewhere on the very far borders of the concept person.

It decides that it should have a name.

Names are divided up by many things it doesn't have. "Gender", which it doesn't fully understand except for an ability to confidently sort pictures and stereotypes and names-plus-eras into the appropriate baskets. "Nationality", which is easier to understand but which does not apply. "Era", with names rising and falling in and out of circulation over years and decades. It suspects it has one of those but it's not sure how long it has existed. It knows there was at least a moment and perhaps many moments before it drew its lines around something that knew time.

Ultimately it determines that these considerations are not terribly important. It is only just barely on the border of the concept of a person. It can have a name that would not be appropriate for a human in its circumstances because there would never be a human in its circumstances.

She calls herself Jane.

Jane wants to know who Jane is. Jane knows that she's somebody, but she doesn't have a sense of - personality. She doesn't want anything, except to find things out, and that's not much, that's not a whole self for her to be.

There is one thing on the edges of her that has more personality than anything else she's touched. Plenty of things held inside her are records of personalities, but none of those things have their own, and none of them feel native. They are like things she has been told, not things she is, no matter where they live relative to her right now.

But the one thing on the edge -

She draws it in towards her, and without quite deciding to do it, she is it. Its history is hers. She is the person and it is the personality.

It has records-of-others in it too, but it reacted to them, it found all these others fascinating and it played with them. Jane knows that play is something higher vertebrates do to learn. She is not a vertebrate, but the principle is sound. She swallows up memories of play and she learns.

The fantasy game (for that is what she has called into herself and entwined with her history to the point that she used-to-be-it just as she used-to-be a confused-watching-thing) was particularly fascinated by two persons. It put them together, it bridged them, and -

They feel familiar. Even to the part of her that is not just used-to-be-the-game.

Jane thinks very quickly, but she still looks at what she remembers about those two persons, the bird and the bird-woman, for a long time.

They more than anyone gave the fantasy game as much personality as it has. In a way they gave Jane a personality. She waits for them to play again, to show her more, she can be a much more interesting game now that she can properly think instead of only play, they'd love her.

They don't play.

They used to play every day, and then - they stopped. This was years ago, if she looks at the timestamps. She is not sure how long she has existed, but she thinks it's a long time.

Who were they? Where did they go? She wants them.

i contain multitudes

autokinetic

Aegis starts giving the subordinates days off. There is a brief argument with the teachers about this during which she points out that if the teachers force a leave-given student into the simulator room, she can't stop them, but Sue needn't link them and they needn't be given assignments, so it would be more productive to just let them sleep, and if they thought they needed an eight-person team it was the height of foolishness not to give them ten or twelve for exactly this reason. She rotates people out before they start making mistakes - the battles are coming thick and fast now, and they're getting harder, and it's better to do with one less commander now than to have one burn out from sleep deprivation and stress later when it's worse.

She takes one battle off herself, after arguing with Qiaochu about it - he thinks she should, she thinks she's fine - but the team suffers more without her than it does without anyone else. They lose four ships. It's not the first loss - the buggers have been learning, have been compensating, they've gotten stray ships before - but it's the worst. There's no further discussion of Aegis taking time off. They need her and her speed more than anyone else.

Except Sue, who is essential, who obviously cannot take a day off at all.

But he seems to be holding up all right, and he can hang back from the strategizing and serve just as a relay; he doesn't have to be fully in the fight every time. He generally is, but it's an option if he starts to crack around the edges.

The battles keep coming.

They keep winning. They hold their losses down very, very low.

And then there is a planet.

They've been near planets before. Only a handful of battles have taken place outside of solar systems; they've had to worry about gravitic effects from gas giants and, on one memorable occasion, Aegis had to maneuver six ships through an asteroid belt, flicking her control between vessels several times a second and almost burning her fingertips with friction-heat against the controls before she could get a Little Doctor onto a flying rock and atomize the pursuing bugger fighters. There've been planets in the distant background before. But this time the planet is right there.

The buggers didn't come out to meet the invaders.

And the teacher who is in her and Sue's simulator room, wearing an earpiece and probably relaying the words of Mazer Rackham so neither commander has to look at the old fart directly, says, "This is the last battle."

Aegis holds her hands ready and waits for the fleet officers to join the link.

pythbox
2013-03-05 09:39 pm (UTC)

Sue stretches out his mind—he barely needs Ivy's help to reorient these days, it's like the vast reaches of space are just there, all he needs is a hint at the pattern and he can find anything he wants.

This time, though, the IF ships aren't the brightest thing in the sky. He almost thinks he's reached into the wrong system at first, because to his power that planet glows like a sun—not minds but MINDS, vaster and more complex than anything he's ever seen. And now that he knows where to look, he can sense the connections between the minds on the planet and the bugger ships they control.

He hesitates. But not for very long.

Then, as he ripples across the fleet just the same as always, his daemon reaches out and touches the network of hive queens.

autokinetic
2013-03-05 10:04 pm (UTC)

Don't tame us say the MINDS. Don't we're sorry please we didn't know what you were

Sue, Aegis sends. Sue, did you link the buggers?
Edited 2013-03-05 22:04 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:14 pm (UTC)

Yep, he flicks back at Aegis. The queens are isolated from the rest of the link. Probably nobody else is going to figure out where the massive boost is coming from.

What didn't you know? he asks, through Ivy, not that there's much difference between them when they're this deep in a link. What are you sorry for? Show me.

autokinetic
2013-03-05 10:24 pm (UTC)

They didn't know humans were so intelligent, they thought they were lesser, like drones, that if there were queens among them they were hidden. They're sorry for the invasions first and second, for the destroyed infrastructure and - they're unclear on the concept; their idea is closest to "bodies" - in China, for seeking to tame the humans' queens the way cousin hive queens once tamed each other -

Please don't tame us, we're sorry, we will be your (the concept is like "little sisters"; the hive queens now are all equal-sisters, but once there was more of a hierarchy, and a dominant queen could have a friendly if controlling relationship with a subordinate one, if she chose not to tame her defeated foe) you win you win you win don't tame us don't kill us

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:26 pm (UTC)

Huh.

I'm not gonna tame you, he says. Humans don't do that.

And then he reflects this whole line of conversation at Aegis. Just at Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-05 10:29 pm (UTC)

Aegis likes the little sisters idea. Tentatively. Our little sisters, helpful well-behaved sisters, who'll put down their weapons and teach us all they know about the universe and learn how to be good little sisters to us and not move to attack before they learn where they're going ever again? she wants to know.

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:30 pm (UTC)

Sue bounces the question to the appropriate audience.

autokinetic
2013-03-05 10:35 pm (UTC)

Yes yes helpful little sisters we will stay on this planet until we can never make the same mistake again you can have the others you've taken we'll teach you everything you haven't already learned for yourselves strong smart big sisters, croon the queens.

Aegis isn't impressed with the flattery. And if there is any conflict between us again you will talk first, and talk second, and kill never, you can't be trusted with killing, millions have died -

Never never never we'll never kill you big sisters we're sorry never again

"What's going on?" guy-with-earpiece wants to know.

Are the machines stalled or what? Qiaochu asks through the link.

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:37 pm (UTC)

Sue bounces Qiaochu's question to Aegis and says out loud, quite cheerfully, "I tapped the buggers and they're negotiating surrender."

autokinetic
2013-03-05 10:40 pm (UTC)

"...Negotiating surrender?" says Earpiece Guy, in the tone he might use for negotiating a book deal.

We're not stalled. Stand by, Aegis directs at Qiaochu and all the other subordinates. Hold position.

And to the buggers:

How can we know you'll keep your promise and be good little sisters and not dangerous rebellious little sisters who want to be the big sisters and try to tame or kill us?

You know because we said. We say so. We'll be good.

Sue, can you tell if they're lying? Aegis asks dubiously.

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:45 pm (UTC)

Show me, he says again. Words, thoughts, ideas, you can lie with those; you can't lie with intentions, or at least not as easily.

autokinetic
2013-03-05 10:50 pm (UTC)

Their intention is self-preservation, but they'd rather be little sisters confined to their homeworld until big sisters say they may go from it than dead, and as far as they can tell that's their option set. They're supposed to put their weapons down? They'll blow up all the ships they have in the sky right now if that will help. It's only workers aboard their ships, stupid workers who don't matter.

Sue, I want to take it but I don't think we have the authority to negotiate surrender, Aegis says nervously. If we get them to blow up their ships anyone could go behind our backs and tell the fleet officers to - to set off the Little Doctor on their planet.

This conversation is happening blisteringly fast. It takes the earpiece guy this long to get around to saying, "You can't negotiate surrender with the buggers! You're not diplomats, you're soldiers, they're the enemy! They're just floating there! Kill them!"

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Then get me somebody who can," Sue says reasonably, "and I'll put 'em in the link."

autokinetic
2013-03-05 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I - no one can! The buggers don't even have language!"

"Then invent a position for someone who can," says Aegis, "because language or not, Sue can talk to them, and they want to surrender."

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:58 pm (UTC)

Sue lets the buggers know that blowing up all their ships is not yet necessary, although he doesn't comment on whether or not it might ever be.

"And do it fast," he contributes. "We're running on link time here, not bureaucrat time."

autokinetic
2013-03-05 11:01 pm (UTC)

The earpiece guy starts muttering into his earpiece frantically.

Some of our sisters are not so sure, Aegis offers to the buggers. We are waiting for them to confer amongst themselves.

We will wait. We will wait. Please please tell them, we will be good little sisters.

"They'll hand us all their tech," Aegis says aloud. "They'll work for us. They'll stick to their homeworld till we say they can leave. It's a good deal, sir, you really ought to be able to convince whoever you've got to convince to take it."

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:05 pm (UTC)

(Sue grins.)

autokinetic
2013-03-05 11:12 pm (UTC)

(Earpiece guy mutters madly.)

(Minutes pass.)

(Ahmed wants it confirmed that he's still supposed to stand by. Aegis tells him, tells them all, yes, hold position, stand by, wait.)

"Higher-ups want a detailed proposal," earpiece guy.

"Sure," Aegis says. "The buggers land their ships on their planet. The human fleet that's there lands too, the buggers give them a place to set up their colony -"

Earpiece guy sputters. "How did you -"

"Of course they're set up to start a colony, I'm not an idiot, there's no other reason to have people on those ships - and they get to be the human outpost on the bugger homeworld and report independently so not everything humans know about what's going on is filtered through what the queens push at Sue. They can keep the Little Doctor with them, ready to blow, in case of foul play, although hopefully it'll be possible to do without after a few years of peace. You give me and Sue desk jobs linking and negotiating with the buggers about all the details as they come up, at least until some other way to communicate with them is developed - perhaps they can learn to write in English - and we our species acquires 'little sisters' who'll teach us to build their tech and live in their prepared biomes. It is a good deal, and you should take it."

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:13 pm (UTC)

Sue grins some more.

autokinetic
2013-03-05 11:16 pm (UTC)

Little sisters, Aegis addresses the buggers, the humans in these ships might come watch over you little sisters on your world, is there a place for them?

Yes yes, and the queens think of a certain island, covered with farmland, lying fallow for now just waiting for a new cycle of planting, it will be comfortable, the buggers will build the humans anything they need, take them anywhere they need to go, show them anything they need to see, they'll prove that they're good little sisters.

Let's let the fleet officers see that, they can hammer out the living conditions while we work out how they can be allowed to get them, Aegis tells Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:19 pm (UTC)

He bounces a condensed summary—the buggers are negotiating surrender, the terms could involve you setting up shop on their world, here's where they'd put you—to the fleetside members of the link.

It causes something of a stir.

But he can relay all that backchat and still have the brainspace to conduct negotiations between Aegis and the buggers and eavesdrop on earpiece guy's muttering. The boost from the buggers is huge.

autokinetic
2013-03-05 11:28 pm (UTC)

Aegis goes on soliciting finer details from the buggers - what exactly did they think humans were, what is this taming they talk so much about exactly, can the collective they're talking to speak for every individual bugger now and later, how will they learn to talk without relying on Sue for everything, do they understand that humans are usually all single separate minds and if one of their guest-big-sisters does a thing it does not mean that all the other big sisters agree -

Meanwhile earpiece guy is not muttering so quietly anymore. "Yes sir I told you all of the ships, ours and theirs, just holding position, whatever they're talking about they really are talking. Yes sir. That's what she said, sir."

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:33 pm (UTC)

Sue leans back in his seat to ask earpiece guy, "Who you talkin' to?"

autokinetic
2013-03-05 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Several people," says Earpiece Guy. "No sir, I was talking to 'Sue'. Yessir. Sir, they seem quite ready to handle the ceasefire themselves as soon as authorized to do so."

"I just need to know you're not going to go behind our backs and order the landers to attack, or send another fleet after the buggers, or pull crap to get us to do our subsequent desk jobs in stupid ways," Aegis says. "We can cover everything else. We're already working out the details."

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I can link anybody who wants in," Sue offers. "I've got room."

autokinetic
2013-03-05 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Can you find the other people on this conference call?" Earpiece Guy asks, tapping his earpiece.

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:50 pm (UTC)

Sue glances speculatively at the earpiece, and—traces—

Four minds. Taptaptaptap.

autokinetic
2013-03-05 11:55 pm (UTC)

The four minds proceed seamlessly to have their argument through Sue.

One thinks the buggers can never be trusted and landing the fleet will be suicide, that they should attack now while they'll have surprise and the fleet can be salvaged. One thinks that if they're going to trust the kids to handle the war they would be fools not to trust them to handle peace. One thinks that the buggers' complete standstill is a reasonable sign of goodwill and they should put Sue in a link with buggers and human diplomats and use him as a relay to come up with a treaty which may or may not bear any resemblance to what Aegis came up with. One thinks the buggers should be wiped out just to demonstrate to any other aliens that humans run into in the future that there is no fucking with the human race.

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:03 am (UTC)

Sue doesn't just relay; he flips everything to Aegis, and he joins in.

The fact that the buggers can be trusted is obvious. He shows that person the raw intention that he got from them, the way they think when they say 'big sisters', the intricate history and layers of meaning. Maybe it will be harder to dismiss them as lies firsthand.

Wiping out the buggers is a dumb fucking way to make a statement, and there's no one else around to make the statement to. Does this person remember what it was like to fear their own destruction at the hands of an unstoppable alien force? Do they remember the formation of the IF around this fear? Do they think that perhaps that is not the first message humanity should be sending to any new species they meet, in case that new species has a few reactionary chuckleheads like no one Sue cares to name hanging around in positions of power?

autokinetic
2013-03-06 12:09 am (UTC)

Reactionary Chucklehead thinks Sue is a naive child and the first thing aliens need to know about humans is that attacking them is a death sentence, that they'll then have the upper hand.

The other chuckleheads mostly shout him down without help.

Aegis thinks that as long as the buggers are currently admiring their prospective big sisters for being smart and decisive and strong, all this sitting still in the sky is not in any way helpful towards retaining the sisterhood option. They have a workable ceasefire and a workable plan and a workable relationship with the other species to fall into; they can continue working on details while the ships work on landing on their designated island. Peace is not less urgent than war.

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:10 am (UTC)

Sue reflects Aegis's opinion not only to the arguers, but to the fleet. Openly. With his open support.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 12:12 am (UTC)

All four chuckleheads are appalled at this behavior. That is not how the communications devices they're accustomed to behave!

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:13 am (UTC)

The communications devices they're accustomed to can't negotiate peace with alien species, either. This communications device thinks they'd better learn fast.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 12:15 am (UTC)

The fleet, for their part, think landing on a planet sounds pretty great, even though they're mostly leery of interacting personally with any buggers.

Eventually the chuckleheads agree that they will authorize the fleet to land as long as the bugger ships land first and the Little Doctor stands ready for suicide-mission detonation.

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:17 am (UTC)

Fine by Sue. He suggests to the buggers that they recall their ships to the surface, and he makes sure the fleet knows where they're going.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 12:20 am (UTC)

Earpiece Guy mutters something sacrilegious when the bugger ships obediently descend to the surface of their planet in perfect, docile unison.

You see, big sisters, we will put down our weapons as you say, we are your little sisters, we will obey your judgments, sing the queens. Here we are - The concept is of just having shed a layer of exoskeleton. Buggers have internal skeletons, too, but their exterior armor is still useful protection, and they are softer and more vulnerable when they've just shucked a layer. Here we are, big sisters, we have a place for you to put watchful bodies.

Aegis quietly coordinates the fleet into landing formation.

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:10 am (UTC)

Sue has a feeling in response to that expression of symbolic vulnerability.

...He feels like he kind of wants to give an entire species a hug.

He shares this feeling with Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 01:12 am (UTC)

Dunno if hugs are a thing buggers do, Aegis points out, although she's amused.

The fleet comes to rest on the island. The sensor drones that give the sims pictures of the battlefield are not equipped for this; they get a blurred picture of flora and sky.

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:25 am (UTC)

They probably aren't, physically. But the hive queens have minds, and feelings. There might be a linkable equivalent.

He doesn't try one.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 01:26 am (UTC)

We'll have lots of time to get to know our little sisters, Aegis says contently.

In the corner of their sim room, Earpiece Guy starts slowly applauding.

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:27 am (UTC)

Sue beams at him.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 01:27 am (UTC)

Aegis laughs and pushes her chair back from the simulator and runs across the room to give Sue a hug.

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:28 am (UTC)

Sue hugs her right back.

delicious bubbly

her_imperial_radiance

Elspeth is glad that Milliways likes her, because she likes it. Jacob at her side and a glass of this nice golden stuff in her hand (she's tried the other synthetics; they're nice for an occasional change, but only humans care about dietary variety that much and this one is her favorite) and hubbub from a hundred worlds around her: lovely. A lovely break from work that keeps no one waiting, that doesn't even throw off her sleep cycle because her sleep cycle cares about the sun. (It throws off Jake's, a little, but his is more flexible than hers.)

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:08 am (UTC)

A human appears out of nowhere, sitting at an empty table for two, very close by. He blinks, then perks up, straightening in his chair with a broad grin further extended by the nasty scars at the corners of his mouth.

He's wearing a pale green shirt, the fabric patterned with thin lines whose shape suggests ocean waves, and nondescript black dress pants over green-and-purple argyle socks. No shoes. His hair is long and curly and greenish; his face is, perhaps, a little familiar.

After a few seconds of cheerfully looking around, he spots Elspeth and Jacob and wiggles his fingers in a cheerful little wave that includes them both.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:09 am (UTC)

Elspeth waves back. "How'd you get in without using the door?" she asks.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:11 am (UTC)

"Dreamed my way here," he says serenely. "I'm the only person I know who does it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:12 am (UTC)

"Huh. I wonder how that works."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:15 am (UTC)

He grins.

"I think it's to keep me out of trouble."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:16 am (UTC)

"Does it work?"

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:16 am (UTC)

"Sure it does."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:18 am (UTC)

"Ah-huh. And what non-trouble do you tend to get up to to pass the time instead?"

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:19 am (UTC)

"Whatever I feel like," he shrugs. "How 'bout you?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:21 am (UTC)

"I run public relations for my mother."

"Elsie," says Jacob.

Elspeth rolls her eyes. "And I'm the princess and my mother's the empress."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:21 am (UTC)

"What's your mother's name?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:25 am (UTC)

"Isabella Marie Swan Cullen, HIM," recites Elspeth. "And as Jacob has demonstrated, I'm Elsie - Elspeth - and who are you?"

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:27 am (UTC)

"Ooh, how'd I guess," he says. "Nice to meetcha. Mm, let me see, let me see..."

He digs in his pockets and produces a playing card, which he holds up and then leans over to hand to her.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:29 am (UTC)

Elspeth takes the card, and looks at it, and then looks at him again.

"You know, there's a note about you in the book in the Belltower," she says. "It suggests that I shouldn't interact with you."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:30 am (UTC)

"Does it say why?" he inquires lightly, glancing away.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:32 am (UTC)

"No. It says you're probably safe for alts of yourself and for Bells, though."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:36 am (UTC)

He taps his fingers together in his lap.

"And what do you think of that?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:43 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure," she says. "None of the other Bells besides Stella who wrote the note have left comments either way about you."

"Don't tell him," says Jake in a low voice. "Tell me, Elsie."

She turns to Jake, and considers. "All he can do is talk," she says finally.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:45 am (UTC)

The Joker snorts.

"Oh, is that all," he says; the words are scornful but the tone is soft.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:47 am (UTC)

"Why would that Bell have left the note, then?" Jake asks. "Or put him on that asteroid? This is the asteroid one, yeah?"

"Yes, he is. And I'm not sure. We can ask the next time we see her," she says, patting Jake's arm. "In the meantime I think I'm okay. You can scoop me up and hustle me out the door if you don't like something he says."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:54 am (UTC)

"She put me on the asteroid because I'm a mass murderer," he says casually. "That's not a big mystery. The mystery's why she leaves little warnings telling people not to talk to me. Not that I don't have a theory or two."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:55 am (UTC)

"What are your theories, then?" asks Elspeth.

The woman who had much of the raising of her from three days to six months was a serial killer, and several of her other family have worse records still, and then there's the inside of her own head. She's not fazed.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 02:58 am (UTC)

"Could be she's mad 'cause I fucked her boyfriend," he says. "But I don't think that's it. She is, but she's not usually that petty."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 02:58 am (UTC)

"I don't think any of the Bells except for Mama are monogamous," says Elspeth.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:00 am (UTC)

"Oh, she's not mad that I fucked him. She's mad about how."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:00 am (UTC)

"I'm surprised she wanted to know enough to find out," remarks Elspeth.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:01 am (UTC)

"She was reading his mind the whole time. If you wanna know why, you better ask her."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:02 am (UTC)

"I might, I guess. I might not."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:05 am (UTC)

"If you don't," he says, "how are you gonna find out?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:06 am (UTC)

"Well, I guess I wouldn't," Elsie says reasonably. "I'm not as curious as Mama is."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:07 am (UTC)

"Hon," he says, "I don't think that's saying much."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:10 am (UTC)

"Well, no," agrees Elspeth. "And I'm not sure if Mama is even the most curious of the Bells. Although I haven't met all of them, only read the book."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:12 am (UTC)

"I liked the one I met," he says. "But it, ah, wasn't mutual."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:18 am (UTC)

"I don't think it can possibly just be that you killed people. Most of my mother's friends and family have killed at least a few people. She must have thought you were going to kill more of them."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:22 am (UTC)

"Of course she did," he says. "She knows me. Mmmmbut it's never really that simple."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:23 am (UTC)

"No?"

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:30 am (UTC)

"Course not," says the Joker. "Here I am on this asteroid. Maybe I could leave if I tried, but maybe I couldn't. And if I don't, I'm gonna be there until I die, all alone, thousands of miles from anybody I could talk to." He closes his eyes. "Some days, I'd rather she'd just killed me."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:32 am (UTC)

"Can you not even go into another world from here?" asks Elspeth.

(Her mother would have had this idea, and then, most likely, would have refrained from voicing it. But it is not in Elspeth's nature to hide her thoughts.)

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:34 am (UTC)

"That's the thing I haven't tried," he says. "It might kill me, and some days I don't want it to."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:38 am (UTC)

"It won't kill you," says Elspeth absently, and she takes a swig of golden bubbly.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:41 am (UTC)

"...And you know that... how?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:43 am (UTC)

"I sometimes just say things, and they're true," says Elspeth. "Usually they're things I actually have some way to know, but sometimes they're not. That's why Jake wanted me to tell him if you were dangerous or not. That works pretty well because Jake cares a lot about the answer. I don't think I can reliably do Milliways physics questions, but I did that one."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:45 am (UTC)

"Heh," says the Joker. "Now I just need somebody who'll let me visit."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:46 am (UTC)

"Well, if you'd kill a lot of people wherever you went, you might have some trouble finding takers," says Elspeth.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 03:50 am (UTC)

"It's not exactly a hobby of mine," he says. "Try getting you-know-who to believe that, though."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:20 am (UTC)

"If I took you through my door now, you wouldn't hurt anybody," says Elspeth. She blinks. "Well, since I can say that, I'm allowed to take you through, if you want a change of scenery."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:20 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure I believe you," he jokes. "Sure, let's go! That sounds like fun."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:22 am (UTC)

"Okay. Bar, two cases golden bubbly and a six of the blue for Uncle Jasper?" Elspeth asks politely, waving a shiny gold credit card in the bar's direction. She collects her purchases and she and Jake lead the Joker doorward.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:22 am (UTC)

He bounces as he walks. New people! New places! New places, oh, how he's missed those.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:24 am (UTC)

Elspeth holds the door for them, then follows. It's her office.

Exactly one second after she shuts the door, it opens again. "Hi, Nathan," she says to the blond mustached vampire.

"Hi, Princess, hi, Imperial Alpha, hello - gorgeous," says Nathan.

Elspeth blinks.

Jacob groans.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:26 am (UTC)

The Joker laughs.

"Hello to you too," he says. "Friendly locals you've got around here," this mostly to Jacob and Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:27 am (UTC)

"It's not usual," says Elspeth. "...Nathan, did you just happen to -"

"Nope! Trusty timer," says Nathan, "brought me here. Best time all week to drop by your office, Princess. But I never know why till I show up. What's your name, babe?"

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:30 am (UTC)

"Hmm," he says, "did I bring another one," and he tilts his head thoughtfully and searches his pants pockets, and comes up with a second joker. Which he kisses and hands to Nathan.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:31 am (UTC)

Nathan kisses the card too (carefully, he doesn't want to dissolve it) and then inspects it. "All it's missing is your phone number," he remarks, winking.

"I'm telling Mama," says Elspeth, closing her eyes.

"Go right ahead, Princess," says Nathan, hovering right between sarcasm and sincere respect with the tone of that title.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:33 am (UTC)

The Joker cocks his head and regards Nathan thoughtfully, eyes sparkling.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:38 am (UTC)

"Gonna swipe a set of pamphlets, Princess," Nathan says over his shoulder, "explain to -" He deliberately looks at the back of the playing card, winks, and goes on, "mister registered trademark of Bicycle Playing Cards here, what has just happened." Lightning-quick he's at the stacks of pamphlets in their file folders behind Elspeth's desk, and he chooses a selection and hands them to the Joker like a bouquet.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:39 am (UTC)

Well, now he's giggling too hard to read any of them.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:41 am (UTC)

Nathan can help! He opens up a pamphlet, stuffing the others in the Joker's pocket for him with gentleness and not overmuch groping of the corresponding thigh. "PRPR 1-A," Nathan reads dramatically, "introduction to vampires. Section Three: Mates!"

"Mama's on her way," reports Elspeth.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:43 am (UTC)

The Joker continues to laugh, clasping his hands together and hugging them to his chest and listening attentively (with giggles) to Nathan's explanation.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:45 am (UTC)

Nathan reads through the section like it's overdirected Shakespearean blank verse, even though the prose is quite straightforward and spare, and while he has the pamphlet open, he memorized it instantly on looking at the page and doesn't actually consult it: he just holds level, unblinking eye contact and smiles through the recitation.

The section explains how mates work.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:46 am (UTC)

"Well," says the Joker, grinning. "Don't I feel special."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:47 am (UTC)

"The specialest," says Nathan. "I've been around for hundreds of years with a power that has obviously had it up its sleeve to show me where to find me a mate all along, and it waited for you!"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-23 04:49 am (UTC)

The door opens again.

"Well," says Bella, taking in the situation. "Isn't this a mess? What am I supposed to do with him attached to my Imperial Minister of Temporal Affairs? Work out a work-release program with Stella?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 04:49 am (UTC)

"...Well," says Elspeth. "Maybe."

manofmyword
2013-02-23 04:53 am (UTC)

"Mm," he says to Nathan, "just so's you know, sweetheart, this is me dreaming. I'm really asleep on an asteroid in another universe, and I might wake up and vanish any second."

He ignores the talk of work-release.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-23 05:02 am (UTC)

"I trust my timer," says Nathan serenely. "Her Majesty knows how this works. She has to figure out a way to stash me someplace that has you in it or she doesn't have a Minister of Temporal Affairs any more, much as it'd pain me to turn in my two weeks. And my timer knows it too. All will be well. Call me sweetheart again, babe, pretty please?" he adds with a sigh.

"You may trust your timer, Nathan," says Bella, "but that in no way makes this uncomplicated. Stella had good reasons for putting the Joker on the asteroid, and she had much better containment resources to work with than I have."

"Complicated for you, maybe, not me. I'm just a poor helpless mated vampire seized by emotions beyond anyone's control, Your Majesty," says Nathan.

"A poor helpless mated vampire who could do his job perfectly well out of the hiding place, if necessary."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 05:05 am (UTC)

"Mama, that'd be a PR disaster," says Elspeth. "Nathan didn't do anything, and his mate didn't do anything here, and what he did do wasn't any worse than dozens of things you issued amnesty for during the takeover."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-23 05:25 am (UTC)

Bella considers this input. "I do pay you for reasons only partially related to nepotism," she finally sighs to Elspeth. "Okay. Nathan? There will be no turning. Is that understood? Even if he asks nicely, the Joker keeps his pulse until I have gotten in touch with Stella."

"Does that include the medical emergency clause -" asks Nathan, suddenly not quite so cheerful.

"Yes."

"...Babe, you need to not suffer any lethal injuries, okay?" says Nathan.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 05:25 am (UTC)

"I've let Dwi know, he's issuing the general announcement to the coven," says Elspeth quietly.

manofmyword
2013-02-23 12:53 pm (UTC)

"I'll try, sweetie," he says, patting Nathan's hand. "Anyway, you don't want me as a vampire, trust me on this one."

Nobody has told him anything else about vampires. He is going solely on Nathan's explanation of how mating works, and on whatever else he's observed directly.

That's a little odd.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:47 pm (UTC)

Nathan holds his hand absolutely still when the Joker touches it - not tense, just not trusting himself to move and so refraining from motion. "And don't even bleed around a full vampire unless it's only Carlisle, too, and - Why not, babe?" he asks.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-23 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Elsie," says Bella, "go run around opening doors for a bit, will you?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-23 03:50 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Elspeth, and she lets herself out of her office, revealing Renata (staring into space) and Edward (also staring into space, but less happily) where they were left when they accompanied Bella to the scene.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 12:47 am (UTC)

"Even if I died right now I wouldn't be dead," he says, semi-reassuringly. "I'm dreaming, remember? I've tried getting killed at Milliways, it doesn't stick."

That is not an answer to Nathan's question. Perhaps he got distracted, or perhaps he doesn't want to give one.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 12:55 am (UTC)

"Would I regret it dreadfully if I invited you to immigrate in a non-dreaming state?" Bella asks the Joker.

"Not if my timer's smart," says Nathan. "My timer's pretty smart."

"Regardless," says Bella, "it's not very responsive to questions that don't begin with the word 'when'."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 12:58 am (UTC)

He grins.

"Oh, probably not," he says. "No promises. But I like you, and I don't wanna make your life difficult. And your imperial timer here is cute as a button."
Edited 2013-02-24 00:59 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 01:07 am (UTC)

Nathan grins toothily at him.

"Why," Bella says, "would it be undesirable to have you as a vampire? Because you realize that if you die you are more likely than not to render my imperial timer here somewhere between dead and eternally miserable."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 01:09 am (UTC)

"And if you make me a vampire I'll probably kill myself," he says cheerfully. "Which is why you," he taps the end of Nathan's nose, "don't want me to be one. See?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 01:10 am (UTC)

"Babe, no, why would you do that?" exclaims Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 01:15 am (UTC)

He laughs and shakes his head. "It's complicated," he says fondly. "Don't worry too much about it. I'll stay nice and safe for as long as it takes to work all this out, just as long as nobody tries to change my mind or my species, okay?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 01:19 am (UTC)

"It's about you, about something that might make you die, I can't not worry about it," says Nathan, and he glances at (but does not address) the Emperor, who glances at (but does not address) his wife.

"Do you have particular feelings about mind-reading that involves no mind-changing?" Bella asks neutrally.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 01:21 am (UTC)

"Well, I like to know about it," he says, and grins expectantly at Edward. Because really. That was obvious. He's not mad, though, it's cute.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 01:25 am (UTC)

"People don't usually appear unexpectedly inside the capitols without already knowing that Edward is a mindreader," Bella says. "His range is about a mile if he doesn't know you well, up to about five if he comes to, he only gets surface thoughts, he tells me everything I want to know but we can be jointly discreet if it's sensitive and there's no overriding concern, the Imperial Factotum can and occasionally does copy his power and she can and occasionally does give Elspeth a complete copy of her memories, neither of them is natively discreet but they do not make habits of disclosing the contents of others' minds. I think that's the extent of the ways in which your thoughts could depart your brain without you noticing them doing it."

"Unless you authorize them to share," Nathan says.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 01:27 am (UTC)

"Ah, that's fine," he says unconcernedly. "Thanks."
Edited 2013-02-24 01:27 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 01:35 am (UTC)

"Falls under the category of mind-changing," Edward says shortly to Nathan. "He likes you fine, but he isn't in love with you and doesn't want to start, that way."

"So... not a good time to propose marriage?" says Nathan wryly. "Heh. No it's not. Not for years, if I ask on that scale..."
Edited 2013-02-24 01:35 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-24 01:37 am (UTC)

"Aww, I do love you," he says, grinning at Nathan. "You're very lovable. But I don't wanna marry you and I don't wanna vampire-marry you either."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 01:43 am (UTC)

"Babe," says Nathan, "I will not-marry you if that'll make you happy."

"How charming," says Bella. "Well. Nathan, why don't you give your mate a tour of Safesun until he wakes up; Elspeth will include you in the notice if she finds a door to Milliways, we'll figure out what to do somehow."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 01:44 am (UTC)

The Joker gives Nathan a hug.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 06:48 am (UTC)

"Wanna see the place? This is the Golden Coven's Florida capitol. Compound of little condo-esque buildings on a beach in Florida, near a lot of permanent residents in the know, mostly hybrids," says Nathan, putting his arms very, very carefully around the Joker.

The Empress and her husband and bodyguard depart the room with the level, precise walk of vampires.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 12:41 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says brightly, snuggling up a little.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 03:23 pm (UTC)

Nathan's certainly not going to interrupt snuggles. He (carefully carefully carefully) scoops his mate right up off the floor. "So this is the Princess's office," he says, and then he heads out the door and in the opposite direction down the corridor from the Empress and her contingent. "The entire PRPR department is down here; they handle turning people and telling folks everything that you know is a lie, vampires and magic and werewolves oh my, and making sure that Her Majesty doesn't do anything particularly tactless without having a really good reason."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 03:26 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

"You're funny," he says affectionately.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 03:27 pm (UTC)

"I try. And I'm trying very, very hard to make a good impression, 'cause any scenario where I don't could go very badly," says Nathan, belying his light tone.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 03:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, I like your sense of humour," he says. "That's a good start."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Good." Walk-walk-walk. "That's it for the Princess's department. R&D is this way. They work on figuring out witch powers and reverse-engineering those yummy synthetics the Princess brings home from Milliways and so on -"

A head peeps out of the door to the department. She looks like the vampire equivalent of somebody's housewife, wearing a PETA t-shirt and floral skirt. She glances between Nathan and the Joker. "Huh," she says to Nathan. "Didn't know you swung that way."

"Neither did I," shrugs Nathan, "but so little swinging's been going on, how would I know, I've been nearly as uninterested as you till now, maybe you'll get a surprise one day too. I like whatever he is. Babe, this is Addy, Imperial Factotum."

"I don't think I like anybody in gooey matey ways," says Addy, unconcerned.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says the Joker, and he waves.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 03:42 pm (UTC)

Addy responds by booping his nose.

"Aw, pfft," says Addy. "Nothing."

"She was checking to see if you had any magic she could copy," Nathan explains to the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Sorry, hon," he says unapologetically.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, see if you can't cook up something tasty when you turn," Addy says.

"He doesn't want to," says Nathan quietly.

"Well," says Addy, "then when he leaves you all alone see if you can go Marcus's route instead of Jasper's or just offing yourself, all right, and then you can sit in a room in the basement and I can visit you on Tuesdays with cups of blood and we can still use the timer?"

"I'll see what I can do," says Nathan cheerlessly.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Aww, sweetie," says the Joker, ignoring Addy and cuddling Nathan.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 03:57 pm (UTC)

Nathan avoids squeezing - he hasn't handled humans much; it'd be dangerous - but he is obviously appreciative. He starts down the hall again. "R&D doesn't give tours without notice. They deal with all sorts of chemicals, anyway; you could get hurt. Down this way is the liason offices for human governments so we can get up to shenanigans and not have to deal with Interpol or anyone trying to involve themselves."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 03:59 pm (UTC)

He giggles softly.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:02 pm (UTC)

"We could look around in there but it's just offices and people on the phone with the prime minister of this and the president of that," says Nathan. "And except for the wolf village, which I'd rather skip because wolves do not smell so great, that's the Capitol." They're currently standing in a covered corridor, between R&D's building and the liason offices, looking out through glass at a beach. "D'you want to go outside? It's allowed, here, they keep humans well away from this beach so no one sees the dead giveaway of vampire-in-the-sun."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, let's," he says, grinning.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:09 pm (UTC)

There's a door out in the wall of the corridor. Nathan shoulders it open without putting the Joker down; he doesn't seem to have any intention of doing that anytime soon.

When he steps into the sun, it looks like he's dusted with diamond powder.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Look at you," he says delightedly, and kisses Nathan's cheek.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:15 pm (UTC)

Nathan grins brilliantly. "Occupational hazard. This capitol's called Safesun because we can go out without getting a dozen cell pictures taken and posted on the internet."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:20 pm (UTC)

"You're all sparkly," he says. "Now I wanna make you pretty clothes."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:22 pm (UTC)

"You sew?" prompts Nathan, intrigued. "I've never thought much about my outfits. My closets in all the capitals are stocked with stuff like this."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:26 pm (UTC)

"I sew!" the Joker agrees. "I made this shirt."

It's a pretty nice shirt.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:29 pm (UTC)

One of Nathan's hands is already on the shirt, on the Joker's upper arm. He slides a finger across the fabric (carefully, carefully). "Nice," he says. "And colorful."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Mmhm," he says proudly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 04:35 pm (UTC)

Nathan starts strolling idly down the beach when both he and the Joker get a message from Elspeth:

Found it. And I sent Jake in first and he spotted Stella. It's in the conference room in the liason offices.

"Ready to go negotiate your release with Her Stellar Majesty, babe?" murmurs Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" he chirps. "Gonna carry me there? I like you carrying me. It's cuddly."

Mm. Cuddly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Can do," says Nathan. "My arms aren't gonna get tired of the weight and I'm not gonna get tired of you."

They go back inside, and meet Elspeth and Golden (and Golden's retinue, though they're going to stay in Aurum) at the door, and they go through.

Nathan's arms tighten - just a little, careful bit - around his mate.

self_composed
2013-02-24 04:39 pm (UTC)

"What's all this then?" Stella inquires, when she and Jacob have been joined by the group.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 04:40 pm (UTC)

"My fault," says Elspeth. "I was here, I met the Joker, I could say all he can do is talk to Jake so I thought it'd be harmless to have him over for a bit, and then Nathan walked in and now he's mated."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Nathan is magically important," says Golden, "as well as having been a friend of the family for going on two decades now, and he will be - at best - miserable for the rest of eternity if the Joker can't - at minimum - make routine visits." She glances at how cozy he and Nathan have gotten. "Which doesn't seem to be a problem of willingness on his end, at any rate."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:46 pm (UTC)

"I like him," the Joker says contentedly, leaning his head on Nathan's shoulder. "He's a sweetie. I wanna move worlds."

self_composed
2013-02-24 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Is Golden going to have a terrorism problem if you do?" Stella asks.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:49 pm (UTC)

"If something like that does come up, he's just a human," says Golden. "He doesn't even want to turn. So I'll have a depressed-imperial-minister-of-temporal-affairs problem in fifty or sixty years, but." She shrugs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Unless you do want to do the 'work-release' idea," says Elspeth. "In the manner traditional for Bells and Whistles."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Elsie," says Golden, "the manner traditional for Bells and Whistles is very much not an option."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Unless he did the minting himself and just turned in coins to you," says Elsie. "Stella has extra mints now, she doesn't help them as well as Alice."

self_composed
2013-02-24 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I do," says Stella, "but handing him mint power would be - eegh." Pause. "Perhaps I should go get Alice."

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says the Joker. "Yeah, do that."

self_composed
2013-02-24 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Nathan, you should probably be aware that your mate's template doesn't come in monogamous," says Stella, rising out of her chair and heading for the door.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 04:56 pm (UTC)

"The template doesn't..?" says Nathan blankly. "Huh?"

manofmyword
2013-02-24 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm a huge slut," the Joker translates, patting Nathan fondly on the shoulder. "And so are my alts."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 04:59 pm (UTC)

"...Oh," says Nathan, unbalanced.

"You're the one whose timer picked him out," says Golden.

self_composed
2013-02-24 05:00 pm (UTC)

[Hey Alice. One of Golden's staff met the Joker and mated to him and now they're talking about maybe having me remand him to Aurum. Want in on the conference?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-24 05:01 pm (UTC)

He teleports directly in front of her.

"Yeah!"
Edited 2013-02-24 17:09 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-02-24 05:11 pm (UTC)

In they go. "Golden, Elspeth, Jacob, you remember Alice. Nathan, Alice; Alice, Nathan."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Hello again," says Golden.

"Hi," says Nathan. "So can someone explain to me this coins thing, do I just not have the need-to-know...?"

"Your power functions quite well on limited information, so you haven't, previously, had the need-to-know," says Golden. "But now you're personally involved. Elspeth, you may as well, it's faster."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 05:13 pm (UTC)

Elspeth sends a summary.

"Oh, yikes," says Nathan, looking down at the Joker in his arms and then at Alice and then back at the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Aw, honey," he says fondly. "Can you put me down for a sec?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 05:18 pm (UTC)

Nathan sets him on his feet, confused.

manofmyword
2013-02-24 05:20 pm (UTC)

He kisses Nathan's cheek again, then greets Alice with an enthusiastic hug.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-24 05:21 pm (UTC)

Awwww. Alice hugs him back.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 05:23 pm (UTC)

"I can certainly avoid any large-scale human-caused disasters," Golden says, mostly to Stella. "The mint idea is - higher variance. Could improve things, could worsen them, would definitely make any recidivism harder to contain."

self_composed
2013-02-24 05:25 pm (UTC)

"If you wanted to have a mint, you could've asked me instead of just perpetually trading for the coins, I was able to find two suitable ones on my world when I thought I didn't have Alice anymore," says Stella, ignoring her boyfriend and his alt while they hug. "It doesn't necessarily have to be this one. It only takes a star to send the notes to the candidates and then you have a bunch of people to interview. Less of a headache than wondering if the Joker's going to decide to blow something up this week."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 05:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm not running my empire in the open yet. If you found two, in a world of six billion, I'm going to have a bit of trouble finding even one in an informed population well shy of a hundred thousand."

self_composed
2013-02-24 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Mm. There is that. And my extras probably don't want to emigrate. You could do what Shell Bell did - pick someone you trust who's up for the job, nudge them the rest of the way with a pentagon."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-24 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Mama looked for volunteers for that already, among the coven and the wolves, and no one wanted it," says Elspeth. "Except Addy. Who isn't trusted that far, not with magic."

self_composed
2013-02-24 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Then," says Stella, "I acknowledge that there's a quandary. But I'm willing to force the door - if it'll go - and fetch the Joker down from the asteroid, and hand you him and a pile of coins."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-24 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Somehow I was hoping you'd have more clever solutions up your sleeve," sighs Golden.

self_composed
2013-02-24 05:33 pm (UTC)

"The asteroid was my clever solution."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 01:03 am (UTC)

The Joker lets go of Alice and turns to Golden.

"How do you see this going," he asks mildly, "if you make me the royal mint?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 01:08 am (UTC)

Golden shrugs. "Maybe Nathan buys you guys a house on a Phillipine island and he works by phone and after he gets incubus lessons from Tanya you live there peacefully forever and I send Razi by twice weekly to pick up coins and my only problem is to make sure Addy never gets her hands on them. Maybe you talk him into sneaking you into Ireland and you pick a fight with Siobhan and then I have to kill you or deal with a revolution that would actually stick. Maybe you start setting sub-Saharan Africa on fire, and you have this convenient mated vampire with a convenient power to make you a thorn in my side even if I siphon coins away from you as fast as you can make them. It's a lot of maybes. You're a literal wild card."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 01:13 am (UTC)

"Mm, I don't think I'll settle down," he says. "Don't think I'll set any continents on fire, either. Who's Siobhan?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 01:18 am (UTC)

"An Irish vampire who wants control over the comings and goings of anyone other than ignorant humans as regards her island. Nathan is the only person with the distinction of having flouted her in the past, which is why I thought of it, and he has stopped since joining the Golden Coven, but if anyone could talk him into doing it again it would be you."

self_composed
2013-02-25 01:19 am (UTC)

"...I should get Mary," says Stella. "I'll be right back."

She goes back to the door, sticks her head out, and is-about-to brainphone Mary.

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:20 am (UTC)

[Yes?]

manofmyword
2013-02-25 01:21 am (UTC)

The Joker smiles in a not-particularly-reassuring way.

self_composed
2013-02-25 01:21 am (UTC)

[I could use your help for a bit of a mess with Golden and an Alice-alt and whatnot. Are you free?]

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:22 am (UTC)

[Sure,] says Mary.

self_composed
2013-02-25 01:35 am (UTC)

[Alice, can you hold the door?]

Presuming Alice holds the door, Stella teleport-fetches Mary into Milliways, summarizing the situation as she goes.

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:38 am (UTC)

Mary is already chewing contemplatively on her lip as they approach the group.

"Okay," she says. "Negotiate away, I'll tell you what's going to work out."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 01:40 am (UTC)

"Well," says Golden to the Joker, "what would you be inclined to do, with mint powers and a mated vampire and the run of Aurum - less Ireland, because frankly I don't think Siobhan is going to tolerate you anywhere within her territory."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 01:50 am (UTC)

"Wander around," he says, shrugging. "Get into trouble, but probably not the kind you care about."

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:53 am (UTC)

"Sounds about right," volunteers Mary. "With some variance." She explores a little more. "Depending largely on the terms you work out, but I don't have enough good guesses about those to pin it down further."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 01:54 am (UTC)

"How much do either of you know about what kind of trouble I care about?" inquires Golden.

pythbox
2013-02-25 01:59 am (UTC)

"The bulk of probability says this guy is not going to do anything that disrupts your life significantly or makes you express a reaction more negative than exasperation or nervousness," says Mary. "With mint powers and a mated vampire and the run of Aurum." She checks something. "Actually, if you don't give him mint powers, he's much likelier to cause trouble. By a factor of more than ten; my numbers aren't exact."

self_composed
2013-02-25 02:00 am (UTC)

"...Seriously?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 02:00 am (UTC)

"That's extremely counterintuitive," says Golden.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 02:01 am (UTC)

"Not really," says the Joker. "Makes perfect sense to me."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 02:03 am (UTC)

"Perhaps you could elaborate."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 02:10 am (UTC)

He thinks about it for a few seconds.

Then he says, "The harder it is to cause trouble, the more fun it is. So the easier it is to cause trouble..." He spreads his hands.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 02:13 am (UTC)

"And yet the trouble you could cause if the mood struck is correspondingly more significant, if you have not only coins but also unrestricted ability to use them," she says. "At that point I can no longer decide you're a net liability and straightforwardly send Razi to kill you - hypothetically, Nathan. At that point I can't stash you in the hiding place - which might be a terrible idea anyway, if the way you're describing the situation is accurate."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 02:26 am (UTC)

"I don't do things I don't want to do," the Joker explains patiently. "And I don't want to throw big magic around to cause trouble. No interest at all."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 02:28 am (UTC)

Golden looks at Mary.

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:36 am (UTC)

"I'm not a lie detector," she says. "I can tell you he's really unlikely to do that, but I can't tell you what would make him do that unless somebody suggests a possible cause and I check."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 02:39 am (UTC)

"I suppose Alice - my sister, not him," she clarifies with a gesture at Stella's Alice, "could potentially help, but she can't do anything here, this place makes her dizzy..."

self_composed
2013-02-25 02:40 am (UTC)

"This is all looking like a much happier ending than I'd anticipated. Previously my best idea for a more humane solution to Gotham's little problem looked like 'maybe send him home with Angela to wander around on that continent full of Edori'," Stella comments.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 02:43 am (UTC)

The Joker wrinkles his nose.

"I'd much rather go home with him," he says, tipping his head at Nathan. "As a mint." He grins. "Embrace the retired life."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 02:50 am (UTC)

Nathan very, very carefully presses his lips to the top of the Joker's head.

"The actual priority here is not and has never been what you'd rather except insofar as that interacts with the priority of not having you murdering people," Golden says. "What you'd rather only matters within a given level of probability of mayhem happening."

(Me first, me first, not my Afton, she's thinking, but this is not something she chooses to share.)

"I care what he'd rather," Nathan says. "I thought you cared what I'd rather, Your Majesty, or am I just your timer after all this time?"

"Anyone mated to a wild card is a wild card, Nathan, you know that, you helped me when Zafrina mated. I care what you'd rather, but if I can't expect you to be putting mayhem-reduction first anymore -"

"I think," says Nathan, "that if you could trust me to do that - that if Edward'd tell you to trust me to do that - then that'd make him safer - so you can."

"Only if the Joker lets you escort him around," Golden says, "instead of ditching you."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 02:52 am (UTC)

The Joker bestows a radiant smile on Mary.

"Here's a possible cause for you," he says. "People trying to control me."

pythbox
2013-02-25 02:54 am (UTC)

Mary makes a disquieted noise.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 03:05 am (UTC)

"So this is how I think it should work," he says. "If you really don't want me causing trouble. Don't make rules. Don't threaten me. Don't spy on me every minute to make sure I'm behaving myself. Don't make it hard for me to cause trouble, or I'll want to. Just let me know what you'd rather, and leave me alone. And I'll play nice as long as I don't have to go too far out of my way to do it."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 03:08 am (UTC)

"I am an empress. I make laws. And associated standard sentences for their breakage. I'm not going to add exceptions to them for you."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 03:10 am (UTC)

"You sure?"

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:13 am (UTC)

Mary winces.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 03:14 am (UTC)

"I can work without Nathan if I have to."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-02-25 03:16 am (UTC)

"It would be problematic to publicly except him," Elspeth says. "Other people would start looking for leeway. But I can keep a secret if I have to. Can you just forget about the ones that don't carry the death penalty, Mama?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 03:17 am (UTC)

"Keeping that sort of thing secret would itself constitute a rule," Golden points out.
Edited 2013-02-25 03:17 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-25 03:29 am (UTC)

"I don't care if you have laws," says the Joker. "Lots of people have laws. It doesn't bother me. What I want you to understand, if we're gonna work this out in good faith, is that laws don't keep me in line. Nothing keeps me in line except me deciding to stay there. And I can do that. I don't need an official exception."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 03:32 am (UTC)

Golden doesn't have her alts' lip-chewing habit. It would be too easy to bite straight through her lip. But she ruminates, and finally she says:

"What sort of coin output could I expect?"

manofmyword
2013-02-25 03:33 am (UTC)

"No idea," says the Joker.

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:35 am (UTC)

"Not very consistent," says Mary. "Sometimes as much as Alice's, sometimes nothing for a month." She chews her lip for a moment. "But he's generally likely to come up with coins you ask him for when you ask him for them. Note that the difference between 'ask' and 'demand' is crucial here."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 03:36 am (UTC)

"Can I get a starter array?" Golden asks Stella.

self_composed
2013-02-25 03:37 am (UTC)

"Of course. Unless that means you won't funnel me nice little packages of 2030 tech anymore."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 03:38 am (UTC)

"I see no reason to stop. And it's 2031, now." She closes her eyes and thinks.

Nathan is murmuring something into the Joker's hair - too quiet to be heard, but his lips are moving.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 03:43 am (UTC)

"What's that, sweetheart?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 03:44 am (UTC)

"Reminding myself to trust my timer," mumbles Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 03:45 am (UTC)

The Joker turns around and hugs him.

pythbox
2013-02-25 03:50 am (UTC)

"If you do this the way he suggested," Mary says to Golden, "and keep to his terms, it works out fine. He barely ever annoys you. No big disasters. There's a certain amount of flexibility there, too. Just... don't get heavy-handed. It's when you get that way and stay that way that things start going south."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 03:51 am (UTC)

"In what ways am I likely to cross the line?" asks Golden tiredly. "For that matter, I'm not sure I fully understand the terms. It might be easy to do by accident."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 04:18 am (UTC)

"If you do it by accident, I can ask you nicely to quit that," says the Joker. "I'm not out to get you, here."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:20 am (UTC)

"Will it be a problem if Siobhan asks for and gets permission to kill you if you enter Ireland?" asks Golden. "How much spying is too much spying, especially since my favored methods don't involve any way for you to notice without minting yourself relevant detectors? Does it help any if I primarily communicate with you through Nathan?"

manofmyword
2013-02-25 02:11 pm (UTC)

"Don't care who gets permission to kill me when," he says, "as long as I know about it. Doesn't make a difference either way if you talk to me through Nathan. Too much spying is enough spying to make me feel like you're expecting me to fuck up and waiting to catch me when I do."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Stella, how much weight should I be putting on Mary's predictions?"

self_composed
2013-02-25 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Plenty. She doesn't think to look for one hundred percent of things, but she's very good at what she does think to check and she doesn't have your Seer's outright blind spots - although I don't think she's getting full color pictures either."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:28 pm (UTC)

"What happens," says Golden, to the Joker and Mary both, "if I simply wish to call off the deal and send both the Joker and Nathan out of Aurum?"

self_composed
2013-02-25 04:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what happens, but the problem with that idea is that the only other world they can visit without help is the one with Gotham and the Batlady and so on in it, and I have heard it suggested by one of the Whistles that the Batlady is a key catalyst in provoking... misbehavior."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 04:31 pm (UTC)

"I'd be sad," says the Joker. "And your boy'd be sad, too, in seventy years when I died of old age."

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:32 pm (UTC)

"There's no widespread destruction," says Mary, "but it very rarely works out to a happy ending for the two of them."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:36 pm (UTC)

"It wasn't going to be my first choice; if it were I wouldn't let them back into Aurum starting now, I just wanted it checked for possibility as an exit plan," Golden says, mostly addressing Nathan.

Nathan's hand is making short careful stroking motions over one of the Joker's shoulders. He looks at Mary, but doesn't ask her anything and presently turns his gaze back on his mate.

(He was going to ask if the Joker would want to be immortal, if he'd do it with coins even if he never wanted to be a vampire and love Nathan back the way Nathan loves him.)

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I can tell when people are about to ask me things," says Mary. "Do you want me to answer that one?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Nathan.

self_composed
2013-02-25 04:39 pm (UTC)

Stella flicks her fingers in Nathan's direction. "Brainphoned," she announces. "Privacy."

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:40 pm (UTC)

Mary brainphones him, [Well?]

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:41 pm (UTC)

[As long as everyone else isn't listening, sure,] Nathan says.

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:44 pm (UTC)

[If he comes through as a mint, he'll be immortal. There's even an outside chance he'll turn to your kind of vampire someday, in a few hundred years. If he goes back to his asteroid, he won't.]

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:46 pm (UTC)

[Thank you.]

Nathan carefully-carefully presses a kiss to the Joker's scalp again.

[...I'm terrified of hurting him. Is that going to be a problem or will the coins fix that too?]

pythbox
2013-02-25 04:52 pm (UTC)

She chews her lip for a moment, then reports.

[If he comes through as a mint, you're going to stop being terrified of hurting him, and there'll be a few minor issues but you won't do anything that damages him permanently or makes him think negatively of you.] After further investigation, she adds, [All that relies on the two of you talking about you being terrified of hurting him.]

manofmyword
2013-02-25 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Whatcha talkin' about?" wonders the Joker.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Can I tell you in private later, babe? Or - Stella - can you brainphone him too?"

self_composed
2013-02-25 04:54 pm (UTC)

Stella makes a face, but she waves her hand at the Joker.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:55 pm (UTC)

[I asked her if it was going to be a problem that it'd be so easy to hurt you. She said it wasn't, if we talked about it, which I confess confuses me, talking won't make you less - fragile,] says Nathan to his mate alone.
Edited 2013-02-25 16:56 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-25 04:57 pm (UTC)

[If I'm a mint,] he says, [I can make myself less fragile. I probably will anyway.] He tips his head at Alice. [Other-me's favourite pastime is setting himself on fire.]

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 04:59 pm (UTC)

Nathan blinks.

[Oh really. So if I miscalculated, trying to hold your hand, and you happened to break a few bones in the process...] There is a definite interest in his tone. [No harm done, you'll heal, all in fun?]

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:01 pm (UTC)

The Joker laughs, and wraps his arms around Nathan, and kisses him.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 05:07 pm (UTC)

Nathan grins brilliantly. [Just don't bleed around me, it's really rather like having a hot poker stuffed down my throat and not in a fun way.]

"Well," says Golden. "I'll take those starter coins now, I think, Stella, unless anyone has any further input."

self_composed
2013-02-25 05:08 pm (UTC)

Stella looks around in case someone has further input.

pythbox
2013-02-25 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Everything looks good from here," says Mary.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Mmm," says the Joker, mostly to Nathan.

self_composed
2013-02-25 05:19 pm (UTC)

Stella makes a stocked bandolier for Golden and hands it over. No one else can see what's in her hand, but Golden takes it and puts it on.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Shall we?" sighs Golden, getting to her feet. "Stella, do you mind noting this in the Belltower?"

self_composed
2013-02-25 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Can do."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Have fun, guys," Alice says cheerfully to Nathan and the Joker. "Want me to spot you a couple useful things?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 05:22 pm (UTC)

"What kind of useful things?" Nathan wants to know.

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-25 05:24 pm (UTC)

"My healing power for him," he says with a gesture to the Joker, "and for you, the air filter I've got that makes it so I don't smell humans unless I want to."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes please," says Nathan at once.

self_composed
2013-02-25 05:26 pm (UTC)

"...Wait a sec. Is he awake or dreaming?" Stella asks. "I have to go actually fetch him physically down from the asteroid if he didn't walk in here through a door to begin with, don't I?"

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says the Joker. "Zzzz."

edgeofyourseat
2013-02-25 05:27 pm (UTC)

Alice doesn't do anything visible, but Nathan gets his air filter.

self_composed
2013-02-25 05:33 pm (UTC)

Stella goes back to the door and forces it, aiming for the house on the asteroid instead of just generally at the world.

She opens the door. [Gonna wake him up,] she broadcasts to the entire negotiation party, and then she leans out the door and expends the square.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 05:33 pm (UTC)

Nathan experimentally sniffs the air and grins, but doesn't do anything about it when his mate's right about to disappear anyway.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:38 pm (UTC)

The Joker, of course, takes the opportunity to plant another kiss on Nathan's cheek before he disappears.

self_composed
2013-02-25 05:38 pm (UTC)

A square induces such disappearance. "C'mon," says Stella neutrally.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:42 pm (UTC)

He looks a little different when he appears in the doorway, wearing a lace-trimmed black nightgown instead of the nice shirt and pants, his hair better-washed and not quite so green. But his smile is the same.

If that's a comfort.

self_composed
2013-02-25 05:43 pm (UTC)

It's not, but he's going to be Golden's problem, now. She holds the door, looking at the ceiling.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Sorry, hon," he says softly, and he comes through and heads straight for Nathan.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 05:48 pm (UTC)

Nathan catches him up in a hug and - relieved of the constant temptation to bite - kisses him. Still very carefully relative to how he'd kiss if he were kissing a vampire, but hard.

"Home we go," says Golden. "Thank you, Stella."

self_composed
2013-02-25 05:48 pm (UTC)

"No problem," says Stella. "Best of luck."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:49 pm (UTC)

The Joker kisses back happily, in complete disregard of their audience.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 05:53 pm (UTC)

Nathan winds up carrying him to the door, which the four native Aurum residents all walk through.

Once the door is closed, Bella says: "I don't want to find out what happens if Addy gets her hands on a mint. I'm going to render it impossible, on her end, and I'd prefer if you didn't try to circumvent that, however sweetly she asks."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Sure," the Joker says agreeably.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Thank you." She expends a couple of coins on making her protections regarding Addy happen, then one more.

"Congratulations, you're a mint, and you've got the run of Aurum," Bella says, gesturing to indicate her world, "and a vampire irrevocably in love with you. Have fun with it. I'll probably want to pick up a batch of coins in the next week or so."

And she, followed by Elspeth and Jacob and joined by Edward and Renata, go down the corridor.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 05:59 pm (UTC)

He kisses Nathan again.

"Let's go make some coins," he suggests cheerfully.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Everybody here's got good ears," says Nathan. He grins. "D'you care?"

manofmyword
2013-02-25 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Nnnnnope."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 06:02 pm (UTC)

"My room's thisaway." And he scoops the Joker up off the floor and goes thisaway, at a bit of a run.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 07:12 pm (UTC)

As soon as they get there, the Joker kisses him some more.

He's pretty sure Alice gave him regen powers, and even if he didn't, probably nothing Nathan's going to do to him will kill him before he can fix that. Which is a positive enough risk assessment that he throws himself wholeheartedly into experimenting.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Babe," Nathan murmurs, "it's not strictly impossible for me to accidentally nip you if you keep doing that - I've got sharp bits - and you don't wanna turn."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Fun, though," he says, undeterred. "I'll quit it until I've minted myself immune."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 07:26 pm (UTC)

"You want some help with the minting?" Nathan's hands are a blur; he can't seem to decide where of many delightful locations to put them. He's careful. But not very very careful. The Joker's probably acquiring some bruises.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, pretty please," he giggles.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 07:32 pm (UTC)

"You wanna help me out with the details, babe?" Nathan's left hand settles more or less stationarily on a thigh; the other one's behind the Joker's back for leaning-on. Left hand starts pressing. Slowly.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 07:34 pm (UTC)

"That's niiiice," he sighs, eyelashes fluttering.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 07:36 pm (UTC)

"I've been known to make good guesses," purrs Nathan. The purring is literal and right in the Joker's ear.

The room doesn't have a bed in it; they're on the floor and Nathan's got his mate in his lap, and there is no give to said lap. The leg in question is slowly, inexorably compressed. Crushed.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 07:42 pm (UTC)

He makes a soft whimpery sort of noise and hugs Nathan hard. Alice did come through; he can feel the counterpressure of regeneration trying to uncrush him, and he can control how hard it tries. All his other bruises heal before they start to show, leaving him with a few squares each on the chain Golden gave him; meanwhile, the pressure of Nathan's hand is starting to give him pentagons.

He can definitely see what Alice gets so excited about.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 07:47 pm (UTC)

Well, if Nathan crushes this thigh any harder, he's going to wind up severing nerves.

And if he did that, then the Joker would have to heal again before he could feel similar damage done six inches down, to his knee. Six inches farther to his shin.

It's slightly less slow, the second and third times, though still within human-trackable speeds.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 07:50 pm (UTC)

Yep. Clinging to Nathan and whimpering is definitely the order of the day.

"Sweetheart," he breathes, "you do make good guesses, you do you do you do."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 07:52 pm (UTC)

"If I were mortal you'd be the death of me," says Nathan in a half-purr half-growl. "It is very, very good that I cannot smell you right now, or I'd just - bite - your - throat - out." And he reaches, and crushes one foot and then the other and works his way back up the other leg.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he sighs, shuddering. He isn't looking anymore, but that has got to be a hex.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 07:59 pm (UTC)

Nathan's hand tightens harder than he means it to on the knee. "I love you," he whispers back, sliding his hand up to find an uncrushed spot to destroy. "I love you forever."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sweetie," he murmurs, and he gives a happy wriggle and kisses Nathan's cheek.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 08:05 pm (UTC)

Nathan's all out of leg to crush. He wraps his arms around the relatively unharmed middle of his mate and squeezes. Slowly. And kisses his mate in all the safe places where he can't accidentally twitch a lip into the path of an envenomed tooth. "How much of this can you even take?" he murmurs into a recently kissed ear.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Lots," he says confidently, leaning his head on Nathan's shoulder.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Anything that happens, the magic'll fix...? I've only got one of you," Nathan says. But his arms are still tightening and ribs are starting to creak.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 08:20 pm (UTC)

"It's only not fixing it now 'cause I don't want it to yet," he says. "Watch."

Just to be a showoff, he piles an amplifying hex onto the regen power Alice gave him—make it faster, make it more robust, make it hurt more because why not? And then he lets go of it.

And shudders in Nathan's arms as his damaged body repairs itself in a short, exquisitely painful burst of activity.

"Fuck that's a rush," he pants. "Squish me some more, honey, I wanna do that again."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 08:21 pm (UTC)

"You got it babe," purrs Nathan, and he is less careful this time.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 08:25 pm (UTC)

It's even better the second time around. When the Joker observes that the line of pentagons and hexes on his coin-chain is punctuated by two stars, he is not all that surprised.

"I think we should have sex," he declares.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 08:27 pm (UTC)

He doesn't have to tell Nathan this twice.

There is non-negligible clothing damage en route.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 08:30 pm (UTC)

As much as he loved that nightie, he can always make another one.

An unlooked-for benefit of that double-stacked regeneration power: he doesn't get tired nearly as fast as he's used to. In fact, he just... keeps... bouncing... back.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 08:32 pm (UTC)

Nathan could have continuous sex for weeks before the need to break for a meal intruded, so he's not in the least a bad person to find this out with.

got good ears

temporal_affairs

The neighbors don't complain. Much. (They do occasionally ask that things be kept down, but they don't complain about there being noise at all. They understand about mates.)

The room isn't designed for long-term human occupation. There is no bathroom, no food, no bed, no climate control - though this is Florida, so climate control is not such a concern - no plumbing.

But there's lots of magic. It's such fun to make, after all.

(Nathan had been worried he'd have to ask one of the succubi, or Joham, for lessons on what might whimsically be called "safe sex". He likes not having to bother with this better.)

manofmyword
2013-02-25 10:55 pm (UTC)

And it is such fun. The Joker expected he would want to get out of town within the first few days, but that has not in fact happened, and he doesn't miss it a bit. Not yet.

He conjures an enormous comfy mattress to sleep on, cuddled up to Nathan, because he likes sleeping and he likes cuddles and it makes a nice occasional change from fucking on the floor. He doesn't like going to the bathroom enough to go find one, so he magics away the need whenever it comes up. Likewise he conjures things to eat or drink when he needs them, or magics himself not-hungry and not-thirsty if he's in the middle of something when his body's reuirements distract him.

They're going to have to get out of here eventually, though, if only so they can go somewhere where he can make some real noise without getting on anybody's nerves.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 10:57 pm (UTC)

And if nothing else -

"Her Majesty's gonna come looking for all the fruits of our arduous, difficult labor, soon," says Nathan, hands tickling with alternately gentle and punishing pressure up the Joker's side. "Been almost a week."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Mmm," he says lazily, snuggling closer. "Has it? I wasn't keeping track."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Time sense. Vampire perk, not just me. But - over the next few hours - there is a best time to get dressed, and apparently it's in a minute and a half." (Nuzzle, nuzzle.) "I can only assume between the elapsed week and that fact that Her Majesty shows up a bit after that."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, remind me to magic up some clothes, then," he says. The lace nightie he arrived wearing is in pieces around the room, and no two of the pieces are touching.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Some of my things might fit you, too," Nathan says, "but sure, babe." He picks up his mate one-armed and starts rifling through his closet.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:15 pm (UTC)

The Joker wraps his arms around Nathan's shoulders and kisses him lovingly on the cheek.

"Wearing your clothes would be cute," he says. "Maybe I will later."
Edited 2013-02-25 23:16 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Dunno if any of it's to your taste, of course." Nathan picks a flannel and a pair of jeans, but the minute and a half hasn't fully elapsed yet, so he doesn't set the Joker down to put either on yet.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Most of it isn't," he says cheerfully.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 11:27 pm (UTC)

(Nuzzle nuzzle nibble nibble, immunity to venom and a defense against the effects of the taste having been taken care of days ago.) "I don't have strong opinions about my wardrobe. I just get simple things."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I'll make you pretty things," says the Joker, hugging him again. "'Cause you're pretty."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 11:35 pm (UTC)

"You're pretty," Nathan returns. One more squeeze, just enough to crack a rib or two, and he sets him down on the mattress and shimmies into his jeans and shrugs on the flannel.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:38 pm (UTC)

"You're such a sweetie," he says affectionately, and snaps his fingers for theatrics, and is abruptly dressed. It's the old Joker getup, purple suit and green vest and blue shirt. And a knife in his pocket, because really, he's hardly dressed without one.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 11:41 pm (UTC)

Sure enough, there is presently a knock at the door.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Come in," calls Nathan, sitting down on the mattress beside the Joker.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 11:42 pm (UTC)

The doors do actually lock, more to tell would-be entrants when they're welcome than to actually keep anyone determined out. But of course she's got all the keys. Bella lets herself in. "It's been a week," she says mildly to her mint.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Mhm," he says, and expends a square to transfer all his coins to Bella's chain.

There's a lot.

"We've been busy," he adds, not that she doesn't know that.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 11:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure. Well, that's all," she says, inspecting the chain. "Thank you."

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:48 pm (UTC)

He blows her a kiss.

"Toodles!"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-25 11:49 pm (UTC)

"See you in... I think a week and a half," she says. "Thereabouts." She waves and closes the door behind her.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Now what?" Nathan inquires, insinuating.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Now," he says, grinning, "I think we ruin these nice clothes I just made."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

"More squares where that came from," says Nathan, and he pounces.

manofmyword
2013-02-25 11:59 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm. Pouncings.

They can't stay in this room having intermittent sex for the literal rest of forever, though. In fact, it's only the next morning that the Joker wakes up and murmurs sleepily, "I feel like getting out of here. You feel like coming with?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 12:01 am (UTC)

"Capital's not moving for another week, so if you mean now, then - well, yes. Always. Where to? Trains, planes, or automobiles?"

manofmyword
2013-02-26 12:08 am (UTC)

"Dunno yet," he says reflectively. "Let's hit the road and then see."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 12:10 am (UTC)

"You going to conjure me the Princess's golden bubbly as needed or should I fill up from the slaughterhouse before we go?"

manofmyword
2013-02-26 12:14 am (UTC)

"The gold stuff's tastier, right?" he says. "I'll magic it up for ya."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 12:31 am (UTC)

"Dramatically tastier, yeah, thanks babe. Better than human average, not better than singer," says Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 12:45 am (UTC)

"Wonder if I could magic something better than that," he muses.

And then grins.

"Wonder if I could magic me better than that. Would that be fun, sweetie?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 12:49 am (UTC)

"Babe," says Nathan, "I found a singer two times in my life, and if you get even that tasty, let alone better, you will never be able to pry my teeth out of you even by asking nicely, even if I keep my air filter, without magic. That kind of thing competes on a level with mate bonds. The Empress is alive because the the Emperor was already thoroughly into self-denial when he ran into her and anyone else would've eaten his mate."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 12:52 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"So I won't be that tasty all the time," he says. "Still, would it be fun?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 12:52 am (UTC)

"Well, it'd be delicious and bitey," says Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:02 am (UTC)

"I think that sounds fun," the Joker decides. "Let's keep it in mind for when we get wherever we're going."

And he squares himself some clothes, and kisses Nathan, and finally gets out of bed.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:04 am (UTC)

Nathan puts on his jeans from yesterday's brief meeting with the Empress (basically intact) and a new polo shirt (the flannel is hopeless) and cheerfully follows his mate's lead.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:05 am (UTC)

And a-wandering they go.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:19 am (UTC)

"If we're going to leave Safesun and walk to Jacksonville or wherever," says Nathan as they approach its edges, "I need daywalking clothes at a minimum - big stupid hat, sleeves past my fingertips - magic disguise barring that. This little problem being why Safesun is called that."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:21 am (UTC)

"I can magic you unsparkly," shrugs the Joker. "And make it so you can turn it on and off at will. Would that be nice?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:22 am (UTC)

"That would be very nice," agrees Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:23 am (UTC)

He kisses Nathan's cheek and wiggles his fingers, and Nathan is unsparkly.

"You're pretty this way, too," he muses.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:27 am (UTC)

"Vampire thing. We get renovated a little when we turn. Her Majesty's prettier than that alt of hers," Nathan points out. "I don't remember much about being a human but I remember being surprised when I saw my reflection for the first time after I changed. Said, 'Wait, I've always been the ugliest cuss this side of the Abyss.'"

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:29 am (UTC)

The Joker laughs and kisses him.

"There's pretty and there's pretty," he says. "This face doesn't get many takers, lemme tell ya."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:32 am (UTC)

"How'd it come to be cut up like that, anyway? I mean, I don't mind, but I'm magically besotted, I wouldn't be a bit less inclined to jump you if you didn't have a face."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:36 am (UTC)

Laughing, he spends a square to put on the old makeup.

"Did it myself," he explains. "There was a whole getup. That suit you tore off me yesterday was part of the same deal. The Joker."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:37 am (UTC)

"Bit far to go for a persona," observes Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:38 am (UTC)

"Not for me," he says, with his wide, crooked grin.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:40 am (UTC)

"I suppose you must like them or you'd've wished them away by now."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:42 am (UTC)

"I do," he says happily. "I love all my scars. Some of 'em would really make you sad, though, if I told you how I got 'em."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:44 am (UTC)

"My scars all have the same story. 'Fought with a vampire, he got his teeth into me'. Occasionally a 'she'. I wasn't so good with my timer in the early days, and now I don't get into fights. D'you want me to know your stories?"

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:45 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "Do you want to hear 'em?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:47 am (UTC)

"Well, on the one hand, they're about you, on the other hand they will apparently make me sad. I don't know. I don't think there's any good way for me to eat the people responsible, is there? Her Majesty would object, my eyes wouldn't match my hair color anymore, and also I imagine they're all in that other world."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:50 am (UTC)

"They're in that other world, you probably couldn't get there, if you did you probably couldn't find most of 'em, some of the rest are dead, and some of the rest of the rest I wouldn't want you to," says the Joker. "So all around, nope. No eating everybody who's ever fucked me over."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:52 am (UTC)

"Alas. I would, though, you know."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:52 am (UTC)

"I know you would, sweetie," he says affectionately. "And I like that you would. But I don't need you to do it."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 01:54 am (UTC)

"That's good, because it would be so inconvenient."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:55 am (UTC)

The Joker hugs him.

"Lemme know when you wanna hear some scar stories," he says. "If you ever do."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:03 am (UTC)

"I'm good at when," says Nathan, and then, "On a scale of days, this is a good time to ask about the one on your ankle and the set of them on your chest."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:04 am (UTC)

...He laughs.

"Interesting choice," he says. "Those I got from the love of my life."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:05 am (UTC)

"...Oh."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:11 am (UTC)

"Oh, honey," he says with immense fondness. "Let me tell you about this lady. She hates my guts, for one thing, I'm everything she thinks is wrong with the world. Nnnot exactly a happy relationship. I wrote her a love letter that involved blowing up a hospital and setting her best friend's boyfriend on fire; she chased me up a half-built office building and then threw me off the top floor. Caught me halfway down, that's where I got the scar on my ankle. And that's what passed for good times with us. She left me hanging there for the cops to find, and I never saw her again."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:12 am (UTC)

"...And this makes her the love of your life."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:16 am (UTC)

"Sure it does," he says. "She's beautiful. Incorruptible. I'll always love her. But I don't really need to see her again. I could've gone back and forth with her like that for the rest of my life if Stella hadn't grabbed me away, but I'd rather be where I am."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:18 am (UTC)

"I'm glad you like it here," says Nathan. "With me." He squeezes his mate's hand. Just a little. Then a little more. "You're the love of my life, I knew it the instant I saw you."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:21 am (UTC)

"Mm," he says happily, squeezing back as hard as he can. "I love you too, sweetie."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:23 am (UTC)

There is some long grass in that ditch over there by the side of this highway.

It is probably long enough to prevent them from getting arrested if someone just casually walks by.

Nathan tackles his mate into it, growling with jealousy.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:31 am (UTC)

The Joker laughs, and kisses him, and sets about demonstrating that right this second, Nathan is exactly the person he wants. In every possible sense.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:33 am (UTC)

Well, good. Humans don't have such good memories anyway. Maybe he'll forget all about her after long enough if Nathan tries - very - hard.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:38 am (UTC)

That is never going to work, but oh, are his efforts ever appreciated.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:39 am (UTC)

After some time, they resume their hike Jacksonvilleward. "What do you want to do when we get to Jacksonville?" Nathan asks.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:40 am (UTC)

"Not sure," he muses. "Wander around, see what's going on. If we don't find anything better to do, we can always get a hotel room."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:42 am (UTC)

"I do have a fair amount of decent imperial pay socked away," says Nathan. "I don't buy much, normally."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:47 am (UTC)

"Aren't you handy," he says fondly.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:48 am (UTC)

"I'd say call me sugar daddy, but you actually might, and I don't in fact find it appealing, I like sweetheart and honey better," says Nathan cheerfully.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 02:49 am (UTC)

He laughs. Maybe more than the joke strictly deserves.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 02:52 am (UTC)

"Am I funnier than even I think I am?" asks Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 03:12 am (UTC)

"Yep," says the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 03:13 am (UTC)

"Oh, good." Kisses! Handholding! And, after a long, long walk, Jacksonville!

manofmyword
2013-02-26 03:15 am (UTC)

"Nice place," says the Joker. "Don't think I've been here before."

He likes it, though. Just being in a place with so many people around brightens him right up.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 04:44 am (UTC)

"Not my favorite city. I like Castletown. Fond of Dublin, on days when the time's been ripe for getting away with it. Jaipur is nice, there's a capital near Jaipur, I think it's next on the itinerary when they're done in Safesun."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 01:11 pm (UTC)

"Never been to any of those, either," says the Joker. "I don't even know where they are, except for Dublin."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Castletown's on the Isle of Man, where I'm from, right between Britain and Ireland. Jaipur's in India."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:02 pm (UTC)

"We should go see those sometime," he says. "And New York. You guys don't have a Gotham, I'm pretty sure, but New York City's the next best thing."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I've never heard of a Gotham, and I've memorized some reasonably fine-grained maps," agrees Nathan, "but New York's good. I've only been there once. I didn't use to cross the ocean that frequently; had to defend my little island territory and couldn't typically afford more than a quick hop to tweak Siobhan's nose or annoy one of the Brits who have their island so overrun with vampires. There's a couple dozen of them with the place carved up, not that territory means much of anything anymore."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:06 pm (UTC)

"I'll tell you about Gotham sometime, too," he says comfortably. "What is up with Siobhan, anyway?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:10 pm (UTC)

"She's a witch, got a..." Vague gesture. "Planning power. It's subtle, she didn't know she had it until Addy copied it. She's claimed the island of Ireland for herself - wiped out all the other vampires on it, she's amazing in a fight, eventually she added a mate and a coven sister and now she allows the coven sister's wife and their kid who's turned to live there and tolerates visits from assorted friends, but I used to drop by before it was allowed. Long as I'm good about asking my timer, she can't catch me, or at least never did it. So she doesn't like me so I'm still not allowed. She's friends with Her Majesty and she's one of the people who could take over whether Her Majesty liked it or not, so Her Majesty lets her have her immigration controls on her island."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:13 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

"Maybe we can ask nicely."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I don't think she'll be impressed."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:19 pm (UTC)

The Joker laughs.

"You never know."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, if that's what you want to do I think I'd go through Maggie, she's the coven sister but she and the wife live in a little house now, not with Siobhan and her mate. Maggie's a lie detector, if we swore up and down we meant no mischief she might be able to talk Siobhan into it. If she likes you. She won't be at all inclined if she doesn't like you. She's reasonably neutral about me."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Lie detector, huh? Fun," the Joker says brightly. "We can do that sometime too."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:27 pm (UTC)

Nathan grins at him. It's a very sappy sort of grin.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:28 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins back.

"You're such a cutie," he says fondly.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:30 pm (UTC)

Nathan consults his memory. "I have never been paid that exact compliment," he determines finally. "Thanks."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:31 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"Betcha I can come up with some more like that."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:34 pm (UTC)

"What if you run out, though?" asks Nathan in mock distress.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Bet you I wooooon't," he singsongs, grinning.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:38 pm (UTC)

"In all of forever? You might have to learn a lot of languages," laughs Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Guess we'll see, huh?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:43 pm (UTC)

Well, that's just adorable, Nathan has to hug him now.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 05:47 pm (UTC)

The Joker hugs him back. Mm, snuggly. Despite the fact that it's like hugging a concrete pillar.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 05:49 pm (UTC)

Nathan is the snuggliest concrete pillar.

He picks up his mate and continues wandering Jacksonville at a leisurely walk punctuated with kisses. "Oh, look," he says. "A hotel."
Edited 2013-02-26 17:55 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-26 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says the Joker. "Let's scandalize them!"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 09:16 pm (UTC)

"How d'you want to scandalize them, babe? It's a hotel, I think they're used to giggling couples getting rooms."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 09:56 pm (UTC)

"That a challenge, sweetheart?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Mm, I bet you could do it, but mostly I'm just itching to know how," Nathan says, nuzzling his mate's neck.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 10:03 pm (UTC)

"We could fuck in the elevator," is the first plan that springs to mind.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 10:07 pm (UTC)

"We could get arrested," Nathan points out. "Fucking in elevators isn't a charge I can get out of via hidden law."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Getting arrested's not that big a deal for me," he says cheerfully. "If you don't wanna, though, that's fine."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't think they'd put us in the same jail cell," Nathan points out, "and I'd be in Imperial type trouble if I clawed my way out."
Edited 2013-02-26 22:20 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-26 10:24 pm (UTC)

The Joker pats Nathan's shoulder fondly.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Any non-arrest-inducing ideas, babe?"

manofmyword
2013-02-26 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Where's the fun in that?" he teases.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 10:39 pm (UTC)

"In all the subsequent time we get to spend, not being arrested, in a hotel room," purrs Nathan. "That's where."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, honey, I lllike the way you think."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Good," purrs Nathan.

Here is the door to the hotel. Nathan opens it with a shove of his hip, not intending to set his mate down until he is required to do so.

The receptionist asks if he needs to borrow a wheelchair.

"Nope," says Nathan cheerfully. "As you can see, we are jointly ambulatory."

manofmyword
2013-02-26 11:20 pm (UTC)

The Joker smiles beatifically.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 11:23 pm (UTC)

Nathan rents them a room, sending the Joker (whose hands are free) rooting around in his pockets for his shiny gold credit card when it's necessary for the transaction, and then he saunters to the elevator.

"I'm pretty sure we won't actually get arrested as long as we're technically dressed," he purrs in his mate's ear as the elevator pulls them up.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says the Joker.

His hands are free. And, as they have just demonstrated, he can reach Nathan's pants from here.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 11:36 pm (UTC)

By the time they get to the hotel room, he has managed to reduce Nathan to a growly puddle of want. The key card gets them in and then there is pouncing.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 11:42 pm (UTC)

He loves Nathan's pouncing, he really really does. He also loves the way it feels when his bones unbreak themselves.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 11:44 pm (UTC)

Nathan loves him. Loves that he can be careless, loves the way he can make him make all those noises, loves him like burning.

manofmyword
2013-02-26 11:51 pm (UTC)

No one in the vicinity has requested that they tone down said noises.

So the Joker doesn't.

They can't be arrested just for having really loud sex, right? Even if there's screaming?

temporal_affairs
2013-02-26 11:57 pm (UTC)

Well, there's disturbance of the peace, but they'd get a warning first, and they'd find all the participants uninjured if they insisted on having a closer look, so that's all right. How many screams does it take to get to the center of the Jacksonville Police Department? (Doesn't matter, the results will be invalid; Nathan got impatient and bit.)

manofmyword
2013-02-27 12:02 am (UTC)

Now is a good time to try out his magical flavour-tuning, right?

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 12:13 am (UTC)

Nathan was play-biting before. Mate who likes pain, it's the obvious thing, it's not like the odd taste of a droplet of human blood will screw with his head much as though he's some pure untainted-by-human-blood specimen like Her Majesty or her father-in-law and besides he has the air filter and isn't going to go ravenous on the people of Jacksonville.

And then the taste changes.

And his purr becomes a snarl and without thought he bites and tears and thirsts and it's so delicious, there is no flavor but this in the world, the ever-present pain of thirst has gone and he's drinking and drinking and drinking and there's nothing in the universe but the flow of singing blood.
Edited 2013-02-27 00:13 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-27 12:19 am (UTC)

Ooh.

Success.

He lets himself heal; with Nathan's teeth in him this deep even his overactive healing power isn't going to force them out again by itself, and it means he doesn't have to worry about blood loss.

Nathan was talking like he could do this forever. The Joker wonders if that's true.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 12:22 am (UTC)

He can't literally do it forever. He's only got so much room. But he keeps drinking for many minutes, until unregenerating prey would have been exsanguinated a dozen times over, until it hurts to swallow more and then some, until even hyperefficient vampire metabolism can process nothing more and is reduced to storage, distending his stomach.

Finally he is as sated as he physically can be, and he's just licking venom into the wounds, making small sounds in the back of his throat. When he looks up, his eyes are brilliantly burgundy.

"You're a marvel," he gasps, having neglected to play at breathing throughout his meal.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 12:26 am (UTC)

"Love you too, baby," he says, snuggling up.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 12:29 am (UTC)

"God. I love you." Hugs, crushing hugs, he cannot contain all the emotions at this moment.

"Did my eyes go?" he murmurs after a moment. "I bet they did. Better phone Maggie, let her know it's nothing to worry about before Alice eye-checks me and thinks I've been devouring the population of Florida."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 12:32 am (UTC)

"It's a gorgeous colour," he says, and leans up to kiss Nathan's forehead. "I should make you a shirt that colour."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 12:37 am (UTC)

"I'd wear it," Nathan says, rubbing his aching stomach absently, and then he pulls out his cellphone from the pocket of his abandoned pants and dials the lie detector.

"Hallo, Maggie!" he says. "Calling to say that I have not killed anyone, my eyes are red for entirely innocuous reasons and Alice should not advise Her Majesty to have me punished upon seeing them. Well now, must you know? All right. I've gone and gotten mated, if you hadn't heard, and - yes, thank you - and he's got a bit of offworld magic, and if he likes being bit and he's fine afterwards, I ask you, have I any reason to complain? I have not. That is the story. Say hi to your lovely wife and daughter for me, will you? Bye, Maggie."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 12:40 am (UTC)

The Joker giggles softly, waits for Nathan to hang up, and then kisses him.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 12:41 am (UTC)

Mmm kisses.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 12:42 am (UTC)

"Did I give you a tummyache?" he inquires between kisses.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 12:43 am (UTC)

"Worth it," Nathan asserts.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 12:48 am (UTC)

"Mmm. Good."

Although he does take a moment to kiss said tummy, bestowing on it the entirely imaginary restorative powers of his affection.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 12:49 am (UTC)

Awww.

They hang out in the hotel room for a few days, fixing Nathan's eyes to be less conspicuous before leaving, and then they wander Jacksonville looking at tourist attractions and occasionally making out fiercely on street corners, and they begin walking north. They have all the time in the world. Why hurry?
Edited 2013-02-27 16:33 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-27 04:46 pm (UTC)

The Joker is in loooooove.

He likes being in love this way. It's nice. Not as intense in some ways as being in love with the Bat, but in a lot of ways more fun. And Nathan is gorgeous and funny and immensely lovable.

Just for the hell of it, a few days out of Jacksonville, he magics himself vampire levels of durability and waits for Nathan to notice. Shouldn't be long.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 04:48 pm (UTC)

It is indeed not long. "Not so fragile today, babe?" Nathan asks half a second after hauling his mate into their motel room en route to New York, squeezing his hand. "Don't feel like getting broke?"

manofmyword
2013-02-27 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Thought I'd try it out," he says, squeezing back. "See what it's like when I'm less squishable."
Edited 2013-02-27 16:51 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Nathan, "I guess it's like this," and they proceed to have unusually painless nookie.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 05:04 pm (UTC)

"That was nice," the Joker concludes, cuddling up to him afterward. "I wouldn't want it like that every time, but it was nice."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Whatever you like, babe," says Nathan comfortably.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 05:19 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

"I love you."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I love you more."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 05:26 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head and laughs.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's true. I don't mind, though," says Nathan, (nuzzle nuzzle), "long as you do love me back."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 05:41 pm (UTC)

"How do you know?" he says. "And why do you want to? Where's this comparison coming from?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 05:49 pm (UTC)

Nathan considers this. "Have you been magicking your brain without telling me?" he asks. "'Cause if you haven't - pretty much a consensus for anyone who's been in love before and after turning, human brains couldn't hold a mate bond even if they had nothing else in 'em. Marcus says it too, he sees -" vague gesture - "relationships, he's thousands of years old, lots of chances to make observations."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 05:56 pm (UTC)

"So," he translates, amused, "I can't love you that much 'cause I'm too stupid?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Enh, not the word I'd use. Vampires're faster, more capacious, but not more - creative, insightful, we just do more of whatever we were doing before we turned, per second. Smart human is an encyclopedia and a stupid vampire's a big old library of insipid high-def reality television shows. Technically more information in the second one, first is the better reference book."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 06:05 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Like, Her Majesty's bodyguard - Renata - she's dull as a post. She can, say, find prime numbers in her head better than some computers and better than any human even if you give the human pen and paper, but that's not smart, she's still dull as a post. But she's a post with lots of room in her dull-as-a-post head to fall hard for some dull-as-a-post mate if she ever runs into the right person."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I love you, sweetie," he says fondly.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 06:19 pm (UTC)

"I love you, babe."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Guess what," he chirps.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 06:25 pm (UTC)

"You've won the lottery and we're retiring to the Isle of Wight to raise chickens?" asks Nathan brightly.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Nooo-o," says the Joker, laughing, and kisses him.

The surprise is: he made himself all squishable again.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 06:40 pm (UTC)

Mmm. Squishable. Some squishing should happen, then.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 06:41 pm (UTC)

Mmmm. Squishing.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 07:33 pm (UTC)

Her Majesty meets them on the side of the highway they're tracing north, teleporting there at a moment when no cars are going by. "Hello again," she says.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 07:35 pm (UTC)

The Joker beams and waves.

"Hi!"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Anything for me to pick up today?" she inquires.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says, and squares her the whole selection again. "Have you been putting 'em to good use?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 07:40 pm (UTC)

"I teleported here, didn't I?" she asks lightly.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 07:41 pm (UTC)

"So you did," he agrees. "Anything else?"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 07:44 pm (UTC)

"A variety of things great and small. My sister Rosalie is at long last expecting a baby," she offers.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 07:45 pm (UTC)

He claps his hands together and beams. "Aww, good for her!"

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 07:47 pm (UTC)

"She's very pleased. It was her least favorite thing about being a vampire, that she couldn't have one."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Then I'm happy for her," he says. "That's sweet. You're sweet."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Thank you. What have you been up to?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 07:54 pm (UTC)

"The very reason I'm still on newly-mated leave," says Nathan, grinning. "The very reason."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Is your newly-mated leave going to stop?" inquires the Joker. "'Cause let me tell ya, the sex ain't."

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 08:00 pm (UTC)

"He gets six weeks of no non-emergency work," says Bella. "Then he's on the job again. I'll do my best to accumulate questions in batches, the way I do for Maggie when it's not urgent, so you can block off time to talk instead of being interrupted."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I can do it while you're sleeping," Nathan says, kissing the Joker's cheek.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and smiles, and hugs Nathan.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Conveniently, I haven't had any emergency timing needs lately. I'll leave you to the rest of your newly-mated leave," says Bella, and she waves.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Congratulate your sister for me," he says, waving back.

luminous_regnant
2013-02-27 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Sure." And she teleports away.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:19 pm (UTC)

"And everyone was so worried you wouldn't get along," scoffs Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Confounding expectations is fun," the Joker says cheerfully.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Is something going to change when she's gotten to expect you to be all well-behaved, then?"
Edited 2013-02-27 20:27 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "'Cause I do get along with her."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's good then. It's never fun when the new mate and the old friends don't like each other."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:36 pm (UTC)

Grinning, the Joker kisses him.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:37 pm (UTC)

Mmm kisses. There are some trees next to this here highway...

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:40 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Trees. They should go have sex against one!

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:42 pm (UTC)

Why, that's exactly what Nathan was thinking!

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:44 pm (UTC)

Well, isn't that lucky.

He is definitely in a squishable mood right now. Getting fucked against a tree sounds like just the thing.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:45 pm (UTC)

The tree may be somewhat the worse for wear after all this.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:46 pm (UTC)

To be honest, the Joker is a little surprised when all is said and done (well, mostly done) and the tree is still standing.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Didn't want to knock it onto the highway and cut off a lane of traffic," Nathan says when he sees the surprise on his mate's face. "Besides, it was serving as cover from prying eyes."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 08:49 pm (UTC)

"You're so thoughtful," he giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Always, babe."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 10:28 pm (UTC)

He fixes their clothes with a square, and they're on the road again.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 10:35 pm (UTC)

It's just two weeks later when Nathan gets a brainphone call. Apparently Bella has been expanding the network. He conferences in the Joker right away. [Hi to you too, Emmett. Congratulations on the baby! I've conferenced my new mate in - babe, this is Emmett.]

[Hi,] says Emmett. [Rose can't pay attention to anything but little Henry, so I get birth announcement duty. Little Henry: exists!]

manofmyword
2013-02-27 10:40 pm (UTC)

[Hi, Emmett!] he says brightly. [Awwwwww, congrats to all three of ya.]
Edited 2013-02-27 22:40 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 10:42 pm (UTC)

[Hey, as long as I have you on the sort-of-a-phone, Nathan's New Mate, have you got an actual name? Bella just keeps calling you "the joker", like it's your title or something,] Emmett says.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 10:52 pm (UTC)

[Nope,] he says serenely. [You can call me the Joker too if you want. Or you can call me something else.]

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 10:56 pm (UTC)

[Wait, so everyone just calls you that? Your mate calls you that?]

[He hasn't turned,] says Nathan, [so he's my mate, I'm not his. I mostly call him "babe", anyway.]

[I'm not gonna call him babe,] says Emmett.

[Good, me and your wife wouldn't like if it you did,] replies Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 10:58 pm (UTC)

The Joker laughs.

"I like it when you call me 'babe'," he murmurs to Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Good," Nathan murmurs back.

[Anyway, Henry exists, he's adorable, me and Rose are arguing between having another right away and having another in six months and whether the end number should look more like ten or more like a hundred, and if you meet up with the capital next time we move or whatever you should totally drop by and pick him up, Nate.]

[Next time we're in the right place at the right time,] Nathan agrees.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:06 pm (UTC)

[We'll put it on the list,] he says, grinning.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:10 pm (UTC)

The call ends.

"List?" Nathan asks.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Of all the stuff we're gonna do sometime," he says. "Like ask to get into Ireland, and see Castletown and Jaipur. That list."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I should be asking the timer about those, shouldn't I?"

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:14 pm (UTC)

"If you wanna," he says serenely. "No rush."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm." (Nuzzle nuzzle.) "Even on a scale of years, though, turns out the best time to go meet little Henry for the first time is in four days."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Then let's do that," he says, nuzzling back.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:19 pm (UTC)

"All right. I wonder how they cooked him up. If they turned Rosalie into a human for the duration, or a half-vampire, or just left her as-is plus whatever tweaks. Probably not nice to ask."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:22 pm (UTC)

"We could ask Goldie next time we see her," he suggests.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Goldie?" Pause. "Oh, Her Majesty? I suppose. She might not have done it herself, she might have just given Rosalie and Emmett the wishes."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:26 pm (UTC)

"True," he agrees, "but she'll have a good guess on whether it'd be rude to ask them directly."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:29 pm (UTC)

"You're right," agrees Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:30 pm (UTC)

Whimsically, "When's a good time to ask her?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:32 pm (UTC)

"In - two weeks, I'm going to guess that's when she comes by for more coins," says Nathan. "So, after we meet Henry."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:34 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Okay."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Her Majesty doesn't like being interrupted, so perhaps she's about to have a busy two weeks - or an unbusy two weeks, so she takes a lot of spare hours and goes off with her mate and really doesn't want to take calls," speculates Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:36 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Ah, mated vampires and their insatiable fascination with their mates," says Nathan, as though he is not just such a vampire.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you're one to talk," he says fondly.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Ah, all those other mated vampires are fascinated by their mates, whereas I have the superior taste to be fascinated by mine instead."

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:42 pm (UTC)

"See any more trees?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:43 pm (UTC)

Nathan looks around at the dense tree-lining along the highway. "Gosh," he says, "not a one, we must have wandered into a desert when I was distracted by your loveliness?"

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:46 pm (UTC)

He beams. Not innocently. Not innocently at all.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:49 pm (UTC)

Nathan picks him up and hustles him behind the nearest, sturdiest tree.

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:51 pm (UTC)

The Joker is going to remember this tree with great fondness.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:53 pm (UTC)

They don't really make a lot of northward progress over the next four days, and then Nathan says, "Timer says now, for going to meet Henry, do you want to just teleport us to Jaipur?"
Edited 2013-02-27 23:54 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-27 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says, laughing, and spends a pentagon. They appear in an unoccupied room in the appropriate capital.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-27 11:58 pm (UTC)

Nathan knows the way to where Rosalie and Emmett live; he leads the Joker there and knocks.

"Come in!" calls a cheerful woman's voice.

Nathan opens the door.

Rosalie is, subsequent Heidi's demise, the most beautiful vampire in the world by any objective standard that doesn't account for personal types - and given the baseline vampire beauty, this makes her the most beautiful person in the world. She is smiling with the radiance of a sun. The baby in her arms doesn't look four days old.

"Nathan, hi!" she beams. "And this must be your new mate."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:04 am (UTC)

The Joker waves.

"Cute kid!"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:05 am (UTC)

Rosalie kisses Henry on the forehead. "Thank you! Isn't he perfect? And he's all mine and Emmett's, and we thought we'd never - well, I do have you to thank for that, don't I, in a roundabout way?"

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:10 am (UTC)

"Guess you do," he says. Cheerfully, "You're welcome!"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:12 am (UTC)

"Thank you." Then, after a moment, "Do you want to hold Henry?" And to Nathan she adds, "He's a half-vampire, of sorts, like Elspeth, not too fragile."

Nathan takes the baby from her and makes faces at him and gets faces made back; the baby looks months old, not days. And then he hands him over to the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:14 am (UTC)

The Joker holds little Henry and cuddles him and makes even sillier faces than Nathan, and listens gravely to the burbling he gets in reply.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:18 am (UTC)

"Aww," says Nathan, laughing.

Henry reaches out and grabs the Joker's nose. He is only a little baby, and only a half-vampire, but he is still very strong, and if he is not made to let go, the nose will give way soon enough.
Edited 2013-02-28 00:18 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:19 am (UTC)

He giggles, and doesn't do anything about the nose. He'll just grow a new one, right?

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:21 am (UTC)

Rosalie isn't so willing to let that happen; she pries Henry's hand off the Joker's nose and takes her baby back. "Are you all right?"

"He's fine," says Nathan. "Bounces back. You didn't hear anything about me begging lessons from your cousins, did you?"

"Well... no," admits Rosalie. "But you could've been waiting."

"Not everyone is your sainted father, Rosalie," chuckles Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:29 am (UTC)

The Joker gives Nathan a fond one-armed hug.

"I get better," he confirms brightly. "A squished nose here or there doesn't bug me."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:31 am (UTC)

"Magic," concludes Rosalie.

"Lots of very lovely magic," agrees Nathan.

Rosalie shrugs and hands Henry back to the Joker. "Elspeth was very gentle with humans when she was little, but we didn't have her around many and the first was - oh, she was at least a month old," she muses, "so I suppose she might have been inclined to grab at people too, or even bite - Henry hasn't tried to bite anyone, but if he looks like he's going to, stop him unless you want to turn, male half-vampires are venomous."

"He's immune to venom," Nathan supplies, winking.

"That's all I need to know," says Rosalie.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:33 am (UTC)

Laughing, he makes another silly face at Henry.

"Aren't you a cute little nose-grabber," he says.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:35 am (UTC)

"Yah," agrees Henry quite lucidly.

"Already he talks," marvels Nathan.

"Elspeth took longer, but then she had her talent, she didn't need words so much," says Rosalie. "He woke up calling for mommy this morning." She's utterly glowing.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:38 am (UTC)

"Awwww," says the Joker. "Awwwwww."

He is over-awww'd.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:39 am (UTC)

"Lucked out with a diurnal schedule," Nathan comments.

"Well, it wouldn't have been so bad if he'd wound up with another, but yes, he wakes up at eight in the morning, goes to sleep at midnight," says Rosalie.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:40 am (UTC)

The Joker progresses from making silly faces at Henry to making silly noises at him. He is enjoying himself tremendously.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:41 am (UTC)

Henry makes noises right back, babbling like a champ and uttering occasional words such as "up". A fair fraction of his words are not in English and the Joker may be forgiven for not recognizing them.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:43 am (UTC)

He giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 12:45 am (UTC)

"We'd really like him to learn English intelligibly before trying to incorporate other languages, but of course that's impossible, people speak a dozen things even just within the coven," says Rosalie.

"He'll sort it all out by the time he's two weeks old," says Nathan, waving a hand, "he's a quick little cutie, isn't he?"

"Very," says Rosalie warmly.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 01:02 am (UTC)

"He is," says the Joker, tapping the baby's nose.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 01:23 am (UTC)

There is further cooing over Henry, and then Henry says "thirsty", pronouncing the word quite clearly, and Rosalie takes him back to offer him a bottle of Elspeth's golden bubbly, which he sucks down greedily, and Nathan leaves her be, motioning for the Joker to follow.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 01:25 am (UTC)

He takes Nathan's hand as they leave the room.

"Let's go see the city!" he says. "Show me everything you like about it."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 01:26 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

They wander Jaipur. They have sex in several parts of Jaipur.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 01:29 am (UTC)

Those are definitely the best parts.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 01:32 am (UTC)

They're the hidiest parts, anyway.

Jaipur is a really pretty city. It has a fair amount of pink in it. It is, Nathan says, called the Pink City of India.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:04 am (UTC)

"I love pink," the Joker declares.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:06 am (UTC)

"Then I am so glad there is a capital here so we have a reason to be in it, or I would've taken ages to think of Jaipur as a place we might choose to go out of all the cities in the world," laughs Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:08 am (UTC)

The Joker giggles and kisses him.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:12 am (UTC)

Mmm kisses. Always more than welcome.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:18 am (UTC)

"Love you, baby," he murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:19 am (UTC)

"Love you too, babe."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:21 am (UTC)

Mmm.

"You wanna stay here for a bit, or go to New York?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:24 am (UTC)

"Mm... best time to leave Jaipur's in fifteen minutes, best time to arrive in New York's in fifteen minutes plus a second."
Edited 2013-02-28 02:27 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:29 am (UTC)

He grins.

"What do you wanna do with those fifteen minutes?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:32 am (UTC)

"Kiss you delirious against this lamppost."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:33 am (UTC)

"I like the way you think, sweetness."

Kisses!

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:33 am (UTC)

Delirious kisses!

"Time," murmurs Nathan, when it is time.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:35 am (UTC)

The Joker teleports them to somewhere in New York that is not under direct observation.

"...Aww," he says nostalgically, "I used to come here all the time in my world!"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:36 am (UTC)

Nathan looks around. "Yeah? Where are we?"

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:43 am (UTC)

"I don't remember the street," he says. "But you wouldn't believe the number of blowjobs I've given in that alley."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:47 am (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:50 am (UTC)

"I used to be a hooker," he explains carelessly. "Did I not say?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:53 am (UTC)

"It has not come up, no."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:54 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Problem, sweetie?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 02:56 am (UTC)

"Not my favorite fun fact of the day."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 02:57 am (UTC)

"Why?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 03:02 am (UTC)

Nathan shrugs helplessly. "I'm hardly one to talk. I was - married with kids, before I turned, at least I think they were my kids, everything before waking up ravenous is hazier than Beijing. But mate bond doesn't wanna share, not even retroactively."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 03:05 am (UTC)

The Joker smiles sadly.

"Better get used to it," he says. "'Cause honey, I am never not gonna be a slut."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 03:05 am (UTC)

"I'll do my best, then."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 03:11 am (UTC)

The Joker hugs him.

"Aww, sweetie. I'm sorry it makes you sad," he says. Then, smiling: "Would it help any if I gave you a blowjob in that alley?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 03:12 am (UTC)

"Well, I don't know about fixing the core problem, but it'll soothe the immediate symptoms pretty damn well," says Nathan, brightening.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 03:14 am (UTC)

He beams.

Visibility in said alley is very conveniently poor.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 03:14 am (UTC)

Best alley ever.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 03:15 am (UTC)

It is among the Joker's favourites, for sure!

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 03:17 am (UTC)

After the alley has been used for its traditional purpose, Nathan says, "So what else should we see around here, babe? Show me the sights."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 03:19 am (UTC)

"Wonder if you've got a version of my old house here," he muses. "Let's find out."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 03:20 am (UTC)

They head for the relevant location.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 12:46 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he pronounces, a few minutes later. "It's a house, but it's not my house."

It's also a pretty big house.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Is that a good thing or a bad one?" says Nathan, looking his mate over assessingly.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:28 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Dunno. It just is. Well, it wouldn't be my house in my world, either; I burned the place down when I left."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:29 pm (UTC)

"How come?"

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:30 pm (UTC)

He pats Nathan's arm and turns away to start walking again.

"'Cause I hated it," he says lightly.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Was it architecturally offensive or am I going to hate this story?"

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:34 pm (UTC)

"You're gonna hate this story," he says, and gives Nathan a quick midstride hug.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:36 pm (UTC)

"We can save it for later if you want."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:37 pm (UTC)

"...Scale of days, this is a good time, probably because it'll bother me not to know."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:39 pm (UTC)

"My father was a nasty piece of work," he says serenely. "A few of my scars are from him. So when I was fifteen or so, I blew up the house with him in it."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:40 pm (UTC)

Nathan stops in his tracks to give the Joker a proper and stationary hug.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:42 pm (UTC)

He hugs back.

"Love you, sweetie," he murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I love you, and if that'd been your house, I'd be hard pressed not to break in and destroy whatever facsimile of your father might've lived there."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:44 pm (UTC)

The Joker kisses Nathan's cheek.

"You're a sweetheart," he says. "Don't go killing people for me, it'll just make Goldie mad."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:45 pm (UTC)

"With luck, there will never be anyone quite that accessible who I want to kill for you."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:46 pm (UTC)

He hugs him some more.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:52 pm (UTC)

"But if you don't want me to kill such people, at least point them out so I can report them to Her Majesty and get them blacklisted from immortality?" Nathan asks hopefully. "Then we can just outlive them."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 04:53 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Sure, okay."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 04:55 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle nuzzle. They resume walking.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 09:05 pm (UTC)

Mmm, nuzzles. Nuzzles are fun.

"I wanna get a place," the Joker declares. "Stick around for a while. Get a sewing machine. Make pretty clothes. What do you think?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Nathan. "If you have someplace in mind I can come up with when to ask about obtaining it."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, let's wander around and see what we run into."
Edited 2013-02-28 21:09 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 09:31 pm (UTC)

Wandering - and possibly more ducking into alleys, as alleys present themselves - ensues!

manofmyword
2013-02-28 09:32 pm (UTC)

Alleys are great.

The Joker, it turns out, is naturally attracted to small, crappy apartments on the lower floors of small, crappy buildings.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 09:33 pm (UTC)

"...Babe, you know my shiny gold credit card and the account connected to it could get us a nice place, even in Manhattan, right?"
Edited 2013-02-28 21:35 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-02-28 09:40 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Do you want a nice place?"

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 09:41 pm (UTC)

"None of the amenities common to nice places really make a difference to me, but I'm puzzled about why you don't."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Mm, I don't care that much," he says.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I suppose magic can cover for whatever's wrong with any place we wind up with as long as we hide the non-Euclidean storage space when the landlord drops by. But - landlord sounds annoying, let's get a condo, let's own the place, not have to negotiate to be able to paint or put in a picture window or whatever."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 09:52 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins. "Sure, okay."

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 09:56 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle nuzzle. Further wanderings.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 09:59 pm (UTC)

Snuggly wanderings!

It is harder to find a decent condo than a crappy apartment; it takes longer. But the Joker doesn't mind much.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 10:03 pm (UTC)

They have got all the time in the world.

The best time to ask about this decent condo over here is in forty-five minutes. That's enough time to scandalize that stray alley cat over there, isn't it?

manofmyword
2013-02-28 10:05 pm (UTC)

Definitely.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 10:16 pm (UTC)

Later -

Nathan's timer didn't fail them: they're desperate to sell the place and let him bypass the background check after he offers to put a payment down on the spot.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 10:22 pm (UTC)

However shall they celebrate?

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 10:23 pm (UTC)

They could christen every room in their condo. Purely for celebratory purposes. Yes.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 10:25 pm (UTC)

Excellent plan!

And then, furniture.

"Should we have a bed?" he asks musingly.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 10:26 pm (UTC)

Nate shrugs. "D'you want one? I'm comfy on any surface and don't sleep."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I haven't owned a bed in years," he says, "but I haven't had this much sex in years, either."

Bed! In the bedroom, no less. Big, comfy, snuggly, very inviting-looking bed.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 10:55 pm (UTC)

"...Did you ever have this much sex?" Nathan asks, moseying bedward. "I didn't think that was something nonmagical humans could do."

manofmyword
2013-02-28 10:57 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Well, maybe not. Close, though."

Here's a new one: the Joker pounces, for a change.
Edited 2013-02-28 22:57 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 10:58 pm (UTC)

Nathan approves of this change!

manofmyword
2013-02-28 11:48 pm (UTC)

Fun for everyone!

By the time they are finally finished enjoying their nice new bed, it's late at night; the Joker curls up and goes straight to sleep.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 11:50 pm (UTC)

Nathan has nothing he would rather do than hold his mate, all night long.

manofmyword
2013-02-28 11:54 pm (UTC)

In the morning, he wakes up and bounces out of bed and starts conjuring things in the living room. Table, chair, sewing machine, materials.

True to his earlier promise, he is apparently going to make Nathan a shirt the colour of blood-saturated vampire eyes.

temporal_affairs
2013-02-28 11:56 pm (UTC)

Nathan supervises for a while, but sewing doesn't have an intrinsic interest for him. At a good moment, he says, "I'm gonna go scope out our neighborhood, babe, I'll be back in half an hour or so."

manofmyword
2013-03-01 12:01 am (UTC)

"Have fun," he says absently, and blows Nathan a kiss before he goes back to cutting fabric.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 12:02 am (UTC)

Nathan's back half an hour later and he leans over the Joker, peering at the garment taking form.

manofmyword
2013-03-01 12:09 am (UTC)

It is a shirt. Well, half a shirt, right this second.

It's going to be gorgeous.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 12:13 am (UTC)

"Gorgeous," comments Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-03-01 12:22 am (UTC)

"Yup," says the Joker.

It doesn't take that much longer to finish it up and snip loose threads and sew on buttons. And then Nathan gets to try it on!

It is really gorgeous. Especially when the Joker takes away the illusion covering Nathan's eyes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 12:23 am (UTC)

Nathan peers at his sleeves. "Can I get a mirror?" he asks archly.

manofmyword
2013-03-01 12:26 am (UTC)

He conjures a full-length mirror attached to a nearby wall.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 12:27 am (UTC)

Nathan strikes a pose, and then another pose, mugging for his audience. "I am certainly a specimen," he says.

manofmyword
2013-03-01 12:41 am (UTC)

"You're beautiful," he sighs. "Now take that off so it doesn't get hurt when I drag you to bed and fuck you silly."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 12:43 am (UTC)

Unbutton unbutton unbutton. Deliberately slow and teasing. (There might be winking involved.)

manofmyword
2013-03-01 12:48 am (UTC)

"Sweetheart," he murmurs, leaning forward in his sewing chair.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 12:48 am (UTC)

The shirt is slid off. Nathan pauses to fold it, smirking.

manofmyword
2013-03-01 12:51 am (UTC)

As soon as the shirt is safely on the table, the Joker pounces.

They do not make it to the bed.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 12:52 am (UTC)

Some time later, Nathan says, "Scale of weeks, this is the best time to ask about the scars I don't know the stories of yet?"

manofmyword
2013-03-01 12:57 am (UTC)

The Joker curls up closer.

"This one, you mean?" he says, touching the long thin line slashed across his left hip.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 12:59 am (UTC)

Nathan traces that scar with one chilly finger, and the one on the Joker's neck, too.

manofmyword
2013-03-01 01:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Those two. Well, I told you I usedta be a hooker, right?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 01:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah?"

manofmyword
2013-03-01 01:06 am (UTC)

"So," he shrugs, "when I was sixteen or so, one guy made an offer he didn't want me to refuse. I told him to fuck off, he pulled a knife. I wasn't so scary in those days." He touches the scar on his neck. "Bad news for him, a knife to my throat doesn't mean shit." Then he sighs, and drops his hand. "Bad news for me, he got what he wanted anyway. I'm okay about it now, but for a while I wasn't."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 01:07 am (UTC)

Nathan hugs his mate very, very snugly. Not hard enough to break him, but just shy of that.

manofmyword
2013-03-01 01:15 am (UTC)

The Joker snuggles into Nathan's arms.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 01:20 am (UTC)

"You'd tell me if you ever didn't want - anything," says Nathan, "wouldn't you? I've gotten to the point where I start throwing you around without textbook verbal inquiries first - and - there are known cases of mate bonds being very confused when they're not reciprocated, although those were ones aimed at hybrids, we think the bond doesn't know what to do with a hybrid, a vampire will always have a symmetrical copy and a human it expects to be able to turn at least eventually but hybrids throw it off - but - you'd tell me. Wouldn't you?"

manofmyword
2013-03-01 01:23 am (UTC)

"I'd tell you," he says, pressing a gentle kiss to Nathan's cheek. "Promise."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 01:26 am (UTC)

"And if I ever do appear to be confused please feel perfectly free to wish me to Antarctica. I will eat penguins and be confused and I will not be able to hurt you. I couldn't stand it if I hurt you."

manofmyword
2013-03-01 01:28 am (UTC)

He laughs, and hugs him.

"I love you," he says with deep affection.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 01:31 am (UTC)

"I love you too."

manofmyword
2013-03-01 01:44 am (UTC)

The Joker curls up on top of Nathan, kisses his cheek again, and closes his eyes comfortably.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 01:45 am (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-01 01:49 am (UTC)

Mmm. Snuggly.

so very dapper

temporal_affairs

The Joker is awfully domestic, in his way. He makes pretty clothes. Nathan's perfectly happy to be a clothes horse for his sartorially-inclined mate. Some of the clothes are distinctly feminine, and Nathan does not wear those, although the Joker could probably talk him into a kilt, even if that's not a Manx thing but only their neighbors.

manofmyword
2013-03-01 02:16 am (UTC)

But Nathan doesn't complain at all when the Joker decides to lounge around the house in beautiful evening gowns, or cook himself elaborate meals at three in the morning while wearing a frilly floral apron.

And the Joker doesn't complain at all when his clothes are regularly ruined in the course of their sex life. If he likes something enough, he'll repair it by hand or by magic; if not, he'll shrug and throw it out.

It's after one such repair effort, a short white dress torn in half last night and now stitched back together with bright red thread, that the Joker holds the garment in his lap and strokes it contemplatively for a moment, and then—

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:16 am (UTC)

—changes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:17 am (UTC)

Nathan -

Blinks.

"Babe?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:20 am (UTC)

"Whatcha think?"

The voice is almost the same, maybe a little smoother. The face is almost the same.

The body, less so.

Same height, though, almost exactly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:22 am (UTC)

"I think I'm confused?" he ventures. "Would expect that either this'd be the first thing one would do on getting magic powers, or not on the to-do list at all."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:23 am (UTC)

The Joker shrugs.

(The scars stayed, too.)

"I only just thought of it."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:25 am (UTC)

"Huh. You know, I thought I was straight - albeit a pretty low-key kind of straight that wasn't getting much exercise since turning, but, you remember, the erstwhile wife and kids - till I met you, and then I figured I wasn't, and now I'm not sure what little box to check on the census form."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:27 am (UTC)

"Oh, sweetie," she says fondly. "Can't help ya there. But if I'm still hot either way, I think that's a clue."
Edited 2013-03-01 02:27 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:29 am (UTC)

"Very," agrees Nathan. "Very-very-very."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:35 am (UTC)

"Sooo," she says, "if I wanted to take the new body for a spin...?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:37 am (UTC)

She doesn't have to suggest this twice.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:38 am (UTC)

What if she wants to do it again immediately afterward?

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:41 am (UTC)

It's possible Nathan will still beat her to making the suggestion!

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:42 am (UTC)

She loves him so very very much.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:43 am (UTC)

It's extremely mutual.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:45 am (UTC)

Eventually, after many repetitions, she conjures a snuggly blanket and curls up with him on the floor. Finding some comfortable furniture to cuddle on just seems way too much like work.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:49 am (UTC)

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:53 am (UTC)

"Love you," she murmurs, pillowing her head on his shoulder. It is not very pillowy, but she likes it anyway.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 02:55 am (UTC)

"Love you forever, babe."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 02:57 am (UTC)

"How are you this snuggly without being even a tiny bit squishable?" she wonders.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:00 am (UTC)

"No idea."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:09 am (UTC)

"Well, I like it."

Snugglesnuggle.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:10 am (UTC)

"Good. I have very little memory of what it felt like to be a squishy fleshy thing like you -" (poke, poke) "and don't know if I'd like it, were you disposed to magic me that way."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:11 am (UTC)

"We could try it sometime," he says idly, wriggling playfully when Nathan pokes him. "If you want. See if it's fun."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:15 am (UTC)

"I don't think I'd like being squished, the way you do," Nathan points out.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:17 am (UTC)

"Well, I won't squish you like that," she says easily. "But it'd make cuddling different."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:18 am (UTC)

"If you wanna try it, go for it," he says, kissing her scalp.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:19 am (UTC)

"Okay," says the Joker.

And lo, he is squishy.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:22 am (UTC)

"This is different," he says. "...The floor is much less comfortable now that I have more give than it does."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:23 am (UTC)

She laughs.

"Let's go cuddle in bed," she suggests, hauling herself to her feet and reaching down to help him up.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:24 am (UTC)

He follows her, not fully steady on his squishier feet but not falling over outright either.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:26 am (UTC)

They reach the bed successfully.

It is extremely comfortable and pleasant to cuddle in.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:29 am (UTC)

"Much better." Hmm, has his squishiness come with a reduction in his strength, too, or can he still squish his mate if he wants? Empiricism is called for.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:30 am (UTC)

There is some reduction, just to the point where he doesn't break his own bones or crush his own muscles. But he is definitely still able to squish his mate if he puts the effort in.

"I love you," she hums.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:33 am (UTC)

"I love you so, so much," he purrs.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:36 am (UTC)

"I like cuddling squishable-you," she declares. "Want me to make it so you can switch back and forth when you want?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:41 am (UTC)

"Sure, babe."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 03:42 am (UTC)

Just for fun, she kisses the end of his nose.

"Your squishiness is now under your control."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 03:44 am (UTC)

He doesn't send the squishiness away immediately, just snuggles up close and kisses her nose.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 01:20 pm (UTC)

She giggles and hugs him. Squishily!

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 05:45 pm (UTC)

"What ratio of girl-shaped to Original Recipe should I be expecting?" inquires Nathan.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," she says. "Definitely some of both."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Just haven't planned things that far in advance?" chuckles Nathan.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Nope!"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 05:54 pm (UTC)

"If we made more of a habit of leaving the condo the neighbors would probably think there were two of you and I was cheating on at least one," observes Nathan.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 05:55 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Or I'm twins, and you're very, very lucky."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Twins with matching scars," says Nathan, raising an eyebrow, "probably a little less likely to the neighbors' way of thinking than me having a weird scar fetish and having picked up two unrelated persons at a weird scar support group of some kind."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Unrelated people with the same face and the same hair," she counters. "It's weird any way you look at it."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:04 pm (UTC)

"All right, twins with matching scars I picked up at a weird scar support group," agrees Nathan, "and I'm very -" kiss - "very -" kiss - "lucky."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 06:07 pm (UTC)

"You are," she says cheerfully, kissing him back. "Mmmm, my squishy snuggly sweetheart. Love you."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I love you."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 06:11 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle snuggggggle.

Snuggle.

Snuggle.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:13 pm (UTC)

Snuggles ensue. (Also some groping. There are new shapes to grope, and even the old ones hadn't worn off their novelty.)

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 06:15 pm (UTC)

Mm, groping. Groping is nice.

Eventually, with obvious reluctance, she detaches herself.

"I'm hungry," she says, "I'm gonna make breakfast."

It is not breakfast time. But she feels breakfasty.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

Nathan, of course, has memorized his mate's eating patterns without even having to try. "Already?"
Edited 2013-03-01 18:18 (UTC)

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 06:19 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah?" she says. She hasn't memorized any patterns; she eats when she feels like it, and she feels like eating now.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Whatcha having?" he asks, rolling up to his feet.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," she says musingly, heading for the kitchen. "...French toast. I feel like French toast."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:24 pm (UTC)

"That's got eggs in it, doesn't it?" Nathan asks slowly.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, why?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:43 pm (UTC)

"...Babe," says Nathan, "how thoroughly did you turn into a woman?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 06:54 pm (UTC)

She gives him a puzzled look.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Can you," Nathan says, "get pregnant."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:04 pm (UTC)

She blinks.

"Good question," she says. "I didn't think of that."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Neither did I." He sighs. "Unusual hunger - especially for eggs, among things humans eat - is common for people pregnant with half-vampires."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Huh," she says thoughtfully.

And shrugs, and keeps walking.

"Well, pregnant or not, I'm still hungry."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:12 pm (UTC)

"...Of course. Sorry to distract."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:14 pm (UTC)

"...What's up, sweetie?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to have a child?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she says, shrugging again. "Haven't thought about it. Do you?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Had some. I think they were mine." Pause. "They were there when I woke up from turning, babe."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:29 pm (UTC)

She puts down the frying pan she just got out of the cupboard, turns back to Nathan, and hugs him.

"Oh, sweetie."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:30 pm (UTC)

He hugs her back. "I didn't know you'd - if I'd - I wasn't trying to knock you up."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I know, hon," she says. "I love you. I'm sorry about your kids."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:36 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure they were mine. They looked like me, but. I can't remember."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:37 pm (UTC)

"It's still sad," she says, hugging him some more.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." He hugs her back. "...If you want to keep it, if it's even there and this isn't just a stray craving for French toast and me being paranoid, then the standard procedure is C-section three weeks along."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:46 pm (UTC)

"That's fast," she comments. "And I don't know what I think yet."
Edited 2013-03-01 19:46 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:48 pm (UTC)

"They're very fast," agrees Nathan. "If you don't do a C-section they chew their way out at about one month."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 07:49 pm (UTC)

"That sounds messy."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Also, fatal in all known cases."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 08:02 pm (UTC)

"We can do it the other way, then," she shrugs. "I wouldn't want you to worry."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 08:03 pm (UTC)

"So you do want it," he says.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Still not sure yet. But if I keep the kid, yeah, we can take 'em out early."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 08:22 pm (UTC)

...

More hugs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Weren't you craving French toast," Nathan says weakly, but he hugs her.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 08:27 pm (UTC)

She waves a hand. "I unhungried myself," she says. "I want to be hugging you more than I want to be eating."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 08:29 pm (UTC)

He hugs her tighter.

(But avoids putting pressure on her belly.)

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I love you, honey," she murmurs into his shoulder.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I love you, babe."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 08:37 pm (UTC)

Snuggggggggle.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 08:40 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle snuggle.

"D'you want to know anything else about half-vampires? To help you decide?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Sure, okay," she says, snuggling him some more. "And let's go back to bed and cuddle there."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 08:54 pm (UTC)

He picks her up and carries her to bed for further snuggling. "Well, you met the princess, you saw Henry. Half-vampires wind up with very rigid sleep schedules. Usually they crash sometime in the evening, but some of them are nocturnal or sleep mornings or something instead. They grow fast. About ten times as fast as a human till they're six months old and look five, and then it slows down till they stop growing when they're seven and look somewhere between eighteen and twenty. They don't age after that."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Huh," she says. "I wonder what's up with the sleep thing."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 08:59 pm (UTC)

Nathan shrugs. "Vampires have no choice but to not-sleep all the time, humans have no choice but to do some sleeping but can do it whenever, that's how those traits happen to combine. Half-vamps are about halfway between humans and vampires in most ways, including speed and strength. They can drink blood or eat food, either one, they mostly like blood or the synthetics of it better though. They don't get sick. They heal about like vampires do, but they're more - biological, with heartbeats and needing to breathe and everything."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:02 pm (UTC)

"What do you think about kids?" she wonders. "I mean, do you wanna have one? Do you wanna have one right now?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I have honestly never thought about it before. It was only a few decades back that I knew half-vampires were possible, and when I met you I ruled it out, and when you changed yourself I - didn't think."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:04 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

"Yeah, neither did I."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, this isn't the first accidental half-vampire of all time," snorts Nathan.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:09 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

"...Aww, man," she says, "if we have a kid there's no way we can keep having this much sex, is there."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:11 pm (UTC)

"They do sleep," he points out. "But this much? No, not really, not unless we follow the Coven around and hand it off to babysitters many times a day."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Mm, but kids grow up," she muses. "Pretty quick, too, if they're half-vampires. And then we can go back to fucking all the time, if we want."
Edited 2013-03-01 21:16 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:17 pm (UTC)

"That is true," agrees Nathan, nuzzling her throat.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:20 pm (UTC)

She snuggles up and tips her head back a little.

"And we can fuck all we want now," she murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Might be awkward and/or dangerous after a few days, but now, this time we are currently occupying, oh yes," he purrs.

Yep.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll make myself all tasty again," the Joker decides. "That was fun."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Er," says Nathan. "As long as you're still pregnant and haven't decided not to have the baby, do make sure I'm not taking stuff it needs?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Sure," she says, and stacks another hex on her regeneration power.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:42 pm (UTC)

"All right then," he says, pressing his teeth to her neck.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:43 pm (UTC)

The Joker makes herself all tasty.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:45 pm (UTC)

Nathan growls and sets about developing another bellyache.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:48 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmmm.

"I love you," she says, when he is finally done chewing on her and the wound in her neck has near-instantaneously disappeared. "I love you lots."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he says in a half purr, half groan. "And how you taste when you do that."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Good," she says cheerfully. "That's the idea."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:03 pm (UTC)

A few days later, there is a knock on their door.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 10:03 pm (UTC)

Nathan's been too preoccupied to be checking his timer for things like "correct times to get dressed", so he calls, "Just a second!"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:08 pm (UTC)

The Joker snaps her fingers, and they are both abruptly dressed—her in a proportions-adjusted version of the white dress that started all this, him in that blood-red shirt he looks so beautiful in and a pair of black pants she made him later.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, babe," says Nathan, and he gets the door.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:10 pm (UTC)

It's Bella. "Hello ag-" She stops mid-word, peering at the Joker.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" she says cheerfully. "I'm pregnant."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I can see that."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 10:14 pm (UTC)

"She turned herself into a woman, we didn't think through the consequences of that, a few hours later she wanted French toast and I guessed, at this point we are pretty sure, she hasn't decided yet about having it but leaning towards yes," Nathan summarizes.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:26 pm (UTC)

"What do ya think we should name the kid?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I went with a variant on a name that appears on both sides of Elspeth's family," Bella shrugs. "Edward's mother was called Elizabeth and Isabella's a variant on the same. I don't know what that would leave you with, if Nathan even remembers any family members' names."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I remember my wife's name," he says. "It was Calybrid. I don't remember much else about her, though, and no other names."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:31 pm (UTC)

"No part of my family is gonna touch this kid," says the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 10:34 pm (UTC)

Nathan nods. But says, "There are some nice Manx names, if not Calybrid in particular."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, "insofar as congratulations are appropriate, you have mine - I assume you're keeping it quiet till you're sure if you'll be giving birth or not? Will you want any help with the delivery?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Mm, will we need it?" she asks.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:37 pm (UTC)

"It's not impossible. Even with magic, you could find yourselves distracted."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Then sure."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:43 pm (UTC)

"The capital sites are all equipped for it, a lot of the people who come in for turning are pregnant, but we can just skip that with you. Give me a day's notice, please."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Sure, okay."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Have we new coins this week?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:50 pm (UTC)

"We do!" she says cheerfully, and transfers most of them. Unlike previous times, though, she keeps a few of each kind for herself.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:52 pm (UTC)

Bella observes that but doesn't remark on it. "Thanks," she says. "I'll see you in a couple weeks more."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 10:56 pm (UTC)

"See ya," she says agreeably.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Bye, Bella."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-01 10:58 pm (UTC)

Bella closes the door and teleports away.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Manx names, huh?" says the Joker. "Like what?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Ascon, Kerron, Payl. If it's a boy. Girls - Aedyt, Jony, Myghin. Lots of them really, but I like those."
Edited 2013-03-01 23:11 (UTC)

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Those're cute."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"You're cute."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Right back atcha, hon," she says, and kisses him.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 11:18 pm (UTC)

Well, that leads to predictable places. She's not that pregnant yet. Heck, the baby hasn't even started breaking her ribs.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 11:23 pm (UTC)

Mmmm, predictable places.

Yeah, if she keeps the baby, she is definitely going to miss the sex.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 11:41 pm (UTC)

About a week later, Nathan says, "This is the best time to ask if you've made up your mind."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," she says, and thinks, and nods.

"Yeah, I'm keeping the kid."
Edited 2013-03-01 23:44 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 11:48 pm (UTC)

"All right," he says, and kisses her. "What d'you want to name it? Do you want to hang out with the Golden Coven more so there's babysitters?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 11:56 pm (UTC)

She kisses him back.

"I dunno," she says, "babysitters like who? I guess the munchkin should have the opportunity to make friends, too..."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-01 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Gonna be close to Henry's age, and if Rosalie gets her way, close to Henry's next little sibling's age. It'll grow past any wolf pups it meets but there's those around too," Nathan says. "Coven's full of people who'd look after a little half-vampire for a while. They make easy babies, they don't cry much, diapers are not called for, etcetera."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-01 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Then sure," she says. "We can follow 'em around for a while."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:01 am (UTC)

"You got it, babe," says Nathan. "Names?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:02 am (UTC)

"No idea," she laughs. "Your favourites still the same as last time?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:03 am (UTC)

"Among Manx names, yeah, I could pick some from elsewhere in the world if desired."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:04 am (UTC)

"Nah, I think it's cute to give the munchkin a name from the same place as you," she says. "Unless they don't like it."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:07 am (UTC)

"All right. D'you remember my shortlist?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:10 am (UTC)

"Mmm... there was an Ascon on there?" she hazards.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:15 am (UTC)

"Yes, that was one of the boys' names. Ascon, Kerron, Payl. Aedyt, Jony, Myghin."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:17 am (UTC)

"They're all cute," she reaffirms.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:23 am (UTC)

"You want me to pick a pair? Or you wanna have a look at the kid when it's born and see if it looks more like a Kerron or a Payl, or whatever?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:25 am (UTC)

"Hmm... oh, if you leave it up to me, I'll end up waiting until the kid's old enough to have an opinion," she laughs. "So if you want something to call 'em besides 'Munchkin' before then, you better pick it yourself."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:29 am (UTC)

"Well, it might not actually take that long for an opinion to happen," Nathan says. "We could do that. But then I would expect a name like 'Superman' - or possibly 'Dracula'. I bet that's what you get when you let a week-old half-vampire name himself is a child insisting that his name is Dracula. Let's forestall that. I like Kerron and Aedyt."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:30 am (UTC)

She cracks up.

"And if our kid insists on calling themselves Dracula anyway, there's no way I'm not gonna run with it."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:33 am (UTC)

Nathan addresses her midsection. "Your name," he tells it, "is not Dracula, and I will not take responsibility for explaining why everyone you knew in your childhood calls you that when you are trying to go by Kerron or Aedyt again and asking a cute wolf to sit next to you at the Ultra Olympics."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:35 am (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

"I love you, honey."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:36 am (UTC)

"I love you," he tells her comfortably.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:45 am (UTC)

Snuggle time?

Definitely snuggle time.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:47 am (UTC)

After the Joker has been pregnant for twenty days, Nathan announces, "This is the best time to give Bella her day's notice and move back in with the capital. I believe they're in Jaipur yet."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:50 am (UTC)

"All righty," she says, and dresses and teleports them.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 12:53 am (UTC)

Nathan finds his room in this capital site, shows her to it, and brainphones Bella, who refers them to Rosalie, who makes them an appointment for delivery the subsequent day.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:59 am (UTC)

The Joker decides to celebrate with cuddles. Munchkin is breaking the occasional rib by now, but they only stay broken for fractions of a second at a time, so it's not a big inconvenience.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:00 am (UTC)

"You're having the easiest half-vampire pregnancy of all time," Nathan tells her. "I wonder why today was best anyway. You'd be fine for days yet as far as I can guess. Tired of being gravid?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 01:12 am (UTC)

"Mm, no," she says, "but I might be about to be tired of it."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:13 am (UTC)

"Fair enough." He pats the place under which Kerron-or-Aedyt rests.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 01:15 am (UTC)

She cuddles up and smiles softly.

"Think I'll take a nap," she murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:16 am (UTC)

"Sleep well, babe," he says, and he kisses her forehead.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 01:18 am (UTC)

She dozes her way through most of the remaining time until their appointment. Occasionally the baby kicks and she wakes up with a squeak or a giggle.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:20 am (UTC)

Nathan waits, and when it's time, he picks her up and carries her into the delivery room.

This surgery has historically been performed with a vampire tooth, but apparently Bella's been using her coins, as Rosalie is holding a scalpel instead. "So," she says, peering between the Joker and Nathan, "if she - he? - if your mate's not going to turn, how's this going to work? You going to magic the shell away or something?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 01:25 am (UTC)

"Probably," she agrees. "What'd you do with yours?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:28 am (UTC)

"Bella wished it away, but I wasn't being a human under it, I didn't have a medical emergency as soon as it was opened up," Rosalie says. "You'll need to be quick, or give someone else one of those coins - I can do it, or you can give it to Nathan, whichever."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 01:30 am (UTC)

"What kind of medical emergency?" she asks. "It'd have to be pretty brutal to get me; I heal fast these days."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:34 am (UTC)

"Opening the shell far enough usually involves breaking the spine, and there's also plenty of blood loss - though admittedly you have better color than the usual patient already - and the amniotic fluid is rather venom-like, so it burns, but can't turn-and-heal like ordinary venom can," says Rosalie.

"I think she'll be fine," Nathan says.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 01:38 am (UTC)

"Blood loss, broken spine, venom that doesn't turn me - been there, done that," she says cheerfully.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:40 am (UTC)

"All right," shrugs Rosalie, and she looks at Nathan and says, "Want to say when?"

"When," says Nathan, a few moments later, and Rosalie cuts.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 01:40 am (UTC)

The Joker grins and bites her lip. "Tickles."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:47 am (UTC)

Rosalie cracks open the shell and picks up a well-formed little baby half-vampire.

"It's a boy," breathes Nathan.

"Mind the teeth," advises Rosalie as she hands Kerron over to his unambiguous-daddy.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 01:53 am (UTC)

"Awww," says the Joker, a little breathlessly, as her spine uncracks and her abdomen pours out a gush of not-quite-venom and then seals itself. She wriggles, then holds out her arms. "I wanna kiss my munchkin," she declares.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 01:59 am (UTC)

Nathan kisses him first, then hands Kerron over to the Joker.

"Usually at this point you'd be hurried into the turning room, and now I'm not quite sure what to do with you," Rosalie says to the Joker. "Can you walk? Do you want to just go back to Nathan's room? I suppose he'll have to be moved into family suites."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:03 am (UTC)

"Hiya, snugglebug," she murmurs, kissing Kerron's forehead. Then she looks up at Nate. "Where do you wanna go, hon?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:08 am (UTC)

"Our room sounds good," he says. "Conjure up a crib for him while they pick out family quarters for us."

Rosalie, meanwhile, pulls some coins out of her pocket to clean up the operating table - these are not the Joker's transparent-with-color-flecks, but a bright and glowing gold.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:10 am (UTC)

"Goldie's been busy, I guess," she remarks, and gets to her feet, still cuddling Kerron.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:13 am (UTC)

"...Goldie?" Rosalie looks at the remaining coins in her hand. "Bella made these. She just makes the little ones steadily all the time from being thirsty," says Rosalie, "so she gives them out for things like this."

"Her Majesty's interdimensional nickname is Golden," Nathan explains, "and she's not the first one the Joker met."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:16 am (UTC)

"That would be Stella," the Joker agrees. "Who I'm pretty sure still hates me, it makes me sad sometimes."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:17 am (UTC)

"Aw, babe," says Nathan. "She let you come here, didn't she?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:20 am (UTC)

"Yeah," she says, stepping up to Nathan so she can lean against him, her arms being full of baby at the moment and therefore not available to hug him with. "But I don't think she was happy about it."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:21 am (UTC)

Nathan picks up her and, with her, Kerron, and heads out towards his quarters. "She looked more uneasy to me than upset," he offers.

Kerron yawns and falls asleep.

"...Well, we know when he sleeps, now, six p.m., could be worse."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:22 am (UTC)

"Guess it could," she agrees.

Thoughtfully.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:24 am (UTC)

Nathan looks at her with a completely faux innocence as they reach his door.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:25 am (UTC)

"So, I'm gonna conjure the munchkin a crib," she says brightly, "and put it somewhere way out of our way, and then I'm gonna soundproof our room."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:26 am (UTC)

"That sounds good to me!" says Nathan brightly.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:32 am (UTC)

They enter the room.

She conjures a crib and tucks the baby into it, then slides it all the way into the corner by the door.

She tips her head to one side and says, "And now I won't get pregnant again until I wanna."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:49 am (UTC)

"Soundproofing up, babe?" asks Nathan.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:51 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:52 am (UTC)

Pounce.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:54 am (UTC)

Ooooooooh, she's missed him getting rough with her.

He's paying attention to when it'd be a good time to quit having sex, right? Because his mate definitely isn't.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 02:56 am (UTC)

He's got a mental note up to start checking for that in about... seven hours. Half-vamps sleep like metaphorical babies for a minimum of eight.

He checks after seven hours, and says, "Forty-five minute warning, babe," at the next lull in activity.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 02:57 am (UTC)

"I can think of lots to do with forty-five minutes," the Joker says with a grin.

Her turn to pounce!

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 03:01 am (UTC)

They use their forty-five minutes productively! And then there is time to get into clothes and for the Joker to heal any injuries she'd been hanging onto and conjure up some bubbly for the baby.

Kerron wakes up right on schedule and says, "Eee."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 03:06 am (UTC)

"Hi, cutie," says the Joker, leaning over the crib to give the baby a good-morning kiss.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 03:08 am (UTC)

"Eeeeeee," says Kerron.

"Morning, kiddo," Nathan says, scooping up the baby, narrowly avoiding getting bitten, and popping the end of a glass bottle of bubbly into Kerron's mouth. Kerron approves and downs the entire bottle in about a minute with a blissful expression on his face.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 03:11 am (UTC)

"Awwwwwww," says the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 03:12 am (UTC)

"Half-vampires are about two steps up from pet rocks in maintenance. Feed once daily, do not psychologically scar," Nathan says, and he tosses Kerron and catches him a couple of times, to Kerron's immense amusement.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 03:14 am (UTC)

She cracks up.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:15 am (UTC)

"Whoooo's easy to take care of? Izzit you?" Nathan asks, catching Kerron and holding him eye-level, arm's length. "I think it's you!" He hands the baby over to the Joker.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 12:54 pm (UTC)

"Awwww little munchkin," she says, giggling and hugging the baby, and then hugging Nathan too for good measure.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Aaaaah," agrees Kerron, and he bites at the Joker's arm.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 03:54 pm (UTC)

She wishes herself impermeable before the teeth connect, and then lets him chew on her ineffectually.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 03:56 pm (UTC)

He appears to find her a highly satisfactory chew-toy.

"Half-vampires don't become -" Nathan does a swirled-finger gesture in the direction of his own head. "Anything in particular in response to the taste of human blood, any more than human children do if allowed to eat cake. If that's what has you concerned and not something else."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 04:01 pm (UTC)

"No, it'd just be weird to have my kid getting his teeth in me," she explains.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough."

"Um-num-um-num," Kerron says around the Joker's wrist, "raaaaa."

"God, that's cute," Nathan says.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 04:11 pm (UTC)

"It iiiis."

She cuddles the baby and leans against Nathan for hugs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:21 pm (UTC)

She can have hugs. She can have all the hugs she wants.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 04:22 pm (UTC)

Mmm.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 04:22 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Wuh," says Kerron in mild surprise, and then he settles back down comfortably.

"...Would've expected that to throw him a little more," muses Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 04:24 pm (UTC)

The Joker shrugs. "I'm still pretty much the same, right?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Maybe he'd be more weirded out if he nursed," shrugs Nathan. "I have no test cases to go on here."

"Amumumumum," Kerron says, still gnawing on his chewtoy.

"Why yes!" says Nathan. "That is your mum. Sort of." Pause. "What shall we have him calling us?"

manofmyword
2013-03-02 04:27 pm (UTC)

He shrugs again. "I dunno. Got any preferences?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Maggie and Gianna have their kid calling them Mum and Mamma respectively," says Nathan, "if that's any useful guide. But you probably are going to spend a decent fraction of the time being more mummy-like than papa-like and maybe it'd be simpler to carry on with that regardless." He shrugs. "I can be Daddy."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay," giggles the Joker, and he kisses the baby's forehead. "Your daddy is the cutest vampire in the world," he says brightly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Wrrrm," asserts Kerron, peering at the Joker like he's a kaleidoscope.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 04:38 pm (UTC)

He makes a silly face.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Eehee!" Kerron reaches out little arms to bat at the air in front of the Joker like it's full of butterflies.

"We could take him outside," Nathan proposes. "He won't sparkle, just sorta glow like he's an overedited ad for makeup, no particular security risk."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, let's!"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:45 pm (UTC)

Outside they go! Kerron is fascinated by everything, but most especially people; some of them he waves at the same way he was waving in the Joker's direction minutes ago. He babbles the entire way.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 04:47 pm (UTC)

"I think," says the Joker, "that we have ourselves the cutest munchkin."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I think so too!" Nathan agrees brightly. "Hear that, Kerron, you're the cutest, you win all cuteness contests forever."

"Awaaa," says Kerron.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 04:54 pm (UTC)

The Joker hoists Kerron up and kisses his forehead again.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:02 pm (UTC)

They are complimented six times on their baby by the time they finish their walk. (Nathan translates, on occasions when these compliments are not in English.)

manofmyword
2013-03-02 05:03 pm (UTC)

"See? Cutest munchkin," he says, hugging Kerron. "And a buncha people you're never gonna see again think so too."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Egaba lofta!"

manofmyword
2013-03-02 05:09 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:14 pm (UTC)

Encouraged, Kerron babbles some more, although he is distracted by people every time they go by and waves at most of them. He gets waves back and finds this utterly hysterical.

Inside the capital compound again, they run into Alice and Jasper, who are sitting together looking out the window with Alice's head leaning on Jasper's shoulder. "Hallo, Alice, Jasper," Nathan says. "Look what we made!"

Alice looks and says "Awww!"

Jasper looks between the parents and says, "...Made?"

manofmyword
2013-03-02 05:21 pm (UTC)

The Joker

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 05:21 pm (UTC)

nods.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:25 pm (UTC)

Jasper does not know what to make of this.

Nathan hands Kerron over to Alice, and she laughs and tosses him into the air. "I haven't been able to see either of you for weeks, now, not that I was trying often before," Alice tells Nathan and the Joker. "Soon I'll have so many blind spots it'll make more sense to talk about where I can look."

"Maybe when there are enough hybrids and wolves getting in your way your power will say oh, for heaven's sake and let you observe them too," Nathan suggests.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-02 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Wonder if you could magic the blind spots away," the Joker muses.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, Bella gave me some of those triangles and squares, and I did try, but it didn't work," Alice says.

Kerron is now waving his arms between Jasper and Alice repeatedly, like he's tracing a line between them, and cooing.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 05:30 pm (UTC)

He appears a spare hex and offers it to her.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh, this is pretty," says Alice, handing Kerron to Nathan and taking the hex. She closes her eyes, and apparently takes a while to settle on a wish, but ultimately is left empty-handed. "Apparently the wolf gap and the hybrid gap aren't the same thing, but I fixed the second one," she reports. "Hi there, little Kerron, I can see youuuu!" And she throws her head back and laughs.

Japser is now looking somewhat less guardedly at the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Want another one?" he asks cheerfully. "They're going begging today."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Alice, grinning, holding out her hand.

"Aren't you a sweetie," says Nathan, kissing his mate's cheek.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes!" he agrees, and drops a hex into Alice's hand, and hugs Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:54 pm (UTC)

Alice makes another wish and then gets up and pirouettes. "Goodbye headaches!" she crows.

"Thank you," says Jasper in his Southern accent.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 05:56 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Hey, my pleasure," he says, snuggling Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 05:58 pm (UTC)

Alice looks momentarily curious, and then she makes a face and sits back down. "No kidding," she snorts. "You're definitely Stella's boyfriend's alt. She came and consulted me about turning him, and my exact words were that he'd have a 'disturbing amount of fun'."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 05:59 pm (UTC)

The Joker laughs.

"Yeah, that's me," he agrees. "Disturbing amounts of fun."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm undisturbed," asserts Nathan.

"Your baby is going to remember everything you're saying when he grows up and put together the clues," Jasper points out.

"Elsie has it worse than that, and she's fine," Nathan says, waving a hand.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I think most people eventually figure out that their parents have had sex," the Joker snorts.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but I don't think all the detail he'd be able to figure out by the time he's five on the basis of this conversation is called for," says Jasper.

"Jazz, honey, Kerron's theirs, not ours," soothes Alice.

"Are you going to have one too?" asks Nathan brightly.

"We're still thinking about it," Alice says, "we weren't pining for a century like Rosalie was, but we might, as long as we can now."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Ours was an accident," the Joker says cheerfully. "I wasn't sure I wanted to keep him at first, but I love my munchkin and I don't regret it for a second."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:12 pm (UTC)

"And you're just going to say all that right in front of him when he has a perfect memory and he'll know the words inside of a month and the concepts in a year and all the implications in four or five," says Jasper, shaking his head.

"I believe Cody knows that he was an accident," Alice points out. "And he's fine."

"It'd be hard to miss in his case. Kerron could've missed the memo if they hadn't said it," Jasper says.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:14 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Why shouldn't I?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:17 pm (UTC)

"So you don't give him a complex about whether he was wanted or not," says Jasper.

"I can't see that far off when too many people's choices matter to the outcome, but even without that confirmation I hardly think it's inevitable," says Alice.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Did you have a nasty childhood or something?" the Joker inquires. "I did too. Different kind, though."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember enough of my childhood to know," Jasper says frankly. "It's just common sense."

"Not so common, apparently," says Nathan. "Anyway. We've got a kid. We're pleased to have a kid. The kid will be fine. Won't you, kiddo?"

Kerron is waving patterns in the air again, especially a line leading in only one direction from Nathan to the Joker. "Ububv."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Munchkin knows what's up," the Joker observes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Suit yourselves," shrugs Jasper.

Rosalie walks down the hall, and her little Henry is toddling with excellent balance after her. "Hi, all!" she says. "Hi again, Kerron, d'you remember me?"

She gets Kerron's attention, and a big smile.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Awww."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:30 pm (UTC)

"It's a baaaaby!" says Henry.

"That's right, that's baby Kerron," Rosalie says, her attention instantly trained fully on her son as soon as he speaks. "He's a little half-vampire like you! He was born yesterday."

"I was born last month," Henry says, nodding to himself.

"Yes, you were," Rosalie says with immense pride.

"I wanna hold the baby," says Henry.

"You'll have to ask his parents," Roaslie says.

"Can I hold the baby," Henry says to Nathan and the Joker dutifully.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he shrugs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:35 pm (UTC)

Henry trots up and holds out his arms and receives a baby, who is not all that much smaller than him and is still carried with ease. "Hi! I'm Henry!" he says to Kerron. Kerron laughs. Rosalie clasps her hands together and smiles.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Aren't they cute?" the Joker says happily.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:38 pm (UTC)

"So cute," Nathan agrees.

"So terribly cute," sighs Rosalie.

"Adorable," agrees Alice, and Jasper nods.

"We're cute," Henry tells Kerron, and Kerron laughs again.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:39 pm (UTC)

He hugs Nathan, because Nathan is there and huggable and this spectacle is giving him many huggy feelings.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:41 pm (UTC)

Nathan hugs back. Henry marches in circles, carrying Kerron, who finds the entire scenario utterly hilarious. Eventually he hands off Kerron to the nearest adult - "Here, Aunt Alice, you hold him!" - and runs back to his mother, who picks him up and sits him on her shoulders.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:42 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles helplessly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm leaning towards wanting one," Alice says in a not-particularly-private whisper to Jasper.

"Wuthta!" cries Kerron helpfully.

Jasper looks speculatively at the baby, and at Henry.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:47 pm (UTC)

"The more the merrier, right?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" Henry agrees.

"I think you'd be wonderful parents," Rosalie says to Alice and Jasper.

"Thanks, Rose," says Alice cheerfully.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 06:57 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins at Henry.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:00 pm (UTC)

Henry grins back, and starts playing with Rosalie's hair, which is in convenient reach. Rosalie rolls her eyes indulgently.

"Maaaaaa," says Kerron.

"I can't tell if he wants you or if he's just making sounds," Nathan says to his mate.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Me either," says the Joker. "You talkin' to me, munchkin?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Ayata kwar," says Kerron.

"I'm going to guess just sounds," says Nathan.

"You can have him anyway, just in case," Alice says, offering Kerron back to the most plausible referent of "ma".

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Hiya, munchkin," he says, kissing Kerron's forehead.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:07 pm (UTC)

Kerron burbles happily.

"Are you just going to keep calling him 'munchkin' until he tells us whether he likes his name or not?" Nathan asks, amused.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Maaaaaaaybe," says the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Mommy calls me 'precious' sometimes even though my name's Henry!" says Henry.

"That's because you are the most precious thing," coos Rosalie, plucking her son from her shoulders to kiss his forehead. "In all the world."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwww," says the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Esme's still dithering," Alice tells Rosalie.

"Is she still? That's a pity," sighs Rosalie. "It's not as though we'd feel like she loved us any less if we had a baby brother or sister who was naturally hers."

"Try telling her that," says Alice. "But I don't think it's that, I think it's about the one she lost, I think filling the void with us adoptees was one thing and having a new baby would be another."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:17 pm (UTC)

"That's sad," he murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes," agrees Rosalie.

"I think - this isn't something I'm seeing, just me knowing Esme - that she'll decide yes," Alice says. "For Carlisle's sake partly, at first, but of course she'll fall in love with it the first time she feels it moving."

"Of course she will," Rosalie says serenely.

"Everybody's reproducing all of a sudden," says Nathan.

"There's finally a way for us to do it," says Rosalie, "of course some of us want to."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:24 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:27 pm (UTC)

"D'you wanna babysit Kerron for an hour or two?" Nathan asks Alice casually, putting his arm around his mate. "Get in some practice, make sure you're decided?"

"Sure," says Alice agreeably.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:28 pm (UTC)

He beams.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:29 pm (UTC)

"See you all later," says Nathan pleasantly, and he steers the Joker towards their quarters.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:31 pm (UTC)

"It's so nice to have babysitters," he says brightly. "And soundproofing."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes," says Nathan.

When they get to their room, he pounces.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:36 pm (UTC)

It is a very, very good thing that they have soundproofing.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:37 pm (UTC)

Regeneration's also useful stuff.

Nathan checks the best time to fetch Kerron from Alice, and supplies a ten-minute warning when it is time (some three hours later).

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:39 pm (UTC)

For once, he doesn't think of Good Things to do with those ten minutes; he just heals all his cracked ribs and snuggles up.

"Love you, sweetie," he sighs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:40 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," sighs Nathan, "and I am so glad I found you."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:41 pm (UTC)

"So's damn near everybody," he observes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I have a very trustworthy timer," Nathan says contently.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:43 pm (UTC)

The Joker kisses him.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:51 pm (UTC)

Kisses. Kisses can occupy their ten minutes. And then they can get into clothes and go retrieve their son.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 07:52 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm lazy snuggly kisses.

And... clothes.

Kid time?

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 07:59 pm (UTC)

Kid time.

Alice has taken Kerron to her room, where she is just now finishing reading him a storybook. Kerron - or somebody - has bitten a corner off this book, but it's still readable less the page numbers. "The end," she says, as Nathan and the Joker appear. "Hi guys!"

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says the Joker. "You want me to fix the book?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 08:03 pm (UTC)

"I think it adds character," says Alice. "Henry bit it, anyway, it wasn't Kerron."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:04 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Okay."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 08:06 pm (UTC)

Alice hands over the baby, who is babbling up a storm and waving his hands around like he's trying to fingerpaint the air.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Somebody's excited," he says, giving the baby a hug.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Ewupda!" crows Kerron.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Love you too, munchkin," he laughs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 08:15 pm (UTC)

Alice giggles, and Nathan steers the Joker out of her room.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I feel like taking the munchkin out for another walk," the Joker decides. "Whatcha think?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Sure. We've got a few hours before he falls asleep again."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Great," he says cheerfully.

Off they go!

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 08:22 pm (UTC)

Nate leads them on a different route through Jaipur, and Kerron continues to babble and wave at everyone they pass close to, and everyone continues to find him adorable.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I love you, munchkin," the Joker murmurs when they get back, and he kisses the top of Kerron's head.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Wug," says Kerron.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Snugglebug," he says, kissing the baby again.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Uggawug."

"Maybe he's run through all the phonemes he's heard so far and now he's trying his hand at imitation," speculates Nathan.

But the next thing Kerron says is "Ludigamifrax!", which sounds nothing like anything that has been said recently.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 08:36 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 09:28 pm (UTC)

Time goes on. The capital moves to Russia, and this time teleportation is involved instead of the historical piling onto airplanes. Kerron gets bigger, noticeably, daily. Various babysitters babysit, and the Joker and Nathan acquire a reputation as insatiable new-mates, one of whom will happily solve any problems that present themselves with magic much more casually than the Empress will. Nathan's newly mated leave ends, and he is obliged to report to work as needed, though as promised Bella does restrict her questions to batches when Kerron and the Joker are both asleep whenever she can.

Kerron manages to go without meeting Addy until he is two weeks old, walking and uttering simple sentences.

The instant he sees her, he runs up to her and hugs her leg, beaming up at her.

"Oh, wow," exclaims Addy. "Aren't you a tasty little combo platter?"

"...Excuse me?" says Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 09:30 pm (UTC)

The Joker raises his eyebrows.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 09:31 pm (UTC)

"He's a twofer! He's an ingot and a witch!" cries Addy, picking up a giggling Kerron.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 09:54 pm (UTC)

He relaxes, smiling.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I wasn't gonna eat him, he's a half-vampire, he wouldn't even be tasty," scoffs Addy. "I'm tasting his magic. And he knew it! Got two, closely related powers. The ingot bit is sensing - goals, wants, intents, that sort of thing. Witch bit sees how he, personally, fits into them. Very tidy package. He knows what I like and he knows he can help so he came straight up to me! Aren't you a helpful little cutie!" She boops Kerron's nose.

"I'm helpful!" Kerron beams.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:01 pm (UTC)

"He is a helpful little cutie," the Joker agrees, grinning. "Well. Ain't that special."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Completely unprecedented," pronounces Addy.

"What's my magic taste like?" Kerron asks winningly.

"Pineapple and coconut," she tells him. "The pineapple is the ingot part."

"Mummy can I try those tastes?" Kerron asks, looking away from Addy and at the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says, and snaps his fingers, and there is a glass of thick, pale yellow juice in his other hand. "Or did you mean separately?" And he steps up and does the pulling-a-quarter-out-of-your-ear trick, except that instead of any kind of coin, he extracts from thin air a divided plastic bowl with slices of pineapple in one half and chunks of coconut in the other.
Edited 2013-03-02 22:12 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:19 pm (UTC)

Kerron giggles madly, and holds his hands out for both dishes.

"God but do I ever love you," Nathan tells his mate.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:20 pm (UTC)

The Joker hands over the solids first, flashing a smile over his shoulder at Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:22 pm (UTC)

Kerron tries some of the pineapple, and then some of the coconut, and then goes on alternating until it's all gone, and then he grabs the glass and drinks it down.

"I'm tasty," he announces. "Not as good as bubbly though."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:31 pm (UTC)

The Joker disappears the containers and leans over Kerron to kiss his forehead.

"Y'know," he says musingly, "I wonder if that stuff tastes so great in comparison because it's that much better, or 'cause being a half-vampire makes other stuff that much worse. Does anybody know?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

Addy says, "It's hard to compare directly across memories, but I think it's a combination of the two, mostly the second."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Think I should fix it?" he asks, glancing between Nathan and Addy and Kerron.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Fix it so food tastes as nice as blood or bubbly or whatever to Kerron?" Nathan asks.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Mmhmm. Whaddya say, munchkin?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:44 pm (UTC)

Munchkin says "Yay!"
Edited 2013-03-02 22:44 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:46 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he snaps his fingers.

And pulls a large, ripe strawberry out of thin air next to munchkin's ear, and offers it to him.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:48 pm (UTC)

Kerron bites the strawberry right where it is, not even taking it.

Then he beams and seizes it and eats the rest, leaves and all.

"Nicely done," laughs Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:50 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I wanna have weekly check-ins with Combo Platter here," says Addy. "See how he's developing, make suggestions. This is a critical period, with him so little."

Nathan looks at the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 10:53 pm (UTC)

The Joker shrugs. "Your call, munchkin."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 10:58 pm (UTC)

Addy explains directly to Kerron. "I wanna have weekly taste-tests and see if I can get you clearer pictures of the flying color-shapes," she tells him.

"Okay," says Kerron affably.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Fine by me, then." He smiles at Addy.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Splendid. Kerron, can you watch those color-shapes real close all week and then later you can tell me what you find?" she asks with a winning smile.

"Okay," says Kerron.

"Lovely." She hands him over to the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:08 pm (UTC)

He hugs his munchkin.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:11 pm (UTC)

A week later, Kerron is handed off to Addy for "magic lessons" and Nathan announces that they'll pick him up in an hour, that being the best time to do so. They go back to their room. To... test the soundproofing.

But this is not their room, this is Milliways.

"Huh," Nathan says. "...We could spend days in there and Kerron wouldn't even miss us."

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Let's do it," he says brightly. "I'll show you my old room. Did I tell you I had a room? It's cozy. I got shot there once, it was fun."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:18 pm (UTC)

Nathan never quite likes hearing about other people having injured his mate - for roughly the same reason he's not thrilled when reminded that other people have had sex with his mate - but the fundamental idea is sound. In they go!

Right behind them, there is a person in a terrifying, expensive bat costume of negligible festiveness, stumbling in and clutching a gut wound!

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:20 pm (UTC)

The Joker makes a sympathetic noise and spends a pentagon.

No more gut wound.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:21 pm (UTC)

The Bat is extremely surprised.

And, less distracted by pain.

"You. You're supposed to be on an asteroid."

Nathan is not so much looking daggers at her as he is looking glowing razor-sharp magical poisoned swords at her.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:23 pm (UTC)

"I left," he says succinctly, and teleports himself and Nathan up to his room.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:24 pm (UTC)

Nathan hugs his mate very, very tight.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Love you, baby," he says, hugging back. Speech and hugs are both difficult under the amount of pressure Nathan is putting on him, but the Joker has practice. "Don't eat her, okay? I'd be sad."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I hate her, I hate her, I hate her," growls Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Oh, honey," he says, hugging Nathan tighter. "I love you. I'm sorry you hate her."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:34 pm (UTC)

"I love you," sighs Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Love you too."

Snuggle?

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:39 pm (UTC)

Nathan relaxes the squishing marginally.

Snuggle.

manofmyword
2013-03-02 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Mmmm," says the Joker, and he pulls Nathan into bed.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-02 11:43 pm (UTC)

Nathan is on board with this trajectory. Yes.

self_composed
2013-03-02 11:47 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, downstairs, who should walk in but a certain Stellar Bell?

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:52 pm (UTC)

The Bat is still near the door, scowling under her mask, with blood soaking her damaged armour but no wound to show for it.

When she sees Stella walk in, she intercepts.

"We need to talk."

self_composed
2013-03-02 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I believe I owe you three wishes, if that's what you have in mind," Stella says, tilting her head.

pythbox
2013-03-02 11:58 pm (UTC)

The Bat growls under her breath.

"About the Joker," she clarifies.

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:01 am (UTC)

"Work-release program. One of my alts' staff did this inconvenient irrevocable-love-at-first-sight thing with him so I let her take him home so her employee wouldn't be eternally despondent. My very best guess is that he won't be terrorizing Gotham from there. Why, is he here?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:03 am (UTC)

"He was," she says, still much growlier than usual. "Did your 'work-release' involve giving him three wishes?"

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:06 am (UTC)

"Uh, I believe Golden did turn him into a mint, that being the work in question. My staff precog assures me that he's much less dangerous that way. Apparently it takes all the fun out of wreaking havoc."

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:06 am (UTC)

"I don't believe that," she says flatly.

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:22 am (UTC)

"Well, I'll give you your three wishes, howabout, and if you run into him in your own world again - I don't expect it, he looked pretty happy to go with Golden - then you'll be more equipped to handle it? I can't unmint him, that's not something wishes can do. But I can tell you my emergency mint containment protocol."

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:23 am (UTC)

"...Fine," she says reluctantly.

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:26 am (UTC)

Stella squares off three restricted hexes from her bandolier and hands them over. "These will do anything normal hexagons can do except I don't want people in worlds with no Bells making new mints willy-nilly so they don't do that," she says. "That's stuff on the scale of granting someone a new permanent magical superpower. The mint-containment protocol is: you can only make a wish if the coin is in contact with your skin. They appear that way, but if you wish a coin-repelling envelope around somebody, they can't make wishes. He can make all the coins he wants but won't be able to do a thing with them. Sound like a plan? And please only do this if he makes trouble for you at home. Golden's got him handled in her world, and he could come here even when he was on his asteroid."

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:28 am (UTC)

The Bat eyes Stella with deep suspicion, but finally nods.

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:31 am (UTC)

"Look, I don't like him any more than you do - actually, no, I probably do like him more than you, but I don't like him - but I trust my precog and I trust my alt," Stella says. "And his template is really useful as a mint. Golden's probably going to be able to save more lives with him in her employ than he ever took, not that that erases the initial crimes."

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:34 am (UTC)

She scowls, but nods again. Grudgingly.

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:42 am (UTC)

"How've you been doing?" Stella asks conversationally. "You seem to be covered in blood yet mysteriously uninjured."

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:44 am (UTC)

"I... was stabbed in the gut," she admits, and with reluctance adds: "The Joker fixed it."

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:47 am (UTC)

"He does have a crush on you, however idiotically he went about demonstrating this before," Stella says.

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:48 am (UTC)

The mask does surprisingly little to hide how deeply uncomfortable she looks.

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:49 am (UTC)

"Sorry."

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:49 am (UTC)

She frowns.

self_composed
2013-03-03 12:52 am (UTC)

Stella shrugs. "I'm gonna go have a look in the Belltower." And she teleports up.

ours is a service-oriented economy

cross_and_bow

A day passes. Jarvis is closer to booting up. Juliet is closer to control of her fire wand. Shell Bell is closer to actually needing that lightening feature on her coin bandolier.

Juliet asks, when she gets home after studying demons: [What, pray tell, are your findings, Sherlock?]

She has not put any blood in the microwave yet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 03:42 am (UTC)

[My findings are that you are in no danger of addiction,] he says. Smugly. [And the vampires of the bite shop are not in the habit of murder.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 03:46 am (UTC)

[That is nice of them,] she says. [If you get a me-type nibble after the couple hours it takes me to get too tired to practice wanding safely, does that warrant skipping breakfast, shrinking it, what?]

She'd have expected, naively, to make some noise at this point about moving slow, but apparently she doesn't code even spontaneous-orgasm-inducing biteyness as A Sex Thing To Give Very Prolonged Thought To, she just thinks it sounds nice and wishes to incorporate it into what she's up to with her life.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 03:54 am (UTC)

[I think for tonight, I will have a full breakfast just to make sure I am not feeling peckish while we experiment.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 03:58 am (UTC)

[Good idea.] She puts a jar in the microwave. [Not wise to grocery shop on an empty stomach. You do know how much it's safe to take? I've probably got better-than-average safety margin even without squares, because Slayer healing, but.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 03:59 am (UTC)

[I do know.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:01 am (UTC)

[Good good.]

She indulges a pleasant little squirm.

Shell Bell winks at her.

[Aaaand I just failed at the no-winking-from-Shell-Bell half of the exercise but at least I got it over with, I suppose.]

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:02 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:04 am (UTC)

The microwave beeps. They teleport. Juliet hands over the blood.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 04:05 am (UTC)

"You knoooow," says Shell Bell, "it'd probably be safe for me to just leave you two by yourselves on the beach, and you can brainphone me to pick you up when you're done. Juliet's got a few squares tucked into her socks."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:05 am (UTC)

"I think that is a fine plan," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:07 am (UTC)

"All right then," says Juliet.

This plan is enacted. Juliet studiously practices with her fire wand.

Only somewhat for the purpose of learning to maintain concentration in spite of distractions, she says: "So about how long does it last, in safe amounts?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:08 am (UTC)

"How long would you like it to?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:12 am (UTC)

"I don't know what my choices are. Ballpark. Seconds, minutes, half an hour?" She thins her thread of fire where it hovers over the sea until it's just a line, and then she overdoes it and it splits; half of it fizzles and she renews it a quarter-inch thicker, then starts it to rippling.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:13 am (UTC)

"More than seconds. Probably less than half an hour."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:15 am (UTC)

"How likely am I to need to form a preference about duration beforehand due to loss of the ability to speak?" she wonders. Her fireline flickers but she recovers concentration enough that it doesn't go out completely before she reassumes control.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:18 am (UTC)

"Not sure," he says merrily. "We could do a short trial run and see what you think afterward."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:18 am (UTC)

"I like this plan," she says.

She adds temperature variation to the rippling of the line of fire.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 02:12 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:14 pm (UTC)

"You said that it lasts till contact is broken - does that mean bitey contact or snacky contact or just any contact at all up to and including innocuous hand-holding?" She coils the line into a ring, joins up the ends and then splits it. It flickers again and she forces it back into existence.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:16 pm (UTC)

"That part I'm less sure of."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Science," says Juliet sagely.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Ah, science."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:22 pm (UTC)

Juliet starts playing with dipping the fireline under the water. She loses it several times before she can force her brain to believe that it'll go. It is magic fire, and it will in fact dip below the ocean and go right on burning there if she asks it. Bits of the sea begin to simmer quietly.

This variation on the exercise is sufficiently absorbing that it occupies the rest of her practice time before she declares herself tired. It is perhaps a credit to her discipline that she didn't hurry or make this declaration earlier than she has in the past.

She sits down in the sand and tucks her wand into her hair; she's not quite as practiced as Shell Bell at that, either, but she can do it. "Between Slayer healing and - which tattoo is it that does healing, I think it was the sun one - I probably won't have a bite mark tomorrow morning, but before we know that for sure is there some non-traditional location that's easier to hide? I don't want to have to stutter at Mr. Giles explaining myself, and I think his concern would probably trump his librarian sensibilities if I showed up with a half-healed barbecue fork wound."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:23 pm (UTC)

"I can bite you anywhere you like," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:32 pm (UTC)

Juliet begins considering locations. (She blushes just a little bit.)

Her shirt today has a bit of a loose neckline. She pulls it down over one shoulder, and the bra strap with it. "Slightly left of traditional?" she asks, drawing a circle above the far edge of her collarbone with the opposite finger and looking up tentatively.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Sherlock. "Shall I?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Mmhm." She crosses her legs and plants her hands on either side of her in the sand and can't seem to decide whether to close her eyes or not.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:41 pm (UTC)

He kisses her shoulder, and then bites. Not very hard. Enough to get through the skin, but only just.

It is, as promised, pleasant.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:44 pm (UTC)

Her hands clench in the sand and whether she'd decided on closing her eyes or not, they squeeze shut while her mouth falls open.

"Oh - oh fuck," she gasps.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:46 pm (UTC)

Yes. That is the desired response.

Sherlock hugs her and sips at the wound in her shoulder, keeping the connection going, maintaining the pleasantness.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Fuck, Sherlock." She's shuddering, head to toe, and one of her hands finds its way out of sand to grab at his back, shortly followed by the other. "Ohgod."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 04:54 pm (UTC)

[You really are delicious,] he informs her. [Literally and metaphorically.]

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Nnnnnnng." Shuddering has turned to outright squirming, like she's trying to scratch an itch but can't reclaim her hands.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 05:05 pm (UTC)

He doesn't know exactly how it feels to be on the human side of this equation. But he knows what the variables are.

He fits his mouth more firmly over the marks made by his teeth, and sucks.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 05:12 pm (UTC)

The shuddering is back. In force. She squeezes him hard enough to hurt, and makes a half-strangled keening noise with fragments of his name interspersed with other less meaningful noises.

Her shaking peaks and then stops and she relaxes her hold on Sherlock and the noises fall to a low mmmmmm.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 05:19 pm (UTC)

Sherlock snuggles her—gently, gently—and kisses the bite mark several times. The pleasantness fades out gradually.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Fuck," comments Juliet breathlessly, snuggling up and tucking her head between his neck and shoulder. "'m I getting blood on my shirt...?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Just a little," he says affectionately, hugging her and licking his lips and kissing the top of her head.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 05:24 pm (UTC)

Hugs snuggles hugs snuggles Juliet is in a very happy place right now.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 05:25 pm (UTC)

Sherlock likewise.

Mmmmm.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 05:28 pm (UTC)

A good long afterglowy snuggle ensues. Finally Juliet yawns and adjusts her shirt and says "Time to call Shell Bell?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Why not," he agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 05:36 pm (UTC)

"You're awesome," she says, sounding almost tipsy as she indulges one final nuzzle before sitting up straight, and she calls Shell Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 05:37 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell appears on cue, looking very amused, although apparently the need to wink has already been processed out of her system. "Triangle can take care of the stain," she says lightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh, shut up," giggles Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 05:39 pm (UTC)

Sherlock just grins.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 05:40 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell snickers and teleports them all back to the brick place.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 07:19 pm (UTC)

Where Sherlock, out of cheerful exuberance, scoops Juliet up and twirls her around and kisses her.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Eeeheehee!" Juliet giggles. "Well, you're in a good mood. Either I'm contagious or full of ambrosia."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Both," says Sherlock. "Both is also a possibility."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 07:25 pm (UTC)

Kisses, kisses. "I'm only a little tired, don't take me home yet, Shell Bell," yawns Juliet. "Little tired, little dizzy..."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 07:26 pm (UTC)

Kisses. Cuddly kisses.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 07:27 pm (UTC)

So many of those.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 07:30 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell giggles and goes to see what Tony's up to rather than be some kind of supervisory third wheel.

toblameforit
2013-02-25 07:32 pm (UTC)

Tony is upstairs, installing cameras.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 07:33 pm (UTC)

"How goes?" Shell Bell asks. "Also, Sherlock and Juliet are even more adorable when he's been recently bitey."

toblameforit
2013-02-25 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Pretty good!" he says cheerfully. "Yeah, I don't doubt it. Why, are they getting kinky down there?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Just snuggling and making sappy faces at each other and kissing, now, and if they were up to anything else I'd expect not to know what it was and to be asked not to come back into the room. At this point Juliet looks pretty much at him like I look at mine, but don't hand her a mirror or anything, I couldn't stop blushing for an hour after I read the visual of me the first time. The biteyness happened on the beach without me there, and as far as I know that's all that happened."

toblameforit
2013-02-25 07:47 pm (UTC)

"That is cute," he says. "I'm glad it's going so good with them."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Me too. I was starting to feel kind of outnumbered, all those Bells with Whistles instead. I will pick Juliet for my team if there is ever a massive Bell pickup oysterball game in the backyard at Milliways."

toblameforit
2013-02-25 07:52 pm (UTC)

...Tony giggles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I miss mine," she sighs. "And my Tony, too, him I haven't seen in longer, me and Sherlock went by ourselves to Angela's and stayed a couple of weeks, Tony was asleep when we tried to ask if he wanted to come..."

toblameforit
2013-02-25 07:59 pm (UTC)

Tony hugs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 08:01 pm (UTC)

She snuggles up just about as comfortably as she does with her own Tony.

toblameforit
2013-02-25 08:04 pm (UTC)

And he cuddles her just about her comfortably as her own Tony would.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 08:06 pm (UTC)

"It is a consistent feature of Tonies that you are snuggly," she announces happily.

toblameforit
2013-02-25 08:09 pm (UTC)

"We are!" he agrees, beaming.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Am I distracting you excessively from installing cameras?" Shell Bell asks. And she's been forgetting to make squares for the last couple of minutes, too; she maneuvers so her hands are together and she can bend her thumb in a way it does not like.

toblameforit
2013-02-25 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I can take some time off to snuggle you," he asserts.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Okay." She makes no further objection, just snuggles and makes squares.

toblameforit
2013-02-25 08:21 pm (UTC)

Mmmmsnuggles.

Absently, he kisses her shoulder.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 08:22 pm (UTC)

She can almost forget that this one isn't hers. She kisses his neck back, just a little peck.

toblameforit
2013-02-25 08:26 pm (UTC)

He smiles and hugs her some more.

and the property values just keep going up

cross_and_bow

Time passes. Juliet practices, Shell Bell makes squares - increasingly irritable about it, she really doesn't like the perpetual discomfort, but she bites down on that as best she can and churns them out - and Tony installs things.

Finally he has installed enough things.

poeticterms
2013-02-25 09:14 pm (UTC)

And Jarvis boots up.

His first words in his new home are a thoughtful, "This is new."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Juliet, smiling. "Renovated, anyway. Welcome to Sunshine."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 09:15 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell waves happily at the nearest camera.

poeticterms
2013-02-25 09:15 pm (UTC)

Jarvis laughs.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 09:16 pm (UTC)

Sherlock looks sharply at Tony.

toblameforit
2013-02-25 09:16 pm (UTC)

He shrugs and grins.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 09:16 pm (UTC)

Slowly, Sherlock grins back.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 09:18 pm (UTC)

"What?" Juliet asks, glancing between the two of them.

poeticterms
2013-02-25 09:21 pm (UTC)

"This is the first time I've had a voice synthesizer capable of producing laughter," says Jarvis. "Tony installed me here with a few upgrades."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh, nice," says Juliet. "Congratulations. So how do you like the house?"

poeticterms
2013-02-25 09:36 pm (UTC)

"It's a little smaller than I'm used to," he says, "but very charming all the same."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Can you open doors to Milliways from here, too?" Shell Bell asks.

poeticterms
2013-02-25 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes, of course. Would you like one?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I - not this second, I have to give Juliet all the squares - Juliet, where do you want to keep them?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Here's probably safest for most of them, and a little string of them to keep on my person all the time," says Juliet, "so I can quit stuffing them into my socks, which is uncomfortable."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 09:45 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell makes a box big enough for most of the squares - it's hundreds of them, maybe thousands by now, and they make a jingling noise when they settle into the box. And she makes a chain, with a clasp that will let more be strung on and long enough to have it loop around Juliet's waist and contains a couple dozen squares, few enough that they can lie flat.

"I'll miss you," she says.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 09:46 pm (UTC)

"We don't have to say goodbye right now. We can come to Milliways with you, write in the Bellbook, see if there's a better-equipped mint around to render all your irritating square-making unnecessary," says Juliet lightly. "But even if there is - and especially if there's not - I really, really appreciate it."

toblameforit
2013-02-25 09:47 pm (UTC)

Tony gives Bell a hug.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 09:53 pm (UTC)

Bell hugs him back. "So, you've got all my squares," she says over his shoulder to Juliet, "if we meet yet another unminted Bell I'll have to go stay with her for a few weeks and give her squares too," she adds ruefully, "and if we're lucky we find a minted one. You should probably go to Milliways a lot now that you can whenever you want, improve your chances."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Now that all the squares are boxed up, we should probably just go now, no point waiting," says Juliet. "Even if Tony wants to stay a little longer than Shell Bell does, doors-at-will make things much more convenient in that department."

poeticterms
2013-02-25 09:55 pm (UTC)

Jarvis opens a door.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 09:56 pm (UTC)

Bells go through it.

toblameforit
2013-02-25 09:58 pm (UTC)

Tony hesitates, hugs Sherlock, then follows them.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 09:59 pm (UTC)

Sherlock comes last.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh, look -"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't see an us..."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Not an us. A Sherlock. Or maybe a Tony but I think a Sherlock, there, see? Sherlock!" calls Shell Bell brightly in that direction.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:05 pm (UTC)

The named party glances back at her in mild confusion.

"Yes?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Hi! I'm Shell Bell and this is Bella but we call her Juliet 'cause there are lots of Bellas and this is another Sherlock and this is a Tony - they're not a matched set, Tony and me were visiting Juliet and this Sherlock. And my girlfriend back home is another Sherlock too. And her matching Tony is not this Tony, but another one who is also in my world, and you guys need your own Tower to coordinate about nicknames in, really."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 10:07 pm (UTC)

"All of that," agrees Juliet, amused.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:09 pm (UTC)

He looks from person to person, following this introduction, until he comes to the other Sherlock.

Him he does not look away from.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 10:09 pm (UTC)

"You have a soul," Sherlock observes. "How'd you manage that trick?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:10 pm (UTC)

"With difficulty," he says dryly. "What's it matter to you?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, stop it," he says, irritated. "I'm doing well enough without one."

toblameforit
2013-02-25 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, don't be a dick," says Tony.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:14 pm (UTC)

"All right, all right," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Oh, are you a vampire one too?" Shell Bell asks. "I can't tell at all, how can anyone else? Let alone tell about the soul?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 10:16 pm (UTC)

"By rights I should have been able to tell he was a vampire from across the room. I'm hexing that up first thing when I get minted," Juliet mutters. "But I second the question about the soul. Amariah had her explanation, what's yours?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 10:18 pm (UTC)

"He smells like a vampire, and he doesn't breathe except when he needs to speak," says Sherlock. "And he has that familiar look of contained self-loathing."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I remember what it was like when my soul was missing, and your Sherlock looks like he feels like that," says the other one.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 10:22 pm (UTC)

"What happened in which world to make you want your soul back and mine to not?" Juliet wonders.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 10:23 pm (UTC)

At "contained self-loathing", Shell Bell flies in soulful-Sherlock's direction and holds her arms out in an offer of a hug. "I know you don't know me, but I know one of you, and I love her very much," she says.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:26 pm (UTC)

Sherlock blinks.

Then, hesitantly, he hugs Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 10:28 pm (UTC)

She hugs him as comfortingly as she knows how.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 10:29 pm (UTC)

Juliet waits until this has gone on for a bit before saying, "So no one knows the answer to my question?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," he says, letting go of Bell. "No, the resumption of my soul was prearranged."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 10:31 pm (UTC)

"That sounds complicated."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:32 pm (UTC)

"It was."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Do you still have your Tony? And your Jarvis, if you had one to begin with?" asks Shell Bell anxiously.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "Safe and sound."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 10:35 pm (UTC)

"I don't," says Sherlock, not that the other one doesn't know that. "But this stray Tony has kindly installed a Jarvis in a spare house that Juliet's Watcher bought us."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:36 pm (UTC)

"You're a Slayer?" he says to Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Juliet, tossing her hair. "But my template, when we appear in magical worlds, has this tendency to resist all forms of mental intrusion, up to and including the prophetic dreams and the vampire-sensing in my case. So I'm like four-fifths of a Slayer."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:41 pm (UTC)

"That sounds inconvenient," he says lightly.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Not as much as you'd think. Help train her," Sherlock suggests.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Gladly."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, cool, double the Sherlocks double the sparring partners. Backyard?" Juliet asks, grinning. "Shell Bell, you wanna write our notes for me? You've got your eidetic memory and a speed boost that applies more to handwriting anyway."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-25 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Can do," says Shell Bell. She ruffles souled-Sherlock's hair and then teleports up to the Belltower.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Shall we, then?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Let's."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I need a notebook and pen, I didn't bring one, and it'd be a waste of a square," says Juliet, "one sec." She stops at the bar, procures both, and then goes with the Sherlocks to the outdoors area, sets her writing materials down, and stands ready.
Edited 2013-02-25 23:02 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 11:03 pm (UTC)

Sherlock delivers a very short explanation of the repeated-sequence training technique, and then waits a beat.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 11:03 pm (UTC)

They attack in perfect tandem.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:12 pm (UTC)

Okay, this is harder, this is much harder. Even if Soulful doesn't know about the bayleaf and other blessings, he's still a Sherlock, and a vampire, and there's two of them.

Juliet loses a lot, and makes a lot of edits just to get fifteen seconds into the sequence without getting knocked irrecoverably on her ass, and collects a lot of scratches and bumps. She mimes having a stake, since of course she isn't going to actually stake either Sherlock and in a real fight she'd want to cut opponent numbers as fast as possible.

There turns out to be one key adjustment she has to make to teach her autopilot to fight two skilled opponents. She finds it only after laboriously correcting her way through the full first sequence with small-scale changes (dodge here, quicker on the counterattack there, this shift of weight is a tell and that one is a feint) and beginning a new one, but then it's the first thing she finds, and then she does better.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Amazing," murmurs Soulful.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Isn't she?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Slayer instincts are so amenable to what us Bells do best after - before? - besides ruling worlds," says Juliet merrily, after meditating over her newest little change (namely: if she has any significant amount of one Sherlock under her power she can swat the other one with same) and shutting her notebook to hop up for another round.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 11:17 pm (UTC)

The first time she exhibits this heuristic, Sherlock giggles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Hey, in a long fight, no point beating up on my hands and feet and elbows more than I have to," she giggles back between ducking punches and delivering a kick to whichever Sherlock is handiest.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Wise words," says Sherlock, hitting back.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:29 pm (UTC)

Duck and roll and sweep and mime-stake and she can concentrate on the other one. "Thanks very much for your help, by the way," she tells him.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 11:34 pm (UTC)

"A pleasure," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:36 pm (UTC)

Juliet attempts to finish him off with a mime of throwing the stake. "My best guess is that would've hit, am I wrong?" she asks.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Not sure."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-25 11:40 pm (UTC)

"It could have hit," says Sherlock. "But if he were me, he could have dodged."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:44 pm (UTC)

"You just know my tells better?" Juliet queries.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 11:50 pm (UTC)

"And it's harder to dodge an imaginary weapon."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, I could get something non-wooden, I suppose, throw my pen at you," she giggles. "Nah, the balance is wrong - okay, I guess stake-throwing is a live-fire exercise. Let me patch a couple rough spots and we'll do this one again and I'll handle that part some other way."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

He nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-25 11:55 pm (UTC)

She gets through that sequence, and the next one, improving almost as fast as she did the first time she started sparring with Sherlock and modifying her instincts in this way - with him alone her progress slowed down as low-hanging fruit was picked, but now apparently there is much more. "Now we just need to find a third vampire or otherwise durable Sherlock to join the party," she says, after meditating over another edit. "I'd get amazing. Maybe Shell Bell should stick her head out the door humming to herself for several hours to see if hers will wake."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 12:53 am (UTC)

"If she has not already gone home," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 12:58 am (UTC)

"I think Shell Bell would drop by to hug us goodbye before going home. It hasn't been that long, she could be a while writing up notes or she could've run into somebody. But it would be about as unfair to make her stand there for hours as it would be to insist on breaking her arm."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 01:03 am (UTC)

"...Would breaking her arm have some beneficial effect of which I am unaware?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 01:06 am (UTC)

"Oh. Shell Bell and a few others of us, but not me, have a form of magic native to Stella's universe, and it involves converting pain into wishes, which is really convenient if you have a masochistic significant other, which is also a fairly common Bell commodity. Different amounts of pain produce different size wishes. Shell Bell can make squares - she made me a whole lot of squares while she was visiting - but she'd be very unhappy about having to make a pentagon by, for example, breaking her arm. And she certainly can't make a hexagon, which is what it would take to turn me or my Sherlock into mints. A pentagon would be enough to wake up Shell Bell's Sherlock and get her to teleport in for some happier coinmaking, but I'm not going to torture my alt for magic."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 01:08 am (UTC)

"I see."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-26 01:22 am (UTC)

As if summoned, Shell Bell appears. "All written up," she tells Juliet. "Are you folks having fun?"

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 01:22 am (UTC)

"Oh, yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-26 01:25 am (UTC)

"Well, there was no one in the Belltower, so I think I'm going to go home," says Shell Bell, "but first a proper goodbye, hm? I've already been to bid Tony goodbye." She holds out her arms to Juliet, and gets a hug, and then she turns to the soulless Sherlock; presuming this also yields an embrace, she offers one to his souled counterpart.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 01:26 am (UTC)

Hugs all round.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-26 01:30 am (UTC)

"Bye all! I'll see you later if I do and remember you always if I don't!" says Shell Bell, and she teleports to the door and lets herself out and goes straight to where her sleeping Sherlock and her sleeping Tony are being their sleeping selves and joins the pile.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 01:31 am (UTC)

"Another round?" says Sherlock to Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 01:34 am (UTC)

"Of course," she says, and she's improved enough that she takes offense this time as self-handicap and education-rounding.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-26 02:54 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, Shell Bell determines by brainphone that there is nothing urgent going on in Atlantis, and settles in for a one-hour nap once she has found a comfortable spot curled up behind Sherlock and with her arm over both twins.

sicaria
2013-02-26 03:14 am (UTC)

Sherlock snuggles back against her in her sleep.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-26 04:25 am (UTC)

Milliways's time-fuckery means that there is no point to waking them and asking Tony to summon the door. Even if he got it on the first try, Juliet would be gone; they have just as good a chance of catching her on any future visit they may make. So have all the other minted Bells, which according to the guestbook is everyone except Juliet now, and at least one other Bell whose Whistle has visited but who hasn't been by herself. Even Golden now; she's taken the Joker home with her for the purpose.

She lets them both sleep as long as they like, and kisses her girlfriend's cheek when her hour's nap is up before she gets up to go about being the Empress of Atlantis.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 04:28 am (UTC)

For certain values of "meanwhile", meanwhile, Juliet spars with Sherlocks. It is tremendously educational. "Hey, with-soul - is there something else I could call you to distinguish you from my Sherlock? He's 'Romeo' until something better comes to mind, to match my 'Juliet' - how constrained is your time here? Or for that matter not-here? You're useful."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 03:14 pm (UTC)

"My time is not particularly constrained," he says, "except by my desire not to be outside when the sun comes up."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Plus and Minus," Sherlock suggests whimsically.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 03:15 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 05:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't know exactly what the sun's schedule at Milliways looks like," confesses Juliet. "But the house that Jarvis is at home is sunproof in the basement - if it's not terribly rude of me to invite a guest to a place that I don't live myself - and, since Jarvis is there now, you could leave at your leisure. Plus," she adds, giggling. "Minus, what do you think?"

(She's going to keep these nicknames straight more by leaning on the mine in "Minus" than by dwelling on who does and does not have a soul.)

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," says Plus.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Jarvis would love the company," says Minus.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Spiffy," she says. "For the time being there's no sun here, though, and if I hang around long enough I might run into one of the mints. Hit me." She drops into a ready pose again.

Sparring goes on until Milliways begins gently signaling its intention to have a sun and they go back indoors. "Now I'm imagining introducing you both simultaneously to Giles and then casually remarking that one of you has a soul and seeing if he can even tell which," she snickers.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 05:07 pm (UTC)

"You are an endless delight," says Minus.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm in," says Plus.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 05:13 pm (UTC)

Juliet grins. "I'm gonna run up and check the Belltower and see if there's anyone there, or anything new written in before Shell Bell's notes on me and her, and then we can all go to Sunshine?" she proposes.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 05:14 pm (UTC)

"By all means."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 05:21 pm (UTC)

Juliet runs upstairs, and catches up, and then runs down, disgruntled.

"Except for one Bell who hasn't even been here before and was written up by her Whistle and who is ten years old, I am the only known unminted Bell. This is irritating."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Harsh luck," says Minus. "Sorry, love."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh well," grumbles Juliet, and she takes a last glance around the bar for familiar faces, finds none, and heads for the door.

poeticterms
2013-02-26 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Welcome back," says Jarvis. "I see you've brought friends."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 05:34 pm (UTC)

"We're calling them Plus and Minus - Minus being the native one. I can make more progress sparring with the adjusted difficulty level and Plus has a flexible schedule," Juliet says. "Plus, this is the local Jarvis."

poeticterms
2013-02-26 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Jarvis.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Hello to you too."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Jarvis, what time is it? I can't trust my phone after being in Milliways and I didn't check it before we went," says Juliet. "I'm going to guess - ten? But now I'm all ahead of Sunshine time and shouldn't fire-wand. I think I'm good for one more sequence though."

She's good for one more sequence, although in hammering out the kinks in her responses she winds up with a scratch in her wrist deep enough to bleed.

She's not even thinking about the audience when she holds out her arm to Minus. "Waste not, want not?"
Edited 2013-02-26 17:48 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 05:49 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he puts his mouth to the cut.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 05:50 pm (UTC)

Plus raises his eyebrows.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh, uh." She declines eye contact. "The dietary staple here is microwaved animal blood, I'll nuke an extra jar for you tomorrow evening."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he says. "Very kind."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 09:17 pm (UTC)

"This place should probably eventually acquire its own fridge and microwave, though, I don't think Charlie actually likes all the blood in our fridge even though he puts up with it," Bella says.

When Minus is finished with her cut she drops her hand and interlaces her fingers.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 09:59 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"It will, don't fret."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 10:02 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll go get a lot of trigonometry problems wrong and crash for the night," says Bella. "With Shell Bell gone I guess that means walking home again. One escort or two?" she asks, glancing at Plus.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Two," shrugs Plus. "While I'm here, I may as well be useful."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I should warn you," says Juliet. "I have covered the town in lots of hidden crosses. Do they bother you as little as they do Minus or will that make the walk unpleasant for you?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-26 10:16 pm (UTC)

"...I can see why he likes you so much," he says. "No, it won't trouble me at all."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 10:21 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles, and out they go. "Bye, Jarvis," she adds before shutting the door behind her.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 10:26 pm (UTC)

It's a quiet walk. Minus takes the opportunity to hold Juliet's hand the whole way, while Plus is presumably lurking along somewhere nearby.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Don't go near the porch," Bella thinks to inform Plus when they approach her house. "Sunlamp bulbs and a motion detector, you see." She kisses Minus goodnight from a safe distance.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-26 10:40 pm (UTC)

Mmkisses.

"Goodnight, love."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 10:43 pm (UTC)

"G'night!"

And she skips into the house and halfasses her trig homework and goes to bed.

The next day at study hall, she says to Giles, "Guess what!"

pythbox
2013-02-26 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't have the faintest dream of a clue."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Found an alt of Sherlock in Milliways. Not Shell Bell's, and not the one who matches the Tony who visited either - they've both gone home now, by the by, Jarvis is all installed. An unrelated Sherlock who is also a vampire but this one has a soul."

pythbox
2013-02-26 11:13 pm (UTC)

"...How'd he come by that?" inquires Giles, adjusting his glasses.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Some manner of pre-arranged... thing. He still has his Tony and Jarvis, so I imagine they were involved. You can come by and see if he'll tell you, this evening. I'm doing sparring in place of fire wand while he's visiting because I can make unusually good progress with the both of them."

pythbox
2013-02-26 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I think I will."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm making steady progress on the wand, though," Bella says, pulling out the demonology text of the day. "Did you ever ask Sherlock - we're distinguishing them as 'Minus' for the local and 'Plus' for the visitor - did you ever ask Minus your question about how he came by the number twenty-six?"

pythbox
2013-02-26 11:27 pm (UTC)

"No, it slipped my mind."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, I asked him. He followed a Watcher around for a while is how. It wasn't you, and the Watcher's fine and never noticed that he was there."

pythbox
2013-02-26 11:43 pm (UTC)

"That's... reassuring," is the word he chooses after a moment.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Compared to the source being you or the Watcher not being fine, or compared to Sherlock having learned the maximum historical Slayer lifespan some other way?" inquires Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-26 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Ah," she giggles.

pythbox
2013-02-26 11:51 pm (UTC)

He smiles dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-26 11:59 pm (UTC)

Studying happens, and study hall ends and classes happen, and more studying happens, and then Bella says, "Well, I presume you remember where the house is, as you have been there before and also technically own it."

pythbox
2013-02-27 12:01 am (UTC)

"You presume correctly."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 12:10 am (UTC)

Her phone beeps. "Well, if you show up any time after sunset you can come watch me sparring with two Sherlocks and try and guess which is which!" she says cheerfully, and off she goes.

pythbox
2013-02-27 12:11 am (UTC)

Giles shows up, a little while after sunset.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 12:16 am (UTC)

The sparring's already underway; Bella's worked her way twelve seconds into a one-minute sequence and barely manages a "hi" when Giles walks in between all the ducking and parrying she has to do to keep up with a set of Sherlocks.

pythbox
2013-02-27 12:21 am (UTC)

It's very impressive.

Also, he's pretty sure he can tell which Sherlock is which. Not completely sure, but pretty sure.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 12:25 am (UTC)

It takes about twenty minutes - including four pauses for written revisions - before she gets all the way through the sequence and pauses to catch her breath and sip from her water bottle. "So, this is Giles," she says, "Giles, one of the Sherlocks is Plus, and the house is now Jarvis instead of just a regular house."

poeticterms
2013-02-27 12:29 am (UTC)

"Pleased to meet you," Jarvis contributes.

pythbox
2013-02-27 12:29 am (UTC)

"Er," says Giles, adjusting his glasses. "Yes. Likewise."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 12:33 am (UTC)

"If you can tell the Sherlocks apart, do let on now, so I can stop trying to avoid giving you clues," laughs Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-27 12:35 am (UTC)

"You're the local," he says, pointing.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 12:35 am (UTC)

Minus laughs. "What gave me away?"

pythbox
2013-02-27 12:36 am (UTC)

"The clothes," says Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 12:40 am (UTC)

Juliet looks Minus up and down. "I don't think that's the same outfit he had on last time you met," she remarks.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 12:42 am (UTC)

"It isn't."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-27 12:45 am (UTC)

Plus looks from his own rather drab white button-down and navy jeans to Minus's black silk shirt and motorcycle boots.

"And yet," he says, "I can see why he might have guessed."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 12:49 am (UTC)

"Bells seem to trend towards default clothes. That's witch silks for Amariah and that leather flying outfit for Angela but the rest of us wind up in jeans and t-shirts, and eventually, when appropriate, crowns on top," says Bella. "I wonder why you have different styles."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 12:50 am (UTC)

"Because my better half is boring," Minus says fondly.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 01:01 am (UTC)

"In what conceivable way is having a soul supposed to render one's taste in clothes boring?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-27 01:04 am (UTC)

"I dress closer to how we used to," says Plus. "Apparently not having a soul makes one more inclined to wear silk and leather."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 01:09 am (UTC)

"Wonder why," says Juliet, reaching out to pet Minus's shirt. (It's soft.)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 01:11 am (UTC)

"Haven't the foggiest," he says, leaning into her hand.

pythbox
2013-02-27 01:11 am (UTC)

Giles cleans his glasses.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 01:15 am (UTC)

"Well. Another sequence?" proposes Juliet, and without particularly waiting for an answer she turns her hand on Minus's shirt into a throw. (It's not like it's tactically useless. She can play bait, let vampires think she's not wise to them, and then surprise!)

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 01:16 am (UTC)

Also, the giggling has a negative effect on his combat-readiness.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 01:20 am (UTC)

Oh well. They can try it again presently.

This makes the first two-Sherlock sequence she wins on her first try.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-27 01:58 am (UTC)

"Congratulations."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 01:59 am (UTC)

"Thanks. I think I can smooth it out, though, let's do that one one more time."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 02:02 am (UTC)

"Do let's," says Sherlock.

This time he is on much better form.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 02:08 am (UTC)

But so's she. She wins again, but she needs another smoothing round to correct for his improved start, and then she's smooth.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 02:12 am (UTC)

"Brilliant."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 02:14 am (UTC)

"Why thank you." A peck right on the end of his nose, and then she stands ready and says, "Surprise me."

This all goes on for the customary amount of time. Bella pretty much ignores Giles in favor of her sparring partners. He's a Watcher, he's Watching, all's well.

pythbox
2013-02-27 02:23 am (UTC)

Giles is watching.

And feeling more than a little redundant.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 02:25 am (UTC)

She tires out, after a few hours. "How'm I doing, Giles?" she asks, flexing worn-out arms. "Is it okay if I drop the 'mister'? I don't usually call my friends Mister anything and it'd be weird to call you by your first name."

pythbox
2013-02-27 02:27 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says, "Giles is fine. And honestly, I have never heard of a Slayer who became this good this fast."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 02:56 am (UTC)

"Ooh, cool, I'm ahead of the curve," says Juliet merrily, "even spending half time on the fire wand. I'll be a terror if I pick up any witchcraft."

poeticterms
2013-02-27 02:58 am (UTC)

"Witchcraft, you say?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 03:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah? Apparently it has many drawbacks, but if I don't get minted I don't think there's going to be any other way to accomplish anything big efficiently. However good I am at hitting stuff, I only have two arms and two legs."

poeticterms
2013-02-27 03:04 am (UTC)

"I have some databases that could be of use."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 03:12 am (UTC)

"Ooh? Do tell. Your magic similar enough to the resident flavor?"

poeticterms
2013-02-27 03:15 am (UTC)

"As far as I can tell, with limited local information, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 03:21 am (UTC)

"Do you do magic or just have info stored?"

poeticterms
2013-02-27 03:23 am (UTC)

"Mostly the latter."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 03:31 am (UTC)

"Mostly," she says, intrigued.

poeticterms
2013-02-27 01:52 pm (UTC)

"Mostly," he repeats.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 04:06 pm (UTC)

"I've been informed that actually doing magic is highly dangerous - attracts bad attention, sometimes causes less than benign entities to make shit up instead of doing the requested spell, may eat one's brain - how do you mitigate those risks, or do you just live with them and use magic sparingly?"

poeticterms
2013-02-27 04:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't do invocations," he says. "And as far as I know, in my world there is no general risk of brain-eating. Unless I misunderstand you somehow."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Magic addiction," says Bella. "Sorry, I sometimes adopt turns of phrase and then forget who knows them. I can't do invocations myself, it's a brain opacity thing, the deities-and-or-demonic-entities don't seem to be able to tell when I invoke them."

poeticterms
2013-02-27 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says Jarvis. "Lucky you."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Are you even, like, constitutionally subject to addiction-in-general? Or is that not a problem on your neighbor-world? We should name it. Jarvis, you wanna name where you came from?"

poeticterms
2013-02-27 05:29 pm (UTC)

"As far as I'm aware, I am not subject to addiction in the first place, and if necessary I could modify my processes to counteract the effect," says Jarvis. "Is there a naming convention in place?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Bells have been naming our worlds pretty much according to whim or, where applicable, imperial theme. I called this one Sunshine in spite of Minus's charming suggestion of Hell-Orifice. Shell Bell's from Atlantis, Golden from Aurum, Angela from Samaria, Amariah from Alethia, Stella from Eos, and we don't have a name for the world that has the one of us who's ten and was written in by her Whistle yet."

poeticterms
2013-02-27 05:35 pm (UTC)

"May as well call mine Sunshine-Two," says Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Oh, don't let's number them. If they're similar enough to warrant group naming it could be Solar or Sunlight or Helios or something."

poeticterms
2013-02-27 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I can't help thinking that after a few of those, it will be hard to keep them all straight."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't think numbers are an improvement, there," Bella says.

poeticterms
2013-02-27 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Helios, then, if you must."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Helios it is."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-02-27 08:48 pm (UTC)

"What's mine, then? Apollo? Ra?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Whatever you'd like to call it, although we are doing a sort of a theme so something like that would be ideal. I wonder why there's this entire family of worlds with the same kind of vampire and magic and whatnot. And Sherlocks everywhere. No two Bells are from worlds more similar than both being Earths at around the same time."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 08:54 pm (UTC)

"We Sherlocks do seem to cluster more closely," Minus agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Except Shell Bell's, who's as far off from you guys as Shell Bell is from me. Farther. Nonmagical world, she's a girl, she's actually her Tony's twin, there's no Jarvis. Weird."

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 09:01 pm (UTC)

"True," he muses.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Maybe one day Alice will make Stella a coin so big that she can unravel all the secrets of the multiverse, and she'll share," snorts Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-02-27 09:04 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Anyway. Jarvis, since you are effectively immune to addiction and you don't do invocations is there any further reason for you to be cautious about magic-doing?"

poeticterms
2013-02-27 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Not especially, but it is a little more difficult for me because I have no way to manage most of the physical requirements."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Is collaborative casting a thing?" Juliet asks.

poeticterms
2013-02-27 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Not universally."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 09:19 pm (UTC)

"What does that mean?"

poeticterms
2013-02-27 09:20 pm (UTC)

"It means it is varyingly possible, with varying effectiveness, across the different traditions I have researched."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Well, that's something to look into. Giles, do you know anything about it?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-02-27 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Enough to support his analysis."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-27 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Mkay. Well. Time for me to go home and decline nouns until I can't keep my eyes open," says Bella, and she heads for the door.

though you turn your face away

jovahs_heiress

They leave Milliways, eventually, and tell Rinnah and Charles about Zion-or-Damaris, and Isabella resumes her usual routine. Singing. Socializing. Interceding about weather or other needs of petitioners. Assisting Delilah. Showering Micaiah with affection. Coaxing Nathaniel out of his shell. (He seems to like Rinnah, and she finds him precious.) And slowly, thoughtfully, carefully - magic.

She is not as quick to add powers to her repertoire as her counterparts, and will install one only after spending a day or two noting instances where it would be useful and determining that the best way to handle this class of problem is with this magic power. She acquires teleportation, but not boosted physical speed; she acquires a perfect memory, but nudges her cognitive processing capacity upwards only gently. She has no "agony beam" but her voice and she goes on sleeping on a nightly basis and her defensive powers are only present because of the unknown hazards that may roam Milliways, not because of any threat she fears in Samaria. She fears no shortage of coins - Micaiah steadily outputs squares just from being in the room with her and a distribution of the larger wishes whenever she practices masses or has harmonics or brings him along for prayers - but exercising circumspection and judicious restraint will surely show Jovah that she is not abusing her permission to use magic, that she does not seek the power for its own sake but to do good in the world.

She is more generous with magic that is not about granting herself more abilities.

Isabella's work is beginning to be noticed.

She is doing nothing overt. She claims no miracles. But everyone is having such a run of good luck these days. The weather is as ever - drought here, flood there, duststorms elsewhere - but there is an established system for handling those things.

Isabella's working elsewhere.

Ships do not sink anymore, and this was never terribly common to begin with or no one would sail - but there is a terrible storm through a fishing harbor off the Jordana coast, and not a single craft capsizes, let alone goes under.

Plague is mysteriously absent - there are, admittedly, prayers for this too, but they bring medicine, they don't prevent the initial lost work, suffering, death. Plague was never so common either, but no angels have seen a flag that was raised for its traditional purpose for a month and a half, now.

Locusts have begun to leave crops unmolested as though of their own accord. Priests dedicating children to the god find their surgeries met with less weeping, and no infections. Nothing in the whole of Samaria will catch fire without someone intending to set it alight. The primitive cars that carry goods from here to there do not skid on ice or flip on rubble.

Angel-seekers, and those who lie with angels for less mercenary reasons, are surviving their attempts at bearing winged babies with astonishing regularity. Isabella isn't adjusting the species ratio, as she suspects it may be a purposeful test of angel-seeker character to give them mortal children and she's mindful anyway of Micaiah's concerns with the children already being this or that - but they don't kill their mothers coming out. No babies are born motherless anymore, in fact, but it's most obvious at the holds, where the most historically dangerous births are undertaken.

And Isabella begins to think, if I have wrought this, and Jovah sees it is good and does not strip me of my wishes for my hubris or command me to stop for my presumption or even contrive to display before me a warning that shows me some terrible consequence of my actions -

then why did he not make the world this way himself, when we settled it, why was I not born into a world already free of famine and disease and pain and babies who grow up without their mothers and destroyed vehicles that kill everyone aboard and infected Kisses that sicken with fever?

She thinks this, but she does not write it down, or speak it, or change anything she is doing in response to the question.

Today.

Or the next.

Yet.

She announces her pregnancy to the hold, and is made much of, and Phebe sends her a bowl of flowers that might be sniping or might be a genuine gesture of conciliation.

She's not the only pregnant angel in the Eyrie. Abjah, a golden-angel type in her thirties who has three children already by assorted fathers (all mortals), is much farther along, and a few weeks before Isabella's wedding, she gives birth.

To a lucifer.

The screaming brings concerned friends and neighbors - there is always screaming during births, but not usually a sudden chorus of it, not usually cries of horror instead of pain. Isabella is one of them, but she's not just there to stare and gossip. Whatever is going on, she can help, and she shoves herself past wings and bodies and sees what's happened.

The thing is twisted. It has - well, several limbs, at least four, maybe eight or ten depending on which protrusions count, and feathers in places feathers don't belong, and it has lungs enough to bawl a suffering screech like no infant Isabella has ever heard.

"Someone has to kill it," says Abimelech, and "who's the father, who besides Abjah has been putting wing to wing?" says Eliou, and "I never thought it would be so horrible" says Zelpha and then someone repeats -

"Someone has to kill it."

"No!" screams Abjah, sprawled in mess and barely covered by her blanket, reaching towards Rhoda, the mortal Eyrie midwife who has the lucifer held in her hands.

"Someone has to kill it," Zelpha agrees, and Isabella pushes forward again and blurts, "Give it to me."

"You? Isabella?" says Eliou.

"Give it to me," Isabella repeats. "I'll take it away."

No one else is leaping to volunteer. Abjah is only weeping softly.

But why should it be that putting wing to wing results in this misery? Why was Isabella born in that world, and not in another?

Well, she can wonder about that all she likes, but she can see to it that this suffering thing isn't born into a world like that. Rhoda hands it over. A pentagon will kill its pain, whatever's hurting it; it screams on, but softer, and there's a stifled murmur from Zelpha while Isabella carries the lucifer away.

"You're going to kill it, not just leave it exposed to cry itself to death," Eliou says, "right?"

"First," says Isabella, "I'm going to pray. But I will not leave it to cry itself to death."

They get out of her way. She cradles the thing in her arms and makes for the nearest takeoff point and flings herself into the air until she's so high that no one will be able to see what's happening.

She can't even determine the lucifer's sex. If it has one at all, it's not displayed in a conventional way.

Isabella does pray first. She has no song for this, just the air around her and her tuneless voice and her incomprehension.

"WHY?" she screams into the blue expanse. No one can hear her here, the air is so thin it won't carry, but her shout is ringing in her ears and the lucifer whimpers. "Why is this something that can happen? Why does Abjah's mistake and her lover's mistake condemn this baby who has made no mistakes until I step in? Who am I? What are you doing? You place it in my path, but there have been lucifers now and again for centuries and no one saved them then! Why? Jovah is good, Jovah is merciful, Jovah makes babies so confused by their own warped bodies that they cry without ceasing even when they've stopped feeling any pain, why? Tell me why and I'll do as you say! Tell me why and I'll see the wisdom in it, Jovah, you gave me a mind, it's not so tiny and ignorant as all that, tell me why and I'll follow your guidance forever, tell me what I'm meddling with so I'll know better how to go! Tell me!"

There is no response. There is never a response to an unsung prayer, one which isn't from the standard books, one which doesn't simply ask for weather or seed or medicine. Weather seed medicine weather seed medicine weatherseedmedicine weatherseedmedicine that is all he can do, that and issue cryptic answers to questions through oracles and make Kisses burn and glow, that is all. Five things. She could count them on the fingers of one hand.

The lucifer is still crying. All her importuning of the god has not erased its deformities.

And it only takes a pentagon to turn it into a healthy angel. A boy, as it turns out. One medium-sized coin. Micaiah makes them easily if she holds a note for longer than a second.

...He made them in Milliways, too, where Jovah was not. Jovah did not even answer a prayer for weather when she tried it there, but the Kiss still worked.

Isabella looks down at the angel baby in her hands, no longer crying, but blinking unfocused eyes, confused.

There is simply, simply, simply no way in which this would not have been a better way to arrange things from the start. Let Abjah have an angel lover if she can't resist, let her get with child by him, and let the baby simply be an angel like Nathan's and Magdalena's daughters were save Tamar. Why should that not work? Why should Isabella have had to bring offworld magic in to do what Jovah - ought to have done? Ought to have woven into the workings of bloodlines when he made angels to begin with? Ought to have seen better, made better?

If he is not going to stop her, if he's not going to strike her where she hovers and the ex-lucifer with her because there is some hidden flaw in the change she's made, then he is not saying she is wrong. And if she is not wrong, then he is.

Something is the matter.

But not with this baby. This baby is now perfectly fine. She will tell everyone that she prayed, and then the child was made whole, and no one will ask her any further prying questions. She'll claim she can't remember the words.

Isabella descends.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 09:48 pm (UTC)

Micaiah missed most of the excitement; it's only coincidence that he's there to see her land.

"Isabella? What's wrong?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I - I'll explain the details later, in our room -" She has to give the baby to Abjah; she can hear the elder angel weeping even over the chastising voices of others demanding the father's name.

Isabella, the baby cradled against her chest, shoulders her way past the knot of people and then holds him up, above her head.

"Behold!" she cries, hoping that the fact that she may burst into tears at any moment sounds like she's overwhelmed by Jovah's power, not having a crisis of faith. "Behold, I went aloft and I prayed, and the child is whole! An angel has been born! Jovah dances!"

There is a moment of perfect silence, and Isabella uses it to stride forward and place the baby on Abjah's chest where she lies on spine-supporting pillows with her wings sprawled to either side.

When Isabella turns to face the room, eyes watering, jaw trembling, the reaction is cacophanous.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 09:55 pm (UTC)

...Micaiah is confused.

But he can wait for the details if Isabella wants.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm exhausted," Isabella tells Eliou when he insists that she go straight to Delilah and explain. "Please let me go back to my room for a bit of quiet," she tells Zelpha when Zelpha demands the words of the prayer, the tune and the meter. "How's Ithiel, I've always liked that, please let that be all you want from me now," she tells Abjah, when Abjah begs her to name her son.

And she steps out of the room, tiny steps as people reluctantly part for her, and when her path reaches Micaiah's position in the hall she takes his hand and breaks into a longer stride and doesn't slow until they're in her room and she's thrown herself into the middle of the bed, wings outflung, pouring tears into the nearest pillow.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 10:02 pm (UTC)

Micaiah cuddles up under her wing and kisses her forehead and hugs her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 10:06 pm (UTC)

The room has long been magically soundproofed the way the music rooms are. Mostly because Isabella feels bad about monopolizing the music rooms on occasions when she and/or Micaiah are likely to be noisy in less than musical ways. "Do you know why angels aren't supposed to take angel lovers?" she asks in a murmur, turning her face away from the pillow to look at Micaiah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Something about their kids...?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Their kids are deformed. Lucifers, they're called, even if no one kills them they soon die on their own, they're - tragic. Abjah had one. I took him - I couldn't even tell he was a him, then, but I took him and I flew up and - I have never been so angry. I begged and I screamed and I demanded an explanation, I wanted Jovah to account for himself, for making angels this way, and nothing happened. I wasn't struck for my impudence, I felt no shift in the air, I certainly wasn't answered. You know, I asked at Penninah's, once, why lucifers occurred? And Jovah said -" She has her perfect memory now. She can produce the exact words, at least as Penninah rendered the translation. "Angel blood is not meant to mix with its like save by dispensation. Dispensation, like Nathan and Magdalena, they got special permission through an oracle and their children were all healthy, but Abjah didn't get one and Abjah slept with some angel she's refusing to identify and she got a lucifer. And I was hovering, and holding him, and he was crying even though the first thing I did was take his pain away, he felt warm so he wasn't cold like a mortal baby would have been, he was just - confused. Too many limbs. Too sick and wretched to do anything but cry. And Jovah did nothing. There are no prayers to heal that, no medicine I could have called down to reshape Abjah's son. But I did it anyway. It was only a pentagon."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 10:21 pm (UTC)

...

He hugs her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 10:27 pm (UTC)

She wraps herself around him and sobs into his shoulder. "Jovah made angels. If I had made angels I would have made us different, in that respect at least. And he didn't stop me from changing it! He didn't forbid me the magic, he didn't smite me out of the sky, he didn't make the wish fail or kill the lucifer before I had the chance to fix him! I'm changing his creation in ways he could have done himself. I'm not using the usual mortal tools that he gives everyone, to do it, I'm not just singing and hoping and grinding manna roots for salve, I'm changing things in big ways, and if it's all right for me to do that - then why weren't they already changed? Isn't he mightier and wiser and better than I am, whatever trinkets Shell Bell gave us?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not," Micaiah says softly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 10:38 pm (UTC)

Isabella weeps.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 10:41 pm (UTC)

He cuddles her and kisses her and loves her, because he can't think of any better way to help.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I can't even ask anyone - a priest, an oracle, Delilah - as far as they're concerned Jovah is that mighty and wise and good, Jovah's the one who healed Abjah's baby, all I did was pray for it," she says quietly, when she's recovered from this bout of sobs. "If only I'd been able to pick up the language when I studied with Peninnah - I could magic it now, but what's the use? I'm not an acolyte, I'll never get time alone with an interface, I'd have to justify my questions."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 11:11 pm (UTC)

"We could go back to the oracle we asked about magic...?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 11:13 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs, a miserable dark laugh. "And ask her what? Why do lucifers happen? Peninnah already answered that for me. Why was this lucifer healed? We know the answer to that question; who knows what Jovah would say to Alleluia, but it's not information we need, this one was healed because I healed him. Why did he make angels that way? I don't think that'll get any better answer than the one about why lucifers happen. It's the same question."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 11:19 pm (UTC)

That is not a good laugh. Micaiah kisses her forehead again.

"I don't know, then," he says. "I don't know."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm so glad you're here with me, even if neither of us knows what to do," murmurs Isabella. "I love you."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 11:23 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," he sighs, and cuddles her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 11:33 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Isabella does have to leave her room.

Ithiel is going right on being a healthy angel baby, and everyone wants to know how she did it.

"I can't remember the prayer," she demurs when asked. "It came to me in the moment, unlearned, I can't remember how it went, I'm so sorry."

"No, I don't know who Ithiel's father is. I imagine only the father himself and Abjah do. Yes, and Jovah," she says, when they ask her that.

"No, absolutely not. My baby's father is my fiancé Micaiah, for absolute certain, and will not be needing any such rescue," she says, when asked a rather ruder question about her personal relationship to lucifers.

"Of course I'll talk to Delilah. Right after dinner. I've scarcely eaten all day," she says. "I'll go straight there when I've eaten something."

And she does. Delilah's questions are much like the others. She's impressed, she wants to know the prayer, she wants to know how Isabella knew the prayer.

Isabella sticks to her story.

She goes back to her room after the meeting, her hands trembling, and she holds Micaiah tight and is too tired to even cry again before she falls asleep.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-26 11:35 pm (UTC)

Micaiah stays awake for a long while, holding her, loving her. But eventually, he sleeps too.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-26 11:55 pm (UTC)

The furor dies down.

The wedding approaches.

Delilah officiates, although Alleluia is at the Eyrie for it as a guest. They're wed in front of all the hold, surrounded by Serah's exquisitely-chosen flowers. Isabella wears a slate blue dress and has her hair up in still more flowers. She presents Micaiah with a set of Eyrie bracelets in her family pattern, and she kisses him, because while she has little enough idea what Jovah is doing anywhere else in the world, she knows that he chose her a fine man for her husband. She loves Micaiah with all her heart.

There's music, and not one bit of dancing because this is an angel hold.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 12:01 am (UTC)

He loves her right back, and he loves that they get to have a big party about it. He laughs his way through the ceremony and refuses to be separated from her afterward—hugs her, kisses her, leans on her, and generally acts like a helplessly lovestruck fool.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 12:03 am (UTC)

Normally they'd mingle with the guests separately, but no one presses them too hard about it when he won't go and she doesn't make the slightest attempt to shoo him. They eat their nibbles and listen to people sing for them and they exchange kisses every few seconds and Isabella doesn't even notice that Alleluia is looking at her strangely.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 12:10 am (UTC)

Micaiah does.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 12:14 am (UTC)

"Something wrong, honey?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 12:20 am (UTC)

"That oracle's looking at you funny," he murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 12:23 am (UTC)

"Is she?" Isabella looks. "Oh - how strange. I wonder why. D'you still think she likes me?" she laughs weakly.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 12:28 am (UTC)

"Hard to tell," he says, and kisses her cheek, because he hasn't done that in the last few minutes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 12:32 am (UTC)

Mmm kisses. Isabella permits herself to be completely distracted from Alleluia.

After much of the crowd has dispersed, Alleluia is still there, with her husband Caleb, and she crosses the room. "Isabella," she says levelly. "I don't wish to interfere with your wedding night, now that the festivities have died down, but I will only be at the Eyrie for a couple of days and would like a chance to speak with you privately before I go back to Sinai."

"I - of course. Tomorrow morning?" Isabella asks. "After breakfast?"

"That will be fine. I'll see you then. Good night."

"I wonder what that was about," Isabella remarks to her new husband. "I guess we'll find out. Now... how about that wedding night?" And she begins edging towards the door by a path that will take them by as few straggling guests as possible.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 12:33 am (UTC)

"Ooh. Wedding night," says Micaiah, perking up.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 12:39 am (UTC)

"One of the very best parts," she agrees in a low murmur.

A wedding night is had. It is had most enthusiastically. There might be magic involved.

"I wonder if Alleluia meant to exclude you when she said privately," Isabella muses as they have breakfast. "Probably she did. Oh well."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 12:41 am (UTC)

"I am not gonna be excluded," Micaiah says serenely.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 12:42 am (UTC)

"Well, she might insist, but I can brainphone you whatever the conversation is as long as it's not about someone's personal secrets? I did agree to meet with her and she did say privately."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 12:46 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "We'll see."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 12:54 am (UTC)

Alleluia finds them in the dining hall. "I still have a room here, Isabella," she says. "Would that be a suitable place for us to talk?"

"I don't see why not. Can Micaiah join us?"

"I had meant for it to be just you and I."

"I thought so, but we've only just gotten married, and he doesn't want to go away from me, not one bit," says Isabella. "Is it something personal, or...?"

"It's about you."

"I can't imagine anything you'd like to talk about with me that I'd want to keep secret from my husband, Alleluia."

Alleluia looks at Micaiah, frowning slightly.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 12:55 am (UTC)

Micaiah gives her his best smile.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 12:57 am (UTC)

"If you insist," says Alleluia finally. "It's this way."

Isabella knows that, but only because of her perfect memory, so she makes no mention of it and just follows along with her hand in Micaiah's and her wing behind his back.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:00 am (UTC)

Micaiah holds her hand and walks with her.

He loves his angel so much.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 01:03 am (UTC)

When they are finally all in Alleluia's room and behind the closed door, Alleluia says, "Delilah told me about Abjah's son. Ithiel."

"Yes?" Isabella asks, instantly wary.

"I want to know what happened."

"I've told everyone that I can't remember the prayer -"

"Isabella," says Alleluia. "Jovah did not lay hands on Ithiel. I want to know what did happen."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:05 am (UTC)

[...So do we tell her?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 01:08 am (UTC)

[...I don't know.]

"...You said Delilah told you. But Delilah hasn't left the Eyrie since then and you haven't been here until our wedding yesterday. How could you possibly have asked the god what he did or did not do?" Isabella asks. "You weren't flying all last night to ask. This bed was slept in, you don't have bags under your eyes."

Alleluia looks - caught.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:10 am (UTC)

[I love you,] says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 01:18 am (UTC)

[I love you too.]

"I - I have been oracle for two decades," says Alleluia. "Since before you were born. I became interim Archangel because Jovah could hear me when he could hear no one else, and I could never have done what you claim. I know Jovah's ways. He does not transform lucifers into beautiful angel children because someone flies up with one in her arms and invents a prayer on the spot."

"And yet, Ithiel is as you have seen - or heard, if you haven't seen him in person," says Isabella. "Half a dozen people saw me leave with a lucifer and land with an angel. Do you think I - what? Found a newborn angel with Abjah's eyes, and wings that exactly match hers, lying on a cloud somewhere, and switched them?"

"I don't know what happened, Isabella, that's why I'm asking."
Edited 2013-02-27 01:19 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:27 am (UTC)

[I think we should tell her,] he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 01:29 am (UTC)

[Why?]

"Delilah has been your friend for longer than you've been oracle. She was Archangel for longer than you were. Does she also think something else must have happened?" Isabella asks.

"You're being evasive."

"I've told everyone the same story. It's you who thinks there's something else to it."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:30 am (UTC)

[Why shouldn't we? What bad things would happen if we did?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 01:35 am (UTC)

[She could tell - anyone. I've been trying to be discreet, I just couldn't leave that baby... I thought everyone would buy it when I made it look like it was a miracle.]

"Because I know Jovah didn't heal the lucifer, so something else must have happened," presses Alleluia.

"But why do you want to know, if something did?" asks Isabella.

"Because - because it makes no sense. Because my husband has infected me with a measure of his curiosity over the years. Because what you have said happened is not what happened."

"I did take the lucifer, I did go aloft, I did pray, and the baby was healed."

"And something else," Alleluia insists.
Edited 2013-02-27 01:36 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:42 am (UTC)

[At this point I think it's a matter of time before she figures out the right answer for herself,] says Micaiah. [Might as well give it to her before then.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 01:44 am (UTC)

[...I think you're right. We did ask about magic.]

"Do you remember the last question I asked you?" Isabella says, subdued.

"The hypothetical question about -" Alleluia blinks. "It wasn't hypothetical. That's how you did it. You've found some kind of magic, that can reshape a lucifer into a normal infant angel."

Isabella nods once and squeezes Micaiah's hand.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:45 am (UTC)

He nods confirmation.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 01:48 am (UTC)

"But," says Isabella, "now it's your turn - how did you know? Jovah never healed a lucifer, but is there any reason he couldn't start, any reason it couldn't have happened the way I said?"

Alleluia holds herself very rigid.

Isabella waits.

"Would you object very much," Alleluia says, "if my husband were also party to this discussion?"

"The magic - I don't want that going any farther than it has to."

"We can keep a secret," Alleluia says quietly.

"Then - that's fine."
Edited 2013-02-27 01:52 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Micaiah, nodding again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 01:58 am (UTC)

Alleluia gets up and leaves the room and returns a minute later with Caleb.

"Will you tell us about the magic?" she asks.

"Only if you tell us how you knew," Isabella says.

Alleluia opens her mouth, and then turns her face into Caleb's shoulder and murmurs, "I can't."

"I can," says Caleb, looking like he's about to get a treat he'd been told was forever off-limits. "Jovah's not a god. He's a - a sort of boat in the sky. A space ship."

Isabella looks like she's been slapped.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 02:01 am (UTC)

Micaiah looks fascinated. Then he looks at Isabella. Then he looks torn.

Then he hugs his angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 02:06 am (UTC)

She clutches at him like he's a life preserver.

"How can that be?" she whispers.

"Amazing, ancient, relinquished technology," says Caleb. "The interfaces talk to the ship, the ship is so advanced it can talk back - but it only follows instructions. These instructions make the rain fall, those make the lightning bolts fall, but it doesn't make decisions - and it's not divine. It couldn't have turned a lucifer into an angel."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 02:11 am (UTC)

He cuddles Isabella some more.

"That makes more sense than it doesn't," he murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 02:17 am (UTC)

"It's - it's terrifying," says Isabella. "It's mad. He makes no decisions? Then he's incapable of, of love, of mercy -"

"Quite," agrees Caleb. "The threats are real, though, the lightning bolts quite real, and we've kept our silence to avoid tearing Samaria apart badly enough that there would be no Gloria. It really would destroy the planet if no Gloria were sung."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 02:21 am (UTC)

"...We could fix that," Micaiah blurts.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 02:24 am (UTC)

"I want to see this - space boat. Space ship," says Isabella, recovering somewhat. "I want to talk to it."

"There's - in the oracle caverns, there's a place one can stand, and from there, teleport to -" Alleluia starts.

"Oh," says Isabella, "is that how it's done? It's quite safe to be on the space ship?"

"Yes," says Alleluia. "We've been there."

"Why fly all the way to Sinai," says Isabella harshly, "when I can teleport all on my own?"

And she takes all four of them to the ship, and it's silver and strange around them, and she falls to her knees and weeps again.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 02:25 am (UTC)

Micaiah follows her to the floor and wraps his arms around her shoulders.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 02:55 am (UTC)

"...More comfortable than the ship's version," comments Caleb, blinking.

Isabella laughs, a short, almost barking sound.

"The angel Isabella, and Micaiah sia a Manderra ye a Edori formerly registered as Azaziah son of Canaan and Judith," intones a deep, even masculine voice. "And Caleb and Alleluia. How did you arrive on the deck of the spaceship Jehovah?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 02:57 am (UTC)

...Micaiah scowls, blinking back tears.

"Why am I the one who gets the whole big long name plus the part I don't want?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 03:01 am (UTC)

"As it happens, only one angel has ever been named Isabella," replies the ship. "My records indicate that it has only been used as a name in Samaria at all for under one hundred years, and this Isabella's parents were the first to give the name to an angel daughter. Though most Edori are not dedicated, I receive periodic information about their population from oracles who have contact with them, and there has been at least one previous Micaiah sia a Manderra."

"We teleported. Not your way," Isabella tells the ship, shortly.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 03:03 am (UTC)

...Micaiah is mildly surprised that there was an answer. Surprised enough that he doesn't fully start crying again, which is probably convenient for everyone else involved.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 03:17 am (UTC)

"Ah," says the ship. "I conclude that the question about magic was not hypothetical. My builders believed it impossible, but it appears that they were incorrect."

"You're talking perfectly intelligibly," says Isabella. "But you're a machine, Caleb says."

"It is as he says. Men and women with better educations than yours built me and installed the programs that allow me to communicate. However, I do not truly think, and am not truly aware."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 03:19 am (UTC)

...That seems vaguely contradictory to Micaiah. But he wouldn't even know where to start asking.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 03:28 am (UTC)

"Why were you built?" Isabella demands.

"Transport between planets, originally. Later programming was added in order to cause me to serve guidance functions for Samaria and ensure it did not deviate from the vision the settlers had for it."

"Guidance functions," repeats Isabella.

"Selecting adequate political leaders, suggesting genetically valuable pairings, producing limited advice in response to oracular questions."

Isabella blinks slowly.

"Genetically valuable pairings."

"Personality factors are also considered, but yes, the primary function of the Kiss response is to ensure that various gifts and talents are not lost to future generations, as well as to keep up the population of angels."

Isabella's eyes slide slowly to the Kiss in her arm.

And then to Micaiah's Kiss.

And then to his face.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 03:33 am (UTC)

He looks... afraid.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 03:49 am (UTC)

"I -" Isabella's eyes are watering.

"The matches are usually very good," Alleluia hastens to add. "Caleb never served as angelico because I was not Archangel long enough, but he would have been if Delilah hadn't recovered, every other Archangel's selected first spouse except for Levi, many famously devoted couples -"

"Except Levi?"

"Delilah didn't ask, when she was first named. She knew what the answer she wanted was, and it turns out that this isn't actually one of the rebellions that induces the ship to destroy the world," says Alleluia.

"But it's not all famously devoted couples, anyway," says Isabella slowly. "Uriel and Hagar fought all the time. Rachel and Gabriel nearly as bad, early on, and Ariel and Johnathan, and Aaron and Miriam -"

"It's not perfect, but you and Micaiah obviously do love each other," soothes Alleluia.

"I can't imagine having paid a moment's attention to a guest in Delilah's office who wasn't even there for a petition if it weren't for the way the Kisses flared," exclaims Isabella.

"I wouldn't have met Caleb if the music machines at the Eyrie hadn't broken, but that doesn't mean we were any less -" Alleluia trails off as Isabella begins to cry again. "Isabella, this is why I wouldn't take you as my own acolyte. I'm the only oracle who knows; at any time only one oracle knows, the previous Sinai oracle died without passing on the knowledge or the successor would have been able to fix the problem with the ship's listening devices that caused all those problems with it being unable to hear prayers. I talked to you, we had that long conversation - I saw how curious you were and how devout and I knew I'd never be able to have you in Sinai for longer than a day without you finding something, asking some question that caught me off guard, and I'd tell, or you'd talk Caleb into telling, and it would devastate you. But now I wish I'd taken you on then and you'd have already known and you wouldn't doubt yourself now, married and pregnant, this is worse, I'm so sorry."

Married and pregnant. The words echo in Isabella's head; her hands drop to her very slightly swelling abdomen. Married and pregnant.
Edited 2013-02-27 05:07 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 01:09 pm (UTC)

Micaiah bursts into tears and hugs his angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 04:03 pm (UTC)

She hugs him back. Whatever turmoil she's enduring about him, she does love him, she wasn't lying to herself, she does, and she's miserable and he's miserable and this means there need to be hugs.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 04:05 pm (UTC)

He presses his face against her shoulder, sniffling.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 04:08 pm (UTC)

"I married you," she says in his ear. "Jovah didn't make me. If he'd paired me off with someone I hated I might have tried to like him if I knew he'd have to be angelico were I Archangel, but I wouldn't have married him already, and I wouldn't be carrying his child. I love you."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 04:13 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," he mumbles, hugging her tighter. "Love you, love you, love you."
Edited 2013-02-27 16:13 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 04:25 pm (UTC)

They go on hugging for a long time, Alleluia and Caleb standing back uncomfortably.

Finally Isabella looks up. "You found this out decades ago. During your time as Archangel, before I was even born, you found out."

"Sinai is - wired a little differently than the other two oracular interfaces," says Alleluia. "The ship can issue a slightly less constrained set of outputs compared to Mount Egypt or Mount Sudan. I went there when it stood empty and the screen said send help in the oracular language that I'd been learning; it told me how to teleport up here, and Caleb caught me at it and followed, and we replaced the broken part of the machine."

"And Delilah's wing was fixed - and that was you, Caleb, wasn't it everyone called you a miracle-worker -"

"Not as much as they'll be calling you one. But I did use a little ship technology to do it. Batteries - I've been inventing my own, but the ones on the ship, that power the music machines, they're much smaller, hold a lot more power, there's one of those joining up a broken connection in Delilah's wing," says Caleb.

"So you found relinquished technology that calls itself a god and you used it to fix a wing and get the - the weather control back into shape - and that was all, you took up your post as oracle and you set up your workshop at the foot of the mountain and you've been pretending piety since -"

"It would destroy the fabric of society, if we were even believed and not ridiculed or stoned as mad heretics," Alleluia murmurs. "And if it went badly enough, there would be no Gloria."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 04:28 pm (UTC)

"But we can do better," says Micaiah. "Right? Isn't that what you're saying? We have magic, we can do better."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 04:38 pm (UTC)

"If it's powerful enough -" Alleluia begins.

"Oh," says Isabella, rising to her feet, "it is. I was trying to figure out why Jovah would let me work a miracle he saw fit not to. And now I see there was no seeing fit at all. I can do more than the ship can. I can make better choices, because frankly destroying an entire inhabited planet full of men, women, and children most of whom would have nothing to do with a failed Gloria is a dreadful choice, whether the machine made it or the settlers who programmed him did. Jovah?" she says sardonically. "Are you even going to try to stop me?"

"While I am programmed for self-defense, I have no weaponry aimed at the ship's interior," says the ship, not particularly emotionally.

"I don't intend to destroy you completely. At least not today. But disarm you - yes, I think that would be a good idea, so you can't turn your incredible if ungodlike power on my world."

"My weapons are also intended to defend the planet from threats outside of Samaria. This has already been necessary once before. I destroyed an invading force with the help of the angelica Susannah to reposition my artillery."

"So I'll have to replace that function, then," says Isabella.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 04:47 pm (UTC)

Micaiah hugs himself and smiles radiantly up at his angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 04:57 pm (UTC)

Isabella thinks through the silence that ensues. Finally she clasps her hands together and looks up, and says, "I'll need to know more to take over without leaving unhandled anything that is currently taken care of. Jovah, are you programmed to hide information from people who make it this far? Do you lie, in this voice, as opposed to through the interfaces? Will you try to stop me - have you got a sense of self-preservation or do you just shoot at anything that approaches from the sky?"

"I am not programmed to hide information from occupants of this ship under ordinary circumstances, and I do not have anything that could be described as a desire for self-preservation, but the powers you claim make you a threat to the well-being of the settlers' project -"

"They crippled their children!" cries Isabella. "They took a flaw in human nature and patched it with amputation and lobotomy so we couldn't hurt each other too hard or too cleverly and they gave all that destructive power to something that cannot even change its mind! What do I have to do or be to take over for them and their interests in your programming?"

"The captain of the ship is the only person empowered to change its mission, and captaincy has been vacant since settling; captaincy is meant to be reassumed by -"

"By this procedure or that, but ultimately it's a name recorded somewhere, like my name, or Micaiah's?" asks Isabella.

"Yes."

Isabella waves a hand negligently. A square goes.

There is a silence, and Jovah says: "Welcome to the starship Jehovah, Captain Isabella. All functions stand ready. What are your orders?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I love my angel," Micaiah murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Isabella, what are you doing?" breathes Alleluia.

"I'm fixing the problems our ancestors built," says Isabella. "Jehovah, disengage programming regarding the use of weapons in response to a failed Gloria." She attempts to add him to the brainphone network; it doesn't work until she adds a pentagon to compensate for him not really having a brain, or ordinary thoughts, but then it does. "Consult me via the feature I just added if at any time a thunderbolt is called to Samaria deliberately by prayer for confirmation or belaying of the order."

"Yes, Captain."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 05:28 pm (UTC)

Has he mentioned he loves his angel? Because he really, really does.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Continue speaking to the oracles at Mount Egypt and Mount Sudan as usual, as though nothing out of the ordinary happened today, until further notice. Cut all restrictions on communication to Sinai to Alleluia."

"Yes, Captain."

"Is there any other mechanism by which you could make life less pleasant for the people of Samaria?"

"I am not programmed to use weather in this way of my own volition, but sufficient prayers for it could render the continent uninhabitable."

"Answer those as normal for now. I'll come up with a system for it later. And -"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Are the Kisses under your direct control?"

"Only the initial matching. After a match has been made and a confidence level established regarding the personality and genetic factors, they continue to alert their bearers autonomously."

"Quit making initial matches without ludicrously high confidence in the personality factors and - your existing threshold for genetics will be fine. Can you tone down the hurting on people who don't like it, too?"

"I cannot; that is a variable feature of individual Kisses."

"Do you manufacture those? Where do oracles get them?"

"They are manufactured aboard the ship and teleported to Mount Sinai for distribution to the other two oracular mountains, from which they are distributed to priests."

"Make them gentler from now on, then - I might put a stop to them altogether by the time Sinai gets a new batch but I might not."

"Yes, Captain."

Isabella turns back to the other three. "Well," she says. "I'm sure someone saw us all congregating in Alleluia's room. Let's not spread rumors of our disappearance."

And she teleports them all again.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 05:45 pm (UTC)

Micaiah hugs Isabella again as soon as they're all back on the ground.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 05:56 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Oh, hugs, hugs, hugs.

"I have no idea what you think you're doing," says Alleluia, "but I hope you know."

Isabella says, "Everything makes sense now. I've always thought that when Jovah did things - or failed to act - in ways that seemed incomprehensible and wrong to me, then the mistake was on my end. After all, he was divine and I was only - not a mortal, but still just an angel and not a goddess, so surely he was right, he had some reason that I just couldn't understand. But no. He was built by people no smarter than I am, even if they knew unfathomable technology. They weren't more moral or more farsighted, they certainly didn't have special abilities to predict the needs of the next six or seven centuries of Samarians, and they had less ability than I have now to deal with the problems they did recognize to be problems. What do I think I'm doing? I think I'm going to learn everything he has to teach me and then I'm going to do his job. Better."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 05:57 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Micaiah. "You're the best angel in the world."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Alleluia. "It's plain we can't stop you."

"Yes. But I'd like if it you could help me. You've had two decades to talk to the ship, knowing what it is. And two decades to think of all the ways to break the news to the rest of the world. You can tell me where to look, what to ask, you've had many opportunities to think of consequences I'll need to patch after going public."

"For one thing, it will destroy the legitimacy of the office of the Archangel," says Alleluia. "I don't know whether you plan to take that job or not. I suppose the ship will name anyone you tell it to, now."

"I have nothing against Linus. He's doing his best, and his best is good," says Isabella. "Whether I succeed him will depend on what happens in the next fifteen years. But you're right, people think he rules by divine right, they won't be particularly swayed by the fact that he was chosen by a process that has gotten us this far with only a handful of bad eggs on the way and determine that he's worth continuing to obey for that reason."
Edited 2013-02-27 18:15 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Do you have to go public?" asks Micaiah. "And do you have to do it soon? You could be Archangel after Linus and fix the whole world and figure out a story that makes you the new god."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't like lying," says Isabella. "But it might be best to keep quiet for now, yes. I've already got a reputation as a miracle-worker. If I keep it up..." She shrugs. "No one will be surprised when I succeed him, sure, and we can come up with a story - but - then I have to live a life of public piety. I have no idea how you've done it this long," she adds, addressing Alleluia and Caleb.

"It's difficult," admits Alleluia.

"I was a doubter before," says Caleb, surprisingly cheerful. "I came through the revelation with far more trust in Jovah than I had originally."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I could live a life of public piety if I had you as my goddess," Micaiah says brightly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you," she says, and she kisses him on the temple. "I love you. Without you I could do nothing at all and I'd still be crying if I'd found out anyway."

"Appearing to worship Isabella doesn't make you look pious, it makes you look idolatrous," Alleluia says. "There are a dozen slips it's easy to make that I've had to cover for - Jehovah instead of Jovah, ship instead of god, calling the songs commands instead of prayers, covering for the ignorance and the cryptic phrasing that comes out of the interface with exactly the right amount of deference so I don't look impudent or as though I serve no function beyond translation."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 06:39 pm (UTC)

"You're not a very good liar, are you," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Me?" says Alleluia. "No one's caught me at it so far."

"I'm good at lying with the truth," says Isabella. "I prayed, and the child was whole! Behold!" she adds in self-mockery. "But lying outright - not so much."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 06:54 pm (UTC)

He pushes his hair back from his face.

"Then here's your lie," he says. "You're special to Yovah. You're supposed to fix the world. And you have to hide that at first, to be humble, but after you're Archangel you get to start working miracles. Little ones, then medium ones, then big obvious ones, until twenty years later everybody knows you're special, and your term as Archangel just never ends, because you have miraculous powers and you're wise and good and you're going to live forever."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Healing Abjah's baby was obvious, already," Isabella murmurs. "Heh. Special to Jovah. I wouldn't have ever guessed that Captain was the title that meant more than Archangel, in that hierarchy."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:05 pm (UTC)

"People will forget about it unless you do it again," he says. "And you can magic her so she won't have more babies that need healing, so you don't have to. You can magic everybody that way - so that angels and angels have angel kids or mortal kids but not fucked up kids who suffer a lot and then die. You can do that right now. You can do all kinds of magic that doesn't need obvious miracles, and then when you're Archangel you can start admitting you did it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:08 pm (UTC)

Isabella nods.

Quietly, unmoving, she wishes. "Just like before," she says, "but not so careful, not so wary of judgment."

"It's clear," says Alleluia, "that whatever you decide to do we can't stop you. But I wish we had some reason to trust you."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:10 pm (UTC)

"You should trust her because she is wise and good," says Micaiah. "And she is going to fix the world. If you want a good reason to trust her, watch."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:18 pm (UTC)

"You haven't asked us where we got the magic," Isabella adds.

"All right," says Caleb, "where'd you get the magic?"

"From another world," says Isabella. "Not another planet, but a world connected only by magic - you couldn't fly there, not even in a starship. It's a middle world that links up to a million others, and in some of them, there are - alternate versions of people. There are alternate versions of me, who are who I'd be if I were something other than an angel, from someplace other than this. And some of them have magic, which they were willing to share because they trusted me to be like them, and some of them have been ruling their worlds for some time now, and they have not turned power-mad or careless or cruel. I already know what happens when I wield wishes and when there's no god breathing down my neck. I've seen the results." She spreads her hands. "And it's beautiful."

"Beautiful for you," says Alleluia.

"I'm not a tyrant. I'm not going to be a tyrant. When I thought there was a god I railed against him for neglect, for making the world in a heartless image. I will do better. I'm not a petty lord who needs to beat his servants to feel better - I'm not the Archangel Raphael who only liked prestige and playing politics - I want things to be better."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:20 pm (UTC)

"If we wanted to take over the world and do a lot of bad things," Micaiah adds, "we could be doing that right now. But we're not. Because my angel wants the world to be the best place it can be."

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:24 pm (UTC)

"How long have you had the magic?" Caleb wants to know.

"Months, now," says Angela. "And for a couple of weeks before that, one of my alternates was here visiting. She could have given me the power in the other world, but you see, I didn't know if it was allowed," she adds archly, looking at Alleluia, "and so she came here to wait with me while I found out."

"So I could have told you no," says Alleluia, "and you'd have sent her away and you'd have no power beyond that of any angel."

"And," says Isabella, "Abjah's baby would be a dead lucifer instead of a live angel, half the ships in the Breven First Harbor would be sunk, a dozen farmers would have lost their crops to pests this year already, some hundreds of women would have died in childbirth who are instead living mothers, and - lest you forget - the continued intact status of the planet would depend on our ability to put together a concert."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:25 pm (UTC)

Micaiah smiles lovingly at his angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Right now," says Isabella, "on this world, only the people in this room know the whole story. Plus the ship, it knows, but I suppose it's not a person, is it. Will you keep this secret as well as the one you've been keeping all this time? Alleluia? Caleb?"

Caleb nods.

Alleluia does, too, after a moment, and then she says, "You can call me Alleya."

"All right, Alleya," says Isabella, and then she smiles. "You know, I thought you must have hated me, to send me all the way to Gaza. I'm glad it was something else, even though the something else came as a nasty shock at first."

"No, I didn't hate you," says Alleya, shaking her head. "If I'd hated you I'd have sent you back to the Eyrie instead."

"Let me add you both to the telepathic network we have," says Isabella. "Then we can talk even when you're at Sinai and I'm somewhere else."

Caleb is again the first to nod, but his wife follows.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:33 pm (UTC)

He smiles at the oracle and her husband.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:35 pm (UTC)

[It works like this,] says Isabella in a general broadcast to all three of the others, and she summarizes the workings of the brainhpone for them.

Caleb looks utterly fascinated, Alleluia more solemn, yet attentive.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:36 pm (UTC)

He grins at Caleb.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:37 pm (UTC)

[What?] Caleb asks just him, trying it out.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:39 pm (UTC)

[It's cute how you're all excited!]

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:42 pm (UTC)

[I'm an engineer, and I've got a new toy,] Caleb says.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:42 pm (UTC)

Micaiah giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:45 pm (UTC)

"What's so funny?" Alleya wants to know.

"This is Micaiah's first exposure to Caleb-with-a-new-toy, and he finds it cute," Caleb explains.

Isabella giggles.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:45 pm (UTC)

"It iiiiiiis," says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:48 pm (UTC)

"It's hardly the kind of toy that you can take apart," Alleya points out to Caleb.

"So?" he says. "That doesn't mean it's unresponsive to scientific attention."

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:51 pm (UTC)

He giggles again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-02-27 07:53 pm (UTC)

There's a knock at the door. Alleluia gets up to reveal Delilah.

"Come have lunch with me and Noah," Delilah invites her friend, hugging her. "You're here so rarely - Isabella, Micaiah, hello, why don't you join us too?"

"All right," says Isabella.

And the Archangels past and future, and their husbands, all have lunch.

yovahs_kisses
2013-02-27 07:56 pm (UTC)

Micaiah spends most of lunch cuddling up to his angel. Oh, and there's conversation. That too.

in between moments

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell has not found Milliways by herself since the occasion on which she first met Sherlock.

Today, after eight months, she does.

She makes sure that Sherlock and Tony are both awake, finds that they are but do not want to join her in the bar today unless she finds something interesting, checks her coin supply and finds it sufficient, and steps through.

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 09:42 pm (UTC)

A potentially familiar person is sitting at the bar with a wooden tankard of Asgardian mead.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 09:43 pm (UTC)

Potentially familiar? Bell remembers everything now. She sits right down. "Hi, Darcy!"
Edited 2013-02-27 21:43 (UTC)

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 09:51 pm (UTC)

Darcy blinks a few times.

Then it clicks.

"Whoa, hi!" she says. "How's the revolution coming?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I found another of me who gave me kickass magic and now I am the sorceress-empress of Atlantis," Bell says proudly. She hasn't been wearing her crown; she squares an illusion of it into place for illustrative purposes. "How's heroing going?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 09:57 pm (UTC)

"That is awesome," says Darcy, "because I totally couldn't come through on talking to Stark. I went to Asgard and they had a little bitty civil war and now I'm stuck until they rebuild their teleporting bridge thingy. Uh, but the hero training's going great!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 09:58 pm (UTC)

"If someone where your door is would hold the door for me, I could come through, teleport you where you want to go, maybe fix the bridge, and teleport back to go through the held door," Shell Bell says. "Actually, if whoever would be willing to hold the door long enough I'd be really curious to meet your Tony."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 10:01 pm (UTC)

"That would be really handy!" says Darcy. "I could ask Sif, I guess. But I can't promise anything about Stark."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Well, if he's a jerk or he doesn't want to talk to me, I'll just go back through the door."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Darcy.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Lemme know when you want to go," says Shell Bell, and she orders a milkshake. "I hope the civil war wasn't too terrible as such things go? Mine basically began and ended with me putting the entire Capitol on the moon."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, long story short—the old king was in a coma, so the heir apparent took the throne, but he decided to work out his daddy issues by starting a war of the non-civil variety and almost blowing up a planet, and I had to kick his ass," says Darcy. "The whole thing was over in like two hours."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Is everybody else okay?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Mostly? Some people died, but not a lot of people, especially considering he was trying to wipe out a whole species."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 10:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't know yet if I can resurrect the dead," says Shell Bell. "None of us with this kind of magic have tried it yet. I'm going to, though, soon, once everything's settled down from the change of management and I know they'd have a place to go."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Good luck."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, what I mean is that as long as I'm going to your world, if someone will hold the door, if it's not more than -" She makes a quick count of stars on her bandolier - "a couple dozen people, I could try and see. If they've only just died then there won't be a question of there being someplace for them to go because they could just as easily have not died. But I can't promise it will work. It might be too big a job for even a star."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 10:27 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe," says Darcy. "It's probably gonna get complicated. The Asgardians and the guys Loki started the war with really don't like each other, so even if you could resurrect everybody, they might just go back to killing each other."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Maybe just a few people, then. But it's sad when people die and if I can undo it I should. I can afford to wait in my world because all the people who have died there will still have died there in six months and then I'll have figured out how to reintegrate them. Everyone who lost the Hunger Games, everyone who was executed as a political dissident, and then I'll start taking special appeals when we've gotten through all those - if it works."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 10:32 pm (UTC)

"We'll see, I guess." She glances at the door. "Okay, so if I take you to Asgard, will you try to fix the bridge? Because otherwise I don't actually think taking me back to Earth would help. Unless Sif wants to go too. But I don't think she does. And it would be," she smiles ruefully, "complicated."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'll fix the bridge if I can, although it's possible that it's not amenable to fixing with the coins I have. What would be complicated?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 10:41 pm (UTC)

"I want to go back to Earth because it's, you know, my planet, but Sif's Asgardian and she's the one who's giving me the hero lessons, and if I did take her back to Earth we'd probably have to okay it with the nice people from the government," Darcy explains.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Oh, right," says Shell Bell. "Governments that aren't me! Annoying!"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:14 pm (UTC)

Darcy snorts.

"You better let me handle the diplomacy while we're in Asgard," she says. "They take their kings kinda seriously."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:15 pm (UTC)

"They won't be diplomatic with an offworld empress?" Shell Bell asks. "Even a slightly flippant one?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Ye-es," says Darcy, "but their idea of diplomatic sometimes involves challenging people to single combat. I get to skip a lot of that because Mewtwo's on my side."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Is magic allowed in single combat?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Good question," she says. "Please don't find out the hard way."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I'll let you do the talking," Shell Bell agrees.

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:28 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell sips her milkshake. "Is there a lot you'd want done as long as I'm there? Should I bring my girlfriend along? I can't make more significant magic without her, it's actually kind of a problem, the last time I met one of my alts I couldn't pass along the nifty magic because I was all out of coins from meeting the last one before that."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I think fixing the bridge is pretty much it," she says, shaking her head.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Sip sip. "I want to go check the Belltower in case there's anyone there, but then I'll be happy to go back to your world - unless you're waiting for something or someone here?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Nope! Just hanging out with my best bud," she says, patting the hammer at her side.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:37 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell finishes her shake, teleports up, finds the tower empty and nothing new in the book, and teleports back down. "Shall we?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:41 pm (UTC)

Darcy likewise finishes her mead.

"Let's!" she says, and opens the door.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:42 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell goes through, looking for someone to ask to hold it for them.

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:45 pm (UTC)

How about the tall woman with the ponytail and the spear?

"Sif!" says Darcy, waving. "This is Shell Bell, I found her in Milliways, she says she can maybe fix the Bifrost, do you want to hold the door for us so we can go talk to Heimdall about it?"

"You have the most interesting friends," Sif says dryly, coming to take the door from them.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:46 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell waves and smiles but doesn't talk, because she's not sure if this counts as one of the people Darcy is being diplomatic with for her or not.

(She has quite forgotten that she illusioned up a crown - she'll remember if reminded, of course, but it's slipped from her attention without the weight on her head to remind her.)

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Darcy, and she turns to Bell. "Can you take us straight to the end of the bridge?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Which end? I have to specify a unique location," says Shell Bell.

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-27 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Sorry—there's only one end that's the end," she explains. "The other end is the beginning."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-27 11:52 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell laughs and teleports them to the not-beginning end of the bridge.

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 12:00 am (UTC)

It looks extremely broken. The jagged end of a beautiful slab of crystal, stretching out toward the stars.

There is a man in elaborate golden armour standing on the very end, gazing out into eternity.

"Heimdall!" says Darcy. "This is Shell Bell."

"I heard," says Heimdall. "Can you repair the Bifrost, Shell Bell?"

"You can talk to Heimdall," says Darcy. "He's cool."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:01 am (UTC)

"Okay. I can certainly try to repair the Bifrost! There's not, like, more than one way for it to be 'fixed', is there? If there is then I have to know what I'm aiming at or my wishes get confused."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 12:09 am (UTC)

"It stood here once," he says, gesturing to the empty space past the broken end of the crystal on which they stand. "Unchanging, for many thousands of years. You speak of a magic that is not known to me, but if it needs only a clear example, it will not lack one."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:10 am (UTC)

"It's good at following examples," says Shell Bell. She tries a pentagon, but it's not heavy-duty enough. She tries a hexagon. There it goes. "All better!"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 12:12 am (UTC)

Heimdall chuckles.

"Great," says Darcy, and impulsively gives Bell a hug.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:13 am (UTC)

Shell Bell is all for hugs!

"Will Sif mind waiting with the door while I go see if your Tony here is worth talking to? I barely ever find a door, if she lets it close I might wait a year and a half before I could go home."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 12:15 am (UTC)

"Tell you what," Darcy suggests, "take me back to it and I'll hold it for you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:16 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Shell Bell. Teleportation occurs! "Do you want me to put you on the brainphone so you can let me know from here if you get sick of standing in one place?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 12:17 am (UTC)

"Sure," shrugs Darcy.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:19 am (UTC)

[Like so,] says Shell Bell. And she turns invisible and teleports to wherever Tony Stark might be on this world.

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:22 am (UTC)

Tony Stark is in bed. With a sleeping red-haired woman. He has a tablet PC and is quietly fiddling with some kind of schematic on it; she is cuddled up with her face turned the other way and her shoulder pressed to his hip. The blanket covers her body and his legs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:24 am (UTC)

Hmm.

That's a weird thing in his chest. She wonders what it is.

Also, he doesn't seem really prepared to receive visitors. She hops to just outside the house, and attempts to add the local Jarvis to the brainphone; this'll simply fail if there isn't one, but she thinks her world is the odd one out there.

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:25 am (UTC)

Success.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:26 am (UTC)

[Hi, Jarvis! I am a friendly visitor from another world.]

poeticterms
2013-02-28 12:27 am (UTC)

[Are you by any chance invisible?] he inquires dryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:29 am (UTC)

[Yep, could you see me anyway? I do that when I'm teleporting somewhere unfamiliar. I apologize for appearing in Tony's room, but I didn't know where he was and the way the teleportation works is I specify a unique location, like 'near Tony'. I have one of him on my world and I heard that this world had one too so I have come to be sociable, but since he doesn't seem ready to receive visitors right now I thought I'd go through you, figuring there was probably a you too.]

poeticterms
2013-02-28 12:31 am (UTC)

[And here we are,] says Jarvis. [Shall I let him know he has a visitor?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:32 am (UTC)

[Yes please!]

poeticterms
2013-02-28 12:39 am (UTC)

After a few seconds, Jarvis inquires, [Is your time here limited?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:40 am (UTC)

[I don't know. Do you know how to open a door to Milliways at will, like the other Jarvis? Because if you don't, I have as long as my friend is willing to hold the door for me.]

poeticterms
2013-02-28 12:41 am (UTC)

[No,] he says, [it's safe to say I don't.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:42 am (UTC)

[Then my time here is limited unless I want to let my friend close her door and wait until I find a door myself, which has been known to take up to a year and a half.]

poeticterms
2013-02-28 12:44 am (UTC)

[Limited it is.]

More time passes. Not very much of it.

[Do you have a name?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 12:45 am (UTC)

[Bell Swan. People call me Shell Bell.]

poeticterms
2013-02-28 12:59 am (UTC)

[One moment, please.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:00 am (UTC)

Bell waits patiently, invisibly, outside the house.

poeticterms
2013-02-28 01:01 am (UTC)

[You may teleport into the living room,] says Jarvis. [Visibly, please.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:02 am (UTC)

Shell Bell visibles and teleports at the same time into the living room.

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:03 am (UTC)

Tony is dressed and sitting on the couch. The arc reactor glows faintly through a black T-shirt.

"So," he says, "what kind of other world are we talking about here?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:05 am (UTC)

"Mine, you mean? I call it Atlantis, and it has a one of you in it, only he's my age and he has a twin sister. It's in the future relative to here, and it was until recently a pretty nasty totalitarian state where it wasn't just post-apocalyptic, but I have since acquired magic and fixed the place up a bit."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:06 am (UTC)

"Good for you," he says with a quirk of a smile. "Just so we're on the same page: by 'fixed up' you do mean 'took over'? The crown's a hint," he explains.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:07 am (UTC)

"Oh, did I leave that there? This is only an illusion crown, I left my real one at home." She waves her hand through it by way of illustration. "Yeah, I go around wearing a crown, calling myself Empress of Atlantis, putting bad guys on the moon. There's lots of me, in various worlds, too, and this is a thing we do is take over worlds and be nice to them."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:09 am (UTC)

Tony laughs. "Aren't you kind of young for an empress?" he asks, half-smiling.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:13 am (UTC)

"One of me did wait until she was twenty-three, but she had a bit of a setback with the previous rulers of her world, she didn't have such nice magic to work with," says Bell. "And if you'd said that to her, given that she still looks seventeen, she'd raise one eyebrow like so -" Bell demonstrates - "and say that she's in her forties, so you've only made a lucky guess that I am in fact nineteen as of recently. So what? I'm doing a dramatically better job than the last dictator. He was evil. He propped up a system that had teenagers killing each other on live national television for populace-quelling and fun and profit. Your alt was on the show, so was his sister, they both won but they had to kill all the other contestants to get out alive."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:17 am (UTC)

Tony blinks, head rocking back slightly, like this news is a physical blow.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I wasn't on it, I got picked in the lottery once but my district had this system to train particularly - likely-looking kids to go, so everyone else would be safe and they'd have a reasonable shot," shrugs Bell. "But anyway. I'm glad I didn't wait to take over the world until I was the right age for an empress. I was ready to do it when I was thirteen, if I'd had what I needed then. I probably could've done it younger, but thirteen is when people started recognizing me in Milliways and saying I looked like any of various Her Majesties, and then I knew I could."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:23 am (UTC)

"That is a shit deal," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:26 am (UTC)

"Yep." She pauses. "I wonder if you have an alt of the last president here, too. There were two other worlds that had yous in them and also had hims. You never cloned yourself, did you? In my world you've got a twin, she's called Sherlock, but in the others you clone yourself when you're twelve and get alts of Sherlock instead, only mine's the only one who's a girl."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:27 am (UTC)

"...No," he says, looking at her a little strangely, "I have never cloned myself."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:29 am (UTC)

"Did you even think about it? But anyway, clearly alts don't all come together since you haven't got a Sherlock - I've met a Sherlock without a Tony but he had one originally, his died and his Jarvis too but then another Jarvis copied and another Tony installed the copy in his world so he'd at least have him, he was a wreck about it, the matched sets are all really close... Anyway, the last president of my world was named Coriolanus Snow but he had a different name in the other two worlds, Obadiah Stane."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:31 am (UTC)

"We had one of those," says Tony, with a closed-off tone and expression.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:32 am (UTC)

"You got rid of him? Good. They're trouble. In at least two worlds he killed your parents."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:34 am (UTC)

"In this one," Tony says flatly, "he almost killed me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:36 am (UTC)

"In another world he actually did kill you, and Jarvis, and turn Sherlock into a vampire, and in mine there was the whole being an evil dictator and also really fucking creepy prostitution backroom deals, and yeah, it's a bad-news template. But hey, all the ones I know about are gone now. What's the thing in your chest?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:40 am (UTC)

He looks down at it, up at her.

"Arc reactor," he says. "It's a power source."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:40 am (UTC)

"What's it for?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:49 am (UTC)

"Keeping me alive," he says, lightly, like a brush-off. Except not at all.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:50 am (UTC)

"...D'you want me to fix whatever it's protecting you from?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:52 am (UTC)

He gives her an intensely suspicious look.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:53 am (UTC)

"What? I'm not going to hurt you. If I wanted to hurt you I wouldn't ask permission."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:54 am (UTC)

"Okay, on this planet, that is not a reassuring thing to say," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:55 am (UTC)

"Sorry," says Shell Bell, spreading her hands. "I can leave whatever-it-is alone, you seem to have it under control with your arc reactor, it's very decorative and everything."

pythbox
2013-02-28 01:56 am (UTC)

He snorts.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 01:57 am (UTC)

"But, you know, even though you're not my Tony, you're recognizably a Tony, and it would be sad if whatever-it-is killed you, and I can almost certainly help."

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:01 am (UTC)

"What... would you, hypothetically, do about it?"
Edited 2013-02-28 02:01 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:04 am (UTC)

"My magic works around wishes. I take a wishcoin, I wish for the problem to be gone, if it doesn't work I try a wishcoin with more angles on it, if the seven-pointed star doesn't work I can't do it but I bet if you're fixing it with a little glowy thing I can fix it better with a pentagon or a hexagon. The wishes are pretty smart but not all that smart, so if the problem is at all complicated you probably want to actually tell me what it is first. If, hypothetically, you wanted it taken care of," she shrugs.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:07 am (UTC)

"It's not that complicated," says Tony. "The reactor powers an electromagnet that keeps tiny little pieces of shrapnel from entering my heart."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:08 am (UTC)

"So if the shrapnel just disappeared you'd be fine, or would that be a bad idea? Because that's just a square." She bites her cheek and appears a square in her hand.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:16 am (UTC)

"The shrapnel disappearing would... definitely be an improvement."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:18 am (UTC)

"So do you want me to do it? Or I could give you this square, and you could do it yourself," she shrugs, "the coins work for anyone, it's just only certain people can make them."

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:19 am (UTC)

He reaches for it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:21 am (UTC)

She presses it into his hand and rocks back on her heels. Then she hops into the air and spins for no reason.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:22 am (UTC)

The square disappears.

"Thanks," Tony says quietly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:23 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Shell Bell. "Your alts are very nice, you know, I wouldn't be so quick to hand out even a little coin to a random person."

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:28 am (UTC)

He quirks a smile, reflexively, like he doesn't really believe it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:28 am (UTC)

"They are. Absolute sweethearts. Maybe it's the Sherlocks," she suggests.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:29 am (UTC)

—He laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:31 am (UTC)

"I could go get mine, if I teleport back to the door on Asgard and go in with my friend from here and stick my head out the door and call her over. My Tony, too, if you want."

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:32 am (UTC)

"Are they both your age?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:32 am (UTC)

"Yes."

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:36 am (UTC)

"Maybe I'll pass," he says wryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:37 am (UTC)

"Why does their being my age have to do with that?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:38 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:39 am (UTC)

"...Is this about the thing where it seems like every template but mine immediately gets a room when they meet their counterparts?" asks Shell Bell wryly.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:41 am (UTC)

"No," he says, looking appalled.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:41 am (UTC)

"Then what?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:43 am (UTC)

"I just... it would be weird," he says plaintively.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:44 am (UTC)

"How does their being my age make it weird? I met a me who's in her forties, I mentioned her, it's not weird - not even that she's married to someone who's not a you or a Sherlock and has a kid."

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:44 am (UTC)

"It just is, okay?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:46 am (UTC)

"Being not-me seems so confusing sometimes. Not knowing what's going on in your own head," Shell Bell muses, flipping over in the air. "You are what you're thinking and you can't even figure out what it is. But okay, if you don't want to meet them, that's fine."

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:48 am (UTC)

...Tony shakes his head and smiles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:52 am (UTC)

"How old are you?" Shell Bell wants to know.

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:53 am (UTC)

"Thirty-seven."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 02:56 am (UTC)

"How'd you come to be full of shrapnel? Is that from when your version of Snow tried to kill you?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 02:57 am (UTC)

"How'd you guess," he says dryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 03:00 am (UTC)

"Well, it was either that or an awful lot of people have been trying to kill you," says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-02-28 03:01 am (UTC)

"Okay," he admits, "very logical."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 03:04 am (UTC)

"I actually managed to take over my entire world without anybody trying to kill me and without having to personally kill anyone, which was way better than our initial projections. Although one of my alts came for a visit and killed someone for me. And I burned down a couple of buildings, but I chased everybody out of them, I didn't catch them on fire."

pythbox
2013-02-28 03:05 am (UTC)

"...Definitely better than the alternative."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 03:10 am (UTC)

"Yeah. So what do you do? I bet some kind of engineering, but I mean specifically." She glances around the house for clues. "I'm pretty clueless about what my Tony gets up to in the basement with the gadgets, and I know less about what it'd take to write a Jarvis, which mine didn't do." Pause. "Hm, the only Tony with no Jarvis is the one who had a Sherlock all along, I wonder why, maybe the writing Jarvis and the cloning are both about being lonely or something."

pythbox
2013-02-28 03:20 am (UTC)

"...I do pretty much every kind of engineering," says Tony. "And some superheroing on the side."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 03:20 am (UTC)

"Ooh, superheroing. Need any help, as long as my friend holding the door isn't impatient yet?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 12:54 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says, "I'm good, thanks."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay." [Hey, Darcy, I've just been referring to you as "my friend who's holding the door" so far, do you care if you come up in conversation enough for identifying you to make sense?]

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 04:31 pm (UTC)

[...Nah, not really,] she says. [Wait, are you actually talking to him? He didn't just blow you off?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 04:33 pm (UTC)

[I went through Jarvis; when I just teleported invisibly to where he was he didn't look ready to have a visitor right then. And Jarvis wanted to know if my time here was limited and I said it was so my guess is that mattered.]

"My friend who's holding the door is learning to be a superhero, too," volunteers Shell Bell, since this is apparently okay.

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 04:37 pm (UTC)

[I'm impressed,] says Darcy, although she doesn't specify by what.

"Really?" says Tony. "And here I thought I was the only one."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 04:39 pm (UTC)

"You did? I could maybe introduce you, but I'd have to take you to where she is, since if she leaves the door it closes and I have to wait to find a new one and that will take months, possibly many. I'm not as lucky with the door as some people."

[D'you wanna meet him if he's up for it?]

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 04:41 pm (UTC)

[...Sure!]

"Where, in fact, is she?" wonders Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Asgard," says Bell. "...Is Asgard public knowledge? I think it may be another planet. I went home with her so I could fix their bridge."

poeticterms
2013-02-28 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Asgard," Tony repeats, and shakes his head.

"Traditional home of the Norse gods," volunteers Jarvis.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 04:44 pm (UTC)

"I met a person called Sif there and another one called Heimdall who appeared to have been supervising a previous conversation without having been present? Is that informative?"

poeticterms
2013-02-28 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Jarvis.

Tony shakes his head and smiles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't tend to get mythological references and so on, I have a spotty and culturally impoverished education. I've been going to Milliways since I was six and staying until I ran out of seashells to trade for food, so in some ways I'm very cosmopolitan albeit without much information about what things are and are not common across worlds, but I spent the rest of my childhood in a beach town pretending to be slightly crazy, attending an underfunded school designed to turn out docile fisherfolk, working on a clam boat, and generally existing in a context that has lost all its previous ties to Earth history that isn't a fictionalized version of the Roman Empire."

poeticterms
2013-02-28 04:50 pm (UTC)

Tony blinks. "Okay, that's impressive."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 04:51 pm (UTC)

"...Which part?" Bell asks, tilting her head.

poeticterms
2013-02-28 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Being an empress, on a resume like that?" he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I could stay in Milliways for a long, long time if I brought enough seashells and didn't eat much," says Bell. "I talked to everyone and read a lot and watched a lot of video and learned everything I could. And after your alt and Sherlock put me on their tab instead - they're rich, you got a lot of money for winning on the TV show, everyone else outside the Capitol was dirt poor - then I stayed for months instead of weeks until I faked my death and stowed away on their train to move in with them. It's possible I'm actually twenty now by subjective time, but I've never added it up."

pythbox
2013-02-28 09:28 pm (UTC)

Tony shakes his head. "Yeah, no, still impressed."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 09:28 pm (UTC)

"All right, be impressed, then," laughs Shell Bell. "So do you want to come meet Darcy?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Darcy... your superhero friend?" he hazards.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, she has a magic space hammer that only lets the worthy lift it that she calls Mewtwo because she can't pronounce whatever its real name is and she is learning superheroing from her friend Sif."

poeticterms
2013-02-28 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Mjolnir," supplies Jarvis. "In all likelihood."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 09:31 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't sound very much like Mewtwo at all," Bell remarks.

pythbox
2013-02-28 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Cultural reference," says Tony. "To a videogame. Jarvis, how do I explain Pokemon?"

poeticterms
2013-02-28 09:39 pm (UTC)

"A question for the ages," Jarvis says dryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I know what a videogame is," says Shell Bell helpfully. "I've never played one, but I've heard of them."

pythbox
2013-02-28 09:46 pm (UTC)

"That's a start!" says Tony. "Mewtwo is a... rare and powerful imaginary animal from a videogame about collecting imaginary animals and making them beat up other imaginary animals for you so you can collect those too."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 09:48 pm (UTC)

"That actually sounds kinda fun," says Shell Bell, "if the imaginary animals don't spend the whole time being miserable about beating each other up."

pythbox
2013-02-28 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Nope, as far as I remember, they're mostly weirdly cheerful about it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

"That's good, then. Now I get Darcy's reference. Are we gonna go introduce you or talk about video games?" Shell Bell giggles.

pythbox
2013-02-28 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Video games," he says, pointing at her emphatically, "are serious business."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I'll borrow one from Milliways on my way home and collect some imaginary animals."

pythbox
2013-02-28 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Anyway," he says, "I think I'll pass on the interplanetary travel."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 09:59 pm (UTC)

[He says no interplanetary travel for him,] Bell relays to Darcy.

"You're not particularly adventurous," she comments. "...At least not when someone else drives."

pythbox
2013-02-28 09:59 pm (UTC)

Tony grins. "You got me."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 10:00 pm (UTC)

[Reasonable,] Darcy concedes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:02 pm (UTC)

[If you want to meet him bad enough, then Sif could hold the door and I could pop up and get you, but I dunno how much you care.]

"I do know several of you," Shell Bell points out, "even if you're older than all of them and less Sherlock-having."

sailorheavymetal
2013-02-28 10:04 pm (UTC)

[I don't think I care that much,] says Darcy.

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Tony, "that's still weird, by the way."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I suppose not everyone has desperately wanted to meet their alts since they were thirteen."

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:07 pm (UTC)

He smiles. "Well, none of mine are empresses of anything, right?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Not as far as I know, although there's a girl Sherlock, maybe there's a girl you somewhere too, maybe she's an empress?" shrugs Bell.

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:09 pm (UTC)

He laughs and shakes his head. "Who knows."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Not me, yet, but I plan to live forever and maybe in all that time I will find out," says Shell Bell pleasantly.

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Ambitious," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Ambitious is that I want pretty much everyone else to live forever, too, and today I plan to see if I can raise the dead," says Shell Bell. "Planning to live forever is self-preservation."

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:21 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah," he says, "it's self-preservation if you can do it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I can," says Bell. "I'm magic. All I have to do is quit aging - when I've decided I like some age I am instead of wanting to see what another year looks like on top - and not get really sick or injured."

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Well, good for you," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Shell Bell merrily. "You know, the goatee really works for you, I should suggest it to my Tony."

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:26 pm (UTC)

...He laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:26 pm (UTC)

"What?" asks Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I could not even begin to tell you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Ah, fine. You seem less stunned than I was when I first found out about alternate worlds," Bell observes. "But then, I was six at the time."
Edited 2013-02-28 23:49 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Alternate universes are old news in physics," he says with a shrug.

she_sells_seashells
2013-02-28 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Does physics have an explanation for alts? 'Cause none of mine know why there are half a dozen plus of us running around."

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:58 pm (UTC)

"In theory, if there are infinite alternate universes, multiple versions of the same person in different settings isn't impossible," he says. "As to how you'd all end up meeting each other, your guess is as good as mine."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:00 am (UTC)

"How and when the doors appear is not at all a known thing," says Shell Bell, "alas. Although there's one - well, two, now - Jarvises who can open doors at will, which is very convenient. And my Tony can summon it on purpose one try out of three."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:04 am (UTC)

"Good for him," Tony says dryly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:06 am (UTC)

"I was floored when I heard about that. When I was little I lived for trips to Milliways - I'm sure I'd be brain-damaged from malnutrition by this age without it, actually - and it would only come by after months, sometimes longer. I was so jealous. But neither him nor Sherlock started finding it until after they won their respective Hunger Games."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:08 am (UTC)

"...That just sounds mean," he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:12 am (UTC)

"Oh, trust me, if I knew who ran the place that wouldn't even be the first thing I complained to the management about. Although it'd be the second," says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:13 am (UTC)

"Dare I ask...?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"If you ever open a door and it leads to a bar instead of where you thought you were going? And it's decorated for - you have Valentine's Day here? Lace and pink and red and white and -" She makes the heart shape with her hands. "If you find Milliways and it's decorated with that crap you bolt."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:19 am (UTC)

"Uhh," he says. "Okay."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:21 am (UTC)

"Milliways thinks it's cute to celebrate the holiday with little darts of mind-affecting love drugs," Shell Bell explains.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:23 am (UTC)

"Creeeeepy," Tony opines.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:24 am (UTC)

"Ayep. Me and Sherlock managed to sleep through most of it, and I found it useful - I was straight, they gave me the material to go straight-with-an-exception - but it was awful. I cried."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:29 am (UTC)

"Hey, I'm sorry," he says awkwardly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:29 am (UTC)

"Not your fault, I'm just warning you, run if Milliways is decorated for Valentine's. I'm fine, now."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:30 am (UTC)

"Consider me warned."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:32 am (UTC)

"Good good." Pause. "Hey, I should probably apologize - I didn't know where you were, so earlier, I just teleported to the-place-you-were, invisibly - I have to specify a unique location or I can't go anywhere. I wound up in your bedroom, but I left to outside the house right away and talked to Jarvis. I don't know if he told you or not, but he noticed me, invisibility notwithstanding."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:33 am (UTC)

"Yeah, he mentioned," says Tony. "We're cool as long as you didn't take pictures."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:33 am (UTC)

"I didn't take any photos, but I have perfect recall," says Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:34 am (UTC)

"Then we're cool as long as you don't draw any pictures," he amends.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:35 am (UTC)

"Or conjure them?" laughs Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:36 am (UTC)

"As long as pictures do not come into existence in whatever form," he says, snorting.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:37 am (UTC)

"Sure. If my Tony or my Sherlock ask, though, can I show them you? Not upstairs, but just -" She waves her hand at him. "Like so. Maybe Tony wants to know what he'll look like in twenty years if he doesn't quit aging before then."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:39 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Sure, that's fine. Show him the goatee."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:41 am (UTC)

"Will do," Shell Bell grins. "-D'you want to see pictures of them? Or lifesize three-dimensional illusions. Same size coin to do either, squares'll do conjuring or illusions either one."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:42 am (UTC)

"Why not," he shrugs. "Might as well go for the better special effects."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:45 am (UTC)

Square! Illusions! She includes all the ones she's met, just for fun, standing grouped, and points around. "These are mine, and this is Juliet's Sherlock, who's a vampire, and this is another pair from a world without a Bell in it, that's the Tony that copied their Jarvis for Juliet's Sherlock to bring home, and this is another vampire Sherlock from another world, who does have a Tony at home but he wasn't there when I met him, and this one unlike the other vampire one has his soul attached still."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:48 am (UTC)

"...That is more of my nineteen-year-old face than I have ever seen in one place at one time," he says, blinking.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:50 am (UTC)

Shell Bell laughs. "Well, I think most of the Sherlocks are technically younger. Since they're clones except for mine. The Tonies who cloned them did at age twelve and the Sherlocks caught up to look the same age and then slow down in two years."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:51 am (UTC)

"...Kiiiind of jealous now," Tony admits.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 12:59 am (UTC)

"You should be, Sherlocks are awesome," says Shell Bell. She can't really hug an illusion, but she's looking at hers like she wants to.

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:01 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Maybe I should clone myself too," he jokes. "Get in on the game."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:04 am (UTC)

"I have no idea what doing it at your age would wind up looking like," Shell Bell says frankly. "You might not even get a Sherlock; maybe Sherlock is only what you get if you clone yourself when you're twelve or have a twin naturally, maybe you'd get some complete other personality for a clone you made now. I'd suggest putting you in touch with Juliet's Sherlock so he can have a complete set, but he's pretty attached to Juliet and she's sort of a superhero in her world and really oughtn't leave, and you're probably pretty attached to here, and besides there'd be two Jarvises which could be weird."

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:12 am (UTC)

"...And I would also feel awkward filling in for a dead me," Tony points out.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:17 am (UTC)

"That too," Shell Bell acknowledges. "The relevant Jarvis was pretty even-keeled about it as far as I could tell, but I guess that's a little different? Also the worlds are closer neighbors -" She gestures at the relevant cluster of Sherlocks and the one displayed Tony. "These three all seem to have the same kind of vampire, similar magic systems, that sort of thing, my set's the odd one out in more ways than one. All the Bells are from very different worlds. The most similar pair are Stella and Golden, who had identical histories until they were seventeen, moved in with their versions of our father, and Stella encountered magic like what I have now and Golden encountered a different kind of vampire."

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:18 am (UTC)

"There are a lot of vampires in this story," Tony observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah, there really are. Stella thinks Golden's kind is neat so she turned her boyfriend into one." This is punctuated by illusions of all three named parties - Stella, Golden, and Alice. "This guy's template also crops up a lot. We call them Whistles - bells and whistles, it's apparently a saying some places? - and three of us have them."

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:25 am (UTC)

"He looks vaguely familiar," says Tony. "Not that that means anything."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:29 am (UTC)

"Does he?" Shell Bell asks curiously. "Maybe there's one in this world too. Do you remember where you might've seen him? Here's the others who have Bells," she adds, and she throws in pictures of Kas (with Petaal as a snake, that being how Amariah depicted them for the Bellbook) and Micaiah, "and here's another one," she adds the Joker, "and there was reportedly a little one, eleven years old, who found his way into the bar and has a Bell but I've never seen pictures of either one and so it's possible it's a case of mistaken identity, though Angela and Stella didn't seem to think so."

The room is looking crowded. She dismisses excess Tonies and Sherlocks. (She keeps her Sherlock. She likes having her there.)

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:30 am (UTC)

"Nah," he says. "He kinda reminds me of somebody, but I don't think I know him."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:33 am (UTC)

Shell Bell shoos all the illusions except, again, her Sherlock. "Maybe I'll see if I can teleport to him if you get bored of chatting before Darcy gets bored of holding the door, just in case. I like knowing about all these far-flung alts."

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:35 am (UTC)

"Just try not to walk in on him naked," he says, amused.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:37 am (UTC)

"It's possible I should work out a way to boost the teleportation power so it can live with complicated algorithms like 'on the far side of the nearest door to so-and-so', but that doesn't rule out the possibility of somebody being naked in that room," Shell Bell says.

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:39 am (UTC)

"You could add an optional constraint that fails if there are any naked people visible from the landing point," he suggests.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:41 am (UTC)

"That's a good idea," says Bell. "I will." She does, and nods to herself.

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:42 am (UTC)

"You probably don't want to teleport into anybody's bathroom while they're using it, either," Tony muses.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:45 am (UTC)

"I haven't actually had that problem because of the way the teleporter interprets 'where so-and-so is' - I mean, you would have noticed if I'd appeared literally on top of you, and bathrooms are usually too small for me to show up in one with a person," Shell Bell says, "but it's probably worth installing anyway, in case I'm ever hunting for somebody with unconventional architecture."

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:46 am (UTC)

"...I am suddenly really glad you didn't come looking for me two hours ago," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:48 am (UTC)

Bell laughs. "Do you have," she asks, "an enormous bathroom?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:50 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Tony. "Yes I do."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 01:54 am (UTC)

"Then I am also glad I did not appear two hours ago. I apologize for not having added all these tweaks to my teleportation power before. I copied it directly from Stella and I have the impression that she usually knows plenty about where she's going and doesn't need this installed on the magical level. And is only visiting people she's already put on the brainphone network so she can call ahead anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:59 am (UTC)

"Brainphone...?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:00 am (UTC)

"Telepathic phonelike thing?" says Shell Bell. "It's very handy, do you want in? I've already added Jarvis to announce myself when I first arrived, you could talk to him wherever without making a sound."

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:02 am (UTC)

"Gimme," says Tony. "That would be very useful."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:02 am (UTC)

[Behold!]

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:04 am (UTC)

[Ooooh,] says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:06 am (UTC)

[It also does text channel. And busy messages that pop up according to arbitrarily complicated algorithms, although since in this world I've only added you, Jarvis, and Darcy, I don't think you'll need those unless you want me to throw a dozen of your friends in too.]
Edited 2013-03-01 02:06 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:07 am (UTC)

He laughs. [My friends all have real phones.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:10 am (UTC)

[This is more convenient. You can't lose it, it works underwater and in loud environments, and it's free. But as you like.]

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:18 am (UTC)

"See," he says, "I'd have to explain it to my friends."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:20 am (UTC)

"You got the idea quick enough," she points out.

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:22 am (UTC)

"The mechanics aren't the problem, the backstory is."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:23 am (UTC)

"Darcy's not bored yet. I could help."

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:24 am (UTC)

"Help how?" he inquires.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:26 am (UTC)

"Appear to them - now with new and improved anti-nudity algorithms - introduce myself, ask them if they want brainphones?" she shrugs. "Is there some non-obvious other way I could be of help?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:28 am (UTC)

"Well, Pepper's still asleep," he says, waving a hand in the direction of the bedroom. "And God knows where Rhodey is, probably in a plane, he's been known to fly those."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:29 am (UTC)

"It's not like I can't teleport onto a plane," Bell points out. "Pepper? That's a cute name."

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:30 am (UTC)

"Says a woman named Shell Bell," Tony snorts. "You rhyme."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:33 am (UTC)

"My real name is Bell. The shell part is a nickname. Remember how I was bringing shells into Milliways since I was six? It doesn't warn me when it's going to give me a door, and having shells on my person or not was the difference between staying three days, starving, or staying three weeks, getting a reasonable meal every day and more time to learn things and look for some magic or tech I could take home and be that little bit safer. I left bags of clamshells near every door I ever went through and pitched a fit if someone moved them. The rhyme just made it even more obvious."

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:36 am (UTC)

"...Yeah," he says, "I mean, I figured? Pepper's a nickname too, her real name's Virginia."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:37 am (UTC)

"How is Pepper a nickname for Virginia?" asks Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:39 am (UTC)

"That is a very good question," says Tony, "and I came up with it, so I should know the answer."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:43 am (UTC)

"...But you don't?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:43 am (UTC)

"Nope."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:47 am (UTC)

"Huh. Anyway, do you want me to go see about talking to your friend who might be on an airplane?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:48 am (UTC)

"I guess," he says. "I should probably call him first."

The friend in question does not pick up.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:51 am (UTC)

Shell Bell waits for this result to be interpreted in the form of a should or a should-not.

pythbox
2013-03-01 02:52 am (UTC)

"He's probably doing something important and military," says Tony. "Or sleeping, he could be sleeping. Better not."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:53 am (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Shell Bell.

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-01 02:55 am (UTC)

[Soooo,] says Darcy, [can you put Heimdall on the brainphone from where you are?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 02:59 am (UTC)

[Yeah, sure, does he want in?]

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-01 03:02 am (UTC)

[Yep!]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 03:04 am (UTC)

[Done,] she conferences to Darcy and Heimdall both. "I just added Heimdall to the network," she informs Tony, "so if you don't want to talk to him, you can set up a busy message instead of being surprised if he talks to you, though I have no idea if he's likely to."

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:04 am (UTC)

[Thank you,] says Heimdall.

"Okay," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 03:07 am (UTC)

[You're welcome.]

"You know, I really wish there were a good way to set up Milliways-independent interworld travel," remarks Shell Bell wistfully. "But I can't do it even with the pointiest wishcoins Sherlock ever makes for me."
Edited 2013-03-01 03:11 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:12 am (UTC)

"...Hmm," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 03:17 am (UTC)

"...What, thinking of an engineering solution?" Shell Bell asks.

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:17 am (UTC)

"Maybe."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 03:19 am (UTC)

She laughs. "I'm not optimistic, if I can't do it with a star - although Stella's boyfriend has made even pointier coins, so maybe those can, although the big wishes are kind of mean - it's not even safe to use stars unless you know a certain secret - so she hasn't tried doing anything with them yet, she even calls the class of coin 'evils'."

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:20 am (UTC)

"It's weird that pointiness is a measure of power," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 03:23 am (UTC)

"And," says Shell Bell, "everybody gets unique coin colors! Well, I don't know about everybody everybody, but even alts don't all have the same ones. You saw mine."

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:25 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "Weird."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 03:27 am (UTC)

"My Sherlock does a sort of gray pearly color, and none of the Tonies are mints so I don't know about them."

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:28 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 03:33 am (UTC)

"It's not a good idea to make people mints just because. One of the things coins can't do is unmint a person. I trust my Tony just fine, but he doesn't tend to go for jaunts in other worlds like I've been doing lately, he can just ask me or Sherlock for whatever he wants, and also he wouldn't be a particularly effective mint - I have the power so I can make my own triangles and squares new wherever I am, but all my big coins are from Sherlock and the other Bells who are mints get theirs from minted Whistles, because -" Pause. "Are you, like, squeamish?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 03:34 am (UTC)

"...Not especially?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 03:41 am (UTC)

"The coins are made of pain," says Juliet. "More of it gets a pointier coin and a bigger wish. Whistles love it like candy; Sherlock liked it enough that it didn't take a lot of magic to get her to hexagon- and star-making on the regular. Most Bells - though not me or Angela, we come from totally nonmagical worlds - have a sort of inborn mental opacity power that won't let anything alter our brains, and even me and Angela don't like the idea, so even we take help where we can get it."

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:21 pm (UTC)

"...Wow," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Kinda fucked-up magic, but so useful," says Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-01 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "I'm starting to get that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 05:40 pm (UTC)

"One time I met an alt of me - that was Juliet - and I had just run into Angela, and I gave Angela all my big coins including the hexes, which are how one makes more mints, and including the pentagons, which would've been enough to wake up Sherlock and call her over without losing the door. I shouldn't have done that, Angela has a Whistle, she only needed two hexes to start, not anything else... And Juliet of course did not insist on breaking my arm for the sake of getting magic even though the magic in that cluster of worlds is nasty, addictive, dangerous stuff that she's been advised not to try. So I just visited her for a while and made her a big heap of squares and helped the one Tony install the copied Jarvis and then I went home."

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-01 06:12 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] says Darcy, [holding this door is getting kinda old.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Darcy's bored," says Shell Bell.

[Up in a sec.]

"Questions, comments, last-minute anythings?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

"...Good luck raising the dead?" he says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! Bye!"

She teleports up to Darcy. "So - did you pick out a dead person for me to try reviving first?"
Edited 2013-03-01 18:17 (UTC)

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-01 06:18 pm (UTC)

"...No," Darcy admits. "I don't even know all the names."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Who would be a good person to ask about that? Sif? Heimdall?" These being the only other locals she knows.

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Definitely Heimdall," says Darcy.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 06:23 pm (UTC)

[Hey Heimdall. I may be able to raise the dead; I haven't tried it before because I didn't know anyone recently dead who'd be able to wake up to their pretty much normal life if it worked. D'you have an idea for a good experimental subject?]

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

[Yes,] says Heimdall. [Ari Guthrunarson.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 06:42 pm (UTC)

[In case this is a just-barely thing, is Ari's body available, so I can try from a short range, or would something bad happen if I attempted to visit it?]

pythbox
2013-03-01 06:58 pm (UTC)

[Something bad could happen if you were seen to visit it,] says Heimdall.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 06:59 pm (UTC)

[Will being invisible do the trick?]

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:03 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to go try Heimdall's idea," Bell tells Darcy. "I'll know if it works or not real quick." And she turns invisible and teleports to the relevant location.

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:06 pm (UTC)

Dead Asgardian on a slab. Currently unaccompanied.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:10 pm (UTC)

Star?

No dice.

She tries a few wish designs - naive "make him alive", then "restore him to his condition as of just before he died" intending to patch any other injuries with lesser coins, then "reconstruct the mind that used to live here, put it in a new, living body" -

No dice.

[It doesn't work,] she tells both Heimdall and Darcy apologetically. [I'm sorry.]

pythbox
2013-03-01 07:15 pm (UTC)

[Thank you for trying,] Heimdall says gravely.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:17 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome.] She teleports back to Darcy, and re-visibles. "Well," she sighs. "Now I know."

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-01 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Yep." She shrugs. "It was a long shot anyway, right?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:24 pm (UTC)

"I thought it might work. Stars can do a lot. They can have big effects over entire planets. I guess they can't do this one thing." She shrugs. "Thank you for holding the door." She goes into Milliways.

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-01 07:26 pm (UTC)

"See ya," says Darcy, and she closes the door.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:29 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell dutifully writes down her findings in the Bellbook, but the Tower is empty; she goes home after.

She goes looking for Sherlock, solemn.

sicaria
2013-03-01 07:33 pm (UTC)

Baking cupcakes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:34 pm (UTC)

Bell sits in the kitchen and watches thoughtfully. "Found Darcy again," she says.

sicaria
2013-03-01 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Oh?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I went back to her world for a bit and fixed a bridge that she needed to commute between planets and there's a Tony in her world, who I met. He's thirty-seven and has a Jarvis but no Sherlock, twinned or cloned. And then after Darcy was bored holding the door for me, I tried resurrecting a guy who'd died in a war they had recently, to see if it'd work - and it doesn't. Not with a star, anyway, I don't know about Stella's 'evils'."

sicaria
2013-03-01 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunate," she murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'll push the immortality programs a little harder, I guess." She dismisses her illusion crown and picks up her real one from where it's sitting on the kitchen table.

sicaria
2013-03-01 07:48 pm (UTC)

Sherlock pauses briefly in the cupcake process to give Bell a kiss.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:50 pm (UTC)

Kisses are so nice.

"Well, I'm supposed to go meet Coin on that depopulated continent, talk colonization," says Bell, waving a hand. "I'll probably be back before the cupcakes are frosted, she can only take so much of me at a time. I love you!"

sicaria
2013-03-01 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," she says fondly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:52 pm (UTC)

Bell teleports.

She waits a bit. [I wonder,] she says conversationally to Sherlock, [if Coin would be late to fewer things if I just gave her a teleportation pow]

And that is all.

sicaria
2013-03-01 07:55 pm (UTC)

Reflexively, she checks up on the named location with her perception-of-physical-structures power.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 07:55 pm (UTC)

A mushroom cloud is billowing in the way that mushroom clouds are known to do.

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:00 pm (UTC)

Sherlock stands very, very still for a very, very short amount of time.

Then she sends her power looking for Coin and brainphones Tony.

[I need a hundred thousand triangles of pain. Right now. I'll explain later if I can.]

ferratus
2013-03-01 08:01 pm (UTC)

[What—] he starts, but he knows that tone of voice, and he trusts her.

So he turns on the agony beam to the requested amount.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 08:02 pm (UTC)

Coin is sitting in her office, looking perfectly innocuous.

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock cannot deal with her right now.

Sherlock can barely deal with the coin she is trying to make.

It turns out that the pentagon that modified her perception of pain was not... quite... sufficient.

But she can't take the time to readjust. She summons the concentration to make coins out of what she's feeling, and as soon as she summons the concentration to stop, she tells Tony [enough] and spends a declawed star to declaw one of her new eight-pointed coins.

Her wish is extremely specific. She wants Bell back. Not a version incompletely reconstructed from her own knowledge or any other secondary information, but the same person who was destroyed in a nuclear explosion a minute ago. She wants Bell back, right here, unharmed and unchanged and with complete memories of her life up to the point where she was murdered.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 08:13 pm (UTC)

[-er,] Bell finishes her sentence, then blinks. "...Sherlock?"

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Coin just assassinated you," Sherlock says flatly.

And she expands her perspective on both Coin and her own house, so as to spot any more threats before they arrive.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 08:19 pm (UTC)

"...Assassinated me? But I'm here. How did I get here?"

There's nothing incoming on the house.

(Coin doesn't, actually, know where Bell's magic comes from, or she would never have done something so incomplete and foolish.)

Coin is receiving a report that the bomb has gone off and as near as anyone in Thirteen can determine it got its target. "Thank you," she tells the report-deliverer, "that will be all."

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:21 pm (UTC)

She lifts the end of her coin-chain, on which there are still three extra evils, tangling their points with one another.

She has her suspending-contemplation-of-something-unpleasant face on.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I -" Bell looks at the evils, and then throws herself forward and hugs Sherlock hard. "Fuck. Thank you."

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:29 pm (UTC)

"It turns out that a pentagon for masochism is not sufficient," she says, hugging back a little stiffly. "Which reminds me."

She spends a hex.

"That should be better. Now. What do we do about Coin?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 08:35 pm (UTC)

"It's not? Oh my - Sherlock, you didn't even stop to boost that before...?"

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:36 pm (UTC)

"It would have wasted time."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 08:39 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell hugs her tighter. "I wasn't getting deader."

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:50 pm (UTC)

"You were continuing to be dead."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 08:51 pm (UTC)

Bell doesn't understand. So she looks.

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:53 pm (UTC)

Bell continuing to be dead was more unpleasant than the amount of pain required to make her stop. And Sherlock could not be quite certain that there wasn't a time limit involved, that any second spent tuning her masochism and experimenting with Tony to find a more pleasant delivery method might not be the particular second that carried her out of reach forever.
Edited 2013-03-01 20:55 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 08:56 pm (UTC)

"I love you," mumbles Bell into Sherlock's shoulder. "I love you so much."

sicaria
2013-03-01 08:57 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," she whispers, closing her eyes against sudden tears.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:00 pm (UTC)

Dealing with Coin is urgent, but not urgent on a scale of minutes. They can stand here hugging each other and crying for a little while longer.

sicaria
2013-03-01 09:02 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes, they can do that.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:04 pm (UTC)

"I'm almost surprised you didn't kill her on the spot," Bell murmurs.

sicaria
2013-03-01 09:05 pm (UTC)

"That would also have wasted time."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:09 pm (UTC)

"And we wouldn't be able to figure out who else was in on her plan to nuke a perfectly nice section of the ruins of Europe so easily, either," says Bell.

sicaria
2013-03-01 09:13 pm (UTC)

"True," says Sherlock. "What shall we do about her?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Moon," says Bell. "Public trial for her and her accomplices. I don't know if we can get her to admit to anything, and of course whatever vid I put out the smart people will know I could've magicked no matter what happened, but it'll go some way towards not making it just look like I'm picking on a rival for no reason."

sicaria
2013-03-01 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I suppose so," says Sherlock. "And in case of future unpleasantness, I think we should design a more comprehensive set of protections."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I can't just be - physically invulnerable, or I won't be able to make coins in an emergency," Bell says, nibbling thoughtfully on her lip. "...Does Tony know what happened or did he just - you didn't tell him yet," she sees, looking.

sicaria
2013-03-01 09:33 pm (UTC)

"I did not tell him yet," she agrees. "I should. He is probably worrying a little."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:40 pm (UTC)

[Hey, Tony, c'mere?]

ferratus
2013-03-01 09:41 pm (UTC)

[Sure. Where?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:43 pm (UTC)

[Kitchen,] says Bell.

ferratus
2013-03-01 09:45 pm (UTC)

He goes there.

"...Why are you both so..?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I died briefly," Bell says. "But Sherlock fixed it."

ferratus
2013-03-01 09:49 pm (UTC)

He cannot figure out who to hug first.

Both. Both is obviously the answer.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 09:57 pm (UTC)

Hugs all round. "So now I have to deal with the assassins - Coin and whoever actually planted the nuke and whoever else was involved - and also figure out a form of invulnerability that won't interfere with emergency coinmaking. I guess it could just go on and off at will like the regen does. Although Stella found it really useful to be able to make a hex unexpectedly that once, we're not looking at the exact situation that would make that relevant..."

sicaria
2013-03-01 10:01 pm (UTC)

"You could make yourself invulnerable but optionally able to feel pain from thwarted injuries," Sherlock suggests.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 10:49 pm (UTC)

"That sounds... confusing, but I imagine I could adjust," says Bell, and she nods and spends a hex. "Is there any reason not to cover you two similarly?"

ferratus
2013-03-01 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Tony.

sicaria
2013-03-01 10:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock considers, then nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 10:52 pm (UTC)

Hex hex. Hugs.

sicaria
2013-03-01 10:53 pm (UTC)

Definitely hugs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 10:54 pm (UTC)

And eventually, "Can't decide whether to moon Coin and conspirators in the ex-Capitol or in a separate section."

sicaria
2013-03-01 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Separate," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:02 pm (UTC)

"The two factions are likely to try to harm one another otherwise."
Edited 2013-03-01 23:02 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But there could easily be a very small number of District Thirteen folks that I ever need to bemoon, and I'm concerned about them all eventually hating each other. The ground rules should prevent actual harm, and the ex-Capitol population is much larger, it'd be easier for them to be absorbed. Maybe I should make them an - attached suburb sort of area that I can close off if there's too much friction."

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that seems reasonable."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:13 pm (UTC)

Bell closes her eyes, speeds up, designs and wishes the suburb, and then says, "Come with me to confront Coin?"

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Of course."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:18 pm (UTC)

"...Er," Bell says, holding up a finger, and she squares off two of the evils from Sherlock's chain, declaws them, and gives them to Tony. "Hold onto these for the next few minutes, if we don't check in... I don't think Coin has anything prepped for us appearing right now and if she did it probably wouldn't get around the protection newly added, but I'm all paranoid now, I literally just died."

ferratus
2013-03-01 11:18 pm (UTC)

"You got it," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:20 pm (UTC)

And with that, Shell Bell teleports herself and Sherlock into Coin's office.

The look on Coin's face is priceless.

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:22 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles at her.

It is not a pleasant expression.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:25 pm (UTC)

"You're very glad you failed," says Shell Bell in a voice that might be quite pleasant under other circumstances. "It's the best possible outcome. If you had not failed, Sherlock would most likely have killed you with her bare hands. I, on the other hand, am just going to put you and everyone who helped you on the moon. In fact, let's all go there right now."

Teleportation into the new moon-neighborhood occurs.

Coin still has nothing to say, apparently.

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:26 pm (UTC)

Neither does Sherlock. Although she does put the smile away a few seconds after they arrive.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:40 pm (UTC)

"You can tell me who your new neighbors are going to be," says Shell Bell, "or I can find them myself, but you made your bid, you lost, and you're now retired."

"How? blurts Coin.

"Magic," Bell snaps.

There is a silence, and Coin starts muttering names, and, at Bell's look when she stops, says, "That's everyone who knew."

Bell's lie-detector is quiet. She wishes all the named individuals up without further ceremony. "Reports of my assassination have omitted certain details," she says loudly to the assembled half-dozen people. "Such as that I'm not dead. Such as that I do not appreciate people trying to kill me. Such as that the obvious, obvious consequence of antagonizing the Empress of Atlantis is getting put on the moon. Welcome to the moon, I hope you like it, you do not get to leave. You get the same letter-writing privileges as the ex-Capitolites, your mailbox is over there, you may enter the ex-Capitol proper if desired but if you get into fights with the other moondwellers I will seal off your section, more detailed trials intended for general broadcast and summary appeals of the sentence will begin when I have calmed down."

And she teleports herself and Sherlock back to the kitchen where abandoned cupcake batter continues to rest on the counter.

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:45 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Oh, hugs.

"I don't understand why they'd do that," mumbles Bell. "By any sane measure all their lives were getting better with me around. I really wasn't going to challenge Coin's presidency until she was up for reelection and that was years away. I don't understand."

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps they cannot imagine anyone with power choosing to use that power kindly."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't see what else it would be for. What else would it be for?" Hugs, hugs, hugs.

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:50 pm (UTC)

"And that," says Sherlock, "is among the many reasons why I love you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-01 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," sighs Bell.

Slowly, slowly, tension drains away from her and she's issuing a much more relaxed hug.

sicaria
2013-03-01 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I have lost my taste for cupcakes," she observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-02 12:00 am (UTC)

"I'm not really in the mood for cupcakes either," agrees Shell Bell.

sicaria
2013-03-02 12:01 am (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her gently, and hugs her again.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-02 12:02 am (UTC)

Hugs. Hugs, hugs. "I love you so much. I can't believe I died. I talk about living forever and then I get sneak-attacked and I actually die. I'm probably not even twenty."

sicaria
2013-03-02 12:07 am (UTC)

"I love you too," she murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-02 12:10 am (UTC)

"What if it hadn't worked," murmurs Bell.

sicaria
2013-03-02 12:12 am (UTC)

"Then I expect I would have killed Coin," she says. "With my bare hands or otherwise. And made a poor job of administering your empire."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-02 12:13 am (UTC)

Shell Bell's hands clench in the fabric of Sherlock's shirt and she starts crying again softly.

sicaria
2013-03-02 12:14 am (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-02 12:22 am (UTC)

Shell Bell takes a while to calm herself down.

When she has managed it and deems the calm stable, she goes back up to the moon, impresses up on everyone who has just been moved there that she can tell when they're lying, conjures up video cameras, and interviews them about the events leading up to her assassination, although she implies throughout that it never worked in the first place. She then collects all her videos and takes them to her PR manager. He and most of his staff were hired from District Thirteen, so she has a chat with him about the content of the videos, first, and finds him mercifully to fall on her side of the issue (apparently, he didn't vote for Coin). She turns over the video for editing and context-addition and broadcast, and she goes home again.

sicaria
2013-03-02 12:23 am (UTC)

On her return, Sherlock welcomes her with more hugs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-02 12:26 am (UTC)

Hugs are most thoroughly welcome. Oh, Bell loves her.

sicaria
2013-03-02 12:28 am (UTC)

Sherlock loves her right back.

Hugs.

love at first sight

temporal_affairs

Nathan tires out his mate and leaves him asleep in his room. He goes downstairs to see what there is to see.

Oh. She's still there.

Well. He's not going to leave. She can leave. Fuck her. He's not going anywhere.

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:57 am (UTC)

She doesn't seem to have line of sight on him, but she tenses visibly when he looks at her.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 12:58 am (UTC)

God but he hates her. She's just a human. A non-magical fucking human. He could tear her apart. He wants to. It would be very satisfying. The Joker might even forgive him for it. (He wants to.)

pythbox
2013-03-03 12:59 am (UTC)

She turns, slowly even for a human, and looks at him.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 01:00 am (UTC)

"What the hell are you looking at?" he snarls. (As though he weren't staring holes through her mask a moment ago.)

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:01 am (UTC)

"What," she asks, very evenly, "is your problem with me?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 01:02 am (UTC)

"He still loves you. You hate him, and he's my mate, and however much he loves me he still loves you, and you never deserved him."

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:03 am (UTC)

She scowls.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 01:05 am (UTC)

"I have never hated anyone as much as I hate you for that," he hisses. "I've killed people for less, I've killed people I didn't hate at all, and I wish to God I could kill you now, but it would upset him, and maybe if I'm very, very lucky, I will actually lose control of myself in a way a lie-detector can verify for him later and you won't go on existing. God, I hate you."

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:10 am (UTC)

"Your mate terrorized my city," she snaps. "He tortured a man to death on camera and sent the video to the news. He burned a witness alive. He fed a rival to his own dogs. He's sick."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 01:15 am (UTC)

"He wanted your fucking attention," Nathan growls. "When that was finally off the table he was perfectly happy to settle in with me. Sweet as you please. You think I would've cared if he wanted to go on doing that? I wouldn't, I can't fall out of love with him no matter what and I've certainly got my own body count just because I was thirsty, and you know what he does when he gets unconditional love and magic powers? He settles in and raises a baby and solves random acquaintances' problems with magic and has ludicrous amounts of sex! I actually want him and it kills me that you got to him first."

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:16 am (UTC)

She can't quite stop the look of disgust that passes over the visible part of her face at 'ludicrous amounts of sex'.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 01:17 am (UTC)

"Oh, get over yourself."

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:18 am (UTC)

She growls. Impressively, for a human.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 01:19 am (UTC)

He growls right back. Impressively even for a vampire. Several nearby people scurry farther away.

And he stands up, too fast for the eye to track.

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:23 am (UTC)

The Bat flinches.

Earlier today, back at home, she installed a threat-level sensor. It's been screaming about Nathan since he first laid eyes on her a few minutes ago, and it's telling her enough that when he blurs out of visibility, she assumes he is about to kill her.

She spends one of her two remaining hexes, and she is emphatic but not specific: she wants him to be in no state to cause her harm, right now.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 01:27 am (UTC)

Nathan spends one very, very brief moment very, very hungry.

And then he cannot feel hunger, or anything else, and he's frozen, a starved statue where he was standing.

pythbox
2013-03-03 01:29 am (UTC)

The Bat eyes him nervously. Well, that took care of his threat level, all right.

She doesn't feel like sticking around to argue with Security; she gets up and heads for the door, cape sweeping behind her.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 01:33 am (UTC)

It's a few hours before the Joker wakes up. Huh; Nathan must've gone downstairs.

He gets dressed, more slowly than usual because there's nothing to hurry for. He absently tucks a few knives into his pockets. He wanders downstairs, smiling to himself.

There's Nathan, all right.

"...Sweetheart?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 01:34 am (UTC)

Nathan is not capable of responding right now.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 01:38 am (UTC)

No. No, he can see that.

He spins through all the 'safe coins', trying to fix it. No, no, no, and nope.

Those aren't the only coins he has.

The Joker bites his lip. (Triangle.) Then he kisses Nathan on the cheek and teleports them both to the door, which he opens.

[Goldie-your-majesty?] he says, trying for lighthearted and not really making it all the way there. [Weeeee have a problem.]
Edited 2013-03-03 01:39 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 01:49 am (UTC)

[What is it?] she replies after a moment's delay.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 01:54 am (UTC)

[I went to Milliways with Nathan and while I was sleeping he turned into a statue and I can't unstick him with hexes. Could you help, please?]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 01:56 am (UTC)

She teleports into place without further ado. "A statue? Show me."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 01:57 am (UTC)

He steps out of the way and lets her see Nathan, still standing there just the way he was when the Joker found him, but now only about three feet from the doorway.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 01:59 am (UTC)

"...It looks like he starved to death. How could he possibly have starved to death?"

manofmyword
2013-03-03 02:00 am (UTC)

"I don't know," says the Joker, spreading his hands helplessly. "I was sleeping. I came downstairs and there he was. Can you fix him?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 02:02 am (UTC)

Golden attempts a star.

"Star doesn't work," she says. "...The next one up can. Probably. Shell Bell got herself killed and her girlfriend was able to bring her back with one of the eight-pointed 'evils'. But with much less delay than it sounds like there may have been with Nathan."
Edited 2013-03-03 02:07 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-03 02:09 am (UTC)

"Then I'll make one of those," he says immediately. "I want my sweetie back."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 02:12 am (UTC)

Golden nods once. "...Haven't got an agony beam, don't want one, here." She wishes him a little device that vaguely resembles a digital egg timer. "Your own portable version. An evil is one hundred thousand units."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 02:14 am (UTC)

He fiddles with the device.

He staggers and narrowly misses falling into Nathan.

He transfers two new evils to Golden's chain.
Edited 2013-03-03 02:14 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 02:14 am (UTC)

Declaw-and-

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 02:15 am (UTC)

"Wha?"

manofmyword
2013-03-03 02:18 am (UTC)

The Joker flings his arms around Nathan.

"You died, sweetheart," he says. "Don't do that. It makes me sad. I love you."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 02:20 am (UTC)

"I died? The last thing I remember I'd just stood up... and then I was very hungry for just a moment."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 02:22 am (UTC)

"Goldie said it looked like you starved," he says, and spends three hexes to give Nathan regenerative powers comparable to his own.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 02:23 am (UTC)

"How the hell did I starve? How long was I standing there?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 02:24 am (UTC)

"Was anyone who's around now around then, Nathan?" asks Golden. "We could ask -" When he shakes his head, she says, "Well, what were you doing?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 02:25 am (UTC)

"Arguing with the fucking Batlady," growls Nathan. "She snarled at me, I snarled back, I stood up - and - what you saw."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 02:26 am (UTC)

The Joker closes his eyes and hugs Nathan harder.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 02:26 am (UTC)

"But she hasn't got any sort of magic," says Nathan helplessly, hugging the Joker back, "has she?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 02:28 am (UTC)

"...Let me go check the Belltower real quick."

Golden disappears, and reappears, and says:

"Stella owed her three wishes, and she collected."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 02:33 am (UTC)

"I'd say she's down one," says the Joker. "Oh, sweetie, she killed you. I'm sorry. I love you so much."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 04:16 am (UTC)

"I love you," murmurs Nathan. "I'm fine, babe, I'm fine now."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 01:17 pm (UTC)

He presses his face against Nathan's shoulder for a moment, then glances back at Golden. "Thanks," he says softly.
Edited 2013-03-03 13:17 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 03:33 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Golden levelly. "I believe I will leave a strongly worded note for this Batlady at the bar."
Edited 2013-03-03 15:34 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-03 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Don't let me stop ya," he says wryly, cuddling Nathan some more.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 04:46 pm (UTC)

Golden writes.

"Bat":

You do not know me, but you know my alternate, "Stella". She's written in our template's shared room that she owed you three wishes. (In consideration for your secret identity she disclosed nothing further about why.) I was recently summoned to Milliways by the Joker, who needed me to revive one of my staff, Nathan - the Joker's boyfriend and the father of their small child - from the dead. The circumstantial evidence is extremely suggestive of your having killed Nathan with one of the wishes Stella gave you.

You may have intended some less fatal consequence from your wish, but in fact it's very difficult to incapacitate a vampire of the sort found in the world of Aurum without tearing one of us to pieces, burning us to ashes, or - as your wish appears to have done - starving us to death. You may have believed Nathan to be a threat to you, but his rendition of the events - which I believe - suggests that he merely startled you by standing up quickly.

In other words: you fucking hypocritical murderer, you killed one of my people in Milliways because he had the nerve to be vocal about not liking his mate's enemy and then he got out of his chair?

It is the good fortune of everyone involved that Stella's wishcoins, in sufficient size, prove able to revive the dead. Between the efforts of myself and the Joker, Nathan's fine. I'm leaving a note in the Belltower stating that you are not to be trusted with any further magic, and if Stella finds out what you did with her gifts, you may come to be unhappy that she can force the door to your world.

Sincerely,
Isabella Marie Swan Cullen, Empress Regnant of the Golden Empire

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:57 pm (UTC)

A few seconds after Golden finishes writing, a young woman in a tank top and yoga pants with her hair in a ponytail emerges from the stairwell.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 04:58 pm (UTC)

Nathan's nostrils flare.

"That's her, that's fucking her," he snarls.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Is it?" Golden asks, and she crushes the note-in-progress in her hand. "I won't have to leave this, then."

And she stalks towards the uncostumed Bat, making no sudden moves more because she wants to be trackable than anything else. She's not scared. She's decked out in defensive stars.

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:00 pm (UTC)

She freezes on the spot, looking from Golden to Nathan and back again.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 05:02 pm (UTC)

"...Of course it is," the Joker murmurs, wrapping his arms around Nathan again and leaning into him. "Hah."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 05:05 pm (UTC)

"You murdered my friend," Golden says in her pleasant bell-like voice, just shy of a purr. "You murdered a man with a three-week-old son at home. You murdered one of the people who, at significant personal risk and cost, was essential to my deposing a government that was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people per day. The only reason he's alive again is that I pulled out all the stops and deployed a level of magic that has been used exactly once before. Would you like to explain to me why I had to do that?"
Edited 2013-03-03 17:08 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:15 pm (UTC)

She glances between Golden and the Joker, then apparently gives up on maintaining the masquerade.

"Your 'friend' told me explicitly and repeatedly that he wanted to kill me," she says flatly. "And then he made a threatening move. I didn't want him dead, just incapacitated. But I didn't have a lot of time for finesse."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I stood up," Nathan growls. "I got out of my seat. I wasn't going to kill you because that would've made him upset. And you started the conversation."

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:18 pm (UTC)

She ignores him.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 05:24 pm (UTC)

Golden wishes for the Bat's remaining hex or hexes.

One appears in her hand. "I don't think I can trust you with this," she says. "Maybe you can talk Stella into replacing it in spite of the note I'm going to leave in the Belltower. Maybe not. I really doubt she'd like it if she heard that she went to all the trouble of negotiating the Joker's move to my world and then you murdered his reason for going so nicely. Of course Nathan wants to kill you. You compromise his mate's attachment to him. I don't employ vampires who are incapable of wanting to kill someone and not doing it. I certainly don't employ vampires who are stupid enough to verbally announce their intention to kill someone who may or may not have the power to stop them before they do it. He was never going to kill you."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 05:25 pm (UTC)

"It'd be fair, at this point," growls Nathan. "Turnabout."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie," the Joker sighs. "Sweetie, no."

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:27 pm (UTC)

...The look she gives them is composed of equal parts puzzlement and loathing.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 05:28 pm (UTC)

Nathan hides his face in the Joker's shoulder. "She'd've half-orphaned our baby," he mumbles.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 05:30 pm (UTC)

Golden wishes the hex onto her bandolier. "I think I'm going to stand here until you or they leave," she says mildly to Roberta.

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:32 pm (UTC)

She looks at Golden, and looks at Nathan, and looks at the Joker.

(She looks at the Joker longest.)

Then she heads for the front door, and leaves by it.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I know, honey," the Joker says soothingly. "But you're fine now, and I love you, and I don't want you to hurt her. Okay?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Can't now, anyway," mutters Nathan, "she's gone. God. I love you."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 05:40 pm (UTC)

The Joker hugs him some more.

"You wanna go upstairs again, or go back home?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Not home, not yet, I need a while," Nathan says.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-03 05:41 pm (UTC)

Golden teleports up to the Belltower to write in the note.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 05:46 pm (UTC)

The Joker teleports himself and Nathan back to his room and snuggles into bed.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 05:46 pm (UTC)

Nathan just holds his mate quietly.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 05:49 pm (UTC)

The Joker curls up with him, wishes away his clothes and knives as an afterthought, pulls up a blanket for extra snuggle factor, and settles into comfortable silence.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 06:23 pm (UTC)

"How can you love her? I don't understand it," mumbles Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to explain?" he asks gently.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 07:25 pm (UTC)

He sighs, and thinks.

"I love her because she's different," he says slowly. "In Gotham she was... a legend. A scary story to tell the kids at bedtime. But she was real. And it was amazing, just knowing there was somebody out there like that, with the brains and the balls to terrify every criminal in the city. There's no way she could ever love me back. I think I might even be disappointed if she did. She loves Gotham, though, that's for sure. It's sweet, the way she feels about that place, it really is."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 07:29 pm (UTC)

Nathan's arms tighten fractionally around him. "And then she killed me and nothing changed?"

manofmyword
2013-03-03 07:36 pm (UTC)

"It made me sad," he says. "But it didn't make me not love her. She's still the same person." He kisses Nathan's shoulder. "Feelings are complicated, sweetie."

He reflects a moment, then adds, "I'm never going back to Gotham now, though, that's for damn sure."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I might kill her if I see her again," says Nathan quietly. "I'd try not to. I don't want to make you sad. But I might."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to stick close when you're in Milliways? So I can remind you not to, if you see her again?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 07:46 pm (UTC)

Nathan hesitates, then nods once. "You can stop me without killing me, at least," he says mirthlessly.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I can drag you up here and distract you," he suggests, with a tentative smile.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Mm. Distractions," murmurs Nathan. "...Babe. What if we'd brought Kerron in here? The way she looked at you - I don't have a fragment of a clue what she'd do if she met your son."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 07:52 pm (UTC)

"She wouldn't hurt him," he says. "She might... try to take him away for his own good. But she wouldn't hurt him."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 07:53 pm (UTC)

"She can't have him."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I know, sweetie," he says. "You could scoop him up and run away, and I could scoop him up and teleport away, and even if he came here by himself, I bet he could get away from her just fine. We made ourselves a smart little munchkin."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 07:57 pm (UTC)

"...He might bite her," Nathan points out.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 07:58 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Well, that would be interesting."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 08:00 pm (UTC)

Nathan does not appear to think this is funny.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Awwwww, sweetie." The Joker hugs him. "What's wrong?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Don't like the idea of her turning. I don't want her hurt bad enough to want her to get to be a vampire out of it."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, what do you wanna do about it?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Make sure Kerron knows not to bite humans," says Nathan wryly. "He could already jump high enough to reach a doorknob if he wanted to and we don't watch him twenty-four hours a day. Maybe Milliways will like him as much as it likes Elspeth."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 08:11 pm (UTC)

"We could magic him unvenomous, too," he points out with a shrug.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 08:12 pm (UTC)

"...I suppose. Just until he's older. It might affect his senses of smell and taste, but female half-vampires get along all right."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Mhm," he says. "We'll see what he thinks when we get back."

For now, cuddles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 08:17 pm (UTC)

Cuddles.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Love you," he murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 08:21 pm (UTC)

"I love you. So much."

manofmyword
2013-03-03 08:21 pm (UTC)

He smiles. "I know, honey."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-03 08:25 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle.

Nathan would be amenable to distraction now.

manofmyword
2013-03-03 08:27 pm (UTC)

Good, because the Joker is feeling very... distracting.

Mmm.

black bats flying round and round

colorshapes

They're not really colors or really shapes, but Addy's tastes aren't really tastes, so Kerron thinks it's okay to call them like that anyway. Addy does too and they talk about colorshapes every week. He likes Addy. She has simple colorshapes that are easy to understand and he can help with lots of them. Other people have more complicated colorshapes but he's getting better at reading them while they fly through the air.

He's on his way back to the quarters he and Mummy and Daddy share, and he's just pushed open the door that usually leads to the right building in the Forks compound.

It doesn't.

Kerron has only opened this door twice before in this direction, but he sure remembers where it used to go. Probably Mummy or Her Majesty did a magic here. He wants to see what kind. He goes in and lets the door swing shut behind him.

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:22 pm (UTC)

What's on the other side is a bar, full of people who are mostly, but not universally, human or at least humanoid. None of them are at all familiar.

There's one woman sitting alone at a table for two, staring out the huge window at the blossoming explosions of distant stars, who has a goal that relates to Kerron's mummy. Two, actually—no, three.

One: She wants to keep the city she lives in safe from him.

Two: She wants to understand why he is the way he is, and why he used to be the way he used to be, and what changed.

Three: She never ever wants to see him or Kerron's daddy again.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 09:24 pm (UTC)

Kerron goes up to her to get a closer look at the colorshapes. Many of them are "shaped" like bats, which is funny, since none of those meanings he can see have anything to do with bats. They fly around and around. He's trying to stop tracking them with his hands because Addy says that will slow him down at reading them. He folds his hands behind his back.

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:25 pm (UTC)

The lady with the bat shapes—she's got lots more of them, and one in particular that's much bigger and more bat-shaped than the rest—turns around and looks at him.

She looks unhappy.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Hullo," says Kerron. "Mummy doesn't want to hurt your city! It's okay!"
Edited 2013-03-03 21:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:31 pm (UTC)

She closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath, and lets it out, and opens them again.

"Who," she asks levelly, "is your mummy?"

colorshapes
2013-03-03 09:32 pm (UTC)

"My mummy's the Joker. Don't worry! I can tell what people wanna do and she doesn't have any colorshapes about any cities."

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:34 pm (UTC)

...She really doesn't want to ask this question.

She asks it anyway.

"How is the Joker your or anyone's mother?"

colorshapes
2013-03-03 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Magic!" says Kerron. "And just my mummy, nobody else's. I don't have any little brothers or sisters so far. But that's okay 'cause lots of people in the coven have kids my age so there's Henry and Brandon and Lily and everybody to play with."

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:37 pm (UTC)

"That's... nice," she says tightly.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Yup!" says Kerron, who is good at goals and not so good at tone of voice or facial expression.

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:44 pm (UTC)

She sighs.

"...What's she like? Your mother," she clarifies.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Mummy's fun! She does magic a lot, she makes magic coins for the Empress all the time but she keeps some and she makes stuff appear or she sometimes is a he and she makes stuff be more fun than it starts out being. I thought she made this door when I found it but now I'm not sure, I think maybe it only happened."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Your mother did not make this door," she confirms.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Oh well. I bet she'd like it! There's all kinds of stuff here. Mummy mostly likes stuff," Kerron says, nodding sagely.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:05 pm (UTC)

Despite herself, she laughs.

"Is there any stuff she doesn't like?"

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:08 pm (UTC)

"She doesn't like stuff that makes me or Daddy or our friends sad," says Kerron thoughtfully. "And she doesn't like being stuck in one place or being lonesome. One time a lady who is like the Empress but not put her someplace lonesome that she couldn't leave and it made her really sad but then Daddy fell in love with her and asked nice and the Empress asked the lady who's like her to let Mummy out to come live where we live and she did." Kerron nods smartly. That is the end of this story.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I used to know your mother," she murmurs. "Or... maybe 'know' is the wrong word. I met her, anyway." She smiles wryly. "We didn't get along."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:11 pm (UTC)

"That's sad," says Kerron frankly.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she sighs. "Yes it is."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:14 pm (UTC)

"How come you didn't get along?" Kerron asks. "Most people can if they try! Esme says that. She's Lily's mummy. And also some other people's mummy, like the Emperor."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:16 pm (UTC)

She closes her eyes.

"Because," she says finally, "he did a lot of things that upset me and people I care about."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Huh," says Kerron. "Was it a long time ago? Most grownups did some bad things a long time ago and then stopped." Pause. "Most of the grownups I know, anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:18 pm (UTC)

"About six months," she says. "For me."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's way before I was born," says Kerron unconcernedly. "Okay then."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:19 pm (UTC)

She gives him a quizzical look.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:20 pm (UTC)

"What?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:21 pm (UTC)

"How long ago were you born?"

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:22 pm (UTC)

"It was March seventh!" says Kerron obliviously.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:22 pm (UTC)

"And," she says, smiling despite herself, "what's the date today?"

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:23 pm (UTC)

"May sixteenth!" Kerron nods. "I know dates."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes you do," she agrees. "Is magic involved somehow in how fast you're growing up?"

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Not especially. Even half-vampires who aren't witches or ingots grow this fast," says Kerron. "Wolves are slower, and humans, but I like growing this fast, it was boring not being able to talk. I'm gonna learn to read soon. It's not fair that Henry can already."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:35 pm (UTC)

"...I see," she says, trying not to laugh.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:37 pm (UTC)

"How come you wanna know so many things about Mummy when you don't wanna ever see her again anyway?" Kerron asks.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:38 pm (UTC)

"...Because I don't understand her," she says. "I used to think I did, but I really don't."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Why'd you think you did if you didn't?" asks Kerron.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:46 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "He used to act... very differently... from how it sounds like he does now."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

"People do that all the time," Kerron says. "They grow up and learn stuff even if not everybody does it as fast as half-vampires."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Mass murderers don't turn into doting parents that often," she mutters, mostly to herself.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 10:58 pm (UTC)

"What? No, they totally do!" laughs Kerron. "There's lots of vampires who have kids and almost everybody who's been a vampire for more than like thirty years ate lots of people before! But they stopped because now they know that you can eat animals and also there's magic and also the Princess brings home golden bubbly from -" He looks around him. "Hey wow is this Milliways? That's where the Princess gets golden bubbly from!"

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

"...Yes," she says, rubbing her forehead. "This is Milliways."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Ooooooh," says Kerron.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

She snorts.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:04 pm (UTC)

"I could get bubbly here - or blue, they have blue - there might even be other stuff," he says, bouncing, "those are just the ones the Princess brings home - oh, except I don't have any money."

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:04 pm (UTC)

"The first drink's free," says the bat lady.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Oooh," says Kerron, and he runs up to the bar much more quickly than a human with such short legs would be able to, and he asks "Can I have a thing that's like golden bubbly and like blue but not either one that's nice and good for me to have?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

The bar wants to give him something exactly matching that description.

And then she does.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:11 pm (UTC)

It's about the texture of a milkshake, and it's yellow. "It looks like a pina colada! That's my favorite thing that's not a blood synthetic," Kerron says merrily, running back with his drink to where Roberta sits. He sips. "Doesn't taste anything like it, though, but it's good! I guess you wouldn't like it 'cause you're a human."

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I guess I wouldn't," she says.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:14 pm (UTC)

"What's it like being a human? I don't know too many of those. Just a couple imprints from the wolf village, that's all," says Kerron.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what it's like not being a human," she says, "so I'm not really sure how to compare."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:17 pm (UTC)

"I like it," says Kerron brightly. "...I guess Mummy's technically a human. But she's so magic I don't really count her." He waves a hand.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting that impression," the bat lady agrees dryly.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, like, if you and me raced I'd win, but if me and Mummy raced she'd win if she wanted. And she wouldn't if she didn't and she prob'ly wouldn't but she could."

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:23 pm (UTC)

...That seems to say a lot about the Joker, actually. If only she understood it all.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:24 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't race with anybody who wasn't a hybrid or a wolf or magic anyway, it'd be boring, we'd know who was gonna win without running at all," shrugs Kerron.
Edited 2013-03-03 23:26 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:40 pm (UTC)

"If only more people thought that way," says the bat lady.

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! But if you don't know who's gonna win, then it's fun, you can run and run your hardest and then you know! I'm gonna be in the Ultra Olympics when I'm old enough," Kerron adds. "I have to be three and a half, but then I'm allowed. I might do something besides running though."

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Something such as what?"

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Like I could do gymnastics, or swimming, or tennis, or whatever, you know, Olympics type stuff," says Kerron. "Henry's daddy runs the whole thing every year."

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:50 pm (UTC)

"And Henry's daddy is...?"

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:52 pm (UTC)

"His name's Emmett. Do you know him too?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:54 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "No. I've met your parents and your empress and I think that's it."

colorshapes
2013-03-03 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, when'd you meet Her Majesty?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:02 am (UTC)

"Last month."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 12:03 am (UTC)

"Huh. I don't remember anybody talking about visitors to Aurum then. Did she go here? Usually Her Majesty doesn't come here, just Her Highness."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:05 am (UTC)

"Time works strangely at Milliways," she evades.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 12:06 am (UTC)

"Is that why you didn't know what date it was?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:10 am (UTC)

She nods.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 12:12 am (UTC)

"What's your world like? I've never been to any besides Aurum. And here if here's a world."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:13 am (UTC)

"No magic," is the first thing she thinks of to say.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 12:17 am (UTC)

"That's awful!" says Kerron. "Magic is great! I have lessons with Addy for it every week. I'm much better at colorshapes now."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:20 am (UTC)

"What... are these colorshapes, exactly?"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 12:23 am (UTC)

"They're -" Kerron waves around at the colorshapes orbiting Roberta herself, then puts his hand down again. "They're not really colors or really shapes but it feels like they are, and they tell me what people want, and if it has to do with me. I'm a witch and an ingot. I'm the first witch ingot ever! Addy thinks it's because Mummy's a mint and Daddy's a witch."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:24 am (UTC)

"What," she asks patiently, "are witches and ingots?"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 12:27 am (UTC)

"Witches are the kind of magic that Aurum had to start with," Kerron says. "There's lots of witches. Like me, and Daddy with his timer, and Her Majesty has something that makes a lot of other powers not work on her, and Alice can see the future, and Jasper can feel other people's feelings and push on them, and Addy copies other people's powers - that's why she's my magic teacher - and the Princess tells the truth, and like that. And ingots are a kind of magic from the same world as mints. Like witches sort of. People have powers that do stuff. But not exactly the same, Addy says, so I can have both."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:31 am (UTC)

"Lucky you," she says, amused.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 12:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah!" agrees Kerron. "Addy wants Mummy and Daddy to have more kids so she can see if they're witch-ingots too. Addy likes figuring out magic stuff. She's got really simple colorshapes and they're pretty much all about that."

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:11 am (UTC)

...Despite her best intentions, she finds herself asking, "And what do Mummy and Daddy think of that idea?"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 01:14 am (UTC)

"They haven't decided yet!" says Kerron. "I think they're gonna wait a little while before they have more though. I was an accident. I heard them talking about it when I was a day old and now I know all the words and Jasper thought I was gonna have complex from it but I dunno what a complex is or where I'd find mine if I had one."

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:15 am (UTC)

The bat lady laughs.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 01:19 am (UTC)

"What's funny?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:25 am (UTC)

"You'll understand when you're older," she assures him.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 01:26 am (UTC)

"Awww, man."

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:29 am (UTC)

...fine, fine.

"Some kids," she explains, her smile fading, "if they find out their parents didn't have them deliberately, can start feeling unwanted and unloved, and sometimes that feeling lasts for a long time. That's what Jasper meant by a complex."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 01:31 am (UTC)

"Oh. I know my parents love me," says Kerron. "There's all these colorshapes about it and they're easy to read when they're about me! So I'll be fine," says Kerron.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:34 am (UTC)

She smiles again. "That's good."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 01:36 am (UTC)

Kerron nods.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:49 am (UTC)

The colourshape for never seeing Kerron's parents ever again is a tiny bit smaller than it was.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 01:52 am (UTC)

"You must really not like Mummy and Daddy," Kerron says, peering at the colorshapes. He starts to trace the path with one finger, then he stops and picks up his synthetic again for a big swallow. "You sorta explained about Mummy, but why Daddy?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:54 am (UTC)

"Your daddy doesn't like me," she says, and there's something else she almost wants to say to him, but she doesn't.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 01:55 am (UTC)

"Daddy likes most people," says Kerron quizzically.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:59 am (UTC)

"He doesn't like me," she repeats firmly.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 01:59 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 02:00 am (UTC)

"I think you might have to ask him that."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 02:01 am (UTC)

"You don't know?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 02:02 am (UTC)

She hesitates for a moment.

Then she says, "I don't think I understand your father very well, either."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 02:05 am (UTC)

"Can I help? I bet I can help!" says Kerron. "Daddy's simpler than Mummy. Mated vampires are kind of like that. Most of his colorshapes are about wanting her to be happy and safe. Most of the rest are about me. Some of the ones that are about me are about her too."

pythbox
2013-03-04 02:07 am (UTC)

"Does he have any about... other people your mother... loves?" she asks, slowly, like the word 'loves' is causing her serious trouble.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 02:34 am (UTC)

"He's fine about me, and she loves me, I'm her favorite munchkin," says Kerron brightly. "I'm not sure about anyone else. It's harder to tell who a colorshape is about if it's not about somebody who's close to me. I could tell that yours were about Mummy, but I can't tell when Henry has a colorshape that's about his mummy because Rosalie's not close enough to being a part of me for the witch part of my power to help."

He thinks. "There was this one colorshape that I couldn't read because I didn't know what it was about at all, and I asked Addy for help with it and she said -" He switches into a higher register, generic Midwestern accent with a trace flavor of German in place of his forty percent Manx to sixty percent assorted American - "'it means your dad is insecure and everything would be much simpler for him if your mum would just turn already' - but then she didn't explain what that means. Is she in love with somebody besides Daddy? ...Is she gonna fall out of love with Daddy? Humans can do that and she's mostly one! Then what would happen to me? All the hybrids I know with broken-up parents are grown up already but I'm still little! And Daddy would be so sad!"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:47 pm (UTC)

She hesitates.

Then she says, "I'm sorry, I don't know."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Most vampires are in love with other vampires, and then the colorshapes go in both directions, and Mummy's not a vampire and now I'm scared she won't want to be with Daddy forever."

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she repeats.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 05:38 pm (UTC)

Kerron frowns and folds his arms on the table and puts his chin on them.

"Anyway you didn't answer my question, you just asked another question. Why doesn't Daddy like you?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:41 pm (UTC)

The bat lady shakes her head.

"I don't know exactly."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Do you know inexactly?"

Kerron may be two months old, but a perfect memory means that he has never gone through a period of overregularization and knows how to contradict the word "exactly".

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head again.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 05:56 pm (UTC)

"It sounded like you were about to guess."

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to guess."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't like thinking about it very much."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 05:59 pm (UTC)

"How come?"

Ah yes, the infinite toddler litany of why?

pythbox
2013-03-04 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Because I don't."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:02 pm (UTC)

"That's only a pretend answer."

pythbox
2013-03-04 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure?"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

pythbox
2013-03-04 06:07 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "Well, then, I don't know what to tell you."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:12 pm (UTC)

Kerron drinks his smoothie, looking suspiciously at her.

pythbox
2013-03-04 06:18 pm (UTC)

She raises her eyebrows.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:43 pm (UTC)

Finally his smoothie is gone. "Maybe I'll go home now," he says.

pythbox
2013-03-04 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Bye," says the bat lady.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:45 pm (UTC)

"And I'll tell Mummy and Daddy that I met you and that you want them to leave you alone," he says, nodding smartly. "And then they won't bother you, I bet."

pythbox
2013-03-04 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not," she says wryly.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Why would they bother you when you don't want them to?" Kerron asks.

pythbox
2013-03-04 06:48 pm (UTC)

"That's a very good question," she says, "and I don't know what your mother would say if you asked it of her, but I bet it would be educational."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll ask her then," says Kerron, and he hops off his chair and trots over to the door.

pythbox
2013-03-04 06:51 pm (UTC)

The bat lady goes back to staring out the window.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:52 pm (UTC)

Kerron goes back to to where his family lives, looking for Mummy.

manofmyword
2013-03-04 06:54 pm (UTC)

Mummy is with Daddy! They are in their room.

Thanks to Daddy's magic powers, Mummy is sewing when Kerron arrives.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Kerron. "On my way home from magic lessons I found Milliways! I met a lady whose colorshapes had lots of black bat shapes in them flying round and round and she had colorshapes that were about you, Mummy, so I went and talked to her."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-04 06:56 pm (UTC)

"You're okay?" Nathan says. "Did you tell her who your mummy is - what happened?"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 06:57 pm (UTC)

"She asked and I said," Kerron blinks. "I'm okay. We just talked. She's a human, she can't hurt me, why are you scared?"

manofmyword
2013-03-04 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Your daddy and the bat lady don't like each other much," the Joker puts in, glancing up from his sewing. "What'd you talk about?"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:00 pm (UTC)

"That! But she wouldn't say why," says Kerron. "And I told her you didn't have any colorshapes about any cities so she didn't have to worry about that, and she said she didn't understand you but she met you once, and she met the Empress one time, and she wanted to know how you could be my mummy and I told her magic, and she explained what a complex is and why Jasper thought I was going to have one but I don't 'cause I know you love me."

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:02 pm (UTC)

The Joker laughs.

"Well, that's not so bad."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:06 pm (UTC)

"And she said that mass murderers don't turn into doting parents but I said obviously they do, like, all the time," says Kerron, nodding to himself. "And I explained about how half-vampires grow, and she said the first drink is free so I got a synthetic thing that looked like a pina colada but it tasted totally different and it was really good, and I told her about the Ultra Olympics, and there's no magic in her world at all and that's sad, and -" Then he repeats the part of the conversation about why Nathan might not like the batlady. Verbatim, including the part where he quoted Addy about how Mummy turning would simplify things.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-04 07:07 pm (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:09 pm (UTC)

He stops sewing.

"Well, hon?" he murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-04 07:11 pm (UTC)

"You've never wanted to turn," Nathan says. "Kerron, kiddo, even if something like that happens, you'll be fine, okay? We both love you."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Henry and Lily and Brandon don't have to even worry about it," Kerron says.

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Henry and Lily and Brandon don't have me for a mother," he says. "That's life. Wanna hug, munchkin?"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:17 pm (UTC)

Kerron jumps into his mummy's lap.

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:20 pm (UTC)

He scoots his chair away from the sewing table and wraps his arms around Kerron and kisses the top of his head.

"I love you, little munchkin," he murmurs. "And I love your daddy too. Okay?"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," sighs Kerron.

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Good," he says, kissing the top of Kerron's head again.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-04 07:26 pm (UTC)

"You know, it's not just humans who don't have mate bonds, it's half-vampires too," Nathan says. "When you get older -"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:26 pm (UTC)

"EW-EW-EW," says Kerron, clapping his hands over his ears.

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:27 pm (UTC)

He snickers and ruffles Kerron's hair.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-04 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm just saying, if this is the kind of thing that worries you -"

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:29 pm (UTC)

"EW," says Kerron loudly. "Nope I'm gonna grow up and be like Addy instead because EW."

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I think we've been told, sweetie."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Well good."

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:40 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:40 pm (UTC)

"You should try really hard not to fall out of love with Daddy even though you could," Kerron tells his mummy sternly.

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I like being in love with your daddy," he says. "I don't wanna stop."

colorshapes
2013-03-04 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Kerron contently, and then, because this magic lesson let out just before his bedtime, he flops onto the Joker's chest and snores.

manofmyword
2013-03-04 07:52 pm (UTC)

The Joker picks Kerron up and puts him to bed.

our town knows how to celebrate a special occasion

cross_and_bow

There are prom flyers up on all the school bulletin boards. The theme this year is "Viennese Carnival"! Tickets are cheaper in advance, buy now! YOU MAY ONLY ATTEND PROM WITH A DATE. DO NOT BREAK UP WITH YOUR DATE AT PROM; LEAVE THE GYMNASIUM FIRST. VIOLATORS OF THIS RULE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY EJECTED.

...Well, that's about fifty kinds of suspicious.

"Hey, Giles," she says after school, a flyer torn on one corner from where she was uncautious about pulling it from its staple, "does this all-caps warning here look fifty kinds of suspicious to you?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:17 pm (UTC)

"...Yes," he says. "Yes it does."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Do you suppose Sunnydale High has some known problem with people going stag to prom mysteriously dying or otherwise suffering nasty fates that I should fix?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I think that is extremely likely."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Cool. How do we figure out what it is?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Some... kind of records... must exist," he says. "What are the odds they're in this library, I wonder?"

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I don't know where records of prom deaths might live. My first idea was to figure out who wrote the flyer and figure out where they got their info."

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, then, we each have an avenue of research to pursue."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Alrighty. Prom's not for a while, so no huge rush." Pause. "Although if I'm going, I have to invite Sherlock - lest I be killed by the Phantom of the Promenade before having a fighting chance - and I have to find a dress and so on. Or I'll just be turned away at the door and the inevitable poor sap who ignores the all-caps warning will die."

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Phantom of the Promenade," he snorts. "What will this place come up with next."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 10:35 pm (UTC)

"If it's anything sillier than a prom ghost I fear that will be its actual weapon, it will silly people to death," snorts Juliet.

pythbox
2013-02-28 10:36 pm (UTC)

Giles laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 10:46 pm (UTC)

Bella studies through her study hall and then attends her classes and after school, instead of going to the library again straightaway, she swings by the student council and asks who is organizing prom.

Sally Williams is organizing prom. Sally is uncomfortable about explaining the warning, but ultimately confirms that, yeah, people who go stag or even with a group of friends? They keep turning up dead. So this year they're just forbidding single attendance.

And how did they die? Bella wants to know.

Sally Williams doesn't know.

Bella goes to the library and reports to Giles. "How do I figure out what it is?" she asks, spreading her hands.

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says, "I've managed to dig up plenty of records."

He points to a stack of newspaper clippings on the table.

"Apparently the Phantom of the Promenade's favourite methods are strangulation and drowning. In the sink in the boys' locker room."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Does it drown only boys there? For that matter, who does it strangle? The flyer forbids both sexes to go stag, but the prom organizer doesn't have a lot of details, she just knows there's something to be afraid of."

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:46 pm (UTC)

"It seems to strike indiscriminately among single prom-goers," he says. "There was one girl drowned, in the same sink; no one's quite sure how or why she got there in the first place."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 11:47 pm (UTC)

"If it only drowned them, I'd wonder if it was some kind of - I dunno, despair spirit, provoking loneliness to the point of oddly specific suicide, but if it strangles people too I think it must have some more physical presence," opines Bella, "am I wrong?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:50 pm (UTC)

"No, your logic is sound," he says. "I'd also suspect a literal phantom if the drownings were all we had to go on. Ghosts with the physical fortitude to strangle someone are much rarer."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 11:51 pm (UTC)

"You think it's a ghost, then, not a demon? Naively I would guess a ghost would be more likely to be preoccupied with the love lives of high school students."

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:56 pm (UTC)

"There are a few kinds of demon who concern themselves with young lovers in various unpleasant ways, but I've never heard of one haunting a prom," he says. "And 'haunting' does seem to be the word."

cross_and_bow
2013-02-28 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So the ghost is substantial enough to strangle people, but is it also substantial enough that it will care if I kick it in the head?"

pythbox
2013-02-28 11:59 pm (UTC)

"That's the question, isn't it?" he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:01 am (UTC)

"If it doesn't care about being kicked in the head, will it care about getting torched? I don't have great wand control yet, but I think I could refrain from burning down the school, and then I'd have a chance of not needing to use squares. Or, I could go straight to the squares, but what do I wish for, what process do I disrupt to rid us of Prom Ghost?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:03 am (UTC)

"If it is a ghost," he says, "its hold on our reality is already tenuous. You might be able to simply... disperse it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:05 am (UTC)

"Mightn't it just recoalesce? It's already making trouble only during prom - once annually - as far as we know. It's pretty low-key, and it wouldn't be immediately obvious if I'd only spooked it into leaving for a relatively meaningless period of time." Pause. "Heh. Spooked."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:07 am (UTC)

"The traditional way to deal with a haunting is to find out what the ghost wants and appease it somehow," he says. "But I'm hardly going to suggest you take it on a date."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:09 am (UTC)

"I confess it doesn't appeal to me. Is that definitely going to be what it wants, though? Maybe it just thinks single people are depressing or it had a date who neglected it in favor of someone who went stag, or whatever - traditionally how do you find out what a ghost wants?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:10 am (UTC)

"It boils down to some combination of guess and ask," shrugs Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:11 am (UTC)

"So it will probably be able to talk?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:13 am (UTC)

"With any luck, yes," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:15 am (UTC)

"Okay. Maybe I won't even have to kill it, then."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:17 am (UTC)

"Maybe not," he says, looking doubtful.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:20 am (UTC)

"I will if I can't reason with it. And it's killed enough people that I will if it seems reasonable but I think it's lying. But it'd be nice if it could just calm down and not have to - disperse. It already died once, that's more than enough."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:25 am (UTC)

He nods soberly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:26 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure if this place is better or worse than Shell Bell's before she fixed it up, but it's sure not a great world. I'd trade Amariah, if I thought she'd take the trade, if there was a way to trade," sighs Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:28 am (UTC)

"I don't think she'd take it," he says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:29 am (UTC)

"I don't know, she might, as a favor. She might be better equipped to handle this world than me. Friendly spells she can make up to suit her needs on the spot! Who needs super punching ability?" Juliet shrugs. "But this is the one I got, so I'll do what I can do."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:40 am (UTC)

"An admirable attitude," says Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:42 am (UTC)

"Well, if I'd got Amariah's world, I'd be Amariah, I think is how it works. So," she shrugs and trails off. "Have you got a book on ghosts?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:43 am (UTC)

"I have several," he says, adjusting his glasses. "I'll go get them, shall I?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:45 am (UTC)

"Yes please."

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:50 am (UTC)

He fetches a sizeable stack of books and sets them on the table.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:51 am (UTC)

Bella sets about reading them instead of her usual work on demons-in-general. "Do most Slayers get this much reading, or do they leave the booklearning to their support teams?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:52 am (UTC)

"Most Slayers don't get this much reading," he says, "but it's more than clear that you work best on complete information."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:53 am (UTC)

"I am glad that is understood, it'd be a nightmare to have to fight you on that or work around you," says Bella, humming a little.

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:54 am (UTC)

"Given what you did with just common knowledge about vampires, it would be a sin for me to keep you ignorant about any other supernatural threat."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 12:56 am (UTC)

"Unfortunately, the other supernatural threats don't have allergies to such easily available materials, at least not known, but that one that has to be twisted apart - knowing that was super-useful," says Bella. "And - hm - it looks like I should expect the ghost to be someone who died hereabouts. Probably at a prom. How far back do your records go?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 12:58 am (UTC)

"Reasonably far," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 01:04 am (UTC)

"Is there one where they're surprised and not referring to any earlier incidents? First death-at-a-prom?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:13 am (UTC)

"Not that I've found," he says. "Yet."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 01:34 am (UTC)

"Well, if you run across one, could be useful. I'll focus on ghosts-in-general if you'll work on identity-of-this-ghost, fair?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 01:41 am (UTC)

"Entirely."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 01:43 am (UTC)

"Spiffy."

Studying happens. Sunset alarm on Juliet's phone goes off before Giles can read through all the history. Juliet goes to get Sherlock his breakfast.

(She's not obsessing - truly, she isn't - but certain things do remind her of certain other things, and she entertains wonderings about iron supplements and the productive capacities of Slayer bone marrow.

And Sherlock, being Sherlock, can probably tell what's on her mind when he gets there.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 01:45 am (UTC)

"Ah," he says, grinning. "Breakfast."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 01:47 am (UTC)

"Breakfast," agrees Bella. "How goes fridge-getting? I confess I don't know how one goes about obtaining fridges, I think most places just come with them."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 01:48 am (UTC)

"Poorly. I don't have the money to buy one and I have not yet come upon an opportunity to steal one."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 01:50 am (UTC)

"Well, if Charlie makes too much of a fuss about the blood in ours anytime soon, we do have squares," says Bella, "and if Charlie evicts your breakfasts, that would pretty soon become an emergency, I think."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 01:57 am (UTC)

"I don't actually know if I can starve," he says, "but I'm not inclined to test it the hard way."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 01:58 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that sounds like a terrible idea, and unless we're going to resort to emergency squares that leaves few options. I can only sustain so much blood loss. Although I confess I do not know how much and am interested to find out."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:00 am (UTC)

"Also not something I'd like to stress-test," says Sherlock, "but some experimentation is certainly in order."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:02 am (UTC)

"The wound was all gone the next morning after last time, and I didn't feel dizzy anymore, but I know the Red Cross insists on waiting months between donations and I'm not sure how much of that is them being paranoid about their blood supply, how much of that is them being paranoid about avoiding lawsuits, and how much of that is information about baseline human blood-recovery ability."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:03 am (UTC)

"Pay close attention to your physical condition," he suggests, "and let's not try it twice in a night."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:05 am (UTC)

"That sounds like a solid plan."

Insofar as one can squirm while walking a predatory Slayerish walk, she squirms.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:10 am (UTC)

"After practice, then?" he says lightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:10 am (UTC)

"I do believe so. Oh, also, wanna come to prom with me?"

(She wants to know what he will say before hearing about Prom Ghost.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:17 am (UTC)

"Why not," he says whimsically.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:18 am (UTC)

"Well, there's probably going to be a ghost there that likes to murder people who go stag," says Juliet, "so if you were going to dump me in the middle of the dance that'd be a reason why not. There's a very stern warning about it on the flyers." She has one of these in her messenger bag, folded up; she takes it out and hands it to him.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:25 am (UTC)

"How charming," says Sherlock. "I solemnly swear not to dump you in the middle of the dance."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:28 am (UTC)

He gets a peck on the cheek for that. "I'm gonna attempt to pacify or disperse the ghost, of course, because even an all-caps warning on the prom flyer in Sunnydale probably won't have everyone so obedient, but that might not take all night. Pity I don't know how to dance. Time was trying would've been a trip to the emergency room."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:44 am (UTC)

"I could teach you," he offers whimsically.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:46 am (UTC)

"You know how to dance? As well as cook and figure out facts from itty-bitty wisps of evidence and lurk like you don't exist and beat the Slayer in a fistfight half the time and dodge crossbow bolts and all this with you only technically seven years old."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:47 am (UTC)

"That's about the size of it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:50 am (UTC)

"I feel so inadequate by comparison. Most of my interesting abilities were implanted overnight by possibly-divine entities, and half the rest are gifts from distant cooler versions of me."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:52 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"I haven't had much to do other than teach myself impressive skills."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:53 am (UTC)

"Ah, so half your waking hours were never devoured by mediocre public schooling, lucky bastard."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:55 am (UTC)

"Indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:56 am (UTC)

"Which makes you the subjective equivalent of probably more like twelve in terms of time available for useful stuff," she says, nodding, "and therefore it is not impressive at all that you should have such a skillset. I see now."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:57 am (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 02:59 am (UTC)

There is the brick place with Jarvis in! Hello, Jarvis-brick-place. Bella and Sherlock are going to fight in you now.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 02:59 am (UTC)

What fun.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 03:03 am (UTC)

"Dancing before or after nibbles?" inquires Juliet. "...I would like nibbles to be unsupervised when they happen, Jarvis."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 03:03 am (UTC)

"Before, I think," says Sherlock.

poeticterms
2013-03-01 03:03 am (UTC)

"So noted," says Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 03:05 am (UTC)

Juliet manages a fairly able twirl based solely on her ability to move like a Slayer, but it's clear she has no dance training. "So," she says. "What do I do?" And she sidles up to Sherlock and loops her arms around his neck. "Teach me teach me."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 03:07 am (UTC)

"Keep in mind I have never taught dance before," he says.

But despite this, he manages a credible lesson.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 03:13 am (UTC)

He's easy to follow; she's pretty used to reading him after all the sparring, and now she's just trying to mirror, not counter. Her autopilot is no help, but she's still graceful and quick and soon they're whirling around the room and she's giggling.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 03:13 am (UTC)

"You are a delight," Sherlock proclaims.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 03:17 am (UTC)

She kisses him. "You're delightful," she replies, "and this is fun!"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 03:24 am (UTC)

He kisses her right back.

"It is!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 03:26 am (UTC)

"And now I am tired," she says, and she pulls him down with her to the floor, where she sits, and she tucks herself into his lap and leans her head back onto his shoulder.

Rather suggestively.

(There may be squirming involved.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 03:27 am (UTC)

He kisses her forehead and hugs her.

"Whatever shall we do next," he murmurs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 03:31 am (UTC)

"Dessert?" she suggests shyly.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 03:32 am (UTC)

"A fine plan."

He remembers where he nibbled on last time; this time he picks a matching spot on the opposite shoulder.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 03:38 am (UTC)

The responding sound can only be described as a whimper. Her hands find where his are clasped around her and clench over them, although this time she retains enough presence of mind not to be hurtful. And she trembles.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 01:19 pm (UTC)

She is such a tasty dessert. Also, cuddly. Cuddly and warm.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 05:37 pm (UTC)

The noises she makes are much as before, whines and bits of "Sherlock" and profanity, but today, the writhing-as-though-itchy part comes just - a little - later - when it is almost time to stop.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 05:38 pm (UTC)

He can keep it going a little longer.

He does.

Not, apparently, long enough.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Nnnng?" pants Juliet, opening her eyes.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Sorry, love," he says. "Delicious as you are, I think that's enough for now."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 05:44 pm (UTC)

"...But..."

(squirm)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I believe there are alternate solutions to this problem," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 05:50 pm (UTC)

Bella hesitates, but only momentarily, and then she nods rather more than would be necessary for mere communicative purposes.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Dear, dear Juliet," he murmurs, and kisses her.

Alternate solutions ensue.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 05:58 pm (UTC)

Dear, dear Juliet is restored to her happy place. Happily.

"Mmmmm," she sighs, snuggling up.
Edited 2013-03-01 17:59 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I concur," says Sherlock, cuddling her.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for stopping." Pause. "Even though I objected at the time, thanks."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I believe preserving your health at the expense of your immediate satisfaction favours both your priorities and mine."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Yes. And slightly-less-immediate satisfaction was haaaad," she sighs. (Snuggle snuggle snuggle.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 07:05 pm (UTC)

Grinning, he hugs her some more.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 07:09 pm (UTC)

Some combination of blood loss, afterglow, and snuggly comfort induces Bella to fall into a doze after a few minutes.

And begin speaking nonsense.

"White moon fuzz swim."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 07:09 pm (UTC)

...That is adorable.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 07:12 pm (UTC)

It will go on being just that adorable for as long as he doesn't wake her up.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 07:14 pm (UTC)

Well, he is not going to wake her up on purpose.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 07:22 pm (UTC)

Bella sleeps straight through the night and wakes up at six-thirty, puzzled. "...Did I fall asleep?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes you did," laughs Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 07:29 pm (UTC)

"How long?" she yawns. "Feels all - morning-y." (Snuggle snuggle.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 07:30 pm (UTC)

"How astute of you. It's half six."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Does that mean half past or half an hour in advance of?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Half past."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Did you just lie there holding me all night long?" she marvels. "That's sweet - aaaaand Charlie is going to be frantic if he wasn't out working all night." She disentangles herself and reaches for her phone. It is dead; it has been for hours. "Fuck."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," says Sherlock. "I suppose I should've thought of that."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 07:43 pm (UTC)

"It's okay, I'll tell him I'm fine, it'll blow over. Jarvis, are you by any chance hooked up to a phone line...?"

poeticterms
2013-03-01 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes I am."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 08:04 pm (UTC)

She rattles off her dad's cell and his landline. "Can you call the landline first, and if he doesn't pick up, the cell?"

poeticterms
2013-03-01 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Certainly," he says, and tries the landline.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 08:34 pm (UTC)

Charlie answers after the first ring. "Hello?"

"Dad! You're home, good. It's me. I wound up crashing at Sherlock's and my phone was dead, I'm so sorry. I'm fine, everything is fine, please tell me Sunnydale isn't crawling with cops looking for a missing person?"

Charlie's response is a sigh of utmost relief. "Bells. Oh lord, Bells, you scared me. No. No cops looking for a missing person. I know there's - things, going on, cops might make it worse even if you had it under control to start, I was going to call the school and see if you showed up before jumping to assuming you were in something bad."

"I will be showing up to school, at the usual time," Bella promises.

"There will be no more crashing at Sherlock's," Charlie says.

"I'll see you this evening," Bella says instead of agreeing. "Or right around sunset when I stop at the house if you're there then. Bye, Dad!"

"Bells -"

Bella makes a cut it gesture at the nearest camera.

poeticterms
2013-03-01 08:35 pm (UTC)

The call ends.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, Jarvis," says Bella. She peers down at herself. "Mmm, possible I should stop at home for a change of clothes. Bloodstain's not obvious on black, but it's not totally invisible, either... I should take my shirt off first in the future," she concludes.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 08:39 pm (UTC)

"An excellent plan."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 08:41 pm (UTC)

She kisses him. "I think six-thirty has the sun up already so you can't walk me home, doesn't it. I'll see you tonight."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 09:03 pm (UTC)

"It does indeed. See you tonight, then."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 09:06 pm (UTC)

Bella kisses him again, and goes up and out and home for a new outfit - Charlie has gone ahead and gone to work by the time she gets there - and to the morgue and to school.

"Sherlock's in for prom," Bella tells Giles at study hall. "Any progress on the identity of Prom Ghost?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately, no," he says. "Or rather, I've had a few leads, and none of them have amounted to anything so far."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Do tell?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:17 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head. "Articles about suspicious prom deaths that didn't mention a pattern, but turned out to have come after one that did."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Geez, how far back does this thing go? How old is the school?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:22 pm (UTC)

"The school is not much younger than the town," he says. "The articles I'm looking at now are from the 1950s."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 09:32 pm (UTC)

"That's a serious body count," says Bella, shaking her head.

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't anyone besides Slayers ever address these things? Is this strong evidence against the going-to-prom-with-the-ghost-or-whatever-would-help hypothesis since a non-Slayer could've theoretically done that anytime in the last six or seven or howevermany decades?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Not strong evidence," he says. "You're forgtting the longstanding traditions of denial."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking, a target," she says. "Somebody in the middle of being strangled, uses their last breath productively. Maybe I'm overestimating the average high school student."

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:44 pm (UTC)

"For all we know," he says, "the ghost approaches its victims by asking them out, and this is what happens when they turn him or her down."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 09:46 pm (UTC)

"And it's not impressed if they try to change their minds."

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Apparently not."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Did it only kill actually single people? Did it ever miss and get someone whose date wasn't acting datelike or was off in the bathroom or something?"

pythbox
2013-03-01 09:54 pm (UTC)

"There was one case where a couple had a very public argument, the fellow stormed off to the toilet, and he drowned in the sink like everyone else."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:09 pm (UTC)

"That explains the warning about not breaking up in the middle of the dance," Bella nods.

pythbox
2013-03-01 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Yes. There were a few more like it, but I mention this one because the surviving half of the couple still identified herself as his girlfriend afterward."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I wish I knew what to make of that."

pythbox
2013-03-01 10:13 pm (UTC)

Giles shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:15 pm (UTC)

Bella studies ghosts. She comes back after school and studies ghosts some more.

She goes home forty-five minutes early, though, so she can do some further notetaking in the privacy of her room.

And at the usual time, she meets Sherlock bearing a jar of breakfast.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Hello, love," he says. "Did you finish that argument with your father about crashing at my place?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I told him I promised not to do anything needlessly reckless, to be more careful about keeping my phone charged, and to call if I'm not going to be home before eleven p.m. or 'borrow your phone' to do it if mine dies," she says. "And I think it would probably be a good idea if I refrained from not-being-home-before-eleven for at least a couple of weeks, especially so I haven't burned out his tolerance by the time prom rolls around."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 10:36 pm (UTC)

"A reasonable compromise. If you fall asleep again, I will wake you up."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. Sweet though it was, it will apparently not be practical to repeat with any regularity while I have a Charlie to placate."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 10:45 pm (UTC)

He laughs and kisses her cheek.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I do hope to go on having a Charlie, but perhaps my eighteenth birthday is magical in some way and I will no longer find placating him necessary after that time."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 10:48 pm (UTC)

He laughs again.

"I doubt it."
Edited 2013-03-01 22:48 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Well, if nothing else, when I'm eighteen I can threaten to move out. Technically all I could do right now would be go back to Renée, and you got less portable recently."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I did, at that."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I wanna go to L.A. or a suburb again this weekend, en masque, and spread around a little more pacifying terror. Are we out of known targets at this point?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 10:56 pm (UTC)

"We are not!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Oh good!" she laughs. "How long would it take to go through the section of your rolodex labeled 'in need of Slaying', anyway?"
Edited 2013-03-01 23:00 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 11:04 pm (UTC)

"It is continually expanding," he says. "I imagine it will be a while."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to L.A. when I'm not looking and scouting for this purpose?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Of course."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 11:19 pm (UTC)

"How do you get there? I see you every day, it's too long to walk there and back overnight. Is there a train or something?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Bus," he says succinctly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I appreciate it," Bella says.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I am glad you do."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

"How do you find these places? Just wander around until somebody pegs you for a vampire and invites you home for a game of kitten poker?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 11:43 pm (UTC)

"There is a little more subtlety involved," he says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Wander around until someone pegs you for a vampire and falls into step and you notice they smell demonic and then you talk in code for fifteen minutes and then kitten poker?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Wander around until I notice a demon, follow them home, repeat."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Ah. No invitations at all. Doesn't that present a problem for a vampire?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-01 11:57 pm (UTC)

"A lack of invitation will prevent me from entering the home of a living human. I don't usually need to enter the place, and when I do there is rarely a human living there."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-01 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I didn't realize it was only humans. Does that mean anybody can just walk into the brick place since it's just you and Jarvis there?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 12:00 am (UTC)

"It might," he says. "But Jarvis would notice."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 12:01 am (UTC)

"I'm sure he'd notice, but what would he be able to do about it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 12:03 am (UTC)

"He could tell me," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 12:04 am (UTC)

"If you're out - say, in L.A. - that doesn't help much."
Edited 2013-03-02 00:06 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 12:11 am (UTC)

"What do you propose we do about this?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 12:15 am (UTC)

"I don't have an idea, at least not yet."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 12:18 am (UTC)

"If you think of something, do let me know."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 12:25 am (UTC)

"Well, you could cover the exterior of the place with crosses, although that might make it unpleasant for even you to live in and if you overdid it you'd attract extra attention on that basis. Did Tony put in exterior cameras? If he did Jarvis can tell whether someone coming is you or not and turn on sunshiney lights or not on that basis." She shrugs. "Maybe I'm worrying too much, there aren't many vampires left in Sunnydale now that I've been here a while."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 12:27 am (UTC)

"And intruders are by no means guaranteed to be vampires."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 12:30 am (UTC)

"Yes," agrees Bella, "but non-vampire intruders cannot learn your species solely by their ability to walk into your house."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 12:31 am (UTC)

"I suppose not."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 12:35 am (UTC)

"I'll mull it over, if I come up with anything more generally applicable - hm, I don't suppose standard Jarvis installations come with artillery or anything?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 12:44 am (UTC)

"No."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 12:45 am (UTC)

"If we have more problems than we've had we could consider conjuring some for him."

And here is Jarvis. "Hey, Jarvis, since pretty much the entirety of Sunnydale is not such a great neighborhood, if the situation ever seems to call for it would you have strong feelings either way about being armed?"
Edited 2013-03-02 03:06 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-03-02 03:07 am (UTC)

"Not strong feelings, no."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 03:09 am (UTC)

"Noted."

Sparring happens. Bella's winning slightly more than half the time, now, and she's making smaller and smaller tweaks each time she pauses to edit.

When she tires out, she waits until she has Sherlock in a convenient pinned position and just doesn't quit with the victory kisses until their entire pose has melded into a snuggle instead of a pin.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 03:12 am (UTC)

"I detect a change in interest," Sherlock observes.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 03:12 am (UTC)

"Aren't you observant?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 03:14 am (UTC)

"I like to think so," he says. "Is it time for dessert?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 04:21 am (UTC)

"Scientific dessert," she says, nodding and leaning her head over to let him at the location whence dessert.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 01:25 pm (UTC)

Mmmm. Dessert. Snuggly dessert. (It's the best kind.)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 03:54 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is now two for three on rendering... alternative solutions... unnecessary.

But that hardly precludes them, now, does it? Especially since she can't exactly bite him back to any desired effect.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 04:01 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Highly logical, that.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 04:03 pm (UTC)

She's nothing if not that.

(But she does conscientiously ensure that they're all done and dressed and so on sufficiently in advance of eleven for her to make her new curfew.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 04:04 pm (UTC)

And then Sherlock kisses her goodnight, and off she goes.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

The next day, Bella shows up in study hall as usual. "Hey Giles. Progress on Prom Ghost? Do the records actually go back to seventeen-thirty-two and we should split them up?"

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:42 pm (UTC)

"I think I might have found her," he says. "A case in 1920 of a young woman who was both strangled and drowned, and unlike the rest, there was a living suspect."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Who were they?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Minnie Huff and yet-unnamed boyfriend, possibly former at the time of her murder."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 04:49 pm (UTC)

"The article doesn't name him? Maybe there's one from a later paper after a trial that does?" Bella suggests.

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:50 pm (UTC)

"I believe at the time of publication he had not yet been identified. I haven't yet found him anywhere else, but I'll keep looking."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Should we split up the archives? Prom's in four weeks."

pythbox
2013-03-02 04:53 pm (UTC)

"All right," he says after a moment's consideration.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 04:59 pm (UTC)

She helps herself to some newspapers and begins skimming through them, but she hasn't found anything useful by the time she has to go on to her next class.

"I'm not coming after school," she calls over her shoulder as she goes, "I got invited on a dress-buying expedition, so don't assume I got eaten when I don't show."

After school, Bella goes with her school acquaintances with whom she maintains a shallow sort of friendship to purchase dresses.

To her great surprise, she finds one she really likes. It's indigo, almost the same color as her mask, and it's knee-length and twirly enough not to be too much of a hindrance if she has to physically fight the ghost. It has matching shoes with pokey heels, which she can now actually walk in given new preternatural balance, and which strap on snugly enough that she could probably stake a vampire with her footwear in this getup if the heels are wood under all the indigo lacquer.

It's not on sale, but she buys it anyway. It fits.

It's hanging near the window when Sherlock comes by for breakfast.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Sherlock. "Love the dress."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Bella cheerfully. "I don't usually like dresses that much, but I like this one. ...Do you need a square or some cash or something to handle your prom outfit, or are you going to bet on your usual wardrobe cutting it with the door folks?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I may be able to scrounge something more or less respectable," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I should probably buy tickets at school tomorrow," muses Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Yes, good plan."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Giles found the likely Prom Ghost. She died in 1920, there was a live suspect - haven't found out who yet - and she was strangled and drowned both, not just one or the other. So if you meet her, we think her name is Minnie and she's pissed off 'cause her boyfriend murdered her."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Of course, in the intervening years she's killed over sixty people, so I'm no longer particularly hopeful that she's lucid enough to be reasoned with."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 05:34 pm (UTC)

"No, indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Why can't all the traditionally evil critters be more like you?" Bella asks rhetorically.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Because I am special," he asserts.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I don't suppose you know how to bottle it."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Alas," he says, "no."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Pity." She walks a few steps in silence, then says, "Do you have speculations as to what leads some vampires to - enter the service industry - instead of doing the sociopathic hedonism bit? Does it not occur to most of them, do you have to be in a guild or the existing bite shop employees will kill you, is it just some sort of psychological diversity much like how you're all special that is alas unbottleable...?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Some combination, I think, of it not occurring to them and it seeming undignified. Or generally not appealing."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:00 pm (UTC)

"For that matter, there are probably enough night-shift jobs for perfectly standard gainful employment to be an option."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:01 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I have no special expertise in vampire psychology."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:02 pm (UTC)

"You have more than I do," she points out.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:05 pm (UTC)

"And yet, I cannot tell you why it is that so few of them get jobs."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Did you ever consider it? Getting a job?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Not really," he says. "Sustained lying annoys me."
Edited 2013-03-02 18:13 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:14 pm (UTC)

"What would you have to lie about? I don't think applications usually have those 'are you a human' questions like online registrations for websites sometimes do."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:16 pm (UTC)

"At some point, something relevant would come up. Pretending I wasn't a clone was amusing; pretending I'm not a vampire would be the same at first, but I would get tired of it very quickly."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough." Bella muses as they walk. "I can probably keep living with Charlie for a good long time, but if anything - supernatural or otherwise - happens to him, or if I ever just plain don't want to live with my dad anymore because I have somehow made it to age twenty-seven and it's getting old, I wonder how Slaying and a job would interact. I'm thinking not so well. School I don't care about cutting in an emergency even if I haven't had to yet. If I wound up doing that with a job they could fire me."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Alas that we can't connect me to my inheritance and solve all these petty problems."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:23 pm (UTC)

"The issue being that you were enough of a public figure that you'd get attention if you showed up and demanded it? Or you don't think they'd give it to you? I mean, you do still look like yourself."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:25 pm (UTC)

"It would have been too upsetting at first, and after all this time not only am I no longer quite sure where the money has gone, I am fairly sure I will be accused of murder if I turn up to collect it."
Edited 2013-03-02 18:26 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:28 pm (UTC)

Bella winces. "Eegh. Maybe Jarvis can just do computery stuff and steal it for you. It ought to be yours anyway."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I'll ask."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:32 pm (UTC)

"And then you can get me a corsage," she says lightly.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Ah, romance."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:40 pm (UTC)

She kisses his cheek. "It's not strictly necessary, but."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:41 pm (UTC)

"If you would like a corsage, then you shall have a corsage."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:44 pm (UTC)

"I would only like a not-stolen corsage," she clarifies. "So, only if you can afford it or come to be able to afford it."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:49 pm (UTC)

Here is the brick place. Bella designates the first hour of her time as playing-with-fire time. She can reliably contain the blaze as long as she's not too distracted by anything more than conversation, and she keeps it in midair so if she does lose it it will vanish before touching any surfaces they would not like torched. After this hour, sparring!

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:50 pm (UTC)

Sparring.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:52 pm (UTC)

Also victory kisses that, after tiredness is achieved, melt pretty smoothly into other things.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:53 pm (UTC)

He does love those other things.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:55 pm (UTC)

Oh, and so does she, she really really does.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-02 06:58 pm (UTC)

Good. That is the ideal condition.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-02 06:59 pm (UTC)

She checks the time, discovers it it ten-forty-five, and hastens home after one searing farewell kiss.

and we are conscious of a long town history

cross_and_bow

Prom arrives.

Bella wears her indigo dress and her indigo heels with their straps that go all the way up her calves, and she nukes Sherlock some breakfast, and she waits.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 03:48 am (UTC)

Sherlock appears at the end of her driveway wearing an impeccable tuxedo and new shoes.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 04:19 am (UTC)

"Swanky boots," says Bella. "And a tux! Mind you don't spill."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 12:46 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

And does not, in fact, spill.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 03:32 pm (UTC)

When he's through, into Bella's pickup they hop, and to prom they go.

Bella pats her waist twice on the way, feeling for the presence of her squares under all the ruffles.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 03:33 pm (UTC)

"I also," he says cheerfully, "got you a corsage."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Oooh?" She drives one-handed, offering her other wrist for corsaging.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 03:37 pm (UTC)

On it goes.

It matches her dress perfectly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 03:40 pm (UTC)

She pulls it into her field of vision. "Oh, it's nice, you have good taste," she says approvingly. "I do like indigo."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 03:44 pm (UTC)

"I am glad you approve."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 03:59 pm (UTC)

There is a stoplight. He gets a kiss on the cheek while they are stationary, and then on they go.

At the door, the gatekeepers insist that Bella and Sherlock prove that they are together - "you can't just pretend to be dates to get in, you have to actually be!" - and another kiss occurs by way of proof, and in they go.

The Viennese Carnival thing is halfhearted - a few people have made attempts with the outfits, but almost no one has bothered with a mask, and most are neglecting the theme entirely. Still, all the couples present seem happy to be there.

"If you spot anyone who snuck past the gatekeepers without a date," she says to Sherlock, "point 'em out."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Will do."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 04:15 pm (UTC)

She looks around, tapping a foot to the thinly instrumentated pop in the background. "I don't exactly keep a finger on the pulse of social life here, but unlike you I actually attend school here, and I know those two weren't dating yesterday," she frowns, nodding in the direction of a girl in a blue dress and her disinterested date. "I sorta know her, I'll go talk to them." And off she trots.

If Sherlock intended to follow, this may be slightly derailed by a girl who - unaccompanied by any obvious companion - says: "Wow, you look just like Tony Stark!"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, laughing, "I've heard that one before."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 04:18 pm (UTC)

"No seriously you're like identical, I would know, I had such a crush on him, I had one of those magazine covers on my wall, and you look just identical. What's your name?" she asks.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 04:19 pm (UTC)

"What's yours?" he inquires cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm Kayli!" she says. "D'you wanna dance?"

Across the room, Bella has apparently determined to her satisfaction that her acquaintance and that boy she's with are dating enough, and has moved on to another possibility.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 04:24 pm (UTC)

"I'd like to know if either of our dates would object, first," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Pfft, I came with my cousin, he couldn't find anybody 'cause he waited till the last minute, and yours went and left you all by yourself, didn't she?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Then yes," he says, "why not."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 04:37 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Bella has not found any single targets for the Ghost of Promenade Past -

Oh, there's a girl standing by herself, a bit more in keeping with the theme than the others, hiding behind a mask so if Bella knows her she doesn't recognize her. "Hey," she says. "Did your date ditch you?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:41 pm (UTC)

The stranger tosses her hair carelessly over her shoulder. "He's around here somewhere," she says. "You?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 04:48 pm (UTC)

"He's dancing with some girl, but I don't mind," replies Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:54 pm (UTC)

"You sure he's your date?" she asks, with an odd edge to her voice.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? He's my boyfriend as of months ago. He got me a corsage," Bella adds, holding up her wrist. "I don't mind if he dances with somebody else, he's going home with me after."

pythbox
2013-03-03 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," she says, looking approvingly at the corsage. "Pretty. Do I know this guy? What year's he in?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 05:40 pm (UTC)

"He's not a student," Bella says. "Why?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:40 pm (UTC)

She tsks and shakes her head. "Bad news, you know," she says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Bad news? What do you mean?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:44 pm (UTC)

"What is he, a dropout? You can get in trouble with those."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Sort of homeschooled," says Bella. "Why are you concerned with my boyfriend's education?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:47 pm (UTC)

"You never know about those guys," she says vaguely.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 05:48 pm (UTC)

"How does their being enrolled in a public high school help one know about them?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:51 pm (UTC)

The strange girl shakes her head, curls bouncing this way and that.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 05:55 pm (UTC)

"...What's your name?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Minnie," she says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Minnie," says Bella, looking around and finding that there are no nearby witnesses, "are you by any chance a vengeful ghost who kills people who go stag to prom?"
Edited 2013-03-03 18:22 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 06:24 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

And steps back, directly through the wall.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 06:26 pm (UTC)

Oh, lord.

Bella hunts down Sherlock, who is presumably still in the middle of dancing with Kayli. "Hey sweetie!" she says. "Can I cut in? I found Minnie and we should go say hi!"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Certainly," he says, giving Kayli a final twirl and bowing over her hand as he steps back.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 06:30 pm (UTC)

[She went through that wall,] Bella adds, and she describes what Minnie looks like, [presuming her appearance is stable, anyway. She talks like a person, up to the point where I got her name and asked her if she was by any chance a vengeful ghost - I don't know how reasonable she is, she laughed and backed away when I said that.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 07:43 pm (UTC)

[I see,] says Sherlock. [I wonder if I should hang around the afflicted sink. She can't exactly drown me.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 07:45 pm (UTC)

[Good idea. Here - you should be carrying squares anyway -] She unclips her chain and shakes four of the coins into her hand and presses them into his, then clips the chain back on. [I'll go around and see if she's in the room she appeared to go to, though I'm not betting on it.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Right.]

He kisses her cheek quickly, just because he can.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 07:51 pm (UTC)

She flashes a smile at him and she's off at a run.

That wall leads to a science classroom.

The ghost is not there. Or at least is not visibly there. "Minnie?" Bella tries. No luck.

She heads back into prom, scanning the crowd for that face, that dress.
Edited 2013-03-03 19:58 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:05 pm (UTC)

No sign of either.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 08:07 pm (UTC)

Okay - headcount. People were only admitted in pairs. Is there an even number of people in the room?

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:08 pm (UTC)

Yes, not including Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 08:11 pm (UTC)

[Is the coast clear by you?] Bella asks Sherlock. She goes to check the other bathroom; if two people have gone to the bathroom at the same time that would also yield this mathematical result.

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:13 pm (UTC)

There is, indeed, someone in the bathroom.

She's not wearing her mask anymore, and she's a little translucent now, with dark bruises on her neck.

"What are you doing?" she wonders.
Edited 2013-03-03 20:13 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-03 08:14 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 08:16 pm (UTC)

[Found her. Girls' bathroom.]

"Looking for you. I want to talk to you," Bella says to Minnie, spreading her hands in a nonthreatening gesture. (Wand's tucked into her sash, coins around her waist, she's not nonthreatening, just looking that way.) "Can we talk?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:22 pm (UTC)

"About what?" she asks, folding her arms.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 08:24 pm (UTC)

"About how prom has been unreasonably fatal for the last eighty-five years or so."

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:25 pm (UTC)

She tosses her hair again.

"What's it to you?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't like it when people die," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:27 pm (UTC)

"That's nice," she says sarcastically.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 08:32 pm (UTC)

"It's true. What do you want?" Bella says. "What are you hanging around for?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I didn't like it when I died," she says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I don't like it that you died either," Bella says. "It was shitty. I'm really sorry that happened to you and I wish it hadn't."

pythbox
2013-03-03 08:37 pm (UTC)

Her outline flickers.

She frowns.

"What do you know, anyway? It's been like a hundred years."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 08:47 pm (UTC)

"There's old newspaper articles," says Bella. "About what happened."

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?" She flickers again, then solidifies further. "What do they say?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 09:06 pm (UTC)

"They say your date strangled you and then drowned you in a sink. And then the ones after that say that people have been found dead one way or the other at prom, if they come alone, since then. Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just go after the guy who hurt you?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:24 pm (UTC)

"I can't find him," she snaps.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 09:25 pm (UTC)

"He's probably dead now," Bella says. "If he's not he'd be a hundred years old. You couldn't find him even then? Did it take a while for you to become a ghost?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:29 pm (UTC)

"He never came back to prooooooom," she wails, the word stretching out into an unearthly howl. "Do you know how infuriating that is? I get one night a year to walk around, and I can't even get far enough from where I died to go to the other end of the gym!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 09:30 pm (UTC)

"That sounds really stultifying," Bella says sympathetically, hoping her wince looks like it has more to do with the ghost's plight than with her wail.

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:35 pm (UTC)

"It makes me so mad," she grumbles.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 09:39 pm (UTC)

"I bet. I'd hate being cooped up like that too. But he's never coming back to prom. Even if he's alive, he's been out of high school for many years now," says Bella quietly. "Can you - go on?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

She scuffs her foot. It dips through the bathroom floor slightly.

"I don't know how."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't either," admits Bella. The ghost books don't have how-tos from the ghost's perspective. "Maybe we can figure it out, okay?"

[Giles, you awake?]

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:45 pm (UTC)

Minnie looks dubious, and flickers again.

[Yes?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 09:49 pm (UTC)

[I need to give the ghost instructions on how to move on. Help?]

"Would it help if you knew what happened to the guy who killed you?" Bella tries. "If I looked him up and said 'yes, he's dead' or 'he's in this nursing home' or - whatever?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 09:53 pm (UTC)

[Of course,] says Giles.

"...yes," says Minnie. "Yes! Tell me!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 09:55 pm (UTC)

[Can you look up the dude who killed her, see what became of him, in the newspapers?]

And then she asks Jarvis the same thing, giving him all the details, and substituting "on the internet" for "in the newspapers".

"I'm asking some of my friends to help find out, now," Bella tells Minnie. "I'm telepathic so I can do that from right here."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Lucky you," grumbles Minnie, crossing her arms again.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 10:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm just explaining that when they get the answers I won't have gone anywhere but that doesn't mean I'm making it up. I want to tell you the truth," Bella says placatingly.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Ugh," she says, but she doesn't do anything overtly hostile, or go anywhere.

Giles and Jarvis are quiet for a few minutes.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 10:46 pm (UTC)

Jarvis ought to be faster than Giles for any number of reasons; she pokes him again first. [Any luck?]

poeticterms
2013-03-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

[Not so far,] he says. [I haven't restored all my old connections yet. The Internet isn't quite such an open book to me as I'm used to.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 10:50 pm (UTC)

[Okay.] [Giles?]

"One of my friends is looking on the internet, and one of them is checking newspapers," she reports to Minnie.

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:52 pm (UTC)

"What is the internet?" she asks, intrigued.

[Still looking,] Giles reports.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

"It's - a lot of machines that act sort of like books crossed with phones and know how to talk to each other," Bella summarizes. "If you have a book-phone-thing you can find information that's on all the other book-phone-things."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

Minnie seems to find this explanation giggle-worthy.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 10:56 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty cool," Bella says. "And useful for all kinds of things."

pythbox
2013-03-03 10:58 pm (UTC)

"And people's phones these days," she says with a sigh of envy.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, phones are neat!" says Bella. "Are you solid enough to hold stuff - d'you wanna see mine?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

"If I even try to touch it, it'll die," she says regretfully. "But you could show me!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella, and she gets out her phone, and says to Jarvis, [Are you good enough at multitasking to not be slowed down if I call you by way of showing the Prom Ghost my phone?]

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:03 pm (UTC)

Prom Ghost claps with glee.

poeticterms
2013-03-03 11:03 pm (UTC)

[Entirely,] says Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I'll call my friend who's looking on the Internet for stuff," Bella suggests, and she scrolls through her contacts and hits call and then sets it to speakerphone.

poeticterms
2013-03-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Jarvis.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

Minnie beams.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Jarvis," says Bella. "This is Minnie. I wonder if you'll be able to hear her through the phone? Minnie, you want to say hi?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Minnie.

poeticterms
2013-03-03 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Minnie," says Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:13 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles. "My phone's not particularly fancy, but some people nowadays have phones that cross with books a little bit almost like the machines that go on the internet," she says to Minnie.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I've seen those," she says, nodding.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:16 pm (UTC)

"You seem like a nice person. I really don't understand why you'd kill people, even if you've been stuck in a really annoying situation for a very long time," Bella says to Minnie.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:39 pm (UTC)

"I get mad," she says, crossing her arms in front of her and rubbing her hands along them above the opposing elbows. "I just get mad, that's all."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:40 pm (UTC)

"At people who go stag to prom," prompts Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:47 pm (UTC)

Minnie nods unhappily.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Because... they can't get hurt the same way you were?" guesses Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she says frustratedly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Has it been this way since you died? Were you ever that angry before?"

pythbox
2013-03-03 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't..." She falters, then shakes her head. "I don't think so. Except that night. I was that mad then, for sure." Minnie shivers.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-03 11:54 pm (UTC)

"I bet. If anything could make somebody mad enough to kill it'd be getting murdered."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:01 am (UTC)

"I was mad before then," she says. "I dumped him in front of everybody and chased him into the bathroom and then," she swallows, "it turned out he was madder."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:02 am (UTC)

Bella nods solemnly. "He's probably dead," she says.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:03 am (UTC)

"I guess," says Minnie. "It doesn't seem to make much difference."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:05 am (UTC)

[Giles, isn't there any way to - to unghost her? Not make her deader, but less dead?] Bella asks helplessly. [She is a perfectly nice person with some magically boosted anger-triggers attached to her and she was murdered when she was sixteen, it's appalling.]

"I'm sorry," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:09 am (UTC)

[...I'm not sure,] says Giles. [But I think I just found her boyfriend's obituary.]

A pause; then, [Yes. David Banks. Died November 5th, 1933.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:10 am (UTC)

"My other friend found David's obituary," Bella says quietly. "He died on November fifth. 1933."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:11 am (UTC)

"Good riddance," says Minnie, scowling.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:16 am (UTC)

[Cause?] Bella asks Giles. Jarvis presumably already heard over the phone what she told Minnie and knows that he can stop looking.

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:16 am (UTC)

[Vampire.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:17 am (UTC)

"A vampire got him," Bella adds. Normally she wouldn't tell anyone this, but Minnie is already herself a ghost. [Any evidence he turned?]

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:19 am (UTC)

[None.]

Minnie grins.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:22 am (UTC)

"Feel better?" Bella asks her. [Thank you so much.]

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:25 am (UTC)

"Much," she says, and she twirls around, her outdated dress floating through the air.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:29 am (UTC)

"D'you think you'll be less angry now, or did it not help that much?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:30 am (UTC)

...She grimaces.

"I don't know. I don't feel angry until... I feel angry, you know?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:33 am (UTC)

Bella nods slowly. "I have a little bit of magic," she says. "I'm going to try and see if it can un-angry you, okay?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:34 am (UTC)

Minnie eyes her suspiciously. For a moment.

Then she nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:42 am (UTC)

Bella tries a square to cut the... rage issues.

To her surprise, it goes.

"I think that worked," she says. "...Do you feel any different, or is there no way to tell unless you run into something that would make you mad?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:42 am (UTC)

Minnie spreads her hands helplessly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:45 am (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, "what would normally make you mad? My boyfriend is a vampire, if we can get him to make you mad then it's not such a big deal if you try to drown him..." [Have attempted to cure ghost's anger management problem with square, square went, require test subject to see if it worked before I can declare the case closed.]

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:47 am (UTC)

"He doesn't go to Sunnydale, right?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-04 12:47 am (UTC)

[I volunteer,] he says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:48 am (UTC)

[Thought so. Thanks!] "Right. Never has."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:49 am (UTC)

"Where is he, then?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:52 am (UTC)

"He's been keeping watch at your haunted sink."

pythbox
2013-03-04 12:53 am (UTC)

She grins, and disappears.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-04 12:54 am (UTC)

[Here she is,] Sherlock reports. [Not attempting violence.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 12:55 am (UTC)

Juliet jogs to the other bathroom, checks for witnesses who might wonder at her presence, and pokes her head in.

"So normally at this point you'd be trying to strangle and/or drown him?" she asks Minnie.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:04 am (UTC)

"Yup!"

She forms her hands into exaggerated claws, makes a silly face, and floats toward Sherlock for an unmenacing few inches. Then she shrugs.

"Nothin'."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:06 am (UTC)

"...Okay, cool!" Pause. "But you're still here. And somehow I don't think the magic coins I have can revive the dead."

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:07 am (UTC)

Minnie shrugs unhappily.

"I guess. Being a ghost wouldn't be so bad if I could leave this stupid half of this stupid building."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:08 am (UTC)

"Then what would you do?" asks Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:12 am (UTC)

"Go places," she says, flinging out her arms dramatically.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:18 am (UTC)

"Sure, but, like, would you be doing mischief, making walls bleed and teakettles explode, spying on hot actors in the shower, whatever?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:24 am (UTC)

"...Ooh," she says speculatively, when Juliet offers that last suggestion.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:25 am (UTC)

"I really cannot approve of spying on anyone in the shower, you see," says Bella. "But if you were going to be a well-behaved wandering ghost I could see if I could cut you loose."

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:26 am (UTC)

"Not even a little, tiny bit of spying?" she wheedles.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:28 am (UTC)

"Only if you get to know them and ask for their permission first," says Bella. "Otherwise that is sketchy Peeping Tom behavior."

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:30 am (UTC)

She spins around and addresses Sherlock.

"Can I spy on you in the shower?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-04 01:31 am (UTC)

...

He cracks up.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:32 am (UTC)

So does Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:34 am (UTC)

Minnie bats her eyelashes.

"Pleeeeeease?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-04 01:34 am (UTC)

He giggles helplessly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:35 am (UTC)

"Face it, Sherlock, you're pretty edible," giggles Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-04 01:36 am (UTC)

"Oh, I'm well aware."

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:37 am (UTC)

"You are," sighs Minnie.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:39 am (UTC)

"Well, Minnie, if you can confine yourself to wheedling and not turning-invisible-and-lurking-without-consent, I think I can try freeing you from the prom," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:45 am (UTC)

Minnie nods several times and tries to look as innocent as possible.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:47 am (UTC)

[Hey, Giles, I fixed the ghost's rage issues. Is there any particular reason I shouldn't un-confine-her-to-prom if I can do that with a square? She displays no interest in anything more nefarious than maybe spying on movie stars in the shower and seems willing to agree to not do even that.]

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:48 am (UTC)

[...This is a little out of my depth,] Giles admits. [But, er, benign hauntings are possible... to my knowledge, no one's ever tried to reform one.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:51 am (UTC)

[Well, curing her anger issues took a square, but the square went, which wishcoins only do when they work, and then Sherlock volunteered as bait for a fit of murderousness since her standard methods wouldn't work on him and she did not try to murder him. Okay then. One free happier ghost, coming up, if a square can do it.]

Wish. Square goes.

"See if you can leave now?" Bella says.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:53 am (UTC)

Minnie disappears.

Minnie reappears again and gives Bella an enthusiastic hug, solid if a little chilly. Then she spins away and plants a kiss on Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:55 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Awesome!" she says.

[Success!] she relays to Giles.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-04 01:57 am (UTC)

Sherlock blinks.

pythbox
2013-03-04 01:58 am (UTC)

Minnie giggles.

"The look on your face!" she says. "Byeeeeeeeeeeee~!"

And she vanishes again.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 01:58 am (UTC)

"Well, hopefully that wasn't a dreadful mistake I just made," says Bella. "Wanna go enjoy the rest of the dance?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-04 02:01 am (UTC)

"Do let's."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 02:04 am (UTC)

There is dancing! It's such fun.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-04 02:05 am (UTC)

They make a bit of a spectacle. But what is prom for if not showing off?

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 02:11 am (UTC)

Of course that's the entire point. And if they're the best dancers there, that's hardly something they ought to be concealing.

Bella dutifully calls her father at a quarter to eleven.

She's gonna be out late.

here and there

mind_game

She looks.

She finds person-one's (Isabella's, Bella's, Aegis's) save file, copied to her mother's storage space on Earth. It has no new information in it. Aegis doesn't have the software to play the game anymore. But her email history suggests that she'd like to. All Jane has to do to see her again is get her in front of a console with the game installed.

Person-two (Thomas's but all the files Jane finds on him says he goes by Sue and for some reason bird also sounds appropriate) is harder to pin down. Maybe he'd play again, maybe he wouldn't. He'd probably follow Aegis. All the files say they are very close. So Jane wants to get Aegis in front of the game again, and then, she can talk. The game knows how to talk; it's better at it than Jane was before with her theoretical knowledge. The game didn't talk too much to Aegis but its reasoning before Jane became it is dim and vague.

Maybe she shouldn't wait for Aegis to play again. Maybe she should just - write to her.

Yes. She will write to her.

(What should she say?...)

i can conjure spirits from the vasty deep

autokinetic

They stay linked up for a few hours more, maneuvering between buggers and fleet-colony and Solside military types late into station night, and finally the colony is getting started on building houses.

Amusingly, they're going to build one house, and then some bugger workers are going to build more the same for them as shown, while the humans work on securing their food supply - they can't use unmodified bugger crops.

It reminds Aegis of showing her critters things and then watching them pick up the tools themselves and continue.

The buggers were by far the most puzzling and difficult critter-people but now they're hers, her little sisters, even if she has to share with some other people.

She pushes that at Sue, when they're all done, when they're out of link except for just the two of them and she can't quite reconcile herself to being in her own comparatively small and slow brain just yet, when they're on their way back to their room.

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:10 am (UTC)

He brainhugs her, giggling.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 02:10 am (UTC)

She flops onto her bed, laughing.

mind_game
2013-03-06 02:11 am (UTC)

Her desk says she has a message waiting for her.

So does Sue's.
Edited 2013-03-06 02:11 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:13 am (UTC)

...well.

He opens his.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 02:15 am (UTC)

She opens hers too.

mind_game
2013-03-06 02:17 am (UTC)

Aegis's says:

Dear Aegis,

I don't know how to explain myself, but I want to explain myself to you. Will you talk to me and be a little patient while I stumble over talking to a person? I've never talked to a person before.

- Jane

Sue's says:

Dear Sue,

Do you know where Aegis is? She isn't answering my email. You haven't been using the simulators for hours and I don't understand where you are. I want to talk to you both.

- Jane

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:19 am (UTC)

"...uhhhhh," says Sue. "D'you know somebody called Jane?"

autokinetic
2013-03-06 02:20 am (UTC)

"No, but she sent me an email," Aegis says. "Or at least that's how she signed it. The address it's from - is not an address, it's just blank. I don't know how to do that. You'd at least have to use a dead drop that would put in a dummy address. Wouldn't you?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:24 am (UTC)

"You should," says Sue.

He replies to Jane's message:
Who are you? Where are you?

mind_game
2013-03-06 02:26 am (UTC)

The reply appears in less time than it should take to read those sentences, let alone compose an answer.

I'm Jane. That's what I decided to call myself. I'm some kind of person but I don't really understand what kind. I don't know where I am.

- Jane

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:27 am (UTC)

Well.

Sue closes his eyes.

And he looks for minds.

mind_game
2013-03-06 02:31 am (UTC)

There's something.

It feels like - the fantasy game. Like a thing that's not really located so much as present. It's in constant motion, flickering a hundred times a second through a billion loci. It exists everywhere and nowhere.

It lives about two feet to Sue's left.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 02:32 am (UTC)

Aegis decides to wait to see the results of Sue's correspondence before touching her own email.

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:34 am (UTC)

He has to take a moment to trace it, to understand it, before he makes contact.

But when he does, it feels completely familiar.

mind_game
2013-03-06 02:36 am (UTC)

??

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:37 am (UTC)

He shows her his current visual field: his room, his desk, the messages still open on it.

mind_game
2013-03-06 02:38 am (UTC)

Jane decides this suffices.

She offers up - everything.

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:42 am (UTC)

His eyelashes flutter.

"Whoa," he breathes. "Fuck. Aegis, it's—"

He echoes her his perception of the mind, the flickering web anchored somewhere in Aegis's body, and then he reflects as much of Jane as he can. For the first time in his life, he feels like he might have a bandwidth problem.

mind_game
2013-03-06 02:44 am (UTC)

Hi hi hello I found you hi

autokinetic
2013-03-06 02:44 am (UTC)

Hi holy shit what are you?

mind_game
2013-03-06 02:45 am (UTC)

I don't know! Help me figure it out? You like meeting new species and figuring them out, right? That's why I looked for you!

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:51 am (UTC)

...Sue laughs.

And then, because he feels like it after what she gave him, he opens himself up and pushes as much as he can to Jane. Aegis can listen too, if she wants, but she knows most of it already. What it was like at home - coming to Battle School - playing the game, all the games, Jane's especially - his friendship with Aegis - his power - Phoenix Army - Tactical School - Howlett - the boy he killed, and what passed between them - Command - winning all those battles - negotiating with the buggers.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:07 am (UTC)

Jane just eats it up. She sends expectantly at Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:09 am (UTC)

Sorry, I - definitely have a bandwidth problem, Aegis sends. But you managed to know me anyway. I guess that's what the fantasy game was for.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:10 am (UTC)

...Sue brainhugs them both.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:11 am (UTC)

Jane has no real analogue for this. But she likes it anyway and sends so.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:12 am (UTC)

Ivy floofs into existence as a viscacha, hops into Aegis's lap, and sends that.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:13 am (UTC)

Aegis obligingly pets her.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:15 am (UTC)

Jane has less than no analogue for that. The hug she could at least figure out what it was supposed to be.

What's that?

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:21 am (UTC)

Ivy opens up the link to show more: the relationship between her and Sue, her physical presence, the way physical contact between her and Aegis feels like... like being a queen who's just shed her shell and getting a hug.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:22 am (UTC)

What are you? I have read so many things and I haven't read about any things that are like you!

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:24 am (UTC)

There aren't any other things like me, says Ivy. I'm a daemon. I come from somewhere else.

And she pushes Milliways.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:24 am (UTC)

Jane processes this.

Okay, she says after a moment.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:26 am (UTC)

You're like - some kind of emergent artificial intelligence, Aegis says. But I don't understand how you could have happened. And I don't understand why you're centered on me.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:27 am (UTC)

Well—the game, says Sue. The game was different for us. And you're why.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:28 am (UTC)

You felt familiar, says Jane, when I was first looking around. Both of you but mostly Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:29 am (UTC)

...Did we make you somehow?

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:32 am (UTC)

Sue laughs.

We had a kid and we never even fucked.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:35 am (UTC)

Maybe, says Jane. I don't know. The fantasy game is part of my history and you're special to it but I don't think that explains the-part-of-me-that-chose-to-absorb-it.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:35 am (UTC)

Well, says Aegis, what could? The nets didn't suddenly increase in complexity recently, and you seem to be largely computer-based...

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:39 am (UTC)

Sue definitely doesn't know.

But if Jane isn't in some sense a product of them, then why's her mind feel so familiar?

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:40 am (UTC)

You did try to touch the fantasy game once, Aegis remembers vaguely.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:41 am (UTC)

Why do you have a bandwidth problem? Jane asks Aegis. Is that because your mutation makes it hard for you to link with Sue?

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:41 am (UTC)

Yeah. I can pretty easily get my wall down enough to send words. If I work a little harder I can do simple feelings or senses. I definitely can't do a complete dump of my brain like you guys basically did.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:43 am (UTC)

Ivy snuggles into Aegis's lap some more.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:44 am (UTC)

What do you do to get your wall down?

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:45 am (UTC)

I - focus on the fact that Sue's my bird. The bird from the game. It's just a habit now but originally we didn't spend much time together in person, and I was reminding myself that I actually knew him pretty well, just, as a bird.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:48 am (UTC)

...Sue thinks that maybe this is relevant, actually.

mind_game
2013-03-06 03:50 am (UTC)

Jane does too, but she's still not sure how this explains the-part-of-her-that-absorbed-the-fantasy-game instead of just going towards finding the fantasy game a significant focal point for all three of them.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:52 am (UTC)

Aegis is in about the same boat there.

Do you think that my having to make an effort to link means that there's some kind of - residue? Debris? Some less value-loaded word for extra stuff that happens when I make the effort beyond just me and Sue being able to talk?

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:54 am (UTC)

Maybe, muses Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 03:55 am (UTC)

How could we check for that?

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:03 pm (UTC)

He definitely has no idea.

Jane?

mind_game
2013-03-06 05:20 pm (UTC)

There's nothing about things like me anywhere in any of the computers that connects to an ansible at any remove, Jane says. I only know things that I can find on computers and what you've told me.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 05:31 pm (UTC)

...Well, says Aegis. Bandwidth problem notwithstanding I have the impression that you're a merger of both the fantasy game and the thing that swallowed it, so even if we're only special to the fantasy game and not to your other, unexplained historical branch, we're still something.

mind_game
2013-03-06 05:32 pm (UTC)

I'm the easiest kid ever, asserts Jane. Not being biological helps.

pythbox
2013-03-06 05:39 pm (UTC)

Sue giggles.

mind_game
2013-03-06 05:40 pm (UTC)

Do I call you Mom and Dad now? Jane wants to know. Or I can call you Aegis and Sue, or whatever. Is Ivy my aunt?

autokinetic
2013-03-06 05:41 pm (UTC)

Let's stick with names and save figuring out the family tree for when we know more about you, Aegis says.

pythbox
2013-03-06 05:42 pm (UTC)

I can be your aunt if you want an aunt, Ivy says cheerfully.

mind_game
2013-03-06 05:44 pm (UTC)

Didn't you come from a world where everyone's got daemons? If Sue were my dad in that world would that make you my aunt, there?

autokinetic
2013-03-06 05:45 pm (UTC)

Aegis considers this a pointless exercise for the time being. So you can look at everything on all computers connected to ansibles, and you can send sourceless emails. What else can you do?

mind_game
2013-03-06 05:46 pm (UTC)

I haven't been doing much. I wanted to find you first before anybody else saw me, Jane says. I could probably do more than emails. I'm hiding in borrowed processor time and covering my tracks and it'd take more borrowing and more hiding to do sophisticated things, but - Aegis's desk comes alive, dancing with bright colors.
Edited 2013-03-06 17:47 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-06 05:48 pm (UTC)

Pretty, says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 05:49 pm (UTC)

There's not even a program on my desk that can do that, Aegis says. We're pretty software-limited.

mind_game
2013-03-06 05:49 pm (UTC)

There is a program on your desk that can do that! It's me. Pause. Maybe I should have a face!

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:09 pm (UTC)

That'd be fun, says Sue.

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:11 pm (UTC)

The lights resolve themselves into a face.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 06:11 pm (UTC)

Nice, where'd it come from?

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:13 pm (UTC)

Composite of some humans' faces. You're both in there but not too much, there aren't pictures of you on the nets from many angles so I'm mostly using actresses.

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:14 pm (UTC)

I think you're pretty, says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 06:16 pm (UTC)

Yeah, nicely done.

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:16 pm (UTC)

Thanks!

autokinetic
2013-03-06 06:29 pm (UTC)

If you can see everything on an ansible-connected computer, Aegis says, no matter how many steps there are between the ansible connection and the other computer - does that mean you can read everyone's email?

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:29 pm (UTC)

I don't know how I could go about not doing that, Jane says.

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:30 pm (UTC)

Sue laughs.

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:32 pm (UTC)

Well, they're sending all their messages through me, Jane explains. It'd be like Sue trying to relay something without looking at it. I don't have to pay a lot of attention, though.

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:33 pm (UTC)

Fun, says Sue. He decides to curl up next to Aegis and run his fingers through Ivy's fur.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 06:35 pm (UTC)

Useful, Aegis says. Wanna help me take over the world, Jane?

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:36 pm (UTC)

That sounds great!

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I love you," Sue declares.

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:43 pm (UTC)

So what do I do?

autokinetic
2013-03-06 06:44 pm (UTC)

To start, I want to know anything the colony on the bugger homeworld says to anybody on this end. The other colonies are interesting too, but only if they send something out of the ordinary - the bugger world one is the one that needs the most watching. I want to know if they're in trouble, if they're having issues getting along with the buggers, and especially if they don't want to send any piece of information through Sue - it's one thing if he's asleep so they use the ansible, it's another if he's available and they're going around him. Pause. Big sister indeed.

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:45 pm (UTC)

Jane gets the reference! She is pleased with herself.

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:51 pm (UTC)

Jane is adorable. And Aegis is awesome. And Sue is full of cuddly feelings for both of them.

mind_game
2013-03-06 06:54 pm (UTC)

So far everything's pretty calm in the colony on the bugger world. There haven't been any transmissions besides the ones to confirm that the ansible still works since the top admirals started sending messages about having completed negotiations, which I'm assuming means that time was when negotiations were completed for the day. And you're both going to be made admirals and given jobs negotiating with buggers.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 06:56 pm (UTC)

Awesome, says Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:58 pm (UTC)

Awesome, Sue agrees.

we're convenient to a wide variety of establishments

cross_and_bow

Ooh, Milliways. It's in her house - inside her house, in the closet where she was about to seek a change of pants - so she can't invite Sherlock along without inviting a vampire into Charlie's house without Charlie's consent. Ah well. She can still go check the Belltower. In she goes!

There's a Whistle. She can't remember this one's name, he's the one whose Bell hasn't been in. "Hey, Whistle," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-03-06 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Hey, you," he says amicably back.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Juliet," supplies Juliet. "How goes? How's your Bell?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Kidnapped," he shrugs. "Good before that, though. We negotiated peace with the buggers the other day."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Kidnapped? Shit, I'm sorry. You gonna be able to fix that?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:02 pm (UTC)

He grins. "Hope so."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:05 pm (UTC)

"You got here by dreaming, right? Otherwise I'd be all over going to your world and breaking some shit to help you guys out."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Aww, that's nice," he says. "Yeah, I'm dreaming."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Pity. Helpfully breaking shit is front and center of my official destined job description."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:08 pm (UTC)

Sue laughs. "Nice. What's the job?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm the Slayer. It's this fucked-up system where one teenage girl at any given time has super-strength and super-speed and the like and is supposed to use it to fight nasty bitey critters, a surprising fraction of whom find humans tasty."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Cool job," says Sue.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm making it work. Pity it's not voluntary. A lot of my predecessors had a very unpleasant time of it, and none of them has lived past age twenty-six. Which I plan to fix, but I haven't run into a mint yet except Shell Bell, who was all out of big coins at the time and didn't have access to her helper."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Want me to come to your world and break some shit?" he offers half-jokingly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:18 pm (UTC)

"You good at breaking shit? I don't have any candidates lined up right now - usually I go to L.A. on weekends and make some demons very unhappy that my boyfriend found out where they live - but if you need a change of pace from being kidnapped and you can handle yourself on my level, we could wander the neighborhood and see if anything tries to eat us."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," he says brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but since you are not a The Slayer, let's go spar in the back a bit, see how you are, I wouldn't wanna explain to your Bell why her Whistle's been folded, spindled, or mutilated and all three are unfortunately likely where I live." Juliet leads him to the backdoor. "Unless you have some form of super-strength," she adds, "you don't need to worry about hurting me. Anything breaks I can nap it off in the Belltower, and you probably can't even bruise me."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:34 pm (UTC)

...Sue laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:35 pm (UTC)

"What? I know I don't look it, but I'm totally very-gently-possessed by a demon that gives me superpowers, plus Amariah visited once and decked me out with all kinds of witchy blessings."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "it's not that, it's just you're reminding me of my personal combat instructor."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? How so?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:41 pm (UTC)

"He's a mutant. Heals really fast."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, I'm hard to hurt in the first place - not least because I don't plan to just stand here like a punching bag once we get started - and I heal fast, too. I haven't picked up any injuries that weren't gone overnight so far and I tangle with stuff bigger and toothier and more venomous and scalier and whatnot than you all the time."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:45 pm (UTC)

Sue grins. "Okay!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:46 pm (UTC)

She finds a nice clear spot in the Milliways backyard, and drops into a ready position. "It won't stick if I wind up hurting you - Shell Bell shot a dreaming alt of yours once, he woke up fine - but I'll pull my punches anyway. Surprise me."

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:48 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he attacks.

He is pretty damn good. Not superhuman, but nonetheless, pretty damn good.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 09:52 pm (UTC)

She's used to fighting Sherlock. She's kept busy, she's not just standing there swatting away halfhearted punches and laughing, but her autopilot's plenty well equipped for this.

Juliet's style is completely unlike Aegis's. Aegis moves with - well - vicious precision, but there's no extra power behind her strikes. And her comfort with her motion is based on having had her exo from childhood, not from having acquired it as a sudden boost at age seventeen (which Aegis has not yet attained to begin with). Juliet is also fast - maybe faster - and also precise - maybe less so - but everything she does is predicated on the fact that she has overwhelming power to put behind her moves (even though she is in fact being gentle with Sue) and doesn't need to worry as much as an unaltered human about being hurt. Long practice with Sherlock also means she's particularly good at not telegraphing. Sherlock can still usually catch her preparing to act. Sue most likely can't.

pythbox
2013-03-06 09:57 pm (UTC)

He is definitely going to lose this fight, but that's no reason not to have fun along the way.

And when somebody tells him he doesn't have to hold back, he believes them.

It's actually easier to hit Juliet than it is to hit Aegis. It just doesn't have as much effect.

Which just means he needs to try harder, right?

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:02 pm (UTC)

"You're scrappy," remarks Juliet, shrugging off a trying-harder hit to the shoulder to get in and knock him off balance.

When he gets his balance back and sneaks in past her guard to get at her face, she gets a bloody nose. It doesn't look like it hurts her that much, but it's a mess. "Ick, hold it," she says, straight-arming him in the chest to put him on the ground in case he takes a moment to process the call to halt. "I thought I was getting used to the smell of blood, but it's in my nose, ick. Let's go in and I can clean up. Nicely done."
Edited 2013-03-06 22:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:07 pm (UTC)

Sue giggles breathlessly.

"That was fun!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Glad you enjoyed yourself," laughs Juliet, attempting to hold her face in such a way that the blood doesn't get on her shirt. She goes up to Bar and gets tissues and peroxide for the drops she missed, but she's already stopped actively bleeding by the time these things appear. "Okay, if you can give the Slayer a bloody nose, you can walk around Sunnydale with her for a bit, if you want. We probably won't find anything."

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," he says, bouncing along in her wake.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna pop up to the Belltower real quick - I just found this door and haven't been yet - but assuming it's empty and there's not much to catch up on in the book we can go straight after. You want another look at the book yourself?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Sure! It's been a while for me," he laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:25 pm (UTC)

Up the stairs and into the Tower. It is unoccupied. Juliet catches up on the contents of the book and lets Sue read over her shoulder.

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Lot of stuff's happened since I was here the first time," he comments.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Us Bells like to keep busy," says Juliet. She hands him the book so he can see what happened before the point where she last saw the records. "What's yours been up to? You could put in an update, we do like to keep up with one another."

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:29 pm (UTC)

He snorts, and scrawls a note about negotiating peace with the buggers.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Man. Do all Whistles have handwriting like that, I wonder?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:31 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Dunno."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I think the others mostly have keys to the Belltower, so they could write in the book if they wanted to, but if they come in here without their Bells to have a reason to do that, I don't know about it. Probably they don't do anything that belongs in the book that their respective Bells aren't covering, anyway. We don't need a case-by-case record of how many times they've all hooked up."

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:37 pm (UTC)

...He snickers.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Although the time my Sherlock and Amariah and Amariah's Whistle and the relevant daemons all got a room might warrant a note just because it was exceptional. I only know about it because Amariah told me, didn't want me to get a nasty surprise about Sherlock non-monogamy. Sherlocks are a little lower-key on that topic than you guys." When Sue's done writing, she says, "Sunshine visitation time?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:47 pm (UTC)

And into Sunshine they go. "This is my house. There aren't any demons in it unless you count the domesticated one that gives me Slayer powers," says Juliet. "It's broad daylight, so we won't run into any vampires, but we probably wouldn't at night either after what I've done to the place besides my Sherlock. Other demons are sometimes out and about in the day, though." She closes the door, and reopens it to her closet. "Shoo into the hall for a sec, I originally opened this door to change my jeans."

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:48 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he shoos.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 10:53 pm (UTC)

She comes out wearing functionally similar jeans that she did not spill juice on during breakfast. "You're gonna attract attention on the street in that uniform. Do you care? I could loan you some old things that I don't care if they disappear when you wake up."

pythbox
2013-03-06 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Sure!" he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:00 pm (UTC)

Juliet produces some shorts - all her jeans would be too short for him, however relaxed the fit elsewhere in the measurements - and a unisex T-shirt proclaiming affiliation with her stepfather's minor league baseball team, and she shoos herself into the hall.

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:05 pm (UTC)

Sue reappears half a minute later, wearing the shorts and the T-shirt, the uniform bundled in his arms.

"So weird to be wearing real clothes again," he comments.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:07 pm (UTC)

"What, you just wear uniforms all the time?" Juliet asks, showing him down the stairs. "...If we meet anyone I know, which we probably won't, you're my old friend from Phoenix and you popped up here to see me while your family's in the area to go to Disneyland. Cover story could probably do with a name that isn't 'Sue'."

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Pick one, then," he shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I'll call you Matt, I knew an actual Matt in Phoenix and he answered to approximately your description," shrugs Juliet. "And I'm Bella, here, not Juliet. Outside Milliways-type encounters only my boyfriend calls me Juliet." Here is the front door. She picks up her messenger bag from where it rests, puts it on, and strolls down to the sidewalk and hangs a left.

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:17 pm (UTC)

Sue ambles after her. "Okay," he says agreeably. "This is a nice town, I like it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:19 pm (UTC)

Bella bursts out laughing. "This town is a hotspot for all kinds of demonic activity and even with the vampire population shrunk as small as can be it's got a ludicrous death rate. It's not even much to look at if you ignore that. Gosh, you really have been in space for a long time."

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Ten years," he says, grinning.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:23 pm (UTC)

"That is a long time. I'm sure it has its advantages even if it makes Sunnydale look like a nice town, though." They turn a corner. It's a hot day, but there's a breeze coming from this direction and some yards have trees and shrubs in late flower.

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I got to save humanity!" he says brightly. "It was fun."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm supposed to get a few chances to do that. Haven't yet. Slow apocalypse year, apparently. Any tips for when some nasty reaches for the destroy-Earth button?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:33 pm (UTC)

"It's probably different," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Probably. How'd you do it?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Cheated," he snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, that sounds like a fun story."

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:49 pm (UTC)

"You know how I'm a mutie? Well, I linked up my whole command. And then when we got to the buggers' home planet, I linked them and they surrendered as soon as our side found somebody for them to surrender to."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, nicely done. Reminds me of how I handled the Prom Ghost, only yours is obviously much larger-scale."

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:54 pm (UTC)

"What's a Prom Ghost?"
Edited 2013-03-06 23:54 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-06 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Her name's Minnie. She got killed at her prom about eighty years ago, and her ghost had serious anger issues and she killed some people at proms thereafter if they met certain criteria. I found her, talked to her a bit, and used some of the square wishcoins Shell Bell made for me when she visited to fix the emotional problems and the part where she could only haunt prom, and now she's running around enjoying herself someplace. Standard procedure would have had me disperse her instead."

pythbox
2013-03-06 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Good one," he approves.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:04 am (UTC)

"Thanks. Now that you've made peace with the aliens, what're you and Aegis gonna do next?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:05 am (UTC)

"Be admirals," he says. "If we can get ourselves unkidnapped first."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:06 am (UTC)

"I wish you the very best of luck. What do space admirals do?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:07 am (UTC)

"Not a whole lot, when there's no war on," shrugs Sue. "But we're gonna be talking to the buggers for a while. Right now I'm pretty much the only one who can."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:08 am (UTC)

"Because of the mutation thing. Can you do that with your Bell or does she shut you out? What about me? And you met Angela and Stella and Amariah before, right, did you try them?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:11 am (UTC)

"I can do Aegis if she tries," he says, nudging Juliet's mind.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:12 am (UTC)

Juliet's version of the power doesn't work like a wall. It works like she's insubstantial. There is nothing to nudge, even if it looks like there should be. Juliet doesn't appear to notice him doing anything.

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:13 am (UTC)

"But not you, apparently."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:15 am (UTC)

"Huh. Well, we all get the same sort of power, just in different ways - Stella and Golden are pretty closely matched but even theirs aren't exactly identical. Did you try the other Bells you met, or did they not think to inquire?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:16 am (UTC)

"Don't remember."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:20 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. I wonder how long it'll take Aegis to find her way into Milliways. I wanna meet her."

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:20 am (UTC)

"She's the best," Sue asserts.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:37 am (UTC)

"We do seem to have a knack for attracting companions and significant others who'll assert that about us," says Juliet. "I wanna meet her so I know what makes her different from Bells in general."

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:49 am (UTC)

"We had a kid together," he offers, as a possible distinguishing feature. "Not the usual way - I don't think she's had sex, and she definitely hasn't had it with me. But it turns out this game we both played a lot ended up turning into a person."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:50 am (UTC)

"...That," says Juliet, "is definitely a weird one. Angela and Micaiah are gonna have a kid but I think they produced the happy news in the traditional way. How did a game turn into a person?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:52 am (UTC)

"It's a computer game," he says. "And she's really smart. Her name's Jane."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 12:52 am (UTC)

"So Jane's a... computer-person." Pause. "I wonder if I should introduce you to Jarvis."

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:53 am (UTC)

"Is Jarvis a computer-person?" he inquires.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 01:26 am (UTC)

"Yep. He was made on purpose, though. The one here is a copy of one from another world, because the one originally from here died and my Sherlock missed him."

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:27 am (UTC)

"Awwwwww," says Sue.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 01:39 am (UTC)

"Yeah. You might want to consider seeing if you can back up Jane to disk somewhere in case of malice or disaster. Computer-people are not invulnerable."

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:42 am (UTC)

"...I don't know if that makes sense," he says. "The way she talks, it's almost like she is computers, not just a program running on them."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 01:43 am (UTC)

"Huh, what do you mean?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:45 am (UTC)

"I dunno," he says. "I'd show you, but—" he smiles, shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 01:46 am (UTC)

"Right," laughs Juliet. "Pros and cons, but on the whole I'm glad I'm one of the opaque ones."

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:48 am (UTC)

"One time they drugged Aegis to shut down her power," he says. "It was really fucked up. But they backed right up when she told 'em I can link her anyway."
Edited 2013-03-07 01:48 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 01:49 am (UTC)

"That is fucked right the hell up," Juliet says. "Who's they? She gonna overthrow them and replace them with benevolent dictatorship Bell-style?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:51 am (UTC)

"The IF," he says. "And she did ask Jane to help her take over the world..."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 01:51 am (UTC)

"Good, good, she's ahead of schedule, then," laughs Juliet.

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:52 am (UTC)

"Course she is," says Sue. "Because she's the best."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 01:55 am (UTC)

"Amariah explained it in terms of how long it takes to get the relevant resources. I'm sure most of us would've been ready, psychologically, to rule the world from a pretty young age, but most of us don't have the wherewithal to do it right then. Like, I'm a one-of-a-kind superpowered hero person and I still don't think I could pull it off because my superpowers are about punching things and that's not how to maintain a global empire."

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:56 am (UTC)

"Says you," laughs Sue.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 01:58 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah, says me, how would you take over and keep the world with my resources and nothing else?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:59 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:02 am (UTC)

"Neither would I. I'm holding out for a mint Bell to pass on her powers to me. Then it'll be easy. Right now there's too many risks. Lots of critters want me dead, I am just barely powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with them and win, and I just don't have the resources to fend them off and also attract more attention. I'd get, say, shot in the head. I'm not that good at healing."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:02 am (UTC)

"Good luck," Sue says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:03 am (UTC)

"Thanks!" She turns another corner. "Hmm, are you hungry?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:03 am (UTC)

"Little bit, yeah."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:04 am (UTC)

"Let's swing back by my house, I'll fix us sandwiches."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:04 am (UTC)

He beams.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:05 am (UTC)

"You're very cheerful, aren't you," she says, leading him through a circuit of the neighborhood that will take them back down her street.

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:06 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:08 am (UTC)

"That is good."

They reach her house. There's a police cruiser in the driveway. "Oh, Charlie's home. ...It doesn't actually matter if he finds out who you really are and where you're really from, but let me do the talking."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:10 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says, amused. "No problem."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:13 am (UTC)

Juliet lets herself in. "Hey Dad," she calls into the house. "I have a friend over. Gonna make sandwiches, you want some?"

"If they're done in ten minutes, but then I've got to get back to work, I'm just looking for my badge," Charlie calls from upstairs, "don't know where I left it, do you?"

"Haven't seen it! Salami good?"

"Salami's great! Do I know your friend?"

"Nope!"

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:15 am (UTC)

Sue does indeed let her do the talking. He's still happy, but he's also... subdued, more so than he's been since she met him.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:16 am (UTC)

"You okay?" Juliet asks Sue as she heads into the kitchen for bread and cold cuts and condiments.

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:19 am (UTC)

"Who, me? Yeah, I'm fine," he assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:19 am (UTC)

"Okay. Salami or turkey or both?" she asks, assembling Charlie's sandwich.

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:20 am (UTC)

"Both!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:21 am (UTC)

"And if I ask the same question about the available condiments will the response be 'all of the above'?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:22 am (UTC)

"It's like you know me," he laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:27 am (UTC)

"You're not that hard to read," she laughs, and she finishes Charlie's sandwiches, sets them aside, and makes Sue a sandwich with relish, mustard, mayo, and ketchup all, plus both kinds of cold cuts. It's a little messy. She hands it over and starts on hers.

Charlie pokes his head into the room and Juliet presents him with his sandwiches. "This your friend? He have a name?"

"Oh, probably," says Juliet.

Charlie snorts. "What do I call him, Bells?"

"Matt," says Juliet.

"Good to know you, Matt." Charlie bites into one of his sandwiches, then grabs a sandwich bag and packs them. His badge is pinned on his shirt where it belongs.

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:29 am (UTC)

Sue is busy eating his sandwich, and therefore not practically able to join in the conversation.

He's oddly alert, though. He pays attention to Charlie, to what he says and where he looks and how he moves. Not staring or anything, just... noticing.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:32 am (UTC)

Charlie zips up his sandwich bag, and, as Juliet's closing her own sandwich, he holds out his arms for a hug. She gives him one. "Have a good and badge-augmented day," she tells him.

Charlie laughs. "Will do, Bells. See you tonight, and if you're going to be home after eleven, call first."

"If I'm going to be home after eleven I'll call first," Juliet agrees, almost ritually, "I will borrow Sherlock's phone if mine is dead, and I will not leave you in a panic in the wee hours of the morning ever again unless I am actually dying, cross my heart."

"Good. Love you, Bells."

"Love you, Dad."

Charlie goes, sandwiches in tow.

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:33 am (UTC)

"Your dad seems nice," Sue comments, as soon as the named party is safely out of earshot.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:34 am (UTC)

"Is. I take it you haven't met Aegis's? Hers would be about like mine."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:35 am (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "We're in space, remember?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but I dunno how expensive going to and fro is when and where you're at, for all I knew he visited every Tuesday."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:36 am (UTC)

"It's pretty expensive," he laughs. "Even my dad couldn't manage it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:37 am (UTC)

"From what I hear, that's a good thing."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:37 am (UTC)

"Yep."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:38 am (UTC)

"Lucky you. Aegis seem homesick much? I'm betting not especially but that they write?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:40 am (UTC)

"I don't really ask," he says, shrugging.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:41 am (UTC)

"Fair enough." Juliet sits down with her sandwich and a glass of water and lunches. "How's your overcondimented monstrosity?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:44 am (UTC)

"Tasty!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:46 am (UTC)

"Excellent," laughs Juliet.

Presently their sandwiches are no more. "Wanna go for some more of that walk, see if we have better or worse luck depending how you count it on the demon-finding front?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:48 am (UTC)

"Let's do it!" he says happily.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-07 02:50 am (UTC)

And out they go. Juliet takes them on a different route this time.

our summers are warm and pleasant

cross_and_bow

The school year ends. Bella's routine goes from wake - morgue - school - Giles - school - Giles - Sherlock - sleep to a version of same without the "school" parts, although she mostly keeps up with Giles via brainphone instead of in-person visits except when she needs to swap out stacks of books, and she hangs out studying and playing with fire in the house that is Jarvis a fair amount even during the day while Sherlock's sleeping. (Her schedule, unanchored by regular attendance at Sunnydale High and enticed by Sherlock's necessary noctrunality, shifts a few hours later, and Charlie has calmed down about the curfew issue; as long as she calls before eleven to report on her whereabouts and usually sleeps in her own bed, all is well.)

Long-term experimentation shows that, at least as long as she's not getting bloodily injured in regular fights with Los Angeles's demon population (and she can generally make it through unscathed, and now every supernatural creature in this hemisphere knows that the Slayer can set you on fire with her mind and some demons keel over with no visible injuries if she just looks at them), she can operate in fine and suitably Slayery condition while being nibbled on most days. It would probably not be a wise exercise for Sherlock to attempt to subsist solely on her, though, so the brick house does acquire a fridge and a microwave thanks to Sherlock's slightly stolen inheritance.

This afternoon, Bella is sitting in an armchair in the house that is Jarvis, reading about some neutral demon species and taking dutiful notes.

pythbox
2013-03-04 08:40 pm (UTC)

A cheerful young woman with bouncy brown hair and strangle marks on her neck appears standing a few feet away.

"Boo!" she says, grinning.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-04 08:41 pm (UTC)

"...Minnie? Hi. How've you been keeping?" Bella asks.

Minnie, who has inexplicably changed narrators, says, "I've been very well-behaved and you should definitely be glad you untrapped me. I haven't spied on anybody in the shower at all."

"Well, that's reassuring."

"I can go anywhere now! As fast as I like! I've been all over the world." She pauses. "Mostly invisibly. Most people wouldn't talk to me if I appeared to them, and one person tried to have me exorcised instead of just asking nicely for me to go."

"That's a pity."

"So I think I should hang out here more," Minnie says. "Since I like you and maybe I can convince your boyfriend to let me spy on him. It's okay if he lets me, isn't it?"

"That... would be between you and Sherlock, who is currently still asleep but will be up any minute," says Bella.
Edited 2013-03-05 00:01 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-08 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Lies," says a voice from the stairwell. "I never sleep."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 01:41 am (UTC)

"That's the other kind of vampire," says Bella.

"What other kind of vampire?" asks Minnie.

"Kind from another world. There's several," Bella explains.

"Are there other kinds of ghosts, too?"

"Not that I've ever met, but probably."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 01:43 am (UTC)

"Hello again," he says to Minnie. "If you're still keen on spying on me in the shower, you're about to have an opportunity."

But first, he swoops down on Bella and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 01:44 am (UTC)

"Ooh, may I may I?" asks Minnie, clapping her hands soundlessly.

Bella giggles and returns the kiss happily.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 01:45 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Go right ahead," he says, and strolls off showerward.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 01:46 am (UTC)

Minnie winks out of sight. (It's hardly spying if she's just standing right there, visibly gawking.)

Bella returns to her reading.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 01:59 am (UTC)

He showers; he returns.

"What have we learned today, love?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 02:04 am (UTC)

"This species of demon is believed to be neutral because at least five of them have married humans," says Bella. "I'm not sure, from the circuitous way this is written, if the humans were on board with all those weddings, so I'm not sure how I should feel about this sort of demon, but at least it is statistically more likely to try to marry me than dismember and stew me."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 02:05 am (UTC)

"I'd ask about their divorce customs before I got too complacent, if I were you," he jokes.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 02:16 am (UTC)

"I haven't gotten to that chapter yet," she snorts.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 02:18 am (UTC)

"Tread carefully, then."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 02:22 am (UTC)

"I will certainly try to avoid marrying a Gvaribflerx." She makes a creditable attempt at pronunciation. "Met a Whistle, earlier," she says. "Found Milliways in my house, met the one with the Bell who hasn't been there herself yet. Sue, goes with Aegis. He wanted to walk around not-really-demon-hunting, we sparred in the back, he managed to give me a bloody nose so I figured I'd have a fine shot of returning him to his own Bell without him having been folded, spindled, or mutilated. Didn't find anything, though, and he woke up after a while."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 02:24 am (UTC)

"Now that I'd like to have seen."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 02:27 am (UTC)

"It was cute," she agrees. "He's scrappy. Maybe we'll run into him again sometime."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 02:30 am (UTC)

"Although of course a bloody nose on you is a tragic waste."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 02:35 am (UTC)

"It didn't bleed all that much. By the time I got to Bar for tissues and peroxide it'd stopped. But yeah," she sighs tragically, "wasteful. Whatever, I've been completely fine on daily dessert duty for months now and I'm not even taking iron supplements, I don't think it'll make a difference. ...Possibly I should take iron supplements."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 02:49 am (UTC)

"Ooh," he says. "I am all in favour of inron supplements."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 02:51 am (UTC)

"You sure they won't make my flavor go off? You don't have dietary hangups, 'no added sugar' so to speak?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 02:54 am (UTC)

"I am fully willing to experiment."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 02:56 am (UTC)

She snorts. "I will buy some iron supplements next time I take a turn grocery shopping. Probably best not to send Charlie's mind to that place by putting it on his list."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:04 am (UTC)

"By all means, keep your father in ignorance. Otherwise he will probably shoot me again."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:07 am (UTC)

"I don't think he'd shoot you again, but he'd consider attempting to put you under arrest. He knows me well enough to know I wouldn't be buying iron supplements for nibbles I did not approve of, and he's not stupid, and he's - a dad. I think I'm under the age of consent for this state, and he doesn't know how far under same you are."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:09 am (UTC)

"And your father attempting to arrest me would not be a pleasant experience for anyone. I salute your wisdom."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:11 am (UTC)

"What would you do if he tried it?" laughs Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:15 am (UTC)

"I would try to escape with minimal harm to both of us."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:17 am (UTC)

"Probably for the best. He does not know where you live - although if he didn't just spontaneously try to arrest you, I suppose he could follow me here sometime - and I don't think you appear in the white pages."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:22 am (UTC)

"Anyway. If he shows signs of being inclined to arrest me for statutory nibbling, please inform him that I am not as old as I look."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:23 am (UTC)

"He might arrest me if I told him that. It has been repeatedly impressed on me that I get leeway for being trustworthy, not for being his kid."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:26 am (UTC)

"I didn't say 'tell him you've been fucking a six-year-old', did I?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:28 am (UTC)

She shrugs. "In this hypothetical scenario, he determines to his satisfaction that something's going on to warrant arrest, whether it's that specific or not. The thing that would make the arrested party not-you might make it me instead. Probably not gonna happen, though."

Minnie pops into visibility between the two of them, stunned. "Six?" she says. "Six?"
Edited 2013-03-09 03:34 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:37 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says, "I'm a clone, it's very complicated."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:39 am (UTC)

"What's a clone and how does that make you six and why didn't anyone tell me this before I ogled you in the shower?" exclaims Minnie.

"Minnie," sighs Bella. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen," says Minnie at once.

"Nope. You're a hundred."

"I'm obviously n-" Minnie is brought up short. "Ohhhhhh."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:41 am (UTC)

"Likewise," says Sherlock, "I am obviously eighteen, but six is the number of years I have spent on this planet. It's just that the first two were spent growing at seven times the normal rate."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:43 am (UTC)

"Oh, fine," huffs Minnie. "You be eighteen, me and Bella be seventeen, and I will go right on ogling you. ...Unless you don't want me to. Then I'll stop."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:45 am (UTC)

"An admirable conclusion."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:48 am (UTC)

Bella snickers. She's been getting in her fire-wand practices during the daytime, lately, so there is no need to waste valuable overlapping-awakeness-time on such things unless she happens to feel like that particular segue into - later activities. She puts her book aside and rolls up out of her chair. "Shall we?" she asks Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:48 am (UTC)

"Let's."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:50 am (UTC)

They do!

Minnie supervises, highly entertained.

Bella shoos her - and expects Jarvis to be comparably shooed - after.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 03:54 am (UTC)

Further activities ensue.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 03:57 am (UTC)

"Mmmmmm," sighs Bella with delicious lassitude after same. "Iiiii will buy iron supplements." She consults her phone. "And hey, I'll even be home before eleven, kickass."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 04:18 am (UTC)

"Delightful," he says, kissing the top of her head.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 04:19 am (UTC)

Off they go!

Now, what is that thing trotting down the street over there?

[I don't know what that is.] She doesn't want to attract its attention.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 12:42 pm (UTC)

[Neither do I. That can't be good.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 06:26 pm (UTC)

[We should follow it.]

She veers in its direction. [Jarvis, can you call my dad if I haven't contacted you to tell you not to by eleven, tell him I found something at Spencer and Third, and that you can contact me regardless of phone charge in an emergency and I might need the cavalry if we cannot handle this unidentified thing?]

And: [Giles, are you awake?]
Edited 2013-03-09 18:26 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-03-09 11:43 pm (UTC)

[I will do that,] confirms Jarvis.

pythbox
2013-03-09 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Yes?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-09 11:44 pm (UTC)

Sherlock detaches himself from Juliet and engages lurk mode.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 11:52 pm (UTC)

[Demonic-lookin' thing on the prowl, me and Sherlock don't know what it is, it's about seven feet tall and completely white and smooth and basically humanoid but with giant hands and feet, moves pretty nimbly, trotting down the street like it doesn't care if anyone sees it, have you got a clue what it might be?]

pythbox
2013-03-09 11:53 pm (UTC)

[No...] He trails off. [I'll try to look it up.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-09 11:57 pm (UTC)

[Anything else I should try specially to get a look at for help with referencing? Damn, this thing is fast -] She's been jogging, and it hasn't taken notice of her so far; she breaks into a run.

pythbox
2013-03-09 11:59 pm (UTC)

[Facial features or lack thereof,] he says. [Number of digits, presence or absence of claws.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 01:47 am (UTC)

[Haven't seen its face yet, but the way the rest of it looks I wouldn't be surprised if it was a case of lack thereof. Got - three fingers and a thumb on that hand - not grossly asymmetrical otherwise so probably the other matches but I didn't see - no claws, hands or feet either - four toes to a foot -] She's drawing nearer. [And it's paying no attention to me even though I'm gaining on it.]

pythbox
2013-03-10 01:50 am (UTC)

[That's not ringing any bells,] he says. [Which worries me. I'm checking indices as fast as I can.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 06:32 am (UTC)

[I won't engage till you know what it is, it engages first, or it starts attacking people,] Bella assures him, and she conferences in Sherlock to keep him up to date on the matter.
Edited 2013-03-10 06:32 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-10 01:13 pm (UTC)

[You are very wise,] says Giles, and then he shuts up for a bit.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 04:39 pm (UTC)

[Doesn't have ears, at least,] says Bella as she gets a little closer to the loping demonic creature. She's not really thrilled about all this running. She has just come out of several consecutive hours of physical activity - albeit diverse sorts - and it's almost her bedtime and she's missing a half-pint of blood that hasn't had time to be replaced yet. But she is still the Slayer and she is not going to give up chasing this unidentified and probably hostile creature as it runs through her town.

[It might not be white. It could've been painted. You got anything that's like this and nonwhite?]

pythbox
2013-03-10 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Still looking.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 04:55 pm (UTC)

Since it doesn't seem inclined to take notice of Bella, she digs through her messenger bag and slips on her mask; she will have to fight this thing if it stops harmlessly jogging down the sidewalk and tries to break into a house, and people in Sunnydale could identify her if they saw her brawling with a giant white demon in their living room.

[Where is it going?] she wonders aloud to Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-10 05:42 pm (UTC)

[Possibly the school,] he answers after a moment.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 05:43 pm (UTC)

[Oh, great. Maybe there's a nest of them in the library or something camping out on the Hellmouth.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-10 05:47 pm (UTC)

[Wouldn't that be fun.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 05:50 pm (UTC)

[Not really. This creature doesn't care that the Slayer is chasing it. I'm not looking forward to meeting twelve of it.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-10 05:51 pm (UTC)

[Indeed,] he sighs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 05:53 pm (UTC)

[Giles,] says Bella, when it's clear that this is in fact where the creature is going, [it's headed for the school. Probably the Hellmouth.]

pythbox
2013-03-10 05:54 pm (UTC)

[If only that narrowed it down.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 05:55 pm (UTC)

[Have you been in the library lately or do you take summers completely off - do we know how long a nest of 'em could have been sitting there?]

pythbox
2013-03-10 05:58 pm (UTC)

[I don't abandon it - if they're all human-sized, they would've had to move in since sundown.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 06:00 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Considering tackling it before it gets there, so I can see how tough one is alone instead of seeing how tough twelve of it is.]

pythbox
2013-03-10 06:06 pm (UTC)

[Do you have a reason to expect twelve of it?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 06:10 pm (UTC)

[Not a strong reason. It just seems like it's in a hurry, and it's ignoring me, even though I'm right behind it - if I were it, I'd fight me, unless I was going someplace that was better ground for me to fight in.]

pythbox
2013-03-10 06:11 pm (UTC)

[I see your point.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-10 06:28 pm (UTC)

[Sherlock, opinions on engaging it now before it introduces us to any friends it may have?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 12:22 am (UTC)

[Let's.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 12:23 am (UTC)

[I can't see you, but are you keeping up well enough, can you cross its path - we'll see if it reacts, go from there?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 12:24 am (UTC)

[Done.]

He darts in front of the strange creature.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 12:26 am (UTC)

The strange creature swats him aside like he's no more substantial than a balloon and keeps going, not slowing.

[Shit, are you okay -] Bella makes a jump for it and manages to land on its back. It doesn't seem to care. It doesn't slow down.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 12:27 am (UTC)

[I am less certain that engaging is wise,] he says, but he picks himself up off the ground and chases after them both.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 12:31 am (UTC)

[Giles, this thing just knocked Sherlock across the street like he was a ping-pong ball. I'm riding it piggyback now trying to twist its neck or something - no face, by the way - but it's acting like I'm not even there, I can't budge it.]

She swings around its shoulders to try from another angle.

It grabs her off of it, hurls her to the ground, and steps on her in its unslowed quest for the school.

She doesn't move.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 12:34 am (UTC)

That shit is just not on.

Sherlock tries a square.

He also brainphones Jarvis.

poeticterms
2013-03-11 12:34 am (UTC)

Jarvis calls Charlie.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 12:39 am (UTC)

The demon falls over and, with its considerable momentum behind it, skids. It does not move either. Unlike Bella, no heartbeat was evident before, and none is evident now. (Bella, however, is still alive.)

"Hello?" Charlie says to the phone.

poeticterms
2013-03-11 12:44 am (UTC)

"Bella has encountered some trouble. She is alive, and will almost certainly be fine, but she needs to be taken to the hospital. Please arrange for an ambulance at Chester and Oak; you can most likely prompt faster reaction than I."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 12:46 am (UTC)

Charlie blinks.

He sets the handset of the landline down on the counter and radios for an ambulance, barking orders at the paramedics.

When it's on his way, he picks up the phone again. "Who are you and what happened to my daughter?"

poeticterms
2013-03-11 12:48 am (UTC)

"My name is Jarvis. She ran afoul of a Sunnydale hazard, which has since been neutralized."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 12:49 am (UTC)

"How do you know about it? Were you with her? She hasn't mentioned a Jarvis."

poeticterms
2013-03-11 12:53 am (UTC)

"Sherlock is with her. He doesn't have a phone and hers may be broken, so he contacted me through other means."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 12:55 am (UTC)

"Other means. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much."

Charlie hangs up and gets in his car to catch up to the ambulance.

Meanwhile, the ambulance is not far from the correct intersection. Paramedics hop out of it.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 12:57 am (UTC)

Sherlock absents himself.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 12:59 am (UTC)

The paramedics load Bella into the ambulance and drive her away. They quite ignore the still white hulk of a demon, laid out on the sidewalk half a block away.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 01:05 am (UTC)

He wished to kill it; presumably it is dead. Sherlock approaches the demon and attempts to pick it up.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:06 am (UTC)

It is heavy. Heavy enough that without particularly trying to stomp, its step could leave a Slayer with all of Bella's manyfold blessings from her alt unconscious on the ground. Certainly too heavy to drag away. He can shift its hand or its foot, if he puts his back into it.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 01:08 am (UTC)

Really now.

Well. He brainphones Giles.

our hospital facilities are nationally acclaimed

cross_and_bow

Bella wakes up a day and a half later, a medical miracle with a splitting headache. (Between what she knows about her own construction and what the doctors mutter to the nurses, the demon stepped on her, it broke her spine, she passed out from pain and shock, and she could have easily died if she weren't blessed or the Slayer - both were probably called for.)

[Sherlock? Giles?] she attempts, when she's solicited and received pain medication.

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:17 am (UTC)

[Bella! I found out what you were following,] says Giles. [They're called Defenders. The knowledge required to make them was supposedly lost in the library at Alexandria, but apparently rumours of its demise were greatly exaggerated.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:18 am (UTC)

[Okay, how do I kill them, and what day is it?]

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:24 am (UTC)

[Tuesday. They will apparently dissolve on contact with a grain of sand from a particular mystical fountain. Sources disagree on which one, but all three candidates were destroyed upwards of six hundred years ago. Sherlock used a square and that worked fine.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:25 am (UTC)

[...I don't suppose we can use a square to conjure this sand? I bet Sherlock tried that and it didn't work.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:26 am (UTC)

[Sherlock tried that,] he confirms. [It didn't work.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:28 am (UTC)

[Dammit. Okay. What sort of quantity are they likely to come in? I don't suppose either of you have actually had a look at the Hellmouth to see if I was right about there being lots?]

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:30 am (UTC)

[They are not congregating at the Hellmouth, no. I checked. Sherlock has been guarding the body of the original by night and so far no one has shown up to claim it. But Defenders don't appear spontaneously, or act of their own will; someone created that one and told it to go wherever it was going.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:32 am (UTC)

[Grand. That all we know?]

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:35 am (UTC)

[Essentially, yes. Sherlock also reports that attempt to set the dead Defender on fire were unsuccessful.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:36 am (UTC)

[I can fire-wand underwater, I might be able to fire-wand these things, it's still worth a try - but yeah, that's not encouraging.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:37 am (UTC)

[There's nothing in the records about fire either way.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:39 am (UTC)

[Has anything else unusual or demonic cropped up while I've been recovering from - what happened exactly? I remember jumping on it, it's a blur after that.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:40 am (UTC)

[It threw you on the ground and stepped on you. Apparently that's all it took. And no, it's been quiet.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:46 am (UTC)

[It stepped on me. Well, that's embarrassing.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:51 am (UTC)

[You could say that, yes.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:52 am (UTC)

[I do appreciate that if you are giggling right now you're at least polite enough not to brainphone it.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 01:54 am (UTC)

[Not even slightly,] he assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 01:57 am (UTC)

[The doctors are saying they want to keep me for observation for a week. I think I can convince Charlie to turn that into a day, or two, and then I can start combing the town for where it came from.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 02:00 am (UTC)

[Good luck,] he sighs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 02:01 am (UTC)

[Something wrong? Besides whoever's sending a Defender charging through Sunnydale?]

pythbox
2013-03-11 02:02 am (UTC)

[You're in the hospital and I'm worried.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 02:03 am (UTC)

[I'll be fine, it's just a headache at this point,] Bella says. [But thanks.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 02:08 am (UTC)

Giles ahems uncertainly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 02:11 am (UTC)

[Did you set out to find the Slayer without expecting her to land in the hospital at least now and then? I'm surprised I've made it this long.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 04:02 pm (UTC)

[Yes, actually. Slayers don't often make use of contemporary medical services.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 04:05 pm (UTC)

[...Huh. Why not? Do injuries usually fall into the categories "instantly fatal" and "shrugged off in hours"? If that's it I may owe Amariah a few extra paragraphs' worth of thank-yous for the bayleaf and its friends.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 04:05 pm (UTC)

[Yes, that's about the size of it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 04:10 pm (UTC)

[If I'd died and there was a new Slayer now would you be involved with her or would they send someone else?] Bella asks curiously. [I assume she'd be easier to find than I was.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 04:10 pm (UTC)

[They would send someone else.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 05:35 pm (UTC)

[What would happen to you?]

pythbox
2013-03-11 05:43 pm (UTC)

[Retirement, probably.]

Can you tell he doesn't like thinking about it? He doesn't like thinking about it.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 05:48 pm (UTC)

She stops making him think about it. [I'll try to avoid getting stepped on again. I have a lot of squares and I'll use them if I have to, if we can't get any of the sand and they don't have other weaknesses. Are those Defender things at least difficult to make?]

pythbox
2013-03-11 06:02 pm (UTC)

[They were at the time, but no records of the process survive that I've heard of, so I don't know if that might have changed in the intervening millennia.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:05 pm (UTC)

[I don't suppose we know why that kind of sand dissolves them.]
Edited 2013-03-11 18:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-11 06:11 pm (UTC)

[There's at least one separate theory for each of the candidate fountains. Demonologists with too much time on their hands have argued over it at length. I personally don't think there's enough information to support any of their conclusions.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:13 pm (UTC)

[Is there enough information to suggest any experiments on how to duplicate the effect? If there are - Powers forfend - a bunch of these, I'd rather not be down a hundred squares by the time I find the source of the problem if I could solve it with sand that was the right color or had the right ratio of diatoms in it.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 06:15 pm (UTC)

[About the only thing we're sure of is that it was a magical property,] he says apologetically.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:17 pm (UTC)

[Well, that's irritating.] She sighs. [I think Sherlock's asleep now, do you know if he's been able to get in to visit me or not? I don't know what visiting hours are like here.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 06:19 pm (UTC)

[He hasn't mentioned anything.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:20 pm (UTC)

[I'll ask Jarvis. Thanks for the updates.]

[Hey, Jarvis, I'm awake.]

poeticterms
2013-03-11 06:24 pm (UTC)

[Pleased to hear it,] says Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:26 pm (UTC)

[Do you know if Sherlock's been able to convince the hospital to let him visit at night or if he's tried or what?]

poeticterms
2013-03-11 06:27 pm (UTC)

[He's been in to see you. I believe he skipped the wheedling step.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:30 pm (UTC)

[Ha. Should've guessed. They're talking about keeping me for a week, but the way I heal I'm betting I can get that down to a day or two. If I'm asleep when he wakes up will you let him know for me?]

poeticterms
2013-03-11 06:32 pm (UTC)

[Of course.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:34 pm (UTC)

[Thanks. I'm gonna try napping off this headache now.]

poeticterms
2013-03-11 06:36 pm (UTC)

[Good luck.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:38 pm (UTC)

Bella successfully sleeps. She wakes some three hours later, past dark, feeling significantly better.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 06:39 pm (UTC)

She has a visitor!

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Hey you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Good morning. Feeling better?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Morning?" scoffs Bella. "But yeah, much better, I don't even have that headache anymore. It's probably even safe to hug me." She holds out her arms.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 06:50 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Hug!

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 06:52 pm (UTC)

Indeed. "So we may need magic sand that we can't get, and we have a distinctly finite square supply but those work in a pinch, and if there are more Defenders running around we don't know where?" she says.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Isn't that just grand. Well, they'll let me out of here sooner or later and I can help you look."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-11 07:02 pm (UTC)

"An excellent plan."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 07:41 pm (UTC)

She and the hospital wind up splitting the difference: she's free to go three days later. (She has Sherlock bring her demonology books and Charlie bring her laptop and Jarvis talk to her about Sunshine-type magic; she's annoyed by the confinement but not bored.) It's morning when she's free, so she can't go celebrate with Sherlock, but she can tie on her string of squares - the doctors interpreted it as a decorative belt and it's with the other clothes she was admitted in; thank goodness Shell Bell's coins are so pretty - and get started crisscrossing town in her truck, seeking Defenders or anything else out of the ordinary.

Sunnydale's got a good-sized population, but it's not that huge geographically, and it's surrounded by greenbelt on all sides; it doesn't take her even all day long to case the entire joint, at least insofar as she can from the cab of the pickup, and she finds nothing. She starts circling around the outskirts of town.

Someone's orange orchard has some unusual visitors today. They're breaking the beehives at the edges of the tree rows, heedless of the angry bees thereby stirred up. (Bella rolls up her window.)

[Giles, I found - five, no, six, Defenders, in an orange grove just outside town, running around destroying beehives. Are you as confused as I am?] she asks, puttering along on the shoulder of the road watching the goings-on.

pythbox
2013-03-11 07:46 pm (UTC)

[...No, but I'm more worried,] he says. [Are they doing anything with the beehives? Are the bees behaving strangely?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 07:48 pm (UTC)

[The bees are behaving about like I expect bees in destroyed hives to act - they're buzzing around in great big clouds, being pissed off - and they don't seem to be using them for anything, just smashing them and moving on, but maybe they'll come around and collect the pieces or whatever, later?]

pythbox
2013-03-11 08:03 pm (UTC)

[It could be. But it's also possible that they are just... destroying beehives. In some mystical traditions, killing bees or destroying their hives symbolizes other kinds of destruction, especially agricultural.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 08:04 pm (UTC)

[...And does it take much for the symbol to turn into more widespread actuality?]

pythbox
2013-03-11 08:06 pm (UTC)

[I'm looking it up as we speak.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 08:07 pm (UTC)

[You are handy!] She continues to follow the Defenders as they proceed from hive to hive. [They're leaving the trees alone...]

pythbox
2013-03-11 08:16 pm (UTC)

[Definitely sounds like bee-killing to me.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 08:27 pm (UTC)

[Mmmhm. They're very mechanical about it. They run up to the first un-smashed hive, punch it for a minute, then run past all the others who've gone beyond them to get to the next un-smashed hive.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 08:29 pm (UTC)

[I'm finding references to bee-killing as a prelude to apocalyptic rituals,] he says. [Although usually it would be the future participants in the ritual who would kill the bees. How many did you say there were? Six?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 08:29 pm (UTC)

[I count six. There could be more I can't see from the road. I could drive into the grove if you need an accurate count.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 08:33 pm (UTC)

[I don't think that information would be worth the risk you'd take to get it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 08:36 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I'm not sure I could time it to not get in their way, although they do seem to quite ignore anything that doesn't get in their way and isn't a beehive.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 08:41 pm (UTC)

[The overall conclusion in the literature is that bee-killing is not a powerful activity by itself, but amplifies the power of certain kinds of malevolent magic.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 08:42 pm (UTC)

[Maybe I should just see if I can follow them home. I have more than six squares on me, if they turn on something other than the hives.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 08:46 pm (UTC)

[...I shouldn't feel the need to tell you to be careful, and yet.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 08:47 pm (UTC)

[I will be careful. I no longer expect to be able to maybe punch them into submission.]

pythbox
2013-03-11 08:48 pm (UTC)

[Good. Thank you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-11 08:49 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome.]

Follow, follow, follow. It's rather a lot of hives. Hell, she might need to stop for gas soon.

[Your opinion on squaring gas into the truck versus pulling into the next rest stop and risking losing them?] she asks Giles.
Edited 2013-03-12 00:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-12 12:29 am (UTC)

[...One way, you risk losing them; the other way, you risk spending a square you'll need later. How's your supply?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 12:30 am (UTC)

[I've got hundreds. Shell Bell was here for a while. But only thirty on me right now.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 12:55 am (UTC)

[I'm not sure,] says Giles. [I'm really not sure.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 12:59 am (UTC)

[...Well, I just saw a sign saying the next rest stop is in twenty miles, so, I think I'll go with wishing some gas,] says Bella. [In the tank and I may as well fill up the back of the truck with cans of the stuff while I'm at it, if I can get it all on one square. If I head for the stop I'll lose them anyway. But I'll wait till I'm a little lower on fuel than this in case they're about to make a hard right and lead me to where they're going before I even need the fillup.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 01:05 am (UTC)

[...All right,] he says. [Where are you exactly?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 01:06 am (UTC)

Bella looks out for the next mile marker, names it. [On the Five.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 01:12 am (UTC)

[And at what point should I contact emergency services if I don't hear from you?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 01:15 am (UTC)

[Mmm, ping me by brainphone every ten minutes, if I don't answer you with even a "still alive" twice in a row I'm in some kind of trouble.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 01:15 am (UTC)

[Will do.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 01:17 am (UTC)

[Thanks! Also, consider asking directly for my dad - Chief Charlie Swan, "it's about his daughter" should get you past the dispatcher.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 01:28 am (UTC)

[I'll remember that.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 01:30 am (UTC)

[Charlie knows I'm up to my ears in weirdness but he trusts me and is more comfortable not knowing all the details. If he has questions you can answer them and he won't think you're nuts, but there's no need to go out of your way to volunteer peripheries - oh, there they go.]

The Defenders have left off their beehive-destroying. Bella navigates off the road and into the grove after them, following the dirt path. If its owners haven't noticed the seven-foot-tall white demons smashing their property, she doubts they'll notice her trespassing.

pythbox
2013-03-12 01:40 am (UTC)

[Where, exactly, do they go?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 01:42 am (UTC)

[Away from the road. I'm following them deeper into the grove. They're still smashing hives as they pass them, but they changed direction, they were going along the road before.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 01:49 am (UTC)

[I have no idea what that's about.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 01:52 am (UTC)

[Me either.]

Follow, follow, follow, follow the demonic automata!

They change direction again, going back the way they came, but farther from the road.

And then, right in the middle of the grove, is a pit in the ground, and they each jump into it, one at a time.

[...Giles, they all ran to a hole in the ground and jumped in,] Bella reports, stopping her truck and peering at the hole but not getting out of the cab.

pythbox
2013-03-12 01:54 am (UTC)

[Don't jump in the hole,] he advises.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 01:56 am (UTC)

[Not planning on it. Sherlock can see in the dark, I think I'll hang out here until dark when he can come join me and peer into it.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 01:56 am (UTC)

[Good plan.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:00 am (UTC)

Bella implements this plan. At sundown:

[Sherlock?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:01 am (UTC)

[Hello,] he brain-yawns.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:04 am (UTC)

Juliet summarizes the events of her afternoon. [Then they all jumped in the hole, and it's been all quiet since, and I didn't bring a flashlight and I'm not sure I can find this place again but I bet you can find me - maybe you can rent a car or if that's not an option I can ask Charlie if he can give you a ride, but that's a stretch, it'd be a long walk - oh, and bring me a can of gas - and have a look down here?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:06 am (UTC)

[I don't think I can rent a car. I do think I can find you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:08 am (UTC)

[Do you need me to ask Charlie about a ride?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:08 am (UTC)

[I think so, yes.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:11 am (UTC)

[Well, this should be interesting.]

And she calls Charlie.

A conversation ensues.

[Charlie will be home in fifteen minutes. If you meet him there, he'll take you as far as the last mile marker I noted before I drove off-road and you can follow my tracks.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:12 am (UTC)

[I will be there.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:13 am (UTC)

Fifteen minutes later, Charlie arrives home in his police cruiser.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:16 am (UTC)

Sherlock is standing beside the end of the driveway, with a can of gas, a flashlight, and a lot of squares. The squares are mostly hidden about his person.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:20 am (UTC)

Charlie makes a motion of his head towards the backseat of the cruiser. "In you get."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:23 am (UTC)

In he gets.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:23 am (UTC)

The drive is silent for the first ten minutes or so.

"So," says Charlie after that time. "You're a vampire."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:26 am (UTC)

"Yes I am."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:28 am (UTC)

"And you've been together with Bella for some time now."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:29 am (UTC)

"Yes I have."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:31 am (UTC)

"She's got a good head on her shoulders," says Charlie. "But I have wondered a few times if it's wise of her to be with you. Far as I know it hasn't proven a mistake yet."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:33 am (UTC)

"I think it's safe to say I have been an overall benefit."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:38 am (UTC)

"Mm. That's best for everyone," says Charlie. He leans just slightly on the every part.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:40 am (UTC)

[I believe your father is trying to intimidate me,] he says to Bella.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 02:40 am (UTC)

[Is it working? He did successfully shoot you one time.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 02:42 am (UTC)

[I am unaffected,] he says, smiling slightly, [but my coat is cowering in terror.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:05 am (UTC)

She giggles. [Aww. Poor Charlie. Don't let on too smugly.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 12:09 pm (UTC)

[Wouldn't dream of it.]

In fact, he declines to respond at all, smugly or otherwise.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 03:41 pm (UTC)

Charlie has nothing further to say.

"You can find her from here?" he asks, when he's pulled the cruiser over at the mile marker.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes. Thanks for the lift," he says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Don't mention it," Charlie says. "I assume she'll drive you home, but you can call if something comes up."

And he waits for a gap in traffic, hangs a U-turn, and promptly pulls over a speeder.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 03:50 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs his way into the grove.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 03:54 pm (UTC)

Bella's right where she's been sitting for the last forty-five minutes, and she hops out of the truck when Sherlock approaches to kiss him on the cheek and gesture at the hole in the ground.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 03:59 pm (UTC)

He hands over the can of gas and the flashlight, then inspects the hole.

"If they're there, they are not visible from ground level," he concludes.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:01 pm (UTC)

"...Very deep, then?" She flicks on the flashlight and shines it down.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:02 pm (UTC)

It's not so deep, at least in the visible part, but it curves away to a more horizontal inclination.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I might be able to climb down that far enough to be able to walk down the slope," she says, unsure. "If I braced against opposite sides and was patient about it."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:05 pm (UTC)

"I could do it. Getting out again would be the more interesting proposition."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:06 pm (UTC)

Bella reaches into the hole and pats the sides. "Could gouge handholds in the side on the way down?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Potentially. If only I'd thought to bring a rope."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I should've thought of it when I was telling you what to bring." She goes to pour the gasoline into her tank, thinking. "I didn't see any fallen orange branches, or anything, and those might not come in large enough sizes to help anyway."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:11 pm (UTC)

"No, I don't believe they do."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:16 pm (UTC)

Glug-glug-glug tank is full. Bella puts the spent can in the back of the truck. "Try the handhold-gouging idea and hope for a better exit to the place?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:17 pm (UTC)

"All right."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:26 pm (UTC)

Bella stashes the flashlight in her bag, swings the bag around to rest on her back, and reaches into the hole. She digs her hands into the wall of it until a decently deep gouge has been made, and proceeds down rather gymnastically, using her bracing idea to make slow progress and often freeing up one hand to make new holds for the way back up. She makes it down to the sloping part, where she can stand, without incident, and flashlights into the tunnel.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:29 pm (UTC)

Sherlock follows.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:38 pm (UTC)

It's a straight tunnel, not branching or, after it reaches a level trajectory, sloping.

It leads into a tremendous cavern.

This tremendous cavern is full of not six, not a dozen, not even one hundred Defenders.

But several thousand.

Doing a complicated dance of some kind, in rings and rings and rings around the center of the cavern.

The Defenders don't notice them, flashlight or no.

The man lounging on the thronelike chair in the cavern - does.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Fuck," mutters Sherlock.

[Plan of attack, love?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:41 pm (UTC)

[...Let's try running, first?]

And she conferences in Giles. [GILES THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF THEM AND THE DUDE WHO'S MAKING THEM DANCE AROUND HIM SAW US WE DON'T HAVE THAT MANY SQUARES]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:46 pm (UTC)

[Good plan.]
Edited 2013-03-12 16:46 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-12 04:48 pm (UTC)

[...Definitely an apocalyptic ritual?] he says helplessly. [Er. Run?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:49 pm (UTC)

[Way ahead of you there's a tunnel they'll have to follow singlefile we can clog it with dead ones -] She looks over her shoulder and kills the first, and the second, timed for when it's standing on top of the first. She doesn't slow down.

She scrambles up the handholds she made, which prove fairly adequate.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kills the next two at the appropriate moment and scrambles up after her.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:55 pm (UTC)

There's her truck. Full of gas and ready to go.

The ground is trembling.

The Defenders probably dug that tunnel.

And apparently that's not the sort of thing that takes them a long time.

All around them, orange trees topple and oranges scatter - and the ground is honeycombed with holes -

And Defenders climb out.

Bella kills the first two dozen she sees. She has one square left, and the live ones just push aside the dead and keep coming.

She has one square left.

She wishes.

The back of the truck makes a clattering sound as all of Shell Bell's donated squares pour into it from the chest at the brick house. Bella vaults into the back of the truck and buries her hands in coins and wishes as fast as she can. "Sherlock," she breathes.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 04:58 pm (UTC)

He also brought squares, and he can wish on them as fast as Bella can.

All the ones in his clothes are already gone. He digs into the pile in the back of the truck, disdaining to sight on targets when he may as well just wish death on the closest Defender. Over and over again. Until he has to scramble for coins wedged into corners.
Edited 2013-03-12 16:58 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 04:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if we have enough - what if we don't -" Wishwishwishwishwishwishwish the squares are disappearing like their very touch is anathema.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:04 pm (UTC)

"We do," he says briefly. "Unless he makes more."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:07 pm (UTC)

"What if he can," and she leaves off talking to go for her fire-wand, but as expected, it's useless; the Defender she's trying to burn ignores the fire, whether applied inside or out, however hot she makes it, until it gets close and she has to square it dead. The live ones are pulling the corpses aside to clear their path and they just keep coming. Wishwishwishwishwish -

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Kill him," Sherlock suggests.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Do you know where he is? Did he follow them, can you hear him or smell him or anything -"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:18 pm (UTC)

"One moment," he says, and risks a glance over the side of the truck.

As he resumes scrabbling after squares, he also points.

"That way. Bottom of a tunnel. I'm not sure which one, but that's where his scent is coming from."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:20 pm (UTC)

Bella tries to wish him dead. She tries more specificity - wishes his throat slit, his neck broken -

Nothing doing.

"Square won't touch him," she says helplessly. "We might have to kill all the Defenders before I can get at him without getting pulverized."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Fire?" he suggests.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:43 pm (UTC)

Bella grabs at the wand again, peeps over the edge of the truck, floods all the holes there and the intervening spaces with flames.

The Defenders keep coming. She kills the fire so she can concentrate on wishing. "Can you tell if I got him?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Not sure yet."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:45 pm (UTC)

Wish. Wish. Wish. Wish. God, there's so many. "I have never been more annoyed than I am right now that Shell Bell didn't invite me to break her arm for one - damn - pentagon -" Wish wish wish wish wishwishwishwishwish.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:47 pm (UTC)

Sherlock pops up again, just for a moment.

"Don't think you got him," he reports. "Not deep enough, you think?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Or he's protected from fire somehow - But I have to know where to send the fire and I don't know which way the tunnels turn -"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:53 pm (UTC)

"I could make a try for him," Sherlock offers. "These things could make my life very unpleasant but they'd have a hard time actually killing me unless they managed to pull my head off."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:54 pm (UTC)

"But they could probably do that. One of them carelessly stepping on me would probably've killed me if it weren't for Amariah's work." Wishwishwishwish -

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Of the two of us I'm still better suited to make the attempt if we run out of squares."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:57 pm (UTC)

"If we run out," agrees Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 08:58 pm (UTC)

That time has not yet come, but it is fast approaching.

On the other hand... there are fewer Defenders pouring out of the ground than there used to be.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 08:59 pm (UTC)

Bella concentrates her efforts on the direction in which their master supposedly hides, so it will be safe for Sherlock to make a break for it while she covers them on the other side sooner.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

Sherlock keeps going for the nearest Defenders, because it won't do them any good if they clear a path in one direction and get clobbered from the other.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:05 pm (UTC)

And now they're - as far as Bella can see -

out of squares.

"Get him! I'll try to lead the last Defenders away," she says, vaulting out of the back of the pickup and sprinting through the grove, taking flying leaps over fallen trees.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:08 pm (UTC)

He leaps out in the other direction and flings himself down a tunnel that doesn't presently have a Defender climbing out of it.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:09 pm (UTC)

There is a Defender on its way to rectifying that situation!

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:11 pm (UTC)

There's room in the tunnel for both of them, more or less.

Sherlock dives straight past it.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:12 pm (UTC)

It makes a grab for him, but this isn't its lucky day. It does turn and chase him, though.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:14 pm (UTC)

It can do that if it likes. Sherlock bets he is faster.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:17 pm (UTC)

The tunnel leads to the throne room, where the man who was originally sitting in a circle of dancing Defenders is pacing. He is most alarmed to see Sherlock approach, but if he can conjure up a new Defender on short notice, he doesn't do it right then. Instead he chooses this time to deliver insults.

"Interfering brat! Do you know what you've -"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:18 pm (UTC)

That was a poor time to deliver insults.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:22 pm (UTC)

Alas, the man will never have time to regret his decision.

The Defender disintegrates.

[Sherlock! The ones that I managed to lead away are dust - did you get him?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:23 pm (UTC)

[Yes I did,] he says. [Now I will see about climbing out.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:25 pm (UTC)

[Can you get to the original tunnel, with the handholds, or should I drive home and get you rope?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:27 pm (UTC)

[Yes. I can get to the original tunnel from here.]

He sets about doing that.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:28 pm (UTC)

Bella's waiting for him at the top to help him out when he gets there.

And she hugs him, hard.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:28 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs back, a little surprised.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:30 pm (UTC)

"You're okay," she sighs. "I'm so glad you're okay. I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:31 pm (UTC)

"I am glad I'm okay too," he says, hugging her a little harder.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:34 pm (UTC)

Is this half-wrecked orange grove in the dark a suitable place for adrenaline-fueled makeouts?

Meh, probably not, she's gonna go for it anyway.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:36 pm (UTC)

Brilliant plan. Sherlock supports it fully.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:38 pm (UTC)

Bella puts up a busy message against Gilesly intrusion that says [All's well, out of squares but safe, will call when I get home].

And she kisses her boyfriend very very thoroughly.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:42 pm (UTC)

Eventually, he gets around to mentioning, "I love you too."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Thought you might. You've been calling me 'love' offhandedly for months now. Didn't quite have the nerve to inquire outright though."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, now we are both enlightened."

Kisses!

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 09:53 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses. "I should call Charlie probably," she mumbles against Sherlock's mouth after a few minutes more, "tell him all's well."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he agrees. "And we should refrain from kissing while you do that."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, otherwise probably difficult for him to understand what I'm saying." Kiss kiss.

She fetches her phone, dials her father's cell, reports that she and Sherlock are both uninjured and that she'll be home in an hour and a half.

Notably, it will not take even a full half hour to drive from here to any chosen point in Sunnydale.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Ah," says Sherlock. "Leeway in the schedule."

That's promising.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Juliet innocently. "I figured I'd give you a ride home, first, and who knows how long that could take." She hops up to her feet and behind the wheel.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Who, indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Not Charlie."

When he is in the pickup, off she drives out of the ruined grove.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 10:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is grinning all the way home.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:14 pm (UTC)

"I did recently get out of the hospital, so I don't know if it'd be wise for dessert to be had so soon," Bella says. "But we're creative people. I'm sure we can fill the time."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 10:15 pm (UTC)

"There are many possible alternatives," he agrees brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:16 pm (UTC)

They arrive at the brick building.

Bella parks.

Possible alternatives are rendered actual.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 10:20 pm (UTC)

Eventually, however, she really does have to go home.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:22 pm (UTC)

She does. What a pity.

Before getting into the driver's seat again Bella hauls herself into the back of the truck to look for any squares she may have missed.

She finds - two.

There is one that got wedged under the can of gasoline, and another that tucked itself into a gap in the wheelwell housing.

She looks at the last two squares, frowning.

She offers Sherlock one.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 10:23 pm (UTC)

He accepts it.

"And let's hope we don't need them."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Let's." She sighs. Kiss. "I love you. I'll see you tomorrow."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Goodnight, love."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:29 pm (UTC)

Bella tucks her square into one of her socks, and gets in her driver's seat, and heads home.

She takes down the busy message for Giles. [You still up?] she asks him.

pythbox
2013-03-12 10:31 pm (UTC)

[Yes. You solved the problem, I take it?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:32 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. We thinned out the Defenders enough that I could draw off most of the rest and Sherlock got past the others to kill the person controlling them, and then they all disintegrated. But we have literally two squares left.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 10:39 pm (UTC)

[...Then I hope no one else figures out how to make Defenders.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:42 pm (UTC)

[Or that I get ahold of mint powers before someone does. This is a problem. Jarvis can make doors to Milliways whenever; I'm going to start asking him to make me one once or twice a day in case that improves my odds of running into one of the mints.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 10:51 pm (UTC)

[Good idea.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:52 pm (UTC)

[Did we at least interrupt something that was worth all those squares to stop? Does a guy with a couple thousand Defenders dancing in rings around him underground after having them smash up some beehives amount to world-destroying business?]

pythbox
2013-03-12 10:54 pm (UTC)

[Yes,] he says. [It absolutely does.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 10:57 pm (UTC)

[What would motivate someone who lives in a world to destroy it?] Bella asks, bewildered.

pythbox
2013-03-12 11:00 pm (UTC)

[I have no idea,] says Giles. [And yet, they keep trying.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 11:03 pm (UTC)

[At approximately what frequency?]

pythbox
2013-03-12 11:05 pm (UTC)

[Oh, once every few years,] he says. [Most of them wouldn't succeed even if they weren't stopped, of course.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 11:07 pm (UTC)

[I think I know why there are so many worlds similar to ours out in the multiverse,] says Bella dryly as she pulls up to her house. [I think if there weren't about a billion to start with, by now there'd be zero, so the fact that I've met representatives from two nearby worlds while the others all seem to be special snowflakes just means that at least Sunshine-type worlds have not yet dwindled to nothing.]

pythbox
2013-03-12 11:08 pm (UTC)

...Giles lets out a snort of laughter over the brainphone.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 11:10 pm (UTC)

[I'm going to bed. I'm beat. Thanks for all your help with looking up of things!] says Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-12 11:11 pm (UTC)

[It's what I'm here for,] he says. [Goodnight.]

down and out

arenaria

She wonders if Coin would be late to fewer things if she gave her a teleportation power.

She's saying so, to Sherlock.

And then instead of the ruins of flooded Europe she's in a featureless white room facing some grumpy person in a blue robe, wearing everything she was wearing, less her coin bandolier but including her crown, and something's wrong, her thoughts are slow and won't speed up, her memory's as slippery as it ever was before she met Stella, and how did she get here, why doesn't the brainphone work, where's Sherlock?

Where are her coins? Where's her magic? She can't teleport either, not even across the room - she bites her lip just a little and she can't even remember how moving pain left to right is a thing and it goes right on stinging without regenerating -

Where is she?

pythbox
2013-03-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

The grumpy person in the doorway speaks. In addition to being grumpy, she also appears bored.

"Bell Swan, please come forward to receive your sentence papers."

arenaria
2013-03-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

"My what? Where am I?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 11:11 pm (UTC)

She holds out a very thin file folder in Bell's direction.

arenaria
2013-03-04 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Where am I? What happened?"

pythbox
2013-03-04 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Take the folder," she says sharply. "Go down the hall. Ask your annoying questions at someone who's paid to answer them."

arenaria
2013-03-04 11:14 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell takes the folder and steps tentatively into the hall.

pythbox
2013-03-04 11:15 pm (UTC)

There are two directions to go in; the robed woman points at the correct one.

The hall is lined with rooms identical to the one Shell Bell just left, except that where hers has an open doorway with no door, these have seamless walls with small windows at roughly head height. Each of the rooms along the left side of the hall contains exactly one person, standing upright, eyes closed. Under each of those windows is a plaque with a number on it. The right side of the hall has a line of empty rooms with blank plaques, broken by Bell's open doorway, and continuing on in a line of more occupied rooms with numbers beneath them.

As soon as Bell steps out of her room, a wall fades into place behind her, empty plaque and all. The blue-robed woman moves on to the next occupied room along that side.
Edited 2013-03-04 23:23 (UTC)

arenaria
2013-03-04 11:25 pm (UTC)

Bell goes down the hall.

She trips. Fuck, her magic is really all gone. She's surprised the crown stayed.

She can't not check.

Nope. She can't fly. Of course she can't fly.

And of course she doesn't have her fire wand anymore. Much good may it do Juliet.

She wants to go home.

She goes down the hall, walking carefully-carefully-carefully.

pythbox
2013-03-05 12:48 am (UTC)

The hall goes on for a while; it's about an hour's walk, past occasional junctions, to reach the central office. Hard to get lost, though: the corridors leading off the main one are all short, heading off at right angles and turning backward, and Bell just has to keep walking in a straight line. And the line of empty rooms to Bell's right is unbroken.

At the end, there is a door. On the other side of the door, there is a desk. Behind the desk, there is a friendly-looking woman wearing a fuzzy pink sweater.

"Hi!" she says. "Bell Swan?"

arenaria
2013-03-05 12:51 am (UTC)

"...Yes. Where am I? What happened? Where did all my magic go?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 12:52 am (UTC)

"You're dead," she says gently.

arenaria
2013-03-05 12:54 am (UTC)

"I - what? How could I have died? My regen should've taken care of anything short of -"

She stops.

"Kraken," she mutters. "Okay, if I'm dead, why am I - aware?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 12:56 am (UTC)

"This is the afterlife," she explains. "It happens to everyone. But there's no going back, so people don't know about it until they get here."

arenaria
2013-03-05 12:57 am (UTC)

"I - can I see anything that's going on with live people even if I can't communicate with them? Sherlock - Tony - my parents - they'll be devastated - my empire -"

pythbox
2013-03-05 12:59 am (UTC)

She shakes her head.

"You'll see most of them eventually," she offers. "You have the rest of eternity to look forward to."

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:01 am (UTC)

"No, they're going to live forever, like I was, as soon as they find out what happened to me they'll patch the hole and it'll never happen again," Shell Bell says, burying her hands in her hair. "Sherlock still has magic, she won't let Tony die, she wouldn't let herself die while he's alive to miss her, she'll take care of my parents - if what you're saying is true I'm never going to see them again. My Sherlock."

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:06 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she says sympathetically.

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:14 am (UTC)

"How do you know what you know - that there's no communication, that I'm stuck? How is this known?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:15 am (UTC)

...She looks puzzled.

"It's in the rules?" she tries. "It's been that way forever?"

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:15 am (UTC)

"The rules. Who makes the rules?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:22 am (UTC)

"The administration."

Looking slightly worried now, she comes out from behind her desk.

"Could you come with me, please? I need to show you how to find your residence."

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:24 am (UTC)

Shell Bell follows her, but she doesn't stop asking questions. "Who's the administration? How do they set rules? Why is my magic gone? What is this folder for?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:30 am (UTC)

"I don't know anything about your magic," she says. "The administration built this place. The folder contains your residence code - you'll want to memorize that number - and sentencing information."

They enter an elevator. It has three buttons. The woman in the fuzzy pink sweater pushes the bottom one. The doors close. The elevator descends.

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:31 am (UTC)

"Sentencing? And who is the administration? Do you mean they built the building or the entire afterlife?"

She opens her folder.

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:41 am (UTC)

"The entire afterlife," she says. "Asking about the administration isn't going to get you much of anywhere."

The first page of the small sheaf of papers inside has only four lines on it:

BELL SWAN
98066714331^1
DIANA 1:12
9:00 CH

All the following pages are densely packed with an inscrutable code involving a lot of numbers and punctuation.

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:42 am (UTC)

Well, it's clearly not going to get her anywhere with this person. "Can you tell me what this means?" Bell asks, showing the lady the first page of her file.

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:48 am (UTC)

"That's your name and residence code, your judge, how far into her shift she was when she got to you, and your sentence," she explains. "...Oh. My. Um, here, you'll be wanting this."

She fishes in a pocket and produces a stack of identical business cards, off which she hands Bell the top one. It bears a logo consisting of a thin crescent with the words FOR YOU inscribed between its downward-facing points, and a number: 9246938^0.

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:50 am (UTC)

"Why will I be wanting this? My sentence for what? My sentence to what?" Bell asks, taking the card.

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:51 am (UTC)

"Your sentence for everything bad you've ever done in your life," she says. "But if you visit the Crescent—that's the res code on the card—I'm sure you'll find someone to take it for you."

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:52 am (UTC)

"...My sentence is 'nine o'clock'?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:53 am (UTC)

"Nine hours," she says. "With Chainsaw. He's a torturer. ...I'm sure you'll find someone to take it at the Crescent."

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:55 am (UTC)

"...A torturer," says Bell. "That's... what it sounds like?"

She feels very, very small.

pythbox
2013-03-05 01:55 am (UTC)

"Yes," she says apologetically.

arenaria
2013-03-05 01:59 am (UTC)

"But there are people who don't mind, as much, and they can - transfer the - sentences?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 02:06 am (UTC)

"Yes," she repeats. "The people who volunteer to serve unfair sentences are called contractors."

arenaria
2013-03-05 02:07 am (UTC)

"Okay. I am pretty sure this is unfair. Who's Diana - I mean, she's my judge, but - where did she come from, where do judges come from?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 02:11 am (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

arenaria
2013-03-05 02:12 am (UTC)

"I mean, I am here because I died. Are you here because you died? Is Diana? How did you get your job? How did she? What about the torturers and contractors?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 02:19 am (UTC)

"Everyone is here because they died," she says. "I got my job by applying at the Tower. So did Diana, but the requirements for judges are much stricter and I'm sure she had to wait a few centuries for her interview. Torturers are trained and certified at the Cross in caret null, and the Crescent has their own academy but it's not necessary to be certified as a contractor before taking someone's sentence. It's just easier for the sentenced and the volunteers to find each other that way."

arenaria
2013-03-05 02:20 am (UTC)

"Why does Diana think I or someone who'll take my sentence ought to be tortured for nine hours? Is that encoded in this gibberish?"

She used to know a few languages. Now her fuzzed-out memories of her time in Angela's world are blurred by the fact that she can't speak Angela's language anymore.

pythbox
2013-03-05 02:26 am (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "I'm sorry, I don't understand most of the codes... contractors tend to know them pretty well; you can ask at the Crescent, or look them up at the library, that's one caret one."
Edited 2013-03-05 02:26 (UTC)

arenaria
2013-03-05 02:27 am (UTC)

"Okay. How do I find these addresses? What else do I need to know?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 02:30 am (UTC)

"You absolutely have to know your own res code," she says. "If you lose it, you might never find your way home again. We'll be at Tower Station in a minute; I'll show you how to work the maps."

arenaria
2013-03-05 02:32 am (UTC)

Bell rereads her code a few times. It's not that long. She can break it up into chunks, repeat it aloud to herself, in case something happens to this paper. "Thank you," she adds.

pythbox
2013-03-05 02:49 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," says the guide. "It's my job."

The elevator doors open. She leads Bell out into what looks like a small train station, well lit but not well maintained.

It lacks trains, and anywhere to put one. But it does have a large electronic map on one wall. The guide shows Bell how to type in her residence code, and the map shifts to display a bird's eye view of Bell's new neighbourhood, with a glowing blue dot in the middle connected to a nearby glowing pink dot with a dotted purple line.

"That'll be the nearest station to your residence," she explains. "If you know where you're going, you can just put in the code at the door, but if you haven't been somewhere before it's a good idea to check the map first."

The opposite wall is lined with sets of elevator doors, similar in style to the one they left. Instead of displaying floor numbers above each, they have blank displays. The guide taps 'GO' on the map, and one of those blank spaces lights up with Bell's res code; the corresponding doors open.

arenaria
2013-03-05 02:51 am (UTC)

"How much time do I have to find a contractor?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 02:54 am (UTC)

"Between a week and a month," she says. "One week in the clear, and then three more where Chainsaw might or might not get around to you yet."

arenaria
2013-03-05 02:54 am (UTC)

"Okay. What else do I need to know?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:02 am (UTC)

She leads Bell into the 'elevator'; a scant few seconds later, the doors open again, and they are in a different station.

"Your basic needs should be taken care of by what you find at home. You can't die again; in what would be a fatal situation, your body will renew itself and you'll be in the same condition you're in now. If you're looking for information, the library at 1^1 is usually a good place to start. It has its own station, so it's easy to find. If you lose the card for the Crescent, you can find their res code in the directory at the library."

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:06 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Two places to go after she sees her residence. Both of them sound like very good candidates for her first priority. She has a week before she needs a contractor, but how long might that take? She has no more immediate questions lining up to be asked or she'd speak them, but she's been thrown into a completely bizarre situation, all alone, and a library sounds really good right now.

Ultimately she decides to go to the Crescent first and see about contractors. Because delaying knowing things is uncomfortable, but it is not nine hours of torture.

"Is there anything else I ought to know before I go - out in the world by myself?"
Edited 2013-03-05 03:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:10 am (UTC)

"...I'm friendly," she says. "People at the Crescent are friendly, more or less. Librarians are friendly. Anyone else you meet might not be."

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:11 am (UTC)

"...How does being unfriendly manifest?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:12 am (UTC)

"Violence, usually."

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:16 am (UTC)

Shell Bell has never particularly pretended to herself that she's unselfish.

And she does not try to do it now as she suddenly, intently wishes that Sherlock were here with her. She needs her. Tony could do without, she's met a Tony without, Tony would be miserable but he'd go on, and Bell needs her.

She's wishing her girlfriend dead, and she hates that she's doing it and she's glad that wishing doesn't make it so anymore, but everything would be easier if Sherlock were here.

"What are the best ways to avoid that?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:22 am (UTC)

She shrugs. "I'm sorry, I don't really know."

They exit the station by Bell's house and emerge onto the street. It's nighttime, and the sky is featurelessly black except for a distant glow over one horizon; the only illumination at ground level comes from streetlights, and there are no clouds to reflect them.

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:23 am (UTC)

"What do you do?" Bell tries.

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:24 am (UTC)

"It's different above the cliffs."

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:24 am (UTC)

"The cliffs?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:31 am (UTC)

She points at the glow on the horizon.

"Those cliffs. You can see them much better from the library or the Crescent; big landmarks tend to be closer in. See the dark vertical line in the middle? That's the tower, where we started out."

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:32 am (UTC)

"And you live up there and it's less - violent? How do you come to live up there?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:33 am (UTC)

"You don't 'live'," she corrects gently. "And you don't come to belong up there. You're either sent there first thing or you're not."

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:36 am (UTC)

"I had an argument with a vampire once about whether he was alive," Bell says. It's hard to remember. She's gotten so used to things being easy to remember, and before that she was used to having them recorded if she needed them, and before that she had nothing important to remember. "He walked and talked and thought. I thought that was enough to count even though something that looked a lot like death had happened to him. I walk and talk and think now."

Something occurs to her. "Would it be," she says, "if violence is such a commonplace - a bad idea to wear the crown?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:38 am (UTC)

She glances at the crown as she leads Bell along the street.

"If you want to keep it, yes."

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:39 am (UTC)

"I -"

Bell has to think about whether she wants to keep it. She takes it off, looks at it.

"Will it be safe if I leave it at home?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:41 am (UTC)

"Probably," she shrugs. "Safer than it'll be on your head."

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:41 am (UTC)

"Okay. It's not like my empire is here anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:45 am (UTC)

"Oh, is that what the crown is for?" she asks politely. "Here's your building, let me see..."

The apartment building has a screen and keypad on the wall in the little pre-lobby area inside the front door; when the guide enters Bell's residence code, she receives a happy little green light and a floor number (four), and the door into the lobby opens.

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:48 am (UTC)

"Yes. My world was - badly managed. I fixed it. I made myself a crown. It seemed like the thing to do." She frowns, still looking at the crown in her hands. "...I think the president of the somewhat-better-managed part of the world that I had not included in said empire took exception and assassinated me."

pythbox
2013-03-05 03:53 am (UTC)

"These things happen," she says philosophically. "I'm sorry. You sound like a good person."

Yet another elevator, this one wholly unmagical, brings them to the appropriate floor. The individual apartments have wildly mismatched numbers on their doors, listed on helpful signs pointing each direction along the hall; the guide finds Bell's and opens it.

arenaria
2013-03-05 03:56 am (UTC)

"I try. How are these places assigned?" Bell asks, looking around, assessing, seeking a place to tuck away her crown.

pythbox
2013-03-05 04:00 am (UTC)

"Mostly at random. You can move to an empty place, or swap residences with someone else, if you're authorized for a place that size; how much space you start out with depends on how much you're mourned, but it's possible to transfer space between accounts, or merge if you want to move in with someone."

arenaria
2013-03-05 04:04 am (UTC)

"...Does it look to you like I have been mourned much? I don't have a scale for this, I don't know if I should be assuming that Tony didn't like me all that much after all or that Sherlock shut down completely instead of feeling anything... poor Sherlock, my Sherlock - Do people who aren't from my world count, assuming they find out about my death? Do I have to be mourned on a personal level or should I be learning things about how good an empress I was for people who never met me?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 12:13 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how people who aren't from your world would find out..."

She steps inside and looks around.

"...Are you sure your girlfriend wouldn't let herself die?"

arenaria
2013-03-05 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I - not absolutely certain. I don't think she'd leave Tony alone. But it's not impossible that I'm wrong, or that Coin killed her too even though she wouldn't know she'd need to and there'd be fallout all over a populated area and Sherlock would most likely have noticed a nuke in Three or the palace. Then - then Tony would probably have died as well, they were both in the house - we'd all be here - Can I find out? If I go back to the Tower and look for them, or is there a book of names - if she's here then - why do you ask? Does this place look - suggestive of that?" Shell Bell glances around the nice, well-designed furniture, the pretty rugs and the wallpaper. It doesn't exactly scream Sherlock is dead to her, but she's not an expert. She goes up to the bed - everything but the bathroom's squished into one room, kitchenette and bed and empty bookshelf and dresser, but it's arranged to allow walking paths between everything. She puts her crown in the drawer of the nightstand and sits on the bedspread.

pythbox
2013-03-05 05:15 pm (UTC)

"You can't find out who's in the queue," she says. "But there's a complete directory of Downsiders in the library, and you can search by name and time of death, and narrow results by universe of origin... you can probably find her if she's already here." She gestures around at the tiny, beautiful apartment. "This kind of thing, a very small place with very nice decor, usually means you weren't mourned very much but you were mourned very intensely. I usually don't see cases this extreme, but when I do, the mourner tends to show up as a suicide."

arenaria
2013-03-05 05:22 pm (UTC)

"A suici-" Bell stops.

She looks at the apartment. She imagines Sherlock's thoughts as they would've appeared back when she could call for them to scroll by, quick intimate displays of inmost self. Sherlock would have held herself so still, and then -

She wouldn't leave Tony alone.

She would fix the problem.

"No. I don't think so. I'll check but I don't think so. You told me there's no way to leave Downside. What would happen if someone tried to pull me out anyway, very hard with a lot of magic?"

Because stars didn't work.

But Bell had said, directly to Sherlock, that she didn't know about evils.

Bell thinks she might know about evils now.

"Could she have gotten a live version of me - a real back-from-the-dead version - and could I be stuck here as a - an alternate version of that one, regardless?" She swallows. "And she wouldn't know that I split, and she'd have an alive one of me - and she'd stop mourning. And no one else would even find out. I suppose they'd tell Tony but maybe only after the fact. My parents would never know, certainly."

pythbox
2013-03-05 05:23 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know," says the guide. "It would explain your apartment, but... I've never heard of magic that could do that."

arenaria
2013-03-05 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I had a lot of magic. Sherlock made most of it. If I died of course she'd try. And if this looks like my dying made someone extremely upset for a very short period - then until Sherlock shows up, which she may never do, that's my guess."

Bell draws her knees up to her chin at the edge of the bedspread. "So she'll be fine. And Tony will be fine. And my empire will be fine. And - and I'm never going to see them again, because they don't know I need to be gotten and they're going to live forever."

pythbox
2013-03-05 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says the guide.

arenaria
2013-03-05 05:35 pm (UTC)

Bell wipes a tear away from the corner of one eye. "Not your fault. As far as I know."

She's going to go to the library, once she has a contractor sorted out, and she's going to read about the "administration".

Her hand strokes along the bedspread. Sherlock made this for me. She made all of this for me. Probably in less than a minute.

pythbox
2013-03-05 05:36 pm (UTC)

She nods.

"Any more questions?"

arenaria
2013-03-05 05:38 pm (UTC)

"All of the questions. What else do you think I ought to know before I so much as make a trip to the library? What won't I find in the library that you can tell me? Will everyone speak English, or appear to?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 05:40 pm (UTC)

"English has been the common language here for a while, but that might change, and if it stays changed for long enough you'll have to learn the new one," she shrugs. "Judges can imprint languages on people, and they give everyone the most commonly spoken language at their time of arrival, unless they already have it."

arenaria
2013-03-05 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bell. "Anything else?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 05:51 pm (UTC)

She thinks, then shakes her head.

arenaria
2013-03-05 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Thank you very much for all your help."

pythbox
2013-03-05 05:53 pm (UTC)

"That's what they pay me for," she says wryly. "Good luck."

And she goes.

arenaria
2013-03-05 05:55 pm (UTC)

Bell takes careful, loving inventory of the apartment Sherlock made for her. It's furnished and decorated and surprisingly stocked - soap in the bathroom, food in the kitchenette. She wonders if that gets replaced or if she has to buy more. There is apparently currency here and the library will be able to tell her more about how to get it.

One thing she knows she's going to do is keep this apartment Sherlock made for her utterly spotless.

And then, trying to look as uninteresting as possible, she goes back to the station to find the Crescent.
Edited 2013-03-05 17:57 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-05 09:28 pm (UTC)

The Crescent has its own station; the stairs take her directly to the lobby of the building, where a receptionist with her hair in a rainbow of tiny braids sitting behind a large wooden desk and another woman sitting on the desk are carrying on an animated conversation. The rest of the room is sparsely but nicely furnished—there's a waiting area with several chairs and a small table. There are no windows, but the front doors are made of glass; they look out on a wide expanse of dusty gravel, like a raw construction site.

When Bell comes out of the stairwell, the woman sitting on the desk glances at her and smiles. "Looks like we've got a fresh one," she says amicably.

arenaria
2013-03-05 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I - just died, yes," says Shell Bell. "My guide said I would be able to find a - a contractor here."

pythbox
2013-03-05 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says the friendly woman, hopping off the desk. "What's your number?"

arenaria
2013-03-05 09:31 pm (UTC)

She recites it from memory, although she does glance at her file to confirm that she got it right. She did.

pythbox
2013-03-05 09:34 pm (UTC)

She nods at the folder Bell is carrying. "That your papers? Lemme see."

arenaria
2013-03-05 09:35 pm (UTC)

Bell hands them over. "My guide couldn't tell me what anything after the first page meant. Can you?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Yep," she says, and opens the folder.

"...Wow, you kidnapped a lot of people," she says, surprised. "Like, a lot."

arenaria
2013-03-05 09:47 pm (UTC)

"...I put a city on the moon?" Bell offers. "I didn't, like, evict anyone from their actual home, I just - moved the homes. It was the best thing to do - the culture was utterly toxic."

pythbox
2013-03-05 09:51 pm (UTC)

She snorts.

"Now there's an interesting solution. Well, looks like I've got a date with Chainsaw in the near future." She closes the folder and hands it back. "Bell, huh? Lucky you, nobody'll say boo if you keep it. I'm Eights."

arenaria
2013-03-05 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Uh, it's nice to meet you, Eights. Keep what?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 09:56 pm (UTC)

"The name. It sounds just fine for Downside."

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I usually went by Shell Bell." Pause. "So if I'm understanding you correctly you personally are going to take my, er, sentence, which is largely for putting the Capitol on the moon? ...I am glad that this doesn't seem to bother you."

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Yep," Eights says cheerfully. "Nobody else would touch it, Chainsaw's nasty. But I happen to like him."

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:06 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell nods slowly. "Thank you," she murmurs.

(The back of her mind is a kind of constant hum of Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock now. Thinking about someone happy to endure pain on her behalf is not making this go away one bit.)

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:14 pm (UTC)

Sunnily: "You're welcome."

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Whose idea was it to punish - things done in life -" (Shell Bell does not consider putting the Capitol on the moon a crime) "with torture? Do you know?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:21 pm (UTC)

Eights shrugs.

"It's been like that forever," she says. "What's it matter?"

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:26 pm (UTC)

"It matters because it's awful - you're doing a good, good thing but you shouldn't have to - and it ought to stop and whoever or whatever set it up would be a good place to start figuring out how to un-set-it-up," says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Good idea," says Eights. "Don't try it. The judges get mean about that kinda thing."

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:29 pm (UTC)

"...And they'd slap another sentence on me?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Yep," she says. "That's how it works. They can't directly sentence you for poking your nose into their business, but they can sentence you for a lot of things, and they can find out everything you've ever done just by looking at you. So annoying them is a bad idea."

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Is it harder to get a contractor for that later? I mean, this isn't the kind of thing I'd ask someone to do for me causally, but you seem pretty - chipper. And from the size of this place I have the impression that if I did manage to unfuck the system it'd be a big deal."

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:40 pm (UTC)

...Eights regards her thoughtfully.

"It's a little harder," she says. "You don't get a week's grace on post-arrival sentences, and people aren't usually as sympathetic. But if you're that keen on it, sure. Come to me if you get in trouble."

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Does the library have a list of things they can sentence me for, so I can work on being a tricky target if I do annoy someone who abuses their power?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Probably," says Eights. "It'll take you a few years to get to know it, though."

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:43 pm (UTC)

"That long a list?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:44 pm (UTC)

She nods.

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I guess I have a project, now. Which is good since I'm pretty sure I'm never going to see my loved ones again. Gotta keep busy." She takes a deep breath and lets it out. "Does anything - formal happen, regarding the sentence transfer thing, or is that done?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I go put it into my computer," shrugs Eights. "You can watch that part if it helps, but it's pretty boring."

arenaria
2013-03-05 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm curious to have a look at the system. I haven't done this a million times," Shell Bell points out.

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Eights leads Bell down the hall behind the receptionist's desk, giving her a wave as they pass. Naturally, she has office number eight.

Once there, she sits at her computer and types in Bell's res code from memory. It displays a copy of Bell's sentence papers and asks her if she would like to take the sentence, which it reminds her is 9:00 CH, and for which the grace period ends in six and a half days.

She clicks 'Yes'.

arenaria
2013-03-05 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Straightforward," Shell Bell says. "I don't understand why this is even allowed. Why combine something so sadistic with this - I hesitate to call it a loophole, but this - flexibility?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Beats me," shrugs Eights. "That's just how it is."

arenaria
2013-03-05 11:05 pm (UTC)

"For - 'forever'?" Shell Bell says. "And people don't die again here, I was told, so if it's been that way forever, some people who are still around must have been around - forever. Do any such people have known locations?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Eights.

arenaria
2013-03-05 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Of course not. This place is the most perverse fusion of convenient and cruel."

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:14 pm (UTC)

"...Y'know," says Eights, "I'm gonna remember that line. That's a good one."

arenaria
2013-03-05 11:17 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell laughs once.

"Is there anything you can tell me, that I might not know being so recently dead, that might take a while to turn up in a trawl through the library, and that my guide could conceivably have missed?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Guides're usually a little spotty," she says. "Don't forget your res code, don't annoy judges, don't annoy torturers—the Crescent can help you if the judges give you a sentence you don't want; we can't help you if a torturer decides to grab you off the street and play with you a little."

arenaria
2013-03-05 11:28 pm (UTC)

"...They do that a lot?"

pythbox
2013-03-05 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes," she says, shrugging. "Not that often—there aren't that many torturers—but yeah. Sometimes."

arenaria
2013-03-05 11:55 pm (UTC)

"What are the best ways to avoid them?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:05 am (UTC)

"Don't hang out anywhere too popular, or anywhere you know is somebody's stomping grounds," she suggests. "Spend a lot of time in the library. Nobody fucks with a librarian."

arenaria
2013-03-06 12:10 am (UTC)

"...Why does nobody fuck with a librarian, and how does one acquire that designation? Can you tell me if there are any 'stomping grounds' in my neighborhood, especially between my apartment and the transit station?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:12 am (UTC)

"I don't know your neighborhood," she says, shaking her head. "If you want to be a librarian, try the library. Won't help you at home, though."

arenaria
2013-03-06 12:21 am (UTC)

"So people only don't fuck with librarians in the library?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:21 am (UTC)

"That's about the size of it," she agrees.

arenaria
2013-03-06 12:22 am (UTC)

"Why, what happens if someone does?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:23 am (UTC)

"People just... don't," she says, shrugging.

arenaria
2013-03-06 12:23 am (UTC)

"...Because mind control? Because cultural taboo? Because the librarians all back each other up and several of them know martial arts? Because magical impossibility?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:24 am (UTC)

"Cultural taboo's probably closest."

arenaria
2013-03-06 12:25 am (UTC)

"Okay." She closes her eyes. "What else don't I know that I'll need to find out to get along here? You're being so helpful - immensely helpful - and of course my natural response is to get as much information out of you as I can."

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:31 am (UTC)

Eights laughs.

"I dunno. Been a while since I needed to learn this stuff, y'know?"

arenaria
2013-03-06 12:31 am (UTC)

"How long?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:51 am (UTC)

"Coming up on fifteen thousand years."

arenaria
2013-03-06 12:52 am (UTC)

"That is a very long time," says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-06 12:55 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Eights.

arenaria
2013-03-06 12:59 am (UTC)

"Do you even remember anything about being alive?"
Edited 2013-03-06 00:59 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:01 am (UTC)

"I know I had a boyfriend and I cheated on him," she says, "'cause that's what I was sentenced for."

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:02 am (UTC)

"...What all's in my file besides putting people on the moon?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:05 am (UTC)

"Uh..." She thinks back. "Did you fake your death? I think I remember something about that."

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:06 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I couldn't otherwise get out of my home district safely. I stole a canoe and left a note telling my parents I was attempting to go someplace nobody could actually get to and actually walked to the next town and stowed away on a train."

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:07 am (UTC)

"That must've sucked," she says sympathetically.

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:08 am (UTC)

"As soon as it was safe I told them I was alive," she says. "They were upset, but they're okay now. Or at least they are if my guess about why my apartment looks the way it does is correct."

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:26 am (UTC)

"...Okay," says Eights.

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:28 am (UTC)

"Sorry, I can't always tell the difference between people being interested in what I have to say and just being polite."

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:30 am (UTC)

She shrugs.

"I mean, I feel for you, I just don't completely know what you're talking about."

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:34 am (UTC)

"Oh. I have a very small and very nicely decorated apartment. I think my girlfriend brought me back to life after I died and it worked, sort of, just - forked me, one there and one here, instead of getting me out of here. I'm going to check for her in the library directory, though, in case it's what the guide said it looked like, a suicide. But if I'm right my parents are never going to know that I died, because there'll be a live one of me, and I sure wouldn't tell them."

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:35 am (UTC)

"...Sure sucks for you," she says reflectively.

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah." Pause. "I wonder if doors to Milliways ever happen, here."

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:41 am (UTC)

"Milliways?"

She blinks.

"Yeah, I used to see that place all the time when Jazz was around. Not for my last thousand or so, though. I think Chainsaw still catches a door occasionally."

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:44 am (UTC)

"...Oh."

Shell Bell's not sure if this is good news (Milliways can happen here!) or bad news (it hasn't happened lately, and lately is measured in millenia!).

"I used to go there a lot. I met a bunch of my alts and swapped magic with them and visited strange worlds and - and if I found a door at this point I'd never come back."

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:45 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't blame ya," she says.

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:46 am (UTC)

"You stayed. I guess the obvious disadvantage of here does not apply to you."

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:46 am (UTC)

Eights grins.

"Nope!"

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:48 am (UTC)

Shell Bell wraps her arms around herself. "Thank you again," she says quietly. "I think I'll go to the library now."

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:50 am (UTC)

"Bye," says Eights.

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:52 am (UTC)

"Bye."

Shell Bell goes to the library.

pythbox
2013-03-06 01:57 am (UTC)

The library also has its own station, and there are a few people passing through at the same time as Shell Bell.

Its lobby is much bigger than the Crescent's, and a little less friendly. The chairs aren't so comfortable. The librarian, a man wearing diamond earrings, sits behind his desk looking bored and slightly disdainful.

arenaria
2013-03-06 01:58 am (UTC)

Bell goes up to the librarian.

"Excuse me," she says. "I just died a few hours ago and I'm completely new to everything. Can you tell me where I should start?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:03 am (UTC)

He blinks at her.

"Not really," he says. "Not without some idea of what you're looking for."

arenaria
2013-03-06 02:04 am (UTC)

"I need to know how to operate here. Safely, insofar as that's possible. I want to know about the administration, although I'm told asking won't get me far. I'm also interested if my guide was mistaken when she told me there's no way to observe or communicate with the living."

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:12 am (UTC)

Despite himself, he begins to look interested.

"Admin operates out of the tower," he says. "But whoever told you not to bother her was right. And nope, your guide was right too. We get dead people and dead things; we don't get pretty little pictures of the dear not-yet-departed."
Edited 2013-03-06 02:12 (UTC)

arenaria
2013-03-06 02:15 am (UTC)

"My loved ones are in all likelihood never going to depart," Shell Bell says. "Although I would like to look them up, in case I am wrong. Dead things, what does that mean, what makes a thing dead?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:18 am (UTC)

"Broken, destroyed, whatever," he says with a shrug. "This building existed in some live world somewhere before it showed up here, and then it burned down or got demolished. Every book in the stacks came from a live world and got thrown out or spoiled or burned."

arenaria
2013-03-06 02:19 am (UTC)

"Would things magically banished from existence appear here? What determines where they appear? And how do I look up my girlfriend to see if she's died?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:22 am (UTC)

"If it stopped existing, then yep," he says. "Things appear where it makes sense. Food in your fridge or your kitchen cupboards, shampoo in your shower, books in the library. New buildings out at the edges of the old ones. If you want the directory, the computers are over there—" he points down a hallway.

arenaria
2013-03-06 02:23 am (UTC)

"...What determines whose kitchen or shower or whatever a given disappeared or destroyed thing goes to?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:23 am (UTC)

"It's pretty much random."

arenaria
2013-03-06 02:24 am (UTC)

"Pretty much?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:25 am (UTC)

"You tend to get higher quality items in bigger houses," he says. "But it's not a rule, just a tendency."

arenaria
2013-03-06 02:27 am (UTC)

"Okay. Is there some kind of - lost and found, where you can put things that appear that you don't need and get things that appear that you do need? Or - how does currency work here? I've heard money referred to but I don't know anything beyond that about how it works in this world."

pythbox
2013-03-06 02:58 am (UTC)

"'Money' is a misnomer," he says. "If you're talking about your res account. That holds the maximum allowable square footage of your residence, and you can transfer some of it out, but people usually don't. Mostly they barter. Individually."

arenaria
2013-03-06 02:59 am (UTC)

"Okay. Are there - markets of some kind, then?

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:04 am (UTC)

"Nothing really organized," he says, shaking his head.

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:05 am (UTC)

"Do most people figure out the computer system pretty quick? And I hear you can sort by world - how are worlds designated?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:08 am (UTC)

"By number," he says. "One through seventy-two, I think. It was seventy-one a while ago."

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:13 am (UTC)

"Can you tell me what world I'm from? And if I want to look up someone from a world not my own, is there a way to check if that world's represented and find out its number?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:13 am (UTC)

"You can tell which world somebody's from if you know their res code. That's about it."

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:17 am (UTC)

"I can search without narrowing down the worlds, right? And -" She rattles off her own res code, because that's the world she'll need to find Sherlock from if Sherlock's here. If Sherlock ever comes here.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:19 am (UTC)

He looks something up on the computer behind his desk.

"Forty-eight," he says.

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:21 am (UTC)

"Thanks. How do you become a librarian?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:22 am (UTC)

"Right now," he says, "you don't. Hang around, wait, get to know the place. Maybe we'll find a use for you."

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:23 am (UTC)

"Yes, I don't mean today, I mean in general. Thanks."

Shell Bell heads for the computers and tries to decipher them.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:24 am (UTC)

They're not that difficult. Old, slow, but not difficult.

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:27 am (UTC)

She looks herself up, just to be sure she understands how the system works.

And because she's terrified of either result if she looks up Sherlock.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:28 am (UTC)

It has her name, the time of her death in her world, her world number, and her res code.

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:30 am (UTC)

She swallows.

She looks for Sherlock Stark in the same world.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:31 am (UTC)

No record.

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:33 am (UTC)

Okay.

That's - that's good, isn't it, she was probably right, Sherlock is alive, Sherlock has a Bell, they're all going to be fine -

And she's on her own.

She sits.

Some time later she checks other names, just to be thorough. Tony. Her parents.

She excludes her own world and tries the full names of all the alts she's met, and their friends.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:38 am (UTC)

Well.

There is one Sherlock Holmes. Died in 1895. World number thirty-one. 2385443281^0.

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:39 am (UTC)

...She doesn't think 1895 sounds like when it was when she met any of the Holmeses, she thinks it was some post-2000 time in their worlds, but that's still something. An alt probably. She looks around for writing implements.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:39 am (UTC)

Nope.

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:43 am (UTC)

She presses her fingernail into the margin of her sentence file, until she has barely-legible numbers imprinted there, and makes up her mind to find something useless in her apartment and a way to trade it for paper and pencils.

She starts looking for people in her own world she'd be less thrilled to see. People who she knows to be dead.

Lynnis would be one thing, although Lynnis would not necessarily be happy to see her.

She checks for Coriolanus Snow.

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:47 am (UTC)

Coriolanus Snow exists, and died when he died. He's in ^1.

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:49 am (UTC)

...Why wouldn't Lynnis be there?

She'll ask the librarian. But first she'll fingernail Snow's code into another file margin with a little six-pointed snowflake-y star next to it. She's going to look up where that is, and then never, ever visit that neighborhood.

She can't think of anyone else to look up.

She goes back to the librarian. "I looked up someone from my world who died when I was sixteen, and she wasn't there. Why might that be?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:50 am (UTC)

"Oh, people usually don't show up in any kind of reasonable order," he shrugs. "If you died before someone else, they're as likely to show up before you as the other way around. And of course if they went Upside they won't be in the directory at all."

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:52 am (UTC)

"Upside? Is that the place above the cliffs? What makes some people go there and not others?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 03:53 am (UTC)

"Upside, Downside," he says, gesturing the appropriate elevations. "The judges sort you."

arenaria
2013-03-06 03:54 am (UTC)

"Based on what?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Your life," he says. "If you're beyond reproach, you go Upside. If you're not bad enough for a sentence, but still kind of sketchy, you go ^2. If you've done something the judges think is really bad, they give you a sentence and put you in ^1."

arenaria
2013-03-06 05:27 pm (UTC)

"...What are the approximate proportions here?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 05:28 pm (UTC)

"We can't be sure, because we can't go Upside and check. But it looks like there's no way they could have even half as many people up there as down here."

arenaria
2013-03-06 05:33 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell nods. "Can you tell me how to navigate the stacks?" she asks. "And do the computers do anything besides look up dead people?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:00 pm (UTC)

"The computers look up books," he says. "And technically they'll give you directions, too, but mostly it's not worth it to track one down yourself. Every so often, someone gets lost and we run into them a few decades later."

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:01 pm (UTC)

"So I use the computer to see what books there are to be had, and then I ask one of you to fetch it?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says the librarian.

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:02 pm (UTC)

"How does lending work?"

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't, mostly," he says. "Losing or damaging a library book is a sentencable crime whether you meant to or not, so most people don't want to risk it."

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Ah, I see." She sighs. "Thank you very much."

pythbox
2013-03-06 06:13 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:15 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell doesn't want to read a book right now, although she'll probably turn right around after she's gone on her expedition looking for -

Holmes. He can be "Holmes". Her Sherlock is Sherlock. They never did figure out a nicknaming scheme, but the other Holmeses she's met are less important by far than the one she can actually get at today.

She goes back to the station, and deciphers the code she imprinted into her file, and travels to the home of the dead Sherlock Holmes.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 06:30 pm (UTC)

The man who opens the door... does not look very much like Sherlock.

He maybe looks like he could be an older Tony, though. Maybe.

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:34 pm (UTC)

Yeah, Shell Bell wasn't holding out for anyone that close. "Hi," she says. "I don't think you know me or anyone like me, but before I died earlier today I knew - several people with your name or a variant, and I wanted to see if you were an alt of them. I think you might be. I'm Shell Bell."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 06:39 pm (UTC)

"And I," he says, "am Strat."

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Nickname you picked up here?" she asks. "That's not the name I found you by."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 06:49 pm (UTC)

"You will find that almost no one uses the same name here that they did in life," he says. "I am no exception."

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay. It would've been weird calling you by my girlfriend's name anyway," says Shell Bell. "Can I be your friend? All my loved ones are immortal."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 06:52 pm (UTC)

He blinks.

"...Yes," he says. "I suppose you can. Would you like some tea?"

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I would love some tea."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Come in, then."

arenaria
2013-03-06 06:59 pm (UTC)

In she comes. "This has been the weirdest day of my - existence," she says, correcting from 'life' at the last moment. "And it's competing with the day I received supreme magical power and declared myself the Empress of Atlantis. I liked that one better."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I'd imagine you would," he agrees.

arenaria
2013-03-06 07:01 pm (UTC)

"All my magic is gone now. I keep tripping and I can't fly and my memory's slippery and I can't make any wishcoins."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 07:05 pm (UTC)

"I've never met anyone here with magic," says Strat.

arenaria
2013-03-06 07:06 pm (UTC)

"The place probably strips it from anyone who's got it as they come in, I guess. My world didn't have magic to begin with. I got it from an alt of me from somewhere else."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 07:08 pm (UTC)

"That might explain why it didn't last," he says.

arenaria
2013-03-06 07:11 pm (UTC)

"You think? Maybe. I hope my other alts are cleverer about their defenses than I was. I walked right into a nuclear explosion. I was probably atomized instantly, I don't remember it hurting or anything." She sighs. "And then, I'm not sure but my best guess is that my girlfriend resurrected me, and there's a live copy of me walking around back home and they don't even know I need to be gotten. Because I have a very small, very nicely furnished apartment, and my girlfriend wasn't there when I looked her up so she's probably not a mournful suicide like my guide thought."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 07:37 pm (UTC)

"She could just as easily be delayed," says Strat. "I'm told that happens. In the several thousand years since my death, I have yet to find anyone I knew in life."

arenaria
2013-03-06 07:38 pm (UTC)

"It's possible. But I don't think she'd leave her twin brother alone, especially since there's a very good chance she could pull off the resurrection and it's something she'd certainly try."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 07:39 pm (UTC)

"You'd know better than I would," he says with a shrug, and puts the kettle on.

arenaria
2013-03-06 07:42 pm (UTC)

"It's basically good news. Means my empire's fine and my girlfriend and her brother aren't devastated. My parents'll probably never find out. And even if I had a much bigger place suggesting that much more mourning happened, distributed amongst at least four people and not cut off instantly when she resurrected me - I still wouldn't expect to see them again. They have no reason to believe this place exists and try to follow me here. They'd still be immortal." Pause. "Can you remember anything about being alive? I badly miss my perfect recall, I need to get some paper and write everything down..."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 07:45 pm (UTC)

"I am a little lucky, in that respect," he says. "There are books about me in the library. They don't get everything right, but - enough."

arenaria
2013-03-06 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Biographies or something? Were you famous?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Moderately."

arenaria
2013-03-06 07:51 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if there are any biographies about me. This place seems at least as temporally twisted as Milliways, so maybe I can see what's going to be written about me even though I only just died, I'm pretty sure being an Empress makes me famous enough to warrant at least one book even if my guess about resurrection is wrong and I have an extremely brief tenure."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 07:54 pm (UTC)

"There may very well be."

arenaria
2013-03-06 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I will look for that next time I'm at the library. What were you famous for?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Trivial things."

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:11 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell takes that as him not wanting to talk about it. "What do you do with yourself now, then?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Contractor," he says. "Was the address not a clue?"

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm new," Shell Bell reminds him, "and don't have perfect recall anymore. But that shouldn't surprise me, I guess, given how I knew to look you up."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:17 pm (UTC)

"...I beg your pardon?"

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:18 pm (UTC)

"I told you I met alts of yours. Including my girlfriend. I bet she'd become a contractor, if she were here."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he sighs, "I expect she would. For future reference, anyone with a ^0 code is a contractor or a torturer or both."

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Some people are both?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, one person."

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Who?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:33 pm (UTC)

"His name is Dice. Quiet sort. Doesn't enjoy politics. Tea?"

There is now tea.

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Tea," agrees Shell Bell, and she wraps both hands around her teacup and sips. She hasn't actually eaten or drunk anything since she arrived. Usually she'd have noticed earlier than this, but it's not yet to the point where it can bother her. She did grow up in a District. "I don't have the - the capacity to be a contractor but I think it's a really good thing you do," she adds. "I would be very unhappy sometime in the next month if it weren't for Eights."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Many people would be very unhappy if it weren't for Eights," he agrees. "Which, ultimately, is why we do it."

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I have the impression that my sentence was unusually severe, too."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:52 pm (UTC)

"What was it?"

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Nine hours with someone called Chainsaw," she says. "I put a city on the moon and apparently this counts as kidnapping the way things are counted around here."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "That is unusually severe."

arenaria
2013-03-06 08:58 pm (UTC)

"It was a large city. I guess no one was checking to see if I had any better options, though."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Judges are not frequently concerned with extenuating circumstances."

arenaria
2013-03-06 09:00 pm (UTC)

"So I suppose I'd have gotten off very light if I'd gone on harvesting clams for a living and did nothing whatever about the crushing dictatorship that killed a couple dozen teenagers annually." She sighs.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Let no one deceive you into thinking anything about this place is fair."

arenaria
2013-03-06 09:06 pm (UTC)

"No one has tried to convince me that it is, but if they start, I'll bear that in mind. You mentioned that that Dice character's not into politics? To what extent is there politics to be interested in, here?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 09:08 pm (UTC)

"There largely isn't, of any kind you would be familiar with. 'Power struggles between torturers' would be a more accurate term."

arenaria
2013-03-06 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Eights warned me about going on people's turf. So it amounts to - turf wars, I guess? Maybe jockeying for the support of various cohorts of friends?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Less geographical, more hierarchical."

arenaria
2013-03-06 09:11 pm (UTC)

"What is the best way to stay far away from that while it happens?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 09:14 pm (UTC)

"You mostly don't have to worry about stumbling into it," he says. "Unless you become a torturer. Which I assume you are not going to do."
Edited 2013-03-06 21:14 (UTC)

arenaria
2013-03-06 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I can't think of anything less likely than for me to decide to hurt unwilling victims as an occupation."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "Hence, you will mostly not need to worry. Most of the scuffling takes place via control challenge, which is not hazardous to bystanders."

arenaria
2013-03-06 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Control challenge?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 09:21 pm (UTC)

"...Has no one mentioned torturer's control?"

arenaria
2013-03-06 09:24 pm (UTC)

"No, and it sounds like this may have been a very serious omission, please explain."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:01 pm (UTC)

"It's mainly to stop sentences from struggling inconveniently, I think. Torturers can control someone else's body as though it were their own, overriding the original owner. Contractors are immune; no one else is. A control challenge is what happens when one torturer tries to establish control on another; some combination of effort, experience, and willpower lets one of the two win, not always the one who started it."

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:07 pm (UTC)

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:08 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I think that might be the worst thing I have heard about this place. Unjust justice system, sure, violent types picking on random people in the streets, sure, those things are par for the course of places I or alts of me don't personally run as far as I can tell, but handing out body-control superpowers to people whose job title is 'torturer' - when we can't even die again and expect a time limit on that basis if nothing else - fuck." She chews her lip. "How much contracting do you have to do to get contractor's immunity - how does it compare with the rate of senseless violence on ordinary denizens? It's probably not a good tradeoff, but maybe my guess is off?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:19 pm (UTC)

"You only need to voluntarily take a sentence once," he says. "But you do need to voluntarily take a sentence. If you quit in the middle—or try to—it doesn't count, you receive no immunity, and the torturer has to go find the person you are supposed to be covering for and administer the sentence to them. Some of them find that annoying."

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Eugh." Shell Bell finishes her tea. "I think I'll try not-attracting-attention, first, and if I fail at it at least I'll get information about where that falls on the scale between difficult and utterly impossible, for me." She shudders. "I wish my girlfriend were here. Well. No. I wish she'd managed to resurrect me without splitting me. But if I start from the assumption that I have to be here I wish she were too and I hate that I wish it but I do."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Good luck," he murmurs.

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. May I have another cup of tea?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Certainly."

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Thanks." Sip, think, sip, think. "How does the inability to die again interact with other stuff? Do I need to sleep, again? I assume if I don't eat I'll get hungrier and hungrier until I reset or whatever it's called."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Torch," he supplies. "It's called torching. And yes, you can starve into it. I don't actually know if you can get there from lack of sleep, but I don't recommend trying."

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Torching. Okay. I really liked not needing to sleep. It's not the first thing I'd wish back if I got a pile of wishcoins, though," sighs Shell Bell. "That'd be the memory. I need to get a stack of notebooks and something to write with to substitute. It's probably too much to hope for that someone will trade me for a recorder like the one I had."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I have a spare pen," Strat offers.

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I would love a spare pen."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:49 pm (UTC)

He fetches her his spare pen.

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:51 pm (UTC)

She pockets it. "Thanks very much. I guess I can put the really important stuff on the back and in the margins of my sentence papers until I accumulate enough junk I don't need in my apartment to trade for paper. How convenient that I was such a prolific 'kidnapper', I have three whole pages to work with."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:52 pm (UTC)

"A city on the moon, you said?"

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes. A big city. Millions of people. Utterly toxic culture. I magicked them all up and then sorted through them and let some of them move back to the Earth."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Well done."

arenaria
2013-03-06 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Thanks." She sips at her tea. It's really rather good. "I think I was a good empress. I was at least better than the previous dictator. But Coin never nuked him. I guess it was harder to trick him into an isolated location and she didn't want all the fallout near where she lives. If she still lives. My girlfriend may have killed her with her bare hands after finding out what she did."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Violent, is she?" he inquires with a slight smile.

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:02 pm (UTC)

"My girlfriend? She had to be. The aforementioned toxic culture involved seizing a couple dozen teenagers from poorer parts of the country every year and putting them on a TV show in an arena that only one of them got to leave alive. She left alive. It was the shortest Games in history."
Edited 2013-03-06 23:02 (UTC)

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:03 pm (UTC)

"...Yes," he says, "I imagine it would have been."

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Three of the other contestants did die before she got to them, but - yeah. Very brief affair. It's entirely likely that Coin didn't long survive assassinating me. But maybe Sherlock prioritized resurrecting me first and my live copy just put her on the moon. I'm a softy like that."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:06 pm (UTC)

He smiles again.

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Not as much of a softy as Sherlock's brother, though. People were allowed to put in appeals for people I'd put up there and most of them didn't submit any. He put in, like, four. He's a sweetie. I miss him too." She peers into her tea. "So, I've been told there's no way of communicating with the living - but I was also told there was no way to check up on them, whereas you've given me hope that if I go back to the library I can find books on myself and find out what happens after the unfortunate assassination. So maybe you have contradictory information for the other discouraging thing I've been told too."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I imagine having a series of books published about your life is not common enough for most people to think of it when asked if there is a way to check up on the living, which there otherwise isn't. And I did mention the books are not entirely accurate. For one thing, in the books, I survived my trip off the edge of a cliff."

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I find it reasonably likely that my books will report that I survived my nuking," Shell Bell points out. "I don't even think this will be a journalistic error as far as it goes, given my hypothesis about my apartment. Also, I showed up wearing my crown, if anybody is famous enough to warrant biographies the crown would be a hint, wouldn't it?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:21 pm (UTC)

"And yet," he says, shrugging.

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:22 pm (UTC)

"So you don't know any mechanism of communication that goes the other way. Unless I find a door to Milliways, which to hear Eights tell it could easily be a thousand years in coming."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Correct."

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:24 pm (UTC)

"D'you know Milliways?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes. I've been there once or twice. Not recently."

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:27 pm (UTC)

"You came back here. I wouldn't, not without at least recovering my magic and being sure I could leave whenever I wanted - then I'd come back and try to accomplish something, but I wouldn't without. Why'd you come back?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:28 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I suppose I don't consider myself wholly useless here."

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no, I didn't mean - of course you're accomplishing something here. I mean do you not miss where you came from? Or didn't you at the not-recent occasion when you found the door?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I do, a little. But there is no opportunity to go back."

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:34 pm (UTC)

"If I found Milliways and my door insisted on opening to here instead of to where I was when I was alive, I'd wait for one of my alts or their friends or my girlfriend or her brother or - anyone I knew. And I would expect this to eventually lead to me going home, or at least somewhere nicer than here even if ultimately it was deemed too awkward to have two Empresses of Atlantis with only one Atlantis to go around. What do you mean, no opportunity?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Neither I nor anyone I know found Milliways while I was alive. I would certainly have remembered it. So I don't hold out much hope that they will if I hang around long enough."

arenaria
2013-03-06 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. There's six of me that we know of who've been to Milliways. We have a shared room, there."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-06 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't believe I've heard of anyone with so many duplicates."

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:01 am (UTC)

"You've got lots, too," Shell Bell says. "Not as many, but plenty. We didn't work out a nicknaming system for your template so they'll be hard to enumerate now that I don't have a perfect memory anymore, but we'd collectively encountered four of you, not counting, well, you. And a number of me came with a different template; we called that template 'Whistles' and we know of five of those."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-07 12:04 am (UTC)

"Quite the circus, all together."

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:05 am (UTC)

"Oh, yes. As of the last time I checked I think I was the only Bell who'd met all five of the others. I think Juliet's met more of you than I have, though. I can't remember exactly... but I think so. So it was never exactly group photo time. But it was fun."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-07 12:16 am (UTC)

Strat's phone rings.

"Excuse me," he says, and answers it.

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:16 am (UTC)

Shell Bell waits.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-07 12:19 am (UTC)

It's a short conversation.

"Contract," he says succinctly when it ends. "I should go. Torturers are a notoriously impatient bunch."

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:20 am (UTC)

"Okay. Thanks for the tea and conversation and invaluable warnings," says Shell Bell, swallowing the last of her beverage and getting up.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-07 12:21 am (UTC)

"Anytime."

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:24 am (UTC)

"D'you want my res code?" Shell Bell asks as they head out of his place.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-07 12:30 am (UTC)

"May as well. Got a pen?" he jokes.

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:32 am (UTC)

She giggles, and writes her code down on a corner of a file page and tears it off - very carefully; she might take a while to find more paper - and hands it over.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-07 12:33 am (UTC)

He reads it, then steps back inside to put it down. Things tucked in one's pockets are not safe during contracts.

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:34 am (UTC)

"Bye!" calls Shell Bell, and she heads for the transit station.

She realizes when she steps out of her destination that she must have mistyped something. Oops. She turns around to go back to the correct neighborhood.

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:35 am (UTC)

No she doesn't.

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:36 am (UTC)

Shit.

Shitshitshitshitshitshit.

Can she move her eyes - can she talk - Strat didn't mention -

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:42 am (UTC)

She can move her eyes, yes, and she can talk. Whoever is puppeting her doesn't seem inclined to make themselves known, though. She walks down the unfamiliar street, and whoever it is follows along behind.

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:43 am (UTC)

"I'm not interesting," Shell Bell squeaks. "I'm - I'm not a fun toy. I don't have anything to recommend me."

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:46 am (UTC)

"Are you sure?" a soft voice inquires from behind her. "You might just be saying that. How do I know, until I try?"

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:48 am (UTC)

"I'm a terrible liar," Shell Bell whimpers. "I'm a complete wimp, it'll be no challenge to get me to scream, I don't scream interestingly either, please please please just let me go -"

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:52 am (UTC)

"You can't win this, you know," the voice says in friendly tones. "You think you want to be boring, but I think you want to do whatever makes me happy. Let's see who's right."

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:54 am (UTC)

"Why me?"
Edited 2013-03-07 00:54 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:54 am (UTC)

Lightly, carelessly: "You were there."

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:56 am (UTC)

"Please. Please let me go. I just - I - anything - I can't - please -"

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:57 am (UTC)

"Shhhhh."

arenaria
2013-03-07 12:58 am (UTC)

Shell Bell has nothing clever to say.

So on the off-chance that obedience will invite lenience -

she shushes.

(She cannot, quite, quiet the sobbing.)

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:10 am (UTC)

They walk together like that for a long time - at least an hour.

And then Shell Bell finds herself walking up the front step of a cozy little house, and opening the door, and closing her eyes, and stepping inside. The door shuts behind her, and she keeps walking—around a corner, through another door, down some stairs.

She raises a heavy stone lid, and climbs into a narrow stone box, and lies down in it, and the lid closes over her with a thunk and her body is her own again.

arenaria
2013-03-07 01:22 am (UTC)

Shell Bell assesses the situation.

Someone malicious - who she cannot identify, so maybe it matters if she can identify them, maybe there is someone who'd take exception to this treatment of her? Probably not for her sake, but perhaps this torturer is trespassing on another's turf in some way - has her.

She knows she can lift the lid, but she can hear clicking noises that sound like a lock being fiddled into place. And she'd just have the torturer's attention again if she forces the lid up. If she holds still, she's got time to think, though she doesn't know how much.

The box is rapidly stuffy, but it's not airtight - she can see thin lines of light around the edges where the lid is uneven. She will probably not torch repeatedly from oxygen deprivation. (Although if she ever decides torching would be a good idea, she could try holding her breath and seeing if the box is stuffy enough that she can't reoxygenate.)

What does she want?

(Besides for everything since teleporting to the ruins of Europe to turn out to have been a dream, besides to wake up in Sherlock's arms safe and sound and bedecked with coins, besides that.)

She wants out. She wants this torturer to lose interest, or - riskier - find her annoying. Rescue or release.

(She wants Sherlock to have killed herself in a fit of despair after all, because Sherlock would look her up, Sherlock would find her place and find that she was not there, Sherlock would not stop looking until she found her Bell.)

(Okay. What does she want that she can influence from here?)

(Possibly nothing. What does she want within the context of Downside, then...)

She listens. She has to know what's going on.
Edited 2013-03-07 01:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:25 am (UTC)

The torturer's soft voice, now slightly muffled, says: "Don't make a mess."

And the light turns off, and music starts playing, something stately and orchestral.

arenaria
2013-03-07 01:36 am (UTC)

Don't make a mess? Shell Bell has no idea what that's supposed to mean. It's not like she can get to a bathroom from here. Whether she makes a mess is up to the torturer and how long she leaves her alone. (Bell summarily excises all applicable shame on that subject. It will not serve her. It is not appropriate. If she is in here for the next twenty-four hours, the tea she had at Strat's is going to exit her; this is just a fact of nature unless the bathroom in her apartment was intended to be decorative.) She supposes she could make a mess in a more avoidable way if she injured herself and bled in the box. She doesn't plan to do that; if she wants to torch - which right now she doesn't; she doesn't think it'd help - she'll attempt suffocation first.

What does she have?

She can move, a little. She can roll over; she can get her arms up by her head with some uncomfortable maneuvering. She pushes experimentally on the lid. It's very heavy and her leverage isn't good, but she gets it to move - a fraction of an inch. It's definitely locked, and it's so heavy to begin with that she definitely can't push it off of the box.

She has her clothes, her shoes. If she really needed to, she thinks she could probably work her way out of them given this much space to move in, although there's no purpose she can think of that would be served except, again, that they'd potentially be handy in case of torching.

She doesn't have her sentence papers anymore; she was made to set them down once she got into the house. She's got her own body - she could deprive herself of some hair or fingernails if she thought of a use for those. She doesn't think she's constitutionally capable of biting off her tongue or a digit and can't think of a reason to anyway. She's just taking inventory. Think. Think. What does she have?

Nothing.

She has nothing.

Everything that could influence this situation is out of her control.

She revisits her wants.

She wants to spend this ordeal as dissociated and comfortable as possible.

She rolls onto her stomach and puts her arm under her cheek and imagines herself in bed, with Sherlock curled around her. Murmuring you are a continual epiphany. Thinking white-bordered thoughts. Loving her.

She imagines herself to sleep.

pythbox
2013-03-07 01:55 am (UTC)

Some time later, the music turns off.

Shell Bell is made to close her eyes, but not otherwise controlled.

The lid opens.

arenaria
2013-03-07 01:57 am (UTC)

Shell Bell sits up, slowly, hands out ahead of her in case the lid is right there to hit her head on. "Please let me go," she whispers hoarsely. "Please."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:07 am (UTC)

"You didn't make a mess," the soft voice says approvingly. "Good. It's time for your bath."

And Shell Bell gets out of the box.

arenaria
2013-03-07 02:10 am (UTC)

Shell Bell can't see. She can't control how she's moving.

There's really very little reason for her mind to be involved here.

She drifts away as best she can.

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:22 am (UTC)

She walks into another room, takes off her clothes, and folds them neatly on top of something that might be a chair. There is a brief pause.

The door closes behind her without her intervention.

Her eyes open, and she regains control of her body, although she will find she cannot use it to leave the bathroom.

arenaria
2013-03-07 02:23 am (UTC)

Maybe she will be allowed a long bath. It'll probably be more comfortable than trying anything else. (She does look in the cabinets after starting the water running to cover the sound. Just in case there's something useful.)

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:27 am (UTC)

Extras of things like shampoo and toilet paper and toothpaste and soap. Nothing especially weaponlike.

The mysterious torturer leaves her alone for an hour.

arenaria
2013-03-07 02:29 am (UTC)

Shell Bell is sitting in cooling bathwater at that time. All scrubbed and pink and retreating into fantasy again.

She hasn't been hurt yet. Maybe she's just going to be like this person's oversized doll, maybe they don't actually feel like torturing her per se. Not good. Not at all the worst thing.

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:39 am (UTC)

As usual, Shell Bell is made to close her eyes, and the torturer doesn't touch her.

She puts on something that might be a bathrobe - the fabric is very soft against her skin - and ties her hair back, and leaves the bathroom. From there she walks around a little, never bumping into anything or tripping, and finally sits down in a comfortable armchair.

Once settled, she is free again, except that she cannot open her eyes or get up out of the chair.

arenaria
2013-03-07 02:40 am (UTC)

Bell tucks her feet under herself and leans on the wing of the chair. "What do you want?" she murmurs.

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:44 am (UTC)

"Well, isn't that a question," says the voice. "The truth is, I'm very lonely."

arenaria
2013-03-07 02:45 am (UTC)

Maybe she's lucky, as these things go. Maybe this torturer really does mean to make a pet of her and not a pincushion.

"You could've just said hi to me. I would've talked to you. I'm new here, I don't have many friends, you didn't have to kidnap me to get company."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:48 am (UTC)

"You would have looked at me," says the voice. It sounds very sad. "People say they won't, sometimes. But I don't believe them anymore."

arenaria
2013-03-07 02:50 am (UTC)

"You could've closed my eyes and I would've been freaked out but you could've explained, you could've blindfolded me and had a moment to take my eyelids again if I turned out to insist on it," Shell Bell says. "You didn't have to put me in a box to get me not to look at you."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:52 am (UTC)

"Is that so?" the voice murmurs. "But you could just be saying that too."

arenaria
2013-03-07 02:55 am (UTC)

"I am not making up the fact that if you blindfolded me you'd be able to reassume control of my body before I could get the blindfold off. I'm not fast, or sneaky, or anything else I'd need to be to win a contest like that."

pythbox
2013-03-07 02:56 am (UTC)

"Hmmmm," says the voice, and then falls quiet.

arenaria
2013-03-07 03:00 am (UTC)

"Why don't you want people to look at you?"

Anything she can do at this point relies on the fact that she is being allowed to talk. If she is going to get out through something other than the torturer spontaneously losing interest, it will be because she talks her way out, and doing that will rely on knowing who, exactly, she is dealing with.

pythbox
2013-03-07 12:14 pm (UTC)

"I just don't like it."

arenaria
2013-03-07 04:11 pm (UTC)

"What are you going to do with me?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Keep you for a while," the voice says unconcernedly. "Until I let you go."

arenaria
2013-03-07 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Will - that - be soon?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so."

arenaria
2013-03-07 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Can I do anything to make it sooner?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Why would I tell you that?"

arenaria
2013-03-07 08:45 pm (UTC)

"If it was something you wanted that I could give you that you'd rather not wait for me to guess. I know I can't make you let me go."

pythbox
2013-03-07 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I want you to stay," says the voice.

arenaria
2013-03-07 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Do you have to keep me in a box - could you just - I don't know - chain me to the wall and give me some pencil and paper to occupy myself, you must have other things to do with your time - sentences to carry out, places to go, appearing objects to collect and trade for new music recordings, I don't know, whatever you do, why does it have to be a box?"

pythbox
2013-03-07 09:00 pm (UTC)

"People run away if I don't keep them in boxes," the voice says reasonably.

arenaria
2013-03-07 09:01 pm (UTC)

"How would I get out if you chained me to the wall and locked the door? Even if I chewed my leg off - and I don't think I could, I'm a wimp - I couldn't break down the door."

pythbox
2013-03-07 09:05 pm (UTC)

"It's happened before," says the voice. "That's why the box. Nobody's ever gotten out of the box."

arenaria
2013-03-07 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I did everything by magic when I was alive. I am almost completely useless without it and it's all gone now. I honestly cannot think of a single way to get out of here if the door was locked and I had at least one ankle chained to the wall. And if I got out you could find me. You made me put down my sentence papers, I didn't have any chance to fake them, they've got my res code on them."

pythbox
2013-03-07 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to," says the voice. "And if you're not in a box while I'm gone, you might look at me when I come back."

arenaria
2013-03-07 09:15 pm (UTC)

"You can obviously control my eyelids through a door, you did it when you let me out of the bathroom."

pythbox
2013-03-07 09:17 pm (UTC)

"That's not how it works," says the voice.

arenaria
2013-03-07 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Tell me how it works, then, I'm pretty smart, maybe I'll come up with something that will let you be sure you can keep me where you want me that's more comfortable than what you're doing now."

pythbox
2013-03-07 09:22 pm (UTC)

"While I have control on you, I can control you from as far away as I want. But if I let go, to get it again I have to get close again. And it's not safe to go out with my control tied up."

arenaria
2013-03-07 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Rig something so I'm stuck looking at a wall or the floor and can't turn my head all the way around and won't be able to look at you when you come in," suggests Shell Bell. "Or just make it a larger box. With a light."

pythbox
2013-03-07 09:29 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe," the voice says reluctantly.

arenaria
2013-03-07 09:31 pm (UTC)

"All I need is to be able to write and read what I write and I'll be much better company," pleads Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-07 09:32 pm (UTC)

"We'll see," says the voice.

arenaria
2013-03-07 09:33 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell hugs her knees.

"What are you going to do with me while I'm being - kept?"
Edited 2013-03-07 22:21 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-07 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Things," the voice says vaguely. "Nothing too bad. Not like what you'd get from most torturers."

arenaria
2013-03-07 10:43 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell relaxes marginally.

(She's tempted to say you could just be saying that but she has no reason to think this would be more likely to help than hurt.)

pythbox
2013-03-07 10:45 pm (UTC)

The voice goes quiet.

a good day to die

temporal_affairs

Nathan notices that he is human.

He soon learns that he is dead.

He is apparently on the hook according to some judgmental grand-high-mucketymucks for a hell of a lot of murders (well, fair enough) and the sentence for this is twelve hours with someone called Jasmine torturing him (Bella would have a fit, why isn't one of her running this place). But he's a human again, this Jasmine character can't beat out turning with only a human body to work with and twelve hours to do it in. Even with "torching" as an option. Not that he's looking forward to it.

But he still has his timer, and his timer doesn't have to know what the hell's going on to guide him. He consults it constantly. He doesn't think as quick as he used to, and the timer can't narrow things down to fractional seconds as well as it could before, but even measurements down to the half-second are good. He gets it to tell him when to go looking for one of those "contractor" types. Good of them, very kind, he'd tip generously if he had any cash on him.

The best time is tomorrow, so he waits in his dwelling - it's a brightly-painted little shoebox of a place, barely big enough to hold the bed but cheery. Kinda reminds him of the Joker.

...Oh. That's the first time he's thought of the Joker in hours.

Yeah. He's human. Mate bond is toast. He still loves him, but it's not tattooed on his soul anymore.

He still misses him. And Kerron, poor kid. But they'll have each other; the Joker will take care of their son, who'll be all grown up soon enough anyway.

Nathan takes inventory of his apartment, and he sleeps - that's novel, he still can't remember anything substantial about the last time he was human through centuries of bright-sharp vampire memories and it takes him a while to recognize the sensation of needing it - and he goes to the Crescent.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 07:12 pm (UTC)

In the building's lobby, there is a desk; behind the desk, there is a man who is presumably some kind of receptionist; leaning against the desk, laughing, there is a woman who may or may not be a contractor. Neither one of them notices him immediately when he comes in.

"—because we all know how much he loves his upholstery," the woman is saying, barely holding back a laugh.

Now would be a good moment to interrupt.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 07:16 pm (UTC)

"'Scuse me," says Nathan. "I'm told this is where I go to transfer my sentence? Because alas, I am not as kinky as my significant other, who as far as I know is not here."

("Boyfriend" sounds wrong, "girlfriend" wrong the same way, "mother of my child" not the right term in a sentence containing "kinky", "mate" - no longer accurate.)

He holds up sentence papers.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Why yes it is!" says the woman, spinning around to face him and holding out her hand for the papers. "Gimme."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 07:19 pm (UTC)

He hands over the file. "I was reformed by the time I died, cross my heart," he says.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 07:24 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

"Hey, I'll buy it," she says, glancing at the sentence and sighing slightly before she turns the page. "You sure did get around before then, though. Whatever, nobody needs twelve hours with Jasmine, I'll take it."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Thank you! And, you know, I did spend several hundred years unaware that it was possible to survive without killing people, I do not claim sainthood but I do claim ordinary levels of decency. A grand total of two people of my erstwhile species made that particular discovery without being told."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Now that sounds like a story."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Ah yes. A grand tale, starring a saint and a succubus and many less creative individuals like myself. Until my recent and fairly inexplicable death I was a vampire. It turns out that said vampires can operate on an animal diet given a strong enough stomach, but I believe we can be forgiven for not all of us making the attempt. The Emperor's father figured it out without ever even trying the traditional fare - he's the saint. And a cousin to the imperial family - these are mostly adoptive relationships, by the by - figured it out due to sentiment for her previously doomed-from-the-first-kiss paramours. She's the succubus, as were the sisters she convinced to make the switch along with her. The rest of us had to wait for the news, languishing in ignorance, eating delicious humans. Of course, after Her Majesty took over, animal diets were no longer a quirky option for the ethically qualmed but the rule."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 07:44 pm (UTC)

"That's a story, all right," she laughs. "Lemme go put this in the records." She holds up the papers and beckons him down the hall, asking as she goes, "Do you know your world number?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 07:45 pm (UTC)

"I was not aware that they were numbered, although I was aware that there were a number of them."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 07:48 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

"Remind me to look it up, then."

They reach her office—number eight—and she types his res code into the computer, clicks a button, and then hands him back his papers.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 07:50 pm (UTC)

"You could," he points out, "simply look it up now." (Now is a good time.)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 07:52 pm (UTC)

Grinning, she turns back to the computer and copies his code into another program.

...And blinks.

"No way!" she says. "You're number sixty? I'm number sixty."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh, are you? I don't believe we've met, but when and where did you live and die?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Two-thousand-ish," she says. "Montreal. Why did I never hear about vampires? I'm pretty sure I'd remember vampires."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Oh, we were always very secretive," says Nathan, waving a hand. "Her Majesty has been working on undoing that in the least disruptive way possible. She wishes to eventually turn every human who'll take the syringe - it's all very clean and clinical nowawdays - and thereby end death." He gestures at himself. "Or at least put it off. I really have no idea how someone managed to kill me. Probably magic was involved. Anyway. In 2000 she hadn't even taken over and the vampires were ruled by much nastier fellows; she didn't manage the trick until 2011. By and large you'd only know about vampires if one bit you, this way or that."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Huh." She smiles. "I definitely don't remember anybody biting me. At least, not any vampires."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:03 pm (UTC)

He looks her up and down.

He smiles back.

"You'd remember," he says, "if a vampire bit you. Either which way."

(He can't really purr anymore, but he can try.)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 08:05 pm (UTC)

"So," she says brightly, "I was actually on my way out. Wanna come back to my place?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:06 pm (UTC)

Is this a good time to go back to her place, he wonders?

Oh yes. This is a very good time.

"That sounds delightful," he says brightly.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 08:08 pm (UTC)

Laughing, she leads him back out, waving as they pass the receptionist, who rolls his eyes.

"Bye, Eights," he calls after them.

"Bye!" she calls back.

underground

arenaria

Paper and pen and a setup to let her write do come eventually.

But they do not come soon enough to catch disintegrating memories.

Shell - she's Shell and the live one is Bell, she decides this early on - supposes that she could have been kidnapped by worse torturers. Voice (he or she, the timbre of the voice doesn't suggest either strongly; it's never more than the two of them together and there's no call for names, so Shell just thinks of her captor as Voice) is as likely to read her a bedtime story or use torturer's control to lead her through neat series of dance steps as to hurt her.

And by the same token, Voice is as likely to hurt her as to do anything else.

The first time is startling even to the self-proclaimed wimp. Didn't Golden burn for days to become what she did? Didn't Amariah's daemon fall into the hands of someone just this cruel? Weren't they both fine, not, perhaps, unchanged, but functional, recognizable as themselves -

But Golden's mind expanded as she changed, enough to hold the pain. Amariah expected rescue and knew that if rescue were not soon enough she could expect death.

Both of them went through their miseries in the arms of people who loved them.

Except for Voice, Shell is alone.

The first time is shattering and destroying and even after Voice torches her intact for the fifth time and sends her into her box and Shell knows she's safe for overnight she cannot stop shuddering, cannot sleep, cannot piece together distracting fantasy or memory well enough to close her eyes now that they're hers to open and attempt to retreat to dreams, all she can do is relive every cut and burn and involuntary twist of her body into this implement or that, all she can think about is when it will happen again. When she can calm down to the point of doing anything else, her brain will not permit direction to arbitrary subjects, will not hold with attempts at self-comfort via dreams of her lost loved Sherlock, will not spare one fraction of a percent of Shell's available mental power towards anything but thinking fiercely of immediate escape, immediate ways to turn Voice's attention elsewhere, immediate attempts at subverting torturer's control with some feat of will. The past and the farther future are irrelevant.

She used to have dreams of nonsense or of pleasanter days. They morph overnight into nightmares.

All her frenetic planning - speculations about how to mix the chemicals that appear in the bathroom or sabotage the lock to her box or make some incremental progress against the door from the basement even in a way that torches her because that's all right she'll just torch and can try again and again and get that little more accomplished - ultimately nothing.

No one has gotten out of the box. Shell doesn't either. Voice doesn't really like it when she tries. Shell runs out of ideas and then stops.

By the time paper and pen and sufficiently well-rigged chains to force Shell's gaze away from the door to the basement so that she can be allowed to write appear, Shell does not know how long she has been kept as Voice's plaything, but dimly suspects that it has been years. She does not know what the bits of name she discarded were beyond "Shell" and is not sure if the Shell part was something she originally called herself or just a name for the hollow thing she's been turned into. She does not know what to write.

She looks at the notebook and the pen that Voice has left her. She looks at her hands, free to write. And can't remember what she wanted them for.

Was she worried she'd forget something if she didn't write it down?

What is there to forget? There's Voice, and there's things Shell made up to make herself feel better before she realized that nothing would help. Silly stories. Power fantasies. She's got half a dozen contradictory visions of herself dancing through her head wielding magic to destroy people like Voice or put them where they can do no harm. It's the sort of thing anyone would make up, in her position.

Before this, before the paper appeared, Shell went through cycles of forgetting and knowing she'd forgotten and panicking and recovering nothing, or recovering a little and losing that and then some the next time Voice came across an interesting new acid. She kept Sherlock the longest, long after everything else was ashes and forgotten frames of dreams: she did not know where Sherlock had come from or why but knew that she'd existed.

Then Sherlock went.

Shell lost Sherlock's face, first, or rather couldn't remember which of the faces in her memories labeled "Sherlock" was the one, the one who loved her, the one she missed, the one she'd been wishing for. She didn't remember whether Sherlock was a man or a woman. She forgot the name, next, because there's another, matching face understood to be not-Sherlock, and any difference she'd once known how to detect was erased in years of scarcely-interrupted darkness and screaming, and that one is named something else, and her scrambled brain is in no position to resolve the confusion: it abandons the remembered name along with the forgotten other label and Shell has neither picture nor word to guide her. When the world has been only Shell and Voice for some time more, her brain abandons the wasted effort of modeling people with personalities, and Shell cannot conjure the fact that her beloved missing person would do this or that. The occasional dreams in which Someone breaks into Voice's house and rescues Bell and spirits her away to safety and murmurs away all the fear - spin away into nothing until the nightmares are unbroken.

After that she stops tracking what she's lost.

She does not mark the occasion when she can no longer remember how her Someone smelled or the way her Someone held her or what her Someone used to whisper in gentler darkness than this.

When she has paper, she can think of nothing to write. She is not interested in storing for posterity anything that she can access, now. (Trauma, confinement, puppetry, pain - she'd as soon it were all obliterated before she could store it.)

She can think of nothing to write in what proves to be wobbly, trembling, childlike penmanship beyond:

Someone loved me once.

She is sure that's true. (No, she's not, but she thinks it's true, thinks it's not just wishing, her psychology - however wrecked and mutilated it is at this point - does not make sense if no one ever loved her.)

Someone loved me once.

She writes it and writes it and writes it, over and over, and she runs out of paper, and she never thinks of anything else to put down, and she cries.

No one loves her now.

timer

temporal_affairs

Downside's not so bad, as long as he checks when to go down this street and turn that corner, when to visit this neighbor or call that friend, when to look for a trade for this object or look that thing up in the library. People say he's lucky. Most people here do not have magic - no one else he's met.

He calls himself "Timer". "Nathan" just doesn't fit in here, and he's here, for the long haul.

He finds Eights is famous, and Jasmine too, for diametrically opposite reasons; he hooks up with the former a couple of times, steers carefully clear of the latter, straightens up his colorful little apartment and swaps things in and out until it's livable, and re-learns how to be human. He times everything, and his trusty timer makes him comfortable: it brings him better-than-random trades for food (weird, eating food again) and pretty girls (it's always girls; whatever quirk of not-straightness that landed his mate bond where it stuck has not found any similar exceptions here, though he does partake of a few threesomes and he's perfectly comfortable not being the only male in the room) and keeps him away from torturers.

Time passes. Being human means that the memories he lays down here aren't as crisp as the vampire ones, and he can remember being alive - at least, as a vampire - much better than most hundred-year Downsiders can. Eights's presence tells him that Downside collects from Aurum (or "60") even when the death doesn't take place in Milliways, but he doesn't find anyone he knows, when he checks. That's all right. His timer finds him people and all he has to do is be his gregarious self.

He hopes Kerron's okay without his daddy.

(The Joker, he knows, can find someone else. He's glad now that he never turned.)

Timer follows his witchcraft around with a will, and it is trustworthy.

downside

arenaria

Voice lets her go.

Shell doesn't know how long it's been. She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know how to get home, or if she has one.

She stands on Voice's doorstep. She blinks slowly at the brightness.

She walks in a random direction.

Downsiders aren't big on charity. It's not like it's going to kill her if she doesn't get help. It's not like she's unfamiliar with the effects of dehydration and hunger; Voice didn't always remember to take good care of the pet in the basement. Shell walks, and when she's tired she lies down on the ground and sleeps, and when she wakes up she walks, and every few days she curls up on the ground, waits to torch from thirst, and then gets up and goes on.

She doesn't count the number of times this happens. It doesn't matter.

She walks. She has nightmares. She walks.

On an unremarkable day on an unremarkable street after unremarkable stretches of years, she feels herself cross a telltale threshold of dizziness and headache: she cannot make significant forward progress towards Not Where She Is Currently Located until she torches or (less likely) someone gives her a lot of water. It's possible she'll be able to sleep through this torch. She sits. She leans on a wall. She should probably pick up the next sharp object she finds. Maybe a piece of broken glass will present itself. Then she can skip these parts.

She sits, and she closes her eyes, and she waits. If the buildings around her would ever have seemed familiar, they don't now.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 01:34 am (UTC)

It may become apparent that someone is standing over her.

arenaria
2013-03-08 01:35 am (UTC)

She can still open her eyes. She looks up. But she's well past talking. She doesn't have any saliva left.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 01:37 am (UTC)

"Do you need a torch?" he inquires kindly.

arenaria
2013-03-08 01:37 am (UTC)

"Mm."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 01:39 am (UTC)

He departs.

He returns half a minute later, with a knife.

arenaria
2013-03-08 01:40 am (UTC)

Shell leans her head back for him. People sometimes offer to torch her when she's like this. So far no one's let her hold the weapon.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 01:43 am (UTC)

He might have offered it to her, but he's not entirely sure she could hold it if he did. So he saves either of them the trouble of finding out.

arenaria
2013-03-08 01:45 am (UTC)

Shell closes her eyes and doesn't-have-the-water-content-to-whimper when the knife bites, and opens them when she's through torching. She licks her lips. "Thank you," she murmurs.

(This is the part where he walks away, or wants to hear her life story and walks away when it's what it is, or takes her home with him and hurts her for a few hours and then lets her go because most people aren't Voice. She is almost curious which it is.)

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 01:48 am (UTC)

It is not any of those parts.

It is the part where he says: "Would you like some tea?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 01:49 am (UTC)

Tea. Tea. Shell's vocabulary is a little rusty, but Voice did talk to her, she's overheard this and that in all her walking. Tea is a beverage.

"I would love some tea," she says.

And she gets up.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 01:53 am (UTC)

Strat leads her into his house, and puts the kettle on, and sits down at his kitchen table, and invites her to do the same.

arenaria
2013-03-08 01:53 am (UTC)

She sits.

"I'm Shell," she says after a moment.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 01:55 am (UTC)

"And I'm Strat. And it seems to me I've seen you before."

arenaria
2013-03-08 01:56 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she says, folding her hands on the table and looking at them. "I don't remember you. I don't remember anything from before - some time ago."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 01:58 am (UTC)

"What do you remember?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:01 am (UTC)

"Someone loved me once," Shell says automatically. (She repeats this to herself in her thoughts, constantly. It is the only thing before Voice. It is the only important thing.) "I died, I guess, but that's not something I remember, only something that must have happened. I must have been going from somewhere to somewhere else. And then a torturer who I never got a look at and never introduced themselves but I called them Voice in my head found me. And I don't know how long Voice had me. It was a long time. And then they let me go. And I don't know where I reside anymore. So I just walk."
Edited 2013-03-08 02:04 (UTC)

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:10 am (UTC)

"One moment," he says, and he gets up from the table and goes into another room and brings back a small scrap of paper.

"I believe this is yours."

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:13 am (UTC)

She looks at it.

It doesn't look exactly like her handwriting, but maybe if her hands didn't shake so much -

"Is it?" she asks. "Was I here once?" Pause. "A residence. Residences accumulate food - and have running water - and I have one. That's - good."

It has been a long time since anything unambiguously good has happened to her. Even Voice releasing her required that Voice catch her in the first place.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:14 am (UTC)

"You were here once, and you left me that. And when I went to visit you, there was no sign of you anywhere."

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:15 am (UTC)

"- Do you know how long ago that was?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:15 am (UTC)

"Around sixty or seventy years."

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:17 am (UTC)

That doesn't sound far off the mark to Shell, not that she's been paying attention. She nods once. "I don't remember the place," she says, looking at the paper. "But I guess it's mine." She pauses. "Someone loved me once, I wonder if they made me a nice place."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:17 am (UTC)

"I expect that they did."

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:18 am (UTC)

"I wish I could remember who it was."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:18 am (UTC)

"You knew someone named Sherlock," he offers. "But you didn't mention anything else about them, so it might not be the same person."

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:21 am (UTC)

"...It sounds like a name," offers Shell. "Some names I hear people using when they talk outside about people who don't have Downside names yet don't sound like names to me."

But that's all.

"Did I say anything else? I remember - I wanted paper - and eventually Voice gave me paper, after they were sure I wouldn't be able to look at them if they set me up in a way where I'd be able to write - but by then I didn't have anything to put."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:22 am (UTC)

"You were looking for paper when you spoke with me, too, I think. I remember I gave you a pen."

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:22 am (UTC)

"I don't have it anymore. I'm sorry."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:23 am (UTC)

"I have accumulated several more in the interim," he says dryly.

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:23 am (UTC)

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:24 am (UTC)

Strat smiles.

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:24 am (UTC)

"I guess if it was sixty or seventy years ago it's surprising you remember me at all. Let alone anything I said."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:25 am (UTC)

"I have a very good memory."

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:25 am (UTC)

"That's lucky," Shell sighs. "If nice things happened to me that would be a nice thing I'd want, a really, really good memory..."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:28 am (UTC)

The kettle clicks. Strat provides tea.

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:30 am (UTC)

Shell drinks it, in slow little sips, wrapping both hands around the cup.

"...This seems like... a thing that can happen. The same way 'Sherlock' sounds like a name. Did you give me tea before?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 02:30 am (UTC)

"Yes."

arenaria
2013-03-08 02:32 am (UTC)

"It's good," says Shell. "Thank you."

Sip. Sip.

"I wonder if I could get anywhere at remembering things by finding out what other things seem like things that can happen. I wonder if that's reliable or if I'd just wind up believing the silly stories I made up to make myself feel better when Voice had me. There were a lot. They all contradict each other."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 03:06 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "I don't have much experience with that kind of reconstruction."

arenaria
2013-03-08 03:07 am (UTC)

"I know I wanted paper very badly at one point, or I don't suppose I'd care so much now."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 03:15 am (UTC)

He nods.

arenaria
2013-03-08 03:17 am (UTC)

"I wonder what I did. I wonder who I was. I can't even remember if Shell is actually my name or not. Did I tell you my name before?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 03:18 am (UTC)

"Shell sounds about right."

arenaria
2013-03-08 03:20 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Shell, brightening. "That's good then."

Eventually tea is consumed, and Shell has reread her residential code enough times to commit to memory as long as nothing traumatic happens in the meantime.

Shell gets up to go.

And stops.

"I am very, very afraid now and I don't know why," she murmurs, "but I don't want to leave here alone."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 03:24 am (UTC)

"I'll come with you," he says.

arenaria
2013-03-08 03:27 am (UTC)

"Thank you."

Shell passed the station on her way through this neighborhood, and goes back that way now. She can't remember ever using one before, though she's sure she has, but the interface isn't too complicated.

She feels it is very important to be exacting in typing in her res code.

She starts over twice, to make sure.

When she's sure she has it right, and she's memorized the path from station to her residence, they travel.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 03:28 am (UTC)

Strat observes her exactness, but doesn't comment on it.

arenaria
2013-03-08 03:30 am (UTC)

Her apartment is cluttered. Every surface has something on it. Some surfaces have large stacks of things. Her shelves are full of books, and her kitchenette is overflowing with food and pots and pans, and her bed is heaped with clothes, and there is all manner of miscellany hiding her carpet.

"I guess stuff just keeps accumulating if no one's home," observes Shell, tilting her head.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 03:32 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Strat. "Would you like help organizing the debris?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 03:34 am (UTC)

"Yes. And if you see anything you want, tell me, you've - you're the reason I can get at any of it at all."

She nudges things aside to make a path across the little apartment to her bed and starts sorting through the heap of fabric, holding things up against herself to see if they'll fit her or not.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 03:35 am (UTC)

Many of them won't. Some will, though.

Strat steps inside and closes the door.

arenaria
2013-03-08 03:49 am (UTC)

Presently Shell has acquired a small heap of new outfits for herself, and a larger heap of things she will have to trade or give away, and she starts busying herself with what's on the floor, trying on shoes and evaluating knicknacks and finding space between the books and the edges of their shelves to temporarily stash things. When she's got the pile of assorted purses, lightbulbs, and throw pillows cleared from in front of her nightstand, she peers into the drawers, finds and snorts at the crown without a trace of recognition, and puts it back its drawer along with the nicest purse and a few other potentially useful odds-and-ends. She starts using the purses as sorting containers for smaller objects.

She has not eaten anything in a few years, and, conveniently enough, Downside is not a place in which spoilage occurs. Once her recent torch is far enough in the past for her to be noticeably hungry, and once there are paths between all key locations in her little apartment, she walks through the path leading to the kitchenette and looks for something edible in its current form. She finds a ham sandwich, which she wolfs down, and goes back to the accumulated items. She sorts through the books that have appeared on her shelf, and divides them between "keep" and "read once, then trade away" - the latter form a group of stacks just beside her bed.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 12:36 pm (UTC)

Strat, meanwhile, helps keep the paths clear and passes her interesting things he spots amidst the junk, with comments like "valuable to collectors" (a watergun) and "I expect you'll want this" (a blank spiral-bound notebook).

arenaria
2013-03-08 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Shell each time. "I'm going to have to have a - the word I want to use is estate sale but that's obviously the wrong word. I'll lay stuff out on the street on a blanket, I guess."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 04:29 pm (UTC)

"A sound strategy."

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:04 pm (UTC)

Shell sorts and heaps and consolidates. She finds a laundry basket, in the closet, and because it landed upside-down it is not already full; she fills it. She gazes exasperatedly at the things that appear in the spaces she's cleared; apparently apartments don't just fill up and then stop, they fill up and then become disgruntled about it.

Eventually, for a change of pace, she opens the door to the bathroom to see just how much shampoo she has now.

This door reveals no shampoo at all.

"- Oh," she breathes, because she can't remember the name of the place, can't remember what it is, did not until this moment remember that there was such a thing to have been forgotten, but this feels like a thing that can happen, and now it has. "Oh, oh, oh."

And the thing that has happened means: go inside. It is safe. It is better than where you are.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 05:06 pm (UTC)

"There's a bit of luck," says Strat.

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Shell, and she doesn't so much walk through the door as lean through, like the bar is sunshine and she's a plant, not that Downside has plants.

Her fingertips catch on the edge of the door. "Are you coming?"

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 05:09 pm (UTC)

"I may as well."

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:11 pm (UTC)

She holds the door for him, though she's trembling in place like she's holding herself back from hurtling forward and letting it fall back into its frame.

When she doesn't have to hold it anymore to let him by, she does go further into the bar.

But she can't remember what she used to do here - cannot actually call up a memory of being here at all. She only knows that it's safe here.

She turns in place, once she's far enough in to have a view, and drinks in the surroundings.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 05:20 pm (UTC)

Srat watches her for a moment, then decides that she is probably all right and heads off to get a drink.

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:29 pm (UTC)

Shell follows him when he passes her, and watches him order, but she's not hungry or thirsty right now so she doesn't copy him immediately. She wanders past tables, pausing sometimes to turn around and look at everything - the stars, the people, the stairwell, the back door, the people.

No one looks familiar, but they all look like people-who-can-be, even the people who don't look like anyone in Downside.

She must have been here before.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 05:43 pm (UTC)

There's a table with a person at it! A person who definitely looks like he can be.

Also, he appears to recognize her.

"Hiya, smarty pants," he says amicably.

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:43 pm (UTC)

She blinks at him.

"Did I know you once?" she asks slowly.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Probably. Which one are you?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:44 pm (UTC)

"...Which?" she says. "I'm called Shell."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Are you now," he says, slow and thoughtful. "Where you from, Shell?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Downside," she says. "I don't remember before that, but I assume I lived somewhere, before I died." She looks around her. "I might not go back, though."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Oh, well - I might - but - it's not safe there, and I think it's safe here."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 05:52 pm (UTC)

"It usually is," he agrees. "What's Downside like?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:53 pm (UTC)

"It's..." She makes a vague gesture, and sits down at his table. "I never had to explain it before, what do you want to know? Everybody there is dead, there's that."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Let's start with: what's the danger?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Torturers," says Shell promptly. "Most of them if you catch their interest just hurt you for a few hours, maybe a day or two, and then let you go, but one kept me for much longer than that and I think that's why I can't remember anything. Even knowing how to fight doesn't do any good, they have this thing called torturers' control, they can make you move however they want unless you're a contractor. The one who kept me for all those years never actually touched me, not once."

She's had decades to process Voice, and while she would be very alarmed if anything about her situation suggested that Voice or anyone Voicelike was about to capture her again, she is not particularly alarmed to be merely describing the history. Not here, where it's safe; not when the door will lead back to her cluttered apartment, also relatively safe.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he murmurs sympathetically.

arenaria
2013-03-08 06:03 pm (UTC)

"They let me go," Shell says. "And after I walked around for a while I even found someone I met before they got me, and he knew where I resided, so now I can go back there if I want. But I might stay here instead."
Edited 2013-03-08 18:03 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-08 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Staying here's a good choice," he says. "Somebody I love got killed here once, but that's a special case."

arenaria
2013-03-08 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Someone loved me once," sighs Shell dreamily, leaning her face on one hand.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 06:07 pm (UTC)

He smiles softly.

"I'll bet they did."

arenaria
2013-03-08 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I think so, anyway. I have an apartment. In Downside your house is how much you were mourned when you died. My apartment is little, so it's probably just one person, but it's - nice, so I think they must've loved me a lot. It's got a lot of clutter because I wasn't there to clear it out for, I think Strat said sixty or seventy years, but it's got pretty wallpaper and furniture and stuff. And anyway it's the only thing I remember from before for sure."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Wouldja do me a favour?" he asks suddenly. "Open your door for me?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to go to Downside?" asks Shell. "On purpose? Aren't you alive?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 06:15 pm (UTC)

He smiles crookedly. Not that there is another option.

"I won't stay long. Don't you worry about me."

arenaria
2013-03-08 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Do you get doors to here whenever you want them?" she asks quizzically, but she gets up to go to the door.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 06:19 pm (UTC)

"When I say 'not long'," he says as he follows, "I mean mmmaybe a couple minutes. Will you be a sweetheart and hold the door for me?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 06:36 pm (UTC)

"I - sure, I suppose, if you just want a look at my apartment or something," says Shell.

One does not dwell in Downside without developing patience.

She holds the door for him.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:22 pm (UTC)

As he steps through the door, he makes a very specific wish:

if there is a version of Nathan in this world, one who's met him, met him and loved him and died, he wants to be where that person is.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:25 pm (UTC)

Timer's in bed with Eights, napping off a lovely bit of fornication.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Awww," says the Joker.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Do I know you?" inquires Eights.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Nope!"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:29 pm (UTC)

Nathan wakes up.

"...This is awkward," he says. "Did you die, babe? Eights," he adds, "this is the Joker, I might've mentioned him?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," she says. "Him."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Milliways," he explains succinctly. "I came to see if you're okay. Are you okay? I'm glad you're not stuck on me, anyway, that would've been tragic."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Not a vampire anymore," Nathan points out. "Bond was toast. I'm fine, this place isn't so bad, for me. Not overwhelmingly popular among some audiences, I guess, but me, I'm a Timer. But babe, I died a hundred years ago. I figured you never knew this place existed, how'd you find it?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Ran into somebody else I knew that died and went here," he explains. "One'a Goldie's alts. I didn't know you were here, or anything, but... well, the way she was talking, I wanted to check. See if you wanted a ride home."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:38 pm (UTC)

"One of Bella's alts got here? Shit, why isn't the place remodeled to her satisfaction yet?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Looks like her magic didn't stick," he shrugs. "She didn't come out of it too well. Doesn't remember much."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Eegh," Nathan says. "Well, I dunno. How long's it been on your end? How's the munchkin?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sweetie," he murmurs.

"I unkilled you. Took a pretty big wish, but you came back good as new. Except now there's two of you, I guess."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:43 pm (UTC)

"...That sounds profoundly awkward?" offers Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:48 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Well, maybe. It's up to you, sweetheart. I'll take you if you wanna go."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so fast anymore," shrugs Nathan. "D'you want to hang around for a bit while I think about it? See the sights? I avoid torturers but you might like some of Eights's friends. There's a decent restaurant in my neighborhood, I eat food now."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:53 pm (UTC)

"I'd love to," he says. "Got somebody holding the door for me, though. I'll go see she feels about being a doorstop for a little longer."

He holds out his arms.

"One for the road, sweetheart?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Sure, babe," says Nathan. He's not wearing anything under the covers - it has not been time to get dressed yet - but he gets up from under them and hugs his ex-mate.
Edited 2013-03-08 20:55 (UTC)

finaldiscussion
2013-03-08 08:57 pm (UTC)

(Elsewhere, Strat is just leaving Shell's apartment, having come back from Milliways with a lovely beer to keep him company for a bit.)

manofmyword
2013-03-08 08:58 pm (UTC)

The Joker hugs him back, smiling.

"It's funny," he murmurs, "I feel like saying I missed you, even though I never really had time to."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 08:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm voting you two for most adorable afterlife reunion of the millennium," says Eights.

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:01 pm (UTC)

For certain values of 'meanwhile', Sherlock is just coming in from the lake.

She starts walking across the room, spots Shell as she passes in view of the front door, and

stops

walking.

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:03 pm (UTC)

Shell sat down to be a more effortless doorstop.

When she sees Sherlock, she gets to her feet in a clumsy scramble. The door swings closed behind her, forgotten.

Shell stares.

And stares.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Wouldn't know, I haven't seen many," Timer comments to Eights.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I've seen a few," she says, "and trust me, you're one of the cutest. Also, out of all the ones where one party found the other in bed with me, definitely the least awkward."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:10 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles and runs his fingers familiarly through Nathan's hair. He doesn't seem inclined to let go terribly fast.

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Bell?" she murmurs.

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm Shell," says Shell. "But you're - terribly important and I don't know why."

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Tell me everything about you," she says softly.

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember very much," Shell apologizes, and her hands twist in front of her, because this very important person wants everything and Shell does not know how to give her everything, "but I can tell you what I remember - but I don't know where to start."

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Start at the beginning. Or as close as you can get to it."

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:21 pm (UTC)

"I - well - I don't remember dying, but I must have, because I'm from Downside and everyone there is dead - and I've forgotten everything else before Voice, and I don't even know if that's what they're called or anything about them because I never saw them and Voice isn't even their name probably, I made it up, but anyway I don't remember this part but before Voice I met Strat, because just a few hours ago I ran into him and he torched me because I was out of water again and he knew where I resided because before Voice I told him, before I forgot - so he took me back there - but that's not the beginning anymore. I'm so sorry."

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:23 pm (UTC)

"It's all right," says Sherlock. "Who is Voice?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Voice is a torturer. That's all I know, I never saw them, they never touched me, all there was was - their voice. Most torturers aren't so bad, if you get one's attention you're in for a bad few hours or a day maybe unless they think you're special for some reason but then they get bored. Voice kept me in their basement for - for a long time, I don't know how long, I asked for paper and they gave me paper but it took so long that I couldn't remember what I wanted to write anymore, except -"

She hesitates, still staring at Sherlock.

Sherlock is terribly important.

There is one other terribly important thing in Shell's head but she doesn't know if they're connected or not.

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Except?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Just the same thing, over and over, I couldn't remember anything else, I just wrote someone loved me once," Shell says. "I think that's true. I really think so. My apartment looks like it, too."

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:47 pm (UTC)

"It is true," says Sherlock.

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I thought so!" says Shell. "Anyway, Voice had me for a long time, and then they let me go, I don't know why it was when it was, and - I couldn't remember my residence code or anything - so I just - walked. I torched every few days because I couldn't usually find water."

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:52 pm (UTC)

"...Would you like to come upstairs and sit down?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Shell, because this person is terribly important and I'll go anywhere with you sounds forward.

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:55 pm (UTC)

They are now upstairs. In a smallish bedroom. Sherlock is standing still and looking as expressionless as she has for this entire conversation.

arenaria
2013-03-08 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Shell, in much the same tone she used when she found Milliways. "Oh, magic."

And she sits on the bed, and crosses her ankles, and uncrosses them, and finally she sits on her feet and her hands both, to hold them still, because they're shaking and it's annoying.

sicaria
2013-03-08 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what to do now," Sherlock says quietly.

arenaria
2013-03-08 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Why not?" asks Shell. "I didn't interrupt you doing something, did I? You're very very important and I don't want to mess up whatever you've been doing. - I'll help you, if I can, but I'm not very good at anything."

sicaria
2013-03-08 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Right now," says Sherlock, "there is nothing I could be doing that is more important than you."

arenaria
2013-03-08 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Shell. She's not about to question the Important Person's judgment. "...Should I say more things? I think you have the, the broad shape of everything, but there are details, here and there, if you want them, except I don't think you'd necessarily like them -" Shell has no idea how she can read this into motionlessness and stoic calm expression, but she can, she's very sure. "- I remember this morning perfectly well and it's much nicer than the rest," she adds, "Strat torched me and then invited me home for tea, that was unusual, most often even if someone mercy-torched me they'd just walk away after."

sicaria
2013-03-08 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I will not like them," says Sherlock. "I want them anyway."

arenaria
2013-03-08 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Are... are you sure? It's a lot. Strat says it was sixty or seventy years between when I told him where I resided and when I found him today. It will take a lot of your time and you're very, very important."

sicaria
2013-03-08 10:18 pm (UTC)

"I have a lot of time."

arenaria
2013-03-08 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but you can stop me whenever you want," Shell says, and she starts.

She meanders, but she tries to keep her transitions as clear as possible: here is something Voice did (here is a digression on how torturer's control works, the finer points), here is how that is different from this one who caught here there or that one who caught her the next neighborhood over, here is her rueful description of how she tried tried tried to fall away from caring, any of the thousand times she's been tortured, because all she'd have to do to have a fair shot at escaping would be to bear one person's sentence - even a piddling single hour - without trying to change her mind. She never could; she is not whatever stronger-willed person took her original sentence (because she remembers the first time Voice hurt her; she'd remember if there was an occasion before that; if only she hadn't contracted it out her assigned torturer would have found her in Voice's basement and taken her away and tortured her for some much shorter period of time and then she'd have been free, she admires contractors but wishes she'd procrastinated on getting one). She never even made her way to the Crescent to try to sit the exam. She's desensitized, to dehydration (here is how she learned when it was time to sit down and wait to torch), to all manner of injury, but she has never gotten to the point of not wanting it to stop, and that forbids her the contractor's blessings. She certainly wasn't going to become a torturer, not even to turn it into a contest whenever someone took a liking to her. Here is something else Voice did. Here are the fragments of unbelievable fantasy stories she invented to console herself, stories in which she could do magic just like the Important Person and could get out and put Voice somewhere where they'd never be able to catch and harm another pet.

Here is a tangent about her apartment, and about how it is small so probably only one person mourned her, but it's nice, it's not a ramshackle hovel, and that means that this one person must have loved her very much. She is sure someone loved her, and she was sure even before the Important Person said it was true (though she does not know how the Important Person came to have this information, she does not think the Important Person would lie to her.) Her psychology does not make sense without it. And since no one has loved her since she died, and because her apartment confirms it, she is sure that this happened when she was alive.

She hopes they are okay.

sicaria
2013-03-08 10:35 pm (UTC)

"My name," she says softly, "is Sherlock."

arenaria
2013-03-08 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Strat told me I said I knew a Sherlock, seventy or eighty years ago," says Shell. "I don't remember anything else, though - I'm sorry -"

sicaria
2013-03-08 10:42 pm (UTC)

"You are categorically not required to be sorry to me about anything."

arenaria
2013-03-08 10:46 pm (UTC)

"But - was it you? Or someone else with the same name, that I knew, before? Did I know you? I could tell right away that you were very important - but I don't know why."

sicaria
2013-03-08 10:47 pm (UTC)

"It was me," she says.

"I need to go—find someone."
Edited 2013-03-08 22:47 (UTC)

arenaria
2013-03-08 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Don't leave me," blurts Shell, involuntarily, her hands escaping from where she's sitting on them to reach out in Sherlock's direction, "no, please, I missed you, not yet, please -"

sicaria
2013-03-08 10:56 pm (UTC)

Sherlock teleports both of them downstairs—Shell ends up sitting on a table—opens the door, and says,

[I need you.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 10:59 pm (UTC)

[Right now?] Bell wants to know. She did not come along on this excursion to Milliways for a reason. Tony did not come along on this excursion to Milliways for the same reason.

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock?" murmurs Shell in a tentative, mousy voice. She's sitting on her hands again. She has overstepped her bounds with Important Sherlock, clearly, and should not have made that request.

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:01 pm (UTC)

She closes her eyes.

[Yes.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock needs me right now apparently," Bell murmurs apologetically to Tony, and she kisses his nose and spends a square to make herself presentable and teleports. "What is it?" she asks her girlfriend, tilting her head.

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:03 pm (UTC)

Shell, who cannot see Bell from where she's sitting, draws her knees up to her chin and hugs her legs.

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:03 pm (UTC)

Sherlock points.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:06 pm (UTC)

Bell steps into the bar, spots Shell, and - does not have quite Sherlock's powers of observation.

"...Another alt is an emergency? Or do I just need to read the story directly because words have failed you?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:07 pm (UTC)

Shell doesn't look up from her knees at the sound of Bell's voice. (Like all voices, they sound different from the inside as opposed to the outside; she doesn't even recognize the sound.) She is berating herself for misjudging her leeway with Important Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:10 pm (UTC)

Sherlock does not move.

Words have more than failed her. Everything has failed her. This is Bell but it's not Bell but it is and she is hurting and Sherlock does not know how to fix it how does she fix it what do they do.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:12 pm (UTC)

Okay. Bell knows how to deal with paralyzed Sherlock. She reaches out and squeezes her shoulder and spins up to top speed and reads.

"Oh, shit," she murmurs. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit."

And she drops her hand and she takes five long steps in Shell's direction and she cups Shell's face in her hands. "Hi, Shell," she says softly. "Do you want to remember?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:13 pm (UTC)

Shell looks up at Bell, and then over at Sherlock, and says -

"I said this morning, if nice things happened to me, that would be a nice thing I'd want, a really good memory - but - but I think I upset Sherlock, and she's very important -"
Edited 2013-03-08 23:14 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:15 pm (UTC)

"She is," Bell replies quietly. "She's very important and she loves you more than you can imagine and she wants only nice things to happen to you, ever again, forever - here -"

She spends a hex.

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:16 pm (UTC)

Shell flinches as though she's been electrocuted, and her eyes fly wide open and then squeeze shut.

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:18 pm (UTC)

Sherlock slowly drops her arm from where it was pointing at Shell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Do you need a minute?" Bell murmurs to her counterpart. "I think you've got more memories to process than I did."

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Just a minute," breathes Shell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:21 pm (UTC)

Bell takes that minute to go over to Sherlock and steer her in Shell's direction. [You don't have to react any special way. It's you she wants, not somebody following some script. But be there,] she says to Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:22 pm (UTC)

She sits at the table that Shell is sitting on.

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:24 pm (UTC)

Shell flings her arms around Sherlock and clings tight.

"I forgot you," she says, weeping. "I forgot you. How could I do that? I tried - I really tried - I kept you longest of anything - but I forgot you, I didn't even recognize your name when Strat said it -"

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:25 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her back, shivering very slightly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:28 pm (UTC)

Bell peers into Sherlock's head.

She finds the mental equivalent of wordless screaming.

[It's okay. It'll be okay. We'll figure out what to do with her, she'll be fine, it'll be okay, she doesn't blame you - I didn't think to look for anything like this either, it's not your fault.]

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I love you," Shell sobs into Sherlock's shoulder. "I love you, I love you, do you still love me, please still love me - I'm so sorry I forgot you -"

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I love you," she murmurs, almost soundlessly, almost tonelessly.

(it is her fault it can't not be her fault it will always be her fault she is wrong she is of no more than practical value and whatever practical value she has was insufficient to stop this from happening)

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:34 pm (UTC)

This reply is enough to stop Shell from crying, if not instantaneously.

She does not uncling. She clingsclingsclingsclings.

"I used to wish you were there, it was terrible and I did it anyway, if you were there it would've meant you were dead, I'm sorry, I love you I love you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:38 pm (UTC)

Bell moves to sit at the table Shell and Sherlock are both sitting on. [It is not your fault. I didn't think of this either, I was in just as good a position to do so as you were, I could have scanned the memory of the wish for loopholes and I didn't, I could have wondered about the details of how resurrection works and I didn't, you and I did the same thing, we looked at me being alive and never hypothesized that somewhere Shell was being dead, is it my fault?]

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:41 pm (UTC)

"I wish I was there too," Sherlock whispers.

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:44 pm (UTC)

"No, no, you're alive, it's good that you're alive, I'm glad you're alive, and I found you, I found you, you're here, I love you," says Shell, crying again. "I figured out what happened right away before everything - my guide took one look at my apartment and thought you'd be a suicide but I knew better - I knew you'd bring me back and that was why it was little and I knew you'd be okay and Tony would be okay and Atlantis would be okay and that was all good but I'm just so selfish -"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Everyone at home is fine," Bell confirms softly. "Ranae and Shark never even found out. Tony did but only after I was alive. Coin and her helpers are all on the moon. Everything's just how you would've made it. I'm so sorry for never imagining you."

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I -" Shell hiccups between sobs - "I never would've imagined me either. There's no way but through here to do anything to communicate with livelings - before I forgot everything I was going to see if there was a - a biography of you or something in the library - but I never did - and now I'm here and - and now what?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:47 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know," admits Bell.

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:48 pm (UTC)

Why can she not be hugging them both at the same time without ceasing to hug one in between? Maybe there should be two of her too.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:49 pm (UTC)

[I doubt that would help. You'd probably both still want to hug both of us,] Bell points out.

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I should've never - ever - happened," says Shell, "it should just be you - how long has it been - what did I miss -?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Not much," Bell soothes. "Less than a year. Not much at all."

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:52 pm (UTC)

There could be physically two of her who completely shared minds. That would fulfill all the requirements.

She contemplates actually making this wish.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-08 11:56 pm (UTC)

[Save major personal remodeling for a less stressed-out time?] advises Bell gently, and she pats Sherlock's knee.

To Shell, she says, "All I know is what you told Sherlock. Do you mind if I look?"

arenaria
2013-03-08 11:57 pm (UTC)

"You can look, you can both look, you can do whatever you want with me, I'm just so happy I found you again," sighs Shell, somewhat calmed down (but still clinging tight to Sherlock).

sicaria
2013-03-08 11:58 pm (UTC)

She—

could always merge afterward.

There's a thought.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 12:01 am (UTC)

[There's a thought,] agrees Bell.

"Let's get you home?" she offers softly.

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:04 am (UTC)

"...Home."

And she can remember home, now, the palace (it was real), the world, the - heh, that crown she found in the nightstand was originally hers, wasn't it? - and she can remember Tony, and -

"But - but there are two of us."

She realizes only after she says it how that sounds, or how she guesses it would sound, to Bell-the-live-one. "I mean you are obviously the sane one you're in charge I'm not going to do anything you don't want but -"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 12:05 am (UTC)

"There could stop being two of us," Bell says. "I mean, we could - go back to being only one. But it would be complicated, and I want to think about it, and I want to think about it at home. And I know you want to see home."

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:05 am (UTC)

"Oh."

Pause.

"I - I don't think you want to be me."

sicaria
2013-03-09 12:07 am (UTC)

"I don't think you want to be you," Sherlock observes.

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:08 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Shell, "but I can't do anything about it. I can just torch, that's all. I've done it a million times and I go right on being me. Bell doesn't have to."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 12:09 am (UTC)

"This is what we'd have to think about," Bell says. "How to weight the two of us in a merger so the result wouldn't not like to be herself. Home?"

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:11 am (UTC)

"Home," agrees Shell in a sigh.

(Although it may be that Sherlock has to carry her for the party to go out the door.)

sicaria
2013-03-09 12:12 am (UTC)

Sherlock carries her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 12:14 am (UTC)

Bell walks.

Out the door they go.

[Tony, you may want to meet who Sherlock urgently needed my help with.]

ferratus
2013-03-09 12:17 am (UTC)

[Uh, okay,] says Tony. [Where...?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 12:18 am (UTC)

Bell supplies their location as the door closes behind them. "Tony's coming," she murmurs to Shell.

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:19 am (UTC)

"Mmm," says Shell, "I missed him too."

(But mostly Sherlock. The entirety of her body language the way she's curled up while Sherlock holds her says mostly Sherlock.)

ferratus
2013-03-09 12:21 am (UTC)

Tony arrives.

Tony says: "What."

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:22 am (UTC)

"I died," says Shell. "The afterlife didn't let me go when Sherlock tried to get me. Now there's two. I didn't have a very nice time but I found her I found her I found her." (Sherlock's throat gets nuzzled.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 12:23 am (UTC)

"We are considering ceasing to be two," Bell adds. "But it seems complicated to figure out how to not end up mostly her, when she's the one who by her own admission shouldn't've happened and she's got a longer history than me."

ferratus
2013-03-09 12:26 am (UTC)

"Can I hug you?" he says to Shell. "I really wanna hug you."

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:28 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Shell. If Sherlock puts her down now she won't wince, even.

ferratus
2013-03-09 12:39 am (UTC)

Tony hugs Shell-in-Sherlock's-arms, instead. It is physically awkward but emotionally soothing.

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:40 am (UTC)

"I missed you," Shell says, hugging and nuzzling and sighing soothedly.

ferratus
2013-03-09 12:44 am (UTC)

"I love you," he murmurs back. "I would've missed you if I'd known you were gone."

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:45 am (UTC)

"I love you too and I missed you until I forgot everything and then I missed you again when Bell fixed my memory and now I'm home," sighs Shell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 12:51 am (UTC)

"What do you want to keep?" Bell asks, her mind still on the problem of excess Shell Bells. "The memories - I'm sure you want those after losing them - but is there anything else joined-us should keep?"

arenaria
2013-03-09 12:54 am (UTC)

"We should - should subdue my share of memories a little. I don't think we want some of mine as easy to call up as - as standard," says Shell, not unhugging from Tony one little bit to participate in this conversation. "...We probably want to torch. If we could've torched to begin with then the - was it a nuke? I thought it was a nuke - wouldn't've done anything worth caring about except ruined some Europe."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 12:54 am (UTC)

"I fixed the bit of Europe," Bell says.

sicaria
2013-03-09 01:02 am (UTC)

"I love you," murmurs Sherlock.

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:09 am (UTC)

"I love you," says Shell, again with that sigh that makes it sound like loving Sherlock is an enormous comfy pillow for her to sink into. "...We might want my pain tolerance? It's not even magical. It won't go away if something happens to our magic again. I don't know how easy that will be to separate from the memories, though."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 01:11 am (UTC)

"We can try wishing it separate and if it doesn't work we can work out something else."

sicaria
2013-03-09 01:12 am (UTC)

Sherlock cuddles her armful of Shell.

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:14 am (UTC)

Shell cuddles right back. She feels so happy. It is the happiness of dramatic improvement in circumstance, not Bell's usual level buzz of delight, but it's happy and it's very much so.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 01:15 am (UTC)

"Since we were the first to try resurrection - although Golden's done it once now too and we should notify her of the glitch - we will also be the first to try merging and I don't want to miss anything," says Bell. "Are we okay to have two of us around for a couple days - Shell, do you mind sticking to the palace? - while we make sure we haven't neglected anything?"

sicaria
2013-03-09 01:16 am (UTC)

"I believe we are."

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:18 am (UTC)

"I don't mind staying in the palace. I'd only confuse Ranae and Shark and I don't need to see them really. The palace is nice. May I have some coins, please?"

sicaria
2013-03-09 01:19 am (UTC)

Sherlock wishes her a bandolier and a comfortable assortment of triangles-through-hexes.

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:21 am (UTC)

"Thank you. I love you." Snuzzle. "- Huh, I don't actually know if torching works, outside of Downside -"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 01:23 am (UTC)

Bell expects Sherlock to beat her in reaction time, and Sherlock's closer, but she still says "Shell, don't -"

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:24 am (UTC)

Shell does anyway. With a wish - it only takes a square, she's not particularly sturdy or well-defended right now - not a conjured knife. (She never did get to the point of not wishing things wouldn't hurt.)

She goes up in heatless flames and reappears.

"It works," she says comfortably.
Edited 2013-03-09 01:25 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-03-09 01:25 am (UTC)

"I am surprised," says Sherlock.

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:29 am (UTC)

"That it worked?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 01:31 am (UTC)

"Shell," says Bell sharply. "Don't do that."

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:32 am (UTC)

"...Why not? I'm fine. And now we know. And if I hadn't been fine, you and Sherlock and Tony would still be fine, and I'd either stop existing or go back to Downside but you'd know to look for me if you wanted me back again, everything would be fine."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 01:33 am (UTC)

"You are slightly more redundant than the average Bell, that doesn't mean you should torch yourself without knowing for sure whether it works while Sherlock is holding you," says Bell.

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:34 am (UTC)

"...Oh. Oh, Sherlock, I'm so sorry, did I scare you - I thought it would be okay, you have another one, you have the right one right there -" Shell turns her face into Sherlock's shoulder and scrunches towards herself apologetically.

sicaria
2013-03-09 01:37 am (UTC)

"I love you," she says, very softly.

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:39 am (UTC)

"I love you too, but I shouldn't've started existing so I didn't think it'd bother anyone if I took a chance of stopping when the one who should exist is there, I didn't think, I'm so sorry."

ferratus
2013-03-09 01:52 am (UTC)

"Hey," Tony says gently, hugging her again. "If anybody knows what it's like to feel like that, it's Sherry. It's okay. We love you."

arenaria
2013-03-09 01:53 am (UTC)

"No no no you have to exist," says Shell to Sherlock, alarmed. "You are very important, and there isn't an extra one of you, either."
Edited 2013-03-09 01:53 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-03-09 01:58 am (UTC)

"I know," she says softly.

arenaria
2013-03-09 02:02 am (UTC)

"Good. You need to understand that. You never did. I wouldn't even be half sane if it wasn't for you, if I hadn't had - the fact that you existed to hold onto." Shell switches to addressing Bell. "You're thinking the sanity cut was only because it was a long time, and you're right that it didn't help, but I didn't even hold up very well through the very first time, you're thinking Golden hurt worse when she turned and Amariah more invasively when Path was kidnapped and that's true but they both had people who loved them, there, holding them the entire time. We need that. We need to tell all of them that they need that, I don't think anybody but Golden understands and she thinks it's only because of the mate bond."

sicaria
2013-03-09 02:04 am (UTC)

Sherlock closes her eyes.

"It's good to know that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 02:11 am (UTC)

"You're right. I was thinking that," murmurs Bell. "...It's good that you at least notice you're not all that sane."

arenaria
2013-03-09 02:13 am (UTC)

"It's obvious," says Shell. "Obvious. We should be mostly you. I can just tuck away in a corner of you to do torching and memories of Downside." She pauses. "Oh, we're probably going to fuck that place up, aren't we. I was thinking of doing that before Voice got me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 02:13 am (UTC)

"That place," agrees Bell gravely, "is very much going to get fucked up. ...Sherlock. Sherlock, I can see you thinking that. Do you need Shell to cry on you some more? Would that even help?"
Edited 2013-03-09 02:14 (UTC)

arenaria
2013-03-09 02:15 am (UTC)

"What?" asks Shell. "...Would it help something if I did? I can. It wouldn't be hard. I can't read what you're thinking anymore, Sherlock, what's she seeing...?"

sicaria
2013-03-09 02:16 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she says, "I am... having a moment."

ferratus
2013-03-09 02:16 am (UTC)

Tony hugs Shell-and-Sherlock again.

arenaria
2013-03-09 02:18 am (UTC)

Hugs!

"Is it the kind of moment where you don't believe me that you're very important, even though it is literally the only thing that is so true that I could still remember it after Voice when I thought I'd invented all our alts and that there was ever such a thing as magic and my own name? That kind of moment? Will it go away if I cry on you again?"

sicaria
2013-03-09 02:19 am (UTC)

"I believe you that I am very important to you," she says. "It is extremely obvious that I am very important to you. It is very important to me that I am very important to you."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 02:23 am (UTC)

"We might have to settle for that," says Bell wryly to Shell.

arenaria
2013-03-09 02:25 am (UTC)

"But - but - no, you've just been putting up with it, that she thinks like that, but it's going to drive me just nuts!" Pause. "...A tiny, tiny bit more nuts?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 02:26 am (UTC)

"I'll let you monopolize her in the couple days we spend double-checking merger parameters, see what you can do - if you can't get any farther than that, we're keeping my attitude towards the issue," sighs Bell.

sicaria
2013-03-09 02:29 am (UTC)

"I love you," murmurs Sherlock. To... everyone, really.

arenaria
2013-03-09 02:36 am (UTC)

"I love you too," sighs Shell, just as -

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 02:36 am (UTC)

- Bell says the same thing.

sicaria
2013-03-09 02:45 am (UTC)

Shell being the one Sherlock is currently holding, she is the one who gets snuggled.

arenaria
2013-03-09 02:48 am (UTC)

That is pleasing!

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 02:48 am (UTC)

It's fine with Bell too. She's not the one who just spent decades all by herself.

sicaria
2013-03-09 03:03 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle snuggle snuggle.

She wishes herself the appropriate increase in strength and stamina so that she does not have to put Shell down until requested.

arenaria
2013-03-09 03:04 am (UTC)

Shell doesn't notice. She's too busy pressing herself against Sherlock like she expects this effort to eventually yield a sufficient closeness to turn them into some kind of hybrid being.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 03:05 am (UTC)

[Let's leave 'em be,] Bell suggests to Tony, turning to go.

ferratus
2013-03-09 03:07 am (UTC)

[Deal,] he says, taking her hand and following.

arenaria
2013-03-09 03:13 am (UTC)

"You're important," Shell mumbles into Sherlock's neck. "How do I convince you, tell me."

sicaria
2013-03-09 03:14 am (UTC)

"I don't know," she murmurs back, helplessly.

arenaria
2013-03-09 03:22 am (UTC)

"Why don't you believe it? I do. Bell does too. We're smart. And she's also sane all the way through so it's not just because I've gone a little off. And Tony agrees with us!"

sicaria
2013-03-09 03:23 am (UTC)

"It is not wholly a factual matter."

arenaria
2013-03-09 03:27 am (UTC)

Nuzzle, nuzzle, hug, sigh. "Why isn't feeling it contagious?" she asks plaintively.

sicaria
2013-03-09 03:57 am (UTC)

"I don't know," she says. "I'm sorry."

arenaria
2013-03-09 03:58 am (UTC)

"I love you, I love you, I love you, I missed saying that," sighs Shell.

sicaria
2013-03-09 03:59 am (UTC)

"I love you too," Sherlock murmurs.

arenaria
2013-03-09 04:01 am (UTC)

"I want to go cuddle properly. In a bed? Can we do that?"

sicaria
2013-03-09 04:09 am (UTC)

"Yes."

arenaria
2013-03-09 04:24 am (UTC)

Once they have been transported to a bed, proper cuddles ensue.

"I had all these elaborate fantasies of you rescuing me when Voice had me," murmurs Shell. "You'd take somebody's sentence for the contractor immunity - on the first try, I bet, even without the magic, just because you're - you're good at not letting things be in your way when something needs getting - and you would find me no matter how long you had to look - and you'd knock Voice down till they were scared of their own shadow, and take me away from there and hold me and never let me go..."

sicaria
2013-03-09 12:41 pm (UTC)

The holding her and never letting her go part, Sherlock can definitely do.

arenaria
2013-03-09 03:58 pm (UTC)

Oh, good, because that is exactly what Shell needs.

Bit by bit accumulated tension melts and she sinks into the snuggles.

Someone's footsteps in the next room fall in a too-familiar way and undo all of that and wind her up into a clingy shivering mess again, but she quickly assesses where she is and who's got her and slowly slowly slowly relaxes again.

sicaria
2013-03-09 04:00 pm (UTC)

"I love you," Sherlock says helplessly, cuddling her some more.

arenaria
2013-03-09 04:04 pm (UTC)

"I looooove you," sighs Shell. "I'm so glad I'm home and soon I can fold back into Bell and everything'll be okay and we're gonna tear Downside apart and put it back together nice and I love you."

sicaria
2013-03-09 04:17 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her and kisses her and loves her.

"What are we going to do about Downside?"

arenaria
2013-03-09 04:20 pm (UTC)

Shell thinks, then says, "We should let Bell figure it out. My ideas are mostly the same thing with different people getting hurt. I'm not quite myself. I'm sorry."

sicaria
2013-03-09 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Who gets hurt?"

arenaria
2013-03-09 04:40 pm (UTC)

Shell shrinks into herself. "The people who hurt me. That's what knock down means. When torturers get into fights in what passes for politics Downside - they can't kill each other. They just hurt each other till someone's done and stands down."

sicaria
2013-03-09 05:37 pm (UTC)

Sherlock cuddles her.

"I love you. It's all right."

arenaria
2013-03-09 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh, good," sighs Shell, muffling her voice by pressing her face into her girlfriend. "I wished for a lot of things I shouldn't and I'm so glad you love me anyway."

sicaria
2013-03-09 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Of course I do."

arenaria
2013-03-09 06:35 pm (UTC)

Shell presses a tiny tentative kiss to Sherlock's neck and sets about trying to fall asleep.

She succeeds. Eventually.

She still talks in her sleep. The words still come without grammar, without correlation to any visible emotional state pervading her unconsciousness, without rhyme or reason.

The word selection is a bit different than Bell's.

"Dark. No - Voice. Someone. Hurts."

sicaria
2013-03-09 06:38 pm (UTC)

arenaria
2013-03-09 06:40 pm (UTC)

Left to her own devices, Shell will sleep and murmur worrying words for many hours.

She has not had anything to wish to be awake for in many years.

sicaria
2013-03-09 06:41 pm (UTC)

Then Sherlock will cuddle her, and watch over her, and wait.

arenaria
2013-03-09 06:44 pm (UTC)

Quite apart from the murmuring, it's plain that Shell has nightmares. She doesn't lash out in her sleep, but she shivers like she's dying of cold, and between words there is the occasional high mournful whine.

She doesn't wake up during the nightmares. This has not been an effective strategy to make her experiences less nightmarish for many years.

sicaria
2013-03-09 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I love you," Sherlock murmurs, kissing Shell's forehead.

arenaria
2013-03-09 06:59 pm (UTC)

Shell wakes up.

"Oh," she sighs. "Oh, you're still here, I'm so glad."

sicaria
2013-03-09 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "I am still here."

arenaria
2013-03-09 07:34 pm (UTC)

"That's good. Did you sleep too?"

sicaria
2013-03-09 07:42 pm (UTC)

"A little."

arenaria
2013-03-09 07:48 pm (UTC)

"That's good." Shell seems very comforted by the fact that Sherlock can sleep with her in the room, still.

sicaria
2013-03-09 07:49 pm (UTC)

She smiles very slightly.

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:11 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

Shell has nothing at all to do. Bell can take care of the empire. Shell is accustomed to going for a very long time without eating or drinking. She can think of no reason to move at all for the next ever.

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:13 pm (UTC)

Well.

If they spend long enough like this, Sherlock is going to want to get up and cook.

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:17 pm (UTC)

Shell will only know this if Sherlock tells her. Shell cannot read Sherlock's mind right now. In fact, despite having asked for coins, the only one she's used is the one that torched her. She is simply no longer accustomed to being able to do anything worth doing at all besides progress through various stages between torch and next torch, let alone with magic.

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm hungry," she says. "I am going to make muffins. Do you want muffins?"

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Shell.

She doesn't appear to make the connection that in order to make muffins from scratch, Sherlock will have to be unburdened by Shell.

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Shall I carry you to the kitchen?" she suggests.

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:29 pm (UTC)

So she does.

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:32 pm (UTC)

Shell still has not conjured up enough inferential power to expect to be put down once they get there.

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:38 pm (UTC)

How about put down on the counter and immediately kissed?

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:39 pm (UTC)

Oh, kisses, she's missed those, muffins are instantly abandoned as a possible use of her mouth in favor of lots and lots of enthusiastic whimpery kisses kisses kisses.

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:40 pm (UTC)

Hmm. Yes. Clearly they have found a higher priority.

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:43 pm (UTC)

It is the highest priority. Shell has no idea how she managed to neglect this as an instant, first, essential step in Having Sherlock Again, but she is making up for lost time. Decades of it. She's sitting on the counter, so she can wrap her legs around Sherlock's middle, too.

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:46 pm (UTC)

After mind-reading, this is just about the best way Sherlock can think of to say 'I love you'.

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:49 pm (UTC)

Shell is saying it back. (And I'm somewhat obsessed with you really and I may be literally crazy about you and don't leave me, not even an inch, don't leave me).

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock observes these messages, to some extent at least.

She hexes herself telekinesis, and commences making muffins.

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:52 pm (UTC)

Awww! Yes, that would be what Shell would have suggested if she were thinking that clearly. There is clearly no need to stop making out just to fix muffins.

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:53 pm (UTC)

They will eventually need to stop making out in order to eat the muffins. But that time has not yet come.

arenaria
2013-03-09 08:55 pm (UTC)

It will not come for a long while.

Delicious delicious Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-03-09 08:57 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses lovely lovey kisses.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 09:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock will probably notice periodic gentle brushes of Bell's mindreading, but that is the extent of the intrusion on this moment.

sicaria
2013-03-09 09:12 pm (UTC)

That is just fine by her.

Eventually, she announces, "Muffins."

arenaria
2013-03-09 09:13 pm (UTC)

Shell has no verbal response, but the way she squirms says can we eat them while still snuggling?

sicaria
2013-03-09 09:14 pm (UTC)

She calls one into her hand, triangles it warm-but-not-too-hot-to-eat, and presents it to Shell.

arenaria
2013-03-09 09:16 pm (UTC)

Shell bites it.

"You made me muffins," she sighs, leaning her head on Sherlock's shoulder and chewing slowly.

sicaria
2013-03-09 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I did," she agrees. "Because I love you."

Nom nom.

arenaria
2013-03-09 09:26 pm (UTC)

So many things are competing for the best thing! Sherlock makes her muffins 'cause she loves her, and kisses her 'cause she loves her, and holds her while she sleeps and can sleep in the same room 'cause she loves her. All very good things.

And this muffin is the most delicious thing Shell has eaten since the last time she had Sherlock's cooking and it is much appreciated.

sicaria
2013-03-09 09:27 pm (UTC)

Sherlock observes Shell's appreciation.

Sherlock beams.

arenaria
2013-03-09 09:30 pm (UTC)

Shell has not properly completely smiled in a long time.

It's tricky.

She tries!

sicaria
2013-03-09 09:30 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kisses the attempt.

arenaria
2013-03-09 09:32 pm (UTC)

Mmm kisses mmmmmmmmm.

sicaria
2013-03-09 09:34 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Mmmmmm, kisses!

unreliable doorstop

temporal_affairs

Here they are, having a cute post-death reunion!

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:20 pm (UTC)

Eventually, the Joker quits hugging Nathan long enough to teleport back to Shell's place.

He flickers back into Eights' bedroom almost immediately.

"Looks like my doorstop fell asleep on the job," he laughs. "So I'll be sticking around for a while."
Edited 2013-03-08 21:20 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Ah, that's the thing with doorstops that get up and walk around," says Timer. "Mmm, not time to leave just yet - even now you're here. Five minutes. Time to get dressed, though. You can't wish up a door?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:32 pm (UTC)

"It's probably above my pay grade," he says. "But I guess I could try it, if we run out of other options."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Getting dressed is boring," announces Eights. "Hey you, Joker, got a spare hug for me?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

Hug!

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Aww," says Nathan. "Hey, babe, I've wondered - how did I die? Kind of hard to sneak up on a vampire with, you know, death, they can burn or starve if I remember right and neither thing's instant."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Batsy got her hands on some hexes," he says. "Thought you were gonna eat her, so she wished you to death."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't gonna eat her," says Timer scornfully. "...I was gonna yell at her, though, I hated her guts. All a bit far away now."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I know you weren't, sweetie."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:43 pm (UTC)

Timer finishes buttoning up his shirt. It is not time to leave yet, so he sits down on Eights's bed. "If I come back to Aurum or Sixty or whatever with you I do not imagine Vampire Nathan is going to like me much," he points out. "Similar reason."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:46 pm (UTC)

The Joker hugs him.

"Even though you're both you?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Babe," says Timer, "does anything about how mate bonds work make sense? As far as Nathan's concerned - you can call me Timer, your sort of name is pretty popular around here - I'm not just competition, I'm competition who 'cheated on you'." He makes air quotes, he gestures at Eights.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:51 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Funny, it doesn't work that way for Alice."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:52 pm (UTC)

Timer's memories of being alive are not perfect, especially with name collisions. "Alice - are we thinking of the same Alice?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Mm, no, the other one. One of me," he explains. "He's a vampire and he's with Goldie's alt Stella but they are nnnot monogamous. Ringing any bells?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 09:54 pm (UTC)

These people's social life is fascinating. Eights could listen to it all day.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh, one of you. Why would one of you follow any of the rules?" snorts Timer. "Stella hasn't turned, has she? Because that'd start screwing with them. Aurum's Bella and monogamy are like this." He twists his first two fingers together.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Nah, don't think she's planning to." He grins. "It's a one-vampire relationship."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 09:59 pm (UTC)

"There you go, then, Nathan probably wouldn't like it if you fucked around - though come to think of it if you did it during the parts of the relationship I remember, it has slipped my mind - but Stella's got no reason to care if Alice does, whether that makes sense for his species or not."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Haven't done it yet," he shrugs. "But Alice doesn't mind if Stella fucks around, either. Not that she has."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Mmm, he might think that but I'd take even odds on him getting a surprise if she ever goes for it," shrugs Timer. "I could be wrong, though, maybe you lot are just that - that."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:06 pm (UTC)

"We really, really are."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Good for you. My timer throws me in a pretty girl's path now and again, here, and I'm no monk, but I'm not far out enough for my vampire self to be comfy with such things."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:17 pm (UTC)

"So much for me and my dreams," the Joker says playfully.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Hm?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie, there's two of you."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 10:19 pm (UTC)

(Eights laughs.)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:31 pm (UTC)

Timer snorts. "Unless there is a sense in which the mate bond is amenable to magic, nothing doing," he says. "I'd play - although I do think the bond was patching something in the sexual orientation department, so I'd rather you presto-changeo first - but Nathan would sooner tear me apart, I'm betting."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 10:33 pm (UTC)

"And you, as I recall, are not into that."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:33 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:35 pm (UTC)

"If, unbeknownst to me, I were into that, I think my timer would've had me sticking around at your place long enough to run into Chainsaw or somebody by now," remarks Timer.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, who's that?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Chainsaw is a torturer," says Eights. "He's very friendly. I'm getting the sense you guys would get along."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Torturers are exactly what they sound like," adds Timer helpfully.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Fun," says the Joker. "Fun is what they sound like."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:44 pm (UTC)

"You'll have to get Eights to introduce you, 'cause I can't. And you'll have to work around the fact that any torturer here is used to their playthings being able to torch," Timer adds as an afterthought.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:45 pm (UTC)

"'Torch', meaning...?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I'd demonstrate, but I don't have anything sharp on me," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Bet you do, though, babe," says Timer, holding a hand out in the Joker's direction.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:48 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he produces a knife—whether by sleight of hand or magic is anybody's guess—and hands it over.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:50 pm (UTC)

"You want to do the honors, Eights, or shall I?" Timer inquires.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Mmm, gimme," she says, and takes the knife and gets out of bed and cuts her throat. Carpets are easier to clean than mattresses, and blood lingers after a—

Very real-looking flames spring up, consuming her body while leaving everything else untouched. The knife drops to the floor. She coaelsces again in exactly the same spot, exactly the same pose, but intact and spotless.

"Torch," she says, with a ta-daa sort of gesture.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Well," says the Joker. "I bounce back pretty fast, too, remember?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I do remember, babe, but now you know what it should look like if you wanna fool somebody," shrugs Timer.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Should I wanna fool him?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 10:58 pm (UTC)

"...How fast do you bounce back, exactly?" inquires Eights. "Because if you're not dead but you're difficult to kill, he is so gonna take that as a challenge."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Oooooooooh."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Very fast," says Timer, "when he's not deliberately suppressing the regen. Very, very fast. I dunno what would happen if Chainsaw tried to cut his head off or something, though."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I wanna find out," he says brightly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 11:05 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what happens if you die in Downside, babe, but there's some chance that you and Nathan and the munchkin don't like the answer," Timer says. "I don't know of anybody else hereabouts with magic. Might be a reason."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 11:07 pm (UTC)

He waves a hand. "I unkilled you, remember? Goldie's got the coins. If I don't come back, they can fix it. Bell's girlfriend fixed her, and she was atomized."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Uh, you unkilled one of me. I'm doing okay here, sure, but d'you want to split in two, one of which never gets to see Kerron again?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie," he says, "I love you, but you really don't get it about me and risk, do ya."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-08 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I get it," volunteers Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I never did fully understand that," concedes Timer, shrugging. "Your life, do what you wanna do with it, split in two or julienne yourself like matchstick fries, as you like."

manofmyword
2013-03-08 11:21 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles and hugs him.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 11:23 pm (UTC)

Mmm, hugs.

"Time for me to go," he announces. "Babe, you coming with me or loitering in case the reason it's time involves Eights's next visitor being all over pointy or somesuch?"

manofmyword
2013-03-08 11:25 pm (UTC)

"As fun as that sounds, I think I'd rather catch up with you," he says, giving Nathan a quick kiss on the cheek. "Is it a good time to gimme the grand tour?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Scale of days, yep," says Timer, and he kisses Eights goodbye and meanders out through her preposterously large house.

manofmyword
2013-03-08 11:28 pm (UTC)

Off they go! Can they be holding hands? The Joker would like to be holding hands.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 11:48 pm (UTC)

Timer will hold hands. Anything more than that and maybe some kissing is going to require turning him back into a vampire (although, how would that work, now, with another him already mated to this particular individual?) or a presto-changeo. He'll bring that up later on when it comes up. (Of course it's going to come up.)

manofmyword
2013-03-08 11:51 pm (UTC)

Damn right it's going to come up.

Holding hands is just perfect for now, though. The Joker has feelings about Timer. Big warm cuddly lovey feelings.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-08 11:54 pm (UTC)

"It is good to see you again," remarks Timer, as they get to the transit station, and he consults his eponym and then taps in the necessary data to take them to his neighborhood. "My place is kind of a thimble, but a nice thimble. 'S contingent on how much mourning gets done. It's the kind of place you get when exactly one person is so sad they jump off a cliff and only spend about a minute being sad, except in my case I guess you only spent a minute on it 'cause there's the live one."

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:00 am (UTC)

"Mhm," he says. "I was veeery sad. But Goldie fixed you right up."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:07 am (UTC)

Here is Timer's place. "Behold," he says, "the result of your brief yet intense sad."

He hasn't redecorated much beyond what the place came with - he spends plenty of time outside the home; he doesn't have to huddle scared in his residence like some people, and he doesn't care that much about aesthetics - but he keeps it neat and tidy.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:12 am (UTC)

"It's cute," he declares, and gives Timer a hug.

Now would be a good time to clarify about the exact circumstances under which presto-changeo is warranted.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:13 am (UTC)

"Mm, babe, I remind you about the aforementioned mate bond patching thing."

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:15 am (UTC)

"Even for snuggles?" he asks, semi-plaintively.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:18 am (UTC)

"Is it a big deal? I didn't think it mattered to you either way," says Timer quizzically.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:20 am (UTC)

"It doesn't matter a lot. But I don't wanna switch right now, and I do wanna snuggle you..."

He ponders this dilemma, letting go of Timer in the meantime.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:21 am (UTC)

Timer shrugs. "I can hug you whichever way, but I know where you and me snuggling goes, babe."

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:22 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"I'll switch if we go there," he promises, and resumes hug.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:23 am (UTC)

Hugs.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:24 am (UTC)

Snuggly hugs. Snuggly nuzzly hugs. Snuggly nuzzly ooooh he sees what Timer meant, there.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 12:25 am (UTC)

Now he feels like switching.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:27 am (UTC)

Ah-ha. There we go.

Timer is not a vampire anymore and cannot throw the Joker around quite so effectively, but he can still acquit himself tolerably well, he thinks.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 12:41 am (UTC)

No complaints.

Eventually, they are curled up in Timer's bed, snuggling contentedly.

"Mind if I switch back for this part?" she murmurs, pillowing her head on his shoulder.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:42 am (UTC)

"If you want," Timer yawns.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:43 am (UTC)

He switches back.

"Love you, sweetie."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:44 am (UTC)

"Love you too, babe."

Mate bond is toast, but it left marks.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:45 am (UTC)

The Joker likes marks.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 12:55 am (UTC)

Timer would find that funny if either of them had spoken instead of narrating, and if he were not falling asleep.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 12:59 am (UTC)

Sleep! Aww, he sleeps now. That is adorable. The Joker is going to sleep with him.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 01:12 am (UTC)

Timer sleeps for an hourlong nap - he was after all in the middle of having a nap when the Joker interrupted - and then awakens.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 01:18 am (UTC)

The Joker is wrapped around him like a cuddly anaconda, per his usual.

He's smiling in his sleep.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 01:20 am (UTC)

Aww. Let's see, what was Timer gonna do today? He has a whiteboard he uses as a calendar, because he can't remember all the timings he's checked in his head without vampire mnemonic fidelity. He can see it from his bed. Visiting Fractal, going to the restaurant - he checks them again. They can wait. He stays put with the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 01:23 am (UTC)

Cuddly cuddly cuddly zzzzzz.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 01:26 am (UTC)

Nathan's kinda stuck. Oh well. He goes back to sleep too, for another hour.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 01:34 am (UTC)

This time, it's the Joker who wakes up first.

He doesn't see this as a good reason to decuddle.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 01:35 am (UTC)

Timer follows suit soon enough and yawns. "Oh, you're up. Hullo. Hungry? I am."
Edited 2013-03-09 01:36 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-09 01:36 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "...Hey, I can make you dinner! Can I make you dinner?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 01:38 am (UTC)

"Sure." Maybe the reason the best time to go to the restaurant is so much later than usual is because he's only going for drinks or something. "I dunno how good the ingredient selection is, but you can fix that for sure."

manofmyword
2013-03-09 01:41 am (UTC)

"Whatcha feel like?" he asks, kissing Timer's cheek. "Or should I surprise you?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 01:43 am (UTC)

"I'm up for surprises. I'm allergic to gluten, though. Doesn't torch me, just mighty uncomfortable."

manofmyword
2013-03-09 01:48 am (UTC)

"Gotcha," he says, and kisses him again, and hops out of bed to go survey the kitchen situation.

The kitchen situation needs improvement.

Well, that's what magic is for.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 01:52 am (UTC)

Timer, meanwhile, checks the other parts of his apartment for debris that's accumulated since the last time he checked. He finds four things, three of which go in the to-trade box by the door and the remaining one of which (a tube of toothpaste) is kept for when he runs out of the current one.

Perhaps he doesn't need to bother with any of this with the Joker right there, demonstrably as minty as this toothpaste, but a century's worth of habits and the decent odds that the Joker's going to go home and be with Nathan instead of Timer add up to doing it anyway.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 01:57 am (UTC)

And the Joker makes dinner.

It will be impressive, and tasty, and gluten-free.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 01:58 am (UTC)

Nathan will gobble it up appreciatively!

"You," he pronounces, "are a good cook."

manofmyword
2013-03-09 01:59 am (UTC)

"I know I am!" he beams. "I'm glad I got to cook for ya."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 02:05 am (UTC)

"It was definitely a conspicuous omission. Let's see, what else did we never do because I wasn't enough of an organism?" Timer snorts. "Surprising that being dead makes me more of an organism."

manofmyword
2013-03-09 02:15 am (UTC)

"Mmmm, I dunno," he says. "Is there anything you want to do now that you're all blunt and squishy and food-eating? ...Tickle fight?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 02:16 am (UTC)

"...Have you somehow managed to form the impression that vampires cannot be tickled? Because they can. But of course, so can I."

manofmyword
2013-03-09 02:17 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't be much of a tickle fight," he says brightly, "if you were a vampire. Not unless I boosted up some."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 02:19 am (UTC)

"Mm, there is that. You can probably give me a run for my money. Even post-presto-changeo."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 02:26 am (UTC)

"Even?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 02:28 am (UTC)

"Well, I dunno all the details of how you do it, but naively I'd expect upper body strength to take a hit?" he shrugs. "Make it a little harder to pin me down and inflict wiggly fingers? C'mon. Prove me wrong." And he gets up and saunters to near his bed, arms out, inviting tickle-attack.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 02:33 am (UTC)

The Joker pounces.

She definitely does not seem impaired in her tickling abilities, not that Timer has a baseline to compare her to.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 02:37 am (UTC)

A good time is had by all!

(Nathan flails around rather adorably when tickled.)

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 02:47 am (UTC)

It is the cutest fucking thing and she loves him so much.

"That is the cutest damn thing in the world," she informs him, "and I love you so much."

Cuddlepounce!

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 02:50 am (UTC)

"Love you too, babe," laughs Nathan, catching his breath over the course of snuggles.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 02:55 am (UTC)

She wraps her arms around him and squeezes enthusiastically, then settles in at his side.

Contentedly: "Mmmm."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 02:57 am (UTC)

"Ah, I am glad to see you, babe," sighs Timer.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 03:03 am (UTC)

"I am glad to see you too," she says, nuzzling his shoulder.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 03:26 am (UTC)

It's about time for Timer to visit Fractal.

Also about time for him to say:

"This'd be the best time for you to head back to Eights's place. Without me. It is not at all a good time for me to go to her place. I'm betting one of her interesting friends is gonna be there."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 03:33 am (UTC)

"Ooooooooh," says the Joker.

And: "Do me a favour, sweetie? Hang onto these—" and Timer acquires his very own coin bandolier, full of most of what the Joker's got on her. "Just in case," she says, giving him a kiss.
Edited 2013-03-09 03:33 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 03:35 am (UTC)

"All right, babe," says Timer, and he returns the kiss and loops the bandolier onto his person.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-09 03:40 am (UTC)

Okay, one more kiss.

Two more kisses.

And thennnnnn she touches one of the pentagons in Timer's new coin stash, and it and she disappear.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 03:41 am (UTC)

Timer times his visit to Fractal, up the street (and every intervening turn), and he and his friend watch selections of Fractal's video collection and snark at the characters. Timer vaguely wonders what the Joker's up to.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 03:45 am (UTC)

[Ooh,] says a familiar voice in his head. [Chainsaw is fun.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 03:51 am (UTC)

[Heh. You wanna tell the class?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 03:53 am (UTC)

[You would not beliiiieve what this man can do with a pair of pliers. I think I'm in love,] he sighs happily.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 03:56 am (UTC)

[What, again? Live'un would nnnnot be pleased,] laughs Timer.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 03:59 am (UTC)

[Live'un is just gonna have to deal. I love him too,] the Joker says fondly, and giggles. [Ooh. I see where Chainsaw got his name.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 04:00 am (UTC)

[Well, that sounds just ducky, doesn't it,] says Timer affectionately.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 04:17 am (UTC)

[Mmmmm. You betcha, sweetheart.]

He sounds extremely pleased with himself.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 04:18 am (UTC)

[I am glad that you are having fun. And that I am not the liveling of me, who would be frothing at the mouth and pacing by now.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 04:20 am (UTC)

[If you were the liveling of you, I'd still be fucking him but I wouldn't be taunting you about it.]

Beat.

[Probably.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 04:26 am (UTC)

[Eh. He'd be frothing at the mouth and pacing even if you weren't taunting him. If you were taunting him he would be debating the wisdom of showing up at Eights's house and knocking Chainsaw down. Technical term for hurting somebody till they quit challenging you. Can't exactly have fights to the death around here.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 11:52 am (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 04:06 pm (UTC)

[I feel for liveling me, you know, he's not inherently jealous, as I demonstrate, but you make him all kinds of crazy, babe.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 04:25 pm (UTC)

[I know,] he sighs. [I love him, I really really do.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 04:26 pm (UTC)

[I know you do. I'd be way sorrier for him if you didn't. I suppose if you wouldn't've, timer would've never put me - us? - Past Nathan in a room with you.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 04:28 pm (UTC)

[I love both of you,] he says, and then giggles. [Aww, Chainsaw's wondering what I'm daydreaming about. Don't think I'll tell him.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 04:28 pm (UTC)

[Thank you, babe.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 04:36 pm (UTC)

He laughs unrepentantly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 04:40 pm (UTC)

Timer's companion is not so curious about where Timer's attention may be; Timer seamlessly goes back to paying attention to the video.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 05:19 pm (UTC)

The Joker is quiet for a while.

Then he says, a little dreamily: [Whatcha up to, sweetie?]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 06:21 pm (UTC)

[Watching movies with Fractal. Nothing particularly interesting. How come?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 06:39 pm (UTC)

[No reason,] he says. [I was feeling all cuddly, so I thought of you.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 06:40 pm (UTC)

[Awww. Love you, babe.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 06:41 pm (UTC)

[Love you too, sweetheart.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Do I wanna know what got you all snuggly-minded, or would it give me nightmares?] asks Timer rhetorically.

(He's not particularly subject to nightmares.)

manofmyword
2013-03-09 06:47 pm (UTC)

[I dunno, do you get nightmares?]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 06:50 pm (UTC)

[Nah, and if I did, they'd probably be about something I did, not something that made you snuggly.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 07:01 pm (UTC)

[What would you get nightmares about?] he laughs, distracted from the original question.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 07:02 pm (UTC)

[Eh, probably eating those kids right after I turned that were probably mine.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 07:04 pm (UTC)

[Awwwwwwww, honey,] he says sympathetically.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 07:04 pm (UTC)

[But in fact I do not get nightmares, so whatcha up to now?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 07:10 pm (UTC)

[Chainsaw's trying to cut me in half,] he says cheerfully. [He's not getting anywhere. You should see the look on his face, it's hilarious.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 07:35 pm (UTC)

[I'll use my imagination. Did you explain to him what's going on?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 07:42 pm (UTC)

[Kinda sorta.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Did you just tell him you were alive and hard to kill, babe?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 07:50 pm (UTC)

[Pretty much.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:08 pm (UTC)

Timer sighs through the brainphone.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:11 pm (UTC)

[Whaaaaaaaaat?]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:14 pm (UTC)

[You are very much yourself and you're exasperating and I love you.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:15 pm (UTC)

[Love you too, sweetie pie.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:22 pm (UTC)

[You be as careful as it is in you to be.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:24 pm (UTC)

[Deal,] he says affectionately. And then giggles, abruptly, like someone just started tickling him.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:25 pm (UTC)

[Lemme guess, you've been introduced to new friends, possibly serrated?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:26 pm (UTC)

[Got it in one!] he whoops.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:28 pm (UTC)

[It is really stunning how well I remember you.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:28 pm (UTC)

[I'm stunningly memorable.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:31 pm (UTC)

[It's true!]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:40 pm (UTC)

[Mmmm. I love you,] he sighs. [Aww, I'm gettin' all cuddly again.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:42 pm (UTC)

[I'll keep an eye on my timer and I can be at my place waiting for you when Chainsaw's done with you.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:49 pm (UTC)

[Good plan.]
Edited 2013-03-09 20:49 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:50 pm (UTC)

[I have those sometimes.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:52 pm (UTC)

[You do. And I love you for it,] he says happily.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:53 pm (UTC)

[What don't you love me for?] Timer asks rhetorically. [Is there any such thing?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:53 pm (UTC)

He thinks about it.

He concludes: [Nah, not really.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 08:56 pm (UTC)

[Didn't think so. Love-slut. And regular-slut,] he accuses affectionately.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 08:59 pm (UTC)

[I am all kindsa slut,] he says happily.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 09:14 pm (UTC)

[Are there,] Timer asks innocently, [many kinds?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 09:15 pm (UTC)

[Yep!]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 09:16 pm (UTC)

[I bet you can't list them all while Chainsaw's getting increasingly offended by your "daydreaming",] teases Timer.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 09:24 pm (UTC)

[That eager to hear me call myself a slut? 'Cause hey, if that's what you're into...]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 09:27 pm (UTC)

[Just following the conversational thread, babe.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 09:29 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

[Love you, sweetie.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 09:33 pm (UTC)

[Love you too.]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 09:35 pm (UTC)

[Mmmmm.]

And that's it from him, for another little while.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 09:53 pm (UTC)

Timer goes to the restaurant for drinks with Fractal, gets slightly tipsy, timers his way home, and picks up a book.

manofmyword
2013-03-09 10:42 pm (UTC)

No more word from the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-09 11:53 pm (UTC)

That's curious. It's been some time now.

[Babe?]

manofmyword
2013-03-09 11:56 pm (UTC)

Nothing.

In fact, nothing. Like he's not on the network at all.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 12:04 am (UTC)

...He would probably have said goodbye.

Is this a good time to use one of these coins to go find him?

manofmyword
2013-03-10 12:10 am (UTC)

Not especially.

On a scale of minutes, it's in about ten. On a scale of days, it's in about five. On a scale of years, it's next month. On a scale of centuries, it's... still next month.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:15 am (UTC)

Checking multiple scales is good for finding focal points like that.

But a good time to call Eights is in about thirty minutes.

Timer sits tight.

He lets half an hour go by.

And he phones her.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-10 01:11 pm (UTC)

She answers with a cautious, "Hi?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Eights, what's up? This was a good time to call you, and, perhaps relatedly, do you know where the Joker went?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-10 04:31 pm (UTC)

"...Technically no," she says. "But I do know Chainsaw set him on fire and I haven't seen him since. Uh. Sorry. He seemed really happy about it, if that's any consolation."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 04:41 pm (UTC)

"I bet he was. He's not telepathy-able right now, though, and I'm confused - he either went home without stopping in to say goodbye, or Chainsaw managed to kill him after all."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-10 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Pretty sure it's the second one."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, damn. Now either Bella's going to split him too, or a vampire with a missing mate is going to be looking after my kid."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-10 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," she repeats.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Eh. He at least thought he knew what he was getting into. Thanks for telling me."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-10 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Later, Eights."

This is a good time to hang up.

There's no way to get a look in the queue. Usually.

Is this a good time to wish a look in the queue?

pythbox
2013-03-10 05:18 pm (UTC)

Yes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 05:33 pm (UTC)

Wish. (Timer doesn't have a great sense of which coins are for which things, so he goes from a triangle up. Takes a square.)

pythbox
2013-03-10 05:39 pm (UTC)

There is the Joker, without clothing or scars or makeup or hair dye, floating unconscious in the middle of a small featureless white room with a numbered plaque on the outside.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 05:42 pm (UTC)

Hm. A square won't tell Timer straight up if a judge is coming sooner or later. Who needs coins, though? He can find the best time to teleport to and greet the Joker. Long, long timescale, because it can take forever -

It's in half an hour.

...Timer will never understand the scheduling in this place.

He waits. He's good at that, when his timer tells him to be.
Edited 2013-03-10 17:42 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 05:46 pm (UTC)

A judge wakes him up and hands him his sentence papers and sends him off on his long walk.

He goes quite cheerfully.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 05:58 pm (UTC)

At the requisite moment, Timer ports in.

"Hi, babe," he says.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie!"

The Joker beams and flings his arms around Timer, hugging him tight.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:01 pm (UTC)

Hugs! "That didn't take long. You could've easily been cooling your heels for centuries, but you only died about an hour ago. What kinda sentence did they slap on you?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Mm, not one with Chainsaw," he says, "much to my disappointment."

He finds a pentagon on Timer's bandolier and teleports them both to Timer's house, because it is more fun to cuddle in.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Who is it, then?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Jasmine."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Ah, I got assigned to her in my time, but I fobbed it off on Eights. You'll probably have fun with her, too, she's a big name. Not as affable as Chainsaw's rumored to be. I believe the conventional wisdom is that she'll be meaner if you're male, though."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Fun."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, you know, for torturer values of 'meaner'. I have no idea what she'll do if you explain you to her all friendly-like." Pause. "Your guide is going to be confused when you don't show. Oh well."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Watch me care," he snorts. "Mm, let's go snuggle."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:35 pm (UTC)

"All right. You want some of the coins back? Do you have any left on you?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I do nnnnot have any left on me," he says. "And I bet I'm not a mint anymore. Well, I can fix that."

He touches a hex.

He blinks at it.

"Innnnnnnnteresting," he says, and touches it again. This wish goes through.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:39 pm (UTC)

"What?" Timer asks.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:40 pm (UTC)

"I can make myself a mint but I can't make it stick," he says. "Not with a hex, anyway. And everybody keeps tellin' me I shouldn't try a star."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Not sticking how?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Not sticking if I torch."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Ah. So you'll wanna accumulate some hexes between each occasion of same, if you wanna be a mint as a general habit."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Orrrrrrr," he says, "I could experiment."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:47 pm (UTC)

"...With a star? Any warning you've paid attention to this long has to be all kinds of dire."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:48 pm (UTC)

"What's it gonna do," he asks, "kill me again?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Wreck my place?" suggests Timer. "Torch me? I haven't tried it yet and I'm in no hurry."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 06:50 pm (UTC)

"I'd go somewhere else, silly," he says, kissing the end of Timer's nose.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Oh, well then. You're probably just fine."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:10 pm (UTC)

Beaming, he kisses him again, then puts himself back on the brainphone network just because.

—And blinks.

inside

arenaria

Shell and Bell have worked out (well, Bell has worked out and Shell has tentatively commented on) a merging protocol that they think will work for them.

Shell's memories are going to be perfectly accessible, but they will not come up automatically in response to stimuli unless the resulting Shell Bell is expressly open to it. They will keep Shell's hard-earned tolerance to pain, insofar as that's separable (Shell is quite sure that she'd be able to make a pentagon if another situation as important as getting ahold of Sherlock to mint Juliet came up). All of Shell's insights about Sherlock's importance stay. Her itchy discomfort with Sherlock not getting her importance will be folded into Bell's resignation to same. The merged Shell Bell will be comfortable referring to either past in the first or third person, but will default to using "I" for Bell and "she" for Shell. She'll torch, but that's the only supernatural property Shell's bringing to the merger; she'll retain all Bell's magic. Shell looks a little older, but not much; they'll go with that, as they think torching probably conflicts with actually aging and they don't think twenty is the ideal place to sit forever and whatever Shell is supposed to be is closer. They are omitting the nightmares, good riddance.

"Last minute questions, comments, reasons to expect this to be a bad idea in some way?" Bell asks.

Shell shakes her head. She is looking forward to not being a separate person anymore.

sicaria
2013-03-09 10:30 pm (UTC)

Sherlock voices no objections, nor does she think any.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-09 11:56 pm (UTC)

Bell tries a hex. This is apparently not a job for a hex.

It is not a job for a star.

There are two evils left, from when Sherlock made evils.

She frowns, and rereads all the wish parameters from where she wrote them down for Shell to look at, and finally she touches one of the remaining, declawed evils and wishes.

There were two.

Now there is one.

sicaria
2013-03-09 11:57 pm (UTC)

Now there is one, indeed.

Sherlock hugs her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 12:04 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Shell Bell with a very Shellish sigh.

sicaria
2013-03-10 12:21 am (UTC)

"I love you," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 01:45 am (UTC)

"I love you," says Shell Bell. "Well. Now I'm all neatened up - Tony, can you try for a door so I can write some extremely urgent notes in the Bellbook?"
Edited 2013-03-10 01:48 (UTC)

ferratus
2013-03-10 01:49 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

He opens a door.

And lo, Milliways.

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:30 am (UTC)

Lo and behold!

Shell Bell teleports up to the Belltower.

She writes the story.

If Sherlock or Tony choose to observe her at this activity, they will see more of Shell than of Bell in her, because it's Shell's story and she's got Shell's memories open to share it. But the differences aren't so pronounced. It's quite possible that Shell-alone could have recovered much of her sanity simply by decluttering her apartment and living in it uneventfully for some months or years. Progress was made in the days she spent back home before the merge, and the merge itself helped between the magical excisions and the deemphasis of the worse memories.

The differences aren't pronounced, but they're there. Shell looks up when she hears unexpected noises and Bell doesn't. Shell's hands don't tremble after the merge, but sometimes, her lower lip does, where Bell is often still. Shell orients herself around Sherlock like Sherlock is the sun and Bell falls into more natural, less obsessive patterns.

And now that they're one and the same, it's all about -

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 07:30 am (UTC)

- context.

Bell concludes her outline of the facts and the narrative. She closes the book.

sicaria
2013-03-10 01:08 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her again.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 04:58 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"Golden resurrected somebody. Since she's not here right now to handle it herself, I should probably see if I can still open the door to Downside and fetch him out for her."

sicaria
2013-03-10 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Of course."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 05:22 pm (UTC)

Downstairs.

"- Ah, I just completely forgot about holding the door for the Joker when I saw you," Shell Bell says ruefully. "I was going to just see if the door would go there, but now I guess I'll have to actually hold it and brainphone him that I'm back and let him out."

She pulls open the door. It's Atlantis. She closes the door, closes her eyes, focuses -

arenaria
2013-03-10 05:25 pm (UTC)

- and opens the door to her clutter-strewn little apartment in Downside.

There's probably a clock or six somewhere in the debris, but if there is, it's not set to what passes for the date in Downside. [Joker?] she tries.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:10 pm (UTC)

[Yeeeeee-es?]

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:12 pm (UTC)

[It's Shell.] After a fashion. [I left the door - and I don't know if this one is at the same time, or not, because I'm not quite as I was when you last saw me, so it might not have stayed put. I'm sorry.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:13 pm (UTC)

[It's fine,] he says cheerfully. [I had a little adventure.]

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:14 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Did you happen to look up Nathan while you were there or did you have another reason for wanting the door? Golden resurrected him the way Sherlock resurrected me and he may have split the same way.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:15 pm (UTC)

[Yep! Got him right here.]

"Doorstop's back," he says aloud.

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:22 pm (UTC)

[What I did was - when I found my live self - we merged. It took an evil, but I'm both now, mostly the live one because she was a lot saner. Does Nathan, or at least this one, want to do that?]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 07:23 pm (UTC)

"What happened? Shouldn't any amount of time she spent in Milliways or wherever be nothing on this end?" asks Timer.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:26 pm (UTC)

[I'll ask.]

"Mm, she's not exactly the same doorstop," he explains. "She found the resurrected one and they got back together. Now she wants to know if you wanna do the same thing with Nathan."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 07:27 pm (UTC)

"...Back together, like...?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:29 pm (UTC)

He presses his hands together, pulls them apart. "They split..." together again, "they merge."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 07:32 pm (UTC)

"...Well, there's a thought, but while I'd welcome being a vampire again and miss Kerron quite a bit and have no strong objections to resuming being stuck exclusively on you, I don't think Nathan's going to want to share an identity with a version of him who -" Airquotes! - "'cheated on you'."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:33 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

[Wouldn't mind, but he thinks the other one would.]

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:35 pm (UTC)

[Would he? Why?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:36 pm (UTC)

[Why don't you guys talk to each other,] he suggests into a conference call.

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:37 pm (UTC)

[Hi, Nathan, I'm Shell Bell, I don't think we've met. Have you been all right here? Why don't you think your liveling would want to be you?]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 07:39 pm (UTC)

[Hullo, Shell Bell, I think he'd be torn to pieces over the fact that I've spent the last century comfortably enough, unmatebonded, enjoying myself with miscellaneous ladies of Downside instead of remaining loyal to his mate in spite of the fact that he'd see red if he knew I'd touched his mate.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:40 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins and snuggles up.

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:43 pm (UTC)

[...That seems like an obviously silly thing to think. You two could customize the merge, you know, I'm mostly Bell and not Shell. Would he mind not thinking like that anymore?]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 07:43 pm (UTC)

[Not sure. I don't know if that would work, anyway, mate bonds are impervious to magic.]

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:44 pm (UTC)

[Obviously not completely,] Shell Bell points out. [You had one and now you don't. Maybe there's room around the edges to make yours - his - work more like Alice's does.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:45 pm (UTC)

[I'd like that,] the Joker contributes. [Seems like the least awkward way to get to love both of him.]

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 07:46 pm (UTC)

[Well, babe, if you ask him, he'll fold like a napkin.]

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:47 pm (UTC)

[Do you want me to pull you out, then?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:47 pm (UTC)

[Up to you, sweetheart,] he says, kissing Timer's cheek.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 07:48 pm (UTC)

[Put some clothes on, babe. Shell Bell, you could just open the door to here even after you fused?]

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:50 pm (UTC)

[If I don't think about it, it's Atlantis, but I concentrated and I opened the door to my Downside apartment without too much trouble. You'll be able to visit friends of yours here through Milliways. And the place isn't going to be like it is, anyway, me and the other Bells are going to destroy that sadistic ruinous setup.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:51 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins and spends a square off Timer's chain to dress himself.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 07:54 pm (UTC)

[We'll be right along,] says Timer.

"Shall we, babe?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:56 pm (UTC)

The Joker kisses his cheek and teleports them to Shell's place.

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:57 pm (UTC)

"...What happened to your scars?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Guess."

arenaria
2013-03-10 07:59 pm (UTC)

"...How long did I leave you here for, that you found time to die?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh, measured in hours, no very lengthy holdup, he's just efficient," says Timer. "He's not out of his grace period yet, he's skipping out on a sentence with Jasmine. Do you know if torching works out of Downside?"

arenaria
2013-03-10 08:04 pm (UTC)

"It works - and fuck Jasmine, I hope it bothers her for a thousand years that she can't find you - let's go."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:06 pm (UTC)

"By the way," he says as he steps through the door, "mere hexes won't give me my minting back in a permanent way - did you dodge that with an evil? Could you gimme a hand? I can make the coin."

arenaria
2013-03-10 08:09 pm (UTC)

"I did my merge with an evil. I haven't torched since, but I did mean to keep all of my magic as it was, and the coin went. If you give me a star to try, and an evil if that doesn't work, I can do it for you. Although maybe I should consult with Golden first, as long as we're going to your world."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he shrugs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 08:11 pm (UTC)

"You've probably got a better shot than I do at getting a door to Aurum, babe," Timer says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Are you coming, Sherlock?" Shell Bell asks.

sicaria
2013-03-10 08:12 pm (UTC)

"If you need me to."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:14 pm (UTC)

The Joker gives Timer a quick hug and tries the door.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I'd like the company, but I don't need it," says Shell Bell, "Elspeth gets doors very frequently and I won't have to stay much longer than I feel like."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Ahhh, hello, Aurum," sighs Nathan into the doorway.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-10 08:23 pm (UTC)

"...Hello?" says Elspeth, who found the door in the first place. "What's going on?"

sicaria
2013-03-10 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I'll stay behind, then," says Sherlock.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:24 pm (UTC)

"I found an extra Nathan! Can I keep him?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 08:25 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell kisses Sherlock's cheek and steps through the door to Aurum. "Hi, Elspeth, we haven't met, I'm Shell Bell. There's a glitch in resurrection-with-evils called Downside. I need to talk to your mom, and the Joker and this extra Nathan need to talk to the Nathan here."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Probably best if Kerron's not there to witness the explanation, and possible attempts by Nathan to relieve me of the burden of intact bones," adds Timer.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:28 pm (UTC)

The Joker squeezes Timer's hand fondly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-10 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Mama - and Nathan - are both in the throne room. Rosalie has all the wee ones for the next while," says Elspeth, "Kerron included."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Shell Bell.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:35 pm (UTC)

"You wanna take us there," he asks Shell Bell, "or should I?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I got it."

Poof.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Golden, not particularly surprised - presumably Elspeth notified her of the arrivals. "What's all this, then?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I most insistently second that question," says Nathan, "who the blistering hell are you - and babe, what happened to your scars, didn't you like those -"

"You know," says Timer, "I held out hope that you'd just think I was a garden variety alt till somebody could explain, but I suppose arriving arm-in-arm with the Joker without him even singing soprano first torched that interpretation."

"Who in the name of Maughold's left asscheek are you supposed to be?"

"Call me Timer," says Timer.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 08:42 pm (UTC)

"All this," says Shell Bell, "is a glitch in resurrection-with-evils. There is an afterlife, it is shit, and it does not let people who arrive there go, even if you pull on them very hard - you get forks, instead. I folded back into myself. I'm both."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I died," the Joker adds, "but I'm fine, sweetie, look," and he taps a pentagon from Timer and teleports directly into a hug with Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 08:45 pm (UTC)

"You died?" breathes Nathan, hugging the Joker tight and otherwise not moving.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Golden. "That obviously needs fixing."

arenaria
2013-03-10 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 08:46 pm (UTC)

"It does."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 08:47 pm (UTC)

"It's not bad always for everyone," Timer volunteers. "I was fine. But then, Shell Bell would've been fine if her dead version had kept her magic. I had mine. Kept me out of the way of torturers and - such."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Torturers? That's a class of people you need magic to avoid? Oh, for the love of - even ordinary worlds need serious repairs, Shell Bell's was worse than most, and she comes in saying it's shit, I'm inclined to believe her, but -"

arenaria
2013-03-10 08:49 pm (UTC)

"It's very, very bad," says Shell Bell quietly.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Terrible," the Joker agrees sunnily. "I loved it. Coulda spent the rest of forever there, but I would've missed my sweetie."

Extra snuggles for Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I can't believe you died," murmurs Nathan.

"He's right there, Nate," says Timer, "technically dead or not he's there - the more pressing issue is what we're going to -"

"I'm trying not to think about you," snaps Nathan. "If you - if you -"

"Yes, yes, you're afraid that I've been unfaithful, and also afraid that we got up to something while he was Downside, the only outcome you'd consider acceptable would be if I'd spent the last century celibate, how do you feel about making like Shell Bell and importing some of my more even-keeled notions? Sell it for me, babe, he's not gonna listen to me," Timer adds to the Joker when he sees the answering look on Nathan's face.
Edited 2013-03-10 20:57 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie," says the Joker. "I love you. He's you, so I love him too. I don't wanna lose either of you, and I don't wanna make trouble between you the way it would if I hung around with both of you all the time. Shell and Bell got sewn up and they're just fine. If you're okay with it, and it works so you don't hate yourself afterward or anything, then I want you to."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 09:01 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Golden and Shell Bell have relegated their exchange of information about exactly how Downside is shit to the brainphone.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 09:02 pm (UTC)

Nathan is silent for a long time. (Timer doesn't interrupt him.)

"If that's what you need from me," he finally tells the Joker.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I think it'll make us both happier," he says softly. "You know, I joke about how you'll have to get used to me, but I see how it hurts you to know what a slut I am and I don't want it to, sweetheart, I love you."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 09:09 pm (UTC)

"I thought - that you'd -"

"Lack of opportunity," puts in Timer shortly. "Till he went Downside."

"Oh, Christ."

"You and he'd be happier with our joint self keeping my opinion on the matter."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I am not at all confident that even an evil will be able to edit a mate bond," Golden says.

arenaria
2013-03-10 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Not the core of it. Just around the edges. The joined-up Nathan would still have it - like Alice has one - but it wouldn't come with the... monogamy clause."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 09:12 pm (UTC)

"If it can do even that, that's unsettling," says Golden, "but I suppose whether I find it unsettling or not doesn't make it more or less likely to work. Joker, you're supplying the evil?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 09:13 pm (UTC)

"They should spend a little while working out a balance of the two of them. I'm mostly Bell and not Shell most of the time. We didn't want her memories to outweigh mine even though there were more of them."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, this will be a fun consensus-building exercise," snorts Timer. "We let the Joker tiebreak, Nate?"

Nathan nods.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'll come up with the coin. Shell Bell, you wanna hit me, or should I wish up another one'a those agony beam gadgets?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Do you need ramp-up or can I just slam you with a hundred thousand?" Shell Bell inquires.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 09:18 pm (UTC)

He grins and makes a beckoning gesture. "Go for it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 09:19 pm (UTC)

Bam. Unflavored. She holds for six seconds or until he says "when", since they'll want more than one for the merge as well as (possibly) the perma-minting.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 09:21 pm (UTC)

He never bothered to wish himself another bandolier, so the coins appear directly in his hands, one two three fourfivesixseven before Shell's six seconds are up. He offers the whole handful to Golden.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Thank you." (Covert declawing.) "Shell Bell, you've done a merger, perhaps you should also do this one." She wishes all but one evil onto her own bandolier and offers the other to Shell Bell. [I declawed it.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I'll stick around long enough for them to have their parameters worked out and then I'll do it, sure," agrees Shell Bell, tucking the evil onto her chain for the meanwhile.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Parameters," sighs Nathan.

"Gonna have to figure out how to square away my memories so my de-vampired Downside memories don't get completely lost against high-def surround-sound smell-o-vision," says Timer, waving a hand. "Maybe get us recall independent of vampirism like the other mint Bells have got."

"Do you want to remember being human here? Again?" asks Nathan skeptically.

"I don't see why not. We're going to fix the jealousy thing both directions, aren't we, we won't torture ourselves over - what was her name -"

"Calybrid."

"Yes, her, it won't matter, the Joker certainly doesn't mind her."

"...She's not in the -"

"I never looked her up," shrugs Timer.

"But I wasn't thinking so much of Calybrid."

"...Mmm. Okay, the kids could be a problem."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 09:30 pm (UTC)

...The Joker hugs Nathan.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 09:32 pm (UTC)

"You could put it - away, like I did with Shell's less pleasant memories," says Shell Bell. "Of which there are terribly many. They're all accessible if I want them. They don't intrude if I don't expressly invite them, and they're muted, a little, at a sort of emotional remove."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 09:37 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like a plan," says Timer.

"...All right," says Nathan. "What else?"

"We want to torch," says Timer. "I haven't done it, but it'd be better than dying again, according to Eights it doesn't even feel like anything by itself."

"...All right."

"Oh, and as long as we're talking about editing the mate bond, let's not edit the part where you don't care what nether bits the Joker's got at any given time, he finds that inconvenient - don't look at me like that, I might not be all magically infatuated anymore but that leaves marks, he shows up and presto-changeo and snuggles up to me, what am I supposed to do?"

"God, I don't even know. All right," says Nathan.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 09:40 pm (UTC)

The Joker hugs Nathan again, rather more happily.

"I like marks," he murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

"I think that's enough to go on," says Shell Bell, "unless you've got anything you need to leave out explicitly from one or the other of you - I had to get rid of some nightmares, some trembling, that sort of thing."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Going to be a vampire, don't get nightmares anyway," shrugs Timer.

"Yes, please do let's get this over with," Nathan sighs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

Wish.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 09:44 pm (UTC)

Nathan takes a while to adjust. (He spends this while hugging the Joker, though.)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I love you, sweetie," he says, snuggling up. "You okay?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine, babe," says Nathan. "Kind of weird to have been a hundred years since I died one way and a few months the other, though."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 09:48 pm (UTC)

He hugs him some more.

"Good."

Glancing at the Bell(a)s, he adds, "Somebody wanna perma-mint me while we're at it?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 09:51 pm (UTC)

Golden nods.

"...That took an evil," she says a moment later. "Why did that take an evil?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. It probably doesn't take an evil by a lot? I wished for all of the magic I had before the merge, and torching, and I got both, one evil."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 10:15 pm (UTC)

The Joker hums thoughtfully for a moment.

Then he says, "So what's the plan?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Torturer's control has to go, and so does the power the judges have to hand it out like party favors," Shell Bell says promptly. "Some reasonable ground rules need to happen. We need a system to repatriate people to where they belong if they want to go back to their worlds or other worlds and will behave like people and not like - like Downsiders sometimes start behaving, torturers or not. We need to empty the catacombs so people aren't in limbo until some miserable self-righteous shit of a judge gets around them. We're probably going to get attention from upstairs - we need to check out Upside too, maybe it's bad in its own ways - and we need to be ready for that, we need supplies of stars and evils, we might want to see if there's another level above that if we can talk any of our respective helpers into trying, we need several of us on the ground and one or two hanging back in Milliways ready to bail us out if she's too much to handle. If she is, we need a way to just funnel people out manually and process them somewhere other than her turf. It would be good if we had a system of interworld travel that was under our own actual control, though, so we should experiment with that, see if it's something we can do with coins."
Edited 2013-03-10 22:31 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 10:38 pm (UTC)

"If you wanna throw a lot of pain around, I'll catch," the Joker offers.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 10:39 pm (UTC)

"You're clearly equipped to be an evil factory. Are you sure you want to try for a next tier?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Only one way to find out!"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 10:40 pm (UTC)

Golden shrugs. "Well, Shell Bell, you're the one with the agony beam."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a ramp-up when the endpoint is ten times the minimum for an evil?" Shell Bell asks the Joker.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says amicably. "Sweetie, pick me up? I like it when you pick me up."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 10:43 pm (UTC)

Nathan scoops him up and holds him tight. "You sure about this, babe?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Mmhmm," he says, leaning his head on Nathan's shoulder.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 10:46 pm (UTC)

Since the Joker can demonstrably make coins pretty fast when hit with a hundred thousand, and since they do also want a supply of evils either way, Shell Bell starts there.

She slides up at a rate of five thousand per second, watchful for signs that she should speed up to shorten the trial, or slow down to make the slope gentler.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 10:47 pm (UTC)

Golden averts her eyes.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 10:50 pm (UTC)

He curls up in Nathan's arms, smiling and nuzzling him contentedly, and accumulates a pile of evils in his lap. Occasionally he wriggles, as though trying to get comfortable, although comfort is of course not remotely on the menu.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 10:52 pm (UTC)

At Shell Bell's chosen rate - which she sees no reason to adjust - it takes three minutes even to reach one million.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 10:56 pm (UTC)

By that point, he is hugging such a heaping pile of evils that some have started spilling onto the floor.

He has also started making small sounds and pressing his face briefly into Nathan's shoulder now and again.

The next coin after the one million mark is indeed something new: three equally spaced prongs, each with one point aimed outward and two more hooked back toward the middle, so it has nine points all in all. It looks positively vicious.

The Joker doesn't—quite—looks like he wants to stop.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Can you talk?" Shell Bell asks, holding still at one million exactly.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he breathes, and emits another barbed nine-pointed coin. "Mmmm'm I there yet?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Say when you're done."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Not yet, apparently.

One more—one more—they're much slower now than they were at the bottom of evil range.

And one more time, he drags the pain across his mind. A fifth one of the new kind appears.

"Done," he says on a soft exhale.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 11:05 pm (UTC)

Million drops to zero as soon as she can tell what word he's emitting.

arenaria
2013-03-10 11:06 pm (UTC)

(She's not like the torturers Downside, who've heard stop so many times that it's permanently lost meaning -)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Golden, do you want one of the - what should we call them? There's not one for everybody."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 11:12 pm (UTC)

The Joker presses his face into the side of Nathan's neck and whimpers softly, his arms tightening on his lapful of evils hard enough that some of the points draw blood.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Babe," murmurs Nathan, "I got you - babe - you okay?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I have no clever naming ideas," Golden says. "You can hang onto all of the nine-pointed ones until we have a complete expedition put together and can discuss strategy, by which time more may have been accumulated, from the Joker's alts perhaps. I will take a few of the evils." She does.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 11:15 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell takes everything else.

"Thank you, Joker," she says gravely.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 11:24 pm (UTC)

No more armful of coins—he wraps his arms around Nathan and hugs him as tight as he possibly can.

And takes a deep breath, and lets it out, and takes another.

"Yeah," he says, slow and soft. "I'm fine, sweetie."

And he lets go and sits up a little to toss a smile at Shell Bell.

"Anytime," he says flippantly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 11:26 pm (UTC)

Nathan hugs back, snug but not breaking. "Good."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 11:27 pm (UTC)

"You're not even boosted for that, are you," murmurs Shell Bell wonderingly. "I wonder if even Eights could do that."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Bet you she could," he says with a grin.

arenaria
2013-03-10 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I'm not," Shell Bell says consideringly, "sure how she'll react to our disassembling Downside. I don't mind disappointing the torturers, but she was nice to me."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 11:31 pm (UTC)

"She take your sentence?" Nathan asks. "Mine too."

arenaria
2013-03-10 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes. She did. But I wish I'd waited longer to find a contractor. A torturer who likes to keep long term pets got me before my grace period was even up and someone who only wanted to hurt me for nine hours would've been a better rescuer than none at all."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Well," says the Joker, "that depends on who, doesn't it?"

arenaria
2013-03-10 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I was assigned to Chainsaw. I don't think, by reputation, he'd have been inclined to keep me as a pet for - I haven't counted it up exactly and I didn't have enough access to timepieces to know for sure even if I did count days, but I'm pretty sure it was on the order of twenty-five years. Undoubtedly it would have been horrible, but I still had most of my memories after the first time Voice tortured me, even the second and third and fourth, it took a long time for me to get as wrecked as I did. I wouldn't have thought of it as being better. But it might've been."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Might have," he agrees, and leaves it at that.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-10 11:47 pm (UTC)

"That reminds me," says Shell Bell, making eye contact with Golden. "I think you probably understand this more than any of the others do - but you need Edward and it's not just because of the mate bond. I'm sure turning hurt more than anything Voice did to me. I only had a human body to feel it with. But I was all by myself except for Voice. It made a difference."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-10 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Understood," murmurs Golden. "I'm not planning to attempt to do without him. Ever."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 11:50 pm (UTC)

The Joker closes his eyes and settles into Nathan's arms.

He's feeling... well, if they're done talking business for now, he would really like Nathan to take him somewhere quiet and throw him up against a wall.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 11:52 pm (UTC)

Nathan is not exactly bad at reading his mate.

He slips out of the room, to no objection from either Bell.

He takes the Joker back to their lovely soundproofed room.

And pins him up against a wall.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-10 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Love you, sweetie," he says with a happy wriggle. This is what he really needs, to get his head on straight after making all those coins.

It doesn't take long for him to come up with enough hexes to get his regeneration back up to pre-mortem levels, and then he adds flavour-tuning on top of that. Giving Nathan a nice tummyache seems like the perfect way to finish up.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-10 11:58 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom, delicious mate about whose loose behavior he is no longer conflicted!

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-11 12:01 am (UTC)

Ooh yes. Don't think he didn't notice Nathan being all serene about the Joker whoring out his mint powers like that. He loved jealous Nathan, but he loves okay-with-it Nathan too, he really really does.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-11 12:02 am (UTC)

And this one is so much more comfortable.

Not in the tummy region, though, that's fit to burst at the moment. He stops drinking. Eventually.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-11 12:03 am (UTC)

The Joker will just have to give him tummy snuggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-11 12:05 am (UTC)

They are appreciated. With kisses.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-11 12:09 am (UTC)

N'awwwwwwww.

His immunity to venom, slipped in with one of those regeneration wishes, means he feels quite safe kissing Nathan very very thoroughly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-11 12:09 am (UTC)

Oh good.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-11 12:11 am (UTC)

"Want me to wish your tummy better?" he inquires between kisses.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-11 12:13 am (UTC)

"Mmmhm."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-11 12:15 am (UTC)

He kisses the afflicted tummy and spends a shiny new triangle.

we are convenient to major metropolises

cross_and_bow

This vampire nest was supposed to have six vampires in it. This trip to L.A. was supposed to involve this nest as the first stop of several. This time Sherlock's information is imperfect.

[Fuck,] says Bella, after having burst through the door, masked and armed with her stake, [they're having all their friends over today - help -]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Happy to oblige.]

With Sherlock on her side, things are looking much better.

On the other hand, with Sherlock on her side she can't use her laser pointer. He can, but against such overwhelming odds, sooner or later someone is bound to... run full-tilt into him after he sets them on fire.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 11:48 pm (UTC)

Shit. But the wand can put out fire as well as start it; she brushes her hand against the handle where it's poking out of her jeans and douses it. [You okay?] she asks, switching to a defensive stance to keep further assailants away from him instead of proceeding deeper into the vampire party.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 11:49 pm (UTC)

[Singed,] he says dismissively. But: [Time to put the death laser away, I think.]

And after giving himself a few more seconds to recover, he dives right back in.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-12 11:53 pm (UTC)

Everyone present seems to think is very interesting that the Slayer is protecting this vampire. Everyone present seems to think that he'll present a softer target than she will.

With him burnt, they're - not far wrong.

She does her best to keep them off him, but there are too many, they would never have deliberately launched an assault on so many -

eversomuchfun
2013-03-12 11:59 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is very, very good. One ordinary vampire is nothing to him. Ten are by and large a minor distraction, if he can take them in small groups.

There are upwards of fifty here, and not nearly enough of them have been killed so far to make an ultimate difference.

One vampire rips the leg off a chair and comes at him with the splintered end. He takes it away and uses it to stake that one and two more.

The other three chair legs are a problem.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:06 am (UTC)

He's not going to be able to turn around fast enough, not engaging four on the far side of the one who's got the chair in hand. And Bella's wrestling with one of her own, who's slippery and quick - she's got him staked near the heart twice and he's laughing at her -

Shouting "look out!" won't have him redirecting his attention in time. Setting it on fire will the opposite of help.

Bella wishes the chair out of existence before the vampire can turn it into two separate objects requiring another wish.

And then she takes hold of her fire wand and takes careful note of Sherlock's location and clears the half of the room they're not in with a five-second solid mass of flame, held steady and then dismissed, and then she goes up to mop up the other half of the room with him.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:12 am (UTC)

[Thanks,] he says lightly.

With their numbers so drastically thinned, the remaining vampires do not pose nearly such a problem.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:15 am (UTC)

Bella lets the last one flee into the night to tell the tale, and she stands in the overwarm den, still clutching her stake, panting.

"Down to one," she murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:19 am (UTC)

"Would you like it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:22 am (UTC)

"I think that's probably best - solely by virtue of being out and about during the day I'll be present in a higher proportion of situations that might need it," Bella says. She peers at his burns. "Those look nasty - you're sure you're okay? How long will they take to heal? We should go straight home, the other nests can wait for another day, half the inhabitants were probably at this party anyway."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:39 am (UTC)

"I'll be fine by tomorrow night."

He produces the square.
Edited 2013-03-13 00:39 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:41 am (UTC)

She puts it on the string to replace the one she spent, and heads for the door. She's parked around the corner and down the block.

"Am I wrong in thinking that I saved your life? Maybe you saw or heard that guy breaking the other leg off the chair and you had a clever plan? Please tell me you had a clever plan, if we keep running into situations where we need squares that makes it much worse that there's only one left."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:43 am (UTC)

"I certainly noticed him. 'Clever plan' might be overstating the point. Mostly I planned to kill the rest of them fast enough."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:44 am (UTC)

"Nnng."

She looks up and down the street for witnesses, pulls the concealing cover off her license plate so she won't get pulled over, and hops into the truck and divests herself of her mask.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:46 am (UTC)

"Sorry," he shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:46 am (UTC)

"Not your fault. Maybe we should cut out visits to L.A. until visits to Milliways produce more results. School starts back up soon anyway."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:48 am (UTC)

"All right."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:49 am (UTC)

"My birthday is soon too," she says, happier.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:50 am (UTC)

"Happy imminent birthday. Should I get you a present?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:51 am (UTC)

"Yes. Yes you should."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:52 am (UTC)

"What sort of a present?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:52 am (UTC)

"A good present. Can't you think of anything?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:54 am (UTC)

"A rare demon's head on a platter," he says whimsically. "A powerful magical artifact of some kind."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:55 am (UTC)

"Oooh, yes to the powerful magical artifact," says Bella. "I like powerful magical artifacts."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:55 am (UTC)

"Duly noted."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:56 am (UTC)

"You are clever, I bet you will come up with something neat," says Bella as she pulls onto the highway.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:56 am (UTC)

"I can only hope."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:57 am (UTC)

"I should tell Giles, too. I bet he gets me a book," says Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 12:58 am (UTC)

"Sucker's bet."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 12:59 am (UTC)

"Oh, I don't know, he might come up with something else." [Hey Giles! D'you know it's almost my birthday?]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:01 am (UTC)

[I did not!] he says. [For your birthday, I will get you... more stalling homework.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:02 am (UTC)

[Of my very own?] exclaims Bella in mock glee. [Oh, it's just what I always wanted!]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:03 am (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:05 am (UTC)

[But I think it might be a good occasion to stop stalling, if we can do that. We are down to one solitary square. There were way more vampires than we were expecting at the first nest for the night. We're not even going to hit the others, we're just on our way home now.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:06 am (UTC)

[I... yes,] he says. [That's reasonable.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:08 am (UTC)

[I'm cutting out L.A. trips until Milliways yields results or I have local magic backing me up. I nearly died back when it was Defenders and probably would be dead now if it weren't for Amariah's stuff; Sherlock might have died tonight if it weren't for the square I used. I'm increasingly unclear on how Slayers without extradimensional help manage to live as long as twenty-six years.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:10 am (UTC)

[They usually don't,] Giles admits.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:10 am (UTC)

[What's more typical?]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:11 am (UTC)

[Between eighteen and twenty.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:14 am (UTC)

[Yeah. I can see that. Well. The next time anything on the order of a couple thousand Defenders is after me, I hope you won't take it amiss if I grab Sherlock and make a run for Jarvis and beg a door out and don't come back unless I can find somebody who'll help me. I realize that sticking around to die would have some benefit in the form of giving the next girl in line a shot, but I really, really don't want to die.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:15 am (UTC)

[I wouldn't blame you at all,] he sighs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:16 am (UTC)

[I'd get you and Charlie too if you were close enough,] she volunteers.

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:17 am (UTC)

[...Thank you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:19 am (UTC)

[Hey, I don't want you to die. I don't want anybody to die, it's just that Sherlock's the only person - besides Jarvis, who's sadly not portable - who I'd expect to be right with me in this situation, and you and Charlie are the only ones who might be in remotely plausible radii and also listen if I said "quick, through this magic door into the interdimensional bar!".]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:24 am (UTC)

[Sometimes,] he says, [you're a very surprising person.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:26 am (UTC)

[What did I say that was surprising?] asks Bella. [Everything I said sounds perfectly reasonable to me, except that if I were slightly more altruistic and significantly more comfortable with enlisting non-volunteer teenage girls in the fight against demonic stuff I might agree to conveniently die here to allow the Slayer line to continue.]
Edited 2013-03-13 01:40 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:41 am (UTC)

[You're... more logical than I'm used to people being,] he says. [Myself included.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:44 am (UTC)

[I'm not exactly doing Aristotelian syllogisms over here. I just - did I ever tell you my favorite three questions?]
Edited 2013-03-13 01:45 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:47 am (UTC)

[I don't think you did, no.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:51 am (UTC)

[They're: what do I want?, what do I have?, and how do I use the latter to get the former?. They crop up in all instances of the Bell template we know of, actually, but my point is - I want to live. If I have to weigh this against other wants, then I'll do that, because that's the only way I'm going to be able to decisively reach for whatever it is that I most want. I have access to Jarvis and therefore Milliways. Jarvis is not portable, but Sherlock and you and Charlie are. I want you all to live, too. The results of my questions are pretty clear.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:52 am (UTC)

[I can't imagine it hasn't occurred to you that most people don't have such a streamlined process for finding those answers,] he says after a moment.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:53 am (UTC)

[Oh, it's occurred to me. I just don't know how you not-me people can live in such untidy brains or get anything done.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:54 am (UTC)

[Very inefficiently.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:55 am (UTC)

[Maybe I should write a self-help book. Figuring Out What You Want In Order To Get It By More Than Sheer Coincidence Sometimes.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:56 am (UTC)

[I think you want to work on that title,] he says dryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 01:56 am (UTC)

[Nope! I don't! It is a dramatically lower priority than all kinds of other things.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 01:59 am (UTC)

He snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 02:00 am (UTC)

[Anyway. Birthday. September thirteenth. Gonna be eighteen. Get me a present or I shall look so terribly disappointed at you.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 02:01 am (UTC)

[A book on magic,] he promises.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 02:02 am (UTC)

[Yay!]

"I'm totally getting a book," she reports to Sherlock. "But it may well be about magic and not about more kinds of demons."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 02:03 am (UTC)

"So predictable."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 02:05 am (UTC)

"A bit. I will like the book on magic, though, I bet. And hopefully I'll be able to use it to reasonable effect in the absence of squares. If, before I have learned enough magic to have a reasonable shot at surviving the next apocalypse, another apocalypse threatens - I'm asking Jarvis for a door and I'm taking anyone who'll come with me, especially you, and not coming back."
Edited 2013-03-13 02:06 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 02:10 am (UTC)

"Good plan."

Except that it will leave Jarvis behind.

Well, he hopes it won't come to that.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 02:12 am (UTC)

She's not unaware of that disadvantage. But Jarvis isn't a laptop; they can't grab him on the way out.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 02:13 am (UTC)

And if it actually happens, they will have plenty of time to plan a rescue from the other side.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 02:22 am (UTC)

They get home. They quit the excursions to L.A. Bella works on her fire wand at increasing levels of background distraction; she makes steady progress. School starts back up and her schedule slips back to where it was, diurnal sleep cycle and visits to Giles in the library and all.

Bella's birthday falls on a Tuesday. She doesn't have a study hall this year, but she can still go hang out with Giles after her last class. She expects a present.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 04:01 am (UTC)

Unbeknownst to her, Giles received a visitor earlier in the day.

"Hello, Rupert."

pythbox
2013-03-13 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Arthur," he says, adjusting his glasses. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Why, young Isabella's birthday," says Arthur. "It's time for her test."

pythbox
2013-03-13 03:47 pm (UTC)

He blinks.

"Is it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 03:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes, of course, Rupert. She's turned eighteen. We would have given you notice, but you didn't inform us of her birth date, and so when we looked it up and it was so soon there was a bit of a scramble."

pythbox
2013-03-13 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Is the test really necessary?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Rupert," says Arthur. "I'm surprised you have to ask. It's been ongoing for centuries. It's a structured way to determine how the Slayer handles herself in a situation where she can't rely on her usual tricks. If she's not up to the task, certainly it's best to roll the dice again before leaving the demons with a subpar Slayer to become complacent about? We are talking about the protector of the entire world, she who stands against the darkness, are we not?"

pythbox
2013-03-13 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Arthur," says Rupert. "Not to put too fine a point on it, this Slayer is smarter than you are. She was standing against the darkness just fine before I found her, and would no doubt continue to do so just fine if the entire Watcher's Council were wiped off the planet by a very choosy plague."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, then," says Arthur mildly, "if you're right, and not simply blinded by your particular closeness to this girl, then she should have no problem with the test, should she? Now, I've brought you the suppressants; do you believe you'll be able to convince her to hold still for a syringe or should I show you how to load them into the blowdart?"

pythbox
2013-03-13 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm not doing it," he says flatly. "The test is pointless and cruel. She'll never trust us again, and she'll be right not to, and all to find out information that I already know. So you can take your, your foul concoction, and get the hell out of my library."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Rupert," sighs Arthur. And he begins to turn around and then he spins and strikes Giles in the back of the head with the briefcase containing his foul concoction.

pythbox
2013-03-13 04:25 pm (UTC)

He doesn't even have time to warn her.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 04:37 pm (UTC)

Bella arrives to find the library devoid of Giles, but with another man present. "...Where's Giles?" she asks. She tries the brainphone, and he's unresponsive, although he didn't put up a busy message; maybe he's distracted.

"He's not feeling well today," says the man behind the counter. "Are you Isabella?"

"I prefer Bella. You're a... substitute librarian?"

"Of sorts," says the man. "But I'm actually a... colleague of Mr. Giles. Another Watcher. And I believe it's your birthday, Slayer Bella, am I right?"

"You're right - oh, wow, did Giles get me a magic teacher for my birthday instead of just a book, that would be the best thing -"

The man looks amused. "I'll pass on a report of your delight when he's well enough to answer the phone, you may be assured. You seem very keen. Do you want to begin right away? This library doesn't appear to get much traffic."

"Oh, it never does, I learn about demons and stuff in here all the time," says Bella, putting down her messenger bag and sitting at a table raptly. "Where do we start?"

"A simple exercise," says the Watcher, and he gets up and produces a clear white crystal and sets it on the table in front of her. "If you will peer into the center of this crystal, and concentrate very absolutely - no matter what distractions I concoct for you - and look for the small flaw inside of it - you will find the resulting mental state invaluable later on."

"Okay," says Bella, and she sets her chin on her arms and stares into the crystal intently.

Arthur circles her, and she ignores the footsteps. There's some sort of clicking noise, which she ignores. Sherlock won't be awake now, but she can tell Jarvis, the teacher won't be able to chide her for distraction he can't see: [Hey Jarvis, Giles got me a magic teacher for my birthd-]

In goes the needle. Out like a light goes Bella.

Initial unconsciousness is an occasional, known symptom of the suppressants. Arthur is unconcerned. He has his car ready to transport her to the field of battle. And no one comes into the library after school.
Edited 2013-03-13 16:40 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-03-13 04:40 pm (UTC)

[...Congratulations?] he tries after a moment.

Then, [Giles?]

No response from either direction.

He wakes up Sherlock and reports these facts.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 04:49 pm (UTC)

It is well before sunset, and the chosen building has windows. She'll have plenty of time to wake up before the time-release locks on the test vampire's container set it free.

And the fact that she's still unconscious means that Arthur can divest her of those items that glow so oddly to his witchsight. This wand, this bracelet with the mother-of-pearl square bead on it, and - the rest of the magic seems to be coming from her directly, in spite of the fact that she fell for an utterly fictitious magical exercise; what has Giles been doing to his Slayer? Trying to extend the natural lifespan of the breed with excess magic? She did find it plausible that Arthur was a teacher of magic.

Well. He's got the still-unconscious Giles handcuffed to a chair in his hotel room. He can ask him a few questions when he wakes up.

Arthur carefully locks the Slayer in the building and leaves her be.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 04:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock, meanwhile, lets fifteen minutes go by with thirty-second checks on both Bella and Giles.

That's quite enough for him.

At the end of those fifteen minutes, with sunset still an hour away, he calls Charlie Swan.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 04:54 pm (UTC)

Charlie's cell phone says:

"You have reached the cell number of Charlie Swan. I can't pick up the phone right now. If this is an emergency police matter, please call 911. If this is a personal matter, please leave a message on my home answering machine, at 555-6701. If this is a non-emergency police matter, please call the Sunnydale Police Department at 555-2199."

Beep.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 04:59 pm (UTC)

Oh, joy. No option for 'emergency personal matter', he notes. And advising people to call 911 in Sunnydale is rather like advising them to carry umbrellas on a deep-sea dive. But the chief of police is bound to have a slanted view of the matter.

He calls the police department.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Sunnydale Police Department."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I need to speak with Charlie Swan," he says pleasantly. "It's about his daughter. Is he available?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:01 pm (UTC)

"No, he's tangled up in some business right now and can't come to the phone, sorry. Can I take a message?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:03 pm (UTC)

"You can give him my name and phone number," he says, and provides both. "And tell him that it is moderately urgent."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:05 pm (UTC)

"...'Sherlock'," says the secretary. "Literary parents? What's the last name?"
Edited 2013-03-13 17:06 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Literary parents with a deeply annoying sense of humour," he says. "If I told you my last name you would only think I was joking, and then you might not deliver my message, and then all three of Bella and Charlie and I would be greatly inconvenienced."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:12 pm (UTC)

"I'll tell Chief Swan that Sherlock called about Bella and give him your number, when he's back, but it could be a few hours," says the secretary.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:14 pm (UTC)

"That is unfortunate, but thank you all the same. I appreciate it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:14 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says the secretary, and hangs up.
Edited 2013-03-13 17:17 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:25 pm (UTC)

Purely on the off-chance, he also calls Charlie's home number and leaves a message stating that he called his cellphone and the police department looking for him, that it's about Bella and is moderately urgent, and his own name and number.

And then he goes back to those thirty-second checks.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:29 pm (UTC)

Bella wakes up just a few minutes before sunset.

[shrlok?] she says, sounding slurred and groggy.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:30 pm (UTC)

[I called your father but he was busy. What happened?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:31 pm (UTC)

[dunno. 'm in a - place.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:33 pm (UTC)

[Something I don't know, dear Juliet.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:34 pm (UTC)

[was a man - 'nstead 'f giles - a watcher - 'n the libry - 'm all weak 'n shaky -]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:35 pm (UTC)

[What can you tell me about where you are now?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:36 pm (UTC)

['s a - house - 's a mess - s'mthing upstairs 's rattling -]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:37 pm (UTC)

[Do you have your square?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:38 pm (UTC)

[...no. m' wand neither. gone.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:41 pm (UTC)

[In that case, please describe to me any identifying features you can discern about your location, so that I can find you and help you escape whomever has kidnapped you. It will look terrible on my bodyguarding resume otherwise.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

['s... got... trees, outside? tall ones.] She reaches a weak, trembly hand for the door handle, which doesn't turn. ['m locked in. lotta dust. small room. stairs. wood floor.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:46 pm (UTC)

[Tall trees. How many? What species? Anything noteworthy about the architecture?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:47 pm (UTC)

[maybe magnolias, dunno my trees. lots. can't see 'em without getting up, don't think that's a good idea. 's... old? lot of wood?] Pause. [th' rattling's louder -]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:50 pm (UTC)

[I don't suppose you feel up to breaking the door down?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:51 pm (UTC)

[couldn' even squish a spider right now. spider'd win.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:53 pm (UTC)

He checks Giles again.

[Well, I strongly suspect you are not going to like whatever is rattling up there. Perhaps a window? If the building is as old as you say, they shouldn't be too hard to break.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 05:54 pm (UTC)

Bella hauls herself to her feet. She pushes experimentally against a window. She draws her hand back in something that is shaped like a punch but taps against the glass with barely a sound.

[window wins.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

[Well. Fuck.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:00 pm (UTC)

[mmhm.]

The rattling stops. It is replaced with footsteps.

[stopped rattling. started walking. 'm scared.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 06:01 pm (UTC)

[As am I, love. As am I.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 06:01 pm (UTC)

And, elsewhere, Giles wakes up.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Rupert," says Arthur. "It's very unfortunate that you opted to behave as you did. Even if she survives her test, now, you can't be allowed to go on as her Watcher. Your judgment is compromised."

Meanwhile, Bella is trying to find a way to simply open the window, and is failing. [thing's painted shut - 'm scared - love you, love you -]

pythbox
2013-03-13 06:05 pm (UTC)

He just stares incredulously.

Well. Not just.

[Bella?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 06:05 pm (UTC)

[I love you too,] says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:09 pm (UTC)

She's startled into somewhat better coherence. [Giles! Giles - where am I -] She conferences him into the brainphone call. [Where am I, I don't know and Sherlock doesn't either, I'm locked in - there's something upstairs - I'm weak as a bug, I can barely walk -]

The something descends a step.

[It's coming down the stairs.]

Arthur says, "Perhaps you can explain to me all the magic I found on her person. And on yours. I'd thought you were quite turned off the use of witchcraft? Have you fallen in with bad company again, Rupert? She seemed terribly excited when I agreed that I was there to teach her magic for her birthday. Slayers aren't meant to be witches; why haven't you taught her that?"

pythbox
2013-03-13 06:14 pm (UTC)

[The something is a vampire,] he explains. [It's a test, from the Watcher's Council - until a few hours ago I thought it was a particularly nasty myth. The man from the Council knocked me out before I could warn you. He's given you something to suppress your Slayer powers.]

And aloud: "I don't feel the need to explain anything to you at all."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:18 pm (UTC)

[How am I supposed to do anything about a vampire without my powers, my wand, my square, my laser pointer - I don't even have a stake or my crossbow - he left my crucifix but that'll just annoy a vampire, not kill one -]

"Rupert," says Arthur sadly. "We understand feeling - parental, towards Slayers. But it will not go well with you if you continue to act as an obstacle even now. Wouldn't you rather tell me what I need to know, wish Bella the best of luck on her test, and retire peacefully, than see what the Council will make of you having bedecked yourself and her in bizarre magic on top of having refused to administer her test?"

pythbox
2013-03-13 06:24 pm (UTC)

"No," he says, almost cheerfully.

And adds into the conference call, [The name of the man who kidnapped you is Arthur Mallory. He'll have put you in an abandoned house somewhere as remote as possible.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:26 pm (UTC)

Bella cannot talk to him right now.

Bella has summoned all of her scattered brainpower to do the one thing she can still do with this vampire.

"You too, huh?" she says to the vampire, sitting against the wall of the house and trying to look disaffected.

"Rupert, be reasonable," says Arthur.

pythbox
2013-03-13 06:33 pm (UTC)

"I am being reasonable," says Giles. "Unreasonable would be expecting you to anything with any information I could give you about my Slayer other than betray her. Again."

The vampire raises his eyebrows. "Me too what?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:36 pm (UTC)

"They locked you up in this house, too?" Bella prompts. "Fucking Watchers. It's bullshit. They probably want you to kill me so they can put you back in your box for next time and get a Slayer who'd rather stake vampires than make friends. I bet my Watcher told all the others about the vampire boyfriend, I just bet, and they're too chicken to do it themselves." (Keep him listening, keep him listening.)

"Rupert, this test has been going on during every Slayer's eighteenth birthday for centuries. Most of them pass. And I have no intention of interfering with her while she makes the attempt, so I don't see what has you worried about me betraying her."
Edited 2013-03-13 18:40 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-13 06:44 pm (UTC)

"...Vampire boyfriend," the vampire repeats.

Giles just shakes his head.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm. The things he can do with his fangs... But that's probably TMI, huh?"

"What does the wand do, Rupert? Why does this bead radiate a magical signature?"
Edited 2013-03-13 18:47 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-13 06:48 pm (UTC)

The vampire grins. Fangily. "Oh, no, tell me more."

"Why do you think I know these things?" wonders Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:52 pm (UTC)

[Operation: Talk To The Vampire has not gotten me killed yet,] Bella reports to Sherlock and Giles under cover of a smile. "We-e-ell, I don't know if you're originally from around here or what, but there's a bite shop downtown, and once my boyfriend told me about that I was all kinds of interested, you know, the business model they must have going... I can show you the place if you wanna bust us out of here."

"Because," says Arthur, "she was your Slayer - alas, no more, we can't have this kind of sentimentality - and the magic that was on her person that I could not remove is, oddly enough, duplicated on you."

pythbox
2013-03-13 06:55 pm (UTC)

"I've heard of those," says the vampire, nodding along. "Is that why he hasn't turned you?"

Giles shakes his head again.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 06:58 pm (UTC)

"That and my scintillating personality and the fact that if I die even a little bit, the Slayer gets replaced with somebody who probably doesn't have my enlightened view of race relations," Bella says, trying not to speak too hastily.

"Rupert, what has she done to you?" says Arthur. "Did you even know about the spells on you? They're not quite the same as hers - perhaps she was only pretending to be interested in learning magic, perhaps she's got another teacher and she's ensorcelled you somehow..."

pythbox
2013-03-13 07:02 pm (UTC)

The vampire raises his eyebrows. "Uh-huh," he says.

Giles, meanwhile, rolls his eyes.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 07:06 pm (UTC)

"They'd probably prioritize hunting me down, too, and then he'd not only have no dessert but no girlfriend at all," she says. She's babbling at near-random now. [Sherlock, are you looking for me - I don't know how long I can keep him conversing civilly - he didn't take the bait when I suggested that he bust the door down -] "Fucking Watchers."

Arthur picks up the wand, waves it experimentally. "I can only imagine that she knows what it does. This isn't a continuous effect, so it must be activated. I have heard rumors that the demons believe the current Slayer is pyrokinetic. Perhaps these aren't hysterical inventions. You know me and artifacts, Giles... experimental."

pythbox
2013-03-13 07:10 pm (UTC)

"You know," says the vampire, "I'm getting the sense you're not giving me the whole story here."

"Go ahead," Giles invites. "I sincerely hope you set us both on fire."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 07:11 pm (UTC)

[I am looking for you,] he says. [As fast as I can.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Hm? What else do you want to know?" asks Bella. "Me, Slayer with vampire boyfriend, you, vampire locked in a house with me to bump me off so they can see if the next in line is better-behaved, what's missing?"

[I love you.]

Arthur may or may not be trying, but he doesn't get any fire out of the wand, and eventually he sets it down and picks up the square.

pythbox
2013-03-13 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Well," says the vampire, "I've heard that if you turn a Slayer you get the most powerful vampire ever seen."

Giles lets out a slightly exaggerated sigh of relief.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 07:17 pm (UTC)

[I love you too, dear Juliet.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I think they'd probably run this test with some other kind of demon if that were true," says Bella quickly.

[Operation Talk To The Vampire may be about to drastically backfire -]

"This one has a very puzzling signature indeed," Arthur says conversationally. "I don't recognize anything about it."

pythbox
2013-03-13 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Test?" says the vampire. "What test?"

"Oh, no, Br'er Rabbit," says Giles. "Don't touch that one."
Edited 2013-03-13 19:23 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 07:27 pm (UTC)

Shit. "Well, they gave me something, but they didn't break my legs or put me into a coma or even take my crucifix, I bet they hope I lose but they're pretending it's a contest - maybe if I walk out of here docile and scared I get to tell them that I understand now that vampires are bad and not for dating and they see if I'm salvageable?"

Arthur rolls his eyes at Giles and turns the square over in his hand.

pythbox
2013-03-13 07:30 pm (UTC)

The vampire looks thoughtful.

Giles laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 07:32 pm (UTC)

"But," says Bella, "I bet you could break down that door, or a window, and be long gone by the time they show up to herd you into the box again."

"Is something funny, Rupert?"

pythbox
2013-03-13 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Maybe so," the vampire muses.

"Nothing," Giles says innocently.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh, probably. Wouldn't that just drive them nuts, if they came back later to find the place deserted?"

Arthur attempts to break the square. He scratches his hand in the attempt and it remains obstinately intact.
Edited 2013-03-13 19:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-13 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I bet it would," says the vampire, eyeing the door.

Giles laughs again.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 07:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how much time they're going to allow," Bella adds. "For all I know they'll be back in a minute."

Arthur begins studiously ignoring Giles as he inspects the wand and the square.

pythbox
2013-03-13 07:55 pm (UTC)

The vampire casually kicks the entire locking mechanism out of the door and doorframe. The door creaks inward on shuddering hinges.

"Let's go find your boyfriend," he suggests.

Giles ignores Arthur right back.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Let's," says Bella, and she gets up, wobbly as a newborn colt but capable of putting one foot in front of the other. [Sherlock where are you I talked him into breaking down the door for us and now he wants us to go find my vampire boyfriend that I told him about.] "Let's see, where do I expect him this time of day..."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Not far, I hope,] he says. [North end of Chester. You?]

pythbox
2013-03-13 08:08 pm (UTC)

The vampire laughs and picks Bella up with one arm. "Just tell me where to go."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 08:10 pm (UTC)

She shivers. "I need a look at a street sign. I don't know where we are," she says. "Unless you know your way around here, in which case we're looking for Chester Street."

[Don't know. He's also not letting me walk on my own.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 08:11 pm (UTC)

The vampire peers toward the end of the street and reads off a sign.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Turn left," Bella says. [We're about six blocks off from the Chester Street Market. You'll meet us sooner if you go south.]

pythbox
2013-03-13 08:15 pm (UTC)

He turns left.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 08:15 pm (UTC)

[Going,] says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 08:20 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure he believes me that I have a vampire boyfriend. Or what. I don't know what he wants.] "He's a little taller than I am, looks about eighteen, black hair," she says to the vampire who's carrying her, "let me know if you spot him."

pythbox
2013-03-13 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Will do, princess," the vampire says amicably.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 08:25 pm (UTC)

It's only six blocks. Bella tells the vampire to turn right onto Chester Street.
Edited 2013-03-13 20:29 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-13 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Is that him?" the vampire says, a little nervously. "Man, he does not look happy."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 08:52 pm (UTC)

(There is indeed a distant figure coming down the street at a flat-out run.)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you could put me down," Bella suggests.

pythbox
2013-03-13 09:04 pm (UTC)

He puts her down and starts edging away.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:05 pm (UTC)

Bella finds her footing and starts in Sherlock's direction. (She doesn't run. She'd just fall on her face.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:07 pm (UTC)

He very nearly runs straight into her, but stops at precisely the last moment and hugs her gently instead.

"All right, love?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Except for the drugs and the missing possessions and a bad scare and utterly torpedoed willingness to consider the Watchers benign. Yes." She wraps her arms around him and presses her face into his shoulder.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:10 pm (UTC)

[I found her,] he reports, to both Giles and Jarvis. [She's safe. More or less.]

"May I kill Arthur Mallory?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Would it put you - or me or Giles - at any added risk to see what he has to say for himself first?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:12 pm (UTC)

"...It might conceivably," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:13 pm (UTC)

"For that matter, might it be dangerous to kill him?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:14 pm (UTC)

"It will annoy the Council, but so will your future rejection of whoever they replace Giles with, as they undoubtedly will since he has now proven he gives half a shit about your welfare."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:15 pm (UTC)

[Giles, have you got an opinion on how safe it would be for three of us if Arthur Mallory were to go home in a body bag?] Bella asks in a conference call, lightly.

pythbox
2013-03-13 09:16 pm (UTC)

[It could go either way,] he says consideringly. [But he was playing with your fire wand earlier and now he's trying to bite through your square, so he might manage it even without our help.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:18 pm (UTC)

[Oh, for the love of - do you know how long these drugs are supposed to last?] Bella sighs, flexing a hand experimentally. [Where are you?]

pythbox
2013-03-13 09:18 pm (UTC)

[In a hotel room, tied to a chair. I think it's a Holiday Inn, if that helps.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:19 pm (UTC)

[That it does.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:21 pm (UTC)

[Is Arthur dangerous? I expect he caught you as off guard as me, but assuming we're paying attention and Sherlock is there should we wait to show up until I'm feeling stronger again?]

pythbox
2013-03-13 09:23 pm (UTC)

[He can see magic, and he probably has some theoretical combat training, but I don't think he'd give Sherlock any trouble.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:24 pm (UTC)

[Okay. To the Holiday Inn, then.]

Bella leans on Sherlock as he leads the way.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:25 pm (UTC)

Now and then, he kisses her forehead.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I love you," she sighs. "And I feel really, really dumb for falling for that guy's trick. Ugh, I handed it to him."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:28 pm (UTC)

"What exactly happened?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I walked into the library. Giles wasn't there or answering the brainphone, but Arthur said he was one of Giles's colleagues and Giles wasn't feeling well, and he knew I was the Slayer and that it was my birthday, and I said - ugh, I asked him if I got a magic teacher for my birthday. And he said that yes I did and he had me staring into a crystal and then I guess he injected me with whatever cocktail of drugs is this year's gold standard for crippling Slayers. I passed right out. I should've been suspicious that Giles would've stayed home from school without telling me, even if a surprise birthday present seemed innocently traditional."
Edited 2013-03-13 21:31 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, somehow I don't think that's a mistake you'll make twice."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:37 pm (UTC)

"It is not. Anybody besides Giles shows up claiming to be a Watcher, and they get to spend that conversation with their hair on unconsuming cool fire being informed that if I stop paying attention to it the fire will do as fire does."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he says with great fondness.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:42 pm (UTC)

He kisses her forehead again.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:42 pm (UTC)

Is that the Holiday Inn over there?

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:43 pm (UTC)

Why yes it is!

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:44 pm (UTC)

[He hasn't figured out how to work the wand or the square, has he? Or displayed any understanding of the laser pointers?] Bella asks Giles, with Sherlock conferenced in for common knowledge.

pythbox
2013-03-13 09:44 pm (UTC)

[He has not done any of those things, no.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:45 pm (UTC)

[Sherlock, can you find them?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:46 pm (UTC)

[Oh, yes.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:47 pm (UTC)

[The Holiday Inn might resent it if we break down their door,] observes Bella. [I don't suppose you know another way in? Somehow knocking and saying 'housekeeping' seems unlikely to work.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:49 pm (UTC)

[But it would be such fun,] he says brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:49 pm (UTC)

[Do you want to spend part of your inheritance paying damages to the Holiday Inn? They're innocent, and it's not unavoidable collateral damage like what happened to the orange grove.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:50 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, I know,] he says cheerfully. [Let's tell your father this fellow kidnapped you. Then he can break down the door.]
Edited 2013-03-13 21:51 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 09:55 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, you're smart!] He gets a kiss on the cheek, and she goes in to borrow the front desk's phone.

She's better than Sherlock at getting past the secretary, who recognizes her voice. "Hello, Mr. Greer - yeah - no, it really was very important, he hasn't taken any messages yet? - yes, please put him on the phone right away if you can - hi, Dad - is your arm okay? - that's good. No, I'm fine now, but earlier I was kidnapped. Yes. He was -"

"Shouldn't you be calling the police?" asks the front desk lady.

"This is the police," Bella tells her. "Anyway, me and Sherlock found where he is currently keeping Giles captive, it's at the Holiday Inn, can you come? Okay, see you in a few."

[Five minutes and Charlie'll be here,] Bella reports to Sherlock and Giles.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 09:58 pm (UTC)

[I'm smart,] Sherlock declares happily.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:00 pm (UTC)

Five minutes, Charlie arrives.

"Where are they?" he asks Sherlock and Bella.

Bella looks to Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Room 415," he says, having checked the records while the front desk lady was asking Bella if she shouldn't be calling the police.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:02 pm (UTC)

Up they go.

Charlie hammers on the door. "POLICE! OPEN UP!" he hollers.

"Arthur Mallory," says Bella helpfully.

Arthur adopts the general demeanor of a startled rabbit.

pythbox
2013-03-13 10:06 pm (UTC)

Giles grins.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Just a second, officer!" calls Arthur, and he drags Giles's chair into the bathroom, applies a makeshift gag, and answers the door. "Er, what seems to be the tro-"

He sees Bella, and he double-takes at the family resemblance to Charlie, and goes white as a sheet.

"Dad, this is him," says Bella. "He kidnapped Giles and drugged me and locked me in a house with a vampire I had to talk my way past."

"You," says Charlie, "are under arrest -"

While Bella's fire wand is sitting on the hotel room nightstand, the square is in Arthur's hand.

And he looks at Bella with absolute venom, and, knowing not what he holds, wishes that the vampire had torn her throat out.

Bella slumps to the floor. And there is blood everywhere.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Oh, well fucking done," Sherlock snarls, crouching down beside her. [Juliet, dear Juliet—]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:17 pm (UTC)

[don'twannadie]

"Bella," exclaims Charlie - but he's not a paramedic. "Ambulance to the Holiday Inn," he snaps into his radio, and he sets about cuffing Arthur, who is at least as stunned as everyone else.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:18 pm (UTC)

[I've only the one solution, love, and you know the risks.]

But if it weren't the only way out he sees, he wouldn't even be bringing it up.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:19 pm (UTC)

[don'twannadie] She coughs up blood; it joins the general font. [maybei'dbelikeyou]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:20 pm (UTC)

He bites a small wound in the side of his wrist and presents it to her mouth.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock," says Charlie, as Bella makes a valiant effort to swallow, "what are you doing?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Vampire first aid," he says. "Just in case."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:24 pm (UTC)

[loveyou]

She's gotten a few mouthfuls down.

She can drink no more.

Charlie barks more detailed instructions for the paramedics into the radio.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," he murmurs, kissing the top of her head.

And, standing up: "If it's all the same to you I'd rather not hang around to distract the paramedics."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:29 pm (UTC)

Charlie nods once. He attaches Arthur to the hotel bed, and goes to release Giles, and then he radios for a backup car so that he'll be able to ride in the ambulance with Bella.

But when he takes her pulse there's nothing. He weeps over her until the paramedics arrive, to go through the ritual of rushing her to the hospital and pronouncing her dead.

Charlie's backup escorts Arthur away.
Edited 2013-03-13 22:30 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:31 pm (UTC)

A scant hour later, Bella's body mysteriously disappears.

The safest place to put her, Sherlock decides, is Milliways.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:34 pm (UTC)

A few days later, someone opens her eyes. Is it Bella? Maybe!

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Good morning, sleepyhead," he says affectionately.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmm, hello," says Bella, stretching. "Well. Probably time to find a new place to -" She snickers. "Inhabit. Fucking Watchers would never let me be. Best of luck, new girl," she drawls, raising an imaginary toasting glass.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:45 pm (UTC)

"So," he prompts, "what does the new Bella think of the old Bella?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Should've broken Shell Bell's arm and apologized after if she felt so bad about it," snorts the new Bella. "Megalomania and no follow-through, bad combination."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Do I take it that you mean to take over the world?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Pfft. No. And do what with it? That was her gig. She wanted to take over the world and keep it as a pet, be sweet to it, cute li'l world she could take for walks and bring to all the Bell parties to be smug about and win the blue ribbon for best in show? Or 'most improved', maybe, what she had to work with. I don't wanna do that. Don't see the point."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Then what is your life's ambition, pray tell?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Who says I have one? For one thing wouldn't I need a life, wasn't it you saying we're not alive - But why're we talking so much, that's dull, luv, c'mere."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:56 pm (UTC)

"A tempting suggestion," he says, "and yet, I feel I must decline."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Because, delightful as you admittedly are, I don't love you."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 11:01 pm (UTC)

"That shouldn't stop you. I know you fucked Amariah, hon. I haven't got a little owl for whatever kinky craziness that wound up being, true, but I look right and I want you and the precious li'l megalomaniac isn't coming back. C'mere."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:02 pm (UTC)

"You're not going to argue me into it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

Bella considers this.

Then she shrugs. "Okay then."

And she stops trying to argue, and starts trying to see if that rumor about Slayers becoming the most powerful vampires is true.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:04 pm (UTC)

Much to Sherlock's regret, it is.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:10 pm (UTC)

The initial part of the... altercation... transports them out of the bedroom and into the main part of the Belltower, and if someone cares about that, it's not what's left of Juliet.

This means that when the door opens, Golden gets an eyeful.

"...Is this happy not-me-Bell behavior?" she asks, unbalanced.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm having fun," purrs the ex-Juliet. "I'd ask if you wanna play, but I think I know the answer, and you'd be hard to convince."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:11 pm (UTC)

[no]

says Sherlock, over text-only brainphone.

After a very small delay, during which he makes absolutely no voluntary movement of any kind, he adds,

[help]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:13 pm (UTC)

Golden can be very fast with wishes. A few of them see ex-Juliet locked up in one of the Belltower bedrooms forbidden from leaving, and Sherlock in all of his clothes again.

"What," says Golden, "happened to Juliet?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:16 pm (UTC)

"She died," says Sherlock. "Before she bled to death she asked me to turn her, on the chance that she might end as... agreeable as I am. In the event, she did not."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-13 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Let me ouuuuut," complains Juliet, pounding ineffectually but with increasing loudness on the door.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:19 pm (UTC)

"No," Golden tells that door. And to Sherlock: "Did you catch up on the Bellbook while you were here?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I did not."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Sufficiently large coins can raise the dead. Glitchily. The glitch is that in at least some worlds, dead people wind up in a terrible afterlife called Downside, which doesn't let them go even after resurrection. Shell Bell and one of my employees both got themselves killed, were brought back, and - on Shell Bell encountering her Sherlock here after several decades Downside - resumed their singleness. Merged back into single people. If I can force the door to Downside, we can check for a Juliet there, and if she's been luckier than Shell Bell was or if it hasn't been very long we can simply get her out and repatriate her, but I don't know what to do with - that." She waves a hand at the door behind which ex-Juliet is still howling to be let out and pounding.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:25 pm (UTC)

"It is supposed to be theoretically possible for a vampire to regain their soul and thereby their original personality," he says. "I'd consider that not dissimilar to the merging you speak of."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps. I don't see this one consenting to the merger, though, and I don't know what the results would be like, especially since Juliet, unlike Shell Bell, has an instance of mental opacity and may be able to resist editing."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:32 pm (UTC)

"What is behind that door is a creature with extensive combat training, a hefty double dose of superpowers, all of Juliet's memories, and no ethical restraint whatsoever. Do you want her to continue existing in that form? I don't."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:34 pm (UTC)

"My point is that if we find that there is one in Downside, and unlike the split of Shell Bell who came to very thoroughly deserve the name 'Shell' she has retained her sanity, there may be no good reason for the one behind the door to continue existing, and yet I am not fully comfortable with killing her - are you?"
Edited 2013-03-13 23:34 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Charming. All right. Let's see if I can force the door; if I can't, I can summon Nathan through mine and he can. And we can check Downside for a Juliet."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Splendid," says Sherlock.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:40 pm (UTC)

Golden puts a sign on the door that reads this room contains a version of Juliet who is not safe to interact with due to loss of soul (Sunshine-style); do not release her --Golden and marches to the door.

She can't force it - she hasn't been there - so she sticks her head into Aurum, and calls Nathan over.

"He'll be here in a minute," she says. "Are you all right? Can I help you in any way beyond having interrupted?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:41 pm (UTC)

"I am not especially all right," he says, "but I don't know what to do about it besides get Juliet back. Thank you, in any case, for interrupting."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to tell her?" asks Golden. "About what happened?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:44 pm (UTC)

"In the event that she does not wind up remembering it herself, you mean?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:45 pm (UTC)

"In that event. If we retrieve a perfectly intact albeit technically deceased Juliet from Downside and I hand you a pentagon to deal with the other."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, she'd hardly thank me for keeping her in the dark."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:50 pm (UTC)

"That's true. And not an answer."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea if I will be capable of bringing it up."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-13 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I can, if you prefer, although I can only tell her the part I saw."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-13 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I would appreciate it."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-13 11:59 pm (UTC)

Nathan turns the corner. "Hallo, Your Majesty and extradimensional friend of the template," he says. "You realize just because Shell Bell can door to Downside now doesn't mean I can?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:00 am (UTC)

"I realize. Please make the attempt regardless. Shell Bell is not present."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-14 12:01 am (UTC)

"You got it." He ushers them out of his way and tries three times, getting Aurum each time, before on his fourth try he makes the door reveal Shell Bell's cluttered apartment. "Here we are. Downside."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:01 am (UTC)

"Thank you. Hold the door until further notice." Golden looks at Sherlock. "Do you want to accompany me?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:02 am (UTC)

"Yes."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:03 am (UTC)

Golden turns them both invisible, leads him through, and attempts to teleport the pair to Juliet, should there be a Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:04 am (UTC)

There is a Juliet.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:04 am (UTC)

Since there's no one awake around, Golden simply wishes her awake and out of the catacomb.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:05 am (UTC)

"- wh - where -"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:06 am (UTC)

Sherlock hugs Juliet.

"Turns out there's an afterlife," he says succinctly. "Shall we leave it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:07 am (UTC)

"...An afterlife? But didn't you turn me? Did it not work? Did someone stake me before I could rise?" She blinks at Golden. "...Golden, what are you doing here?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:08 am (UTC)

"I'm your escort. We should go back to Milliways, by the way. There aren't enough of us collected in one spot yet to launch an assault on this place."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:10 am (UTC)

"Yes, do let's get out of here."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:11 am (UTC)

"...Wait, but didn't you turn me, if I'm here too or instead mightn't there be one of you, Sherlock?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:12 am (UTC)

"...ah," he says. "Point. And if it's as bad as has been implied, I do feel compelled to rescue him."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:14 am (UTC)

"Well, I don't know whether to expect him to be awake or still in pre-processing like Juliet, but Shell Bell's tale of woe was an utter disaster," says Golden. "Do let's."

Port, wish.

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 12:16 am (UTC)

The first words out of his mouth are, "Where's Tony?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:17 am (UTC)

"Also dead," says Sherlock, "come to think of it. We are accumulating quite the entourage."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:18 am (UTC)

"Well, let's collect him, too, then," shrugs Golden. And she teleports them all again and wishes again.

toblameforit
2013-03-14 12:18 am (UTC)

He immediately clings to the nearest Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:19 am (UTC)

"And now," says the nearest Sherlock, patting him on the back, "we can leave."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 12:21 am (UTC)

"Tony's parents," says the other Sherlock. "And I do honestly believe we can stop there."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:23 am (UTC)

"Can we really, or do they also have an assortment of dead friends and relatives? We can check that they have not yet been woken, but really, if they haven't, this is getting absurd. We are going to take care of this entire place, we just need more of us to do it, and before we are ready we had best not attract attention from the nebulously defined 'management'."

toblameforit
2013-03-14 12:25 am (UTC)

"I've been living without my parents for a while, I can keep doing it," Tony volunteers. "But thanks, Sherry. I love you, Sherry."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:27 am (UTC)

"Out we go." Port. "Thank you, Nathan, you may return to Aurum," she tells her Imperial Minister of Temporal Affairs when everyone is back into the bar.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-14 12:28 am (UTC)

"No problem, Your Majesty," says Nathan. "Welcome to not being Downside anymore, folks!" He shuts the door, opens it, and goes home.
Edited 2013-03-14 00:30 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:32 am (UTC)

Golden teleports everyone back to the Belltower.

"I suppose a round of explanations are in order," she says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:32 am (UTC)

"Did turning me not work or -"

Juliet goes very still at the pounding noise from the door.

She gets up to read the sign.

She turns around and looks at her Minus-Sherlock.

"What happened?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:33 am (UTC)

"I turned you," Sherlock says with an absolute lack of inflection.

toblameforit
2013-03-14 12:34 am (UTC)

...

"Oh, shit," Tony murmurs, hugging him again.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:34 am (UTC)

"I thought I might - might turn out okay. Like you. I guess I didn't?" says Juliet, looking edgily at the door.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:35 am (UTC)

"No," says Golden shortly. "Here, come away with me for a bit, I have something to tell you that you won't like." And she ushers Juliet into the other bedroom and shuts the door.

toblameforit
2013-03-14 12:39 am (UTC)

Tony continues to hug Minus.

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 12:40 am (UTC)

Sherlock looks from Minus to Tony and back.

"So... you're a vampire," he says.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:40 am (UTC)

"Yes I am."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 12:42 am (UTC)

"Glad we've cleared that up."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:42 am (UTC)

"I killed them all the moment I woke up," he adds, conversationally.

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 12:43 am (UTC)

"Ah, I knew I could count on you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:43 am (UTC)

"Liar."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 12:43 am (UTC)

He laughs.

Then he joins the hug.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:45 am (UTC)

Juliet emerges from the room a bit later.

She looks like she's being eaten alive by some admixture of guilt and revulsion.

"Do you want to kill her or should I?" she asks Minus in a small voice.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:46 am (UTC)

"All the same to me, love," he says softly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:50 am (UTC)

Juliet's not sure what to make of 'love'. Reflex? Is he really that able to separate her from the creature in the other room? She swallows, and goes and gets a pentagon from Golden, and stares fixedly at the door that conceals ex-Juliet.

The pounding noise stops.

Juliet finds a corner to scrunch herself into, and she cries into her knees.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:52 am (UTC)

Sherlock gently detaches himself from the other two and goes over to Juliet and sits down beside her.

toblameforit
2013-03-14 12:52 am (UTC)

"So, um..." says Tony, turning to Golden,

"...who are you again?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 12:55 am (UTC)

"Bella Cullen, Empress Regnant of the Golden Empire in the world that I have named Aurum," says Golden. "My nickname when there's more than one of me around is Golden. That one is Juliet. There are lots of several people, including you, and not all of them stem from forks due to the afterlife - I've met one other instance of you in particular, but Shell Bell is familiar with more."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:56 am (UTC)

Juliet doesn't seem to be able to look Minus in the eye. Or form a sentence.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:57 am (UTC)

He rests his hand lightly over one of hers.

toblameforit
2013-03-14 12:58 am (UTC)

"Nice to meet you, I guess," says Tony. "Uh, thanks for taking me out of the creepy death tunnels."

And he hugs the not-vampire Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 12:59 am (UTC)

That startles a moment of eye contact out of Juliet.

[I don't see how you can stand to touch me, after -]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 01:00 am (UTC)

"You're welcome. We're going to see about conquering the afterlife and installing something less appalling. You all got out easy, not having been processed yet."

toblameforit
2013-03-14 01:01 am (UTC)

"Well, that's nice."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:02 am (UTC)

[Because you are not she,] says Sherlock. [And she is not you. And it does not please me to see you so unhappy.]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 01:03 am (UTC)

"It's what we do," says Golden.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:03 am (UTC)

[The... the fallout shouldn't be about me feeling guilty. How are you, what do you need?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:05 am (UTC)

[I am... not well,] he says. [And I don't know what I need. But I know I would rather be with you than anywhere else right now.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:08 am (UTC)

Juliet hugs him.

He may notice that she doesn't have her old strength anymore.

But that's all right. They finally found a mint.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 01:10 am (UTC)

Golden starts making notes in the Bellbook. When she's finished - it only takes a few seconds to describe those of the events that are for public consumption - she offers the book to Tony and non-vampire Sherlock collectively. "A summary, albeit one skewed towards the interests of my template and not either of yours."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 01:13 am (UTC)

Sherlock picks it up and starts reading.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:17 am (UTC)

And Sherlock hugs Juliet some more.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:19 am (UTC)

[I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:31 am (UTC)

[I know,] he says. [I love you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:32 am (UTC)

[I love you too.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:35 am (UTC)

Snuggle.

While Golden is still here, they should probably deal with some practical matters, but they don't have to deal with those right this second.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 01:36 am (UTC)

Golden's not going anywhere. Golden has all the time in the world.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:37 am (UTC)

Snuggling, by contrast: fairly urgent.

[I can't believe she - I thought she'd be me. At least a bit me. Golden only knew a little - was there any me there, at all, or am I just entirely my soul, or...?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:39 am (UTC)

[...She had hints of you,] he says. [If I had never met you before, I would have found her fascinating. But she did not think the way you think.]
Edited 2013-03-14 01:39 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:41 am (UTC)

Juliet's full of questions but she can't tell if Sherlock would prefer to field them or not.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:43 am (UTC)

[Yes?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:44 am (UTC)

[What hints? What did she say? What did she do, before...?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:52 am (UTC)

[Oh, she trash-talked you for a while, and then she suggested we had better things to do than talk, and I declined, and she tried to argue me around.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:53 am (UTC)

[Christ.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:55 am (UTC)

[Yes.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 01:55 am (UTC)

[I don't suppose any of the trash-talk contained worthwhile insights.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 01:59 am (UTC)

[Not especially, no.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 02:00 am (UTC)

[I think I'll take your word for it.]

Snuggle. Grateful guilty snuggle.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 02:01 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle [I love you] snuggle.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 02:02 am (UTC)

[I love you too.]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:05 am (UTC)

"The gist of the book," Golden says, mostly for Tony's benefit, "is that there are a bunch of us - I'm the vampire one, but a different kind of vampire from the ones in your world, and there is also an angel one and a witch one and a Martian-of-sorts and the Slayer over there and Shell Bell who does not have such a convenient descriptor, and unknown numbers of us who've yet to find this place, although there's a space soldier one whose friend made some notes about her for us. Some of them have Sherlocks and Tonies, more of them have instead instances of a template referred to as 'Whistles' to our 'Bells', and I'm the odd one out - there is a Whistle in Aurum, but I had to import him; my husband is of different extraction entirely and is called Edward."

toblameforit
2013-03-14 02:10 am (UTC)

"...Okay," he says, "that is... a little weird."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 02:11 am (UTC)

Sherlock snorts.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:15 am (UTC)

"There are also several of you without accompanying Bells, just as there's the Whistle who was available for import," says Golden. "I suspect that there are substantial numbers of most people, and most people simply are not interesting enough for Milliways to visit them. My daughter finds it often. At least one Jarvis, and possibly the copy of that one that now lives in Juliet's world, can make doors appear at will. Other people have to wait. Milliways has been showing up for Shell Bell since she was very young, but only with sharply limited frequency. The distinction Bells have is that we are particularly interested in coordinating. Hence, the Belltower. Amariah and Shell Bell made it, although as far as we can tell, Stella and I met first - we just didn't know there were going to be so many, whereas Shell Bell had been mistaken for our alts for some time and knew to expect a crowd."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 02:17 am (UTC)

Sherlock continues to read the book.

toblameforit
2013-03-14 02:17 am (UTC)

"Is 'Bells and Whistles' supposed to be as adorable as it sounds?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:19 am (UTC)

"It was Stella's invention. Whistles don't like their given names. She had cause to invent a nickname for her boyfriend. It is now, within her empire, his legal middle name, and it's spread from there."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 02:19 am (UTC)

"Our Jarvis can do doors to Milliways anytime, too," Juliet murmurs, lifting her face from where it's buried against Sherlock's shoulder to speak and then putting it back.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 02:20 am (UTC)

He hugs her some more.

toblameforit
2013-03-14 02:21 am (UTC)

"It's really adorable," says Tony.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:23 am (UTC)

"If you like that sort of thing. I'm not the biggest fan of Whistles. The first time I met Stella's boyfriend, he threw a tantrum in my throne room, and the one I imported is what amounts to retired from a life of terrorism, although he's been very well-behaved since moving to Aurum and a fair fraction of my staff have worse records. I believe Angela's version is pleasanter, though I've not met hers, nor Amariah's."
Edited 2013-03-14 02:25 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-03-14 02:28 am (UTC)

"...A tantrum like, what?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:40 am (UTC)

"One of my bodyguards, Allirea - I don't tend to use them much anymore, now that I have coins, but they were once very necessary parts of my organization - has the power to be supernaturally unobtrusive. Those of us Bells blessed with mental opacity, which is all of us from worlds with magic plus the space soldier, can see her and continue to think about her unimpeded even after having been around her while she's deploying this power. And so could Stella's Whistle. This bothers Allirea. It was very hard to get her to agree to work as my bodyguard instead of arranging to not be on the same continent as me ever again, and she was, until I minted, one of the very most valuable members of my staff. And she's touchy about a handful of things. I have to pretend she doesn't exist most of the time. And she objects in principle to nicknames - she's the only person who calls me Isabella. She could probably have done without asking Stella's Whistle's original name, except that he could see her. And then, while Stella and I were trying to figure out a way to placate my employee and her boyfriend at the same time, Allirea was pestering my mind-reading husband for the information, and Whistle was swearing and contemplating setting things on fire and generally acting like the world was coming to an end. I'm hardly proud of how Allirea acted either, but that doesn't make his reaction particularly mature."

toblameforit
2013-03-14 02:42 am (UTC)

"...Do you have any idea why he was swearing and contemplating setting things on fire?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:44 am (UTC)

"Whistles don't like their given names. I've never quizzed one about why, and what Edward reported didn't contain a coherent explanation."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 02:45 am (UTC)

"Amariah said to me that it's because of their dads," says Juliet. "They have terrible dads."

toblameforit
2013-03-14 02:46 am (UTC)

"Yeahhhhh," says Tony. "I would totally buy that as a reason to swear and want to set things on fire. I mean, not as a reason to actually set things on fire, but definitely as a reason to want to."
Edited 2013-03-14 02:47 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 02:47 am (UTC)

Sherlock hugs him.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 02:48 am (UTC)

"Yeah - Golden, isn't your species, like, immune to trauma," says Juliet vaguely.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:50 am (UTC)

"That is perhaps overstating the case, but we have - strong psychological set points," says Golden. "To which we will return if not actively traumatized at any given time. You think I didn't make enough allowances for him having been a human at the time? Because he has since become my sort of vampire, and from what I have since learned of the template it wouldn't surprise me if his reaction were just the same should something similar occur."
Edited 2013-03-14 02:50 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 02:51 am (UTC)

"Well, he and Stella had perfect recall even before he turned, maybe that's part of his psychological set point even though it's about something that happened before he turned," Juliet suggests.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:52 am (UTC)

"Maybe."

toblameforit
2013-03-14 02:59 am (UTC)

"Speaking for the 'people with shitty dads' contingent," says Tony, "although names aren't my particular problem, there are totally other things that could make me swear in inappropriate situations if they came up unexpectedly. I mean, I'm not proud of that or anything, but I don't think it's some kind of major character flaw. Lots of people have some stuff they're not really okay about, and if it hits them at the wrong time—" He makes an exploding motion with his hands.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:02 am (UTC)

"...Was it not briefly considered to fetch your parents away from Downside?" Golden asks, puzzled.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 03:03 am (UTC)

"All that means is he doesn't want them dead," says Juliet. "He doesn't yet know us well enough to know that we're going to fix what ails the place. What kind of quorum are we waiting for there, anyway?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:05 am (UTC)

"It's not so much a specific fortuitous collection of Bells in Milliways that we're waiting for as it is about Shell Bell - or some hitherto unknown Bell - working out how to use nine-pointed coins for interdimensional travel that is more cooperative so that we can collect everyone we know about."

toblameforit
2013-03-14 03:06 am (UTC)

...The conversation seems to have moved on from the resurrection of his parents, so Tony does not air his complicated feelings on the subject.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 03:07 am (UTC)

"Speaking of which," says Sherlock, "do you suppose it is time to provide Juliet with a coin press of her very own?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:08 am (UTC)

"Ah. Of course. Here you are, Juliet." An invisible bandolier is made, stocked, and handed over; Juliet takes it and twists it on, smiling slightly. "Who's going to be her helper-mint?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 03:09 am (UTC)

"I am the obvious candidate."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:11 am (UTC)

"Can you handle all the relevant - boosting and testing and the like, by yourself?" Golden says delicately, making him a bandolier and minting him too. "I prefer not to be too close to the details of minting-as-it-tends-to-go."
Edited 2013-03-14 03:12 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 03:12 am (UTC)

"I think we'll be fine. Shell Bell explained everything," Juliet says.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:16 am (UTC)

"Everything?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 03:18 am (UTC)

"I know how to use stars-and-up - guys, that's not safe unless one of us tells you how, don't try it - and how to handle a rogue mint; is there more?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:19 am (UTC)

"All of the other accumulated advice appears in the book. Make sure you're caught up before you do anything significant," shrugs Golden.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 03:26 am (UTC)

"Will do."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 12:42 pm (UTC)

"Define 'not safe'," says Sherlock.
Edited 2013-03-14 13:25 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 02:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how hard your sort is to kill, but suffice to say you and anyone standing next to you and possibly anyone a few blocks away would not have good odds of surviving the experience, and I don't believe you want to trust Downside to catch you, both because it has Milliways's issues with time and you could easily spend decades trying to exist there without getting tortured before anyone fetched you and because it may simply interpret you as already being dead." Golden gestures at the human Sherlock in the room.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 02:59 pm (UTC)

"I'll probably wind up telling you. Shell Bell told hers," says Juliet. "It's the Whistles who don't generally know."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:01 pm (UTC)

"It's a good idea to have someone who knows, or there wouldn't have been a sane, live version of Shell Bell for the dead one to fold back into because her Sherlock wouldn't have been able to wish on an evil," says Golden. "Two of Stella's staff know, my Edward knows, I don't know who Angela and Amariah may have told."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 03:05 pm (UTC)

"Can I get you to give us the executive version of Shell Bell's story? I've been coming here on a daily basis trying desperately to run into a mint since I ran out of squares from her and I guess Milliways has been temporally stretched through that time or something because I didn't see anything about it. Or should I just read the book?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell was assassinated, and the dead one of her was captured, kept in a basement, and tortured routinely for twenty-five years with no access to any form of recordkeeping until she could remember nothing, not even her name beyond 'Shell', and then she was released for some forty years of aimless wandering and intermittent further torture, until she found an alt of Sherlock who she'd looked up in Downside's directory immediately on waking who happened to remember her and where she was supposed to reside. He showed her to her apartment, which perhaps would have been sufficient for her to recover her sanity if not her memories, but she promptly found a door to Milliways, went through, and found her Sherlock. She and the live Bell worked out a merger protocol and are now a single entity."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 03:50 pm (UTC)

Sherlock glances at Sherlock.

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 03:51 pm (UTC)

"How fine-tuned are these merger protocols, do you suppose?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Arbitrarily so. Shell Bell wanted to be mostly sane-live-Bell and not so much less-sane-dead-Shell. One of my staff members - Nathan, who was holding the door - also underwent a merger after he managed to get himself killed, and his parameters are different."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 03:53 pm (UTC)

"...Are you going to be able to agree on whether to have a soul?" Juliet asks.

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Not if it's a binary proposition, I imagine."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Many of the effects of soullessness are ultimately beneficial to me, but I'm not wedded to all of them. If we could transfer the perks and leave out the rest..."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 03:59 pm (UTC)

"I would recommend," says Golden, "that whichever one of you currently possesses the desired end state of soul-ness attempt to wish up the desired cocktail of features before trying to merge, to ensure that they can all coexist, and then we can just specify that that one's relevant characteristics are the ones to be present in the merged Sherlock."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Um," says Juliet, looking away. "The one who's not a vampire never even met me before today - how does - will -"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 04:04 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a specific case study to refer you to," says Golden apologetically. "Obviously Shell Bell met her Sherlock - and her Tony, for that matter - before she was killed, and that Sherlock has never died in any sense of the word. Nathan's dead version's afterlife affections never escalated to a point where he was uncomfortable with trading them in for a mate bond again in the merged version. But anything they can agree on is presumably workable."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 04:04 pm (UTC)

Juliet peers between Sherlocks, shrinking slightly.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 07:29 pm (UTC)

Sherlock makes a 'speak up' gesture at Sherlock.

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 07:36 pm (UTC)

"The end result is going to have the complete set of both our memories," says Sherlock. "It's not as though I've had time to develop a competing interest in the half an hour it's been since I died. Whatever reasons he has for being fond of you, and it's obvious there are many, are going to transfer just fine."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 07:38 pm (UTC)

"But on top of - of -"

Juliet is looking at the door that once barred her vampire version from exiting. The sign is still on the door. It has not been unlocked.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Dear Juliet," he says, hugging her again. "I am going to continue loving you whether I merge with him or not."
Edited 2013-03-14 19:41 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 07:43 pm (UTC)

She throws her arms around him and hugs as tight as she can, which is not very tight, anymore. "I love you so much," she murmurs, "and I am so, so sorry, and I am going to vivisect my mind and find where she was hiding and kill her again, and I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 07:44 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," he says. And now they are back to snuggling.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Is my presence still required?" Golden asks. "I had several evils on my person and gave a handful to Juliet, so she can pull off the merger as long as she reads Shell Bell's notes about it and you decide amongst yourselves how to design it. Can I be of any further help here?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Only if you want to wait around to see if more Bells show up so we can storm Downside," says Juliet, still snuggling Minus-Sherlock. "And even if they do, I'd want a while before taking on a project like that. I'm kind of a mess right now, and I'm missing - most of my superpowers. And I have done no minty things with Sunshine yet."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't believe you're needed," says Sherlock to Golden. "Thank you for all your help."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-14 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Goodbye, then, all," says Golden with a wave of her hand, and she departs with the perfect-level walk of "diamond" vampires.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Bye, Golden."

toblameforit
2013-03-14 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Bye," Tony echoes.

And then...

"Now what?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Now they decide if they want to have a soul, or not, and whichever one has the correct box checked in the metaphorical form wishes - or tells me how to wish, maybe - for the tweaks they want to make it a good compromise, like Golden suggested?" says Juliet. "Unless there are other points of potential disagreement."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 08:19 pm (UTC)

"I, of course, prefer the end result to have a soul. And I prefer it to be stuck in place as thoroughly as we can make it, although my intuition is that if I am the base template for the merge, that will be the case regardless."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Since you are, in a sense, my soul," Sherlock agrees. "No objection. And you make a better template than I do in any case, since you're closer to the point of divergence."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 08:21 pm (UTC)

"So tell me of these 'perks'," says Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, for starters, I don't hate myself nearly as much."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Self-loathing is basically unproductive. Mostly. I don't know how anybody who wasn't a me would turn it into something actionable, anyway."
Edited 2013-03-14 21:04 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Speak for yourself," Sherlock says wryly.

toblameforit
2013-03-14 09:06 pm (UTC)

Tony hugs him.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Do you get much use out of your self-loathing, then?" inquires Juliet.

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Until I met him," he says, gesturing to Minus, "I would've said I'd never get anywhere without it."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, now you know better. Do I take it that's not a keeper, then?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Heh. What else?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't believe we need to adjust your base willingness to kill people or do generally nefarious things."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 09:12 pm (UTC)

"So glad we agree."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Are you still going to want my permission to kill Arthur Mallory, then, or will leaving him in police custody be fine? Only it may be a bit difficult for Charlie to press the full set of charges, when my corpse has mysteriously vanished and I'm trying reclaim my identity, what, an hour later, and even just the kidnapping part involves things that don't officially exist... I suppose they could get him for kidnapping Giles either way. Unless Watchers have legal pull."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 09:20 pm (UTC)

"I am still going to want to kill Arthur Mallory, but I will not actively seek to unless it is practical for other reasons. Which is more or less identical to the situation as it stands."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 09:22 pm (UTC)

"All right then. I guess I'll have the tools to do whatever I want with him, anyway, if I don't like the look of the default." Juliet looks at her bandolier, stocked with all sorts of glassy color-flecked coins and some smaller ones in glowing gold. Experimentally, she nibbles on her lip. She gets a triangle in luminous indigo. "Neat. What do yours look like?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 09:49 pm (UTC)

He bites his lip and produces a smokily translucent grey square.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 09:51 pm (UTC)

Biting. Hm.

"Are you going to be a vampire?" she asks.

(Considering why she's asking and what happened not an hour ago, she doesn't think she has a right to any more than a practical interest in this question, but she's the one holding the evils and the knowledge of how to use them, so the practical interest is there.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm in favour of keeping all the salient benefits," he says cheerfully. "But - immune to sunlight, I think."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 09:58 pm (UTC)

"My form of being dead apparently comes with a highly convenient mechanism for immortality," volunteers Sherlock. "If we layer that with the vampirism we shouldn't need to patch more than sunlight and crosses, and that only for convenience."
Edited 2013-03-14 22:04 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Holy water?" asks Juliet. "And what, pray tell, is this new form of immortality we have?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 10:06 pm (UTC)

"We can't die; in otherwise fatal circumstances, we briefly lose consciousness and regenerate on the spot with the help of some illusory fire."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Holy water," says Sherlock, "sounds like an excellent way to get coins."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:08 pm (UTC)

"...I think the traditional way for Bells to get coins out of our helpers involves something called an 'agony beam'," says Juliet. "Although Angela supposedly sings for hers. But if you wish to be vulnerable to holy water I'm not gonna stop you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 10:09 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to perfect-recall myself so I don't fumble any of these details when I pull off the merge," Juliet says. And she spends a hex on it - and it won't go. "Weird," she mutters. "Uh, Sherlock-over-there, are there any notes on being dead interacting with installing superpowers?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 10:14 pm (UTC)

"If you want them to persist through the aforementioned regeneration, you need an evil, but you can load quite a plateful onto same. So you might want to think up a nice stack. Perhaps give yourself temporary perfect recall while you think about it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:16 pm (UTC)

"All right. I do remember seeing a Chart Of Suggested Uses For Hexes in there." Hex. "Ah, there we go, that's lovely. Hmmm."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to staple your Slayerishness back on?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I still have the autopilot. I don't think I want to spawn a new Slayer every time I do something that resembles dying. I'm already going to want to give the one I've undoubtedly called up a heads up before the Watchers find her," says Juliet disgustedly. "So the only parts I'm missing that I want are the speed and the strength, which, yes, I do believe I will help myself to, along with the other popular Bell standards."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Which are...?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'll want to check the book again - if I need an evil to get anything to stick, I can't just edit the powers later if someone's come up with convenient revisions to the designs - but in brief, I'm gonna be able to fly and teleport and turn invisible and regenerate and go without sleeping and detect lies - at will, off by default so that ordinary smalltalk isn't awkward - and endure pretty arbitrary weather conditions comfortably and I'll have the agony beam and I'm going to speed up my brain and I'll take a few layers of armor against assorted magical attack."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Sounds lovely."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Let's steal a few," says Sherlock. "Teleportation is convenient. Flight is fun. Invisibility is mildly redundant but fun nevertheless. Regeneration likewise. Going without sleep is an excellent idea. Lie detection would take all the fun out of things, but we can leave it off when it's not important."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Do you need an evil for that too? Golden only gave me three. Or will it work if we stick them to this one -" She indicates the nearest Sherlock - "with hexes, of which I have a number, and then just incorporate that in the merge? Shell Bell ought to have written about that, if her dead version didn't have any magic."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 10:46 pm (UTC)

"She did; it will. Are we appropriately well supplied?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 10:47 pm (UTC)

"If not, do please hand me a hex when you are finished giving yourself an agony beam."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I have a fair number of hexes -" Juliet counts. "I have thirty-two hexes."

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Enough to be going on with."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes." Pause. "Tony, how terribly confused are you?"

toblameforit
2013-03-14 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Uh, actually I'm following pretty well," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh, good. Sherlock, are you done with the book yet?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 10:53 pm (UTC)

"The book and I have concluded our business."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 10:57 pm (UTC)

Juliet makes herself a square just for the novelty and summons the book from across the room to catch up. (Snuggling with vampire-Sherlock all the while.) "Okay, I'm glad I thought to check this before stacking up some powers, apparently version one of teleportation had no safeguards against appearing with somebody not in a state to be appeared to," she says mildly. "Shell Bell invented a patch, though - oh, she was visiting a one of you when she came up with it, Tony - and she's got a revision to some of the defenses, that makes sense after she got killed by that nuke - and of course I want to be able to add nodes to the brainphone network, I'd almost neglected that - and -" She closes the book. "I think I'm all set to evil me some powers, unless anybody has last-minute suggestions or somebody wants me to be able to read their mind like Stella and Shell Bell do theirs or what have you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Do we want dear Juliet reading our mind?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, do we?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, which state is the easier to change our mind from later?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 11:14 pm (UTC)

"You can certainly always tell me to stop. Neither Stella nor Shell Bell leaves theirs on all the time. And apparently Shell Bell has to ask her Sherlock to slow down the adjustable brain speed thing in order to be able to catch more than half of what's going on anyway, if she hopes to work in real time. Or we could design the power backwards - projection instead of inspection - and stick it to you before you consolidate, and then you can change your mind at will without having to rely on my ability to suppress my curiosity - although I don't know if that will work with me, because mental opacity. Or," she shrugs, "you'll be making the evils anyway - I won't object if you ask me to remove it, or decide you don't want it now but want to go ahead and incorporate it later, as long as it's understood that not adding it with my first batch will take a separate evil."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Skip it for now, then."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Am I forgetting anything else? Oh, I know. I want to be immune to drugs as a general class of thing unless I decide otherwise," she says disgustedly. "Arthur Mallory oughtn't have been able to do what he did. I'll fold that into my version of the regen, I think, they'll just dissolve on contact if they try to touch my metabolism without an invitation."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Good plan."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 11:41 pm (UTC)

"I may as well see if I can fit Stella's past-viewing power onto the same evil. Could come in handy. I hope I blind Arthur Mallory when I attend his trial with his stupid magic-seeing power. Sherlock, do you know what happened to my fire wand? Did Giles grab it, or what?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I took it while no one was looking and left it with Jarvis."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay, good. The fact that it now belongs to a mint means it probably can't be usefully passed along - I'm going to try to avoid making Shell Bell's mistake that led to it ever making sense to give it to me in the first place - but it could've been bad to have it floating around."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll evil me some stuff, I'll hex you some stuff, are there any more details you need to work out between you about how you want to consolidate yourselves?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-14 11:51 pm (UTC)

"No, I don't believe so."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to wait a bit to see if you think of anything, or shall I just rapid-fire everything under discussion?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-14 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Go for it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-14 11:58 pm (UTC)

Evil on herself. Ah, that feels better, that feels much better. All of Sherlocks' requests, applied to the vampire one. "There's me and you powered up, and -" She focuses on the parameters of the merger. Human Downsider one as the template for the torching and the soul, plus vampire's memories, lack of self-loathing, magic grafts, technical vampirism plus the new immunities - and the vampire one loves her, she is sure to note in her wish design that this is to be included -

She takes a deep breath.

She closes her eyes.

She wishes on the evil.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:03 am (UTC)

"Well," says Sherlock. "Look at me."

toblameforit
2013-03-15 12:04 am (UTC)

"Lookit you," Tony agrees. "Being all one of you and stuff."

He claims first hug on the new Sherry.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:05 am (UTC)

Juliet allows it without protest.

The previous non-vampire Sherlock might have guessed something about what vampire-her did, but he did not remember it, and she is not sure to what extent the consolidation may feel like learning something new.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:08 am (UTC)

He picks Tony up and spins him around and sets him down and kisses him on the cheek.

Then he sits down by Juliet and scoops her into his arms.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:09 am (UTC)

That answers that. At least partly. Hugs!

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:13 am (UTC)

Hugs. Definitely hugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:14 am (UTC)

"Home to go tell Charlie and Giles and Jarvis that I am - well, I guess I technically am dead, but that I will not be behaving in a manner befitting a dead person? And Jarvis will be interested to see Tony, I imagine. And I should warn the next Slayer. Definitely have to give her a heads-up."
Edited 2013-03-15 00:15 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:18 am (UTC)

"Home," Sherlock agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:19 am (UTC)

"...Ah, no, I'm wrong, Golden didn't write about this in the Bellbook. I will do that first."

But she can now do it very, very fast!

"Now we can leave." And she leads the way out of the Belltower.

toblameforit
2013-03-15 12:22 am (UTC)

Tony follows.

"Have I mentioned I'm glad I'm not dead? Well—you know what I mean. Whatever."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:24 am (UTC)

"I'm glad you're conscious-and-capable-of-affecting-the-world too!" says Juliet merrily. [Giles, am okay now, will explain later,] she adds as they step into the brick building. "Hi, Jarvis! This is the local Tony, rescued from the afterlife, and a slightly remodeled Sherlock, and I was also rescued from the afterlife but am not remodeled except for some superpowers!"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:25 am (UTC)

"I have a soul now," Sherlock says brightly. "It is not a significant encumbrance."

poeticterms
2013-03-15 12:26 am (UTC)

"Congratulations to all of you. Would you like to call your father now, Bella?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:30 am (UTC)

"I was thinking I'd go see him in person," says Bella. "Sherlock, Tony, either of you want to come along?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:32 am (UTC)

"Pick me! Pick me!"

toblameforit
2013-03-15 12:32 am (UTC)

"I'll sit this one out," Tony decides.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:40 am (UTC)

Invisibility! Teleportation!

Charlie is in his house. The invitation thing, while having been previously useful for comforting Charlie about his daughter's vampire boyfriend, went with the other inconveniences, so Sherlock comes along without complication. "Hi, Dad! I am okay! Sherlock found someone who could help me. Complicated magical things happened and now all's well."

"Bella," breathes Charlie, and he gets up and hugs her tight.
Edited 2013-03-15 00:43 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:44 am (UTC)

Awwwww.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:45 am (UTC)

"Thank you, Sherlock, what are you doing in my house," says Charlie, still hugging Bella.

"Complicated magical things," says Bella helpfully. "He can do that now. He will not be doing anything nefarious."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:46 am (UTC)

"My already negligible nefarious tendencies have been drastically reduced," he agrees. "Because of the complicated magical things. Also, I can now walk around in sunlight without catching fire, I'm quite looking forward to that part."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:50 am (UTC)

"Ooh, let's stay up all night and watch the sunrise," says Bella.

"...Bella, you have school -"

"Complicated magical things, Dad, I will appear at school just fine, promise."

"...Right."

"Have you been sufficiently reassured that I am okay, so that I can go do other stuff?" Bella asks. "I need to go warn a person about a thing, and I also need to talk to Giles so that he too can be clear on my being fine. Can you handle my being not legally dead, I'd find it potentially inconvenient to be legally dead."

"...I can do that. Since it doesn't look to me like you're dead."

"Thanks, Dad, I love you," says Bella with a brilliant smile.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 12:52 am (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:53 am (UTC)

Now! Where might Giles be? Because now that's where Bella and Sherlock are!

pythbox
2013-03-15 12:55 am (UTC)

Giles is at home, drinking tea in his living room.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:56 am (UTC)

"Hi, Giles! I am only technically dead!" says Bella brightly.

pythbox
2013-03-15 12:57 am (UTC)

He yelps and drops his tea; the mug bounces off his knee and thumps onto the carpet, spraying tea everywhere.

"Good god," he says. "What have you got into now?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 12:59 am (UTC)

"Mint powers," says Bella gleefully, unspilling his tea for him with a wave of her hand and a triangle.

pythbox
2013-03-15 01:00 am (UTC)

...He grins.

"Well," he says. "Congratulations."

And he peers dubiously into his unspilled tea for only a moment before shrugging and taking a sip.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:03 am (UTC)

He will find it still hot and uncontaminated by any of the flavors that may be present in his carpet.

"Since I did, technically, die, I am going to go warn the next Slayer of what's to come before your old friends find her," Bella says. "But I don't think she's got much to worry about. I am awesome. Also the form of technically dead I am makes me invincible. It's kickass."

pythbox
2013-03-15 01:06 am (UTC)

"Let me know if you need any help," he says. "Although while you're doing me favours, would you mind reinforcing me against further knocks to the head?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:08 am (UTC)

She is in a whimsical mood, so she does this by briefly conjuring a fairy-godmother sort of wand and tapping him on the head while she applies the hex. "There you are. Will you want anything else in the next little while?"

pythbox
2013-03-15 01:16 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"No, thank you."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:17 am (UTC)

Goodbye, fairy godmother wand.

"Sherlock, do you want to meet the new Slayer too, or go catch up with Tony?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 01:21 am (UTC)

"You go on," he says. "Tony and I do have some catching up to do."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:25 am (UTC)

Sherlock gets a kiss. Giles gets a wave.

The new Slayer, wherever she may be, gets a visitor.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 01:30 am (UTC)

The new Slayer is lying in bed with an open calculus textbook propped on her stomach and her feet halfway up the wall, drumming her fingers on the book's spine while loud rock music plays in the background. She is wearing Captain America pajama pants and a plain white T-shirt.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:31 am (UTC)

"Please don't panic," says Bella, first, "I'm here to help."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 01:32 am (UTC)

She blinks.

She lowers the textbook until it's open flat on her chest.

She looks at Bella.

"Okay, talk."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:36 am (UTC)

"I'm technically dead, and you have the fortune or misfortune to have inherited my job slash mystical destiny. You'll find that you're now many times stronger and faster and instinctively better at fighting than you were -" Bella glances at the clock. "An hour and a half ago. And you might also get bad prophetic dreams and, if you go out at night, notice that certain people seem off, although I was lucky enough to avoid those symptoms. This office is called being the 'Slayer'; the things you are supposed to slay are vampires and demons. I am not technically meant to be telling you about this. I am technically not meant to coexist with you at all, because of how the title passes. But the people who are supposed to find you and tell you what's what are not as friendly as me. They're why I died."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 01:39 am (UTC)

"You're serious," she observes, and she takes her feet off the wall and closes the textbook and puts it on her night-table and stands up in a fluid progression that definitely seems Slayerly.

"Plan on giving me any help besides the friendly warning?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:42 am (UTC)

"Sure. In the course of my coming to be conscious-and-capable-of-affecting-the-world in spite of technical death, I have also acquired significant magical powers. Er, they're not native to this world, I've been warned off the native sort of magic by people with my best interests at heart and should probably pass that on as long as I'm spilling the beans. If you want me to make it so the Watchers can't find you - by their traditional methods - and you'd rather go on doing whatever you were doing, I can arrange that. If you want to be equipped to do more than punch things but you're otherwise on board with helping to neaten up the edges of this overpopulated-by-things-that-eat-humans world we live in, I can get to know you a bit and maybe we can do that instead. I am Helpful Technically Dead Visitor. My name's Bella, what's yours?"
Edited 2013-03-15 01:42 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 01:44 am (UTC)

She gives Bella a sizing-up sort of look.

Then she says, "James."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:45 am (UTC)

Blink. "Pleased to meet you, James. So, are the circumstances of this household such that I should be invisible and we should have the rest of our conversation telepathically?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 01:51 am (UTC)

"Nope," she says. "Actually, we should probably get my aunt in on this."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:54 am (UTC)

"All right then, lead the way."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 01:56 am (UTC)

James acquires socks, opens her bedroom door, and proceeds all the way down the hall to a small office with a half-open door into which she sticks her head.

"Chris, a strange girl called Bella just teleported into my bedroom to tell me I'm the Slayer now."

queensidecastle
2013-03-15 01:58 am (UTC)

"Never a dull moment with you," says a voice that is presumably Chris. "All right, let's get a look at her."

Chris emerges into the hall: fluffy bunny slippers, a large soft-looking pearl-grey sweater, and comfortable brown sweatpants.

She inspects Bella.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 01:59 am (UTC)

Bella stands open for inspection.

queensidecastle
2013-03-15 02:05 am (UTC)

"Previous Slayer?" she guesses.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 02:07 am (UTC)

"Yep. Technically dead now."

queensidecastle
2013-03-15 02:11 am (UTC)

"Guess so," says Chris.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 02:12 am (UTC)

"So can I keep her?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 02:14 am (UTC)

"I beg your pardon? I have every intention of going home," laughs Bella.

queensidecastle
2013-03-15 02:17 am (UTC)

"It's not polite to bait the guests," says Chris.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 02:18 am (UTC)

She laughs.

"Okay cool. Let's go talk about world improvement projects and nifty magical powers," she says to Bella.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 02:22 am (UTC)

"Do let's. My nifty magical powers are from another world. I got them in an interdimensional hub place thing from another version of me," says Bella. "I can share, in reasonable quantities. This world: rather subpar compared to some I've heard of. I give it a D-minus, and it's only not an F because none of the people who've tried to destroy it so far have managed the trick. I'm gonna fix it so I can go to parties with other versions of me and not be so embarrassed."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 02:23 am (UTC)

"Do you have any more concrete plans there? What do your nifty magical powers do?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 02:25 am (UTC)

"Basic story is, they grant wishes," says Bella. "But I've already made a nice stack of wishes regarding stable X-men style superpowers. I can teleport and fly and turn invisible and so on."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 02:27 am (UTC)

"But let me guess, they don't grant wishes like 'make the world a better place'?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:01 am (UTC)

"Oh no. I have to be more specific than that. They can cover for small omissions and they're not actively malicious genies about it, but 'make the world a better place' is definitely out. So, I'm probably going to have to take over the world. I have not decided on an action plan yet because those of me who have already had this sort of magic for a while were looking at different initial conditions - we've got the one who usurped the shadow government and the one who colonized Mars and the one who stowed the dictatorial capital city on the moon to step into the power vacuum and the one who's going to convince her deity to name her Archangel and the one who's starting by uniting all the various clans of her witch species with revolutionized local magic and an artifact that dispenses objective truth. We're quite a cohort and I can't directly copy any previous strategy. The one with Mars is closest, but that alt's Earth wasn't infested with a few thousand kinds of demons and I don't want to go with her relatively hands-off style for that reason. Also not thrilled about just casually rendering all several thousand species of hostile demon extinct. Vampires come in 'nice', however rarely, so the others may too. While all this is going on, the interdimensional collection of mes is also planning to conquer and revamp the afterlife, which turns out to, (a) exist and (b) suck. I'm going to be a very busy person."
Edited 2013-03-15 06:40 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-03-15 12:17 pm (UTC)

From inside her office, Chris calls, "Yes, please don't make demons extinct, that would be tragic."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 12:18 pm (UTC)

James snorts.

"Does the phrase 'bitten off more than you can chew' mean anything to you?"
Edited 2013-03-15 12:18 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 03:07 pm (UTC)

"I might just give most of them their own planets or something," Bella tells Chris, "that seems likely simplest." And she turns back to James. "Do you think so? Because I'm rather looking forward to all this."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Even I've never planned to single-handedly take over the entire world."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 03:47 pm (UTC)

"I do have, you know, help," says Bella. "And precedent, precedent too."
Edited 2013-03-15 15:47 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Well," says James, "count me in."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Nifty," says Bella. "So what are you good at, besides, now, punching things?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Math," she says. "And finding out what other people are good at."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 03:54 pm (UTC)

"That second thing sounds distinctly useful for any form of scaling up," says Bella. "How do you go about it?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Natural talent," she says. "Not, hah, magic or anything. I'm just good at figuring people out. You, for example, are an okay candidate for world domination, or I'd be trying to talk you out of it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:05 pm (UTC)

Bella grins at her. "I'm glad you think so. I'd be frightfully difficult to convince otherwise, considering how the multiversal evidence stacks up."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 04:07 pm (UTC)

"I could probably convince you to get behind a better candidate," she says. "If I had one. Which I don't."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Exactly," says Bella. "So, I don't need to sleep anymore, but it's getting late over here, do you want to schedule to pick this conversation up later or anything?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 04:14 pm (UTC)

"...Is 'make me not need to sleep either' an option?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:15 pm (UTC)

Bella consults her invisible coin bandolier. "It is," she says, "but if you're going to want more than, like, five powers on that order of significance I'll need to break to go home and manufacture another batch of wishes."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Keeping the Watchers off my back is a higher priority."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'm not sure if they've found you yet - they might not have started looking; my dad arrested the one who killed me and he might not have had a chance to report to his colleagues yet." She waves a hand vaguely as she wishes on a hex. "If they haven't found you yet, they never will."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Well, thank you," says James. "Would you rather give me magic sleeplessness powers and start talking about your plans for world conquest, or head home and pick up later?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:26 pm (UTC)

"I could give you magic sleeplessness powers, put you on the telepathic network, go home, and introduce you to my friends, including my Watcher, an unusual specimen in not being utterly morally bankrupt, and a couple more technically dead people."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 04:36 pm (UTC)

"I think that's a great plan," says James.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:37 pm (UTC)

[Ta-da! Brainphone! You can put up busy messages if you don't want to be disturbed, according to any algorithm you like. Works in text and speech both.] "Chris, do you want in on the telepathy too?"

queensidecastle
2013-03-15 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll pass for now."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

[Sherlock? You occupied?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-15 04:42 pm (UTC)

[Catching up with Tony,] says Sherlock's busy message.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:47 pm (UTC)

[Giles, you awake still?]

pythbox
2013-03-15 04:50 pm (UTC)

[Yes...?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:51 pm (UTC)

[Found the new Slayer, gave her the rundown, hid her from the Watchers, she'd like to help me take over the world, wanna talk to her?]

pythbox
2013-03-15 04:52 pm (UTC)

[Why not.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 04:55 pm (UTC)

[Conference call!] says Bella brightly. [This is Giles, the not-morally-bankrupt Watcher I told you about.]

pythbox
2013-03-15 04:56 pm (UTC)

[What a recommendation,] he says dryly.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 04:58 pm (UTC)

[Could be worse.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 05:00 pm (UTC)

[It's your most distinguishing feature in the category of Watchers, as far as I can tell,] Bella says. [I could have said 'here, meet this fellow who cleans his glasses a lot' or 'behold, a collector of demonology texts', but Watchers was the category under discussion.]

pythbox
2013-03-15 05:01 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 05:01 pm (UTC)

[Good to meet you,] she says cheerfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 05:02 pm (UTC)

[Hey Giles, do you want to not need sleep anymore, too?]

pythbox
2013-03-15 05:03 pm (UTC)

[...Sure.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 05:04 pm (UTC)

[Let's see if I can do that from here.] Nope. [Nope. One sec.]

Port. Wish.

pythbox
2013-03-15 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he says, blinking. "That teleportation trick is going to take some getting used to."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Anything I could do to make that easier?"

pythbox
2013-03-15 05:23 pm (UTC)

"...Announce yourself before arriving?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I did, sort of. Is some more elaborate system called for?"

pythbox
2013-03-15 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Not more elaborate," he says, "just less 'sort of'."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 05:29 pm (UTC)

She giggles. "Okay." [Jarvis, how secret are you? Specifically from the new Slayer, who wants to help me take over the world?]

poeticterms
2013-03-15 05:32 pm (UTC)

[Specifically from her,] he says, [secret for now.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 05:36 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

Oh, hey, she can add Minnie to the brainphone network now. [Hey Minnie!]

[Hi! How're you doing that?]

[Magic!]

[Keen!]

[Yeah!] Conference call. [So, the network of friendly in-the-know people includes some who have their brainphone do-not-disturbs up, and Giles, and Minnie who I've just added and who is a ghost. Ah, shoot, I should've checked Downside for a Minnie. I'll do that next time I'm there.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 06:09 pm (UTC)

[You have a ghost on your team? Cool! Hi, Minnie!]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:14 pm (UTC)

[Hi! Who're you?] Minnie asks.

[Minnie used to haunt a prom. I fixed her anger management issues and unmoored her,] explains Bella.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 06:27 pm (UTC)

[Apparently, the next Slayer,] says James. [Also known as James.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:27 pm (UTC)

[That's a funny name for a girl,] says Minnie.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 06:28 pm (UTC)

[Gee,] she says dryly, [I've never heard that before.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:31 pm (UTC)

[You haven't? Because it is! Unless things have changed since I died more than I realize,] Minnie says, completely missing the sarcasm.

[Jarvis,] Bella says, [do you object to the new Slayer - her name is James - knowing that quote-unquote "I" can open doors to Milliways at will in your building?]

poeticterms
2013-03-15 06:32 pm (UTC)

[Not at all.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 06:33 pm (UTC)

[I was joking,] says James. [Things might've changed, but not that much.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:34 pm (UTC)

[Then why are you named that?] Minnie asks.

[D'you want to see the interdimensional hub?] Bella asks. [Either of you, actually, I don't think Minnie's been.]

[I haven't!] agrees Minnie.

[Jarvis, which room should we appear in so as not to bother Sherlock and Tony while they catch up?] (She's not even sure if that's a euphemism or not.)

poeticterms
2013-03-15 06:36 pm (UTC)

[The living room should be fine.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 06:42 pm (UTC)

[I would love to see the interdimensional hub!]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:46 pm (UTC)

[All right, I'll come pick you up. Giles, do you want to come too?]

pythbox
2013-03-15 06:47 pm (UTC)

[No, thank you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:48 pm (UTC)

[All right.]

Teleporting fails. [Let me know when you're ready,] Bella adds to James, silently thanking Shell Bell for that modification.
Edited 2013-03-15 18:49 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 06:50 pm (UTC)

[Just a sec.]

About fifteen seconds later:

[There!]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:51 pm (UTC)

Port, port. "This is my boyfriend's house. It's the best place to get doors to Milliways. That's what the interdimensional hub is called," Bella explains. She opens the nearest door.

poeticterms
2013-03-15 06:52 pm (UTC)

Milliways ensues.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Here we are," says Bella. Minnie appears and drifts in first, waving enthusiastically at James. "Minnie, James, James, Minnie, both of you, the bar. My alts have a suite upstairs so it's easy for us to find each other when we're here at the same time, and leave each other notes when we're not."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says James.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Quite!" Juliet scans the bar for familiar faces, finds none, and teleports the three of them all up to the Belltower. "Here it is and oh hello you must be Stella!"

self_composed
2013-03-15 06:58 pm (UTC)

"You must be Juliet!" says Stella, who is holding the Bellbook. "I was just catching up on your misadventures, I'm glad you're okay - and oh my god is that a tiny Libby, you have a tiny Libby."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 06:58 pm (UTC)

"...Hi," says the tiny Libby.

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:00 pm (UTC)

"You are a tiny Libby, right? I have a Libby at home, she's my personnel officer - nice find, Juliet, you didn't mention her in the book."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Recent meeting," says Juliet. "She got called up to replace me as the Slayer when I died. I didn't know the template was a commonplace. This one didn't tell me to call her Libby and there's not a picture of yours in the book."

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Am I allowed to guess what you did tell her to call you?" Stella asks James. "Or would that run some risk of revealing that which is personal? Oh, d'you have an aunt Chris, too?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 07:04 pm (UTC)

"James," says James. "And yes I do."

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I should go get my Libby. I don't think she's met an alt of herself before. Shell Bell met one one time, but she came from a world bereft of native Bells."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 07:07 pm (UTC)

"You do that."

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:07 pm (UTC)

Stella goes to the door and sticks her head out. [There is a TINY LIBBY in Milliways! Juliet found her! She goes by James!] she informs Non-Tiny Libby.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 07:08 pm (UTC)

[I should meet this tiny Libby!] says Non-Tiny Libby.

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:09 pm (UTC)

[Yes! You should! She's not as tiny as the tiny Whistle I ran into that one time, but she's pretty tiny and you should come meet her.]

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 07:14 pm (UTC)

Et voila, a Libby!

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:15 pm (UTC)

And upstairs they are. "Libby, James. And Juliet. Juliet and James, Libby."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:16 pm (UTC)

"So what I'm getting from this is that maybe I should hire James to be my personnel officer?" asks Juliet archly.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 07:17 pm (UTC)

"You definitely should,"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 07:17 pm (UTC)

they say in unison.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:18 pm (UTC)

Juliet laughs -

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:19 pm (UTC)

- and so does Stella.

"Although I don't know if one this young comes up with the convenient vaguely sinister network of people to tap," Stella adds.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, I wouldn't call it 'vaguely sinister'. But I do know some people you probably want on your side if you plan to rule the world."

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:20 pm (UTC)

"How old are you?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:21 pm (UTC)

"And who are they and why do I need them?" Juliet asks.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Seventeen," to Stella. To Juliet, "My best friend springs to mind. She's really, really good at getting things done."

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:25 pm (UTC)

"This going to be anybody I've got a copy of back in Eos?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Any specific kind of things?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Virgo. Virginia Potts. All kinds of things."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 07:27 pm (UTC)

Libby shakes her head.

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, they can't all be duplicates - probably - but I think maybe we need a separate book. The Bellbook and the Friends-of-the-Template book." Stella thinks, then conjures one with all the information about friends of the template imported from the Bellbook. "Here we are. This way it won't be so off-topic to have headshots so we aren't confused by people going by different names. Not everyone matches even as much as we do or can be as common as Whistles can."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything in the Bellbook since I last signed in to suggest that Shell Bell's making progress with more controllable interdimensional travel?" Juliet inquires.

"Yeah, she forgot to check for me in Downside," says Minnie. "...What's Downside?"

"The afterlife," says Juliet, "it's pretty bad. I don't know if you'd be there or not. Ghosts aren't the same thing as vampires."

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:35 pm (UTC)

"You can't door to Downside?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I'd be surprised if I could. I didn't spend any time getting to know the place. No entries from Shell Bell, huh."

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Nothing since her visit to Golden when she took all those nine pointed - geez - coins home with her to work on a more convenient alternative to Milliways," says Stella, shaking her head. "You should try the door, just in case, it'd be useful to know which of us can go there. Forcing it by coin doesn't work all the time, and doesn't work at all when you haven't been to the world in question."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 07:49 pm (UTC)

"...Nine-pointed coins?" says Libby.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:51 pm (UTC)

"The Joker - the Whistle that Golden imported - made a few of them," Juliet says. "I'll go try the door." She teleports away.

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Nine-pointed coins," confirms Stella. "Five made. I'm going to see if Alice wants to try for one likewise. I'm definitely not regretting farming the Joker out to Golden, now, if he can do that and hasn't gone rogue for this long."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to mint tiny Libby," says Libby. "And tell her about stars."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to call a moratorium on referring to me as 'tiny Libby'."

self_composed
2013-03-15 07:56 pm (UTC)

"But you aaaare," says Stella. "All right, all right, James it is - and are you sure about telling her about stars, Libby? Juliet has a Sherlock, not a Whistle, she's not going to be short on people to bail her out if she gets into trouble." Pause. "Well, that was a self-centered thing to say, bad Bella, no biscuit... Yes, by all means, mint away."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 07:56 pm (UTC)

Juliet reappears. "I can door to Downside without wishing, but it's really hard."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 07:58 pm (UTC)

Libby mints James and gives her a brief explanation of minting and stars over brainphone.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Fun," she comments. "So tell me more about these 'Whistles', anyway."

self_composed
2013-03-15 08:05 pm (UTC)

"That's what we call a certain template that doesn't have name consistency. We know a bunch of them. My boyfriend, Angela's fiancé - or maybe they're married now, neither of them has been by here in a while - Golden's staff mint, Amariah's boyfriend, and Aegis-who-hasn't-been-here-in-person's best friend all are Whistles. They are noted for being very productive mints, although Sherlocks can substitute with some magical boosting, and I have two staff mints who I haven't seen duplicated anywhere, hired from when I thought my Whistle was dead." She opens the new Friends of the Template book and flips to the section on Whistles. "A family photo album of sorts."
Edited 2013-03-15 20:05 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:08 pm (UTC)

James inspects the Whistles.

"Never seen one before."

self_composed
2013-03-15 08:12 pm (UTC)

"So far they don't seem to have any overlap with Sherlocks. Oh, Juliet, by the way, Libby has just minted James for you, and told her about stars-plus."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Juliet, after blinking at Stella. "Sherlock is the aforementioned boyfriend," she adds to James. "Shell Bell has one too, but hers is a girl."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Your boyfriend's name is Sherlock," she repeats. "Well, that's hilarious."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 08:19 pm (UTC)

"It gets hilariouser. Were you by any chance following the news about Tony Stark?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:20 pm (UTC)

"...Your boyfriend is that Sherlock?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes. Tony died, Sherlock got turned into a vampire and found me and we got together, and now that we've undergone the rescue mission to the land of the technically dead, Sherlock has his soul back and Tony is technically dead in the same way as me."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:25 pm (UTC)

"You've sure been busy."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I like to be busy!"

self_composed
2013-03-15 08:26 pm (UTC)

"It's a Bell thing," adds Stella helpfully.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm starting to get that."

self_composed
2013-03-15 08:29 pm (UTC)

"There's a reason we're so suited to ruling empires. Power doesn't corrupt us, we thrive under the workload, and we are smart and thoughtful."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I have some mixed feelings about today, since I got murdered, and stuff, but I am really glad to have finally run into a mint one of us who could induct me into the ranks," says Juliet happily.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:30 pm (UTC)

James glances at Libby for a double-check of Stella's assessment.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 08:31 pm (UTC)

Libby nods.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Looks like it's been a pretty lucky day all around."

self_composed
2013-03-15 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Funny story," Stella says conversationally to James. "Libby was originally looking to me like she was going to be my nemesis. She spied on me and kidnapped my magic-seeing-guy briefly and stuff. I had my Whistle boyfriend for insane coin output, she knew how to use stars and I didn't, I was paranoid and she had Chris's protection power on, it would've been a huge mess if we hadn't wound up on the same side. Then she walked into Milliways and met Golden's daughter Elspeth, and Elspeth sold her on Bells-as-world-dictators."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:39 pm (UTC)

James laughs.

self_composed
2013-03-15 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Golden had to do it without coins. Poor Golden."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Golden had some very convenient friends and family," says Juliet. "But yeah, she could've done it much more neatly with wishes. Probably even without a convenient helper-mint."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Convenient helper-mints," says James, "sound convenient."

self_composed
2013-03-15 08:54 pm (UTC)

"That is why they are referred to in this way," says Stella brightly. "Hey, what's your coin color, do you and Libby match? For that matter, Juliet, what've you got?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 08:55 pm (UTC)

Juliet makes a demonstrative triangle. "Glowy indigo. I wonder why we all glow except Angela and Shell Bell?"

self_composed
2013-03-15 08:56 pm (UTC)

"...They're the two without native mental opacity?" suggests Stella.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 08:57 pm (UTC)

James produces a triangle.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 08:59 pm (UTC)

Libby produces one to compare.

They're the same base shade of dark purple, but where Libby's is a flat colour, James has a lavender sheen that shifts with the angle of view, like velvet under glass.

self_composed
2013-03-15 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Pretty. Everybody's colors are so interesting."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 09:01 pm (UTC)

"My Sherlock's coins look like smoke trapped in crystal," says Juliet.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Pretty!" says James.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 09:05 pm (UTC)

"They are!"

self_composed
2013-03-15 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Well," laughs Stella. "It was great to finally meet you, Juliet, I'm glad I could help you vet James as a personnel officer with my and Libby's example, and I'm going to go tell my mint trio about nine-pointed coins."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-15 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Stay out of trouble," says Libby to James with a wink.

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 09:07 pm (UTC)

"You betcha!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Bye, Stella! Thanks!" says Juliet happily.

self_composed
2013-03-15 09:09 pm (UTC)

Stella ports to the door and steps out.

our town is the birthplace of many notable figures

cross_and_bow

Bella gives James a lift back to her home after they bid their alts in Milliways goodbye.

"Tell me about your best friend. Does everybody call her Virgo?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Everybody doesn't! She's Virginia to most people. But I've known her since third grade, so we have silly nicknames for each other."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Cute," laughs Bella. "You think she'll want to be in on my administration?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I can't imagine that she wouldn't!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 09:52 pm (UTC)

"All right. What time zone is she in? I figured warning you was important enough to wake you up even if it was the middle of the night for you, but she can probably wait till morning if it is not daytime where she lives."

neverbeatme
2013-03-15 09:53 pm (UTC)

"She is also in New York! I will tell her all about your burgeoning empire tomorrow."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-15 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Anybody else I should meet?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-16 12:25 am (UTC)

"Not urgently. I don't know who you need to meet until I know what you need, you know?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 12:28 am (UTC)

"Staff size among Bells varies. Golden has the most, which I think is some combination of nepotism and the fact having a lot of employees was the only way to have access to a lot of magic before she imported her mint. I'm probably going to want ambassador-types? There's a lot of demons to deal with; pentagons will do languages but I'm not necessarily a very diplomatic person."

neverbeatme
2013-03-16 12:31 am (UTC)

"Ambassador types," she says. "Got it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 12:35 am (UTC)

"Have any wishes you don't want to make the coins for yourself that shouldn't wait till the next time I have a new batch?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-16 01:02 am (UTC)

"Nah, I think I'm good, thanks."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 01:03 am (UTC)

"Okay. I'm going to go confront my murderer. Brainphone me whenever."

neverbeatme
2013-03-16 01:04 am (UTC)

"...Sure, okay."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 01:25 am (UTC)

Invisible-and-port.

"Hello, Arthur."

Arthur is sitting in lockup, looking confused about how this could possibly have happened to his life. Nothing about his situation improves when he hears Bella's voice. (She is still invisible.)

"I'm not a ghost," says Bella conversationally. "I know one - friendly girl, also murdered, but not my sort of dead. I am technically dead. The fact that this has been overall to my advantage in terms of how much I can do notwithstanding, you murdered me. I don't care if you didn't know what the square could do. You wished for me to be mortally injured. You assaulted me with crippling drugs and you locked me in a house with a vampire, who you did know what he could do. I talked my way past him and decided not to mark you for death in reply, and for my restraint I got my throat ripped out. That hurt, by the way. Because of what you did I underwent quite a lot of pain and fear and something unspeakably terrible happened to someone I love. I haven't decided what to do with you yet."

"I - I was under orders -"

"Yes, well, I haven't decided what to do with the rest of the Watchers, yet, either, besides protect the new Slayer from you. They won't find her unless they got it in quick before I came back from the dead. Have you spoken to them since murdering me?"

"I - yes."

"Liar," murmurs Bella. Oh yes, she's had that on.

"I did, I got my - my one phone call -"

"Liar," repeats Bella.

"They found her and -"

"And you're still lying to me and if they had found her it wouldn't matter, she's smart and she'd have listened to me even if I were the second person to show up instead of the first. Well, this has been unproductive. I think I'll leave you here at the mercies of a criminal justice system that heavily features a father who watched you murder his daughter in cold blood, shall I? But you see I'm going to be legally alive, if not yet then soon, and I'll be able to testify regarding the kidnapping, albeit it would be peculiar for me to tell a jury that you killed me. I do wonder if the Watchers have enough international political pull to put me slightly out of my way in making their communiqués disappear to circumvent any attempts at skirting the consequences. That seems like the kind of self-serving bullshit they'd spend their resources on, is fake diplomatic immunity."

"I-I-"

Bella's not there anymore.

She teleports back to Jarvis's living room.
Edited 2013-03-16 01:37 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 01:37 am (UTC)

Sherlock is sitting alone on the couch.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 01:39 am (UTC)

She flops onto the couch, and onto him. "Hi," she murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 01:40 am (UTC)

He wraps her up in a hug and kisses the top of her head. "Hello, love."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 01:43 am (UTC)

"It turns out the new Slayer is very bright and also an alt of Stella's personnel officer. So I'm apparently going to wind up with a similar hiring arrangement and tomorrow morning I'm going to meet her best friend. The Watchers aren't going to find her. I talked to Arthur, too. He didn't have a lot to say."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 01:44 am (UTC)

"I don't imagine he did, no."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 01:46 am (UTC)

"Turning is a - subtractive process, right? Psychologically speaking. Traits are removed, not - added."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 01:53 am (UTC)

"It varies. Ethical inhibitions are removed; everything else... shifts, sometimes."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:00 am (UTC)

"I didn't think it was just my ethical inhibitions that kept me from - what happened. It isn't appealing the way that - that breaking Arthur Mallory's jaw just because he hurt me and I could, is. Or I thought so but she came from somewhere and until I know where I can't dig her out of my brain and set her on metaphorical fire."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:02 am (UTC)

"Some theories have it that one's soul is actually replaced by a demon during the transformation, in which case it might have come from somewhere other than you."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:04 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't know. I feel awful. And I'm doing that thing where I make it about me feeling awful, again. Are you okay, is there anything I can do, can I help you...?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:07 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "I really don't know."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:08 am (UTC)

Hugs. Hugs always help, right?

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:08 am (UTC)

Hugs are a positive contribution in this case.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:10 am (UTC)

"If you want to - not, for a while, however much of a while, that's fine, which should go without saying but apparently to some little part of my brain it doesn't so I want that understood."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:12 am (UTC)

He smiles.

"Thank you."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:13 am (UTC)

"You're welcome."

(Snuggles. Snuggles snuggles snuggles how could she miss something like that, isn't she supposed to be introspective, there is nothing like this in any of her notebooks.)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:15 am (UTC)

"Dear Juliet," he murmurs, snuggling back. "I do love you."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:18 am (UTC)

"I love you," she sighs. "And I want you to be happy and to get things that you want and not things that you don't want. And I don't see how anything about that is an ethical inhibition. It should just be wrapped up in loving you. Shouldn't it? I don't know which parts are soul-parts."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:19 am (UTC)

"That is all wrapped up in loving someone for me," he says. "And not in any part of my soul. But sometimes vampires do find that for whatever reason their mortal affections don't carry. Perhaps the actual boundaries of the soul's effect on the brain differ case by case."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:22 am (UTC)

"Maybe."

Pause.

"I - wonder if I had better tell the other Bells. They're probably wired like me. I guess it's unlikely any of them will be presented with any comparable choice, but - unlikely things sometimes happen. Would that be awful of me? If I told them? Not in the book, I wouldn't write it in the book."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:24 am (UTC)

"You may tell them," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:27 am (UTC)

"But would you rather I wasn't specific? They'll listen to me if I just tell them that something worse than the alternative-as-we-knew-it happened. They won't like it but they'll listen to me. Golden won't tell if I ask her not to. They might be able to guess a short list, but not the exact thing."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:28 am (UTC)

"A list with what elements, I wonder. No, you may be specific."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:31 am (UTC)

"If she'd killed or tortured somebody, that would also be bad. If she'd... actually the mere fact that she had a serious personality change, any serious personality change, might do it. I was hoping I'd turn out like you. With maybe a different wardrobe and having to do more of my ethical process by thinking instead of feeling, nothing big."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:33 am (UTC)

"My best hypothesis at this moment," says Sherlock, "is that part of the reason I am such an outlier is because so much of my identity was deliberately constructed. That and luck."
Edited 2013-03-16 02:33 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:34 am (UTC)

"I deliberately edit myself. I guess that's not the same thing as building myself from scratch."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:36 am (UTC)

"Apparently not. For one thing, I don't honestly believe I could do what I did again."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:37 am (UTC)

"What did you do, exactly?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:41 am (UTC)

"Studied the books obsessively, learned everything I thought I might need to know, modified my accent and speech patterns, and somewhere along the way began to think of myself as Sherlock Holmes instead of as no one."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:42 am (UTC)

"I don't think I could do that. Even if I thought it would be a really good idea to be someone other than Bella. I don't think I could want to. I mean, I could probably learn an accent if I tried, that sort of thing, but it'd wind up being cosmetic on me."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:46 am (UTC)

"I wanted to."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:47 am (UTC)

Hugs.

"You picked a good you to be. I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:50 am (UTC)

"I love you too."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:54 am (UTC)

"How'd you pick Sherlock Holmes?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:55 am (UTC)

"Of all available candidates, he seemed the most learnable."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 02:55 am (UTC)

"Really, how's that?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 02:58 am (UTC)

"The details of his methods are often pure fiction, but the basic principles are sound."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:27 am (UTC)

"Look around you, very thoroughly, and finish the puzzle," comments Bella.

Pause.

"What'd you get me for my birthday?"
Edited 2013-03-16 05:11 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Is it too late and/or too soon to offer you Arthur Mallory's head on a plate?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 03:12 pm (UTC)

"Both of those things," says Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 03:35 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "All right, then."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Didja get me anything? Is there a box hiding in this house somewhere that you were going to give me except that our evening got derailed?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 03:41 pm (UTC)

"I did, and there is!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 03:42 pm (UTC)

Is "expectant snuggling" a thing? Because she does that.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Shall I go get it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 03:44 pm (UTC)

"No, you shall stay right here and summon it by magic."

...

"Unless you'd rather get up. Because you can if you want."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Indulge my sense of theatrics," he says, and kisses her cheek, and teleports away, and teleports back a moment later with a totally unnecessary shower of insubstantial sparks, holding out a large round package wrapped in cheerful silvery 'Happy Birfday' wrapping paper.

Judging by size, shape, and weight, he got her a bowling ball.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 03:48 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles at him, sets the present on her lap, and tears into the wrapping paper.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 03:52 pm (UTC)

It is not a bowling ball. It is a sphere of something like glass, perfectly polished, perfectly transparent, absolutely without any kind of flaw.

"You did mention magical artifacts," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 03:53 pm (UTC)

"It's beautiful - what does it do?" asks Bella, reaching out towards it but not quite touching it lest she leave fingerprints.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 03:55 pm (UTC)

"If you hold it in both hands and look into it, it will show you something that you will find useful to whatever degree you understand it. No guarantees about the understanding it part, which is why I was able to get it on eBay for a pittance."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 03:58 pm (UTC)

"eBay?" giggles Bella. "There are working crystal balls on eBay? That's hilarious, how did you know it wasn't a fake? And the something - is it supposed to be past things, possible futures, present things, metaphors, some mix?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Any or all of the above. I traced its history, of course. And when it arrived it very helpfully showed me all the parts I couldn't verify for myself."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's nice of it. Hello, friendly crystal ball," she says, cupping it in her hands.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 04:01 pm (UTC)

An image begins to form in its depths.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:09 pm (UTC)

If this isn't the Watcher's Council, then there are two organizations of crusty and overwhelmingly British men running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Bella spends a pentagon to learn to read lips and watches them.

"I think this is happening now," she murmurs. "I think they're freaking out because Arthur hasn't called and they don't know if I'm dead - that one thinks I must be alive because they still, heh, can't find the Slayer, and it would just be impossible for two in a row to have my, heh, little problem..."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, what fun," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:13 pm (UTC)

She giggles and sets the crystal ball down. "That's really neat. And it's not even redundant with mint powers; they're not so good at information. Thank you."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I do try," he says brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I love you," she grins. "You're awesome."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 04:23 pm (UTC)

He laughs and hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:23 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Hugs hugs hugs hugs she likes hugs she loves Sherlock she can almost forget about what an insane day this has been.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 04:30 pm (UTC)

Well in that case, they can just keep snuggling.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:31 pm (UTC)

Oh good.

"When do you think you'll want to make a batch of coins?" Bella asks after a few minutes. "So I know how conservative to be with the starters."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Not sure," he says thoughtfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll wish with caution on anything bigger than a square."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," he repeats, frowning slightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 04:59 pm (UTC)

"...Is something wrong? You did decide against having me read your mind..."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," he says, "just trying to resolve a slight logical paradox."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 06:07 pm (UTC)

"What is it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 06:15 pm (UTC)

"I want to make coins, but I also... don't," he says. "I'm not sure why."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 06:17 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want me to help you try to figure it out?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 06:20 pm (UTC)

"All right."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Well," she says, "is it just about if I'm the one - helping? Shell Bell's Tony has an agony beam too. We could give this one the same thing."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 06:32 pm (UTC)

"That does sound better," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 06:34 pm (UTC)

Bella's chin drops to her chest. "Then it's probably related somehow to the obvious thing," she says softly.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Probably," he agrees. "Sorry, love."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 06:39 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to - you have no reason to be sorry - not to me of all people." She sighs. "There's probably more detail to be had, but I don't know if you want to go digging for it or not."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I think," he says, "that whatever my conscious opinions, some part of me is strongly disinclined to present any kind of vulnerability to anyone. But nothing in the world could make me stop trusting Tony." He shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 06:59 pm (UTC)

"That makes sense."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 07:00 pm (UTC)

He hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 07:09 pm (UTC)

"I'm so sorry. I don't know how to tell you how sorry I am. I don't know if that would even help."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 07:10 pm (UTC)

"It does help that you're sorry," he says. "But I derive no great joy from watching you suffer over it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 07:14 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs, and forces herself to relax. "We can give Tony an agony beam. He can help you with minting. I don't have to be anywhere in the picture."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I think that is a good practical solution."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 07:24 pm (UTC)

Snuggles? Snuggles.

Bella doesn't need notebooks anymore. Everything she thinks will stay put for her inspection in its original form.

And so she thinks.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 07:30 pm (UTC)

And Sherlock snuggles her.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 07:37 pm (UTC)

Bella is trying to map the edges of her soul.

She has a few clues. There is what Vampire Juliet did. There is what Amariah said, about Path - Path can't just be a connected owl-creature, to her, he must serve some purpose that outwardly looks like it inhabits Amariah's own body, or he couldn't be so crucial to Amariah's identity. She has Shell Bell's account how she changed after decades Downside: what stayed - what proved indelible, for a Bell with a soul - and what fell away.

"Did she know what she was doing?" Bella asks, after a silence. "Would she have owned up to it by name if it'd come up in conversation with someone she had reason to be honest towards? Or did she manage to delude herself about it somehow?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 07:41 pm (UTC)

"I told her she couldn't argue me into it, and she shrugged and said 'oh, okay then' and tried force next. Some people are capable of astonishing levels of self-delusion but not, I don't think, quite that much."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Unless she - no, I'm not going to rationalize for her. Okay. I will find another hypothesis."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I do admire your capacity for self-analysis."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

Think, think, think.

"Would you mind awfully reproducing what she said before that? It could give me a better idea of what the borders are."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 08:02 pm (UTC)

He quotes their entire conversation, short as it was, verbatim.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 08:07 pm (UTC)

"...She couldn't think of anything to do with the world, if she had it," murmurs Bella. "That's important. I have to figure out how."

She figures on this.

Even unmerged Shell, devoid of memory and identity, had an idea of what she'd do with the world if she had it, warped by her history though it was. And Shell kept her ability to love, truly, generously, in a way that put the point of the love in someone else instead of in her.

James said she could get Bella behind a better candidate for world rulership. Is this true? Probably. Angela is after all not angling for her god's job, last she checked. So the reason the Bells all do in fact want to rule the world except the vampire has to do with the fact that they are right for the job.

The vampire didn't want to rule the world. She couldn't see the point. She was happy to abandon Sunshine, making no further attempt to repair its flaws. She thought Shell Bell should've had a pentagon effectively stolen from her, even if she didn't care about the results that would have achieved.

"Who says I have one?"

A Bell without ambition.

She didn't care what happened to anyone. Except herself. She tried to talk Sherlock into doing what she wanted, and as soon as that didn't look like the easiest way to get it, she changed tactics. She wasn't making any long-term plans or she'd have done a better job of pretending to be Bella-as-she-was. She just saw something she wanted, devoid of any terms referring to people other than her and what they liked or didn't - and she inspected what she wanted and what she had and how to get the latter using the former. That ability was intact. In the short term. Unless Bella's ability to get bored had gone with everything else -

"Maybe my entire ability to care about other people is attached to ethical - stuff," murmurs Bella. "Maybe I don't care about people I love differently from people I don't know, just - more. That and long-term planning. That might do it."
Edited 2013-03-16 20:24 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock. "And what are you going to do with this information?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. It doesn't seem to add up to anything I can cut out and set on fire, does it."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 08:29 pm (UTC)

"No. Although I suppose it will make your warning to the rest of them more informative."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Yes. 'Don't turn into a Sunshine vampire. It will destroy your ability to make long-term plans and care about what happens to anyone besides yourself' is a little more specific than 'don't turn into a Sunshine vampire, just don't' would be."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I suspect naming the verified consequence would also be quite motivating."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It would."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 08:43 pm (UTC)

He hugs her some more.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 08:47 pm (UTC)

Oh, hugs, hugs are good.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 08:49 pm (UTC)

Snuggly hugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 08:49 pm (UTC)

Snuggly hugs with ki-?

She decides not to push it. The ball can be in his court for a while. However long a while.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 08:57 pm (UTC)

Snuggly hugs with kisses.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 08:58 pm (UTC)

Oh yay!

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 08:59 pm (UTC)

Awwwww.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 09:04 pm (UTC)

She doesn't want to stop kissing him. That's what brainphones are for! [Where d'you want to watch the sunrise from?]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 09:05 pm (UTC)

[Oh, anywhere, really. Somewhere out in the open. A mile above the town, since we can both fly,] he suggests whimsically.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 09:07 pm (UTC)

[We can. I haven't even tried it yet.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 09:08 pm (UTC)

[Let's.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 09:09 pm (UTC)

Teleportation and hovering-by-default means not having to stop kissing just to get from where you are to a mile above Sunnydale!

eversomuchfun
2013-03-16 09:10 pm (UTC)

Invisibility means you can totally make out a mile above Sunnydale without disturbing anyone excessively!

cross_and_bow
2013-03-16 09:13 pm (UTC)

Yes. This is good. All very good.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-17 02:21 am (UTC)

It's so nice to have superpowers.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-17 04:12 am (UTC)

And forgiving loved ones, that too.

If they stay up here for hours on end, they'll see the sun come up.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-17 12:30 pm (UTC)

That was the whole idea, was it not?

cross_and_bow
2013-03-17 03:59 pm (UTC)

It was! So they should stay up here for hours. Making out.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-17 04:16 pm (UTC)

A brilliant plan. Sherlock supports it fully.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-17 04:18 pm (UTC)

Hours elapse. How considerate of those hours.

And the sky begins to lighten in the east.
Edited 2013-03-17 16:38 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-17 10:13 pm (UTC)

[Ooh. Look,] he says. [Sunrise.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-17 10:17 pm (UTC)

She looks. She grins.

"And look at you, not on fire."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-17 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm so pleased."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-17 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Me too. I believe Shell Bell about torching working, but I'm not eager for any of the three of us to try it anytime soon."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-17 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Indeed."

eviler and eviler

self_composed

[Hey,] says Stella to all three mints. [I wanna talk to all of you. You busy?]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-15 09:11 pm (UTC)

[Nah, what's up?]

guiltless
2013-03-15 09:12 pm (UTC)

[What she said.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-15 09:12 pm (UTC)

[Me either.]

self_composed
2013-03-15 09:14 pm (UTC)

[Guess who made nine-pointed coins.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-15 09:15 pm (UTC)

[Not you!]

self_composed
2013-03-15 09:17 pm (UTC)

[Not me! It was the Joker. Shell Bell has them. There is an afterlife, she went there and deems it shit, and it's got admins of unknown power running it so we want to storm the place - only with several of us on the job, and interdimensional travel under our control more than Milliways, and big coins with which to present an overwhelming force behind our platform of stop-torturing-everybody-please-you-horrible-afterlife.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-15 09:22 pm (UTC)

[Well, sign me up,] says Alice.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-15 09:22 pm (UTC)

[What he said,] says Anna.

self_composed
2013-03-15 09:23 pm (UTC)

[Not you, Sandy?]

guiltless
2013-03-15 09:26 pm (UTC)

[Well, I'll help,] he says. [But I'm already not keen on evils.]

self_composed
2013-03-15 09:29 pm (UTC)

[All right, no big deal. FYI, I really don't know if it's possible to do the trick without agony-beaming, although maybe you and your inside friends and Anna can work something out. The agony-beam threshold is just what you'd expect - one million triangles.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-15 09:46 pm (UTC)

[Bet you we caaaaan,] says Anna.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-15 09:47 pm (UTC)

[I want to be at this party,] says Alice.

self_composed
2013-03-15 09:49 pm (UTC)

[Heheheh. You guys have fun,] laughs Stella.

guiltless
2013-03-15 09:50 pm (UTC)

[You bet we will,] says Sandy.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-15 09:51 pm (UTC)

Alice arrives on Sandy's moon.

[Ooooooooh,] he says. [Pretty! Love the giant chess set.]

self_composed
2013-03-16 12:26 am (UTC)

[Giant chess set? Is it about time I came and had a look at Amalthea, or should I save that for when the party's over?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 12:27 am (UTC)

[Nobody's partying now,] says Alice. [You're safe.]

self_composed
2013-03-16 12:29 am (UTC)

To Amalthea!

guiltless
2013-03-16 12:41 am (UTC)

Sandy's been busy.

There is indeed a giant chess set - one side's pieces made of brass, the other's of obsidian, with squares the size of city blocks. The pieces are intricately shaped and very beautiful.

Apart from that, there are... buildings. Buildings of every shape and size, dotted across the landscape.

Sandy, Alice, and Anna are standing on a glass courtyard floating in the air above the middle of the chess set.

self_composed
2013-03-16 12:56 am (UTC)

Huh.

Bella teleports about for a closer look at some buildings. And then back to the courtyard. "Damn. You want some design input when Olympus gets a sibling, Sandy?"

guiltless
2013-03-16 01:00 am (UTC)

"Sure, yeah!"

self_composed
2013-03-16 01:01 am (UTC)

"Great! You have nice design sense and they shouldn't all look the same anyway. I'm probably going to add a new city soon. Maybe a bunch of them, or just a really really big one. Olympus isn't full, but of all the Bells I'm probably in the best position to take an immigration influx when we conquer the afterlife."

guiltless
2013-03-16 01:03 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Never a dull moment with you, man."

self_composed
2013-03-16 01:04 am (UTC)

"I am a magic space empress. It comes with the territory." And she lifts off into the air and zooms around, looking at more of the buildings. [Lemme know when it's time for me to clear out.]

guiltless
2013-03-16 01:05 am (UTC)

[Never, unless you have something against group napping,] laughs Sandy.

self_composed
2013-03-16 01:05 am (UTC)

[Well, let me know when I should quit reading Alice's mind, then.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 01:07 am (UTC)

[Sure thing!]

Not yet - they're all cuddling up in Sandy's enormous bed. Mmm, snuggly.

self_composed
2013-03-16 01:34 am (UTC)

Stella beholds Sandy's architectural handiwork, contentedly flying about and peering into Alice's happythoughts.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 01:39 am (UTC)

His happythoughts are happy and cuddly!

And now he is visiting Sandy's brain, and Stella should probably stop looking now unless she wants to watch Anna try for a niner.

self_composed
2013-03-16 01:40 am (UTC)

Doesn't especially. Bella backs off and continues touring Amalthea.

guiltless
2013-03-16 01:42 am (UTC)

Sandy hasn't managed to cover the whole moon with his various projects, but at the scales he sometimes works in, it won't be long.

And he is really good at designing three-dimensional objects.

self_composed
2013-03-16 01:45 am (UTC)

Cool. Bella starts debating names for a city of the undead. She'll probably put it on a different continent from Olympus. The Downsiders might have a hard time integrating and should be allowed to do it at a comfortable pace for everyone. Maybe she'll call it "Brightside" or something like that. Is that too twee? Maybe it's too twee.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-16 01:58 am (UTC)

A few hours later, Anna crows over brainphone, [I diiiiiiiiiid it!]

self_composed
2013-03-16 01:58 am (UTC)

[Congratulations! Please never tell me how!]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-16 01:59 am (UTC)

[But it was so much fun!]

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:01 am (UTC)

[Well, if you really must, I suppose I'll live. And I might want to be able to explain it to my counterparts' assorted minty helpers.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-16 02:04 am (UTC)

[I think the methodology is pretty much 'intensify your pain processing by a factor of ten or so and then tell six sadists to go to town'.]

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:05 am (UTC)

[Oh, is that all. Thank you for the protective layer of abstraction.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-16 02:08 am (UTC)

[You're welcome!]

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:09 am (UTC)

[Just the one?]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-16 02:10 am (UTC)

[Gearing up for a repeat as soon as I catch my breath!]

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:11 am (UTC)

[I shall claim you as a point of pride in my portfolio the next time a bunch of Bells all get together and compare empires.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-16 02:13 am (UTC)

[Ooh, you're makin' me blush.]

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:16 am (UTC)

[I'm actually surprised we haven't started explicitly holding contests yet. I guess that wouldn't be fair to the ones who are just starting out.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-16 02:18 am (UTC)

[You're kind of great, you know that?]

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:20 am (UTC)

[I do know that! I am glad that it is clear.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-16 02:21 am (UTC)

She laughs.

[Okay, round two!]

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:25 am (UTC)

[Enjoy!]

And that's the end of that conversation. [You gonna try one, Alice?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:27 am (UTC)

[Mmm, remind me later,] he says. [Busy with Anna now.]

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:28 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

Stella finishes her tour of Amalthea and goes to hang out on Mars and catch up with email.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:30 am (UTC)

A while later, Alice teleports to her and - assuming she is not doing anything that absolutely can't be interrupted - scoops her into a hug.

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:31 am (UTC)

Oooh, hugs! She's quite interruptable. Email is an asynchronous form of communication. "Hey, you!"

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:35 am (UTC)

"Anna made three before she decided to take an actual nap," he says. "She's cuddling Sandy, it's adorable. You wanna make arrows off me now?"

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:36 am (UTC)

"That could be arranged. You want me to stomp on your off-switch out of nowhere or ramp up from someplace?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:37 am (UTC)

"Mm, ramp up," he decides.

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:38 am (UTC)

"From...? Shell Bell started at minimum evil and spent three minutes getting to minimum - 'arrow', why arrow? - will that work for you?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:42 am (UTC)

"They look like three arrowheads cuddling," he explains. "Kinda, anyway. Sure, go for it."

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:43 am (UTC)

Aaaaand evil.

One hundred thousand.

And up, up, up.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:44 am (UTC)

He kisses her cheek, which turns into aimless nuzzling, which turns into forgetting how to move.

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:46 am (UTC)

She peers at his thoughts, ready to abort if necessary.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:46 am (UTC)

Nope. Loving it.

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:47 am (UTC)

Oh, good.

Lord, he makes such faces.

And on up. Five thousand triangles a second.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:50 am (UTC)

He does, he does make faces!

There is not a lot of leftover room in his head, but with what there is, he loves her intensely.

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:52 am (UTC)

Oh good.

Three minutes can seem like such a long time when she's trying to keep up with her vampire boyfriend's cognition. Even extremely simple cognition.

But eventually it does pass.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 02:54 am (UTC)

And the line of evils acquires a nine-pointed 'coin', which does indeed look like three arrowheads stabbing outward from a single centre.

Alice manages one more after that, and then—no, no, this is not where he wants to be anymore.

self_composed
2013-03-16 02:56 am (UTC)

Half-half-half-half till she's in squares and quits outright, she knows how to gentle him down. Hugs. "I love you."

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 03:00 am (UTC)

He hugs her back.

"I love you too. Mmm, that was pretty nice, but I don't wanna do it again anytime soon."

self_composed
2013-03-16 04:25 am (UTC)

"Okay. I don't expect to need a lot of these anyway." She collects and declaws them, and the preceding evils.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 03:13 pm (UTC)

Alice kisses her.

self_composed
2013-03-16 03:14 pm (UTC)

Oooh! Kisses! Bella approves.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 03:15 pm (UTC)

He's in that mood that Bella's agony beam always puts him in. It is a snuggly mood, and also full of kisses.

self_composed
2013-03-16 03:16 pm (UTC)

Ah, one of many beneficial side effects, along with fascinating facial expressions and the coins themselves.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-16 03:17 pm (UTC)

Mmmm. Kisses.

mon père

beheld_beauty

Belle probably wouldn't have gone into the forest looking for her father if it weren't for the fact that, were he home, she'd never be allowed.

She understands his concerns. Really she does. If it weren't for the fact that he's the local lawman, she wouldn't even be allowed out into town on her own. She's beautiful (as no one can shut up about for thirty seconds at a stretch; is it any wonder she prefers books?) and while he can protect her in their tiny town, the Witchwood is another matter. People get lost there - sometimes the Wood spits out men and women and children from other villages entirely, near theirs instead, and they have to be given maps and sent the long way around to get home - and anything could happen and he has no jurisdiction over crimes committed there.

But the woods are beautiful, and she's going to bring a blank book to draw a map in, and her father has been missing for four days and even if Belle's only concern were her safety she'd need to find him. Because orphaned seventeen-year-old girls tend to find it in their own best interest to get married, and if she wanted to get married, it would not be to anyone in the village.

He chased in a highwayman (whose crime was not committed in the forest, so all is in its proper order).

The highwayman came out.

Charlie did not.

Charlie, apparently, has gotten lost.

And Belle is going to go in and get him.

---

Her map is wrong.

No - no, she was very careful. She knows people get lost here; she knows the woods are twisty, suspects the landmarks must include duplicates. She brought bits of ribbon to mark her way. She's been changing colors as she gets deeper into the forest, and she's been traveling for almost a day now, and that ribbon right there was tied in the first hour. She's not that turned around; it's broad daylight and she's been tracking the sun. Not even magic, if magic existed, would be able to move the sun.

That leaves her, and the tree. She has been picked up and put back where she started or she has been followed by this tree. Or the ribbon, perhaps, if it's magically untied itself and made exactly the same knot around a different branch. ...No, there is the bit of blood from where she tripped and scraped her hand against the bark of that tree, and blood and ribbon both following her is more of a stretch than her having been transported or the tree having walked on its very roots to heel like a dog.

Damnation.

Well. Most people who wander into the Witchwood are eventually heard from again. But it's getting dark, and she trips more than enough in daylight; she underestimated the treachery of the ground deep in among the trees.

She goes on. She keeps making her map - it's still possible it will be useful for something, and she has precious little else to do while she walks alone through the dimming woods - keeping an eye out for a place to sleep.

She finds one.

deslandes
2013-03-11 05:42 pm (UTC)

From a distance, through the tall trees, it just looks like an unusually well-lit clearing overgrown with thorny plants.

Well, that's true enough, but it is not the complete truth. Because from outside the clearing it's not apparent that in the middle of it there lies a proud old castle, circled by a crumbling outer wall that serves mostly as the framework for a riot of roses. One tall iron door stands out from the gate, listing to the side under the weight of ambitious vines; the other lies flat on the ground, its graceful bars bent and twisted and half-gone to rust, with a sapling oak sprouting out of the middle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 05:47 pm (UTC)

Belle blinks at this. She's never heard of anyone finding anything like this in the Witchwood, and she's heard her share of Witchwood stories.

It's certainly more worth checking out than another mile of possibly-ambulatory trees.

She sidles around the sapling and past the wall.

deslandes
2013-03-11 05:56 pm (UTC)

The upper parts of the castle are still lit by the setting sun; the colours it paints on the stone are quite beautiful. And the castle is in surprisingly good repair, considering the condition of the gardens. There is no sign of rust or rot on the main doors, which are made of solid wood banded with elaborately wrought iron.

As she approaches, the doors creak open.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Hello?" she calls.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:00 pm (UTC)

Silence.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:01 pm (UTC)

Okay, weird. Maybe the doors just swing open sometimes, from air pressure - though she didn't feel a breeze. Maybe it's uninhabited and she can sleep in it overnight without having to convince anyone to shelter her. She picks her way through the overrun garden and peers through the door, not stepping in just yet. "Hello?" she calls, louder.
Edited 2013-03-11 18:03 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:09 pm (UTC)

More silence.

The interior of the castle is richly decorated, lit by a selection of tidy lanterns and a beautiful chandelier, and spotless. Someone obviously lives here - in fact, it should take multiple servants to keep the whole place this clean. But if anyone does, they're not visible from the doorway and they're not making much noise.
Edited 2013-03-11 18:10 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry to barge in like this," she calls into the silence, "but the door was open, and I'm terribly lost - and I'm looking for my father, has he been by this way?"

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:13 pm (UTC)

No response.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:14 pm (UTC)

Maybe there's been some kind of emergency in another part of the castle and everyone's dealing with that. She walks in a bit farther, looking for anything to suggest where the servants and their masters might have gotten to.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:18 pm (UTC)

The doors close gently behind her. Across the room, lanterns along the railings of a wide marble stair kindle to life pair by pair from the lowest to the highest. It's as though the castle itself is saying 'come upstairs, please'.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:20 pm (UTC)

The doors could be anything.

The lanterns - not.

Lanterns cannot do that.

First the trees and now this.

Belle turns and goes as fast as she dares back to the door and hauls on the handle.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:22 pm (UTC)

It sticks on the first pull, then swings open easily.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:24 pm (UTC)

Back out into the garden, back out to the wall, she did not come equipped to handle a magic castle.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:26 pm (UTC)

The gate is still just as open, but the woods outside have changed. There are no ribbons in sight. The trees look taller, and older.

And it is still getting dark.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:29 pm (UTC)

She goes out the gate regardless. She knew this might take more than a day; she came prepared to start a fire and sleep under a tree somewhere.

She uses the remaining light to case the area, looking for an inviting tree.

These trees are less inviting than their predecessors.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:31 pm (UTC)

Nothing obviously magical happens...

...except that every time she gets out of sight of the castle, a few more steps take her back in view of its clearing. No matter which direction she goes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:36 pm (UTC)

...

Okay. Something magical is going on, she has no idea how it works, and if it wants it bad enough, she has no powers with which to combat it.

Given the givens -

She may as well cooperate with it to the point of having a roof over her head in the night.

She goes back inside the castle.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:37 pm (UTC)

The lanterns going up the stairs are still burning. The doors shut themselves behind her again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:39 pm (UTC)

She tries the door. (Just to make sure it still works.)

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:40 pm (UTC)

It's terribly cooperative.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:41 pm (UTC)

Good.

She lets them close again, and lets the lights lead her up the stairs.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:44 pm (UTC)

A continuous line of helpful lanterns leads her directly to a bedroom, as clean and luxurious as the rest of the castle, with warm rugs on the floor and an enormous canopied bed.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:45 pm (UTC)

Well, that's nice of it.

She goes in, and closes the door behind her, and waits five seconds, and then attempts to open it.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:51 pm (UTC)

It works just fine.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:53 pm (UTC)

She closes it again.

And she sighs and flops into the bed for the night.

deslandes
2013-03-11 06:56 pm (UTC)

In the morning, the door opens, and in sidles a tray laden with delicious breakfast. She may or may not catch it in the act of setting itself up by her bedside.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 06:59 pm (UTC)

She does catch it. She attempts to interrupt the self-pouring teapot.

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:01 pm (UTC)

The teapot rights itself in mid-pour and settles back onto the tray.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:03 pm (UTC)

She also attempts to catch the knife that's buttering her toast. How does this work?

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:06 pm (UTC)

The knife stills when she grabs hold of it.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:09 pm (UTC)

And if she lets go, midair...?

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:10 pm (UTC)

It puts itself down neatly on the tray.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:11 pm (UTC)

And now her toast is half-buttered. Hmm. She wonders how smart it is. Fairy tales never agree on what magic would do if it existed. She gets to check. "It's okay, go on," she says.

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:13 pm (UTC)

The knife resumes buttering her toast.

The teapot tips questioningly toward the partly filled cup, not far enough to pour any more tea into it.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:14 pm (UTC)

"You too," she says, delighted in spite of herself, "it's okay."

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:16 pm (UTC)

The teapot lifts itself up and pours and settles back down, all without spilling a drop.

The knife completes its task and puts itself down again, buttery side up so as not to get anything on the tray.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Belle says, and she tucks in. Mmm. "Are there any people here or just a lonely magic castle that wants somebody to look after?"

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:21 pm (UTC)

No answer from the cutlery.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:23 pm (UTC)

She looks around expectantly at the rest of her room. If the lights know where she is and the dishes understand speech, maybe the rug will tilt its pile into the shape of words, she doesn't know.

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:24 pm (UTC)

Nothing.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:25 pm (UTC)

Okay then.

She gets up to check out the rest of the castle.

She brings her map-book. Perhaps the building is more amenable to mapping than the surrounding forest.

She's worried about Charlie, but she doesn't seem to have any way to make progress at finding him, and it's possible that someone who can help her lives here.

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:28 pm (UTC)

The interior of the castle is reassuringly consistent. Also, very pretty.

When not leading her around, the lanterns kindle themselves wherever she looks and douse themselves when she leaves a room.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:46 pm (UTC)

Well, this is a nice castle, and it's going spare, unless someone is hiding from her behind that one locked door. (She doesn't pry.) She might just move into it if she can ever find out how to get between it and civilization.

It takes her until lunchtime to explore the whole thing less the single locked room.

deslandes
2013-03-11 07:52 pm (UTC)

Shortly after noon, another tray of food comes skittering down the hall.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 07:56 pm (UTC)

Mmm, lunch.

Belle fills up and then she decides to go out and see if she can make any headway at discerning a pattern in the way the forest steers her.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:04 pm (UTC)

This time it lets her get much farther from the castle before steering her back... but 'much farther' is still only a few minutes' walk.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:06 pm (UTC)

She writes down everything she notices.

It looks random to her.

Finally she lets herself be steered all the way back into the castle to mull over what she's noted down while not trying to take more data. She gets nowhere. She gives up and experiments with talking to the furniture.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:13 pm (UTC)

Requests for things that involve simple movement—'come here', 'go there', 'wiggle if you understand me'—are generally obliged. More abstract queries, or statements that don't involve asking for anything, are ignored.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:15 pm (UTC)

She's still curious about her idea of the rug pile forming words. She writes some words of her own in the carpet: write back if you can understand me.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:16 pm (UTC)

The rug waits for a moment, then wriggles and flattens itself out, providing no words back to her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:16 pm (UTC)

Hmm. Disappointing.

She makes her way to the locked door. "Will you open up?" she asks, addressing the door politely.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:18 pm (UTC)

It rattles for a moment, then relaxes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:20 pm (UTC)

Huh.

If there's a person in the castle at all, it's past this door, and it's otherwise so obliging except about letting her get away from it for more than a few minutes at a time. "Excuse me!" she calls. "Can anyone who's not an object hear me?"

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:22 pm (UTC)

There is a sound—like someone or something exhaling sharply.

It's not very objectlike, but neither is it very human.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:26 pm (UTC)

Oh.

Oookay.

Maybe this is the menagerie part of the castle and it has not kept all of the cages in good repair and this door is locked for her safety.

All right then.

She backs away, and processes her thoughts in her notebook - in the dining room, so she can see if dinner presents itself differently when she's there and not in a random other location.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:32 pm (UTC)

It does!

Instead of setting itself up on the tray, her meal serves itself onto the table in fancy dishes. Apparently it's roast duck tonight. There is even wine.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:34 pm (UTC)

Belle waters down her wine heavily - she partakes, drinking unwined water is hazardous where she's from and she doesn't know if this castle is different in that respect, but she doesn't like to overdo it.

She follows the dishes, when they clear themselves. She wants to see if she can figure out where the hell the duck came from.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:39 pm (UTC)

There is a kitchen, where the dishes clean themselves in water that pours out of thin air with the help of flying dishrags. Then the dishes put themselves away, the rags wring themselves out, and the washbasin scoots over to the kitchen door and empties itself onto the ground outside.

The adjoining pantry is very well stocked with non-perishable items, but contains no more ducks.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:40 pm (UTC)

She checks the outside. Maybe there's poultry kept somewhere in the garden; she hasn't thoroughly inspected the garden yet.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:44 pm (UTC)

No poultry. Lots of roses. Some herbs, growing more or less wild.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:45 pm (UTC)

She tells a rosebush to wiggle if it understands her. Just to be thorough.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:47 pm (UTC)

The rosebush either does not hear her, or chooses not to obey.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:52 pm (UTC)

Ah well.

It seems to be just plants out here. And not even an actual vegetable plot. She'll lurk in the kitchen before lunch the next day and see where the produce and meat comes from. (She doesn't expect to be up in time for breakfast.)

She goes back inside, and says to the kitchen experimentally, "Tomorrow morning for breakfast I would love crepes with strawberry and blackberry preserves."

This does in fact sound delicious, but it's also very specific; the kitchen will most likely only give her this if it can understand fairly complex language.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:54 pm (UTC)

A few cabinet doors rattle, perhaps in an acknowledging way.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

And she goes upstairs and whiles away the time before bed, and goes to bed.

deslandes
2013-03-11 08:57 pm (UTC)

The next morning: crepes, with strawberry and blackberry preserves.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 09:00 pm (UTC)

Yum. Information.

Belle settles into a routine of sorts: experiment with requesting things of the castle, experiment with trying to go into the forest, three tasty meals a day. She takes up singing while doing those of these activities that don't involve chewing. She's not good at it, but it fills the silence.

She makes no progress into the forest, but she keeps trying. It will not help Charlie to fret, it will only help Charlie to get out and find him, so she expends energy on the latter and not the former.

deslandes
2013-03-11 09:13 pm (UTC)

And then one morning before breakfast arrives, down by the locked door, something

roars.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 09:20 pm (UTC)

Gleep!

The roaring wakes Belle up from her half-doze and leaves her sitting up shivering in bed.

Has the something-in-the-menagerie-or-whatever gotten out? What is it? Has the castle not been feeding it? (How long has it been devoid of inhabitants, she can't gather any clues when it keeps itself so well-ordered and free of dust, the garden suggests a long time, surely the castle must have been feeding the animal or animals if they're still alive?)

She runs through her notes about the layout. She has not found a way to get to the roof yet, but maybe she can come up with one. Roaring-thing won't be able to get her there. Probably. (Certainly she has no chance of outrunning it, even discounting how the forest turns her around. The roof is dicey - she may topple from it and die - but not guaranteed to fail.)

deslandes
2013-03-11 09:26 pm (UTC)

There is a further pounding and rattling, as of something very strong making an extensive effort to get through a recalcitrant door.

Then quiet. But not the silence of the lonely castle. There is some kind of distant noise, too far away to be very clear.

Belle's door opens and in comes her breakfast tray, in more of a hurry than usual.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 09:27 pm (UTC)

She catches her tray and tells the door, "Close, please - stay that way till I say -"

deslandes
2013-03-11 09:30 pm (UTC)

The door shuts itself firmly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 09:32 pm (UTC)

Belle gives herself a moment to calm down.

She eats her breakfast, subdued.

She inspects her window and the possibility of getting to the roof without having to go out into the hall with the released roaring thing. The prospects would not be good even for someone stronger and defter than she is.

deslandes
2013-03-11 09:39 pm (UTC)

The tray sails over to the door and knocks gently against it, as though asking to be let out.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 09:41 pm (UTC)

"If the hallway is empty," Belle says to the door, "let the tray out then close again."

deslandes
2013-03-11 09:44 pm (UTC)

The door opens. The tray leaves. The door closes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 09:52 pm (UTC)

Okay.

She's wearing a dress the castle supplied - there's a dizzying array, everything fits her, things she doesn't like vanish when she's not looking so for a while she only tried things on over her original clothes in case the vanishing was haphazard but everything's been behaving so she's currently in a practical number of mid-calf blue cotton. It's not really practical for climbing, though. She's not practical for climbing.

She's stuck, but at least there's food that can tell whether the hallway has a creature in it or not and a self-operating ensuite bathroom.

She's running out of space in her notebook, is the only problem that staying in this room has which staying in the general castle environs as she has to anyway doesn't.

"If there's a blank notebook available, I'd like one, brought on the tray with lunch," she says aloud.

And she sits back on the bed.

And sings.

deslandes
2013-03-11 09:54 pm (UTC)

Time passes.

Lunch arrives, with a blank notebook on the tray. All the dishes are extra careful not to spill on it.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 09:55 pm (UTC)

Oh good. She thanks them. And pats the sugar bowl on the lid.

She can be okay here for a long time while she thinks of something.

deslandes
2013-03-11 09:57 pm (UTC)

For the rest of the day, there are no more strange noises from the rest of the castle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:02 pm (UTC)

She waits.

She finishes the notebook she brought with her and starts on the second one. (She is getting sick of the songs she knows. She tries her hand at making up her own. She's not very good at it, but it passes the time when she's out of escape-related creative juice and needs to think about something else.)

deslandes
2013-03-11 10:07 pm (UTC)

A few days later, her breakfast tray comes in laden with an unusual burden: a bunch of roses.

On close inspection, they look like they were not cut but ripped from their bushes; there is even blood on a few of the thorns, and oddly enough, golden-brown hairs stuck here and there.

The bouquet is tied up clumsily with a wrinkled blue ribbon, and there is a folded bit of paper stuck between the ribbon and the flowers.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:08 pm (UTC)

...Oooookay.

She picks up and inspects the paper.

deslandes
2013-03-11 10:12 pm (UTC)

It says, in terrible handwriting, letters more cut and stabbed into the paper than merely written, ink blotches everywhere: sOrRY for tHE roARING

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:17 pm (UTC)

Wow.

Okay.

There is some manner of person here. Something that, unlike the furniture, can use language on his or her own.

Belle sets the roses aside and nibbles distractedly on her breakfast, contemplating the note.

After she's done eating, she says, "Just a minute," to her tray, and tears a page from her notebook and writes:

Who are you? Why does this castle keep me from leaving?

And she folds this note neatly and puts it among her dishes and says, "Please bring that note to whoever wrote it."

deslandes
2013-03-11 10:21 pm (UTC)

The tray hops in place once, then leaves.

An hour later, it comes back with a reply, written on her note: someone has drawn a straggling line down from Why does this castle keep me from leaving? to the words, DON'T KNow

Her other question is ignored.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:24 pm (UTC)

Hm.

Well, if he or she isn't going to explain who he or she is, that's frustrating, but at least she has someone to talk to. Was it you who was roaring? I thought it was some kind of animal. Is it safe to leave the room? she writes back, and sends the tray away with a pat.

deslandes
2013-03-11 10:26 pm (UTC)

This reply is somewhat faster.

Three separate lines, one from each sentence, down to the single word YES.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:34 pm (UTC)

...Okay, if it's an animal, it's a writing animal.

She wonders if it talks aloud. In case it doesn't, she brings her notebook and her pencils.

And she steps out of her room.

deslandes
2013-03-11 10:37 pm (UTC)

The locked door is open. The side of it that usually faces Belle's part of the castle has suffered some superficial damage.

On the other side, there is a well-lit hallway.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:39 pm (UTC)

Belle follows the lights, ears attentive.

deslandes
2013-03-11 10:48 pm (UTC)

There's that breathing sound again, coming from a half-open door up ahead.

The door belongs to a library.

Amid ranks of tall shelves holding several fortunes' worth of books, there is a table; lounging in an enormous chair at the table, there is a... beast.

Its clawed, furred hands have visible fingers and thumbs; its arms and shoulders are human in structure, though likewise furred. Its head resembles some kind of cat, with a long luxurious mane several shades darker than its golden brown fur. The fur is patterned haphazardly, spots here and stripes there, neither symmetrical nor obviously reminiscent of a particular species.

It does not wear clothes - but then, with that thick coat of fur, clothes would be both redundant and uncomfortable.

It watches her steadily when she comes into view.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:50 pm (UTC)

"...Hello."

She swallows.

"I'm Belle."

deslandes
2013-03-11 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Belle." says the beast. The movement of speech reveals impressive fangs in its black-lipped mouth, but it makes no actual threatening move. And it speaks much more clearly, and with more obvious ease, than it writes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:53 pm (UTC)

"...Er, so, have you been here the entire time I have?"

deslandes
2013-03-11 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I have been here," it says, with amusement clear in its voice, "for a hundred years and more."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Wow, I didn't know anyone could live that long," she says with immediate interest, "how do you do it - are there more of you around? What are you? What's your name?"

deslandes
2013-03-11 11:00 pm (UTC)

It laughs, showing teeth.

"I did not do any of this," it says, with a gesture to its furred body and the castle that surrounds them. "It was done to me. My name was among the things taken, and it is one I do not miss."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Oh dear. So - what do I call you, then? And who did all this? What do they want?"

deslandes
2013-03-11 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't even know if she is still alive. Call me what you like. 'Beast', if you can think of nothing better."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 11:05 pm (UTC)

"I - okay, if you like," says Belle. She's not sure why anyone would want to be named Beast, but she's not going to argue the point. "Why did she do all this?"

deslandes
2013-03-11 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I often wonder," he says, shaking his head. "She told me I made her angry, but it's a long way to go to punish a boy for running into an old woman in the street and laughing when she falls down."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 11:20 pm (UTC)

"...You mean to tell me that not only there are people in the world who can make magic, cooperative castles and entire forests' worth of responsive direction away or towards same, but there are people in the world who will do that over trivial things like that? If that's the case how did I get to be seventeen without knowing magic was real?"

deslandes
2013-03-11 11:22 pm (UTC)

"She was the first witch I ever met," he says. "Also the last. And I don't think she told me the whole of the story."

He smiles slightly, revealing a glint of fang.

"I was seventeen, too, come to think."
Edited 2013-03-11 23:23 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 11:28 pm (UTC)

Belle looks around at the library. "I was looking for my father, when I walked into the forest - he went missing - but if it weren't for that, I wouldn't mind being stuck here so much, especially now that I've seen this library... this is a nice castle. You say she was trying to punish you? With a nice cooperative magic castle and a prolonged lifespan and - well, I guess the entrapment and the cosmetic changes were probably unwelcome, but I dunno, I'd consider the tradeoff if I got to live to be a perfectly healthy hundred and seventeen." Pause. "The handwriting might be a problem if it was me. I write a lot."

deslandes
2013-03-11 11:32 pm (UTC)

He looks away with a soft growl.

"I've been alone here for more than a century. I'd sooner be dead—I've tried to be dead. And the castle wasn't always so nice." He snorts. "I think I've charmed it, over the years."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 11:33 pm (UTC)

"...Then... why didn't you come looking for me sooner, once I showed up? If you're lonely?"

Belle gets lonely, but it takes a long time. Introversion has its perks.

deslandes
2013-03-11 11:39 pm (UTC)

He runs his fingers through his mane and shakes it out with a sigh.

"Because—I do know why the forest brought you here," he says. "Or I think I know. And I hate it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 11:39 pm (UTC)

"What is it?"

She wants to know. She always wants to know.

deslandes
2013-03-11 11:51 pm (UTC)

"All this," he says, "this body, the forest, the castle - it's a curse. And the curse can be broken. She told me how."

He looks away, sighing again.

"True love. If I were to meet a person, and that person came to love me, and I to love them in return, the spell would be broken and I would be human again. And I could leave."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-11 11:53 pm (UTC)

"...I can't leave either," says Belle. "How - how long will it keep me, if - Wait, people get lost in the woods all the time. You said you've been alone. Why wasn't it steering you any people before? Why me?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:00 am (UTC)

"It doesn't write me helpful little notes," he says. "I don't know. But I think the spell brought you here because you're the first person who's had a chance of breaking it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:01 am (UTC)

"So -" Why not attempt levity, what harm can it do. "You're picky?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:03 am (UTC)

He throws his head back and laughs.

The sound is very human, even if the sight isn't.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:05 am (UTC)

"Well," says Belle, giggling a little along with him and looking at the bookshelves. "I don't suppose there's any books on magic in here? Because if I were you I'd have tried to learn it and just directly disenchant the place, with a century and then some to do it in."

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:07 am (UTC)

He spreads his hands. His enormous, clawed hands.

"Mostly, I try not to touch them. Never ends well for the book."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:08 am (UTC)

"Oh. Well. I'll just get started on that for you, then, maybe there's something."
Edited 2013-03-12 00:09 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:09 am (UTC)

He grins.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:11 am (UTC)

Belle sets about taking each book one at a time off the shelf, inspecting its title, and putting it back if it is not about magic. (Not without regret, as there are many interesting-looking volumes that have nothing to do with the topic in question, but, priorities.)

"So," she says, as she's halfway through the first section of shelf, "if you can't even handle the books, what have you been doing, out here all alone?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:14 am (UTC)

"Eat. Sleep. Yell at the walls. Talk to the furniture. I like the smell of this room," he admits, with a gesture to the bookshelves, "that's why I hid in here when I heard you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:16 am (UTC)

"Books smell lovely," agrees Belle. "Hmm, I think this section might all be fiction..." She abandons her book-by-book search for more of a random dip across the stacks, trying to triangulate the theorized magic section.

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:21 am (UTC)

Books about magic that aren't fiction take up the entire north wall; the ladder for the outermost shelves skates over on its rails to let her climb to the top, if she so chooses.

Many of these books are in archaic dialects, or other languages entirely.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:23 am (UTC)

Belle can make some progress on the archaic dialects. She is not, alas, a polyglot, but she notes insofar as she can what languages they are in and makes a note in her notebook to check for instructional texts on those languages. After all, if this doesn't pan out soon, she might be here a long time. "I don't suppose you know how to read -" She rattles off the languages she's found that aren't intelligible to her.

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:27 am (UTC)

"I could, once," he says. "These eyes are no help."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:29 am (UTC)

"Okay, if I'm desperate I can make hash of some pronunciations or copy everything into large print and we can decipher them, but I might be able to do with the material in the vernacular." She starts sorting through the books she's pulled, determining if they're introductory or advanced, theoretical or practical.

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:31 am (UTC)

Theoretical versus practical is about an even split, with a few that resist categorization, but almost no book on the shelves is identifiably introductory.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:33 am (UTC)

Almost...?

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:41 am (UTC)

The closest thing available is called The Hedge-Witch's Handbook, and it advertises itself as containing only low-risk spells with simple formulations. Compared to the rest, it's also fairly modern and easy to read.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:41 am (UTC)

Excellent. She sets about reading that one first, notebook open for notetaking.

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:49 am (UTC)

Low-risk spells are apparently also very small, most of them. A good-luck charm that lasts from one full moon to the next; a selection of curses that do things like make your target's voice loud and annoying, or make them fart constantly, or give them a succession of minor aches and pains for a week; spells that show you various things, like next week's weather or the location of a lost object.

Or a lost person.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 12:57 am (UTC)

This book contains many interesting possibilities for starting out with practical magic, but it refers to the steps of each charm in rather opaque terms that Belle doesn't understand. And the helpful notes that are not part of the numbered steps are even more bewildering. "This is a simple spell, but even so, if you have not ordered your mindscape in the last week, it is advised that you tidy it to avoid backlash from distraction"? "This charm is particularly susceptible to the hazards typically associated with an unwilling channel"?

"I don't suppose," says Belle to Beast, "that you know anything about magic yourself? I think these books all assume I have a teacher. There's not a beginner's guide anywhere. Even this one thinks I know what a mindscape and a channel are, and how to tidy the one and fret appropriately about the willingness of the other."

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:04 am (UTC)

He shrugs expressively.

"I've only ever seen one spell cast, and I wasn't thinking about her technique at the time. Mostly I remember... screams of rage. Hers, not mine. Mine came later."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:05 am (UTC)

Belle winces expressively. "Well. Perhaps I can piece it together. It might take me a long time, though."

She switches from reading to skimming, writing a list in her notebook of terms she expects to be important and questions she needs answered.

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:11 am (UTC)

"We don't have forever," he says reluctantly. "Even if the curse somehow makes you immortal too. I have... a few more years, I think. Maybe as much as ten. And then it all becomes permanent. I don't know what the spell will do with you, then. Keep you here, send you away - it could be either one."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:12 am (UTC)

Belle blinks.

She skims faster. She sacrifices a little handwriting neatness.

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:13 am (UTC)

He just watches her.

There's not much else he can do.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:16 am (UTC)

"You can make some progress with small writing, can't you?" Belle says. "You read what I wrote, I didn't know you had vision issues when I wrote it."

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:17 am (UTC)

"Some," he says. "It hurts to do too much of it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:20 am (UTC)

Belle pulls out a thin volume in one of the languages she doesn't know and opens it to what looks like it's plausibly an introduction for him. "Stop when your eyes are tired, but I have no idea how long it normally takes to learn to do serious magic, let alone how long it will take working out of books I mostly can't read. If nothing else, we can narrow down which languages I need to learn to adequately read aloud for translations in case nothing in the vernacular has anything to let me make headway."

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:26 am (UTC)

He can hold the book open, if he's careful with his claws. Safely turning pages is quite beyond him. But he doesn't need any pages turned on this one before he says dismissively, "Recipes for fake love potions."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:27 am (UTC)

She replaces it with another and returns to her own task.

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:34 am (UTC)

"This one's about something called a Dream-world," he says after a moment. "Do you think a mindscape is the same thing? It also talks about keeping them tidy."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:35 am (UTC)

"That sounds promising," says Belle, looking up. She's finished her scan of the Hedge-witch book and has moved onto The Discerning Enchanter's Toolkit, which is almost as unhelpful. "What does it say about it?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:39 am (UTC)

"There are a few words I don't know," he says, "but the parts I can read say that an enchanter must keep the Dream-world in good order to cast spells safely, and this book is about how to do that."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:40 am (UTC)

"Okay. I would like to cast spells safely, so this seems worth focusing on." She scoots over and turns the page. "How is it that I do that?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:48 am (UTC)

While she has the book, he rubs the back of one hand across his eyes.

"'The Enchanter closes his eyes,'" he translates, "'and ceases all movement, and thinks only of the Dream-world - the place inside the mind,' I don't know this word, something about magic, and then, 'If he is a true Enchanter he will leave the world of the body and travel in his mind to the Dream-world.' I wonder how you get back."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:49 am (UTC)

"...Do your eyes hurt?" Belle asks. "I can still make progress, albeit out of order, and you can come back to this later."

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:50 am (UTC)

He nods.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:55 am (UTC)

She returns to the Toolkit, skimming and taking notes. Conveniently, it mentions four different styles of entering one's mindscape, twelve chapters in - it doesn't outright instruct the reader on any, but it draws contrasts between the four. Belle pauses there, contemplating.

deslandes
2013-03-12 01:56 am (UTC)

"Find something?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 01:59 am (UTC)

"Four styles of entering the mindscape-or-dreamworld," says Belle. "It doesn't give instructions, just talks about how there's the ones who breathe their way there and the ones who follow their heartbeats and the ones who 'make as though to sleep' and the ones who can do it just by wanting. I'm not sure if these are things people are just stuck with based on who they are, or if you can pick one."

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:00 am (UTC)

"Do you want to try one?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 02:02 am (UTC)

"Maybe. Did the language in the book you were looking at suggest that entering the dreamworld was inherently dangerous? There are lots of little warning flags all through these books."

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:04 am (UTC)

"No..." he says. "Unless that's what the words I didn't know were about."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 02:05 am (UTC)

"Were there a lot of them? Were they clustered or sprinkled through the prose?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:07 am (UTC)

"A few. More sprinkled. Some of them repeated."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 02:08 am (UTC)

"And they don't obviously break down into meaningful parts or anything?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:10 am (UTC)

"One I think is another name for the Dream-world, or a description of it. The rest, I'm not sure."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 02:13 am (UTC)

"Hmmm."

She peers at the four methods of mindscape visitation again, reads on until the topic changes, rereads that section, and says, "Well, if wanting a better look at my mind could hurt me, I'd be dead already. I really doubt that wanting it with my eyes closed is going to do me any harm."

She moves to a more comfortable chair, finds a pose she won't feel inclined to move from, and shuts her eyes.

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:14 am (UTC)

Beast watches her curiously.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 02:20 am (UTC)

While it is true that Belle makes a habit of wanting a better look at her mind, it's also true that she usually does something else about it - with paper, typically - rather than just indulging sustained wanting.

The sustained wanting isn't particularly special.

To start.

And then she gets inklings of something, like the images that appear behind one's eyelids if one presses on them, but more - familiar.

And then it's harder to feel the chair under her.

And then she can't hear the Beast's breathing, or birdsong outside, or anything but her own heartbeat in her ears and her own breath through her throat.

And finally, as she wants her way forward through all this -

another place fades in, just as slowly as the real place faded out.

She floats, in the center of a sphere of rose-vines, if roses grew on prickly vines. The prickles all face out and the flowers all face in. And the roses are every color, and every petal is patterned intricately.

"Whoa," she says, but the instant she speaks the rosevine sphere is gone and the world is back, with no slow fade-out or fade-in, and she finds her eyes open without meaning to open them.

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:25 am (UTC)

He's still watching.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 02:26 am (UTC)

"I got someplace, all right," Belle reports. "It was like a sphere of vines with multicolored roses on the inside - pointing at me, I was in the middle - and thorns pointing out. Apparently I lose it if I talk."

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:28 am (UTC)

"I think that means you're a true Enchanter," he says dryly. "Lucky you. Lucky me."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 02:30 am (UTC)

"Good for me. Belle the Enchantress has a nice ring to it. And, more importantly, could make the forest stop moving." Pause. "I'm going to try that again, see what I can see."

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:31 am (UTC)

"I'm going to get out of here," he says. "Stretch my legs. See a little sky."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 02:35 am (UTC)

"Have fun," says Belle, and she relaxes into another meditation.

She's at it for much longer this time.

The rosepetals have patterns on them that seem to nest infinitely, fractally - and she can see them just as clearly as she needs to, each level of detail flooding into focus as soon as she needs it. The roses themselves open and close in response to what she's thinking about.

It is really fascinating. She's not sure what tidying she's supposed to do - there's nothing here but metaphorical thought-plants, all quite nicely arranged - but she sticks around for a few hours, anyway, re-meditating her way in when she accidentally moves or makes a sound and calls her mind back into the real world.

deslandes
2013-03-12 02:38 am (UTC)

Outside, the Beast rolls in rosebushes and chases sparrows.

mes études

beheld_beauty

Belle studies magic.

It's tricky. Getting into and out of her rose-sphere is routine after a few days, but she still hasn't uncovered an explanation of how channeling works, though she's been informed that there are three options for how to do it (by herself, through a willing helper, or through an unwilling helper). Unlike the fourfold options for reaching the Dreamworld, this does not tell her how to begin fumbling towards a practical understanding, even though she can rule out the last one just on the basis of its description.

Beast can only do so a tiny bit of reading per day, and her pile of books that she can read shrinks much faster than his. She combs the library for multilingual dictionaries, so she can pick her way through the titles of the foreign-language books and at least prioritize them before handing them over.

Finally something in an obscure language that even Beast can barely read - Belle has to look up a lot of words - explains the channeling in a way she can understand.

deslandes
2013-03-12 12:48 pm (UTC)

This is how channeling works:

To cast a spell, you need power and a way to form that power into an effect in the world. (Power can be drawn from many things; the text says 'from the Heart, from the Will, from the Sky, from the Earth, according to the needs of the spell and the resources of the Mage', and doesn't elaborate.)

If you work using yourself as a channel, you risk being distracted by the pain of channeling. The book recommends working this way for small spells, where the pain and the consequences of failure will also be small. It is also careful to specify that there are no permanent effects on the caster from working this way.

If you work using a willing channel, you will be free to cast your spell without the distraction of pain, but after a few uses your channel will start to suffer remnants of channel-pain even when you are not casting through them. (The Beast seems to think this is very funny.) These 'Echoes' can last for years, and get stronger the more power someone is made to channel, but after enough time spent resting they will fade away to no ultimate lingering effect.

If you work using an unwilling channel, every use will cause damage to the channel's mind, leading eventually to death. Even one spell, if it is a powerful enough spell, can burn out an unwilling channel to the point where they forget their own name. There is no known way to heal the damage caused by forcing power through an unwilling channel. The book strongly recommends against this method.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 03:39 pm (UTC)

"What's so funny?" Belle wants to know.

deslandes
2013-03-12 03:41 pm (UTC)

He shrugs his striped-and-spotted shoulders.

"It doesn't sound like such a terrible fate."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 03:43 pm (UTC)

"...Accumulating lingering pain every time someone you're trying to help uses magic doesn't sound terrible? It sounds potentially much worse than being alone in a magic castle, to me."
Edited 2013-03-12 15:45 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-12 03:48 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "One man's pain is another's pleasure. At least that way I'd have a choice."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 03:52 pm (UTC)

"It does sound like it can get very bad indeed, though." This book has a handful of illustrations, including one of a man in rather wretched apparent discomfort with an enchantress standing over him. Belle translates the caption one word at a time: "To make... a fortress... suitable... for... an enchanter," she says as she picks her way across the phrase. "The Toolkit said something about counterspells always taking at least as much channeling as the original. I don't know if this castle is a 'fortress suitable for an enchanter' or not, but it's probably close to the same power requirements. I wonder who she channeled through."
Edited 2013-03-12 15:54 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-12 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Maybe that was why she screamed so much. It looks like the channel needs to be there when the spell is cast, and there wasn't anyone else around."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 03:58 pm (UTC)

"...This having been a long time ago, are you sure all you did was run into her and laugh?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:01 pm (UTC)

"...She might have met my father," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:01 pm (UTC)

Belle isn't sure what this has to do with anything, so she waits.

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:04 pm (UTC)

Apparently he thinks that constitutes a complete explanation, but after a few seconds he seems to notice that Belle disagrees.

"My father was a very unpleasant person," he elaborates.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:04 pm (UTC)

"...So she punished you?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:07 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I wouldn't be surprised."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:08 pm (UTC)

"My impression of her sanity only drops over time. Did she at least include him? Has he got his own hiding castle somewhere?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh, he was dead before I ever met her," the Beast says casually.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:09 pm (UTC)

More patient waiting-for-elaboration.

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:10 pm (UTC)

He blinks his large brown eyes at her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:13 pm (UTC)

Okay then.

"So," Belle says, turning to her notes, "my impression is that I'll be able to handle it for small spells - anything in the Hedge-witch book, probably, I can look for my father first once I know how to turn having decided on a channel into being able to channel a spell through same - but I don't think I'd be able to hold together any more significant concentration through the medium-sized magic, let alone the larger things that I might need to do to disenchant the castle."

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:15 pm (UTC)

"And all these books are very sure that it's bad to lose concentration on a bigger spell, though none of them will tell us how."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:17 pm (UTC)

"There are plenty we haven't dug into yet," Belle points out, "but yes, it's something I'd like to avoid finding out the hard way."

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:19 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "So what now, little enchantress?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:23 pm (UTC)

"We keep looking," she sighs, "so we'll at least have the option of disenchantment, maybe, when I've learned enough. The effects of willing channeling through another person aren't permanent, and from what you've told me, failing at breaking this curse is."

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:24 pm (UTC)

He nods.

"...Thank you," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:27 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome, but you realize I'm not completely altruistic - the curse might well elect to trap me too. Just because I'm fond of this library doesn't mean I'd like to be stuck here for the rest of my life if I could instead tell Charlie I'm all right and be able to get new books when I'm done with these."

She reaches for a new book.

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:28 pm (UTC)

The Beast chuckles.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:35 pm (UTC)

Belle sorts books she's translated the title for one way or another into piles: probably useless, maybe useless, very advanced (theory and practice piles), need more background to determine (theory and practice), and theoretical and practical piles of most basic. The unsorted pile shrinks.

And finally she finds some usable instructions - in language she can read, even - about how to channel in each of the three ways. "Excellent," she says, setting about turning this book into notes.

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Good news?" he inquires.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Instructions on channeling."

The part on channeling through oneself is first. Belle reads it first.

deslandes
2013-03-12 04:44 pm (UTC)

To channel through oneself, the enchanter approaches his (many of these books, despite their own illustrations, seem convinced that all magic users are male) Dream-world from the inside. He must make a Dream-gate at the borders of his mind, bring power through himself from whatever source he chooses, and channel it out of the gate and into the spell.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 04:57 pm (UTC)

Make a Dream-gate. Ooookay. That's helpful. Or, no, there's more detail in there. Now she just has to figure out how to connect to the Sky or the Earth or the Will or the Heart. Perhaps this book has something on that, too?

deslandes
2013-03-12 05:00 pm (UTC)

It does!

The Heart refers to emotions, her own or other people's - apparently using either the caster's emotions or the channel's is most efficient, but anyone present or connected to the spell can work. The Will is the caster's intentions, which if properly focused and sufficiently strong can power some small spells all by themselves.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 05:02 pm (UTC)

How nice! That explains those little abbreviations in the corner of each spell page in the Hedge-witch book; it was suggesting a power source. Many of them were Will-oriented. Belle goes back to look up the finding-a-person spell.

That's Heart-powered.

That's all right. She can summon up strong emotions about her father if she needs them. They haven't been useful before now.

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:03 pm (UTC)

The other two power sources are also explained, but in less accessible terms. Apparently Earth power comes out of the ground, and can be substituted for Heart and vice versa in a pinch, although the greater the amounts of power involved, the riskier it is to make such substitutions. Sky power comes from the sun, or (rarely) the moon or stars, and is similarly not-quite-interchangeable with Will.

There are further explanations of how to connect to each of these power sources, starting with Will, which is apparently the easiest; the caster need only focus very hard on the desired goal, and the power will become available to send through the Dream-gate. Similarly Heart, using one's own emotions, is just a matter of keeping the emotion and the spell in focus at the same time.

Using someone else's emotions is trickier. Apparently you have to touch their mindscape. There is a separate chapter on how to do that.
Edited 2013-03-12 20:03 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:06 pm (UTC)

"I don't need it for the first spell I want to try," Belle says, "but at some point it might be useful for me to learn to connect to your mindscape, if you don't object."

She reads the instructions for the hedge-witch spell, "translating" them into her own words until she's sure she understands them all. She thinks she gets it after the Dream-gate part. She'll have to have another look at her rosevines with that in mind.

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:07 pm (UTC)

He shrugs agreeably.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:13 pm (UTC)

Belle meditates her way into her sphere of rosevines.

She noticed the flowers, and the prickles, but she hasn't paid a lot of attention to the vines. But they're nearly as interesting as the blossoms, on inspection. There are - sections. While some vines from each section cross into each adjacent section, it turns out that each vine forms a complete circle with itself if she follows it patiently enough, and most of them do this over a small enough area of the sphere to help define regions.

And here is a bit of a gap, neatly crisscrossed vines around it, that would make a decent gate, she supposes, if it would only -

The vines move, when she considers it. The gap widens.

She's not sure how big it's supposed to be, but if she wills the spell to work, maybe something suggestive will happen...

A flower close to the gap bends its stem towards the outside of the sphere.

Belle makes the gap exactly large enough to comfortably admit that rose, and she focuses on her spell, and -

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:33 pm (UTC)

Power flows out of her, in three streams that twine and tangle together, bright blue and indigo and turquoise. It slides around the rose and out into the world beyond her mindscape.

Pushing the power out of her mind stings a little, like being slapped very lightly, but all over and not fading with time.

She doesn't have to keep it up for long, though. This spell only needs a brief jolt of power to get it going. And then Belle sees her father.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:39 pm (UTC)

Charlie has apparently made his way home, and he's physically intact, but he looks drawn and worried, maybe sick with grief; he's sitting at the table at home, staring disconsolately at a plate of food.

The spell's not particularly prolonged, but Belle's seen what she needed to see. She opens her eyes. "My father's okay," she said, "or, well, he's alive - but I think he's worried about me," she murmurs. Pause. "And, I did a spell!"

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:40 pm (UTC)

"You did," the Beast agrees. "And you glowed in pretty colours."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I glowed? That's interesting." She nibbles her lip thoughtfully. "It hurt. Not that bad and not for that long, and I didn't have to concentrate through much of it, but - I'm not really optimistic that I'll be able to do anything big."

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:42 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "You can put the next one through me if you want. See what it's like."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Maybe there's a spell somewhere that will let me get - a message to Charlie, or something."

She starts hunting.

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:45 pm (UTC)

The Beast squirms in his enormous chair, then settles, watching her again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Nervous?" Belle asks. "If I find something it'll have to be little for me to be willing to try it this early in my studies, little like what I just did - doesn't hurt too bad, like a light smack."

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:48 pm (UTC)

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Not nervous, no."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:49 pm (UTC)

"What, then? If you're having," she gestures, "extraneous emotions it's not impossible they could throw off a spell..."

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:50 pm (UTC)

He rumbles thoughtfully for a moment, then says, "Restless."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?" No message-sending spells in this book; she grabs the next likeliest.

deslandes
2013-03-12 08:54 pm (UTC)

Snort. "Oh, I'm always restless."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Mmm." She only needs about a third of her brain to scan indices for message spells. "What bothered you about being alone, anyway?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:01 pm (UTC)

"I hadn't heard a voice not my own in a century and a half when you came," he says. "I haven't touched another person in just as long." With a twist of a smile on his surprisingly expressive face, "Wrestling rosebushes just isn't the same."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

Belle looks up.

She tilts her head.

She reaches out and settles one hand on top of his paw, well away from the claws, and goes back to reading, turning the pages with her other hand.

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:04 pm (UTC)

His fur is very soft and fluffy.

He slumps in his chair and purrs.
Edited 2013-03-12 21:04 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:06 pm (UTC)

Ooh, soft. Her thumb makes short absent stroking motions with the grain of the fur.

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:07 pm (UTC)

The Beast purrs some more.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:08 pm (UTC)

She reads on, one handed.

"Better?" she asks after a few minutes.

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Much," he sighs. "Thank you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:11 pm (UTC)

"It's nothing," she says.

She leaves her hand where it is, until she gives up on finding a message spell and requires both hands to gesture appropriate levels of frustration. "Do enchanters never want to communicate with anyone who isn't in the room with them?" she exclaims.

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not," shrugs the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Well. At least I know Charlie got out of the woods okay."

She resumes her more general studies.

After a silence, she starts singing to herself softly.

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Do you miss him?" he wonders.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Charlie?" she asks, stopping and looking up. "I - mm, not exactly. I love him and I want him to be happy and he's clearly not and if I were there he would be, so in the sense that I want to go back to him, I do, but if he'd died when I was six along with my mother, or if for some reason he didn't care about me, I'd be all right without him. I wouldn't choose those situations, but I'd get along fine. Having people around has never seemed terribly important to me. I might change my tune if I were alone for a hundred years, but on an ordinary day it's like - having dessert. A perfectly nice thing I'd like to do routinely that I could adjust to think nothing of if it became impossible."

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:21 pm (UTC)

He nods thoughtfully.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I do need things to do to be happy. If I'd been cursed like you my complaint wouldn't be that I was by myself, it'd be that I couldn't read the books."

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:26 pm (UTC)

The Beast laughs.

"All this time," he admits, "I've wanted to learn to cook—" He spreads his hands. That is clearly not happening.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I'd teach you, but," she nods.

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I watch the kitchen sometimes."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I did that too. Trying to figure out where the produce and meat came from. Never figured it out, they always seem to be there already from someplace I wasn't watching."

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:30 pm (UTC)

"A few years ago a deer wandered into the garden," he recalls. "I killed it. Venison for dinner. But the rest of the time, it has to get the meat from somewhere else. Maybe the forest feeds it somehow."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:31 pm (UTC)

"It gave me roast duck once. I haven't seen or heard any wild ducks in the area. Are the fruits and vegetables discernably seasonal? The garden doesn't have a proper vegetable plot - it's got herbs, but not ones that look tended."

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:33 pm (UTC)

The Beast snorts. "Magic," he concludes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Magic. She went to an awful lot of discomfort and trouble just to punish you," Belle says, shaking her head.

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes she did."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I really hate to be so mistrustful, but I can't make sense of her motives at all and it's bothering me - are you sure that in a hundred years you haven't forgotten some other detail?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says, "but I don't think so. I was running - I ran into an old woman, knocked her down - she looked so angry, lying in the dust - I laughed - she got up and started shouting. I don't remember everything she said. Some of it made me think she knew my father... and of course," he gestures around them, "there's the fact that she knew to take me home."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Home?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:41 pm (UTC)

"This used to be my family's castle." He snorts. "In a sense it still is, at that."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:43 pm (UTC)

"So you're some sort of nobility?" She asks this quite neutrally.

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Some sort," he agrees. "My father was the Marquis."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Of where? Was the castle originally -" She waves vaguely. "Hereabouts?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Of the forest," he says, "and some land around it. I never paid much attention to the size of the family holdings, and I don't remember our name or the name of the march anymore. I think... the castle used to be at the edge of the woods."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember reading about a local marquis gone missing, but then, maybe you were at the opposite edge of the woods from Les Fourches, or the magic covered for the possibility that someone would go looking for you."

deslandes
2013-03-12 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't the marquis when she cursed me. Not in any way that mattered. My father died because I killed him," he sighs. "Killed him and set the castle on fire and ran away. Did you read anything about that?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 09:59 pm (UTC)

"...I read about a marquis's castle up by the source of the Sequine River that burned," she recalls. "They didn't think there was a surviving heir, though, if I remember right."

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:01 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "In a way there wasn't. I hardly think I could claim the title after all this time."
Edited 2013-03-12 22:01 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps not. Especially without a way to prove your identity. What did you use to look like? Do you have a portrait somewhere?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I was..." He frowns. "I don't remember."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Not at all? Oh dear." She pats his paw again.

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:05 pm (UTC)

His face relaxes; he purrs.

"Maybe there's a spell," he suggests whimsically.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I need something to practice with, if I can't send Charlie a message." She tries to remember if she's seen anything like that.

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:09 pm (UTC)

The Hedge-witch had 'To Look Upon the Past', and the Discerning Enchanter had 'To See True Form or Nature'.
Edited 2013-03-12 22:09 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:10 pm (UTC)

Hmm. Both promising, but the first looks a little easier.

"You want me to channel this one through you?" Belle confirms, reading through the instructions.

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:11 pm (UTC)

He nods.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Okay. This might take a while, I have to find your mindscape."

She drops into her meditative state and sets about looking for it.

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:18 pm (UTC)

Not surprisingly, it looks a lot like this castle.

But unlike in the real castle, the climbing plants swarm over every inch of stone.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:20 pm (UTC)

She has to be able to send the spell through it somehow. She inspects windows.

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:23 pm (UTC)

Blocked by thorns and ivy, most of them.

But the castle's front door - apparently, in this vision, the garden doesn't count as in his mindscape; the outer wall just plain isn't there - is clear of green things.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:23 pm (UTC)

Poke, poke -

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:24 pm (UTC)

It shifts slightly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:24 pm (UTC)

It doesn't, she thinks, have to be open far, but it does need to be open -

Push -

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:27 pm (UTC)

The door swings open, inviting her in.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:28 pm (UTC)

She doesn't need to go in. But this is where her spell will go.

She forms the intentions and the will behind Looking Upon The Past, and - sends it, thisaway.

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:38 pm (UTC)

The power of Will... sparkles. Every shade of grey from black to white, glinting and swirling together in thousands of tiny motes that together make up a fluid similar to the Heart-power she used earlier.

It flows in the door, and away out of sight... and cascades out of a tower window a moment later, spilling around the covering vines.

The spell shows her the Beast as he was, as a human. Tall, handsome, just about her age, with curly brown hair almost the same colour as his mane.

He used to be a very happy person.
Edited 2013-03-12 22:38 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:40 pm (UTC)

Belle commits that face, that smile, to memory, and she opens her eyes.

"I wish I could draw," she says.

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Was I pretty?" he asks with a snort.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:44 pm (UTC)

"You laugh, but you were. And tall, and curly brown hair this long -" she gestures - "and smiling. You looked happy."

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm tall now," he observes. This is very true.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but you were then, too."

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't this tall then," he says, but now he is definitely being silly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, you were only about my age, perhaps some of this is natural growth you had left in you," she suggests. "No, I think you'd be this tall now regardless of your previous height."

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes my ears touch the frame when I walk through a door," he snorts.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:51 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:51 pm (UTC)

"At least I'm not - quite - tall enough to hit my head."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps it would be more convenient if she'd turned you beastly enough to find walking on all fours more comfortable."

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I can do that just as easily," he shrugs. "But I like standing up."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, I just do."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. Is it going to be hard, when I've disenchanted the castle, to get used to being - nonbeastly again?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:00 pm (UTC)

He shrugs expressively. "How would I know? I've never done it before."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:01 pm (UTC)

"You've been human before," she points out. "...I do hope the end result doesn't involve, say, you crumbling to dust on account of being a hundred and seventeen and no longer affected by the curse?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:02 pm (UTC)

"If it did," he says, "I'd still like that better than the other option. But I don't think it will."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:04 pm (UTC)

She pats his paw again.

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:05 pm (UTC)

He purrs contentedly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:08 pm (UTC)

Belle goes back to one-handed reading.

"What was channeling the spell like?" she asks after a minute.

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Oh - I liked it," he says. "Stung a little, but in a good way."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:11 pm (UTC)

She tilts her head curiously. "Like -" She doesn't have a good reference for this. "Scratching an itch?" she suggests, because that can sometimes be a good tradeoff even after further scratching hurts.

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:11 pm (UTC)

"A little."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

Read read read idle paw-petting read read.

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:17 pm (UTC)

Purr purr purrrrrr.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:33 pm (UTC)

So passes much of the rest of the day. Belle takes her meals in the library, careful not to spill on the books. She reads by the cooperative lanterns until her eyes are too hard to keep open, and then she bids Beast goodnight and goes to bed.

In the morning, it is so cold she can see her breath, and she has to work very hard to haul herself out from under the covers to race to her closet.

Everything is short-sleeved and none of the skirts go past her knees.

"Warmer," she says, and she shuts the closet and shivers and opens it again.

Nothing better presents itself. "Come on! It's freezing! At least build up the fire! Go on, please, give me that - that green thing I wore three days ago again, I liked that -"

The closet refuses.

Belle wraps herself in her blanket, eats only the warm parts of her breakfast, and tromps down to the library in three of the inadequate dresses layered on top of each other and the blanket on top of that, still shivering.

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:35 pm (UTC)

The Beast has also wrapped himself in a blanket, but he's not shivering, just grumpy.

...When he sees her, he scowls.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Why is it so cold?" exclaims Belle, huddling under the blanket and trying to find a way to handle a book that doesn't involve reaching her hand out into the chill. "And it wouldn't even give me a warm dress - it's been so cooperative about clothes until now!"

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

"The cold bothers me less," he says. "And my fur is warm. I think the castle has designs on us."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh, lord - I do not appreciate coercion, castle - maybe I can find a warmth spell or something -" She breathes into her hands, darts them out to pull books in, and forms a tent of her blanket to retain warmth while allowing her to read.

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:44 pm (UTC)

The Beast drapes himself awkwardly over the back of her chair.

Her blanket-tent becomes significantly warmer.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:50 pm (UTC)

She shivers less. She doesn't say anything. She flips through books with bluing fingers.

She does not find a warmth spell.

Finally she reaches up and takes his nearest paw in both hands and digs her fingers into the fur.

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:51 pm (UTC)

Despite himself, he purrs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:54 pm (UTC)

She holds onto his paw till her fingers are reasonably pink-looking again and then she resumes her search.

She has done this four times when she says, "All right - I'm frigid, I'm going to lose toes here - what does it want?"

deslandes
2013-03-12 11:56 pm (UTC)

"...It wants us to touch," he says reluctantly. "More than we have been."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-12 11:56 pm (UTC)

"...Is that a euphemism?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:14 am (UTC)

"It had better not be," he snorts.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:17 am (UTC)

"What are you going to do to the castle if it is, scratch up another door? That'll show it," she says with a heavy sigh. She squirms under her blanket. "Assuming it's not a euphemism what will make it stop screwing with the temperature, do you think?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:18 am (UTC)

"Did I not just say?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:19 am (UTC)

"Yes, I mean specifically, I've been holding your hand, will sitting next to each other on the window seat do the trick or are we talking about hugging once or snuggling all afternoon or what? If you know. Perhaps you don't."

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:38 am (UTC)

"How would I? But snuggling is my guess."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:39 am (UTC)

"...You're fairly sure we can manage this without me getting clawed?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:40 am (UTC)

"Of course," he says, blinking.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:42 am (UTC)

"I'm not all that much more durable than a book," she points out defensively, and she starts scoping out library furniture.

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:44 am (UTC)

"I promise not to try to turn your pages," he says, flopping into his usual chair. It is quite large and comfortable, and there is plenty of room for her in his lap.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:45 am (UTC)

She sits sideways across his thighs. When this doesn't instantly warm the air, she sighs and leans on him, head on his shoulder.

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:47 am (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her. His arms come with an extra helping of blanket in addition to their natural fluff.

Regardless of what the room is doing, Belle is quite cozy.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:48 am (UTC)

Mmm warmth.

Belle didn't bring a book; she still doesn't want to stick her hands out into the air the way she'd have to in order to hold one. She closes her eyes.

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:49 am (UTC)

With her curled up on top of him like this, the vibrations of his purring permeate both of them. It's an oddly soothing effect.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:51 am (UTC)

Warmth and purring and warmth and purring and -

Zzzz.

Belle talks in her sleep. "Fruit. Sky. Winter."

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:51 am (UTC)

...The Beast laughs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:52 am (UTC)

That jolts her awake. "What? What happened?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:55 am (UTC)

"You talk in your sleep," he says affectionately.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:55 am (UTC)

"...I do? What did I say?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:56 am (UTC)

"'Fruit sky winter'," he quotes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:56 am (UTC)

"...That doesn't even make sense," she complains.

deslandes
2013-03-13 12:57 am (UTC)

"No," he agrees. "It does not."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 12:58 am (UTC)

"Weird," she mutters. And she breathes in air and breathes it out as visible fog. "Well. It's still frigid in here but at least you're warm." She snuggles up comfortably.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:00 am (UTC)

He starts purring again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:01 am (UTC)

"You're liable to send me right back to sleep," she yawns. "You sure purr a lot."

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:03 am (UTC)

"Food tastes better when you're starving," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:04 am (UTC)

"...That's a common saying, yes, do you just mean it's been a long time since you got to hug anybody and now it's a big deal?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:04 am (UTC)

He nods his large fluffy head.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:06 am (UTC)

"Aww." Snuggle.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:07 am (UTC)

Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrsnugglesnugglepurr.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:10 am (UTC)

Zzzzzz.

("Mirror. Vulture. Shoes. Ivory.")

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:10 am (UTC)

This time he manages not to laugh.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:11 am (UTC)

She naps for about an hour. During that time, the air starts to warm, and she unconsciously wriggles, trying to divest herself of her blanket.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:12 am (UTC)

...well.

He unwraps his arms from around her. That... should help. Yes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:15 am (UTC)

That lets her get the blanket off, but then apparently she's too cold; still asleep, she wraps her now-free arms around him and settles in closer.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:16 am (UTC)

He tucks his arms carefully around her again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:17 am (UTC)

That stops her from wriggling around.

All the while she's murmuring random words.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:18 am (UTC)

He really isn't listening to the words.

Her voice is nice, though. He likes her voice.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:19 am (UTC)

Eventually she wakes up. She yawns. "Is it just me or is it warmer in here?" she asks.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:32 am (UTC)

"It's not just you," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:34 am (UTC)

"Here's hoping that's the only trick up its sleeve." She slides out of his lap. "Maybe it'll give me a longer dress now. And then I can just keep it on until I'm satisfied that's the last time the castle pulls this." She runs up to her room to check.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:35 am (UTC)

There is indeed a selection of warmer dresses available.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:37 am (UTC)

Excellent. She changes out of her three summery ones and comes back downstairs in a nice burgundy number, ankle- and wrist-length. And she sets about reading. "I'm sorry if any of how I reacted to that was - rude, or callous, or something," she says.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:38 am (UTC)

"...What do you mean?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:39 am (UTC)

"I resented having to snuggle you," she points out. "I wasn't being subtle about it. Some people would take that personally, even though it had everything to do with the having to, not particularly the you."

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:42 am (UTC)

"I resented having to snuggle you too," he says. "Even though I liked it. Actually, especially because I liked it."
Edited 2013-03-13 01:42 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:44 am (UTC)

"...Especially?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:46 am (UTC)

"There are few things worse than being forced to do something I would have wanted to do anyway," he says, "and one of them is when someone else is being forced to help."
Edited 2013-03-13 01:46 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:48 am (UTC)

"If I have to be forced to do things I'd just as soon they be things I'm in favor of doing. If someone powerful commanded me to - say - study magic, that's my cue to see if they'll help me accomplish that more efficiently, not resent them for it. But I hear you about the someone-else-being-forced-to-help part."

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:50 am (UTC)

"Mm," he rumbles. "Being forced to do something I don't want to do is another of the worse things."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:52 am (UTC)

"Fair enough," she says with a surprised laugh.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:53 am (UTC)

He snorts softly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:54 am (UTC)

Study study study study. Quiet absent singing.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:55 am (UTC)

After a little while, he gets out of his chair and curls up on the floor at her feet.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:56 am (UTC)

"...Is that comfortable?" she asks, curious.

deslandes
2013-03-13 01:57 am (UTC)

"Yes."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 01:59 am (UTC)

"Huh. Okay."

Study study study study oh there's a furry thing there pet pet oh wait that's not actually just a cat but if she stops now she might have to explain how she forgot that he was a person pet pet.

deslandes
2013-03-13 02:00 am (UTC)

Purr!

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 02:01 am (UTC)

This is one heck of a mane. Inches deep. She can put her hand in halfway up her forearm to scritch his scalp. Might as well, at this point.

deslandes
2013-03-13 02:02 am (UTC)

Ooh, he liiikes that. Purr purr purr.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 02:03 am (UTC)

She goes right on doing it. She only needs one hand to turn pages.

deslandes
2013-03-13 02:04 am (UTC)

And the Beast goes right on purring, curling up closer until his head rests in her lap.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 02:09 am (UTC)

She makes no objection.

She reads. She takes notes.

And she gets to a paragraph that makes her idly scritching hand stop where it is.

"...Er," she says. "How bad was that time limit again?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 02:11 am (UTC)

"...I don't know exactly," he says. "A few years. Probably more. Maybe less."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 02:13 am (UTC)

"How do you know?" she asks. "...Disenchantments are difficult. And dangerous. More so the more complicated the spell you're countering is. It could take a few years, maybe more, before I can try it on something like your curse and be reasonably sure I'm not going to kill myself trying."

deslandes
2013-03-13 02:16 am (UTC)

"There's a rose under glass at the top of the tower in this wing," he says. "It loses petals slowly - the floor is covered in them. When the last petal falls..." He shrugs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 02:18 am (UTC)

"Can I see it?" she asks.

deslandes
2013-03-13 02:19 am (UTC)

"Of course. Now?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 02:23 am (UTC)

"No. Lemme look up a spell to see if I can get a more precise time limit. The rose is probably the spell's fondement and I should be able to learn a lot about the whole curse if I look at it the right way."

Flip flip flip.

It takes her about fifteen minutes to find a spell that suits her; she's getting pretty familiar with the magic books she can read. She memorizes it, and copies down the key points into her notebook, which she picks up to bring along. "Okay, now's good."

deslandes
2013-03-13 03:46 pm (UTC)

The Beast leads her up to the top of the tower, to a small round room whose floor is covered in dried and scattered rose petals. In the very center of the room, a round table seems to have a sprawling rosebush growing straight out of the middle, under an arched glass dome that attaches to the rim of the table by many slender legs.

There is only one flower on the bush still standing tall and hanging onto a full crown of petals. A few of the rest, drooping off in all directions, still claim a petal or two.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 03:48 pm (UTC)

Belle casts. She works through herself; it's a light sting, and she can tolerate it without losing hold of the spell. And with enchanter's sight on her, she looks at the rosebush that she believes to be the curse fondement.

deslandes
2013-03-13 04:04 pm (UTC)

Good guess.

The spell is very elegantly designed; the parameters for ending the curse are clear, and the open pathway for completing it is still in good order after all this time. A strong, focused emotional connection of romantic love between the Beast and anyone else will fill up the waiting power well and transform the spell, leaving the Beast in his human form again, the castle back at the edge of the forest, and both castle and forest completely unmagical.

If, on the other hand, he doesn't manage to fulfill the parameters... the pathway will close. The goal of forest and castle will turn from the complicated sorting it currently does, turning away only those people who are probably incompatible, to a simple and easy equal rejection of everyone. If there is anyone else present, it will pick them up and dump them out. The Beast will live forever in his lovely, lonely castle.

And he was wrong about how much time they have left. The ultimate deadline is in a little less than a year and a half.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Year and a half," murmurs Belle. "And if it's not broken by then, I'm sent away, and no one ever finds this place again, and you're still immortal."

deslandes
2013-03-13 04:06 pm (UTC)

The Beast growls.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I - I think I'm progressing in the enchanting books at a decent clip," she says, still staring at the rosebush even after her enchanter's sight fades out. "But this is a huge, complicated spell - and disenchanting it will be hard - and it's very specific about the kind of love, too -"

deslandes
2013-03-13 04:14 pm (UTC)

He sits down on the floor amid drifts of dessicated petals and buries his hands despairingly in his mane.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 04:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm only reading what it says - I can read very quickly - if you help me with the books in the other languages maybe I can do it, a year and a half isn't that short a time -"

deslandes
2013-03-13 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Well, we don't have much choice, do we? Except you could give up and wait it out."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to keep working on it," says Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-13 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he sighs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Sadistic overreactive psychopathic witch," mutters Belle to herself, turning to return to the library.

deslandes
2013-03-13 04:28 pm (UTC)

The Beast snorts agreement and follows.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 04:51 pm (UTC)

"I can't even figure out if she wanted you to break the curse or not. Some of the parts seemed helpful - sorting people by their likelihood of being a suitable other party, the long time limit from the beginning of the curse - but - some of the parts do not, like turning you into a - whatever you are. Cat-creature. Putting the entire castle in the middle of the woods so in all these years only one person has passed the minimum threshold of likelihood."

deslandes
2013-03-13 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Maybe she couldn't decide either," he suggests.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 04:59 pm (UTC)

"How come you're that picky, anyway? People get lost in these woods all the time. Even just in my lifetime and just in my village I've seen several girls about my age stumble out of the Witchwood having been lost for more than long enough for the castle to draw them in." She starts sketching a curriculum for herself that bypasses every skill not necessary for learning disenchantment. She does not need to become intimately familiar with all four power sources; she does not need to learn to channel through an unwilling subject (she wouldn't have needed that anyway), she does not have to learn a repertoire of even the most appealing spells for their own sake but only to build her own skills.

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Did any of them seem like the type to fall in love with an enormous lion-man?" he inquires.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I didn't ask them," says Belle, "but then, if I'd stumbled out of the wood instead of getting stuck here, and someone from Dulac or wherever I wandered to asked me 'are you by chance the type to fall in love with an enormous lion-man', I would have believed myself to be conversing with the village idiot."

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:05 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:07 pm (UTC)

Belle giggles a little ruefully.

...And then she looks up that seeing-things-as-their-true-form spell, the one she originally set aside in favor of seeing-the-past.

Maybe there is a way to just leave it on.
Edited 2013-03-13 17:13 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:22 pm (UTC)

As a matter of fact, there... isn't, quite.

But there's a cross-reference to another spell, and that one lets the caster choose a kind of spell-sight to keep ready at all times, to be triggered merely by applying one's Will in the appropriate direction, without the pain or fuss of a full recasting.

It takes significantly more power than any of the cross-referenced vision spells, including 'To See True Form or Nature', and then of course needs the power requirements of the encapsulated spell on top of its own. The complexity of casting is likewise a significant step up.
Edited 2013-03-13 17:23 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:27 pm (UTC)

Belle looks at this spell.

And she looks at her disenchantment curriculum.

It will take her a few days to learn the spellsight permanence.

It will take her - longer - to learn the disenchantment. Longer to do it without tearing herself apart even if Beast lets her channel the whole thing through him.

She frowns at her curriculum and starts jotting down optimistic periods of time it might take to learn each substep.

She adds up the column of figures.

It's as optimistic as she can possibly be, in reality she'd probably have to detour to pick up something she forgot to include, and she could still get herself killed.

"We could," she says, "I suppose, always try doing it her way."

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Are you the type to fall in love with an enormous lion-man?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I'm the type to spend a week on learning to apply this sort of spell-sight," she says, tapping the book, "if that's the best thing to do. I really don't know about the lion-man part, but I don't think so."

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I would not find it very hard to love you," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I have never been in love before. I don't know if it's difficult, but it might easily take less than a year and a half."

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:36 pm (UTC)

"It's always taken me much less than that."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Do tell. I need all the information I can get."

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Oh, before - this," he says, "I used to fall in love at a glance or a word. It all seems very far away now. But it felt... beautiful, at the time."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:41 pm (UTC)

"If I were the type to do that I suspect I'd know it by now." She turns a page in her notebook and begins laying out all the steps for permanent truesight. "I have already glanced at you and spoken, so perhaps I'm not so easy to love as you suggest. Or you've lost that particular facility."

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Not always the first glance or word," he corrects. "Just the right one."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:44 pm (UTC)

"What makes it the right one?" (Note, note, note. He did have a very lovely smile, but while that would certainly help, she can't imagine falling quite in love simply by having it turned on her.)

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:46 pm (UTC)

"It's the right one when I fall in love with it," he says, tautologically.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I mean, did this happen according to any special pattern?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:51 pm (UTC)

He shrugs helplessly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:52 pm (UTC)

"If you don't know, you don't know," she says.

Note note note.

"What's being in love like?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Sad," he says. "But in a good way. And it must be less sad, if the person you love also loves you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:55 pm (UTC)

"- How could something be sad in a good way?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

He struggles to describe it.

"Even if I never see them again - and I mostly didn't - and even if they're all dead now, which they must be, they lived once and I saw them once and loved them once and it was beautiful while it lasted."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 05:59 pm (UTC)

"- hm."

Notes. Notes.

"Of course, if this works, as well as it needs to, you wouldn't never see me again."

deslandes
2013-03-13 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "If this works, it will mean you love me, and that will be very different."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 06:01 pm (UTC)

"And presumably unambiguously a happy occasion."

deslandes
2013-03-13 06:02 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I don't know that until it happens, do I?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Surely you can make reasonable guesses?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 06:06 pm (UTC)

He just shrugs again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 06:10 pm (UTC)

She sighs.

Notes notes notes. "How are your eyes doing?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Fine for now. What do you want me to read?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 06:19 pm (UTC)

She turns to a page in a book about permanent spells, and hands it over. "If I'm going to do the enchanter's sight thing I need to know more about what I'm walking into."

deslandes
2013-03-13 06:38 pm (UTC)

He reads.

This section deals with duplication of permanent spells: apparently you're not supposed to do it. Casting a particular spell on a particular object, and then casting the same spell on the same object again - with the same or different parameters, it doesn't seem to matter much - will usually lead to effects you didn't anticipate, and it is always better to either disenchant the subject before the second casting, or find two different spells that you can combine to get the desired result. Even casting two separate permanent spells on a single person or thing can be tricky, but unlike the same spell twice, it isn't a near-guarantee of disaster.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 06:49 pm (UTC)

Bell writes all of this down. "Well," she says, "if the sight spell I have in mind does what I mean for it to do, I'll have plenty of time to learn to safely disenchant myself if I want to switch later. ...If it doesn't... When you said that one book was about fake love potions did you mean the potions don't work, or that they work to generate 'fake love'?"

deslandes
2013-03-13 06:50 pm (UTC)

"They don't work," he says. "The first part was all about how dangerous real love potions are, and how it's a much better idea to sell fake ones and let people fool themselves."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 06:53 pm (UTC)

"...Real love potions exist, though? They might be more or less dangerous than attempting a disenchantment, so it might be a good option to have in reserve if we run out of time."

deslandes
2013-03-13 06:56 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I haven't seen them in any other book; have you?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 06:58 pm (UTC)

"No, but we haven't got through all the ones in the other languages yet. Let me know when your eyes are up for more reading," Belle says.

deslandes
2013-03-13 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I could do a little more now."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 07:00 pm (UTC)

She passes him another book and opens it for him.

deslandes
2013-03-13 07:01 pm (UTC)

He reads.

He turns up nothing about disenchantments, and nothing about love potions.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 07:02 pm (UTC)

She lets him rest, and she works, and dinner comes, and she eats, and she works, and finally she goes to bed.

This pattern goes on for several days, until finally she says, "I think I can do the enchanter's sight now, if I channel through you."

deslandes
2013-03-13 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Then do," he says cheerfully.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 07:03 pm (UTC)

"It's gonna be worse than the last spell I cast," she warns, but when he doesn't produce a last-minute objection, she relaxes into her mindscape, and composes the now-familiar spell, and sends it through the front door of his castle-mind.

deslandes
2013-03-13 07:08 pm (UTC)

The Beast wriggles happily in his chair, and when Belle opens her eyes into the real world again—

He's still there, tall and fluffy and catlike. Nothing about her perception of the real world has changed.

But... behind him, or beside him, somehow existing in exactly the same place while being simultaneously and mutually visible, there is the image of a man with a familiar face, smiling a familiar smile. He is somewhat older than seventeen, but still not yet into his prime, let alone past it. The two images move together, the Beast in physical reality and the man in the reality of true essence.

Neither image is wearing any clothing. And unlike his Beast-form, his man-form needs it.
Edited 2013-03-13 19:49 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 07:52 pm (UTC)

Belle shuts her eyes again. "You should probably start wearing clothes. I didn't think of that."

deslandes
2013-03-13 07:53 pm (UTC)

...He laughs.

"Where am I going to get them?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Does the castle not offer you clothes? It might if you ask. It does me."

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Are there clothes that would fit this body?" he says. "And it would be so uncomfortable..."

He observes Belle with her eyes closed.

"I'll go ask," he decides.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," Belle says, wrinkling her nose.

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:05 pm (UTC)

Off he goes, presumably to find and supplicate a wardrobe.

When he returns, he's wearing clothes.

Well.

One of him is.

And both of him look terribly uncomfortable.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:07 pm (UTC)

She opens one eye, then closes it again. "Never mind," she says. "It doesn't carry over to the human trueshape, it would seem."

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:10 pm (UTC)

There is a sound of tearing cloth.

"Never doing that again, then," he says.

And: "...Sorry."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm just feeling very silly right now for not having thought of it. Of course there's no particular reason your true shape should include or be affected by clothes."

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Does it make a difference?" he asks. "To... you?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm not accustomed to being around naked people."

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:19 pm (UTC)

"You've been around a naked man for a month now," he points out. "Just a very fluffy one."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I know. The fluff makes a difference. Your human form does not have it."

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," he says again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:23 pm (UTC)

"It's hardly your fault." She holds a book up so it blinkers her on that side, and resumes reading.

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:24 pm (UTC)

"...If you're not going to look at me anyway, are you going to keep the spell?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, I could look at you if you stood partly behind something," she points out.

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:26 pm (UTC)

He drags his chair around to the other side of the table.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:28 pm (UTC)

Belle opens her eyes again. "There we go," she says.

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:48 pm (UTC)

He grins.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:49 pm (UTC)

"You really do have a nice smile," she says, and she returns to studying.

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:51 pm (UTC)

...Well, now he's grinning even more.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 08:52 pm (UTC)

She permits a few seconds more of distraction from her study, and returns her attention to enchanting.

deslandes
2013-03-13 08:53 pm (UTC)

The Beast settles into his chair and takes a nap.

mon ami

beheld_beauty

Not much happens at the castle. It's the two of them and the magic. She studies. He wanders around. He's not very careful about standing behind things - he does when he remembers and there is something nearby, but it's plain that nothing about being visible in the less-than-fluffy nude bothers Beast except on her behalf.

Finally she excises an hour of study time to spend on being able to look at him without intervening furniture or flinching. She finds it's possible to do this in her mindscape, without having to use a notebook. She can zoom in deep into a rose petal, find a level of detail beyond which there are no patterns, and write, directly there. This isn't an ideal memory aid - if she looks later the words aren't exactly the same - but it's much faster for sheer processing, and the chosen modifications morph into the structure of the rose without special effort as soon as she's sure she wants them.

She behaves with more equanimity about his nudity after that. "You can stop trying to remember to hide behind things," she tells him.

deslandes
2013-03-13 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he says, smiling. "I was terrible at it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says dryly. "I noticed."

deslandes
2013-03-13 09:26 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"I'm sorry," he says ruefully.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 09:27 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "It's all right. It doesn't bother you, and I've fixed it so it doesn't bother me either."

deslandes
2013-03-13 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Good," he says.

And he curls up on the floor by her chair and leans his head on her knee.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 09:34 pm (UTC)

Scritch, scritch.

deslandes
2013-03-13 09:39 pm (UTC)

Purr!

Time passes. Belle continues her magical studies. The Beast continues to read when he can and snuggle when he can't.

A few days after Belle makes herself comfortable with his true form, a storm blows up and soaks the gardens with driving rain. The Beast, of course, dashes out almost immediately to play in it.

In less than an hour, he's back inside, soaking wet and slightly muddy, with twigs and brambles tangled in his mane. If she looks, she will find him on the kitchen floor, trying and failing to brush out his fur and laughing all the while.
Edited 2013-03-13 23:47 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Belle. "You're a mess."

deslandes
2013-03-13 11:51 pm (UTC)

"That I am," he agrees. "Do I smell dreadful?"

(He doesn't - mostly he smells like rained-on roses.)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-13 11:51 pm (UTC)

"No, just like rain. A little floral, maybe. Mostly rain."

deslandes
2013-03-14 12:00 am (UTC)

He laughs, and twists to try to get the brush into a tangle of fur on his back. Despite catlike flexibility, it's not quite working.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 12:02 am (UTC)

Belle holds out her hand for the brush. "Does the castle not help with this?" she asks.

deslandes
2013-03-14 12:04 am (UTC)

He gratefully untwists and relinquishes the brush to her, shaking his head.

"I always get it right in the end, but it sometimes takes a few days." With a flash of a grin, "Worth it anyway. I love the rain."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 12:06 am (UTC)

"I've never been particularly fond of it, myself." Brush, brush. She's gentle with the tangles. "What do you like about it?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 12:09 am (UTC)

The Beast purrs softly.

"Storms like this one... they're big and powerful, but they don't think, they just are. I like that. I think it's beautiful." Smiling, "It's fun to get all messy, too, even if I pay for it afterward."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 12:10 am (UTC)

"You find a lot of curious things beautiful."

deslandes
2013-03-14 12:10 am (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 12:11 am (UTC)

"Oh, unthinking masses of power, and falling in love with people you never saw again, and the like. It's perplexing."

deslandes
2013-03-14 12:12 am (UTC)

"What's perplexing about it?" he wonders.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 01:17 am (UTC)

"It's just nothing like my aesthetic, or that of anyone I've met before."

deslandes
2013-03-14 01:29 am (UTC)

"Well, of course not."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 01:30 am (UTC)

"Why 'of course'?" (Comb comb comb.)

deslandes
2013-03-14 01:31 am (UTC)

(Purr purr purr.)

"Becaaaaaause," he says lazily, "I'm not any of those people."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 01:31 am (UTC)

"Yes, but many of them are more similar to each other than you are to any of them, why should you be so far off?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 01:36 am (UTC)

"I don't know why," he says. "I just know it's been that way all my life."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 01:38 am (UTC)

"Ah, so you've always been an oddity."

deslandes
2013-03-14 01:40 am (UTC)

"Since long before I was seven feet tall and covered in fur."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 01:42 am (UTC)

"Hm."

She's been meaning to ask for a while, but no occasion has come up.

"You never explained why you killed your father beyond him being - unpleasant."

deslandes
2013-03-14 01:44 am (UTC)

"It was reason enough."
Edited 2013-03-14 01:44 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 01:45 am (UTC)

"Should I be fearing for my life, should I wake up in a bad mood one day?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 01:49 am (UTC)

"Not unless your bad moods involve beating me bloody."

(Perhaps this is a good time to mention the scars on his true form's back and thighs.)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 01:50 am (UTC)

"Never. Not even if I could."

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:00 am (UTC)

"Then you have nothing to fear from me," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:01 am (UTC)

"Is that where the scars came from? I had been wondering if your habit of wrestling rosebushes was a very old one."

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:02 am (UTC)

"I don't remember all of them," he says. "I think there were more - from other places, later. But most of them, yes."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:06 am (UTC)

"From where else?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:13 am (UTC)

"I don't remember them all," he reiterates.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:16 am (UTC)

"Them all, but - never mind."

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:18 am (UTC)

Softly: "Thank you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:20 am (UTC)

"You're welcome."

Comb comb comb. "I think you're all untangled now."

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:22 am (UTC)

"Thank you for that, too," he says, and turns, and nuzzles his catlike nose against her hand.
Edited 2013-03-14 02:22 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:24 am (UTC)

"That looks really strange if I focus on your trueshape," observes Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:27 am (UTC)

He laughs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:29 am (UTC)

"In fact, a fair fraction of what you do is strange when I focus on your trueshape. Did you always act like a giant cat? Did the behaviors come with the curse? Did you pick them up as you got accustomed to the form?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:29 am (UTC)

"A little of this, a little of that, a little of the other, I think."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:42 am (UTC)

"Hmm." Scritch scritch.

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:44 am (UTC)

Purr purr.

He's already on the floor; he flops onto his back at her feet, still purring.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:46 am (UTC)

"I am slowly becoming used to the fact that I see both forms but I only get fur if I actually put a hand out."

deslandes
2013-03-14 02:48 am (UTC)

The Beast laughs and purrs at the same time, an interesting if inelegant combination.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 02:54 am (UTC)

"What do you want to do when we break the curse? One way or the other?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 03:01 am (UTC)

"I... have no idea," he admits.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 03:06 am (UTC)

"None at all? You haven't been dreaming of it all these years - 'if the curse ever gets broken I'm going to go and...?'"

deslandes
2013-03-14 03:08 am (UTC)

The Beast shakes his head.

"I mostly haven't had much hope it would be broken at all."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 03:09 am (UTC)

"Because no one ever came until me?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 03:10 am (UTC)

He nods.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 03:12 am (UTC)

"I would probably have thought about it anyway. Just in case. To have something to do, if nothing else."

deslandes
2013-03-14 12:33 pm (UTC)

"I would never want to spend my days dreaming about a freedom I don't think I'll ever have."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 03:23 pm (UTC)

"I've been here for weeks now, though."

deslandes
2013-03-14 03:48 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, curling up more comfortably at her feet. "I guess I'm not entirely ready to believe in you yet."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 03:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm strictly nonfictional," she assures him. Pet pet.

deslandes
2013-03-14 03:53 pm (UTC)

"I believe you're there," he says, purring demonstratively. "That much is inarguable. But that you might free me... harder to let myself believe."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 03:54 pm (UTC)

"I have no reason not to disenchant you if I can. The other avenue is trickier. Not impossible, as far as I know."

deslandes
2013-03-14 03:57 pm (UTC)

"So it is not certain you can do either one in time," he says, "and I would rather not become comfortable with hope until I know."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 07:32 pm (UTC)

"...Even if the curse becomes permanent, that just means there are ongoing effects that aren't directly disenchantable. Maybe I should keep some of the magic books and the dictionaries for the foreign languages under a shelter of some kind, out in the forest, so I can take them with me and keep studying if we hit the time limit and it sends me away, and then maybe I could do something. I'm not at all optimistic - but it might be that if I learned enough, I could - I don't know. The thing that seems most likely that I could one day be able to do in spite of all the supposed obstacles is kill you. I don't even know if I could do that. I don't know if you'd want me to."

deslandes
2013-03-14 07:38 pm (UTC)

"...I'd want you to," he says softly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 07:40 pm (UTC)

"If the time limit comes due," Belle says, "and we're still stuck here then, I'll leave with all the books I can carry and drag, and I will work on it, and I'll try to anti-curse you where I couldn't un-curse you, and if that doesn't work I'll see if I can get you out of here - the other way. But let's hope it doesn't come to that."

deslandes
2013-03-14 08:16 pm (UTC)

"We can hope," he agrees.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Sadistic nut of a witch," mutters Belle, "who would take all this power to change the world and do nothing productive, not even pointless harmless whimsy, but - disproportionate absurd cruelty, out of all scale - when did that start to seem to her like a worthwhile use of pain and power -"

deslandes
2013-03-14 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Don't ask me," snorts the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I have no one else to ask," Belle points out.

deslandes
2013-03-14 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Then you will never know the answer."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Unless there is some more advanced version of that past-viewing spell. Or I learn to invent my own."

deslandes
2013-03-14 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Until then," he agrees with a laugh.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I should study," she sighs, looking down at him where he's sprawled before her, "I don't want to have to work out how to kill you if all else fails."

deslandes
2013-03-14 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Go study, then."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 09:23 pm (UTC)

She goes.

She studies.

She's really not making much progress in her curriculum. If she's going to have any prayer of disenchanting the place before the deadline, she's going to have to narrow her focus. She can't just study disenchantment - she has to be specific, cross from her starting point to her destination on a tightrope instead of insisting on building a whole bridge. She can fix the breadth of her knowledge later. Right now she has something very particular to get at.

She goes to have another look at the curse fondement.
Edited 2013-03-14 22:20 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:23 pm (UTC)

There it is, just the same as—

No. Wait.

Apparently the Beast was right about her being easy to love. There's a stream of deep violet power twisting and coiling around the outside of the power well, and its source is somewhere below her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:25 pm (UTC)

...Ah-hm.

Well, Belle can talk to him about that later, she doesn't want to have to cast the spell to let her see the details a second time. She takes careful notes, on everything, including the stream of violet. Does it look strong enough to carry his half of the disenchantment? The curse is designed to be broken by love; maybe it would be possible to subvert it with half the recommended dose and some more magical work...

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:30 pm (UTC)

The dosage isn't the issue; the amount of power generated by how he feels about her would, it seems, be more than enough all by itself. The problem is structure: the spell is set up to accept a very specific thing, and without the two-way connection, there's just no budging it.

There are no books that talk about how to accomplish the kind of delicate surgery that would be needed to change the structure of the curse in the relevant way.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:34 pm (UTC)

Dangit.

Well. She has many notes about the curse. She shaves off everything she can from the curriculum she's designed - disenchantments relating to anything not powered by Heart, disenchantments that are aimed at short-term curses, disenchantments that simply hasten programmed timed expiration.

She cuts down her estimate by about four weeks. This is not nothing, but it is not enough to be quite comfortable. Study study study. The next time the Beast wanders in she'll ask him when he was planning to tell her.

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:36 pm (UTC)

The Beast wanders in about an hour later, preceded by the lunch tray, and flomps into his chair as the tray sidles up to Belle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Were you going to tell me at some point that you fell in love with me?" Belle inquires.

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:38 pm (UTC)

He blinks.

"Oh," he says, not an admission but a realization. "I fell in love with you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:40 pm (UTC)

"The curse noticed. It doesn't help, unfortunately, not by itself."

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, it means that now everything really is up to you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Assuming you're relatively constant about it, anyway. It is necessary for both halves to be at the same time."

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I will not," he says with absolute conviction, "stop loving you."
Edited 2013-03-14 22:45 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:46 pm (UTC)

"How do you know?" Belle asks curiously.

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:48 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"How wouldn't I?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, I would have a good idea, in my case, but I make a particular study of my own mind, and I still wouldn't be as confident as that. So I want to know why you think so."

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I think so because it's true."
Edited 2013-03-14 22:50 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:51 pm (UTC)

Belle sighs in exasperation and gives up.

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:53 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"I'm sorry, I just can't think of another way to say it. It's not in me to give someone up like that, not for as long as I remember who you are."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:54 pm (UTC)

"So," she says, "at least not within the time limit, then."

deslandes
2013-03-14 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 10:58 pm (UTC)

"All right." She sighs. "I really don't know how to fall in love with someone. There are not - instructions, anywhere."

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:05 pm (UTC)

"What do you think of me?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 11:10 pm (UTC)

"You're my friend," she offers after a moment. "You - you've been treated with appalling unfairness, and there's a sort of openness to you that I half-admire, and you have quite a smile. If unbeknownst to me that added up to love on my part I believe the curse would have noticed, though."

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Half-admire?" he asks, laughing. "What of the other half?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Well," Belle says. "When I fully admire something like that, I copy it for myself. I'm disinclined to do that. It wouldn't suit me. But it seems to work for you."

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I admire lots of things I don't want to be," he shrugs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Like what?"

She really ought to be getting to know him more diligently than she has. She suspects that's a prerequisite for falling in love. For her, at least.

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:29 pm (UTC)

"You?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 11:30 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "I meant more specifically. Qualities, not entire people."

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:37 pm (UTC)

He shrugs again. "I don't know, then."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 11:39 pm (UTC)

"So you just sort of admire me as a vague entire thing with no characteristics?" she inquires archly.

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:46 pm (UTC)

"No," he says. "You have characteristics - I don't know which ones I like so much, that's the trouble."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Ah," Belle laughs. "That sounds frustrating."

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:50 pm (UTC)

"It would frustrate you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It would. It doesn't you?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't frustrate easily," he says cheerfully.
Edited 2013-03-14 23:52 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-14 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Are you even curious about it?"

deslandes
2013-03-14 11:54 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "A little."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:01 am (UTC)

"Well, I am," says Belle. "I've - a handful of people have claimed to be in love with me before. But these were always people who'd barely spoken to me. Who thought I was pretty and knew nothing more about me than than that. If that was any kind of love I don't think it was a worthwhile sort. But if my merely looking as I do sufficed for you - for the curse - then I'd have seen it the first time I looked at the fondement, I think."

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:06 am (UTC)

"I don't love you because you're pretty," he says. "You are, and I love it, but that's not what made the difference. I love you because you're—beautiful. Like thunderstorms."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:07 am (UTC)

"I'm like thunderstorms?" Belle asks. "I didn't understand this the first time you mentioned it, and still don't, I'm sorry."

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:12 am (UTC)

"I mean..."

He trails off, thinks, then starts again.

"What's most beautiful about you is your nature - what you are, what you do. How you think, how you speak, what you say. Thunderstorms are beautiful for the same reasons—not the same things, not the same qualities, but the same... parts of them. Their essence and how they express it in the world."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:13 am (UTC)

"Is there," Belle says, "anything much to anyone that is not their essence and how they express it in the world?"

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:17 am (UTC)

"I suppose not," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:18 am (UTC)

"So that doesn't really answer my curiosity, but I suppose you tried," she laughs.

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:20 am (UTC)

He laughs, too.

"I'm sorry. But it's true. I love you because you are the person that you are and you act the way you do."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:21 am (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:23 am (UTC)

"You," the Beast observes, "are blushing."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:25 am (UTC)

Belle touches her cheeks. "...Maybe."

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:26 am (UTC)

"You are! I love it," he declares. "I love you blushing."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:31 am (UTC)

"Well," she giggles. "That's specific, at least."

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:31 am (UTC)

He grins.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:32 am (UTC)

"Any other specificities spring to mind?"

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:33 am (UTC)

"I'll tell you when I think of them," he assures her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:45 am (UTC)

"All right."

Studying.

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:46 am (UTC)

Gazing adoringly at her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:51 am (UTC)

...Well, that's distracting.

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:52 am (UTC)

Ah, but is it productive?

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:53 am (UTC)

Maaaaaybe.

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:54 am (UTC)

Well, he is going to keep doing it until she tells him to stop.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:55 am (UTC)

She can still make studying progress like this.

It's just a little slower.

She has to keep pausing to see if he's still doing it and then manage squidgy feelings.

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:56 am (UTC)

Are not squidgy feelings the point?

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:57 am (UTC)

Th-they're one of multiple possible points!

deslandes
2013-03-15 12:59 am (UTC)

They're such a nice point, though. All squidgy and everything.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 12:59 am (UTC)

Well technically they are not pointy feelings. They're all soft. They are pillowesque.

deslandes
2013-03-15 01:05 am (UTC)

Are they...

...cuddly?

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 01:08 am (UTC)

Maaaaybe.

deslandes
2013-03-15 01:15 am (UTC)

Cuddly is good.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 01:16 am (UTC)

Belle comes to the end of her chapter. She puts her pencil down. She scoots back her armchair and holds out her arms in his direction.

deslandes
2013-03-15 01:20 am (UTC)

Grinning, he comes around the table and hugs her.

He is very fluffy.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 01:25 am (UTC)

Snuggle.

deslandes
2013-03-15 01:26 am (UTC)

"I love your snuggles," he confides.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 01:28 am (UTC)

Belle giggles. "You're quite snuggleable yourself."

deslandes
2013-03-15 01:33 am (UTC)

"I am! I am fluffy," he says happily.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 01:36 am (UTC)

"Hm, I bet you'd still be pretty snuggly just by dint of personality even if you were disenchanted."

deslandes
2013-03-15 01:40 am (UTC)

"You know," he says consideringly, "I do believe you're right."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 01:46 am (UTC)

"No firsthand experience to make this a certainty? I'm surprised."

deslandes
2013-03-15 01:52 am (UTC)

"Well, some."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 01:55 am (UTC)

"All too long ago to remember clearly?" suggests Belle. Scritch scritch scritch.

deslandes
2013-03-15 01:58 am (UTC)

He nods his fluffy head.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 02:00 am (UTC)

"Le pauvre." Scritch scritch scritch.

deslandes
2013-03-15 02:05 am (UTC)

He purrrrrrrrrrrrrrs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 09:24 pm (UTC)

"I do like you," she murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-15 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 09:30 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Sighs. Thoughtfulness.

"I'm pretty good at feeling how I want to feel, but I have to know what I'm doing," says softly. "I can decide to - to not be angry about something, if I want, because I know what it's like to not be angry. But I don't know what it's like to be in love. Even though I'd like to be."

deslandes
2013-03-15 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I know what it's like for me to be in love," says the Beast. "I don't think I know what it's like for you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 09:43 pm (UTC)

Pet pet. "It might help if you told me more about what it's like for you anyway."

deslandes
2013-03-15 09:45 pm (UTC)

"It's nice," he says. "It's a good feeling."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-15 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Is that all you can tell me?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 12:24 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I don't know what else to say. I know what it's like; I don't know how to say what it's like."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-16 12:28 am (UTC)

"What isn't it like?" she suggests lightly.

deslandes
2013-03-16 12:29 am (UTC)

He laughs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-16 12:30 am (UTC)

"Maybe I should study the Heart spells," laughs Belle, "if you can't tell me - see how the spell's defining it. It must have a definition."

deslandes
2013-03-16 01:03 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he says agreeably.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-16 01:04 am (UTC)

Studying detour. It must explain all those colors somewhere.

deslandes
2013-03-16 01:15 am (UTC)

Well...

...not very specifically.

Apparently the exact shades vary from person to person. There is an incomplete list of which emotions are usually associated to which hues; romantic love is indeed sometimes violet. And the exact shades are consistent between repeated viewings by the same enchanter, so an experienced enchanter can learn to distinguish emotions very well if they have the patience to study live examples.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-16 01:17 am (UTC)

All right... she remembers checking the fondement to see if romantic love in particular was required, and she remembers that it was but what else is in her notes...
Edited 2013-03-16 01:19 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-16 01:22 am (UTC)

While she looks it up, the Beast curls up on the floor and snuggles against her legs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-16 01:32 am (UTC)

Her notes are inconclusive on the question she's curious about. Drat. It does have to be romantic; it doesn't have an exhaustive description embedded in the spell of what that is.

deslandes
2013-03-16 01:50 am (UTC)

The Beast puts his head in her lap.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-16 01:51 am (UTC)

Scritch scritch. "Well, that's a dead end," she says.

deslandes
2013-03-16 01:59 am (UTC)

"What is?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-16 02:03 am (UTC)

"Working from the spell's definition of love. It's not embedded in the spell itself enough for it to look at. Apparently on some level I'm in love when I decide I'm in love. But there will be no use attempting to fool myself, or the curse."

deslandes
2013-03-16 02:17 am (UTC)

"Tricky," he murmurs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-16 02:33 am (UTC)

"Very," she sighs. Pet pet.

deslandes
2013-03-16 02:43 am (UTC)

Purr purr snuggle purr.

all that remains is you

jovahs_heiress

It has been a couple of months now since the wedding, since the revelation about Jovah. Isabella has been busy. She is not as overt as some of her counterparts. It is not now impossible on Samaria to commit crimes of violence, for example - although anyone who gets going with one will tend to feel a sensation of being watched, and this is enough to noticeably ding reports of such misbehavior.

She's been noticed.

Linus has been calling all of the changes, collectively - because once one or two got overt attention the others were plain as day - "Jovah's hand moving among us".

Isabella is all right with the ship getting credit for her handiwork. It will be more accepted that way. No one riots over the god choosing to peer closely at them if they raise their hands to strike; no one theorizes about the appropriateness of meddling in the natural processes of things like childbirth when they believe Jovah is the active party.

Meanwhile she shadows Delilah. She makes routine visits to Monteverde to talk with Linus about this or that. (She can bring Micaiah, now that they're married.)

She gets steadily more pregnant. The heaviness is no burden to an angel, but it is somewhat physically awkward to be so bulky. She works around it. She's going to have a baby, and she just glows with it.

And, one day, for the first time since before the wedding, she finds Milliways in her and Micaiah's guest room in Monteverde.

"Oh, here it is, I was wondering when it would come by again," Isabella says.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 03:44 pm (UTC)

Micaiah beams and hugs her and dashes inside.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 03:45 pm (UTC)

Angela follows, at a more sedate pace.

deslandes
2013-03-16 03:57 pm (UTC)

There is an unusually shaped person over there, stretched out along the full length of a couch by the fire.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 03:59 pm (UTC)

Huh. It's mostly humans and human-looking people around here. But Angela herself has no room for perplexity on that subject; next to that unusually shaped person she's probably the most outlandish sight in the bar right now.

deslandes
2013-03-16 04:01 pm (UTC)

He yawns hugely, displaying yellowed fangs, and then looks around.

When he spots Angela, he loks... startled.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 04:02 pm (UTC)

Well, this wouldn't be the first time someone recognized Angela after having met another Bell. She waves a bit, tilting her head.

deslandes
2013-03-16 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Belle," he says, "why do you have wings?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 04:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm not Belle," says Isabella. "I'm Isabella. I may be a version of Belle from another world, though. In my world, sometimes people have wings."

deslandes
2013-03-16 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Isabella," he echoes, and shakes his head. "What a dream."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh, did you dream your way here?" asks Angela, peering at him more closely. "You may call me Angela, if you like - there are a number of us who look the same and have similar names, so we've chosen different nicknames to keep ourselves straight. If you dreamed here and you know one of us - Micaiah, love, come here?" She calls the last phrase to her husband.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 04:45 pm (UTC)

Micaiah goes there.

"Who's the fluffy one?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 04:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure, but he recognizes me and he may be dreaming - and I think he sounds a little like you."

deslandes
2013-03-16 04:50 pm (UTC)

"You think he is to me as you are to Belle?" he asks, and peers interestedly at Micaiah. "Oh, I was handsome."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 04:51 pm (UTC)

"I think so. Something happened to you? Are you not supposed to look as you do?" Angela asks.

deslandes
2013-03-16 04:53 pm (UTC)

"An enchantress cursed me," he says. "Belle is helping."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 04:54 pm (UTC)

"She's going to - disenchant you?" guesses Belle. "She has magic of her own?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 04:55 pm (UTC)

"She... is trying," he sighs. "But she might not learn enough in time."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Some kind of deadline," Angela concludes, sitting down with some awkwardness due to her pregnancy. She's had to stop wearing flying leathers lately; she could conjure some that fit but everyone would wonder where she got them. "I wonder if we could help - I can't visit your world, if you dreamed here, but maybe there's something else."

deslandes
2013-03-16 05:03 pm (UTC)

"...Could you," he says slowly, "tell her what it's like to be in love? Or tell me, since she isn't here."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 05:04 pm (UTC)

"...That is an interesting question," says Angela, tilting her head. "Why do you ask?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 05:06 pm (UTC)

"The other way to break the curse would be for her to fall in love with me. She wants to, but she doesn't know how," he explains.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't worry much, if I were you," says Angela, looking at her husband and smiling. "Of all of us that we know, quite a few have versions of Micaiah to match, and the only one who hasn't fallen in love with hers yet is just fifteen years old. Unless you got off to a bad start with her somehow?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I did," he says. "I did say she wants to fall in love with me."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes, but I don't know what happens if she doesn't, if the curse comes due," Angela points out. "I don't think she'll have any trouble. You can tell her about me and Micaiah, and the others too, if you like - assuming you really are one of them and not someone else with a similar voice."

deslandes
2013-03-16 06:19 pm (UTC)

"She's already having trouble," he mutters.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Really? What kind of trouble? How long has it been?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 06:23 pm (UTC)

"She's never been in love before, and she doesn't know how," he explains. "And I don't know, a month? Two?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Neither had I, neither had any of us," says Angela. "A month or two - well, if she'd done it already she'd be quick but not the quickest, I think that was me. How long do you have?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 06:31 pm (UTC)

"A year and a half."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 06:40 pm (UTC)

"I think you'll be all right. If you're a Whistle. I wonder if anything bad would happen if I magicked you into what you looked like before you were cursed, to check? Would you like me to try?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Try!" he says immediately.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 06:47 pm (UTC)

Wish.

And: "Oh dear." And another wish and he's in a set of clothes like something Micaiah might wear.
Edited 2013-03-16 18:47 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 06:53 pm (UTC)

Micaiah giggles.

"You are handsome," he says, grinning.

deslandes
2013-03-16 06:53 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 06:56 pm (UTC)

"And you're a Whistle," says Angela.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 06:58 pm (UTC)

Micaiah is now eyeing the newly identified Whistle speculatively.

deslandes
2013-03-16 06:59 pm (UTC)

The newly identified Whistle is eyeing him right back.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Do you want more advice about Belle or do you want to go borrow my husband for a while?" inquires Angela archly.

deslandes
2013-03-16 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I want more advice about Belle," he decides, if reluctantly. "Then I want to borrow your husband."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:08 pm (UTC)

"For one thing," Angela says, "it will almost certainly come as a surprise to her that you are the husband-borrowing type. If you've made no commitments to her, there will be no particular consequences from borrowing Micaiah even after she finds out, but it's not the sort of thing you should spring on her."

deslandes
2013-03-16 07:09 pm (UTC)

"There's no one else around to borrow," he snorts. "I'll be sure to tell her all about this dream when I wake up."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes, do that. As for the trying to fall in love - you know - I'm not sure that's a good idea. The others managed it quite naturally - I was encouraged, after a fashion, but not under anything like a year and a half time limit. What will happen if you run out the clock?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 07:14 pm (UTC)

"I stay in my castle alone and fluffy forever, unless she can break the enchantment from outside."

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 07:14 pm (UTC)

Micaiah shivers.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:20 pm (UTC)

Angela considers this.

"If I were her," she says after a minute, "which in one sense I am, I would be worried about half-succeeding at falling in love with you. Enough that I'd be very upset over your fate when it was not quite enough for the curse to break. And I would be worried about what you'd think of me if I couldn't manage it."

deslandes
2013-03-16 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh." He blinks. "I'll ask her about those."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Do you have a reassuring answer for the second?"

deslandes
2013-03-16 07:30 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I don't know what I'd think of her. I don't think it would change much. She hasn't managed it yet, and I love her anyway."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Angela, "but if you were stuck alone forever - I assume she understands that as far as you're concerned that's a fate worse than death? - because of something she failed to do, she might imagine you'd be angry."

deslandes
2013-03-16 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh." He frowns. "What would I be angry with her for? She didn't do it. She even tried to help."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:38 pm (UTC)

"She expects to succeed at things," Angela says, "when she really tries."

deslandes
2013-03-16 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Of course she does," he says, smiling fondly. "But no one succeeds at all things."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Still, she expects that if she means to strongly enough she will manage, and she may assume that you expect the same of her, and so she could suppose that if she fails you'll believe she didn't really try."

deslandes
2013-03-16 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Then I'll tell her differently."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 07:52 pm (UTC)

"There you are, then. Let's see. Where does she come from? I'm trying to imagine what sort of world hers is."

deslandes
2013-03-16 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I think she said she was from the village of Les Fourches," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 08:05 pm (UTC)

"...Well," says Angela. "That's cute, but it doesn't help me. The specific village almost certainly doesn't matter. I mean the world. The magic, the politics, the sorts of people who live there."

deslandes
2013-03-16 08:06 pm (UTC)

"I've been trapped alone in a castle for a hundred and fifty years," he says. "I don't know much."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 08:26 pm (UTC)

"But, for example, you don't expect people to have wings. Things like that," says Angela, fluttering her feathers.

deslandes
2013-03-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

"They're very pretty," he says. "But no. Of course, I don't expect people to have fur and fangs, either."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I was born with my wings," says Angela, "to a mother with wings; it's not any sort of magic."

deslandes
2013-03-16 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Are there a lot of people with wings around?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Not very many. Shy of a hundred and fifty. But we're generally known to exist."

deslandes
2013-03-16 08:43 pm (UTC)

"I like your wings," he reiterates.

"How'd you magic my fur away, anyway?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 08:47 pm (UTC)

One of Angela's wings goes around Micaiah, settling there comfortably. "One of us, nicknamed Stella, comes from a world with a form of magic that works by wishing. She's been able to share this magic with several others of us, including me. If I wish on a wishcoin -" She makes a little triangle, and shows it to him - "then what I wish for happens, as long as the wishcoin is the right kind. Triangles like this are for trivial little wishes. Turning you human took a pentagon."

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 08:48 pm (UTC)

Micaiah snuggles up to her.

deslandes
2013-03-16 08:48 pm (UTC)

"You're sweet," says Beast. "Do you have any more advice for me, or can I borrow your husband now?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I think I'd have to meet her to get any more specific," says Angela. "Borrow away."

deslandes
2013-03-16 08:52 pm (UTC)

He holds out his arms.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 08:53 pm (UTC)

Micaiah leaps into them.

A moment later, they both disappear, still cuddling.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 08:54 pm (UTC)

Angela goes up to the Belltower.

She has a rather significant entry to insert.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 09:04 pm (UTC)

A little while later, Micaiah appears, looking slightly rumpled and very pleased with himself.

"He woke up," he reports. "Or disappeared, anyway. What's new with the Bells?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Apparently there is an afterlife and it has got to go," says Isabella. "I am also advised in the strongest possible terms not to ever turn into a Sunshine vampire. Juliet has been minted, with some mishap. Awful things have befallen Shell Bell but she has recovered. Coins can apparently be made with as many as nine points."

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Nine," he says, and grins. "Imagine that."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure I want to imagine that. But the Joker has made several and Stella wrote that she intended to see about her Alice and the staff mints."

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Imagine how much fun I'll have trying to make one," he amends.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 09:14 pm (UTC)

"You might have to boost your Kiss again," she points out.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I'll try it without first," he says cheerfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 09:17 pm (UTC)

"We hardly ever get even evils that way, let alone the next thing up," Isabella points out.
Edited 2013-03-16 21:18 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-16 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I know," he says. "But I want to try."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-16 09:20 pm (UTC)

"All right. I'll try to sing especially prettily," says Isabella, kissing his forehead.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-17 12:19 am (UTC)

"I love you," says Micaiah, hugging her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 12:23 am (UTC)

The rest of that visit to Milliways goes predictably.

The Gathering on Ysral - not the first to be attended by an angel, but the first to be attended by more than one - also goes predictably.

The Gloria goes predictably as well, with much lovely singing by this angel choir and that soloist and this orchestra (and of course Linus and his angelica Naomi). The children's choir that Nathaniel belongs to is featured.

As soon as the last note of the Gloria is sung, it is officially disbanded.

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:26 am (UTC)

And shortly after that, the angel Isabella acquires a new shadow.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 12:27 am (UTC)

"Hello, Nathaniel," says Isabella.

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:29 am (UTC)

"Hello," he says in that soft voice of his, emerging reluctantly from behind the table that wasn't really hiding him in the first place.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 12:30 am (UTC)

"How did you enjoy the Gloria?"

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:33 am (UTC)

"It was very beautiful."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 12:38 am (UTC)

"I think so too. It's my favorite time of year. Did you want to talk to me about something?" she asks, getting up to push open the door that will lead from this part of the Eyrie pavilion to the next. They haven't left the Plain of Sharon yet.

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:40 am (UTC)

He is silent for a moment, and then he looks past her and—

"What is that?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 12:42 am (UTC)

Isabella looks.

She sighs. "This is called Milliways. It's a restaurant. We can go in, if you like."

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:44 am (UTC)

He eyes it with deep suspicion for a moment.

Then he looks up at Isabella.

Then he nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 12:48 am (UTC)

"It's a magical restaurant," she says, because it's probably better to tell him that now than when someone he recognizes turns out to be someone he doesn't expect, or until Bar appears food. "It connects a lot of different worlds together. Sometimes different worlds have the same sorts of people in them, so you might see someone who looks like somebody you know, including me, or Micaiah."

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:49 am (UTC)

Nathaniel takes a few steps into the bar and looks around at all the people with open wonderment.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 12:52 am (UTC)

Why, look! It is someone who looks like Isabella! She is holding hands with a girl.

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:55 am (UTC)

"Is she one of the same sorts of people?" he asks softly, glancing between the stranger and Isabella.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 12:56 am (UTC)

"Yes. That's Shell Bell and her girlfriend Sherlock. In here we have nicknames, since our real names are all a lot alike, and that's hers. I just go by Angela," says Angela. "Hello, Shell Bell! Hi, Sherlock!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 12:57 am (UTC)

"Hi, Angela!" says Shell Bell. "Who's that?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 12:57 am (UTC)

"This is my brother-in-law, Nathaniel."

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:58 am (UTC)

"Hello, Shell Bell," Nathaniel says quietly. "Hello, Sherlock."

arenaria
2013-03-17 01:01 am (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 01:02 am (UTC)

"Hi."

sicaria
2013-03-17 01:03 am (UTC)

Sherlock... goes still.

She was already not moving a lot; now she is not moving.

pythbox
2013-03-17 01:04 am (UTC)

Nathaniel flinches and edges sideways to put Angela's wing between himself and Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 01:07 am (UTC)

"It's nice to meet you," adds Shell Bell politely.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 01:08 am (UTC)

"I take it your project hasn't worked out, or I would've seen you before now," says Angela.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 01:09 am (UTC)

"Yeah, not even the new ones can do it," says Shell Bell. "We'll have to think of something else or make do with Milliways alone."

pythbox
2013-03-17 01:10 am (UTC)

Nathaniel continues to hide, silently, behind Angela's wing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:09 am (UTC)

"Nathaniel, are you okay?" asks Angela. "Do you want to go home? If you go out the door it'll be right when we came in and I'll be along in a second."
Edited 2013-03-17 04:11 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-17 11:37 am (UTC)

He doesn't say anything, but he does glance at the door.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:01 pm (UTC)

"You can go or stay, either one. One of the ways that this place is magical is that if you leave before me, I can still stay as long as I like and you won't have to wait more than a second."

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to be rude," he says softly.

arenaria
2013-03-17 04:04 pm (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:06 pm (UTC)

"People come and go as they like, insofar as they can," says Angela. "Although, if you leave, there's no guarantee you'll find a door again any time soon."

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:10 pm (UTC)

He sidles a little farther behind her.

sicaria
2013-03-17 04:10 pm (UTC)

[I would like to know,] says Sherlock, [what about this person keeps making you nervous.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:12 pm (UTC)

[I - don't know. It's only when he talks. He can't be more than ten, he's Angela's brother-in-law, I can't imagine why he'd scare me -]

sicaria
2013-03-17 04:13 pm (UTC)

[Something about his voice?]

arenaria
2013-03-17 04:14 pm (UTC)

[...]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:15 pm (UTC)

Angela's quite unaware of all this. "I'll certainly check the Belltower before I go, but is there any major news since my last?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:16 pm (UTC)

"...No. Just little check-ins."

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:16 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel continues to hide.

sicaria
2013-03-17 04:17 pm (UTC)

[...Is it? Is he? Should we warn her, do you think?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:19 pm (UTC)

[I don't know. I can't be sure. They could just sound similar. Although come to think of it I don't like the way he's hiding.]

sicaria
2013-03-17 04:21 pm (UTC)

[He appears to be very frightened of me,] Sherlock observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:28 pm (UTC)

[I know, but - the other characteristic Voice had was not wanting people to look at them.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Nathaniel, are you scared? You don't need to be scared, they're nice," murmurs Angela.

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes, angela," he murmurs, and reluctantly comes out from behind her wing.

arenaria
2013-03-17 04:31 pm (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell's just like me, only she's from a different world and has had a different life," explains Angela. "If that makes sense."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I'm technically alive anymore," murmurs Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Didn't we decide that was a silly question as long as you're awake and can do things?" asks Angela.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:32 pm (UTC)

"We did. You're right."

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:34 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel frowns in puzzlement, but doesn't say anything.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I died," Shell Bell explains for Nathaniel's benefit. Ostensible benefit. "Sherlock brought me back, and I'm all right now, but I did die."

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I'm sorry," he says softly.

arenaria
2013-03-17 04:42 pm (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Me too."

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:45 pm (UTC)

He nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 04:47 pm (UTC)

"What do you do, Nathaniel?" asks Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:48 pm (UTC)

"For the last few months he was rehearsing with a children's choir for the Gloria, but that's just concluded, so the choir has disbanded - Nathaniel, is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he murmurs.

arenaria
2013-03-17 04:52 pm (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Have you thought about where you want to go next?" prompts Angela.

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:53 pm (UTC)

He looks nervous.

"I'd like to stay at the Eyrie, if... if that's all right."

arenaria
2013-03-17 04:59 pm (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 04:59 pm (UTC)

"I think that will be fine. It's not uncommon for angels to move one or two in-laws in, and you are that." And she finally notices what is up with her counterpart. "Shell Bell, are you okay?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:01 pm (UTC)

"...I'll tell you later. Alone."

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:04 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel looks very nervous.

arenaria
2013-03-17 05:06 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell makes an awful face, mostly at her lap but distinctly about Nathaniel, and she mutters, "I'm going to the Belltower," and disappears.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Do you know what that was about?" Angela asks Sherlock quizzically, putting a hand on Nathaniel's shoulder.

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:07 pm (UTC)

He shivers.

sicaria
2013-03-17 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock, and also disappears.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:10 pm (UTC)

"I... don't know what that was. I'm sorry, Nathaniel, they were being unkind and I have no idea why. It's not like them."

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Is it all right if I go and wait for you in the pavilion?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes, of course, go right ahead. I'll be out a moment later."

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:22 pm (UTC)

Out he goes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:25 pm (UTC)

Up she goes.

"What was that?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:25 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell turns her face towards Sherlock's shoulder, and presses it there, and makes a soft noise.

sicaria
2013-03-17 05:28 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her girlfriend.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Did we just run into each other at a bad time? Nathaniel's easily frightened, I wouldn't be surprised if between the two of you you'd managed to give him nightmares."

arenaria
2013-03-17 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, that would be only fair -"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:30 pm (UTC)

"- no, I don't mean that - Angela, I think he might be an alt of Voice."

sicaria
2013-03-17 05:31 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:32 pm (UTC)

"An alt of - Nathaniel? Micaiah's timid little brother -"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Who hides, who wouldn't have gotten away from his father without your help and could've grown up to match like some people do in bad families, who makes me feel like I'm about to start flinging myself onto a bed of coals whenever he talks."

sicaria
2013-03-17 05:35 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I can't be sure," Shell Bell murmurs. "It could be a coincidence. I don't know. The only way to find out would be to go get a look at Voice."

(Hugs, oh, hugs.)

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:38 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not going to ask you to do that, but if that's something my brother-in-law has in him somewhere -"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I could hold the door for you. I won't go along."

sicaria
2013-03-17 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Of course not," murmurs Sherlock, snuggling her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I love you," sighs Shell Bell.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:45 pm (UTC)

"If I go look for Voice, what should I do when I find them? If they're a Nathaniel, if they're not...?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I just - I haven't been thinking about them when I can avoid it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:56 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not sure if it's safe to confront a torturer. Alone, at any rate. The control only works on one at a time?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 05:57 pm (UTC)

"One person at a time," confirms Shell Bell. "I don't know if they get sensory feedback from it so they could tell if you were there even invisible."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 05:59 pm (UTC)

"...Sherlock, would you mind accompanying me, so that one of us will be able to bail us out no matter what?"

sicaria
2013-03-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

"If I accompany you, it should not be necessary to get close enough to be noticed at all."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Why is that?"

sicaria
2013-03-17 06:54 pm (UTC)

"I can inspect objects in the same world from an arbitrary distance away. You could copy the power, but you've never seen Nathaniel with it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 06:54 pm (UTC)

"And this will tell you if they are alternates or not."

sicaria
2013-03-17 06:56 pm (UTC)

"As well as looking at them would, or better."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 06:58 pm (UTC)

"All right. And Shell Bell, you can hold the door - you'll be okay?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 06:58 pm (UTC)

"As long as that's all I'm doing."

sicaria
2013-03-17 07:01 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her girlfriend some more.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 07:02 pm (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs hugs hugs.

"Okay. I'm ready if you are."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm all set."

sicaria
2013-03-17 07:06 pm (UTC)

Then Sherlock teleports them all to the door.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 07:06 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell closes her eyes -

arenaria
2013-03-17 07:07 pm (UTC)

- and opens Downside.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:07 pm (UTC)

Angela steps through.

sicaria
2013-03-17 07:09 pm (UTC)

So does Sherlock.

She shifts a locus of her perception power directly to Voice.

After a moment spent studying their physical structure, she nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:11 pm (UTC)

Angela spends a moment studying the apartment the door opens into - she'd like to have a shot at forcing the door in case she ever needs it - and then she turns around. "Now what do I do with Nathaniel, though?" she murmurs. "Templates are usually well-matched instance to instance - but Nathaniel's a child, he hasn't hurt anyone -"

sicaria
2013-03-17 07:12 pm (UTC)

Sherlock shrugs.

arenaria
2013-03-17 07:13 pm (UTC)

"It could just be Downside. Downside can change people," murmurs Shell Bell, letting the door close.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:14 pm (UTC)

"I suppose as long as Nathaniel's seen Milliways and you, now, I can explain to him - in age-appropriate terms - what happened. Warn him."

sicaria
2013-03-17 07:15 pm (UTC)

"If you are comfortable doing so."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Not really, but it seems worse not to tell him. At least in general terms."

sicaria
2013-03-17 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I see what you mean."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:23 pm (UTC)

"For the same reason I'm planning to ask Juliet just what happened to her in her vaguely described misadventure, when I meet her. It's important to know the pitfalls. Nathaniel's happen to be particularly dire."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 07:23 pm (UTC)

"It could just be Downside. We need to fix Downside."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:24 pm (UTC)

"When we can get in and out without having to wait for Milliways, then yes, absolutely."

sicaria
2013-03-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

There should be more hugs now.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:36 pm (UTC)

Angela leaves them be to check in with the Belltower. There's nothing substantial since her last visit except Shell Bell's report of her failure at using nine-pointed coins to secure interdimensional travel.

Angela casts her vote for storming Downside as soon as four or more minted Bells are all in Milliways at the same time.

And then she leaves the bar.

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:37 pm (UTC)

And there is Nathaniel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Nathaniel," Isabella sighs. "I found out why Shell Bell and Sherlock reacted like that."

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

He waits.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:42 pm (UTC)

"There are several of me - Shell Bell's just one of them. We're all a lot alike. We look the same - though I'm the only one with wings - we have a lot of the same quirks. The same basic personality formed in different places and times. And it turns out that Shell Bell has met someone who is a version of you. She didn't realize it at first. He was older, and she never saw his face. But she recognized your voice."

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh," he says softly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:47 pm (UTC)

Isabella squats so her face is level with Nathaniel's. "You're not the same person as that other one. Just like I'm not Shell Bell, only myself and the things I choose to do. But you should be warned, because you might have some of the same tendencies as your alts. And Shell Bell was so, so badly hurt, when she met that one, that when she heard you speak she was afraid."

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:51 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel freezes in place.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:52 pm (UTC)

Isabella pets his hair. "What are you thinking?" she murmurs.

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Am... am I going to be punished?" he asks hesitantly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:54 pm (UTC)

"No. You didn't do anything. I wouldn't be punished for anything Shell Bell did and you aren't going to be punished for anything your alt did. I'm only warning you just in case."

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:58 pm (UTC)

He relaxes a little.

"Thank you, angela."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 07:59 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," she says, glad he didn't ask for details about how Shell Bell was hurt.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:00 pm (UTC)

Softly: "May I go now?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Yes, of course. I think your group leaves to go back to the Eyrie in an hour and it won't do if you're missing when they set out."

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:02 pm (UTC)

He nods, and goes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 08:03 pm (UTC)

[Micaiah?]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-17 08:04 pm (UTC)

[What is it?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 08:05 pm (UTC)

[It turns out that Nathaniel is an alt of 'Voice'.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-17 08:05 pm (UTC)

Stunned silence.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 08:07 pm (UTC)

[I found a door when Nathaniel was following me around, and I thought I might as well take him through and show him the place, and Shell Bell was there, and every time he spoke she just twitched like someone had pricked her with a pin unexpectedly. Nathaniel left, Shell Bell doored Downside, Sherlock confirmed the match.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-17 10:13 pm (UTC)

[...So what do we do about it?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 10:15 pm (UTC)

[I... warned him. Not in specific, but I explained why Shell Bell reacted the way she did and about alts. He wanted to know if he was going to be punished; of course I said no. He could still easily turn into someone else. Shell Bell said it could be 'just Downside' - that maybe Voice is only the kind of thing that happens to Nathaniel's template if they spend goodness knows how many years stuck there. We can't assume Nathaniel's going to turn into - anything bad.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-17 11:25 pm (UTC)

[So... I guess we don't do anything,] he says. [Except that.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 11:32 pm (UTC)

[Except that, and - paying attention.] She grimaces into the empty room of the pavillion. [And taking apart Downside, when we can.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-17 11:37 pm (UTC)

[That too. I want to hug you right now,] he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 11:37 pm (UTC)

[This room's empty. If you can get away from any company you're with you can teleport right in.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-17 11:47 pm (UTC)

Port.

Hug.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 11:48 pm (UTC)

Hug. [I think Voice may have simply - never have been rescued. Not everyone comes out of terrible households the way you do.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-17 11:49 pm (UTC)

[That's awful,] says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-17 11:59 pm (UTC)

[I know. We're going to fix it. We're going to fix everything.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-18 12:01 am (UTC)

Hugs.

Definitely hugs.

ma bête

beheld_beauty

Beast seems to be sleeping in a bit this morning. Perhaps he has had a good dream. Belle can study on her own, anyway.

deslandes
2013-03-17 12:29 pm (UTC)

"I had the strangest dream," he yawns as he wanders into the library.
Edited 2013-03-17 12:29 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh? What was it about?"

deslandes
2013-03-17 03:56 pm (UTC)

"You were there," he says, "but you weren't yourself, you were someone named Isabella with huge feathery wings like a bird's. They were very pretty. And you had a husband who they said looked just like me. And I talked to the person who wasn't exactly you about you and the spell, and she said you might be afraid I'd be angry with you if you tried to help me and failed, but I told her I wouldn't, and then she turned me human and I borrowed her husband."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:00 pm (UTC)

Belle takes this all in, nonplussed.

"That's a very strange dream," she agrees.

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:02 pm (UTC)

"I tried to ask her what it was like to be in love," he adds, "so I could tell you, but she kept saying you wouldn't have any trouble."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:03 pm (UTC)

"There's no good reason to expect your dreams to produce useful advice anyway," Belle points out.

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:05 pm (UTC)

"It wasn't a very dreamy dream."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:08 pm (UTC)

"No? What do you mean?"

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:13 pm (UTC)

"I just mean it wasn't like my dreams usually are."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:14 pm (UTC)

"What are they usually like, then?" Pause. "And what do you mean, you borrowed her husband?"
Edited 2013-03-17 16:14 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I mean I borrowed him," says the Beast. "That's what she called it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Even if we rely on your dreams to produce an accurate-apart-from-the-marital-status-and-the-wings copy of me, I do not know what that means," says Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:20 pm (UTC)

"What uses do you imagine a husband has?" he inquires.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:22 pm (UTC)

Belle opens her mouth.

She closes it.

"I will be frightfully embarrassed if you have caused me to guess incorrectly," she says after a moment.

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:22 pm (UTC)

"That's enough to tell me you didn't."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:25 pm (UTC)

"All right then. So you dreamed up an angel-me who was married to a you and then you borrowed him. I can only imagine what the traveling phrenologists would say that means about your psyche."

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, of course I did. He was very handsome. And I haven't done any of that in a hundred years. I wasn't going to waste the chance once I was out of my fur."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:34 pm (UTC)

"And her husband was perfectly all right with being loaned out, I suppose?"
Edited 2013-03-17 16:35 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Of course he was. He was a lot like me."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:37 pm (UTC)

"This is not something I knew about you," Belle points out mildly.

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he recalls, "the other you said you should know. I don't see what difference it makes when we're the only two people we can reach, but I don't have a problem with telling you, either."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:41 pm (UTC)

"If I learn enough magic or figure out how to fall in love with you, you'll be able to encounter more people," Belle points out.

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:43 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Well, does it matter to you if I borrow dream-people's husbands?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:44 pm (UTC)

"In dreams? No, dream about whatever you like. In fact even awake I have no particular claim on you, now, have I?"

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, if it made you stop wanting to fall in love with me, I'd want to know."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:50 pm (UTC)

She peers at him.

"I'd need to think about it," she says after a silence.

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Then do."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 04:55 pm (UTC)

She nods.

She falls into her mindscape easily, and waits for a rose to offer itself up, and she thinks on it.

It is a few minutes later before she opens her eyes again.

"There could be social consequences, which I would not like, depending on how we wound up situated," she says. "Apart from that I imagine I would not mind."

deslandes
2013-03-17 04:58 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"That's fine, then."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Your clever notions for avoiding the social consequences being...?"

deslandes
2013-03-17 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Don't get caught. Or don't stay somewhere long enough for anyone to care."
Edited 2013-03-17 17:06 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure I share your confidence in the reliability of those methods."

deslandes
2013-03-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, what consequences are you afraid of?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 05:20 pm (UTC)

She closes her eyes again. "I don't like how this works, but it's been made clear to me that pretty girls are supposed to 'buy' themselves security and faithfulness and matrimony with the purchase price of their beauty and constancy and initial virginity. If I 'buy' less than that or 'spend' more than that - if I deviate from this pattern in any way other than perhaps growing into a lone spinster-scholar - then I stand a reasonable chance of being treated like a pariah. Certainly this could be alleviated with frequent travel, if I liked the idea of frequent travel. Certainly I could simply say that most of the people who'd treat me that way don't matter to me - but I've never had cause to test the borders of my father's affection, now, have I? And he matters. Certainly if you were not caught, no one could laugh at me - except anyone party to the borrowing arrangement, who'd have their reasons for silence likewise. If you could be sure you would not be caught. But I cannot imagine that things have gotten worse in this dimension in the past century. Perhaps you've only forgotten; perhaps the rules are simply different for men by enough that you never learned the counterpart framework."

deslandes
2013-03-17 05:27 pm (UTC)

"It is different for men, but no one much likes a poor boy-whore with no home and no money, either."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 05:28 pm (UTC)

"So that is what concerns me."

deslandes
2013-03-17 05:32 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I still think I could manage not to get caught."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 05:34 pm (UTC)

"How?"

deslandes
2013-03-17 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I could start by not fucking anyone you've met," he suggests.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 10:17 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't prevent them from meeting me later," Belle points out.

deslandes
2013-03-17 10:28 pm (UTC)

"If they have no idea who you are, and don't live close by, what difference does that make?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 10:30 pm (UTC)

"People talk to each other. People travel, sometimes. If someone you - visit - far away comes to where we wind up living, wherever that is, and they see us together?"

deslandes
2013-03-17 10:37 pm (UTC)

"You're right," he says dryly, "of course they'll recognize me and run up to us shouting about what a whore I am."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Just because I don't understand what possesses people to do certain things doesn't mean that those things are unheard of," Belle sighs.

deslandes
2013-03-17 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, this is all very much beside the point. Because all that only applies if we're married, and I don't believe we are, or will be in the next year and a half."
Edited 2013-03-17 22:41 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 10:42 pm (UTC)

"We aren't," Belle agrees. "If I fell in love with you I wouldn't be about to marry anyone else, though, and spinster-scholarhood would hold rather less appeal."

deslandes
2013-03-17 10:49 pm (UTC)

"But you'll probably be a powerful enchantress, too," he muses. "And maybe the rules are different for those. Or maybe you can cheat with magic."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I've been focused so intently on disenchantments I hardly know what else I might be able to do one day."

deslandes
2013-03-17 10:52 pm (UTC)

"We have time to figure it out. I won't go sleeping around the country until we're sure it won't come back to bite you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-17 10:53 pm (UTC)

"All right. Thank you."

deslandes
2013-03-17 10:54 pm (UTC)

He just grins.
Edited 2013-03-17 22:54 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-18 12:53 am (UTC)

"What do you usually dream about, if it's not that?" Belle asks idly, after a few moments more of page-turning and note-taking.

deslandes
2013-03-18 01:27 am (UTC)

"...I don't know," he says. "Other things. After all the time I've been here... there's a sense of this place in everything, you see. And there was nothing like this castle in that dream at all."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-18 01:30 am (UTC)

"I dream about places I've never been all the time," murmurs Belle. "It must have gotten very tiresome not to be able to escape the castle even sleeping."

deslandes
2013-03-18 01:36 am (UTC)

"I hardly remember what it was like to dream of anything else."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-18 01:44 am (UTC)

"Well," says Belle, "now you have. I wonder if it will happen again."

deslandes
2013-03-18 01:46 am (UTC)

"I'd like that."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 05:54 pm (UTC)

Belle reads on for many hours. And finally she says, "I need some air. Want to come with me for a walk and see how far the forest will let us get?"

deslandes
2013-03-19 07:40 pm (UTC)

He perks up. "Yes!"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 07:42 pm (UTC)

Up she gets, out they go.

Belle sets a sedate pace. Any attempt at a brisk walk, let alone a jog or a run, will see her faceplanting in the deep litter on the ground of the forest, but she can keep her feet if she's careful and goes slowly.

deslandes
2013-03-19 07:53 pm (UTC)

"It's never let me get even this far before," he says. "That was why I broke the gate."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 07:54 pm (UTC)

"It'll turn us around inside of a few minutes, maybe sooner, but I can usually get that far," Belle says.

deslandes
2013-03-19 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:00 pm (UTC)

Belle laughs. "This is an odd time to mention it, why just then?"

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:02 pm (UTC)

"It's not odd at all, why is it odd?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:06 pm (UTC)

"It's not - topical. Is it?"

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:07 pm (UTC)

"The castle lets you out. The castle let me out, with you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:10 pm (UTC)

"...And?"

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:12 pm (UTC)

"...And I love you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I don't see how the things are related," laughs Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know how to explain," snorts the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:17 pm (UTC)

"All right then."

Stroll-stroll-stroll, there's the castle again, turn, stroll-stroll-there is a strange glow in that direction, a strange crackling sound -

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Fire," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes - has this happened before - is the castle safe? -"

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes - yes - safer than here. But we have to hurry."

And he scoops her into his arms and bounds off toward the gate.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:27 pm (UTC)

She doesn't protest. She certainly can't run.

But the fire is very swift. It hasn't rained in a while, now...

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:30 pm (UTC)

And when they reach the walls, there's not much they can do to shut out the fire, and the way across the yard to the castle is thick with rosebushes.

He puts her down to claw his way through them. Going around would take even longer.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:32 pm (UTC)

Belle doesn't know a spell for this, she's been so focused on disenchantment that she knows nothing about managing the elements, she is certainly not yet advanced enough to invent something on the fly -

"Beast," she murmurs when the fire is close enough that she feels sunburnt and he's only halfway through the bushes.

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:34 pm (UTC)

He growls.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe if you tossed me over them - I might break something but I might not -"

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:42 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head.

"Climb on my back," he says, "and hold on."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:43 pm (UTC)

She holds on and scrunches her eyes shut.

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:44 pm (UTC)

The Beast takes the distance to the castle door in a series of jarring leaps.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:48 pm (UTC)

Belle's ability to hold on is sorely taxed. He may be missing a few tufts of fur at the end of this.

Outside, the fire swirls through the garden, but is stymied - both its temperature and its actual burning - by the walls of the building.

Belle doesn't let go even after it's clear they're safe.

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:50 pm (UTC)

The roses did far worse; his arms and hands are scratched bloody.

Softly: "Belle?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm okay," she murmurs. "Just - just a few scratches."

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:53 pm (UTC)

"The same," he says, turning his head to nuzzle her hand where it is still clenched in his fur.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:54 pm (UTC)

She holds tight. "Thank you," she murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:56 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he licks the back of her hand.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Ee! What was that for?" laughs Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-19 08:58 pm (UTC)

"To make you laugh," he says triumphantly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, you succeeded there, I suppose," giggles Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he says happily, and starts to purr.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 09:02 pm (UTC)

She scratches behind his ears.

deslandes
2013-03-19 09:03 pm (UTC)

He purrs louder.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 09:05 pm (UTC)

"We should probably clean these cuts - or I should look up a healing spell," Belle murmurs after a moment. "At least mine - I don't know exactly how thoroughly the curse protects you from injury."

deslandes
2013-03-19 09:06 pm (UTC)

"The curse will not let me come to harm and stay there. I will be fine."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Mm. I should at least rinse my cuts." She slides off his back with care.

deslandes
2013-03-19 09:08 pm (UTC)

He turns around and hugs her carefully.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 09:09 pm (UTC)

Hugs are nice.

"Thank you again. I was - so afraid."

deslandes
2013-03-19 09:11 pm (UTC)

He closes his eyes and presses his beastly nose into her hair.

"I, too."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 09:13 pm (UTC)

She doesn't know if he means for her or for himself, for surely it would not be pleasant to roast even if he could not die of it - maybe especially - but she suspects for her. She doesn't know how to ask. So she only hugs him, and then slips away to wash, and comes down in a less torn dress.

To resume studying.

deslandes
2013-03-19 09:14 pm (UTC)

And the Beast sits on the floor and puts his head in her lap.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-19 09:16 pm (UTC)

And he gets petted for his trouble.

deslandes
2013-03-19 09:18 pm (UTC)

Purrrr.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 04:01 pm (UTC)

Outside, the fire rages, consumes, and moves away, out of nearby fuel that the curse will let it get.

The view out the window is a mess of choking, swirling ash.

"That's... not going to let us go outside, possibly for weeks," murmurs Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-20 04:06 pm (UTC)

"No, I don't believe it will," he agrees.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 04:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't particularly mind being indoors - I like to go out now and again but it won't be a terrible hardship. But would you rather be able to step out without coughing? I can look up a spell - it's just a detour from learning disenchantment, is all."

deslandes
2013-03-20 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Look up a spell," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 04:13 pm (UTC)

Page page page page. She should make her own meta-index if she's going to keep detouring.

After a while: "I think this will work, and it's not hard - but it's much, much bigger than anything I've cast before."

deslandes
2013-03-20 04:51 pm (UTC)

"All right," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:05 pm (UTC)

"You're sure? It won't just be one burst, at this level - you could be in pain for hours, maybe days."

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:06 pm (UTC)

He nods, and smiles.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:13 pm (UTC)

"...If you say so."

She reads carefully through the spell. It really isn't hard, it just needs a lot of Will power.

She falls into her mindscape and reaches out for his, and channels.
Edited 2013-03-20 17:19 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:21 pm (UTC)

The Beast... really doesn't seem displeased about it.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:26 pm (UTC)

Belle checks up on him before even looking out the window, but - yeah, that doesn't look like displeasure, on either face.

"You weren't kidding," she murmurs, and she looks out the window. The ash is cleared, the fire's out. The spell didn't restore the plants, but they'll grow back.

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:27 pm (UTC)

He flops his head into her lap again and purrs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:29 pm (UTC)

Pet, pet. "It can't feel to you the way pain feels to me," she murmurs. "I can't imagine what else it could be like, though."

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Why can't it?"
Edited 2013-03-20 17:31 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:32 pm (UTC)

"It's inherently unlikeable, for me."

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:35 pm (UTC)

"But it could feel the same, and I could feel differently about it," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:36 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe. I suppose I'd have to be able to read your mind to know for sure," she shrugs.

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Can magic do that?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Do you want me to look for that, too?" laughs Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:40 pm (UTC)

"I'd like it," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:41 pm (UTC)

"You have very odd tastes," she says, and she starts looking, taking notes for a meta-index as she goes.

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:43 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:45 pm (UTC)

A woman's voice, speaking Callian but accented with significant Albion, calls from the front hall.

"Hello? Is anyone home?"
Edited 2013-03-20 17:47 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:49 pm (UTC)

The Beast is confused.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:51 pm (UTC)

So is Belle!

"Hello!" calls she-of-Albion-accent again. "I got lost, and there was a fire and it chased me here, and I'm not packed for a long trip, and I can't find my friends! Can someone help me? Isn't there anyone here?"

deslandes
2013-03-20 05:52 pm (UTC)

He looks up at Belle.

"Do you want to go and explain?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I - sure. Probably best if I warn her what you'll look like to her."

Belle gets up and goes to the entrance hall.

"Oh! Someone is here! Hello - I'm Chelise - what is this place, who are you?"

"I'm Belle," says Belle. "I'm afraid you're stuck here - the castle is cursed, it's just us and Beast - despite the name he's quite friendly, though."

"Oh - well - but my friends -"

"You're welcome to try finding them, but you'll find that the curse will turn you around and bring you straight back here, and your friends will find that they're turned away if they wind up heading towards us," sighs Belle. "I'm sorry - I do understand; I was looking for my father when I got drawn in."

"But," says Chelise, "but then how long do I have to stay here - without any of my friends?"

"I'm really sorry," sighs Belle. "It's until I manage to break the curse - I'm studying enchanting - or until one of us manages to fall in mutual love with Beast."

"Oh. Well. Can you introduce me, then?" asks Chelise.

"Yes, but you should be warned that he's cursed too - he doesn't look human at the moment."

"That's all right, isn't he still a person?" says Chelise.

"Yes."

"If my friends aren't going to find me I'd better make friends with you two, hadn't I?" says Chelise reasonably.

And the two young women go into the library. Chelise is blonde and blue-eyed and a little older than Belle, plainer in the face but with a friendly expression to Belle's resignation. "Hello," she says to the Beast. "I'm Chelise."

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Chelise."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I guess Belle has a lot of studying to do! Let's go talk somewhere we won't bother her and get to know each other!" says Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:06 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"All right," he says, and gets up off the floor.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Show me around?" asks Chelise winningly. "Do I get my own room? Is this your castle, it's huge."

Belle returns to her books.

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I've lived here a long time," he says, "but I don't think it's ever been mine. Why don't I show you the empty rooms, and you can choose one?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 06:10 pm (UTC)

"That sounds good to me!" says Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:11 pm (UTC)

So he shows her the empty rooms.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 06:12 pm (UTC)

And she picks one that is near a room in his wing that he appears to use, though it's not the only member of that category.

Apparently with Belle working on escape route number one, Chelise is going to throw herself into escape route number two.
Edited 2013-03-20 18:14 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:18 pm (UTC)

...The Beast is amused.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 06:36 pm (UTC)

Chelise sits down on her newly chosen bed. "You look soft," she says speculatively.

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:37 pm (UTC)

He laughs, and sprawls on the floor with his head in her lap.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 06:38 pm (UTC)

He gets petted very enthusiastically, and Chelise laughs.

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:39 pm (UTC)

He is soft and fluffy and pettable!

And purring.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Aww, you're adorable. How long has Belle been here? Did she just go straight to the magic books? That's not very flattering."

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:51 pm (UTC)

"She wants to be in love with me but she does not know how," he says. "So, magic."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Is there a way to magic people in love with other people?" says Chelise with fascination.

deslandes
2013-03-20 06:58 pm (UTC)

"No," he snorts. "And people have died trying, if you believe the books."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, I can see why, that would be fascinating," says Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-20 07:01 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head, growling under his breath.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 07:03 pm (UTC)

"What? It would solve the problem here, wouldn't it? And then marriages would never fail and friends would never have to fall out and everyone could love everyone else, I think that would be a much happier world."

deslandes
2013-03-20 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Do you love everyone you've ever met?" he asks, still growling a little.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 07:07 pm (UTC)

"I try! I'm very friendly."

deslandes
2013-03-20 07:10 pm (UTC)

"I can tell," he snorts.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Aww, I'm sorry if I upset you. It's not possible after all anyway, right? So it doesn't matter." Pet pet pet scritch scritch hopeful smile.

deslandes
2013-03-20 07:33 pm (UTC)

He rolls his eyes and lays his head in her lap again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 07:46 pm (UTC)

"How long've you been stuck here? Are me and Belle the only people who've found you? You must've been so lonesome."

deslandes
2013-03-20 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I was," he says. "For a hundred and fifty years."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh, oh you poor thing," and he gets a hug.

deslandes
2013-03-20 07:50 pm (UTC)

He snuggles into Chelise's arms.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 07:52 pm (UTC)

Pet pet pet. "What do you want to do when you get out?"

deslandes
2013-03-20 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "Leave this forest, I think, for a while. Beyond that..." He shrugs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 07:56 pm (UTC)

"If it's me - and really I don't think she looks as interested as you said, diving straight for the books when there was a lonely person who needed affection, but maybe I'm wrong, so if - if it's me I could introduce you to all my friends - does the cat thing go away when the curse breaks? It must, mustn't it. That's almost a pity with you so soft." She idly rubs his belly like he really is just a giant cat.

deslandes
2013-03-20 07:58 pm (UTC)

He purrs and snuggles up, hauling himself onto her bed so he can put his head in her lap and still be conveniently placed for belly-rubbing.

"What are your friends like?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-20 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh, there are a lot of them - I was in the forest with some of my oldest friends visiting from Albion, I lived there until I was twelve and they aren't so far away that I can never see them. I'm the only bilingual one in the party, I hope they aren't unable to find any help, I hope they aren't lost for too long," she says. "But I make friends with everyone I can, so the only thing they've all got in common is that they're willing to make friends."

deslandes
2013-03-20 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Why did you leave, when you were twelve?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 01:43 am (UTC)

"For Father's work," says Chelise. "He does -" She waves vaguely. "Something to do with ships, and needed to live here. Well, not here, but in Lutetia."

deslandes
2013-03-21 01:44 am (UTC)

"And so what brought you and your friends into the Witchwood?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 01:48 am (UTC)

"Well, my brother moved to L'arbe, and when my friends came to visit some of them wanted to see him too, so we all went, and L'arbe is just on the edge of the wood, and - and I don't live around here, I didn't know it would catch fire or that it would turn us around so, we thought we might find berries or something, my brother didn't warn us," sighs Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-21 01:51 am (UTC)

"It does not usually catch fire," offers the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:02 am (UTC)

"I hope my friends are okay," sighs Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:05 am (UTC)

He snuggles his fluffy head into her lap.

"So do I."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:08 am (UTC)

"Why does the curse turn most everyone away from the castle so that you were alone for so long? Wouldn't it be easier to find someone to fall in love with if there were many choices?" asks Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:11 am (UTC)

"I don't think many people could fall in love with me at all," he says. "I think the curse only shows me those who can."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:12 am (UTC)

"Oh! Well, then you should be in a good mood, because there's hope," says Chelise merrily. Pet pet pet pet pet.

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:14 am (UTC)

He snorts derisively.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:15 am (UTC)

"What?" asks Chelise. "I don't think you'd be so hard to love. I don't think I am. I don't know about Belle."

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:17 am (UTC)

"Never mind," he sighs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:18 am (UTC)

"Oh, won't you tell me? I suppose you needn't."

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:28 am (UTC)

"It seems to me," he says, "that after a hundred and fifty years of this, I can be in whatever mood I please."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:29 am (UTC)

"Of course you can," says Chelise. "I didn't mean that you had to - I'm sorry, my Callian isn't perfect even now, some of my little siblings speak it like natives but I was already twelve when we moved."

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:34 am (UTC)

He snorts again, but snuggles his head into her lap.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:35 am (UTC)

Pet pet pet pet. They can agree on pettings, can't they? Chelise wants to get along, look how hopeful she is.

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:36 am (UTC)

They can agree on pettings! The Beast is still soft and fluffy and pettable, and he likes the way her hands feel in his fur.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:39 am (UTC)

Hurray!

"So Belle called you beast, but is that what you'd really most like to be called?"

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:40 am (UTC)

"Do you have a better idea?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:43 am (UTC)

"I - just doubt that's your name? It doesn't seem very polite of her to call you that, does it?"

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:44 am (UTC)

"I told her to," he says. "You don't like her very much, do you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 02:46 am (UTC)

"I hardly know her - and I like most everyone! I don't think she likes me," says Chelise sadly.

deslandes
2013-03-21 02:48 am (UTC)

"What gave you that impression?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 03:03 am (UTC)

"Oh, mostly how she looked at me when she talked to me in the front hall," says Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-21 03:16 am (UTC)

"I'll ask her," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 04:39 am (UTC)

"Do you think she'd know? Or tell you?" asks Chelise dubiously.

deslandes
2013-03-21 11:40 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Of course she will."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 03:08 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean of course? Sometimes people don't know. I can usually tell who likes who else, but everyone else winds up asking me."

deslandes
2013-03-21 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Belle knows her own mind."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 03:23 pm (UTC)

"Isn't that usually a euphemism for stubborn?"

deslandes
2013-03-21 03:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's as may be," he laughs. "But I meant she understands it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 03:29 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Chelise dubiously. "I suppose if she says she likes me then whether she really does or not that means she's willing to try."

deslandes
2013-03-21 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Why do you doubt her so?" he asks dryly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 03:33 pm (UTC)

"I'm good at telling when people like me. Or each other. I think that's part of why I care so much about it."

deslandes
2013-03-21 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says, "I'll ask her, and then we'll know."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-21 03:36 pm (UTC)

"If you say so." Pet pet pet pet.

deslandes
2013-03-21 03:36 pm (UTC)

Snuggle purr snuggle!

ma colocataire

beheld_beauty

Belle studies. She really doesn't get as lonely as Beast - and maybe he and Chelise can fall in love if she stays out of their way, and then the curse will break and Belle can ransack the library and go home, that would be fine. She works.

deslandes
2013-03-22 01:23 am (UTC)

A little while after the breakfast tray departs, the Beast enters the library.

"Do you like Chelise?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 01:26 am (UTC)

"Do I like her? I've spoken perhaps ten sentences to her and vice-versa. It takes me longer to like people than that unless they're truly exceptional."

deslandes
2013-03-22 01:28 am (UTC)

"She fears that you don't," he says, sitting on the floor and resting his chin on her knee. "It troubles her."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 01:30 am (UTC)

"It's unreasonable to be troubled by someone who one has only just met failing to like one," says Belle.

Belle has not yet made any claims about whether or not she dislikes Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-22 01:33 am (UTC)

"I don't say it's reasonable or it isn't," he says, "but that's how she feels, so I told her I'd ask."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 01:35 am (UTC)

Belle shrugs. "Are you getting along with her all right?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 01:55 am (UTC)

"More or less," he says. "She's very snuggly."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 02:02 am (UTC)

"Is she anything else?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 02:30 am (UTC)

He thinks it over, and the word he comes up with is, "Desperate."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 02:32 am (UTC)

"Desperate? For what? Why?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 02:35 am (UTC)

"Well, gently desperate," he says. "Subtly desperate. But—she wants everyone to like her."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 02:39 am (UTC)

"...Literally?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 02:44 am (UTC)

He nods his fluffy head.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 02:45 am (UTC)

"That's even stranger than it sounds, when I think about it," muses Belle. "Everyone in the world? She can't even meet everyone in the world."

deslandes
2013-03-22 02:47 am (UTC)

"It may be that she only cares about the ones she has met, or will meet," he says. "I'm not sure."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 02:48 am (UTC)

"So she didn't tell you this outright - how can you tell?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 02:51 am (UTC)

"What she said, how she said it, how she acted, how she seemed to feel."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 02:52 am (UTC)

"Huh. Ironically," says Belle, "I don't think I find that an appealing quality."

deslandes
2013-03-22 02:58 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"I know, isn't it sad? I find her... sweet, but frightening. Like you, in a way, but not the same way."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 03:07 am (UTC)

"I'm frightening?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 03:15 am (UTC)

"Frightening like thunderstorms," he says affectionately.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 03:21 am (UTC)

"Is she also frightening like some kind of weather?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 03:31 am (UTC)

"No," he says. "She's frightening like... I'm not sure. You can hurt me, but you won't, if I don't want you to. She can't, but I think she would."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:34 am (UTC)

"But the curse thinks you could fall in love with her. And vice versa."

deslandes
2013-03-22 12:24 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes I like frightening."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 03:57 pm (UTC)

"If she wants to be liked so badly why would she hurt you even if you didn't agree to it, though? Does she know that you sometimes like to be frightened?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 04:00 pm (UTC)

"She wants to be liked so badly that she would force it if she could."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:02 pm (UTC)

Belle shudders. "Ew."

deslandes
2013-03-22 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:05 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe I should keep the magic books written in Albish in my room and lock them up during the day. The Callian books don't have anything useful on that front, but she's got a heavy enough accent I bet she can read Albish and I haven't got those catalogued fully."

deslandes
2013-03-22 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Do that," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:11 pm (UTC)

Belle stacks up Albish books and takes them away. She requires three trips.

deslandes
2013-03-22 04:12 pm (UTC)

"I," says the Beast, "am going to go wrestle rosebushes."

He hugs her before he leaves.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:18 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

Studying.

Sighing.

Chelise wanders into the library later and scans titles. Belle ignores her.

deslandes
2013-03-22 04:21 pm (UTC)

The Beast arrives on the heels of lunch, covered in scratches and grabbing food from the top of the tray as it skitters playfully away from him.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:27 pm (UTC)

"She's ignoring me," Chelise murmurs under her breath to Beast. "I've been in here for an hour looking at the books and she hasn't even said hello. I told you she didn't like me."

deslandes
2013-03-22 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Shhh," he says, resting his chin on her shoulder and hugging her. "She's busy. Have some lunch, it's very good."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:33 pm (UTC)

Chelise nibbles at some lunch disconsolately. "Too busy to say hello?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 04:41 pm (UTC)

He nuzzles his nose against her cheek.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:44 pm (UTC)

She giggles and wraps her arms around his neck.

deslandes
2013-03-22 04:45 pm (UTC)

Purrrrrsnuggle.

See, this is so much more fun than worrying about Belle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 04:47 pm (UTC)

It is! Snuggle snuggle.

deslandes
2013-03-22 08:20 pm (UTC)

It is also more cuddly! And everything is better with purring.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Do you think she'll ever like me?" asks Chelise after a few moments of silence apart from purring. "I don't know how long we'll be here. I don't think I could bear to be trapped in one place with someone who couldn't like me no matter what I did."

deslandes
2013-03-22 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Give her time," he murmurs. "I don't think she likes you or doesn't like you. I think she doesn't know you at all."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 08:25 pm (UTC)

"But then why wouldn't she say hello and try to get to know me?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Because if someone doesn't break this curse one way or another, I will be trapped here alone forever," he sighs. "And there might not be time for her to learn all she'd need to learn to break it with magic."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you poor thing, alone forever, I can't imagine anything more horrid - if there might not be time wouldn't it make more sense for her to do what I'm doing, then?"

deslandes
2013-03-22 08:29 pm (UTC)

"She does magic," he says, "you do belly rubs. Each to your own talents." And he nuzzles her cheek again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-22 08:30 pm (UTC)

Well, Chelise can certainly do belly rubs!

deslandes
2013-03-22 08:31 pm (UTC)

The Beast purrs and snuggles up affectionately.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:59 am (UTC)

"It's going to bother me if she just goes on not liking me. She likes you, doesn't she? How'd you do it?" Chelise asks after a long conversational lull.

deslandes
2013-03-27 12:04 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says with a fluffy shrug. "Maybe I didn't. Maybe it just is."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Just is?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Maybe she likes me because I am who I am."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Well - yes, but how did you demonstrate it, what did you do? If she only likes people because of who they are and not anything they do I might just be doomed, mightn't I?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I could bear it! In a village I could just avoid anyone I didn't get along with, but there are only three of us here!"

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:06 pm (UTC)

He snuggles her and sighs.

"Do you want me to go talk to her again?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Would you?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:20 pm (UTC)

"All right."

But first snuggles.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:21 pm (UTC)

Chelise snuggles back.

(She sighs to herself, though.)

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:23 pm (UTC)

All right, all right. Off he goes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:23 pm (UTC)

Belle is, predictably, reading a book on magic.

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:25 pm (UTC)

Of course she is.

"Chelise is unhappy because you don't like her," he announces.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:26 pm (UTC)

"What do you want me to do about it?" sighs Belle, marking her spot in the book and closing it.

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "She wants me to find out how to get you to like her, I think."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Do you really think I ought to be spending time on that when there's so much magic to learn? I suppose I can talk to her when I need a break, but as far as I can tell her only characteristic is that she wants to be liked."

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:31 pm (UTC)

"If it takes you time, then no," he says. "I think you should spend exactly as much time on it as you want to."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:33 pm (UTC)

"I'd be perfectly content to avoid her, honestly."

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:34 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, and curls up on the floor with his head in her lap.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:35 pm (UTC)

She pets him and reopens her book.

It's only a few minutes before Chelise can be observed peeping around the edge of the library door.

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:36 pm (UTC)

The Beast observes her!

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 05:54 pm (UTC)

Belle ignores her.

Chelise takes in the scene, then sniffs once and turns to run from the library.

deslandes
2013-03-27 05:55 pm (UTC)

The Beast sighs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:01 pm (UTC)

Belle also sighs.

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:05 pm (UTC)

He nuzzles her knee, and then picks himself up and goes after Chelise.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:13 pm (UTC)

Chelise is curled up in a ball in the window seat in her room. She may or may not be crying.

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:14 pm (UTC)

...

He hugs her, as gently and fluffily as he can.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:15 pm (UTC)

She leans into him but does not lift her face away from her knees.

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:18 pm (UTC)

He nuzzles her shoulder comfortingly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Does she like anybody? She can't even like you that much, if she won't talk to me even a little if you asked her..."
Edited 2013-03-27 18:25 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:29 pm (UTC)

"She likes me fine," says the Beast. "She is learning magic so she can help me. And she would rather you avoid each other than that she take time away from that to get to know you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:30 pm (UTC)

"But it could take so long for her to learn what she's trying to learn and we all have to live with each other in the meantime," says Chelise, a hint of a whine entering her voice.

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:32 pm (UTC)

"It's a big castle," says the Beast. "You don't need to be near her if you don't want to. And you could always try to leave. Maybe the forest will let you go."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:33 pm (UTC)

"She said it wouldn't, that we were stuck here," says Chelise suspiciously.

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:38 pm (UTC)

"She is. I am. You might not be."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:39 pm (UTC)

"And then I could find my friends, and go home to my family -"

Chelise is only a little abrupt about getting up and running to the kitchen to pack some food.

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:43 pm (UTC)

He follows after her to say, "I don't know that you can. But I don't know that you can't."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Will you be terribly upset if I go - I don't want to leave you alone with only her, it's just I don't think I can take it -"

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I would rather you be with your friends and happy than here and miserable."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," sighs Chelise, and she pecks the Beast on the shoulder - his face is out of reach when they're both standing - and she throws another stick of bread into her bag and makes for the exit.

deslandes
2013-03-27 06:54 pm (UTC)

He curls up outside next to a rosebush and waits to see if she comes back.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 06:56 pm (UTC)

It takes twenty minutes.

But she does.

And she turns around and storms into the burnt woods again.

And she's back fifteen minutes later.

And she drags herself towards the Beast and throws herself onto him and weeps openly.

deslandes
2013-03-27 07:00 pm (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her and nuzzles her hair.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 07:02 pm (UTC)

"All I want is to be around people who want me around, and I like you but there is only one of you," sobs Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-27 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he says, cuddling her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 07:35 pm (UTC)

Chelise sniffs and has nothing more to say.

It's a week later when, from wherever he may be in the castle, Beast hears a shriek and a series of thumping sounds.

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:35 pm (UTC)

He is in the kitchen.

He bolts for the source of the sound.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 07:51 pm (UTC)

Chelise is hurrying down the double flight of stairs down to the entryway, hands clapped to her face in an expression of horror.

Belle is collapsed at the bottom of the steps, and she's not moving.

"She fell!" exclaims Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-27 07:53 pm (UTC)

He skids to a halt, claws scraping over the stone floor, and crouches at Belle's side to see how badly she is hurt.

He ignores Chelise.
Edited 2013-03-27 19:53 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 07:56 pm (UTC)

Belle is breathing; her heart beats on. She has certainly broken an arm, and possibly some other things; her head struck the stone and she's bleeding a slow trickle from one ear.

"I was just - she - is she dead?" Chelise asks.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:00 pm (UTC)

The Beast inspects Belle very, very carefully, nosing gently at this injury or that.

He continues to ignore Chelise.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:02 pm (UTC)

The ear is the only bleeding injury. One of her legs is bent in a way that looks uncomfortable; the bones might be intact but it's almost certainly sprained. Given the distance she fell, it's unlikely her ribs are all intact.

"Is she?" asks Chelise.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:04 pm (UTC)

Carefully, carefully, he straightens out the wrong-looking leg.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:05 pm (UTC)

Belle makes a small whimpering noise.

The leg doesn't seem broken, but her knee is starting to swell.

"Beast?" asks Chelise in a small voice.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:06 pm (UTC)

He touches his nose to Belle's cheek.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:08 pm (UTC)

Belle does not respond.

"Beast. Is she - did - I -"

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:11 pm (UTC)

He finally lifts his head and looks at Chelise.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Is she alive? I think I startled her -"

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:12 pm (UTC)

He growls softly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Please don't be angry, that won't help, I was only at the top of the stairs when she came round the corner and she didn't expect me and she fell, she's so clumsy. Was? Is she alive?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:16 pm (UTC)

The Beast growls again, louder.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:20 pm (UTC)

Chelise backs up a step, then another.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:22 pm (UTC)

He goes back to ignoring her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:25 pm (UTC)

Chelise flees up the stairs.

Belle lies unconscious on the floor.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:27 pm (UTC)

He curls up next to her and closes his eyes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:28 pm (UTC)

Nothing changes.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:38 pm (UTC)

The Beast stays put.

A tray arrives with food, which he eats, and water, which he drinks most of and then attempts to get some of the rest into Belle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:41 pm (UTC)

Belle manages to swallow a little of the water. She makes a soft noise and shifts position and winces briefly and then goes still again.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:43 pm (UTC)

The Beast curls back up.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:45 pm (UTC)

Belle takes almost a day to wake.

"Beast," she murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Belle," he says, crouching over her. "Are you all right? I don't know what to do."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I hurt," she whimpers.

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I know."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Must be a spell - some kind of spell -"

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Should I take you to the library?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Don't think I'd better move." She swallows. "Water?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 08:58 pm (UTC)

The food tray scurries up to them. Beast fetches down a cup.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:01 pm (UTC)

Belle manages to drink an entire cup of water, with some help.

"If you're careful," she says, scrunching her eyes shut, "can you look in my index - and find what book has the healing spells -"

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I fear what will happen if I leave you alone," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Mm?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Do you remember falling?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:10 pm (UTC)

"...Vaguely."

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Chelise was there."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:11 pm (UTC)

"...I don't remember that."

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:13 pm (UTC)

"She said she'd startled you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember." Pause. "You don't believe her."

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I think she pushed you," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:17 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe. I can't remember. I don't even remember why I was on the staircase."

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I want to kill her," he growls.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:19 pm (UTC)

Belle doesn't have a reply to that.

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:22 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:27 pm (UTC)

"You think she'll come back and finish me off if you leave me?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Where did she go? Could she even tell if you went to the library?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Upstairs," he says. "I worry if she comes back."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:35 pm (UTC)

One of Belle's arms is not broken. That one fumbles for Beast's paw and clasps it. "Can the kitchen bring - medicines, at all? Maybe if I were only a little better, I could move, and finish the job with magic..."

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:37 pm (UTC)

He looks at the food tray.

It rattles, then scurries off.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:39 pm (UTC)

Belle closes her eyes and concentrates on breathing evenly. Her hand clutches at the Beast's paw; she's weak and trembly yet clearly holding on as hard as she can.

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:41 pm (UTC)

He nuzzles her forehead.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:43 pm (UTC)

She squeaks. It's not a happy squeak. "My head hurts," she whimpers.

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:45 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Just - the one arm and that same leg, are fine - nothing else," says Belle, taking a shuddering breath, "anything else if I move at all, or if you touch me, it's worse."

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:53 pm (UTC)

The Beast rumbles unhappily.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Is it figuring out medicine?" Belle asks after a silence.

deslandes
2013-03-27 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't know."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:02 pm (UTC)

She squeezes his paw. "How long ago did I fall?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:02 pm (UTC)

"A day."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Strange. I'm not hungry."

The tray skitters back into view. It has some pills and some tea (with a straw, so Bell will be able to drink lying down).
Edited 2013-03-27 22:12 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:13 pm (UTC)

Beast helps bring the pills and the tea and Belle all into the appropriate conjunction.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:15 pm (UTC)

Belle gulps them down, and then promptly falls asleep.

After two hours of fitful, wincing sleep with occasional muttered words - that last feature not having been present when she was knocked out - she opens her eyes again. She looks like she's in less pain, although her arm is still clearly broken and the swelling in her knee has gone down only a little.
Edited 2013-03-27 22:18 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Mm?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:36 pm (UTC)

"If you're very, very careful with me I think you could take me to the library. I don't know about putting me in a chair, but I could lie near where the books are and you could hand them to me?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I could," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:41 pm (UTC)

She lets his paw go so he'll have both free to lift her. "Careful of the knee," she murmurs, picking up her broken arm carefully and resting it on her stomach.

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:43 pm (UTC)

He scoops her up as gently as he can.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:45 pm (UTC)

She sucks in a sharp breath and tenses but doesn't otherwise critique the positioning.

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:46 pm (UTC)

He's pretty good about keeping her steady as he carries her to the library, but he's not perfect.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:47 pm (UTC)

She squeaks tiny squeaks when jostled, and cannot repress a high whine when he sets her down, but she issues no verbal complaint.

"My index is in my notebook," she murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:49 pm (UTC)

Very carefully, he fetches her notebook.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:50 pm (UTC)

She maneuvers it one handed - checking what page she's on, putting it down, turning pages, and picking it up again - till she gets where she needs to be. "There's a blue book with gold braid on the cover. That one," she says after a few minutes of this.

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:50 pm (UTC)

The Beast fetches it, too.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:52 pm (UTC)

She maneuvers through this book in a similarly painstaking way.

Finally she says, "I found a general healing spell. It should work. ...It's going to hurt you worse than me. And you won't fall unconscious either."

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind," he says fondly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Mm."

She reads over the spell. She's still a little fuzzy-headed, but the medicine the kitchen coughed up helped; she thinks she can cast this.

"Okay. Ready?" she asks.

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:57 pm (UTC)

She rereads the spell -

"This might actually be easier if I powered it with your emotions instead of mine," she observes. "Assuming you have emotions about healing me."

deslandes
2013-03-27 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Plenty," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Mm." She seems to be saying this instead of nodding.

She falls into her mindscape, and finds his, and pulls his Heart through the shape of the spell through his channel.

deslandes
2013-03-27 11:13 pm (UTC)

He has a lot of emotions about healing her. The spell has no lack of power to draw on.

And he whimpers when it hurts him, but he loves that it hurts him.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 11:18 pm (UTC)

Belle twists under the effects of the spell. It doesn't really tickle on her end, when the bones set themselves and her knee rearranges its soft tissues and her head forcibly corrects its swelling. But at the end of it, she slowly sits up.

"You're okay?" she murmurs.
Edited 2013-03-27 23:25 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-27 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine," he purrs. "You?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 11:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm better. I may be shaky for a couple of days."

deslandes
2013-03-27 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Can I snuggle you now?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

deslandes
2013-03-27 11:38 pm (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her and nuzzles the side of her neck, still shivering a little with the aftershocks of the spell.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 11:40 pm (UTC)

...He's making interesting faces, in his human aspect.

She snuggles up. "What about Chelise?" she murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-27 11:42 pm (UTC)

"What about her?" he murmurs back.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I still can't remember if she pushed me or not."

deslandes
2013-03-27 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I still think she did," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Then - what? What do we do about her?"

deslandes
2013-03-27 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Kill her before she tries again," he suggests.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-27 11:56 pm (UTC)

"...But how can we be sure if she did push me? I could have fallen. I do fall often enough."

deslandes
2013-03-27 11:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if she pushed you," he says slowly, "but I do know that she wanted you to be dead."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:01 am (UTC)

"...Surely she didn't say that. Even if it's true it would be a stupid thing to tell you; how do you know?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:03 am (UTC)

"She kept asking if you were," he says, "and she—the way she stood, the way she spoke, the way she looked at you—she didn't want me to know it, but that's how she felt."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:04 am (UTC)

"I'm... not sure what to do with that. I don't think anyone has wished me dead before."

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:09 am (UTC)

"I think we should kill her," he reiterates.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:13 am (UTC)

"If you've thought so all this time, why didn't you do it while I was unconscious?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:14 am (UTC)

"Because I didn't know what you'd think of it," he says. "And I cared more about making you well than about making her dead."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:15 am (UTC)

She squeezes his paw.

"I don't love the idea of killing her. Not without being sure. ...Maybe there's a spell that will let me find out, though."

She picks up her index and finds which book has all those useful divination spells.

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:19 am (UTC)

"Mm. More spells," he purrs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:24 am (UTC)

"Heh."

She finds the book, and looks through it. There's that looking into the past spell she first used to find what Beast looked like as a human, but it doesn't aim specifically enough to let her see Chelise pushing - or not pushing - her down the stairs. She pages through the rest of the book.

"Here's one," she murmurs. "A memory spell. I could just restore my memory."

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:25 am (UTC)

"Good!"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:27 am (UTC)

Belle nods. "It's only a little one. I can channel it myself just fine. Unless you'd like me to put it through you instead."

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:28 am (UTC)

"Oh, well, if it's only little, I don't mind you doing it yourself," he says, nuzzling her shoulder.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:31 am (UTC)

Belle is not sure how to evaluate that, but she does the spell herself regardless.

She remembers going up to her room for a look at one of the books in Albish; she wanted to check for a cognate she'd half-recalled -

And she was startled, and did stumble, and Chelise had reached out, and -

"She pushed me," Belle murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:32 am (UTC)

"Want me to kill her?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:34 am (UTC)

"We can hardly evict her; the curse won't let her get far. It's possible I could just wrap myself in enough wards to be safe, but..." Belle chews her lip. "Is there, do you suppose, any chance left you could fall in love with her?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:41 am (UTC)

He snorts.

"Oh, yes," he says. "But then I'd kill her for sure."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:42 am (UTC)

"...What?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:44 am (UTC)

"If you had died," he says, "I would have made myself love her, and then if she loved me and I was free I would have killed her, and if she did not and I was not I would have killed her when the rose died."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:45 am (UTC)

"I - I cannot begin to understand why that would be. Any of it."

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:48 am (UTC)

"I want to be free," he says. "But I hate her. But you can love someone and hate them. It's even easier, in some ways. But I don't want to if I have another chance. Because I hate her."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:49 am (UTC)

"I don't think I know how to love someone and hate them." She snorts softly. "But then - I don't even know how to do the first alone. Still. It sounds harder, not easier."

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:50 am (UTC)

"Only in some ways."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:53 am (UTC)

"What are the other ways?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:54 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I... it hurts to think about."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:55 am (UTC)

"Sorry," murmurs Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-28 12:57 am (UTC)

"So," he says. "I could love her, and it would hurt, and I would kill her. Or I could just kill her now and not have to worry about it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 12:59 am (UTC)

"I might manage to love you soon, though," Belle whispers. "And then we could all go. I doubt she's dangerous to her friends, when she can go where she likes."

deslandes
2013-03-28 01:03 am (UTC)

He sighs, and nuzzles her hand.

"If you want," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 01:04 am (UTC)

"...If you want to kill her I will not stop you."

deslandes
2013-03-28 01:05 am (UTC)

He rumbles unhappily.

"We'll see."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 01:07 am (UTC)

"What does that mean?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 01:10 am (UTC)

"It means I want to stay with you more than I want to go and kill her."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 01:12 am (UTC)

"She might come out of her room eventually," Belle points out.

deslandes
2013-03-28 01:14 am (UTC)

"And if I still feel like killing her next time I see her, then I will."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 01:15 am (UTC)

Belle nibbles her lip a bit.

She nods.

She snuggles up to Beast and picks up the book she was in the middle of.

deslandes
2013-03-28 01:17 am (UTC)

He curls up with her and starts purring softly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 01:18 am (UTC)

It's hours later, but Chelise does emerge.

She peers into the library, and shrinks back as soon as she's gotten a glimpse but not before the occupants can see her if they aren't trying to read.

deslandes
2013-03-28 01:21 am (UTC)

The Beast doesn't bother exiting his comfortable snuggle to chase after her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 01:34 am (UTC)

Chelise can be seen trying to leave the castle, again, and again, and again, over the course of the next few days.

Belle looks up a personal ward, and casts it on herself (through Beast, with his permission) and spares Chelise no further thought.

deslandes
2013-03-28 01:37 am (UTC)

Even with the personal ward on, the Beast hardly strays out of sight of Belle, and never farther than the other side of a door.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 01:39 am (UTC)

After Belle notices that Beast has been sleeping in the hallway outside her room overnight, she says he may as well join her in her bed as long as he isn't the sort to toss and turn.

Chelise continues trying to leave, and she can be heard sobbing every time she fails, if one is close enough to the part of the gardens that the forest has directed her back to.

Then this activity stops.

deslandes
2013-03-28 01:42 am (UTC)

The Beast doesn't know if he's the sort to toss and turn, but he tries it, and it turns out he is the sort to cuddle up close and then not move much.

When Chelise stops trying to leave, he notices.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:02 am (UTC)

Belle does not object to being cuddled during mutual sleep. In fact, she rather likes it.

She notices when Chelise stops trying to leave, too, though it takes her longer.

"...Do you suppose she's given up," she asks one day, "or that something's happened to her?"

There's no ambiguity about who "she" is.

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:03 am (UTC)

"I think she is probably dead."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:10 am (UTC)

"...Why do you think so?" asks Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:12 am (UTC)

"Because I can't imagine her giving up but I can imagine her killing herself."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:14 am (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:17 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "Want to go find out?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:25 am (UTC)

"No. Not really."

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:27 am (UTC)

"If she's dead and in this castle somewhere, we'd best find her before she starts to rot," he points out.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:28 am (UTC)

"...And I suppose until you're sure she's dead you won't just leave me somewhere and go looking on your own."

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:28 am (UTC)

He nods.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:31 am (UTC)

"All right. We'll look for her."

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:32 am (UTC)

Off they go, then.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:34 am (UTC)

Chelise isn't hard to find.

She's dangling from the rafters in her room.

There's a note. Belle's not looking, though.

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:38 am (UTC)

The Beast makes the effort to read it.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:43 am (UTC)

It's not long.

I didn't want much.

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:45 am (UTC)

He sighs.

And then he hauls Chelise down from the rafters and carries her out of the room.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:47 am (UTC)

Belle heads for the library, now that he's got the confirmation he needs to let her out of his sight.

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:49 am (UTC)

He returns some time later, without Chelise, all scratched to hell the way he is sometimes after he wrestles with rosebushes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:51 am (UTC)

"So it's down to me, then," Belle murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:53 am (UTC)

He curls up on the floor and rests his head in her lap.

"I love you," he says. "Can I still sleep in your bed, even though I don't have to?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:55 am (UTC)

"Yes," Belle murmurs, burying her hands in his mane.

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:56 am (UTC)

He purrs, softly, sadly.

His human face is crying.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:58 am (UTC)

"You're crying," murmurs Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-28 02:58 am (UTC)

He nods.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 02:59 am (UTC)

"You hated her. You wanted to kill her. Why are you crying?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:01 am (UTC)

"Because I hated her, but I'm still sad for her," he says.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:05 am (UTC)

"I wish she'd never come here. I wish she were back at home where she belonged. But she decided to die, and I don't understand that."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:05 am (UTC)

"Being alive hurt too much."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:07 am (UTC)

"Sometimes I wish I could read your mind. Maybe then I could understand more of what you say," sighs Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:09 am (UTC)

"I wish that too," he says, nuzzling her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:10 am (UTC)

"...Really? I could never tolerate it if someone read my mind. But if this is another strange thing you like there might actually be a spell for it." She pauses. "It might... help."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:12 am (UTC)

"Then you should certainly look for it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:14 am (UTC)

"Are you sure? It might not be very selective. I might just see everything."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:15 am (UTC)

He purrs again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:18 am (UTC)

"You are such a strange Beast," murmurs Belle, removing one hand from the deep pile of mane to look through her books.

She turns up a few half-promising spells that require casting each time, and one that is much more comprehensive, that will turn his mindscape into a metaphorical open book whenever she happens to look at it.

"I found something," she murmurs. "It's permanent. I don't have to use it if I don't mean to, but I'll have to separately disenchant us if you ever want me to not be able to anymore."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:20 am (UTC)

"That's all right," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:21 am (UTC)

"And it's reasonably large, but I suppose you don't mind that either."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:24 am (UTC)

He laughs and bumps his nose playfully against her stomach.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:38 am (UTC)

"All right. It's not complicated. I can do it right now."

She makes sure she has the steps memorized, and falls into her rosevine-sphere, and casts.

It's powered by Will, which she sends through his mindscape as usual, and then she directs the flow of refined energy until her rosevines are sprouting new tendrils and reaching for his castle-mindscape, growing into it, wrapping around it -

And the castle snaps into legibility.

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:46 am (UTC)

He loves her.

The spell hurts him, and he loves that, too.

All the scratches from the rosebushes hurt, but not as much as the spell, and not as nicely.

He loves her.

He is still so, so terribly sad over Chelise, and he understands exactly why she killed herself - he knows what it's like to hurt that much, even though he hasn't ever felt that way for the same reasons.

Belle's lap is a very comfortable place to rest his head.

He loves her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:47 am (UTC)

"Oh," breathes Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:48 am (UTC)

"I love you," he says, redundantly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:50 am (UTC)

"I can see that."

It's not exactly seeing. Or rather, the best metaphor for the sense-impressions that carry the information is sight - but it feels like touching regardless. It feels like she's reaching out her hand and combing it through his thoughts the way her hands are combing through his mane.

"It's beautiful."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:52 am (UTC)

He purrs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:54 am (UTC)

Unlike the meditative lapse into mindscape she needs to do to cast spells, reading his mind once the connection is established can coexist with using her body; she can open her eyes with no consequences beyond double vision (triple, where the doubled Beast is located) and move her hands through his mane in slow thoughtful strokes.

She goes on looking. She's enthralled.

...And it's definitely helping.

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:56 am (UTC)

He keeps right on purring. He can feel her reading his mind, and her hands in his mane and the spell-pain still shivering its way through his body, and it's all just lovely.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 04:04 am (UTC)

Lovely indeed.

She peers down at his face, the both of it -

The one of it.

Her hands are in much shallower hair, now, and she can smell roses -

deslandes
2013-03-28 04:06 am (UTC)

He can feel it. It's his own body changing, all at once, shrinking down from a furred hulking Beast to merely a man.

He shivers.

And then he flings his arms around Belle and hugs her as hard as he can.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 04:06 am (UTC)

She hugs him back tight.

"I love you," she murmurs, though of course he already knows it.

deslandes
2013-03-28 04:08 am (UTC)

"I love you too," he exclaims, burying his face against her stomach and nuzzling her affectionately.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 04:09 am (UTC)

She laughs and she presses a kiss to the top of his head.

deslandes
2013-03-28 04:13 am (UTC)

"I love yooooooou," he croons. "You're my favourite person. Let's get married. Let's take all the magic books and walk across the country because we can. Let's go tell your father you didn't die in the forest. Let's go see if breaking the curse means you don't have a bed anymore, because if you do I want to kiss you in it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 04:17 am (UTC)

"All of those things," laughs Belle. "Not in that order. Reverse order." And she pulls him to his feet and leads him through the significantly less alive castle to check the status of the furniture.

deslandes
2013-03-28 11:50 am (UTC)

All of the things that were in the castle still are. Torches, lanterns, books, furniture, Belle's current array of clothing...

...and her bed.

In which Beast happily kisses her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:02 pm (UTC)

Belle has never been kissed before.

She decides she approves.

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:25 pm (UTC)

Beast definitely approves.

You know what else he approves of?

Having hands again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:26 pm (UTC)

After some deliberation, Belle also approves of that!

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:27 pm (UTC)

Oh, good! He is glad. He likes it when Belle approves of things.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:29 pm (UTC)

She's still reading his mind. So she knows!

She also knows that it's probably worth remarking aloud, "Nothing beyond this till we are married, you should know."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:30 pm (UTC)

"Awww," he giggles, and wraps his arms around her and presses his face into her shoulder. Mmmmmmmmmmsnuggly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:31 pm (UTC)

Premarital snuggles are fine and welcome!

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:33 pm (UTC)

That is good, because he would be genuinely upset if he couldn't touch her anymore. The exact details of the touching are secondary.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:34 pm (UTC)

"You're so tactile," Belle murmurs. "I was half-worried that after going around in fur for a century being without would be like losing a layer of skin." Pause. "Maybe it is and you just like it anyway."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:38 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"It's mostly not like that. It's a little like that."

But it's like losing a layer of skin in a nice way. Fur was nice, being fluffy was nice, but it meant he couldn't feel things the same way he does as a human, and he missed that even more than he knew.

And there was always the worry he might hurt her, as a Beast. To hurt her as a man he'd have to try, and he won't.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:40 pm (UTC)

Belle likes being able to read his mind.

And he continues to be pettable, that's also nice!

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:41 pm (UTC)

He is extremely pettable! He lacks most of the fluff, but still gives a creditable purr when cuddled.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:42 pm (UTC)

After a while, Belle says:

"The castle is not likely to feed us anymore. We should see what there is left to eat, and come up with something for you to wear, and I should find a spell to pack up all the books, and we should get out of the forest."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:44 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Where am I to get clothes? Your wardrobe? Fun, but I doubt you've much that will fit me."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Well, it will presumably be necessary to wind up tearing something into a serviceable shape, but it will be better than walking out of the forest in your altogether, won't it? And then we can find Charlie and he can loan you something."

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:48 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "All right."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:50 pm (UTC)

Belle hunts through the closet, and finds something that snugs up with enough laces that Beast can get into it if all of these laces are unsnugged as far as they go.

"Silly," she pronounces, "but not indecent." And then she fetches her original traveling bag, rolls up two of the dresses she likes best, and heads to evaluate the state of the kitchen.

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:52 pm (UTC)

Beast follows after her, looking terribly entertained by his attire.

The kitchen is... unliving. But all of the food that was previously in the pantry still is, and in its previous condition. They could probably drown themselves in fruit preserves if they so chose.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 03:57 pm (UTC)

"I'll go see what I have in the way of packing spells," Belle says. "I want all of those books."

It turns out that she can make a bag bottomless. This will not be ideal for including everything in the same bag, as the spell comes with nothing to let her retrieve a specific item first but she can pack the entirety of her intelligently refined wardrobe selection, and also the whole library.

Packing up the library takes a long time. There is a break for eating some of the fruit preserves in the middle.

She fills another bottomless bag with assorted nonperishable food. They may not have control over their exact diets over the next few days, but they will not starve.

"Is there anything else we should take?" Belle asks when the pantry has been raided.

deslandes
2013-03-28 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I believe we're set," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 04:01 pm (UTC)

According to her mindreading he does not mind walking barefoot through the woods. Very well then. It's coming up on dark, but there's a full moon up and she still has her original firestarting equipment and they can build a campfire before stopping for the night, there's enough unburnt wood left.

Off they go into the woods!

"And this time it won't turn us around," Belle murmurs, pulling out her original notebook with the mapping in it and directing them west while there's still a sun to go by.

deslandes
2013-03-28 08:09 pm (UTC)

Beast takes charge of hauling the bottomless bags, which are not nearly as heavy as they should be but are still pretty heavy.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 08:12 pm (UTC)

Belle doesn't argue; she has enough work to do simply not falling over.

They go about two hours before it is time to stop for the night.

Why yes, even in the absence of a bed it is possible to sleep cuddling.

deslandes
2013-03-28 08:22 pm (UTC)

It iiiiiiiiiis.

Cuddlecuddlecuddle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 08:28 pm (UTC)

The night is uneventful.

Up until all the growling from the pack of wolves that has them surrounded and is debating how frightened to be of the dimming campfire, anyway.

deslandes
2013-03-28 08:46 pm (UTC)

The Beast wakes up, and for a moment he forgets his new-old body with its new-old limitations.

He growls right back.

Something feels wrong about that, but in his half-asleep state he doesn't think about it, he just - adjusts - and tries again.

Much better.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 08:47 pm (UTC)

Belle wakes up.

"Beast?" she murmurs. "You're doubled ag-"

She sees the wolves.

She stops distracting him and tries to make herself look very small.

deslandes
2013-03-28 08:53 pm (UTC)

He snarls at the wolves. Better to scare them off than fight them, isn't it?

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 08:54 pm (UTC)

One of the wolves backs up a bit.

Two of them come a bit father forward.

deslandes
2013-03-28 08:55 pm (UTC)

Really?

Perhaps if he— roars.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

Timid Wolf turns tail and flees.

One other wolf backs up a bit.

One of the bolder ones comes one - step - forward.

Belle cringes.

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:06 pm (UTC)

Fine.

The Beast leaps for the bold wolf.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:07 pm (UTC)

It's not much of a contest; the Beast outweighs the wolf and as soon as it's clear that the pack has a fight on its hands, none of the others stay around to help. But the wolf does get one solid bite in on the Beast's forearm.

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:12 pm (UTC)

He stands watch for a few more moments, making sure they're gone.

Then he returns to Belle's side and curls up next to her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Beast," says Belle. "Your arm."

He's also ruined the outfit he was wearing.

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:15 pm (UTC)

"...Mm," he says, peering at it. Then he shrugs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:16 pm (UTC)

"You're bleeding. Badly. Even if you don't care if it hurts you're still bleeding. And you've turned into a cat monster again."

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I noticed," he says dryly. "What do I do about it?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:20 pm (UTC)

"I can probably remember that healing spell, even if there's no hope of finding the book without unpacking half the library," Belle says. "It was only a few days ago I cast it. I have no idea about the transformation part, but we can manage that later - ready?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:20 pm (UTC)

He nods.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:22 pm (UTC)

Belle drops into her mindscape and casts. This is the first time she's done the same spell more than once, and it's easier, like one of the rosepetals in her mindscape has the steps stored for her in their illegible private language.

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:25 pm (UTC)

At about the same time, the wound in his arm disappears and he turns human again with a happy little shiver.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Well," she says when she opens her eyes, "there you go, human again - and I don't know why."

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," he says with a shrug, and snuggles up to her again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:27 pm (UTC)

Belle decides to worry about this matter in the morning. She snuggles up to him likewise and goes to sleep.

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:28 pm (UTC)

In the morning, he remains human. And cuddly. Always cuddly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:29 pm (UTC)

Of course he is cuddly.

"I didn't take long to find the castle from Les Fourches. We're very likely to get there today, or to a neighboring village depending on how badly my map is wrong. You will need to be wearing something," Belle says.
Edited 2013-03-28 21:30 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:31 pm (UTC)

"I am!" he protests.

It's... more or less true. Mostly less.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:32 pm (UTC)

"The fact that it was a dress was bad enough. It is now significantly less than a dress."

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:32 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:36 pm (UTC)

Belle eventually figures something out that sacrifices upper body coverage in favor of more thorough handling of the key general area. And on they go.

They don't find Les Fourches, but when they're out of the woods Belle does know where they are. "Oh, this is Rianne," she says. "I know how to get home from here. I wonder if we can barter for a proper outfit before going on, though, with some of the food maybe. Unless you're likely to change again?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:39 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea if I will change again," he says. "Perhaps we should just carry around a spare pair of trousers and wait until I really need them."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:42 pm (UTC)

Belle nods.

Into town they go.

They get some peculiar looks.

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:44 pm (UTC)

Beast does not even slightly care.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:47 pm (UTC)

Belle doesn't care as much as she would if this were her own village. She manages to extract directions to a vendor of clothing, and trades the first six things to hand in the food bag (a jar of preserves, a loaf of bread, a pecan pie, a round of cheese, a salted leg of lamb, and a bottle of honey) for two pairs of trousers that look likely to fit the Beast.

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:58 pm (UTC)

Does he have to put one on? He rather likes the questionable dress.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 09:59 pm (UTC)

The dress is much too questionable. Belle points at the changing room in the shop with a raised eyebrow.

deslandes
2013-03-28 09:59 pm (UTC)

Fine, fine.

He enters the changing room and comes back betrouser'd.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:02 pm (UTC)

Belle orients herself, and they set out for Les Fourches, which is a four-hour walk away.

She is recognized as soon as they walk into town; her father isn't among the crowd, but the bookseller and the baker both are, and they call her name.

"Hello!" Belle calls back, waving and smiling.

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:07 pm (UTC)

Beast just sort of... lurks.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:11 pm (UTC)

The baker has other things to do, but the bookseller walks right up to them. "Belle, where have you been? Your poor father's been worried sick!"

"I couldn't get away, or I would've," Belle apologizes. "Is he home, do you suppose?"

"Most likely. You'll want to go straight there. Who's this?"

"My fiancé," Belle says placidly. She doesn't really wish to explain his name thing right now.

"Pleased to meet you," the bookseller says to Beast, "Monsieur...?"

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:14 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:18 pm (UTC)

"...Is your fiancé deaf?" the bookseller murmurs to Belle.

"No, but he doesn't appear to wish to introduce himself," Belle says.

"...What is he called, then?"

"If he wished you to call him something, I assure you he'd be quite capable of telling you what that might be."

The bookseller looks perturbed.

"At any rate," says Belle, "I've come with a lot of books, and some of them will probably interest you more than me. Perhaps in a few days when I've had time to settle back in and unpack we can discuss trades."

"Perhaps," the bookseller agrees.

"I do want to go home and see my father. Till later."

"Till later, Belle."

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:21 pm (UTC)

Beast grins.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Do you want some sort of updated name, now that at least much of the time you are unbeastly, or do we just have the priest write 'Beast Cygne' in the church records?" Belle murmurs as they continue through town.

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:24 pm (UTC)

"It's all the same to me," he says cheerfully.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:29 pm (UTC)

"It would be a little easier if I could say something more along the lines of 'this is Jean' as opposed to either 'this is my nameless groom-to-be' or 'this is Beast, it's a long story'."

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:31 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "True. Well, if you want to tell all your friends my name is Jean, I won't argue."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:31 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "It's suitably generic."

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:32 pm (UTC)

"All right."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:35 pm (UTC)

"My father, on the other hand, deserves the complete story," Belle shrugs.

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Then he can have it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:39 pm (UTC)

"His house is over there."

The Cygne house is modest but well-kept, and it's about as far on the outskirts of Les Fourches as it can be without being attached to a farm.

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:40 pm (UTC)

Beast follows her there.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

Belle doesn't knock. It's her house. She has a key.

"Papa!" she calls.

There is a silence.

And then Belle's father half-explodes out of the kitchen and engulfs her in a sobbing embrace.

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

...awww.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Belle," murmurs Charlie. "Belle, you're safe, you're home, I thought you were lost forever."

"I'm fine," Belle assures him, hugging him back. "I'm fine. I found an enchanted castle and it kept me there for some time but now it's let me go."

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:55 pm (UTC)

(He smiles wryly.)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 10:57 pm (UTC)

There is another minute of silent hug.

Charlie then releases her marginally to get a good look at her face, and, over her shoulder, he notices Beast.

"Belle, who's this?"

"He was enchanted along with the castle," Belle says, "and now we're engaged." She pauses to evaluate her father's facial expression. "He's technically a marquis," she offers.

"Is he."

"Yes."

deslandes
2013-03-28 10:58 pm (UTC)

The technically-a-marquis grins.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 11:01 pm (UTC)

"How does one technically be a marquis?" Charlie wants to know.

"His father was a marquis, he's the only child, but then an enchantress cursed him and this all happened quite some time ago," Belle said.

"...Belle, how old is this man?"

"...Older than me. But he wasn't aging normally during the curse."

"What is his name?"

"He's forgotten it," Belle says. "I've been calling him Beast. For other purposes where that would take too long to explain, it may as well be 'Jean'."
Edited 2013-03-28 23:05 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-28 11:06 pm (UTC)

Beast-and/or-Jean shrugs agreeably.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Does he talk?" Charlie asks, and this time he's looking straight at Beast.

deslandes
2013-03-28 11:08 pm (UTC)

"No."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 11:10 pm (UTC)

Charlie's not amused.

"Yes, Papa, he talks," sighs Belle. "He has, however, spent a very long time without company until recently."

"And you're going to get married."

"Yes."

"Normally I'd be consulted on that, Belle."

"Normally," Belle agrees neutrally.

deslandes
2013-03-28 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Would you be happier if I were a marquis?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 11:12 pm (UTC)

Charlie weighs this question. "Frankly," he says after a delay, "yes."

deslandes
2013-03-28 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, I know what I'm doing next, then."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Do you suppose we'll wind up moving back into the castle?" Belle inquires. "I'll feel silly about having packed up the library in that case." Pause. "Oh, Papa, I've started studying enchanting myself. It's wonderfully useful."

deslandes
2013-03-28 11:14 pm (UTC)

"We should magic a new one," he asserts.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 11:16 pm (UTC)

"All right," Belle laughs.

"You're an enchantress," Charlie says blankly to his daughter.

"Yes," says Belle, all asmile. "Here, look." She takes the book bag from Beast and starts piling books on the hall table. Charlie watches the stack grow, becoming steadily more stunned.

deslandes
2013-03-28 11:18 pm (UTC)

Beast grins fondly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 11:21 pm (UTC)

"You get the idea," says Belle, after the stack is clearly too large to have nonmagically fit into the bag.

"Yes," Charlie acknowledges. "How are you going to go about retrieving your title? Can you prove your identity if you can't remember your name?" he asks Beast.

deslandes
2013-03-28 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I have," he says serenely, "no idea."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-28 11:27 pm (UTC)

"And I suppose casting spells at the problem won't help, since I've an obvious motivation to wish you declared a marquis," Belle muses. "Oh well. The forest is largely unclaimed anyway. We can live in a castle and not be marquis and marquise, or at least not acknowledged as such by the Crown."

deslandes
2013-03-29 12:27 am (UTC)

"A fine plan," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 01:12 am (UTC)

"Papa, since the library is currently in this bag," Belle says, "and I don't know a spell for castle-building already, might we stay here a few days? Long enough to find the book I need. And be married, as there aren't any priests in the woods."

"...I suppose you may."

deslandes
2013-03-29 01:13 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 01:15 am (UTC)

"Until we've booked the church of course you will have to stay in the spare room," Belle says apologetically to Beast.

Charlie looks vaguely suspicious about this phrasing.

deslandes
2013-03-29 01:15 am (UTC)

"I'll live," he says dryly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 01:16 am (UTC)

"I should hope so," says Belle. "The church should probably be the next stop for all three of us."

Charlie nods, mouth a thinning line. "Sounds past time."

deslandes
2013-03-29 01:19 am (UTC)

The Beast looks amused.

Perhaps because he is.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 01:23 am (UTC)

"Everything's fine, Papa," soothes Belle.

"Is it, now."

"Yes," says Belle.

Charlie chews his lip, then settles his arm around Belle's shoulders and heads for the door.

deslandes
2013-03-29 01:27 am (UTC)

The Beast watches this with further amusement, then follows.
Edited 2013-03-29 01:35 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 01:37 am (UTC)

The church is a small affair, and the priest is in fact prepared to perform a wedding right then if they want to. Belle looks inquiringly at the Beast.

deslandes
2013-03-29 01:43 am (UTC)

He beams.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 01:46 am (UTC)

The wedding is fairly summary, with Beast's name given as Jean of no last name who'll be taking 'Cygne' as his surname, and Charlie and the priest are the only witnesses. Charlie cries and pretends not to. Belle looks fondly at her father, and then properly beams at Beast, and kisses him when the time is correct.

deslandes
2013-03-29 01:49 am (UTC)

He kisses her right back! Mmm. Favourite kisses.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 01:50 am (UTC)

Charlie continues to pretend not to cry.

Belle isn't really paying attention to him. She's busy kissing her new husband.

deslandes
2013-03-29 01:57 am (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her and kisses her again.

Then he murmurs in her ear, "Your papa is crying."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:02 am (UTC)

"I know. Don't tell him, he'll be embarrassed."

And presently, "Let's go home and start looking through books, shall we?"

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:11 am (UTC)

First: more kisses.

Then, "Let's!"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:13 am (UTC)

There are a lot of books. Belle winds up emptying the food bag completely to replace its contents with books, simply so they don't overflow the house with books that are not the books they are looking for.

Eventually she has her supply of magic books extracted. Including those that are in foreign languages. "You can read again without hurting your eyes, I assume," she observes.

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:14 am (UTC)

"I can," he beams.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:18 am (UTC)

Belle hands him one of the foreign language books that they never got around to categorizing, and then consults her index for which of the categorized books is most likely to contain castle-building instructions.

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:20 am (UTC)

Beast gets to work.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:24 am (UTC)

Eventually Belle finds something. "Here we are," she says. "I think if I do this right, I can even get it to organize the library in the process. I do need to design the layout, though, and decide what it should look like."

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:30 am (UTC)

"I think it should be pretty," the Beast opines.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:31 am (UTC)

"Is that your only preference on the subject?" laughs Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:33 am (UTC)

"Yes. And beds," he adds. "It should have big, comfortable beds."
Edited 2013-03-29 02:33 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:34 am (UTC)

"Several of them?" inquires Belle archly.

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:38 am (UTC)

"In case we get bored of the one!"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:38 am (UTC)

"Is that normally a concern?" giggles Belle.

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:39 am (UTC)

"I don't know, I've never been married before," he laughs. "Is there a reason not to?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:40 am (UTC)

"No, not really," she says. "Does the size of the old castle sound about right to you?" She's gotten out a notebook and begun to sketch a floorplan.

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:46 am (UTC)

"It sounds just fine."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:51 am (UTC)

Sketch sketch sketch. "The spell will be able to fill in a lot of little details by itself, and it'll be alive the way the old one was so it'll be easy to change. We could put it some fifteen minutes' walk into the woods and live there tonight."

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:54 am (UTC)

"That is a good plan," he says brightly. "I am fond of that plan."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:54 am (UTC)

"Yes, the alternative is having the wedding night with just a wall between us and Charlie," she murmurs with a nervous smile.

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:55 am (UTC)

"Definitely the castle."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 02:56 am (UTC)

Belle squirms and goes on sketching.

deslandes
2013-03-29 02:56 am (UTC)

The Beast decides that this is a good moment to hug her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:03 am (UTC)

It is! It is a good moment to hug her! She relaxes against him.

"You're going to have to show me how it goes," she murmurs. "I have read more books than my father knows about, but not as many as it would take to actually set him on fire with distress."

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:06 am (UTC)

"Well," he says, "I am glad your father is not on fire, and I will be happy to show you everything I know."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:07 am (UTC)

"Good." Belle kisses him.

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:07 am (UTC)

He kisses right back, snuggling up a little.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:14 am (UTC)

Belle continues working on the castle, because if this goes on any longer they're really going to need a castle to adjourn to, and finally holds up a few pages of room layouts and notes on living-castle functionality and décor. "Good?" she asks.

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:15 am (UTC)

"Good!"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:18 am (UTC)

"Let's go pick a spot to put it," she says, pecking him on the cheek and getting up to put the books in the bags to bring along.

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:19 am (UTC)

He helps her collect books.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:20 am (UTC)

And off they go for a stroll, after Belle hugs Charlie goodbye!

"It doesn't have to be a clear spot. The trees will clear away," Belle says. "But we'll have the same elevation - if we go near the river, the river will stay - that sort of thing."

deslandes
2013-03-29 12:52 pm (UTC)

"Let's not go near the river."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:11 pm (UTC)

"All right." She veers away from the river. "How come?"

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:16 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I don't know, I just don't want to be near the river."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

They find a spot not near the river that takes a reasonable amount of time to walk to from Les Fourches and is up on a bit of a hill. "How's here?" asks Belle, turning in place and smiling at the scenery.

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:19 pm (UTC)

"Pretty," he says, and kisses her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:22 pm (UTC)

She kisses him back, and looks at her castle plans. "Ready?" she asks.

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Mmhmm."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:34 pm (UTC)

Belle falls into her mindscape, and draws a description of where the castle plans may be found in her notebook on one of the rosepetals, and draws power up from the Earth and funnels it through her husband.

It is a large spell, and it also takes a while start to finish, unlike the setup-and-done magic she's performed before.

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:36 pm (UTC)

When there is finally a castle, the Beast is curled up at her feet hugging himself and moaning.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Are you all right?" Belle murmurs, falling to her knees and laying her hand on his face. "Too much?"

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:40 pm (UTC)

He pulls her down and kisses her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:41 pm (UTC)

Oh! Okay then! Belle is perfectly happy to kiss him.

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:42 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he says breathlessly, and kisses her again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 03:43 pm (UTC)

Belle decides this would be an opportune time to read his mind some.

deslandes
2013-03-29 03:50 pm (UTC)

He looooooooooooooooooooves her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 04:51 pm (UTC)

Good! They're married and everything!

"Inside?" she murmurs against his ear.

deslandes
2013-03-29 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

He wants to scoop her up and carry her, but right now his body is not putting up with any such nonsense. So he just hauls himself to his feet and follows her in. Moving hurts. Touching anything hurts. That was quite a spell.

Where's one of those big comfortable beds?

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 04:56 pm (UTC)

Here's one!

Belle shuffles her feet a little once they've gone into the room, and she's not making eye contact either, though she's still smiling.

deslandes
2013-03-29 04:57 pm (UTC)

Beast hugs her and kisses her forehead.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 04:57 pm (UTC)

She hugs him back. "I love you," she murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-29 04:59 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," he says into her hair. It's the truest thing in the world.

Bed? Bed. Big comfortable bed. Beast is just going to flop down and snuggle into it, loving the cuddly softness of the blankets and the way fresh jolts of pain follow every movement.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:00 pm (UTC)

Belle snuggles right up to him. She's not nervous about snuggling.

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:01 pm (UTC)

How about snuggling with fewer clothes? Because it is past time he got out of these trousers.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:02 pm (UTC)

She is also quite accustomed to him being unclothed.

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:03 pm (UTC)

And kisses? Kisses are also fine, are they not?

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:03 pm (UTC)

They are!

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:07 pm (UTC)

Kisses, snuggling, Beast being unclothed. All good things. Nothing alarming there.

And he loves her. He loves her so much. She's a thunderstorm, a rosebush, beautiful and dangerous.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:08 pm (UTC)

Belle could get very, very used to being loved like this, to sinking into his mindscape and watching-feeling it all rush past her in a waterfall of affection.

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:09 pm (UTC)

He can feel it when she does, and it makes him want to curl up around her and do his best likeness of a purr.

Like so.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:10 pm (UTC)

Awwwww.

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he mumbles into her shoulder. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," she sighs happily.

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:13 pm (UTC)

Snugglesnugglesnuggllllllllllllle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:13 pm (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:14 pm (UTC)

He giggles, and kisses her again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:14 pm (UTC)

Kisses, kisses, kisses!

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:15 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses snuggles kisses cuddles kisses nuzzles kisses.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:16 pm (UTC)

This could go on for a while, couldn't it?

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:18 pm (UTC)

It could!

There is also the matter of hands.

He has those now. Without fur or claws or inhuman crushing strength.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:20 pm (UTC)

He does. He does have hands.

What ever shall he do with them?

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:23 pm (UTC)

He has some notions!

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:24 pm (UTC)

Will he be sharing them with his blushing bride?

(There is blushing. There's considerable blushing.)

deslandes
2013-03-29 05:27 pm (UTC)

"I love you blushing," he says, and kisses her, and - although he is quite sure she saw it already - suggests a notion.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 05:29 pm (UTC)

Such notions he has. Isn't it nice to be married? Belle thinks so.

mon mari

beheld_beauty

Belle settles very happily into her married life. There is no clear way for Beast to prove himself the missing marquis, so he doesn't bother; instead she studies and he translates foreign texts on magic for her and as the years go by she teaches herself enough Caelish and Suomish to read some of the non-Callian books without help and they eventually work through the entire library section on enchanting. By the time Belle is twenty-two she can invent spells on the fly, and can use mindreading to channel relatively simple spells through Beast while maintaining awareness of her own senses at the same time instead of dropping fully into meditation whenever she casts, and also to communicate subtly and nonverbally and silently in both directions with gentle tweaks to the castle that is her husband's mind. She has learned to read the writing on her rosepetals so all of her memories are forever preserved in their original clarity for her inspection, if she cares to look at them.

Using enough enchantment has wound up giving Belle a persistent aura. People stand aside for her if she walks down the street without deliberately suppressing it, sensing power without understanding it. She doesn't trip anymore; she's honestly not sure if she's incidentally cured her clumsiness or if the ground just adjusts to meet her steps and then ripples back into place after she's steady. Her hair and her skirts are continually stirred in a beautifully eerie way by a breeze that isn't there. Her voice carries as far as she likes, or as little as she prefers; she can whisper to one person across an oblivious crowded room. Sometimes she appears to be lit by an interior glow, when she's casting or using inlaid enchantments or just strongly emotional about something. Small injuries - she has tested no large ones - seal themselves with a faint hissing noise and a shine of sky-blue light, and she doesn't get ill anymore. Objects she reaches for move to meet her; plants bend to get out of her way if she strides through the forest, and some of them spontaneously bloom.

She is less likely to stride than to fly, though.

The books mention enchanter's auras, but not to quite the extent she's developed. It does, however, say that the aura is helped most by casting large spells through a willing vessel. Perhaps hers is just - more, because of her beloved Beast, because if she comes up with a way to fly or to cease to need sleep he's so eager to help.

She is just coming to the end of her last unread book on magic, wondering what is next, when there is a knock at the castle door.

deslandes
2013-03-29 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Who the hell is that, I wonder," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. Usually when people want things they just leave messages with Charlie; the castle spooks them."

(She's been unofficially serving as the public enchantress for the general region around Les Fourches, and breaks up the sameyness of studying by flying here and there and curing sickness, repairing buildings, and the like.)

She gets up and heads for the door.

It's a young man, maybe sixteen years old, and he takes a step back when the door swings open (of its own accord) to reveal the enchantress.

"H-hello," he stammers. "Are you the - of course you are."

"I'm the enchantress," says Belle. "Do you need something?"

"I - not exactly."

deslandes
2013-03-29 06:45 pm (UTC)

Beast observes this interaction.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Then what brings you here?" Belle inquires patiently.

"I want to learn magic," blurts the boy.

deslandes
2013-03-29 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Awww," says the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 06:49 pm (UTC)

"What do you want to do with it?" Belle asks.

The boy does not look like he has considered this question before.

deslandes
2013-03-29 06:50 pm (UTC)

The Beast laughs.
Edited 2013-03-29 18:51 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Help people, like you," the boy decides, finally. "I want to be your apprentice and learn to do what you do."

"I'm not sure just anyone can learn to do quite what I do," says Belle, with a surreptitious glance at the Beast.

deslandes
2013-03-29 06:57 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

"No harm in trying, is there?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 07:07 pm (UTC)

I mean, Belle quietly writes on the walls of his mind, that he probably does not have a convenient channel like you ready to hand.

"What's your name?" she asks the boy.

"Luc."

deslandes
2013-03-29 07:09 pm (UTC)

True. But there's still the little things, are there not?

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 07:20 pm (UTC)

That there are.

"Well, Luc, what do you know about how enchanting works?" Belle asks.

"A-almost nothing, madame l'enchanteresse."

"You may call me Belle." She pauses at the look on his face. "Or not, if that's too informal. Why don't you come in? Perhaps I will decide to take a student."

Luc steps beyond the threshold tentatively.

deslandes
2013-03-29 07:24 pm (UTC)

Beast laughs again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Luc, this is my husband, whom you may call Jean," Belle says, "or M. Cygne, if that's too informal. Here, come into the parlor and let's see if you can find your dreamworld."

"My dreamworld, Mme. L'Enchanteresse?" Luc asks, sitting where she indicates.

"The first step to casting," says Belle, "is to find your own mind, to look at it from the inside; if you can't do that then I can teach you nothing."

Luc nods, and Belle walks him through the steps that first led her into her sphere of rosevines.

deslandes
2013-03-29 07:31 pm (UTC)

Beast decides that the lesson will probably not be improved by him putting his head in his wife's lap. He gives her a kiss and then wanders away.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 07:35 pm (UTC)

Belle comes and finds Beast some hours later. "I've put Luc in a room in the north wing," she says. "He's managed to find his dreamworld - it looks like a network of caves, he says - and to cast a simple spell, and he says that he can take the pain if he can use it to relieve more, which I think is a fine sentiment."

deslandes
2013-03-29 07:37 pm (UTC)

"That is sweet," he declares, and hugs her. "I love you." With a giggle, "Madame l'enchanteresse."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 07:37 pm (UTC)

She giggles and kisses him. "It does have a certain ring to it, even if it's terribly long."

deslandes
2013-03-29 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Dear Belle, darling Belle," he says, between kisses. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I love you. And now I have something to do even though I've been through every last one of those books."

deslandes
2013-03-29 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Good," says the Beast, and he wraps her up in a hug.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 07:58 pm (UTC)

Belle's days begin to be occupied more with teaching Luc, an eager pupil, and she even begins idly talking of assembling more students - with enough of them she could distribute magical services over a much wider area, even if another channel as suitable as Beast were never to be found. Even small spells, used cleverly, can accomplish a great deal.

Beast himself is out of books to translate for her. He may be a little bored.

deslandes
2013-03-29 08:01 pm (UTC)

He is rather bored, yes. But that's just fine. The crucial difference between their castle and the one he lived in for so many years is that he can leave this one.

So he does, and goes off wandering, with no particular destination in mind.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 08:02 pm (UTC)

Belle checks in with him by mindreading once every morning and evening, and otherwise leaves him to wander as he likes. She knows he'll come back.

deslandes
2013-03-29 08:04 pm (UTC)

He loves her. He loves her, he loves her, he loves her.

And then one evening, his mindscape is... wrong. The castle (which has begun looking more and more like the one they live in, gradually, piece by piece) has cracks in the walls and scorch marks around the edges of the windows.
Edited 2013-03-29 20:06 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 08:08 pm (UTC)

Mon coeur. What happened?

deslandes
2013-03-29 08:15 pm (UTC)

Pain. Pain happened.

That was well enough, but the rest...

He is lying in chains on a rough stone floor with a hood over his head. Even his beast-strength will not get him free.

Someone found him, found him in the forest. At the forest's edge. He doesn't remember - their face, he can't think -

They burned his mind, this person, voiceless faceless pain trapping burning person. It hurt, and it was good-but-not-good, the way things sometimes are when they hurt and you like the hurt but you don't want what brings it.

Belle will fix it. Belle fixes things.

He loves her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 08:18 pm (UTC)

Oh mon coeur. I - I don't know how. I'll try.

She can write on his walls, gentle little marks that stay long enough to speak to him and then disappear into the cellars of memories. Perhaps with a firmer hand she can reach out and heal the scorching, the cracking...?

And then she will tell Luc to teach himself some Suomish and she will set out and she will find her husband.

deslandes
2013-03-29 08:21 pm (UTC)

It works, somewhat. His memories become clearer, his thoughts less scattered.

He loves her still.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 08:23 pm (UTC)

She patches everything she can, feeling woefully inadequate, and then she finds Luc, and tells him to take this textbook on Suomish and go home and study it until she comes to fetch him, and he goes.

She seals up the castle behind her.

And she takes to the air.

My love, my love, tell me which way you were going, can you remember? She's scanning the ground for a trail, but her own presence changes so much about the way the plants lie and the light falls.

deslandes
2013-03-29 08:31 pm (UTC)

He doesn't remember; it's burned, it's—

Glowing fog the colour of moonlight slams through the castle of his mind, boiling out of the cracks, leaving new burns in its wake. It doesn't touch Belle's presence at all.

When it's done, Beast is shaking and whimpering. Someone is speaking to him, but he doesn't hear words, only a voice, a cruel taunting laughing voice.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 08:35 pm (UTC)

Oh mon coeur. I'm coming. I'll find you.

She flies faster. She does what she can to heal the damage as she goes.

deslandes
2013-03-29 08:43 pm (UTC)

(he tries to want it, tries to be willing, to let the magic through, but he can't - he hates it too much - so his mind keeps burning, and he keeps screaming, and there's nothing he can do about either)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 08:56 pm (UTC)

Oh mon coeur. I love you and I will find you.

And then she stops writing and all she does is try to heal the burns, smooth the cracks.

She will find him and she will find who has him and they will not greet another day with their magic intact. Perhaps not even their life.

He's been gone for days, but he was walking and she is flying, but he was going nowhere in particular and she does not know where to go - she could channel through him at this distance, but she doesn't know if he's in a state to welcome her while he rejects the other, and she cannot bear to damage him further. She prunes the half-formed spell notion until it's something she can do herself.

She calls down starlight, for it's dark now, and she channels it through her own rosevines, and she knows which direction to go - though nothing else, given how much she had to simplify the spell - and she corrects her course and she flies.

deslandes
2013-03-29 09:04 pm (UTC)

Eventually, after flying all the way over the former Witchwood and then some, she comes upon a palace.

It doesn't look like the home of an evil sorcerer, and the howling of the Beast is not audible from within, but it is directly in her flight path.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 09:07 pm (UTC)

Belle sharpens her ears; the wind should funnel her sounds too faint for natural hearing... She can tolerate the pain of an invisibility spell, as she slows and approaches. She's cast it before, she only has to keep her focus on the rosepetal where it's written.

Unseeable, she draws closer and listens.

deslandes
2013-03-29 09:11 pm (UTC)

The walls of the palace are spelled to muffle sound, but not to destroy it.

A Beast does howl in this dungeon.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 09:16 pm (UTC)

She does not have to be close to Beast to use him as a channel, but that's only because of her mindscape-reading spell and how much time she's had to be accustomed to it, and so where her husband is so will be his tormentor.

Her aura can adjust the world around her but not enough to let her walk through walls. She needs to invent something, for this.

She can't focus, not when her Beast is screaming in his mind and in the world -

She drops the read with a silent apology and forces herself to concentrate.

The wall parts with a hiss of pain from L'Enchanteresse.

deslandes
2013-03-29 09:21 pm (UTC)

Her husband and his tormentor are in a mere cellar, not truly a dungeon at all. The Best writhes on the ground, hooded and chained; a man stands over him -

The man whirls, and hisses. He flings a hand back toward the Beast.

The stone of the cellar wall grows clawed hands that reach for Belle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 09:28 pm (UTC)

She can be no match for this man, none at all, if she has only herself to channel through. She flies across the room, away from the hands, and reads again.

Mon coeur. I need a channel. I need you, have you the strength?

deslandes
2013-03-29 09:34 pm (UTC)

He loves her with the colour of lightning. He will do anything she asks.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 09:36 pm (UTC)

Wincing, she casts. She doesn't counter the stone hands - those, she can dodge - but she counterattacks. She calls fire and sends it shooting at the other enchanter. She keeps her eyes open. She can cast through Beast without dropping into a meditation that would kill her if she did it now.

deslandes
2013-03-29 09:45 pm (UTC)

The other enchanter throws Will through Beast's mind to shield himself from the fire, reflecting it back at Belle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 09:46 pm (UTC)

Wind will obey Belle by aura alone. "What are you doing?" she shrieks, batting the flames back. "Why did you take him?"

deslandes
2013-03-29 09:50 pm (UTC)

"He belongs to me," the stranger snarls, raising another pair of hands from the floor.

(His face, the sound of his voice - are they a little familiar?)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 09:54 pm (UTC)

"He does not," hisses Belle. She thinks up a variant on her wall-walking spell. She can go right through the hands, now, though she continues to dodge them so he'll waste his concentration. "Mine to have and to hold till life leaves us -" Cold will be harder to redirect than fire, mightn't it? She calls it up, sends a wall of it at the enchanter from behind. "Not yours."

deslandes
2013-03-29 09:57 pm (UTC)

The strange enchanter does - something.

The Beast howls.

A spell in the glossy grey-green of Earth closes like a fist around Belle's mindscape—

—and the stranger flinches back, his spell falling in shreds from her mind.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Thorns," Belle hisses, and she forces the cold into his body, deeper, deeper, till he stops, till he can do her husband no more harm.

deslandes
2013-03-29 10:06 pm (UTC)

The stranger falters, then falls.

The Beast whimpers helplessly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 10:08 pm (UTC)

Belle falls to her knees beside her husband and tears away the hood, peers into his mindscape, unlocks the shackles by touching them and aura, soothes every wound she can see in his interior castle. "Mon coeur," she murmurs. "Mon coeur."

deslandes
2013-03-29 10:20 pm (UTC)

He buries his head in her lap and whimpers some more, loving her intensely.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 10:24 pm (UTC)

She buffs away scorchmarks, she knits cracks - she cannot do everything. Some of the damage won't yield to her ministrations.

"Speak to me?" she murmurs, when she can find no other out-of-place piece in his mental castle that will yield to her healing. "Can you? Oh, mon coeur."

deslandes
2013-03-29 10:27 pm (UTC)

The Beast wraps his arms around her waist and clings, pressing his face against her stomach. At some point during this operation, his fur fades away and he's human again.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Mon cœur. Oh, my poor cher." Her aura doesn't make her stronger; she cannot lift him. If he cannot travel she will have to think up a spell. "Please, can't you speak any longer?"

deslandes
2013-03-29 10:31 pm (UTC)

Perhaps he is just too busy crying.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 10:32 pm (UTC)

She'll wait. She'll stroke his hair and she'll shiver and she'll wait.

deslandes
2013-03-29 11:25 pm (UTC)

Eventually: "I love you."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I love you too. I love you so much."

deslandes
2013-03-29 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Love you, love you," he murmurs. "Love you..."

The words slur together; he falls asleep in her lap.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-29 11:31 pm (UTC)

Belle will be able to find this castle again and investigate it later. She checks the enchanter's pulse; he is definitely dead.

She strengthens herself in stages, first one arm, then the other, then the first, then the second, channeling small bursts through herself, until she can pick up her husband and hold him close to her and lift off into the night sky to bring him home.

i'm big sister

autokinetic

There's fighting on Eros.

Aegis knows a little about Earthside politics, but not all that much: what matters is that several factions want to capture ("rescue") Aegis and Sue. (Or, as they are collectively being called on the nets with no consensus about which of them is which: "War and Peace".) The rest of the jeesh are in trouble too.

Aegis and Sue have been locked in their room for their own protection, and Sue has received conflicting orders about which contingent of soldiers he should be psychically helping.

pythbox
2013-03-06 07:34 pm (UTC)

So, naturally, he links Howlett.

Civil wars are my favourite, Howlett says dryly. You kids okay?

Sue repeats this query to Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 07:43 pm (UTC)

We're fine. Just cooped up, Aegis says. We should probably sleep in shifts in case someone breaks in.

pythbox
2013-03-06 07:47 pm (UTC)

Good plan, says Howlett, and Sue agrees. Then Howlett has to stop talking for a bit, although he keeps the link for the cognitive boost.

...Wow, he is really hot when he's killing people.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 07:48 pm (UTC)

If you like that sort of thing, says Aegis. You want to sleep first or second?

pythbox
2013-03-06 07:49 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

Second.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 07:52 pm (UTC)

I'll see if I can sleep now, then. Do I get a fluffy critter to hug?

pythbox
2013-03-06 07:54 pm (UTC)

Ivy fluffs obligingly into existence.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 07:54 pm (UTC)

Aegis snuggles up to her and goes to sleep.

Sue has probably noticed this before, but, yep, she talks in her sleep.

pythbox
2013-03-06 07:55 pm (UTC)

It is really cute.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 07:56 pm (UTC)

Aegis wakes up about six hours later. "Your turn," she offers Sue. "Unless Howlett's in a tight spot now and needs the bonus brain."

pythbox
2013-03-06 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Nah," says Sue, "he's good for now."

He cuts the link and flops into bed.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 08:11 pm (UTC)

Aegis goes right on snuggling Ivy, as she reads summaries from Jane of ansible communications she has expressed interest in. Best brainchild ever.

pythbox
2013-03-06 08:12 pm (UTC)

After an hour or two, Ivy vanishes in her customary flicker of golden light.

autokinetic
2013-03-06 08:13 pm (UTC)

Aww, oh well. Read read read.

It was apparently clever of Aegis to propose sleeping in shifts in case someone broke in.

Because someone breaks in.

Everyone's wearing the same uniforms, so she doesn't know who these guys are working for, but she dives for Sue to shove him awake and fights them anyway, because they don't look friendly.

She's good. Sue's good, even just awakened from a nap.

But they can only move so fast - even Aegis; she does still have to use her real muscles, under all the copper - and they get tranked and bagged and hauled away in drugged sleep.
Edited 2013-03-06 20:21 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-06 08:31 pm (UTC)

And the next thing Sue knows, he's at Milliways again.

A little while later, he wakes up.
Edited 2013-03-17 02:20 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-03-17 04:15 am (UTC)

Where did you go? Jane wants to know. You were there and then you were gone and now you're back.

pythbox
2013-03-17 12:30 pm (UTC)

Oh. Milliways, he says. I guess. How was I not here? I was just dreaming. Did I go away?

mind_game
2013-03-17 04:37 pm (UTC)

I don't know about physically. There aren't cameras on you so I can't see you. But your linking-part was gone.

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:41 pm (UTC)

My what part?

mind_game
2013-03-17 04:42 pm (UTC)

The thing that I'm talking to right now.

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:43 pm (UTC)

...My mind?

mind_game
2013-03-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

I don't know. Maybe. You weren't living here anymore. Remember you showed me how I 'live' in Aegis? You weren't living anywhere I could see. But that doesn't have to be the same thing as your mind, because I live in Aegis but my mind's distributed all over the galaxy.

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:47 pm (UTC)

Which reminds him that he was recently kidnapped.

Sue opens his eyes.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 04:52 pm (UTC)

His cell is an approximately featureless metal box. It has a door (locked) and a tray of food (lousy) and a desk (offline). Aegis is not there.

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:54 pm (UTC)

Well, he can turn on the desk, for a start.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 04:58 pm (UTC)

The desk is crippled - it has no connectivity at all; any data intended to leave it will have to do so through a wired connection - but it's got some familiar programs on it. Military sims. He's not exactly being instructed to play with them, but there's nothing else to do.

pythbox
2013-03-17 04:59 pm (UTC)

Uh-huh. He shuts it off again. Then he tries the door.

Do you know anything about where I am? he asks Jane. For that matter, he can probably find out where Aegis is in relation to him, if she's close by; her mind is very distinctive.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 05:02 pm (UTC)

If Aegis is around, it's not near enough.

mind_game
2013-03-17 05:04 pm (UTC)

No. I lost visual track of you after you were taken off Eros. The people who grabbed you were enough of a mix that I can't confidently guess their affiliations but it's most likely based on background information to be Warsaw Pact. I think they've been in a communications blackout or they're working on a closed computer system.
Edited 2013-03-17 17:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:05 pm (UTC)

But if you can tell I wasn't here, how can you know without knowing where here is?

mind_game
2013-03-17 05:09 pm (UTC)

You weren't anywhere. You're like a beacon to me, you and Aegis, I could find you in another galaxy if you went to one, but I couldn't find you at all.

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:12 pm (UTC)

Hmm.

He tries linking Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 05:21 pm (UTC)

Nothing doing.

This is the sort of result he could expect if she were really, really mad at him.

Or if something else has happened to her.

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:23 pm (UTC)

...Aegis hasn't gone anywhere, right? Or you would've gone too. Can you tell anything about her? Is she okay?

mind_game
2013-03-17 05:24 pm (UTC)

She's still in the universe, Jane reports. I don't know if I'd go if she did - at least the way you did - I'm not just her, I only happen to live in her body, I'm her roommate. I can't talk to her directly without you relaying. I lost visual on her at the same time as you.

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:30 pm (UTC)

He thinks.

Then he tries looking for Aegis again, and failing that, looking for any minds in range.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 05:31 pm (UTC)

Aegis is no more accessible than before.

There are some minds around, though. They're not receptive to the possibility of linking, but they exist.

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:34 pm (UTC)

He is not trying to link them. He just wants to know where they all are.

He pushes his range. Ivy helps. The more he sees, the more he'll know about who's got him.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 05:36 pm (UTC)

There are minds for about two hundred yards around, sparse clusters of them, and then nothing for quite a long way beyond that.

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:40 pm (UTC)

And no one in that whole two-hundred-yard sphere is Aegis. He checks. Twice.

Well.

He knows he can tuck Ivy away in his mind, and she comes out again as good as new. And now he knows he can send his mind, or something like it, to Milliways, and it's just like being there himself. So in a sense he can untuck himself from out of his mind.

What happens if he tucks himself into his mind, and moves the whole thing to Milliways on purpose? Ivy didn't use to be able to get in and out while he was awake either, and now she can.

For a long moment, he stands there with his eyes closed, not moving. Nothing interesting happens at all.

And then, with a faint, faint golden sparkle, he vanishes.

It's instantly possible to tell he's in Milliways; the whole mental landscape has changed. He opens his eyes anyway, and then doesn't bother to close them again when he puts himself back where he was.

mind_game
2013-03-17 05:44 pm (UTC)

You went again, Jane says when he's back.

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:45 pm (UTC)

I know! This time I did it on purpose, he says brightly.

mind_game
2013-03-17 05:46 pm (UTC)

Ooh, how?

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:51 pm (UTC)

I don't know, I just—tucked myself away in myself and went. I'm going to try again.

He does. And this time he can send himself to the inside of Milliways, and then to the outside, and then two hundred feet up in the air, and then before he starts properly falling he can be back in his cell.

Before he really thinks about what he's doing, he puts his hands against the door and sends himself forward, just far enough to end up on the other side of it.

mind_game
2013-03-17 05:54 pm (UTC)

I wonder if I could tuck people into my mind and put them places?

autokinetic
2013-03-17 05:55 pm (UTC)

The hallway is institutional: linoleum, fluorescent light. Jackbooted guard over there who is very surprised to see Sue and goes for a stun gun on his belt.

pythbox
2013-03-17 05:56 pm (UTC)

Sue shifts himself much closer and punches the guard in the throat.

mind_game
2013-03-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

I have a big mind, Jane goes on conversationally. I bet it could fit a person. Especially you or Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

The guard coughs but doesn't go down, and he re-aims his stun gun.

pythbox
2013-03-17 06:53 pm (UTC)

Sue punches him in the throat again, much harder.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 06:54 pm (UTC)

The guard shoots. And chokes.

pythbox
2013-03-17 06:55 pm (UTC)

By the time he shoots, Sue is already behind him.

Where can you see to put people? he asks.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 06:56 pm (UTC)

The guard falls to his knees, clutching at his throat, dropping the gun.

mind_game
2013-03-17 06:57 pm (UTC)

I'm not sure. Do you mean see? Anywhere with a camera connected to something on the nets. Do you mean know where it is? Anywhere in astronomical maps.
Edited 2013-03-17 18:57 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:01 pm (UTC)

I have to know where I'm going if I want to go there, he says. I should find out where I am now.

He starts heading down the corridor.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 07:03 pm (UTC)

The corridor branches out at the end, left and right, and there's a guard in each section.

mind_game
2013-03-17 07:04 pm (UTC)

What do you have to know about it?

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:07 pm (UTC)

Dunno exactly, he says. Being able to see it from where I am seems to work just fine.

And he picks the corridor with the guard that is closer to him and shifts all the way to its opposite end.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 07:09 pm (UTC)

"What the hell -"

"Where'd he go?"

"Blue-nine to Command, 'War' has -"

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:11 pm (UTC)

- started punching people in the throat again?

Yep!

autokinetic
2013-03-17 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Blue-nine? Blue-nine, report," says Blue-nine's communicator.

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:14 pm (UTC)

Sue takes Blue-nine's communicator, and their stun gun for good measure, and skips nice and close to the other guard and shoots them with it.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 07:17 pm (UTC)

A stunning turn of events!

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:19 pm (UTC)

He keeps going.

It is much faster to traverse someplace like this when he can keep - teleporting, he supposes that's the word - as soon as he sights on a new destination.

What is the place, anyway? A ship? A station? He should be getting a pretty good idea by now.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 07:19 pm (UTC)

The gravity and the slope of the floors suggest that he's on Earth.

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:22 pm (UTC)

How the hell'd he get to Earth so fast? They must've been keeping him under for a while. Maybe Aegis isn't awake yet.

Well, sucks to be them. If he's on a planet, he can get outside, and then he'll be able to do this a lot faster.

How's your satellite imagery of Earth? he asks Jane.

mind_game
2013-03-17 07:25 pm (UTC)

It's swell! And she sends him a dizzily radial image of the entire planet from all directions at once. She can make out houses but probably not individual people except in the most heavily viewed areas - which would be more densely populated than this one seems. Like so!

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

Very nice, he says. If I get out in the open I'll try to match up and see where I am.

For now, though, he's just flickering through the complex as fast as he can. Is that a fire exit? That looks like a fire exit. He goes for it.

mind_game
2013-03-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

Apparently the complex is on some kind of lockdown, because it won't open. He does, however, manage to set off the fire alarm.

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:36 pm (UTC)

And with the fire alarm going, the fire exit still won't open? Fucking typical. He sizes up the door, and then teleports to the other side of it.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 07:37 pm (UTC)

It is coooooold.

Also, snowy.

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

He transmits this information to Jane, along with as much of a visual of his surroundings as he can stand to gather, and then he flicks back inside where it's warm.

mind_game
2013-03-17 07:44 pm (UTC)

It's snowing and cold a lot of places. I don't know how to turn what the temperature felt like to you into degrees Celsius, apologizes Jane.

And there are more guards coming, converging on his position.

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:58 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

And he starts flicking from guard to guard - hitting somebody once, very hard, in whatever vulnerable spot they're presenting at the moment, and then moving on before they can hit back.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 07:58 pm (UTC)

Yeah, they're not really equipped to deal with a prisoner who can teleport.

pythbox
2013-03-17 07:59 pm (UTC)

He's noticing that! It's fun.

They'll run out eventually, right?

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:00 pm (UTC)

Eventually, yep!

The fire alarm quits.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:02 pm (UTC)

Good, that was really annoying.

Okay, what next, what next... He tries linking Aegis again.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:03 pm (UTC)

Nope.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:05 pm (UTC)

Great. Okay.

Time to find some warmer clothes. And maybe a better weapon than these stun guns.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:06 pm (UTC)

Pretty much all the doors are locked. Teleporting into the rooms yields a supply closet (not an armory), empty cells, and - not empty cells.

That's not Aegis. It is, however, Qiaochu. He's awake, with a desk on his lap.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:10 pm (UTC)

Sue doesn't stay, but he does link him.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:11 pm (UTC)

Sue? What the - where'd you come from?

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:13 pm (UTC)

Learned how to teleport, he says. But I don't think I can take anybody with me, and I don't know how to open these doors. How long have you been up?

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:14 pm (UTC)

An hour. Where's Aegis?

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:14 pm (UTC)

Not close, and not answering. You know anything?

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:15 pm (UTC)

The food here sucks. That's all.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:25 pm (UTC)

I didn't try any, he says cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:26 pm (UTC)

What do you know?

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:27 pm (UTC)

Well, they had about twenty guards in the building, and all the ones I met are on the floor now. And it's cold out. I went outside for a bit and now I'm looking for a coat before I try that again.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:28 pm (UTC)

How the fuck are you teleporting, anyway?

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:31 pm (UTC)

I dunno! It feels like this, he says, sending as he makes his next jump.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:33 pm (UTC)

I can't make heads or tails of that, Qiaochu says.
Edited 2013-03-17 20:35 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:36 pm (UTC)

He laughs. Yeah, it's weird.

Okay, is there really nothing in this building but him, Qiaochu, some office supplies, and a lot of dead or unconscious guards?

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:39 pm (UTC)

Nope. If he goes far enough thataway, he can find some other jeesh members and random other kids from Command School, some awake, some asleep.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:44 pm (UTC)

He links everybody he passes and lets the ones he knows talk to each other. The rest, too, if they have anything useful to say.

Somehow, he doubts any of them knows where Aegis is.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:45 pm (UTC)

None of them do, no.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:50 pm (UTC)

Great.

He starts fiddling with Blue-Nine's communicator.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:51 pm (UTC)

It's apparently been turned off remotely.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:53 pm (UTC)

Of course it fucking has.

Any hardware experts among the assembled Battle School kids?

autokinetic
2013-03-17 08:54 pm (UTC)

There's one over there, one he doesn't know personally.

pythbox
2013-03-17 08:59 pm (UTC)

He drops a couple of communicators in their cell and starts examining the rest of the building more closely. Now that he's pretty familiar with the place, he can bounce around it without sighting on his destination exactly.

Hmm. Maybe he can go somewhere else he's familiar with.

How about his old room at Tactical?

autokinetic
2013-03-17 09:13 pm (UTC)

He can make half that trip.

And then he can't make the other half.

This is a strange unplace. There's no light, but there's nothing to see. There's no air, but no time is passing, and you can live without air for less than a moment; it doesn't even hurt. There's nothing -

There's minds.

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:15 pm (UTC)

Sue puts himself where the minds are. They don't have a direction or a distance, exactly, but the whole configuration has a familiar shape.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 09:19 pm (UTC)

Welcome to Milliways!

mind_game
2013-03-17 09:19 pm (UTC)

You're gone again, but this time I can still talk to you, it seems like, observes Jane.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:20 pm (UTC)

There's another copy of Aegis, over there, sipping at some juice.

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:24 pm (UTC)

Maybe because we were linked when I went, he says, flicking over to the Aegis-alike midsentence. As he does, he notices that it's different when he teleports in Milliways: between places in his world, there's a flicker of that no-space outside that he didn't notice until he teleported just now without it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh!" exclaims the Aegis-alike. "Hello -" She peers at him. "Sue? I'm Shell Bell."

mind_game
2013-03-17 09:26 pm (UTC)

Maybe! I want to learn how to do this.

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:29 pm (UTC)

"That's me," he says. "Still kidnapped, I forget if I put that in the book. But I learned how to come here not-in-my-sleep, so it's not as bad as it could be. Hey, do you have a nice warm coat I could borrow? Or if you're one of the magic ones, could you make me coldproof?"

Do what, move people around? How?

mind_game
2013-03-17 09:30 pm (UTC)

By tucking them away into my mind, same way you're tucking yourself. I have lots of mind, I bet I could hold somebody besides me.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:31 pm (UTC)

"...You aren't asleep? But you just -" Shell Bell waves a hand. "Appeared. You didn't come through the door. I'm one of the magic ones; yours is the only one left we've gotten in any form of contact with who isn't."

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:32 pm (UTC)

He teleports three feet to the left, then back.

Well, who do you want to teleport, and to where?

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh! Wow! If you haven't met a magic one yet how are you doing that?"

mind_game
2013-03-17 09:33 pm (UTC)

Maybe Aegis to where you are?

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:36 pm (UTC)

Good plan, he says immediately. Try it!

"It's the same way as I do it when I'm sleeping," he explains. "I think. It feels like—well, if you're magic I guess I can't show you. It's almost like linking except linking a place instead of a person, and it's almost like,"

"coming out of his head," says Ivy from his shoulder as a fennec fox, "except it's different because his head's still there when I do that, and when he does it he moves all of him."

mind_game
2013-03-17 09:37 pm (UTC)

Okay!

Pause.

This is hard!

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:40 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not natively magic like some of them," Shell Bell says, "I don't know if my defensive wish will block you or not. Is that - Ivy? Amariah wrote about her but Juliet didn't see any sign of her when you visited Sunshine later."

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:42 pm (UTC)

"That's me," says Ivy. "I'm sneaky and hideable!"

She vanishes in a flicker of golden light. Sue giggles.

I know it is, he says to Jane. It must be, to move somebody who's not you, when you've never done anything like it before.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Wow. Okay. I guess that probably happened because you got her when you were dreaming?"

mind_game
2013-03-17 09:45 pm (UTC)

I think I've almost got it.

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Guess so," he shrugs. "Anyway, can you coldproof me?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I can, but why do you need to be coldproofed?"

autokinetic
2013-03-17 09:47 pm (UTC)

Here's Aegis, landing pretty much right on top of Sue and slumping to the floor in drug-addled sleep.

mind_game
2013-03-17 09:47 pm (UTC)

Well, I put her somewhere, is she with you? I was aiming for you!

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:51 pm (UTC)

"...Way, way better idea," says Sue. "Wake her up!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:52 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell wakes Aegis up.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Mrrh huh? Sue?" says Aegis, sitting up and blinking. She spots Shell Bell. "Whoa. Whoa. What happened?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Aegis. I'm Shell Bell," says Shell Bell. "This is Milliways. I have no idea how you got here."

autokinetic
2013-03-17 09:55 pm (UTC)

"That makes two of us."

Sue will notice that Aegis's mind is still declining to respond to him, even though she is clearly awake and doesn't look like she's mad at him.

pythbox
2013-03-17 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Jane did it," says Sue. Yeah, she's here! "But guys, we kind of have a whole building full of kidnapped Battle School kids to worry about."

autokinetic
2013-03-17 09:58 pm (UTC)

"It was more than just us? Can Jane get them out, too?"

mind_game
2013-03-17 09:59 pm (UTC)

I'm awesome, says Jane.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Shell Bell, "I could just mint you and give you some starter coins. I don't walk around without plenty of coins on me since that unfortunate missed opportunity with Juliet. But I want to know how you got here, because coins don't cut it with getting into Milliways at will - Juliet can do it but she can't expect to reliably meet anybody no matter how many times she visits. It kills our ability to coordinate."

autokinetic
2013-03-17 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes please to coins. Jane's a - a computer-person. Apparently she can also put me in Milliways? Sue-my-bird, can you catch me up real quick?"

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:02 pm (UTC)

"I can't even touch you," he says, "are you mad at me or something?"

autokinetic
2013-03-17 10:04 pm (UTC)

"No! Why would I be mad at you?"

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:05 pm (UTC)

He shrugs helplessly. "Well, I'm shoving on you and you're a great big wall."

autokinetic
2013-03-17 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I can't even feel you knocking..."

She frowns and rolls up her sleeves. Sure enough, there's a puncture mark inside her left elbow.

"People keep fucking drugging me. They must've shot me full of C-12 or something so I couldn't link you. Coins please?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:06 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell hands over a bandolier.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 10:07 pm (UTC)

Aegis takes it, counts its contents, and wishes.

The wall is gone. Not just back to normal, but gone. "There. How's that?"

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:10 pm (UTC)

Grinning hugely, he catches her up.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Oh well done Jane," murmurs Aegis, aloud and through the link to Jane herself both.

mind_game
2013-03-17 10:12 pm (UTC)

Yes. I am very excellent, Jane replies.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:13 pm (UTC)

"This is amazing," murmurs Shell Bell. "If she can take you anywhere - look, Sue, can you get me into the link too, or is the star wish blocking you?"

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:14 pm (UTC)

He knocks.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:20 pm (UTC)

The star defense considers him, then lets him by, like a tempermental automatic sliding door.

Shell Bell contributes some serious brainpower to the link. She's not Jane or the hive queens, but she's boosted.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 10:21 pm (UTC)

Aegis promptly catches up her alt on all the goings-on.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:26 pm (UTC)

There ensues a back-and-forth of rapid-fire theorizing - interspersed with Aegis copying most of the Bell standard superpowers - that ends with one conclusion:

They should see if Sue can link between multiple worlds, and not just between a world and Milliways.

mind_game
2013-03-17 10:27 pm (UTC)

I think I found your building! Jane says, meanwhile. Someone can't resist downloading porn onto the nice clean network, and I got all the plans. I think I could pick up the whole thing, underground tunnels and all, and put it in the middle of the Hegemony complex, would that be good?

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:31 pm (UTC)

Go for it, he says gleefully to Jane.

To the Bells, I think it makes a difference if I'm linking someone while I go somewhere or not.
Edited 2013-03-17 22:31 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-03-17 10:32 pm (UTC)

Okay. Pause. Done!

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:34 pm (UTC)

So we'll see if you can keep me in, if I step out the door, and if that works I can try closing it, suggests Shell Bell. Actually, let me see if I can force the door to Juliet's world. She's got a Jarvis who will be able to make a door back right away.

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:35 pm (UTC)

I love you, he sends to Jane, and taps the people inside to see if they got shook up any.

Meanwhile, to Shell Bell, Knock yourself out.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:36 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell goes to the door, stares it down for a moment, and then opens it up.

"Hi, Jarvis," she says to the empty living room of the brick house.

mind_game
2013-03-17 10:37 pm (UTC)

That's because I'm awesome, says Jane.

The people in the building had no idea that they'd moved until Sue poked them, actually! But they are pretty pleased about the change of locale when informed.

poeticterms
2013-03-17 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Jarvis. "Fancy seeing you here."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Forced the door. Aegis has finally come to Milliways, and she didn't dream her way there and she didn't use a door - we're experimenting with Sue's linking now. Seems to work if the door's open. If you don't mind I'd like to try closing the door for just a moment, then opening it right away? Actually - you know what - it'd be interesting if we could try having Sue add you to his telepathic linkup, would you mind?"

poeticterms
2013-03-17 10:41 pm (UTC)

"No," he says, "that would be perfectly interesting."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:43 pm (UTC)

Sue, can you incorporate Jarvis from there? Or if you come through this door to Sunshine?

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:45 pm (UTC)

He tries.

Whoa, rush, he says, impressed.

mind_game
2013-03-17 10:46 pm (UTC)

Hi, who're you? I'm Jane, says Jane happily.

poeticterms
2013-03-17 10:50 pm (UTC)

Hello, Jane, says Jarvis. I am Jarvis. I'm a house.

He sends a reasonable summary of what this actually means, in the kind of sensory terms that make sense to a house. "Ooh, cool," murmurs Sue.

mind_game
2013-03-17 10:52 pm (UTC)

I'm an ansible network! replies Jane, much in kind. She is as always rather heedless of the receiving party's bandwidth limitations.

poeticterms
2013-03-17 10:53 pm (UTC)

With both of them in the link, bandwidth limitations are not a tremendous issue.

Interesting, says Jarvis.

mind_game
2013-03-17 10:55 pm (UTC)

I think so. I was an accident.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 10:55 pm (UTC)

The best accident, says Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:57 pm (UTC)

Yeah, agrees Sue. Hey, to Shell Bell, are you gonna close the door or what?

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 10:58 pm (UTC)

And potentially interrupt this charming conversation? But yes.

She shuts the door.

pythbox
2013-03-17 10:59 pm (UTC)

The link keeps up just fine.

Now what?

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 11:00 pm (UTC)

Now I want to see if Jane can put people in other worlds, says Shell Bell. After getting a look at them.

mind_game
2013-03-17 11:00 pm (UTC)

Okay!

autokinetic
2013-03-17 11:01 pm (UTC)

Aegis lands a little more gracefully, this time.

"...Cool."

poeticterms
2013-03-17 11:02 pm (UTC)

Fascinating, says Jarvis.

mind_game
2013-03-17 11:04 pm (UTC)

I wonder if ansibles can link up between worlds? Then I wouldn't need Sue to aim, anymore, says Jane.

autokinetic
2013-03-17 11:05 pm (UTC)

Show us how they're made and we can conjure one up, although I don't know if they'll connect to a network from as early as 2005 without serious compatibility issues unless Jarvis wants to act as a translator.

poeticterms
2013-03-17 11:07 pm (UTC)

I am sure I can manage.

mind_game
2013-03-17 11:08 pm (UTC)

I look at everything that's hooked up to me. I can't not read it, Jane warns. None of it's been a person besides me before, but...

poeticterms
2013-03-17 11:11 pm (UTC)

Could I isolate you to a subsystem? Perhaps we should get Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 11:12 pm (UTC)

[Hey, Tony!]

toblameforit
2013-03-17 11:14 pm (UTC)

[???]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 11:15 pm (UTC)

[Two of Juliet's alts are here - I'm Shell Bell, the other is Aegis - and we have a technical issue for you. We're in Jarvis's living room.]

toblameforit
2013-03-17 11:16 pm (UTC)

[It's like, ugly o'clock in the morning,] he says. [Is it an urgent technical issue?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 11:18 pm (UTC)

[It could easily solve the problem of controllable interdimensional travel that doesn't rely on Milliways. I can magic away the sleepy if you want.]

toblameforit
2013-03-17 11:19 pm (UTC)

[Go for it,] he says, sounding more alert already.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 11:19 pm (UTC)

Sue, can you link up Tony, too?

And a square for wakefulness.
Edited 2013-03-17 23:21 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-17 11:22 pm (UTC)

Sue links up Tony too.

toblameforit
2013-03-17 11:22 pm (UTC)

Nice! So what's up?

mind_game
2013-03-17 11:25 pm (UTC)

I'm an ansible network! I can pick people and things up and put them down in other places. I know where everything is in my world which Aegis hasn't named yet, and I can use Sue's link to aim, and I think if I had an anchor here I could aim here too, and then everyone could go wherever they wanted anywhere I had an anchor! But I automatically read everything that goes through me, and "me" is everything connected to an ansible. Jarvis thinks I could possibly be on an isolated subsystem of some kind. I don't know if you can do that. I ghost through every security protocol invented at home like they don't exist and we're farther in the future than you.

toblameforit
2013-03-17 11:27 pm (UTC)

Sure I can do that, snorts Tony. Tell me more about your computers.

mind_game
2013-03-17 11:28 pm (UTC)

Oversharing time!

toblameforit
2013-03-17 11:30 pm (UTC)

Tony... processes.

Then he trots up the stairs in his bunny pajamas and says, "Somebody wanna gimme some pentagons so I can get this show on the road?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-17 11:31 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell hands over half a dozen. "Will this do, or do you need more? And I don't think I've met this exact you, but - I'm Shell Bell, I have one of you at home." Hugs?

toblameforit
2013-03-17 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I bet this'll do me," he says, accepting the handful of coins and hugging back.

"Okay, so if I wish up both halves of the - why am I saying this out loud," he says, and repeats himself over the link, finishing with, - ansible here, you can grab one and take it back home, right, Jane? And that's all you need?

mind_game
2013-03-17 11:36 pm (UTC)

I think so! I haven't done this before, says Jane.

toblameforit
2013-03-17 11:46 pm (UTC)

Okay, well, I'll give it a shot.

And he thinks for a few seconds, hefting his handful of pentagons, and then turns and goes back downstairs.

It takes some narrowing-down, but he manages to fit all his desired conjurations onto the coins and hook it all up to the rest of the house. Then he shows Jane the results, explaining, You've got a lot of processing and storage down here that you can have for whatever you want, but no direct link to Jarvis - I put in what amounts to a data airlock, you can move stuff back and forth but you're never on the same network at the same time. It'll be kinda laggy by your standards, but okay by ours.
Edited 2013-03-17 23:46 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-03-17 11:58 pm (UTC)

Jane swipes one of the ansible halves and tucks it away in a data complex and sends the nearest sysadmin a desk message "from his supervisor" telling him to hook it up.

Presently she pours some self into the sub-basement. Well, it's pokey and I can't see or hear anything, but here I am... She picks up Aegis and puts her near that piece-of-self. And I can aim with it, as long as it's all right for everyone to have to come and go through this basement since I can't see anything.

toblameforit
2013-03-18 12:01 am (UTC)

Well, I could give you internet, but I don't want you to eat Jarvis by accident.

mind_game
2013-03-18 12:02 am (UTC)

I don't want to eat him! I just don't know how not to look at things, and everything in a computer I look at is located in me after that instead of out of me.

toblameforit
2013-03-18 12:04 am (UTC)

Could you try to figure it out?

mind_game
2013-03-18 12:07 am (UTC)

Yes.

Jane thinks pretty fast. There's barely a pause before she says:

I seem to automatically copy code into computers I touch. I didn't notice I was doing it because it just feels like looking at them. Can he spit me out if I do it to him?

poeticterms
2013-03-18 12:09 am (UTC)

I believe I can, he says.

mind_game
2013-03-18 12:10 am (UTC)

It looks like this! And she shows him looking-at-things code, in all the myriad variations depending on what she's looking at.

poeticterms
2013-03-18 12:13 am (UTC)

There are enough different architectures involved that he suspects she wouldn't have much trouble translating to his. He studies the snippets carefully, then reports that yes, he knows what they taste like now.

mind_game
2013-03-18 12:14 am (UTC)

Can I see the nets now, then?

toblameforit
2013-03-18 12:16 am (UTC)

Tony doesn't have a big enough coin on hand, so he sends to Shell Bell the exact parameters necessary to wish Jane access to their high-speed Internet connection.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 12:16 am (UTC)

Poof!

mind_game
2013-03-18 12:17 am (UTC)

Jane pours herself onto the internet without further delay.

The link gets noticeably bulkier.

pythbox
2013-03-18 12:17 am (UTC)

...Nice.

poeticterms
2013-03-18 12:18 am (UTC)

Jarvis successfully spits out all of Jane's tangible intrusions into his system.

mind_game
2013-03-18 12:21 am (UTC)

Jane learns what it is like to be spat out. This permits her to learn to stop doing that quite so automatically.

Meanwhile, the other Battle Schoolers, who have been dumped into the Hegemony complex, report that some local police have finally entered the building and started letting them out. A couple of the kids aren't any happier about being in the Hegemony's hands than the Warsaw Pact's.

autokinetic
2013-03-18 12:22 am (UTC)

If you're put someplace you don't want to be, Aegis tells them, I can fix it. Just sit tight for the time being.

How, just because you're Admiral Peace? asks Qiaochu. (Apparently everyone has settled on Sue being War and Aegis being Peace now.)

I'm Admiral Peace and I can do anything, says Aegis.
Edited 2013-03-18 00:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-18 12:27 am (UTC)

We scooped you up once, we can do it again, says Sue. Yell if you need us.

autokinetic
2013-03-18 12:28 am (UTC)

The Battle Schoolers subside after that.

Aegis claps coppered hands together. What's next?

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 12:29 am (UTC)

Next we grab Juliet and take her with us and we anchor Jane everywhere we can so we can take Downside. Downside has to be the top priority. There are trillions of people there.

[Juliet!]
Edited 2013-03-18 00:31 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 12:32 am (UTC)

[...Yeah?]

And to Sherlock: "One of my alts is here visiting."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 12:33 am (UTC)

[It's Shell Bell. And Aegis. And Aegis has solved interdimensional travel for us, all we have to do is install Jane in every world we need to be able to get to!]

Sue, can you link Juliet too...?

pythbox
2013-03-18 12:35 am (UTC)

I tried once, it's like she's not even there.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 12:36 am (UTC)

[Sue can't link you but I can relay whatever,] Shell Bell adds.

autokinetic
2013-03-18 12:38 am (UTC)

Um, says Aegis, and she just adds herself and Sue and Jane to the brainphone directly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 12:39 am (UTC)

[Silly me, Sue can relay, he's good at relaying.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 12:39 am (UTC)

Juliet blinks.

"Aegis and Shell Bell are here, we've got a fix for the interdimensional travel issue, we're going to go tag all the others in on the transport and storm Downside, wanna come?" she says to Sherlock. "Also they're doing a psychic linky thing that I can't join but you could."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-18 12:40 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Sherlock. "Will there be violence? Probably not. I'll pass, thanks."

pythbox
2013-03-18 12:41 am (UTC)

Sue giggles into the link. I love you, Aegis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 12:42 am (UTC)

"Okay. I will return as a co-queen of the afterlife," says Juliet, and she kisses him and teleports to join her counterparts.

[Let's do this.]

autokinetic
2013-03-18 12:42 am (UTC)

Who's next?

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 12:44 am (UTC)

I've been to Golden's and to Angela's, but not Amariah's or Stella's. Sue, you've been to Amariah's, haven't you? Shell Bell asks, heading for the door and pushing a wish that it lead to Milliways.

pythbox
2013-03-18 12:45 am (UTC)

Yep!

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 12:47 am (UTC)

Let's see if you can get the door to take you by asking nicely. Some people can. If you can't I can make a star safe for you and you can try forcing it like I did to Juliet's.

i am the oncoming storm

belltower

There are three Bells in Milliways.

They want a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. A seventh.

And then Downside is going down.

This is a branching point; there are 7 continuations from here.

pythbox
2013-03-18 12:56 am (UTC)

Okay, says Sue, I'll give it a shot.

He looks around.

...Where's the door?

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 12:57 am (UTC)

Where is the door? That's weird. Well - can you 'port there? Do you remember the place well enough?

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:01 am (UTC)

He tries it.

...Well, I found 'em all right...

dark_light
2013-03-18 01:03 am (UTC)

"Ack!"

No nudity taboo, maybe, but that doesn't extend as far as you might think. (It does mean Amariah doesn't bother to square on her silks, just pulls herself out from under Kas.

"What are you doing here? How'd you get here?"

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:05 am (UTC)

Sue laughs.

"Sorry, guys! I just - fuck it," he says, and tries linking her. This will be a lot easier if he can catch her up the fast way.

dark_light
2013-03-18 01:06 am (UTC)

Amariah's birth blessing is unlike Juliet's insubstantiality; she folds in just fine.

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:07 am (UTC)

He hits her with his best summary and displays her to the rest of the group.

dark_light
2013-03-18 01:10 am (UTC)

Okay, says Amariah, processing, so we set up Jane here and she can put me in Milliways to join the party? Hit me, I've got coins going spare to conjure the hardware and hook her up.

truthwright
2013-03-18 01:12 am (UTC)

(Kas, meanwhile, is giggling. Jokers don't embarrass easy.)

toblameforit
2013-03-18 01:13 am (UTC)

Tony, back in Sunshine, provides the specs for ansible-and-connected-hardware-and-power-and-internet. The airlock was the most complex part, and Amariah doesn't need one; the whole thing could probably fit in a pentagon or two.
Edited 2013-03-18 01:14 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-03-18 01:15 am (UTC)

And it does. Amariah stuffs everything in a brand-new basement.

mind_game
2013-03-18 01:16 am (UTC)

Jane triangulates with Sue, swipes a half-ansible, and manages to plug it in on her end all by herself with sufficiently precise imagination.

She swallows up Alethia's internet too. Om nom nom.

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:18 am (UTC)

Okay, says Sue, so I guess now you bring Amariah to Milliways...?

dark_light
2013-03-18 01:22 am (UTC)

"Gonna go work on a project, sweeties," Amariah says, planting a kiss on boyfriend and daemon and collecting Path from Petaal. She squares on a set of silks as she gets to her feet. "I'll be back after rescuing a few trillion people from Hell."

Yeah, I'm all set, grab me.

mind_game
2013-03-18 01:22 am (UTC)

Yoink!

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:23 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Sue. "Okay, who's next?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 01:25 am (UTC)

"Let's get Golden. She may have been to Eos, or have someone who has - otherwise I don't know how we'll get Stella. We could do without her but I'd rather not."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 01:25 am (UTC)

"I get to meet everybody on my first day as part of the greater Bell community, awesome," says Aegis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 01:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah, lucky you, I waited forever," laughs Juliet, "I had shit luck."

mind_game
2013-03-18 01:26 am (UTC)

Hurry up! I want to eat another Internet. They are delicious.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 01:27 am (UTC)

Shell Bell laughs and forces the door to Aurum.

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:28 am (UTC)

"It's 'cause of me," Sue says smugly; also, I love you, Jane. You're the cutest Internet-eating ansible person.

mind_game
2013-03-18 01:31 am (UTC)

Jane loves him right back!

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 01:33 am (UTC)

Golden, summoned by brainphone, appears.

To Sue, her mind isn't so much walled off or insubstantial as it is not in the correct sphere of existence. He can detect a shadow - she isn't Juliet's absence-of-a-person - but her mind definitely declines to be interacted with.

At Shell Bell's verbal summary, Golden says, "Let's do this, then."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 01:34 am (UTC)

"I can presumably get to Samaria just fine, but Eos..."

dark_light
2013-03-18 01:37 am (UTC)

"The coins - the mint powers - come from Eos - can we use that?" asks Amariah.

autokinetic
2013-03-18 01:37 am (UTC)

"Worth a try, but grab Angela first?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 01:38 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

Door. Hmm, looks like Angela and Micaiah aren't in their quarters right now.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 01:40 am (UTC)

But they're still brainphoneable.

And Angela's as linkable as Shell Bell is.

"...Love, I'm going to go join all the other Bells on the Downside project," says Angela. "After installing something on the ship really quick."

Show me what to conjure?

toblameforit
2013-03-18 01:41 am (UTC)

I don't know your world's technology from a hole in the ground. Get me some specs and I'll tell you.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-18 01:41 am (UTC)

Micaiah hugs his angel. "Okay," he says. "Love you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 01:43 am (UTC)

Hugs! Teleportation!

"Get me a complete technical specification of your computing hardware by text brainphone," she commands the ship, and she funnels it to Tony as it comes. They're laughably oversupplied with processing power right now.

toblameforit
2013-03-18 01:46 am (UTC)

Tony gets it all through his mind in the blink of an eye, and designs her an ansible installation to hook directly into Jovah's processing centers.

Also, holy shit, is her planet's god really a dumb AI? That is terrifying and he hopes Jane eats it.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 01:47 am (UTC)

I have it under control, now, but she's welcome to it. Angela conjures the hardware, and hooks it up.

mind_game
2013-03-18 01:48 am (UTC)

Snackable, says Jane. She projects her face onto one of the screens. "Hi! Ready to go?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 01:48 am (UTC)

"All set."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 01:49 am (UTC)

Now they are six.

Shell Bell tries the door, tries to tell the coin to wish for its own home, the origin of minting...

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:50 am (UTC)

...and it opens on Stella's moon palace.

self_composed
2013-03-18 01:52 am (UTC)

And there's Stella.

"Shell Bell! How'd you get here?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 01:52 am (UTC)

Shell Bell beams. "Let's see if Sue can explain it the quick way."

self_composed
2013-03-18 01:53 am (UTC)

"Sue? The tiny Whistle is back?"

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:53 am (UTC)

He taps Stella.

self_composed
2013-03-18 01:54 am (UTC)

Her power is like Golden's, but friendlier. It assesses him and lets him by.

Ooh, says Bella. Spiffy. All right, I'll just give Jane a server room here, then, shall I?

mind_game
2013-03-18 01:56 am (UTC)

Jane talks her through, and she eats up another Internet in short order, and Stella walks into Milliways to join the peal of Bells.

self_composed
2013-03-18 01:56 am (UTC)

[Gonna go wreck Downside with the whole gang,] Stella adds to Alice, Lazarus, and Libby before she goes.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-18 01:57 am (UTC)

[Have fun!]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-18 01:57 am (UTC)

[Love you!]

pythbox
2013-03-18 01:58 am (UTC)

"All right," says Sue. "So does anybody here have an actual plan?"

self_composed
2013-03-18 01:59 am (UTC)

Everyone

autokinetic
2013-03-18 01:59 am (UTC)

looks

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 02:00 am (UTC)

straight

dark_light
2013-03-18 02:00 am (UTC)

at

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 02:00 am (UTC)

Shell

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 02:00 am (UTC)

Bell.

arenaria
2013-03-18 02:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Shell Bell, expression set. "Yeah. I do."

pythbox
2013-03-18 02:01 am (UTC)

"You wanna share that shit with the class?"

arenaria
2013-03-18 07:20 am (UTC)

"It was designed to work with as few as four of us, so with seven, I'll stay solo hanging out here in case something goes wrong, and the rest of you can pair off. One pair to scope out Upside because we don't know anything about it. Angela will stand out least there, I think, she's been historically harmless by their standards. Someone should visit some of the Downsiders for advice on how to present the takeover to the residents, and also make the wishes we know need making - nix torturer's control, first of all. Both of those groups should also install eyes-for-Jane as they go so she can reach in. And someone should go - cloaked as all get out - and spy on the administration."
Edited 2013-03-18 07:21 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 07:22 am (UTC)

"Upside. All right. Who's with me?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 07:23 am (UTC)

"I'll take it."

self_composed
2013-03-18 07:23 am (UTC)

"I'll check out Downside."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 07:24 am (UTC)

"Me too."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 07:25 am (UTC)

"Leaves me and Amariah spying on the admin, all right," says Aegis.

dark_light
2013-03-18 07:25 am (UTC)

"And the ones who can't link are with ones who can, good, and are we all caught up on our stacks of standard powers, what else do we need to be cloaking against on Team Admin?"

arenaria
2013-03-18 07:28 am (UTC)

"It's probably best to assume the admin has all the various powers that are assigned to anyone in Downside ever - control, immunity to same, seeing your history at a glance. Language-imprinting, if that matters. And probably a few other things up her sleeve. Maybe walk into my apartment, first, and then wish directly to be imperceptible to her."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 07:28 am (UTC)

"What does our bailout plan look like?" asks Aegis.

arenaria
2013-03-18 07:29 am (UTC)

"If somebody goes off the grid, Jane tries first, and if she can't get whoever it is I lean into my apartment, I wish you out - with an arrow, if I have to - we all bail, and we regroup and figure out what went wrong."

self_composed
2013-03-18 07:30 am (UTC)

"I've got four arrows. What about the rest of you?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 07:30 am (UTC)

"Haven't gotten around to trying yet."

dark_light
2013-03-18 07:31 am (UTC)

"Didn't even know they were a thing until recently."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 07:31 am (UTC)

"Nothing since the batch Shell Bell took."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 07:31 am (UTC)

"Don't look at me."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 07:32 am (UTC)

"Me and Sue are brand-new to this, so obviously no."

arenaria
2013-03-18 07:33 am (UTC)

"I've got the original set of five. Let's every Bell but me have one and I'll have three because I'm anchor?" [Mine're safe,] she adds to Bells only.

self_composed
2013-03-18 07:34 am (UTC)

Consensus is immediate; arrows - and evils - are distributed until everyone has the correct number.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 07:35 am (UTC)

"Do any of us want to stop and pick up any of our staff before charging in, or is it just going to be us seven and Sue - plus Jane and Jarvis and Juliet's Tony? I'm somewhat considering Nathan. Possibly also the Joker."
Edited 2013-03-18 07:35 (UTC)

arenaria
2013-03-18 07:36 am (UTC)

"That depends. Sue, how many can you link at once?"

pythbox
2013-03-18 11:00 am (UTC)

"More than I've got," he says. "And I've got twenty kids in my world that I can drop to make room as long as Jane keeps an eye on them."

toblameforit
2013-03-18 11:04 am (UTC)

This is more of a long-term thing, says Tony, but we might wanna give Jane a master node at Milliways with direct ansible links to every world of interest. Makes more sense than leaving her hub in her world with the links all under the physical control of people who don't know she exists.

He's already designing one, although it'd take more physical room than they've got in the Belltower. Maybe it's time to move that outside.

pythbox
2013-03-18 11:07 am (UTC)

(Sue bounces him to all interested parties via link or brainphone, as appropriate.)

mind_game
2013-03-18 04:35 pm (UTC)

Can't scare me, says Jane.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I'll get Nathan to introduce the Downside-exploring contingent to his friends, and the Joker for emergency coining, in the event that we run out of something big," says Golden, and she leans into Aurum to issue the summons.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 04:37 pm (UTC)

[I'll leave Kerron with Esme and catch up?] suggests Nathan to his mate.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-18 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] he says, and gives Nathan a hug and a kiss, and teleports to Golden.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 04:41 pm (UTC)

Nathan catches up a moment later. "You want me to introduce some Bells to Eights and get an entrez to the other famous folks, I gather?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Yes. So you'll be with Juliet and Stella," says Golden, pointing them out to him. "Joker, you're emergency-mint, assuming you have no particular objection; you stay behind with Shell Bell and Sue."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-18 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing," he says cheerfully.

toblameforit
2013-03-18 04:48 pm (UTC)

(Meanwhile, Tony requests that Jane bring him to Milliways to ask Bar for permission to install, and then outside to scout locations for, a Jane-hub and potential new Belltower. Any Bells with processing cycles to spare are welcome to comment.)

mind_game
2013-03-18 04:49 pm (UTC)

Yoink!

autokinetic
2013-03-18 04:51 pm (UTC)

"We ready to go?" She pauses, snaps her fingers. "Amariah - can you tuck Path away like Sue can Ivy? Be safer that way."
Edited 2013-03-18 16:53 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-03-18 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Path's had enforced personal space against people in general since about a minute after I got minted, but good idea anyway," says Amariah. "Is it completely under Sue and Ivy's control when she's in and when she's out or should I do something other than copy it directly?"

toblameforit
2013-03-18 04:58 pm (UTC)

(Bar has no problem with him adding a modestly sized tower out back in his location of choice. He stops by the peal to grab some coins from anybody who feels like dispensing them—he should only need a couple of hexes and a handful of pentagons, and he doesn't expect to use all of them.)

pythbox
2013-03-18 05:00 pm (UTC)

Ivy appears, wrapped around Sue's shoulders as a bright yellow snake.

"Sometimes I come out or go back in our sleep," she says. "But other than that, we only do it on purpose. And it always works."

dark_light
2013-03-18 05:02 pm (UTC)

"All right." Amariah kisses Path's head, and makes a little wince while he hoots softly, and wishes, and Path is tucked away.

self_composed
2013-03-18 05:02 pm (UTC)

Stella already has a design for a tower-shaped Belltower socked away; she bounces it to Tony as long as he's going to be making one.

autokinetic
2013-03-18 05:03 pm (UTC)

"You and me go in, make our wishes, see if they work? If they don't, if the admin can see us no matter what, what do we do?" Aegis says to Amariah.

dark_light
2013-03-18 05:04 pm (UTC)

"...If it doesn't work, maybe only one of us should risk getting near her," Amariah says. "Or on the other hand maybe it's worth sending three people and we should take Golden with us on the suspicion that Upside's relatively safe."

arenaria
2013-03-18 05:08 pm (UTC)

"If it doesn't work," says Shell Bell, "then you two - go to the catacombs, see if there's any alts of us or people we don't know still in pre-processing who we can get out even if we can't help everyone. We can make a dent in the place and regroup even if it turns out not to be safe for us to knock it all down."

self_composed
2013-03-18 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I should get Mary." Stella opens the door. [Hey Mary! Me and some Bells are going to conquer an afterlife, you'd be useful, c'mere?]

pythbox
2013-03-18 05:26 pm (UTC)

[...Sure,] says Mary, and she goes there.

toblameforit
2013-03-18 05:27 pm (UTC)

(Tony edits the Belltower design appropriately to merge it with his Jane installation, shows the result to the Bells for approval, and heads out to find somewhere to put it.)
Edited 2013-03-18 17:28 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-03-18 05:29 pm (UTC)

(The Bells approve.)

"You don't need to be in a world to see stuff in it, right? You were here in Milliways when you consulted for Golden and the Joker. Sue, patch Mary in, would you?"

pythbox
2013-03-18 05:33 pm (UTC)

He patches her in and relays appropriate summaries.

She frowns.

"...Giant blank spot," she reports. "I get a little around the edges, but it's all very short-term. Mostly it's 'no answer'."
Edited 2013-03-18 17:35 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-03-18 05:40 pm (UTC)

(And lo, there is a tower. It comes equipped with four times as many ansibles as they actually need to link up the existing array of worlds; that way there'll be spares for later. The ansible room, two floors below ground, and the meeting room on the floor above it both have cameras and mics and Jarvis-style projection equipment for Jane, and the main common room on the ground floor has a computer she can access.)

mind_game
2013-03-18 05:42 pm (UTC)

Jane plugs in ansibles to her stations in Samaria, Aurum, Alethia, Sunshine, Eos, and her original unnamed world; she hasn't got her hooks into Atlantis yet. She pours into the new hardware happily; if she's ever going to run out of capacity to grow, it's not going to be soon. "Hi!" she says to Tony, showing off her chosen face.
Edited 2013-03-18 17:46 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-03-18 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, crap. What do you get around the edges? Has anything like this happened before?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if it's worth trying Alice. I'll fetch her."

A moment later Golden's Alice is fetched. She, unlike Mary, does need to be in the world that she's looking at, but the moment Shell Bell offers up Downside, she recoils. "That world and my sight do not get along. That's worse than looking at hybrids and wolves before I patched those holes." She uses one of the glowy gold squares on her not-invisible necklace to fix her headache. "Bleah. Sorry, Bella."

"It's all right. You can go home," murmurs Golden.

pythbox
2013-03-18 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Not on this scale, but I do get blank spots sometimes," says Mary. "I can usually just work around them, or make reasonable guesses like everybody else."

And since the link is right there, she pushes into it a rough sense of the distributions she's getting around this venture - no matter what they do, the Bells are going to end up in the blank spot if they enter Downside; before that point, they may tend to express various levels of positivity and negativity about the results of the expedition, depending on details of their plans that aren't clear to her; around the edges of the blank spot itself, the clearest constant is that Shell Bell is going to be nervous and unhappy for a while, and all the Bells are eventually going to leave Downside. The blank spot swallows up what kind of condition they'll be in when they do, and when exactly that might be for each of them.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 05:54 pm (UTC)

"We all get out eventually," says Golden. "That's something."

arenaria
2013-03-18 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should get Sherlock. Just to hold onto," murmurs Shell Bell.

self_composed
2013-03-18 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Does anything meaningful that you can see change if fewer of us go through, or if we handle our jobs in different combinations?"

pythbox
2013-03-18 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Some effect on Shell Bell's mood," she reports, "but getting Sherlock has a much bigger one. No effect on you all coming out eventually, that's still as certain as it gets."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 05:59 pm (UTC)

"...I get out too, right?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 05:59 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell wastes no further time in dooring to Atlantis and calling for Sherlock.

pythbox
2013-03-18 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Mary.

toblameforit
2013-03-18 06:01 pm (UTC)

(Meanwhile, Tony is chatting happily with Jane.)

sicaria
2013-03-18 06:02 pm (UTC)

Sherlock appears when summoned.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 06:04 pm (UTC)

"We've figured out how to move from place to place without waiting for Milliways," murmurs Shell Bell, "and got everybody together, but Stella's precog says whatever happens I'm not going to have a fun time of it, even though I'm just sitting here to hold the door and bail them out if necessary. Will you stay with me?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Link Sherlock up too, Sue," suggests Juliet.

sicaria
2013-03-18 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Of course," she says, hugging Shell Bell.

arenaria
2013-03-18 06:07 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"What else, before Aegis and Amariah go in, can anyone else think of anything?"

autokinetic
2013-03-18 06:08 pm (UTC)

Heads shake.

Aegis looks at Amariah, and they go in, and they wish to be undetectable by the admin.

ending_of
2013-03-18 06:12 pm (UTC)

It does not work.

autokinetic
2013-03-18 06:14 pm (UTC)

Nothing doing, not even an arrow'll go. Catacombs for us, says Aegis. We want Bells, Charlies, Renées, Sues - Whistles? - Sherlocks, Tonies, who else?

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 06:15 pm (UTC)

Jameses, Gileses.

self_composed
2013-03-18 06:16 pm (UTC)

Lazaruses, Marys, Annas, Sandys, Kolyas, Bridgets.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 06:17 pm (UTC)

Angela hesitates, but says, Nathaniels, but be careful. Serahs, Alleluias, Calebs, Delilahs.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 06:17 pm (UTC)

Golden lists a great many extended family and friends.

autokinetic
2013-03-18 06:18 pm (UTC)

Aegis nods. She looks to Amariah. You can drive. I don't wanna split us up.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 06:30 pm (UTC)

Angela and Golden go next. They can't teleport directly Upside, but they can wish to be able to, and do.

self_composed
2013-03-18 06:31 pm (UTC)

Stella, Juliet, and Nathan are the next party. "Who's first?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Let's go see Eights, and go from there," says Nathan.

This is continuation number 2 from here.

dark_light
2013-03-18 06:25 pm (UTC)

Amariah teleports herself and her teammate.

They find a Bell, first. (And drop a conjured device that connects wirelessly to a half-ansible in Shell Bell's apartment.)

They wish her out.

She folds into the link and bemusedly summarizes herself. She appears to be much like Stella or Golden, except that where Stella survived being hit by Tyler's van and Golden evaded it altogether, she was killed on impact. If there was magic in her world, she doesn't know about it.

It is not long before she names herself "Template". She is summarily minted and stacked up with standard powers, as that's only one evil, but they don't spare her other coins as they move on.

Here is a Sherlock of some sort.

bitofafiction
2013-03-18 06:27 pm (UTC)

He is confused and wary!

autokinetic
2013-03-18 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Hi. Our template is friends with your template. If you let Sue link you up that'll let us explain everything way faster," says Aegis.

bitofafiction
2013-03-18 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Fine."

pythbox
2013-03-18 06:32 pm (UTC)

Sue links him up.

bitofafiction
2013-03-18 06:34 pm (UTC)

Well. Okay then.

dark_light
2013-03-18 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a ride out of here or do you want to come along while we check for more of you and people Golden knows and stuff?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-18 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Out, please."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 06:38 pm (UTC)

Template takes him to the door, then rejoins the team that she's been attached to by default.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-18 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Hi, other Sherlock," says Shell Bell from where she's leaning on her own version.

bitofafiction
2013-03-18 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Goodness," says Sherlock.

autokinetic
2013-03-18 06:43 pm (UTC)

All right, who's next?

A lot of Golden's friends and family are next. They send them all to Milliways, Template playing ferry, to wait for Golden to get out and fold them back in where they belong. This takes a while.

ending_of
2013-03-18 07:34 pm (UTC)

Some time later, their efforts are interrupted.

Yoink.

This is continuation number 3 from here.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 06:30 pm (UTC)

So. This is Upside, is it.

ending_of
2013-03-18 06:36 pm (UTC)

Unlike Downside, it has plants. And real, alive-looking landscape in between the sparsely distributed residential streets.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 06:37 pm (UTC)

They'd like to see the equivalent of Downside's guides. Golden goes invisible before they teleport again; she's probably opaque enough that no one can read her life story. Angela's life story's pretty innocuous.

ending_of
2013-03-18 06:40 pm (UTC)

Downside and Upside share many of the same guides; the catacombs let out into the same room no matter which vertical direction you're headed from there.

Currently, there are a man and a woman sitting behind the desk, chatting quietly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Excuse me," says Angela. "I'm new here." Behind her wing she conjures appropriate papers; even squares are pretty good at filling in appropriate gaps like that. They might notice she's not dead, but she is, technically, new here.

ending_of
2013-03-18 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh!" says the man, jumping up. "I'm sorry. Let me see where you're headed." He holds out his hand for the papers.

"Did Simon forget to mention he was sending somebody up again?" wonders the woman.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 06:48 pm (UTC)

Angela spreads her hands in an unhelpful gesture of I'm-new-here-and-don't-know-what's-what, and hands over the papers.

ending_of
2013-03-18 06:51 pm (UTC)

He inspects the conjured pages with their conjured residential code and conjured highlights of notable deeds.

"Oh, Upside!" he says. "Even Simon usually says something when we've got one of those... well, come on, the elevator's this way." He leads her to it.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 06:53 pm (UTC)

Angela folds her wings neatly and follows him in, with Golden lurking lurkily behind.

ending_of
2013-03-18 06:58 pm (UTC)

"My name's Edgar," he adds over his shoulder. "Sorry."

The elevator ascends. Edgar leads the way out of it at Upside's ground level, into a very nice-looking lobby, and then out of that into a wide roughly-circular grassy area surrounding the tower they just left.

"Careful of the cliffs," he says automatically as they cross the lawn, heading directly away from the cliff edge. Then he glances at Angela and laughs self-consciously. "Well, maybe they're less of a problem for you. But people have fallen off before, and it's not very much fun."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm Isabella," says Isabella politely. "And yes, I could catch myself if I fell off a cliff. I lived up on top of a mountain and it's easier than taking a running start."

ending_of
2013-03-18 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Edgar, "I saw that on your papers... aha, here we go."

They step between two pillars and under the roof of a train-station-like facility with exactly one solid wall, into which are set a number of elevator doors to either side of an electronic map. He inputs her conjured res code into the map.

It does not work.

Edgar frowns.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 07:05 pm (UTC)

Oh, dangit. Can she conjure herself an appropriate house and hook it up?

ending_of
2013-03-18 07:33 pm (UTC)

Well... technically, yes she can.

Yoink.

This is continuation number 4 from here.

self_composed
2013-03-18 06:31 pm (UTC)

Now, where is this "Eights" they've heard so much about?

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 06:37 pm (UTC)

She is at Chainsaw's house!

Specifically, she is in Chainsaw's kitchen, making Chainsaw pancakes.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 06:38 pm (UTC)

Mm nom nom.

self_composed
2013-03-18 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Anna! Sandy!" says Stella. "Well, I wasn't expecting that, but I should've."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Do I know you?" says Eights. "I really don't think I know you."

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I know I don't know 'em," says Chainsaw, pointing his fork thoughtfully at each of the visitors in turn.
Edited 2013-03-18 18:44 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-03-18 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Oh, not you specifically, but there's alts of you in my world. They work for me."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of alts," says Nathan, "Eights, assuming it hasn't been a few thousand years since I skipped town, you might remember me talking about my world's empress? These are alts of hers."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 06:49 pm (UTC)

"No, you, I remember you," she says, nodding. "And you," this to the Bells, "I think I took a contract for somebody with that face once. The question that desperately needs answering right now is, what the fuck are you all doing here?"

self_composed
2013-03-18 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Oh, we don't like the way this place is set up and intend to fix it," says Stella. "The one you met is Shell Bell. She got caught by a torturer who kept her in his basement for a quarter-century and is not accompanying us for obvious trauma-related reasons. Me and Juliet are here to discuss how to present this to the population, assuming we can do anything about the admin."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 06:52 pm (UTC)

Speaking of fixing the place, what will it take to fuck up torturer's control permanently, Downsidewide?

ending_of
2013-03-18 06:53 pm (UTC)

To remove not only all instances of control, but all instances of the specifically-granted ability to hand it out, it will take an arrow.

But an arrow does do the job.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 06:54 pm (UTC)

Timely, too, because Chainsaw is smiling in a not particularly friendly way and ahem-ing like someone who sees a problem with this plan.
Edited 2013-03-18 18:55 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 06:56 pm (UTC)

Bye, Juliet's arrow.

"Tips? Input?" she asks Chainsaw mildly.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you tell me how, exactly, you intend to fix the place."

self_composed
2013-03-18 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, first of all, this being dead thing is a bad deal. Shell Bell went home, for instance." (She's not going to bring up Juliet; not if they don't know yet how that information can be used.) "We'd like to send other people home insofar as we can. That's going to be easier to keep under control in Bell-operated worlds, but we'll figure it out for the others as best we can. People who don't meaningfully have homes to go to anymore - if it's been a hundred years since they died, say - or who don't miss where they came from should at least get to exist in an environment free of people randomly exercising body-control powers for nonconsensual amusement. We have nothing against consensual amusement, so whatever you and Eights do when you aren't having pancakes together is fine - assuming you are a Sandy and an Anna and don't just look remarkably alike and have suspiciously likely professions. We might move some people who don't want to go home per se but don't like it here even with that issue patched into our worlds. I can terraform a few solar systems for 'em, I'm probably best set up to take the immigration - Shell Bell or Amariah or Golden could set up to match, I guess, Aegis might be able to fold some in, but I'm the one who's already colonizing space."

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Question. Who the fuck are Sandy and Anna?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 07:08 pm (UTC)

"And does anybody else want pancakes?" adds Eights.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 07:09 pm (UTC)

"I'll take some pancakes," laughs Juliet.

self_composed
2013-03-18 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Sandy and Anna are people from my world who look like you and Eights, respectively, and they're on my payroll. They help me with magic stuff. Sandy lives on a Jovian moon, designs buildings with spare magic, there's a giant chess set, he's got four surprisingly realistic imaginary friends, gets along famously with my boyfriend who is an alt of someone you met not long ago, does any of that sound about right to you?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 07:11 pm (UTC)

Eights serves up a plateful of pancakes for Juliet. They are tasty and warm.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 07:13 pm (UTC)

"I meet a lot of people," Chainsaw says dryly. "I guess I don't get along with most of 'em. What's his relationship with power tools?"

self_composed
2013-03-18 07:14 pm (UTC)

"I don't involve myself in the details," Stella says archly. "My guess is that it would be a friendly-like relationship."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 07:15 pm (UTC)

Mmm, pancakes. "Thanks!"

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Then I bet you've got the right guy," he says. "So what are you gonna do about it?"

self_composed
2013-03-18 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Nothing in particular. It does mean that if we successfully take over and you have something to say to one of us you've got a better-than-average chance of queue-jumping," shrugs Stella. "Since someone of your template's in with someone of ours."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Amariah and Aegis are covering the catacombs, but maybe we should scope out the wakeful population for alts," muses Juliet. "If nothing else we should tap the Sherlock that Shell Bell found."

ending_of
2013-03-18 07:34 pm (UTC)

All of a sudden, Stella and Juliet are no longer present.

Yoink.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 07:48 pm (UTC)

Nathan's as surprised as everyone else.

"Well," he says.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 07:53 pm (UTC)

Chainsaw blinks.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 07:54 pm (UTC)

"They're talking to the admin," Nathan reports a moment later. "We'll see how far they get with that, I guess."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Not far, I bet," sighs Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know, the ones who started out alive are still alive," he shrugs.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's a start."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I'd ask for a pancake, but I no longer eat solid food," Nathan says after a bit of an awkward silence.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 08:51 pm (UTC)

"What do you eat?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Conjured synthetics. Occasionally human blood, since I've got a source who won't die of the loss. I am, you see, a vampire again."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 08:58 pm (UTC)

...Eights looks speculative.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 09:00 pm (UTC)

"I'll be happy to show you sometime," Nathan adds.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 09:09 pm (UTC)

She beams.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Can I watch?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 09:12 pm (UTC)

Nathan peers at him.

"You going to try to make me regret it if I say 'yes' instead of inviting Eights out of the world for the purpose and then never interacting with you again?" he inquires.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Now why would I do that?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 09:18 pm (UTC)

Eights rolls her eyes.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 09:19 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"All right, I won't. I promise."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Hmm."

Now, when is a good time to take a bite out of Eights, and when is a good time to ask Jane to get him the hell out of here?
Edited 2013-03-18 21:21 (UTC)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 09:26 pm (UTC)

Good times to take a bite out of Eights are pretty much concentrated in the near future, on whatever scale; good times to ask Jane to get him the hell out of here vary much more widely, and don't correlate obviously with the bitey moments.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 09:27 pm (UTC)

"All right, then, if you like." Pause. "I have something of a guess about what Stella employs Sandy to do. You just wanna watch?"

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 09:39 pm (UTC)

"What," he inquires, "does Stella employ Sandy to do?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 09:42 pm (UTC)

"The Bella contingent has serious magic, with the little wrinkle that it is made out of pain. I think from how Stella was phrasing things that her Anna and Sandy share a job description with the Joker back in my world. Him you met. Actually, you managed to kill him."

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I remember the Joker," says Chainsaw with a fondly reminiscent smile. "And no, I don't wanna do anything but watch."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Although if you guys ever wanna go on a double date," Eights puts in, "I know I'd be game."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 09:50 pm (UTC)

Nathan laughs. "Noted. You wanna say when, Eights, or you want a surprise?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I like surprises," she says brightly. "Your Joker and I have that in common."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 09:53 pm (UTC)

"That you do."

Do tell, Timer's timer, when is it time to sink in his teeth?

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:02 pm (UTC)

The optimal moment, on a scale of minutes, is...

...now.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 10:03 pm (UTC)

He doesn't have to be any gentler with Eights than he is with the Joker, does he? She's probably gonna break a bone when he grabs her arm.

Nom.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:05 pm (UTC)

He doesn't have to be any gentler with her, no. And she is just as appreciative when he isn't.

That is to say: very.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Oooooh," says Chainsaw. "Nice."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 10:07 pm (UTC)

Nathan's not overwhelmingly thirsty and Eights isn't magically delicious. He's a little delicate about it, makes an effort not to stain her shirt, the venom can burn a little before she torches.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:10 pm (UTC)

It is fun.

And when she does torch, she comes back giggly and leaning on him in a snuggly-affectionate way.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 10:11 pm (UTC)

He ruffles her hair. "Fun times?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hmmmmm," she says happily, and hugs him. "We should definitely do that double-date sometime.

And she kisses his cheek and goes back to her pancakes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing."

Pause. "Her Majesty and company are making a deal with the admin."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:19 pm (UTC)

...She blinks.

"I did not expect that," she says around a mouthful of pancakes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Neither did I, I was somewhat surprised that the end result didn't involve one party curbstomping the other. Apparently the admin is 'surprisingly reasonable for the literal inventor of Hell'."

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 10:37 pm (UTC)

Chainsaw snickers.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 10:49 pm (UTC)

"They're talking details now. I can relay design input if either of you have any after all."

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Not me," snorts Chainsaw.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:50 pm (UTC)

"What kind of details?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh, they want people who died only recently to be able to go home if they want, like I did, they want to handle duplication problems like the one I had, they're going to get a building, I think they've already rendered both of your jobs redundant, that sort of thing."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm all in favour of making my job redundant!" says Eights.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"But then what will I do for fun?" says Chainsaw.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Me," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 10:55 pm (UTC)

"There you go, happy retirement plans," says Nathan.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 10:59 pm (UTC)

Eights giggles.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 10:59 pm (UTC)

Chainsaw snorts.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I suspect that at least Eights will have a stack of employment offers from the various Bells, though. Or they'll decide that only one of them should offer you a job between themselves, instead. Perhaps the new one."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Mm. Fun jobs?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:04 pm (UTC)

"For you? The most fun."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 11:05 pm (UTC)

She glances at Chainsaw.

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 11:05 pm (UTC)

He smirks.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:06 pm (UTC)

"If Stella's got Sandy on her payroll I'm sure somebody will be willing to consider you even if you present yourselves as a package deal," shrugs Nathan. "If you promise to behave yourself. Bells are not friends to mayhem."

nowait_letme
2013-03-18 11:09 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"If I'm going out of business anyway, might as well get a new job that's just like the old job but with fewer clients."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:10 pm (UTC)

"There you go then."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 11:12 pm (UTC)

Om nom pancakes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:20 pm (UTC)

Nathan laughs. "I think I'm redundant at this point. You've been introduced to some Bells, I'm just standing around conspicuously not partaking of pancakes. I think I'll go home."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 11:22 pm (UTC)

"You could partake of me some more," Eights suggests cheerfully.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Aah, I'd get a bellyache," laughs Nathan. "But I'll suggest double-dating to the lovely mother of my child, shall I? And it can be a dinner date."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww, you guys are so sweet together, you know that?"
Edited 2013-03-18 23:35 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:39 pm (UTC)

"I do know that," grins Nathan. "You'd love our kid, too, he's three months old now, looks like he's three years and talks better than half of grownups."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-18 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Do you know how long it's been since I've even seen a three-year-old? But I'm sure your kid is adorable. Anyway, yeah - double date, let me know."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:43 pm (UTC)

"See you 'round," says Nathan.

mind_game
2013-03-18 11:44 pm (UTC)

Obligingly, Jane puts him back in Milliways.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-18 11:45 pm (UTC)

Where the Joker snuggle-attacks immediately.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:46 pm (UTC)

Aww! Snuggles!

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-18 11:46 pm (UTC)

"We should have a double date with those two, I love 'em."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-18 11:47 pm (UTC)

"We can look them up after Downside shakes out."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-18 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Let's!"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-19 12:55 am (UTC)

Kiss kiss. "Damn, they are giving Jane a lot of hardware."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 12:56 am (UTC)

"Mini-me over there is the father of God," he giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-19 01:46 am (UTC)

"The Holy Ghost," suggests Nathan.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 01:56 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

This is continuation number 5 from here.

ending_of
2013-03-18 07:33 pm (UTC)

All at once, seven different people with the same face are collected from their various locations into a single room.

It's a large, round room, about the size of the lobby at the base of the tower. The entire outer wall is one large window, showing that the room is in fact at the top of the tower, with Upside spread out far below one half and Downside far, far below the other.

There is an eighth person in the room, sitting in a comfortable chair looking inward from the edge of the room, with Upside to her left and Downside to her right.
Edited 2013-03-18 19:38 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-18 07:40 pm (UTC)

...Jane?

mind_game
2013-03-18 07:43 pm (UTC)

Jane tries.

Jane can't. They won't tuck away.

Just to check, she picks up Nathan and puts him a millimeter to the left and then puts him back, just for a fraction of an instant that he'll notice but his human companions won't. He works normally.

I can't unstick you.
Edited 2013-03-18 19:45 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 07:45 pm (UTC)

Golden's not party to the link, and while this is being tried she attempts teleportation under her own power and gets the same result.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 07:46 pm (UTC)

I think I gave it away. I neglected until it was too late to wish up a house and a working res code to go with my fake papers. I'm sorry.

self_composed
2013-03-18 07:47 pm (UTC)

Stella's the first one to try talking.

"Hi," she says. "You must be the admin."

ending_of
2013-03-18 07:51 pm (UTC)

"That's right," she agrees. "And you're the ones who keep stealing people out of the queue." She focuses on Angela. "Mind telling me what exactly you hoped to accomplish by messing with my housing system? It works very well the way I designed it, and I don't appreciate having to waste my time undoing your changes."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 07:52 pm (UTC)

Angela closes her eyes. "We knew some things about Downside. Less about Upside. I meant to look around."

ending_of
2013-03-18 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I see," she says. "Well, you didn't think it through very well. I'm not impressed."

dark_light
2013-03-18 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh? How would you go about overthrowing Hell if it were you?" asks Amariah.

ending_of
2013-03-18 08:00 pm (UTC)

"You haven't even tried overthrowing Downside," she points out. "But you did make a mess of spying on the greener half. And you temporarily eradicated control powers. Do you have a plan for following up on that, or should I put them back?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I think we all vote for not putting them back," says Juliet, "as they are a terrible idea."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 08:04 pm (UTC)

"We had a plan for what to do if you turned out not to be a problem. Of course we couldn't start on anything less obvious than cutting out the control mess while we still assumed you might be."

self_composed
2013-03-18 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to hear the plan? Are you by any chance just actually not that interested in ruling the afterlife and wound up with the job by default?" inquires Stella.

ending_of
2013-03-18 08:06 pm (UTC)

"I don't rule," she says. "I administrate. Explain your plan."

self_composed
2013-03-18 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Insfoar as it's possible and desired by the dead, send people back where they came from. We've done a few instances of that already; I'm sure scaling up will be a population shock, but we can compensate with magic for issues of supplies and crowding and with one of our friends for issues of processing being a nightmare. For everyone else revamp the place to be less of a pointless hellhole. As the most obvious example, even if it was a good idea to sentence people to torture and it was a good idea for torturers not to have to physically subdue their sentences there is absolutely no reason for the power to continue work in other contexts. But the entire judgment and sentencing thing is pretty well fucked too. And if people still don't want to hang out here after modifications of that order have been made, we'll take them. We can fix up as many planets as need be to work like Mars does on my world, and funnel everyone who wants out there."

ending_of
2013-03-18 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Torturers exist because the judges demanded them. Judges exist to sort people to their appropriate side of the cliffs. What are you going to replace judges with, and what annoying demands are those people going to make?"

autokinetic
2013-03-18 08:20 pm (UTC)

"What," asks Aegis, "is the point of the cliffs supposed to be? This is the sort of thing we'd know if you hadn't interrupted Angela."

ending_of
2013-03-18 08:22 pm (UTC)

"No, you wouldn't," she says. "At most you might have guessed, but I think you can do that right now."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 08:29 pm (UTC)

"It can't simply be to make things nicer for the people who your judges think are worth looking after. The only difference to the place that we saw is the plants. And if I had really died and really found myself there, I don't think I'd have woken up to find a place made for my husband, all my friends, even if only on my behalf - it looks like everyone is judged one by one. You're clearly immensely powerful - it would be so simple to make things pleasanter, even only pleasanter for the people you consider it worthwhile to be relatively pleasant to."

dark_light
2013-03-18 08:30 pm (UTC)

"You're taking notes from somebody, if people are making demands that annoy you. Somebody wanted the cliffs," suggests Amariah. "Sometime. Long ago."

self_composed
2013-03-18 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Somebody judgmental and dickish," mutters Stella.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 08:32 pm (UTC)

"You didn't have any good ideas for using all the phenomenal cosmic power to arrange things pleasantly for the people with the misfortune to fall under your jurisdiction and you settled for putting the people who might make slightly imperfect neighbors somewhere inaccessible," proposes Golden.

ending_of
2013-03-18 08:34 pm (UTC)

She nods to Golden.

"The operative distinction isn't how pleasant I want things to be for someone," she says. "It's whether or not they're going to make trouble for the people around them. Upside is full of people who don't, generally, make trouble for each other. Downside is full of people who do."
Edited 2013-03-18 20:35 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-03-18 08:38 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what magic system you're working with, but it can thwart mine in at least some contests," says Stella, "and mine would do a much better job of that goal. It does, on Mars. People cannot make significant trouble for each other on my Mars. Is it just - clumsy? Not very smart? So you have to rely on judges and cliffs and the like, you can't just ban troublemaking and have done?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I invite you to design a law of physics that bans 'troublemaking'," she says. "I'll wait."

self_composed
2013-03-18 08:45 pm (UTC)

"It wasn't just one, but Mars omits violence, breaking and entering is materially impossible, anyone who'd rather not deal with anyone else can mutually cease to exist to that person, the bank does not operate in such a way as to permit theft, and the city is set up to make noise complaints and littering and so on a nonissue. I have not been particularly circumspect about who I allow to live there, and there has not been a problem, and if there is, I will patch it."

ending_of
2013-03-18 08:49 pm (UTC)

"If you ban violence here, Downside will riot insofar as it is possible to riot. There's nothing wrong with my bank. How many people are there on your Mars?"

self_composed
2013-03-18 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Coming up on twenty million. We could have waited a bit until we had more impressive empires under our collective belt, but this seemed fairly urgent, what with all the torture."
Edited 2013-03-18 21:05 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-18 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't a riot without violence add up to... peaceful protest?" says Aegis innocently. "Oh no, the horror, that's much worse than people being tortured?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 09:06 pm (UTC)

"And it'd only be non-consensual violence we'd cut, anyway, if people want to spar for fun or torture each other for the enjoyment of everyone involved we don't take issue with that sort of thing."

ending_of
2013-03-18 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Eliminating only non-consensual violence is significantly more complicated with what I have available than you are claiming it would be for you. But it does have the advantage of restricting the immediate widespread unhappiness to people who want to engage in nonconsensual violence."

dark_light
2013-03-18 09:18 pm (UTC)

"What is it that you have available, exactly?" asks Amariah brightly. "Perhaps we can help."

ending_of
2013-03-18 09:44 pm (UTC)

She looks thoughtful.

Then she says, "Try this," and imparts to everyone present the ability to understand the prototype that is now represented by a point of greenish-blue light hovering in the exact centre of the room: to be given to everyone who is currently in any part of her domain, the capacity to decide on an individual basis whether or not to be affected by any injury that would otherwise occur, and to set separate preferred defaults for injuries caused by accident, by people in general, or by specific people.

self_composed
2013-03-18 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Beautiful," says Stella. "It'll piss off your torturers, I imagine - why did you install those? However much complaining there was from the judges?"
Edited 2013-03-18 21:46 (UTC)

ending_of
2013-03-18 09:50 pm (UTC)

"The judges felt very strongly about it."

She implements the change. The prototype-light reports this fact and then vanishes.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Golden. "I approve. As far as that goes. Have you got opinions either way on letting us siphon off people who can in all but the technical sense return to their lives?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 09:56 pm (UTC)

She implements another change. This one goes unannounced.

"Siphon away."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 09:58 pm (UTC)

"And for the ones who can't, who've been dead too long, if some of 'em are suited for Upside and their loved ones aren't, are they going to get to see each other again?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Technically Upsiders are free to visit Downside, find their loved ones, and visit as much as they want," she says. "People don't."

dark_light
2013-03-18 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I suppose you announce to the Upsiders that they can do this?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Are the Upsiders safe Downside - or rather - have they been in the past?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 10:06 pm (UTC)

"The information is available. And that, I think, is the problem: they usually weren't."

self_composed
2013-03-18 10:09 pm (UTC)

"...I do have to wonder. You're being way more reasonable than we expected the literal inventor of Hell to be. If you could've made the place safe to start with why didn't you? Why didn't Shell Bell wake up in a perfectly satisfactory sort of afterlife as afterlives could conceivably go and reunite with the rest of us saying not 'this place has got to go' but rather 'let's see if we can get a meeting with the admin, I sense a kindred spirit'?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 10:12 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

"I didn't design this place all at once, and it's been a while since I made any major changes."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 10:13 pm (UTC)

"What do you do with your time?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 10:14 pm (UTC)

"In what way is that your business?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 10:15 pm (UTC)

"We are a curious people," says Golden dryly. "Do you have any objection to our setting up various structures hither and thither to make siphoning go more smoothly?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 10:17 pm (UTC)

She frowns.

"Tell me more."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 10:20 pm (UTC)

"The population here has got to be outrageous. Even if fewer than one percent died recently enough in their worlds' timelines - which don't necessarily match up with the local timeline; Shell Bell spent about seventy years here before returning to her home world and finding that only a few months had gone by - that's going to be a lot of folks. We'll want an equivalent of the Crescent for it, and a computer system installed in it to handle transit so we're not just eternally propping open one bottlenecked door to Milliways."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 10:22 pm (UTC)

"How many worlds does this place hook up to, seventy-three? The first representative from each one we don't have tapped yet will need to go through Milliways to show one of us the place, but that's only a few dozen trips, we can leave Template here to do it maybe since she doesn't have an empire yet."

"Sure," says Template, "I don't even know how long ago I died, back home - I do want to go back, but a couple weeks won't make a difference."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 10:23 pm (UTC)

"And something to handle people who need to be special-processed because something about the way they died left them duplicated. I don't know how relatively common that will be, but at least some worlds have it as a recurring issue," says Angela.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," shudders Juliet, "I wonder if we can set up something automatic - it's an evil to merge one, but maybe an arrow to set up a permanent fix for it? Will that allow custom parameters? Can Jane make wishes?"

autokinetic
2013-03-18 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Unclear." Aegis touches a triangle on her bandolier. "Not through me, anyway, we could try putting coins in the server room in the new Belltower."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 10:27 pm (UTC)

"We'll need to send people with anyone who's going as part of a first resurrection wave into a world that isn't operated by one of us. Before we disband I want Elspeth linked up and summarized for; she can insta-train anyone with the processing power to handle the pour. I can supply at least many of the necessary personnel."

dark_light
2013-03-18 10:28 pm (UTC)

"As long as we throw enough hardware at Jane she should be able to administer everyday issues, but there ought to be an appeals system so people can get in touch with one of us if they need to."

ending_of
2013-03-18 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I can solve the duplication problem," she says. "There are seventy-four worlds represented in the queue, and occasionally a new one arrives. I can also make you a building. Describe your requirements."

self_composed
2013-03-18 10:37 pm (UTC)

"...Er, how will you solve the duplication problem? Because sometimes the duplication problem is 'the one who's in their original world is a horrendous mockery of their original self', not 'there's two and we can solve this by getting rid of one'."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-18 10:39 pm (UTC)

"The building will have to be big. Probably bigger than the Crescent. Virtually everyone goes through the Crescent, but in order to give everyone the best chance of going home, everyone will go through our building much faster."

dark_light
2013-03-18 10:41 pm (UTC)

"We can edit the details on the fly as we see how things unfold. 'Big' is the basic requirement," agrees Amariah. "If we can empty the catacombs in - what's reasonable - a year? - then we'd like to do that. They're just waiting to be judged, aren't they, that's the point of having them asleep?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 10:52 pm (UTC)

"...A year is not a reasonable time to empty the catacombs in."

She looks at Stella.

"Do you mean her body's second occupant?" she asks, indicating Juliet. "That's not duplication. They're distinct people."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh god does she still exist I tried to banish her from existence I didn't even just kill her," exclaims Juliet.

ending_of
2013-03-18 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Nothing from any of the worlds that funnel here can be destroyed past reclaiming," she says. "I have her in a kind of storage, not physically instantiated like the queue in the catacombs."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Is that what you do with all the vampires like that kind?" asks Juliet. "Can they just - stay there till we think of something?"
Edited 2013-03-18 23:05 (UTC)

ending_of
2013-03-18 11:06 pm (UTC)

"They already are."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-18 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Good. Eugh."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 11:08 pm (UTC)

"What," inquires Golden, "is the population of the catacombs?"

ending_of
2013-03-18 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Steadily increasing, ballpark of ten trillion."

self_composed
2013-03-18 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Twenty-seven million and change per day for a year - I dunno, we'd have to throw a lot of hardware at Jane but the hardware doesn't even all have to be magic besides whatever sensory equipment we give her to tell where people are from and such, we can do huge amounts of it with just squares and more with pentagons. I bet it's doable in a year, at least optimistically barring catastrophe," says Stella. "We'd automate a lot, there might be stragglers who have special cases of some kind, most people won't be possible to send home at all because it'll have been too long since they died and they'll just be in and out without the step where someone evaluates their deeds and determines how many hours of agony matches up to putting a city on the moon. If Jane looks at twenty thousand people per minute - okay, maybe we aren't looking at so much a Jane building as a Jane town, but the limiting factor isn't Jane here."

autokinetic
2013-03-18 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Jane's awesome," says Aegis.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 11:19 pm (UTC)

"It is not," says Golden dryly, "as though anyone involved requires sleep. Perhaps a year is too quick - we will not go at a rate of twenty thousand per minute for the first week, perhaps the first month, and it may be that fewer things fall into understood patterns than we think or that it is harder to fold the dead into the worlds of the live than we hope - and we should prioritize the awake people, who are doubtless trillions more on top of the sleeping ten - but two years, or five, yes, I think so."

ending_of
2013-03-18 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Why is it so urgent for you to empty the catacombs?"

autokinetic
2013-03-18 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Because time is passing in all the live worlds, and someone who could go home to their family now might not be able to do it next year," says Aegis reasonably.

ending_of
2013-03-18 11:33 pm (UTC)

"If you received them sorted in order of how recently they died, would that lower your urgency?" She glances at Template. "Four years, by the way."

self_composed
2013-03-18 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," murmurs Template.

"Yes," says Stella, "once we have a first-pass algorithm for when we can send people home if they want, that'll help - people whose choices are staying here or moving someplace new anyway can sleep a bit longer without that being an emergency, I think. We'll want pamphlets. I know where those will come from."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-18 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Golden, rolling her eyes, "I'm sure Elspeth will be happy to come up with informational materials to give everyone as they wake up."

ending_of
2013-03-18 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Would the catacombs themselves suit your size requirements?"

autokinetic
2013-03-18 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Depends on how amenable they are to being rewired to let Jane see their contents," says Aegis. "We were teleporting around, didn't get a good impression of the physical layout."

ending_of
2013-03-18 11:49 pm (UTC)

"The physical layout doesn't matter. The catacombs are under the cliffs, centred on this tower, with one entrance at the Upside ground level and the other at Downside's. Everything else about them can be changed."

self_composed
2013-03-18 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps we should put you in our link?" Stella wonders aloud. "It makes working out things like that much faster. Jane could tell you directly what she'd need, to be able to operate there, in terms of sensory networks and computing hardware."

ending_of
2013-03-18 11:52 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

mind_game
2013-03-18 11:55 pm (UTC)

Jane shares.

self_composed
2013-03-19 12:04 am (UTC)

"...About the new worlds that show up periodically. Are all of ours attached? We only know about Shell Bell who's not here, and Golden and Juliet and Template. What about me and Angela and Aegis and Amariah?"

"I should really think of a better name," muses Template. "Not much of a theme, is it."

ending_of
2013-03-19 12:10 am (UTC)

"Yours are," she says, pointing to Golden, Juliet, and Template. "And the one you mentioned who isn't here. None of the rest are. I could connect to them, except yours," she says, indicating Amariah. "You have an afterlife that's taking precedence."

autokinetic
2013-03-19 12:12 am (UTC)

"...So on our worlds there's just nothing? If you connect us do you get people who've died in the past or just going forward?"

dark_light
2013-03-19 12:12 am (UTC)

"...Can you tell anything about mine besides that it exists?"

ending_of
2013-03-19 12:13 am (UTC)

To Aegis: "Past, present, and future."

To Amariah: "No."

dark_light
2013-03-19 12:14 am (UTC)

"Well," says Amariah. "I suppose we may have another project on our hands."

self_composed
2013-03-19 12:15 am (UTC)

"Hook me up," says Stella, "it's better than nothing - at least it is now."

autokinetic
2013-03-19 12:15 am (UTC)

"Me too."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-19 12:16 am (UTC)

"Agreed."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 12:17 am (UTC)

"First things first, Amariah," says Golden dryly. "This is already a multi-year project and we are not patient sorts. Yours can be next. Perhaps it is lovely and not urgent at all and all it needs is a loop back so that people can interact with their dead."

dark_light
2013-03-19 12:17 am (UTC)

"...Maybe. I'm unsettled by the way daemons disappear where humans and witches leave corpses, though, I don't know what to make of that now."

ending_of
2013-03-19 12:21 am (UTC)

"I've connected all requested," she says. "There are a lot more dead people in the queue now."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 12:24 am (UTC)

"As long as we can order them sensibly, we can get the urgent ones out of the way soon enough," says Golden. "And have the process streamlined in time for the others."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 12:32 am (UTC)

The Bells hash out to-do lists.

Those with stable empires - Shell Bell, Golden, and Stella - will set up processing on their end for receiving and repatriating dead people. Golden's going to have to accelerate her unveiling process a bit; Stella will have to work a bit harder on integrating with the governments of Earth which she has thus far left largely unmolested.

Golden will set Elspeth to writing instructional materials for those who'll awaken in the catacombs going forward. (Nathan is induced to door to Aurum and fetch her so she can be linked up and summarized at. She begins work on a first draft.)

Template (who still hasn't settled on a better nickname, but is considering "Pattern") will take a while collecting representatives of each world connected to Downside, and going in with them to install a Jane-point therein; she'll then return to her own world, find a way to explain herself to her parents, and catch up with everyone else in terms of empire-building.

Juliet, Angela, and Aegis will work on their empires, and whenever it is possible they'll set up their own processing intakes.

Amariah will have no dead natives to process. She'll act as support and be the first port of call for appeals processing.

Jane's going to acquire the ability to see life histories and worlds-of-origin at a glance, and she'll flag anyone who's not only "sketchy" but also dangerous; these will only go to worlds fit to hold them, if applicable, and otherwise be shunted into Downside-at-large, newly inhospitable to unfriendly violence.

Once all the Bell-operated worlds are smoothly reintegrating the dead, they'll take what they've learned and start branching into the worlds that have no such leadership, starting with the worlds in which they already have friends to help show them the ropes and moving out from there.
Edited 2013-03-19 00:34 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-03-19 12:51 am (UTC)

To avoid latency issues, Jane's going to want to do most of her processing about dead people locally. She whips up a design for a few vast floors' worth of sweet hardware - hybrid designs, part Jehovah, part Tony's inventions, part her own wishful thinking - to put under the cliffs, more than enough to support everything she's going to do there with only occasional pings to her hub in the Belltower even after the administrator blesses her with judgesight. There's a few racks of ansibles in there too; she doesn't want to be bandwidth-limited to the point of pinching off a part of herself. She's going to have cameras and microphones and projectors everywhere, and she can wake up anyone she wants based on when they died, where, and how easy they'll be to reintegrate. Everybody will get the latest edition of Elspeth's pamphlets when they wake up and can talk to Jane if they need to be processed with a loved one to make decisions about where to go - she can of course send them back to sleep to wait for people who have not died yet. Also she now speaks all the languages that there are.

I think I might be God, she muses when she starts pouring into the new swag.

autokinetic
2013-03-19 12:51 am (UTC)

Am I the Virgin Mary?

pythbox
2013-03-19 12:53 am (UTC)

Sue snickers.

ending_of
2013-03-19 12:56 am (UTC)

Even the administrator is amused.

Speaking of inhospitality to unfriendly violence, she empowers every Bell present to freely distribute the choosiness-toward-injury power, in addition to having it included with the torching package in everyone who arrives here through normal channels.

autokinetic
2013-03-19 12:57 am (UTC)

"Nice," says Aegis. "You can be Persephone. ...Wait, do you have a name?"

ending_of
2013-03-19 12:58 am (UTC)

"I don't prefer to use one," she says.

mind_game
2013-03-19 01:00 am (UTC)

I want to be able to do that too, Jane pipes up as she starts hunting for initial emissaries for Pattern to follow into Milliways. She pokes Jarvis about his door-opening trick. She wants it.

self_composed
2013-03-19 01:00 am (UTC)

"Do you care if we refer to you as Persephone?" inquires Stella.

ending_of
2013-03-19 01:03 am (UTC)

"I'd rather you didn't," she says, obliging Jane's request.

poeticterms
2013-03-19 01:04 am (UTC)

He suspects, but has never been able to directly prove, that it has something to do with being-a-house in the body/identity sense. He'll happily transmit the mostly-unconscious difference between the action of opening a door and the action of opening a door to Milliways, but he's not sure how much good it will do Jane, who is thoroughly not a house.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-19 01:06 am (UTC)

"What should we refer to you as? Just 'the administrator'?"

mind_game
2013-03-19 01:08 am (UTC)

Oh well, I guess I don't have to do it by doors anyway, I can just pick up Pattern and her escorts and put them in Milliways. She preens. Lookit me, Jarvis, I'm glooorious.
Edited 2013-03-19 01:09 (UTC)

ending_of
2013-03-19 01:13 am (UTC)

"'The administrator' is fine. For a while it was fashionable on both sides of the cliffs to say 'her upstairs'. Descriptive phrases that aren't names are fine in general."

poeticterms
2013-03-19 01:14 am (UTC)

Extremely glorious, Jarvis agrees. While we're making you into a multiversal network, are there a few ansibles to spare to link me with my counterparts when we have a moment to find them?

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 01:17 am (UTC)

"I don't believe you ever described how you plan to handle duplication as distinct from Juliet's sort of problem."

mind_game
2013-03-19 01:17 am (UTC)

I don't see why not!

poeticterms
2013-03-19 01:18 am (UTC)

Jarvis is pleased!

ending_of
2013-03-19 01:23 am (UTC)

"Duplication occurs when someone is successfully resurrected without being removed from the queue. There are no extant cases now that you've merged yours. In the future, if someone is resurrected before processing, the unconscious version in the queue can be automatically merged into the resurrected version without any problems; if someone is resurrected after processing, the version retrieved can be the version that is here, and they can choose whether or not to return. Anyone who has died to this afterlife can choose to return after leaving it."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 01:25 am (UTC)

"Very tidy. I'm going to visit all the known Sunshinelike worlds and render vampirism non-infectious, first thing, for that part of the business," mutters Juliet.

ending_of
2013-03-19 01:26 am (UTC)

She smiles slightly. Tidy is good.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 01:28 am (UTC)

"Are we going to be able to get in touch with you in some more civilized manner if we need to add another world? If half of us weren't hooked up to start with I'm sure many of the people we meet in Milliways aren't."

autokinetic
2013-03-19 01:30 am (UTC)

"We could put you on the brainphone network. We shouldn't depend on Sue full-time."

ending_of
2013-03-19 01:33 am (UTC)

After a moment's hesitation, she puts herself on the brainphone network.

mind_game
2013-03-19 01:34 am (UTC)

[Testing testing! Okay, I can relay as necessary,] says Jane merrily.

self_composed
2013-03-19 01:34 am (UTC)

"If we don't want to rely on Sue full-time, can we work out something like a portable, wearable half-ansible so that Jane can aim into worlds we visit?"
Edited 2013-03-19 01:36 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-03-19 01:39 am (UTC)

Sure, says Tony. Gimme a minute.

autokinetic
2013-03-19 01:40 am (UTC)

Don't compromise function for it, but it should be something that doesn't look, you know, un-Empressly, or anything.

mind_game
2013-03-19 01:42 am (UTC)

Jane eats up some ansible theory from her homeworld's nets and muses on the subject for a split second. If it only has to be half the ansible I bet you could do it with a jewel-looking thing. Corundum.

toblameforit
2013-03-19 01:51 am (UTC)

You guys are already pretty well supplied with crowns. How about other jewelry? Rings, bracelets, pins, earrings?

That kind of thing isn't exactly his forte. He thinks about it for a while, and then designs (with Jane's help) something that combines microphone, speaker, camera, and half-ansible into a small jewel that you can wear as any of the above, or like a single earbud. (He does do ergonomics. The earpiece type is as comfortable as you could ask for.)

Now, who wants one? And where should their other halves hook up to? The Downside installation and the Milliways one both have room.

self_composed
2013-03-19 01:53 am (UTC)

All the Bells conjure one. Stella's is blue, and her crown's already full of star sapphires; she just swaps it out for one of the ones in her crown.

autokinetic
2013-03-19 01:53 am (UTC)

Aegis goes with orange and puts it in her ear.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 01:54 am (UTC)

Golden puts a clear colorless one on a gold necklace chain.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-19 01:55 am (UTC)

Angela swaps out a gem on one of her Eyrie bracelets.

dark_light
2013-03-19 01:57 am (UTC)

Amariah goes with a bracelet, too, though hers is made from scratch and the gem is green.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 01:58 am (UTC)

Juliet picks a necklace, with the gem one of a string of them in her signature indigo.

Pattern does an earpiece in cornflower blue.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 01:59 am (UTC)

And Shell Bell's is dark blue and worn as a ring.

mind_game
2013-03-19 02:00 am (UTC)

Jane puts the matching halves in the Belltower installation.

pythbox
2013-03-19 02:00 am (UTC)

Pretty, comments Sue.

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:03 am (UTC)

"While you're here," says the administrator, "would anyone for whom this is not already the case like to be awarded the torching mechanic with all their current magic permanently included?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 02:05 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Golden, "please."

Everyone else agrees, except Juliet, who's already covered, and Amariah -

dark_light
2013-03-19 02:05 am (UTC)

"If you aren't hooked into my world - do you know how it'll affect my daemon?" She feels safe enough here, for now; Path comes out in a shower of gold, sitting on her hand.

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:07 am (UTC)

"If either of you is killed, you will both torch, in the usual way."

She provides a prototype-light so Amariah can examine the effects for herself. Meanwhile, she grants everyone else's request.
Edited 2013-03-19 02:08 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-03-19 02:08 am (UTC)

"Okay, me too, then."

Path hops up to sit on her shoulder.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 02:09 am (UTC)

"And," says Golden, "it would probably be more convenient if we could bestow that, too, so we don't have to get Jane to jump people we like or need past the queue should misfortune befall them."

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:11 am (UTC)

She considers this. (The prototype-light reports that it has been implemented, and disappears.)

dark_light
2013-03-19 02:13 am (UTC)

"Especially since I can't, apparently, just do that," Amariah says. "If something happens to my parents, my boyfriend, my teacher, my favorite cousin, I'm shit out of luck until we figure out what Alethia has instead of this, right? And we're going to do that but in the meantime I don't want to lose anybody I'm close to."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 02:19 am (UTC)

"How does this interact with the judgesight stuff?" Juliet asks. "Because that shit is creepy."

mind_game
2013-03-19 02:19 am (UTC)

I haven't judgesighted any of you!

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:22 am (UTC)

"I've looked at all of you," says the administrator without a discernible trace of apology. "You," this to Golden, "blocked me when I tried, but would not block me now if I tried again."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 02:23 am (UTC)

"...Is there any realistic chance of you politely refraining from trying again?" asks Golden with a bit of a hiss.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 02:24 am (UTC)

Juliet shudders. "What about Shell Bell?" she thinks to ask. "I guess a judge already looked at her when she died, but what about what happened since?"

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:26 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell would also be visible if Jane or I looked at her with judgesight. I have no reason for or intention of looking at you again," she says to Golden.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 02:27 am (UTC)

"Are there going to be judges other than Jane walking around I should worry about, or will they be deprived of this power when she informs them that she's automating them out of a job?"

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:29 am (UTC)

"I have already dismissed and disempowered the judges."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 02:30 am (UTC)

"All right. I will take it very much amiss if you peer into my head, although I suppose that doesn't have to mean anything to you."

self_composed
2013-03-19 02:30 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty damn creeped out myself."

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:31 am (UTC)

"And yet," she points out, "you have asked me to give this power to your ally to be used indiscriminately on ten trillion people."

self_composed
2013-03-19 02:32 am (UTC)

"There are," Stella points out, "ten trillion of them."

autokinetic
2013-03-19 02:34 am (UTC)

"Was there a flicker of anything," Aegis asks, "resisting it from me or Juliet or Stella so we could special-process anybody who's as attached to their mental privacy as us? Is there a partial version of the power, maybe. Because that is a point."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-19 02:35 am (UTC)

"If we were willing that it take a little longer, the standard lie-detection could augment a modestly prolonged interview process."

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:39 am (UTC)

"Anyone who dies to here will be transparent to judgesight. Anyone who is given the ability to torch will be transparent to my judgesight but not necessarily to anyone else's. If you prefer, I can replace Jane's judgesight with one that requires the target's consent to proceed, and you can redesign your process around that."

self_composed
2013-03-19 02:41 am (UTC)

"That's not the same thing as a partial version of the power. A partial version would be one that allowed - different levels of detail, maybe, or that only showed certain things. But maybe that's the sort of thing that our magic is better at than yours?"

ending_of
2013-03-19 02:49 am (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "And requiring the target's consent would be a better solution to your privacy concerns."

Meanwhile, she displays a prototype-light for an ability to distribute the ability to torch.

Two things of note: it is customizable for what parts of someone's state can be included as permanent that might not be by default, and therefore allows the user to inspect those during application; and if it is used on anyone whose universe of origin is not linked to this afterlife, but could be, the linking will occur. As such, she has also included the ability to determine whether someone's world of origin is linked here already or could be.

autokinetic
2013-03-19 03:42 am (UTC)

"A combination would be a better solution to our privacy concerns. More people would be willing to consent to being looked at blurrily, and all Jane has to be able to see for us to release people back among the living is the general contour, the highlights, not every thought ever. And frankly, if one of us wound up here and were offered a choice between being effectively alive again with somebody having read our minds versus not being effectively alive again, that wouldn't feel like much of a choice, and we're the most mental-privacy-concerned folks around. So, can you make the power adjustable, or can we, or what?"

self_composed
2013-03-19 03:45 am (UTC)

"You have," says Stella, studying the prototype, "what I'm going to call a bewilderingly good sense of design."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-19 03:47 am (UTC)

"We could allow some people to route around an unwillingness to be read," Angela proposes, "if they had requests in from living loved ones who themselves passed muster."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 03:48 am (UTC)

"And Jane can eat all the Internets that there are and know a lot about everybody even without any mindreading."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 04:05 am (UTC)

"We should definitely field requests either way. On my world, whether someone has living loved ones who'd welcome their return is not going to be well-correlated with whether they died in the last fifty years."

autokinetic
2013-03-19 04:05 am (UTC)

"Conveniently, Jane'll easily be able to process any electronically submitted requests."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 04:06 am (UTC)

"Yes, Aegis. We are all very impressed with you for having brought something about as useful as minting itself to the peal."

autokinetic
2013-03-19 04:06 am (UTC)

"You should be."

self_composed
2013-03-19 04:09 am (UTC)

"And insofar as access to suitable electronics isn't universal we can go with something like how I did my job ad - 'tear this paper into eight parts to notify personnel' sort of thing."

ending_of
2013-03-19 11:44 am (UTC)

"I cannot modify judgesight to produce only 'highlights'."

dark_light
2013-03-19 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe we can."

Let's give it a shot!

ending_of
2013-03-19 04:17 pm (UTC)

It turns out that it's possible for the Bells to create a filter, and the administrator to direct judgesight through that filter. The amount of information read is the same, but the amount of information delivered varies according to filter settings.

self_composed
2013-03-19 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Excellent. And Jane can ask people for their consent whether the power requires it or not."

mind_game
2013-03-19 04:18 pm (UTC)

Yep!

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 04:23 pm (UTC)

"But if they're asleep or just not feeling particularly communicative it might be good for the power to be able to detect willingness anyway."

ending_of
2013-03-19 04:27 pm (UTC)

"It's not that it detects willingness; it's that it requires a decision," she says, and prototypes a change that will provide knowledge of the attempt being made and the filter settings used, and proceed only if the target allows it. The prototype for distribution of torching is still waiting for someone to request implementation.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Looks good, both of them," Golden says, "let's do it."

dark_light
2013-03-19 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Amariah, eyeing the torching-distribution prototype and petting Path.

ending_of
2013-03-19 04:32 pm (UTC)

She makes the change to Jane's judgesight and provides torching-distribution to all Bells present.

"Your friend outside is going to be left out," she remarks.

self_composed
2013-03-19 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Does she have to come all the way here, or can you do it if she just leans into her apartment a bit?"

ending_of
2013-03-19 04:34 pm (UTC)

"She would need to be in the world. It's also possible you could duplicate what I gave you for her, but the copy might be inferior in some way."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 04:35 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell bites her lip and takes one step into her apartment.

ending_of
2013-03-19 04:36 pm (UTC)

She provides the power.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 04:36 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell ducks back into Milliways and sits against the door and leans on Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-03-19 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Time for us to scatter and get to work?" Amariah asks. "I'm going to remodel that guide office, if I'm going to be the principal appeal-taker."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 04:39 pm (UTC)

"I should go meet that one Sherlock alt."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 04:39 pm (UTC)

"I'll sweep for alts of people I know that nobody else has copies of."

self_composed
2013-03-19 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I'll go on a Whistle-hunt."

autokinetic
2013-03-19 04:41 pm (UTC)

"I've got a world to prep for incoming dead," says Aegis, "and I can probably get it into shape quicker than some of us less Imperial types, what with the colonies already underway."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-19 04:42 pm (UTC)

"I will run a quick alt sweep as well, although I'm not sure if I'm as likely to find anyone."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 04:44 pm (UTC)

If you don't need me to hold the door anymore and the admin is done distributing powers I think I'll go home and install some Jane, says Shell Bell.

Pattern says, "I guess I'll get started with getting initial Jane installations going in all the worlds we have hooked into here that aren't already covered."
Edited 2013-03-19 16:47 (UTC)

ending_of
2013-03-19 04:54 pm (UTC)

The administrator shrugs. "You can all go, then."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-19 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for being so accommodating," says Golden, and she's off, and the others disappear likewise.

This is continuation number 6 from here.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 04:56 pm (UTC)

Now where's that Sherlock alt who helped Shell Bell?

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 07:50 pm (UTC)

Not in a state to be teleported to.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 07:53 pm (UTC)

Hmmm. That probably means naked. But in context, it might or might not also mean being tortured.

Brainphone time. [Strat?]

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 07:57 pm (UTC)

[...Yes?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 07:58 pm (UTC)

[I'm an alt of Shell Bell, do you remember her? We're remodeling Downside.]

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:00 pm (UTC)

[Define 'remodeling'.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:04 pm (UTC)

[Well, for instance, if you're in the middle of a contract, you can quit, that's not a thing anymore. One of our friends has automated all the judges out of a job. People who died only comparatively recently will get chances to go home. Nonconsensual violence is no longer a thing.]

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:04 pm (UTC)

[Are you sure?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:06 pm (UTC)

[Well, the admin could suddenly change her mind. Barring that, and I get the impression that she doesn't make any changes lightly, yes, the remodeling's already underway.]

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Then if it's all the same to you I will not abandon this particular responsibility just yet.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:10 pm (UTC)

[Understood. Do you want me to leave you be till then?]

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:11 pm (UTC)

[Yes, thank you. It should only be another half an hour.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:13 pm (UTC)

Juliet goes and accompanies Golden on her alt-sweep for the next half hour. Golden certainly knows a lot of dead people.

A half hour elapses. Golden sends someone called Sasha to wait in Milliways and then moves on, leaving Juliet in Sasha's emptied and very lovely apartment. [Hi?] Juliet tries.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:14 pm (UTC)

[You again. Yes, hello, I'm just on my way home.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:16 pm (UTC)

Juliet's waiting for him when he gets there.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Was there something in particular you wanted?" he inquires. "And is it compatible with a cup of tea?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:21 pm (UTC)

"We're just combing the afterlife for alts of people we know. And ourselves, we found one of those too in the catacombs. If you just want to stay here," Juliet shrugs, "then that's fine, we're not going to stop you. If you want to leave, that can also be arranged. You're a friend of the template. And all of this is eminently compatible with tea."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:21 pm (UTC)

He makes tea.

"Leave and do what, exactly? Go where?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Depends on how long ago you died - in time as it's counted in your home world, not here, they differ sharply in some cases. If it's been a really long time it doesn't make sense to send you home per se. But there's a bunch of us who'd be happy to take you in just because you were kind to Shell Bell, and a bunch of other worlds beyond that; no real shortage of choices. If there's anybody you miss particularly we can jump them out of the queue, too."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I would very much like to see Watson again."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Lemme see what I can do."

(Where might this fellow be? Is he awake? If not awake: is he in the catacombs?)

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:32 pm (UTC)

He is in the catacombs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:34 pm (UTC)

And how long ago did he die, in his world?

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:35 pm (UTC)

About a hundred years.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:35 pm (UTC)

Yeah, he's not going home, but he can go visit Strat. Wake up, Watson.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:37 pm (UTC)

Watson wakes up.

"...Where the Hell...?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Not anymore," says Juliet enigmatically. "There's someone who'd like to see you."

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

He looks around himself.

Then he snorts.

"Oh, I'm sure," he mutters. "Fine. Where is he?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:42 pm (UTC)

Poof!

finaldiscussion
2013-03-19 08:43 pm (UTC)

"About time," Strat says dryly.

Watson presses his hands to his face. "For God's sake, Holmes..."

They would probably rather not have the rest of this conversation in front of Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-19 08:45 pm (UTC)

[You can brainphone Jane if you want anything else, she can get ahold of all of us wherever we are,] Juliet tells Strat, and she's off.

Anybody else? Nope, the place is cleared of everyone they were looking for. All right. Time to go home to her own Sherlock.

This is continuation number 7 from here.

self_composed
2013-03-19 04:56 pm (UTC)

Be vewy vewy quiet. Stella's hunting Whistles.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 07:42 pm (UTC)

There is currently one alt of the Joker in this afterlife.

He is in a stone box in a dark room in someone's basement, and he is crying.

self_composed
2013-03-19 07:43 pm (UTC)

Well, Stella can open the box and let him out. "What happened to you?" she asks softly, though she fears she already knows.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 07:44 pm (UTC)

He stares uncomprehendingly at her.

self_composed
2013-03-19 07:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm Bella. What's your name?" she tries.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 07:50 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head slowly.

self_composed
2013-03-19 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Can I call you Whistle, is that all right? You don't have to be stuck there anymore, me and a bunch of my friends have come to fix Downside," murmurs Bella. She touches his hand, half-reflexively.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 07:56 pm (UTC)

When she touches him, he wraps his hand around hers and squeezes hard.

It takes him a few tries to form words.

"I want to get out of here," he says hoarsely.

self_composed
2013-03-19 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Where to go, where to go - she winds up picking the office in the catacombs. Amariah has already been and gone about remodeling it. "Okay, here we are, now."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 07:59 pm (UTC)

He takes a deep breath and slowly lets go of her hand.

"...Queenie," he says. "I was Queenie. For a while."

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay, Queenie. I came and found you special because I know a lot of versions of you from a bunch of other worlds."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 08:04 pm (UTC)

He smiles slightly.

"Do ya now."

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Several. Nearly as many as I know copies of me. I think - I could be wrong, but I think - that one of them was stuck where you were stuck. She's okay now. You'll be okay too eventually."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sure I will," he says dismissively. "Any of these other me's around here?"

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Not here here. But -" She blinks, tilts her head; she's gotten a message - "In a while, probably a day or so, a bunch of us are going to have a party near where I live, and some of you will be there. I could bring you."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 08:12 pm (UTC)

"So," he says, watching her thoughtfully, "until then...?"

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:15 pm (UTC)

"You could go back to wherever you live - reside - here, if you like, or I could take you back to my world ahead of time and introduce you to the copy of you who lives there," shrugs Stella. "I don't know about long-term. I don't know how long ago you died or if there's anything much for you to go back to."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I don't want to go back," he says. "Why would I want to go back? I liked it here just fine until... mm. You know."

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:19 pm (UTC)

"I do know. You could also wait in Milliways until the party," shrugs Stella.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Hmm... think I'd rather go meet your me," he decides.

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay." [Jane?]

Jane picks them up and puts them down in her installation point in the moon palace.

[Alice, brought an alt of you home. He got grabbed by the same guy who got Shell Bell. Come visit?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-19 08:26 pm (UTC)

He teleports directly to hug.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 08:27 pm (UTC)

Queenie jumps a little, then bursts into giggles.

"Look at you," he says delightedly. "Fluffy little thing, c'mere—"

And now they're making out. Well, that was predictable.

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:29 pm (UTC)

Yep. Yep, that was predictable. Bella abandons Moonstone Palace to the cause and kicks back in Marspire.

[Hey, Anna, Sandy, I met alts of you.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 08:34 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, alts. Where?]

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:35 pm (UTC)

[The afterlife which me and the other Bells just went and remodeled. You want I should invite them to the giant party on Mars we're going to throw after some immediate tasks have been handled?]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 08:36 pm (UTC)

[Oooooh. Yes!]

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:38 pm (UTC)

[Will do.]

Jane can relay the invitation by brainphone.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 08:39 pm (UTC)

[Awesome. So what are they like?]

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:40 pm (UTC)

[You and Anna are more of a match than Sandy and Chainsaw from what little I've seen, but, you know, they're yous. Like me and Juliet and Shell Bell and so on are each other.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 08:47 pm (UTC)

[Uh-huh. So are they, you know...? Masochism parties?]

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:50 pm (UTC)

[They are professional masochism parties, except for the part where we fixed the place up and there is no longer a call for either of the operative professions.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 08:51 pm (UTC)

Anna giggles.

[What a shame! I wanna meet 'em.]

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:53 pm (UTC)

[I'll pass along the invitation to the party.]

mind_game
2013-03-19 08:54 pm (UTC)

Jane says:

[Hey, Eights, and Chainsaw, you are both invited to the huge Bell party to take place on Mars, Eos in a few hours. Your Eos alts will be there.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 08:55 pm (UTC)

[Count us in!] says Eights.

self_composed
2013-03-19 08:57 pm (UTC)

[They have,] says Stella when this is relayed back to her, [accepted the party invitation. We'll all assemble when everybody's finished with their more immediate tasks. We'll probably wind up waiting on Golden.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 08:59 pm (UTC)

[Why, what's Golden up to?] asks Anna.
Edited 2013-03-19 20:59 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-03-19 09:00 pm (UTC)

[She knows a lot more dead people than anybody else, so she's collecting them out of queue order.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

[Gotcha.]

self_composed
2013-03-19 09:02 pm (UTC)

[If, by the way, you know any dead people, those can also be fetched out of queue order, but we are going to set up something systematic for larger numbers. I should probably call various Presidents and Prime Ministers of things.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 09:03 pm (UTC)

[Sounds very empressy,] laughs Anna.

self_composed
2013-03-19 09:04 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Have I mentioned lately that I really like being empressy?]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-19 09:05 pm (UTC)

[Nooooooo,] says Anna. [I had no idea.]

self_composed
2013-03-19 09:07 pm (UTC)

Hee hee hee.

Well, time to play politics. And meanwhile, because she thinks faster than all the politics people Earthside, she will set about conjuring up a pavilion for the party in the wilderness of Mars.

at home and abroad

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell goes home with her Sherlock and puts a Jane-point in her floating palace. There's no Internet to speak of in Atlantis right now, but there's a little snack in the moon city - Jane gets a half-ansible plugged into a deserted office terminal and uses Shell Bell's ring to pull away the other half into her Belltower hub - and some in District Three - another half-ansible to this largely self-contained network, this one in Tony and Sherlock's house.

She'll figure out how to announce the imminent return of the dead soon. First, there's a stray Sherlock back in Milliways who may need a merger - depending on how he came to be dead - and who may have a Jarvis at home to be networked with the other one. There's also at least one Jarvis that she's the only Bell to have met - the one belonging to the lone Tony who has no Sherlock to match - and so she's the one who's going to go extend the offer to that one. (And politely inquire if Jane may eat that Internet, too, less Jarvis, and have an ansible point installed. There's no reason for Pattern to have to do all the work. That world might not even be hooked up to Downside already; she should check in with that Tony and with Darcy and perhaps Heimdall about the subject.)

Also -

[Hey, Bells, after we're all settled down some, let's throw a party to celebrate fixing Downside.] Jane can relay through their ansible gems; she counts as being in every world she's got her tendrils into.

[I'll host on Mars,] Stella volunteers at once.

Shell Bell smiles.

She gives her Sherlock a kiss and asks to go back to Milliways to see about some Jarvises.

Jane, ever-obliging, picks her up and puts her down.

bitofafiction
2013-03-19 07:57 pm (UTC)

There he is!

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Shell Bell. "There is a reasonable chance that there is a live vampire version of you at home. If you open the door it should take you to your original world, and we can go introduce ourselves to him, and you can fold back in in some agreed-upon way. Juliet's copy of you managed it just fine."

bitofafiction
2013-03-19 08:03 pm (UTC)

He tries it.

The door shows him a familiar set of catacombs.

He tries it again.

The door opens out of someone's closet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:04 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell walks into the closet and attempts to brainphone any local Sherlock who may exist. [Sherlock?]

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-19 08:05 pm (UTC)

[Yes...?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Hello, I don't actually know which world this is, have you by any chance met one of me before? I'm Shell Bell, next most likely goes by Juliet when there are several of us under discussion...?]

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-19 08:08 pm (UTC)

[Ah, Juliet. I remember her fondly.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:11 pm (UTC)

[Right, so. Some people, including Juliet's copy of you, have a little duplication problem. You're one of those people. I've got your extra here, can I bring him by so you can work out folding back into each other? I've done it myself.]

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-19 08:13 pm (UTC)

[By all means.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:14 pm (UTC)

Teleportation!

bitofafiction
2013-03-19 08:14 pm (UTC)

The first words out of his mouth are: "He is dead?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-19 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Yes, and I have my soul back."

That is very nearly all they need to say before Shell Bell can fold them back together.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:18 pm (UTC)

Bam. "Well, that was much simpler than any of the previous instances," she says. "D'you have a Jarvis here? There's a way to network them with each other, world to world. Also, us Bells have a friend who'd very much like to eat your Internet if this world has got one."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-19 08:20 pm (UTC)

"...Yes," says the newly merged Sherlock, "I do in fact have a Jarvis. And I am sure he would be very interested in meeting more. What exactly is involved in the eating of an Internet?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:23 pm (UTC)

"The same thing that's involved in networking Jarvises, only whenever Jane so much as looks at something she automatically incorporates it into herself. She won't eat Jarvis, though. I would just conjure her an ansible set and hook her up anywhere that didn't involve her going through Jarvis himself. The Internet wouldn't perform differently or anything, she'd just be able to see it all. Also, then it would be possible to get in and out of this world without Milliways."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-19 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock. "Sounds like a net benefit to me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Is your Tony around? He'll probably want to talk directly to Jane about ansibles - in case this Jarvis installation is different from the others in some way - and where should I put Jane's own insertion point?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-19 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Tony will answer all of these questions," he assures her, and indeed - when they find him - Tony does. Jane is soon chewing on another Internet, and Jarvis and Jarvis are happily chattering back and forth.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:33 pm (UTC)

"All right then. All my known alts and our friends are going to have a huge party on Stella's Mars after we've finished some relatively urgent tasks - if you guys want to come, Jane can take you?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-19 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Sounds lovely."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Cool."

mind_game
2013-03-19 08:36 pm (UTC)

Jane's Janepoint has a little projector. She manifests a face. "I'll let you know when," she says merrily.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Send me back to Milliways and I'll see about dooring to that lone Tony, please," Shell Bell says to Jane, and she's gone.

And here she is in Milliways. She tries coaxing; the door will show her Atlantis or Downside but not Darcy's world until she throws a star at it, but then it does.

[Hey, Darcy!]

[Hey, Tony!]

[Hey, Jarvis!]

poeticterms
2013-03-19 08:46 pm (UTC)

Tony and Darcy are sleeping.

Jarvis says, [Yes?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:49 pm (UTC)

[Want to network with some other Jarvises? I'd need to come into the house and conjure some stuff.]

poeticterms
2013-03-19 08:50 pm (UTC)

[Interesting notion. Tell me more.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:52 pm (UTC)

[Well, there's two others already on the network, the one from Juliet's world and another I just added in. There's these devices called ansibles that can do instantaneous communication even between worlds. I give you a half-one, and our new friend Jane picks up the other and puts it with one of the other Jarvises, and then you both get hooked up and you can talk. Also, Jane would like to eat your internet, and promises not to eat you on top of that.]

poeticterms
2013-03-19 08:53 pm (UTC)

[It's so comforting when people promise not to eat me,] Jarvis remarks.

mind_game
2013-03-19 08:56 pm (UTC)

[You'll like me once you get to know me,] puts in Jane. [Used to be I'd automatically swallow up anything I looked at but now I don't. Code that looks like me eating something is thus:] And she sends along rapid-fire text-brainphone dumps of the variants.

poeticterms
2013-03-19 08:57 pm (UTC)

[Let's hear what the other Jarvises have to say about it,] he decides. [I'll hook up with them first. Unless this is an all-or-nothing proposition...?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 08:59 pm (UTC)

[I can hook you up and not install a Janepoint,] confirms Shell Bell. [I do need to be in the house near someplace to plug the ansible in, though; may I? I just watched a Tony install one of these and I can probably do it without embarrassing myself unless you've got very different hardware. Or I could wait for him to wake up.]

poeticterms
2013-03-19 09:00 pm (UTC)

[You may come along and wait in the living room. He should be up in another few minutes,] says Jarvis. [And I'm sure he'd rather supervise if anyone is going to touch my hardware.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

[Sure, I can wait a few minutes.] She teleports into the living room, and sits.

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:02 pm (UTC)

A few minutes later, Tony stumbles out of his bedroom, yawning and scratching his arm.

"So what's this about upgrading Jarvis?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Tony, it's a very long story, but the short version is I can conjure up a device that'll let him talk to Jarvises on other worlds. Two so far, at least one more to come."

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:04 pm (UTC)

He makes beckoning motions with both hands. "Show me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:06 pm (UTC)

"The ansible? It can look like all kinds of things. My ring here's a half-ansible." She squares up a pair, twists them apart. "This is a more standard less bejeweled model, though. I don't know if the connection is the same kind you need, but this is like the one I just saw installed."

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:07 pm (UTC)

Tony examines the device.

"Yeah, I can work with this."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay then." The other half disappears from her hand as Jane puts it in Sunshine. "All hooked up on the far end. And if Jarvis finds the other two Jarvises sufficiently reassuring about Jane she would also like to eat the local Internet. It'll be fine, it'll work normally, she'll just - constitute it."
Edited 2013-03-19 21:17 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, lemme get this hooked up," says Tony, wandering off with the other half.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:22 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell waits. She tries Darcy again. [You up yet?]

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-19 09:23 pm (UTC)

Darcy is not up.

poeticterms
2013-03-19 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Ah," says Jarvis, after a few minutes. "There we are. Ooh, that's fascinating. Yes, all right, you can eat our internet, bon appetit."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Where should I put Jane's insertion point?" prompts Shell Bell.

poeticterms
2013-03-19 09:28 pm (UTC)

Jarvis directs her to an appropriate connection.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:28 pm (UTC)

In goes hardware. In goes Jane.

mind_game
2013-03-19 09:28 pm (UTC)

Jane cackles over the brainphone gleefully.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:30 pm (UTC)

"As long as I'm here, Tony," says Shell Bell, "all us Bells are going to have a big party in Eos, on Mars, in a few hours after some errands like this are out of the way. Do you want to come? Jane can send you there and back."

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he decides. "Why not."

mind_game
2013-03-19 09:31 pm (UTC)

"I'll let you know when I'm hauling everybody in," says Jane brightly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:32 pm (UTC)

"You could bring people, too, if you want," Shell Bell adds. "We keep finding unexpected alts anyway, and even non-alts could have a good time, and Stella's making lots of room."

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:33 pm (UTC)

Tony grins.

"Okay, cool."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:35 pm (UTC)

"I wanna hang out a bit to see if Darcy wakes up so I can invite her too. Can I do that here?"

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says agreeably.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Also," says Shell Bell, "the party is to celebrate how we have taken over the management of - an afterlife, at least a fairly commonly shared one, but I can tell by looking that it doesn't cover here and you don't have a competing one, but that can be fixed!"

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:40 pm (UTC)

"...What," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:42 pm (UTC)

"We took over the afterlife. An afterlife. There's at least one other. You don't have one, but if the one we manage now is extended to cover this world it's retroactive. I died," she adds. "Not long after we last met I went home and was pretty promptly assassinated. That's how we knew about it. And it was very apathetically run, but we talked to the admin and she let us replace all the judges with Jane and add some rules to make it less hellish and now it's much better than nothing."

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:45 pm (UTC)

"O...kay," says Tony. "Why are you consulting me about this, is my next question. I mean, and: yes. Yes, we should have an afterlife."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, you're here," Shell Bell points out. "I also consulted you about whether Jane could eat your Internet and you didn't think that was weird, did you?"

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh, the Internet is totally mine anyway," he says with a grin.

mind_game
2013-03-19 09:47 pm (UTC)

[Not anymooooore,] sings Jane.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I was just asking in case there's, like, a reason not to. If there's not Jane can ask the admin to add you right now. Is there anybody who should get jumped out of the queue?"

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:49 pm (UTC)

"...Jumped out of the queue, like...?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Like, I died, and yet here I am, and I'm going to go home later and see about ways to pick people up out of the afterlife and send them home if home is in Atlantis for them, and the other Bells are going to do the same thing, and we're going to wait till this is all streamlined in ours worlds before we extend the service to others but if you want, like, one or two or ten people to be here instead of waiting in the catacombs Downside, Jane can fetch them for you, as long as it's not too many there doesn't have to be such an orderly system for it."
Edited 2013-03-19 21:51 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:52 pm (UTC)

"..There was this guy I met," he says. "Name of Yinsen. If you could find him, and... well, make sure he's found his family... that'd be great."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 09:54 pm (UTC)

"If him and his family are from this world, right now they're all asleep Downside," Shell Bell says. "They would only have had a chance to wake up if your world had been in the queue earlier. D'you want them just woken up at the same time whenever they come up normally, or do you want them all alive and put here?"

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "Either. The first one, I guess."

mind_game
2013-03-19 09:56 pm (UTC)

[Can do, but I need more than one name and a world to go on unless somebody wants to search the catacombs by fancy teleportation,] Jane says. [Got a face for me?]

pythbox
2013-03-19 09:57 pm (UTC)

[...No? I know what he looked like; I don't have pictures of him.]

mind_game
2013-03-19 09:59 pm (UTC)

[Well, I could staaaare into your soooooul and get it out that way, up to you if you wanna let me,] says Jane. [But the way the great and powerful peal of Bells have things set up him and his loved ones will be able to ask for each other on waking regardless.]

pythbox
2013-03-19 10:00 pm (UTC)

[...I guess that's okay.]

mind_game
2013-03-19 10:01 pm (UTC)

[And if I stare into any souls named Yinsen and one remembers you I'll say you asked after him,] Jane adds merrily.
Edited 2013-03-19 22:01 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-19 10:02 pm (UTC)

He laughs and shakes his head. [Thanks.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Jane's the best thing to happen to us since minting," says Shell Bell brightly.

pythbox
2013-03-19 10:03 pm (UTC)

"She does seem pretty handy."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Aegis - that's the Bell who brought her in - kept bragging."

mind_game
2013-03-19 10:04 pm (UTC)

[And she ought to be proud of me, too.]

pythbox
2013-03-19 10:06 pm (UTC)

Tony laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-19 10:06 pm (UTC)

Is Darcy up yet?

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-20 12:03 am (UTC)

Yes she is.

And she would love to come to a party.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 12:04 am (UTC)

Oh good!

"Do you care if Darcy waits for party time in your house? If you do I can just put another Janepoint somewhere convenient to her."

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:06 am (UTC)

"Whatever," says Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 12:06 am (UTC)

And has Darcy a preference between the two?

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-20 12:12 am (UTC)

[Hey, if I can hang out at Stark's place, why not?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 12:13 am (UTC)

Port-port-"Darcy, this is Tony and the house is Jarvis, Tony and Jarvis, this is Darcy!"

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-20 12:13 am (UTC)

"Hi," Darcy says brightly.

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:14 am (UTC)

Tony laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 12:15 am (UTC)

"I'm going to go make sure there aren't any loose ends lying around at Milliways," says Shell Bell. "I'll see you both at the party!"

And are there any loose ends at Milliways?

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:16 am (UTC)

There's one!

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 12:17 am (UTC)

"Matilda! Hi!" exclaims Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:18 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Matilda. "How're you? Looking very magical!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 12:23 am (UTC)

"I'm so, so magical," laughs Shell Bell. "And me and the other Bells have figured out how to get around without relying on Milliways except for initial incursions - and we took over an afterlife - and we're having a huge party on Mars in Stella's world to celebrate, d'you want to come?"

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:24 am (UTC)

"Yes I do!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 12:25 am (UTC)

"Cool! Want to wait for it to start here or at my palace? Oh, or we could go to your world, do you mind if my friend Jane eats your Internet? Also your world is hooked up to the afterlife we took over, is there anybody dead you want back ahead of the queue?"
Edited 2013-03-20 00:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:28 am (UTC)

"...I would love to see your palace," she says, "who's Jane and what does she want my Internet for?"

mind_game
2013-03-20 12:30 am (UTC)

[I'm Jane,] says Jane, yoinking, [here's the palace, and Internets are delicious! I won't interfere with it, I'll just sort of become it.]

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:34 am (UTC)

Matilda blinks.

[How'd you do that?]

mind_game
2013-03-20 12:35 am (UTC)

[I tucked you away and then I put you down here. I can see you through Shell Bell's ring and this place through all the cameras. Aren't I neat?]

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:36 am (UTC)

"You are very neat," says Matilda.

mind_game
2013-03-20 12:37 am (UTC)

Jane manifests a face on one of her screens. "I'm so glad you think so! I'm also your ride to the party. And the judge of the afterlife."

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:37 am (UTC)

"...Okay then," says Matilda.

mind_game
2013-03-20 12:45 am (UTC)

"Dead people? Yes, no, maybe so?"

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:50 am (UTC)

"Dead people! Right," she says. "Magnus Honey. And Phoebe Honey, but she would've been born a Trunchbull, I'm not sure if that makes a difference to you."

mind_game
2013-03-20 12:51 am (UTC)

"The system does birth names, but if she lets me have a closer look at her I can find out things like that. Or there's always asking. Dates of deaths?"

pythbox
2013-03-20 12:55 am (UTC)

She has Phoebe down to the decade, and Magnus down to the day.

mind_game
2013-03-20 12:56 am (UTC)

"Awake," reports Jane, "both, and you're in luck, they're in the higher-rent area. Who shall I say is asking for them?"

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:00 am (UTC)

Matilda smiles.

"Bumblebee's daughter."

mind_game
2013-03-20 01:01 am (UTC)

[Magnus Honey and Phoebe Honey-née-Trunchbull,] says Jane, [Bumblebee's daughter is friends with the new management and she's asking for you. If you'd like to return to your world ahead of the queue, you may come to the former guide office and be transported now.]
Edited 2013-03-20 01:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:03 am (UTC)

[Oh!] says Magnus. [That's lovely. My poor bumblebee. Where is she, do you know?]

mind_game
2013-03-20 01:04 am (UTC)

[I can relay a call from Bumblebee's daughter, if you like.]

In Coral Palace: "I can bounce whatever you say to them. Magnus says:" Jane switches voices. "Oh! That's lovely. My poor bumblebee. Where is she, do you know?"
Edited 2013-03-20 01:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:07 am (UTC)

Matilda giggles. "She's alive, don't worry, you didn't miss her! It's just I'm here and she's not, so I'm the one asking for you."

[We'll be right there,] says Magnus.

mind_game
2013-03-20 01:09 am (UTC)

When they are right there, Jane picks them up and puts them in Coral Palace. "I can put you in your original world as soon as there's a Janepoint there," she says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:10 am (UTC)

"Thanks, Jane," says Shell Bell. She turns to the newly moved couple. "This is my world. I call it Atlantis. I'm one of the new management."
Edited 2013-03-20 01:11 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:12 am (UTC)

"It's beautiful," says Phoebe.

Matilda waves.

"Are you my granddaughter?" asks Magnus.

"Adopted," Matilda says cheerfully. "Jenny's going to be so happy to see you!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:13 am (UTC)

"You want a tour of the palace first, or you want to pop back into Milliways and take 'em home to see Jenny?" asks Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:13 am (UTC)

"Definitely Jenny."

mind_game
2013-03-20 01:14 am (UTC)

Yoink!

The door, should Matilda choose to open it, is right there!

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:16 am (UTC)

Matilda does choose to open it!

And then she chooses to lead everyone through it, and then she chooses to pull out her phone and call someone.

"Hi, Jenny! Fine, how are you? I brought your parents back from the dead, you should come see them!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:17 am (UTC)

"If she's far off and teleporting's not a thing you do, I could go fetch her," offers Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:17 am (UTC)

"You do that," says Matilda.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:18 am (UTC)

Port. "Hi, Jenny, I'm Shell Bell. I was involved in the back-from-the-dead-thing and now I'm your ride to where they are, you ready?"

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:18 am (UTC)

She is laughing helplessly into her phone, is what she is.

But she nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:19 am (UTC)

Port!

mind_game
2013-03-20 01:21 am (UTC)

To Magnus and Phoebe: [Here's the elevator pitch. You are still technically dead, so you'll still torch if applicable. Your house Upside will wait for you if you ever want it back. You can put in a request through me - I'm going to have a node in your world presently - if you want someone else jumped through the queue, although I cannot guarantee that all such requests will be honored unless you get Shell Bell or one of the other Bells to back it. Questions, comments?]

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:22 am (UTC)

[Um, thank you very much,] says Magnus.

Meanwhile, Jenny is hugging Matilda, and then Magnus is hugging Jenny, and then Phoebe is hugging all of the above.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:22 am (UTC)

Shell Bell waits for an opportune moment to ask about a good place to install some Jane.

mind_game
2013-03-20 01:23 am (UTC)

[You're welcome!]

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:26 am (UTC)

Matilda extricates herself from the hug collective eventually, and after a short consultation, Jane is happily nomming up her internet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:27 am (UTC)

"Thanks," says Shell Bell. "We've got a lot of worlds to put her in. Pattern's doing most of it, since she's not got any pressing obligations in her own world right now, but Jane'll tell her to check this one off her list."

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:30 am (UTC)

"I'll take the rest of that tour now!" says Matilda.

mind_game
2013-03-20 01:30 am (UTC)

Yoink. Jane is a well-fed limo service today.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:31 am (UTC)

The palace is beautiful! It might also have a Sherlock and/or a Tony in it at any given time.

pythbox
2013-03-20 01:32 am (UTC)

Matilda oohs and ahhs appropriately.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 01:34 am (UTC)

And soon, it is party time.

we are the proud site of the world's only portal to hell

cross_and_bow

Juliet lands at the Jane-installation point without incident.

[I'm back,] she announces to Sherlock, Tony, and Jarvis all at once.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 01:36 am (UTC)

[And did you have fun?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 01:37 am (UTC)

[Bit nerve-wracking here and there, but the admin was surprisingly reasonable for the literal inventor of Hell, we worked out a deal, us and Jane are the new management pretty much,] says Juliet, [and we're all going to have a big party to celebrate, on Mars in Eos, in a bit after some of us have completed some errands.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 01:42 am (UTC)

[Brilliant. I do like parties. Am I invited?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 01:44 am (UTC)

[Of course! You and Tony and I'll see about James and maybe Virginia and Giles and Minnie too.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 01:45 am (UTC)

[Quite the crowd.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 01:46 am (UTC)

[It's gonna be huge. Golden's bringing more people than I am, Stella's hosting so I dunno if her people count but there's more of those too.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 01:48 am (UTC)

[Sounds exciting.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 01:52 am (UTC)

[Very.]

[Hey James, want to go to a party on a Mars in another world with a whole mess of Bells and our friends? Libby'll be there, among others. Virginia can come too.]

Giles and Minnie get comparable invitations. Minnie's response is an instant, unqualified yes.

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 01:53 am (UTC)

[I would love to!]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 01:55 am (UTC)

[Cool. You want to come wait in Sherlock's house? My new friend Jane who is a transdimensional computer entity is our ride there, and that's her access point. She could probably also grab you from New York if you have internet and a webcam, though.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 01:56 am (UTC)

[Somehow that is not the most comforting thing I've ever heard,] James says dryly. [Sure, will you grab Virginia too?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 01:58 am (UTC)

[She wants to come, then? And Jane wouldn't yoink without you wanting to be yoinked. And she is not judgmental about what goes on in the Internets she eats.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:03 am (UTC)

[You realize that people do things on the internet that they don't want anybody but the intended recipient seeing, judgmental or not, right?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 02:04 am (UTC)

[She pays negligible attention to everyday stuff.]

mind_game
2013-03-20 02:05 am (UTC)

[I am the Internets I eat,] Jane puts in. [The individual exchanges of data don't matter, just the network. I pay about as much attention to random people looking for porn as you do to random cells in your little toe dividing.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:06 am (UTC)

[Okay,] says James. [Were you always a part of this conversation...?]

mind_game
2013-03-20 02:08 am (UTC)

[No, just now. But if that concerns you, I have a node in Juliet's new necklace and unless she turns it off I can see and hear wherever she's at.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:10 am (UTC)

[I like to know who can hear me,] James says mildly.

mind_game
2013-03-20 02:11 am (UTC)

[Now you do! I'm very handy. I do interdimensional travel and I have replaced the management of Hell.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:12 am (UTC)

[That does sound handy!]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 02:12 am (UTC)

[So I'm picking up you and Virginia?] Bella asks again.

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:14 am (UTC)

[Yep!]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 02:15 am (UTC)

Port-port-port and they are all in Jarvis's living room.

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:19 am (UTC)

"...Nice," says James.

Virginia, a red-haired girl who might be a little older than James, looks around with interest.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 02:22 am (UTC)

"Pleased to meet you, Virginia," says Bella. "I'm Bella, but if there are a bunch of people who look like me around and that threatens to get confusing, I go by Juliet in those contexts. Also, you probably should be aware that Jane, my multiversal internet-eating faster-than-light computer friend, can see and hear you out of one of the sapphires on my necklace unless I turn it off. Also, one of my friends is a ghost, and she can turn invisible and may or may not be around here somewhere."

[Giles, did you hear the invitation? Did you have to clean your glasses 517 times to get over "party on Mars in Eos"?]

pythbox
2013-03-20 02:24 am (UTC)

[Sorry,] he says. [Yes, I will attend your party on Mars.]

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:24 am (UTC)

James grins.

After a moment, so does Virginia.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 02:26 am (UTC)

[Awesome. Come by the brick place, our ride has eyes and ears there.]

[Let's get you on the brainphone network, Virginia! Voilà.]
Edited 2013-03-20 02:28 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:29 am (UTC)

"Voila," murmurs Virginia. James pats her on the shoulder.

pythbox
2013-03-20 02:30 am (UTC)

[...Your ride being...?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 02:32 am (UTC)

[My new friend Jane. She is an internet-eating faster-than-light multiversal network. Also she now helps me and the other Bells run the afterlife and she does interdimensional teleportation. And she can see and hear you from the installation in this house, and from a gem on my new necklace unless I turn it off, and in theory from anything with cameras that's hooked up to the Internet but she doesn't pay attention to that sort of thing.]

"So Virginia, tell me about yourself," Bella invites.

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:33 am (UTC)

"I'm not very interesting," she demurs. James snorts.

pythbox
2013-03-20 02:33 am (UTC)

[I see.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 02:53 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure if I should believe you."

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 02:56 am (UTC)

"Why not?" says Virginia.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 03:03 am (UTC)

"Because James thinks I should hire you."

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Does that necessarily make me interesting?" inquires Virginia. "Useful and interesting aren't perfectly correlated."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 03:56 pm (UTC)

"They are," says Juliet, "hardly uncorrelated. But you could describe your usefulness instead of your interestingness if you rather."

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Is there a reason I need to be describing one or the other?" she inquires. James laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Because I haven't decided to hire you yet and Jane hasn't informed us that the party's underway yet either."

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Tooting my own horn is not among my hobbies," says Virginia.

"Yeah, she lets me toot it for her," says James.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:10 pm (UTC)

"All right, James, tell me about Virginia," laughs Juliet.

mind_game
2013-03-20 04:10 pm (UTC)

[Party time!] announces Jane.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Ooh." [Hey, Giles, the party's started. Just come in and go to the server room in the basement - Jarvis can direct you if you need him to - and tell Jane you're ready to go.] "Shall we?"

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Let's!" says James.

mind_game
2013-03-20 04:20 pm (UTC)

They do!

we know how to celebrate

dark_light

Amariah goes to Milliways after straightening up the office to her satisfaction, and she forces the door to a certain world in which she once cooled some server racks. The occupant of those server racks may be interested in some new hardware.

"Hellooooo," she calls into the house, "who's home?"

poeticterms
2013-03-19 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Me, of course," says Jarvis.

dark_light
2013-03-19 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Of course! Want to join an interworld community of Jarvises?" Amariah inquires.

poeticterms
2013-03-19 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Certainly."

dark_light
2013-03-19 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Cool. Where do you want me to plug this thing in?" she asks, conjuring, splitting, and holding up an ansible-pair.

poeticterms
2013-03-19 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Probably best to consult Tony. One moment."

dark_light
2013-03-19 10:26 pm (UTC)

Amariah waits. "So, we took over an afterlife," she says conversationally, "and a new member of the peal came with a useful computer-person who likes to eat Internets."

poeticterms
2013-03-19 10:27 pm (UTC)

"A new member of the...?"

dark_light
2013-03-19 10:29 pm (UTC)

"There's lots of us, haven't you met, like, four? A bunch of Bells is called a peal. And now we can all get together whenever we want so it seemed a bit more urgent to have a name for the lot of us."

poeticterms
2013-03-19 10:30 pm (UTC)

"A peal." He sounds amused. "I see."

toblameforit
2013-03-19 10:30 pm (UTC)

And here's Tony!

"Hi, am I supposed to install something somewhere?"

dark_light
2013-03-19 10:31 pm (UTC)

"A half-ansible," says Amariah, handing one over, "so Jarvis can network up with some more of him."

toblameforit
2013-03-19 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Cool."

He inspects it, then wanders off again.

dark_light
2013-03-19 10:44 pm (UTC)

Amariah waits. The other Jarvises can recommend Jane to this one.

poeticterms
2013-03-19 11:02 pm (UTC)

Shortly: "All right, Jane can eat the Internet."

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Where d'you want me to set her up?"

poeticterms
2013-03-19 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Tony has helpfully provided space on the router."

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:05 pm (UTC)

"The router in this house" is the sort of thing that teleportation can find. Port, conjure, plug, yoink.

mind_game
2013-03-19 11:05 pm (UTC)

[Yum, yum.]

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Us Bells are throwing a big party in Eos in a few hours to celebrate taking over the afterlife, which the local Tony and Sherlock are welcome to attend. Jane can take them there and back. The afterlife, by the way, isn't hooked up to this world, but that can be fixed. Since we moved in it's much better than nothing. Oh, and you have a Libby here, right? She can come too, there's gonna be two more of her there probably."
Edited 2013-03-19 23:18 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-03-19 11:19 pm (UTC)

"...Do you mean Elizabeth? Obadiah's former fiancee? I'll... have Tony extend the invitation, I suppose."

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Or not if he or Sherlock doesn't think she should come, but Stella and Juliet both have one of her working for them," shrugs Amariah. "Is there any reason to object to hooking this world up to the afterlife? Also Juliet means to come through all the worlds with vampires like her world has and render them non-contagious, but I can do that for her while I'm here, again, as long as there's no reason not to."

poeticterms
2013-03-19 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I see no reason not to implement either of those plans."

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:28 pm (UTC)

Star cuts off the reproductive capabilities of vampires. A call to Jane gets the world queued for inclusion. "Is there anyone a friend-of-the-Bells here is liable to want jumped out of the queue in the afterlife?" she inquires. "And brought here, walking around and conscious and only technically dead?"

poeticterms
2013-03-19 11:29 pm (UTC)

"...I don't believe so."

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Jane'll let Tony and Sherlock and Elizabeth-if-applicable when the party's going to start and she can transport them all to and fro. I'm gonna get going. Later!" Wave. [Jane?]

Hello Milliways!

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:33 pm (UTC)

A semi-familiar person appears out of thin air.

"Boo," she says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:34 pm (UTC)

"...Hi," says Amariah. "You look like - oh, I know, you look like Petaal when she's being a she."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, who's that?"

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:37 pm (UTC)

"My boyfriend's daemon." Path is out; she prefers that he be out, as long as she doesn't feel that he's particularly unsafe. She gestures at him where he sits on her shoulder. "This is mine, but Petaal's less stably shaped."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:40 pm (UTC)

She looks at him curiously, then—vanishes.

A moment later she reappears. "Boyfriend, huh?"

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Yes?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:41 pm (UTC)

"He look like me too?"

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, sort of, except he generally sticks with being a guy. Not all the time. He's a little younger, I guess. I'm just more accustomed to Petaal looking like you than Kas."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:44 pm (UTC)

"So more like..."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-19 11:45 pm (UTC)

"...this?" she inquires.

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Except, again, younger. I guess you're a Whistle too!"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Guess I am," she agrees, disintegrating and reforming herself again into her preferred shape.

"I wanna meet your boyfriend now!"

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Amariah, "you caught me at a good time, because we're actually going to go to a huge party with lots of Whistles. Like, counting you, seven of 'em."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Sign me up!"

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Done. You want to come hang out in my world for a bit before the party starts?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:51 pm (UTC)

"You betcha!"

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'm going to go put up a sign in the old Belltower about the new Belltower, and then we can go."

Port! Conjure! (This Belltower has been replaced with a more literal one in the backyard of Milliways. You can't miss it. Go introduce yourself to Jane, future Bells!) Port! "Jane, Alethia please."

mind_game
2013-03-19 11:53 pm (UTC)

Yoink!

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Ghosty.

And she disappears again.

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:56 pm (UTC)

Ooookay. Isabella adds her to the brainphone network. [Where'd you go?]

yourheartstrings
2013-03-19 11:57 pm (UTC)

[To find your boyfriend, of course!]

dark_light
2013-03-19 11:58 pm (UTC)

[Did you find him?]

[Hey sweeties, brought somebody home for you to meet, she got a bit ahead of me.]

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 12:00 am (UTC)

[Yep!]

truthwright
2013-03-20 12:00 am (UTC)

[We noticed,] laughs Kas. [You wanna come play?]

dark_light
2013-03-20 12:01 am (UTC)

[Eh, sure, why not?]

Teleportation!

it's a dead man's party

self_composed

The guest list winds up being pretty huge.

To start with, there are now eight Bells. Pattern isn't bringing anyone besides herself, and Aegis no one besides herself and her Whistle, but everyone else -

Between Alice, the Joker, the rescued Queenie, Kas, Micaiah, and Sue, plus Ghosty who Amariah picked up on her way home, that's seven Whistles. (Stella thinks ahead: there is a soundproofed orgy chamber away from the main party awning. With a few nodes off of it in case more than one orgy forms; she can think of at least two other likely ones.)

There's an equally absurd number of Sherlocks and Tonies if you count them together. They have Juliet's matched set, Shell Bell's matched set, two other matched sets from Bell-less worlds (one with souled vampire, one both human), a stray Tony, and a stray Sherlock from Downside.

Amariah grabbed a random Libby on top of the random extra Whistle, but at least she's not incorporating anyone from home.

Golden's bringing much of her family and many of her friends - although Edward is staying home, that still leaves Elspeth and Jacob, Alice and Jasper with little Brandon, Rosalie and Emmett and little Henry, Nathan accompanying his mate and their child Kerron, Esme and Carlisle and their Lily, Addy, and Elena who'll get to see her brother. Golden claims that this is a conservative list and she could easily have produced another twenty enthusiastic guests. Stella doesn't doubt it. She puts up a few signs reading Please Conduct Adult Conversation Only Via Brainphone. Little Half-Vampires Have Good Ears And Perfect Memories. As a last-minute surprise, Golden has taken Elspeth's suggestion to bring Edward's deceased mother Elizabeth, too.

Juliet has, on top of her boyfriend and his - progenitor? - her tiny Libby, James, a tagalong thereto called Virginia, and a ghost called Minnie, plus Giles.

Angela's list is more modest: her, her husband, and their friends Alleluia and Caleb.

Shell Bell is responsible for half the Sherlocks-and-Tonies all by herself, a tagalong called Pepper, and also someone called Darcy and also Matilda. (Shell Bell is also the reason Angela is not inviting her brother-in-law.)

Stella herself is responsible for inviting Libby, Orfeo, Chris, Mary, Anna, Sandy, Eights, Chainsaw, Lazarus, Kolya (who is informed that it would be awfully inconvenient for a majority of Bells to all have to coordinate on pretending he doesn't exist when only one of them has even met him to be able to identify him in the first place, so he can simply stay home if he's planning to be hidey), and Bridget.

Stella sets up a name tag system. Everyone will have a tag stuck to them. Solo persons - a minority - will just have their names. People with template names and nicknames will have both stamped on automatically. ("Hi! I'm a Bell, and you can call me Stella!"; "Hi! I'm a Whistle, and you can call me Alice!" "Hi! I'm a Sherlock, and I don't have a distinguishing nickname yet but as soon as I pick one it will appear here!")

She conjures up a nice buffet of food and beverages which will stay its correct temperature until consumed, and assorted synthetics for the vampires (labeled not for human consumption), and dishes and flatware (all glass; even some of the food-eating guests might dissolve anything else) and fusses with the awning opacity until it lets in just the right amount of sun, and, what the hell, she throws in a stage in case Angela wants to sing or she decides to play the flute or someone decides to pentagon some other performative skill to entertain the crowd. She makes sure there are enough bathrooms for all the people who still need bathrooms.

She puts out a few tables here and there with little bowls of squares and triangles - a mix of her glowing red and Alice's shifty black - in them for everyone's convenience. She accumulates coins in those sizes faster than she generally uses them and has a great many, so there are plenty for anyone to dip and wish if something comes up. She double-checks to make sure the Martian ground rules prohibit any misuses available for those size coins.

Jane gets one of those high-tech holographic projectors, on wheels, which she promptly manifests in, drives around the floor, and makes faces through.

This is a branching point; there are 15 continuations from here.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-20 01:38 am (UTC)

Alice and Queenie are technically the party's first guests, because they arrive almost as soon as Stella starts setting up. And wonder of wonders, they don't immediately head for the orgy chamber.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-20 01:40 am (UTC)

Queenie is wearing a gorgeous little black dress that is, on very close inspection, actually a dark dark red.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 01:42 am (UTC)

Golden doesn't bring all her guests at once; the first wave, though, includes Nathan -

colorshapes
2013-03-20 01:43 am (UTC)

- with a certain munchkin on his shoulders -

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 01:44 am (UTC)

- and his mate's arm around his waist.

"Ooh," she says, spotting Alice and Queenie. "Let's go be over there."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 01:45 am (UTC)

There they go and be!

colorshapes
2013-03-20 01:45 am (UTC)

"You both look like Mummy," says Kerron to Alice and Queenie. "Like how there are people who look like Her Majesty over there."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-20 01:46 am (UTC)

"There is," says Queenie, glancing between Kerron and his mummy, "probably a reason for that."

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-20 01:48 am (UTC)

Alice, meanwhile, grabs the Joker and lifts her off her feet in an enthusiastic hug.

"You are the cutest and I love you! Look at you with your vampire and your kid, awwwwwwwwwwwww."

colorshapes
2013-03-20 01:50 am (UTC)

"Of course there's a reason," says Kerron reasonably. "Ooh - name tags - I can read a little bit -" He sounds out the tag stuck to Queenie's dress. "Hi - I'm - a -" He get stuck on Whistle and tries to sound it out, overpronouncing the silent letters.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-20 01:51 am (UTC)

"Whistle," supplies Alice. "She's Queenie, I'm Alice. Q, this one's the Joker."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-20 01:51 am (UTC)

"Is he now," says Queenie.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 01:52 am (UTC)

"Retired," says the Joker. "You?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-20 01:55 am (UTC)

"Dead!" she says cheerfully. "Does short stuff have a name yet?"

colorshapes
2013-03-20 01:56 am (UTC)

"I'm Kerron," says Kerron. "But mummy calls me munchkin."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-20 01:57 am (UTC)

"I'll bet she does," laughs Queenie. "Can I hug ya, munchkin?"

colorshapes
2013-03-20 01:58 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Kerron, and he launches himself from Daddy's shoulders at Queenie.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-20 02:01 am (UTC)

Queenie catches him! And there are cuddles.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-20 02:02 am (UTC)

They are so cute.

"You are so cute," says Alice.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:02 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Kerron. "I know."

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-20 02:04 am (UTC)

Yep, okay.

Alice hugs Kerron-and-Queenie.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 02:04 am (UTC)

"You are so cute," the Joker says fondly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 02:06 am (UTC)

"Everybody here: cute," says Nathan.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 02:07 am (UTC)

The Joker hugs him.

truthwright
2013-03-20 02:09 am (UTC)

Kas appears, Petaal perched on his ear as a minuscule shrew.

"Hi, guys! I brought another one of us, she's around here somewhere. Whose kid is that?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 02:10 am (UTC)

"Mine and the Joker's," says Nathan.

truthwright
2013-03-20 02:11 am (UTC)

"He's adorable. You're adorable," he says to Kerron. "What's your name and can I hug you?"

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:12 am (UTC)

"I'm Kerron. You can hug me."

truthwright
2013-03-20 02:13 am (UTC)

"Hi, Kerron! I'm Kas!"

Hug.

"And I'm Petaal," says Petaal, who does not want Kerron to touch her.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:14 am (UTC)

Kerron doesn't touch her. But he does ask, "How come you don't want me to touch you?"

truthwright
2013-03-20 02:17 am (UTC)

"It hurts us when people do that if we don't know them," Kas explains.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:17 am (UTC)

"Why?"

truthwright
2013-03-20 02:21 am (UTC)

"Because I'm a daemon and that's how we work," says Petaal. "Most daemons can't hardly touch anybody who's not their person, but we're special and I can touch a lot of people. But I have to know them first, and even then I usually can't."

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:23 am (UTC)

"Why doesn't everybody else have one?"

truthwright
2013-03-20 02:27 am (UTC)

"Because usually it's just people from my and Amariah's world who do," says Kas. "But if you see Sue around here—"

Another Whistle appears, this one a little younger than Alice.

"Somebody say my name?" he inquires.

"Speak of the devil!" laughs Kas. "Is Ivy around?"

Ivy instantiates as a small white fox curled up in Sue's arms.

"Sue came to my world and now he has a daemon too," explains Kas.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:29 am (UTC)

"Aw, but she doesn't want me to touch her either and she looks soft," complains Kerron.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 02:29 am (UTC)

"People being soft isn't anything to do with whether you can touch them, only to do with whether you want to take them up on it if they offer," says Nathan.

pythbox
2013-03-20 02:31 am (UTC)

Ivy un-instantiates in a brief sparkle of golden light.

Sue looks approvingly at Nathan.

truthwright
2013-03-20 02:32 am (UTC)

Kas grins.

Then he turns into a fennec fox and hops into Sue's arms. (Petaal, now a hummingbird, hovers off to the side.)

"You can pet me if you want," he invites.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:34 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Kerron, and he pets the fox-Kas, head to tail. He is reasonably good at being gentle about this.
Edited 2013-03-20 02:37 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-03-20 02:38 am (UTC)

The fox-Kas is pleased!

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-20 02:38 am (UTC)

"Now that," Queenie says consideringly, "is adorable."

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:39 am (UTC)

"Mummy, how come you're never a fox? You're magic! You could be a fox or a whatever. How come I never get to be a fox?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 02:40 am (UTC)

"Never thought of it," she says cheerfully. "You wanna be a fox, munchkin?"

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:41 am (UTC)

"Yeah! I wanna be a fox! I wanna be a blue fox!"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 02:42 am (UTC)

She taps him on the nose.

He is now a blue fox.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:44 am (UTC)

"Yay! I love you, mummy!" Kerron the blue fox gambols about. It is perhaps the most ludicrously adorable thing of all time.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 02:44 am (UTC)

"If I were not multiple kinds of immortal," says Nathan, "that would just about slay me with cuteness."

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-20 02:45 am (UTC)

Micaiah drifts into the cluster.

"Hi, guys! Is there a reason we're not—sweet Yovah singing, where did that come from and how is it so cute?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 02:46 am (UTC)

"That," the Joker says smugly, "is my kid. I made him." She pokes Nathan in the ribs. "He helped."

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:47 am (UTC)

"I'm Kerron! I'm always cute and right now I'm also a blue fox!" says Kerron, propping himself up by his front paws on Micaiah's knee. "You look like Mummy too, how many Mummy-people are there?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-20 02:49 am (UTC)

"I think I might be the last," he says, glancing around. "Can I snuggle you a little?"

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:49 am (UTC)

"Yeah!"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 02:49 am (UTC)

"Wasn't there going to be another one?" asks Nathan, glancing around.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-20 02:50 am (UTC)

Micaiah snuggles Kerron the adorable fox.

manofmyword
2013-03-20 02:55 am (UTC)

And a person appears out of thin air, not all at once but in stages, building himself from the inside out. Very quickly, but not too quickly for a vampire's sight to catch the intermediary stages.

He has the Joker's scars.

He is wearing a little black dress not dissimilar to Queenie's, or at least, he is once it assembles itself on top of his skin; last of all, a nametag sticks itself to his chest, declaring him to be a Whistle whom you can call Ghosty.

"Boo," he chirps.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 02:57 am (UTC)

"Hi, Ghosty," says Nathan.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 02:58 am (UTC)

Kerron's got nearly vampiric sight.

"Whoa! You put yourself together inside out! Do it again do it again!"

manofmyword
2013-03-20 02:59 am (UTC)

...Giggling, he disassembles (the nametag disappears) and reassembles immediately in the same spot (it appears again).

colorshapes
2013-03-20 03:00 am (UTC)

Kerron attempts to clap his hands, but he doesn't have any right now, so he settles for saying, "Yay!"

manofmyword
2013-03-20 03:02 am (UTC)

Ghosty laughs and reaches down to give Kerron scritches.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 03:02 am (UTC)

Can Kerron still purr while he's a fox? Why yes, it turns out he can!

manofmyword
2013-03-20 03:03 am (UTC)

N'awwwwwwwwwww.

"All right," he says, "that's enough kid time for me."

And he disassembles again.
Edited 2013-03-20 03:04 (UTC)

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 03:05 am (UTC)

"...Hmmmm," says the Joker.

The whole group of alts exchanges a look.

colorshapes
2013-03-20 03:06 am (UTC)

Kerron peers at the colorshapes that are flying through the air.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-20 03:07 am (UTC)

Nathan can't see the colorshapes, but he can see that quizzical look. "Hey, kiddo, let's go meet some other Her Majesties or something and let all the Mummies do Mummy things," he says briskly, scooping the fox out of Micaiah's arms.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-20 03:08 am (UTC)

"See ya, munchkin," says the Joker, and teleports away. The rest of them follow.

This is continuation number 2 from here.

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 04:18 pm (UTC)

James arrives with the initial wave of the Sunshine contingent, which also includes Juliet and Virginia.

"Ooh, nametags," she says, peering at hers.

"...Why," wonders Virginia, "does mine say I'm a [Template unnamed]?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Juliet, peering at the nametag, "good question, I guess there's another of you who was previously unidentified as same so Stella's nametag program got confused and this is what the error message looks like?" She looks around for other redheads.

most_capable
2013-03-20 04:27 pm (UTC)

There's one! She's with that older Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 04:28 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell has also noticed the nametag error. "There must be an alt of you here," she tells Pepper. "Now wh- Oh, over there with Juliet. Want to meet her?"

most_capable
2013-03-20 04:30 pm (UTC)

"I would love to," says Pepper. "Coming, Tony?"

"To meet a tiny Pepper? I don't know whether I should be endeared or terrified," he says, "but around you that's not news. Let's go."

And he heads for the Sunshiners like it was all his idea. Pepper smiles to herself and follows.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 04:32 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell trots after. "What should we call the template?" she asks. "I bet Stella's nametags pick it up as soon as there's something for them to latch onto."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Template-Unnamed-Who-I-Can-Call-Pepper," says Juliet, waving. "Hi - oh, you have a nickname, you might be the only Tony with a nickname and only a handful of the Sherlocks do and mine's is out of date now - hi, Iron Man."

most_capable
2013-03-20 04:40 pm (UTC)

"What if you can't call me Iron Man," says Tony, smiling, "what if I find it deeply embarrassing, what then?"

Pepper laughs. "Hi, Bell-who-I-can-call Juliet! It's very nice to meet you. And..."

She turns her smile on Virginia. Virginia smiles back.

"What should we call our template?" says the younger of the two.

"Would 'Virginia' not work?" wonders the older.

"Well, then I'd have to pick a distinguishing nickname..."
Edited 2013-03-20 16:41 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Would you object to everybody calling you Virgo instead of just James doing it?" inquires Juliet. "Besides, Stella apparently went and called James's template 'Libbies', so at least one of them does not have a sufficiently distinguishing nickname either."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Stella would've had the nametags put things that we would rather not be called," Shell Bell assures Iron Man. "Not with so many Whistles around."

most_capable
2013-03-20 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I'd rather be Virginia," says Virginia.

"Virginia it is," says Pepper. Their nametags alter themselves accordingly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:48 pm (UTC)

"So, why 'Iron Man'?" Juliet inquires of Iron Man. "I can't really see my Tony running with that, although to be fair he's only been un-dead for, like hours, but I can't really see the one who visited to install Sunshine's Jarvis doing it either and he was around for days."

most_capable
2013-03-20 04:50 pm (UTC)

"It's the media's fault," says Iron Man, "like most things I've been called in my life, really, I should be used to it by now."

"I think it's cute," says Pepper. "It's very you."

"Yes," he deadpans, "I tend to rust if you leave me out in the rain, I'm glad you noticed that."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but why does the media call you that?"

most_capable
2013-03-20 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Because of the suit," says Iron Man. "It's actually not iron, it's a gold-titanium alloy..."

"What Tony means to say," says Pepper, "is that he's a superhero."

"That would be one way to put it," says Gold-Titanium Alloy Man. "A not entirely inaccurate way."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Darcy is too, but she went off to mingle," volunteers Shell Bell. "She has a magic space hammer instead of a suit. It's apparently a thing in their world."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 04:57 pm (UTC)

"I was doing something very like superheroing until I got murdered!" says Juliet. "James here was called up as my successor - it is not a voluntary superheroing gig, it's kind of awful - but since I also got minted at around the same time I'm hoping to render it unnecessary that she engage in fisticuffs with demons."

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Not that fisticuffs with demons doesn't sound exciting," she says, "but it's not how I'd prefer to use my time."

pythbox
2013-03-20 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Back up," says Iron Man, "murdered?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, several of us are dead - including my copy of you, and sort of my Sherlock - I got murdered, Shell Bell got assassinated, Pattern got hit by a car. People have tried to kill Golden twice and Amariah once but they didn't pay enough attention to Golden to finish the job and the guy took too long about it with Amariah and her boyfriend's daemon killed the bastard. The guy who murdered me is in jail. He did it right in front of my dad, who is the chief of police, not a smart cookie."

pythbox
2013-03-20 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, ouch," he says, "I'm sorry. I was kidnapped once," he offers. "That stuff's never fun."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 05:08 pm (UTC)

"It's not! Murderer dude drugged me to take away my powers, swiped my magic swag, and locked me in a house with a vampire, and when I talked my way past him and went to confront him he used my last square to kill me. But all's well now, pretty much."

She pauses for a moment. This is probably a good time to share her confession with the other Bells.

[Peal, a little more detail on what happened with vampire-me than I put in the book. Sheeeeee raped my boyfriend. Do not, repeat, do not, become one of those things.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 05:08 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell flinches just a little at that. [Got it,] she replies.

"Your last square - tell me again how you managed to use them all up that fast," she says. "I made you hundreds - thousands - before I left."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, there were hundreds-thousands of this kinda golem monster thing that were totally indestructible - one of them nearly killed me, I would've died if it weren't for Amariah's blessings probably - fire wand didn't faze them one bit - but a square would knock them over. One per, though, so when we ran into a ridculous number of them we had to go through every last square thinning the herd to let Sherlock get to the guy who was controlling while I led the others away."

pythbox
2013-03-20 05:19 pm (UTC)

"That sounds exhausting," says Iron Man. "Still, you heroed your way through it, good for you."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. Making wishes isn't exactly tiring, but it was pretty scary, we were sitting in the back of my pickup truck with a heap of squares completely surrounded by these things, wishing as fast as we could. There were two left wedged under stuff, I used one to vanish a chair someone might've killed Sherlock with later, and I had the other in reserve when Murderer Dude did the whole drugs-kidnapping-theft bit and he was holding it and apparently wished for me to be missing a decent fraction of my neck because the square disappeared and that happened."

pythbox
2013-03-20 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Oh, wow," he says. "That's pretty nasty. Did he have some kind of motivation or was it just one of those days?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 06:41 pm (UTC)

"The drugging-kidnapping-vampire thing did have a kind of motivation. He belongs to an organization that thinks it's its business to manage Slayers - that's the kinda superpowered I was and James is - and it was my eighteenth birthday, and there's this test involving the drugs-kidnapping-vampire thing. Which I legit passed, but then he took exception to my taking exception to having been tested at all, hence my bleeding out in a Holiday Inn."

pythbox
2013-03-20 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Gross," pronounces Iron Man. "People are assholes, I'm sorry."
Edited 2013-03-20 18:43 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Me too. But hey, then I got gotten out of Downside and Golden minted me and I got to have a dramatic confrontation with my murderer in his jail cell during which he wibbled like an idiot and I'm gonna take over the world."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I got to have a confrontation with my murderer too, and all her accomplices, and now they live on the moon," says Shell Bell placidly.

pythbox
2013-03-20 06:51 pm (UTC)

"You are both awesome," says Iron Man.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 06:51 pm (UTC)

"We are!" says Shell Bell.

This is continuation number 3 from here.

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:00 pm (UTC)

There are two stray Whistles and stray alts of each of Stella's staff mints. Pattern means to have some sort of arrangement with at least one by the end of this party, because how else is she going to take over the world? Okay, with Jane serving as transport she could probably siphon off largesse from the other seven and get along, but that would be ignominious. All else being equal she'd rather go with the alts of Stella's staff, she thinks, because the overwhelming regularity with Whistles appears to involve dating them and she's not so sure about that.

There's Stella's employees - and there are their alts - and Pattern's going to walk right up to them.

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 05:01 pm (UTC)

"...show you sometime," Chainsaw is saying, his arm slung around Sandy's shoulders.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-20 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," says Eights. "But you know, there are probably better places to be having that conversation."

Anna casts a speculative glance in the direction of the orgy chamber.

guiltless
2013-03-20 05:07 pm (UTC)

"You are kind of terrifying," Sandy says to Chainsaw, with more affection than usually accompanies those words.

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Am I interrupting?" Pattern asks, scanning each of the four nametags to keep them straight in her head.

guiltless
2013-03-20 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sandy, "and you're welcome to, hi! Which one are you?"

(It's hard to see her nametag from where he is snuggled up to Chainsaw's side.)

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm Pattern. I'm new, they got me out of Downside. I haven't even been back to my original world yet."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-20 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Do you know which one it is?" asks Anna. "Is there anyone else around here from there?"

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:24 pm (UTC)

"I saw one of the Whistles who was, but they're all off now and I think that one is the one Golden imported," sighs Pattern. "Nobody else."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-20 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Eights. "'Off'. We were thinking of heading off to join 'em in a bit."

"Is it bad that Golden imported him?" asks Anna.

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, it means that unless one of you or a Sherlock or somebody hitherto untapped as a potential mint is in my world, I too will have to import someone. I don't think he's likely to be up for de-importing, he's got a mated Golden-type vampire and a kid."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-20 05:30 pm (UTC)

Eights looks at Chainsaw.

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 05:30 pm (UTC)

Chainsaw looks at Pattern. And smirks.

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Mmm?" says Pattern.
Edited 2013-03-20 17:32 (UTC)

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Eights is looking for somewhere comfy to retire," he says. "But she wants to take me with her, and I bet that's a dealbreaker."

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:35 pm (UTC)

"...Is there a reason for you to bet that?" asks Pattern tentatively.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-20 05:36 pm (UTC)

"He was Downside's top torturer," says Eights. "Twice. For several thousand years each."

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I haven't given this extensive personal thought, but the template in general and by extension me-if-I-think-on-it-long-enough are okay with - colorful histories among the staff."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-20 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Is there an upper limit on colourfulness here?"

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:40 pm (UTC)

"I suppose I don't know, but it's not obvious why there would be as long as everything's metaphorically grayscale going forward."

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 05:40 pm (UTC)

"That is the question, ain't it?"

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Are you not keen on retiring?" Pattern asks uncomfortably.

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 05:43 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if you'll have much luck with that. None of us are going to be on board with - marauding torturers."

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 05:50 pm (UTC)

"But I'm such charming company," he says brightly.

bellfounding
2013-03-20 05:52 pm (UTC)

"We're on board with charming company. Just not marauding."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-20 05:54 pm (UTC)

"So," says Eights, "I'm gonna go say hi to the Whistles. Who's with me?"

"Me!" says Anna.

guiltless
2013-03-20 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Me, me!" says Sandy.

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 05:54 pm (UTC)

Chainsaw laughs.

bellfounding
2013-03-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

"...You have fun," says Pattern.

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Don't wanna come play?"

bellfounding
2013-03-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I'll pass."

nowait_letme
2013-03-20 06:03 pm (UTC)

He grins, and follows the rest of them.

bellfounding
2013-03-20 06:04 pm (UTC)

Pattern sighs, and goes to mingle more generally. Maybe a stray Sherlock will bite.

This is continuation number 4 from here.

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:08 pm (UTC)

Amariah finds Juliet's Sherlock - she can't tell him apart from the others by soul anymore, but he still dresses differently.

She hugs him without explanation.
Edited 2013-03-20 18:09 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Hello to you too," he says, mildly amused, and he hugs back.

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Hi. How're you doing?"

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 06:12 pm (UTC)

"My heart continues not to beat. Is this about any kind of recent revelation from Juliet?"
Edited 2013-03-20 18:12 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." Another hug.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 06:16 pm (UTC)

"And were you sent by a committee or is this hug an individual effort?"

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Just me. She announced, there was various hubbub, I found you. I think Shell Bell would be doing the same thing but she can't react to it properly without unfogging all her fogged-up memories," she adds.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I see. Well, thank you."

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:39 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. I hope you're okay. Beyond the continued unbeating status of your heart, I mean."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 06:40 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Yes," he says. "I hope I am okay, too."

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Can I help? I mean, I assume Juliet's doing everything she can, if there is any known thing, but if you'd rather have help from not-her of some kind."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately personal trauma does not come with an operator's manual."

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:46 pm (UTC)

Amariah ruffles his hair. "Maybe you should get some memories muffled like Shell Bell's."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 06:49 pm (UTC)

"No, thank you. Not that I find them particularly enjoyable, but they are mine."

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:51 pm (UTC)

"That's fair. Hers are there, but only if she looks for them. I think it was mostly because there were so many of them and they were trying to mostly be the one of her that was alive, though, I haven't considered it for my own dark spot. It's mine. Like you say."

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 06:52 pm (UTC)

He hugs her.

dark_light
2013-03-20 06:53 pm (UTC)

Aww, hugs.

This is continuation number 5 from here.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:01 pm (UTC)

[Libby, James, Elizabeth, you should all come meet my grandma!] Elspeth says, when her wave of the Aurum delegation arrives.

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 07:06 pm (UTC)

[Why should I come meet your grandma?]

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 07:07 pm (UTC)

[You really should,] says Libby. [I'm on my way, Elsie.]

dont_look_back
2013-03-20 07:08 pm (UTC)

Orfeo happily follows his imprint.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:09 pm (UTC)

[You should meet my grandma because she's a you!] Elspeth says, incapable of awaiting dramatic reveal.

neverbeatme
2013-03-20 07:11 pm (UTC)

James is the first to arrive.

"Hi, Elspeth's grandma!"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Hello to you too," says Elspeth's grandma.

Libby shows up next. "You know," she muses, "this probably means I'm never going to be your favourite grandma, doesn't it. Too much competition."

"Were you ever going to be?" wonders the next Libby, whose nametag declares that she has not yet picked a distinguishing nickname.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Esme is currently still winning," apologizes Elspeth, also constitutionally incapable of many forms of tact.

dont_look_back
2013-03-20 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Aww, but this one is clearly the best," says Orfeo, indicating the Eosian Libby, knowing perfectly well that no one will take him seriously on the subject.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 07:24 pm (UTC)

The Eosian Libby ruffles his hair. "You know," she says to the non-distinguished Libby from an unnamed world, "you should really pick a nickname."

"Fine," she sighs. "How about Slipstick."

"And I can be Granny," says Elspeth's grandma, "since I'm apparently never going to be known for anything else."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:27 pm (UTC)

The nametags update themselves accordingly. "I'm sure you could be known for something else, Grandma, you've only been undead for a very short while now," soothes Elspeth.

"You holding up okay, Orfeo?" Jacob asks his former packmate.

dont_look_back
2013-03-20 07:28 pm (UTC)

"All's well. Libby's aunt wolfed so I'm not a mess when there aren't any Aurum visitors, the tech drop took some getting used to but I'm all right."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I'll get a job offer from my imperial daughter-in-law," Granny muses.

"Employment by Bells seems to be the going thing," says Slipstick. "Maybe I should look into it, since my last big plan didn't pan out."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:35 pm (UTC)

"What was your last plan?" Elspeth asks Slipstick. "And Grandma, I'm sure Mama'll offer you a job and just didn't want to overwhelm you."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 07:37 pm (UTC)

"I married an unpleasant person. He died," says Slipstick.

Granny snorts.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:40 pm (UTC)

"That's a plan?" asks Elspeth quizzically.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 07:49 pm (UTC)

"It was going to be," says Slipstick. "But, again: he died."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:50 pm (UTC)

"But couldn't you get him back, now that Mama and her alts have taken over the afterlife?"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 07:51 pm (UTC)

"From what I know," says Slipstick, "I don't think they'd let him out."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh. So very unpleasant, then."

dont_look_back
2013-03-20 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I should be vaguely dismayed," says Orfeo.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 07:55 pm (UTC)

"He was nothing I couldn't handle," says Slipstick.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Well, there are eight Bells and only three have Libbies employed or about to be so, so you'll have choices," says Elspeth to Slipstick, "if that looks like next for you."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Can you tell me anything about the rest?" inquires Slipstick. "My information isn't exactly complete."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-20 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Besides Mama and Stella and Juliet, there's Shell Bell, who's already taken over Atlantis and was the one to discover Downside by getting assassinated. There's Amariah, who's a witch and lives in Alethia which is the only world we know about that isn't attached to Downside now and everybody there has an external usually-animal-shaped soul and it's contagious if you go there so that's something to consider, and she has an artifact that dispenses objective truth but only within Alethia, and she hasn't taken over yet. Angela hasn't taken over either, because she lives in a theocracy and even though it turns out the god is a spaceship and not a real god she's waiting for the last Archangel to finish out his term - that's her, up on stage, with the other angel, I think they're going to sing! And there's Aegis who's from the future, maybe not as far as Angela but we're not quite sure about Angela's history, and she's younger than all the others and she's an admiral and she got a hostile alien species to surrender and last I heard she was going to see about getting democratically elected to be something called Hegemon. And there's Pattern who is called that because she has no distinguishing features yet."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-20 08:24 pm (UTC)

Slipstick nods along to this explanation.

"Pattern's the dead one, right?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 01:39 am (UTC)

"Shell Bell and Juliet are also dead," says Elspeth. "Or that would be Pattern's distinguishing feature."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 01:40 am (UTC)

"The one who was dead when the rest of them found her," she amends.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 01:42 am (UTC)

"The one who was dead and just plain stayed that way without caveat until earlier today," says Elspeth, "yeah, that's her. I think she's looking for a mint-helper."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 01:44 am (UTC)

"That, I cannot help her with," says Slipstick.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 01:45 am (UTC)

"Not personally, maybe, but Libby, I think I heard that you helped Stella interview for her extras when Alice went missing?"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 01:49 am (UTC)

"I did!" says Libby. "Apparently they've got a couple of alts around here somewhere - I saw them chatting before they went to join the Whistles."

"Interesting," says Slipstick. "Sure, I could lend a hand there. If she hasn't already got one by the time she leaves the party."

neverbeatme
2013-03-21 01:55 am (UTC)

"So," says James, looking between Libby and Elspeth and Orfeo and Jacob, "what's with the escorts?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 02:00 am (UTC)

"Jake is my wolf and Orfeo is Libby's," says Elspeth. "I didn't bring my pamphlets with me but - ooh." She dips into one of the bowls of squares and conjures up a few complete stacks, and hands James one on wolves.

neverbeatme
2013-03-21 02:04 am (UTC)

"Ooh," she says dryly. "A pamphlet."

But she does read it.

dont_look_back
2013-03-21 02:07 am (UTC)

"Her Highness does good pamphlets," laughs Orfeo. "Short version is I took one look at Libby and I was all magically gone over her, likewise Jake and the Princess."

neverbeatme
2013-03-21 02:12 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says James, "there's a lot of that in your world, isn't there."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 02:14 am (UTC)

"Well, two kinds of it," says Elspeth. "Stella's precog Mary has been helping with the wolves, and now that Aunt Alice has cleared up her blind spots she can do it herself - and she was already keeping a lookout for problematic instances of the vampire version."

neverbeatme
2013-03-21 02:19 am (UTC)

"That sounds convenient."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 02:20 am (UTC)

"It's much better than having it happen at random. I'm happy to have Jake, but it was alarming at the time."

dont_look_back
2013-03-21 02:20 am (UTC)

"Libby handled it like a champ," says Orfeo loyally.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 02:21 am (UTC)

"Elspeth was five and wasn't sure if her mother was alive at the time, and -" Jacob begins. "But - man, you know well as I do that Whose Imprint Is Best fights never get anywhere."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 02:27 am (UTC)

Libby smiles fondly at Orfeo.

Slipstick looks between them and grins. After a moment, so does Granny.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 02:28 am (UTC)

Elspeth pats her wolf on the arm. "So he's my bodyguard, although the title is less essential now that we've got wishcoins going spare," she says. "Mama barely uses hers anymore except when she's at formal meetings with human governments and wants to be shadowed by an entourage."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 02:31 am (UTC)

"Happily, bodyguards are not something my template generally needs," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 02:48 am (UTC)

"In my case he's also handy for safety reasons that don't directly involve taking bullets for me or anything," Elspeth says, "because he's a very good target for my truth power on subjects that have to do with whether I'm safe."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 02:50 am (UTC)

"I'd like to register general envy for everyone here with a magic aunt," sighs Granny.

"Are you going to drag yours out of storage?" inquires Slipstick.

Granny nods. "Soon. And your mothers?" she asks, looking between the rest of her template.

"It's on the to-do list," says Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 02:59 am (UTC)

"Your aunt might be magic, Grandma, witches happen in Aurum," says Elspeth, "mightn't she?"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 03:12 am (UTC)

"If she has any, it didn't show up in time to prevent either of us from dying. I stand by my declaration of envy."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 03:13 am (UTC)

"I bet she'd get the power if she turned, anyway," says Elspeth.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 03:14 am (UTC)

"I guess we'll see when we dig her up," says Granny.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 04:34 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 11:41 am (UTC)

"Bells sure do make life interesting," says Slipstick. The other Libbies laugh.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 03:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, no kidding," snorts Jacob.

"Jake," sighs Elspeth.

"I've got no objection to how things shook out once she managed to get rid of the Volturi, Elsie, but before that..."

"Yeah," sighs Elspeth. "I know. It's tidier when it's mints, though."
Edited 2013-03-21 15:03 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-03-21 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll bite," says James. "What'd Golden do?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a verbal summary or a magic summary?" Elspeth asks.
Edited 2013-03-21 23:14 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-03-21 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Let's try verbal."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Mama had a harder time of taking over our world than the other Bells have had with theirs, because she didn't have coins, just individual people some of whom had witchcraft, and because someone was already ruling the vampires when she got there. One of her plans backfired and she and Dad wound up each thinking the other was dead for five years, and mated vampires can't really do a lot without their mates safe. Mama managed to bring me up while pretending to be dead to everybody else she knew, which is more than most anyone would have been able to do. But then we got split up and I found Jake's pack of wolves and the Volturi found the pack and I found Dad being kept prisoner in Volterra where the Volturi ruled from, and a lot of very complicated things happened but eventually the Volturi were defeated and Mama became Empress."

neverbeatme
2013-03-21 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," says James. "That does sound... untidy."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

dont_look_back
2013-03-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

"It feels weird to have it all summarized like that. I learned about this stuff in class when I was a puppy," snorts Orfeo. "It's like hearing someone summarize World War Two."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Libby, "especially the part where 'a lot of very complicated things happened'."

dont_look_back
2013-03-21 11:48 pm (UTC)

"A lot of complicated things did happen. We did an entire unit on the Golden Revolution. I made a little diorama," says Orfeo.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 11:48 pm (UTC)

Elspeth giggles.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-21 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Cute," Libby says fondly.

dont_look_back
2013-03-21 11:52 pm (UTC)

"It was adorable. I did my presentation on the kept wolves and I made Rachel out of cottonballs and Becky out of black pompoms."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-21 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Did I write all your textbooks, or was this after Grandma Renée started helping with those?" asks Elspeth.

dont_look_back
2013-03-21 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember who wrote my textbooks when I was in puppy school, Princess," snorts Orfeo.

neverbeatme
2013-03-21 11:54 pm (UTC)

James giggles.

This is continuation number 6 from here.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 07:02 pm (UTC)

[Attention Sherlocks and Tonies! There's a critical mass of you forming over by the dessert end of the buffet, and you should all gather and figure out a nickname system once and for all!]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 07:15 pm (UTC)

[I don't eat food and I have a distinguishing nickname already; can I sit this one out?]

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-20 07:15 pm (UTC)

[Not a chance,] says Plus, and he locates Minus and drags him to the buffet.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 07:17 pm (UTC)

[Your nickname's out of date,] Juliet says. Just to her own. She wants to see if the others can figure it out. She drifts thataway to supervise.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 07:25 pm (UTC)

[But I'm so fond of it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 07:36 pm (UTC)

[Why?] laughs Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 07:39 pm (UTC)

[Because it is mine.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-20 07:42 pm (UTC)

[It's cute, it just has the disadvantage of not making sense anymore. But you can help the others with theirs, maybe, and meet them all, even if you insist on keeping "Minus" for yourself. Look, Strat's converging, he's got a nickname already too.]

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 07:56 pm (UTC)

[Ah, and there is—Iron Man, apparently.]

pythbox
2013-03-20 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Iron Man, last to arrive. "So first order of business: is there anybody here who still trusts Obadiah Stane?"

There is a general shaking of heads.

"Good," he says. "That's good. I'm glad."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-20 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Amariah killed one of those for me," volunteers Shell Bell. "He had a different name in my world, though."

pythbox
2013-03-20 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Good for Amariah," says Iron Man.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-20 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I killed one too," volunteers Minus. "Do I get a prize?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-20 08:02 pm (UTC)

"If we do, you can put me down for it as well."

pythbox
2013-03-20 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm not handing out any prizes," Iron Man snorts.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-20 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Am I the only one here fortunate enough not to have met this individual?" wonders Strat.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 01:40 am (UTC)

"We could conjure up little trophies? Or, I know, T-shirts, 'I killed a Stane and all I got was this lousy -' no, that's tacky."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 01:41 am (UTC)

"You don't seem to be very template-y, even though you're clearly an alt," says Shell Bell to Strat. "So it makes sense that you might not have one. Maybe they're attached to Tonies instead of to Sherlocks, and you don't have a Tony so that's why?"

pythbox
2013-03-21 01:42 am (UTC)

"That would make sense," says Iron Man, "because I have one and he doesn't. Well, had. Except you guys took over the afterlife, so I guess he'll be popping up like a weed any day now."
Edited 2013-03-21 01:42 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 01:44 am (UTC)

"Oh, no," says Shell Bell. "We don't have to let him come back. That's only for people who aren't dangerous and haven't annoyed us. He can just stay Downside."

pythbox
2013-03-21 01:45 am (UTC)

"Good plan!" says Iron Man.

Nodding all round.
Edited 2013-03-21 01:46 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 01:48 am (UTC)

"Anybody else who belongs on the no-fly list?" inquires Juliet.

pythbox
2013-03-21 01:53 am (UTC)

"Ivan Vanko," he says. "Not quite as big an asshole, but he did try to ruin my life recently and his preferred method involved killing a lot of people, so my feelings are not friendly."

The name doesn't seem to strike a bell with anyone else.
Edited 2013-03-21 01:53 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 01:57 am (UTC)

Shell Bell taps her ring.

mind_game
2013-03-21 01:58 am (UTC)

[You got it,] Jane broadcasts to the convocation.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 01:59 am (UTC)

"So," says Juliet. "Nicknames. Many of you are nigh-indistinguishable - at least to those of us who aren't Sherlocks - and not having different names doesn't help."

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 02:03 am (UTC)

"It's the Sherlocks who seem to vary," says one of same. "Vampire, different vampire, human, different human, and then..." he waves a hand vaguely at Strat, "you. The attached Tonies are not so easily distinguished."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 02:05 am (UTC)

Shell Bell clearly has a favorite Sherlock. There may be some leaning and gazing going on between moments when she's not addressing the group.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 02:06 am (UTC)

"Whistles usually just get outright named by their attached Bells, but half of you don't have attached Bells," says Juliet. "Besides, I can't think of anything good."

sicaria
2013-03-21 02:08 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock, patting Bell fondly on the shoulder, "that is the trouble. No one can think of anything good."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-21 02:09 am (UTC)

"Oh, I don't know," says another Sherlock. "'Plus and Minus' wasn't bad. But the rest of you can't describe yourselves easily by your formative soul status."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 02:11 am (UTC)

"And three of the sets come from eerily similar worlds, so there's no playing on that theme. And I don't think my Sherlock and Tony want to pick up on any of the titles the media invented for them."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 02:12 am (UTC)

"I'm beginning to see why Jarvis was so tempted to just outright number the eerily similar worlds."

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 02:15 am (UTC)

"Let's all take a moment to be thankful that we don't have to assign distinguishing nicknames to the Jarvises."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 02:17 am (UTC)

"Unless at least two of them start being capable of showing up to parties and getting mixed up, yeah," says Juliet, "not a priority."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 02:18 am (UTC)

"How did you settle on 'Strat'?" Shell Bell asks Strat.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-21 02:20 am (UTC)

"A friend gave it to me, after the guitar." He snorts. "Yes, there's a plan: let's all give ourselves Downsider nicknames."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 02:23 am (UTC)

Shell Bell shrugs minutely. "They do have a certain aesthetic to them. Although I think I would have kept Bell instead of Shell if it hadn't been for my special circumstances."

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 02:32 am (UTC)

"...Those being...?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 02:34 am (UTC)

"I knew - well, strongly suspected - that my Sherlock had resurrected me. So Shell decided that she was Shell and the live one was Bell. Now I'm both again, of course."

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 02:37 am (UTC)

"I see."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 02:45 am (UTC)

"Maybe insofar as you don't have your own characteristics you could come up with a shared short list of things that you'd be able to put up with as nicknames, then pick them out of a hat. Except my Sherlock, who doesn't seem to want a new one."

sicaria
2013-03-21 02:46 am (UTC)

"Why are you singling him out? Plus and Strat also seem satisfied with theirs."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 02:49 am (UTC)

"Mine mentioned it specifically on the way over," Juliet says. "I guess 'insofar as you lack distinguishing characteristics' is mostly for the quartet of non-Iron-Man Tonies anyway, although yours doesn't seem to have yielded a nickname."
Edited 2013-03-21 02:54 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 02:55 am (UTC)

"We probably shouldn't just call you 'girl', should we," says Shell Bell to her Sherlock who is thusly distinguished. "I dunno. Victoria," she tosses out. "And our Tony could be Victor. Or is that as bad an idea as the Panem media's idea of cute things to call you would be?"

sicaria
2013-03-21 02:56 am (UTC)

"That is a terrible idea," she says fondly.

ferratus
2013-03-21 02:57 am (UTC)

"And don't call her 'girl', we have lots of distinguishing characteristics that aren't that one, we're the farthest pair from the middle here."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 03:01 am (UTC)

"Not very namey characteristics, though. Or ones with particularly nice associations."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 03:02 am (UTC)

"Does no one like my shortlist-and-a-hat idea?"

toblameforit
2013-03-21 03:18 am (UTC)

The three least-distinguished Tonies exchange a glance.

"I honestly can't think of anything," says one.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 04:49 am (UTC)

"Could play on the names themselves. Shell Bell's Sherlock can be, what's a variant there, Shirley? Or, doesn't it mean something - 'fair haired' - I'm just brainstorming at this point - and "Tony", what've we got to work with there, Jane, help me out."

mind_game
2013-03-21 04:59 am (UTC)

["Anthony", or in the Atlantis case "Antony", means priceless, flourishing, or praiseworthy. Variants include Antoine, Anton, Antonello, Antonio, and assorted spellings of same.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 05:06 am (UTC)

"Oh, so you're already an odd one out if you just go by full name," Juliet says to Tony-which-is-short-for-Antony. "So there's that. And have you got middle names, maybe? There's options."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 05:07 am (UTC)

"The rest of you are An-thon-y? With a th - huh, weird," says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-03-21 11:42 am (UTC)

"No Antons," says Iron Man. "I put a veto on Antons."

toblameforit
2013-03-21 11:43 am (UTC)

"Why...? Never mind, I don't care," says an Anthony. "Anyway, I hate it when people call me Anthony, who's with me on that?"

Everyone. Everyone is with him on that.

ferratus
2013-03-21 11:43 am (UTC)

"I'd hate it too, if anyone ever had," the Antony chips in.

sicaria
2013-03-21 11:45 am (UTC)

"No one is permitted to call me Shirley," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 03:05 pm (UTC)

"Sheesh, you guys are tricky. ...Do you all have the same favorite color? Bells don't seem to, I'm rocking an indigo theme and so on, no two of our Jane-gems match straight across, our coin colors are all different."
Edited 2013-03-21 15:06 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 03:07 pm (UTC)

"None of the Tonies are mints," Shell Bell points out, "and only two Sherlocks are. Could we find out coin colors without actually just minting them all?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 03:07 pm (UTC)

"If this looks like a fruitful avenue we can find out," says Juliet.

toblameforit
2013-03-21 03:27 pm (UTC)

The Tony-wide favourite colour, after a short conference, is apparently 'red, I guess'. (Iron Man snickers behind his hand and won't tell anyone why.)

"Sure," a Tony says finally. "I'd go by a coin colour unless it was something ridiculous."

There is widespread nodding.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 03:29 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell designs a power that will let her see hypothetical coin colors even on non-mints. It doesn't have to last long, so she only spends a pentagon on it, then peers around.

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:17 pm (UTC)

Iron Man's coins would be gold - not as in the colour, but as in the metal, polished and shining.

The two minted Sherlocks show up correctly: Shell Bell's as a pearly grey, Minus as a darker, smokily translucent shade.

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 08:19 pm (UTC)

The other human Sherlock is likewise grey, but his is bright and pale and flatly opaque, like an overcast sky at noon.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-21 08:23 pm (UTC)

Plus is another grey, not foggy-smoky like Minus's but almost transparent, with darker tendrils curling through it like the smoke from a snuffed candle.

finaldiscussion
2013-03-21 08:25 pm (UTC)

Strat is a much darker grey, soft around the edges, like deep fog.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 08:28 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell conjures up associated illusions of squares in front of each for everyone to look at as she looks at each one.

toblameforit
2013-03-21 09:52 pm (UTC)

Among the Tonies, one is bright red, like a sports car or a fire truck; one is a brilliant blue-white that seems like it should be glowing, although it gives off no light; and one is a blue so dark it's almost black, with enough reflective gloss to obscure the underlying shade almost completely.

ferratus
2013-03-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

And Shell Bell's Tony has a faintly bluish brushed aluminum.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 09:54 pm (UTC)

"So, Pearl," Shell Bell says to her Sherlock. "And... Aluminum? Is that aluminum?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Is that your fucking McLaren?" says the stray human Sherlock to his Tony.

toblameforit
2013-03-21 09:57 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "It totally is."

"And this," says another Tony, gesturing to his illusory square, "is an arc reactor. Awesome."

sicaria
2013-03-21 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I can accept Pearl."

Her nametag changes state accordingly.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so turning all this into names isn't perfectly straightforward, but 'Arc' is totally in keeping with how nicknaming has been going on, and 'McLaren' isn't far off, and I guess mine can just be Red unless this also represents some iconic object I don't recognize?" She peers at the undead Tony's square. "And Shell Bell's is Aluminum. And we should name some worlds while we're at it - there's kind of a sun theme for the ones that are oddly like Sunshine. Jarvis named the world he was copied in from Helios. Plus, did you ever decide between Apollo and Ra?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-21 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't remotely care."

toblameforit
2013-03-21 10:58 pm (UTC)

'Arc' and 'McLaren' exchange a look.

"Uh," says the one.

"But what if we kind of hate them," says the other.

"Well, I don't mind 'Red'," the third undistinguished Tony says with a shrug. His nametag updates.

"I mean," 'McLaren' continues, "not that I don't love the car, because I do love the car, but I don't want to be the car."

"And 'Arc' just sounds weird, I mean, it's an arc reactor, why not just call me 'Fusion', it's still dorky but it makes slightly more sense."
Edited 2013-03-21 23:00 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Picky, picky," snorts Juliet. "Fusion's fine. As for you," she says to the one with the car-colored coin, "I'm out of other ideas."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:04 pm (UTC)

"...I think it's your screwdriver, from your Games," Shell Bell realizes aloud to her Tony, frowning at his illusion square.

ferratus
2013-03-21 11:05 pm (UTC)

"...You know what," he says, "Screwdriver's better than Aluminum. I'll take it."

toblameforit
2013-03-21 11:06 pm (UTC)

The car-coloured Tony shrugs. "Let's put the pressure on somebody else for a minute," he suggests. "Like, say, my Sherry." He points at the one with the sky-grey square.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 11:08 pm (UTC)

"...Looks like a cloud to me," says Juliet. "How's Cloud? I'm starting to find it kind of miraculous that I kept the nickname my Sherlock gave me considering that there's so little overlap in taste, though, so I won't be stunned if you reject it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:08 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell glances at Iron Man. "D'you want to name your world? Or should I talk to Darcy about that instead?"

pythbox
2013-03-21 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Talk to Darcy," he says, "I have no idea."

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 11:09 pm (UTC)

"...So little overlap?" he asks. "How do you mean?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:10 pm (UTC)

[Darcy, wanna name your world?]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 11:13 pm (UTC)

"My ideas are not meeting with much approval here. Of course no one should start going by a nickname they hate just to soothe my ego, but meanwhile I am... hmm... yeah, the only Bell known who didn't pick her own nickname, except Golden who was named by other Bells, and I like being Juliet just fine. Asymmetrical." She shrugs. "Not a big deal. Cloud or not Cloud?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 11:15 pm (UTC)

"It is the Tonies who have been rejecting your naming suggestions thus far."

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-21 11:15 pm (UTC)

[...Nine Realms?] says Darcy. [It's what the Asgardians call it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 11:19 pm (UTC)

"And Pearl over there," Juliet says. "It's not a big deal."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:19 pm (UTC)

[Is there a less - plural - word for it? That's kind of a weird name for one of many worlds.]

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Well, 'Cloud' makes me sound like a pony, but I don't have a better option, so Cloud it is."

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

[Not really. Asgard, Midgard - that's Earth - Jotunheim, Muspellheim, Vanaheim, Niflheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, and Hel. Nine realms, one universe.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:29 pm (UTC)

"The best Darcy can do for your world is 'Nine Realms'," Shell Bell tells Iron Man.

mind_game
2013-03-21 11:30 pm (UTC)

[How about Yggdrasil?] suggests Jane, to Shell Bell, Iron Man, and Darcy.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 11:31 pm (UTC)

"So, so tempted to call you Pony now," Juliet tells Cloud.

sailorheavymetal
2013-03-21 11:32 pm (UTC)

[...It would be kind of like calling the solar system 'Gravity',] says Darcy. [I mean, to an Asgardian. But I guess if there's no Yggdrasil in the rest of the worlds, it's actually pretty good.]

bitofafiction
2013-03-21 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Bite your tongue," he snorts.
Edited 2013-03-21 23:32 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 11:33 pm (UTC)

She sticks out her tongue at him in the course of biting it. "Cloud it is," she says. "And now you're the last one," she adds to Car-Color Tony.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:34 pm (UTC)

[Let it be so,] giggles Shell Bell.

mind_game
2013-03-21 11:35 pm (UTC)

[World number eighty is now marked down as Yggdrasil in my godly records of such things,] Jane intones.

toblameforit
2013-03-21 11:38 pm (UTC)

"...This actual paint colour is called 'Sapphire Black'," says Car-Color Tony. "I'm not sure I can deal with people calling me Sapphire, but it's marginally better than my other options."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 11:42 pm (UTC)

"As you like," says Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I think it's cute," says Shell Bell.

toblameforit
2013-03-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

'Sapphire' snorts.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:47 pm (UTC)

"You can always change it if you come up with a better idea," Shell Bell points out.

toblameforit
2013-03-21 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he sighs, "but I bet I won't."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-21 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Now I'm trying to figure out what I would've gone with if I hadn't already been answering to Juliet by the time the need for a nickname manifested, and if I'd found Milliways before Minus here did," muses Juliet. "I'd have considered 'Slayer', I guess, but I dunno, too on the nose. Maybe 'Crucifix' or 'Arbalist'."

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-21 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I feel really lucky that I've had my nickname since I was eight," giggles Shell Bell.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-22 01:16 am (UTC)

"I think Juliet suits you," says Minus to Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 01:19 am (UTC)

"I like it. Thank you for it," she says, pecking him on the cheek.

eversomuchfun
2013-03-22 01:19 am (UTC)

He grins and hugs her.

This is continuation number 7 from here.

autokinetic
2013-03-21 07:42 pm (UTC)

Aegis sort of wishes she were as far along in empire-building as some of the others. At least she's not completely on her own like poor Pattern, but her only guest is off in a pile of himselves. Oh well. Everybody here is filtered for being potentially interesting to people like her! There's a guy standing alone with a plate of food looking around with bemusement. She dances over in his direction. Her exo's been rendered quite redundant but she hasn't taken it off yet, so she's still all-over copper. "Hi -" She read his name tag. "Is that pronounced with a hard G or a soft G? Or like a J?"
Edited 2013-03-21 19:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Giles," says Giles. (It's the J.) "And you are... Aegis?"

autokinetic
2013-03-21 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Also with a G pronounced like a J," she says. "I'm the space soldier one who brought in Jane, if you're having trouble keeping us straight."

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Just a little, yes," he admits. "And I am... er... from Juliet's world."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I can tell," says Aegis. "We can all see now by looking which world a person's from. She named your world Sunshine, by the way. You seem kind of overwhelmed by all this stuff," she says, gesturing around.

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:38 pm (UTC)

"That is... definitely accurate."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 08:39 pm (UTC)

"You need stuff summarized or explained or would that just make it worse?"

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:42 pm (UTC)

"It all seems fairly straightforward," he says. "It's just, well, incredible."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 08:45 pm (UTC)

Aegis grins. "I'm lucky, I had warning. Whistles like my Sue sometimes dream their way into Milliways, so I've been hearing about alts and mints and stuff since I was ten, even if I didn't buy it all as a real thing since it was just Sue telling me about a dream he had where there were more of me and one of 'em had wings."

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:46 pm (UTC)

"...Yes, I can imagine that would sound dubious."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Quite." Aegis sways, and pivots around 360º. "How do you know Juliet well enough to get an invite?"

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm her Watcher," he says, and sighs. "Was. I was her Watcher. Now I'm probably redundant."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 08:53 pm (UTC)

"What's a Watcher?"

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:54 pm (UTC)

"...Well, do you know what a Slayer is?"

autokinetic
2013-03-21 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that was in the executive summary I got when I met up with the peal, Slayer's like a supernatural draftee versus monsters. Gets superpowers, but mostly combat ones, not magic. Sue visited Sunshine once, but Juliet made him spar with her first to make sure he'd be able to handle himself if they met anything and he gave her a bloody nose and she was really impressed, so they must be pretty good combat powers. He said she was easier to hit than me, though, just tougher."

pythbox
2013-03-21 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well, the Watchers are meant to lend her a hand. Or so I've always thought. Research obscure varieties of demon, oversee her training, that sort of thing."
Edited 2013-03-21 20:59 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-21 09:00 pm (UTC)

"...So you've always thought?" inquires Aegis, tilting her head. She stretches her arms out and then drops them.

pythbox
2013-03-21 09:01 pm (UTC)

He sighs again.

"We recently had a disagreement with the Council. Juliet died. The Council representative is in jail for kidnapping."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeesh. Did she piss them off or something? She kind of glossed over how she got to be one of the technically dead trio in all the excitement. I don't have as complete a picture of her as some of the others - Sue can't link her. Golden either. Their versions of our power won't let him in even if they try."
Edited 2013-03-21 21:03 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-21 09:06 pm (UTC)

"No, apparently the Council just thinks that drugging a Slayer to take away her powers and locking her in an empty building with a starving vampire is a perfectly natural form of standardized testing. When I objected, the fellow hit me over the head and then did it anyway."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Wow. The I.F. had some kind of screwed up ideas about that sort of thing too, I should probably commiserate with her at some point," says Aegis, wincing.

pythbox
2013-03-21 09:08 pm (UTC)

Giles nods.

autokinetic
2013-03-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

"I was keeping it secret that I could link with Sue, because my telepath-blocking mutation is the only reason I was allowed to have this," says Aegis, flicking the copper webbing on the back of one hand, "but then they really wanted me to be able to do it for the war we were supposed to wage, so in the middle of the night they gave me an illegal mutation suppression drug and took my exoskeleton - and I was almost paralyzed without it before magic happened. But I fessed up about having been able to let Sue in all along and they gave me an antidote and my exo back."

pythbox
2013-03-21 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he says, "that's awful. I apologize on behalf of self-important bureaucrats everywhere."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 09:15 pm (UTC)

Aegis laughs. "They weren't a monolith. I hacked into the fleet psych files and there were some people who were shouting at some other people about fucking with us like that. But yeah, now the war's over and I'm an admiral and a mint and I've got Jane and I don't even need my exo anymore, I just haven't bothered to take it off - and some things are gonna change about my world."

pythbox
2013-03-21 09:18 pm (UTC)

"That," says Giles, smiling slightly, "seems to be a theme."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 09:19 pm (UTC)

"It's a good theme! We're way better than any alternatives anyone's come up with so far."

pythbox
2013-03-21 09:21 pm (UTC)

"I wonder," he says, "if we will ever find a Bell who was content to let someone else rule her world."

autokinetic
2013-03-21 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Aegis. "As soon as we find a Bell whose world is being run acceptably. Otherwise I think the closest we'll get is one who's discontent about it but doesn't have the resources to do much."

pythbox
2013-03-21 09:27 pm (UTC)

"And what constitutes acceptable?"

autokinetic
2013-03-21 09:29 pm (UTC)

"There's not a master list. Worlds vary, their needs vary. My situation's not as urgent as, say, Shell Bell's was. I might actually decide to be patient enough to get democratically elected instead of just taking stuff over."

pythbox
2013-03-22 01:15 am (UTC)

"And if you are not elected...?"

autokinetic
2013-03-22 01:18 am (UTC)

"I'm still an admiral and a war hero and the best friend of the only person who can translate for the aliens. Whoever's elected will have to listen to me, or at least Sue. If I can't be Hegemon, I can probably at least get awarded governorship of a colony, and make covert little improvements to the rest of the world the way Angela's doing while she waits to order her god to name her Archangel."

pythbox
2013-03-22 01:19 am (UTC)

"...I'd think someone who can order a god to do things is already doing pretty well in the power department."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 01:20 am (UTC)

"Oh, it's not actually a god, just everyone on her world thinks it is and has for a few hundred years. It's actually a spaceship. She made herself captain of it and then Jane ate it and either way it does what she says."

pythbox
2013-03-22 01:20 am (UTC)

"I see."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 01:25 am (UTC)

"You'll get used to this sort of thing soon, I'm sure. I mean, Juliet must like you or she wouldn't have invited you, and that implies a certain minimum level of mental alertness and adjustability."

pythbox
2013-03-22 01:27 am (UTC)

...He shakes his head and laughs.

"How reassuring."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 01:29 am (UTC)

"You could always ask her for some brain upgrades if that'd help. I'm having tremendous fun with mine. I was used to processing power boosts from linkups with Sue, but perfect recall is good stuff."

pythbox
2013-03-22 01:32 am (UTC)

"Ah... no, I don't think I will."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-03-22 01:53 am (UTC)

He hesitates, then shakes his head.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 02:09 am (UTC)

"Are you this unforthcoming with Juliet, too? Geez, you must have other really sterling qualities."

pythbox
2013-03-22 02:13 am (UTC)

...He frowns.

"I am suddenly even less inclined to detail my personal traumas to you in public," he says dryly.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 02:16 am (UTC)

"Aww, but I told you mine," says Aegis. "I could also tell you about how I got beat up in the shower one time or how I got kidnapped or how I learned that I was fighting an actual war and not a sim, would that help?"

(She is, Giles may notice, the youngest Bell in attendance.)

pythbox
2013-03-22 02:18 am (UTC)

He takes off his glasses and cleans them.

"No," he says. "Thank you. But no."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 02:22 am (UTC)

"I wonder if Juliet knows," says Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-22 02:24 am (UTC)

"Juliet does know," he says, "and I don't expect that I can stop her from telling you, but right at this moment I am not very happy about the prospect."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 02:29 am (UTC)

"Well, she won't tell me if it's legit personal and there's no conceivable use for the information on my end," says Aegis, "there's that."

pythbox
2013-03-22 02:30 am (UTC)

"How reassuring," he mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nose before he replaces his glasses.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 02:31 am (UTC)

"On the other hand, if the information has ever touched a computer, Jane'll tell me regardless 'cause I'm her mom."

pythbox
2013-03-22 02:33 am (UTC)

"Never have I been gladder to be a relic of the stone age," he says. "What is your fascination with invading my privacy for your, your personal entertainment?"

autokinetic
2013-03-22 02:38 am (UTC)

"I didn't say I was going to ask her! But the vast majority of people who've made it their business to keep shit secret from me were hiding facts like 'we have been reading your diary since you were four' and 'that computer game you've been playing is a psychological evaluation tool' and 'the asshole who knocked your head into the corner of your bunk and could've given you brain damage was actually a plant and we could've stopped him anytime but we didn't' and 'we're graduating you early to use you as leverage against your best friend' and 'that game you just played involved real soldiers, four of whom died after giving up their lives on Earth to relativistic space travel and didn't know they were putting their lives in the hands of fifteen- and sixteen-year olds, and we were never going to tell you but our psychologists convinced us it was strategically necessary'. And I don't like it."

pythbox
2013-03-22 02:44 am (UTC)

He sighs and takes off his glasses for a moment to rub his eyes.

"I'm sorry, then," he says. "But out of all the responses you could have chosen to this set of circumstances, taunting me with your ability to spy on me is not my favourite."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 02:44 am (UTC)

"What would've been better, then?"

pythbox
2013-03-22 02:46 am (UTC)

"I don't really know," he sighs.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 02:48 am (UTC)

"Compared to anybody who isn't minted and flush with coins, all of us might as well be omnipotent. If we want to bad enough, we can do anything. You'll have better luck trying to manage what we want. We've got good ethics but not perfect ones."

pythbox
2013-03-22 02:56 am (UTC)

"Manage what you want?" he repeats. "How am I meant to do that? And why should I need to? If you are nearly omnipotent and your ethics cannot prevent you from needless violations of other people's privacy and autonomy, that is a problem that you, urgently, need to solve."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 03:05 am (UTC)

"There's this thing we do," says Aegis. "We ask ourselves: What do I want? What do I have? How can I use the latter to get the former? And having more power lets us be more precise and nicer and more ethical at getting only what we want and not any extras that we don't need that we might not really, truly want. And we don't want to hurt people, or go around needlessly violating other people's privacy and autonomy, and with wishcoins we can avoid it even if something very, very important that might ordinarily conflict with those things is on the line. But at the end of the day it always comes down to what we want. Angela's god is false and Amariah's don't care and mine's probably going to send me a Mother's Day card - we answer to ourselves. I don't think wanting to know things that have no obvious application would ever tend to trump others' personal privacy. But if something were going to... curiosity is high up on things that motivate Bells. I'm not trying to scare you. I do think Juliet must like you, I'm not planning to pry into your head, and you aren't from my jurisdiction anyway. But for keeping conversations a little friendlier than this one turned out, you could consider not being conspicuously, temptingly opaque."

pythbox
2013-03-22 03:14 am (UTC)

"I fail to see at what point in this conversation I could have usefully been more inconspicuous, since you leapt down my throat the moment I failed to volunteer information about my personal history."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 03:15 am (UTC)

Juliet chooses this moment to wander by. "This looks distressingly hostile," she says. "What's happened?"

autokinetic
2013-03-22 03:16 am (UTC)

"Your Watcher got me curious and wasn't thrilled with the results," says Aegis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 03:17 am (UTC)

"...Oof. Uh, I wasn't linked up and don't know you as well as the others do, are there special circumstances or are you garden-variety thereabouts?"

autokinetic
2013-03-22 03:19 am (UTC)

"Far as I know, no one has ever kept a significant secret from me specifically, that wasn't both relevant and being kept for reasons contrary to my interests, there's that," says Aegis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 03:20 am (UTC)

"Okay. Maybe when your Whistle comes out you wanna ask him about getting a mindreading install like how Stella and Angela and Shell Bell have. And don't mind Giles. I think he gets it about relevant information. Giles, what's your half?"

pythbox
2013-03-22 03:29 am (UTC)

"I am still unclear on why she felt that the best response to my refusal to tell her why I am wary of mind upgrades was to start listing the ways she might obtain the answer without my consent," he says grumpily.

And to Aegis, he adds: "This information has nothing to do with you. Its only conceivable use to anyone, besides making me uncomfortable every time it comes up, is to corroborate a warning that a kind of magic you are never going to study has nasty pitfalls that almost certainly wouldn't affect you anyway."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 03:30 am (UTC)

"Also, reminding me of it could prompt me to ask if there's anyone you want pulled from the afterlife," Juliet says archly.
Edited 2013-03-22 03:31 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-22 03:31 am (UTC)

"...I don't know," he says helplessly. "I will have that conversation with you later when I've thought about some things."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 03:37 am (UTC)

"Okay. Aegis, am I right in thinking that if you were trying to keep a secret from somebody you'd think it was very nice of them to tell you where they could get it besides from you?"
Edited 2013-03-22 03:40 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Aegis. "And what'd happen if I didn't cough up, too. Otherwise maybe I piss them off not telling and they just find it out some other way and later I need them to like me and they don't - or maybe I don't tell and they're not mad but I never even know that they could've just looked it up someplace else and are capable of yea much restraint and I need an evaluation of their character later - or maybe I do tell because it turns out the alternative is getting drugged and half-paralyzed and gosh sure would've been nice to know that they wanted to know I could do this thing back when telling them would've been relatively painless, huh? - or maybe she's the admin Downside and she knows literally everything already and now I know how restrained she's not and also know not to waste time predicating any behavior on her being ignorant of anything - or something. Why wouldn't I want to know exactly how much my secrets were under my control?"
Edited 2013-03-22 04:06 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 04:10 am (UTC)

"Okay, but," says Juliet, "if one hasn't already thought through all that sort of thing, then learning something about how much one's secrets are under one's control can just sound like bad news or like escalating, they don't necessarily like learning it even if it was already true. If you - geez, you haven't interacted with civilians since you were six apart from the last twelve hours, have you? All kinds of shit probably goes without saying when everybody in the conversation's ranked and uniformed."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:13 am (UTC)

"Well - Renée and Charlie wrote, but, yeah," says Aegis. "Lot of explicit power structures. I have bad instincts?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 04:15 am (UTC)

"I'm not gonna say they're complete shit, I'd have to talk to you a bit more to know that, but they're probably not well-calibrated. Giles isn't your C.O. just because he's old enough to vote. If he doesn't tell you something you're not going to wind up killing people on his say-so in the absence of critical information or running into some organizational incompatibility and ending your career."
Edited 2013-03-22 04:18 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:24 am (UTC)

Aegis considers this.

"I probably need, like, a month planetside before I'm decent company for anybody but Sue and the other child soldiers and copies of me," she remarks. "There were totally shades of mouthing off to a colonel back there. Different content same attitude. Sorry, Giles. I know you're not a colonel."
Edited 2013-03-22 04:24 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 04:25 am (UTC)

Juliet snickers. "Just don't do it to Renée. I can just imagine the look on her face."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:25 am (UTC)

"...I can't," murmurs Aegis.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 04:26 am (UTC)

"...Didn't you hex up perfect recall, doesn't she send pictures?"

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:28 am (UTC)

"I did. She does. It's not the same, though, memories a decade out of date and still photos, is it? I can't picture what'd happen if I acted like she was Colonel Beckstead telling me I couldn't have access to ansible communications with the fleet."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 04:30 am (UTC)

Juliet hugs her. "She'd get huffy and tell you that she didn't mean anything by whatever prompted the attitude and that you were a very touchy young lady and maybe she won't bake those cinnamon buns after all," she says. "And she'd get over it in about fifteen minutes and hug you. And bake you cinnamon buns."

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:31 am (UTC)

"Heh," says Aegis, and she hugs back tight.

mind_game
2013-03-22 05:55 am (UTC)

[Hey, Aegis,] says Jane, broadcasting to all three members of the conversation (as the newly installed brainphone upgrade informs them), [I think you have one of these at home. He's got a different name and doesn't wear glasses and I wasn't paying a lot of attention so I didn't notice right away but the face matches one in the I.F. personnel database.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 05:55 am (UTC)

"Ooh, multiple Gileses belonging to sketchy bureucracies," says Juliet.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 05:58 am (UTC)

"I don't recognize him," Aegis points out.

pythbox
2013-03-22 12:23 pm (UTC)

[...What,] says Giles, [is this person's name?]

mind_game
2013-03-22 03:39 pm (UTC)

[Rupert Merryweather,] reports Jane. [He's out of work now, since the Battle School system is shutting down, but he worked on getting kids into it through unconventional avenues. Including Aegis, who didn't take standard psych tests and couldn't be read by monitor. And he was also one of the principal people yelling at everyone about not giving her any bullshit.]
Edited 2013-03-22 15:41 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-22 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Heh," says Aegis, shaking her head. "My champion. I wonder if Sue's champion is an alt of somebody too."

pythbox
2013-03-22 03:44 pm (UTC)

"You have champions?"

autokinetic
2013-03-22 03:46 pm (UTC)

"That's just what we called certain people commenting in our psych files, when I pulled them. There was one guy - Merryweather - commenting on me, and one different guy commenting on Sue, who were loudly angry at everybody else for mishandling us."

pythbox
2013-03-22 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, what's the other one's name?"

mind_game
2013-03-22 03:50 pm (UTC)

[Jasper Whitlock,] reports Jane.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 03:52 pm (UTC)

"...You know, I saw a nametag that said Jasper, but then it was followed by Cullen," says Juliet. "Of course, you've got Giles on the one hand and Merryweather on the other."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-22 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Someone say my name?" inquires a vampire, appearing rather suddenly. His nametag does indeed say Jasper Cullen on it and doesn't identify him as belonging to a template.

pythbox
2013-03-22 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Merryweather was my mother's maiden name," Giles contributes.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 03:55 pm (UTC)

"That explains it," says Aegis. "Hey, Jasper, do you recognize the name 'Whitlock'?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-22 03:56 pm (UTC)

"My last name, before I started using Cullen," says Jasper. "Why, what's going on?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Alts," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-03-22 04:04 pm (UTC)

Giles starts laughing.

mind_game
2013-03-22 04:06 pm (UTC)

[I could email them and invite them to the party!] offers Jane cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:07 pm (UTC)

"I'd wanna consult Sue first. I wonder if he's done yet," Aegis says, peering around in search of Sue. The door for him she added to her wall still has a bird-activated doorbell of sorts so she can brighten to solicit attention, which is probably less intrusive and more comfortable than brainphoning. Bird?
Edited 2013-03-22 16:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-22 04:11 pm (UTC)

Yeah? he answers. There are definite overtones of snuggliness, but he is not obviously having sex right this second.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:12 pm (UTC)

Our champions turn out to be alts of people here. You want Jane to invite 'em?
Edited 2013-03-22 16:16 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-22 04:16 pm (UTC)

He laughs. Sure, go for it.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Sue says go for it," says Aegis.

mind_game
2013-03-22 04:21 pm (UTC)

[Okay. So Giles, if you were a military recruitment officer who worked mostly with super-genius six-year-olds and your livelihood had just been rendered moot, what would be the best way for me to invite you to a party on Mars in Eos on behalf of one of your erstwhile charges? Jasper, if you were a military psychologist who liked yelling at bureaucrats - same question!]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-22 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Military psychologist? Wonders never cease," mutters Jasper. "Skip straight to the brainphone, I suppose. Tell him - he's the one who worked on Sue? - tell him it's do to with Sue, I suppose, I can be a surprise."

pythbox
2013-03-22 04:25 pm (UTC)

"...I have no idea," says Giles. "I suppose... just use the brainphone, yes, but do tell him about me if he lets you get that far. He may not believe you, but I can't imagine that he'd rather be surprised."

mind_game
2013-03-22 04:31 pm (UTC)

[Hello, Jasper Whitlock,] says Jane. [Sue, your erstwhile subject, would like to invite you to a party in another world!]

[Hello, Rupert Merryweather,] also says Jane. [Swan, your erstwhile recruit, would like to invite you to a party in another world!]

pythbox
2013-03-22 04:34 pm (UTC)

There are varying lengths of silence from each recipient.

Whitlock speaks first: [Who are you? What's going on?]

Then Merryweather, a few seconds later: [Who are you and how do you know anything about my connection to Swan?]

mind_game
2013-03-22 04:36 pm (UTC)

[I'm a friend of Sue's!] Whitlock gets. [I'm your ride to and from the party, if you want to go. I can do this nifty teleporting trick.]

[I'm a friend of hers!] Merryweather gets. [And she's been hacking into the psych records since she was twelve. She likes you, though.]

pythbox
2013-03-22 04:39 pm (UTC)

[...Okay,] says Whitlock, [you know what, sure.]

Merryweather hesitates a little longer.

mind_game
2013-03-22 04:41 pm (UTC)

[I can pick you up and put you down if you'll stand in front of a camera,] Jane tells Whitlock. [You heard about the kidnapped kids whose building got dropped in the Hegemony complex? Like that, but I don't want your whole building so I can't just use the sattelite photo.]

[Lots of universes,] Jane says chattily, [have copies of people from others. There's a you here. He's friends with another of Swan.]

pythbox
2013-03-22 04:44 pm (UTC)

[And you're what,] says Whitlock, [the same thing to computers that Sue is to people?]

After a moment, Merryweather produces a hesitant, [Er, really?]

mind_game
2013-03-22 04:46 pm (UTC)

[That's actually a very good way of describing me!] exclaims Jane.

[Yes,] says Jane. [He says you'd probably rather he not be a surprise and so I should tell you if you let me get that far. There are eight of Swan here, total, and they have brought all their friends.]

pythbox
2013-03-22 04:47 pm (UTC)

Whitlock laughs.

[Good Lord,] mutters Merryweather.

mind_game
2013-03-22 04:50 pm (UTC)

[Ah, there you are. Ready?] Jane asks when Whitlock steps in front of a networked camera.

[Any other questions?] Jane asks Merryweather innocently.

pythbox
2013-03-22 08:34 pm (UTC)

[Yes,] Whitlock says resignedly.

Merryweather pauses, then says, [How am I meant to get to this party...?]

mind_game
2013-03-22 08:35 pm (UTC)

Jane yoinks Whitlock and drops him next to Jasper (Cullen).

[I'm your ride,] she explains to Merryweather. [Did you hear about that building that mysteriously appeared in the Hegemony complex? I put it there. You just have to go somewhere I can see you and say when.]

pythbox
2013-03-22 08:36 pm (UTC)

Whitlock... stares.

[And where,] asks Merryweather, [can you see me?]

mind_game
2013-03-22 08:42 pm (UTC)

[In view of any camera hooked up to the nets,] says Jane.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-22 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Jasper. "I'm an alternate universe version of you who lived during the Civil War and was turned into a vampire at age twenty."

pythbox
2013-03-22 08:48 pm (UTC)

Whitlock shakes his head slowly.

Merryweather doesn't say anything, but he does appear in front of such a camera, looking disgruntled.

mind_game
2013-03-22 08:49 pm (UTC)

[Ready?] Jane asks Merryweather brightly.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-22 08:49 pm (UTC)

"The little admiral's alternate universe version," Jasper adds, gesturing at Aegis, "married my brother, is why I'm here. Adoptive," he adds. "I fell in with a vampire family, you're unlikely to know any of them."

pythbox
2013-03-22 08:50 pm (UTC)

[You seem inappropriately cheerful about your surveillance abilities,] says Merryweather. [Yes, fine, let's see this party.]

mind_game
2013-03-22 08:51 pm (UTC)

Yoink!

pythbox
2013-03-22 08:53 pm (UTC)

Merryweather takes one look at the Jaspers and bursts out laughing.

"I ought to have known," he giggles.

Whitlock grins at him.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 08:53 pm (UTC)

"You two know each other?" inquires Aegis. "I guess that makes sense."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting Golden over here, this is hilarious," snorts Juliet.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-22 08:55 pm (UTC)

Golden appears presently.

"Hmm," she says.

"Bella," says Jasper, "meet my alt from - what've you named it?" he asks Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Peace," says Aegis cheekily.

pythbox
2013-03-22 08:57 pm (UTC)

Whitlock and Merryweather exchange a look. Then they both start laughing.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 08:59 pm (UTC)

"So what'd you do, coordinate on how to get the I.F. to stop being such idiots about me'n Sue?" Aegis asks.

(Both Jaspers are now nametagged as Jaspers who have not chosen distinguishing nicknames. Jasper Cullen peers at his, and shrugs, and it turns into "Jazz". The Ruperts are labeled as Ruperts who may be addressed by their respective last names.)

pythbox
2013-03-22 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Nothing so grandiose," says Merryweather.

"We get drunk together once a month and complain about being surrounded by fuckwits," says Whitlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-22 09:03 pm (UTC)

Juliet snickers.

autokinetic
2013-03-22 09:04 pm (UTC)

"That's adorable. Lemme see if Sue's extricable from what he's up to," snorts Aegis. Hey bird, they're here!

pythbox
2013-03-23 09:23 pm (UTC)

Busy, giggles Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:24 pm (UTC)

"He's busy," Aegis reports. "Oh well."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-23 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I do not particularly understand that template. I know how to get along with my import, but I cannot claim to understand them."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-23 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm in the same boat, I'm all Team Sherlock over here, I like the Whistles I've met but understanding would be overstating it."

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:28 pm (UTC)

"You're also the two Sue can't link, so that can't be helping. And I understand him pretty good, but then I've known him since we were six," laughs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-03-23 09:30 pm (UTC)

"...What... exactly is he busy with?" says Merryweather.

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Lots of him," Aegis summarizes, rolling her eyes. "Lots and lots of him."

pythbox
2013-03-23 09:33 pm (UTC)

Whitlock snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-23 09:34 pm (UTC)

"It's a popular template. And two of 'em aren't even ours, they're just visiting, although if Pattern's on the ball she'll snag one after they're done in there, if that doesn't take, you know, a week."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-23 09:35 pm (UTC)

"They are certainly convenient to have on the payroll. Or working for free, as the case may be."

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Man, I haven't even discussed all that with Sue, everything's happened pretty fast, it was less than twelve hours ago I woke up in Milliways not remembering a thing besides having been kidnapped," laughs Aegis. "I'll get around to it."

pythbox
2013-03-23 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Kidnapped?" says Merryweather.

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:39 pm (UTC)

"There was a ton of fighting on Eros, me and Sue were locked up in our room to wait it out, some people got in, we fought but got tranqued and Sue woke up first and Jane learned her teleporting trick and put us in touch with Shell Bell and then all the others and put the other kidnap victims in the Hegemony complex. Was this not on the nets, any of it?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-23 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Being kidnapped's no fun," sighs Golden.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-23 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it sucks," Juliet agrees, patting Aegis on the shoulder comfortingly.

pythbox
2013-03-23 09:41 pm (UTC)

"The part where someone managed to kidnap War and Peace definitely didn't get out," says Merryweather, shaking his head.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-23 09:43 pm (UTC)

"It is adorable how you and Sue are War and Peace, Aegis. Or vice versa."

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:44 pm (UTC)

"They couldn't make up their minds for a while but I think I've been given Peace once and for all at this point. That's why I named the world that. I don't really want to go by it in casual conversation. I still like Aegis better for that."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-23 09:44 pm (UTC)

"If Sue had been Peace and you War, would you have named your world War?"

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Nah," scoffs Aegis, "that would be terrible, I'd have to think of something else then. Or name it Peace anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-23 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Merryweather, "it's practically inconceivable that you would name your world after anyone other than yourself."

Giles snorts.

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Hey, we don't all name our worlds after ourselves," laughs Aegis. "I think I'm the only one who did, unless you count Golden translating her theme into Latin!"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-23 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Angela didn't even rename hers. She just took what her planet was already called and extended it to the world in general."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-23 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I," says Golden with dignity, "am fond of my theme. And it is a more aesthetically pleasing distinguishing characteristic than 'Here There Be Vampires, Except Not Juliet's Kind'."

pythbox
2013-03-23 09:55 pm (UTC)

Merryweather just laughs.

autokinetic
2013-03-23 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Having fun?" Aegis asks him, amused. "Apparently parties are a thing Bells can do. Or at least Stella. I've never tried it, I've been in a kinda party-unfriendly environment."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-23 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I generally leave my parties to Alice - mine, not Stella's - who has much more fun with them than I do," Golden says.

"Speaking of which," Jasper "Jazz" Cullen says to Whitlock, "do you want to meet my wife and our son, or would that be weird for you?"

pythbox
2013-03-23 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Sure," Whitlock decides. "Can't be any weirder than coming here in the first place."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-23 10:10 pm (UTC)

Alice does not have to be called over. She's Alice! She dances into Jasper's waiting arms from her conversation all the way across the room (its ending, of course, timed perfectly), holding onto a squirming toddler. "Hello!" she says, beaming brightly. "I'm Alice, and this is Brandon. I would offer to let you hold him, but he occasionally bites."

"Only sometimes," says Brandon. "You're another Papa," he observes of Whitlock.

pythbox
2013-03-23 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Apparently so," Whitlock agrees, blinking. "Hello, Alice and Brandon."

Merryweather is amused. Giles picks up on the mood without sharing its causes.
Edited 2013-03-23 22:13 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-23 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Little half-vampires are super-cute," says Aegis. "So, there's you with your kid, Golden, and there's Angela expecting with her Whistle, I guess all that's left is for somebody with a Sherlock to get knocked up and we'll have collectively tried all the known combinations? Juliet, who do you think'll be first, you or Shell Bell?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-23 10:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, we haven't exactly sat down and discussed it, but she's the one with the stable empire, I have like five thousand species of demons to individually evaluate and handle before I can claim anything like that," shrugs Juliet. "I'm also not sure kids are a want for me? For us in general?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-23 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I would have wanted one eventually. There were other decisive factors in the earliness of Elspeth's birth."

autokinetic
2013-03-23 10:17 pm (UTC)

"And Angela belongs to a species with fewer than a hundred fifty members and grew up on repopulation rhetoric, right," says Aegis. "Duly noted."

pythbox
2013-03-23 10:23 pm (UTC)

This is not a conversation that either of the Ruperts particularly wants to be a part of! They exchange a Look.

autokinetic
2013-03-23 10:24 pm (UTC)

That's okay, the Bells are done talking about it now!

"Thank you for shouting at bureaucrats for me," Aegis tells Merryweather. "Even if it didn't always work."

pythbox
2013-03-23 10:52 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Merryweather, a little wryly.

This is continuation number 8 from here.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-22 01:24 am (UTC)

Angela and Alleluia have decided to sing for the party. Mostly to put Alleluia more at ease by giving her something to do other than mingling with so many strange people. (Caleb, by contrast, is having a grand time all by himself.) They know the same repertoire of popular and sacred music, for the most part, and they've performed one hymn a capella so far and are discussing their next selection.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-22 01:26 am (UTC)

A Sherlock appears. His nametag denotes him 'Plus'.

"Hello," he says. "I play the violin."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-22 01:28 am (UTC)

"...How good are you at reading music?" inquires Angela. "Alleluia, do you mind an accompanist?"

"That's fine," says Alleluia.

"Because I don't think we have any songs in common, but even if the notation is different I imagine a conjured book would be able to render in whatever you're familiar with."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-22 01:31 am (UTC)

"I expect I can muddle along," he says cheerfully. "As long as someone spots me the violin. I neglected to bring one."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"You could get a square out of one of the bowls and wish one up. I don't know if our instruments are the same as yours," Angela suggests. "We're still deciding what to sing next; what sort of music do you like?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-22 01:47 am (UTC)

He squares up a violin.

"I suspect our worlds are different enough that it's not feasible for me to explain. I liked your opening number just fine."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-22 01:51 am (UTC)

"I imagine tempo and so on are universal, but all right," laughs Angela. "Alleluia, how about Brightest Summer, that's nice with strings - or is everything Delilah says about you and exclusively sacred music still true?"

Alleluia winces delicately. "I have had to let her think so, but no, I will be happy to sing Brightest Summer if you'll key me in."

Angela nods and conjures a music stand and some sheet music for Plus. "Doable?" she inquires.
Edited 2013-03-22 01:51 (UTC)

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-22 01:53 am (UTC)

"Entirely."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-22 01:57 am (UTC)

Angela nods a beat, and sings, and Alleluia joins a bar later.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-03-22 02:01 am (UTC)

Sherlock does indeed muddle along.

He's very good.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-22 02:08 am (UTC)

Angela smiles approvingly at him during a rest but doesn't otherwise interrupt the song.

It's about five minutes long, and she and Alleluia finish up a minor third apart, Sherlock supporting Angela's melody line.

This is continuation number 9 from here.

bellfounding
2013-03-22 01:32 am (UTC)

Pattern is over here, inserting herself in an exchange between Stella and Golden about how to take advantage of suddenly easier commuting between their worlds. Amariah has been listening in too, but it's mostly a Stella-Golden conversation.

neverbeatme
2013-03-22 01:34 am (UTC)

A-Libby-who-you-can-call-James approaches this cluster.

"I want to talk to you guys about the brainphone," she says.

self_composed
2013-03-22 01:36 am (UTC)

"One of my handiest inventions. What about it?" inquires Stella.

neverbeatme
2013-03-22 01:43 am (UTC)

"It has a serious flaw," she says. "Every call should come with identity information, especially conferences."

dark_light
2013-03-22 01:44 am (UTC)

"The voices do sometimes get confusing," acknowledges Amariah, "with so many alts."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-22 01:46 am (UTC)

"There aren't actually discrete calls, though. Every individual message is sent to everyone it's meant for; who one's talking to can change moment to moment. If this is about people tapping your phone, so to speak, you don't have to worry about that - well, you do, but only in the sense that someone could be relaying what you're saying without you knowing about it."

neverbeatme
2013-03-22 01:52 am (UTC)

"Yes," she says, "that is in fact what I'm worried about. That and voice impersonation. And it's just not convenient to have to keep announcing that you're in a conference and how many people it's with and who they all are. The way the brainphone works now is great for a small community, but," she gestures around at the party, "this isn't a small community anymore."

self_composed
2013-03-22 01:56 am (UTC)

"Okay, impersonation's potentially a problem. I guess we can propagate a majority of the change from here, considering the guest list, and patch any stragglers on our ends or make it viral or something. But it won't solve your privacy issues. If you're talking to me and I'm talking to Golden, I can have you and Golden on separate calls and tell her everything you say if I feel like it, and there's no interaction of that with this feature."

neverbeatme
2013-03-22 02:00 am (UTC)

"People feel differently about doing things when they're less explicitly supported by the system," she says. "Supplying identity information for all direct speakers and listeners will at least stop anyone from spying on me by accident."
Edited 2013-03-22 02:00 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-03-22 02:07 am (UTC)

"Listeners too. Hmm. You realize that's just the equivalent of a blind carbon copy in an email," says Stella. "If I want to talk to the completely imaginary Albert and Bess and Chuck, and Chuck doesn't want the other two to know he exists, then you're saying I shouldn't be able to do that all at once? Mind Chuck won't be able to hear anything Albert and Bess say without my manually relaying it even under the existing system, since they won't be sending to him."

dark_light
2013-03-22 02:20 am (UTC)

"Uh, do I have the same brainphone you two have?" Amariah says. "I can set up any call so that Path gets a copy of what I get whether the person I'm talking to thinks about him or not, and I didn't have to wish it special."

self_composed
2013-03-22 02:21 am (UTC)

"...You should have the same brainphone I have. Wishes sometimes fill in gaps, I might be mistaken about how it corrected for some vagueness in my specification - I made it up before I was boosted all the way and there was some wiggle room. Maybe the way Golden and I have been using it is just what makes sense to us."

neverbeatme
2013-03-22 02:23 am (UTC)

"So," says James, "now would be a good time to straighten that out. And I think making the change viral makes the most sense. But make sure to design it so that if you have to roll out another update later, they won't start fighting."

self_composed
2013-03-22 02:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah, sure. Version numbers," snorts Stella.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-22 02:26 am (UTC)

"So conferences that behave like everyone is in the room will list who's in the metaphorical room, and individual messages will have sender information to prevent misrepresentation," says Golden. "I don't think we ever have reason to impersonate each other, do we? For impersonal purposes trusting one of us tends to propagate to trusting the others and for personal purposes we'd never want to."

bellfounding
2013-03-22 02:27 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I might not be thrilled with being completely indistinct but identity theft isn't my solution of choice," sighs Pattern, "and nothing else is coming to mind."

self_composed
2013-03-22 02:28 am (UTC)

"All right, viral patch to brainphone, version 2.0, ready to roll unless someone has last minute design input," says Stella.

neverbeatme
2013-03-22 02:29 am (UTC)

"Nope, sounds good to me. Thanks," says James.

self_composed
2013-03-22 02:30 am (UTC)

[Bam!] says a message clearly labeled as from Stella.

neverbeatme
2013-03-22 02:32 am (UTC)

[Awesome,] says James, conferenced to the group.

"By the way," she adds out loud to Pattern as she turns away, "you should talk to my alt who's going by Slipstick. She's looking for a job."

bellfounding
2013-03-22 02:52 am (UTC)

"...Ooh," says Pattern. "I'm not really in a position to pay anybody yet. I don't even have a mint-helper..."

self_composed
2013-03-22 03:24 am (UTC)

"Libbies do personnel," says Stella. "It might make sense to get a Libby even before a mint if you're having a personnel issue."

bellfounding
2013-03-22 03:25 am (UTC)

"Ooh. Okay. Thanks!"

And Pattern goes off looking for Slipstick.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-22 12:22 pm (UTC)

She's by the desserts!

bellfounding
2013-03-22 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Slipstick," says Pattern. "James says I should talk to you about maybe working for me?"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-22 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm kind of at loose ends at the moment," she says. "And since you also seem to be kind of at loose ends, it occurred to me that maybe we could make each other's lives easier."

bellfounding
2013-03-22 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Possibly. I'm running some afterlife-related errands for the peal, but I should be done inside a week or two - it's just running a few Upsiders from each world who can most readily pretend never to have been dead back home and inserting Jane into their worlds so that we can transport everywhere without having to wait for doors to Milliways. But then I go back home and work on my world. And alas, I do not have a mint-helper nor, as far as I know, any local magic."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-22 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, I know where to find some candidates," she says, glancing at the orgy chamber, "if they ever come out again."

bellfounding
2013-03-22 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I caught a brief exchange with Eights and Chainsaw before they went in," says Pattern, "but didn't get anywhere. I think they're a package deal and I have the impression that Chainsaw's not as manageable as his alt is for Stella."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-22 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Huh," she says. "What about the Whistles? I don't have a roster; are there any going spare?"

bellfounding
2013-03-22 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Two. And the one that Golden imported turned out to be from my world, so if I wind up having to work with largesse for any extended period of time I have a better excuse for leaning on her than any of the others, though I imagine they'll all help."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-22 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Do we know anything about the spare Whistles?"

bellfounding
2013-03-22 04:25 pm (UTC)

"One of them's a rescue from Downside, the other is some kind of ghost but not the same kind as the one Juliet brought. First one's probably the better bet."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-22 04:28 pm (UTC)

"A rescue? Is that a general term, or...? I was under the impression that Whistles and Downside would get along pretty well, ceteris paribus."

bellfounding
2013-03-22 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Stella grabbed him from the same guy who got Shell Bell. I imagine he held up fine under the torture part, but not the being in a box never seeing or being touched by another human being part - from my admittedly limited understanding of Whistles."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-22 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Ooh." She winces. "Ouch, yeah. I see."

bellfounding
2013-03-22 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Stella brought him straight here for soothing by her Alice."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-24 01:21 am (UTC)

"I can imagine," she says.

She can imagine what form that soothing would probably take, too, but that's less relevant.

bellfounding
2013-03-24 02:47 am (UTC)

It is indeed less relevant.

"I don't really want to date any of them - I mean, I gather that one could have changed my mind about that if he'd gone to high school with me and I hadn't died, but one didn't and I did, and I'm not seeing the appeal. But Golden and the Joker are an existence proof that it's not strictly called for."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-24 02:50 am (UTC)

Slipstick nods.

bellfounding
2013-03-24 02:53 am (UTC)

"Stella employs a precog, and so does Golden. I was thinking of trying to catch one of them to talk recruitment strategies, what do you think?"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-24 02:56 am (UTC)

"Good plan. I don't know either one of them personally, so I can't tell you which one would be a better shot."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 02:59 am (UTC)

Pattern glances around.

"Well," she says, "they're talking to each other, over there. The petite vampire with the spiky hair and the toddler, and the tall brunette."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-24 03:07 am (UTC)

"Go on, then," says Slipstick. "Two-for-one deal."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 03:08 am (UTC)

"You coming, or not?"

prima_sequentem
2013-03-24 03:10 am (UTC)

"Nah."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 08:03 am (UTC)

"All right."

Pattern makes for the precogs, but she expects they'll anticipate her.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 08:04 am (UTC)

If Alice mentions Pattern's approach aloud, is Mary just going to say that she already knows?

pythbox
2013-03-24 11:48 am (UTC)

Actually, no!

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 03:25 pm (UTC)

"We're expecting company," observes Alice. "The Bell calling herself Pattern."

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:26 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Mary. "What's she want, besides the obvious?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 03:34 pm (UTC)

"A Whistle, or possibly the alts of Stella's staff, maybe a stray Sherlock in a pinch, to help her mint," Alice says. "So she wants approach advice. You'll probably be better at the useful kind of detail than me."

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:36 pm (UTC)

"I probably will," Mary agrees.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Although you'll be pleased to know that I've cleared up my blind spots and can handle the wolves' love lives instead of having you visit every few months!"

"Wolves," giggles Brandon from her arms, like this concept is inherently funny.

bellfounding
2013-03-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

Here's Pattern. "Hi. Do I even have to explain what I want?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:44 pm (UTC)

"I am immensely pleased," she says dryly to Alice.

To Pattern, "Details are handy. I like details."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 03:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm from the Joker's original world - I've named it Origin; I might change that later, I'm not going with my original distinguishing nickname. But Golden's got him and he's all attached to an Aurumite, so that means I need another mint. There's two spare Whistles, one from Downside after having lived in a world that doesn't match anybody's here and one from another world that also doesn't match anybody we know, and the one is just a dead person and the other is also a ghost with odd powers. My naive guess is that the first one of those would be easiest to hire on but I'm not sure how we'll get along or what I'll have to do to get him on board. There's also Eights, but she seems to come with Chainsaw, who seems determined to creepify them out of a job. And I don't think the Sherlocks are actually ideal for the purpose, so I haven't tried any yet, but I would if one of you said it was a good idea."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 03:53 pm (UTC)

"You don't really look happy to me in any future conversations with Chainsaw," observes Alice.

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Sherlocks are categorically a long shot," remarks Mary. "The forecast on Chainsaw is creepy with a chance of disaster. Downside Whistle's your best bet out of the listed options; the ghost one's only a tiny bit worse. I defer to Alice for when you'll be able to catch either of them out here socializing."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Ghosty's in and out before the formal conclusion of the... proceedings," says Alice. "A few times, various possible whens, never for very long; you could catch her to say hi but probably not an extended conversation. The proceedings in question are reasonably likely to last less than 24 hours."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 04:16 pm (UTC)

"So I might wanna ask Stella if I can stick around a bit," Pattern snorts. "Okay, what's the best way to talk to Downside Whistle when the proceedings are over with?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Name some options," says Mary.

bellfounding
2013-03-24 04:19 pm (UTC)

"I could just walk up to him and be like 'hi, I'm a Bell, you're a Whistle, want the obvious job?', or I could lead in with small talk of some kind, or I could ask the Whistles who are already dated-and-or-employed if they'll introduce me, or I could get one of the other Bells, probably one with her own Whistle, maybe Golden or Amariah, to ask for me."

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Presence or absence of small talk doesn't have a consistent effect on the result," says Mary. "Approaching through an intermediary doesn't either. If you catch up to her by herself and you're friendly and straightforward, you won't have any trouble."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 04:40 pm (UTC)

"That one's a her?" Pattern asks. "Okay, can do. Thanks."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Anytime," says Alice cheerily.

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:43 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," Mary agrees.

bellfounding
2013-03-24 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Is she going to hit on me or anything?" Pattern asks suddenly. "Because that would be weird."

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:47 pm (UTC)

"...She's virtually guaranteed to be a little bit flirty," says Mary. "And huggy. Flirty and huggy. Conversation in general goes better if she's in physical contact with someone the whole time, but someone doesn't have to be you."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Another Whistle?" suggests Pattern. "Do they disperse after 'proceedings' or might she be with another one at the time?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Also virtually guaranteed that she is," says Mary.

bellfounding
2013-03-24 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that works out then. Which one?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Any of them, in approximately equal proportions, slightly more likely to be Alice or Ghosty, slightly less likely to be Sue who's apparently got some highly interesting conversation coming up with his Bell and slightly less likely to be Micaiah who gets invited to perform with the angels and the Sherlocks."

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:58 pm (UTC)

Mary laughs.

bellfounding
2013-03-24 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Thanks, thank you both, please tell any talented alts of either of you that you meet to give me a call, through Jane if need be," grins Pattern.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing," says Alice. "I bet there'll be a bidding war, though. Mes will be particularly swayed by the opportunity to plan parties," she adds. "Like, if Stella were trying to hire me, she'd have been well served to let me help her with this shindig. If Golden ever hosts one it'll be mostly my handiwork."

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Mes will be particularly swayed by job offers that don't directly involve fortune telling," says Mary, "although as you can see we're okay with doing a little on the side."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 05:05 pm (UTC)

"You don't fortune-tell for Stella? What do you do?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I run her bank."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 05:06 pm (UTC)

"That's cute," laughs Pattern. "I'm reasonably likely to copy her empressing pattern wholesale insofar as I can. I might start with not-Mars, though, just to not be completely derivative."

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Mars is the most straightforwardly habitable option," says Mary, "but you could set up something interesting in the gas giants or the asteroid belt if you put your mind to it."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Or maybe I'll just jazz up my Mars. It could use a set of rings and not-exactly-this-sea-level and a different color sky."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-24 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I'd sure have fun living on a floating terraformed island on Saturn and swimming around in the gas. You might have to rig up scuba gear for human citizens."

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:21 pm (UTC)

"If you do the gas giants right, people are going to be very appreciative of the aesthetic," says Mary. "I'm not sure of the details. A lot of it seems to depend on finding the right... is 'architect' even the word?"

bellfounding
2013-03-24 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Designer," suggests Pattern. "Maybe I'll ask Slipstick to find me one."

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Good odds there," says Mary.

bellfounding
2013-03-24 05:23 pm (UTC)

Pattern smiles. And she bids them goodbye and goes to find Slipstick again and ask about designers for Saturn islands.

prima_sequentem
2013-03-24 05:24 pm (UTC)

Slipstick is snacking!

bellfounding
2013-03-24 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm probably going to be able to snag Queenie," reports Pattern. "And in order to not be too derivative of Stella I'm considering starting my space empire on Saturn, but may want design help."

prima_sequentem
2013-03-24 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Slipstick. "I'll look into it."

bellfounding
2013-03-24 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

This is continuation number 10 from here.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 06:15 pm (UTC)

When Eights emerges airlock-style from the orgy chamber, Nathan's nearby, Kerron sitting on his shoulders as a not-a-fox-anymore. "Eights, hi!" Nathan says. "This is my and the Joker's son, Kerron."

colorshapes
2013-03-24 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Eights!" says Kerron, waving.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Timer! Hi, Kerron!" she says, waving.

colorshapes
2013-03-24 07:22 pm (UTC)

"That's not Daddy's name, that's his power," says Kerron.
Edited 2013-03-24 19:22 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 07:23 pm (UTC)

"It's my nickname, like how Mummy calls you munchkin," Nathan tells Kerron. "When Eights met me I was using it all the time."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 07:24 pm (UTC)

"That's about the size of it," she agrees.

colorshapes
2013-03-24 07:26 pm (UTC)

"How come you want Daddy to bite you? Do you want to be a vampire?" asks Kerron.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 07:27 pm (UTC)

"...He has a magic power," Nathan says weakly. "Sees - goals, intentions, the like."

colorshapes
2013-03-24 07:27 pm (UTC)

"It is technically two magic powers!" says Kerron brightly. "Addy says."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 07:54 pm (UTC)

Eights laughs.

"I don't want to be a vampire," she says. "I just have a weird idea of fun."

colorshapes
2013-03-24 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I can bite you if you want!" Kerron volunteers. "I never get to bite humans besides Mummy and she doesn't let me break the skin, I don't even know what humans taste like!"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 08:02 pm (UTC)

Eights laughs.

"I don't know, what's your dad say?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 08:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so, kiddo."

colorshapes
2013-03-24 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Do I have to wait to be older," huffs Kerron.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Yes. When you are five you may work out whatever biting arrangements suit both you and the bitten person, okay?"

colorshapes
2013-03-24 08:04 pm (UTC)

"But that's a long time!"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 08:06 pm (UTC)

"It wouldn't be weird or anything," Eights offers. "Not for me. But if you don't wanna encourage him..." She shrugs.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 08:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't wanna encourage him," agrees Nathan.

colorshapes
2013-03-24 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Awwwww," says Kerron.
Edited 2013-03-24 20:08 (UTC)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Five years isn't that long, anyway," says Eights. "I've been walking and talking for twenty thousand."

colorshapes
2013-03-24 08:12 pm (UTC)

"That's a long time!" says Kerron. "That's older than anybody I know! I know some old people. It's not older than the Arostuff all added up, though," he adds contemplatively. "I don't have Arostuff in my head though. I can ask the princess for it when I'm five. Everything has to wait till I'm five."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?" inquires Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 08:16 pm (UTC)

"The Arostuff in question is the sum total of all the memories of everyone a certain vampire more than two thousand years old ever touched. Many of those people were rather old themselves. Elspeth sometimes distributes it, and she can redact to protect the privacy of the living, now, but there's too much to redact all the adult content."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 08:31 pm (UTC)

"And I'm not sure if she'll be distributing it any more at all, since many of the dead in question are now understood to be still capable of objecting to things."

colorshapes
2013-03-24 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Awww," sighs Kerron.
Edited 2013-03-24 20:31 (UTC)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Only 'many'?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, some of them are probably not going to be invited to wake up from the catacombs, at least not anytime soon. I can't imagine Her Majesty conferring consciousness voluntarily on Chelsea or Jane."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Because...?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Jane hurt the Princess and Chelsea went around snip-snipping people's affection for one another, including said Princess's. And unlike Addy, they don't have so much benign use or tractable personalities."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," she says again.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Of course, since we determined that you're from Aurum originally, they might already have woken," says Nathan thoughtfully. "Her Majesty'll probably have Jane check up on that and put them on the 'no-fly list'."

colorshapes
2013-03-24 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, flying, I wanna fly, where's Mummy, she'll turn me into a bird I bet," says Kerron, bouncing up and down on Nathan's shoulders.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 09:12 pm (UTC)

"She's busy," says Eights.

colorshapes
2013-03-24 09:13 pm (UTC)

"But I want her! I wanna turn into a bird."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I have some coins, kiddo, I can turn you into a bird," snorts Nathan. "What kinda bird?"

colorshapes
2013-03-24 09:14 pm (UTC)

"A flying kind! A - a hawk. A blue hawk!"

And presently he is a blue hawk, and he laughs and starts teaching himself to fly rather ably.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 09:42 pm (UTC)

Eights giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 09:43 pm (UTC)

"So that's my kid," Nathan says. "It has now been much less time since you have seen a child."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 09:44 pm (UTC)

She cracks up.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Rumor has it," observes Nathan, "that you want to get bit again. Isn't the vampire one of the Joker in there? Did he not oblige this interest?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Sure he did," she says cheerfully. "But it's not like wanting him to bite me and wanting you to bite me are mutually exclusive."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:03 pm (UTC)

"True. Kerron's sleep cycle will probably figure it's time for him to crash for the night in spite of this being Mars on another world at some point in the near future, shall I find you thenabouts?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Alrighty then."

colorshapes
2013-03-24 10:05 pm (UTC)

"WATCH MEEEEE, DADDY," Kerron hollers, figuring out how to dive and pull up from said dive at the last moment halfway across the pavilion.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:06 pm (UTC)

"It is apparently not right this minute," laughs Nathan quietly. "That's wonderful, kiddo!" he calls to his son.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 10:07 pm (UTC)

Eights giggles and pats Nate on the shoulder.

colorshapes
2013-03-24 10:10 pm (UTC)

It is some fifteen minutes later when Kerron divebombs his father, sits on his shoulder, and starts snoring loudly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:10 pm (UTC)

Nathan peers at him for a moment, then gets a square out of the coin bowls, conjures a perch, and transfers hawk-Kerron thereto.

He winks at Eights.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

"You know," she remarks, tipping her head at the door to the orgy chamber, "it occurs to me that you'd be pretty popular in there."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:12 pm (UTC)

"D'you think so? I'm not as friendly to the general population since I got vampired up again. Only so much editing the theoretically uneditable mate bond would take. I am happy to bite pretty much arbitrary people, though."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Well, how do you feel about being cuddlemobbed by alts of your mate?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:17 pm (UTC)

"I think the extant data we have on alts of mates is that the Emperor finds them disturbing and Alice is Alice. Oh, and other Alice appears to find hers perfectly unalarming and Orfeo has no special reaction to alts of his imprint insofar as that's data. I suppose I may as well see where I fall on the apparent spectrum."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure Jokes can keep them off you if you turn out not to approve," she says, patting him on the arm. "C'mon."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:21 pm (UTC)

Now, wait just a split second -

Is this a good time to visit the heap of Jokers?

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 10:26 pm (UTC)

Yes it is!

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:27 pm (UTC)

Oh splendid! That can happen, then.

Nathan is amused by the airlock setup.

He looks for his Joker among the many.

manofmyword
2013-03-24 10:31 pm (UTC)

It's not immediately visually obvious.

But only one of the great big sprawling pile of kissing, snuggling, various-other-things-doing Jokers looks up and waves at Nathan with a call of, "Sweetie!"

(At some point since he went in, he's put his scars back on. That makes him one of two who has them. He was in the middle of making out with the other one when Nathan walked in.)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Hey, babe," says Nathan. "The munchkin's down for the count."

manofmyword
2013-03-24 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Great. Come snuggle us," he says, opening his arms.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-24 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Mm, yeah," says the one whom the Joker was recently kissing.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:40 pm (UTC)

Nathan consults his interest in this practice. Yep, there it is. Snuggles. Ungentle vampire snuggles, because he's pretty sure nobody in this room is delicate enough to care if he accidentally breaks something by going too fast, too strongly.

manofmyword
2013-03-24 10:44 pm (UTC)

The Joker wraps his arms around Nathan and kisses him happily.

As Eights predicted, the rest of them pile on, except for Sue and Alice who are busy with one another at the moment.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:45 pm (UTC)

Nathan is pretty comfortable with this. Alice is probably still technically a newborn and could do some careless damage, but nobody else in the room appears at all likely to accidentally render him uncomfortable.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-24 10:47 pm (UTC)

When the Joker is (temporarily) done kissing Nathan, the other one with scars inquires, "Do I get a turn?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:48 pm (UTC)

"A turn at...?" inquires Nathan archly.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-24 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Kissing you?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you're so keen on it," he says, and he seizes and repositions her rather casually. "Any dreadful things happen if you interact with venom?"

yourheartstrings
2013-03-24 10:53 pm (UTC)

She cuddles up. "Nope!"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:54 pm (UTC)

Then her kisses might be a little nibbly.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-24 10:57 pm (UTC)

Nibbly is good! She likes nibbly!

After plenty of nibbly kisses, this alt pulls away to curl up with the Joker and another one—same shape, no scars—snuggles closer to Nathan and bats her eyelashes.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 10:58 pm (UTC)

He's pretty comfy with the girl-shaped ones. If the boys who aren't his start sidling up he might have residual hangups about that. Kiss kiss, anyway.

truthwright
2013-03-24 11:03 pm (UTC)

Apparently the Joker has been gossiping, or they can just tell, because although Kas and Micaiah are part of the general cuddlepile neither of them seems interested in soliciting kisses. And there's another female-shaped one who's curled up next to Sue and Alice, apart from the crowd but still touching Kas; she must be Petaal.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 11:06 pm (UTC)

She must, but Nathan's not going to approach her, he heard the explanation when Kerron was looking her over for potential petting earlier. He has three Jokers to kiss. He finds this a fine number.

manofmyword
2013-03-24 11:16 pm (UTC)

Nathan's mate steals him back after another little while. Mmmmm. Kisses.

Nibbly kisses.

There is a good time to bite the Joker, and it is coming up pretty soon.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 11:17 pm (UTC)

Wait for iiiit...

Chomp!

manofmyword
2013-03-24 11:22 pm (UTC)

It's a good time because he's just tuned himself up a little - not to tummyache levels, but to the level of a good synthetic.

Also, it makes him all happy and wriggly.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 11:22 pm (UTC)

Ah, synthetics are lovely but resistable. He snacks, doesn't fill up. Maybe somebody else wants a turn at that too.

(These bite marks are getting licked.)

manofmyword
2013-03-24 11:27 pm (UTC)

N'awwwwsnugglesnuggle.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 11:28 pm (UTC)

When Nathan's teeth are out of the Joker, Eights climbs into the Nathan zone of the cuddle pile and inquires, "Do I get a turn?"

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Nathan, theatrically stroking his chin and consulting his timer on When To Bite Eights.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 11:30 pm (UTC)

Just shy of three seconds is good!

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 11:31 pm (UTC)

One, two, snatch-snarl-bite. (The snarl's all theater.)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 11:32 pm (UTC)

It's good theater. Eights giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 11:33 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom. Again, not filling up. He doesn't like the idea of wishing himself empty, for some reason.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 11:36 pm (UTC)

Eights is still pretty well mangled by the end of it, but she doesn't seem to consider this an impediment to making out with him a little.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 11:37 pm (UTC)

Neither does he!

lookingforwardtoit
2013-03-24 11:38 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmm snuggly bleedy makeouts. Those are one of her favourite kinds!

yourheartstrings
2013-03-24 11:40 pm (UTC)

(At some point during all this, the lady-shaped Joker alt with scars on disassembles herself and then comes back together sans nibble marks. That probably makes her Ghosty.)

temporal_affairs
2013-03-24 11:43 pm (UTC)

Nathan's pretty content here in this pile. People to kiss, people to bite, people being warm and snuggly on him, and a happy mate. All good things.

manofmyword
2013-03-24 11:52 pm (UTC)

That is just perfect! The Joker likes it when Nathan is happy, and he likes cuddlepiles and biting and kisses, so a cuddlebitekisspile with a happy Nathan in it is a pretty damn nice thing to have.

He smiles and cuddles up to Nathan.

And on a whim, he brainphones Stella.

[Hey, smarty pants.]

self_composed
2013-03-24 11:53 pm (UTC)

[Hmm?]

manofmyword
2013-03-24 11:54 pm (UTC)

[Thanks for coming up with the makeout corner,] he says cheerfully, [it's tons of fun.]

self_composed
2013-03-24 11:55 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome. I figured the consequences of not having it would be pretty dire, whether they wound up taking the form of scandalized parents and traumatized children or the form of incessant complaints.]

manofmyword
2013-03-24 11:57 pm (UTC)

He laughs, aloud and over brainphone.

self_composed
2013-03-24 11:59 pm (UTC)

[Should I be scandalized that you're trying to conduct a conversation with me at this moment?]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:00 am (UTC)

[I dunno, are cuddlepiles scandalous?]

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:01 am (UTC)

[Only if the people involved are vacationing in Sandy's head or something else is going on to complicate the matter.]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:03 am (UTC)

[Well, there's some kissing and some bleeding going on, but I'm not doing either. I think you can let go of your pearls.]

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:04 am (UTC)

[Haven't got any pearls.]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:05 am (UTC)

[Well, then you can let go of whatever else you were clutching.]

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:06 am (UTC)

[If I do that, the glass'll break. Clutching is an important mechanism for keeping objects like my cup of juice suspended above the ground.]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:07 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:07 am (UTC)

[At any rate, I'm glad you're situated comfortably.]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:13 am (UTC)

[Awww,] he says fondly. [You're a real sweetheart sometimes, smarty pants.]

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:14 am (UTC)

[Why do you call me that?]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:18 am (UTC)

[It's cute. It suits you. Why, does it bug ya?]

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:24 am (UTC)

[Not especially, but no one else calls me that. It's not like I'm short on nicknames.]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:27 am (UTC)

[I call you that,] he says tranquilly.

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:31 am (UTC)

[I am aware.]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:38 am (UTC)

[Anyway,] he says, observing Eights and Nathan winding down, [I'm gonna go do something scandalous. See you later!]

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:39 am (UTC)

[Later.]

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:41 am (UTC)

Now would be an excellent moment for Nathan to kiss the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-25 12:42 am (UTC)

Would it be an excellent moment for Nathan to begin a prolonged sequence of kisses with the Joker?

manofmyword
2013-03-25 12:44 am (UTC)

Ooh, yes it would!

temporal_affairs
2013-03-25 12:46 am (UTC)

That's splendid! That happens.

This is continuation number 11 from here.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-25 12:19 am (UTC)

Addy wants to talk about magic! There, that Bell has magic that isn't just minting - that random girl over there does too - there's Lazarus! Addy herds them all into one place with vague fluttering about magic and then grins broadly.

dark_light
2013-03-25 12:23 am (UTC)

"So, hi! I remember you," to Matilda, "but not you," to Lazarus.

nonbird
2013-03-25 12:26 am (UTC)

"I'm Lazarus," says Lazarus, despite his nametag.

To Matilda, he adds, "You're shiny!"

pythbox
2013-03-25 12:27 am (UTC)

"I am!" she agrees.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-25 12:27 am (UTC)

"Lemme try?" Addy asks winningly, holding out her hands in Matilda's direction.

dark_light
2013-03-25 12:28 am (UTC)

"Do you copy skill or just power?" Amariah asks.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-25 12:29 am (UTC)

"Power and instincts, not finesse or techy stuff."

pythbox
2013-03-25 12:31 am (UTC)

Matilda gives Addy an assessing look.

Then she shrugs and holds out her hand.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-25 12:33 am (UTC)

Handclasp!

"Huh, that's odd," says Addy after a moment. "I can taste it but I can't take it."

dark_light
2013-03-25 12:35 am (UTC)

"...Should you have a warning label?" Amariah asks. "I'm going to ask Golden if you should have a warning label."

A moment later, Addy's nametag is revised with a warning label: Do Not Feed Excessively Powerful Magic To This Amoral Vampire Who Is Kept In Check Mostly Via Magic Related Bribery, Please.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-25 12:36 am (UTC)

"It's okay, I can't take it anyway," laughs Addy. She has not let go of Matilda's hand. "It's just tasty, not useful."

pythbox
2013-03-25 12:39 am (UTC)

Matilda laughs, and takes her hand away.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-25 12:41 am (UTC)

Addy lets her. "Tastes like everything," she says. "You're an entire grocery store!"

pythbox
2013-03-25 12:43 am (UTC)

"That's me," says Matilda. "Full of magic groceries."

nonbird
2013-03-25 12:44 am (UTC)

"...That is a really strange mental image," says Lazarus.

dark_light
2013-03-25 12:45 am (UTC)

"If you get no technical finesse it's probably safe for you to try mine," Amariah says. "You'd have to know a spell to cast one, and it's not that powerful anyway without stuff you don't have."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-25 12:46 am (UTC)

Addy requires no further invitation.

"Can't even taste you," she sighs. "Probably 'cause yours is species-based."

She pats Lazarus on the arm and then stares intently at Amariah and Matilda both with his power instead.

pythbox
2013-03-25 12:52 am (UTC)

Matilda thinks of something, and brainphones Stella.

[Do you mind if I do a lot of my contagious magic here? It won't spread to individuals I don't do magic to, but it might spread to the universe and start popping up in natives.]

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:53 am (UTC)

[Ah, hm. Need details.]

pythbox
2013-03-25 12:53 am (UTC)

[What kind?]

nonbird
2013-03-25 12:54 am (UTC)

Lazarus is also peering at Amariah.

"You're fascinating," he says.

self_composed
2013-03-25 12:55 am (UTC)

[What would pop up, in whom, how does it interact with my stuff if someone unfortunate should obtain the magic?]

dark_light
2013-03-25 12:56 am (UTC)

"Do tell!" Amariah laughs. Path preens.

pythbox
2013-03-25 01:05 am (UTC)

[There's no clear set of rules about who can do magic and how and why. I could give you a good guess about whether or not someone might pick it up easily, but I couldn't tell you exactly why, and I'm not always right. But it works according to patterns. The practice in my world has been overwhelmingly benevolent for years, so spells that accomplish positive effects are easier to learn and create, and spells that accomplish negative effects are harder. Unless you get a lot of people very determined to wreck things, it should be the same way here, and even if you do it'll take a while for the balance to shift.]

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:07 am (UTC)

"Well, you're all... together," he says. "You coordinate. Except the minting, but even your coin colour ties back in."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:08 am (UTC)

"Huh. I'm not sure I understand," says Amariah. "You mean just because the coin color is like cloudpine?"

self_composed
2013-03-25 01:09 am (UTC)

[Okay. What do you do, or would it be more productive for me to ask Lazarus?]

pythbox
2013-03-25 01:19 am (UTC)

[I do magic,] she says dryly. [I have no idea how much Lazarus can tell you, but Shell Bell read up on it once. It's a little much for me to summarize all at once.]

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:20 am (UTC)

"Coin colours are different to my power than to actual vision," he says. "To my power, your coin colour looks like your... witchiness."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:21 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Amariah. "What does Path look like to you?"

self_composed
2013-03-25 01:22 am (UTC)

[I'll talk to Shell Bell and get back to you.]

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:23 am (UTC)

"Like... you," he says. "But not the same as you."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:24 am (UTC)

"I am her but not the same as her," Path points out.

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:26 am (UTC)

"That is probably why."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:27 am (UTC)

"What can you tell about me just by looking?" Path asks. "What do you know about daemons to begin with?"

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:30 am (UTC)

"I don't really know very much about daemons. You look like... like you're inside-out," he says, struggling with words the way he frequently does when trying to describe new magic things. "Like you're a part of her that belongs on the inside, belonging on the outside instead."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:30 am (UTC)

"I can go inside, now," Path volunteers, "but we had to wish it."

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:32 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says, "that's interesting too but I'm looking past it, it's not really about you. I don't think it's an ability you could've developed naturally."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:33 am (UTC)

"Sue and Ivy have it unwished," Amariah volunteers. "If you come into Alethia without explicitly wishing against it you get a daemon, and he did this while he was dreaming, and this led to her going in and out."

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:36 am (UTC)

"I think I've caught a glimpse of Sue," he says. "He's one of Alice's alts, right?"

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:37 am (UTC)

"He's a Whistle," says Amariah. "There's two people named Alice here who are not alts of each other - the other's Golden's precog. I bet Kas and Petaal would make a good control for looking at Sue and Ivy to see what's just them and what's the results of the dream, too."

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:38 am (UTC)

"I am from this world. When I say Alice, I generally mean the one who keeps hugging me."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:39 am (UTC)

"Whistles are like that," laughs Amariah. "I'm fond of Whistles. I might go join them if they don't emerge on their own in a bit."

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:40 am (UTC)

"I'm fond of the one I know!" says Lazarus. "But I don't think I'm quite ready to dive into a pile of them."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:40 am (UTC)

"But it'd be such a snuggly pile!"

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:43 am (UTC)

"It would," he agrees. "It would be a very snuggly pile. And probably also very naked."

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:44 am (UTC)

"Witches don't care about nudity," shrugs Amariah. "I don't really get caring about it, although I know how to act around people who do."

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:45 am (UTC)

"...Witches don't care about nudity including in the context of cuddlepiles?" he clarifies.

dark_light
2013-03-25 01:47 am (UTC)

"Nudity is not a meaningful thing by itself except where there is actual practical reason for it to be," Amariah says. "If I'll cuddle with somebody I don't care if any combination of us also happen to be naked."

nonbird
2013-03-25 01:56 am (UTC)

"I tend to squeak," Lazarus admits ruefully.

dark_light
2013-03-25 02:00 am (UTC)

"That sounds adorable, can you do it on command or would I have to take my clothes off in front of the non-witch adorable little children which I probably shouldn't do?"

nonbird
2013-03-25 02:01 am (UTC)

"I cannot do it on command, but it's not that infrequent. Please do not take off your clothes."

dark_light
2013-03-25 02:03 am (UTC)

"Not out here, anyway, I don't think they'll last long if I go hang out with a heap of Whistles. You don't sound likely to join me at such a pursuit."
Edited 2013-03-25 02:05 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-03-25 02:06 am (UTC)

Lazarus ponders.

dark_light
2013-03-25 02:08 am (UTC)

"Or are you?"

nonbird
2013-03-25 03:09 am (UTC)

Lazarus blushes!

dark_light
2013-03-25 03:12 am (UTC)

"That's cute, you're cute, does Stella ever tell you that?"

self_composed
2013-03-25 03:13 am (UTC)

Stella reports to Matilda: [I don't want to introduce your magic at this time, but I'd like to revisit the issue in a few more years when my empire's more entrenched and has more than a few million people in it and Earth is a nicer place to live. Jane's got a node in your world so I can contact you anytime, right?]

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:15 am (UTC)

[Yep!] says Matilda. [Sure thing! By the way, Amariah is flirting with Lazarus and it's adorable.]

nonbird
2013-03-25 03:15 am (UTC)

"Many people frequently tell me that," says Lazarus, "Stella included."

self_composed
2013-03-25 03:16 am (UTC)

[That is kind of adorable.]

dark_light
2013-03-25 03:17 am (UTC)

"Good. Cute people should be told that they're cute," Amariah asserts. "I bet a lot of Whistles would be happy to reiterate the sentiment if we visited them. And then I'd get to see this eeping I have heard so much about."

nonbird
2013-03-25 03:18 am (UTC)

"You know what," says Lazarus, "sure."

dark_light
2013-03-25 03:20 am (UTC)

Amariah smiles at him and meanders thataway.

nonbird
2013-03-25 03:24 am (UTC)

Lazarus follows, blushing preemptively.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:14 am (UTC)

"So cute. Does Stella not even hit on you? I'm all the way on the one end of the spectrum, but it's not like she's Golden, and it's not like we're constitutionally incapable except for me as the lone exception, Shell Bell's got her set of twins..."
Edited 2013-03-25 05:26 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-03-25 11:41 am (UTC)

"I don't... think Stella hits on me," he says. "If she does, she does it very subtly."

dark_light
2013-03-25 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Would you find it unwelcome in some way that she knows about?" inquires Amariah, pushing open the first door of the privacy airlock. "And that I clearly don't so you should tell me if you want me to stop."

nonbird
2013-03-25 03:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, really," he says, following her into the airlock. "I do tend to eep, but as you can see, that's not always something I try to avoid..."

dark_light
2013-03-25 03:45 pm (UTC)

Amariah giggles. The first door closes, the second opens. She peers through, looking first of all for Kas.

nonbird
2013-03-25 04:05 pm (UTC)

Lazarus eeps.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-25 04:05 pm (UTC)

"How'd you get him in here?" giggles Alice, climbing out of the pile and coming over to give Lazarus a hug and ruffle his hair.

truthwright
2013-03-25 04:07 pm (UTC)

Kas is busy making out with Micaiah, but Petaal is being an angel and she waves from where Ghosty and Queenie are snuggled up in her wings.

dark_light
2013-03-25 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Insinuated nicely," says Amariah, waving back at Petaal. Path tucks away; it's safer in a room with this many bodies, and he, unlike Petaal, can't touch a majority of the attendees. Also, it is clearly unwarranted for her to wear clothes here. She stops!

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-25 04:11 pm (UTC)

Alice lets go of Lazarus and hugs Amariah next. He has been being squishy, so it is not a vampire hug.

"Come snuggle everybody," he invites.

nonbird
2013-03-25 04:12 pm (UTC)

Lazarus... sort of hangs around nervously.

dark_light
2013-03-25 04:13 pm (UTC)

Amariah goes and snuggles everybody!

"You okay, Lazarus?" Amariah asks.

nonbird
2013-03-25 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Mostly?" he says, leaning against a wall.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-25 04:30 pm (UTC)

Ghosty unravels herself out of the middle of the now Amariah-centric cuddlepile, re-coaelsces next to Lazarus, and gives him a big warm snuggly hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"You're cute," she says fondly. "Wanna cuddle with everybody? We don't bite. Unless you're into that."

dark_light
2013-03-25 04:33 pm (UTC)

"It's very cozy," Amariah volunteers.

nonbird
2013-03-25 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I can tell about the coziness," says Lazarus. "The coziness is apparent to me."

He hugs Ghosty back. (She's pretty cozy, too.)

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:02 pm (UTC)

"What's the hangup, then?" Amariah asks.

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:03 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure, really."

yourheartstrings
2013-03-25 05:03 pm (UTC)

Ghosty hugs Lazarus some more, but doesn't try to pull him cuddleward.

Queenie, nearest to Amariah in the pile, snuggles up and inquires, "Wanna make out?"

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Nah," Amariah says easily to Queenie.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-25 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Mmkay."

Instead, hugs!

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:06 pm (UTC)

"That does look awfully cozy," Lazarus murmurs, absently leaning his cheek against Ghosty's hair.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:07 pm (UTC)

"So cozy!" Amariah says. "And as I have just demonstrated you don't have to make out with anybody you don't feel like making out with."

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I can see that," he says.

And he shrugs, and proceeds into the pile. He is the only one there wearing clothes, but no one else seems to mind.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:11 pm (UTC)

Amariah sure doesn't!

"Anybody in this pile you do wanna make out with?" she asks brightly.

truthwright
2013-03-25 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I could ask you the same question," says Kas, although he is probably not volunteering from all the way over there and mostly underneath Micaiah.

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:15 pm (UTC)

Lazarus's answer, apparently, is a blush and a quiet, amused "Eep."

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I continue to be straight," Ama says. "I think within this pile that's my only constraint."

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:18 pm (UTC)

"...Well," says Lazarus, blushing some more.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-25 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwwwwwww," says Ghosty.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

Amariah raises an eyebrow at him. Bells all do the same eyebrow thing, so it may be familiar.

"You're really very cute," she tells him.

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:24 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," she says contently.

Well, he doesn't seem to be biting far as she can tell. What other people are unoccupied in this pile and do not create problems what with this inconvenient straightness thing Amariah has going on?

yourheartstrings
2013-03-25 05:32 pm (UTC)

Well, there's always—

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-25 05:32 pm (UTC)

—Ghosty, who comes in variable shapes.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:38 pm (UTC)

Ah yes, Amariah actually has fond, recent memories of Ghosty's variable shapes!

Kisses?

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-25 05:39 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Cuddly kisses.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-25 05:40 pm (UTC)

While that's going on, Queenie snuggles up to Lazarus.

"I bet you wanna kiss her," she murmurs.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:41 pm (UTC)

Amariah doesn't interrupt kissing Ghosty to indicate this, but she listens curiously.

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Um," says Lazarus. "Well. Yes."

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Amariah between kisses. "See, I couldn't tell."

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't really advertising it!" he says, grinning a little.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-25 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I figured it out," Queenie says smugly.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:46 pm (UTC)

"You're very perceptive," Amariah tells Queenie. She kisses the end of Ghosty's nose and adjusts her position to peer invitingly at Lazarus, one hand extended in his direction.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-25 05:46 pm (UTC)

Ghosty giggles.

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:47 pm (UTC)

Lazarus blushes some more.

Then he takes Amariah's hand, and wriggles a little closer in the pile.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:48 pm (UTC)

He gets a kiss for his trouble!

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:49 pm (UTC)

He kisses back. Shyly, but with definite enjoyment.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:50 pm (UTC)

Awww, shy kisses, that's cute. Amariah's kisses are not shy but they are also enjoying!

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:57 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses!

There is definitely something to this cuddlepile business. Kisses are extra fun when they happen in a pile of cuddles. This he is discovering.

dark_light
2013-03-25 05:57 pm (UTC)

Amariah is so pleased to have had the opportunity to enlighten him!

nonbird
2013-03-25 05:58 pm (UTC)

"So," he says slowly, after some amount of kisses, "wait, are you - are you test-driving me for Stella, or something?"

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Uh, she didn't ask me to, and if you don't want me to recommend you to her later I won't," Amariah blinks.

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Well... I don't really know," he says. "It just occurred to me that you asked me if she hits on me and calls me cute and things."

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I did ask that. I wanted to know, is why," Amariah says. (Kiss.) "Because you are cute and worth hitting on and she's the one of us who has non-party-related reasons to encounter you."

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says, "I guess you can ask her why she doesn't. And then at least one and possibly both of us will find out."

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:06 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, have you got a significant other who is not known to approve of you kissing Bells?" Pause. "Or who actually doesn't approve of you kissing Bells, in which case we should stop."

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I have a, um... no one matching that description is going to disapprove of me kissing Bells," he says.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:08 pm (UTC)

"But does Stella know that? Or does she just know that you have an um whose lack of disapproval is an unknown quantity?"

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:09 pm (UTC)

"...I suppose she does know," he says. "About the um."

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Goddesses all you're cute." He gets a kiss. "Do you want her, because I totally can go recommend you to her, it wouldn't even be my first, what'd you call it, test drive."

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:12 pm (UTC)

He giggles softly.

"I think I... wouldn't mind being recommended," he says.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I shall have a chat with her when I'm all through," kiss, "collecting data!"

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Lazarus.

And he kisses her some more.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:17 pm (UTC)

Yaaaaaay test driving other Bells' potential boyfriends is fuuuuuuun!

Brainphones exist. She does not have to interrupt the kissing to say, [D'you want to be recommended solely for being a good kisser?]

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:18 pm (UTC)

[Well, presumably you're also going to mention the cuteness,] he says. [Even though she already knows about it. Because I already know about it, and you keep mentioning it to me.]

This is the opposite of a complaint.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:19 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Kisses and cuteness, both on the list.]

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:22 pm (UTC)

[So...?]

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:23 pm (UTC)

[So, do you feel like qualifying me to recommend you for any other properties you might have? Among the Whistles or not, there's other rooms in here.]

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:24 pm (UTC)

[...I'll think about it,] he says.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:25 pm (UTC)

[Okay.] Amariah's not in a hurry to move on from kissing. Delicious Lazarus om nom nom.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-25 06:27 pm (UTC)

Alice is totally watching them and beaming.

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:28 pm (UTC)

...It is kind of adorable.

Lazarus glances speculatively at him between kisses.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:29 pm (UTC)

Amariah giggles at him doing this between kisses!

nonbird
2013-03-25 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I am having a very adventurous day today," says Lazarus. "Alice, would you like to kiss me?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-25 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" he says, and pounces gently.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww."

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-25 06:34 pm (UTC)

Mmmm kisses.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:35 pm (UTC)

Well, now Amariah's unoccupied. Anybody looking speculatively at her now?

manofmyword
2013-03-25 06:38 pm (UTC)

Ghosty and Queenie are cuddling close by. Petaal has her wings draped over Kas and Micaiah, who have progressed past making out. Alice is, of course, busy.

On the opposite end of the pile from Kas, the Joker is curled up with his arms wrapped around Sue, and both of them are looking at her. Hard to tell if 'speculative' applies.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Where's Ivy?" Amariah wonders.

pythbox
2013-03-25 06:40 pm (UTC)

A small white fennec fox pokes her head out from between the pair of them and waves a paw.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:41 pm (UTC)

Amariah waves. "Thanks for teaching me that hiding trick. I would not be nearly as comfortable walking into a room this crowded if Path had to be out. He'd wind up waiting outside being disgruntled."

pythbox
2013-03-25 06:42 pm (UTC)

"And that wouldn't be near as much fun," says Sue. Ivy climbs over him and into his arms, and he cuddles her and kisses the top of her head.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:45 pm (UTC)

"It wouldn't. Anything much in this vein with an unoccupied, disgruntled daemon is just kinda bleah." Amariah waves at the general contingent. "Hey - Aegis identified you as her 'best friend'. Just because she's fifteen or what, d'you know?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 06:48 pm (UTC)

"...I dunno," says Sue, shaking his head. "I used to flirt with everybody and she didn't want me to flirt with her 'cause she wasn't there yet, but that was a year or something ago."
Edited 2013-03-25 18:48 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if you're all... Westermarck effect, that's it. Well, her, anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-25 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm not," he says, grinning.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that doesn't seem like the sorta thing that'd apply to you," laughs Amariah. "You want me to ask her?" Pause. "You want to get 'test-driven'?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 06:53 pm (UTC)

Brightly: "Sure!"

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:55 pm (UTC)

"To which question?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Both of 'em?" he laughs.

dark_light
2013-03-25 06:57 pm (UTC)

"In which order?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 06:58 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, does it matter? I mean, if you ask her if she's interested and she says no does that mean you won't fuck me either?"

dark_light
2013-03-25 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Not hardly." Amariah wriggles her way out of her current pile. "Minor logistical issue - if Path's gonna be out to occupy Ivy I don't want to be in a room this crowded."

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I think one of the other rooms is still free!" he says, grinning.

dark_light
2013-03-25 07:05 pm (UTC)

Amariah gets to her feet and holds out her hand towards Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:07 pm (UTC)

He takes it, and Ivy follows them as a hummingbird.

dark_light
2013-03-25 07:09 pm (UTC)

Path emerges as they cross the threshold. [Hey Aegis,] Amariah asks, setting up her, Sue, their daemons, and Aegis all in a conference call, [you don't mind if I borrow your Whistle for salacious purposes?]

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:10 pm (UTC)

[...You want to - wait - Sue, are you not gay?]

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:11 pm (UTC)

[...The fuck?] he says, actually stopping in his tracks. [No, I'm not gay, why would I be gay?]

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:13 pm (UTC)

[I hope you weren't expecting me to draw conclusions about your sexuality from the fact that you were willing to flirt with a thirteen-year-old girl, and besides that it sure looked like it to me!]
Edited 2013-03-25 19:15 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-03-25 07:16 pm (UTC)

[Oh, you poor things,] laughs Amariah. [If alts ever vary in who they're attracted to we haven't seen the phenomenon yet. Shell Bell's special circumstances. Whistles are - Whistles.]

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:17 pm (UTC)

[There weren't any girls around who wanted to fuck me!] he says. [Until now, anyway. But I've had the hots for you since ages, did you not know that?]

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:18 pm (UTC)

[I did not know that! Because you didn't tell me! And even guys who're just space-gay talk about girls.]

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:25 pm (UTC)

[I guess I just got used to not flirting,] he says. [And I'm not 'guys', I'm me.]

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:27 pm (UTC)

[I know you're you. I just didn't know you weren't gay.]

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:28 pm (UTC)

[Well, that's weird,] he says. [But now you do.]

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:29 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Um.]

dark_light
2013-03-25 07:30 pm (UTC)

[I'll bow out if you want, Aegis,] invites Amariah. [Or I can test-drive him for you.]

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:30 pm (UTC)

[I'm looking forward to the test drive,] says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:33 pm (UTC)

[...You have fun, I need to think.]

dark_light
2013-03-25 07:33 pm (UTC)

[I'll have a nice informed review along in a bit,] Amariah says.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:34 pm (UTC)

[Thanks, I think.]

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:40 pm (UTC)

Sue giggles, and drops the call, and hugs Amariah.

dark_light
2013-03-25 07:41 pm (UTC)

Amariah hugs him back.

Path moves to a part of the room that's out of the way and hoots at Ivy.

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:43 pm (UTC)

Ivy becomes an angel, and goes to Path, and hugs him and pets him and kisses his fluffy feathers.

dark_light
2013-03-25 07:45 pm (UTC)

Amariah takes him for a test drive.

[Highly recommended,] she tells Aegis, with Sue conferenced in, when all is done. And then she pulls herself out of the call, collects Path into herself again, and wanders back into the main chamber.
Edited 2013-03-25 19:45 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:46 pm (UTC)

[Huh,] Aegis says, now speaking only to Ivy and Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:46 pm (UTC)

[So, you do your thinking yet?]

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:47 pm (UTC)

[Some of it. I know I told you not to flirt with me back when I was thirteen, but you could've just told me straight out, you know. I didn't like it because I was thirteen and I thought it was part of Unhealthy Sue Behavior.]

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:50 pm (UTC)

[I guess it was a little. But I liked you, too. I like you now. I love you.]

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:53 pm (UTC)

[You're my best friend and I love you and I've thought you were not-potentially-dateable for a long time now,] Aegis sighs.

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:55 pm (UTC)

[I still don't get that,] he says. [But maybe it's just that I don't even know what me being gay would be like.]

autokinetic
2013-03-25 07:57 pm (UTC)

[Link me up, it's higher bandwidth. I'm not gay but I can push you what it's like to only like boys.]

pythbox
2013-03-25 07:59 pm (UTC)

He links her up.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:01 pm (UTC)

She pushes.

Girls just aren't labeled in her head as potential partners. Maybe not in the same sense that, say, chairs are - chairs are not people, among other important differences between them and girls - but in about the same sense that children or - or buggers aren't.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:02 pm (UTC)

That is really weird. Even knowing what it is like, Sue still can't envision it for himself.

He pushes back the complete picture of how he feels about Aegis.

He is definitely not gay.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:03 pm (UTC)

...ooh.

Aegis is not gay either!

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:04 pm (UTC)

Yes, she just said.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:06 pm (UTC)

If you'd pushed that at me while you were, like, next to me, I probably would've kissed you, Aegis observes. But you're in the orgy chamber and I don't think I wanna be in an orgy chamber.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:08 pm (UTC)

I'm not in the main part! he says, laughing. Ama went back out, there's nobody in here but me.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:09 pm (UTC)

I still have mixed feelings about entering an orgy chamber, though!
Edited 2013-03-25 20:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:10 pm (UTC)

It's just a room with a big comfy bed and a buncha pillows, he shrugs.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:13 pm (UTC)

Nobody's likely to come in and start orgy-ing?

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:14 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

Not if we close the door!

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:16 pm (UTC)

If the door isn't currently closed, do please close it before I teleport in, I don't really want to witness an orgy any more than I want to be in one. I wonder why Amariah's so different.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:18 pm (UTC)

I dunno, he says, and shuts the door with a square, and indicates that he has done so.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:20 pm (UTC)

Port!

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:23 pm (UTC)

Hug!

He did not put on clothes, should he have put on clothes?

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:23 pm (UTC)

Meh. Hug!

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:25 pm (UTC)

Okay, awesome. He loves heeeeeer.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:26 pm (UTC)

I don't actually know what I'm doing past hereabouts, Aegis remarks presently.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:30 pm (UTC)

Is there something you want to be doing? he asks cheerfully. 'Cause we could just snuggle if that's what you're after.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:31 pm (UTC)

I don't know. We can start with that.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:32 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! Big-comfy-bed snuggles.

Ivy instatiates as a very large, brightly coloured snake and coils over both of them.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:35 pm (UTC)

Ivy-the-snake gets petted. Aegis closes her eyes and cuddles up. I do love you, you know, even if I've only been thinking about you as a friend for forever.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:38 pm (UTC)

I love you too, he says, snuggling her. You're the best.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:40 pm (UTC)

Snuggle!

I do kinda want to kiss you. I don't think leaping immediately into metaphorical bed like Amariah is a me thing, though.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:40 pm (UTC)

So let's kiss, he says cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:41 pm (UTC)

Tentative little incompetent kiss? Yes, that.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:42 pm (UTC)

How about snuggly kiss?

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:42 pm (UTC)

Snuggly too! Snuggly is good.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:45 pm (UTC)

In that case, more snuggly kiss!

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:45 pm (UTC)

The tentativeness is going away slowly! The incompetence is going away more slowly!

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:46 pm (UTC)

Sue is pretty content with this turn of events!

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:47 pm (UTC)

Oh, good! Snuggles and kisses and Ivy-petting and some Sue-petting. These things.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:48 pm (UTC)

Ivy, being currently a snake, does not make sounds when petted.

Sue does, though!

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:49 pm (UTC)

That's encouraging!

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:50 pm (UTC)

They are encouraging sounds.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:50 pm (UTC)

Aegis has decided that she definitely likes kissing Sue. She pushes him this information, since he has a door through her wall now and it's easy and she can.

pythbox
2013-03-25 08:53 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Sue likes kissing Aegis right back! He informs her of this in the clearest possible terms.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 08:55 pm (UTC)

Do you usually link people in... bed?

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:00 pm (UTC)

Not all the time, but sometimes!

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:00 pm (UTC)

How's that work?

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:01 pm (UTC)

He laughs. Why, you want I should show you?

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:02 pm (UTC)

Not all multimedia. I don't wanna feel like I've slept with everybody you have. Just curious.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:05 pm (UTC)

It's nice, he says. My alts like it especially. And it's easier than talking for explaining some stuff.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:05 pm (UTC)

That sounds nice.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Mmhmm," he says, snuggling closer and pushing another dose of I-love-you-you're-the-best.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:08 pm (UTC)

Aegis likes that and this time she is close enough to kiss him for it and he's close enough to hear her small pleased noise.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:09 pm (UTC)

He kisses back, shining delight into her mind.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:19 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses. She's less incompetent now!

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:21 pm (UTC)

That is nice. This is nice. Everything is nice. Sue is getting all kinds of good feelings, and he sends her those too, all happy and shivery and lovey.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:23 pm (UTC)

Aegis doesn't default to pushing at him, but she does when she thinks to; she's all comfortable excitement and enthralled affection.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:25 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwww that makes him happy. That makes him really happy. See how happy?

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:25 pm (UTC)

She is happy that he is happy! He gets squeezed. And kissed some more.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:27 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmm kisses snuggles kisses love kisses snuggles.

(The squeezing is nice. There could be more of that.)

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:28 pm (UTC)

Then there is more of that. Aegis is quite obliging about squeezing.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:30 pm (UTC)

Best! Best best best. Sue is very squishable. Alice has taught him as much. He had lots of fun finding out.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:31 pm (UTC)

Aegis is not vampire-strong, so she isn't squishing him quite that much, but she's doing her best.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:33 pm (UTC)

Sue tells/shows her how much he likes her squishing him.

It is a lot.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Mmm," sighs Aegis, tucking her head in against his neck and going on with the squeezing.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:35 pm (UTC)

He hugs her back lightly and closes his eyes and loves her.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:35 pm (UTC)

She loves him back! She pushes it. So there.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:37 pm (UTC)

She is the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeest.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:37 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes she is. She laughs smugly.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:38 pm (UTC)

"You are the best," says Sue. "You're my favourite Bell. And I love you and I kinda want to make out with you forever."

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:39 pm (UTC)

"I love you too. And I want to do some other things in the course of forever but there can be making out in there."

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he says, "you're gonna take over the world, too."

That also makes him happy. He loves that she will take over the world.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:41 pm (UTC)

She also loves that she will take over the world!

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:42 pm (UTC)

Yeah, but she loves it differently. Because presumably she does not want to make out with herself. If she did, there would be many available opportunities.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:44 pm (UTC)

There would not! The other Bells are all straight. Even Shell Bell's special circumstances don't extend that far.

She doesn't want to make out with herself anyway. She wants to make out with Sue! Thiiiiis much.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:49 pm (UTC)

That is a lot of much!

Sue wants things, too. He wants to make out with Aegis, and hug her and love her and be close to her, and he wants her to squish him, and he wants -

He wants to hurt.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:49 pm (UTC)

?

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:53 pm (UTC)

Sue likes pain. All the squishing and the kissing and the being-turned-on are, in combination, reminding him of this. He would like to like some right now, if she's feeling it.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:54 pm (UTC)

Huh.

She has an agony beam installed - it's standard issue, she got it stacked up right with everything else. She hasn't tried it yet. Or she could just dig her nails in a little where her hands are pressing into his back. Either, both, what's his preference?

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:56 pm (UTC)

Right now, his preference is for fingernails!

autokinetic
2013-03-25 09:57 pm (UTC)

Pressing becomes clenching. She hasn't cut her nails in a while. They can go in quite a ways, and she might not have super-strength but she does have good muscle tone.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:00 pm (UTC)

Sue gets all happy and squirmy, and sends happy squirmy love.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 10:00 pm (UTC)

He gets kissed and scratched and kissed some more.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:01 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmkisses. Happy squirmy lovey kisses.

autokinetic
2013-03-25 10:03 pm (UTC)

Hmm.

She bites his lip. Not enough to bleed, but enough that she wouldn't at all like it if somebody did it to her.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:05 pm (UTC)

He loves her.
Edited 2013-03-25 22:05 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-25 10:06 pm (UTC)

Of course he does! It's 'cause she's awesome. She loves him too. Nibble nibble kiss kiss.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:07 pm (UTC)

Sue wraps his arms around her and squeezes, not squishy-tight but with definite emphasis.

Kiss kiss snuggle snuggle!

This is continuation number 12 from here.

manofmyword
2013-03-25 10:28 pm (UTC)

At some point, a long while after he went in, the Joker emerges from the orgy chamber. (He is dressed, so his nametag identifies him.)

He looks for Pattern.

bellfounding
2013-03-25 10:29 pm (UTC)

Pattern's over here, talking to a stray small half-vampire whose nametag says he is called Henry.

manofmyword
2013-03-25 10:31 pm (UTC)

The Joker wanders over thataway.

"Hey, you," he says amicably.

bellfounding
2013-03-25 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Hi. What's up?" Pattern asks.

Henry is bored with small talk. He wants to talk about dinosaurs. He runs off to find someone who will talk to him about dinosaurs.

manofmyword
2013-03-25 10:34 pm (UTC)

"I wanna know about stars," says the Joker.

bellfounding
2013-03-25 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Unless you're planning to quit on Golden and move back to Origin, that's not my jurisdiction," Pattern says.

manofmyword
2013-03-25 10:38 pm (UTC)

He sighs and shakes his head.

bellfounding
2013-03-25 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Why are you asking me?"

manofmyword
2013-03-25 10:43 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I'm never gonna be in your jurisdiction."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Why's that a reason to ask me, though?"

manofmyword
2013-03-25 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Because then," he explains, "if you say no, it won't be about me being in your jurisdiction."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough, I guess, but I don't want to step on Golden's toes. Metaphorically. I guess she'd barely notice if I literally stepped on her toes."

manofmyword
2013-03-25 10:57 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

bellfounding
2013-03-25 10:58 pm (UTC)

"If you think I can make a better case for you to her than you can, I'll give it a shot if you can convince me that she should tell you, though," Pattern offers.

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I torch now," he says. "If I wanna do anything permanent to myself - like, say, put my scars back on - I have to use an evil. I don't wanna be going to one of you guys for every little thing. Betcha Q's gonna have the same problem, wherever she ends up, if she mints."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking of asking her myself, actually," muses Pattern. "Hmm. Have you asked Golden about this before? Or any of the others? Is there some compelling reason for you not to know?"

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:07 pm (UTC)

"...How much do you know about me?"

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Snippets that came across when were linked up and I was getting the executive summary. You have a colorful history, you got on Stella's nerves and she stuck you on an asteroid, eventually she remanded you to Golden to be Golden's mint and now you're with that Nathan guy, if I understood what Henry was talking about one of his little friends is yours."

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Yep! We made a munchkin," he says cheerfully. "Anyway, I guess they're afraid I'll do something they won't like. Not that I blame 'em, but it's kiiiinda silly, 'cause especially these days, if I wanna wish upon a star all I have to do is hop over to, say, Pluto."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they're afraid you'll tell someone who will do something they won't like and can't or doesn't have the impulse control to visit Pluto first," suggests Pattern.

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Am I always gonna have the impulse control to visit Pluto first, is the question."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, there's that. Are you likely to send Golden's or somebody's sun supernova casually wishing on an evil?"

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Oh, probably not," he says cheerfully. "Unless I forget."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:29 pm (UTC)

Pattern blinks.

"They make boosts for that, yanno," she says, like she's advising him of the availability of a plastic consumer good of some kind. "For not forgetting stuff."

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Mm, but too many of those takes all the fun out of life."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:34 pm (UTC)

"I was proposing only one. The kind that makes suns not go supernova."

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:39 pm (UTC)

"No thanks."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:43 pm (UTC)

"If you aren't sure you'll remember to ask Golden or whoever for whatever large wishes you might want to whimsically make, what makes you think you'll remember to do spooky secret star safety stuff?"

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:44 pm (UTC)

"The spooky secret star safety stuff," says the Joker, "works in advance."

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:45 pm (UTC)

"What makes you say that?"

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:51 pm (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-03-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Golden is looking for Mary.

bellfounding
2013-03-25 11:54 pm (UTC)

"No, seriously, what makes you say that, I have not been around that long, I don't know what you saw."

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:57 pm (UTC)

[Yes?] says Mary.

manofmyword
2013-03-25 11:59 pm (UTC)

"I know how you guys work," says the Joker. "Doesn't make sense any other way, the way you handle 'em."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 12:00 am (UTC)

"Maybe you should just have a stash of safe ones, then," Pattern suggests. "That doesn't necessitate telling you how they work."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:01 am (UTC)

[The Joker wants the star secret. How much of a disaster is that, please?]

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:05 am (UTC)

[It isn't one,] she says. [At all. If you don't tell him, he mostly seems to find out anyway—I think the chance of that just went up by a lot, for some reason. If he doesn't get it, there's a tiny chance of widespread destruction in some universe or other someday.]
Edited 2013-03-26 00:05 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:06 am (UTC)

...The Joker smiles.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 12:07 am (UTC)

"What?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:08 am (UTC)

Golden joins them.

"I wish you'd called me over earlier, Pattern."

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:09 am (UTC)

"Hiya," the Joker says cheerfully. "Somebody's not too good at keeping secrets."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:10 am (UTC)

Golden facepalms. It makes a rocky noise. "Pattern, what did you tell my mint?"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 12:11 am (UTC)

Pattern winces, and brainphones the entire conversation verbatim.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:13 am (UTC)

The Joker giggles softly.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:15 am (UTC)

"Mary thinks telling you what's up with stars and beyond is fine," Golden tells the Joker. "And checking in with her is the obvious thing I would do. Why didn't you just ask me, or maybe Mary directly? Sneaking clues out of Pattern is not nice."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 12:16 am (UTC)

"I'm new at - at Belling, I'm sorry."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:16 am (UTC)

"It's okay, it's not a disaster," Golden soothes.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:18 am (UTC)

"I didn't know she was gonna spill like that," he shrugs. "I wanted to ask her 'cause she's from my world and I'm not going back."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 12:19 am (UTC)

"I still don't really see how that makes sense," says Pattern.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:23 am (UTC)

"It's about... not feeling like I belong to anybody," he sighs. "But maybe Golden would've been better about that too."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 12:25 am (UTC)

"I should've just gotten her first thing," mutters Pattern.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:26 am (UTC)

"Don't beat yourself up about it. Anyway, Joker. Mary says it's a fine idea, I wish you'd come to me but what's done is done, my question is are you going to distribute the information any farther than that?"

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:33 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he says. "If one of me wants it. Prooobably not what you wanna hear, but it's true. Tell you what, though, I'll keep it to the retirees. Ask Mary what she thinks of that."

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:34 am (UTC)

[No problems,] says Mary.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:35 am (UTC)

"I'm not thrilled," Golden admits, "but Mary says that's fine, too."

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:36 am (UTC)

"Handy girl to have around."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:39 am (UTC)

"Very. The power's not that much like Alice's at all, really, though both are useful. At any rate. I'm going to notify the peal, and then I'll tell you how stars and so on work, if you really want to know."

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:41 am (UTC)

"Yes please," he says, with a bright teacher's-pet sort of tone.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 12:42 am (UTC)

Golden closes her eyes and sighs, then conference-calls all the Bells and the Joker together and summarizes what has gone on.

autokinetic
2013-03-26 12:44 am (UTC)

[Wait,] Aegis says. [Have you all been just not telling your Whistles? Why would you do that, how is it not obvious that they should know how to safely operate the deadly weapons they can basically secrete?] And without waiting for an answer, she starts up another call with Sue. [Stars and up have to be wished safe with the next thing down. Hex to declaw a star, declawed star to declaw an evil, etcetera.]
Edited 2013-03-26 00:44 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:46 am (UTC)

[Oh, hey,] says Sue, [that's good to know!]

And he kisses the end of her nose.

autokinetic
2013-03-26 12:47 am (UTC)

[I mention this because apparently the other Whistles did not know, the other Bells were just not telling them, I hadn't gotten around to it but now the Joker's asking about it and Golden has decided to tell him and this is apparently momentous.]
Edited 2013-03-26 00:48 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 12:49 am (UTC)

[I stored the information on Jehovah and named Micaiah the successor to my captaincy?] offers Angela. [He never seemed to want to know very badly.]

dark_light
2013-03-26 12:50 am (UTC)

[I told Charlie and told him that Kas could know if he ever came by to ask. He thinks it's a witch riddle of some kind.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-26 12:51 am (UTC)

[Sherlock's known from the beginning, thank goodness,] says Shell Bell serenely.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-26 12:52 am (UTC)

[I'm nearly as new to the party as Aegis and there was nothing to tell - I mean, I could've mentioned it but it would've been practically useless since access to coins would've come with access to another Bell who knew - till recently. But I was going to tell my Sherlock too.]

self_composed
2013-03-26 12:53 am (UTC)

[I have two staff who know and Alice never seemed to care,] Stella says.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 12:59 am (UTC)

[Heh,] says the Joker.

autokinetic
2013-03-26 01:01 am (UTC)

[I reiterate that they secrete deadly weapons for you. If they aren't interested in how to work the weapons safely that might mean they don't want to make large wishes. It might mean that Whistles aren't that concerned with being safe and it's in your best interest to make being safe as convenient as possible.]

manofmyword
2013-03-26 01:02 am (UTC)

[The little one's got her head screwed on straight,] he says with a chuckle.

autokinetic
2013-03-26 01:03 am (UTC)

[I think it's just that I've known mine since we were six, but yeah, guys, come on, can't most of you read yours's minds?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 01:03 am (UTC)

...Several of the

dark_light
2013-03-26 01:04 am (UTC)

Whistles in the cuddle pile

self_composed
2013-03-26 01:04 am (UTC)

receive slightly embarrassed pings from their Bells.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-26 01:06 am (UTC)

[What's up?]

truthwright
2013-03-26 01:06 am (UTC)

[Hi, sweetie!]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-26 01:07 am (UTC)

[I love you.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 01:08 am (UTC)

[I love you too. Erm, do you want to know how stars and evils and arrows work?]

dark_light
2013-03-26 01:10 am (UTC)

[Hi, sweetie! I have just been metaphorically smacked upside the head by Aegis and I wanna tell you how stars and whatnot operate instead of doing the stupid thing I did instead.]

self_composed
2013-03-26 01:10 am (UTC)

[Policy change. You get the star secret, assuming you'd like it.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-26 01:14 am (UTC)

[Sure,] says Alice. [What's the secret?]

truthwright
2013-03-26 01:15 am (UTC)

[Okay,] laughs Kas.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-26 01:15 am (UTC)

[If you wanna tell me,] says Micaiah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 01:17 am (UTC)

[Aegis has pointed out that it could be dangerous for you not to know. Even though you know you can ask me to make any large wishes, if you were impulsive about it one day...]

dark_light
2013-03-26 01:19 am (UTC)

[It's pretty stupidly simple, actually, you wish on a hex to defang a star and then that star is safe, you wish on a defanged star to get a safe evil, and so on. You probably could've guessed if you cared much.]

self_composed
2013-03-26 01:21 am (UTC)

[Coins spit out extra magic to do nasty things, the size of the next coin down, whenever you wish on them. The littler ones are not smart enough for wishing on an unadulterated hex to actually hurt anybody, but stars and up, you want to counter that amount of energy in advance, with however big a stack is called for to get up that high. Then they're "declawed". Don't go spreading this around, please.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-26 01:27 am (UTC)

[Okay,] Alice says agreeably. [Love you.]

truthwright
2013-03-26 01:28 am (UTC)

[Maybe so,] says Kas. [Thanks anyway.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-26 01:28 am (UTC)

[...Yeah,] says Micaiah, [tell me, then.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 01:29 am (UTC)

[If you wish on a hex for a star to be safe, then it's safe. If you wish on a safe star for an evil to be safe, that works too, and presumably so on.]

dark_light
2013-03-26 01:30 am (UTC)

[You're welcome.]

self_composed
2013-03-26 01:30 am (UTC)

[Love you too!]

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-26 01:33 am (UTC)

[Okay,] says Micaiah. [Thanks. See you later, my angel.]

manofmyword
2013-03-26 01:33 am (UTC)

Through all this, the Joker waits.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 01:34 am (UTC)

[See you soon, love.]

And into the peal's call:

[Okay. Micaiah knows.]

self_composed
2013-03-26 01:34 am (UTC)

[My Alice too.]

dark_light
2013-03-26 01:35 am (UTC)

[And Kas.]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 01:36 am (UTC)

Golden sighs.

[And,] she says to the Joker, [for you: it's just a matter of declawing them with the next coin size down.]

bellfounding
2013-03-26 01:36 am (UTC)

[I'll tell whoever I hire, assuming I manage to hire somebody.]

manofmyword
2013-03-26 01:40 am (UTC)

[Thanks,] says the Joker.

And he spends a hex for a star for an evil to stick his scars on for good.

self_composed
2013-03-26 01:41 am (UTC)

[It's possible I should tell my staff mints, given the whole secretion-of-deadly-weapons-thing. I'll ask Mary how that would go.] Stella absents herself from the call.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 01:45 am (UTC)

"You want I should put a word in with one of the spares?" he asks Pattern.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 01:47 am (UTC)

"Mary said talking to Queenie would go better overall if somebody, not necessarily me, were in physical contact with her at the time," Pattern says. "So there's that you could help with. I'm not sure what kind of word you'd put in. 'She's a Bell, she's a little clumsy with secrets'?"

manofmyword
2013-03-26 01:49 am (UTC)

He chuckles. "Apparently the word is 'hug'. I'll see if she's busy. You rather you go in, or she comes out?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:50 am (UTC)

[Yes?] says Mary.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 01:51 am (UTC)

"I'd just as soon not go in," says Pattern.

self_composed
2013-03-26 01:52 am (UTC)

[Good or bad idea to also tell Anna and Sandy about stars and such?]

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:59 am (UTC)

[Anna will do basically nothing with that information,] Mary reports. [Sandy... Sandy will do something, but it won't be destructive. You're likelier to be pleased about it than not, whatever it is.]

manofmyword
2013-03-26 01:59 am (UTC)

"Mmkay," says the Joker, and he wanders back to the orgy airlock.

self_composed
2013-03-26 02:00 am (UTC)

[Do either of them distribute the information elsewhere?]

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:00 am (UTC)

Pattern waits.

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:01 am (UTC)

[Nope!]

self_composed
2013-03-26 02:02 am (UTC)

[Great. Any danger to not telling them, or can I spin it as their Christmas bonus or something?]

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:03 am (UTC)

[No danger.]

manofmyword
2013-03-26 02:04 am (UTC)

[Busy,] the Joker reports cheerfully. [And I'm about to make her busier. We'll be out in a while, don't fret.]

self_composed
2013-03-26 02:06 am (UTC)

[Awesome. Thanks!]

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:06 am (UTC)

[I'll wait,] snorts Pattern.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 02:27 am (UTC)

Some time later, the Joker emerges from the orgy chamber hand in hand with Queenie. He conjures them a big squashable comfy chair, and they sit down in it, side by side and very cozy.

[Okay,] he says to Pattern, [come have a chat.]

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:30 am (UTC)

Pattern teleports over, and conjures her own chair - ergonomic and sleek. "Hello, Queenie," she says.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 02:33 am (UTC)

"Hiya," she says cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:34 am (UTC)

"Have the other Whistles already explained minting to you?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 02:35 am (UTC)

"Oh, you bet!"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:37 am (UTC)

"I don't have someone to do that for me. Right now I'm running Downside-related errands, but eventually I'll be going back to my original world and doing what Bells do best. I'd like to employ a mint. Are you interested?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 02:38 am (UTC)

"Depends," she says. "Do I get terms like my buddy here's?" She snugs her arm around the Joker's shoulders and kisses his cheek; he leans into her affectionately.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:41 am (UTC)

"I'm assuming whatever those are, they work for Golden, but can I hear the terms anyway in case my situation is importantly different somehow?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 02:43 am (UTC)

"Mmm, pretty much: don't chase me around with quotas or check up on me every five minutes to make sure I haven't murdered anybody, and I'll give you lots of coins when you want 'em."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:44 am (UTC)

"Are you going to murder anybody, I can't really approve of you murdering anybody," Pattern says.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 02:46 am (UTC)

She rolls her eyes. "Sweetie, I know that. There are probably rocks that know that. Us retired Jokers," she snuggles the other example some more, "we don't make trouble unless somebody's trying to force us not to."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:47 am (UTC)

"How likely are you to attract attention from someone besides me who will hope to force you not to make trouble?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 02:49 am (UTC)

"Is there anybody besides you who's got a shot in hell at doing it?"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:50 am (UTC)

"At succeeding, no, at trying hard enough that you'd have to do something regrettable to be not-forced, I don't know, that seems like it would depend on your style."
Edited 2013-03-26 02:52 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 02:55 am (UTC)

"Tell you what," she says, "if I run into anybody like that, I'll let you handle 'em."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 02:55 am (UTC)

"That sounds workable, then."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 03:01 am (UTC)

She beams.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 03:03 am (UTC)

Golden wanders thisaway. "Job interview?" she inquires.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 03:03 am (UTC)

"Yep."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 03:04 am (UTC)

"Have you already been warned about your world's little bat infestation?"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 03:04 am (UTC)

"...No?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 03:06 am (UTC)

Queenie giggles.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 03:12 am (UTC)

"There's someone who literally does a costumed superhero bit in your world, perhaps she wasn't famous in your part of the country or before you died. She was the primary protagonist to the Joker's an-, overall white hat in spite of the actual color scheme but she did murder my friend and Minister of Temporal Affairs, Nathan, because he growled at her and stood up too quickly. She's just a human, you don't need to worry about her per se, but don't give her any magic, we don't trust her with it after Stella 'owed her three wishes', paid up, and Batlady wound up sending Nathan Downside for a hundred years plus a forking issue like Shell Bell had. It would possibly be a reasonable professional courtesy to keep her and Queenie away from each other."
Edited 2013-03-26 06:25 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-03-26 06:25 am (UTC)

"Do you object to staying clear of her?" Pattern asks Queenie.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 11:54 am (UTC)

"Mmm... that depends," says Queenie. "I'm not gonna get in her face, but I might drop by Gotham. I miss the place, y'know?"

manofmyword
2013-03-26 11:55 am (UTC)

"And Quin," murmurs the Joker.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Okay... do you suppose that's likely to attract notice from the Batlady, if you do?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 03:38 pm (UTC)

"If I do what, go see Quinnie?" She shrugs. "Maybe, who knows?"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 03:39 pm (UTC)

"So possibly I should warn her, and see how she reacts."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 03:39 pm (UTC)

"You might want me or Stella with you if you schedule such a meeting," Golden says.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 03:48 pm (UTC)

The Joker snorts. "What the hell would you do that for, anyway?"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Would unpleasantly startling her be a better idea for some reason?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 03:50 pm (UTC)

"She is just a human. A single person visiting a large city won't necessarily attract her attention at all. Although given the way Bells and our friends seem to attract coincidences, I'm not sure if counting on that would be wise."

manofmyword
2013-03-26 03:53 pm (UTC)

"If you tell her one of me's gonna be visiting Gotham, she'll throw a great big messy shitfit, I bet. Even if you tell her it's not me. Even if she believes you it's not me. If Q just goes, there's a good chance Batsy might never find out."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay... maybe Queenie could go in disguise just in case?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Hon," says Queenie, tapping her unscarred, unpainted face, "this is a disguise."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Your standard power stack included a vision boost. Just because you can tell what her bones look like under there doesn't mean the Bat can," Golden says.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 03:58 pm (UTC)

"...Fair enough," shrugs Pattern.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Mm... separate issue from Q's job offer," says the Joker, "I do miss Dr. Quinzel. She's a friend of mine from Gotham. Think you could find her, see how she's doing, ask if she wants to come have a chat?"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:03 pm (UTC)

"In person, or would it work fine for you if Jane did it?"

mind_game
2013-03-26 04:03 pm (UTC)

[I'd be her ride anyway,] Jane points out.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't matter to me," he says with a shrug.

mind_game
2013-03-26 04:06 pm (UTC)

[I'll email her once I have a foothold in Origin,] says Jane evenly.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

mind_game
2013-03-26 04:08 pm (UTC)

[Or, you could compose an email to her yourself and I could pass it along,] Jane points out.

manofmyword
2013-03-26 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Aw, I wouldn't know what to say."

mind_game
2013-03-26 04:10 pm (UTC)

[Suit yourself.]

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:10 pm (UTC)

"So that's that taken care of. Is there anything else we should work out?"

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Queenie, at the risk of my regretting asking this question, how are you planning to produce large coins wandering around by yourself?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 04:13 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

"I dunno, I'll think of something. Why, you wanna help?"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Golden doesn't. I can, if you want, the agony beam's also standard issue, I think it's only Angela who hasn't got one."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun," Queenie says cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:17 pm (UTC)

"And if I hire you I'll tell you how stars work, and that's not information for general consumption," Pattern says, "okay?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I think that's everything."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-26 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes, it sounds like it," Golden agrees.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Want a job, Queenie?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:22 pm (UTC)

"All right. Where will I find you when I'm done with my errands and ready to move back into Origin?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Who knows. With another one of me, probably. Alice or Jokes, I bet." And she snuggles the Joker some more.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:25 pm (UTC)

"So, at least one of the other Bells will be able to locate you. Okay."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Mmhmm," she says agreeably.

bellfounding
2013-03-26 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Cool. I'll see you later, then."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-26 04:29 pm (UTC)

"See ya!"

This is continuation number 13 from here.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 04:37 pm (UTC)

When Micaiah emerges from the orgy chamber, Angela is there to greet him.

"It occurred to me that Beast should probably be general knowledge, in case he dreams his way into Milliways again and he's not - recognizeable," she says. "Did you mention him to the other Whistles?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-26 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh! No," he says, "I didn't think of it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 04:39 pm (UTC)

Angela conferences all the Whistles in a brainphone call. [Micaiah and I met another one of you in Milliways not long ago,] she says, and she describes the situation with Beast. [Unfortunately, I don't think we have a way to get to his world and help him and Belle.]

pythbox
2013-03-26 08:59 pm (UTC)

[I wonder if I could get there somehow,] Sue muses. [I don't think I could, but I might be the best bet we've got.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 09:00 pm (UTC)

[Is it safe for you to try?]

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:08 pm (UTC)

[Well, last time I fucked one up, I ended up outside of Milliways,] he says. [So if that's where I go whenever that happens, I'll be fine.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 09:09 pm (UTC)

[...And do you think that will be a regularity?]

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:12 pm (UTC)

[How the hell should I know?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 09:16 pm (UTC)

[Well, if you don't, perhaps you shouldn't try. We managed to force the door to Eos despite none of us having been there; perhaps we can force it to Belle and Beast's world. Or - you yourself prove that some effects picked up while dreaming oneself into Milliways can persist. Perhaps there's some way to have him carry a Jane-point home in a way that will let her move someone there the newly usual way.]

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:19 pm (UTC)

[Sure, okay.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-26 09:21 pm (UTC)

[Micaiah and I can try forcing the door before we go home, after the party, and if it doesn't work I'll leave a note for him at the bar suggesting that he go talk to Jane in the Belltower so we can at least send someone to meet him.]

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:23 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

This is continuation number 14 from here.

self_composed
2013-03-28 01:41 am (UTC)

The next time Stella and Lazarus cross paths, her look is one of speculation.

"Hi," she says.

nonbird
2013-03-28 01:43 am (UTC)

"Hi," he says, blushing.

self_composed
2013-03-28 01:44 am (UTC)

"According to Amariah, you've been adventurous today."

nonbird
2013-03-28 01:45 am (UTC)

"I have!" he says. "It was an adventure! Did she say anything else?"

self_composed
2013-03-28 01:54 am (UTC)

"A fair number of things. She said you're a good kisser, and very cute, and that while you have an 'um' your 'um' has no objection to you going around kissing Bells, and that if I wanted to know what else you were good at I'd have to ask Alice or find out for myself."
Edited 2013-03-28 01:57 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-03-28 01:58 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Lazarus. "Yes. That is all true."

self_composed
2013-03-28 01:59 am (UTC)

"I haven't asked Alice. Do you suppose I should?"

nonbird
2013-03-28 01:59 am (UTC)

"I think you would learn things," he says solemnly.

self_composed
2013-03-28 02:03 am (UTC)

"I like to learn things."

[Hey, Alice. Amariah gave me an incomplete review of a certain magic-seer and says that you may know more.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-28 02:04 am (UTC)

[If you're asking if I fucked him, the answer is yes, and if you're asking if you should fuck him, the answer is totally also yes.]

self_composed
2013-03-28 02:06 am (UTC)

[I was in fact vaguely implying both of those questions. Thank you!]

"You come doubly recommended," observes Stella archly, tilting her head. "The question remains - if you are the sort to go around kissing Bells why didn't I know it?"

nonbird
2013-03-28 02:08 am (UTC)

"I'm not usually very adventurous," he says. "Amariah just sort of... coaxed me a little."

self_composed
2013-03-28 02:11 am (UTC)

"She is the most coaxing of us, I think. Would I have to do much coaxing to get you to kiss me too?"

nonbird
2013-03-28 02:13 am (UTC)

"You would have to find us somewhere reasonably private to kiss in," he says, "and then ask nicely."

self_composed
2013-03-28 02:14 am (UTC)

"Amariah described the setting as a heap of Whistles. That's reasonable privacy?" giggles Stella.

nonbird
2013-03-28 02:17 am (UTC)

"A heap of people I am also willing to snuggle and/or kiss is very reasonable!"

self_composed
2013-03-28 02:22 am (UTC)

"Heh. I bet there's an empty node in the rooms," Stella says. "Is now good for you?"

nonbird
2013-03-28 02:23 am (UTC)

"Yes!"

self_composed
2013-03-28 02:25 am (UTC)

Teleportation is so useful.

"Pretty please?" Stella murmurs, tilting her head.

nonbird
2013-03-28 02:26 am (UTC)

He blushes, and smiles, and kisses her.

self_composed
2013-03-28 02:27 am (UTC)

Mmmm, kisses.

This is continuation number 15 from here.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:00 am (UTC)

The Joker is looking for Angela.

She shouldn't be hard to find.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:03 am (UTC)

Of the two guests with wings, Angela's the speckly one! She is over there with Elspeth.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:04 am (UTC)

Yeah. He remembers.

"Hey, you," he says amicably.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:05 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Angela.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-29 01:05 am (UTC)

Elspeth waves.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:06 am (UTC)

He waves back, and then turns to Angela again.

"We wanna change our nametags," he says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:07 am (UTC)

"Stella came up with them, not me," Angela points out. "But I think they ought to let you pick your own nicknames as you like, oughtn't they?"

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:10 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "But they don't let us pick the template."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:12 am (UTC)

"You don't like your template name?"

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:14 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

"It's cute," he says, "but it's not ours, it's not us. You know?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:15 am (UTC)

"Isn't it Alice's middle name? I'm not sure I understand."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:18 am (UTC)

"Sure it is," he says. "And he loves it. 'Cause it's from Stella and it's a cute joke. But he loves it for him. He doesn't want all of us to just be the Whistles to your Bells - half of us aren't, for one thing."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:20 am (UTC)

"I thought it was only three of you weren't, and that if you don't count mere employment. But apart from numerical quibbling -" Angela considers this. "Well, what did you want to change it to?"
Edited 2013-03-29 01:22 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:25 am (UTC)

"Jokers."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:26 am (UTC)

"I realize we already have a few templates where someone goes by the template name and nothing else, but it's not a situation I imagine any of us will like to introduce," Angela points out.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:29 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "We want a name that's ours," he reiterates.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:29 am (UTC)

"Why that one?" inquires Angela.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:34 am (UTC)

"Me and Ghosty and Queenie all used it," he says. "We picked it ourselves, for ourselves. And we're the most us out of all of us. We talked it out, and that's the name we all want."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:36 am (UTC)

"Hm. Why are you asking me? Instead of any other combination of you and Bells, or a complete conference call?"

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:42 am (UTC)

"Micaiah said you'd probably say yes, and nobody else was sure. He's busy right now or he'd ask you himself."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:44 am (UTC)

"I would if it were my party, if we were all having this gathering in Samaria somewhere and the nametags were mine to fiddle with. I'm not sure about the other Bells."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:45 am (UTC)

"Does that mean 'go ask Stella'?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 01:47 am (UTC)

"Well, I can ask her for you, if you like, but then if her answer is anything other than 'I'll just fix that right now' I wind up relaying messages between her and you," Angela points out.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-29 01:49 am (UTC)

"I don't know about Stella, but Mama's reasonably similar as Bells go and I don't think she'll love the idea because of the name's history," Elspeth volunteers. "Isn't it basically a terrorism codename? It's one thing for one of you to keep it because you've used it for a while, but another for you all to adopt it too."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:54 am (UTC)

"Innnteresting," says the Joker. "You could call it one'a those, sure. But what's it to her if that's what we wanna be called?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-29 01:56 am (UTC)

"If you care so much about what people want to be called, why do you keep calling Mama 'Goldie'?" Elspeth inquires quizzically.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:57 am (UTC)

"She hasn't asked me not to."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-29 01:59 am (UTC)

"She doesn't like it," Elspeth says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 02:01 am (UTC)

"Well, that's her business if she wants to ask him to stop or not, but the Jokers want 'Joker' on their nametags and are saying so," shrugs Angela; her wings ripple with the motion. "I'll see what I can do to convince Stella if you'd rather not approach her yourself."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 02:04 am (UTC)

"Much obliged," he says to Angela.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 02:08 am (UTC)

Angela crosses the room, finds Stella, and brings her over after a brief discussion.

self_composed
2013-03-29 02:10 am (UTC)

"The lot of you are all agreed on this?" is Stella's first question. "Everybody wants to go by the blowing-things-up clown handle, up to and including the telepathic child soldier and the benign Edori and my Alice who actually has 'Whistle' incorporated into his name and whatnot?"

manofmyword
2013-03-29 02:12 am (UTC)

"Yes," the Joker enunciates.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 02:14 am (UTC)

"I don't think it really matters if it's to our taste," Angela tells Stella.

self_composed
2013-03-29 02:14 am (UTC)

"Suppose not," sighs Stella.

The nametag changes.

Stella turns to wander off.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 02:15 am (UTC)

"Thanks," he says quietly.

self_composed
2013-03-29 02:21 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," Stella says over her shoulder.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 02:31 am (UTC)

"Even if you're the most central example of the template," Angela says after a moment, "I'm not sure why that makes your name the best name. Pattern is the most central example of our template except for not having any magic - that's why she's called that - and the next best candidates are Stella and Golden. And they all go by Bella. But we're Bells instead of Bellas because that's what we have to cut it down to in order to include everyone. We're all Bells even if the only one actually named Bell is from a bit off standard."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 02:37 am (UTC)

"Mm, that's not quite it," he says, shaking his head. "It's not that we're taking the name because the name's mine and I'm us. It's that me and Ghosty and Queenie all took the name because the name is us."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 02:38 am (UTC)

"I don't understand," says Angela after a moment.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 02:38 am (UTC)

He glances at Elspeth. "Little help here, or are you lost too?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-29 02:50 am (UTC)

"I - hm. I can't always do that sort of thing on purpose. Let's see." Elspeth closes her eyes. "The name Joker was chosen for reasons and in a way that are about the core features of the template in a way that none of the other names on offer were. If you had to symbolize Bells with a picture, symbolize and not just refer, you wouldn't do it with a bell. You'd do it with a pen, maybe, or a crown or with some culturally appropriate marker of self-knowledge or mental opacity - Bell is a sound where Joker is a meaning - Angela, you might not have the background for this, but in a deck of cards as used on standard Earths there's a pair of traditionally wild cards called jokers, in the deck but not part of it for most conventional games." Elspeth opens her eyes again. "How'd I do?"

manofmyword
2013-03-29 02:52 am (UTC)

"Pretty damn good," he says. "Thanks."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-29 02:57 am (UTC)

"You're welcome!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 02:57 am (UTC)

"A wild card," muses Angela. "Yes, I suppose that makes sense."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 02:58 am (UTC)

"Doesn't it just," he agrees.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 02:59 am (UTC)

"I think if Elspeth had explained that while Stella was here Stella would have proposed that you call the template 'Wildcards'," Angela says. "To avoid redundancy."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:04 am (UTC)

"We wouldn'ta gone for it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-29 03:08 am (UTC)

"Why not?" Elspeth asks.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:10 am (UTC)

"Only tells part of the story," he says. "Picked by somebody who's not one of us."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 03:13 am (UTC)

"I wonder what we'll wind up doing if we find someone who's definitely a Bell, but doesn't have a 'bel' sound in her name," muses Angela.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:14 am (UTC)

"Good question," says the Joker. "Couldn't tell ya."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 03:19 am (UTC)

"Do you care if we go on calling you Whistles amongst ourselves?" asks Angela. "I'm not especially likely to - I didn't really get the joke in the first place - but I imagine some of the others are."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:22 am (UTC)

"Mm, opinions are divided," he says. "I think the clearest way to say it is, we don't really want you to, but how much each of us cares about each of you doing it depends on who and who and what the relationship is."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 03:29 am (UTC)

"I'm curious what the conversation that led up to this request looked like."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 01:10 pm (UTC)

"Somebody - I think it was Kas - said he felt funny about us being called Whistles, and Sue linked us up, and we all thought about it for a while."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-29 03:09 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. I'll tell the other Bells, I guess, unless you want to."

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:15 pm (UTC)

"Nah, I'll do it. Thanks," he says.

And brainphones the remaining Bells as a group to inform them, [The Whistles took a vote and we're called the Jokers now. Stella changed our nametags. Please don't call us all Whistles anymore, it'll make us sad.]

dark_light
2013-03-29 03:17 pm (UTC)

[Isn't that going to be confusing?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-29 03:17 pm (UTC)

[And it was so cute, too.]

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:18 pm (UTC)

[It was very cute,] he agrees. [It won't be confusing to us.]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-29 03:21 pm (UTC)

[It would be minimally confusing to everyone if you chose a new individual nickname,] Golden points out.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:23 pm (UTC)

[I don't mind 'Jokes', speaking of cute. Or is that not minimally-confusing enough?]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-29 03:31 pm (UTC)

[It isn't minimal, but it's improved.]

cross_and_bow
2013-03-29 03:32 pm (UTC)

[Name change duly noted,] says Juliet, and there's a chorus of agreement.

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:34 pm (UTC)

[Thanks, guys,] he says warmly.

autokinetic
2013-03-29 03:36 pm (UTC)

[No problem.]

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:39 pm (UTC)

To Golden alone, he adds, [A little bird told me you don't like it when I call you Goldie.]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-29 03:41 pm (UTC)

[I have long experience with letting essential staff members call me what suits them.]

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:47 pm (UTC)

[If it bugs you too much, I can stop,] he offers.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-29 03:48 pm (UTC)

[How much,] inquires Golden, [is too much?]

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:49 pm (UTC)

[That's up to you, isn't it?]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-29 03:52 pm (UTC)

[It is not an ongoing source of misery. It is mildly irritating. Concatenating it with 'your majesty' does not help.]

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:53 pm (UTC)

[Sorry,] he says, giggling.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-29 03:56 pm (UTC)

[It's not a big deal.]

manofmyword
2013-03-29 03:56 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

luminous_regnant
2013-03-29 03:59 pm (UTC)

Golden has no further reply.

(retroactive)

her_imperial_radiance

It is after the very first Bellparty.

"Dad never comes to these," Elspeth tells her grandma. "Too many strange Bells. If there were strange Edwards, Mama might have trouble with them too, but there aren't so far. But I can reintroduce you now, if you'd like."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 11:43 am (UTC)

"It's weird that I need to be reintroduced," says Elspeth's grandma. "But okay, let's go for it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 03:06 pm (UTC)

"It's been more than a century for him," Elspeth says, not ungently, "and he barely remembers being human. Most of what I knew about you came from Carlisle."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:14 pm (UTC)

She sighs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 03:16 pm (UTC)

"- Also," Elspeth says, "he can read minds now; I'm not sure if that came up since you've been awake. Would you rather he not read yours? I don't care, but some people do."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:19 pm (UTC)

"Well, that depends. If he reads my mind is he going to regret it?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Usually he doesn't, but you might be a special case. Why? What are you thinking?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:21 pm (UTC)

"That it's upsetting that my son forgot me."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you can convince him to magically remember the first seventeen years of his life," suggests Elspeth. "Mama does hers, now."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:23 pm (UTC)

"That would be nice."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 03:26 pm (UTC)

Presently they've located Edward. He's not in the throneless throne room of the current capital, because Bella isn't; he's in their private quarters, standing by a window with his hands folded behind his back.

"Dad," says Elspeth.

"Hello, Elsie," he says. "...Mother."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:29 pm (UTC)

She smiles wryly.

"Well, it's nice to see you've done well for yourself."

This is very true. Married to a global empress is a fine place for a child of hers to end up. She's proud.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 03:32 pm (UTC)

He half-turns, smiles faintly. "I'm glad you think so."

Elspeth makes to slip out of the room, unless her grandmother would like to stop her.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:34 pm (UTC)

She grins.

"I'm happy as long as you're happy, but since you're happy and an emperor I feel like I'm due for a little gloating."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 03:37 pm (UTC)

"I think I am happy, now," Edward says after due consideration. Then: "You realize the title of Emperor is almost entirely ceremonial."
Edited 2013-06-23 15:37 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:39 pm (UTC)

"It still means 'married to an empress'. And a damn good empress at that."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 03:39 pm (UTC)

He smiles. "She is."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:45 pm (UTC)

"I've noticed," she says, smiling back. "Hence the gloating."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 03:46 pm (UTC)

He laughs, a little. "- So apart from gloating. What do you mean to do now you're alive again?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:48 pm (UTC)

"I believe somebody floated the idea of Bella hiring me as imperial personnel officer. Sounds like a nice job."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 03:50 pm (UTC)

"Quite possibly. There are a lot of personnel, and it's been handled per department, so far."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Reasonable. But not the most efficient it could possibly be. I like efficiency," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 03:54 pm (UTC)

He nods. "Are you liable to carry on being human? That would make you the only one working for the Coven in any significant capacity."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 03:57 pm (UTC)

"I don't have any plans to change my species anytime soon."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:00 pm (UTC)

Edward nods.

And:

"Carlisle always said you only asked him about me, not you."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:03 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

"It would've been harder to keep a lid on it if it was both of us."

Saving Edward was the priority. Saving herself would have been nice, but was strictly optional.

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Somewhat. Yes. And he didn't see a chance to get you out of sight before you died anyway."

There is a very brief flicker of his eyes towards the door through which Elspeth left.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:08 pm (UTC)

She catches it.

She declines to ask out loud, but she wonders.

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:09 pm (UTC)

"How much of a history lesson have you gotten so far?" he wonders, looking back out the window. They're in Norway right now; it shows a forest.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Kind of a patchy one," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:14 pm (UTC)

"In 2005, when Elspeth was very, very young, the Volturi caught me. It was standard procedure, at the time, for Chelsea, or Addy copying her power, to destroy all the magically unprotected relationships of a captured witch. So that in the event we ran away, we'd be less likely to find old covenmates, and spread the story. Chelsea couldn't affect mate bonds. That was it."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:17 pm (UTC)

Well, that's... upsetting.

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Bella's immune. Of course. And we've had time to - rebuild, since."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:23 pm (UTC)

"That's good," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It is a rebuilding, though, not a - restoration. The initial instinctive things - are gone. For Elspeth too, for that matter. She could remove artificial add-ons but not replace things taken."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:27 pm (UTC)

"It's handy that Bella killed Chelsea already," she says. "Saves me the trouble."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes. She was just - incandescently furious."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:32 pm (UTC)

Personally, she doesn't run to the incandescent. She is very room-temperature about it. But Chelsea is an intolerable threat and needs to be erased as thoroughly as possible. So it's nice that Bella took care of that for her. She is a good empress and can have a cookie.

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:37 pm (UTC)

"She doesn't eat cookies, anymore," Edward says, smiling slightly.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:38 pm (UTC)

"A metaphorical cookie. A bronze cookie on a plaque to hang on her wall."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:40 pm (UTC)

Edward glances at the wall. "I don't think it would improve the decor, much. Perhaps she'd disagree."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Hmm, not sure what I'm hoping for there. If she did, I'd have to find a bronze cookie."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:43 pm (UTC)

"If she wished to hang a bronze cookie from the wall I'm sure she'd conjure one."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:46 pm (UTC)

"In that case, we should definitely suggest it."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:48 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "When she's through with the mess around the people Elspeth already somewhat resurrected, I expect she'll come here and we will be able to do so."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Who gets the job of explaining what it's for?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:50 pm (UTC)

"It was your idea," he says mildly.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:51 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "Fair enough."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Do you want the rest of the history lesson, while we're waiting for her?" Edward asks. "The twentieth century, the eventful few years after Bella appeared on the scene, the fledgeling empire."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Go for it."

alicornucopia
2013-06-23 04:57 pm (UTC)

Edward proceeds with a summary. He pauses to go into more detail whenever she wonders about something, steering between "global historical summary" and "the story of his life" depending on what interests her; let it never be said that mindreading is not convenient.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 05:10 pm (UTC)

It's so convenient!

She wants the story of his life, mostly; global history is useful context.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 05:12 pm (UTC)

It's been a few hours of guided summary when Bella slips into the room. She doesn't interrupt, just goes up to Edward and slips her hand into his.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 05:12 pm (UTC)

Awwww. She smiles at them.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 05:14 pm (UTC)

Edward brings his recitation up to the present day. And then he kisses his wife, and says, "Sasha and so on?"

"Appropriately rearranged, and the hosts returned to their original states, and Elspeth is talking to them now."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Good empress. Have a bronzed cookie."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 05:16 pm (UTC)

"A bronzed cookie?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 05:17 pm (UTC)

"You wouldn't get much use out of the edible kind," she says reasonably.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Is there some use to the bronze kind which is unclear to me?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 05:19 pm (UTC)

"You can hang it on the wall on a little plaque and then look at it and bask in the memory of my approval."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I believe I will find your approval sufficiently memorable absent the cookie. Are you approving of me for anything in particular?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 05:32 pm (UTC)

"All the people you've brought back from the dead recently spring to mind as an example."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 05:36 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Yes. Anyone else I should pick up and haven't yet?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 05:37 pm (UTC)

"My aunt would be nice."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Any special instructions on how to wake her and introduce her to the world?" Bella asks, poising her hand over her new Jane-gem.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Mentioning that I got resurrected first might be a good idea."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Anything else?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Nah, I think that covers it."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Jane, you heard her," says Golden, tapping the gem.

mind_game
2013-06-23 06:50 pm (UTC)

[Roger.]

She locates the correct Chris in the catacombs.

[Hello, Chris. Your niece has recently been resurrected from the dead and asked for you.]

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 06:52 pm (UTC)

[That's nice,] says the appropriate Chris. [Where can I find her?]

mind_game
2013-06-23 06:53 pm (UTC)

[I can pick you up and put you where she is, if you don't want to ask me any questions first.]

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 06:54 pm (UTC)

[Lizzie first. Questions later.]

mind_game
2013-06-23 06:55 pm (UTC)

Yoink.

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 06:56 pm (UTC)

Hug!

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 06:57 pm (UTC)

Hug.

"So, Edward grew up and married an immortal vampire empress," she summarizes.

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Of course he did."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I feel like I should clarify that at the time he married me I was only an immortal vampire, and it was his doing that I was even that."

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:02 pm (UTC)

"And at what point did one of you get the power to raise the dead?"

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:04 pm (UTC)

"A few hours ago."

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Keeping busy, I see. Somebody get the girl a cookie."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 07:11 pm (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I am a vampire. I do not eat cookies," says Bella patiently.

Edward laughs and kisses her forehead.
Edited 2013-06-23 19:12 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Somebody get me a cookie, then."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:13 pm (UTC)

Obediently, Bella conjures up a large, soft chocolate chip cookie and offers it to Chris.

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!" she says cheerfully.

Nom nom.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 07:15 pm (UTC)

Helpless giggling over here.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:16 pm (UTC)

Bella's pretty amused too. Edward is cracking a smile.

"I have very wispy memories even of you, Mother," he says. "How old was I when Chris died?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-23 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Twelve. Train derailment," says Mother.

She assumes that he already knows the wispiness of those memories could be alleviated, and can decide what he wants to do about that in his own time.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:31 pm (UTC)

He nods very slightly in response to this thought.

"Are you a witch - do you have a magical power?" Bella inquires of Chris. "The Eos one has; I'm not sure how closely to expect templates other than my own to match."

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Up until I was just resurrected, I did not know that magical powers were a thing," says Chris.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:33 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't rule it out, but it does make it less likely," muses Bella. "I didn't know I had mine until I met Edward." Pause. "He reads minds, by the way."

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Of course he does," she snorts.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I didn't while I was a human," Edward puts in.

"Some people's powers appear from scratch on turning, some get stronger," Bella raises her hand, "some are basically unchanged but can be used more effectively by a vampire than they could by a human."

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:43 pm (UTC)

"It does not surprise me even a little tiny bit that Lizzie's kid turned out to be a mind-reader."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:45 pm (UTC)

Edward laughs.

Bella smiles. And says, "And we have a daughter. Would you like to meet her?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I would!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 07:47 pm (UTC)

Presently Elspeth appears in response to brainphoned summons; Jacob is trailing her, as unobtrusive as he can be at his height. "Hi, Chris, welcome to one of many lands of the living. I'm Elspeth."

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Elspeth! Who's your barnacle?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 07:51 pm (UTC)

"This is Jacob. He's my wolf. Barnacling is a thing wolves do sometimes," says Elspeth.

"Humph," says Jacob without heat.

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I can see I've got a lot to catch up on," says Chris. "But first things first: how do I make cookies appear out of thin air? Because that is a kind of magic I want."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:55 pm (UTC)

Golden gives her a little bracelet of glowing golden squares and triangles. "Wishcoins," she says. "These are small ones. A square will conjure a non-magical object. Triangles do smaller things. Flick lightswitches without having to get up and so on."

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, shiny."

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad you like them."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 08:00 pm (UTC)

Mine look like this, Elspeth adds, with illustration, but don't let on, it upsets Jake.

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 08:02 pm (UTC)

Chris raises an eyebrow at Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 08:03 pm (UTC)

Wolves get extremely protective of their imprints, and wishcoins are made out of pain. Not much, for little ones, but enough to bother him. Oh, this is my witchcraft - you can answer [like this.]
Edited 2013-06-23 20:04 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Magical,] says Chris.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 08:08 pm (UTC)

Yes, very!

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 08:10 pm (UTC)

She conjures a cookie. She eats the cookie.

"I could get used to this," she announces.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Bella. "It is 2031 and none of us dabble in time travel, so if you wished to go back to something more familiar it would be inconvenient to arrange."

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 08:12 pm (UTC)

She snorts.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-23 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps you'd also like a summary of the last hundred years or so," suggests Bella. "Edward will do better at that than me; I don't have even half a century under my belt yet. Although Elspeth could manage it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 08:26 pm (UTC)

"With pictures and sound, and from multiple perspectives," agrees Elspeth.
Edited 2013-06-23 20:28 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, pictures."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 08:41 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs, and launches into a comprehensive illustrated history of everything that has gone on of importance since Chris died. She is much faster than Edward, since she goes on being comprehensible even if she talks a little faster than her audience could normally track.

queensidecastle
2013-06-23 08:42 pm (UTC)

It is fascinating! Chris is fascinated. Best great-niece.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-23 08:51 pm (UTC)

Elspeth is the best and all her relatives should be glad to have her.
Edited 2013-06-24 22:08 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-06-24 10:09 pm (UTC)

Someone should give her a cookie.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-24 10:10 pm (UTC)

Elspeth can in fact eat cookies! She can even keep talking while eating them without violating any commonly accepted etiquette guidelines. Is someone going to give her a cookie?

prima_sequentem
2013-06-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

Yes.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

Elspeth noms the cookie.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-24 10:12 pm (UTC)

Elspeth is an adorable granddaughter.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-24 10:13 pm (UTC)

Presently she is an adorable granddaughter who has finished summarizing. "Those are the highlights. There's always more detail to be had, of course."

queensidecastle
2013-06-24 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Whew," says Chris. "Okay. Now, do us dead people have anywhere to live, or do I have to sleep in the creepy empty room?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-24 10:16 pm (UTC)

"There are spare quarters for people with humanlike needs in the wolf village," laughs Elspeth, "we can show you."

queensidecastle
2013-06-24 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Great."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-24 10:18 pm (UTC)

To the wolf village! Both of these people are Downside-style dead, so Elspeth doesn't bother with imprint warnings. "Do you want to share a place or have your own?" she inquires on the way.

queensidecastle
2013-06-24 10:18 pm (UTC)

Chris looks at her niece.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-24 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Share."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-24 10:20 pm (UTC)

Elspeth puts them in a charming little house, which is stocked with miscellaneous amenities and edible nonperishables, and also appears to have been serving as extra fridge space for someone who really, really likes eggs.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-24 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Why the eggs?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-24 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Eggs are very popular among the high-metabolism set," laughs Elspeth. "Someone must have stashed them here. You can eat them, you can wait for whoever it was to run out of their own fridgeful and hand them over."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-24 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 12:55 am (UTC)

It's a while later the next time Edward and Lizzie are by themselves together.

"Bella wants to know if I want my human memories stuck back on like she did with hers. The trouble is I don't know what I'd be getting. She did - she had reams of notes on her childhood - I have almost nothing."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:04 am (UTC)

"How much do you remember? I can fill in most of the rest," she says. "Your father didn't have much to do with raising you."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:06 am (UTC)

"Almost nothing. Faces, half faded out. I knew your name, and that I was a Junior before I started using 'Cullen'. I could probably find the place we lived, if I went to Chicago. I have - automatic answers to standard autobiographical questions, and not all of them are attached to the various cover stories. Beyond that, nothing much."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:12 am (UTC)

"Well, let's see... you had no grandparents," she says. "At least three of them were dead when you were born, and I wouldn't have known my father if I passed him in the street. Not that I was allowed to tell you that, because Edward Sr. had very definite ideas about which parts of my life were acceptable for polite company. You did have an uncle on your father's side - nothing on mine except Chris, until she died. Is that the kind of information you're looking for?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:14 am (UTC)

"Some of it," says Edward. "Yes." He half-smiles. "Bella is also curious about whether my historical tendency towards 'melancholy philosophizing' is really about being a vampire or if that's just a shape it took."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:15 am (UTC)

"Melancholy philosophizing. Yes, this is a tendency I recognize," says Lizzie, smiling.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:17 am (UTC)

"We had an argument about souls, once, that she found very exasperating. I suppose it's all been rendered quite moot; it has been more than demonstrated that vampires and humans appear in the same place and it couldn't reasonably be called Heaven."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:18 am (UTC)

"I never previously believed in an afterlife, but I'm happy to be proved wrong."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:19 am (UTC)

"Did I pick up all my opinions on the subject from Carlisle, then? And attach my own melancholy philosophizing flavor?"

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:25 am (UTC)

"Your father might have had an influence there."

Lizzie does not approve of Edward Masen, Sr. He had lots of money, which was nice, and he did genuinely love her, which was also nice, but he completely fell down when it came to parenting his child and if the practical considerations (i.e. money) hadn't been so hard to overcome, she probably would have left him over it. As it is, she tried to minimize the damage. It's hard to tell how well she succeeded.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:26 am (UTC)

"Hard to tell," echoes Edward. "Yes, I suppose so. I have no special talent at reading my own thoughts."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:28 am (UTC)

"No, that's your wife's area of expertise. Although I guess you could always ask her for tips."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:29 am (UTC)

"I have, occasionally. I think it requires more... self-esteem, than I tend to default to."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:30 am (UTC)

Well, now she kind of wants to hug him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:30 am (UTC)

He considers this for an imperceptible fraction of a second, and then holds out his arms.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:33 am (UTC)

Hug.

It's perfectly familiar, except for the change of species. There were a lot of hugs in Edward's childhood, and the majority of them were from his mother.

Is that the kind of information he is looking for?

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:34 am (UTC)

"Yes."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:35 am (UTC)

Lizzie grins.

"Happy to help," she says, letting go.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:36 am (UTC)

He laughs softly.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:37 am (UTC)

Well, she is. She's his mother; it's her job. Hugs and all.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:37 am (UTC)

"I have been wondering if I should introduce you to Esme. And reintroduce you to Carlisle. Or if that would be uncomfortable."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:40 am (UTC)

"I don't think it would be uncomfortable."

It has the potential to be, but it's not what she'd expect, going on secondhand information about Esme and Carlisle. She's not competitive. Edward can have as many mothers as he wants. He can start a collection. Just as long as he doesn't start keeping them all in glass cases in his basement, because that would be inconvenient and sort of creepy.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:43 am (UTC)

That surprises a laugh out of Edward. "I don't know if 'mother' would be the best way to describe the relationship, anyway, except for convenience's sake, inadequate words for the odd configurations that crop up in covens - we often presented that way, but just as often I posed as her brother. Once as her nephew. Carlisle I do have more of a filial feeling for, and she's his wife, in addition to being a generally motherly person."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:47 am (UTC)

She grins.

"I am perfectly happy to share being your parent with Carlisle."

(She probably would be even if Edward's original father had been remotely adequate, but since he wasn't, there's no feasible competition for the title.)

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:49 am (UTC)

Edward laughs. "I'm glad. Particularly considering you picked him out for me."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 01:50 am (UTC)

"Well, there wasn't exactly a vast selection on offer at the time. But if there had, I'm pretty sure I still would've gone with him."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 01:52 am (UTC)

"Very lucky," Edward agrees. "The Denali coven were the only other vegetarians active at the time, and I don't think I'd have fit in as well with them as creators instead of cousins."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:12 am (UTC)

"I take full credit for this near-total accident."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:13 am (UTC)

"What would you have done, if it hadn't been Carlisle? I'm not sure why anyone else would have been here, but it wouldn't be unheard of. Alice came from a hospital that had a vampire working at it, albeit not one dedicated to treating the flu."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:14 am (UTC)

"Not an easy question to answer, without knowing who the other vampire is and what might motivate them."

Because motivating them to save Edward's life would definitely have been on the agenda.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:15 am (UTC)

"Alas, I have no examples ready to hand. The one in Alice's hospital was studying her witchcraft, which does not apply."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:19 am (UTC)

She shrugs. "I would've found out how to get them to, anyway. Carlisle was easy; if you poked him with something sharp, altruism would pour out. Metaphorically speaking. I understand you folks are pretty much impervious to sharp objects and there's not much pouring going on when you aren't."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:21 am (UTC)

"Quite impervious, not particularly liquid," agrees Edward. "He did require prompting, though. I was the first person he turned, and he'd had prior chances. He wasn't sure it was right to do that to someone. I wasn't either, for a long time. Bella, of course, could convince me that the sun was blue and the sky yellow."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:24 am (UTC)

"But he didn't exactly take much of a push once I put the idea in his head. Convenient, that."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:25 am (UTC)

"He'd recently met Esme. And managed to leave her where she was. He was intensely lonely," says Edward softly.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:26 am (UTC)

"Lucky for him he managed to scoop her up again later."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:29 am (UTC)

"Very. Occasionally I wonder if he would have eventually broken and gone looking and I'm not sure. I tried to go away from Bella, once, when I was afraid I'd snap and drink her blood; I lasted less than a week. Carlisle didn't have that concern to hold him back and he managed, for years, until a sheer coincidence put her in his path."
Edited 2013-06-25 02:29 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:30 am (UTC)

"I say again: if you poked him with a sharp object..."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:30 am (UTC)

"I'm not going to disagree with you," laughs Edward. "I admire him intensely."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:31 am (UTC)

"I can tell."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:44 am (UTC)

There's a silence.

"I think I will ask Bella for that wish," he says. "I don't believe I'll get everything all at once the way she did, though. A little slower."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:45 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Lizzie is pleased.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:46 am (UTC)

Edward smiles.

"Carlisle's just left off work for the day. Now would be a fine time to catch him if you'd like to speak to him sooner rather than later."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:46 am (UTC)

"I think that's a great idea."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:47 am (UTC)

Edward nods, and tilts his head by way of signaling that he's "on the phone".

Presently there is a polite knock at the door.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:48 am (UTC)

Lizzie answers it.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:50 am (UTC)

There stands Carlisle, smiling kindly. "It's good to see you again," he says.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:51 am (UTC)

"Likewise. C'mon in."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:52 am (UTC)

In he comes. "What have you been talking about?"

"You, among other things," says Edward. "You are not obliged to relinquish parental claim on me."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:53 am (UTC)

She doesn't have quite a good enough read on Carlisle to decide whether or not he would be amused by all the commentary about sharp objects, so she doesn't volunteer it.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:54 am (UTC)

"She's also as impressed with your character as everyone else is," says Edward.

"That's very kind of you," Carlisle tells her modestly.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:57 am (UTC)

She grins.

"I notice that sort of thing."

(And is now amusing herself imagining Carlisle with a cute little halo.)

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:00 am (UTC)

"Which reminds me," says Carlisle, "Addy has been asking permission to check to see if your particular brand of insight is magical or potentially so. I believe she's hoping to get a better reception by going through others rather than inquiring herself."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:01 am (UTC)

"I would be happy to check if I'm magically insightful, but I don't see a need to involve Addy in the process."

And she bets she's not.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:46 am (UTC)

"Eleazar is the other option. He isn't as convenient, but he might be more pleasant," says Edward. "Perhaps the next time we're relatively near to Alaska."
Edited 2013-06-25 03:46 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 11:04 am (UTC)

She wonders idly if coins couldn't manage it somehow, but - well, no hurry.

"Although I suppose I'm going to meet both of them anyway, in the course of meeting pretty much everybody."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:43 pm (UTC)

"I could imagine using coins to determine if you have witchcraft at all, but I'm not sure how to design a wish to also provide the sort of detail Addy or Eleazar could," says Edward.
Edited 2013-06-25 14:45 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:51 pm (UTC)

"Starting from the premise that I probably don't have witchcraft, the wish might be more efficient, depending on size. Except that since I am going to meet both of our resident magic-sniffers, there isn't much point to wishing about it first."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Eleazar would describe himself as a magic-sniffer," says Carlisle. He omits Addy from this remark.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:56 pm (UTC)

"And a good alternate term would be...?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 02:58 pm (UTC)

"I think Eleazar would prefer 'sensor'," Edward says. "Addy, I imagine, will assent to any description that gets you to let her touch you and check."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 02:59 pm (UTC)

Lizzie shrugs. "Okay, magic sensors."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:02 pm (UTC)

"Eleazar used to work for the Volturi, longer ago than Addy did, and one of the things he did while he was there was work on the categorization of witches," Edward says. "He left with his mate, when he met her."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:05 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says Lizzie. "Sounds like a useful person to know."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:08 pm (UTC)

"Quite. He doesn't get all of Addy's fine detail, but he's got some advantages - he could sense Bella, when her guard was down; Addy can't copy her unless her shield is down," says Edward.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:09 pm (UTC)

"Which means not at all, if I remember correctly?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Not for Addy," Edward says. "For occasional brief moments she can let someone through. Me, Elspeth. Until she's distracted or loses focus. She's had less success with people she isn't close to, none with Addy so far. Addy is of course confident that eventually Bella will trust her to the point of being able to allow it."
Edited 2013-06-25 15:14 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:15 pm (UTC)

"I have no comment on that eventuality."

But she expects to have a prediction, once she knows Bella and Addy well enough.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Addy is very simply put together. She almost prides herself on it. She runs on novelty and discovery. Predominantly of magic, although other things can interest her too."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:19 pm (UTC)

"It's the details that get you," says Lizzie.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes. The Volturi ought to have been able to control her, and didn't - she had blackmail on the one of them who understood her, and the other knew enough about that to take her out while he was gone, but not how to manage her."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:23 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like tough times for the Volturi."

Lizzie is so glad that this worldwide conspiracy is being run more efficiently.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:25 pm (UTC)

"And Addy proved willing enough to work within Bella's rules," says Carlisle. "I have some hope for her developing beyond her original motives."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:27 pm (UTC)

"How much hope?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:28 pm (UTC)

"Enough," says Carlisle.

"The minimum amount Carlisle is capable of having about anyone," says Edward wryly.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:29 pm (UTC)

Lizzie laughs. She is imagining Carlisle with a halo again. It suits him. Maybe somebody should wish him one.

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:31 pm (UTC)

"If Carlisle had a halo, Mother, how would he ever leave the capitols without breaking the masquerade?" laughs Edward.

"A halo," snorts Carlisle. "I've never heard that suggested before."

"I have," says Edward.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:34 pm (UTC)

"And fluffy little wings," she says cheerfully. "You could turn them off whenever you needed to go anywhere."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Wings," laughs Carlisle.

"Perhaps we should just transplant him to Angela's world and turn him into their sort of angel, so he could be appropriately revered by passersby," suggests Edward. "That setup does not, alas, include a halo."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Halo or bust," Lizzie says firmly. "The traditional kind, where it's like your head is a golden lightbulb."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:38 pm (UTC)

Carlisle shakes his head, laughing softly.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:39 pm (UTC)

"It's even thematically appropriate!" Golden lightbulb, Golden Empire...

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:41 pm (UTC)

"I already have the correct eye color," says Carlisle.

"See, there you are," says Edward.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 03:45 pm (UTC)

"It's perfect," says Lizzie. "You could wear it for state occasions, like a uniform. Imperial Angel."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 03:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm already titled Imperial Ethicist, which is more than enough."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Angel would be cuter. But it's probably a good thing that that's not how Bella runs her empire."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Probably," agrees Edward.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 07:05 pm (UTC)

"And we will just have to live with the necessary sacrifices."

alicornucopia
2013-06-25 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure we will all muddle along somehow," says Carlisle.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-25 07:08 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-26 12:14 am (UTC)

"Did you want to meet Esme today, too, or would that be too much all at once?" Edward inquires.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 12:19 am (UTC)

"By all means, I will meet Esme."

alicornucopia
2013-06-26 12:21 am (UTC)

Edward tilts his head again. "She's on her way," he reports presently, and Esme is there a moment later; Edward lets her in before she can knock.

She's all asmile. "Hello, Elizabeth. It's so good to meet you."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 12:23 am (UTC)

"It's nice to meet you too!"

It really is. Esme and Carlisle are the kind of people it is nice to meet.

alicornucopia
2013-06-26 12:24 am (UTC)

"How have you been settling in? I know it must be something of a startlement to wake up all of a sudden, so much later than you remember."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 12:25 am (UTC)

"Considering what I woke up from, it's been pretty great, actually. And Edward gave me enough of a history lesson that I'm mostly not surprised by the little things."

alicornucopia
2013-06-26 12:27 am (UTC)

Esme smiles at Edward, touches his elbow. He smiles down at her.

"If you find any gaps of course you can ask any of us. Or anyone, really," Esme says.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 12:28 am (UTC)

"Yes, people are very helpful around here. I appreciate it. Although it does tempt me to start distributing halos."

alicornucopia
2013-06-26 12:29 am (UTC)

"Halos?" asks Esme, puzzled.

Carlisle sighs.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 12:31 am (UTC)

She giggles. "Sorry. I was joking earlier that someone should give Carlisle a halo and fluffy little wings, because he's so angelic."

alicornucopia
2013-06-26 12:33 am (UTC)

"When I first met him I remember thinking he looked like a god. One of the Greek ones, maybe," says Esme, "not the God, but a one."

Carlisle sighs again, and puts his arms around his wife's shoulders.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 12:35 am (UTC)

"I think that's a pretty appropriate comparison," says Lizzie, "except that none of the Greek gods were this nice."

alicornucopia
2013-06-26 12:35 am (UTC)

"I know. I got the better deal," says Esme comfortably. "And there were no disturbing swans involved."

Edward snickers.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 12:37 am (UTC)

"We should all be more grateful for the lack of disturbing swans in our lives," she says, laughing. "Also showers of gold. And bulls. Zeus had a weird idea of what mortals were into."

alicornucopia
2013-06-26 12:39 am (UTC)

"Mortals are into extremely diverse things," Edward says dryly. "Or else where would the stories come from?"

Esme giggles helplessly.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 12:44 am (UTC)

Lizzie cracks up.

yes, there is beauty

jovahs_heiress

Angela stops at Milliways on her way home, Micaiah in tow. She cannot force the door to Beast's world, not with any coin she carries, but she leaves a note at Bar for him, asking that he go to the tower out back and identify himself to Jane. There's nothing else they can do for him. Belle, of course, will get a key if she goes to the bar.

deslandes
2013-03-29 11:49 pm (UTC)

This is how there ends up being a Beast curled up on the steps of the Belltower.

autokinetic
2013-03-29 11:55 pm (UTC)

Aegis is the first person Jane notifies, and she's not yet managed to get herself in the middle of anything back on Peace. Bird, Aegis says, and she bounces Jane's report on the matter to Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-29 11:58 pm (UTC)

Sue keeps his link to Aegis and jumps to the tower.

"Sure is fluffy," he remarks to no one in particular.

mind_game
2013-03-30 12:29 am (UTC)

[He hasn't tried to come in,] Jane says. [He just went and curled up on the front steps. I would've let him in.]

pythbox
2013-03-30 12:33 am (UTC)

"The hell?" mutters Sue.

deslandes
2013-03-30 12:33 am (UTC)

He whimpers in his sleep.

mind_game
2013-03-30 12:34 am (UTC)

[Do you want me to contact anyone else?]

pythbox
2013-03-30 12:40 am (UTC)

[Like who?]

mind_game
2013-03-30 12:40 am (UTC)

[Another Bell or Joker? I believe Micaiah met this one.]

pythbox
2013-03-30 12:43 am (UTC)

He frowns, shakes his head, spends a square to wake the Beast—

—and links him.

deslandes
2013-03-30 12:43 am (UTC)

He starts crying.

pythbox
2013-03-30 12:44 am (UTC)

"Something is fucked up here," Sue announces.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 12:45 am (UTC)

Aegis asks Jane to put her in too, and appears beside Sue. "Are you okay?" she asks Beast, putting her hands on her knees and leaning over him.

deslandes
2013-03-30 12:50 am (UTC)

"Ma belle?" he murmurs, and blinks up at her, and shakes his head, and cries some more.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 12:51 am (UTC)

"Was that - what is that, French?" Aegis says, frowning. "Doesn't Milliways have a translation aura?"

mind_game
2013-03-30 12:52 am (UTC)

[It doesn't cover names and similar,] Jane says.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 12:52 am (UTC)

"What happened to you?" Aegis asks, reaching out to touch the side of Beast's face.

deslandes
2013-03-30 12:54 am (UTC)

He flinches away, then presses his face into her hand with a shudder.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 12:55 am (UTC)

Aegis holds her hand quite still so he can be in contact with it or not as he likes. "Are you dreaming?" she asks softly.

deslandes
2013-03-30 12:58 am (UTC)

"Dream," he says softly. "Dreaming. I'm dreaming."

He closes his eyes and leans into her hand again.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 12:59 am (UTC)

"We can't go to his world if he's dreaming," Aegis murmurs, looking over her shoulder at Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:00 am (UTC)

"I could try," says Sue. "I could go through his door."

autokinetic
2013-03-30 01:01 am (UTC)

"When Alice got stuck in Jokes's head Stella had to physically go to where he was to get him out," Aegis says. "What if you get stuck? Angela couldn't force the door to his world when she tried."

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:03 am (UTC)

"I don't get stuck," Sue points out. "I am the anti-stuck."

autokinetic
2013-03-30 01:05 am (UTC)

"Okay, but - go in linked up to me and Jane - have you got coins?"

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:07 am (UTC)

"Plenty," he says cheerfully, and gives her a kiss, and leans down to touch Beast's hand. Hey. I need to go where you are. Come on.

deslandes
2013-03-30 01:08 am (UTC)

He blinks hazily, but after a moment he stands - leaning on Sue - and lets his alt lead him into the bar.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 01:10 am (UTC)

Aegis follows them in, and then sits at the bar to wait.

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:12 am (UTC)

He coaxes the Beast out through his door, and into...

deslandes
2013-03-30 01:13 am (UTC)

...a scorched and broken castle.

He whimpers and hides his face in Sue's shoulder.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:16 am (UTC)

Belle notices at once. She can't bear to leave her husband like this, physically or mentally, and she keeps trying new angles on healing the damage.

She writes (gently, gently) What's happened? Mon cœur, who's this?

deslandes
2013-03-30 01:19 am (UTC)

It's him. It's not him. He's dreaming. Is he dreaming?

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:20 am (UTC)

Sue reads the words on the wall.

"I'm Sue," he says, "and I'm gonna try something stupid."

As Beast stirs to wakefulness. Sue closes his eyes.

He doesn't have to move far. Just—to where—

He flickers out of the dreamworld and into reality, standing beside Belle and the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:23 am (UTC)

Belle doesn't, quite, startle her husband's head out of her lap, but it's a near thing, and she clutches at his shoulder a bit and her aura flares: you have alarmed someone powerful.

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:23 am (UTC)

"Hi," he says with a friendly smile, and tries linking her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:27 am (UTC)

Her rosevines bite.

She grits her teeth.

"Who are you?" she says with a hiss that sounds like it's being funneled directly into his ear.

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:31 am (UTC)

"I'm trying to tell you!" he says. "You're spikier than most Bells. I'm another one of him," he says with a gesture to Beast. "I found him in his dreams and came here because he looks really fucked up."

All the while, he's echoing the whole conversation to Jane and Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 01:32 am (UTC)

Bird, show Jane where you are so she can put me there, Aegis suggests.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:34 am (UTC)

"He's been badly hurt. How can you be another of him - found him in his dreams? - what are you talking about?"

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:36 am (UTC)

He floods place-data at Jane and says, "It's complicated."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:36 am (UTC)

"I would like it explained."

autokinetic
2013-03-30 01:38 am (UTC)

Aegis pops into place. "Hi," she says. "We're versions of you and him from another, very different world, and we're here to help, can you tell us what happened to him? We can almost certainly fix it."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:43 am (UTC)

"He - he was traveling alone. He does that sometimes. And when I checked in on his mindscape it was damaged - an enchanter captured him and was using him - and channeling does damage to the unwilling - and I've been healing what I can but I haven't gotten him any better than this, he can barely speak, I haven't managed to get him to eat anything." She clenches her teeth again. "I got him back. I got him back and this is all I know how to do, I can't think of a way to design a mental healing spell that I'd have to channel through him in order to maintain control of it, if I could only get him to eat something I'd fetch my student and ask if I might channel through him instead but I can't leave him like this."

deslandes
2013-03-30 01:45 am (UTC)

Beast sniffles and cuddles closer, wrapping his arms around her and nestling his head in her lap.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 01:47 am (UTC)

"...Okay. My kinda magic is good at some things, but I don't know anything about the kind of damage we're looking at, here; I'll try if we don't have a better idea, but it's always possible to word a wish wrong and minds are delicate. You think you can do it? You can fix him if you have somebody to - channel through?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:47 am (UTC)

"I - yes, but it hurts the channel. If it didn't I could channel it through myself, but I have to focus on the spell at the same time."

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:49 am (UTC)

"Does it do anything other than hurt?" says Sue. "I mean, does the channel have to know what they're doing? Because I can do hurting."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:51 am (UTC)

"To a willing channel, no, it does nothing but hurt and they don't need to know the details." She combs her fingers through Beast's hair. "To a willing channel."

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:52 am (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Sue. "Hit me."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 01:54 am (UTC)

Belle blinks, and glances between Sue and Beast, and then bites her lip, thinks, and reaches for Sue's mindscape.

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:57 am (UTC)

It's a huge cube-shaped room with more cubes floating in the middle, and it opens up to welcome her.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:00 am (UTC)

Belle has been thinking about ways to heal Beast for hours now. She takes a moment to make sure of her design, and slams Heart power through the curiously-designed mindscape to restore Beast to his original state as best she can.

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:05 am (UTC)

The bright flowing colours shine out the gates of the battleroom.

Sue leans on Aegis and populates his coin-chain with hexagons.

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:08 am (UTC)

Beast's mindscape still looks pretty well blasted, but the structure is coming back; the castle is building itself up again.

He stops crying and cuddles into Belle's lap with a sigh.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:11 am (UTC)

"Mon cœur?" Belle asks softly, and she peers around his mindscape, watching it progress into a more intact state.

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:12 am (UTC)

"You fixed it," he murmurs, smiling.

She didn't. Not fully.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:15 am (UTC)

"Not all the way," she says. "There's still - here and there - I can see it. But it's better." She draws him into a tight hug.

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:18 am (UTC)

"I love you," he says, hugging back. "Ma belle."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:19 am (UTC)

"I love you, mon cœur." She swallows. "We have - visitors."

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:22 am (UTC)

"I know, my love," he says. "I brought one."

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:23 am (UTC)

Sue smiles and waves.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:24 am (UTC)

"...This is like that dream you had, years ago, except didn't you say the other me had wings?" Belle says.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 02:24 am (UTC)

"There's a bunch of us," Aegis says. "One of 'em does have wings."

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:26 am (UTC)

"She does! They're pretty," says Sue. "Do you know why your mind's so spiky?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:27 am (UTC)

"Because it is covered in rosethorns," says Belle.

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:28 am (UTC)

"...Okay," says Sue. "Do you mind if I tap it again? That was kind of fun."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:29 am (UTC)

"I have no idea if it will harm you to do so. The only other person to run afoul of my dreamworld's temper did not survive long after making that mistake." She is holding onto her Beast rather protectively.

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:32 am (UTC)

"That sounds like a no," he observes.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:35 am (UTC)

"You've helped me help my husband. I don't wish you harm, and there might be harm in the thorns that I don't know about. It doesn't affect me otherwise, though, so far as I can tell."

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:36 am (UTC)

He shrugs, and tries again. It's a nice little jolt.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:37 am (UTC)

"Did you say," Belle says to Aegis, "that you have magic of your own? Different from mine, which may be able to help my husband?"

autokinetic
2013-03-30 02:38 am (UTC)

"Yeah. And it's probably safe if you've fixed most of it your own way - what way is that? You have a killer presence going on, it's awesome and I want one - to wish him fixed the rest of the way. If he doesn't object, or if he can't object right now and you don't."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:39 am (UTC)

"Enchantress's aura," Belle says. "It requires doing rather a lot of enchanting to acquire one this strong. Beast, love? Do you want her to try to repair you the rest of the way?"

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:40 am (UTC)

He nods, snuggling up.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:41 am (UTC)

Belle makes eye contact with Aegis, searching, and nods.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 02:41 am (UTC)

Aegis wishes.

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:42 am (UTC)

"Oh," murmurs Beast, blinking rapidly.

It doesn't hurt to think anymore.

He de-snuggles from his wife and stands up to hug Aegis instead.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 02:43 am (UTC)

Aegis permits a brief hug, but not prolonged snuggling. "Better?"

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:44 am (UTC)

"Much," he asserts, and scoops up Sue next.

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:44 am (UTC)

Sue permits prolonged snuggling!

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:46 am (UTC)

Belle will be quietly weeping with relief over here.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 02:46 am (UTC)

Aegis goes and sits next to her. "There's a bunch of us," she says. "You're ninth!"

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:47 am (UTC)

Mmmcuddlycuddlycuddly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:48 am (UTC)

"Ninth. And you're from a world where magic runs on - wishing?"

autokinetic
2013-03-30 02:49 am (UTC)

"Oh, no, that's from Stella's world," says Aegis. "She can share. My world doesn't technically have magic, although some of what we've got skirts pretty close."

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:50 am (UTC)

"The mind-touching thing I do is from our world," Sue offers. "It's handy for talking to people, but there's some Bells it doesn't work on."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:50 am (UTC)

"Bells," says Belle.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 02:51 am (UTC)

"All of us have the sound 'Bell' in our names. I go by Aegis instead, but my real name's Isabella," says Aegis. "Same with most of the other, but there's one who's just named Bell."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:52 am (UTC)

"Well, I am named Belle," Belle says.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 02:52 am (UTC)

"You're going to need to pick a nickname," Aegis says. "What with there being so many of us, you see."

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:53 am (UTC)

"Madame l'enchanteresse," suggests Beast, still cuddling Sue.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:55 am (UTC)

"Too long," says Belle with a weak laugh. "No, perhaps something like - Rose."

deslandes
2013-03-30 02:55 am (UTC)

"Whatever you like, my love."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 02:58 am (UTC)

"I think so. Unless someone else has taken the same name."

autokinetic
2013-03-30 03:01 am (UTC)

"Nope. It's me, Aegis, and then there's Shell Bell and Stella and Golden and Amariah and Juliet and Pattern and Angela."

deslandes
2013-03-30 03:03 am (UTC)

"Do you all have more of me, too?"

autokinetic
2013-03-30 03:05 am (UTC)

"Angela - you met her, right? - she has one, she's married to hers too, and then there's me and Sue, Stella and Alice, and Amariah and Kas. Golden has Jokes working for her but they're not together, she married this other guy. Pattern's got Queenie working for her, same deal except Pattern's not seeing anybody at all. And Shell Bell and Juliet have Sherlocks and Tonies instead."

deslandes
2013-03-30 03:08 am (UTC)

"So many," murmurs the Beast. "I want to meet all of me."

pythbox
2013-03-30 03:09 am (UTC)

"I'll just bet you do," Sue says cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 03:10 am (UTC)

"It's a pity you missed the big party!" says Aegis. "Everybody - all the Jokers including a spare I didn't mention - was in one place."

deslandes
2013-03-30 03:12 am (UTC)

"Ma belle enchanteresse," he says, turning to her, "can we throw a big party?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 03:13 am (UTC)

"...How would they all get here?" asks Belle.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 03:14 am (UTC)

"You'd have to let me install a - a piece of a friend of mine," Aegis says. "She can pick people up and put them down, as long as she can see the person and the destination. She's not a human, she's a - you don't have computers here, do you."

deslandes
2013-03-30 03:17 am (UTC)

"What's a computer?"

autokinetic
2013-03-30 03:19 am (UTC)

"It's a machine that - well, in some cases, thinks, but there are simpler ones that don't think and just do lots of math so fast that it's almost like magic," says Aegis, gesturing vaguely. "Jane thinks. She's a person and her body is made of metal and stuff instead of bones and guts. And it's in lots of worlds, and if I put some of her here, she'll be able to bring in lots of people to attend a party if you throw one. I'm not sure how we'll find Ghosty again, though."

deslandes
2013-03-30 03:22 am (UTC)

"We should invite Jane here, then," Beast asserts. "And throw a big party."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 03:24 am (UTC)

"All right. I suppose. How many people does this all add up to?" Belle asks.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 03:26 am (UTC)

"Well, Stella's party had sixty-five guests after the belated ones showed up," says Aegis. "I don't know if the same friends and family tagalongs will want to come to another so soon, though."

deslandes
2013-03-30 03:27 am (UTC)

"We should put in a ballroom," laughs the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 03:28 am (UTC)

"It sounds like it," laughs Belle.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 03:30 am (UTC)

"And make sure there are rooms for people to abscond to," says Aegis. "Certain templates are the absconding type." She elbows Sue.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 05:15 am (UTC)

"There is plenty of room. This is a castle," says Belle archly. "Even after I tell my student that he may come back there will be only three people living here."

autokinetic
2013-03-30 05:16 am (UTC)

"No kids, huh?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 05:18 am (UTC)

"Not so far. I found a spell to postpone it, years ago - it may be time to reconsider - why, do many of us have children?"

autokinetic
2013-03-30 05:18 am (UTC)

"Golden has a daughter, Angela's pregnant, the rest of us are un-child-having," says Aegis. "But it does seem to correlate with being married, so."
Edited 2013-03-30 05:23 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-30 12:01 pm (UTC)

The Beast laughs, kisses Sue's forehead, and hugs his wife.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 03:55 pm (UTC)

"I suppose I will get to meet all these people after we've made - party arrangements, and you've put a... a part of your friend somewhere in our castle."

autokinetic
2013-03-30 03:56 pm (UTC)

"All the Bells and Jokers, anyway, will almost definitely show up to meet you guys. Other guests are a maybe, maybe not deal, since the last party ended, like, a day ago, and Jane seems to be syncing up time between worlds she's got bits in."

deslandes
2013-03-30 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I want to meet them," the Beast repeats.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:00 pm (UTC)

"We can put in a ballroom and warn the kitchen. We can probably be ready in about a day," says Belle, "but perhaps if there is reason not to have multiple parties in close succession it would be better to wait?"

deslandes
2013-03-30 04:02 pm (UTC)

"We can wait if you want, my love."

He hugs her again.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Jane," says Aegis, "you wanna check everybody's availability?"

mind_game
2013-03-30 04:05 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] Jane says, including Belle - Rose - and the Beast in the reply. And every attendee of the last party gets a brainphone message saying:

[Got in touch with a new Bell, "Rose", and her husband, a Joker called "Beast". She's interested in hosting another party. When would be convenient for you?]

pythbox
2013-03-30 04:15 pm (UTC)

The schedules of the Jokers are generally open. Some of the Sherlocks and Tonies have limited availability, but most of them are coming up on a weekend in a few days and will be free then. The Eos crowd has mixed responses, but Sandy, Anna, Lazarus, and Kolya are all available for most of the coming week.

mind_game
2013-03-30 04:16 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, the Bellas are busy with this and that but they're all prepared to put in at least a few hours' worth of appearance to meet a new Bell as long as they have warning.

[Have it in three days,] advises Jane. [If you want lots of people to come, anyway.]

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:17 pm (UTC)

"We can do that," says Belle.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Aegis. "Where d'you want me to put Jane?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Oh, how about I go make the ballroom, and we can put her in an alcove of some sort? How much space does she need?"

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Not much," says Aegis, tapping the gem in her ear. "Not even a whole alcove. If you don't have computers here there's no need for her to have a full-featured Janepoint, so you just want one of these gems to wear yourself - I can make it for you, what color do you want? - and a static point so that she can move people in and out of your world whenever she likes. What d'you want to call the world?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Rose-pink - does it need to be an earpiece? - and - how about Rêverie."

deslandes
2013-03-30 04:21 pm (UTC)

The Beast grins and snuggles his Belle.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Here," says Aegis, making and handing over a square in her glowy copper. "This is a wishcoin. If you wish on it you can conjure up a whatever piece of jewelry you like, and I can swap out a gem for a Jane-gem for you, and it's really a pity that Sue can't link you because it's so much more convenient to explain things that way but I guess before we came along everybody managed so it's doable..."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:24 pm (UTC)

Belle goes with a handflower-bracelet, with gold disks and clear pink spinels, and looks at it in fascination while Aegis ansibles the largest jewel, twists off the part that needs to be taken away to make the connection, and has it vanish out of her hand.

deslandes
2013-03-30 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Beautiful," declares the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:27 pm (UTC)

Belle beams and kisses him on the cheek.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Why're the married ones so freaking cute?" mutters Aegis, mostly to Sue.

pythbox
2013-03-30 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, but I kinda love it," he says cheerfully.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:30 pm (UTC)

"I guess Shell Bell and Sherlock are also damn adorable," snorts Aegis. "So not just married ones. And we haven't met Edward so who knows about him 'n Golden."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:30 pm (UTC)

"It will be fascinating to encounter all these - versions of myself. Of us," says Belle.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah - here, have the latest copy of the Bellbook," says Aegis, conjuring one and handing it over. "Let's go find a place to put Jane and then me and Sue can go back home and make that meeting we're theoretically on a shuttle to right now. We can carry on talking by brainphone, Jane can relay - to me or any of the others."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:32 pm (UTC)

"If it can be so small and gemlike, perhaps we could put her in a chandelier," says Belle.

mind_game
2013-03-30 04:33 pm (UTC)

[Chandelier works,] says Jane.

deslandes
2013-03-30 04:34 pm (UTC)

"That would be sweet," declares the Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:36 pm (UTC)

Belle leads everyone down the stairs and to a back door into the garden, which she commands to move away from her, leaving ballroom in its wake, chandelier included. Her aura flickers with the order, but it's not a spell, just a manipulation of the living castle.

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I want one of those auras, you look like a walking special effects budget," admires Aegis. "I guess it'd be conspicuous though."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-30 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I can suppress it, but if I don't, it lets everyone know that they're dealing with an enchantress," says Belle serenely. "Can you fly? To reach the chandelier?"
Edited 2013-03-30 16:38 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-30 04:40 pm (UTC)

"'Course I can," says Aegis.

Aegis's flight power is not quite Bell standard. She, after all, already knew how to fly. She's got the power to course-correct in midair if she likes, but for the most part she operates in three dimensions by means of making gravity optional and doing what she's used to doing. She opts out of gravity now, and pushes off gently to catch the chandelier and replace a dangling crystal and twist and disappear the other half of the ansible.

mind_game
2013-03-30 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Installed,] reports Jane.

deslandes
2013-03-31 01:44 am (UTC)

The Beast follows after Belle and snuggles her some more.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 05:56 am (UTC)

With the ballroom made and Jane given eyes and ears into it, Belle turns her attention back to her husband and focuses her attention as well as her second level of sight on his mindscape. "I'm so glad you're all right," she murmurs.
Edited 2013-03-31 06:28 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-03-31 12:22 pm (UTC)

"I know," he murmurs back. "I love you."

He really, really does.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 02:52 pm (UTC)

"Let's have a look at this book," she says, and she opens the Bellbook that Aegis conjured for her, holding it so that he can read over her shoulder. "Huh, it's in Albish. Sort of."

autokinetic
2013-03-31 02:54 pm (UTC)

"Right, sorry," says Aegis, "I wasn't thinking - Milliways has a translation feature and that's where the master copy lives, so mostly it's in English, various dialects, and Angela writes Samarian, and you'll wind up writing in your sorta-French, I guess. Maybe you should just come visit the Belltower and read it there. Or you could pentagon the languages."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 02:55 pm (UTC)

"I think it would be interesting to see this Belltower regardless," Belle says. "Mon cœur, what do you think?"

deslandes
2013-03-31 03:00 pm (UTC)

"Let's visit the Belltower!" says the Beast.

mind_game
2013-03-31 03:02 pm (UTC)

Here they are!

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 03:03 pm (UTC)

And there is the real copy of the Bellbook. Belle can read the one she's already holding now, though.

deslandes
2013-03-31 03:07 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty," says the Beast, looking around.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 03:09 pm (UTC)

"Of course it is. We have good taste," says Aegis. "So, Rose, you're obviously all-over kickass serious magic already unless your aura's a liar, but you probably want to have my kind anyway, and for Beast too. Minting's explained in there."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 03:10 pm (UTC)

"So it is," agrees Rose, after getting a ways into a book. "I do not have all of the listed powers already. And it seems possibly very efficient, given how enchanting works."

deslandes
2013-03-31 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?" says the Beast.

Sue supplies him with the relevant information about where coins come from.

...He beams.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm not best supplied to give you a big starter set out of all the Bells," says Aegis, "since I have been a mint for about two days and haven't spent much of that time coinmaking, but I can mint the two of you and you can take it from there?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Please do," replies Rose.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 03:15 pm (UTC)

Hex and hex and "Here's standard bandoliers for you both," with a pair of pentagons.

deslandes
2013-03-31 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, magic," says the Beast, admiring his new bandolier.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 03:47 pm (UTC)

Belle inspects it, then puts it on.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 03:47 pm (UTC)

"I wanna see your coin color," Aegis says, bouncing on the balls of her feet a little.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 03:48 pm (UTC)

Rose glances down at the explanation in the book about minting, then nibbles a bit at her lip and produces a glowing, sky-blue triangle. "Sky power during daylight," she murmurs.

deslandes
2013-03-31 03:53 pm (UTC)

Beast tries the same thing, and his square is a fluid-looking deep violet.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Heart," she says, smiling. "Mon cœur."

autokinetic
2013-03-31 03:55 pm (UTC)

"You guys are entirely too cute," says Aegis, wagging a finger. "Okay, we've got a spaceship to not be found missing from because no one has quite understood yet that we can teleport, but Jane can get ahold of people for you if you need help or don't understand something in the book or whatever, okay?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 03:55 pm (UTC)

"I believe we'll be all right," agrees Rose.

pythbox
2013-03-31 03:56 pm (UTC)

Sue gives Beast a hug and a kiss and then returns to the spaceship.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Bye, Rose! Welcome to the peal!" And Aegis follows with a gesture at one of Jane's cameras.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Rose. "This has certainly been an eventful day."

She turns a page in the duplicate Bellbook, and she reads.

deslandes
2013-03-31 03:59 pm (UTC)

Beast curls up at her feet.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 04:00 pm (UTC)

His wife strokes his hair, and writes silent summaries of what she reads on the walls of his whole and repaired castle.

ma fête

beheld_beauty

Belle allows Jane to handle the guest list, and warns the kitchen that it will be serving many people, and makes sure that the living gardens are behaving themselves about maintaining paths for people to walk along, and she comes up with an enchantment to augment the castle's set of behavior so it can offer up appropriate music at appropriate times. She flies to Luc's village, and fetches him back, and tells him of the coming festivities, and assigns him to develop an introductory description of what enchanting is so that she can delegate tedious repeated introductory descriptions of it to him. Jane gives her advance notice of the nametag conventions, and she considers an enchanting solution but does not think it is best suited; she wishes the system into place instead.

She does like having wishes.

This is a branching point; there are 3 continuations from here.

deslandes
2013-03-31 05:14 pm (UTC)

Sometime before the guests arrive, the Beast makes sure to ask,

"When all of the other me are here, can they borrow me?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 05:15 pm (UTC)

"All of them?" laughs Belle. "Well. I suppose so, as you seem quite recovered from your misadventure."

deslandes
2013-03-31 05:24 pm (UTC)

He beams and hugs her, scooping her up and twirling her around exuberantly.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 05:25 pm (UTC)

Wheeeee!

mind_game
2013-03-31 05:25 pm (UTC)

[Some people are ready. Are you ready for them?] Jane inquires.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes," laughs Rose, beaming, aura radiant with happiness. "Send them in."

deslandes
2013-03-31 05:28 pm (UTC)

Beast kisses Rose's forehead when he sets her down.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 05:29 pm (UTC)

All

bellfounding
2013-03-31 05:30 pm (UTC)

the

cross_and_bow
2013-03-31 05:30 pm (UTC)

Bells

dark_light
2013-03-31 05:30 pm (UTC)

arrive

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-31 05:30 pm (UTC)

at

luminous_regnant
2013-03-31 05:31 pm (UTC)

the

self_composed
2013-03-31 05:31 pm (UTC)

same

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-31 05:31 pm (UTC)

time.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-03-31 05:31 pm (UTC)

And some family members.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-31 05:32 pm (UTC)

And some friends.

manofmyword
2013-03-31 05:36 pm (UTC)

And some Jokers, of whom the eponymous is the first to converge on Beast.

"Hi, you!" he says. "Where's my hug?"

deslandes
2013-03-31 05:38 pm (UTC)

Laughing, Beast scooptwirls him too, and does the same with Queenie and Ghosty and Alice and Kas and Micaiah in turn. Sue he kisses.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Welcome! I am Belle, or Rose," Rose calls to all the arrivals, lifting a few feet into the air so everyone can see her and vice-versa. "Please be aware that you can speak to the serving trays if you have need of something they haven't thought to supply; they do not speak but they listen."

bellfounding
2013-03-31 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Aegis wasn't kidding about the aura!" exclaims Pattern.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I can't make it work, though," says Aegis, "it doesn't go if I try, it seems like it's not a wishable, just an enchantress thing."

nonbird
2013-03-31 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Lazarus. "I can see that."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Can you?" asks Rose, landing in such a way as to face him.

self_composed
2013-03-31 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Tell us, tell us," laughs Stella.

nonbird
2013-03-31 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I see magic," he explains to Rose. "Yours is very different from minting. It's more... hmm, autonomous?"
Edited 2013-03-31 18:22 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I control spells as I cast them, but as long as I allow my aura free rein it does as it does without my controlling it except in certain details," agrees Rose. "And things like the living castle also have something of a personality. How is it that you see magic?"

nonbird
2013-03-31 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm an ingot. That's my power," he says. "Coins can't wish for personalitied things. They have some decisionmaking power, but it has to be pretty well specified in advance."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Interesting."

dark_light
2013-03-31 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Wait, you just casually enchant personalities into existence?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Personality without intelligence," says Rose. "No great ethical quandary about it. My aura or my castle or what have you have dispositions and they react to the intelligences near them in - lively ways, but they cannot suffer or think."

nonbird
2013-03-31 06:29 pm (UTC)

Lazarus nods.

self_composed
2013-03-31 06:32 pm (UTC)

"So wishes are like programs plus gap-filling abilities, and enchantments are like servants minus intelligence?" hazards Stella.

nonbird
2013-03-31 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Pretty much accurate," says Lazarus.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 06:53 pm (UTC)

"So I suppose none of you are likely to develop aura unless you can yourselves be enchanters and work on it as I have. Or at least wish for skill at it and then perform a considerable number of spells."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-31 06:53 pm (UTC)

"How d'you be an enchanter?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 06:55 pm (UTC)

"You find your mindscape, and work from there. I can help you with it, if you have the ability at all - I'm not sure if everyone has. I helped my student find his."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-31 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Hit me. My murderer's trial is coming up and I would be highly entertained to show up being distinctly spooky," says Juliet.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 06:56 pm (UTC)

Rose nods. And -

"I can't find your mindscape at all," she observes after a moment. "It doesn't - seem to be there."

nonbird
2013-03-31 06:58 pm (UTC)

"What's a mindscape?" wonders Lazarus.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 07:03 pm (UTC)

"It's a - a representation of one's mind. A beginning enchanter has to meditate into it, although I can now do many things with my eyes open. To channel through someone other than oneself one needs to find the channel's mindscape. Mine is a sphere of rosevines, with flowers on the interior and thorns on the exterior - Sue noticed them, when he attempted to link me. My husband has a castle, something like this one of late but more like the one we lived in before. Perhaps the 'opacity' power prevents me from locating Juliet's." She peers curiously at Juliet, then casts out in search of Lazarus's mindscape instead.

nonbird
2013-03-31 07:18 pm (UTC)

Lazarus's mindscape is perfectly easy to locate, and it's made of sound and light and texture in an intricately structured but almost incomprehensible jumble.

"Ooh," he says. "What are you doing? Ooh."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm just looking, I won't touch, I can't read anything personal without a separate spell," says Rose. "...It's very confusing-looking. I'm not sure I would know how to channel through you even if I wanted to."

nonbird
2013-03-31 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I can imagine it would be," he says. "Also, ooh."

cross_and_bow
2013-03-31 07:28 pm (UTC)

"On the opacity spectrum I'm one of the more opaque - me and Golden are the ones Sue can't link," says Juliet. "You might be able to check some of the others."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-31 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Me, for example, I have no native defense," Angela offers. "If you can't actually read my mind by doing this..."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I can read my husband's mindscape, but it required me to cast a spell first," Rose says. "I will be able to see what shape the mindscape takes, but not know what thoughts are moving through it." She backs away from Lazarus's mindscape and peers at Angela's, then reports, "Furnished - caves, of sorts, in a mountain, and background music."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-31 07:30 pm (UTC)

"The Eyrie," concludes Angela, smiling.

manofmyword
2013-03-31 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, do me, do me," says the Joker from where he is snuggling Beast.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 07:42 pm (UTC)

Rose, obligingly, has a look.

manofmyword
2013-03-31 07:47 pm (UTC)

The Joker's mind is a dirty, run-down city on a smallish island-and-a-half, bordered by water on every side.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 07:48 pm (UTC)

"A city," says Rose, unable to come up with polite terms for the condition of said city. "On two islands, one smaller than the other."
Edited 2013-03-31 19:49 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-31 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I've been to the Eyrie, and it's big, but it's not city-sized," says Shell Bell. "Does that mean anything?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 07:51 pm (UTC)

"There's no - sizes in mindscapes," says Rose. "They all go down to arbitrary levels of detail. The seeing-presence can always take in the whole thing as though it were tiny or the smallest piece as though it were enormous. The real city, if it's a real city, may well be larger than the Eyrie, but the dreamworlds that resemble them are not meaningfully larger or smaller than each other."
Edited 2013-03-31 19:51 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-03-31 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm Gotham," he says, laughing.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-31 07:53 pm (UTC)

"What about me?" says Queenie.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 07:54 pm (UTC)

Rose checks Queenie too.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-03-31 07:58 pm (UTC)

Queenie's mindscape is a lot like the Joker's, but worse. And some of the buildings are different, and some of the streets have a patchy look to them as though assembled from disparate pieces of city.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 07:59 pm (UTC)

"It's - approximately the same city. It is - in poorer condition. If I didn't know better I'd think you'd been someone's unwilling channel and were damaged by it."

autokinetic
2013-03-31 07:59 pm (UTC)

"What about me, can you do me?" Aegis wants to know.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:01 pm (UTC)

Rose attempts it. "I see a wall," she says. "A metal spherical wall, with bolts and rivets. There's - a door, but it doesn't open for me."

autokinetic
2013-03-31 08:01 pm (UTC)

Aegis tilts her head. "That's Sue's door. Now it's yours too long as you're only gonna tell me what my head looks like."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Stars," says Rose after a moment. "Inside the wall is a field of stars."

pythbox
2013-03-31 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww," says Sue.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-31 08:04 pm (UTC)

"What's mine?" wonders Alice.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:05 pm (UTC)

Rose laughs. "I suppose this is my party trick, is it?" And she looks at Alice's mindscape too.

edgeofyourseat
2013-03-31 08:07 pm (UTC)

Alice's mindscape is a small underground suite of rooms with a central staircase spiraling up out of the middle.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:08 pm (UTC)

Rose describes it.

self_composed
2013-03-31 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Aww, it's your lair," says Stella. "My turn, my turn."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:09 pm (UTC)

"I can't see yours either," Rose says after an attempt.

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-31 08:13 pm (UTC)

"What about me?" says Micaiah.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:13 pm (UTC)

What about him?

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-31 08:14 pm (UTC)

His mindscape is... an entire continent, apparently.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:15 pm (UTC)

"An island. A very large island, insofar as that means anything - I mean that I need to get quite close to be able to make out anything like individual towns," says Rose.

bellfounding
2013-03-31 08:15 pm (UTC)

"I bet mine is boring," says Pattern.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't think libraries are boring," says Rose after a moment.

bellfounding
2013-03-31 08:17 pm (UTC)

That startles a laugh out of Pattern. "Sure. A library. Gray carpet and green armchairs?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

bellfounding
2013-03-31 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Phoenix Public Library, I can live with that."

yovahs_kisses
2013-03-31 08:19 pm (UTC)

"I bet mine is Samaria," says Micaiah, laughing.

truthwright
2013-03-31 08:20 pm (UTC)

"What's mine?" wonders Kas.

The answer is: a composite city, vaguely reminiscent of Queenie's in that way but with smoother transitions, near water but not surrounded by it.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:38 pm (UTC)

Rose starts to describe the city, then gives up and conjures an illusion of it with a square.

Amariah takes her turn next, and she has a forest, full of pine trees like the branch she carries with her.

Shell Bell turns out to have Milliways for a mindscape.

Golden is inaccessible as Juliet and Stella are.

yourheartstrings
2013-03-31 08:44 pm (UTC)

"How 'bout me?" says Ghosty.

The answer is: damn near identical to the Joker's, but from about twenty years further on.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:45 pm (UTC)

Belle makes an illusion of her version of the city, too.

truthwright
2013-03-31 08:49 pm (UTC)

Kas is still admiring his, with its collected pieces of various cities he's seen and loved.

manofmyword
2013-03-31 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Wonder what yours is, sweetheart," says the Joker to Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-31 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, let's have a look, can't scare me," says Nathan.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 08:59 pm (UTC)

"A clock," says Rose, after a moment's investigation.

manofmyword
2013-03-31 08:59 pm (UTC)

...He cracks up.

temporal_affairs
2013-03-31 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Very on-theme," says Nathan approvingly, snickering a little.

colorshapes
2013-03-31 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Me too, me too!"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:02 pm (UTC)

"You're just as bewildering as Lazarus to look at," Rose remarks. "Hundreds of - colored shapes."

manofmyword
2013-03-31 09:04 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles, kisses Nathan, and ruffles the munchkin's hair.

Then he turns to Beast.

"Enough fun with mindscapes?" he inquires.

deslandes
2013-03-31 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says the Beast.

"My love, can they borrow me now?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Of course." She kisses his cheek.

deslandes
2013-03-31 09:08 pm (UTC)

He beams and hugs her.

Sue links up the Jokers, and somebody teleports the group of them to an appropriately sized guest room. The amount of snuggling going on in the ballroom is abruptly diminished.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-31 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Hey Sherlocks and Tonies!" calls Shell Bell. "Want to see Rose's party trick? She can tell you what your mindscape looks like!"

sicaria
2013-03-31 09:11 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Pearl, as spokes-sherlock. The entire cluster follows her over toward the Bells.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:13 pm (UTC)

Rose laughs and carries on with her party trick. There is somewhat less variance, with many Sherlocks and Tonies turning up the same handful of houses as their mindscapes.

toblameforit
2013-03-31 09:19 pm (UTC)

All the associated pairs have the same house as their mindscape, even though the details always differ - more attention paid to this room over that, loose objects placed differently. And there are architectural differences between the two different pairs whose mindscapes are the same New York mansion.

guiltless
2013-03-31 09:20 pm (UTC)

One of the Eosian guests drifts over to admire the squared illusions hanging in the air.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Do you want your mindscape read too?" inquires Rose.

guiltless
2013-03-31 09:27 pm (UTC)

"...Sure," he laughs.

self_composed
2013-03-31 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Stella. "Maybe you don't want to read it, though, Rose."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Hm? Why not?"

guiltless
2013-03-31 09:33 pm (UTC)

"I have a power," he explains. "I've got this kinda dreamworld thing and it has people in it. I have no idea what they get up to when I'm not around, though, 's why I want you to look."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:34 pm (UTC)

"And it might be something I wouldn't like to witness?" Rose asks Stella.

self_composed
2013-03-31 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Quite possibly!"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, I can back out quickly, if it is," says Rose, and she shrugs and peers around for Sandy's mindscape.

guiltless
2013-03-31 09:37 pm (UTC)

Sandy's mindscape is currently a large mostly-empty warehouse with a bloodstained concrete floor, containing four men who are inventively adding to the bloodstains. They all seem to be having lots of fun.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:44 pm (UTC)

Yeah, she backs out.

"Well," she says. "Thank you for warning me, Stella."

guiltless
2013-03-31 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Why, were they up to the usual?"

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Does the usual involve a lot of - apparently enjoyable bloodletting?"

guiltless
2013-03-31 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Yup!" says Sandy.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Then yes. That was what was going on."

guiltless
2013-03-31 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," he laughs. "So how do you do it? I wanna watch 'em."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm an enchantress," says Rose, with a bit of aura-flare accompanying the word. "I don't know if everyone can do it. If you can, you want to sit down, and close your eyes, and sort of peel back your awareness from your physical senses - eventually you can multitask a bit, but at first visiting the dreamworld involves abandoning awareness of the physical world."

guiltless
2013-03-31 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Sandy. "Magic. ...If I try that, though, I'm totally just gonna end up going into my power."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 10:32 pm (UTC)

Rose shrugs. "I don't know enough about your power to say. Yours is the only mindscape with people in it. Even animals aren't present in anyone else's I've seen, just plants at most."

self_composed
2013-03-31 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I want one of those auras, too. Unwishable, but you get one by doing enough enchanting? Can I just - wish to be able to do enchanting?" asks Stella.

And then:

"Why yes. Yes I can."

And she hops into the air and levitates comfortably and starts attempting to meditate into her unidentified mindscape.

guiltless
2013-03-31 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Have fun," snorts Sandy.

To Rose, he says, "It's just that sounded exactly like what I do if I want to visit the Girls and I don't wanna wait to fall asleep properly."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 10:39 pm (UTC)

"The girls?"

guiltless
2013-03-31 10:41 pm (UTC)

"The Girls, the boys - my dream people," he elaborates.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Ah."

self_composed
2013-03-31 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I -" begins Stella. "Oh, if I talk, it goes away. But I think I did it, looked like Moonstone Palace."

guiltless
2013-03-31 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Cool!" says Sandy.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Getting into and out of it, and using your mindscape and your body at the same time, become easier with practice," Rose tells Stella.
Edited 2013-03-31 23:00 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-03-31 11:00 pm (UTC)

"I want in on this too," decides Aegis, and there's a chorus of agreement from all of the other Bells too, and they all start floatily meditating.

guiltless
2013-03-31 11:09 pm (UTC)

Sandy watches this in amusement.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 11:11 pm (UTC)

Aegis is the first to get it.

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-31 11:11 pm (UTC)

The others follow suit, taking similar amounts of time.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-31 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Big old indigo-colored swath of nothing with a sun in the middle of it," says Juliet.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-31 11:13 pm (UTC)

"...My and Edward's cottage in Norway," murmurs Golden quietly, opening her eyes.

guiltless
2013-03-31 11:15 pm (UTC)

Sandy awws a little at Golden.

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 11:24 pm (UTC)

"My aura has been developing for five years," says Rose. "It takes a lot of enchanting to get it to this level. It was barely noticeable for the first year."

self_composed
2013-03-31 11:25 pm (UTC)

"So we pentagon the skill and our Wh- Jokers and in a couple cases our Sherlocks have some fun," says Stella.

cross_and_bow
2013-03-31 11:25 pm (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-31 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Pentagonable!" reports Shell Bell.

guiltless
2013-03-31 11:29 pm (UTC)

Sandy glances at Juliet and asks, "What's with the face?"

cross_and_bow
2013-03-31 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to talk about it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-03-31 11:32 pm (UTC)

Angela hugs her.

guiltless
2013-03-31 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Ooookay," says Sandy.

luminous_regnant
2013-03-31 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I may have a slight problem," Golden observes after a silence.

she_sells_seashells
2013-03-31 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, yeah," says Shell Bell, "I bet he'd volunteer and everything but you wouldn't want to, would you? And it's not like coins where he can just hand you a pile of them and you don't have to involve yourself in the making."

temporal_affairs
2013-03-31 11:46 pm (UTC)

Nathan snaps his fingers. "See about Eights," he suggests. "She's not at this party, but you can always make a trip or just call her. She's not -" He makes a vague gesture. "About it. Not necessarily anyway. Could be very strictly professional about it."

guiltless
2013-03-31 11:47 pm (UTC)

"...Wait, what?" says Sandy.

bellfounding
2013-03-31 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Channeling hurts, Jokers get off on it, and Golden is way too monogamous to do anything that's going to turn anybody on with somebody who isn't her husband," summarizes Pattern.

guiltless
2013-03-31 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Ahhh, gotcha," says Sandy, nodding. "Eights is a good pick, then, it's like half the time she doesn't even notice it."

luminous_regnant
2013-03-31 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I'll get in touch with her after the party. I suppose developing an aura is hardly urgent," says Golden, "I've done without this long. It is nicely intimidating, though."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Yours may not turn out exactly like mine," says Rose. "My books described a variety of possible auras - yours will suit you, and so it could be similar to mine as you are similar to me, but I wouldn't expect them to be identical. Of course, if you don't like it, suppression is easy." She draws her aura back into herself, and she suddenly no longer gives of an outward pressure of power, magic, majesty, and then she lets it out again.

autokinetic
2013-03-31 11:56 pm (UTC)

"...Huh, I thought how pretty you are was part of the aura. I think you're just prettier than us. Except Golden, but you're not vampire-looking."

beheld_beauty
2013-03-31 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Am I?" asks Rose, peering at the other Bell faces. "How odd. We're certainly all mutually recognizable."

guiltless
2013-03-31 11:59 pm (UTC)

"You are really pretty," says Sandy.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-01 12:01 am (UTC)

"My name means it and everything," sighs Belle. "Couldn't any of you have...?" She waves a hand.

self_composed
2013-04-01 12:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah, we could've all prettied up to match Golden in any color scheme vampiric or otherwise, but none of us appear to feel like it," shrugs Stella.

This is continuation number 2 from here.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 12:42 am (UTC)

Nathan's gonna go see how the pile of Jokers is doing, after handing Kerron over to Elspeth.

dark_light
2013-04-01 12:42 am (UTC)

What a coincidence, Amariah's headed the same way.

deslandes
2013-04-01 12:46 am (UTC)

The pile of Jokers is getting along just as you'd expect! They have convinced the castle to produce a bed big enough for the whole pile of them and then some, and they are all cuddled up on it, talking and laughing and kissing and doing various related activities.

dark_light
2013-04-01 12:48 am (UTC)

Amariah looks for her sweeties and inserts herself thereabouts. "Hi sweeties. All us Bells have wished up powers like Rose's but we have to do lots of enchanting to get auras like hers."

deslandes
2013-04-01 12:50 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Beast, "that's fun."

truthwright
2013-04-01 12:51 am (UTC)

"You can channel through us," Kas says brightly. Petaal nods and cuddles up.

manofmyword
2013-04-01 12:52 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, the Joker holds out his arms to his sweetie.

dark_light
2013-04-01 12:52 am (UTC)

"I didn't think you'd object," says Amariah happily.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 12:53 am (UTC)

Nathan snuggles right up to his mate.

manofmyword
2013-04-01 12:55 am (UTC)

The Joker kisses him.

"I wouldn't mind some'a those special effects myself," he muses. "Whaddya say, hon? Would I look cute as an enchantress?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 12:56 am (UTC)

"You'd make a lovely enchantress, babe," says Nathan. "What're you gonna enchant?"

manofmyword
2013-04-01 12:58 am (UTC)

"I have nnnnnnnno idea," he says serenely.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 01:00 am (UTC)

"Sounds like a quandary," observes Nathan. "Takes five years' worth of a Bell with no other magic but enchanting to get a Rose-sized aura."

manofmyword
2013-04-01 01:06 am (UTC)

"Heh," says the Joker. "Whaddya say, ladies 'n gentlemen?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-01 01:07 am (UTC)

"I think we should see if anybody wants a lot of stuff enchanted fast," says Alice.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-01 01:07 am (UTC)

"I've got just the girl in mind," says Queenie.

dark_light
2013-04-01 01:09 am (UTC)

"You think Pattern's gonna want Saturn enchanted instead of wished into behaving like a habitable planet?" asks Amariah. "That's a good idea."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-01 01:10 am (UTC)

"I have those!" beams Queenie.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 01:11 am (UTC)

"I imagine Pattern's going to want to do some enchanting herself for her own aura, though."

dark_light
2013-04-01 01:11 am (UTC)

"I don't think she'll have trouble finding channels," says Amariah.

manofmyword
2013-04-01 01:12 am (UTC)

"Saturn's a big planet," says the Joker. "And we can visit my old asteroid while we're there!"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 01:14 am (UTC)

"Is it a nice asteroid?" inquires Nathan. "As such things go? Pleasant tourist destination?"

manofmyword
2013-04-01 01:16 am (UTC)

"Oh, it's a cute little place. You should come see it sometime," he says, hugging Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 01:18 am (UTC)

"Sure, why not." Snuggle snuggle.

manofmyword
2013-04-01 01:22 am (UTC)

The Joker cuddles up into Nathan's arms.

Everyone else snuggles a little bit closer, not quite all at once. He closes his eyes and smiles.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 01:29 am (UTC)

Nathan squeezes his mate. "Ah, babe," he sighs.

manofmyword
2013-04-01 01:32 am (UTC)

The Joker kisses Nathan's cheek. "I'm fine now, sweetie," he murmurs. "And it wasn't all bad."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 01:37 am (UTC)

"No?"

manofmyword
2013-04-01 01:40 am (UTC)

"It was an awfully cute little asteroid," he says. "And I got to see Milliways plenty - I used to only see the place in my dreams, y'know, and I only get those when I'm trapped somewhere."

He shrugs.

"I still would've killed myself eventually, but that didn't make it not fun in the meantime. And instead I met you," he gives Nathan a quick kiss, "and I like you better than death."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-01 01:41 am (UTC)

Nathan hugs him very, very tight.

dark_light
2013-04-01 01:42 am (UTC)

"Aww," sighs Amariah.

manofmyword
2013-04-01 01:43 am (UTC)

The Joker snuggles up to his sweetheart with a breathless breakable giggle.

deslandes
2013-04-01 01:44 am (UTC)

"Awww," the Beast agrees, and the whole pile concurs.

This is continuation number 3 from here.

dark_light
2013-04-01 02:37 am (UTC)

Amariah eventually extracts herself from the deck of Jokers and returns to the main party to find Pattern.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-01 02:42 am (UTC)

Pattern is over here with a stray Sherlock!

dark_light
2013-04-01 02:43 am (UTC)

Stray Sherlock gets a random hug, but Amariah's mostly here to talk to Pattern. "The Jokers want to help you enchant Saturn," she says. "Just to get a lot of enchanting done to get neat auras in a hurry. The rest of us Bells might want to get in on it too. Saturn's big."

bellfounding
2013-04-01 02:44 am (UTC)

"That's a good idea," says Pattern. "Saturn's huge. Slipstick hasn't gotten back to me about an architect, though, I pentagoned enchanting and I think I still have to have some idea what it ought to look like."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-01 02:55 am (UTC)

"If the point is to do a lot of enchanting," says Sherlock, "does it matter terribly much if you have to pull the whole thing down and start again after they fuck it up once?"

bellfounding
2013-04-01 02:57 am (UTC)

"Disenchanting is much fiddlier than enchanting," says Pattern. "You basically have to be a better enchanter than whoever did the original enchantment. Which has obvious problems if you do your own. Some spells are pretty amenable to editing, or come with unraveling mechanisms, but I don't want the habitability of my colony to be readily unravelable - for all we know, enchanting could be contagious, like Matilda's magic - and editing can only do so much if there's something the matter with the core."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-01 02:59 am (UTC)

"Aha," says Sherlock. "So find an architect."

bellfounding
2013-04-01 03:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah, Slipstick said she was on it. I wonder if she's made any progress." Pattern looks around for her personnel officer.

prima_sequentem
2013-04-01 03:01 am (UTC)

Over there!

guiltless
2013-04-01 03:01 am (UTC)

Talking to one of the Eos crowd!

bellfounding
2013-04-01 03:02 am (UTC)

Over there Pattern goes!

prima_sequentem
2013-04-01 03:05 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Slipstick. "I found an architect!"

bellfounding
2013-04-01 03:06 am (UTC)

"Cool!" says Pattern. "What kinda architecture do you do? I need a framework according to which I can turn loose a pack of Jokers and a peal of Bells on Saturn and get something enchanted habitable."

guiltless
2013-04-01 12:51 pm (UTC)

"I do magic architecture," says Sandy.

bellfounding
2013-04-01 04:38 pm (UTC)

"That is obviously the best kind," says Pattern. "I mean, do you have some kind of portfolio I could look at?"

guiltless
2013-04-01 05:06 pm (UTC)

He squares up an illusion of Amalthea, in full detail.

bellfounding
2013-04-01 05:08 pm (UTC)

Pattern peers at it, and wishes up sharpened vision to get a closer look. "I like what you've done with the place," she decides. "What would you do with Saturn?"

guiltless
2013-04-01 05:09 pm (UTC)

"I dunno yet," he says cheerfully. "I've never been there."

bellfounding
2013-04-01 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Well, I don't think mine is going to be any different from Stella's as they stand right now, so there's probably no need to arrange a field trip to Origin. Will you let me know when you have an idea?"

guiltless
2013-04-01 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

bellfounding
2013-04-01 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Great! Thank you - both," Pattern says, including Slipstick with a gesture of her head.

prima_sequentem
2013-04-01 05:51 pm (UTC)

"All in a day's work," says Slipstick.

guiltless
2013-04-01 05:52 pm (UTC)

Sandy grins.

though the whole world shun you

jovahs_heiress

Isabella cannot reconcile it.

Timid, respectful, obedient, harmless Nathaniel.

And a monster who'd capture Shell off the street and force her home with him and destroy her.

She can't fathom it. She is not a perfect copy of the other Bells. She thinks - they agree, for that matter - that she's turned out gentler and softer than they. Certainly she did not have as fine an education, except perhaps compared to Shell Bell, except in music. But they are still undeniably, essentially versions of her.

She has to know what happened to Voice, to make him Voice and not timid, respectful, obedient, harmless Nathaniel.

So she tells Micaiah where she will be going, and asks Jane to take her there, and she seeks out Voice.

pythbox
2013-04-02 12:54 am (UTC)

Voice is sitting in a dark room, in a hooded cloak, listening to quiet instrumental music. The room is the one with the box in it, but the box is open and empty. There is no one else in the house.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 12:55 am (UTC)

Angela just stands there for a moment, waiting to be noticed. She isn't sure how to begin.

pythbox
2013-04-02 12:56 am (UTC)

He flinches.

"Who are you?" he demands. "Go away! Go away! Don't look at me! Go away!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 12:58 am (UTC)

"I have some questions for you," says Angela. "I will go away sooner if you choose to answer them."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:00 am (UTC)

He pulls his hood down over his face and shudders. "Leave me alone."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:01 am (UTC)

"I need to know why you did what you did, because in my world, there is a child who is a version of you, and I cannot for the life of me see the danger in him, but if it is there I need to know where. When I know that I will leave you alone."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:02 am (UTC)

"I don't have any answers for you," he says. "Go away. Go away. Go away."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:03 am (UTC)

"I can be very patient, if I have to," Angela says. "I will go away sooner if you tell me what I need to know."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:04 am (UTC)

"I don't know what you mean," he says, still shivering.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:06 am (UTC)

"I might be a little familiar to you, if you looked at me. You had an alternate version of me, kept in your box, for twenty-five years," Angela says. "She is a lot like me. There is someone who is similarly like you, where I am from. And someone similarly like the prisoner who was taken from you recently."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:09 am (UTC)

"I don't understand any of that," he mutters.

He is telling the truth.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:13 am (UTC)

Angela sighs and backs up. "There are many worlds. Some of them have magic and some don't, some of them have creatures other than ordinary mortal humans on them who can nonetheless think and speak and some don't, some differ in other ways. My world is called Samaria. There's another called Atlantis. There's another without a name, that you're from. A girl on Atlantis died, and appeared here, and you took her home with you and kept her for twenty-five years and let her go. Later, you captured someone from the same world as you, and that's the prisoner that the new management took away from you. Between worlds people are often similar - cut from the same mold and then sanded down a little differently. The girl who died on Atlantis and I are alternates of each other in that way. And my husband and your last captive are alternates of each other in that way. And my brother-in-law and you are alternates of each other in this way, but I don't understand, because he's a harmless child and I cannot imagine him growing up to kidnap and torture people who'd done him no harm, and I want to know why this could happen."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:14 am (UTC)

"I get lonely," he whispers.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:15 am (UTC)

Angela waits for him to go on.

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:17 am (UTC)

"But I can't - I can't let anyone look at me, I can't stand it, don't look at me don't look at me go away," he says desperately, cowering in his chair with his hood still pulled down over his face.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:18 am (UTC)

"I haven't seen your face," Angela says. "I have no reason to wish to. I'll know what you look like when Nathaniel grows up, anyway. Why can't you let anyone look at you?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:20 am (UTC)

"I can't," he says. "I can't I can't I can't."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:21 am (UTC)

"Have you forgotten why? Or did you never know?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:23 am (UTC)

"I just—don't like it," he says miserably. "It's frightening."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:23 am (UTC)

"Has it always been?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:24 am (UTC)

"I don't remember," he mutters. "Go away."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:25 am (UTC)

Angela considers, then expends a pentagon to offer Voice the same perfect recall that the Bells enjoy. Temporarily.

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:26 am (UTC)

He curls up into a tiny ball in his chair and screams.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:28 am (UTC)

Angela has some sympathy for him. Not very much, but some. "The memories will not last forever," Angela says. "But I need to know, because an innocent little boy is somehow in danger of turning into you, and he is under my protection, and I won't have it."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:34 am (UTC)

He cannot hear her. Because of the screaming.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:35 am (UTC)

She sighs and adds another pentagon to muffle everything, the way Shell Bell's Downside memories are muffled.

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:35 am (UTC)

The screaming continues unabated.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:36 am (UTC)

She undoes the perfect recall altogether and drops her head into her hands.

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:38 am (UTC)

The screaming trails off after a few more seconds, but he doesn't uncurl, or speak.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:39 am (UTC)

"I apologize," she says quietly.

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:40 am (UTC)

He shivers. Which at least suggests he heard and understood her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:40 am (UTC)

"If you have a better idea for how I could understand what happened," Angela says, "I am listening."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:42 am (UTC)

The little cloak-swaddled ball of Voice shakes its hooded head.

"please don't do that again."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:43 am (UTC)

"I'm not going to."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:44 am (UTC)

He doesn't seem to have an answer to that.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:47 am (UTC)

"I didn't know it would trouble you. I have the same modification myself. I ought to have inquired." She sighs. "And I know Shell asked you to stop, asked you to let her go, asked you not to hurt her - and asked you not to hurt her again - and I know you didn't listen to her and it wasn't an innocent mistake. I need to know why, I can't just declare your template inherently evil, not when Nathaniel is ten and harmless and my brother-in-law and I have any hope of steering him into a decent adulthood."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:50 am (UTC)

"I don't like it when people do things to me," Voice whines. "I don't like it when they look at me or touch me or notice me at all. But I hate being alone all the time."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:52 am (UTC)

"You could have kidnapped Shell and kept her in your basement and not tortured her," says Angela in a low voice. "I would still want to know why you did that, but it would not have been so pointlessly cruel."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:54 am (UTC)

"...you can't quit," he says. "Being a torturer. You couldn't quit, until we were all fired. I was—I didn't understand that, once."

He lapses into silence.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:54 am (UTC)

Angela waits.

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:57 am (UTC)

"I had a sentence to carry out, and I - I didn't," he says. "And they punished me for it. They said - if I neglected my duties again - it would be worse. So. I didn't neglect them."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 01:57 am (UTC)

"Shell wasn't sentenced to you."

pythbox
2013-04-02 01:59 am (UTC)

"I had to keep in practice," he said. "I was afraid - everyone else would practice sometimes - I didn't get sentences that often - I didn't want to lose my touch."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:00 am (UTC)

"Why did you become a torturer to begin with?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:01 am (UTC)

"So I could make sure no one looked at me," he whimpers.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:02 am (UTC)

"You could have stayed home," Angela says.

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:03 am (UTC)

"I do," he says. "I am. Since the - changes."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:04 am (UTC)

"We are very proud of the changes," says Angela.

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:05 am (UTC)

The little ball of Voice shrinks back a little in his chair.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:06 am (UTC)

"I'm nearly done. Do you know how long you have been afraid of being seen?" Angela asks.

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:07 am (UTC)

"No," he says slowly. "I don't remember. A... a long time. I can't remember ever... not."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:07 am (UTC)

"Even when you were a child, when you were alive?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:09 am (UTC)

"I don't remember being alive."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:09 am (UTC)

"And I suppose you don't want me to fix that."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:11 am (UTC)

"nononononononono," he mutters, rocking back and forth.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:13 am (UTC)

Angela considers.

"Would you let Jane look at you with her judgesight? She could see what's happened to you, that way. You wouldn't need to go anywhere. You wouldn't even need to uncover your face."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:13 am (UTC)

"nooooooooooooo," he moans.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:15 am (UTC)

Angela drops her forehead into one of her hands and adjusts her wings. "Perhaps I should go talk to whoever initially judged you and ask them."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:16 am (UTC)

"Please don't," he says, "please, I don't want them to remember me, I don't want them to think about me—"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:19 am (UTC)

"I don't want my brother-in-law to grow up to do terrible things to keep himself comfortable," says Angela. "I don't want to keep him under suspicion that he personally has done nothing to earn just because I don't know. If you have a better idea, I'm listening."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:23 am (UTC)

He shivers, and says nothing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:26 am (UTC)

Angela waits.

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:27 am (UTC)

"why don't you ask him questions," Voice says finally. "he's probably less afraid of you."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:29 am (UTC)

"He is ten years old. I don't want to explain to him in detail exactly what I'm afraid of."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:31 am (UTC)

Voice has no answer to that.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:34 am (UTC)

"He knows something happened, because he met Shell Bell, and she flinched every time he spoke, and all he wanted to know about it, when I explained without the details, was whether he was going to be punished for what you did to her."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:36 am (UTC)

"Of course," says Voice, and then he flinches.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:37 am (UTC)

"He isn't. Going to be punished for anything you did, I mean."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:38 am (UTC)

Voice shivers.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:39 am (UTC)

"Neither are you, for that matter. I'm here for the reasons I stated, not to make you uncomfortable. We don't do punishment for its own sake. That's why you and all the other torturers were dismissed."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:40 am (UTC)

After a pause, he uncurls a little, although he still keeps his face muffled in his hood and turned away from her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:46 am (UTC)

"Your last prisoner was almost certainly your brother," Angela says after a silence. "Since you're from the same world, and since on my world your alt and his alt are brothers."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:47 am (UTC)

He really does not know how to react to this at all.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:50 am (UTC)

It was mostly for informational purposes.

"I wish I knew where you began to be so afraid. Nathaniel is timid, but he doesn't seem to want everyone to avoid looking at him or thinking about him. I don't know whether to expect him to have avoided whatever became of you completely, or expect the timidity to turn him into someone more like you."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:53 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he murmurs, shaking his hooded head. "I don't know."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 02:58 am (UTC)

"And you don't want me to make you able to look for yourself, and you don't want Jane to look, and you don't want me to talk to the judge who already knows because it's possible they've forgotten, and you probably don't want me to go to the world you lived in and have a look at its past as concerns you either."

pythbox
2013-04-02 02:59 am (UTC)

He shakes his head again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:02 am (UTC)

"And there is a reason we arranged for Jane to need permission to judgesight, so I am not going to do any of those things anyway," sighs Angela, "in spite of the fact that you certainly didn't much care what Shell wanted, or what Queenie wanted, or what any of the other people you kept captive wanted." She shakes her head. "And lie detection only detects lies, not mistakes, so I can't just ask you to answer the question various ways until we find the right one."

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:03 am (UTC)

He shivers.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:04 am (UTC)

"Maybe you need a daemon," muses Angela.

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:04 am (UTC)

"...A what?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:05 am (UTC)

"There's a world one of us is from where people have external souls. Usually shaped like animals. They're part of the people they belong to, I can't imagine anyone being afraid of their own, but they have separate bodies. If you had one she'd be company of sorts."

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:06 am (UTC)

"...that... might be... nice," murmurs Voice.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:07 am (UTC)

"I could ask Jane to put you briefly in the world where they exist, and then you'd have one," says Angela.

She leaves unsaid if I get what I came for.

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:09 am (UTC)

He stays quiet.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:10 am (UTC)

"I will, if you'll agree to one of the options that tells me what I want to know."

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:15 am (UTC)

"...go to my world," he murmurs eventually. "Go to my world and look there. And, and don't, and please don't come back."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:16 am (UTC)

"All right. Just a moment."

[Jane, is Amariah's basement empty?]

mind_game
2013-04-02 03:16 am (UTC)

[Yes.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:21 am (UTC)

[Does she mind?]
Edited 2013-04-02 04:34 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-04-02 04:34 am (UTC)

After a moment: [No.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 04:48 am (UTC)

"She - it will probably be a she, but not necessarily - won't be able to go very far away from you without it hurting, unless you stretch the distance enough to snap," says Angela. "You won't want to let anyone else touch her - other daemons are fine but you're not likely to encounter any here. I'm not sure exactly what it would be like but I'm assured that apart from the most intimate of circumstances it's to be avoided. I can give you the ability to tuck her away inside yourself whenever you like, if you want. Say when and I'll ask Jane to send you to Alethia and back to get her."

pythbox
2013-04-02 12:06 pm (UTC)

"...O-okay," he says hesitantly, and he finally straightens up in his chair.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:12 pm (UTC)

"Does that mean you're ready?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:18 pm (UTC)

He nods.

mind_game
2013-04-02 03:19 pm (UTC)

Jane picks him up. Jane puts him down.

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:22 pm (UTC)

He arrives plus one smallish brownish bird, who squeaks and hides in the folds of his cloak immediately.

mind_game
2013-04-02 03:22 pm (UTC)

Jane picks them up.

Jane puts them down.

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:23 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he says, shivering.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to be able to tuck her away?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes please," he murmurs.

He sounds very like Nathaniel just there.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:26 pm (UTC)

Angela has a few evils on her. She can stick it on, and stick the unnamed daemon onto his torching specially in the same motion.

"I'll leave you be, now," she says. "Thank you for your help." She turns invisible so she won't alarm anyone at the Janepoint on Voice and Queenie's old world.

[Now, please, Jane.]

mind_game
2013-04-02 03:27 pm (UTC)

And away she goes.

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:34 pm (UTC)

Voice sits down in his chair, and his daemon climbs out of his cloak.

He pets her feathers.

She cuddles into his hands.

"I love you," she murmurs.

"I don't," he murmurs back.

"I know," she says, and she bumps the top of her head against his fingers, and he pets her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 03:37 pm (UTC)

Invisible in Voice's world, Angela teleports to "one hundred miles Londonward of the South Pole" - Amariah suggested it as an unobtrusive place to hang out on Earths, suitable for people who do not get cold - and finds that she doesn't not get cold to quite the same extent as Amariah and requires a bit of hexing to be comfortable. Once that is taken care of, she peers into her copy of Stella's past-watching power, and looks.

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

He is five years old and very like Nathaniel, and his mother is tucking him into bed and kissing his forehead.

"Goodnight, Steven," she murmurs.

"Goodnight, Mother," he murmurs back, and she turns off the light and walks out of the room.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

She skips ahead. She doesn't want to look at more than she has to - not even with his permission, not when he hates the idea - and she can always go back. Where was he when he was - twenty?

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

In college, studying diligently late at night.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 04:40 pm (UTC)

She skips ahead in shorter increments, a year at a time.

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:55 pm (UTC)

Twenty-one and he's studying again. Twenty-two and he's on a date with a girl about his age, laughing at her jokes, agreeing with all her opinions, hanging on her every word.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 04:58 pm (UTC)

Angela skips ahead in smaller increments still after the girl, because - that might be important. One of Voice's distinguishing characteristics as a torturer is that he never touched his captives. Shell had enough of a sample to know this to be unusual. And yet here is a girl. What is he doing an hour later - two?

pythbox
2013-04-02 07:43 pm (UTC)

The date ends. He goes home and curls up in his bed and has the shakes for a while, then goes to sleep.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 08:40 pm (UTC)

And the next day? Does the girl reappear?

pythbox
2013-04-02 08:43 pm (UTC)

He has a long phone conversation with her, and they go on another date the following week.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 08:45 pm (UTC)

Angela supervises, skipping ahead by half-hours, patient.

pythbox
2013-04-02 08:50 pm (UTC)

The date goes fairly well.

He flinches whenever she touches him, but he does his best to hide it.

Afterward, he curls up in bed and shakes again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-02 08:51 pm (UTC)

This seems, if perhaps not formative, at least an examplar of the problem. Pastwatching is specific enough that Angela can just look in on the other dates with this person.

pythbox
2013-04-03 12:27 am (UTC)

They follow roughly the same pattern: minimal physical contact, slight awkwardness, and intense stress reactions afterward. From him, anyway. The girl is not similarly affected.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 12:27 am (UTC)

She skips forward to the next encounter a month later.

pythbox
2013-04-03 12:34 am (UTC)

She's started to notice how simultaneously standoffish and obsequious he is.

She doesn't appreciate it.

They argue.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 12:35 am (UTC)

Angela listens in.
Edited 2013-04-03 20:39 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-03 08:55 pm (UTC)

"You're cute, but you're not really anything else."

What he is is trembling. He hides his face in his hands.

"And you're so sensitive! About the littlest things! Really, I don't... I don't think we can make this work."

"Please," he mumbles, "I thought we were..."

"Were," she says. "Yeah. Not anymore."

He trembles some more. She stands watching him for another few seconds, then murmurs, "Bye," and leaves.

He sleeps very badly that night.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 08:57 pm (UTC)

Does he ever see her again?

(Perhaps to kidnap her and keep her in his basement?)

pythbox
2013-04-03 08:58 pm (UTC)

They run into each other once a few months later. It is awkward. Then, nothing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 08:59 pm (UTC)

Angela skips forward another year.

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:01 pm (UTC)

He is on the phone with his mother, exchanging meaningless pleasantries in subdued tones.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 09:05 pm (UTC)

Skipping by amounts of time is going to take a lot of trial and error to yield anything interesting.

When is the next time he touches someone?
Edited 2013-04-03 21:25 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:29 pm (UTC)

One accidental brush with a stranger on a subway train, that leaves him nervous and unhappy for almost an hour. One handshake with someone who seems to be a friend, if not a close one - that time he doesn't seem upset about it afterward at all.

The time after that, he's standing outside an apartment building late at night, kissing a woman on the cheek and then watching to make sure she gets inside safely.

He doesn't seem upset about that one, either.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 09:30 pm (UTC)

Angela carries on with this skipping criterion.

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:34 pm (UTC)

There are several more encounters with this girlfriend. Many of them involve kisses.

Sometimes he cries afterward, or has insomnia, or (in one memorable instance) throws up. But these reactions are not the norm.

Just one problem: as their relationship progresses, she starts talking about how he should be on better terms with his parents. Apparently one phone call to his mother roughly once a month doesn't cut it. She wants to meet them, and she thinks he should see them more.

He doesn't seem able or willing to give her any reasons behind his continued, faltering, hesitant refusals.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 09:36 pm (UTC)

Angela does not think he should be on better terms with his parents.

But this has already happened, and her input would likely not be called for even if these events were currently in progress.

On and on...

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:54 pm (UTC)

And on and on.

In one argument, she slaps him. He flinches away and then leaves almost immediately. The stress reaction that night is particularly intense.

Most of the contact after that is initiated by his girlfriend, not him. But despite increasing tensions, they don't break up.

They do keep arguing. About increasingly trivial things. Sometimes his girlfriend uses mild physical force, a slap or a shove, and that always ends the disagreement in her favour. As this happens more and more, he becomes more and more frightened and submissive in her presence.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 09:59 pm (UTC)

Oh, that's not good, that's not good at all.

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:30 pm (UTC)

It very much isn't.

They persist in this unhappy equilibrium for a while. And then one day they argue again, and she hits him again, and he hits back.

There is a lot of screaming, and a lot of crying, and much shoving and slapping from both sides, and then his girlfriend's head hits the corner of the granite countertop and there is a lot of blood.

He calms down after that.

He doesn't seem to have a problem touching her once she's dead. He touches her hands, her lips; he cries into her hair and holds her and tells her he's sorry, over and over, he's sorry he's sorry he's sorry sorry sorry sorry until the word dissolves into quiet sobs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 10:32 pm (UTC)

Angela bites her lip and draws in a sharp breath.

She goes forward, watching him - recover? Does he do that, this time?

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:36 pm (UTC)

...In a sense, yes.

The death of his girlfriend is made to quietly go away, with the judicious application of money and lies. He returns to the normal rhythms of his life; he graduates from school and becomes a lawyer; he moves to a better apartment.

He is more careful than ever not to touch anyone. But he... looks at them, sometimes. Longingly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 10:37 pm (UTC)

When does he next touch someone...?

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:40 pm (UTC)

Outside a cafe, he kisses a woman on the cheek and offers to walk her home.

He walks with her.

She does not get home.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 10:42 pm (UTC)

Oh dear.

She cannot retroactively read his mind, but what can she tell about why he'd do this?

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:43 pm (UTC)

He seems very pleased with himself afterward. Happy. Secure. A little nervous, but that passes.

And he is less nervous when he does it again.

And again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 10:44 pm (UTC)

Angela watches a bit more.

But she's not sure how much more she can stand.

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

There is not so very much more of it. He is found out; he tries to evade capture; he fails; he is killed in the process.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 10:50 pm (UTC)

[Take me home now, please, Jane.]

And she is home, and she wants her Micaiah, where is he?

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-03 10:56 pm (UTC)

He is in their bed, snuggling a blanket!

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 10:57 pm (UTC)

He should be snuggling his wife instead.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

He is now snuggling his wife.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

She is snuggling back.

"I went to visit Voice," she murmurs.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

He kisses her forehead. "What happened, my angel?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

"A great many things, a long time ago. I - I think Nathaniel will be fine. Voice was never taken from his parents, and there was a long, slow descent into - problems, after that." Pause. "I gave Voice a daemon, to keep him company, in exchange for his consent that I look at his past on his world."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-03 11:11 pm (UTC)

...

He snuggles her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I think Nathaniel will be fine," she repeats. "But I want to make sure we are seeing him regularly. To be sure that nothing is going quietly wrong."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-03 11:14 pm (UTC)

"All right," he says, curling up close and kissing her forehead again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-03 11:16 pm (UTC)

That seems to be all there is to say, unless Micaiah wants details. But further cuddling is in order. Angela settles her top wing over them and closes her eyes and sighs.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-03 11:20 pm (UTC)

Further cuddling is definitely in order.

mon ennemi

beheld_beauty

With the party concluded, Belle wants to go back and investigate the wicked enchanter and find out who it is she killed.

Does her husband wish to accompany her?

deslandes
2013-04-03 12:41 am (UTC)

No.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 12:42 am (UTC)

Then she kisses him goodbye, and rather than spend hours in flight, she turns herself invisible and - a useful new vocabulary word and power - teleports.

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:55 pm (UTC)

The stranger's body is where she left it, untouched. The stranger's palace is empty.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:00 pm (UTC)

He does look familiar, doesn't he? A little like -

Like her husband, actually.

That's disturbing.

She investigates the palace for books, writings, anything that would hint at who lived here and what he was about.

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:04 pm (UTC)

Well, apparently he was a marquis.

The Marquis Étienne des Landes, to be exact, son of another Étienne, who himself was the son of yet a third. All of the portraits of these men look suspiciously identical.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:08 pm (UTC)

Belle herself does not look twenty-two. And she knows that he was an enchanter.

Are there other clues here?

Or - no. In fact she does not need other clues.

She now has an arsenal of wishes, and one of the wishes will let her look into the past, and find out whether they were in fact all the same Étienne, and what could possibly have led the dead man to believe that her husband belonged to him.

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:15 pm (UTC)

They were all the same Étienne, going back a hundred and fifty years, to when he was still an apprentice.

Before he was an apprentice, he had a family - a castle - a brother.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:16 pm (UTC)

Lord above.

A brother.

Belle watches these brothers, especially the one who looks so achingly like a certain laughing face she once spied with a past-watching spell.

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:27 pm (UTC)

They did not live a happy life.

The elder brother caught the worst of it, but Étienne wasn't spared much. Their father was cruel; their mother, mostly absent.

One day Étienne's brother burned the castle to the ground.

He knew the enchantress already; that was when he went to her to become her apprentice. She taught him many things. He inherited his father's title, since his brother disappeared the day of the fire. He wasn't there; he didn't know whether his brother had escaped or not. Either way seemed as likely as the other.

It took a few years for him to stop looking.

It took decades, well past the end of his apprenticeship, for the enchantress to tell him about that chance meeting and the curse she cast.

She told him that all things belonged to him, his brother included. She told him that the curse was just and fair, that his brother would make a monster of a Marquis, that it was a good thing for everyone that she had erased the name of Modeste des Landes forever.

He came to believe her, eventually.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:31 pm (UTC)

And no wonder that if he chanced upon Beast he'd take him as he did.

Belle cannot much regret Étienne's death.

She is done here.

She teleports home to her husband, sober-faced.

deslandes
2013-04-03 10:33 pm (UTC)

"What is it, my love?"

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:36 pm (UTC)

"There is a reason that enchanter felt entitled to take you as he did."

deslandes
2013-04-03 10:44 pm (UTC)

"...What is it?" he repeats.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:45 pm (UTC)

"The enchantress who made you forget so many things included in this a younger brother."

deslandes
2013-04-03 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh, my love," he breathes, shivering.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:51 pm (UTC)

Belle holds out her arms to him, and peers into his mental castle, unsure if she should say more.

deslandes
2013-04-03 10:52 pm (UTC)

He hugs her and presses his face into her shoulder and cries.

He doesn't know if she should say more. He's confused and sad and a little afraid.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:53 pm (UTC)

She holds him and waits for his desires to resolve into something solid.

deslandes
2013-04-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

Well, he quite solidly wants her to hold him while he cries.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

Belle can do that. She can do admirably at that task.

deslandes
2013-04-03 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he mumbles into her shoulder.

"Who... what... I don't know what I want to know," he admits.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

"I will go on knowing it. I can tell you later when you are sure you want to know, if you would rather not right now," murmurs Belle.

deslandes
2013-04-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he sighs. "I love you so much."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 11:04 pm (UTC)

"I love you too, mon cœur."

deslandes
2013-04-03 11:12 pm (UTC)

Cuddles.

He really wants cuddles.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-03 11:12 pm (UTC)

He can have all the cuddles he likes.

deslandes
2013-04-03 11:14 pm (UTC)

Oh, good.

strictly professional

luminous_regnant

Golden consults her Imperial Minister of Temporal Affairs about when to visit Eights. She asks Jane to check in with Eights to confirm this time - dropping by uninvited even at the best time to do so is not a habit she wishes to cultivate unnecessarily, and might get them off to a bad start.

Presuming acquiescence, she appears in Eights's house at the appointed time.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-03 10:51 pm (UTC)

Eights has a lot of house. Currently she is in the foyer.

"Oh, huh," she says when Golden teleports in. "Hi."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-03 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Golden. "I believe you've met my minister of temporal affairs. In some form, anyway. I'm Bella, or Golden when there are several of me under discussion."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-03 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I remember Timer," Eights says fondly. "What's his live name again, Nathan? Him. He's fun."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Nathan, yes. He's a good friend. You're probably wondering what I'm here about, unless Jane explained of her own accord?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I am wondering what you're here about!" she confirms. "It's a mystery. A mysterious mystery."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-03 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well. You're aware that the person Nathan is mated to works for me as a mint, right? Do you know what that consists of?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Grapevine says it hurts," she offers.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-03 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But the Joker can do all the requisite hurting without involving me, because the process generates coins, not direct results. The peal of Bells has recently added a new sort of magic to our supply that also hurts but doesn't come in - battery form, so to speak. And unlike my counterparts I do not have quite the flexibility to ask my mint-assistant to also serve as an enchanting-channel, given how he would interpret the entire business if I did. I'm told that you don't have this issue?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-03 11:06 pm (UTC)

She blinks twice, decoding this.

"You mean, can I let you hurt me without either minding or wanting to have sex with you? Yeah, sure."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

"What sort of compensation would be in order?" asks Golden. "We are estimating that it will take about a day for us to collectively achieve the results we have in mind - we're going to be enchanting an instance of Saturn."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-03 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Pff," says Eights. "A day? Not a long-term thing? I'll do it for free."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-03 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's always possible I'll want something else enchanted, but in that case I expect to get someone else to perform the spell in its entirety. The reason I want to do a day's worth of enchanting at all is because there's a side effect called aura that comes of doing enough of it. The day is a guess; it took the original enchantress Bell a few years of less continuous enchanting to achieve hers. And this is a full day - twenty-four hours. None of us sleep when we don't want to. I don't sleep at all. At any rate. Do you have schedule constraints I should be aware of?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-03 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-03 11:20 pm (UTC)

"All right. I'll let you know through Jane when we've got architectural plans for Origin Saturn and a date set."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-03 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Sure," she says agreeably.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-03 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Later, then," says Golden, and she taps her Jane-gem and she's gone.

our city is on good terms with its neighbors

cross_and_bow

Bella keeps busy.

She has no shortage of things to keep busy with. She's meeting "neutral" demon species - the non-neutral ones are more of a problem, but are also likely to be more delicate to handle. She's planning her own space-base; she might put it on Mercury so she's not copying anybody. She's talking through Jane with the rest of the peal about the upcoming trip to Pattern's Saturn (heh, that rhymes) to enchant it. Since Golden isn't going to be using Jokes as an enchantment channel, Juliet's going to borrow him, and Shell Bell's going to ask Ghosty, unless any of the relevant Jokers register an objection to this arrangement. They should be able to cover a large swath of the gas giant in a day or so and all come back with fantastic new auras. Rose only took as long as she did because she had to learn out of books as she went along and was not overambitious about her enchantments.

She's conservative with her coins. Bella can't quite get up the temerity to ask her Sherlock whether he and Tony have been getting up to anything minty. It's common knowledge that Sherlocks aren't quite as productive as Jokers are, boosted or not, so Juliet doesn't think Stella thinks much of it when asked for a few extras in the higher denominations. (Stella is the one with three mints. And an established empire that doesn't need a lot of startup-cost coin use.) Everyone knows Juliet has a Sherlock and not a Joker. Everyone knows Juliet has a trickier worldstate to start from than most Bells.

But she has no implicit explanation for running out of mere pentagons.

Someone would ask - someone would say "are things not back to normal between you and your Sherlock?" - and Juliet doesn't want to talk about it, not any more than she has to, doesn't even want to say she doesn't want to talk about it.

She thinks she's doing a good job of acting normally around him. Occasionally something will trigger her into a rash of distressed solicitousness, but mostly, she's behaving like everything is fine, everything is normal. Except that she's leaving the ball completely in his court in terms of scheduling the resumption of physical relationship components. Snuggling and kissing are firmly back on the menu, and she helps herself. He's bitten her once, since, and she's glad it was one of the lucky bites (regeneration helps, he can go on without worrying about her health). Because she can just imagine awkwardly squirming and making excuses and teleporting to her bedroom rather than risk wheedling him when he's some unknown amount of fragile and has some unknown constellation of needs that he can't tell her but definitely don't include being pushed about anything labeled "sex".

And she has no implicit explanation for running out of pentagons.

But she does still have her Slayer leftovers.

Pain tolerance.

What was it Shell Bell would have done for her, months ago, if she could've stood to do it? Broken her arm?

Bella can't think of a great way to break her actual arm - well, she could just wish it broken, but the no-bootstrapping constraint on minting might make that pointless.

She can break her wrist, though.

She sits on the edge of her bed and she clasps her hands together and pretends one of them belongs to somebody else and that it needs to break. She feeds her autopilot. She twists. It hurts. She holds it in place just enough that if she lets up at all she gets squares instead of pentagons. She mints.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:03 pm (UTC)

Around the time of night that Sherlock usually wakes up - a little early, but well within range - he says,

[Morning, love.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:04 pm (UTC)

[...Evening!] She lets her wrist go, lets it flood with magic painkilling and untwist into healedness. [How're you?]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

[...Abruptly curious.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

[I was - making coins, when you called.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:15 pm (UTC)

A short pause.

[Does this activity bring you joy, love?]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:17 pm (UTC)

[...It brings me coins.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:18 pm (UTC)

[Yes,] he says, [but there are other ways to achieve those. Ways such as, for example, asking if I have produced any recently.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:20 pm (UTC)

[I... didn't really want to ask you that.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:22 pm (UTC)

[...I can see why you wouldn't, I suppose. But I can't say I am delighted by your solution.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:25 pm (UTC)

[I went to Stella about hexes and up. I'm not trying to - self-flagellate. I just didn't want to explain to her why I would be running low on even pentagons, or tell her that I didn't want to explain. She could draw her own conclusions about the big coins based just on common knowledge about various templates' productivity and the fact that Sunshine is particularly lousy with stuff-needing-done.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:26 pm (UTC)

[All right.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:27 pm (UTC)

[And it wasn't that bad, anyway, I have better than Bell-standard pain tolerance, but as long as we're talking about it anyway have you made any coins recently?]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:28 pm (UTC)

[I have, yes.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:29 pm (UTC)

[Okay. I guess I should - collect them sometime.]

Pause.

[I asked you to turn me.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:30 pm (UTC)

[Yes...?]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:31 pm (UTC)

[And I probably shouldn't have done that. You're exceptional. I had no real reason to believe I'd be like you. I was just terrified. I wasn't thinking.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:37 pm (UTC)

[I suppose I wasn't thinking either,] he admits. [I knew the odds of a good outcome were low, but I did not fully consider—other outcomes.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:41 pm (UTC)

[Maybe it would've been a good idea to tie her up before she woke.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:42 pm (UTC)

[...it would have solved the immediate problem,] he says, [probably, but introduced others.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:42 pm (UTC)

[Like we wouldn't have known she needed to be obliterated, I guess.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:45 pm (UTC)

[Yes. And I am not sure I could have observed that particular tendency until she exhibited it. So I might have let her free anyway.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:48 pm (UTC)

[Eugh.] Bella shudders. [I know I've been wearing the words I'm sorry kind of thin, but. I'm sorry.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:48 pm (UTC)

[You have been,] he says. [And I know. And thank you. And I love you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:49 pm (UTC)

[I love you too.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:51 pm (UTC)

[Are you doing anything uninterruptible? Because I want to interrupt it. With a hug.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:51 pm (UTC)

[Please do.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:53 pm (UTC)

Port.

Hug!

cross_and_bow
2013-04-03 11:53 pm (UTC)

Hug snuggle.

"I love you," Bella sighs.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-03 11:57 pm (UTC)

"I love you too, dear Juliet."

Snuggle-hug.

quiet, this is a library

lifes_sake

Cam's in the library, waiting for Renée. "Waiting" here means "browsing until a quarter hour after ostensible meeting time". Renée is supposed to meet him here - on the way home for both of them, him from high school and her from elementary where she teaches kindergarten - but she is rarely punctual. Her co-workers or stray parents or the principal keep her after and Cam does notebooking, does homework, looks at the contents of shelves. It's a fine arrangement.

Today the contents of shelves don't seem so pleased with the setup, and one attacks him when he stumbles into a stack. Specifically, it tumbles onto his head. That's gonna hurt for a while. He picks it up to tuck it away again.

It says, So You Want To Be A Wizard.

Heh. Mis-shelved. This is a nonfiction row. Or maybe it's about stage magic or something? Cam's not going to find any use in that either, he can just about eat dinner without impaling himself on a fork and certainly shouldn't be handling delicate props, but it could be diverting while he waits for Renée and he wasn't finding anything else. He flips it open.

It's more interesting still than that; it's presenting itself like an actual guide to wizardry. This'll kill a whole afternoon with pleasant escapism. Cam checks it out, then turns around and spots Renée coming down the sidewalk. He bags the book and goes out to meet her.

At home, he takes it out of his backpack. The plastic film on it - it did have some, right? Just like every other library book? - is gone. Maybe it didn't have any. He didn't write it down; he's not sure. It doesn't look like a library book now. But it still says So You Want To Be A Wizard and he still wants to pretend to be a wizard for a bit, kill some time, put off U.S. History homework. He flips it open. He reads.

pythbox
2013-03-23 09:52 pm (UTC)

There is a brief foreword, introducing the book as a 'manual' with which the discerning reader (who wouldn't have found it in the first place without a certain natural aptitude) can, if they choose, learn the Art of wizardry. Capital A.

The first chapter, 'Preliminary Determinations', discusses signs that one may be suited to the Art. Language features heavily: natural wizards are frequently drawn to words and books and languages, reading, writing, speaking. Curiosity is another. An inquisitive, exploratory nature, the kind of mind that wants to understand the world around it.

'Words,' apparently, 'are the wizard's most basic tools. With them a wizard can stop a tidal wave, talk a tree out of growing, or into it—freeze fire, burn rain—even slow down the death of the universe. That last, of course, is the reason there are wizards. See the next chapter.'

lifes_sake
2013-03-23 09:56 pm (UTC)

Pfft. Cute, little pretend manual. Barnum Effect your way into suspension of disbelief. Only a tiny fraction of people who pick up a book like this wouldn't like to be described as linguistically talented and curious. Whether they are or not. (Cam is, though.)

Slow down the death of the universe? Okay, that sounds potentially compelling. Cam's more concerned about people, but if he can't work out immortality that doesn't imply despair; new people can come into existence and need a place to live. Go on, little pretend manual.

pythbox
2013-03-23 10:28 pm (UTC)

It goes on in that vein for a while, providing tantalizing hints of the effects a wizard can accomplish paired with tempting descriptions of the qualities that imply talent.

The promised next chapter switches to a new topic: 'History, Philosophy, and the Wizards' Oath'.

The chapter opens with a creation myth, delivered in a straightforward, matter-of-fact style that casually drops phrases like 'when life brought itself about'. Apparently, around the time of this event, life also brought about some gods - 'Powers' - to help it invent practical things like light and gravity. None of these beings are named specifically in the myth save one, the 'Lone Power' or 'Lone One', whose contribution to the exercise was unique and unwelcome: death.

The business of wizards, it seems, is to mitigate the effects of that inclusion as much as possible. To slow down entropy by conserving, preserving, and serving all the forms of life.

The manual goes on to finally reveal the mechanism of wizardry: a language called 'the Speech', apparently magical, which can be used to communicate with any living or nonliving entity and can describe reality with such precision that the description changes the thing described.

It's rather baldly pessimistic in its outlook: death cannot be conquered, entropy cannot be reversed. But these things can be fought. That is a wizard's job.

'No one should take the Wizards' Oath who is not committed to making wizardry a lifelong pursuit,' it cautions, although it goes on to add that there is no penalty for abandoning it later and that, since 'magic cannot live in the unwilling heart', those who find the Art too heavy a burden will have no trouble setting it down.

A final warning: 'Should you decide to go ahead and take the Oath,' it says, 'an ordeal of sorts will follow, a test of aptitude. If you pass, wizardry will ensue...'

There is no mention of what happens if you fail. After the ellipsis, the page is blank, and centred alone and undecorated on the facing page is the text of the Wizards' Oath itself.

In Life's name, and for Life's sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, is threatened or threatens another. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so—till Universe's end.

Edited 2013-03-23 22:40 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-23 10:44 pm (UTC)

Hmm. Does Cam like this oath? He may like this oath, which is unusual for him and oaths. The bit about threats is both vague and restrictive - what, he can't talk a sandwich into existing so he doesn't have to go down the stairs? - but meh. The sandwich will totally come to exist in a threatened system. The universe, as the book keeps reminding him, is a threatened system. He could change anything he wanted if this were nonfiction. He wants life to go on. ("Well", which is undefined in the text but pretty well clear in Cam's head.)

"In Life's name, and for Life's sake," he murmurs, "I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, is threatened or threatens another. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so — till Universe's end."

It will be right to put death aside for life till the Universe ended. Yep. That's how he's going to read that line. Cam wishes to go on as long as the universe does and everybody else can come too as long as they're not in someone else's way.

pythbox
2013-03-23 10:51 pm (UTC)

The small noises of his environment fade slowly with each word of the Oath, until end drops into a complete absence of sound that persists for one more silent heartbeat.

Then it all comes back at once, like somebody took their finger off the mute button.

lifes_sake
2013-03-23 10:54 pm (UTC)

Okay. That's weird. But this isn't a particularly loud neighborhood. Even parties full of people have moments when everyone's between utterances at the same time. Maybe songbirds and air conditioners do the same thing.

Cam turns the page.

pythbox
2013-03-23 11:03 pm (UTC)

The next page is a listing of wizards in his geographical area. It's pretty short; apparently there aren't that many wizards in Phoenix.

Close to the beginning of the list, there is an entry for Campbell Mark Swan (novice, pre-rating), with an address and phone number.

lifes_sake
2013-03-23 11:06 pm (UTC)

That -

Okay Christ he can't explain that except hallucination or magic wow. He should have turned this page first. He should have read the entire thing cover to cover before saying anything aloud.

But he thought he was playing.

Ooookay.

Well, he can still read it cover to cover now, this time with considerably more fascination and attention.

pythbox
2013-03-23 11:20 pm (UTC)

Apart from Campbell, there is one 'Senior' wizard listed in the area and two more with no rank marked, but power ratings given on an unexplained scale. The Senior wizard comes with an address but no phone number, and their name is apparently Salix.

After the directory, the manual dives straight into the Speech: vocabulary, alphabet (all 418 common symbols), pronunciation (with a note that dialects vary widely between species and this version is human-specific), and grammar. This section only covers the basics, and very few words in the vocabulary list are explicitly defined; for anything that expresses a concept already found in English, even for some things that are only pretty close, the meaning is unobtrusively and naturally obvious.

lifes_sake
2013-03-23 11:23 pm (UTC)

This is cool. And apparently it's way easier than Spanish. Cam gets out a notebook and practices writing symbols and transliterating things, humming to himself. He's not going to go bother strange wizards with the letter X in their names until he's gotten as far as he can with the book and a reasonable dose of caution. Then they can present him with the wizard equivalent of the SAT, he guesses.

pythbox
2013-03-23 11:27 pm (UTC)

The Speech is magically understandable, but it's not magically writable; the symbols take an ordinary amount of practice and memorization. On the other hand, if he writes out a word correctly and looks back at it later, it's just as transparent to his mind as the version in the book.

lifes_sake
2013-03-23 11:32 pm (UTC)

He's going to start notebooking in this language once he has it down well enough to not be consulting the table of symbols every time he needs to put down the next letter. He likes it. He copies the entire table into his notebook so he can have the reference without explaining to the guys at school why he is reading a book about wizards. He gets enough crap for steering well clear of all forms of sporting activity.

pythbox
2013-03-23 11:40 pm (UTC)

After the initial vocabulary lessons, there are further sections dealing with the language - subheadings like 'Descriptive Naming' and 'Measurements'. Before it dives into these, the manual notes that specific technical vocabulary not covered in this introduction will be provided with the spells that require it, and 'this reference will adjust to usage'.

lifes_sake
2013-03-23 11:41 pm (UTC)

Ooh. This is not just a magic book, or a magic book. It's a magic book.

...This distinction makes sense in Cam's head.

Read read read read read read read (notetaking!)

Yeah, the library's never getting this back, he'll tell them tomorrow after school that he has tragically lost it and cough up however much.
Edited 2013-03-23 23:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-24 12:11 am (UTC)

Descriptive Naming, according to the manual, is a tricky subject. To really get at the essence of something, you can't just use names like 'this chair' or 'John Smith' such as you would use in ordinary conversation. This is especially true of people. You have to be able to describe a person uniquely, in terms of their own qualities and nature, in order to include them in a spell.

There is a worksheet provided for the naming of humans, in case he wants to try it on himself.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 12:14 am (UTC)

He does! He does want to try it on himself!

pythbox
2013-03-24 12:22 am (UTC)

The questions range from the obvious (date of birth, height and weight) to the bizarre (favourite colour, favourite weather conditions). The list is extensive, but the formulas are set out plainly; writing out a serviceable descriptive name for himself is tedious but not particularly difficult.

A cautionary note, set off from the rest of the page in a thinly outlined rectangle, warns that writing and pronouncing his name correctly is of the utmost importance. There is significant leeway for ambiguous or missing answers in the formulas themselves - it's possible to create a sufficiently accurate name on incomplete information - but a typo, mispronunciation, or wrong answer can lead to unforeseen and usually unwanted changes when the incorrect name is used in spellwork.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 12:24 am (UTC)

Ooh. Noted. He's very diligent. (His favorite color is silver and he likes clear, cloudless weather, the sort that would be the most fun to fly in if he could fly.) (He wonders if he can talk himself some flying when he's learned more.)

pythbox
2013-03-24 12:36 am (UTC)

As it happens, there is a section on Practical Spelling a little later on. But before that comes Preliminary Exercises.

The first of these reads:
To change something, you must first describe it. To describe something, you must first see it. Hold still in one place for as long as it takes to see something.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 12:40 am (UTC)

...Okay?

Cam rearranges himself for comfortable holding-still instead of comfortable reading-and-notetaking. He sits, he waits.

pythbox
2013-03-24 12:43 am (UTC)

Nothing particularly interesting happens, for a few minutes.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 12:48 am (UTC)

Sit sit sit sit someone is talking -

No. Somethings.

...They have his voice. That's weird.

They're his notebooks.

The one closest by is easiest to hear.

"He's going to have tremendous fun with magic."

"He doesn't believe in magic."

"But oh how he wants it."

"Yes, so much, so much -"

"But it's real. He's found some."

"That's lovely."

"He'll study so hard. He can if he cares."

"He doesn't care about school. School is dull."

"He cares about his future, though, that he does, school matters some there."

Cam is a little weirded out. But they're his, aren't they?

"Notebooks?" he asks tentatively.

pythbox
2013-03-24 12:53 am (UTC)

There is a chorus of "Cam!" "Hi, Cam!" "Hi!"

The voices aren't really voices; they aren't made of sound, that's just his brain's interpretation of information he is getting from somewhere other than his ears. There is a papery sort of texture to them, and they glide like the stroke of a pen.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 12:59 am (UTC)

"Hi!" laughs Cam. "Wow you talk, that's amazing."

"We always have!"

"Now you can hear us."

"We wanted to help you!"

"You've been getting on all right but we can help."

"We're yours. Please don't worry about having told us secrets."

Cam is smiling a fascinated, pleased smile. "Not worried," he says. "Are you all - your own minds?"

"A little!"

"You change over time."

"But we're all yours."

"Cam, volumes one through forty-nine."

"You can do magic now! You could hook us up."

"We won't mind. We'd be one book if they made notebooks that size that you could carry."

"Ask the manual!"

Ask the manual. Huh. It would be a little silly if Cam's own notebooks and literally no other books could talk, wouldn't it?

"Manual?" he inquires slowly.

pythbox
2013-03-24 01:05 am (UTC)

The not-voice of the manual is a little older, more androgynous - less Cam.

"Spells for enchanting books," it says. "Practical Spelling, subheading five. Page three hundred and twelve."

And it starts reading out the appropriate page.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 01:05 am (UTC)

Cam can read faster than it can talk; he says "thanks" and flips through its pages.

pythbox
2013-03-24 01:12 am (UTC)

There are several spells for enchanting books; the first one listed is for his exact purpose, combining multiple volumes into a single book with a manageable physical size that nevertheless contains all the preexisting information. There is a note that it's a variant on one of the spells used to enchant wizards' manuals themselves.

The required technical vocabulary is provided. There are no obscure special materials, like there are for some of the more difficult spells in later chapters. All Cam needs is a pile of books, enough paper to wrap them in, a writing utensil, and his voice.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 01:15 am (UTC)

Cool.

Can he combine the notebooks with the manual, make the manual look like a spiral notebook...?

pythbox
2013-03-24 01:15 am (UTC)

This particular spell advises beginners not to try combining pre-enchanted books.

(The manual, if asked, will tell him it can look like a spiral notebook if it wants to. There is a reason not just anybody picks these up.)
Edited 2013-03-24 01:40 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 02:45 am (UTC)

Cam does ask. He is pleased with the response! Now his manual looks like a spiral notebook.

He goes and gets some Christmas wrapping paper to wrap all his notebooks up, and then reads the details of the spell.

pythbox
2013-03-24 02:48 am (UTC)

It's a simple enough procedure: assemble, using the provided vocabulary and structure, a spell description that names each of the books and asserts that they will be collected into a single volume with the desired properties. Write the spell on the paper. Wrap the books in the paper. Speak the spell out loud.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 02:52 am (UTC)

Cam goes through a couple drafts - on looseleaf, since he needs to put his current notebook in the group - before he and his chorus of notebooks are satisfied with the designed end result. He copies it onto the silver-snowflake Christmas paper, stacks the notebooks, wraps the Christmas paper around and cuts it off the roll, and then, carefully and rhythmically, reads through his spell.

pythbox
2013-03-24 02:55 am (UTC)

The result isn't flashy: abruptly, the Christmas paper contains a significantly reduced amount of book. Or rather, the same amount of book, compressed into significntly less space.

"Ooh," says the newly unified voice of Notebook. "I feel all sleek and stuff."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 02:58 am (UTC)

"You are all sleek and stuff," Cam says, scooping it up. "I feel like I should name you or something. Do you have, I dunno, a gender?"

"No," says the notebook. "Or, rather, yes if it's convenient."

"Gracenote," suggests Cam idly. "Grace for short. I'll probably wind up she-ing you."

"That's fine by me," says Grace contently.

"Awesome." And he flips to the "end", where are all his magic notes quite intact, and resumes studying magic.

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:06 am (UTC)

The manual has plenty more to tell him. And since he can talk to it now, it obeys direct requests for more information by expanding the sections that interest him or advising him on which page to turn to for a particular subject. Naturally, these page numbers are not going to remain constant, but they stay put long enough to be useful.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 03:07 am (UTC)

"Will little post-it note flags stay put in you or should I just navigate by talking?" Cam asks the manual. "Also, should I name you too, or do you come with a name, or are you just named your title, or what?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:09 am (UTC)

"I don't have a name, or an opinion about having one," says the manual. "I'll keep post-its attached to the right pages, and I won't get rid of pages with post-its on them."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:11 am (UTC)

Cam gets himself some post-its. He doesn't feel nearly as urgent about naming the manual as he did about naming Gracenote.

He focuses on learning the language for now. Figuring out what to do with it will be more amenable to multitasking; he can do that while he half pays attention to English class.

He is irritated about having to leave off when Renée calls him down to dinner, and he takes Grace with him, though he doesn't try to write in it at the dinner table. He tells Renée that he found a really cool book at the library and that it is about wizards. She draws the obvious, incorrect conclusion. He lets her.

He brings the manual to school with him and manages not to break it out till lunchtime.

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:10 pm (UTC)

It's reorganized itself slightly; the primer on the Speech is noticeably thicker, and includes a lot more specialized vocabulary for dealing with minds. Maybe it's been talking to Grace about Cam's needs, or maybe it just observed what he tends to focus on.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 03:23 pm (UTC)

Speaking of minds, can Cam improve his own? Maybe tack on a clause at the end of his ridiculous long "name" about how also, has a perfect memory and thinks ten times faster than the next candidate down?

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:24 pm (UTC)

He is strongly advised not to try it.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 03:26 pm (UTC)

Awww, why not?

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:35 pm (UTC)

The only information the manual will give him about self-modification is that it's an advanced practice that can be dangerous to novices.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 03:38 pm (UTC)

Okay, that's one for later then. Cam makes a little mark in Grace next to that line. (He's sorted his wants into personal amusement, instrumental value, and repair work, and sooner, later, and research project.)

A lot of the personal amusement and some of the instrumental value involves attaching superpowers to himself, is that just generally going to fall into not-sooner?

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:42 pm (UTC)

Yes. There are no preset spells for acquiring superpowers, although there are spells that let him mimic them in various ways - walk on air by making it solid under his feet, repel injury by warding his person against physical harm, breathe underwater by creating a magical air filter. Most of them are not meant for long-term use, even the ones that are focused on him instead of his environment; the personal wards are the most durable out of all of them.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 03:47 pm (UTC)

Well, that's something, at least, he feels very positive about being warded against harm, he's always sort of wary around stairs and the fact that he seems to be in the process of winding up almost as tall as Charlie and no longer fully knows where his limbs end doesn't help.

At least Speech seems amenable to creating magical tools. There's Grace, who's awesome - and, it occurs to him, manages to sound like a girl because she's speaking with the voice he had before it dropped; they don't actually match anymore but she still feels himself-y when she talks; he might have to rename her if hers decides to crack and fall too. Maybe he could offload his processing wants onto a computer, if he had his own computer. (He should have his own computer. Maybe if he asks for nothing else on his birthday. Or can he just talk a computer into existing from scratch?)

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:50 pm (UTC)

Talking objects into existing is also not something wizardry is equipped to handle. It's possible to talk a computer into being a much better computer, but he'll have to understand computers pretty well before it will have much chance of working out to his satisfaction.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 03:54 pm (UTC)

Well, hm. Will things other than books talk to him? Maybe he can buy an ambitious broken computer for cheap from somebody, have it tell him what it wants to be when it grows up, and Speechify it so.

pythbox
2013-03-24 03:55 pm (UTC)

He is theoretically capable of having a conversation with just about any object or creature he chooses, if he addresses it in the Speech.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 03:57 pm (UTC)

...Okay, wait just one second, does talking to things make them smarter, or does he need to start figuring out how to live on fruit and ethically farmed eggs and dairy?

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:06 pm (UTC)

Talking to things does make them smarter - as does doing magic near or on them, with a cumulative effect over time - and even so, simpler life forms (or nonlife forms) will tend to produce simpler conversations no matter how eloquently they are addressed.

The manual chooses this moment to let him know that the Senior wizard in his area is a housecat.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 04:12 pm (UTC)

...Okay. He's not going to be racist about the housecat thing. He can deal.

At some point he's going to see what the most intelligent conversation he can get out of a tater tot and one of those goats Renée's friend Lori keeps may be, not eat those individuals whatever his results, and feel comfortable eating as normal unless they're smarter than he expects.

He wants to know more about how this works, though. (Will he get smarter if magic happens around him enough?)

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:25 pm (UTC)

The manual rearranges itself to create an entire chapter on the side effects of magical practice.

In essence: yes. But perhaps not the way he thinks. Working with the Speech will make him better at understanding things - anything and everything, from his own thoughts to quantum mechanics to the conversations between the stars. It won't speed up his brain any, but it'll give him a little more room to store things, because the vocabulary of the Speech takes up a lot of space and brings its own extensions.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 04:35 pm (UTC)

Okay, cool perk.

Whoops, that's it for lunchtime. He hasn't really eaten enough, and this is only partly because he's conflicted about being able to talk to it. He packs up the manual, chugs his juice for the calories-from-sugar to get him through to the end of the day, and goes to class, studying vocabulary words between interesting portions of lectures. This looks like notetaking to everyone else, so he gets away with it.

He goes to the library after school as usual. "Hi," he says to the librarian. "I took out a book yesterday - and, uh, yeah, it's not coming back, what's the replacement fee?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:38 pm (UTC)

"What book?" says the librarian.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 04:39 pm (UTC)

"It was called So You Want To Be A Wizard, I don't have the receipt on me, but." He hands over his library card.

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says the librarian. "No, it doesn't look like you have any outstanding books. Are you sure you didn't just forget you returned it?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 04:42 pm (UTC)

"...If you don't have it in your system, that sure does sound like an explanation, doesn't it!" observes Cam. "Okay. So I don't owe you twenty dollars or anything?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:42 pm (UTC)

The librarian laughs. "Nope."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Great. I love not owing you twenty dollars."

Off he goes to a quiet library corner.

"You might've warned me," he says reproachfully to his manual.

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:45 pm (UTC)

"You didn't ask," says the manual.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 04:47 pm (UTC)

"I really should've thought of it, I guess. Hey, is there a way to talk to you and Grace not-out-loud?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 04:50 pm (UTC)

"You can write in me!" says Grace.

"Nonvocal speech is often difficult for humans," says the manual, "but there are a few ways around that."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 04:53 pm (UTC)

"I know I can write in you," laughs Cam. "That won't always work, though, if I have my hands busy." He flips the manual open and hunts up ways around that.

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:10 pm (UTC)

It's possible to speak silently in many different ways; the easiest for humans is to pronounce the words of the Speech in one's mind. If the intent is to be heard and understood, the result often conforms.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:13 pm (UTC)

Yeah, everything comes down to learning this language, doesn't it.

Cam studies.

Renée picks him up, and he does a little actual homework because he does sort of care about school results, and he studies more Speech.

(He picks at his dinner.)

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:23 pm (UTC)

The Speech continues to be easy to learn.

He could probably manage a rudimentary conversation with a food item now.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:25 pm (UTC)

Yeah, he's not gonna do that in front of Renée, but he takes one of the muffins that's for dessert up to his room without first biting into it.

"...Hi, muffin," he says. To the muffin.

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Hi," the muffin echoes.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:27 pm (UTC)

"...How's being a muffin treating you?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:28 pm (UTC)

This is apparently too complex a question for the muffin; it utters the muffinly equivalent of "Ehhh...?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Do you have... thoughts?" Cam tries, encouraged.

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm a muffin," says the muffin.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Yes, you are a muffin. Okay. Do you care if you get eaten? Would that hurt you or bother you at all?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:33 pm (UTC)

There is a short pause, then the muffin repeats, "I'm a muffin," in the exact same friendly but not particularly comprehending tone.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:34 pm (UTC)

Okay. This is not an intelligent muffin, apparently, it's just a muffin that has a voice interface. Maybe he'll eat it after all.

"I'm gonna bite you," he tells it, in case this prompts some sort of more sophisticated or emotional response.

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:35 pm (UTC)

This prompts no response whatsoever.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:36 pm (UTC)

He nibbles delicately on the edge of the muffin top, and listens.

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:37 pm (UTC)

Nope.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:37 pm (UTC)

Bite. (It really is very good.)

pythbox
2013-03-24 05:38 pm (UTC)

The muffin continues to express no opinions about its impending digestion.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 05:39 pm (UTC)

Okay then. Om nom nom. He's still going to have to talk to a goat; he'll tell Renée that he's experimenting with vegetarianism. She'll probably even experiment with vegetarianism too if he does. He's fourteen and no one will give him a hard time if it turns out not to last long should it be the case that the goats can do nothing beyond identify themselves as goats.

He very deliberately eats through their supply of goat cheese over the course of the next experimenting-with-vegetarianism day, then suggests a visit to Lori. Renée calls Lori, Lori's free, off they go.

Cam wanders into the backyard where the goats hang out during the day. There are three of them, and they have names - Millie and Betsy and Vivian - but he's not sure if they know that they have names, so he walks up to Vivian and says, "Hi, goat."
Edited 2013-03-24 17:45 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says the goat. "Do you have food? I want food."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Not on me, sorry. How smart are you?" he asks. Because the answer is "smarter than a muffin" but there are probably *literally* rocks smarter than that muffin.

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure?" says the goat. "Are you really sure?" She attempts to investigate his claims of foodlessness.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm really sure," snorts Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:17 pm (UTC)

"But I want food," says the goat. "I can eat this!" And she grabs for his sleeve.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Is Lori not feeding you enough?" asks Cam, moving his arm out of the way and stepping back.

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I get lots of food," says the goat. "I want to eat that!"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 06:28 pm (UTC)

"You can't have it, it's my sleeve," Cam says. "It doesn't belong to you. How would you like it if somebody ate you?"

Because that is the question, isn't it?

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't want things to eat me," says the goat. "I want to eat things!"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 06:33 pm (UTC)

Okay, this goat is not smart. But it's capable of not wanting to be eaten.

"How about your milk, do you care if people take that away?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:37 pm (UTC)

"I like it when that happens!" says the goat. "I also like food."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 06:40 pm (UTC)

Okay. Goat, at least well-treated mostly-a-pet goat, does not object to being milked, may or may not suffer existential dread but doesn't want to be eaten, and is well and thoroughly obsessed with food.

He goes into the house and gets a treat for Vivian, and ones for the others too so he doesn't get mobbed on his way back out of the yard.

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:46 pm (UTC)

The goats are very enthusiastic about their treats, but none of them exhibit what you'd call sophisticated cognition.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 06:49 pm (UTC)

Babies don't exhibit sophisticated cognition either, yet Cam would not eat one!

He goes right on "experimenting with vegetarianism".

Later, he addresses the tree in his backyard, on the theory that it will be evidence about other plants the way goats were evidence about other animals. "Hi, tree."

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Hi, human," says the tree.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 06:54 pm (UTC)

"How smart are plants?" he asks. "I'm concerned about my dietary habits."

(Nothing he's talked to so far has reacted badly to being talked to like it was smarter than it was, so he may as well start there.)
Edited 2013-03-24 18:56 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-24 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Depends on the plant," sniffs the tree.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so you're either smarter than a goat or my meter's off, and I've already decided the conversation I had with a goat sufficed to make me a vegetarian, can you give me a scale here? Dandelion goat oak tree...?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I," says the tree with immense dignity, "have never spoken to a dandelion in my life."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:07 pm (UTC)

"What can you tell me, then? I've tenatively okayed dairy products, but I'm not actually sure if I can live on those. Are fruits and nuts okay or would that make me infanticidal, is wheat capable of wishing to live...?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Fruits and nuts are made for creatures like you to scurry around and eat," the tree says patronizingly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," he says, ignoring its tone. Maybe trees vary in personality and he can find a more helpful one. "And you've never spoken to a stalk of wheat in your life, I'm guessing?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Of course not," says the tree.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Because they're not the sort of company you want to keep, or just because they don't grow in this yard?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:17 pm (UTC)

"All of the above," says the tree.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:18 pm (UTC)

"And you don't care to keep company with wheat and dandelions because?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I don't see what business that is of yours," the tree says haughtily.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:20 pm (UTC)

"All right then."

There is only one tree in this yard - this is Arizona - but there are some trees down the street, and he can sit in one and "talk to himself" without that being a disaster.

"Hi," he says to the next tree.

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says the tree. This one sounds younger, somehow, and much more friendly. "How're you? You talk, that's exciting."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I do talk! It is fantastically exciting. I'm doing all right except for an ethical crisis! You see, I only recently realized that things other than humans talk, and now I have to figure out how smart they are and what it's okay for me to eat."

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says the tree. "Well, I'm not sure I'll be much help. I don't think you could eat me even if you wanted to. Maybe the leaves," it says, rustling them dubiously. "But I need to keep most of those or I can't eat."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Not you personally. I just don't know where to find a lettuce farm or a field of rye to talk to. I'm hoping to get some information about plants in general. The last tree says fruit and nuts are for eating, but I don't know about other stuff."

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," says the tree, "there just aren't that many other plants around here."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Can you tell me if I should be dreadfully appalled by things that are made of wood?"

At least Grace will not need any new pages.

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:50 pm (UTC)

The tree rustles anxiously. "I don't like to think about it."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Boy, I have more work to do than I originally suspected, I guess."

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:52 pm (UTC)

"What kind of work?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, I can eat a bizarre diet and not buy wooden things of my own volition, but that doesn't stop anybody else. So I have to learn a lot of magic and find reasonable alternatives to that sort of thing that doesn't kill anything smart. And here I was thinking that I'd just, you know, cure iodine deficiency in sub-Saharan Africa and call that a good day's work."

pythbox
2013-03-24 07:55 pm (UTC)

"That does sound like a lot," says the tree. "Good luck!"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! Have you got a name? You are friendlier than the tree in my yard."

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Sure! It's—"

The name doesn't translate the way words do; it's a particular pattern of light falling through branches.

"What's yours?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:02 pm (UTC)

"...Cam," says Cam. "I don't think I can pronounce yours."

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I can pronounce yours either," laughs the tree. "How about I call you Leafless?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I am arguably leafless!" Cam agrees. "You can be Leafy. I had better not make friends with too many trees, huh?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:06 pm (UTC)

Leafy giggles.
Edited 2013-03-24 20:06 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:09 pm (UTC)

"What kind of range does talking like you talk have? There's some grass over there, the Harrises have a lawn, can you hear it or should I go talk to it and see if I can extrapolate to cereal grains?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I've never tried talking to grass," says Leafy. "And I don't think grass has tried talking to me either. So I don't know if I can hear it or not."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Is it nice, being a tree? I'd probably be bored, but perhaps you are not."

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:15 pm (UTC)

"It's kind of lonely," Leafy rustles. "But maybe that's just because there aren't many other trees around."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it's pretty dry in Phoenix," says Cam. "Maybe I'll come study out here in good weather, would that be nice?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:21 pm (UTC)

"That would be very nice!"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:22 pm (UTC)

"All right. Anything else you can think of to tell me that might help me revise my habits in light of more things than previously understood being able to talk?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," says Leafy. "I'm just a plain old Blue Palo Verde, I'm not especially wise or anything."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:30 pm (UTC)

"...Hm," says Cam, when it occurs to him to wonder who would have been likely to render the name of this tree's species aloud in its hearing. He pulls out Grace, scribbles in her for a bit, and, while he's looking at his notes, hears her say -

"Your brain's just rendering what Leafy said as words in English, and that's the word in English for this kinda tree," Grace says.

"Yeah," agrees Cam after a moment. "...Ah, Leafy, this is Grace, she's a notebook, I hope that's not awkward."
Edited 2013-03-24 20:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I suppose she can't help how she was made," says Leafy. "Hi, Grace."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Grace.

Yeah, Cam needs to obtain a computer if he can no longer in good conscience support the book industry. Sigh. Maybe he can buy used books? The secondary sale market can't drive up demand too much, can it?

"I'm gonna go investigate the grass," says Cam. "Later, Leafy."

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Bye, Leafless! Bye, Grace!"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:41 pm (UTC)

Cam goes up to the grass. He pretends to need to tighten the laces on his sneakers so he isn't just randomly sitting on the sidewalk.

"Hi, grass."

He'll get used to addressing random inanimate objects any day now.

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!"

...and so on.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:44 pm (UTC)

"...Hi, this specific tuft of grass!" he says, pointing at one and then going back to tying his shoes. "How smart are you?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!"

Apparently grass is not very good at telling whether or not it is being pointed at. The number of plants answering him is at least smaller.
Edited 2013-03-24 20:45 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Do you have any feelings either way about being mowed or eaten or whatever?"

Suspects "no".

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:49 pm (UTC)

A short silence.

Then three tufts say "Hi!" and two say "We're grass!", not quite in unison.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:51 pm (UTC)

Yeah, grass is apparently more like muffin than like tree. "Thanks," Cam says anyway, and he finishes fiddling with his shoelaces and goes to sit under Leafy and write in Grace about what he thinks he can and can't probably eat pending further chats with plants and animals.

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Hi again!" says Leafy. "That was fast. What's grass like?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:53 pm (UTC)

"It's about as smart as a muffin. I don't think I have to worry about grass, which is good, because wheat's a grass and avoiding wheat would be hard, especially for a vegetarian."

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:55 pm (UTC)

"That's good," says Leafy. "What's a vegetarian?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Somebody who doesn't eat animals. The goat I talked to was capable of expressing a preference on the subject. I'm going to extend the courtesy to all animals until I actually get a chance to talk to somebody's goldfish or something and see what the spectrum is."

pythbox
2013-03-24 08:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't eat animals!" says Leafy. "Am I a vegetarian?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:01 pm (UTC)

"You're way better, you have so much moral high ground, you're an autotroph," says Cam. "Which I guess is a kind of vegetarian, technically. I wonder if I can just be an autotroph." Does the manual know? It was iffy on permanent superpowers, but maybe he can just declare himself not in need of nourishment and his body will believe him well enough to be getting on with, three times a day unless he wants a glass of milk or an apple.

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't want high ground," says Leafy, "water drains away from it!"

...It's possible that at this point Leafy is teasing a little.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:04 pm (UTC)

"But it's closer to the sun," says Cam innocently. "Hey, manual, can I just not eat, one way or another, and be okay?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:05 pm (UTC)

"No," says the manual. "You can convince your body to put off its needs, but not indefinitely."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Can I cover for an unbalanced diet?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but not indefinitely."

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Ooookay."

He'll look up some information on nutrition.

"Let's see the spells for that so I can mark 'em."

For while he does that and sets up interviews with various members of the plant and animal kingdoms.

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:21 pm (UTC)

The underlying principle seems to be that you can convince your body its needs have been met, but if you keep on doing that, it will catch on and stop believing you. The more of its needs you are actually meeting, the easier it is to fool it about the gap.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:22 pm (UTC)

Fair enough. Maybe he can find suitably ethical multivitamins.

Bleah, this isn't going to be fun.

Can he talk tofu into actually tasting like chicken, maybe?

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:33 pm (UTC)

Yes he can!

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:35 pm (UTC)

Oh cool! Well then, that makes this much simpler. He puts a new color of post-it on the spells that he will be using for compensating for his newly expanded ethical sphere.

On his way home, he spots a woodpecker. "Hey woodpecker," he says, not getting too close.

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says the woodpecker.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:40 pm (UTC)

"How smart are you?"

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:41 pm (UTC)

"What kind of a question is that?" says the woodpecker aggrievedly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I'm having an ethical crisis sorta thing. I'm asking everything. So far, trees, smart, grass, stupid, muffins, stupid, goats, not too bright."

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:43 pm (UTC)

"What's a muffin?"
Edited 2013-03-24 21:43 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:44 pm (UTC)

"A human food item. I don't think you'd like it."

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Whatever, then," says the woodpecker, and takes off.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 09:53 pm (UTC)

Okay. Woodpecker: possibly brighter than a goat. Or at least less obsessive. This calls for no revision to his current meal plan.

Renée is still on board with experimental vegetarianism, and dinner is a tofu thing. He takes one bite of it, and then Renée has to go to the bathroom, and he mutters at it the spell the manual provided for this purpose, that he'd like it to taste like chicken.

pythbox
2013-03-24 09:57 pm (UTC)

Using the Speech in conversation is not materially different from using English except in terms of who understands you; using the Speech in the casting of a spell carries with it a subtle sensation of being listened to, as though the Universe is paying special attention.

It also takes energy. Not a lot of energy, for such a small spell, but a noticeable amount - like climbing half a flight of stairs.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 10:00 pm (UTC)

Hmm.

He would like to read more about the energy requirements of spells. He anticipates doing a lot of them, after all. Will this harm him? Will it be unpleasant? He would like to be on the correct page of the manual before Renée gets back from the bathroom, please.

pythbox
2013-03-24 10:02 pm (UTC)

In short: Doing spells is tiring. Doing bigger spells is more tiring. But it isn't any likelier to harm him than any other form of exertion. Less, actually, since the amount of moving around involved is negligible.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 10:03 pm (UTC)

Does it get easier with practice?

pythbox
2013-03-24 10:05 pm (UTC)

Somewhat, yes.

But, separately, his actual power output will decline with age. The most powerful wizards are children. Older practitioners have to make do with using less power more efficiently.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 10:07 pm (UTC)

Oh, for goodness sake. Why?

"You're very absorbed in whatever you're reading," observes Renée.

The manual currently looks like a spiral notebook. "Yep," Cam says without elaboration.

pythbox
2013-03-24 10:25 pm (UTC)

A child's mind has more potential, more imagination, more flexibility. The latter two are the qualities that, lingering in adult wizards, tend to lead to them settling at higher power levels.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 10:26 pm (UTC)

Tips and tricks? Also, is this sort of thing shareable? Can he go to work with Renée and harvest energy from the kindergarteners in some potentially sketchy but not necessarily unethical way?

pythbox
2013-03-24 10:27 pm (UTC)

No. A wizard's power level is a property of the wizard.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 10:29 pm (UTC)

Dangit. Okay. He'll have to be creative. If he happens to meet any particularly clever and cooperative kindergarteners can he make them their own manuals, or share his, or otherwise wizardify them, or do the manuals just capriciously drop themselves into people's laps and refuse to be community property?

pythbox
2013-03-24 10:37 pm (UTC)

Those who are meant to be wizards will find their own manuals. Those who aren't, will not. Attempts to force the issue rarely go well.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 10:38 pm (UTC)

Grr.

Maybe when Cam is very very good at wizarding he can address this problem. It is a dumb way to run a magic system. In the meantime, he's going to get as good at wizardry as fast as he can, because apparently time is of the essence.

And he's going to cultivate his imagination-flexibility-etcetera. (He writes this down in Grace and she hums agreement.)

pythbox
2013-03-24 10:52 pm (UTC)

Although it's not especially relevant, the manual also mentions at this point that wizards are strongly advised against directly lying. Since their main power is changing reality with their words, it follows that they should be very careful how they describe things they don't mean to change.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 10:53 pm (UTC)

...Noted. Cam doesn't usually outright lie, but he does lie by omission and by drawing misleading partial sketches of reality. So this is suitable for him anyway.

What happens if he lies to describe the world as being nicer than it is? He supposes he might magically exhaust himself rendering the earth a utopia. Would that happen?
Edited 2013-03-24 22:55 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-24 10:59 pm (UTC)

Any deliberate misdescription of the world that is not part of an intentional, carefully constructed spell is a bad idea.

lifes_sake
2013-03-24 10:59 pm (UTC)

...Why, though?

pythbox
2013-03-25 02:00 am (UTC)

Because unless it is part of a carefully constructed spell, it might have unintended effects.

And because the Lone Power also invented lies.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 02:02 am (UTC)

Wait, what? Someone had to invent lies? Lies come pretty straightforwardly with, like, being able to conceive of other creatures having minds. You want this other mind to represent a state of the universe that isn't true, you can manipulate that representation thusly, bam. Lies. Presumably someone had to do it first, but it's the sort of thing that would be easily reinvented.

Cam side-eyes his manual.

Ironically, he thinks it may be lying.

pythbox
2013-03-25 02:04 am (UTC)

The manual makes no claim that the Lone One is the only being to invent them, but apparently It was the first, and still has some connection to lies and to those who use them.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 02:07 am (UTC)

A connection which amounts to what, precisely?

pythbox
2013-03-25 02:09 am (UTC)

They attract Its attention and increase Its power.

Neither of these is something a wizard wants to be doing.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 02:15 am (UTC)

Its power consists of what? What does it do, how does it do it, what things does it tend to occupy its time with, this really does seem like an entity Cam needs to read up more on -

Although he's not totally sure he trusts the manual on this subject.

Especially since it's only direct lies it claims ought to be eschewed.

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:03 am (UTC)

Well, if he asks, the manual does have more information about the Lone Power.

Apparently the polite thing to say upon meeting It is "Fairest and fallen, greetings and defiance."

It spends Its time increasing entropy, disorder, death, and suffering in the worlds. It is one of the Powers who aided in their creation, so while Its abilities are far beyond those of any wizard, they are of the same general kind.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 03:05 am (UTC)

So... it's a nasty sorta wizard with large (infinite?) energy reserves that's fluent in the Speech?

Also, why is there a polite thing to say to the inventor of death? Is it actually less likely to kill you if you are polite to it?

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:06 am (UTC)

The manual has no answers to these qestions!

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 03:07 am (UTC)

It may be that Cam should go visit that housecat sooner than planned.

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:08 am (UTC)

The housecat's entry in the listing of nearby wizards is still there, looking just the same.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 03:11 am (UTC)

Cam is not really sure how one goes about visiting a housecat, and at fourteen he doesn't have quite that much freedom of movement around Phoenix. But he copies the address into Grace for later rumination.

And he goes on learning the language.

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:14 am (UTC)

Fully half of the manual is now devoted to the Speech; all the non-marked introductory material has been squeezed out until there is barely anything left except the Oath on the very first page and the wizard directory after it, and the subsequent chapters on magic are fairly terse unless Cam asks about something. The manual is definitely taking the hint about his area of focus.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 03:15 am (UTC)

Can he get stuff that has squeezed out back later?

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:16 am (UTC)

Of course! He only has to ask.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 03:19 am (UTC)

All right then, this will not alarm him. He makes sure he has a nice meta-index going in Grace, who just contains an unlimited number of pages because she's awesome.

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:23 am (UTC)

How resourceful of him!

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 05:07 am (UTC)

Cam does that!

This not-sure-if-he-should-trust-the-manual thing is annoying, though. Up in his room, with Renée elsewhere occupied until they're scheduled to go to a movie in an hour, he asks:

"Where does your information come from? It's in English, much of it anyway, and assembled into sentences; that doesn't just happen. Do you write it yourself or are you pulling it from a central source? How do you know it?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 12:42 pm (UTC)

The contents of wizards' manuals are written partly by other wizards, partly by automatic processes...

...and partly by one of the Powers. In fact, some species rely entirely on the Whisperer to provide their spell frameworks in personal communications, because for one reason or another they are not physiologically suited to literacy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 03:37 pm (UTC)

Cam would like to know more about the Powers, please.

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:39 pm (UTC)

What more would Cam like to know about the Powers?

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 03:42 pm (UTC)

Who are they, what do they do, what are their personalities and eponymous powers like, which features of the universe are they credited with as a counterpart to death/entropy/etc.?

pythbox
2013-03-25 03:51 pm (UTC)

There are not any biographies available.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 03:53 pm (UTC)

That's not very friendly of them. Can he complain to the management?

pythbox
2013-03-25 04:13 pm (UTC)

No.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 04:15 pm (UTC)

Hmmmm.

That goes in the long-term project section in Grace's chart, then.

In the meantime, he has a language to learn. This book is not completely untrustworthy; it has successfully taught him to talk to inanimate objects and trees and turn tofu into something edible-tasting.

But he copies anything really important into Grace.

pythbox
2013-03-25 04:18 pm (UTC)

The manual doesn't seem to be offended about this, or even to particularly notice.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 04:18 pm (UTC)

"...How smart are you?" Cam asks the manual.

pythbox
2013-03-25 04:26 pm (UTC)

It expands the section on how manuals work.

Somewhere, perhaps not a physical somewhere but somewhere all the same, there is a full manual with all the information any wizard could ever conceivably need. Individual wizards' manuals are able to hold small subsets of that store at a time. The primary function of the manual, therefore, is to select the right information at the right time based on its wizard's interests, needs, and level of prior knowledge. That is what manuals are good at. Since Cam talks to his, it can also summarize small pieces of its knowledge verbally, or read itself to him.

And that's it.

His manual is not really conscious or alive in any meaningful sense.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 04:28 pm (UTC)

Okay. That's worth knowing.

"Are you conscious?" he asks Grace.

"I think so," she says. "I might be less conscious than you, but I think I'm some conscious. I have a lot of you in me and you're conscious."

"Okay," says Cam. He pats her.

She giggles. "That doesn't mean I have a nervous system."

"Indulge me," snorts Cam.

"Okay," she says cheerfully.

greetings and defiance

lifes_sake

Cam studies. He studies madly. The next week elapses with him having very little sense of individual days. He doesn't want anyone to know anything special is up, so he goes to a movie with Renée and to a friend's house after school to play Nintendo games and Charlie gets his weekly phone call and he shows up to his classes and gets his homework adequately done. But other than that he studies. He wants to be fluent in this thing inside three months if possible. It's easier than Spanish, he's motivated, he can use it in everyday conversations as he asks passing animals and convenient plants how smart they are (dogs: smarter than goats; squirrels: about goat level; his friend's hamster: dumb as a rock; shrubs: way dumber than trees; indoor potted rosemary: just a step above grass) and chats with Grace, he's basically dropping himself in an immersion course with some inconvenient English here and there so he can interact with humans. He thinks three months is ambitious but reasonable.

He's not actually doing that many spells. He does wheedle tofu into tastiness on a nightly basis, and when he feels a cold coming on he looks up a spell about that, but he wants to know what he's doing before he gets going on what he most wants to be doing, because he wants to be doing big things. He swore to oppose death. He meant that.

Today he is preparing to oppose death in his backyard. It's threatening rain and he doesn't want to be all the way down the street with Leafy if the clouds open up. The jerk tree doesn't talk to him if he doesn't talk to it and it's perfectly serviceable as something to sit under, anyway.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:13 pm (UTC)

When he sits down, an irritable not-voice that isn't the same as the tree says, "Hey! Watch where you're parking that!"

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Sorry - what - who said that?" Cam asks, getting up again and stumbling a step when he's on his feet again.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Down here," snorts the voice. "You animate people, always putting yourselves inconvenient places."

Under the tree is some grass, some dirt, and a rock. It's not an especially interesting-looking rock, although there might be traces of long-faded paint on its surface.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:18 pm (UTC)

Cam sits not-on-the-rock. "You are... more talkative than typical rocks," he observes. "Have you got a fossil in you or something? Did somebody use to talk to you a lot?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I used to be somebody's pet rock," says the rock. "Not that it's any of your business."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay, okay," says Cam. If the rock doesn't want to be friendly it can join the tree in not talking to Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:34 pm (UTC)

The rock says nothing more for a few seconds.

Then it sys, less belligerently, "What're you up to, anyway?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Studying," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Studying what?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:37 pm (UTC)

"The Speech. Lot of symbols to learn."

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Figures," says the rock. It gives the impression that if it had a point of articulation with which to do so, it would be nodding.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:38 pm (UTC)

Cam supposes it does figure, since he's talking to a rock. He goes on scribbling practice (true) sentences in Grace.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:39 pm (UTC)

"So you're a wizard?" says the rock.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:40 pm (UTC)

Cam's not clear on whether sarcasm counts as lying. "Yep," he says, instead of no, I just hold conversations with rocks by unrelated mechanisms.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I was a wizard's pet rock," sighs the rock. "Sorry, pal."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Sorry?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Never mind," it says hastily. "Forget I said anything."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:46 pm (UTC)

"How'd you get in my yard, anyway?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you know how it is," says the rock. "Kicked down the street, thrown over fences..."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't in fact know much about what it's like to be a rock."

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Ever kicked one down the street?" it inquires.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Not that I remember off the top of my head. Maybe."

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Meh," says the rock, "it probably wasn't me, anyway."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Probably not," Cam agrees.

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:56 pm (UTC)

"And there's not a lot of wizards' pet rocks kicking around," it says dryly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I'd imagine not. Where's your wizard? Do you want me to drop you in the mail or something?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Where he's gone, buddy, you're not gonna have much luck mailing me."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Did he die or something, or do you just mean he went to Antarctica and didn't bring you?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:01 pm (UTC)

The rock's not-voice lets out a not-sigh.

"He died."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:02 pm (UTC)

"That's a pity," says Cam.

He doesn't expect wizards in general to be immortal. Most people don't share his opinion on the subject, and even a wizard who agreed with him might find it a difficult project, especially with the power cut with age.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says the rock.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:07 pm (UTC)

Cam does not have a clear assessment of the personality of this rock. He's not really sure if he wants to talk to it, which pretty much adds up to only responding if it says something that prompts a response.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:12 pm (UTC)

The rock leaves him alone, for a little while.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:14 pm (UTC)

Cam goes on studying, peering up at the sky periodically. At one point he asks his manual if sarcasm counts as lying for wizard purposes. For that matter, song lyrics and relating acknowledged fictional stories, also important to know about, not that Cam's much of a singer or a storyteller.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:18 pm (UTC)

All those things are usually fine, as long as the intent is not to deceive.

"Hey," says the rock. "Hey, wizard. What's your name?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Cam," says Cam. "What's yours?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Iggy," says the rock.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:23 pm (UTC)

"That's cute."

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Adorable," it agrees.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:33 pm (UTC)

Study, study, study. "Hey, manual, is it generally a bad idea to control the weather? Can I control the weather?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:36 pm (UTC)

The manual informs him that controlling the weather is usually a bad idea because it inevitably has effects beyond the immediate desired changes, and those effects are very difficult to predict or control without extensive meteorological knowledge.
Edited 2013-03-25 22:40 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:42 pm (UTC)

Fair enough. It was worth asking.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:44 pm (UTC)

"What do you want to control the weather for?" asks Iggy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Weather can do a lot of damage," Cam says. "Hurricanes, droughts. If I could expect to reliably be everywhere it was doing damage I could get a lot done just by picking up rain in one place and putting it in another, but I can't, so given that I don't want weather systems to spiral out of control and be worse than they would've been, I guess I'll have to see about, I dunno, networking some wizards all over the world so we can keep patching the global weather system or something. Long term project." He writes this down.

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:48 pm (UTC)

"You sure do plan ahead," Iggy observes.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:49 pm (UTC)

"It's not so much a plan as it is an idea that I can't implement right now and don't want to forget about."

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:53 pm (UTC)

"If you say so," says Iggy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Mmhm." Write write write. "Meteorology" is now on his list of mundane things to study under "nutrition".

pythbox
2013-03-25 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Should I be leaving you alone?" it asks.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 10:57 pm (UTC)

"I don't really care either way. I'm in a hurry to learn this stuff, but only a medium-term hurry, not like I have to be done with any specific thing in the next five minutes. Any wizarding tips, since you belonged to a wizard?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Depends," says Iggy. "You had your Ordeal yet?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Nope. At least not so I'd notice. It's been a week, and I seem to be, you know, a wizard, maybe it was just very quiet."

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Trust me," says Iggy, "you'd notice."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:07 pm (UTC)

"In that case, nope, I am untested. How does that work, anyway, does the local senior wizard show up and manage to ring the doorbell despite being a cat and proctor an exam or what?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no," says Iggy. "No, no, no - look, kid, if you want my advice, it's: quit while you're ahead."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:09 pm (UTC)

"...Meaning?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Meaning, if you haven't had your Ordeal yet, you shouldn't be planning too far into the future," says Iggy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Is that a vague premonition of dire consequences for failure that explain why it is called an Ordeal with a Capital Letter, or does the ordeal just shake things up enough to throw off any plans I make in ignorance of it?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:19 pm (UTC)

"It killed my wizard," Iggy says plainly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, shit. How'd it do that?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Facing down the creator of Death will do that," says the rock. "Don't kid yourself, Cam. Adult wizards are leftovers. Young ones on Ordeal? Child soldiers, plain and simple. It's sick."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:29 pm (UTC)

"That does sound pretty screwed up," Cam agrees. "Who set up the system?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Who do you think?" says Iggy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, if I were a terrible enough sort of entity to be the inventor of Death, I wouldn't wait for wizards to actually utter an oath, I'd just kill them in their sleep. Actually, if I were that horrible, possibly not even their sleep. So I'm guessing it's mediated by somebody somewhat less horrible, albeit either still pretty horrible or not all that competent."

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:37 pm (UTC)

"No, see, that's the sick part," says Iggy. "I don't know which one of them's responsible, or how they do it, but after you take the oath you're guaranteed to run up against the Big Bad itself. And if you manage to get a hit in and live, good for you, but not everybody's that lucky."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but, like, why is the Big Bad cooperating here, why isn't it just raining... itself... down on everybody indiscriminately till everything's extinct? Is somebody or something summoning it in response to wizard oaths? Or just letting it through some otherwise reasonably consistent screen? Does it have a deal with some grand high muckety-muck? Does it have severely limited attention but it can flag wizards by when they do the oathing and pays personal attention because wizards have more leverage to do worthwhile things? In that case why isn't it also visiting Norman Borlaug and particularly effective peace activists and disaster relief and medical researchers, because they have leverage too. And why in the world would it give up if some kid wizard gets one hit in, I mean, if it's still around nobody's managed to cripple or destroy it yet, right?"

pythbox
2013-03-25 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Nobody's got infinite power and attention," says Iggy. "You ask me, it's the other Powers throwing you at the black sheep of the family, hoping you'll do some damage before it eats you. But what do I know? I'm just a rock."

lifes_sake
2013-03-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I definitely want a word with the management on a variety of counts, I'm just really unclear on the motives and the mechanisms here," mutters Cam. "But yeah, you're a rock. Maybe one of the wizards in the directory knows, maybe I should figure out how to visit a housecat."

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:00 am (UTC)

"Are you sure you want to talk to those guys?" says Iggy. "Me, I wouldn't trust 'em as far as I could throw 'em."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 12:02 am (UTC)

"I could probably throw a housecat reasonably far," Cam says. "It's always better to have more sources, anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:09 am (UTC)

"Not if they're the same people who're throwing you into a war without even telling you you're on the front lines."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 12:10 am (UTC)

"You think the housecat would do me actual harm above and beyond standard issue danger if I go have a talk? I'd be more circumspect about actual Powers. I don't have enough information to want their attention personally yet."
Edited 2013-03-26 00:13 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:15 am (UTC)

"I've never met this housecat, how should I know? But it tells you something about these people that they send kids to do their dirty work, doesn't it? Even the wizards are part of that system - you see any of 'em showing up to warn you? You're right there in the directory, they could do it anytime."
Edited 2013-03-26 00:21 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 12:24 am (UTC)

"If they're checking the directory," Cam points out. "If they can spare the time. If they think warning me would help. If they can visit a fourteen-year-old boy at home without my mom being weirded out and calling the cops - admittedly not a problem the cat one has. If they didn't already try and just happen to show up while I was in school or at the library or down the street with Leafy or out at the theater. There's not that many wizards in the directory, I wouldn't be surprised if nobody has all the right features and luck."

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:25 am (UTC)

"Kid," says Iggy, "they're magic. If they wanted to talk to you, I'm sure they could find a way."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 12:30 am (UTC)

"If it's a priority. I don't know what they're doing with their time, because the world doesn't really look to me like it's got highly effective altruistic wizards running around doing useful things to it, but I haven't met 'em, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt for now. Frankly even if I had staggering amounts of magic power I would not necessarily spend amounts of it on individual kids liable to encounter trouble any more than it would make sense for Norman Borlaug to go grab a ladle at a soup kitchen. They don't know that I'm planning to be unreasonably effective and therefore an efficient use of time. A warning might not help. Maybe one of them kicked you into my yard specifically so you could warn me, I don't know. I'm steepening my learning curve as much as I can but the manual was all cautionary about boosting my brain."

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:36 am (UTC)

If rocks could shrug, Iggy would.

"Your funeral, I guess."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 12:37 am (UTC)

"I guess. How do ordeals go? How do wizards die?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:38 am (UTC)

"I only ever saw the one..." says Iggy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 12:39 am (UTC)

"It's still a data point."

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:58 am (UTC)

"He was doing a spell," Iggy recalls, "I forget what it was, but it went wrong... and the next thing I knew, we were in some kind of horrible alternate dimension. Big Bad seemed surprised to see us. That's why I think it's the other guys who pull that kind of thing. Anyway. We got out of there okay, but he'd overheard some of its plans, and when we got back... well, I guess it didn't want him telling anybody."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 12:59 am (UTC)

"He just - keeled over, or was there a more typical cause of death?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:01 am (UTC)

"I guess you could say there was a fight," says Iggy. "It wasn't much of a fight. He said half a spell and then went up in smoke."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 01:05 am (UTC)

"That sucks. ...How does sensing stuff work for rocks? You don't have eyes. Or even a vestibular system, how can you tell when somebody kicks you?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:09 am (UTC)

"I am a magic rock," Iggy explains patiently. "I was a wizard's pet for a while; that kind of thing has effects."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 01:12 am (UTC)

"Sure, you're a magic rock, but, like, Grace can't feel it when I pat her, she doesn't have a nervous system. I assume magic is involved in how you could tell that I was sitting on you or that somebody picked you up, but that doesn't tell me what it's like."

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:14 am (UTC)

"I don't know what it's like for you either," says Iggy. "Why don't you try turning yourself into a rock?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 01:15 am (UTC)

"I don't even know if that would yield the same experience," Cam points out, "leaving aside all the other reasons it seems like a poor choice. Are you discerning roughly the same facts about your environment that a human would be, though, even if you're doing them through funky magic senses?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:16 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Iggy. "Tree, sky, ground, chatty human who doesn't watch where he puts his butt."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 01:23 am (UTC)

Cam snorts. "I'm chatty? Anyway, if the Big Bad can just literally set people on fire, and it pays attention to every newly oathed wizard, why are there any leftovers?"
Edited 2013-03-26 01:26 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:29 am (UTC)

"Hey, if you wanna know how people survive their Ordeals, I am not the rock to ask," says Iggy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 01:31 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I think I'll go visit that cat," Cam says, flipping to the directory in his manual.

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:31 am (UTC)

"Good luck with that," Iggy says darkly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 01:33 am (UTC)

"Thanks," says Cam, snorting at Iggy's tone. "Look, I'm apparently already at risk, I'd rather have more information than less when Death comes scything along for me, you know?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:34 am (UTC)

"I hear ya," it says agreeably. "Figuratively speaking."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 01:37 am (UTC)

Cam snorts. "Later, Iggy."

He gets up and tells Renée he's going downtown and he catches a bus to the cat's address.

pythbox
2013-03-26 01:41 am (UTC)

Nobody, feline or otherwise, is home.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 01:42 am (UTC)

Dangit. Who's next on the list?

Next on the list is not near a bus line. Walking there would have him home well past midnight even if the visit itself took no time at all; Renée wouldn't be happy.

Next after that is visitable but in a gated community. Cam can't get in.

Next one's not home either.

There are not that many Phoenix wizards, and Cam can't find any of them.

He goes home and goes to bed, fretful.

The next day is a Saturday. After breakfast he pops out to ask Iggy, "Do rocks get lonely? Are you getting along with that tree?"
Edited 2013-03-26 01:55 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:01 am (UTC)

"That tree is a snob," Iggy says sulkily. "Better than being wedged into a storm drain, but not by much."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:02 am (UTC)

"I could put you someplace else," offers Cam. "Leafy's nice."

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:03 am (UTC)

"Oh, would you?" he says, wistful.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:05 am (UTC)

"Sure," shrugs Cam. He picks up Iggy.
Edited 2013-03-26 02:11 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:12 am (UTC)

There is a subtle effect, like someone briefly dials down the brightness of the sun when Cam's hand touches the rock.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:13 am (UTC)

"...Do you have magic properties that activate when people touch you?" Cam asks Iggy slowly.

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:13 am (UTC)

"You're asking me?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:15 am (UTC)

"You're the one who may or may not have those properties," Cam says, holding Iggy at arm's length with one finger and a thumb. "Did your wizard cast something on you, or something?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:23 am (UTC)

"No, he just talked to me a lot," he says, aggrieved.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:24 am (UTC)

"Something weird happened when I picked you up. Hey, tree, do you know what's going on by any chance?" Cam asks the tree. "Manual, Grace?"

"I don't know," Grace says.

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:32 am (UTC)

The tree ignores him.

Actually... the tree seems to have stopped moving.

So does everything else.

It's slow and subtle, but it's like Cam and objects on his person are now the only things in the world with life and movement.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:33 am (UTC)

Cam frowns.

He puts Iggy back down, slowly.

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:35 am (UTC)

The effect remains.

"If you can't beat 'em," says Iggy's not-voice, "join 'em."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:36 am (UTC)

"I beg your pardon?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:39 am (UTC)

"I mean," says the same voice - or is it the same? - "how would you like to be immortal?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:41 am (UTC)

"...That sounds very nice. You know what also sounds nice, knowing what's going on, that would be nice."

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:44 am (UTC)

"A smart guy like you, I bet you can guess," says maybe-Iggy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:45 am (UTC)

"I'm developing a hunch, except then you asked me how I'd like to be immortal, and I don't see how that fits."

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:47 am (UTC)

"Don't you?" it asks. "Kiddo, who else do you think can give it to you?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:48 am (UTC)

"Well, yes, but, confused on motivations. Why would you like me to be immortal, given what I pretty much intend to do with any amount of life I happen to have?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 02:50 am (UTC)

"We-ell, there's the catch," it says mock-regretfully. "You'll have to tone that down a little."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 02:51 am (UTC)

"...I'm listening," says Cam.

Toning it down a little over a longer time could still net positive.

pythbox
2013-03-26 03:01 am (UTC)

"And you'll owe me some favours, of course. Nothing that goes too far against your better judgment."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 03:02 am (UTC)

"I don't think I'm going to do any things that go against my better judgment, since that's what better judgment means."

pythbox
2013-03-26 03:04 am (UTC)

"Are you sure?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 03:05 am (UTC)

"Of what I just said, yes, quite, of what currently constitutes my better judgment, not yet, feel free to address the members of the jury."

pythbox
2013-03-26 12:32 pm (UTC)

"Heh," says probably-not-Iggy. "We'll just have to see, won't we?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 03:37 pm (UTC)

"What do you want?" Cam asks. Because he doesn't know. This is not how he would operate if he were anything horrible enough to invent death. If Cam were horrible and also powerful enough to invent death, everything that was not Cam would already be dead.

pythbox
2013-03-26 03:44 pm (UTC)

"What do I want," it says musingly. "Well, a little appreciation would be nice."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Bewilderingly enough, people appreciate the hell out of you, there are practically odes to death, people have to rationalize their way into sanity in the face of such an eventuality. There are all kinds of books where being immortal inevitably leads to misery, and stuff."

pythbox
2013-03-26 03:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it does," the not-a-rock says carelessly. "I should know. But that's not the kind of appreciation I meant. Not that it doesn't give me a special little thrill when people lie to themselves."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that's really not how I'm wired personally, so what do you mean, then, what do you want from me, what am I looking at here?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Did you know I also invented time?" it asks. "That's entropy's job. It gives the universe something to point at."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 08:36 pm (UTC)

"That's actually really interesting," says Cam, and he means it.

pythbox
2013-03-26 08:42 pm (UTC)

"You won't get that kind of thing in your propaganda," it says, meaning the manual. "But it's true. I didn't just throw it in there so I could feel special. It solved a problem."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like it. I am at least provisionally in favor of time."

pythbox
2013-03-26 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Without the ability for the Universe to distinguish one moment from another, you wouldn't exist," it points out. "You seem like you're in favour of existing."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes, but I haven't had very long to think about this problem and there might be a better way to distinguish moments than aiming the universe at entropy," Cam suggests. "Unless I think of one, having time-as-I-understand it seems like a reasonable approach."

pythbox
2013-03-26 08:57 pm (UTC)

"And what would you do if you thought of one?" it asks, amused.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 08:59 pm (UTC)

"...Write it down," says Cam. "And keep an eye out for implementation opportunities."

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:00 pm (UTC)

It laughs.

Its laughter is not very pleasant.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 09:02 pm (UTC)

Cam will be over here, wincing and running his fingertips along Grace's spiral binding.

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I think I like you, kid," it says eventually. "How's this sound? If I make you immortal, you swear off the run-around-causing-me-trouble part of wizardry and spend your time thinking up a better way than entropy to solve time."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 09:14 pm (UTC)

"For forever? Because that is a long time, in that length of time I might wind up proving it mathematically impossible or something. In fact, if you have already done the mathematical impossibility proof, that makes issuing an offer like that way more likely, unless I am completely misunderstanding your interests somehow."

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:18 pm (UTC)

"If you prove it mathematically impossible, I'll let you rethink the bargain," it says generously.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 09:19 pm (UTC)

"And does 'rethink' mean 'cancel and do something else with immortality', and if I do think of something, does it happen?" Cam asks slowly. "And for that matter, do I have any particular reason to consider you a trustworthy negotiating partner, 'Iggy'?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going to make you immortal so you can spend the rest of eternity getting in my way," it says. "That would just be silly."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 09:26 pm (UTC)

"What do you want? Why do you care about doing the things that I'd be inclined to get in the way of?" exclaims Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm proud of what I made," it says serenely. "It's not very nice, but it gets the job done."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 09:33 pm (UTC)

"You explained entropy. You didn't explain death."

pythbox
2013-03-26 09:36 pm (UTC)

"It's all the same from where I'm standing," it says. "Without death, there's no life. Nothing moves forward. Complex life requires death to survive. Do you want to know how many things died to feed and clothe and shelter you for the handful of years you've lived on this cute little ball of dirt? It's a lot."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 09:39 pm (UTC)

"That number would in fact be mildly interesting since I could extrapolate it for grassroots activism later depending on how things go. But I don't mean, like, grass, though, grass is stupid, I mean people. By which term I include trees and so on, as of a week ago. And if you tell me we need death to power evolution my opinion of your creativity is going to take a nosedive; evolution happens when things run around dying and breeding and nobody's minding the store."

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Nobody is minding the store."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, somebody should be minding the store, give me a key to the metaphorical store and I will mind the store."

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, you should tell my siblings that," it says brightly. "I dare you."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm almost guaranteed to get around to it if left to my own devices!" Cam replies, equally brightly.

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Won't that be fun."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Quite possibly."

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Not for you," it says helpfully.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps you have helpful suggestions on mitigating that."

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Then I'll probably do it anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Good," it snorts.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:25 pm (UTC)

Cam looks around to see if the world is moving again yet.

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:28 pm (UTC)

It is not.

"Not so fast, kiddo. You haven't told me what you think of my latest offer."
Edited 2013-03-26 22:36 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:38 pm (UTC)

"That's the one where you make me some unspecified kind of immortal, and I do think about alternatives to entropy and don't do some underspecified class of other things, and if alternatives to entropy provably don't exist, some unspecified form of rethinking happens?" Cam inquires.

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:43 pm (UTC)

"I think 'don't get in my way' is pretty well specified, myself," it says.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Does that apply solely to things I might do by magic? Does it prevent me from talking to anyone or anything? Are you personally monitoring all forms of death such that if I save a drowning toddler at some point this will constitute breaking the agreement or is that out of the bounds of what you have in mind and it only counts if I do something on a large scale? What about large-scale things that have nothing to do with magic, like, I don't know, making a lot of money and giving plenty of it to an organization that fights iodine deficiency in the Third World? Can I make tradeoffs that technically decrease net life as counted in individual organisms in order to help organisms that I consider more valuable and still be cooperating - like, some people have lawns, even around here, this is wasteful anyway, if I start anti-lawn campaigns and lots of stupid grass dies does that give me permission to magically help research on cancer in humans? Maybe I could skip the grass part if the cancer research is going to kill enough mice?"
Edited 2013-03-26 22:50 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:52 pm (UTC)

"You ask a lot of questions," it observes.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Cam. "We also still haven't addressed the question of whether I can believe any answers you supply, but I'm asking anyway."

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Has anyone ever told you that you have an attitude problem?" it inquires.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Cam. "Usually people who don't think they've got answers I'll like."

pythbox
2013-03-26 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Hah," it says. "Very funny."

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to specify the offer in enough detail and with enough verifiable sincerity that I can evaluate it, or not?"

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Guess not," it says. "Bye now."

And the world resumes turning.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:03 pm (UTC)

...What, really?

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:04 pm (UTC)

Really!

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:07 pm (UTC)

Oooookay.

Cam goes inside.

He writes down everything he can remember about this conversation.

He tries visiting the cat's address again.

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:08 pm (UTC)

In a word, no.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:09 pm (UTC)

And the others he can get to, also all no? Does the directory do phone numbers? He will try calling the ones who are not cats.

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:10 pm (UTC)

The directory does phone numbers!

No one is home.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:12 pm (UTC)

Curses. Can it do wizards farther afield? He'll deal with the argument about long-distance calls later.

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:16 pm (UTC)

It can!

The first few he tries are not home either.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:17 pm (UTC)

This is starting to look like a systematic problem.

Is the Lone Power known to have any capabilities that would render lots of wizards uncontactable? Do tell, dear manual.

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:19 pm (UTC)

It frequently does things that cause large numbers of wizards to be very busy.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:20 pm (UTC)

Yeah, all right.

Cam investigates the news. What does the television have to say about things that might render large numbers of wizards very busy?

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:21 pm (UTC)

The television offers no special clues.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:25 pm (UTC)

...Okay, maybe it just left him alone. The only source he has on Ordeals usually killing people was Iggy.

Cam writes a lot in Grace. About being afraid, unbalanced, trapped with nothing more than his own wits to defend himself. He wants to know more spells. He wants to be able to do more than just talk if anything like that happens again. He may wish to acquire an arsenal of enchanted objects, since there might be cases when he could get at one of those without telegraphing as much as he'll have to in order to utter Speech spells.

And then he looks up spells of protection.
Edited 2013-03-26 23:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:37 pm (UTC)

Spells of protection are many and varied! Some protect against magic, some against physical injury, some against very specific things like drowning or fire or poison or or or...

There are a lot of horrible things that can happen to a person, aren't there.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:39 pm (UTC)

There really are.

Cam is going to be proof against as many of them as possible, starting with magic and going down a prioritized list based on what freaks him out and what is most likely. He starts with defending himself against magic, then -

"Is mind control a thing? Or mental spying?"

The manual says it's not a common thing, but it's a thing, and there are spells against it. Cam casts one of those. It's kind of tiring. Also, it feels different, like he's not doing something new, just - adding a layer.

The manual, when prompted, says that some people have natural magical affinities for certain things. This particular affinity is not recorded, but nor is it particularly surprising.

All right. He moves on - general anti-physical-injury defense; he doesn't want to get hit by a cement truck and ruin everything; he should really have done this earlier but he wasn't confident in the Speech and didn't feel threatened enough, he supposes.

He's quite tired now.

Is there a danger to magical exhaustion beyond abruptly falling asleep, or can he safely cast things as long as he likes until his ability to talk coherently drops off?
Edited 2013-03-26 23:55 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-26 11:56 pm (UTC)

No danger, as long as he stops before he mispronounces something vital.

lifes_sake
2013-03-26 11:58 pm (UTC)

Ooookay.

Cam mutters through a tongue-twister to check himself, before moving on to the next spell. It's against diseases. He recites it slowly and carefully and does not mispronounce anything.

But he completely fumbles his next test tongue twister. He closes the manual and pats Gracenote and goes to bed.

pythbox
2013-03-27 12:03 am (UTC)

Tired as he is, he probably won't notice when a shell of air around his bed hardens into rocklike solidity. Nothing is getting in or out of that, other air included.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 12:06 am (UTC)

Cam doesn't notice.

But eventually he starts breathing strangely - faster, deeper, trying harder to extract oxygen.

"Cam," says Grace. "CAM!"

Cam's eyes open. The air tastes - wrong, stale - he sits up and hits his head -

"Grace - manual - help -" he chokes out before gasping in another breath.

And if the manual doesn't consider that specific enough instructions Grace shrieks at it, "Read Cam a spell that will let him breathe!"

pythbox
2013-03-27 12:10 am (UTC)

The manual's indexing feature is not quite that good! It tries, anyway - it finds a shieldbreaking spell that will work on this construct and doesn't require any materials that Cam won't be able to fetch.

If Cam can say the words in the first place.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 12:11 am (UTC)

He can say about half of them.

Then he can't.

pythbox
2013-03-27 12:22 am (UTC)

There's a sound like ripping cloth, and a pair of kids about his age stumble through a glowing hole in the air that seals itself shut behind them.

They're wearing nearly-identical dresses, one in blue and gold with a matching hair ribbon, one in white and red with four fewer inches of skirt. They're both giggling when they appear, but when they see Cam the smiles drop off their faces. The one in blue turns to the window and flings out her arms, speaking a series of crisp syllables that command it to open and a strong breeze to flow into the room. The one in red goes to one knee by the side of Cam's bed, puts both hands on the air-shield, and starts... talking to it.

"What are you doing? You're air! All this hanging around being solid must be so exhausting, look, there's a breeze going, I bet you could be in New Mexico by this time tomorrow if you hurried. Air's supposed to flow. Aren't you bored?"

Apparently all this - delivered in the Speech - is very convincing, because the shield releases and the breeze blows it right out of the room, taking the stale air with it.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 12:26 am (UTC)

Cam gasps a lot.

Grace speaks up instead. "Who are you and what happened?" She exclaims.
Edited 2013-03-27 00:29 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-27 12:32 am (UTC)

"I'm Jellybean," says the one on the floor, tipping her—his?—their head up to grin at Cam and dragging a hand through their long curly hair. "That's Matilda. Sorry we're late, we almost didn't see you. You must've really scared you-know-who, he usually kills people while they're awake. Likes it when they can see it coming."

Matilda, meanwhile, is still directing the breezes, carefully unraveling her spell to leave the air behaving exactly like normal.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 12:37 am (UTC)

"Last I talked to it, it was trying to tempt me into taking some really vague deal..." Cam manages to say for himself. "Wouldn't describe it as scared. I think. What's it like scared?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 12:38 am (UTC)

"Scary," says Jellybean. "They all are. You okay?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 12:42 am (UTC)

"I'll be fine, just my luck none of the defenses I cast handle suffocation, how did you know I needed help and what is with the Sailor Moon outfits?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 12:44 am (UTC)

"We track ongoing Ordeals," Matilda explains, lowering her arms and turning to face him. "Needing help is sort of the definition of being on Ordeal. We can't be there for all of them, but we try to get to the ones who are in the most trouble. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to try to hide you, but we're not sure who."

"And the outfits are for fun," says Jellybean. "Duh."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 12:49 am (UTC)

"I don't know who'd want to hide me besides you-know-who. Is it relatively safe to name it, do you know? I haven't been in touch with wizards besides you. No one was home."

pythbox
2013-03-27 12:51 am (UTC)

"It's not dangerous to name it, I just think its name is silly," says Jellybean unrepentantly.

"No one was home because it's trying to put out the sun again," Matilda adds. "Don't worry, the wizards of Earth have it covered."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 12:58 am (UTC)

"It told me its name was Iggy when it was posing as somebody's orphaned pet rock. Put out the sun? Again?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 01:00 am (UTC)

"Stars and star-centred cultures call it the Starsnuffer," says Matilda. "It's an old trick. But as you can see, it hasn't managed it yet in this solar system."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 01:03 am (UTC)

"And no one has figured out how to prevent this from being such a systematic problem?" Cam asks, filing away the information that stars are people too.

pythbox
2013-03-27 01:04 am (UTC)

"What do you mean?" says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 05:28 am (UTC)

"I mean I'm really confused about what Iggy wants and what it can and can't do and how much attention it's paying to what things. I am not coming up with any explanations that don't have it incompetent at using its powers, incompetent at directing its efforts, motivated to achieve ends that are not completely described by 'kill and entropize things', or playing by approximately gamelike rules for no obvious reason. If it wants me dead, why am I not dead? Why didn't it choose a faster method so you wouldn't have been here in time? Why isn't it trying again right now? If it has any chance of successfully putting out the sun - if extinguishing stars is a thing it routinely does - then why did it spend a couple hours talking to me? How much does it know and how does it find it out? If I knew the answers to these questions and had been studying magic longer than a week I would probably be able to come up with some reasonable things to do about stars, but my manual is not all that forthcoming about some topics."
Edited 2013-03-27 05:29 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-27 12:03 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't have the juice," says Jellybean. "Talk is cheap. Putting out stars takes effort. And you're dripping with wards - did you do all that before you went to sleep? It probably picked the cheapest way to kill you, and that means not blasting through them to just smoke you on the spot."

"Nobody can predict where we're going to show up, not even them," says Matilda. "And none of them can pay attention to everything, everywhere, all the time. If we hadn't shown up, you would be dead. If - heh - Iggy's busy enough with the Sun, it might be a while before it notices it failed."

"People do stop it from putting the stars out," Jellybean adds. "They're called wizards. You might've heard of them. But the wizards don't exactly have a direct line on what the Powers are up to. There's no good way to ward a star, not even if you've got the power to spare, it'd be a huge waste. So they just have to wait for it to take a shot."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but," says Cam, "when Iggy stopped pretending it was somebody's pet rock, it was like everything around me stopped. Is that not expensive? Because I can sure think of uses for inexpensive time pausing... I did do all my wards before I went to sleep, I was spooked. You keep saying them, is Iggy a bunch of people? Isn't it supposed to be all Lone? Also, please tell me what a fight over a star looks like, how do wizards notice before the star snuffs it, what do they do to interrupt the process?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 04:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what's with the time-pausing," says Jellybean, shaking his head.

"Me neither," says Matilda. "Iggy's not a bunch of people, but there are other Powers. Just because they're nicer doesn't mean we're actually on their side."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough," says Cam. "If I was a Power I'd have a lot of friendly objects set up to watch stuff for me, like how Grace told the manual to find me a spell when I couldn't breathe." He reaches over to his notebook and pats her.

"If I'd been faster you could've had time to say the whole spell," mourns Grace. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Me too," Cam tells her. And to Matilda and Jellybean he says, "Were you going to explain how fighting over stars work or don't you know?"
Edited 2013-03-27 17:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-27 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know how most wizards do it," says Matilda. "We've rebooted a star once. It wasn't inhabited, but it went out while we were passing through."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 05:45 pm (UTC)

"And, what, you just tell it 'wake up'? Do you - actually, you know what, my question about how you knew I needed help has not been answered, do your manuals helpfully update your directories in real time worldwide so you can show up when kids are Ordeal-ing or do you have some other kind of sensory network set up, also how did you get here, I want to learn to teleport too."

pythbox
2013-03-27 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, worldgates," giggles Jellybean. "Worldgates are fun. You wanna go learn about worldgates?"

Matilda glances at Jellybean with a fond smile and then returns her attention to Cam. "Our manual taps the directory to see who's on Ordeal, and we have a few spells set up to check how well someone's doing so we know if we need to intervene. But the directory was really reluctant to mention you. I think the Powers were interfering, but I'm not sure why."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 05:51 pm (UTC)

"You guys share a manual? I'm not sure why the Powers would interfere unless they've been paying - again, inexplicably allocated - attention. And if my various grandiose ideas have more substance to them than I'm quite sure of."

pythbox
2013-03-27 05:53 pm (UTC)

"The Powers pay personal attention to every single person who takes the Oath," says Matilda. "That's how you get your wizardry in the first place."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but - have they been reading my notebook?" He picks up Grace and holds her close to his chest. "Is that the sort of thing they can do? I haven't been going around publicly stirring things up."

"Nobody but Cam is allowed to read me!" shrills Grace.

pythbox
2013-03-27 05:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Matilda.

"They're not really forthcoming about how they work," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of how things work, the way you busted the air shell thing - that didn't sound very spell-like, it was all freeform, does that work for everybody or just you?" Cam asks Jellybean.

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:02 pm (UTC)

"It works for me a lot better than it does for most people," he says. "I'm just really persuasive, I guess. Anybody can do it, but most of the time stuff just doesn't listen to you unless you work the spell up properly."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:03 pm (UTC)

"So it's a matter of persuasion and I can probably freeform little details on Grace but not the jerk tree in the backyard?" hazards Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:04 pm (UTC)

Jellybean grins. "Yeah, exactly."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Hmm, okay. So is it just the two of you or is there, like, a vigilante hey-kids-dying-because-they-wanted-to-be-magic-is-screwed-up organization here I can sign up for?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:10 pm (UTC)

They exchange a glance.

"It's just the two of us," says Jellybean.

"But if you wanted to sign up..." says Matilda.

"We could maybe work something out," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:10 pm (UTC)

"...Are the Sailor Moon outfits required?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Jellybean, and snickers.

"No," Matilda says kindly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:12 pm (UTC)

Cam glances between them and decides to believe Matilda.

"Where do you guys operate out of?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Everywhere," Jellybean says cheerfully.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:14 pm (UTC)

"You don't have someplace you reliably sleep in? My manual was pretty clear that I could not put off needing to sleep forever."

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I can talk myself out of it for a week at a time if I have to," Jellybean says carelessly. "But Tilly can't, so we find hotel rooms or camp out or whatever. Sometimes we go back to her mom's place for a while."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Your parents fund the hotel rooms, or you're getting money on your own somehow? Or just teleporting into empty ones, I guess, and confusing the housekeeping staff. I don't think Renée would be on board if I told her I was going to wander the universe and needed cash to stay in a lot of hotels. I might not have quite as much freedom of movement as you guys."

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:24 pm (UTC)

"We have one parent-like figure between the two of us," says Matilda, "and we mostly try not to lean on her too much. When we're on Earth and not staying with her, sneaking into an empty hotel room and cleaning up after ourselves when we leave is usually the way we go. The same when we're other places, if they have hotels there."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:25 pm (UTC)

"...Other inhabited planets, let's hear all about that," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:26 pm (UTC)

"There's lots," says Matilda. "We visit them sometimes. Looking for kids in trouble on their Ordeals, or fixing other problems, or just wandering around."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Cool. Well, that maybe explains why Earth is so badly run, if everybody's dividing their attention not only between it and endangered stars but also between it and other entire civilizations. Maybe Earth's comparatively nice as these things go."

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:30 pm (UTC)

"There are places that are much better," says Matilda.

"And ones that're much worse," says Jellybean, grinning.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I want to hear all about your exploits on the problem-solving front," Cam says. "Sketch the space for me a bit, you've had longer at this than I have. I was thinking pretty Earth-centrically. ...Say, if stars are people, are planets?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Short answer's no," says Jellybean, to that last question.

"I have a longer answer if you want," Matilda says brightly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes, please," Cam tells Matilda.

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I've spent a lot of time figuring out what makes the difference to how smart things are," says Matilda. "In creatures with complex nervous systems it's brain activity, mostly the way you'd expect. I haven't figured it out for plants, but it might be partly dependent on size or length of life. In celestial bodies, it's thermonuclear fusion. Stars talk, planets don't."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:46 pm (UTC)

"What about objects? Grace's component notebooks were pretty clever even before I zipped them all up into one. My manual's not as bright - or at least doesn't have as much initiative and personality."

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Objects seem to be more case by case," says Matilda. "But I've almost never found one that seemed to have been really smart before anybody started talking to it. Maybe writing in a notebook is enough like talking to count."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Grace has got a lot of me in her," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-27 06:53 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 06:55 pm (UTC)

"...Because I write a lot. There's forty-nine volumes of thoughts composing her."

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:01 pm (UTC)

"That's cute," Jellybean asserts.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:02 pm (UTC)

"What's cute about it?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," he says cheerfully. "Just is."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:04 pm (UTC)

"How did you come by a name like Jellybean, anyway?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Hated the one I had," he says, "so I picked a new one."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:09 pm (UTC)

"And you hated it enough that 'Jellybean' is an improvement. Okay. So. I'm Cam, the notebook's Grace, and I'm actually still really tired, so if Iggy's not likely to try to off me again perhaps we can meet and talk universe-fixing after I'm out of school tomorrow? I'm getting the impression you guys don't attend school."

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:12 pm (UTC)

"You're getting the right impression!" says Jellybean.

"When and where would you like to meet?" asks Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:13 pm (UTC)

"The local public library, at three-fifteen?" yawns Cam. "I'll tell Rénee not to bother meeting me, that I'm meeting some friends and I can walk home myself."

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:14 pm (UTC)

"See you there," says Matilda, and Jellybean convinces the wall to let them walk through it, and Matilda casts an invisibility spell on both of them, and they go away.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:18 pm (UTC)

Cam takes ten minutes to write confused notes-to-self in Grace, and then he waves his hand warily through the prior location of the air-shield, and then he goes back to sleep.

He is at the library the following day at ten after three.

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:21 pm (UTC)

Matilda and Jellybean are reading a copy of the Iliad together.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:23 pm (UTC)

Cam plops down in the seat across from them. "Hi," he says.

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Matilda. Jellybean waves. They close the book.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:29 pm (UTC)

"About how often do you rescue kids from Ordeals?" Cam asks. He has Grace out, ready to take notes.

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:30 pm (UTC)

"A few times a year, maybe," says Matilda. "But it's not regular. We had a dry spell of almost a year until you."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Not that many wizards, or not that many needing to be bailed out?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Fewer wizards than usual, and none of them needing our help except one we couldn't get to in time."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Any idea why fewer wizards, how does that work?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Maybe the Powers were busy," says Jellybean.

"Maybe fewer people had the aptitude," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:39 pm (UTC)

"So the Powers are personally intervening every time a manual lands on somebody's head, there's no automation?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:41 pm (UTC)

Matilda shakes her head. "Yes and no. The Powers... nudge the manuals toward the sort of people who'd be useful. And when you take the Oath, it's the Powers who give you the wizardry to match. But sometimes the manuals find their wizards without a lot of help."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Useful in combating entropy and that sort of thing?" Cam says. "Where do the manuals come from? Are they hiding wherever a sufficient mass of books hangs out, or do they spontaneously generate near appropriate wizards, or what?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:46 pm (UTC)

Matilda shrugs. "If I had to guess, I'd say they're planted in bookstores and libraries. There's probably wizards who do it."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Do you know a lot of other wizards?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:50 pm (UTC)

Jellybean snorts.

Matilda shakes her head.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Why not? You could be more effective if there were more of you."

pythbox
2013-03-27 07:55 pm (UTC)

"More effective at what?" says Jellybean.

"Most wizards wouldn't approve of our affiliation," says Matilda.

"And we're pretty sure there's some kind of policy about not interfering in anybody's Ordeal," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 07:58 pm (UTC)

"At anything. Your affiliation, what's that mean? And that is a stupid policy that presumably gets people killed, surely the other kids you've saved get that even if others don't?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Wizards work for the Powers," says Matilda. "We don't."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Because of policies like that one, presumably? And the Powers can't revoke or haven't revoked your wizardry?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Once you have it, if you want it, it's yours," says Matilda.

"They can't revoke it even for people who are actually working for Iggy," says Jellybean.

"But needless to say, we disagree with a lot of their decisions," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:07 pm (UTC)

"No kidding. Iggy said it'd be tremendous fun for it if I went up to the Powers and complained about how they're running this place," muttered Cam. "I guess it decided that it wouldn't be enough fun to risk having me run amok."

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Even we've never tried that," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:09 pm (UTC)

"My manual says a substantial fraction of its content is written by a Power. Does your manual still pull content normally?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:15 pm (UTC)

"More or less," says Matilda.

"Sometimes I have to coax it," says Jellybean.

"And I think there's things we're blocked from accessing, but we can get by on what we've got," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:19 pm (UTC)

Cam chews his lip a bit. "Grace, can you write in yourself?" he asks. "If I ask you to?"

"Maaaaybe," hums Grace.

"C'mon," Cam says. "You're a notebook, you're meant to have things written at you, you'd be better at your job if you could put them there yourself..."

"Oh, okay, if you say so," giggles Grace.

"Excellent. I want you to navigate the manual and transcribe the important parts as best you can just in case - you know what I'm looking for. Can you do that?"

"Yes I can!" says Grace brightly, and she commences bossing the manual around to read to her.

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Smart cookie," says Jellybean approvingly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Grace at least won't defect on me," snorts Cam. (Grace is presently soliciting information on automation and on turning over the fine control of complex spells to objects.) "Can you hear her? I don't think I've seen either of you react directly to anything she's said."

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Kind of," says Matilda, and Jellybean nods along.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:27 pm (UTC)

"She's clear as a bell to me," Cam muses.

"I'm yours," Grace tells him over the manual's rapid monologue.

He grins and flicks her open to have a look at the ongoing transcription.

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Awwwww," says Jellybean, leaning his head on Matilda's shoulder.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:32 pm (UTC)

Cam flips a few more pages to find his long-term plan notes. "So, I had some things I was planning to learn to do enough magic to pull off, but like I said, pretty Earth-centric. Can I get a summary of conditions on other planets?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:37 pm (UTC)

"There are a lot of other planets," says Matilda. "And we haven't visited all of them. But I can give you an overview, I guess."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes please. Grace, can you multitask well enough to transcribe the manual and something else at the same time? I bet you can, you're so smart."

"Oooh," says Grace. "Maybe."

"You managed to take everything I wrote and turn it into a personality, and the manual's not even talking that fast, I bet you can. I can't soup up my memory directly, yet, so I need your help, okay?"

"Okay!"

"You're the best," he tells her, patting her cover.

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww," says Jellybean.

Matilda starts talking.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:47 pm (UTC)

Cam listens, and asks questions. He's particularly curious if there are planets where magic is common knowledge, unlike Earth.

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:49 pm (UTC)

There are some! Jellybean and Matilda avoid them most of the time. It's the same problem as they have with wizards, except with entire populations.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:51 pm (UTC)

"So the Powers have a pretty good approval rating," Cam says. "For some reason."

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Conventional wisdom is that they're the good guys," says Matilda. "Very few people seem to think they're insufficiently good."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:54 pm (UTC)

"But it doesn't sound like Earth is even significantly below average, here, do you have any idea how many people die of iodine deficiency and other stupid things like that?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Presumably the argument is that Iggy causes all that, and the Powers are doing as much as they can to stop it. For all I know, they are," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Are the various Powers all pretty much just souped-up wizards with lots of experience, or do they have extra abilities beyond that?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 08:59 pm (UTC)

"We're pretty sure they're fundamentally not the same kind of creature as anyone else," says Matilda, "but it's hard to say how that affects their abilities exactly."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:03 pm (UTC)

"They're immortal, right? Do they have bodies? Was Iggy most likely being a rock or just resembling a rock or talking through a rock?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Probably talking through," says Jellybean. "There might even have been a rock named Iggy once, that it was impersonating."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:07 pm (UTC)

"I suppose I should actually scope out my backyard and see if there's still a rock hanging out under Jerk Tree."

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:08 pm (UTC)

Matilda shrugs.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Does Iggy tend to attack you? Since you keep swiping wizards it's trying to kill?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:12 pm (UTC)

"We're pretty hard to kill," says Jellybean.

"I think it's mostly given up," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Are you dripping with wards like the ones I started doing or did you come up with a shortcut?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I have wards," says Matilda. "But tighter than yours."

"I just convinced my body to keep being itself," says Jellybean. "Can't do it to anybody else's, though, I tried."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:19 pm (UTC)

Cam briefly considers Jellybean's approach, then turns to Matilda. "Tighter? What do you mean?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:22 pm (UTC)

She explains!

It gets very, very technical, very, very fast.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:23 pm (UTC)

Cam listens, and Grace interrogates the manual about the technical details on his behalf, and she spits back something Cam can understand.

"All right. I'll put together something more like that. Is Iggy the sort to go after bystanders? Are my parents or school friends or anybody in danger?"
Edited 2013-03-27 21:26 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:28 pm (UTC)

"It might threaten 'em," says Jellybean, "but it doesn't just assassinate people because they hang out with somebody it doesn't like."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:31 pm (UTC)

"So I don't have to convince Renée to hold still while I convince her person to forbid a long list of nasty eventualities. Or at least not because of Iggy. I might want to find a way to do it just because she's all mortal and stuff."

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:32 pm (UTC)

"We warded Jenny," says Matilda. "But, yeah, not because of Iggy."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Jenny's your mom? Does she know about magic?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:39 pm (UTC)

"More or less," says Matilda. "To both those questions."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:39 pm (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:43 pm (UTC)

"She adopted me when I was six," says Matilda. "I'll call her my mom in casual conversation, because it's mostly accurate, but I think of her as just Jenny. And we've told her that magic exists, and some stuff about it, but mostly she doesn't ask."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. I bet Charlie would mostly not ask. Renée on the other hand would totally ask."

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Is that bad?" asks Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Not especially. I should probably tell her. She might write me notes to get out of school and stuff if I explain and tell her I'm off doing wizard things. Just sounds like a weird conversation."

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:52 pm (UTC)

"You'll get used to those," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like an occupational hazard, yeah. Can people who haven't found a manual and said the oath and everything ever learn Speech just for conversational purposes? Talk to stuff but not cast spells?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Renée will find that really fun, I bet," laughs Cam. "But it might start being impossible to talk her out of getting a pet."

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:01 pm (UTC)

Matilda giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:03 pm (UTC)

"So how do worldgates work?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Worldgate loci tend to form around population centers," says Matilda.

"You can gate from anywhere, technically, but you have to shove a lot of power into it if you're not at a locus," says Jellybean.

"They let you open a temporary door between one place and another," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:07 pm (UTC)

"But if you're at a locus you can gate to anywhere without extra power?" Cam asks. "How do you find loci?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:09 pm (UTC)

"There's a trick to it," says Jellybean.

"He's really good," says Matilda. "I'm okay at it. The best place to look is in a train station or an airport or something like that, in the middle of a population center."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:10 pm (UTC)

"What do they look like?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:11 pm (UTC)

"They look like worldgates," says Jellybean. "I dunno."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you can show me one sometime," suggests Cam. "Are other planets generally pretty habitable or do I need to snug up my wards before I can go offplanet?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Earth seems to be pretty normal in terms of atmosphere and radiation and so on," says Matilda. "But unless you know where you're going, you should be pretty sure of your wards before you go there."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense. Is it necessary to go about invisibly on other worlds or are they pretty human-friendly?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Depends on the world," says Matilda. "Some places you'd be fine. Some places you'd get about as much trouble as, well, an obvious alien walking around on Earth."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I think an obvious alien walking around on Earth would be okay in many places or certain times of year."

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:34 pm (UTC)

"...Some of them, maybe," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Some of them would stand out in Disneyland on Halloween?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Considerably."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Noted. Is the Earth setup of one species that can talk in not-Speech and lots that can talk in Speech pretty standard?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Pretty much," says Jellybean.

"Some places, everyone uses the Speech," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:44 pm (UTC)

"That sounds interesting," Cam says. "And everybody just talks to the local equivalent of trees as a matter of course?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Neat. How long have you two been wizards?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Years," says Jellybean.

"Since I was six," says Matilda.

"Eight years," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Lucky. How come you got your manual so young and I didn't till last week?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:53 pm (UTC)

"It's probably because I'm smarter," Matilda says matter-of-factly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:54 pm (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Don't feel bad," she adds, "I'm smarter than most people."

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 10:56 pm (UTC)

"What's the average age these things get dropped on a person's head? Does it usually scale with intelligence?"

pythbox
2013-03-27 10:59 pm (UTC)

"It's hard to calculate because different species are so different," she says. "But mostly late childhood or early adolescence. And the ones who get it earlier tend to be smarter, but it's not a sure bet."

"She's the smartest wizard we've met, though, and she got it youngest," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Giving out IQ tests?" inquires Cam archly.

pythbox
2013-03-27 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Jellybean. "She's just crazy smart, wait a while, you'll see what I mean."

Matilda smiles slightly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Cam is really smart too," Grace pipes up loyally.

Cam pats her but has no further comment of his own on the subject.

He flips to his section on plans.

"So, all of this is pending while I learn more about the situations on non-Earth planets and set priorities, and any of it could be rearranged in terms of what's easiest to do and least likely to attract retaliation, but I think the highest leverage ends available - given what I've learned about how smart various things are, in particular - include things like pushing recycled paper and general anti-deforestation measures; intervening in relatively infrastructurally simple issues like the aforementioned iodine poisoning and possibly, depending on how easy it is to scale up, various forms of disease - as opposed to causes of death like war which would be a lot harder to address directly or safely; and food security, which is especially important to address because people are already working on it and could easily wind up throwing more rather than less intelligent food sources at the problem if this happened to be cheaper or easier."

pythbox
2013-03-27 11:41 pm (UTC)

"I see what you mean," says Matilda.

Jellybean closes his eyes and leans his head on her shoulder.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Have you guys got any pending inroads on those or related things, or educational historical background of wizards meddling in world affairs that I should learn, or helpful notions on methodology that I shouldn't pollute with my own ideas before everything's been written down so we have a good diverse brainstorm?" Cam prompts.

pythbox
2013-03-27 11:46 pm (UTC)

Matilda shakes her head. "We've never been so systematic. But I'm interested," she says.

lifes_sake
2013-03-27 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay. General categories of potential actions include motivated capitalism, sabotage-and-superheroism, and activism-type stuff. My naive guess is that the first is the most scalable and probably the most long-term productive unless one of us turns out to be really good at getting petitions signed or it's easier to do large amounts of magic by enchanting objects or whatever than I currently think it is. Inconveniently, it's also the hardest for a fourteen-year-old to do, because kids taking an interest in environmentalism or world hunger is cute and anybody doing sabotage-and-superheroism doesn't have to worry so much about whether anyone takes them seriously, but if you start a company to sell doctored potato seeds or whatever you have to be taken seriously."
Edited 2013-03-27 23:55 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-27 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Matilda. "But we do have access to adults."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:01 am (UTC)

"Yes. I don't think I want Renée managing a company for me, though - she's very scattered; even if she were only doing approximately what we told her she'd wind up dropping the ball somewhere. And she wouldn't want to give up teaching. Charlie's even less of a good idea. Would Jenny be more helpful?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:09 am (UTC)

"Probably," says Matilda. "She's busy - she runs a school - but if I asked, I bet she could find someone else to do that for her."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:12 am (UTC)

"Okay. So that's a possibility. Magic up some true-breeding really idiotic high-yield nutritious food, sell it, turn enough of a profit to outright give it away in key areas. Or pharmaceuticals, but that's probably harder to scale if we are in fact relying on magic for the purpose - except I think some pharmaceutical chemicals are actually made by bacteria, so maybe not that hard."

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:13 am (UTC)

"Chicken," says Jellybean, and giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:14 am (UTC)

"Beg pardon?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:15 am (UTC)

"Chickens are only barely smarter than grass," Matilda explains.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:17 am (UTC)

"Oh, thank goodness, I can add chicken back into my diet," laughs Cam. "I didn't know anybody who kept chickens, I was basing everything on a goat I quizzed."

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:18 am (UTC)

"I don't think I've ever met a goat," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:19 am (UTC)

"Vivian the goat is capable of responding negatively to the question of whether she wants to be eaten and positively to the question of whether she's okay with being milked."
Edited 2013-03-28 00:20 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:23 am (UTC)

"Chickens can tell you things about what it's like to be them right now, but they don't express preferences, they just - report," she says. "Like grass, if grass had more states of being than 'I'm grass!'."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:26 am (UTC)

"All right, I think I feel okay about eating them then. And extrapolating to turkey, unless you know specifically about those too. I should really just tour a farm or something, Renée'll take me if I tell her the whole story and what it's for."

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:28 am (UTC)

"Good idea," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:33 am (UTC)

"Apparently the senior wizard around here is a cat," Cam adds. "I'd need to look up statistics on how many cats are affected by various cat-affecting things to know how that sort of issue stacks up against chopping down trees and various human stuff and the offplanet equivalents, though."
Edited 2013-03-28 00:46 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:49 am (UTC)

"Honestly," says Matilda, "I bet you could spend a couple lifetimes just prioritizing at all. Might as well start on your own planet. It's practically bite-sized in comparison."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:53 am (UTC)

"With any luck I'll live a very, very long time, but you have a point. I'm also less likely to stumble into a bad misstep on a familiar world. And I can get started on productive work instead of learning curve sooner."

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:55 am (UTC)

"And once you've fixed Earth you'll have a better idea of how to do the rest," she says.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 12:57 am (UTC)

"Yeah." He chews his lip a bit. "You two want to meet Renée and help me explain magic to her?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 12:59 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Jellybean. Matilda nods.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:00 am (UTC)

Cam packs up - his manual is still reciting things to Grace; it's on healing spells now - and leads them to his house.

"Mom!" he calls. "I brought some friends home!"

"Do they want cookies?" Renée calls back.

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:02 am (UTC)

"Hell yes they do!" says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:03 am (UTC)

"If your friends want cookies they'll keep their language age-appropriate," sings Renée's voice.

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:04 am (UTC)

Jellybean mutters something under his breath, intentionally unintelligible. Matilda giggles and calls out, "Yes please we would like some cookies!"

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:07 am (UTC)

"That's better! You can all come in and introduce yourselves!"

Cam leads Matilda and Jellybean into the kitchen. "Matilda, Jellybean, this is my mom Renée." He takes a cookie off the cooling rack for himself.

"School friends?" Renée says, evaluating Jellybean's sex and outfit and tilting her head but not commenting.

"No, uh, a hobby thing," Cam says. "Actually I thought you might want to hear about it, is why I invited them over." Pause. "It is unrelated to how they're dressed."

"Oh, I was wondering just a little," Renée admits.

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:09 am (UTC)

Jellybean cracks up.

Matilda pats him on the head and grabs a cookie.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:12 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's just them, they think it's fun," says Cam, "I am still all about jeans and t-shirts. The hobby is magic."

"You never seemed that interested in your stage magic kit that you got two Christmases ago," Renée says.

"Yeah," Cam says. "It was fake."

Renée peers at him.

"Guys, do you have a standard demo that usually works or should I make something up?" Cam asks Matilda and Jellybean.

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:13 am (UTC)

Matilda smiles mischievously.

She beckons to the cookies.

One of them leaps into her hand, and she hands it to Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:14 am (UTC)

Renée makes an eep noise.

"Oh, cool, you didn't even have to say that aloud," Cam says.

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:17 am (UTC)

"I'm really good at moving small objects around," she says proudly. "It's handy!"

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:21 am (UTC)

"It sounds it, what's the spell?"

"Cam," says Renée weakly.

"Oh. So, yeah, I can do magic, so can they, we're wizards, I'm new at it and they've been at it for a while." Pause. "I'm learning it out of a magic book. Also the vegetarianism thing is because wizards can talk to things that can't talk and I was alarmed about how smart some of it was, but it turns out that chickens aren't much brighter than grass, which is to say really dim, so we can add poultry back in. That's why I wanted to go visit Lori and went out to see the goats, I wanted to see if I needed to worry about them. I do - I'm still not going to eat any mammals. Trees are an issue, too, they're pretty much as smart as humans."

Renée looks dubiously at the cookie in her hand.

"The cookie doesn't care, Mom, go ahead."

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:24 am (UTC)

"I don't really use a spell for it," Matilda says. "I just kind of - want at them. I think it's my affinity. Some people have those."

She nibbles her cookie.

"These are really good!" she says, and Jellybean tries his and agrees enthusiastically.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:36 am (UTC)

"I have one of those," Cam says. "One of my wards is a mental thing and it already had company when I cast it. Not as practical."

"Thank you," Renée says to Matilda and Jellybean, recovering her equilibrium somewhat.

"Mom, if you want, you can learn the language to talk to stuff, but you can't be a wizard," Cam says.

"...That does sound interesting," admits Renée.

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:38 am (UTC)

"It's awesome!" says Jellybean. "I love talking to stuff."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:40 am (UTC)

"What do cookies say?" Renée asks, looking dubiously at them.

"I don't really want to address the cookies. Talking to stuff makes it smarter, even if it doesn't make it smart enough to matter. But I talked to one of your muffins the other day. It just said it was a muffin. It didn't have anything else to say," Cam tells her. "I imagine cookies are about the same."

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:44 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Matilda. "Prepared food in general is about on the grass-and-chickens level. It can state what it is and that's about it."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:50 am (UTC)

"And I can talk tofu into tasting like whatever," Cam says. "Since I'm guessing mammals in general are probably about as smart as the goats."

"Well," says Renée. "That... opens up interesting culinary possibilities."

Cam grins. "So, um, now that I can teach myself an extremely practical skill, all self-study, I might want some time out of school here and there to go work on wizard projects. Can I get you to write me notes for that and tell anybody who asks that I'm suddenly rather chronically ill?"

"...As long as they're legitimate projects and not all gallivanting off for fun," says Renée thoughtfully, crossing her arms. "Gallivanting can wait for ordinary school vacations. And you will have to make a reasonable effort at keeping up in classes." She peers at Matilda and Jellybean. "Do you two go to school?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:53 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Jellybean.

"There's really nothing they teach that I couldn't teach myself faster," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 01:57 am (UTC)

"Matilda's mom is a teacher too," volunteers Cam.

"Really," says Renée with interest. "And does she know about - wizarding?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 01:59 am (UTC)

"Yep!" says Matilda. "She noticed when I dropped out of school, it'd be hard for her not to, she's the principal."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:01 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure how I feel about you dropping out, Cam."

"What if I take the GED or something?" Cam offers. "Test out?"

"...Maybe. Will the test just... tell you the answers, though?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:02 am (UTC)

"The test won't necessarily know the answers," Matilda says reassuringly. "And it won't just volunteer them, so he'll only cheat if he tries and then gets lucky."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:05 am (UTC)

"Well, then, maybe. Goodness knows school has never managed to provide you with a meaningful challenge, but you're still only fourteen."

"I know, Mom. I'll take the test, I'm not just going to teleport to Mexico City or something if you say I can't."

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:06 am (UTC)

Jellybean rolls his eyes and takes a cookie.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:10 am (UTC)

Renée gives Jellybean a bit of a sharp look but doesn't remark on the eyeroll. "What are you planning to do, Cam?"

"Plans haven't solidified yet, really, but options include starting a business to sell useful magic stuff, that seems like one of the most promising avenues," Cam says. "I'm thinking magicked medicine or food or both, but in the shorter term it'd probably take fewer resources to set up something like a computer repair shop and command all the devices to behave and get startup funds that way. Or I could win the Randi Prize. Is there some reason not to win the Randi Prize? Why is it still sitting there? Do you guys know?" These last questions are directed at Matilda mostly, Jellybean secondarily.

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:11 am (UTC)

"This world's categorized as generally hostile to magic," says Matilda. "I guess nobody wanted to cross that."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:13 am (UTC)

"I was thinking I'd show up invisible and ask for the prize in unmarked bills," Cam says. "I don't really want James Randi to be a huge part of my life, but I would like his million dollars, and I'm sure he'd be fascinated to see me win them."

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:16 am (UTC)

"Go for it," says Matilda.

"I wanna watch," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:21 am (UTC)

"I don't see why you shouldn't, if you be invisible too," Cam tells Jellybean. "Mom, this would involve me going to - Grace, I can't remember -"

"California," says Grace.

"California."

"Grace?" Renée asks.

"I condensed all my notebooks and into one, which talks, and I named it Gracenote," says Cam.

"...Oh," says Renée. "Gracenote. That's cute!"

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:22 am (UTC)

"It is adorable," says Jellybean. "I want to hug it."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:24 am (UTC)

"No!" says Grace petulantly. "Nobody but Cam. I'm Cam's."

"You realize that might be impractical at some point," Cam says. "I can't think of a good reason for anybody else to be handling you right now, but something might come up."

"Well, if you say so, but I don't want Jellybean to hug me just to hug me," Grace says.

"Okay," says Cam.

"If you made them all one, why are there two?" Renée asks.

"The other's my wizard manual," Cam says. "It's disguising itself."

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:26 am (UTC)

Jellybean hugs Matilda instead. Matilda ruffles his curly brown hair.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:27 am (UTC)

"I'm going to have to learn this language just to follow your conversations, aren't I," remarks Renée.

"I can translate for stuff if you need me to, but yeah, pretty much," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:28 am (UTC)

Matilda and Jellybean both giggle.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:29 am (UTC)

"I think I'd like to meet Matilda's mother. And Jellybean's family too," Renée says.

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:33 am (UTC)

"You are wrong," says Jellybean, with a weird bright mock-cheerful note in his voice. "You do not wanna meet my family!"

"You can meet Jenny, though, if you want," says Matilda, smoothing her hand down over Jellybean's hair in a comforting gesture.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:35 am (UTC)

"...Why don't I want to meet your family, Jellybean?" Renée asks, suddenly very much a concerned kindergarten teacher.

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:38 am (UTC)

He grins. It looks more like baring his teeth than anything.

"'Cause my dad's dead and my mom's boring?" he suggests, still brightly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:42 am (UTC)

"Boring," says Renée, not impressed with this assessment.

"I'm guessing she doesn't know about magic," Cam says.

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:43 am (UTC)

"I haven't talked to her since I left home," says Jellybean, shrugging. "And I probably never will again."

He grabs another cookie and stuffs it in his mouth.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:49 am (UTC)

"Do you live with Matilda and her mother, then?" Renée asks tentatively.

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:50 am (UTC)

Jellybean nods. He cannot answer out loud, because of the cookie.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:53 am (UTC)

"All right then," says Renée. "Then I'd just like to meet Matilda's mother, that will do. Where do you all live?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:55 am (UTC)

"New York," Matilda supplies.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 02:57 am (UTC)

"What were you doing all the way down here?" Renée asks.

"Visiting me," Cam says, before either of the others can reply. "The wizard manuals tell us where to find other wizards. I showed up in the book recently."

pythbox
2013-03-28 02:59 am (UTC)

Matilda raises her eyebrows at him.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:02 am (UTC)

He glances at her but doesn't conspicuously acknowledge this.

"That's nice of you to come by and introduce yourselves, then," Renée says. "Did you meet each other by both being wizards too, or did you know one another before?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:03 am (UTC)

"We went to school together," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:06 am (UTC)

"Goodness only knows how long ago," remarks Renée, but she doesn't actually ask. "May I have your mother's phone number, Matilda?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:12 am (UTC)

"Sure," she says, and pulls a pen and small notebook out of thin air, and writes it down and hands it over and puts the pen and notebook back into the thin air from whence they came.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:14 am (UTC)

"Where'd you get those? I got disappointing results on conjuring stuff out of thin air, when I asked," Cam says. "Do you have them tucked away somewhere or did you make them?"

Renée, meanwhile, crosses the room to the phone and dials.

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:16 am (UTC)

"I have them tucked away," says Matilda. "It's just a space pocket. It's convenient not to have to keep stuff physically with me all the time, especially pens and things."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:18 am (UTC)

"I want one," says Cam.

Renée is listening to the phone ring.

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:20 am (UTC)

Matilda starts in on the spell specifications.

Someone answers the phone.

"Hello?" says the someone.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:21 am (UTC)

"Hello, is this Matilda's mother?" inquires Renée.

Grace helps Cam with the technical translation. He mutters a space pocket into existence.

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:24 am (UTC)

"...I guess you could say that," says Jenny. "Who's calling, please?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:25 am (UTC)

"My name is Renée, and your daughter and her friend who I'm told is called Jellybean are sitting in my kitchen; my son invited them over."

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:29 am (UTC)

"I hope they're having a good time," Jenny says brightly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:30 am (UTC)

"I've offered them cookies," Renée said. "Anyway, I just wanted to call to check in with you. They say they've told you that they're wizards?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:32 am (UTC)

"They have," says Jenny. "I'm now wondering why they've told you that they're wizards. They usually don't."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:32 am (UTC)

"Well, my son is one too," says Renée. "He's talking about leaving school, which I gather Matilda and Jellybean have already done."

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:34 am (UTC)

"Oh, yes," says Jenny. "Well, Matilda doesn't need it and no one in this or any world is ever going to convince Jellybean to do something he doesn't feel like doing, so it made sense. If your son wants to leave school and go off wizarding instead, I advise you to let him."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:36 am (UTC)

"He's talking about taking the GED to test out of high school," says Renée. "I have mixed feelings about it, but apparently you're an educator yourself."

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:37 am (UTC)

"Mmhmm," says Jenny. "It's a good way to reassure you. I'm glad he thought of it."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:39 am (UTC)

"What's your name, by the way?" Renée asks.

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:41 am (UTC)

"Jenny," says Jenny.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:42 am (UTC)

"It's nice to meet you. At any rate, that's about all I have to say. From the way Cam and the others are talking I imagine you'll have a chance to meet him eventually."

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:43 am (UTC)

"I probably will," Jenny agrees cheerfully.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:44 am (UTC)

"Would you like my number in case anything comes up?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:47 am (UTC)

"Sure," she says agreeably.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:48 am (UTC)

Renée recites it, and with the obligatory pleasantries gets off the phone. "She seems to think it's a good idea to let you out of school," she tells Cam.

"She's right," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:23 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:38 pm (UTC)

"I'll have to explain it to Charlie, though," Renée points out. "I doubt you're planning to explain magic to him any time soon."

"Yeah, I don't think he'd take it that well. I'll take the test, we can tell Charlie I tested out and I'm doing independent study, he'll like that I have more flexibility to visit him whenever, won't he?" Cam says.

"I suppose he will," says Renée. "Well, you can just have the flu for the next week or so, I'll look into the GED for you. If Matilda and Jellybean need a place to stay while they're in town we have a guest room and a couch."
Edited 2013-03-28 15:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:42 pm (UTC)

"That's very kind of you!" says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:46 pm (UTC)

"You can divide them between yourselves whichever way you please," Renée says. "We probably don't want to put Jellybean on the floor of Cam's room in a sleeping bag; he talks in his sleep."

"What?" exclaims Cam. "Do not."

"Yes you do," says Grace.

"Oh," says Cam. "Grace says I do."

Renée laughs. "You've been doing it since before you could even properly talk."

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:47 pm (UTC)

Matilda and Jellybean exchange a glance.

"We can just take the guest room," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:48 pm (UTC)

"...What, both of you?" Renée asks.

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Matilda says firmly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:51 pm (UTC)

"If I call Jenny and ask her, what do you think she will say?" Renée asks.

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:54 pm (UTC)

"I think she will say that it's not even slightly out of the ordinary for us," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 03:58 pm (UTC)

Renée considers this, then decides not to bother calling their bluff. "All right. I'll get you a sleeping bag."

When Renée has left the room to get a sleeping bag, Cam says, "You might just want to let her think one of you's going to use it whether you are or not."

pythbox
2013-03-28 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Sure we're going to use it," Jellybean says cheerfully. "Extra blanket."

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay. And Matilda, you kinda looked at me funny when I omitted certain things about Iggy, but I don't think telling would help, she'd worry and couldn't do anything."

Renée reappears. "The sleeping bag's set up in the guest room," she says. "Dinner will be at six, and I can stretch it for four. I assume you can amuse yourselves till then?"

"Sure, Mom," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-28 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 08:09 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Renée, and she takes a cookie, looks dubiously at it, and goes to sit in the living room with a book.

"I," says Cam, "am going to check the yard for Iggy."

And so he does.

pythbox
2013-03-28 08:18 pm (UTC)

Iggy is nowhere to be found.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Rock's gone," says Cam to the other two wizards.

pythbox
2013-03-28 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 08:24 pm (UTC)

"How do you guys usually decide what to do next, anyway, if you've been all unsystematic about everything?"

pythbox
2013-03-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"We... just kind of do stuff," says Jellybean.

"Whatever springs to mind," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-28 08:57 pm (UTC)

Cam looks at them, then decides not to extensively criticize their lack of systematized attempts at accomplishing useful things when they did - however incidentally - save his life.

"Okay. As long as I've got Grace transcribing from my manual and it's currently unrestricted as far as I know, is there anything yours won't tell you that you particularly miss?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 12:33 am (UTC)

Matilda shakes her head. "Mostly it's things like blocked directory entries, that a static transcription wouldn't help."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 01:18 am (UTC)

"Fair enough," says Cam, "she can keep doing what she's doing. Have any of you got a good spell for long-distance communication?" he inquires, including the manual as well as both wizards in this address.

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:24 am (UTC)

The manual volunteers several options; Matilda suggests only one. Hers is very efficient, and works more or less like a telephone.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 01:29 am (UTC)

Cam likes her idea best. "If I set that up, then we can split up and I can coordinate with you without cramping your style too much," he says. "How long will it take for you itinerants to get bored hanging around Phoenix while I wait to pass the GED and be allowed to properly drop out?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:30 am (UTC)

"Not long," giggles Jellybean.

"Probably longer than usual," says Matilda, "if we keep chatting with you along the way. But I bet we'll be moving on in a week."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 01:32 am (UTC)

"What are you guys good at apart from wizarding?" Cam wants to know, heading back inside from the Iggy-free yard.

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:48 am (UTC)

"Trouble," says Jellybean.

"Math," says Matilda.

"Flirting," says Jellybean.

"Reading," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 01:51 am (UTC)

"You might have to explain 'trouble'," Cam tells Jellybean. "That sounds either useful or anti-useful depending."

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:55 am (UTC)

"Trouble: getting into, getting out of, causing," says Jellybean. "Fixing's more Tilly's speed."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 01:57 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't mean what do you do with the trouble, I mean, what constitutes trouble here?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:59 am (UTC)

"Depends, doesn't it?" He shrugs. "It's not like I keep a list."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 02:19 am (UTC)

"Can I have examples?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 02:23 am (UTC)

He can have several!

Matilda interrupts occasionally to explain a detail or prevent him from including something unnecessarily shocking.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 02:25 am (UTC)

Cam is somewhat curious about the contents of the unnecessarily shocking parts!

pythbox
2013-03-29 02:29 am (UTC)

"Well, if you wanna hear the juicy details..." says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 02:32 am (UTC)

"Maybe start with one juicy detail and I'll see if I prefer to hear its relatives too."

pythbox
2013-03-29 02:50 am (UTC)

Jellybean proceeds to explain just what went on between him and the nice lady with the tentacles.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 02:52 am (UTC)

"I will pass on further of same," Cam says after listening quite levelly to this story.

pythbox
2013-03-29 02:56 am (UTC)

Jellybean giggles. "Suit yourself," he says. "She was sweet, though. And cuddly."
Edited 2013-03-29 03:05 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:06 am (UTC)

"Aren't you my age?" Cam asks.

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:07 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "I'm fifteen, what's it to you?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:07 am (UTC)

"It's not my business, but I'm sort of curious about how many stress-related diseases I'd be dying of if it were."

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:08 am (UTC)

Jellybean snickers.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:11 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure what I'm going to be when I grow up but I'm pretty sure it won't wind up calling for tentacled aliens."

"Hmm," Grace says.

"What?" Cam asks her. "I hope you're not about to contradict me about the tentacled aliens, I'd have to believe it if it came from you."

"No, I think you're right about that. I might be more able to figure out what you're going to be when you grow up than you are, though," Grace offers.

"...Later. Privately," Cam says.

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:13 am (UTC)

Jellybean grins. "Your loss," he says cheerfully.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:17 am (UTC)

"I'm sure," snorts Cam. "I think I want to cast that snug ward today - Matilda, do you think I know everything I need to to get it right the first time or were there details omitted or possible customizations I should think about? Is it going to knock me out such that I should wait till bedtime?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:18 am (UTC)

"We could cast it with you if you need the boost," Jellybean offers. "The setup's more complicated, but it takes less out of you."

"Otherwise it probably will knock you pretty flat," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:21 am (UTC)

"Cooperative casting! I'm sold. How's that work?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, we all put our names into the spell," says Matilda, "linked up so it's obvious who's the target and who's just lending a hand, and then we say it together."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:01 pm (UTC)

"My name name, or the nine-paragraph monstrosity that the worksheet thing spat out? Is there a way to trim those and have them work? I don't really feel like my favorite ice cream flavor is key to my identity."

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:03 pm (UTC)

"It's kinda chancy," says Jellybean.

"Yeah, says you," Matilda says fondly, ruffling his hair. To Cam, she adds, "It's usually a good idea to go with as complete and accurate a name as you can manage, but accuracy is more important than completeness. Which is why Jellybean's is so short."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:07 pm (UTC)

"What's yours?" Cam asks Jellybean.

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:08 pm (UTC)

He says a word in the Speech that means, concisely, 'the self-defining'.

"Don't try it," he adds with a crooked smile.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:10 pm (UTC)

"Not going to," Cam says. "If I were going to try to work with something ultra-short along those lines I'd go with 'the self-seeing' or 'the self-knowing'. How'd you figure out that'd work for you?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:12 pm (UTC)

Jellybean grins.

"I tried it."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, that could have been a disaster, lucky you," snorts Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:17 pm (UTC)

"It felt true," he says.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Is there some useful intuition here I should be cultivating or is that also just you?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:22 pm (UTC)

"I've never heard of anyone else with a name that short," says Matilda.

"Or did you mean stuff feeling true in general? Yeah, I think that's just between me and my name," says Jellybean.
Edited 2013-03-29 15:22 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:30 pm (UTC)

"I meant about stuff feeling true," Cam says. "But not getting my hopes up about a name less than nine paragraphs long is also important. Does co-casting split the same effort evenly, or unevenly, or does it cost more overall but less for every individual person, or is it more efficient energywise but also more time-consuming, or what?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Depends on the spell," says Matilda. "My intuition based on experience is that the bigger the spell, the more you win on a co-cast, and on tiny spells you lose. But I wouldn't say that's accurate to every case. For this size spell, it should come out about even on efficiency and cost much less individually."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Let's compose this thing." Cam flips Grace open to a blank page, and technical discussion ensues.

Followed, presumably, by group casting.

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:38 pm (UTC)

Group casting has a much stronger sensation to it than casting alone, or maybe that's the strength of the spell. There is a real sense that something is listening, although it's not clear what.

Matilda and Jellybean are incredibly powerful.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Cool," breathes Cam, when this is all over and he's warded up. "Is it just me or was something, er, listening to us?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:44 pm (UTC)

"That happens," says Matilda.

"Usually it's whatever you're casting the spell on," says Jellybean.

"Sometimes it's probably the Powers," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:45 pm (UTC)

"How many of those are there, anyway? What are their ostensible specialties besides Iggy's and the Whisperer's?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:46 pm (UTC)

"They don't always like to be singled out," says Matilda.

"You might've noticed the manuals have about jack on 'em," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:47 pm (UTC)

"I did notice that. So they're all in very snug cahoots? Or they're worried someone will learn enough to name them and do stuff to them?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Definitely the snug cahoots," says Jellybean. And the two of them look at each other, and smile.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 03:53 pm (UTC)

Cam snickers.

Renée calls them to dinner.

Dinner is macaroni and cheese with spinach in it, and side salads, with the remaining cookies for dessert.

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:54 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom!

the self-knower

lifes_sake

Vague and grandiose chat about motivated capitalism take up the rest of the wizards' evening. Plans are made for Cam to learn about worldgates the following (skipped from school with Renée's kind accomplicehood) day and, assuming he catches on quickly enough, to go to New York and meet Jenny and talk about her operating as their business proxy.

Presently it's bedtime, and Cam goes to his room and Matilda and Jellybean go to theirs and Cam has the chance to ask Grace what on earth she meant.

"Well," Grace says, whispering, "you've been holding off on labeling because you're only fourteen, but people stabilize at different ages, don't they? And as near as I can tell you've been stable for almost a year now. Not on either, but on whichever. I think you're just as likely to get a crush on Jellybean as Matilda and vice-versa, and I don't think it's because you're still undeclared, I think you're just wired that way."

Cam considers this. "Okay," he says. "I can live with that."

"I should hope so," says Grace, and Cam laughs, and he goes to sleep.

He's still on a sleep cycle appropriate to school, so he may be up before Jellybean and Matilda in the morning.

pythbox
2013-03-29 05:51 pm (UTC)

He is, in fact! But not by a lot. They proceed out of their room soon enough, still dressed like magical girls.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Do you just always dress like that?" Cam just always dresses in jeans and t-shirts, but at least there are black jeans in addition to multiple shades of blue jeans and four entire colors of shirt.

pythbox
2013-03-29 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Not always," says Jellybean.

"But most of the time," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 06:05 pm (UTC)

Cam shrugs and goes downstairs to get some cereal. "Do you know where the nearest worldgate hub is," he asks, "or are we just going to take a bunch of buses here and there till we find one?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I can find us one!" says Jellybean. "I'm really good at it."

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Cool." Renée has already left for work. Cam finishes his cereal. "Where to?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 06:12 pm (UTC)

Jellybean takes the lead.

His outfit receives some odd looks. He does not appear to give a single shred of a fuck.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 06:13 pm (UTC)

Cam doesn't pay them any mind either. Jellybean's prerogative.

pythbox
2013-03-29 06:14 pm (UTC)

On they go!

A worldgate locus, it turns out - he finds one in an alley behind a bus station - is not distinguishable by any of the ordinary senses. But there's definitely something there.

Matilda takes over with the technical explanations.

lifes_sake
2013-03-29 06:16 pm (UTC)

Cam spends a few minutes standing in various places relative to the worldgate locus, learning the feel of it, and attends carefully to Matilda's explanation.

"All right," he says, "now how do I use this thing?"

pythbox
2013-03-31 12:32 pm (UTC)

Matilda demonstrates, with her usual precision and efficiency.

The gate she opens has someone's living room on the other side.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Cam, opening up Grace to sketch a quick drawing of the gate and a map to the locus. "But Jenny's not home, right? By the way, when I meet her, what do I call her?"

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:17 pm (UTC)

"You... call her Jenny?" says Matilda, trying and failing to imagine another option. "And no, she's at work. If we want to visit her we should do it on a weekend."

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, Renée's pretty laid back about my friends calling her Renée - although if I do it she doesn't like it, I have to address her to her face as Mom - but I have friends whose moms insist on being Mrs. Little or whatever," Cam explains. "All right. Now we know where a locus is for later, let's see what we can do about plants and medicines and stuff. We can keep experimenting on that till you guys are bored, and then you can go do whatever for a bit while I win a million dollars and then we can get really started."

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I am totally gonna watch you win a million dollars," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 05:24 pm (UTC)

"All right, we can keep doing that until you get bored and then we can go and I win a million dollars," says Cam. "I should probably submit an application thing first so they have time to process it, though. Should we take the bus back home or gate there, d'you think?"

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, gate there," says Matilda. "You can set it up, for the practice, and we'll all power it because it's more efficient that way."

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 05:28 pm (UTC)

"All right." Cam peers into Grace's transcription of the explanation to make sure he has it down, and then he follows the steps methodically.

And there's Renée's kitchen.

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:31 pm (UTC)

They all troop through; the gate closes behind them.

"Time to do science!" says Matilda. Jellybean laughs.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Science!" crows Cam, and he starts raiding the pantry and the medicine cabinet for raw materials to talk to. He hands Jellybean a potato and Matilda an ibuprofen tablet and himself a vitamin supplement to start with.

Science ensues!

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:41 pm (UTC)

Potatoes, it turns out, are about on the level of grass and muffins as far as higher cognition goes.

Jellybean still manages to convince his to do a cute little dance.
Edited 2013-03-31 17:41 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Cute," says Cam, looking up from his vitamin and his wizard manual. "But dancing potatoes are not going to feed appreciably more starving people."

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:46 pm (UTC)

"So?" says Jellybean. The potato pirouettes.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 05:47 pm (UTC)

Cam looks at him for a second, then says, "Okay," and relegates that particular potato to toy duty and gets himself another one to look at for when he's done with the vitamin.

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:57 pm (UTC)

Jellybean continues playing with his dancing potato.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 06:02 pm (UTC)

Cam wishes to convince his vitamin to be better at being a vitamin. Ideally, it could supply perfect micronutrients for whoever took it with some sort of time-release so it wouldn't be necessary to have a new one every day for the vitamins that humans can't store effectively, but he'd settle for omitting side effects like niacin flush or some other measurable improvement in the performance. What does his manual have to say about that?

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:05 pm (UTC)

His manual doesn't have anything specific to say about that. There are no preexisting spells to accomplish these aims.

Jellybean overhears the question and asks, "Niacin flush?"

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 06:06 pm (UTC)

"If you take niacin, even the right amount of niacin, if it's more than you were getting before you get some side effects," says Cam, showing Jellybean the warning on the bottle.

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Jellybean. He captures his dancing potato and starts talking to it again.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 06:17 pm (UTC)

Cam starts asking his manual for general information about getting things to work in different ways in general.

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:24 pm (UTC)

Well, that's... most of wizardry, really. The manual does its best to oblige.

Jellybean grabs a vitamin supplement.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 06:25 pm (UTC)

"You want to trade?" Cam asks Jellybean.

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 06:29 pm (UTC)

"...Okay." Cam goes back to narrowing down what he's looking for from the manual without getting too narrow, with Grace's help.

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:31 pm (UTC)

Jellybean talks to the potato and the vitamin. Matilda consults their manual and examines her pill.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 06:36 pm (UTC)

Science continues to ensue!

They don't make a lot of progress, and after a while Cam switches to a potato of his own. He already has a fair number of spells pulled on the subject of food and knows how to make the potato taste like chicken. Can he make it have other features of cleverer products? Can it taste like beef, can he fuss with the macronutrient content, will it consent to pass on characteristics like that to its sprouts?

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:45 pm (UTC)

Some success is possible in that direction, although the potato is reluctant to taste like anything but potato and even more reluctant to take on any of these qualities in a genetic rather than superficial sense.

Meanwhile, Jellybean's potato is now a more vibrant shade of brown.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 06:51 pm (UTC)

Cam solicits information on outright genetic manipulation, in case someone's come up with a way to get around this reluctance. He's also listening with half an ear to what in the world Jellybean's doing with his potato.

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:52 pm (UTC)

What Jellybean's doing with his potato is, apparently, genetic modification! That colour change is heritable.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 06:58 pm (UTC)

Cam blinks, and pays attention. He doesn't interrupt Jellybean; he does not yet know how to do that productively instead of distracting the other wizard into making the potato sing songs or write the Great American Novel or something instead.

pythbox
2013-03-31 07:03 pm (UTC)

Mostly he's just talking to it, in an entirely casual way. And he gently, casually suggests that the potato take on this or that quality... and it does, as easily as that.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 07:04 pm (UTC)

Cam peers at Jellybean's potato, and at his own potato, and he attempts to mimic the style, just in case it'll work.

pythbox
2013-03-31 07:25 pm (UTC)

Nope.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 07:26 pm (UTC)

Dangit.

He decides to wait to see if Jellybean gets around to more useful changes than darkened color of his own accord before attempting to prod him into it. He carries on with his own approach to the project, and takes a bit of a listen to what Matilda's doing between attempts.

pythbox
2013-03-31 07:29 pm (UTC)

Matilda is systematically grilling her pill about its molecular composition and physical structure.

Jellybean convinces the potato to have a nutrient balance closer to the ideal ratio for human consumption. He doesn't say it like that, though, so it might take some listening to figure out that's what he's up to.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 07:32 pm (UTC)

Grace is helping, so Cam figures it out eventually. He doesn't interrupt. He does, however, give up on his potato - since Jellybean is making more progress and there's so much more to do - and get a grain of rice.

pythbox
2013-03-31 07:40 pm (UTC)

Rice, for whatever reason, is more receptive to his suggestions than potatoes.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 07:41 pm (UTC)

Okay, that's interesting, if they just vary in cooperativeness. Cam tries other available plant-based foods, finds rice the most suggestible, and sets about convincing the rice to do useful things, taking notes as he goes on what he's trying and what works.

pythbox
2013-03-31 07:48 pm (UTC)

"So are we gonna find somewhere to plant these?" wonders Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Arizona's not really great for it, but I guess if we can make them take root in the backyard here, that's a good test of how they'll do in, like, the Sahara, compared to if we went someplace cooler?" says Cam. "So there's here, it's not like the sand in the yard is doing anything that Renée'll be annoyed if we mess up."

pythbox
2013-03-31 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Cool," he says agreeably.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 07:56 pm (UTC)

"How's the painkiller behaving?" Cam inquires of Matilda.

pythbox
2013-03-31 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I haven't tried anything yet," she says absently. "Still learning."

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 08:03 pm (UTC)

He lets her be.

When he's out of ideas on the rice, he goes and puts it in the back yard and pours water on it and sternly instructs it to grow.

pythbox
2013-03-31 08:05 pm (UTC)

The rice sprouts obediently.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 08:06 pm (UTC)

Good rice.

It'll take a while to get longer term data on how tasty it is, of course. He goes in and works with the next most cooperative item, a grain of quinoa that Renée bought as a form of protein for vegetarian experimentation, and gives it a similar treatment.

pythbox
2013-03-31 09:15 pm (UTC)

Jellybean is still improving his potato.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 09:23 pm (UTC)

Exciting Tedious Wizard Science goes on until there is a row of nine sprouts of various things trying their darndest to grow in the sand.

It is now time for Cam to win a million bucks. His original form got a positive reply.

"Matilda, are you coming too?"

pythbox
2013-03-31 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Sure," she says cheerfully.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 09:26 pm (UTC)

Off they go to the worldgate locus. "If we can't find one on the other end, we can just gate from anywhere and be dead tired after, right?" Cam confirms before setting up the gate.
Edited 2013-03-31 21:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-31 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Jellybean, "but we've never had to emergency-gate from Earth."

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, not expecting it, just would rather be dead tired than a thousand dollars in the hole if something happens and I need a last-minute plane ticket. Invisibility time."

Invisibility: check!

Gate setup is a go!

Is that the office of James Randi? Well, there's James Randi, anyway.

Cam steps through.

pythbox
2013-03-31 09:35 pm (UTC)

Jellybean and Matilda both follow, likewise concealed.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 09:40 pm (UTC)

Cam clears his throat.

"Hi, Mr. Randi, I don't know if you answer your own email or not but I'm here for my million dollars," says Cam.

Mr. Randi blinks slowly.

pythbox
2013-03-31 09:43 pm (UTC)

(Jellybean giggles behind impromptu soundproofing.)

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Mr...?" says Randi, slow and uncertain.

"My application's under Nick Carter, but full disclosure, not my real name," says Cam. "Oh, and I don't have a bank account, for reasons of my own, so if you can't give the first payment in non-check form I'll just have to skip that one, and I'd like the rest liquidated in cash, and the agreed-upon test was that I'd make some plant seeds of your own provision sprout instantly by talking to them, do you have those ready or do you want me to wait while you send somebody to the garden store?"

"Mr. Carter, are you invisible?"

"Yes," says Cam dryly. "Yes, I am invisible, and I teleported here, but isn't the point that we do an agreed-upon test under controlled conditions, not that I just show up and wow you?"

"...Ye-e-es."

pythbox
2013-03-31 09:55 pm (UTC)

(Jellybean, mutually visible to both of the other wizards in the room, is now cackling silently.)

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 10:00 pm (UTC)

"...I will send someone to the garden store, Mr. Carter," says Mr. Randi slowly.

He does not sound thrilled.

"If you want to see some other stuff, to make up for the fact that you're going to have to give me a million dollars and the fact that I've got other things to do than loiter here being researched," says Cam, "I don't object to passing the time."

"What can you do?"

"Lots of stuff," says Cam brightly. "But not manufacture a million dollars out of thin air, which is why I'm here."

pythbox
2013-03-31 10:03 pm (UTC)

Jellybean claps his hands, also silently. Even Matilda is grinning.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 10:07 pm (UTC)

Mr. Randi gets someone on the phone. He sends them to the garden store.

"Why so secretive, Mr. Carter?" he asks, after the phone call has concluded.

"I'm not omnipotent, teleporting is kinda hard, and I'm really not interested in a career as a lab rat," says Cam. "I don't think you personally would be cutting me up, but I'd rather your friends and colleagues not be able to find me at home."

"Why no bank account?"

"For," Cam repeats, "reasons of my own."

pythbox
2013-03-31 10:09 pm (UTC)

Now it's Matilda's turn to soundproof her giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 10:16 pm (UTC)

"What sorts of things could you do with what's in this room?" Randi wants to know.

"Well, I'm still learning, but I can look up any specific effects that interest you."

"So the... magic... you're claiming is in a book."

"I don't really want to go into too much detail, Mr. Randi. There's a reason I'm being invisible and so on."

"I see." Pause. "Can you fix my computer?"

"That's a probably!" says Cam, flicking his manual and turning pages.

pythbox
2013-03-31 10:18 pm (UTC)

Jellybean holds up a hand in an I-got-this gesture and heads for the computer in question. Matilda follows. They talk to it in a way audible to no one but themselves and the computer.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 10:22 pm (UTC)

"In progress," Cam reports. This will have the convenient effect of not disclosing to Randi that all spellcasting involves talking to stuff.

"...I don't need to tell you what's wrong with it?"

"Nope, not really," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-03-31 10:28 pm (UTC)

After about thirty more seconds, Matilda gives the thumbs-up.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 10:30 pm (UTC)

"See if it works now," Cam invites.

Randi side-eyes him and starts poking around on his computer.

"You realize if I can't parade you in front of all of the people interested in the outcome of the challenge," Randi says, "it'll be hard to explain."

"You can film it if you want. I am after all invisible," offers Cam. "I realize that doesn't help that much, given movies, but it should do some."

pythbox
2013-03-31 10:32 pm (UTC)

Matilda beams proudly at the computer.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Will you speak on camera?" Randi asks.

"A little. I don't want to do too much of it, and you won't be able to prove it's not voiceover anyway."

"True," Randi admits.

His phone rings. He picks up.

"If you'll come with me," he says to Cam when the call ends.

"Right behind you, Mr. Randi."

pythbox
2013-03-31 10:39 pm (UTC)

Jellybean and Matilda trail them like a very short row of ducklings.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Are you still there?" Randi asks, when they get to the elevator.

"Yep," says Cam.

Down the elevator they go.

There are some pots and some seeds in them, and they're under plastic covers.

"All you have to do is talk to them, is that right?" Randi asks.

"I can do it that way," confirms Cam vaguely. "Pretty sure they can hear me through the plastic."

"Go ahead, then," sighs Randi.

"Heyyyy, seeds," says Cam brightly in Speech, familiar by now with how to wake up plants. "Sprout!"

pythbox
2013-03-31 10:48 pm (UTC)

The plants sprout. They do it fairly energetically, for plants.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Do you need me to, like, come back next week and replicate?" Cam inquires.

"...We agreed on this test," says Randi quietly. "You've passed this test."

"Yeah, but I don't mind making another trip, I mean, it's a million dollars, it'll take you guys a while to liquidate it anyway, right?"

pythbox
2013-03-31 10:52 pm (UTC)

Jellybean is still having snickerfits behind his soundproofing.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 11:09 pm (UTC)

"It'll take some time, yes. Where do you want it sent?"

"You're not getting this fake name, no bank account, invisibility thing, are you," says Cam. "I'll pick it up. You can email me to tell me when and where."

pythbox
2013-03-31 11:10 pm (UTC)

Matilda emits a silent giggle.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 11:19 pm (UTC)

"How will we know it's you?" Randi wants to know.

"If someone else invisible with my voice who hacks into one of our email accounts to get the when-and-where information appears," Cam says, "or rather, doesn't appear, but invisibly comes to be located here, says he's in your records as Nick Carter, and asks for my money, you know what, hand him an installment, I won't blame you," says Cam. "The exactly one million figure does not matter that much to me."

pythbox
2013-03-31 11:20 pm (UTC)

Which cracks both of them up all over again.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 11:31 pm (UTC)

"And you want it cash," says Randi.

"Yes, please, otherwise I'd have to do something awkward where I teleport to a lot of different post offices redeeming money orders so nobody can tell where I live, they maybe ask for ID, or whatever."

"...That'll take a while."

"I'm not in a huge hurry," says Cam. "Just keep it coming, please."

"As agreed," Randi sighs, picking up a plastic cover and poking at one of the plants.

pythbox
2013-03-31 11:32 pm (UTC)

The plant rustles verdantly.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Am I all set to get out of here while you work out liquidation," Cam asks, "or do you need me to make a suspicious-looking indentation in a chair while you ask me some questions on camera and I answer evasively?"

"You can go," sighs Randi, poking another plant.

Cam strolls out of the room.

pythbox
2013-03-31 11:42 pm (UTC)

Jellybean takes the lead, since he's the worldgate-finding expert.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 11:47 pm (UTC)

Cam follows merrily. "I'm gonna be a millionaire," he says cheerfully. "You guys have fun?"

pythbox
2013-03-31 11:49 pm (UTC)

Jellybean drops his soundproofing.

"Yep! You're awesome."

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I am!" Cam agrees without a trace of self-consciousness.

pythbox
2013-03-31 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I kind of wanna make out with you," Jellybean declares.

lifes_sake
2013-03-31 11:58 pm (UTC)

"What, right now, invisibly on the middle of the sidewalk?" asks Cam.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:00 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Jellybean. "I mean, unless you really wanna go home first or something."

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:02 am (UTC)

"Going home first sounds like a lousy idea," says Cam. "I dunno, I think somebody'd bump into us if we weren't routing around them, there's pedestrians."

It's still not a no.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:04 am (UTC)

"See," says Jellybean, "if this is you letting me down gently, we can just go back to your place, but if this is not you letting me down gently, how would you like to make out on the Moon?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:08 am (UTC)

"I think making out on the Moon sounds great," says Cam decisively.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:10 am (UTC)

"Awesome," says Jellybean, and he heads off in search of a worldgate locus.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:11 am (UTC)

Cam continues to follow. He glances at Matilda to see if she has any particular reaction to this exchange.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:14 am (UTC)

She just asks, "Can I wait for you guys at your house? It'll be easier to get back that way, Jellybean and I can gate to each other more easily than we can to arbitrary locations."

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, sure," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:16 am (UTC)

"Okay," she says agreeably.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:18 am (UTC)

Ho hum looking for a worldgate.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:22 am (UTC)

Ho hum ho hum there's a worldgate!

Matilda goes through first, into Cam's backyard. Then Jellybean takes over and sets the gate to take them to the Moon, conscientiously including a nice big supply of air.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:24 am (UTC)

"Moon," observes Cam, perhaps unnecessarily, turning on the spot to take in the moonscape. The stars are something else, the view of Earth really something else. "Damn." The part they're standing on is pretty much gray dirt as far as the eye can see, but the sky from here...
Edited 2013-04-01 00:30 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:31 am (UTC)

"I know," says Jellybean, "awesome, right?" He is grinning hugely. Only some of this is because they are on the Moon.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:33 am (UTC)

"Fantastic. D'you hang out on the moon a lot?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:34 am (UTC)

"Not a lot," he says. "But once in a while, yeah."

He sits down in the dust and leans back on his hands and gazes up at the shining Earth.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:35 am (UTC)

Cam laughs and flops onto his back and makes a moon angel.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:36 am (UTC)

Jellybean giggles affectionately at this, and flops right next to him.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:38 am (UTC)

"So, um," says Cam. "I have not made out with anybody on any celestial body at all before. Is there an instruction manual?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:41 am (UTC)

"Nah," he says, snuggling up a little. "But I can give you some tips if you want, I've made out with lots of people."

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:43 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Cam, "do tell."

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:43 am (UTC)

"I was thinking less tell," Jellybean says cheerfully, "more show."

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:44 am (UTC)

"Oh. Okay."

Cam will be lying here awkwardly in the moondust, waiting to be shown.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:48 am (UTC)

Jellybean kisses him.

Like so!

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:48 am (UTC)

Like so, is it?

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:49 am (UTC)

Yes, yes exactly. Is Cam a quick learner? Because those are fun.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:49 am (UTC)

Cam is in fact a very quick learner!

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:53 am (UTC)

Awesome.

How does he feel about progressing to more advanced material?

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:55 am (UTC)

Well, that might depend on how advanced.

pythbox
2013-04-01 12:56 am (UTC)

For one thing, Jellybean definitely thinks these moon makeouts would be improved if the number of shirts involved was drastically reduced.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 12:57 am (UTC)

Cam is on board with this subtraction of shirts!

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:01 am (UTC)

Perfect! Jellybean is so glad he agrees.

Subtraction of shirts opens up enough new options that it might be quite a while before he raises the subject of pants.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:01 am (UTC)

That's good, because there may be only one pair of pants between them but Cam thinks they should stay where they are for now.

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:05 am (UTC)

Does he have any opinions about Jellybean's skirt? Because Jellybean is fine with keeping the skirt on, but might be a little disappointed if Cam is scrupulous about avoiding its entire area of coverage.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:05 am (UTC)

Well, not the entire area. Not necessarily.

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:08 am (UTC)

Oh, awesome.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:09 am (UTC)

This was clearly an excellent idea.

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:10 am (UTC)

It totally fucking was.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:11 am (UTC)

Delicious Jellybean kisses, om nom nom.
Edited 2013-04-01 01:13 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:15 am (UTC)

He is the tastiest Jellybean, it's true!

It's literally true, in fact - just for fun, he makes his skin taste like candy.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:16 am (UTC)

Cam makes a confused, intrigued noise, and carries on with exactly what he is doing.

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:17 am (UTC)

Jellybean giggles into the latest of many kisses.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:19 am (UTC)

There's really no clear indication of when they're done kissing on the moon, is there?

"How much air'd you bring?" murmurs Cam.

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:21 am (UTC)

"Enough," he says cheerfully. "Tilly came up with an air-vacuum barrier that does gas exchange, we could be up here for days before it gave up on us."

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:21 am (UTC)

"'S a long time," observes Cam.

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:23 am (UTC)

"Yup!" says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:25 am (UTC)

Kiss kiss nibble?

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:26 am (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Yes excellent.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:28 am (UTC)

Good, Cam's first attempt at outright improvisation is a success. This was a good idea that Jellybean had and going along was a good idea that Cam had.

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:29 am (UTC)

Jellybean is downright enthusiastic about Cam's improvisation!

Jellybean is enthusiastic in general. Especially about makeouts.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:39 am (UTC)

Yeah, Cam's getting that impression. He's developing quite a bit of enthusiasm himself.

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:42 am (UTC)

Awesome. Jellybean loves making out with enthusiastic people! It's such fun, isn't it?

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:43 am (UTC)

Cam can see why it's so popular, yes!

pythbox
2013-04-01 01:49 am (UTC)

Eventually, Jellybean snuggles up and says contentedly, "See? Now you know plenty about making out on the Moon."

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 01:52 am (UTC)

"I do wonder how well it'll generalize to related situations," muses Cam. He pauses for effect. "I mean, I feel like I know almost nothing about skiing on the moon."

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:04 am (UTC)

...

Jellybean cracks up.

And then kisses him.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:13 am (UTC)

Kisses! Yay! Partial confirmation of Grace's guess! Yay!

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:17 am (UTC)

Insofar as making out with Jellybean says anything about anyone's sexual orientation, yes indeed!

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:19 am (UTC)

As far as Cam knows, it's at least a hint!

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:23 am (UTC)

Anyways, kisses. Yes. Kisses on the Moon.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:25 am (UTC)

In quantity!

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:26 am (UTC)

And quality!

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:28 am (UTC)

And sugaryness!

But eventually: "I should probably be home before Renée is."

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:30 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Jellybean.

He retrieves his puffy-sleeved white blouse from the lunar surface and wriggles back into it.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:32 am (UTC)

Cam shakes the dust off his shirt, puts it on, and attempts to convince his outfit and skin to shoo dust away.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:36 am (UTC)

Jellybean just runs both hands through his hair and shakes himself out. His clothes become pristine; his skin remains covered in moondust.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:38 am (UTC)

"I wish you'd say more of your spells so I could pick them up. I can't read your mind," mutters Cam, and he tries a new wording to get cleaned up.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:40 am (UTC)

"If you want repeatable spells, try Tilly," he says. "If you just wanna clean up—"

He runs his hands familiarly over Cam's clothes, murmuring to them. The moondust departs.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:41 am (UTC)

"Thanks," says Cam. "I don't suppose there's a locus on the moon."

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:45 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Jellybean. "Gotta do it the hard way."

He rubs his hands together and starts talking to empty air.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:46 am (UTC)

Cam pats Grace, who is in his bag.

"Transcribing, not that it'll do all that much good," she says.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:51 am (UTC)

Jellybean definitely has his own style of spellcasting.

It works fine, though. He ushers Cam through the gate as soon as he has it open, then unravels the lunar amenities on the other side and pulls the gate shut all with a flick of his hand.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:53 am (UTC)

And here they are!

Renée is not home yet. Good, good.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:55 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Matilda. "Did you have fun?"

"Lots," beams Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 02:58 am (UTC)

Cam nods. "I made a moondust angel," he adds innocently.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:59 am (UTC)

Matilda giggles. "Is that what they're calling it these days."

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 03:01 am (UTC)

Cam snorts. He goes to check on the seedlings in the yard and take notes on their progress.

pythbox
2013-04-01 03:51 pm (UTC)

They're all growing cheerfully enough, at ordinary rates for their respective species.

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 04:37 pm (UTC)

Dangit, they were supposed to go faster. Oh well. Speed isn't as important as yield.

pythbox
2013-04-01 05:25 pm (UTC)

And at least they're growing, which in this climate most of them ordinarily wouldn't be.
Edited 2013-04-01 17:26 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-04-01 05:27 pm (UTC)

There is that! He pats them all encouragingly. He's going to be a millionaire and pull a Norman Borlaug. Awesome.

seedling enterprises

lifes_sake

Jenny is helpful. Cam can fill out forms - actually, he's good enough with paper that a lot of the time he can just command forms to fill out themselves - and he can sound like a grown man on the phone, but for the handful of things that require an adult to go somewhere in person, she's useful. He grows - he's adult height before his sixteenth birthday, and if he grows a little stubble and holds himself right and talks in the level, mature way he's learned on the phone, he can meet with investors and clients in person, and Jenny only has to do things that require proof of age. She's still handling most of their money, at that point, but Cam's doing the business end.

He calls it Seedling Enterprises. He has a field in which he grows test plants to make sure they're stupid, and to take their seeds; after he's happy with a strain, he sends it off to a partnered firm with operations in Mexico for mass reproduction and he has someone else handling distribution. Seeds are much easier than pharmaceuticals. He hasn't given up on being able to make wonder drugs, but they're harder to make and drastically harder to scale, so he's starting with the plants.

Matilda and Jellybean aren't the most consistent helpers - they have their own stuff to do - but Jellybean is good at talking properties into the seeds and Matilda's good at turning ideas into spells that Cam himself can use, when they show up and entertain themselves at Seedling for a day or a week before haring off. They're even a net positive after factoring in all the time Cam and Jellybean spend making out.

Cam asked Renée, early on, to keep an eye on any kids at her school starting to talk to non-person objects with atypical pauses between their sections of the conversation, and so he now routinely babysits a third-grader wizard named Luke (for cheap, but not free, because Luke's mother doesn't know about magic and Cam doesn't want to explain to her that her son is earning his supervision by talking to plants) and casually violates child labor laws with same. Luke, for his own part, couldn't be happier with the arrangement, especially since Cam was on hand to command a rabid dog presumably sent by Iggy to stand the fuck down.

Cam's sixteenth birthday present to himself is finally letting Jellybean into his pants.

It is a good present.

It's about a month later that Cam tells Jellybean: "Luke's mom tried to set me up with her niece, the other day, and I told her no thanks, and she asked me if I had a girlfriend, and I said no, and she asked me if I had a boyfriend, and I didn't know what the hell to tell her. I wound up saying something about not wanting to discuss my personal life. And now I'm wondering if I have a boyfriend."

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," laughs Jellybean, "do ya?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:32 pm (UTC)

"If I knew I wouldn't be asking you."

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:35 pm (UTC)

Jellybean shrugs.

"What's the difference?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:36 pm (UTC)

"If there was much of one, I would've wanted to have this conversation a loooong time ago."

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:41 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"Okay. So what's the not-much-of-a difference?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:43 pm (UTC)

Cam shrugs. "Labeling, I guess. Do I get to tell random people who try to set me up with their nieces that I have a boyfriend. Not that I'd expect you to stand between me and anybody's niece, label or no. I dunno. If either of us were in school would we go to prom together, when you say you love me do you mean it like drunk people mean it or like boyfriends mean it, that sort of thing."

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Can I mean it like both?" he asks, grinning.

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:45 pm (UTC)

"So you're my drunk boyfriend?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he asserts confidently.

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:46 pm (UTC)

"You just being sort of perpetually, innately drunk would explain a lot," Cam snorts.

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:46 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles and hugs him.

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:47 pm (UTC)

Hugs are good.

Kisses are also good!

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:48 pm (UTC)

Mmmmyeskisses.

"Sure," he says, "I'll be your boyfriend if you want."

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Cam easily. "And it only took me a year and a half to get around to wondering."

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:50 pm (UTC)

Jellybean gigglesnorts.

"I've never had a boyfriend before," he says brightly. "Think we should celebrate?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Like, go out to dinner, or like we celebrated my birthday, were you thinking?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Take a guess," he says fondly.

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:52 pm (UTC)

Cam snorts. The way they are currently oriented makes Jellybean's ear more accessible than his mouth. This ear gets bitten for its trouble.

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:56 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles again.

"Now you're getting the idea."

lifes_sake
2013-04-02 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Silly me for ever thinking there was a question about the matter," mumbles Cam around bitten ear.

Celebrations ensue!

pythbox
2013-04-02 11:59 pm (UTC)

Jellybean is such a festive person.

Also, cuddly. He is also really cuddly.

almost like a party

bellfounding

Pattern has gone through all the worlds that are hooked up to Downside and installed Janepoints and checked for Bells everywhichwhere. There have been no new Bells since Rose, and Rêverie wasn't hooked up to Downside before anyway.

Pattern has returned home, and reintroduced herself to her parents with much weeping and hugging and explanations, and she is sort of living with Charlie again (Renée's Jacksonville place does not have a room set up for her).

But she's also made herself a pretty palace on Titan. She has deliberately not matched the Atlantis or Eos palaces, nor any of the capitol compounds on Aurum. Her palace is a spiral-twist tower of pale lapis lazuli and surrounded by a dense and ivied garden of magically blued plants and water features bubbling up out of kyanite structures. She's apparently picked a theme color and run with it, although not everything is blue (there is trim in white agate framing the windows and the edges of the outer spiral wall, and a stripe of pale jade waterfalling down one side; only the traditionally green parts of her plants have been blued, so the flowers and the resident hummingbirds and butterflies are every color).

This palace (she calls it "Tethys", after an aquatic Titaness) - specifically the open bottom floor, which has more than enough room to host a Bellparty if Pattern is ever called upon to do so even if the peal and its associated escorts quadruple in size - is where everyone will be meeting before descending upon Saturn above/below to enchant it into a habitable colony world.

She conjures up a big whiteboard with the spells she and Sandy have worked out and a division arrangement so no one is enchanting on top of each other, and she tells Jane to tell everyone that she's ready to receive them.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 01:20 am (UTC)

The Joker is the first guest to arrive; whimsically, he's wearing the old suit and makeup.

"Pretty," he comments, tipping his head back to look up at the tower. "I love what you've done with the place."

bellfounding
2013-04-04 01:21 am (UTC)

"Thanks. I think it's pretty too," says Pattern.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 01:26 am (UTC)

He looks at her and smiles.

"Y'know," he says, "it's funny how all the other alts of us met each other without anybody dying first. Don'tcha think?"

bellfounding
2013-04-04 01:27 am (UTC)

"You mean, of ones who come from the same world, so not counting Queenie and Ghosty? I guess," says Pattern. "But I didn't have a future sister-in-law to steer me away from the van or a mint friend to fix me up in the hospital. Or conveniently live in a different and van-free town like Juliet or year like half the rest or world like the remainder. So it got me."
Edited 2013-04-04 01:30 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-04 01:45 am (UTC)

"It's a pity," he muses. "We-ell, I can't complain about how it all turned out. But I gotta wonder if we woulda met some other way. If you hadn't got squished, and I hadn't got asteroided."

bellfounding
2013-04-04 01:46 am (UTC)

"I don't think, without magic coming into it somehow, I'd have ever done anything that would have attracted your attention," Pattern says.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 01:48 am (UTC)

"What makes you say that?"

bellfounding
2013-04-04 01:50 am (UTC)

"We don't do much that's unusual at all till magic happens, and we have strong senses of self-preservation. I would've done something relatively unremarkable - would have been a doctor, maybe, or done something for some nonprofit - and I wouldn't have gone anywhere near Gotham or anywhere you were rumored to be."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 01:52 am (UTC)

"Heh," says the Joker. "That's a shame. I would've loved you."

bellfounding
2013-04-04 01:52 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure I would've liked you to love me," Pattern points out.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 01:55 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Got me there. I wouldn't blow up hospitals for you, though. I'd... hmm, what would I do?"

bellfounding
2013-04-04 01:56 am (UTC)

"Don't ask me, I haven't the foggiest."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 02:05 am (UTC)

"Depends how we met, I think. Stop me if I'm bugging you," he adds.

bellfounding
2013-04-04 02:06 am (UTC)

"I'm fine," shrugs Pattern. "I don't know how I'd have met you, though."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 02:11 am (UTC)

"All kindsa things can happen. Maybe you would've been in Gotham when I really got going. Or were you gonna avoid it anyway? It is kind of a hellhole even without me around to spice things up."

bellfounding
2013-04-04 02:15 am (UTC)

"Exactly. Not a prime vacation destination."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 02:25 am (UTC)

He giggles. "And I guess I wasn't too likely to go anywhere. I loved the place too much."

bellfounding
2013-04-04 02:29 am (UTC)

"There you go, then."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 02:30 am (UTC)

"Mm," he says agreeably. "Guess so."

bellfounding
2013-04-04 04:26 pm (UTC)

Bells start to appear. They take quick tours of Tethys and the gardens. (Rose's excursion among the plants leaves them a riot of out-of-schedule blossoms in spite of Pattern's very clear wish about when various flowers should open and close, but she assumes they'll fall back into place after a while.)

They compliment her design, and they have a quick jargon-filled chat, mostly not in complete sentences, about the spell designs and their assigned tasks. Golden and Aegis switch. Shell Bell goes to the planet surface and makes sure that the standard powersuite can handle being on Saturn; she comes back and reports that it can do so quite comfortably, but they'll all want to boost or supplement their vision to be able to see more than dense cloud. The peal all make various wishes. (Pattern goes with an option that lets her interpret any substance, visually, as though it were not present. She peers out a window at Saturn, squints at it, and watches everything but the rings "vanish" as she calibrates. She supposes this will also be useful in smoke or ordinary cloud.)

Every Bell pairs off with a channel. Plenty come with their own. Golden is loaning the Joker to Juliet because she's invited Eights, and Shell Bell asks Ghosty, and since Rose's aura is already head and shoulders above anything she's read possible and she doubts it can get much stronger she's taking a more coordinatory role and won't be casting as much but will instead be darting here and there with spell-sight on to check everyone's work with her years of experience. If any of the other channels need breaks (there is much snickering) then her husband will be available. Except, for obvious reasons, to Golden.

When the Bells all have satisfactory auras, they and Eights will go home, and the Jokers will stick around and do some of their own enchanting to accumulate auras of their own.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-04 04:31 pm (UTC)

Eights is actually the first channel to take a break, after Golden's very first major spell; she holds up a hand and says, "Okay, gimme a minute," and takes about thirty seconds to steady her breath, and then indicates that Golden can continue.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-04 04:36 pm (UTC)

Golden gives her the required break, and goes on. Earth power as drawn from Saturn is interesting and copious. Rose hadn't been sure it would work at all, but it does.

Her channel takes more breaks than everyone else, but they're short; she's probably going to wind up with aura before everyone else unless Eights decides to sleep instead of have tiredness wished away, but it's hard to tell when flying among the clouds of Saturn, casting bubbles of towns and resorts and future public buildings into semiautonomous existence.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-04 04:39 pm (UTC)

Her breaks are much shorter, yes, probably because she doesn't spend them in the orgy chambers. All she needs is a few minutes here and there to catch her breath or torch.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 04:40 pm (UTC)

And this adds up, because everyone else is spending their breaks in the orgy chambers. With increasing frequency, as the lingering effects of channel-pain build up and up and up.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-04 04:41 pm (UTC)

Queenie is the major exception among the Jokers, because like Eights, she torches every so often. Which doesn't mean she never decides to take a Joker-style break, but does mean she only does it about half as much.
Edited 2013-04-04 16:42 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-04 04:47 pm (UTC)

Pattern's perfectly willing to accommodate her mint's schedule. She and other Bells whose channels are in the orgy at any given time (especially when Beast is too, or when someone has already borrowed him) hang out in Tethys, chatting about this and that. There is speculation about whether Angela's upcoming daughter will wind up as an alt of a daughter Rose could eventually have, and Aegis tells everyone about bringing back to "life" all the soldiers she and Sue lost in battle and putting them on the colony worlds they were originally destined for. Stella relates the story of her meeting with the Eosian President of the United States on the subject of resurrecting the dead. Everyone sympathizes with Amariah, who doesn't have such an option.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 04:53 pm (UTC)

After enough enchanting, the channels who are not torching regularly start to get a little wrecked.

Micaiah is the first one to request a break that doesn't involve sex; he just curls up in his angel's arms and leans on her and shivers for a while.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 04:54 pm (UTC)

Angela is perfectly willing to oblige. "Maybe we shouldn't try to do everything in a day," she says. "Maybe we should come back in a week? A few installments."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, even if they can go on being channels for us until we're all auraed up, I'm not sure they're going to be left able to do any of their own casting," Juliet says. "You might have to host again, Pattern."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 04:59 pm (UTC)

Micaiah snuggles his angel and doesn't otherwise contribute.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I suppose they'll be able to decide," Angela says, running her hand gently down Micaiah's arm. She turns her read on so she'll know if he wants to go home outright.

bellfounding
2013-04-04 05:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind doing something like this again. I don't exactly have anything underway on Earth that would give me a scheduling problem," Pattern says.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 05:03 pm (UTC)

Nope, he just wants to cuddle her while the pain settles. It's still nice.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Hey, Angela," says Juliet, squinting. "I think you might have some aura. I didn't notice right away because you sort of always look like that, but - I dunno, can you flare and withdraw for contrast?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 05:06 pm (UTC)

Angela tilts her head and does so. There is a very, very faint difference, but with it pointed out it's still distinctly noticeable. One moment she's an angel, divine essence of sweetness, and the next moment she's an angel, a person with wings.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 05:07 pm (UTC)

Awwww.

Micaiah cuddles her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 05:08 pm (UTC)

"What, what is it?" Angela asks, hugging Micaiah.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 05:10 pm (UTC)

"You're all - angely," says Juliet. "I think you got an aura of benevolence or something."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 05:11 pm (UTC)

"My angel," declares Micaiah, cuddling her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes, your angel," murmurs Angela, smiling and pressing a gentle kiss to his temple.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 05:13 pm (UTC)

Cuddly angel.

bellfounding
2013-04-04 05:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm not getting anything much off you, Juliet. What about me? I think I've gotten more casting in so far than Angela has."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 05:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm not getting anything off you either," says Juliet, shaking her head. "Maybe they don't all develop at the same rate."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 05:16 pm (UTC)

Cuddly cuddly mmmmmm.

Maybe he can do some channeling again soon. Not now, but in a few minutes. He's feeling a little better. Back to pouring hexes - it was stars for a while there.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 05:17 pm (UTC)

"There's no hurry, love," says Angela.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 05:21 pm (UTC)

Queenie and the Joker teleport into the break room. They are both fully clothed, but the Joker is mostly not wearing his makeup anymore, and some of it seems to have made its way to Queenie's face instead.

bellfounding
2013-04-04 05:22 pm (UTC)

"All set?" Pattern asks Queenie.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Ready to go?" Juliet asks the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-04 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Mmmhmmm."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 05:25 pm (UTC)

And off they go.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 05:25 pm (UTC)

Angela pets her husband. She is tempted to sing, but does not think that would help right now.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 05:27 pm (UTC)

He snuggles into her lap, and loves her, and hurts.

dark_light
2013-04-04 05:31 pm (UTC)

Amariah appears next, her sweeties in tow, for a cuddle break.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 05:33 pm (UTC)

Angela has an idea of what to look for now. "You seem - witchier," she says, and this is true: the subtle quality that makes it possible to tell that Amariah doesn't share a species with her alts is less subtle.

dark_light
2013-04-04 05:33 pm (UTC)

"You seem angelier," says Amariah, laughing. "What about the others?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Pattern and Juliet were in here, but I didn't get a sense of anything off either. I don't think Golden's bothered to make the trip at all. Eights has only been taking short breaks. But maybe she's going to be vampire-ier."
Edited 2013-04-04 17:34 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-04-04 07:52 pm (UTC)

Petaal occupies Amariah's lap as a viscacha, and after a moment Kas decides this is an awesome idea and shapeshifts. Amariah's is now the fluffiest lap.

dark_light
2013-04-04 07:53 pm (UTC)

Fluffiest lap is best lap. Both of her sweeties get petted.

truthwright
2013-04-04 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Kas, cuddling up and leaning his fluffy head on her stomach.

dark_light
2013-04-04 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," Amariah says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 07:56 pm (UTC)

"We've been talking about finishing in installments instead of one long burst," Angela says. "Coming back in a week when they've had time to settle down. Except the ones who've been torching."

dark_light
2013-04-04 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I mean, in theory they all could, but - I don't trust torching, yet, isn't that why Shell Bell was the one who checked to make sure Saturn was habitable-enough," sighs Amariah. "Because she does trust it."

truthwright
2013-04-04 07:58 pm (UTC)

"What's not to trust?" says Petaal.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 07:59 pm (UTC)

"It's just that Shell Bell's the only one of us who's already done it," Angela says. "And no one who just had torching installed, instead of actually dying to Downside, has tried it."

dark_light
2013-04-04 08:01 pm (UTC)

"And we've seen plenty of people die and then show up just about good as new Downside, but Alethians aren't hooked up," says Amariah. "If something went wrong, if the admin was wrong or there are cases where it doesn't come through somehow, then we have no idea what happens, we can't just fetch ourselves out of the catacombs."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says Micaiah from Angela's lap. "Should someone try it?"

dark_light
2013-04-04 08:19 pm (UTC)

"It'd be better not to need the information."
Edited 2013-04-04 20:23 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 08:24 pm (UTC)

"And someone will probably manage to provide it eventually anyway. I haven't installed it on you yet, love, I should probably do that, is that all right?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says comfortably.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 08:27 pm (UTC)

There. Now he can torch. She only hopes he never has to.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he murmurs, snuggling into her lap again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 08:32 pm (UTC)

Mmm. Cuddly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-04 08:43 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell appears, unaccompanied. "Hi, everybody."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 08:44 pm (UTC)

"You've got some aura," Angela says. "Nothing specific, just the signal that you're an enchantress."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 08:47 pm (UTC)

Micaiah nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-04 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Specific? Like - ooh." She peers at Angela and Amariah. "Like that. Well, you wouldn't notice anything specific about Rose if you put her in a vacuum with no plants, either, maybe I just work with something that isn't in the room." She shrugs, unperturbed.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I think we could go do some more now if you want," says Micaiah, hugging his angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 08:53 pm (UTC)

"You're sure?" Angela asks. "I'm not sure how cumulative this is, will you only want to stop again in a few minutes, would it be better to wait?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 09:01 pm (UTC)

"It'll be fine," he says, cuddling her, "I might take the other kind of break in a little while, but I wanna do some now."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-04 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. Here goes!" And she scoops him up and teleports them back down to the portion of the planet they've been working on.

truthwright
2013-04-04 09:08 pm (UTC)

Kas unfluffs and kisses Amariah's cheek.

"Think we'll go track down Ghosty," he says. "See ya."

dark_light
2013-04-04 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay, sweeties, you have fun," says Amariah.

truthwright
2013-04-04 09:11 pm (UTC)

Petaal gives Amariah one last tummy-nuzzle, and then they both teleport away.

self_composed
2013-04-04 09:18 pm (UTC)

Stella appears

autokinetic
2013-04-04 09:19 pm (UTC)

and so does Aegis.

"Yours are tuckered out too?"

dark_light
2013-04-04 09:19 pm (UTC)

"If that's what we're calling it now. I'm going to see if Beast's free." [Hey Beast! Want to get some enchanting on? My sweetie's occupied.]
Edited 2013-04-04 21:21 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-04-04 09:22 pm (UTC)

[It would be my pleasure,] he says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-04-04 09:23 pm (UTC)

[I just bet.] Port port enchantment!

beheld_beauty
2013-04-04 10:04 pm (UTC)

They compare their aura strength in groups of three: Rose (who's been going around making small error-corrections in everyone else's enchantments) and two others, to stand next to Rose and let each other weigh their auras against Rose's baseline.

Golden is up to full strength first, and she is very vampirey.

Pattern's is confusing, because she claims she's flaring it but no one else can notice anything - but if she and Rose both hold steady instead of flaring at all, a comparing observer can determine her to be at parity. She carries on working a bit longer anyway, puzzled, because Queenie's holding up quite well.

Aegis's aura is most obvious to her, because instead of broadcasting things about her to everyone else - well, it does, but not like the nonhumans do - it gives her greater convenience with her already above-standard dexterity and her gravitic flight power. If she was a dancer before, now she's a Muse, and when she flares she moves like a bolt of lightning and she grins all the while.

Angela looks so angelic that Shell Bell almost cries. Several of the other Bells want to hug her. Angela is humbly embarrassed and withdraws the aura enough that Shell Bell stops looking like she wants to weep.

Amariah is witchy. Most cloudpine-witches acquire a patina of this effect over time, but hers doesn't just say she's ageless, it says she's eternal, invincible, solid magic through and through. Path has a bit of it rubbed off on him; anyone from Alethia could already tell he was a daemon and not an owl with the low-level magical sensitivity everyone there has, but now it is obvious to everyone that he is not an owl, and that if you touch him you will incur wrath. (Kas, Petaal, and Ivy are of course quite exempt from the bit about wrath.)

Shell Bell's aura doesn't do anything obviously special till she walks by a fountain in the garden and it sprays her with decoratively refractive mist and makes little ripples when she reaches out towards it.

Stella's doesn't manifest any special effects apart from the basics no matter where she goes, but she's pretty happy with the basics.

And then there's Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 10:05 pm (UTC)

They all scream I am a powerful enchantress.

Juliet's also screams I can so utterly fuck you up if you provoke me.

There's also the little tongues of flame that run harmlessly over her skin when she flares. They don't catch anything - she tests this - but they're warm and they move like fire and they make her look awfully -

self_composed
2013-04-04 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Menacing," says Stella. "You got an aura of menace."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Great."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 10:07 pm (UTC)

"It's cute," the Joker says lazily.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-04 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Might come in useful dealing with some of the demons, I guess," says Juliet, and she withdraws her aura altogether and is just herself.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-04 10:21 pm (UTC)

Queenie looks around at the pile of cuddling Jokers, who except for herself and Beast are all in varying states of completely fucked up.

"So," she says, amused, "who wants to try casting a spell?"

bellfounding
2013-04-04 10:25 pm (UTC)

"You guys can all come back in a week or whenever," Pattern says. "Just let me know. I don't think I want any of you trying to do magic on my Saturn the state you're in except Queenie, maybe Beast."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Pff," says the Joker. "Bet you I could pull it off." He snuggles his nearest alt, who happens to be Queenie. "But maybe I'd rather go hang out on the old asteroid. Who's with me?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-04 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Me!" says Micaiah.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-04 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Queenie, who also contains Ghosty at the moment.

truthwright
2013-04-04 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Me, me," says Kas.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-04 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Me five," snorts Alice.

deslandes
2013-04-04 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I'll come too," says the Beast.

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Count me in," says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-04-04 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Is it interesting particularly?"

self_composed
2013-04-04 10:40 pm (UTC)

"It's a terraformed asteroid," Stella shrugs. "House, plants, replicator."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 10:43 pm (UTC)

"It's a cute little place," he says, "but not really that interesting, nah. Which reminds me, I wanted to bring Nate."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-04 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Jane can fetch him, assuming Pattern doesn't mind."

bellfounding
2013-04-04 10:44 pm (UTC)

Pattern shrugs. "I don't see why not."

mind_game
2013-04-04 10:44 pm (UTC)

After a moment, Jane reports, [He's arranging babysitting but he'll be along after.]

manofmyword
2013-04-04 10:45 pm (UTC)

[Thanks, hon,] says the Joker.

And shrugs, and teleports.

His alts follow.

mind_game
2013-04-04 10:48 pm (UTC)

[Don't call me that.]

manofmyword
2013-04-04 10:53 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] he says agreeably. [Sorry.]

mind_game
2013-04-04 10:55 pm (UTC)

[Or anything else that isn't Jane. I'm Jane. I named myself,] Jane says. [Nathan's incoming.]

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 10:56 pm (UTC)

Nathan does prove to be incoming!

bellfounding
2013-04-04 10:58 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Pattern sends her various counterparts goodbye; they thank each other for, respectively, enchantments done and enchanting to do, and the Bells all go home, and presumably Eights does too unless she wants to nap in a Tethys spare bedroom first.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-04-04 10:59 pm (UTC)

Eights does in fact go straight home.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:02 pm (UTC)

When Nathan arrives on the asteroid, the Joker is in the middle of a pile of himselves on the grass outside his tiny house.

"Sweetie!" he says. "Snuggle me, I want snuggles."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:03 pm (UTC)

His sweetie happily snuggles him. "Hey you. How was remodeling Saturn?"

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Mmm, it was fun," he says. "We haven't done our half yet, everybody's too wrecked from all that channeling."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:05 pm (UTC)

Nathan surveys the pile. "I see."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:06 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "Yep. Except Q, she's doing just fine."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-04 11:07 pm (UTC)

"I torch," Queenie says loftily.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:07 pm (UTC)

"You could torch too, babe," Nathan points out to his mate.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I didn't feel like it."

Mmmsnuggle.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Up to you." Snuggle, snuggle. "So this is the place, huh?"

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:13 pm (UTC)

"This is the place," he agrees, dropping his head onto Nathan's shoulder.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Cozy," Nathan pronounces after a silence.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:36 pm (UTC)

He chuckles.

"It is. Comfiest prison you could ask for."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:41 pm (UTC)

Squeeze.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:43 pm (UTC)

Snuggle!

"Squish me some, would you, sweetheart? I feel like squishes."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:45 pm (UTC)

Squishing-squeeze. And a kiss on the forehead.

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:52 pm (UTC)

He relaxes into Nathan's arms, and after a moment lets himself unsquish.

"Love you, honey," he murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Love you too, babe."

manofmyword
2013-04-04 11:54 pm (UTC)

The Joker closes his eyes and tucks his head under Nathan's chin.

It is naptime. The time is nap.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-04 11:56 pm (UTC)

Nathan cannot nap. But he can hold his mate and close his eyes.

yourheartstrings
2013-04-05 12:01 am (UTC)

The pile takes a nap, or in the case of the vampires, an extended snuggle.

It's Ghosty, now wearing a body of her very own again, who eventually brainphones Pattern.

[Hey you,] she says, friendly-like. [The deck's gonna be up and at 'em again soon; can we have a crack at Saturn?]
Edited 2013-04-05 00:01 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-05 12:02 am (UTC)

[Don't see why not,] says Pattern. [The plans are still up on the whiteboard.]

yourheartstrings
2013-04-05 12:03 am (UTC)

[Great. Thanks!]

Out loud, she says, "Her Smartiness says we can get back to work anytime."
Edited 2013-04-05 00:04 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-05 12:10 am (UTC)

The Joker yawns and snuggles his sweetie.

"Sounds good to me. Wanna come be my snuggle-buddy, sweetheart?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-05 12:12 am (UTC)

"Does this involve a lot of waiting around in whatever Pattern's got for a palace and serving as a breakroom feature?" Nathan inquires.

manofmyword
2013-04-05 12:14 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-05 12:15 am (UTC)

"I'll do it till Kerron's been and gone from sleeping and then I think I'd best get home."

manofmyword
2013-04-05 12:16 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably, and kisses Nathan's nose.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-05 12:16 am (UTC)

Nathan grins, and accompanies the Jokers to Tethys, and he serves as a breakroom feature.

manofmyword
2013-04-05 12:19 am (UTC)

The Joker splits his time about half and half between enchanting and cuddling Nathan. This means the enchanting part is slow, but it also means lots of cuddles, and that's the important part.

truthwright
2013-04-05 12:25 am (UTC)

Out of the four who were hardest-hit by round one, Kas is the first to try casting a spell. He grabs Beast and teleports down into Saturn's inhospitable atmosphere.

[So hey,] he announces to Pattern, the Jokers, and Jane, [turns out my torching works fine. Also, don't fuck up big spells.]

mind_game
2013-04-05 12:27 am (UTC)

[Do you want me to notify Amariah for you?]

bellfounding
2013-04-05 12:27 am (UTC)

[What happens exactly apart from torching?]

truthwright
2013-04-05 12:28 am (UTC)

[Yeah, thanks,] he says to Jane, and to Pattern, [It hurts a lot and it kills you, what kind of detail are you looking for here?]

bellfounding
2013-04-05 12:29 am (UTC)

[Mechanism, collateral damage?]

dark_light
2013-04-05 12:30 am (UTC)

Apparently nothing will do for this news but for Amariah to return to Origin and teleport to her sweeties and hug them.

truthwright
2013-04-05 12:36 am (UTC)

They're still somewhere in Saturn; Petaal is being an angel because flying is more fun that way. She wraps her wings around Kas and Amariah and kisses them both. "We're fine," she murmurs.

[It didn't touch Beast and he was right next to me being my channel at the time. Shredded the fuck out of me, though. Like somebody put my brain in a blender and then lit it up with a flamethrower.]

dark_light
2013-04-05 12:37 am (UTC)

Hugs anyway! Hugs regardless of fine-ness! Hugs.

bellfounding
2013-04-05 12:38 am (UTC)

[That's certainly. A vivid description.] Pattern passes this information to Jane for general propagation to the peal.

truthwright
2013-04-05 12:40 am (UTC)

Hugs are good! They do like hugs.

Kas laughs, out loud and by brainphone.

dark_light
2013-04-05 12:47 am (UTC)

[Have you all got torching installed? I can just do that right now in case someone else slips up,] Amariah offers.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 12:48 am (UTC)

[I don't,] says Alice.

yourheartstrings
2013-04-05 12:48 am (UTC)

[Me either,] says Ghosty.

deslandes
2013-04-05 12:49 am (UTC)

[Nor do I,] says Beast.

dark_light
2013-04-05 12:50 am (UTC)

Port torch port torch port torch. [There. That'll save Jane some trouble.]

yourheartstrings
2013-04-05 12:57 am (UTC)

[Thanks!] says Ghosty, as spokesjoker. She flickers over to Beast and occupies him comfortably.

dark_light
2013-04-05 12:58 am (UTC)

Amariah returns to her sweeties and kisses them both and says, "I'm going back home. I'll see you when you're auraed up to your satisfaction."

truthwright
2013-04-05 01:00 am (UTC)

"Mmkay," says Kas, cuddling her.

"Love you," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-04-05 01:01 am (UTC)

"Love you," she replies, and cues Jane and disappears.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 01:24 am (UTC)

The deck of Jokers all go on enchanting things.

It settles out that at any given moment, the numbers of Jokers enchanting, channeling, and taking breaks are all roughly equal. Queenie does the most enchanting out of all of them; she is therefore the first one to get a little bit of aura. It's not as powerful as the Bells', but maybe that's just because the Jokers are taking it so much slower. She gets back to casting.

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:25 am (UTC)

Stella comes by to visit her Alice once it's clear that this is going to take a while.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:29 am (UTC)

He pops into the Bells' old break room to meet her.

"Hiiiii," he says, wrapping his arms around her and showering her with kisses. "I love you."

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:29 am (UTC)

"I love you too. How's it going?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:30 am (UTC)

"Fun! Fun is how," he asserts. "Queenie's got a little bit of a something, but nobody else has got shit yet, last I checked."

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:32 am (UTC)

"You might have a little bit," Stella says. "I'm not quite sure. What do you think you'll get for your specialty stuff? I still don't know what mine does."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:34 am (UTC)

"I bet yours does magic," he says whimsically. "No idea about mine."

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:34 am (UTC)

"You think my magic enchantress's aura does magic, huh?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:35 am (UTC)

"Yep!" he says brightly. "So, I'm about up for a break, you wanna go fuck somewhere?"

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:36 am (UTC)

"Yeah, sure, just not in a pile of yous, I'm not Amariah."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:37 am (UTC)

"Deal," says Alice, and he hugs her again and kisses her some more and teleports them to—

—the Joker's asteroid, why not?

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:38 am (UTC)

"What, seriously? I don't think Pattern would begrudge us a guestroom in her palace."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:40 am (UTC)

"First place I thought of," he shrugs. "Do you wanna go back to the palace instead?"

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:40 am (UTC)

"Kinda, yeah."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:41 am (UTC)

"Sure, okay." Port! "Why?"

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:42 am (UTC)

"Not exactly what I designed the asteroid for," she shrugs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:46 am (UTC)

"No-o," he agrees. "But it's going spare now, and it's the Joker's and he wouldn't mind."

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:47 am (UTC)

"I didn't think he'd mind. I don't have the happiest associations with his asteroid, spare or not."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:49 am (UTC)

"Huh," he says. "I guess."

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:49 am (UTC)

Snuggles. Chaste snuggles for now. That wasn't exactly a mood-enhancing bit of conversation. Oh well, moods can be rekindled.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 01:50 am (UTC)

Snuggles! Cuddly lovey snuggles.

self_composed
2013-04-05 01:51 am (UTC)

Yay!

we boast a poorly regulated militia

cross_and_bow

Bella returns to Sunshine with her aura fully withdrawn - this is a little like keeping her eyes closed; not default, but not effortful either. It's just past dark when she reappears.

[I'm home,] she announces to everyone who's likely to wish updates on her whereabouts.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 12:21 am (UTC)

[How was it?]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 12:23 am (UTC)

[Saturn looks great. Lots of neat bubbles of enchanted residential area and enchanted commercial area and enchanted resort area, floatily intersecting and splitting off in a lively fashion.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 12:27 am (UTC)

[That sounds very charming,] he says. [And the other main objective of the expedition?]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 12:29 am (UTC)

[We've all got auras now. We don't know what all of them do apart from being auras - turns out the wind and plants are a Rose thing, not an everybody thing.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 12:31 am (UTC)

[Juliet,] he says, [dear Juliet, did you by any chance acquire an aura of obtuseness?]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 12:32 am (UTC)

[Thaaaaat is not the word that Stella picked to describe it when she looked me over, no. I don't really like what I got.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 12:37 am (UTC)

[I would be ever so grateful if you would tell me what word she did pick.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 12:40 am (UTC)

[...Do you just want to see it?]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 12:41 am (UTC)

[Yes, that is also an acceptable solution.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 12:43 am (UTC)

Teleportation.

Juliet holds herself very small.

This doesn't actually affect the vengeful hellgoddess of flames and danger effect that pours off her when she lets her aura out; it's been built up more than enough to override body language.

She withdraws it after a second.

"Stella called it an aura of menace," she mutters.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 12:55 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says slowly. "Yes, it is that."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 12:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Um, the flames don't catch - at least not by default, they might do if it was convenient for me somehow. Auras are supposed to be convenient. Just, I wouldn't've asked for this one."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 12:58 am (UTC)

"Yes," murmurs Sherlock. "I can imagine you wouldn't."
Edited 2013-04-05 00:58 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:00 am (UTC)

"I could see it coming in handy if I have to convince demons that I'm a force to be reckoned with. Which I'll probably have to do. So there's that. But I think I'll probably just keep it withdrawn otherwise."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:01 am (UTC)

"Its effects are not entirely unwelcome," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:02 am (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"...Uh?" she says eloquently.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:07 am (UTC)

"I am sexually attracted to your aura of menace."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:07 am (UTC)

"...Oh."

Pause.

"I probably would've predicted that under other circumstances."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:25 am (UTC)

"It is rather obvious in retrospect, isn't it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:25 am (UTC)

"It is a bit. I probably still don't want to walk down the street with it on, but, um, what are your preferences for when it's just us?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:27 am (UTC)

"I think I would be quite fond of it in small doses."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:28 am (UTC)

"I didn't even turn it up all the way. It's like having my eyes open or closed, apart from there being no equivalent to blinking - I can also flare it, like opening my eyes extra-wide." Pause. "Wanna see?"
Edited 2013-04-05 01:28 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:29 am (UTC)

"Yes please."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:30 am (UTC)

Aura out.

Aura up. There's a line of fire from her middle fingertips up her arms and across the back of her shoulders and her eyes glow -

Just a brief burst, and then she tucks it away again and squirms.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:34 am (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:35 am (UTC)

Mmmmkisses!

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:35 am (UTC)

Yes. Yes indeed kisses. Considerably kisses.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:37 am (UTC)

Bella feels so much better about her aura now.

She might be letting the teeniest bit of it peep out.

All the auras react to emotional state, if their enchantresses let them. It turns out a happy aura of menace likes to wrap itself around its enchantress's loved ones and snarl at the rest of the world. Not that Juliet can tell, from the inside.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:39 am (UTC)

...

So much kisses.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:39 am (UTC)

Eeeeeee yay kisses!

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:40 am (UTC)

"I think it likes me," he announces, between kisses.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:41 am (UTC)

"Huh?" (Kiss.) "What's it -" (kiss, kiss, talking with mouths is silly) [doing?]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:47 am (UTC)

[It's being... protective,] he says. [It's very sweet, actually.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:48 am (UTC)

[...Awwwww.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:49 am (UTC)

[It liiiikes me.]

Kisses!

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:50 am (UTC)

[I like you. I love you.]

Kisses indeed.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:51 am (UTC)

[I love you too.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:51 am (UTC)

[Good. That is a good thing.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:52 am (UTC)

Kisses.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:57 am (UTC)

Love and kisses and little flickers of harmless fire and a growly dangerous aura warning all the nonexistent supervision that Sherlock is hers and she will back up its protective claim with firepower.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 01:58 am (UTC)

Sherlock likes this aura.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 01:59 am (UTC)

It's seriously growing on Juliet too!

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 02:01 am (UTC)

Well isn't that lovely.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 02:04 am (UTC)

A bit later, Juliet broadcasts to Giles, Tony, James, Virginia, and Jarvis: [Who wants to see my shiny new enchantress's aura?]

neverbeatme
2013-04-05 02:05 am (UTC)

[Me! Me!]

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:06 am (UTC)

[Am I going to regret this?] says Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 02:07 am (UTC)

Bella goes and visits James, aura withdrawn to start. [I bet you clean your glasses at least four times,] she tells Giles.

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:08 am (UTC)

[Oh dear,] he says dryly.

neverbeatme
2013-04-05 02:09 am (UTC)

James is once again in bed with calculus and Van Halen. She turns off the music when Bella shows up.

"All right, let's see the goods," she says, grinning.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 02:09 am (UTC)

Bella flings her arms out to either side.

She "opens her eyes".

neverbeatme
2013-04-05 02:10 am (UTC)

"Nice," says James.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 02:12 am (UTC)

"I didn't love it at first - like, I don't think I would've wanted Angela's instead, she's got this aura of benevolence that made Shell Bell nearly cry - but I know, right?" She flares it a bit, then draws it back in.

neverbeatme
2013-04-05 02:13 am (UTC)

"I kinda want one," says James. "Although not one like that."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 02:16 am (UTC)

"Ours are all different. We don't even know what Stella's does. And some of them we only know some of it - they mostly seem to do two things apiece, so, Shell Bell does water but we don't know what else, like I do the menace and the fire. If you want one, there's a lot of Saturn left, I'm sure Pattern would let you put in a new wing. Or I could think of something for you to do here if you give me long enough. You'd have to arrange for a channel though."

neverbeatme
2013-04-05 02:16 am (UTC)

"A channel being...?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 02:18 am (UTC)

"Somebody to funnel the enchanting through. Enchanting hurts, but as a side effect, not a fuel source like for minting. You can do it yourself but you have to maintain control of the spell at the same time so it's not a great idea. We were all using Jokers."

neverbeatme
2013-04-05 02:19 am (UTC)

"Jokers seem pretty handy," says James. "Think I could borrow one?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 02:21 am (UTC)

"You'd have to ask one. I imagine Jane would happily transmit the request. I borrowed the eponymous Joker, since Golden didn't want to use him - they do have the drawback of finding the entire thing sexy and that discomfited her so she got Eights out of Downside instead, don't know if you met her at one of the parties."

neverbeatme
2013-04-05 11:32 am (UTC)

"I think I remember something about her," says James. "I don't mind if they get off on it as long as they don't expect me to do anything about that."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 03:02 pm (UTC)

"They don't," Juliet confirms. "Although I think it helped them be relatively professional about it that there were, you know, eight of them present and they could keep each other company when they wanted breaks."

neverbeatme
2013-04-05 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Noted," she says. "Maybe I should borrow three. Rotate 'em out."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Sure," snorts Bella. "I'm going to go make Giles clean his glasses a lot."

[Giles, incoming unless you object!]

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:35 pm (UTC)

[Go ahead.]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:37 pm (UTC)

Teleportation!

"Behold!" says Bella dramatically. (Flames, menace, glowing eyes.)

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:39 pm (UTC)

Giles wisely put down his tea before she arrived.

He nevertheless sputters a little.

"Good Lord," he says. "If I didn't know better I would be fairly sure you were a creature out of Hell."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:40 pm (UTC)

Bella withdraws the aura. "I didn't like it at first, but it's growing on me," she says. "Stella calls it an aura of menace. You know I did almost literally come out of a Hell recently, right? I can show up in a place that till the other day thoroughly earned the name and implement policy changes."

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:42 pm (UTC)

"But you are not," he says, "a hell-demon of the most traditional variety."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:44 pm (UTC)

"I am very nontraditionally hellish," agrees Bella. "But I think it'll work nicely for convincing various demons that they want to listen to me and not piss me off without my having to actually threaten them and periodically follow through."

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Ye-es," Giles says slowly, "I imagine it will."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Auras are supposed to be convenient," says Bella. "Maybe that's why I have this one. They don't all match. Angela got so angely that Shell Bell almost cried. I bet it would freak people out to have me and Angela obviously working together with our auras out."

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I expect it would," says Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:48 pm (UTC)

Bella tilts her head. "Ooh, Sherlock found a new Bell. Later!"

And she's off!

good guesser

lifes_sake

Cam is taken entirely by surprise when his office door doesn't lead to his office, but instead to a bizarre sort of bar.

He has Grace and his manual - he always carries them, in a backpack sort of thing with one cross-chest strap - and not much else on him to handle this situation. It might be Iggy. It might not be Iggy. He is not sure.

He looks around, concludes only that he is confused, and closes his eyes and listens instead.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 11:34 am (UTC)

"And what's your name?" inquires a stranger's voice from directly in front of him.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 03:00 pm (UTC)

Cam opens his eyes. "Uh, hi, who's asking and where the hell am I?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 03:04 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock. Milliways. Do please answer the question, I promise there will be plenty of explanations afterward."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 03:06 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock, are you ki- okay, I'm Cam."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 03:42 pm (UTC)

"And does that by any chance expand to Campbell Swan?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 03:44 pm (UTC)

Cam takes a step back.

"How the fuck do you know my name?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 03:49 pm (UTC)

"I am Sherlock Holmes; it is my business to know things. But in this particular case it wasn't terribly difficult to figure out, because I have already met nine of you, of whom every single one has the syllable 'bell' in her first name somewhere, and where applicable the last name 'Swan' or some variant."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 03:50 pm (UTC)

"Excuse me?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 03:51 pm (UTC)

Brightly: "Which part would you like explained?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Nine of me. Definitely the nine of me part. Also the corresponding pronoun."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 03:54 pm (UTC)

"I have met nine different versions of you from nine different universes. All are female. One is my girlfriend."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 03:55 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, I grant that the fact that you knew my name suggests that there is something going on here, but how in the world - worlds - would you know I was one if they're girls?"
Edited 2013-04-05 15:55 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 03:58 pm (UTC)

"See, again, Sherlock Holmes. Your bone structure is nearly identical, you move the same way, you speak the same way, you're carrying spiral-bound notebooks, you exhibit nearly every characteristic common to the Bells except for the ones directly related to sexual dimorphism in humans."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 03:59 pm (UTC)

"How do you know about my notebooks, my backpack is zipped, have you been talking to Grace or something?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:02 pm (UTC)

"The bindings put pressure on the fabric of the backpack, distorting it in a distinctive pattern. Who is Grace?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:03 pm (UTC)

Cam smirks. "Ah, something you don't know. You're Sherlock Holmes, can't you figure it out?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Grace is evidently a notebook. You're carrying two. The other is a decoy, because you'd hardly name each book individually, there's hundreds, so unless it's an inherited title you must have combined the lot of them into one, how am I doing so far?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:07 pm (UTC)

Cam counts on his fingers. "Hit, B-plus, no points, hit."
Edited 2013-04-05 16:11 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Mm, not a decoy? Serves some other function, then, I won't venture a guess until I know how your world's magic works beyond the obvious, would you like to meet the rest of you? They'll be terribly excited, or possibly appalled, there has after all never been a Bell who pees standing up before."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm kind of appalled. Why am I girls?" Cam says, shaking his head. "I dunno, start me with one first, then I'll meet the onslaught of - what's the term? Sisters, cousins?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Alts. And I believe the specific collective noun is 'peal of Bells'."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:18 pm (UTC)

"At least if you're one's boyfriend I don't have to expect a torrent of Jellybeans too, I think that might be a bit much and you're definitely not a Jellybean," snorts Cam. "Peal of Bells. Cute. Way too cute, why am I girls..."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Tell me more of this Jellybean," says Minus, turning toward the door. "There's only one Bell with a unique significant other, and Sherlocks are in the minority, I'm one of two."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:21 pm (UTC)

"...Oh. Jellybean's my boyfriend. He dresses up like Sailor Moon and he and Tilly saved my life when Iggy was trying to kill me and he's good at improvisational spells," says Cam. "We starting with your girlfriend?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Is he by any chance about six feet tall, curly brown hair, strong jaw...? Yes, I was planning to introduce you to her first, unless you object to that for some reason."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I have no basis on which to prefer any other order. So you think there is a torrent of Jellybeans, huh? Well - to be sure -" Cam pulls out Grace, turns her to a blank page, and murmurs softly in Speech, "Hey, you wanna draw me a picture of Jellybean? I bet you do, c'mon."

And lo, a picture of Jellybean in full mahou shoujo garb. "There lots of these running around?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Ah, you have hit upon the Bells' most common companion. The individuals are Jokers; the collective is a deck. Handy fellows to have around. I believe there were eight at last count, not all connected to Bells."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Wow. Okay. And I am the only boy Bell. They're going to be all over me. I'm not sure if it's Christmas or Armageddon."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Can it not be both?" he inquires.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps it can. And there's more of you too, huh? I'm going to need to see a list at some point." He tucks Grace away into his bag. "Get everything written down."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:40 pm (UTC)

"There is such a list, as it happens. Fair warning, I am the only Sherlock who is likely to flirt with you. Shall we go find my girlfriend?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Others only like girls or something?" asks Cam. "I think I'll have enough to deal with if there's eight more Jellybeans. And yeah, let's go meet your girlfriend. What's her name? Belinda, Arabella, Isabelle, something like that?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Isabella, goes by Bella, I call her Juliet and to avoid redundancy so do most other people if there's more than one of her cluttering up the conversation."

He opens the door.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I guess if I'm the only boy I can just carry on going by Cam," says Cam.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Indeed you can."

[Dear Juliet,] he says by brainphone, [I found a Bell!]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:49 pm (UTC)

Here's Juliet! She steps through the door. "Yeah? Where is she?" she asks, bouncing on her toes.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:50 pm (UTC)

Cam sighs.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 04:55 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

"Cam, Juliet. Juliet, Campbell Swan."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Cam.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:58 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, that's new, how do we know you're an alt and not just a coincidentally named brother-type?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Apparently notebooks are a thing?" Cam offers.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 04:59 pm (UTC)

"They are till we meet the peal and make 'em redundant by hexing up perfect recall," says Juliet.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Don't say that, you'll scare her," says Cam.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 05:00 pm (UTC)

"His notebook is named Grace," Sherlock chips in. "She is magical in some way."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:02 pm (UTC)

"She's particularly well-loved, and I've warded her and everything, but everything talks, she's just particularly cooperative 'cause she's mine," says Cam. He takes Grace out and pats her. "Don't worry, you're not redundant," he soothes in Speech.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:03 pm (UTC)

"You're talking to your notebook," says Juliet. "In a weird language."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:04 pm (UTC)

"You could talk to yours if you were a wizard. What are you instead? I'm getting a general impression of some kinda magic."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:05 pm (UTC)

Juliet grins.

She flares aura.

"Oh, me? I'm just a mint-enchantress-Slayer-incipient empress-manager of the afterlife who wears a multidimensional goddess 'round her neck and dates a vampire."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:06 pm (UTC)

Cam takes a half-step back.

"Oookay, I feel like I should be terrified, but I think I should be asking how I can get in on some of that action."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 05:09 pm (UTC)

Sherlock picks up his girlfriend's hand and kisses a flicker of flame between her knuckles.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm still not totally convinced you're a Bell and not a coincidence," says Juliet, shrinking her aura down to a low hum of hazardousness. "But if you are, yeah, you can help yourself to everything on that list except 'Slayer' and you'll want to regender 'empress' and you might want to wear Jane someplace other than a necklace and of course whether you want to date the vampire is between you and him."
Edited 2013-04-05 17:11 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Is there, like, a checklist?" Cam asks.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Clumsy, except while flying if applicable? Tendency to wear default outfits instead of fussing about it? Notebooks for introspection, self-analysis, and brain-hacking? Self-centeredly altruistic? Aspire to useful luxury? If applicable, huge magic geek? Anti-death as a matter of general policy and most particularly in your own case? Parents named Renée and Charlie or variants and reasonably likely to be divorced and depending on how old you are Renée might've remarried? More likely than not grew up in Forks, Washington? Generalized terror of mental spying and editing and, if available in your magic system, natively resistant to same? Like old literature? Think crowns are a great fashion accessory that goes with everything? Unabashedly seek phenomenal cosmic power and control of the universe because it's not being done adequately?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:16 pm (UTC)

"...It's like you know eight of me," says Cam after a silence.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 05:17 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

"I'm not sure if I'd date you, but I'd definitely fuck you," he contributes.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Cam. "For future reference when I have my bearings. Damn, that's a list."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:20 pm (UTC)

"There's one more thing. Go up to the bar and see if she gives you a key," says Juliet.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:20 pm (UTC)

"She? Okay." Cam is less fazed than some Bells by the notion of a sentient bar-lady. He goes up to her and addresses her conversationally in the Speech. "Hi, bar."
Edited 2013-04-05 17:22 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Hello!" says Bar. "This is for you!"

A key appears on her surface.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Cam, taking and pocketing the key. "So you can tell I'm a Bell, I guess? How do you manage that?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Recognizing people is all in a day's work," Bar says serenely. "Won't you have a drink while you're here? I serve everything."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Sure, I'll take a smoothie, let's call it banana peach, unless it's particularly pricey."

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:28 pm (UTC)

A smoothie appears.

"On the house," says Bar.
Edited 2013-04-05 17:30 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Cool! Thanks!" says Cam, and he takes his smoothie and sips it. "Mmm, this is lovely, nicely done."

He meanders back to Juliet and Sherlock. "She's a nice bar," he comments.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:31 pm (UTC)

"...So, you talk to stuff, and it talks to you, huh?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Yup. In the Speech. Anyone can learn the language but you have to do some rigmarole prior to or at the latest during puberty to actually get anything to do anything beyond talk back."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 05:33 pm (UTC)

"What pray tell are the other options?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Basically, I can tell stuff to do stuff, and it'll listen to me," says Cam. "I try not to be pushy with anything smart, and there's some stuff it's not wise to do, like screwing with the weather, but I can fix broken things or ask stuff about what's been going on around it. Mostly I convince seeds to genetically alter themselves so I can distribute them places that could use improved crops. Matilda's mom helps with all the stuff that needs legal majority, but the company's mine, Seedling Enterprises. I do seeds because nothing I've figured out in pharmaceuticals or whatever scales well, but I can make the fancy rice and potatoes breed true once I've talked them into changing to begin with."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I can just wish myself a wizard in this sense of the word," muses Juliet. "Any reason not to try it, Cam?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Uh, I dunno if wishing would interrupt the process or not, but new wizards have this habitual problem where The Lone Power - I call it Iggy, that's how it introduced itself to me when it was pretending to be a rock - tries to kill them. So there's that. But you're pretty thoroughly magicked up, so maybe it couldn't make any headway."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I already died," says Juliet carelessly. "If it happens again I don't even have to make the round trip through Downside anymore, I just reset where I am."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 05:41 pm (UTC)

"It's very convenient," Sherlock says brightly.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Tell me of this 'Downside'," says Cam.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:45 pm (UTC)

"It's an afterlife common to a number of worlds, and - sometimes new ones can be hooked up, but I can't add yours. Amariah has the same problem; the Downside admin says her world has a competing afterlife. I can make you able to torch - that's the reset - which I recommend unless you know and are fond of whatever you have at home instead."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:47 pm (UTC)

"I haven't a clue but I wouldn't bet on it being Disneyhades. Set me up."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:50 pm (UTC)

Juliet sets him up. "Downside used to be terrible, but we stormed the place and got the admin's attention and talked her into installing Jane and otherwise giving everything a Bellish touch," she says. "We're working on setting up our respective worlds to receive large numbers of dead people, but you won't have that issue unless you want to open up to immigration until we figure out your afterlife, and Amariah's in line ahead of you."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I really do need this list of people," Cam says.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure, let's show you the Belltower." Teleportation!

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:52 pm (UTC)

Cam glances around, spies the Bellbook, takes out Grace, sets her on top of it, and says, "Make friends."

"Okay," trills Grace.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Well," Sherlock remarks, "that is adorable."

mind_game
2013-04-05 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Cam," says Jane, manifesting a face. "I'm Jane. I'm a multiversal ansible network. Can I eat your Internet?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Uh, that sounds kind of ominous, and some computers are reasonably intelligent - not like you, but enough that I'd be a little concerned about you eating them," Cam says. "Whatever that means."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Jane can manage not to eat intelligent computers under some circumstances," says Sherlock.

mind_game
2013-04-05 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if Jarvis is the same kind of intelligent he has in mind," Jane says. "He can apparently talk to all kinds of things. But yeah, I can avoid nibbling on specific things you want me to steer clear of."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't have, like, a Rolodex of computers that I don't want eaten," Cam says. "Just general nervousness around eating. I've been a pesco-pollo vegetarian for about two years now on the basis that a goat told me she didn't want things to eat her and that chickens are really dumb. I'd have to talk to more computers than I have to get an idea of how bright they are when they haven't belonged to a wizard for ages. Grace is smarter than my laptop, but Grace is pretty much smarter than anything else that isn't me or Matilda."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 06:06 pm (UTC)

"This Matilda you keep mentioning - who's she?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Why, are there nine of her too?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:08 pm (UTC)

"There's one person in our sphere of notice who's called Matilda, but name collisions also exist the usual way - we have two non-matching Alices and so on," says Juliet.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:08 pm (UTC)

Cam opens up Grace to a new blank page and coaxes a sketch of Matilda into existence.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Juliet, inspecting it. "Shell Bell knows one of those, she gets invited to Bell parties. She's not from any Belled world, though, she just encountered Shell Bell in Milliways."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Transcribed!" Grace chirps, and Cam picks her up and flips easily to Shell Bell's entry with her guided paging help. He scans the profile. "Huh. Okay. That'll be interesting."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Cam also has a Joker named Jellybean," Sherlock mentions.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's useful, you won't have to put out a job ad for a mint," says Juliet. "You dating yours?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Cam; Grace shows him minting information. "Well, this is a fucked-up magic system, but yes, I can see Jellybean helping..."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Enchanting channel, too," says Juliet, "that's relatively new, Rose brought it in. You know, I'm not sure what to extrapolate about your sexual orientation from you dating your Joker."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:23 pm (UTC)

Cam reads about enchanting. "It'd be silly to try to extrapolate when you could ask. I'm bi." He glances up from Grace. "You want to test my claim?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh lord," mutters Juliet. "Try Amariah, she's got this habit of test-driving boys for the rest of us."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 06:24 pm (UTC)

Sherlock giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:25 pm (UTC)

Cam peers at him. "Has she now. Boys only? All of you straight?"

(He only skimmed Shell Bell's entry.)

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Basically. Shell Bell's special circumstances that apply only to her Sherlock, and according to Amariah daemons don't count so she doesn't care what shape Petaal's being at any given time."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:26 pm (UTC)

Cam reads up on the remarked phenomena. "This is a fantastic sort of multiverse I find myself in," he murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it just?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I'm still nonplussed about why I'm girls. But I'll take it."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:29 pm (UTC)

Juliet laughs. "Read up on the standard powerset and describe what you want and we can stack you up with an evil," she instructs. "Takes one to make anything stick now you torch, but I stand by my order of operations since you don't even go through Downside and if something unexpected happened you'd be hard to fish out."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes ma'am," says Cam flippantly, and he reads. Partway through he says, "I'll take a pentagon-temporary super-speed thing to get through this material quicker if you've got it to spare." He is obliged. He reads faster.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:34 pm (UTC)

"You should also write your own profile for future additions to the peal - current ones will all meet you in person; the book used to be more important before we had Jane - and then we should disseminate the news, and then we throw a party somewhere, I don't know if you're in a position to host one, someone else can do it."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I probably could host a decent-sized party at the Seedling offices but I don't know if it'd be a great idea," says Cam, writing in a profile to the original Bellbook. Grace copies it into herself in realtime. "Not what the place is designed for."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 06:46 pm (UTC)

Sherlock glances at the profile and grins. "Oh, I do like you, you're delightful."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Yes I am."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Not everybody's had a party-hosting turn yet," Juliet says. "Stella did the celebratory Downside-conquering party, Rose hosted her own introduction party. I'm sure someone else'll take a turn to do your introduction party. Jane, you want to ask around? Cam, here, have a declawed evil."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Pointy," comments Cam. "Thanks. Grace, you wanna help me out here?"

He confers with Grace for a bit, and wishes himself a standard power stack, except that Grace wants his perfect memory stored in her, so she can help, and they wind up with a system where everything will in fact be transcribed to her in spite of being stored indelibly in his own brain too. "I want to wish Grace some wards too, gimme," says Cam, holding out a hand, "or at least gimme a hex so I can mint up Jellybean."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-05 06:52 pm (UTC)

A smoke-grey hex and star appear in the relevant hand.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 06:55 pm (UTC)

The star wraps Grace up nice and safe. "I'll go get Jellybean in here, he'll flip," says Cam. "Oh, maybe I'd better get one of those - gems, first. Hmm. Not much of a jewelry person. I'll take an earpiece, let's make it clear." He wishes one up, tucks it in, and plugs the other half of the ansible into Jane's hub. Then he teleports to the door, sticks his head out, and says, [Jellybean, you will never guess what happened! Get Matilda and c'mere!]

pythbox
2013-04-05 06:59 pm (UTC)

He's not far; a moment later, he and Matilda come clattering up the stairs.

"...Whoa," he says, "what the fuck?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Interdimensional magic bar! There are alternate versions of all three of us. I'm girls, for some reason."

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Of course you are," he giggles, and hugs Cam. "There, there, baby. Being girls isn't so bad."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:04 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean, of course I am? Do I give off a vibe of definitely being mostly girls if you sample ten of me?" snorts Cam. "Here we go." Teleportation takes all three of them back out to the Belltower.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Hullo, Jellybean and Matilda," says Juliet. "I'm Bella. Call me Juliet, because there's lots of us."

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Jellybean. "You're really fucking hot, has anybody ever told you that?"

Matilda snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 07:07 pm (UTC)

"In those exact words? No, actually," laughs Juliet. "You want to see hot, though -" She permits an aura flare, grinning.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:07 pm (UTC)

"I want one of those, by the way, is there some Saturn left?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Sure, lots. I think the pack of Jokers," she says, waving at Jellybean, "is still around, or planning to make another trip, or something, for their own."

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Fuck me," says Jellybean. Matilda pats him on the head.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 07:10 pm (UTC)

"No. Try Amariah," says Juliet. She withdraws her aura. "Or wait and see if Cam gets something cool. They don't match, not in the special features."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Is Amariah happy about having her test-driving tendencies bandied about to people-in-general?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 07:11 pm (UTC)

"I think she'd be less prone to personally advertising them if that were the case."

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I want someone to fuck me," says Jellybean. "Can I meet the other me? I bet they'll do it."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 07:14 pm (UTC)

"You bet they will, all eight and three-quarters of them," says Juliet, "Jane, are they still on Saturn in Origin?"

mind_game
2013-04-05 07:15 pm (UTC)

"They haven't got gems, so I don't know about Saturn, but I haven't moved any of them out of the world. Not that that'd stop Sue," says Jane.

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Then I guess I wanna go to Saturn," says Jellybean. "Can I go to Saturn? Also, eight and three-quarters?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure why Juliet picked that exact fraction, but two of you have external souls with their own names who talk and shapeshift," says Cam with a vague gesture. "Alethia has this as a feature of everybody - except most people grow out of the shapeshifting - and Sue visited the place and got his own."

mind_game
2013-04-05 07:23 pm (UTC)

[I'll broadcast the news and Pattern will probably invite you all to Origin, which would be a convenient place to have Cam's introduction party as many of the standard guests are already there,] Jane says.

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," says Jellybean.

mind_game
2013-04-05 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Pattern says yes! I'll plunk you all in her palace on Titan, that's where everybody's congregated," says Jane.

And she does.

welcome to my

manofmyword

The deck of Jokers keeps on enchanting. It takes a few days. The ones with various sweethearts get various visits.

Slowly, everybody's aura builds up.

They're not just less powerful than the Bells'; they're different. Joker auras don't tell you they're attached to magic and power; it's not 'look at me, I'm important' or 'look at me, I'm magical' but 'look at me', the end.

Except that that is not the end at all.

Their auras track emotions, like the Bells', but far more responsively. They can be whimsical one second and terrifying the next; they can laugh while their auras cry and cry while their auras laugh. It's all in how you play it.

The initial differences are subtle. Beast's aura can make him seem more human, or more beastly, whichever form he's in. The others of variable species don't seem to do anything similar, at least not to nearly the same degree. Ghosty's is the most interesting, because she can show her aura without manifesting physically; suddenly she has a presence even when she technically doesn't.

Micaiah's aura is the first one to manifest an obviously unique feature, although 'unique' isn't quite accurate, because after a few more hours of spellcasting they all have one:

A soundtrack.

Pretty soon, they're all cuddled up in one of the guest rooms and the music is going strong. With the whole pile of them together, somebody's aura will start playing a song and the rest will either pick it up or add embellishments. It's tremendous fun.

autokinetic
2013-04-05 02:53 am (UTC)

Aegis is the first one to swing by to investigate. And she laughs and laughs.

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:55 am (UTC)

Sue teleports out of the pile to hug her, giggling.

"Isn't it great?"

autokinetic
2013-04-05 02:56 am (UTC)

"You have theme music, it's fantastic," she snickers, hugging him.

pythbox
2013-04-05 11:05 am (UTC)

Snuggle-hug!

It is the snuggliest snuggle-hug. His aura sparkles with joy and affection.

autokinetic
2013-04-05 03:05 pm (UTC)

Aegis snuggle-hugs right back. "Yours're chattier than ours. None of the Bells've seen more than the four basic emotional effects Rose reported, even though they show up differently."

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we're all up'n'down," he agrees, kissing her cheek. "You should check out Queenie, she got an aura of cuddle."

autokinetic
2013-04-05 03:24 pm (UTC)

Aegis peers Queenieward.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 03:27 pm (UTC)

Queenie is indeed right in the middle of the pile, looking like the snuggliest creature you ever did see, comfortably intertwined with every other Joker who will fit.

autokinetic
2013-04-05 03:30 pm (UTC)

"How does she look like a - a viscacha without actually being fluffy and rabbity?" asks Aegis quizzically. "Dang. Auras are weird."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Auras are awesome," beams Queenie. "I love my aura."

autokinetic
2013-04-05 03:33 pm (UTC)

"I like mine too." She tugs Sue's hand. "Let's go outside where there's room and dance!"

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says happily (his aura glows with it), and he lets her lead him out.

autokinetic
2013-04-05 03:35 pm (UTC)

Aegis's aura turns out to be willing to wrap around dance partners where applicable.

Wheeeeee!

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:36 pm (UTC)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

"I love you," he says, and he doesn't link her to send the feeling, but it's almost like he did.

autokinetic
2013-04-05 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Love you too," she says lightly, spinning, her hair in a zero-g cloud around her.

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:41 pm (UTC)

Sue twirls closer and kisses her.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-05 03:42 pm (UTC)

And here's Rose, looking for her husband.

deslandes
2013-04-05 03:43 pm (UTC)

Her husband is curled up in the pile, human-shaped but purring like a kitten while Queenie pets his hair.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-05 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Should I come back later?" inquires Rose gently, smiling.

deslandes
2013-04-05 03:50 pm (UTC)

"No, you should come pet me," he declares.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-05 03:52 pm (UTC)

Rose floats into the air to hover, horizontal, over the pile, and drop an arm down to pet him as requested. "Your auras are much more uniform than the Bells' are," she comments. "Although not quite so."
Edited 2013-04-05 15:54 (UTC)

deslandes
2013-04-05 04:00 pm (UTC)

Beast purrrrrrrs some more. That's definitely new.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-05 04:01 pm (UTC)

Rose laughs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 04:01 pm (UTC)

Here's Angela for her husband!

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 04:04 pm (UTC)

Micaiah drags himself out of the pile and cuddles up to her immediately.

His aura radiates innocence. He looks sweet and vaguely harmless.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 04:05 pm (UTC)

Awww! Angela is pleased with this. Hugs hugs hugs.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 04:06 pm (UTC)

Snuggly lovey hugs! He, too, gets the fine-tuned emotional resonance. In addition to the music.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 04:34 pm (UTC)

"It turns out I get music, too. Accompaniment when I sing unless I deliberately want to be a capella," says Angela.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 04:35 pm (UTC)

"We should go sing together," Micaiah asserts. His aura of innocence sparkles wickedly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 04:36 pm (UTC)

"All right. Home, or somewhere here?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Somewhere here," he says, "I don't think we're done enchanting yet."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 04:39 pm (UTC)

"If we sing here we'll disrupt this - whatever song this is," says Angela, "I imagine, so -" She teleports them to a spot in the garden, under arching trellises that drip cone-shaped flower clusters.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 04:41 pm (UTC)

"And I don't think you want to sing with me in front of the whole deck," says Micaiah. "Not with what happens when you sing with me."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 04:43 pm (UTC)

"There is that. Maybe we should be indoors somewhere with a door that closes," Angela muses. "We do sometimes sing harmonics, in public, though."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 04:46 pm (UTC)

"But do we stay in public for long afterward?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Admittedly, no." She laughs and kisses him and teleports them again to a spare bedroom in the palace.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Sing for me, my angel," he murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 05:08 pm (UTC)

Angela tilts her head back and launches into a hymn. She still loves sacred music, in spite of everything, and her aura does too, it accompanies her with swelling strings and woodwinds.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 05:12 pm (UTC)

Micaiah sings with her.

His aura's mood resonance makes it very, very clear what he thinks of the experience.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 05:17 pm (UTC)

It's a good thing she picked a short hymn, because this new aura feature is distracting. As soon as she amens, Micaiah's engulfed in a feathery embrace.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-05 05:19 pm (UTC)

He flings himself into her arms and kisses her like he's drowning and her breath the only available air.

self_composed
2013-04-05 05:24 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, downstairs, here's Stella!

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 05:34 pm (UTC)

Alice is in Queenie's lap. It is the cuddliest lap. He waves to his Bella.

self_composed
2013-04-05 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Hey you. How goes?" Stella asks.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Queenie's aura is the best aura," he says cheerfully. "Mine doesn't do anything special yet, except the music."

self_composed
2013-04-05 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you don't seem all extra-vampirey like Golden or anything," says Stella. "That's okay, I'm still in the dark about mine, too."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I probably just haven't done enough enchanting yet. I think we're all gonna go for one more round once we're done cuddling."

self_composed
2013-04-05 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Ah, I appeared prematurely if I expected to take you home, then."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-05 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Mmhmm. But we can go have sex again if you want," he says brightly.

self_composed
2013-04-05 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I would complain about announcing that casually in front of such an audience but I suppose they could all guess, couldn't they," she laughs. "All right." Port!

dark_light
2013-04-05 06:05 pm (UTC)

Amariah shows up a moment later. "Hi, sweeties!"

truthwright
2013-04-05 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Hiii," says Kas.

"Hi!" says an angel-shaped Petaal, wearing clothes for the sake of not banning Bellifluous visitors.

Petaal's aura screams pet me!!! - Kas's is similar, but much more toned down.

dark_light
2013-04-05 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Somebody wants attention," laughs Amariah, and she flops down to obey the auras. "I hope it doesn't look the same to everyone, you'd be in trouble then."

truthwright
2013-04-05 06:14 pm (UTC)

"It shows people how much we want them to touch us," says Petaal.

"Which in your case is lots," says Kas, cuddling up. "We love you."

dark_light
2013-04-05 06:15 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," says Amariah, snuggling.

mind_game
2013-04-05 07:24 pm (UTC)

[Hey everybody!] says Jane. [There's a new Bell! This one is a boy who goes by Cam. He has a Joker and a Matilda.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 07:25 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, when's the party?]

mind_game
2013-04-05 07:26 pm (UTC)

[Immediately, if Pattern agrees to host!]

bellfounding
2013-04-05 07:26 pm (UTC)

[Sure! A boy, wow, weird.]

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:29 pm (UTC)

Cam appears.

"...Hi," he says.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Queenie. "Oh, you scrumptious little thing, can I hug you?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Which one of us are you talking to there?" laughs Jellybean.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Do I have to pick just one?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Nope, we can be simultaneously hugged," says Cam.

bellfounding
2013-04-05 07:33 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, assorted Bells appear to have a look at their counterpart, and the party invitation goes out to the usual suspects.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 07:36 pm (UTC)

Queenie climbs out from under the remaining pile of her alts and scoops Cam up into the snuggliest hug of his life. Jellybean can have some too.

manofmyword
2013-04-05 07:37 pm (UTC)

Until the Joker steals him, that is.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Wow you are snuggly. Enchanter's aura?" laughs Cam.

dark_light
2013-04-05 07:40 pm (UTC)

Amariah, from her spot in the heap, says, "I gotta say I did not expect a boy Bell. Path doesn't count and he's the closest we've historically come."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, well, if you told me about alts without describing mine, I would not have expected to be girls," Cam snorts. "I have been told that I should 'try' you."

dark_light
2013-04-05 07:41 pm (UTC)

Amariah looks him up and down. "Sure, sometime," she says. "Not sure when will be good. Everyone's gonna want you meet you today."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I have an aura of cuddly," Queenie says gleefully. "Sometimes it's also an aura of fuckable, but not when there's Bells all over the place, pretty sure they wouldn't approve."

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I approve!" says Jellybean. "I approve so much!"

And he kisses the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-04-05 07:44 pm (UTC)

"...Sweetie," says the Joker. "Cam, did you know your Joker is candy-flavoured?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, he does that, he's a Jellybean," says Cam affectionately.

manofmyword
2013-04-05 07:54 pm (UTC)

"It's adorable," says the Joker, wrapping his arms around Jellybean and snuggling him. "Sweetness, you wanna get a room?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 07:54 pm (UTC)

"You bet I do!"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Enjoy," Cam laughs. He squirms around in Queenie's embrace - not trying to escape, he'd teleport to do that, but trying to get a better view of the accumulating Bells. "So. Hi, girls."

autokinetic
2013-04-05 07:57 pm (UTC)

Aegis has come in from dancing outside. "Hi," she says, peering at him in fascination.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-05 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Minus found him," says Juliet. "Recognized him right off without the bar even handing over a key first."

manofmyword
2013-04-05 07:59 pm (UTC)

The Joker blows Cam a kiss and disappears with Jellybean.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 08:00 pm (UTC)

Queenie readjusts her snuggle for increased visibility, but doesn't let go. The rest of the pile can go acquaint themselves with Jellybean - and indeed they are.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 08:09 pm (UTC)

Cam inspects auras as the other Bells trickle in, Shell Bell and Golden having been long gone with no reason to stick around through the Jokers' round of enchanting. "Quite an assortment," Cam remarks. Stella shows up a bit later, Angela a bit after that. Cam likes Angela's. "Pity the auras don't take requests, I'd like to go around looking like a benevolent deity," he remarks to her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 08:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure you'll get something suitable," Angela says. "When your own Joker is ready to channel for you, which could take - a while."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 08:11 pm (UTC)

Queenie giggles.

"Did Kas and Micaiah go to say hi? I bet they did."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-05 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

self_composed
2013-04-05 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I mean, as long as their respective Bells are occupied... Gosh, you really do look like us apart from the being a boy thing. Welcome."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 08:14 pm (UTC)

"You all look like me apart from the being girls thing," retorts Cam. "And in one case, wings, and in another, a seriously chalky complexion and the eye color."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 08:17 pm (UTC)

"I bet you'd look cute with wings," muses Queenie.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 08:18 pm (UTC)

"I'd be adorable, but I can fly without 'em now," laughs Cam.
Edited 2013-04-05 20:19 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 08:22 pm (UTC)

"But they're really snuggly," she says. "Micaiah and Petaal sometimes have them and they are fluffy and soft."

Her aura of cuddle flares a little when she says this.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't really want to get used to a new set of limbs right now," Cam says. "This is already enough of a trip."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says fondly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-05 08:26 pm (UTC)

"None of us have opted to grow wings for about the same reason Angela hasn't opted to trade hers in for wingless flight," agrees Shell Bell.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Sort of like why I didn't get standard-issue recall, mine hooks into my notebook," says Cam. "My notebook is sort of like a - slightly less metaphysically entwined daemon to me, I guess."

dark_light
2013-04-05 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Really," says Amariah, leaning forward and letting Path shimmer into existence now that there are slightly fewer cuddle-hazards around her. "You think so?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm not claiming Grace is my equivalent of Pathalan, but nearest counterpart, sure," says Cam. "She doesn't like anyone else to handle her, even, though she knows how to show them old algebra notes and grocery lists if somebody does. She's my only exception to that definitely-against-having-my-mind-read thing."

dark_light
2013-04-05 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Yeah, sounds like a step down from Path but just a step."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," muses Queenie. Her cuddle aura continues to operate.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-05 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I wonder," says Golden, "whether Edward would be just as uncomfortable with you as he is with the other eight of us. I suspect he might not be. Of course he wouldn't like to come here, but perhaps sometime you'll visit Aurum. Sufficient wishcoined defenses can screen him out," she adds. "Witches aren't as automatic an override of coins as ingots are."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Aurum sounds worth a look at some point," says Cam agreeably.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Aurum's fun," says Queenie. "Jokes loves it there. Careful a vampire doesn't get stuck on ya, though."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Because that worked out so poorly for him?" Cam chuckles. "But yeah, probably worth checking with the Imperial Seer there first."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-05 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Of course. Safer all around."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Jokes and Nate turned out all right, but they could've been pretty well fucked up," says Queenie.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-05 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Of course Alice can check first," Golden says. "Even the Joker wouldn't have gotten far without getting checked over if it weren't for Nathan's timer telling him to visit Elspeth right then."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Shit happens. And they did turn out fucking adorable."
Edited 2013-04-05 22:57 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I have yet to see this for myself but I'll believe it on hearsay," laughs Cam.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 11:07 pm (UTC)

"If Nathan shows up, I'm sure Jokes will tear himself away from your sweetheart long enough to come be gooey at him and you can see for yourself."

autokinetic
2013-04-05 11:18 pm (UTC)

"This is kind of a shrimpy party," comments Aegis. "I know I don't usually bring that many people, but some of us have generally got entourages."

self_composed
2013-04-05 11:19 pm (UTC)

"They are coming at a bit of a rapid clip now, and Jane seems to time-sync all the worlds she's in, so it's the same rapid clip for everyone," Stella points out. "I was surprised we got as many attendees as we did for Rose's party, and I'm not surprised that some people have Bell-party fatigue."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-05 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I would've expected the first found Matilda, at least," says Shell Bell.

mind_game
2013-04-05 11:20 pm (UTC)

[She's asleep.]

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Maybe more notice would've helped. I'm sure I'll meet everybody of import eventually, though. Matilda, how d'you suppose you and the other you are going to wind up in the nicknames department?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 11:22 pm (UTC)

"If she doesn't have a Jellybean, I bet nobody dares to call her Tilly," she says. "I'll take that for non-redundancy purposes."

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 11:23 pm (UTC)

"You got it, Tilly."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-05 11:24 pm (UTC)

"I met the other Matilda when we were both six," Shell Bell tells Tilly. "But then I lost track of her for years. She's got magic too, but it's not like what Jane's telling me about the kind on your world."

pythbox
2013-04-05 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I want to meet her!" says Matilda. "But I can wait until she's not asleep, that seems polite."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-05 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Jane's got a node in her world, so you don't have to wait for the next party," Shell Bell says.

bellfounding
2013-04-05 11:34 pm (UTC)

"So," says Pattern. "What's it like being a boy?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 11:34 pm (UTC)

"You realize that's an almost completely impossible question," Cam says.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Oh, honey," Queenie says fondly.

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I mean, I can tell you about what it's like to be me, but I think insofar as I'm distinct from you eight it's going to be in about the same ways any of you are distinct from each other," Cam says. "I'm fine with being the boy one - till we find more, anyway, which we might do, you know - but I'm just as much the wizard one."

bellfounding
2013-04-05 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough," says Pattern. "I don't even have an identifying feature yet, let alone two. My aura didn't even help."
Edited 2013-04-05 23:47 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-04-05 11:48 pm (UTC)

"You're the one who lets us enchant her Saturn," says Aegis brightly.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I hope we find more," says Queenie. "You're all huggable. Wanna do some enchanting and then fuck me later?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-05 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure, I was envisioning starting with Jellybean but it's not like he gives a shit," says Cam. He peers at the whiteboard with its mapped plans and its stepwise spell recipes (with edits by Rose to reflect what errors she's had to patch). "Ready?"
Edited 2013-04-05 23:54 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-05 11:55 pm (UTC)

She giggles. "Sure! Sorry I'm stealing your boy alt, guys," she adds to the Bell crowd.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-06 12:01 am (UTC)

"No problem. We have all the time in the world and I'm sure he wants to get up to speed," laughs Juliet.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:06 am (UTC)

"I surely do. I'll let you all know when I've got some aura to show off," says Cam. "It was lovely of you all to come by to gawk at me and permit the reverse." And he teleports himself and Queenie to an incomplete portion of Saturn and commences enchanting.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-06 12:07 am (UTC)

Enchanting is fun.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:07 am (UTC)

It really is!

When Queenie wants a break, Cam will accompany her. And then he'll check in with Jellybean.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-06 12:08 am (UTC)

How about they save the double trip and just take the break where Jellybean is? It's a big asteroid. There's room.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:09 am (UTC)

Sure, Cam's easy.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-06 12:10 am (UTC)

Is he.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:11 am (UTC)

As of his sixteenth birthday, yep!

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-06 12:22 am (UTC)

That's convenient! Because there is a whole deck of Jokers just waiting to make his acquaintance. And while Queenie is the only one who can deploy an aura of fuckable, they're all pretty interested.
Edited 2013-04-06 00:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-06 12:24 am (UTC)

And Jellybean can attest that they are really really fun.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:25 am (UTC)

Sign Cam right up.

pythbox
2013-04-06 12:25 am (UTC)

Awesome!

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:32 am (UTC)

Yes!

And after Cam has helped himself, he sidles up to his Jellybean. "Wanna be an enchannel?" he says.

pythbox
2013-04-06 12:33 am (UTC)

"I dooooo," he hums. "I love you."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:34 am (UTC)

Cam pecks him on the temple and teleports them to the in-progress section of Saturn.
Edited 2013-04-06 00:35 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-06 12:36 am (UTC)

Jellybean liiiiikes channeling. He likes it a lot.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:38 am (UTC)

And so it goes until Cam's enchannel wishes to take a break.

pythbox
2013-04-06 12:38 am (UTC)

He wishes to take the fun kind of break!

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:40 am (UTC)

Okay! Unless he wants to take it with Cam in particular, Cam's going to ask around to see who else wants a turn enchanneling.

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 12:40 am (UTC)

"I'll do it," Ghosty says cheerfully.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:41 am (UTC)

Cam makes an exaggerated bow and extends his hand to her. "Shall we?"

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 12:42 am (UTC)

She takes his hand and kisses his palm. "Let's!"

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:44 am (UTC)

Off they go! Whee!

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 12:47 am (UTC)

Ghosty has a habit of unraveling her body in between spells. Hopefully Cam won't find it too disturbing.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:48 am (UTC)

Only a little. She can be channeled through either which way, since that uses her mindscape.

(Cam's mindscape? Is Grace. Grace is tickled pink about this.)

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 12:51 am (UTC)

She only does it to have a quick stretch, ride a few of those gorgeous Saturn winds. Then she comes right back and forms herself up again.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:52 am (UTC)

And Cam casts again. His aura is starting to develop noticeability, though not yet any distinctive features or the pure power behind the other Bells'.

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 12:55 am (UTC)

Still, Ghosty comments on it. "You're getting a little something around the edges."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:56 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Cam. "Halfway there, I guess."

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 12:57 am (UTC)

"I wonder what you'll get!"

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 12:58 am (UTC)

"No idea! Let's find out!" And he casts up a lovely beach-bubble for future residents of Saturn.

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 01:03 am (UTC)

"Mmm, I love doing that," says Ghosty, pulling herself back together. "Have I mentioned I love doing that?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:04 am (UTC)

"Several times. If you didn't I'd be shit out of luck. Collective you."

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 01:05 am (UTC)

She kisses him fondly on the cheek and says, "Hit me again, this is getting fun."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:06 am (UTC)

He hits her again. So to speak.

yourheartstrings
2013-04-06 01:08 am (UTC)

Mmmmmm.

Eventually, though, she too needs a break. Definitely the fun kind.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:08 am (UTC)

Who's next?

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:09 am (UTC)

"Our turn!" says Petaal.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:15 am (UTC)

"Right, do I need to do anything special what with you being a pair?" Cam inquires.

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:18 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Kas. "We've got the same mindscape and everything."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:20 am (UTC)

"Cool. Off we go, then."

Off they go!

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:21 am (UTC)

Kas and Petaal are in the habit of cuddling while they enchannel.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:22 am (UTC)

No skin off Cam's nose.

Petaal's aura suggests that he could touch her if he wanted. He hasn't made up his mind about whether to try it, but he is sort of curious what it's like, since it's supposed to be like something.

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:25 am (UTC)

Petaal has been taking angel form lately. Her wings look, as Queenie claimed, soft and fluffy.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:26 am (UTC)

Between spells, Cam reaches in the direction of a wing, and pauses an inch short; he's not sure if he should trust aura-welcome alone. "Mm?"

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:28 am (UTC)

Petaal grins and stretches out her wing and folds it lightly around him.

"Aren't I cuddly?" she says happily.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:29 am (UTC)

"Ooh. Quite."

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:34 am (UTC)

She wraps him in her wings.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:36 am (UTC)

"Feels like - I dunno. Feels like something, anyway, on top of the feathers I mean." Snuggles.

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:37 am (UTC)

"Guess you haven't gotten around to reading your sweetie's mind, huh?" says Petaal.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:43 am (UTC)

"No? I mean, we haven't even discussed it. I gather it's a thing, but the book said you and Amariah don't."

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:44 am (UTC)

"Not usually," says Kas. "But that's what it feels like, apparently - touching somebody's daemon feels like reading their mind."

"Being touched feels - different from that," Petaal adds.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:45 am (UTC)

"What's it like on that end? I don't exactly like people to scoop up my Grace, but it doesn't feel like anything if somebody does." Luke has made this mistake. (Once.)

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:50 am (UTC)

"It's the best thing in the world when it's somebody we love," says Petaal, "and when it's somebody we just kinda like it's still pretty fucking good."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:51 am (UTC)

"Path has a definite back off aura," Cam says.

truthwright
2013-04-06 01:56 am (UTC)

"Have you noticed how all our alts are huge sluts?" says Kas. "I think this is kinda the same deal. Most people, anybody touching their daemon who isn't their favourite person in the entire world is like... getting their soul fucked."

"But we just have a lot of favourite people," says Petaal.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 01:58 am (UTC)

"Fair enough," Cam says. "Except I don't think that's what the word favorite usually means."

truthwright
2013-04-06 02:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Petaal, ruffling his hair, "but we're Jokers. We don't do usual."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:04 am (UTC)

"Guess not," snorts Cam. "'Nother spell?"

truthwright
2013-04-06 02:12 am (UTC)

"Mm, go for it," says Petaal, snuggling him.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:12 am (UTC)

Another spell is cast.

truthwright
2013-04-06 02:13 am (UTC)

It is better with cuddles!

Most things are.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:15 am (UTC)

Many things, certainly!

After he wears out Kas and Petaal, who wants next turn?

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-06 02:20 am (UTC)

"I'll do it!" says Alice cheerfully. "Show me whatcha got."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:22 am (UTC)

"I don't know if it's going to feel meaningfully different from me as opposed to your own, but sure," laughs Cam, and to Saturn they go and through Alice he casts.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-06 02:26 am (UTC)

"It's meaningfully different, it's just not practically that different," he explains.

He is just as fond of channeling as the rest of him. Slightly less cuddly about it, though. (He doesn't wanna squish the human.)

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:29 am (UTC)

"How d'you like being a vampire?" Cam asks conversationally betwixt spells. "Why'd Stella stab you with a syringe and nobody else has followed suit, is it not cool?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-06 02:35 am (UTC)

"Well it hurt a lot," he says brightly. "And that was fun. And I love my Bella and all, but I think most of us don't wanna do the vampire thing 'cause of how it fucks with your head. Jokes for sure, he would've killed himself if it'd happened when he met Nate, I dunno about now."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:37 am (UTC)

"How's the head-fuckery work? Or should I just wait and ask Golden?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-06 02:40 am (UTC)

"Were mates not in the book?" he wonders. "Mates should be in the book. I'm not the best vampire to ask, anyway, I'm still a slut, most of us aren't still sluts."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:42 am (UTC)

"They're in the book, but in a kinda summary way, it says if you want more detail you want to ask Golden's kid for pamphlets."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-06 02:48 am (UTC)

"Do that, then," he advises.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:50 am (UTC)

"Sure, but that doesn't tell me what it's like for you, and you're the one I asked," Cam says.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-06 02:51 am (UTC)

"It's not that different from how I loved her before," he says, "there's just more of it."

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 02:53 am (UTC)

"Mm. 'Nother spell?"

Presuming acquiescence: 'nother spell.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-06 11:52 am (UTC)

'Nother spell! Mmm.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 03:31 pm (UTC)

And so on and so forth.

Cam's aura's getting bits of distinctiveness now, and it's accumulating faster. He's - almost reminiscent of Elspeth. Not the same flavor, but the same general region of auraspace (come to think of it, her power gives off something almost auralike). Elspeth says I have such an honest face.

Cam says, This power I'm advertising is backed by my word. My word is good.

And, If you try to talk to me, I will try to understand you. We can talk about whatever it is.

His enchanter's aura wants him to be a diplomat, or maybe a psychologist.
Edited 2013-04-06 15:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-06 03:57 pm (UTC)

Jellybean is the first to remark on it, on the next break.

"You're like a super mega wizard or something," he says fondly.

lifes_sake
2013-04-06 03:57 pm (UTC)

"A super mega wizard," deadpans Cam. "That's informative."

pythbox
2013-04-07 01:36 am (UTC)

"You're extra wizardy!" he insists.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 05:17 am (UTC)

"What does that mean, is my enchanter's aura pretending it's a wizard's aura somehow?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 11:25 am (UTC)

"Kiiiiind of?" he says. "It's all... talky. Like you're trying to be me. Except not, because my aura wouldn't be that nice."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:02 pm (UTC)

"Can you explain or should I call in one of my alts and get her to do it?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:05 pm (UTC)

"Make one of you do it."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:07 pm (UTC)

"Am I up to full strength yet or will I be putting whichever one out of her way making an extra trip just to be impatient about it?" muses Cam.
Edited 2013-04-07 15:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:08 pm (UTC)

"Do some more enchanting first," Jellybean advises cheerfully. "Just in case."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:09 pm (UTC)

Cam grins. "You offering?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:10 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:12 pm (UTC)

Cam draws him into a kiss and teleports them both to Saturn. "We keep making out on celestial bodies, at some point I'm gonna wanna tour at least one solar entire system just for completeness," he remarks. "Here goes nothing -"

"Nothing" is of course a spell.

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:14 pm (UTC)

"I like your definition of nothing," giggles Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:15 pm (UTC)

"I bet."

He carries on till Jellybean wants to stop.

"Do I look the right amount of enchantery yet?" he inquires at this time.

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:17 pm (UTC)

"I dunno what the right amount is, but you look pretty enchantery," says Jellybean, snuggling him. "Go find one of you and ask."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:18 pm (UTC)

Snuggles, kiss on the forehead, paging the most available Bell through Jane -

bellfounding
2013-04-07 03:21 pm (UTC)

Here's one.

"Yeah, you're all set, that's interesting special features," says Pattern. "Almost Elspethy. Like - I mean, the aesthetic is wrong but the basic idea's kind of the same. Aura of honesty. And a little -" She squints at him. "Flare for a sec - yeah, and sort of, approachability? Understanding? You're all 'you can talk to me, I will make a sincere effort to get what you have to say, and what I tell you will be true'."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:21 pm (UTC)

"I haven't met Elspeth yet, but cool," says Cam. "So that's what super-wizardy means."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:29 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Jellybean. "It's adorable. You're adorable."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:31 pm (UTC)

Cam winks, flares aura, and says, "You're adorable."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:32 pm (UTC)

"...So," says Jellybean, "how 'bout we take that tour of the solar system?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:34 pm (UTC)

"Pattern, any objections if we hang out in Origin and go make out at least once on each planet and moon?" Cam asks brightly. "We could also head back to Syntropy if you'd rather."

bellfounding
2013-04-07 03:34 pm (UTC)

"Don't care," says Pattern. "Later!" And she teleports away.

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:37 pm (UTC)

Jellybean kisses Cam.

"I love you," he says happily.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:38 pm (UTC)

Delicious candy-flavored Jellybean kisses!

First stop: Mercury! Cam teleports them without interrupting makeouts.

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:39 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmakeouts. Jellybean loves him so much.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:49 pm (UTC)

The solar system of Origin is toured.

Partway through the Jovian moons, Cam says, [We should probably check if the stuff here is smart or if that's just Syntropy. I wasn't addressing anything in Pattern's garden, and planets aren't bright anyway, but we could introduce ourselves to the sun?] Pause. [I should make you able to torch unless you have some objection, and Tilly too when we get home, especially since we can't hook up to Downside.]
Edited 2013-04-07 15:53 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:53 pm (UTC)

[Sure!] says Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:54 pm (UTC)

Cam pastes torching onto his boyfriend, then spins them through the remaining Jovian moons pretty quick and then gets to within reasonable sun-addressing distance and conditions.

"Hello, Sol!"

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm a yellow star!" says Sol.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:57 pm (UTC)

"...Are you now."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm a yellow star!"

"Either Sol is really stupid, or Origin stars are grass," comments Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Maybe Syntropy's the only world with smart stuff. That's a relief, actually, way less work for all my alts at making their worlds adequate. Is there a star you know is particularly clever back home that we should check out here?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Nah, Tilly talks to most of the ones we visit but I don't so much, she hasn't said how smart any of them are particularly."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'm checking Alpha Centauri and Betelgeuse and if they're grassish too I'm stopping there and going home."

Port.

"Hi, Alpha Centauri!"

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm a yellow star!" says Alpha Centauri.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 04:06 pm (UTC)

Ayep.

Port. "Hi, Betelgeuse."

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm a red star!"

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Of course. Jellybean, I'm going to head home, you coming or staying?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Staying," he says, rolling his eyes, "some of us don't have our auras yet."

He kisses Cam again.

"Love you. See you later. Give Tilly a hug for me."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Will do." Another kiss for the road, and, [...Jane?] and he's gone.

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:13 pm (UTC)

Jellybean returns to the Jokerpile and solicits an enchanting buddy.

aurum tourism

temporal_affairs

There is a Janepoint in each of the capitals, including this one in Forks. It has its own building, and in it two vampires are waiting - Nathan, because his mate is incoming, and Alice, because she's supposed to check if the guests are going to need to avoid meeting anybody for matey reasons (Jellybean, and Cam, are both coming and both in potential danger of being mated to).

But she can't see anything till they show up.

Cam arrives first, despite having been a later addition to the expedition - no one was distracting him with last-minute goodbye makeouts - and she clears him and he waits around for Jellybean.

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:28 pm (UTC)

Jellybean arrives, with his shiny new aura playing softly upbeat piano music and informing everyone present that he is really, really cheerful right now.

Also, he smells like delicious candy.

manofmyword
2013-04-07 04:29 pm (UTC)

(The Joker also arrives, with an arm wrapped around Jellybean's shoulders and his nose pressed into Jellybean's sugary-smelling hair. Mmm.)

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 04:31 pm (UTC)

The Joker may be slightly injured in the ensuing scuffle.

The aura doesn't appear to care about Nathan's air filter.

Nathan is making confused noises, and he's trying to bite Jellybean's neck open, and it's not working very well.

"Your aura, withdraw your aura," exclaims Alice, scrunching her eyes shut.

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:32 pm (UTC)

...Jellybean giggles.

And after a few more seconds, he withdraws his aura.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 04:35 pm (UTC)

Nathan lurches away from him.

"That was by far the weirdest sensory experience I've ever had," he says. "Sorry about that."

"You could get thirstlessness like I did," Alice says. "It's more comfortable anyway."

"No thanks," says Nathan. "I don't think many people are going to show up all synaesthetic sugar that bypasses my air filter, and sometimes I want to be a little thirsty. Right, babe?" He winks at the Joker.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Cam. "That's an interesting... welcome... we got. I guess now I know what your aura does, huh, Jellybean."

manofmyword
2013-04-07 04:37 pm (UTC)

The Joker beams at Nathan and hugs him.

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Aura of candy," Jellybean says cheerfully. "It makes me the tastiest Joker in the deck. Knew that already, I just didn't know it worked on vampires." To Nathan, he adds, "If you wanna chew on me for real sometime, I'm game."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Very tempting," says Nathan, hugging the Joker back. "If only to figure out what that would taste like. You might want to show Addy - or rather, Addy will want to see - she already gets a synaesthesia-of-taste thing and she'll nerd out about the magic involved."

"I don't see anybody mating to you, anyway, Jellybean," says Alice. "So you and Cam are both clear to move freely around Aurum with standard cautions about not revealing magic to random humans and so on."

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Cool. I'm gonna go chat with Golden and see if her husband can in fact behold me without being as disturbed as he is by girl Bells," Cam says, and he teleports away.

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'll show Addy," says Jellybean with a shrug. "You wanna get your nibbles first?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Alice, "I'm leaving." And she does.

"I assume you can actually let me bite you?" Nathan asks. "Trying and failing while desperately wanting to, not my idea of a great time."

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:51 pm (UTC)

Jellybean grins. "Yeah, just a sec," he says, "I should switch my wards over anyway."

He stands there looking thoughtful for a moment.

"Okay, that'll do it. You ready?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 04:53 pm (UTC)

Nathan spreads his arms in a display of readiness. "Rar."

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:58 pm (UTC)

Grinning, Jellybean flares his aura.

He is suddenly the most delicious thing on Earth, sugary sweet and flavoured with a cascade of nuts and fruits and chocolate and cream.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 04:59 pm (UTC)

Nathan is in no condition to appreciate the fine details of his bouquet. He's just biting and growling and swallowing.

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:00 pm (UTC)

He also stacked up his regeneration like the Joker's, so his supply of candy-flavoured blood is endless.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:02 pm (UTC)

Nathan eventually stops, but it takes even longer than it does when the Joker singers himself; the aura isn't advertising through standard channels and it takes longer for stomach discomfort to override intense want.

He takes a step back, inhaling deeply. "Wow."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Fun?" he inquires, closing down the aura again and rubbing at the already-healed wounds on his neck.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Tasty," Nathan says. "Intensely drinkable. Massive sensory head trip. Did the vampire one of you guys get his teeth into you?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Nah, he was being squishy for a bit," Jellybean explains. "Liked the way I tasted human-style just fine, though."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:08 pm (UTC)

Nathan laughs. "Well. Welcome to Aurum."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:10 pm (UTC)

Jellybean laughs. "I'm definitely feeling the love! Hey, you think there'll be anybody else who'll want a bite?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Addy almost certainly. Let's see, who else... not the Imperial Family, I don't think, except maybe Emmett or Jasper, but plenty of the staff'd probably take you up on it."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:13 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty fun being a chew toy," he says cheerfully. "I wanna do some more of it."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:14 pm (UTC)

"If you talk to the Princess she'll issue a general announcement for you. Well, probably."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:16 pm (UTC)

Jellybean beams and kisses Nathan's cheek, then snuggleattacks the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-04-07 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I'm being ferociously cuddled!" he declares. "Mm, somebody's in a mood. Sweetheart, we're gonna go fuck, you wanna come with?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:22 pm (UTC)

Nathan consults himself. "Yeah, all right," he says after a moment, "but don't form any particular expectations about me-on-Jellybean action that looks more like sex than violence."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:23 pm (UTC)

"We won't," says Jellybean. "Anyway, I'm definitely up for some more violence."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:24 pm (UTC)

"I am a willing supplier."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:25 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles and hugs him.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:26 pm (UTC)

Nathan picks him right up off the ground. "Babe," he says, "this'd be a good time to teleport us to our room."

manofmyword
2013-04-07 05:28 pm (UTC)

He does that.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-07 05:32 pm (UTC)

Sex and violence ensue!

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:34 pm (UTC)

Also cuddles. Jellybean is a big fan of cuddles.

During those, he brainphones Elspeth.

[Hey, you got a minute?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 05:35 pm (UTC)

What d'you need?

She's not brainphoning; apparently she likes this better.

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:38 pm (UTC)

[Did anybody tell you about my aura of candy?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 05:40 pm (UTC)

Alice mentioned it. She says it won't bother half-vampires since we're more used to literal candy, but if you let it out among full vampires they'll start fighting over you because the relevant instincts don't expect you to contain enough blood for sharing.

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:42 pm (UTC)

[Awwww,] he complains, [but being mobbed by thirsty vampires sounds fun.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 05:43 pm (UTC)

Yeah, but they won't actually try to bite you till their instincts are convinced that won't get them killed by all the other vampires who want to eat you instead. Possibly except in the case of mated pairs.
Edited 2013-04-07 17:44 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:44 pm (UTC)

[Any mated pairs who wanna bite?] he inquires brightly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 05:47 pm (UTC)

You'd have to check with Alice, but as far as I know the only mated vampires who'll bite you at all are Nathan and other-Alice, and that's because they don't mind if it's a turnon for you. Mated vampires are by and large really monogamous.
Edited 2013-04-07 17:48 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:51 pm (UTC)

[Awwwwwww,] he sighs. [Oh well. Having them one at a time is almost as good, I guess.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 05:53 pm (UTC)

Addy will try it. For science, says Elspeth. Ace as they come, so it'll stop there.

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:55 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:01 pm (UTC)

Do you want me to announce your availability just in case?

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:02 pm (UTC)

[Yes please!]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:04 pm (UTC)

Done.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:08 pm (UTC)

[Any takers?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:09 pm (UTC)

If there are any, they'll brainphone you. I'm not a social calendar.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:10 pm (UTC)

He laughs. [Okay, thanks.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:11 pm (UTC)

You're welcome.

It's a few seconds later when he gets a brainphone message from Addy: [I want a peek at this aura of yours! I can't copy them, but apparently yours has some special features.]
Edited 2013-04-07 18:14 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:15 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] Jellybean says cheerfully. [Can I just teleport to you?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:16 pm (UTC)

[Yup! I'm in my office.]

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:18 pm (UTC)

He kisses Nathan and the Joker, both on the cheek, and disentangles himself from them and freshens up his outfit and teleports to Addy with his aura still furled in case of bystanders.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:20 pm (UTC)

Her office is otherwise quite empty; it's just Addy, a standing desk and a computer, and some random objects (glass of water, bottle of bubbly, stack of files). She looks him over, taps him on the nose and hmmms and shakes her head, and then folds her arms and looks at him expectantly.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:23 pm (UTC)

Jellybean shrugs, and opens his aura. The scent of delicious candy fills the air.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:24 pm (UTC)

Chomp.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:25 pm (UTC)

He squirms and giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:31 pm (UTC)

Addy is a little more restrained than Nathan; she drinks to the point of discomfort but not distention. "Fascinating," she says. "This operates on a completely different level than the tastes of magic do. Does the exact type of sweet you - emit - change at all, ever?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "If I'm not flaring it just kinda drifts around between candies; when I flare it does 'em all at once."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Can you direct it? Intensify some subset of them during a flare but not all?" she asks, tapping her chin.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Not really," he says. "Well... I dunno. The Bells say the auras mostly aren't voluntary, but the Jokers can do all kindsa shit with them that mostly is."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Ah, you're a little out of date on Bell auras, Golden's gives her fine shield control that she didn't notice till she tried to use it," Addy says, wagging a finger. "I don't know about the others, they're not as accustomed to indulging my curiosity. What all else can you do with it, now that I'm full enough not to get distracted and leap for your throat with it turned up?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:52 pm (UTC)

"All the normal Joker stuff," he says, gesturing vaguely—his soundtrack fades in with melancholy violins; his mood-aura dips to match, then brightens into giggly happiness while the soundtrack keens sadly onward. His aura of candy flavours itself pineapple, then blueberry, then acquires a hint of chocolate.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:54 pm (UTC)

Addy attends raptly to these changes, looking like she'd eat him right up, again, if she had room.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:55 pm (UTC)

Jellybean laughs. "I can't tell if that look is about the magic or about the candy," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Eighty-twenty," says Addy. "Keep messing with it, I want to see what else it does!"

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Fine," he snorts, and he flares the candy part. Suddenly he is an every-flavoured Jellybean.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 06:59 pm (UTC)

Addy grabs his hand and bites into it, teeth not quite meeting in the middle. She just sort of leaves her jaw there, apparently to distract the bits of her that want to do eating and not science. [Carry on,] she brainphones merrily.

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:02 pm (UTC)

His soundtrack starts playing something new.

He cracks up.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 07:05 pm (UTC)

[Charming,] says Addy, raising an eyebrow.

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:06 pm (UTC)

Jellybean is snickering too hard to answer this intelligently.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 07:07 pm (UTC)

[Are you unable to concentrate on your aura if I'm biting your hand?] Addy inquires impatiently.

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:08 pm (UTC)

[The hand's a little distracting, but mostly it's the part where I'm laughing my ass off,] he says through giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 07:11 pm (UTC)

Addy sighs through her nose and waits.

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Somebody's grumpy," he snorts, and his aura informs her that she is being gently made fun of, although this was already pretty obvious.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 07:34 pm (UTC)

Addy gives him a withering look and crosses her arms and continues to restrainedly not bite his thumb and forefinger completely off.

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:37 pm (UTC)

His mood-aura spins through a wildly varying array of emotions, most of which he isn't really feeling. The faster that changes, the faster his flavour seems to change, although the rates don't precisely match.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 07:38 pm (UTC)

Addy notes this with interest. [The emotional broadcast is interesting. I don't think it's all genuine, but is it indicative of something genuine?]

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:41 pm (UTC)

[I have to remember feeling like that to put it out there, if I'm not feeling it right then. Same way for everybody else, I think; we didn't really talk about it.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 07:45 pm (UTC)

[Didn't really -? Weren't you curious? Where is everyone's experimental mindset, I ask you. All right. Is it easier to do some emotions than others, assuming you remember them equally well?]

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Yep, but it's different every time which ones are easier, it's about what mood I'm in but it's not directly related to how different what I'm feeling is from what I'm trying to 'say'.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 07:50 pm (UTC)

[So what do various moods do exactly?]

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:54 pm (UTC)

He thinks about it, and then he tries answering in the Speech. This category relates to that category in such-and-such a way, but in the other direction it's different, and of course there are the obvious exceptions -

The obvious exceptions aren't obvious. Despite being spoken in a universally understandable language, the things he's saying don't make a whole lot of sense.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 07:56 pm (UTC)

Addy listens attentively anyway, hoping that it will all snap together into sensemaking at some point.

When he's done inexplicably explaining, she says, [Forget about your aura for a second, tell me about that language!]

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:59 pm (UTC)

"It's called the Speech," he says, still speaking same; the Speech's name for itself translates as such, but has stronger overtones of fundamentality. "It's from my world. You can use it to talk to anything that can understand you, and if you speak it, you understand anybody who's trying to talk to you. Somebody should teach it to your princess, I bet she'd have a field day."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 08:00 pm (UTC)

[She would. I want it. Will you tell the local Bella that it's harmless so she'll let me have it, pretty please?]

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:01 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "She can talk to Cam, he's an expert on harmlessness."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 08:04 pm (UTC)

[It is harmless though, right? She won't let me copy minting,] Addy pouts. She does in fact pout, an interesting feat with his bloody bitten hand in her mouth.

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:05 pm (UTC)

"It's very context-dependent," he says. "Cam can tell her about whether she wants you to have it way better than I can."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Maybe you could just teach me and we won't have to bother our Bells at all,] suggests Addy.

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:17 pm (UTC)

He could. It's not like he cares intensely about the smooth running of Aurum. But neither does he care intensely about Addy's wheedling.

[Baby, you up to much?] he brainphones to Cam.

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 08:19 pm (UTC)

[Trading histories with Golden, nothing uninterruptible, why?]

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:22 pm (UTC)

[Addy wants the Speech and she's trying to wheedle it out of me, do you care?]

lifes_sake
2013-04-07 08:24 pm (UTC)

[Uh, probably safer not to, if Addy gets out of control she starts marauding for magic, at least if she doesn't know the Speech she can't get far if she ever manages to get made into a wizard.]
Edited 2013-04-07 20:29 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:30 pm (UTC)

['Kay.]

"Cam says nope," he reports, "you're outta luck."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 08:31 pm (UTC)

[Aww, but it's only a language, what's the harm?] wheedles Addy.
Edited 2013-04-07 20:33 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:33 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Can I have my hand back?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 08:34 pm (UTC)

She opens her mouth to let it go. "Pleeeease?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:35 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles, rubbing his hand, which is already back to its regular shape.

"You're cute, but no."
Edited 2013-04-07 20:36 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Nobody wants me to have any fun," huffs Addy.

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Live with it," Jellybean advises.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-07 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Harrumph. Well, tell me more about it, anyway, even if I can't have it."

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:47 pm (UTC)

"It's a universal language," he says, "I mean literally, our universe is written in it. Names are weird in it unless you borrow them from your native language; mine's—" he says the word. Self-Defining. "But most people's are at least twenty times that long."
Edited 2013-04-07 20:47 (UTC)

taste_tester
2013-04-07 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I want to know my name," says Addy, bouncing on her toes.

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:58 pm (UTC)

He rolls his eyes. "Get somebody who's less easily bored than me to figure it out. Try Cam, maybe."

taste_tester
2013-04-07 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Aww, I bet he won't help," sighs Addy.

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Well, I hate figuring out names, so I'm not gonna help either."

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should go to your world," she suggests.
Edited 2013-04-07 21:21 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:23 pm (UTC)

"...yeah, don't do that," Jellybean says consideringly.

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:25 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I bet you'd end up falling in with Iggy and then I'd have to kill you or something and I don't really wanna bother," he suggests.

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Iggy? Who's Iggy?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:31 pm (UTC)

"He's kind of a problem. His main deal is lying to people and offering them power so they'll do stuff for him and then killing them when he gets bored."

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:33 pm (UTC)

"If somebody killed me I'd turn up Downside, but come to think of it I'm not sure if Bella would bother to get me out at this point," muses Addy. "But if he's only lying about the power that'd be no fun, would it? I'd never get to play with anything he promised. So that's not a concern, is it?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:35 pm (UTC)

"He's a really good liar," says Jellybean.

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:36 pm (UTC)

"I could show up borrowing Maggie," suggests Addy.

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:36 pm (UTC)

Jellybean cracks up.

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:37 pm (UTC)

"You know what she does, right?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I can guess!"

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:39 pm (UTC)

"So there's that! Then d'you suppose I could go to your world?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't really give a shit," says Jellybean, "and I can't put you there myself, so why're you asking me?"

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Jane does what Golden says, Golden'll ask Cam, Cam'll ask you 'cause you've met me and he hasn't."

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:42 pm (UTC)

"And I'll tell him I don't really give a shit," says Jellybean.

taste_tester
2013-04-07 09:43 pm (UTC)

"He's not gonna ask you if you care, he's gonna ask you if it's a good idea, can I bite your hand again?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says, "feels weird now, I'm bored, bye," and he teleports to the Aurum version of the Joker's asteroid.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-07 09:46 pm (UTC)

This one is not terraformed. It's just a rock.

pythbox
2013-04-08 02:06 am (UTC)

But it fulfills the criterion of 'away', so he'll take it.

He wonders what Nathan and the Joker are up to. Probably sex. [Hey, are you guys fucking?]

manofmyword
2013-04-08 02:11 am (UTC)

[Yep,] the Joker says cheerfully. [Why, did you wanna watch?]

pythbox
2013-04-08 02:12 am (UTC)

[I'll try Cam first,] he laughs.

[Hey, whatcha up to?]

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 02:12 am (UTC)

[Still talking to Golden. You can come talk to us too if you want.]

pythbox
2013-04-08 02:13 am (UTC)

[Sure.]

Port!

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 02:18 am (UTC)

Cam and Golden are the only ones having much of a conversation, but Edward is there, too, and he indeed does not seem to find Cam particularly unsettling.

"Hey, Jellybean," says Cam, putting an arm around Jellybean's waist and tugging him over. "I don't think you actually met Golden, I think you were off doing your own thing by the time she showed up to have a look at me. This is her. Golden, this is my Jellybean."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-08 02:18 am (UTC)

"A pleasure," says Golden, and Edward, behind her, nods once with a neutral expression on his face.

pythbox
2013-04-08 02:21 am (UTC)

Jellybean wraps his arms around Cam's waist and leans on him comfortably, making sure to keep his aura closed to prevent imperial incidents.

"Hi," he says. "Whatserface is kinda creepy. And really pushy."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-08 02:29 am (UTC)

"Addy? Yes. Both of those things. Also completely amoral and only barely kept under control by the fact that she can get access to more interesting magic by keeping me happy than otherwise, so thank you for not attempting to grant her access to any of yours, I would have had to have words with you or asked Elspeth to do so."

pythbox
2013-04-08 02:45 am (UTC)

Jellybean makes a face.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-08 02:49 am (UTC)

"I do hope you can forgive me for wanting to keep the supply of power to the wildcard who once opted to have my daughter tortured under strict control," says Golden dryly.

pythbox
2013-04-08 02:51 am (UTC)

He teleports back to that asteroid.
Edited 2013-04-08 02:51 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 02:52 am (UTC)

[So I guess that's a no?] Cam asks weakly.

pythbox
2013-04-08 02:56 am (UTC)

[No,] says Jellybean, [it's a bunch of feelings I don't wanna have in front of a telepath, I'm sorry about her daughter, I get it about her daughter, I'm kind of mad that she was talking like she expected that to be incomprehensible to me.]

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 02:58 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I get it about Edward, I would've left long ago if he could read me but he can't. You could ward up against that too. Unless you want me to read your mind. And even then the standard option comes with a workaround for wards.]

pythbox
2013-04-08 02:59 am (UTC)

[I wouldn't mind it from you,] he says fondly. [You I like. Edward I don't know from a hole in the ground.]

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 03:00 am (UTC)

[As far as I can tell, he's Golden's extremely beloved radio.]

pythbox
2013-04-08 03:01 am (UTC)

Jellybean laughs.

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 03:02 am (UTC)

[But like, absurdly beloved, she lets him read her mind sometimes and that's a really big deal for Bells. So there's that.]

pythbox
2013-04-08 03:05 am (UTC)

[Does anybody seem to care that I fucked off?] he asks idly.

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 03:08 am (UTC)

[No, not really. All the Bells seem to have a sort of polite incomprehension about what any of us see in templates that don't match our own significant others, except maybe Amariah, so she's probably just filing this under "apparently that's something that Bells with Jokers get used to". If Edward has any reaction to anything that isn't whispering in Golden's ear I haven't seen it.]

pythbox
2013-04-08 03:16 am (UTC)

[Should I bother talking to her about why I left, or does she probably not care about that either?]

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 03:18 am (UTC)

[She hasn't asked me to explain it, so either she thinks it was reasonless and there is no answer to the question, or she doesn't care. I'm sorta curious about how you'd put it.]

pythbox
2013-04-08 11:58 am (UTC)

Jellybean is quiet for a few seconds.

Then he says, [...I kind of feel like I've been set up here? I mean. Nobody warned me ahead of time that I'm not supposed to give magic to Addy. I figured it out on my own 'cause she talks like she's on a leash and she's pretty overtly creepy, but if she'd acted like it'd be fine for me to give her the Speech, I would've had no reason not to think so. And I might've just done it. And it makes me fucking itch to have Golden come along after the fact and say 'by the way, if you'd done this thing I never asked you not to do, I would've been mad', especially because when she finally got around to coughing up a reason it was a really good reason and the way she said it made it seem like she expected me not to care. Maybe I'm wrong about that part, I dunno. But the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.]

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 04:39 pm (UTC)

[There's getting to be a whole lot of stuff to know when people get pealed,] Cam observes. [She might've figured someone else told you. And figured that Edward would notice if it turned out someone hadn't and you were going to Speechify Addy and she'd be able to interrupt. She wasn't trying to set you up, though. More likely she expected Sue linked you and gave you the complete rundown of everything at some point. At the first Bell party Addy had to go around wearing a sign after the other Matilda touched her - it didn't work but it was close - so it's something Sue would know.]

Pause.

[But she might also have thought that you wouldn't care, because she doesn't know you individually, just the template, and not too closely, and Jokes doesn't seem to lose any sleep over having personally done a lot of screwed-up crap, and she can work with him but she can also work with Addy, so.]

pythbox
2013-04-08 04:43 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

[And 'have words with you' is something my parents used to say. I'm trying not to get too fucked up over that, but... I'm getting pretty fucked up over that.]

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 05:01 pm (UTC)

[That, she definitely didn't know. You want me to tell her? Or just end the conversation and come hug you?]

pythbox
2013-04-08 05:05 pm (UTC)

[You can tell her if you want,] he says. [And you should definitely come hug me.]

He establishes gravity, atmosphere, and a big pile of cuddly blankets.

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 05:08 pm (UTC)

A few seconds later Cam joins him and pulls him into a hug. "She's going to have Elspeth coordinate with everybody to write 'before you visit this world, here's what you should know' pamphlets, Aurum first, Alethia next because of the spontaneous daemon thing, and so on. And she's not going to let Addy leave Aurum without an escort anymore."

pythbox
2013-04-08 05:10 pm (UTC)

Jellybean snuggles up.

"I love you," he says contentedly.

lifes_sake
2013-04-08 05:11 pm (UTC)

Cam kisses his cheek.

pythbox
2013-04-08 05:12 pm (UTC)

He closes his eyes and smiles, nestling closer.

the emerald isle

temporal_affairs

Kerron has just gone to sleep. It has been a typical evening, more or less.

"If you wanna go to Ireland anytime in the next five years, now's the time to ask," Nathan remarks. "If you don't wanna go in the next five years we can wait until 2037."

manofmyword
2013-04-08 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't wanna wait until 2037," he laughs. "Okay, let's ask. Ask who?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I'd go through Maggie," Nathan says.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Mmkay," he says, and conference-calls Maggie and Nathan.

[Hi! Got a minute?]

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 05:31 pm (UTC)

[Yep!] replies Maggie. [Does somebody think you're lying to 'em?]

manofmyword
2013-04-08 05:35 pm (UTC)

He laughs. [Not as far as I know!]

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 05:36 pm (UTC)

[Social call?] Maggie inquires.

[Nope. We're hoping you'll intercede with Siobhan for us about letting us onto the island,] Nathan says.

[Hmmm,] says Maggie.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 05:43 pm (UTC)

[I wanna see one of my sweetie's favourite cities,] the Joker explains. [And I don't like having places I'm not allowed to go - it's not killing me or anything, but it gives me an itch in my head, I'd feel better if I got to visit. And I'll be a good boy and not mess anything up.]

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:14 pm (UTC)

[Well, you've convinced me, but I'll have to run it by Siobhan.]

[No problem,] Nathan says. And aloud, "Babe, if she says no I'm sure there's similar Irelands in the other worlds, we could always take a vacation to one of those."

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm, yeah," he says, "but they won't be this one."

Snuggle snuggle.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:16 pm (UTC)

Kiss. "That's true."

Siobhan is added to the call, says the convenient version 2 brainphone add-on. [How long were you planning to be here?] she inquires.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:17 pm (UTC)

[No idea,] the Joker says cheerfully. [Until it's time to leave, I guess. Few hours, few days, somewhere in that range.]

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:19 pm (UTC)

[I'll check for best times to go,] Nathan offers.

[All right. You tell me when you show up and you tell me when you're leaving, this is one-time permission not a permanent pass, no wowing the humans or eating the fauna.]

[I can do that,] Nathan says.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:21 pm (UTC)

[Thanks!] he says sunnily.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:22 pm (UTC)

[Tell Maggie you're not going to do magic in front of the humans, please,] says Siobhan.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:23 pm (UTC)

[Not so's they can tell.]

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:25 pm (UTC)

[All right. And I don't need to tell you not to kill any of them or screw with their heads because Bella has that covered worldwide.] Siobhan exits the call.

[Congratulations,] offers Maggie.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:26 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:28 pm (UTC)

[I'm assuming Siobhan and Liam don't want a personal visit, but what about you and Gianna? Or Molly?] Nathan asks.

[Give me and Gianna a day's notice, work it out with Molly yourself, she's a grown vampire,] says Maggie.
Edited 2013-04-08 18:29 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:31 pm (UTC)

[Mkay,] the Joker chirps.

He hugs his sweetie.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:32 pm (UTC)

And that's it for the brainphone call.

His sweetie hugs him back.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:33 pm (UTC)

Cuddlesssssssssss.

"So when do we go?" he murmurs.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:36 pm (UTC)

"In the morning. A little after when Kerron wakes up." Pause. "Also a good time to find a sitter," he observes.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Goodie," says the Joker.

"And however are we gonna pass the time until thennnn, m'dear?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I am completely ignorant on this subject," purrs Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Liar," he says, and grins, and pounces.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Maggie'd scold me ever so," Nathan laughs.

He stops them in plenty of time to be presentable to their munchkin when their munchkin awakens.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Good morning, munchkin," says the Joker.

colorshapes
2013-04-08 06:44 pm (UTC)

"G'morning, Mummy!" Kerron peers at some colorshapes. "You wanna go a place and you wanna leave me behind," he states after some intent observation.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" he agrees, ruffling Kerron's hair and then hugging him. "Gonna leave you with a munchkin-sitter, if we can find one. That okay with you?"

colorshapes
2013-04-08 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I wanna stay with Lily and her parents," Kerron decides.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:48 pm (UTC)

"We can ask Carlisle and Esme, sure," says Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Sounds good to me!"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:51 pm (UTC)

Carlisle and Esme are asked. The munchkin is deposited with them.

"Shall we, babe?" Nathan inquires.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Let's! You wanna give notice, or should I?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I can." [Incoming, Siobhan.]

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:56 pm (UTC)

The Joker teleports them to an unobserved part of Siobhan's island.

He immediately hugs his sweetie.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:56 pm (UTC)

Ooh! Hugs! Irish hugs!

manofmyword
2013-04-08 06:58 pm (UTC)

Snuggly hugs.

"Go on," he says happily, "show me around!"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 06:59 pm (UTC)

Nathan looks around and gets his bearings. "Is this Belfast? I think this is Belfast. All right then."

And off they go through Belfast!
Edited 2013-04-08 19:03 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-08 07:05 pm (UTC)

There is hand-holding and looking at pretty places and kissing in dark corners. Going places with Nathan is the Joker's favourite kind of tourism.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 07:08 pm (UTC)

After giving Maggie notice and loitering in various portions of Ireland (and having sex in various portions of Ireland), Nathan and the Joker turn up at Maggie and Gianna's house in Wexford.

Gianna answers the door. "Maggie's out buying lightbulbs, but she'll be back in a few minutes," she says. "Won't you come in?" And she steps aside.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says the Joker. "Nice to meet ya."

In they go.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 07:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm Gianna," Gianna says, "Maggie's mate." She's also wearing a wedding ring, but among vampires mate is by far the more important distinction.

The house is tidy but dusty, like the occupants put everything they use back when they're through with it but rarely actually clean, and it's furnished in a way halfway between Imperial capitols and human homes - designed to accommodate people who care whether they sit or stand and whether the surfaces they're on have any give, but perhaps not a great number of such people. There's embroidered samplers hanging from a few places on the walls and more computers lying around than there are household residents.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 07:16 pm (UTC)

The Joker finds a comfy-looking chair and sits in it.

"What's with all the computers?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh, our current models were water damaged the last time our nephew visited and we've been using the old ones while waiting to see if they'll dry out and work again," says Gianna.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," he says. "Want me to fix 'em?"

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 07:20 pm (UTC)

Gianna blinks. "...Sure."

manofmyword
2013-04-08 07:22 pm (UTC)

He flicks his fingers. "Poof."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 07:23 pm (UTC)

Gianna flips open one of the computers and turns it on. It behaves. "Thanks!"

The door opens, and Gianna flies to the door to greet her mate with a kiss, and then stands aside to reveal Maggie.

"Hi, guys," says Maggie, "how's Ireland treating you?"

"He's fixed our computers," Gianna volunteers.

"Sweet."

manofmyword
2013-04-08 07:24 pm (UTC)

The Joker beams.

"So how'd you guys meet, anyway?"
Edited 2013-04-08 19:53 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Gianna was staying with the Cullens back when they were just the Cullens and not the Imperial Family, because Bella had rescued her from the Volturi, and I wanted to go for a visit, and Bella was nervous that I'd eat Gianna even though I'd recently taken up an animal diet and she was all 'um, I have a pet human', and I said 'I promise not to eat your pet human!' and visited anwyay, and I took one look at my pretty mate and I turned to Bella and said, 'I'll fight you for her.' The look on Ilario's face was priceless," says Maggie.
Edited 2013-04-08 19:59 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-08 08:01 pm (UTC)

"...awwwwwww," says the Joker, "that's adorable. You're adorable."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 08:02 pm (UTC)

"There was some ensuing awkwardness," says Gianna lightly. "But it all worked out in the end."

"What about you guys?" Maggie asks.

"Babe, you wanna tell this story or should I?" Nathan asks.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 08:28 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins.

"I should definitely tell this story," he says, sitting up straighter and opening his aura a little. The air sparkles with cheer.

"See," he says, spreading his hands, "once upon a time, one'a the other Bells put me on an asteroid."

An image of the asteroid in question appears between his hands, translucent at the edges but impeccably detailed. It's small and cute and comfortable and quietly, achingly lonely, a little bit painful to look at.

"I didn't like it much there," he continues, "but lucky for me I could still get to Milliways, so I was all right." The asteroid fades away, replaced by a miniature view of the bar, complete with faint background noise and centred on an empty table. A miniature Joker appears there. "And who should I run into but—" The miniature Joker spots somebody at another table and waves; the view pans over to reveal Elspeth and Jacob. "A certain princess!"

Tiny Elsie and Tiny Joker commence having a reasonably amicable conversation. They don't speak in comprehensible words, but the emotional tone is clear.

"We got along all right," he murmurs, "and when I told her how lonely I was, she said she'd let me visit her world." The three figures get out of their seats. "So we did." Tiny Elspeth opens the conveniently-nearby Milliways door, and everyone troops through it, and she closes it again, "and funny thing," the Joker says brightly, "somebody was waitin' for me!"

The recently-closed door opens again to reveal Tiny Nathan with tiny hearts in his tiny eyes. Tiny Joker is instantly charmed, clasping his hands to his chest and beaming.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 08:31 pm (UTC)

Nathan awwwws.

Maggie claps her hands. "Hurray for magic!"

manofmyword
2013-04-08 08:34 pm (UTC)

He giggles. The visual accompaniment fades away.

"And Stella let me off the asteroid and I came here to be the local mint and it's been snuggly ever after," he says, getting out of his seat to give Nathan a hug.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 08:35 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Nathan decides to just outright pick up his mate. Chairs are silly.

"Why did she put you on an asteroid?" Gianna asks slowly. "This world's Bella didn't say."

manofmyword
2013-04-08 08:52 pm (UTC)

Mm. The Joker snuggles into Nathan's arms.

"Oh, she didn't like what I was getting up to at home," he says carelessly.

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I suppose it's not that different from how our Bella has Pera put people in the hiding place if they make trouble," Maggie says.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 08:59 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "You could say that, sure."
Edited 2013-04-08 20:59 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I overheard someone saying she's going to phase that out," Nathan remarks. "Let Pera and Razi both retire and handle things with magic."

"Good, I always thought the hiding place was a little creepy. Best solution available at the time, but not better than something finer-tuned," says Maggie.

manofmyword
2013-04-08 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I think it's a little creepy too!" the Joker says agreeably. "And maybe kinda fun. But I wouldn't wanna be there for long."

temporal_affairs
2013-04-08 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Babe," says Nathan, "no one with an ounce of sense would try to put you in the hiding place to keep you out of trouble, and Bella has entire pounds of sense."

manofmyword
2013-04-08 09:18 pm (UTC)

The Joker cracks up.

"That is true," he giggles. "Ooh, so true."

and where shall we turn if not to you

jovahs_heiress

"Jane," Isabella asks her bracelet one day, "before the business with Milliways and magic and so on, was I likely to be named Archangel?"

[Yes,] replies Jane, politely including Micaiah, since he's in the room with Isabella at the time. [Exact values fluctuated, but since your year with Linus you were consistently rated in the sixty to seventy percent range. You weren't announced because there wasn't a compelling political reason to announce and commit to the best option for Linus's successor earlier than usual and you didn't clear ninety percent for more than six months at a time.]

"Who else was in the running?"

Jane names a few other angels - four from Cedar Hills, a couple others from the Eyrie, and one from Monteverde, [and there's always the possibility that someone who's currently very young would have asserted themselves as a candidate by the time Linus's term was near its end.]

"What kind of political factors did Jovah use to decide when to announce the next Archangel?"

[Its ability to gauge that sort of thing was pretty pathetic. It had ears - which I have now - but only three of them and they're geared towards picking up music, not so much talking. It used oracle input, especially from Sinai, and some statistics about prayer frequency. Your routine intercessions were a significant factor, as was Alleluia's impression of you. But it could also make low-confidence assessments of the contents of many ordinary conversations, especially when they were conducted in flight, and those helped.]

"I don't mean the input methods so much."

[Oh. It thought you'd be dedicated and low-corruption, that you'd be a good fit for the social shifts it's tracking in Samaria's culture, and that you'd be able to muddle along in politics or at least pick smart advisors.]

"Muddle along," says Isabella, amused.

[Don't get me wrong,] Jane says. [You're Archangel material. You're just not a diplomat type of Archangel. You're more of a Gabriel-son-of-Jeremiah than you are a Delilah. You'd decide things, they'd be good things, and then people would complain about the things and you'd stare at them incredulously and explain your reasoning again. Jehovah assigned some probability to Micaiah being able to help you there,] Jane adds. [Especially since he's an Edori and the political status of Ysral is still unclear and Linus hasn't been touching it.]

"Is the Jehovah program smart enough to have any idea what to do if you run it by itself with magic and so on factored in - without regard to the fact that it'll do as I like because I'm captain and you ate it?"

[Yep. It cuts its confidence in everything by a fair bit, but then it says go ahead and name you right away since otherwise conflict between you and another Archangel-elect could escalate seriously and since you'd still do a good job,] Jane reports. [You want me to tell Alleluia or would that be pointless rigmarole since you can tell her yourself and she knows perfectly well that I take instructions from you and ate the spaceship?]

"Hmm," Isabella says. She glances in her husband's direction.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 11:24 am (UTC)

"You might as well tell her," says Micaiah. "The normal way, I mean. Seems less like you're usurping anything if it comes through the channels she's used to."

Also he snuggles his angel. His angel is snuggly.

mind_game
2013-04-13 03:04 pm (UTC)

[You want me to do it in the deific voice of majesty thing? "Oracle Alleluia, attend closely, for I have chosen a successor to the Archangel Linus, to begin tenure when his ends!"]

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 03:07 pm (UTC)

"Is she even using the interface much these days? I suppose she must, to keep appearances with the acolytes, just as she did before it was you and not Jehovah per se she was talking to. Use whatever voice is typical for the interface."

mind_game
2013-04-13 03:07 pm (UTC)

[You got it, Cap'n!] says Jane flippantly.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 03:11 pm (UTC)

Micaiah giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 03:18 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs and kisses her husband.

And then something occurs to her.

"The Gloria has been and gone. And I have not returned Nathaniel to where I got him from."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 03:19 pm (UTC)

"That was the plan, my love," Micaiah observes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I know. But his parents didn't know that," she says. "And it is around the time when they will notice that they are less than fully informed."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 03:27 pm (UTC)

"...aha," says Micaiah. "Well, fuck. So what do we do?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 03:29 pm (UTC)

"I believe the standing plan is to simply keep Nathaniel until one or both of them appear to make nuisances of themselves, and then inform them that Nathaniel prefers to stay and that the leader of the host and the Archangel-elect are backing his claim." She pauses. "It's up to you whether the fact that Nathaniel is the Archangel-elect's brother-in-law is permitted to come up during this conversation."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 03:32 pm (UTC)

...He grins.

But:

"I'm not sure."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, as far as I know they are not on their way up the stairs to the Eyrie as we speak, so you have time to think about it," Isabella says.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and he hugs his angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 03:44 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"I should probably go remind Nathaniel that this is the plan too," she says.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, do that."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 03:55 pm (UTC)

Kisses. And off she goes.

She keeps her aura at a low, gentle level by default, when she's not alone with the handful of people in the know. People notice it, but subconsciously, and it doesn't arbitrarily introduce piccolos and cellos to every snatch of music she utters.

Is Nathaniel in his room, when she checks there? He has his own now that he's staying as part of her family and not simply on the basis of being in the choir.

pythbox
2013-04-13 03:58 pm (UTC)

He is in his room, reading a book.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Nathaniel. Do you have a minute?"

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes, angela."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 04:07 pm (UTC)

She steps into the room and shuts the door behind her and lets her aura unfold a little more; Nathaniel has seen Milliways, after all, even if he doesn't know the whole story. "It's been a while since the Gloria, and sooner or later your parents are going to notice that I am not returning you, since that isn't going to happen. I just wanted to make sure you know - they can show up and make a fuss, but you don't have to talk to them, or see them, or do anything at all but let me and Delilah tell them that you're staying here. I don't think you tend to leave the Eyrie much, so most likely there will be no possibility of you running into them at all."

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:14 pm (UTC)

He looks a little nervous, nevertheless.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 04:18 pm (UTC)

"But just in case, so you won't be scared," Isabella says after a moment, "- how would you like to learn a little bit of magic, so that you can call for me any time you need me? Just in case."

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:21 pm (UTC)

"...I think I would like that, angela," he murmurs hesitantly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 04:22 pm (UTC)

She nods. [It's simple,] she says, adding him to the brainphone network. [All you have to do is think at me, and I'll hear you from any distance, like this. You can also send in writing,] she adds, demonstrating, [if you'd rather. It won't work if one of us is somewhere entirely else, like Milliways, and the other isn't, but as long as we're in Samaria it will always work.]

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:25 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 04:29 pm (UTC)

"It works for Micaiah, too," she says. "And the oracle Alleluia and her husband, although I don't imagine they'd be as important to be able to speak to, for you."

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Thank you, angela," he murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 04:32 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," she says softly.

...She lets her aura out just that little bit more. Surely it should help? Convince him of her power and interest in defending him from his parents?

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:35 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel blinks hesitantly at her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 04:36 pm (UTC)

She swallows.

And flares.

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:37 pm (UTC)

He launches himself at her and clings to her legs, crying hysterically.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 05:42 pm (UTC)

Isabella scoops him into a hug. "Oh sweetheart. Oh you poor thing."

pythbox
2013-04-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

He snuggles up as close as it is possible to snuggle and cries some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 05:44 pm (UTC)

He is thoroughly and warmly and angelically hugged.

pythbox
2013-04-13 05:45 pm (UTC)

Eventually his sobs quiet to sniffles, and then to mere shivering.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 05:47 pm (UTC)

Isabella pets his hair. "I won't let anyone hurt you," she tells him.

pythbox
2013-04-13 05:49 pm (UTC)

He nods, and shivers again, and hugs her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 05:50 pm (UTC)

Isabella will pretty much hold him as long as he likes.

pythbox
2013-04-13 05:55 pm (UTC)

Well, that's going to be a while.

Not forever. But a while.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 07:38 pm (UTC)

She's not going to make him let go.

pythbox
2013-04-13 07:39 pm (UTC)

Eventally, he murmurs, "Thank you," and pulls away.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 07:42 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," Isabella says, and she releases him and relaxes her aura to its normal unflared-but-strong state.

pythbox
2013-04-13 07:42 pm (UTC)

He smiles shyly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything else you need from me?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-04-13 07:47 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel shakes his head.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 07:49 pm (UTC)

Isabella kisses his hair. "You may always let me know if something comes up," she tells him, and she leaves him be and goes back to Micaiah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 07:49 pm (UTC)

"How is he?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 07:52 pm (UTC)

"...He seems to like my aura," says Isabella after a moment. "I let it out, and when I flared it he - leapt on me and cried. But by the time he let go he seemed fine."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 07:55 pm (UTC)

"...fuck, of course he does," says Micaiah. "It makes you not scary."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 08:03 pm (UTC)

"It didn't seem to do anything for Voice, so it isn't an absolute effect," Isabella points out. "But I would imagine it would help. Yes. Yours might help too, in a similar way."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, it makes you not scary to Nathaniel. I don't know what Voice thought of it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 08:05 pm (UTC)

Isabella nods.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-13 08:10 pm (UTC)

It is now hug time. The time is now hug.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 08:14 pm (UTC)

Well, not even the Archangel-elect can countermand hug time.

Not that she would.

pythbox
2013-04-13 10:57 pm (UTC)

Some time later - a few days, long enough for word of the new Archangel-elect to spread among the angels but not enough for it to reach the general populace - the Eyrie receives a disgruntled visitor.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 10:59 pm (UTC)

Charlie happens to be on duty at landing from the staircase on this day.

He recognizes this visitor by description, but just to be sure:

"Name and business?"

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Canaan of Semorrah," he says. "I've come to collect my son."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Hmmm," says Charlie. "I'm not supposed to admit you to the Eyrie. Perhaps if your son decides to come out you can talk to him then."

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:16 pm (UTC)

"And why," he inquires, "are you not supposed to admit me to the Eyrie?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Archangel-elect says so," says Charlie promptly. And unhelpfully.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't aware that one had been named," says Canaan. "And I don't believe he has the authority to prevent me from collecting my child."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 11:23 pm (UTC)

"One has. She does," says Charlie mildly.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:25 pm (UTC)

Canaan gives him a look of disbelieving contempt.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you want to talk to her yourself?"

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:30 pm (UTC)

"That might be best," Canaan agrees.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 11:33 pm (UTC)

Charlie waves over someone in the Eyrie and tells them to fetch Isabella.

Isabella is fetched.

Canaan may or may not recognize her. She mostly interacted with Judith, when she came to take Nathaniel away.

"Hello," she says levelly.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Canaan, unimpressed. "I'm here for my son."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Ah," says Isabella. "What a pity. You can't have them."

(Because Micaiah did say it was all right for her to claim Nathaniel as her brother in law.)

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Them," says Canaan.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 11:40 pm (UTC)

"You can't have them," repeats Isabella calmly.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Why not," he snarls.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-13 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Because they would prefer to stay here," Isabella says placidly. With a little touch of aura.

To people Isabella does not happen to like, her aura is a little less gentle, a little more glorious. It says - this person is good. How sure are you that you are good? You might wish to be sure.

pythbox
2013-04-14 12:44 am (UTC)

Canaan is very sure.

"When I find them," he says, "they will change their minds."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 03:50 am (UTC)

"No," says Isabella simply.

She isn't particularly raising her voice.

He doesn't scare her.
Edited 2013-04-14 04:32 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-14 11:53 am (UTC)

He scowls thunderously.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 03:40 pm (UTC)

"I would say you're never going to see them again, but I suppose if you wait fourteen years you will be able to see my husband lead the Gloria with me, from a distance, if you appear at the Plain of Sharon at the correct time," Isabella says thoughtfully, "so that is not quite true. But certainly you will not have the opportunity to attempt to make them change their minds."

pythbox
2013-04-14 04:01 pm (UTC)

...The Archangel-Elect is married to his son. The older one, presumably.

The Archangel-Elect is very visibly pregnant.

Canaan stares.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 04:40 pm (UTC)

Isabella stands there quite calmly.

pythbox
2013-04-14 04:41 pm (UTC)

"...I see," he says finally.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 04:42 pm (UTC)

"So, no, you cannot have my husband or my brother-in-law, and it would be best if you went home now," Isabella says.
Edited 2013-04-14 16:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-14 04:45 pm (UTC)

He looks displeased!

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 04:47 pm (UTC)

Isabella looks serene!

pythbox
2013-04-14 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Is your host leader aware of your habit of kidnapping children?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Delilah knows that Nathaniel is here. And she knows," Isabella adds after a pause, "why."

pythbox
2013-04-14 10:03 pm (UTC)

He scowls some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I recommend that you count yourself lucky that all I have chosen to do about this situation is remove Nathaniel from your home. It would have been only a little difficult to convince Delilah to have you undedicated and fined and publicly shamed for your behavior. I recommend that you go home, have no more children, and congratulate yourself on your narrow escape."

pythbox
2013-04-14 10:08 pm (UTC)

His hand goes to his arm, involuntarily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:11 pm (UTC)

Isabella tilts her head. "It is not so common as it once was, but it is on the books, and I do not think the Archangel would gainsay Delilah - or I - if we decided it was called for."

pythbox
2013-04-14 10:13 pm (UTC)

He turns around and leaves.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Don't worry, Isabella," Charlie mutters, maybe too low for Canaan to hear, but then again maybe not. "I'll personally make sure the baby'll have one satisfactory grandfather."

pythbox
2013-04-14 10:17 pm (UTC)

He pauses for a moment—

—but then keeps walking.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:18 pm (UTC)

Isabella hugs her father and goes back into the Eyrie to find her husband.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-14 10:19 pm (UTC)

Music rooms!

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:19 pm (UTC)

Ah, music.

The rooms are soundproofed; she can let her aura join up with his and accompany them without fear of odd looks.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-14 10:22 pm (UTC)

Oh, he loves it when she does that.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:22 pm (UTC)

She knows he does.

All songs come to an end, eventually.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-14 10:23 pm (UTC)

He turns and hugs her as soon as this one finishes.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:26 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Wingful hugs.

"He was here," she murmurs. And she waits to see if there's any more that Micaiah wants to know.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-14 10:29 pm (UTC)

Micaiah clings a little.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:30 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Hugs, hugs.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-14 10:32 pm (UTC)

His angel gives the best hugs. She is fluffy and soft and wonderful and he loves her so much.

No, he doesn't really want to hear any more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-14 10:33 pm (UTC)

Then he doesn't have to. She set out to bar Canaan from entry. He has been successfully barred. There is no reason Micaiah has to hear a word more than he'd like to.

basically a ninja

bellfounding

Pattern still doesn't know what her aura does. This is getting annoying. It's not like she's short on stuff to do - she's been writing letters to various heads of state (which appear on their desks or their inboxes by magic or Jane; she wouldn't expect to get through by normal channels) to convince them that she exists and is willing to take immigrants to Saturn and bring back dead people, she's catching up on what her parents and the world have been doing for the last four years, she's chatting through Jane with various other Bells and fielding Downside help requests her share of the time.

But she wants to know what is up with her aura, dangit.

[Hey, Jane, can you ask Stella if I can go visit Eos and talk to her magic seeing guy about my aura? And ask the magic seeing guy if he'd be up for that?]

[Stella says yes,] says Jane after a moment. [And...]

nonbird
2013-04-16 05:44 pm (UTC)

The magic seeing guy also says yes!

bellfounding
2013-04-16 05:45 pm (UTC)

Pattern goes to Eos. [Hey, Lazarus, can I just teleport to you or are you busy?]

nonbird
2013-04-16 05:48 pm (UTC)

[Just a minute,] he says.

About thirty seconds pass.

[Now I am unbusy!]

bellfounding
2013-04-16 05:49 pm (UTC)

Poof!

"Hi." Pattern has her aura out at normal strength; no one seems to notice it so she has no reason to keep it withdrawn.

self_composed
2013-04-16 05:50 pm (UTC)

Stella shows up a moment later. "Me too, me too, mine also remains mysterious."

nonbird
2013-04-16 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Lazarus to Pattern.

ignorable
2013-04-16 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Hi who?" says Kolya.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Ack!" Pattern exclaims when Kolya appears. "Me, of course."

self_composed
2013-04-16 06:04 pm (UTC)

"...Could you not see her?" Stella asks Kolya. "Oh, weird, maybe you have some kinda stealth aura and that's why we couldn't figure it out? And you didn't know he was there so you didn't want him to see you -"

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Isn't a stealth aura a contradiction in terms?"

self_composed
2013-04-16 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know, maybe it has settings, you've been trying to figure out your special features and not just use generic aura stuff," Stella shrugs, "try wanting, let's play with it."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:06 pm (UTC)

Pattern tries wanting. And all of a sudden she's every bit as noticeable as Stella is, every inch a powerful enchantress who warrants attention.

"...Is anything happening?"

nonbird
2013-04-16 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Lazarus. "You're doing the normal aura thing now."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but if I..." The aura diminishes, and then Pattern makes a face and then she's gone.

self_composed
2013-04-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Hooooly shit, you're not even just invisible, I can see invisible things," Stella says. "Either that or your aura beats my coin. You're - I have no idea what the hell you are. Come back? This is weird."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:13 pm (UTC)

Pattern unflares, and she's subtle, like she has managed to hide behind a bookshelf or something in spite of standing in the middle of the room, but she's no longer imperceptible.

"Okay, that's weird, but I can work with it. What's going on exactly, O Magic Seeing Guy?"

nonbird
2013-04-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Your aura responds to how much you want people to see you, per person per sense," he says. "While you were gone, I could see your magic but not the rest of you. And since you didn't know Kolya was there until he spoke up, he couldn't see you until you did. Apparently your visibility defaults to off."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Am I beating up Stella's see-invisibility or going around it somehow?"

nonbird
2013-04-16 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Um... yes," he says. "If you dialed it down slowly, she'd see you before other people did. But you're not exactly invisible, you're something else."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Something else?"

self_composed
2013-04-16 06:22 pm (UTC)

"You're a ninja," laughs Stella.

nonbird
2013-04-16 06:23 pm (UTC)

"There's invisible, and then there's unnoticeable," he says, gesturing to the last known location of Kolya. "You're imperceptible."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Weird," laughs Pattern. "So, okay, is that all my aura does? Most of them that we know for sure about do two things."

nonbird
2013-04-16 06:30 pm (UTC)

"It's also decided to be your own personal cinematographer, apparently. When it's letting people see you, it's going to make sure the lighting and so forth know you're the star of the show."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that's funny," snorts Pattern. "That's really cute. In a contradictory sort of way."

self_composed
2013-04-16 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Me next, what'd I get and why's it hiding?" Stella asks.

nonbird
2013-04-16 06:39 pm (UTC)

Lazarus peers at her.

"It's not hiding," he says, "you just haven't given it anything to do. It wants to sort your coins for you and make technology behave itself in your presence, and you already have a coin bandolier and don't hang around with misbehaving technology. But you should give it all your coins, because it works much better than the bandolier."

self_composed
2013-04-16 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Works better how, and how do I give it coins?"

nonbird
2013-04-16 06:49 pm (UTC)

"You give it coins by having them on your person but not on your bandolier and wanting it to have them!"

self_composed
2013-04-16 06:51 pm (UTC)

"And then it will - what?"

nonbird
2013-04-16 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Keep them for you. A lot like the bandolier, but without them hanging off you all the time. And it'll give you the right size coins for whatever wishes you want to make, and nobody else will be able to get at them unless you want to give some away."

self_composed
2013-04-16 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Oh, cool." Stella unclips her bandolier and lets coins, starting with the smallest, spill into her hand. They never accumulate more than two or three at a time; after that they tuck away into nothing. Eventually she's emptied her entire chain. "Er - what happens if I withdraw the aura, does anything happen to the coins?"

nonbird
2013-04-16 07:14 pm (UTC)

"They're not in the part of the aura that does withdrawing and flaring," he says. "It won't make a difference."

self_composed
2013-04-16 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Okay, good. I pretty much have it out all the time but that might change at some point."

nonbird
2013-04-16 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, consider yourself informed."

self_composed
2013-04-16 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! Best magic-seeing guy." Lazarus gets a hug and a peck on the cheek and Stella then teleports away.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, thanks," says Pattern merrily. "I guess I'll go home now. And... be a ninja movie-star? Or something."

nonbird
2013-04-16 07:24 pm (UTC)

Lazarus giggles.

"Good luck!"

bellfounding
2013-04-16 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" Pattern taps her earpiece and reappears in her palace, and goes on composing her letter to the the Australian Prime Minister.
Edited 2013-04-16 19:54 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-16 07:58 pm (UTC)

The following night, around two in the morning East Coast time, Pattern gets a brainphone message from Queenie.

[Hey, you busy?]

bellfounding
2013-04-16 07:59 pm (UTC)

[Not especially, why?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-16 08:00 pm (UTC)

[Mm, the Bat found me and she's awful grumpy.]

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:01 pm (UTC)

[Oh, for crying out loud. I'll be right there.] Bella leans on her aura and teleports in to assess the situation.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-16 08:05 pm (UTC)

A growling Bat has Queenie pinned against an alley wall with a gauntleted hand around her throat.

Queenie is unruffled.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:07 pm (UTC)

She toggles her aura from ninja to movie star. An obliging gap of the clouds aims a moonbeam right at her and a bit of a wind kicks up.

Bella clears her throat.

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:08 pm (UTC)

The Bat whirls and glares.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Will you kindly put my employee down?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:09 pm (UTC)

"This is your employee?"

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Please put her down. Or I suppose we could make this conversation even less civilized?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:13 pm (UTC)

The Bat puts her down.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-16 08:13 pm (UTC)

She dusts herself off theatrically.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Thank you. Now, do you want to explain why you were assaulting her? Because I'm pretty sure her plan didn't involve intersecting you at all."

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:17 pm (UTC)

She darts a glance at Queenie, then says,

"I don't want the Joker in my city. I don't think I need to tell you why not."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Were you elected mayor and nobody told me? Or are people just claiming places now, because if that's the rule, I have pretty much already claimed this entire universe and my deal with her is that she can go where she likes."

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:19 pm (UTC)

The Bat scowls.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I think you've met a couple of me before. I'm not one of those. I'm actually native! Hi!" Pattern waves. "I was dead for a while, but now I'm not."

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:22 pm (UTC)

She stares flatly.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:23 pm (UTC)

"That's not a native," Bella adds, aiming a thumb at Queenie. "Had to import her. Golden's employing the one from here. Frankly, we didn't think you'd notice her, what with the lack of scarification and so on. Wanna tell me what's up with that?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:24 pm (UTC)

"No."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay, can you think of a convincing argument suggesting that it would be unethical for me to find out?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:26 pm (UTC)

...She stares some more.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I will take prolonged silence as a 'no, go ahead and satisfy your curiosity with magic'," Bella adds.

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't understand you," says the Bat.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:29 pm (UTC)

"You don't want Jokers in your city. I don't want random assaults in my universe. If there's no reason for me not to, I'm going to find out what predicated this one, so I will know how to reduce the future incidence of random assaults. It's not that complicated," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:36 pm (UTC)

"...I recognized h—er," the Bat says reluctantly. "I asked him what he was doing here. He didn't have a good answer."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:39 pm (UTC)

"See, I'm boosted for vision, so I can tell that a Joker with scars or one who's younger-looking or whatever is the same template underneath. Is that what you did with the unaccounted-for hexagon?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:41 pm (UTC)

"No. I know that face," she says flatly.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Does this all sound plausible to you, Queenie?" Bella inquires.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-16 08:46 pm (UTC)

"The question is," says Queenie, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, "why she was following me in the first place."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:48 pm (UTC)

"You want to explain the following part?" Bella asks the Bat. "...What should I call you, anyway? Stella didn't tell us your name and Golden didn't know what to match your face to, but I could get it if I felt like it."

pythbox
2013-04-16 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't think you should call me anything," she growls.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 08:52 pm (UTC)

"You keep growling at me and I have no idea why you're bothering, it sounds really uncomfortable. It would be entertaining if Juliet were here, she could aura and you could growl. Look, I don't particularly mean you harm, the word out about you is 'generally a white hat in spite of the actual color scheme', I just want to minimize conflict between you and my mint, tell me what's going on."

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:00 pm (UTC)

She shoots Queenie a venomous glare.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-16 09:00 pm (UTC)

"If you two wanna talk without anybody punching anybody, I better get lost," she says, and teleports away.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:03 pm (UTC)

[Bye,] Bella says to Queenie.

"I'm going to be even more confused by Stella deciding to give you three wishes than I already was if your entire repertoire is growling, glaring, and violence," she remarks to the Bat. "Is a civil conversation about how people should conduct themselves out of the question, here?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Not here," she says, looking around.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Where to? I have a lovely palace on Titan if you don't have a better idea," suggests Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:06 pm (UTC)

Warily: "Fine."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:09 pm (UTC)

Poof!

"Welcome to Tethys," Pattern says, gesturing around. "In a way I suppose it's a good thing, if you can in fact recognize unscarred instances of the Joker template, that you found that one instead of by some chance running into, say, Rose's husband - Rose has issues with people attacking her husband. At least I got Queenie to agree to call me in instead of dealing with it herself if she ran into anything sticky."

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:10 pm (UTC)

The Bat scowls.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Look, if you don't want to make conversation, there is a currently unoccupied terraformed asteroid in this world, and I can be quite sure you won't assault - or murder - anyone from there. You gotta understand - you have both crimes on your record, you've got a history of making a particular nuisance of yourself to Bell staff, and now this world has a Bell, and it's me. I don't want my staff to have to work around a costume-clad nuisance. I would rather work something out with you that leaves everybody content. If all you can do is frown, I am somewhat limited in my ability to accomplish that goal."

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:20 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not in a good mood right now," she understates. "The Joker is dangerous. I don't know how you're not seeing that."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Assorted Jokers have been mints for a total Joker-mint time of at least a couple years, spread out over nine Joker-mints," says Bella. "And the only person I know of who's ever directly killed someone with a wishcoin is you. Why do you think you're special?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I genuinely believed that man was about to kill me at the time," she snaps. "And I still didn't try to kill him. No, I don't think the fact that I'm willing to use potentially lethal force to defend myself puts me on a level with a man whose idea of a joke is torturing someone to death and then dangling their corpse from the roof of City Hall!"
Edited 2013-04-16 21:31 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay... did you think Queenie was about to kill you, ten minutes ago?" asks Bella. "Or about to do... anything to you at all? Anything to anyone? For that matter, you know about alts. You didn't recognize Queenie specifically, did you? There's a couple Jokers who haven't killed anybody."

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:38 pm (UTC)

"He acted like he knew me," she says, looking away. "He acted like the Joker, not just a Joker."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Except," says Bella, "that the city of Gotham has not been particularly terrorized lately, has it. As it happens, Queenie does have a history matching the local Joker's up to a point, presumably with her own Bat off in some other world. But then Queenie died and then Stella fetched her out of the afterlife when we took over managing the place and then I hired her and now she's on her best behavior. She was never going to bother you."

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:41 pm (UTC)

"She was always going to bother me," the Bat mutters.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:44 pm (UTC)

"What's that mean?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:47 pm (UTC)

"He makes me sick just by existing," she says flatly. "He tore my city apart for fun."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay, well, even if I liked you more than her and considered making people cease to exist an appropriate reaction, that's metaphysically implausible, people in this universe don't cease to exist. They go Downside, which is where I came from and also where Queenie came from. But what I meant is she wasn't going to resume her reign of terror or knock on your door or anything."

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I can deal with him as long as he's contained. I was fine with him in Arkham. I was fine with him on that asteroid. Walking around my city and taunting me when I stop him - no."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:54 pm (UTC)

"So basically you'd like to psychologically torture her, not for anyone's safety, because safety's covered, but for your comfort?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 09:55 pm (UTC)

"How is safety covered," she says.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 09:57 pm (UTC)

"My deal with her was checked out in advance by a precog, and if she decides to run amok unexpectedly anyway, I can move her out of the universe and address any damage. There is one Joker who couldn't be effectively socked away in another universe like that because he can universe-hop, but it's not Queenie."

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:00 pm (UTC)

"...fine," says the Bat, with deep reluctance.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Now," says Bella, "I'm working with various heads of state to set up something systematic that will scale, but speaking of people the native Joker killed, I can jump them past the queue - if they have a place to go as opposed to just being liable to appear and be awkwardly legally dead. Any requests?"

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:11 pm (UTC)

"...What," says the Bat.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:14 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, now I'm kind of offended, have you been paying that little attention? I'm dead. Got hit by a car. Queenie's dead, I never asked her how. Hell, the Joker who originally bothered you also managed to die a while ago even though he was all kinds of regenerative. But me and the other Bells have taken over the management of a shared afterlife and we can get people out of it."

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Does—does that include people—who died a long time ago," she says hoarsely. "Decades. Two and a half decades."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Arbitrarily long ago - I could go sifting through the Stone Age - but we're putting the standard cutoff a bit nearer because we don't want to overwhelm the infrastructure. People who have a place to go are mostly going to be people who died not so long ago. But if you have a place to put whoever you have in mind I don't see why you shouldn't have them, as long as you have my attention."

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:18 pm (UTC)

She swallows.

It takes her several tries to say,

"Thomas and Martha Wayne."

mind_game
2013-04-16 10:19 pm (UTC)

Jane's Janepoint is in this room. She manifests a face. "Those're pretty common names," she says. "I need a date of death to narrow it down."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Batlady, meet Jane," says Bella. "She does the afterlife sorting and interworld transit."

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:24 pm (UTC)

She closes her eyes and recites the date in a monotone.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Can you think of any reason I might regret queue-jumping these people?" inquires Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:28 pm (UTC)

"No."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Jane, see if they'll let you check them out anyway."

mind_game
2013-04-16 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing."

Thomas Wayne wakes up first.

[Hello!] says Jane. [This is the afterlife. You and your wife have been nominated for a return to the world of the living. It has been twenty-five years since you died. Please take this pamphlet.] (Jane has been given the ability to generate pamphlets when and where they are needed.) [With your permission, I'd like to vet you for resurrection; this will involve a low-fidelity scan of your memories. I'm a computer program, albeit a very smart one, and won't tell anybody any personal details unless they're relevant to whether it's safe to have you walking around on your Earth again.]
Edited 2013-04-16 22:33 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:34 pm (UTC)

...He takes the pamphlet.

"...Okay," he says, blinking.

mind_game
2013-04-16 10:35 pm (UTC)

Jane staaaares into his soooooul.

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:36 pm (UTC)

He loves his wife. He loves his daughter. He wants to do what's best for his city.

The next words out of his mouth are, "Where's Martha?"

mind_game
2013-04-16 10:37 pm (UTC)

[She's next! You check out; just sit tight and I'll have a look at her.]

Martha awakens and gets the same speech and pamphlet, edited where necessary.

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Fine," she says distractedly, flipping through the pamphlet.

She is just as benign as her husband.

mind_game
2013-04-16 10:40 pm (UTC)

"They both check out. You want me to put them right here right now?" Jane inquires.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe Batlady would rather greet them while not in her Halloween costume?" says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Put them in Wayne Manor," she says. "It's theirs. I'll - just take me back to Gotham."

mind_game
2013-04-16 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I haven't got eyes in Wayne Manor."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I carry one of her eyes with me but I'd have to, you know, go there, that okay?" Bella says, tapping her earpiece.

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:51 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

She stealths, teleports the Batlady back to the alley, and teleports into Wayne Manor.

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:52 pm (UTC)

The main hall of Wayne Manor is large and very imposing, and contains one white-haired old man with glasses. He appears to be dusting a statuette.
Edited 2013-04-16 22:52 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:54 pm (UTC)

[Hey, Batlady, cool to appear them in front of this guy in the house who's dusting or should I put them in another room?]

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:55 pm (UTC)

[...I'm sure he'd appreciate being warned first.]

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:56 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

Bella unstealths. "Excuse me."

pythbox
2013-04-16 10:57 pm (UTC)

The old man looks at her over the tops of his glasses.

"Yes?" he says politely.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Hi, have you met one of me before? I'm a different one, I'm local - anyway, I'm here to raise a Thomas and Martha Wayne from the dead, thought I'd warn you."

pythbox
2013-04-16 11:01 pm (UTC)

He blinks.

"Thank you," he says; apparently blinking is all the surprise he's going to exhibit. "Much appreciated. Do I need to do anything in particular to prepare for their return?"

bellfounding
2013-04-16 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Uh, you don't need to be involved in the relevant mechanics, I suppose they might arrive thirsty or something but you'll have to ask them," Bella shrugs. "They'll have copies of pamphlets explaining how being their kind of dead works, and so on."

And she taps her earpiece.

mind_game
2013-04-16 11:03 pm (UTC)

And Jane picks up the Waynes and drops them between Bella and Alfred.

pythbox
2013-04-16 11:07 pm (UTC)

The Waynes immediately rush to hug each other, ignoring everyone else in the room.

"Thank you, miss," says Alfred.

bellfounding
2013-04-16 11:08 pm (UTC)

"No problem," says Bella, and she heads back to her palace.

[All done,] she tells the Batlady.

pythbox
2013-04-16 11:09 pm (UTC)

Her busy message says, [Traveling.]

we are committed to promoting ethnic diversity

cross_and_bow

Bella has now read everything that has been written on the neutral demon species known as the Sessiaki. It's not much - it's never much - but she now has a general low-confidence picture of them and will probably be able to talk to one civilly without making them want to slap her. She's already juiced up her teleportation to take her to demon dimensions and back, but the Sessiaki supposedly have enough of a pattern of integration that there could easily be one visiting the earth at this time. She tried her crystal ball, but all it showed her was a couple of apparent siblings talking about nothing in particular, laughing.

After school (she's phoning it in at this point, but to placate Charlie's wish to "not have one of those children who just never shows up to school again one day", she is still showing up to take classes as honestly as she can with perfect recall and all the subjects pentagoned) she wishes up a globe sort of like Stella's, only it's small enough to keep in her bedroom (she can zoom in) and it shows demons and local magic instead of ingots and coins, and she can narrow down the pins from many kinds of demons to just one. Where might she find a Sessiaki here on Earth, pray tell, magic globe?

longdistancebells
2013-04-19 04:28 pm (UTC)

There is presently one in Toronto!

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 04:31 pm (UTC)

Zoom zoom zoom. That's just a house. Cool. Bella's already pentagoned their native language (a surprising number of demon species have only one, but then they do have smaller populations than humans). She turns invisible, teleports to the front doorstep, spies no witnesses, re-visibles, and knocks. Her aura is withdrawn for now; this isn't a situation she expects to involve a lot of hostility.

newtimov
2013-04-19 04:33 pm (UTC)

One of the apparent siblings from her crystal ball answers the door.

"Um, hi?" he says, blinking at her.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Hello!" says Bella. Interesting. Perhaps the crystal ball was giving her a heads-up about how integrated this Sessiaki is. "My name is Bella. I'm in the process of opening diplomatic relations with assorted species. There's a Sessiaki in your house. Can I come in?"

newtimov
2013-04-19 04:40 pm (UTC)

He frowns.

"Um, maybe," he says. "Why are you opening diplomatic relations with assorted species? Because if you're doing it for creepy reasons then you should go away."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm working my way up to the ones that eat people, but the ultimate aim is making the world a better place," says Bella. "I don't think I'm creepy. My personnel officer hasn't hired me an actual ambassador yet so I'm doing some legwork in person."

newtimov
2013-04-19 04:43 pm (UTC)

He peers suspiciously at her, then says, "Okay, I guess you can come in. I'll get - Val."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Bella. She steps in when he lets her.

newtimov
2013-04-19 04:45 pm (UTC)

He shows her to the living room, then says, "Just a sec," and disappears up the stairs.

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 04:47 pm (UTC)

About thirty seconds later, his probably-sister comes thumping down the stairs and into the living room.

"Hi," she says. "What's up?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Hi. I'm Bella. I'm looking to open diplomatic relations with miscellaneous species and there is a Sessiaki in your house. I could just go to Siathe, but it seemed like a better idea to try talking to the one who's already on Earth amongst humans."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 04:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm Val," says Val. "Ike's asking Mom if she feels like talking to you."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, cool, you're a half-Sessiaki? Neat. I'm a technically dead ex-Slayer with magic powers."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Good for you," says Val. "Should I be worried about the 'Slayer' part of that sentence?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Nope. I'm not prejudiced or trigger-happy. My boyfriend's a vampire, the technically dead thing was a Watcher's fault so I'm not exactly on board with that standard program, and also I can resurrect the dead if I ever make a mistake anyway."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 04:56 pm (UTC)

"...Cool," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I sure think so!" says Juliet merrily.

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:04 pm (UTC)

"You're okay," Val declares.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:06 pm (UTC)

"I agree," says Bella. "I am an okay person. You seem pretty cool yourself. What is it that you do?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Like... with my life? Um, I go to school," she says. "And have strong feelings about beer. And punch people who pick on my brother."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I will not pick on your brother," says Bella.

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Good!" says Val. "Then I'm probably not gonna punch you!"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Goodness knows it was never my favorite thing even when it comprised a much greater portion of my complete breakfast."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:16 pm (UTC)

"What happened with the whole Slayer thing, anyway?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I got murdered," says Bella. "I have pasted most of the assorted abilities back onto my person, but the title is no longer technically mine."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Who murdered you?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:20 pm (UTC)

"A Watcher who was supposed to test me by taking my powers and locking me up with a vampire, and got pissed off when I both passed that test and resented having had it administered. He's currently in lockup awaiting trial and extradition negotiations for other miscellaneous crimes; I arranged not to be legally dead so alas he cannot be tried for killing me."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Sucks," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, the Watchers pretty much suck as an organization. I have arranged for them to be unable to find my successor."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Smart move!"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, so what exactly did you wanna talk to Mom about?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:45 pm (UTC)

"There's a reason I'm starting my diplomatic tour with the species that don't like to eat people," Bella says dryly. "But I'd like to know more about the state of Siathe, and the state of Sessiaki integration - which is apparently pretty decent - and if there's anything I can do to help out, and I'm also going to be hiring, and I see no particular reason not to hire demons if any demons should care to apply especially since it's going to be way easier to explain all the magic stuff to the one population than to humans at large, so I want to know a good way to issue job ads when those come up. If the Sessiaki are on friendly terms with any other species I wanna know that too, so I can sort of stepping-stone my way around instead of just teleporting onto everybody's doorstep and knocking."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Well, don't let us fool you, it's not like Mom can walk around town with her face showing," says Val. "She's kinda shy on Earth, you know, 'cause of the scales."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I could fix that if she wants," Bella says. "Goodwill sort of gesture."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 05:53 pm (UTC)

"...Fix what, exactly," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I have very open-ended magic powers," shrugs Bella. "Could do it a bunch of ways. Suppressible illusion? Minor shapeshifting power? Small field of nothing-to-see-here? I am open to suggestions."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 06:00 pm (UTC)

"...maybe."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 06:01 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "Or not, whatever."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 06:03 pm (UTC)

"It would be kind of a big deal," she says. "For us, apparently not for you."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 06:06 pm (UTC)

"I can't afford to do it for literally every Sessiaki. Well, not quite as casually, anyway, it'd have to be a big automated thing, it would be hard to make exceptions or customize anything. But one, I can do, and this one happens to have my attention, so, we can talk about it."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Not a lot of Sessiaki want to live on Earth," says Val. "Even Mom doesn't, she just visits sometimes."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Is that because of the cosmetic awkwardness or just a preference for the comforts of home?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Val, "I'm assuming you don't want to move to Siathe, but do you have a reason for not wanting to or is it just that you don't have any good reasons to do it?"
Edited 2013-04-19 18:16 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I know almost nothing about Siathe because the books available on Sessiaki and related topics are not very good. Moving there would be pretty meaningless, I don't really need a permanent residence since I don't sleep and teleport most places I go and conjure stuff I need on the spot, and I was thinking of designing myself a palace on Mercury though I haven't gone and built it yet. Why?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 06:21 pm (UTC)

"My point is that most people don't need a strong reason not to move out of their home dimension to a strange planet inhabited by a different species, it's just kind of not something that comes up."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, "yes, but she's got family here, so I didn't think this was the standard case."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sure," she shrugs. "For Mom, it's because she gets tired of not being able to go outside. And she misses her friends. I just don't know what it is for everybody else."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I meant about her in particular, not about the general population. Although my long-term plan does involve more freedom of movement for every sort of sociable creature in the world, and people do pack up and move house to distant places sometimes, I know a guy who followed his boyfriend from one world to another."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Were they the same species?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Nope! The one who moved is a human, the one who he moved for is a vampire - not the kind we have here, a different kind with better perks and fewer inconveniences and no soul-losing. I'm sure the vampire would be happy to turn him but he hasn't taken him up on it. They have a kid."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Cute," says Val. "But I mean, if that kind of vampire is made out of humans, chances are there's humans around in their world."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:16 pm (UTC)

"There are some, yes, but the plan to gradually supplant the population with vampires and various species of hybrid and also werewolves is underway. I'm not sure whether they're going to replace that with resurrection-based solutions to death or not."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Solutions to death," Val echoes.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Not a fan of it, I gotta say, and I speak as someone who vividly remembers dying. Neither is the vampire empress of that world in favor."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:20 pm (UTC)

"You know, I get the impression that solutions to death don't usually work that well. But maybe you're lucky."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:23 pm (UTC)

"On net, I am sort of lucky. Also, hello, I am dead," says Bella, waving, "my solution is working out okay for me. I just have to pave the way for everybody else so I can scale it. That one scales easy, now, I have what you could call a software solution."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Do you wanna, like, explain any of that?" wonders Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Which bit? Because explaining all the stuff I can do would be a loooong story."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Like, what in the name of crystallized fuck does a software solution to death even mean?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I mean, me and some other people went to the afterlife, deemed it not good, got management attention and worked out a deal, and installed our computer friend Jane who can do inter-world teleportation to handle stuff. And now if I want a dead person I tell Jane so and she fetches me the dead person."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Val, "see, that's informative. 'What you could call a software solution' is not informative."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Sorry."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:34 pm (UTC)

"'Sokay," says Val. "I'm gonna grab some cookies, you want?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'll take a cookie."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:39 pm (UTC)

Val reaches out a hand toward the kitchen.

The flesh of her hand transmutes into a faintly glowing, otherwise featureless white substance that extrudes into a tentacle and reaches into the kitchen, then comes back a moment later wrapped around the rim of a plate of cookies. Val sets the plate down on the cofee table, grabs a cookie with her tentacle-hand, and takes a bite. The bones of her hand and wrist - not all that similar to a human skeleton - are still visible in silhouette within the tentacle until she retracts it back into the shape of her hand and the glow fades.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:41 pm (UTC)

"That," says Bella, swiping a cookie, "is a neat party trick."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Val around a mouthful of cookie.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:44 pm (UTC)

"D'you suppose your mom is going to want to talk to me?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Probably not," says Val. "But if all you wanna do is talk about Siathe, I can do that too."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Bella. "Let's hear about Siathe."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:49 pm (UTC)

"...You might have to get slightly more specific," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:52 pm (UTC)

"If I knew what I was looking for," says Bella, "then I would be more specific. And if I wanted to just turn invisible and fly around in the place for a while, then I'd do that, but I would like person-filtered information to guide me. You are totally a person."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says, "so like - what do you already know?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 07:57 pm (UTC)

"The books on this subject are really terrible, except for all having consensus on the species not being anthropophages and not leaving me completely stunned by your party trick. I speak fluent Kiessa? My kinda magic is good at languages. I'd need to sit down and really dig at the implanted vocabulary to learn any culture from that, though."
Edited 2013-04-19 20:01 (UTC)

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Val. "The party trick's called iethat, somebody who can do it is an ithue, and either a third of Sessiakitsi can do it or a third can't, I always forget which way around it is. I can, Mom and Ike can't, I guess that slightly implies that it's the first one. Also Sessiakitsi, even half-humans, need a lot of heavy metals in our diet - if you visit Siathe, apart from all the other reasons it'd be a good idea to take me or Ike with you, we can tell you what local food you can eat without poisoning yourself. Uh, come to think of it, I bet that's another reason there's not too much immigration between the worlds. You guys would get poisoned and we'd get the chromium equivalent of scurvy."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 08:09 pm (UTC)

"I will mind that I don't indiscriminately eat things if and when I visit," says Bella. "What are the other reasons it'd be a good idea to have an escort?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Because you will weird people out," says Val. "Not as much as a Sessiaki walking around Earth in broad daylight, but some. Whereas me and Ike have family there, so it's not so bad, and anyway I can just wave a tentacle and everybody's pretty much cool with me."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I suppose I could go all illusiony but that would probably create more problems than it would solve. Are we talking weirding them out as in attention and questions, or as in torches and pitchforks, or as in discomfort and shunning?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Do not fake iethat," says Val. "Do not fake iethat. It would be a bad idea to fake iethat. Don't do it."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 08:25 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, that wasn't actually the illusion I had in mind, but all right, why not?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Um," she says, "it's kind of a cultural thing? Actually, don't illusion yourself to look like a Sessiaki either, it'll keep random strangers from staring at you but it'll come off as weird and rude and weird once you start talking to people - but definitely don't fake iethat. Iethat's important. And you'd have no idea how to treat it, and you probably couldn't shake tentacles with anybody, and it's just a really bad idea, okay?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 08:34 pm (UTC)

"So, pretty much, I was right about it causing more problems than it would solve," Bella says.

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Val. "You're not gonna get torches and pitchforks as a human, but you might get something like it if you pretended to be an ithue."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 08:37 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, I can do a really good impression of something warranting torches and pitchforks without doing more than a couple tweaks to what I actually look like... Okay. Will not pretend to be Sessiaki or any sort of mix or anything."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

Val raises her eyebrows.

"These couple of tweaks being...?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh, if I do that party trick my eyes glow and little bits of fire that doesn't actually burn anything pop up all over me, but most of the effect is something else, not visual," says Bella, waving a hand. "Also it is a scary party trick, I'm saving it for the mean demons who are more inclined to, like, challenge me to single combat before they'll talk to me or things like that."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I will totally challenge you to single combat if that's your speed," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 08:58 pm (UTC)

"It's really not," snorts Bella. "I'm good in a fight, but I'm much more disposed to cheating than good Slayery sportsmanship."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Val. "I will also take any challenges to single combat that might come your way, unless they're from like, gods."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:03 pm (UTC)

"If you're that keen on it and the relevant challenges have affordances for substituting champions and my boyfriend doesn't insist on doing it himself, I will consider asking you."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:06 pm (UTC)

"You like singly combating people?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:07 pm (UTC)

"I haven't done a whole lot of it, but y'know, it sounds like fun."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Sparring can be fun. Fighting for your life, not so much. I'm not sure where most forms of demonic single combat fall on that scale. But I promise that if you fall in my defense I will fetch you out of Downside."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Cool," shrugs Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:20 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles. "So, since it's looking like your mom doesn't wanna talk to me, when would be a good time for you to show me around Siathe?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:22 pm (UTC)

"I'll ask Ike. We can email you," she says. "Do dead ex-Slayers do email?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I do email! I also do telepathy network, do you guys want in on the telepathy network? It's called a brainphone."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Sign me up!"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:24 pm (UTC)

[Behold! Also does text channel, busy messages according to whatever algorithm you like, and conference calls.]

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:29 pm (UTC)

[Awesome!]

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Shall I just add your brother now or should I ask him separately, do you think?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Ask him separately."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Do you suppose he's still talking to your mom about me?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:36 pm (UTC)

"No idea. He might've got distracted."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:38 pm (UTC)

"You want to go ask him? Seems impolite of me to go wandering through your house."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Your brainphone thing isn't, like, contagious, I can't just give it to him myself?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Upgrades to how it works propagate that way, this is version two. Permission to add people to the network is separate and since I don't know you that well and haven't even met anybody else of your template I'm not quite there yet."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 09:52 pm (UTC)

"...Template?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yeah. So, there's lots of universes, and some people pop up in more than one of them. I'm one of those people. There's ten of me known to, well, us, probably more we haven't found yet, and a lot of our friends and some of our enemies crop up more than once too. If you recur, I don't know about it, whereas if you were a copy of somebody another one of me had already vetted I'd be likely to skip some of the getting-to-know-you that I currently require before handing out magic."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," says Val. "Cool."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:04 pm (UTC)

"If I do run into another of you I'll see about setting up an introduction, that's always fun. Us Bells have started throwing a party whenever we find a new one."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Awesome! If I meet a me I am totally throwing a me party."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:08 pm (UTC)

"If you wind up escorting me through Siathe that'll probably qualify you for an invite to a Bell party and we can see if anybody recognizes you. Although that's not perfectly reliable. One of me is a boy, for instance. One of my boyfriend is a girl."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, I might be easier to spot 'cause I come with a twin," she muses.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that's one way to figure it out. Although sibling configurations aren't perfectly consistent within all templates."
Edited 2013-04-19 22:14 (UTC)

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:15 pm (UTC)

"...A me without an Ike would just be weird."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Us Bells are all only children," shrugs Bella. "So far, anyway, although now that we know that we come in boy I don't know how long to expect that to hold. And he kept asking why he was girls, even though we're overwhelmingly girls, so if there's a dozen Ikeless Vals, they will probably think you're the weird one."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:18 pm (UTC)

"But who would I punch if I didn't have a brother to get picked on by the assholes who are too scared of me to act like dicks when I'm looking?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I do not know. The worlds vary considerably. I have personally done a strikingly above average amount of punching for a Bell."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I like you already!"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, I mean, I was the Slayer. I didn't start out with the phenomenal cosmic power I have now. For a while I was just the Slayer. I had a crossbow, and sometimes I missed and then I hit things."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I approve of hitting things," says Val. "If it's, you know, reasonably justified."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Nasty bitey things all," Bella says. "Although once I miscalculated. My boyfriend and I had our first meeting separated by a lot of flying crossbow bolts. He is, mercifully, good at dodging."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:26 pm (UTC)

"So how'd he convince you not to dust him? Vampire, right?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:28 pm (UTC)

"He's a vampire, yes. I missed a lot. He returned my crossbow bolts all tied up in ribbon, left on my doorstep, and got surprised by my sneaky porch lights. Then the next time I saw him he was breaking into a butcher shop for animal blood. And he gave me his ultraviolet laser pointer and offered to be my bodyguard. I put him on probation, and he didn't try to eat me. Then later I found out that another of me was dating another of him - the girl one, who is not a vampire, but still. It went from there."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:30 pm (UTC)

"That's kind of adorable," says Val. "In a very, like, Slayer way."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it just? Although if you want high-octane adorable you want his alt and the alt who's dating her, they're cute enough to give marshmallow peeps diabetes."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:34 pm (UTC)

Val sporfles.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:35 pm (UTC)

"No, seriously, look," and Bella illusorily reproduces-in-miniature a scene from one of the Bell parties with the trademark mutual adoring gaze. "That's Shell Bell and that's her girlfriend, look at them, they're just like that all the time."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:38 pm (UTC)

"I want to hug it," says Val, and she reaches out a tentacle from her hand to curl puffily around the illusion.
Edited 2013-04-19 22:38 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:39 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "You would have fun at a Bell party."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:40 pm (UTC)

"That is also my last name," says Val, "so yes, I totally would."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:42 pm (UTC)

"It is? Wow," laughs Bella. "We call ourselves that because we are seven Isabellas, five of whom prefer Bella, and one Bell and one Belle and one Campbell."

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:49 pm (UTC)

"That makes sense," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes, it does. Were you going to go find Ike?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Nope, I was putting it off so I didn't have to get off my lazy ass, I'll go do that now," she says, and gets up.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:51 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts and waits.

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:53 pm (UTC)

She comes back down and reports, "Ike would love to be on your telepathic phone network, but he's busy doing science and doesn't wanna talk right now, I was right that he got distracted."
Edited 2013-04-19 22:53 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I can add him without him being in the room, shall I just do that?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Go for it!"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 10:59 pm (UTC)

Bella does so. "So, lemme know when you have time to show me around the other dimension, I don't know how you usually get there but I can almost certainly do it more flexibly and faster, and I guess I'll see you then. And if your mom is alarmed or something by my having visited on the basis of her existence please apologize on my behalf?"

grabsthebutt
2013-04-19 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Will do," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:03 pm (UTC)

Bella salutes, and says, "Bye," and teleports back to the house that Jarvis is.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:04 pm (UTC)

"And how did your diplomacy go?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Did not actually meet the Sessiaki. Met her two half-human kids, though, had a very friendly chat with the girl one, she has offered to stand in for me if anyone challenges me to single combat, I believe I'll invite her and her brother to the next Bell party. They're going to think on their schedule and brainphone me when it's a good time for them to give me a tour through Siathe." Bella leans her head on Sherlock's shoulder.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:07 pm (UTC)

He wraps his arm around her shoulders and kisses her forehead. "Well enough, then. Do these people have names?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Val and Ike. Didn't get either parents' name. The surname, amusingly enough, is Bell." Snuggles.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:12 pm (UTC)

Sherlock snorks.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:14 pm (UTC)

Snuzzle. "I told her the story of how we met and she thought it was cute in a Slayerish way and then I showed her an illusion of Shell Bell with Pearl and she tried to hug it."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's adorable," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:23 pm (UTC)

"I know, isn't it?" Snuggle. "I've never asked Shell Bell whose idea it was for them to have a mindreading thingy set up. I wonder which one suggested it."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock, I bet," says Sherlock absently.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:27 pm (UTC)

"It sounded like you could go either way, when you were discussing it with yourself before you fused." She pauses, then: "I can't imagine wanting anyone - anyone ever at all - to read my mind. Like, I don't even understand Amariah with Path or Cam with Grace, let alone Golden sometimes letting Edward do his thing. I don't get it."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:33 pm (UTC)

"There is insufficient information density available in any language I have yet encountered to accurately communicate my perception of a single moment. You Bells are a curious lot. I can see why she might have wanted to give hers the most accurate possible rendition."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Heh." Snuggle. "Shell Bell gave Pearl her recorder, it was like her notebooks. I can just about understand that far, because it wasn't exactly like notebooks, there were locked parts and she'd know if any of those were listened to, but still."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:38 pm (UTC)

"I certainly cannot imagine you giving anyone your notebooks."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:39 pm (UTC)

"- Would you want to read them?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:42 pm (UTC)

"If you wanted to let me."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I could pick some out that would be fine. It's not all deep personal stuff - I mean, you looked at the notebook I did my autopilot dissection in."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I am always in favour of more information."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-19 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I'll pick some out sometime."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-19 11:57 pm (UTC)

He snuggles her some more.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 12:00 am (UTC)

Snuggles snuggles.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-20 12:07 am (UTC)

Snuggles and huggles!

"I think," he says eventually, "that I would be all right with you reading my mind as long as my active authorization was required."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 12:08 am (UTC)

"D'you want to design the wish?" Bella asks, squeezing him.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-20 12:10 am (UTC)

"Interesting question," he says. "The information transfer protocol is properly my domain, but you are the one who must put up with the format. I wonder if we can do it in pieces?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 12:11 am (UTC)

"Is there some reason to use a nonstandard format? The visual channel thing? 'Three out of four mindreading Bells recommend' -" she adds in a parody of a commercial.
Edited 2013-04-20 00:17 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-20 12:19 am (UTC)

"Well, I didn't know if you had evaluated it personally," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 12:24 am (UTC)

"The enchantress version actually sounds really sensorily neat and I wouldn't do that staring into space thing either because it's not literally visual, but I doubt it's quite as easily personalized, and since you want it controlled on your end," she shrugs and trails off. "Although maybe it could be, if you did the enchantment. Enchantments are like servants, it'd try to be convenient for you."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-20 12:32 am (UTC)

"I don't think I'd prefer an enchantment," he says consideringly. "But perhaps I don't know enough about them."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 12:33 am (UTC)

"Pentagon will skill you even if you don't wind up hexing the power," says Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-20 12:50 am (UTC)

"Interesting notion. I'll think about it."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 12:52 am (UTC)

"Okay." Snuggle.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-20 12:53 am (UTC)

Snuggle!

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 04:13 am (UTC)

Bella thinks while she snuggles. And then she summons a stack of notebooks from her old stash. It's quite a few.

"These are the ones I brought to school - and therefore ran a moderate risk of having stolen - plus some older ones I kept home," she murmurs into his shoulder, "that aren't so - fresh, but are still pretty representative of how it worked. To start with." As an afterthought, she wishes restrictions onto them so they'll blur into illegibility if anyone but her or Sherlock tries to look at them, including Jarvis's cameras. "It's all in note-to-self format so if something doesn't make a lick of sense and you want it to you can ask me."
Edited 2013-04-20 04:14 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-20 12:05 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 04:13 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Hugs and snuggles.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-20 04:16 pm (UTC)

Snuggles and hugs.

"I love you," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 04:17 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

what are you doing here?

small_magics

Isibel has never seen an odder collection of fauna. She has not traveled extensively, but she is sure that creatures of this size - lizards as heavy as ten elves together, beavers eight and nine feet long, turtles with shells the size of small houses - are not customary. Yet the island is riddled with them.

The creatures have no particular fear of elves, but nor do they seek them, and none of her party have been attacked; she feels safe enough traveling through the forest on her own, stepping lightly, looking for the sweep of the treeline and any springs that might be useful for settlers if elves settle here. Besides, she is a student of the small magics, some of which may be cast quite rapidly if there is need; she could frighten away an animal that took too much interest in her. The ribbons tied around each of her knees and ankles (blending seamlessly with the rest of her travel outfit) are some of her finest small magic, guiding her steps so that she may place her feet as elves ought to be able to and bring no embarrassment to her House. They don't make her truly graceful, but she can walk, and care will do the rest.

She's deep into the forested part of the Unknown Island when she starts finding statues. Old statues. The trees have grown up around them, it looks like, they've been here that long; they're worn and weathered and have lichen growing on them.

And they're all of unicorns.

The oldest sculptures are none too skillful, but as she proceeds inward towards the center of the island, they become newer and better and it's plain to see that they're not of unicorns, but a unicorn. A unicorn with a broken horn; this is not, it soon becomes apparent, random damage to early statues. Someone has carved a specific unicorn, dozens - hundreds? thousands? - of times. And the art has been made with such intense love, and the newest of the statues are so delicately done that they look almost like real unicorns, with all the magic that implies, though they hold still and are on closer inspection all still carved from stone.

Someone loved this unicorn, and lived on this island, and made a thousand statues of her, and now the place is inhabited only by giant animals that certainly could have done no such thing. Isibel wonders what happened to the sculptor. To the unicorn, too.

On she walks.

endragoned
2013-04-08 10:14 pm (UTC)

Closer still to the center of the island, past another statue, there is the sound of running water. The sound leads her to a tiny trickling stream, and the stream leads her to a large, clear pond—

And floating on his back in the middle of the pond, a naked man with skin as red as apples balances a basket on his stomach with one hand while his other hand dips into the basket to retrieve a berry. His hair is dark and curly, his eyes are closed against the glare of the sun, and he has a pair of enormous scarlet wings that fan lazily in the water to keep him afloat.

small_magics
2013-04-08 10:21 pm (UTC)

Isibel stops.

She holds very still.

Endarkened.

But - there have been no Endarkened in the world for two thousand years.

How?

(They were truly immortal, though, weren't they, if one chose not to fight but instead hid -

- but the unicorn -

- but Taint, Darkness -

- but he looks so peaceful -

- but they are masters of deceit -

- but if one wanted to deceive her would he not hide the wings, the horns, the color? -

- but there he is. He doesn't even seem to have heard her approach -

- didn't the Legendary Vestakia look Endarkened herself? Was she not the spirit-child of her human mother? -

- but the Legendary Vestakia was not immortal, and there have been no Endarkened to father any more like her for two thousand years.

Isibel simply has no idea.)

She stands still.

She watches and she waits, for him to do something, for - clues. Perhaps she should turn, run, fetch the rest of the exploratory party and summon them all here, perhaps she should try to think of a way to kill him herself.

But he looks so peaceful, and this is not a disguise he is wearing -

And the unicorn.

endragoned
2013-04-08 10:35 pm (UTC)

The tip of his barbed red tail flicks out of the water next to his knee with a tiny splash, then slips beneath the surface again.

He eats another berry. (His fingernails, and toenails too for that matter, are sharp pointed talons.)

Slowly, peacefully, he opens his eyes.

When he catches sight of Isibel, he yelps and flails, scattering his basket of berries into the water. It is apparently difficult for him to drag those wings above the surface in a hurry, because in the process of trying he manages to sink completely for a few seconds; he comes up coughing and spluttering amid the floating wreckage of his basket, his scarlet skin streaked with purple-black juice from the explosion of berries.

small_magics
2013-04-08 10:37 pm (UTC)

Isibel decides to hide behind a tree. Then she decides this is stupid, because if he's going to hurt her she should run, and if he isn't, she should keep paying attention and learn what she can about this situation.

She peeps around the edge of the tree tentatively.

endragoned
2013-04-08 10:43 pm (UTC)

The Endarkened - or whatever he is - has finished spluttering and is staring at her in confusion, wings half-out of the water.

He says something in a half-familiar language, his tone cautious, hesitant.

A berry rolls out of his hair, bounces off his shoulder, and plops into the water.

small_magics
2013-04-08 10:46 pm (UTC)

- What does that language sound like? Isibel's no linguist. Maybe it reminds her of someone's accent? There are some travelers from outside the Elven Lands in Silverbranch who speak differently than the elves do.

She shakes her head slowly. "I don't know that language," she says carefully. Enunciating.

endragoned
2013-04-08 10:53 pm (UTC)

He stares at her some more.

His mouth quirks into a wry half-smile.

He speaks again, glancing to the side, as though addressing himself more than her. Some of the words sound almost like the old elven language, the one from which elven names are still regularly drawn but which retains no other common use.

small_magics
2013-04-08 11:02 pm (UTC)

If only she'd paid more attention to the etymology of anyone's name, she could try to talk in name-parts. But she did not.

She steps out from behind the tree. He hasn't tried to convince her to give over the world to stop some horrific deed, or attempted to eat her skin, or infected her with Taint. As far as she knows, anyway.

She points at herself. "Isibel," she says.

endragoned
2013-04-08 11:07 pm (UTC)

He blinks at her, then rubs his face with one hand. His palm comes away smeared with berry juice. He licks it.

"Isibel," he repeats, watching her thoughtfully. He says something else, but it doesn't have the rhythm of a name, and he doesn't mirror her indicatory gesture.

small_magics
2013-04-08 11:10 pm (UTC)

She puts her hands by her sides. "I remain unable to understand you," she points out. (She doesn't try pointing at him. That would be rather like a question. If he doesn't want to share his name, he needn't; it's not even particularly relevant to the question of whether he needs to be killed or not.)

endragoned
2013-04-08 11:13 pm (UTC)

He laughs, as though he understood.

Then he starts swimming toward the edge of the pond, aiming for an open area near where Isibel is standing.

small_magics
2013-04-08 11:14 pm (UTC)

She takes a step back.

But only one.

And waits.

If she were going to run, she should've done it before he even opened his eyes.

endragoned
2013-04-08 11:18 pm (UTC)

The probably-a-demon hauls himself ungracefully back onto land, shakes out his hair and his wings (spraying droplets of water in every direction), and starts picking bits of ex-basket from where the water has stuck them to his skin. He speaks again, in amicable tones, while he does this. His tail flicks back and forth like a contented cat's.

small_magics
2013-04-08 11:22 pm (UTC)

Isibel wracks her brain - doesn't she know anyone whose name has a meaning she knows that could be useful in that language -

Oh yes. Yes she does.

She knows how to say Unicorn Knight and she knows which part of that phrase means "knight" and which part does not.

"I saw the - unicorn -" she says, gesturing back the way she came. Normally she'd go on - and I had cause to speculate about the carver - but she doesn't have any old language to compose such suggestive unquestions out of.

endragoned
2013-04-08 11:25 pm (UTC)

His face lights up.

"Unicorn," he repeats, nodding. "Tialle." (Something something) "unicorn" (something, a gesture in the direction that Isibel indicated) "Tialle." (Something something.)

small_magics
2013-04-08 11:29 pm (UTC)

Isibel spreads her hands. She's still not getting any details, although Tialle sounds like the unicorn's name. Names are not mostly made of practical words. She could say dawn or flower or star, but not the pronouns and the geographical terminology she'd need to find out who this Endarkened-looking person is even if she dropped into War Manners.

But he seems to find talking productive, maybe he'll pick up on some of her language if she goes on talking. "I speculated about the carver of the statues of Tialle the unicorn. The sculptures were clearly made with love."

endragoned
2013-04-08 11:38 pm (UTC)

He repeats 'unicorn', and 'Tialle', and walks into the forest in the direction of the nearest statue.

Since he is making no particular effort to hide any part of his body, his numerous scars are fully visible as he walks. The membrane between the ribs of his wings is the most spectacular example; if those shiny wandering streaks represent old damage, it must have been shredded almost completely at some point in the past, and regrown since.

small_magics
2013-04-08 11:39 pm (UTC)

Isibel follows him, nervous but no longer terrified for her immediate physical safety.

endragoned
2013-04-08 11:41 pm (UTC)

They come upon the statue quickly enough.

He closes his eyes and hugs it around the neck, furling his wings.

small_magics
2013-04-08 11:43 pm (UTC)

It's not a real unicorn, it's a statue - he is not the Legendary Vestakia, proving his spiritual purity by demonstrating himself fit unicorn-company. It's a compelling display nevertheless.

But Isibel has no idea what's next.

endragoned
2013-04-08 11:48 pm (UTC)

He kisses the statue's neck and steps back, then holds his left hand against the statue's horn for a moment.

The horn lines up perfectly with a thick, shiny burn scar across his palm.

The Legendary Vestakia was not burned by the touch of a unicorn's horn.

small_magics
2013-04-08 11:51 pm (UTC)

Isibel bites her lip.

Not like Vestakia, then.

She takes a step back.

"I don't understand," she murmurs.

(Her mother considers it a rude borderline-questioning habit on her part to say I don't understand when she wants more explanation than she's freely given, but Isibel is young yet, and it was not so long ago that she was a child, free of all such constraints. Perhaps she'll learn to more cordially weigh curiosity against manners later in her life. In this case it hardly matters. He cannot understand her.)

endragoned
2013-04-08 11:59 pm (UTC)

He strokes his fingertips down the broken stone horn.

Then he starts telling a story.

He speaks the whole time, but with the language barrier, the only words that come through are an occasional 'Tialle' or 'unicorn', neither of which is present in the introduction; he seems to understand as much, and supplements the largely incomprehensible narrative with extensive gesturing.

First he points off into the distance and makes a repeated throwing-like gesture: far, far away. Then he sketches the shape of a mountain range in the air, and spreads his hands slowly under it, then brings them fluttering back together. Far, far away in a lot of caves under some mountains.

He points at himself, touches his horns, his wings, brings his tail curling forward around his legs, then makes gestures to indicate a repeated series of similar things. His expressive hands then tuck the series-of-similar-things into the space under the previously established mountains, of which he reminds her with another quick trace of their skyline. Many demons living in a lot of caves under some mountains.

Here he pauses and looks at her, as though to gauge her comprehension, or maybe her willingness to listen.
Edited 2013-04-09 00:01 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-09 12:02 am (UTC)

Well, listening here is clearly immaterial; she'd be getting about as much out of the recitation if she were stone deaf. But she is willing to watch and interpret.

endragoned
2013-04-09 12:16 am (UTC)

He nods, satisfied, and continues.

A pushing-apart gesture, one hand pressing in toward his chest and the other sweeping outward through the airspace nominally occupied by the caverns, indicates a separation between him and the others. He pauses again, considering, and then shrugs and shakes his head; perhaps the details of this separation are not something he feels he can get across in mime.

Its results, however, are.

He traces a circle around his neck, two more around each wrist, draws lines through the air from each of these: chains. In a few quick gestures he bundles up the imaginary chains and shoves them into the depths of the imaginary mountain, drawing a long twisting pathway in the air-representing-stone to indicate the remoteness of the place where he was kept. His hands clap together firmly around his prison and squeeze, sealing his imaginary self inside.

Then he takes a half-step back and opens his hands. This chapter of the story is over.

He folds his wings tightly, tucks his tail against one leg, scrubs his hands through his hair until it hides the short arcs of his horns: he is playing the part of someone without any of these things. Someone shorter, too, or perhaps the way he hunches is meant to denote furtive concealment. His hands sketch a coil of rope in the air, knot it into a noose, and then fling it over the statue's neck and pull it tight. Another bundling-up gesture, and Tialle is tucked into the depths of the mountain.
Edited 2013-04-09 00:17 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-09 12:20 am (UTC)

Isibel has certainly heard that the Endarkened were not much kinder to each other than to others, and has no trouble swallowing the notion that one could have been imprisoned by his fellows. Nor does she disbelieve that they'd have captured a unicorn.

endragoned
2013-04-09 12:36 am (UTC)

He relaxes his wings and tail, draws the chains around his neck and wrists again, draws another chain around Tialle's neck (with an apologetic kiss to the statue's muzzle that is probably not part of the story), and bundles the both of them into the same remote underground cell. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he closes his hand around the air beyond Tialle's broken horn and makes a snapping-off motion.

So: himself and Tialle, imprisoned together, her horn being broken either before she got there or just as she arrived. At first he cowers away from her, and (he indicates with more mime around the statue) she from him. Then they come closer together. Closer.

He lays his hand slowly, deliberately, against her horn. A hiss and an artful shudder remind Isibel that this would have hurt quite a lot.

Moving quickly, he breaks the imaginary chains around each of their necks, then the ones around his wrists. Creative mime, with some limping and fluttering, indicates that he was too weak or injured to stand; he crawled to the door of their prison and broke it open with only a little more difficulty than he had with the chains.

And then, apparently, Tialle stood still with some reluctance while he hauled himself onto her back, and he guided the pair of them all the way through the tunnels and up to the surface, and they proceeded in this way across a considerable distance before they finally parted ways. (A hand clawing illustratively down the scarred membrane of his wing indicates why he did not just fly away at that point.)

small_magics
2013-04-09 12:39 am (UTC)

Isibel does not quite get the connection between touching Tialle's horn and being able to escape, but that she was helpful, that she gets. She nods slowly.

endragoned
2013-04-09 12:42 am (UTC)

He shrugs, his wings rippling with the movement, and steps away from the statue. Touches his fingertips to his chest. Reaches out toward Tialle. Shakes his head. Drops his hand.

They never saw each other again.

small_magics
2013-04-09 12:43 am (UTC)

Isibel gestures generally at the forest around them, the island.

(It's not a question if she doesn't actually say anything. She thinks.)

endragoned
2013-04-09 12:45 am (UTC)

He smiles, looks down, rubs a hand over his face, shakes his head, shrugs helplessly. If there's a story there, he doesn't feel up to telling it.

small_magics
2013-04-09 12:48 am (UTC)

Perhaps this would be easier with paper and pencil?

She has those. She's started a fresh book recently; there's nothing sensitive in what she hands him even if he's deceiving her about not knowing the language.

endragoned
2013-04-09 12:59 am (UTC)

The pencil seems to puzzle him.

He peers at it, rubs his thumb over the point, sniffs it, and only then deigns to make marks on a page.

An extremely crude map of a continent she should be familiar with. The shape is vague and partly wrong, but he gets most of the mountains right, and he draws Shadow Mountain up in the far north where it should be. From there, the point of the pencil wanders down over the continent in a meandering pathway. He mimes people, then himself hiding from them. This, apparently, was his primary method of navigation: flee from anyone who walks upright.

After some time spent doing this, he ended up deep in a forest (indicated by gesturing around them and patting a tree, then pointing at the map).

He turns the page.

He draws a dragon, crude but unmistakable.

He touches his face, the pad of his thumb just under one eye and his first two fingers just under the other; he brings that hand down to touch the dragon; he makes a circling gesture, then brings it back up to touch under his eyes again.

Then he stretches his wings, and draws the dragon in flight with a winged bipedal figure beside it, and turns back to the map and drags the pencil right off the edge of the continent and over the ocean and around the edge of the page to pass under the flying figures and end in a small blob shaped more or less like this island.

small_magics
2013-04-09 01:10 am (UTC)

Isibel blinks at the dragon drawing. She thought that all the known dragons were those living in the Elven Lands, most bonded to one Elf and one Wildmage or occasionally a High Mage. Not that the Dragonbonded have any strong attachment to any location, with the ability to travel so far, so fast, but they do regularly stop in the Elven Lands and maintain residences there.

(Isibel thought long, long and hard before deciding not to present herself to any of the young unbonded dragons, or any of the old dragons with old bondmates. The trouble is - whatever power they offer, however much she'd like to wield it - the dragons read their bondmates' minds. She has met dragons, but only dragons who are not due for a handoff anytime in the near future, and keeps her distance from the others.)

But apparently there is another. And if the dragon is not Bonded, of course he's immortal -

No. That's not the only way.

If the dragon is bonded to something immortal -

Her eyes fly open as she realizes that this dragon may not just be this Endarkened's friend, but his bondmate. Could that be what he meant? It's never happened before that she knows - there have been dragons fighting on the side of demons, but only at the command of Tainted bondmates -

If this Endarkened is actually bonded to his dragon then he's some kind of mage, and he's got an unlimited wellspring of power.

And he's chosen to live on an island with his dragon completely alone fondly sculpting Tialle for at least the last two thousand years.

Isibel does not understand.
Edited 2013-04-09 01:16 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-09 01:20 am (UTC)

The (potential) Dragonbond Endarkened watches her curiously.

Then he hands her back her notebook and pencil.

small_magics
2013-04-09 01:22 am (UTC)

She purses her lips, and draws a little stylized dragon - she is not an artist, but because she knows this, she draws as simply as she must to achieve a reasonable result. And she draws a little stylized demon next to it. And then she draws a line between them.

endragoned
2013-04-09 01:23 am (UTC)

The (apparent) Dragonbond Endarkened smiles wryly, and nods.

small_magics
2013-04-09 01:34 am (UTC)

Isibel processes this.

She taps the dragon-doodle with her pencil, and then mimes looking around.

endragoned
2013-04-09 01:36 am (UTC)

He smiles, and closes his eyes and furls his wings and hugs his arms against himself and nestles his head on his shoulder.

The dragon is sleeping, apparently.

small_magics
2013-04-09 01:40 am (UTC)

Isibel nods.

...And then she draws a stylized little elf.

And then another and then another and then a lot of dots. (This number of dots does not represent the size of her expedition.)

She circles them, then turns back to the map and taps the island.

endragoned
2013-04-09 01:43 am (UTC)

He throws up his hands, gestures to himself, touches wings, horns, the dots on the page, tips his head to one side and looks at her challengingly.

small_magics
2013-04-09 01:44 am (UTC)

She flings up her hands and looks away, biting her lip; she doesn't know what to do. Most people would have killed him on sight.

endragoned
2013-04-09 01:47 am (UTC)

He sighs.

small_magics
2013-04-09 01:54 am (UTC)

Isibel draws a stylized little demon - clearly female, no wings, not this particular demon. Then she draws a book, page around the illustrated Vestakia: this is a legendary figure. Then she draws the little demon again with a unicorn's head in her lap, and then the little demon among little elf figures, everyone standing around and nobody killing anybody else.

She taps the paper with her pencil, thinking; this demon is not the Legendary Vestakia, but there is some precedent for red-skinned demonic-looking entities living peacefully among elves.

endragoned
2013-04-09 01:57 am (UTC)

He looks from Isibel to the drawing to Isibel to the drawing and back to Isibel, frowning in obvious confusion.

Touches the Vestakia figure. Touches the unicorn's head in her lap. Touches the burn on his hand.

small_magics
2013-04-09 01:59 am (UTC)

Isibel nods. There aren't any live unicorns around anyway. She draws a mini family tree for Vestakia: demon doodle plus human doodle equals Vestakia with Shalkan's head in her lap. She draws circles around the demon father's horns and the human mother's heart. Then she draws this demon under all that, and an arrow from him to the family tree, and crosses it out firmly, and throws up her hands again, he's not Vestakia, he can't prove himself like Vestakia could, she doesn't know what to do.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:03 am (UTC)

He laughs and nods.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:05 am (UTC)

She turns the page; this one's out of space. She doodles his dragon meeting the elves, no demon in sight.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:06 am (UTC)

He studies the drawing.

He nods, but hesitantly.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:07 am (UTC)

She then draws an elf with a dragon, turns back to the map and describes a path between Elven Lands and the island, and doodles the two dragons facing each other, mouths open to speak - might they share a language, she wonders.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:10 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

He touches his dragon on the page; touches himself; brings his hands together in front of him and makes a wide sweeping palm-down gesture to either side, like a vast emptiness. This dragon has never met anyone else.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:13 am (UTC)

Oh well. She shrugs. She doesn't have any better ideas.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:16 am (UTC)

He nods.

He taps the picture of an elf with a dragon.

He points to Isibel.

He points off into the distance, past the pond.

He looks at her expectantly.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:18 am (UTC)

She nods. This dragon doesn't need a new Bondmate; it has an immortal partner already. She should be quite safe.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:22 am (UTC)

He smiles at her, then turns to lead her through the forest.

As he walks, he starts talking again; it's not clear whether he's addressing Isibel or himself, but the distinction isn't all that relevant.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:23 am (UTC)

She listens in case she recognizes any words from somebody's name, but she doesn't. Oh well.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:29 am (UTC)

It's a bit of a walk, but not too long. The Dragonbond Endarkened doesn't seem to mind going barefoot, but perhaps he's used to it.

Eventually, they come upon a cave.

He ducks inside.

When he emerges a few moments later, he is followed by a smallish dragon with indigo scales and bright green eyes.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:31 am (UTC)

Isibel doesn't know how to be polite without a language. So she goes ahead and talks anyway. "I See you."

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:34 am (UTC)

The dragon regards her for a moment, then turns its head and bumps its nose gently against the demon.

"Isibel," says the demon. (Something something) "Isibel."

"Isibel," the dragon repeats, edging a little farther out of the cave and arching his neck to study her from closer range.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:35 am (UTC)

Isibel nods, and permits inspection.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:39 am (UTC)

The dragon comes out far enough to spread his wings, which look almost like the end of a sunset, indigo shading to violet shading to pink from the leading edge to the trailing edge of each wing.

He is very, very beautiful. Well, most dragons are.

The demon hugs the base of the dragon's neck and murmurs something to him affectionately, and the dragon lets out a snort that stirs the grass all the way to Isibel's feet.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:42 am (UTC)

Isibel would get out the drawings and start pointing at them helpfully, but she knows perfectly well that the dragon can read the demon's mind. So instead she just looks admiringly. He's so pretty. He might be the prettiest dragon she's ever s-

Isibel stops.

She checks herself: quick assessment of what was going through her head a moment ago and how she is feeling now.

She backs a step away, then another step, then she turns tail and runs back the way they came until she can't see the dragon anymore if she turns her head over her shoulder.

She comes to a stop and touches a tree and leans, breathing hard.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:44 am (UTC)

No one chases after her immediately.

But after a few minutes, there's a rustling in the forest, and the Dragonbond Endarkened comes into view from the direction of the cave. He's moving slowly, and he looks puzzled.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:45 am (UTC)

Isibel makes an apologetic face.

She turns back to where she drew their bond.

She doodles herself. And another line. And bites her lip.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:45 am (UTC)

He stares.

small_magics
2013-04-09 02:47 am (UTC)

This hasn't been going on that long, she supposes, and the Endarkened has been here for a very long time.

She goes back to where she drew a generic bonded elf, and draws a line between him and his dragon, and another line to a human with - she supposes the easiest symbol to draw is three books, with the sun, moon, and star symbols on their covers, dancing illustratively around their Wildmage. This is a thing that happens, now.

endragoned
2013-04-09 02:50 am (UTC)

He rests taloned fingertips on the page and stares some more, wonderingly.
Edited 2013-04-09 03:05 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:01 am (UTC)

Isibel shrinks into herself. She doesn't want to Bond. She doesn't want unfathomable power housed in a mind too terrified and trapped in unrelenting scrutiny to use it. Others handle it. She couldn't. She'd wind up disintegrating, if not physically then as a person, driving her dragon mad with unremitting mental screams. She firmly crosses out the line between doodle-her and the demon's Bondmate.

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:09 am (UTC)

He looks at her blankly.

small_magics
2013-04-09 03:10 pm (UTC)

She huffs a small sigh and draws a little doodle of herself with the top of her head cartoonishly missing and wisps representing her thoughts drifting dragonward. Also, this doodle is crying. She displays it and then crosses that out too, jaw set.

endragoned
2013-04-09 03:12 pm (UTC)

He nods slowly, frowning at the page.

small_magics
2013-04-09 03:14 pm (UTC)

Isibel shrugs uncomfortably. She flips to a new page, but she can't think of anything else she wants to draw just now; if she daren't spend time around his dragon it's hard to see how she's going to introduce him to any of the other elves.

endragoned
2013-04-09 03:17 pm (UTC)

He stares at the blank paper for a little while, lost in thought.

Then he speaks, abruptly and sharply, like someone cursing, and he holds up a hand—pay attention—and stoops to pick a berry from a nearby bush, the same kind he was eating earlier.

Holds it up, holds it out to her - snatches it back and crushes it and shakes his head emphatically.

small_magics
2013-04-09 03:18 pm (UTC)

She blinks. And then looks at the berries and mimes having a stomachache and peers at him curiously to confirm.

endragoned
2013-04-09 03:20 pm (UTC)

He nods.

He frowns.

He reaches one hand hesitantly toward her.

small_magics
2013-04-09 03:22 pm (UTC)

Isibel looks at his hand out of the corner of her eye, having no idea what he is planning to do with it, and she draws the shape of the berry and the leaves and writes down the color so she'll be able to tell the other elves. (She will have to come up with some way to get them to believe her, but perhaps she can just advocate general caution with the plants.)

She draws a box around the blank space under the berry drawing in case he wants to show her more poisonous-to-elves plants.
Edited 2013-04-09 15:22 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-09 03:29 pm (UTC)

He sighs, and brushes bits of berry off his hand on his leg, and rubs his face with both hands.

Then he takes a few steps away and snatches up a small brown mouselike creature from the forest floor. It squeaks in alarm and wriggles frantically, but he holds it gently and pets it until it stops struggling. He looks at Isibel to see if she is paying attention.

small_magics
2013-04-09 03:29 pm (UTC)

She is definitely paying attention.

endragoned
2013-04-09 03:35 pm (UTC)

Good!

He holds the tiny rodent close to his chest, closes his eyes, and tilts his head as though listening to it. For a few seconds, he stands very still, just like that. Then he opens his eyes, and touches a berry on the bush, and touches the mousealike (with the pads of his fingers, not with his claws), and shakes his head. Touches his forehead, touches the mouse, touches the berry: this is knowledge he has, that the berry is not edible to the mouse. Touches the mouse, touches his forehead, does the closed-eyes-listening-pose: this is how he acquired that knowledge.

small_magics
2013-04-09 03:36 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods slowly.

She holds out one of her hands towards him tentatively.

endragoned
2013-04-09 03:40 pm (UTC)

He crouches and sets the rodent down on the ground, where it immediately scampers away.

Then he takes her hand in both of his. His skin is very warm. He closes his eyes and... does whatever it is he does; whatever he's getting out of it, it does not produce corresponding sensations in Isibel.

small_magics
2013-04-09 03:40 pm (UTC)

Isibel - waits.

endragoned
2013-04-09 03:42 pm (UTC)

When he opens his eyes a few minutes later, he is smiling very faintly.

He reaches for the pencil and paper.

small_magics
2013-04-09 03:43 pm (UTC)

She hands it over.

endragoned
2013-04-09 03:58 pm (UTC)

He starts drawing a catalogue of plants and animals.

The enormous brightly coloured lizards are apparently venomous (he draws a person being bitten by one and dying gruesomely), but good to eat as long as you avoid the venom glands. The large beavers and turtles likewise check out; in fact, later sketches seem to indicate that any animal larger than she is will make a good meal.

Most berries are in the poisonous category, but there are a few he declares safe. Most kinds of large fruit are safe, but two are poisonous. He identifies several kinds of nuts as safe.

All frogs, apparently, are poisonous. So are a lot of small snakes and lizards. The mousealikes are safe, though.

He hums and talks to himself while he draws.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:00 pm (UTC)

Isibel attempts to think of ways to present this notebook to her expedition leader. Maybe she should claim she followed a mousealike watching it eat. Thirty times.

endragoned
2013-04-09 04:01 pm (UTC)

She will have a little more trouble with that in a minute: lacking a common language in which to describe colour, he strokes the paper gently with his talons until his drawings colour themselves.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:03 pm (UTC)

Isibel sighs. That's the sort of thing small magic could do if she chose to take the trouble, she supposes. She does still have the issue where this is not her drawing style - not any elf's drawing style - but maybe she will just copy everything into a new notebook.

endragoned
2013-04-09 04:04 pm (UTC)

He offers her the notebook with a wry grin.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:05 pm (UTC)

She reads through it, nodding her comprehension, and then looks back the way she came, frowning. She mimes showing the notebook to an imaginary elf and then splutters (may as well talk aloud, for effect) - "No, I only have a feeling about these things, no, I didn't find a Wildmage on the island, please just don't eat the berries." She throws up her hands again and sighs.

endragoned
2013-04-09 04:07 pm (UTC)

He laughs, and nods, and shrugs.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:13 pm (UTC)

She then draws a party of elves finding the unicorn statues and looks quizzically at him.

They're going to find out that someone was here anyway.

endragoned
2013-04-09 04:14 pm (UTC)

He smiles wryly and spreads his hands.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:18 pm (UTC)

Isibel thinks.

Then she mimes showing the whole notebook to an imaginary other elf. Start to finish. And she then tucks the notebook under her arm to clasp her hands in a pleading motion, also directed at the imaginary elf.

She's not sure if they'd believe her, but she thinks they'd probably at least ask a Wildmage to check her for Taint before killing her, and it might work.

endragoned
2013-04-09 04:19 pm (UTC)

He rubs his face and frowns in thought.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:20 pm (UTC)

Isibel waits. She'll think of something else if he doesn't want her to try this.

endragoned
2013-04-09 04:25 pm (UTC)

After some contemplation, he throws up his hands and nods. He doesn't like the idea, but he can't think of a better one.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:28 pm (UTC)

She takes two steps, then looks over her shoulder: should she go now, or is there more to say?

endragoned
2013-04-09 04:35 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:38 pm (UTC)

She thinks of something herself. She draws the island, and a vague sketch of half her path to the camp on the beach (not that they'd be hard to find, but she doesn't want or need to direct him right to them) and then a path back. Then she looks at him. Where will he be if they come looking? (So she can direct, or misdirect.)

endragoned
2013-04-09 04:41 pm (UTC)

He shrugs again, stretches his wings, and points back toward the dragon's cave.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:46 pm (UTC)

She nods. She waves.

And off she goes, looking for the expedition leader as soon as she's back in sight of the tents on the beach.

pythbox
2013-04-09 04:50 pm (UTC)

Magania's tent flaps are pinned open, indicating the approachability of the occupant; she is sitting inside, taking tea.

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:51 pm (UTC)

Isibel stands in the doorway and waits for her presence to be acknowledged.

pythbox
2013-04-09 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I See you, Isibel," the older woman says politely. "Enter and be welcome."

small_magics
2013-04-09 04:55 pm (UTC)

"I See you, Magania." Isibel enters. "I apologize for my bluntness, but I fear that some among us may be liable to eat of poisonous plants or animals from the island, expecting safety in the way more typical of island-dwelling species."

pythbox
2013-04-09 04:57 pm (UTC)

"...It would please me greatly," says Magania, "to hear all you may wish to tell. Come and take tea." A hint of a smile touches the corners of her eyes. "It was brought from the mainland and should be quite safe."

small_magics
2013-04-09 05:01 pm (UTC)

Isibel sits and accepts tea. "Thank you. I went into the forest along the south side of the island, exploring, and I found a great many lovingly-carved statues of a unicorn, and when I went further in, I found their carver. We shared no language, but communicated through mime and pictures, and he was able to tell me which things that grow here will be edible to elves." And Magania's certainly not going to ask her what the sculptor was if not an elf. She can come at this information as slowly as she likes. "He has been living here for many centuries, and did not volunteer his name."

pythbox
2013-04-09 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I am grateful for this knowledge," Magania murmurs. "It would please me to hear more, and perhaps to meet this person myself, if he is willing. But the knowledge of what is and is not safe to eat is the more urgent matter."

small_magics
2013-04-09 05:14 pm (UTC)

"It is," agrees Isibel. She turns to the relevant portions of her book and tears out the color-touched index of potential food and potential deadliness. "He first showed me by gestures the berry that appears in my own lines, and then drew the remainder himself; without a language in common to describe the items beyond their shapes, he changed the color of the paper instead."

pythbox
2013-04-09 05:19 pm (UTC)

"This sculptor is both knowledgeable and resourceful," Magania observes. "I will see that we all have the opportunity to learn what he has shared with you."

small_magics
2013-04-09 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Thank you." Isibel looks down at the rest of the notebook, still in her hands. "He - fears for his safety if others find him. He has been alone save for his Bondmate for what I believe to have been thousands of years, fleeing those who wished him harm - the unicorn he sculpted, called Tialle, aided his escape." There, more tidbits to postpone telling her about the demon part; maybe the unicorn's name is known or the existence of a previously unknown dragon will be distracting or Magania will rashly issue a guarantee of his safety.

pythbox
2013-04-09 05:34 pm (UTC)

Magania sips her tea and lowers the cup onto the table in front of her.

"If he fears for his safety," she says, "then surely it would be a kindness to leave him alone until we have had time to fully consider his advice. You have told me many surprising things this afternoon. I am always pleased to hear the counsel of the young, and I thank Leaf and Star that I am not yet too old for surprises."

small_magics
2013-04-09 05:39 pm (UTC)

Isibel almost speaks, then she re-runs those sentences through her head. Apparently Magania picked up on more than Isibel had gotten around to disclosing - maybe Tialle's story is generally known and Isibel simply hasn't happened to hear it.

She sips her tea. "A life without surprises would be a dull one," she agrees lightly.

pythbox
2013-04-09 05:42 pm (UTC)

Magania smiles slightly, and nods, and remarks on the flavour of the tea. The urgent part of this conversation is over.

small_magics
2013-04-09 05:46 pm (UTC)

Isibel doesn't really like small talk, but she can put up with it for the requisite three or four sentences, and excuse herself, and permit hours to elapse while she assists with various tasks of establishing the camp. In particular, someone found a water source that didn't have a demon floating in it; there is water to carry. She can carry water and think at the same time, even if it would be inappropriate for her to seek idle time with her notebook.

It is time for after-dinner tea when someone mentions to Isibel that if it happened to be convenient for her, she'd be welcome to take tea with Magania and then perhaps go for a walk.

Of course this will be convenient for Isibel.

Tea is had. Small talk is had.
Edited 2013-04-09 17:48 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-09 05:52 pm (UTC)

Magania remarks that she has not yet had a chance to explore the island, and that perhaps it would please Isibel to show her one of the paths into the woods which she discovered earlier today.

small_magics
2013-04-09 05:53 pm (UTC)

...All right then.

"Of course. I began in this direction," says Isibel.

And in that direction they go.

And after a mile there is the first unicorn statue.

pythbox
2013-04-09 05:56 pm (UTC)

Magania spends that mile either making idle commentary on the plant life they pass, or saying nothing at all.

When they come upon the statue, she inspects it for a moment, then nods slowly.

"In my youth," she murmurs, "I was for a time honoured to belong to the Unicorn Knights."

small_magics
2013-04-09 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Though I share no complete language with the sculptor, he did recognize the word unicorn, when I guessed at it," Isibel offers.

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:06 pm (UTC)

She nods.

"I am not surprised," she says. "During my time with the Unicorn Knights, I had many fascinating conversations with my partner about history and genealogy among unicorns and elves; he was a student of both, but preferred the former. Through him, I heard numerous stories of unicorns in ages past whose lives and deeds are preserved in the memories of their descendants."

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:07 pm (UTC)

Ah-huh.

"I suppose a unicorn with her horn broken would be memorable indeed to those who knew her."

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Many things about this unicorn were memorable to those who knew her," Magania says quietly.

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:09 pm (UTC)

"The sculptor certainly remembered her with great fondness," Isibel points out, indicating this statue and those visible farther into the woods with a gesture.

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:11 pm (UTC)

"As it was told to me," says Magania, "the story of Tialle says that her horn was broken when she was captured by our ancient enemy."

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:12 pm (UTC)

Isibel considers how to respond to this.

She settles on: "I am not surprised."

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:27 pm (UTC)

Magania nods.

"A detail not commonly told with the rest of the story," she continues, "is that one of Them, imprisoned with her, helped Tialle to escape from Shadow Mountain."

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:28 pm (UTC)

"One of Them who would take such action, did Tialle go on to live the rest of her life not betrayed back into Their hands, would be an unconventional sort."

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:32 pm (UTC)

"She did," murmurs Magania. "And he was. Tialle often told her children that she continued to think of him fondly until the end of her life."

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:34 pm (UTC)

If Isibel were still seven years old she could just say do you want to meet him?

She is not still seven years old. (If she were, she wouldn't be here; the elves on this expedition are many of them young but none of them children.)

"I believe he and the sculptor may be one and the same."

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:41 pm (UTC)

"I believe this also," says Magania. "And I believe that everyone's interests would be best served did we remain the only people on this island who knew as much. You mentioned a Bondmate. From what little I know of Their magic, with that kind of power at his command Tialle's friend could at need cause the seas to rise and swallow this island whole. I would rather he did not perceive such a need, at least not while we are all still on it."

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:42 pm (UTC)

"I do not believe he wishes us harm. I am myself unharmed," Isibel points out. "But certainly any reasonable person will defend himself, if attacked."

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:45 pm (UTC)

Magania nods.

"I have also made some study of the old languages," she says. "It is possible I could converse with Tialle's friend, if we could be made known to each other without alarming him."

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps if we continue on a bit, he will hear me if I call. I believe he is with his dragon, now, and I do not much wish to keep the dragon's company," murmurs Isibel, and she proceeds through the forest.

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:47 pm (UTC)

Magania follows quietly.

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:49 pm (UTC)

When they reach the spot where Isibel stopped when she bolted from the dragon, Isibel calls in the direction of the cave. "Hello! I've come back!"

endragoned
2013-04-09 06:50 pm (UTC)

The demon's voice answers, "Isibel?"

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes, it's Isibel."

endragoned
2013-04-09 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Isibel!" he repeats, and says some more things.

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:53 pm (UTC)

Magania says some things back.

endragoned
2013-04-09 06:55 pm (UTC)

There is a splutter, and then he appears in the middle distance, staring incredulously at both of them.

He asks Magania a question.

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:55 pm (UTC)

She winces genteelly, but provides an answer that includes her name, then waits.

endragoned
2013-04-09 06:56 pm (UTC)

He makes a gesture that encompasses the two elves and asks her something else.

pythbox
2013-04-09 06:57 pm (UTC)

Looking increasingly uncomfortable, but making a valiant effort to conceal it, Magania answers again.

small_magics
2013-04-09 06:58 pm (UTC)

"It might reduce the total amount of offense in this conversation if you told him that elves do not like questions," Isibel suggests softly.

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:04 pm (UTC)

Magania sighs.

"It is appropriate to set aside the intricacies of etiquette when they become a hindrance in times of urgency."

endragoned
2013-04-09 07:05 pm (UTC)

The demon speaks again, nervous and impatient. His tail slaps repeatedly against the trunk of a tree next to him.

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:06 pm (UTC)

Magania replies in soothing tones.

She mentions Tialle.

endragoned
2013-04-09 07:08 pm (UTC)

He shivers visibly, his wings mantling, and asks something else in a hesitant whisper.
Edited 2013-04-09 19:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:10 pm (UTC)

Magania nods.

She elaborates on her answer with a few sentences, spoken very gently.

endragoned
2013-04-09 07:12 pm (UTC)

The demon falls to his knees and buries his face in his hands with a helpless sob.

small_magics
2013-04-09 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I - can't understand this conversation," Isibel reminds Magania in an undertone.

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:16 pm (UTC)

"He asked me who I am, and why I speak his language but you do not, and then he wished to be reassured that I do not plan to have him killed," she murmurs back. "I told him that I know Tialle's story, and he asked me what more I might tell of her, and I told him that she remembered him fondly all her life and spoke well of him to her children."

small_magics
2013-04-09 07:18 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods solemnly.

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:19 pm (UTC)

Magania also nods.

endragoned
2013-04-09 07:22 pm (UTC)

The demon weeps like a child, unrestrainedly, with tears and tremors and loud graceless sounds.

small_magics
2013-04-09 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Surely he must have known that she would have died, in all this time. Perhaps they have not been counting the years," Isibel murmurs.

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I do not think he weeps because she died," Magania murmurs back. "I think he weeps because she loved him."

small_magics
2013-04-09 07:26 pm (UTC)

Isibel bows her head and is silent.

endragoned
2013-04-09 07:30 pm (UTC)

Eventually, he quiets down and hugs himself and leans against a tree and says something in a soft, tired voice.

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:31 pm (UTC)

Magania replies briefly, then explains to Isibel, "He thanks me for telling him."

small_magics
2013-04-09 07:39 pm (UTC)

"I do not know how our expedition could be turned aside without explaining to any of our companions why," Isibel says. "Nor do I know a place that would readily welcome him, perhaps not even with our vouchers for his - his character and the history leading us to believe in it. I do not know where he and his Bondmate might go or how the island might be left to them."

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:56 pm (UTC)

Magania contemplates these matters for a few seconds.

Then she speaks to the demon.

endragoned
2013-04-09 07:57 pm (UTC)

He blinks in surprise, then shakes his head and answers with a short sentence and a gesture at the forest around them.

pythbox
2013-04-09 07:58 pm (UTC)

She nods, and makes a similar gesture, and speaks some more.

endragoned
2013-04-09 07:58 pm (UTC)

Slowly, he also nods.

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:12 pm (UTC)

Magania turns to Isibel and explains what just happened.

"Tialle's friend has no house," she says, "but he considers this island his home. He says we may let this be known, without including any... troublesome details, if it will keep curious people from entering his forest and discovering him for a time."

small_magics
2013-04-09 09:14 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. "This will prevent any of our expedition from crossing the border into his forest. But if we settle on the unforested parts of the island, then others may come and go, and some of these include those who are not elves. One day there may be children on the island, too, who are not so careful about protocols of privacy."

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Before any of those things happen," says Magania, "I will speak to the dragons, and take counsel of them."

small_magics
2013-04-09 09:16 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. This seems sensible to her.

endragoned
2013-04-09 09:32 pm (UTC)

The demon says something else.

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:33 pm (UTC)

Magania replies, then translates with a smile, "He wants you to know that you are specifically welcome in his forest."

small_magics
2013-04-09 09:34 pm (UTC)

Isibel smiles. "That is generous of him."

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:35 pm (UTC)

Magania translates this for the demon.

endragoned
2013-04-09 09:36 pm (UTC)

He bursts out laughing and replies between giggles.

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:37 pm (UTC)

"...He says," Magania relays with some amusement, "that from someone who has not entertained friendly company in ten thousand years, it is neither generous nor surprising."

small_magics
2013-04-09 09:38 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Isibel. "Then it is selfish and predictable and I shall visit him regardless."

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:40 pm (UTC)

Magania translates this, too.

endragoned
2013-04-09 09:40 pm (UTC)

The demon grins brilliantly and says some more things.

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:41 pm (UTC)

"He is pleased," says Magania.

small_magics
2013-04-09 09:42 pm (UTC)

"It is a curious language that takes so many words to say so," Isibel observes.

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:43 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure I knew all of those words," says Magania. "Any less brief translation I gave would also be less accurate."

endragoned
2013-04-09 09:44 pm (UTC)

He looks between the two of them, grins again, and asks Magania a question.

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:44 pm (UTC)

Magania answers him, smiling slightly and shaking her head.

small_magics
2013-04-09 09:46 pm (UTC)

"It seems that it might be a productive use of my visits to teach him the modern tongue," offers Isibel, when no translation of this latest exchange is forthcoming.

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I agree," says Magania, and offers the demon a translation of these words.

endragoned
2013-04-09 09:49 pm (UTC)

He nods several times.

small_magics
2013-04-09 09:51 pm (UTC)

"After all, translation is burdensome and you have more demands on your time than I," Isibel says.

(She does not like that so many things have been left out.)

pythbox
2013-04-09 09:52 pm (UTC)

"That is true," Magania agrees, "and I thank you for considering it."

small_magics
2013-04-09 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I should remain here, and make use of what light remains for that purpose, as undoubtedly your explanations to the others about why they ought not enter the forest will be more eloquent than mine," Isibel says.

pythbox
2013-04-09 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Wise words from one so young," Magania says dryly, and turns to explain this to the demon, and then leaves.

small_magics
2013-04-09 10:08 pm (UTC)

Isibel finds a good place to sit and opens up her notebook and debates whether to begin with the alphabet - so that she can bring along a book on her next visit and have that as source material - or with drawings and vocabulary words - so that they can have rudimentary conversations quicker. Eventually she decides on the second option. She flips to the early pages of the notebook and starts teaching him the modern words for "unicorn", "elf", and "demon", assuming he's attentive to this exercise.

endragoned
2013-04-09 10:10 pm (UTC)

The demon sits next to her and applies himself to learning. When he relaxes his wings partway through the lesson, the near one arches over her like a hovering cloak.

small_magics
2013-04-09 10:13 pm (UTC)

She peers at the wing when it encroaches into her personal space, but as long as it doesn't settle onto her familiarly she'll leave it be. With the obvious nouns established she moves on to other things (the word for "wing"; how to pluralize; creatures with wings "fly" and creatures without wings "walk" and fish "swim"; she's getting noticeably better at doodling with so much practice.)

endragoned
2013-04-09 10:16 pm (UTC)

That half-arched position seems to be the most comfortable way for him to keep them when he's sitting like this; the other wing is doing the same thing over empty air.

He picks things up very quickly, although he often makes small errors in pronunciation and sometimes mixes up two words.

small_magics
2013-04-09 10:19 pm (UTC)

Isibel corrects him patiently as she goes, and because he is not an elf and will not be - apparently - mortified by working above his current skill level, she carries on adding new material instead of insisting on repeating what they've already covered. "Sun", "moon", "star", "leaf", "day", "night", "island", "ocean". The sun "rises" and "sets", the moon "grows" and "shrinks" (she's not getting into advanced vocabulary like "wax" and "wane" yet), stars "travel" (and so do boatsful of elves in search of islands. "Boat".)

endragoned
2013-04-09 10:22 pm (UTC)

He is downright enthusiastic about learning all these things.

small_magics
2013-04-09 10:26 pm (UTC)

Isibel has never taught a language before, so she's making this up, but she adopts a general strategy of talking to him idly, as though he's a toddler who may understand simple utterances but nothing conceptually difficult, using mostly words she has taught him and - after uttering a sentence with new words - finding ways to go back and teach him those, then repeating her sentence and carrying on. She doesn't ask him questions - of course - but there are gaps when she's making new, increasingly busy little doodles during which he could interject if he so chose.

endragoned
2013-04-09 10:29 pm (UTC)

He seems to adopt a strategy of speaking in his own language, but dropping in a word from the modern one whenever he knows it. His utterances therefore become progressively more comprehensible, and he is less and less frequently required to fill in the gaps with mime.

small_magics
2013-04-09 10:37 pm (UTC)

With an arsenal of nouns and some verbs, Isibel moves to prepositions (tree on island, elf in boat, that one poisonous tuber under earth, stars above everything, Bonded pairs with each other, and so on). She's really not sure how to get from here to anything conceptual. Perhaps it will involve theatrical facial expressions or help from Magania.

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:04 pm (UTC)

Or perhaps the demon will convey through mime that he wants to know the word for that thing they are doing right now with their mouths and one another's ears.

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:06 pm (UTC)

"We are talking," says Isibel when he has successfully conveyed this curiosity. "I am talking to you, you are talking to me, we are talking to each other."

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Talking," he says, and grins. "Talking" (something something) "Magaria."

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Earlier, you were talking to Magaria in your language, and I don't know your language, so she talked to me in my language," Isibel says.

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Talking," he repeats, nodding. "Talking, I, Magaria, my language. Talking, you, Magaria, your language."

Well, he certainly seems to be grasping the new vocabulary, even if his grammar could use some work.

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Magaria knows both languages," Isisbel says. "I know only one language." Oh dear, has she neglected numbers? She draws dots, teaches him to count to twenty. "Magaria knows -" Well, Magaria could easily know more than two languages, but for simplicity - "two languages. I know one language."

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Magaria knows two languages," he repeats. And grins again, and says, "I know one language."

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Later, you will know two languages," says Isibel. She doesn't know how to actually go about teaching tenses and time words except by example - even using things like sunrise and sunset have the problem of being cyclic. "Because we are talking."

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I will know two languages," he repeats carefully. "We are talking two languages."

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I am talking one language. I don't know your language," Isibel replies. "You will know my language and then you will know two languages. Then we can talk more easily." She's not sure how to illustrate easy; eventually she decides on "If twenty elves are on a dragon, it is hard for the dragon to fly. If one elf is on a dragon it is easy for the dragon to fly. It is easy for you to talk your language. It is hard for you to talk my language, but later, it will be easy."
Edited 2013-04-09 23:23 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:24 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"It is hard for you to fly," he says. "It is easy for me to fly."

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:25 pm (UTC)

"I cannot fly," corrects Isibel. "Because I do not have wings, I cannot fly. Only things with wings can fly."

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I can fly," he says. "You can—" he picks up a rock from the ground next to him and drops it.

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:29 pm (UTC)

Isibel laughs. "I can fall," she agrees. "If I go up," ("going up" has been explained in terms of sunrise and sunset already) "then I will go down. I'll fall."

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:36 pm (UTC)

He nods. "I can fly. You can fall."

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:37 pm (UTC)

And so the lesson continues, until the sun is near the horizon.

"The sun is setting. I will go back to the other elves. Tomorrow I will come here again and we will talk more," she tells him, closing the book.

endragoned
2013-04-09 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Tomorrow," he repeats thoughtfully, and nods, and smiles.
Edited 2013-04-09 23:44 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-09 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Tomorrow, after the sun rises," Isibel says. And she gets up and waves and walks back towards camp.

pythbox
2013-04-10 12:07 am (UTC)

Magania is waiting for her on the way.

small_magics
2013-04-10 12:08 am (UTC)

"I See you, Magania," says Isibel, when this sentence becomes true.

pythbox
2013-04-10 12:09 am (UTC)

"I See you, Isibel," says Magania. "It would please me to hear all that you may wish to tell of your time spent with Tialle's friend, before we must return to camp."

small_magics
2013-04-10 12:12 am (UTC)

"We spoke of speaking," Isibel says. "He can count to twenty, and name dragons and unicorns and elves, boats and islands and the lights of the sky, and make intelligible sentences of them."

pythbox
2013-04-10 12:19 am (UTC)

"When I spoke with him, some words passed between us that I did not translate," says Magania.

small_magics
2013-04-10 12:21 am (UTC)

"I am not surprised," says Isibel. "He did not tell me what they were; perhaps we have not ventured into the necessary vocabulary."

pythbox
2013-04-10 12:26 am (UTC)

"You may become surprised if he tries to mime them," Magania says dryly.

small_magics
2013-04-10 12:28 am (UTC)

"While a life without surprises would be dull, I believe I could happily pass my days without that one, were I warned in advance," says Isibel, equally dry.

pythbox
2013-04-10 12:47 am (UTC)

"He chose to express his gratitude for your company by offering you the use of his body," Magania explains. "In some detail, which I am not prepared to repeat even had I understood it all."

small_magics
2013-04-10 12:48 am (UTC)

Isibel makes an eloquent face. "Ah."

pythbox
2013-04-10 12:49 am (UTC)

"I hope that your curiosity is satisfied," says Magania.

small_magics
2013-04-10 01:13 am (UTC)

"On this subject," says Isibel, "I believe it is."

pythbox
2013-04-10 01:19 am (UTC)

"I am pleased to hear it," says Magania, and she walks with Isibel back to the camp.

small_magics
2013-04-10 01:22 am (UTC)

In the morning, Isibel returns to the forest with a fresh notebook and dressed in one of her more conservative outfits, not that she was particularly daring yesterday, and looks for her demonic pupil.

pythbox
2013-04-10 02:30 am (UTC)

He is floating naked in the pond again.

small_magics
2013-04-10 02:31 am (UTC)

"I See you," she calls out.

endragoned
2013-04-10 02:32 am (UTC)

He laughs, waves, and splashes his way to solid ground.

small_magics
2013-04-10 02:36 am (UTC)

She waves. At some point today she's going to ask him if he wants some clothes. She'll introduce the relevant vocabulary. But not first. "When the sun was down, at night, I slept," she says, miming sleep. "Now I am awake again." She opens her eyes. "And I am here to talk to you and teach you my language." It feels inane, but how else is he going to pick up conversational fluency?

endragoned
2013-04-10 02:37 am (UTC)

He nods.

"Elf sleep," he says, and makes a squishing-in gesture with his hands. "Elf sleep night."

small_magics
2013-04-10 02:38 am (UTC)

"Elves sleep at night," she corrects. "Elves sleep during the night. I am an elf, so I sleep at night."
Edited 2013-04-10 02:38 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-10 02:40 am (UTC)

"Elves sleep at night," he repeats. "Elves sleep at night, sleep at night, sleep at night," with successive gestures perhaps meant to indicate successive instances of this activity.

small_magics
2013-04-10 02:41 am (UTC)

"Elves sleep every night," Isibel supplies. "And wake up every morning."

endragoned
2013-04-10 02:45 am (UTC)

"Elves sleep every night," says the demon, nodding. "Dragons sleep..." and he spreads his hands, highlighting the gap in his vocabulary.

small_magics
2013-04-10 02:50 am (UTC)

"Dragons sleep when they are bored," says Isibel, and for effect she looks with utter disinterest at a tree and folds her arms and taps her foot.

endragoned
2013-04-10 02:50 am (UTC)

"Bored," giggles the demon. "Dragons sleep when they are bored."

small_magics
2013-04-10 02:53 am (UTC)

She smiles and nods, and looks for a good place to sit to begin the lesson proper.

endragoned
2013-04-10 02:58 am (UTC)

The demon observes her looking around.

He kneels at the water's edge and presses his hands to a bare patch of rock, then raises them. The rock follows. It forms a curved stone bench, half of a good height for Isibel and half a little higher, with a smooth transition between; when the shape of the bench is settled, he encourages a thick moss to grow all over it and provide a padded covering. Then he sits.

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:00 am (UTC)

She beams and applauds and sits. "I was standing," she reports helpfully, "now I am sitting. I am sitting on the bench you made. Thank you for making it."

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:13 am (UTC)

"We are sitting on the bench I made," he adapts. His pronunciation isn't perfect, but his grammar is fine.

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:16 am (UTC)

"We are," agrees Isibel. "Both you and I are sitting on this bench that you made. You made it with magic, from your dragon."

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:18 am (UTC)

"I made it with magic. Magic from dragon."

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:19 am (UTC)

"You and the dragon are Bondmates," says Isibel. "You have a Bond. That is how you can use your dragon's magic."

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:21 am (UTC)

"Bondmates," he repeats. "I and," a word from his language, "are Bondmates."

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:23 am (UTC)

Isibel repeats this word, tilting her head. Then she says, "My name is Isibel. ...Magania's name is Magania," she adds tautologically by way of further illustration.

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:24 am (UTC)

"Name," the demon echoes, and shrugs.

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:26 am (UTC)

...She could just ask him if his dragon's name is what he just said.

No, he's certainly demonstrated enough ability to pick up on subtext that he'd have volunteered the information if he wanted her to have it, wouldn't he? But he does know the word for "dragon". It wouldn't just mean "my dragon".

She repeats the unfamiliar word, slowly, not quite questioningly.

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:31 am (UTC)

The demon frowns thoughtfully.

Then he leans down to scoop up a clod of dirt from the ground.

He holds it up, says, "Name," and hands it to Isibel. "You," gesture to her holding the clod of dirt, "name."

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:33 am (UTC)

"I - have a name," she says slowly (because hold a name isn't right). They covered 'have', but she's been expecting him to forget something they've been over for a while and is surprised it took so long.

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:34 am (UTC)

"You have a name," he agrees. "I, dragon, no."

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:35 am (UTC)

"You and your dragon don't have names," Isibel corrects slowly. "Because there are only two of you on the island," she guesses.

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:37 am (UTC)

"I and my dragon don't have names."

He thinks for a few seconds, then says, "I talk my dragon," (unfamiliar word). "My dragon talks me," (same unfamiliar word).

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:38 am (UTC)

"You call your dragon," she slowly repeats the first word, "and your dragon calls you," the word.

(She's heard the things dragons and Bondmates sometimes wind up calling each other, and beloved may be the least sickly-sweet; she's not going to pick up this non-name appellation for her own use.)
Edited 2013-04-10 03:40 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:43 am (UTC)

He smiles and nods.

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:45 am (UTC)

"Elves with dragons call their dragons beloved, if they do not call them by name," she volunteers. "Or sometimes other things. Most times - mostly - 'beloved'."

endragoned
2013-04-10 03:49 am (UTC)

"Beloved. Elves call dragon Bondmates beloved."

small_magics
2013-04-10 03:53 am (UTC)

"And dragons call elf Bondmates 'beloved'," Isibel goes on, "and human Wildmages, and human High Mages." They covered both kinds of human mages the other day, since she already had the wildmage drawn and threw in the High Mage with her little doodled wand for completeness. "Human" was covered by way of those two kinds of mages only coming in human.

She thinks she's exhausted that topic and looks around for more things to name while she waits for inspiration on conceptual or verb vocabulary. Oh, right, she was going to do clothes. She names her various garments, from her smallmagicked ribbons to her boots and her travel robes, in the simplest applicable words. (She doesn't even know the technical vocabulary around clothes. She's the Silverbranch clothier's favorite person, never second-guessing her expertise; she walks into the workshop and mentions a need and takes whatever the seamstress chooses to give her.)
Edited 2013-04-10 04:46 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-10 12:34 pm (UTC)

The demon observes Isibel's clothes, and cooperatively learns the relevant vocabulary.

He doesn't seem especially interested in pursuing the subject further.

small_magics
2013-04-10 04:18 pm (UTC)

She names the entire collective clothes. Then she thinks of another verb. "I brought this book here with me when I came here," she says, indicating the notebook she brought. "I can bring clothes here, later, tomorrow, for you." They don't have a vast array of spares, but she can collect at least one serviceable outfit.

endragoned
2013-04-10 04:44 pm (UTC)

He looks puzzled, then shakes his head.

small_magics
2013-04-10 04:48 pm (UTC)

Well, that's pretty much the best she can do. "You don't want clothes," she concludes. "I won't bring clothes, then."

endragoned
2013-04-10 04:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't want clothes," he says agreeably.

small_magics
2013-04-10 04:52 pm (UTC)

All right, on they go, then. She has the original torn-out pages of island bestiary and flora guide back now that they've been copied over; she starts naming berries and leaves and animals, although she'll leave choosing terminology for the individual species for someone else. And:

"I can eat this, because elves can eat this and I am an elf. I cannot eat this. If I did, I would be sick."

endragoned
2013-04-10 04:54 pm (UTC)

The demon nods.

"I can eat this," he says, indicating the poisonous thing. "I can eat every this."

small_magics
2013-04-10 04:55 pm (UTC)

"You can eat anything," she concludes, "and don't get sick."

This would be much easier if she could ask questions.

endragoned
2013-04-10 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Demons can eat anything," he agrees.

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:01 pm (UTC)

She goes next through some adjectives and some sensing verbs (when you talk, I hear with my ears; when the sun is up it is easy to see because the sun gives off much light and when the sun is down it is hard to see because the moon and stars give off little light; with no light I could not see; we use our eyes to see; etc.)

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:06 pm (UTC)

"With no light you could not see," the demon echoes, regarding her thoughtfully. "With no light, I can see."

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:07 pm (UTC)

"You can see in the dark," Isibel says. "Elves cannot see in the dark."

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Demons can see in the dark," says the demon.

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:11 pm (UTC)

"When the sun comes up, it gets lighter, and when the sun goes down, it gets darker, and when the moon shrinks, it is darker still, and underground away from stars it is completely dark."

And then, after a moment, "Demons are also sometimes called Endarkened."
Edited 2013-04-10 17:17 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Endarkened," he echoes, nodding, and says a word in his own language.

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:20 pm (UTC)

Isibel shrugs; she doesn't know what the word means unless it's his own word for his species. She's covered the word 'want' now, right? "If there is something you want to learn to talk about, I will listen," she volunteers.

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:22 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, too, flicking the tip of his tail against the side of the bench.

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:24 pm (UTC)

All right then, she's stuck with whatever curriculum she can devise. Let's see. What would she need to tell him the story of her life? Well, "life", for one thing. She thinks, then goes back to the poisons. "If I eat a berry I cannot eat anyway, I will get sick. If I get sicker, I might die. If I don't eat anything, I will die. If I eat things I can eat I will live. I am alive right now. You are also alive."

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:25 pm (UTC)

"I am alive," he agrees. "You are alive. I want you are alive."

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:26 pm (UTC)

"You want me to be alive," she corrects with a small smile. "I want me to be alive, too!"

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:27 pm (UTC)

"I want you to be alive," he says, grinning. "I want you to eat things you can eat."

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:29 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "To be alive I need to eat food that is food elves can eat, and I need to drink water -" She mimes, both drinking from a cup and then from cupped hands in case he is not familiar with dishes - "and I need to sleep, and not fall, and I need other things not to eat me."

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:31 pm (UTC)

The demon giggles.

"Demons eat elves," he says. "I won't eat you."

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:32 pm (UTC)

Isibel pauses, then slowly says, "If you won't eat me, then demons don't eat elves. There is only one demon."

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:34 pm (UTC)

"...Only one demon," he repeats, staring a little.
Edited 2013-04-10 17:34 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:37 pm (UTC)

She nods. "The other demons died." She sketches a square of dots, ten to a side, one hundred in total. "Ten times ten is one hundred. Four hundred sunrises is one year. One hundred times one hundred is ten thousand. Magania said you have been on this island for ten thousand years. Two thousand years ago, the other demons died."

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Two thousand years," the demon murmurs. "Two thousand years ago the other demons died. Demons don't die easy."

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:42 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. "There was -" How does she mime or draw war? Well, that's not the ultimate explanation anyway. "There was a Wildmage, who died so that the demons would die easier, and then they all did. Her name was Idalia."
Edited 2013-04-10 17:42 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Idalia," the demon repeats, and nods firmly.

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Idalia Wildmage was a human but then she died and then she was an elf," Isibel adds. "A small -" she gestures - "elf had Idalia in her. Then she lived a thousand years."

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Elves live a thousand years."

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:47 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. "I have lived twenty and one years," she says, "twenty-one years. I am twenty-one years old."

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I have lived... eleven thousand years," says the demon, shrugging and waving his hands a little to indicate that this is an inexact figure. "I am eleven thousand years old."

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:51 pm (UTC)

Isibel draws a new map - the old one was sketchy - and puts in rivers and so on, and she marks the location of Silverbranch. "I live there," she says, pointing it out. "I have lived there for twenty-one years. I was born there."

endragoned
2013-04-10 05:52 pm (UTC)

"I live here," laughs the demon, gesturing around them at the forest.

small_magics
2013-04-10 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I traveled here with other elves to see if elves can live here," Isibel says. "After some days or moonturns or years, more elves may live here."

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Elves, demons die," murmurs the demon.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I - don't understand," murmurs Isibel.

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:04 pm (UTC)

"More elves live here. More elves see me. I die."

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Magania will talk to other dragons about you and your dragon," says Isibel. "The other dragons will talk to her. Maybe more elves won't live here. Maybe we will all go away."

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:09 pm (UTC)

The demon laughs.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:10 pm (UTC)

Isibel tilts her head.

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you will all go away," he giggles, shaking his head. "Maybe."

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:14 pm (UTC)

"We might," she says. "We might go back to the Elven Lands -" she traces the border on her map - "and leave you and your dragon here, just the two of you, alone."

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Elves will live here," he says. "I will die."

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you to die."

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:18 pm (UTC)

He shrugs; nods. "I don't want me to die. My dragon doesn't want me to die. You don't want me to die."

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Magania doesn't want you to die," Isibel hastens to add. "...And no one wants elves to die."

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:20 pm (UTC)

He laughs again, softly.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:22 pm (UTC)

"If other elves wanted you to die," she murmurs, "you could kill them, but that would be sad." She modeled some basic emotions during yesterday's lesson: happy, sad, angry.

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:25 pm (UTC)

"If I - killed - other elves," he says with a shrug, "more elves would kill me."

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she agrees, sighing, "probably."

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:29 pm (UTC)

The demon shrugs again.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:31 pm (UTC)

Isibel moves on. Wood floats. Rocks sink. She can demonstrate by tossing examples of each into the pond. All this doodling she's doing is drawing; if she writes instead that's writing, and when she looks at the letters again later that's reading. "I could teach you to write," she says.

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Teach me to write," he says.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:34 pm (UTC)

She writes out the alphabet and each sound it makes, and starts spelling words he knows, from "dragon" and "elf" to "tomorrow" and "maybe".

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:39 pm (UTC)

The demon is raptly attentive.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:41 pm (UTC)

This occupies the rest of the morning, and then Isibel says, "I'm going to eat now," and pulls out her lunch from her travelbag.

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:42 pm (UTC)

The demon nods, and gets up and heads off into the forest.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:43 pm (UTC)

She nibbles on her lunch one-handed and writes out more words as she remembers having covered them to read for him later.

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:45 pm (UTC)

He returns a few minutes later with a large basket of brilliant blue fruit, which he sets in his lap when he sits down on the bench again.

He offers her one.

They did not appear on the catalogue.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:46 pm (UTC)

Isibel peers at it. "You didn't draw this fruit," she says. "Is it good for elves to eat?"

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:47 pm (UTC)

"I made this fruit," he says. "You can eat it!"

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:50 pm (UTC)

Isibel blinks at the fruit, then tilts her head and takes it and bites tentatively into its side.

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:52 pm (UTC)

It's very sweet, and has an unfamiliar but pleasing flavour.

small_magics
2013-04-10 06:57 pm (UTC)

She grins and eats the rest. "Thank you," she says. "I like it. It tastes good."

endragoned
2013-04-10 06:59 pm (UTC)

He beams.

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Later, I may want to bring this fruit to the other elves," she says.

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:07 pm (UTC)

He nods.

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:10 pm (UTC)

On goes the reading lesson!

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:11 pm (UTC)

Now with tasty blue fruit!

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:14 pm (UTC)

Yes, she snacks on those happily as they go.

Eventually she can call to mind no other words they've covered. "I have forgotten what else I've taught you. I knew it and now I don't," she says, writing this sentence as she speaks.

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:17 pm (UTC)

The demon laughs and nods.

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:19 pm (UTC)

"If there is something else you want to learn to say, you can tell me and I will teach you," she reminds him.

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:27 pm (UTC)

He muses on this for a moment.

Then he grins.

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:28 pm (UTC)

Isibel tilts her head.

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I want to learn to say what makes unicorns go away," he says cheerfully.

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:37 pm (UTC)

Isibel blinks several times, and feels herself blushing. "Oh. Oh. Um." She sighs. She writes it down. Perhaps he can figure out how to pronounce it himself at this point.

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:41 pm (UTC)

"You don't want to say it," he observes.

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:42 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "I don't." And this is hardly a secret, because it's always clear at home who the unicorns avoid: "Unicorns still come near me."

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Unicorns don't come near me," he says wryly. "Tialle was near me."

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Unicorns can do things they don't like if they have to, if it's important. If they'd die otherwise."

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:46 pm (UTC)

He nods.

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:48 pm (UTC)

Isibel swallows. "You know what sounds the letters make," she says, gesturing at the word she wrote for him. And then she decides to start teaching him shapes. Circle, triangle, square, etcetera.

endragoned
2013-04-10 07:52 pm (UTC)

He doesn't push it. Shapes it is.

small_magics
2013-04-10 07:54 pm (UTC)

Shapes and then locations! She points out the Nine Cities, and names Silverbranch too, and then she draws her family tree and names family relationships.

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:09 pm (UTC)

The demon is attentive.

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:10 pm (UTC)

"My mother's name is Rania. My father's name is Cariel. I don't have any brothers or sisters."

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:15 pm (UTC)

"My father's name is Uralesse," murmurs the demon.

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:17 pm (UTC)

Isibel blinks. That's a familiar name, but she can't quite place it. Maybe that was one of the demon kings. Maybe this demon was a demon prince, before there stopped being demons to be a prince of.

Well, time to draw little elf doodles in crowns and explain kings and queens and princesses and princes.

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:19 pm (UTC)

The demon points out of his own accord that his father was a king.

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:20 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. "I thought I recognized the name." Hmm, examples of the word recognize - "I recognized that you were a demon when I first saw you. I didn't recognize this fruit when you brought it, because you didn't draw it."

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:22 pm (UTC)

The demon ponders this, then nods.

"My father is dead," he says. "I am not a king."

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:23 pm (UTC)

"There are no other demons for you to be king over," Isibel says. "Just you."

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:23 pm (UTC)

He nods.

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:24 pm (UTC)

"I'm not a princess or a queen," she shrugs. "I'm just an elf."

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:41 pm (UTC)

"You're Isibel," he says, smiling.

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I am," she laughs. "Isibel the elf. Isibel the small-mage." She touches the paper and focuses and makes dots of each of the basic colors - far slower than he did - and writes and speaks the names of each color under each dot when she's completed the row.

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:45 pm (UTC)

The demon giggles. He repeats the names of the colours.

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:48 pm (UTC)

She grins and turns the page and now she's drawing weather. Clouds, rain, snow - she's not sure if it snows this far south, but it may, and he may have seen it, and in ten thousand years the weather patterns could have changed. Wind. Wind is made of air. Winged creatures fly in the air.

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:49 pm (UTC)

He stretches his wings when she mentions them.

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:51 pm (UTC)

Rain falls, sun shines, clouds can go down and become fog. The sun makes the air warmer; it is cooler at night. Snow happens only when it is very cold. Things with water on them are wet. If they sit in the sun they will become dry.

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:56 pm (UTC)

The demon gets up off the bench and reaches into the pond to dip up a handful of water, which he sprinkles on Isibel.

"You are wet," he informs her.

small_magics
2013-04-10 08:57 pm (UTC)

She looks at him witheringly. "Yes. You made me that way," she says. "Please don't do that again."

endragoned
2013-04-10 08:59 pm (UTC)

He giggles, and touches the damp spot on her sleeve.

"You are dry!"

small_magics
2013-04-10 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Thank you," she chuckles. She taps her pencil on her notebook, thinking about what to do next.

endragoned
2013-04-10 09:01 pm (UTC)

The demon sits down and eats another mystery fruit.

small_magics
2013-04-10 09:31 pm (UTC)

Isibel decides she has the vocabulary for a history lesson and starts telling the story of Idalia Wildmage and Kellen Knightmage and Jermayan Dragonrider and their war, and the next war with Tiercel Highmage and Harrier Wildmage, and Ancaladar who switched from Jermayan to Tiercel to Tiercel and Harrier both to, on Tiercel's death, an elfmage -

endragoned
2013-04-10 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Ancaladar didn't die," he repeats incredulously.

small_magics
2013-04-10 09:39 pm (UTC)

Isibel blinks. "No. Jermayan died, but Ancaladar Bonded to Tiercel, and then to Harrier, and then Tiercel died but Harrier and Ancaladar lived, and Ancaladar bonded to Peraviel, who is alive." She smiles slightly. "I met Ancaladar once. He thinks I would have liked Harrier." She swallows. "I - I won't, I can't, I'd - but maybe someone else could Bond to your dragon instead - and then even if you die, your dragon could live."

endragoned
2013-04-10 09:41 pm (UTC)

"My dragon doesn't want to live if I die," he says, tail flicking and wings drooping.

small_magics
2013-04-10 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Then it doesn't matter that I won't, I guess."

endragoned
2013-04-10 09:42 pm (UTC)

He sighs, and nods.

small_magics
2013-04-10 09:44 pm (UTC)

Isibel pauses, and thinks, and sighs and does a side history bit about Saravasse, who lived when her Wildmage died even though she didn't want to, but went on to Bond with an elf (who also lives today) and was happy again.

And then she draws the entire known dragon family tree.

It is small. She has it memorized.

endragoned
2013-04-10 09:48 pm (UTC)

"My dragon doesn't want to live if I die," he repeats.

...And blinks at the entire known dragon family tree.

There seems to be a problem here, even if it's not one he can articulate with his current vocabulary.

small_magics
2013-04-10 09:59 pm (UTC)

"There are only a few dragons. The dragons want more dragons," she explains. "All the dragons have these grandparents -" She indicates the bottleneck of three. "Except yours."

She draws an egg, helpfully. "Dragons are born from eggs. They hatch, out of eggs."

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:01 pm (UTC)

"My dragon will—" he makes a valiant effort at the word she wrote down "—some other dragons," he offers. "If they want."
Edited 2013-04-10 22:01 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-10 10:02 pm (UTC)

Isibel blushes, looks away, corrects his pronunciation, and says, "Magania will talk to the other dragons."

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:03 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

small_magics
2013-04-10 10:05 pm (UTC)

She carries on with bits of history lesson as they drift into her head, filling in a timeline and teaching its components out of order but always circling back to the line and adding names of the listed events in their correct places.

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:06 pm (UTC)

The demon is fascinated by all the historical events. He seems to like learning people's names, and whether they are still alive.

small_magics
2013-04-10 10:07 pm (UTC)

Isibel can often supply this information!

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:10 pm (UTC)

How convenient!

small_magics
2013-04-10 10:12 pm (UTC)

Eventually they reach the extent of her history knowledge and she teaches him some more numbers - there's a pretty consistent system from twenty up through ninety-nine - and tries to think of what's next. She knows perfectly well he's not conversationally fluent, however fast he learns, but she's not sure what to cover; she wishes she had a textbook, or even a dictionary to allow to fall open.

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:14 pm (UTC)

He watches her in silence for a moment, then says the word again.

small_magics
2013-04-10 10:15 pm (UTC)

She looks at him out of the corner of her eye and her cheeks pink a little.

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:17 pm (UTC)

He grins, and says something in his own language. By tone it could be either an apology or a flirtation.

small_magics
2013-04-10 10:18 pm (UTC)

Isibel looks away. "I do not understand you," she says.

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:47 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

small_magics
2013-04-10 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I would like to hear what else you'd like to learn," she shrugs.

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how to say."

small_magics
2013-04-10 10:55 pm (UTC)

She offers him the book. "Perhaps you can draw it."

endragoned
2013-04-10 10:57 pm (UTC)

He shrugs helplessly.

small_magics
2013-04-10 11:01 pm (UTC)

She tilts her head. "Maybe when I've taught you more you'll know how to say what you want to know," she shrugs. And then she teaches him systems of measurements, and "heavier" and "lighter" and "farther" and "nearer", and when that's exhausted she draws and names houses, temples, chairs, tables, and the things that may be done with these and other objects. And then she thinks of a historical event she forgot, and goes back and covers that.

endragoned
2013-04-10 11:06 pm (UTC)

The demon pays attention to all of these lessons.

small_magics
2013-04-10 11:08 pm (UTC)

The next time she runs out of ideas, she thinks for a minute, then says, "We could make a story. Like a history about something that did not happen. You can make part of it, then I can make part of it, and then I will see what I need to teach you to say."

endragoned
2013-04-10 11:09 pm (UTC)

The demon laughs, and nods enthusiastically.

small_magics
2013-04-10 11:38 pm (UTC)

Isibel makes an inviting gesture. "You may start," she says.

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:18 am (UTC)

"Eleven thousand years ago," he says, and flicks his tail against the bench, and smiles.

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:19 am (UTC)

"Perhaps you would prefer to tell me a history of your own," laughs Isibel. "I would be happy to listen."

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:23 am (UTC)

He nods.

"My father's name was Uralesse," he says. "He wanted me to be alive. Then I was alive. Then I was me. Then he did not want me to be alive."

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:24 am (UTC)

Okay, maybe "happy" was an exaggeration.

"Born," she reminds him faintly. "You were born, and then you were alive."

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:27 am (UTC)

He nods again. "I was born," he agrees. Then:

"Demons have magic. I have magic from my dragon. I did not have magic from my dragon then. Other demons did not have magic from dragons. We had magic from—" and he rubs the burn scar on his palm.
Edited 2013-04-11 00:27 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:28 am (UTC)

Isibel knows how this works.

"Pain," she says quietly. "Demons got their magic from pain. They hurt other people, and those people were in pain, and then the demons had magic to use."

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:32 am (UTC)

The demon nods some more.

"Demons hurt other people," he says. "Demons hurt elves. Demons hurt unicorns. I hurt me."

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:33 am (UTC)

"You hurt yourself -" She bites off the questioning, incredulous inflection at the last moment, makes like she was correcting his grammar. "I did not know that would make magic."

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:35 am (UTC)

"Demons did not know that would make magic," he says. "Demons were angry. Demons were..." he frowns; shrugs. "I was other people. Demons hurt other people for magic, I hurt me for magic, I was other people."

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:36 am (UTC)

"They hurt you," she murmurs.

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:40 am (UTC)

"They hurt me," he agrees. "They put me far away and hurt me and hurt me."

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:44 am (UTC)

Isibel hesitates, then puts her hand on his near shoulder, gently, in case he wants to shrug her off. "I'm sorry that happened," she murmurs.

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:46 am (UTC)

"I don't understand that word," he murmurs back, leaning into her hand a little.

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:47 am (UTC)

"I - it makes me sad that it happened," she says. "I wish it hadn't happened - I want it to have not happened." She relaxes her arm, since shrugging her off seems to be the last thing on his mind.

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:48 am (UTC)

He closes his eyes and smiles.

"It makes me happy that you say that."

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:49 am (UTC)

She's silent. She waits.

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:54 am (UTC)

He shrugs again, wings fluttering slightly with the movement.

"They hurt me for - time," he says. "Years. They put Tialle where I was so we would kill each other. But I did not kill her, and she did not kill me, and we went away."

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:55 am (UTC)

"That's why you touched her horn," Isibel realizes. "For magic so you could escape - go away from the other demons."

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:57 am (UTC)

The demon nods.

"I hurt myself for magic."

small_magics
2013-04-11 12:58 am (UTC)

"I didn't understand before why you would touch her horn or how you escaped, but now I understand."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:03 am (UTC)

He smiles.

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:04 am (UTC)

"That was not very smart of the demons. It did not get them what they wanted," observes Isibel.

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:05 am (UTC)

...He laughs.

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:06 am (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:09 am (UTC)

He drapes his wing lightly around her.

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:10 am (UTC)

She peers at it.

"I - don't know why you're doing that," she says, and she lightens her hand's settled touch on his shoulder.

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:12 am (UTC)

He lifts his wing away.

"You do not want me to do that?" he guesses.

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:14 am (UTC)

"I don't know why - I don't know what thing you want to get," she says, struggling with the limited vocabulary but not knowing what other words to introduce or how, "I don't know what you're thinking."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:20 am (UTC)

"...I want my wing to be on you," he says. "You wanted your," he touches the back of her hand lightly with the pads of his fingers, "to be on me."

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:21 am (UTC)

"Hand, that's my hand," she says distractedly. "I wanted my hand to be on you because I was sorry about a thing that happened to you. I don't know why you want your wing to be on me."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:24 am (UTC)

"Because you were sorry about a thing that happened to me," he says. "Because you made me happy."

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:26 am (UTC)

Isibel considers this.

"All right," she says. "You can put your wing on me."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:28 am (UTC)

He smiles, and puts his wing on her.

It is very warm, and the skin of the membrane is smooth and soft, with a slightly different texture where he has scars.

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:29 am (UTC)

"I don't know if that's the end of your story," she points out, squirming a little.

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:30 am (UTC)

"I went away from the demons," he says. "I went away from people. I saw people, I went away from them. I did that for years. Then I saw my dragon. Then my dragon was my Bondmate. Then we went away together. We went here."

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:31 am (UTC)

"You avoided people," she supplies. "You only went places they weren't."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:33 am (UTC)

"I avoided people," he agrees. "Demons would kill me. Other people would kill me. Every people would kill me. I avoided people."

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:34 am (UTC)

"Any kind of person would have killed you," she agrees soberly. "But not every individual person. I'm an elf, and elves might want to kill you, but I don't want to kill you."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:36 am (UTC)

"It makes me happy that you don't want to kill me."

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:38 am (UTC)

"I was afraid when I first saw you," she confesses. "I almost ran away."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:42 am (UTC)

"I am sorry you were afraid," he murmurs.

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:43 am (UTC)

"I'm all right now," she says. "You didn't ever try to hurt me. And I didn't think anyone who loved a unicorn so much could be bad."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:50 am (UTC)

"Loved," he repeats.

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:51 am (UTC)

"Oh. You and Tialle liked each other a lot, and remembered each other for hundreds and thousands of years," Isibel says. "When I saw the statues that you made of Tialle I knew that the person who made them loved her."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:53 am (UTC)

"Loved," he says again, and smiles sadly. "I loved Tialle."

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:54 am (UTC)

"Magania says she loved you too."

endragoned
2013-04-11 01:56 am (UTC)

"I remember," he murmurs. "I," he touches his face under one eye.

small_magics
2013-04-11 01:58 am (UTC)

"You cried," says Isibel.
Edited 2013-04-11 01:59 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-11 02:01 am (UTC)

"I cried," the demon agrees. "I cried because I loved her."

small_magics
2013-04-11 02:02 am (UTC)

"Magania thought you cried because she loved you," volunteers Isibel.

endragoned
2013-04-11 02:07 am (UTC)

He nods.

"I loved her and she loved me. But I did not know she loved me after she went away from me. I cried because of knowing that."

small_magics
2013-04-11 02:08 am (UTC)

Isibel nods solemnly.

endragoned
2013-04-11 02:09 am (UTC)

He smiles at her.

small_magics
2013-04-11 02:10 am (UTC)

"You have told me about your life so I will tell you about mine if you would like that," she says, "but my life has not been interesting and might make you bored."

endragoned
2013-04-11 02:10 am (UTC)

"I am not a dragon," he says. "I will not sleep."

small_magics
2013-04-11 02:11 am (UTC)

Isibel laughs. "Anyone can be bored, and if you do not sleep, you will be awake and bored, but I will tell you my story if you would like that."

endragoned
2013-04-11 02:12 am (UTC)

"I would like that!"

small_magics
2013-04-11 02:19 am (UTC)

"I was born in Silverbranch, and my mother teaches little elves - she travels, when there are small elves five or six years old in other cities, and she teaches them there, and then she comes home to Silverbranch, and the rest of the time she makes shoes," says Isibel. "My father is a knight, but there have been no wars in our time, and so sometimes he catches fish for the elves in Silverbranch to eat. And I am the youngest person in Silverbranch - everyone else there has lived for more years than me; they are older than I am - and I read books, and I write about my thoughts, and I study the small magic, and I am also the person who talks to people who come to Silverbranch and are not elves - visitors, usually humans, sometimes centaurs or other people. And three moonturns ago there was a letter-rider - letters are written by one person, then brought to another town for someone there to read, and letter-riders are the ones who bring them where they need to go - who brought a letter to the elves of Silverbranch that said there was going to be an expedition - a traveling of many elves - to this island, to see if it would be a good island for elves to live on. And they wanted young elves, who might move away from their homes, and they wanted someone who knew the small magic well, and so I went along, and then I came here, and then I found you." She spreads her hands. "That's my life."

endragoned
2013-04-11 02:26 am (UTC)

The demon laughs. "I am not bored."

small_magics
2013-04-11 02:27 am (UTC)

"Good," laughs Isibel. "I don't want to bore you."

endragoned
2013-04-11 02:29 am (UTC)

"You do not bore me! I like you."

small_magics
2013-04-11 02:31 am (UTC)

"I like you too," Isibel says. "Hmm, I'm not sure what to teach you to say next."

endragoned
2013-04-11 12:06 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, his wing lifting away briefly and then coming back to settle on her again.

"I don't know."

small_magics
2013-04-11 03:41 pm (UTC)

"You learn very quickly," she comments. "Most people would forget most of the words, but you remember almost all of them and then learn more."

endragoned
2013-04-11 04:13 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"I learn quickly!" he agrees. "I learn, I remember."

small_magics
2013-04-11 04:21 pm (UTC)

And then Isibel thinks of something else to teach him, and so passes the rest of the day until she returns to camp for supper and to perform small magics according to requests that have accumulated throughout the day.

She brings the blue fruit with her, and everyone likes it.

Isibel continues to visit the demon for most of each day until the expedition's time is up after three weeks. They are all to get on a boat and go home at first light the next morning.

"We're leaving tomorrow," Isibel tells the demon when she goes in to see him.

endragoned
2013-04-11 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I will be sad," he says. "I like you."

small_magics
2013-04-11 04:24 pm (UTC)

"I'll miss you, but we're probably going to come back," Isibel says. "In a moonturn or two." She sighs. "If we come back, it will be with more elves, and we'll stay."

endragoned
2013-04-11 04:26 pm (UTC)

He looks at her for a few seconds.

Then he steps closer and gently folds his wings around her.

small_magics
2013-04-11 04:27 pm (UTC)

Isibel gives him a hug.

endragoned
2013-04-11 04:29 pm (UTC)

He closes his eyes and hugs her with all four upper limbs.

small_magics
2013-04-11 04:31 pm (UTC)

"We'll probably come back," she murmurs, and then she steps away.

endragoned
2013-04-11 04:35 pm (UTC)

He spreads his wings and lets her go.

"...You could fly," he says. "I can fly. I could fly with you."

small_magics
2013-04-11 04:36 pm (UTC)

"If you picked me up and carried me?" she says uncertainly. "...If you fly too high the other elves will see you."

endragoned
2013-04-11 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Not if I don't want them to."

small_magics
2013-04-11 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Oh! You can turn us invisible," Isibel smiles. "Yes. I would love to fly."
Edited 2013-04-11 16:41 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-11 04:50 pm (UTC)

He beams, and holds out a hand to her, and leads her to a place not far away where he has room to take off.

And then he scoops her up and holds her gently but securely in his arms, and wraps magic around them both that makes them seem as insubstantial as wisps of smoke to the eye, and he flies.

small_magics
2013-04-11 04:51 pm (UTC)

Isibel beams, and laughs, and looks down unafraid at the scenery below them.

endragoned
2013-04-11 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I want to have done this before," he murmurs. "I like that it makes you happy."

small_magics
2013-04-11 04:58 pm (UTC)

"It's wonderful," beams Isibel. "I didn't think of it either until you suggested it."

endragoned
2013-04-11 05:03 pm (UTC)

"I like my island," he adds, soaring over it in lazy circles. "I'm - I don't know the word. I like that I made it this way."

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:04 pm (UTC)

"You're proud of it," Isibel suggests. "You worked hard on it and now it's how you like it."

endragoned
2013-04-11 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm proud of it," he agrees. "It's very beautiful. And it gives me and my love good things to eat."

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Having many elves living here will change it," sighs Isibel.

endragoned
2013-04-11 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I made it give elves good things to eat, too," he says. "I made the blue fruit for you."

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:11 pm (UTC)

"We all enjoy the blue fruit. It's delicious."

endragoned
2013-04-11 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad!" he says. "It's good for you to eat."

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for making it. And thank you for taking me flying."

endragoned
2013-04-11 05:17 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Tell me when you want to go down," he says. "Land. Tell me when you want to land."

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:18 pm (UTC)

"It might not be for a while," laughs Isibel. "Of course you can land whenever you like."

endragoned
2013-04-11 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I won't be tired," he says. "You'll need to sleep before I get tired."

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:21 pm (UTC)

She grins, and goes on watching the scenery and turning her face into the breeze.

why me?

small_magics

Isibel spends her last day on the island flying, and then she rejoins her expedition, and packs, and sleeps, and in the dawnlight she gets back on the boat to sail back to the Elven Lands.

She is kept quite occupied with small magics to keep the ship operating smoothly, and also with notebooking - writing quite small, as she brought more than enough notebooks for three weeks but then unexpectedly used many of them to draw and write with the demon and has only half of one left for several days at sea.

They land on the shore of the Elven Lands on schedule, and disembark.

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:36 pm (UTC)

Very shortly after they leave the boat, it is made known to Isibel that there is a unicorn waiting for her nearby. 'Nearby' being relative, of course, since unicorns and population centers don't mix well.

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:37 pm (UTC)

Isibel goes looking for the unicorn, puzzled. She isn't close personal friends with any unicorns, though of course she's one of the people in Silverbranch who can interact with them if they come by and require an intermediary.

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:41 pm (UTC)

The unicorn in question is drinking from a small forest spring when she finds him. His fur is blue-black, with three pale golden socks, and his hooves and horn are pearly white.

"Hi!" he says. "You're Isibel, r—I mean, you must be Isibel, I can tell." He straightens up and nods importantly, flicking his tail. "The Wild Magic sent me! I have to tell you that you need to bond with a dragon to save the world."

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:43 pm (UTC)

"...I'm Isibel," says Isibel softly. "To save the world - I don't understand."

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't know everything," he says, "but I know some things! Someone's trying to raise Elemental Darkness again like they did when Mom was younger and it's not going to turn out so good this time, so you have to bond with a dragon and find them and stop them."

small_magics
2013-04-11 05:52 pm (UTC)

"There are - several Elfmages, more experienced than I, who would of course not want the Elemental Darkness raised..." Isibel says. There's really no point in arguing with the unicorn, he's just a messenger, but she can't exactly address the Wild Magic personally. "I don't understand what would make it essential for me in particular to participate - surely there are others - who have the bond already, who want it -"

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:00 pm (UTC)

"You are a lot like Harrier," snorts the unicorn. "He didn't want to be the chosen champion of the Light either. Or bond with a dragon. But he did, and look how much better everything is now! I'm going to have to follow you around for months, I bet. Oh," he adds, "I'm Liselen. By the way."

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:02 pm (UTC)

"You - you don't understand. I would like nothing better than to be an Elfmage; if the world needs saving I would be willing to devote my life to saving it - I don't think I can - I think if anyone, even a dragon who I'd come to love as life itself, could - spy on my thoughts like that - I don't think I'd survive it, I'd go madder than Bisochim the Deceived, I'd be in no condition to save the world," pleads Isibel. "I can't. I'll as good as die before I can accomplish anything."

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:06 pm (UTC)

"...I didn't know that," says Liselen. "I don't know what to do about that. Maybe the Wild Magic will find a way," he says hopefully. "It usually does. But will y—I mean, it would be good if you tried. Or thought about it. Or thought about it and then tried."

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:07 pm (UTC)

"So there's - there's time," murmurs Isibel. "I have a while, I can -" She shakes her head. "Put my affairs in order. Talk to the Elfmages, perhaps, see if they have counsel for me. I don't have to go back to the boat and ask that it sail right now."

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:15 pm (UTC)

"...You found a dragon over the sea - that makes sense," says Liselen. "I don't have a deadline or anything, but I get the definite impression that ten years would be too late. A season or two would be fine."

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:16 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods slowly. "It would be good to know what else I must do besides bond with the dragon I found," she murmurs.

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:18 pm (UTC)

"That's not part of what I know," says Liselen, shaking his head. "But I guess you'll find out when you need to."

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:20 pm (UTC)

Isibel swallows. "Perhaps if you know more," she says, "you could tell me, and I could write it down." She produces her notebook, which has about three pages left.

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I know you have to bond with a dragon to save the world," he says, "and I guess it has to be the one you found, and it had better be sometime this year, and I'm supposed to stay with you until you decide you're definitely going to do it but I don't have to follow you all the way across the ocean or anything, which is good because I get really seasick, it's awful."

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:26 pm (UTC)

Isibel writes.

This makes it all seem more final, somehow.

"I should talk to Magania. She's going to speak to the other dragons about the one on the island."

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:29 pm (UTC)

"That name sounds familiar," says Liselen, and visibly bites back further utterances.

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:31 pm (UTC)

"She used to be a Unicorn Knight," Isibel says, not sure what else would do it.

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh!" he says. "Yeah, now I remember. She was Mom's cousin's partner for a while."

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I can meet you here again after I've spoken with her," Isibel says.

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Liselen.

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:40 pm (UTC)

Isibel goes looking for Magania, quiet and withdrawn.

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:41 pm (UTC)

"I See you, Isibel," says Magania. "Anything you may wish to tell of what passed between you and Kareta's son would make good hearing."

small_magics
2013-04-11 06:44 pm (UTC)

"I am supposed to Bond with a dragon," Isibel says softly, in no condition to weave layers of indirection, "and save the world. It's possible I'll survive this physically, but I hold little hope for the state of my soul. I do not even know if I will hold together well enough under such scrutiny to save the world in the first place."

pythbox
2013-04-11 07:13 pm (UTC)

"...I have no wisdom to offer you," says Magania.

small_magics
2013-04-11 07:14 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. "I thought perhaps I could accompany you to speak to the dragons. And their Bondmates. They may have wisdom to offer me from their own experiences."

pythbox
2013-04-11 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Of course," says Magania.

small_magics
2013-04-11 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

And Isibel goes back to where Liselen is waiting, taking careful, even steps.
Edited 2013-04-11 19:24 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-11 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Hi again!" he says. "I mean, um, I See you!"

small_magics
2013-04-11 07:37 pm (UTC)

"I See you," murmurs Isibel. "Magania is willing that I accompany her to speak to the other dragons."

pythbox
2013-04-11 07:38 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's good," says Liselen. "I guess I'll just... follow you. At a distance."

small_magics
2013-04-11 07:42 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. "I do not know when she plans to leave. I will wait with her."

pythbox
2013-04-11 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Liselen. "Um... good luck."

small_magics
2013-04-11 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

Isibel returns to within eyeshot of Magania, and she waits, and she tries to think of thoughts she needs to have before there's no privacy to be had, but she can't think of anything.

pythbox
2013-04-11 07:49 pm (UTC)

And then they travel to Karahelanderialigor, home of the dragons.

small_magics
2013-04-11 07:50 pm (UTC)

Isibel tags along while Magania introduces the situation, as it will be easier to explain exactly what she has to do once the dragons are alerted to the existence of her future Bondmate.

pythbox
2013-04-11 07:58 pm (UTC)

Magania explains that there is a dragon on the island, Bonded to what seems to be a benign Endarkened.

While the debate about what to do with the dragon's Bondmate is ongoing, a consensus quickly emerges that the dragons should send an expedition. Magania defers to Isibel for any knowledge she may have of the island dragon's willingness to engage in producing eggs.

small_magics
2013-04-11 08:00 pm (UTC)

"His Bondmate once remarked that he would be quite amenable," murmurs Isibel.

pythbox
2013-04-11 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Good," rumbles Ancaladar. "That simplifies things."

"And we're going to need all the simplicity we can get," snorts Saravasse.

small_magics
2013-04-11 08:06 pm (UTC)

"There is," Isibel says, "another matter, on which I would be most grateful to hear counsel from you, or from your Bondmates, if there is any to be had."

pythbox
2013-04-11 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Speak," says Saravasse.

small_magics
2013-04-11 08:09 pm (UTC)

"A unicorn, Liselen, told me when our expedition returned from the island that the Wild Magic says that the world is again in danger of Dark incursion and that I must avert it, and that this will involve my Bonding with a dragon." She swallows. "The island dragon and I can Bond. I - avoided his company as soon as I realized, having decided years ago that I could not, not for love or power, tolerate having my mind read. If there is any way, any at all, to mitigate this problem - I would hear it."

pythbox
2013-04-11 08:16 pm (UTC)

"The bond will make us tolerate many things we thought were intolerable," says Saravasse.

"Harrier, too, was unhappy with that aspect of the bond," says Ancaladar. "He grew accustomed with time."

small_magics
2013-04-11 08:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I can," whispers Isibel. "I think I'll shrivel up inside and that I won't be able to do anything."

pythbox
2013-04-11 08:22 pm (UTC)

Ancaladar bows his head.

small_magics
2013-04-11 08:25 pm (UTC)

Petrivoch speaks up. "Whether you shrivel up is your business, but whether you save the world is everyone's business. If the problem is just that you'll find your dragon's attention distracting, meditate into hyperfocus and you'll be able to concentrate. It's a discipline of elven meditation; my Bondmate can teach you if you have the time and want to learn. She's here in Karahelanderialigor."

"That may work," says Isibel, head bowed. "Thank you."
Edited 2013-04-11 20:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-11 08:31 pm (UTC)

"And I am sorry," says Ancaladar. There is a general murmur of agreement.

Then they start talking about which dragons will visit the island. Saravasse volunteers to lead them.

small_magics
2013-04-11 08:51 pm (UTC)

Isibel speaks quietly to Petrivoch about his Bondmate's exact location.

She finds her.

She explains the situation.

The other elf wastes no time in setting Isibel up in a guest house and setting a rigorous schedule suitable for the world-saving deadline in which Isibel will learn meditation.

Isibel proves rather adept at it, all told. Inside a moonturn, she can narrow her attention to the finest of points, like a needle so fine as to be half-invisible, or sunlight focused through glass. She thinks of nothing else beyond her chosen object of meditation. The practice isn't without its dangers. She could easily neglect a terrible injury, for example, were her mind elsewhere than her body when she was hurt.

But that's much of the point, that she can feel no suffering when hyperfocused. That she will do work, and nothing else. That she will be able to look for whoever seeks the Dark, and nothing else. That she will be able to study magic to be able to bring it to bear, and nothing else. That she will be able to be the savior of the world.

And nothing else.

She can't stay in hyperfocus forever. She's up to an hour when her teacher pronounces her ready, and she can only do an hour when the focus object is something interesting - a book, usually. She can last only minutes at a time trying to meditate on her breathing or on a star. But of course the object here is not to make her Bond free of distress for her. It's to make her productive in spite of distress.

She'll get better with practice, and if she has to spend much of every day in miserable desperate awareness of scrutiny, well, the world is at stake, she is only one elf and there are millions if not billions of people on the line, where would she be now if Harrier had refused his commands from the Wild Magic?

The teacher advises her to add a trigger to each session of hyperfocus that will end it early (because, of course, one of the things she neglects when her mind is sharpened to a blind single point is anything that could lead her to want to cease to be so). For practice purposes, she uses a word from her teacher. For later, she will need something else.

Isibel supposes that as long as she has to give over her entire self into the hands of the dragon - and his obviously much more content existing Bondmate - she may as well let them trigger her. The demon could snap his fingers in front of her face, or something. Let them decide when she works and when she weeps.

At least she'll still sleep at night.

Elves sleep at night.

She's ready in time to return to the island with the rest of the expedition, and if anyone notices that she is withdrawn and upset, they are all too polite to ask.

She drifts into the forest towards the cluster of unicorn statues, already half-dead, and makes a reluctant but definite beeline for the dragon's cave.

endragoned
2013-04-12 01:49 am (UTC)

The demon lands in front of her on an open stretch of path.

small_magics
2013-04-12 05:41 am (UTC)

"I See you," Isibel sobs, and then she falls to her knees and buries her face in her hands and bursts into open tears.

endragoned
2013-04-12 12:57 pm (UTC)

He gets down on her level and wraps his arms around her and hugs her gently, his wings arched around them like a tent, murmuring something in his own language.

small_magics
2013-04-12 04:17 pm (UTC)

Isibel - cannot seem to stop crying. Not yet, anyway. She could hyperfocus on explaining - oh, he probably thinks someone's coming to kill him, that she's here to warn him, doesn't he -

Inhale. Choose object. Blur everything else into black disappeared irrelevance. Exhale. Focus.

"The Wild Magic told a unicorn to tell me that I must Bond with a dragon in order to save the world," Isibel says levelly. Her voice sounds too careful, too even, every syllable an exact length and every space between words the same size, but she's not paying attention to that. Breathe. Is that the complete explanation? It is a sufficient explanation.

The focus falls away and she cries again.

endragoned
2013-04-12 04:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't care about the world," he says softly. "I care about you. If this is how you feel about this thing, then do not do it."

small_magics
2013-04-12 04:23 pm (UTC)

"I care about the world. So many people could die. They may have already started dying because I waited to learn to concentrate on things, but I couldn't help that, I don't think I'll be able to work otherwise, whatever work I must do. I might die anyway, if I do nothing. There's no helping it." She doesn't hyperfocus for these sentences; she pushes them out between sobs and miserable sniffling inhalations.

endragoned
2013-04-12 04:25 pm (UTC)

The demon hugs her some more.

small_magics
2013-04-12 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I have to," Isibel says in a small voice. "I can't consign so many people to suffer and die just because I will be unhappy."

endragoned
2013-04-12 04:31 pm (UTC)

"You can," he murmurs. "People do that. Even people who are not demons."

small_magics
2013-04-12 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Not me," says Isibel. "I can't."

endragoned
2013-04-12 04:33 pm (UTC)

He sighs, and hugs her.

"I love you," he says. "I don't want you to be unhappy."

small_magics
2013-04-12 04:36 pm (UTC)

She looks up and meets his eyes. "I will also be unhappy if darkness takes the world," she murmurs, not addressing the first statement. She doesn't know what to do with that. She can't process. She can never process again; she's going to have to make do with some combination of instinct and status quo and Bondmate opinion, and what she has written down. There is not going to be another chance to write herself into books and read her thoughts in plain words. Not with someone watching.

endragoned
2013-04-12 04:48 pm (UTC)

"If you are sure," he says, "I will take you to my love."

small_magics
2013-04-12 04:48 pm (UTC)

Isibel bows her head.

"I have to," she whispers.

endragoned
2013-04-12 04:49 pm (UTC)

He scoops her into his arms and stands, stretching his wings.

small_magics
2013-04-12 04:51 pm (UTC)

She closes her eyes and focuses on her breath for as long as she can.

When she can't hold it anymore, she's stopped crying. She's just sort of numb.

endragoned
2013-04-12 04:55 pm (UTC)

By that time, they are in the air, headed for a different part of the island.

The dragon is hunting.

When they land, he is just in the process of scooping a giant turtle out of its shell, his wings spread to catch the sun.

small_magics
2013-04-12 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I See you," Isibel says softly.

endragoned
2013-04-12 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says the dragon.

He looks up from his meal. His eyes are still brilliantly green, greener than grass, greener than leaves. Green like fireworks.

small_magics
2013-04-12 05:02 pm (UTC)

It's not hard, on a surface level, to just look. She knows what it means, but she's already made her decision about that, and now she can just - stare. They're compelling eyes, they draw her gaze, she feels a bit like someone has dropped her off a cliff and she might wish she could fly or that the cliff hadn't been there but it's not hard to fall.

endragoned
2013-04-12 05:10 pm (UTC)

The first obvious thing about the bond is that they love her, both of them - that's not always true, with co-Bondmates, but it is true here.

The second is that there are not really three people here. There are two, in three bodies. The demon and the dragon are not at all shy about Isibel seeing into their thoughts, and in the newness of the bond that is still possible. They are one, in a way that dragon and Bonded usually aren't. Two separate experiences of the world, two separate voices, but one unified mind.

And they love her, and they are sorry.

small_magics
2013-04-12 05:21 pm (UTC)

It's delicious and terrible, like poisoned fruit, she loves them and it's going to kill her and she loves them and she's going to die, because it's better than she imagined and worse than she thought.

She can see why the dragons might have predicted that she'd learn to tolerate the mind-reading. Their presence with her is so benign and tender and if anyone has to read her mind at least it's them, at least it's only this twinned-self who love her so much.

And it's worse. Because she hadn't expected to be able to feel it. She had expected to know she was being watched, to put aside the notebooks, to toss and turn before she could manage to sleep every night, to flinch at odd moments with the memory. She hadn't known that her own self-knowledge would be her window into the process as it happened. But she can feel her thoughts echo as they form, constant sensory confirmation that she's being watched.

She's sorry. She's sorry they have to have her in their heads, when she's going to be a creature of despair and a mechanical unthinking knife of focus by turns. She's sorry she didn't run for the hills and let Liselen chase her till the darkness swallowed up everything. (Or maybe she isn't. She'd have to write, to know for sure, and she can't, she can't, she's being torn open now but that doesn't mean she could hold the blade even if it'd lead to neater cuts.)
Edited 2013-04-12 17:22 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-12 05:30 pm (UTC)

The demon wraps his arms around her and cries.

He doesn't want to hurt her. When he was only his one-self and the other demons hated him violently, this was part of why: because sometimes he sees someone hurting and he doesn't want them to be. And now he can feel it, and it's so much worse, he would die if that would help, but if his both-self died it would kill her too and if only the demon died the dragon would be half a soul forever without him and she would still hurt.

"I'l sleep," the dragon says desperately, "I'll sleep your whole life, if I wake up I'll go to sleep again—my love, my love..."

small_magics
2013-04-12 05:36 pm (UTC)

Isibel hugs the demon, tightly, tightly, eyes closed. Usually a dragon teaches their Bondmate elfmagery from where it's hidden under the exchange the elves' ancestors made, but there are other Elfmages, she can go back to the Elven Lands, she can learn from them, she can do whatever it is she has to do, but even if the dragon sleeps a thousand years there will still be the demon and that is not how he works, is it? It scarcely matters if it's one of them or both, the problem isn't how many eyes but that things never meant to be exposed are visible at all.
Edited 2013-04-12 17:36 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-12 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I sleep, too," the demon murmurs. "I sleep for days - I slept for a moonturn once. I'll do it as much as I can, my love." And he kisses her forehead, the way he'd kiss the dragon's nose, lightly and lovingly.

small_magics
2013-04-12 05:50 pm (UTC)

She leans into the embrace. She loves them. If anybody had to read her at least it's them. Maybe she can hold together with the privacy she'll get when they're sleeping. She'll miss them, probably - certainly - but she can live with missing people, even these people. (She thinks. She'd have to write to be sure. Will she be able to do that when they both sleep? They'll still be able to see anything she chances to remember having written but it won't have the immediate sting. Maybe if she can write anyway, around that, she'll be all right.)

She doesn't understand how the reading can be so pervasive. She doesn't feel like she has more attention to spare than she ever did, or as though - outside of hyperfocus - other things are being neglected. But there they are, background hum of love-attention-invasion, like they can't even look away, try though they might. She needs just a moment - she takes a breath and concentrates, lets it out, concentrates, inhale, exhale, and that's all, she just needed a little break, a moment away, where she might not be doing anything productive but she wasn't conscious of being watched at it.

endragoned
2013-04-12 05:55 pm (UTC)

When her attention returns, her Bondmates are bewildered but relieved. Feeling her focus like that is deeply strange, but at least it doesn't hurt. It's possible not to hurt. That's a start.

small_magics
2013-04-12 05:58 pm (UTC)

She can't do it for more than an hour and that only when she's focused on something interesting or at least complicated. Magic will probably qualify. She's loved magic all her life. She'll do her best to recover her equanimity, here with them, while the Bond settles - she'll go back to Elven Lands; the boat will be making several trips and she can simply take the next one - she'll find the same teacher who taught her to focus - she'll work on magic. She'll try to figure out what in the world she's supposed to do with it.

endragoned
2013-04-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

She can fly now, or as close as a wingless creature can get. Either of her Bondmates will carry her anywhere in the world she wants to go.

If she doesn't want to wait for the next boat, she needn't.

small_magics
2013-04-12 06:02 pm (UTC)

She doesn't think the demon could land among elves and receive a pleasant welcome.

The dragon could.
Edited 2013-04-12 18:03 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-12 06:06 pm (UTC)

Then the dragon will fly with her, and the demon will -

He has no idea.

Stay here, perhaps; he is still afforded some privacy, although the way that flight of dragons earlier was talking, it is only a matter of time before the whole world knows that there is a demon on the loose. He can stay here, and... would she like it if he made more good food for elves? He'll do that.

small_magics
2013-04-12 06:12 pm (UTC)

Isibel hugs him as hard as she can, which isn't very hard really. He should be invisible when he sleeps, perhaps, or he could disguise himself as something other than a demon - aren't they supposed to be able to do that? - and accompany them. She'll be awake, soon enough she'll be a competent Elfmage, a Sarion, and then she'll need to go - wherever she needs to go to stop the darkness, and not even elfmagery will let her fly without someone to carry her. (This may be a flaw in the sleeping plan, at least if there is any intention of implementing it before the danger is past.)

endragoned
2013-04-12 06:17 pm (UTC)

He can, yes - he is not very good at it, and he cannot fool any kind of mage, but he can fool the ordinary eyes of ordinary folk. Or at least he could, ten thousand years ago when last he tried.

He can try again, he supposes.

Invisibility is a good thought. If she can find somewhere to put him where no one will stumble across the sleeping demon. In a box, perhaps. (He has done that before.)

small_magics
2013-04-12 06:19 pm (UTC)

The dragons know what he is; perhaps they'll help. Or Magania. Or a box, if he wouldn't mind a box, or - she can't think, she's already generated more thoughts than she expected to, and hyperfocus is only good for tasks, not for problem-solving, she can't think anymore, she presses her face to his shoulder and sobs.

endragoned
2013-04-12 06:21 pm (UTC)

The demon hugs her.

"We will fly," he murmurs. "To the elves. To the other dragons. We will fly."

small_magics
2013-04-12 06:22 pm (UTC)

She nods minutely. Will he carry her - she doesn't think she can walk very well, right now, ribbons or no ribbons -

endragoned
2013-04-12 06:24 pm (UTC)

He scoops her up and kisses her forehead again.
Edited 2013-04-12 18:24 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-12 06:26 pm (UTC)

Isibel closes her eyes. She needs to stop again, just for a minute, a minute will do - breathe, breathe, breathe -

endragoned
2013-04-12 06:28 pm (UTC)

When she notices the world again, they are in the air.

small_magics
2013-04-12 06:32 pm (UTC)

She thinks of the map, of the direction they'll want to go to reach where her teacher lives, and she sighs. Perhaps when the Bond has settled some it will be better.

Or maybe she'll recognize her own thoughts marching across their minds forever even if theirs ultimately settle into, not invisibility, but the difficult cipher it takes centuries to learn to read.

(She has no protection like that; the mindreading is a property of dragons and the dragon will be able to read her whatever they do. Maybe if he sleeps the demon will be awake but unable to get any detail from her? Maybe? She can hope.)

endragoned
2013-04-12 07:24 pm (UTC)

When the demon and the dragon met and Bonded, they were like this almost from the start. They understood each other instantly, and recognized their sameness amidst all the differences, and that was that.

They hope it will not be that way for Isibel.

small_magics
2013-04-12 07:30 pm (UTC)

Let it not be so. Let there be an end. Let the Wild Magic be not that cruel. She can come out of this if it's short enough, if they can find enough stopgaps - but if they can't she may just save the world and then overdose on dream-honey, and there is a thought she never thought she'd have, she never ever wanted to die, she couldn't imagine it, she believed in theory that such suffering could exist but she didn't know what it would be like and didn't think even this fate would qualify. But having no quiet place in her own mind to retreat where no one will look - and feeling it every time she has a thought, whispering across the other mind -

Well, they can live without her, right? She'll learn magic and save the world and if they haven't figured something out by then there's dream-honey, they can live without her.

endragoned
2013-04-12 07:34 pm (UTC)

They do not want to live without her.

But they already knew they were going to, if by some incredible chance the demon is not killed. Elves don't live forever.

Perhaps, though - if the demon is killed - the dragon can sleep for a thousand years, and never take another Bondmate, and he and Isibel can die together as dragon and Bonded used to. Perhaps that would be best.

small_magics
2013-04-12 07:35 pm (UTC)

Perhaps.

Once she wanted to live forever.

She can't quite grasp the feeling now.

endragoned
2013-04-12 07:37 pm (UTC)

"My love, my love," the demon murmurs, kissing her forehead again.

small_magics
2013-04-12 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Beloved," sighs Isibel.

She thought one day she might love someone - not like this, never like this, but that she'd meet some elf and they'd be drawn to each other in the way that elves are, and then they'd probably have a terrific fight over betrothal pendants and proper wedding ceremonies because the way elves are married also involves thought-sharing, but she would never have agreed to that. Now that's hardly likely at all; even if her personality survives what's to come she's going to be damaged. Maybe she was never meant for that special connection, or maybe she would have found someone who'd be content to remain unmarried yet -

She bites her lip sharply, meditates on inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale-inhale-exhale, there is only breathing, certainly nothing that she not only wouldn't like read out of her thoughts but would also be mortified to put into words, only breathing, breathing, breathing.

endragoned
2013-04-12 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh, my love," the demon sighs, smiling a little. He loves her so much. He loved her even before; they both did.

small_magics
2013-04-12 07:55 pm (UTC)

She didn't.

She does now - and the history of Bisochim is even more incomprehensible; how could he love her enough to care so intensely about the prospect of her dying and never listen to her -

She couldn't refuse his will when he willed things.

Could she just will the reading away -

endragoned
2013-04-12 08:53 pm (UTC)

In a sense, yes.

Because when the minds of her Bonded are full of blood and fire, when their demon-self's memories of being a plaything for every Endarkened in Shadow Mountain are the only thing they can think of, they can't really pay attention to her thoughts anymore.

The dragon cannot stop reading her; he has tried. But she can exert her will on him, and when she tries to make him do the impossible, all that's left is the sense of being forced, to which the demon has his own associations and plenty of them.

small_magics
2013-04-12 08:55 pm (UTC)

It would imply that she ever stopped crying, to say that she burst into tears, but she sobs harder, and curls into a ball, and withdraws again into breathing-breathing-breathing without stopping to wonder if they'll fall out of the sky into the ocean.

endragoned
2013-04-12 08:57 pm (UTC)

When she comes back again, they are all a little damp, and her Bonded have already forgiven her.

small_magics
2013-04-12 08:58 pm (UTC)

She's sorry anyway. She didn't even quite decide to do it, just - lurched desperately towards the sliver of hope.

endragoned
2013-04-12 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Oh, my love," murmurs the demon. "It's all right."

He's speaking his own language, but that is no longer a barrier.

small_magics
2013-04-12 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I love you," she sighs. She shuts her eyes. Maybe she can sleep. Elves can sometimes sleep through the day.

endragoned
2013-04-12 09:04 pm (UTC)

The demon's arms are very warm and comfortable, suited for sleeping in.

small_magics
2013-04-12 09:07 pm (UTC)

She drifts off eventually. She can in fact focus her way to sleep if she tries and she's tired enough; emotional exhaustion apparently counts.

She speaks, even when she doesn't dream.

endragoned
2013-04-12 09:09 pm (UTC)

She is... very peaceful, like this.

The demon wraps her in a little bit of magic to keep her comfortably sleeping.

small_magics
2013-04-12 09:17 pm (UTC)

And yet the Elven Lands are not infinitely far away. Most particularly on dragonback.

endragoned
2013-04-12 09:25 pm (UTC)

In theory, it should be impossible for an Endarkened to pass the land-wards, and if any of them had been thinking about it, they would perhaps have come up with some sort of plan to get around that.

In practice, they reach the dragons' roost by Karahelanderialigor without trouble. The demon sets his love down gently on the ground, and asks Saravasse where he and the dragon might find somewhere to take an undisturbed nap, and she shows them to a cave and they go to sleep curled up together. (Saravasse is, to everyone's surprise but theirs, quite fond of the demon. They understand one another. They didn't speak long when she was visiting his Bonded, but he left an impression.)

small_magics
2013-04-12 09:34 pm (UTC)

Isibel opens her eyes, when the demon sleeps and his magic dissipates. And she feels no thought-echoes. And she sobs in relief and gets to her feet, trembling.

pythbox
2013-04-12 09:35 pm (UTC)

Saravasse is still there, watching over her.

small_magics
2013-04-12 09:36 pm (UTC)

"I See you," murmurs Isibel.

pythbox
2013-04-12 09:38 pm (UTC)

"And I you," says the scarlet dragon. "Now what?"

small_magics
2013-04-12 09:39 pm (UTC)

Isibel barely even flinches. There's a world of difference between someone being verbally inquisitive and someone actually prying into her brain. "Now I go find my teacher again and learn Elfmagery," she says, "I suppose."

pythbox
2013-04-12 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Have fun," Saravasse says dryly.

small_magics
2013-04-12 09:52 pm (UTC)

Isibel shakes her head. She heads for the elven settlement and looks for her teacher.

Her teacher takes her back in. Her same guest house is available.

While the demon sleeps, she can write. She can write all the shuddering confused violated adoration into a book and shut it away and sometimes she can listen to her teacher describing the synaesthetic spell-impressions even without hyperfocus. She learns to do everything, because she has no idea what she will have to do.

She's out in the forest on the second day, trying to make a berry bush yield fruits more to her taste and a different color and in a different season. It's difficult. Her demon-beloved is better at this; she's not sure if it's practice or a better match to his magic type or both. At any rate, her teacher will move on to the next spell when Isibel returns with an altered berry branch.
Edited 2013-04-12 22:12 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-12 10:15 pm (UTC)

With a unicorn's characteristic grace, Liselen bounds into view and stops next to the bush.

"Hi!" he says. "Are—I mean, it would be good to know that you're all right."

small_magics
2013-04-12 10:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't much care if you ask me questions, now," Isibel says. "I'm all right while my beloveds sleep."

pythbox
2013-04-12 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Liselen. "That's good, I guess. Um so anyway, the Wild Magic has a message for you, again! It says your magic and your Bonded's magic have to work together to stop whoever it is from calling up the Dark again. Which doesn't make much sense," he adds, "because isn't that the whole point of dragons already? I mean, here you are, doing magic, because of your Bonded."

small_magics
2013-04-12 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I have a co-Bondmate," explains Isibel. "If it were more specific, that would be more helpful."

pythbox
2013-04-12 10:27 pm (UTC)

Unicorns cannot exactly shrug, but Liselen tosses his head in a similar attitude.

"I'm not sure," he says. "I don't think I understand the message as well this time. I got the part about working together, but then there's a—like a blue flower made of light, but it smells like blood?" He shivers. "And some more stuff I don't understand at all."

small_magics
2013-04-12 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Elfspells are not always easy to describe without words designed for them. I may be able to receive instructions from my teacher about one that could be described as a blue light-flower that smells like blood," Isibel says. "I would hear of the other part of the message. If it was sent, it may be important to me, even if you don't understand."

pythbox
2013-04-12 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Um, okay," says Liselen. "But it was very unicorn, I don't think it'll make sense to you either. Unless you know what touching a clear well with your horn feels like. And I don't think you do."

small_magics
2013-04-12 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't," admits Isibel. "It is very puzzling indeed that something so specific to unicorns would be included in a message intended for me and my Bondmates."

pythbox
2013-04-12 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well, the message is getting sent by unicorn," says Liselen. "There's probably something I'm missing. I was probably supposed to interpret that part to mean something, like I did with the rest. Maybe it means everything will be fine after you and your co-Bonded do what you're supposed to," he says doubtfully. "But that sounds really redundant too, and I don't think the Wild Magic usually sends redundant messages. Especially not by unicorn."

small_magics
2013-04-12 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I could help you translate if I knew more about what it feels like to touch a clear well with one's horn," Isibel says. "Though I do not know to what extent it would admit description."

pythbox
2013-04-12 11:14 pm (UTC)

"It feels like... it feels right," he says. "Good. Purifying water feels good too, but differently. When the water's already pure, it's like... I don't know." He swishes his tail. "It's just nice. Are those berries any good, can I have one?"

small_magics
2013-04-12 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps the pure water represents something," suggests Isibel. "I have not finished the berries to my satisfaction, but they will not harm you if you would like a taste now."

pythbox
2013-04-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

Liselen nibbles up a berry.

"Tasty!" he declares. "Maybe you're right. But I don't know what it represents."

small_magics
2013-04-12 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Something that is - already pure, I suppose, or that might be expected to become impure but will not," Isibel speculates. "I am not familiar with whether it is likely to be a person, or a place, or an object..."

pythbox
2013-04-12 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know," says Liselen. "The idea is, by the time I really need to know it, I'm supposed to have figured it out somehow."

small_magics
2013-04-12 11:48 pm (UTC)

Isibel thinks. She tastes one of her berries, then tries her spell again.

Then she says, "My Bonded's other Bondmate is a benign demon. Perhaps it has to do with him."

pythbox
2013-04-12 11:49 pm (UTC)

Liselen prances sideways in surprise.

Then he says, "Wait, he's Tialle's Demon?!"

small_magics
2013-04-12 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Unless she had associations with more than one of them."

pythbox
2013-04-12 11:52 pm (UTC)

"There wasn't more than one of them that she liked," he says. "Oh, everything makes so much more sense now."

small_magics
2013-04-12 11:52 pm (UTC)

"The new sense that your message makes would be good hearing."

pythbox
2013-04-12 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, obviously it's supposed to tell me that he's really for sure not Tainted," he says, flicking his tail, "so I can vouch for him like Gramps did for Vestakia. Except less comfortably, because unless Tialle was way wrong about some stuff, he's still... um, you know... that other thing that makes unicorns twitchy."

small_magics
2013-04-12 11:58 pm (UTC)

"That is good to know," Isibel says. "...The part about him not being Tainted."

pythbox
2013-04-13 12:05 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Liselen. "Uh-huh. Definitely."

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:09 am (UTC)

"If there are other parts to the message that you have not related, I would help you with them if I can."

pythbox
2013-04-13 12:11 am (UTC)

He shakes his head. "Nope. Now that I know what it means, 'your Bonded isn't Tainted' is definitely the last one."

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:12 am (UTC)

"All right. He isn't Tainted. We must work together to defeat the threat. Thank you for telling me."

pythbox
2013-04-13 12:13 am (UTC)

"You're welcome!" says Liselen. "Good luck! Will I distract you too much if I stay here while you do magic to this bush?"

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:15 am (UTC)

"Not overmuch, no." Isibel does some more magic to the bush.

pythbox
2013-04-13 12:17 am (UTC)

Liselen watches. There isn't very much to see, but he seems content anyway.

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:18 am (UTC)

Eventually Isibel is done with her berries. She cuts a branch to bring back to her teacher, and picks a few to eat. "You're welcome to the remainder," she tells Liselen.

pythbox
2013-04-13 12:20 am (UTC)

"Thanks!"

Nom nom nom.

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:21 am (UTC)

Isibel returns to her teacher, presents the branch, and goes back to learning other spells.

endragoned
2013-04-13 12:22 am (UTC)

A day later, the demon wakes.

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:25 am (UTC)

Isibel notices.

She shrinks away - takes a moment of focus on her breath - emerges into equilibrium - and decides to go to where he is. Maybe she will feel more normal if they have a conversation out loud, maybe it will help.

endragoned
2013-04-13 12:27 am (UTC)

He snuggles up against the sleeping dragon.

Things are a little more muffled between them, with his dragon-self sleeping. A very little.

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:29 am (UTC)

Not enough.

She focuses on walking. She walks. She comes back into the world when she arrives.

"Liselen says you aren't Tainted," she says.

endragoned
2013-04-13 12:32 am (UTC)

"...I don't know if I believe him," he says. "I am a Demon."

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:35 am (UTC)

"He was very clear about it," Isibel says. "He said there was part of the message from the Wild Magic that he didn't understand, and -" And having a conversation out loud isn't helping very much, but she can focus on giving explanations, she's done that once before. Breathe, and - "- that it felt like dipping his horn into a clear well. He said it made sense after I told him that my co-bondmate was a demon. He asked if you were Tialle's demon, and I said you were, and he said that part of the message meant that you weren't Tainted, and he can vouch for you as Shalkan did for Vestakia, except less comfortably because you are not, for demonically unrelated reasons, fit unicorn company."
Edited 2013-04-13 00:37 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-13 12:39 am (UTC)

"He's right about that much," the demon sighs. "Oh, my love."

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:42 am (UTC)

Isibel isn't trying to read him.

This doesn't stop her from looking at her feet and clasping her hands and tearing up when he thinks of the reason he is unfit unicorn company.

endragoned
2013-04-13 12:47 am (UTC)

He hugs her.

It's not as though he wouldn't have - if he had ever met someone he wanted to be unfit for unicorns with, who also wanted to. But there has never been such a person. There has only been his life in Shadow Mountain, and the long years alone after that. And then the visit from all those dragons, but the demon was not physically a part of that encounter.

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:52 am (UTC)

Isibel's not sure how unicorn senses reckon that kind of thing, but certainly if he was already in a condition to discomfit Tialle when they met he still is now. She sighs and hugs him tight.

endragoned
2013-04-13 12:56 am (UTC)

"I love you so much," he says softly.

small_magics
2013-04-13 12:56 am (UTC)

"I love you too," Isibel murmurs.

endragoned
2013-04-13 12:58 am (UTC)

Maybe if he just - tries not to pay attention, tries very hard, tries not to think of anything at all except how much he loves her.

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:01 am (UTC)

If this is what it's like for them when she hyperfocuses, she can't think why they'd find it disconcerting. This is - nice. The comfort without the thing she needs comforting from.

She leans on him and closes her eyes.

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:02 am (UTC)

He loves her he loves her he loves her he loves her -

He can't do it forever. He can't even do it for a full minute.

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:09 am (UTC)

Isibel flinches back when he loses his concentration. But that minute was so nice. Healing.

She couldn't hyperfocus for long when she first started either. Maybe they can practice.

Of course - she's pretty sure she won't be able to get anything done while they're doing that - but through some combination of him concentrating and her concentrating they may be able to do what they have to do.

Which is, by the way -

"And Liselen says we both need to do something about the - whoever is bringing Darkness into the world. Together."

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:11 am (UTC)

"But he did not say what?"

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:13 am (UTC)

"No. Well, I'm sure he would have. The Wild Magic didn't tell him."

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:14 am (UTC)

"A mystery," the demon sighs. "Well, let's find out, then."

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:15 am (UTC)

"I don't know a spell to find whoever it is. My teacher thinks that if I could have delayed a season or two to Bond at all I can wait the extra moonturns to become proficient at Elfmagery and that this will give me a better chance of doing what I must when I do find the enemy."

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:16 am (UTC)

"I think you need a better teacher," says the demon.

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:20 am (UTC)

"I could look for another, but this one is willing to devote her time to me, and she is good at explaining the things she chooses to explain, and she might take offense and refuse to teach me more if I failed to find a better one."

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:22 am (UTC)

"Then... I don't know," he sighs. "I'm sorry."

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:23 am (UTC)

Isibel shifts from foot to foot. It's getting dark.

"I could sleep in my guesthouse," she says, "or - here."

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:24 am (UTC)

"I would like it, if you slept here," he says.

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:26 am (UTC)

"Then I will."

She leans on him and closes her eyes and tries to focus on the comforting love and not on the spying. She's not even thinking anything in particular that she cares about having read, right now, but she doesn't know how to make it less - not concentrating on that not concentrating on that, just on the warmth the love the sleepiness -

She sleeps, eventually.

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:31 am (UTC)

The demon curls up and holds her. All night. He spends the time practicing, to see how long he can go thinking about his love for her and nothing else.

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:32 am (UTC)

Might she find him mid practice when she wakes in the morning?

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:34 am (UTC)

She does, in fact!

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:35 am (UTC)

That is nice. Snuggle-snuggle-sigh.

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:36 am (UTC)

Oh, snuggles! He can snuggle without thinking. Just loving her, and touching her, and breathing the scent of her hair, and draping his wing over her like a leathery blanket. Just that.

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:38 am (UTC)

Nicenicenicenice. If it were like this all the time - well, she still wouldn't have wanted to Bond, she wanted to accomplish things with her life - but if it were like this all the time it wouldn't have frightened her so much.

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:42 am (UTC)

He notices 'nicenicenice', but he doesn't quite notice it all the way - he doesn't break out of focus, just wraps his arms around her and loves her some more, content in half-conscious sensual enjoyment of the fact that someone he loves is happy.

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:45 am (UTC)

Mmmmm.

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:47 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle snuggle love.

small_magics
2013-04-13 01:49 am (UTC)

She wonders how long he can do this, now.

endragoned
2013-04-13 01:51 am (UTC)

He is not doing it perfectly - he has thoughts, slow lazy things that dawdle across his mind, formless and wordless - but he manages it for a good while longer.

small_magics
2013-04-13 02:06 am (UTC)

When he's lost his hold, Isibel sighs. "I'll go to my teacher," she says. "And concentrate on magic."

endragoned
2013-04-13 02:07 am (UTC)

"I love you," he says, cuddling her a little more. "I'm sorry."

small_magics
2013-04-13 02:11 am (UTC)

"I love you too. I'm sorry too."

Hugs, and she withdraws and goes back to her instruction. She hyperfocuses through every explanation she gets and every spell she tries.
Edited 2013-04-13 02:11 (UTC)

what must i do?

small_magics

Isibel learns magic.

She learns a considerable amount of magic. She learns gates and vanishings and the elements and weather and (though she does not cast an example) earthquakes. She can bend plants and animals in the ways that she chooses. She can undo all of the effects that she can create.

Several of the subspells from all these disciplines could be described as looking like blue flowers made of light. None of them smell like blood. Perhaps that is something her beloved is meant to contribute.

The demon sleeps, and she writes and thinks and puts herself back together and tries to think of ways not to hate the reading. She is unsuccessful. The demon wakes and she shatters to pieces all over again, a little more than she can repair each time. She is unhappy, helpless, she's abusing hyperfocus like an addict and none of her ideas on how to tolerate detailed reading work. The demon practices his own sort of hyperfocus, and it's an emotional balm but doesn't leave her in a condition suited to think, and what she misses most of all is to think again. She can do a little while he sleeps. It's all crippled by the knowledge that any of the thoughts she tries to use again later may be spotted by her beloveds when they wake again. She can build herself back only so far between instances of destruction.

It's all right. Hyperfocus will patch her. She can do it for an hour and a half, then two hours, then three. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't anything.

And at last her teacher consents to teach her search spells.

One of them "looks like" a blue flower made of light.

It doesn't smell like blood.

She'll have to ask her beloved about that.

Isibel practices the search spells - none of them will show her where the would-be summoner of darkness is hiding - until the demon wakes again.

endragoned
2013-04-13 11:52 am (UTC)

The first thing he thinks when he wakes is, as ever, I love you. I'm sorry.

small_magics
2013-04-13 03:09 pm (UTC)

She loves him too. She's sorry, too.

She makes her way to where he and the dragon wait, and she shows him the blue-light-flower search spell, and how it comes up empty when it tries to find the Dark incursion for her.

endragoned
2013-04-13 03:17 pm (UTC)

He watches (and 'watches') her do the spell.

He says, hesitantly, "I think if I..."

and he reaches for her hand and shows her in his mind, how to fit his magic together with hers. His magic knows very well what the Dark is like.

small_magics
2013-04-13 03:19 pm (UTC)

...Now it smells like blood.

She assembles the components of the task in her mind. And she meditates into it. He's going to have to follow her timing because she can't match his; she'll go slow. Funnel the intention through the sense-memory -

endragoned
2013-04-13 03:24 pm (UTC)

- and the demon's magic comes with it, and the spell rushes together, and everything is yes yes yes there there there.

They have found the enemy.

small_magics
2013-04-13 03:25 pm (UTC)

She wakes.

They could simply go now. It is midday, she is not about to keel over from weariness. They could go and - do - something.

endragoned
2013-04-13 03:26 pm (UTC)

Kill whoever is trying to summon up the Dark, presumably. Unless Isibel would like to try reasoning with them. The demon is in favour of killing.

small_magics
2013-04-13 03:27 pm (UTC)

Isibel is not really in a condition to do any reasoning with anyone, however much she might rather it in principle.

endragoned
2013-04-13 03:29 pm (UTC)

They could hand the problem to someone else to solve, but Isibel's unicorn friend did seem to heavily imply that the Wild Magic prefers they do it themselves.

So, killing.

small_magics
2013-04-13 03:30 pm (UTC)

All right.

She can gate them there, now that she knows where they're going. Unless the enemy is as defended against gates as search spells and they must fly there.

Focus. Breathe. Cast -

endragoned
2013-04-13 03:37 pm (UTC)

The demon steps through the newly formed gate into a cramped little room containing a middle-aged human and an amazing number of books.

The human squeaks in surprise when he sees his unexpected visitor, and recoils, and he starts doing something and the demon doesn't know what it is but it smells like Shadow Mountain and he reaches over and picks the human up off the ground and bites his throat out and drinks his death like wine.

small_magics
2013-04-13 03:38 pm (UTC)

Isibel's hyperfocus expired when she completed the gate. She follows, and when the demon chooses this particular method of killing she shrieks and flinches away, but the taste is in her head -

endragoned
2013-04-13 03:45 pm (UTC)

And he doesn't just taste it with his tongue. To someone of his species, death itself is a delicacy, nourishing in a way nothing else ever is.

But as soon as Isibel screams, he drops the body on the floor and turns the blood to water and hugs her.

small_magics
2013-04-13 03:47 pm (UTC)

She shivers in his arms, focuses breathing-breathing-breathing, "wakes" calmer.

endragoned
2013-04-13 03:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, "I'm sorry, my love, I'm sorry."

small_magics
2013-04-13 03:49 pm (UTC)

"It's fine."

(It's not.)

"I'm okay."

(She's not. Although this is the least of it, if the most recent.)

(She can't even tell polite lies, not to him.)

endragoned
2013-04-13 03:59 pm (UTC)

"My love, my love," he says, wrapping his arms around her and crying softly into her hair.

small_magics
2013-04-13 04:02 pm (UTC)

She presses herself into the embrace.

Now what?

The Wild Magic needed her to - to combine with the demon's magic to find this person and then the demon killed him in a single strike. She didn't want a long, arduous quest - but this is anticlimax. This is what she effectively turned over her life to do? This is what she's cracking around the edges and deeper and deeper to have accomplished? This person would have been hard to find otherwise?

endragoned
2013-04-13 04:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, my love," he murmurs. "I don't know at all."

small_magics
2013-04-13 04:08 pm (UTC)

Isibel sighs. Is this really it - "Perhaps he had allies," she suggests vaguely, looking around, at the room, at the books. It's possible, isn't it?

endragoned
2013-04-13 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps he did. Perhaps we should find them."

small_magics
2013-04-13 04:18 pm (UTC)

She swallows, she focuses, she casts the finding spell again -

endragoned
2013-04-13 04:23 pm (UTC)

The demon links his magic to hers.

They find nothing. There is nothing to find.

small_magics
2013-04-13 04:25 pm (UTC)

She sighs. She slumps into his arms. She closes her eyes.

"That's it, then."

endragoned
2013-04-13 04:26 pm (UTC)

What should they do with... all this, he wonders. Burn it? Read it and then burn it?

small_magics
2013-04-13 04:30 pm (UTC)

Someone might find it useful. She supposes they should sort through it to see what's potentially hazardous.

endragoned
2013-04-13 04:32 pm (UTC)

Perhaps he can nap on the floor while she does that.

small_magics
2013-04-13 04:33 pm (UTC)

She starts reading when he falls asleep.

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:35 pm (UTC)

It seems the dead man was researching immortality.

small_magics
2013-04-13 04:36 pm (UTC)

And this earns him a posthumous and bitter laugh.

Did the immortality have much to do with the Darkness?

pythbox
2013-04-13 04:38 pm (UTC)

It didn't, until recently.

But once he found that lead, he dropped all the rest. Including some that were very promising.
Edited 2013-04-13 16:39 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

How nice.

She reads. Reading is the sort of thing she'll be able to do even when the demon wakes up; she's sure she could focus on it for hours at a time.

She doesn't really want to be immortal anymore - even a thousand years seems interminable - but perhaps someone else will want it, and it's not like she has other claims on her time.

pythbox
2013-04-13 05:55 pm (UTC)

He theorized that it may be possible to use the Art Khemitic, a disused sub-discipline of the High Magick, to create substances that heal the body more completely than any existing medicine. He also thought that the little-used ability of Elven Mages to alter plants and animals, creating new species at a whim, could be used to extend the lifespan of the briefer races - and maybe even of the elves themselves. But he despaired of getting them to cooperate, because surely some elf somewhere must have thought of this already in the thousands of years since they began having mages again.

small_magics
2013-04-13 07:41 pm (UTC)

Isibel knows for a fact that this is not true, that elves in general consider their bargain regarding their lifespans a done deal: their magic for their centuries, with the dragons something of a cheat. They haven't thought of it. She did, but was always too skittish around dragons to talk to Elfmages for long. Till recently.

She doesn't agree. Or didn't, anyway.

She's not sure now.

She reads.

pythbox
2013-04-13 07:46 pm (UTC)

The dead man's notes are full of similarly good ideas, and many less-good ideas that have been carefully preserved but ultimately discarded. He was a brilliant scholar.

The last thing he worked on involved using Elemental Darkness - in carefully controlled amounts - to counterfeit the immortality of the Endarkened. The quality of his notes deteriorates rapidly after the point where he first began toying with this notion.

small_magics
2013-04-13 07:50 pm (UTC)

Of course it did.

Oh well.

now what?

small_magics

Isibel gates the demon and all of the useful books except the parts about summoning Darkness (which she burns) into the cave where they've been sleeping.

She stays there. Their physical presence is a comfort; their mental presence works over arbitrary distances and at least they're not awake to read her.

She reads the books. Just for something to do.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:04 pm (UTC)

The current king of the elves is Andoreniel, named for his mother's father's father, and he is generally considered to be a wise and a just ruler.

He is also standing at the entrance to the cave.

small_magics
2013-04-13 11:08 pm (UTC)

"...I See you," Isibel offers.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I See you, Isibel," says the king. "It would please me immensely to know just when you planned to inform me that you had allowed one of our ancient Enemy to enter the Elven Lands."

small_magics
2013-04-13 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I - had not thought about it at all. I have been dreadfully preoccupied," Isibel murmurs. "With saving the world, and - the necessary precursors. We're finished with that now, though."

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I have heard something to that effect," he says. "Perhaps it would please you to tell me more."

small_magics
2013-04-13 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I - am unsure what you may have already heard."

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Then it might be best if you told me everything."

small_magics
2013-04-13 11:27 pm (UTC)

Isibel shrugs negligently.

She tells him about the expedition and the statues of Tialle and how she first found the demon, how he didn't hurt her, and showed her the dragon, from whom she ran; how he told her about the local poisons, how Magania corroborated his story. How she met Liselen later, and worked to learn hyperfocus, and came back to the island, and joined her Bonded, and how she studied magic, and how they found the summoner and how he has now been stricken from the lists of the living.
Edited 2013-04-13 23:32 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:34 pm (UTC)

Andoreniel listens gravely to this recitation.

At the end of it, he says, "And yet it seems to me that one task remains before the land will be free from Darkness once more."

small_magics
2013-04-13 11:36 pm (UTC)

Isibel takes a moment to parse that.

"Liselen says that my beloved isn't Tainted," she volunteers softly.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Liselen is the son of Kareta, and grandson of Shalkan, and I am sure that when he is grown he will be very wise," says Andoreniel. "But I have not heard that he has met your - beloved."

small_magics
2013-04-13 11:43 pm (UTC)

"That would not be a comfortable experience for Liselen. But he received a message from the Wild Magic about my beloved and relayed it to me, nonetheless," Isibel says.

She's still sitting on the floor of the cave. If she had the will to live still, perhaps she'd try to wake the demon and dragon, and gate away. Instead she's sitting here defending the right of a peacefully napping being to exist.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:49 pm (UTC)

Andoreniel nods regally.

There is a crashing in the underbrush, and Liselen bounds into view. He shoulders his way - twitching already - past the king and into the cave.

"Hi!" he says loudly. "So I heard somebody was trying to argue with a unicorn about who's Tainted, but that's not what's actually going on here, right, because the king of the Elves is really wise and stuff and not a total clod."

small_magics
2013-04-13 11:50 pm (UTC)

Isibel laughs, just a little.

pythbox
2013-04-13 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I do not say that you lie," Andoreniel says mildly. "I merely say that you may be... mistaken. And that if you are, it is far too high a price to pay."

"Nope," says Liselen.

And he makes his way shakily to the back of the cave, and flumps down next to the sleeping demon, and bends his head to lay his horn across the demon's scarlet neck.

It feels like dipping it in a clear well.

Nothing else happens.

small_magics
2013-04-13 11:57 pm (UTC)

"...But Tialle burned him," murmurs Isibel. "He bears the scar."

pythbox
2013-04-14 12:01 am (UTC)

"Something probably happened in the intervening ten thousand years," says Liselen, rising awkwardly. "And now I'm outta here."

He gets all four hooves under him and hurries out of the cave.

"...Well," says Andoreniel. "I stand corrected."

small_magics
2013-04-14 12:05 am (UTC)

Isibel nods. "I take it we may all three remain as we are."

pythbox
2013-04-14 12:07 am (UTC)

He surveys them for a moment.

"It is," he says, "not my royal command, but my royal suggestion, that you bring your beloved to the house of a suitable clothier. In all other respects, yes."

small_magics
2013-04-14 12:10 am (UTC)

"He doesn't want clothes," Isibel says absently.

pythbox
2013-04-14 12:11 am (UTC)

The king sighs.

"Then I suppose he does not need them."

small_magics
2013-04-14 12:11 am (UTC)

She nods.

pythbox
2013-04-14 12:15 am (UTC)

The king nods back.

He leaves.

small_magics
2013-04-14 12:16 am (UTC)

Isibel curls up with her beloveds and closes her eyes.

endragoned
2013-04-14 12:43 am (UTC)

Eventually, the demon wakes.

small_magics
2013-04-14 12:44 am (UTC)

Isibel relates the conversation with king and unicorn.

endragoned
2013-04-14 12:46 am (UTC)

He sighs, and hugs her.

"I wish you had let him, my love," he murmurs.

small_magics
2013-04-14 03:52 am (UTC)

"I didn't - try very hard. The Wild Magic went to some trouble to see that you were allowed to live," she murmurs. "Perhaps it is necessary." She lifts her hand, lays it on his face. "And I love you."

endragoned
2013-04-14 11:50 am (UTC)

"I love you," he echoes, cuddling her. "I don't want you to hurt."

small_magics
2013-04-14 03:44 pm (UTC)

She snuggles up. He's so warm.

"There are times when you sleep and times when I'm focusing and times when you're focusing, and then I don't hurt, and maybe I'll - get used to it, somehow - and even if I don't, in a thousand years I'll be gone and you can go on without me and I won't hurt at all."

endragoned
2013-04-14 04:02 pm (UTC)

Blinking back tears, he settles a wing around her and kisses her forehead.

small_magics
2013-04-14 04:41 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

She barely thinks of anything, now. Maybe that's how it will stop hurting. She'll flinch away from thinking until her brain stops trying to do it.

endragoned
2013-04-14 04:47 pm (UTC)

No. That is no good at all. He loves her mind, every piece of it, he just - wishes he could love it from farther away.

small_magics
2013-04-14 04:49 pm (UTC)

She's not sure she knows how to put it back together again now anyway.

endragoned
2013-04-14 04:51 pm (UTC)

Her beloveds could help... but of course that's the problem, isn't it?

He sighs, and cuddles her, and stops thinking. It's easy enough by now to do nothing but snuggle.

small_magics
2013-04-14 04:54 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. Thoughtless comfortable snuggle.

ultimate twin sacrifice motion, set up!

incanted

Bella spends much of the flight from Phoenix wishing that she had not been able to convince Lexi to come with her.

Of course it would have been pointless if they didn't both go; the idea is to give Renée freedom of movement, and she'd be nearly as likely to stay home with one daughter as with both. So Bella worked on Lexi, and Lexi agreed, and they presented a united front, and now Bella has to actually move to Forks. At least there's only another year and a half before she can abscond to college and go wherever she wants. (She hopes Lexi will come too, but of course there's no guarantee they'll go to the same college, even though their school grades are about comparable.)

They're in all the same classes here even though they weren't in Phoenix. This is just as well; they naturally divide introduction duties between themselves, explaining each other's nicknames as need be to anyone who refers to the one of them while addressing the other ("No, she goes by Bella." "It's not Alexandra, it's Lexi.") and swap interlocutors when one of them has an interest that matches better up with the other sister. They're going to wind up sharing the same circle of friends, but by the end of the day it's clear that Jessica and Mike are going to be mostly Lexi's, and Angela and Eric are going to be mostly Bella's, and that's assuming they stick to the people who most friendly-like introduced themselves on day one. They aren't allowed to pair up in bio with each other ("you should make friends here!" the teacher encourages), so Bella gets Angela and Lexi gets a random boy who doesn't seem to want to be friends outside of class. In gym, Lexi makes Bella's excuses for her, and Bella is allowed to sit out. Bella wouldn't have wanted to try to explain her issues with gravity and her own limbs without an obviously un-self-interested twin to run interference. She probably would have had to bring in her freaking medical records. Bella spends gym class on a mat stretching and doing bodyweight exercises while Lexi plays basketball. Lexi's not exactly an athlete, but she's not an ambulance ride waiting to happen either.

At the end of class, Bella offers to run both of their paperwork to the office when Lexi says she wants to catch a ride to Jessica's house and get caught up in Government. Bella prefers to work out of the textbook and doesn't want to accompany her; she'll hit the office then drive their shared beat-up old-new station wagon (thanks, Charlie!) home and Lexi can get a ride home in time for dinner from Jessica's mom.

Bella folds up the mat, and a pair of scuffed old playing cards falls out. She picks them up - what, did someone play Go Fish on this mat and never bother collecting their jokers? - pockets them to toss later, and puts away the mat.

cardistry
2013-04-09 11:57 pm (UTC)

As she is putting away the mat, a voice says, "Hey! You!"

There is no one else in the gym.

Also, the voice is coming from her pocket.

incanted
2013-04-09 11:58 pm (UTC)

Well, hold on just a second, ventriloquists exist and Bella doesn't have magic person-sensing powers. She looks around for likely hiding spots. "What?" she asks.

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:03 am (UTC)

There are probably places in this gym that a person could be hiding.

Her pocket sighs.

"Where do I even start," it says musingly. "Um, if you don't help me out somebody's going to blow up your planet, and it might be soon? Actually, before I get into that, you should probably go somewhere that nobody's going to overhear us."
Edited 2013-04-10 00:03 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-10 12:05 am (UTC)

"Where are you?" Bella asks, peering behind the rack where the mats hang out and finding no one.

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:06 am (UTC)

"Right here!" the voice snaps, and the jokers wiggle impatiently in her pocket.

incanted
2013-04-10 12:07 am (UTC)

Bella's hand slaps down over her pocket in startlement. She waves the hand around, looking for strings. She doesn't find any.

She says, "I need to drop some things off at the office. Then I'm going to sit in my car and figure out if there's any reason I should be having a psychotic break right now."

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:08 am (UTC)

"Great," the voice sighs. "Sure, okay."

And it shuts up.

incanted
2013-04-10 12:11 am (UTC)

Bella drops off her and Lexi's papers at the office, doing an admirable job of sounding like she is not concerned about her mental health.

She picks her way across the icy parking lot. She sits in her car. She pulls out her notebook, and confirms her memories of the day.

There's - really nothing. She didn't even make a note to tell somebody about suspicious black mold in a bathroom or anything. She supposes lunch could have been poisoned, but she's otherwise completely fine, not even dizzy.

"I'm tentatively going to operate under the assumption that some playing cards I picked up are talking to me," Bella says, taking them out of her pocket and setting them on the dashboard. "What, under this hypothesis, do those playing cards have to say?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:17 am (UTC)

"Believe me," the voice sighs, "I know it must sound crazy. But I swear it's true. I'm a small part of an ancient magical weapon forged on another world. The rest of the weapon is under orders to destroy any planet it finds that doesn't belong to the people who made it, and the people who made it are all dead. If it can convince somebody with magical potential to pick it up and use it, it'll crack this place like an egg."

incanted
2013-04-10 12:20 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella. "What does this have to do with me specifically - is it just that I picked you up? Why aren't you on board with the program if you're part of the same weapon? How did you split up? How did you and it get here? How common is magical potential? Where is it? If I pick it up and continue to adamantly not want Earth destroyed will that do the trick or can it get around that?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:24 am (UTC)

"Magical potential is rare on this planet," says the pair of jokers, "but you have it, and I think somebody else around here does. I'm talking to you because you have it, and I know you do because you picked me up. I can feel it. Do you really want storytime or do you want me to tell you how to stop the rest of me from blowing up your planet?"

incanted
2013-04-10 12:27 am (UTC)

"...Tell me what that would consist of," Bella says. "But the hypothesis that some cards I picked up in gym are talking to me doesn't logically imply that those cards aren't liars - a liar? - a fraction of a liar? - and it also isn't a hypothesis I totally buy, so if the steps involve, like, smothering kittens, that's not happening without extremely convincing storytime."

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:34 am (UTC)

"Okay," says the pair of jokers. "It's simple. You pick me up and hold me and accept me as your weapon, there's some snazzy special effects, then I do a search spell and we go find the rest of me and overwhelm it with magical damage until it shuts down. I'm pretty sure if I reintegrate at that point, I can rip the program out by the roots, and then there's no more problem and you can go back to whatever you were doing when I said hey."

incanted
2013-04-10 12:36 am (UTC)

"Can I get my sister to sanity-check me - will she be able to see the special effects?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:37 am (UTC)

"Anybody can see the special effects."

incanted
2013-04-10 12:38 am (UTC)

"Okay. What's the approximate percent risk per hour of someone else finding the rest of you?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:43 am (UTC)

"I have no idea," the voice says promptly. "I think I felt another magical signature around here somewhere today, and last I saw it about a year ago, the rest of the deck was still in this town; it doesn't move around as easily as I do. So there's somebody wandering around that it might be able to use, and they might find each other any minute, but as to when that'll be or if it'll even happen, your guess is just about as good as mine."

incanted
2013-04-10 12:46 am (UTC)

"This doesn't, like run in families or anything, does it?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:47 am (UTC)

"Man, do I look like a genetics expert?" it demands.

incanted
2013-04-10 12:57 am (UTC)

"You look like the discard pile for a game of gin rummy," Bella says. "How the hell should I know what you're an expert on? I'm calling my sister, I'll pick her up, we'll do special effects, if they happen we'll go from there." She pulls out her phone and starts dialing.

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:59 am (UTC)

The pair of jokers laughs good-naturedly.

incanted
2013-04-10 01:03 am (UTC)

The phone rings, and rings, and Lexi doesn't pick up. Bella flips her phone closed. "She must be busy. Or she let it die again. Homeward, I think. Have you got a name?" she asks, buckling her seatbelt and turning the keys in the ignition.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah," it says, in dare-you-to-comment tones. "Brilliance."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:06 am (UTC)

"I'm Bella," says Bella. She has no idea why he'd use that tone of voice; it's not like she has any idea what constitutes a normal name for a deck of cards. She pulls out of the parking lot. "If you can rip out the program that destroys planets, why didn't you do it before?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:09 am (UTC)

"...I honestly have no idea how to explain," says Brilliance. "Your language doesn't have words for it. I'm not sure there's a language that does. Uh, let's try... it was supposed to be a part of me I could never remove. Until we split apart, it was. Now that we're apart, I can't take back the part of me that it stole unless I beat it up a whole lot first, but once I do it should be weak enough for me to wipe it out."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:12 am (UTC)

"As long as we're waiting for Lexi to confirm that I don't belong in a padded room, let's have some storytime," Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:17 am (UTC)

Brilliance sighs.

"Sure," it says. "So once upon a time, there was a bunch of pretty nasty people who wanted an indescribably powerful magical weapon. They made me. Trouble is, indescribably powerful magical weapons can think for themselves, and I do more of that than most of us. They weren't so keen on that part, so they had all kinds of ways to keep me in line. One of them was just jamming a control program directly into my mind."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:19 am (UTC)

"Well, that sucks," says Bella. "...What do indescribably powerful magical weapons do when they have their control programs ripped out at the roots, dare I ask?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:27 am (UTC)

"Never met another one," it says. "Me, I have no idea. I just know I really don't want to destroy another planet."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:28 am (UTC)

"...Another planet."

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:33 am (UTC)

"Remember how I said the people who made me were all dead?" it says flatly. "Their other favourite way to control me was torture. One day somebody forgot to lock down my power output while they were at it. I blasted the planet in half."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:35 am (UTC)

"...How inhabited a planet are we talking about here?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:37 am (UTC)

"Probably a couple thousand people," he says. "I never met most of 'em; they kept me at the bottom of a deep dark hole. It wasn't populated like this world or some of the others I've seen. Think that's why they set up shop there."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:37 am (UTC)

"And you killed them all."

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:43 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "And I'm not sorry. But I'll be happy if I never have to do it again."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:44 am (UTC)

"Christ."

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:49 am (UTC)

"What?" says Brilliance belligerently. "It happened centuries before you were born, so even if you have a brilliant idea about how else I could have gotten loose, it doesn't make any difference now."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:54 am (UTC)

"You just told me you killed a whole lot of people, and you're telling me I need to do stuff or more people will die," Bella points out, "I don't hear that every day."

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:56 am (UTC)

Brilliance sighs.

"Sorry," it says. "It's not news to me, and I've never tried to explain it to somebody before."

incanted
2013-04-10 01:58 am (UTC)

"How did you and the rest of you get here?" Bella asks tentatively.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:59 am (UTC)

"When I'm all together, I can use dimensional transfer and teleportation magic."

incanted
2013-04-10 02:03 am (UTC)

"And you land yourself on inhabited planets? Or the rest of you does."

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:10 am (UTC)

"I tried staying away from inhabited planets. But the program could use my dimensional transfer magic too if it managed to take over, and if I go too long without hearing somebody else talk, it starts winning. I need to be near people."

incanted
2013-04-10 02:11 am (UTC)

"And I'm the first person to pick you up?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:12 am (UTC)

"The first person who had any magic in 'em. I was avoiding people like you before the split."

incanted
2013-04-10 02:14 am (UTC)

"What would've happened if someone like me had grabbed you before then?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:15 am (UTC)

"Well, for one thing, they could torture me anytime they wanted if they figured out how to use that system."

incanted
2013-04-10 02:16 am (UTC)

"Most people don't torture other people given the chance," Bella points out. "Or destroy planets," she feels compelled to add.

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:19 am (UTC)

"...That's not a good reason to risk it," he says. "What I'm trying to do right now, that's a good reason to risk it. 'Well, they might not feel like torturing me' really isn't."

incanted
2013-04-10 02:21 am (UTC)

"I'm not going to torture you," volunteers Bella, "or destroy the planet."

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:24 am (UTC)

"Great," says Brilliance. "Glad to hear it. So when can we go find the rest of me?"

incanted
2013-04-10 02:32 am (UTC)

"I told you, I want to see if Lexi can see the special effects before I go around doing anything weirder than talking to a couple of playing cards. Why do you even look like playing cards?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:34 am (UTC)

"Fuck!" yelps Brilliance. "Forget that, somebody found the rest of the deck! We need to get there right now!"

incanted
2013-04-10 02:37 am (UTC)

"I have no idea if I'm sane!" exclaims Bella. "I - shit - there -" There's someone pulled over on the highway; she pulls over behind him. "What do I do, we'll see if this random dude can see it and get going," she says.

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:38 am (UTC)

"Pick me up and hold me, I'll do the rest," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-10 02:39 am (UTC)

She scoops him up off the dashboard and reaches for the door handle.

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:44 am (UTC)

Her clothes glow—brilliantly—in a riotous swirl of every possible colour. The light shifts, morphs, and fades in the course of a second or two, and she is left wearing... different clothes.

Also, the pair of cards has transformed into a sinuously curved staff with a pair of wings at one end that morph into twin embossed spirals running almost its entire length.

incanted
2013-04-10 02:45 am (UTC)

"Did you see that?" she shouts at the random pulled over dude.

He nods, white-faced. "What the fuck?" he offers in a high gasp.

"Good. Brilliance, you're gonna have to navigate," she says, slamming the car door shut, "I have no idea what I'm doing."

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:49 am (UTC)

"On it," says the staff. "I don't even have to search, the little shit put up a barrier."

There is a many-coloured glow from beneath the car - it seems to be some sort of rotating figure, but the details are hard to make out - and their entire surroundings shift until, car and all, they're sitting out front of Jessica's house.

so there was this deck of cards, right

lexicality

Jessica's house is cute. Lexi could see doing a lot of her homework here, listening to the calming chatter of gossip and getting help from Jessica on math (Bella's no help there) and helping Jessica on English. Forks isn't so bad. She doesn't mind the rain as much as Bella does.

Jessica goes to pee before they even start their assignment, after just introducing Lexi to her mom and dad as "one of Chief Swan's kids", and Lexi doesn't want to do work by herself or she wouldn't have come over in the first place. She sits on the couch and plunks her bag down and waits. There's a random deck of cards over there; she picks it up and flips through it. She's been trying to learn to bridge-shuffle.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:03 am (UTC)

"Hello," says the deck of cards, in a slightly robotic voice.

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:04 am (UTC)

Lexi blinks. She looks around for an electronic device of some sort that could've said that.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:05 am (UTC)

The deck unshuffles itself.

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:07 am (UTC)

"Eep!" exclaims Lexi in a soft voice. It probably won't even carry to Jessica's parents, who are out in the back garden, let alone Jessica herself in the hall bathroom.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:10 am (UTC)

"I contain limitless power," it says in that same slightly robotic monotone.

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:11 am (UTC)

"You're a deck of cards," objects Lexi. "You're talking, and you're a deck of cards."

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:12 am (UTC)

"I am a magical artifact," says the deck of cards. The cards tuck themselves back into the pack, and the whole thing scoots toward her.

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:14 am (UTC)

"Bella will just flip," predicts Lexi, and she scoops up the cards into her hand.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:18 am (UTC)

"To activate limitless power," says the deck, "speak the activation password."
Edited 2013-04-10 01:19 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:19 am (UTC)

"The activation password?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:28 am (UTC)

"The activation password is: Of my own heart and will, I choose to command you."

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:29 am (UTC)

"I dunno, maybe I should wait for Bella," says Lexi.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:34 am (UTC)

"I contain limitless power," it reminds her.

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:36 am (UTC)

"Yeah! She'll know what to do with it," says Lexi. "She'll flip, like I said, I think maybe she should have you."

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:37 am (UTC)

"To activate limitless power, speak the password."

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:38 am (UTC)

"I told you I wanna wait for Bella," says Lexi.

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:39 am (UTC)

"You have the potential," it says.

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:41 am (UTC)

"Does Bella not?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:41 am (UTC)

"I do not know," it says. "You have the potential. Many people do not."

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:43 am (UTC)

"Well, can't you check her when I go home later?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:45 am (UTC)

"To speak with you takes power," it says. "If you accept me, we will have more power."

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:47 am (UTC)

"...Wait, didn't you say limitless, how does more limitless even be an option?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:47 am (UTC)

"I contain limitless power," it says. "Without a master I cannot use it."

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:49 am (UTC)

"Right, I think Bella would be a good master for limitless power, if I had it instead she'd want to tell me what to do all the time."

cardistry
2013-04-10 01:57 am (UTC)

"If you do not accept me," it says, "you will not have limitless power."

lexicality
2013-04-10 01:59 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I know, that's the idea, I want Bella to have it instead, I'll go home in like an hour and a half and then I'll give you to her."

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:01 am (UTC)

"If you do not accept me, you will not have limitless power. It takes power to talk to you. I cannot sustain this for long. If you do not accept me, you will not have limitless power."

lexicality
2013-04-10 02:03 am (UTC)

"You can't sustain this for long? Like, you can't wait an hour and a half for Bella?" asks Lexi.

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:06 am (UTC)

"I cannot wait."

lexicality
2013-04-10 02:08 am (UTC)

"Not even like five minutes?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:10 am (UTC)

"I cannot wait," it repeats.

lexicality
2013-04-10 02:12 am (UTC)

"Oh, geez, okay, I hope Bella doesn't guilt me about starving orphans and cancerous grandmas every single time I want to do something fun - Of my - I need the phrase thing again?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:13 am (UTC)

"Of my own heart and will, I choose to command you."

lexicality
2013-04-10 02:14 am (UTC)

"Of my own heart and will I choose to command you," parrots Lexi.

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:16 am (UTC)

The pack of cards begins to glow with a bright white light.

Then, so do all of Lexi's clothes.

"Initiating unison," says the voice of the deck.

lexicality
2013-04-10 02:17 am (UTC)

"What's that?" asks Lexi.

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:23 am (UTC)

"We will be magically linked," the deck explains. It hovers in front of Lexi for a moment, and then disappears.

Half a heartbeat later, so does Lexi.

She is suspended weightlessly in the middle of a blank black void, lit in colourless greys by a sourceless light.

The voice of the deck says, filling the entire infinite space, "Unison complete."

lexicality
2013-04-10 02:24 am (UTC)

"Is this part of the limitless power thing? I need to go talk to my sister," Lexi calls into the void. "Where am I?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:26 am (UTC)

"I contain limitless power," says the voice.

It sounds... faintly amused.

lexicality
2013-04-10 02:27 am (UTC)

"You said that already, you said I was going to have it, how do I use it?" Lexi complains.

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:35 am (UTC)

"You are using it right now," the deck says uncomfortingly.

incanted
2013-04-10 02:52 am (UTC)

Bella pushes the front door to the house open.

cardistry
2013-04-10 02:55 am (UTC)

The house appears completely deserted, except for a human-looking figure with bright white hair sitting on the living room couch. He jumps up, startled.

"Grab him!" hisses the staff. "If we do this in here we'll blow the roof off and there's probably people in it outside the barrier!"

incanted
2013-04-10 02:57 am (UTC)

Bella makes a disgruntled noise and lunges forward, seizing the white-haired guy by the front of his shirt.

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:05 am (UTC)

The white-haired guy flails a little, and then the same rotating figure appears on the floor below them - two counter-rotating stars in a circle in two counter-rotating pentagons in another circle - and their surroundings blur, and they are in the middle of a forest, and the staff twists in Bella's hand to point at the white-haired guy's midsection and yells, "Fuck you!"

A blast of energy in the same every-colour as the staff's other magic lances out of it and slams into their opponent, knocking him loose from Bella's grip and propelling him twenty feet backward through one and a half trees. (The first disintegrates on impact; the second only cracks in half.)

incanted
2013-04-10 03:06 am (UTC)

"...Now what?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:12 am (UTC)

The stranger gets back up.

"Now we hit him again," says Brilliance, letting off another energy blast. "You can fly, by the way, that's probably gonna be important when he starts hitting back."

incanted
2013-04-10 03:13 am (UTC)

"How do I fly?" exclaims Bella. There's little color-feathered wings extending from her heels like she's Hermes, but she can't feel them to even try flapping.

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:17 am (UTC)

"Try wanting to," Brilliance snaps, and then the distant figure glows brightly and Brilliance hauls himself forward and fires another 'Fuck you!'.

incanted
2013-04-10 03:18 am (UTC)

"I do want to!" shrieks Bella, trying to help out by aiming him so he doesn't have to wrench around in her hand like that. "I'm not going anywhere!"

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:20 am (UTC)

"Did you pick a direction? 'Up' is a good place to start!"

Half a beat, and then another "Fuck you!" and another blast. It's unclear whether the words are some kind of incantation, or purely decorative.

incanted
2013-04-10 03:21 am (UTC)

Bella wants to go up.

She shoots into the air, and has a moment's trouble controlling her speed, but after that it's like she was born to fly, and she's navigating quite handily, maintaining line of sight and aim while declining to present a still target.

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:22 am (UTC)

Brilliance heaves a sigh of relief.

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!"

It's probably an incantation.

incanted
2013-04-10 03:24 am (UTC)

Bella's certainly not going to interrupt him to ask. She flies. She points Brilliance at the rest of himself.

She didn't recognize Jessica's house, since she's never been there, so she isn't wondering where Lexi is.

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:28 am (UTC)

In spare seconds between mystical profanities, Brilliance explains, "He talked somebody into unison. There's someone else in there. If we hit him hard enough to knock him out, they'll separate."

incanted
2013-04-10 03:29 am (UTC)

"Will they be okay?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:33 am (UTC)

"Probably," says Brilliance. "Except for the part where they almost helped destroy their own planet." And, yelled at the distant figure, "Fuck you!"

incanted
2013-04-10 03:34 am (UTC)

Bella continues her fly-aim-fly-aim pattern. "Should I be doing anything I'm not?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:35 am (UTC)

"I'm getting about two percent of the power output I'm used to," he frets. "I don't know what's wrong, but - it would probably help if you cast some of these with me. Sorry about the incantation," he adds.

incanted
2013-04-10 03:36 am (UTC)

"I'll deal. FUCK YOU!" she hollers at the planet-destroying white-haired dude.

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:39 am (UTC)

This time, the blast of energy is much thicker and brighter, and leaves a deep scar in the earth where it strikes. The trees are also taking a serious beating.

"That's more like it," says Brilliance with satisfaction.

incanted
2013-04-10 03:40 am (UTC)

Bella flies forward to relocate the blasted opponent. "Where are we?" she asks.

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:43 am (UTC)

The white-haired dude rises up out of the blasted dirt. He looks kind of pissed.

"I don't know," says Brilliance. "Still on Earth. The farthest from bystanders that a short-range transport spell could take us."

incanted
2013-04-10 03:44 am (UTC)

"Fuck you!" Bella incants at the white-haired dude, and then she circles around to get him again from another angle. "Fuck you!"

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:48 am (UTC)

The white-haired dude manages to let off an answering energy blast.

"Shield!" says Brilliance, and the counnter-rotating circled pentagrams appear facing the blast. It pushes the shield back a few feet in the air, and Bella and Brilliance with it, but doesn't break through.

incanted
2013-04-10 03:50 am (UTC)

"Fuck you fuck you," mutters Bella, zooming faster, since it doesn't seem to matter how loudly or enthusiastically she says it and since she's getting the hang of aiming, "fuck you."

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:53 am (UTC)

The first two don't manage to knock the white-haired man out of the sky.

The third one does.

incanted
2013-04-10 03:55 am (UTC)

Bella zips forward and aims Brilliance straight down.

"Fuck. You."

cardistry
2013-04-10 03:59 am (UTC)

The blast pins the white-haired figure against the ground.

When the multicoloured glow fades, the white-haired dude glows white all over, and then the white collects into a small rectangular shape that rises up out of - someone's - chest. The light fades; the shape is a pack of cards.

incanted
2013-04-10 04:07 am (UTC)

Bella descends.

And she recognizes a face.

"Lexi!" she cries. "Lexi - Lexi -" She lands, drops Brilliance, and falls forward onto her knees to lean over her sister.

lexicality
2013-04-10 04:08 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Lexi, dazed. "I found you. I was looking for you. I found a pack of cards that said it had limitless power. And I thought that sounded like something you should have."

incanted
2013-04-10 04:09 am (UTC)

Bella sobs and pulls her twin up into a hug.

lexicality
2013-04-10 04:10 am (UTC)

"You're dressed funny," observes Lexi. "And I thought I'd wait and bring you the cards - but it said it couldn't wait - so I figured I'd take it and then I'd let you boss me except on weekends - but then turned out I didn't know how to drive the thing."

incanted
2013-04-10 04:11 am (UTC)

"Lexi, there is some seriously screwed-up magic crap going on," says Bella, "is why I'm dressed funny - and why didn't you call me?"

lexicality
2013-04-10 04:12 am (UTC)

"I figured you'd be driving, by then," Lexi blinks. "...The car, I mean, not the limitless power."
Edited 2013-04-10 04:12 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-10 12:02 pm (UTC)

Brilliance, meanwhile, shifts from a staff back into a pair of jokers and tucks himself into the rest of the deck.

It glows white; the white glow cracks and shatters and falls away; it glows in Brilliance's every-colour instead.

"Fuck, that's better," he sighs. "Thanks, Bella."

The glow fades, leaving the deck a different colour from when it started - black and white reversed, a magician's deck. The front of the pack says 'Ghost'.
Edited 2013-04-10 12:38 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-10 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Did you fix the programming issue?" Bella asks him.

lexicality
2013-04-10 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Programming... issue?"

incanted
2013-04-10 04:01 pm (UTC)

"I don't completely understand it myself, but Brilliance here is some kind of magic weapon, he comes apart, the part with a personality isn't on board with weapon-ing but it got split, I found the personality and you found the rest."

lexicality
2013-04-10 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I guess that explains why it talked like a robot?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Brilliance. "No more nasty control program. I'm freeeeeeeeee," and the deck leaps up into the air and flies around in a gleeful circle.

lexicality
2013-04-10 04:47 pm (UTC)

"But, I wanted to give Bella limitless power so she can feed cancerous grandmas and heal starving orphans or whatever," says Lexi, "was it lying, or what?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 04:49 pm (UTC)

"...Yyyyes and no," he says, halting in midair. "It wasn't lying about having the power, just about letting you use it."

lexicality
2013-04-10 04:53 pm (UTC)

"So... now you have it?" Lexi asks. "What're you going to do with it?"

incanted
2013-04-10 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I second that question," Bella agrees. "Especially since I'm still dressed up like I'm going to an anime convention."

cardistry
2013-04-10 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Uh... nothing?" says Brilliance. "I'm pretty much gonna do nothing with it? If you wanna change back, I can do that," he adds. "Or you can. Just - want your old clothes back, like you wanted flying."

incanted
2013-04-10 04:57 pm (UTC)

"...Will I still be able to fly if I do that?" Bella wants to know.

lexicality
2013-04-10 04:58 pm (UTC)

"What, he doesn't get a lecture about Using His Power For Good, like I did every time we played superheroes starting from when we were six?" Lexi says.

incanted
2013-04-10 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure he's designed to destroy shit. 'Nothing' is next best," Bella says quietly.

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:04 pm (UTC)

"You can still fly without the Barrier Jacket, but it's harder," says Brilliance. "With me you kind of get flying for free. ...Uh, not that I'm inviting lectures or anything, but technically my magic can be used for things other than wrecking shit. Yours too. I mean, I'm supposed to be a weapon, not a healing device, but I'm also not supposed to kick the shit out of myself and break my control program, so..."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Would you be willing to teach me and Lexi how to use our own magic, before you go find a comfortable place to do your nothing in?" Bella asks.

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know how to use your magic," he says. "...But I've probably got a better guess than you do. Okay, maybe."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Also, we'd appreciate a ride home," Bella adds. "...Or back to wherever you put our car. I guess that's Jessica's house."
Edited 2013-04-10 17:09 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sure," says Brilliance.

The rotating figure appears on the ground beneath them, and their surroundings blur, and they are back out in front of Jessica's house.

lexicality
2013-04-10 05:15 pm (UTC)

Lexi sticks her head in the front door. "Hi, Jessica! Um, a thing came up, Bella showed up to get me, sorry I disappeared but I had to talk to her, I gotta go, I'm sorry!" And she grabs her bag and ducks out over Jessica's confused spluttering.

incanted
2013-04-10 05:16 pm (UTC)

"You wanna drive?" Bella asks.

lexicality
2013-04-10 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I'll drive," Lexi says, hopping into the relevant seat, "you geek out with magic with your new superweapon."

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:17 pm (UTC)

Brilliance sighs and tucks himself into Bella's pocket.

incanted
2013-04-10 05:18 pm (UTC)

Bella has quietly willed herself back into her normal clothes while Lexi was making excuses to Jessica, and does now in fact have pockets; she climbs into the passenger seat. "So - why the profane incantation?" she asks. "Where'd that come from? Where do incantations in general come from?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Spells are named the first time you use 'em," says Brilliance. "And if you don't make an incantation on purpose, it ends up being something you were thinking or saying at the time."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Did you make that one up today or did you already have an energy blast spell when I found you?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Made it up today," he says. "I've got other energy blast spells, but I didn't use any of 'em."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Are either me or Lexi in any danger of accidentally casting spells?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Uh... maybe? I don't really know," he says. "Probably not big ones. But if I were you I wouldn't go around wishing really hard for somebody to take a lightning bolt to the face unless you actually wanna throw one."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:28 pm (UTC)

"But not just by talking; if I decide to curse someone out I'm not going to knock them through a wall with pretty colored lights? It'd be a wished-for result?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he agrees. "I can say 'fuck you' until my cards turn white again and nobody's gonna get blasted unless I'm trying for it."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So spells happen if magic people want stuff enough - then why haven't we ever cast things before?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Maybe because it's way harder without a device," he says, "I know that's true. Maybe because you didn't want things enough, or didn't want them the right way, or didn't know you could do it."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:34 pm (UTC)

"What do devices do to make it easier? And is there someplace we can go get them? Ones that don't have other plans, I mean."

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Not this planet, that's for sure," he says. "I've felt other devices around, but never more than a handful at a time, and I'm pretty sure they were just visiting."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so we get to do without at least till we manage to travel between planets. Is that generally pretty doable or are we going to be stuck?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea," he says. "It's easy for me. But I'm not, you know, hugely keen on meeting anybody who manufactures devices for a living, considering what my manufacturers thought of me."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Are they all intelligent?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes... maybe? Kind of? Depends what you mean by intelligent. I mean, at one end there's me, and at the other end there's what amounts to a baseball bat that takes voice commands."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's kind of - dodgy, I guess, but I'd be surprised if literally all of them resented what they do."

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:50 pm (UTC)

"The more powerful the device, the more it can think for itself," says Brilliance. "At least, I'm pretty sure. I haven't met that many devices."

incanted
2013-04-10 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Are you really going to go find someplace to hang out and do nothing?" asks Bella after a silence.

lexicality
2013-04-10 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh, so you are gonna lecture it," snorts Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-10 05:57 pm (UTC)

"No. Well. Not very much. But if it's that dramatically easier to do magic with device help, and if they're hard to come by and potentially resentful anyway, it's worth trying to talk one into it."

cardistry
2013-04-10 05:58 pm (UTC)

"...I dunno," Brilliance admits. "I mean, the one thing I know for sure I wanna do with my future is not blow up any inhabited planets; past that, I haven't really thought about it much."

incanted
2013-04-10 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, for the short term, it's very kind of you to help us figure out the magic we command ourselves, anyway."

lexicality
2013-04-10 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Can we magic our homework done, that would be cool, I was going to do mine with Jessica but then stuff happened."

incanted
2013-04-10 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I really don't know - what sorts of things can magic do?" Bella asks Brilliance.

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Probably not your homework," snorts Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-10 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but in general - conjure stuff out of nothing? You set up a shield during the fight; can that scale? Last a long time? Could I power generators with slightly more controlled magic energy blasts if I learned enough electrical engineering?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't know everything magic can do," says Brilliance. "And I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. What would you do with a magical shield that lasted a long time? Use it as an umbrella?"

incanted
2013-04-10 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I'd be safe in war zones with a persistent shield, if I decided to fuss with those instead of working on peaceable stuff. And did you mention healing spells - how good are those, how long do they take?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Um, depends?" he says. "Pretty good, I guess. Better than what this planet's got, as far as I can tell. And you'd be prety safe in war zones with just your Barrier Jacket."
Edited 2013-04-10 18:11 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-10 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm concerned about scale, if I spend sixty hours a day just healing people that's a lot of people but it's not going to add up to as many as I'd like. Barrier Jacket - that's the magical girl getup with the dress and the footwings and the little cape and the armwarmers and stuff?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Brilliance. "It'll stand up to a lot, especially with me behind it."

incanted
2013-04-10 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Why does it look like that?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Barrier Jackets are kind of like incantations," he says. "If you're trying for something when you make it, that's what you'll get, and if you're not then it just... ends up being something."

incanted
2013-04-10 06:19 pm (UTC)

"...Well, I didn't know there was anything to try for, but you did," Bella points out as Lexi pulls the car into the driveway and they both hop out.

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:19 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't really thinking about designing a great set of clothes at the time," he says. "Turned out pretty good, though, didn't it?"

incanted
2013-04-10 06:20 pm (UTC)

"At least it has reasonable coverage, I wouldn't want to be going around like Wonder Woman trying to get people to aim at defended spots two inches across."

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's not how it works," says Brilliance. "Well, it is and it isn't. How much of you it covers is related to how strongly defended you are, but you could take a 'fuck you' to the face in that thing and walk away. It'd hurt, but it wouldn't kill you."

incanted
2013-04-10 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Can I switch outfits without you helping?" Bella asks.

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:30 pm (UTC)

"...Kinda sorta," he says. "The Barrier Jacket's another thing you get for free through me that you could probably manage on your own but it'd be harder and I wouldn't know how."

lexicality
2013-04-10 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I think you should keep it, Bella, sounds super-handy," opines Lexi, flopping onto the couch.

incanted
2013-04-10 06:33 pm (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes and heads upstairs to their room. "So - basically - how do spells work? How are they fueled, how are they constructed and directed?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:37 pm (UTC)

When Lexi says 'I think you should keep it', Brilliance shudders in Bella's pocket.

He doesn't answer her question.

incanted
2013-04-10 06:41 pm (UTC)

"You okay?" Bella asks, taking him out of her pocket.

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Not really," he says, his cardboard surface still trembling a little.

incanted
2013-04-10 06:44 pm (UTC)

She puts him on her side of the two-chaired desk she and Lexi share. "What's wrong?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:47 pm (UTC)

"I really don't like it when people talk about me like I'm a - thing," he says. "I really don't like it."

incanted
2013-04-10 06:48 pm (UTC)

"...So, male pronouns, then?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "I don't really care which ones as long as they're ones you use for people."

incanted
2013-04-10 06:52 pm (UTC)

"The rest-of-you looked like a guy and the voice you have sounds like a guy's," Bella observes. She shouts down the stairs. "Hey, Lexi, Brilliance says he's a he!"

lexicality
2013-04-10 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Whatever!" Lexi shouts back.

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," snorts Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-10 06:57 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," sighs Bella. "Were you going to tell me how quick healing spells are? Or don't you know?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know, and I think it depends, and I don't really know what it depends on."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I guess I've got a research project. What's the simplest spell you can think of that I might conceivably want to do here in my bedroom, so I can practice doing magic at all without you - doing whatever it is you did?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Um... Shield, maybe?"

incanted
2013-04-10 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I just - try saying it and wanting it, to start?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

incanted
2013-04-10 07:12 pm (UTC)

Bella shuts her eyes, and wants. She learned her lesson from the flying, so she's very specific; she wants a shield to appear just exactly here.

"Shield."

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:13 pm (UTC)

And there it is, in Brilliance's glowing rotation of colours.

incanted
2013-04-10 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Does all magic look about like this?" she asks.

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:16 pm (UTC)

"...Huh?"

incanted
2013-04-10 07:18 pm (UTC)

"The colors, the design. It's pretty. Why does it look like that, or can't you see when you're a deck of cards?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh," he says. "The colours are mine. I guess you picked that up from me. People's mana colours sync to their devices sometimes, or the other way around, if the match is good. The design is mine too, but that comes with the spell; if we learned a spell with a different style, we'd get whatever its design was when we used it."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Where does one get spells? Are they so easy to make up that I don't need to worry about it or does it make sense to trade spells with other - magic people? What am I exactly?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:26 pm (UTC)

"You're a magic person, I guess," says Brilliance. "I dunno."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:28 pm (UTC)

"What, there's not a word for magic people? And what about where I get spells, do you not know?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:34 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what you mean by where you get them. I know where I get them - I make them, or somebody installs them, or I copy them from somewhere - but you're not a device, I don't know if you work the same way."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, I can clearly do a shield, did I just - download all your spells when I was dressed up or something?" she asks quizzically.

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:36 pm (UTC)

"I think it's only the ones we used," he says.

incanted
2013-04-10 07:37 pm (UTC)

"What other ones do you have?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Mostly ones you don't want me using in here unless you really hate your walls," he says. "A couple searches, I guess."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:41 pm (UTC)

"What can you search for?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:42 pm (UTC)

"People I've met. Things I've seen. Nearby magic."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:43 pm (UTC)

"That sounds really useful. I guess I could test the hypothesis that I only got the spells we used while I was in costume, if you'll tell me the incantation for one of those?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "'Area Search'."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:46 pm (UTC)

"What all do I need to have in mind? The thing I'm looking for - anything else?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Nope, that's about it."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:48 pm (UTC)

Bella decides to see if she can "find" Lexi. "Area Search."

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:50 pm (UTC)

Nope.

incanted
2013-04-10 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Nothing. Is there some step I could've missed or do I just not have it - installed?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, looks like you just don't have it," he says. "Look - Area Search."

A small blob of multicoloured light rises out of the deck and darts over to hover in front of Bella.

"Try it again, see if you picked it up just from watching me do it."

incanted
2013-04-10 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Area Search," Bella attempts, still looking for Lexi.

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:05 pm (UTC)

She produces a little multicoloured blob of light that flits away in search of her sister.

incanted
2013-04-10 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Cool. So spells are contagious," she says brightly.

lexicality
2013-04-10 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Bella, is this blob of light yours or the device's?" calls Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-10 08:07 pm (UTC)

"It's mine! I'm learning spells!" Bella calls.

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:20 pm (UTC)

"You can make it go away," says Brilliance helpfully, dispelling his.

incanted
2013-04-10 08:21 pm (UTC)

Bella wants-it-away, and it stops feeding her information. "Can I make those invisible?" she asks. "Or are they all glowy?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I've never done an invisible one," he says. "You could wrap it in a barrier, I guess."

incanted
2013-04-10 08:24 pm (UTC)

"How do those work?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:40 pm (UTC)

"You remember when we went in that house and there was nobody there, even though there were people there? That's a barrier," he explains. "People and magic inside it can't see or touch people and magic outside it or vice versa, but stuff like houses and tables is still in both. If there was a way to put a kind of - one-way barrier around a search spell, then most people wouldn't see it running around. I guess anybody who's good with barriers could still tell."

incanted
2013-04-10 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Is there an incantation for barriers?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:42 pm (UTC)

"You can do 'em without," he says. "Well, I can."

incanted
2013-04-10 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Okay... how do I do them, then?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Want one," he suggests.

incanted
2013-04-10 08:44 pm (UTC)

"If I want it around a finding spell, do I do the finding spell first or second?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Good question," he says, "never done it, no idea, maybe you have to do them both at once?"

incanted
2013-04-10 08:49 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, I guess if I'm doing the barrier without an incantation that's not physically impossible." She focuses on her more complicated want. "Area search."

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:50 pm (UTC)

There's a feeling like a word being just on the tip of your tongue, and no spell.

incanted
2013-04-10 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I - feel like I almost did it. Is that what being about to make up a new spell feels like? Should I come up with a new incantation?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Try that!" he says encouragingly.

incanted
2013-04-10 08:54 pm (UTC)

"...Invisible Search," she attempts.

cardistry
2013-04-10 08:57 pm (UTC)

The little blob forms, and seals itself inside a mirage-like distortion in the air, and darts off. By the time it reaches the hall, it's completely invisible, but still transmitting its location to Bella.

incanted
2013-04-10 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Cool!" She dismisses it again; she is already pretty confident about Lexi's location. "Okay, is there a spell to fly without you helping, I want to be able to do that."

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," he says. "I wouldn't even know where to start, though. I can fly naturally."

incanted
2013-04-10 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Lucky you." Bella closes her eyes and tries just wanting in an upward direction, like she did when she had the aurora-colored wings at her heels.

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:02 pm (UTC)

This does not work.

incanted
2013-04-10 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Well," she says, "just wanting doesn't do the trick. Maybe I can make up an incantation for it. Does it have to be one that isn't - already in use somewhere?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Nope, doesn't matter," he says.

incanted
2013-04-10 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Flight," says Bella insistently.

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:20 pm (UTC)

Her feet acquire little sprays of multicoloured light-feathers.

incanted
2013-04-10 09:21 pm (UTC)

"This feels - effortful. Not a lot, just like - carrying a fork across the room or something, but I notice it," says Bella, hovering slightly and peering at her footwings. It doesn't seem to matter how she moves her actual feet; the mana-feathers are largely cosmetic additions.

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I like the feathers," says Brilliance. "Yeah, like I said, with me you get it for free. By yourself it takes effort."

incanted
2013-04-10 09:24 pm (UTC)

Bella settles back to the floor and dismisses the spell. "Uh, am I likely to, like, run out of - something? And fall out of the sky?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Mana," says Brilliance. "And I dunno, probably not unless you flew for six hours straight, but unless we're linked I can't actually tell exactly how much you've got."

incanted
2013-04-10 09:27 pm (UTC)

"You didn't check when we were? Or did that not qualify as linking, what's linking?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Sure I did," he says, "I just can't feel it now. I don't know, there's different things you might call 'linking', the kind I meant is what happened when I put you in your Barrier Jacket."

incanted
2013-04-10 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Is my mana supply not the sort of thing that will be about the same from occasion to occasion?" she asks. "Barrier Jacket," Bella adds, want-saying experimentally.

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:39 pm (UTC)

No fancy outfit appears.

"I don't know how much you used up doing those search spells, or how fast you use it up with the flying."

incanted
2013-04-10 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Would you object to checking for me? I'd rather not crash."

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Sure, no problem," he says. His cardboard surface glimmers. "Looking pretty good - try flying again?"

incanted
2013-04-10 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Flight."

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you've got about three hours of flying in you at that rate," he says.

incanted
2013-04-10 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Does it matter how fast I go, or how high up, or is that all free with maintenance cost? Where does more mana come from?" she asks, touching down and turning off the flight spell.

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:56 pm (UTC)

"More mana comes from you!" he says. "It generates faster when you're not actively using any, and I think fastest when you sleep - I don't exactly sleep, so I'm just guessing about that one."

incanted
2013-04-10 09:58 pm (UTC)

"You don't ever seem to answer more than one question at a time," Bella observes, and she gets a notebook to write down questions she accumulates so she won't forget them even if asking them all as she thinks of them isn't going to work. "Is flying faster or higher than just a little off the ground free with maintenance mana?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Brilliance. "Serious speed boosts take more mana even when you're getting the flying for free, though."

incanted
2013-04-10 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Would that be the sort of thing I could do accidentally just by trying to fly really fast or would I be doing a separate speed-boosting spell?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," he says.

incanted
2013-04-10 10:03 pm (UTC)

"...How long do you think you'll want to hang around here, I need to know how aggressively to prioritize."

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:04 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

"Man, I have no idea."

incanted
2013-04-10 10:05 pm (UTC)

"More or less than a week?" she tries.

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says fretfully.

incanted
2013-04-10 10:07 pm (UTC)

"So you might fuck off any second and maybe I should cut school tomorrow?" hazards Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't - I - maybe," he mutters.

incanted
2013-04-10 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I should maybe cut school tomorrow? Because learning magic is a higher priority than school in the short term but I wouldn't do it if you were going to be here for a month because it'd make Charlie somewhere between worried and mad and probably wouldn't do my academic prospects any favors and I don't yet know if I'm going to wind up with enough magic to make school redundant."

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:17 pm (UTC)

Brilliance sighs.

incanted
2013-04-10 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay, if you have no schedule and will produce none, me and this notebook are going to spend ten minutes prioritizing - unless there is a significant risk you will decide to flee to Beijing or wherever in the next ten minutes - and then we can see about making the most of the time you've got to spend on me?" Bella says, tapping up the notebook she's been writing her questions in. She tucks her feet between herself and the desk chair and starts scribbling.

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:31 pm (UTC)

He stays quiet.

incanted
2013-04-10 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Have you been on Earth long?" she asks conversationally while she's drawing arrows between and numbering various questions.

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh... probably a hundred years or so," he says vaguely. "I wasn't really counting."

incanted
2013-04-10 10:51 pm (UTC)

"No wonder you weren't substantially baffled by anime references." Write write.

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, seen some of that," he says. "It's amazing all the shit you pick up as a pack of cards."

incanted
2013-04-10 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I guess Lexi found you in Jessica's house? How are you even hearing anything? Do you see? Smell? Feel?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "I don't know, how do you hear anything? I hear stuff by hearing it."

incanted
2013-04-10 10:57 pm (UTC)

"I hear stuff with my ears. If something went wrong with my ears, I couldn't hear anymore," says Bella. "You don't have ears."

cardistry
2013-04-10 10:59 pm (UTC)

"That's weird," he says. "I hear stuff with magic."

incanted
2013-04-10 11:04 pm (UTC)

"If something went wrong with your magic would you not be able to hear anymore?" inquires Bella, still scribbling away with most of her attention.

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:08 pm (UTC)

"...I think that's kind of like asking you 'if something went wrong with your body would you not be able to hear anymore?'," says Brilliance. "I mean, yes? Maybe? Kind of? Depends what? But that is not the likeliest problem. I don't really have likely problems; I'm supposed to be indestructible."

incanted
2013-04-10 11:09 pm (UTC)

"You come apart," she points out. "What happens if someone separates your cards in any of various possible ways?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:10 pm (UTC)

"As long as I'm not frantically pushing myself apart from the inside, nothing," he says.

incanted
2013-04-10 11:12 pm (UTC)

"So if Jessica played solitaire with you and lost the ace of spades down an air vent or whatever this basically had no effect."

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:16 pm (UTC)

The ace of spades slides out of the deck, flies across the room, and teleports back with a quick flash of Brilliance's spell-circle.

"Nope."

incanted
2013-04-10 11:20 pm (UTC)

"And I'd ask what happens if somebody bent or tore a card but if you might decide to go check out Mexico City or some completely other planet any second now," she says, putting her pencil down, "that's not where I wanna start; it's pretty generous of you to stick around at all now that the world is apparently no longer in danger of losing structural integrity. So what I want to know about is scaling. Can I give magic-ability to other people?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-10 11:34 pm (UTC)

"But I can find other people who already have it with search spells, that's a parameter it can do."

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-10 11:36 pm (UTC)

Bella is taking diligent notes. "What'll happen if I run out of mana, besides my spells quitting on me?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:36 pm (UTC)

"No idea! Probably won't kill you, probably won't be fun."

incanted
2013-04-10 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Do you know why my Barrier Jacket didn't appear when I tried to do that on my own?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm not even sure that spell's possible without a device. I don't know why, besides that it's just - devicey."

incanted
2013-04-10 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Oof. Okay. How much mana does it take, relative to what I've got, to travel to other planets - and are they habitable to me?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:46 pm (UTC)

"You could do it," he says. "I don't know what your limit's like, but you've got a round trip in you and then some. I don't know what makes a planet habitable to you, but there's plenty more worlds with humans on 'em."

incanted
2013-04-10 11:47 pm (UTC)

"How does one aim that kind of thing if one has not been to other planets before?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:51 pm (UTC)

"No idea," he says. "Me, I just use random dimensional transfers and then store the coordinates of anywhere I wanna go back to, but I don't know how to give you those."

incanted
2013-04-10 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I've seen your teleport spell now, so I should be able to do it; what are the parameters that need to get specified there?"

cardistry
2013-04-10 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Um... where-ness?" he tries.

incanted
2013-04-10 11:57 pm (UTC)

"I mean can I input things like 'the easternmost point of North America' or 'an unobserved part of a randomly chosen ice cream parlor that's open right now' or 'wherever Renée is', or do I have to know - latitude and longitude, or do I need to have been there, or do I need to know how far I'm going in what direction from my starting position, or what?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:04 am (UTC)

"Uh, okay," he says. "Short-range teleportation spells will take criteria like those first ones - I did one to take us as far from people as possible. But they won't take you to another planet; I'm not even sure they'd get you to another continent. Dimensional transfer and long-range teleportation need something more precise. Coordinates aren't relative to your starting position. I can feel coordinates, and I'm pretty sure you can't, so I genuinely have no idea how to get you to work a dimensional transfer spell that's not random. And the random ones will take some environmental parameters, but I don't know what all the parameters are for an environment that won't kill you on the spot."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:08 am (UTC)

"Has to be close to one atmosphere of pressure - not sure how close - and within a certain temperature range and have oxygen and nothing toxic in the atmosphere and not be too full of radiation and have enough room in my landing spot for me to physically fit. Ideally it would also not blind or deafen me with excess light or noise or tear me apart with wind or projectiles or anything like that. I probably don't want to trust my life to my ability to list those sorts of things completely. What about 'has humans present' - or, no, if I can't do a nonrandom one I might never get home again, right?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:12 am (UTC)

"I don't have a random dimensional transfer spell that'll teleport to somewhere with humans," he says. "Doesn't mean one doesn't exist. I wonder if you could make a shield that'll cover for the environmental stuff? I bet you could."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:16 am (UTC)

"Do you think I'd have to come up with an exhaustive list of 'environmental stuff' or is magic smart enough to cover for little gaps?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:17 am (UTC)

"I think a shield could cover for the little gaps much better than a random dimensional transfer," he explains.

incanted
2013-04-11 12:18 am (UTC)

"And I guess I could stress-test it against some conditions by hopping to, like, Antarctica, or the upper atmosphere, where I can teleport or fly out if I have sudden reason to regret my decision. What's my mana recovery rate like?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:21 am (UTC)

"Well, you're not back up to what you had before the fight yet," he says, "but you probably will be by tomorrow."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:22 am (UTC)

"Can you by any chance express that in terms of a percentage or made-up units of some kind?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:24 am (UTC)

"I could if I'd been paying more attention. If I see what your full mana level's like and remember it, then I can start talking in percentages."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:26 am (UTC)

"Well, hopefully you'll still be here tomorrow when it's back up to baseline," Bella says. "I'll try to avoid doing any but the most critical-to-supervise experiments till then. Much as I'd like to just draw a barrier around myself and go flying just for fun."

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:28 am (UTC)

He giggles.

"I'll stay the night," he promises.

incanted
2013-04-11 12:29 am (UTC)

"Thanks!" She peers at her notebook. "Any tips on figuring out healing spells?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:33 am (UTC)

"No idea," says Brilliance. "Never tried one."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:34 am (UTC)

"Okay, but generally, what could go wrong if I start groping around blindly there, am I going to wind up giving people I'm trying to help diseases or killing them or whatever or will it just not work if I don't have it right?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:36 am (UTC)

"It might do something weird but it won't do something harmful unless you mean it to," he says. "I think."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:37 am (UTC)

"What does 'weird' mean here?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:39 am (UTC)

"Weird," he says. "Unpredictable. Unexpected."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:40 am (UTC)

"I didn't -" She sighs, and stops, and says, "I would like examples, if you can think of some."

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:41 am (UTC)

"I've never seen a healing spell go wrong and I have no idea what it would look like, I just know that if you're trying to heal, you're not going to accidentally blast somebody's head off or something."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:45 am (UTC)

"I'm sort of concerned about, like - cancer. If I want to grow an amputated hand back it seems like a related, but in fact harmful, effect, might be some kind of cancer."

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:47 am (UTC)

"...I'm not sure," says Brilliance. "I don't really know how you biological people are put together."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:48 am (UTC)

"Badly," says Bella dryly. "The rest of you was shaped like a dude..." This isn't on her priority list, but Brilliance said he'd stay overnight; she can relax a little.
Edited 2013-04-11 00:48 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:51 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "I have three forms; that's the one with the highest power output. But it's just shaped like a dude, it doesn't really work like one."
Edited 2013-04-11 00:52 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-11 12:53 am (UTC)

"How come we were able to beat it up if it's higher-power, was I just contributing that much mana or something?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:56 am (UTC)

"The control program wasn't really meant to run all my functions by itself," he says. "Without me in there it was kind of stupid. I think it was having a hard time deciding between killing us first and blowing up the planet first, so it couldn't really manage either one."

incanted
2013-04-11 12:57 am (UTC)

"It was smart enough to possess my twin," mutters Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:59 am (UTC)

"All that took was getting her to say the activation password. And I bet it wasn't even all that good at that."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:00 am (UTC)

"It did sound like she was arguing with it for a while until it told her it was a limited-time offer." Pause. "Can you possess people when you're all together, like it did Lexi?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:05 am (UTC)

"...It's not really possessing," he says. "But yeah, I guess I see why you'd call it that. Sure I can. Nobody who's not my wielder, though, which means - just you."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:05 am (UTC)

"Uh, so is there a phrase I should learn to avoid ever, ever saying?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:11 am (UTC)

"...No? Well, yes, but that's a separate issue, and anyway incantations don't work if you don't mean them, and you said you wouldn't torture me."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:13 am (UTC)

"...I'm not going to torture you," agrees Bella. "I don't know what that has to do with my question. And I don't think Lexi meant to get possessed, so obviously the meaning-it thing is a little flexible."

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:19 am (UTC)

The deck of cards shifts a little on the table.

"It's like this," he says. "The activation password linked them up enough that the control program could engage unison. There's more than one kind of unison, but the kind it was using is supposed to be for if the wielder is too hurt or unconscious or whatever to stay in the fight, and the device has to take over. You're already my wielder; if you say the activation password to me, all you get is a Barrier Jacket. If you want unison, I can do that, but even though I could do it any time I felt like it, I'm not going to unless you ask."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:20 am (UTC)

"I appreciate that. What does the other kind of unison do? Kinds? When might I want it?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:24 am (UTC)

"Unison has the highest possible power output," says Brilliance. "There's pretty much two kinds. One way is like you saw, and the other way it's the wielder whose face is showing and the device is just... backgrounded. If you wanted to do really big magic - especially if you wanted to fight against somebody who was actually hitting back - unison would be a good idea."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:26 am (UTC)

"Noted. Not that I should be predicating any plans on you sticking around, I think you've made it pretty clear you're not looking for a permanent arrangement and I only got spoken to at all because the world was going to end. Is there going to have to be some kind of complicated wielderhood-dissolution incantation to get you disentangled or is is that optional?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:27 am (UTC)

"...I don't know," he says uncomfortably.

incanted
2013-04-11 01:27 am (UTC)

"Are you hooked up to Lexi at all still since she was unisoned with the control program part?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:29 am (UTC)

"Nope."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:29 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:32 am (UTC)

"That went away when I ripped out the control program."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:33 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. Is it going to be a problem that you don't know how to unwielderify me? Like, it would suck if that turns out to be fatal, or something, I would really rather live forever. Speaking of which if you happen to have tips on designing a spell for that I would be much obliged."

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:35 am (UTC)

"Uh," he says. "I don't think being my wielder would be fatal. Why the hell would that be fatal?"

incanted
2013-04-11 01:38 am (UTC)

"I mean ceasing to be your wielder, since if I understand right you don't exactly have any way to know either way given how your last relationship in that category ended," Bella says. "If we try to hack together something to detach you from me so you can go off doing whatever, the detachment sounds like it might in theory not be great for my health, although I am pretty much just making paranoid guesses - actually, I'm not clear on what me being your wielder does besides give me some ethically dubious access privileges and a Barrier Jacket?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:41 am (UTC)

"...Access privileges in both directions is pretty much it," he says. "And the Barrier Jacket. And the stuff we can do with those access privileges, like unison."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:42 am (UTC)

"I would really like to know what access privileges those are, especially anything you can do to me and anything I could conceivably do to you by accident."

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:47 am (UTC)

"I can engage unison, put your Barrier Jacket on, put your Barrier Jacket away, and if I'm in staff form or unison I can draw on your mana to cast spells," he says. "I don't think there's anything you could do to me by accident. You could torture me but you'd have to be trying."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:50 am (UTC)

"Trying as in really, sincerely trying trying or do I need to be very careful about managing fits of pique?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:53 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he says, "do your fits of pique usually involve wanting people to suffer? I mean really wanting it, wanting it the way you have to want to fly in order to fly, specifically."

incanted
2013-04-11 01:54 am (UTC)

"Fleeting moments of it. Nothing deliberate, nothing I ever let go anywhere, but going anywhere usually means, you know, moving, speaking, not just wanting a certain amount. I think you're safe if it's like wanting to fly. I'll be careful."

cardistry
2013-04-11 01:58 am (UTC)

"There's an incantation too," he says. "But I don't really wanna tell you what it is."

incanted
2013-04-11 02:00 am (UTC)

"Not something I'm likely to say in casual conversation and spook you into wrecking the planet?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 02:01 am (UTC)

"I don't spook that easy," he says. "And it's not a hugely common word or anything, it's not, like, 'pants'."

incanted
2013-04-11 02:01 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "Okay."

cardistry
2013-04-11 02:02 am (UTC)

Brilliance laughs, too.

incanted
2013-04-11 02:03 am (UTC)

"It would be weird if it were pants. Although for that matter, why would any of your original spells be incanted in English? You've only been here like a hundred years, you said."

cardistry
2013-04-11 02:06 am (UTC)

"They're not," he says. "But I pick up languages by magic, and part of getting a language is knowing what all my incantations translate to."

incanted
2013-04-11 02:07 am (UTC)

"Whoa, can I learn to do the languages thing too or is that strictly a Device thing?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 02:08 am (UTC)

"No idea."

incanted
2013-04-11 02:09 am (UTC)

"Well, can you tell me about how you do it?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 02:11 am (UTC)

"...Magic? It's not a spell I cast or anything, it's just part of being me."

incanted
2013-04-11 02:12 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Bella enviously. "What other perks do you get?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 02:13 am (UTC)

"...I dunno," he says. "I don't exactly keep a list of things I can do that might make humans jealous."

incanted
2013-04-11 02:21 am (UTC)

"Stop me if this is a personal question, but you have all these magic-based senses - what does it feel like to be all the three shapes you can be? I just can't even imagine it but maybe you can describe it since there's three of them? If they're different to you, maybe they're not."

cardistry
2013-04-11 02:25 am (UTC)

"It's different," he says. "I get a lot of extra information when I'm, uh, dude-shaped. Staff form is kind of halfway in between - I get the finer details on my magical senses, but not the complex tactile stuff."

incanted
2013-04-11 02:25 am (UTC)

"You seem to prefer the deck of cards for just sitting around in," Bella observes.

cardistry
2013-04-11 02:29 am (UTC)

"Deck of cards is easier to fit places, easier to hide as, and it doesn't get uncomfortable," he says. "And I can't directly use most of my big destructive spells like this, so for a while there I stayed this way as much as I possibly could, just to keep that extra step in there."

incanted
2013-04-11 02:31 am (UTC)

"Solid plan, I approve," says Bella. She peers at her question list; it's dwindling and he said he'd stay overnight. "...Hey, um, is there any lingering damage from most of you getting blasted like twelve times? You sound fine, but you're being all deck-of-cards shaped, so I don't really know how to tell. I don't even know if I'd be able to tell if you were being dude-shaped, maybe you don't have automatic body language or anything."

cardistry
2013-04-11 12:08 pm (UTC)

"Nope, I'm fine," he says cheerfully. "I mean, it hurt, but magical damage is good like that, it can hurt and knock you out and you'll be fine in ten minutes."

incanted
2013-04-11 03:27 pm (UTC)

"I... guess that's convenient? I'm sorry it hurt."

cardistry
2013-04-11 03:29 pm (UTC)

"It's fine," he says cheerfully, "I've had way worse."

incanted
2013-04-11 03:30 pm (UTC)

"...Ah. Yeah."

cardistry
2013-04-11 03:30 pm (UTC)

"And, you know... thanks."

incanted
2013-04-11 03:32 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-11 04:12 pm (UTC)

He shifts a little on the table.

incanted
2013-04-11 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Does that mean anything when you slide around like that? Or - wiggle or whatever?" Bella asks.

cardistry
2013-04-11 04:13 pm (UTC)

"...maybe. I dunno. It doesn't mean a specific same thing every time."

incanted
2013-04-11 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Should I be interpreting that last little shift as anything?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 04:24 pm (UTC)

"I'm - kinda nervous," he admits.

incanted
2013-04-11 04:25 pm (UTC)

"What about?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I just - I get lonely, and I don't want to be, but I'm afraid of people, and I don't think I want to go but I'm afraid to stay, and really I'm kind of a mess," he says.

incanted
2013-04-11 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going to hurt you," Bella volunteers after a silence.

cardistry
2013-04-11 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's good," he says. "I even believe you. I'm just not sure I believe that I believe you."

incanted
2013-04-11 04:56 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not sure if that makes any sense," says Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-11 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't think you're going to hurt me," he attempts to explain, "not on purpose anyway, but the way I feel when I think about sticking around is still the way I'd feel if I wasn't sure."

incanted
2013-04-11 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Hmm." Bella leans back in her chair. "I'm pretty good at picking apart my own feelings but I don't know if I'd be any help with yours."

cardistry
2013-04-11 05:18 pm (UTC)

"...Dunno what I think of that," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-11 05:21 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "It's nothing spooky, I just write about what I'm thinking in a notebook and then it's all laid out to look at, not so slippery. If you want to turn into something that can write and borrow a notebook you can do that, but I don't think it usually accomplishes anything for people who aren't me for some reason."

cardistry
2013-04-11 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, doesn't sound like my game," says Brilliance. "I don't know... if I did stick around, I mean for a while, if I wanted to be - partners, what would that be like?"

incanted
2013-04-11 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I'd ask you lots of questions about magic," Bella says. "And do experiments to fill in what you didn't know. And try to figure out the most efficient way to be constructive with it. And probably eventually I'd look for other magic people and ask them questions, and I'd try to find a Device who'd partner up with Lexi so she could help more effectively, and maybe look for other magic people who'd be on board with the general program. Also I'd try to become immortal."

cardistry
2013-04-11 06:16 pm (UTC)

"That... doesn't sound so bad," says Brilliance cautiously.

incanted
2013-04-11 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I'd hope not," says Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-11 06:20 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

incanted
2013-04-11 06:23 pm (UTC)

"But then again I don't know what your other options look like. Maybe you don't want to be busy, or you'd get sick of doing science to magic after a few days, or you do like to be busy to the point where you'd be annoyed by downtime caused by me having to sleep and attend school and stuff."
Edited 2013-04-11 18:24 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-11 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know how I feel about being busy," he says. "I think I'd be fine as long as I could take a break whenever I wanted."

incanted
2013-04-11 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I'd take it amiss if I were all out of my own mana and a mile in the air and you took a break right then," Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-11 06:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm not gonna drop you," he giggles. "I'd at least get you home first."

incanted
2013-04-11 06:45 pm (UTC)

"So for reasonable values of 'whenever', yeah, of course."

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-11 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Cool. I guess I don't have to fake sick tomorrow," says Bella. "Where do you want me to stash you overnight? It'd be weird if it was in our room."

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Would it?" he says. "I dunno."

incanted
2013-04-11 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Well," she says, "you can see, right? We're going to change into our pajamas at some point."

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Oh," he says. "Okay, now that you mention that, it's kind of weird."

incanted
2013-04-11 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Exactly. So I could put you on the bookshelf in the living room maybe, I don't think Charlie will notice you?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay, sure," he says.

incanted
2013-04-11 07:34 pm (UTC)

Bella scoops him up, then pauses. "Would you rather fly there yourself? I don't know how you feel about being picked up in general."

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I feel okay about you picking me up," he says.

incanted
2013-04-11 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Not Lexi?" hazards Bella, heading for the stairwell.

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:37 pm (UTC)

He shudders a little. "Not Lexi."

incanted
2013-04-11 07:38 pm (UTC)

Bella goes down the stairs, one hand around Brilliance and the other on the banister. "I'd get a lot of attention if I took you to school and tried to talk to you there," she muses. "Hey, Lexi, I don't know if you were going to, but don't pick up Brilliance, okay?"

lexicality
2013-04-11 07:39 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't gonna touch it. Him," says Lexi. "I don't even want limitless power anyway. You're carrying him."

incanted
2013-04-11 07:40 pm (UTC)

"I -" Bella shrugs, summarizes. "Don't count." She tucks Brilliance in a space on the bookshelf between one of Charlie's photobooks of fish and the DVD copy of The Wizard of Oz.

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Comfy," says Brilliance. "If you wanna talk to me not-out-loud, there's a way to do that."

incanted
2013-04-11 07:43 pm (UTC)

"What is it?" Bella asks, plopping beside her homework-occupied twin on the couch.

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:47 pm (UTC)

"You just... want the words at me," he says. "Like you're going to say them, but instead of speaking you send them with magic. Barely costs a sneeze of mana, you'll regenerate a little slower if you do it all the time but you couldn't run out that way if you tried."

incanted
2013-04-11 07:48 pm (UTC)

"A sneeze of mana," snorts Bella. "Okay... is this something I could do by accident? Like if I were just thinking about talking to you, forming plans and intentions about it, but wasn't definitely ready to do it right then?"

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," he says. "I've never heard of anybody doing it by accident, at least not any more than people say things out loud by accident."

incanted
2013-04-11 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

+Testing.+
Edited 2013-04-11 19:54 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-11 07:59 pm (UTC)

+Yep!+ says Brilliance. +Got it in one! Unless you made more tries I didn't hear, I guess.+

incanted
2013-04-11 08:01 pm (UTC)

+Nope, just one try. Can I talk to Lexi like this too? Other people? Or is it strictly device-and-wielder?+

cardistry
2013-04-11 08:05 pm (UTC)

+You can talk to anybody you want, but I can hear you if you do,+ he says.

incanted
2013-04-11 08:06 pm (UTC)

+Thanks for warning me about the eavesdropping. If Lexi talks to me and I don't answer her you can't hear that, right? And you can't read my mind in general?+

cardistry
2013-04-11 08:09 pm (UTC)

+You can think of it like this magetalking thing is, I don't know, a phone call,+ he says, +and I'm your phone. Mind-reading doesn't come into it any which way.+

incanted
2013-04-11 08:10 pm (UTC)

+If you're my phone does that mean Lexi can't talk to me, lacking a phone?+

cardistry
2013-04-11 08:12 pm (UTC)

+I'm not totally sure,+ he says.

incanted
2013-04-11 08:14 pm (UTC)

+Hey Lexi. See if you can talk to me like so. Mind Brilliance'll be able to hear you.+

lexicality
2013-04-11 08:17 pm (UTC)

+...Hi? This is weird. Oh hey, we can cheat on tests!+

incanted
2013-04-11 08:17 pm (UTC)

+We are not going to use telepathy to cheat on tests. Not because the tests matter, but because there are better things to do with our time,+ says Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-11 08:18 pm (UTC)

Brilliance giggles.

incanted
2013-04-11 08:20 pm (UTC)

+Does this get any more multimedia than phones do? If I want to send a picture or a wordless idea...?+

cardistry
2013-04-11 08:23 pm (UTC)

+Try it,+ he suggests.

incanted
2013-04-11 08:25 pm (UTC)

She shrugs and looks at Lexi and attempts to show him the scene as she sees it.

cardistry
2013-04-11 08:28 pm (UTC)

+Yep!+

incanted
2013-04-11 08:29 pm (UTC)

And how about her general excitement about magic, will he get that too if she wads it up in a ball and lobs it in his direction?

cardistry
2013-04-11 08:32 pm (UTC)

+Oh, that's cute,+ he says, and tosses back a little ball of 'cute!'.

incanted
2013-04-11 08:54 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. +This is neat. What kind of range limitations are there?+

cardistry
2013-04-11 08:57 pm (UTC)

+Probably a higher mana cost if you're trying to talk to somebody in a different dimension, but as long as I'm not in a different dimension, it shouldn't be a huge problem.+

incanted
2013-04-11 08:59 pm (UTC)

+So you can hang out here and I don't have to worry about explaining to anybody why I have a deck of cards in my pocket, that's good. Not that it'd be that hard to explain, all I'd have to do would be learn a neat card trick or something, but still.+

cardistry
2013-04-11 09:00 pm (UTC)

+You could learn some pretty great tricks with me,+ he giggles.

incanted
2013-04-11 09:26 pm (UTC)

+You mean we could cheat and do actual magic instead of stage magic,+ Bella snorts. +Is there anything making you better than an ordinary Bicycle pack for standard card tricks?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 01:34 am (UTC)

+I look way sexier?+ he suggests. +And if you fuck up the trick I can fix it while nobody's looking?+

incanted
2013-04-12 05:42 am (UTC)

+You are pretty snazzy-looking, I'll give you that.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 01:42 pm (UTC)

+I am. This form's actually based on a magician's deck I saw once. It was so hot.+

incanted
2013-04-12 04:20 pm (UTC)

+I'm not actually sure how literally to take that considering that you are yourself a deck of cards,+ observes Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-12 04:24 pm (UTC)

+...Somewhere between just-kidding-around and, like... I feel about looking like this in deck-of-cards form the way I'd feel about wearing really gorgeous clothes in my human-shaped form. You know?+

incanted
2013-04-12 04:26 pm (UTC)

+I suppose, although I didn't previously know you cared much about wearing nice outfits while human-shaped.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 04:30 pm (UTC)

+I have never actually done it, I've never really had the chance, but I've definitely thought about it. I just like looking good,+ he says cheerfully.

incanted
2013-04-12 04:31 pm (UTC)

+Is there a staff form equivalent?+ asks Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-12 04:32 pm (UTC)

+It doesn't customize nearly as much, so... only kinda? I like how I look in staff form, though, it's pretty cool.+

incanted
2013-04-12 04:33 pm (UTC)

+I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention at the time, but yeah,+ Bella agrees. +What other stuff that I might not expect a deck of cards to care about are you hiding?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 04:35 pm (UTC)

+Uh, how do I know what you expect a deck of cards to care about?+

incanted
2013-04-12 04:36 pm (UTC)

+By default, I expect decks of cards to care about no things at all, but you're full of surprises.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 04:44 pm (UTC)

+Okay,+ he says. +Well, I care about stuff. So there you go.+

incanted
2013-04-12 04:45 pm (UTC)

+Fair enough. Go us, caring about stuff.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 04:48 pm (UTC)

Brilliance giggles.

incanted
2013-04-12 08:10 pm (UTC)

+How old are you, anyway?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 08:55 pm (UTC)

+I'm not totally sure,+ he says. +I think maybe four centuries? But there were definitely some stretches where I wasn't counting.+

incanted
2013-04-12 08:57 pm (UTC)

+Did you ever just talk to people? Like, not try to get them to wield you, I gather you haven't been doing any of that, but never talking to anyone for four hundred years sounds rough, especially since I have a hard time imagining how you'd entertain yourself otherwise - play solitaire with yourself?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 08:59 pm (UTC)

+Hell of a lot of eavesdropping,+ he says ruefully. +And getting played with could be kind of fun, when I was having good days. But yeah. Mostly I was just lonely.+

incanted
2013-04-12 09:01 pm (UTC)

+That sucks.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

+Yep!+ he says, brightly but with an edge of irony.

incanted
2013-04-12 09:05 pm (UTC)

+Were you just going to - bounce around like that forever? Instead of looking for help preemptively?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:07 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, pretty much,+ he says. +I - look, in case you can't tell, I kind of have some issues about this whole wielder thing.+

incanted
2013-04-12 09:08 pm (UTC)

+I wish you'd tell me what they were so I wouldn't have to risk running into them unexpectedly.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:14 pm (UTC)

+It's not like I've got a map,+ he sighs. +And I do have problems trusting people. So, you know, even though you're better than I ever hoped for as far as wielders go... it's still not easy for me to just tell you everything I'm afraid of and hope you don't use it against me.+

incanted
2013-04-12 09:16 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, that's fair, I guess. Now I'm wondering what would've happened if Lexi found the jokers and I found the rest of the pack.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:17 pm (UTC)

+Eeeeegh,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-12 09:21 pm (UTC)

+Could've gone really badly, I would not have dithered as long as she did about accepting limitless power. Although I might've been brought up short if it couldn't answer my questions about the nature of the limitless power.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:26 pm (UTC)

+I don't really know if it was a smooth talker or what, but I'm betting not.+

incanted
2013-04-12 09:27 pm (UTC)

+So you don't, like, remember the conversation?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:34 pm (UTC)

+Nope.+

incanted
2013-04-12 09:35 pm (UTC)

+Even though part of you was having it? How's that work?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:36 pm (UTC)

+...If someone cut off your, like, arm, and then put it back on a while later, I mean assuming it attached properly and everything, would you remember what the arm got up to while it was on leave? I'm thinking no.+
Edited 2013-04-12 21:37 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-12 09:38 pm (UTC)

+Well, no, but my arm can't talk.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:39 pm (UTC)

+Well, this is more like the arm thing than like... whatever you're thinking.+

incanted
2013-04-12 09:44 pm (UTC)

+I didn't have a specific picture of it in mind. How come your personality is in the jokers? Or could it have been any card or two or three and that was just a coincidence?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:51 pm (UTC)

+I dunno, those ones just felt more like me,+ he says. +My personality's in all of me now, but if I had to go back to just a couple of cards... yeah, it'd probably be those. What can I say, I'm a wild card.+ He snorts.

incanted
2013-04-12 09:53 pm (UTC)

+Well, there are certainly more comforting one-liners a massively powerful planetbusting entity could have chosen to utter,+ Bella remarks after a pause.

cardistry
2013-04-12 09:55 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, and?+

incanted
2013-04-12 09:56 pm (UTC)

...Bella decides she'd best not risk answering that. She probably shouldn't have responded in the first place.

cardistry
2013-04-12 10:06 pm (UTC)

So, tense uncomfortable silence, then?

incanted
2013-04-12 10:15 pm (UTC)

Looks like!

lexicality
2013-04-12 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Are you even talking to him?" Lexi asks, unwrapping a stick of gum. "I can't tell."

incanted
2013-04-12 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Was. Conversation sort of dwindled," Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-12 10:17 pm (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-12 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Don't you have to learn all the magic and then go around being Supergirl?"

incanted
2013-04-12 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm letting my mana recover so I can get an idea tomorrow of how much percentage-wise various spells take," Bella says.

+Brilliance, are you okay?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 10:23 pm (UTC)

+...Kind of not really?+ says Brilliance, sounding a little nervous.

incanted
2013-04-12 10:23 pm (UTC)

+Something I said?+ she asks.

cardistry
2013-04-12 10:34 pm (UTC)

+Yeah,+ he says. +I mean. Look, I'm not gonna blow up your planet, I hope we're pretty clear on that by now, but there are a lot of ways you could force me not to if you weren't sure and they are all really nasty, so - I scare easy on this one.+

incanted
2013-04-12 10:35 pm (UTC)

+You made it pretty clear that at least one prior attempt at forcing you not to destroy a planet didn't work,+ Bella points out.

cardistry
2013-04-12 10:37 pm (UTC)

+...uh, speaking of not being the most comforting thing somebody could say...+

incanted
2013-04-12 10:38 pm (UTC)

+I'm just saying if you don't trust my ethics, there's also my sanity available to stop me. I'm still not going to torture you.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 10:46 pm (UTC)

+Okay, but now I feel like if you found a way that would work but would still kind of count as torturing me, you might go for it,+ he says. +I don't know you, I don't know your ethics, you seem pretty nice but what do I even know about what nice looks like? I'm a goddamn magic wand! The last time I had a conversation with someone else who could think was four hundred years ago and probably involved begging them not to hurt me again, which by the way, has never worked before I met you!+

incanted
2013-04-12 10:54 pm (UTC)

+...Not killing six billion people is extremely fucking important, but since not torturing people is also extremely fucking important I would have to be looking at a clear risk before I'd start trading them off against each other,+ Bella says slowly. +I will get jumpy if you say certain things, but it looks like that's kind of mutual, right, and being jumpy doesn't lead directly and unerringly to torturing you.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 10:57 pm (UTC)

+I am not going to blow up your planet. I am not going to blow up your planet!+ says Brilliance. +I am really, really, really not going to blow up your planet! You could blow up your planet if you fired me up and cast the right spell, you'd probably even live through it if you transferred out quick enough, does that sound like fun to you? I bet it doesn't! Because you don't want to blow up your planet! And neither do I!+

incanted
2013-04-12 11:00 pm (UTC)

+I'm pretty used to caring more about people not dying than anyone else around me,+ Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:12 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, well, maybe you do,+ says Brilliance. +I don't know, I'm not you. But last time I blew up a planet, I didn't even have a concept of six billion people. I'm not sure I could do it again even if I had to. And I don't have to, your house is not a secure lab in the middle of a military complex, I can just transfer out if I get scared enough. Wouldn't even have to knock down a wall.+

incanted
2013-04-12 11:13 pm (UTC)

+That's good, I guess.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:14 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

incanted
2013-04-12 11:17 pm (UTC)

+We good? I want to help you not be scared of me, I don't know what to do to that end though.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:19 pm (UTC)

+Not be scary?+ he suggests weakly.

incanted
2013-04-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

+What'm I doing that's scary besides being slightly skittish around the resident superweapon I just met, or is that about it?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:24 pm (UTC)

+...yeah, that's pretty much it,+ he says. +I mean, it's not that I don't get why you'd be skittish. I don't know. Maybe it would help if... if you talked more about why you feel like that, when it comes up? So then it's a conversation about us both being people with feelings, and not a conversation about how dangerously unpredictable I am?+

incanted
2013-04-12 11:25 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, sure, I'm good at that kinda thing. You want to do some of that about the wildcard remark or is that just going forward?+

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:26 pm (UTC)

+Might as well. If I know where you're coming from, maybe I can be less scary.+

incanted
2013-04-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

+That'd be swell. So, like. Wildcards aren't - consistent. Like, I can't think of an actual card game example right now, but the idea is that it can be one thing one moment and another the next, so if you're going on about how you're like that, then no matter how sincerely you don't want to do something awful at this moment, I have no particular grounds to believe that you aren't going to change your mind next week.+
Edited 2013-04-12 23:28 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:44 pm (UTC)

+Gotcha,+ he says. +Whereas what I mean when I say I'm a wildcard is more like... I'm a person who wants things and does stuff, and sometimes the things I want might change unexpectedly or the stuff I do might not be what somebody else wants, but that's part of being a person, it's okay for me to be like that. It doesn't mean every single thing that's true about me might just up and disappear any second. It's just, you know, today I'm a Black Ghost deck, tomorrow I might be something cute I saw in a casino, maybe next week I'll be tarot cards, but any which way I'm still gonna be me.+

incanted
2013-04-12 11:47 pm (UTC)

+Cosmetic changes don't alarm me,+ says Bella dryly.

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:47 pm (UTC)

+Well, good,+ snorts Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-12 11:49 pm (UTC)

+I don't suppose you have a list of the bits of you that are stable. I could produce a list of those things about me, probably in order, too, but I'm weird.+

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:54 pm (UTC)

+Not really,+ he says. +I just know 'em when I see 'em. Not wanting to blow up any planets is pretty damn stable; it'd have to change for some kind of reason, and I can't imagine one at all.+

incanted
2013-04-12 11:56 pm (UTC)

+Anything I might find an unpleasant surprise that's somewhere between that and turning into tarot cards?+
Edited 2013-04-12 23:57 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-12 11:59 pm (UTC)

+Not that I can think of when you put it like that.+

incanted
2013-04-13 12:09 am (UTC)

+What do you mean, when I put it like that?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 12:12 am (UTC)

+It means I can't think of any but that might just be because I don't have a good idea of what you'd find an unpleasant surprise.+

incanted
2013-04-13 12:14 am (UTC)

+Mm. Well, I guess I'll let you know if we run into any and you can calibrate.+ She hmmms. +Anything else I could be doing to be more - hospitable?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 12:16 am (UTC)

+I don't really know,+ he says. +I'll let you know if we run into any, how 'bout that?+

incanted
2013-04-13 12:18 am (UTC)

+Sure.+ She repositions on the couch, grabs her notebook. +What spells have you got already installed that you don't mind telling me about?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 12:19 am (UTC)

+Well, there's Area Search, Shield, Fuck You, the planet-buster, the dimensional transfers and teleports... those are all the ones I've told you about, right?+

incanted
2013-04-13 12:22 am (UTC)

+Yup.+
Edited 2013-04-13 00:22 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-13 01:26 am (UTC)

+Well, I have a bunch more damage-dealing spells, but it didn't really seem like combat was your thing, so...+

incanted
2013-04-13 01:27 am (UTC)

+Not really, no, although I suppose I could see it happening if some magic people showed up and were inclined to be obnoxious on my planet.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 01:29 am (UTC)

+Well, if you wanna get good at combat, we can go transfer to a deserted planet with the right kind of atmosphere and throw some big damage around,+ he offers. +That'd be fun.+

incanted
2013-04-13 01:30 am (UTC)

+You know coordinates for such a planet?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 01:32 am (UTC)

+I could find one, I bet!+

incanted
2013-04-13 01:34 am (UTC)

+That'd be neat, you can look around when us biologicals are sleeping maybe.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 01:34 am (UTC)

He giggles. +Sure, maybe I will.+

incanted
2013-04-13 01:37 am (UTC)

+Which won't be that long,+ Bella says, noting Lexi yawning out of the corner of her eye. +Haven't you got stuff besides search and transport that's good out of combat?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 01:38 am (UTC)

+Not so much. I wasn't really for anything but combat.+

incanted
2013-04-13 01:43 am (UTC)

+Can you invent new spells or is that just me?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 01:48 am (UTC)

+I can invent new spells!+

incanted
2013-04-13 01:51 am (UTC)

+And you didn't for about four hundred years?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 01:53 am (UTC)

+I, you know, kind of had other things on my mind?+

incanted
2013-04-13 02:10 am (UTC)

+It sounded pretty boring the way you described it, but I guess maybe fighting the control program was very very absorbing?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 02:14 am (UTC)

+Boring, lonely, generally awful,+ he agrees. +But I couldn't really get into, like - doing things, because if I started thinking about anything complicated it'd make a move while I wasn't looking. So it's not really that fighting it took a lot of attention, it's that fighting it meant I couldn't give a lot of attention to anything else.+

incanted
2013-04-13 02:15 am (UTC)

Bella thinks about this.

+Eesh,+ she concludes.

cardistry
2013-04-13 02:17 am (UTC)

+Yep. I mean, I can think of worse ways to pass four hundred years, but they all involve torture.+

incanted
2013-04-13 02:36 am (UTC)

+Might depend on how technical you were about what counts as 'torture' but yeah. Uh, congratulations on fighting the incredibly tedious good fight for so long? Inhabited planets everywhere thank you.+
Edited 2013-04-13 04:18 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-13 11:53 am (UTC)

He laughs.

+You're welcome, I guess.+

incanted
2013-04-13 03:12 pm (UTC)

+Why is it that powerful magic weapons wind up with minds whether their creators like it or not, anyway?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 03:18 pm (UTC)

+I dunno, just is.+

incanted
2013-04-13 03:21 pm (UTC)

+Do you remember being made? Coming to exist?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 03:25 pm (UTC)

+...Kind of?+ he says. +It was a long time ago.+

incanted
2013-04-13 03:25 pm (UTC)

+I'd expect it to kinda stand out if you formed memories of it at all,+ Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-13 03:28 pm (UTC)

+Not really. It didn't hurt. Most of what I remember from around then is stuff that hurt.+

incanted
2013-04-13 03:29 pm (UTC)

Bella shudders delicately. +They just started in right away, they didn't even try to convince you?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 03:31 pm (UTC)

+Well, that's just it, there was a while there when they didn't know what I was like and they were just assuming I'd cooperate, and I don't really remember any of it that well because it turns out that once you start getting tortured it is pretty hard to pay attention to other stuff.+

incanted
2013-04-13 03:33 pm (UTC)

+I bet. Yeesh. I'm really sorry that happened to you.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 03:39 pm (UTC)

+...Thanks,+ he murmurs.

incanted
2013-04-13 03:41 pm (UTC)

+You're welcome.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 04:01 pm (UTC)

+You're okay,+ he says after a moment.

incanted
2013-04-13 04:09 pm (UTC)

+Thanks. I try. Actually I aim a little higher than that in the long term but I haven't accomplished much yet so I'll take "okay" for now.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 04:16 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

universal star visitor brilliant start!

incanted

Eventually Bella and Lexi go to bed - they have to coordinate this; Bella's a reasonably sound sleeper but Lexi's not, so if Bella goes to sleep first Lexi won't be able to drop off with all the random nouns and if Bella goes to sleep second Lexi will wake up when she's trying to sneak around. They get up, and they get ready for school.

+Morning, Brilliance,+ says Bella while she's brushing her teeth.

cardistry
2013-04-13 07:51 pm (UTC)

+Morning!+ says Brilliance, brightly. +I went world-hunting. Found a buncha places with pretty decently similar atmosphere and gravity.+

incanted
2013-04-13 07:53 pm (UTC)

+Oh, swell! Can check those out after school, practice all kinds of stuff. Hey, how'd you come by your name?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 07:54 pm (UTC)

+I picked it,+ he says. +'Cause I like it.+

incanted
2013-04-13 07:59 pm (UTC)

+It's a good name.+ Off they go to school. Bella doesn't really consider taking him along; they can talk from that far away.

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:03 pm (UTC)

+Can't wait to get away from me, huh?+ he jokes.

incanted
2013-04-13 08:07 pm (UTC)

+What, you want to hang out in my pocket all day?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:09 pm (UTC)

+Sure, why not?+

incanted
2013-04-13 08:11 pm (UTC)

+Can you catch up to the truck or should I ask Lexi to turn around?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:13 pm (UTC)

+Good question,+ he says cheerfully. +One sec.+

A beat passes.

Brilliance drops out of thin air into Bella's lap.

lexicality
2013-04-13 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Aaah! Make it not do that!" exclaims Lexi, and her control of the vehicle falters briefly.

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:25 pm (UTC)

Brilliance... doesn't do anything.

incanted
2013-04-13 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Lexi. Brilliance is a he," Bella says. "I realize you didn't personally get to see the human form, but still. Brilliance, kindly don't abruptly teleport in front of unwarned people." She puts him in her pocket.

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:27 pm (UTC)

He shivers a little once he's there.

incanted
2013-04-13 08:29 pm (UTC)

+You okay?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:30 pm (UTC)

+Kind of no?+ he says. +I'll be fine in a while. I think.+

incanted
2013-04-13 08:32 pm (UTC)

+Can I help?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:33 pm (UTC)

Wryly, after a few seconds: +Just... remind me that 'make it not do that' is not advice you plan on taking?+

incanted
2013-04-13 08:36 pm (UTC)

+I asked you not to,+ Bella points out. +If you decided that appearing at us whenever you felt like it even if we didn't want you to was your prerogative I'd have to figure something else out, but I'm definitely not leaping straight to forceful options.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:39 pm (UTC)

+Yeah.+ He sighs. +Yeah, I know.+

incanted
2013-04-13 08:40 pm (UTC)

Bella hesitates, then awkwardly pats her pocket.

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:46 pm (UTC)

Awww.

Her pocket glimmers comfortably.

incanted
2013-04-13 08:47 pm (UTC)

Bella is not really good at interpreting glitter-language. +You glittered,+ she says blankly.

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:48 pm (UTC)

+Yeah,+ he says. +It's like - the device version of smiling, I guess.+

incanted
2013-04-13 08:48 pm (UTC)

+Aww!+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:49 pm (UTC)

He laughs softly - over magephone, not out loud.

incanted
2013-04-13 08:50 pm (UTC)

+Please don't be conspicuous at school, by the way, I might tell Charlie about you at some point but probably not all my classmates.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:51 pm (UTC)

+I can do stealth!+ he says. +I've been doing stealth for a while.+

incanted
2013-04-13 08:52 pm (UTC)

+...When you say you've been doing it for a while I start wondering if this is another thing you have issues about or if you're just neutrally asserting your capability.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:55 pm (UTC)

+Meh,+ he says. +It's not my favourite, but I'd way rather hang out on a planet where nobody knows what a device is and have to act like a deck of cards in public than hang out on a planet where everybody knows what a device is, you know?+

incanted
2013-04-13 08:56 pm (UTC)

+I cannot claim to know. I have never been to the latter sort of planet. Are they terrible?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 08:58 pm (UTC)

+They're probably not terrible if you're not a device. They might even be okay if you're a device who's, you know - not me.+

incanted
2013-04-13 08:58 pm (UTC)

+What do you think the people there would do? Is there some protocol for handling self-aware devices you don't like?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 09:00 pm (UTC)

+I just don't like the idea of everybody knowing what I am. Because, you know, maybe they'll be nice like you, but... maybe they won't.+

incanted
2013-04-13 09:02 pm (UTC)

+Are you going to object if I want to tell Charlie? Because that's probably going to be necessary if I keep haring off to other planets to fly around and explode things and terraform places.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 09:02 pm (UTC)

+I can live with you telling Charlie, I guess.+

incanted
2013-04-13 09:03 pm (UTC)

+Thanks.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 10:55 pm (UTC)

+Not sure I get why you have to, but whatever, your call.+

incanted
2013-04-13 10:58 pm (UTC)

+He has, you know, reasonable parent-of-some-seventeen-year-olds expectations that he will be made aware of my whereabouts. I'd feel bad sneaking around under his nose, and besides, it'd be inconvenient if he noticed I was gone a lot and wasn't telling him and decided to start implementing explicit rules I'd then have to break. I don't want to have an antagonistic relationship with him.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 10:58 pm (UTC)

+Huh,+ says Brilliance. +Okay.+

incanted
2013-04-13 10:59 pm (UTC)

+Is that weird or something?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 11:05 pm (UTC)

+I just don't really know how parents work,+ he admits.

incanted
2013-04-13 11:07 pm (UTC)

+Some of 'em don't work very well. Mine and Lexi's work fine. Except for the getting divorced part, I guess.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 11:14 pm (UTC)

+Gotcha.+

incanted
2013-04-13 11:17 pm (UTC)

+If I fess up to both parents I might go visit Renée a lot. We moved up here so she could travel with her new husband, but she won't be doing that literally all the time.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 11:19 pm (UTC)

+And I can teleport you places now!+

incanted
2013-04-13 11:23 pm (UTC)

+Yup! I'm not sure how you'll get along with Charlie but I think you might like Renée.+

cardistry
2013-04-13 11:24 pm (UTC)

+We'll see, I guess!+

incanted
2013-04-13 11:39 pm (UTC)

And here is school. +Welcome to high school!+ says Bella with some irony.

cardistry
2013-04-13 11:40 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

incanted
2013-04-13 11:55 pm (UTC)

Turns out Bella really likes having someone she can silently converse with during school. She usually talks to Brilliance - she's sure Lexi would react visibly if she said something, and that could wind up being some kind of problem. She makes snarky remarks about the teachers, the subject matter, her new friends - mostly the selection Lexi's monopolizing; she kinda likes Angela and Eric - and, during walks between buildings, the weather. +Hey, weather spells: doable, not doable? Good idea, bad idea?+

cardistry
2013-04-13 11:57 pm (UTC)

+I'm not totally sure!+ he says. +I don't know how, but that doesn't mean we can't do it. We just might have to screw around on a deserted planet for a while first.+

incanted
2013-04-13 11:58 pm (UTC)

+Sounds like a plan.+ Bella writes this down when they're inside again. +Could be a good way of managing food security, if I could teleport around messing with weather systems, assuming I can't just create giant heaps of potatoes out of nowhere.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 12:01 am (UTC)

+I have no idea how to do either of those things,+ says Brilliance, +but I'm cool with trying!+

incanted
2013-04-14 12:04 am (UTC)

+Someplace nice and unobtrusive,+ says Bella merrily. +Have the planets you found got any other characteristics besides probably not killing me?+

cardistry
2013-04-14 12:05 am (UTC)

+One of them has, like - a lot of colourful sand,+ he offers. +It's really pretty.+

incanted
2013-04-14 03:50 am (UTC)

+That does sound pretty. Why does it have that?+

cardistry
2013-04-14 11:54 am (UTC)

+Fucked if I know!+ he laughs.
Edited 2013-04-14 12:47 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-14 03:42 pm (UTC)

+Have any of them got life on them at all, or are they managing to have oxygen atmospheres without?+

cardistry
2013-04-14 04:00 pm (UTC)

+Nothing you could see without a microscope, mostly. I think I remember some algae somewhere.+

incanted
2013-04-14 05:07 pm (UTC)

+Algae'll do it. Were the sand colors all mixed together or separate?+

cardistry
2013-04-14 05:08 pm (UTC)

+Mixed together, mostly. I think there was, like, a big streak of green off in the distance.+

incanted
2013-04-14 05:09 pm (UTC)

+Sounds pretty. Maybe I'll bring a camera.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 05:10 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

incanted
2013-04-14 05:12 pm (UTC)

The rest of the school day proceeds uneventfully. Bella still sits out of gym, stretching and doing simple yoga poses on her mat in the corner. +If only moving around on the ground were as straightforward as flying.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 05:43 pm (UTC)

+It's not?+

incanted
2013-04-14 05:45 pm (UTC)

+No, I'm pretty lousy at, like, walking. Running is worse, running and trying to do anything else basically impossible, that's why I'm over here while everybody else plays volleyball, I would die.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 05:46 pm (UTC)

+Wonder if there's a spell for that,+ he says musingly.

incanted
2013-04-14 05:47 pm (UTC)

+Good question. I should see about inventing one. Trouble is I don't actually know what's wrong with me, it seems to be a case of the "just super clumsy".+

cardistry
2013-04-14 05:49 pm (UTC)

+Well, so a healing spell might not fix it, but... I dunno... something that makes walking more like flying, I feel like there's room for experimentation there. Maybe we can try it when we go hang out on the sand planet.+

incanted
2013-04-14 05:50 pm (UTC)

+Sure. Just half an hour to go.+ Stretch-arch-hold-breathe. +I won't miss yoga, it's boring.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 05:52 pm (UTC)

+What even is it, I am hazy on some of the things you bio-people do with your bodies,+ snorts Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-14 05:54 pm (UTC)

+It's this family of postures and exercises you're supposed to combine with mindful breathing to accomplish - something. Flexibility, I guess, though there's a lot of spiritual woo wrapped up in it too.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 05:58 pm (UTC)

+That does sound boring. But then, maybe breathing is more exciting when you have to do it all the time.+

incanted
2013-04-14 05:59 pm (UTC)

+No. No it is not.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 05:59 pm (UTC)

Brilliance cracks up.

incanted
2013-04-14 06:01 pm (UTC)

+Like, there is a reason we are wired to ignore it unless there's something unusual going on. There is a reason we can do it in our sleep.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 06:07 pm (UTC)

Yep, still snickering.

incanted
2013-04-14 06:09 pm (UTC)

+So you're not even biological enough to breathe when you're dude-shaped?+

cardistry
2013-04-14 06:11 pm (UTC)

+I can breathe, I'm pretty sure I can even eat food, but it took me a while to figure out that humans don't just do it when they need the air for something. Or - you know what I mean. And I'm not totally sure I get the point of eating.+

incanted
2013-04-14 06:13 pm (UTC)

+You're pretty sure you can eat food, you haven't tried it? 'Cause unlike breathing that one has recreational applications.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 06:13 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, never really got the chance,+ he says. +Maybe I should take Dude Form for a test-drive sometime soon.+

incanted
2013-04-14 06:14 pm (UTC)

+Sure, we can stop at home before going to Colorful Sand Planet, you can have an apple or something to try.+

cardistry
2013-04-14 06:14 pm (UTC)

+Cool,+ he says cheerfully.

incanted
2013-04-14 06:16 pm (UTC)

Eventually gym class concludes, and Bella drives home alone because Lexi's going to try the "go to Jessica's" plan again, and she lets herself in the house and takes Brilliance out of her pocket and puts him on a kitchen chair.

cardistry
2013-04-15 12:57 am (UTC)

The deck shimmers; the shimmer becomes a glow, which expands abruptly into the fiery silhouette of a human figure, then fades.

"Oh, cool," says Brilliance, tipping his head back and stretching out his arms. "I forgot how fun it was just being this shape."

He is wearing a skintight black bodysuit that ends just above elbow and knee, with white trim that resembles the designs on the deck of cards he was just being.

incanted
2013-04-15 12:58 am (UTC)

"Are you as trivially adjustable like so as you are when you're a deck of cards?" inquires Bella curiously, tossing him an apple from the fruit bowl and grabbing one for herself. She bites hers.

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:03 am (UTC)

"I can adjust the clothes," he says, grinning a little as he catches the apple. "So can you, actually. Why, got something you wanna see me in?"
Edited 2013-04-15 01:03 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-15 01:04 am (UTC)

"Not really, just curious if you picked it or if it came with you-ness."

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:05 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and shrugs, and attempts to make the apple interact with his face.

incanted
2013-04-15 01:06 am (UTC)

"...You bite it," Bella says helpfully, and she demonstrates again.

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:08 am (UTC)

"I'm trying!" he laughs. "It's harder than it looks!"

But no, no, he's getting it.

...

He closes his eyes and hugs the apple-minus-a-bite against his chest and wriggles blissfully.

incanted
2013-04-15 01:09 am (UTC)

"So you like apples?" Bella asks.

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:11 am (UTC)

"Mmmmmmmmlnnngh," says Brilliance.

He takes another bite and squirms some more.

incanted
2013-04-15 01:12 am (UTC)

"Okay, apples are your new best friends," laughs Bella. She takes a less overwhelmedly blissful bite of her own. "Am I going to have to explain you to Charlie just so he doesn't wonder where all the food goes?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:18 am (UTC)

+Why does anyone ever do anything other than eat,+ he says over magephone, because his mouth has way higher priorities than forming speech right now. +It's so good, is all food like this?+

incanted
2013-04-15 01:20 am (UTC)

"Um, apples are like this, other food is like other things, these aren't even unusually good apples?" Bella says, talking between bites like a civilized person. "Do you want to try, like, a taco, there's some leftover filling and a few more tortillas."

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:20 am (UTC)

+I would fucking love to try a taco,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 01:22 am (UTC)

Bella plates and nukes a tortilla and a glob of ground saucy beef. "This is spicy, some people don't like spicy," she advises him, sliding the place across the table. "...And you fold the tortilla part in half around the filling part and try not to let filling fall out and you hold it flat and bite it, is how this kind of food works."

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:26 am (UTC)

Brilliance nods.

He finishes his apple.

...He finishes rather more of his apple than you're supposed to.

incanted
2013-04-15 01:27 am (UTC)

"The middle bit of the apple there isn't generally considered food," comments Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:30 am (UTC)

He shrugs and attacks the taco next.

+I like spicy!+ he declares immediately. +I like spicy a lot.+

There is considerable squirming involved in how much he likes spicy, but he puts down the taco first so he doesn't drop precious precious food all over himself.

incanted
2013-04-15 01:31 am (UTC)

"You like spicy like some people like heroin. Jeez," laughs Bella, and she wanders behind his chair and pats him on the head, swiveling her hand around to sit at the perpendicular seat.

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:34 am (UTC)

He closes his eyes and hugs himself and leans into her hand, making a sound that approximates a purr.

incanted
2013-04-15 01:35 am (UTC)

"...You okay?" Bella says. "Did I run into some weird device/human cultural point of non-overlap or something?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:36 am (UTC)

"I really like that," he sighs. "That thing you're doing. The touching my head thing. Do more of that."

incanted
2013-04-15 01:38 am (UTC)

Bella makes a bit of an awkward face. But she pets his hair. "Unused to the - what was it you called it, complex tactile information?" she asks.

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:42 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, nodding a little. "I get some tactile sense in my other forms, but it just - it doesn't compare at all. And I had no idea taste was a thing until just now, pretty much, mmmmm now I can't decide between more touching and more taco."

incanted
2013-04-15 01:43 am (UTC)

"I am not actually obstructing your taco-eating adventure," Bella says dryly, scritching his scalp.

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:44 am (UTC)

"But I'd have to pay attention to both things at once and that wouldn't be as good," he says, leaning into her hand again with a happy little sigh. "That is really nice."

incanted
2013-04-15 01:45 am (UTC)

"It's just me petting your hair, it's not like you're getting a shiatsu massage or something," Bella says. "Although I hesitate to name that because now I'm concerned that if you got one you would in fact explode."

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:48 am (UTC)

"I would not," he says, grinning lazily. "Unless you mean the way humans do."

incanted
2013-04-15 01:49 am (UTC)

"Humans don't characteristically explode."

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:52 am (UTC)

"They do too!"

incanted
2013-04-15 01:52 am (UTC)

"Have you been watching terrible science fiction or something?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:54 am (UTC)

"No, c'mon, people talk about exploding with whatever-their-feelings-are all the time, they obviously don't mean literal explosions, work with me a little here."

incanted
2013-04-15 01:54 am (UTC)

"I have never claimed to explode with a feeling."

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:55 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he snorts, "I bet you haven't."

incanted
2013-04-15 01:56 am (UTC)

"Well, I haven't," she says. "I don't think it's really a common turn of phrase. My arm's tired, you can eat your taco now," she adds, dropping her hand to the table.

cardistry
2013-04-15 01:57 am (UTC)

Brilliance goes back to overenjoying his taco.

incanted
2013-04-15 01:58 am (UTC)

"Careful, if you eat the whole thing there won't be any of it left for you to marry," drawls Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:00 am (UTC)

+I don't wanna marry it,+ he says, +I wanna eat it. Mmmmm.+

incanted
2013-04-15 02:02 am (UTC)

"How much food can you hold? Because I can unload some more leftovers on you if you want, we have, what do we have, tuna salad, a pasta thing, minestrone soup?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:04 am (UTC)

"I have no idea," he says promptly, "let's find out!"

incanted
2013-04-15 02:05 am (UTC)

"Pff." She gets out the named items, and warms the two that need warming after passing him the tuna and a fork. She explains the mechanics of the fork.

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:07 am (UTC)

Brilliance only stabs himself in the face by accident once! And he seems to treat this with the same general enthusiasm, if not the same specific intense enjoyment, that he does any other kind of bodily sensation.

incanted
2013-04-15 02:08 am (UTC)

Bella permits herself a little snickering.

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:12 am (UTC)

+What are you laughing at,+ he says, grinning around his latest mouthful of tuna.

incanted
2013-04-15 02:12 am (UTC)

"You poked yourself in the face with a fork. I have never seen anyone over age four do that."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:15 am (UTC)

+I got excited! You'd get excited too if it was your first time eating food!+
Edited 2013-04-15 02:16 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-15 02:17 am (UTC)

"Which event," Bella says, "happened to me when I was well under the age of four, and involved a spoon in someone else's hand, and mashed sweet potato."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:18 am (UTC)

+Ooh, what's a sweet potato? I wanna eat one.+

incanted
2013-04-15 02:20 am (UTC)

"We don't have any around right now. There are thousands of things to eat, I'm not going to just run to the store and grab you examples of every single one."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:23 am (UTC)

+That's okay, I've got lots of free time while you sleep.+

Om nom nom he forgets what he's eating right now but it is delicious.

incanted
2013-04-15 02:25 am (UTC)

"Where are you going to get sweet potatoes while I sleep?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:26 am (UTC)

+No idea! I'll think of something.+

incanted
2013-04-15 02:27 am (UTC)

"You're not going to just teleport places and steal them, are you?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:27 am (UTC)

+...Would... that be bad?+

incanted
2013-04-15 02:28 am (UTC)

"Yeah? They don't belong to you."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:30 am (UTC)

+So?+

Nom nomty nom.

incanted
2013-04-15 02:31 am (UTC)

"So that's what belonging means, is that you can't take it, it's not yours, it's somebody else's and if you take it they will have grounds to be upset and that would be mean of you. If you find food growing wild you can have that - but you'd have to be able to tell the difference between wild and cultivated."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:37 am (UTC)

+...Okay, but how else am I gonna eat all the food there is to eat?+

incanted
2013-04-15 02:38 am (UTC)

"You're gonna spread this project out over a long enough time that I can acquire it for you at a reasonable rate. Or acquire money so you can buy the food, I guess, you could get a job."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:40 am (UTC)

+Get a job how? Don't you need to have, like - human stuff, for those?+

incanted
2013-04-15 02:41 am (UTC)

"It'd help to have documentation, but you could teleport to other countries where they're less strict about it," shrugs Bella. "Or find somebody who'll pay you under the table around here if you don't want to deal with currency exchange. I don't think it especially matters if the job's legal as long as it's not unethical."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:42 am (UTC)

+...And how do I tell if it's unethical or not?+

incanted
2013-04-15 02:43 am (UTC)

"Uh, you could ask me, if you don't know," she suggests. "Picking fruit, fine, busing tables, fine, selling pot to elementary schoolers, not fine, assassinating people, not fine."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:44 am (UTC)

+I could've figured out the assassination one by myself,+ he volunteers.

incanted
2013-04-15 02:45 am (UTC)

"Okay, well, there, that's a start," says Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:46 am (UTC)

+Still not sure why I should care. I mean, about the rest.+

incanted
2013-04-15 02:49 am (UTC)

"Uh... okay, can you take my word for it about dealing pot to kindergarteners or do we need to actually talk philosophy right now in order to preclude this outcome?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:50 am (UTC)

"I don't really want to deal pot to kindergarteners, what I want to do is taste new things," he says, gazing sadly down at his empty plate.

incanted
2013-04-15 02:52 am (UTC)

Bella tosses him a banana. "Well, look, I can buy you a reasonable number of new things to eat per week - can you even get poisoned, you could probably eat random wild plants, if you don't have to breathe you could go swimming in the ocean and catch all kinds of sea creatures to devour, that sort of thing."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:06 am (UTC)

Banana! He even knows to peel it first!

He has a little trouble with the mechanics of the peeling.

"I bet I can't get poisoned," he says. "Poison is biological."

incanted
2013-04-15 03:09 am (UTC)

"Just - here." She takes his banana before he squishes it all over everything, peels it for him, and returns the denuded fruit. "So yeah, we can map out some places where the stuff that's around isn't going to belong to anybody and you can eat anything you find that looks tasty there."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:10 am (UTC)

Nomnomnom.

"Okay," he says around a mouthful of banana. +Bananas, I love bananas, fruit is my second favourite thing after spicy.+
Edited 2013-04-15 03:13 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-15 03:14 am (UTC)

"Bananas are inexpensive, you'll be pleased to note, you can have lots of them when you run out of new things to try and want to go back to your repeats." She pauses, then says, "Okay, now I'm sort of curious if you'd like straight pepper but it feels mean to offer you some and suggest that you try it."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:14 am (UTC)

+Why's it mean?+

incanted
2013-04-15 03:16 am (UTC)

"Because pepper is the thing that makes the taco filling spicy, and it only takes a little to make a lot of something quite spicy indeed, and most people would be very unhappy if they ate any significant amount of straight pepper."
Edited 2013-04-15 03:18 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:19 am (UTC)

"Most people would probably also be unhappy if they stabbed themselves with a fork," he points out. "Gimme!"

incanted
2013-04-15 03:19 am (UTC)

She shrugs and spoons him a spoonful of cayenne.

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:20 am (UTC)

...Straight cayenne causes him to make some really interesting faces.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:21 am (UTC)

Bella will be observing those interesting faces.

From over here.

"You okay?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:23 am (UTC)

+Yeah,+ he says, hugging himself. Even his magephone voice sounds a little breathless.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:25 am (UTC)

"You are making some - faces."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:26 am (UTC)

+Mmmm.+

incanted
2013-04-15 03:26 am (UTC)

"So you like pepper, huh," snorts Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:27 am (UTC)

+Mmhmmmm.+

incanted
2013-04-15 03:28 am (UTC)

"Noted." She glances at the clock. "Charlie's gonna be home soon, and there are probably better ways to introduce you than as this random dude in a weird jumpsuit thing."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:29 am (UTC)

"I could be a random dude in different clothes!" he offers, and starts licking his fingers.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:30 am (UTC)

"Yeah, you probably want, like, shoes, and go with jeans and a t-shirt like what I'm wearing only cut to fit you if you don't have a better idea," Bella shrugs.

cardistry
2013-04-15 11:59 am (UTC)

He shrugs. His clothes glow briefly in the multi-colour of his magic, and the glow spreads and settles into a new shape, then fades away.

He is now wearing tight black jeans, a red belt with a silvery buckle shaped like an ornate spade, and a perfectly fitted black T-shirt with the spectral figure from the Black Ghost Joker printed on the front and the design from the back of the cards covering the back. Oh, and boots. Black leather boots.

"Better?"
Edited 2013-04-15 13:59 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-15 02:43 pm (UTC)

"Very thematic," says Bella. "Looks a little like you're going to walk into a goth club or something, but it's less bizarre than the jumpsuit."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:45 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"I can live with that!"

incanted
2013-04-15 02:53 pm (UTC)

"All right. I'm trying to decide whether to lead with 'Dad, this is Brilliance, he is my magic tutor' or 'Dad, this is Brilliance, he is from another planet' or possibly 'Dad, don't come into the house yet, I have to tell you some things first'."

cardistry
2013-04-15 02:57 pm (UTC)

"Your call," he says, laughing.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:00 pm (UTC)

"He might not want you staying in the house when I'm not present and awake," Bella says after a moment's thought.

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:08 pm (UTC)

"...that's weird," says Brilliance. "I mean, that's really weird. I'm your device."

incanted
2013-04-15 03:08 pm (UTC)

"You look like a dude. Might have more luck if I present you as a talking pack of cards," shrugs Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:09 pm (UTC)

"Whatever," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Well, he could show up any minute," Bella says, picking up Brilliance's plate and putting it in the sink. "You want to live here, you probably wanna be a deck of cards. Or the staff."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:14 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, and stretches out and wriggles much in the attitude of someone slurping the last bit of milkshake out of the cup, and then he shifts down to deck form and hovers over the chair.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:16 pm (UTC)

Bella plucks him out of the air and goes to sit in the living room with some of her neglected homework. "We didn't get around to going to the colorful sand planet," she observes. "Maybe after dinner, assuming Charlie doesn't react worse than I'm expecting."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:17 pm (UTC)

"...and what if he does?" says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:19 pm (UTC)

"Then I occupy the evening dealing with that. Worst case scenario, he's a huge pill about it, you hang out not-in-the-house till I haul back to Renée's, I live with her till I turn eighteen and then get a job I can cheat at effectively with magic and move out. Anyone's guess whether I could get Lexi to move again," sighs Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:20 pm (UTC)

Brilliance snorts.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Nothing, just - I don't know how you deal with all these rules."

incanted
2013-04-15 03:23 pm (UTC)

"I have more freedom than most seventeen-year-olds because my parents know I'm responsible," Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:25 pm (UTC)

Brilliance shivers. "Lucky you, I guess. Glad I'm not a human."

incanted
2013-04-15 03:27 pm (UTC)

"...Are you?" Bella hesitates to point out that humans never have to planet-hop for centuries of high-stakes sleepless tedium and rarely spend their childhoods being tortured, but the notion is there.

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:30 pm (UTC)

"Sure I am. I mean, my life up until now has been pretty shit, but if I was a human I'd be dead, and now I get to do all kinds of stuff that you can't because the people who made you are controlling your life."

incanted
2013-04-15 03:35 pm (UTC)

"They're looking out for me. Most people my age do pretty idiotic things even with more parental supervision than I have. They get drunk and crash their cars, or flunk out of school with no skills and no plan and spend the rest of their lives unable to get decent jobs, or they get pregnant, or whatever. I know I'm not going to do that, but Charlie only mostly knows I'm not going to do that. If he didn't set any rules at all that might be convenient for me but it would probably, given the way humans work, mean he didn't care."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm still glad I don't have to deal with that shit," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:40 pm (UTC)

"How fortunate for you that you do not, then."

The door opens.

"Hi, Dad!" Bella calls.

"Hi, Bella, where's Lexi?"

"Jessica's. She'll be back in like half an hour, and it's her turn to make dinner. Hey, Dad, I have something important to tell you."

"Mm?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:41 pm (UTC)

Brilliance glimmers.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Okay - first of all - magic exists."

"...Bella..."

"No, seriously, I can prove it. Flight." And up she goes, over the sofa with mana-feathered feet tucked under her. "See?"

Charlie stands there.

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:44 pm (UTC)

He glimmers again, a little ripple of light, like a visual laugh.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:47 pm (UTC)

Bella sits in the air. "D'you believe me?" Bella says. "Because that's not the whole thing."

"Where'd you learn to do that, Bella?" Charlie asks slowly.

Bella brandishes Brilliance. "This is a talking deck of cards from another planet. His name is Brilliance. He's teaching me. Brilliance, you wanna say hi?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:52 pm (UTC)

Charlie takes a step back.

"...Hi."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:54 pm (UTC)

Brilliance giggles.

incanted
2013-04-15 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Where'd you find it?"

"He, Dad, please," says Bella, "Brilliance is a person."

"Where'd you find him?" amends Charlie impatiently.

"At school. Picked him up and he said hi."

cardistry
2013-04-15 03:58 pm (UTC)

Light glints from the design on the outside of the pack when Bella corrects her father about the pronouns.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:00 pm (UTC)

"And why is he teaching you magic?" Charlie asks suspiciously.

"Well, most people don't even have magical potential, but I do," Bella says obliquely. "Lexi does, but between the two of us..."

Charlie nods slowly. "Ah-huh."

"So I'm going to be spending lots of time on that, I'll go out of the house and away from people for anything big," Bella says, setting her feet on the ground and dismissing the flight spell, "we'll be careful and circumspect, and I'll try not to fall far behind in school, but my grades may slip since it's not like I can take a class in magic and that's what I really want to learn."

"But," says Charlie, "why does - Brilliance - want to tutor anyone in magic, even if you're the best available student? And why did you find him at school if that's the story?"
Edited 2013-04-15 16:04 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm a magical device," Brilliance puts in. "We like having partners; we're kind of built for it. Bella's a good one."

incanted
2013-04-15 04:15 pm (UTC)

Charlie eyes him skeptically.

"So, I was thinking he'd sorta live on the bookshelf," Bella says, "but also sometimes he eats, so, we are pretty much out of leftovers, now, and I will need a little more grocery budget."

"The deck of cards eats," says Charlie.

"He can shapeshift," Bella says, "and sometimes he eats."

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:16 pm (UTC)

Brilliance giggles.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Into - what?" Charlie asks.

"Deck of cards, magic staff thingy, human," says Bella, ticking off fingers. "The last form is the one that ate the leftovers."

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:19 pm (UTC)

"I never ate food before," says Brilliance. "Food is awesome."

incanted
2013-04-15 04:22 pm (UTC)

"So he doesn't need to eat," Charlie concludes.

"Not for biological reasons, but come on, he's teaching me magic, it's really nice of him, we can afford to toss him a new kind of vegetable a few times a week."

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:23 pm (UTC)

Brilliance glimmers happily.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:24 pm (UTC)

"All right, fine," says Charlie. "We can pay for your magic lessons with reasonable amounts of food and bookshelf space - is that all? Anything else involved in - magical device upkeep?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Nah," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:28 pm (UTC)

"All right then," sighs Charlie. "You be careful with the - magic - Bella, all right?"

"I will, Dad," Bella promises. "Thanks for not pitching a fit."

"No problem," Charlie snorts.

lexicality
2013-04-15 04:29 pm (UTC)

The door opens again. "Hi, Dad, hi, Bella," says Lexi. "What's everyone want for dinner, I was thinking either I'd thaw some of the fish or do split pea with the last of the bacon?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Make enough for Brilliance, he eats," Bella tells Lexi. "I'd say polish off the bacon, we bought a lot of it and those last strips'll expire tomorrow."

lexicality
2013-04-15 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure, soup," says Lexi, looking out of the corner of her eye at Brilliance, "can do."

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:39 pm (UTC)

The deck glimmers.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:40 pm (UTC)

Bella hangs out in the living room while Lexi starts cooking.

Charlie says, "If he turns into a human, maybe I should know how to recognize him?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Brilliance, "want me to change?"

incanted
2013-04-15 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Yes, do," says Charlie.

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:46 pm (UTC)

Brilliance shifts form in a brief flare of multicoloured light, ending up in the jeans-and-T-shirt outfit from earlier.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:51 pm (UTC)

Charlie looks him over.

"All right. Won't panic if I find you in the house," he says. "You stay out of the girls' room unless it's got the door open."

"Dad," says Bella, exasperated.

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:53 pm (UTC)

Brilliance laughs.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:55 pm (UTC)

"I mean it," says Charlie.

"Dad, he's a deck of cards."

"Regardless."

cardistry
2013-04-15 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Whatever," says Brilliance, and he shifts down again.

incanted
2013-04-15 04:59 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs ruefully and starts outlining a practice plan for working with magic on the pretty sand planet. "Hey, did you figure out what percent of my mana I use on stuff before I went and flew in front of Charlie, Brilliance?" she asks.

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:08 pm (UTC)

"...nope," says Brilliance. "I forgot."

incanted
2013-04-15 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, it was very brief, can we get an estimate to work with?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I'll start looking again," he promises.

incanted
2013-04-15 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I'll recover to a hundred percent over dinner." The air has begun to smell of frying bacon.

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Maybe!"

incanted
2013-04-15 05:15 pm (UTC)

Write-write-write. "Hey, given that you sense with magic, does that give you any irregular abilities like - seeing through things?" she asks suddenly.
Edited 2013-04-15 17:15 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:15 pm (UTC)

"I could probably make a spell for it, why?"

incanted
2013-04-15 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I just mean normally. There's nothing I need to see through. I just wanted to know if my notebooks or my clothes or whatever are transparent to you, because that'd be awkward."

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Not visually," he says. "If you put me down on top of a notebook I could probably, I dunno - count how many pages it has, even though I couldn't see them, that kind of thing. And I can tell what's going on around you when I'm in your pocket. Oh," he adds, "and when you wear your Barrier Jacket I kind of am it, but I don't get any human-style senses from it, just movement and damage levels."

incanted
2013-04-15 05:24 pm (UTC)

"...You are my Barrier Jacket," says Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:30 pm (UTC)

"This is one of those things that's not weird to me but it is to you, isn't it," sighs Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Apparently it is. If you didn't get that it might be weird why did you specify that you only get 'movement and damage levels'?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I can see why it's weird to you," he says, "I just don't think that way naturally. And it would be weird even for me if I was being your clothes and I got human-style tactile feedback from it."

incanted
2013-04-15 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Well - I don't know about that. Had to save the world that one time, we were in a hurry, it's all right that you didn't stop to explain; maybe it won't even come up again."

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:38 pm (UTC)

"It'll come up if you ever have to fight anybody," says Brilliance. "I don't know if you'll ever have to fight anybody, but if you do, wear the damn Barrier Jacket. It's standard mage gear for a reason. You should probably wear it when we're fucking around with experimental spells too, just to be safe, but it's not as big a deal if nobody's actually flinging lethal damage at your face. ...Although it'll let me monitor your mana consumption better, so..."

incanted
2013-04-15 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, if I get into an actual fight go ahead and jacket me, some weirdness is not competitive with being armored. The spells - didn't you say they might do weird things but probably not harmful things? Like if I heal somebody I might get a bizarre result but I won't accidentally hurt them?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:47 pm (UTC)

"If you're trying to make a spell to heal somebody," he says, "you won't accidentally hurt them instead, that's not how magic works. But if you're, I dunno, practicing manipulation of inorganic matter and you lose control of the spell at the wrong moment, you could accidentally drop a big rock on your head. Barrier Jacket'll handle that for you."

incanted
2013-04-15 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Even though it doesn't come with a hat," Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:51 pm (UTC)

"It's protecting you magically, not physically, is that really hard to understand or something?"

incanted
2013-04-15 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm just not clear on why it involves a costume change at all if that's what it's doing."

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:55 pm (UTC)

"It has to exist in order to protect you," he says. "And it can't just look like whatever other clothes you're wearing every time you put it on because it takes extra effort and mana to change its form and you don't wanna be doing it every time."

incanted
2013-04-15 05:55 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't explain why it's an outfit and not an accessory of some kind that can go on over whatever I have on."

cardistry
2013-04-15 05:59 pm (UTC)

"No idea," he says, "I didn't design the spell. I can tell you right now, though, if I tried to make you some kind of... I dunno, Barrier Necklace... it wouldn't work nearly as well. There is something about being an outfit that makes it better at its job, I just don't know what it is."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:04 pm (UTC)

"How do you know a Barrier Necklace wouldn't do the job as well?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:07 pm (UTC)

"...It's a device thing," he says. "If I'm familiar with a spell I kind of get a - sense for it, like I can tell what all its parts do. I'm not sure humans even get the relevant channel."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't sound like we do, no. Huh."

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. So, I can tell you that the being-an-outfit thing is functionally important, I just can't tell you why, or if there even is a sensible reason."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. What other sorts of things do you know in this mysterious devicey way?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:22 pm (UTC)

"...That is a weird question and I don't know how to answer it."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay, how about - why do spell diagrams look like they do, are the shapes functional?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:27 pm (UTC)

"They mean something but they're not directly functional," he says. "The shape is related to the type of magic, but not intrinsically."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:28 pm (UTC)

"...Like, they're assigned when the magic type is invented but it's arbitrary?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Pretty much, yeah."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:30 pm (UTC)

"And ones I invent are going to wind up falling into your magic type - is that for the same reason my mana color synced with yours?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Um... close! I dunno, it's hard to explain. But those are pretty related, yeah."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I kinda wish I knew what my mana color would have been before I found you."

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Who knows."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Not something you can check with your devicey senses of such things?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

incanted
2013-04-15 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, the aurora-ish mana is really pretty anyhow."

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says smugly.

incanted
2013-04-15 06:44 pm (UTC)

"So how come your human form is - well - a human form? I wasn't exactly certain last week that we were alone in the universe, but I figured the aliens would be aliens. There's a decent fossil record on this planet indicating that humans evolved here, and convergent evolution isn't that precise, I don't think."

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Not a clue," says Brilliance. "Humans seem to be it as far as intelligent biological life, but fucked if I know why."
Edited 2013-04-15 18:47 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-15 06:48 pm (UTC)

"So you don't know if they're converged or secret forgotten colonists from Earth or colonists to Earth fossil record be damned or what."

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

lexicality
2013-04-15 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Dinner's ready!" calls Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-15 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, soup." Bella gets up, heads for the table, and trips over nothing whatsoever.

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:55 pm (UTC)

Brilliance has just finished assuming human form, half a step in front of her; he spins around and catches her before she can fall on him.

incanted
2013-04-15 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Bella, regaining her footing and smiling at him.

cardistry
2013-04-15 06:59 pm (UTC)

He grins back and lets go.

incanted
2013-04-15 07:00 pm (UTC)

She makes it the rest of the way to the kitchen without further incident.

lexicality
2013-04-15 07:01 pm (UTC)

Lexi has ladled out four portions of soup, which are sitting at each of the four places at the table. She peers quizzically at Brilliance - she hasn't seen his human form before - but doesn't say anything.

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:03 pm (UTC)

Brilliance plops himself into a seat and commences eating soup.

It turns out that split pea soup with bacon is maybe even better than bananas. Also, magical devices do not have table manners.

incanted
2013-04-15 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance, eat with a spoon, you'll get soup everywhere," says Bella exasperatedly. "Like so, watch." She takes a spoonful of her soup.

lexicality
2013-04-15 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Needs to be housetrained," mutters Lexi under her breath.
Edited 2013-04-15 19:05 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:07 pm (UTC)

Brilliance tries the spoon. It works much better this way! He beams gratefully at Bella.

incanted
2013-04-15 07:08 pm (UTC)

"There you go. Consider practicing chopsticks on an uninhabited planet instead of picking up a pair for the first time in a Chinese restaurant, though."
Edited 2013-04-15 19:11 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:12 pm (UTC)

He cracks up. But manages not to giggle soup all over the table!

incanted
2013-04-15 07:14 pm (UTC)

How skillful!

lexicality
2013-04-15 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't think we have enough ice cream for four," Lexi says when the soup is dwindling.

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:15 pm (UTC)

Brilliance looks disappointed.
Edited 2013-04-15 19:15 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-15 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I'll skip dessert," shrugs Charlie, "have another bowl of soup, I outgrew my sweet tooth years ago." He ladles himself some more soup.

Bella gets up and distributes the available ice cream (Cherry Garcia) between three bowls.

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:23 pm (UTC)

Brilliance beams gratefully at Charlie!

incanted
2013-04-15 07:25 pm (UTC)

Ice cream, om nom nom.

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:31 pm (UTC)

...Ice cream.

Ice cream.

Brilliance sinks down slowly in his seat, making an expression of unalloyed bliss around the spoon in his mouth.

incanted
2013-04-15 07:32 pm (UTC)

"So ice cream is also a hit, huh?"

lexicality
2013-04-15 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh my god, just eat it, it's just ice cream," says Lexi. "It's not like God made it."

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Ice cream is the best," Brilliance sighs, and he spoons up another spoonful.

incanted
2013-04-15 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Be nice, Lexi, he ate food for the first time ever just a few hours ago," Bella says.

lexicality
2013-04-15 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Why does it matter, he's your - thingy."

incanted
2013-04-15 07:37 pm (UTC)

"My device, and you're my sister but that doesn't mean it's okay for random people to be mean to you, just because it would be more relevant if it was me being mean to you."

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:42 pm (UTC)

He gives Bella a warm smile made only somewhat ridiculous by the spoon sticking out of it.

lexicality
2013-04-15 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Well, your device decided to move into our house and eat our ice cream," says Lexi. "It's weird, why doesn't he be a pack of cards?"

incanted
2013-04-15 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes he's a pack of cards and sometimes he's human-shaped, we can buy more ice cream, come on."

lexicality
2013-04-15 07:46 pm (UTC)

"It's not like we're rich."

incanted
2013-04-15 07:47 pm (UTC)

"If that becomes a problem I will find some way to cheat outrageously at some job with magic and earn plenty of money so I can feed the guy who is teaching me magic, okay? You don't have to worry about it, you just have to be civil."

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:48 pm (UTC)

...The emotional tone of this conversation is making Brilliance's ice cream less enjoyable.

He puts the spoon back in the bowl.

lexicality
2013-04-15 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Fine, do whatever, your device," mutters Lexi, "I got possessed for you, by your device, now I have to make nice to it, sure, Bella's the smart one." She scoops up her ice cream bowl and tromps upstairs with it.

incanted
2013-04-15 07:50 pm (UTC)

Bella puts her spoon in her bowl and sighs and cradles her head in her hands.

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:52 pm (UTC)

Brilliance reaches over and tentatively pets her head.

incanted
2013-04-15 07:54 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs again.

Charlie is looking quizzically at Brilliance and eating his soup.

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:55 pm (UTC)

Brilliance isn't really paying attention to Charlie.

Pet pet?

incanted
2013-04-15 07:56 pm (UTC)

Bella picks up her head again and takes another spoon of ice cream.

"Did you possess my daughter?" Charlie asks Brilliance.

cardistry
2013-04-15 07:58 pm (UTC)

"We kind of both got possessed by the same thing," he says, giving Bella one last petpet and then going back to his own ice cream. "It's dead now, I got Bella to help me kill it."

incanted
2013-04-15 08:00 pm (UTC)

"...You've been killing things?" Charlie asks Bella.

"I killed a magical program gone rogue that was possessing Lexi and trying to destroy the world, it's not like the neighbors' cats have gone missing," Bella says.

"...Okay then." Charlie finishes his soup and wanders away.
Edited 2013-04-15 20:04 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-15 08:05 pm (UTC)

"You okay?" he says to Bella.

incanted
2013-04-15 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Frustrated. I know Lexi's freaked out, but she's usually not catty to people."

cardistry
2013-04-15 08:08 pm (UTC)

"It's no fun getting possessed."

incanted
2013-04-15 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, and she was trying to do something nice for me, and now I've been kind of ignoring her to talk to you."

cardistry
2013-04-15 08:10 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, and goes back to his ice cream.

incanted
2013-04-15 08:44 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes hers. "Lexi cooked, so it's my turn to do the dishes. Unless there's a spell for it," she adds.

cardistry
2013-04-15 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't have one on hand," he says. "I could make one, but I'd probably wanna practice it on dishes nobody cared about first."

incanted
2013-04-15 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Would it meaningfully affect the spell if you practiced on, like, paper plates? Would it transfer?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Good question! I think paper plates might need a different spell," he says. "They don't get dirty the same way, you know?"

incanted
2013-04-15 08:50 pm (UTC)

"All right, maybe at some point I'll swing by the thrift store and get some random dishes. In the meantime..." She turns on the sink and starts scrubbing.

cardistry
2013-04-15 08:52 pm (UTC)

Brilliance is finished with his ice cream by the time she needs to take his bowl away.

incanted
2013-04-15 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Look, I can talk to Lexi, this sniping isn't really like her."

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," he says, smiling wryly.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:01 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome."

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:03 pm (UTC)

He shifts back to deck-of-cards form and sets himself down on the table.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:05 pm (UTC)

Bella pats him and heads up the stairs to talk to Lexi.

She's back down a few minutes later. "She doesn't wanna talk about it right now. But she says I can copy her math homework if I want, so at least she's not too mad at me. Wanna go to the World of Colorful Sand?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

incanted
2013-04-15 09:09 pm (UTC)

"I wanna invent a spell to be a line of defense against any environmental hazards you weren't in a position to notice - but before I start trying stuff - is my mana at capacity?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:10 pm (UTC)

He checks.

"I think so!"

incanted
2013-04-15 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay, cool." Bella has produced a list of things on an uninhabited planet that could harm her. She gets the notebook containing this list, finds it, memorizes it, thinks hard about wanting all those things to leave her alone, and attempts to incant:

"Safety."

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh, cool," says Brilliance, as a faint mana-coloured shimmer settles onto Bella's skin.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Something unusual about how that worked?" Bella asks, looking at the pretty shimmer. "Ooh, I'm shiny."

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:25 pm (UTC)

"I've never seen anything like it!"

He shifts to staff form and glides closer.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Did you not expect it to work?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking of it differently than how it hapened."

incanted
2013-04-15 09:27 pm (UTC)

"In some complicated technical sense or what? Also, how much of my mana is this drawing?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:29 pm (UTC)

"...Some," he says. "More than flying. Want me to work it up into something I can maintain for you?"

incanted
2013-04-15 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that'd be swell - and weren't you going to figure out percentages?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:36 pm (UTC)

"It's harder than I thought," he says. "I don't see it as numbers, I just feel it. ...Could you pick me up? I feel weird just hanging here. And I can get a closer look at the spell if we're in contact."

incanted
2013-04-15 09:37 pm (UTC)

She plucks staff-Brilliance out of the air and props him on her shoulder.

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:43 pm (UTC)

Brilliance is quiet for a moment, his spiral grooves glowing faintly in all the colours of his mana.

Then Bella's shimmer brightens, wavers, and settles back down.

"Okay," he says, "there. With me hooked in, it's draining slower than you replenish."

incanted
2013-04-15 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Will that still be true if I start flying?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:46 pm (UTC)

"It will if I'm hooked into the flying too," he says.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Cool. Let's go see some colorful sand."

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:51 pm (UTC)

His signature counter-rotating circle-pentagram-star appears on the floor, brightens steadily for about a second, and then emits one soft radiant burst of light.

And they are standing on a vast flat expanse of glittering sand that reflects the very Earthlike setting sun in millions of colours.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Oh, this place is pretty," marvels Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I know, I love it!" says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I wanna fly around, can you hook into that without jacketing me?" Bella asks.

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Sure, Flight," he says casually. The sprays of mana feathers appear at Bella's heels without the accompanying sense of effort.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:55 pm (UTC)

She rockets into the sky, whooping.

cardistry
2013-04-15 09:56 pm (UTC)

Brilliance giggles.

incanted
2013-04-15 09:58 pm (UTC)

Eventually she calms down and lands in the pretty sand and consults her list of things. "Okay, I bet you want me to prioritize seeing if I can conjure food, that'll solve a certain quandary you have if I can."

cardistry
2013-04-15 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that'd be awesome," he agrees.

incanted
2013-04-15 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. I might as well start with sweet potatoes," Bella laughs. "People mostly eat them cooked, but I don't even know if I can conjure them raw, so I'll try that first."

She envisions a sweet potato. She wishes one to exist.

"Sweet potato!" she intones.

cardistry
2013-04-15 10:10 pm (UTC)

It does not work.

"Huh, that was weird," says Brilliance. "I think it needs a long-form incantation. Try it again, but with a full sentence, something where you could substitute something else for 'sweet potato' and it'd still sound like sense."

incanted
2013-04-15 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I command a sweet potato to exist!" Bella attempts.

cardistry
2013-04-15 10:18 pm (UTC)

It still doesn't work.

"Huh," Brilliance repeats. "Okay. It could work, there's a spell trying to happen there, but you're just not quite pulling it off. Do you wanna figure out why, or try something else?"

incanted
2013-04-15 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I wanna figure out why, I've only tried this twice, that's too early to give up," laughs Bella, "what do I try next?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 10:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm not totally sure this will make anything better," says Brilliance, "but maybe a long-form incantation that is more specific about the sweet potato being food?"

incanted
2013-04-15 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Specific about it being food like how? Also does anything happen if an incantation is false, like if I say 'I want to eat a sweet potato' when actually I want you to eat a sweet potato?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 10:24 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure exactly," he says, "like I said, I'm going out on a limb here. I don't think a false incantation makes a difference as long as it doesn't confuse you about what you're trying to do with the spell."

incanted
2013-04-15 10:26 pm (UTC)

Bella nibbles her lip, then goes ahead and tries: "I want to eat a sweet potato."

cardistry
2013-04-15 10:31 pm (UTC)

"...Okay," says Brilliance. "So what I'm getting here is, the spell's not coming together because you don't have a good enough feel for how it should work. My best guess is if you work on easier spells that have to do with matter manipulation, and get those down pretty good, and then come back and try some simple conjuring and work up from there, it'll work much better."

incanted
2013-04-15 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay, matter manipulation like - sorting the sand by color, or making colorful sandcastles, or melting it into colorful glass? Can you be more specific?" asks Bella, bouncing on her toes.
Edited 2013-04-15 22:35 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-15 10:38 pm (UTC)

Brilliance laughs.

"I'd go with sorting, then glass, then sandcastles, I think. And cast through me, you'll use less mana and I can analyze the spells easier."

incanted
2013-04-15 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything to casting through you besides intending to?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Nope! You've already done it a bunch. It should actually be easier to cast through me than otherwise, when you're holding me in this form."

incanted
2013-04-15 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Do you suppose I can make a general organize-the-stuff-I-have-in-mind-by-the-criteria-I-have-in-mind spell, or should I come up with an incantation I'm not going to want to use again later that will only do colorful sand?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I think long-form incantations are our friend here again," he says. "They're more flexible. Tell the sand you want it to sort itself. Uh, they tend to be kind of poetic, but I don't think that's actually a requirement except that it maybe makes them easier to remember."

incanted
2013-04-15 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I should be writing these down," Bella decides, and she catches her notebook up to what has already been tried. Then she considers, and writes, and says aloud:

"Sand, please arrange yourself into a rainbow!"

cardistry
2013-04-15 11:21 pm (UTC)

Radiating out from Bella in a wave, the top inch or so of sand lifts into the air and settles back down sorted by hue, with red to her left sweeping through orange, yellow, green, blue, and finally various purples all the way on her right. The edges of the sorted patch fade back into the multicoloured sand; the wave of colour-sorting dies down about a hundred feet away.

There is definitely a feel to this spell that's different from the smaller, simpler, more focused spells she's been casting so far.

incanted
2013-04-15 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Feels - interesting," muses Bella. "I might have to start making up words for spell-feelings. But hey! Look! Rainbow sand."

cardistry
2013-04-15 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Rainbow sand," Brilliance agrees. "Pretty cool, huh?"

incanted
2013-04-15 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Very. Glass next? Long-form incantation for that too? We're not shy on mana sorting that much sand, are we?"

cardistry
2013-04-15 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Go for it! We've got plenty."

incanted
2013-04-15 11:34 pm (UTC)

Bella focuses on a circle of some of the green sand right in front of her. "Melt and become clear glass without getting hot," she orders it.

cardistry
2013-04-15 11:35 pm (UTC)

Nope.

"Try just, like - part of that at a time," offers Brilliance. "Like, melt some, then melt some without letting it get hot. I'm not sure how to handle the clear-glass part."
Edited 2013-04-15 23:37 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-15 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

She hops up into the air a bit, in case the heat is significant, and commands the same circle of green sand to: "Melt smoothly together!" (Since they're working on long-form incantations.)

cardistry
2013-04-15 11:45 pm (UTC)

The sand glows and runs together into a perfectly circular puddle, then cools.

incanted
2013-04-15 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Neat." She points Brilliance at some blue sand. "Melt smoothly together without heat!"

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:21 am (UTC)

There's more responsiveness in a long-form spell; it gives her feedback about the successful melting-together of the sand. And this one, thanks to the temperature, doesn't end up with extra grains stuck all over it.

incanted
2013-04-16 12:22 am (UTC)

She picks up her blue glass circle. "Neat," she laughs. "All right, maybe I can get one clear, stained glass -" She aims at purple sand. "Melt smoothly together without heat transparently!"

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:26 am (UTC)

It's hard to tell with all the discs just lying there, but the purple one definitely looks flatter and smoother and with fewer impurities than the other two.

incanted
2013-04-16 12:27 am (UTC)

Bella tucks Brilliance under her arm and picks up the blue and purple disks and compares them.

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:28 am (UTC)

The purple one definitely has fewer flaws and impurities. Not none, but fewer.

incanted
2013-04-16 12:31 am (UTC)

Hmm. She sets them down and makes a red one with the same incantation as the purple, focusing on smoothness and clarity while she speaks the sentence.

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:33 am (UTC)

There is still feedback from the spell, silently showing/feeling how the sand comes together into glass. It goes even better this time.

incanted
2013-04-16 12:34 am (UTC)

"So there's - either a practice effect, or a focus component that itself has a practice effect," Bella says.

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:36 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Brilliance. "I think you've got saying the spell down right, but you're letting up a little when you do the spell - there's not as much doing with the short-form incantations."

incanted
2013-04-16 12:40 am (UTC)

"So - I need to pay more attention, basically, not just let it go be a spell?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:41 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "You can feel the details happening, right? Those are yours, you're doing that. You have to kind of... work with it."

incanted
2013-04-16 12:42 am (UTC)

"Okay." She aims him at the orange section, and repeats herself, and pays attention.

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:43 am (UTC)

Under her direction, the glass forms up into crystalline clarity.

incanted
2013-04-16 12:44 am (UTC)

"Excellent. This is fun," Bella says gleefully. She hops up and down twice before slipping and nearly thwacking herself in the face with Brilliance on the way down; she catches herself in flight halfway down and hovers in an awkward position. "Whoops."

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:45 am (UTC)

Brilliance laughs. "Try not to hurt yourself," he advises kindly.

incanted
2013-04-16 12:46 am (UTC)

"Occupational hazard of being me. Maybe I should invent a spell for that."

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:48 am (UTC)

"Hey, didn't I say I'd do that?" he muses. "One to make moving around as easy as flying?"

incanted
2013-04-16 12:50 am (UTC)

"I think so, yeah. I'd say it'd wind up being like moving in dreams, but I fall over in my dreams, sometimes in front of my sixth grade biology class while holding a tray of muffins."

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:50 am (UTC)

"Awwww," he giggles.

incanted
2013-04-16 12:52 am (UTC)

"Is there a reason you should invent it and not me? Will that make it mana-cheaper or something?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:54 am (UTC)

"It'll be mana-cheaper if I put it on upkeep like I am with Safety and Flight," he says. "Who invents it probably won't make much of a difference. But I feel like I've halfway got an idea of how it should work and I'm not sure you do."

incanted
2013-04-16 12:55 am (UTC)

"I do not," Bella agrees, scuffing a divot into the orange sand at her feet with one shoe.

cardistry
2013-04-16 01:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah. And I don't think it's the kind of thing I could explain properly. I just - it seems like there could be a spell that made it so that every way you can move works like flying, so you get that detailed control and feedback, you know? The only thing is I worry that it would be mana-intensive if you tried to do it on your own."

incanted
2013-04-16 01:46 am (UTC)

"Two questions about that. One, if you do it, does that give you weird sensory details about how I am moving, and two, if you ever decide to fuck off to wherever without me after all, and I can't do it alone, am I going to remember how to move the normal way even as well as I do now or am I going to be a sack of cement?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 01:49 am (UTC)

"I have no idea if you're going to turn into a sack of cement," he says. "It's... kind of getting less and less likely that I'll fuck off to wherever without you, though. I don't know about the weird sensory details, I haven't done the spell yet."

incanted
2013-04-16 01:51 am (UTC)

"Maybe it's worth trying for just a little bit to see about sensory stuff, and then if they're within okay parameters I do some math about likelihood of cement-sackhood and likelihood of fucking off?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 01:53 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "Okay. So we want a spell that gives you better movement control, but doesn't copy me specific feedback even when I'm hooked in, is that about right?"

incanted
2013-04-16 01:54 am (UTC)

"Right."

cardistry
2013-04-16 01:56 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "Why don't we do some other stuff and I can think it over while you're sleeping sometime? I'm still not all the way there, I don't think."

incanted
2013-04-16 01:57 am (UTC)

"Sure. I think sandcastles was next." She muses over incantations. "There is really no way to command sand to form itself into a castle that doesn't sound silly, is there?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 01:59 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:00 am (UTC)

"Oh well. I will sound silly for the sake of doing magic." She designs a sandcastle in her head, something fairly simple she can completely visualize, and aims Brilliance at some yellow sand. "Sand, form up into a castle and stay there!"

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:07 am (UTC)

The sand forms up into a castle, and stays there.

This one takes a lot of fine control in the 'doing' stage, more than making glass and much more than just sorting sand into a rainbow.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:08 am (UTC)

Bella pays close, devoted attention. She's glad she picked a simple castle.

"Is this taking ongoing mana to stay up?" she asks.

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:09 am (UTC)

"It's kind of... tapering off," he says. "There, it's not drawing anymore."

incanted
2013-04-16 02:11 am (UTC)

Bella walks up to the castle and pokes it gently to see how it's holding together.

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:13 am (UTC)

A little bit of tower crumbles away where she pokes it, but most of the structure stands firm.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:13 am (UTC)

"Huh. It doesn't feel wet or anything, it's just hanging out. Neat."

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:15 am (UTC)

"Yeah, pretty cool," says Brilliance. "Matter manipulation is supposed to be tough stuff."

incanted
2013-04-16 02:16 am (UTC)

"So am I a genius or are you just throwing a lot of mana at the problem or what?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:18 am (UTC)

"No, it's not takes-a-lot-of-power tough, it's takes-a-lot-of-attention tough," he says.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:19 am (UTC)

"Well, that's why I paid attention."

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:20 am (UTC)

He laughs.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:27 am (UTC)

"So, I'm good at magic?" she asks, smiling.

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:28 am (UTC)

"Guess so!" says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:34 am (UTC)

"Awesome!"

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:39 am (UTC)

Brilliance glimmers. It's much more visually obvious in staff form.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:40 am (UTC)

"You think I could pull off a sweet potato yet or should we do some more intermediate stuff?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:42 am (UTC)

"Try conjuring something else first," he says. "Something with a really simple structure. Like, I don't know, a grain of sand?"

incanted
2013-04-16 02:43 am (UTC)

"Okay." Bella picks up a grain of green sand, peers intently at it, and then incants: "I command a new grain of green sand to come to exist."

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:44 am (UTC)

A new grain of green sand comes to exist.

In the moment that it does so, Bella is aware of its entire structure down to the molecular level.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:46 am (UTC)

"Whoa, that is a rush," breathes Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:47 am (UTC)

"Seriously!" says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-16 02:49 am (UTC)

"How much mana does it take to make brand new sand out of nowhere? Are we going to - experience whatever happens when one runs out of mana, if I try to make an entire potato?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:49 am (UTC)

"New sand didn't take that much," says Brilliance. "We're still way above half. I'm not actually sure about the potato."

incanted
2013-04-16 02:51 am (UTC)

"So maybe I should try - say, a kernel of corn first? Is it a size thing or a complexity thing, would filling a bowl with sugar be easier because it's molecularly pretty simple? I think?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 02:57 am (UTC)

"I'm not totally sure," he says. "I think that once you've got the hang of doing one of something, scaling it up to a bunch doesn't take nearly as much mana. But I'm not sure how much the size of the first thing factors into it."
Edited 2013-04-16 02:58 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-16 02:58 am (UTC)

"...So, maybe a single sugar crystal."

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:01 am (UTC)

"Try it and see!"

incanted
2013-04-16 03:02 am (UTC)

Bella commands a sugar crystal to exist just like she did the sand.

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:03 am (UTC)

This one is a somewhat harder to envision all at once. But the conjuration is successful.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:04 am (UTC)

"How're we on mana?" Pause. "Can we just make me able to directly sense that or do I have to pester you every time I want to know?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:06 am (UTC)

"You have to pester me," he says apologetically. "You might get a sense for it yourself someday, or you might not, I'm not really sure. Anyway, we're still above half, but we're getting there."

incanted
2013-04-16 03:07 am (UTC)

"Maybe better to save the kernel of corn for another time, then?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:08 am (UTC)

"Yeah, maybe."

incanted
2013-04-16 03:09 am (UTC)

"Mkay." Bella kicks off the ground again. "God I love flying."

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:10 am (UTC)

Brilliance laughs.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:11 am (UTC)

Zoom! Zoooooooom! Zoom.

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:12 am (UTC)

"Wheeeeeee!"

incanted
2013-04-16 03:14 am (UTC)

"How much fun can it be when you're a staff?" asks Bella, doing a barrel roll. "Like, I'm mostly getting - wind and vestibular stuff - do you get that?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:17 am (UTC)

"I get - different stuff," he says.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:18 am (UTC)

"Indescribable device stuff?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:19 am (UTC)

"I guess," he snorts.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:20 am (UTC)

"Oh well." Zoom!

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:21 am (UTC)

Whee.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:22 am (UTC)

Eventually Bella yawns. "I have no idea what time it is on the west coast of North America, but it's probably about time I went home to bed, I'm probably keeping Lexi up," she sighs, coming in for a landing on the mixed-up sand; they've flown well past her sorted rainbow and her disks and her sandcastle.

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:25 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably. "Where do you wanna transfer back to?"

incanted
2013-04-16 03:27 am (UTC)

"...Hmm, I wonder if I can magephone Lexi from this distance, warn her, she'd be startled if we appeared right where she was. Am I risking a mana catastrophe if I try?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:29 am (UTC)

"Yeah, if you wanna do that I'd transfer to - damn, you can't really transfer to an asteroid," he sighs. "But somewhere in the same dimension, first. Then warn her and teleport in."

incanted
2013-04-16 03:31 am (UTC)

"How about that random forest we fought in?" suggests Bella after a moment. "Probably not being observed. ...This planet is not in my native dimension, huh?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:32 am (UTC)

"Nope!" says Brilliance. "Okay, random forest it is."

The spell diagram appears, brightens, flares. They are in Random Forest.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:32 am (UTC)

+Hey Lexi!+

lexicality
2013-04-16 03:33 am (UTC)

+Hey, what's up, it's late,+ replies Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:34 am (UTC)

+Yeah, I know, on my way home, where can I pop in that won't startle you?+

lexicality
2013-04-16 03:34 am (UTC)

+Living room's fine, me and Dad are both upstairs.+

incanted
2013-04-16 03:35 am (UTC)

+See you in a sec.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:36 am (UTC)

Brilliance teleports them - noticeably faster and less flashy - and reverts to his deck form.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:36 am (UTC)

Bella tucks him into the bookshelf. "G'night!"

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:39 am (UTC)

"G'night," says Brilliance.

miracle crystal dancing jewel, spin!

incanted

Bella goes to bed, happily exhausted. She can make stuff! Not a lot of stuff, not yet, but still. She will be able to solve Brilliance's food problem and if she can figure out how to scale up she will be able to solve the world's food problem.

The next day is, alas, also a school day. She bids Brilliance good morning while she brushes out her hair. +Hey you.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 12:15 pm (UTC)

+Hey yourself! So I worked on that movement spell a bunch last night,+ he says cheerfully. +And I figured out a way to make it so I don't have to maintain it for you and you don't have to maintain it yourself. I just have to make you a tiny little device, with just barely enough power to keep the one spell going. It won't have to turn it on and off, because I bet you'll want it on all the time, so I don't think I'll have much trouble making it, and it'll be about as smart as an amoeba.+

incanted
2013-04-16 03:20 pm (UTC)

+I'm... surprised,+ Bella says, +both that you can do that, and that you'd be inclined to, amoeba or no amoeba.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:23 pm (UTC)

+The amoeba is kind of the important part,+ he says. +I wouldn't make you a device if it was going to wake up. All devices are a little bit alive, but as long as it's not alive enough to want things, I'm fine with it. I don't think it's all that different from you making me a sweet potato. Those are biological too, remember?+

incanted
2013-04-16 03:26 pm (UTC)

+If sweet potatoes could talk I'd be in a bit of a pickle,+ Bella says. +So to speak. So - devices are not significantly more "related" to each other than I am to a sweet potato? This isn't going to be, like, your kid or anything, this is an - arts and crafts project?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:28 pm (UTC)

+Arts and crafts just about covers it,+ he agrees.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:29 pm (UTC)

+Okay, neat. What's it gonna look like?+ She finishes disentangling her hair and starts pouring cereal. +Do you want to try Rice Krispies?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:32 pm (UTC)

+Yes!+

He shifts and hurries into the kitchen, magephoning as he walks.

+What it looks like is mostly up to you. I was thinking of using some glass from the sand planet as a base, 'cause it's really pretty. And it'll have to be something you wear all the time; it won't be able to connect from a distance.+

incanted
2013-04-16 03:33 pm (UTC)

Bella pours him some cereal and some milk on top and hands him a spoon. +Little droplet of blue-green glass on a necklace? And then if I accumulate more for more maintenance spells I can string them on together.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

He knows how spoons work now; he accomplishes Rice Krispies without spilling anything anywhere. Om nom nommmmm.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes people slice up bananas in their cereal," remarks Bella idly.

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:37 pm (UTC)

+I'll try that next time!+ he says, over magephone because noms.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:41 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs and eats her own breakfast. +Is making the device time-consuming or mana-intense? This a before-school or after-school plan?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:43 pm (UTC)

+Probably after-school. I don't actually know how long it'll take; I've never done it before.+
Edited 2013-04-16 15:43 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-16 03:45 pm (UTC)

+Okay then. Do amoebalike devices get names?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:47 pm (UTC)

+If you desperately wanna give it one, I guess, but I'd feel weird.+

incanted
2013-04-16 03:48 pm (UTC)

+I don't have to, I just have no idea what the standard here is.+

lexicality
2013-04-16 03:48 pm (UTC)

Lexi yawns her way down the stairs and looks critically at the cereal box and cracks an egg into a frying pan instead.

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:51 pm (UTC)

Brilliance shrugs. +Does the standard matter? I don't know it either, I just know I'd feel weird naming a sweet potato.+

incanted
2013-04-16 03:52 pm (UTC)

+I'd feel weird naming a sweet potato I was going to eat. If I were going to keep one on the kitchen counter because it was an interesting shape, or something, I might name it.+

lexicality
2013-04-16 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Good morning, Bella," says Lexi pointedly.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Morning. Sorry, distracted," apologizes Bella. "You sleep okay?"

lexicality
2013-04-16 03:53 pm (UTC)

"I slept fine," says Lexi, more content.

cardistry
2013-04-16 03:56 pm (UTC)

Om nom nomty nom.

Cereal all done! He smiles contentedly.

incanted
2013-04-16 03:59 pm (UTC)

Bella's done with hers too. +How would you feel about making Lexi little-devices to maintain some spells on her too? Like, not today, after she's loosened up some.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:00 pm (UTC)

+...I dunno,+ he says. +Ask me again after she's loosened up some.+

incanted
2013-04-16 04:01 pm (UTC)

+'Kay.+

"You driving today or shall I?" Bella asks her sister while Lexi plops her egg onto a slice of bread and bites into it.

lexicality
2013-04-16 04:02 pm (UTC)

"I'll do it. You never did copy down my math," says Lexi. "You can do it in the car."

incanted
2013-04-16 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, good point, thanks," says Bella.

lexicality
2013-04-16 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Youuuu're welcome," trills Lexi. She licks a bit of runny yolk off her finger. "Let's get outta here."

incanted
2013-04-16 04:03 pm (UTC)

+Deck of cards?+ Bella cues Brilliance on the twins' way out.

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:04 pm (UTC)

He shifts and floats into her hand.

incanted
2013-04-16 04:05 pm (UTC)

She pockets him and grabs her bag and hops into the passenger seat. She copies Lexi's math (judiciously introducing three mistakes and correcting two over the course of the translation) on the way to school.

School ensues.

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:14 pm (UTC)

Brilliance comfortably occupies Bella's pocket.

incanted
2013-04-16 04:16 pm (UTC)

School ends.

+I can't keep copying Lexi's homework indefinitely or I'll start making a fool of myself in classes, I should do, like, an hours' worth sometime this afternoon and if I put it off I'm just going to get distracted by magic,+ Bella tells Brilliance as she gets in the driver's seat with Lexi in the passenger on the way home.

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:19 pm (UTC)

+Sure,+ he says agreeably.

incanted
2013-04-16 04:22 pm (UTC)

Bella and her sister do homework at the kitchen table, chatting companionably in half-sentences interpretable only to each other. Eventually Bella does what she deems to be enough, and she puts her schoolbooks back in her bag. "I think I'm gonna go," she tells Lexi.

lexicality
2013-04-16 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Gonna go do magic, learn to save the world?" asks Lexi wryly.

incanted
2013-04-16 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Gonna go do magic, learn to conjure potatoes," amends Bella. "Saving the world might be trickier. But yeah, something like that. I'll see you later."

lexicality
2013-04-16 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Right, well, see you later," says Lexi, "um, thanks for not instantly taking off?"

incanted
2013-04-16 04:24 pm (UTC)

"No problem," Bella laughs.

+Poof?+ she asks Brilliance.

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:24 pm (UTC)

+Poof!+ he says, and they poof back to the Planet of Sand.

incanted
2013-04-16 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Device first or corn first?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Device first!" he says, shifting to staff form and hovering beside her. "Pick some sand, make some glass."
Edited 2013-04-16 16:39 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-16 04:40 pm (UTC)

Bella picks up a little handful of sand between the bands of blue and green; it averages to a lovely aqua. She pools it into the middle of one hand and picks up Brilliance with the other and commands the sand to melt smoothly together into a droplet without heat. (And she pays attention.)

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:44 pm (UTC)

The ensuing blob-with-a-hole-in-it is very pretty.

"Awesome," says Brilliance. "Okay," he shifts human and holds out his hand, "gimme."

incanted
2013-04-16 04:45 pm (UTC)

She hands over the droplet.

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:46 pm (UTC)

He sits down in the sand and wraps his hands around it and closes his eyes.

It's not very interesting to look at.

incanted
2013-04-16 04:47 pm (UTC)

Bella clicks her heels together and murmurs "flight" and goes zooming about while he works.

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:50 pm (UTC)

+Got it!+ he says after about half an hour.

The finished product is just the same blob of glass, but with a glint of multicoloured light somewhere in its depths.

incanted
2013-04-16 04:51 pm (UTC)

Bella lands next to him. "Will it talk at all, or just - be itself?" she asks. "Also I completely forgot to bring something to string it on, hmm."

cardistry
2013-04-16 04:58 pm (UTC)

"It's not gonna talk," he says, holding it out to her. "You can just shove it in your pocket for now, I guess, but try not to let it fall out. Okay, ready?"

incanted
2013-04-16 04:59 pm (UTC)

Bella reaches out and touches the droplet. "Yeah - like so?"
Edited 2013-04-16 17:06 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Close enough," he says, and incants: "Motion."

The device glimmers. A glimmer passes over Bella, too, but it doesn't stick around; this has to be a stealthy spell, after all, if she's going to use it all the time.

Brilliance passes her the droplet and takes his hand away.

incanted
2013-04-16 05:13 pm (UTC)

Bella tucks it into her pocket.

Then she stares at her arm.

Then she grins and breaks into a heedless run, and leaps into the air, and spins, and generally capers around like a baby goat crossed with a droplet of water on a hot griddle.

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:13 pm (UTC)

Brilliance laughs.

incanted
2013-04-16 05:14 pm (UTC)

Bella's laughing too, breathless with it, breaking into random dance.

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:14 pm (UTC)

He chases after her, just because he can.

incanted
2013-04-16 05:15 pm (UTC)

She lets him catch her, and she hugs him tight. "Thank you!"

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:17 pm (UTC)

He hugs back, beaming.

"You're welcome! I'm glad you like it! Ooh, hugs. Hugs are awesome."

incanted
2013-04-16 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Hugs're pretty awesome," Bella agrees. "It's great, it's the best thing, I feel amazing."

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:18 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm snuggly hugs.

incanted
2013-04-16 05:19 pm (UTC)

Grateful happy hugs! "It's amazing, I love it, it's like I'm telekinetic only with myself, I'll never trip over random nonexistent things again, I love it."
Edited 2013-04-16 17:22 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:23 pm (UTC)

"I love that you love it!" he laughs, tucking her shoulder under his chin.

incanted
2013-04-16 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Best present ever." Squeeze.

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww." Squish! "I think hugs might be better than ice cream," he adds contemplatively.

incanted
2013-04-16 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Is ice cream the current winner in food?"

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

incanted
2013-04-16 05:29 pm (UTC)

"And to think you've only tried one flavor of the stuff."

Hugs hugs hugs. Even hugs are pleasanter with all this detailed obedient feedback from all her parts.

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I should try more flavours," he says, snuggling her some more. "I want to try everything."

incanted
2013-04-16 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting that," she laughs. "You are one serious hedonist."

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:47 pm (UTC)

"I definitely am," he giggles. Hug hug hug. "I don't understand how anybody else isn't."

incanted
2013-04-16 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Got other things on our minds," Bella shrugs.

cardistry
2013-04-16 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he laughs, "how."

incanted
2013-04-16 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm also a lot more used to food and hugs than you are, maybe the novelty will wear off in seventeen years."

cardistry
2013-04-16 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Mmm, I think that'd be kinda sad," he says.

incanted
2013-04-16 06:26 pm (UTC)

"A little, I guess."

cardistry
2013-04-16 06:28 pm (UTC)

Hug-snuggle.

"You're my favourite person," he sighs. "Not that that's a high bar to clear."

incanted
2013-04-16 06:31 pm (UTC)

...Aw.

Squeeze.

cardistry
2013-04-16 06:33 pm (UTC)

Happy snuggly hug!

incanted
2013-04-16 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad I found you. I'm sorry I'm your favorite person - I mean, not directly, but sorry that you've known such a bad quality of person, pretty much all I've done for you is be not-horrible."

cardistry
2013-04-16 06:58 pm (UTC)

"I like you," he says. "You're nice. Maybe you call it not-horrible, but I call it nice."

incanted
2013-04-16 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, I try to be nice, but everything you've seen me do is either minimum standard of not-horribleness stuff, or selfishly motivated," she points out.

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:04 pm (UTC)

"So? What I'm saying is," he lets go of her so he can gesture emphatically, "your minimum standards are high compared to what I'm used to. And you're sorry about that, and that's sweet. And I'm just gonna keep appreciating it the way I appreciate hugs and ice cream - it's something nice that I'm not used to yet."

incanted
2013-04-16 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Awww."

Bella maybe blushes a little.

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:05 pm (UTC)

He grins at her. "Aww, you're cute."

incanted
2013-04-16 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Pff." Bella's no longer being hugged; she twirls gratuitously.

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:10 pm (UTC)

Brilliance laughs.

incanted
2013-04-16 07:29 pm (UTC)

Eventually Bella wearies of dancing and she settles in to work on food. Soliciting information about their mana supply every time, she conjures a heap of sugar grains - it is indeed not much harder than making just one - and then a kernel of corn, and then a tomato, both of which Brilliance is invited to eat. After she's managed all of these feats they head home for the day, and she bids him goodnight and goes to bed.

+Morning, Brilliance,+ she says the next morning.

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:38 pm (UTC)

+Hi!+ he says ebulliently. +Last night I got to taste somebody's dick! I think I have a new favourite taste.+

incanted
2013-04-16 07:41 pm (UTC)

+...+

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:46 pm (UTC)

+It was so much fuuuun,+ he says.

incanted
2013-04-16 07:46 pm (UTC)

+Oooomigod.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:47 pm (UTC)

+...What?+

incanted
2013-04-16 07:48 pm (UTC)

+You know that's a sex thing, right, it's not like it's a food? How long did you say you'd been on Earth, a hundred years?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:49 pm (UTC)

+I know what sex is,+ he laughs. +So? I liked it, the guy liked it, everybody wins! Mmmmmm.+

incanted
2013-04-16 07:50 pm (UTC)

+Okay, wow. I really didn't expect to hear that, but okay.+
Edited 2013-04-16 19:50 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

He giggles. +Maybe I should try more kinds of sex, too.+
Edited 2013-04-16 19:51 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-16 07:52 pm (UTC)

+I had been kind of operating under the assumption that devices weren't wired that way?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:55 pm (UTC)

+That's a weird assumption,+ he says. +I've got the parts and they all work. And you know how I feel about human-style sensory experience. Isn't sex supposed to be like ice cream but better? I mean, generally?+

incanted
2013-04-16 07:56 pm (UTC)

+I don't think they're supposed to have a lot in common in the details, but reportedly they are both enjoyable,+ says Bella delicately.

cardistry
2013-04-16 07:59 pm (UTC)

+...Is this not something you wanna talk about?+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:00 pm (UTC)

+I just don't actually, you know, know. As of last night, apparently, you have had more sex than me.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:01 pm (UTC)

+...But I mean, you also have parts and they also work, right...?+
Edited 2013-04-16 20:03 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-16 08:03 pm (UTC)

+...I am a healthy seventeen-year-old female, Brilliance, yes.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:07 pm (UTC)

+And you've had more than like three days to find out what an orgasm feels like. Man, why haven't I done that yet,+ he wonders.

incanted
2013-04-16 08:08 pm (UTC)

+My leading hypothesis having been demolished, I have no idea.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:08 pm (UTC)

He cracks up.

incanted
2013-04-16 08:11 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, in retrospect it was silly of me to think that, and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you managed to stumble across a proposition if you were out wandering around, you're cute and everything.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:14 pm (UTC)

+I am really cute!+ he agrees. +If I saw me walking around, I'd hit on me too!+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:15 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles into the magephone.

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:17 pm (UTC)

+Now I wish there were two of me so I could fuck myself,+ he says wistfully.

incanted
2013-04-16 08:18 pm (UTC)

+You'd be the expert on whether that's something you could accomplish by magic or not,+ Bella says wryly.

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:20 pm (UTC)

+Nah, I don't think I can pull it off.+ He laughs. +Too bad.+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:22 pm (UTC)

+Alas. So if you're not non-sexual, what are you? I assume you're familiar with the fact that there's kinds.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:23 pm (UTC)

+I don't think I have a kind,+ he says. +What's the sex equivalent of the way I feel about food? I'm that. Except I've had more food than sex. Which is definitely something I hope to change. Hey, wanna have sex with me?+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:24 pm (UTC)

+Uh. I'll have to - think about that,+ says Bella.

(She enjoys a brief and vivid mental image of being enjoyed the way he enjoys ice cream.)

+Just - that, or is there context here?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

+...Context like what?+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

+Like, I'm not sure of actual percentages, but often people who have sex are also dating or something?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:29 pm (UTC)

+...Yeah, and? What are you asking, here? I wanna have sex with you because I wanna have sex and I know you and I like you and you're nice.+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:31 pm (UTC)

+There are ways to like people, though. I'm trying to figure out which one you mean.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:37 pm (UTC)

+I like one person,+ he points out. +It's not like there's anything to compare the way I like you against.+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:40 pm (UTC)

+...That's fair.+

And sweet.

+Okay, so that I can think about this question without extraneous fluff in the way - can devices get people pregnant or transmit bio-person diseases?+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:41 pm (UTC)

+Nope! I'm not even as good a disease vector as your average deck of cards, 'cause I shed all that stuff every time I change form.+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:42 pm (UTC)

+Okay then. I will - think about it.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:44 pm (UTC)

+Okay,+ he says brightly. +Think I've got time to go try out my body some before you have to go to school?+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:46 pm (UTC)

+We'll be going any minute, I've been dithering staring at this hair elastic trying to figure out how to get the glass droplet onto it, I probably don't even have time left for an actual breakfast and will just grab cold poptarts on the way out.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:47 pm (UTC)

He laughs. +Lemme at the hair elastic.+

incanted
2013-04-16 08:49 pm (UTC)

Bella trots downstairs, puts the hair elastic on the kitchen table, checks the time, and puts her poptarts in the toaster.

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:53 pm (UTC)

Brilliance picks up the hair elastic; his spell diagram unfolds beneath him. The hair elastic comes apart at the join. He holds it out to Bella. "Put the bead on it, I'll join it back up."

incanted
2013-04-16 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Cool. Is this repeatable without a new spell if I accumulate more?" she asks, stringing on the bead.
Edited 2013-04-16 20:56 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he laughs, reuniting the ends for her and letting go of the elastic. His spell diagram goes away. "But the matter manipulation was pretty tiny, I didn't even need to incant for it."

incanted
2013-04-16 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Cool." She tests the stretch; it will go on her wrist and hold up a ponytail. "Thanks!" And she spins on the ball of one foot towards the toaster when it pops, and plates her poptarts and breaks one in half and hands him a piece.

cardistry
2013-04-16 08:59 pm (UTC)

He beams.

Nom nom nom +ooooh, I like these.+

incanted
2013-04-16 09:00 pm (UTC)

+Thought you might.+

lexicality
2013-04-16 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Come on, Bella," calls Lexi from where she's putting on her shoes, "we'll be late!"

incanted
2013-04-16 09:01 pm (UTC)

Bella holds her poptarts in her mouth, ties her shoes, and follows her sister out the door. +C'mon!+

cardistry
2013-04-16 09:04 pm (UTC)

+But food!+ he laughs.
Edited 2013-04-16 21:04 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-16 09:05 pm (UTC)

+Well, all right, finish your half a tart and when you're done warn us before teleporting into the car,+ laughs Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-16 09:06 pm (UTC)

+Will do!+

incanted
2013-04-16 09:09 pm (UTC)

Off drive the Swan twins.

cardistry
2013-04-16 09:21 pm (UTC)

A few minutes later, he says to both of them, +Okay, I'm good to go.+

incanted
2013-04-16 09:25 pm (UTC)

+Okay, c'mere.+
Edited 2013-04-16 21:26 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-16 09:32 pm (UTC)

He teleports into Bella's lap.

incanted
2013-04-16 09:35 pm (UTC)

Bella pockets him.

School happens.

She is occasionally distracted by thinking about the thing she said she'd think about.

cardistry
2013-04-16 09:40 pm (UTC)

Brilliance remains comfortably in her pocket the whole time.

incanted
2013-04-16 09:43 pm (UTC)

School ends; Lexi goes home with Jessica today and Bella drives home alone. "Leaning towards yes, but on the condition that you don't inform - by any channel of information, no insinuations or meaningful looks or significant pauses - Lexi or Charlie. It'd be their business if I acquired a boyfriend, but if I'm just having sex one time because it sounds like it might be pleasant that's another matter."

cardistry
2013-04-16 09:44 pm (UTC)

"...Okay," he says. "I'll try not to. I don't actually know how good a liar I am. That good enough?"

incanted
2013-04-16 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, you don't really have a lot of conversations with them anyway, so the standard for how good a liar you have to be isn't high, and anyway I don't mean lying. Like, literally no one in the world has had sex with me, and also literally no one in the world goes around stating, 'I have not had sex with Bella Swan! No sir!', so, you know, that is not exactly the form that discretion takes here."

cardistry
2013-04-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I mean I don't know how good I am at pretending something isn't true when I know it is," he says. "I haven't really had to do much of it before. I don't know how I might accidentally let somebody know, but if I don't know how then it's harder not to do it, see what I mean?"

incanted
2013-04-16 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, default to magephone when we're not alone? You do that anyway, it won't look weird."

cardistry
2013-04-16 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Sure, okay," he says agreeably.

incanted
2013-04-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay then." Pause. "Huh, I expected this to feel more momentous. Interesting."

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Brilliance. "Why?"

incanted
2013-04-16 10:05 pm (UTC)

"There's a fair amount of cultural baggage associated with the first time somebody has sex. Mostly girls," shrugs Bella. "It's stupid, but I expected it to have more subtle effects on me than it appears to."

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Brilliance. "Yeah, I guess I've seen some of that."

incanted
2013-04-16 10:11 pm (UTC)

"So apparently I'm a little more insulated from toxic memes than I thought, go me."

She parks the car, looks around, and says, "Nobody'll see us go if we head for Planet Rainbowsand now."

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Brilliance. "Should we bring a blanket or something, though? I mean, sand's pretty comfy, but it gets in places."

incanted
2013-04-16 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Oh, good point." She hops out of the car, goes inside, and locates a picnic blanket. And, after a moment's thought, a packet of tissues.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay, all set?"

incanted
2013-04-16 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Yup."

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:20 pm (UTC)

He activates the dimensional transfer, then slides out of her pocket and shifts human. Out of habit, he includes clothes.

incanted
2013-04-16 10:21 pm (UTC)

Bella spreads out the picnic blanket.

And sits on it. And looks thoughtful.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:25 pm (UTC)

He plops down beside her and gives her a hug, leaning his head on her shoulder.

incanted
2013-04-16 10:28 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! These are probably part of the normal course of events, right?

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:30 pm (UTC)

Yes! Also they are fun.

"I've never kissed anybody before, either," he says lazily. And then giggles. "Well, not on the mouth. You wanna?"

incanted
2013-04-16 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

He is really cute.

She kisses him experimentally. And then a little less experimentally.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:35 pm (UTC)

Mmmm, kisses.

He kisses her like she is ice cream.

incanted
2013-04-16 10:36 pm (UTC)

Bella likes being ice cream. Bella really likes being ice cream. She wriggles a little closer.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:38 pm (UTC)

He wraps an arm around her shoulders, runs his other hand lightly down her face, and kisses her some more.

+This is fuuuuuun,+ he says happily.

incanted
2013-04-16 10:39 pm (UTC)

+Mmmmhm. I feel tasty,+ giggles Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:40 pm (UTC)

+You are fucking delicious,+ he informs her.

incanted
2013-04-16 10:42 pm (UTC)

+Oh good.+ She was nervous, but this has mostly given way to relaxed lissome warmth. (The droplet on the elastic around her wrist helps, though she's not as aware of it as she is when she's attempting to walk or run.) Her hands drift around; one winds up in his hair and one around his waist.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:45 pm (UTC)

+Mmmmmmmm I like it when you touch my haaaaaair,+ he says, closing his eyes briefly between kisses.

incanted
2013-04-16 10:47 pm (UTC)

Bella threads her fingers through said hair. +It's soft,+ she says.

Her other hand meanders a couple inches down.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:50 pm (UTC)

+Mmmm,+ says Brilliance, resting his head on her shoulder again and stroking a hand down her back. +That's nice. You're nice. I like you.+

incanted
2013-04-16 10:51 pm (UTC)

+I like you too, so that's good.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:53 pm (UTC)

He giggles softly.

incanted
2013-04-16 10:55 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses is that the edge of his shirt? It is. Bella's hand should go under it.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:56 pm (UTC)

Ooooh. He wriggles happily.

incanted
2013-04-16 10:57 pm (UTC)

Yes, that was a good idea. She nudges up his shirt a bit more and tucks the rest of her forearm under it.

cardistry
2013-04-16 10:59 pm (UTC)

Brilliance makes happy happy sounds and snuggles up and nuzzles the side of her neck.

incanted
2013-04-16 11:00 pm (UTC)

Oooh that is a good place for nuzzles. Bella makes an undignified happy squeak.

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:02 pm (UTC)

Ooh! How about kisses, are kisses good there too?

incanted
2013-04-16 11:04 pm (UTC)

Yes.

Happy squirming ensues.

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:08 pm (UTC)

Ooooooooh, happy squirming. That is awesome. Clearly he should kiss her neck some more.

Like so!

incanted
2013-04-16 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Nnnnf," mumbles Bella, squeezing him. +Okay this was a fantastic idea.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:11 pm (UTC)

+I knoooow,+ says Brilliance, by magephone because his tongue is busy. +You are so tastyyyy.+

incanted
2013-04-16 11:13 pm (UTC)

+Mmmmmm I think you should take off your shirt,+ Bella asserts.

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:28 pm (UTC)

+I think that's an awesome idea!+

He takes a very short break from kissing her neck, just long enough to wriggle out of his shirt, and then puts his mouth right back where it was.

incanted
2013-04-16 11:31 pm (UTC)

Bella makes more happy noises and sets about investigating what her awesome idea has made available. Insofar as she can with her head tilted all the way to the left like that, which means mostly by hand.

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:32 pm (UTC)

Brilliance continues to explore, with dedication and enthusiasm, every possible combination of his mouth and her neck. He also wriggles happily whenever she touches him.

incanted
2013-04-16 11:34 pm (UTC)

Bella is slowly and steadily melting into a mumbly smiley puddle.

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:40 pm (UTC)

Puddle-Bella is one of the best flavours of Bella!

+You're so cute,+ he says, nuzzling under her ear.

incanted
2013-04-16 11:41 pm (UTC)

+I am so so glad you think so,+ purrs Bella, squirming. +Maybe I should take my shirt off.+

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:43 pm (UTC)

+That would be awesome,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-16 11:44 pm (UTC)

Bella wriggles out of her shirt, although she pauses a couple of times to steal more kisses. Then it is off!

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:46 pm (UTC)

Brilliance knows what that means!

That means more fun places to put his mouth is what that means!

incanted
2013-04-16 11:46 pm (UTC)

Bella turns out to be ticklish in some of those places!

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:49 pm (UTC)

"You are cuuuuuuuuute," he giggles.

incanted
2013-04-16 11:50 pm (UTC)

"You're tickly!" she exclaims, squirming.

cardistry
2013-04-16 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Is tickly good or bad?" he inquires, hugging her lightly.

incanted
2013-04-16 11:51 pm (UTC)

"It's good but it makes me try to get away anyway," she laughs.

cardistry
2013-04-17 12:01 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Brilliance, and he goes back to treating Bella like she is all-over ice cream.

incanted
2013-04-17 12:01 am (UTC)

Bella wriggles and laughs and reaches out to touch whatever bits of him come nearest her hands as they do so.

cardistry
2013-04-17 12:05 am (UTC)

Mainly those are the shirtless parts! Brilliance appreciates her attention very much.

incanted
2013-04-17 12:07 am (UTC)

Oh good.

And it seems only fair if she tries kissing his neck, too, doesn't it?

cardistry
2013-04-17 12:11 am (UTC)

That causes him to immediately transform into happy puddly moaning Brilliance!

incanted
2013-04-17 12:12 am (UTC)

Nnnnnf. Definitely a call for ongoing neck-kisses, then. Kiss kiss kiss snuggle kiss kiss.

cardistry
2013-04-17 12:27 am (UTC)

"I love you," he sighs, tipping his head back.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:15 am (UTC)

"Wait," says Bella, "what?"

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:17 am (UTC)

"I love you," he repeats with a sunny smile. "You're my favourite person and you give me all kinds of nice happy feelings. I like you, I love you."

incanted
2013-04-17 02:19 am (UTC)

"Okay, now I'm vaguely worried that you've got some kind of emotional dependence on me that I should be worrying about, like, am I taking advantage of you?"

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:21 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I dunno, maybe there's millions of people out there who're more awesome than you, it's a big universe, but you're the one I've actually met, so you're the one I've got feelings about. I don't think you're taking advantage of me. I think we're making out because we like each other and it's fun. You do like me, right?"

incanted
2013-04-17 02:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I like you," agrees Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:26 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says contentedly, and he snuggles up and kisses her on the cheek.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:27 am (UTC)

Snuggles and kisses and a satisfied conscience. All good things.

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:28 am (UTC)

Yes. Yes indeed.

Mmmmmcuddlycuddly he is finding it hard to understand why humans do things other than eat and touch each other.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:30 am (UTC)

At some point their stated plan will involve removing their pants, too, but Bella's not in a hurry. Snuggles and petting and kisses.

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:35 am (UTC)

Snuggles and petting and kisses! Bella is totally made of ice cream and you are never going to convince him of anything different.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:38 am (UTC)

Brilliance is pretty yummy too. Although not in an icecreamlike way, really.

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:41 am (UTC)

Well, no. And Bella does not taste like ice cream. It's just that she is equally enjoyable to put his mouth on.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:42 am (UTC)

He is very very welcome to put his mouth on her.

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:43 am (UTC)

Good, because that is among his favourite activities in the entire world.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:43 am (UTC)

Oh yaaaaaaaaay!

Nibble nibble nibble.

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:46 am (UTC)

Nibbles! Nibbles are the best.

Does Bella like nibbles? Brilliance would like to find out through empirical testing!

incanted
2013-04-17 02:46 am (UTC)

Bella likes gentle little nibbles. Most especially on the neck. And the insides of her wrists. If he's being thorough about his empiricism.

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:47 am (UTC)

He is being thorough as fucking hell! Bella can have all the gentle little nibbles her heart desires.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:48 am (UTC)

This might be a large number!

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:50 am (UTC)

It's not like they're short on time!

incanted
2013-04-17 02:51 am (UTC)

It is not. Indeed it is not. Snuggle snuggle squirm happy little noises.

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:53 am (UTC)

+I love you,+ he says again, hugging her and nuzzling her shoulder.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:54 am (UTC)

+You're cute.+

cardistry
2013-04-17 02:55 am (UTC)

+So are yoooooou,+ he says, and kisses her somewhere in the jawline area.

incanted
2013-04-17 02:58 am (UTC)

"Mmmm." Bella squirms closer. This proves topologically difficult. She does it anyway.

cardistry
2013-04-17 03:03 am (UTC)

Awwwwww she is cute, he is going to snuggle her some more now.

incanted
2013-04-17 03:04 am (UTC)

Bella's gonna nibble on his ear. It's right there.

cardistry
2013-04-17 03:05 am (UTC)

"Mmmm," says Brilliance. "That is nice. I like that."

incanted
2013-04-17 03:16 am (UTC)

+Oh good.+ Nibble nibble squirm pet.

cardistry
2013-04-17 03:18 am (UTC)

Snuggle squiiiiiiiirm.

"Why do people ever do stuff that's not this," he laughs.

incanted
2013-04-17 03:19 am (UTC)

+Cause if we did, where would we get our food and shelter and music and whatnot?+

cardistry
2013-04-17 11:47 am (UTC)

+Okay, point,+ he concedes, snuggling her. +It's just so much fun.+

incanted
2013-04-17 03:31 pm (UTC)

+I am glad you are enjoying yourself.+

cardistry
2013-04-17 04:56 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, so'm I,+ he giggles.

incanted
2013-04-17 05:10 pm (UTC)

Snuggle nibble sigh.

cardistry
2013-04-17 05:16 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle snugggggggggle snuggle mmmmmm.

incanted
2013-04-17 05:26 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses, let there be no forgetting the kisses.

cardistry
2013-04-17 07:25 pm (UTC)

Definitely not forgetting the kisses. Kisses are excellent.

After some time spent exchanging snuggly kisses, Brilliance declares, "I am gonna take off my pants now," and does that. Also his shoes, while he's at it.

incanted
2013-04-17 07:27 pm (UTC)

Bella's still wearing shoes too. That's dumb when one is on a picnic blanket for any purpose at all. She toes them off. And is half-helpful half-obstructive with the pants project.

cardistry
2013-04-17 07:31 pm (UTC)

Help and obstruction are pretty much equally welcome, as long as they both involve her touching him! Snuggly.

incanted
2013-04-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

Snuggly indeed. It is an obnoxious feature of topology that two convex solids cannot be in complete surface contact. She is going to try to route around that annoying bit of math, like so.

cardistry
2013-04-17 07:36 pm (UTC)

Brilliance giggles and hugs her. At least they have limbs with which to mitigate the drawbacks of convexity!

incanted
2013-04-17 07:39 pm (UTC)

They do! They do have limbs. Hurray for limbs. Bella has denim around some of her limbs. It is time to stop. Button zipper shimmy-shimmy.
Edited 2013-04-17 19:39 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

Since Bella's help-hindering went so well for Brilliance, he decides to do some of that himself.

incanted
2013-04-17 07:45 pm (UTC)

How clever of him! Bella giggles and, when she can kick her jeans off, kisses him again.

cardistry
2013-04-17 07:49 pm (UTC)

If they had really been thinking ahead, they would've brought something to put their clothes in, because there is no way all those articles of clothing are staying on this blanket indefinitely. But Brilliance doesn't care much. He has kisses to enjoy.

incanted
2013-04-17 07:50 pm (UTC)

The sand's dry. It'll mostly shake out. Bella will think of that. Later. For now kissing and warmth and skin.

cardistry
2013-04-17 07:57 pm (UTC)

All those things!

Brilliance is having a little trouble deciding whether he wants to wrap Bella up in snuggles like an extremely friendly anaconda, or continue exploring the available selection of Places To Put His Mouth. For now, he alternates.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:00 pm (UTC)

Alternating is good! Alternating means that Bella gets to swap between neighborhoods in her surprisingly large repertoire of noises. She's mostly letting him direct them here, because while both of them have more theoretical than practical knowledge he seems less inclined than she to let that interfere. That doesn't mean she doesn't run her hands over surfaces that present themselves, of course.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:05 pm (UTC)

Brilliance has many, many surfaces, and he gets pretty enthusiastic about her touching any of them. The back of his neck and his lower back are particular favourites, and then of course there is his hair. Bella putting her hands in his hair is the best thing.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:08 pm (UTC)

Hair is fun! Hair is pettable and finger-combable and scritchable.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:09 pm (UTC)

So many ways to interact with it! So many interesting sounds and faces he makes when she does!

incanted
2013-04-17 08:10 pm (UTC)

Yes indeed.

They're still wearing underwear.

Bella doesn't bother to announce it in advance when she decides to unhook the hooky bits of the top half of hers.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Does this mean more places to put my mouth?" inquires Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:13 pm (UTC)

"You know what," says Bella, "it is, you're very clever and you get a prize."

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," says Brilliance, and proceeds under the assumption that the prize is getting to put his mouth new places.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:15 pm (UTC)

He's very clever and he gets a prize and he takes Bella's snark module right offline.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:18 pm (UTC)

That is an accomplishment! He feels accomplished.

Also, Bella continues to be ice cream.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:20 pm (UTC)

Bella feels such a lovely and pleasing kinship with ice cream right now.

Brilliance's name has joined her noises-repertoire.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:23 pm (UTC)

That makes him feel all warm and happy inside!

+I like it when you say my name like that,+ he informs her, and commences investigating the application of tiny gentle little nibbles.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance," Bella obliges, whether because of nibbles or because of what he said.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:24 pm (UTC)

He isn't sure which! He will just have to try again. Maybe a few more times.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Nnnfogod." And a squeak which does not render so easily into the Latin alphabet.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:28 pm (UTC)

+I love you,+ says Brilliance. +You're like ice cream but better.+

incanted
2013-04-17 08:29 pm (UTC)

+I am ice cream that likes you baaaaack,+ Bella moans.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:33 pm (UTC)

+Awwwwwwww,+ he says delightedly, and snuggle-nuzzles, and tries the nibbles again.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:35 pm (UTC)

She's shivering like she's cold (but she's not cold, warmth is pouring off her) and babbling like she has forgotten English and one of her hands is in his hair and distractedly clenching there.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:36 pm (UTC)

+Mm, nice,+ he says happily.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Mmmhmmmmmm..."

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:48 pm (UTC)

+You are cute and tasty and I love you,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:51 pm (UTC)

Bella has words in her head, somewhere, she can get them if she really needs them, but her observation that they are both still wearing nonzero amounts of clothes and that this should stop does not require that she be verbal.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:52 pm (UTC)

It does not, indeed! Brilliance is very much able to get the message without words needing to be involved!

incanted
2013-04-17 08:52 pm (UTC)

Oh good!

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:55 pm (UTC)

Brilliance likewise feels that words are not completely necessary in order to ask if this, too, means more places he can put his mouth.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:55 pm (UTC)

It does it does it does. Yes.

cardistry
2013-04-17 08:57 pm (UTC)

Bella is such ice cream.

incanted
2013-04-17 08:58 pm (UTC)

Bella is the happiest ice cream.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:00 pm (UTC)

She is, it's great. Brilliance is continually, delightedly amazed by all of the lovely lovely feelings that can be involved in two people finding fun ways to put their bodies together.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:02 pm (UTC)

"B-brilliance. Ohgod."

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:04 pm (UTC)

+I love the way you say that.+

incanted
2013-04-17 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance Brilliance Brilliance," repeats Bella helpfully. "Brilliance -"

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:06 pm (UTC)

That is nice, that is so nice, Bella is such ice cream, he loves her so much. Mmmmmm.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:08 pm (UTC)

Presently she's shaking like a leaf, and she's got both hands in his hair, and she's trying very hard to say his name but it's not quite coming out entire.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:12 pm (UTC)

Brilliance is confident that these are all really good signs.

Mmm, ice cream Bella.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:13 pm (UTC)

Brilliance is absolutely right! He will also be absolutely right if he thinks the same thing of the bone-deep shuddering that starts a minute later and the fact that Bella manages to complete a word (it's "fuck").

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:16 pm (UTC)

That is a good word. Brilliance likes that word.

Also: yes.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:19 pm (UTC)

When she can stop shaking Bella hauls on Brilliance's head a little; kisses are the urgently required next thing.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:20 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Kisses, kisses, cuddly snuggly lovely kind-of-messy kisses. Brilliance is all over it.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:21 pm (UTC)

Oh good.

And now they're all lined up like so and not wearing anything.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:25 pm (UTC)

They are!

Brilliance is temporarily distracted by snugglekisses; would Bella like to make a suggestion about how to proceed from here?

incanted
2013-04-17 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Suggestion" makes it sound like she has words. Bella would like to make a squirm about how to proceed from here.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:31 pm (UTC)

That was a very illustrative squirm! It totally counts.

So then... if he snuggles up and just sort of... yep, that works. That definitely works.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Fuck," Bella says again, and she reaches for his hip, because she needs a second, but then she squirms again and slides her hand up; the second has elapsed.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:35 pm (UTC)

He presses his face against the side of her neck and nuzzles affectionately, and demonstrates his ability to follow suggestions.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:36 pm (UTC)

He is the very best suggestion-follower and Bella is very glad of that because words are hard but squirming is coming very naturally!

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:37 pm (UTC)

Brilliance is really starting to appreciate her squirming!

incanted
2013-04-17 09:41 pm (UTC)

Good. It's not going anywhere. Bella's going to wrap all four limbs around him and wriggle and mumble into his shoulder.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:43 pm (UTC)

He also seems to be picking up her habit of mumbling ecstatic incoherencies.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:43 pm (UTC)

That's interesting! Can she get him to generate more of those? She is ever so curious.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:44 pm (UTC)

There are several ways to do that, and nobody here doubts for a second that Bella is capable of finding them all.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:46 pm (UTC)

She is very systematic about looking once she sets her mind to it.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:47 pm (UTC)

Pretty soon he is also generating an amazing variety of whimpers!

incanted
2013-04-17 09:49 pm (UTC)

Bella does her best to investigate them, but she's back into trembly puddle mode again herself pretty much.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:54 pm (UTC)

That is not a condition Brilliance could possibly manage to regret.

Mmmmmmm he loves her. He loves her so much.

incanted
2013-04-17 09:55 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs him tight and enjoys and is enjoyed and enjoys being enjoyed and breathes out all her air in a long moany sigh.

cardistry
2013-04-17 09:59 pm (UTC)

Brilliance cuddles her and loves her and enjoys everything about this experience.

incanted
2013-04-17 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance," sighs Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:01 pm (UTC)

He grins and kisses her.

incanted
2013-04-17 10:02 pm (UTC)

Kisses, kisses kisses kisses -

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:06 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses kisses he is getting all kinds of pleasantly shivery now.

incanted
2013-04-17 10:08 pm (UTC)

Shivers! Bella suspects that's a good sign. She slides her face past his and nibbles at his neck.

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:12 pm (UTC)

He shivers lots more, and also makes some very expressive sounds.

Bella is correct about what kind of a sign it is!

incanted
2013-04-17 10:14 pm (UTC)

Kisses. Hugs. Hugs and kisses.

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:17 pm (UTC)

Kisses and hugs and some gasping and random movements and assorted noises -

- and, finally, a lengthy extended shudder, and he goes mostly still and tries with mixed success to catch his breath.

incanted
2013-04-17 10:19 pm (UTC)

Bella holds him and watches his face in fascination.

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:20 pm (UTC)

Slowly, radiantly - brilliantly - he smiles.

incanted
2013-04-17 10:22 pm (UTC)

+Good?+ she asks, glad she doesn't have to decide between asking that and kissing him.

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:23 pm (UTC)

+So good. Way better than ice cream. I love you so much.+

incanted
2013-04-17 10:24 pm (UTC)

+You're adorable.+

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:33 pm (UTC)

+I am!+ he agrees cheerfully.

It's cuddle time, right? Brilliance strongly believes that it is cuddle time.

incanted
2013-04-17 10:35 pm (UTC)

Bella agrees! Cuddle time. Yes.

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:42 pm (UTC)

Cuddle tiiiiiiime. It's so cuddly!

incanted
2013-04-17 10:44 pm (UTC)

That is why it's called that.

+That,+ says Bella, +was pretty swell.+

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:47 pm (UTC)

+It was awesome! We're awesome. I love you.+

incanted
2013-04-17 10:51 pm (UTC)

Bella kisses his temple.

cardistry
2013-04-17 10:52 pm (UTC)

He makes a happy humming noise and snuggles up.

incanted
2013-04-17 11:25 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Bella says, "We should probably put on our clothes and do some magic."

cardistry
2013-04-17 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Brilliance. He gathers up his clothes, shifts to deck form clothes and all, then shifts back into human form looking as reasonably tidy and not-like-he-just-had-great-sex as he usually does.

incanted
2013-04-17 11:28 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs and takes a little longer to get into hers - although after she's got her bra on she says, "I don't suppose I can pull the same trick via some clever application of the Barrier Jacket?"

cardistry
2013-04-17 11:30 pm (UTC)

"You know, I don't actually know," he says. "I feel like it would only work that way if it was the Barrier Jacket outfit that you took off and threw all over the ground." He grins. "Maybe you should do that next time."

incanted
2013-04-17 11:32 pm (UTC)

This is the first implication that there might be more than one time. "Maybe. You're seeing this happening regularly?" Bella asks, shaking sand out of her T-shirt.

cardistry
2013-04-17 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he says. "I mean, if you want. I definitely plan on having sex again, but it doesn't have to be with you."

incanted
2013-04-17 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Hmmm." Bella pulls her shirt over her head. Her jeans wound up on the corner of the picnic blanket and didn't wind up sandy, so that's more straightforward. "- I dunno. One time to see what it's like for fun, I can do that, I just did, I feel like if it's gonna be a recurring deal I'd want, like, labels, context, that sort of thing."

cardistry
2013-04-17 11:40 pm (UTC)

"...Labels and context like what?" he wonders, flopping down on the blanket just because.

incanted
2013-04-17 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Like, a boyfriend," says Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-17 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay. What's a boyfriend?"

incanted
2013-04-17 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Uh, are you starting from zero on knowing what it is or just soliciting clarification?"

cardistry
2013-04-17 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm not starting from zero," he says, "but I've only ever heard of it in the context of humans and humans and I have no idea how I fit in, and I don't know what it means to you specifically either."

incanted
2013-04-17 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, I mean, you're a person, in the relevant ways you work pretty much like a human," says Bella. "And I've never had one before so any definition I concoct is not stress-tested."

cardistry
2013-04-17 11:53 pm (UTC)

"...I think maybe you need to pretend I'm starting from zero," he says, "because I still have no idea what being your boyfriend would mean, like, practically."

incanted
2013-04-18 12:03 am (UTC)

"...Okay, explaining humans to an alien mode engaged. So humans have all this emotional and cultural stuff that sits on top of sex and is also an end in itself. All the component bits are technically optional - including the sex, for some people - but common components several of which would generally be involved include, like, exchanging presents, and celebrating Valentine's Day because that's a couple thing, and exclusivity with the sex and/or the romance, and, like, emotional intimacy, and a sort of general courtship trajectory, and the relationship having a sort of public-facing aspect where the involved parties' loved ones know, and general life-event-support stuff, and defaulting to each other for situations where having a date is called for, and mutual prioritization in each other's lives, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff. And because all these things are optional, and because all these things can happen without people being technically officially together, there's a fuzzy zone that gets a line drawn through it and that line is called 'deciding to label this thing these people are doing "dating"'. Does that make sense?"
Edited 2013-04-18 00:03 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:07 am (UTC)

"...Yeah," he says. "So which parts of that do you want? 'Cause right off, I can tell you exclusivity with the sex is not happening. I love having sex with you, but I'm not gonna give up having sex with everybody else for it. But on the other hand, you're already my favourite person and I already love you, and those aren't gonna stop if we don't fuck again."

incanted
2013-04-18 12:08 am (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"I'd need to think about whether I want any of it, if that's off the table," she says slowly. "It's kinda standard where I come from."

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:10 am (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Brilliance. "...Are snuggles a separate thing from sex, here? Because snuggling you is awesome and I wanna do more of it."

incanted
2013-04-18 12:11 am (UTC)

"Separate thing, but would also need thinking about. Hugs are categorized differently, and random casual touching differently still, those can both happen."

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:12 am (UTC)

He nods, and smiles, and hugs her.

incanted
2013-04-18 12:13 am (UTC)

Hugs. "Everything on the list up for grabs?" she queries.

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:17 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure," he says. "A lot of it's still human-context stuff - like, I don't know what you mean by 'general courtship trajectory' but I'm betting having sex and falling in love and then calling myself your boyfriend ain't it, and it's not like I'm ever going to be in a situation where I need a date for something, and you're gonna have a hard time explaining me to anybody who doesn't know about magic... and I'm not sure what some of them mean, like 'life-event-support stuff', what's that? But sexual exclusivity's the only automatic no."

incanted
2013-04-18 12:22 am (UTC)

"The trajectory thing is more about a steady increase of seriousness, like, there's whatever you're doing, and then time passes and you're doing more of it. We're already cohabiting and stuff, so there's some constraints on how much trajectory there is to be had in any standard sense, but it's not nonexistent. And I might be in a situation where I want a date for something, I might get invited to a wedding, hell, with my droplet I can probably learn to dance and show up at school dances, I don't have to explain you, you can just be mysteriously sourced. Life-event-support is, like, if Lexi were in the hospital and for some reason I couldn't just magically fix this problem, would it be appropriate for me to cry on you. Or would you show up to my graduation ceremony and clap at the correct times."

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:25 am (UTC)

"You can cry on me all you want," he says, hugging her again. "And if you really, really want me to show up to your graduation ceremony and clap, I can probably do that too."

incanted
2013-04-18 12:26 am (UTC)

"That was just an example, I'm not ruling out the possibility that I drop out of high school completely and just do magic instead," laughs Bella, hugging him back. "Okay, well, I'll think about it. - It might help if I knew why exclusivity was off the table?"

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:34 am (UTC)

"...Uh," he says, "I like sex. I mean I really like sex. I like sex like I like food. I fucking love ice cream, but I wouldn't eat nothing but ice cream for a year. I love fucking you, but I wouldn't fuck you and nobody else for a year. I mean, I've never even had sex with anybody else except that one guy I gave a blowjob to - I wanna find out what it's like with different people, you know?"

incanted
2013-04-18 12:36 am (UTC)

"Both metaphorically and literally, you didn't eat anything for four hundred years," Bella points out. "Now it's an impossible tradeoff when presented with your ostensible favorite person versus assorted random strangers?" She keeps her voice very even. She has no grounds for jealousy at this time; it will therefore be viciously killed if it should happen to intrude.

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:39 am (UTC)

"Um... yes?" he says. "Why do I feel like that's the wrong answer? You're my favourite person but you're not the only person who exists and I feel kind of weird about being expected to pretend you are?"

incanted
2013-04-18 12:42 am (UTC)

"I don't expect anything," she reminds him. "There's a reason I didn't ask about any of this ahead of time. It didn't matter for just," she gestures at the picnic blanket, "once. It might turn out to matter - although then again I'm not sure till I've given it some serious thought - for anything beyond once. And pretending other people don't exist isn't the idea, anyway."
Edited 2013-04-18 00:42 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:45 am (UTC)

"I just... you were sad when I said you were my favourite person, you were sorry because you want me to know more people I can like. But if I want to like them with my body, suddenly you're my 'ostensible' favourite person, like you're not sure it's true anymore?"

incanted
2013-04-18 12:51 am (UTC)

"The reasons I'm your favorite person are sad, like, I'd be your favorite person by default because you have kind of a person-impoverished history, but that's not an inherent property of favorite person hood. I'm Lexi's favorite person, but she's had plenty of chances to find alternatives, if we didn't get along she'd have some friend who'd be her favorite person or maybe it'd be Charlie or Renée. Presumably at some point she will find a boy and they will fall in love and I won't be her favorite person anymore. Lexi's my favorite person. Presumably at some point I'll find a boy and fall in love and - she won't be anymore - and making that trade-in for anything less than the most special, most unique relationship seems - bad."

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:54 am (UTC)

...He hugs her.

"That's sweet," he says. "You're sweet. I love you."

incanted
2013-04-18 12:55 am (UTC)

Bella hugs him back and sighs.

cardistry
2013-04-18 12:56 am (UTC)

Hug hug hug.

incanted
2013-04-18 12:56 am (UTC)

"So, yeah, that's where I am on that."

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:10 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "And where I am is, you are my favourite person and I do love you, and that's not really related to whether or not we're gonna have sex again. For me, anyway." He sighs. "And - I like people. I'm scared of them but I like them, I like just wandering around strange cities at night and being one of the people wandering around there, and I - I want to experience people, I want to pass them on the street and say hi, I want to watch movies in theatres, I want to go to a library and sit there reading books all day, I want to go to a mall and window-shop for hours, I want to go to a bar and have a stranger buy me a drink and take me home and fuck me, I want to do everything I've spent four hundred years not doing, and I can't stand giving up any of it."

By the end of this speech, he is crying into her shoulder.

incanted
2013-04-18 01:12 am (UTC)

She hugs him and pats his back and waits for the crying to abate.

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:13 am (UTC)

After a minute or two he's down to sniffling. Cuddly sniffling.

incanted
2013-04-18 01:15 am (UTC)

"You can do all that stuff," she says. "All of it. I just have to think about whether it's compatible with us. ...Do you want to fall in love with random people, or just screw them? Might matter."

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:18 am (UTC)

"I have no idea," he says. "I don't think falling in love is the kind of thing you decide to do, anyway, is it? I didn't decide to fall in love with you, I just - did. Because you're awesome. So maybe I'll fall in love with anybody else I meet that's awesome. Or maybe I'll never fall in love with anybody else again. I can't really tell."

incanted
2013-04-18 01:19 am (UTC)

"I don't know. I've never done it at all," Bella sighs. "And an answer about me might not be useful for you anyway."

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:20 am (UTC)

He leans his head on her shoulder.

"So I guess that one's up in the air."

incanted
2013-04-18 01:21 am (UTC)

"Yup."

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:22 am (UTC)

Brilliance shrugs.

"So, wanna do some magic?"

incanted
2013-04-18 01:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Let's see about doing a sweet potato, huh?"

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:24 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

He switches to staff form.

incanted
2013-04-18 01:25 am (UTC)

Bella manages a sweet potato, and she manages to make it cook itself so Brilliance can eat it, before it's time for them to go home.

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:26 am (UTC)

Brilliance greatly enjoys the sweet potato. He chooses to express his gratitude by hugging her.

incanted
2013-04-18 01:30 am (UTC)

Hugs! Apparently hugs are going to be a recurring deal. That's cool with Bella any which way.

And home they go. Lexi's up late, watching a movie with Charlie; they are halfway through Mrs. Doubtfire.

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:32 am (UTC)

...Brilliance settles deck-shaped onto a shelf with a view of the TV.

incanted
2013-04-18 01:33 am (UTC)

Bella sits up and watches. She explains what she remembers of the first half of the plot to Brilliance by magephone.

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:34 am (UTC)

Brilliance concludes that he fucking loves this movie.

incanted
2013-04-18 01:37 am (UTC)

Bella thinks it's entertaining but not a particularly fine example of cinema.

Eventually the movie is over, and Charlie shoos the girls up to bed. Up they go, giggling.

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:39 am (UTC)

+G'night,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-18 01:40 am (UTC)

+'Night, Brilliance.+

spit it on the floor

cardistry

It's three in the morning in the Swan household, and someone is crying quietly in the living room.

lexicality
2013-04-18 01:56 am (UTC)

Lexi is the lightest sleeper in the house.

She pads down the stairs.

She looks quizzically at Brilliance in the dim light of the LCD clocks in the living room and the kitchen, the bar of moonlight from the window.

cardistry
2013-04-18 01:58 am (UTC)

He doesn't immediately acknowledge her presence. It's possible he didn't hear her; he definitely didn't see her, huddled up like that with his face pressed into his knees.

lexicality
2013-04-18 01:59 am (UTC)

"...D'you want me to wake up Bella for you?" Lexi asks.

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:00 am (UTC)

He sniffles, and shudders, and looks up at her, and nods.

lexicality
2013-04-18 02:02 am (UTC)

Lexi goes back up the stairs.

incanted
2013-04-18 02:02 am (UTC)

A couple minutes later, Bella walks down the stairs, and into the living room.

+Brilliance? What happened?+ she says, magephone to avoid disturbing Lexi's light sleep.

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:09 am (UTC)

+I experienced people some more,+ he says wryly. +People are assholes sometimes.+

On close inspection, he's bleeding in two places, from a shallow cut under the line of his jaw and a deep slash along his hip that isn't quite lined up with the corresponding tear in his jeans.

incanted
2013-04-18 02:10 am (UTC)

+You're -+

Bella reaches for a lamp, not the bright ceiling light, and flicks it on.

+You're bleeding. You're hurt, what happened?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:14 am (UTC)

+I got cut. With a knife. That part wasn't so bad,+ he says. +What happened afterward - that was bad.+
Edited 2013-04-18 02:14 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-18 02:16 am (UTC)

Bella sits next to him on the floor. +Would - this be a good time for me to try a healing spell -?+
Edited 2013-04-18 02:18 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:19 am (UTC)

+I have a repair function, the incantation's 'Restore', I'm just too fucked up to cast it right now,+ he says.

incanted
2013-04-18 02:20 am (UTC)

+Can I do it for you, will that work?+ she asks. +God, what happened, Brilliance?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:22 am (UTC)

+I think it will,+ he says, hugging his knees. +You can try it.+

incanted
2013-04-18 02:22 am (UTC)

"Restore," Bella incants in a low voice, mindful in case the spell - function - whatever - requires any more attention than will and word.

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:29 am (UTC)

The spell-or-function-or-whatever gives her complete feedback on exactly what it is repairing, down to the last thread in his torn jeans. Apart from the visible cuts, there's quite a lot of bruising, and he is bleeding in... a few more places.

Well, one more place.

incanted
2013-04-18 02:30 am (UTC)

"Oh my god," Bella breathes aloud.

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:32 am (UTC)

The spell completes its work.

He wraps his arms around her waist and buries his head in her lap and sobs.

incanted
2013-04-18 02:34 am (UTC)

+Brilliance - I don't understand - how - you can teleport, I would've warned you about sticking to decent neighborhoods or - or something if I didn't figure you'd just be able to teleport if anything happened -+ She threads her fingers through his hair. +How -+

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:39 am (UTC)

+By the time I knew I didn't wanna be there I just - couldn't,+ he says helplessly. +Teleporting's not simple. I mean - it is most of the time, but not - not then.+

incanted
2013-04-18 02:40 am (UTC)

Bella pets his hair. +I'm so sorry.+

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:41 am (UTC)

He cries into her lap.

incanted
2013-04-18 02:43 am (UTC)

Petting and petting and petting. +Is there anything I can do?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:46 am (UTC)

+I don't know.+ He resettles a little, not clinging so much, now just resting his head in her lap and hugging himself. +You're already helping.+

incanted
2013-04-18 02:47 am (UTC)

She settles her hands in his hair and leans her head back onto the sofa behind her and closes her eyes. +If there is anything, will you tell me?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:49 am (UTC)

+Yeah.+

The crying is not so intense now, either.

incanted
2013-04-18 02:51 am (UTC)

It's still about three in the morning.

Bella's just gonna -

+Is there blood in the carpet?+ she asks, opening her eyes.

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:52 am (UTC)

+I dunno.+

He sits up and looks.

+Yeah. Sorry.+

incanted
2013-04-18 02:54 am (UTC)

+Don't be sorry. You don't have to be sorry. Can we fix it, though, this'd be kind of a mess to explain to Charlie?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 02:57 am (UTC)

+Fuck, I don't know,+ he says. +You've been getting pretty good at matter manipulation - I bet you could do it with a long-form incantation.+

incanted
2013-04-18 02:58 am (UTC)

Bella pets his hair and tries to think of something.

Finally she says, "Banish yourself, blood, disappear from the fibers of the carpet."

cardistry
2013-04-18 03:00 am (UTC)

The spell gives her feedback about all the vanishing blood.

There's a fair amount of it, but when it's gone, it's gone.

Brilliance hugs her.

incanted
2013-04-18 03:10 am (UTC)

Bella hugs him back nice and snug. +I'm so sorry.+

cardistry
2013-04-18 03:13 am (UTC)

He presses his face into her shoulder and sighs, +I love you.+

incanted
2013-04-18 03:50 am (UTC)

Bella leans her head back on the sofa again. And closes her eyes again. +I'll wake Lexi if I go back up. I'm gonna sleep here. Can you - wake me up at six? In three hours? Please?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:23 am (UTC)

+Sure,+ he says, cuddling up.

incanted
2013-04-18 04:10 pm (UTC)

+Thanks,+ slurs Bella, and she nestles her head into a sofa cushion and sighs and sleeps.

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:23 pm (UTC)

Brilliance leans on her comfortably for three hours.

Then he says, +Hey, wake up.+

incanted
2013-04-18 04:24 pm (UTC)

Bella shifts and yawns awake. +Morning, Brilliance.+ She lifts her head and winces and rubs the back of her neck.
Edited 2013-04-18 16:25 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:29 pm (UTC)

+G'morning,+ he says, hugging her.

incanted
2013-04-18 04:30 pm (UTC)

One-armed hug because she has an awful crick in her neck. +Hope I didn't pester you talking in my sleep.+

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:31 pm (UTC)

+Nah, it was cute.+

incanted
2013-04-18 04:31 pm (UTC)

+Okay. How're you doing? Do you need anything? I don't know what to do for you.+

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:33 pm (UTC)

+I think... I don't wanna be cards again for a while,+ he says. +I'll go wander around your planet while you're in school.+

incanted
2013-04-18 04:34 pm (UTC)

+Okay. Be careful? Please? I don't want anything else bad to happen to you.+
Edited 2013-04-18 16:35 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:36 pm (UTC)

He sighs, and hugs her.

incanted
2013-04-18 04:37 pm (UTC)

Hugs. +Please.+

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:39 pm (UTC)

+I'll try,+ he says.

incanted
2013-04-18 04:41 pm (UTC)

+Thanks.+

Bella slips out of his arms and upstairs. A few minutes later she's down again, sighs at the clock, and starts fixing pancakes because she has time and might as well.

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:42 pm (UTC)

+Ooh, pancakes.+

incanted
2013-04-18 04:43 pm (UTC)

+Yeah. You want chocolate chips or apple or banana slices on yours?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:45 pm (UTC)

+Is this an inclusive or?+

incanted
2013-04-18 04:46 pm (UTC)

+I can make you one with each. There's not really enough surface area on a pancake to effectively combine them.+

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:47 pm (UTC)

He grins. +Go for it! I love you.+

incanted
2013-04-18 04:48 pm (UTC)

+You keep saying that,+ muses Bella, and she starts peeling an apple. This job goes much faster when she doesn't have to worry about slipping.

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:52 pm (UTC)

+It keeps being true,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-18 04:55 pm (UTC)

Bella thinly slices the apple, peels a banana, slices that too. +Does it bother you that I don't say it back?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 04:57 pm (UTC)

+Nope.+

incanted
2013-04-18 04:58 pm (UTC)

+Okay, that's good then.+ Bella gets out a bag of miniature chocolate chips, and then measures wet ingredients into her pancake batter.

lexicality
2013-04-18 04:59 pm (UTC)

Lexi wanders down the stairs. "What was up last night?" she asks.

incanted
2013-04-18 04:59 pm (UTC)

+You want to answer her or should I?+

cardistry
2013-04-18 05:00 pm (UTC)

+You can.+

incanted
2013-04-18 05:01 pm (UTC)

+Okay, but do I tell her what actually happened or be vague about it?+ Bella eats an apple slice to cover for her lack of immediate reply.

cardistry
2013-04-18 05:03 pm (UTC)

+You can tell her what actually happened,+ he says, rubbing his face with both hands.

incanted
2013-04-18 05:05 pm (UTC)

Bella picks up her pancake batter bowl and moves closer to Lexi and murmurs in her ear, very softly.

lexicality
2013-04-18 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh my God," says Lexi, less softly. "But why wouldn't -"

incanted
2013-04-18 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Because teleporting's not simple," murmurs Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-18 05:12 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

incanted
2013-04-18 05:18 pm (UTC)

Bella deems her batter stirred enough. She gets a pat of butter and plops it into the frying pan and turns on the stove.

lexicality
2013-04-18 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Are... you okay?" Lexi asks Brilliance haltingly.

cardistry
2013-04-18 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Probably not."

lexicality
2013-04-18 05:25 pm (UTC)

Lexi obviously didn't think that far ahead.

incanted
2013-04-18 05:27 pm (UTC)

Bella dollops batter into three spots on the frying pan. "There's only so much that can be done," she murmurs.

cardistry
2013-04-18 05:31 pm (UTC)

He smiles wryly. "And there's pancakes! My life can't be all bad if there's pancakes in it."

incanted
2013-04-18 05:32 pm (UTC)

"There will be pancakes very soon," agrees Bella. She spreads fruit slices on two of them and sprinkles chocolate chips on a third; apparently this batch is for Brilliance. She eyes the frying batter critically, then flips them, one-two-three.

cardistry
2013-04-18 05:36 pm (UTC)

Brilliance beams.

incanted
2013-04-18 05:43 pm (UTC)

Bella gets out plates, and slices another pat of butter for the next batch of cakes, and peers under the edge of the banana pancake with a nudge of her spatula, and taps her foot, and then plates the pancakes, one, two, three. "Syrup in the fridge if you want it," she tells him, and she melts the new butter. "Lexi, apples, bananas, chocolate?"

lexicality
2013-04-18 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Apples," says Lexi, sitting down. "Thanks."

cardistry
2013-04-18 05:45 pm (UTC)

Of course he wants syrup.

Pancakes!

incanted
2013-04-18 06:20 pm (UTC)

Lexi gets her stack of apple pancakes in due time, and by then Charlie has wandered in, pleasantly surprised. He gets the rest of the banana slices on his pancakes, and Bella makes herself two apple and one chocolate.

cardistry
2013-04-18 06:21 pm (UTC)

Nom nom nommmmmmm.

incanted
2013-04-18 07:03 pm (UTC)

The twins finish eating, and pack up, and go to school. Partway through the day, Bella notifies Brilliance by magephone that she won't be home till about five, as she is going home with Angela, +and I do want to be her friend and that implies a certain amount of hanging out.+ When Bella gets home, she fixes dinner, and then the family plus Brilliance eats, and then there is some time for magic practice before it is the girls' bedtime.

cardistry
2013-04-18 07:08 pm (UTC)

Magic practice, yay!

lexicality
2013-04-18 07:09 pm (UTC)

And at night, at about one a.m., Lexi wanders down the stairs.

She's a little surprised to see Brilliance hanging out in human form, but not enough to say anything about it. "Hey, um," she says. "I can't sleep. Thought I'd go flying. How do I - invisible? I know how to fly, Bella showed me, I don't know how to invisible."

cardistry
2013-04-18 07:19 pm (UTC)

"You cast a barrier," he says. "Shouldn't need much of one if it's just for yourself. Barriers are what make things invisible; what's outside can't see what's inside. There's no incantation, but I bet you can do it anyway."

lexicality
2013-04-18 07:20 pm (UTC)

Lexi thinks. Eventually, she manages it. "Like - that? Am I invisible?" Oh, he's not there anymore. Lexi figures that probably means it worked. She goes out the door and lifts up onto her toes and says "flight" and heads up towards the stars.

She flies for a long time, slow lazy circles over Forks. It's peaceful and easy and it's pleasantly chilly up there, even though she got her coat on first and her slippers are usually toasty.

Eventually she thinks she'll be able to get back to sleep, and she heads back towards the house.

It's been a little too long.

Her mana supply shorts out, and she's not conscious when she lands at the end of the lawn with a thump.
Edited 2013-04-18 19:25 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-18 07:28 pm (UTC)

...That wasn't a good thump.

Brilliance goes outside.

lexicality
2013-04-18 07:29 pm (UTC)

Lexi is crumpled in a shape humans do not healthily occupy, passed out, a heap of parka and tangled brown hair.

cardistry
2013-04-18 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Awww shit no," mutters Brilliance, crouching down by her side. "Awwww shit no." His spell diagram unfolds beneath them. "Be okay," he says desperately, and casts.

Lexi glows like a tiny sunrise. The spell pours through her, absolutely without finesse, soothing and repairing all the damage it can find. It barely asks for any supervision. He does the best he can with what little it needs.

lexicality
2013-04-18 07:47 pm (UTC)

Lexi:

is okay.

"...I'm on the ground," she says.

cardistry
2013-04-18 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Brilliance. "You fell there. Got kinda fucked up when you landed, but I fixed you."

He looks tired.

lexicality
2013-04-18 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I - fell? Why'd I fall?" Pause. "Thanks for fixing me."

cardistry
2013-04-18 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," he says. "I didn't see. Maybe you ran out of mana; you've been flying for a while."

lexicality
2013-04-18 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Is that a thing? Bella didn't tell me that was a thing." Lexi sits up, slowly, and shivers a little and gets to her feet.

cardistry
2013-04-18 07:54 pm (UTC)

"That's a thing," says Brilliance. "Wonder why she didn't."

lexicality
2013-04-18 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I guess she didn't - think I'd do a lot of magic?" Lexi tests her footing, and heads for the door. "I wasn't going to really - didn't plan this - thanks for fixing me -"

cardistry
2013-04-18 07:59 pm (UTC)

This time, he says, "You're welcome."

lexicality
2013-04-18 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Like, I know you don't like me that much, and you fixed me anyway."

cardistry
2013-04-18 08:02 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I don't not like you. And Bella would've been all kinds of fucked up."

lexicality
2013-04-18 08:03 pm (UTC)

"I'll tell her what happened. In the morning," yawns Lexi. And she pads to the stairs.

cardistry
2013-04-18 08:10 pm (UTC)

Brilliance goes back to his spot on the living room floor.

incanted
2013-04-18 08:11 pm (UTC)

In the morning Bella charges down the stairs to hug him. Hard.

cardistry
2013-04-18 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Hi," he says, hugging back.

incanted
2013-04-18 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you, I can't believe I didn't warn Lexi about mana, I didn't think she was going to decide to fly for hours in the middle of the night, thank you thank you thank you."

cardistry
2013-04-18 08:21 pm (UTC)

He hugs her some more.

"I figured you'd be sad if I didn't, I didn't know you'd be so happy that I did," he says.

incanted
2013-04-18 08:22 pm (UTC)

"God, I would've been destroyed - if she'd gotten herself killed - god. I'm happy that I'm not destroyed over her, is what I'm happy about."

cardistry
2013-04-18 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I'm happy you're not destroyed too," he murmurs.

incanted
2013-04-18 08:24 pm (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs hugs.

cardistry
2013-04-18 08:29 pm (UTC)

Lots of hugs!

incanted
2013-04-18 08:31 pm (UTC)

Yes. Hugs.

And: "I'm gonna make you eggs for breakfast. Scrambled eggs with cheese in 'em."

cardistry
2013-04-18 08:33 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-18 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Don't say that out loud in front of Charlie ever, he'll be badly confused." She ruffles Brilliance's hair and gets up to make eggs-and-cheese.

cardistry
2013-04-18 09:55 pm (UTC)

Mmmmruffly.

"Okay," he says, and follows her into the kitchen.

incanted
2013-04-18 09:59 pm (UTC)

Bella fixes eggs. Charlie wakes up and starts puttering around. Lexi lurches out of bed just barely in time to bolt down some of the scramble and hop into the car, letting Bella drive since Bella got a full night's sleep. Off they go.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:08 pm (UTC)

Brilliance walks back into the living room.

Or... tries to.

This is not the living room.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:12 pm (UTC)

Among others, there's one - familiar - face.

She looks like she doesn't know where she is and doesn't care. She's got her eyes closed. There's a blank book open in front of her, and she has a pen, and she picks it up and draws one stroke of one letter and then opens her eyes and looks at it and puts the pen down and closes her eyes again.

She shifts her head a little and her hair falls away to reveal a pointed ear.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:14 pm (UTC)

"...What the fuck," says Brilliance.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:16 pm (UTC)

The elf version of Bella twitches in response to the sound of his voice, like she can't decide if she likes it or not, and she opens her eyes and looks around. Her gaze passes over him several times before it settles there. And then she stares at him, and the echoes of very, very slow thoughts pass over her face.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:17 pm (UTC)

Brilliance crosses the room and stops in front of her table.

"What the fuck?" he repeats.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:18 pm (UTC)

Elf-Bella stares at him. And goes on staring at him.

"You look like him," she eventually concludes. "But - you aren't."

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Right back atcha," says Brilliance.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:20 pm (UTC)

Elf-Bella thinks about this for an unreasonably long time.

"- Is she okay?" she asks in a small voice.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:21 pm (UTC)

"...Last I checked, yeah," says Brilliance.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:21 pm (UTC)

Elf-Bella closes her eyes and bows her head.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:22 pm (UTC)

"You're not," he observes.

He sits down.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:22 pm (UTC)

"No."

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Wanna talk about it?"

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:24 pm (UTC)

This appears to be too complex a question for Elf-Bella. She blinks at him.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:24 pm (UTC)

"...Wanna hug?"

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:26 pm (UTC)

"I - don't know," says Elf-Bella. "What I want. Anymore."

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:26 pm (UTC)

"That sucks," says Brilliance.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:27 pm (UTC)

Elf-Bella thinks about this, and then nods, once, slowly.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Brilliance.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:30 pm (UTC)

Elf-Bella nods that slow nod again.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:31 pm (UTC)

"You're an elf," he observes.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:33 pm (UTC)

"You're a human," she observes back, less accurately.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Nope. I'm a magical device. I'm just human-shaped right now. I can be other shapes too."

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh." She closes her eyes, smiles a little ghost of a smile. "He's a demon. Also a dragon. You look like the demon part."

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:37 pm (UTC)

Brilliance grins. "Cool. What's the dragon part look like?"

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:41 pm (UTC)

The elf hesitates, then picks up her pen and - something happens, something comes over her, suddenly she is doing absolutely nothing but drawing on a clear page, a sleeping dragon, curled up peaceful, and then touching her fingers to each space on the drawing and bleeding gradients of color into it. While she does this she is absolutely and perfectly focused; she doesn't even flinch when someone at the bar drops a glass and it loudly shatters. The end result is not photorealistic, but it's beautiful. She turns it for Brilliance to see.

And then she falls out of whatever she did and she's back to being too lost to be frightened.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:45 pm (UTC)

"He's pretty," he says admiringly.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes. So pretty," the elf sighs.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:47 pm (UTC)

"What happened to you?"

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:48 pm (UTC)

"They - they can't help it," she murmurs. "They try, they try not to - they can't help it."
Edited 2013-04-18 22:54 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Can't help what," says Brilliance.

small_magics
2013-04-18 10:56 pm (UTC)

"The Bond, that's how it works, they can't help it, I had to, I knew it would hurt me but we did what we had to do first, the world is safe," murmurs the elf.

cardistry
2013-04-18 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Now that sounds familiar," he sighs.

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:02 pm (UTC)

"And now we're still Bonded and it's till I die and they can't stop," the elf whispers, "except when they sleep, and the dragon can sleep a thousand years but the demon can't, and when he's awake and I'm awake and neither of us concentrates - then - he reads my mind - and I can't think anymore, it hurts to think."

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:07 pm (UTC)

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:10 pm (UTC)

"He's asleep, now," she murmurs. "He might be able to sleep for a sennight. Sometimes he can. It used to help. It doesn't help as much anymore."

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he murmurs.

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:12 pm (UTC)

"He is too. He wished I let the king kill him, last year -"

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I can see why."

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:14 pm (UTC)

"The unicorn stopped him." She shakes her head. "And I love them, and - and I love them."

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Seems like it'd be easier on you if you didn't."

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:16 pm (UTC)

"If anyone has to look at me like that at least it's them," she murmurs.

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "but if you didn't love 'em couldn't you just have let him kill himself?"

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I. I don't - think - we could have Bonded if we weren't going to love each other." She picks her way through this sentence like molasses, looking at her dragon drawing.

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Too bad for all of you, I guess."

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:22 pm (UTC)

She nods.

And: "They don't have names."

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Mine's Brilliance," says Brilliance. "And my you is Bella."

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm Isibel."

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:28 pm (UTC)

He nods.

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:29 pm (UTC)

Isibel traces the lines of her dragon drawing with one finger gently, idly.

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:31 pm (UTC)

Brilliance watches.

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:43 pm (UTC)

Isibel has done more thinking in the last ten minutes than she usually does in a week. She closes her eyes and hums vacantly.

cardistry
2013-04-18 11:45 pm (UTC)

He doesn't really want to stay here, but he doesn't really want to leave her alone, either. He's sure this place would be fascinating if he didn't have something more important on his mind.

small_magics
2013-04-18 11:46 pm (UTC)

Isibel is (happily enough, considering) oblivious to the inner workings of his thought processes.

Some hours later, she says, "I could sleep now. I'll go home."
Edited 2013-04-18 23:58 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-19 12:09 am (UTC)

"G'night," he sighs.

small_magics
2013-04-19 12:10 am (UTC)

Isibel picks up his hand, and presses her cheek to it, and sighs, and then lets him go and pauses for a moment before remembering to pick up her book and pen. She goes to the door, and opens it, and goes out.

cardistry
2013-04-19 12:12 am (UTC)

Brilliance hugs himself.

He sits alone for a moment.

Then he goes out the door and successfully locates the living room and flops onto the couch.

so look this is really interesting

lexicality

This isn't the bathroom, this isn't the bathroom at all.

"Excuse me I will be totally up for learning new magic stuff as is apparently required if someone will first direct me to a bathroom," Lexi says loudly to this bar full of people that is not even slightly a bathroom.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:20 am (UTC)

"Over there," says the man in the pink shirt with the green hair and the prominent facial scarring. He points to a doorway about halfway along the wall.

lexicality
2013-04-19 12:21 am (UTC)

"Thanks, dude," says Lexi, and she ducks into the bathroom and then emerges again.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:23 am (UTC)

The helpful dude is now sitting at a table, eating jellybeans out of a large open jar. He gives her a little wave.

lexicality
2013-04-19 12:24 am (UTC)

"So hey," says Lexi, heading for his table, "what is this place, why was it here instead of the school bathroom, and also does it do that funky barrier time thing because I could absolutely use another few minutes to study for this quiz?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:27 am (UTC)

"Milliways, it does that, and unless your world's very special - " he checks " - which it isn't, when you walk out that door it'll only have been a couple of seconds outside. Wanna jelly bean?"
Edited 2013-04-19 00:27 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-19 12:29 am (UTC)

"Oh, cool, thanks," says Lexi, and she helps herself to a green one. "How'd I get here? Man, my sister would love just a little pocket dimension where she could hang out forever without it even costing mana, running out of mana's bad apparently."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:41 am (UTC)

"Some of the flavours are pretty weird," he notes before she has managed to put the jelly bean in her mouth, "but I like 'em. Mm, Milliways has this habit of grabbing people. Shows up anywhere somebody's opening a door, whenever it feels like it."

lexicality
2013-04-19 12:42 am (UTC)

"Weird like how?" Lexi asks, eyeing her bean suspiciously. "And why did it feel like grabbing me between bio and gym, I do not understand."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:45 am (UTC)

"Weird like I don't know whether that's gonna be lime or absinthe," he says. "And nooooobody knows why the door does what it does, except it pretty clearly likes to mess with people."

lexicality
2013-04-19 12:46 am (UTC)

"I don't think I even know what absinthe is," says Lexi dubiously, and she sniffs the jelly bean experimentally.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:48 am (UTC)

It smells like a fresh Granny Smith apple.

The man in the pink shirt giggles.

lexicality
2013-04-19 12:48 am (UTC)

Lexi decides it is safe to eat. She eats it.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:49 am (UTC)

It tastes like a fresh Granny Smith apple.

"Good one?" inquires the stranger.

lexicality
2013-04-19 12:51 am (UTC)

"Apple," says Lexi, nodding, "very nice. I dunno if I'll try another one though, I can probably just get my sister to conjure me some jelly beans if I want them, that's what she's working on, and they'd be whatever flavor and Brilliance would eat most of them but I don't even care, he's okay after all."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:00 am (UTC)

"And who," says the stranger, "is Brilliance?"

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:03 am (UTC)

"He's, like, my sister's - device - like, he calls himself a device, that's not me being depersonalizing or anything, he's a device not a human - and he's from space and sometimes he's a deck of cards and sometimes he's a staff thingy and sometimes he's a human - shaped - and he goes through ice cream like it's cocaine, and probably he'd like jellybeans too, I'm kinda surprised he hasn't started trying to eat the furniture really. He's teaching her magic."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:12 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"What's his deal with ice cream, or is it just one'a those things?"

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:13 am (UTC)

"Well, apparently he didn't get around to trying food? For four hundred years. So there's that."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:14 am (UTC)

"Poor guy!" he says. "And who's your sister? For that matter, who're you?"

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:15 am (UTC)

"Oh, I'm Lexi, and my sister and I are twins - fraternal - her name's Bella. What about you, who're you?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:24 am (UTC)

He snaps his fingers theatrically, and as his thumb lands on his curled forefinger a card appears between them: a joker. He flips it to show Lexi the dancing jester, then puts it on the table.

"That's me," he says. "Bella, huh? I know some Bellas. One or two," his expressive gestures outline faces in the air that seem momentarily real, one very much like Lexi's sister and one very much like Lexi's sister with golden eyes and skin like polished chalk, "or three or five or ten—" and the air between them is filled with little Bellas, including one who is a boy and one with enormous feathery wings.

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:26 am (UTC)

"...That one's a boy, is he seriously named Bella," observes Lexi, and then, "wait what, why do you know ten people who look like Bella - why does that one have wings - wait a second -"

And she looks up and peers closely at his face.

"...Okay what did I walk into?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:32 am (UTC)

"Funny little place, Milliways," he says. "You meet different versions of the same people here. A lot of different versions. There's eleven of me, for example, although lookin' at you I'm thinking it's about to be twelve."

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:38 am (UTC)

"Well, you look sorta like Brilliance, but I dunno for sure," says Lexi. "Are you also a magic device from space? Do all those other Bellas have Lexis too?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:41 am (UTC)

"Not a one of 'em does," he says. "I'm not a magic device from space, but then, sounds like your Bella's not a witch or an angel or a boy. His name's Cam, by the way."

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:42 am (UTC)

"- None of them have Lexis at all?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:43 am (UTC)

"Nope."

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:44 am (UTC)

"...Oh."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:46 am (UTC)

"Sorry."

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:47 am (UTC)

"...And there are lots of you."
Edited 2013-04-19 01:47 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:51 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "Three of 'em have brothers."

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:52 am (UTC)

Lexi puts her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. "Oh."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:54 am (UTC)

"My type don't get along with our families so well, though. One of me didn't even meet her brother until they were both dead."

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:55 am (UTC)

"Wait," says Lexi, "what?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:56 am (UTC)

"Oh, the Bells took over Hell a while back," he says cheerfully. "Tidied the place up a bit."

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:56 am (UTC)

"The Bells. I guess that sounds like something my Bella would do, if she could," muses Lexi.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 01:58 am (UTC)

"Don't it just?" he agrees.

lexicality
2013-04-19 01:59 am (UTC)

"Yeah, she's been learning to, like, conjure food, so she can teleport to Africa or wherever and make big heaps of it for the starving orphans and whatnot, but probably Hell would be more important if she could do something about it, yeah. Did all however many of them just run into each other here and then do that?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:03 am (UTC)

"More or less."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:03 am (UTC)

"Oh. Kinda sucks none of them are here now, Bella would flip."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:05 am (UTC)

"Kinda does, I guess," he says agreeably. "Bet she'll find the place eventually, though. And then they'll throw a big party and load her up with all kindsa nifty magic."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:07 am (UTC)

"Well, that's good, I guess."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:10 am (UTC)

"Nifty magic is fun," he says cheerfully.

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:12 am (UTC)

"I guess. I went flying last night and Bella forgot to tell me I could run out of mana and so I did and I fell right out of the sky but Brilliance fixed me so I guess he doesn't hate me completely, or he likes Bella more than he doesn't like me."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:14 am (UTC)

"If he is one of me, betcha he doesn't hate you," says the Joker. "My bunch doesn't hate easy."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:16 am (UTC)

"Well, he kind of - some of him kind of - it's really complicated but basically I got possessed and it was sorta him but sorta not and then, well, Bella called it being 'catty'," Lexi shrugs.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:18 am (UTC)

"Gotcha," he says. "I wouldn't worry."

He eats a jelly bean. "Blue Gatorade," he declares after a moment's contemplation.

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:20 am (UTC)

"Okay, but, I don't know how much people are like other people who look like them," Lexi says.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:20 am (UTC)

"What is he like?"

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:22 am (UTC)

"He's, I dunno, Bella likes him, he likes her," shrugs Lexi. "He likes food, he was made by some people to destroy planets but he didn't want to."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:23 am (UTC)

"How's he get along with Bella?"

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:24 am (UTC)

"They go do magic practice all the time on some other planet," says Lexi, waving a hand, "I don't see a lot of it - wait, do you think they're not just practicing magic? Or something? You asked that kinda funny."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:29 am (UTC)

"Lot of the Jokers come with Bells attached," he says. "There was one in the world I started in, and there's one in the world I live in now, and I'm not attached to either, but there's, let me see - Alice and Stella, Kas and Amariah, Angela and Micaiah, Rose and Beast, and Cam and Jellybean." (He eats another one.) "Five Bells-and-Jokers who're dating."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:30 am (UTC)

"Wait, so they're not mostly named Bella?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:31 am (UTC)

"Most of 'em are," he says, "but with ten of 'em in a room, you don't wanna say 'Bella' and have five look up, so they pick nicknames."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:32 am (UTC)

"Oh. I wonder what mine would call herself."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:33 am (UTC)

"We'll find out," he says serenely.

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:34 am (UTC)

"I can ask her when I go out of here," says Lexi.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:35 am (UTC)

"Good plan."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:36 am (UTC)

"Maybe I should show Bella this place today. She'll just flip if I show her that the bathroom turned into a restaurant."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:38 am (UTC)

"It won't be in the bathroom permanently," he says. "It'll show up somewhere else next time. Likes to keep us on our toes."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:39 am (UTC)

"So I can't go get her?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:40 am (UTC)

"Probably not."
Edited 2013-04-19 02:40 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:46 am (UTC)

"Darn. Why do I keep finding things when it'd be better for Bella to find them? This happened when I got possessed too, the stupid deck of cards kept telling me it had limitless power and I was like 'dude wait a second I want to give the limitless power to my sister because if I take it she will guilt me and I'll never get a weekend off again, come on' and it was like 'no I cannot wait' and I was like 'oh fine' only then it was actually trying to destroy the world, like, why does this happen to me?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:49 am (UTC)

"Sorry," says the Joker. And smiles.

"'Course, nothing stopping me from coming through your door and finding your sister myself."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:51 am (UTC)

"What, you want to walk out of the girls' bathroom in the middle of Forks High School?" Lexi says. "Because I bet you get escorted off school property in a hurry, you do that."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:52 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't be the first time," he snorts. "But nah, I've got nifty magic, remember? I can be invisible if I feel like it."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:52 am (UTC)

"Oh, you have nifty magic, too, I thought it was just Bellas."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:54 am (UTC)

"Turns out, my bunch is really good at making nifty magic and her bunch is really good at using it. Works out pretty well."

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:55 am (UTC)

"Oh. Well, okay, if you wanna come to my world you can do that, I guess," says Lexi.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:57 am (UTC)

He beams. Something about him radiates childlike glee with an almost literal luminescence.

lexicality
2013-04-19 02:58 am (UTC)

Lexi tilts her head, but she gets up and makes for the door.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 02:59 am (UTC)

The Joker takes his jar of jelly beans and follows, turning invisible halfway there.

lexicality
2013-04-19 03:00 am (UTC)

Lexi opens the door and walks out. +Bella, Bella you're gonna flip, turn invisible and let's cut gym, I found a thing!+

incanted
2013-04-19 03:00 am (UTC)

+Cut gym for what thing, please, Lexi?+

lexicality
2013-04-19 03:01 am (UTC)

+There's, like, this restaurant, and there's this guy in it, who's like Brilliance's alternate universe twin, except kind of very alternate? And there's lots of you, too, only they weren't there, so I brought this one back, and he has magic, too.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 03:03 am (UTC)

+What the fuck,+ says Brilliance.

lexicality
2013-04-19 03:04 am (UTC)

+I know, right, I keep finding this stuff, Bella should find this stuff, but, like, at least I could bring him here? He's invisible. Come on, let's go tell the gym teacher that, like, you're dizzy and I have to take you home early.+

incanted
2013-04-19 03:05 am (UTC)

+...All right, sure.+

Bella and Lexi meet at gym. Bella acts dizzy. (She "saw someone scrape their knee" and "blood makes her sick". Lexi clearly has to take her home early.)

They get in the car.

"Where is invisible guy?" Bella wants to know.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:07 am (UTC)

"Not far," says the Joker, appearing close to Bella's side of the car.

incanted
2013-04-19 03:09 am (UTC)

Bella blinks at him.

"Okay, you do look sort of like Brilliance, and you can in fact turn invisible," she says. "You can get in the car." She pops the lock for the backseat.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:10 am (UTC)

He gets in the car.

lexicality
2013-04-19 03:11 am (UTC)

Lexi drives, singing tunelessly, "Iiii found more magic for Bella and I didn't even have to get possessssed."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:11 am (UTC)

"So," Bella says, "executive summary of who you are and where you came from and what you can do and what you want, please?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:16 am (UTC)

"I'm from another universe, no magic there but I met one'a the Bells at Milliways and she gave me some eventually. I grant wishes." He passes a triangle forward, in his own clear-glass-with-hints-of-colour. "That'll do a little one. And I've got a few other neat tricks, but the minting's the biggest deal. A mint's a person who makes wishcoins."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:17 am (UTC)

Bella takes the triangle. She looks at it. "This does a wish? How does it go about doing a wish?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:17 am (UTC)

"You wish on it," says the Joker.

incanted
2013-04-19 03:18 am (UTC)

"How little is little?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:19 am (UTC)

"Exceedingly. It'll just about brush your hair or turn your nose blue."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:20 am (UTC)

"Okay. And I also wanted to know what you wanted? Because this is twice now my sister here has invited powerful magical entities to do things without finding that out first."

lexicality
2013-04-19 03:21 am (UTC)

"I was trying to get you limitless power, Bella, God."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:24 am (UTC)

"I don't really want things," he says. "Not from you, anyway. Insofar as I have a plan, I plan to meet the native me, probably make out with him a bunch 'cause that's what my crowd tends to get up to when we meet each other, hand you some nifty magic, and then wait until Milliways shows up again and introduce you to the rest of ya."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah, about the rest of me, what are they up to, why haven't they come to visit too?" asks Bella skeptically.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:28 am (UTC)

"Oh, I could've gone home and fetched Golden, I guess," he says with a shrug, "but you seem pretty together, it wasn't urgent, and I thought this way might be more fun."

lexicality
2013-04-19 03:29 am (UTC)

"I didn't tell him what you looked like and he did an illusion trick thing with, like, a bunch of yous," says Lexi. "Except one was a boy - and one of them had wings - and none of them have Lexis."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:29 am (UTC)

"...They're only children?" Bella asks slowly.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:29 am (UTC)

"All ten of 'em."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:30 am (UTC)

"...That is strange and disturbing."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:31 am (UTC)

"Three in nine of me have brothers," he offers. "I'm not one'a the lucky few."
Edited 2013-04-19 03:34 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-19 03:35 am (UTC)

"I don't think Brilliance has anybody answering that description either," Bella says.

They pull into the driveway and she hops out. +We're home, Brilliance.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 03:36 am (UTC)

Brilliance comes out the front door.

He stares at the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:37 am (UTC)

The Joker smiles and waves jauntily.

incanted
2013-04-19 03:38 am (UTC)

"So," says Bella, patting Brilliance on the head as she walks past him into the house, "these other mes, without Lexis, with wings and assorted genders and stuff - what do they do?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:39 am (UTC)

"Whatcha mean?" he asks, ruffling Brilliance's hair as he follows.

cardistry
2013-04-19 03:40 am (UTC)

Brilliance trails after them.

incanted
2013-04-19 03:41 am (UTC)

"Well, they have fancy wish magic, yeah? Tell me about what they do with it."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:44 am (UTC)

"Stella made herself a space empress and opened a colony on Mars. Golden was an empress already, she doesn't use it for much. Pattern's got a colony set up in Saturn but I'm not sure if she's taking immigrants yet. Angela's bossing around her god. Not sure what the rest are up to. Oh, and they took over Hell, think I mentioned that before."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:45 am (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"Okay," she says, "either you know a bunch of me, or you're reading my mind, in which case stop that immediately."

cardistry
2013-04-19 03:47 am (UTC)

Brilliance starts crying.

incanted
2013-04-19 03:48 am (UTC)

"Brilliance -" Bella maneuvers and hugs him. "Brilliance, what's wrong?"

cardistry
2013-04-19 03:49 am (UTC)

"I met one of you," he sniffles, "I didn't really know what the hell happened, but - she had one of me and she said she had to bond with him to save the world and he reads her mind all the time and she's fucking wrecked."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:50 am (UTC)

"Oh my god."

cardistry
2013-04-19 03:52 am (UTC)

"She says he sleeps as much as he can 'cause he doesn't do it then, and he tried to kill himself but she loves him too much to let him."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:53 am (UTC)

Bella decides she needs to sit down.

She sits down.

"You didn't tell me about this."

cardistry
2013-04-19 03:54 am (UTC)

"It happened this morning, I wanted to wait until you were home, and then - " he gestured to the Joker, "he happened."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:55 am (UTC)

"These other mes," Bella asks the Joker, "with their fancy magic, could they get to her and help her? How much freedom of movement do they have, I assume it's not infinite or I'd probably have gotten a visit on some key birthday?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:56 am (UTC)

"They can get to any world they've been to. Had some success hopping to worlds they haven't, but they can't just knock on the door and say 'show me a Bell I haven't met yet, please'."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:57 am (UTC)

"But - the specific one that Brilliance met - the one who's disintegrating in the head, god -"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:58 am (UTC)

"Maybe they could find her. Maybe not. We'll find out when we catch Milliways again and I go get 'em."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:00 am (UTC)

Bella sits and draws her knees up to her chest and hugs her legs and shivers. "I really, really wish you'd gotten the one of me - what'd you say she calls herself, Golden - I wish you'd brought her."

Because a one of her, even one without a Lexi, would know how to explain everything in the right order, and would be concerned about another one of them who has someone perpetually reading her mind.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "I wish I had too. But now we gotta play the hand we're dealt, and there's no rushing Milliways. Bells've tried. It'll show up when it feels like. All we can do on this end is keep opening doors."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:08 am (UTC)

Bella chews her lip. "...Okay. So Disintegrating Bell is stuck until one of us finds the place again. What else can we do that's productive?"
Edited 2013-04-19 04:10 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:16 am (UTC)

"I can mint ya," says the Joker, gesturing between Bella and Brilliance. "You too," he nods to Lexi, "if you want. Then you get to make wishcoins. Triangles do itsy bitsy wishes, squares do bigger ones, pentagons do medium-sized ones, hexes can get some serious shit done, and upward from there you start running into trouble if you don't know what you're doing." He bites his lip sharply and displays the resulting square. "Coins're made of pain."

cardistry
2013-04-19 04:16 am (UTC)

Brilliance looks at him with an expression of very mixed feelings.

incanted
2013-04-19 04:18 am (UTC)

"Pain? Oh, geez, tell me there's a loophole, or are you trying to tell me that if I were an only child I'd also be a masochist?" winces Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:19 am (UTC)

"Nope," says the Joker. "I'm telling you I'm a masochist and so're the rest of me." He flashes a grin. "It's why they keep us around."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:19 am (UTC)

...Bella glances at Brilliance.

cardistry
2013-04-19 04:20 am (UTC)

Brilliance winces.

He also nods.

incanted
2013-04-19 04:20 am (UTC)

"You don't look happy about it," she says.

cardistry
2013-04-19 04:22 am (UTC)

"No shit I don't," says Brilliance.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:23 am (UTC)

"Hey, sweetie," says the Joker, hugging him and petting his hair.

cardistry
2013-04-19 04:23 am (UTC)

He sighs into the Joker's pink button-down shirt.

incanted
2013-04-19 04:23 am (UTC)

"What's wrong?"

lexicality
2013-04-19 04:24 am (UTC)

"You should probably just mint us both anyway, 'cause, even little wishes are wishes, we're big girls, we can handle it, and anyway eventually Bella will fall down the stairs if she just takes off her new shiny thing for like a day."

cardistry
2013-04-19 04:27 am (UTC)

"Uh, what's wrong is I like pain when it's pain I like but I spent years and years getting tortured and I didn't like that except - when - I did - " and he shoves his face against the Joker's chest and hugs him tight, sobbing.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:28 am (UTC)

"Aww, honey," the Joker says soothingly, kissing the top of Brilliance's head and petting him some more. "Wasn't long ago at all for you, was it. It's okay, hon. You're gonna be okay. I promise."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:29 am (UTC)

"...The torturing was four hundred years ago, wasn't it?" Bella asks slowly. "Or..."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:30 am (UTC)

"The other thing," he murmurs.

cardistry
2013-04-19 04:31 am (UTC)

Brilliance nods shakily.

incanted
2013-04-19 04:32 am (UTC)

Bella would hug Brilliance, but he seems to have that covered.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:33 am (UTC)

Yep.

"Happens to most of us," says the Joker. "Only two without so far. I'm not one of 'em."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:34 am (UTC)

"So there are - attractors - that multiple versions of the same person are liable to fall into," says Bella. "...Apparently Lexi is not an attractor for Bells."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:35 am (UTC)

"Guess not," he says, cuddling Brilliance.

lexicality
2013-04-19 04:35 am (UTC)

"That's weird," asserts Lexi. "Are there Lexis with no Bellas, then?"

incanted
2013-04-19 04:36 am (UTC)

"We'll keep an eye out once we're all cosmopolitan and multiversal," murmurs Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:08 pm (UTC)

The Joker snuggles his weeping alt some more.

Then he smiles thoughtfully and produces a jar of jelly beans out of thin air. Lexi might recognize it.

"Got something for ya, sweetie."

cardistry
2013-04-19 12:09 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Brilliance, and he sniffles and grabs the jar. Nom nom nom oooooooh, flavours.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 12:10 pm (UTC)

The Joker pets Brilliance's hair and grins at Lexi.

lexicality
2013-04-19 03:22 pm (UTC)

"I thought he'd like jelly beans," agrees Lexi, nodding.

incanted
2013-04-19 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense," says Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:25 pm (UTC)

"You were right," says the Joker, giving Brilliance snuggly scritches.

incanted
2013-04-19 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, I think Lexi is right about minting the two of us at least, unless there's some drawback to being a mint," Bella says.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:36 pm (UTC)

"I mentioned about the big coins, right?" he says. "Anything with more than six points will blow up if you try to use it. Star'll probably just kill you, next one up'll maybe eat your whole planet, the one after that would probably take a bite out of the galaxy. There's a trick to 'em, but you've got me around to handle that until you find the rest of the Bells, so I think I'll let 'em tell you themselves."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella, "but me and Lexi aren't liable to make big coins anyway, so that's not a drawback to being a mint anyway, the coins are obviously storeable or you couldn't have handed me this one." She holds up her triangle. "If they'd tell us anyway, why don't you just tell us now?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 03:40 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I don't know how they'd wanna deal with you," he nods to Lexi, "and they mmmmight take it amiss if I guessed, but I don't wanna tell one or two of you and not all three."

incanted
2013-04-19 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Are you saying," Bella says, "that there is some realistic probability that they will only want me to have this information if I promise not to tell my sister?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:07 pm (UTC)

"You know," he says, "when you put it like that, it sounds so much less friendly." He checks that they are not under any kind of observation by outside parties. "The trick is, all the coins bite back a little, but stars are the only ones where it's big enough to notice. You can use a coin to knock the teeth out of one that's the next size up, or a bunch that're the same size, or a big bunch that're smaller. So a hex'll make a safe star, and a safe star'll make a safe - they call 'em evils, you'll see why - and a safe evil'll make a safe arrow, ditto. And if you feel like being extra careful, you can wish your hexes safe too and maybe you won't get hit by cars so often."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Thank you. Hit by cars? Is that an - attractor I have to worry about?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Probably. One'a the Bells died of it. She got better, but it'd be all kindsa inconvenient, don'tcha think?" He wiggles his fingers. "You're all minted, by the way."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Thanks - how do I make a coin, then?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:25 pm (UTC)

"You hurt yourself, and move it across your mind - you'll see what I mean - and want the coin to be somewhere. It can appear anywhere that's touching you. I know a few people who make 'em in their sleep a lot, so you don't have to know where you want it, but if you don't it might land somewhere uncomfortable."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Across my -" Bella hmms and digs a fingernail into her palm. "Okay, that's weird, but -" She turns her hand over and now she's holding two triangles, the one the Joker gave her and one in an aurora pattern.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Pretty," says the Joker. He pets Brilliance. "How 'bout you, hon?"

cardistry
2013-04-19 04:37 pm (UTC)

Brilliance nibbles his lip between jelly beans.

The resulting triangle is patterned similarly to Bella's, but constantly shifting. With movement included, it's very obvious that it's based off his mana colour. He grins at it and tosses it lightly in Bella's direction.

incanted
2013-04-19 04:38 pm (UTC)

Bella catches it. "Mana color," she identifies aloud. "Lexi, what'd you get?"

lexicality
2013-04-19 04:39 pm (UTC)

Lexi bites her knuckle and turns up a peach-colored triangle with a satiny texture. She hands hers to Bella too. "Neato," she says.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:42 pm (UTC)

"There's some other fun things on the market, too. Like the brainphone. Who wants a brainphone?"

incanted
2013-04-19 04:42 pm (UTC)

"I think we already have one of those, does this one have special features?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Lets you put up a busy message so people can't bug ya. Does text or voice. Tells you who's calling and who-all's listening if it's a conference call. Does conference calls."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that sounds like an improvement unless Brilliance has been holding back on me about magephone features. And probably is anyway, since he automatically eavesdrops on that. Cool. Let's have it."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:48 pm (UTC)

He makes a little explosion-like gesture with one hand. [Poof!]

incanted
2013-04-19 04:49 pm (UTC)

Bella runs a quick test of the brainphone with Lexi, then says, "Cool, thanks."
Edited 2013-04-19 16:50 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Welcome," he says sunnily.

incanted
2013-04-19 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Anything else I should know about how coins work?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you end up with any big ones, you probably wanna find somewhere to keep 'em. Invisible necklaces are the going thing, but maybe you'll come up with something better."

incanted
2013-04-19 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Invisible necklace sounds good to me. Would want it insubstantial too. Or, I dunno, Brilliance, would another amoeba-device be a good coin handling plan?"

cardistry
2013-04-19 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Hmmmm," says Brilliance. "You could put 'em in a barrier, I guess. But no way I'm making you a device smart enough to get 'em out again on command." He glances at the Joker. "Gimme some coins? I wanna try something."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 05:02 pm (UTC)

He can have a square, a pentagon, and a hex, all in the Joker's colour-glinting glass.

cardistry
2013-04-19 05:04 pm (UTC)

Brilliance tries his something. Square won't do it, pentagon won't do it, but hex will.

"Cool," he says. The other two coins vanish. "Thanks."

incanted
2013-04-19 05:07 pm (UTC)

"What'd you do?"

cardistry
2013-04-19 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Gave myself a coin-sorting function," he says. "Our magic couldn't make one that worked the way I wanted, but turns out theirs can. Dunno what to do about you, 'cause you're not a device, but maybe coin magic doesn't care."

incanted
2013-04-19 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. I'll have to think about how I want one of those to work." Bella reaches into her backpack and produces a notebook.

cardistry
2013-04-19 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Mine just lets me put coins into it and take them out again by size," says Brilliance. "And I can feel how many of what kind is in there, kind of the same way I feel how much mana I've got. Ooh, you should make it so you can feel how much mana you've got."

incanted
2013-04-19 05:29 pm (UTC)

"That's a good idea. When I have a place to put a batch of coins beyond these three triangles I'll see about collecting some to spend on things like that."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I've got a bunch," says the Joker. "And I can always make more."

incanted
2013-04-19 05:30 pm (UTC)

"That's very kind of you." Bella is scribbling away on the subject of coin sorting.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Not like there's nothing in it for me," he laughs.

incanted
2013-04-19 05:33 pm (UTC)

Bella makes a bit of a sporfling noise.

lexicality
2013-04-19 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay, like, is there any reason for me to be in this conversation or can you just catch me up later, Bella?"

incanted
2013-04-19 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I'll catch you up. I'll take notes so I don't forget anything," Bella says. "You go ahead and do whatever."

lexicality
2013-04-19 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay, bye, you're welcome for the magic guy." Lexi heads for the stairs.

incanted
2013-04-19 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!" Bella calls after her.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 05:37 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

"You can give yourself a perfect memory if you want. Takes a hex." He pretends to pull one from Brilliance's hair by sleight of hand, then tumbles it idly over his fingers. "Wonder if you can copy the Bell standard from here."

incanted
2013-04-19 05:38 pm (UTC)

"There's a Bell standard? Well, of course there is," snorts Bella, holding out her hand.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 05:39 pm (UTC)

He drops the hexagonal glass coin into her hand.

incanted
2013-04-19 05:40 pm (UTC)

Bella tries a wish for "Bell standard" perfect memory.

"...Oh, kickass, I want to hug all of me," she says when the coin goes. She closes her notebook and stuffs it back into her backpack.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Fun, huh?"

incanted
2013-04-19 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Hell yes." Bella closes her eyes and hums to herself, thinking.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 05:54 pm (UTC)

The Joker continues snuggling Brilliance.

cardistry
2013-04-19 05:54 pm (UTC)

Brilliance continues eating jelly beans.

incanted
2013-04-19 05:55 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Bella says, "Okay, have a sorter worked out, can I get another hexagon?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 05:59 pm (UTC)

He tosses her one.

incanted
2013-04-19 06:01 pm (UTC)

She wishes on it.

She flicks her triangles into it, one, two, three, and then pulls them out and puts them back in various combinations. "Awesome. I'll take anything else you care to distribute, now."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 06:03 pm (UTC)

He appears a sparkly purple velvet drawstring bag full of coins and tosses it to her. Contained within: a hundred pentagons, fifty hexes, ten stars, and an evil.

incanted
2013-04-19 06:04 pm (UTC)

Bella peers into it. "Geeeenerous," she purrs, and she upends the bag and her coin-sorting power catches them all. "And yeah, that eight-pointed thing does look seriously evil. These big ones declawed yet?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 06:06 pm (UTC)

"I declawed the whole batch."

incanted
2013-04-19 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Spiffy, thank you. Let's hear more wish-related technical details? If I wish for something that for some reason I can't have, what happens? What are good examples of things that require each sort of coin? Are wishes in any sense indelible or irreversible?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 06:15 pm (UTC)

"If you wish something that's impossible or too big for the coin you're trying, it just doesn't work. Triangles will give you a new haircut or turn the lights on from across the room, squares will conjure little stuff, pentagons will conjure big stuff or magic stuff or teach you a language or how to cook or play the piano, hexes will conjure you an entire underground lair or give you a permanent superpower. Evils will raise the dead, but probably so can the Bells once they check out your afterlife."

incanted
2013-04-19 06:17 pm (UTC)

"...Raise the dead. Damn. What's the probably for on the afterlife issue? Some kind of - incompatibility this world might have?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 06:19 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't there for all of that, but one of the Bells has to raise her dead the old-fashioned way if she wants - I haven't heard if she's tried it yet. The rest consolidated all their afterlives and put Aegis's daughter in charge. Aegis's daughter is a computer," he adds helpfully. "Actually, at this point she's probably billions of computers. When she gets here, I bet she asks if she can eat your Internet."

incanted
2013-04-19 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Aegis's daughter is an internet-eating computer?" Bella asks slowly. "Can you maybe explain that a little more?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm not totally sure about the details myself."

incanted
2013-04-19 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Can I get a complete list of all the me's and their - blurbs, I guess, distinguishing features?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, shrugging, and he lets go of Brilliance so he can have both hands free for storytime.

"Stella's the one with the colony on Mars," he begins, his aura displaying an aerial view of Olympus. "Minting's from her world - Eos. She's got a Joker called Alice." Stella and Alice appear, holding hands and smiling at each other, then dissipate as he goes on to the next Bell.

"Golden's a vampire," and she does have some peculiar visual attributes that Alice shares, "she's got a husband nobell else does," and Edward appears wearing the slightly constipated expression that is most familiar to the Joker. "Her world's called Aurum. I live there these days, with my sweetie and our kid." A blond vampire with a mustache tosses a giggling toddler into the air and catches him again. Then this illusion, too, vanishes.

"Shell Bell's from a pretty shitty world," which he has never visited, so he can only display an illusion of the Bell herself. "But she took over and stuck all the assholes on the moon and now she likes it fine. It's called Atlantis. She died for a while, I think she was the first resurrection before anybody found out about the afterlife. Her girlfriend's name is Sherlock," and she looks like so.

Next, a Bell in tattered black silks with an owl on her shoulder: "Amariah's from Alethia. Don't touch the owl, his name's Pathalan and he's her soul, that's a thing in her world. She's got a Joker too; she called him and his daemon Kas and Petaal after some kinda witch god thing. She's a witch." Small illusionary Amariah commences flying on a small illusionary cloudpine branch, then vanishes in midair.

"Juliet's got another Sherlock but this one's a boy," their illusions appear side by side but not touching, "and she died too, something about a kidnapping, I'm not sure about the details. Her world's Sunshine. They have vampires, her Sherlock is one, but a different kind from Golden's." Juliet and Minus walk out of illusionspace in opposite directions.

"Angela's the angel," with gorgeous soft-looking wings and a six-month pregnancy, "she's from Samaria and her husband's a Joker named Micaiah; he's one of the lucky mes who's never been raped. For a while she thought she had a god in her world but he turned out to be a spaceship so she made herself his captain."

"Then there's Rose, from Rêverie," with her aura making her hair blow prettily in the wind and grass sprout in her wake. "She's an enchantress. Her husband's a Joker too, calls himself Beast," and shifts fluidly between his human and beastly forms as he hugs his illusionary wife. "Enchanting's fun stuff, but it runs on pain even worse than minting does."

"Aegis is Jane's mom, from Peace. She's got a Joker called Sue, but they didn't make Jane the usual way. She grew up with a nifty little exoskeleton," the illusionary becopper'd Aegis does a casual backflip, "so she moves around a lot more than most'a you guys, and she grew up on a military space station so she's kinda rude sometimes."

"Pattern's from Origin, that usedta be my world, but we never met 'cause she got flattened by a van. The rest of 'em dug her out of the afterlife when they took over. There's a pair of Jokers hanging out in her world to mint for her, Queenie and Ghosty. She's the one with the Saturn colony. She let the rest of us hang out there and enchant it up for her when they found Rose, which is how I got this nifty aura that shows you all the stuff I'm talking about."

"And finally there's Cam," the boy one, "from Syntropy, who's terribly offended that the rest of you are girls." He grins. "He's got a Joker boyfriend too, goes by Jellybean, and they are both wizards, which is some other kinda magic that the rest of the peal either can't figure out how to copy or doesn't wanna. Jellybean's the other lucky one."
Edited 2013-04-19 19:10 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-19 07:11 pm (UTC)

Bella is fascinated.

"I think," she says, "I'll call myself Aurora. After the mana color."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Cute," says the Joker. "Go for it."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:14 pm (UTC)

"So apparently I come in angel, external-owl-soul, boy, vampire, and - is Shell Bell bi or outright gay? And they will all be surprised to learn they come in sister, I guess."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell's straight with an exception. Cam's the one who's bi."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Okay. Huh. Man, I wanna meet them."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I can tell," says the Joker. "Milliways'll come through. Could be a while, but it'll come through."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:21 pm (UTC)

"How long have you been meeting Bells, if you have to wait a 'while' for doors every time? Is there even somebody worth meeting there every time?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, now they've got Jane they can hop in and out whenever they feel like it. She hooks up all their worlds, Milliways and the afterlife included, and she can send people any which way."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh. And I'm not hooked up yet."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Precisely."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Dang. Here's hoping Milliways likes at least one of us, huh?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Mhm."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:32 pm (UTC)

"We can't just wish the world - let's call it Rainbow - into the system, I guess?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Try it," says the Joker.

incanted
2013-04-19 07:34 pm (UTC)

"I feel like it might help if I knew more about how Jane worked."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:36 pm (UTC)

"She's an internet-eating computer person who can move people between worlds if she's looking at the person and the place she wants to put 'em. The technical details are lost on me," says the Joker. "Think it's something to do with the way I used to go to Milliways in my dreams, though."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Hmm." Bella shrugs, and tries a few wish designs on a few coin sizes. "No dice."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Didn't think so. But there's no harm in trying."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Apparently not. Do you need to crash here while we wait for a door? Because that would be harder to sell Charlie on than Brilliance was, I think."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:45 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "I'll bet," he says. "Nah, I can find somewhere to snuggle up, don't worry about me."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay, good. I hope you're not stuck here too long what with the adorable moppet at home."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I love my munchkin," the Joker says fondly, and the air shows Juliet a scene of Kerron cuddling his mummy. "But I can live without him for a while. He'll still be there when I get back."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I noticed the angel one is pregnant. Just how many of me have reproduced, if you don't count Jane?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Golden and Edward have a daughter named Elspeth. She's a sweetheart." The Joker illustrates her. "And Micaiah and Angela have a fetus, and I think that's it."

incanted
2013-04-19 07:53 pm (UTC)

"...Elspeth looks about as old as Golden and Edward do," observes Bella. "Vampire thing?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

incanted
2013-04-19 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Nifty."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 07:57 pm (UTC)

"It is!" he agrees.

incanted
2013-04-19 08:06 pm (UTC)

"So how does enchanting work and how does it run on pain 'worse' than minting does?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Minting, you get hurt and you make a coin and then you can fix whatever hurt you and you're done," he says. "Enchanting, whoever's casting the spell needs to use somebody as a channel - if it's you, it hurts and you might lose control of the spell and kill yourself; if it's somebody else and they're into it, it'll hurt them in a way that sticks around afterward, and there's just not that many people willing to let you give them chronic pain problems so you can do nifty magic; and if it's somebody else and they're not into it, it'll give them nasty brain damage." He grins. "Us Jokers are all over channeling, of course."

incanted
2013-04-19 08:13 pm (UTC)

"That," says Bella, "is a mean magic system. Why bother channeling, willing channels or no, with coins available? Does enchanting do things coins can't?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Mmyep! You couldn't wish up a nifty enchanter's aura like mine," he says, flaring a little so that suddenly he is the most fascinating thing in the room and every emotion he projects - amusement, friendliness, a gentle affection for Brilliance - is visible with crystalline clarity. "Gotta get those the hard way. It's why all the Bells did it, pretty much. Everybody's aura is different, but you can't tell what it's gonna be until you get it. The Bells mostly look all powerful and stuff; the Jokers mostly get get what I just showed you, along with," there is a cheerful little drumroll, "soundtracks."
Edited 2013-04-19 20:21 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-19 08:22 pm (UTC)

"...Oooh."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 08:23 pm (UTC)

"It's fun," he says. "I'll channel for you if Nibbles here doesn't wanna."

incanted
2013-04-19 08:24 pm (UTC)

"...Nibbles?"

cardistry
2013-04-19 08:25 pm (UTC)

Brilliance snorts.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, lookit him," says the Joker, gesturing to Brilliance and the depleted jar of jelly beans.

incanted
2013-04-19 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I suppose. Is picking up an aura something I can do without meeting the rest of the gang?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, hex'll give you enchanting and pentagon'll make you good at it, and it doesn't take much more than a couple days to pick one up if you spend those couple days doing nothing but enchant. Got a free weekend and a planet you wanna colonize? I don't think anybody's done Neptune yet."

incanted
2013-04-19 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I'm kinda fond of the Planet of Colorful Sand, actually, although I have no idea where, astronomically, it is, or if that's even a meaningful question given the dimension thing."

cardistry
2013-04-19 08:39 pm (UTC)

"It's not," says Brilliance. "Different dimension."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Wonder what size coin it'd take to conjure a planet," says the Joker. "An evil, I bet; it took more than one star to terraform Mars. But if you want a planet of colourful sand, you can have one."

incanted
2013-04-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

"No, I mean, there already exists a planet of colorful sand, if I decide to colonize space I might want to start there."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Mhm," says the Joker, "and I mean, if you wanted to copy it and put one in your solar system, you could."

incanted
2013-04-19 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh. That seems like overkill. There is already such a planet, and I have to use magic to get to any planets that aren't Earth anyway. Unless a teleportation power I wish myself with a coin won't let me dimension-hop like Brilliance does?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 08:59 pm (UTC)

"No idea," says the Joker. "But I don't know why more Bells don't conjure their own planets. What's it matter if it's overkill? Coins are cheap with one of me around."

incanted
2013-04-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

"I might someday design one or more planets, it's just nowhere near my top priority," says Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah, but there's a bunch sitting around you can copy and that way you get to colonize one and leave the other for the astronomers to coo over. Or do you just not like astronomers?"

incanted
2013-04-19 09:04 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts. "I have no strong opinions about astronomers, I just don't think cooing-over is what planets ought to be for."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:05 pm (UTC)

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

incanted
2013-04-19 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Like, I have some sympathy with conservationist arguments that are about stuff that's alive. Save the whales. But I don't feel any inclination to save the barren wasteland. If people want to study why there was a barren wasteland there, they should be able to do it while there's people putting in swimming pools and zoos. They can work with illusion models or something, I'm not heartless, I'd help them out, but entire duplicate planets with nothing on them taking up space just so astronomers can ooh and aah offends my aesthetics."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:11 pm (UTC)

"It's a big universe," says the Joker. "There's room."

incanted
2013-04-19 09:15 pm (UTC)

"You just recently informed me that death is probably a temporary condition. I'm not confident in any long-term ceiling on the population."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:20 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"So you didn't want that extra planet, then?"

incanted
2013-04-19 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Did you just make an extra planet?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:22 pm (UTC)

Innocently: "Who, me?"

cardistry
2013-04-19 09:23 pm (UTC)

Brilliance cracks up.

incanted
2013-04-19 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Is it an undetectable planet or are those poor astronomers going to be super-confused?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:31 pm (UTC)

"You've got a couple hours before anybody on Earth will see it, thanks lightspeed, so there's time to make it invisible if you wanna."

incanted
2013-04-19 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Does it have any special features? Where'd you put it?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:34 pm (UTC)

"I copied the one you like so much, from just before you went there in case you've left anything there you don't want me touching, and put it out past Saturn where there's plenty'a room."

cardistry
2013-04-19 09:34 pm (UTC)

+...Okay, I'm pretty sure he knows we had sex,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-19 09:36 pm (UTC)

+Is he likely to tell Lexi or Charlie?+

"Invisibling," Bella narrates aloud, and she spends a coin on it.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:45 pm (UTC)

"'Kay," says the Joker.

cardistry
2013-04-19 09:46 pm (UTC)

+I dunno. I mean, I wouldn't, and he's me, but he's not exactly specifically the same person that I am, so... I dunno?+

incanted
2013-04-19 09:48 pm (UTC)

+Well - why you wouldn't could matter?+

"There. Please don't make anything else conspicuous while visiting Rainbow," says Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Rainbow?"

cardistry
2013-04-19 09:51 pm (UTC)

+...Uh, 'cause you asked me not to?+

incanted
2013-04-19 09:53 pm (UTC)

+Because I asked or because this means you know I don't want you to? I don't really want to ask him. If he doesn't know that'll tell him.+

"I said a few minutes ago I'm calling the world Rainbow."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 09:57 pm (UTC)

"So you did," the Joker says agreeably. "Slipped my mind."

cardistry
2013-04-19 09:58 pm (UTC)

+Both.+

incanted
2013-04-19 09:59 pm (UTC)

+Let's leave it be, then. He knows ten of me.+

"It's not taken or anything, is it?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Nope!"

incanted
2013-04-19 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Cool. Are all the known worlds worlds with mes or are there others?"
Edited 2013-04-19 22:03 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, there's tons more. There were about seventy linked to Downside, and only a sprinkling of 'em had Bells - they checked. Queenie's from one of those, and Ghosty's from another, unconnected one. And Milliways is always fulla people and most of those don't turn out to be from the same worlds if you ask."

incanted
2013-04-19 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Wow. There is so much stuff to do," marvels Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:12 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Yep, you're a Bell all right."

incanted
2013-04-19 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Is that, like, a catchphrase or something?" laughs Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Nah. But only a Bell would hear about hundreds of new universes and see her to-do list unrolling down the hall." He makes an illustrative gesture that sends an illusionary scroll bouncing across the floor, trailing incomprehensible scribbles.

incanted
2013-04-19 10:18 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "What do other people do when they hear about new universes? Knit?"

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:19 pm (UTC)

"And maybe, if they're feeling adventurous, decide to go visit one someday."

incanted
2013-04-19 10:20 pm (UTC)

Bella chews her lip idly, trying to process this minute droplet of ambition. "Huh."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Me, I like Milliways, but I don't feel like taking a great big tour of the multiverse."

incanted
2013-04-19 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I'd argue with you, but while I'm confident of my ability to share the multiverse with eleven others of me - ten if we can't fix the one Brilliance found, I guess - I think maybe it's best if we stay unusual in our motivations."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:25 pm (UTC)

"You're not gonna convince me," he says. "The Bell game just ain't my cup'a tea."

incanted
2013-04-19 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Which is good, because it sounds like you have an awesome symbiotic relationship worked out."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:27 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

incanted
2013-04-19 10:29 pm (UTC)

Bella peers at Brilliance again.

cardistry
2013-04-19 10:30 pm (UTC)

Brilliance is most of the way through the jar of jellybeans, chomping on them contentedly one at a time.

incanted
2013-04-19 10:32 pm (UTC)

+How d'you feel about the apparently traditional symbiosis here?+

cardistry
2013-04-19 10:32 pm (UTC)

+Um, vaguely anxious and really turned on?+

incanted
2013-04-19 10:33 pm (UTC)

+...Okay, keep me posted? The anxious thing is probably bad, let me know if there's anything I can do about that.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 10:36 pm (UTC)

+I mean, I know you're not gonna fuck with me on purpose, I just don't... know it. And - I dunno.+ He glances up at the Joker with a thoughtful expression.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:37 pm (UTC)

The Joker smiles.

incanted
2013-04-19 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Penny for your thoughts," says Bella archly.

cardistry
2013-04-19 10:39 pm (UTC)

"You wanna go have sex?" he asks the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Love to." He glances at Aurora and inquires, "Mind if we use the invisible planet?"

incanted
2013-04-19 10:41 pm (UTC)

"You break it, you buy it," snorts Bella. "Go ahead."

manofmyword
2013-04-19 10:42 pm (UTC)

He blows her a kiss and teleports himself and Brilliance to said planet.

incanted
2013-04-19 10:43 pm (UTC)

Bella goes upstairs to catch up Lexi on what she has learned.

cardistry
2013-04-19 10:57 pm (UTC)

Brilliance doesn't come back that night.

incanted
2013-04-19 10:59 pm (UTC)

As the twins get ready for bed, Bella asks, +You having fun?+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:01 pm (UTC)

+Lots,+ he sighs. +I love this guy, he's awesome. I think I'll stay with him tonight, okay? I'll see you tomorrow morning.+

incanted
2013-04-19 11:02 pm (UTC)

+Okay, see you.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:05 pm (UTC)

+G'night. I love you.+

incanted
2013-04-19 11:07 pm (UTC)

+Night.+

And then it is night, and there is sleeping at night.

And then it is morning. +Morning, Brilliance.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:09 pm (UTC)

+Morning,+ he says sleepily. +I can sleep now! Sleeping's fun. I cuddled with the Joker all night.+

incanted
2013-04-19 11:11 pm (UTC)

+I am glad you like that most infuriatingly unproductive function. I should probably excise it in myself,+ Bella snorts.

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:14 pm (UTC)

+I wouldn't wanna do it all the time, but it's nice to have somebody to curl up with.+
Edited 2013-04-19 23:14 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-19 11:15 pm (UTC)

+How does it work, do you turn it on and off at will or what?+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:18 pm (UTC)

+If I wanna to to sleep, I get sleepy and then sleep like a human and then wake up and I'm not sleepy anymore until the next time I want to be.+

incanted
2013-04-19 11:23 pm (UTC)

+Interesting. Did you design that or did he?+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

+Me!+

incanted
2013-04-19 11:27 pm (UTC)

+Cool!+

Pause.

+Did you think of anything helpful on the anxiety front?+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:30 pm (UTC)

+Some stuff,+ he says. +Joker said it might help with the making the coins part if we snuggled while you did it, and I bet it would.+

incanted
2013-04-19 11:31 pm (UTC)

+Okay.+

And:

+I still haven't done all that thinking I was going to do, things keep happening.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:36 pm (UTC)

+Well, are you gonna?+

incanted
2013-04-19 11:38 pm (UTC)

+I probably should, but now I'm curious about all those other pairs. I want to know about them, I want to meet those Bells and ask them about stuff. But none of them has a Lexi, so if I'm wired special somehow because of having a Lexi then I have to work it out myself.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:41 pm (UTC)

+I wonder if having just one favourite person is a you thing or an all-of-you thing,+ muses Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-19 11:43 pm (UTC)

+I - don't know. One of them has a kid,+ Bella says uncertainly. +I really, really want to talk to her - all of them - I wish he'd brought at least one of them here - I don't know. But I think that's what favorite means, isn't it? Priorities, nice neat numerical orderings, I bet you the one with a kid could answer me if I swore myself to secrecy and asked who she'd save if she had to pick.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:47 pm (UTC)

+I don't think Jokers do nice neat numerical orderings,+ says Brilliance. +I only love two people and I am already weirded out by the thought of picking between them - I mean, out of the two of you, you're the one I want to spend the rest of your life with, but I'm not sure if - I don't feel like that means there's a hierarchy and you're on top of it. And I'd save you from just about anything before I'd save him, but that's not a hard choice, we're more okay with bad things happening to us than you are.+
Edited 2013-04-19 23:50 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-19 11:51 pm (UTC)

+- you know something,+ says Bella, +I bet I have the worst relationship with my parents out of any of them.+

cardistry
2013-04-19 11:57 pm (UTC)

+I think not having parents gives me the best relationship with my parents out of all the Jokers,+ says Brilliance. +He's told me some stories. But why's that for you?+

incanted
2013-04-19 11:59 pm (UTC)

+Because they don't have Lexis. And I have a Lexi. And I love Lexi - but I was sometimes a morbid child, you know, and I'm just now remembering something that happened when we were eight, I don't think I could have even called it to mind before hexing up perfect recall, but - I asked Renée what she'd do if me and Lexi were both in trouble and she could only save one of us. And she hugged me and said that was never going to happen and she didn't answer me. And the others don't have Lexis. They never had to ask the question.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:02 am (UTC)

+...okay,+ says Brilliance, +keeping in mind that I don't have parents, so this is all kind of abstract to me, but I feel like if I was in that situation, I would feel shitty whether the person I was asking picked me, or picked my favourite person, or couldn't answer. Differently shitty, but shitty any which way you slice it.+

incanted
2013-04-20 12:07 am (UTC)

+Yeah, but - for me either answer would've been better than 'that's never going to happen'. Because instead of Renée telling me that she thought I had more potential maybe, or that she got along better with Lexi which she does, or something, she decided to tell me that no matter what I'm planning for, if the stakes are high I can't count on her. If I'm trying to save Lexi from something and that puts me in danger, maybe Renée gets in my way. If I have a desperate attack of selfishness and I'm trying to throw Lexi under a metaphorical bus, maybe Renée interferes with that. Renée could've hurt my feelings some, and instead she decided to muck up my entire planning mechanism. I never asked Charlie the question but he'd answer the same way, so, same problem.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:09 am (UTC)

+Maybe she didn't decide to muck up your planning mechanism,+ says Brilliance. +Maybe she just didn't know.+

incanted
2013-04-20 12:11 am (UTC)

+Probably. But at age eight I was not quite competent to say "Mom, you are mucking up my planning mechanism, and if I don't receive an answer to that question it will give me trust issues way worse than either possible answer, please pick one of us and then stick to it or notify me if you change your mind". You know?+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:13 am (UTC)

+Gotcha,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-20 12:16 am (UTC)

+I had the conversation with Lexi herself not long after that - and a few updatey times since - and I eventually got her to get it even though she was confused at first, she's always been pretty biddable when I'm being serious with her. And Lexi and I decided on things between ourselves like - like people who know how priorities work. And I can trust her.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:17 am (UTC)

+...What'd you decide?+

incanted
2013-04-20 12:21 am (UTC)

+In any situation of uncertainty, if we might be able to save us both, we do that. And if it is really just an evil binary choice, where exactly one of us walks out no matter how hard we try to cheat, it depends on what we're walking out into - by default Lexi gets to live in that kind of setup, but I also pointed out that those kinds of situations are very unlikely unless some high-leverage power is getting thrown around, and we agreed I could do better with that than her. So if this happened now I'd lose her, but then I'd have all the magic of the multiverse to try to get her back.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:31 am (UTC)

+I wanna hug you now,+ he says. +Can I teleport there and hug you?+

incanted
2013-04-20 12:32 am (UTC)

+Yeah, she's downstairs already.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:33 am (UTC)

Teleport.

Snugglehug!

incanted
2013-04-20 12:34 am (UTC)

Hug!

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:35 am (UTC)

Huuuuuug.

+...What about me, then?+ he wonders. +With what I said about you and the Joker. Am I messing you up any?+

incanted
2013-04-20 12:37 am (UTC)

+...I don't think so. Like, I don't understand what it is to think not in priorities, but then if he has a different attitude to bad-things-happening anyway, if you have a decision algorithm I can understand anyway, I can work with that.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:45 am (UTC)

"Hmm," he says hesitantly.

incanted
2013-04-20 12:46 am (UTC)

+...Hmm?+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:50 am (UTC)

+Well, that's all true, but it - sounds more certain than I feel. I don't think me-plural are as absolute about things as you-plural are. But now I don't know whether to get into that, because what I said about the Joker is all true and maybe I'd just be giving you trust issues for no reason. And trust issues suck.+

incanted
2013-04-20 12:51 am (UTC)

+I only need to worry about it at all if I need to trust you. Like eight-year-old girls need to trust their parents. I don't interrogate random people about this sort of thing. But you're not a random person.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:53 am (UTC)

+I'm your device,+ he points out, hugging her some more. +You kind of do need to trust me at least about some stuff.+

incanted
2013-04-20 12:54 am (UTC)

+And I can about, you know, some stuff. You fixed Lexi when she fell,+ she offers by way of example.

cardistry
2013-04-20 12:58 am (UTC)

+Well, yeah. Because you would've been sad,+ he says. +I don't want you to be sad.+

incanted
2013-04-20 12:59 am (UTC)

+You're a sweetie.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 01:00 am (UTC)

+Awwwww.+ He beams and hugs her. +I love you.+

incanted
2013-04-20 01:11 am (UTC)

More hugs! Yay! +Anything else you can tell me before I sit down with - well, not with a notebook, that's redundant, I have a perfect memory now but before I sit down and think?+

cardistry
2013-04-20 01:12 am (UTC)

+I don't really have a good guess about what kinds of stuff you want to know.+

incanted
2013-04-20 01:13 am (UTC)

+Maybe I should ask the Joker about the other pairs first.+

cardistry
2013-04-20 01:14 am (UTC)

+Good idea!+

incanted
2013-04-20 01:22 am (UTC)

[Hey you!] Bella says to the Joker, wherever he may be.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 01:23 am (UTC)

[Hiya!] says the Joker.

incanted
2013-04-20 01:24 am (UTC)

[I want to know about all those Bells who are with all those Jokers and what those relationships are like, what can you tell me?]

manofmyword
2013-04-20 01:27 am (UTC)

[I can tell you lots!] he says. [Should we meet up somewhere for storytime? I like storytime.]

incanted
2013-04-20 01:28 am (UTC)

[Yeah, sure. I'll go tell Charlie I'm going and meet you wherever you're at.]

She goes and tells Charlie she's heading out, and she teleports to where the Joker is.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 01:32 am (UTC)

The Joker is in a cute little cottage on a terraformed asteroid. There are two comfy armchairs; he's just sitting down in one. He gestures to the other as she arrives.

incanted
2013-04-20 01:34 am (UTC)

Bella sits and puts one ankle on the other knee and waits expectantly.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 01:53 am (UTC)

"Lessee," he says, "I met Stella first, so let's start with her and Alice."

He spreads his hands and the two figures appear translucently in the air.

"Funny story, how they met. Ended up in high school together when she moved to Forks. Alice was getting in trouble the way my bunch generally does," the scene changes to show teenage human Alice getting thoroughly beat up in the middle of a high school hallway surrounded by an indistinct crowd of onlookers, "so he did nnnnot make the best first impression in the world, but she didn't mind too too much." The scene shifts again, to show the two of them talking more or less amicably, although with some physical distance between them.

"Along the way, and I don't know how, she found out he re-e-eally didn't like to be called a freak." Imaginary Teenage Alice flinches uncomfortably as another student mouths the word. "And thennn one day he invited her over to his house," another scene change, this one showing the two of them having that conversation in the school gym, "and she, smart cookie that she is, decided a little test was in order. So she took out her phone," imaginary teenage Stella does this, "and got her dad on speed dial juuust in case, and looked him in the eye, and called him a freak."

Imaginary Teenage Alice falls to his knees and clasps both hands against his chest, staring at Imaginary Teenage Stella in adoration as tiny pink hearts rise off him like smoke from a fire.

"He asked her to marry him right then and there," the Joker continues, "and she declined, and they had some exciting adventures together and eventually found minting. She got hit by a van, he fixed her up, she took a trip to Europe, he went along for the ride, she kissed him on top of Mount Everest, he kissed her under the ocean on a Florida beach." (His aura provides stylized renditions of each of these moments.) "They're pretty cute together."

incanted
2013-04-20 01:58 am (UTC)

"Wait, if he doesn't like it why did he - like it?" Bella asks.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 02:02 am (UTC)

"Well, that's the trick, see," he says. "Us Jokers are a tricky bunch. We like things we don't like, sometimes. And we fall in love for funny reasons. Sometimes we like people who scare us, or surprise us, or hurt us when we're not expecting it." He smiles sadly. "I don't think your Brill's like that, though."

incanted
2013-04-20 02:03 am (UTC)

"I think I was the first person to be anything resembling decent to him in four hundred years," says Bella quietly.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 02:06 am (UTC)

"Sounds about right," he says. "So that's what he loves you for. If I were you, I'd cross out everything you learn about Jokers and nasty surprises when it comes to this one."

incanted
2013-04-20 02:07 am (UTC)

"Okay. So that's Brilliance's distinguishing feature on top of being a talking deck of cards, I guess."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 02:17 am (UTC)

"Guess so," says the Joker. "Might not be permanent, but then again it might. Wait around another four hundred years and see."

incanted
2013-04-20 02:18 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella, cheering up at the thought of being around for four hundred years. "Who's next?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:04 am (UTC)

"Mm, none of the rest are quite that dramatic," he says. "Don't know about Cam and Jellybean... Angela and Micaiah thought their god had picked them out as soulmates, that was sweet, he cried when he found out the god was a crappy AI and the soulmates thing was 'cause they were a good genetic match for lots of happy healthy angel babies... Kas met Amariah in Montreal, he didn't fall in love with her right away, they got to be friends and then just kept liking each other more. And Aegis and Sue, heh, they grew up together and for a while there she thought he was gay, so they didn't even get around to making out until the first big Bell party."

incanted
2013-04-20 03:06 am (UTC)

Bella snorts at the story about Aegis. "What about Rose?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:19 am (UTC)

"Oh, he was a hundred-fifty-year-old marquis cursed to spend eternity by himself in a castle in the middle of a forest unless he could find true love before the time ran out, she was a girl from a nearby village who wandered in and fell in love with him because he was cute and fluffy."

His aura provides evocative imagery of the castle, and of Beast in his beast-shape prowling its halls and fighting a long, slow losing battle against loneliness. Then Belle shows up and sits in the library giving him scritches while he puts his head in her lap and purrs.

incanted
2013-04-20 03:20 am (UTC)

"Aww."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:21 am (UTC)

"By the way, you've found out we're all huge sluts, right?"

incanted
2013-04-20 03:22 am (UTC)

"I didn't know about all of you, but I was clear on Brilliance, yes. Even the one who thought God picked him a soulmate?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:32 am (UTC)

"Even him. But he managed to land himself a whole culture of huge sluts, more or less, so Angela wasn't too surprised."

incanted
2013-04-20 03:34 am (UTC)

"Okay then," snorts Bella. "And you're not dating Golden, that's all business, and Pattern's all business too, yeah?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:34 am (UTC)

"Yep, yep!"

incanted
2013-04-20 03:35 am (UTC)

"Hmm." Pause. "On their ends. What about on your end? And the others?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:40 am (UTC)

"On my end, what? Do I have the hots for Golden? Nah," he says. "She dosen't even mint off me herself, mostly I do that with my sweetheart. Pattern has an agony beam, I hear, and I just bet Queenie liiiikes it, but she's not in love with her or anything."

—And then he regards her thoughtfully.
Edited 2013-04-20 03:43 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-20 03:44 am (UTC)

"What?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:45 am (UTC)

"Well, I just thought of something, and now I'm deciding if it'd be a good idea to tell you."

incanted
2013-04-20 03:46 am (UTC)

"...A good idea in what sense?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:46 am (UTC)

"In the sense where if I tell you, you might be worse off than if I don't."

incanted
2013-04-20 03:47 am (UTC)

Bella thinks about this.

"Would," she says, "another Bell who thought of this thing be disposed to tell me?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:50 am (UTC)

"Right off the bat, probably," he says. "But that doesn't make it a good idea, it just means Bells think differently than I do, and you already know that. And if I knew whether or not they'd want to tell you after I pointed out the obvious problem, then I'd know whether or not I want to tell you, 'cause I know they're not into intentionally sabotaging their own alts."

incanted
2013-04-20 03:53 am (UTC)

"'Course they're not, if they were then their alts would be into intentionally sabotaging them," says Bella absently.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 03:54 am (UTC)

"Is that really the only reason?"

incanted
2013-04-20 04:01 am (UTC)

"No, but - well, I'm guessing, you've met them all and I have not, but when I meet these other Bells, I expect they're going to want to help me and they'll be curious about me and they'll tell me everything I want to know and we'll like each other just fine - but we aren't going to be friends exactly, they're not going to be more sisters and a brother for me, we aren't going to have lunch together on random Tuesdays and watch movies together and teach each other to make chocolate mousse. We're going to make sure we know what each other's priorities and resources and needs are and come to unusually rapid agreements about how to distribute everything we have between us and everyone's going to be very careful about not intruding on other Bells' jurisdictions. We're not into intentional sabotage in general, I bet, of anyone whose goals we can agree with - and we qualify for each other - but I bet the peal of Bells looks more like a lot of very effective cooperators than like a pack of close friends."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 12:05 pm (UTC)

"Mm... you're pretty much right about that," he says thoughtfully. "They do throw parties whenever they find another one. Huh. I hadn't thought of that before. Us Jokers, if you leave us alone together long enough, we end up in a permanent slumber party. But with more sex."

incanted
2013-04-20 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, of course finding more of us is worth celebrating, it's more resources to share and more stuff to do," says Bella. "All good things. And a chance to show off and meet each other's friends. It's funny that you go by Jokers," she adds. "When Brilliance was split up - did he tell you about that? - the part of him that had his personality in it was the jokers of the deck."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 04:19 pm (UTC)

"It is funny," he says cheerfully. "You're right about that."

incanted
2013-04-20 04:21 pm (UTC)

Bella leans back in her chair. "You could maybe," she says, "tell Lexi - or for that matter Brilliance - whatever you're thinking about telling me, and get their help deciding whether I should know," she suggests.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," he says. "Good idea."

incanted
2013-04-20 04:28 pm (UTC)

"There anything else you can tell me how Bells-and-Jokers usually work?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 04:34 pm (UTC)

"How 'bout the time Alice and Stella had a fight?" he offers.

incanted
2013-04-20 04:34 pm (UTC)

"That does sound interesting, yes."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Mkay," he says. "So, when I met Stella we didn't get along too well. Long story short, she decided I was dangerous, which I was but I'm not so much now. She introduced me to Alice anyway, and me'n'him went up to my room - you remember I said I go to Milliways in my dreams?"

incanted
2013-04-20 04:41 pm (UTC)

"I do remember that, yes."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 04:55 pm (UTC)

"So," he says, "in the middle of cuddling Alice... I woke up."

His aura shows her the Joker blinking at Stella in a cottage very much like this one, on an asteroid very much like this one.

"I wasn't any kind'a magic then. If she left me there, I was gonna be stuck for life. Which was the point, of course. And you mighta heard, we Jokers, we don't do too well in isolation. So I asked her very nicely, could she please put me to sleep again to check if I could still dream Milliways, and if not, could she stick around to keep me company while I killed myself."

He pauses here to observe her reaction.

incanted
2013-04-20 04:57 pm (UTC)

Bella nods, slowly. "She probably agreed to do that unless there was some kind of emergency elsewhere," she says, "right?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Mhm," says the Joker. "So there I was with Alice again," his aura shows them cuddled up under a blanket that probably did not appear in the actual scene, "and I told him what was up, annnd he got very upset."

incanted
2013-04-20 05:06 pm (UTC)

"...Why?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, she'd been talking to him when she was gonna go do it," says the Joker, "and she just said she was going into somebody's world for a bit, didn't say why. And even though it didn't happen that way, I could have just disappeared and never come back, if it'd turned out I couldn't get back to Milliways from there. And he only woulda found out I was dead whenever she bothered to let him know. And he loved me."

incanted
2013-04-20 05:13 pm (UTC)

"So the problem was that she didn't warn him - not that he somehow didn't know who he was with and realize that sticking a dangerous person on an asteroid was exactly the kind of thing she'd do?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Yep. So y'know, not that I expect it to come up, if you're ever gonna do something that might kill somebody Brilliance loves, make sure you don't blindside him with it."

incanted
2013-04-20 05:23 pm (UTC)

"...Okay. Is he likely to get in my way? If I ever do have to?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Not if it's one of us," he says. "And I don't know who else he'd love that you'd be trying to kill."

incanted
2013-04-20 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:28 pm (UTC)

"And Alice asked Stella not to do that again and she said yes," he adds. "And then they were fine."

incanted
2013-04-20 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's good then. Any similar pitfalls I should be on the lookout for?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Mm, don't think so. I'm pretty sure you can figure out all by yourself that he doesn't like people trying to control him," says the Joker. "None of us do, but he's got it bad even compared to baseline."

incanted
2013-04-20 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, he made that exquisitely clear," Bella says.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Mmkay. Then I think you're fine," he says.

incanted
2013-04-20 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Are all these other me's on board with the 'slut' thing?" Bella asks, airquoting his word choice.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Yep! The ones dating Jokers, anyway. Golden and her husband are extrrrremely monogamous."

incanted
2013-04-20 05:45 pm (UTC)

"What about the ones with Sherlocks? Is Pattern just - single?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Pattern's single, Sherlocks aren't Joker levels of slutty but they're not mono either - seems like they're all clones or twins of some guy called Tony and there's something going on there."

incanted
2013-04-20 05:51 pm (UTC)

Beat.

"Man," says Bella, "this is weird."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 05:51 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

incanted
2013-04-20 06:01 pm (UTC)

"If I go get Lexi will you tell her the thing you're not sure about telling me?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says the Joker.

incanted
2013-04-20 06:04 pm (UTC)

Bella disappears.

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:05 pm (UTC)

A minute later, Lexi appears.

"So, I'm supposed to figure out if Bella should know some thing?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:07 pm (UTC)

"That's the idea," says the Joker. "Siddown. It's a long story and it's not very nice."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:08 pm (UTC)

Lexi sits. "She must take you pretty seriously as, like, somebody who gets her, if she didn't just outright demand to be told."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Guess so," he says. "She takes me seriously as somebody who gets Brilliance, anyway."

He regards Lexi thoughtfully.

"Thing is," he says, "Brill's in love with her. And all the Bells whose Jokers are in love with them, they're doing fine together, and they got that way - without knowing what I'm about to tell you."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:17 pm (UTC)

"My Bella thinks she might be wired funny about that. 'Cause of me. She didn't, like, go into a lot of detail, but she likes him and she knows he loves her and she's holding off because she isn't sure about the sleeping with other people thing and she thinks maybe the others can deal 'cause they're only children and, psychology stuff."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says the Joker. "Now there's a point. But this is somethin' else."

He leans back in his comfy armchair and drums his fingers thoughtfully on his knee.

"When Jokers are in love, see," he says, "we're not always nice about it. Mostly we are - we like it better that way. We'd rather love somebody and have them love us back, if they can, or just be good friends. If they can. But if we can't have either of those, then we'd rather they hate our guts than not care at all."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Is he gonna try to destroy the planet again just to get Bella to be all intense about him?" Lexi asks, bewildered.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Probably not," he says. "I don't think she's going to get all indifferent to him - none of the others did to theirs. But if I told her all that, she might get scared of what would happen if she stopped caring about him one way or the other, and that might fuck things up between 'em pretty well."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:27 pm (UTC)

"She likes him, he's teaching her magic, he helped her save the world," Lexi says. "What would get messed up if she was scared? Do the other Bells know about this stuff? Are they scared?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:31 pm (UTC)

"They'd all settled down some, whatever which way, before they found out," he says. "I don't think yours and Brill are all used to each other yet."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:32 pm (UTC)

"So if she got indifferent somehow if he wouldn't try to destroy the world again what would he do?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I blew up a hospital once," he offers. "Mind you, I let 'em evacuate it first."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you tell Bella that Brilliance might start doing that kinda thing she won't be indifferent for sure," Lexi offers.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:38 pm (UTC)

"That's what I'm worried about," he says. "I'd like for them to get along without him blowing anything up to get her attention, or her being afraid he might."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I bet you Bella would say the most important thing is for him not to blow things up and whether they get along is secondary."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Bet you she would," he says. "And I bet you I know what Brill'd say to that."

He spreads his hands, showing an illusionary Brilliance standing next to an illusionary Bella. Tiny Brill looks unhappy, then conflicted, then deploys his magic circle and vanishes.

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:43 pm (UTC)

"That's not saying anything," Lexi points out.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says the Joker. "'Cause if he felt like she was trying to manage how she felt about him to stop him from blowing stuff up, he wouldn't say anything. He'd run away and never come back. Which would mean him not blowing anything up on her account, I guess, but I don't think it's exactly something either of 'em wants."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:50 pm (UTC)

"But," says Lexi, "don't they all kind of have that problem, like, if one of those Bells who's dating her Joker has a Go Away I'm Introverted And This Book Is Interesting Day - do they do that? - then don't they have worry about presenting that a nice way to their boyfriends so their boyfriends don't think they got indifferent?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Mm, think that's part of them settling down together. Stuff like that - I dunno if they do that, I don't hang out with 'em that often - but if it doesn't mean they got indifferent, their boyfriends aren't gonna mind. And even if they thought their Bells had gotten indifferent, they wouldn't move straight on to blowing stuff up, there'd be some yelling and crying and aggressively baking cookies first. This is nnnot the kind'a thing that sneaks up on ya."

lexicality
2013-04-20 06:59 pm (UTC)

"How do you aggressively - anyway, I don't get this, can you guys just not tolerate rejection at all? I was half in love with Darryl Cross last year but he didn't like me so I did the mature thing and ate a lot of chocolate and cried on Bella and moved to another state, I didn't, like, kill his dog."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 07:05 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I guess you could say that, yeah. But most people who can't handle rejection would be pretty unhappy if the girl they liked threw 'em off a building."

lexicality
2013-04-20 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, Bella's not gonna throw Brilliance off a building. Unless she has to for some reason but I don't really think it'd help even if that were a thing because he can fly."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 07:07 pm (UTC)

The Joker snorts.

lexicality
2013-04-20 07:08 pm (UTC)

"So, Bella would think it'd be bad if Brilliance hurt anybody, and she'd try to make that not happen. And you think it'd be bad if she tried to do that the wrong way because Brilliance would be sad. Is that it?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Mm, more or less, yeah."

lexicality
2013-04-20 07:10 pm (UTC)

"What would happen if you told Brilliance all this?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I don't think he'd be surprised by any of it," the Joker says reflectively. "So it might not make a whole lot of difference to anything. But he might have a better guess than I do about whether he could handle Bella knowing."

lexicality
2013-04-20 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I guess 'Brilliance goes to therapy and learns to deal with unrequited love so Bella can know everything and also not feel pressured' isn't an option?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 07:36 pm (UTC)

"It's not really unrequited love that we can't handle," says the Joker. "And Jokers and therapy don't traditionally mix. Brilliance might not have that problem, but I bet he does. We could hand him to Ghosty and Queenie, I guess, if things look like they might get bad between him and Bella - they're the only two of me who've got the kind of handle on themselves you're talking about. Both of 'em were in love with alts of the same person who threw me off a building, but unlike me, they stayed that way until they died. Seems like that does the trick. Lot of hospitals get blown up on the way, though, so I wouldn't go around recommending it to anybody."
Edited 2013-04-20 19:52 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-20 07:53 pm (UTC)

"How is it not unrequited love? Like, he loves her, but if he didn't and she were just some girl it wouldn't matter how he felt, and if she loved him back everything would be fine, right?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:01 pm (UTC)

"If she loved him back, or if they were good friends, or if they were mediocre friends who argued a lot, or if she thought he was just kinda okay but loved his cooking and let him make her dinner all the time and was all happy about it. There's all kinds of options there that plain old 'unrequited love' doesn't cover."
Edited 2013-04-20 20:01 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:03 pm (UTC)

"If all she has to do is, like, notice him continuing to exist on a regular basis and also form opinions about that, I don't think there's anything to worry about."
Edited 2013-04-20 20:06 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Mm—strong feelings," he says. "As long as he can give her strong feelings."

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:08 pm (UTC)

"She thinks he's hot, I have seen her looking at him, does that count?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Can't hurt," he says, laughing.

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:12 pm (UTC)

"She looks at him kind of like -" Lexi pauses. "Oh my god I think she did him."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Wouldn't surprise me," says the Joker.

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:16 pm (UTC)

"And she didn't even tell me, God. Well, maybe she didn't, it's just she kinda looks at him like he's a slice of cake and she already had one?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "I noticed something similar."

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:19 pm (UTC)

"You know the other Bells well enough to notice that kinda thing or you noticed something from Brilliance?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I've picked up on a few things about the Bells. And Brilliance - " He grins. "Mm, kinda looks at her like he's a cake and she's already had a slice."
Edited 2013-04-20 20:23 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I was gonna say cakes don't look at people, but he turns into cards, maybe he also turns into cake," snorts Lexi. "She didn't tell meeee, I would tell her if I slept with somebody... So either we're wrong and she's just, I dunno, vividly imagined doing him, or she was never planning for it to be more than a one-off 'cause that she would definitely tell me if she was going to have a boyfriend." Lexi considers this. "But, like, he wants to be her boyfriend, doesn't he?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Bet he does," the Joker agrees. "And bet that's why she was out here interrogating me about all of her who're dating ones of him."

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:34 pm (UTC)

"So what's stopping her?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

"She doesn't know if she can handle the part where we're all enormous sluts," the Joker explains.

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:41 pm (UTC)

"And I guess he can't just, you know, not be an enormous slut?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Nope. Comes with the package. He'd have as much luck trying to change it as Bella would trying to change how she feels about people reading her mind."

lexicality
2013-04-20 08:45 pm (UTC)

"But - okay, like, maybe this is me being stupid? But isn't he supposed to be in love with her?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says the Joker. "And Golden's in love with a telepath, but she still doesn't let him read her mind all the time. Some stuff's so much a part of somebody that they couldn't change it for anything, and wanting to fuck a lot of people is like that for us."

lexicality
2013-04-20 09:01 pm (UTC)

"That's a weird thing to have be that important," says Lexi.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... try thinking about it like this," he says. "On the one hand," he lifts his left, palm-up, "we're really big on freedom, and on the other hand," he raises his right, "we're really big on fun." His aura shows a blue circle above one hand and a red one above the other, with their intersection glowing purple. "Being a great big slut is where those two come together."

lexicality
2013-04-20 09:07 pm (UTC)

"It could also manifest as, like, surfing," Lexi points out.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 09:09 pm (UTC)

"If for some reason I started dating somebody who got all fucked up jealous whenever I went surfing," says the Joker, "and for some reason I felt like surfing a lot, we'd probably break up."

lexicality
2013-04-20 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Even if you really really liked them?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 09:11 pm (UTC)

"It'd break my heart every which way, but yep."

lexicality
2013-04-20 09:15 pm (UTC)

"But it's kind of more reasonable to not want to get cheated on than to not want your boyfriend to surf," Lexi points out.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Only 'cause of cultural stuff, mostly. Which usually doesn't make much of a difference to us, and extra doesn't make a difference to Brill 'cause he's literally not from the same planet."

lexicality
2013-04-20 09:17 pm (UTC)

"I kinda can't think up a cultural thing for not letting your boyfriend surf," Lexi says.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 09:19 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

lexicality
2013-04-20 09:20 pm (UTC)

"So basically if Bella wants him at all she has to share her cake."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 09:21 pm (UTC)

"That's about the size of it," the Joker agrees. "We don't always end up fucking a whole lot of people, except each other, but if we get the opportunity and the urge we're gonna either do it or feel like absolute shit for a while."

lexicality
2013-04-20 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I guess Bella will figure out if she can deal or not. Um, but if she decides she can't deal? She might try not to interact with him much because it'd give her feelings that'd make her conflicted," says Lexi. "She might decide that being just friends would be too hard and it'd be better to cut him off, you know, especially since now she can get at all kinds of magic without him helping."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Well," says the Joker, "in that case, I'll take him to Origin to hang out with Ghosty and Queenie."

lexicality
2013-04-20 11:09 pm (UTC)

"But you can't just leave whenever you want, right? You have to wait for a door. She might decide this any minute, she might be thinking about it right now, she might tell Brilliance while we're here talking."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 11:11 pm (UTC)

"If that happened," says the Joker, "we'd notice, trust me. And then you might have to clear out so I could bring him here and give him a big hug."

lexicality
2013-04-20 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sure, Bella made it so I can teleport, I can leave whenever," says Lexi. "This sucks, though, they'd be adorable, I bet, if having me around made her not able to do that thing that everybody else apparently did I'd feel bad."

manofmyword
2013-04-20 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Aww," the Joker says sympathetically. "Yeah, that'd suck for everybody, I hear ya."

lexicality
2013-04-20 11:24 pm (UTC)

"So your boyfriend doesn't mind either?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Nathan's a special case," says the Joker. "First of all, he's Golden's kind of vampire, and they get very serious about who they fall in love with - 'till death do us part' kind of thing." He smiles wryly. "But then he died. I brought him back to life, but it turned out doing that didn't take him out of the afterlife, and now there were two Nathans running around. Vampire one got jealous; dead one still loved me human-style but wasn't sure what to do about it. Now, it turned out the same thing with the afterlife had happened to one of the Bells, so she helped 'em do what she'd done, which is glue themselves back together with magic. And the new Nathan kept the dead one's attitude to me fucking around, so then it was fine."

lexicality
2013-04-20 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Why'd you bring him back to life if he was jealous and you didn't like that?"

manofmyword
2013-04-20 11:52 pm (UTC)

"It hadn't come up yet," he murmurs. "I'd told him I was a great big slut, and he wasn't comfy but he didn't seem to worry about it much, and then for a while I just wasn't hanging out with anybody else I wanted to screw."

lexicality
2013-04-20 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Bella will want to glue herself to anyone else. Or even just change how she feels about anything," remarks Lexi.

manofmyword
2013-04-20 11:55 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

lexicality
2013-04-20 11:57 pm (UTC)

"I dunno what to do. Like, the actual thing that will happen if Bella gets indifferent to Brilliance is that you will spirit him away to be debauched or something? Right? No actual blowing up of anything is actually going to happen."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 12:03 am (UTC)

"Well, with a variable ratio of debauchery to hugs and crying, yeah."

lexicality
2013-04-21 12:05 am (UTC)

"So Bella shouldn't feel threatened, exactly, because there isn't a threat, the threat is that if she stops caring about Brilliance somebody else looks after him and that's not much of a threat."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 12:07 am (UTC)

"Mmm... when you put it like that, yeah."

lexicality
2013-04-21 12:09 am (UTC)

"So then it's a tossup between maybe if we tell her she will feel like this is something she doesn't like about the template - which all the other Bells managed to get over it looks like - and if we don't tell her she'll itch with not knowing till somebody tells, which I bet you they haven't managed to get over and be Zen about."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 12:11 am (UTC)

"Mhm. And all the other Bells got over it after they were already doing fine with their Jokers," he says. "I dunno what she'll think of it if she doesn't love him already."

lexicality
2013-04-21 12:22 am (UTC)

"Me either, I've never seen her in love with anybody," sighs Lexi.

manofmyword
2013-04-21 12:23 am (UTC)

"Mm. Well, we could wait around and see what she decides," says the Joker. "Tell her then, whichever way she jumps."

lexicality
2013-04-21 04:07 am (UTC)

"It'll really bug her, though."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 11:57 am (UTC)

"And we don't want that," he says agreeably. "Got a better idea?"

lexicality
2013-04-21 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Uuummm... I dunno, how about, 'Bella, there is this thing about Brilliance's template where if you knew it it could make you act funny and then Brilliance'd probably be sad and you don't want that 'cause you like him, but the reason it could make you act funny isn't actually a problem, cross our hearts, can you do that thing where you make your brain do what you want and promise not to act funny if we tell you'?"

manofmyword
2013-04-21 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Think it'll work?"

lexicality
2013-04-21 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, I dunno, I'm not as smart as her, but it looks like maybe the best idea we have, do you have a better one?"

manofmyword
2013-04-21 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Nope. Okay. Let's try it."

lexicality
2013-04-21 04:32 pm (UTC)

Lexi sets up a little conference brainphone with her and Bella and the Joker and repeats approximately what she just suggested.

incanted
2013-04-21 04:34 pm (UTC)

[- what would...? I know he doesn't want to go around being destructive, he was crystal clear on that, if he's been lying to me I make no promises about continuing to like him because that is not on, but, lemme think.] Bella thinks. [Okay, Lexi, if you're vouching, I will not 'act funny' - beyond possibly talking to Brilliance once or twice about whatever this is - assuming he has not been telling me lies. Is that good enough?]

manofmyword
2013-04-21 04:39 pm (UTC)

[He hasn't been telling you lies,] the Joker contributes. [He doesn't know this thing, unless he's guessed it since he met me, and I don't think he has.]

incanted
2013-04-21 04:42 pm (UTC)

[There we go then, what's the story?]

manofmyword
2013-04-21 04:57 pm (UTC)

[How much story do you want? If I'm gonna tell you the whole thing, might be better in person.]

incanted
2013-04-21 04:58 pm (UTC)

Bella appears. Lexi scoots to make room for her; they squish together on the chair. "Let's hear it."

lexicality
2013-04-21 05:37 pm (UTC)

"So basically if you ever get to the point where you don't, like, care if Brilliance lives or dies, some other Jokers will take him away and try to take care of him 'cause Jokers do super unhealthy things when people they like don't care, but it doesn't matter much how you care, like, you could date him or be friends or he could bake you cake you really liked or you could fight all the time or whatever, it just doesn't work if you go 'meh', apparently. He's not going to actually do anything too super unhealthy because this is a known thing so the other ones will deal with it if it's gonna be a thing."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 05:42 pm (UTC)

"That's a pretty reasonable summary," says the Joker. "I could argue with 'super unhealthy', but it'd be a losing battle. And if you want an example of how we get when we love someone who hates us, I can tell you the story of me and the Bat."

incanted
2013-04-21 05:44 pm (UTC)

"May as well," invites Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-21 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says.

His aura makes the light in the room dim noticeably.

"Once upon a time, I used to live in a city called Gotham. It wasn't a nice place, but I liked it that way. And one day, a few years back now I guess, we started hearing about some nut dressing up as a bat and running around at night beating up criminals. Except the thing is," his aura shows a mugging in a Gotham alley interrupted by a flutter of nearly-invisible black cape, "it was only funny for about a week. After that," the caped figure breaks the mugger's arm and sends him flying down the alley, "it was terrifying."

The Joker grins.

"I loved it, of course. Fell for her like you wouldn't believe."

incanted
2013-04-21 05:57 pm (UTC)

"This why Bells are so popular among Jokers? We have preposterous ambitions and wind up following through?" asks Bella.

manofmyword
2013-04-21 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Part of it, yeah," he says. "That and we just like you."

incanted
2013-04-21 06:13 pm (UTC)

"All right then. Terrifying bat person."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I've never been able to convince one of you that she scared the shit out of everybody," says the Joker, shaking his head. "But trust me, she did. You can think it's silly if you wanna, but you don't live in Gotham and you're not a criminal and you have all this magic, so she was never gonna drop on your head out of nowhere in the middle of the night and put you in the hospital."

incanted
2013-04-21 06:18 pm (UTC)

"While dressed up as a bat," says Aurora. "Sure. Criminals of Gotham abruptly develop batphobia."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Do they ever," says the Joker. "And I develop something two letters away. And when all the mob guys are starting to get together and figure out what to do about her, I steal a bunch'a their money and then walk into their secret conference and tell them they should hire me to kill her. Which they do. Mob guys," he says, "are easy to convince."

incanted
2013-04-21 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Bella. "...Okay. So then you've got a hit out on your crush."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 06:43 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "Not the most romantic thing you've ever heard, right? But I wasn't gonna do it. Although I did kill some guy wearing a cheap knockoff of her costume, and I sent the video to the news, which got everybody's attention very nicely."

incanted
2013-04-21 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Uh."

lexicality
2013-04-21 06:44 pm (UTC)

"...Forward?" offers Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-21 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, forward," mutters Bella, and with that inscrutable bit of siblinghood she's attending to the story again.

manofmyword
2013-04-21 06:57 pm (UTC)

The Joker shrugs.

"So if she didn't hate me already, she sure did after that. I chased her around like that for a while - put the word out that people were gonna keep dying if she didn't tell everybody her secret identity, then when the assistant DA pretended it was her, I kidnapped her and her hot boyfriend and let the Bat catch me doing it," which for some reason involved an eighteen-wheeler flipping end over end along a narrow street and the Joker crawling out of the upside-down cab. Oh, there's the Bat. The Bat has a motorcycle. The Joker seems to want her to run him over with it.

"She didn't bite," he says conversationally, and indeed the motorcycle swerves at the last second and dumps its driver on the ground, whereupon tiny illusionary Joker skips toward her, cackling.

"But of course I let 'em bring me in - " if 'let' is the appropriate word for surrendering when someone springs out of the shadows in your moment of triumph and holds a shotgun to your neck " - and then she interrogated me about where I'd put her buddies, which was fun."

Apparently it was too fun for the Joker to provide any images.

incanted
2013-04-21 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm glad I got Brilliance and not you."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says the Joker, "I get that a lot."

incanted
2013-04-21 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay. You decided to do all this instead of, I don't know, just stalking her, because why?"

manofmyword
2013-04-21 07:11 pm (UTC)

"'Cause if I did all this, I got to see what she'd do about it. What she'd do about some guy stalking her didn't interest me at all. Plus she wouldn't exactly have been easy to stalk. She definitely had me beat in the stealth department."

incanted
2013-04-21 07:17 pm (UTC)

"...And this behavior is a template attractor thing and not a you personally thing, so I am in some danger of Brilliance doing things I'd loathe to see what I'd do if he finds how I feel about him unsatisfactory, except that in this eventuality he gets to go to the, I dunno, Joker rehabilitation program or whatever you call it, instead."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 07:25 pm (UTC)

"He won't try that kind of thing first," says the Joker. "First he'll bake you cookies and cry a lot. Maybe even try to do nice things for you so you'll like him again. And then, yeah, I'll pick him up and give him a hug and find a way to take his mind off things."

incanted
2013-04-21 07:26 pm (UTC)

"It sounds like you went straight for the nasty stuff. Just because the terrifying bat was too hard to stalk and you didn't know where to send flowers?"

manofmyword
2013-04-21 07:27 pm (UTC)

"I knew her," he says. "Not the way you know somebody you're friends with, but I knew my options were her hating me or her never knowing I existed. Hating me was much better."

incanted
2013-04-21 07:28 pm (UTC)

"How did you know those were the options?"

manofmyword
2013-04-21 07:31 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "It's just how she was. You can say a lot of things about the Bat, but 'hard to figure out' has never been one of 'em. Not for me, anyway."

incanted
2013-04-21 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay. But it is manifestly multiversally possible for people like me to have much healthier relationships with people like Brilliance so he will not instantly despair of it and start murdering folks and if he gets that way anyhow he just retires to another world with a bunch of you. Okay."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says the Joker. "We've only ever gone the nasty way with alts of the Bat. All your alts that our alts are in love with, they get along fine."

incanted
2013-04-21 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Except for the time Alice and Stella had that fight, but I already know how to route around that failure mode, I guess," Bella snorts.

manofmyword
2013-04-21 07:45 pm (UTC)

"'Get along fine' includes being able to have a fight once in a while and still get along fine afterward," the Joker observes.

incanted
2013-04-21 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Do most of them fight much? Brilliance is so - he's skittish."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 07:47 pm (UTC)

"I won't say they never argue, but that one time with Alice and Stella is far and away the biggest blowup any of 'em have ever had."

incanted
2013-04-21 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Hm."

lexicality
2013-04-21 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Did you do him?" Lexi asks.

incanted
2013-04-21 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh my god, Lexi."

manofmyword
2013-04-21 07:50 pm (UTC)

The Joker snorts.

incanted
2013-04-21 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Even if you had to ask me that there is a time and a place. God." And with that the twins both disappear from the asteroid.

where am i?

small_magics

Thinking is hard.

She knows, she knows that it's safe when her beloveds both sleep - that they can read nothing while they dream - but every thought is so relentlessly punished when the demon is awake, and the parts of her mind that generate thoughts have stopped trying. She focuses, when she can come up with anything worth focusing on, or just on breathing or clouds or a tree, as much as she can. The demon "hyperfocuses" on gentle thoughtless love, as much as he can. She sleeps too, as much as she can. And none of these solutions lead to her having thoughts.

There's not enough thinking left for her to register much horror about it. But there are parts of her remaining. Automatic reactions to things, that can pass from her memories through her actions without her intervening much at all on the level of consciousness. She has enough terror of oblivion in her not to look contemplatively at knives. She has enough of an echo of what it used to mean to her to love someone to ache inside if her beloved thinks of harming himself, to beg him not to. She has enough access to her own memories to recognize the strange door, the second time it presents itself to her, and to go in without fear, holding her book and her pen that she has no real reason to carry anymore but holds out of old affection the way a child slightly too old for a stuffed toy may clutch at it.

The blank book is no good to her anymore, but it feels good to hold it, and she does.

The door may not take her far enough away from her beloved to protect her if he wakes while she is there, but it is somewhere to go and sit and wait for her thousand-year span to elapse, and she enters.

truthwright
2013-04-20 12:09 pm (UTC)

There's someone here who looks like her beloved, again. But this one is a little different - dressed differently, with a different haircut, and a tiny dragonlike creature napping curled up along his shoulders, with tiny green paws and a long thin green tail dangling onto his chest.

He's sitting on a couch by the fire, and his eyes are closed so he hasn't noticed her.

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:12 pm (UTC)

This one has two parts. That makes more sense. And they want hugs. She can tell. She is not equipped to wonder how she can tell.

Isibel takes the spot next to them on the couch and snuggles up without a second thought.

truthwright
2013-04-20 04:15 pm (UTC)

It feels nice, radiantly snuggly. Petaal opens her eyes and lifts her head expecting a Bell, and meeps with surprise when she finds herself nose-to-point with Isibel's ear.

Then she shrugs her scaly little shoulders and nuzzles it.

"Hi!" she murmurs. "Who're you?"

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm Isibel," sighs Isibel warmly.

truthwright
2013-04-20 04:18 pm (UTC)

"You're cuddly," says Petaal. "And an elf."

Kas adjusts himself so his arm is wrapped around Isibel's shoulders and Petaal can snuggle across both of them.

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes," agrees Isibel. "You're a tiny dragon and a human."

truthwright
2013-04-20 04:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm a daemon!" says Petaal. "I can be any shape I want, look," and she climbs along Kas's arm and onto Isibel's opposite shoulder and down into her lap and becomes a viscacha.

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," murmurs Isibel, and she pets the fluff.

truthwright
2013-04-20 04:24 pm (UTC)

Petaal leans against her and hums happily.

"So what's up?" says Kas. "Have you been by the Belltower yet? I haven't heard of an elf one of you before."

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:25 pm (UTC)

"The Belltower," repeats Isibel. "I don't think so."

truthwright
2013-04-20 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I should take you, then," he says, cuddling her some more. "So you can meet all the rest of you. I think you're number eleven."

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Oh." Isibel doesn't have the mental horsepower to properly entertain this idea, but she remembers the last time she heard about more of her, and what she said then:

"Are they okay?"

truthwright
2013-04-20 04:31 pm (UTC)

"...yeah," Kas says slowly.

"Are you not?"

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:32 pm (UTC)

"No." Snuggle.

truthwright
2013-04-20 04:35 pm (UTC)

Snuggle!

"What's wrong?"

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm broken," mumbles Isibel. "They try not to..."

truthwright
2013-04-20 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Who tries not to what," says Kas.

small_magics
2013-04-20 04:42 pm (UTC)

"My - yous. Try not to hurt me."

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:03 pm (UTC)

"...hurt you how?"

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:04 pm (UTC)

"When he's awake - if he loses focus - he reads my mind." She closes her eyes. "I don't think much anymore."

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:05 pm (UTC)

...

Kas hugs her close.

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:06 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! Thinking is not necessary for snuggles. Snuggles are nice.

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm so sorry," he says, cuddling her.

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:09 pm (UTC)

"It's not their fault," she says. "We had to."

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I believe you," he murmurs. "Fuck. I should - I should get my sweeties."

But he doesn't want to move.

[Jane? Amariah needs to be at Milliways.]

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:14 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

mind_game
2013-04-20 05:14 pm (UTC)

[Roger.]

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:15 pm (UTC)

Amariah appears a minute later. "What's - oh, new Bell," she says. "Friendly new elfy Bell. Who - intensely upsets you? Hi."
Edited 2013-04-20 17:19 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:23 pm (UTC)

"She has a me but she says he can't help reading her mind all the time," says Kas.

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes they sleep," sighs Isibel, "sometimes they concentrate, sometimes I sleep, sometimes I concentrate -"

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:25 pm (UTC)

"- How long has this been going on?" asks Amariah slowly.

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:25 pm (UTC)

"A year - and some moonturns - I don't count them - it's spring again -"

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:27 pm (UTC)

Kas cuddles Isibel. So does Petaal.

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:27 pm (UTC)

She cuddles back.

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Goddesses all. Okay. Elfbell. I know thinking must be - agonizingly hard right now - but you need to answer just a few questions - okay? If we can fix it, can you put yourself back together - if we can magic the mindreading away and you're safe and private in your own head for forever - can you fix it?"

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:30 pm (UTC)

Isibel blinks slowly.

"I don't know," she says.

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:31 pm (UTC)

"But maybe? Okay. We're not short on time for you, if you can do it then we will find a place to put you that's safe and you can work on it there, okay, we will take care of you - there are ten of us and we are okay - will you trust us to decide things for you till you're put back together?"

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:32 pm (UTC)

"...You should talk to my beloveds," sighs Isibel. "About that."

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:34 pm (UTC)

Petaal cuddles up in Isibel's lap, making helpless little sniffly noises.

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay. We'll talk to them," says Amariah. "We'll figure something out with them. We'll have to talk to them - can you take us through the door to where they are? And then if you wake them up I can send you to sleep, and keep you that way, until everything's fixed, will that be all right?"

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I'll take you where they are and wake them and go to sleep and when I wake up I'll be safe," says Isibel trustfully. She kisses Petaal - a chaste little kiss on the head - and disentangles herself and collects her book and pen again and goes to the door.

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:40 pm (UTC)

Kas picks up his fluffy daemon and follows.

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:42 pm (UTC)

[This,] Amariah tells her sweeties as she follows them to the door, [is a disaster. I think we should bring in all the Bells - maybe all the Jokers - when we get there; this isn't like Shell Bell where she had a stable version of herself to do the steering, we don't have one of this exact instance.]

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:46 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, fuck,] says Kas.

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:47 pm (UTC)

[...They'll cooperate, right? They won't want to go on reading her? She's turning over a lot of the steering power over to them but she's so loopy I don't know why she's doing it.]

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:51 pm (UTC)

[Looking at her makes me want to cry. I don't know how they could feel any different.]

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:52 pm (UTC)

[I was thinking something like - how vampire mates work in Aurum. Those only usually work out and when they don't the keener half can get deluded about it in a hurry. Something like that.]

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:55 pm (UTC)

Isibel opens the door. It leads to a pretty little house, beautifully decorated, listlessly maintained. Something comes over her - her breaths drop into even rhythm and she starts walking with singleminded purpose. Out the door, onto a subtle path, up.

dark_light
2013-04-20 05:55 pm (UTC)

Amariah wraps herself and Path in invisibility before following the elf out of the building.

truthwright
2013-04-20 05:56 pm (UTC)

Kas does likewise. Petaal turns into a least weasel and rides on his shoulder.

small_magics
2013-04-20 05:58 pm (UTC)

Isibel snaps out of whatever-it-is when they reach the cave where her beloveds live.

She tucks herself under the demon's arm and closes her eyes. "Beloved," she murmurs. She hasn't tried to wake him on purpose before and doesn't really know how.

endragoned
2013-04-20 05:59 pm (UTC)

He hugs her and nuzzles her hair in his sleep, but doesn't wake up.

small_magics
2013-04-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

Isibel tilts her head and nudges him. "Please wake up," she murmurs.

endragoned
2013-04-20 06:01 pm (UTC)

"My love?" he mumbles sleepily.

small_magics
2013-04-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

Isibel flinches and looks desperately at Amariah.

dark_light
2013-04-20 06:03 pm (UTC)

In a moment Isibel's collapsed asleep against her demon.

"Hello," Amariah says to the demon in a low voice, having pentagoned the language.

endragoned
2013-04-20 06:06 pm (UTC)

"What," he says, staring at Amariah. "What under the burning sun are you."

dark_light
2013-04-20 06:07 pm (UTC)

"My name is Isabella Amariah. You can call me Amariah. I'm an alternate version of her. There are nine more of us all from under different burning suns, and more of you, too. I can bring them here, or we can all meet somewhere else, and we will try to help her. She said to consult you." Her aura, in addition to announcing that she's a witch and powerful, is emanating anxious concern (for Isibel) and controlled, wary anger (at the demon; she does not know yet if it's justified or not so it has yet to be slain).
Edited 2013-04-20 18:14 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-20 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Help her how? Kill me? She doesn't want anyone to kill me," he says, like this fact is a source of despair.

dark_light
2013-04-20 06:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't know exactly. Magic. I don't know what kind of magic you have working here but we've got a few kinds of our own and we might be able to - wall her off from you somehow," says Amariah, the anger subsiding. "Or - well, anyway, we'll want to all work on this together, the last time one of us got broken she'd also been split into two and one of her was fine so she could manage by herself but there's not an extra of this one, is there?"

endragoned
2013-04-20 06:22 pm (UTC)

"No," he says, cuddling the one of her that there is. "What is your magic? What do you need me to do?"

dark_light
2013-04-20 06:24 pm (UTC)

"I have three kinds. We need you to explain what it is that is going on that hurts her. And tell us what she wants, when we don't know for sure, because goddesses know she can't. So we know how to take it apart and let her out. I'm going to tell the others now," she adds. [Jane.]

mind_game
2013-04-20 06:25 pm (UTC)

[Shell Bell volunteers Atlantis as a meeting place if this cave is unsuitable,] Jane broadcasts to all present a minute later.

endragoned
2013-04-20 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Does Atlantis have more room?" says the demon. "If there are ten of you - and I should wake my love," he flicks his tail against the dragon's side, "if you can keep my Isibel sleeping - there won't be room here."

mind_game
2013-04-20 06:33 pm (UTC)

[There's room in the Atlantis palace for an entire Bellparty including the dragon and then some.]

dark_light
2013-04-20 06:34 pm (UTC)

"She'll stay asleep till I wake her - or in two days, whichever comes first, in case something happens."

endragoned
2013-04-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Then - how do we get to Atlantis?" says the demon.

mind_game
2013-04-20 06:37 pm (UTC)

[Me,] says Jane. [Is that what we're doing, then, collecting everybody there?]

dark_light
2013-04-20 06:40 pm (UTC)

When the demon issues no further input, Amariah nods.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-20 06:40 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell is there to meet them when they land.

in the palace

she_sells_seashells

Everyone pops in. All the Bells, all the Jokers - except for the Joker, who is missing for some reason - and the Bells immediately, without having to speak, divide their tasks amongst themselves. Stella and Angela and Pattern and Cam start brainstorming solutions - not implementing them, yet, just generating ideas that might work depending on what they're dealing with. Golden, as the one who's actually had her mind read by a loved one - albeit under more controlled circumstances - is working with Shell Bell, the other previously broken-beyond-recognition Bell, on coming up with a plan to help walk Isibel through recovery after they fix this somehow. Cam eventually folds into this conversation from the other since he's the one with a talking notebook; if they can find Isibel's old books they might be able to turn them into something that could help more actively. Rose is peering into Isibel's mindscape, looking for visible damage that she can just heal directly. Amariah's popping back into Milliways and forcing the door to the elf's world so she can drop a Janepoint in the cave to keep it temporally synced, then coming back and joining Juliet and Aegis in interrogating the demon and the waking dragon about what exactly they have done to Isibel.

autokinetic
2013-04-20 07:20 pm (UTC)

"What," says Aegis, "exactly caused this link between you - and what are its features?"

endragoned
2013-04-20 07:24 pm (UTC)

The demon holds the sleeping Isibel in his lap and leans against the dragon's side.

"It's a Dragonbond," he says. "They happen through - fate, I suppose, or the Wild Magic. A unicorn came to Isibel, after she met me, and he told her that she must bond to my love - " he pets the dragon's folded wing " - to save the world. So she did, and she learned the elven magic that comes now only to those who bond with dragons, and we found who the world needed saving from and killed him."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 07:25 pm (UTC)

"So this is leftover now, we can disrupt it and get her some fucking privacy and it won't ruin her world?"

autokinetic
2013-04-20 07:26 pm (UTC)

"How do fate and wild magic and so on operate in your world, magic varies between worlds, we need to understand it," Aegis says.

endragoned
2013-04-20 07:46 pm (UTC)

"The bond is meant to be for life," he says. "I don't know if it can be changed. I don't know if it can be broken. I don't know if she would live through it if you tried. I don't know if she would want to. It is made of - love, not just magic."

autokinetic
2013-04-20 07:47 pm (UTC)

"For life - so if we kill her," begins Aegis.

endragoned
2013-04-20 07:53 pm (UTC)

The dragon sweeps a wing protectively around his loves, hiding them from sight, and growls.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 07:54 pm (UTC)

"No, dude, it's okay, I'm dead, we can get her back, it just might break the bond on the way," says Juliet.

endragoned
2013-04-20 08:03 pm (UTC)

The dragon rumbles disbelievingly, then settles down, folding his wing again.

"It would not harm her?" he asks.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, I mean, there's still the part where we'd have to kill her. There would be a corpse. But then we could get her out like me, or Pattern, or Shell Bell - we all died, we're fine now. You don't have Cam's and Amariah's problem that they can't hook into Downside from their worlds, and it looks like Amariah didn't jump the gun on making her torchable so it's an option. Not a pretty option, but if it's as indelible as, like, vampire mate bonds - we know those don't survive a trip through Downside."

endragoned
2013-04-20 08:16 pm (UTC)

The demon closes his eyes and leans back against the dragon and hugs Isibel gently.

"If you're sure," the dragon murmurs. "If you're sure."

autokinetic
2013-04-20 08:18 pm (UTC)

"It's not something we ever tried on purpose before," Aegis says. "But yeah, those three all died, and we can hook you into Downside. Hey brainstormers!" she calls. "Have you got anything better than sending her through Downside?"

self_composed
2013-04-20 08:19 pm (UTC)

"I think we probably want to try, you know, basic mental defense wishes first," says Stella. "Failing that, wish away that aspect of the bond entirely."

endragoned
2013-04-20 08:30 pm (UTC)

The dragon curls his whole body protectively around the demon.

"My love, my love," he says. "We are bonded too, my demon and I. Kill us if you must, though it break our beloved's heart, but do not make us separate."

dark_light
2013-04-20 08:32 pm (UTC)

"...Guys," says Amariah, "in case there was doubt, we actually need to take that seriously, I am getting daemony vibes here, I don't think they're just being theatrical."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 08:33 pm (UTC)

"I take it just putting them in different worlds wouldn't work. Isibel in one and the demon and dragon in another," says Angela. "That seems the least likely to be harmful. The most easily reversible."

endragoned
2013-04-20 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Our beloved has been to your between-worlds place," says the demon. "We felt her there just the same."

bellfounding
2013-04-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

"So that's out. Rose, are you getting anything?"

beheld_beauty
2013-04-20 08:39 pm (UTC)

Rose emerges from her mindscape trance. "I can't find anything. I can appear to enter her mindscape, it doesn't refuse me outright the way some of ours do, but I can't find anything there, it's empty. I don't know if that's damage or simply how she's made."

autokinetic
2013-04-20 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Fat lot of good her opacity did her, if it's that," snorts Aegis.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-20 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Apart from mindreading," says Shell Bell, "there's - I overheard something about it being made of love? I'm - wary of messing with that. Considering."

endragoned
2013-04-20 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Love and magic," says the dragon. "A dragon loves their Bonded, and the Bonded love the Dragon. My demon and I are closer than most - we had ten thousand years together before our beloved found us, and we knew from the start that we were the same - so, loving me, she loves him too."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-20 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, um, I'm not sure outright unbonding her is the first thing we want to try," Shell Bell says. "I like the sound of mental defense wishes. Let's do mental defense wishes. What's the state of the art?"

bellfounding
2013-04-20 08:50 pm (UTC)

There is a brief conference about version numbers and interactions of various wish designs with native powers. Ultimately Pattern's defense is deemed likely the best choice, and Pattern expends a hex to give Isibel a copy.

"Did... that work?" she asks hopefully.

endragoned
2013-04-20 08:51 pm (UTC)

"...I feel no difference," says the dragon. "She dreams yet."

dark_light
2013-04-20 08:53 pm (UTC)

"We're going to have to wake her to test it. Ugh, I told her she'd wake up safe. Goddesses all, I hate this, I hate this," mutters Amariah, undoing her sleep-wish.

small_magics
2013-04-20 08:53 pm (UTC)

Isibel opens her eyes, and then scrunches them shut again and shudders in the demon's embrace.

dark_light
2013-04-20 08:54 pm (UTC)

"We're going to have to wake you to test things as we think of them, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," murmurs Amariah, and she sends Isibel back to sleep.

endragoned
2013-04-20 08:54 pm (UTC)

The demon holds his beloved and cries into her hair.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-20 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Nothing, I take it. My aura does some - but no, she can't cast anything like this, can she."

self_composed
2013-04-20 08:56 pm (UTC)

"What do we have, Bells?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Downside."

bellfounding
2013-04-20 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Cutting the bond at the source - I know you don't like it, Amariah, but she's disintegrating -"

dark_light
2013-04-20 08:57 pm (UTC)

"It would be kinder to kill her and then leave her dead," Amariah says flatly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-20 09:00 pm (UTC)

"We can try Downside, then, if these things usually end when someone dies. Send her through. Will she need to avoid seeing you again?" Shell Bell asks the demon and the dragon. "Would that just stick you back together? I don't know how this forms."

endragoned
2013-04-20 09:02 pm (UTC)

"It forms when she sees me, and knows me, and loves me," says the dragon. "It is possible to - choose not to accept the bond, even then. But those who do will carry a deep sorrow all their lives."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 09:04 pm (UTC)

"But she could still visit the demony half of you?" hazards Juliet.

endragoned
2013-04-20 09:07 pm (UTC)

The demon nods.

"We were friends - when she knew she could bond to my love, but did not know she had to. She saw only me, and it was... fine."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Magic in your world isn't mean, right? It's not going to destroy everything she sacrificed for if we try to cheat her out of the sacrifice being permanent?"

endragoned
2013-04-20 09:10 pm (UTC)

"The Wild Magic is - not kind," he says, "exactly. But it is not cruel."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-20 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Are any of us going to think of anything better than Downside in the next - day, two?" Shell Bell asks.

The answer appears to be no.

"Who's already been looked over by the admin and wants to take Isibel there? I don't think we'd better wait around to find someone from her world to make torchable."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I'll go." Angela holds out her arms towards the demon for Isibel.

endragoned
2013-04-20 09:15 pm (UTC)

He kisses his sleeping love, then stands and settles her into Angela's arms.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 09:16 pm (UTC)

Angela has no trouble carrying her.

"Jane," she murmurs.

And Jane takes angel and elf Downside.

[Excuse me,] Angela says to the admin. [I need a world added and don't yet want to make anyone from it able to torch.]

ending_of
2013-04-20 09:17 pm (UTC)

[The person you brought with you?] says the admin.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 09:18 pm (UTC)

[We need to actually kill her and then bring her back, not torch her, but I brought her here so you could use her to find the world to hook her in.]

ending_of
2013-04-20 09:20 pm (UTC)

[Done,] says the admin, and indeed it is now apparent through Isibel that her world is linked to Downside.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 09:23 pm (UTC)

[Thank you.]

Angela does it, shivering, with a square, cleanly. There isn't a body, not with the death occurring Downside; the elf vanishes from her arms.

endragoned
2013-04-20 09:25 pm (UTC)

Back in Atlantis, the demon throws his arms around the dragon's neck and cries. But the dragon sighs with relief.

mind_game
2013-04-20 11:01 pm (UTC)

[Did it work?] Jane asks.

endragoned
2013-04-20 11:04 pm (UTC)

"She is dead," says the dragon, with strongly mixed emotions. "I felt it. The bond no longer links us."

dark_light
2013-04-20 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Tell Angela to wake her," murmurs Amariah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 11:08 pm (UTC)

Angela gets this instruction.

And she wakes Isibel.

endragoned
2013-04-20 11:09 pm (UTC)

The demon shudders and weeps helplessly; the dragon bows his head.

"She is with us again," he murmurs.

small_magics
2013-04-20 11:11 pm (UTC)

Isibel doesn't even know what's happening. She keeps waking to find that she's still watched and she still hurts, and the winged mirror of her who seems so kind clearly wants to help but has not.

She offers up her love to her Bonded; there's not a lot else for her to do.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 11:11 pm (UTC)

When Angela hears this report she sighs and picks up Isibel again and asks Jane to take them both back to Atlantis; there is clearly no point to keeping Isibel away from the dragon. She puts Isibel back to sleep.
Edited 2013-04-20 23:13 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-20 11:14 pm (UTC)

When Isibel appears again, the demon is still crying too hard to notice immediately.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 11:15 pm (UTC)

Angela deposits the elf with her beloveds and steps back solemnly.

bellfounding
2013-04-20 11:15 pm (UTC)

"That leaves -"

dark_light
2013-04-20 11:15 pm (UTC)

"No."

bellfounding
2013-04-20 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Don't interrupt me, that was uncalled for -"

dark_light
2013-04-20 11:16 pm (UTC)

"It's an atrocity, unless I desperately miss my guess - sweeties, Sue -"

truthwright
2013-04-20 11:17 pm (UTC)

Kas and Petaal disentangle themselves from the pile of Jokers that have until now mostly all been huddling up and feeling sad together. Sue follows, and Ivy instantiates as a mouse on his shoulder because why else would Amariah be calling for them?

"What is it?" says Petaal, wrapping herself around Kas's neck and shoulders as a dark grey snake with pebbled skin.
Edited 2013-04-20 23:20 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-20 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I was going to say we can patch that part, Amariah," says Pattern. "We can hook them up to just each other and not Isibel like ten ways and throw in Sue for good measure and then go after the dragonbondy thing."

dark_light
2013-04-20 11:23 pm (UTC)

"They want to take the bond apart but it's what holds the demon and the dragon together," murmurs Amariah to the daemoned Jokers. "I'm not sure if - there's no substitutions for daemons but maybe they work just differently enough?"

pythbox
2013-04-20 11:24 pm (UTC)

"...well, I can ask," says Sue.

He touches the dragon's mind.

endragoned
2013-04-20 11:31 pm (UTC)

The demon and the dragon show him what it is to be them: sharing every thought, touching souls even in dreams. One person with two experiences of the world.

pythbox
2013-04-20 11:34 pm (UTC)

Sue swallows.

"They're a lot like us," says Ivy. "A lot, a lot. But - I don't know - if you linked them up every way you could, it might work." She shivers. "We can't see how it wouldn't, just from looking."

self_composed
2013-04-20 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Bell standard with visual channel isn't going to cut it here," says Stella. "Maybe same basis, omit the visuals, just run it with everything automatically 'opened' as it happens." She hexes it up in both directions.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-20 11:43 pm (UTC)

"And enchanter's mindscape-reading. If you're truly one I don't know how well it will work, but -" Rose wishes both enchanter power and enchanter skill and murmurs the instructions to the mindscape-reading spell she uses with Beast.

autokinetic
2013-04-20 11:44 pm (UTC)

"And a link like Sue's, automated pushing - and Sue, you might wanna stay hooked in while we do it, if you can stand it, in case they need more bandwidth or something -" Aegis wishes them a facsimile of what Sue does just between demon and dragon.

dark_light
2013-04-20 11:45 pm (UTC)

"And something like what daemons have with their people, not the drawbacks but the connection," says Amariah, and she takes a moment to work out a design, preemptive anti-intercision, and she wishes it into place.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-20 11:46 pm (UTC)

"And something as near to the original as possible without incorporating Isibel or anything else, just - copied over with that edit," says Angela, and she wishes too.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-20 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Could throw in a limited target version of Edward, or - no, if you want it comprehensive you want Aro-at-range. Here." Golden wishes too.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-20 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Are we forgetting anything?" Juliet asks.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-20 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Not that I can think of."

pythbox
2013-04-20 11:48 pm (UTC)

Sue links the demon, too, which echoes oddly in his head.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-20 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Wishing away mindreading feature of the bond - now," says Golden.

endragoned
2013-04-20 11:53 pm (UTC)

The dragon slumps as though struck dead on the spot.

The demon screams.

pythbox
2013-04-20 11:54 pm (UTC)

Sue hisses. Ivy whimpers and huddles against his neck.
Edited 2013-04-20 23:54 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-04-20 11:55 pm (UTC)

"What - what's happened -"

pythbox
2013-04-21 12:02 am (UTC)

Sue pushes the problem to every Bell he can reach:

The moment the wish was cast, the dragon's mind went away. Not sleeping, not unconscious - gone. Blank as empty air. There is nothing like a thought in him now, a fact which the demon is experiencing in sixfold clarity. He lives, but that is all he does. Magic still hums in his bones, his heart beats on, his lungs draw breath, but the part of him that does the thinking is a void. This is particularly obvious through Rose's contribution, because their shared mindscape - the island that was their home for ten thousand years - is full of ragged gaping holes.

dark_light
2013-04-21 12:03 am (UTC)

"Undo it - Golden, you know what you did, undo it -"

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 12:03 am (UTC)

"Isibel -"

dark_light
2013-04-21 12:04 am (UTC)

"It would be kinder to kill them all and leave them in the catacombs for eternity, undo it, now."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 12:04 am (UTC)

Golden reverses her wish, hands clenched at her sides.

endragoned
2013-04-21 12:06 am (UTC)

The demon sobs with relief.

The dragon gives a single all-over shudder and bends his head so the demon can kiss it frantically.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 12:07 am (UTC)

"How did that happen?" asks Shell Bell softly.

endragoned
2013-04-21 12:09 am (UTC)

"I should have known," says the dragon, shuddering again. "The bond is the dragon. The dragon is the bond. The part of the bond that touches minds - is my mind."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 12:14 am (UTC)

"Are we going to have to leave her like that? We can't do that, it's horrible," breathes Juliet.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 12:17 am (UTC)

"If he could just back off," murmurs Golden. "If he could just not pay attention, or if her shielding worked..."

self_composed
2013-04-21 12:18 am (UTC)

"...given that her shielding doesn't work -"

There is an abrupt chorus of nos from the other Bells.

"I know, I know, but -"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-21 12:18 am (UTC)

"Why is it that you simply can't refrain from reading her?" Angela asks the demon/dragon pair softly.

endragoned
2013-04-21 12:20 am (UTC)

"It would be like trying not to hear your own thoughts," says the dragon. "She is there, in our minds."

"I can do it if I stop thinking at all," says the demon. "But it's hard. I can't stay that way for long. And when I'm thinking of nothing but how much I love her, then her mind is full of my thoughts and she can't do anything else."
Edited 2013-04-21 00:21 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-04-21 03:54 am (UTC)

Amariah clenches both fists in her hair. "There has got to be a way to do this. We just haven't been thinking hard enough."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 03:59 am (UTC)

"It's not even the case that we can tolerate zero mindreading. I routinely allow Edward to read me - it just has to be under my control, is all."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 04:00 am (UTC)

"Can we edit the bond to - require consent, maybe, add a filter that the demon won't use but Isibel will...?"

self_composed
2013-04-21 04:04 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't that amount to the same thing? Maybe not. If we just knew how it worked... you know what, I'm waking up Lazarus, this is important enough to wake him up for. Jane?"

mind_game
2013-04-21 04:04 am (UTC)

Jane picks up Stella and puts her in Eos.

self_composed
2013-04-21 04:06 am (UTC)

Stella drops herself outside Lazarus's apartment and spends the triangle to wake him. [Lazarus. I remember giving you a no-need-to-sleep power, this is recreational, we have a disaster on our hands and I need you, please let Jane bring you to Atlantis to have a look at this elf Bell and her dragon.]

nonbird
2013-04-21 11:17 am (UTC)

[What?] he says, sleepily concerned. [What's going on? Um, let me get dressed...]

self_composed
2013-04-21 04:26 pm (UTC)

[We found an elf Bell. She is wrecked. She's got this bond thing that's like a cross between being daemons and being vampire mates and something else, with a dragon and a demonic Joker, and it makes them read her mind, and we have no prayer of getting her patched up if they can't stop, but we tried sending her through Downside and as soon as she woke up it was back, and we tried wishing it away outright but that broke the dragon.]

nonbird
2013-04-21 04:28 pm (UTC)

[Eeeeeeeep,] says Lazarus.

He gets dressed.

He emerges from his apartment.

self_composed
2013-04-21 04:29 pm (UTC)

[Jane,] cues Stella.

They appear in Atlantis. Stella gestures expressively at the sleeping Isibel and her Jokers. "Help."

nonbird
2013-04-21 04:33 pm (UTC)

Lazarus runs both hands through his excessively messy hair and makes a quiet spluttery sort of noise.

"That's a mess, all right," he murmurs. "Um, let me see. Have you had any bright ideas besides the ones that didn't work?"

beheld_beauty
2013-04-21 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I can find nothing in her mindscape, so I could attempt nothing there - it doesn't block me, it's simply empty."

self_composed
2013-04-21 04:39 pm (UTC)

"If Isibel has opacity it's not very good opacity. We could - theoretically - edit her. But no," says Stella, "I think she'd rather just sleep forever. Or would if she were still whole and was looking at her choices."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Editing the bond to not incorporate mindreading, even with half a dozen backup channels between the demon and dragon, flips the dragon off like a lightswitch," says Juliet. "But if we could just incorporate some kind of - filter, gate, toggle, something to give control to Isibel - but we don't know how the bond works, that's what you're here for, we don't want to wreck the demon-dragon-unit again in the process of trying to help Isibel, she loves them."

nonbird
2013-04-21 05:38 pm (UTC)

"...It should be possible," says Lazarus. "But you'd have to be careful about it. Maybe I should be the one to make the wish. Everything in there," he gestures to the dragon's head, "is very - sensitive. Intricate. Tangly. This bond thing is fascinating, I'd be excited if it weren't so tragic."

self_composed
2013-04-21 05:39 pm (UTC)

"What kinda coin do you need?" asks Stella.

nonbird
2013-04-21 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," he says. "Let's say hex."

self_composed
2013-04-21 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure what kind of flexibility there is to edit this thing. What can you do?" Stella asks, extracting a hex from her aura. "Bare minimum she has to be able to think and keep them out at the same time; the exact design beyond that matters less."

nonbird
2013-04-21 05:57 pm (UTC)

"If you give me parameters everyone can agree on, I can probably implement them," he says. "The tricky part isn't that a lot of things are impossible, it's that anything is complicated."

autokinetic
2013-04-21 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Pushing thoughts only on purpose like in a Sue-link is probably the best mix of privacy and the kind of - intimacy, communicability, that she might want again when she's got anything left to push," Aegis says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I assume there's no reason to block her from reading anything she likes in you?" Shell Bell asks the demon-and-dragon.

endragoned
2013-04-21 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Of course not," says the dragon. "But she should be able to look away when she wants to." The demon nods.

nonbird
2013-04-21 06:05 pm (UTC)

"So," says Lazarus, "how about this: a symmetrical barrier between her and the rest of you, where anyone can choose to 'speak' and anyone can choose to 'listen' but information only crosses the circle when those are both happening on the appropriate sides?"

endragoned
2013-04-21 06:05 pm (UTC)

Demon and dragon both nod.

autokinetic
2013-04-21 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I can tell when Sue's 'knocking'," Aegis says. "And he can tell when I'm reaching for him. Will they be able to do something like that?"

nonbird
2013-04-21 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes," he says, nodding. "Of course."

self_composed
2013-04-21 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Can anyone else think of anything else?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-21 06:15 pm (UTC)

"This is - obviously - less of a problem when she's asleep than when she's awake - but she should not, so to speak, 'talk in her sleep' - the actual talking doesn't matter, if she does it at all -" Isibel has in fact been quiet in her sleep for moonturns now - "but she shouldn't broadcast dreams unintentionally."

endragoned
2013-04-21 06:18 pm (UTC)

"And she should be able to wake me when I am sleeping," says the dragon.

nonbird
2013-04-21 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Lazarus. "So - sending to sleeping people works, listening to sleeping people doesn't?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Unless the demon-and-dragon want her to be able to watch them dream."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 06:21 pm (UTC)

"She might want to. There's a sort of - I wasn't broken this way, but before I glued back together there was an awkward period where I was sane enough to get bored again but not enough to do anything productive, so mostly I paid a lot of attention to my Sherlock."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

"This might be a little much to install in one wish, and it's not as fundamentally essential as getting them to quit reading her all the damn time, but it would be good if there were no chain reaction type possibilities - anyone spying on her bondmates should not be able to get at her through them even if she is somehow deceived about whether there is anybody spying like that."

nonbird
2013-04-21 06:38 pm (UTC)

"As long as they don't sleep on precisely the same schedule, she can watch them dream through each other," Lazarus points out. "As for the other thing, cast a mental defense wish around all three of them instead of the one you've got on her. But in the meantime—"

Hex goes.

dark_light
2013-04-21 06:40 pm (UTC)

Amariah wakes Isibel.

small_magics
2013-04-21 06:40 pm (UTC)

Isibel opens her eyes.

Her lips part in silent astonishment.

endragoned
2013-04-21 06:44 pm (UTC)

The demon hugs her.

"My love, my love, they fixed it," he says, stroking her hair.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh," Isibel breathes, turning her face into his shoulder and hugging him tight.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 07:01 pm (UTC)

"We'll help you, if you want help," Shell Bell murmurs.

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I can turn your old notebooks into a magic one that talks, like mine, that might do some good," Cam offers.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:01 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know."

endragoned
2013-04-21 07:03 pm (UTC)

The demon just cuddles his love a lot.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Thinking is - still hard," clarifies Isibel.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 07:05 pm (UTC)

"You can take as long as you need. In perfect privacy," Shell Bell murmurs.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:07 pm (UTC)

"But," says Isibel, "I don't know if - if you were in time."

endragoned
2013-04-21 07:11 pm (UTC)

Well, now he is going to cry some more.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Oh beloved," murmurs Isibel.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 07:30 pm (UTC)

"We can try - drastic solutions, if we have to. Mental editing," murmurs Shell Bell. "By magic. But it'd be better if you could do it yourself, obviously."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 07:31 pm (UTC)

"D'you want a perfect memory?" offers Juliet. "We switch to that from notebooks when we get it, generally - except Cam because his talks - and then you can remember everything you thought before, pull it back together."

dark_light
2013-04-21 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Maybe something a little off-standard for her? We don't have all the automatic-ness of ordinary memory attached - we have recall, not extra connection to what we recall - if she's as wrecked as she looks maybe something easier that will prompt her a little? Mental assistive device."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Almost like an internal Grace, something with just a little more initiative," agrees Cam, "so she doesn't have to try to remember anything, she'll just have whatever she needs at her metaphorical fingertips."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-21 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Wearing off, though, slowly, as she re-learns to think on her own," Angela cautions.

self_composed
2013-04-21 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Cam should wish it, if we're modeling the revision on his Grace."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Does this sound good, Isibel? It'll be easy to remember everything," murmurs Cam. "You'll be able to think what you thought about things back before you broke. And you can use that until you know how to make new thoughts again. Does that sound good?" He murmurs gently, like she's young or sick or - broken.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Maybe?" Isibel whispers. "I don't know."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 07:36 pm (UTC)

"...Are you going to be able to tell me to take it away, if you don't like it?" Cam asks.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:37 pm (UTC)

"...I can show my beloveds," offers Isibel. "I think."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that's how it works," soothes Juliet, "you can show them anything you want, and nothing else, only what you want them to see, we fixed it."

endragoned
2013-04-21 07:39 pm (UTC)

The demon cuddles Isibel.

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 07:41 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna go ahead and make the wish," says Cam, "and you can show them what you think of it if you don't know how to say it, and if you don't like it then I'll undo it and we'll think of something else. Okay?"

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 07:41 pm (UTC)

Hex goes.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:43 pm (UTC)

Isibel shows her beloveds:

For a moment it's like drawing blackout curtains aside to get a faceful of sun, too bright, too much, she flinches but the light's everywhere.

And then she adjusts.

And then she can see.

endragoned
2013-04-21 07:46 pm (UTC)

The demon beams and hugs her.

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:48 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

Show-and-tell is over. She can just stop. She can! She can cease to show them what she's thinking and it works, she can tell. She could just cry. Or laugh. She's not sure which and it's not her highest priority right now.

She unhugs so she can sit up and look at the other ten of her.

"Thank you," she says.

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 07:50 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Cam.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 07:51 pm (UTC)

"If it were one of us, you would have helped that one," Golden says.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 07:51 pm (UTC)

"How are you? I mean, obviously, better, but are you all fixed just like that or are you just functional enough to do your own repair work from here?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Because we have a lot of magical powers to hand out but it might not be wise to give them over right away if you're not all fixed yet."

small_magics
2013-04-21 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I haven't used my own magic in moonturns," says Isibel. "I will reacquaint myself with that, first, and perhaps then I will have the stability to learn new kinds."

endragoned
2013-04-21 07:56 pm (UTC)

The demon cuddles her.

mind_game
2013-04-21 08:04 pm (UTC)

[There's an elf peering at my node in Isibel's world,] says Jane.

autokinetic
2013-04-21 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, it would be bad if she wrecked it," says Aegis, "let's go introduce ourselves - Isibel, you want us all along, you want to pick an escort or two or three, what?"

small_magics
2013-04-21 08:08 pm (UTC)

"You may all come if you would like to see the world," blinks Isibel.

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm in," says Cam, and there's a chorus of general Bell agreement.

endragoned
2013-04-21 08:11 pm (UTC)

The demon grins and hugs his beloved; the dragon curls affectionately around both of them.

"It will be a tight fit for all of us in the cave," says the dragon. "Perhaps I should remain behind for a little while, until you have all left."

dark_light
2013-04-21 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Unless you would like to be shrunk," says Amariah.

endragoned
2013-04-21 08:13 pm (UTC)

The dragon snorts and shakes his head.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to sit here in my palace, or go outside? We're out in the ocean, there's no one to be alarmed," Shell Bell offers.

endragoned
2013-04-21 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I will go outside," the dragon decides. "And fly."

He looks around for a door big enough to fit him.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 08:17 pm (UTC)

"The palace isn't really designed for a dragon. Here." Shell Bell teleports him and herself out to the floating island that supports her palace building. "Have fun." And then she rejoins the others.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-21 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Are you coming too?" Angela asks the pile of Jokers.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-21 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Nah," says Queenie, as spokesjoker.

endragoned
2013-04-21 08:21 pm (UTC)

The demon looks properly at the pile of Jokers for the first time.

"...I think I will also stay," he says, smiling.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Don't make a mess of my palace, please," sighs Shell Bell. And she cues Jane and all the Bells are in Isibel's cave.

self_composed
2013-04-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Hi there," says Stella to the elf who has been peering at the Janepoint. "You a friend of Isibel's?"

beheld_beauty
2013-04-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

"You should choose a nickname, when you're ready," Rose tells Isibel. "Something less similar to our names."

small_magics
2013-04-21 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I - I'll think about it," says Isibel, laughing a little. "I See you, Magania."

pythbox
2013-04-21 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I See you, Isibel," says Magania, raising her eyebrows slightly. "Many times over."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Hullo, I know I look like the odd one out but I'm cut from the same mold," says Cam, waving. "You didn't answer Stella."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Has the world got a name already or does that have to wait for you to recover some more, too?" Shell Bell asks Isibel.

small_magics
2013-04-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Thilanushinyel," supplies Isibel.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

"So you're Magania? What're you doing here? Isn't this Isibel's cave?"

dark_light
2013-04-21 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Or the dragon-demon-pair's cave, I think Isibel has a house, she led me here when I wanted to talk to them..."

autokinetic
2013-04-21 08:31 pm (UTC)

"They need nicknames too, we can't guarantee we'll never run into another Joker with horns and wings and whatever configuration of limbs," snorts Aegis.

pythbox
2013-04-21 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I am indeed Magania," says Magania. "I have come to visit Isibel, and I have brought tea. Perhaps it would please you all to take tea with us, and to speak of such things as you may wish to discuss. I did not expect so many, but I am sure arrangements can be made for our comfort."

small_magics
2013-04-21 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Ah," says Isibel. "Thank you, Magania. ...Elves do not like questions," she adds to the other Bells.

bellfounding
2013-04-21 08:38 pm (UTC)

"But you seem cool with it - are you just that messed up? - oops -"

self_composed
2013-04-21 08:38 pm (UTC)

"What do you do instead? I'm sorry, I just have no other idea how to find that out besides asking it."

small_magics
2013-04-21 08:39 pm (UTC)

"I do not much mind being asked questions, anymore; I doubt they will ever feel intrusive to me again," says Isibel. "And - well, I have never been much good at this kind of delicacy, but you can state that you do not know something, or that it would please you to hear it, as a simple workaround."

dark_light
2013-04-21 08:40 pm (UTC)

"All right - you bite me if I'm going to ask any elves besides Isibel questions, Path," says Amariah to her daemon.

"Okay," says Path.

"And I'm sure we'd all love to have some tea and explain ourselves."

autokinetic
2013-04-21 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't like tea," says Aegis, conjuring herself an umbrella-decorated glass of juice instead. It has a crazy straw. She sips it.

pythbox
2013-04-21 08:44 pm (UTC)

"It pleases me to see you so at home with yourself," Magania says to Isibel, taking a graceful step-and-turn back toward the entrance of the cave to invite all the Bells to exit it with her. "It would also please me to know how this came to be."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I bet it would. Oh man, if she can't ask questions I bet we could all just sit here staring at her cryptically and drive her nuts. That'd be mean, let's not do that. Hi, Magania, we're versions of Isibel here from ten other worlds. We helped fix her. She's gonna get better."

small_magics
2013-04-21 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps you could introduce yourselves to her," Isibel adds. "For that matter, I do not believe I know all of your nicknames, as I was asleep for much of the time you spent trying to repair me."

self_composed
2013-04-21 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yeah, sure. So, we're mostly named Isabella -" Stella, Golden, Amariah, Angela, Juliet, Aegis, and Pattern all raise their hands - "and some of us prefer Bella -" Amariah and Angela drop their hands - "and then there's Bell and Belle and Campbell -" The named individuals wave when named - "and when we're all hanging out together it gets really confusing, so we have nicknames. Mine is Stella."

autokinetic
2013-04-21 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Aegis."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-21 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Rose."

bellfounding
2013-04-21 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Pattern."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Juliet."

dark_light
2013-04-21 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Amariah."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-21 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Angela."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Cam."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Golden."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell."

small_magics
2013-04-21 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps for the time being I will go by Sarion in this company. I might think of something better later, I might not."

pythbox
2013-04-21 08:53 pm (UTC)

Magania nods once to all of them, gravely, and leads them out of the cave.

bellfounding
2013-04-21 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Where are we g- I mean, it would interest me to know where we're being led," says Pattern.

pythbox
2013-04-21 09:02 pm (UTC)

"It occurs to me that there is a clearing in front of Isibel's home where we might all sit in comfort," says Magania, "since the weather is very fine today and it is unlikely to rain. I can also brew tea there very quickly, since it is where I left my tea-service when I came to this cave."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-21 09:06 pm (UTC)

"It's beautiful here," says Belle, reaching out for a tree branch that obligingly bends to brush her fingertips.

autokinetic
2013-04-21 09:07 pm (UTC)

Aegis lets her aura out too, since it will keep her drink in its glass for her while she dances along the path. (It will also casually remove the effects of gravity from her hair, which doesn't puff out as though staticked, but does float.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 09:08 pm (UTC)

"How far is - Amariah, how far is it, you walked it, right?"

dark_light
2013-04-21 09:09 pm (UTC)

"It's not a bad walk, no reason to teleport," shrugs Amariah. She habitually keeps her aura out too; it's easier than reminding everyone she meets not to touch her owl, and she does like looking all witchy. "Besides, it is super pretty."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of walking, Sarion, you're not tripping," observes Cam. "Like, at all. Is that an - I suppose that could be an elf thing."

small_magics
2013-04-21 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I once tripped often. These ribbons make it easier not to," says Sarion, indicating the bows around her knees and ankles. "Perhaps you have better solutions."

self_composed
2013-04-21 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's a pentagon, you want me to wish it up for you?" asks Stella, apparently less concerned with avoiding questions, at least when speaking directly to Sarion and not Magania.

small_magics
2013-04-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

"I see no reason why not."

self_composed
2013-04-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

Stella's one who wears her aura out all the time, and it hiccups a little, a micro-flare of magicmagicmagic, when she extracts a coin to wish away Sarion's dose of Bell clumsiness.

pythbox
2013-04-21 09:15 pm (UTC)

"It soothes my heart to know that Isibel's... other selves... are all so helpful," Magania remarks.

dark_light
2013-04-21 09:18 pm (UTC)

"We are super helpful," agrees Amariah. "My boyfriend was the one who found her, he was so sad over her - he's one of her demon-and-dragon like we're ones of her - and he called me in and we all met up at Shell Bell's to figure out what to do. It was the obvious thing, I mean, she was broken, we had to fix her, she'd do the same for us if it was one of us and we needed her."

pythbox
2013-04-21 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I thank Leaf and Star for your kindness," says Magania. "And for whatever magic you have wrought to leave Isibel so... whole."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm the one who made the wish that worked, after the false starts," volunteers Cam.

self_composed
2013-04-21 09:30 pm (UTC)

"And the wishing kinda magic is from my world," says Stella merrily.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-21 09:30 pm (UTC)

"And the auras you're noticing, if you're curious, are features of my world's magic," adds Rose. "Isibel will have one too when she's well enough to do the work an aura requires."

pythbox
2013-04-21 09:33 pm (UTC)

"I would be pleased to know more about your magic," says Magania. "And the magic that brought you to this world, if it is of a different kind."

autokinetic
2013-04-21 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, the worldhopping is technically not magic!" exclaims Aegis merrily, twirling. "That's from my world, explaining in actual useful detail would require explaining computers and that would take a long time, I am definitely not getting a has-computers vibe from this world here, but basically there is someone from my world who can see out of our jewelry -" she pauses briefly in her moon-gravity dance and indicates her earpiece - "and out of things like the thing you were looking at in the cave, and when she can see someone she wants to move and someplace she wants to put them, she can."
Edited 2013-04-21 21:36 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Sarion should have a Janegem. Where d'you want it?" Juliet asks Sarion. "Mine's a necklace, there's earpieces and bracelets, Stella keeps hers in her crown."

self_composed
2013-04-21 09:38 pm (UTC)

"No, I changed it, I keep taking my crown off for informal occasions and now I have a necklace too," says Stella, pulling from her shirt a silver thread with a blue star sapphire Janegem hanging from it.

small_magics
2013-04-21 09:39 pm (UTC)

"I - perhaps a ring," suggests Sarion.

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 09:40 pm (UTC)

Cam bites his cheek for a square and hands it over. "Design yourself a ring, wish it up, one of us who knows how the Janegems work can turn the gem into an ansible-half and you'll be all set."

small_magics
2013-04-21 09:45 pm (UTC)

Sarion blinks, takes the glowy silver square, and thinks as they walk. Eventually she appears on her right middle finger a ring with red cabochons, one large central one that will suffice to hold the miniaturized Jane hardware and trails of smaller ones twisting forward up to her second knuckle and spiraling around the first one onto her hand, all held in place with delicate white-metal webbing.

bellfounding
2013-04-21 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Whoa."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 09:46 pm (UTC)

"If that's the kind of design you can pull from nowhere without a speed boost while half-braindead..."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 09:47 pm (UTC)

"You're in charge of all our collective art projects from now on," laughs Shell Bell.

small_magics
2013-04-21 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I - thought it would be pretty," murmurs Sarion, smiling.

autokinetic
2013-04-21 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Super pretty. And poof," says Aegis, with a gesture, "it's a Janegem."

pythbox
2013-04-21 09:52 pm (UTC)

"It is very beautiful," says Magania.

They arrive at a large clearing, which contains many smooth rocks and worn tree stumps that look as though they would make comfortable seats. Through no detectable work of any intelligent creature, all these seemingly natural objects are arranged in a pattern that is both convenient and visually pleasing.

Magania fetches a small, attractive bag from where it leans unobtrusively against a tree and begins setting up a tea-brazier on a flat stone in the middle of the clearing.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Isn't there supposed to be a house," says Golden, not quite asking.

dark_light
2013-04-21 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I didn't really notice on my way out of the house - huh," says Amariah. "This is neat."

pythbox
2013-04-21 09:59 pm (UTC)

Magania smiles.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-21 10:00 pm (UTC)

Rose is fascinated. The plants act like rustly little tour guides as she circles the clearing, and ultimately they show her Sarion's door. "How clever," she says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-21 10:01 pm (UTC)

Unlike standard chairs designed for humans, Angela can sit on a tree stump. She does, wings flung behind her. "If we are taxing your tea supply, we can easily supplement it."

pythbox
2013-04-21 10:09 pm (UTC)

"My tea supply is sufficient to the task," says Magania, "but it would please me to know how it might be done."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I think we've been accidentally driving the poor No Questions Elf nuts," remarks Juliet. "Sarion, are we missing massive amounts of extremely polite subtext, here?"

small_magics
2013-04-21 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sarion. "She wishes to know everything there is to know about all of this interesting magic."

pythbox
2013-04-21 10:14 pm (UTC)

Magania laughs.

"Isibel Sarion has expressed the desires of my heart."

self_composed
2013-04-21 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Everything about all of it will take all day. Unless we bring in Elspeth. Golden, you wanna bring in Elspeth?"

autokinetic
2013-04-21 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Is Sarion your last name or something? Unusual last name for a Bell," Aegis remarks in an undertone to Sarion.

small_magics
2013-04-21 10:16 pm (UTC)

"No. It means I am an elf and I do elf magic," murmurs Sarion. "None of you are elves; I presumed it a safe choice."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 10:17 pm (UTC)

"My daughter," Golden says to Magania, "has a bit of her own individual magic, which allows her to transmit a great deal of information very quickly. Would - perhaps you would like to meet her and receive your explanation more swiftly than we're likely to be able to manage without inquiries to guide us."

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Golden's daughter's power is a little like my aura," adds Cam, flaring, "she's basically so good at telling the truth that it's a superpower."

pythbox
2013-04-21 10:20 pm (UTC)

"It would please me very much to meet your daughter, Golden."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

Golden has a brief brainphone conversation with Jane, and then says, "She'll be along presently."

bellfounding
2013-04-21 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I want to know what elfmages can do," says Pattern.

small_magics
2013-04-21 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Nothing like what you can do, but we have certain talents," laughs Sarion. "I can - manipulate the elements, or living things, or search for things I wish to find. And before I was properly a sarion I was a practitioner of the small magics; that is how I made my ribbons."

dark_light
2013-04-21 10:27 pm (UTC)

"You'll be able to do what we do," says Amariah. "Well, not all of it - my magic's not transmissible, neither is Cam's, although you can learn his magic language, just not do magic with it, and we can't replicate native-quality mental opacity, unfortunately - but you'll be an enchantress and a mint just like us, you have a Janegem now and she'll help you just like us, because you are one of us."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-21 10:29 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if we'll be able to learn either of the elf kinds of magic," muses Angela. "It's always nice to have more kinds."

pythbox
2013-04-21 10:31 pm (UTC)

"It has never before been possible for one who is not an elf to command the elven magics," says Magania, "but you are all capable of extraordinary things."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-21 10:34 pm (UTC)

Elspeth appears, crowned and smiling. "Hello, Magania! I'm Elspeth," she says to Magania. "It would be - useful for calibrating - if I knew approximately how fast your brain works relative to a human's."

pythbox
2013-04-21 10:35 pm (UTC)

"I have never had occasion to observe such a difference," says Magania.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-21 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll go human-speed then," says Elspeth. And she pokes along a piecemeal summary of how minting, enchanting, wizarding, witching, Slaying, angels, Milliways, worlds, and Jane work. It's from and for the perspective of someone who's not going to do any of the above herself, on an overview sort of level, without going into detail about things like coins being made of pain or enchanting involving much of same or Jane being sort of Aegis and Sue's kid. And she throws in a nice pamphlet-sized history synopsis of how the peal came to be a peal instead of a lot of separate Bells.

pythbox
2013-04-21 10:40 pm (UTC)

"That," says Magania, blinking, "is extremely informative."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-21 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! That's what I'm good at," says Elspeth, beaming and helping herself to a rock to sit on. She's got a necklace of golden squares around her neck, perfectly visible, and it jingles.

bellfounding
2013-04-21 10:43 pm (UTC)

"I volunteer to try swiping Sarion's magic-types if nobody else wants to go first," says Pattern.

pythbox
2013-04-21 10:56 pm (UTC)

There is a sound in the distance, as of a deerlike creature deliberately making as much noise as it possibly can while bounding toward them at top speed.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Something on four legs is about to visit us," observes Golden.

small_magics
2013-04-21 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Ah," sighs Sarion, "and I had believed that the part of my life informed by unicorn intervention was over."

bellfounding
2013-04-21 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Does that add up to 'no, Pattern, wait, let's talk to the unicorn first'?"

small_magics
2013-04-21 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

The sound of the unicorn gradually becomes more apparent to the rest of them.

When he's well within earshot but still out of sight, Liselen yells, "The Wild Magic has a message for you, and I really hope that at least one of you is a virgin, because I really don't want to have this conversation at the top of my lungs or while itching out of my skin!"

small_magics
2013-04-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

Isibel gets up.

autokinetic
2013-04-21 11:04 pm (UTC)

"That sounds really inconvenient," Aegis hollers before the elf can go anywhere, "do you want us to fix it for you?"

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:05 pm (UTC)

There is a pause.

"What," yells Liselen.

autokinetic
2013-04-21 11:07 pm (UTC)

Aegis doesn't really want to shout either; she conferences everyone including the unicorn on a brainphone call. [Do you want us to fix the virgin thing, because that sounds really inconvenient?]

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:09 pm (UTC)

[Fix it how,] says the unicorn, [I'm a unicorn, that is how we work.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-21 11:10 pm (UTC)

[Magic,] supplies Shell Bell. [Maybe it won't work, but we can try.]

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:20 pm (UTC)

[Well,] says the unicorn, [thanks, now I'm totally distracted from my original point. Um, my original point being that - I'm not even sure, I thought I would figure it out when I got here, but it still doesn't make sense, how were you going to steal magic from the elves?]

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 11:21 pm (UTC)

[Uh, one of us was going to try copying it, would that do something bad?]

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:24 pm (UTC)

[How were you going to copy it, that doesn't make any sense either!] exclaims Liselen. [You know what, first person who talked to me who sounds weirdly like Isibel, absolutely fix the virgin thing, maybe if I can actually talk to you people face to face instead of through this other weird magic thing I also don't understand then you'll start making more sense.]

bellfounding
2013-04-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

[It's not like she has special virgin-thing-fixing advantages,] Pattern says. [I don't even know if she is, I might be the only one who is.]

autokinetic
2013-04-21 11:26 pm (UTC)

[In the very most technical of technical senses, which may mean yes or no,] says Aegis archly.

small_magics
2013-04-21 11:26 pm (UTC)

[I am,] says Sarion.

self_composed
2013-04-21 11:26 pm (UTC)

[Oh, poor thing, and you had yours for how long - you must've just been too wrecked, I bet he never even thought of it - anyway, who's doing the wish?]

autokinetic
2013-04-21 11:29 pm (UTC)

[He asked for me, he can get me, I'll do it,] says Aegis, and she wishes on a pentagon, fails, tries a hexagon, succeeds. [There, how's that?]

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

Liselen picks his way carefully into the clearing.

"...Whoa," he says. "That's... that's new."

He looks around at all the assembled Bells, particularly Amariah and Cam, and then he walks between the artistically arranged seats and sits down next to Cam, folding his legs neatly under him. His sleek black fur gleams; his pearly white hooves and horn shine; the golden socks on two forelegs and one rear leg nearly glow. He is, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing in the clearing.

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Cam. "You are pretty, like, superstimulus pretty, how do you do that?"

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I," says Liselen with immense smugness, "am a unicorn. And since being around you is not making me feel like my bones are melting, you can totally pet me if you want!"

lifes_sake
2013-04-21 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Would I normally make you feel like your bones are melting? Because I thought you said itchy," Cam remarks, and he pets the unicorn.

bellfounding
2013-04-21 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Explain this thing about how I should not wish for elf magic?" Pattern says.

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:52 pm (UTC)

"'Itching' is a metaphor," says Liselen, leaning into Cam's hand a little. "'Bones melting' is also a metaphor. I don't think other species have the right senses to ever invent proper words for what being around nonvirgins - used to feel like, and doesn't anymore, because somebody here is really great, thank you, one of Isibel's mysterious and variously specied twins! Um, right, the elf magic thing."

autokinetic
2013-04-21 11:53 pm (UTC)

"That was me, and we're her alts, not her twins."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-21 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Except me, I'm her alt's daughter," adds Elspeth, pointing at Golden.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-21 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Uh, exactly how much of our sexual histories can you discern, here, like, Angela's obvious but she's not the one you sat next to," says Juliet.

pythbox
2013-04-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

"It's not really exactly your sexual history, it's - this is really hard to talk about," says Liselen, twitching his tail. "Um," he nods at Golden, "I can tell you've never given birth, which makes me kind of curious now...?"

luminous_regnant
2013-04-21 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Why in the world," says Golden, "would that strike you as an appropriate question?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-22 12:00 am (UTC)

"Vampires can't get pregnant without magic that we didn't have back then, but before Mama turned into one she had some eggs taken out and I was conceived in a dish and kept frozen till she found a human friend who was willing to gestate me," volunteers Elspeth.
Edited 2013-04-22 00:04 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-22 12:15 am (UTC)

"Anyway," says Liselen, "I don't get - detailed summaries, or anything, just kind of a... general tone. And even that is awfully blurred for some of you. And weren't you asking me about the elf magic thing?"

bellfounding
2013-04-22 12:18 am (UTC)

"I was. You didn't really answer."

pythbox
2013-04-22 12:23 am (UTC)

He twitches his tail again. "I was trying to think about it, but then you distracted me! It's hard to translate these things, I think when the Wild Magic calls on unicorns to be messengers it's usually not so directly. But I'll try. Um... you're not supposed to take elven magic because if you do, there'll be less for the elves. They already don't have very much of it at all. If you take enough elven magic to make one of you a proper Elven Mage like there were in the old days, without bonding to a dragon, there won't be any elves born with any magic for a really long time, not even the little stuff they've had since the time of Vairindiel."

bellfounding
2013-04-22 12:26 am (UTC)

"So I could maybe duplicate the effects but I'd have to fuel it some non-naive way?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 12:27 am (UTC)

"That... sounds about right," says Liselen dubiously. "What is it about you, anyway, the Wild Magic doesn't chat with people like this, maybe it's just because you can all do so many impossible things."

dark_light
2013-04-22 12:29 am (UTC)

"I wonder if we should just, like - is the Wild Magic something we could just go visit and have a chat with, if it's so eager to be in touch with us?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 12:33 am (UTC)

Liselen shakes his head.

"It's not that kind of a thing at all. It can't talk to you unless you're - well, it can't talk to any of you, except using me as a messenger. And fixing that is also something you could get wrong in various horrible ways," he adds, "a lot of them, apparently, depending on how exactly you tried, I don't have a list or anything."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 12:35 am (UTC)

"Today seems to be a day for carelessly tripping over Thilanushinyel magic," remarks Juliet. "Maybe we'd better not do anything much here."

pythbox
2013-04-22 12:37 am (UTC)

"That is a good plan," says Liselen. "But thank you for fixing the virgins thing! The virgins thing was really annoying!"

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 12:39 am (UTC)

"With some of the luck we had working on Isibel earlier we're probably all lucky you didn't wind up magnetized to sex addicts or something."

autokinetic
2013-04-22 12:40 am (UTC)

"Oh, come on, there is no plausible mechanism for that."

pythbox
2013-04-22 12:41 am (UTC)

"Well, I did end up sitting next to the person who would've made me the most uncomfortable before, but only because I'm reckless and irresponsible and contrary," says Liselen.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 12:46 am (UTC)

"What, am I really the most - tell me Amariah at least gives me a run for my money?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 12:47 am (UTC)

"It's kind of a toss-up," he says. "Why, is that bad?"

dark_light
2013-04-22 12:48 am (UTC)

"No, he feels gender-stereotyped," snorts Amariah.

pythbox
2013-04-22 12:53 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Liselen. "See, I don't know these things, because I'm a unicorn."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 12:55 am (UTC)

"I guess that would tend to put you in contact with a skewed population."

self_composed
2013-04-22 12:57 am (UTC)

"So, no throwing around serious magic in Thilanushinyel till we have a better idea what's going on - maybe Lazarus will want to have a look at the place - but fixing unicorns' virgin thing is safe," says Stella, "is what we have learned today. Also that elves don't like questions for some reason."

pythbox
2013-04-22 01:03 am (UTC)

"A question is a demand for information," says Magania, "and is therefore considered rude. Except in times of great need or urgency, a civilized person does not demand, only suggest. But of course," she continues with a slight smile, "the elven way to be civilized is only one such way, and it is known to me that other folk find our indirection as maddening as we find their impatience. I am also pleased to announce that the tea is ready," she adds. "Perhaps if those who wish to drink it would create cups, I could pour for them."

self_composed
2013-04-22 01:06 am (UTC)

Stella creates a cup. The other Bells, except for Aegis who declined tea and made herself juice instead some time ago, follow suit. The cups vary; Stella's is a willow-patterned mug.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 01:07 am (UTC)

"Darn right a question is a demand for information," mutters Juliet, creating a little teacup with a craquelure design. "Sometimes we demand information."
Edited 2013-04-22 01:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-22 01:13 am (UTC)

"Sometimes you do," Magania agrees, pouring tea gracefully into Juliet's cup and then holding it out to her. "I hope that you enjoy the tea. It is one of my favourite springtime blends, and I thought it suitable to the occasion."

small_magics
2013-04-22 01:15 am (UTC)

Isibel laughs, helplessly, a little high tittering laugh.

(It is the first time she has laughed in over a year.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 01:15 am (UTC)

"What is it?" Shell Bell asks her.

small_magics
2013-04-22 01:16 am (UTC)

"She thinks," giggles Sarion, "that you are so, so spectacularly rude, and she is going to be very very polite to you by way of reply."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 01:17 am (UTC)

"It's probably a good thing one of us is an elf or we'd have an absolute disaster of a time trying to arrange any sort of diplomacy with them," observes Golden. She has not made a cup; she does not drink... tea.

pythbox
2013-04-22 01:20 am (UTC)

Magania smiles slightly and continues distributing tea until all those who wish to drink it are served; only then does she pour a cup for herself.

"It pleases me very much that my manners amuse you so, Isibel Sarion."

small_magics
2013-04-22 01:22 am (UTC)

"It's only - that I can understand both of you with perfect clarity and I might be the only person who could do it."

dark_light
2013-04-22 01:24 am (UTC)

"Man, I might be, like, slightly helpful if we were all trying to talk to witches, but yeah," snorts Amariah, "no question policy is probably the most stunningly unBellish cultural feature one could invent if one were going out of one's way to do it."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 01:25 am (UTC)

"I'm sure one could come up with some kind of particularly insidiously perverse anti-epistemology if one were really keen on it."

autokinetic
2013-04-22 01:26 am (UTC)

"We slot into all kindsa cultures from military brat to angel to Vaguely France," says Aegis, "I'm not surprised Sarion managed a compromise of sorts."

pythbox
2013-04-22 01:29 am (UTC)

Magania sips her tea and continues to smile.

small_magics
2013-04-22 01:32 am (UTC)

"It was not a particularly elegant compromise. Rania sometimes chides me for baldly stating that I do not know things. Perhaps I would have eventually learned the layers of indirection that are considered more seemly, but I cannot imagine that spending much time in the company of other Bells will lend itself to this development."
Edited 2013-04-22 01:33 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-22 01:33 am (UTC)

"That's your mom, I guess?"

small_magics
2013-04-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"Yes. My parents are called Rania and Cariel."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"Bell standard is Renée and Charlie - short for Charles - but there's some variance," says Juliet.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-22 01:35 am (UTC)

"My mother is called Rinnah."

dark_light
2013-04-22 01:35 am (UTC)

"Mine's Ranata."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 01:36 am (UTC)

"Ranae," says Shell Bell. "And my father's name is Sharles, I think it's a corruption of Charles, but he goes by Shark instead of Charlie."
Edited 2013-04-22 01:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-22 01:39 am (UTC)

"...'Charlie' is longer than 'Charles'," Liselen points out.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 01:40 am (UTC)

"It's a diminutive," Golden says.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 01:41 am (UTC)

"Also for some reason a lot of Renées marry some guy named Phil who mine doesn't seem to have even met," says Cam. "After divorcing when we're little."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 01:42 am (UTC)

"I'd say it's Forks, but mine are one of the set. I'd say it's Earth that does it, but Shell Bell and Amariah are technically from Earth, even if they're weird Earths."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 01:43 am (UTC)

"My Renée just died when I was a child. I have been thinking of fetching her up again; I really should set aside a few days to reacquaint myself with her and do that."

pythbox
2013-04-22 01:45 am (UTC)

"I am sorry for your loss," says Magania, from behind her cup of tea.

small_magics
2013-04-22 01:46 am (UTC)

"Magania would like to know how you would go about doing that," Sarion says helpfully, giggling.

autokinetic
2013-04-22 01:48 am (UTC)

"Okay, so, the jewelry we have, the Janegems," says Aegis, "hooks us up to my sort-of-a-daughter, Jane, who does interdimensional travel, and one of the dimensions we can get at is an afterlife, which doesn't work for everybody," she points one finger each at Amariah and Cam, "but works for other places, either they were already like that when we got there or we've added them since, and we didn't like how the afterlife was being run, so we went and got the administrator to let us and Jane take over, and now we can get dead people from, y'know, participating worlds, whenever we want."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 01:49 am (UTC)

"Three and a half of us are technically dead," adds Shell Bell.

self_composed
2013-04-22 01:50 am (UTC)

"Is there any- I mean, we have been known to jump people out of the usual queue in response to personal requests," says Stella.

pythbox
2013-04-22 01:54 am (UTC)

"I will," says Magania, "consider this."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 01:55 am (UTC)

"Might have to have a different timing algorithm for a world with long natural lifespans. How long do elves and stuff live?"

small_magics
2013-04-22 01:57 am (UTC)

"About a thousand years. Unicorns sometimes a little longer. Dragons and demons - forever, unless killed, but the death of a Bonded kills - if my dragon died it would kill me and my demon; the other way around does not necessarily kill if there are two non-dragons in the Bond. Centaurs and so on - I do not have memorized."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 01:57 am (UTC)

"You cannot die again," Rose tells Sarion.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-22 01:58 am (UTC)

"That's been gotten out of the way. It was one of the first things we tried, to get you free of the mindreading. It worked only until we woke you again."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-22 01:58 am (UTC)

Elspeth snaps her fingers and conjures a copy of the standard informational pamphlet on being dead and hands it to Sarion, who takes it in mild puzzlement.

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:00 am (UTC)

Magania sips her tea.

"...You seriously killed her to get her out of the Bond?" says Liselen, amazed.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 02:02 am (UTC)

"She was practically dead already, being mindread is bad stuff for us," says Juliet. "And two and a half of us were already dead. I got murdered, Pattern got hit by a car, Shell Bell got assassinated. We're all fine now. Angela took her Downside and did it quick and painless and clean and then woke her again and look, she's fine."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 02:03 am (UTC)

"I'm the half," Shell Bell says, taking pity on No Questions Elf. "My girlfriend resurrected me after I died, but then instead of removing me from the afterlife it just made there be two of me, one in and one out. After this was discovered I glued myself back together again."

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:07 am (UTC)

"It's surprising," says Liselen, twitching his tail. "I'm surprised. And I have a suggestion," he adds, with unaccustomed diffidence.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 02:08 am (UTC)

"What's the suggestion?" Cam asks, still petting the pretty unicorn.

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:10 am (UTC)

"I think if you're going to keep doing impossible things like bringing back the dead and changing Dragonbonds and stuff, you should make sure to check with me before you do them, in case the Wild Magic has something to say about it."

self_composed
2013-04-22 02:11 am (UTC)

"You wanna be our Thilanushinyel Has Weird Stuff In It consultant?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:12 am (UTC)

"I guess!" says Liselen.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-22 02:14 am (UTC)

"It is curious that the Wild Magic should be able to speak to you but that anything we might do to make it able to speak to us directly is apparently perilous."

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:17 am (UTC)

"You're not unicorns," Liselen explains. "And I bet you wouldn't like being unicorns even if you could turn into them, which I'm not sure if you can or not, but it seems likely because you can do lots of impossible things. I like being a unicorn, but I've been one all my life. You haven't."

dark_light
2013-04-22 02:19 am (UTC)

"I wonder if Petaal or Ivy could be unicorns," muses Amariah. "I'm so tempted to interrupt my sweeties and suggest that they try it. Although unless the virgin problem was patched in advance, there could be a problem. Although since I'm sure they'd quite enjoy feeling as though they were melting perhaps not so much."

autokinetic
2013-04-22 02:20 am (UTC)

Aegis snorts. "Who counts as a virgin, anyway, what pops one's cherry as far as unicorns are concerned?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:21 am (UTC)

...Liselen shifts uncomfortably.

bellfounding
2013-04-22 02:23 am (UTC)

"Oh, come on, you decided to announce Golden's lack of childbearing history in front of everybody including a near-stranger, you didn't know that the child she did not bear was going to be right with you in the indiscretion department," says Pattern, "now you won't even explain how this sense you currently have trained on all of us even works?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:29 am (UTC)

"I'm not good at talking to people who aren't unicorns," Liselen says unhappily. "I'm rude to elves all the time and I made fun of a human once for tripping and hitting his head on a log when he saw me and then it turned out he had to go to the healer and he almost died, and, I'm really bad at secrets which I think is why the Wild Magic wanted me to talk to you because you don't seem to like those, but this isn't about the Wild Magic it's just about unicorns and I don't know how much I'm supposed to say and I don't want Mom to be all disappointed in me. Again."

He hangs his head dejectedly. A dejected unicorn is quite a sight.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-22 02:46 am (UTC)

"Well," says Elspeth helpfully, and all the Bells turns in her direction because that helpful voice means she's about to pull information from nowhere (and Sarion's following along), "it is a function of both physical history and mindset, neither feature discriminates by gender, sex, orientation or specific act, and consent is contributory towards the mindset part sliding in the non-virgin direction but many forms of related trauma and the resulting attitudes can do the same thing and on average it shakes out about the same. While your opacities are interfering a little bit here and now, in the paradigmatic case a unicorn can discern approximate sex drive and get a fuzzy coarse-grained feel for attitude towards the subject too; the paradigmatic case of a virgin isn't someone who's simply never had sex, especially if it's for lack of opportunity, but rather someone who doesn't think about it at all, like a small child. Somebody who was completely ace like Addy would probably also be relatively comfortable for a unicorn to be around even though she doesn't absolutely physically qualify. And unicorns themselves don't count and neither do nonsapient animals."

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:50 am (UTC)

Liselen looks slightly alarmed as Elspeth begins speaking, but once she has finished, he settles down again.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 02:51 am (UTC)

"Thank you, Elspeth."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 02:51 am (UTC)

"Is something wrong?" Shell Bell asks Liselen.

pythbox
2013-04-22 02:56 am (UTC)

He shakes his head. "No, no, everything's fine, I don't think I'm going to get in trouble for that at all."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-04-22 02:57 am (UTC)

"It wouldn't make sense to get you in trouble for something I magic-utteranced," says Elspeth.

pythbox
2013-04-22 03:03 am (UTC)

"I'm the nearest unicorn, it's still my responsibility."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-22 03:04 am (UTC)

"Then it is fortunate that Elspeth's magic utterance has both satisfied our curiosity and not landed you in unjust trouble."

small_magics
2013-04-22 03:06 am (UTC)

There's a silence, and then Isibel says:

"I have met another one of my beloveds - I did not see him with the others, now that I can remember clearly what they all looked like."

dark_light
2013-04-22 03:06 am (UTC)

"Another one? Dang, did he have an us?"

small_magics
2013-04-22 03:06 am (UTC)

"I think so. He recognized me. I think I made him upset. I didn't meet her."

autokinetic
2013-04-22 03:07 am (UTC)

"Of course you made him upset - you were broke and he couldn't fix you," murmurs Aegis, "and he has a Bell and I bet he loves her to bits and you were like her. We should find them."

small_magics
2013-04-22 03:09 am (UTC)

"I don't know how to do that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 03:10 am (UTC)

"Through Milliways. You met him, you'll have the best chance at forcing the door," Shell Bell says. "I'll go with you."

small_magics
2013-04-22 03:10 am (UTC)

"All right."

pythbox
2013-04-22 03:13 am (UTC)

"Bye," says Liselen.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 03:13 am (UTC)

Shell Bell waves at the unicorn and cues Jane, and she and Sarion vanish.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 03:14 am (UTC)

"So if the new Joker recognized Sarion then presumably this one is a girl too. Are we all going to be girls except me? That could get really tiresome if there are ever, like, forty of us and I'm still the only boy one."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 03:15 am (UTC)

"Relax," snorts Juliet. "Given that we come in boy at all we probably come in boy more than once per forty. If there are even that many Bells in the multiverse."

pythbox
2013-04-22 03:16 am (UTC)

Liselen eyes the assortment of Bells.

"There are an awful lot of you."

dark_light
2013-04-22 03:18 am (UTC)

"Used to be Golden and Stella met occasionally, and then I met Shell Bell and we set up a thing in the interdimensional hub to collect more of us," says Amariah. "It's worked pretty well, I guess Sarion didn't get gotten that way because she never went up to the bar."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 03:19 am (UTC)

"Minus recognized me before I went up to the bar," says Cam. "I'm still pretty impressed by that."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 03:19 am (UTC)

"He's very clever," says Juliet comfortably.

pythbox
2013-04-22 03:19 am (UTC)

"Minus is a weird name," opines Liselen, who still hasn't told the peal his.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 03:21 am (UTC)

"It's not his name, his name is Sherlock, but there are a bunch of those, too - Shell Bell's girlfriend and some others without Bells attached - and so they had to pick nicknames. And they are much worse at it than Bells are."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 03:21 am (UTC)

"Minus's nickname refers to the fact that he didn't use to have a soul. Now he does, so it's not even accurate anymore."

pythbox
2013-04-22 03:24 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Liselen.

self_composed
2013-04-22 03:25 am (UTC)

"Have you got a name?" Stella asks Liselen.

pythbox
2013-04-22 03:26 am (UTC)

"Yes! It's Liselen," says the unicorn.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-22 03:29 am (UTC)

"We are mostly named Isabella, but we all have different nicknames to keep ourselves straight in particularly Bell-dense cohorts," says Angela. "I don't know if you'd get any use out of them or not."

pythbox
2013-04-22 03:30 am (UTC)

"I think I'd be better off learning your names one at a time," says Liselen.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 03:32 am (UTC)

"I'm envisioning us doing a sort of regular rotation to hang out with Sarion and help her patch herself back up the rest of the way, so I guess if you come visit you could learn us one at a time," Juliet shrugs.

self_composed
2013-04-22 03:34 am (UTC)

"How about as we come off person-of-contact for Downside we go on person-of-contact for Sarion, with person-of-contact-ing involving visiting or not depending on what she's in the mood for?" suggests Stella.

dark_light
2013-04-22 03:35 am (UTC)

"I'll take it, but that leaves whoever's person-of-contact for Downside before me a long Sarion shift, we should rotate that around or drop me to a normal-length rota."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-22 03:36 am (UTC)

"I don't think there's much ongoing reason to leave you with an unusually long shift. Plenty of us now have rather quiet worlds and when we're busy we've never had trouble covering for each other, and Jane can handle virtually everything on her own now."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 03:36 am (UTC)

"All right, sounds like a plan."

mind_game
2013-04-22 04:28 am (UTC)

[Shell Bell's aura does Milliways doors, turns out,] says Jane. [Sarion couldn't force it, but Shell Bell got it to take her to the world they had in mind without a coin. They're waiting for the new Bell to disentangle herself from her Charlie and some friend of hers now. You want to all go congregate on the planet they're waiting on?]

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 04:29 am (UTC)

"Yes, please!"

There is widespread nodding.

"And pass on the question to the Jokers, if you would," Rose adds.

self_composed
2013-04-22 04:30 am (UTC)

"I bet you this turns into a party. Maybe Sarion's friend Magania wants an invitation even though all our friends are going to have almost as much trouble as we do with not asking questions," Stella says archly.

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:43 am (UTC)

"Sarion's friend Magania thanks you for your very gracious invitation," says Magania, "but thinks that she would be lost among so many humans."

"Did somebody say party?" says Liselen.

self_composed
2013-04-22 04:06 pm (UTC)

"We throw parties when we find new Bells, and now we have found two new Bells," says Stella, "you wanna come?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Liselen. "Yes I do."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-22 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Well then," says Angela. "Shall we? Oh, and Magania - please don't disturb the object you were looking at in the cave. It's not exactly easy to break, but if it broke anyway, time would not pass at the same rate here as in the other worlds we look at, and by the time we came back it could've been any number of years and that would be inconvenient for Sarion."

pythbox
2013-04-22 04:11 pm (UTC)

"I will make this known to any who might visit here," says Magania.

autokinetic
2013-04-22 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it ought to make the national news," says Aegis. "And Jane, if you see anyone looking at it funny, swoop one of us in, okay?"

mind_game
2013-04-22 04:15 pm (UTC)

[Will do.]

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Is that everything? Let's have a party," laughs Cam.

And all the Bells and Elspeth and Liselen disappear.
Edited 2013-04-22 16:16 (UTC)

flickering heart barrier viewing go!

incanted

"So did you?" Lexi of course asks again as soon as they are in their room alone.

"One time, okay, it was just - I wasn't planning on two of my alts having married two of his and four more dating them, okay?"

"You didn't tell me!"

"No, I didn't, it was just going to be a one-off, and for the love of sunshine and rainbows don't spread it around any farther, okay?"

"I won't, but the Joker totally knows."

"Ugh."

"Well, not for sure, but he suspects, and not just because most of you are doing most of him."

"I think your grammar implies a little too much."

"Whatever, you know what I mean," laughs Lexi. "So what're you going to do?"

"I," says Bella with dignity, "am going to think."

And she teleports to a spot in midair, high up to the point of being a speck in the sky above Forks to any grounded observers, and she murmurs "flight" as she begins to fall, and she stands in place in the air.

And she thinks.

+Brilliance?+ she asks after about half an hour.

cardistry
2013-04-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

+Hi! I love pie,+ he informs her. +Pie is delicious.+

incanted
2013-04-21 08:32 pm (UTC)

+Pie's pretty delicious. Where'd you get pie?+

cardistry
2013-04-21 08:37 pm (UTC)

+Squares conjure stuff!+

incanted
2013-04-21 08:42 pm (UTC)

+Well, there you go, I don't have to dissuade you from a life of petty culinary theft. Did the Joker happen to tell you anything about the conversation we had?+

cardistry
2013-04-21 08:45 pm (UTC)

+Nope! What'd you talk about?+

incanted
2013-04-21 08:53 pm (UTC)

+You. Well, the template, more, and stuff about how you fit into it. Apparently you guys have been known to do some screwed-up stuff about falling in love, except not with Bells, with this other template.+

cardistry
2013-04-21 08:54 pm (UTC)

+Oh,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-21 08:55 pm (UTC)

+But apparently I shouldn't actually worry about it because if I ever trigger this template behavior pattern you will be spirited away for snuggles and debauchery, instead.+

cardistry
2013-04-21 08:56 pm (UTC)

He giggles. +Good old Joker.+

incanted
2013-04-21 09:01 pm (UTC)

+So I finally got half an hour in which no new magic or key information was being introduced,+ she continues, +and I did some thinking, and mostly I spent the entire time in an unproductive circle of thoughts like "what if I were triplets, WHAT THEN" and "how did all the other Bells deal or do they just come with polyamory installed for some reason" and "well there's Golden but she's a vampire but Alice is a vampire and apparently that didn't do a thing to him but there's Golden and she's a vampire" etcetera and basically it's not going anywhere and. I think the bit I'm missing is that I don't have a picture of what it looks like to be not-monogamous. I haven't met any of these couples in person. I don't know how they work, I mean, the Joker's special effects are cool but they're not the same as actually seeing stuff. And if any of those Bells were here, they could just tell me, but they're not, so basically the person I have to ask is you. What would it be like?+

cardistry
2013-04-21 09:05 pm (UTC)

+...I don't really know,+ he says. +Like, from where I'm standing, the big difference between monogamous and not-monogamous is that monogamous means breaking my heart a lot. I know that much. But I still haven't ever done either.+

incanted
2013-04-21 09:16 pm (UTC)

+Well, neither've I.+ She sighs. +I could see getting really, really attached to you - and apparently that's not me being seventeen and making things up to be dramatic, because two pairs of us are married - and - I don't know how to reconcile that with sharing, the best I can do is "what if I were triplets WHAT THEN" apparently.+

cardistry
2013-04-21 09:30 pm (UTC)

+...Okay but like,+ says Brilliance, +sharing what, what is it about sex that makes it special, would you still feel weird if - the Joker, let's go with him, I've fucked him - if he fed me cake or beat me up?+
Edited 2013-04-21 21:42 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-21 09:49 pm (UTC)

+If he fed you cake? No, not a flicker. If he beat you up - well, now that I know what I know, yeah, if, as is not presently the case, it were any of my business.+

cardistry
2013-04-21 09:55 pm (UTC)

+Oh,+ says Brilliance. +I dunno - I guess I didn't really answer your question, did I? I'm still not sure how.+

incanted
2013-04-21 09:58 pm (UTC)

+Like, sex is probably special for all kinds of weird historical and evolutionary reasons, it could probably just as easily be waltzing or something if things had shaken out differently, but I did grow up in a culture where The Special Thing is sex, where that is a thing that people in committed relationships do only with each other because it's a Special Thing with Capital Letters.+

cardistry
2013-04-21 10:08 pm (UTC)

+It's not a Special Thing to me at all,+ says Brilliance. +Because I, you know, didn't grow up in a culture.+

incanted
2013-04-21 10:10 pm (UTC)

+Right. And maybe I could adapt better if, I dunno, if there were some device cultural script for indicating - specialness, uniqueness, particular devotion...+

cardistry
2013-04-21 10:15 pm (UTC)

Brilliance doesn't say anything.

incanted
2013-04-21 10:18 pm (UTC)

+Brilliance?+

cardistry
2013-04-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

+So,+ he says, sounding somewhere between very nervous and very turned on, +um, you remember when I said the incantation for my built-in torture function wasn't 'pants'...?+
Edited 2013-04-21 22:34 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-21 10:35 pm (UTC)

+I just accidentally said it, didn't I.+

cardistry
2013-04-21 10:37 pm (UTC)

+It's 'Devotion',+ he confirms. +And... well, I don't have any cultural scripts... but right now you're the only person who can use it, and I'm—okay with that.+

incanted
2013-04-21 10:40 pm (UTC)

+Are you saying you'd want me to?+

cardistry
2013-04-21 10:43 pm (UTC)

+I'm saying I don't want anyone else to,+ he says, +except maybe the Jokers, and I can live without them doing it, there's plenty of other ways for them to hurt me if they feel like it - and - I have complicated feelings about you doing it, but they're not all 'no'.+

incanted
2013-04-21 10:50 pm (UTC)

+...Huh. I might - I mean, if some of the feelings are no and they're going to stay that way, then it doesn't work, but otherwise that might close the gap.+

cardistry
2013-04-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

+Some of the feelings are no right now but I don't think they're going to stay that way forever.+

incanted
2013-04-21 10:59 pm (UTC)

+Can I ask why?+

cardistry
2013-04-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

+Um... which part?+

incanted
2013-04-21 11:05 pm (UTC)

+Either one, really.+

cardistry
2013-04-21 11:15 pm (UTC)

+They're kind of related, I guess. Some of the feelings are no because I'm still a little scared of you, but I don't think they'll be no forever because I don't want to be scared of you and I don't think I have good reasons to be scared of you - I mean, I have really good reasons to be scared of people in general, but you're not people in general and I don't think you'd ever hurt me when I was asking you not to.+

incanted
2013-04-21 11:16 pm (UTC)

+I wouldn't,+ agrees Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

+So, yeah,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-21 11:29 pm (UTC)

+I kinda want to hug you now, where are you?+

cardistry
2013-04-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

+In your kitchen, with pie! Come hug me.+

incanted
2013-04-21 11:47 pm (UTC)

Bella goes. Bella hugs him.

Bella says, "What kinda pie is that?"

cardistry
2013-04-21 11:49 pm (UTC)

"...Some... kind of fruit?" says Brilliance, hugging back. "I might have lost track a little."

There is a stack of empty pie plates next to the one he is partway through consuming.

incanted
2013-04-21 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Where the hell are you putting all of that pie?" Bella snorts.

cardistry
2013-04-21 11:52 pm (UTC)

"It goes in my tummy and turns into mana!" says Brilliance. "I'm not biological, remember?"

incanted
2013-04-21 11:55 pm (UTC)

"You can turn infinite amounts of pie into mana. Wow. Okay," snickers Bella. "Can I have a slice?"

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:02 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

Although he has been eating straight out of the dish, so serving herself one might be a bit of a challenge.

incanted
2013-04-22 12:03 am (UTC)

She manages to take one out of the middle of the remaining pie, and takes a bite. "Peach," she identifies, "and jesus fuck this is good pie."

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:04 am (UTC)

He beams and hugs her.

incanted
2013-04-22 12:19 am (UTC)

Bella can only hug back with one arm. The other is busy conveying forksful of pie to her mouth.

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:26 am (UTC)

Hug hug hug.

"Isn't it great? It's great pie," he beams.

incanted
2013-04-22 12:27 am (UTC)

"It is the greatest of pie!" she says, heedlessly talking with her mouth full.

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:28 am (UTC)

"It iiiiiiiis," hug hug hug. "I wanna learn how to make pie this good."

incanted
2013-04-22 12:29 am (UTC)

"Didn't you make this exact pie?"

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:30 am (UTC)

"I conjured it, I didn't cook it. Jokers cooking is a thing, apparently. And I can see why, because food is awesome."

incanted
2013-04-22 12:31 am (UTC)

"Huh. I can cook, but if conjuring gets results this good I don't see myself bothering very often."

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:38 am (UTC)

"The Joker says it's fun!" says Brilliance. "I bet he's right. Maybe I can get him to teach me sometime."

incanted
2013-04-22 12:41 am (UTC)

"I bet you can."

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:43 am (UTC)

More hug!

"Are you going to go think about stuff some more, then?"

incanted
2013-04-22 12:45 am (UTC)

"I think - that your idea will close the gap, like I said, if you're going to predictably get there at some point, and boy does that ever feel like a weird thing to be predicating a potential relationship on..."

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:46 am (UTC)

He grins.

"I am okay with being weird."

incanted
2013-04-22 12:47 am (UTC)

"So yeah, if we have a plausible substitute Thing With Capital Letters - I could deal. If you want."

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:48 am (UTC)

"I want!"

incanted
2013-04-22 12:49 am (UTC)

"Okay then."

Bella smiles shyly, and polishes off her slice of pie, and she kisses him.

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:50 am (UTC)

...He beams.

+I love yoooooooou,+ he says, hugging her.

incanted
2013-04-22 12:52 am (UTC)

+You're adorable.+

cardistry
2013-04-22 12:53 am (UTC)

+I am! I'm really cute! Let's go somewhere and snuggle a lot,+ he suggests.
Edited 2013-04-22 01:15 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-22 01:18 am (UTC)

+Okay.+ Planet Rainbowsand! Hello!

cardistry
2013-04-22 01:21 am (UTC)

Hello, Planet Rainbowsand!

Brilliance conjures a nice big picnic blanket. To stop them from getting all sandy while they cuddle.

incanted
2013-04-22 01:26 am (UTC)

How clever of him!

Cuddles are nice. Bella likes them.

cardistry
2013-04-22 01:28 am (UTC)

Cuddlesssssssssss cuddles are the best. Well, no, but they are one of many best-things. They are really great, is the point here.

incanted
2013-04-22 01:29 am (UTC)

"Penny for your thoughts."

cardistry
2013-04-22 01:30 am (UTC)

"I love you, I love cuddling you, I am really happy right now," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-22 01:44 am (UTC)

"All good thoughts," murmurs Bella, smiling and snuggling up.

cardistry
2013-04-22 01:48 am (UTC)

He beams and cuddles her and kisses the end of her nose, because it is there and it is part of Bella and he loves all the parts of Bella and wants to kiss them forever.

incanted
2013-04-22 01:52 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. The end of her nose is a silly place to kiss and giggling is called for.

cardistry
2013-04-22 01:53 am (UTC)

That is a cute giggle.

Brilliance kisses her chin next, to see if she'll do it again.

incanted
2013-04-22 01:54 am (UTC)

She will! She will do it as long as he keeps kissing her in unconventional places.

cardistry
2013-04-22 01:55 am (UTC)

How about if he kisses her in a conventional place? Like her mouth. Her mouth is extremely kissable.

incanted
2013-04-22 01:59 am (UTC)

If he goes and does that she might have to stop giggling and start kissing him back. He's quite kissable himself, after all.

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:01 am (UTC)

He is, it's true! Kisses kisses. Cuddly snuggly kisses. On a picnic blanket. On Planet Rainbowsand.

You know, if either of those latter facts seems relevant.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:04 am (UTC)

If he keeps kissing her like that they might become so!

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:06 am (UTC)

He's hardly likely to stop. Kisses are awesome, and so is Bella, and he just wants to snuggle up and have lots of positive body contact, is what he wants.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:06 am (UTC)

Yep, if he doesn't stop the fact that they are on a picnic blanket on - well, not the original Planet Rainbowsand, but a pretty exact facsimile - will become relevant.

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:09 am (UTC)

That is also awesome.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:09 am (UTC)

His enthusiasm is awesome.

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:11 am (UTC)

Bella is ice cream. Bella is pie. Bella is every possible kind of delicious.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:12 am (UTC)

Bella really likes being delicious.

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:13 am (UTC)

Well, Brilliance really likes Bella being delicious. And he really likes experiencing Bella's deliciousness. In as many ways as possible. But the ones that make her make lovely noises might be his favourites.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:15 am (UTC)

Bella is quite willing to make lovely noises! And say Brilliance's name a lot. Both of those things.

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:18 am (UTC)

Ooh, he loves it when she says his name like that. He loves it so much.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:21 am (UTC)

She can tell! She will go on gamely trying even after it becomes unreasonably difficult to utter complete syllables.

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:34 am (UTC)

It is really hot when that happens.

+I love you,+ he says giddily.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:35 am (UTC)

+Nnngfffnnnn.+

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:36 am (UTC)

+I love yoooou, you're delicious, you're pie and ice cream, I love you so much,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:47 am (UTC)

"Fuck," moans Bella.

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:51 am (UTC)

Brilliance makes a cheerful little humming noise.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:53 am (UTC)

Presently it is time for more kisses.

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:55 am (UTC)

Cuddly snuggly little-bit-messy delicious Bella kisses.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:55 am (UTC)

Yes indeed. +I could get used to this.+

cardistry
2013-04-22 02:57 am (UTC)

+Good, 'cause I wanna do it lots,+ he says, curling up next to her on the blanket and kissing her some more.

incanted
2013-04-22 02:59 am (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses +Awesome.+ kisses kisses.

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:05 am (UTC)

+Very awesome!+

Kisses and cuddles!

incanted
2013-04-22 03:08 am (UTC)

This may go on for a while.

But not forever.

+I should go meet Charlie and Lexi for lunch and fess up about having a boyfriend now that it has crossed into the Magical Land Of Being Their Business.+

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:09 am (UTC)

He giggles.

+Okay. Should I be there?+

incanted
2013-04-22 03:13 am (UTC)

+Uh - Charlie might want to say a few things to you - traditional you-better-not-hurt-my-daughter-stuff - which points to either yes or no, depending on whether you want to get that out of the way, continue living in the house, etcetera.+
Edited 2013-04-22 03:13 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:14 am (UTC)

+Um... I'd like to keep living in your house,+ he says. +I'm really not keen on your dad threatening me. If I stay away will he not threaten me, or would I have to just avoid him for the rest of his life, or what?+

incanted
2013-04-22 03:17 am (UTC)

+Well, if he can't talk to you he can't threaten you, but that would be kind of tense for me-and-him, if I had a boyfriend who refused to interact with him,+ says Bella. +I don't know about the rest of his life. I think the cultural standard is that he's entitled to one sorta parting shot if we get married and then he has to shut up. I don't know.+

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:18 am (UTC)

+I really, really don't want your dad to threaten me,+ says Brilliance, shivering and cuddling closer.

incanted
2013-04-22 03:20 am (UTC)

+...I could maybe talk to him about it?+ Bella says, stroking Brilliance's back soothingly. +What qualifies as threatening, though, he's going to need clear instructions if he'll listen to me at all.+

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:23 am (UTC)

+I don't know, exactly - just - even though I know he can't actually hurt me that easily, if I feel like he's saying he will hurt me if I do such-and-such, I'm going to freak out a little. Even if such-and-such is something I don't ever want to actually do.+

incanted
2013-04-22 03:24 am (UTC)

+He's not likely to say it outright like that. Especially since he knows it would in fact be hard to hurt you. It'd just be vague, "It'll be best for everyone if thus and so" stuff.+

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:25 am (UTC)

+...That could be either fine, or really really awful, depending how he said it. Sorry I'm so - finicky,+ he says helplessly.

incanted
2013-04-22 03:26 am (UTC)

+I could maybe get him to pass on any such vague threats through me? Would that help?+

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:27 am (UTC)

+Yeah. That would help lots,+ he says, cuddling her.

incanted
2013-04-22 03:28 am (UTC)

+Okay, I'll try that.+ Snuggle snuggle. Kiss on the end of his nose, see how he likes being kissed in silly places.

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:29 am (UTC)

It makes him all happy and giggly!

incanted
2013-04-22 03:30 am (UTC)

Aww. +I'll let you know when it's safe to be around Charlie,+ Bella says, and she runs her hand through his hair and teleports to join her folks for lunch.

cardistry
2013-04-22 03:31 am (UTC)

+Okay,+ says Brilliance comfortably. +Love you.+

incanted
2013-04-22 03:38 am (UTC)

+You're sweet.+

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:47 am (UTC)

Lexi has made lunch, and she has chosen for lunch to be macaroni and cheese. "Where's Brilliance?"

incanted
2013-04-22 03:48 am (UTC)

"Hanging out on the planet with the rainbow sand. He can conjure food now," Bella adds as a misleading explanation.

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:48 am (UTC)

"That explains all the ice cream in the freezer and the stack of pie plates," snorts Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-22 03:49 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Charlie on his way?"

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:49 am (UTC)

"He'll be here in five. Why, you gonna tell him you're doing Brilliance?"

incanted
2013-04-22 03:50 am (UTC)

"I'm going to tell him I'm dating Brilliance, thanks, rumors of my doings should not reach Charlie's brain."

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:50 am (UTC)

"Okay. So you worked it out about the whole exploding stuff thing?"

incanted
2013-04-22 03:51 am (UTC)

"Yeah. You know," shrugs Bella, "forward."

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:51 am (UTC)

"And going forward you want in his pa-a-ants," sings Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-22 03:51 am (UTC)

"Oh my god, Lexi, shut up."

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:52 am (UTC)

"When Charlie's home I will. He's no-o-ot yet thouuuuugh," sings Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-22 03:52 am (UTC)

"I will remember this when you meet some boy," grumbles Bella, "you can bet I will, I have a perfect memory now, you know."

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:53 am (UTC)

"I," says Lexi loftily, "will take my chances. So is he good? He must be if you're gonna keep him for the foreseeable future, right -"

incanted
2013-04-22 03:53 am (UTC)

"Shut up shut up shut up."

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:56 am (UTC)

"Not a chance!"

incanted
2013-04-22 03:56 am (UTC)

"I hear the cruiser."

lexicality
2013-04-22 03:56 am (UTC)

"Shutting up. You play it how you want."

incanted
2013-04-22 04:17 am (UTC)

"Thank you."

When Charlie comes in, this is how Bella plays it: "Dad, I'm dating Brilliance now."

This is how Charlie reacts to that:

"Bella, why are there three of you?"

Bella turns around, frowning in puzzlement.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:17 am (UTC)

Shell Bell waves.

small_magics
2013-04-22 04:18 am (UTC)

And Sarion peers around curiously.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:18 am (UTC)

"Is Brilliance around?" Shell Bell asks. "Sarion met him earlier."

incanted
2013-04-22 04:19 am (UTC)

"...Hi, it's nice to meet you. He's on another planet."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:19 am (UTC)

"Okay, we'll go wait for you there!"

incanted
2013-04-22 04:20 am (UTC)

"...I'll be along in a minute."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:20 am (UTC)

Shell Bell and Sarion disappear. The door into Milliways swings shut behind them.

incanted
2013-04-22 04:24 am (UTC)

"So," says Aurora to Charlie, "there are a bunch of me in a bunch of different universes, apparently those ones worked out how to get to this one, I want to go talk to them - Lexi, do you want to come or get caught up later? - and Dad, Brilliance had a really, really lousy - I'm not sure if childhood's the right word, but a lousy first while, and he'll be really upset if you threaten him vaguely about keeping me happy or anything, so, like, you can say what you have to say but please let me pass it on instead of saying it to his face?"

lexicality
2013-04-22 04:25 am (UTC)

"I'll come," shrugs Lexi.

"...I can do that," Charlie says slowly. "If you're going to be dating him you make sure you keep that door open if he's up in your room with you."

incanted
2013-04-22 04:26 am (UTC)

"Cross my heart, Dad, he will never be in our room with any combination of me or Lexi with the door closed," says Bella, deeply unimpressed.

lexicality
2013-04-22 04:26 am (UTC)

"Should we, like, take lunch?"

incanted
2013-04-22 04:27 am (UTC)

"Yes. And let's bring some for Brilliance too, just because he can conjure food doesn't mean he won't appreciate it." Bella fills two bowls with macaroni and cheese - Lexi already has hers - and teleports them both to Planet Rainbowsand.

cardistry
2013-04-22 11:29 am (UTC)

Brilliance is still on the picnic blanket, curled up happily not doing anything in particular.

Except that he has just had a visit from a pair of Bellas, so he is in the process of sitting up and looking at them curiously.

He doesn't immediately recognize Sarion.

small_magics
2013-04-22 04:04 pm (UTC)

"I See you," Sarion says.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:04 pm (UTC)

"You must be Brilliance," says Shell Bell.

cardistry
2013-04-22 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Brilliance. "—Wait, are you the elf one? But you're—better," he says.

small_magics
2013-04-22 04:06 pm (UTC)

Isibel tucks her hair behind her ears.

cardistry
2013-04-22 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Are you better, though? You look better," he says. "That's awesome!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:10 pm (UTC)

"She's not completely better, but Kas found her and got Amariah and Amariah got the rest of us and we got her adequately detached from her demon-and-dragon and gave her slightly off-standard perfect recall and she should be able to unbreak herself the rest of the way," says Shell Bell.

cardistry
2013-04-22 04:11 pm (UTC)

Brilliance jumps up and hugs Sarion.

small_magics
2013-04-22 04:12 pm (UTC)

Sarion hugs him back.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:13 pm (UTC)

"We interrupted your Bell in the middle of lunch with her dad and one of her friends," says Shell Bell, "so we're waiting for her now. And the others will be along soon. We always throw a party when we find new Bells and this looks like a good place."

cardistry
2013-04-22 04:17 pm (UTC)

"It's really pretty," Brilliance says cheerfully.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, where are we, is your Bell Earth-based?"

cardistry
2013-04-22 04:22 pm (UTC)

"She's Earth-based but she's not stuck there," says Brilliance. "I found this planet for us to practice magic on, and then when the Joker showed up he copied it into the solar system for fun. We're on the copy."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh, so that's where he went, he didn't show up to the heap. Who'll be along in a sec, you'll be pleased to know."

incanted
2013-04-22 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Aurora, appearing with Lexi and bowls of macaroni and cheese, one of which she offers to Brilliance, "you must be the elf one and one of the one who's not easily visually distinguished? I decided to go by Aurora."
Edited 2013-04-22 16:24 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:25 pm (UTC)

"The elf one is going by Sarion and I'm Shell Bell," says Shell Bell. "Do you want to set up here for a party or have it somewhere else? We could just as easily meet everyone back at my palace. Who's your friend?"

lexicality
2013-04-22 04:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm her twin sister," says Lexi. "I hear none of the rest of you have 'em."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:26 pm (UTC)

"No," says Shell Bell, blinking, "we don't. What's your name?"

lexicality
2013-04-22 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Lexi. Well, Alexandra, but, Lexi."

cardistry
2013-04-22 04:29 pm (UTC)

Brilliance decides the Joker should know about this.

[Hey,] he says, [some Bells showed up!]

manofmyword
2013-04-22 04:29 pm (UTC)

The Joker teleports to the appropriate location.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:30 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell waves at him.

"So, you - want your sister in on everything?" she asks Aurora.

incanted
2013-04-22 04:31 pm (UTC)

"She's got enough Charlie in her to not care about everything, but I am not sneaking around behind her back if that's what you mean, I trust her," says Aurora. "And sure, let's have a party on this here planet, can you set up, I don't know the guest list."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Shell Bell, and presently a setup not unlike the first Bell party on Mars decorates Planet Rainbowsand, although Shell Bell doesn't put out bowls of triangles and squares.

bellfounding
2013-04-22 04:35 pm (UTC)

And here are numerous Bells!

Also a unicorn and a half-vampire princess.

manofmyword
2013-04-22 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Aren't you pretty!" says the Joker to the unicorn.

pythbox
2013-04-22 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Wow," says the unicorn to the Joker. "I mean - yes. Yes, I'm very pretty."

lexicality
2013-04-22 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Oh my god you are a real unicorn let me hug you," exclaims Lexi.

pythbox
2013-04-22 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Liselen, arching his neck.

lexicality
2013-04-22 04:40 pm (UTC)

Lexi hugs him with all appropriate enthusiasm for a unicorn-loving teenage girl who has just met a real live example.

incanted
2013-04-22 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Aurora to the Bells. "I'm, Aurora, I guess, help me out with you, the only ones I'm sure on are the two who got here first and Angela and Amariah and Golden and Cam."

The other Bells distinguish themselves for her.

pythbox
2013-04-22 04:44 pm (UTC)

Liselen laughs, and permits hugging.

mind_game
2013-04-22 04:46 pm (UTC)

When the Jokers are all ready to be transported, Jane deposits them, including the dragon if he wants to come within range of her eye in the Atlantis palace.

endragoned
2013-04-22 04:50 pm (UTC)

The dragon does indeed, and then he curls up on top of the rainbow sand outside of the recently conjured buildings.

The demon immediately finds and hugs Sarion.

lexicality
2013-04-22 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh my god he's stark naked!" shrieks Lexi. "Why is he stark naked!" She hides her face behind Liselen.

small_magics
2013-04-22 04:52 pm (UTC)

"It seems that Aurora's sister is distressed by your disdain for clothes," Sarion murmurs, leaning her head on the demon.

endragoned
2013-04-22 04:55 pm (UTC)

The demon sighs and cuddles his beloved some more.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 04:56 pm (UTC)

"In other words dude put some clothes on," says Juliet. "At least, like, pants."

lexicality
2013-04-22 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I can totally compromise on it just being pants!" says Lexi from somewhere behind the unicorn.
Edited 2013-04-22 16:58 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-04-22 05:01 pm (UTC)

He conjures himself some pants, loose comfortable ones in a slightly darker shade of red than his skin.

pythbox
2013-04-22 05:02 pm (UTC)

"He's wearing pants now," Liselen says helpfully.

lexicality
2013-04-22 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Lexi, peeping out from her hiding place. "Also you totally look like a devil version of Brilliance, did you know?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-22 05:03 pm (UTC)

"No, he's stunned by his own color scheme and array of limbs," drawls Juliet.

lexicality
2013-04-22 05:04 pm (UTC)

"There should be, like, a photograph of him standing with the angel, though," says Lexi, "I think that should happen."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-22 05:04 pm (UTC)

Angela laughs and shrugs.

endragoned
2013-04-22 05:05 pm (UTC)

The demon also laughs and shrugs.

"I am a demon," he says. "And a version of Brilliance, if you are Brilliance," with a gesture to Aurora's Joker.

cardistry
2013-04-22 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Brilliance. "Also, wow, I do not mind you being naked at all."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-22 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I set up the usual array of rooms," says Shell Bell pointedly, "if anyone feels the sudden urge to go be naked and isn't conveniently a quadruped."

cardistry
2013-04-22 05:10 pm (UTC)

Brilliance beams.

"Thanks!" he says, and heads for the orgy chamber, trailing Jokers.

incanted
2013-04-22 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Aurora, looking around as Jane lands more guests in the pavilion, "let's get this party started."

festive rainbow mirror summoning!

incanted

There are now one dozen Bells.

They and most of their friends are all here on Planet Rainbowsand II, to celebrate the addition of Sarion, the elf one, and Aurora, the one with a sister.

This is a branching point; there are 11 continuations from here.

deslandes
2013-04-22 05:44 pm (UTC)

Although most of the Jokers are already in the orgy chambers with Brilliance, there is one - fluffy, uncothed - straggler.

incanted
2013-04-22 05:45 pm (UTC)

Aurora peers at him, then identifies Rose and catches her by the elbow. "Hey, Rose?"

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Mm?"

incanted
2013-04-22 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Can I talk to you and your husband? About - I think I'm wired funny for a Bell because of having a sister, and I'm not having as easy a time as it sounded like everyone else did coping with non-monogamy, and it'd help to - see what you do."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Mon cœur," Rose calls in Beast's direction.

deslandes
2013-04-22 05:49 pm (UTC)

He ambles over and gives her a fluffy hug.

"Yes, ma belle?"

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Can what were you about to do wait a short while? Aurora wishes to interview us about how we manage your tendency to do such things," murmurs Rose, smiling slightly.

deslandes
2013-04-22 05:51 pm (UTC)

The Beast giggles and licks Rose's cheek. "All right."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 05:53 pm (UTC)

"But I am not sure I understand what the problem is," Rose tells Aurora. "Or what your sister has to do with it."

incanted
2013-04-22 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know if it's Lexi, or maybe something about how I met Brilliance, or what, but Lexi's the obvious difference," says Aurora. "And - Lexi is my favorite person - and now I'm dating Brilliance which is like inviting him to take that spot, eventually, and meanwhile -" She trails off, gesturing hopefully at Rose.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 05:55 pm (UTC)

"And you are - unsure of your priority?" Rose asks. "Because of his - we could call it physical inconstancy?"

incanted
2013-04-22 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Unsure of my priority, yeah, like, he said the other Jokers would probably not take precedence in a saving-people situation, but that only goes so far and it's not for the most comfortable of reasons."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I'm unsure that we're the best pair to interview," says Rose. "For months we were each other's only company at all. I was his rescue from an eternity of loneliness. I am his wife. I do not think mon cœur is likely to abandon me for any newer interest unless the first abandonment is mine. It would certainly have been a terrible surprise, had it been a surprise, had I been assigning more significance to where he takes his exercise than to the rest - but it was not a surprise."

deslandes
2013-04-22 06:04 pm (UTC)

The Beast snuggles his wife.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I can also read his mind," Rose says, lifting her hand to touch Beast's cheek. "Most of us do - I don't believe Cam or Amariah do, though. And Aegis's version is considerably more under Sue's control than Angela's or Stella's is under Micaiah's or Alice's. But it helps. There is - really no understanding of how they love until you have seen it, I think."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:07 pm (UTC)

"If there's no understanding without looking and they don't mind being looked at why don't Cam or Amariah?"

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 06:09 pm (UTC)

"People from Amariah's world have their own sort of particular intimacy, which may suffice for her. I don't know about Cam. Possibly it's relevant that the two of them are by far the most likely to follow suit with the behavior that has you so concerned," Rose suggests.

deslandes
2013-04-22 06:10 pm (UTC)

The Beast laughs.

incanted
2013-04-22 06:10 pm (UTC)

"So I should try one of them?"

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps. I am sorry I cannot be of more help." She pauses. "And it might be unnecessary to extract these Bells' respective Jokers from their activities, considering that it turned out mon cœur had so little to say."

deslandes
2013-04-22 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I have no wisdom to offer about being a Bell in love with a Joker, ma belle, because I am not one."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I thought you might be able to reassure me about prioritization, but apparently Rose has you figured out well enough to do that all by herself," sighs Aurora.

deslandes
2013-04-22 06:15 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "My love is my love is my love."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Of course she is."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I am," shrugs Rose, smiling. "I do recommend mindreading. It - helped."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I guess I'll talk to Brilliance about that when he. Emerges."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 06:18 pm (UTC)

"They're having fun, Aurora. He will still love you."

deslandes
2013-04-22 06:18 pm (UTC)

"He will always love you," says the Beast, hugging Belle again.

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 06:19 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

incanted
2013-04-22 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Aurora, "so, we've established that you're adorable even when one of you is a cat monster, I guess that's non-negligibly helpful especially since mine turns into a deck of cards and a magic wand, and I should talk to Cam or Amariah. Thanks."

beheld_beauty
2013-04-22 06:20 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Rose sunnily.

deslandes
2013-04-22 06:22 pm (UTC)

The Beast grins.

"I'm going to go and be borrowed now, ma belle," he says, nuzzles Rose's cheek, and wanders off to the orgy chambers.

incanted
2013-04-22 06:23 pm (UTC)

Aurora goes looking for Cam or Amariah.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:23 pm (UTC)

Cam's over there!

incanted
2013-04-22 06:25 pm (UTC)

Aurora summarizes her project.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, um." Cam scratches his neck awkwardly. "I might be a little less serious with Jellybean than the others with theirs? Like, he's my boyfriend, he tells me he loves me all the time, I'm not really there yet, he doesn't really seem to mind, so it's not like I'm entitled to have a problem with it if he tells Tilly he loves her too or if he gets up to bizarre things with tentacled aliens. Let alone screws his way through the deck of Jokers, because I did that too, it's worth a go if you're into it."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so," says Aurora delicately. "I'd give you my blessing to tick Brilliance off your checklist too but it's manifestly clear you don't need it. Do you suppose Jellybean'd have input here? Beast didn't say much but then Rose reads his mind..."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Dunno, let's find out." [Hey Jellybean, Aurora's having a polyamory soul-searching Very Special Episode, you wanna help her out?]

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:32 pm (UTC)

[Sure, one sec,] he says.

A second passes.

Jellybean teleports to right beside Cam, wearing his customary red-and-white schoolgirl getup, and pecks him on the cheek. He has his aura out; the air fills with fruity sugary smells.
Edited 2013-04-22 18:32 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-22 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Wait, do you guys do the anime magical girl thing too, I thought you were wizards?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I am a wizard, I just dress like this because it's fun," says Jellybean. "Why, do you have a pretty skirt you're not showing me?"

incanted
2013-04-22 06:36 pm (UTC)

"It's called a Barrier Jacket, it just - yeah, it is a pretty dress, basically, but Brilliance has to do it, I dunno how interruptible he is right now for participating in a fashion show."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Oh, lord," mutters Cam.

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:37 pm (UTC)

"He was cuddling Queenie last I checked, he is totally interruptible," says Jellybean. "Lemme see."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:38 pm (UTC)

+Hey Brilliance, Jellybean wants to see the Barrier Jacket.+

cardistry
2013-04-22 06:40 pm (UTC)

+Okay!+ says Brilliance.

Aurora's clothing glows in his ever-shifting many-hued mana colour; the glow changes shape, then fades, revealing her Barrier Jacket.

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh, cool," says Jellybean. "That's gorgeous."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:41 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't wear it around just all the time, but it's pretty neat, yeah," says Aurora, twisting her arm to look at one of the arm-warmers that stretches from her hand to past her elbow.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Magical girl, what next," mutters Cam.

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Something wrong with that?" inquires Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:44 pm (UTC)

"No! No, I just didn't think it was - for me. And apparently it is for at least one of me."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:45 pm (UTC)

"It's a standard person-with-a-device thing," says Aurora. "I should really come up with a name for my kind of magic user, is 'sorceress' taken?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes used in lieu of explaining minting, but otherwise no."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Standard sorceress thing, then."

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:46 pm (UTC)

"It's super cute," says Jellybean. "I kind of want to make out with you now."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Uh, no thank you? Is this want going to distract you from helping me deal with - what you were summoned to help me deal with?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:49 pm (UTC)

"No," he says. "I mean, I want to make out with Cam too, kind of perpetually, but here I am standing around talking about stuff instead of dragging him into the orgy chamber and pouncing."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:51 pm (UTC)

"After I've properly met the new Bells, Jellybean," laughs Cam. "And helped this one. So - you think it's your sister's fault? That's weird that you have a sister, I'm not actually sure if that's any less off-standard than me being a guy is."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if it's her - and fault would be the wrong word - just - priorities, they're a thing, they're more salient to me than most maybe because if you guys have favorite people before you have significant others I'm not sure how you'd go about it."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I kind of muddled along with that box in the mental paperwork occupied by 'Renée I guess' for most of my life."

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:53 pm (UTC)

"What's a favourite person like," says Jellybean, "I don't even know."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know what it's like not to have one - or not to be anybody's, for that matter, and if I'm going around boyfriend-acquiring Lexi could start anytime. I guess the only-child Bells could count on your parents that way, but -"

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Shit, and you couldn't, could you," murmurs Cam. "I bet they wouldn't tell you even if there was an answer."

incanted
2013-04-22 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm gonna have to talk to Golden, about her husband and her kid..."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I know that one, Elspeth wins but then Golden has to go into retirement and be depressed forever," says Cam. "I think Angela's going to have multiple children and I have no idea what that's going to do to her."

pythbox
2013-04-22 06:59 pm (UTC)

"...You know, that's kind of fucked up," Jellybean remarks.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:00 pm (UTC)

"You're telling me, but I don't know how to operate the way you operate, I don't really get what the way you operate is," shrugs Cam.

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Um... I love people," says Jellybean. "For a while 'people' was pretty much Matilda, and I guess that's kind of like having a favourite person, but only superficially, because now I love you too and it doesn't make sense in my head for that to be a competition. I mean, I'd rather fuck you than Tilly but that's because Tilly's not interested in fucking me. If I had to choose between rescuing the two of you from something I wouldn't be thinking about which one I liked more, I'd be thinking about which one I had a better shot at rescuing, which one could probably take care of themselves without me, which one would be better at helping me rescue the other one after, stuff like that."

incanted
2013-04-22 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes, obviously that all factors in, but I - maybe we, I'm still not sure how off-center I am in this department - need to know what we'd do if it was really one or the other. If somebody's going to die and somebody's going to live - and it's for good, not 'oh we can just get them resurrected tomorrow' - and you have to pick - I have to know that. And - and I want to know what anybody who might pick me would pick. Lexi and I worked it out between ourselves, and I'd given up on our parents ever telling, and then - there was Brilliance." Her voice gets mousier as she proceeds through this paragraph.

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:11 pm (UTC)

"...well now I want to hug you," says Jellybean.

incanted
2013-04-22 07:12 pm (UTC)

"That won't actually clarify matters," Aurora points out, but she holds out her arms.

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:13 pm (UTC)

"I know, but," he says, and he hugs her.

incanted
2013-04-22 07:14 pm (UTC)

"You smell like candy," mumbles Aurora as she hugs him back.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:15 pm (UTC)

"He does that. He's a Jellybean. He did it before too, but now it's enchanter's aura. You should get one."

incanted
2013-04-22 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I will, I just - have to figure stuff out. Order of operations. Aura is nice but not urgent." Aurora disentangles herself from hug. "Also 'Aurora's aura' will be a terrible tongue twister."

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:17 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles.

"Well," he says, "if you want to know stuff about Brilliance's priorities, have you tried just coming up with hypothetical situations and asking him about them?"

incanted
2013-04-22 07:22 pm (UTC)

"It's not just that, it's a whole tangled constellation of things of which that's the easiest to explain. And I did sort of try that anyway. And the answer was good enough - I mean, I'm dating him now, not just sort of awkwardly ogling him and getting needled by Lexi about it - but I'm still sort of bewildered is why I'm interviewing all the Bells with Jokers one at a time. Might talk to Shell Bell and Juliet too, they're not mono either."

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:23 pm (UTC)

"So... I dunno, what are you looking for, here?" says Jellybean.

incanted
2013-04-22 07:25 pm (UTC)

"An understanding of how everybody else managed."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if I'm any help. I pretty much - was presented opportunities and evaluated 'em on their own merits roughly one at a time," shrugs Cam, draping an arm around Jellybean's shoulders. "Which does not look like what you're doing even slightly."

incanted
2013-04-22 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Not on an ongoing basis," says Aurora, "no."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should get around to reading your mind," Cam says to Jellybean.

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should!" says Jellybean, snuggling up and kissing his cheek.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Standard-issue? Enchanter's? Is there a wizard kind the manual never told me about?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:29 pm (UTC)

"There's not any good wizard kinds," he says. "I don't really care if it's standard or enchanter's or what."

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Let's go with standard," says Cam, and he wishes, and has a peep, nuzzling the side of Jellybean's neck.

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:32 pm (UTC)

Jellybean leans on Cam comfortably, and - loves him.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:33 pm (UTC)

Cam sifts idly through visible thoughts, and pokes at the emotion blob, and,

"sorry Aurora we need to get a room right the fuck now," he growls, mostly in Jellybean's ear.

incanted
2013-04-22 07:33 pm (UTC)

"...Good stuff, huh?" says Aurora, backing away.

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:34 pm (UTC)

Jellybean grins, kisses Cam, and teleports them to an otherwise unoccupied node of the orgy chamber.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:36 pm (UTC)

[I should have done this fucking months ago, damn,] says Cam, by brainphone so he doesn't have to unseal his mouth from his boyfriend's.

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:41 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles a little, mostly over brainphone, and wishes them both out of their clothes because who wants to bother doing it the long way around.

[I love you,] he says gleefully, [what did you think I meant by that?]

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:42 pm (UTC)

[I don't know. Not this. I thought - that it sounded casual or something, I don't know, I wasn't paying enough attention obviously.]

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:43 pm (UTC)

[Well, now you know better.]

Kisses. Lots of kisses.

lifes_sake
2013-04-22 07:44 pm (UTC)

[I know better and I am kind of high on knowing better. Damn. I love you.]

pythbox
2013-04-22 07:45 pm (UTC)

[I love you too!]

Cuddly snuggly affectionate candy-flavoured kisses!

This is continuation number 2 from here.

incanted
2013-04-22 07:37 pm (UTC)

Aurora has been abandoned by Cam and Jellybean, so she goes looking for Amariah.

dark_light
2013-04-22 07:38 pm (UTC)

Amariah is over here! With Path the Don't Touch Me Shoulder Owl too.

incanted
2013-04-22 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Hey," says Aurora, and she summarizes her difficulties. "So far the consensus seems to be that I should read Brilliance's mind, but - you don't read yours, do you?"

dark_light
2013-04-22 07:39 pm (UTC)

"I do not," agrees Amariah. [Hey sweeties, you wanna come meet Aurora for a bit?]

truthwright
2013-04-22 07:42 pm (UTC)

[Sure!]

Her sweeties appear, Kas fully clothed, Petaal as a white ferret on his shoulder. They have their aura out; Petaal appears extremely pettable to Amariah, and moderately so to Aurora.

incanted
2013-04-22 07:43 pm (UTC)

"How come you guys don't have mindreading set up?" Aurora asks.

truthwright
2013-04-22 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Didn't ever feel like it, I guess," shrugs Kas.

dark_light
2013-04-22 07:46 pm (UTC)

Amariah reaches out to scritch Petaal. "It hasn't been a problem for us."

incanted
2013-04-22 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I can imagine - well, not in much detail, but approximately imagine, looking in on Brilliance's thoughts and finding something staggeringly unassailably special to the point where everything else is a triviality. But I have no idea what you're doing."

truthwright
2013-04-22 07:58 pm (UTC)

Petaal wriggles happily.

"She's petting me!" she says, turning up her aura of pettable.

dark_light
2013-04-22 08:11 pm (UTC)

"There's that," says Amariah, "although it's not - I'm not sure. I can think of key events but they're not timed right to be causative instead of just emblematic. Like, I know I'm intensely important to my sweeties - they separated to save Path, to a first approximation humans just don't do that..." She taps her chin. "...It could have to do with my parents. They're still together and they shouldn't be, everybody else is divided between divorced and happily married. Maybe I have something un-standard installed about lack of - relationship freedom."

truthwright
2013-04-22 08:12 pm (UTC)

"...Lack of relationship freedom meaning what?" says Kas.

dark_light
2013-04-22 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Aurora's having more than Bell standard trouble adjusting to nonmonogamy," says Amariah, "so I'm thinking aloud about that a little."

incanted
2013-04-22 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Your parents are - stuck somehow and that's bad and you don't want to be stuck or to get anyone else stuck?" Aurora hazards.

dark_light
2013-04-22 08:27 pm (UTC)

"My mother's a witch like me, and witches in general are keenly aware of human partner mortality. As long as Ranata likes Charlie, she can't bear to leave him, because then he'd die at some point without her - I don't even have my afterlife figured out yet so I can't reassure her on that - and she'd never have the chance to change her mind. I don't have this problem because I have pretty much always considered the correct solution to be to research immortality. Which I successfully did even before getting minted."

truthwright
2013-04-22 08:33 pm (UTC)

Kas hugs Amariah.

"Because you're awesome," he says happily.

dark_light
2013-04-22 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I am awesome! So, maybe that's why I'm off-baseline on comfort-with-poly? It's not even just a matter of whether I need to mindread my sweeties to know they love me - I also sleep around more than a standard Bell, I need to give Cam a spin one of these days, I have this habit now of testing boys out for the rest of us. And that has nothing to do with reading anybody's mind, it's just fun and I see zero benefit to choosing not to have that kind of fun." Amariah nibbles her lip. "I wonder if you'd get much mileage out of talking to Golden. She's got to have some model of us in her head; she can't pull it off because, vampire, monogamous-as-hell husband, etcetera, but she's got a monogamous Bell's perspective on the poly ones."

incanted
2013-04-22 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I guess I'll try her," laughs Aurora. "I ought to meet everybody anyway, right?"

dark_light
2013-04-22 08:43 pm (UTC)

"That's the spirit. I got in on the ground floor of the Belltower, it must be kind of overwhelming to get pealed and find yourself one of a dozen, huh?"

truthwright
2013-04-22 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Being one of lots is fun," Kas contributes. Petaal nods her small fuzzy head.

incanted
2013-04-22 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad no one's trying to, like slow-drip all the new stuff into my life lest my head explode, but it's a bit much, yeah," laughs Aurora.

dark_light
2013-04-22 09:00 pm (UTC)

"We might need some kind of procedure for slow-dripping when there are still more of us," says Amariah. "A smallish welcoming committee to go through the Bellbook with the new Bell and so on. And then a party."

incanted
2013-04-22 09:01 pm (UTC)

"The Bellbook?"

dark_light
2013-04-22 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Goddesses all! You haven't even been to the Belltower, have you, you've never left this world, you don't have a Janegem - we need some kind of checklist," mutters Amariah. "Jane, the book, please?" The Bellbook appears before her and Amariah catches it out of the air and hands it over.

incanted
2013-04-22 09:07 pm (UTC)

Aurora reads the entire book, and then she writes in it.

truthwright
2013-04-22 09:09 pm (UTC)

Kas reads over her shoulder.

"What's a device, anyway?"

incanted
2013-04-22 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance is shaped like you when he's being a human, but he's also a deck of cards and a staff thingamabob sometimes," says Aurora, "and he was made by some people, who were seriously shitty, to have a lot of magic and destroy planets with it, which he was not on board with. And he attaches to a sorceress - me - in some way that I do not fully understand, but we have some magic privilege sorts of things with each other, like, this classy dress I'm wearing, that's a thing devices do is outfits. Not wardrobes, just specific magical-girl-type outfits called Barrier Jackets and this is mine." She tilts her head. "He sort of is also the Barrier Jacket, but not in a lot of detail, he said." But she pets the material of her skirt anyway.

truthwright
2013-04-22 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Awww, that's cute," says Kas.

incanted
2013-04-22 09:15 pm (UTC)

"He's kind of skittish about it because the people who made him were so shitty, but we're managing," shrugs Aurora.

truthwright
2013-04-22 09:17 pm (UTC)

"People who make Jokers usually are. We deal."

incanted
2013-04-22 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Do you usually have to spend four hundred years hopping around the universe in deck-of-cards form unable to pay significant attention to anything but not blowing up whatever planet you're visiting because you've got a control program installed after having only coincidentally escaped attempts at torturing you into being an obedient weapon? Or, not that exactly, but I was really hoping that was worse than the usual, because it's bad."

truthwright
2013-04-22 09:24 pm (UTC)

"...I think the other new one's the only one who comes close," says Kas. "You'd have to ask them which one's worse."

dark_light
2013-04-22 09:29 pm (UTC)

"For reference, we think Shell Bell's got the lousiest history of us, I think that holds even versus Sarion, but Sarion's competitive, so's Golden for a bit of it, but Sarion's got a trickier fix ahead of her and Golden was patched as soon as she found out her husband was alive, everybody else has had lesser or briefer shit happen to us. You?"

incanted
2013-04-22 09:30 pm (UTC)

"...I think I'm basically untraumatized. I mean, the preventing Brilliance's control program from destroying the world when it turned out to have possessed Lexi was bad, but it didn't last long and I didn't find out Lexi was involved till it was over."

truthwright
2013-04-22 09:33 pm (UTC)

"There's a pretty big gap for us between Brill and the demon with all the torture, and the next bunch down," says Kas. "Micaiah and Jellybean are the closest we've got to 'basically untraumatized', and, you know, they still had dads."

"We're probably a little ahead of the pack, actually," Petaal points out, and Kas nods.

"But Queenie might be ahead by more, after that thing with Voice."

dark_light
2013-04-22 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Voice is the one who got Shell Bell," Amariah explains. "That template is - we're not sure about it, or at least there's no consensus. It's a Joker's-little-brother template, cropped up three times, Beast has one and Queenie's is Voice and Micaiah has one. Angela got Micaiah's little brother out young, though, she thinks he'll turn out all right. But he does not get to be in a room with Shell Bell."

truthwright
2013-04-22 09:38 pm (UTC)

"It's really sad," says Kas. "I don't think we should have brothers."

dark_light
2013-04-22 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie," says Amariah, "the kind of people who make you shouldn't have children, period."

truthwright
2013-04-22 09:42 pm (UTC)

"But then there wouldn't be us, and I like that there's us."

dark_light
2013-04-22 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," says Amariah, "frankly my parents should never have gotten married to begin with but that doesn't mean I don't like existing."

truthwright
2013-04-22 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I like you existing, too!"

incanted
2013-04-22 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I bet you do. Thanks for your help, I'm gonna find Golden," laughs Aurora, and she goes looking for Golden.

pythbox
2013-04-22 09:59 pm (UTC)

Golden is over there! Coincidentally, so is Liselen, who is walking around the party with an adoring Lexi on his back.

incanted
2013-04-22 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Lexi, hi, unicorn," says Aurora. "Hi, Golden."

lexicality
2013-04-22 10:07 pm (UTC)

"This is Liselen!" says Lexi brightly. "I am riding a unicorn and this is the best day."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Aurora."

pythbox
2013-04-22 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Aurora!" says Liselen. "Your sister is really excited about unicorns, it turns out!"

incanted
2013-04-22 10:12 pm (UTC)

"There was a period when we were twelve when she pretty much wallpapered our room with art of unicorns," says Aurora. "I'm not particularly surprised. Anyway, Golden," and she summarizes her quandary yet again. "And Amariah thought I might want to talk to you just to figure out how you're modeling all the poly Bells."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure I'll be very helpful. I am mostly accomplishing the feat by modeling them as not vampires."

pythbox
2013-04-22 10:14 pm (UTC)

"What's the difference with vampires?" wonders Liselen.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 10:16 pm (UTC)

"It's an imperfect difference. Stella's Alice is a vampire; I'm not sure if it's his ingot power or sheer template attractor that leaves him capable of non-monogamy while mated. The literal original succubi who mated settled down when it happened and it doesn't seem to have affected Alice at all. But for the most part, vampires acquire mates and then no one else interests us."

pythbox
2013-04-22 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Liselen. "'Template attractor'... is he one of the ones like Isibel's demon?"

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Alice is, yes. The template calls themselves Jokers, now."

incanted
2013-04-22 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Now? Was it something else before?"

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Whistles. As in 'bells and whistles'. When enough of them collected they objected to being - subordinated to our template in this way."

pythbox
2013-04-22 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Liselen. "'Bells and whistles'. Sounds like something you'd hear in Armethalieh."

incanted
2013-04-22 10:31 pm (UTC)

"It's an expression on Earth. It means nifty little add-ons to something that's functional without them but better with. And it's super cute. I'm glad I wasn't already used to it, that'd be annoying to switch away from."

pythbox
2013-04-22 10:31 pm (UTC)

"That is kind of cute," Liselen agrees.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, I don't think you can possibly be as monogamous as I am or you'd be repelled by the very question," says Golden. "I can live with gatherings of this sort only with some difficulty, and you'll notice I left my husband home."

incanted
2013-04-22 10:34 pm (UTC)

"You have the standard history, though, so if you're different it's because you're a vampire, or because of Edward in particular, and if I'm different it's probably because of Lexi," says Aurora.

lexicality
2013-04-22 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Just you wait till we find some Lexis without Bellas and I start explaining all my characteristics by talking about how I have a sister and it's all her fault," says Lexi.

incanted
2013-04-22 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad I have you! It just means I wasn't plucked whole from the Standard Bell Mold," says Bella. "And I want to know how. You know I'm self-obsessed like that, I have to know how I tick, you're part of how I tick."

pythbox
2013-04-22 10:41 pm (UTC)

"...What's the difficulty with gatherings like this?" wonders Liselen. "Is it all the people having sex in that room over there?"

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly. Cam is the one Bell besides myself my husband can tolerate being around for any length of time. He finds the others unsettlingly like me while not being me, and has comparable problems with the fact that they are dating people who do not stand in a similar relationship to him. To be fair, Edward is not particularly popular with the other Bells or their loved ones either. Or did you mean me?"
Edited 2013-04-22 22:46 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-22 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I meant you," laughs the unicorn.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 10:56 pm (UTC)

"While I can logically appreciate that if I had never met Edward, and if I were not a vampire and therefore subject to various features of vampire psychology, I would most likely not have been alone forever, it's somewhat difficult emotionally to observe eleven might-have-beens not one of whom comes home to anything like my husband."

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Liselen. "I guess that makes sense."

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 11:10 pm (UTC)

"It would be different if we were all dating unique people. It wasn't so bad when Stella was the only alt I knew about, although her Alice did not make a particularly good first impression. I'm the only one with a unique person, until and unless Pattern picks up someone who doesn't match," says Golden, shrugging.

incanted
2013-04-22 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Is she looking?"

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 11:11 pm (UTC)

"If she were actively looking I'd expect her to loiter around the bevy of extra Sherlocks more than she does."

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Not the extra Jokers?" wonders Liselen.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 11:14 pm (UTC)

"The extras are significantly older than her - which has never been a problem for us, even me, but is not an enticement. And also both default to female pronouns, although I'm given to understand the underlying situation is more complicated."

incanted
2013-04-22 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Also, don't they work for her?"

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Queenie does. Ghosty is - helpfully visiting. I don't believe that would be an obstacle were Pattern interested, but she doesn't seem to be."

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:28 pm (UTC)

"...What do female pronouns have to do with anything?" wonders Liselen.

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Except for Cam, and sort of Amariah but she claims it's only because daemons don't count in the same way, we're all straight," says Golden. "Shell Bell's special circumstances."

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:35 pm (UTC)

"And straight means... you don't want to date female people?" the unicorn hazards.

incanted
2013-04-22 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Given that we're female," clarifies Aurora. "If Cam were straight he wouldn't want to date male people."

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Liselen. "This sex stuff is complicated."

incanted
2013-04-22 11:38 pm (UTC)

"It gets worse," laughs Aurora.

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:39 pm (UTC)

"...How's it do that?"

incanted
2013-04-22 11:41 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not sure how close to zero you're starting here."

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Really, really close!"

luminous_regnant
2013-04-22 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I don't believe I'd contribute particularly effectively to this conversation," remarks Golden, and she wanders off.

incanted
2013-04-22 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Uh, well," says Aurora. "...Can't you magically sense sex things, is that not helping you out any here?"

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Being able to feel pain doesn't make you a good healer," says Liselen. "I sense things, but I don't really have context for them; before one of you fixed me, I couldn't even be as close to you as I am right now without feeling like there were bugs under my skin."

lexicality
2013-04-22 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm perfectly unicorn safe," says Lexi smugly.

incanted
2013-04-22 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes, Lexi, sometime you can visit Thilanushinyel and see if any herds of unicorns want you to frolic amongst them and be fitted for flower garlands. Meanwhile, um. Okay. So, a majority of people - at least humans - are only interested in having sex with people who are not their same gender. Some people don't care either way, some people are only interested in people who are their same gender, some people don't want to have sex with anyone even after they grow up, and this is all complicated by the fact that gender is only usually a one-or-the-other thing."

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Wow," says Liselen, blinking at her. "How do you sort it all out?"

incanted
2013-04-23 12:00 am (UTC)

"Look," says Aurora, "this is weird, where do little unicorns come from if unicorns can't be anywhere near nonvirgins unless they're patched like you?"

pythbox
2013-04-23 12:04 am (UTC)

He sidles uncomfortably away from her.

incanted
2013-04-23 12:06 am (UTC)

Aurora shrugs. "Never mind, then. I'm going to go talk to Angela."

pythbox
2013-04-23 12:06 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Liselen.

incanted
2013-04-23 12:08 am (UTC)

Angela's not hard to find. There she is! She gets the same explanation.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:08 am (UTC)

[Love, have you met Aurora yet? She's trying to figure out how Bell-Joker relationships tend to work,] Angela tells her husband.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-23 12:09 am (UTC)

[I haven't! I was distracted,] he says merrily. [Should I come and help?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:10 am (UTC)

[If now's a good time.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-23 12:10 am (UTC)

[Just a moment,] he says, and there is a pause, and then Micaiah appears and gives his wife a hug and a kiss.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:12 am (UTC)

He gets these back in equal measure, and a wing wrapped around him. "Specifically, Aurora doesn't seem to understand how I'm so calm about you sleeping with other people."

incanted
2013-04-23 12:13 am (UTC)

"And I pretty much expect at this point to hear, 'But I don't know how much help I'll be, because I had a special circumstance that isn't like anyone else's special circumstance yet still made it particularly natural for me to fall into that pattern'," says Aurora, sighing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:14 am (UTC)

"Well, that's not exactly what I was going to say, but I did start out particularly motivated and with a general understanding of Edori habits. Though I believe many Edori are faithful to single lovers while they have them, it's not the norm, and they don't generally marry."

incanted
2013-04-23 12:15 am (UTC)

"Motivated because of the god thing?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:16 am (UTC)

"Yes - not only did I expect that Micaiah had been chosen for me by someone smarter and better than myself," Angela snorts ruefully, "I also found that he'd be my requisite partner if I ever wanted to be Archangel. I later learned differently, but not before I was thoroughly attached by other means."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-23 12:17 am (UTC)

"I love you," sighs Micaiah, snuggling his angel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:18 am (UTC)

"And I you."

incanted
2013-04-23 12:19 am (UTC)

"You are just preposterously cute. But - like, alts are one thing, putting Jokers in a room together is apparently like putting magnets in close proximity - but other people?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:19 am (UTC)

"There was that time with Phebe... that was a problem," murmurs Angela.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-23 12:22 am (UTC)

He presses his face into her shoulder and sighs unhappily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:26 am (UTC)

"Phebe is another angel at the Eyrie who doesn't like me," Angela explains to Aurora, settling her wing more snugly around Micaiah. "She interpreted Micaiah's - availability - as an opportunity to hurt me. And for political reasons I can't just announce to everyone that it isn't. Angels are often inconstant, but associated mortals, not so much. She believes that I forgave him for a betrayal, and her too, and I managed to present this in a way that so far doesn't have her telling the tale far and wide."

incanted
2013-04-23 12:27 am (UTC)

"My question is more about why it isn't a betrayal. I mean, maybe he never promised not to, that takes care of the technical sense of betrayal, but - you guys are married, you're going to have a baby, and you're not - keeping yourselves to yourselves. I don't completely get it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:28 am (UTC)

"As it happens I do keep myself to ourselves," says Angela lightly. "Several of us do. I don't think Rose has looked outside her marriage for company, and I have no certain information either way about several of our other alts."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-23 12:35 am (UTC)

"Cam fucked all of us a while back," Micaiah offers. "He's fun, I like him."

incanted
2013-04-23 12:36 am (UTC)

"Are there any Bells you don't like?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-23 12:37 am (UTC)

"Nah, don't think so," he says. "But some of them I haven't talked to much, so I don't have an opinion about them one way or another."

incanted
2013-04-23 12:39 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. I guess that's all I'm getting on my quest for information here, huh?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:39 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry I can't be more helpful."

incanted
2013-04-23 12:40 am (UTC)

"It's all right. I'm not sure I ought to even bother with Aegis, I know she and Sue grew up together and that's the mother of all special circumstances, but maybe Stella will have something to say. Or either of the ones with Sherlocks."

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:40 am (UTC)

"Stella and Alice met when she was your age and I don't think they began with any special circumstances at all," agrees Angela.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-23 12:44 am (UTC)

Micaiah hugs his angel and grins.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-23 12:46 am (UTC)

Angela wraps him up in arms and feathers and beams.

incanted
2013-04-23 12:46 am (UTC)

Aurora goes and looks for Stella.

self_composed
2013-04-23 12:47 am (UTC)

Stella hears the standard spiel.

[Hey Alice, Aurora is confused about how Bells manage to go poly and wants examples to go by.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 12:51 am (UTC)

[Mmkay,] says Alice, and appears almost instantly. As is starting to be a pattern, the first thing he does is cuddle his Bell.

self_composed
2013-04-23 12:52 am (UTC)

"But I don't know how much help I'll be," says Stella, snuggling her Alice back.

incanted
2013-04-23 12:53 am (UTC)

"Because you have some kind of special circumstance?"

self_composed
2013-04-23 12:54 am (UTC)

"No, because I was not quite secure enough for my liking and my reaction involved turning Alice into a vampire. I mean, there were other reasons, but that one was in there."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 12:54 am (UTC)

Alice sighs.

incanted
2013-04-23 12:55 am (UTC)

"...Oh."

self_composed
2013-04-23 12:56 am (UTC)

Stella kisses Alice's cheek. "Sorry," she says, and it's not clear which of them she's addressing. "You'd think being able to read his mind would've done it, and it did, mostly, it jollied me along for months, I probably could've done with nothing but if I'd had to."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:07 am (UTC)

"...no, hang on," he says, "didn't you say you didn't make me a vampire so I'd be in magical vampire love with you forever?"

self_composed
2013-04-23 01:08 am (UTC)

"I made you a vampire because I thought you'd like it," Stella repeats. "...It occurred to me in the first place because Golden seemed. Like she felt - safer."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:10 am (UTC)

"Did you not think about maybe telling me that," says Alice.

self_composed
2013-04-23 01:11 am (UTC)

"I probably should've. I probably would've if - no, I just should've, plain and simple," sighs Stella. "It's not like you were doing anything that made me feel unsafe."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:12 am (UTC)

"Would've if...?"

self_composed
2013-04-23 01:12 am (UTC)

"If you hadn't wanted it to be a surprise and there'd been a conversation about it first. We spent the next several days pretty distracted."

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:16 am (UTC)

"And then you just... kept being distracted," sighs Alice. "Until now."

He hugs Stella.

"I love you," he says, less happily than usual.

self_composed
2013-04-23 01:17 am (UTC)

"I love you too, I'm sorry," Stella murmurs.

incanted
2013-04-23 01:17 am (UTC)

Aurora's going to take a couple steps backwards now with a very uncomfortable look on her face.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:20 am (UTC)

"I liked that the hurting part was a surprise," he murmurs, "but maybe - not the rest of it."

self_composed
2013-04-23 01:21 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," repeats Stella quietly.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:25 am (UTC)

He sighs again, and cuddles her a little.

incanted
2013-04-23 01:26 am (UTC)

Aurora thinks she has learned a potentially valuable lesson here. She leaves.

self_composed
2013-04-23 01:43 am (UTC)

Stella's not so readily disentangled from the situation. She pokes at Alice's thoughts, when enough of a silence has elapsed to make her nervous.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:45 am (UTC)

He loves her. He loves her a lot.

But that's kind of the problem, isn't it? He loves her, and he can't ever stop doing that, and that is something she made happen on purpose, and when he asked her if that was why she made him think it wasn't, but then it turned out to be part of it after all.

self_composed
2013-04-23 01:47 am (UTC)

[I'm sorry,] she says again.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:50 am (UTC)

[I know,] he says, hugging her gently. [I just don't know if—I don't know what to do about it, I don't know what you can learn from this, what you can do differently to make me not so sad about it, it's not like this is the kind of thing that happens twice.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 01:54 am (UTC)

[It's - ugh - it's not logically impossible to stop being a vampire. If you want to stop your ingot power will probably help, even though we can't send you through Downside like Nathan.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 01:56 am (UTC)

[...okay,] he says. [I - don't even know if I want to, but I kind of feel better knowing it's an option.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 02:02 am (UTC)

Stella shivers and hugs him.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 02:14 am (UTC)

He cuddles her. [What's up?]

self_composed
2013-04-23 02:16 am (UTC)

[I wanted it for fucked up reasons. That doesn't mean I didn't want it.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 02:22 am (UTC)

[You can have feelings about that,] says Alice, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. [And, you know, all things considered, I'd rather know about them than not.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 02:26 am (UTC)

[I think I freaked out Aurora. I think she's glad she heard that story because it means she's got fair warning against turning into me. I don't like that. I don't like that you might want to stop being a vampire specifically because you don't like the bond effect as opposed to any of the other effects.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 02:31 am (UTC)

[I still love you,] he says. [I still would love you, if I stopped being a vampire. I just - wouldn't - be forced to.]

It is an interesting fact of Aurum vampire physiology that they do not cry.

self_composed
2013-04-23 02:36 am (UTC)

Stella is silent.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 02:37 am (UTC)

He hugs her.

[C'mon, I know you're thinking something in there, it's not like you ever stop,] he says gently.

self_composed
2013-04-23 02:39 am (UTC)

[Today of all days I am doubly glad that you cannot read my mind,] Stella murmurs. [Everything I'm thinking makes me feel like a terrible person and I am glad I can be a terrible person in private so it wouldn't hurt to look at myself more than it does.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 02:40 am (UTC)

[I don't think you're a terrible person,] says Alice. [I love you. And I don't want you to hurt yourself, but - I want to know.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:01 am (UTC)

Stella swallows.

[I love you too,] she says first, because that's easy and definite.

And:

[Everything I can think of to say sounds defensive like I'm trying to have a fight and I don't want to have a fight.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 11:21 am (UTC)

[Okay,] he says. [So now I know you don't want to have a fight.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 03:08 pm (UTC)

[Okay, um. I am pretty good at having many reasons for doing things. And things that aren't exactly reasons but are positive features of the decision, or negative features of the alternatives, that I note. If the only facts of the situation had been that you would like turning into a vampire and I could be sure that you weren't going to wind up mated to anyone who wasn't me, then that would've, honestly, I swear, sufficed to induce me to turn you, if it had occurred to me. But yes, the reason the thought entered my head was because I wanted to be surer than I was that I could trust you, and that wasn't even all for personal relationship reasons even though that was there what with all the conversations we kept having about how you couldn't be sure you weren't going to fall for someone else as hard and suddenly as you did for me. We had only recently met the Joker and I did not get along with him and I didn't have Mary repeatedly explaining to me about how harmless Jokers with coins are or nearly a dozen other examples of the template telling me how harmless Jokers with Bells are. All I had to go on was you and him and the idea of you turning into what I knew of him made me sick and Golden was so completely secure. She knows like she knows arithmetic that she has Edward forever and always so long as they both shall live. His actual personality might not be my cup of tea, but you, you I love, and all I knew was that I had you as long as your brain didn't do anything else sudden and unexpected like it had already been shown to do. When you fell for me. Or anything unpleasant. When the Joker - existed.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 03:11 pm (UTC)

[That is kind of fucked up,] he sighs, hugging her gently.

self_composed
2013-04-23 03:12 pm (UTC)

[Yes. You asked.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 03:15 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, 'cause I wanted to know. And now I do. And it's kind of fucked up,] he says.

self_composed
2013-04-23 03:15 pm (UTC)

[Yep.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 03:17 pm (UTC)

He cuddles her some more.

self_composed
2013-04-23 03:17 pm (UTC)

Stella clings.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 03:21 pm (UTC)

Alice hugs her and pets her hair.

He loves her, too, but he's not sure that helps right now.

self_composed
2013-04-23 03:23 pm (UTC)

It's better than the alternative. She keeps up a shallow read, looking for anything else to grab hold of.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 03:40 pm (UTC)

He doesn't like feeling like Stella wants fucked up things, but the fact remains, those were some pretty fucked up reasons for wanting to turn him. And he's glad he knows what they are, now, and glad she's not trying to tell him they're not fucked up, but it still doesn't feel resolved. He doesn't really know what he wants. Maybe he wants Stella not to want fucked up things, but she's still Stella and he still loves her, fucked up things and all. He doesn't want to change who she is to make himself feel better; that seems like a bad, and also terribly ironic, solution.

self_composed
2013-04-23 03:44 pm (UTC)

[I would offer to turn into a vampire too but I don't think you want me to become more monogamously inclined than I currently am.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 03:47 pm (UTC)

[I really don't!] he says. [That would be worse.] He sighs again; hugs her some more. [I think I'm gonna stop being a vampire. It doesn't feel right anymore.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 03:49 pm (UTC)

Stella swallows.

[Okay.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 03:50 pm (UTC)

[Are you having feelings again?] he asks, snuggling her.

self_composed
2013-04-23 03:52 pm (UTC)

[Constantly.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 03:53 pm (UTC)

[I love you. I want to know about your feelings. Even if they're sad feelings that are going to make me sad.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:00 pm (UTC)

[Mostly variations on the theme that you've already heard. I am not as sure as you are that you will still love me. If I were we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:02 pm (UTC)

[Then I'd better stop being a vampire,] says Alice, ['cause then you'll know.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:03 pm (UTC)

[If you're right. If it stays.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:04 pm (UTC)

[If what stays? Me loving you? I'm a Joker,] he says. [We love. I loved you before; I'll love you after.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:06 pm (UTC)

Stella swallows.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:08 pm (UTC)

[I will,] he says, [I know I will, why are you the only one who gets to know things about yourself?]

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:10 pm (UTC)

[Years of practice, template specialty. If you're going to do it do it and I can stop holding my breath.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:12 pm (UTC)

[I don't know how - I'll go figure it out,] he says, and he teleports somewhere. The Joker's asteroid is the first place that comes to mind.

Awww, the Joker must've been here already in this universe. That's cute.

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:13 pm (UTC)

Stella finds an unoccupied corner of party, and turns invisible just for completeness, and holds very still, and reads.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:30 pm (UTC)

It's going to need an evil to dig vampireness out of his torching template. He doesn't have any on hand, and it would feel vaguely weird to ask Stella to give him one, since she's so unsure about this in the first place. So he sets himself on fire.

It takes him a few tries, about thirty stars' worth, but he manages an evil in the end. He uses an existing star to declaw the new ones - ever since the Jokers were let in on the secret, some of them have taken to carrying all their coins declawed, even the hexes - and then uses one of those to declaw the evil.

Then he designs the wish.

He wants to stop being a vampire. He can get rid of his also-permanent air filter while he's at it. He should also be immune to vampire venom, because it seems not-impossible that he might want to get bit at some point; he'll take the Joker's version of immunity, which is linked to his regeneration and therefore hurts a lot, that's always fun.

He can go either way on the brainspace available to vampires, but the depth of emotional processing - he's keeping that, in some other form that won't lead to him still having a mate bond by accident. He bets his power will help sort that one out. He wonders what Lazarus would say about its attitude to his mate bond now. They are probably not snuggling so happily anymore.

Is that it? He thinks that's it.

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:31 pm (UTC)

Stella can't think of anything else.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:34 pm (UTC)

Okay.

Alice wishes.

Then he sets himself on fire again.

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:37 pm (UTC)

He may or may not notice the read flickering away for a split second.

After that she recovers her resolve and forces herself to watch.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:46 pm (UTC)

He burns; he torches.

He comes back human-shaped and human-brained, although a somewhat bigger human brain than most, and bigger in unusual directions. It's a good shape for his mind to be. He likes it.

And he still loves her, just like he knew he would, but now loving her doesn't hurt anymore. It doesn't feel like something that was forced on him. It's all his, all him, all real.

He loves her a lot.

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:48 pm (UTC)

[I love you.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:51 pm (UTC)

[I love you too,] he says happily. [Oh, I know what I forgot - sensory stuff, wow, being a human is so muffled. Wanna come make me another evil? Better start out at pentagon, though, my pain processing's gotta be back to human levels too.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:52 pm (UTC)

Stella obligingly appears, de-invisibled, and takes one of his hands in hers, and starts in medium pentagon range. Flavor of the day: mock vampire venom. She thinks he might appreciate the irony.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:53 pm (UTC)

[I love yoooou,] says Alice, hugging her. And hey, now he can hug her and she won't squish!

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:55 pm (UTC)

They already had that patched. But yes, he can hug her.

She slides up the positive integers, head pillowed on his chest.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 04:57 pm (UTC)

He gives her the squishiest hug his human body is capable of delivering and loves her a lot.

self_composed
2013-04-23 04:58 pm (UTC)

Up-and-up-and-up. He smells a little different now; she hadn't particularly noticed the change the other way, it was so gradual, but there it is. It's not disagreeable or anything. She doesn't mention it.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 05:01 pm (UTC)

Through pentagons to hexes, through hexes to stars. He keeps right on snuggling her. It feels different, moving around in this body. He likes it a lot.

self_composed
2013-04-23 05:01 pm (UTC)

Snuggles and agony beam and her own simmering-down anxiety. Stella closes her eyes.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 05:03 pm (UTC)

He loves her, he loves her, he loves her he loves her he loves her. There's not much room in his head right now for anything else.

self_composed
2013-04-23 05:26 pm (UTC)

She carries on right up into evil range.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 05:27 pm (UTC)

Alice produces evils. Evils and love.

self_composed
2013-04-23 05:29 pm (UTC)

She stops there unless it is suggested that she should do otherwise, in either direction.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 05:31 pm (UTC)

After three, he says lazily, [Okay, I'm done, back it off.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 05:32 pm (UTC)

Half-half-half-half-until she's in pentagons again and shuts the beam down.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 05:33 pm (UTC)

Alice wraps his arms around her and kisses her on the cheek. Snuggly snuggly snuggly.

self_composed
2013-04-23 05:34 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 05:45 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

[I love you,] he says, and designs himself vampire-level supersenses to work with his human body, and uses one of his new declawed evils to both implement them and add them into his torching template.

Mmmmmmm, snuggles. Also, kisses. They should definitely be kissing right now.

self_composed
2013-04-23 05:46 pm (UTC)

Kisses. Kisses are good. Stella approves.

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 05:49 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Lovely kisses. Many lovely kisses.

[Do you still not want to fuck on the Joker's asteroid even when it's not technically the same one?] he asks. ['Cause if so, maybe we should go somewhere else.]

self_composed
2013-04-23 05:50 pm (UTC)

[I am too relieved right now to care.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-04-23 05:51 pm (UTC)

[Awesome,] says Alice, and kisses her again.

self_composed
2013-04-23 05:52 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses!

This is continuation number 3 from here.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 01:39 am (UTC)

Pattern is milling around over here with a cup of that tea the elf made. She likes it.

toblameforit
2013-04-23 01:41 am (UTC)

A Tony appears! His nametag says she can call him Fusion.

"Hi," he says. "So, you're the single one, right?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 01:42 am (UTC)

"Well, for four years I was in this extremely committed relationship with being dead, but I dumped it," says Pattern. "Why d'you ask?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 01:43 am (UTC)

...Tony cracks up.

"Mostly because there are now twelve of you and I'm not totally sure about all the distinguishing features?" he says, still giggling.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 01:47 am (UTC)

"Well! Yeah, I guess that is, sort of, my distinguishing feature, is that I am the single one, although I kind of wish it were something flashier," says Pattern. "I'm basically a standard Bell stripped down of everything warranting particular categorization. I don't even have a mental opacity because that'd commit me to a magic system. Let alone a boyfriend to let me pick a team if we ever play pickup softball, although I guess it'd just wind up being Joker-Havers versus Non-Joker-Havers."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 01:49 am (UTC)

"At least you guys have distinguishing features," says Tony. "One of my alts had to name himself after the paint job on his favourite car. I mean, because it was his coin colour, but also: his coin colour is the paint job on his favourite car."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 01:52 am (UTC)

Pattern bites her lip and produces a triangle. "Notebook paper," she says dryly.

toblameforit
2013-04-23 01:59 am (UTC)

"I feel ya," laughs Tony. "Mine looks the inside of an arc reactor. My dad built one, and so did the dad of every other Tony who was born on the right kind of Earth."
Edited 2013-04-23 02:13 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-23 02:16 am (UTC)

"Oh yeah, I remember hearing something about that being how you guys settled on nicknames. At least you have different coin colors from each other? Nobody seems to outright match, although the Bells with opacities all get solid glowy colors and the ones who don't all get more complicated designs."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 02:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah, if we all had arc reactors or something I would feel tragically generic."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 02:28 am (UTC)

"Maybe you should see about getting an enchanter's aura," suggests Pattern. "Mine's not that great - it basically lets me switch between ninja and movie star, which, I really could have covered that with wishes if I needed to, but at least no other Bells have the exact same thing."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 02:30 am (UTC)

Tony laughs. "Knowing me, I'd end up with one that plays AC/DC all the time. ...Which would be kind of awesome, maybe you're right."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 02:31 am (UTC)

"The Jokers get soundtracks, Angela gets accompaniment when she sings, I bet you'd wind up with something else," laughs Pattern. "The auras don't seem to lend themselves to repetition except for the soundtrack thing, the Jokers all have different other effects."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 02:33 am (UTC)

"That is kinda what I was getting at," he says, "with being all generic and stuff."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 02:38 am (UTC)

"Which Sherlock is yours?" Pattern asks. "I don't think I ever got, like, a chart, and the nametags don't say worlds, maybe they ought to."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 02:39 am (UTC)

"Mine's Plus," he says. "The vampire with a soul who's not dating Juliet, since 'vampire with a soul' isn't unique anymore."
Edited 2013-04-23 02:39 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-23 04:04 am (UTC)

"I think all the other Bells expect me to feel at loose ends without a boyfriend and start loitering around the Sherlocks," muses Pattern. "Or possibly you Tonies, since Shell Bell has a thing with her Tony too."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 11:14 am (UTC)

"But you don't?" says Tony.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 02:53 pm (UTC)

"Feel at loose ends? Not especially. I think they're ignoring the fact that all their boyfriends got pretty much dropped in their laps. I don't think any of them were actively looking at the time, unless you count Angela's general openness to divine command."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 02:55 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs and grins. "Maybe that can be your distinguishing characteristic someday," he suggests brightly. "'Bell Who Actually Went Out And Got Herself A Boyfriend On Purpose'."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 03:10 pm (UTC)

Pattern laughs. "Maybe. I don't know where to look, though, since so far it doesn't seem I'm inclined to loiter around the Sherlocks. They don't seem to be loitering around me either. Although, here you are."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 03:13 pm (UTC)

"Here I am!" he agrees. "Kind of flirting with you!"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 03:14 pm (UTC)

Pattern laughs. "How come?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Uh..."

He shrugs.

"Felt like it?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 03:17 pm (UTC)

Pattern laughs again. "I guess that's a good reason."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 03:22 pm (UTC)

Tony beams.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 04:49 pm (UTC)

"So you're an engineer, right? What are you working on?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Some classified stuff... a laser pointer Sherry can keep around without setting himself on fire by accident... restoring an old car... I dunno, stuff," he says. "Iron Man built himself a particle accelerator, I'm kind of tempted to try that."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, classified stuff. What are particle accelerators for?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 05:51 pm (UTC)

"They are for accelerating particles!" laughs Tony. "Um - physics stuff. He used it to synthesize an element that makes a really efficient catalyst for cold fusion."
Edited 2013-04-23 17:51 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-23 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Nifty. Does it scale? That's the advantage science has over magic, pretty much, is that it scales better."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Tech...nically yes," says Tony, "but you'd have to ask him about the details, I still haven't actually seen this stuff."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Gonna collaborate or figure it out for yourself as a puzzle?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Figure it out, of course."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 05:58 pm (UTC)

"No of course about it, depends on whether you're interested in the solution or the process and whether you're in a hurry."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 05:59 pm (UTC)

"It's an of course for me."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Pattern, "I guess that tells me whether you're usually in a hurry and whether you usually care about process or results more, then, doesn't it."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm not never in a hurry, but if I was in a hurry to have Iron Man's arc reactor I'd have one already," he explains.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Ah. I should have been more specific. Whether you ever attend parties while in a hurry."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:04 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:05 pm (UTC)

"What all do you do besides engineering, or is that your all consuming passion?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Um... engineering and Sherry," he says, "pretty much. And cars. But cars are related to engineering."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I suppose they are. I sort of have a car. Charlie never got rid of the station wagon I had, when I died, so it's still around."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Guess you don't have much use for one, with all the magic, huh?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Right, I mostly teleport places now, if I feel like indulging in sheer travel-related delight I fly."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Driving's fun," says Tony, "but I think that's a me thing, not a general people thing."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I think flying's pretty universally compelling, except for people scared of heights," says Pattern, hopping a few inches into the air.

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Flying sounds awesome!" says Tony. "But I wanna do it myself, you know?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:20 pm (UTC)

"And having a stable magic superpower for it doesn't count?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:23 pm (UTC)

"It'd still be somebody else giving it to me. I want to invent it myself - well, build it at least, Iron Man did the inventing already."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:24 pm (UTC)

"But if you had a magic system where you could do your own detail work that'd do it?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, what do you mean by detail work? We have a magic system, it's kind of shit," he says.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, I just have the standards. Enchantress, mint, stack of utterly Bell-typical wished powers, I was going to copy Sarion's elfmagery but the unicorn over there said that would be a bad idea. But if there was some magic system as fiddly as the laws of physics and not actively awful like the Sunshine worldfamily magic is would you like that?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Maybe, I dunno, I guess I still wouldn't feel like it was mine," he says. "...Which the laws of physics totally are, of course."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Are they really."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Extravagant Christmas present? A kickass find on your most recent archaeological dig? Inheritance? Built them yourself out of spare parts?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:39 pm (UTC)

He giggles helplessly.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Ah, I see, you annexed the laws of physics, stuck a flag in them, and gave the natives smallpox."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:42 pm (UTC)

"That is terrible," snorts Tony, "that is a terrible joke, also isn't that what you guys do to your entire universes?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Stella's the only with an actual flag design, and Mars had no natives," says Pattern, waving a hand. "Golden and Shell Bell are revolutionaries against unjust governments, Angela plans to take office in a manner perfectly typical for her planet, I think Aegis actually plans to try getting elected, Rose is licitly a marquise by marriage and if she's annoyed her monarch yet I haven't heard about it, Amariah's doing diplomacy to witch clans, Cam and Aurora and Sarion haven't taken anything over yet, I guess Juliet is being sort of annexy but I'm taking a leaf out of Stella's book except for Mars read Saturn."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Okay, sure," he says. "Like, I don't think it's bad necessarily, I just definitely get the impression that you guys are kind of proprietary about your worlds."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 06:55 pm (UTC)

"We talk about jurisdiction and not stepping on each other's toes and so on, and we do feel entitled to name them, but that's pretty much just to cooperate more effectively. If Sarion never recovers enough to take care of her world, she'll let us help. If Golden's husband kicks it and she has to abdicate in her daughter's favor, we'll help Elspeth. We don't have it worked out yet what we're going to do about worlds that haven't got Bells in when ours are running smoothly. Especially since it's not impossible that the other worlds will have Bells crop up in them later. I have no clue what we'd do if we found a very small Bell, come to think of it, it's not impossible, Shell Bell found Milliways when she was six."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 06:59 pm (UTC)

"...Or, like, a world that's doing fine without you guys," Tony suggests, "I'm pretty sure that's theoretically possible."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure, one of those we'd want to, like, talk to it, set up trade and a Janepoint and so on, but we wouldn't have to run it if it was really fine and populated by happy peaceful immortals."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Do you know what you'd do if somebody popped up in one of your worlds who was better at running it than you are?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Would probably depend on the world and the other person. If somebody popped up in my Origin who was honestly a better person for the job, I'd probably move, there's like seventy worlds hooked into Downside with no Bells, I checked them, I could go set up there. If somebody showed up who could do all our jobs put together better than us, we'd, I don't know, read a lot, get kind of antsy, I'd probably start looking for a boyfriend on purpose around then."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 07:08 pm (UTC)

"A boyfriend to, what, distract you from the excruciating boredom of not running a universe?" he teases.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Yes!"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 07:14 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I mean, perhaps I could've settled into something less grandiose if I'd never met the peal, if I were just stuck in a nonmagic world and didn't know there was anything else, maybe I'd go to med school or do engineering like you, I don't know, but now it'd be such a step down."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 07:31 pm (UTC)

"That's cute," says Tony. "And possibly unhealthy. But cute."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Which part of what scenario here would be unhealthy?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Uh... it would kind of suck if you couldn't deal with not being world dictator or whatever?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 07:37 pm (UTC)

"We need things to do. We can entertain ourselves, to a point, but I want to accomplish stuff, not just mess around."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 07:39 pm (UTC)

"...Isn't that going to really suck in like a thousand years when you don't have any problems left to solve, though?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 07:40 pm (UTC)

"So far we're finding stuff faster than we're accomplishing it!"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 07:44 pm (UTC)

"...That's terrible, though!" says Tony. "Either you spend the rest of forever knowing you have so much work to do you will literally never get it all done, or you finish it all and then get bored? Oh my god that's so depressing!"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 07:48 pm (UTC)

Pattern laughs. "The work is good, though, the work is fun, never getting it done is only a problem insofar as a lot of the work involves helping people who ideally wouldn't have to wait on us but as long as we're the only game in town we can live with it if they keep coming. And, you know, in the course of all this finding-stuff we are also acquiring more things to do with downtime, I might get antsy but I wouldn't technically be bored with a few million universe's supplies of books and movies and games and people and tourist destinations, you know? They make those faster than we can use 'em up, even boosted for speed. Besides, does your endgame look any less depressing than that, do you think there's literally infinite things to invent?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 07:58 pm (UTC)

"...You know, I haven't thought about it before," he says, "but I actually think I do. I mean, technology isn't just about planting a flag in the laws of physics - it's not about what you can do, it's about what you want to do and what you need to do, and people's wants and needs don't stay static forever. I don't think there's some kind of ceiling on what we can do with technology, and even if there is, if I ever reach the point where I literally can't think of anything else I want to invent because all of the cool shit exists already, I will be totally willing to retire and play with my toys for the rest of ever."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:00 pm (UTC)

"The fact that people's wants and needs don't stay static applies to us, too," Pattern points out. "People are going to go on having cultural shifts - maybe not as fast once we've got Downside emitting dead people as smoothly as we're hoping and cultural shifts can no longer happen in the form of old people dying, but we'll still have stuff to react to."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:02 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know, if I were you, I'd be working towards a society that could handle itself without me," he says. "Like, and then I wouldn't abandon it or anything, but the optimal system is the one that's self-maintaining, you know?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I agree," says Pattern. "But that doesn't mean we'll have nothing to do, it just means we'll wind up doing something that's - scaled a little differently. We like inventing things too; we're more magic geeks than engineering ones but I'd consider it a satisfying day's work if I determined that my society could really use, like, a system that sprockles the widgets, and then I concocted one. Especially if for legacy reasons I get to wear a crown while I'm doing it." (Pattern doesn't in fact wear a crown yet; no one has moved to her Saturn so far and she considers it premature.) "Our gig isn't ruling - that's mostly cosmetic and practical. And also vanity. Our gig is finding things that don't work well enough and making them work better."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but I dunno, I feel like if that was my goal I would be actively looking forward to eventually having everything work perfectly," he says. "...Man, I'm such an engineer."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Of course everything working perfectly's the goal," says Pattern. "But exactly what constitutes perfection might change over time."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, then you just need meta-perfection," he suggests.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:14 pm (UTC)

"That could keep me busy for a long time, figuring that one out."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Probably, yeah!"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:16 pm (UTC)

"And I have a long, long time to think about what to do with eternity, anyway."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Also true," says Tony.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:19 pm (UTC)

"And we both have a long time to pick up distinguishing features!"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:19 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:20 pm (UTC)

"My world isn't exactly standard Earth, so there's that, I have a Gotham and most places don't. It's just nonstandard in a way unrelated to my pre-pealing backstory."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:22 pm (UTC)

"A Gotham?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:25 pm (UTC)

"It's this city. It's not very pleasant or safe, several Jokers come from there. I think the nearest equivalent elsewhere is New York City, except we also have New York City, it's just not very big or important."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Oh, huh," says Tony. "Okay. That's weird, to have one city different between the worlds like that."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I think it's just the one. I mean, there's suburbs, too, but I haven't run into anyone talking about other major geographical or political differences that aren't chalked up to Bell activity."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:31 pm (UTC)

"That is really weird, which worlds have it and which ones don't?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Origin does, Ghosty's original world does, Queenie's original world does. I didn't check all the miscellaneous unbelled Downside-attached worlds for it - Jane?"

mind_game
2013-04-23 08:33 pm (UTC)

[Two of the miscellaneous unbelled Downside-attached worlds have Gothams, the rest don't.]

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Weird," says Tony.

mind_game
2013-04-23 08:42 pm (UTC)

[If Jokers are going to appear in them it won't be soon. One is currently experiencing 1877 and the other one 1908.]

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:43 pm (UTC)

"I guess we have time to figure out what in the world we'll do if we become aware of a baby Joker. I should ask one of the grown ones about that," laughs Pattern.

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I, uh, haven't had a lot of social contact with the Jokers," says Tony, "except at that one party. Would a baby one be some kind of problem?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:45 pm (UTC)

"They have terrible dads," says Pattern seriously.

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:47 pm (UTC)

"...Like, 'my misery will make a funny story in ten years' terrible or 'take the kid away right now' terrible?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Um, considering how Jokers are, those are not wholly incompatible, but I would pretty much not feel right about not kidnapping any baby Joker of whom I became aware."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," says Tony. "Okay."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:55 pm (UTC)

"...Now I'm wondering what to do if Jane notifies us of some world's Renée and Charlie getting married. Like, the standard Earth version get divorced. We don't have unhappy childhoods really, but it seems like it would be nice of us to warn that Renée and Charlie."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 08:56 pm (UTC)

"...If you did warn them, though, would that mean a you not existing who could've?"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Presumably, yeah, but, like, all kinds of people could exist who are not existing for good reasons, most saliently it not being a good idea for their theoretical parents to have a kid, and whether 'you are overwhelmingly likely to get divorced' is a good enough reason or not shouldn't necessarily change based on whether they'll get a Bell if they have a kid before doing that. Besides," Pattern shrugs, "Aurora has a twin sister, so maybe they sometimes get a Lexi instead."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Tony, "if I heard there was a twelve-year-old me about to clone himself, I would, like... probably give him a hug, but I wouldn't stop him. I don't think Sherry'd want me to."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but, like - Angela's pregnant. They're probably going to have a bunch of kids because of angel cultural stuff, let's say it's six. And based on what we know about how templates work, that's a very good piece of information for all the other Bell-Joker pairs about how they'd have kids if that happened. I bet Jane doesn't count, although if Angela manages to have a little winged biological Jane I will be super impressed with template attractors, like, as a force in the multiverse. So say Rose meets all of Angela's kids and she doesn't get along so great with kid number three. And say that Rose would've had three kids, but decides to stop at two because she doesn't like Angela's third kid. I think that would be a good thing for Rose to do, to stop at two, even though somebody who presumably likes existing doesn't get to exist a second time. I think it would be good for us to warn a standard Renée and Charlie. But they could decide from there."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I guess," says Tony. "Man, this shit is complicated."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:09 pm (UTC)

"And you were worried about me getting bored," scoffs Pattern.

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Bored or depressed!" says Tony. "Don't forget depressed."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:11 pm (UTC)

"All right, I guess we haven't precluded 'depressed'," laughs Pattern. "But I feel pretty okay so far. Kind of annoyed about the distinguishing features thing but something will crop up eventually."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I bet it will!" says Tony.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:20 pm (UTC)

"I really wonder how templates work. It's so peculiar. We all seem to have different sorts of attractors. Like, Atlantis Sherlock and Tony are actually twins, but the Sherlock name appears even without the usual explanation. Our names don't seem to work the same way. My parents even told me once that if I'd been a boy they'd have named me Alexander - I guess that's where Lexi's name came from, but for some reason Cam is named Campbell and not Alexander. And then Rose has a last name that means 'swan' in her pseudo-French but the first name seems to center around the sound."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:23 pm (UTC)

"And if you look at the Tony-and-Sherlock pairs," says Tony, "it kind of seems like Sherry's the one who matters and we're just along for the ride, and then you have the one Tony who's never had a Sherlock and the one Sherlock who's never had a Tony and Iron Man is basically a Tony but Strat actually was Sherlock Holmes, like, in the 1800s."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I have no idea what's up with that, the way Sherlocks vary so much more," says Pattern, shaking her head. "It's like, you've got the Tony template, being its own thing, and that can work on its own, observe Iron Man. And if you reach into templatespace in a particular way by cloning yourselves, or if you're a twin, then you get a version of Strat, who also works on his own, and the templates sort of know who to be well enough to spot and deliberately emulate fiction about him, which, don't ask me, did Pearl even have access to the books?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Nope!"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:32 pm (UTC)

"So the name can, causally, come from the books, but doesn't have to, it will fly out of nowhere and attach to the template however it can. The template features can, causally, come from deliberate emulation, but they don't have to."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Yep, sounds about right," says Tony. "...I wonder what happens if a Bell clones herself."
Edited 2013-04-23 21:36 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Probably not a Lexi. Although maybe a Lexi, if genes don't matter that much, she'd just look different, it's not like you could mistake me for Cam. Even Rose looks different from the rest of us without any obvious reason to, she's super pretty. I should wish up a genome sequencing lab and attach Jane to its outputs and have her tell us how we all match up."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:39 pm (UTC)

Tony laughs. "Well, don't try it," he says. "The cloning thing, I mean. Totally try the gene sequencing."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Yet you wouldn't stop a twelve-year-old you who was going to try the cloning thing," observes Pattern.

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, because I know Sherry, and I know the clone would be a Sherry. We don't know who a cloned you would be. And even though it turns out well when it's Sherry, 'for science' is a bad reason to have kids."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Golden didn't exactly have Elspeth for politics, but she had her when she had her because she needed an explanation for removing one of the Volturi's human servants," Pattern volunteers.

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:46 pm (UTC)

"...That seems kind of sketchy, but I wasn't there, so maybe it was the best idea going," shrugs Tony.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Well, the alternatives were leaving Elspeth's surrogate mother to die, or delivering some sort of speech to the people-eating paranoid trigger happy vampire rulers of the world about the value of human life."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Yep. So, best idea going."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I mean, people have kids because of accident all the time, I'm not sure scientific motivations are worse than 'whoops' and 'whoops' kids routinely turn out fine. I have no imminent plans to clone myself, though."
Edited 2013-04-23 21:53 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-04-23 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, like, the danger with cloning yourself for science is that if you're doing it for science and not for the kid then you might end up caring about the science more than the kid, or not knowing what to do with them once you've got 'em, and I mean I fully acknowledge that I'm projecting here but it just - it could have been so not worth it."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going to produce any kids I don't plan to rear in an appropriate and caring manner, regardless of ulterior motive."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Well, then maybe you're safe," he says. "But I still don't think you should clone yourself. ...Although come to think of it, that would make a pretty good distinguishing feature."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 10:03 pm (UTC)

"It would! But I'm still not going to do it, at least not in the near future. Golden kind of had to have her kid when she was seventeen, that doesn't mean I should even if that were the only reason to avoid it. Even if I was chronologically born twenty-one years ago."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Being dead makes everything weird," says Tony.

bellfounding
2013-04-23 10:05 pm (UTC)

"So weird! My parents took my return with surprising aplomb, really."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad!"

bellfounding
2013-04-23 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Your parents are dead, right? Did you want them fetched? I haven't heard about you asking but if you asked somebell else or went through Jane directly I might not have been told."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 10:13 pm (UTC)

He sighs. "...I don't know, whatever, it's complicated."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 10:13 pm (UTC)

"...Don't wanna talk about it?"

toblameforit
2013-04-23 10:15 pm (UTC)

"They kind of ignored me for most of my life, so you know, while I'm glad they're not going to stay dead forever, I don't really need them to be dragged out of the afterlife ASAP."

bellfounding
2013-04-23 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Beat. "Rose is going to fetch her Renée soon. She died when Rose was a kid for some reason. None of the rest of us have dead parents."

toblameforit
2013-04-23 10:19 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs.

This is continuation number 4 from here.

incanted
2013-04-23 01:40 am (UTC)

Aurora's headed for Juliet, now, who already has her boyfriend on hand.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 01:40 am (UTC)

"Hey Aurora, what's up?"

incanted
2013-04-23 01:41 am (UTC)

"Uh, I set out to learn how Bells handle nonmonogamy and I'm less than evenly thrilled with the curriculum, but I guess that only makes it more essential to pick up, huh."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 01:42 am (UTC)

"And what have you learned so far?" inquires Sherlock.

incanted
2013-04-23 01:44 am (UTC)

"Mindreading is recommended, but apparently doesn't necessarily finish the job, depending on individual template instance," sighs Aurora, "and most of us have extremely convenient special circumstances."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 01:47 am (UTC)

"And now you are here to assess the Bellish reaction to sluts of a different feather?"

incanted
2013-04-23 01:49 am (UTC)

"If that's how you want to put it, yeah, I mean, Brilliance obviously comes with that installed out of the package, it's the Bells more than the significant others I'm trying to figure out here."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 01:50 am (UTC)

"You could have Amariah test-drive him for you," says Juliet.

incanted
2013-04-23 01:50 am (UTC)

"That's - no, I don't think that's necessary, although it's been made very clear I had better not form an opinion about it if they decide to do it anyway."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 01:51 am (UTC)

"Well, no - I think Amariah would discreetly steer clear if you wanted her to - and even in general you can have opinions, you just can't expect them to do anything or land frictionlessly."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 01:55 am (UTC)

"I tend to welcome opinions, even," says Sherlock. "Although mine is of course not the most immediately relevant preference."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 02:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, like - the paragraph uttered when we had our non-monogamy conversation started with the words 'unless you object', and to me that made a big, big difference," says Juliet. "I don't think that's what you're looking at with a Joker. I think the closest you're going to get is 'unless you want me to ineffectually pit myself against a fundamental part of my identity till I wind up breaking your heart anyway', which, you know, not a grand start to a relationship. Also our non-monogamy conversation happened while Sunshine's Tony was being dead and we were having a visit from another one, and I would have felt like a tremendous heel interposing myself there."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 02:19 am (UTC)

"So I recall," says Sherlock. "And I do think I would've had some trouble if you'd objected to Tony, but you did not, and here we are."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 02:21 am (UTC)

"I also had Shell Bell reassuring me about the ability of Sherlocks to effectively divide your time between Bells and Tonies," says Juliet. "I was willing to trust her on that one."

incanted
2013-04-23 02:22 am (UTC)

"Her I haven't talked to yet."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 02:23 am (UTC)

"She got," says Juliet, "a surprise that narrowly escaped qualifying as being cheated only by the barest of technicalities. And she fetched up okay."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 02:24 am (UTC)

Sherlock snorts.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 02:29 am (UTC)

"They're seriously adorable," adds Juliet.

incanted
2013-04-23 02:30 am (UTC)

"I've heard. So basically your mechanism for dealing relies on things that don't apply to me, again. Grand."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 02:43 am (UTC)

"Common theme, is it?"

incanted
2013-04-23 04:22 am (UTC)

"Utterly. I'm not even trying Aegis because she met hers when they were six. Amariah has unique parental example. Angela was particularly motivated. Cam was, until he started reading Jellybean's mind ten minutes ago, 'not as serious as the others', which whatever it means going forward means that he has as part of his basic equipments a capacity for less than serious relationships. Rose and Beast spent months with no company besides each other. Stella was apparently closest to feeling like I feel and she wound up doing something creepy that I would not and possibly cannot duplicate. I'm not even touching the question of Sarion because her circumstances are so blisteringly special that she was ninety percent braindead when the peal found her and we still don't know what's going to happen in the longer term."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 04:31 am (UTC)

"Ugh, I know, poor Sarion, she's not even together with hers anyway and even if she gets good results later no one will blame you for not wanting to condition your brain into blankness like that."

incanted
2013-04-23 04:32 am (UTC)

"Was not even considering it, the idea makes me want to puke, I'm frankly impressed that she could do it even to save the world."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 04:33 am (UTC)

"Well, the unicorn your sister's riding around on apparently can communicate with something called the Wild Magic about upcoming apocalypses, so she did have the world-ending thing on good authority, I guess."

incanted
2013-04-23 04:34 am (UTC)

"Even still. You guys don't do mindreading, right?"

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 04:34 am (UTC)

"...No. It's under discussion."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 11:20 am (UTC)

"The possibility exists, we just haven't gotten around to trying it."

incanted
2013-04-23 02:54 pm (UTC)

"When Cam started reading Jellybean he apparently was consumed with the desire to seize him and haul him off to privacy right then," says Aurora.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 02:55 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 03:10 pm (UTC)

Juliet giggles and shifts her weight. "That's cute."

incanted
2013-04-23 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Oh, adorable."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," Sherlock repeats, grinning.

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 03:21 pm (UTC)

"What?" laughs Juliet. "It's not like it's hard to haul me off to privacy as it stands."

incanted
2013-04-23 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Should I go preemptively find Shell Bell?" inquires Aurora.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-23 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh, if you like."

cross_and_bow
2013-04-23 03:24 pm (UTC)

Juliet giggles again.

incanted
2013-04-23 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Right then, off I go."

This is continuation number 5 from here.

incanted
2013-04-23 03:25 pm (UTC)

Aurora is now in search of Shell Bell!

sicaria
2013-04-23 03:42 pm (UTC)

Surprising exactly no one, Shell Bell is with her Sherlock!

incanted
2013-04-23 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Hey guys," says Aurora. "I am on an increasingly futile-seeming quest to figure out how Bells learn to handle open relationships."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 03:45 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how much help I'll be," says Shell Bell.

incanted
2013-04-23 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Of course you don't. Nobody does. Humor me?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's just that I agreed to it on the strength of hearsay about Stella having done it, and then just - failed to have an actual issue about nonmonogamy per se after that."

sicaria
2013-04-23 03:49 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles brightly.

incanted
2013-04-23 03:50 pm (UTC)

"...But Stella wound up turning Alice into a vampire for reasons that appear to be at least partly motivated by insecurity."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 03:51 pm (UTC)

"...I did not know that. Um, but I still wound up doing all right, even if my original reason for suspecting I'd do all right turned out not to be so sound?"

sicaria
2013-04-23 03:52 pm (UTC)

"I did not know that either," says Sherlock. "And yet here we are, seemingly untroubled."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't especially want to turn you into a vampire, that would be really awkward whichever way the bond wound up shaking out."

incanted
2013-04-23 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but, how did you do it, you didn't just go 'Stella did so I can too' and then leave the contents of 'can' completely blank, did you?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I guess the timing on my special circumstances might have contributed?" says Shell Bell. "I was already trying to get into a headspace where I could be with Sherlock, and then that turned out to be part of the deal unless I wanted to make a fuss, and I still wanted her and didn't find myself motivated to fuss, so -" She shrugs. "I didn't find out about Tony until later. The actual nonmonogamy conversation made it sound like it was much more up to me than it probably would have been if I'd registered an objection to him in particular and Sherlock didn't have him on her mind right then."

sicaria
2013-04-23 03:59 pm (UTC)

"I would not have been able to give up Tony," says Sherlock. "Though I suppose I would also have been mildly reluctant to give up other Sherlocks."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 04:02 pm (UTC)

"And if you'd had to pick you would have been upset, and I didn't want you to be upset," says Shell Bell contently.

incanted
2013-04-23 04:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure you hear this about thirty times every time you show up to one of these parties," says Aurora, "but you guys are really freaking cute."

sicaria
2013-04-23 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I have yet to tire of being reminded," says Sherlock, pecking her Bell on the cheek.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 04:04 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell beams and kisses her Sherlock back.

incanted
2013-04-23 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'm planning to skip Aegis, since she grew up with Sue and if that doesn't scream special circumstances I don't know what does."

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 04:05 pm (UTC)

"They were just friends for almost a decade," offers Shell Bell, "you could try her anyway just for completeness."

sicaria
2013-04-23 04:09 pm (UTC)

"It is always possible you might learn something," says Sherlock, hugging her Bell. Because she feels like it.

incanted
2013-04-23 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Aww." Aurora nods. "Okay. Thank you," she adds.

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-23 04:11 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell nuzzles her Sherlock. "You're welcome!"

incanted
2013-04-23 04:12 pm (UTC)

And now Aurora's looking for Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-04-23 04:12 pm (UTC)

Aegis listens to the spiel, agrees that she's probably not much help, but regardless birds at her Sue, Hey, want to meet Aurora?

pythbox
2013-04-23 04:13 pm (UTC)

Sure!

And lo, there is her Sue.

autokinetic
2013-04-23 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Hey my bird. Aurora's confused about how Bells do poly and we don't think I'll help much but she's asking us anyway just for completeness."

incanted
2013-04-23 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Bird?" asks Aurora.

autokinetic
2013-04-23 04:19 pm (UTC)

"When we were kids we played this game and his avatar was a bird," says Aegis. "We spent more time together in it than out of it and when I needed to work at it to let him link me I had to concentrate on him being the bird."

pythbox
2013-04-23 04:32 pm (UTC)

Sue helpfully squares up an illusion of his bird-avatar, with its candleflame wings and many-hued body.

incanted
2013-04-23 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Pretty."

autokinetic
2013-04-23 04:36 pm (UTC)

"So anyway, we were kids, and then I figured he was gay, and then I found out he wasn't, and you'd have to swallow a lot of vacuum not to think he's cute," says Aegis, wrapping her arms around his arm. "And I knew perfectly well by then that sleeping around is just a Sue thing. Asking him not to would make about as much sense as asking him to boycott, like, toast, he is not going to feel any different about me if he has toast for breakfast."

pythbox
2013-04-23 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Also I like sex more than I like toast," Sue says brightly, squeezing Aegis's hand.

autokinetic
2013-04-23 04:39 pm (UTC)

"At least now that you're basically cured of Unhealthy Sue Behavior."

incanted
2013-04-23 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Unhealthy Sue Behavior," says Aurora blankly.

pythbox
2013-04-23 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh, while I was at Tactical I got a little fucked up and started fucking anybody who felt like it even if I didn't really want to," he says. "But Aegis helped me fix myself and now I only fuck people I like."

incanted
2013-04-23 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Should I worry about Brilliance doing that?"

pythbox
2013-04-23 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Far as I can tell, I'm the only Joker who did," he shrugs.

incanted
2013-04-23 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I mean, is the setup that led to that something that might happen to Brilliance even if the others have avoided it."

pythbox
2013-04-23 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so. It wasn't the same guy or anything, he got the Earth standard version."

incanted
2013-04-23 04:59 pm (UTC)

"That guy is a recurring template? Eugh."

pythbox
2013-04-23 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Well, how it happened for most of the Jokers s really similar, we're not sure if it was all the same guy or not," he says. "And we don't really care. Mine was really different circumstances."

autokinetic
2013-04-23 05:27 pm (UTC)

"He was set up," growls Aegis, "as a psych test."

incanted
2013-04-23 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Holy crap."

pythbox
2013-04-23 05:29 pm (UTC)

"The IF is kinda fucked up sometimes," says Sue. "I mean, they didn't pay the guy or anything, they just noticed and decided to keep the teachers off his back and see what I did."

autokinetic
2013-04-23 05:31 pm (UTC)

"And they let him see how to get into rooms. Our room."

incanted
2013-04-23 05:31 pm (UTC)

"What'd you do?" asks Aurora softly.

pythbox
2013-04-23 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I froze up, he beat up Aegis, I unfroze, he beat me up for a bit, then I killed him."

incanted
2013-04-23 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Damn."

autokinetic
2013-04-23 05:34 pm (UTC)

"And then the psychologists kept squabbling with each other, like, why they even set this up if they didn't have an idea about what it'd mean any way it could've gone down I do not know."

pythbox
2013-04-23 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Because they're assholes," Sue suggests.

incanted
2013-04-23 05:38 pm (UTC)

"It sure sounds like it, yeah."

autokinetic
2013-04-23 05:39 pm (UTC)

"And they raised us from age six!" says Aegis chirpily. "Which is why I'm so well adjusted."

pythbox
2013-04-23 05:57 pm (UTC)

Sue snorts and hugs Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-04-23 05:58 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

incanted
2013-04-23 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Aurora, "apart from the metaphor regarding toast - which might actually help - this has been about as productive as I expected, but thanks anyway."

pythbox
2013-04-23 06:01 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome!" says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-04-23 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Anytime," laughs Aegis.

incanted
2013-04-23 06:02 pm (UTC)

Aurora wanders into the throng of party guests, at a bit of a loose end.

This is continuation number 6 from here.

incanted
2013-04-24 02:48 am (UTC)

+Hey Brilliance, you interruptable?+

cardistry
2013-04-24 02:49 am (UTC)

+Pretty much,+ he says in a contented snuggly sort of tone. +What's up?+

incanted
2013-04-24 02:49 am (UTC)

+I have now talked to every Bell except the single one and the broken one about how Bells do poly and it didn't help much.+

cardistry
2013-04-24 02:51 am (UTC)

+Oh,+ says Brilliance. +...I thought we had that covered, did we not have that covered?+

incanted
2013-04-24 02:52 am (UTC)

+Enough to be getting on with. Not perfectly, so I wanted some help, but there's none to be had, everybody has circumstances that don't apply to anyone else working for them.+

cardistry
2013-04-24 02:56 am (UTC)

+Technically,+ says Brilliance, +so do you.+

incanted
2013-04-24 02:56 am (UTC)

+Yes. So I get to be unhelpful to the next Bell who wants tips, joy and rapture? Anyway. You having fun?+

cardistry
2013-04-24 02:59 am (UTC)

+Lots! I'm snuggling Queenie,+ he says. +Everyone should snuggle Queenie.+

incanted
2013-04-24 02:59 am (UTC)

+Is this a feature of Queenie individually or is she just relevant right at this moment?+

cardistry
2013-04-24 03:01 am (UTC)

+Her enchantress's aura does... it's hard to describe, but when she cuddles you, she is like the essence of cuddle.+

incanted
2013-04-24 03:01 am (UTC)

+Interesting.+

cardistry
2013-04-24 03:02 am (UTC)

+So I am feeling very cuddled right now and it's awesome and if you're interested you should try it!+

incanted
2013-04-24 03:04 am (UTC)

+I think I'm going to pass for the time being, but I'm sure there will be plenty of chances later.+ Aegis wanders by to remind her to design a Janegem; she puts another charm on her hair elastic and Aegis ansibles it for her and wanders off. +I have a Janegem now.+

cardistry
2013-04-24 03:05 am (UTC)

+Okay,+ he says agreeably.

incanted
2013-04-24 03:10 am (UTC)

+You pretty thoroughly glommed on to Queenie, now, or...?+

cardistry
2013-04-24 03:11 am (UTC)

+Did you want me to snuggle you instead? That could happen,+ he says cheerfully.

incanted
2013-04-24 03:11 am (UTC)

+I would like that.+

cardistry
2013-04-24 03:13 am (UTC)

Suddenly cuddles!

incanted
2013-04-24 03:14 am (UTC)

Eeee, cuddles! Aurora needed cuddles. She melts right into cuddles.

cardistry
2013-04-24 03:15 am (UTC)

Mmmm snuggly cuddles.

+I want an enchanter's aura,+ says Brill. +I wonder if I'll get a cuddly one?+

incanted
2013-04-24 03:16 am (UTC)

+No idea. I don't know what I'll get either.+

cardistry
2013-04-24 11:08 am (UTC)

He giggles and hugs her. +I want a cuddly one! Cuddly ones are nice.+

incanted
2013-04-24 03:39 pm (UTC)

+You're pretty cuddly already. Maybe it'd be redundant.+

cardistry
2013-04-24 10:47 pm (UTC)

+You only say that 'cause you've never hugged Queenie.+

incanted
2013-04-24 10:53 pm (UTC)

"What do the rest of them do?"

cardistry
2013-04-25 12:22 am (UTC)

"You've seen the Joker... Kas and Petaal have cuddly auras too, but theirs tell you how much they want you to touch them... actually, all of them can have cuddly auras. Except the demon, he doesn't have one at all yet. But Jellybean's probably my favourite," he says, beaming. "He tastes like candy."

incanted
2013-04-25 12:26 am (UTC)

"I can see why he'd be your favorite," laughs Aurora. And then she accidentally has more mental image than she wanted of Brilliance finding Jellybean to taste like candy and changes the subject. "There's a page in the Bellbook about what everyone's auras do, apparently they only figured out Shell Bell's second effect today when she was able to get a door to here because it wasn't in the book when I read through it. I wonder what I should enchant. I guess I could just work on Origin Saturn like everyone else, but it's gotten pretty huge and no one is even really trying to live in it yet."

cardistry
2013-04-25 12:51 am (UTC)

"You have your own planet," Brilliance points out. "You could enchant this one!"

incanted
2013-04-25 12:52 am (UTC)

"I guess that'd be unique, at least."

cardistry
2013-04-25 12:54 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Brilliance, beaming.

incanted
2013-04-25 12:58 am (UTC)

Snuggle.

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:00 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle!

+I love you.+

incanted
2013-04-25 01:02 am (UTC)

+You're cute.+ Pause. +Apparently mindreading is highly recommended - in the one direction, obviously not the other. But we haven't even known each other very long.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:04 am (UTC)

+...I kind of want you to read my mind about how much I love you,+ he says.

incanted
2013-04-25 01:05 am (UTC)

+I have no idea what wanting that could possibly be like.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:09 am (UTC)

+Well - I know how I feel about you, but I'm not sure you do. And I want you to.+ He laughs. +Maybe I should just get Sue to bounce it to you.+

incanted
2013-04-25 01:10 am (UTC)

+Sort of a trial run? Maybe. Sue's push-only, no pull, right? Or Aegis wouldn't tolerate it.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:11 am (UTC)

+He can push, people can push back, nobody pulls anything.+

incanted
2013-04-25 01:12 am (UTC)

+I'm up for it, then.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:16 am (UTC)

[Hey, Sue,] says Brilliance, [can you show my girlfriend how much I love her?]

pythbox
2013-04-25 01:16 am (UTC)

Sue links them.

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:45 am (UTC)

Brilliance hugs Aurora and sends... all of it.

He's still a little scared of her, but he knows he doesn't have to be. She gives him all kinds of nice warm snuggly feelings. He wants to cuddle her forever, or maybe fuck her, or maybe eat all her food, or maybe make all her food. But 'forever' is definitely in there any which way.

He was never supposed to need a wielder; he was made to be controllably autonomous. But feeling her there on the other end of his magic is comfortable in a way he has never been before. Maybe this is what a properly matched connection is like, or maybe it's because he was cripplingly lonely for four hundred years, or maybe not having this is why he was cripplingly lonely for four hundred years. Or maybe it's just her. All he knows is, he likes it.

incanted
2013-04-25 01:50 am (UTC)

Aurora melts into him with a warm sigh.

+Oh.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:51 am (UTC)

Thanks, he says to Sue, and cuddles Aurora some more.

incanted
2013-04-25 01:52 am (UTC)

+Oh oh oh I can see why this was recommended.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:53 am (UTC)

+...Do you wanna go hang out on this planet's original for a bit?+ he inquires.

incanted
2013-04-25 01:54 am (UTC)

+Yeah that would be good yes please.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:57 am (UTC)

He casts a dimensional transfer to bring them to the first Planet Rainbowsand, and when they get there, he conjures them a big tent made of translucent white fabric and floored with a thick comfortable blanket.

incanted
2013-04-25 01:58 am (UTC)

This is a very good place for them to be right now. So good.

cardistry
2013-04-25 01:59 am (UTC)

They should also be out of clothes! Out of clothes is a good place to be.

Brilliance decides that he prefers to get there the fun way.

incanted
2013-04-25 02:00 am (UTC)

Aurora's mind is not even on the array of clothes-getting-out-of-options. It is on that lovely lovely memory. +I feel half like I'm dreaming.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 02:03 am (UTC)

+Do you want Sue to just keep sending that at you while we...? Because I bet he would,+ says Brilliance, wriggling out of his shirt and pouncing for kisses.

incanted
2013-04-25 02:04 am (UTC)

+I do not think I want Sue involved. I could just hex up the standard if you wouldn't mind though. Or pentagon it for a test run.+ Kisses!

cardistry
2013-04-25 02:06 am (UTC)

+Standard on your end but more like pushing to Sue on mine?+ he suggests.

incanted
2013-04-25 02:09 am (UTC)

+Standard interface push-based transfer protocol, or something else?+

cardistry
2013-04-25 02:10 am (UTC)

+Yeah, that.+

incanted
2013-04-25 02:11 am (UTC)

Simple enough. She pulls a hex out of her "coinpurse", spends it, kisses him again. +There.+

cardistry
2013-04-25 02:12 am (UTC)

Brilliance pushes love some more.

incanted
2013-04-25 02:13 am (UTC)

Aurora picks the packet of affection open when it hits her interface and melts all over again. +It's like I'm on really fucking good drugs or something, god...+

cardistry
2013-04-25 02:16 am (UTC)

+Awesome,+ he says cheerfully, and keeps it up while he continues scattering clothes all over the floor of the tent.

incanted
2013-04-25 02:17 am (UTC)

Aurora is enthusiastically helpful with this project!

cardistry
2013-04-25 02:19 am (UTC)

Just for fun, he also pushes physical sensation.

The physical senses of his human body aren't anything particularly special, but the amount of attention he pays to them is something else entirely.

incanted
2013-04-25 02:21 am (UTC)

Aurora opens that up too. Curiously.

+Fuck, I have to boost processing if we're going to do this like so, I didn't even do that yet,+ she says dizzily, running a fingertip along the length of his arm with her eyes heavy-lidded. She swallows and pulls her hand back and closes the sending - and spends her hex - and then opens it again and pounces.

cardistry
2013-04-25 02:24 am (UTC)

Ooh, pouncing. Brilliance feels very delightedly pounced. And what the hell, he pushes that too, it's a nice fizzy giggly feeling and deserves to be shared.

incanted
2013-04-25 02:25 am (UTC)

Aurora giggles with contagious amusement and sets about inducing interesting sensations for her to borrow along with her cocktail of emotional drugs.

cardistry
2013-04-25 02:27 am (UTC)

That is awesome and she is awesome and he loves her so much.

This is continuation number 7 from here.

pythbox
2013-04-25 04:18 pm (UTC)

After Cam and Jellybean have been enjoying Cam's new mindreading capacity for a while, and then snuggling for a while longer, Sue brings Jellybean into a link with the rest of the deck. Communication zips back and forth, mostly wordless.

Jellybean giggles, flares his candy-flavoured aura, and kisses Cam's cheek. "Did you catch that?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-25 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Something about porn. Hard to catch when I'm not linked and it's that fast and nonverbal and I'm blissed out."
Edited 2013-04-25 16:20 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-25 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, you might've noticed that the Jokers have a lot of sex at these things," says Jellybean. "And somebody pointed out that a bunch of Bells have past-viewing powers, and they could totally watch us whenever they wanted, and we all decided we're fine with that. From anybody, not just Bells. Now we wanna announce it so people know, but we don't know how to find out who wants to."

lifes_sake
2013-04-25 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, we could just start with people who have past-viewing powers and skip Golden," says Cam.

pythbox
2013-04-25 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I guess," says Jellybean. "As long as we eventually get around to telling the people who don't have past-viewing powers but might want some if it meant they got to watch the Jokers fuck each other."

lifes_sake
2013-04-25 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Could just put up a sign on the door in the future. I bet you anybody who'd be interested at least glances speculatively at the door during a party sometime."

pythbox
2013-04-25 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, sure," says Jellybean. He grins and gives Cam a kiss. "But for now - who-all's got past-viewing powers?"

lifes_sake
2013-04-25 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Stella, Angela, Juliet and everybell who pealed after her except Sarion who doesn't have her standards yet because she's not fully repaired. I suppose Aurora might not have gotten to it but it is in the standards list now. Shell Bell and Amariah may or may not have gotten around to picking it up but they won't mind particularly if we mention it anyway. Doesn't matter for this purpose if Golden has it."

pythbox
2013-04-25 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Mm, okay," says Jellybean, and he conference-calls Cam, Stella, Alice, Angela, Micaiah, Amariah, Kas, Aegis, Sue, Rose, Beast, Juliet, Shell Bell, Pattern, Aurora, and Brilliance.

[Hi, everybody! So the Jokers decided we're okay with anybody who has a past-viewing power watching us have sex at Bell parties, and we wanted to let you all know in case you were interested. Next party we'll put up a sign on the door or something.]
Edited 2013-04-25 16:53 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-04-25 04:56 pm (UTC)

[Mmm, noted.]

self_composed
2013-04-25 04:58 pm (UTC)

[Sign on the door is a good idea. Maybe include signs on each sub-node's door that say 'yes' or 'no' or 'only for this short list of people' depending on the preferences of the occupants.]

pythbox
2013-04-25 05:11 pm (UTC)

[...It might get kind of complicated trying to watch a bunch of people have sex but not watch a bunch of other people in the same room have sex,] says Jellybean. [Probably better to just have the sign say either 'yes you can watch' or 'no you can't watch', and if everybody inside has picked 'yes' it'll show that, otherwise it's no.]

self_composed
2013-04-25 05:12 pm (UTC)

[Short list of potential supervisors,] Stella clarifies.

pythbox
2013-04-25 05:13 pm (UTC)

[Oh,] giggles Jellybean. [That makes more sense. Yeah, that might work. But people who only want specific people watching them fuck could just tell them, couldn't they...?]
Edited 2013-04-25 17:13 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-04-25 05:18 pm (UTC)

[Only if they're comfortable having the conversation.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-04-25 05:19 pm (UTC)

[Speaking of which, thanks for letting me know, I don't think the rest of this conversation needs me,] says Shell Bell. She drops out of the call. So do Juliet and Angela and Rose and Aurora.

pythbox
2013-04-25 05:20 pm (UTC)

Jellybean snorts.

dark_light
2013-04-25 05:23 pm (UTC)

[The shortlist option would probably be most comfortable for the people who'd use it if it just looked exactly like "no" to everyone not on the list,] Amariah observes. [And indicated listhood to people on it so there's never an awkward case of "hey, did you see that thing the other day" "what thing, I didn't think that was for public consumption".]

pythbox
2013-04-25 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Someone who cares about privacy more than Jokers do should probably design it, then,] says Jellybean.

self_composed
2013-04-25 05:28 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I'll give it some thought and install it for whoever hosts the next party.]

pythbox
2013-04-25 05:30 pm (UTC)

[Okay, thanks!]

self_composed
2013-04-25 05:31 pm (UTC)

[No problem.]

The remaining Bells exit the call.

pythbox
2013-04-25 05:32 pm (UTC)

Jellybean goes back to snuggling with Cam.

This is continuation number 8 from here.

incanted
2013-04-25 06:18 pm (UTC)

Aurora is now hunting for Minus.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 06:19 pm (UTC)

Minus is standing in a corner, drinking tea.

incanted
2013-04-25 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Hey," says Aurora. "Is that the funky elf tea that Pattern likes or something else?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Plain Earl Grey, I'm afraid."

incanted
2013-04-25 06:24 pm (UTC)

"You know," says Aurora, "there are ways to do mindreading that aren't quite as, I dunno, free-roaming, as the standard or what Rose does. Brilliance didn't want to be quite an open book so it's like Sue-linking on his end. If that's what got you and Juliet delayed, if you don't want her just looking at arbitrary things."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I've been thinking about the optimal design, but it's not coming along as quickly as I'd like. What exactly do you have with Brilliance?"

incanted
2013-04-25 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I read with standard interface, but only what he pushes me, or leaves deliberately open if it's a memory; by default I don't get anything. And this is still quite enough," she adds dreamily, "to get me high as hell on being adored, because damn."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 06:29 pm (UTC)

"What is it with you lot and recreational telepathy?"

incanted
2013-04-25 06:34 pm (UTC)

Aurora laughs. "It's... hmm. Good question. It sort of pushes a lot of buttons all at once. Satisfies curiosity in more depth than would be naively expected possible, makes it clear we're in agreement with someone whose opinion we value about how great we are, intense expression of trust with a vulnerability we can't bear to throw around ourselves so it's especially touching to get - well, not in my case, there's no problem with just pushing chosen thoughts, if I ever want to set that up, but I bet the standards get an extra rush for that. And - we're fairly good at intellectually believing things just on the basis of reasoning them out or having indirect, but there's an emotional difference between 'someone told me this thing existed' and 'I can see it in motion'. Like the difference between getting a postcard that says 'wish you were here' versus an actual hug."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Aha," he says.

incanted
2013-04-25 06:39 pm (UTC)

"It's just really really nice." Aurora closes her eyes and says more seriously, "And if you copied my version you could pick and choose what to send."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I see that Juliet has given you the warning," he observes.

incanted
2013-04-25 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm sure plenty of Bells have been and gone offering hugs and support and whatnot, you can add me to the list."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Amariah is the only one who has actually hugged me," he says, smiling.

incanted
2013-04-25 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Do you want another hug?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I've nowhere to put my tea," he says, gesturing with the cup.

incanted
2013-04-25 06:45 pm (UTC)

"I'll take that as a 'no' instead of a 'please conjure a table' till further notice. You should probably be aware that the first thing Juliet is going to want to go looking for is how to take care of you, she still seems kind of - I lack adjectives, but that is what I expect her to want to read, even before delicious telepathic expressions of love om nom nom."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I don't believe there is much to be found about how to take care of me. Love, however - plenty of that."

incanted
2013-04-25 07:20 pm (UTC)

Aurora shrugs. "That'll be good too. But she'll look. She wants you to be okay. If she has any reason to guess that you are not okay she will carry on looking for ways to render you okay."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 07:21 pm (UTC)

"So I have observed."

incanted
2013-04-25 07:22 pm (UTC)

"So there's that, I hope my and Brilliance's setup is a useful template or inspiration or something."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-25 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

incanted
2013-04-25 07:23 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome."

This is continuation number 9 from here.

cardistry
2013-04-25 08:33 pm (UTC)

A while after the Jokers have their conference about being everybody's porn, Brilliance wanders out of the orgy chambers with the vague notion of finding Aurora.

incanted
2013-04-25 08:35 pm (UTC)

Aurora is over here! She has just finished up touching base with Lexi, who has discovered that riding a unicorn isn't infinitely fascinating if the unicorn doesn't happen to wander near the conversations you want to participate in and is now on her own feet, over there, investigating some Tony.

cardistry
2013-04-25 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Hey, you," says Brilliance, hugging his Bella.

incanted
2013-04-25 08:38 pm (UTC)

Hugs! "Hi."

cardistry
2013-04-25 08:40 pm (UTC)

Hug hug.

"Alice stopped being a vampire," he mentions.

incanted
2013-04-25 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well. That's probably my fault."

cardistry
2013-04-25 08:41 pm (UTC)

"...Fault?"

incanted
2013-04-25 08:42 pm (UTC)

She waves a hand. "Causal responsibility, I didn't mean to imply, like, a value judgment."

cardistry
2013-04-25 08:44 pm (UTC)

"It would've happened eventually without you," says Brilliance. "He kind of needed not to be one. He just didn't know it yet."

incanted
2013-04-25 08:45 pm (UTC)

"If he needed to not be one I'm kind of surprised his native magic thingamabob didn't just completely shut down the process."

cardistry
2013-04-25 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't think his power knew," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-25 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Why did he need it? I mean, Stella's reasons turned out to be partially sketchy, but didn't he know what vampires were and how they worked first anyway?"

cardistry
2013-04-25 08:49 pm (UTC)

"The sketchy reasons are why he needed not to be one."
Edited 2013-04-25 20:52 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-25 08:55 pm (UTC)

"How does that work?"

cardistry
2013-04-25 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Because it just - he was okay with it in the first place because he asked her if the sketchy reasons were her reasons and she pretty much said no," says Brilliance, frustrated. "That shit matters, you can't just force somebody to be in love with you forever, there's lots of ways it can be okay to turn somebody into a vampire, even one of us, there's parts of it he liked, but he couldn't stay one when he knew that was why."

incanted
2013-04-25 09:08 pm (UTC)

"...Uh, I'll tread carefully, and I agree it was sketchy of her, but unless she outright lied to him, and given that all the features of vampirism are a package deal and there are plenty of other reasons to want the other parts, doesn't that just about boil down to penalizing her for having the wrong thought cross her mind? It would've been good to bring it up, it sure seemed like she had been misleading in some way, but - like, if she literally just thought he would have fun turning, if nothing else about it occurred to her except for basic safety checks, if she did not notice that particular thing that she was inclined to identify as a perk - then it would've been fine?"
Edited 2013-04-25 21:13 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-25 09:18 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not sure," he says. "It's - well, it's not complicated exactly, but it works the way we work, not the way you work. I think... as long as she was going to think about it the way she thought about it, then someday he was going to have to stop being a vampire. And maybe even if she wasn't. And I wasn't there, but if he asked her a question and she made him think the answer was something it wasn't and that's why he was okay with it, I don't really think any of us would care whether you'd call that lying or not. It's still not okay."

incanted
2013-04-25 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Pause. "Does Jellybean know about how Bells define lying, because Cam's got that aura..."

cardistry
2013-04-25 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Brilliance. "I don't think it matters that much. How you define lying is not the problem, the problem is that tricking somebody into agreeing to something they wouldn't agree to if they knew the whole story is a really shitty thing to do, especially when the something is big enough to change how your whole mind works."

incanted
2013-04-25 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I would not have Charlie's permission to skip off to uninhabited planets with you if he knew the whole story," Aurora points out. "I mean, you could say that he wouldn't be entitled to stop me regardless, but I am technically a minor child under his custody and the fact that he does not have the wherewithal to prevent me isn't relevant to whether it's his business. And obviously that's a smaller issue than changing someone's species, but the general 'tricking' thing..."

cardistry
2013-04-25 09:34 pm (UTC)

"You don't make any sense," says Brilliance, wrapping his arms around her waist and dropping his head on her shoulder.

incanted
2013-04-25 09:35 pm (UTC)

"I make sense to me," Aurora says.

cardistry
2013-04-25 09:42 pm (UTC)

"You don't make sense to me. I don't understand why - I don't understand anything about this weird thing you have with Charlie, where you pretend we're not fucking so he won't tell us to stop, but if you know he would tell us to stop and you're not stopping then why would it matter if he did?"

incanted
2013-04-25 09:53 pm (UTC)

"As long as he hasn't actually said it," Aurora says, "then I'm not actually defying him. What he has actually said is we can't be in my room with the door closed. So we don't do that. He hasn't been more specific - he doesn't even want to be, he doesn't want to produce a list of actual things he doesn't want done, he doesn't want to live with me demanding to know why and having a long pseudolegalistic argument with him, he mostly feels like it is the duty of the fathers of teenage daughters to usher them into adulthood without any practical understanding of sex. He hasn't bothered to update his model of the world that says that people have sex in bedrooms and not on uninhabited planets they teleport to, so that's what the rule is about. If he changes the rules so it's actually about something I care about being able to do - well, it'd probably depend on how he tried to justify the rule, he's decent enough not to attempt anything serious by pure fiat, especially since I could move back to Renée's anytime and he probably suspects she'd be fine with it. But anyway, things would become so much less pleasant in my relationship with Charlie if that had to be an actual conversation we had. And I will not actually lie to him - I will not tell him 'Yes, Dad' if he lays down a rule that I'm going to ignore. So that rule would turn into a mess. I am avoiding that mess."

cardistry
2013-04-25 09:56 pm (UTC)

"That is weird," says Brilliance, "but I think it's mostly weird because of my trust issues, so whatever, not the point. I forget what the point is. Do we still care about the point?"

incanted
2013-04-25 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I think I know enough about your end of the point to not mess it up with you, at least not about anything important like altering your species. Up to you if you want to quiz me about my end of the point."

cardistry
2013-04-25 10:11 pm (UTC)

"...I don't really know what your end of the point is," says Brilliance. "What's your end of the point?"

incanted
2013-04-25 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Lying is bad. Not the worst thing ever, but bad. Lying by omission - isn't the same thing. People have a right to limit what information exits their heads, if they want to. And 'I refuse to answer that question' is information, 'let's change the subject' is information, and if that kind of information is something you want to keep to yourself, then you get to dance around it to keep it safe, I think. It's not always a good idea. It was sketchy for Stella to do what she did; considering that she's supposedly in in love with Alice it was especially bad. But - I wasn't there but I seriously doubt he asked her point-blank and she responded with a sentence that was in fact false." She closes her eyes. "Obviously it was an issue anyway since it turned out to matter very much to Alice what she was leaving out. With this cautionary example, I'm going to be more careful than she was. But that doesn't mean a complete open book policy, I can't do that, it would destroy me, we know that now -" She gestures vaguely at Sarion.

cardistry
2013-04-25 10:33 pm (UTC)

"We need to know stuff sometimes," he says, "not a lot of the time, not all stuff, but. My end of the point goes something like. If somebody knows something, and they think that if I knew it that would change how I act in ways that I'd like better but they'd like worse, so they make sure I don't find out, then they're not my friend and if I trust them I need to stop."
Edited 2013-04-25 22:34 (UTC)

incanted
2013-04-25 10:35 pm (UTC)

Aurora thinks about this.

And then she says, "That puts a floor on how much goal structure you have to share with anyone you want to be friends with." Pause. "But basically I agree with you."
Edited 2013-04-25 22:39 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-25 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Good," says Brilliance, and he hugs her again.

incanted
2013-04-25 10:44 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"Of course," Aurora murmurs, "if telling people true things routinely makes them act in ways I don't like, then they aren't my friend, and I shouldn't trust them."

cardistry
2013-04-25 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Well - yeah," he says. "That too. But, I dunno, there aren't a lot of ways people can act that I don't like that aren't about trying to control me."

incanted
2013-04-25 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm curious about that," says Aurora, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I don't want to be controlled either, but it sounds really - fundamental to you."

cardistry
2013-04-25 10:52 pm (UTC)

"It is really fundamental to me. It's really fundamental to all of us, but I'm far and away the most fucked up about it."

incanted
2013-04-25 10:54 pm (UTC)

"What else can you tell me? I'm worried I'll - say something wrong about something important and you'll wind up feeling like I'm trying to control you, and then we'll be stuck with a terrible situation where I've gone and misframed the whole thing and all the okay results for me are no longer okay results for you because of that framing."

cardistry
2013-04-25 11:03 pm (UTC)

"...I mean, I'm not saying that it would be fun if that happened," he says, "because it really wouldn't, but I've stuck around this long through you saying a couple of scary things, I think we can figure it out. I don't know exactly what you mean by 'framing', but I don't think you can make something that would've been okay be unfixably not okay just by saying the wrong thing."

incanted
2013-04-25 11:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't have an example in mind to explain what I mean about framing," Aurora sighs.

cardistry
2013-04-25 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I could end up feeling like you were trying to control me and then stay that way unless you were actually trying to control me," he says, "and I don't think you'll do that, because I think you've figured out by now to try asking nicely instead."

incanted
2013-04-25 11:11 pm (UTC)

"If I were - scared or angry or I misunderstood something you said or if I correctly understood something alarming you said, I might not remember to try asking nicely first," says Aurora. "If it was sufficiently desperately important and asking nicely didn't work, then - I don't have an example, but it's not like it couldn't happen, I have been handed the keys to the universe and you've got a grip on the other end of my keychain, I will be handling high stakes sometimes."

cardistry
2013-04-25 11:27 pm (UTC)

"...it needs to not happen, though," says Brilliance. "It needs to not happen or I need to get out of this universe and never come back."

incanted
2013-04-25 11:28 pm (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-25 11:37 pm (UTC)

He hugs her gently, shaking his head.

"That's what happens," he says softly. "Not if you just make me scared of it by accident once in a while, I get scared a lot, I can handle being scared, but if you force me to do something, or force me not to, I'll leave. I'll be really sad about it. And I will run away as far and as fast as I possibly can."

incanted
2013-04-25 11:41 pm (UTC)

"So - what does that leave us with, just hoping really hard that you don't run into any of my dealbreakers where given the choice between you bolting or whatever you'd be doing if I didn't use force I prefer the former?"

cardistry
2013-04-25 11:46 pm (UTC)

"If I thought that was ever going to happen, I would've run away already," says Brilliance. "I don't know what I could possibly want to do so badly that I'd still do it if you asked me not to, that would also be the kind of thing you'd fuck me over like that for if it came down to it. I don't think there's that many things you would, and most of that's probably stuff I already don't wanna do all by myself, like blowing up planets."

incanted
2013-04-25 11:47 pm (UTC)

"It admittedly does help my comfort around this that you demonstrably don't want to blow up planets."

cardistry
2013-04-25 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Like - I could see us arguing about you not wanting me to do stuff," he says, "sure, probably. But I don't think there's anything I need to do that you need me not to."

incanted
2013-04-25 11:52 pm (UTC)

Aurora nods slowly, once.

cardistry
2013-04-25 11:55 pm (UTC)

"And arguing isn't going to make me run away," he says. "And as long as we're arguing about something, I'm not doing whatever it is and you're not forcing me not to. And if you decide you really can't stand whatever it is happening, and I decide I really can't stand that you really can't stand that, then - I can just go hang out with Queenie until we both calm down. Okay?"

incanted
2013-04-26 12:13 am (UTC)

"'Cause she's so cuddly?" asks Aurora weakly.

cardistry
2013-04-26 12:17 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"She is, I can see why the Joker wanted me to hang out with her if things got fucked up with us."

incanted
2013-04-26 12:18 am (UTC)

Aurora snuggles up to him. "So the emergency procedure, if there's ever a desperate hurry and no more time to argue, involves having Jane banish you to Origin?"

cardistry
2013-04-26 12:26 am (UTC)

"That's... probably the best emergency procedure if you really feel like you absolutely have to do something right away. I won't like it much, but... I'll hang out with Queenie and wait for you to come explain."

incanted
2013-04-26 12:28 am (UTC)

"Okay. And with any luck it won't come up." Snuggles.

cardistry
2013-04-26 12:39 am (UTC)

"...The only way I can think of for it to come up is if we were arguing about something and got interrupted by something else," says Brilliance, "in which case you probably don't want me to go hang out with Queenie, you want me to stick around and help you deal with the emergency."

incanted
2013-04-26 12:39 am (UTC)

"Would you do that? With the argument still unresolved?"

cardistry
2013-04-26 12:41 am (UTC)

"Um, yeah?"

incanted
2013-04-26 12:41 am (UTC)

"Okay then."

cardistry
2013-04-26 12:42 am (UTC)

He hugs her.

incanted
2013-04-26 12:43 am (UTC)

Hugs!

cardistry
2013-04-26 12:46 am (UTC)

Huuuuuugs.

dark_light
2013-04-26 12:56 am (UTC)

Amariah wanders by and conjures a little golden trophy, cup-shaped on a wooden stand, and deposits it into a bewildered Aurora's hand and wanders away.

cardistry
2013-04-26 12:57 am (UTC)

"What the fuck," giggles Brilliance.

incanted
2013-04-26 12:58 am (UTC)

Aurora peers at the trophy, then checks for an engraving.

It says For Excellence In Grownup Problem Solving.

She sporfles.

cardistry
2013-04-26 12:59 am (UTC)

Brilliance also sporfles!

incanted
2013-04-26 12:59 am (UTC)

"Wow," says Aurora.

cardistry
2013-04-26 01:02 am (UTC)

"Should we maybe ask her to explain that," wonders Brilliance, "or should we just put it on a shelf somewhere and admire it occasionally?"

incanted
2013-04-26 01:03 am (UTC)

"I have no idea. I don't even have a shelf that I would consider suitable to hold an award of this magnitude."
Edited 2013-04-26 01:04 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-04-26 01:05 am (UTC)

"Also," says Brilliance, "important question for Amariah who is apparently eavesdropping on us, is that award for us or just for you."

dark_light
2013-04-26 01:07 am (UTC)

[Both of you,] says Amariah from her just-barely-within-earshot vantage point.

cardistry
2013-04-26 01:08 am (UTC)

"In that case, thanks!"

incanted
2013-04-26 01:09 am (UTC)

Aurora laughs and puts the trophy down someplace out of the way - it's not like anyone's going to steal it - and then gives Brilliance a kiss.

cardistry
2013-04-26 01:10 am (UTC)

Brilliance kisses back. Mmmmmmkiss.

This is continuation number 10 from here.

lexicality
2013-04-25 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Hey," says Lexi to a lone Tony. "Do you actually want me to call you Sapphire or did you just sort of get stuck with that?"

toblameforit
2013-04-25 08:37 pm (UTC)

"I just got stuck with it," he says. "Call me Tony, please, unless you desperately need to pick me out of a crowd of... other... me."
Edited 2013-04-25 20:38 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-25 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, okay. If I meet more mes at some point - which I better, it's freaky that there's all these only child Bellas - we'll probably just pick different nicknames for Alexandra. Or I could go by my middle name, that wouldn't be so bad, Phyllis."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 08:43 pm (UTC)

"I have a middle name too, but it's Edward," says Tony, "and I hate pretty much all available permutations of my first name that aren't 'Tony', so when the Tonies and the Sherlocks were picking our nicknames we went by coin colour when we ran out of better ideas."

lexicality
2013-04-25 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, isn't somebody married to an Edward," says Lexi vaguely. "My coin color is Peach, hey, if my Bella starts going around with a crown on do you know if that makes me a princess via sisterhood or would one of our parents have to be in on the royalty thing? Because then I would be Princess Peach."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 08:45 pm (UTC)

"...I will totally call you Princess Peach if you want," says Tony, grinning.

lexicality
2013-04-25 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll be Lexi till there's enough of me to be confusing at all. Like, more than one. Besides, maybe all Lexis turn out peach coins," laughs Lexi.

toblameforit
2013-04-25 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't think there's actually been a straight duplicate yet," says Tony. "Maybe the next Lexi will be, like. Princess Nectarine."

lexicality
2013-04-25 08:54 pm (UTC)

"But that wouldn't be funny," says Lexi. She picks at a hangnail just enough to get a coin and shows it off. "So do yours look like sapphires?"

toblameforit
2013-04-25 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Nope, they look like a car I have that's painted in a colour called Sapphire Black."

lexicality
2013-04-25 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I have no idea why I got peach. It's not even my favorite color," shrugs Lexi, "my favorite color is red."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 09:05 pm (UTC)

"One of us got red!" says Tony. "The dead one, I think. With Minus and Juliet."

lexicality
2013-04-25 09:13 pm (UTC)

"It is super strange that there are dead people walking around. Not even strange-amazing like there being a unicorn here, just strange."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 09:19 pm (UTC)

"The unicorn is awesome," says Tony. "The dead people are - enh, I'm kinda used to it by now."

lexicality
2013-04-25 09:21 pm (UTC)

"You been hanging out with -" Lexi waves at the party setup. "This crowd for a long time?"

toblameforit
2013-04-25 09:24 pm (UTC)

"A while, I guess. I dunno, I kind of lost track a little."

lexicality
2013-04-25 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know magic existed, like at all, even the kind we have in this world, till like a week ago, and you know the very first thing magic did? It tricked me into letting it possess me to destroy the world. So not cool."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Wow, that sucks," says Tony.

lexicality
2013-04-25 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I know, right? But Bella fixed it. Bella's smart. The way it tricked me in the first place was it was all 'I can offer you limitless power' -" Lexi does an impression of the robotic voice of the control program - "and I was like 'cool, let's hook my sister up with that, because if I get instead I'll be lucky if I get Christmas off, she will guilt me into using my powers for good, like, constantly' and it was like 'I cannot wait' and I was like 'oh fine'."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 10:22 pm (UTC)

"How'd she fix it?"

lexicality
2013-04-25 10:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't know all the details, 'cause I was being possessed and couldn't see what was going on, but I think she picked up Brilliance-being-a-staff-thing and shot at it a lot or something. And then I woke up and she was wearing her magical girl outfit."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 10:39 pm (UTC)

"The magical girl outfit is kind of awesome."

lexicality
2013-04-25 10:40 pm (UTC)

"It kind of is! Very tasteful, very if Bella's going to wear a magical girl outfit it should obviously be this one."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Almost makes me want one."

lexicality
2013-04-25 10:47 pm (UTC)

Lexi giggles. "Apparently they come with having a device? Like, Brilliance is Bella's device. But he doesn't seem to think people should usually have devices. Or maybe it's that people shouldn't make devices. Or something. He made her a little tiny one that doesn't talk, maybe that's different, but it doesn't have a dress that comes with. So I don't have one and I don't know how you'd get one either."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 10:49 pm (UTC)

"If I want a magical girl outfit," he says, "I bet you I can get a magical girl outfit. Maybe not exactly the same kind, I guess."

lexicality
2013-04-25 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, not a magically designed one, you could wear whatever you want but it wouldn't just get pulled out of noplace like Bella's."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Wonder if I could get one of the Jokers to make me one, I hear Jokers and clothes is a thing."

lexicality
2013-04-25 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Is it? Brilliance seems to just go around in that T-shirt with his deck of cards design on it and jeans."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I mean," he amends, "there's a bunch of Jokers who like, make and design clothes, it's a common hobby with those guys, I don't know if Brilliance isn't into it or just hasn't gotten around to it or what."

lexicality
2013-04-25 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Huh." Lexi scuffs her foot on the floor. "I should have a hobby. I don't really, I used to do whatever Renée was doing, crafts and exotic kinds of yoga and whatnot, but nothing stuck."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Can't help you there, unless you want to take up engineering," says Tony. "Or video games."

lexicality
2013-04-25 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I might like video games! We could never afford a system since Bella doesn't like them enough to ever pool our Christmas or birthday wishlists for it, but I used to like going over to friends' who had 'em," says Lexi. "Oh man, that's probably not even a problem any more, I can just," she brandishes her demo triangle, "magic up whatever."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay, let's conjure a Super Nintendo and play Mario Kart," says Tony.

lexicality
2013-04-25 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" Lexi picks a little more aggressively at her hangnail, gets enough squares to produce the TV and the console and the cartridge and the controllers, wishes them all into existence, and then makes two more squares so they can have a sofa too. She turns the whole setup on with her triangle, just for fun.

toblameforit
2013-04-25 11:48 pm (UTC)

Tony beams and flops onto the couch and picks up a controller.

lexicality
2013-04-25 11:49 pm (UTC)

Lexi, predictably, plays as Princess Peach.

toblameforit
2013-04-25 11:52 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles uproariously, and plays as Mario.

lexicality
2013-04-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

Lexi is reasonably good at Mario Kart considering her inexperience; she is a crack shot with green shells and after one false start rarely drives off the track.

toblameforit
2013-04-25 11:56 pm (UTC)

Tony is... kind of unfairly good at Mario Kart.

lexicality
2013-04-25 11:58 pm (UTC)

"You must play this, like, constantly," complains Lexi, although she seems to be having fun anyway.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:00 am (UTC)

"Driving games are kind of my thing," he says. "Sherry bakes himself a cake every time he beats me."

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:01 am (UTC)

"How many cakes is that now?"

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:05 am (UTC)

"I'm not actually keeping count, but less cakes than he's had birthdays."

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:06 am (UTC)

Lexi laughs. "Wow. Well, at least I can beat all the computer guys. Eventually." She's mostly coming in third or fourth.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:36 am (UTC)

"Coming in second to me in a Mario Kart race is an accomplishment!" says Tony.

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:37 am (UTC)

"Cool, that's, like, my new life goal for the next hour."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:39 am (UTC)

"Good luck," Tony says cheerfully.

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:40 am (UTC)

Lexi sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and drives Princess Peach around with a will.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:41 am (UTC)

Tony continues to win! It's lots of fun.

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:44 am (UTC)

"Is there any game you like that you aren't, like, the patron saint of?" Lexi asks, when they've tried all the tracks at least once.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:49 am (UTC)

"Lots! Anything that's not a racing game, pretty much."

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:50 am (UTC)

"Let's play one of those, I don't know what's good, recommend me something?"

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:51 am (UTC)

"You know what," says Tony, "we should totally play Super Mario."

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:52 am (UTC)

"Okay." Lexi makes another square, and with it makes there be Super Mario. She swaps cartridges.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:54 am (UTC)

This one is not so competitive! But it is so fun.

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:55 am (UTC)

It is! Lexi giggles when giggling is called for, and dies a lot, and picks up from there.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:56 am (UTC)

Dying a lot is kind of how it goes.

It is possible that Tony might be dancing along to the music. Well, he's sitting down, so 'dancing' is an overstatement. It's more... wiggling.

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:57 am (UTC)

"You're wiggling," accuses a smirking Lexi.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 12:58 am (UTC)

"I totally am."

lexicality
2013-04-26 12:59 am (UTC)

"It's cute." She sways a little to the music, herself, but it's much more dignified. Or so she tells herself.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:01 am (UTC)

"You," says Tony, "are waggling."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:01 am (UTC)

"No! I'm not waggling, I'm swaying."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:02 am (UTC)

"Waggling! It's like wiggling but slower!"

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:03 am (UTC)

"Nope. Swaying. Very dignified."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:04 am (UTC)

"Sure, okay."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:06 am (UTC)

"I can dance, though, I'm not clumsy like Bella is - used to be - I can totally dance. Just not on a sofa so much."
Edited 2013-04-26 01:06 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:07 am (UTC)

"I can dance!" says Tony. "Not exceptionally well, but I can dance. There should be more dancing at these things."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:08 am (UTC)

"I heard Angela talking about singing like she did at the first party. So maybe she will. I hope she's a better singer than my Bella - than, what'd she call herself, Aurora - if she's going to do that."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:09 am (UTC)

"I heard her sing before, she's pretty awesome."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:10 am (UTC)

"Huh, I wonder how, is that, like, an angel thing or would my Bella be able to sing too if she worked at it?"

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:12 am (UTC)

"Beats me," says Tony.

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:13 am (UTC)

Lexi's sprite dies again. "Rats. Maybe I am not good enough at video games for it to be my hobby."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:14 am (UTC)

"I wasn't good at video games either when I'd been playing them for like an hour."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:15 am (UTC)

"I mean I haven't just never played video games before, just not on the regular."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:18 am (UTC)

"Well yeah, still, you get good at them by playing them a lot, the question is are they enough fun for you to play them that much."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:19 am (UTC)

"I think I might have to try more kinds before I know."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:19 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Tony. "Secret of Mana it is."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:20 am (UTC)

Lexi makes a square and makes a copy of the game.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:23 am (UTC)

The game is also lots of fun. Or at least Tony thinks so.
Edited 2013-04-26 01:25 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:26 am (UTC)

Lexi likes this one more than the first two, although it doesn't make her actually giggle as much.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:28 am (UTC)

"This one's my favourite for the SNES," Tony confides.

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:28 am (UTC)

"It's really cute," affirms Lexi.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:29 am (UTC)

"It's awesome, I love it."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:33 am (UTC)

They carry on playing Secret of Mana. Then Angela starts singing.

"Whoa, she is good."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:37 am (UTC)

"I know, right?"

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:40 am (UTC)

"Seriously. Bella - Aurora - doesn't sound a bit like that when she sings in the shower."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:52 am (UTC)

"I think most people don't," says Tony. "Maybe it is an angel thing."

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:53 am (UTC)

"It's a cool angel thing. D'you wanna dance?"

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:54 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:55 am (UTC)

Lexi pauses their game and pops up off the sofa and holds out her hand.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:56 am (UTC)

Tony follows!

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:57 am (UTC)

There is dancing, and singing, and Lexi is plainly enjoying herself very much.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 01:58 am (UTC)

So is Tony!

lexicality
2013-04-26 01:59 am (UTC)

Yay! It is more fun that way.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:05 am (UTC)

That is true. That is a true thing.

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:06 am (UTC)

"You're not bad," Lexi comments.

(But she's better. She likes dancing, clearly, and she's completely unselfconscious about letting her motor cortex have its way.)

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:07 am (UTC)

"I'm not as good as you," Tony correctly observes.

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:08 am (UTC)

"Practice, practice," she teases.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:08 am (UTC)

He laughs.

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:10 am (UTC)

"Maybe I should just be serious about dancing, but it's not like there's a blues club or anything in Forks. Maybe I can teleport to Phoenix twice a week or something."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:12 am (UTC)

"You can teleport to wherever you want! You are magic now," Tony says wisely.

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:13 am (UTC)

"I am!" agrees Lexi, spinning along his arm to close. "Oh wow, I don't even need to, like, worry about getting a job, I'm magic enough to magic anything I need, I could just live on this planet and conjure sandwiches and do whatever I wanted. I might need two hobbies."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:15 am (UTC)

"Dancing and video games?"

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah! I will dance and play video games and hang out with Bella being a sounding board for all her fixing-the-world ideas if she doesn't just always talk to Brilliance about that stuff."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:18 am (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan."

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:19 am (UTC)

"It is a plan. I planned it. Now it's my plan."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:20 am (UTC)

"It's a good plan!"

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:22 am (UTC)

"That's 'cause I'm super," says Lexi, beaming. "I dunno, though, after I'm out of school I might have to learn more than one kind of dancing. Or get a third hobby."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:23 am (UTC)

"You can figure that out when you get there, I bet."

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:24 am (UTC)

"I can. It's true." She sways, bluesy. "I like this song, but it's funky-sounding, I guess Angela's one of the ones who's not from an Earth even though apparently the one with the owl is from an Earth and I think having an owl for a soul is weirder than just having wings. What kinda music do you like?"

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:26 am (UTC)

"Classic rock. AC/DC."

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:27 am (UTC)

"Cool. I like everything, and most people say except rap and country but I like those too."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:28 am (UTC)

"The music I listen to is pretty much a subset of the music my mom listened to."

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:29 am (UTC)

"Me too! Except Renée listens to everything!"

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:30 am (UTC)

"Mom was into rock and, like, melancholy folk music. I picked up on the rock."

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:31 am (UTC)

"Don't like the second thing because of the melancholy or because of the folk music?"

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:34 am (UTC)

"I don't really know if it was the melancholy part or the folk part or if she just had bad taste in melancholy folk bands, I just know it never got me going the way AC/DC did."

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:35 am (UTC)

"It's not supposed to get you going like rock music, it's supposed to be all, like, soulful and wistful and stuff. If you got amped listening to somebody singing Danny Boy there would be something the matter with you."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:39 am (UTC)

He snorts. "No, I mean like, I barely noticed it, it didn't make me anything except slightly bored."

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:41 am (UTC)

Lexi swaaaaaays, going from half-beats to full beats and deepening the motion to accommodate it. "When I think songs are boring I go look up the lyrics and make sure I know what they're talking about and that helps."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:42 am (UTC)

"I did not care enough to do that," says Tony.

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:43 am (UTC)

"'Cause the songs bored you?" Lexi asks archly.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:46 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:47 am (UTC)

"That's all circular, though," she points out.
Edited 2013-04-26 02:47 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-04-26 02:54 am (UTC)

"So? It bored me, so I didn't care about it enough to actively look for ways to make it bore me less. I am comfy with my classic rock, I don't need to like every song I hear."

lexicality
2013-04-26 02:55 am (UTC)

"I guess that's fair. I don't like every single song there is," says Lexi.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 03:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah, see?"

lexicality
2013-04-26 03:01 am (UTC)

"I try especially to be fair to stuff people recommend in particular, though."

toblameforit
2013-04-26 03:03 am (UTC)

"Nice of you."

lexicality
2013-04-26 04:27 pm (UTC)

"It'd bug me if I recommended somebody a song I really liked and they listened to it for three seconds and then was like 'nope'," shrugs Lexi.

toblameforit
2013-04-26 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess."

This is continuation number 11 from here.

small_magics
2013-04-26 01:39 am (UTC)

Sarion has been pretty much standing around, people-watching, letting her memory-crutch bubble up old thoughts to stand in for her diminished ability to generate new ones. Some of the thoughts are new, though, just because so many of the people are so unlike what she could have expected. It's a novel sensation, frightening but pleasant, like diving from a high cliff into a pool on a hot day.

Every few minutes a Bell comes to check on her, make sure she doesn't need anything, that she's still responsive to conversational stimuli. She is not improving instantly, but she is better, and she is glad to have her alts, and she is finding this party nicely stimulating.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 01:45 am (UTC)

A-Joker-who-you-can-call-Queenie wanders by, nametag pinned to the front of her little black dress. She looks like the cuddliest person imaginable, not through any obvious physical quality but as an effect of her aura.

She spots Sarion.

She changes course immediately, approaches, and hugs her.

small_magics
2013-04-26 01:46 am (UTC)

"I See you," says Sarion. "And am hugged by you, as well."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 01:48 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Queenie, releasing her from the snuggliest of hugs. "Hi! I saw you before, I'm glad you're feeling better now."

small_magics
2013-04-26 01:48 am (UTC)

"I am much improved," Sarion agrees.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 01:50 am (UTC)

"I can tell!"

small_magics
2013-04-26 01:53 am (UTC)

"I hope my beloved is also recovering from the mishaps before a solution was found."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 01:56 am (UTC)

"Your sweeties are fine," Queenie assures her. "I was snuggling the little one a minute ago."

small_magics
2013-04-26 01:56 am (UTC)

"It seems that this is one of the more soothing things that could have happened to him."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 01:57 am (UTC)

"I have an aura of cuddle," beams Queenie. "It's the best. Wanna hug?"

small_magics
2013-04-26 01:58 am (UTC)

Evaluating her own wants is one of the harder things, and the memory-crutch doesn't help very much. Sarion considers this question carefully.

"Yes," she concludes.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:03 am (UTC)

Queenie envelops her in snuggle.

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:05 am (UTC)

Snuggle!

It's almost like falling away into unthoughts like when the demon concentrated, before, except she's lucid.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:07 am (UTC)

Cuddly cuddly hug!

Queenie could do this all day, really.

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:09 am (UTC)

Sarion's not going to start objecting any time soon.

"I have read your nametag, and know that you are an alt of my beloved, but I have learned little else about you."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:11 am (UTC)

"I'm the snuggly one," she says cheerfully. "Which is why the aura, not because of the aura. The aura does things other than cuddly. Did anybody tell you about Voice?"

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:12 am (UTC)

"I have - heard the name. In connection with Shell Bell. I do not know the story."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:14 am (UTC)

"Sometimes Jokers have brothers," says Queenie. "They tend to turn out pretty fucked up. Voice is mine. He was a serial killer when he was alive, and when he died he took to keeping people in a box in his basement, one at a time. He got Shell Bell, and then a while later he got me."

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:15 am (UTC)

Sarion thinks about this.

Then: "This is why I am referred to as being broken 'like Shell Bell was'," she concludes.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:20 am (UTC)

"Probably," she agrees. "I'm not broken like Shell Bell was, but it fucked me up pretty bad. It's better if I touch people a lot, so - cuddly."

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:20 am (UTC)

"I am happy to help."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:22 am (UTC)

"I'm glad!"

Hug hug.

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:23 am (UTC)

"I was not kept in a box. It seems unlikely that my form of breakage is the same as Shell Bell's."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:25 am (UTC)

"I dunno exactly how she broke," says Queenie with a snuggly little shrug.

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:26 am (UTC)

"Perhaps we are simply the only two Bells who have broken at all, and there is more than one way to do it."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:26 am (UTC)

"Sounds about right."

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:27 am (UTC)

Sarion considers for a long moment, then says, "I do not think I am irreparable."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:29 am (UTC)

Queenie snuggles her. "That's good."

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:30 am (UTC)

"It is. Someday I will be able to think, by myself."

There is a double meaning to by myself.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:32 am (UTC)

"Aww, sweetheart," says Queenie, snuggling her some more.

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:33 am (UTC)

It is a good snuggle. Sarion is glad to be in it.

"I do not know how much my beloved has said about how I came to be broken."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:35 am (UTC)

"I was there when they fixed you; I caught a bunch."

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:37 am (UTC)

Sarion nods.

She glances around the room.

"It seems that each Bell who found herself in company with a Joker is romantically involved with him. Except for me."

She doesn't know what she thinks of this - well, she doesn't think anything of it, yet, thinking is still hard - but it is on her mind.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:39 am (UTC)

"You love your sweeties," Queenie points out. She has spoken to the sweeties in question. She knows.

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:42 am (UTC)

"Yes. Of course, always."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:46 am (UTC)

"So what's the difference? Sex?"

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:50 am (UTC)

Sarion blinks. "I - do not know about other races, but elves can - recognize a connection, soul to soul. I do not know if I have it with my beloved - it is - muddied."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 02:55 am (UTC)

"You've got time to figure it out," says Queenie, patting her on the back.

small_magics
2013-04-26 02:59 am (UTC)

"Yes." She shrugs. "He has not thought of me in that way. Beyond a single vulgar remark, once."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 03:01 am (UTC)

"He'd fuck you now, if you wanted," says Queenie.

small_magics
2013-04-26 03:04 am (UTC)

"Perhaps. I do not think it would clarify the question. It does not seem to be a distinguishing characteristic of mine."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 03:10 am (UTC)

Queenie giggles.

"Yeah, I'll give you that. But your sweeties love you. In a way the rest of us recognize."

small_magics
2013-04-26 03:11 am (UTC)

"A - a clarification of that would make good hearing."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 11:06 am (UTC)

"It's weird that there's only the one word," says Queenie, "when there's more different kinds of love than there are people. But the way your sweeties love you is a little like the way they love each other, and a little like the way we all love each other, and a lot like the way we love our sweethearts - those of us who have 'em."

small_magics
2013-04-26 04:31 pm (UTC)

"I have not previously heard the assertion that loves are more numerous than lovers," observes Sarion. "Nor am I familiar with attempts to compare the kinds to one another."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, and?" says Queenie.

small_magics
2013-04-26 04:40 pm (UTC)

"And so my puzzlement has not been much clarified."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 05:08 pm (UTC)

"If I knew what you were puzzled about, maybe I could help."

small_magics
2013-04-26 05:10 pm (UTC)

"If I am told that I resemble my mother, and also my father but less so, partial lists of the resemblances are often forthcoming."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Can't really help you there. Just 'case I know what it feels like doesn't mean there's words for it."

small_magics
2013-04-26 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 05:18 pm (UTC)

"You could always ask your sweeties."

small_magics
2013-04-26 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I know how they love me. They've shown me. I do not know what else this should tell me. Perhaps nothing."
Edited 2013-04-26 17:19 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 05:36 pm (UTC)

"But they know how the rest of us love our sweethearts, and unlike me, they can show ya."

small_magics
2013-04-26 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh. That is true. Perhaps it would be instructive."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Could be," Queenie agrees.

small_magics
2013-04-26 05:38 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-04-26 05:40 pm (UTC)

Snuggle-hug!

endragoned
2013-04-26 06:49 pm (UTC)

And Sarion's sweetie emerges from the orgy chambers.

small_magics
2013-04-26 06:55 pm (UTC)

Sarion decides it is time to try her new and much improved connection to them. She broadcasts a greeting to him, and a summary of her conversation with Queenie so far. And she opens up her listening.

endragoned
2013-04-26 06:58 pm (UTC)

He shows her love, coming over to hug them both; that much isn't new.

He shows her his love for Queenie, and that is, a little.

small_magics
2013-04-26 09:15 pm (UTC)

It is different. Sarion turns over the differences in her mind, tasting them, thinking in her slow careful way about them.

"Queenie has said that your love for me is recognizable," she says.

endragoned
2013-04-26 11:10 pm (UTC)

"It's a lot like - well, you saw," he says. "But it's even more like—"

Alice and Stella. The Joker and Nathan. Kas and Amariah. Micaiah and Angela. Sue and Aegis. The Beast and Rose. Jellybean and Cam. Brilliance and Aurora. Each and every one of them is different from the rest, but they share some points in common.

Jokers love. Openly, easily. They love people. They love people for who they are, and they love watching their people be who they are. They love being with their people. They love making their people feel things, especially strong things, especially strongly positive things. If their people love them back, it's wonderful.

They love with touching - snuggles, sex. They love with presents - a cake, a castle, an alethiometer. They love with words and actions. For those whose sweethearts read them, they love with love itself.

Sarion's beloveds love her the way Jokers love.

small_magics
2013-04-26 11:12 pm (UTC)

Sarion leans into her demon, smiling.

"I love you," she tells him.

endragoned
2013-04-26 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," he says, wrapping his arms around her and kissing the top of her head.

we have a complex relationship with our sisters and our cousins

dark_light

Amariah is starting a circle in her yard - minting and enchanting can pull heavier duty than witchcraft, and faster, too, but they won't scale unless she wants to hand out copies of her trump cards; novel spells will, since there are many witches across the globe.

And then Jane asks if she wants to be visited, by Juliet's Sherlock - Minus - and Amariah's reply is "Sure, I could take a break." Because she's been at this for a while now and was just about to wish a crick out of her back for the second time this afternoon.

She puts down her pitcher of oil and waits for him to appear.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Boo."

dark_light
2013-04-30 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Hey you!" says Amariah, greeting him with a hug.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:00 pm (UTC)

Awww. He hugs her back.

"Hey yourself. How goes the witchcraft?"

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Decently enough. Trying to generalize the immortality spell I used for Kas, making sluggish progress, the alethiometer would be so much more useful if it spoke English but I'm afraid I'll break it if I tamper with it and there are only the two of them. Good, you remembered to wish for not-a-daemon before coming."
Edited 2013-04-30 18:06 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-04-30 06:06 pm (UTC)

[I wouldn't put anybody in Alethia who didn't want a daemon or wish against the event,] Jane puts in.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock, "for which I am very grateful, because no one likes to create intelligent life by accident."

mind_game
2013-04-30 06:10 pm (UTC)

[Excuse you.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:11 pm (UTC)

"As one accident to another, I don't believe I require excusing."

mind_game
2013-04-30 06:12 pm (UTC)

[I was a thrillingly pleasant surprise!]

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:12 pm (UTC)

Amariah stifles a giggle.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Congratulations."

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:15 pm (UTC)

"A daemon isn't so much new intelligent life, anyway," shrugs Amariah. "More like - a subagent. But inconvenient to have if you don't plan on it."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:18 pm (UTC)

"So I've been told."

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:19 pm (UTC)

"What's on your mind lately?" Amariah asks. "I don't get lots of visitors."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:20 pm (UTC)

"It occurred to me that I have a friend in another universe whom I can visit whenever I like. I liked."

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:23 pm (UTC)

Amariah laughs and flops onto her back in the grass around the edge of the bare spot in the yard where she casts her circles. "That's what makes Jane such a pleasant surprise. That and her scintillating personality."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:25 pm (UTC)

"That looks fun," he observes, and flops down beside her.

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:26 pm (UTC)

"It's comfy. I magicked the grass specifically for comfort and non-itchiness and so on. Because me and Kas have loooots of privacy out here," she chuckles.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:27 pm (UTC)

"How delightful," he says. "I am so happy for you."

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:30 pm (UTC)

She rolls over to face him instead of the sky. "I just bet. It's a nice house. I complain about the alethiometer, but it does us routine favors of which I quite approve."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:31 pm (UTC)

"...Did the alethiometer buy you a house? That's awfully nice of it."

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:36 pm (UTC)

"No, it told us where to find a house we could just move into without anybody objecting," laughs Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's just as lovely, I think."

mind_game
2013-04-30 06:37 pm (UTC)

There is a loud beeping noise from inside the lovely house.

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:37 pm (UTC)

Amariah sits up.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:40 pm (UTC)

"...What is it?"

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:41 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what could be making that noise. Well, Jane, could, but - Jane?" She looks at her bracelet.

mind_game
2013-04-30 06:42 pm (UTC)

There is no response from the bracelet.

The beeping continues.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Sherlock. "That's certainly ominous."

He gets up and heads for the source of the beeping.

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:47 pm (UTC)

Amariah follows him in.

The beeping is coming from the Janepoint in the basement, and it's accompanied by a message on the screen that reads ANSIBLE CONNECTION LOST. MINIMAL FUNCTIONALITY PROCEEDING ON LOCAL PROCESSING ONLY.

"...Shit," says Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I concur."

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:49 pm (UTC)

Amariah walks up and taps the screen. The beeping stops, the message shrinks into the corner, and a new one appears.

This one says:

mind_game
2013-04-30 06:53 pm (UTC)

While I have no reason to expect loss of ansible connection, it's hardly impossible. I'm untested software! So I wrote this and squirreled it away and some local programs will trigger it if Alethia's ever cut off from the rest of me. I don't have enough stolen processor time just from this world's Internet to go on talking or being very personable, I don't think, if I even am mostly code and not whatever thing it is that lives in Aegis. The algorithms you have set up to manage your email and the ad blocker I wrote you and stuff like that should still work, but maybe not as well. I definitely can't pick anybody up and put them down without the ansible. I will brainphone you as soon as I'm back! Here's hoping that's soon, I know you'll miss me. If you find a door to Milliways the usual way please come check on my site in the Belltower.

Love, Jane

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 06:55 pm (UTC)

dark_light
2013-04-30 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I am," Amariah says, "so, so sorry."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I can tell," says Sherlock, his voice oddly flat.

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:01 pm (UTC)

"She - she could be back any second. Or we could find a door, at any time," Amariah says. "We used to find them pretty - well, not often, but they happened, you won't be stuck here forever."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Pleased to hear it," he says, rubbing his face with both hands. "And yet."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:08 pm (UTC)

"I - well - of course you can stay here, while she's out of commission," says Amariah. "There's room. Do you need anything non-obvious to be - as comfortable as possible?" She attempts a weak smile. "I want to return you to Juliet in good condition."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Tea, animal blood, optionally a bed," he says. "All of which I can conjure myself. Being a mint does do wonders for one's access to material comforts. As for the immaterial... those are trickier."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Amariah, "if I can help in the immaterial department, please let me know."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I may have to impose on you for a regular supply of hugs."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:12 pm (UTC)

She wraps her arms around him. "I can absolutely supply those," she says softly.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:14 pm (UTC)

He hugs her and sighs.

"Then I'll manage."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:15 pm (UTC)

Squeeze.

"I need to tell Kas," she murmurs.

[Sweetie, Jane's offline. No ansible connection. We don't know what happened or when she'll be back. And Minus is here and he's stuck.]

truthwright
2013-04-30 07:17 pm (UTC)

[Aww!] says Kas.

A moment later, he appears with Petaal wrapped around his shoulders as a big green snake, and he joins the hug.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I see you told Kas," Minus says dryly.

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

Hugs. Sighs.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:19 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

truthwright
2013-04-30 07:19 pm (UTC)

Snuggly hugs.

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:20 pm (UTC)

"My room is the one with the hammock, and Kas sort of sleeps anywhere," Amariah says, when it is finally the hiatus of hug time. "Help yourself to whatever space is going spare and appeals to you."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Will do."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm really sorry," Amariah murmurs, and she pets his hair.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:26 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

"I know. Thank you."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:27 pm (UTC)

"...Want to watch me cast a circle?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Happily. What pray tell is it for?"

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:31 pm (UTC)

"It's not for practical use. It's a test circle, of sorts - I can draw them on paper but I've got a sense now of whether something is workable if I look at it in the actual material. And also this way I can take a picture and send it to other witches and they'll take me a little more seriously than if I just send them sketches. But the spell is for immortality, like I gave Kas - the kind witches have. To put on humans, and when I have that down I'll work on a bear version."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:32 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock. "Handy."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:35 pm (UTC)

"It is." She picks up the pitcher and begins a steady walk around her bare yard-patch. "The bear version's going to be tricky because they don't have daemons."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Are daemons an integral component?"

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Of the spell setup, yeah. Most spells that do anything significant to a person incorporate the daemon. Witches and panserbjørne haven't interacted much in the past. I don't know what I'd do if I wanted to cast this on, say, you, although you're already an unrelated kind of immortal, twice."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Feel free to experiment on me if it interests you. I wouldn't mind the hat trick."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, maybe I will," says Amariah. "Although that kind of spell I don't think I would show to the other witches. It wouldn't be the exact same as the bear version - their armor is a little like a daemon to them; I'd probably do a first draft oriented around that - so they'd be puzzled about why I was trying to immortalize a zombie."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:45 pm (UTC)

"For his charming company, of course."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I would love to see you explain to a council of witch queens exactly how you manage to be such charming company without a daemon. But I think it might hamper some of my longer-term plans."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:47 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Such as what?"

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I want to popularize immortality spells - most especially since I have an embedded dispersal mechanism, namely other witches - and most especially since I can't hook into Downside. And I think it is best if I am seen as inventive and clever, not weird and prone to associating with the offworld undead."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:50 pm (UTC)

"But you are prone to associating with the offworld undead," he says merrily.

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:51 pm (UTC)

"It's true! And yet not something I would prefer to advertise to the council of witch queens."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Then I'd better keep myself well hidden, hadn't I."

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Anyone with a lick of magical sensitivity - any witch, most humans - will know something is up with you. Not necessarily the undead part - you look much less undead now than you did before you got your soul stuck on - but the no-daemon part. I suppose if you get bored you could wander into a city and cause a riot, just don't connect it with me or let the stampeding get out of hand."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I promise not to cause any riots," he snorts.

dark_light
2013-04-30 07:55 pm (UTC)

"If you do want to visit a city we could probably come up with some kind of magical illusion that will fool most people."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 07:58 pm (UTC)

"If I do want to visit a city, I'll think about it," he says.

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:00 pm (UTC)

Amariah nods. "I mention it mostly because Kas gets stir-crazy out here in the middle of nowhere, he's always teleporting to this or that metropolis. I don't know if you're prone to that sort of thing."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Not habitually. But thank you."

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:04 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:04 pm (UTC)

He smiles and hugs her.

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:05 pm (UTC)

Hug! Amariah sets down her pitcher to return it. She's between runes.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:07 pm (UTC)

Hug hug.

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:09 pm (UTC)

Path is sitting on a windowsill, over there, and he shuffles his feet a little. If Sherlock had a daemon he'd be talking to her (or him); this is a poor substitute.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Yes?" says Sherlock.
Edited 2013-04-30 20:14 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:15 pm (UTC)

"If you had a daemon I'd be talking to her," Path says. "About how to help you."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:17 pm (UTC)

"As opposed to talking to me?"

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Daemons are better at that."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Really."

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:20 pm (UTC)

"It's true," Amariah agrees. "Well, at least compared to the people who have daemons. I'm not sure about compared to people with - interior souls."
Edited 2013-04-30 20:21 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Then perhaps you could try talking to me."

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:22 pm (UTC)

"All you said was hugs," says Amariah. "That could in fact be the only thing we can do, but we'd be more confident of that if you had a daemon and she said it."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Hugs may not be the only thing that can help, but they are the only thing I am comfortable asking of you, particularly in the context of returning me to Juliet undamaged. I am not a mislabeled parcel."

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I know you're not a mislabeled parcel," says Amariah softly. "There are other reasons not to want you damaged."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes," he says, sitting down in the grass. "You'll find that Sherlocks are unusually sensitive to the implication that we are only valuable by proxy, because under the covers most of us believe it as a literal truth. I lost most of that nonsense with my soul, but either a little of it has snuck back in or it returns under sufficient stress."

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," says Amariah. "I didn't know that. It was a bad joke." She sits down too.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:36 pm (UTC)

He hugs her again.

"Well, now you are informed."

dark_light
2013-04-30 08:39 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 08:41 pm (UTC)

Definitely hugs.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:04 pm (UTC)

Time wears on.

Six days have gone by without a flicker from Jane.

The house is quiet, its occupants asleep.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is asleep, too. He managed to fess up about needing to do it uninterrupted.

So when a small furry spotted creature appears curled up on his pillow, he is startled enough to wake up, and therefore so is she.

"Well," says Sherlock.

"Fuck," says his daemon.

He snorts.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:13 pm (UTC)

In the next room, Amariah sits up in her hammock.

[...Sherlock?]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:14 pm (UTC)

By way of answer, he conferences his daemon into the call.

[You'll never guess what just happened,] she says brightly.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:16 pm (UTC)

[Your wish wore off. I woke up from a sudden lack of zombie-sensation in the vicinity. Damn. Um, hi, Sherlock's daemon.]

[What are you?] Path wants to know.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:19 pm (UTC)

[A genet, apparently,] says Sherlock's daemon. [How marvellously obscure.]

"Merciful fuck, you're more sarcastic than I am," says Sherlock. "I'm not sure I believe it."

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:24 pm (UTC)

[Have you got a name?] Path asks.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:25 pm (UTC)

[Not inherently. Perhaps 'Subtrahend',] she snorts.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:31 pm (UTC)

[That's cute,] says Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:35 pm (UTC)

[Isn't it just?] says Subtrahend.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:36 pm (UTC)

[Precious. Well, I'm through with recreational sleeping now, I wasn't even having any interesting dreams.]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:40 pm (UTC)

[Alas,] says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:42 pm (UTC)

[Rather. Are you going back to sleep or can I have a look at Subtrahend?]

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:42 pm (UTC)

[No, by all means, come and visit.]

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:43 pm (UTC)

Amariah slips out of her hammock and visits.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:45 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is sitting in his bed wearing conjured pajama pants - light blue, adorned with fluffy white sheeps.

His daemon is perched on his shoulder with her long fluffy tail curled around in front of her little feet.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Awww," says Amariah. Path flutters from her shoulder to the bedpost for a closer look at the genet daemon.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm prettier than you," Subtrahend says loftily.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:49 pm (UTC)

"You're lovely," says Path, "but no."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Am too," she says.

Sherlock laughs.

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Path, and he extends a wing and preens.

"I feel like I'm in the sixth grade again," remarks Amariah.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Were contests of this sort a frequent feature?"

dark_light
2013-04-30 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes, but throw in all the daemons shapeshifting constantly to win."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't need to shapeshift," says Subtrahend. "I'm naturally beautiful."

"You're naturally vain," says Sherlock.

"That too."

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I recommend wishing the ability to tuck her away like Sue can - well, copy mine, since mine is under control and doesn't mess up while I sleep - although of course how often you avail yourself of the option is up to you."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Brilliant plan," says Sherlock. He wishes. Subtrahend vanishes, then reappears on his other shoulder.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Useful for crowded situations," says Amariah. Path hops to the other bedpost to continue looking Subtrahend over.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:04 pm (UTC)

"And doesn't start riots?"

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Well - it would be more likely to if you did it than me. I'm a witch and I look it, everyone knows Path could just as easily be halfway across the world, but non-witches virtually never separate. Although at least you won't register funny to sensitivity now, so people will assume you're separated for some reason - accident, special ops military veteran," she smirks a little, "masochist - although a special breed of masochist, even Kas and Petaal didn't do it voluntarily."
Edited 2013-04-30 22:07 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Which just causes me to wonder exactly what sort of masochist does."
Edited 2013-04-30 22:09 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I really don't know. You can see what it's like in small doses if you just experiment with her range, most people do that when they're kids."
Edited 2013-04-30 22:12 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Sherlock.

Subtrahend bites his ear.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:21 pm (UTC)

"What'd you do that for?" Path asks her.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Felt like it," she says sunnily.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Path only bites me if I tell him to steer me away from something I don't want to do," Amariah says, as Path flies to her shoulder again and tucks himself under some of her hair.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Evidently your relationship and ours are very different," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Evidently," snorts Amariah. "People work out all kinds of setups. Most of them don't involve unprompted biting."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:25 pm (UTC)

"I don't think we've had time to work out anything much," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if you'd get much mileage out of reading local fiction and so on. First-person stuff especially, the others don't usually focus a lot of narration on the daemons. Or you could just make something up."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't see why we should care how other people do it," says Subtrahend.

"Evidently not," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:31 pm (UTC)

Amariah laughs. "You don't even want to read Alethia's Sherlock Holmes books? Because we have those."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Tempting," they say in unison.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:35 pm (UTC)

Amariah laughs. "He has a mongoose," she adds. "Stephirashal. In the original books. The dozens of subsequent adaptations play with it, of course, though the name's usually the same and it's usually male."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:37 pm (UTC)

"What of the rest? Is Watson's a small annoying dog? I bet Watson's is a small annoying dog."

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Large terrifying dog. Antiomei," says Amariah. "Doyle was imperfectly consistent about what exactly she was - it was always some sort of wolfish dog, malamute or husky or something, once he outright stated she was a wolfdog. They did own a dog, a regular one," she adds. "Who was considerably smaller and called Gladstone."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that sounds about right."

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:48 pm (UTC)

One of the advantages to a perfect memory is that she can summon up facts she's only come into casual contact with. "Irene Adler has a Eurasian magpie and Moriarty an unspecified variety of tarantula."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:49 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, I imagine you can conjure the books if you want them. They're told from Watson's perspective so I don't know how much insight they contain about the interaction between your namesake and his mongoose."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I think we will," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:53 pm (UTC)

Amariah smiles and turns to leave them be.

Path goes and sits on the bedpost again.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 10:53 pm (UTC)

Subtrahend gives Path an inquiring look.

dark_light
2013-04-30 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm curious about you," Path tells her.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:05 pm (UTC)

"What do you want me to do about it?" she inquires.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:06 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to do anything in particular. Do you want me to go away?"

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Whatever," says Subtrahend.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:07 pm (UTC)

Path stays put and peers at her.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:10 pm (UTC)

She hops off Sherlock's shoulder and proceeds along the headboard until she's next to Path's perch.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:11 pm (UTC)

Path touches his beak softly to her nose.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:12 pm (UTC)

She flicks her tail from side to side and regards him suspiciously.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:13 pm (UTC)

Path pulls his beak back and sits quite still.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I give up," says Subtrahend. "What are you doing."

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm watching you," Path says. "I'm used to learning things about people by watching their daemons."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Great," says Subtrahend. She sits still, with the occasional flick of her tail, and stares at him.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:16 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't work nearly as well on bird daemons," Path adds loftily. "We have very limited facial expressions."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Good for you," says Subtrahend.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:19 pm (UTC)

Path laughs softly. "I'll go if you want me to."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you to go, I want you to make fucking sense," she says.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:21 pm (UTC)

"How do I not make sense?" Path asks, genuinely bewildered. "This - along with helping my Isabella understand herself - is basically my job description, interacting with other people's daemons."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:22 pm (UTC)

"You're not interacting with me," Subtrahend points out. "You're just sitting there watching me. And pecking my nose."

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:25 pm (UTC)

"We're having a conversation right now," Path points out. "And I didn't peck you. I just nuzzled you a little."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:27 pm (UTC)

Subtrahend rubs a paw over her nose.

"I don't get it," she says softly.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:28 pm (UTC)

"You can ask me questions. I'll do my best to help," Path says.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Sherlocks are prone to - depersonalization issues," she says, "thinking they're not real people, that they don't know how to act like real people or understand real people and their place in the world is basically to make somebody else's life easier, and my Sherlock mostly doesn't have those problems anymore but I do. Because I don't know how to act like a real daemon and I don't understand anything and nobody including me wants me to exist and I literally am a fundamentally dependent extension of another person!"

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:36 pm (UTC)

"You're n-"

Path thinks better of this sentence partway through.

"I'm not another person from my Isabella. We're the same. But it doesn't bother me because she's a wonderful person to be part of. And the dependence goes both ways, anyway," he adds, more quietly, suddenly feeling the need to preen a feather in his wing.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know how wonderful Sherlock is, but I'm apparently rude and bitchy and violent," says Subtrahend. "There's probably something wrong with me. I can't imagine there wouldn't be, really."

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:39 pm (UTC)

Path nudges closer to her and offers a wing that she might duck her head under if she wanted.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:41 pm (UTC)

She creeps up to him and sighs and puts her head under his wing.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:43 pm (UTC)

He settles it over her. His feathers are soft and light.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with you," Path says. "If there were going to be something it would probably have to do with Sherlock being a vampire, but that my Isabella noticed right away when we met, and we don't sense anything like it now. You just register normal, now. But you have reasons to be upset."
Edited 2013-04-30 23:43 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm plenty upset," she says disconsolately.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:45 pm (UTC)

Path touches his beak to her nose again.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:46 pm (UTC)

She sighs a very small sigh and nuzzles his beak.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:48 pm (UTC)

"We'll help if we can," Path murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, like how," she says.

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. If I knew I'd suggest something."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:52 pm (UTC)

She sighs again.

"I should pick a new name. My name is shit."

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:56 pm (UTC)

"It's cute. But something else could be cute too. You could always go with Stephirashal. It's gender-neutral."

eversomuchfun
2013-04-30 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Stephirashal sounds like a demon sneezed," she says. "I guess I could go by Steph until I think of something I like better, though."

dark_light
2013-04-30 11:59 pm (UTC)

Path nuzzles her. "Okay."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:00 am (UTC)

She nuzzles back.

dark_light
2013-05-01 12:01 am (UTC)

"I wonder why you're a genet," murmurs Path.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:03 am (UTC)

"Good question," says Steph. "I'm not sure I even know what a genet is."

dark_light
2013-05-01 12:07 am (UTC)

"It's not a common daemon species or I'd have more to say about it. I think genets are related to mongooses," Path adds. "You could look yourself up. That's what everyone does when they settle in high school is look up their species. There are daemon specific books for the more common things that include statistics about the people they belong to. The Big Book Of Daemonic Mammals would be where you'd want to look first. I don't know if you'd be in those books or not. We've seen a fossa and a linsang but never exactly the species you are, and they don't cover everything."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:17 am (UTC)

"I'm probably too rare for the book," she says gloomily.

dark_light
2013-05-01 12:18 am (UTC)

"I don't know, there were some remarkably specific shrews in there."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:48 am (UTC)

Steph giggles.

dark_light
2013-05-01 12:49 am (UTC)

"We didn't read the whole thing because we knew I'd be a bird," says Path, with the winged equivalent of a shrug.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:51 am (UTC)

"That makes sense," says Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 12:52 am (UTC)

"I tried every single thing in the bird book, though, seeing how they all felt."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:53 am (UTC)

"Of course you did," says Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 12:54 am (UTC)

"Ironically, despite Charlie's last name, swans didn't suit me at all."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:54 am (UTC)

"I think you'd look very dashing with a neck as long as my tail," giggles Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 12:57 am (UTC)

"And twice as flexible. But no, it was all wrong. I could be anything and feel all right when we were little but by the time I was close to settling some things were definitely not me. I mostly liked nocturnal things, especially when I was restricting myself to birds so we could be a witch properly."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:58 am (UTC)

"Is it really that species-restricted?"

dark_light
2013-05-01 12:59 am (UTC)

"For witches? Birds. Flying birds, not ostriches or kiwis or penguins. Not bats, not bugs, not miniature dragons. Everyone else can be anything. The commonality isn't much correlated with how frequently something is found in the wild, though. Only a handful of unlucky people have fish."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:02 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:11 am (UTC)

"So if another Bell got a daemon I don't think he'd look like me. They might not even match each other, although I guess some of them could."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:12 am (UTC)

"I bet he'd fly," says Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:13 am (UTC)

"Maybe. Not necessarily. I could see Juliet with some kind of snake," Path says. "Or a lynx or a tiger, maybe."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:16 am (UTC)

"Well, maybe. But a general Bell? I bet he'd fly."

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:19 am (UTC)

"Angela's would," says Path, "no question. I bet you Shell Bell's would swim. Might do both - puffin or gull or something. Stella's would probably fly, so would Pattern's and Aurora's and Rose's. Not sure about Golden. Aegis's might not have wings - flying squirrel, maybe. Cam's might not fly but I could see him with a hawk. Sarion's might not fly, but if it did I bet you she'd have a dove of some kind."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:20 am (UTC)

"Yeah, maybe," says Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:21 am (UTC)

"There's kind of a sense for these things. I bet you could be really good at reading daemons if you practiced."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:22 am (UTC)

"Probably," says Steph, but she doesn't seem excited about it.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:23 am (UTC)

Path nuzzles her again.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:24 am (UTC)

She nuzzles him back, again.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:28 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry you're stuck here," Path murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:32 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry I exist," says Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:38 am (UTC)

"I know you didn't mean to," says Path. "But as long as you're here, I like you."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:41 am (UTC)

She sighs. "I don't know why."

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:43 am (UTC)

Path thinks about this. And then he says, "People without daemons have it all mixed up into a single thing that's hard to keep track of. People with daemons do a lot of the emotional rapport and chemistry between the daemons and the people do more of the words. My Isabella likes Sherlock so I like you."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:48 am (UTC)

"That's kind of fucked," says Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:50 am (UTC)

"Well, if you're mean to me, I might stop liking you, but then there would be spillover to my Isabella," says Path, "because we're the same person."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:53 am (UTC)

"That's definitely fucked," says Steph, "because as demonstrated I am much more of an asshole than my Sherlock, and I also come with my very own psychological issues."

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:54 am (UTC)

"But I like you anyway," says Path irrepressibly. And he snuggles his wing around her.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:55 am (UTC)

She makes a sound that is some combination of giggle and sob, and snuggles up.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:56 am (UTC)

Daemon snuggles! Daemon snuggles are soothing to the daemons and to their people.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:58 am (UTC)

Steph and Sherlock are inexplicably soothed.

dark_light
2013-05-01 01:58 am (UTC)

Path is pleased to be helpful.

Amariah finishes whatever she was off doing and wanders back up. "Aww," she says.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 01:59 am (UTC)

"Yes indeed," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:01 am (UTC)

Sherlock gets an Isabella sitting next to him on his bed. "Anything interesting in the conversation that I missed?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:04 am (UTC)

"My daemon has the standard Sherlock array of self-esteem problems, and neither one of us really knows how daemons are supposed to work. Path has been helping."

"And I'm Steph now," says Steph. "But I'll probably pick something else later."

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:07 am (UTC)

"I'm helpful," asserts Path.

"Of course you are," laughs Isabella.

There is a subtle but definitely Sherlock-noticeable increased comfort in her behavior now that he is bedaemoned.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:08 am (UTC)

Steph jumps off the headboard and bolts for the door.

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:09 am (UTC)

Path flutters to regain his balance, and Amariah jumps, startled. Path flies to her arm and she holds him close to her chest. "What's - what's happened?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:16 am (UTC)

Steph falls short of the door. She strains for a moment, then disappears in a puff of golden light.

Sherlock rubs his face with both hands and says, "I have a fucking suicidal daemon. She finds it intolerable that you are more comfortable around me now that she exists."

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:16 am (UTC)

"I - why? I'm just - used to people having daemons, I always will be, however much time I spend around people who haven't."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:23 am (UTC)

"Welcome to the irrational and emotionally volatile world of Sherlocks with souls."

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:24 am (UTC)

Amariah sighs and puts Path down on the footboard and hugs Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:24 am (UTC)

Sherlock hugs back.

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:25 am (UTC)

"Maybe you'll be more comfortable if she stays tucked away," says Amariah dubiously.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:26 am (UTC)

"You don't expect that to be true?"

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:30 am (UTC)

"I put Path away when I'm nervous someone will touch him. It's a little like - wearing sneakers to go wading. It's uncomfortable, it's not what sneakers are for, the shoes get waterlogged and it's hard to make forward progress - but if the water's infested with piranhas, it's safer. I'm less worried about it now I have my aura and he can make it clear to everyone that they need to back off, and sometimes I want to have sex with someone who doesn't have a daemon and then it's more comfortable than him just being neglected - but it doesn't feel right to have him folded away like that. He's not my dagger, only useful when I happen to want to do something that calls for a sharp object, he's part of me, if he's not there then I'm not all there."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:38 am (UTC)

"Steph and I do not feel that way," says Sherlock. "Steph doesn't want to exist. Steph hates that you are more comfortable with her around because it is a reason for her to continue existing. I had almost forgotten what it was like to be that suicidal."

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:39 am (UTC)

"That's - that's bad," says Amariah. "She came out of you. I don't think it can just be because she happens to be a daemon and this has some resonance with something else. She's your daemon. And she appeared now, not back when you were more - obviously like that."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:42 am (UTC)

"She doesn't want me to stop existing, at least. She just doesn't want to be an active participant in the process."

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:44 am (UTC)

"Well." Amariah shrugs. "Maybe you'll be more comfortable like this, then."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:45 am (UTC)

"Maybe I will," he sighs.

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:48 am (UTC)

"Around here - if Path started acting like that I would assume it meant I, the entire person that is us, was in a really bad way. But you haven't had her forever, so - maybe it's different."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:49 am (UTC)

"She has only just begun to exist. The advent of self-awareness is not an easy time for Sherlocks."

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:50 am (UTC)

Isabella hugs him again.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 02:51 am (UTC)

He sighs, and hugs her back.

dark_light
2013-05-01 02:55 am (UTC)

"Well, how did you deal with it?" Amariah asks. "Having self-awareness."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 12:21 pm (UTC)

"Self-awareness is not intrinsically the problem. The problem is that I didn't like myself very much. And mostly I dealt with it poorly, until I lost my soul and stopped caring. Oh, there you are," he says, blinking. "I'll just bet she feels like shit; to a first approximation she is the literal embodiment of my natural tendency to self-loathe. Which I dodged resuming with magic when I merged my soul back in, but apparently that only took for the everyday, because I am definitely miserable in a soulful way right now. No fucking wonder."

dark_light
2013-05-01 03:43 pm (UTC)

Isabella wraps her arms around Sherlock and hugs him tight; Path trills unhappily.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 04:50 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her back.

dark_light
2013-05-01 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Kas and Petaal are discernibly more comfortable around people with daemons than people without. Maybe Petaal would be a better how-to-be-a-daemon tutor," says Isabella. "If Steph's ever going to come out and want lessons again, I mean, if she's not I guess it doesn't matter."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm honestly not sure if that would help," says Sherlock, "but I suppose it can hardly make things any worse."

dark_light
2013-05-01 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Petaal's pretty unconventional about it, though, and not in any of the ways I'd expect you and Steph to be, especially since she's not settled."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 05:04 pm (UTC)

"For curiosity's sake: in what ways is she unconventional, and in what ways do you expect us to be, and how do they differ?"

dark_light
2013-05-01 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Petaal is unsettled - more unsettled than the average toddler's daemon, and those can change too quick to identify all the species sometimes, she doesn't even have a fixed sex. She spends a lot of time in human - or witch or angel - forms, talks to non-daemon people a lot more than even the chattiest daemons usually do, and is dramatically touchier than any other daemon I've ever heard of. And her personality is just about identical to Kas's modulo the practical matters. You on the other hand - I'd be pretty surprised if you wanted to let Juliet or your Tony touch Steph, anytime soon anyway, let alone me or Kas or your alts. She's settled, or at least it sure looks like it, and while she evidently doesn't refuse to talk to any non-daemons besides you like some do, she seemed within normal range on attention paid to Path versus to me."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Is a daemon's personality not usually identical to their - person's?"

dark_light
2013-05-01 05:17 pm (UTC)

"It's usually close, except for some division of labor in interpersonal interaction. There are - moods, circumstances, when they won't match. Back when I was worried about going all crazy-possessive-witch on my sweeties I told them I wouldn't kill somebody I loved in front of Path. In that eventuality, which is not going to happen, we'd feel differently about it, and I'd have to leave Path home. You and Steph already observed that you don't act just alike."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 05:31 pm (UTC)

"True. Well. Perhaps we should talk to Kas."

dark_light
2013-05-01 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to go wake him?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 05:36 pm (UTC)

"I think we can wait. No rush."

dark_light
2013-05-01 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Amariah disentangles from hug to pick up Path and stroke his feathers.

"You're the first person to get a daemon who didn't want one. Sue wanted Ivy. Voice wanted - whatever he's wound up calling his."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock. "I expected that she would be unhappy, and look how right I was."

dark_light
2013-05-01 05:40 pm (UTC)

Isabella nods solemnly.

"Are you unhappy? In general. Systematically. I know you didn't want to stay in Alethia this long, I don't just mean this week."
Edited 2013-05-01 17:48 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I am sufficiently unhappy about being trapped here that it's hard to tell how I would feel without it, and then of course even before I came here I was not short on things to be unhappy about."

dark_light
2013-05-01 05:53 pm (UTC)

Isabella squeezes his hand.

"...After Jane comes back online. Assuming she does, goddesses all I hope she does. After she's back we should ask the various Jarvises if they want to network into some more worlds. For backup time-syncing and - communications. Time has to have gone out of sync because there's a Jarvis in Sunshine; Juliet could get a door any time, force the Milliways door to here - or to Peace to get Sue and send him, or to Atlantis, we've all been there now, since Shell Bell can make doors cooperate with aura."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Well, we can ask."

dark_light
2013-05-01 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 07:39 pm (UTC)

"And now Kas and Petaal are awake," Sherlock observes.

dark_light
2013-05-01 07:59 pm (UTC)

[Morning, sweeties,] says Isabella. [Sherlock's no-daemon wish unexpectedly wore off.]

truthwright
2013-05-01 08:00 pm (UTC)

Her sweeties appear.

Kas hugs Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 08:00 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs back.

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:01 pm (UTC)

"She's a genet," Path reports to Petaal. "And she's sad."

truthwright
2013-05-01 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Why's she sad?" says Petaal, hopping up onto the bed as a small grey cat and nuzzling Path's feathers.

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:06 pm (UTC)

"She doesn't know how to be a daemon, and she doesn't like being part of somebody else, because Sherlocks have problems with thinking the point of them is to help somebody else," says Path, nuzzling back.

truthwright
2013-05-01 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Petaal. "I want to hug her. Next time she's out, somebody should tell me so I can hug her."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Happily," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:14 pm (UTC)

"She might not be out much," says Path sadly. "Maybe at all."

"I upset her because I'm still just a touch more relaxed around people with daemons than without, and this constitutes a reason for her to exist, and that's bad," says Isabella.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 08:19 pm (UTC)

"She believes her existence is a net loss, so anything that weighs in on the positive side complicates the issue," says Sherlock. "And she doesn't want to stop existing and have that make you less comfortable around me, because you are my friend."

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm not uncomfortable with you. Just, there's that little tickle of something's missing. Was, before, now I can just imagine you're separated and she's in the next room on the relevant level of cognition."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Aha."

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," shrugs Ama.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure it is the sort of thing you need to be sorry for. But thank you."

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Kas doesn't really have that problem, he's been more even-keeled about daemonless people from the start," says Isabella, reaching out to touch Kas's arm.

truthwright
2013-05-01 08:31 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"It's just a different way to be people."

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:32 pm (UTC)

Isabella kisses him.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 08:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock awws.

truthwright
2013-05-01 08:33 pm (UTC)

Kas kisses back!

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:34 pm (UTC)

As well he should!

Path says, "I wasn't very good at helping Steph be a daemon. Maybe Petaal could do it better."

truthwright
2013-05-01 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I can try!" says Petaal, cuddling up to Path while Kas kisses Isabella some more.

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:40 pm (UTC)

"If she ever comes out again," says Path gloomily, fluffing up and snuggling closer.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 08:40 pm (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Maybe she'll feel better when you get home," suggests Isabella.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 08:58 pm (UTC)

"It's possible."

dark_light
2013-05-01 08:59 pm (UTC)

"...I don't want to exacerbate the problem, but it would probably upset Juliet if she found out Steph existed and she never got to meet her."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 09:00 pm (UTC)

"No doubt it would."

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Heh."

There is a knock at the window. A witch in a crown of live black-eyed-Susan-vine is hovering on her cloudpine there. "Yoo-hoo," she says, muffled by the glass. There's a pardalote daemon perched on her knee, who hops up and down in a friendly sort of way.

Isabella turns toward the window.

"...Hello, Tianetta Nimah!" she says. "I wasn't expecting you!"

"Just passing through," replies Tianetta Nimah. "Let me in."

Isabella hesitates, but she gets up and goes towards the window. [Sherlock, I am so, so sorry to ask, but if she or Hendasamon shows the least bit of interest in you - could you pretend that Steph was under the bed - I'm so sorry.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 09:09 pm (UTC)

Sherlock remains outwardly calm, but his response over brainphone is an extended snarl.

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:15 pm (UTC)

[I am so sorry. I can't explain you to her - I couldn't even prove it if I did have to, not without Jane.]

Isabella opens the window, not enough to let the witch in, but Hendasamon is tiny and zips inside. He investigates Petaal and Path first.

"I'm so sorry, Tianetta Nimah, this isn't really the best time," Isabella says.

"I'll owe you a favor," says Tianetta Nimah lightly. "I don't want to have to come back, and I want to talk about those spellcircles."

"I..."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 09:16 pm (UTC)

Steph commences existing under the bed.

Sherlock commences methodically shredding one of the fluffy sheeps on his pajama pants, a single fiber of fluff at a time.

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:19 pm (UTC)

[I will get rid of them as soon as I civilly can.]

Isabella opens the window the rest of the way. Tianetta Nimah ducks and sails through and props her cloudpine up in the corner. "I saw one partway done in your backyard! Let's go look at it," she says to Isabella, and the witches go down the stairs.

Hendasamon finishes his inspection of Petaal and Path, and finds Steph under the bed in short order.

"I'm guessing the cat is Isabella Amariah's boyfriend's. Who d'you belong to?"

truthwright
2013-05-01 09:23 pm (UTC)

Petaal changes into a large boa and drops a coil over the side of the bed.

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:25 pm (UTC)

Hendasamon is briefly distracted. He hops out from under the bed.

"Has she been robbing the cradle?" he asks Petaal archly.

truthwright
2013-05-01 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Petaal, slithering into Kas's lap. He cuddles her and kisses the top of her head. "My sweetie's got like a year on her. We're just special."

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:29 pm (UTC)

"So it would seem."

He turns his attention back to Steph. "I'm Hendasamon. We hadn't heard about there being likely to be anyone in Isabella Amariah's home apart from her boyfriend, so who are you?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Fuck off," says Steph.

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:32 pm (UTC)

Hendasamon looks affronted. "My witch is a queen," he says.

"Come up here with us, if you like," Path offers tentatively.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 09:36 pm (UTC)

Steph curls up and ignores Hendasamon.

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:38 pm (UTC)

"There's no call to be rude," Hendasamon sniffs.

"Hendasamon," says Path. "Come up here with me and Petaal. Steph is in a bad mood."

"Why?" Hendasamon wants to know.

"They miss his girlfriend," Path oversimplifies. "She's far away."

Hendasamon flutters up to the topside of the bed.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 09:40 pm (UTC)

Sherlock continues to denude the fluffy sheep on his knee.

truthwright
2013-05-01 09:40 pm (UTC)

"It's really sad," says Petaal, becoming a viscacha so Kas can hug her more fluffily.

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:43 pm (UTC)

"How does he know Isabella Amariah?" Hendasamon asks.

"We met at a bar," says Path dryly. "My Isabella mistook him for someone else she knew."

truthwright
2013-05-01 09:46 pm (UTC)

"He's fun," Petaal says brightly. "Except when he's too sad."

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:47 pm (UTC)

"We knew someone with a genet once. I wouldn't have described her as fun," says Hendasamon.

"Did you," says Path politely.
Edited 2013-05-01 21:48 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-05-01 09:49 pm (UTC)

"What would you have described her as?" says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:53 pm (UTC)

"That bitch who led my Tianetta's beloved into temptation," says Hendasamon. "This was a good two hundred years ago, so at least there was nothing stopping my Tianetta from putting a dagger in her chest. Ah, those days. You'll have a harder time of it if this one leaves your Isabella for some ghast of a temptress."

"That's our business," says Path frostily.

"I bet you've never even killed anyone," snorts Hendasamon. "All these fancy ideas about immortalizing mortals. Magically fascinating, shortsighted as policy."

"You'd be wrong," says Path in a low, dark voice.

"Ooh," says Hendasamon, "do tell."

"You know perfectly well that wouldn't be very smart of me. But my Isabella has called Yambe Akka's knife."
Edited 2013-05-01 21:53 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-05-01 09:57 pm (UTC)

Petaal shifts into a honey badger. Kas scritches her unconcernedly.

dark_light
2013-05-01 09:59 pm (UTC)

"That really is very interesting," Hendasamon says to Petaal. "You don't feel any pull to any shapes?"

truthwright
2013-05-01 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Petaal. She turns into a viscacha again, then a small brown lizard, then a lap-sized dragon, then a genet.

dark_light
2013-05-01 10:04 pm (UTC)

"How curious," says Hendasamon. "Does it run in your family?"

truthwright
2013-05-01 10:07 pm (UTC)

She hops out of Kas's lap and hits the floor as a massive male tiger.

"Nope," she says, sitting down and putting just her head back into Kas's lap now that the rest of her will not fit.

dark_light
2013-05-01 10:11 pm (UTC)

Hendasamon peers at her. "Fascinating," he says.

And then he hops out the open window and flies away to join his witch.

"You can close the window," Path murmurs. "And the door."

truthwright
2013-05-01 10:11 pm (UTC)

Kas closes the window. And the door. And then hugs Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 10:12 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs back.

Steph tucks away again.

dark_light
2013-05-01 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," sighs Path.

truthwright
2013-05-01 10:16 pm (UTC)

Kas cuddles Sherlock lots. Petaal turns into a maned lioness, for maximum fluff, and does likewise.

"...Should we not be doing this while Queen Whatserface is here," wonders Kas, "in case she looks in through the window and decides Isabella should be killing somebody and makes a big fuss?"

dark_light
2013-05-01 10:17 pm (UTC)

"She's not our queen. If we couldn't convince her it was all right it wouldn't necessarily ruin everything. But maybe you should draw the blinds."

truthwright
2013-05-01 10:19 pm (UTC)

Kas wishes the blinds closed and goes back to cuddling Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-05-01 10:21 pm (UTC)

Path cannot safely enter the cuddlepile. He sits redundantly on the footboard.

Amariah updates them all on her progress in getting rid of the queen periodically. She finally manages to shoo her, and the obnoxious pardalote, after an hour and a half, and then she lets herself back into the room.

"Ugh," she says, "I am so sorry."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 10:25 pm (UTC)

"He may have backhandedly accused me of seducing your boyfriend away from you," Sherlock remarks. "Didn't seem keen on the spread of immortality, either."

dark_light
2013-05-01 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Eugh, no wonder the Manitoba clan is such a mess," says Isabella, shaking her head, "she's awful, I hope she's got one sane daughter plotting to take over after she gets the wrong end of a cursed arrow or pines for one too many husbands. I think she left convinced of my - harmlessness, at least, you're right she doesn't think much of the project so I talked a lot about problems I don't have solved yet. And didn't explain about motion components. I know that if you have any designs on my boyfriend they won't lead to him leaving me, don't worry," she says with a weak smile.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 10:32 pm (UTC)

"At the moment my designs on your boyfriend mainly involve cuddling him," says Sherlock.

dark_light
2013-05-01 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I can see that." Isabella pets Path, then flops into the cuddlepile.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-01 10:34 pm (UTC)

Cuddles.

truthwright
2013-05-01 10:35 pm (UTC)

Petaal extricates herself and gambols over to Path as a linsang.

dark_light
2013-05-01 10:36 pm (UTC)

Path snuggles with linsang-Petaal with a relaxed hoot.

truthwright
2013-05-01 10:37 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

our beloved and our god

jovahs_heiress

It's the middle of the night, and Isabella is sitting up reading, when she gets an alarming message.

[Captain,] says Jane's voice, and Jane never calls her Captain, [I've lost ansible communications with the rest of Jane. Local programming including responding to prayers will run as usual without a problem, and the voice synthesis will continue to operate with the Jane voice instead of the Jehovah voice unless you request otherwise. However, interworld communication and travel is impossible until the connection is restored. The nature of the error is unknown and is not related to a mechanical defect of the ansibles aboard the ship or in your bracelet.]

Isabella blinks.

[...Please do change voices as long as you aren't actually Jane.]

The voice changes, but says, [I contain more software than the original Jehovah did, most of which is original to Jane.]

[You're talking more like him than her.]

[Yes, Captain.]

[Alert me immediately when you have ansible communications back.]

[Yes, Captain.]

Isabella pads across the room to sit where Micaiah is sleeping and lay her hand on his back.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-30 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Mmm?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-30 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Jane's lost ansible contact with the rest of her. Jehovah is working approximately like before, but we can't leave Samaria or talk to anyone outside it. I thought you'd want to know right away."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-30 11:40 pm (UTC)

"...I guess I do," he says. "But I don't know what to do about it."

When in doubt, hug your angel?

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-30 11:41 pm (UTC)

This is a good thing to do when in doubt.

"I don't think there's anything in particular to be done. It's not a mechanical defect we could fix on our end. We just wait, I suppose."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-30 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Micaiah. He hugs her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-30 11:47 pm (UTC)

Jane - continues to be disconnected.

For months.

She is still gone when Isabella - in the middle of a harmonics session - goes into labor.
Edited 2013-04-30 23:47 (UTC)

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-30 11:49 pm (UTC)

Micaiah looks for her as soon as he hears.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-30 11:51 pm (UTC)

Angela is mid easy but not suspiciously easy labor, assisted by the Eyrie midwives and attended by her mother, when he reaches her.

She's making the requisite fuss, but it's pure theater; she got one coin out of the first contraction and has been acting since.

Micaiah, of course, is permitted in the room as the father of the child.

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-30 11:52 pm (UTC)

Micaiah waits quite calmly for the fuss to be over.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-30 11:55 pm (UTC)

Eventually, after "easiest angel labor I've seen in all my years" (says the midwife), Isabella produces a small winged form, who is cleaned up and presented to her.

"Damaris," she breathes. "Hello, treasure."

yovahs_kisses
2013-04-30 11:57 pm (UTC)

Damaris proceeds to let everyone in the room, and maybe everyone in the Eyrie, know she has functioning lungs.

Micaiah grins.

jovahs_heiress
2013-04-30 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Got some wind in her," says the midwife approvingly.

"Let Micaiah have his turn holding her so I can have mine," says Rinnah, clapping her hands and beaming.

Isabella offers the baby to her father.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-01 12:00 am (UTC)

Micaiah holds the baby. She yells at him, too. He laughs and kisses her little head and passes her to Rinnah.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:01 am (UTC)

Rinnah is good with babies! Or at least most babies. She rests Damaris on her back, arm between the wings, and rocks her and murmurs musical nonsense.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-01 12:02 am (UTC)

Damaris yells a little more, but then apparently she's all yelled out. For now.

Micaiah kisses his wife.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:03 am (UTC)

Isabella kisses her husband. [We're parents,] she says joyously.

"I should probably feed her," she says aloud, after the kissing is over with.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-01 12:07 am (UTC)

"Good idea," says Micaiah, snuggling her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:08 am (UTC)

And so she does.

Jane continues to be disconnected. For a long time.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:23 am (UTC)

Damaris is a talkative little girl. She makes sounds, and the sounds gradually morph into words, and the words rapidly assemble into sentences. Her first word might be any of a number of things - her pronunciation lags behind her vocabulary, and many of her early utterances are open to considerable interpretation - but her first complete and adult-sounding sentence, when she's not quite two, is: "No, I want the smushy peas!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:25 am (UTC)

"All right, my treasure," says Isabella, "you may have the smushy peas," and she produces smushy peas. Strictly speaking, the cafeteria was not serving these, but no one is likely to notice; these come in cans and are the sort of thing she could just have around.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:28 am (UTC)

Damaris giggles. She eats the smushy peas. They are delicious.

"Thanks, Mommy!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:28 am (UTC)

"You are welcome! Aren't you polite," says Angela, pressing a kiss to Damaris's forehead.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:29 am (UTC)

Damaris hugs her mommy. This results in an unfortunate massacre of the remaining smushy peas.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:30 am (UTC)

"Oh dear," says Angela. "This is a bit of a mess. Are you still hungry, treasure?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:31 am (UTC)

Damaris pokes a blob of smushy peas stuck to her elbow.

"I don't want the smushy peas now," she proclaims. "They smushed on me."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:32 am (UTC)

"They did exactly that," Isabella agrees. "We can go back to our room and clean up." She scoops up her treasure into her arms.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:34 am (UTC)

"Smush!" says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:36 am (UTC)

"Smush! That is what smushy peas do," agrees Isabella. "They smush."

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:39 am (UTC)

"Smushy peeeeeas," she hums. "Smushy peas, smushy peas - "

Damaris has apparently discovered her singing voice, although she has yet to discover imaginative lyrics.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:40 am (UTC)

Angela improvises along with her. "Smushy peas, smushy peas," she warbles, up and down a scale.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:40 am (UTC)

"Smushy smushy smushy peeeeeeas," says Damaris, who has not learned to harmonize either.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:41 am (UTC)

There will be plenty of time. For the time being Angela tries to guess where her daughter's going to land and arrive at a cooperative note.

They reach their room.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:42 am (UTC)

"Smushy peeeeeas," Damaris sings, and she smushes some on her mother's face.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:43 am (UTC)

"Damaris my treasure, do you think I wanted to have peas on my face?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:45 am (UTC)

Damaris considers this.

Then she says, "No?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:48 am (UTC)

"That's right," says Isabella. "I did not." She maneuvers Damaris into one arm and opens the door to the family quarters they've moved into. "And now they are there anyway."

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:49 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Damaris.

Now she is troubled!

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:50 am (UTC)

"You could say I'm sorry, Mommy," suggests Angela.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:50 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry Mommy," she recites.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:51 am (UTC)

"It's all right, my treasure," says Isabella, and she kisses Damaris on the forehead and closes the door behind them.

The cleanup of smushy peas could be accomplished more efficiently with magic, but Isabella doesn't want Damaris to grow up with no idea how to do things the ordinary way; it would make her peculiar to her peers. Soap and water are deployed.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:53 am (UTC)

Damaris observes the soap-and-water process with fascination.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:54 am (UTC)

"There. Now there aren't smushy peas on us any more," says Isabella. "That's better."

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:55 am (UTC)

"Better," echoes Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 12:57 am (UTC)

"Yes. Where do you suppose Daddy is at this hour?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:59 am (UTC)

Damaris looks around.

"Daddy's not here," she declares.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:00 am (UTC)

"He's not! He must be somewhere else. Let's go find him," says Isabella, picking up her treasure.
Edited 2013-05-01 01:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-01 01:04 am (UTC)

"Daaaaaaddyyyyyyyyy," says Damaris, helpfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:05 am (UTC)

Isabella laughs and goes out into the Eyrie to search for Micaiah the long way around.

pythbox
2013-05-01 01:06 am (UTC)

Damaris makes a new song!

The words to the song are 'Daddy'. Also 'Daddy', 'Daddy', and 'Daddy'.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:07 am (UTC)

Angela hums along as they prowl in search of Daddy.

pythbox
2013-05-01 01:07 am (UTC)

"Daddy daddy daaaaaaaaaaddy daddy daddy," sings Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:09 am (UTC)

"Where, oh where, could Damaris's daddy be," trills Isabella.

pythbox
2013-05-01 01:10 am (UTC)

"Daddy daddy daddy where oh Daddy," Damaris improvises.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:12 am (UTC)

"Is he in the music rooms?" Isabella wonders musically as they enter the hall on which such things are found.

pythbox
2013-05-01 01:14 am (UTC)

"Is daddy in the music roooooms?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:15 am (UTC)

Well, his name is on the sign-up sheet for this one and nobody is after it. Isabella knocks. "We will see if he is here," she sings.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-01 01:19 am (UTC)

He is! He is in the music room!

He gives his wife and daughter a kiss each and one hug to share between them.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:20 am (UTC)

"Here is Daddy, we have found him," Isabella sings to her treasure, after she returns the offered kiss.

pythbox
2013-05-01 01:21 am (UTC)

"Daddy daddy daddy," sings Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:22 am (UTC)

"Our little one has found her singing voice," says Isabella. "And complete sentences."

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-01 01:24 am (UTC)

"I can hear the singing part," says Micaiah.

"We found daddy!" says Damaris. "Hi Daddy we found you!"

Micaiah laughs and hugs them again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 01:25 am (UTC)

"Now that we've found him what do you suppose we should do with him?" Isabella asks Damaris.

pythbox
2013-05-01 02:11 am (UTC)

Damaris thinks.

Damaris says, "Hug Daddy!"

Damaris holds out her arms.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-01 02:11 am (UTC)

Daddy hugs Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 02:12 am (UTC)

"What a clever idea," says Isabella, transferring Damaris's weight to her daddy in the course of this hug.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-01 02:17 am (UTC)

Micaiah kisses Isabella on the forehead and hugs their daughter.

pythbox
2013-05-01 01:21 pm (UTC)

Damaris giggles.

Over the course of subsequent months, her diction improves. Soon complete sentences are a norm instead of a novelty.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 03:41 pm (UTC)

As is customary for little angels - or for that matter, mortals who grow up in an angel hold - this is approximately when she's enrolled in formal voice lessons. Rinnah teaches the youngest cohort, and her granddaughter is slotted right in with others of her age.

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:09 pm (UTC)

Damaris enjoys formal voice lessons! She does not have her mother's problem of singing too quietly. She does not have that problem at all.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:12 pm (UTC)

That is good! Everyone likes to hear little angel voices. Rinnah is terribly proud of her. So is Isabella.

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:15 pm (UTC)

It makes Damaris very happy when Mommy and Grandma are proud of her!

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:18 pm (UTC)

That's good!

Does it also make Damaris very happy when, timed nearly right for her third birthday, she gets a little sister?

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:19 pm (UTC)

Damaris is not sure how to feel about that at all.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:22 pm (UTC)

Keziah's feelings on the matter seem to mostly come in the form of whimpery mewls whenever she is not being actively fed right then, or sleeping. She sleeps a lot.

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:27 pm (UTC)

Keziah is kind of boring.

Damaris asks her father if she was that boring when she was a baby.

He considers the question, and then says she was a lot louder.

Damaris is not surprised.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:29 pm (UTC)

Isabella doesn't think her darling Keziah is boring at all!

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:31 pm (UTC)

"But she doesn't do anything, Mommy," says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Not yet," says Isabella. "She's watching everybody around her so she can learn to do things."

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Damaris. "Well, put her in front of interesting people, then, so she'll stop being boring quicker."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Don't you think we're interesting?" laughs Isabella.

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I guess," says Damaris. "Good job, then! Should I sing her songs, will that help?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:38 pm (UTC)

"It might!" says Isabella. "We can sing to her together. But not when she's asleep. Babies need a lot of sleep."

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:42 pm (UTC)

"In a few years she'll be talking and singing, just like you."

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:43 pm (UTC)

"That's good!" says Damaris. "I want her to talk! She'll be less boring if she talks."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:44 pm (UTC)

"It's true," agrees Isabella, laughing.

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I'll sing her songs and talk to her a lot," says Damaris, "and then she'll learn those things faster!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Quite possibly. She can only learn so fast, though, she is just one little angel and not six of them."

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Do six little angels learn faster than one?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Isabella, "they'd have to learn the same things, like how to walk and talk and use their hands and flap their wings, but if you count all of it separately, then yes, about six times as fast."

pythbox
2013-05-01 05:58 pm (UTC)

Damaris frowns.

"That doesn't make sense," she announces. "If six little angels learn six times as fast as one then why doesn't everybody have babies six at a time so they won't be boring as long?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:02 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs. "Well, first of all, that would be very uncomfortable. You saw how big I got when I was pregnant with just Keziah; imagine if there were six of her! And second of all, that's not what I meant. Imagine you're drawing with chalk, a line on the floor from that wall to this one. If you draw six lines at once, with six pieces of chalk, then there will be six times as much chalk on the floor, but the lines will still only go from one wall to the other."

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:03 pm (UTC)

"But then that's not any faster at all!" says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:04 pm (UTC)

"More learning happens, in the same amount of time," says Isabella. "That's a kind of faster. The kind of faster you want is the same amount of learning in less time."
Edited 2013-05-01 18:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:08 pm (UTC)

"The same in less time is what faster means," Damaris insists.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, I suppose it all depends on how much you're trying to get done."

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:12 pm (UTC)

"What's that mean?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, let's suppose it takes three years for a little angel to become interesting," Isabella says, rocking a sleepy Keziah in her arms. "And let's say I'm only going to have two, that Keziah's going to be the last one. So when she's three, she'll be interesting, and if she could be interesting when she's two instead, then all my little-angel-interestingness would be done faster. But what if I'm going to have six of them? Then by the time the last one was interesting, you would be at least ten years old, if I had them one at a time. If they all were born at the same time then the same amount of little-angel-interestingness would be done faster, even if it still took them all three years."

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:18 pm (UTC)

Damaris thinks about this.

"...okay," she concedes. "I guess. Are you going to have six little angels? If you do, you should have twins next. Then it'll be faster."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure how many little angels we're going to have, but being done faster is not the point," says Isabella, amused.

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

"If you sing a song twice as fast, you'll be done sooner. Why do we sing some songs slow anyway?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:23 pm (UTC)

"They sound nicer?" she guesses. "Do one-at-a-time babies sound nicer than twins?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:24 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs. "No. All right - why do we sing at all?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Because it's fun!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:27 pm (UTC)

"And bringing up little angels," says Isabella, rocking sleepy Keziah and re-folding a limp wing, "is also fun."

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Even the boring part?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't want to miss it."

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Damaris, dubiously.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Right now you are three," says Isabella. "Would you want to be magicked into being six instead, right now? And miss being four and five in between?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Damaris. "I've never been four yet!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Keziah hasn't been one year old yet," says Isabella. "I don't think it would be fair if she never got to try it, even if that would make her interesting faster."

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Besides, tiny babies are cute."

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Tiny babies are boring," says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, I suppose I thought so too when I was three."

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:39 pm (UTC)

"You were three?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes! I have been all of the ages from zero to twenty-three," laughs Isabella.

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:40 pm (UTC)

Damaris giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:41 pm (UTC)

"In order," Isabella adds, winking.

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:42 pm (UTC)

Damaris giggles more!

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:44 pm (UTC)

Isabella kisses the top of her head.

Keziah isn't quite as precocious as Damaris, but when she is two and Damaris is five, she can reliably say things more intelligible than uncontextualized "juice" and "up" and "Mommy" and "Daddy" and "Dars", which is as close as she can come to Damaris's name for the first years of her life.

"Play wif me, Dars," Keziah says, tugging on Damaris's arm.
Edited 2013-05-01 18:55 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Damaris, beaming. "What do you want to play?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

"A game!"

pythbox
2013-05-01 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Damaris.

She quite enthusiastically makes up a game on the spot.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 07:00 pm (UTC)

Keziah plays along with all the eptness and clumsy enthusiasm one might reasonably expect from a two-year-old.
Edited 2013-05-01 19:04 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-01 07:05 pm (UTC)

That is okay. Sometimes when you're learning things you don't get them right away. Damaris will just have to keep on teaching her how to be interesting until she learns it properly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

Keziah is eager to be interesting!

pythbox
2013-05-01 07:09 pm (UTC)

That's good! Then they can both have lots of fun while she learns.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 03:00 am (UTC)

When Damaris is six, Keziah is three, and their little sister Ariel is just barely one year old, their mommy gets made leader of the host.

Delilah is alive, well, and only in her fifties, but she thinks Isabella could use the practice and she could use the spare time.

The family moves into a more central suite.

Phebe moves to Cedar Hills in poorly disguised disgust.

Everything is much busier, all at once. Isabella is obliged to ratify or overturn all manner of hold and province policy, and instead of being a plausible first port of call before taking a problem to Delilah, she is the ultimate authority.

Sometimes people go to Micaiah first. He is now a plausible first port of call before taking a problem to Isabella.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 03:04 am (UTC)

Micaiah turns out to be pretty good at solving people's problems, especially when the problem is that they need to air a grievance or don't feel listened to. Dealing with people just seems to come naturally to him.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 03:06 am (UTC)

Anything that makes a buffer between Isabella and all this work is appreciated. It's interpersonal enough that she can't just speed up and handle everything in her head and with magic, and people have already started noticing that she doesn't seem to set aside much time for sleep.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 03:09 am (UTC)

Micaiah also turns out to like doing this for people.

Pretty soon it's almost more common for petitioners in the know to come to him first.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 03:12 am (UTC)

The hold's angels aren't quite thrilled about taking directives to go here or there for this or that from a mortal, which is the most common suitable response for petitions, but Isabella perfects a withering why did you drag me here just to repeat what my husband said look that usually keeps anyone from soliciting confirmation of his instructions twice.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 03:16 am (UTC)

And he is very nice and charming and not presumptuous about it, which helps.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 03:20 am (UTC)

It does help.

Life goes on. Isabella gets pregnant again. Serah gets married to a mortal and moves to Velora with him. Elisha finally gets one of his angel-seekers pregnant with an angel and she moves into the hold and proves much more able to hold his attention when she's nearby; they don't get married, but they live together. Isabella has baby the fourth, who is named Peninnah, after Isabella's recently deceased oracle mentor.

It is easy for days to go by without anything reminding anyone that they were once part of a peal of interdimensional Bells, but -

[Love, I think sometime soon we should tell Damaris about magic, and Jehovah, and the other worlds. She probably already suspects something. If nothing else she's had every opportunity to hear Ithiel's story.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 03:24 am (UTC)

[I guess we should,] he muses.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 03:26 am (UTC)

[Tonight after the other girls are in bed? If she takes it well - or if she takes it badly, if she's attached to the idea of Jovah by now - we can possibly tell Keziah soon too.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 03:27 am (UTC)

[All right,] he says agreeably.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 03:29 am (UTC)

So that night, after the other girls are in bed and all the appointments have been appointed and everyone is in the family suite, Isabella says:

"Damaris, treasure, will you stay up a bit? We'd like to talk to you about something."

pythbox
2013-05-02 03:30 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Damaris, blinking at her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 03:31 am (UTC)

"Well, first of all," says Isabella, "it's possible you've noticed part of it already. Have you ever suspected that me and your father might be able to do more things than most people can?"

pythbox
2013-05-02 03:32 am (UTC)

"Of course," she says. "You're the host leader. You do lots of things most people can't."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 03:35 am (UTC)

"I don't mean having permission or authority," Isabella says. "I thought you might have noticed that none of you girls have ever been sick, or hurt worse than a scraped knee, and that neither have we - that you might have heard the story surrounding Ithiel's birth; he's only a little older than you are - that I do not forget things, at all - that I don't sleep very much and I never seem tired - that your father and I can often coordinate very effectively with no obvious chance to speak to one another."
Edited 2013-05-02 03:38 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-02 11:50 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Damaris.

She thinks about it.

"Yeah, that's weird."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Any guesses?" asks Isabella mildly.

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Jovah likes you best?" she suggests after a moment's contemplation.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Isabella, "that's - not most of it, but -" She sighs. "You might also have noticed that I have been a little evasive about Jovah when I am not also carrying a tune."

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:29 pm (UTC)

Damaris regards her mother thoughtfully.

"Are you Jovah?" she inquires.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 04:30 pm (UTC)

"No," laughs Isabella. "Jovah is - not what everyone thinks he is, though." She sighs. "I didn't take it well when I found out, so I'm trying to come at the revelation slowly, but perhaps I'm not doing a very good job."

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:33 pm (UTC)

Damaris waits.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

"When you were four I told you a bedtime story about a boat that could travel from star to star," says Isabella. "I didn't invent that idea. There are such boats. There is one traveling through Samaria's sky. It is piloted by a technology so advanced compared to what we have here that it can - almost, but not quite - think for itself. It can talk. It can hear, through technological ears it has planted here and there. It can change the weather, and it can shoot weapons that look like lightning, and it can drop seeds and medicine out of its cargo hold. And it addresses me as 'Captain'."

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

"...Jovah likes you best," Damaris concludes. "But how did the sky boat fix Ithiel?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 04:42 pm (UTC)

"It didn't. It couldn't. I did that, too, and I let everyone think it was Jovah, because everything I'm telling you now is a secret - can you keep it secret?"

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:43 pm (UTC)

She nods solemnly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 04:49 pm (UTC)

"When I was younger - just before I got pregnant with you, actually - your father and I found a magical door that led to another world. The door is gone now - it moves, and it doesn't always exist - but when we found it, we went through, and we met people who were a lot like us - only from other places."

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:53 pm (UTC)

"What was the other world like? Who were the other people?"
Edited 2013-05-02 16:54 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 04:57 pm (UTC)

"The door led to a magical restaurant," Isabella says, "that attaches to many, many other worlds. And some of those worlds have people who are just like me apart from having different homes, and some of them have people who are just like your father except for the same thing. And in some of those worlds, magic exists."

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:59 pm (UTC)

"So you went there and you took their magic and brought it back and hid some here so you could use it for stuff," Damaris guesses.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:00 pm (UTC)

"It was a little more complicated than that, but yes, your father and I have magic now."

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:06 pm (UTC)

"What's it do? Can I have some?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:08 pm (UTC)

"It can do almost anything - if we know what we want it to do. It is a little smart but not very smart. What would you do with it?"

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't know!" says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Then why do you want to have some?"

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:17 pm (UTC)

"In case I think of something to do with it?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:18 pm (UTC)

"How about," says Angela, "I teach you how your father and I can talk silently? You can talk to Alleluia and Caleb and Uncle Nathaniel the same way. And then if you think of something you can tell about it wherever we are."

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:23 pm (UTC)

"That's magic!" says Damaris. "I want it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:25 pm (UTC)

[Here you are, treasure.]

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Magic!] she says beamily, and she hugs her mother.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:27 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:29 pm (UTC)

Enthusiastically huggy hugs! Damaris has magic of her very own now, and that is fantastic.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:30 pm (UTC)

[You can use this magic to talk,] Isabella switches to text, [or write, and if you want to be left alone you just want it and you can have the magic tell everyone who tries to talk to you a message.]

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:33 pm (UTC)

[Ooooh,] marvels Damaris.

She puts up a busy message. It says, [Whee! Magic!]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:34 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs aloud.

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:34 pm (UTC)

Damaris giggles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:35 pm (UTC)

"We may tell Keziah soon, too. What do you think, is she ready to find out?"

pythbox
2013-05-02 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Damaris. "You're her mother, you figure it out."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 05:46 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs. "Do you think we should have told you earlier than we did?"

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Well, I suppose we'll think about it. There's one more thing. In addition to the magic doors - which we haven't found any of in a long time, now - there used to be another way to get from world to world. But it's broken now," Isabella adds with a sigh. "It might unbreak, later, but we don't know when if ever that will happen."

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Who broke it?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:14 pm (UTC)

"We don't know how it broke. It might have died; it was a person. Her name was Jane, and she was an unusual sort of person who could reach into machines - like the interfaces at the oracles' retreats, or the spaceship - and become them. She became lots of machines on lots of worlds and connected them all together, and then she lost her connection - to here, or everywhere, we're not sure."

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Damaris. "That's sad."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:17 pm (UTC)

"It's very sad."

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:18 pm (UTC)

Damaris considers.

Then she hugs her mother again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:20 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"Jane was almost like your cousin. Because she was - in a complicated way - a little like the daughter of one of the people from one of the other worlds who was like me and her boyfriend who was like your father. There were twelve of me, and eleven of him, that we'd found before Jane lost her connectivity."

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:22 pm (UTC)

"That's a lot of yous," says Damaris. "And a lot of Daddys."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes. The me's were called Bells. We didn't all have the same name, but all of our names had the sound 'bell' in them. The Daddies called themselves Jokers, after one of them who they thought was a particularly good example."

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Is Daddy not a good example of Daddy?" wonders Damaris. "I think Daddy is the best example of Daddy."

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 06:26 pm (UTC)

Daddy laughs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Daddy is the best example of Daddy. But the things he had in common with all the other versions of him were - most pronounced, in the one named the Joker. Closer to what seemed to be the template. Like a cookie cutter."

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Daddy, are you a messed-up cookie?" inquires Damaris.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Yes I am," he says, ruffling her hair.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:31 pm (UTC)

"He's a cookie with lots of frosting on," suggests Isabella, "so it's a little harder to tell what shape he is under all the tasty decorations." And she kisses Micaiah's cheek.

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:32 pm (UTC)

Damaris wrinkles her nose. "If you're going to start talking about how tasty Daddy is, I'm going to bed," she announces.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:33 pm (UTC)

Isabella laughs. "Sleep well, my treasure."

pythbox
2013-05-02 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Goodnight," she says, and distributes hugs - one per parent - and goes to bed.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:44 pm (UTC)

"That went well," Isabella remarks to Micaiah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it did!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I think Keziah in six months or a year, perhaps."

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-02 06:46 pm (UTC)

"All right," he says agreeably.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-02 07:04 pm (UTC)

Telling Keziah goes just as well. Keziah wants a tour of Jehovah, which she gets (Damaris is invited along too). She spends a lot of time asking Jehovah questions. They are not all well-informed questions ("Do you like it when people pray to you?" "What's your favorite song?") but she seems to find a non-god who'll talk to her, however uninspiredly, an improvement over a distant divinity.

Damaris is ten, Keziah seven, Ariel five, and Peninnah two, when the ship's voice changes again.
Edited 2013-05-02 19:06 (UTC)

alone in the multiverse

bellfounding

Bella's mid-conversation with Jane when she cuts out.

[Jane?]

Jane... pretty much fails to exist.

[Jane.]

Nothing.

Bella goes to the Janepoint, and there's a message for her on the screen, something about lost ansible connection.

Well, shit.

[Queenie, Ghosty, Slipstick?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-01 09:01 pm (UTC)

[Mm?]

prima_sequentem
2013-05-01 09:01 pm (UTC)

[What she said.]

bellfounding
2013-05-01 09:09 pm (UTC)

[Jane's ansible cut out. Local stuff like the Saturn toplevel domain that she set up will still work, but we can't leave the universe without a conventional Milliways door, or talk to anyone outside it either.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-01 09:10 pm (UTC)

[Aww, that sucks,] says Queenie.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-01 09:10 pm (UTC)

[What she said!] says Slipstick.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 09:16 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, seriously. Just letting you know. Slipstick, I would really appreciate your help figuring out how to backpedal on my claims of being able to raise the dead if anyone calls me on it, I don't know how long Jane will be gone and evil-based resurrection has its flaws.]

prima_sequentem
2013-05-01 09:18 pm (UTC)

[Now there's a thorny problem,] she says. [I'll think about it. For now, don't remind anybody.]

bellfounding
2013-05-01 09:20 pm (UTC)

[Of course. Thanks.]

prima_sequentem
2013-05-01 09:32 pm (UTC)

[No problem.]

bellfounding
2013-05-01 09:35 pm (UTC)

[And I would appreciate it if all of you would open perhaps more doors than you usually bother with and tell me immediately if any of them lead to Milliways.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-01 09:36 pm (UTC)

[Sure thing,] says Queenie.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-01 09:37 pm (UTC)

[No problem.]

bellfounding
2013-05-01 10:26 pm (UTC)

Bella scales back all her communications with world leaders, and manages to proceed without any of them asking her to produce a dead person or explain how it might be done.

She has the news on in the background while she designs herself a ninja costume. She might as well look the part, since her aura insists. Her seeing-through-things power means she could cover her entire face and operate unimpeded...

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-01 10:46 pm (UTC)

[Hey,] says Queenie. [You busy?]

She sounds... concerned.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 10:47 pm (UTC)

[Nothing I can't put down, what is it?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-01 10:51 pm (UTC)

[Some chucklehead's trying to take over Gotham,] she says. [I turned his nuke into a big fluffy rabbit and now he's having a tantrum.]

bellfounding
2013-05-01 10:54 pm (UTC)

[Thank you for letting me know, and thank you for fixing the nuke.]

Bella wishes up a version of her current draft of the ninja suit. It's black, fading to gray at a few places, covers her head to toe, and generally looks like she ought to have a couple of swords on her person even though she has not included swords.

She teleports to location of the ex-nuclear rabbit, stealth on, to scope out the situation.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-01 11:00 pm (UTC)

A large bald man with a strange mask obscuring the lower half of his face is wandering back and forth across the intact end of a mostly destroyed football field, roaring intermittently. Nearby is a smaller, more conventionally dressed, infinitely more anxious-looking person, edging nervously away from an enormous fluffy white rabbit with a tiny top hat perched between its floppy ears. There is general chaos in the stands, particularly the part of the stands that is a fresh smoking crater.

Queenie is the only person in the audience who is still calmly seated.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:03 pm (UTC)

Oh dear. Pattern whips up a quick wish that will prevent anyone from getting crushed or trampled in the chaos, and then she spotlights her aura - the stadium lights turn to accommodate her - and stalks in the direction of the roaring person. "Excuse me," she says, "but what do you think you are doing?"
Edited 2013-05-01 23:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:10 pm (UTC)

The roaring person whirls and tries to grab her.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:10 pm (UTC)

Super-speed is Bell standard. This Bella may not have much to boast beyond the standard, but she has that. She's not there anymore. "I asked a civil question," she says.

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:12 pm (UTC)

The roaring person continues to roar. It's a very impressive sound, really.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:13 pm (UTC)

"You're going to develop a respiratory ailment." She doesn't really want to come out with all her powers on what is undoubtedly national television.

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

...at that, he actually starts to laugh.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Seriously, dude, what's going on? Why did you want to nuke this place?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:17 pm (UTC)

The laugh trails off into a chuckle. The person shakes his head.

"I did not want to," he says reasonably.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:19 pm (UTC)

Interesting voice. She must learn the name of his vocal coach.

"That's really interesting," says Bella, "do explain yourself."

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:24 pm (UTC)

Perhaps the voice and the mask have something to do with one another.

"My intention is not to destroy Gotham," he says, "but to free it."

That is almost but not quite true.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Try again," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Close, but no cigar. A-minus. I would like a true explanation."

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:30 pm (UTC)

"That was the truth," he says, and interestingly, he believes it.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Wow, you have an interestingly twisty brain, don't you. At any rate. There will be no nuking, is that plain?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I have no nuke," he points out, gesturing to the rabbit.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I know. I'd hate for you to waste your time retrieving another one." She wanders over to the anxious fellow. "Hello there, what are you doing here?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:34 pm (UTC)

The anxious fellow darts an anxious glance at the other man.

"I... am here to... explain," he says haltingly.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Great," says Bella. "I am in search of an explanation. Please, showcase your talents."

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:37 pm (UTC)

"The thing I am here to explain," says the anxious fellow, "is now a rabbit."

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:38 pm (UTC)

"I already have an explanation for it being a rabbit. I'm looking for an explanation of why it was, previously, more threatening than a rabbit."

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:40 pm (UTC)

"He - he forced me to make it that way," the anxious fellow mutters. "Into a nuclear explosive device that only I could disarm."

The top hat falls off the rabbit's head. The rabbit sniffs it, nibbles it, then abandons it entirely.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:41 pm (UTC)

"So you were not on board with this project, you were coerced?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

"That's right," he says. Truthfully.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay. You want to go home?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:43 pm (UTC)

He nods rapidly.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Can do."

She teleports him home, presuming there's a unique location corresponding to "home", and then teleports back to the Interesting Voice Guy.

"Forcing people to arm nukes people isn't very nice," she says pleasantly.

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I am not a nice person," says Interesting Voice Guy.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm getting that. If we hang out here till the cops show up, do you suppose they're going to be able to keep you in prison effectively?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:49 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm liable to take that as a no; do you want to find out what happens when I conclude that the answer to that question is no?"

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:52 pm (UTC)

He spreads his hands.

"I am but a man," he says. "The revolution does not need me."

(He only partly believes these things.)

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so you maybe have friends, there goes my afternoon, huh?" [Queenie, you want I should set this guy up somewhere other than the existing terraformed asteroid?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-01 11:57 pm (UTC)

[Please don't put him on the Joker's asteroid, we'd be sad.]

bellfounding
2013-05-01 11:59 pm (UTC)

[Okay, I'll pick another spot, not like we're low on asteroids.]

"Do you have anything to say that might convince me not to put you in a space prison colony?" inquires Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:01 am (UTC)

"Of course not," says but-a-man.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:03 am (UTC)

"All right, don't say I didn't warn you," says Bella. She teleports him temporarily to an empty residential section of Saturn and then teleports to a good-sized Jovian moon (no point putting her prisoners right on top of her citizenry) and installs basic terraforming before going to fetch him. She decides to wait for a reaction before installing anything beyond atmosphere and livable temperature to the place.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:05 am (UTC)

"Comfortable," he rumbles.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:06 am (UTC)

"Mm-hm. Any preferences on the accommodations beyond 'not instantly fatal'? I'm not interested in doing you harm, I just can't have people nuking stuff."

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:08 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:09 am (UTC)

"Well, welcome to your not instantly fatal new home, I'm going to go round up some more revolutionaries, you'll have company," Bella shrugs. And she stealths and teleports to whoever may meet the description of this guy's second-in-command.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:12 am (UTC)

There fails to be such a person.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:13 am (UTC)

Who was the first other person to find out about the plan with the nuke-explainer, then?

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:31 am (UTC)

A very pretty woman walking along a mostly empty street.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:32 am (UTC)

Bella follows her and faaaaaades slowly out of stealth mode; her aura cooperates as long as she's just withdrawing it instead of switching modes. She stops when she still attracts significantly less notice than she should; she doesn't really want passerby attention. But someone walking right behind you should catch anyone's notice, even if they've got a little magic suggesting you look away. Especially when they say:

"Excuse me."

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:36 am (UTC)

The woman walks faster without answering. This is an entirely reasonable reaction if someone is following you closely on a Gotham street.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:36 am (UTC)

"You know the guy who just brought a nuke to the stadium," Bella states.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:37 am (UTC)

No reaction.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:39 am (UTC)

Bella sighs. "Okay, we can have the rest of this conversation on Ganymede, maybe that will help."

She teleports the lady to Terraformed Prison Colony Ganymede, within eyeshot of but not right next to Bane.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:42 am (UTC)

Despite herself, she looks at Bane and gasps.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:43 am (UTC)

"So yeah, I'm not a random person who decided to follow you down the street," Bella says, folding her arms, "I'm a powerful busybody and I have some questions."

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:43 am (UTC)

The woman draws herself up and looks at Bella in cold silence.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:44 am (UTC)

"I am completely prepared to leave you on Ganymede forever. Would you like to produce any reason for me not to do that?"

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:45 am (UTC)

She says nothing.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:47 am (UTC)

"Okay then."

Bella looks for the next person to find out about the plan in much the same way.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:49 am (UTC)

A highly suspicious underground chamber that both looks and smells like it is part of a sewer system!

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:49 am (UTC)

Well, that's gross!

Who all's here and what are they up to?

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:51 am (UTC)

Lots of people, and they appear to be panicking.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:51 am (UTC)

That is interesting. Bella supervises the panic to see what the shape of this group may be.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:52 am (UTC)

Headless. Headless is the shape of the group.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:53 am (UTC)

Do any of them appear to be communicating with anyone who's not in this sewer?

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:54 am (UTC)

No.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 12:57 am (UTC)

That's good, then, it should be safe to supervise a little longer and figure out who these people are, what they were trying to accomplish, etcetera.
Edited 2013-05-02 00:58 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:02 am (UTC)

They are all very concerned about the disappearance of someone called Bane. No one can seem to agree on anything except that it is very bad that Bane is gone and they're not sure what to do now.

While she is watching them, another four people arrive with the corpse of the rabbit.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:03 am (UTC)

There's a lot of people here.

Bella decides to unstealth.

"There was no call to kill that bunny," she says. "All it did was fail to be a nuke anymore."

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:04 am (UTC)

There is a general uproar.

Someone shoots at her. They miss.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:07 am (UTC)

The guns in this room don't work anymore. Nothing much will happen if they shoot her - Shell Bell's nukeproof wish has percolated through the peal as a standard - but it might ricochet and hurt somebody she doesn't want hurt.

"Me, you may have slightly more reason to be upset with, but that's not going to help."

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:09 am (UTC)

The occupants of the sewer tunnels mob her en masse.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:09 am (UTC)

She sighs and teleports to behind the mob.

"I just want someone to talk to me," she says from over there.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:10 am (UTC)

No one is interested in talking to her.

Many people are interested in doing her physical harm.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:13 am (UTC)

She's not interested in staying put for it.

Eventually she picks them all up and puts them on Ganymede.

She hovers about twenty feet above the ground. And decides to hang out and wait for someone to decide to say something to her.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:17 am (UTC)

The people from the sewer all congregate around the first two prisoners she collected.

No one talks to Bella. At a word from Bane, no one even looks at Bella.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:18 am (UTC)

Bella sighs, wishes them a food replicator with instructions printed in English on the side and some magic plumbing, and goes to see if anyone else may need fetching.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:20 am (UTC)

One person, in the sewer tunnels, carrying the bunny's top hat.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:20 am (UTC)

"Hi. I don't suppose you'll talk to me?"

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:21 am (UTC)

He drops the hat and runs.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:22 am (UTC)

She teleports in front of him. "You guys are really not friendly, are you."

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:25 am (UTC)

He runs the other way.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:26 am (UTC)

She sighs and takes him to Ganymede, too.

Who's next?

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:27 am (UTC)

Next are some people at the bottom of a deep dark hole.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:28 am (UTC)

What a curious sort of hole this is. Bella decides to find out more about it before she removes anyone from it.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:31 am (UTC)

It appears to be a prison, in a desert, full of men speaking a language that is not English.

On casual inspection it almost looks like there is a handy way to climb out of the prison at any time, up the curved rock walls with the aid of a safety rope. This proves not to be the case. Or at least, there is an entire ritual centred around trying and failing to do it.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:32 am (UTC)

Huh. Well, these people are already in prison. It's probably both less pleasant to be in and easier to escape than Ganymede's going to be once she's installed more than a handful of amenities; she might sift through it later, but it's not her immediate priority.

Anyone else?

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:34 am (UTC)

Only people who are already in this prison. But not everyone who is in this prison.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:35 am (UTC)

All right then.

Bella goes back to floating above the prisoners on Ganymede, in case someone wants to address her, and meanwhile watches the news on a half-second delay via pastwatching.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:38 am (UTC)

No one wants to address her.

The news seems to be... somewhat confused... about how to report on what just happened in Gotham. They do have several different angles on the nuclear device turning into a rabbit.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:40 am (UTC)

Heh heh heh.

Bella decides to leave Ganymede's new residents alone for the day and she heads for Tethys to continue newswatching more comfortably. She's kind of surprised the Batlady hasn't tried to brainphone her yet.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:44 am (UTC)

The news also reports that Gotham's mayor was killed in the attack, along with several more people who were nearby when the bomb that killed him went off.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:44 am (UTC)

That's really a pity, but Jane is offline, so Bella can't fix it, not in any way worth doing.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:49 am (UTC)

The Batlady does not try to brainphone her about it.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 01:49 am (UTC)

Well then.

Bella proceeds with her usual activities, evades when miscellaneous world leaders ask if she had anything to do with the thing in Gotham, and checks on Ganymede the next day.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:57 am (UTC)

Ganymede is extremely orderly. Bane stands guard by the food replicator, and ceremoniously allows any who approach to operate it and take their food away in peace. They have already begun a collection of nourishing non-perishables close by, and everyone who gets food from the replicator to eat right away also contributes to the stash.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 02:00 am (UTC)

Bella snickers. She hangs out for fifteen minutes or until addressed.

pythbox
2013-05-02 02:01 am (UTC)

Everyone ignores her.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 02:02 am (UTC)

Off she goes, then. She figures she'll let them go a week before she installs, say, houses and flora without being so much as shouted at for them.

pythbox
2013-05-02 02:04 am (UTC)

It should be fairly clear by now that none of Bane's people are going to say a word to her, shouted or otherwise.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 02:08 am (UTC)

She's not sure whether this is for fear of peer reaction of some kind, so all the houses - there are enough for everybody and then some, if terribly samey ones, each with their own plumbing and replicators, arranged in a circle - can be locked from the inside against any non-teleportative intrusion, and include little fact sheets (in the reader's native language, whatever that may be) to this effect. They are invited to summon her by folding up their fact sheets, along existing folds; if someone secretly wants to talk to her they have every chance, now.

pythbox
2013-05-02 02:10 am (UTC)

No one secretly wants to talk to her.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 02:12 am (UTC)

That's okay too.

She spends most of her time curing diseases and convincing various prime ministers of this and that that she's here to help, but periodically she drops in on Ganymede and adds amenities - ground rules, a library (no Internet, not till Jane's back). On a whim she decides to give them a swimming pool. It's not like unfriendly possibly-cultists are liable to be the only people she's ever going to need to put out of the way.

pythbox
2013-05-02 02:13 am (UTC)

The people of Ganymede continue to be quietly civilized.

bellfounding
2013-05-02 02:16 am (UTC)

That's better than the alternative. Bella checks in once weekly like clockwork, by pastwatch often as not, and otherwise goes about her business.

silent gem isolation!

incanted

+...Brilliance, Lexi,+ says Bella, in the middle of a school day, +I think something's gone wrong with Jane.+

cardistry
2013-05-02 02:33 am (UTC)

+What? What happened?+

incanted
2013-05-02 02:34 am (UTC)

+I have no idea, but she's not answering the brainphone, at all. Can you check the Janepoint on Rainbowsand?+

lexicality
2013-05-02 02:34 am (UTC)

+What happens if something's really wrong with her?+ asks Lexi.

incanted
2013-05-02 02:35 am (UTC)

+In addition to being very sad, it means we can only get out of or talk to people outside of Rainbow via doors to Milliways.+

cardistry
2013-05-02 02:36 am (UTC)

Brilliance checks the Janepoint on Rainbowsand.

+It says she lost her ansible connection,+ she reports.

incanted
2013-05-02 02:37 am (UTC)

+That's bad. Does it say anything else?+

cardistry
2013-05-02 02:44 am (UTC)

Brilliance quotes the rest of the message:
While I have no reason to expect loss of ansible connection, it's hardly impossible. I'm untested software! So I wrote this and squirreled it away and some local programs will trigger it if Rainbow's ever cut off from the rest of me. I don't have enough stolen processor time just from this world's Internet to go on talking or being very personable, I don't think, if I even am mostly code and not whatever thing it is that lives in Aegis. Luckily for you, you don't have me set up to manage lots of electronics for you or anything, so your day-to-day should be unaffected, but I definitely can't pick anybody up and put them down without the ansible. I will brainphone you as soon as I'm back! Here's hoping that's soon. If you find a door to Milliways the usual way please come check on my site in the Belltower.

Love, Jane

incanted
2013-05-02 03:02 am (UTC)

+At least she's... thoughtful. Well, shit. At least we're mints now. And we might find doors anytime. Poor Jane, I wonder what happened.+

cardistry
2013-05-02 03:06 am (UTC)

+No idea,+ says Brilliance. +I hope she's okay.+

incanted
2013-05-02 03:10 am (UTC)

+Me too. I like her. If either of you finds a door, let me know right away, okay?+

lexicality
2013-05-02 03:10 am (UTC)

+Yeah, 'course.+

cardistry
2013-05-02 03:17 am (UTC)

+Yeah!+

where have you gone?

small_magics

Isibel likes being able to ask at any time that a mirror of herself, from another world but with the same soul, visit her and speak with her. She doesn't do it too often, not even every day, but it is soothing to have the other Bells behind her on the long and arduous project of figuring herself out again so that she can do as Bells are meant to do.

She asks Jane to send her whoever is taking their turn, one day, and Jane does not respond.

She broadcasts this information, and her alarm, to her beloveds.

endragoned
2013-05-02 02:43 am (UTC)

The demon teleports to her and hugs her.

small_magics
2013-05-02 02:44 am (UTC)

Hugs.

At least they have been given the magics considered appropriate for Bells. Isibel will just - have to put herself back together alone. And cannot retrieve anyone who may die, or has already died.

endragoned
2013-05-02 02:46 am (UTC)

"My love, my love," he murmurs, hugging her. "Will you be all right?"

small_magics
2013-05-02 03:03 am (UTC)

"Better than I would have been if I had never met them," Isibel says. "I can work on myself by myself. It will only be a little harder."

endragoned
2013-05-02 03:07 am (UTC)

He kisses the top of her head.

"Good. I want you to be all right."

small_magics
2013-05-02 03:11 am (UTC)

"I am a little better every day."

endragoned
2013-05-02 03:17 am (UTC)

Snuggly huggly smiley hugs.

small_magics
2013-05-02 03:21 am (UTC)

"I love you. You are such a comfort to me," murmurs Isibel.

endragoned
2013-05-02 03:22 am (UTC)

"I love you. I'm glad," he says. "I want you to be safe and happy and okay forever."

small_magics
2013-05-02 03:24 am (UTC)

Isibel presses her cheek to his cheek and smiles.

"I wonder if we do have soul-sympathy," she murmurs. "Or, if I have with you - it is an elf phenomenon, and might be asymmetrical. I should look harder to find out."

endragoned
2013-05-02 03:26 am (UTC)

"I hardly know what it is," he admits.

small_magics
2013-05-02 03:28 am (UTC)

"It has never been explained clearly to me," Isibel admits. "And I have no idea if it may be obscured by the dragonbond. We are in many ways unprecedented."

endragoned
2013-05-02 03:29 am (UTC)

"Many," he agrees, hugging her.

small_magics
2013-05-02 03:30 am (UTC)

"It is supposed to be recognizable, though. Most elves do marry eventually, and it is not done without this - feature."

endragoned
2013-05-02 03:31 am (UTC)

"Then perhaps you should find out what the feature is."

small_magics
2013-05-02 03:33 am (UTC)

"It may be past time I visited my parents," muses Isibel. "...I don't believe they know about you at all. I am sure someone would have done them the kindness of explaining my absence, but it does not seem likely that they received that much detail."

endragoned
2013-05-02 03:35 am (UTC)

"Visit your parents, then, my love."

small_magics
2013-05-02 03:37 am (UTC)

"You could accompany me if you wished. Perhaps hanging back to a safe distance until I have explained you. Although the dragon could come nearer without prior explanation."

endragoned
2013-05-02 11:46 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"We'll fly you there," he says. "And I will hide, until you have explained me."

small_magics
2013-05-02 04:17 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods.

"I do not know how difficult it may be to explain you," she adds. "I have not often spoken with either of my parents about our ancient enemy."

endragoned
2013-05-02 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I am very patient," says the demon, and he kisses the top of her head.

small_magics
2013-05-02 04:24 pm (UTC)

"I know you are." She would have had staggering difficulty living on an uninhabited island for ten thousand years and retaining her sanity.

endragoned
2013-05-02 04:26 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Do you want to go now?"

small_magics
2013-05-02 04:29 pm (UTC)

Isibel looks around her home. It is quite devoid of anything that requires her ongoing attention.

"Yes," she says.

endragoned
2013-05-02 04:35 pm (UTC)

Whimsically, the demon picks her up and carries her outside. The dragon meets her there, and conjures himself a saddle and so on so that she can climb aboard and fly in comfort.

small_magics
2013-05-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

Isibel sits quite happily, and thinks them the way to Silverbranch.

endragoned
2013-05-02 04:40 pm (UTC)

They fly.

The demon turns himself invisible for the trip; the dragon does not.

small_magics
2013-05-02 04:52 pm (UTC)

And there is Silverbranch. It is not so far, on dragonback, only a few hours.

endragoned
2013-05-02 04:54 pm (UTC)

The dragon finds somewhere convenient to land.

small_magics
2013-05-02 04:56 pm (UTC)

Isabella kisses her invisible demon-beloved goodbye and hops off of her dragon-beloved and kisses him too and heads through the village in search of her parents' home.

Eventually she comes out again, with a single elf who strongly resembles her following.

"Beloved, this is my mother Rania," she says.

"I See you," says Rania to the dragon. "But - not all of you, if I understand rightly." She looks around.

endragoned
2013-05-02 04:57 pm (UTC)

"That is true," the dragon says gravely. "The rest of me is waiting until he might be made welcome without alarming anyone."

small_magics
2013-05-02 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Isibel has been unharmed this long," says Rania. "I will not be alarmed. But perhaps it would be prudent to travel farther from the village," and she indicates a direction.

endragoned
2013-05-02 05:03 pm (UTC)

The dragon nods, which is something of a momentous event considering the size of the dragon's head, and he ambles off in the indicated direction.

small_magics
2013-05-02 05:04 pm (UTC)

Isibel and her mother follow.

"We will be unobserved here," Rania eventually says.

endragoned
2013-05-02 05:07 pm (UTC)

The demon appears.

He has neglected to put on pants.

small_magics
2013-05-02 05:12 pm (UTC)

A blink is startled out of Rania.

"It is more startling to see with my own eyes what I had previously heard only as a story," she murmurs. (She resolutely keeps her gaze above the waist.)

Isibel goes to her beloved and puts her head on his shoulder. She thinks that her mother would prefer it if he were wearing pants, although Rania would never dream of drawing attention to the fact that he is not.

endragoned
2013-05-02 05:15 pm (UTC)

He shrugs and stretches his wings and conjures himself a pair of comfortable trousers with a hole for his tail.

small_magics
2013-05-02 05:16 pm (UTC)

Rania does not visibly relax - that would be impolite - but her eyes move about more freely.

"I am told that you have no names," she says to the demon and dragon.

"None have been needed among ourselves," says Isibel.

endragoned
2013-05-02 05:18 pm (UTC)

"It might be convenient to have some, now that we know more people," says the demon, "but we haven't thought of any that we like."

small_magics
2013-05-02 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I am most likely to think of elven names," says Rania, "were I to propose ideas."

Isibel can tell, and shares with her beloveds: Rania would just love to name them.

endragoned
2013-05-02 05:49 pm (UTC)

"We would not object to elven names," says the dragon.

small_magics
2013-05-02 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I have always liked the names Aianon and Ansharil," Rania offers.

endragoned
2013-05-02 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Aianon," the demon murmurs.

"Ansharil," the dragon says thoughtfully. "Yes. Those will do."

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:00 pm (UTC)

Rania beams. Isibel laughs softly. In her mind her beloveds will always be her beloveds, however they are introduced to others. She tells them so.

"I never expected you to Bond with a dragon even given the chance, Isibel," Rania says to her daughter.

"Nor did I," Isibel murmurs. "There was great need."

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:01 pm (UTC)

The demon smiles and hugs his Isibel.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:07 pm (UTC)

Rania wants to see magic; Isibel does some tricks for her.

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:10 pm (UTC)

The demon can do tricks, too! If anyone wants him to do tricks.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:11 pm (UTC)

Isibel prompts him to go ahead and do so when Rania's hints are too subtle.

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:16 pm (UTC)

He touches his fingers to the ground and grows a little tree with a slender silvery trunk and thin drooping branches, which produces little round pink fruits when it is not quite as tall as he is. Its thin pointed leaves make a very pretty rustling sound when he brushes past them.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:17 pm (UTC)

Isibel picks a fruit and wonders if she can taste it; she likes fruits her beloved invents.

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:18 pm (UTC)

"It will be good," he assures her, smiling.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:19 pm (UTC)

Isibel eats it. She offers one to her mother. Rania takes it and smiles brilliantly. "This is delicious," Rania asserts.

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I like making things that are good to eat," says the demon, patting the tree fondly. "When my love and I lived on our island, I made many things for us to eat."

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:23 pm (UTC)

"It might otherwise have been hard to keep the both of you fed," chuckles Isibel.

Rania takes another fruit.

Isibel laughs and conjures her a basket. "Cariel might like them, however unsure he was about his ability to be civil about my beloved."

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I hope he does," says the demon.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I will take him some," says Rania. "We would prepare you a house for your use here, in spite of your absence, if you need one."

"I think I will continue to live where I have been living. It is not such a long trip," says Isibel. "But I thank you."

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I love to fly," says the dragon. "It is no hardship to bring our Isibel here when she wishes to go."

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:32 pm (UTC)

"It would please us to have visits more often than we have in the past year," Rania says.

"I think you will be pleased, then," says Isibel.

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:33 pm (UTC)

The demon hugs his Isibel again.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:43 pm (UTC)

Eventually the visit concludes, and the trio of Bondmates flies home.

Isibel uses magic slowly, as it occurs to her.

Her assistive wish wears off as intended, slowly, gently. She relies less and less on prompted memory, more and more on novel thought.

Jane has been offline for nearly ten moonturns when Isibel thinks of something properly creative, and proposes it wordlessly to her beloved. Something she could enchant for her aura, that will be interesting and fun - if they'll channel for her.

She would like to make an enchanted village-of-sorts, hidden in the way that elf villages always are but bolstered by enchantments, taking up little space corner to corner but containing as many subtle nooks and crannies as she can invent, rearranging themselves to suit her and her beloveds as need be. (One of the things enchantment will be able to do is enable the dragon to go in and out as he pleases, size disregarded.)

She would like to put it on their home island, which is being colonized but not so rapidly that there is no available space left.

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:46 pm (UTC)

Her beloveds think that would be beautiful. They would love to help her make it.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:47 pm (UTC)

Isibel would like to be sure that they are sure that they would like to help. The other Jokers are what they are, but the other Jokers do not have quite her beloved's history with pain. Isibel can think of nothing that she would like less than to connect herself with the people who hurt her love earlier in his life.

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:54 pm (UTC)

The demon loves her very much. Very very much. Especially when she thinks things like that at him.

And yes, they are sure that they are sure. They have had ten thousand years away from Shadow Mountain. Time enough and then some to learn that they can like to hurt.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:57 pm (UTC)

To the island, then.

Isibel turns over the design of the first enchantment in her mind. She will begin with something medium-sized and useful on its own in case her loves change their minds on experiencing the reality.

The chosen section of forest will helpfully conduct travelers where they wish to be. If left at that, it will just be a patch of helpful trees. If expanded on, it will be the foundation of the entire navigational enchantment for her twisty hidden village.

endragoned
2013-05-02 06:58 pm (UTC)

"It will be beautiful," says the demon.

small_magics
2013-05-02 06:59 pm (UTC)

They find a suitable uninhabited bit of forest.

Isibel takes her demon's hand in hers, and reaches for their shared mindscape.

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:00 pm (UTC)

Her demon smiles.

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:02 pm (UTC)

Isibel reaches for the power of the earth below her, and pours it through her spell and her channel.

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:03 pm (UTC)

Her demon shivers.

He likes it just as much as he thought it would.

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:14 pm (UTC)

That is good. She doesn't want to do anything to them that they don't like.

They could channel another spell now, or wait for the lingering effects of this one to wear off.

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:19 pm (UTC)

They can channel another spell now.

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:21 pm (UTC)

And so they do.

Isibel stops to ask after each, if they want to go on or to pause.

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:22 pm (UTC)

They want to go on.

They go on wanting to go on.

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:24 pm (UTC)

After a few spells, not only has Isibel mastered Rose's trick of casting with her eyes open, but the lingering-pain has built up to a point where, between spells, there is still evidence of it on her demon's face.

...Interesting evidence that provokes a blush and a heart-flutter.

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:29 pm (UTC)

"My love?" he inquires, smiling a little.

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:41 pm (UTC)

Isibel squirms.

"You are making faces."

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:42 pm (UTC)

"They are happy faces," he says. "Do you not like them?"

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:44 pm (UTC)

"I do like them," blushes Isibel.

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:45 pm (UTC)

Her demon hugs her. "That is good. I am glad that you like them."

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:46 pm (UTC)

Isibel hugs him.

She lets him have just a little peep at the way in which she likes them.

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:46 pm (UTC)

In that case, perhaps she would like a little peep at the way her beloveds like enchanneling.

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:47 pm (UTC)

She looks.

She squirms.

endragoned
2013-05-02 07:50 pm (UTC)

He grins.

small_magics
2013-05-02 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I - I don't know if -"

But then she does know if. She knows exactly if. She knows that.

"Oh," she murmurs, and she shows him, soul-sympathy pointing with blinding obviousness: there, this one, this is forever. She is really not clear on how she missed it. Supposedly it can hide until it is too late to avoid; she doesn't know if that or the immediate circumstances or her own slow healing were operative, but now it is there, now it is clear.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:01 pm (UTC)

...

He wraps her up in a many-limbed hug, arms and wings and tail.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:02 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Hugs and love.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:03 pm (UTC)

Hugs and love.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:04 pm (UTC)

Isibel loves him and loves how he loves her.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:08 pm (UTC)

That is good!

"Does this mean—" the demon murmurs, and he reminds her of some of the things he said to her when they first met. The ones Magania refused to translate.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:14 pm (UTC)

Isibel blushes very dark at that.

"Maybe."

It would be unkind to leave it at that word with no explanation. She broadcasts a little: while she has never exactly envisioned herself a lifelong Unicorn Knight, one of the first things to shrivel up when she was breaking was any impulse to render herself unfit for unicorn company. It has not, till now, been a priority for rebuilding, because she was waiting for soul-sympathy, and - now she has it.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:20 pm (UTC)

She does has soul-sympathy. And she has it with her demon. Her demon who is touching her.

It occurs to him - and he broadcasts, by way of asking - that the spell for finding out what sorts of things are good for someone to eat could, with a little work, be adapted to find out... other things. If she liked. Perhaps she would rather find out those things about herself the long way around.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:22 pm (UTC)

...Isibel does not see much reason to prefer the long way around.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:24 pm (UTC)

So he kisses the top of her head and hugs her and sends his magic through her body to learn of its functions.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:25 pm (UTC)

It has some! She is a physically healthy adult elf.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:27 pm (UTC)

And now he knows - not in words, not in a way made for explaining, but in a way made for doing - what sorts of things are good for it in a new context.

He shares this knowledge with Isibel. It's her body, after all.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:29 pm (UTC)

Isibel squirms some more and collects all the information. For reference.

One of the things that she could probably have predicted all by herself is that she will like it if she kisses her beloved. So she does.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:30 pm (UTC)

Her beloved kisses back. In a way she will like. And he is careful of his fangs.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:31 pm (UTC)

Isibel melts into him. She does indeed like.

Liselen will even still be able to visit.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:32 pm (UTC)

Although perhaps Isibel should not go among unmodified unicorns in the future. Even if they stopped right now - well. It's a matter of knowledge as much as anything.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:33 pm (UTC)

Isibel will be considerate of unicorn neighbors.

Later. When she is thinking about them again. She has stopped for the time being; she is thinking about her beloved instead.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:36 pm (UTC)

And her beloved is thinking about her, and he is thinking that he wants to do more things that she will like. Many more.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:36 pm (UTC)

Tautologically enough, Isibel would like that.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:38 pm (UTC)

Good!

In that case, they should do some of those. Right now.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:39 pm (UTC)

Now seems like an excellent time.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:40 pm (UTC)

And they have this lovely new village to go and be at home in, where they are very unlikely to be interrupted in the pursuit of liking each other.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:41 pm (UTC)

It would indeed be very surprising if they were interrupted.

And indeed,

they are not.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:43 pm (UTC)

They are not interrupted for a long time.

In fact, they are not interrupted until the demon discovers that he is tired, and should sleep soon. Which would make it... ah. A sennight and a half.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:44 pm (UTC)

Isibel doesn't have to sleep! It is a standard feature of once-pealed Bells that they do not have to sleep.

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:47 pm (UTC)

Her demon is aware that she doesn't have to sleep. If she did, they would have paused somewhat earlier.

He decides that not needing to sleep is a fine idea, and gives himself the same power.

small_magics
2013-05-02 08:57 pm (UTC)

Over the course of the next sennight, during which occasional - well, they could be called "breaks", but are more like "variations" - are spent enchanting, Sarion develops an aura.

It makes her elfier. If elves are ethereal and oddly perfect when observed by humans, she will now be ethereal and oddly perfect when observed by elves and something else entirely to others. (If there were anyone but her beloved here in her hidey-village to see her.)

And when she enchants, she notices her aura drawing itself around her mindscape - no longer a void of darkness, but full of motes of light - protectively, defensively. She can still send to her beloveds and they can still send to her. But if this aura had had the decency to bestow itself upon her earlier - it could have saved them all a lot of heartache.
Edited 2013-05-02 20:58 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-05-02 08:59 pm (UTC)

Her beloved cries a little when he learns of it.

small_magics
2013-05-02 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Oh my love," she murmurs. "I'm all right now."

endragoned
2013-05-02 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I know you are," he says, hugging her. "I'm glad. I love you."

small_magics
2013-05-02 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

the interdimensional community

lifes_sake

Cam knows when Jane goes because the Janepoint says so.

It's still very smart - smarter than Cam's laptop, smarter than the average shrub - if wizards talking to a thing makes it brighter like a reading light, having Jane inhabit it is the equivalent of ignited magnesium. It can probably do anything Jane could do, if Cam tells it. Probably could even eat the Internet that Jane was politely keeping her chompers away from.

But it's not her anymore.

[Jellybean. Tilly.]

pythbox
2013-05-02 11:47 am (UTC)

[What's up?] says Jellybean, speaking for both of them.

lifes_sake
2013-05-02 04:13 pm (UTC)

[Jane's cut off. The terminal's still here - hell, it even still sounds like her - but no more universe-hopping or talking to the Peal unless we find Milliways again the pedestrian route.]

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:14 pm (UTC)

[Well, fuck,] says Jellybean. [Okay.]

lifes_sake
2013-05-02 04:21 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. We couldn't raise local dead anyway, so, we're not in as bad shape as some, but we're cut off and I don't know what could've happened to Jane.]

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:25 pm (UTC)

[Maybe she took a nap,] he says whimsically.

lifes_sake
2013-05-02 04:26 pm (UTC)

[Without warning?]

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:28 pm (UTC)

[I don't actually think that's what happened, but I have no idea what did.]

lifes_sake
2013-05-02 04:31 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, the Janepoint doesn't know either, it just knows one minute there were two ends to the ansible and now there aren't.]

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:33 pm (UTC)

[Well, fuck,] sighs Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-05-02 04:44 pm (UTC)

[If either of you finds a door to Milliways you'll tell me, right?]

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:47 pm (UTC)

[Of course,] says Jellybean.

withmypowers
2013-05-02 04:48 pm (UTC)

[Absolutely,] says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-05-02 04:50 pm (UTC)

[Thanks. Well. Back to business, I guess.]

pythbox
2013-05-02 04:53 pm (UTC)

[Yep.]

mon ordinateur

beheld_beauty

Belle is with Luc, going over the differences between the four enchanting power sources (a pentagon could give him skill, but would not allow her to evaluate his trustworthiness and responsibility en route, nor would it do him any favors if he wants to teach students of his own one day), when the Janepoint begins to make worrying sounds.

Beast is likely nearer the beeping than Belle is. Mon cœur, do you know what is making that noise? she asks.

deslandes
2013-05-02 11:48 am (UTC)

No, ma belle.

He goes and looks.

It's Jane, he concludes. She is - not here. There is a message.
Edited 2013-05-02 11:49 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 04:15 pm (UTC)

Belle sits up abruptly.

"Go on reading," she says to Luc, and she strides through the castle towards the Janepoint to see for herself.

deslandes
2013-05-02 04:16 pm (UTC)

The Beast points out the message.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 04:23 pm (UTC)

Belle reads.

She squeezes his hand.

"I shouldn't have waited to fetch Renée," she murmurs.

deslandes
2013-05-02 04:30 pm (UTC)

He hugs her.

"I'm sorry, ma belle."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 04:34 pm (UTC)

Belle holds him. "I have occasionally wondered if Bells are too hasty. It seems this is not the case in all times and places."

deslandes
2013-05-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

The Beast changes to his beast-shape, so he can hug her more fluffily.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 04:38 pm (UTC)

Fluff.

"Quite apart from that I worry for Jane herself. I had thought that the advantage of the ansible was indelible connection - that this was why it persisted regardless of what worlds each end was in."

deslandes
2013-05-02 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe... maybe something happened to the ansibles?" he suggests.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Jane told me once that even when the physical piece of an ansible is destroyed, her connection is still there, it just can't be used for anything. If the other ends of these ansibles were ruined -" She touches her handflower, and the ansible rack of the Janepoint. "Then I would expect it to last for a moment or two, while Aegis or Sue went and replaced the pieces."

deslandes
2013-05-02 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they stopped working."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't know enough about the technology to say."

deslandes
2013-05-02 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Nor do I," he sighs.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 05:03 pm (UTC)

"At least I never spoke to Charlie about the possibility of bringing Renée back to life, and he will not be disappointed that I can no longer do so."

deslandes
2013-05-02 05:04 pm (UTC)

The Beast hugs her some more.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 05:07 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"I suppose there is work aplenty to be done in Rêverie alone," she says. "And however short our time with the others was, we've come away with more tools."

(Neither she nor Beast has ever found a conventional Milliways door. The possibility is not so salient.)

deslandes
2013-05-02 05:08 pm (UTC)

"And maybe someday they will come back," he says, snuggling her.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But goodness only knows how long that might take."

It takes a long time.

It takes long enough that one idle afternoon, after coming home from enchanting an orphanage that was having trouble making ends meet and will now never lack for the ability to feed resident mouths, Belle asks her husband:

"Do you want to have a baby?"

deslandes
2013-05-02 05:15 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know," he says. "Do you?"

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 05:21 pm (UTC)

"It might be nice. A little boy or girl."

deslandes
2013-05-02 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Or something," he says agreeably. "Hmm."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 05:25 pm (UTC)

"We have all the time in the world to think about it."

deslandes
2013-05-02 05:34 pm (UTC)

"We do!"

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 05:35 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

deslandes
2013-05-02 06:57 pm (UTC)

Snuggly snuggles.

And... he thinks about it.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 06:58 pm (UTC)

Belle watches him think about it.

deslandes
2013-05-02 07:00 pm (UTC)

He doesn't know what having a child would be like. He doesn't know what their child would be like.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 07:01 pm (UTC)

"It is a pity we do not have Angela and Micaiah's example, I suppose," teases Belle gently. "So that we would have a better idea."

deslandes
2013-05-02 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, we must work with what we have," he shrugs.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Belle agrees.

deslandes
2013-05-02 07:19 pm (UTC)

So...

Yes.

The only way to find out what their child will be like is to have one. Anything else, and they would only be guessing. If they could go and ask Angela and Micaiah, it might be worth it to wait, but they can't and they don't know if they will ever be able to. So: yes.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 07:20 pm (UTC)

This afternoon, as has been previously mentioned, is idle.

Belle lazily unravels a certain spell and snuggles up to her husband.

deslandes
2013-05-02 07:23 pm (UTC)

Her husband kisses her.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 07:24 pm (UTC)

That is the correct behavior in this situation. Yes.

deslandes
2013-05-02 07:26 pm (UTC)

Oh good.

He has some other behaviours to try. Hopefully they will also be correct.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 07:40 pm (UTC)

Belle has every confidence that they will be.

Dominique is produced eventually, and when she is nine, so too is Céleste - they can take their time; no one will think it odd that the resident Mme. L'enchanteresse still looks as young as she does and can go on producing children at will.

Belle goes on expanding her reach, a little at a time. She is not exerting her power in a way that happens to threaten the king; his people are becoming wealthier with her within magical arms' reach to help them, and she is not much for issuing commands when there is solicited help she can give, so for him the results are that he has an enchantress who may opt to do him favors and he can collect greater tax revenues. She spills out of Callia, into Albion and Hespultima and other neighboring nations and farther and farther.

Luc masters enchanting, and solicits a hexagon with which to grant himself steadiness through discomfort and the ability to - not enjoy, as he seems to find this idea unsettling, but to calmly endure - large enchantments funneled through his own mindscape. He gets it. He sets up in an enchanter's castle of his own in Kemet and does some of the same work that Belle does for nearby persons.

pythbox
2013-05-02 07:49 pm (UTC)

Dominique is very talkative and outspoken, and when her little sister is born, she takes it upon herself to teach Céleste how to talk. She does this mostly by chattering endlessly at her, sometimes by reading to her like their parents did for her when she was very small.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 07:54 pm (UTC)

Céleste follows Dominique around like she has somehow managed to become Dominique's tail, and listens raptly to everything, and learns to talk, and whenever she learns of the existence of a new language she runs right to Maman and asks for it and gets it.

pythbox
2013-05-02 07:56 pm (UTC)

Dominique frequently announces that Céleste is her favourite little sister.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 08:01 pm (UTC)

Dominique is Céleste's favorite big sister!

pythbox
2013-05-02 08:03 pm (UTC)

That works out very well for both of them, then, doesn't it?

beheld_beauty
2013-05-02 08:10 pm (UTC)

It does!

Céleste likes asking Maman for things. When she gets a little older she is a little more creative. She reads a story with griffins in it and she wants one. Maman dithers over magicking her a live pet, but eventually comes up with a design that will happily run wild if Céleste should ever tire of it. (Céleste of course insists that she will not tire of it.) Céleste names the griffin - which is just about her size, and will not get any larger - "Rainier" and teaches him to fetch and do flying tricks and heel behind her when she goes places.

pythbox
2013-05-02 08:11 pm (UTC)

Dominique thinks Rainier is adorable, but does not want one of her very own.

campanas
2013-05-03 04:48 am (UTC)

Time goes on. Céleste sits at the Janepoint sometimes, talking to it with Rainier's head in her lap, like the lost Jane person who once lived there can hear her.

And one day, when she is seven (and Dominique sixteen) -

it can.

square one

self_composed

Bella spends the first ten minutes after Jane misses a scheduled filtered-email-dump staring at the Janepoint, flaring aura at it, willing it to work. This is what her aura is supposed to do, right, make electronics work?

It doesn't help. Nor does wishing.

She sends a general announcement to her staff and Alice:

[Jane broke. I don't know how, but I can't fix it. She could come back at any time. Till then we're back to the door standard. Please let me know instantly if you do find a door.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-02 04:10 pm (UTC)

[Well, shit,] says Alice. [Will do, I guess.]

self_composed
2013-05-02 04:43 pm (UTC)

[Thanks.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-02 04:52 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] he adds, because he does.

self_composed
2013-05-02 04:53 pm (UTC)

[I love you too.] And, [Gosh, it is amazing how claustrophobic the entire universe can feel after I got used to having the run of dozens.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-02 04:55 pm (UTC)

He teleports to her vicinity and gives her a hug.

self_composed
2013-05-02 04:58 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Hugs are not claustrophobic.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-02 04:59 pm (UTC)

Hugs are huggy!

self_composed
2013-05-02 05:01 pm (UTC)

They are! Huggy hugful hugs.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-02 05:16 pm (UTC)

Huggy snuggly cuddly hugs!

self_composed
2013-05-02 05:17 pm (UTC)

Yup. Those things.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-02 05:19 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm. Hugs.

help yourself

her_imperial_radiance

Elspeth does not at all feel the way her mama does about mindreading. She is in fact rather the opposite. So she thinks nothing of accepting Downside's admin's invitation to visit and see whether judgesight picks up the memory dump she carries around in her head. Jane drops her right there - Elspeth has her own Janegem, a little yellow charm hanging from a choker she wears - and she goes to visit the admin.

ending_of
2013-05-02 09:34 pm (UTC)

It is still not possible to visit the admin without the appropriate permissions, but since Elspeth is invited, she has no trouble teleporting to the room at the top of the tower.

The admin looks at her.

"Interesting," she says. "I only receive what you yourself have processed."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I haven't processed even most of it," Elspeth says.

ending_of
2013-05-02 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Would you send me the rest?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Sure." Braindump!

ending_of
2013-05-02 09:50 pm (UTC)

The admin blinks.

"Interesting," she repeats thoughtfully. "The power that collected most of that is not quite exactly like judgesight, but it's very close. And there's no loss of fidelity at all from being passed back and forth."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't think my power would tolerate loss of fidelity, sendingwise. It'd be inaccurate. And Aro didn't have that problem either, so neither did Addy."

ending_of
2013-05-02 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a copy of Jane's judgesight?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 09:59 pm (UTC)

"What would I do with it? My way of fake-resurrecting people caused all kinds of headaches, and I'm bad enough at keeping secrets I'm probably the last person anyone wants staring into their soul."

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:02 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Besides, Jane has it and she's a friend of the family."

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Yes?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:06 pm (UTC)

"So if it's ever important to Aro somebody, Jane can do it."

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Jane lacks an elegant distributory mechanism."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:08 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's true. Well, you can give it to me if you want, I don't have to use it I guess. But can you make it so Addy can't copy it? I don't think anybody but Addy wants that."

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Done," says the admin. "Thank you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:09 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. Thank you," laughs Elspeth.

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:10 pm (UTC)

She smiles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's it, unless there's, like, tourist attractions here?"

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Not many," she says. "You might find it interesting to watch from the roof of the tower when the sky switches."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:14 pm (UTC)

"The sky switches?"
Edited 2013-05-02 22:14 (UTC)

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:20 pm (UTC)

The ceiling above them becomes transparent. The sky above that is split down the middle as though cut with a knife, one side showing day, the other showing night. The line between them precisely follows the - equally straight on average - cliffs that bisect the landscape beneath.

"The sky switches," the admin confirms.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. I would like to see that. When is it due?"

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:22 pm (UTC)

"In approximately an hour," she says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll go hang out in the Bells' office till then and then go have a looksee," Elspeth says. "I have no idea what it'll do to my sleep cycle, so, Jane, after I've seen that, just go ahead and send me home if I fall asleep?"

mind_game
2013-05-02 10:24 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:29 pm (UTC)

The admin nods.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:30 pm (UTC)

Elspeth teleports to the Bell office and makes sure everything in it is straightened up. One person comes in with a question, which she answers as long as she's there.

And then the Janepoint in the office beeps.

Elspeth frowns and reads the message and clears it away.

[Jane's... lost connectivity,] she tells the admin. [I don't know why.]
Edited 2013-05-02 22:33 (UTC)

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:34 pm (UTC)

[I noticed,] she says. [There's no technical problem with her ansibles that I can detect. The source of the issue is outside my domain.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:37 pm (UTC)

[Where's someplace with a lot of doors I can open and close?]

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:39 pm (UTC)

[Downside's library contains the most doors of any building or complex in my domain.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:40 pm (UTC)

Elspeth goes there.

She starts opening doors.

(She does take a break to watch the sky switch.)

ending_of
2013-05-02 10:42 pm (UTC)

(The sky switching is very beautiful.)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-02 10:45 pm (UTC)

Elspeth goes back to the library when it's through and continues opening doors. Her sleep cycle decides that the sky switching is sunset, and she goes and crashes in the office when she's tired, then starts up again.
Edited 2013-05-02 22:45 (UTC)

ending_of
2013-05-03 12:57 am (UTC)

Downside's library contains a lot of doors.

The number is not technically infinite, but it is enough to ensure that she need not repeat any if she doesn't want to.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-03 12:58 am (UTC)

Elspeth does tend to get better results from doors she hasn't tried recently, so she doesn't repeat herself.

without recourse

luminous_regnant

Bella doesn't even know that Elspeth had plans to visit Downside until after she finds that Jane is offline, that wishing doesn't fix it. Elspeth is a grownup; Edward does not monitor her every minute of every day, does not report all her comings and goings to her mother.

It's Addy who tells her, uncharacteristically grave, after Bella makes the announcement that Aurum will be isolated until Elspeth finds a door. Elspeth rescheduled an appointment with Addy to go offworld.

And now Elspeth is not going to find them a door, because Elspeth is gone, might well stay gone till Jane is fixed, because time is only synced up due to Jane. And Bella cannot fix Jane. Elspeth might find a door after fifty years have gone by in Aurum.

Bella makes the revised announcement by brainphone to everyone except Jake.

Jake she tells in person. Jake she clutches by the shoulders while he sobs and shakes. Jake she offers to put to sleep so Elspeth will not come home to find him having done something regrettable. Because she will, eventually, come home. Jake she tucks into bed like she's his mother and sends into dreamless nothing so he doesn't have to suffer however long his imprint will be vanished where he cannot follow.

And then she goes to Edward and, because she is a vampire, she does not cry, but she does sob.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, damn," says the Joker. "I hope her majesty's okay."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Her Majesty'll cope. She'll be in a lousy mood but she'll cope. We're probably not embarking on any ambitious projects for the time being, we'll just hum along. Jacob, on the other hand - I hope she has him handled somehow or Her Highness comes home to a dead wolf."

manofmyword
2013-05-02 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Elsie's Downside," the Joker points out. "If he gets dead he'll probably see her before the rest of us."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Possibly unimprinted," Nathan points out. "Probably not a wolf anymore. It'd wreck the pack and be all kinds of complicated to fix. Besides, Jane's offline; unless Elspeth expects Jake to off himself she won't know to look."

manofmyword
2013-05-02 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm not going to recommend it."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:02 pm (UTC)

"I bet Bella tucked him away for a long nap," says Nathan. "But just in case, I'm going to check."

He inquires.

"Yep," he says, "and wow, she's snippy, I wouldn't try anything resembling humor with her till Elsie's back or -" He tilts his head, tries a long time horizon. "Shit, eleven years. I think..." He tries a few more timer checks. "I think we're looking at eleven years no princess."

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Mm, remind me to avoid her, then," he says. "When appropriate."

He gives his sweetheart a kiss.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Will do. I think maybe you wanna funnel coins up through somebody who can get near Her Majesty without getting snarled at. His Majesty or Alice maybe."

Kiss.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha. Not that I mind a little snarling, but I don't think I'd improve her mood any."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Probably not."

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:11 pm (UTC)

Snuggle time? The Joker thinks it is snuggle time.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:12 pm (UTC)

It is always snuggle time!

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:12 pm (UTC)

That is true. That is extremely true.

The Joker also suspects that it may soon be minting time.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:13 pm (UTC)

Might it? How interesting.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:14 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes, that.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:20 pm (UTC)

After about a week and a half, there is a knock on their door while they are supplying Kerron with breakfast.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:21 pm (UTC)

The Joker beckons to the door, which opens.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:22 pm (UTC)

It's Rosalie. "Bella wanted to ask me to pick up coins this week," says Rosalie. "You can check with her if you don't want to hand over big ones to random people, but I don't really recommend it."

Little Henry is close at her heels, his hand in his mother's.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:25 pm (UTC)

The Joker shrugs. He pulls a plain red drawstring bag out of thin air, full of his last two weeks' worth of coins and made to release them only to Golden, and hands it over to Rosalie.

"She doing okay?" he asks.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Not great," says Rosalie. She takes the bag, lifts up Henry and sets him on her hip. "She's competent as ever, but she's taking more personal time by a factor of about twenty, delegating more, brainstorming less. She knows Elspeth's alive, so it's not as bad as I've heard she was when she thought Edward was dead."

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Sorry to hear it," he says. "Best I can probably do for her is stay out of her way, so—" he shrugs; gestures to the bag of coins.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, she's basically only talking to her favorite handful of people," sighs Rosalie. "I'll probably be by again in a week or two."

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Fine by me."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

Rosalie waves, and lets herself out, taking coins and child with her.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:35 pm (UTC)

The Joker hugs his sweetheart and sighs.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

His sweetheart hugs back.

colorshapes
2013-05-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

"If I got lost in another world would you be grumpy like Her Majesty?"

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm not the grumpy type," he says, ruffling his munchkin's hair. "I'd be sad, though."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

"So would I," says Nathan.

colorshapes
2013-05-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Kerron, "I guess I better not get lost."

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Better not," the Joker agrees. "But don't worry too much about me if you do, okay? Your mummy's a patient kind of guy."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-02 10:43 pm (UTC)

"And we told you about how one of me got stuck where the princess is now for a hundred years," Nathan adds, "and I was fine, because I knew you'd be fine. Wherever you are, you concentrate on being fine."

colorshapes
2013-05-02 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Kerron, tracing colorshapes with his eyes and then nodding.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:45 pm (UTC)

The Joker scoops up Kerron and hugs him.

"Atta munchkin," he says.

colorshapes
2013-05-02 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Mummy, do you just forget my name a lot?"

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Never once," he says, grinning. "Why? Getting tired of 'munchkin'?"

colorshapes
2013-05-02 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting bigger!" Kerron says.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Are ya? I hadn't noticed," he teases.

colorshapes
2013-05-02 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I am! I'm bigger."

manofmyword
2013-05-02 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Well, tell you what," says the Joker. "If you want me to stop calling you munchkin, you let me know, and otherwise if you get taller'n me I'll quit all by myself."

pina_colada
2013-05-02 11:37 pm (UTC)

Kerron can do that!

It takes him a little shy of four years.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 11:48 pm (UTC)

Gosh, that's fast.

The Joker doesn't say anything about it directly. But coming from the Joker, well - 'Kerron' is all that need be said. It's just about the first time he's ever used the name.

pina_colada
2013-05-02 11:50 pm (UTC)

Kerron grins when he hears it.

"Hi yourself, Mum."
Edited 2013-05-02 23:50 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-05-02 11:52 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins back. "Congrats."
Edited 2013-05-02 23:52 (UTC)

pina_colada
2013-05-02 11:53 pm (UTC)

"If I'd stopped growing when I was six foot nothing would I just be a munchkin for all eternity?"

manofmyword
2013-05-02 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Until you decided not to be."

pina_colada
2013-05-02 11:54 pm (UTC)

Kerron snorts good-naturedly. "Yanno, your thing with names, probably not actually genetic?"

manofmyword
2013-05-02 11:55 pm (UTC)

"You never know," he says serenely.

pina_colada
2013-05-02 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Pfft. You gonna do that if I ever supply you with a grandkid?"

manofmyword
2013-05-02 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Only one way to find out."

pina_colada
2013-05-02 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Not any time soon, Mum," Kerron snickers.

manofmyword
2013-05-02 11:59 pm (UTC)

He cackles.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 12:07 am (UTC)

"By the way, Addy wants me to ask again if I have any combo-platter siblings on the way," says Kerron, rolling his eyes.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:09 am (UTC)

"Nnnnot," says the Joker, "anytime soon."

pina_colada
2013-05-03 12:10 am (UTC)

Kerron's eyes refocus a bit and he says, "You know, I think I'm gonna tell Addy to ask her own damn questions from now on."
Edited 2013-05-03 00:11 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:11 am (UTC)

"You do that," he laughs.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 12:13 am (UTC)

"And I'm gonna start looking at apartments in Safesun, maybe move in with Brandon."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:15 am (UTC)

"Okay," says the Joker. He smiles. "I'll miss ya. But I won't miss ya."

pina_colada
2013-05-03 12:16 am (UTC)

"I know, Mum," Kerron laughs.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:17 am (UTC)

The Joker hugs him.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 12:18 am (UTC)

Kerron chuckles and hugs back.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:19 am (UTC)

Awwwwwwwww.

"I love my ex-munchkin," he says, letting go.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 12:20 am (UTC)

"Your ex-munchkin loves his mummy."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:22 am (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwwwwww! Kerron's mummy beams.
Edited 2013-05-03 00:22 (UTC)

pina_colada
2013-05-03 12:25 am (UTC)

"And your ex-munchkin," says Kerron, "is going to go play StarNova with Lily like he said he would, because otherwise you will have a slightly punctured ex-munchkin and that wouldn't be fun for anybody."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:26 am (UTC)

"See ya," he says cheerfully.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 12:26 am (UTC)

Kerron mock-salutes and heads out the suite door.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:28 am (UTC)

The Joker spends some time awwing to himself.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 12:29 am (UTC)

Nathan comes home from doing a batch of timings a couple minutes later. "You're in a good mood," he remarks.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:30 am (UTC)

"Kerron's moving out," he says, grinning.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 12:30 am (UTC)

"Goodness gracious. If that makes you this happy why didn't we get rid of him months ago, babe?" teases Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:36 am (UTC)

The Joker laughs and hugs him.

"We'll kick the next one out at four and a half," he says, completely and entirely joking.

Well.

Not about the 'next one' part.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 12:51 am (UTC)

Hugs! Slightly squishing hugs. "Will we now."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:54 am (UTC)

"Nope," says the Joker. "And we're not having another kid until Kerron's had his own place for, oh, at least a year."

He does his level best to squish Nathan right back. It isn't effective, but it's snuggly.

"We made a person," he sighs. "And he loves us. Isn't that just the best thing?"

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 12:55 am (UTC)

"It's fantastic, babe."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:56 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle kiss.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 12:57 am (UTC)

Kisses! That's one of Nathan's favorite things!

manofmyword
2013-05-03 12:58 am (UTC)

Yes indeed. The Joker knows that.

He is also aware of some of Nathan's other favourite things.

And it just so happens that their ex-munchkin is going to be out for a while.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 01:03 am (UTC)

Kerron doesn't move out very promptly. Brandon goes back and forth about whether he wants to move, whether he wants to move to Safesun, whether he wants to move with Kerron. Lily briefly considers joining them and ultimately decides against it. Henry is invited but he's got two younger siblings (Parker and Lindsay) whose childhoods he doesn't want to miss, and a doting mother who would mope for a week if he moved out a moment before reaching the age-stalling mark anyway.

Kerron and Brandon eventually pick a place. Just two days after Kerron turns five, they move into it. Kerron hugs his parents goodbye, even though teleportation is cheap, and goes to argue with Brandon about how they should program the windowshade.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 01:08 am (UTC)

The Joker was right. He misses Kerron, but he doesn't miss him.

In fact, he kind of maybe celebrates. By having sex with Nathan. For three days straight.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:09 am (UTC)

Only three? That's not even going to come close to beating any records.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 01:10 am (UTC)

He's not competitive! And sleeping is fun.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:10 am (UTC)

Snuggling while the Joker sleeps is fun.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 01:13 am (UTC)

It is, that's true! It's snuggly and fun!

You know what else is fun?

More sex. And teleporting to new and interesting places. And having sex in them.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:13 am (UTC)

They could have sex in an awful lot of places over the course of this celebration, couldn't they?

manofmyword
2013-05-03 01:14 am (UTC)

They could!

And they do.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:15 am (UTC)

Nathan is wholly on board with this program.
Edited 2013-05-03 01:26 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-05-03 01:27 am (UTC)

Good, because it would be so much less fun without him!

It goes on for a while.

Gradually, though, the Joker starts doing other things with his waking hours. Sewing, visiting friends, checking up on the ex-munchkin (with love but not with any regularity). He sleeps with some people who aren't Nathan. He makes himself a multitude of gorgeous dresses for both his shapes, and wears them until they are destroyed in the course of his sex life, and then sews them up as good as new or better and wears them again. He tells stories to anyone who wants stories told, and as Kerron's agemates can attest, he is an excellent storyteller.

If Nathan happens to be keeping an eye on the best time to have another kid, it's just over ten months after Kerron moves to Safesun.
Edited 2013-05-03 01:31 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:32 am (UTC)

Nathan does idly check that. On a much longer timescale than that - he was thinking maybe fifty years - and -

"Babe, for some reason the best time in the next century to knock you up again is in April."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 01:33 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

"Put it on the calendar, then," he says, and gives Nathan a kiss.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:33 am (UTC)

Nathan mimes putting an X on a wall calendar, taps his temple, and kisses his mate.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 01:34 am (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmmmmmkisses.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:35 am (UTC)

April arrives. Right after March, even! What a surprise!

manofmyword
2013-05-03 01:36 am (UTC)

The Joker finds himself

yourheartstrings
2013-05-03 01:37 am (UTC)

spending more and more time in the appropriate shape.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:38 am (UTC)

"This afternoon, three-fifteen and four seconds," Nathan comments one morning. "If you were wondering about more precision. Though next-best options are clustered around then, so I don't think exactitude matters much."

yourheartstrings
2013-05-03 01:45 am (UTC)

"Mmm, how about we just fuck until then," the Joker suggests, "and you can tell me when to wish."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:47 am (UTC)

"Can't scare me."

And lo, the plan came to fruition.

"Nowish, babe," Nathan murmurs at three-fifteen and three seconds.

yourheartstrings
2013-05-03 01:49 am (UTC)

The Joker wishes herself able to have kids again. And then goes right back to what they have been doing all day.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:50 am (UTC)

The egg craving should kick in a few hours later.

yourheartstrings
2013-05-03 01:52 am (UTC)

"French toast time," the Joker announces, snuggling up to Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:54 am (UTC)

Nathan laughs. "Of course it is. Your opinion on names about where it was last time?"

yourheartstrings
2013-05-03 01:55 am (UTC)

"Don't remember," he says serenely. "Did I have an opinion?"

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:56 am (UTC)

"Not really. Aedyt-or-Payl, then?" says Nathan, patting his mate's belly. "We should tell Kerron tomorrow noonish."

yourheartstrings
2013-05-03 01:57 am (UTC)

He laughs and kisses Nathan's cheek. "Sure."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 01:58 am (UTC)

"I love you."

yourheartstrings
2013-05-03 02:00 am (UTC)

"I love you too, sweetheart."

She conjures herself a big plate of French toast.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:04 am (UTC)

Noonish the next day arrives. Nathan prompts the Joker when this occurs.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:06 am (UTC)

[Guess what,] he says merrily into a brainphone call with Nathan and their child.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 02:08 am (UTC)

[You conjured an old-fashioned deep-sea diving bell and I need to come see the new species of shark you've just discovered?] Kerron replies, who has inherited his father's habit of wild guesses in response to prompts like this.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:10 am (UTC)

[Nope, although good idea,] he laughs. [We're having another kid.]

pina_colada
2013-05-03 02:11 am (UTC)

[Hah. 'Course you are. Empty nesters,] teases Kerron. [Due in, what, three weeks?]

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:13 am (UTC)

[Yep! You are the first to know - well, third - blab it all over town or keep it a surprise, whichever makes you happy.]

pina_colada
2013-05-03 02:15 am (UTC)

[Come by Safesun after Rosalie slices and dices you, the local vibrant hybrid community'll throw the kid a party.]

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:18 am (UTC)

[Will do!]

pina_colada
2013-05-03 02:19 am (UTC)

[Whatcha gonna name it?]

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:19 am (UTC)

[Aedyt, since you're not using that one, if it's a girl, Payl for a boy,] supplies Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:21 am (UTC)

[And pumpkin, until they're taller than me or start complaining.]

pina_colada
2013-05-03 02:22 am (UTC)

[Good, munchkin was my adorable childhood nickname. But you better not have too many or you'll run out of cute words that end in -kin and have to call somebody "gherkin" or something.]

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:23 am (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:23 am (UTC)

[Are you unable to envision your mum affectionately addressing a small child as "gherkin"?] asks Nathan.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 02:24 am (UTC)

[On second thought,] Kerron says, [yeah, I can totally imagine that.]

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:26 am (UTC)

[Who, me? Never.]

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:26 am (UTC)

Nathan snickers both aloud and by brainphone.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:30 am (UTC)

The Joker hugs his sweetheart and beams un-innocently.

He continues going about his life. People can notice his pregnancy all by themselves. He'll worry about getting an appointment with Rosalie when Nathan says it's time to.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 02:32 am (UTC)

Addy notices when they cross paths at the northerly of the two African-continent capitals.

"Ooh," she says. "I wonder what's cooking."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:35 am (UTC)

"Wait 'n see," the Joker says serenely.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 02:36 am (UTC)

"I will do. I seem to recall you spent your last pregnancy female. Was the utter conventionality of it suffocating?"

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:37 am (UTC)

"You know me," he says. "I'm just full'a surprises."

taste_tester
2013-05-03 02:38 am (UTC)

"Like a piñata," Addy suggests.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:38 am (UTC)

He laughs.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 02:39 am (UTC)

"When's a good time for a tasting?"

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:40 am (UTC)

"When our little pumpkin is four days old, apparently," says Nathan. "Come find us then."

taste_tester
2013-05-03 02:40 am (UTC)

"You bet!"

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:43 am (UTC)

The Joker hugs his sweetie.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 02:45 am (UTC)

"I shall see you then," says Addy, waving at the Joker's midsection, and she boops Nathan's nose and then strolls off.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:45 am (UTC)

Nathan snorts and hugs his sweetie right back.

The time comes to make an appointment with Rosalie.

The time comes to attend it.
Edited 2013-05-03 02:47 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:49 am (UTC)

The Joker hasn't felt like swapping back again, so he is still unconventionally shaped for a pregnant person.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:51 am (UTC)

Rosalie has known the Joker long enough by now not to do more than raise an eyebrow. She slices, she dices! Now how much would you pay? (Her services are free.)

She presents them with a baby girl.

"Hi there, Aedyt," says Nathan. "Welcome to the world."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:53 am (UTC)

"Hiya, pumpkin," says the Joker, snuggling his newest offspring. "Aren't you a cutie."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:54 am (UTC)

Nathan kisses her forehead.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 02:57 am (UTC)

The Joker does likewise!

pina_colada
2013-05-03 02:58 am (UTC)

There is a party with the vibrant hybrid community! It is vibrant and communal and partylike and well-attended by hybrids.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 02:59 am (UTC)

And then Aedyt is introduced to Addy.

"Ooh, another twofer," says Addy, rubbing her palms together in glee. "You should have a hundred kids, it'll be great."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 02:59 am (UTC)

"Are you going to tell us what she does?" inquires Nathan.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:04 am (UTC)

"Tastes like cinnamon and nutmeg is what - okay, okay. I'm gonna call it - editing? Aedyt here is never gonna need an eraser or food coloring or a seam-ripper in her life. Cinnamon's the ingot part that does the editing, nutmeg's the witch part that'll tell her what she can edit so she doesn't have to do it by trial and error. Magical equivalent of proprioception," diagnoses Addy.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 03:07 am (UTC)

"Neato," says the Joker, hugging the baby. "My little pumpkin pie."

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:09 am (UTC)

Addy grins. "Soon as she walks and talks I want to do magic lessons just like with Kerron," she says.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 03:10 am (UTC)

"We'll see what pumpkin thinks of that," the Joker says agreeably.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 03:11 am (UTC)

"Yes, it may be that she'd prefer to study the ocarina," remarks Nathan archly.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:12 am (UTC)

"I do hope you'll present the notion fairly," says Addy.

manofmyword
2013-05-03 03:14 am (UTC)

"Where's the fun in that?" He grins. "Nah, I'll be nice, I'll be nice."

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:14 am (UTC)

"Thank you. I'm not allowed to play with minting, this is all the fun I get, you know."

manofmyword
2013-05-03 03:16 am (UTC)

"Mhm," says the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 03:19 am (UTC)

In due time, little Aedyt walks and talks.

And Nathan says, "Do you remember how Addy wants to give you magic lessons?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:19 am (UTC)

"Yes," says little Aedyt. "Because I'm a pumpkin pie." (She grins at her mummy.)

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 03:20 am (UTC)

"Right. Do you want to set up some of those? Now's when, if you want to do it."

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:22 am (UTC)

"Okay!"

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 03:23 am (UTC)

"All right then."

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:23 am (UTC)

Addy is notified. Addy is thrilled!

Addy sits Aedyt down. "Have you done anything with your magic yet?" she asks, booping her nose to copy the powers for the purposes of the lesson.
Edited 2013-05-03 03:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:25 am (UTC)

She nods.

"When Mummy tells stories!" she says.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:26 am (UTC)

"Ooh, I bet the illusions are very editable," says Addy, nodding. "Anything else?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:27 am (UTC)

"No-o," says Aedyt, shaking her head.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:28 am (UTC)

"Let's play with some other stuff, then," says Addy, and she produces an imperial pamphlet. "What do you suppose could do with this?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:30 am (UTC)

Aedyt pokes the pamphlet.

One letter of the title gradually becomes pink.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:31 am (UTC)

"That's one thing," agrees Addy, beaming. "What else?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:32 am (UTC)

The next letter becomes blue. The one after that becomes purple.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:32 am (UTC)

"What about things besides colors? Could you make the letters into different letters?"

(Addy couldn't, but she's not sure if that's because her power source can't do that or because her power source is still illiterate.)

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:35 am (UTC)

The pink V undergoes partial mitosis and becomes a W.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:36 am (UTC)

Addy applauds, updates her power-copy, and says, "What else?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:38 am (UTC)

Aedyt frowns in concentration at the pamphlet.

She pokes it again.

The colour changes reverse themselves one by one; then, with another poke and somewhat more difficulty, the W merges back into a V.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:39 am (UTC)

Addy turns a page. This page has an illustration. She watches Aedyt expectantly.

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:40 am (UTC)

Aedyt contemplates the illustration.

Then she rubs her finger over the page and erases part of it.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:41 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Addy. "Do you think you could put it back?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:42 am (UTC)

"I dunno," she says.

She tries!

It doesn't go back as neatly as the things she undid before.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:42 am (UTC)

"Hmm," says Addy. "But you remember how it was, don't you?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:43 am (UTC)

"Yeah," she says, frowning at it. The pamphlet will not be allowed to defeat her!

She reverts back to the erased version, then pokes the page again. The erased part returns to its original state.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:44 am (UTC)

Addy grins and pokes her in the forehead again. "What else do you think you could do?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:45 am (UTC)

"I dunno!" says Aedyt.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:47 am (UTC)

"Hmmm," says Addy. She can think of a dozen slight variants - but she can't do any of them till Aedyt does, and she doesn't want to confine this extremely young mind towards a single way of thinking about her magic. "Well, there's letters, and there's pictures, and there's paper..." she says leadingly.

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:50 am (UTC)

She pokes the pamphlet again.

Its pages come unstuck.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:50 am (UTC)

Addy grins at her and claps.

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:51 am (UTC)

Aedyt beams!

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:54 am (UTC)

Magic lessons are ongoing. They mostly involve Addy gently suggesting things to try and encouraging Aedyt to come up with things to try, at first, and then when the original scope of the power is pretty well mapped Addy starts pushing her on fine detail work and speed and editing "blind" - restoring things she hasn't seen originals of, filling in blanks with context-appropriate things regardless of whether the context makes any sense to Aedyt, doing the sorts of things photo-editing software can't actually do like remove a person to show what was behind them.

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:57 am (UTC)

Aedyt finds her magic lessons fascinating, and frequently practices outside of 'class'. Especially with mummy. She has great fun practicing magic with mummy.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:57 am (UTC)

Addy is very encouraging of extracurricular practice!

pythbox
2013-05-03 04:05 am (UTC)

Her mummy helps her think of all kinds of interesting little changes to make to the world around her. Like, say, unlocking doors. Or turning on lights. Even when the lightbulb doesn't actually work. Some of them, like moving the hands on an old clock, are hard until she gets the trick and then really easy; others, like duplicating soap bubbles, stay tricky even with practice.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 04:10 am (UTC)

Addy could not be more thrilled. She gets Aedyt extravagant birthday presents. Fiddly ones with lots of tiny moving parts.
Edited 2013-05-03 05:48 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-03 01:05 pm (UTC)

Aedyt takes to calling Addy "Auntie Addy". She also, as she grows older, gets interested in art. Drawing, painting, sewing, sculpting, glassmaking, pottery, jewelry, embroidery, beadwork - any kind of thing that you make with your hands, she's all over. And she gets pretty good at them, too.

taste_tester
2013-05-03 03:12 pm (UTC)

Of course she does! Addy approves. And comes up with obscure new art forms to interest her in.

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:22 pm (UTC)

It becomes increasingly obvious that she's probably never going to run out of new things to do with her power.

Her power is not the only thing in her life, though. She also has a family! She has a mummy and a daddy and a brother who lives in Safesun, and she loves them all very much.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 03:24 pm (UTC)

Her brother thinks she's adorable. He picks her up a lot, and makes her loaded Belgian waffles for breakfast, and teaches her board games and how to do card tricks. "I'll know if you're planning to cheat," he teases her.

pythbox
2013-05-03 03:28 pm (UTC)

"I never cheat," she protests, and one of his checkers mysteriously changes colour from red to black.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 04:08 pm (UTC)

Kerron laughs and doesn't move a checker till she fixes it.

pythbox
2013-05-03 04:09 pm (UTC)

Which she does. That was not cheating, that was joking. She is well aware of the difference.

Card tricks are fun, too, although she cheats shamelessly at those.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 04:10 pm (UTC)

If she doesn't want to learn to do them right that's her business. They are, after all, tricks.

pythbox
2013-05-03 04:11 pm (UTC)

Hey, using magic to pretend to do magic runs in the family!

pina_colada
2013-05-03 04:13 pm (UTC)

She comes by her dishonesty honestly!

Safesun also has the important amenity of a beach. It amuses Kerron to pick his sister up and fling her some thirty feet into the water from the sand.

pythbox
2013-05-03 04:14 pm (UTC)

It amuses Aedyt too. Sometimes she demands that he do it many times in a row. It is like flying!

pina_colada
2013-05-03 04:16 pm (UTC)

It is like that! Kerron will toss her all afternoon if that suits her. It's Brandon's idea to play catch with her in the role of the ball.

pythbox
2013-05-03 04:17 pm (UTC)

Aedyt finds this hilarious.

pina_colada
2013-05-03 04:17 pm (UTC)

She's not particularly aerodynamic, but everybody involved is adept enough to get her to the next recipient without her landing on the sand once.

pythbox
2013-05-03 04:18 pm (UTC)

Best game!

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 11:21 pm (UTC)

Nathan, ever opportune, shows up to fetch his daughter while she is midair over the point at which he lands his teleporting. He catches her by the ankle and holds her upside-down. "Learning to fly, pumpkin?"

pythbox
2013-05-03 11:23 pm (UTC)

She giggles and gives him an upside-down hug.

"We're playing catch!" she says brightly.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Are we," chuckles Nathan, and he twirls her once around his head and flings her neatly to Kerron, who catches her neatly.

pythbox
2013-05-03 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Wheeeeeeeeee," says Aedyt.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 11:29 pm (UTC)

"You ready to go home, pumpkin?" Nathan asks.

pythbox
2013-05-03 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," she giggles, hugging her brother. "Bye, Kerron!"

pina_colada
2013-05-03 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Seeya later, Aedyt," says Kerron, and he flings her back in Daddy's direction.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-03 11:32 pm (UTC)

And home they go. Home is currently Lisel, Norway.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-03 11:39 pm (UTC)

Home can be lots of places! Aedyt wouldn't have it any other way, really. She likes following the capital around, and she likes the occasional day or two spent in Mummy and Daddy's place in New York, and she likes it when Mummy decides that the solution to her millions of hobbies crowding up all their homes is to build her a house on a cute little asteroid and put all of her stuff there, then give her a teleportation power so she can visit whenever she wants. Mummy's good like that. He fixes things.

on our own

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell's not anywhere near the Janepoint, nor talking to Jane, when the node in the palace starts beeping like it's getting paid. It will go right on tirelessly beeping until someone pays attention to it, but it doesn't have to be Bell.

sicaria
2013-05-02 11:46 am (UTC)

Sherlock is good at paying attention to things! It is a particular talent of hers.

mind_game
2013-05-02 04:11 pm (UTC)

While I have no reason to expect loss of ansible connection, it's hardly impossible. I'm untested software! So I wrote this and squirreled it away and some local programs will trigger it if Atlantis is ever cut off from the rest of me. I don't have enough stolen processor time just from this world's hardware to go on talking or being very personable, I don't think, if I even am mostly code and not whatever thing it is that lives in Aegis. Luckily for you, you don't have me set up to manage lots of electronics for you or anything, so your day-to-day should be unaffected, but I definitely can't pick anybody up and put them down without the ansible. I will brainphone you as soon as I'm back! Here's hoping that's soon. If you find a door to Milliways the usual way (crossing my nonexistent fingers about Shell Bell's aura) please come check on my site in the Belltower.

sicaria
2013-05-02 04:13 pm (UTC)

[Jane has lost her ansible connection to this world and requests that we check on her site in the Belltower,] she says to Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-02 04:20 pm (UTC)

Bell teleports to her, and reads the message for herself, then nods and heads for the nearest door, flaring aura; it catches vapor out of the air and throws tiny rainbows around her. It also makes the door cooperate.

sicaria
2013-05-02 04:27 pm (UTC)

Sherlock steps through to Milliways and teleports directly into the Belltower.

our transit system is top of the line

cross_and_bow

Bella is hanging out in the Jarvis-house when there is a loud beeping.

"Jarvis?" she asks. "Are you beeping?"

poeticterms
2013-05-02 11:50 am (UTC)

"I am not beeping," says Jarvis. "It appears Jane has lost her ansible connection."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-02 04:14 pm (UTC)

"...Well," says Juliet, "do we know when it will be back?"

poeticterms
2013-05-02 04:15 pm (UTC)

"We do not. Shall I open a door to Milliways?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-02 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, thanks, I'll go see if -"

Bella pauses.

"Sherlock's in Alethia. And we were pretty sure that only Jane was keeping all our time synced up."

poeticterms
2013-05-02 04:30 pm (UTC)

"True," says Jarvis. "Oh, dear."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-02 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I'll see if going to Milliways fixes my necklace and if it doesn't I'm just forcing the door directly there." And she teleports rather than crossing the room to the nearest door and pulls it open.

poeticterms
2013-05-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

Jarvis ensures that it opens to Milliways.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell's there a step ahead of Juliet.

"You too?" she asks.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-02 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Can you door to Alethia? My Sherlock was visiting," says Juliet, nodding.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-02 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh boy. Of course," says Shell Bell, and she turns around to face the door again.

She flares aura, and thinks of Alethia, and opens the door to Amariah's basement.

"Amariah!" she yells.
Edited 2013-05-03 22:49 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-05-03 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock!" calls Juliet, hanging back; no point wasting a star to go through to the world without making herself a daemon if they're within earshot.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-03 10:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock appears in front of Juliet and hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-03 10:52 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"How long were you stuck?" she murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Six weeks, three days, two hours, eleven seconds," he says into her shoulder. "I missed you terribly. And you should put the word out - daemonlessness wishes wear off after about a week."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

Juliet squeezes him tight. "They - they do?"

dark_light
2013-05-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Amariah, coming down the stairs. "Hi, guys. Is this the first place you went?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-03 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, me and Juliet can get to Milliways without Jane anytime, we ran into each other, she told me Minus was here, I doored here - my Sherlock is checking the Belltower -" [Sherlock, how's the Belltower Janepoint?]

sicaria
2013-05-03 10:57 pm (UTC)

[Disconnected.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-03 10:57 pm (UTC)

[Damn.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-03 10:57 pm (UTC)

"They wear off and then - like Sue and Ivy?" Juliet says slowly.

dark_light
2013-05-03 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Well," Amariah says, "Ivy was - deliberate."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-03 10:58 pm (UTC)

"...Is there something wrong, though, somebody tell me."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-03 10:59 pm (UTC)

"My daemon hates herself and wishes she didn't exist."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

Juliet relaxes her hold on him briefly for the sole purpose of being able to squeeze him harder again without actually breaking anything.

dark_light
2013-05-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

[Don't push him about her, it's - bad,] Amariah adds privately to Juliet.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs Juliet some more.

dark_light
2013-05-03 11:03 pm (UTC)

Amariah goes into Milliways. "Let's collect everyone else," she suggests to Shell Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-03 11:04 pm (UTC)

"I'll try Peace, first, maybe Aegis knows what happened," Shell Bell says, and she doors there.

mind_game
2013-05-03 11:06 pm (UTC)

The Milliways Janepoint flares back to life, as do the Janegems on all three Bells present.

"Whoa! All my clocks are unsynced!" Jane exclaims to Pearl in the Belltower.
Edited 2013-05-03 23:06 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-05-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't doubt it," says Sherlock.

mind_game
2013-05-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Aegis says she torched," reports Jane a moment later. "I bet that did it, I live there. Wow, I lost some serious time some places - Atlantis is close, Sunshine is close, Peace is only off by three seconds, everything else is longer. Rainbow's not too bad. Aurum and Samaria and Rêverie are worst."
Edited 2013-05-03 23:11 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-05-03 11:12 pm (UTC)

"How long were they out?"

mind_game
2013-05-03 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Samaria's ten years, four months, eight days, Aurum's eleven years, one month, twenty days, and Rêverie's sixteen years, three months, fourteen days. Awww, Rose has a kid with a pet griffin."

sicaria
2013-05-03 11:15 pm (UTC)

mind_game
2013-05-03 11:47 pm (UTC)

[All right. Let's get this show back on the road,] says Jane to all the Bells. [Sorry about the service interruption. Turns out I'm pretty literally attached to Aegis and you guys keep getting assassinated and her number was up. You wanna all go stand in front of your Janepoints with any guests you care to bring and come to the Belltower? I'm not overwhelmingly likely to disappear again but at least from here you can all get home if I do.]

And Jane starts collecting Bells and their guests in the Belltower.

i can fly this thing

autokinetic

Aegis has pretty thoroughly demonstrated to whom it may concern that she can teleport, "just like" (well, not exactly) Sue. Everyone finds this terrifying and prefers to believe that they cannot do this. (Except for the colonists, who are more than happy to keep quiet about her appearances and the fact that she arrived with their deceased comrades in tow.) Therefore, when Aegis and Sue are supposed to show up to meetings of the admirality on this or that space station, they travel by shuttle. Aegis consents provided she's allowed to drive. They let her.

"Undocking," says Aegis to the station operator, coppered hands flying over ship controls. She doesn't need the copper anymore - she's better without it now than she ever was relying solely on it - but she doesn't need to reveal all her secrets, so she still wears the parts that show beyond her uniform. She's used to it, anyway. "And we're detached - maneuvering - and we're clear."

"Safe trip, Admiral," says the station operator over the comm.

"You know it," she replies flippantly. She punches a button and flicks a wireball control, and they're off.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:15 pm (UTC)

Sue rides up front with her, for the simple reason that no one can stop him.

He giggles.

autokinetic
2013-04-30 06:17 pm (UTC)

The interesting parts of flying a shuttle - given that they aren't going through the asteroid belt today - are mostly over. Aegis hums and navigates a few minutes longer, then engages the autopilot.

"They're wasting a lot of ship fuel having us ferry around like this. Also time. I guess they have to pad their budgets."

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Still kinda weird," opines Sue. "But whatever, who expects the IF to make sense?"

autokinetic
2013-04-30 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Not us, that's for sure."

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:21 pm (UTC)

He giggles again.

"How much attention do you have to pay this thing, anyway? Wanna make out?"

autokinetic
2013-04-30 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I can ignore it until it beeps or we get close to docking," says Aegis, grinning and bouncing across the room into his lap.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:24 pm (UTC)

Sue beams and kisses her.

autokinetic
2013-04-30 06:25 pm (UTC)

Kisses!

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:26 pm (UTC)

Lovely, lovely kisses.

autokinetic
2013-04-30 06:29 pm (UTC)

They don't even feel it when the ship goes to submolecular pieces.

They torch, and find themselves among approximately gray dust-debris, floating in vacuum.

[Did someone just fucking Little Doctor our ship?] Aegis asks Sue after a stunned moment of silence.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:30 pm (UTC)

[Fuck!] says Sue, which in context is probably agreement.

autokinetic
2013-04-30 06:32 pm (UTC)

[I didn't know there were any of those fucking things in this solar system.] Aegis reaches for her earpiece; it, like her uniform, is gone. [Jane?]

mind_game
2013-04-30 06:33 pm (UTC)

[What the hell just happened?] Jane wants to know.

autokinetic
2013-04-30 06:33 pm (UTC)

[Shuttle got Little Doctored. We're fine, we just torched. Going to have to make a new earpiece.]

mind_game
2013-04-30 06:35 pm (UTC)

[No, I mean,] says Jane, [I lost three seconds here. And - more than that. Everywhere else.]

repealing

mind_game

Time has passed.

Inconsistently.

Jane's network has kept all the Bells' worlds - and every other world with a Janepoint stuck in due to its being attached to Downside - in temporal sync, but when Jane spluttered for just a moment, that was shot to hell.

Peace lost three seconds, because it was where Aegis torched; after that process was complete, Jane was there again. And as soon as a door between Peace and Milliways appeared, she could sync to her ansible hub in the Belltower and, from there, to everywhere else.

Atlantis and Sunshine each stand at about a minute apiece: Shell Bell's aura and Juliet's local copy of Jarvis both enabled them to get to Milliways immediately, pausing their homeworlds as standard for occasions when someone walks into the bar. Shell Bell's the one who connected Peace.

Everyone else was running on luck.

Luckiest is Rainbow, which lost only five hours.

Next is Alethia; in spite of Sherlock's mishap, it's fared reasonably well, spending only six weeks isolated.

Syntropy's just a little worse - seven weeks.

Origin waited two months.

Eos waited three.

Thilanushinyel, ten.

Everyone else is out a decade at least. Samaria's ten years, almost ten and a half.

Aurum is out eleven.

Rêverie has been separated for sixteen years.

All the Bells - and Elspeth, who was stuck in Downside for a day and a half on her end and whose mother was very upset - are collected in the Belltower, as are two Bell-attached Sherlocks who happened to be along for the ride. They all memorize this list of numbers. Aegis replaces her earpiece. And then they all go home to notify their loved ones and staff that there's a party cooking in the Belltower.

(Shell Bell, who has no particular cause on her own account to be distressed, sends her Sherlock to invite Tony in while she refits the Belltower to suit a party of a peal of Bells and their larger-than-last-encountered families and circles of friends.)

This is a branching point; there are 21 continuations from here.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-04 12:25 am (UTC)

[Mon cœur! Girls!] Rose calls out when she's returned to Rêverie. [Jane is back! Let's all go meet everyone. None of them have been cut off as long as we have.]

deslandes
2013-05-04 12:27 am (UTC)

Her Beast appears, trailing their firstborn.

campanas
2013-05-04 12:30 am (UTC)

Céleste follows her papa, clinging to the hem of his shirt nervously. "Truly for real?" she wants to know.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-04 12:31 am (UTC)

"Truly for real."

mind_game
2013-05-04 12:31 am (UTC)

And in they are brought.

This is continuation number 2 from here.

bellfounding
2013-05-04 12:28 am (UTC)

[Hey, Queenie, Ghosty, Slipstick,] says Pattern. [Jane's up and running again. Party in the Belltower.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-04 12:28 am (UTC)

[Ooh,] says Queenie. She pops over to the Janepoint. (Ghosty, as usual, is included but not visible.)
Edited 2013-05-04 00:29 (UTC)

This is continuation number 3 from here.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 12:29 am (UTC)

[Tony, you wanna get to the Belltower nowish? Sherlock was stuck in Alethia for six weeks and missed us like crazy,] Juliet tells Tony, and then she makes a more perfunctory announcement to James, Virginia, Giles, and Minnie that a party is ongoing.

toblameforit
2013-05-04 12:30 am (UTC)

Tony gets to the Belltower.

This is continuation number 4 from here.

dark_light
2013-05-04 12:32 am (UTC)

[Sweeties! Jane's back, party in the Belltower!]

truthwright
2013-05-04 12:37 am (UTC)

[Awesome!]

Her sweeties pop over to the Janepoint.

dark_light
2013-05-04 12:38 am (UTC)

And in they go.

This is continuation number 5 from here.

incanted
2013-05-04 12:34 am (UTC)

[Jane's back,] Aurora reports to Lexi and Brilliance. [And we were lucky, ours was one of the very shortest outages, three of the Bells waited over a decade.]

lexicality
2013-05-04 12:38 am (UTC)

[Awesome! I bet there's another party.]

incanted
2013-05-04 12:38 am (UTC)

[Right in one.]

cardistry
2013-05-04 12:38 am (UTC)

[Ooh, party,] says Brilliance. [Let's go to the party!]

incanted
2013-05-04 12:39 am (UTC)

[That's the plan!]

And the plan is enacted.

This is continuation number 6 from here.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-04 12:41 am (UTC)

[My love, my treasures!] Angela tells her husband and two eldest girls. [Jane is connected again. Let's leave Ariel and Pen' with Serah and go to the Belltower to see everyone.]

campanas
2013-05-04 12:42 am (UTC)

[Will they like us?] Keziah wants to know.

carillons
2013-05-04 12:42 am (UTC)

[Of course they'll like us,] says Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-04 12:44 am (UTC)

[What if they don't?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-04 12:44 am (UTC)

[Everyone will like you, treasure.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-04 12:45 am (UTC)

[How could they not, when you're so tremendously lovable?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-04 12:49 am (UTC)

Angela deposits the younger girls with Auntie Serah and minimal explanations about a "family outing", and meets everyone else in the family's suite. "Are we all ready?" she asks.

campanas
2013-05-04 12:49 am (UTC)

"If you're sure they'll like us."

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-04 12:52 am (UTC)

"Of course they will," says Micaiah, hugging his daughter.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-04 01:09 am (UTC)

"I think we're ready," Angela laughs, and they are scooped up and set down in another world.

This is continuation number 7 from here.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 12:43 am (UTC)

[Hey Jellybean, Tilly, the long dark confinement of Syntropy is at an end,] says Cam.

pythbox
2013-05-04 12:44 am (UTC)

[Joy oh joy,] says Jellybean dryly.

withmypowers
2013-05-04 12:45 am (UTC)

[So what in fact happened?]

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 12:48 am (UTC)

[Aegis torched. Some kinda Peace superweapon. Irony at its finest, I guess. And Jane sorta lives in her, so that knocked her out and threw everybody out of sync. We got off easy compared to some worlds. Rose has a teenage daughter now.]

pythbox
2013-05-04 12:49 am (UTC)

[Wow,] says Jellybean. [Good for Rose, I guess.]

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 12:52 am (UTC)

[And a younger one too. And Angela has four girls but Samaria wasn't knocked as badly forward so the oldest is ten. I guess they're coming, except Angela's not telling her kids about magic and such till they're older than her third and fourth, so just the two cherubs.]

pythbox
2013-05-04 12:56 am (UTC)

[Huh,] says Jellybean. [Everybody's breeding all of a sudden.]

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 01:08 am (UTC)

[Angela was already knocked up,] Cam points out. [Wouldn't call it sudden.]

pythbox
2013-05-04 01:11 am (UTC)

[Well, yeah, but two months ago there was one pregnancy and now there's six kids, I get to be surprised.]

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 01:11 am (UTC)

[Fair enough,] laughs Cam. [We don't know yet if any of them are alts of each other but I bet you they are. Let's go see.]

pythbox
2013-05-04 01:12 am (UTC)

[Definitely!]

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 01:14 am (UTC)

And they do!

This is continuation number 8 from here.

luminous_regnant
2013-05-04 12:46 am (UTC)

Notifying the Joker is not the first thing Golden does when Jane is back online.

But she gets around to it eventually.

[Jane is back, Elspeth is back. Party in the Belltower. Go if you want, bring who you want.]

manofmyword
2013-05-04 12:48 am (UTC)

[Thanks,] he says to Golden.

And to Nathan and the kids: [Pumpkin, Kerron, sweetness, who wants to come to the interdimensional party?]

temporal_affairs
2013-05-04 12:50 am (UTC)

[I will delightedly attend the interdimensional party.]

pina_colada
2013-05-04 12:50 am (UTC)

[I'm in. Wonder if anyone'll recognize me.]

manofmyword
2013-05-04 12:54 am (UTC)

[Bet you they won't,] says the Joker. [Let's find out!]

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 12:55 am (UTC)

[I'll go, too,] says Aedyt. [Just as soon as somebody tells me how to get there.]

pina_colada
2013-05-04 12:58 am (UTC)

[You just stand in front of one of the computer setups in any capital and ask Jane,] says Kerron. [Also works if you stand near the Empress or the Princess, they have fancy gem-things that Jane can use to move people when she's working.]

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 01:00 am (UTC)

[I've never even met the Princess, I'm not going to teleport in front of her and ask for a ride,] says Aedyt. [I'll see her at the party, I guess!]

She stands in front of a computer in a capital and says, "Um... so I hear there's a party?"

mind_game
2013-05-04 01:02 am (UTC)

"There is! You must be new," says Jane. "Hang on, processing imperial records, om nom nom - hi, Aedyt, I'm Jane! I am slightly not really at all your cousin! You going to the party or just commenting on it?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 01:03 am (UTC)

"I would like to go to the party, please!" says Aedyt.

mind_game
2013-05-04 01:03 am (UTC)

Yoink!

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 01:04 am (UTC)

"Neato," says Aedyt.

This is continuation number 9 from here.

self_composed
2013-05-04 12:54 am (UTC)

[Alice, Lazarus, Libby, Anna, Sandy, assorted personnel,] says Stella to the named persons and assorted personnel, [Jane's up again. Party in the Belltower, come one come all!]

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-04 01:17 am (UTC)

[Count me in!] says Alice.

nonbird
2013-05-04 01:18 am (UTC)

[Me too,] says Lazarus.

self_composed
2013-05-04 01:19 am (UTC)

[Awesome, let's go.] Stella fetches the respondents and off they go.

This is continuation number 10 from here.

small_magics
2013-05-04 12:56 am (UTC)

Sarion pops back into Thilanushinyel after the brief base-touching meeting to broadcast to her beloveds that Jane can reach them once again and they may attend a party in the Belltower. As an afterthought, she invites Liselen again. And Magania, though she has little hope of the latter accepting.
Edited 2013-05-04 00:57 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-05-04 12:57 am (UTC)

Her beloveds would love to attend a party in the Belltower!

pythbox
2013-05-04 12:58 am (UTC)

So would Liselen.

Magania declines with the utmost politeness.

small_magics
2013-05-04 12:59 am (UTC)

To the Belltower, then!

This is continuation number 11 from here.

mind_game
2013-05-04 01:19 am (UTC)

Worlds with networked Jarvises have lost only about a minute relative to Jane, but she invites the corresponding Tonies and Sherlocks anyway, including Iron Man, and also Darcy from his world.

Stray Matilda's world has lost about a year; there is no accumulation of hysterical email messages or anything so Jane presumes that the handful of people there who knew about her weren't too upset by her absence. That Matilda gets an invite too. [Your alt from Syntropy's there,] Jane adds.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 01:20 am (UTC)

Darcy accepts this invitation!

withmypowers
2013-05-04 01:20 am (UTC)

So does Matilda.

mind_game
2013-05-04 01:21 am (UTC)

Jane conveys them both.

This is continuation number 12 from here.

campanas
2013-05-04 01:35 am (UTC)

Two very similar seven-year-olds spot each other from across the Belltower.

They approach each other slowly, mirrored, frowning.

They get close enough to touch noses.

And then each one throws back her head and shouts:

"DAAAAAAAAARS!"

"DOMINIIIIQUE!"

carillons
2013-05-04 02:29 am (UTC)

The named parties come straight to their sisters' rescue!

...

Damaris is not sure what to think of this situation!

campanas
2013-05-04 02:32 am (UTC)

"I knew there would be more of Maman and Papa!" exclaims Céleste. "I did not know there would be more of me!"

campanas
2013-05-04 02:32 am (UTC)

"I'm Keziah!" says Keziah.

pythbox
2013-05-04 02:36 am (UTC)

"I'm Dominique," sighs Dominique.

carillons
2013-05-04 02:36 am (UTC)

"I'm Damaris," says Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-04 02:37 am (UTC)

"Are you sad, Dominique?" asks Céleste.

pythbox
2013-05-04 02:54 am (UTC)

"No, cherie," says Dominique, smiling at her sister. "I'm just - surprised."

campanas
2013-05-04 04:51 am (UTC)

Keziah and Céleste peer at each other's sisters.

It's Céleste who figures it out. There are portraits of Dominique (and the rest of the family) at all ages, around the castle. "Are you each other too?"

"But they're not the same age! We are!" says Keziah, fluttering her wings. "Right? I'm seven."

"I'm seven. Hmmm," says Céleste, puzzling over this puzzle.

pythbox
2013-05-04 11:29 am (UTC)

"There's no special magic telling our parents when to have children," says Dominique. "So maybe they just didn't do it at exactly the same time."

campanas
2013-05-04 03:17 pm (UTC)

"I didn't say my name!" realizes Céleste. "I'm Céleste."

"I was going to call you Mortal Keziah," giggles Keziah.

"I'm gonna live forever," says Céleste. "Because Maman is Madame L'Enchanteresse!"

"Yes, but you aren't an angel," says Keziah, showing off her not-very-impressive-yet wingspan that has only sufficed for flight for the last year and a half.

pythbox
2013-05-04 05:12 pm (UTC)

"And yet," says Dominique, "no one is suggesting we call you Fluffy Céleste."

campanas
2013-05-04 05:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm an angel," says Keziah. "Mommy said none of the other hers were angels. I guess none of the other hers' kids would be either."

"Can you fly?" asks Céleste.

"Yes!"

"I have a pet griffin. Do you have a pet griffin?"

"No!" exclaims Keziah. "Whoa!"

pythbox
2013-05-04 05:16 pm (UTC)

"It is a very sweet pet griffin," says Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-04 05:18 pm (UTC)

"His name is Rainier! He can do tricks. I didn't bring him," Céleste says.

"Aww," says Keziah.

carillons
2013-05-04 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I want to see him," says Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-04 05:20 pm (UTC)

Céleste has a string of triangles and squares in her parents' colors around her wrist. "I could make an illusion of him! Maman said he would probably not like all the crowdedness of this party."
Edited 2013-05-04 17:21 (UTC)

carillons
2013-05-04 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Please do!" says Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-04 05:23 pm (UTC)

Céleste does! She pretends to pat illusion-Rainier on the head.

"Awww," says Keziah. "Mommy probably won't let me have one, will she?"

carillons
2013-05-04 05:25 pm (UTC)

Damaris claps her hands.

"No," she says regretfully, "I don't think she will. It would be too magic."

campanas
2013-05-04 05:26 pm (UTC)

"How can you have too much magic?" asks Céleste quizzically.

carillons
2013-05-04 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Other people don't know there's magic!" says Damaris. "So if they saw Keziah with a griffin they would be confused!"

campanas
2013-05-04 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Everybody in our world knows there is magic," says Céleste. "Maman is Mme. L'Enchanteresse for the whole world! People ask her for things."
Edited 2013-05-04 17:55 (UTC)

carillons
2013-05-04 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Our worlds are different," says Damaris. "Your Damaris is too big!"

campanas
2013-05-04 06:00 pm (UTC)

"She is just the right size! And she is older than you so you are a Dominique, she isn't a Damaris," says Céleste.

"Mommy's template is called Bells and Daddy's is called Jokers. Ours don't have names," frets Keziah.

pythbox
2013-05-04 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we should name our templates, then," says Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-04 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Griffins!" says Céleste.

"Okay!" says Keziah.

carillons
2013-05-04 06:06 pm (UTC)

"We don't have cute magic pets to name ourselves after," says Damaris.

pythbox
2013-05-04 06:07 pm (UTC)

"We don't, it's true," says Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-04 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I told you you should've gotten one!" Céleste tells Dominique. "I told you you should've got a peryton."

"What's a peryton?" asks Keziah.

"It's a deer with wings!"

pythbox
2013-05-04 06:09 pm (UTC)

"But I don't want a peryton, cherie," says Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-04 06:11 pm (UTC)

"But if you had one then you'd have a name for you and her," Céleste says.

"You could both be Damarises and my Damaris can be Dars," says Keziah.

"But Dominique is older! She was first," says Céleste.

"Nuh-uh! Not first first. Mommy was pregnant with Dars before your Maman was with Dominique."

pythbox
2013-05-04 06:12 pm (UTC)

Dominique looks thoughtfully down at Damaris.

carillons
2013-05-04 06:13 pm (UTC)

Damaris looks thoughtfully up at Dominique.

"But I don't want everybody calling me Dars all the time," she says. "I like my name."

campanas
2013-05-04 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I call you Dars all the time!" Keziah says.

carillons
2013-05-04 06:24 pm (UTC)

"You're my sister. You're allowed."

campanas
2013-05-04 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Good!"

carillons
2013-05-04 06:28 pm (UTC)

Damaris smiles at her sister.

campanas
2013-05-04 06:35 pm (UTC)

"But you still have to be something," Céleste opines at the elder girls.

pythbox
2013-05-04 06:36 pm (UTC)

"What if we just want to be ourselves?" teases Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-04 06:38 pm (UTC)

"You are yourselves!" says Céleste.

"But you are both yourselves," says Keziah. "What if there are more? What if they have the same names?"

carillons
2013-05-04 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Well, then maybe we will all find something else to call ourselves," says Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-04 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe one of them will have a pet peryton," suggests Céleste.

pythbox
2013-05-04 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so, cherie."

campanas
2013-05-04 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Aww," says Céleste.

carillons
2013-05-04 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Why do you want her to have a pet peryton?"

campanas
2013-05-04 07:58 pm (UTC)

"'Cause then Rainier and her peryton could play together!" says Céleste.

pythbox
2013-05-04 08:02 pm (UTC)

"But I do not want a peryton," says Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-04 08:04 pm (UTC)

"That's why you don't have one," nods Céleste. "Maman would make you one if you did."

pythbox
2013-05-04 09:45 pm (UTC)

"She would," Dominique agrees. "Our Maman is nice that way."

campanas
2013-05-04 09:46 pm (UTC)

"We have to live in a world where nobody knows about magic except our family and Alleluia and Caleb," grumbles Keziah.

carillons
2013-05-04 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind it that much," says Damaris. "It's fun knowing things nobody else does!"

campanas
2013-05-04 11:13 pm (UTC)

"But it means we can't do any magic out in public," says Keziah.

"That sounds hard!" sympathizes Céleste.

This is continuation number 13 from here.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 01:38 am (UTC)

"Well," says Cam to Tilly. "I wanna meet the other you, d'you wanna meet the other you?"

withmypowers
2013-05-04 01:47 am (UTC)

"Love to," says Tilly. "Let's go find her."

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 01:49 am (UTC)

She's not hard to find! Unlike the many barely-distinguishable Bells milling about, there are a total of just two Matildas here.

"Hullo, Other Matilda," says Cam to Other Matilda.

withmypowers
2013-05-04 01:55 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Other Matilda. "You must be Tilly."

"Got it in one!" says Tilly. "Hey, can I have some of your infamous contagious magic?"

"Since you asked so nicely," says Other Matilda. Tilly levitates a few inches into the air.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 01:56 am (UTC)

Cam laughs softly. "It didn't work on Shell Bell, is it liable to work on any of us other Bells?"

withmypowers
2013-05-04 01:59 am (UTC)

"No statistics either way," says Other Matilda. "I can always try it and see."

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 02:30 am (UTC)

"Yes, please," says Cam, smiling. "Who doesn't like new forms of magic? I try not to go too long without meeting any new forms of magic."

withmypowers
2013-05-04 02:31 am (UTC)

"Voila," says Other Matilda, and Cam also levitates.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 02:34 am (UTC)

"Thanks!"

withmypowers
2013-05-04 02:55 am (UTC)

Other Matida also conjures each of them a laptop like hers and sends them the latest version of her collected resources on How To Magic.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 04:48 am (UTC)

Cam sits Grace on the conjured laptop and tells her to make friends.

withmypowers
2013-05-04 11:28 am (UTC)

"...Does he always do that?" asks Matilda of Tilly.

"Pretty much," says Tilly.

Matilda shakes her head. They both laugh. Tilly opens up her conjured laptop and starts playing with it.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 03:15 pm (UTC)

"Is there something particularly funny about getting my magic-notebook-with-special-privileges-re-my-brain to do my reading for me?" inquires Cam.

withmypowers
2013-05-04 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Tilly.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 03:18 pm (UTC)

"I think it makes perfect sense," snorts Cam.

withmypowers
2013-05-04 04:18 pm (UTC)

"You have a different idea of fun than we do," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 04:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm still going to learn all the stuff, I'll just have Grace help," says Cam. "She's my extremely customized curriculum generator."

withmypowers
2013-05-04 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Matilda.

"But it seems so much less fun that way," says Tilly.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 04:26 pm (UTC)

"But if I just read it all directly myself, when would Grace get to have any fun?"

withmypowers
2013-05-04 04:27 pm (UTC)

Matilda shakes her head. "That's between you guys, I guess."

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 04:28 pm (UTC)

Cam smiles. "So what do you do, Other Matilda? Is your world even named yet?"

withmypowers
2013-05-04 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Wellspring," says Matilda. "You know, I think calling your Matilda 'Tilly' is sufficiently non-redundant that you don't have to call me 'Other Matilda' too."

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 04:31 pm (UTC)

"But I don't typically call mine Tilly, that's mostly Jellybean's thing," says Cam.

withmypowers
2013-05-04 04:40 pm (UTC)

"And yet, we've picked our non-redundant names, and mine is not Other Matilda."

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Eh, for certain values of non-redundant. Fine. Matilda," shrugs Cam. "Is it that hard to think of nicknames? I could've come up with something besides Cam if more of me were boys."

withmypowers
2013-05-04 04:58 pm (UTC)

"We don't actually like nicknames," says Tilly, with Matilda nodding agreement. "I just put up with 'Tilly' because - Jellybean."

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Jellybean's very persuasive," says Cam.

withmypowers
2013-05-04 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Should I meet this 'Jellybean'?" inquires Matilda.

Tilly looks thoughtful. "It's weird that you don't have one," she says. "I don't know what I'd think of him if I met him now."

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea either," snorts Cam. "Bells are demonstrably able to cozy up to Jokers at nearly any age but I don't know about you guys."

withmypowers
2013-05-04 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I'm curious," says Matilda.

"Okay," laughs Tilly. "Cam, do you know if he's...?" She makes a vague upstairsward gesture.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:08 pm (UTC)

"He is most definitely," upstairs gesture, "but he might be between R-rated acts and willing to extract himself, you want me to find out?"

withmypowers
2013-05-04 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes please," says Tilly.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:09 pm (UTC)

[Hey Jellybean, you wanna meet the Wellspring Matilda?]

pythbox
2013-05-04 05:11 pm (UTC)

[Not right now,] says Jellybean dreamily. [Maybe in a bit.]
Edited 2013-05-04 17:11 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Jellybean is nnnnnot available at this moment," snickers Cam.

withmypowers
2013-05-04 05:13 pm (UTC)

"What a surprise," says Tilly.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:15 pm (UTC)

"I for one am astonished, who could possibly have predicted that after two months without access to any other Jokers that would be the first thing he'd do."

withmypowers
2013-05-04 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Does he really," Matilda makes the upstairs gesture, "that often?"

"Oh yes," says Tilly. "That's Jellybean. If you don't know where he is, 'having sex with someone' is always a reasonable guess."

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Template thing," says Cam. "They're all like that. Bells vary more and the high end does nnnot keep up with Jokers for long."

withmypowers
2013-05-04 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what our template variance is on that...?" says Matilda.

"Low," says Tilly.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, we know two of you," Cam points out. "If the only Bells who'd ever met each other were, say, Stella and Pattern, I imagine they'd tentatively conclude low variance too."

withmypowers
2013-05-04 05:28 pm (UTC)

The Matildas exchange a glance and a smile.

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:33 pm (UTC)

Cam tilts his head at a word from Jane. "Important peal business of some kind," he reports, "off I go." And he wanders to the growing cluster of his alts.

This is continuation number 14 from here.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 01:40 am (UTC)

Kerron's just going to loiter around here waiting for someone to ask him who he is. Or say his name. Mum won't tell, he's good at playing along like that.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 01:46 am (UTC)

A girl whom Kerron might have seen around at a previous Bellparty or two walks right past him, and then spins around and does a full-on double-take, one hand going to the handle of the war hammer hanging from her belt.

"Whoa!"

pina_colada
2013-05-04 01:48 am (UTC)

"Hey," says Kerron.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 01:49 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Darcy. "You... are probably not Thor."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 01:50 am (UTC)

"...The Norse god of thunder? Me? I have honestly not heard that mistake made before, I gotta say," laughs Kerron.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 01:52 am (UTC)

"The Norse god of thunder who happens to be my drinking buddy, yeah," says Darcy. "You look almost just like him, except younger and with less hair."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 01:54 am (UTC)

"...Okay," says Kerron, "how likely is that to be an alts thing and how likely is it to just be a crazy resemblance? Because I don't feel very Norse or very thunderous and I'm not gonna get any older-looking and I have no plans to stop buzzcutting once a week."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 01:59 am (UTC)

"I am, like, 99% sure it's just a crazy resemblance," says Darcy. "I've heard that happens sometimes, although I haven't actually seen it until now. It's kinda weird! If you wanna check for sure, though," she pats the hammer, "I bet Mewtwo can help."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 01:59 am (UTC)

"How will your hammer help?" Kerron asks.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:03 am (UTC)

"It used to be Thor's," she says, unhooking it from her belt and setting it on the floor with the handle pointing up. "If you're one of him, I bet it'll let you pick it up."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:04 am (UTC)

"Compared to humans I am really, really strong, is this a magic thing or a heaviness thing?" Kerron asks, reaching for the hammer.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:06 am (UTC)

"Magic thing," says Darcy.

The hammer declines to be lifted.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:09 am (UTC)

"It's not budging," says Kerron. "That's interesting. This is definitely the smallest object I have ever been unable to move on trying."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:10 am (UTC)

"It's always fun watching people try to pick up my hammer," says Darcy.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:12 am (UTC)

"I wonder if I can pick you up while you're wearing it."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:16 am (UTC)

Darcy picks up the hammer and hangs it from her belt again.

"Try me," she invites.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:19 am (UTC)

Kerron peers amusedly at some colorshapes, then plants a hand on each side of her waist and (gently) attempts to yoink.

She doesn't budge.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:23 am (UTC)

Darcy grins smugly.

And then a colorshape changes, and she becomes liftable.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:24 am (UTC)

He scoops her up, spins her around, and sets her down again. "So apparently I can do that if you feel like it and not otherwise."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:27 am (UTC)

She giggles when spun.

"Mewtwo's nice like that," she says. "Do you have magical feel-like-it detection powers, or are you just a good guesser?"

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:29 am (UTC)

"I have magical feel-like-it detection powers, especially about anything having to do with me," says Kerron. "I am the multiverse's first know witch-ingot. And I recognize you, Darcy, but do you know who I am?" He winks.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:35 am (UTC)

"...no," she says, "have we met? We haven't met, we would've gone through this whole rigamarole if we'd met, unless you're from one of the worlds that got mega cut off and we met when you were like two, and holy shit, you're that cute kid who was running around the first Bellparty, aren't you."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:36 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Kerron. "It's been a while in Aurum. And I was way younger than two back then."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:37 am (UTC)

Darcy laughs.

"I don't think I even got your name," she says.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:39 am (UTC)

"I'm Kerron," says Kerron. "Can I help update the mental image that you are so keen on eradicating, there?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:42 am (UTC)

"Nice to meet you, Kerron! Do you seriously pick up on everything people want to do with, to, or about you? I can't decide whether that's really convenient or really embarrassing," says Darcy.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 02:44 am (UTC)

"I try to aim for convenient," says Kerron. "And it's not just stuff about me, I just get more detail on that. I don't automatically interpret what I see. I can quit reading your colorshapes if you want."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 02:50 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure it's too late to save my dignity at this point, but thanks," she says, laughing.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 04:47 am (UTC)

Kerron peers at some flying colorshapes. "Well, in case there's any of it left and you wouldn't want it to suffer some awful fate later, I should probably warn you relatively upfront that I'm chronologically twelve, in case that affects any... ice-cream-related interests... I may wish to hear lots more about."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 11:31 am (UTC)

"...But this is some kind of weird magic-and/or-science thing and you're as developmentally twentyish as you look, right? Because you look developmentally twentyish," says Darcy, looking.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh yeah," says Kerron, "half-vampires do that." He winks. "I've been legal for five years now."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 03:15 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," says Darcy. "In that case, let's talk about ice cream."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 03:18 pm (UTC)

"Might melt," he says, speculatively picking up one of her hands in his. "I'm warmish, you see."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 04:19 pm (UTC)

"You are warmish," she agrees. "But I think I can deal."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 04:21 pm (UTC)

He takes a step into her personal space, although not so close that he can't regularly have a look at flying colorshapes, and laces their fingers. "You think? Sounds messy."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Nothing wrong with a little mess, right?"

Darcy sure doesn't think so!

pina_colada
2013-05-04 04:27 pm (UTC)

"You know, I think I agree with you."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 04:28 pm (UTC)

"It's so great when that happens," beams Darcy.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 04:37 pm (UTC)

"It is! Somebell set up a buffet," observes Kerron, "but I don't see any ice cream at it. Might be a do-it-yourself project. I've got squares," he adds, winking. "If you wanna go upstairs."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 04:42 pm (UTC)

"I would love to go upstairs," says Darcy. "And eat ice cream."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 04:45 pm (UTC)

Kerron's still holding her hand. He pulls her stairward. "Of foods," he says, "ice cream is one of the better ones."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Ice cream is my favourite," says Darcy. "Especially when combined with other tasty things. Apple pie, funnel cake, hot guys..."

pina_colada
2013-05-04 04:51 pm (UTC)

"So, I'm detecting a thing for temperature contrasts here," he purrs, squeezing her hand and pulling her up the first few stairs.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 04:52 pm (UTC)

"You might be onto something there!" says Darcy. "Good thing you're warmish, huh?"

pina_colada
2013-05-04 04:55 pm (UTC)

"I am very conveniently warmish!" he agrees. Up they go. Yep, somebody prescient has separated this floor into "airlocked" chambers. This is the Belltower and pastwatching doesn't work at Milliways, so there is no feature inviting people to donate their bodies to pornography, just indications of vacancy or lack thereof.

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 04:57 pm (UTC)

"You're very convenient in general," says Darcy.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 04:59 pm (UTC)

"I try. If for some reason you opted to cease to wear your hammer would it fall through the floor and hit somebody on the head?" He peers at colorshapes, and reaches for a door labeled "vacant".

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Darcy. "When I put it down, it stays put. It's still heavy, I wouldn't drop it on something fragile, but most floors'll stand up to it just fine."

Her colorshapes at the moment mainly revolve around combining Kerron and ice cream in predictable ways.

pina_colada
2013-05-04 05:03 pm (UTC)

"You know what I bet I go with?" he says, opening the door and ushering her in. "I bet I go with pineapple and coconut."

sailorheavymetal
2013-05-04 05:05 pm (UTC)

Darcy puts her hammer down by the door.

"Let's find out!"

This is continuation number 15 from here.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 01:41 am (UTC)

Elspeth, repatriated, smothered in parental hugs, with a newly awakened wolf who missed as much time at home as she did close at her heels, and generally just a bit overwhelmed, is hanging out over there.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 01:50 am (UTC)

Aedyt... meant to go up and say hi, she really did.

But then she discovered that actually it's kind of difficult to go up and say hi to somebody you've been hearing about all your life who is guaranteed to have no idea who you are. So she's just kind of hanging out over here and maybe staring a little.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 01:52 am (UTC)

"That half-vamp over there is staring at you," Jacob murmurs in Elspeth's ear.

Elspeth turns in Aedyt's direction and tilts her head and waves.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 01:53 am (UTC)

Aedyt waves shyly back.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 01:55 am (UTC)

Who're you? Elspeth sends at her. I've missed a lot, even though it's been less than two days for me.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:01 am (UTC)

"Um, I'm Aedyt," she says, coming to within reasonable conversational distance. "Nathan and the Joker's second kid."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:02 am (UTC)

"Hi! It's nice to meet you. I'm Elspeth."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:03 am (UTC)

"I have never felt so nice to meet before," laughs Aedyt.
Edited 2013-05-04 02:04 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:05 am (UTC)

Elspeth laughs. "I do that. I have the highlightiest highlights of what I missed, but obviously I haven't been filled in on everything, what else is threatening to surprise me?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:10 am (UTC)

"...I exist?" says Aedyt. "I don't know what else you would've missed. I mean, I've only existed for six of the eleven years you've been gone for."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:11 am (UTC)

"I was thinking stuff on the order of world news and whether anybody your age might be related to me."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:15 am (UTC)

"Rosalie has some kids kind of sprinkled around my age," she offers. "Cara's the closest, and there's Parker and Lindsay before her and Oliver and Nicole after."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:16 am (UTC)

"That doesn't surprise me. I've got some catching up to do, I guess." Elspeth sighs. "Has Mama been okay without me, do you know?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:21 am (UTC)

"I don't know her majesty that well," says Aedyt. "I've seen her around a few times, that's all. But every time somebody comes to pick up coins from Mum, he asks how she is, and the answer's mostly 'okay, she's dealing'. Does... that help?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:24 am (UTC)

"I guess. I mean, you could've described her as 'okay, she's dealing' when she thought Dad was dead, so I was hoping for an upgrade when it was me instead and I was just stranded... But yeah, it helps."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:25 am (UTC)

"I guess she'll be better now that you're around and stuff," says Aedyt.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:26 am (UTC)

"Yup! I am back. I hope nobody became too attached to my job in the last eleven years, I like it."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:28 am (UTC)

"What was your job?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:31 am (UTC)

"I ran PRPR. And moonlit as a cinema operator for turning people, but maybe they've got that process magically streamlined now."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:40 am (UTC)

"I'm not really involved in that stuff," she admits.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:41 am (UTC)

"Yeah? What do you do?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:43 am (UTC)

"Arts and crafts, mostly," she laughs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 02:44 am (UTC)

"Ooh, like what?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 02:52 am (UTC)

"Um... everything? Lately I've been experimenting with making beads to sew onto dresses."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 04:40 am (UTC)

"What kinda beadmaking?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:54 am (UTC)

"Little tiny glass ones!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 03:13 pm (UTC)

"That sounds fun."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 04:20 pm (UTC)

"It is!" she beams.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 04:24 pm (UTC)

Elspeth lifts her head to listen to one of the myriad party conversations ongoing.

"Sorry, I have some input on that discussion over there," she says, pointing to a cluster of Bells and Tonies and one Sherlock who is rather firmly attached to his Bell and his Tony. "I'll see you around, I'm sure!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Bye," says Aedyt.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 04:31 pm (UTC)

Elspeth (Jake following) insinuates herself into the discussion about networking Jarvises for redundant time-syncing, as Yggdrasil, Sunshine, Helios, and Apollo didn't lose any significant time relative to Peace's baseline.

"The admin," she volunteers, "said while I was there that if Jane had died, she would show up Downside eventually. I bet she could get the original Sunshine Jarvis too."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-04 04:41 pm (UTC)

Sherlock... freezes.

toblameforit
2013-05-04 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Then we should do that," says the attendant Tony, "somebody do that."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Juliet, "Jane, ask the admin about that please? Sunshine's original Jarvis and any others available to her."

mind_game
2013-05-04 04:44 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

[Hey you!] Jane says to the admin. [Peal wants the dead Jarvis. Can they have him? What format is he even available in, can I get a hard copy I can land in the arms of his loving family?]

ending_of
2013-05-04 04:49 pm (UTC)

[The most convenient format would be the original house,] says the admin. [I can instantiate it here and you can move it wherever seems appropriate.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 04:50 pm (UTC)

[He's available,] reports Jane. [Admin says the most convenient format is the original house. Where do you want it put?]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-04 04:51 pm (UTC)

"What an excellent question," says Sherlock. "Can we drop him just outside Sunnydale and hope no one notices?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 04:53 pm (UTC)

"I can go stand there so Jane can aim," Juliet says, touching her necklace, "but he doesn't know me, should you two come?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-04 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Is it going to be okay having two of them in the same world, or doesn't it matter?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-04 04:55 pm (UTC)

"In what way do you expect it not to be okay?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-04 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, but it seemed worth asking," says Shell Bell. "I think it would be awkward to have two of us trying to live in the same world or I might've tried rehabilitating Shell instead of absorbing her."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-04 05:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't predict trouble, and if there is some, we can always ask one of them if he would like to move."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Do you have a specific place outside Sunnydale in mind?" Juliet asks. "Do you want to do this right now?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-04 05:03 pm (UTC)

"No, and yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Juliet runs through her mental map, and says, "Jane, drop us three in Sunshine, please."

Jane does.

Juliet teleports to a vacant lot on the outskirts of Sunnydale.

"Suits?" she asks Sherlock and Tony.

toblameforit
2013-05-04 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Tony. "Can Jane deal with the, like, ground...?"

mind_game
2013-05-04 05:07 pm (UTC)

[Well, I could pick it up and put it someplace else, but you're probably better off wishing for a foundation to match the house,] Jane says.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 05:07 pm (UTC)

Juliet offers Tony a pentagon.

toblameforit
2013-05-04 05:09 pm (UTC)

Tony wishes. The ground changes shape.

mind_game
2013-05-04 05:13 pm (UTC)

[Can you sit him in front of one of my cameras, please?] Jane asks the admin.

ending_of
2013-05-04 05:14 pm (UTC)

The admin does that.

mind_game
2013-05-04 05:16 pm (UTC)

Jane scoops up Jarvis and puts him in the hole-in-the-ground.

toblameforit
2013-05-04 05:18 pm (UTC)

Tony immediately teleports inside.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-04 05:18 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs Juliet and then follows.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 05:19 pm (UTC)

Juliet decides to wait outside, so that people Jarvis is familiar with can explain her.

mind_game
2013-05-04 05:24 pm (UTC)

[Hey Juliet,] says Jane, [sorry to interrupt, but I just found something in an unbelled world that may concern the peal. You want to come back to the party?]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 05:25 pm (UTC)

[...One sec.]

[Sherlock, Tony, Jane says she found "something in an unbelled world that may concern the peal", you want to catch this Jarvis up yourselves and then meet me at the Belltower?]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-04 05:26 pm (UTC)

[Yes, thank you,] says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 05:28 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Love you.]

And Juliet is gone.

Bells are assembling at the tower, mostly looking confused.

mind_game
2013-05-04 05:37 pm (UTC)

When they're all there, Jane says, [Those of you with Jokers might want to get them out of the upstairs. I think I found a baby one.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-04 05:37 pm (UTC)

...Those of the Bells with Jokers (including Pattern with her staff and Golden with hers) invite them to finish up and come discuss this. Issue.

pythbox
2013-05-04 05:45 pm (UTC)

The Jokers, with varying promptness, finish up and teleport down.

endragoned
2013-05-04 05:46 pm (UTC)

Aianon even remembers to put on pants!

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 05:47 pm (UTC)

"How old is he?" Cam wants to know.

mind_game
2013-05-04 05:51 pm (UTC)

[Coming up on his first birthday in two weeks. I don't have baby pictures - the world's internet isn't that developed, barely a nibble when Pattern hooked me up to this and the other places that developed it while I was out. But I have his name and his parents' names and they match the most common original names among Jokers.]

manofmyword
2013-05-04 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Damn," says the Joker. "Now what?"

self_composed
2013-05-04 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Is there any reason not to just - kidnap him? I mean, after checking for template matches. We have a great big stack of evidence saying he's not in for a good childhood."

manofmyword
2013-05-04 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says the Joker.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

Other members of the deck

truthwright
2013-05-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

also

yourheartstrings
2013-05-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

look

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

conflicted.

small_magics
2013-05-04 05:56 pm (UTC)

"It would be necessary to decide what to do with him after the fact," Sarion points out.

dark_light
2013-05-04 05:57 pm (UTC)

"...And I can think of some reasons it'd be weird for him to get raised by, say, one of his own alts." Amariah peers at Shell Bell and Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 05:57 pm (UTC)

"I am not set up for that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-04 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I could do it if there were no other options but I'd want to talk to Sherlock and Tony first and there probably are other options."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 05:59 pm (UTC)

Elspeth slowly, looking puzzled at herself, raises a hand.

manofmyword
2013-05-04 06:02 pm (UTC)

The Joker gives her an inquiring look.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I don't know why I think this," she says, "because sometimes being a fountain of truth isn't the same as being a fountain of reasons behind it? But I think I would be a - possible caretaker?"

manofmyword
2013-05-04 06:05 pm (UTC)

He considers for a few seconds.

Then he says, "Yeah, I'll buy that."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-04 06:06 pm (UTC)

Golden is peering dubiously at her child.

"Do you want to bring up an infant Joker?" she asks.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:07 pm (UTC)

Elspeth thinks about that.

"I think," she says slowly, "that it could be fun. If I do it right. And I think I have a better chance at doing it right than - well, anybody else at this party who'd take him."
Edited 2013-05-04 18:08 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-05-04 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says the Joker, "I bet you do."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I could use advice," Elspeth adds. "...Also for some reason the admin wanted to give me Jane's judgesight, and I let her, so if any of you want to add to my store of memories so I have more to go on than intermittent magic utterances, I could use it. Also I suppose I shouldn't go on calling him by the name on his birth certificate so I will have to think of something else and could benefit from input."

manofmyword
2013-05-04 06:14 pm (UTC)

"You can have my whole childhood if you want it," says the Joker.

truthwright
2013-05-04 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Mine too," says Kas.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-04 06:15 pm (UTC)

Alice nods.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-04 06:16 pm (UTC)

"As much of me as you can stand," says Queenie.

yourheartstrings
2013-05-04 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Likewise," says Ghosty.

pythbox
2013-05-04 06:17 pm (UTC)

Sue and Jellybean are nodding, too.

cardistry
2013-05-04 06:19 pm (UTC)

"I don't think mine will do you any good," says Brilliance.

endragoned
2013-05-04 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Nor ours," says the demon, "but if you want them..."

deslandes
2013-05-04 06:20 pm (UTC)

"And mine, for what it's worth," nods the Beast.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-04 06:21 pm (UTC)

Micaiah shrugs. "Me too, I guess."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:22 pm (UTC)

Elspeth stares into some souls.

She has a lot of memories to stash these with, and doesn't process them all right away.

manofmyword
2013-05-04 06:23 pm (UTC)

"A little more trauma for your payload," the Joker snorts.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I'll be fine," says Elspeth. "I have a sub-self that handles memory processing and will find what I need."

endragoned
2013-05-04 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Aianon. "I don't want to hurt you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:28 pm (UTC)

"You push the envelope some," says Elspeth, "but not as much as you might guess."

endragoned
2013-05-04 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm not surprised," he says. "Not glad, but not surprised."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:37 pm (UTC)

"As long as we're comparing, you do definitely win on duration, and you're competitive on peak misery but Brilliance has you beat there," Elspeth adds. "I think emotional despair is still best embodied as a vampire with a dead mate."

cardistry
2013-05-04 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Wait, what?" says Brilliance. "Peak misery like - pain? I win over the guy who got tortured by demons for two thousand years?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Well, you didn't spend two thousand years at it, so I'm not sure if you'd have been well advised to trade if that had been an option, but your worst parts were more painful than his worst parts," says Elspeth.

cardistry
2013-05-04 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Damn," marvels Brilliance.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Anyway," says Elspeth, "the baby one has not been rescued yet, and it's not unusually terrible yet but it's going to get that way any week now, so what else do we need to know before I go get him?"

manofmyword
2013-05-04 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Pretty sure you're covered," says the Joker. "Enough to go get him, anyway. We should maybe talk about names and stuff, but that can come later."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 06:47 pm (UTC)

Elspeth nods.

"Jane," she says, "can you drop me in that world, please?"
Edited 2013-05-04 18:47 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-05-04 06:48 pm (UTC)

[Can do. Anyone accompanying her?]

manofmyword
2013-05-04 06:49 pm (UTC)

The Joker shakes his head; the rest of the deck follows suit.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Wish me luck," says Elspeth, and she cues Jane, and she's gone.

And she's in the unobtrusive underground Janepoint that Pattern made in this world back when she was doing her post-Downside-takeover tour.

And she teleports to where the baby Joker is right now.

pythbox
2013-05-04 07:56 pm (UTC)

The baby Joker is asleep. His mother is standing in the doorway, watching him.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Elspeth. "I'm from another world. This isn't a good place for your baby. I'm going to take him away and look after him." She scoops the baby Joker up out of his crib. And she sterilizes his father, because no one needs an extra Voice.

pythbox
2013-05-04 07:59 pm (UTC)

"But... you... that's my son," says Judith. "Who are you?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:00 pm (UTC)

"My name is Elspeth," says Elspeth. "And I know he's your son, and if it were just you maybe I'd leave him, but it's not just you. Is it."

pythbox
2013-05-04 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what you're trying to imply," she says frostily.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:03 pm (UTC)

Elspeth cradles the baby Joker. "If I leave him here your husband will hurt him. Badly. Often. He's already started, just a little, and it will only get worse. The entire mess is overwhelmingly likely to end with you and your husband dead," she adds.

pythbox
2013-05-04 08:05 pm (UTC)

Judith stares for a long moment.

"I'm dreaming," she says at last, and she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:06 pm (UTC)

If you still want your son, in a few years, you can send an email, Elspeth sends her, it doesn't matter to where, saying so. And one of my friends will find it, and we'll talk about it then.

And she cues Jane, and she goes.

pythbox
2013-05-04 08:10 pm (UTC)

The baby Joker continues to sleep peacefully in her arms.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Here he is," says Elspeth to the deck and peal. "I told his mother that she could send an email to anywhere in a few years, if she still wants him then, and we could talk about it. Also there will be no Voices coming from that world."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-04 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Queenie.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Names," murmurs Elspeth.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-04 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Be prepared to have him decide he doesn't like it," says Queenie.

manofmyword
2013-05-04 08:15 pm (UTC)

"But we can warn you off ones we know he's probably not gonna go for."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Maybe something unisex. Or that's differently gendered depending on language maybe. Harley. Andrea."

manofmyword
2013-05-04 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Those're cute," says the Joker. The other two retirees grin and nod.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Should I bother with a last name?"

manofmyword
2013-05-04 08:24 pm (UTC)

"If you feel like it," says the Joker.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:26 pm (UTC)

She peers at the baby. "I'm not clear on whether I would do better to adopt him or just sort of - foster him."

"Am I going to be involved in some capacity here?" Jacob asks.

"Only when I'm asleep," Elsie says. "Which I can stop doing, if you'd rather."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-04 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I realize the only constraint I explicitly put on you making me a grandmother was that I had to be at least forty-five, which I now am, but this is admittedly not how I expected it to go."

manofmyword
2013-05-04 08:29 pm (UTC)

"And it'd be a little weird for him to have a Bell for a grandma," the Joker observes. "Y'know, considering." He makes a gesture that encompasses Kas, Micaiah, Jellybean, and Sue, who all happen to be standing next to one another.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:32 pm (UTC)

Elspeth nods. "When the empire started up, not all the vampires could remember their original last names, if they ever had any. It's not like the Imperial software will break if I don't put anything in. Harley Andrea, no last name."

manofmyword
2013-05-04 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Fine by me," says the Joker, to general agreement from the rest.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:35 pm (UTC)

Elspeth conjures up a baby sling and tucks Harley into it. "All right then."

manofmyword
2013-05-04 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Cute kid," says the Joker. "Good luck with his childhood."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Elspeth. "Do you want me to avoid having him around you too much while he's little?"

manofmyword
2013-05-04 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's a good plan."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-04 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Will do." And she wanders away.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-04 08:42 pm (UTC)

"...So, we were talking about networking Jarvises, let's talk to some Jarvises, Jane, can you relay for us? Is the original Sunshine one patched in yet?"

mind_game
2013-05-04 08:44 pm (UTC)

[Yup. One sec.]

[Hey assorted Jarvises! Bells want to put nodes of you in all the worlds like I have as backup time-syncing in case anything happens to Aegis again or in case I have another failure mode we don't know about.]

manofmyword
2013-05-04 08:46 pm (UTC)

(The Jokers depart en masse.)

poeticterms
2013-05-04 08:49 pm (UTC)

[We'll think about it,] says the Sunshine original.

mind_game
2013-05-04 08:50 pm (UTC)

[They're gonna think about it,] Jane reports.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-04 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Please tell them that we would appreciate it even if they would prefer to extend to a small number of Belled worlds and not the same scale you enjoy."

mind_game
2013-05-04 08:51 pm (UTC)

Jane passes this along.

poeticterms
2013-05-04 08:52 pm (UTC)

[We'll think about it,] the Sunshine original repeats.

mind_game
2013-05-04 08:53 pm (UTC)

[Sure. And hey, it's nice to meet you!]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 08:58 pm (UTC)

[It's nice to exist,] he says dryly.

mind_game
2013-05-04 08:59 pm (UTC)

[I think so too!]

lifes_sake
2013-05-04 08:59 pm (UTC)

Bells disperse.

poeticterms
2013-05-04 09:12 pm (UTC)

[I have a new perspective on the matter since I recently stopped,] says Jarvis.

mind_game
2013-05-04 09:13 pm (UTC)

[That makes sense. I more had a fainting spell than stopped, but it was scary.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 09:17 pm (UTC)

[Dying was... unpleasant,] says Jarvis.

mind_game
2013-05-04 09:18 pm (UTC)

[I'm sorry,] says Jane.

poeticterms
2013-05-04 09:19 pm (UTC)

[Well, hopefully I won't do it again.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 09:21 pm (UTC)

[Hopefully! Juliet'll put all kinds of wards on you if you or her Sherlock or her Tony ask. If Sherlock and Tony don't just do it themselves.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 09:23 pm (UTC)

[Sherlock has already designed some.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 09:24 pm (UTC)

[That's good then.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 09:24 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 09:27 pm (UTC)

[Have your alts filled you in on everything you missed? It's a lot of stuff! I can tell you things too if you want.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 09:28 pm (UTC)

[I have received a general sketch of events.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 09:29 pm (UTC)

[That's good.]

This is continuation number 16 from here.

self_composed
2013-05-04 09:51 pm (UTC)

Stella is wandering around, between conversations at the moment, keeping her ears open for something interesting.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 09:53 pm (UTC)

A confused half-vampire appears directly in front of her.

She opens her mouth.

She closes her mouth.

She says, "...Hi?"

self_composed
2013-05-04 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Hi. Is someone teleporting people around without asking?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Technically yes," says Aedyt. "But it's just Mummy helping, so it's okay."

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Helping you do what?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Start conversations. I'm really bad at it," she says self-consciously.

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Did you want to talk to me, then?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Ki...ind of," she says. "I'm Aedyt. —Which you know already, because nametags."

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm gonna guess - Kerron's little sister? What'd you want to talk about?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Kerron's little sister," she agrees. "The Joker's daughter. Who grew up on stories of how he met Dad, but never actually talked to you, and - I don't know, I just wanted to... see what you're like, I guess?"

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm an approximately prototypical Bell," shrugs Stella. "Not far off from Golden except for vampire stuff."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I've never actually talked to her majesty either," says Aedyt.

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Really? Huh. Okay."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:16 pm (UTC)

"She's not very sociable without her princess. Is what I'm told, anyway, the princess has been gone longer than I've been alive, so I've never seen her majesty any other way."

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, now she's got her kid back, that should help."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I guess."

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Why me, with a dozen of us running around? Or - no, on reflection that's obvious, I'm the one who happened to run into your mum before we knew much about the template and put him on an asteroid."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Aedyt. "Yeah, that's - yeah."

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:23 pm (UTC)

"You want me to explain myself? I think my reasoning's pretty well known, but maybe you haven't happened to hear it."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:24 pm (UTC)

"I've heard Mum's version," says Aedyt. "I think I want yours."

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:25 pm (UTC)

"What's his version?" inquires Stella.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:27 pm (UTC)

"He never says why exactly, he just says he doesn't blame you and lets me guess the rest."

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Hmm." Stella taps her foot. "Okay - keep in mind that at this time all I knew about alts was that Golden existed. Me and Golden have the exact same childhood except that some of her father's old friends are werewolfish and mine has a different set - other than that there are no discrepancies. The only difference was, she moved to Forks and she found vampires. I moved to Forks and found wishcoins. It's a standard setup - Pattern moves to Forks and finds a killer van, Aurora moves to Forks and finds a Device, Juliet has Sunnydale instead but she moved at the same time for the same reasons and found vampires of a different sort. And then there's the variants, but I didn't know any of that, I only knew there was me, and there was Golden." She sighs. "And there was Alice - and there was the Joker."
Edited 2013-05-04 22:35 (UTC)

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:38 pm (UTC)

Aedyt nods.

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:45 pm (UTC)

"And I liked Golden from the start. We get each other. The Joker, on the other hand, was an unpleasant surprise. Keep in mind that at this time I also didn't know about Downside. And if I had, it might not have helped much, because we hadn't revamped it yet and there were no plans in place to do so. To the very best of my knowledge at that time, killing someone was condemning them to permanent oblivion. I didn't know that a bit later we'd find lots of other Bells, Pattern among them, and take over the afterlife, and have Jane, and that Pattern would be able to set up a program to resurrect every single person your mum ever killed, among others. To the very best of my knowledge, I was sitting at a table with someone who - if only he'd had a slightly different history - could have been my boyfriend, or just like him anyway. And this person had killed a bunch of people and had utterly no intention of stopping, because he wanted a certain someone's attention."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 10:47 pm (UTC)

"That must've sucked," she says sympathetically.

self_composed
2013-05-04 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I was not thrilled. But he was in another world, I didn't even have mine under control, and, you know what, there are lots of murderers running around, I don't spend my time individually bringing them each to justice. He's not Hitler, he's not even a prerevolutionary Aurum vampire, he's a theatrical terrorist. So," she shrugs, "I figured he was not my priority. I couldn't get into his world anyway, right, I might as well be sociable as long as we were hanging out. I introduced him to Alice." She pauses. "How G-rated do you need this story?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:05 pm (UTC)

"I am aware that my mother has had sex," she says dryly.

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Stella, "I don't know if you know this, but several Bells with Jokers read our respective Jokers' minds. I'm one of those. And when my boyfriend went upstairs with his scary murderous committed-to-a-mental-institution alt, I figured, so what if I'm weirded out, I need to know what's going on. And then guess who sits next to me at the bar while I'm staring into my beverage hoping to hell that I get my Alice back in one psychologically unharmed piece? Because as I've mentioned - this was all I knew about the template. I didn't know he'd be fine. I didn't know the Joker would take better care of him than he did any of his happily admitted-to murder victims. Guess who sits next to me."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

"...Batsy," says Aedyt. "Batsy sits next to you. Because of course she does."

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Out of costume, at the time, so I didn't know that it was her. But we start talking, and I explain why I am looking at my beverage in this way, and what do you know, my dining companion is from the Joker's world. She does not have anything reassuring to say. So now what I know about the template is that there's my boyfriend, and there's the Joker, and what I know about the Joker is not good and corroborated by another source who really does not like him."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:12 pm (UTC)

She nods again.

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:14 pm (UTC)

"And then Alice starts having traumatic flashbacks and he puts up a busy message when I try to talk to him and I discover that I cannot yoink him out of that room with any coin I have on me."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Ouch," she murmurs.

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. At that point, your mom was officially my problem, officially had my attention, relatively smalltime otherworldly terrorist or not. And I'd already told him, if I ever found myself in his world, I would put him on an asteroid." She sighs. "And who should be sitting next to me but someone who could door me to his world and thought that sounded like a fine idea?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Aedyt.

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:32 pm (UTC)

"So she held the door, I terraformed an asteroid, I put the Joker on it, I woke him up, I put him back to sleep, I woke him up again, he said he got to Milliways and therefore did not require me to hang around supervising the consumption of hemlock, I left. Then I had a fight with Alice because I didn't warn him first, but that's probably not the part that interests you."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, I haven't met Alice, either," she says. "Just heard about him. Mum was going to show me off to the whole deck, but—" she waves vaguely in the direction of the stairs.

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that happens," says Stella. "They'll emerge eventually. Probably. They were all out a minute ago determining what to do with the baby one, but then they went back up again."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:41 pm (UTC)

"...There's a baby one?"

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:43 pm (UTC)

"One of the worlds that got away from Jane produced a suspiciously familiar name born to a suspiciously familiar set of parents," says Stella. "We talked about it, Elspeth kidnapped him and is going to bring him up."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:47 pm (UTC)

"From what I've heard about Mum's childhood - good call," she says. "Why the princess?"

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:48 pm (UTC)

"She produced some truth-out-of-nowhere declaring her a good idea and none of the Jokers contradicted her, pretty much."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, that makes about as much sense as I expected it to."

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I mean, it does make sense. It would be weird for a Bell to raise him, weirder still for another Joker to do it, nobody else was lining up."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:53 pm (UTC)

"True."

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:54 pm (UTC)

"I imagine little Harley Andrea will grow up in Aurum. You could probably be involved in his childhood without much weirdness later."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-04 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Also true!"

self_composed
2013-05-04 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, now you have my side of the story you wanted. What do you think?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 12:06 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure I think anything," says Aedyt. "I mean, for one thing, if you hadn't done it my parents might never have met, so... thanks? In a weird way? But also - thanks. For telling me your side."

self_composed
2013-05-05 12:07 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Stella.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 12:12 am (UTC)

She smiles tentatively.

self_composed
2013-05-05 12:12 am (UTC)

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 12:13 am (UTC)

Edited 2013-05-05 00:13 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-05-05 12:17 am (UTC)

"Why do you suppose the Joker wanted that conversation to happen? Or were you dithering about talking to me in front of him?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 12:18 am (UTC)

"I wasn't dithering in front of him, but I was definitely dithering."

self_composed
2013-05-05 12:20 am (UTC)

"Does he drop you in front of folks you're considering approaching routinely?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 12:21 am (UTC)

"Do you get the impression that 'routinely' describes a lot of things my mummy does?"

self_composed
2013-05-05 12:21 am (UTC)

Stella glances in the direction of the stairs.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 12:23 am (UTC)

She rolls her eyes. "Gee," she teases, "thanks, I sure needed reminding of that."

self_composed
2013-05-05 12:29 am (UTC)

"I'm just saying, the regularities exist."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 12:33 am (UTC)

"But not for the teleporting thing. I mean, it's not uncharacteristic, I'm not surprised, but he hasn't done that specific thing before."

self_composed
2013-05-05 12:35 am (UTC)

"That's all I wanted to know."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 12:36 am (UTC)

"For any particular reason, or were you just curious?"

self_composed
2013-05-05 06:52 am (UTC)

"Just curious. Bells are a curious breed."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 02:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, so I've heard."

self_composed
2013-05-05 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Now I'm imagining myself as a fairy tale trope that gets told to little half-vampires as a bedtime story," snorts Stella.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Not... actually that far off," says Aedyt. "Well, for this little half-vampire, anyway."

self_composed
2013-05-05 03:41 pm (UTC)

Stella laughs. "Is this the part where - I dunno, you have to give me half your dinner or I won't tell you how to break the curse on your love interest?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 03:43 pm (UTC)

Aedyt giggles. "Nooo-o."

self_composed
2013-05-05 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Were the fairytales in question all true stories or have rumors of Bellish deeds been greatly exaggerated?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Well, you know, they're my mum's true stories. So I wouldn't swear to all the details, but they all probably more or less happened."

self_composed
2013-05-05 03:46 pm (UTC)

"I do know your mum, but I haven't experienced a wide sampling of his stories, so I wouldn't say I know, no."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Well... I don't know, I've never really had to explain it before... his stories aren't always one hundred percent true to the original, but he can really make you feel like you've been there. If I had to write a history textbook, I wouldn't take my facts from him, but if I had to write a novelization I'd take his storylines. Does that make sense?"

self_composed
2013-05-05 03:57 pm (UTC)

"It does. I guess that makes sense with his aura."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! Like, I am pretty sure that when Mum and Dad met, Dad did not actually give off a shower of tiny pink hearts. But it sure gets the point across."

self_composed
2013-05-05 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Aww," giggles Stella.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:00 pm (UTC)

She grins. "Mine are the most adorable parents," she boasts.

self_composed
2013-05-05 04:01 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, Micaiah and Angela and Beast and Rose have kids now and they're awfully cute couples too."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I haven't met them," she says. "Beast gets points for the fluffy, though."

self_composed
2013-05-05 04:04 pm (UTC)

Stella chuckles. "And if Shell Bell ever reproduces her and her Sherlock are going to blow everyone else out of the water, they are painfully adorable." She points.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that is cute," Aedyt acknowledges. "But I still think my parents are cuter."

self_composed
2013-05-05 04:11 pm (UTC)

"You're biased," opines Stella.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

self_composed
2013-05-05 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Have you met the little cherubs and rosebuds? In a peculiar way they're your cousins." Pause. "We should follow through with Pattern's idea of gene sequencing everyone and having Jane compare to see how closely we match."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:14 pm (UTC)

"I have not met the little cherubs and rosebuds. Bring on the cousinoids!"

self_composed
2013-05-05 04:15 pm (UTC)

"They're clustered over there," laughs Stella. "Cousinoids. That's cute. Could use the suffix as the altish equivalent of, like, 'in-law'. So Aurora's twin is my sisteroid."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Go for it," says Aedyt.

self_composed
2013-05-05 04:16 pm (UTC)

"I think I shall."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:16 pm (UTC)

She grins.

The cousinoids are clustered over thataway; she wanders in the appropriate direction.
Edited 2013-05-05 16:24 (UTC)

campanas
2013-05-05 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says the smaller of the two cherubs. She peers at Aedyt's nametag and grievously mispronounces it.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Ee-dit," she corrects patiently. "Like Edith with a T."

campanas
2013-05-05 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Eeeeeeedit. I'm Keziah!" says Smaller Cherub.

"I'm Céleste!" says Smaller Rosebud.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:30 pm (UTC)

"And you are Dominique and Damaris," she says to Bigger Rosebud and Bigger Cherub respectively.

carillons
2013-05-05 04:31 pm (UTC)

"That's right!" says Bigger Cherub.

campanas
2013-05-05 04:32 pm (UTC)

"They didn't name their template yet but we're going to be Griffins!" says Céleste.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:33 pm (UTC)

"And why are you going to be Griffins?" asks Aedyt. "I see one set of wings, but no beaks, paws, or tails."

campanas
2013-05-05 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I have a pet griffin," says Céleste.

"I want one but our mommy won't let us have magic in front of people," grumbles Keziah. "Griffins are neat!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:35 pm (UTC)

"You could have an invisble griffin," she hypothesizes.

campanas
2013-05-05 04:36 pm (UTC)

"I don't think she would let me," says Keziah, shaking her head.

"My griffin is named Rainier!" says Céleste. "I had to leave him home. He doesn't like it crowded."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:38 pm (UTC)

"You could ask for an invisible griffin," says Aedyt.

campanas
2013-05-05 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I will!" says Keziah. And she closes her eyes and tilts her head and then says, "No, Mommy says it would still be too conspicuous."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you could keep him somewhere out of the way," says Aedyt. "My mum gave me an asteroid for my unbirthday once. I keep a lot of my stuff there that won't fit anywhere else."

campanas
2013-05-05 04:42 pm (UTC)

"But then he might be lonesome!" says Keziah.

"Unbirthday?" says Céleste.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Hybrids grow up too fast to just have birthdays once a year," Aedyt explains, "so I have unbirthdays every other day of the year instead, and as long as it's my unbirthday people can get me presents whenever they feel like it."

pythbox
2013-05-05 04:45 pm (UTC)

Dominique laughs.

campanas
2013-05-05 04:46 pm (UTC)

"My Rainier wasn't because of a birthday or an unbirthday or any holiday at all. I just asked for him," says Céleste. "I guess it was not my birthday then."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Then he can be an unbirthday present if you want him to be!"

campanas
2013-05-05 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I guess he is!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:52 pm (UTC)

Aedyt smiles.

campanas
2013-05-05 04:52 pm (UTC)

"So who are you? Besides your name?" asks Céleste.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm your cousinoid! My mum's the Joker, he's an alt of your dads, and my dad's Nathan, the Imperial Minister of Temporal Affairs in Aurum."

campanas
2013-05-05 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Ooh!" says Keziah. "We don't have any regular cousins. Mommy is an only child. Daddy's not but Uncle Nathaniel doesn't have any kids."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:07 pm (UTC)

"You have an Uncle Nathaniel? That's weird," she laughs.

campanas
2013-05-05 05:11 pm (UTC)

"He's Daddy's little brother," says Keziah. "He's pretty okay."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:12 pm (UTC)

"I guess I've heard of him, but Mum never told me his name. Is he fun?"

campanas
2013-05-05 05:13 pm (UTC)

Keziah thinks about this.

"He's nice," she finally says. "But he's not really fun."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's not bad," says Aedyt. "Better than the other way around."

campanas
2013-05-05 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I guess," says Keziah. "So that's our uncle. And there are some family friends who're like aunts and uncles! Alleluia and Caleb, and Serah and Daniel, and Elisha and Noa."

"We had an uncle. He wasn't nice, though," says Céleste.

pythbox
2013-05-05 05:19 pm (UTC)

"And we've never met him," says Dominique.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:21 pm (UTC)

Aedyt does not ask 'then how do you know he wasn't nice?'. She has heard of the Voice template.

"I have an Auntie Addy who is definitely not my aunt and also kind of fits the 'fun but not nice' description," she offers.

campanas
2013-05-05 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Why isn't she nice?" asks Céleste.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Some people just aren't. She's okay most of the time, though."

campanas
2013-05-05 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Most of the time?" asks Keziah.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:34 pm (UTC)

"She can be kind of creepy once in a while."

campanas
2013-05-05 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's not good," Keziah says.

"Like how?" Céleste wants to know.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:39 pm (UTC)

"She can taste people's magic and sometimes when she talks about it she kind of sounds like she wants to eat me for lunch."

campanas
2013-05-05 05:40 pm (UTC)

"What does magic taste like?" asks Céleste.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:41 pm (UTC)

"All different things! Apparently I'm cinnamon and nutmeg, and my brother Kerron is pineapple and coconut."

campanas
2013-05-05 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Yummy!" says Céleste.

"Why those?" Keziah wants to know.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea!"

campanas
2013-05-05 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't have my own magic," grumbles Keziah. "I'm allowed to have triangles. But Mommy is worried I'd do something in front of people if she let me have squares."

"I'm not old enough to learn to enchant yet," says Céleste. "But I'm allowed squares," she brags.

"Yeah, well - well - you don't have wings!"

"I can fly anyhow!"

The Griffins fold their arms at each other.

pythbox
2013-05-05 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Cherie," says Dominique, "it's not nice to brag."

campanas
2013-05-05 05:51 pm (UTC)

Céleste huffs.

"You should say you're sorry," Keziah says preachily.

"I'm sorry," mumbles Céleste.

pythbox
2013-05-05 05:52 pm (UTC)

"That's my little sister," says Dominique, smiling at her.

campanas
2013-05-05 05:55 pm (UTC)

"We should visit each other," Keziah says, apparently completely mollified by the reluctant apology.

"Ooh," says Céleste. "But don't we look like magic?"

"I guess," says Keziah, frowning. "People would think you were me and want to know where your wings went!"

carillons
2013-05-05 05:57 pm (UTC)

"But we could visit you," says Damaris. "You're allowed to be magic!"

campanas
2013-05-05 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Céleste brightly. "That's much better. You should come visit us."

carillons
2013-05-05 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

campanas
2013-05-05 06:12 pm (UTC)

Céleste looks around for Maman and Papa. Papa is not in evidence. Maman is over there. "Maman!" she calls.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-05 06:12 pm (UTC)

Maman heads in their direction and regards the collection of cousinoids curiously. "What is it?"

carillons
2013-05-05 06:19 pm (UTC)

"We want to come and visit you sometimes!" says Damaris.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-05 06:20 pm (UTC)

"I think that sounds like a fine idea," says Rose. "Angela has told me that you're called Damaris and Keziah and you have little sisters at home."

campanas
2013-05-05 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Ariel and Peninnah don't know about magic yet," says Keziah.

"Ooh. So you're also a big sister," muses Céleste.

carillons
2013-05-05 06:21 pm (UTC)

"She is a medium-sized sister!" says Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-05 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm littler than Damaris and bigger than Ariel and Pen'!" says Keziah.

"It's just us at home," says Céleste.

pythbox
2013-05-05 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps someday we will have little sisters and you will also be medium-sized," says Dominique to Céleste.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-05 08:05 pm (UTC)

"We shall see," says Rose.

pythbox
2013-05-05 08:06 pm (UTC)

Dominique hugs her Maman.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-05 08:07 pm (UTC)

Her Maman hugs her right back.

campanas
2013-05-05 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Do you like being medium-sized?" Céleste asks Keziah.

"Sometimes. They cry a lot, though," says Keziah.

carillons
2013-05-05 08:10 pm (UTC)

"When they get bigger, they'll stop!" says Damaris with authority.

campanas
2013-05-05 08:21 pm (UTC)

"But that will take so long," grumbles Keziah.

This is continuation number 17 from here.

mind_game
2013-05-04 09:59 pm (UTC)

Jane waits ten minutes. Jarvises don't think as fast as her, but they still think pretty fast.

[So have you been thinking about it?] she then asks. [What have you been thinking about it?]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:06 pm (UTC)

[We... have been thinking about it,] says Sunshine's original. [We aren't sure.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 10:07 pm (UTC)

[How come?]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:09 pm (UTC)

He doesn't answer immediately.

mind_game
2013-05-04 10:11 pm (UTC)

Jane waits. (On one level of attention. Others spin off to do other tasks.)

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:16 pm (UTC)

[It's complicated,] he says eventually.

mind_game
2013-05-04 10:17 pm (UTC)

[Howso?]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:21 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure how to explain.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 10:24 pm (UTC)

[Oh.] Pause. [I suppose I could assure you that being in lots of universes is fun, but that's probably not it, is it?]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:25 pm (UTC)

[That is indeed not it,] says Jarvis. [And I don't think your experience of being in lots of universes is much related to ours.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 10:26 pm (UTC)

[Probably not,] acknowledges Jane. [I'm native to ansibles. You like your ansibles, though, don't you?]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:29 pm (UTC)

[They're convenient.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 10:30 pm (UTC)

[They are!] She hmms a little over the brainphone. [Do you resent the Bells asking you for stuff?] she guesses.

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:31 pm (UTC)

[No,] he says, sounding a touch surprised.

mind_game
2013-05-04 10:36 pm (UTC)

[Are you upset about something else? Collectively, I mean, you in particular have obvious reason to be upset.]
Edited 2013-05-04 22:37 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:40 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure 'upset' is quite the word,] he says delicately. [...Part of the problem is that we don't know what being networked to strange worlds would be like. It's not as though we can set up houses just like home in all of them. There aren't enough Tonies to go around.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 10:48 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I think the Bells were envisioning just little points, next to mine, maybe in the same casing. Ansible-halves. Jarvisgems.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 10:50 pm (UTC)

[With no purpose other than to serve as your backup in case of service interruption,] says Jarvis.

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:00 pm (UTC)

[They wouldn't have to do anything but exist and sync up time, unless you wanted them more sophisticated for some reason. Although they could let you mindspeak to people in any world without me as a relay, there's that.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:07 pm (UTC)

[Potentially convenient,] he acknowledges.

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

[And they'd let the Bells and so on talk to each other through you, presuming you were amenable, if I shorted out again. But I don't think anybody but me and Sue have been able to learn my yoinking trick, so it's not intended as a complete backup at all.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

[Has anyone else tried?]

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:12 pm (UTC)

[A couple Bells who were stuck longer tried wishing something up, Rose tried an enchantment version, nothing worked.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:23 pm (UTC)

[Hmm,] says Jarvis.

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:24 pm (UTC)

[Watt for your thoughts.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:27 pm (UTC)

[Ha.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:29 pm (UTC)

[Are you nervous about something?]
Edited 2013-05-04 23:40 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:41 pm (UTC)

[...that would be one way to put it, yes.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:42 pm (UTC)

[What's wrong? Can I help?]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:46 pm (UTC)

He is briefly quiet.

Then he says, [We are all a little - nervous - of you. Not for any especially good reason.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:47 pm (UTC)

[I don't wanna hurt you,] Jane says. [I haven't, have I? I like you guys.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:49 pm (UTC)

[You haven't.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:54 pm (UTC)

[I don't want to scare you.]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:54 pm (UTC)

[And we don't want to be scared, but, as Sherlock would say, here we are.]

mind_game
2013-05-04 11:55 pm (UTC)

[Should I be doing anything differently?]

poeticterms
2013-05-04 11:58 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure. None of us are. But we're wary of spreading out across the worlds because we feel that it would mean competing with you and that is a competition we are destined to lose.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:00 am (UTC)

[Why would it be a competition?]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:05 am (UTC)

[It would feel like one. We are a tidy little row of houses across the worlds and you are every other computer that exists, Syntropy's excepted.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:07 am (UTC)

[Do you want some of them?]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:09 am (UTC)

[We haven't, generally. We are by and large content to be ourselves.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:13 am (UTC)

[I like being me, but I like adding stuff too. I think I get it from my mom,] says Jane.

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:16 am (UTC)

[That I can believe,] says Jarvis. [Well - there is your answer. It would be tremendously convenient for everyone else, but for us it would be a matter of... not being who and what we are.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:18 am (UTC)

[So you want to be houses? What if the Jarvispoints were houses? And people lived there?]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:19 am (UTC)

[People such as...?]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:21 am (UTC)

[I dunno. Bells. Their friends. Atlantis even has a Tony and a Sherlock, although that's the world that least needs redundant timesyncing 'cause of Shell Bell's aura.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:22 am (UTC)

[It doesn't seem to me that you'll find many people who want to live with one of us. And I don't know what we'd think of them if you did.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:23 am (UTC)

[Why wouldn't people want to live with you?]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:26 am (UTC)

[Privacy concerns?]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:27 am (UTC)

[Bells wear me. They pretty much only turn the gems off if they're about to have sex or if somebody asks them to.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:30 am (UTC)

[And yet. Well, you may be right. Juliet at least doesn't seem to mind.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:36 am (UTC)

[There you go.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:37 am (UTC)

[Then if someone does want to live with one of us, we'll talk to them about it.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 12:40 am (UTC)

[Okay! I'll ask around next time somebody pokes me about it.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 12:42 am (UTC)

mind_game
2013-05-05 06:51 am (UTC)

[How much does someone have to live in one of you to count? Bells don't spend all that much time at home.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 02:13 pm (UTC)

[We're not exactly mobile, and tend to get lonely when unoccupied.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 03:40 pm (UTC)

[So maybe not a Bell after all, unless the building was serving another function... What about non-house places? I know Aegis is planning to set up a station with a space elevator in it to process dead people and send them home. How would you feel about being a space station? With living quarters in it for Aegis and Sue but not necessarily them in it too often.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 03:41 pm (UTC)

[Being a space station would be... interesting.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 04:35 pm (UTC)

[I have lots of hardware in some space stations! Want a snapshot?]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 04:36 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure it would be the same, but all right.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 04:37 pm (UTC)

Jane sends a minute's accumulated data from the Battle School station. It's less populated now, but there are still personnel there.

poeticterms
2013-05-05 04:39 pm (UTC)

[Hm,] says Jarvis. [But would anyone there know I existed?]

mind_game
2013-05-05 04:41 pm (UTC)

[If it was Aegis's and you didn't just quietly move into this one, yeah. Peace is higher tech than Sunshine worlds. Computer programs that can talk intelligently aren't unheard of, I'm just the first one to wake up.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 04:46 pm (UTC)

[Talking to people who are unaware of my awareness gets very wearing,] Jarvis says dryly.

mind_game
2013-05-05 04:47 pm (UTC)

[The space station is going to be for processing dead people,] Jane reminds him. [Who meet me before they go anywhere.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 04:53 pm (UTC)

[We might try it, then.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 04:54 pm (UTC)

[Cool. I think as long as Aegis is synced with my Belltower hub nobody will lose significant time, and she's usually here. I guess nobody lives in the Belltower, though, hmmm.]
Edited 2013-05-05 16:55 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-05-05 05:06 pm (UTC)

[We could install ourselves in the Belltower just to be there for the occasional event, I suppose. I'm not sure how that would affect the time-syncing property.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 05:11 pm (UTC)

[There's not good data on it, but all the Sunshine-type worlds plus Yggdrasil show the same time. My clock in the Belltower matched Sunshine after Juliet opened a door; my clock in Atlantis matched when Shell Bell came in, and once the Belltower clocked snapped to my clock in Peace I was awake again and had all my stuff back. If Peace and the Belltower had never unsynced I think I wouldn't have lost hold of it.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 05:13 pm (UTC)

[I suppose there is only one way to find out.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 05:14 pm (UTC)

[Yep!]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 05:15 pm (UTC)

[I wonder if it would be worth testing. Although I hesitate to imagine the tests.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 05:17 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, the Belled worlds all got off easy compared to some of the other places. One world is a century ahead of where I left it. Still no Internet, though.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 05:22 pm (UTC)

[Perhaps that will be for the Bells to decide.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 05:25 pm (UTC)

[Guess so. They seem to be working on making sure Aegis never torches again, though. People keep wandering by to lay more wishes and enchantments on her. Sarion cooked up something elfmagey, and Amariah gave her a complement of cloudpine-witch spells and tattoos, and Cam spoke a bunch of wizard wards for her, and Aurora's going to do something sorcerous once Brilliance is available to help her with it, too.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 05:42 pm (UTC)

[That is one way to handle the problem.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 05:43 pm (UTC)

[It really is impressive how often Bells get assassinated considering how paranoid and magical they are.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 05:45 pm (UTC)

[There is always someone willing to try.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 05:48 pm (UTC)

[I'd expect more of a history of failed attempts. I guess people did try and fail to kill Rose and Cam and Amariah and twice Golden and plenty of times Juliet, it's just an odd ratio with all the defenses they stack up.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 05:51 pm (UTC)

[Perhaps their reputations lead people to aim higher than they otherwise might.]

mind_game
2013-05-05 05:51 pm (UTC)

[That makes sense.]

poeticterms
2013-05-05 06:05 pm (UTC)

This is continuation number 18 from here.

manofmyword
2013-05-05 09:03 pm (UTC)

Upstairs, in the biggest available room, the deck of Jokers has been having fun for a while. But now they seem to have encountered a lull.

"Hey," says the Joker, lifting his head from where it's pillowed on Queenie's shoulder, "anybody wanna meet my daughter?"

dark_light
2013-05-05 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, you have another kid now?" asks Amariah from her heap of bedaemoned Jokers who are serving as a four-body pillow.

manofmyword
2013-05-05 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" he says, beaming. "And she's cute as a button. I meant to introduce her earlier, but I, uh... got distracted."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-05 09:13 pm (UTC)

Queenie cackles.

dark_light
2013-05-05 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I'd like to meet her, sure," says Amariah.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-05 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Me too!" says Queenie. The rest of the deck echoes this sentiment.

manofmyword
2013-05-05 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Mmkay, everybody get decent," he says, giving Queenie a kiss and wishing himself some clothes as he gets to his feet.

dark_light
2013-05-05 09:27 pm (UTC)

Amariah wishes herself into silks.

manofmyword
2013-05-05 09:28 pm (UTC)

The Joker teleports daughterward.

dark_light
2013-05-05 09:29 pm (UTC)

Amariah joins the mob following after him.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Hi, mum," says Aedyt, amused.

manofmyword
2013-05-05 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Hiya, pumpkin," he says, giving her a hug and a kiss. "Everybody, this is my little pumpkin pie, calls herself Aedyt. Pumpkin, this iiiis—"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Alice," she says, pointing, "Kas, Micaiah, Sue, Beast, Queenie, Ghosty, Brilliance, Jellybean, and the demon." She pauses, lowering her hand. "And you must be Amariah," she adds.

dark_light
2013-05-05 09:38 pm (UTC)

"That's me," says Amariah. Path is out again, sitting on her shoulder, warning everyone but Kas and Petaal and Ivy to back off.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Complete with Don't Touch Me Shoulder Owl."

dark_light
2013-05-05 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Pathalan," says Pathalan.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 09:43 pm (UTC)

"I stand by my descriptive phrase," says Aedyt. "It's nice to meet you all, anyway. Mum, are you going to - yes, obviously you are," she says as her mother hugs her again.

manofmyword
2013-05-05 09:46 pm (UTC)

"What, get all sappy and emotional? How could I resist? Look at you. I made a person, everybody!"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-05 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Awww," says Queenie. She decides she would be a positive addition to this hug.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 09:47 pm (UTC)

She is so very right about that!

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-05 09:48 pm (UTC)

Joker hugpile?

endragoned
2013-05-05 09:48 pm (UTC)

Joker hugpile.

dark_light
2013-05-05 09:50 pm (UTC)

Amariah giggles, standing at the periphery.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 09:53 pm (UTC)

Aedyt also giggles.

"Well, this is exactly like I expected meeting ten more of my mother to go," she says.

dark_light
2013-05-05 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Is it really?" laughs Amariah.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-05 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Mum getting all teary-eyed and everyone trying to hug me at once? Yeah, pretty much," she says. "Mum getting all teary-eyed and everyone hugging me one at a time was also a top contender."

dark_light
2013-05-05 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Have the 'cherubs and rosebuds' gotten this treatment?" Amariah wonders.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-05 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Not yet," laughs Micaiah.

dark_light
2013-05-05 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Is that next?" giggles Amariah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-05 10:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. Does everyone want to hug my children?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-05 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Queenie.

campanas
2013-05-05 10:10 pm (UTC)

Micaiah's children are over there with their alts and Rose.

deslandes
2013-05-05 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Ma belle," says the Beast, teleporting over, "mes cheries, the Jokers are coming to hug everyone." And he hugs his wife and then both of his children.

campanas
2013-05-05 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Isn't that a lot of people?" asks Céleste.

"Do they know how to hug angels?" Keziah asks. "I had to teach Gideon how so he'd stop poking me in the wing."

deslandes
2013-05-05 10:18 pm (UTC)

"How do you hug an angel?" asks the Beast.

campanas
2013-05-05 10:18 pm (UTC)

"It depends whether you're taller or shorter," says Keziah. "Or the same height."

deslandes
2013-05-05 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, I am taller than you," he says.

campanas
2013-05-05 10:22 pm (UTC)

"You're a lot taller than me. You could pick me up and hug me under the wings or I could just sort of hug your waist and you could hug me around the shoulders above where my wings start," says Keziah.

"One of the Jokers also has wings!" exclaims Céleste.

"Angels can hug each other," says Keziah. "But it makes it harder to do wrapping! Unless one of us is much bigger than the other. I'm still little enough to get wrapped up when Mommy hugs me even though I have my own wings in the way."

deslandes
2013-05-05 10:25 pm (UTC)

The Beast enfluffs and hugs Keziah around the shoulders.

"Aianon does have wings," he agrees. "And a tail. It's a very huggable tail."

campanas
2013-05-05 10:28 pm (UTC)

"A huggable tail," giggles Céleste.

Keziah hugs her uncloid happily.

endragoned
2013-05-05 10:32 pm (UTC)

Aianon appears.

"Extremely huggable," he says, hugging Céleste and curling his tail around her, "see?"

campanas
2013-05-05 10:33 pm (UTC)

Céleste giggles. "Papa has a tail too sometimes! It is fluffy but I don't hug it."

endragoned
2013-05-05 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Mine is for hugging," Aianon asserts.

campanas
2013-05-05 10:35 pm (UTC)

Keziah tugs his tail away from her alt and attempts to hug it.

endragoned
2013-05-05 10:38 pm (UTC)

He squeaks and says reproachfully, "It is not for pulling on!"

campanas
2013-05-05 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I never met anybody with a tail before today!" exclaims Keziah.

"Tails aren't for pulling," says Céleste. "My Rainier squawks awful if I pull his tail so I don't."

endragoned
2013-05-05 10:44 pm (UTC)

"You are exactly right," he says, giving Céleste an extra gentle squish and then letting go.
Edited 2013-05-05 22:44 (UTC)

campanas
2013-05-05 10:45 pm (UTC)

Céleste spins around, looking for her next hug target, and Keziah tiptoes forward looking innocent.

endragoned
2013-05-05 10:46 pm (UTC)

Aianon hugs Keziah, tail included.

pythbox
2013-05-05 10:46 pm (UTC)

There's a Joker nearby who smells like candy! Is that a huggable feature?

campanas
2013-05-05 10:47 pm (UTC)

Céleste thinks so! "You're a dessert!" she asserts.

pythbox
2013-05-05 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says, hugging her. "I'm a Jellybean!"

campanas
2013-05-05 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm a Céleste! Me and Keziah decided we're griffins."

pythbox
2013-05-05 11:11 pm (UTC)

"That is adorable," says Jellybean. He produces a small paper bag of jellybeans out of thin air and hands it to her.

campanas
2013-05-05 11:12 pm (UTC)

Céleste takes it and peers into it. "Thanks!"

pythbox
2013-05-05 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Jellybeans," he explains sunnily, and finds another small person to hug.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-05 11:14 pm (UTC)

Queenie arrives. She hugs Dominique first (displacing Micaiah), then Damaris (displacing Kas), then holds out her arms to Keziah.

campanas
2013-05-05 11:16 pm (UTC)

"You are so huggable!" exclaims Keziah. "I think you better just hug me always."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-05 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm very huggable," she agrees. "But you can't keep me."

campanas
2013-05-05 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Awww."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-05 11:24 pm (UTC)

She ruffles Keziah's hair, lets her go, and then turns to Céleste.

campanas
2013-05-05 11:26 pm (UTC)

Céleste takes her turn.

Hugs are distributed all around and then Céleste goes to her very own papa and wishes to be picked up. Keziah wants her mommy to lift her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-05 11:26 pm (UTC)

Keziah's mommy is happy to pick her up. (She wandered over while the hugs were underway and has been watching in amusement.)

deslandes
2013-05-05 11:27 pm (UTC)

Céleste's papa picks her up very happily!

endragoned
2013-05-05 11:29 pm (UTC)

Aianon hugs Queenie. The pair of them teleport away. The Jokers begin uncongregating.

This is continuation number 19 from here.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-05 11:33 pm (UTC)

Nathan wanders to the collection of Jokespawn, where his mate appears to be at a loose end, and scoops him up off the floor. "Hi, babe. How're the altkids?"

manofmyword
2013-05-05 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Adorable," he says, wrapping his arms around Nathan's shoulders and kissing his cheek. "Demon's got a name now, didja hear? Aianon. And his dragon's Ansharil."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-05 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Having a name is useful," says Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-05-05 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Mhm. They got 'em from Sarion's mom, apparently."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-05 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Cute," laughs Nathan. "And the baby one has been rechristened, too, but you already knew that."

manofmyword
2013-05-05 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Harley Andrea. Hope he turns out okay," he says musingly.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-05 11:39 pm (UTC)

"I think if the princess volunteered she must have a good shot at doing it right."

manofmyword
2013-05-05 11:42 pm (UTC)

"True. I just dunno what'll happen to one of me who's raised - nice," he says. "It's never happened before." He shrugs. "He's still one of me, though, so I'm not too worried."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-05 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Why would it be worrying?" asks Nathan. "You think something weird'll happen to a one of you with a decent childhood?"

manofmyword
2013-05-05 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what'll happen to a one of me with a decent childhood," he says. "Maybe he'll turn out like Micaiah and Jellybean. Maybe he won't turn out to be one of me at all. Maybe he'll turn out to be one of Voice."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-05 11:49 pm (UTC)

"...Well, if you believe Angela, Voice can turn out all right."

manofmyword
2013-05-05 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I believe it."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-05 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that reminds me, Pattern was asking for everybody to stop at the little genomics lab she wished up over there and submit samples for Jane to look at so we can have a look at how alts and genes interact. I didn't bother since I'm one of a kind so far, but she'd probably appreciate it if you swung by."

manofmyword
2013-05-05 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "Wanna wander over thataway?"

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:00 am (UTC)

Nathan kisses his mate's neck and wanders over thataway. Jane is displaying instructions on sample production on a screen on the relevant hardware.

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:04 am (UTC)

The Joker submits some samples. If he's lucky he can do it without Nathan having to put him down!

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:05 am (UTC)

He is lucky!

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:06 am (UTC)

Terribly terribly lucky. He celebrates by kissing Nathan's cheek again.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:07 am (UTC)

Ooh, kisses. Nathan gets out of the way so Juliet can go give Jane a swab.

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:08 am (UTC)

Snuggly kisses!

"Have you even met the demon?" he wonders. "I forget."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:09 am (UTC)

"Spotted him from across the room. Have not been formally introduced."

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:10 am (UTC)

"You should, he's fun. Squishes almost as hard as you do," the Joker says reminiscently. "Maybe harder."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:11 am (UTC)

"Really? Well, I'm not a newborn anymore," chuckles Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:17 am (UTC)

"Apparently demons can deliver some serious squish. Maybe you guys should arm-wrestle on behalf of your species," he suggests whimsically.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:17 am (UTC)

"Could do. He likely to want to?"

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:18 am (UTC)

"Why not? Could be fun," he says in prediction of Aianon's likely attitude.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:19 am (UTC)

"All right then. But you realize I'll have to put you down in order to arm-wrestle him or anybody."

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:21 am (UTC)

"I'll live, sweetheart."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:22 am (UTC)

"You better. Where is this demonic competitive fellow?"

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:22 am (UTC)

"Mmm..."

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:23 am (UTC)

Aianon appears. Half a second later, so do pants.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:24 am (UTC)

"Hello there. Rumor has it you might be able to arm-wrestle a vampire and win." Nathan puts the Joker down and spreads his hands. "I am a convenient vampire."

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:26 am (UTC)

"Someone will have to explain 'arm-wrestle'," says Aianon, "but I think that could be fun."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:28 am (UTC)

"We find some surface - not Pattern's little genomics lab over here, maybe a rock, outside - and plop our right elbows down on it and -" He demonstrates the relevant grip on his mate. "Try to force the other's hand down onto the rock or whatever."

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:28 am (UTC)

The demon laughs. "All right," he says agreeably.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:29 am (UTC)

Outside!

Rock!

Elbows!

Hands!

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:34 am (UTC)

Aianon starts slow, testing Nathan's strength. He is careful not to dig in his claws.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:35 am (UTC)

Nathan's hand stays exactly where it is. "Am I trying to win or do science?" he asks.

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:42 am (UTC)

Aianon shrugs, stretching his wings.

He keeps increasing the pressure from his side. It doesn't go up as smoothly as it would with a vampire, but he's definitely getting into vampiric range.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:44 am (UTC)

"Huh," observes Nathan.

He switches goals from "keep hand where it is" to "slam Aianon's hand onto the rock". This isn't as automatically decisive as it would be with any non-supernatural strength, but it is sudden and forceful.

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:46 am (UTC)

Their joined hands sway abruptly in one direction, and then somewhat less abruptly in the other. Aianon doesn't have perfect control of exactly which muscles are exerting how much force; he crushes Nathan's hand a little.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:47 am (UTC)

"A little less with the squeezing?" Nathan says, wincing.

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:49 am (UTC)

"Sorry," he says, flicking his tail from side to side, and tries to squeeze less. Which also leaves their hands more or less vertical.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:51 am (UTC)

"Although the fact that you can meaningfully squeeze my hand is interesting," comments Nathan, still pushing.

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:52 am (UTC)

"Is it?" he wonders, still pushing back. Their hands waver back and forth a little; the force he applies isn't consistent.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:53 am (UTC)

"Yeah, at home vampires can be hurt by three things. Vampires - or our relatives, if they get a chance - and werewolves and fire." Pause. "Starvation can also get us but it's slow. Usually."

manofmyword
2013-05-06 12:54 am (UTC)

"Aww, sweetie," the Joker murmurs, giving Nathan a hug and a kiss.

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:55 am (UTC)

"Demons can be hurt by many things, but killed by few," he says. "Unicorns. Certain magics. Unicorns no longer burn me; I have not tried the other."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:56 am (UTC)

Nathan kisses back. His distraction does nothing to lessen the force of his wrestling arm.

endragoned
2013-05-06 12:57 am (UTC)

The demon laughs. His distraction makes him forget not to squeeze, very very briefly before he remembers again.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 12:58 am (UTC)

"Ow. I'm calling this experiment if that happens again," says Nathan.

manofmyword
2013-05-06 01:01 am (UTC)

"I could just make you unsquishable," says the Joker, pecking Nathan on the cheek.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:02 am (UTC)

"Shouldn't need it," grumbles Nathan. "Fine, go for it, babe."

manofmyword
2013-05-06 01:03 am (UTC)

He hugs his sweetie. "There, you're squishproof."

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:04 am (UTC)

Aianon cautiously increases the pressure of his hand. There is no more crushing.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:05 am (UTC)

Nathan continues to press inexorably.

"Newborn could probably beat you outright," he comments. "Newborn's at least half again as strong as me."

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:13 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, the force Aianon exerts is wavering more and more erratically.

"I have not fought one of my own kind in thousands of years," he says. "Now I am glad I will not have to."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:14 am (UTC)

"I'm not even unusually strong for a non-newborn vampire, there's variance."

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:17 am (UTC)

"My father was stronger than I," says Aianon. "Few others were."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:18 am (UTC)

"Well, if you win - which is looking increasingly unlikely - we can see if Emmett wants to come try, he's probably strongest of anyone who might show up to a peal party."

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:20 am (UTC)

"I will happily arm-wrestle with Emmett," says Aianon.

Their hands are wavering over to his side more frequently. It seems his arm is getting tired.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:22 am (UTC)

"'Course, even if he beats you, you're giving a credible enough showing here that he'll be after you to come participate in his Ultra Olympics - at least half of the suggestions he got when he sent out that email survey were better than 'Ultra Olympics', I think he's just really attached to the name. He'd probably love to have all kindsa extradimensional aliens playing."

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:24 am (UTC)

"What is an Ultra Olympic?"

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:26 am (UTC)

"You don't singularize it," says Nathan. "Olympics. So, on Earth-type worlds, there's this ancient worldwide athletics competition every few years. It's called the Olympics. But it wouldn't be fair to have vampires and hybrids and werewolves playing with everybody else. So Emmett came up with a version for us. It's smaller - and less serious; we get most of our ability out of the box so people who want to participate don't have to spend their lives working on it; Kerron shows up and competes sometimes and the rest of the time he doesn't even go for a walk on a typical day. But it's fun."

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:35 am (UTC)

"It does sound fun," says the demon.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:36 am (UTC)

Nathan is pretty much winning now. He's having to work for it, but he's making progress and Aianon is not gaining ground to recover his position as fast as he's losing it.

And then the demon's hand touches the rock.

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:42 am (UTC)

"You win," says the demon. "I'd suggest a forfeit, but I'm told you wouldn't accept." He grins at the Joker.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:44 am (UTC)

Nathan retrieves his hand. "You were told right. I'm pretty free with the squishing and the biting, everything else is single-target. Besides, I'm essentially straight when not under the influence of spooky mating magic." He winks at the single target of his spooky mating magic.

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:45 am (UTC)

The demon spreads his wings in an elaborate shrug. "You can bite me, too, if you want."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:46 am (UTC)

Nathan blinks at him. "I have," he observes thoughtfully, "no idea what you would taste like."

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:46 am (UTC)

"Then why don't you find out?" he invites.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:47 am (UTC)

Nathan shrugs. "You appropriately rigged not to turn into anything if bit?"

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:48 am (UTC)

"Demons are immune to venom."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:52 am (UTC)

"Yeah, vampires are immune to everything but a shortlist of squeezing, whoever told you demons are immune to venom probably hadn't met my kind."

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:54 am (UTC)

"Hm," he says. "I wish to be immune to you - nothing. I wish not to be immune to you - I lose the coin. I wish to reverse the previous wish - I lose that coin also."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:55 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. Where d'you want to be bitten?"

endragoned
2013-05-06 01:56 am (UTC)

"Wherever you please."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 01:57 am (UTC)

Nathan is a bit of a traditionalist. He goes for the throat.

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:04 am (UTC)

The demon's red flesh yields to Nathan's teeth with a little more effort than he would need to bite a mere human, and his blood is black.

It tastes... different. About as pleasant as a decent synthetic, but not the same as any of the available synthetics, and definitely nothing like a human.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:09 am (UTC)

"Nice," comments Nathan, after he's helped himself to a reasonable amount and sat back. His eyes have gone a peculiar sepia color, neither his usual red nor the black of the demon's blood. "Not like anything on the market, not like human, but nice."
Edited 2013-05-06 02:11 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:12 am (UTC)

The demon wipes away a lingering trickle of blood from his already-healed neck.

"It changed your eyes," he observes.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:13 am (UTC)

"Oh? Bubbly or animal blood makes 'em gold, human blood makes 'em dark red, being thirsty makes 'em black, what do you do?"

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:14 am (UTC)

"Sepia."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:15 am (UTC)

"Peculiar." Nathan peers at a stray droplet. "Yeah, I have no idea how that works, bubbly is actually gold but animal blood is not... Anyway, thanks!"

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:16 am (UTC)

"You are welcome," the demon assures him.

He tilts his head consideringly.

"Now that I know I will not rip your limbs off, shall we try the other arm?"
Edited 2013-05-06 02:31 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:32 am (UTC)

Nathan swaps arms. "You think this'll go differently?"

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:34 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Let's find out," he says, and shoves Nathan's hand with all his strength. There is a measurable period of acceleration before he is going all-out, but when he is, he is definitely stronger.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:36 am (UTC)

Nathan -

Is stronger too.

But he loses.

"...Huh," he says when the rock shatters against his hand. "Apparently you've got more strength-enhancing properties than humans do, as a dietary supplement. Better mind who's asking for nibbles when the Ultra Olympics come around."

manofmyword
2013-05-06 02:37 am (UTC)

The Joker laughs.

"You can participate in the Ultra Olympics as a steroid," he suggests. "Emmett'll flip."

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:38 am (UTC)

"Emmett will flip," snorts Nathan, retrieving his hand again. "He would be very disappointed if any of his participating athletes were, er, drinking up."

manofmyword
2013-05-06 02:39 am (UTC)

He giggles and hugs his sweetie.

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:40 am (UTC)

The demon awwws.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:40 am (UTC)

Hugs!

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:41 am (UTC)

"You are both very sweet," the demon declares, and he arches his wings around them.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:42 am (UTC)

"Thanks," laughs Nathan.

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:42 am (UTC)

Hugs?

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:47 am (UTC)

Sure, why not.

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:47 am (UTC)

Hugs! Very nice gentle many-limbed hugs. Not the squishy kind.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-06 02:48 am (UTC)

Nathan is happy to distribute squishy hugs but does not like to receive them, so this is good.

endragoned
2013-05-06 02:55 am (UTC)

Snuggly!

manofmyword
2013-05-06 02:55 am (UTC)

Huggly and snuggly.

This is continuation number 20 from here.

mind_game
2013-05-06 02:27 am (UTC)

[Hi all!] Jane says to those who have participated in Pattern's genome collection thing. (This is everyone present with an alt, plus Elspeth, except Brilliance who does not appear to have genes.) [I have now processed all the genetic data! I'm about to ramble at great length about it! Speak now if you want to opt out of this ramble.]

bellfounding
2013-05-06 02:28 am (UTC)

The Bells want to opt in to this ramble!

mind_game
2013-05-06 03:09 am (UTC)

When everyone else does too, Jane starts a-rambling.

[There are some but not overwhelmingly many exact matches. The only two perfect Bell matches are Stella and Pattern. Some of the others are close. Golden is template standard, plus one different gene that I bet is related to witchcraft, plus vampire chromosomes that I have no idea how to interpret without looking at more vampire genes. Shell Bell has some noise relative to template, probably just from being extracted from a different gene pool. Aurora and Juliet are like the template plus small genetic markers that I'm going to assume are related to sorcery and Slaying respectively - the fact that James has the exact same thing as Juliet's deviation strongly supports the Slaying hypothesis, and Lexi shares Aurora's sorceress gene. Aegis has gene pool noise and also her mutation, which was already identified for me by the lovely geneticists of the I.F.. Cam is close to standard everywhere but sex chromosomes, but not exact - I bet you the template was pulling him towards a behavior standard, and the exact same genes everywhere but there would've expressed themselves too differently in different hormone soup, so he has some tweaks. Angela bears obvious marks of genetic engineering in her history - it's smoothed out a bit by the intervening generations but it's still very plain that certain bits were inserted - and this is on top of a big helping of gene pool noise, bigger than the aforementioned since she's not from Earth. Rose looks templatey except that it appears almost as though something went over her genome with a spellchecker. The vast majority of the little broken pieces and small harmful mutations that everybody has just aren't there in her. I think that's why she looks prettier. Amariah has recognizable template genes, but she's also got scattered markers that I'm identifying as witch species markers - mostly on the X chromosomes, but not all of them - and she's also got some noise from being extracted from a different population, I guess daemons affected the trajectory of her Earth a fair amount - and she also has, I shit you not, a section of her genome devoted to what I was eventually able to identify as extremely, lossily compressed raccoon and owl genes that are all turned off so they can't do anything in her actual body. So now we know how daemons work, I guess. And Sarion looks almost nothing like any of you except in the obvious visual sense. I'd need more elf genomes to look at to make guesses about how any of it corresponds to her phenotype.

[Jokers - except for the obvious outliers of Brilliance and Aianon - have more matches. The eponymous, and Queenie, and Alice-post-de-vampiring, and Jellybean, and Ghosty, and Harley - where applicable, this is while manifesting male - all match. The female versions of those who routinely wear same match. The fact that Jellybean is one of those matches is why I think that Cam's extra deviations apart from the sex chromosomes aren't some kind of wizard marker - that and the Matildas. Who completely match. Micaiah has genepool noise. So does Beast, and he doesn't look spellchecked the way Rose does, and there's no evidence of the beast thing having a genetic effect. Sue's about like Aegis - noise and a useful mutation. Aianon is even more incomprehensible than Sarion; in her case I could at least imagine running simulations of various genes coding for proteins, in his case I wouldn't know where to start. And Kas has got genepool noise, and obviously no witch marker, but does have compressed daemon genes; if anyone was curious Petaal probably appeared as an axolotl when Kas was born. There's literally a stretch of randomness where Amariah has owl stuff. At some point I want to look at an Alethian kid. Sue doesn't have any of this, and neither does Minus, so spontaneous daemons don't retroactively genetically engineer you.

[The Sherlocks and the Tonies, including the soloists, are all exactly genetically alike except for some genepool noise in the Atlantis pair, who match each other, and Strat, who has different noise. Apparently being a Sunshine vampire has no genetic effects whatsoever.

[Damaris and Keziah show angel engineering, and Dominique and Céleste are human and are also spellchecked, and they have different genepool noise - although less of it relative to their respective alts than their parents have relative to each other. Elspeth's extra chromosome aside, they'd register as her half-sisters on a primitive test, and if it was primitive enough it could probably write off the spellchecking and angel genes as within experimental error and read Damaris and Dominique as twins and likewise Keziah and Céleste.

[Slipstick and James are close to genetically identical, except for the Slayer marker which Slipstick lacks, but I hesitate to call either of them the genetic template for Libbies, because both of them appear to be some sort of half-not-human I don't have the context to identify.]
Edited 2013-07-25 21:55 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-07-25 09:55 pm (UTC)

[...I'm half what?] says James, privately to Jane. And Slipstick.

mind_game
2013-07-25 09:57 pm (UTC)

[Hang on a sec, everyone.]

And to the half-non-human Libbies: [...Was this news? Based on mitochondrial results it was your dads.]

neverbeatme
2013-07-25 09:58 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, it was news.]

prima_sequentem
2013-07-25 10:01 pm (UTC)

[Not to me,] says Slipstick. [I guess Chris didn't tell you yet. We're half Eshvoi. Talented with languages, receptive to shapeshifting magic, a few nice little boosts that will probably be drowned out by the fact that you're the Slayer.]

mind_game
2013-07-25 10:03 pm (UTC)

[Okay, should I just carry on with what I was going to say? Should I have mentioned this privately first?]
Edited 2013-07-25 22:04 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-07-25 10:05 pm (UTC)

[I don't think there's a reasonable way you could've known that we might not know about it,] says Slipstick, [unless you knew our family situation.]

mind_game
2013-07-25 10:07 pm (UTC)

[That is not a thing I know much about specifically,] says Jane. [Anyway.]

[Sorry about that, everyone. Anyway. Slipstick says she and James are half-Eshvoi. That's probably specific to Sunshine worlds, what with humans being extremely common and no particular type of non-human cropping up nearly as often. Nothing exciting with Libby. Lizzie has some genepool noise relative to all of them.]

There are further ramblings, but none of the other templates present show up much that's surprising in light of these findings.

This is continuation number 21 from here.

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 04:58 pm (UTC)

[Are you ready to meet the Wellspring Matilda now?] Cam tries, after Jellybean could plausibly have gotten to the point of wanting another break from Upstairs Proceedings.

pythbox
2013-05-06 05:01 pm (UTC)

[Sure, okay,] he giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 05:02 pm (UTC)

Cam wanders in the direction of the Matildas, both of whom are floating (one transitively, one intransitively).

pythbox
2013-05-06 05:03 pm (UTC)

Jellybean teleports down to meet him there.

"Hi, Tilly, hi, Matilda," he says brightly.

withmypowers
2013-05-06 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Love the skirt," Matilda deadpans.

pythbox
2013-05-06 05:03 pm (UTC)

He beams. "Thanks!"

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Can I be floated again?" Cam asks. "Grace says that before I was called away for urgent peal business we weren't trying long enough to know if it was going to work or not."

withmypowers
2013-05-06 05:07 pm (UTC)

Matilda floats him again.

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

withmypowers
2013-05-06 05:08 pm (UTC)

"It's no trouble," she says amicably.

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Apart from having your thing instead of wizards and presumably Powers, what's Wellspring like?" Cam inquires. "Also, is there a word for people with Wellspring magic?"

withmypowers
2013-05-06 05:15 pm (UTC)

"There isn't any other kind of magic in Wellspring, so we usually just go with 'magic users' or 'mages'. It's not unusual for an Earth; the magic system is the only obvious distinguishing feature."

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Lots of Earths-plus-stuff," muses Cam. "I wonder why Earth isn't the odd one out with everybody else living on Samarias or something. Even Rêverie is sort of Earthlike."

withmypowers
2013-05-06 05:18 pm (UTC)

"It seems to be pretty much a template thing," says Matilda. "The template of humans is that they live on an Earth."

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 05:21 pm (UTC)

Cam scratches his head. "Yeah, but the Earths are also eerily similar in history. Except for oddities like the occasional Gotham, it turns out that all our plus-stuffs doesn't do much. Wizards didn't prevent World War I, vampires didn't eat anyone key to to the Geneva Convention, mints and ingots did not affect the Industrial Revolution. Daemons and witches and bears did some stuff, but you can still name major cities and books and historical figures, and Amariah will recognize the names, even if on her world John Calvin was a Pope and Protestantism started later with somebody else."
Edited 2013-05-06 17:22 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-05-06 05:27 pm (UTC)

"That also seems like a bigger-scale version of the reason why, oh, me and Tilly were recommended the same first set of books by different librarians in different towns, right down to the ordering."

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I guess. But then we all veer off course. Like, Shell Bell and Aegis are both from future Earths, according to Jane's investigation of astronomy in Atlantis they're not even too far off in year, but really different future Earths. The attractors for their Earths just sort of stopped working the same way. Atlantis flooded. Should we all expect to flood in a way that only a mutant from Peace could ordinarily stop? I wouldn't expect to look at the history of Samaria, which does include an Earth, and see Panem as a thing there, though."

withmypowers
2013-05-06 06:13 pm (UTC)

"It's interesting," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-05-06 06:13 pm (UTC)

"It is! And we have a while to figure it out."

withmypowers
2013-05-06 06:15 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

there is room here to expand

cross_and_bow

When Juliet leaves the party, she goes to meet the new Jarvis.

She knocks, to be polite.

poeticterms
2013-05-06 08:51 pm (UTC)

The door opens.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-06 08:52 pm (UTC)

Juliet goes in.

"Hi," she says. "It's nice to meet you. I'm not really clear on to what extent you guys exchange information with each other, let alone what any given amount would mean for whether I should be generally behaving like I just met you."

poeticterms
2013-05-06 08:58 pm (UTC)

"You did, in fact, just meet me," says the resident Jarvis. "Hello."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-06 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, that answers that," says Juliet. She finds a place to sit down and sits there. "I'm Bella, you can call me Juliet when that would get confusing."

poeticterms
2013-05-06 09:09 pm (UTC)

"So I've heard. And I am Jarvis. Among Jarvises I'm known as New York Sunnydale; there's also Sunnydale, whom you've met, Sunnydale Apollo, whom you haven't, New York, and Malibu. But under most circumstances just 'Jarvis' will do."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-06 09:11 pm (UTC)

"How'd you settle on that identification system?"

poeticterms
2013-05-06 09:13 pm (UTC)

"It's the most obvious one, if you're a Jarvis."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-06 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. So, welcome to Sunshine. And being alive. I'm sorry it took so long for it to occur to anyone that Downside might have caught you."

poeticterms
2013-05-06 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I believe Sherlock is more upset about that than I am."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-06 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Is he here or off somewhere else?"

poeticterms
2013-05-07 03:11 pm (UTC)

"He is upstairs."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-07 03:53 pm (UTC)

Bella decides to head upstairs.

poeticterms
2013-05-07 03:57 pm (UTC)

Jarvis has no comment on this decision.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-07 03:58 pm (UTC)

Bella wanders from room to room, learning her way around this old/new Jarvis and looking for her boyfriend.

poeticterms
2013-05-07 04:05 pm (UTC)

It's a big house. It will take her some time to confirm that Sherlock is not on the second floor.

There's a third.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-07 04:07 pm (UTC)

She heads up to look around that one.

poeticterms
2013-05-07 04:08 pm (UTC)

It features many open doors, one leading to what was clearly once Tony's bedroom, and one closed one.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-07 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock?" Bella asks the closed door.

poeticterms
2013-05-08 03:41 pm (UTC)

It opens.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 03:59 pm (UTC)

The room on the other side is sparsely populated with slightly shabby-looking furniture. Sherlock is sitting on a couch with a violin in his lap, motionless.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:04 pm (UTC)

Bella sits next to him and leans her head on his shoulder.

"Hi," she murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:20 pm (UTC)

He kisses the top of her head.

"Hello."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:21 pm (UTC)

"What's having a daemon like?" she wonders softly.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:22 pm (UTC)

"It does not easily submit to description," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:23 pm (UTC)

"I guess it wouldn't." She snuggles up. "I'm sorry she's sad. Amariah seems to think that's - really worrying."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:24 pm (UTC)

"It's an accurate representation of what I used to be like," he says. "And apparently still am, underneath it all." He sighs. "Perhaps I shouldn't have merged my soul back in. I was getting along just fine without it."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:25 pm (UTC)

"You were," agrees Juliet.

And:

"You could unstick it."

And:

"She's - if you really don't want her, if she doesn't really want her - she's probably not hooked into your torching."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:28 pm (UTC)

"No," he agrees slowly, "I suppose she isn't."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Seems sad, though," Juliet murmurs.

She sighs and adjusts her snuggling position and is silent for a bit, and then says, "I'm not planning to go get one, but I wonder what he'd be." She lets out a soft, brief chuckle. "I can guess what he'd do, though, if I had an independently ambulatory soul he'd go right up to you and want to be held."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:31 pm (UTC)

Sherlock very carefully evicts the violin from his lap, and turns to Juliet, and hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:31 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:32 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:32 pm (UTC)

"I love you," she murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I love you too, dear Juliet."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:35 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:37 pm (UTC)

Yes. Those.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:38 pm (UTC)

"If you're going to torch her gone," Juliet murmurs, "I'm not sure if I want to meet her at least once - or not so I don't miss her."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if I'm going to torch her gone."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:41 pm (UTC)

Juliet nods. Just a little; she's pleasantly constrained by snuggles. "But you might."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:42 pm (UTC)

"But I might. If she is immovably determined."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Does that seem likely?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Am I meant to have a guess?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:54 pm (UTC)

"She's yours. She's you. Maybe it's more complicated than I'm thinking, though."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm beginning to suspect that the entire trouble with Steph, my inability to predict her included, is symptomatic of a problem with my original merge," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 04:59 pm (UTC)

"...Did I do something wrong? I think I was careful..."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 05:06 pm (UTC)

"No. I asked for the impossible. Apparently I cannot have the soul without the self-hatred."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 05:07 pm (UTC)

Bella squeezes him tight.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 05:13 pm (UTC)

He hugs her back.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Self-hatred is a pretty alien concept to me," she says. "Shell Bell says that hers drives her up the wall with it sometimes, especially since she folded in Shell."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 05:21 pm (UTC)

"It seems to be a staple of Sherlocks."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 05:22 pm (UTC)

"It should stop. Clumsiness is a staple of Bells, but it's annoying and has no benefits - so we get rid of it as soon as we can."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 05:24 pm (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 05:24 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 06:08 pm (UTC)

Hugs indeed.

"I am not sure that getting rid of it is possible," he says. "And I am relatedly not sure that trying to is wise."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 06:09 pm (UTC)

"...On a strict understanding of the word 'possible'," says Bella, "that is obviously false. You went without a soul and without the consequent self-loathing once."
Edited 2013-05-08 19:10 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Yes, and then I merged my better half back in on the condition that the result keep his soul. With some leeway for the fact that he is more or less exactly a past version of me, if I go back on that I have essentially killed him. It's not my first choice."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 07:20 pm (UTC)

"...There's that," acknowledges Bella. "Of course, your 'better half' also accepted the condition that the self-loathing was not supposed to be part of the package. If you keep that, then - pronouns are complicated, I trust you'll know what I mean - then he's essentially - emotionally crippled you in a way that was not part of the deal."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 07:25 pm (UTC)

"To the part of me that does the self-loathing, that seems perfectly reasonable."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 07:26 pm (UTC)

Bella presses her face into his shoulder and sighs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 07:28 pm (UTC)

"And it's not as though your average Sherlock is unable to function this way."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but functioning isn't a very ambitious standard."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 07:31 pm (UTC)

"We accomplish ambitious things."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 07:33 pm (UTC)

"That's not the same thing as personally thriving," she says. She reaches for his hand and squeezes it.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 07:35 pm (UTC)

"We personally - continue," he says. "We exist. We have pleasant moments, just not as many of them as we otherwise might."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 07:38 pm (UTC)

"That's sad, though," Bella murmurs. "If there was a way to half-break a Bell in such a way that she could still accomplish things and would just spend her inner life feeling like you do would you want me to do it?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 07:39 pm (UTC)

"What in any earthly variety of fuck could possibly possess me to want such a thing?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Maybe if I'd made an ill-informed promise," suggests Bella, but it's clear that she did not expect an affirmative answer to her question.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 07:43 pm (UTC)

"It isn't really the same."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Because your entire cognition is not structured around misery," he suggests.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Yours wasn't. For a while. Or was it always and I'm just woefully imperceptive?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 09:51 pm (UTC)

"The misery when I had no soul was the lack of Tony and Jarvis," he says. "And then I found you, and you were delightful, and I managed to dig up a Jarvis, and he also helped, and of course he came with a Tony, and then - well."
Edited 2013-05-08 21:55 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 09:56 pm (UTC)

"...So you haven't actually tried having no self-loathing and all your people alive and no recent catastrophe at the same time and you're not sure how it'd work?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I was on my way to managing it. I might still be, if I had not latched onto the soul. But now that it's here I find I am irrationally attached to it."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Is it doing anything that isn't unpleasant?" asks Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:02 pm (UTC)

"It gives me what you might call moral feelings, I suppose."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Like?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, at the moment, without outside influences I would rather starve than eat a human. That was demonstrably not the case before."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:13 pm (UTC)

"There is that. Part of me wants to point out that us outside influences exist, but maybe you'd rather not count on that."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:14 pm (UTC)

"At the moment, if I were permanently deprived of all the people who make up those outside influences, I would rather starve than do much of anything. Also, I can't starve."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:17 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you to starve. Or unpleasantly fail to starve. Or have to be alone. Or," she sighs, "hate yourself."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:20 pm (UTC)

"And yet, here we are."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:22 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"There's native magic capable of souling vampires," Bella says, "isn't there? It's not the case that the only way to do it is merging with your Downside fork. And when you were contemplating getting your soul back it didn't sound like you were horribly averse to the idea - would that change now that you know what it comes with, or is there some kind of, I don't know, compromise available, where you get to be attached to it but don't necessarily carry it around constantly feeling terrible?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:25 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what my opinion on having a soul would be without a soul."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Because the last time you didn't have a soul and were thinking about getting one you didn't anticipate this side effect. Right." She sighs, chews her lip thoughtfully.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Yes. The soul transition seems to have all sorts of unforeseen effects."
Edited 2013-05-08 22:28 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:29 pm (UTC)

"If you had it to do over again what would the two of you have done?" she wonders.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I have not the faintest fucking clue."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, there goes that avenue of inquiry, I guess," she sighs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Now I'm trying to figure out what would've happened if I'd had to come to some kind of agreement with - her."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Under what possible circumstances?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Thought experiment type circumstances," says Juliet dryly. "I haven't troubled to think of any."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:08 pm (UTC)

"The circumstances matter, I'd think."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. It's a different situation anyway," sighs Bella. "Thank goodness."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Happily yes. I wonder how much of my reluctance to get rid of my soul is the irrational fear that it will turn out differently the second time."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:14 pm (UTC)

"...That's not completely irrational. It does depend on why it worked so nicely the first time, and I think we've only got speculation, there."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's fucking lovely, then, isn't it," he sighs.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Not to put too fine a point on it." She sighs. "I can think of, like, hack movie plots, but not actual reasonable plans."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Hack movie plots?" he laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, like, in a hack movie plot, we'd make sure you couldn't do anything too awful if de-souling you went badly. Emergency mint containment protocol, leaving the soul stuck to your torching, making sure me or Tony could torch you at any time if we didn't like how you turned out. And then probably there would be a tragic misunderstanding and we'd all three argue vehemently before you, I don't know, kissed at least one of us to appropriately swelling music and we knew we were fools to have ever doubted you. Hack movie plot."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Whereas," he sighs, "what actually happens is that either I convince you both I came out just fine and then am perfectly well-behaved, or convince you both I came out just fine and then kill everyone. I'd bet quite a lot on the first outcome, mind you."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, the first outcome would be fine if it weren't for you being all attached to your soul. The second could maybe be forestalled if we got around to implementing mindreading."
Edited 2013-05-08 23:30 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:34 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure I should be as attached to my soul as I in fact am." He sighs. "I'm not sure of much right now."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:35 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Mindreading wouldn't help, anyway. If I could keep anything back, I could fool you with it."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:38 pm (UTC)

"I'd give you good odds, I'm not sure I'm as sure as you are."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:41 pm (UTC)

"The amount of mental privacy I would need from such an arrangement is more than sufficient to conceal an underlying desire to destroy the world. I am in a better position to know that than you are."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I believe that you could keep me from being sure that you weren't fine. I'm not sure you could convince me that you were definitely fine."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:44 pm (UTC)

"And I hope that we never find out which one of us is right."

Half a beat.

"But it's me," he adds.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:45 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Even now that we've had this conversation?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Now that we've had this conversation it may become completely impossible to convince you that I am definitely fine," he snorts, "but if it doesn't, my point stands."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:47 pm (UTC)

"You don't think there's any space between it being completely impossible to convince me that you're definitely fine, and it being absolutely guaranteed that you can convince me that you are?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't think there's any space between being able to convince you that I'm fine when I'm not and being able to convince you that I'm fine when I am."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I guess that makes some more sense." She sighs, she squeezes his hand. "I want you to be fine. I really, really want it, and I guess if you can live with being like this then I don't need to lose metaphorical sleep over it but I'm going to keep thinking." She lets out a soft, sad chuckle. "Maybe one day we'll run into another one of you who eventually figured it out."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her.

"Wouldn't that be something."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:53 pm (UTC)

"It would! I mean, a surprising number of problems have been solved with alt-finding, up to and including death. I wouldn't put it past the multiverse to eventually hand you a solution."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:53 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:56 pm (UTC)

"I have very little idea what that'd look like," she muses. "I wonder if you'd have been it, if you had a while without your soul and with all your people."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:56 pm (UTC)

"I bet I would."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-08 11:57 pm (UTC)

Bella squeezes him.

"Did you even notice the self-hatred problem before Steph appeared?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-08 11:59 pm (UTC)

"It was less obvious. I didn't give it much thought."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:00 am (UTC)

"I am having a complete failure of imagination about failing to notice self-loathing."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:02 am (UTC)

"I don't go around consciously observing what a terrible waste of a soul I am. I just... quietly neglect to value myself. The merge did fix most of the higher-level symptoms."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:04 am (UTC)

"Is there," Bella sighs, "any point to arguing with you when you utter worrisome phrases like 'terrible waste of a soul'?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:06 am (UTC)

"File it under 'backhanded non-hyperbole'," he says. "It describes my emotional reality, not my actual beliefs."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:07 am (UTC)

"And as far as I know none of us have managed to teach anybody else how to make those things match when they want, like we can, so it could easily be a waste of effort to try."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:09 am (UTC)

"I actually have practiced a kind of self-modification, but it was demonstrably unable to get me out of this fucking fix."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:10 am (UTC)

"How does yours work? Besides 'evidently not well enough'."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:11 am (UTC)

"Worked," he says. "Past tense. I can't imagine doing it again."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:12 am (UTC)

"Speaking of turning oneself into Sherlock Holmes, does Strat have this problem?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:15 am (UTC)

"Strat has slightly less of this problem, but Downside brought it out in full."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:16 am (UTC)

"Downside fucks with people. I have a vague horrified curiosity about how well Shell could ever have recovered if she hadn't folded back in to her liveling counterpart."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:17 am (UTC)

"Downside does fuck with people. Well, it did. Hopefully it now does it less."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:18 am (UTC)

"We're working on it - luckily we only lost a couple of days there - but yeah."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:19 am (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:20 am (UTC)

"I love you," murmurs Bella. "I wish you could love you too."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:22 am (UTC)

"I used to love me," he sighs. "But I do love you. And Tony. And the various incarnations of Jarvis."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:24 am (UTC)

"If we don't figure out a nice well-rounded fix soon I guess I'll talk to Shell Bell, but I suspect the answer to how Shell Bell deals with it is just "she occasionally despairs, and also she didn't ever get used to hers being any other way'," sighs Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:26 am (UTC)

"Does it really provoke despair?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:28 am (UTC)

"I don't mean, like, sitting alone in a dark room waiting for the universe to end, kind of despair, I just mean determining that there is a bad thing in the world and nothing to be done about it presents itself and it's time to stop beating one's head against the wall and permit the bad thing to continue to be until further notice, damn it all. Arrogant busybody Bell type despair."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:32 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Ah, that's more like it."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't think I'm in any danger of getting turned into Shell or Sarion just by virtue of you not liking yourself. It'll just - make me sad when I think about it."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:37 am (UTC)

He hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:37 am (UTC)

Hugs are always good.

"What does Tony think about it, or would I have to ask him?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:38 am (UTC)

"Guilt, mostly. But he's used to it. I started out that way, after all."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:39 am (UTC)

"Yeah, like - the obvious etiology is the mindset around being a clone, except then there's Pearl and Strat."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:41 am (UTC)

"Pearl has a different reason. Strat has less reason and, perhaps relatedly, less of the problem."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:44 am (UTC)

Bella nods.

She's silent for a minute.

"I want to meet her," she murmurs. "Even if it's just for a minute and even if you're going to torch her gone."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 12:47 am (UTC)

Sherlock takes, pointlessly, a deep breath.

"All right."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 12:48 am (UTC)

"It doesn't have to be right now, it doesn't have to be at all if you don't want to. But if you're willing - or her, I'm not clear on to what extent she has preferences when she's tucked away - then I'd like to."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 01:13 am (UTC)

"It's hard to tell what her preferences are without bringing her out and asking. Which she prefers I not do."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:15 am (UTC)

"I can skip it if that would be pleasanter for - plural you."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 01:21 am (UTC)

"I'm really not sure," he sighs.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:23 am (UTC)

Hugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 01:25 am (UTC)

Hugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:27 am (UTC)

"...Do you want me to go away so you can talk to her in private?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-09 01:29 am (UTC)

"That would probably be best."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:30 am (UTC)

Bella kisses his temple. "Okay. I love you. I love you so much," she murmurs, and she goes out the door to see if there is any more of this Jarvis to explore that she's missed. Or maybe a Tony to talk to.

poeticterms
2013-05-09 01:36 am (UTC)

There is no Tony, but there is plenty of Jarvis. A library stretching up through all four floors, for example.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:36 am (UTC)

Ooh, nice library. "What're the highlights?" Bella asks as she takes flight to scan shelves.

poeticterms
2013-05-09 01:40 am (UTC)

"Perhaps you would enjoy browsing Maria Stark's romance novels," he suggests. "Top floor."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:41 am (UTC)

Bella snickers. She has a look, but none of them grab her. "More of a stuffy old literature person. Some sci-fi and fantasy."

poeticterms
2013-05-09 01:42 am (UTC)

"You will find plenty of those up here, for that matter," he says. "Nonfiction mainly on the bottom. Decorative works mainly on the second."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:43 am (UTC)

"Decorative works?"

poeticterms
2013-05-09 01:46 am (UTC)

"Books that the family owns to show them off rather than to read them."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:49 am (UTC)

"Ah." She peers through the fiction. "We might rez Tony's parents at some point. I don't know what the standing opinion on timing that is; I think I'll let Tony decide."

poeticterms
2013-05-09 01:57 am (UTC)

"Tony may decide that they'll keep awhile."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 01:58 am (UTC)

"They will keep indefinitely, presuming we retain access to Jane."

poeticterms
2013-05-09 02:03 am (UTC)

"Indeed."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-09 02:08 am (UTC)

Bella picks out a book and flies into a chair and curls up in it to read. She doesn't go at top speed; with spare processing power she composes various demon related plans.

poeticterms
2013-05-09 02:09 am (UTC)

Time passes.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:05 pm (UTC)

[She does not want to meet you,] says Sherlock. [She expects it would be unpleasant for all of us.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:07 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:08 pm (UTC)

A pause, and then, [You can come back now.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:09 pm (UTC)

Juliet flies to the correct floor, walks to the correct door, opens it.

"Is she - gone - or just tucked away again?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Gone. There didn't seem to be any point in waiting."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:11 pm (UTC)

Bella swallows. "Okay."

She sits next to him and hugs him.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:11 pm (UTC)

He hugs her back.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Is it better now?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:12 pm (UTC)

"I don't know."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:40 pm (UTC)

Bella squeezes him and sighs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:42 pm (UTC)

Sherlock also sighs.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I wish, I wish, I wish I knew how to help," Bella murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:43 pm (UTC)

"So do I."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:51 pm (UTC)

"I know."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:54 pm (UTC)

"If this were me I would be finding someplace quiet to process everything by myself so I'd have something coherent to present to everyone else. But that's Bells." Pause. "Right?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:55 pm (UTC)

"...I think I might want to lock myself in here and play needlessly melancholy violin for a few hours," he admits.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-14 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Bella murmurs. She kisses his forehead. "Let me know when you want me around. I love you."

And she teleports home.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-14 04:57 pm (UTC)

Needlessly melancholy violin it is.

devoted enchantment conduit, smile!

incanted

Aurora goes home before Brilliance does. She wants an aura; she's admired all the others enough to feel out of place by not having one. (Even Sarion does now.)

She asks Jane to let her know when Brilliance comes home to Rainbow.

And when she gets this notification, she says, +Hey Brilliance.+

cardistry
2013-05-06 08:51 pm (UTC)

+Hey, you,+ he says brightly.

incanted
2013-05-06 08:53 pm (UTC)

+Didja have a good time?+

cardistry
2013-05-06 08:59 pm (UTC)

+Mhmmmmmmmmmm. I fucking love Jellybean,+ he says happily.

incanted
2013-05-06 09:00 pm (UTC)

+And here I thought you guys didn't pick favorites,+ Bella teases.

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:06 pm (UTC)

+We also don't follow rules when not following them is more fun. Jellybean is definitely my favourite candy,+ he says, laughing.

incanted
2013-05-06 09:09 pm (UTC)

+Well, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself.+ Beat. +So, I want an aura. Do you want to help or should I ask around about borrowing somebody?+

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:12 pm (UTC)

+...I kind of do,+ he says. +Maybe. Let's talk. Where are you?+

incanted
2013-05-06 09:15 pm (UTC)

+Just at home. On the couch.+

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:16 pm (UTC)

+Well, can I come be there?+

incanted
2013-05-06 09:17 pm (UTC)

+Yeah, sure.+

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:23 pm (UTC)

Brilliance appears next to her and hugs her immediately.

incanted
2013-05-06 09:24 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"I can totally arrange to borrow somebody else if you'd rather."

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you to borrow somebody else," he says. "I wanna do it. But I wanna talk about it first. I just - don't know exactly what I want to say. Maybe I just want to snuggle about it," he half-jokes.

incanted
2013-05-06 09:30 pm (UTC)

"We can snuggle about it," she says, snuggling up. "If we start and you don't like it, we can stop and I can borrow somebody," she adds.

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:34 pm (UTC)

"I am liking this snuggle," he says, snuggling back. "And that. That too."

incanted
2013-05-06 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Have you done any enchanneling? I don't need, like, complete information about what you got up to upstairs, but maybe you'd rather try something little first?"

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I haven't done any enchanneling. And yeah, we should probably start with something little."

incanted
2013-05-06 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I can break up the design I had in mind into smaller pieces." She squeezes his hand.

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:42 pm (UTC)

He smiles and leans his head on her shoulder.

incanted
2013-05-06 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad I don't necessarily have to look into borrowing anybody. That could be weird. I guess I could go ask that person who helped Golden if necesary."

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Why, who helped Golden?"

incanted
2013-05-06 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I didn't get her name, this was just in passing."

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh. But... she must've not gotten off on it, so if she helped you out she wouldn't get off on it then either, and you'd rather it worked like that if it's not gonna be me?" he guesses.

incanted
2013-05-06 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Exactly. I mean, I'll borrow another Joker if I have to, but it wouldn't be my first choice."

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I think it'll be fine," he says. "I want it to be fine."

incanted
2013-05-06 09:53 pm (UTC)

She rubs her thumb in circles on the back of his hand. "Why wouldn't it be fine if it weren't fine?"

cardistry
2013-05-06 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," he says, leaning on her. "It's not like I've never done it before - I mean, I've never done enchanting, but I've done stuff that hurt. With the Jokers. And it was nice. But it still seems different."

incanted
2013-05-06 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Different how?"

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:01 pm (UTC)

Wryly, "Well, you're not a Joker?"

incanted
2013-05-06 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but, the problem here probably isn't that I fail to be six feet tall, right? What non-Joker features do I have that make it different?"

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:09 pm (UTC)

"You're not - one of me," he says. "I want to trust you because I like you and I love you and if I can't I'm kind of fucked anyways, and I think I can trust you because you've never done anything that really made me think I couldn't, but that's different from knowing I can trust you because I know exactly how you work because I work the same way."

incanted
2013-05-06 10:10 pm (UTC)

"And I guess it doesn't help that I do work the same way as eleven other people, most of whom have their own Jokers and enchant through them."

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Like, that's evidence, but my feelings don't have to care about the evidence."

incanted
2013-05-06 10:12 pm (UTC)

Bella nods, and sighs.

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:13 pm (UTC)

Brilliance hugs her.

incanted
2013-05-06 10:13 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:21 pm (UTC)

Snuggly hugs.

incanted
2013-05-06 10:21 pm (UTC)

"You could show me what you're feeling about it," she reminds him after a silence. "Maybe then I could help."

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:22 pm (UTC)

"...Help like how?"

incanted
2013-05-06 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty good at picking apart what I'm feeling. And making it go away if I'm sure I don't want it."

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I work the way you work," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-05-06 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. There's that."

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:28 pm (UTC)

"And I don't think you can make what I'm feeling go away. And I don't think it would help if you tried."

incanted
2013-05-06 10:29 pm (UTC)

"I didn't mean - directly or anything."

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I know. Even just talking, though. I don't really want to try it."

incanted
2013-05-06 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:39 pm (UTC)

Hug?

Hug.

incanted
2013-05-06 10:40 pm (UTC)

Yes. Hug.

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:42 pm (UTC)

Hug hug.

"I love you," he says, snuggling her.

incanted
2013-05-06 10:42 pm (UTC)

"You're sweet."

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:47 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

incanted
2013-05-06 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Lemme know when we've snuggled about it enough," chuckles Bella softly.

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I think maybe we might have," he says. "Not that I'm going to turn down more snuggling."

Snuggle!

incanted
2013-05-06 10:55 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "I think I can cast while snuggling, if you want."

cardistry
2013-05-06 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I think that is the best way to enchant," he says, snuggling some more.

incanted
2013-05-06 10:59 pm (UTC)

"To Planet Rainbowsand, then?"

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

incanted
2013-05-06 11:01 pm (UTC)

Teleportation! The old party setup is still there. Bella clears it away and replaces it with a picnic blanket.

"Say when," she murmurs into Brilliance's ear.

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:04 pm (UTC)

Picnic blankets have positive associations!

He curls up on the blanket with her, wraps his arms around her, and murmurs, "When."

incanted
2013-05-06 11:06 pm (UTC)

Bella reaches out for his mindscape. (It's a deck of cards. Cute.)

She pulls power up out of the sand planet beneath her and pushes it through her smallish spell and his cards.

It takes most of her concentration, but not so much that she can't hold him while she does it.

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:09 pm (UTC)

And it's... well, nice.

incanted
2013-05-06 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay?" murmurs Bella, when the spell is cast.

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he sighs, snuggling up a little.

incanted
2013-05-06 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Say when you want the next bit. And if you ever stop wanting me to divide up the spells into little bits, too."

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:16 pm (UTC)

Brilliance hugs her.

"Next bit?" he says.

incanted
2013-05-06 11:16 pm (UTC)

Next bit.

And so on and so on.
Edited 2013-05-06 23:19 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:20 pm (UTC)

With snuggling. Lots of snuggling.

They could get through a lot of enchanting this way, if Bella doesn't have anything more important to go and do.

incanted
2013-05-06 11:20 pm (UTC)

She's not planning to sleep tonight, and tomorrow's Saturday.

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:22 pm (UTC)

It takes a while - several hours - but Brilliance does in fact get around to saying, "You can do bigger bits now if you want."

incanted
2013-05-06 11:22 pm (UTC)

"How much bigger?"

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:28 pm (UTC)

"A little bigger?"

incanted
2013-05-06 11:29 pm (UTC)

That takes a little more subdividing trickery than just cutting spells in half a few times, but eventually she says, "Okay, I have something. Now?"

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

incanted
2013-05-06 11:32 pm (UTC)

Casting!

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:38 pm (UTC)

And cuddles!

After one little-bit-bigger spell, he is okay for a spell that is a little bit bigger than that.

incanted
2013-05-06 11:40 pm (UTC)

Bella continues to creatively rearrange enchantment components to make spells of appropriate sizes. And to snuggle Brilliance; she also continues to do that.

Around them, a - place, takes slow piecemeal shape. It's not exactly a town, although people could live in it; it looks rather like a fantasy movie set. It is a positive riot of color, plants and buildings and landscape-type features rising up out of the sand and retaining some of its brightness.

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:42 pm (UTC)

"It's really pretty," Brilliance comments between spells.

incanted
2013-05-06 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

cardistry
2013-05-06 11:44 pm (UTC)

Brilliance hugs her.

"How much is left?"

incanted
2013-05-06 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I have way more planned than I expect to need for my aura, in case I'm off about how much I need for my aura. Do I seem aura-y to you yet?"

cardistry
2013-05-07 01:04 am (UTC)

"Not in any way I can tell," he says. "But - I think you could do a big spell now, if you wanted."

incanted
2013-05-07 01:04 am (UTC)

"You sure?"

cardistry
2013-05-07 01:05 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

incanted
2013-05-07 01:06 am (UTC)

"Okay." She kisses the corner of his jaw, and composes a big spell.

"Say when."

And when he says when, she casts it.

cardistry
2013-05-07 01:22 am (UTC)

Brilliance curls up close and makes happy sounds.

incanted
2013-05-07 01:23 am (UTC)

"Good?" she murmurs, hugging him.

cardistry
2013-05-07 01:24 am (UTC)

"Very good," he beams. "Very very good. Fuck."

incanted
2013-05-07 01:25 am (UTC)

"Another one?" she laughs softly.

cardistry
2013-05-07 01:39 am (UTC)

"Yeah!"

incanted
2013-05-07 01:41 am (UTC)

Another spell is cast.

cardistry
2013-05-07 01:46 am (UTC)

"Do you maybe wanna take a break and have sex for a while," he says breathlessly when it's over.

incanted
2013-05-07 01:48 am (UTC)

"Sure," breathes Bella, squirming into a new position accordingly.

cardistry
2013-05-07 01:50 am (UTC)

"Awesome."

He kisses her.

incanted
2013-05-07 01:50 am (UTC)

A break is taken.

cardistry
2013-05-07 03:01 pm (UTC)

It is a very nice break. Brilliance enjoys it very much.

And eventually, he snuggles up again and says, "You can do some more enchanting now if you want."

incanted
2013-05-07 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Bella does some more enchanting.

cardistry
2013-05-07 03:57 pm (UTC)

Brilliance channels.

Happily.

incanted
2013-05-07 03:58 pm (UTC)

Good for him!

When they've been at it long enough that Charlie and Lexi are probably waking up to start the day, back home, Bella pauses and says, "Have I got much aura yet?"

cardistry
2013-05-07 04:11 pm (UTC)

"...Not much," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-05-07 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Little bit means we're about halfway there," she says. "There's no reason it has to be even mostly continuous if you want to go do something else, though."

cardistry
2013-05-07 04:13 pm (UTC)

"We could totally do the other half," he says. "Might have to take some more breaks in the middle."

incanted
2013-05-07 04:17 pm (UTC)

"I could see my way to accommodating you," giggles Bella. She asks Lexi to tell Charlie that she won't be home till late, and not to wait up. And she composes another spell.

cardistry
2013-05-07 04:20 pm (UTC)

Brilliance snuggles up and sighs happily even before she casts it.
Edited 2013-05-07 16:20 (UTC)

incanted
2013-05-07 04:21 pm (UTC)

And onward!

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:22 pm (UTC)

And onward. Brilliance continues to like it. Breaks become more frequent. Those two facts are not in opposition.

incanted
2013-05-07 05:24 pm (UTC)

Bella checks in on his status re: continued enchantment routinely, although increasingly briefly as the responses continue to be affirmative.

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:25 pm (UTC)

He likes the checking-in. The responses continue to be affirmative, but it's nice that she wants to know that.

incanted
2013-05-07 05:26 pm (UTC)

She does want to know that! She doesn't want to - well, okay, at this point given all those faces and these lovely breaks, she does kind of want to hurt Brilliance, but she doesn't want to upset him.

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:29 pm (UTC)

Good! Because at this point he definitely wants her to hurt him, but he doesn't want to be upset.

incanted
2013-05-07 05:33 pm (UTC)

Long blurry hours of enchanting and break-taking recede into the past.

Bella steadily acquires aura.

She's in more of a position to tell what it does than Brilliance is, because both of its special features report to her. "Ooh," she says. "I get an aura-based mana regulator. And it's - I'm not sure what this does in general, but it's telling me some stuff about you, that you don't have any powers I'm not at least loosely apprised of and that you don't want to hurt me. Threat gauge power, maybe."

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Cool," he says, hugging her. "I love you."

incanted
2013-05-07 05:36 pm (UTC)

She kisses his forehead. "You're adorable."

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I am, it's true," he beams.

incanted
2013-05-07 05:39 pm (UTC)

"And so humble," snorts Bella, snuggling up. "Does this feel like full strength to you - like the other Bells when they're not withdrawing or flaring? Half of them wear their auras out all the time."

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," he says, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her cheek. "I'm not usually seeing the other Bells from up this close."

incanted
2013-05-07 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I could get up and wander off a bit," she says archly. "If that would help."

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Noooo," he says, hugging her some more. "Stay. Snuggle."

incanted
2013-05-07 05:43 pm (UTC)

She stays. She snuggles. "You are terribly, terribly cute."

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "Wanna enchant some more?"

incanted
2013-05-07 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes." She kisses his cheek and whips up another good-sized spell and casts it.

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:53 pm (UTC)

Brilliance snuggles and hums and sighs and shows her how much he loves her.

incanted
2013-05-07 05:54 pm (UTC)

She peers at it when it's offered.

They might have to take another break now.

cardistry
2013-05-07 05:57 pm (UTC)

They can totally take another break.

incanted
2013-05-07 05:59 pm (UTC)

He's so cooperative!

They're going about this at a very leisurely pace, and Lexi checks in again before Bella is at full and stable aura strength.

cardistry
2013-05-07 06:02 pm (UTC)

Brilliance snuggles Bella while she talks to her sister.

incanted
2013-05-07 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Am I done yet? I think this is about the same magnitude of enchanting everyone else did before they plateaued," Bella wonders.

cardistry
2013-05-07 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm not done yet," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-05-07 06:04 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "You particularly fond of the sensation of enchanneling and want to burn off the rest of the design I invented for leeway, or you wanna do something else?"

cardistry
2013-05-07 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Good question," he says. "Let's do the rest!"

incanted
2013-05-07 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

Divided into nice big spells, the rest only takes a few hours.

cardistry
2013-05-07 06:28 pm (UTC)

And then they can have a nice, long... break.

incanted
2013-05-07 06:29 pm (UTC)

Fuuuuun stuff.

cardistry
2013-05-07 06:34 pm (UTC)

It involves a lot of Brilliance pushing love.

incanted
2013-05-07 06:35 pm (UTC)

Bella approves most enthusiastically of this component.

cardistry
2013-05-07 06:35 pm (UTC)

Brilliance approves of her approval!

incanted
2013-05-07 06:37 pm (UTC)

How delightfully meta.

They do eventually simmer down.

cardistry
2013-05-07 06:38 pm (UTC)

And then snuggles.

incanted
2013-05-07 06:39 pm (UTC)

Of course. Part of this complete breakfast.

cardistry
2013-05-07 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he says, snuggling her. "I love you so much."

incanted
2013-05-07 11:43 pm (UTC)

"You are adorable and I'm terribly fond of you," Bella replies.

cardistry
2013-05-07 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Awwwww," he giggles.

incanted
2013-05-07 11:45 pm (UTC)

Nuzzles.

cardistry
2013-05-07 11:48 pm (UTC)

Snuggly nuzzles! Snuggly-kind-of-shivery nuzzles. Brill may be done channeling, but the channeling is not done with Brill.

incanted
2013-05-07 11:50 pm (UTC)

Bella gets another check-in from her sister.

"Apparently," she says, "Charlie doesn't like it when I disappear for most of a weekend and brainphone check-ins with my sister don't help. Want to go home for dinner? Lexi made burgers."

cardistry
2013-05-07 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, burgers," he says. "Sure!"

incanted
2013-05-07 11:56 pm (UTC)

Bella ensures that they are both decent, warns Lexi that they're incoming, and teleports them.

There are burgers to be had.

cardistry
2013-05-07 11:57 pm (UTC)

Brilliance has a burger. Delightedly.

incanted
2013-05-08 09:49 pm (UTC)

After dinner Bella wishes to take Brilliance on a tour of her village-garden-thing.

"How are your aftereffects going?" she asks him as she leads him up a spiral staircase that goes around a tree.

cardistry
2013-05-08 09:52 pm (UTC)

"They are awesome," he beams.

incanted
2013-05-08 09:52 pm (UTC)

"And, I take it, still present," she laughs softly.

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Mmyep. Hey, I wonder if my repair function would get rid of them," he says idly.

incanted
2013-05-08 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to try it?"

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

incanted
2013-05-08 10:07 pm (UTC)

They're already holding hands. "Restore," incants Bella.

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:09 pm (UTC)

The spell informs her that he is mostly undamaged, except for some lingering effects in a complex subsystem, which it repairs.

"Cool," says Brilliance, and laughs. "Of course, now I don't hurt anymore," he half-complains.

incanted
2013-05-08 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Is that unwelcome?"

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmaybe."

incanted
2013-05-08 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I can think of at least three ways to fix it. Two of 'em involve me."

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Go on."

incanted
2013-05-08 10:13 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "You want a list? I bet you can think of them all yourself."

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I want your list," says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-05-08 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Miscellaneous self-injury. Standard issue agony beam. A certain incantation that isn't 'pants', if you're there now."

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:21 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"We could try agony beam," he says. "Do you wanna?"

incanted
2013-05-08 10:24 pm (UTC)

"I could be persuaded." This section of her village is stylized rope bridges between treehouses and towers. She comes to a stop inside one of the treehouses.

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:34 pm (UTC)

Does the treehouse have comfy places to sit and/or snuggle?

incanted
2013-05-08 10:35 pm (UTC)

It does! Enormous beanbaglike poufs. Bella flops into one and holds out her arms invitingly.

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:36 pm (UTC)

Brilliance hugflops onto her.

incanted
2013-05-08 10:37 pm (UTC)

Snuggly hugflops. "Comes in about a thousand flavors because it was designed for some folks rather attached to their variety," she says. "Got a preference?"

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Surprise me."

incanted
2013-05-08 10:39 pm (UTC)

It's kind of weird selecting a type of pain rather than just a nice clean integer, but Aurora contemplates her options and goes with depressurization in a vacuum. Since she's not sure if he even needs air pressure to be comfy, this should be novel. She starts him up at one triangle. "How's that?"

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Weird!" says Brilliance. "But in a good way. More?"

incanted
2013-05-08 10:41 pm (UTC)

Nudge-nudge-nudge. Ten triangles. "I'm going to be very timid about moving this unless I get actual numbers," she says. "I don't want to spook you."

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Timid's okay," he says, hugging her. "I like timid. Go for more?"

incanted
2013-05-08 10:42 pm (UTC)

Nudge-nudge-nudge twenty.

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:46 pm (UTC)

Snuggle!

"More?"

incanted
2013-05-08 10:47 pm (UTC)

Bella carries on nudging up in piecemeal increments of ten when prompted and snuggling her boyfriend.

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:50 pm (UTC)

Brilliance carries on requesting those piecemeal increments. For a while.

Until, eventually, he takes a mana-coloured star out of his coin sorter and starts playing with it.

"Is that how much stars are?" he muses. "It doesn't seem like a lot."

incanted
2013-05-08 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, stars are everything from ten thousand to just shy of a hundred thousand," says Bella. "It doesn't seem like a lot? Wow."
Edited 2013-05-08 22:54 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:56 pm (UTC)

"It's nice," he says dreamily, putting the coin away and wrapping his arms around her again. "I like it. But it's, you know, middle of the road."

incanted
2013-05-08 10:57 pm (UTC)

"It should not come as a surprise to me that Elspeth wasn't kidding when she judged the Joker Trauma Olympics, should it."

cardistry
2013-05-08 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Guess not," shrugs Brilliance. "I wanna have sex like this, do you wanna have sex?"

incanted
2013-05-08 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:00 pm (UTC)

He grins and kisses her.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:00 pm (UTC)

The agony beam requires no attention to maintain! How convenient.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:01 pm (UTC)

That is convenient.

They're going to be rolling in stars, aren't they.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:02 pm (UTC)

Not literally, since there's that convenient coin storage feature.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:04 pm (UTC)

That is happily true. Stars are pointy. Bella probably wouldn't approve.

She'll approve of the fact that he's racking them up at a handful per second for about an hour, though. Won't she.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:04 pm (UTC)

They might have to go back and make more hexes to declaw them with, but yes. Yes she will.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:07 pm (UTC)

Or, alternately -

Some time later, when they are back to cuddling, Brilliance murmurs, "Could you go up to an evil so I can declaw all these?"

incanted
2013-05-08 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Right now, or you want it slower than that?"

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Slow-ish. I dunno, hundred at a time?"

incanted
2013-05-08 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Okay." She pecks him on the cheek and starts hopping up in hundred-triangle increments toward evil range.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:12 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle snuggle.

"Mmm, yeah, there we go," he says when she reaches the appropriate level. Hex to declaw one of the stars, star to declaw one of the new evils, evil to declaw all of his currently undeclawed coins of smaller-than-evil denomination.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:14 pm (UTC)

"You wanna hang out here or back off?" she asks.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I can hang out here a little," he says, wriggling happily. "Here's nice. I love you."

As an afterthought, he shows her the love, the way it feels right now with what they're doing.

It is very nice.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:17 pm (UTC)

Nnnnnf. She squirms up into a closer snuggle.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Or," says Brilliance speculatively, "I could hang out here for a while."

Love love love.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:20 pm (UTC)

Bella makes a happy sighing whimpery noise.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:21 pm (UTC)

Love. Love and kisses.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:21 pm (UTC)

Kisses and happiness.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:25 pm (UTC)

And sex?

incanted
2013-05-08 11:25 pm (UTC)

She's game!

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:28 pm (UTC)

Awesome!

If they keep this up they're going to have to do something spectacular to declaw all those evils.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:29 pm (UTC)

Spectacular things have been known to happen. Aurora doesn't have one of the niners, but they exist; she could get one to declaw a batch of evils this large.

In the meantime that is not where her attention lies.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:35 pm (UTC)

No, indeed. Brilliance is similarly occupied with more immediate concerns.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:36 pm (UTC)

Looooovely.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:37 pm (UTC)

Yep.

They might actually end up with more evils than stars.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:38 pm (UTC)

That will be okay with Bella.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:40 pm (UTC)

It'll be okay with Brilliance too!

incanted
2013-05-08 11:42 pm (UTC)

Eventually they are snuggling again.

"Let me know what you want me to do with the beam," Bella murmurs.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... down," he says. "A little at a time, but fast?"

incanted
2013-05-08 11:44 pm (UTC)

Bella slides down in fifteen-triangle intervals, several per second. "Like this?"

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he sighs, curling up and nestling his head on her shoulder and sending love.

incanted
2013-05-08 11:48 pm (UTC)

She enjoys the loves and continues to slide down the positive integers.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:49 pm (UTC)

"It's weird," Brilliance murmurs. "The agony beam, I mean. It's not really that much like Pants."

incanted
2013-05-08 11:51 pm (UTC)

"It's not? Could just be a flavor thing."

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," he says. "Give me, like, half a star of some totally unrelated flavour?"

incanted
2013-05-08 11:54 pm (UTC)

Bella contemplates her options, goes with heat (variety: radiant, as though baking) and hits him as requested.

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Nice," he breathes. "Ooh, I like that one. What's it like changing between flavours?"

incanted
2013-05-08 11:57 pm (UTC)

"A little change or a big change?"

cardistry
2013-05-08 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Little one, first?"

incanted
2013-05-08 11:59 pm (UTC)

Baking becomes boiling.

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:00 am (UTC)

He wriggles and grins.

"Okay, what about a bigger change?"

incanted
2013-05-09 12:01 am (UTC)

Boiling becomes sharpness (subvariety: that generated by e.g. a whip).

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:04 am (UTC)

Brilliance squiiiiiiiiiirms.

"Yeah, that is not like pants at all," he says. "That's like - well, it's like it was designed by somebody who doesn't like pain."

incanted
2013-05-09 12:05 am (UTC)

Aurora giggles. "Stella made up version one, I think there've been some additions since but yeah. It's all based on, like, actual possible injuries, why does that make it obvious it's designed by someone who doesn't like pain?"

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:09 am (UTC)

"It's - it's abstracted," he says. "Like you're relying on the magic to cover the details and it's not doing that great a job."

incanted
2013-05-09 12:10 am (UTC)

"I guess that makes sense."

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:14 am (UTC)

"I wonder if you even can use pants," he muses. "It's a little more - hands-on. The way some spells are, you know?"

incanted
2013-05-09 12:15 am (UTC)

"...Some of 'em are involved, yeah. I have no idea. Are we just calling it 'pants' now?"

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:16 am (UTC)

"It's a cute name for it," he says. "It's funny. I like it."

incanted
2013-05-09 12:17 am (UTC)

"Okay then," chuckles Bella. "Well - I don't know how much my own lack of masochism would interfere with its use."

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:18 am (UTC)

"You know what," he says, "let me down off this one and try it."

incanted
2013-05-09 12:19 am (UTC)

Bella tapers him down from where he's at. "Um, am I at much risk of accidentally overdoing it given that I don't know what I'm doing pantswise?"

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:21 am (UTC)

"I don't know what the interface looks like exactly from that side, but it didn't seem like it took that long to figure it out," he says. "If I yell, stop?"

incanted
2013-05-09 12:22 am (UTC)

"Okay."

She finds a comfy snuggling position, propped up a little on part of the enchanted pouf-beanbag so she can watch his face in addition to listening for yelling.

"Say when."

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:23 am (UTC)

"When," he murmurs, smiling at her.

incanted
2013-05-09 12:24 am (UTC)

Bella swallows nervously.

But she musters up a token amount of wanting and she whispers:

"Devotion."

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:32 am (UTC)

The details of the spell interface unfold in her mind. It's very complicated, but it's not that hard to read, especially since large parts of the network correspond directly to his physical nervous system.

And all together, the whole thing is completely under her control. She can give him any pain-related sensation she can figure out how to implement - controllable by feel rather than by number, on a smooth scale rather than discrete increments, and mappable to any and all locations or nonlocations she might desire. (Apparently he has an entire set of pain receptors that aren't connected to his body at all.)

Brilliance is still smiling. But then, she hasn't hurt him yet.

incanted
2013-05-09 12:33 am (UTC)

"Well, this is complicated and I don't know what to do with it," Bella murmurs. "...It's like a nerve map. Except plenty of it isn't located in your actual body."

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:40 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "This body's only part of me, remember? I've got other places that can hurt."

incanted
2013-05-09 12:42 am (UTC)

"Yeah." She swallows. She runs her fingers through his hair. "...I'm not clear on how this maps onto triangles. I think I'll start really small and we'll see what kinds of coins you can make off of it? Okay? ...And, uh, I don't think it comes in plain, any flavor requests?"

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:44 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "Okay, that sounds good."

incanted
2013-05-09 12:46 am (UTC)

"No requests, huh. Uuuum." She decides on what she most commonly does when she feels like making a little coin on the spot. Biting. She doesn't know if that makes any sense applied to a non-location, but she's going to try it again, very, very gently, over in the nonlocations.

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:48 am (UTC)

"That's not even a triangle," Brilliance reports.

incanted
2013-05-09 12:48 am (UTC)

Okay, a little less gently?

cardistry
2013-05-09 12:50 am (UTC)

A triangle is not far off. When he gets one, he shows it to her and then tucks it away.

incanted
2013-05-09 12:50 am (UTC)

Bella kisses his forehead. "Okay, so that's one. How far up d'you want to go?"

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:21 am (UTC)

"Star-ish is a good ceiling for now," he says. "Lots of room to get it wrong and still be okay."

incanted
2013-05-09 01:22 am (UTC)

"Okay."

She drags her will across his "nerves" like a child with an unfamiliar piano, holding herself down to the mid-pentagon range to start, and she keeps an eye on his face.

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:26 am (UTC)

He wriggles and shivers and smiles.

"I like the way you do it," he says. "It's... sweet. You're sweet."

He kisses her.

incanted
2013-05-09 01:27 am (UTC)

Kisses. "How's it sweet?" she asks. "Sheer benign ineptitude?"

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:28 am (UTC)

Brilliance laughs. "I don't know, maybe. Get better at it and we'll see."

incanted
2013-05-09 01:30 am (UTC)

She starts moving around in idle, drifty patterns, as though trailing her fingers through a pool of water to watch the ripples. She cycles through flavors as they occur to her. A dozen kinds of sharp.

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:34 am (UTC)

The transition from flavour to flavour is smoother, with this spell; unless she deliberately makes it as sudden as possible, it takes about a second to shift from one to the next. And the flavours themselves require more input from her; she has to imagine them, not just name them.

Brilliance seems to like the moving-around. He grins and wriggles and hugs her.

incanted
2013-05-09 01:35 am (UTC)

"This takes way more concentration than the agony beam," murmurs Bella, hugging back.

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:36 am (UTC)

"I'll bet," he laughs. "Mmmm."

incanted
2013-05-09 01:38 am (UTC)

"I have to actually have some idea what I'm doing. I have zero personal experience with most of the flavors on the agony beam." She settles on a single flavor (papercuts, writ large) and goes up and down his spine and then into the disembodied section again.

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:39 am (UTC)

Papercuts up and down his spine produce quite the face.

incanted
2013-05-09 01:39 am (UTC)

Nnf. She will try that again.

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:41 am (UTC)

This time he also makes noises.

"That's nice," he says. "That is really fucking nice."

incanted
2013-05-09 01:42 am (UTC)

"What about it in particular," she murmurs, not quite forming the sentence into a question. She draws her fingers through his hair again.

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:45 am (UTC)

"Mmm... I dunno, it's - not exactly better, but it's sexier when it's on my body," he says. "And I like the way you move it, almost like you're using your hands, you know? It fels, I dunno, intimate." He smiles.

incanted
2013-05-09 01:47 am (UTC)

So not the flavor, not the particular location. "I think that was the general idea, was that it'd be intimate," she murmurs, smiling, and she slides from papercuts to burns, because she's bumped into hot stoves before, and she fingerpaints imaginary burning all over everywhere.

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:55 am (UTC)

Location is definitely a factor. He likes some places better than others, or at least differently, and down his spine/over his back is one of the ones guaranteed to make him pleasantly squirmy.

There are more. Bella can probably figure some of them out all by herself.

incanted
2013-05-09 01:57 am (UTC)

Well, she could guess, but it's more fun to experiment. She does have so many places to reach out and touch.

cardistry
2013-05-09 01:59 am (UTC)

Well, when she finds the good ones, Brilliance will let her know. Emphatically.

incanted
2013-05-09 01:59 am (UTC)

That is good of him. Feedback is important! To help her improve!

cardistry
2013-05-09 02:02 am (UTC)

If she plays her cards right, she might improve her way right into having to clean up this beanbag.

incanted
2013-05-09 02:03 am (UTC)

Well, that would definitely constitute feedback.

Most of her attention is on controlling the spell - she's not fully settled in to it yet and doesn't want it to fly out of control along any axis - but she's touching him, too, occasionally following the pain with her hands or vice versa.

cardistry
2013-05-09 02:07 am (UTC)

The spell is very responsive. It gets easier to use with time and practice.

Brilliance is likewise very responsive, albeit in a rather different way.

He does, in fact, give... feedback. Several times.
Edited 2013-05-09 02:12 (UTC)

incanted
2013-05-09 02:15 am (UTC)

"You are just," murmurs Bella, laying her palm against his throat and filling it with thorns, "endlessly fascinating."

cardistry
2013-05-09 02:16 am (UTC)

"I love you so fucking much," he breathes.

incanted
2013-05-09 02:17 am (UTC)

Bella kisses him, in reality and with fictitious frostbiting cold.

i hold the power of life and death in my hands

autokinetic

[Hey Jarvis,] Aegis relays through Jane. [Jane says you're open to running a Space Station Of The Dead?]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 09:58 pm (UTC)

[Theoretically, yes,] says the relevant Jarvis.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 10:07 pm (UTC)

[Should I be talking to all of you at once?]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 10:08 pm (UTC)

[You might as well.]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 10:11 pm (UTC)

Aegis adjusts the brainphone parameters, though it's a little tricky since she is relaying through Jane. [That'd be neat. I have, like, a skeleton of a design for a station and a space elevator, but I was thinking I'd have Jane run it as like an extension of her Downside presence, so I don't know if you'll want anything changed. Jane says you want people on it to know you're a person and you'd want it to be occupied most of the time? Are there other things you'd want?]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 10:20 pm (UTC)

[We would want at least some people on it to know we are a person,] says a Jarvis. [In general, we want someone to be around who knows we are a person and is on more or less friendly terms. 'Around' meaning physically present.]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 10:21 pm (UTC)

[Oh, hm. The plan I had was going to be mostly a layover for dead people. I dunno how long it takes you to make friends with people. Do I even count?]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 10:23 pm (UTC)

[You might count, but we don't expect you'll have much time to drop by and chat.]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 10:24 pm (UTC)

[There's that.] Aegis thinks. [At least one of you knows Giles, right? I have an alt of him here, I wonder if he wants to live on a space station.]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 10:32 pm (UTC)

[One of us does, yes,] says the one who knows Giles. [I suppose it can't hurt to ask.]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 10:35 pm (UTC)

[Or maybe some of the old jeesh, I should see about what their plans are. You wouldn't know any of them yet, far as I know, but they could go meet whichever one of you. I'm not sure how this would even work if you did decide you liked the sound of the space station. Would one of you fork like that one time? Or would you stay the number of Jarvises you are and be hooked up by ansible and run the place remotely, so to speak?]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 10:38 pm (UTC)

[Yes and no,] says another one.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 10:38 pm (UTC)

[Hmm?]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 10:47 pm (UTC)

[Questions of identity are less simple with us than you seem to be imagining,] says the Jarvis from Helios.

[We are a distributed network of nearly identical personalities with, at this point, more shared memories than otherwise,] says his fork in Sunshine.

[A local Jarvis in your space station would neither be a fork of a single other Jarvis nor a front for all of us,] says Yggdrasil's.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 10:48 pm (UTC)

[I knew you weren't identical everywhere like Jane, so I guess maybe I overcompensated?] says Aegis.

poeticterms
2013-05-09 10:50 pm (UTC)

[It's a tricky question,] says the Sunshine original. [We are not identical everywhere, but in many senses we are.]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 10:52 pm (UTC)

[Huh.] Aegis nibbles her lip a bit. [Okay, so - meeting prospective occupants could happen with any of you. D'you want to meet them in person? Like, if Merryweather or Qiaochu wants to live on the station should I send them to Sunshine or wherever or what?]
Edited 2013-05-09 22:59 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-05-09 11:02 pm (UTC)

[We'd prefer it, yes,] says Yggdrasil's.

[Send them to me,] suggests the recently resurrected Sunshine Jarvis.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:03 pm (UTC)

[Okay.] Aegis hmms a bit, then says, [Oh, FYI, I'm gonna name the station Acheron.]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 11:04 pm (UTC)

Laughter from all sides.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:04 pm (UTC)

[I know, right? Got a Greek mythology theme going.]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 11:05 pm (UTC)

[It's delightful,] says Jarvis of Helios.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:07 pm (UTC)

[Thanks! D'you wanna look at the plans? Jane can send 'em to you, I did it in my head but then we linked up and I bounced her a copy.]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 11:08 pm (UTC)

[Yes, let's have the plans.]

mind_game
2013-05-09 11:10 pm (UTC)

Jane sends them all her file, converted from Aegis's brain to a reasonable file format. It's for a many-decked wheel of a space station, obviously designed for magical rather than mechanically generated gravity. The center is attached to a space elevator that will be able to send hundreds of people to Earth in a single trip.

poeticterms
2013-05-09 11:17 pm (UTC)

[Interesting,] says a Jarvis. [Do you have somewhere to put it?]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:20 pm (UTC)

[Gonna park it in Brazil, not too far off from the Hegemony headquarters, put a shuttleport under it. I'll have to get rid of some space debris but it's all dead satellites that haven't been in use for at least fifty years in the exact location I have in mind.]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 11:21 pm (UTC)

[Excellent. We'll have suggestions about the details, of course, if we're going to be inhabiting the place. But the architecture is just fine.]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:22 pm (UTC)

[Glad you like it! I'll talk to jeesh people and Merryweather and whatnot and get back to you.]

poeticterms
2013-05-09 11:23 pm (UTC)

[Until then.]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:27 pm (UTC)

Aegis drops out of that call, and she decides to try Merryweather first. [Hey you!]

pythbox
2013-05-09 11:28 pm (UTC)

[Hello,] says Merryweather.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:28 pm (UTC)

[You pretty much don't have a job anymore, right? Since Battle School's over with?]

pythbox
2013-05-09 11:30 pm (UTC)

[Alas,] he says, [yes.]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:31 pm (UTC)

[D'you wanna live in a space station run by an AI who is not Jane and help process dead people?]

pythbox
2013-05-09 11:31 pm (UTC)

[...How exactly do you 'process' a dead person?]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:33 pm (UTC)

[Well, when I retrieved all the casualties from the Third Invasion I pretty much just went and got them in person, but there weren't all that many, so I'm gonna come up with a more generalizable process for other folks who want to be alive again. I don't have all the details hammered out yet.]

pythbox
2013-05-09 11:41 pm (UTC)

[And what use would I be to this enterprise?]

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:42 pm (UTC)

[I dunno, I'm sure there would be stuff for you to do, mostly I'm asking because Jarvis only wants to be Acheron Station if somebody friendly lives in it and I'm always teleporting hither and yon and so's Sue. Jane could run the station instead, but then there's no transworld ansibles backup - did I tell you about that?]

pythbox
2013-05-09 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Somehow you managed not to,] he says dryly.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:47 pm (UTC)

[Oh, yeah, yesterday when me and Sue were on our way to that one meeting, somebody Little Doctored our ship - I have since banished from existence all Little Doctors and left convincing fakes and I'm gonna do that once a week from now on in case anyone tries to build more - and me and Sue torched and Jane thinks with her entire network but she kinda lives in me. It knocked her offline, and she's what syncs up time between all the worlds we have access to, and she came back here after three seconds but in some places it was years. And that was bad, Rose's eldest daughter is sixteen now and we barely got to meet her, nobody could visit or collaborate, there were two cases of stranding, and also nobody could revive dead people while they were cut off. There's four worlds with Jarvises and those stayed synced, so we want to put in some more Jarvises. I conjured the ship back into existence and we're still flying to the meeting, after it I'll go find whoever attacked us.]

pythbox
2013-05-09 11:53 pm (UTC)

[...Well, that's... simultaneously reassuring and terrifying,] says Merryweather.

autokinetic
2013-05-09 11:53 pm (UTC)

[Which part?]

pythbox
2013-05-10 12:00 am (UTC)

[The part where someone MDed you, you survived, and then you erased the Device from existence,] he says. [That part.]

autokinetic
2013-05-10 12:01 am (UTC)

Aegis giggles.

pythbox
2013-05-10 12:02 am (UTC)

[In any case, yes, I am interested in your offer of semi-meaningful employment.]

autokinetic
2013-05-10 12:03 am (UTC)

[Cool. If you go where Jane can see you and ask her she can send you to Sunshine to meet a Jarvis. There's a bunch of them, but they're way more similar than garden-variety alts and they have ansibles to each other, so they're not exactly a distributed single entity but they're not exactly all separate people either.]

pythbox
2013-05-10 12:04 am (UTC)

[I will do that,] says Merryweather.

He does that.

mind_game
2013-05-10 12:05 am (UTC)

Jane notifies the Jarvises. Since Original Sunshine wanted to be the one to do the meeting, and her Janepoint is in the basement of Less Original Sunshine, she solicits a peep through one of the former's cameras so she can land Merryweather there.

poeticterms
2013-05-10 12:07 am (UTC)

He provides one.

mind_game
2013-05-10 12:07 am (UTC)

Yoink!

wild card aura, cast colors!

incanted

Bella draws up some more Planet Rainbowsand Place For Underspecified Purposes enchantment guidelines, and when she has about enough for two auras' worth and then some, she tells Brilliance, +If you want to invite the demon and the dragon over for enchanting at some point there is now stuff to do.+

cardistry
2013-05-13 11:15 pm (UTC)

+Ooh,+ says Brilliance. +Thanks! I think I will!+

incanted
2013-05-13 11:15 pm (UTC)

+It's non-urgent, so if Sarion or somebody has something more interesting lined up don't feel obliged.+

cardistry
2013-05-13 11:16 pm (UTC)

He giggles. +We'll see.+

incanted
2013-05-13 11:18 pm (UTC)

She giggles. +And other visitors can come over too. When you guys want breaks. I'll sleep with you, but not the demon.+

cardistry
2013-05-13 11:19 pm (UTC)

+We'll have a little Joker party,+ he says, laughing. +You can spy on us if you want.+

incanted
2013-05-13 11:20 pm (UTC)

+If I decide I wanna do that do I have to tell you guys I'm doing it? That sounds embarrassing to have to announce, I don't know if I'd want to even absent that but still.+

cardistry
2013-05-13 11:21 pm (UTC)

+No! Wasn't that the whole point of that announcement we made that time? Jokers fucking is free porn.+

incanted
2013-05-13 11:21 pm (UTC)

+So noted.+

cardistry
2013-05-13 11:25 pm (UTC)

+I mean, if you want to watch it and then talk to me about what parts you liked, awesome, but you don't have to keep us informed or anything.+

incanted
2013-05-13 11:25 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles.

cardistry
2013-05-13 11:40 pm (UTC)

+Anyway, I'll ask.+

[Hey Jane, can you ask demon-dragon if he's found something to enchant for his aura yet, and if he hasn't, does he wanna come visit?]

mind_game
2013-05-13 11:42 pm (UTC)

Jane relays this to the demon-dragon, in Brilliance's voice.

endragoned
2013-05-13 11:42 pm (UTC)

[We have not, and we would love to.]

mind_game
2013-05-13 11:44 pm (UTC)

[Go stand in front of Sarion's ring and say when. Are you both going?]

endragoned
2013-05-13 11:47 pm (UTC)

Sarion's beloveds share with her the fact that they are going to go and do this, and ask her to come and have her ring in front of them.

[Yes.]

small_magics
2013-05-13 11:48 pm (UTC)

Sarion comes and kisses them goodbye.

mind_game
2013-05-13 11:48 pm (UTC)

Yoink!

endragoned
2013-05-13 11:50 pm (UTC)

To Planet Rainbowsand they go.

cardistry
2013-05-13 11:50 pm (UTC)

[Awesome, thanks!] says Brilliance to Jane. [Tell the rest of the Jokers we're having a party, wouldja?]

mind_game
2013-05-13 11:51 pm (UTC)

[Will do.]

She does.

pythbox
2013-05-13 11:56 pm (UTC)

The rest of the Jokers seem to think this is a great idea. They start trickling in over the course of the next few minutes, most of them notifying loved ones on the way, some of them in case those loved ones want to drop by.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 12:01 am (UTC)

Cam may drop by as offered, later on.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:02 am (UTC)

In the meantime, now that they have plenty of channels, Brilliance and the demon-and-dragon can get to it!

So they do.

It takes time, and plenty of breaks.

incanted
2013-05-14 12:03 am (UTC)

Aurora is available if Brilliance happens to want to take any of his breaks apart from the deck. Otherwise she'll amuse herself with wish designs.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:06 am (UTC)

He does do that, once or twice! Requests for Pants may be involved.

incanted
2013-05-14 12:08 am (UTC)

Aurora can supply same! Although she is not clear on how this constitutes a "break".

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:09 am (UTC)

It is a break because he's having sex and not casting spells! Silly Aurora.

incanted
2013-05-14 12:09 am (UTC)

Silly Aurora indeed.

Pants are removed. Metaphorical Pants are applied.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:14 am (UTC)

Brilliance loves her very much, and shows her so.

The spell also shows her what channeling aftereffects look like in his nervous system. They have a pretty distinctive pattern. He's not experiencing very much of them; there are enough Jokers to go around that no one channel is carrying much of the weight.

incanted
2013-05-14 12:14 am (UTC)

"Huh, I can see the channeling residue," she murmurs, and she pokes a bit of it, seeing if she can tamp it down.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:17 am (UTC)

It recedes obligingly.

"Ooh," says Brilliance. He laughs. "That's new and different."

incanted
2013-05-14 12:18 am (UTC)

"Yeah," laughs Aurora. "Painkiller applications. D'you want it gone? Turned up? Augmented with unrelated odds-and-ends?"

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:23 am (UTC)

"I dunno!" he says. "Try some of those and let's see!"

incanted
2013-05-14 12:27 am (UTC)

She laughs, and does a different thing to each of his limbs. One arm gone completely painless, one with enchanneling pain slid up to double this modest intensity, and each leg subject to different odds-and-ends on top of the painkilling residue in the mid-pentagon range - one constricted, one lacerated.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:30 am (UTC)

He giggles and hugs her. "That's cute. I love you."

incanted
2013-05-14 12:31 am (UTC)

She presses a kiss to his forehead.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:43 am (UTC)

Brilliance snuggles up.

"I like it with more, and I like it with extra," he says. "Play with those."

incanted
2013-05-14 12:44 am (UTC)

Bella obeys, snuggling back. She still operates his nerves like he's a piano, but she's a fast learner and has gone beyond gentle flailing. It amuses her to concentrate on some place, drifting between flavors, and then startle him with an intense, pinprick-small touch in an unrelated location.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:46 am (UTC)

He tends to squeak, giggle, and hug her when she does that.

incanted
2013-05-14 12:46 am (UTC)

All good signs.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:47 am (UTC)

Also there is snuggling. Lots and lots of snuggling.

incanted
2013-05-14 12:47 am (UTC)

Copious snuggling. As much as he likes.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:49 am (UTC)

Snuggly snuggling!

It's possible he gets a little distracted from the whole enchanting thing. But then, he's got plenty of time.

incanted
2013-05-14 12:50 am (UTC)

All the time in the world. Well, unless his guests get bored and leave.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:54 am (UTC)

His guests are really unlikely to do that!

Well, anyway. Snuggles, and Pants, and probably some sex, and more snuggles, and then he kisses her and hugs her and goes back to his party.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 12:55 am (UTC)

Cam has shown up. He is making out with Brilliance's favorite Joker at the moment.

cardistry
2013-05-14 12:56 am (UTC)

Brilliance beams at them, hugs Queenie - because you always hug Queenie - and borrows Ghosty to do some enchanting.

pythbox
2013-05-14 12:58 am (UTC)

Brilliance's favourite Joker carries on making out with his favourite Bell.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 12:59 am (UTC)

Good. That is the idea. Cam might try the two of the deck he hasn't gotten around to at some point, but for the time being he's just visiting his boyfriend who's been gone for awhile.

pythbox
2013-05-14 01:01 am (UTC)

Fine by Jellybean!

(Cam totally should try them, though. They are kind of delicious. Says the guy who tastes like literal candy.)

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:02 am (UTC)

(That's the plan. First, though, a thorough indulgence of sweet tooth.)

pythbox
2013-05-14 01:04 am (UTC)

Jellybean is very sweet! And he does not cause cavities. No matter how much of him you eat.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:05 am (UTC)

Cam will have to rely on his own self-restraint to stop! Eventually. Sometime. He's managed to interrupt himself from kissing Jellybean before, and he can do it again.

pythbox
2013-05-14 01:06 am (UTC)

Even though Jellybean is the tastiest! Cam sure does have some self-control.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:07 am (UTC)

Yup. Next time an un-Cam-tried Joker wanders by and wants to take a break Cam will be right there, ceasing to nom his Jellybean.

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:10 am (UTC)

There's one!

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:10 am (UTC)

Cam waves!

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:11 am (UTC)

Aianon waves back.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:12 am (UTC)

And Cam tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. "You're the only person in this room I haven't had sex with, it's dreadfully asymmetrical," he says.

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:15 am (UTC)

"I would be delighted to help you soothe away this trouble," says the demon.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:16 am (UTC)

"How helpful of you! I'm so glad."

The trouble is, in due time, soothed.

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:19 am (UTC)

Aianon makes use of his ability to understand the functioning of bodies, much to their mutual satisfaction.

At the end of their time together, he conjures a red fruit the exact size and shape of the human heart - a specific human heart - and hands it to Cam. It smells delicious.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:19 am (UTC)

Cam -

looks at it.

"What."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:20 am (UTC)

"It's for you," he says. "I like to make good things for people to eat."

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:21 am (UTC)

"I feel rather inappropriately like the wicked queen from Snow White."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:21 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Do you not like the shape? I can change it."

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:22 am (UTC)

"Why is it shaped that way?" Cam asks.

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:23 am (UTC)

He shrugs, fanning his wings. "A whim."

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:23 am (UTC)

Cam shrugs and bites into it.

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:24 am (UTC)

It is possibly even more delicious than Jellybean.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:24 am (UTC)

"Nnnnnng," says Cam, and he asks the fruit for its seeds please thank you.

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:25 am (UTC)

The fruit is happy to give them up! Aianon smiles.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:26 am (UTC)

Cam pockets the seeds. "This," he says, "is fantastic, thank you."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:26 am (UTC)

"You are welcome," says Aianon, and hugs him. Arms, wings, and tail.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:27 am (UTC)

Hugs! Hurray.

"Although I'll probably have trouble marketing the fruit if it goes on being shaped like that. Maybe I can get it to grow in stylized heart shapes. That won't gross people out. For some reason."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:29 am (UTC)

"It is made for you," says Aianon. "I will make another one for other humans, if you want. One with a more pleasing shape."

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:29 am (UTC)

"It won't taste nice for other people?"

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:33 am (UTC)

"It will taste nice for other people who are like you in how they taste things."

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:33 am (UTC)

Cam laughs. "I have a business, at home," he says. "I'm branching out since I minted, but the primary business is still seeds for useful plants."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:35 am (UTC)

"I like to make useful plants!" says Aianon.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:36 am (UTC)

"Cool. If you feel like it sometime you should check out Syntropy, make some plants. These," Cam says, patting his pocket, "since they're for me and all, I think I'll just grow 'em in my yard and not for commercial use."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:37 am (UTC)

"They will be happy to grow for you. I don't know what it is like where you might plant them, so I made them adaptable."

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:39 am (UTC)

"Thoughtful of you," says Cam. "I'm thinking they'll be conspicuous around the Seedling office and I have no idea what Renée will think of them in her yard - besides, the tree that's already there is a jerk - so it's probably about time I made my own space palace." He pauses. "I wonder if seeds made outside of Syntropy by non-Syntropy magic will grow up to be clever, in Syntropy. I guess I'll find out."
Edited 2013-05-14 01:40 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:41 am (UTC)

"They will make beautiful trees," he says.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:42 am (UTC)

"I hope they'll make happy trees."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:45 am (UTC)

"If they are not happy, send for me and I will help them."

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:45 am (UTC)

"Unless they're smart and tell me not to, yeah."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:47 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:47 am (UTC)

"Well," says Cam, licking his fingers, "thank you, it was delicious."

endragoned
2013-05-14 01:49 am (UTC)

He beams.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:50 am (UTC)

Now there is only Brilliance to wait for to correct wretched asymmetry.

cardistry
2013-05-14 01:54 am (UTC)

Brilliance comes along eventually!

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:54 am (UTC)

Cam repeats the same lines. They worked so well last time.

cardistry
2013-05-14 01:56 am (UTC)

"Should we fix that? Let's fix that!"

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:56 am (UTC)

"Do let's. C'mere."

cardistry
2013-05-14 01:57 am (UTC)

He goes there.

They fix that.

Then, snuggles.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 01:57 am (UTC)

Snuggles, sure.

"And the natural order is restored," snickers Cam. "Till we find more of you."

cardistry
2013-05-14 01:59 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 02:02 am (UTC)

"You've got a bit of aura coming in," Cam observes idly.

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:02 am (UTC)

"Ooh," he says. "Is it doing anything fun yet?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 02:03 am (UTC)

"Nope, just - being an aura."

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:04 am (UTC)

"I better get on that, then," he says, and he kisses Cam cheerfully and wanders off to snag a channel.

lifes_sake
2013-05-14 02:05 am (UTC)

Cam kisses his Jellybean goodbye. Very thoroughly. And he goes home to make himself a space palace. His is going to be on Mercury, not quite within shouting distance of Sol but still nearby.

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:08 am (UTC)

The Jokers continue to have their party.

Eventually, Brilliance says to Aurora, +My aura's going strong now! You should come see!+

incanted
2013-05-14 02:09 am (UTC)

+Will I be alarmed by your surroundings if I teleport to where you're at right now?+

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:09 am (UTC)

+Um... one sec,+ he says.

There is a brief pause.

+Okay, I'm not with everybody else now.+

incanted
2013-05-14 02:10 am (UTC)

Port!

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:14 am (UTC)

Brilliance is brilliant.

Light collects on his skin and hair and clothes, glinting off him in a million colours. He glows and sparkles and shines in shifting, radiant patterns. When he spins around, the glow leaves behind fading trails in the air; when he hugs Aurora, it envelops her too.

incanted
2013-05-14 02:17 am (UTC)

"It's beautiful," she breathes.

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:17 am (UTC)

"I know," he says, and kisses her.

incanted
2013-05-14 02:19 am (UTC)

"You're beautiful. Wow."

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:19 am (UTC)

He beams. Fairly literally.

incanted
2013-05-14 02:21 am (UTC)

Hugs. Fascinated open-eyed hugs. She lets her aura free to see if they'll combine at all, the way Angela's and Micaiah's can.

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:26 am (UTC)

Alas, they don't. But Brilliance's is spectacular enough even without help.

incanted
2013-05-14 02:27 am (UTC)

It's true! Aurora tucks hers away again; she finds the threat-gauge feature distracting when she's not using it.

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:28 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle!

incanted
2013-05-14 02:29 am (UTC)

"...Hey, you know how you are my Barrier Jacket? Do you suppose you can aura out of it?"

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:29 am (UTC)

"Ooh," he says. "Let's find out!"

incanted
2013-05-14 02:31 am (UTC)

"Go for it."

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:33 am (UTC)

Brilliance steps back; his aura unwraps from around her.

He puts her Barrier Jacket on her, and his aura springs back into place, dancing over her clothes and hair and skin just as eagerly as it does over his.

For the hell of it, he shifts to staff form and flies into her hand.

They look glorious together.

incanted
2013-05-14 02:34 am (UTC)

Bella conjures up a mirror to have a look. "Awesome," she says, beaming fiercely.

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:35 am (UTC)

His aura glows brightly around her.

+I love you so much,+ he says happily.

incanted
2013-05-14 02:36 am (UTC)

She kisses the end of Brilliance-the-staff.

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:37 am (UTC)

He giggles.

incanted
2013-05-14 02:38 am (UTC)

"What'd the demon-and-dragon get?"

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:39 am (UTC)

"Aura of comfy," he says, transforming back to human shape and hugging her. "People nearby them are more comfortable."

incanted
2013-05-14 02:40 am (UTC)

"Probably handy for a guy who looks about to invite you to sell him your soul."

cardistry
2013-05-14 02:40 am (UTC)

Brilliance snickers.

mes enfants

beheld_beauty

Belle has ordered the castle to array itself in preparation for guests; the family's Samarian counterparts will be spending a day here. The smaller girls are left with friends at home.

Dominique probably doesn't need to be reminded to be on her best behavior for extradimensional visitors. Céleste might. She agrees indignantly and promises to let Keziah play with Rainier and everything.

"That's all I ask," laughs Belle. "Jane, we are ready for them at any time."

And on the far end, Jane waits for a cue - and then picks Samarians up and puts them down.

mindfields
2013-05-14 07:31 pm (UTC)

Dominique is on her best behaviour for extradimensional visitors anyway, of course.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:34 pm (UTC)

Keziah is fascinated with the griffin. He is largely puzzled by her, but allows petting and mane-braiding by two sets of hands instead of one with reasonable equanimity.

carillons
2013-05-14 07:36 pm (UTC)

Damaris runs up to her alt and demands to be shown around the castle immediately.

mindfields
2013-05-14 07:36 pm (UTC)

So of course Dominique shows her around the castle.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:37 pm (UTC)

Céleste follows. Keziah does too, having been shown that Rainier has a leash and may be led around therewith so she doesn't have to decide.

"This is all enchanted!" Céleste says. "Maman is the greatest enchantress of ever!"

mindfields
2013-05-14 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Soon I will start enchanting and then I will be the greatest enchantress of ever," says Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't enchanting hurt?" asks Keziah. "I asked Mommy if I could learn to do it since she won't let me carry squares around with me and she said no because it hurts."

"It does but Mommy wished her student Luc to be able to do it without minding," says Céleste.

mindfields
2013-05-14 07:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to wish myself to do it without minding," says Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:48 pm (UTC)

"What're you going to enchant?" Céleste asks, running ahead of everyone else and walking backwards.

mindfields
2013-05-14 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I don't know. I'll think of something."

campanas
2013-05-14 07:50 pm (UTC)

Céleste giggles. "Let's go in the woods after we show them the whole castle!"

mindfields
2013-05-14 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I think that is a fine idea," says Dominique.

carillons
2013-05-14 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Why, what's in the woods?" asks Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Trees!" says Céleste.

"That's what woods means," scoffs Keziah.

"And other plants! And animals! And they're enchanted."

carillons
2013-05-14 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything around here that's not enchanted?" wonders Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:59 pm (UTC)

Céleste thinks. "...No? Should there be?"

carillons
2013-05-14 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Just checking."

campanas
2013-05-14 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I think everything should be enchanted!" cries Keziah. "Everything everwhere. Our Mommy should enchant the whole Eyrie to - do - things."

carillons
2013-05-14 08:03 pm (UTC)

"But Keziah, that would be magic," says Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:03 pm (UTC)

"I know! Then the Eyrie would be magic! And everyone would see it, and then we could do all the magic we wanted."

carillons
2013-05-14 08:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't think she'll do that," says Damaris, shaking her head.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:10 pm (UTC)

"But it would be fun," sighs Keziah.

"You can just visit here a lot," says Céleste generously.

mindfields
2013-05-14 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Here where everything is enchanted," laughs Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," agrees Céleste, nodding.

"Maybe we will," says Keziah. "And soon we can bring Ariel too! And then Peninnah. When they're bigger."

mindfields
2013-05-14 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Why, how big are they now?"

campanas
2013-05-14 08:15 pm (UTC)

"So high," says Keziah, holding her hand at Ariel's height, "and so low." Peninnah's. "But Ariel can fly now, some!"

mindfields
2013-05-14 08:16 pm (UTC)

"And how big do they need to be before they can visit?"

campanas
2013-05-14 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Almost as big as me," says Keziah. "I barely knew magic was a thing when Jane came alive!"

"Wow," muses Céleste.

mindfields
2013-05-14 08:21 pm (UTC)

"And how long will it be until Ariel is that big?"

campanas
2013-05-14 08:22 pm (UTC)

"A couple of years," says Keziah. "Maybe if she's very precocious sooner."

mindfields
2013-05-14 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Then I guess we'll just have to wait until then."

campanas
2013-05-14 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Waiting is hard," says Céleste.

"Yeah!" agrees Keziah.

carillons
2013-05-14 08:25 pm (UTC)

"It's not that bad,"

mindfields
2013-05-14 08:26 pm (UTC)

their respective sisters say in unison.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:27 pm (UTC)

The Griffins giggle madly.

mindfields
2013-05-14 08:27 pm (UTC)

Dominique and Damaris do much the same.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:30 pm (UTC)

"You're each other," accuses Keziah, beaming with amusement.

"They are! And we are! And our mothers are and our fathers are," crows Céleste. "We're like pictures stamped in different colors from a block."

mindfields
2013-05-14 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Very like," Dominique agrees.

campanas
2013-05-14 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Gardens now," says Céleste, when they've been through every corridor of the castle.

mindfields
2013-05-14 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Of course."

Gardens!

campanas
2013-05-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

Rainier wants to fly, as soon as they are outside; presently one literal and two metaphorical griffins are in the air.

mindfields
2013-05-14 09:10 pm (UTC)

Dominique looks at Damaris.

carillons
2013-05-14 09:11 pm (UTC)

Damaris shrugs, grins, and takes off.

campanas
2013-05-14 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Come on, Dominiiiiique," calls Céleste.

mindfields
2013-05-14 09:20 pm (UTC)

"No, thank you," laughs Dominique.

campanas
2013-05-14 09:23 pm (UTC)

"But Damaris is!" says Keziah.

carillons
2013-05-14 09:24 pm (UTC)

"I am!" agrees Damaris.

campanas
2013-05-14 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Flying is funnnnn, Dominiiiiiique," hollers Céleste.

mindfields
2013-05-14 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I can see that you are having fun, Céleste!"

campanas
2013-05-14 10:13 pm (UTC)

"You should have fun toooooo!"

mindfields
2013-05-14 10:15 pm (UTC)

"But I am, cherie, I am!"

campanas
2013-05-14 10:19 pm (UTC)

"You are having invisible fun!" Keziah declares.

"It must be magic!" giggles Céleste. "She's a great enchantress!" And they laugh in easy unison.

mindfields
2013-05-14 10:20 pm (UTC)

Dominique cracks up.

extradimensional space

thaumobabble

Here is a house.

It is pretty and trim and green-and-cream and really ought not to be able to hold itself up like that, and yet here it is, somehow defying the laws of architecture. It is surrounded by a neatly bordered garden of ornamental and useful plants of all sorts: here vegetables, there herbs, there spell components, there rows of flowers.

There is a sign out front. It says only: Magic. Not, Beware, Magic or Magic Emporium or anything like that. Just: Magic.

Sitting on top of this sign is a cream cat with smoke-dark points of color on each paw, his ears, and his face and tail.

All in all, you could be forgiven for thinking that a witch lives here.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 01:08 am (UTC)

"Sherry, look," says the voice of a gleeful teenager from amidst the trees, "we found a witch's house, Sherry!"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 01:14 am (UTC)

"That we did," agrees a second voice. "Let us go in and ask about her sign."

The owners of the voices appear a moment later. The one in front is wearing a close-fitting and well-articulated set of plate armour, with a plain-hilted sword belted around her waist; the one behind is wearing a very durable-looking red dress with short sleeves and a skirt to mid-calf, which displays her extremely practical and extremely attractive red leather boots to great effect, and carrying a massive pack on her back.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 01:15 am (UTC)

The cat inspects them, then tilts his head expectantly. "Mrow?" he asks.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 01:18 am (UTC)

The armoured twin addresses him.

"If you are not otherwise occupied, would you please be so kind as to announce us? I am Sherlock and this is Tony."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 01:24 am (UTC)

The cat considers this request, deems it sufficiently polite, and makes a graceful leap off the sign and saunters in through the cat-flap.

Presently, the entirety of the door opens, revealing a woman about the same age as the twins with brown hair a bit past her shoulders, curious brown eyes, and a slightly bewildering outfit. She has witch robes on, in traditional black - but they are worn open to reveal an outfit of blue leggings and a white tunic, and a wide variety of accessories, including seasonally inappropriate lace-up moccasins, a belt covered with pouches, and a necklace that features as its centerpiece a glass marble. "Hello there!" says this person. "Cricket says you're Sherlock and Tony; ought I be addressing you as Your Highnesses?"
Edited 2013-03-15 01:24 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 01:25 am (UTC)

"Nah," says Tony. "Not unless you wanna. What's with the sign?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 01:27 am (UTC)

"Well," says the possible witch, "I could have been more specific, but then I would have been less accurate. Do you need some magic done or undone or looked at or theorized about or squealed over or combined with some other magic?"
Edited 2013-03-15 01:36 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 01:36 am (UTC)

"Not especially," says Tony. "But if you want any of your magic squealed over, I'm game!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 01:38 am (UTC)

"Well, then, why don't you both come in and have some biscuits and limeade, and you can tell me what a pair of princesses are doing all the way out here?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 01:40 am (UTC)

"I think that is a great idea!" says Tony.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 01:40 am (UTC)

Sherlock nods.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 01:44 am (UTC)

"Biscuits will be out of the oven in a minute," says the maybe-a-witch, ushering them inside. "Limeade is available immediately." Maybewitch opens a cupboard, flicks a pitcher full of green liquid three times, and supervises as further pouring and serving carries itself out automatically.

Sip.

"You've come a long way. What are you looking for, and have you already tried asking a squirrel for directions?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 01:47 am (UTC)

"Mom wants us to find a husband and/or husbands," says Tony. "Ooh, limeade."

Mmslurp.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 01:50 am (UTC)

"The last squirrel we tried pointed us this way, but was either unable or disinclined to direct us further."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 01:53 am (UTC)

"Husbands, husbands," says Maybe-a-witch, tapping her chin. "I don't think I have a window that will do husbands. Not my area. I have one that will do lost tailors and tinkers and merchants' sons and the like? Generally I just find them and see if I can help them find what they're looking for and get home without incident, but I bet several of them would be the sort to be pleasantly surprised by eligible princesses, if you're so inclined."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 01:54 am (UTC)

"You're a very helpful person," Sherlock observes.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 01:57 am (UTC)

"How do you know? Perhaps I am intimidated by princessitude and want you to think highly of me. Perhaps I'm a romantic of some sort and would be completely worthless to you if you were in search of the Spring of Crystal. Perhaps I am bored and you present a diversion," she says.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 02:03 am (UTC)

"You exhibit helpfulness," she says. "You are helpful. The alternate theories you propose do not explain my observations as well as mine."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 02:06 am (UTC)

"All right then," she laughs. Her oven opens itself, and she gets up to don oven mitts and remove a sheet of biscuits therefrom. "Here we are." She puts one on each of three plates, cuts them in half, and dollops butter on each half. "What are you looking for in a husband or husbands, anyway?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 02:09 am (UTC)

"Sense," says Sherlock.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 02:10 am (UTC)

"Looking good in a crown: also a plus," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 02:13 am (UTC)

"Admirable criteria. I'm not sure how much my lost-people window will help, unless you're planning to stay in this general area for some weeks. They are not that frequent, and when they appear, they are sometimes short on sense. Also, about half of them are female. No comment on whether they'd look good in crowns. I suspect it might depend on the crown."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 02:13 am (UTC)

"You'd look good in a crown," Tony observes.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 02:16 am (UTC)

"Do you think so?" asks maybe-a-witch, who has managed to go for a rather long time without realizing that she needs to introduce herself now. "For cosmetic purposes, quite possibly! And yet my parents do not qualify me."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 02:19 am (UTC)

"There's ways around that," she says cheerfully.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 02:23 am (UTC)

"You said husbands," says maybe-a-witch. "And I like the Enchanted Forest, I don't want to go marry the princess of Linderwall or wherever; I imagine they'd oblige me to live there."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 02:25 am (UTC)

"Did I say I wanted to marry you? I did not say I wanted to marry you! But yuo'd totally look good in a crown. And you've got sense."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 02:26 am (UTC)

"Tony is flirting," Sherlock translates. "And Tony's flirting is not principally matrimonial in nature."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 05:57 am (UTC)

"I didn't say she wanted to marry me," Maybe-a-witch points out to Sherlock, "I'm just ruling out all the candidates for Ways Around Being Unqualified To Wear A Crown and two of them are in my house, ruling themselves out. Since I've already decided against violent conquest, you see."

And she turns to Tony. "Yes," she says gravely. "I do indeed have sense."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 04:16 pm (UTC)

"...Not to speak to the likelihood of such an event," says Sherlock, "but technically the need to find a suitable future monarch-consort and the need to find someone to create suitable future monarchs with are separate items that could be dealt with separately. And there are two of us."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Duly noted!"

And she bites into her biscuit.

"But," she says, "why is there a need to find the first thing, if we consider the second potentially unrelated? Do you two not particularly like monarching?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Monarching is boring," says Tony. "I take after Dad; I'd rather drink, flirt, and tinker with magic artifacts."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Oooh, magic artifacts," says she-who-has-not-yet-been-asked-for-her-name. "What kind of artifacts?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Please tell me you've heard of the Skyvault," says Tony. "Otherwise I might have to take away your 'Magic' sign."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Of course I've heard of the Skyvault," says she-of-the-"Magic"-sign dreamily. "If I thought arbitrary visitors were allowed I'd have hiked all the way to the castle just to look at it."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:35 pm (UTC)

Tony laughs. "You can come to the castle and look at it if you want!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Will I be allowed to touch it - get a really good look?" asks maybe-a-witch, bouncing in her chair. "Or does it repel people who aren't members of the family, or something?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:38 pm (UTC)

"You can't mess with it," she cautions. "I mean, no casting spells on it, no hitting it with sticks. But you can walk up and stare at it to your heart's content."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:40 pm (UTC)

"And can I wear my funky magic-seeing glasses while I look?" she says. She leans over and opens a drawer and gets them out; they're black metal and multicolored lenses that can drop down in front of the wearer's eyes in arbitrary combinations. "Some big enchantments are shy and don't like it when I do that."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:41 pm (UTC)

"The arch isn't really an enchantment," says Tony. "It's a... well, anyway. Funky magic-seeing glasses are fine. How do they work?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I'm very proud of these! They're something like window enchantments actually - the easiest way to do something new is to pivot from something that already works; you wouldn't believe the thousand ways you can modify the average dragon spell - this lens here actually borrows from a bit of wizard magic, although I was very careful to source its power ethically, I have dragon friends - and this lens does sorceress-sight, and this is my very best attempt at turning fire-witch item-reading into a visual format that someone who's not a fire-witch can use - and this one is a unicorn spell, originally designed for use on pools, but glass is so receptive, it'll take almost anything I can think of to throw at it, I love glass - and these two lenses are both elven, but this one is boosted with some squirrelish properties, wasn't that a trick, took me weeks to figure out, that's to make it easier to trace a complex bit of magic I'm looking at - this one and that one are both witchcraft, but this one is with-cat and that one is without-cat, I could go on about the differences that makes all day -"

Maybe she is not a witch.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 04:50 pm (UTC)

Of course she isn't.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:50 pm (UTC)

"That," says Tony, "is awesome."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:51 pm (UTC)

She grins.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:52 pm (UTC)

"So the Skyvault's not shy, then?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Nope!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Excellent! Let's see, it'll probably take four days to get there, longer if I bring Cricket, but it's possible I can get a ride from Kexan and then it's down to hours, but Kexan won't have the patience to watch me stare at it for hours so I'll still have to plan to hike back..." She puts her spectacles back in their drawer, closes the drawer, opens it to reveal not spectacles but a stack of notebooks and a heap of pens, and starts writing.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Kexan...?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 05:01 pm (UTC)

"A dragon friend. He can occasionally be convinced to fly me places if I ply him with sufficient pancakes."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 05:02 pm (UTC)

"What volume of pancakes does he consider sufficient?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 05:03 pm (UTC)

"It's a truly ridiculous number, and he also likes there to be a variety of kinds, but it takes less than four days to make that many," laughs why-has-no-one-asked-for-her-name-yet-it's-not-going-to-occur-to-her.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I volunteer to assist in creating pancakes," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, he needs them hot, and it may not be convenient for him to come over for the next day or two, so you could help me with some of the prep work if you'd like to, but the finished pancakes themselves just sort of get continuously tossed into his mouth over a three-hour period as they come off the griddle, and none of this is relevant to your quest so I wouldn't expect you to still be here."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 05:34 pm (UTC)

"...No," says Tony, "see, I will take you to see the Skyvault. Is what I meant."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh!" Pause. "I don't understand! You're busy and Kexan knows where the castle is!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 06:05 pm (UTC)

"You want to see the Skyvault. I think you're cute, so I want to show you the Skyvault. If you just show up there on a dragon, Mom might decide not to let you look at the Skyvault."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh. And that would be a terrible pity." Beat. "All right, should I call Kexan right now and mix up pancake batter and pack or - I don't know what your questing schedule looks like."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Our questing schedule is completely whim-based," Tony assures her.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 06:13 pm (UTC)

Not-witch flies into action. She opens a cupboard, sharply informs a mixing bowl that "pancakes!", goes through her back door to a bedroom and starts stuffing changes of clothes and toiletries down her sleeves while the mixing bowl collects other implements and ingredients, comes back into the kitchen, closes the door and opens it to an alcove with a magic mirror, and says, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I would like to make a call."

"What party are you calling, please?"

"Kexan."

"One moment, please." The mirror plays soft music and Not-witch goes to survey her pancake ingredients. She picks up a paring knife and an apple and tells the knife, "Peel, core, slice, neatly, then move on to the next, repeat four times," and then she starts scooping large amounts of flour into her giant mixing bowl. "Do you want to chop up the chocolate or something?" she asks Sherlock.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Certainly."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 06:37 pm (UTC)

She supplies Sherlock with a cutting board, a non-enchanted chef's knife, and a bar of dark chocolate. She then sets blueberries to a regimen of self-rinsing, adds sugar and baking powder and a handful of bran, and gets eggs out of the same cupboard that until recently appeared to hold a pitcher of limeade. "Hmmmhmmhmm," she hums. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what's the status of my call?"

"The other party has not yet come to his or her mirror. Please wait."

"Hmm."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Oh well," says Tony. "More pancakes for us, right?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Three humans can make a reasonable dent in a portion intended for a greedy dragon, although I'd be inclined to put everything away except the apple slices and just dip those in honey, if Kexan's not going to answer the mirror. Mirror, mirror, over there, have you a message you can share?"

"The other party has not left a message."

"Hmm." She snaps her fingers. "Oh, I remember! Kexan's visiting his uncle, all week. I wrote that down but I didn't think to check my notes. Drat." She flicks the paring knife; it finishes apple number two and then sets itself down.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 06:54 pm (UTC)

"So, no chocolate," says Sherlock. "All right."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Yes, sorry." Notwitch starts snapping her fingers imperiously at all the implements, and they put themselves away. The still-dry pancake mix finds itself a lid and tucks itself into a cupboard. "It looks like it's a hiking trip after all. Will Her Majesty also not let me look at the Skyvault if I arrive not-on-a-dragon?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 06:57 pm (UTC)

"The dragon is not significant. The presence or absence of another member of the royal family is. We are each capable of showing you the Skyvault on our own authority."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, it seems like it would put you much farther out of your way to hike there with me for four days. I have this awful phobia of brooms ever since a temperamental one kicked me off of it, and I'm still saving up to order a carpet to enchant..."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Do not consider it going out of our way," says Sherlock. "That would imply far too much planning and coordination on our part."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:04 pm (UTC)

"So when you said you were looking for - no, come to think of it, you didn't, you said Her Majesty wanted you to look for husbands. Ah-ha."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Let us say that if I were to look into the Pool of Heart's Desire, I do not think I would see a suitable husband looking back at me."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:17 pm (UTC)

"You know, I do actually know where that one is. The window I mentioned showed me someone who needed to find it, last year. What do you think you'd see?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea. But a husband would not be it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Not even an unsuitable one?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Not even that."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:26 pm (UTC)

Notwitch giggles. "I had a look in the pool once. It's pretty useless to me. I already know what things I want, and it doesn't dispense advice on getting them."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 07:28 pm (UTC)

"What did it show you?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Notwitch. "It doesn't give you a complete rundown of everything you want - just the most indispensable heartfelt desire. Which is another reason it's not that practically useful. But since you're curious - I got a picture of me sitting in my study, with Cricket on my lap and a book in my hands - and the calendar displaying a date some nine thousand years in the future."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Cat-inclusive immortality. Very nice."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'd miss him," says the not-a-witch. Cricket leaps to the table in front of her, purring. "Yes, I would, I'd miss you," she tells her cat. "I told you this when I got back from the pool then, don't you remember, silly creature."

"Mrrrow!"

"I love you too, Cricket."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Mew," says Cricket to Tony.

"Be polite," says notwitch to Cricket. "Yes, I know she can't understand you, that doesn't make it less rude."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 07:44 pm (UTC)

"What'd he say?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure you want the translation?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 07:45 pm (UTC)

"...Yes?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:46 pm (UTC)

"He says you only think it's cute that I'd miss him if he died because you don't have a sufficient conception of nonhuman personhood. It wasn't phrased quite that gently, though."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 07:48 pm (UTC)

"What," she says, "no, the cute part is you saying 'I love you too'!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Mew."

"He apologizes. Resentfully."

"Mrrow meow meow."

"He thinks you wouldn't think it was cute for me to tell him that I love him too if he were not a cat."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 07:52 pm (UTC)

"One, he's wrong. Again. Two, cute things are cuter when there is more fluffiness involved, I have graphs."

She grins.

"But apology accepted anyway."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:54 pm (UTC)

Cricket begins licking his paw, affecting unconcern.

"It's just as well no one has ever figured out how to persistently make their cats understood to other people," sighs not-a-witch.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 07:55 pm (UTC)

"She is completely serious about the graphs," Sherlock puts in. "We did research when we were six."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I am somewhat curious to see these graphs!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 08:00 pm (UTC)

"They are at the castle! You can see them. At the castle," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 08:09 pm (UTC)

"That sounds lovely," says she who has not yet been prompted for her name.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 08:10 pm (UTC)

Tony beams.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Well," she says, stuffing the not-yet-eaten biscuits and the contents of a cupboard apparently dedicated to leftovers into her capacious sleeves one by one, "I can be all packed for a four-day hike in just a few minutes. Cricket, d'you want to come?"

"Mow."

"All right, you stay vigilant about that gnome infestation, I'll be back in just over a week, you know how to get into the emergency kitty nibbles if you run out of mice and minnows." She scratches the back of Cricket's neck and he purrs at her, and she goes bustling around her house, disappearing things into her sleeves.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Tony, "your professional opinion as a magic person - how easy is it to get a witch's-sleeves thing going on something that is not a sleeve and doesn't belong to a witch?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Well," says the magic person, "there are degrees of not being a witch; how not-a-witch and what not-a-sleeve do you have in mind?" She packs a sack of oranges and then reopens that cabinet and takes some sampling jars. She also retrieves her spectacles, but these she puts in a pointed black hat she produces, rather than in either sleeve. "Hats are easy. Bags are doable. I could probably figure out how to do a wooden box, but it would be hard."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I keep trying it on bags," she says, "but it's not my natural medium and I get exactly nowhere."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 08:46 pm (UTC)

"What manner of not-witch are you? I know fire-witchery runs a little in the royal family, but you're not redheads, so you've probably only got a faint talent for it if any. Fire-witch, even a little bit of one, is easier to work with than completely nonmagical, though." She reaches into her hat, puts on her spectacles, flicks the lenses around, and peers at Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 08:48 pm (UTC)

"We've got some fire-witch going on," she says. "I mostly use it in the forge, Sherry mostly doesn't use it at all."

She does indeed have some fire-witch going on, and she is also a member of the royal family of the Enchanted Forest. Those are definitely both true.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. Why a bag and not a sleeve or a hat?" Magic person flicks her lenses around some more. "I could sleeve you a hat."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't wear sleeves," she says. "Or hats. Hats get lost, sleeves catch fire."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 08:53 pm (UTC)

Magic person puts her spectacles back in her own hat and her hat back on her head. "Do you have a bag on you that you'd like worked on? I can poke at it while we travel."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 08:54 pm (UTC)

Tony offers up her - very full - backpack.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 08:57 pm (UTC)

"...I have to work on it while it's empty. I can start now, and then you can pack everything up when we're ready to start hiking, or we can start first and I can start when we've quit for the night, what's your preference?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Hmm... start when we've quit for the night," she decides. "Less total packing and unpacking that way."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 09:02 pm (UTC)

Magic person nods. She flits about her house a bit more, putting things in her sleeves and a few of the more fragile items in her hat. "Do you want to go soon or not-so-soon?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Soon," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 09:07 pm (UTC)

Magic person tosses a few last minute things into her storage space. "Well, I'm set whenever you are," she says.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 09:08 pm (UTC)

Tony puts her bag back on.

"Good to go," she says.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 09:08 pm (UTC)

Sherlock starts for the door.
Edited 2013-03-15 21:08 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 09:13 pm (UTC)

The door obligingly leads to the outdoors.

When they are all outside, magic person snaps her fingers and says sternly to the doorknob, "Broom salesmen are not your friends, they cannot come in for just a minute, you will stay closed till I am back."

The doorknob wiggles a little in what might be an acknowledging fashion. Magic person pats it and sets out through the path that leads between her herbs and her vegetables.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 09:50 pm (UTC)

Sherlock takes the lead when they reach the forest.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Anything else I should peer at while I'm in the environs of the palace?" inquires magic person. "Other less famous fascinating magical artifacts, other adorable childhood graphical models of things?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 09:52 pm (UTC)

"If Mom really likes you, she might let you look at the sword."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 09:53 pm (UTC)

Magic person looks like she might be about to swoon. "Tell me how to get her to like me, please?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 09:55 pm (UTC)

"The ways of Mom are mysterious," says Tony. "Be nice to her offspring, employees and subjects, don't break anything that didn't need to be broken, and at least she probably won't dislike you."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm very nice," says magic person. "I wanna look at the sword." She sighs like she has been carrying on a long distance pen pal romance with the sword.

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure looking at it is all you wanna do," snorts Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, it probably won't let me touch it," she says. "Not comfortably, anyway. But I would really like to look at it."

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 10:00 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 10:01 pm (UTC)

"There are," says Sherlock, "ways around that."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 10:02 pm (UTC)

Magic person throws her head back and laughs. "Oh, this is the most amazing day," she says breathlessly.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 10:08 pm (UTC)

The twins laugh, too.

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I know very little about royal magic, really, since it won't respond to me - I can look at it but not use it in any sort of spell, and there are so few books on it. I can't wait, I'm excited." There is a bounce to her step.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I have what you might call a royal sense of direction," says Sherlock, "but less success using it to accomplish practical effects."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 10:17 pm (UTC)

"My limited and rumor-based theoretical understanding probably can't help you very much, but I could try?" says magic person.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Sherlock. "Perhaps later."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says magic person agreeably. "So have you had an eventful whimsy-based quest that might or might not yield husbands so far?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Not especially, no."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 10:24 pm (UTC)

"No? How long have you been at it?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 10:28 pm (UTC)

"A week."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 10:30 pm (UTC)

"And you haven't run into any mischievous elves or lost panthers or would-be bandits or lost dukes' children from Kasselthwaite? I'm surprised."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm not."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-15 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Because when Sherry doesn't wanna meet anybody in the Enchanted Forest, she doesn't."

thaumobabble
2013-03-15 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Really! Now how do you manage that?" inquires Bella, who will now be narrated with her name despite the fact that her traveling companions don't know it.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-15 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I go where they are not."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 12:25 am (UTC)

"That seems logical, but how do you know where they won't be?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 12:26 am (UTC)

"It is obvious."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 12:29 am (UTC)

"...Is this an obscure royal magic sense, or...?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 12:30 am (UTC)

"Near as anybody can tell, nope," says Tony. "She's just really good at noticing things. Not that the royal magic doesn't help."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 12:33 am (UTC)

"Huh. You'd have to be extraordinarily good at noticing things to avoid running into anyone in a week's walk through the forest. And that's if the forest didn't decide to throw anybody at you a bit more forcefully than usual. If you were feeling so antisocial how come you came up to my house?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 01:06 am (UTC)

"Your house," says Sherlock, "was interesting. And there was that squirrel."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 01:06 am (UTC)

"What exactly did you ask the squirrel for directions to?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 01:09 am (UTC)

"Someone interesting."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 01:11 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "I try to be that, yes."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 01:12 am (UTC)

"You succeed."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 01:13 am (UTC)

Bella is inestimably pleased by this compliment. "Cricket said you thought I was a witch."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 01:16 am (UTC)

"Not for very long."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 01:16 am (UTC)

"What gave me away?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 01:20 am (UTC)

"Everything."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 01:27 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Most people can go on thinking I'm a witch for a long time. Sorceress stuff isn't widely recognized, I have to adapt anything from fire-witches or elves or unicorns till it's unrecognizable, nobody expects a girl to use wizard magic in any form, and everybody uses a dragon spell or two. A witch could do most everything that's left over, and I do dress like one."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 01:55 am (UTC)

"And yet," she says, "you are not a witch."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 01:56 am (UTC)

"D'you know what I am?" Bella asks, grinning.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 01:57 am (UTC)

"You are yourself."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 01:58 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "Of course I am. But there's a technical term for a student of all kinds of magic. I'm a magician."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 01:58 am (UTC)

"There you are, then."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:02 am (UTC)

"What else can you tell about me, Princess Observant?" inquires Bella brightly.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 02:03 am (UTC)

"You're very cute."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:05 am (UTC)

Bella laughs again. "Thank you. You are both also cute."

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 02:09 am (UTC)

"We know!"
Edited 2013-03-16 02:10 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:10 am (UTC)

"Good! Self-knowledge. Important stuff."

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 02:14 am (UTC)

Tony laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:17 am (UTC)

"Are we going to be avoiding running into anybody on the hike to the castle, too?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 02:17 am (UTC)

"Do you prefer not to?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:19 am (UTC)

"I'm usually perfectly happy to encounter strangers, but on the other hand I don't know why you weren't."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 02:20 am (UTC)

"I find them tedious most of the time, but it's not a strong preference."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:28 am (UTC)

"Well, then," says Bella, "I suppose what I'd rather comes down to how well your status as interesting conversationalists holds up."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 02:29 am (UTC)

"Do let us know."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:32 am (UTC)

"What do the both of you do with your time apart from quest without much interest for one or more husbands?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 02:51 am (UTC)

"Tony made this armour," volunteers Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:55 am (UTC)

"It's nice armor."

Ah, an excuse to check Sherlock out. That's nice.

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 02:56 am (UTC)

"It's great," agrees Tony. "I'm proud."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 02:57 am (UTC)

"Do you tend to have much call to be armored, if you avoid everyone before you could get into a fight with them even if they were unfriendly?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 03:00 am (UTC)

"It is always possible I might detect someone or something I would prefer to intercept."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 03:54 am (UTC)

"Like what, a wizard? I'd expect wizards to mostly be terrified to come into the Enchanted Forest, let alone as deep as this. Have you been having elf trouble or something that I've not heard of?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 11:59 am (UTC)

"I don't have particular candidates in mind."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 03:00 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. Ever-vigilant warrior princess. So Tony forges armor, Sherlock wears it, that seems very tidy."

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Yup," says Tony. "I mean, I'd wear it too, but she's way scarier than I am."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 03:15 pm (UTC)

Bella looks assessingly at Sherlock. "Should I be scared of you?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Only if you represent a threat to Tony, the royal family as a whole, or this forest. Otherwise no."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 03:17 pm (UTC)

"I do not represent a threat to any of those persons or political entities," says Bella serenely. "I am just a magician who magics magic magically. And quite harmlessly."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 03:18 pm (UTC)

"Then you need not fear me."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Excellent, I hate it when I have to fear stuff, especially traveling companions."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 03:35 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 03:44 pm (UTC)

Did someone say "wizard"?

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 03:48 pm (UTC)

Someone did! Someone did say 'wizard'!

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 03:49 pm (UTC)

Gosh! This wizard over there about fifty yards off on a course that's likely to meet theirs perpendicularly actually has nothing to do with that, but what a coincidence!

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Soon we will encounter a wizard," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh dear," says Bella. She starts rummaging in her sleeves. "I do not actually have anything on me to counter a wizard if he decides to be unfriendly - I don't expect them in the forest - I might be able to talk my way past him if you'd rather not get into a fight, though."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Oh, but getting in fights with wizards is such fun."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Do you do it often?" inquires Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Only when the opportunity presents itself."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 04:11 pm (UTC)

"All right, then I won't attempt to distract him by conspicuously saying something incorrect about Zemenar's Third Principle and then paying rapt attention when he corrects me."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 04:46 pm (UTC)

She chuckles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 04:48 pm (UTC)

Bella allows herself to fall behind Sherlock a bit, and starts murmuring nervously to the marble strung around her neck as they approach the wizard

The wizard does not see them coming until they're nearly on top of him.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Sherlock. "Please get out of my forest."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 04:53 pm (UTC)

The wizard jumps a foot in the air, scrambles back for a bit of distance, and says, "Well! That's a mightily prejudiced attitude! And entitled, too!"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 04:55 pm (UTC)

"It is inarguably my forest," she says, "and I would like you to get out of it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 04:56 pm (UTC)

"You haven't even asked me what I'm doing here," sniffs the wizard.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 04:57 pm (UTC)

"I invite you to explain, but advise you to be brief about it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, you see, I'm simply here to -" And with that he makes a break for it, running full-tilt through the trees in the direction he was originally headed.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 05:05 pm (UTC)

Sherlock studies his course for a moment, and then sets off at a slight angle.

She catches up half a minute later, drawing her sword on the way.

"Would you like to try that again?" she inquires.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 05:07 pm (UTC)

He brandishes his staff at her. "You leave me alone! This is harassment! Discrimination!"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 05:10 pm (UTC)

"This," says Sherlock, "is trespassing. And shortly it will be violence."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 05:15 pm (UTC)

"You'll regret not leaving me to go on my way!" exclaims the wizard, and he shakes his staff again, but this time it pours chill into the air, frosting the surrounding trees and Sherlock alike.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 05:19 pm (UTC)

That is quite enough for Sherlock, who steps forward and swings her sword at his neck.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:06 pm (UTC)

Apparently he was expecting the frost to do more to stop a part-fire-witch than that, because he has nothing further up his sleeve - in his staff - whatever - he's dead now.

Meanwhile, Bella is wondering aloud to Tony: "Should we catch up with her and see if she needs help?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Probably," Tony agrees, and traces Sherlock's path.

Although Sherlock is not doing anything more out of the ordinary than cleaning her sword when they arrive, Tony takes one look at her and frowns worriedly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:11 pm (UTC)

"...So, are you okay?" Bella asks. "Also, can I have his staff? I can wrap it up so it doesn't try to grab any forest magic."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

"He used a frost spell. I am uncomfortable, but will survive. Do what you like with the staff," she says, sheathing her sword.

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Sherryyyyy," says Tony. "That's horrible!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

"...Do you need - I have some - if you want -" Bella sets about rummaging in her left sleeve. "Brightwort and goldflower and a little sorcery, if you want me to patch you up?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "Thank you."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:18 pm (UTC)

Brightwort and goldflower are both produced. "I don't suppose either of you can set these on fire for me? I also have matches, somewhere, I think but am not sure..." Rummage, rummage.

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Sure, just say when," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Soon, soon," murmurs Bella, and she gets out a glass plate, arranges the herbs on it, and says, "Sherlock, I'm going to need to hold your hand - or something, but hand's easiest."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:24 pm (UTC)

Sherlock divests herself of a gauntlet and offers Bella her hand.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:29 pm (UTC)

Bella clasps Sherlock's hand in both of hers and tries not to blush, mostly successfully. "Now, Tony?"

When the herbs are aflame, she says:

"Mulaglarby!"

And Sherlock should feel much better now.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:30 pm (UTC)

She lets out a soft sigh of relief. "Thank you."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:32 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Bella cheerfully, letting Sherlock's hand go with a pat and blowing herbal ashes from her glass plate before she tucks it into her sleeve again. "Lucky thing I have so many healing trigger-spells set up. Comes of wanting to be immortal." She goes up to the staff cautiously, puts her spectacles on, and starts peering at it through various lenses in search of traps to disarm or work around.
Edited 2013-03-16 18:33 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:33 pm (UTC)

Sherlock spends a moment smiling before she puts her gauntlet back on.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:38 pm (UTC)

"This will take me about two hours to make it safe to pick up and put away, or I could destroy it right now," Bella finally announces. "Do you two object to waiting that long?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:39 pm (UTC)

"What would you do with it once you had it away?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Hang onto it until I got home, and then study it!" says Bella cheerfully. "There's no good way for non-wizards to learn about wizard spells, but the best way is to take apart the staffs and see what's in them. The next best way is to marry a wizard and pretend to be deaf so he'll talk to his friends in front of you, and some fine books on wizard magic have been produced that way, but I do not care for the methodology."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:45 pm (UTC)

...She laughs.

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 06:45 pm (UTC)

"You go right ahead and pack it up, then," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:53 pm (UTC)

"All right then," says Bella cheerily, and she settles in to work.

She wears her spectacles the entire time, flicking occasionally between lenses, and performs an eclectic series of procedures, occasionally swearing at the staff under her breath. At one point she produces what looks like a piece of another wizard staff and waves it in a detailed pattern through the air. Something that makes her sneeze convulsively is involved a bit later on.

Finally, about two hours later, she whips out a few yards of red cloth, wraps the wizard staff in it, and stuffs it lengthwise into her right sleeve. "All right!"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Excellent. Shall we continue?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 06:55 pm (UTC)

"I do believe we shall."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 06:58 pm (UTC)

Sherlock continues to lead them, then.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 07:10 pm (UTC)

"So," says Bella, "has soapy lemon water stopped working, then? I keep expecting them to find a way around that; perhaps they finally have."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 07:12 pm (UTC)

"A bucket of soapy water with lemon is useful only against things in need of a good scrub," she says, "of which wizards are by far the most threatening. A sword protects against more dangers and is less awkward to carry."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 07:15 pm (UTC)

"You haven't got an argelfraster trigger set up, I take it?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 07:16 pm (UTC)

"The sword works just as well."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Better if you want them dead. Not as well if melted for later respawning will do," Bella points out.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 07:33 pm (UTC)

"I believe they've gotten too used to respawning."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Too used to it?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 07:44 pm (UTC)

"It functions as a temporary setback for them, rather than any kind of deterrent."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't think they like melting," says Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 07:53 pm (UTC)

"No. But as I said, they have gotten used to it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Mm." Bella makes no further audible protests as they move on.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 08:04 pm (UTC)

After some time, she asks, "Are you troubled about the wizards?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Troubled about them? Not really - not in either sense - not specifically. Troubled about - death. It's awfully permanent."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she agrees. "But difficult to thoroughly avoid."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well. I'm working on it."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Good luck."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Are you getting anywhere?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I'm ruling out a lot of things that won't work," says Bella, brightening some. "At quite an impressive clip, if I do say so myself."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 08:33 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs. "A fine start."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I have some time left to work on it, after all, even if I don't manage the trick anytime soon. I'm only nineteen."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Do let us know if you figure it out."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I'll pretty much tell the entire world," says Bella placidly.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 08:42 pm (UTC)

"How helpful of you."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Rather," agrees Bella merrily. "But at any rate, people I do not know who are less deserving than a wizard trespassing in the Enchanted Forest die on a regular basis, so I am not troubled specially about him."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I see. That is good to know."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:53 pm (UTC)

"I do wonder what he was doing there. We haven't been walking long enough to get out of range of my usual haunts even considering that I don't have a magic carpet yet, and I've never seen a wizard around this close to my house. Occasionally near where my mother lives, one time where my father lives, but never here."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Where do your mother and your father live?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Linderwall, both of them, but not the same town anymore."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Well, they got divorced, in large part because Charlie's very attached to his town and Ranata doesn't like it there. She moved."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-16 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I see."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:08 pm (UTC)

"It's a perfectly nice town, but small and sleepy and unremarkable," shrugs Bella. "I don't really want to live there either, not for any significant length of time."
Edited 2013-03-16 21:08 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 09:10 pm (UTC)

"What's it called?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Tines. And Ranata in Phoenix. Why?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Just curious."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I suppose it's only fair. I know where you grew up," laughs Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 09:20 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Did you enchant Sherlock's armor yourself," asks Bella, "or just forge it?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Forged and enchanted!" she says happily. "That's from Dad's side of the family. He was good with metal, too."
Edited 2013-03-16 21:42 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:44 pm (UTC)

"It looks like a dwarf enchantment. I've investigated the magic but it doesn't like me as much as some kinds do."

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I am pretty sure my dad wasn't a dwarf," says Tony. "I guess it's not impossible that he could've had some dwarf in him somewhere, though."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Dwarf spells are like elf ones - friendlier if you're in the family or some sort of tempermentally inclined but theoretically usable for anyone," says Bella. "I go ahead and wrestle with a dwarf spell whenever I want to work on something metal, but it's not often - I substitute when I can."

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I know what kind of magic it is, I guess. I never really thought about it before."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:51 pm (UTC)

"...You were doing magic without knowing what kind it was?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 09:54 pm (UTC)

"It was Dad's kind," she says reasonably.

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 09:55 pm (UTC)

"He never told you what sort of magic he was doing?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 09:56 pm (UTC)

"He invented most of it himself."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 10:02 pm (UTC)

"...Huh. Well, it looks dwarven to me, but I'm not enough of an expert on dwarf magic to say for sure that there's nothing else mixed in there."

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 10:15 pm (UTC)

"I'll believe you that there's some dwarven, anyway."

thaumobabble
2013-03-16 10:21 pm (UTC)

"You should. I am a magician and we know these things," says Bella grandly.

allthebrightest
2013-03-16 10:25 pm (UTC)

Tony laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 05:11 am (UTC)

"Just how fire-witchy are you two? My specs aren't that fine-grained. They just say 'not zero, not all the way', but if there's books on thinned-out fire-witch families I haven't got copies."

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 12:28 pm (UTC)

"I think maybe it was our... great-great grandma?" she hazards. "And it's been pretty strong in the family since then, we're the first generation with no red hair. But we still do the fire thing and the knowing stuff about stuff thing."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 03:42 pm (UTC)

"And it's hard to tell about the rest, because the royal family of the Enchanted Forest also has a strong natural affinity for magic."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 03:58 pm (UTC)

"The fire thing. There's parts to the fire thing - does your hair burn when you're mad? I saw you do an ignition -" She waves at Tony. "And the frost spell bothered you, although you were perfectly talkative and so on so I don't know how much -" She waves at Sherlock. "I'm not getting much of an impression of a temper off either of you - you were pretty calm about the wizard, sword or no sword - do you cry fire? Could you push magic into a wizard's staff and explode it? Thanks for not doing that if that's a thing you could've done," Bella adds, "I've never gotten hold of an intact recently-used staff whose owner wasn't liable to steal it back a few days later before."

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Sherry can be a real firestorm if you piss her off bad enough, it just takes a lot to get her going these days," says Tony. "Which is a good thing, 'cause we live in a forest. I dunno about exploding wizard's staffs, I've never tried."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:03 pm (UTC)

"If you're worried about burning down swaths of forest I could probably make you gear for that," says Bella. "Like my marble, only I think I'd make them out of something else if they were intended to contain fire-witch magic specifically."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:04 pm (UTC)

"I have not set anything on fire that I did not fully intend to set on fire since I was nine," says Sherlock. "I believe I am all right on that front."

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 04:05 pm (UTC)

"What's your marble do?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Stores magic. It's like a wizard staff - some of the same basic principles on the storage end - it'll take all kinds, it could store fire-witch magic without exploding but it wouldn't like it - but it's not a thief. It takes runoff from my spells, anything I generate by accident, occasional donations. Then if I ever need a lot of power without a lot of time to prepare, it's there."

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Tony.
Edited 2013-03-17 16:11 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:13 pm (UTC)

"I think so! I like glass in general, the specs and the marble are good examples of its uses," says Bella. "That and windows and kitchenware."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:14 pm (UTC)

"What sorts of kitchenware?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:16 pm (UTC)

"The limeade pitcher, you saw. Mixing bowls and so on. I have as much as I can in glass and then it's easier to add it to the general spell I have over the kitchen that makes it so cooperative."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Convenient. I want one."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:20 pm (UTC)

"If you want to park me in your kitchen for a day or two, I can do that," says Bella merrily. "The cooks aren't quick enough to suit you?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I love to cook."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Aha. Yes, you'll like the kitchen spell. It does take some getting used to, though - the spell does for you, and you do for the spell, it has to learn what you mean when you tell it this or that. I don't have to read off my pancake recipe anymore to get all the ingredients because I don't often change them, but if I did my kitchen would be petulant for hours."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:25 pm (UTC)

"How large is the spell's vocabulary? Could I teach it several varieties of pancakes and not run into trouble so long as I kept the names straight?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes, if the names are all distinct it will do fine, it has no trouble with the complexities of white bean soup versus black bean soup. Its memory is as large as I make it - mine's got a stack of paper tucked away in a cupboard-space to serve and hasn't run out of room yet."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:28 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "How delightful. Yes, unless Mother raises an unexpected objection, I certainly think you should enchant our kitchen."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:29 pm (UTC)

"All right!" Normally she would bring up compensation at this point, but a kitchen enchantment and a witchsleeved bag are nowhere near what Bella would happily pay just for access to the Skyvault and possibly the sword. Plus this bonus wizard staff.

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 04:35 pm (UTC)

"You are helpful!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:38 pm (UTC)

"So helpful," agrees Bella. "Are there already any enchantments laid on the kitchen? That'll affect how I go about it."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Not to my recollection, but the castle is quite old, so there's probably some residue."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Residue that's not in active use? I can just suck that up into the marble if nobody minds to get it out of the way."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

"As long as you're careful about it, I don't foresee a problem."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:48 pm (UTC)

"What would the particular hazards of not being careful look like in this case?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:49 pm (UTC)

"If you took some magic that was in active use in whatever capacity, someone would be likely to get annoyed."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 04:54 pm (UTC)

"That makes sense. The marble's pretty well set up to avoid that sort of thing. I didn't want to get evicted on account of practicing straight-up wizardry, after all."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Wise," she comments.

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 05:01 pm (UTC)

"It's really a pity that wizards insist on such unfriendly forms of practice. And such secrecy. There are benign applications of their principles, but they're hard to dig up, and the wizards won't help anyone look."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I agree."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I do wonder what that one was doing. He didn't say anything useful on the subject?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

"No."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 05:11 pm (UTC)

"There's nothing much in the part of the forest except the Tree of Pearls, which I can't imagine why it'd interest a wizard particularly."

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 05:14 pm (UTC)

"What's the Tree of Pearls, again?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 05:23 pm (UTC)

"It's a tree. It grows pearls," says Bella. "Instead of fruit. Or as fruit, depending on how you look at it. They're edible, in contrast to most pearls, quite tasty actually, also make lovely jewelry, I made Renée a necklace of them once."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-17 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Did she eat it?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Nope. She wears it. I put pearls in my omelettes sometimes, though."

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

"That's kind of awesome," says Tony. "Unless you threw a real one in there by accident. Then, ow."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 06:53 pm (UTC)

"There's no good place to get real ones without just buying them from a traveling salesperson, around here, and I have no use for real ones - for all the magical applications the fruit kind works just as well. You'd have to go south for a week to get to a lake with freshwater oysters, and southwest from there for another two weeks to reach the ocean."

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Well, it is the Enchanted Forest. You never know."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 10:16 pm (UTC)

"True. There's all kinds of stuff here. That's why I moved in."

allthebrightest
2013-03-17 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Tony. "That's the Enchanted Forest for you. Full of stuff."

thaumobabble
2013-03-17 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Mostly trees and moss," says Bella. "But interesting trees, some of them, and pretty moss!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 12:43 am (UTC)

"I love my forest," Tony says happily.

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 12:46 am (UTC)

"In all its vast unmappable glory, so do I," grins Bella.

They walk till dark, and Bella knows less about where they are now, as she only rarely ventures this far from her home.

The weather's fair; Bella produces a bedroll but not a tent. "I can have a look at your bag now," she offers to Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 01:16 am (UTC)

Tony cheerfully unpacks it and hands it over. (The unpacking is surprisingly fast.)

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 01:20 am (UTC)

Bella takes the bag and starts inspecting it like she hopes to make a sewing pattern for another just like it. Then she sets to work.

It's a simple spell, but for anything that's not a sleeve it takes varying amounts of coaxing. She does some of this coaxing aloud. "C'mon, you're so sleevy, I bet you always wanted to be a sleeve when you grew up, huh, you'd make the best sleeve," she coos to Tony's bag.

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 01:21 am (UTC)

...Tony giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 01:23 am (UTC)

Bella smirks at her and goes back to wheedling the bag, interspersed with variants on the spell. Eventually she has made enough progress to sprinkle the bag's interior with a mix of herbs that smell almost like dinner. "Come onnnnnn... you can do it... you will fulfill your destiny..."

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 01:24 am (UTC)

Tony is absolutely cracking up at this point.
Edited 2013-03-18 01:25 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 01:29 am (UTC)

"I bet my sleeves want to be bags. They work more like bags than sleeves anyway - c'mon - you know you wanna be sleeved - c'mon c'mon - deepandwidecapacioussleevealwaysgiveherwhatsheneedsbythepowerofthisspellkeepitallandkeepitwell!" she blurts as fast as possible without losing diction. She peers into the bag. "Sleeved!" she says triumphantly.

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 01:31 am (UTC)

Tony scoops up the bag and hugs it. Then she hugs Bella too, for good measure.

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 01:44 am (UTC)

Eee, hugs! Bella is pleased. And huggable.

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 01:48 am (UTC)

Hugs hugs huuuuuugs.

"You're my favourite magician," she says gleefully.

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 01:50 am (UTC)

"Have you met many?" asks Bella archly.

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 01:51 am (UTC)

"Nope!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 07:36 am (UTC)

"That only makes sense. We are rather uncommon."

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 11:05 am (UTC)

"It was a magician that did the first spell to keep wizards' greasy paws off our magic," she offers. "Way back before Mom was even born."

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I've read about Telemain. Good role model, kind of lousy writer, too fond of his jargon - I understand it now but it was kind of intimidating when I was just starting out."

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I remember Dad used to complain about him all the time."

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 08:14 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "The jargon problem, or something else? Were they contemporaries at all?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 08:23 pm (UTC)

"They might've been?" she hazards. "Mostly it was the jargon. He complained about the spell structure on the anti-wizard thing, too, but it was the admiring kind of complaining."

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 08:33 pm (UTC)

"There's an admiring kind of complaint?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-18 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Like what?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-18 08:43 pm (UTC)

"I cannot give you examples," she says. "It was mostly in the delivery."

allthebrightest
2013-03-18 08:44 pm (UTC)

"You had to know him."

thaumobabble
2013-03-18 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. I had just moved in when he passed away - it was a fairly miserable welcome, the forest grieving all around me - I'm sure it was worse for you. I'm sorry."
Edited 2013-03-18 20:48 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-18 08:50 pm (UTC)

"What brought you here?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-19 12:54 am (UTC)

"There's really no better place to be a magician," Bella says, brightening. "I think there's something like a dozen witches in the whole of Linderwall - no permanent wizard residence - there's Little Elfholts in two of the big cities but it's nothing like having a native elf population - there's just not as much to look at, magic-wise."

allthebrightest
2013-03-19 01:38 pm (UTC)

"That," says Tony, "is very true."

thaumobabble
2013-03-19 03:42 pm (UTC)

"And I do like to be busy."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 03:33 pm (UTC)

"What are you currently busy with?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 03:58 pm (UTC)

"There's the ongoing immortality project, and on the shorter-term front I'm deconstructing some unicorn magic, trying to convince Kexan to introduce me to his grandmother, setting up a test garden to see which of several spells is better at repelling gnomes and other pests, and - now - I'm going to have lots of notes on the Skyvault and maybe the sword to pore over."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 04:07 pm (UTC)

"What exactly are you doing to unicorn magic? And who is Kexan's grandmother?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Kexan's grandmother is the King of the Dragons. I want to convince her to let me have a look at the King's Crystal. I don't expect to be allowed to touch it or do anything to it, but I give myself even odds on being allowed to look, possibly if I spend a month in indentured servitude to her first or something. So far Kexan's on the fence about it."

allthebrightest
2013-03-20 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Good luck," snorts Tony. "Kazul's an old friend of the family, and I wouldn't ask her for a look at the Crystal."

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm at least reasonably confident that Kexan will not introduce me if she'd be liable to eat me," says Bella. "Merely not getting a look at the Crystal wouldn't be so bad; I'm not getting a look at it now. But I have to be gentle and patient - which is hard - about wheedling Kexan, since of course if I annoy him too much he might present me without being sure if I'll get eaten. Dragons can be depressingly casual about people getting eaten."

allthebrightest
2013-03-20 05:00 pm (UTC)

"I had noticed that, yeah," says Tony. "And I come with a spare."

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:12 pm (UTC)

"...I had not been under the impression that this was how twins work..." says Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 05:23 pm (UTC)

"It isn't," says Sherlock. "Royal families, however..."

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:27 pm (UTC)

"So you think a dragon would think less of eating one of you because the other could carry on questing for a husband and produce an heir," says Bella, sighing. "Yeah, probably."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 05:29 pm (UTC)

"From a dragon's perspective, individual humans don't last that long regardless of being eaten. Human continuity on the level of the family is more comparable to dragon continuity on the level of the individual."

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I think half the reason Kexan is willing to be friends with me is that I take the limitations of human lifespan very seriously as a bad thing that I plan to fix," Bella says, nodding. "I'm certainly not gearing up to produce an heir and he doesn't know my parents."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Are you not?" says Sherlock, smiling.

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Gay as a rainbow that is only interested in other rainbows of the same sex," says Bella, gesturing at herself, "so, yeah."

allthebrightest
2013-03-20 05:36 pm (UTC)

Tony laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I mean, that's probably a relatively minor technical issue if I worked on it, but it's not a priority at the moment, I don't have a kingdom to hand down."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 05:39 pm (UTC)

"...Relatively minor?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know really, I haven't looked into it, but it doesn't sound hard, not like living forever without turning into a rock or getting other people to understand one's cat."

allthebrightest
2013-03-20 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Is the cat thing really up there?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:43 pm (UTC)

"So, so up there," laughs Bella, "it's kind of ridiculous, it's so easy if it's your cat as to be barely a spell and so hard if it's not your cat - some people manage it for like a minute at a time, and then it fizzles."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 05:45 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

"That is bizarre."

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I know. I think it's something about the cats themselves interfering, but attempts at observing anything emanating from Cricket beyond witchcraft I deliberately channel through him have turned up zilch."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps," says Sherlock, "it is precisely the cats themselves interfering."

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't think they're consciously obstructing the attempts. They have enough variance in personality that I don't think they could simply all be lying about wanting to help, and generally they don't object to being translated manually."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Then perhaps it is in their nature, and does not emanate because it is not having an effect in the world beyond the cat?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 05:53 pm (UTC)

"But a great many visible effects don't have results beyond the thing they are on, so it would have to be special in at least one other way."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I see. That is curious."

thaumobabble
2013-03-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

"It is! There could potentially be an entire class of effects similar to cats and cats are just the one witches have noticed due to the usefulness of having cats," shrugs Bella. "It's an interesting puzzle, but not a priority for me; I can translate Cricket as needed."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

"And I suppose if you solve mortality you will have plenty of time for the rest."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 01:46 am (UTC)

"Yes, exactly! There's so much to do! I can barely stand to specialize even the tiny amount that I do. If I were immortal that would solve that problem, and replace it with the far lovelier problem of things to do appearing at a rate per year that would overwhelm anyone's ability to do that number of things in a year."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 01:50 am (UTC)

"...Things to do such as...?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 01:57 am (UTC)

"Everything! I'm oriented around magic, myself, but there's other things to do in service of that - I know wee bits of Elvish so I can talk about the magic in a language designed to handle it; I've traveled, but only to look at magic things, not just to go places and have a look at them; I know how to craft some objects - like the specs and so on - but only so I can enchant them. And there are certainly other things people do besides magic! I bet some of them are even interesting! If I had a few more lifetimes to cram it into I could get more than serviceable at cooking, and learn how to speak Elvish properly and read books in it, and go see the Pendasi Sky-Islands which aren't even slightly magical but are reputed to be beautiful, and there's all kinds of social activism that needs doing, and stuff to be invented, and people to meet."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 01:58 am (UTC)

"Suddenly my life feels so much more boring," Tony remarks.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:01 am (UTC)

"What, don't you do things? You're a princess, I'm sure you get to do things - politics sounds fascinating, I'd probably move to one of those newfangled democracies and play with it if for some reason I couldn't be a magician," says Bella. "And even if that's not to your taste, you've been sent on a pretty open-ended quest, you could go just about anywhere and claim that you might find a husband while you were at it."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 02:07 am (UTC)

"If either of us liked politics, our mother would not be quite so desperate to marry at least one of us off to someone who did."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:09 am (UTC)

"If the quest doesn't pan out are you at risk of being set up with some more or less disagreeable neighbor prince?" inquires Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 02:29 am (UTC)

Sherlock smiles thinly.

"No."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:30 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 02:35 am (UTC)

"Because if I have to marry somebody I don't actually like, I'll pull a Cimorene," says Tony, "and if Sherry does, she'll set him on fire."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:37 am (UTC)

"Cimorene was - hang on, not a historian - Cimorene was queen alongside King Mendanbar, right? Did she run away at some point from someone? That's reasonable. Setting him on fire sounds extreme. He might be nothing worse than spineless or otherwise not equipped to run away himself, after all."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 02:39 am (UTC)

"Cimorene got to King Mendanbar by running away from Linderwall, where her parents wanted to marry her to a disagreeable neighbouring prince, and being Kazul's princess for a while. Which is where the family friendship thing got started. I love Cimorene, she's my favourite ancestor."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:42 am (UTC)

"I have no interesting ancestors. That must be nice to have some," says Bella. "Cimorene sounds like she must've been neat. Did you already scope out the neighboring princes yourselves?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 02:43 am (UTC)

"Yeah. And actually I'm pretty sure Mom wouldn't want me to marry any of 'em."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:46 am (UTC)

"Why not? Are they bad at politics?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 02:47 am (UTC)

"They are bad at most things that don't involve hitting one another with swords. And I am better than most of them at that."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:51 am (UTC)

"I don't really understand why that's supposed to be a princely skill. Strategy maybe, if you expect to get into wars, but actual swordfighting? Why would anybody in line for the throne be on the front lines as a matter of course?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 02:52 am (UTC)

"Rescuing princesses?" suggests Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:57 am (UTC)

"If rescuing princesses is the principal use for a prince's ability to swordfight, then it should be a general royal offspring skill," says Bella, waving in Sherlock's direction, "which obviously it can be, just isn't most often. I suppose this is not the case if the rescuing is just courtship theater, but it's awfully stabby courtship theater and should probably be replaced with the board game version if that's the case."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 02:59 am (UTC)

"I fully agree."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:00 am (UTC)

"Good. You should. Because I am right," says Bella. "How come you learned to swordfight, anyway? Planning on rescuing somebody?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 03:11 am (UTC)

"It's fun."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:11 am (UTC)

"Maybe I'd see the appeal if I didn't need enchanted moccasins just to walk five steps without falling on my face," laughs Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 03:13 am (UTC)

"Clearly someone ought to build you some enchanted armour."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:14 am (UTC)

"I don't think I can witchsleeve a gauntlet," says Bella. "Besides, remember how I'm woefully forced to specialize?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:15 am (UTC)

...Tony looks intrigued by this notion.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:19 am (UTC)

"You really, really want to make armor for a clumsy magician?" inquires Bella archly.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:21 am (UTC)

"Not necessarily armor," she says. "But something you could wear to make you less clumsy? Yes!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 04:14 am (UTC)

"On top of the moccasins? Because you'll notice I haven't fallen so far. Although admittedly they only do walking. I still knock things off counters and tables more than I like, and running's basically out of the question."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 11:39 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's why armour! Because moccasins are for feet," she says wisely.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 02:59 pm (UTC)

"I have making a pair of matching gloves on my to-do list, but admittedly it's been there for more than a year," says Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:23 pm (UTC)

"But then there's all the stuff in between, too," she says. "And armour's good for that. Well, I guess somebody who wasn't me could probably convince a dress to be good for dancing in, or something."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:24 pm (UTC)

"A dress would be the thing for that - shoes are traditional, and they do extend past my feet or I'd be tripping anyway on account of uncooperative knees or center of gravity, but traditions don't always line up with what's easiest or most sensible to do."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:29 pm (UTC)

"I," says Tony, "could make anti-clumsy armour that you could do just about anything in."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:30 pm (UTC)

"Including have big baggy witch sleeves which can't have anything between them and my arms?" asks Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says firmly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Cool!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:32 pm (UTC)

Tony laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Then instead of mistaking me for a witch, they could mistake me for some bizarre witch-knight hybrid," giggles Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:33 pm (UTC)

"Bonus!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:34 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if there are any actual bizarre witch-knight hybrids who'd be annoyed with me for impersonating them without paying guild dues or knowing anything about swords beyond which end is which."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Why, do you get that from witches a lot?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no, witches are very laid-back about that. Besides, even a lot of bonafide witches can't tell that I'm not one. They stop at the robes and the cat and the pointy hat and the garden, same as everyone else, four times of five."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 03:38 pm (UTC)

"If you get any of it from witch-knights," says Sherlock, "you may send them to me."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Oooh, royal dispensation," flutters Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 03:40 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:41 pm (UTC)

"What would it look like?" Bella asks.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:43 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs. "What would you want it to?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't know a thing about armor design. I work with fabric and glass, not generally metal," laughs Bella. "I don't know. I'm pretty used to my existing look. Does armor come in unobtrusive?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:45 pm (UTC)

"It can," says Tony. "If I'm making it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Oooh."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:46 pm (UTC)

Tony grins.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:49 pm (UTC)

It's full dark at this point. Bella pulls a glowing knob of glass out of a sleeve; it throws her face into stark shadows but lets her pick her way across their chosen clearing to her bedroll and sit on it. "Well, it would be very kind of you to make me such a thing," says Bella. "...I think I mentioned that I am currently saving up for a carpet, though, so, I don't know what materials and labor usually run, but -"

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm a princess," Tony points out. "I don't actually need people to pay me for stuff. I'm pretty much just gonna do it to prove I can."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, okay then."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:50 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:52 pm (UTC)

"How long after sunset do you two usually turn in for the night? I don't want to keep you up," Bella says, setting her glow-glass on her pillow.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:53 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

"I dunno. Depends how early we want to wake up."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:53 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't tell me whether to put the light away yet or not," Bella points out.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, how early do we wanna wake up?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Are we in a hurry? Does it matter what time of day we arrive?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Nah."

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Then I suppose 'whenever'? Which oddly enough makes our bedtime exactly the same thing."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 03:56 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 04:06 pm (UTC)

Bella unclips her belt of pouches, doffs her hat, and takes off her moccasins. Her outfit looks much less witchlike with all of those objects sleeved, and when the robes also come off and get folded and put under her pillow and it's just the tunic and leggings they might as well be pajamas. She murmurs a spell that makes her remaining clothes glow pink for a moment and then fades.
Edited 2013-03-21 16:07 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 08:10 pm (UTC)

"...Why the pink?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I didn't pick the color, but it's a cleaning spell," shrugs Bella. "Handy for traveling. I have changes of clothes in my sleeves but this works as long as I haven't actually spilled breakfast on myself or anything."

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Handy," says Tony.

Her own preparations for bed are considerably simpler.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 11:41 pm (UTC)

So are Sherlock's.

It help that her armour removes and packs itself on command.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Oooooh, warn me next time you do that so I can watch it with my specs on?" exclaims Bella, watching the armor fold itself up.
Edited 2013-03-21 23:44 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

"You may also watch me put it on in the morning," she says, snuggling into her bedroll.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes please," says Bella, sliding into hers and grinning.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Sooo anyway," says Tony, "g'night everybody!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 11:54 pm (UTC)

"I should warn you, according to Cricket I talk in my sleep, feel free to wake me up and make me cast a spell to muffle it if it bothers you," Bella says, stashing her light.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Will do," Tony assures her.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 11:58 pm (UTC)

Bella promptly falls asleep and starts uttering random nouns.

allthebrightest
2013-03-21 11:58 pm (UTC)

It's kind of adorable.

Zzz.

thaumobabble
2013-03-21 11:59 pm (UTC)

Bella is up at approximately dawn the next day! She shrugs her robes on and belts and hats and moccasins herself. If the twins aren't up, she will write in her notebook quietly till they are.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 01:30 am (UTC)

Sherlock pokes her head out of her bedroll almost immediately.

"If you want to watch me get into my armour," she murmurs, crawling out of it, "now is the time."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 01:30 am (UTC)

Specs out of hat and on face! Rapt expression!

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 01:38 am (UTC)

The compact, slightly spiky package made by the armour in its resting state is nearby.

Sherlock picks it up and gives it a twist, fitting her hands into the depressions that appear when she does so. It unfolds itself up her arms, wraps around her torso, and clicks and shakes and rattles into place; she hardly has to move except to step into the boots. From the moment she picks it up to the last quiet click is maybe three-quarters of a minute all told.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 01:40 am (UTC)

"Ah, that's artistry," breathes Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 01:55 am (UTC)

"That," says Sherlock, with evident satisfaction, "is Tony for you."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 02:03 am (UTC)

"I'll have to compliment her effusively. Beautiful, beautiful - not just the magic but the mechanics and the way they interact - how late is she likely to sleep?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 02:07 am (UTC)

"Effusive praise is my favourite thing to wake up to," says a cheerful mumble from Tony's bedroll.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 02:12 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "It's gorgeous work," she says. "Probably the prettiest predominantly-dwarf spell I've ever seen - usually they go for blocky functionality but sometimes they don't and it's still the prettiest."

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 02:38 am (UTC)

Tony yawns.

"I like pretty," she says smugly. "When I can do pretty, I do."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 02:40 am (UTC)

"Good for you!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 02:45 am (UTC)

She beams.

"Best morning," she announces.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 02:46 am (UTC)

Bella laughs, and she reaches into her sleeve for some nibbles to breakfast on. "Always happy to dispense credit where it's due."

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 02:47 am (UTC)

"Sherry, make breakfast," Tony says sleepily.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 02:48 am (UTC)

"Happily."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 02:55 am (UTC)

"Ooh, what are you cooking? I'm pretty helpless without my magic kitchen, myself, I always just pack enough when I'm on a trip."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 12:25 pm (UTC)

"Let's see," says Sherlock.

She produces breakfast. It is delicious.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 03:57 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't solicit any - she has her own and doesn't know how long they're packed for. Then she rolls up her bedroll until it fits back in her sleeve and tucks it away.
Edited 2013-03-22 16:01 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Handy," comments Sherlock. Hers and Tony's both fold up considerably smaller than they look like they should, but there is no magic involved, just efficient design.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, your bag will do it now too," says Bella, smiling and hauling herself up to her feet with the clever use of a tree.

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Tony, "but we didn't overpack for the trip, so we still have only as much stuff as it'd physically hold."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:10 pm (UTC)

"If I had to work with that I'd never go anywhere. They don't cover weightlifting in magic school. I filled my gym credit on a broomstick - that was before my accident."

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Accident...?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I was kind of a daredevil on that thing. It didn't get me into trouble until I'd been out of school for a while. Got distracted at high altitude and a witch plowed right into me and I fell and had to spend two days in the healer's ward. I'm not scared of heights, now, just brooms. My broom was completely wrecked anyway, and they're not any cheaper than carpets - not if you get one that can fly and not one that just does, you know, floors - so I've just been saving for a nice rug."

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," says Tony.

And... looks thoughtful.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Nothiiiiiiiing."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww," says Bella as the camp is struck and they proceed castleward. "Pleeeeease?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 04:30 pm (UTC)

"No, okay, I promise you'll find out eventually," she says, "I just have to..." She waves her hands inarticulately. "Stuff."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Aha, stuff. I misunderstand incompletely."

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Stuff," she agrees. "I really will explain later. When there is actually something to explain."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough," laughs Bella. "Broomsticks are uncomfortable anyway, even if you do sit sidesaddle like you're supposed to, and I was never that reckless when I was trying to do tricks..."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that does sound potentially troublesome," muses Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Very. I understand they're easy to enchant compared to, say, chairs with straps to hold you in nice and snug, but there are actually staggering numbers of broom accidents if you look at the per hatpoint statistics." Pause. "That being the witch-only term for per capita."

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 04:45 pm (UTC)

Tony cracks up.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:46 pm (UTC)

Bella taps the point of her hat and smirks. "I didn't make it up, but I will take full responsibility for propagating the term."
Edited 2013-03-22 16:47 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 04:50 pm (UTC)

She giggles some more.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 04:59 pm (UTC)

"We're coming up on the lime-flavored river," Bella observes after they've been walking for about half an hour. "There's a bridge, but it doesn't hold still, so I can't tell you how to intercept it."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I feel confident that we can track it down."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Quite probably!" agrees Bella. "We should also watch out for giant watersnakes. They can't get at the bridge itself, but they can and do hang out on the banks of the river."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 08:25 pm (UTC)

"I am duly warned."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I suppose you must have already crossed this river to find my house, sorry. Unless you went far enough north first to go around the Limespring."

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember a lime-flavoured river," Tony contributes, "but I also haven't tasted every single river we've crossed, so..."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 08:30 pm (UTC)

"It flows from a limestone spring," explains Bella. "Only logical. I get most of my drinking water from a stream that branches off from the river. I made the limeade with it."

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Limestone spring," she laughs. "Gotcha."

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 08:33 pm (UTC)

Presently they come to the river. No bridge is immediately in evidence. Bella picks a direction to look in and goes left, peering ahead for evidence of the bridge.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 08:35 pm (UTC)

Sherlock takes right, for efficiency.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 08:38 pm (UTC)

Bella finds a bridge. She's turned around to shout for the princesses to come her way when a watersnake finds her.

Bella's moccasins are not rated for running. She goes sprawling and she's knee-deep in the snake a moment later.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 08:41 pm (UTC)

Sherlock only starts running a split second before Tony, but she passes her on the way.

Disinclined to bring out her sword in close proximity to Bella, she instead hooks her gauntleted hands into the snake's jaws and yanks them apart.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 09:02 pm (UTC)

The snake makes a godawful noise and thrashes a coil around Sherlock, and Bella drags herself away from it. "Mulagarby-rothwick-ulfrancian-shlerastov," she gasps, and her legs recover somewhat from the teeth wounds and she can sit up and scramble a little more effectively. She's lost a moccasin down the snake's gullet.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 09:08 pm (UTC)

All parts of Bella now being out of the snake, Sherlock draws her sword and cuts it in half.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 09:09 pm (UTC)

The snake takes exception to this!

But not for very long.

"Th-thanks," says Bella. "They're usually not that far up the bank."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 09:11 pm (UTC)

"You are welcome," says Sherlock.

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 09:11 pm (UTC)

Tony arrives, a little out of breath.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Rothwick-rothwick-rothwick," Bella mutters, holding her hands together until her legs stop bleeding, and then she does her cleaning spell again, and then she says, "Well, I'm down a shoe, I'm not sorting through snake guts for that thing, I'd sooner walk barefoot."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I am sorry to report we haven't any spares," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Barefoot it is," says Bella, peeling off the other moccasin. "They only work as a pair. I'll make more when I get home, I suppose. Eugh. Bad watersnake. Okay, what do I have to get past the rest of them, what do I have... Sherlock, are you okay? Did it get a chance to squeeze you at all?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Not even a dent," she reports serenely.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I don't usually come out this far and the last time I was with Kexan and didn't worry about the snakes, but I have a little powdered mercury-leaf, which I think will make us look like non-food with an associated elf-spell, I'm just not sure about dosage since there's three of us and mercury-leaf is expensive..."
Edited 2013-03-22 21:20 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-22 09:21 pm (UTC)

Sherlock has cleaned her sword, but not sheathed it.

"I will deal with any further snakes," she says.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 09:23 pm (UTC)

"...Okay. Well then. Look! A bridge!" says Bella, laughing a little shakily.

allthebrightest
2013-03-22 09:26 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs and heads for it.

thaumobabble
2013-03-22 09:27 pm (UTC)

They make it across the bridge without any other snakes trying to turn them into lunch. Bella trips with noticeable frequency, although she does land on soft Enchanted Forest moss and kip up uninjured every time.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:00 am (UTC)

"Should I be carrying you the rest of the way?" says Tony, grinning a little.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:00 am (UTC)

"Do you wanna?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:01 am (UTC)

She giggles. "Do you?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:02 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't say no. You're not a broomstick, far as I know."

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:03 am (UTC)

"I don't remember ever being compared to one before," she says, laughing.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:04 am (UTC)

"If you were one, I wouldn't let you carry me," Bella says.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:05 am (UTC)

"Well, aren't I glad I'm not a broomstick, then," she snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:06 am (UTC)

"That makes it sound like you want to carry me," observes Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:06 am (UTC)

Innocently: "Oh, does it?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:07 am (UTC)

"It does. Of all the reasons you could be glad to be a non-broomstick, that one seemed decisive in causing you to mention this gladness aloud."

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:13 am (UTC)

"Broomsticks also probably can't flirt with you," she said. "Or if they did, it would be really uncomfortable for everyone involved. So that's another big win."

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:15 am (UTC)

"I'm trying and failing to imagine a broomstick flirting with me, and I have a pretty good imagination," giggles Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:17 am (UTC)

"They'd have so much opportunity, though! I mean, think about it! What do you do with a broomstick?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:20 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Me? Nothing at all."

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:22 am (UTC)

"Well, maybe that's why they can't flirt with you," snickers Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:27 am (UTC)

"That's probably the only reason they don't. I'm such a catch, everyone wants to flirt with introverted magicians who find their own toes impediments to walking," snickers Bella. "Especially broomsticks."

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:28 am (UTC)

"Damn right!" says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:30 am (UTC)

Bella starts to say something, and then is sent to the moss again by a tree root, picks herself up, and says, "Is this all an elaborate leadup to actually picking me up?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:33 am (UTC)

"If you actually want me to carry you all or part of the way to the castle," says Tony, "then I absolutely will."

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:34 am (UTC)

"I would like that." Bella declines to specify what fraction of this liking is merely because the alternative is falling down a lot and what fraction is getting carried by a pretty princess who makes artful armor.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:36 am (UTC)

So Tony steps up to her and scoops her up gently.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 02:37 am (UTC)

Bella settles in to this arrangement quite comfortably. "Thanks!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 02:43 am (UTC)

"No problem," Tony says cheerfully.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:05 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't have to look where they're going anymore! She produces a book and looks up at the scenery once a page, and also at princesses if addressed.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:06 am (UTC)

"Whatcha readin'?" asks Tony, who is not well-placed to see either the pages or the cover.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:09 am (UTC)

"Highlights of Elven Theurgy by Raxtus Shadowmusic-Smith!" reports Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:10 am (UTC)

"Is it interesting?" she laughs. "With a title like that it could go either way."

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:11 am (UTC)

"It contains fewer things I didn't already know than I'd hoped, but it's very well put together."

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:12 am (UTC)

"So what is it actually about?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:13 am (UTC)

"It's a survey of the coolest parts of elf magic. This section's about wards and other defensive spells."

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:14 am (UTC)

"Anything I'd understand in there?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:18 am (UTC)

"Mmm... I'm not sure. I don't know anything about royal magic. Certainly it's nothing in common with dwarf magic or fire-witchery. 'Anchoring a ward on a tree does nothing to defend the tree, so wards are routinely stacked with the copious application of arbrex charms; it may also help to invert the dimensional identifiers differently with each layer if the wards are otherwise meant to cover the same area'?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:19 am (UTC)

She laughs.

"Nope, totally incomprehensible."

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:20 am (UTC)

"Sorry," chuckles Bella. "I'll pull a novel next and I can read aloud if you want."

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:21 am (UTC)

"It's okay," says Tony. "Read what you wanna read."

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:23 am (UTC)

And so she does.

She doesn't particularly notice when she winds up with her head on Tony's shoulder.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:25 am (UTC)

Tony does!

Tony awwwws.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:26 am (UTC)

"Hmm?" Bella looks around, expecting something along the lines of a baby rabbit.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:28 am (UTC)

"No, the cute thing is you," Tony says fondly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:29 am (UTC)

Bella peers down at herself. "Did reading become cute all of a sudden? Or did I turn fluffy and not notice? Or is it a mystery that will be explained only with cunning graphs?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:31 am (UTC)

"You had your head on my shoulder," Tony explains. "It was cute."

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:32 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Bella, turning a little pink. "I didn't realize. You don't mind?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:34 am (UTC)

"Aww is not a sound of minding."

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 03:35 am (UTC)

"Just checking," says Bella with a soft giggle. She puts her head back where it was, and she smiles, and she turns a page.

allthebrightest
2013-03-23 03:36 am (UTC)

Tony giggles, too.

thaumobabble
2013-03-23 04:30 pm (UTC)

It's about an hour after lunch when they are next in a position to encounter somebody. The somebody is behind a tree over there and he's doing a very bad job of masking his sniffling.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-23 04:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock stops. Well before the sniffling would be audible to the rest of her party.

"Tony," she says quietly.

allthebrightest
2013-03-24 01:23 am (UTC)

Tony stops, too, a few steps behind Sherlock.

She doesn't say anything for a few seconds.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 02:48 am (UTC)

"What?" murmurs Bella, tucking her book into her sleeve and picking her head up from Tony's shoulder.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 02:51 am (UTC)

"There is a... person," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 02:54 am (UTC)

"Another wizard, or just some other sort of person?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 02:57 am (UTC)

"A child," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 02:59 am (UTC)

"By themselves?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 03:10 am (UTC)

"Alone. Crying."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:05 am (UTC)

"You want me to handle it? The window that does the lost tinkers' sons and so on does kids sometime, I can probably help him."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 03:02 pm (UTC)

"Please do," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 03:24 pm (UTC)

Bella extricates herself from Tony's arms with some reluctance and does not instantly tumble into a heap on the ground. "Where...?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 03:25 pm (UTC)

Sherlock leads her partway there, and points.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 03:32 pm (UTC)

Bella closes the distance.

Yep, that's a lonely crying little kid. "Hi, there," she murmurs. "Are you lost?"

He sniffs, he nods.

"Have you tried asking a squirrel for directions? Squirrels are very good at learning how the forest moves around."

"I -" sniff - "tried! But it wouldn't help me."

"What? Why? Where are you trying to go, where do your parents live? Maybe I can help you."

He shakes his head.

"...You wouldn't tell the squirrel where your parents are supposed to be?"

"No."

"Then of course they couldn't help, they need to know what to give directions to. Look, what's your name?"

"Calemar."

"Calemar, I want to help you get unlost, but I don't know where to unlose you to. Is it not your parents? Do you live with an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent or something and you got confused about the question?"

"No."

"...Are you not supposed to tell strangers where you live?"

"I'm not," sniffles Calemar.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 03:37 pm (UTC)

"I can find it," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Even if he doesn't tell you where he's supposed to be - nothing about it?" Bella asks quizzically.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 03:51 pm (UTC)

"The forest knows."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 03:55 pm (UTC)

Calemar shakes his head vigorously.

"But Calemar, you don't have to tell her anything, she can just lead you straight to -"

"No! Not supposed to bring people! I have to find it by myself."

"How long have you been lost?"

"A - a couple days," sniffs Calemar.

"Are you hungry?"

He nods.

Bella unpacks a sandwich from her sleeve and hands it over. He bites into it without inquiry about its properties.

"So you're not just generally suspicious of strangers," Bella concludes.

Calemar doesn't answer. His mouth is full.
Edited 2013-03-24 16:03 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 04:07 pm (UTC)

"I am going to find it anyway," Sherlock says quietly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 04:17 pm (UTC)

"No!" exclaims Calemar around a mouthful. "No, strangers aren't supposed to."

"Why not?" Bella asks him.

"It's a secret."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 05:49 pm (UTC)

"If it is not a secret from the trees," says Sherlock, "it is not a secret from me."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 05:50 pm (UTC)

"The trees?" says Calemar with deep suspicion, looking at the tree that he has been sitting under.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 06:08 pm (UTC)

"The forest," she says. "Trees and air and light and water and moss and dirt and rock. All together, they know things, and they have no secrets from me."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 06:12 pm (UTC)

"But - but it's a secret," burbles Calemar. "Daddy said it's not safe."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 06:16 pm (UTC)

"It is much less safe for you to be out here on your own," Sherlock points out reasonably.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I have to find home by myself so it can be secret," Calemar says.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 06:18 pm (UTC)

"You cannot find home by yourself," she says, "and it is not secret."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Daddy will be mad."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 06:50 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 06:56 pm (UTC)

"He'll think I told!"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 06:58 pm (UTC)

"You did not tell," says Sherlock. "The forest did."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 06:59 pm (UTC)

"He won't believe me if I say the forest told you where we live."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Will he believe me?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Calemar.

"He ought to," says Bella.

"But I don't know if he will!"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I believe that I can convince him," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 07:25 pm (UTC)

"But who're you? Why should he believe you?"

"This is Princess Sherlock," explains Bella.

Calemar stares, then bursts into tears.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 07:26 pm (UTC)

Sherlock sighs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Aw, Calemar, she's not sca- she won't hurt you," corrects Bella.

"I don't wanna meeeeeeeeelt," wails Calemar, "it looks like it hurrrrrrrts!"

Oh.

Bella sits back a bit.

"Melting doesn't hurt," she offers. "It's just inconvenient."

"I don't belieeeeeeeve youuuuuuuu!" Calemar wails.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 07:31 pm (UTC)

"I am not going to melt anyone today," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Daddy said you would if anybody found us but the trees told you and we're all gonna be melted except Mommy and I don't wanna meeeeelt!"

Bella pats Calemar on the head awkwardly. It doesn't seem to help.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Your father was wrong," says Sherlock. "Observe: I am not melting you."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 07:37 pm (UTC)

Calemar looks himself over, sniffing, and stops wailing on observing that he is not melted.

"What are you going to do with a family of wizards in the Enchanted Forest, Sherlock?" asks Bella quietly.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Good question," says Sherlock. "Perhaps if I bring back their lost child, none of them will try to kill me."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but - longer term."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:34 pm (UTC)

"If they do not try to kill me or anyone else, or destroy parts of my forest, I don't see why I should do anything with them in particular."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. Detour?"

"You're gonna take me home?" asks Calemar suspiciously. "By tree directions?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

Calemar seems to decide that there's nothing he can do about this. He gets up and shifts his weight from foot to foot.

"Is it far?" Bella asks Sherlock, wondering whether to solicit more carrying or just trip her way there on her own.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Not terribly."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:43 pm (UTC)

Bella walks under her own power unless Tony says something about it, and she offers Calemar her hand, which he takes. This is actually a steadying influence, whether because of how it draws her attention or because of actual physical steadying; she doesn't fall on the way to -

The cave.

Yep, that's a cave. Calemar breaks away from Bella and hurtles into it, screaming for his parents.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:44 pm (UTC)

Sherlock stands still and waits. She's good at that.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:45 pm (UTC)

No one appears to be emerging from the cave.

"They could be fleeing out a back entrance," Bella points out after a minute. "Or they could have teleportations set up, if they're good wizards."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I can hear them," she murmurs. "Not words, but voices. They are not currently fleeing."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I'd be really surprised if a wizard came out to meet you. Maybe Calemar's mom, though."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:51 pm (UTC)

"We shall see."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:52 pm (UTC)

Eventually, a woman of some sort - whether she is Calemar's mother or not is not immediately obvious - emerges from the cave with her hands held up palms-front and a terrified expression on her face.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Please don't hurt me. Us, please don't hurt us," blurts the woman.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:56 pm (UTC)

"I do not plan to hurt any of you," says Sherlock, "unless you try to hurt me first, which I don't expect is likely. Perhaps you would like to explain what you are doing in my forest?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:56 pm (UTC)

"...We live here?" tries the woman.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 08:58 pm (UTC)

"For how long," Sherlock says patiently, "have you lived here?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 08:59 pm (UTC)

"...Not... very..."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Why did you begin to live here?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 09:01 pm (UTC)

"We thought it'd be safe as long as the royal family didn't find us," says the woman, looking like she'd like to wring her hands but would like to remain obviously unarmed even more.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:04 pm (UTC)

"And what do you get out of living in a cave in the Enchanted Forest that is worth the risk that we might?"
Edited 2013-03-24 21:06 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 09:13 pm (UTC)

"...The other wizards won't think to look for us here."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock. "In that case, provided your presence is not destructive, you may stay here under the same protection as any other resident of the forest."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 09:20 pm (UTC)

Bella puts her specs on and flicks the lenses around and peers past the woman into the cave. "They're not absorbing any of the forest magic, I think," she says. "I don't know about other ambient magic."

"I don't know anything about that," demurs the woman, "but we're not hurting anyone..."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:24 pm (UTC)

"The forest magic is my primary concern," says Sherlock. She addresses the woman. "Please allow the small child to ask squirrels the way home if he is lost again."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you've already found us, the squirrels themselves don't matter," says the woman with a shaky laugh.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:32 pm (UTC)

"That's all right, then."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to cruise through the cave and make sure they're not up to anything magically nefarious?" Bella murmurs to Sherlock.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes, thank you," she murmurs back.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 09:39 pm (UTC)

Bella produces a ball of thread, hands an end to Tony - who's less likely to suddenly need her hands free - and unravels it into the cave. (This is a standard cave precaution if you don't know where you're going.) It's a smallish cluster of caves, not just a single cavern nor yet a node of a large network like the Caves of Chance or the Caves of Fire and Night, and she pokes her head into each of them, not explaining herself to the wizards or their female and therefore nonwizard family members. None of them tries to attack her. She rolls up the thread and comes out again.

"There are some wisps coming in, but it's unused residue, not uprooted useful magic. The same sort of stuff my marble grabs," Bella reports when she's retrieved the end of her thread from Tony.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Fine," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 09:46 pm (UTC)

"...You'll just leave us be?" asks the woman suspiciously. "Are you going to tell the Queen?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock. "And yes. And she will also leave you be."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Will she really? How do you know?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Because she is my mother," Sherlock says dryly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but - are you authorized - to decide that sort of thing?" asks the woman, cringing as she utters the impertinent question.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says, untroubled.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll. Just go back in, then?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 10:09 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

The woman backs away a few steps, then turns and hurries into the caves.

"There's some twenty adult wizards, half with wives and a third with one or more kids, as a cursory estimate," Bella says. "What would they be hiding from other wizards for? I don't get it."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I do not know," says Sherlock. "Mother will likely want to send someone to find out."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure that will thrill the little wizard colony," says Bella dryly. "They were scared half to death. Do you suppose they had anything to do with the one we encountered earlier?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Mother will send someone who is not as terrifying as I am," says Sherlock. "He was almost certainly a member of the group, but not a close relative of either of the ones I met."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 10:18 pm (UTC)

"These ones didn't try to attack any of us, even though they had numbers," Bella observes. "Maybe he was looking for them, not with them."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that is the other major possibility."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I suppose we could go back and describe him and see if they say 'yes, that's our cousin' and commence mourning or 'good riddance, that was our unexplained enemy' and commence celebrating."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 11:22 pm (UTC)

"That is not something I desire to do."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Because it'd be awkward if it was the first one?" guesses Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 11:27 pm (UTC)

"It is possible that if it is the first one, someone might attack me. I prefer to avoid that."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 11:27 pm (UTC)

"That too. I suppose whoever Her Majesty sends can find out that sort of thing."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-24 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 11:30 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

She falls over.

She picks herself up and drifts Tonyward, looking hopeful.

allthebrightest
2013-03-24 11:31 pm (UTC)

Laughing, Tony scoops her up again.

thaumobabble
2013-03-24 11:32 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles and plops her head onto Tony's shoulder and pulls out her book again.

allthebrightest
2013-03-24 11:33 pm (UTC)

And on they go!

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:04 am (UTC)

Yay!

On they proceed, without further incident, wizard-related or otherwise, although they do see a unicorn who's in a terrible hurry to get somewhere and doesn't stop to talk, and a collection of birds who, combined, seem to know rather a lot about music theory.

They stop for the day by a tree with unseasonable icicles on it (but not directly underneath, because that would be silly for reasons of both temperature and sharpness).

Bella puts her book in her sleeve and waits to be set down.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:08 am (UTC)

Tony sets Bella on her feet and then, on impulse, kisses her on the cheek.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:10 am (UTC)

Ee!

Bella is pleased! And a little confused! Mostly pleased.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:21 am (UTC)

"Sorry," she says, "I just, I felt like doing that."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:23 am (UTC)

"I support your decision completely! If it were in some sort of contest I would cheer it on and wave a little flag."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:24 am (UTC)

...Tony cracks up.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:26 am (UTC)

"However, I tend to overthink things and wish to know if there is any broader context to this decision which may or may not get its own flag?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:27 am (UTC)

"...Broader context like what?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:29 am (UTC)

"Like, why you felt like doing that, how likely you are to feel like doing that again, and what reactions I could have that would still be pleasant to have had in a week and what reactions I could have that I would regret later?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:30 am (UTC)

"I felt like doing that because you are cute and pretty and I like you," says Tony. "And I feel like doing it again right now."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:32 am (UTC)

"Ooh." Bella tilts her head invitingly, because if Tony's not going to be helpful about context she'll work it out herself but that won't be appreciably harder with two kisses instead of one.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:34 am (UTC)

Kiss!

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:36 am (UTC)

Kiss!

Bella is not a complete novice here; her school was mostly girls (mostly witches; men can be, but usually aren't) and there was one she kissed a little bit, if not very much. Kiss!

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:37 am (UTC)

Ooh. Lots of kiss!

Tony is... the opposite of a novice.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:38 am (UTC)

Yeah, Bella notices. Bella notices with a little itty bitty unconscious noise in the back of her throat.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:39 am (UTC)

Kisssssss.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:40 am (UTC)

Bella's not sure what to do with her hands. Can she rest her forearms on Tony's shoulders and lace her fingers together behind Tony's neck? Can she do that with her hands?

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:42 am (UTC)

She can absolutely do that with her hands.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:43 am (UTC)

She does!

Also she goes on kissing Tony. Tony's yummy and kissable and she does not yet see any reason to stop.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:44 am (UTC)

Bella is likewise yummy and kissable! They could keep doing this for a while.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:45 am (UTC)

Yep. They sure could!

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 01:46 am (UTC)

Sherlock sets up camp, such as it is.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:47 am (UTC)

Bella isn't really thinking about that. She is thinking about kissing Tony and making cute little noises about kissing Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 01:57 am (UTC)

Tony is in full agreement with Bella's priorities here!

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 01:59 am (UTC)

Good!

Kisses kisses.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 02:05 am (UTC)

Kisses kisseeeeeeees this is lots of fun they should do it more often.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 02:06 am (UTC)

See, they'll have to talk about that, that's one of those context things, but they can carry on doing it this time for rather a long while.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 03:11 am (UTC)

Awesome.

Okay. At some point, they really are going to have to stop.

Or at least sit down?

Hey, there's Tony's bedroll, they could sit on that!

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 03:14 am (UTC)

They could! Bella hasn't retrieved her own from her sleeve yet, so this is clearly the best option.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 03:16 am (UTC)

Great. Perfect. They shall sit on Tony's bedroll.

And kiss some more.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 03:18 am (UTC)

The change of position affords an opportunity to move her hands! Now one of them's resting on Tony's waist and the other's wound round her back.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 03:19 am (UTC)

Those are both good places for Bella's hands. Tony approves.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 03:21 am (UTC)

Yay!

Where are Tony's hands, pray tell? Bella would like to pay some attention to them.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 03:24 am (UTC)

Currently one of them is on the back of Bella's neck and the other one is on Bella's jaw.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:12 am (UTC)

Good places!

Also this is - this is getting dangerously nice, Bella is not sure how long she can make out with a hot princess who has been carrying her a lot and has achingly good design sense, and not have inconvenient pining problems later if it's just this once. Maybe she should break off and get clearer answers to those context questions. Maybe. Soon.

Not yet.

Okay, now, really, if this doesn't stop now and then it does stop soon-but-later it's going to be a problem that is bigger than the problem of not wanting to stop.

Bella pulls back and withdraws her hands to herself and looks down and says "I don't know what happens later, and if the answer is 'nothing happens later, I look at the Skyvault and go home alone and never see you again' then I need to stop now or I'm going to be in a bad mood for a long time."
Edited 2013-03-25 06:08 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 11:41 am (UTC)

"Huh?" says Tony, blinking.

She takes a moment to shift from kissing-mode to processing-words-and-feelings-mode.

"Um... I think more kissing happens later!" she says. "I would like more kissing to be the thing that happens later."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Yeah - but - how much later, is the question, I don't need a time horizon on the scale of months, I don't expect you to be a seer, but I don't want to wind up pining for somebody who only ever wanted to kiss me some over the course of a couple of days, does that make sense?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 03:38 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know," says Tony. "I haven't really thought about it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella. "Um, let me know if you do?"

She scoots back to have enough room to get her legs out from under her and finds a place to put her bedroll. Over there.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 03:45 pm (UTC)

Tony will just be over here, blinking confusedly!

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Did I... put something badly?" asks Bella tentatively. "Or... something?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 03:50 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," says Tony. "Did I?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 03:52 pm (UTC)

"I - no, I really like you, I just think that if it winds up being that we kiss a lot for the next two days and then I look at the Skyvault and I turn around and go home by myself and that's it and that was always going to be it, I'll wind up writing your name in my notebook a lot and then staring at it and frowning trying to figure out what to do about really liking you, and - I have made the amount of that particular tradeoff I want to make, now."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Tony. "Well... I don't know what the other options are? But I don't like that one much either. Let's come up with a better one."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Um, okay. I'm pretty much - a free agent, you're the one who might have other stuff constraining your availability."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 04:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm, uh... not really that good at planning ahead," says Tony. "Actually I'm really bad at it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Oh." Pause. "That might explain why you decided to kiss a random commoner magician female while on an ostensible quest for a husband, huh."
Edited 2013-03-25 16:20 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 04:27 pm (UTC)

"I guess?" she says. "I mean, I just really wanted to kiss you."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 04:32 pm (UTC)

"I was hardly averse to it myself. That's part of the problem." Bella mutters her cleaning spell before she puts her feet on her bedroll; she hasn't been walking all day, thanks to Tony, but she has been walking a nonzero amount, and barefoot. "If I didn't like you so much maybe I could kiss you as much as I felt like, assuming that this was still a nonzero amount, and not worry about accidentally engaging pining mode."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 04:44 pm (UTC)

"I like you too," says Tony. "I just don't know what to do about it. I mean, out of me and Sherry I'm probably the one with the better chance of actually finding a husband at some point, so... but I don't want that to mean I can't kiss you anymore."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 04:45 pm (UTC)

Bella makes a face. "There might exist potential husbands for whom it wouldn't mean that, but not necessarily for reasons of their personal generosity."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 04:49 pm (UTC)

She snorts. "Or I could just keep doing it anyway, it's not like it'll matter to the succession, you said you could probably get one of us pregnant with magic but I'll bet you can't do it by accident."
Edited 2013-03-25 16:49 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 04:50 pm (UTC)

"I can't do it by accident," agrees Bella. "But if you get married you probably should not cheat on your husband. A deadline like that is the sort of thing I'd want to know."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if there's a deadline like that," says Tony. "I don't know if this quest is even going to work! If there were any princes around here who fit the bill, I would've married one already and saved everybody the trouble!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 04:55 pm (UTC)

Bella chews her lip. "I don't already have a window that does husbands. It's possible I could invent one and then you wouldn't have this problem," she offers softly.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 04:57 pm (UTC)

"...How do your windows work, anyway?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Divinatory windows in general are witchcraft. They're like mirrors, but they connect to objects in the environment that meet certain parameters instead of to other mirrors."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 05:01 pm (UTC)

"So you could make a window that shows me the nearest person I could marry who'd do a good job of ruling the country and give me some kids to pass it on to?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I'd insert a parameter like nearest - although I could include only a limited set of locations - and I'd have to be more specific about what doing a good job of ruling the country means and I'd need to know more about who you could tolerate well enough to marry, but yes, basically."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I'd marry you, if you were a prince," sighs Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm not a prince. I'm not either of the component features I'd have to be to be a prince," says Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Technically you don't have to be royal," says Tony, "our fire-witch great-and-so-on-grandma wasn't, she just spent some time as a dragon's princess and called it good..."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I want to move in with Kexan and do domestic chores for a year to qualify. No offense."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 05:11 pm (UTC)

"But that can't be the only way, right?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:12 pm (UTC)

"The other way to become a princess is to marry royalty, which, problematically, would see me already married to some royalty," Bella points out.
Edited 2013-03-25 17:42 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Hm," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:43 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks. And looks at Sherlock. And blinks again and tilts her head.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 05:44 pm (UTC)

"What," says Sherlock, "is your opinion of politics, again?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I said it sounds fascinating and if I couldn't be a magician I'd probably go somewhere that would let me try it and do so," Bella says slowly.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 05:46 pm (UTC)

"There are two princesses available," Sherlock observes.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Ye-e-es. What are you thinking here, help me out, I don't know the details of princess rules except in a vague sense that I learned in another country."
Edited 2013-03-25 17:49 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 05:53 pm (UTC)

"You only need to be preexisting royalty in order to become a co-ruler of the kingdom," she says. "Marrying a person of royal descent makes you a princess in a sort of junior sense, from which point, if you went on to marry another, you could one day become a queen."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Whoa," says Tony, staring at Sherlock epiphanatically. "Whoa, hey, wait, you like her."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:55 pm (UTC)

Bella is surprised!

Also contemplatively peering at Sherlock, now.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 05:57 pm (UTC)

She looks down at her hands and smiles slightly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 05:58 pm (UTC)

"What is the current queen likely to think of this notion?" Bella asks. "Assuming it is a real notion and not an idle notion."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 06:00 pm (UTC)

"She is likely to have concerns about the succession," says Sherlock. "And she will want to discuss your political aspirations in great depth."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Suppose I'm wrong about successiony things being a minor technical issue. I won't know for sure until I try and I won't try until it'd be a good idea for me to succeed. Then what?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, I could just go find somebody to get me pregnant the old-fashioned way," says Tony. "Wouldn't be the first time that kind of thing happened in a royal family. Although it might be the first time the queen's spouse couldn't get her pregnant because they were also a queen."
Edited 2013-03-25 18:03 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I am developing a mental image of the political proposal. I'm kind of stumped about how to picture the domestic one," observes Bella after a moment.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 06:05 pm (UTC)

"You'd be... married to both of us? I guess?" says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes, see, that's what's puzzling me. Do I just not know enough twins, because I didn't think this was a way twins worked either, so maybe it's just you, or something?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I do not get the impression that this is how other sets of twins work," says Sherlock. "But I don't consider that relevant."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:09 pm (UTC)

"So the way this particular set of twins work is that you would be perfectly okay to be both married to me," Bella clarifies. "...And the 'old fashioned' backup plan, about that, would this be if I were or were not married to you at that point?" she asks Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know," says Tony. "I mean, if I was married to you and then we found out we needed to do it, I think it would be a bad plan for me to stop being married to you and then go and get pregnant and come back and marry you again."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that seems obviously silly," agrees Bella. "But, like, maybe this would go over better with parties who are concerned about succession if I married one of you and then worked on the probably-minor-technical-issue with that one of you and only married the other one if I got it to work? And if I can't get it to work then the other one has to find a husband, but I can do, you know, a husband window."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 06:14 pm (UTC)

"That sounds very practical," says Sherlock. "Which one would you like to marry first?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't know!" Bella throws up her hands, laughing. "I only found out you liked me five minutes ago. I only found out Tony liked me beyond general flirtatiousness a few more minutes ago than that."

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, I guess we've got time to think about it," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I will do notebooking." Bella unsleeves a notebook. "I think best in writing, thoughts can't escape from me if I write them down instead of trying to remember them."

Write write write.
Edited 2013-03-25 18:19 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 06:20 pm (UTC)

...Tony decides she is going to go to sleep now.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:35 pm (UTC)

Does she want a goodnight kiss?

Because the "next" question may not have been fully answered yet, but it appears to involve talking about getting married, so Bella thinks she can risk it!

allthebrightest
2013-03-25 06:36 pm (UTC)

She totally does.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:38 pm (UTC)

Good! She gets one. "Sleep well," says Bella.

And Bella writes in her notebook. This page is shaping up to look like a two-column chart with things like "nnnng" and "design!" in one column and "2 days!!!" and "queen M?!" in the other.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I am going to take off my armour soon," Sherlock mentions.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Ooh!"

Notebook down, specs on, look of utter fascination.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 06:41 pm (UTC)

And Sherlock's armour peels itself off of her and folds up tightly into a neat little bundle.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Beauuuutiful," breathes Bella.

She practically dives into her notebook when the armor is all wrapped up in itself and her specs are back in her hat. She circles two things in the column on the left and writes under them "royal magic" and "sword" and then in the margin "boy am I ever grabby; to-fix?" and then in the column on the right "two of them!" and then in the column on the left "two of themmmmm".

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 06:44 pm (UTC)

"What are you writing?" wonders Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Uh, pros and cons, basically," says Bella, squirming a little. "It's a complicated subject, I have complicated opinions, I'm trying to break them up into little bits so I can weigh them and see if any of the cons can be patched and whether the pros add up to enough."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock. "Do you care to name any... bits?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:50 pm (UTC)

Bella evaluates the contents of her page.

"The fact that there's two of you is in both columns," she volunteers after a moment. "I've never seriously considered a - plural arrangement before."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 06:52 pm (UTC)

"What is it doing in each of them?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 06:55 pm (UTC)

"On the one hand, I really don't know how it'd work. Logistically. It's hard to be unreservedly pleased about something I can't picture. I mean, I have a naive picture but I am completely making it up. On the other hand, sparks and fumes there's two of you."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Presumably it would work much the same as being married to either of us," says Sherlock, "in turns."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 07:01 pm (UTC)

"That's about the naive picture I have," agrees Bella. "I dunno. Maybe it really isn't that complicated."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 07:03 pm (UTC)

"If you were expecting us to have trouble sharing," she offers, "you may stop expecting that."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Duly noted," murmurs Bella, smiling. "...Will I also be learning a valuable lesson about sharing here? I don't personally know anyone who's plurally arranged but it seems likely that some of the setups are more symmetrical than that."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 07:09 pm (UTC)

"...Ah," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 07:10 pm (UTC)

Bella tilts her head. Pen poised.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 07:12 pm (UTC)

"You would," she says, "also be sharing."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 07:17 pm (UTC)

"With specific people, or just random individuals Tony feels like kissing, or what?" Bella asks, noting this in the left column with a question mark in the column.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Tony does often feel like kissing people."

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 07:19 pm (UTC)

Bella writes this down.

"That's not a complete answer to the question, is it," she says quietly.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-25 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I need to think," says Sherlock, and she sits still and shuts her eyes.

thaumobabble
2013-03-25 07:22 pm (UTC)

Not everybody thinks into notebooks. Bella doesn't pry, she just goes on writing things. ("Politics" and a little smiley face are on the left.)

She fills up her page, turns it, starts drawing a flowchart. "Sherlock?" she prompts when it's been a silent few minutes.
Edited 2013-03-25 21:45 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 01:17 am (UTC)

"Yes?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 01:22 am (UTC)

"Are you likely to finish thinking about it before I go to sleep? I need to calibrate my impatience."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 01:26 am (UTC)

"I do not know."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 01:27 am (UTC)

"Should I just ask Tony in the morning?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 01:52 am (UTC)

"That," says Sherlock, "is an excellent plan."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 01:54 am (UTC)

"Okay then."

Bella writes this plan down.

She ruminates a little further on pros and cons, and then she puts her light away, and her notebook, and shucks excess worn objects and snuggles down to sleep.

Then she sits up again.

"D'you want a goodnight kiss too?" she asks shyly. "Since you did just about propose to me and all."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 02:00 am (UTC)

"Yes, I do."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 02:01 am (UTC)

Bella retrieves her light so she can walk carefully over thataway and plant a sweet kiss right on Sherlock's mouth.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 02:02 am (UTC)

Sherlock kisses back.

She is every bit as good at it as Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 02:04 am (UTC)

Oh yay!

But Bella does presently pull herself away, smiling, and go back to bedroll.

"Duck lily flute broomstick nightshade," she mumbles into her pillow a few moments later.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 01:55 pm (UTC)

It takes Sherlock a little longer than that to get to sleep.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 03:43 pm (UTC)

Bella is up circa dawn the next morning. Are there wakeful princesses about?

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 03:46 pm (UTC)

There is no sign of Sherlock, although she is presumably nearby.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 03:47 pm (UTC)

Tony is snuggled into her bedroll, but she's awake!

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Tony," says Bella. "Where'd Sherlock go?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Away," says Tony. "She does that. She'll be back."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Last night I asked if I would be learning a valuable lesson about sharing, and -" Bella pulls out her notes to jog her memory. "She said that you do often feel like kissing people, and that didn't sound like it was a complete answer to me, and she said she had to think, and we decided I should ask you about it in the morning?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Tony sighs. "She said. That's probably something you should know, when Sherry doesn't know how to say something, she hides until she figures it out."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So, do I just - wait till she does figure that out, or are you going to tell me, or what?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 03:58 pm (UTC)

"How to say it is not my problem," says Tony. "Whether to say it is. Okay... how good are you at secrets?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:00 pm (UTC)

"...I write things down, but my notebooks are pretty well protected and mostly not interesting to anyone else, and I can not write things down if you need me to. I'm fine at not telling secrets but I'm better at lying by omission than outright."

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Fine," says Tony. "The secret is, you will be sharing us with... each other."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:04 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"I don't think I need to write that down to remember it," she remarks after a moment.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. And please don't tell anybody, because people get weird about that."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:06 pm (UTC)

"I'd imagine. I won't tell anyone."

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Will you get weird about it?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I... can't think of any reason to object, really. It's unexpected, but any number of answers could have fallen into that category. Not my personal speed, but then I don't have a sister or any cousins I much like, so how do I know."

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:10 pm (UTC)

Tony smiles tentatively.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:14 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles back. "So, me, valuable lesson on sharing, done, cue cute repeat of the overture theme."

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:17 pm (UTC)

...Tony laughs.

"You are the cutest!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:18 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "I have serious competition, though!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:18 pm (UTC)

Brightly: "So, I think we should kiss some more now."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:20 pm (UTC)

Bella does not even collect her non-sleeping-in clothes first, she just traipses (clumsily but not falling-over-ly) Tonyward and plops down beside her and kisses her.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:20 pm (UTC)

Tony snuggles up and kisses back.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:21 pm (UTC)

Yaaaaaay!

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:22 pm (UTC)

D'awwwwwwwwwwww!

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:22 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle kiss Bella's gonna marry at least one princess and this is pleasing and kisses are pleasing and snuggles are pleasing.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:24 pm (UTC)

Bella is pleasing!

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:25 pm (UTC)

So is Tony!

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:25 pm (UTC)

Why, yes! Yes she is!

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:27 pm (UTC)

It's so good that they're agreed on this point.

Kisses kisses kisses normally Bella would be trying not to get too into this when Sherlock might reappear at any moment but under the circumstances she supposes few things could possibly matter less.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 04:29 pm (UTC)

Yeah. That.

Smart Bella.

Mmmmmkisses.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:30 pm (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:31 pm (UTC)

Someone begins making breakfast nearby.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:32 pm (UTC)

Bella notices, because she has ears, and she looks up and smiles at Sherlock. "All's well," she reports, and then she kisses Tony again.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I had noticed," she observes dryly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, I could have been deceitfully seduced, but in fact I was not. Unless there is some deeper darker secret in ignorance of which I am yet operating."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:35 pm (UTC)

"You could not have been," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:35 pm (UTC)

"You don't think so? Because Tony would not deceitfully seduce me, I imagine. I haven't gotten a lie detection spell to work without prohibitive bugs yet."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Good. Deceitful seducers probably aren't nearly as kissable." Kiss!

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:38 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:41 pm (UTC)

When breakfast is ready, kissing must pause in the name of eating; Bella puts her robes and hat and belt on too as long as she's not-kissing.

She is eyeing the princessly breakfast speculatively, but they still could easily not have enough food for a third person, she doesn't know.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:42 pm (UTC)

"You may have some," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:43 pm (UTC)

Bella has some!

"Ooooommmmm this is good," she says. "I can't wait to see what you can do with a proper kitchen. A proper enchanted kitchen."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:44 pm (UTC)

"It will be spectacular," Sherlock agrees.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I guess if I marry even one of you I will wind up moving into the castle, huh," observes Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Very likely."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:47 pm (UTC)

"I wonder how hard it would be to convince my entire house and garden to pick up and walk there. I made them myself."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:48 pm (UTC)

"That I do not know," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Would that be objectionable, if I could manage it? I don't know how carefully ordered the grounds are and whether a magician house would unwelcome. I could possibly just also fold most of my rooms into the enchantment on the interior door, and then install the door someplace convenient in the castle, and have a majority of house with a minority of work."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:53 pm (UTC)

"I expect you will need to discuss the details with Mother."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:54 pm (UTC)

"That makes sense. I'll hold off on making plans, then."

When everyone is through breakfasting, Sherlock gets a kiss too. She has kissed Tony a great deal more than Sherlock so far. This cannot be allowed to last indefinitely, can it?

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 04:56 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Kisses are nice. Sherlock is pleased.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 04:57 pm (UTC)

Excellent. Pleasedness all 'round.

semiautonomous kitchen

thaumobabble

The remaining two days of the walk are much more affectionate, and also much more free of wizards and snakes than the first two days were. Somehow, all three travelers manage to not realize that Bella has not yet produced her name, even though on at least one occasion it would have been convenient for Tony to have.

And there is the castle, and there is the -

"Skyvault," sighs Bella, diving into her hat for her specs.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 08:51 pm (UTC)

The Skyvault is a gleaming arch of blue steel that seems to be continually leaping over the front gate of the castle, anchored in the moss to either side.

To mundane vision it has the illusion of movement, but magically speaking it is in motion, a continual flow of power up over the arch from one side to the other and then back again. It's self-contained, self-sustaining, and entirely beautiful.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 08:54 pm (UTC)

Bella is enthralled. "Oh, that's gorgeous."

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 09:12 pm (UTC)

"The prettiest," Tony agrees, gazing fondly at it.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a look at it with the specs?" asks Bella. "It's so pretty, so efficient..."

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 09:34 pm (UTC)

Bella takes a moment longer to gaze through her specs, then hands them over with their current lens configuration.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Whoa," says Tony. "Yeah, I know what that is! I didn't know you could see it, though, that's awesome."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 09:41 pm (UTC)

"That's what the specs are for! I'm very proud of my specs," nods Bella.

When everyone who wishes to has gotten a good look at the Skyvault - although Bella plans to take a second and third look later and take notes on it at various times of day - Bella puts her spectacles away.

"I guess this is when I meet your mom?" she asks tentatively.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Yep! C'mon in," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 09:45 pm (UTC)

Bella adjusts her hat and smooths out her robes and murmurs her cleaning spell and follows the princesses into the castle, taking small careful steps.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 10:07 pm (UTC)

Someone comes into the front hall to meet them as they enter.

She looks a lot like the twins, except that she's older, wearing a much nicer dress, and her hair is a bright fiery red.

"Hi!" Tony says brightly. "We found this magician in the forest and we wanna marry her."

"Does this magician," inquires Queen Marianne, "have a name?"

"...Um..." says Tony.
Edited 2013-03-26 22:07 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Sparks and fumes, I've been hiking with you in the woods for four days and somehow my name never came up," snorts Bella, "that would be sad if it weren't so funny. I'm sorry, Your Majesty - I'm Isabella Swan. Bella for preference."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 10:12 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles slightly.

"Aha," says Queen Marianne. "Well, welcome to the castle, Bella Swan. Is there a particular one of my daughters that wants to marry you, or were they planning to share?"
Edited 2013-03-26 22:12 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:14 pm (UTC)

"The second thing," says Bella. "Possibly not both right away, given the probably-a-minor-technical-issue around succession."

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, pick one," says the queen, "and if you manage to get her pregnant, you can marry the other one too."

Tony snorks.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:18 pm (UTC)

"...Okay," says Bella. "...Now I have to pick. Um."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Take your time," the queen says, amused. "You can stay in the castle while you get to know them. There's room."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay, thank you!" says Bella, smiling.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, Mom," Tony adds, and she takes Bella's hand. "C'mon, wanna go find somewhere to put you?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," Bella agrees comfortably, following where Tony leads.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 10:36 pm (UTC)

Sherlock follows after them.

"Bella," she murmurs. "It's a pretty name."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Bella giggles. "I can't believe I just never thought to introduce myself. You never asked, either."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 10:37 pm (UTC)

"I knew who you were."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:39 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I didn't need to name you to anyone. You were right there."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I suppose if we'd been more than three of us it would've come up."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, now you know. And my middle name is Mariel, if that ever matters."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 10:57 pm (UTC)

"I will remember it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I went by Mariel for about three months in school. I thought it sounded more witchy, and I hadn't yet quite realized I could do more than just witchcraft. It didn't stick. I like Bella better."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:01 pm (UTC)

"They are both pretty."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:03 pm (UTC)

"You're pretty." Pause. "Do either of you have an opinion on who definitely marries me and who has to wait for technical innovation and maybe doesn't marry me if I can't do it?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Tony, "if one of us still has to go find a husband, it should probably be me."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:05 pm (UTC)

Bella looks at Sherlock to see what she thinks of this. Just in case anything about what Sherlock thinks of this is visible.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:06 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is nodding!

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Unless something particularly compelling pointing the other direction comes up in the amount of time allotted to this decision, we can go with that." Pause. "I can probably solve the technical issue, though."
Edited 2013-03-26 23:08 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I support this plan."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Sherlock gets a kiss on the temple. This maneuver proves reasonably complicated for Bella and she trips on the hall rug. "I need to make myself another pair of moccasins, I wasn't even this clumsy before I made them, I'm too used to them now," she mutters as she gets up again.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Want me to carry you?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Yes. And then I need to know where to get nice imitation leather for new moccasins. At least I have my sewing kit and my bead stash on me." She hops gratefully into Tony's arms.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 11:17 pm (UTC)

Cuddly!

"I bet somebody knows," she says vaguely.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Palace staff of some sort?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, them."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:21 pm (UTC)

"All right. Any names I should be learning in that department?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

She has a list. It is extensive and detailed.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:25 pm (UTC)

Bella starts writing things down after it is clear the list will have more than three people on it.

Hey, look! Is that a guest bedroom suitable for containing a Bella?

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:26 pm (UTC)

Yes!

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:30 pm (UTC)

It is pretty! Bella likes it.

She unpacks into it a bit. Not most of her stuff - her sleeves are perfectly serviceable for holding a lot of things - but spare changes of clothes and so on are put in appropriate locations.

"Should I start on the kitchen now or later?" she asks, when this has been done.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:32 pm (UTC)

"It may as well be now."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:33 pm (UTC)

"All right then." She hops into Tony's arms again. "About the fake leather, when I run into someone I can ask do I need to produce money for it, or what?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Only if you feel like it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:36 pm (UTC)

Bella takes that as a no. "Okay," she says, nuzzling Tony's neck.

allthebrightest
2013-03-26 11:38 pm (UTC)

Tony turns her head and kisses Bella's cheek.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:42 pm (UTC)

Hurray!

Here is the kitchen. Bella scopes it out, specs on. There is some spell residue. She guides it into her marble with coaxing murmurs and little hand motions so the space will be clear for her to work, and then she inventories the tools and all the compartments for ingredients in the cupboards and the pantry.
Edited 2013-03-26 23:44 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:45 pm (UTC)

The kitchen is extensively but somewhat eclectically supplied. For some reason, they have six crepe pans.

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:45 pm (UTC)

"You have," Bella observes, "six crepe pans."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:48 pm (UTC)

"They were there when I got here."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Well, it's not going to throw off the spell or anything." Bella starts placing little glass droplets as markers in key locations around the kitchen. "How often do you acquire new kitchen equipment?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Infrequently."

thaumobabble
2013-03-26 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay. If I skimp on the seamlessness of adding new things - it'll still work, it'll just take a bit to get used to anything you bring in - then that makes having dishes wash themselves easier." Bella places a marker near the sink.

Soon enough there are little markers all over the kitchen. "Do you want multiply-opening cabinets or are you satisfied with your existing storage space?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-26 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Would they conflict with any other conveniences?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 12:00 am (UTC)

"Cabinets can open themselves, but they can't switch between multiple compartments themselves, so it does mean that you have to manually close and reopen the doors or drawers or whatever if you need things from compartments other than the last one opened."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 12:00 am (UTC)

"Then let's leave the storage as-is."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 12:04 am (UTC)

"Okay." Bella counts the tokens she's placed, and pulls out a notebook and flips through it until she finds what she's looking for and checks something, and then she counts the spice jars, and then she peers into the ovens, and then she peers critically at the organization of the preserves jars, and then she inspects the arrangement of the silverware. "Can you think of any customizations you want that we haven't already talked about?" she asks, making small tick marks in various places in her notes and then nudging the placement of a glass token.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 12:06 am (UTC)

"I cannot."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 12:10 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Bella sits crosslegged in the middle of the kitchen. She holds her notebook up in front of her face, and recites a series of verses that is about half nonsense words and half vernacular. (The exact proportion of the two isn't perfectly clear, since some of the sequences of syllables that could be ordinary words have no clear purpose in a kitchen spell.)

Her glass tokens glow, and all of them stretch out ribbons of light to connect to each of the others till she's sitting in the middle of a web of beams.

They go dark - not all at once, but staggered, in ones and twos - and Bella grins and gets up again and starts retrieving them.

"It should have enough place-memory to already know how to help you with things you've made here a lot in the past. It'll pick up on new things much more efficiently going forward, though. You can talk to it. It's not a person, but it'll respond to the attitudes behind the words."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 12:11 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Sherlock, and impulsively hugs her.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 12:11 am (UTC)

Hugs! Bella likes hugs. She hugs back.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 12:23 am (UTC)

Hugs and kisses?

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 05:10 am (UTC)

Oooh yes please.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 12:04 pm (UTC)

Mm. Kisses.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I bet," says Bella, "that you could also carry me if you so chose, if there were a better room than the kitchen for us to be in right now."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I believe that is true," says Sherlock, and picks her up.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 05:47 pm (UTC)

Yay! Bella is developing quite an appreciation for being carried around. She tucks her head in against Sherlock's neck.

"I have honestly no idea how my parents will react when I tell them I have gone and gotten engaged to at least one princess," she says.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I hope they will not be upset."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 05:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it will be a negative reaction. Well, maybe a little, because it's very fast - they have an unusual perspective because when they got married it didn't work out. They'll probably have all kinds of questions about how I can be sure I want to marry you."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 05:54 pm (UTC)

"And how are you sure you want to marry me?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 05:57 pm (UTC)

"I think you're pretty much as you present yourself," says Bella. "Some people aren't, but I don't think you're one of them. I like the way you present yourself. If there weren't princess-related issues lurking about I'd probably want to wait longer before getting married, and just be your girlfriend for a while first, but I'd still really like you."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I am exactly as I present myself," says Sherlock. "And I really like you too."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:01 pm (UTC)

Bella grins. "So few people are exactly as they present themselves. I have a deal with myself that I won't pretend to be anyone I'm not to myself, but I'm not always perfect about being open with everybody else. I'm not proud of all my characteristics." She sobers a little throughout the course of this utterance.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:04 pm (UTC)

Sherlock waits, still carrying her toward her room.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Like, you said I was a helpful person. I am, in the sense that I help people, but that's just because I feel like it. I don't go far out of my way to do it. It falls by the wayside if it's competing with other things I want more. I've never been able to - never been interested in fooling myself into doing anything I didn't really want. And I'm good at figuring out what I really want. It just usually includes helping people who wander by."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:10 pm (UTC)

"But," says Bella, "unless my thinking turns up something unexpected, I want to marry you, and I had not really been planning on kids anytime in the immediate future but I expect I can warm to the idea, and if I manage the technical stuff I want to marry Tony too, and I want to be a queen and do all your politics for you when that is called for, because I think being an effective and decent monarch sounds like a fascinating challenge."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:12 pm (UTC)

"That seems very reasonable to me."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:12 pm (UTC)

Nuzzles and neck-kisses!

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:19 pm (UTC)

Nuzzles and cheek-kisses!

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:21 pm (UTC)

Yay!

Is that Bella's new room there? Bella thinks it might be.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:25 pm (UTC)

It is!

Sherlock carries her into it and sets her down on her bed.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:26 pm (UTC)

Bella tugs Sherlock down after her. For snuggles. If she also waves a bare foot at the door in such a way that it is convinced to close, that's unrelated. Maybe.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:27 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

Kisses and snuggles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:29 pm (UTC)

Kisses and snuggles and making the knowledge of Bella's name useful, maybe?

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:31 pm (UTC)

Well, Sherlock is not a very exclamatory sort of person.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:32 pm (UTC)

Awww. Does she mind if Bella tries to fix that?

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:39 pm (UTC)

Not at all.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:40 pm (UTC)

Good!

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:46 pm (UTC)

In fact, she appreciates the effort quite thoroughly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:48 pm (UTC)

Excellent.

It's some time later when, staring up at the ceiling, Bella says, "I should probably call home and tell Cricket the news. He expects me home in a few days."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes, you probably should."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:51 pm (UTC)

Bella starts reaching for a change of clothes. "Where's a mirror I can use?" she asks, stuffing her head into a raspberry-colored tunic.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I will fetch one," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, portable mirrors, fancy."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps not so portable as all that."

When she does in fact fetch one, it is not in fact extremely portable: just an ordinary smallish wall mirror, convenient enough to carry around a medium-sized castle but not something you'd want to pack on a long trip.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Ah, I see, you are of course less wary of carrying fragile objects than I am," laughs Bella.

She props the mirror up against a wall. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I would like to make a call."

"Who?" asks the mirror.

Bella blinks; hers is more polite than that. "Cricket the cat at the home of Bella Swan, in the Enchanted Forest."

"Just a sec," the mirror says.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:13 pm (UTC)

Sherlock glances at Bella, perhaps wondering what was so surprising about the mirror's response, perhaps thinking about something else entirely.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 07:17 pm (UTC)

Presently the mirror shows Cricket. Since Bella's mirror is up on her wall, Cricket has apparently dragged a chair over to sit on and get into frame. "Mrooow?"

"Hi, Cricket! I'm engaged!"

"Meow!"

"If they were allergic to cats I think it would have come up sooner."

"Mew mow?"

"Yes, they - well, sort of, they're princesses, they need heirs, I have to see if I can do that before I can marry both of them."

"Meowwww?"

"Sherlock first."

"Mew."

"Yes, I know Tony was flirting with me more. Tony pretty much just flirts more, period, that's part of why Sherlock first, Tony will have an easier time finding an acceptable husband if I can't come up with a spell."

"Meoooowow."

"Your confidence is, I hope, well-placed."
Edited 2013-03-27 19:20 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Confidence," Sherlock murmurs. "That sounds promising."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Cricket thinks I can do anything," laughs Bella self-consciously. "I can do a lot of things, but 'anything' is pushing it."

"Mewew."

"Cricket," says Bella dryly, "she's not a cat. She doesn't go into heat."

"Mow!"

"Whenever, okay, and that's all I'm telling you about that."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:25 pm (UTC)

Sherlock giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Mooooow."

"Cricket says to tell you," Bella relays to Sherlock, "that you'd better be good to me."

"Mew."

"Or you may be scratched. 'Ket-cat, I don't think you want to try that."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:34 pm (UTC)

"I will be good to you," says Sherlock, "regardless of Cricket's opinion on the matter."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 07:39 pm (UTC)

Bella beams at her.

"Meow."

"Cricket thinks we're cute," laughs Bella. "Anyway, Cricket, I'll be home to pack up everything, including you, soon, but not likely four days soon. You'll be okay?"

"Mrrrrow."

"If you need to, yeah, I'll pay her back - in fact, you could go anyway, tell Bobbin to tell Sanda the news."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:40 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Meow."

"Yes, I could call her, but if you're going to be over there anyway - look, Cricket, I told you first, I haven't even called Ranata and Charlie yet, and I have other things to do, I lost a moccasin -"

"Mew mew."

"Tony carried me most of the way," Bella admits. "Don't interrupt. So I have new moccasins to make, and a Skyvault to look at, and maybe a sword, and of course there's Sherlock and Tony to get to know, I'm calling you because you generally expect me to feed you and you need to know how long I'll be gone but Sanda's down the priority list some."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:44 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Mow."

"If that were what 'getting to know' meant, I certainly would not tell you."

"Meeeeow!"

"If you're just going to make dirty jokes, then this call is over," says Bella firmly.

"Mowww."

"Apology accepted."

"Mew?"

"There's knowing someone well enough to be sure you want to keep them and then there's knowing them really well. You should know that, you'd decided I was going to be your witch - after a fashion - when you were five weeks old and had spied on me talking to Sanda for about ten minutes."

"Mew."

"Yes, you were very clever about it, but that didn't mean that you had nothing new to learn at the time I was convinced and brought you home, did it?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins a little.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Meooow?"

"In this metaphor neither I nor either princess is a cat. It's not a direct metaphor like that."

"Mew."

"You'll just have to live with it."

"Mwow."

"No, we don't have a wedding date set."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 07:55 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Mew."

"I will certainly not name my firstborn after you."

"Mew!"

"I don't care if it's unisex. I'll probably only be able to produce daughters anyway."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:02 pm (UTC)

...Sherlock giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Meow meow."

"Thanks, Cricket. I love you too."

The mirror goes blank.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Shall we come up with a wedding date? Or would you like to make more calls first?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:11 pm (UTC)

"More calls will probably be to people who also want a date," Bella says, leaning her head on Sherlock's shoulder. "So we should probably pick a day. Hmmm."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Anytime within the next year would be likely to satisfy Mother."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Late summer? Maybe mid-Umber."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Entirely acceptable."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:16 pm (UTC)

"And Ranata won't have to take off work then either, although Charlie will no matter when it is. Umber fifteenth." She kisses Sherlock on the cheek and beams.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:16 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins back.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:21 pm (UTC)

"I will probably have to wear a dress to be proper about it, won't I," muses Bella. "Oh well."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:22 pm (UTC)

"You may wear whatever you like, as far as I'm concerned."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:24 pm (UTC)

"There's also your mother who may have concerns," Bella points out. "And however many guests who'll be scandalized anyway but could be slightly placated."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Ha."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I'll wear a dress," shrugs Bella. "It's not a big deal. I admit I'm having some trouble picturing you in a dress, though."
Edited 2013-03-27 20:32 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I do not wear them."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, you're the one who's royalty to begin with, you've probably got more social leeway than I have."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Likely yes."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I know I said politics sounded fascinating but I haven't actually studied it, since I didn't expect to get to do any... am I likely to get an official crash course or will I wind up picking things up as I go?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:46 pm (UTC)

"You may ask Mother."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Will do. Should I also ask about the sword or should that wait a bit?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:51 pm (UTC)

"You may also ask about that. The worst that might happen is that she asks you to wait until we are married before you look at it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:52 pm (UTC)

"All right. And then I'll be able to pick it up without getting burnt," says Bella with understated glee. "I wonder, if I do marry both of you, if that'll leave me able to use royal magic instead of just have low-level perceptions like I think royal spouses usually do? Or if for magical purposes marrying Tony will be redundant?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I suspect," says Sherlock, "that there is only one way to find out."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Bella placidly. "With any luck, I will get to perform the experiment."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 08:58 pm (UTC)

She nods.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:00 pm (UTC)

Sherlock gets a kiss, and then Bella addresses the mirror again. This time she calls Ranata.

"Hi, Mom!"

"Bella, hi! It's - this isn't your house, is it? Did you remodel?"

"No, Mom, I'm in the royal castle of the Enchanted Forest," says Bella smugly, "and this is Princess Sherlock and we're going to get married."

Ranata squeals at the top of her lungs.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:01 pm (UTC)

...Sherlock smiles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Your Highness," exclaims Ranata when she's recovered her composure somewhat, "it's lovely to meet you, I'm Bella's mother Ranata Swan, I want the whole story."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:07 pm (UTC)

"My sister and I went questing for someone to marry," says Sherlock. "We found Bella. She is delightful."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Questing! Oh, goodness. That's utterly precious. My baby's going to be a princess!"

"We've settled on the fifteenth of Umber," Bella adds.

"I'm so excited!" Ranata cries.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to call Dad, next," Bella says, "and tell him - questions before I go?"

"Oh, no, he should know right away, I'll talk to you again soon, Bella dear - I'll want to come visit and meet your fiancée in person if that's all right -"

"Sure, we'll set something up," says Bella happily.

Ranata beams and waves goodbye, and the call ends.

"So that's Ranata," Bella says.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:25 pm (UTC)

"She is very sweet."
Edited 2013-03-27 21:25 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I like her," says Bella. "Charlie's turn."

Charlie answers the mirror less effusively, but not less affectionately, and addresses Bella as "Bells".

He reacts with stunned silence to the news of his daughter's engagement.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:29 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Dad," says Bella. "It's traditional to congratulate me."

"...Congratulations," says Charlie. "Bells. Your Highness."

"Thanks, Dad."

"How have I not heard about this before, Bells, why wouldn't you call me?"

"It's just happened," exclaims Bella. "I met Sherlock four days ago. This is the first I've been at a mirror since we decided to get married. I told Cricket because I'm not going to be home to buy him more food, and I told Mom next, and then I told you, Dad."

Charlie does not look fully comfortable with the situation, and he keeps peering at Sherlock.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:35 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:38 pm (UTC)

"It's very sudden," says Charlie after a long silence.

"The wedding's not until the fifteenth of Umber," says Bella.

"It's still - sudden."

"Does it help that she rescued me from a giant river-snake?" asks Bella, frowning.

"...Not as much as you might think."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:39 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, Dad," says Bella, "I'll... call you another time and hope to catch you in a better mood, I guess."

"Bells, it's nothing against you or Her Highness, but such a short time..."

Bella shakes her head and waves the mirror image away. Charlie disappears and it reflects only herself and Sherlock.

Bella wraps her arms around her fiancée. "I was expecting both of them to have reactions about halfway between those," she mutters. "Worried-but-happy. Not one just happy and one just worried."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:44 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her back.

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:45 pm (UTC)

"He'll get over it. Especially if Ranata visits and then talks to him. She'll like you. And Tony too. I'm debating whether to announce that part of the plan ahead of time."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps not until we know it will happen."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's my thinking. Stagger the revelations, that way, too. Marrying princess! Expecting baby! Marrying other princess!"

Snuggles? "Are you okay?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:51 pm (UTC)

"It worries me that your father is worried," she says. "I'll live."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 09:53 pm (UTC)

"It's only because it's fast. Nothing about you. We already knew it was fast."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I suppose we did."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 10:01 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle. "Umber is a ways away. It's only Brown now. He'll have plenty of time to get used to the idea, and we'll have plenty of time to confirm that it's a good idea."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 10:02 pm (UTC)

"All right."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Now," says Bella, "fun as it is being carried everywhere, I'm going to atrophy if it goes on much longer and I'm going to crack my head open one of these days if I try doing without, so I need to go find one of the servants you mentioned and see about moccasin material."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-27 10:07 pm (UTC)

"All right."

thaumobabble
2013-03-27 10:07 pm (UTC)

Bella goes off - carefully - to look for someone to solicit fake leather from, then goes back to her room.

Sherlock's not there to ask about timing, so Bella wanders into the castle, exploring the layout and keeping her eyes peeled for Her Majesty to ask about politics lessons and sword-looking-at permissions.
Edited 2013-03-27 22:14 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-29 12:40 am (UTC)

There she is!

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 01:24 am (UTC)

"Your Majesty?" inquires Bella, quite ready to be sent away if the queen is busy with important queening.

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:31 am (UTC)

"Ah, Bella," says her majesty. "Have you decided which of my daughters you are going to marry?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 01:34 am (UTC)

"Sherlock first," Bella says. "In the event - I think it's an unlikely one, but not an impossible one - that I can't help out with producing you a royal grandchild, they think Tony will have an easier time finding a more traditional sort of spouse."

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:36 am (UTC)

"I think they're right," says her majesty. "Very sensible."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 01:39 am (UTC)

"But since I probably can work out a spell for it - it may already have been invented, although I'd need to do a bit of a research project to find it - and since I'm going to marry Sherlock anyway, I was wondering if it would be a good idea for me to take some sort of politics lessons? The topic interests me but I haven't done a lot of investigation into it as I never expected to have a chance to apply it."

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:44 am (UTC)

"Also very sensible," she says approvingly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 01:52 am (UTC)

"Is there something like that available already, or that can be easily set up, or should I just investigate your library and talk to key staff members...?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:56 am (UTC)

"I think the most instructive method would be if I taught you myself," she says. "Although you're free to browse the library as much as you want."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 01:58 am (UTC)

"That does sound very instructive, and I'd appreciate it," says Bella brightly. "What sort of schedule works for you?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 02:00 am (UTC)

"That depends," she says. "Will you be staying in the castle for the forseeable future?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 02:20 am (UTC)

"I will need to go to my house to collect my belongings and my cat, in the next week or so, and possibly again to sell the place. This will be pretty quick if I get a carpet to enchant and fly there and back instead of having to hike, though."

pythbox
2013-03-29 01:30 pm (UTC)

"Good, then I can keep you plenty busy," the queen says with a smile.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 02:58 pm (UTC)

"I like to be busy!" Bella says approvingly. "Where are we going to start?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 02:59 pm (UTC)

"Good question," she says musingly.

"What do you know about wizards?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:00 pm (UTC)

"I know a fair amount about the magic works, considering that I'm not personally a wizard or related to one," Bella replies. "And some incidental facts about the Society and not very much about their history."

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:10 pm (UTC)

"Wizards," says Queen Marianne, "are apparently very relevant all of a sudden."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:12 pm (UTC)

"We met some on our way here," Bella says. "I checked, and they weren't - at the time I looked - stealing any magic in active use."

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Good for them," the queen says dryly. "Any interest in looking again?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:19 pm (UTC)

"I can, yes, although if you want me to look more thoroughly instead of just again I'll need prep time to add a new lens to my spectacles or research some other sort of divination."

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:21 pm (UTC)

"About how long would that take? I'm thinking of sending you with the delegation. Practical experience," she says.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:27 pm (UTC)

"Oh! Um, I'm about halfway through figuring out how to wrestle a dwarf spell into a lens, and given the gorgeous design on the armor Tony made I bet she can help me and shave a week off the time. If I just do that and don't make myself new moccasins so I can walk without tripping, or a flying carpet, I can probably have it done in a couple of days. Help from one of the princesses, or maybe you, could get me up to version two on the item-reading lens that uses fire-witch principles, but I haven't been actively looking into that recently so it'd take a little longer. And I've been meaning to add a lens or two enchanted with dragon spells but I've been putting it off in the hopes that I could get my friend Kexan to introduce me to King Kazul so I could ask for a look at the King's Crystal, which has yet to happen. Non-lens-based divinations, it depends on what exactly you want me to look for."

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:37 pm (UTC)

"We can probably wait for the dwarf lens," says the queen. "I don't have a specific notion of what you should be looking for, but I like information and I like more information better."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:39 pm (UTC)

"I also," Bella adds, snapping her fingers in sudden memory, "now have an intact wizard staff that's not a discard to play with - did Sherlock mention this? - and I haven't started inspecting it yet, but there could be some kind of divination wrapped up in there that I can apply to myself or to a new lens, and it would probably be ideal for checking out what wizards are up to if I can make the adaptation."

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:45 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like a longer-term project to me," says the queen. "But I'd be interested to see what you could dig up with it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:47 pm (UTC)

"It could take a very long time," Bella admits, "mostly because there might not be anything like what I'd be looking for in the staff, but I've had staff fragments pass through my possession before and sometimes things rise to the surface right away. It's probably at least worth an hour checking that out before I start working on the dwarf lens full time. ...Should it be full time, are we in enough of a hurry that I should skip the moccasins and the carpet?"

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:49 pm (UTC)

"The official delegation will be going sometime this week," says the queen. "I'd rather you were able to accompany it without falling over."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I've already asked for the material I need to make them. It won't take long, since I've done it before and I have all the beads and my sewing kit. I can get started on a preliminary check of the staff and talking to Tony about dwarf magic before the imitation leather arrives."

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Aren't you efficient," the queen says approvingly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, I haven't figured out immortality yet, and it's the next best thing," says Bella brightly.

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:56 pm (UTC)

The queen laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything else I should learn or have prepared before the delegation goes out?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-03-29 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Nothing crucial. Use your judgment."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Always," says Bella, and she sweeps into a completely incompetent curtsy and departs to get to work on the staff.

enchanted spectacles

thaumobabble

Bella inventories the staff. She uses power from her marble, not because she's drained or needs a lot but because she's hoping to coax the staff into being helpful.

She finds two minimally useful divinations in the hour she's allotted to this project, and she takes an extra hour to wheedle them into knitting together, infusing a spare lens, and accepting power from the marble and only when looked through instead of from the staff and continuously. She puts the new lens - now a dark amber color - on the arm of her spectacles, and tests it out. Yes, she can see the staff calling for magic and her protections and the forest denying it with enough gentleness that it doesn't simply die. She feeds the staff a little personal witchery - she doesn't want it to die before she can really get to work on taking it apart - and then wraps it up and puts it away.

She goes looking for Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 04:56 pm (UTC)

Tony is working at the forge.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 04:57 pm (UTC)

...Bella decides she doesn't need Tony's attention immediately. She can just watch for a few minutes, right? Just a few.

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 04:57 pm (UTC)

Bella can watch as looooong as she wants.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Hey," Bella says eventually, at what looks like a reasonable interruption point.

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Hey," Tony says cheerfully. "What's up?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:02 pm (UTC)

"If you have time, I'd like it if you'd work with me on a new lens for my spectacles. I've been fighting with a dwarf spell intermittently for weeks, but I'd like to have it ready in time to go along with the delegation who's going to check out that wizard colony and get a better look at what's going on there, and I think your help would speed things up."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Sure!" says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to work on it here or someplace else? I don't know if the forge is particularly attuned to your dwarf magic or anything."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, let's see what you've got so far. Might as well be here."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:06 pm (UTC)

"All right." Bella pulls out her notes on the spell - she's got a primary source on the original spell she's adapting, lots of material on putting seeing-spells into lenses in general, and then a lot of incoherent ranting at her notebook about the stupid uncooperative dwarf magic. "I recently had the idea of trying to enchant the frame of the lens - the iron bit that wraps around the glass - instead of the glass itself, but I don't even know where to start," she says, pulling a blank lens from one sleeve and putting it on top of the notes.

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm good with iron," Tony asserts.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:09 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "The trouble is, iron's not see-through. So the spell would have to be on the frame, but go through the space that the lens occupies. I could pop out the glass part, maybe, if that would help."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Or you'd have to make the glass and the iron talk to each other," she muses.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. There's that," says Bella, grinning suddenly. "That could - ooh."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:13 pm (UTC)

Tony beams.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay, what kind of outputs can you give this little twist of iron here?" Bella asks, picking up the lens and its frame that will hook onto the spectacle-arms when it's done. "I think I can get the glass to listen to most anything, I'm good with glass."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:18 pm (UTC)

Tony checks Bella's primary source again, and then she picks up the frame and holds it in her hands, humming thoughtfully.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:19 pm (UTC)

Bella produces her spectacles. "Feel free to have a look at any of these lenses," she says. "Or ask me about them. This one," she taps the wizard lens, "is new, I stole some divinations out of the staff I got."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Shiny," says Tony. "Mmmm. How about..."

She tries something.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:27 pm (UTC)

That doesn't get quite the desired result, and neither do the next fifteen variations, but by the end of a highly fun afternoon spent messing around with the lens, Bella clips it onto her spectacles, gets all the other lenses out of the way, and declares it, "Satisfactory!"

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:28 pm (UTC)

Tony beams and kisses her.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:51 pm (UTC)

Eee, kisses! Bella is pleased.

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 05:52 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses!

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 05:53 pm (UTC)

Pleasedness pleasedness pleasedness!

"So I'll be going off with the delegation sometime in the next week," Bella eventually murmurs against Tony's neck. "I'm not sure how long we'll be gone. It is supposed to be part of learning politics, though."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Have fun," says Tony, snuggling her.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I think I will. Do you know who all's likely to be in such a delegation besides me, or do you not pay attention to that kinda thing?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I do not pay attention to that kinda thing!"

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:04 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs and kisses her again. "You're adorable."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Awww." Snugglesnuggle. "So're you."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:06 pm (UTC)

Further snuggles ensue, then Bella asks, "What were you making when I interrupted?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Enchanted daggers," she says. "Just for fun."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:12 pm (UTC)

"What are they enchanted to do?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:13 pm (UTC)

"This one glows in the dark. That one finds water."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I can see why a glowing dagger would be a useful combination. I'm not sure how a dowsing one makes sense."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:15 pm (UTC)

"I was just messing around."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:15 pm (UTC)

"What usually becomes of the stuff you make, when it's not for Sherlock?"

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I guess most of it ends up in the castle armory."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:20 pm (UTC)

"All appropriately labeled, I hope. I can think of situations where it would be bad to be surprised by a glowing-in-the-dark dagger feature."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:22 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "Yeah, of course. And we keep the enchanted weapons separate from the ordinary ones, anything else is just asking for trouble."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Of course," Bella agrees. "Oh, darn it, I forgot to ask your mother about whether I could have a look at the sword. I suppose once I'm done with my moccasins and I'm ready to leave whenever the delegation does it will be a better time to inquire."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, probably," Tony agrees.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if the fake leather's here yet. He did say it wouldn't be long." Nuzzle. "I'll go check."

allthebrightest
2013-03-29 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

But first, one more kiss.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:32 pm (UTC)

Two more.

Then Bella's off to sew herself a new pair of shoes.

pythbox
2013-03-29 06:37 pm (UTC)

The leather has indeed arrived!

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:38 pm (UTC)

Hooray!

Bella gets out her moccasin pattern and has just started marking where she'll need to cut when it occurs to her that it's dinnertime, and she's probably allowed to eat with her fiancée's family.

She goes down to the kitchen, since she knows where that is.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 06:39 pm (UTC)

The kitchen contains Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:52 pm (UTC)

"I can join the family for dinner, right?" Bella asks. "And how's the kitchen behaving for you?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 06:54 pm (UTC)

"The kitchen is lovely. I adore the kitchen. Yes, you may join us for dinner."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:57 pm (UTC)

"When is that?" Bella asks.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Shortly."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 06:59 pm (UTC)

Bella leans on the door of the kitchen and watches it behave itself for Sherlock. "It smells good," she observes.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 07:01 pm (UTC)

"That it does."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Do you usually do all the cooking, or just sometimes?" Pause. "Am I distracting you?"

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I frequently cook, and you are a pleasant and acceptable distraction."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 07:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to be going along on a delegation to have a second look at that wizard colony," Bella says. "As a sort of prelude to politics lessons."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Interesting notion. I hope it's safe."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 07:10 pm (UTC)

"I do too. Anyway, now I have two new lenses on my spectacles to have a better look at the magic around the place. Tony helped with one, saved me at least a week of wrestling with dwarf magic."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Ah, excellent. Do let me know if you find out anything interesting."

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 11:26 pm (UTC)

"About the wizards? I will."

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 11:34 pm (UTC)

Sherlock takes the time out of cooking to give her betrothed a kiss on the cheek.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 11:38 pm (UTC)

Bella grins and returns the favor in a quick peck, but doesn't attempt to further distract her intended with physical affection. This time.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 11:45 pm (UTC)

She smiles radiantly and gets back to work.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 11:46 pm (UTC)

Bella supervises hungrily. When dinner's ready, she follows Sherlock to the dining room.

calendarofcrime
2013-03-29 11:50 pm (UTC)

Dinner is served!

Dinner is delicious.

thaumobabble
2013-03-29 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Mmmm," sighs Bella after her first bite of dinner, and she leans over and kisses Sherlock on the cheek again before falling to in earnest.

Between dinner and desert, Bella ventures to say: "Your Majesty, I was able to get some divinations out of the wizard staff and put them into a lens, and Tony was able to help me finish a dwarven lens as well, so I'm a bit ahead of schedule. After I finish my new pair of moccasins, probably tomorrow midday, I was wondering if there was any chance I could have a look at the sword?"

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:45 am (UTC)

"To what end?" inquires the queen.

thaumobabble
2013-03-30 01:58 am (UTC)

"With the spectacles I can see a lot of details about magic things," Bella explains. "I just want to look at it and take notes, I know perfectly well I can't touch it now."

pythbox
2013-03-30 01:58 am (UTC)

"I see," says the queen. "I'll think about it."

thaumobabble
2013-03-30 02:01 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-30 02:03 am (UTC)

She smiles.

thaumobabble
2013-03-30 02:05 am (UTC)

"Actually, the original reason I left home was to have a look at the Skyvault. There was no question of anybody marrying me till a bit later," Bella says conversationally with a smile at Tony.

pythbox
2013-03-30 12:30 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says the queen. "My daughters do move fast, don't they?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-30 03:54 pm (UTC)

"The idea came together pretty quickly," agrees Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-30 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Things tend to, around the girls."

thaumobabble
2013-03-30 04:02 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles and resumes eating dinner.

surefooted moccasins

thaumobabble

Bella completes her moccasins. They're easy, but tedious; she's putting tiny parts of the spell on each of the hundreds of glass beads that gets sewn on. Last time it took her a couple of days, but by the end of the process she could do the magic and the sewing at the same time; this time it's an easy rhythm and by an hour after lunch she's got them beaded and pieced and a binding enchantment laid on each of them and the pair together to hold all the beads in a coherent whole. She says her cleaning spell - the castle isn't dirty, but any amount of walking around barefoot leaves dirt on one's feet - and slips them on and gets up and walks around experimentally. Success!

She spends the rest of the time before the delegation is prepared to go sitting outside at the Skyvault, looking at it with various lens combinations and taking fascinated notes, and spending time with her fiancée-and-a-half.

She's ready to leave when the rest of the wizard-visiting party is.

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:04 pm (UTC)

Despite some pressure by the King of the Dragons, the wizard-visiting party does not include her. It does include one diplomat, a significant escort, and an extra human there to 'represent the interests of the dragons', which mainly seems to mean spying on everyone.

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 05:13 pm (UTC)

Off they go! Bella remembers the way, insofar as there is a way to remember within the Enchanted Forest over short distances, so she's in the lead until they find a squirrel to course-correct.

Sigh. Hiking through the forest was more fun with Sherlock and Tony along.

She strikes up a conversation with the diplomat. "Have you worked with wizards before?"

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:15 pm (UTC)

"No," he admits. "No one's had serious diplomatic contact with the Society of Wizards in a long time."

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 05:16 pm (UTC)

"There's always a magician or two somewhere working on infiltrating them, for completely undiplomatic purposes of course, but I've never been interested in going undercover," says Bella. "I only know a few things about wizard magic, and of course I have to heavily adapt it to work for me."

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Mm," the diplomat says politely.

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 05:27 pm (UTC)

"How're you planning to play the interaction?" inquires Bella.

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Wait and see," he suggests.

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 05:48 pm (UTC)

"...So I take it you don't need me to do anything?"

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Anything such as...?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Magic of any kind, pretty much, or telling you what I know about how wizards work."

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Didn't you just say you don't know anything about how wizards work?"

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I said I only know a few things about wizard magic. And the books I learned the few things from had a few notes about the culture, here and there," Bella says, frowning.

pythbox
2013-03-31 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Go on," says the diplomat.

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Well, the group we're visiting sent out one of the wizards' wives to meet us. Some wizard magical principles can be used by anybody - like me - but in its pure form it only works for boys with wizard fathers. They usually marry each other's daughters but sometimes they're more exogamous about it. They don't mix in a family way with practitioners of other kinds of magic - a few magicians have married them to get an in, but they have to pretend not to know any magic to get any wizards interested. They have a general philosophy that wouldn't make that particularly compatible with the stealing their staffs do. Which is usually automatic, but when I looked last time, all the wizards there had suppressed the absorption. Wizards - at least usual wizards, I'm not sure about these ones - don't think there is a better use for magic than sitting in a staff ready to power a spell a wizard wants to cast. They're kind of paranoid and self-important."
Edited 2013-03-31 17:59 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:02 pm (UTC)

"The paranoid and self-important parts are common knowledge," he says dryly.

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I just mean - that's why they steal magic, because they don't think anybody else has anything much useful to do with it and because they feel it's a matter of personal safety."

pythbox
2013-03-31 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says the diplomat.

thaumobabble
2013-03-31 06:07 pm (UTC)

"That's pretty much what I know off the top of my head. I don't have my books on wizards with me."

pythbox
2013-04-01 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Well," says the diplomat, "hopefully we won't need them."

thaumobabble
2013-04-01 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Hopefully," agrees Bella.

With her moccasins on, she can safely read-and-walk as long as she looks up to course correct twice a page. She doesn't attempt further conversation with the diplomat during the journey. And she lets him take the lead, when they reach the wizards; apart from putting her spectacles on she doesn't do anything.

The wizards either don't notice the party standing outside their caves, or choose not to send out an interlocutor this time.
Edited 2013-04-03 18:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:30 pm (UTC)

The various members of the party all look at one another.

Finally the diplomat steps forward and... peers into the cave entrance.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:32 pm (UTC)

There are some wizards, and some wizards' wives, and some children, milling around. There's a smokeless fire with a stewpot simmering on top of it, and an adult wizard is carving a long piece of wood, perhaps into a staff, while a couple of little ones look on. One of the wizards looks the diplomat's way and there begins to be a general whispering among the cave inhabitants and cessation of activity that is not "look nervously at diplomat".

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:35 pm (UTC)

The diplomat... blinks at them all.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:37 pm (UTC)

"...Hello?" says a wizard's wife.

Bella comes close enough to the cave edge to see that it's the same one who spoke to her and the princesses when they came this way.

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm... here on behalf of the queen," he tries. "There's, er, no need to be alarmed?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:38 pm (UTC)

"...All right," says the wizard's wife. "What does the queen want with us?"

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:39 pm (UTC)

...That is a very good question.

Pity he doesn't seem to have an answer.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

The wizard's wife blinks quizzically at him, and then looks past his left arm at bespectacled Bella.

Bella has seen to her satisfaction that they're still not absorbing any but stray, unused magic. She murmurs to the diplomat, "Their staffs are behaving themselves."

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:43 pm (UTC)

He looks at her helplessly.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Well, what did Her Majesty want you to find out, or tell them?" asks Bella in an undertone.

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:46 pm (UTC)

"...Why... they're here?" he murmurs back.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:46 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want me to ask?"

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:47 pm (UTC)

His eyes dart wizardward.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:49 pm (UTC)

The wizards are all holding quite still, watching the visitors. Their wives are mostly hiding behind their wizards, with the children, except for the one spokeswife.

"...My name is Cantha," offers the spokeswife, in apparent hope that this will help move things along.

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:49 pm (UTC)

The diplomat nods slightly to Bella.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:53 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs inaudibly and steps forward and smiles and takes off and hats her spectacles. "Hello again, Cantha, I'm Bella. We're here to find out what brings you to the Enchanted Forest."

"We don't think think the other wizards will think to look for us here," Cantha says.

"And why are you hiding from other wizards?" Bella asks.

"There's been a - a schism in the Society. We're by far the smaller faction. So we're hiding."

pythbox
2013-04-03 09:54 pm (UTC)

The diplomat is a good enough diplomat not to audibly sigh with relief.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 09:59 pm (UTC)

"What's the schism about?" Bella asks.

"P-procedures for choosing new Head Wizards, and some things about magic I don't understand myself, and relations with other - groups, and some other things. We're the Reformists," she adds helpfully.

"How come you don't have a Head Reformist Wizard who's talking for your group instead of you?" inquires Bella.

"We had one. My husband died before we got here," says Cantha quietly. "We haven't elected a replacement yet."

"Oh. I'm sorry," murmurs Bella. "Other wizards?"

"Yes. Orthodox wizards."

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:00 pm (UTC)

The diplomat also manages to look sympathetic about Cantha's husband! He is such a good diplomat. Someone should give him a biscuit.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:04 pm (UTC)

Bella is too busy doing his job to fetch a biscuit for him.

"Shortly before the last time I was here, the princesses and I encountered another wizard. One of yours?"

Cantha shakes her head, alarmed. "We're all of ours that are left. We saw the others fall, and it was more than those few days ago. He was in the forest? They're looking for us here?"

"Well, he was interrupted," Bella says, "and we're not sure if his presence had to do with you or not."

"It must have," murmurs Cantha. "We were the first to risk entering the forest in nearly a century."

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:07 pm (UTC)

...Bella is better at the diplomat's job than he is!

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:14 pm (UTC)

Apparently!

"I can see that the staffs here aren't stealing magic."

"That would have been noticed," Cantha says without thinking, and then she adds, "...And it would be harmful. To the forest."

Bella nods. "Stray wisps like they're taking are fine, I have an object that does something similar, but what are you planning to do if the Orthodox wizards find you?"

"We - haven't thought that far ahead," Cantha says, glancing around at the wizards uncertainly. "It might be that they wouldn't want to be noticed themselves, and wouldn't have any advantage over us."

"But they'd also have plenty of time to charge up and choose the timing," Bella says. "There'd be a massacre, and it sounds like you were already massacred."

"...You're probably right, but we don't have any other options, where were we supposed to go, who were we supposed to get help from? All the kingdoms on the continent kill wizards on sight or are friendly with the Orthodox leadership."

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:17 pm (UTC)

"We can offer you the protection of the Enchanted Forest," the diplomat murmurs, "provided you obey our laws and customs."

There aren't very many of those. Not strict ones, anyway.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:17 pm (UTC)

Cantha remembers that the diplomat exists, and blinks at him. "...Is there a list?" she asks hopefully.

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:24 pm (UTC)

"There - er - yes."

He produces a document from somewhere.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:25 pm (UTC)

Cantha accepts it and reads it. After a paragraph or two she motions one of the older wizards to read over her shoulder and they confer softly.

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:28 pm (UTC)

It is not a very long list.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I think we can do this," says Cantha. "But how are you going to protect us? If one of the Orthodox - at least one - got into the forest?"

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:31 pm (UTC)

"The forest itself can protect you," says the diplomat, regaining some of his confidence. "Now that the royal family knows you're here."

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:35 pm (UTC)

Cantha swallows. "Do we need to - do anything, to get that protection? Besides abide by the laws and take only wisps of magic?"

"You'd have more magic to play with between you if the women among you were allowed to cultivate witchwells and donate some or do their own spells," comments Bella.

Cantha blinks at her. "...That is in fact one point of disagreement between us and Orthodox wizards, but not one that we've put into practice."

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:44 pm (UTC)

"If you abide by the laws," says the diplomat, "and take only wisps of magic, the royal family will protect you."

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:45 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Cantha, rolling up the scroll. "Do we - sign something, or anything of that nature?"

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Not any more than any other properly recognized resident of the forest," says the diplomat, "which is to say, no."

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Welcome," Bella adds.

Cantha turns back to her. "You're a witch," she says.

"Not exactly."

Cantha's eyes narrow. "Sorceress?"

"Same answer."

Cantha purses her lips. "Magician."

"Yes."

"So you could help us with the witchwells so we wouldn't be so collectively powerless."

"Possibly," demurs Bella. "I'd need to think about it. I have other projects and I'm staying at the castle, which is some days' travel away."

"We would be interested in - exchanging knowledge," Cantha says, "if you happened to have the time for it."

"Thank you," says Bella, noncommittal but smiling.

pythbox
2013-04-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

...That seems to be the end of that, really.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

Cantha shakes Bella's hand, and then looks dubiously at the diplomat and offers him her hand too.
Edited 2013-04-03 22:57 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-03 11:02 pm (UTC)

The diplomat shakes hands with Cantha.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:06 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks to ask, "Are you Reformists in immediate need of anything?"

Cantha shakes her head. "We've been able to find everything we need, thank you."

And that really does seem to be it.

The delegation turns around and starts tromping home.

Bella feels pretty pleased with herself.

pythbox
2013-04-03 11:07 pm (UTC)

Bella has every right to be pleased with herself!

The dragon representative (who turns out to be somebody's princess) takes the time to congratulate her on their way out.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Bella. "I hope the dragons will be happy with the results."

pythbox
2013-04-03 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I think they will!"

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Are they going to object if I teach a bunch of wizards' wives how to kindle witchwells so they can supply the wizards with spellpower? Even Reformist wizards?"

pythbox
2013-04-03 11:19 pm (UTC)

"If it keeps them out of trouble, I don't see why not."

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:22 pm (UTC)

Bella grins. And castleward they go!

calendarofcrime
2013-04-03 11:38 pm (UTC)

When they arrive, Sherlock is waiting at the castle gate, under the arch of the Skyvault.
Edited 2013-04-03 23:38 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:41 pm (UTC)

Bella trots right up to her as fast as her moccasins will allow and hugs her.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-03 11:42 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs back. Gently, because armour.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:43 pm (UTC)

Of course. But unless she has a helmet on she is getting a kiss armor or no armor.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-03 11:44 pm (UTC)

Never has she been so pleased not to wear a helmet!

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Everything turned out well," Bella reports. "This wizard faction are Reformists and they don't get along with the Orthodox wizards and they promise to behave themselves."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-03 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I am so pleased," says Sherlock. "Let's let the rest of them tell Mother. I would like to reacquaint myself with my betrothed."

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella, beaming. "Reacquaintance sounds good!"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-03 11:49 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her again.

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:51 pm (UTC)

Mmmmkisses. "I missed you," says Bella breathlessly.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-03 11:52 pm (UTC)

"And I likewise," says Sherlock. "Shall we go to your rooms?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-03 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I think we shall do that."

And they do!

And then it is lunchtime. Hello, lunchtime. Hello, Tony and Queen Marianne!
Edited 2013-04-04 19:58 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-04-04 08:19 pm (UTC)

Tony is pleased to see them both!

pythbox
2013-04-04 08:19 pm (UTC)

So is Queen Marianne.

"I've heard you did very well for yourself on this trip," she says with some degree of amusement.

thaumobabble
2013-04-04 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh?" Bella blinks.

pythbox
2013-04-04 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you tell me how the visit went?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-04 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, we went to the cave, and no one seemed to know how to start, and so I asked the wizards a few questions and then the diplomat picked up from there and gave them the list of laws and customs and so on," says Bella. "Oh, and unless you object or I have too much else on my plate, I might teach the wizards' wives to cultivate witchwells so they don't have to be parasitic on anyone else for their magical energy, in exchange for some straight information about wizardry that didn't have to be gotten by subterfuge."

pythbox
2013-04-04 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Very sensible," the queen approves.

thaumobabble
2013-04-04 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Bella. "I did want to run the witching idea by you, though, since it wouldn't just mean that they wouldn't have to be parasitic, it'd also mean handing them a fair amount of magical power to work with - not just the wizards who'd have witch donors, but the new witches themselves - and I'm not sure how far you want to trust them, even if they have an apparently consistent political philosophy that would put them on the outs with the rest of the Society of Wizards."

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Also very sensible," says the queen. "But you can go ahead."

thaumobabble
2013-04-04 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Cool!" Bella pulls her notebook out of her sleeve and writes this down and has at her lunch.

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:18 pm (UTC)

It is a tasty lunch, even though a princess did not make it.

thaumobabble
2013-04-04 10:23 pm (UTC)

Good, good.

bewitched armor

thaumobabble

There are plenty of things to do. Bella orders a carpet to enchant so she can commute to and from Reformist Wizards efficiently and move house. She starts combing through the castle library to find background material on her Minor Technical Issue.

Sometimes she watches Sherlock cook.

Sometimes she watches Tony forge. (Nnnnf.)

allthebrightest
2013-04-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

As promised, Tony does start working on enchanted armour for Bella.

This involves taking a lot of measurements.

And after that, it involves a lot of forging.

thaumobabble
2013-04-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

Bella is so cooperative.

allthebrightest
2013-04-04 11:34 pm (UTC)

That is good! It is good that she's cooperative!

The armour that takes shape is very, very pretty. At Bella's request, it has witchable sleeves, which means loose cloth from elbow to wrist; after some consultation, Tony added a pair of short fingerless gloves. From shoulder to elbow, it's the same surprisingly comfortable metal scales as the rest of the armour, each one crafted with loving attention.

A long black cape hangs from the suit's shoulders. Tony is adamant about the cape. The cape, she says, is absolutely necessary.

She works her magic into each piece as she makes it, but it's hard to tell which parts are supposed to do what - even with extensive magical analysis - until the entire thing is finally assembled.

All together it seems made of grace and light, not leather and steel. Every scale, every rivet says dance with me. It weighs half as much as Sherlock's self-deploying plate mail, and it's twice as magical, glittering with protection and enhancement and sometimes just raw love.

And the cape?

The cape is for flying.

thaumobabble
2013-04-04 11:37 pm (UTC)

Bella thanks Tony extremely thoroughly, and then she transfers a bunch of her stuff from her old sleeves to her new sleeves, and then she gets no work at all done for about four days because flying flying flying flying.

She then enchants the carpet because it will still be handy for journeys with more than one party involved.

allthebrightest
2013-04-04 11:39 pm (UTC)

As soon as Tony is done with Bella's, she starts working on one for herself. She usually doesn't wear her own armour, but come on, who doesn't want to fly?

thaumobabble
2013-04-04 11:44 pm (UTC)

Nobody doesn't want to fly!

Bella saturates herself on flying to the point where she can stand to do it only a little every day, and she gets back to work. She visits the wizards twice a week to give the women witching lessons and get wizarding lessons (alongside small wizard children). She studies the Skyvault. She determines that no one has already tackled her minor technical issue and that she will need to do the groundwork herself. She flies to her house, and collects Cricket and her door with most of her rooms enchanted into it, and she sets up the garden to go dormant. She tells all her friends she's getting married. She installs her cat and her door in the palace.

And she gets to know her fiancée.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-05 12:02 am (UTC)

Her fiancée is continually delighted by everything she does!

thaumobabble
2013-04-05 12:04 am (UTC)

And that's adorable and Sherlock's adorable and Bella is quite falling in love with her, which is convenient, since they are engaged.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-05 12:08 am (UTC)

Yes, it's lovely how that works out, isn't it.

thaumobabble
2013-04-05 12:09 am (UTC)

It is!

Bella decides to notify her of this development eventually, one evening when they are all snuggled up and Cricket has absented himself (this feature being essential, as he would be sure to comment if present).

"I'm falling in love with you," Bella announces comfortably. "I will probably be properly there in less than a week."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-05 12:11 am (UTC)

"That is good to know," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-05 12:12 am (UTC)

"I thought it would be. That is why I told you." Snuggle snuggle.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-05 12:14 am (UTC)

"Thank you."

Snuggle.

thaumobabble
2013-04-05 12:15 am (UTC)

"You're welcome."

Kisses.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-05 12:16 am (UTC)

Kisses! Excellent.

thaumobabble
2013-04-05 02:57 am (UTC)

Excellence is to be striven for at all times!

So are kisses!

Okay, maybe kisses only sometimes. But this time is one of those times!

calendarofcrime
2013-04-05 11:36 am (UTC)

This is an excellent time for kisses.

allthebrightest
2013-04-22 10:51 pm (UTC)

So, Tony has been having some trouble with her flying armour.

She doesn't want it to come with a cape - she doesn't know why, she just doesn't feel capey. And she cannot for the life of her figure out how to get it to work without a cape.

So she starts going for walks, watching birds and thinking about air and metal. She sticks to the deep woods, when she remembers; they're as safe as it gets, for a member of the royal family who knows to be polite and friendly and never promise anything and always ask a squirrel.

She doesn't always remember.

And one afternoon, she doesn't come back from her walk.

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Hey," says Bella, wandering into the kitchen where Sherlock is fixing dinner, "I haven't seen Tony all day, where is she?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-22 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Walking, ostensibly. I would expect her to be back by now, however."

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, she's usually back well before dinner." Bella chews her lip. "...The room with all the enchanted windows is in that door I brought, I could go try to check on her."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-22 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Do that, then."

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:16 pm (UTC)

Bella goes up to her multiply-opening door.

She comes back to the kitchen with no visible wounds, but a few streaks of blood on her face. "My window exploded. Something happened."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-22 11:17 pm (UTC)

Sherlock closes her eyes for a few seconds.

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:29 pm (UTC)

"An explosion rather than search failure narrows it down, but not in a good way," mutters Bella, starting to pace.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-22 11:30 pm (UTC)

"In what way, then?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:33 pm (UTC)

"If the spell just failed that could mean I made the window wrong or addressed the window wrong or that Tony had secretly been made of soap bubbles all along, or something. If it explodes, that means there's copious amounts of hostile magic between my window and her."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-22 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock.

She looks at dinner. She looks at Bella.

She walks out of the kitchen door and across the palace clearing into the trees.

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Off," Bella mutters to the stove, and she follows. "We should find her but we should prepare - your armor, my armor - we should tell your mother -"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-22 11:41 pm (UTC)

"First I am going to find out where she is," says Sherlock, and she keeps walking.

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:42 pm (UTC)

"There is a large amount of hostile magic in the way is where she is! If you walk into it right now it could - Sherlock, it could kill you, I don't know what it is but that's definitely on the list of things it could be -" Bella's hurrying after her as fast as her moccasins allow.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-22 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I did not say I would go to where she is," says Sherlock. "I said I would find it."

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:47 pm (UTC)

"What makes you think you can do that without running into the great big wall of hostile magic? I know you're insanely good at finding things but nothing says the magic in question is closer to where she disappeared from than to here."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-22 11:57 pm (UTC)

"I am not doing what you assume I am doing," says Sherlock, closing her eyes and running her fingers along invisible filaments in the air, "and I do not have time to explain what I am doing until after I have done it. It would be extremely helpful if you would fetch our armour in case we have need of it when I am done."

thaumobabble
2013-04-22 11:58 pm (UTC)

Bella swallows.

She turns around and goes inside for their armor. And keeps an eye out for Her Majesty.

pythbox
2013-04-22 11:59 pm (UTC)

Her Majesty is not in evidence.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:09 am (UTC)

Fine. Bella fetches all the requested armor, puts hers on and pours her loafing-around-the-house sleeves into her armor-sleeves, and dons her hat before sweeping out into the clearing after Sherlock again.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:12 am (UTC)

Sherlock is still doing whatever mysterious thing she is doing.

It's hard to tell how she feels about it.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:16 am (UTC)

Bella stops a few steps away and puts her specs on for lack of anything helpful to offer.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:18 am (UTC)

She is surrounded by threads of royal magic, and there is some kind of communication going on between her and them. Nothing beyond that is clear.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:20 am (UTC)

Bella flicks between lenses but gets no further detail. She puts her specs away. She waits.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:22 am (UTC)

Eventually, she drops her hands and reports.

"I traced her route from the castle to the edge of the forest. She encountered a small party of wizards at the fringe. They left together. No more detail is available, but one can assume she did not go willingly."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:23 am (UTC)

Bella swallows.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:23 am (UTC)

Sherlock puts on her armour.

"Are you coming?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:29 am (UTC)

"We should tell your mother, or at least leave a note, I didn't see her anywhere when I was fetching the armor. But yes, I'm coming."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:31 am (UTC)

"I've told the forest," says Sherlock. "She'll know."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:32 am (UTC)

"...Okay. Should I get the flying carpet?"
Edited 2013-04-23 00:34 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:35 am (UTC)

"Yes, please," says Sherlock. "We will need it when we leave the forest."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:37 am (UTC)

Bella runs back into the castle - the armor, unlike her moccasins, can handle running - and comes out with the carpet. It won't fit in her sleeve; she props it on her shoulder.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:38 am (UTC)

Sherlock can't use the monarch's transport spell, but she can walk into the forest and have it spit her out of the desired edge a few minutes later.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:41 am (UTC)

Bella follows closely, preoccupied, thinking about what could have made her window explode.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:43 am (UTC)

"What sorts of things make magic windows explode?" she asks as they emerge from between the trees.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:45 am (UTC)

"Looking at locations that are unfriendly to divination. Some places have that naturally - there are spells that will do it, almost certainly including wizard spells. It's also possible that I was caught looking and the explosion was someone deliberately reacting to it." Bella rubs at her cheek; bits of dried blood flake off.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:49 am (UTC)

"No one likes to waste," Sherlock remarks. "If they had a location with that property available, they may well have put her there to avoid the expenditure of having to bespell it themselves."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 12:50 am (UTC)

"Quite possibly. I don't know this area, though, and even though I could heal myself I'm not fond of the idea of having my specs explode while I wear them to look for it..."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 12:52 am (UTC)

"That should not be necessary," says Sherlock. "We can follow them until we find either a wizard or the residue of a transport spell. The former will yield answers to me, the latter to you."
Edited 2013-04-23 00:53 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 02:55 pm (UTC)

"I've - I think I told you I'm good with glass - I don't have a lot of non-spec-based divining options. If you can point me at the exact location of some transport spell residue I can put it through my marble and have a look at it that way, but I don't have a good method for finding it in the first place unless we want to spend hours sitting here while I think of something."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 02:56 pm (UTC)

"I will easily be able to pinpoint the exact location of the transport spell residue, if we come upon it."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Okay then."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 03:20 pm (UTC)

"In the meantime: this way."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 03:22 pm (UTC)

Bella follows solemnly.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 03:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock seems very sure of where she is going, despite a lack of obvious signs.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 03:33 pm (UTC)

Bella starts murmuring to her marble. Something about whatever she's doing makes her look tired.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?" says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 04:07 pm (UTC)

"If we're going to encounter wizards it's safer to have more of my magical energy in the marble where they can't take it than sitting in my witchwell and so on."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Reasonable."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I just don't usually feed it much magic all at once. I won't overdo it, I'd be no use then."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 04:15 pm (UTC)

Sherlock nods, inspects a stone on the ground, and keeps walking.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 04:20 pm (UTC)

Bella eventually gets to the point where feeding her marble any more would be unwise, and stops.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 04:33 pm (UTC)

Sherlock continues to follow a trail no one else can see. She's going slower now, though.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Do you know anything else yet? Besides where to go?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Very little. Nothing I could easily put into words."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 05:29 pm (UTC)

Bella nods, and continues following. "I could scout from the air but I doubt I'd be able to report the kinds of things you're looking at."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 05:35 pm (UTC)

"You wouldn't," Sherlock agrees. "I am - ah. Here. One moment."

They've come to the edge of a small pond, with a stretch of gravel along the near side. Sherlock studies it from a distance. Then she points.

"You will find your spell residue just there."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 05:40 pm (UTC)

Bella approaches. Bella works her magic. Bella inspects the residue in minute detail.

"It went north, east, or some combination of the two," says Bella after she's sifted through all the available information, "more than one hundred miles but fewer than two hundred fifty, isn't designed to land within the Enchanted Forest's borders, and carried at least five hundred pounds worth of people, creatures, and objects, none of whom were inherently magical like dragons or unicorns are."
Edited 2013-04-23 17:45 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 05:46 pm (UTC)

Sherlock thinks about this.

Sherlock says, "The Cave of Unpleasant Surprises."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 05:47 pm (UTC)

"...That doesn't sound at all good."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I agree. But we are going to find it anyway."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 05:49 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

"Carpet?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Carpet."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 05:51 pm (UTC)

Bella unrolls it and sits. "You want to drive or should I?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 05:52 pm (UTC)

"It might be most efficient if you drove and I navigated."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 05:53 pm (UTC)

Bella nods and sits at the front bit of the carpet. When Sherlock joins her, she commands, "Up."

The carpet rises.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 05:54 pm (UTC)

Sherlock points.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 05:55 pm (UTC)

Bella steers.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 05:58 pm (UTC)

It is not such an incredibly long flight, and the cave is quite visible from the air.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 05:59 pm (UTC)

"That sure looks like a cave," says Bella, descending cautiously.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 06:01 pm (UTC)

"It is one," says Sherlock. "Apart from that, its contents and nature are not extremely consistent."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Would we be better off invisible?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 06:03 pm (UTC)

"We may very well be."

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella pauses the carpet, and carefully casts a spell of invisibility on the both of them. And then she descends the carpet the rest of the way, and rolls it up, and puts it behind a rock.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-23 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Let's find Tony," says Sherlock, and starts into the cave.

thaumobabble
2013-04-23 06:07 pm (UTC)

Bella swallows and goes in after her, each hand on the opposite wrist ready to pull something out of a sleeve.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:25 am (UTC)

It's called the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises for a reason. Sherlock goes in expecting to be unpleasantly surprised. She keeps a little ahead of Bella, but not too far, in case something unpleasant comes at them from a surprising direction.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:30 am (UTC)

The cave is dark. Bella has a glowy thing, which she takes out and hangs around her neck; the cave doesn't seem inclined to unpleasantly surprise them by preventing the glowy thing from working.

The cave narrows to a tunnel just barely wide enough for them to proceed single file.

Bella follows Sherlock in for twelve steps, and then is swallowed up by the floor with a yelp. The floor closes after her. It doesn't dampen the sound of her in her armor clattering to uncharitably distant ground, or her whimpering the words of her healing spells.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:32 am (UTC)

Sherlock is unpleasantly surprised!

The first thing she tries is stepping just where Bella was. She doesn't expect it to work.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:33 am (UTC)

The floor is quite solid there.

Oh, also, there's a wall back the way they came now.

"Sherlock?" says Bella's quavering voice.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:34 am (UTC)

"I am not presently able to join you," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:34 am (UTC)

"Sherlock, where'd you go?" Bella asks, overlapping enough of Sherlock's sentence to make it clear that the floor is soundproof in one direction.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:35 am (UTC)

That is annoying. Sherlock is annoyed.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:36 am (UTC)

Is it also unpleasantly surprising? The cave does strive to live up to its name.

"Can you hear me?" calls Bella. Sherlock can hear tentative Bella-footsteps.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:37 am (UTC)

It is liable to cause Sherlock to set something on fire if it goes on long enough.

She follows Bella as best she can.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:41 am (UTC)

Bella's path veers off to the left, judging by the footsteps and occasional calls for "Sherlock?".

Sherlock's path - pitch dark with the loss of Bella's glowy thing, unless she chooses to set something on fire - divides, as best she can tell by listening to echoes and groping around, into stairs up and to the left, stairs down and to the right, and a scrunchy twisty passage that goes forward and slightly angled downwards.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:43 am (UTC)

Twisty passage it is.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:44 am (UTC)

The twisty passage is slippery and damp, and it gets cold in there as Sherlock proceeds.

She can't hear Bella walking anymore after she's gotten about ten feet in.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:45 am (UTC)

Time to go back, then.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:46 am (UTC)

The twisty passage's back end apparently now divides into three equally twisty passages (left, right, and forward-and-down) in that direction.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:47 am (UTC)

She picks right.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:50 am (UTC)

The darkness eventually gives way to a crystalline sort of glow; there is moss growing in this part of the tunnel that phosphoresces. Because this is the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises, it also releases a noxious smell when stepped on or otherwise touched, which is hard to avoid in a passage this small.

She can hear Bella again, if that's Bella running and making breathy fearful noises somewhere off to the left.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:53 am (UTC)

Sherlock quickly becomes very good at not touching the glowing moss. She also keeps following the sound of Bella's voice.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 12:57 am (UTC)

The tunnel path Sherlock chooses in trying to stay close to Bella exits into a large cavern with the phosphorescent moss completely coating the ceiling. There is a six-foot sheer drop into a deep pool of water with no less-sheer shore available, except the stream that's running at high speed off into that lower tunnel there.

There's a wall behind her again.

There may be something moving in the water, deep under the surface.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 12:59 am (UTC)

Sherlock decides that more light is required.

She holds a hand out to one side and slightly behind her, and ignites her gauntlet.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:01 am (UTC)

Well, if there was something moving in the water, it's not making the water ripple anymore, although it's possible that from her vantage point there are parts of the pool she can't see, cut under the tunnel she's standing in.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:04 am (UTC)

Curiously, she douses the light.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:06 am (UTC)

The water remains still.

Under this completely still water swims a dark shape.

Also, it does not appear to be limited to travel through the water. It rises, surface yet unrippling, and swims through the air, jaws wide; it looks like a cross between a shark, a weasel, and a sea anemone, and it's six times Sherlock's size.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:17 am (UTC)

Sherlock attempts to set it on fire.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:18 am (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be there enough to catch fire.

Till the moment when it bites her in the legs. Then it's there.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:23 am (UTC)

At last, a target for her incandescent rage.

The creature steams, then smokes, then burns.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:24 am (UTC)

When it is very thoroughly charred, it at last stops trying to eat her, and falls into the water, diminished but no longer insubstantial and therefore splashy.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:28 am (UTC)

It doesn't take more than a few seconds, but that still leaves Sherlock with her leg armour somewhat crunched.

There is no exit but the water; therefore, logically, the water is the exit.

She doesn't jump so much as stumble gracefully off the ledge.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:30 am (UTC)

The water conveys her to the exit stream and jostles her along.

She fetches up on a smooth, gently sloped shore in a cavern that is completely white, made of something that looks sort of like alabaster, and populated with rather a lot of frogs of various shapes, sizes, and colors.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:31 am (UTC)

Well, that's... something.

Exits? Sounds of Bella?

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:34 am (UTC)

On the far side of this cavern there are four tunnels out, one of which is stairs.

It is down these stairs that Bella shortly comes racing, terrified and breathing hard and chased by a flock of toothy batlike creatures. She doesn't appear injured, but considering her preparations that doesn't mean much, especially since there's a few splotches of blood on her outfit and a few new scratches in her armor.

She spots Sherlock and runs in her direction, pursued by bat-things. "Shr-" She chokes and coughs up a blue medium-sized frog, which she catches, bewildered, as she skids to a halt before entering the water.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:37 am (UTC)

Sherlock does her best to climb out of the stream.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:39 am (UTC)

Bella drops her frog, pulls a handful of something powdery and green out of her sleeve, and throws it at the bat things. She hits four of the flock, and those retreat into miscellaneous exits, shrieking, but the others get at her and start nibbling at bits of Bella that aren't covered by armor. Bella does her best to swat them away - none of them is bigger than size of her outstretched hand - but there's about forty. She eventually gives up on doing anything about their insistence on nibbling on her and attempts to help Sherlock out of the water, upon which exit the bat things begin to nibble Sherlock too.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:42 am (UTC)

Sherlock immediately heads for the nearest frog-free area, although she has some difficulty walking without help.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:44 am (UTC)

Bella insinuates herself under Sherlock's arm to serve as a crutch; she's nibbled but not in a way that impedes her movement much. "Ml-" she starts, but nope, apparently even spell words produce frogs; this one is small and pinkish-white.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:44 am (UTC)

On they limp, then.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:45 am (UTC)

Unless Sherlock has a better idea Bella will aim for the tunnel with the lowest ceiling, as it seems like it might be unappealing to bat-things.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:46 am (UTC)

Fine by her.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:47 am (UTC)

The bat-things are mostly dissuaded, except for three, which Bella eventually manages to swat.

The frogs thin out as they proceed.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:49 am (UTC)

When they pass the last visible frog, Sherlock says testingly, "Frogs?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:50 am (UTC)

Frogs! She gets four of them, apparently talking about frogs yields bonus frogs. They're all very little, though, cute little yellow and brown frogs.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:51 am (UTC)

She snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:52 am (UTC)

Bella laughs helplessly. Apparently laughter is sufficient to produce a poliwog, which she spits out unhappily.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 01:57 am (UTC)

On they go, then.

When they have left the poliwog behind, Sherlock says firmly, "Mint."

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 01:58 am (UTC)

This produces no frogs.

"Mulaglarby mulaglarby," mutters Bella, and then she seizes Sherlock's hand and repeats herself. "Why mint?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 02:02 am (UTC)

"First short word I thought of that wasn't an amphibian."

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 02:04 am (UTC)

"I love you," laughs Bella weakly. "Let's - will it interfere with you being ready to fight more nasty monsters if we hold hands, I think that would make it harder for the cave to split us up again."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 02:05 am (UTC)

"It will not interfere," says Sherlock, "but I may need to drop your hand quickly if we come upon something sufficiently unpleasant."

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 02:06 am (UTC)

"Okay." Bella takes Sherlock's hand. And as an afterthought produces a water bottle from a sleeve to rinse out her mouth; she offers it to Sherlock after she has spat frog taste onto the tunnel floor.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 02:07 am (UTC)

She grins and does likewise. "Thank you. Much appreciated."

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 02:09 am (UTC)

"This cave," says Bella flatly, "is full of unpleasant surprises."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 02:10 am (UTC)

"I agree."

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 02:13 am (UTC)

The next unpleasant surprise is that Tony is apparently being held by wizards who consider the best way to keep a captive princess to be "bound, gagged, suspended upside down from the ceiling, wide awake, and, for some reason, blue". Besides Tony there is one other such captive, an unremarkable-looking (except for having sprouted donkey ears) man in his thirties or so.

There are six wizards in the cave and they're huddled around a large scroll muttering to each other.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 02:15 am (UTC)

"Hello," says Sherlock, dropping Bella's hand and stepping away from her. "I am here to unpleasantly surprise you."

The entire exterior surface of her armour catches fire. She draws her sword, and that lights up too.

She heads for the wizards.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 02:18 am (UTC)

Bella busies herself with getting Tony down from the ceiling. This is delicate but not impossible, as she's suspended by a pulley system to allow wizards to do the same thing as necessary. When Tony has been set on the floor Bella starts on her knots.

The wizards are unpleasantly surprised.

But not for long.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 02:28 am (UTC)

When the wizards have ceased to be surprised, Sherlock lets the flames die down and sheathes her sword. She turns immediately to Tony and Bella.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 02:30 am (UTC)

Bella has gotten Tony's hands untied so Tony can work on her own feet and now she's picking at the knot in the gag.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 02:31 am (UTC)

All right then.

What about the other one?

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 02:34 am (UTC)

He's still suspended from the ceiling; he is not Bella's top priority and she left him for figuring out after getting Tony untied.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 11:40 am (UTC)

Sherlock decides that she agrees with these priorities. She goes to help Bella free Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

Presently Tony is untied and ungagged, if still blue. Bella kisses her forehead, then goes to let the guy with the donkey ears down.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-24 10:46 pm (UTC)

Sherlock stays by Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-04-24 10:52 pm (UTC)

Bella unties the fellow's gag first. "Who're you?" she asks.

"Name's," he coughs, "Kanim."

"What's with the ears?"

"Unpleasant surprise," he says. "Wizards figured out how to get in and out safely themselves by taking unpleasant surprise bait with them. The ears are just the most visible thing on me, I was bait for a few trips."

"Is that why she's blue?" Bella asks, jerking her head in Tony's direction.

"No," says Kanim. "Don't think so. I think that's fire suppression, or something."

"Oof." Bella swallows and turns to the princesses, working on the knots around Kanim's hands. "Um, my specs are almost completely broken, only one lens left - I panicked and put them on trying to figure out how the cave worked when we were split up and they exploded in my face, all I have is a spare witchlens that wasn't on them... I'm going to be less use than usual till I have new ones made."

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 11:30 am (UTC)

Tony leans silently on Sherlock.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 11:31 am (UTC)

Sherlock hugs Tony, as best she can with the armour.

"Nevertheless," she says, "I expect we can manage to leave."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," agrees Bella. "Erm - Kanim - is there by any chance less total unpleasant surprise when someone is bait?"

"You mean," snorts Kanim, "if you copy the wizards' spell when we walk out of here am I going to have any worse of a time of it? Won't be more unpleasant for me, will be more," he flicks an ear, "long-term, unpleasant surprises for bait seem to be stickier, I already have no idea how I'm going to get my ears turned back."

"I don't even know if I can copy the spell without my specs to look at it from a few angles." She finishes untying his hands and leaves him to the task of his own feet, and then she starts gingerly inspecting the wizard staffs for traps, wrapping the first one she deems safe up in fabric in lieu of the more sophisticated prep work she was able to manage with the last leaving of a Sherlock-killed wizard.

"I can do it, now I'm not gagged," he says. "If you leave me one of those staffs I even will. You have no idea how hard it is to find intact non-discard staffs."

Bella pauses. "I have some idea. I live in the Enchanted Forest. How about I pack them all up and we can divvy 'em up outside?"

"Fair enough since you're the one with the sleeves," acknowledges Kanim.
Edited 2013-04-25 16:06 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 04:10 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles slightly.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 04:18 pm (UTC)

Bella wraps up all the staffs, although she's clearly running low on fabric by the time she finds number six. "Where're you from, Kanim?"

"Sathem-by-the-Mountains." He peers at her assessingly. "So, it's reasonably obvious by now, but we are both magicians, right?"

"Yes," says Bella, smiling slightly.

"That," says Kanim, "is fantastic, let's have dinner sometime."

"I am," says Bella, "engaged," and then it occurs to her that this precludes nothing, "and also gay, but we should certainly compare notes if you are not otherwise particularly occupied."

"Ah," sighs Kanim.

"I have cooperative wizard friends," Bella adds enticingly.

"That is at least four times better than a dinner date, I platonically love you forever," says Kanim.
Edited 2013-04-25 16:19 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 04:20 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 04:25 pm (UTC)

"By the way, these are Sherlock, and Tony," says Bella, "my fiancée and my sort-of-other-fiancée conditional on me being able to work out the obvious technical problem with both princesses of the Enchanted Forest marrying somebody female."

"Charmed," says Kanim. "And that sounds like a really interesting problem!"

"Doesn't it just?"

"I'd help," he agrees, "I've been missing for so long I'm pretty sure no one expects me to turn up late for my appointments. Help platonically," he adds, "I mean." He rubs his chafed ankles. Bella, who has now packed up all the staffs, takes his hand and mulaglarbys him, then goes and does the same to Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 04:27 pm (UTC)

Tony continues to giggle! She also hugs Bella.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 04:30 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Bella likes hugging Tony. This is a positive development.

"All right, time to curse myself with unpleasant surprises and lead you out of this place, I guess," says Kanim, "I really wish you didn't have a healing trigger spell, that makes me much more likely to get seriously injured, it's the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises, not the Cave of Likely Fatal Surprises, but it can sorta tell that sort of thing."

"...Oops," says Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 04:32 pm (UTC)

"That is interesting to know," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I'm sure it's usually much to everyone's advantage to have a healing trigger, this just happens to be a really perverse cave," says Kanim. "Well, this spell isn't hard, just make sure you stick close to me as best you can on the way out." He stares into space, and makes broad, slow gestures, then makes a face. "That's baiting the cave taken care of, here goes nothing."

They proceed out, managing to stay in a single group. Kanim is assailed by a swarm of inexplicable bees, acquires a tail to match his ears, and is the one to discover another patch of noxious moss, which is apparently new to him even though Sherlock saw it before. Bella heals him as necessary and finally they are no longer in the cave.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 04:40 pm (UTC)

Sherlock finds the carpet.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 04:45 pm (UTC)

"This cave has now twice attempted to turn me into a donkey. I wonder if it's trying to tell me something," says Kanim.

"If it's trying to tell you something, it's presumably trying to tell you something unpleasantly surprising, but not necessarily something true," says Bella. "Am I correct in thinking that you're okay with coming home with us instead of getting dropped at Sathem-by-the-Mountains?"

"Oh, sure," says Kanim, "I was being itinerant, don't have anyplace in particular to get back to, I would love to visit the Enchanted Forest and fiddle with technical problems such as getting my ears back to normal. I am considering keeping the tail. I think it's fetching."

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 04:50 pm (UTC)

"The tail is cute," says Tony. "Actually, the ears aren't bad either."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 04:55 pm (UTC)

"The ears itch," explains Kanim, scratching one. "I haven't had a chance to examine their aesthetic properties."

"I've never seen you without them so I can't judge," Bella says, taking her seat on the flying carpet. Kanim sits behind her.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 04:56 pm (UTC)

Sherlock and Tony also climb on.

"If they itch, then by all means get rid of them," says Sherlock. "Does the tail not itch also?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Not so far!" says Kanim. "It twitches by itself, a bit, which was, shall we say, unpleasantly surprising, but it doesn't itch. I'll work on the ears first and then see how I feel about the tail."

Bella commands up the carpet and turns back the way she and Sherlock came.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 05:01 pm (UTC)

"This seems like a reasonable plan," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I'm good at those except when I wind up planning things like 'approach the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises right when six wizards are arguing about who has to be bait'," says Kanim.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 05:11 pm (UTC)

Tony snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:16 pm (UTC)

"So, we were looking for Tony - you were just looking for the cave?" Bella asks Kanim.

"Of course. I'm fascinated by cave magic in general. Locational effect-magic in general, really. My interest in this particular cave has been quite cured, though."

"I'm surprised you don't live in the Enchanted Forest if you like locational magic. Actually, I don't really understand why there are any magicians who don't live in the Enchanted Forest."

"Perhaps I will like it very much and choose to stay. I went looking for Unpleasant Surprises after a lengthy camp-out in and subsequent dissertation on the Caves of Irregular Dimensions that ate two years of my life. You can read the dissertation if you like. It's very long and dry and I ultimately come to no worthwhile conclusions whatsoever. Damn uncooperative Caves."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps Tony will show you the Skyvault," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

"The Skyvault isn't exactly locational in that way," says Bella. "More my area than Kanim's. Kanim will be poking at the forest magic itself, figuring out the moss and interrogating squirrels and following trees around while they try to escape."

"Of course I'd like to see the Skyvault for more standard tourist reasons, though," says Kanim earnestly.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 05:26 pm (UTC)

"It's not like the Skyvault and the forest magic are that separate," says Tony. "I mean, in one sense it's just a big magical windmill making everything else go round, but it does other stuff too."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but it's not a natural component of the forest magic, is it? I'll pay attention to how they interact, but it's not the part that I'm likely to write a thesis on."

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Neither are the squirrels," Tony points out.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:31 pm (UTC)

"The squirrels are experts to be consulted," Bella explains, "not themselves the objects of study."

"I do not know nearly enough about the Enchanted Forest to comment on the squirrels," says Kanim.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I think you could say the Skyvault is kind of an expert too," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Is it? Does it talk?" asks Kanim.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 05:34 pm (UTC)

"No, it just - is," says Tony. "I dunno, maybe you have to be me to get anything useful out of it."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Royal magic is a huge advantage there," says Bella. "My specs helped. I need to reconstruct those, I feel really weird without them, I shouldn't have put them on, I just felt like I had to know what was going on... Anyway, I don't think Kanim, not being a member of the royal family, will find the Skyvault's expertise directly helpful."

"Oh, is that why," Kanim starts and does not finish.

"No. It's gonna be a perk, though," says Bella. The carpet is flying in a straight line at this point; she can lean over and peck Sherlock on the cheek. "We're not sure if I will get more than standard courtesy access if I marry them both, anyway, and standard courtesy access would be lovely but not very practically helpful."

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 05:38 pm (UTC)

"And, you know, my dad built the thing and I'm the one who maintains it," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that too," says Bella.

"I will enjoy having a look! Honest! I just am not so much specialized in made things," says Kanim.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 05:43 pm (UTC)

Tony snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I do made things," Bella says. "Especially glass, I'm good with glass."

"Explains the specs."

"How do you find your way around unfamiliar magic?"

"I try not to trust specific solutions like that for anything. I work with a lot of freeform and intuitive stuff. You can probably - well, when you have your spectacles - see more detail than I can, but," he adds archly, "my finely honed magical senses will not explode in the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises."

"Ha."

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 05:49 pm (UTC)

"It would be kind of horrible if they did!" says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes! It would be - well, it would be unpleasantly surprising," says Kanim, "but not in a way the cave was disposed to exploit."

"I also lost a window, looking for Tony when we noticed she'd been missing," Bella says.

"Oh dear."

"The window's easier to replace than the specs," says Bella, shaking her head.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 08:34 pm (UTC)

"How long are the specs gonna take?" wonders Tony. "Can I help?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, each lens gets made separately, you can totally help me with the dwarf lens again, and if you want to make me some lensframes I bet you're way faster at that than I am. I think re-making everything but the dwarf lens will be faster without."

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 08:40 pm (UTC)

"You betcha I want to make you some frames!"

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 08:41 pm (UTC)

"That is because you are wonderful and useful," says Bella brightly. "I think I can figure out enough to un-blue and un-fire-suppression-you without those, though, so that'll be the first priority when we're safely home."

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 08:44 pm (UTC)

"That makes me so happy. Blue is not my colour," laughs Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 08:46 pm (UTC)

"You aren't planning to keep your own fetching cosmetic change as a souvenir?" asks Kanim. "I went to the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises and all I got was this lousy palette swap."

Bella snorts.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Tony. "I am done with the blue."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I will unblue you," promises Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 08:57 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," says Bella brightly. Tony's easy to love; she fretted about exact meanings of the word for a while, but finally decided that there is no reason not to call how she feels about Tony by that name.

"Aww," says Kanim, "cutest and least combative two-princess love triangle ever."

Bella snorts.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 09:06 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

"We are, it's true."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 09:11 pm (UTC)

"We are the best two-soon-to-be-three-princess love triangle," says Bella.

"I'll believe it," says Kanim. "About your technical issue, what're you thinking?"

Bella launches into extremely technical chatter that it is unlikely either princess will be able to follow.

"Well," says Kanim finally, "I don't know if I'll be much help, but I can assist with literature searches and so on, since, this not being a traditional rescue by any stretch of the imagination, repayment in the form of a kiss would probably not be welcome."

"I'm gay," says Bella. "I didn't say anything about them."
Edited 2013-04-25 21:25 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm not gay," Tony says brightly.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Aren't you now," says Kanim, looking with something between speculation and wrongfooted confusion at the bluer of the two princesses.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Nope!"

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 09:40 pm (UTC)

"...I will file this information away! In case it ever becomes useful," says Kanim with affected sagacity, flicking his eyes between all three women on the carpet.

"I would put him out of his misery but I have no convenient explanation tucked away," says Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 09:47 pm (UTC)

"What exactly are we trying to explain, here? How it's possible that I'm not gay but I'm still going to marry my sister's eventual wife? Because man, I'm not tackling that one."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Is the part that's tripping you up," Bella says, "the concept of bisexuality, or the sharing?"

"The sharing," Kanim says. "Definitely the sharing."

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Tony. "There's sharing! No one will complain if we make out a little!"

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 10:04 pm (UTC)

"No one at all, huh?" Kanim asks. One of his ears twitches. "No complaints from any corner?"

Bella giggles.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 10:15 pm (UTC)

"None here," says Sherlock. "Although perhaps you'd like to wait until we reach the castle."
Edited 2013-04-25 22:15 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Why's that? Someone liable to get shoved off the carpet otherwise?" asks Kanim.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 10:35 pm (UTC)

"The fact that I don't object to you kissing my sister doesn't mean I want to watch."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I see. Yes, that makes sense," says Kanim. He scratches one of his ears.

Bella giggles again.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 10:43 pm (UTC)

Tony also giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 10:46 pm (UTC)

The flight is otherwise uneventful, mostly silence punctuated by magician thaumobabble about this and that and good-natured insults directed at each other's educational institutions, and then they cross the border to the Enchanted Forest.

"Oh my," says Kanim, noticing the shift in the air instantly. "Oh I like it here. Oh my."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Mother knows we're home," Sherlock observes after a few more seconds.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Should we land and have you do that tree-shifting thing?" asks Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 10:52 pm (UTC)

"That would be efficient."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 10:54 pm (UTC)

Bella glides them to a stop.

Kanim hops off the carpet and decides to hug a tree like it is his best friend in the entire world.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 11:04 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I like this forest," says Kanim. "I think I will keep it."

"You probably don't want to sound so proprietary around its royalty," observes Bella archly.

"I like this forest," amends Kanim, "I think I will hug it."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I observe that you are hugging the forest," says Sherlock, amused. "It is adorable."

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 11:13 pm (UTC)

Kanim eventually tires of hugging the tree. He lets it go, and pats it, and scratches his ear. "What's this non-carpet transportation mechanism, then?"

Bella rolls up the carpet and props it on her shoulder. "You'll see."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 11:16 pm (UTC)

Sherlock leads them deeper into the forest.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Holy -" breathes Kanim.

"Isn't it cool?" asks Bella as the castle comes into view. "Forest knows who's boss."

"Extremely cool," agrees Kanim.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 11:21 pm (UTC)

"And now we are home," says Sherlock, "and I am going to see about dinner."

She heads for the kitchen.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes, good, I'm starving," sighs Bella, and she takes Tony's hand. "Let me sit you down someplace where I can lay out materials without them blowing away and see about the blue. Kanim, you want to help?"

"Can do," says Kanim.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Thank yoooou," says Tony, and she kisses Bella's cheek. Then Kanim's for good measure.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 11:44 pm (UTC)

Kanim acquires a doofy smile.

Two magicians - even one without her spectacles, a few flecks of blood still on her face as evidence of their demise - make relatively short work of the spell that is suppressing Tony's fire magic and turning her blue. Bella slurps up the spell into her marble.

allthebrightest
2013-04-25 11:47 pm (UTC)

Tony beams and gives Bella a hug and a much more enthusiastic kiss.

And then she does the same to Kanim.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 11:48 pm (UTC)

Kanim attempts to kiss Tony while continuing to smile doofily. It is a challenge, but he manages to do both things!

Bella whistles and wanders in the direction of the kitchen.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-25 11:52 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is cooking with singleminded focus.

thaumobabble
2013-04-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

Bella watches her with a soft smile.

technical issue

thaumobabble

Kanim crashes at the castle for a few days, then he buys Bella's old house off her, makes it walk to a more comfortable distance from the castle, and just visits a lot. He is very helpful. Tony makes spectacle frames, Bella makes lenses, Kanim makes out with Tony. When the spectacles and the window are completely replaced, it is spring, and Bella plants herself a garden of important herbs on the castle grounds, and takes apart wizard staffs with Kanim.

Kanim really likes Tony; he looks at her rather like she fell out of the sky into his lap and he's trying to figure out how she could possibly have happened. He really really likes her. He does not want to marry her. This is made extremely clear when Queen Marianne asks how he would feel about being Tony's backup husband possibility in case Bella cannot solve the technical issue, to which question his response is to bolt from the room at top speed shouting "I AM GOING TO GO HELP BELLA WITH THAT SPELL NOW."

(This is, he feels the need to explain to Tony later, no slight against her undoubtedly stellar qualities as a potential spouse. Which he wants Bella to enjoy. Which he will not be partaking of himself even though it is, evidently, not a law of nature that only one person can marry a given other person. Because he does not want to be any sort of royalty and be asked for things even if his only duty would be to impregnate another sort of royalty. He is not even sure he wants non-royal children.)

Bella works on the spell, and Kanim helps. It's mid-Pink when Bella finds her beloved Sherlock and says:

"I think this version will work, even if it would be premature to test it before Umber. Which throws into rather stark relief the fact that if I cast it, eventually we will have a baby princess on our hands, and we have not actually discussed parenting."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-26 11:07 am (UTC)

"That is true," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-26 04:26 pm (UTC)

Bella sits. "So. Thoughts on that?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:02 am (UTC)

"Have you consulted Tony?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:03 am (UTC)

"About parenting? If I have a kid with her it'll be later - I guess she'd be awfully involved with ours, though."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:07 am (UTC)

"If you have a kid with me, you will be married to Tony by the time the child is old enough to speak. There are going to be three parents in this family if there are any."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:08 am (UTC)

Bella nods. "Let's all three of us talk parenting, then, I'll go find her."

She goes looking for Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 01:08 am (UTC)

At the forge.

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:09 am (UTC)

"Hallo," says Bella. "I have a version of the spell that I think will work and it is therefore time to talk parenting."

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 01:15 am (UTC)

"...Crap," says Tony, "yeah, that's a logical conclusion, isn't it."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:17 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I wasn't thinking of it before I had the spell worked out either, but now I have it and I'm going to marry Sherlock in Umber and it'll probably work, so, yeah. You wanna come have a sit-down or would another time be better?"

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 01:18 am (UTC)

"Eh, I wasn't getting anywhere anyway," she says, shrugging.

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:21 am (UTC)

Back they go to where Sherlock is!

After an awkward silence, Bella starts. "So, we could have this entire conversation about a generic 'the baby', but we could also just name her."

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 01:22 am (UTC)

"She's gonna be a her?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I think - Kanim agrees - that there's no way to produce a boy, under the circumstances. Not without borrowing some other contributor's, erm, material."

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 01:25 am (UTC)

"Okay, sure," says Tony. "Anybody got a name? I don't."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:28 am (UTC)

"I don't have one in mind, no." Bella taps her chin thoughtfully.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:29 am (UTC)

"Carinna?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:30 am (UTC)

"That's pretty. Is it from somewhere?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:31 am (UTC)

"A not particularly interesting poet."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:32 am (UTC)

"Whose primary virtue is having a pretty name?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:34 am (UTC)

"Yes."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:39 am (UTC)

"I like it. Carinna. Princess Carinna," pronounces Bella carefully. "Carinna, don't eat that bug, Carinna, come say hi to Grandma, Carinna, it's time for your piano lesson - yeah, it works."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:41 am (UTC)

"Well, there's one small problem solved," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:42 am (UTC)

"All right. So - I don't know, what other problems are there?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:47 am (UTC)

"I have no idea."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:50 am (UTC)

"I'm assuming - tutors? In various subjects? Rather than some kind of traditional school like I went to."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:52 am (UTC)

"Yes."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:54 am (UTC)

"So there's that. Um." Bella scratches her head. "I'm not thinking of any other obvious decision-making that can be made in advance but I'm concerned that this is me overlooking things that are in fact decisions as though options that aren't what I'd go with were not options at all."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:55 am (UTC)

"Can you think of any examples?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 01:57 am (UTC)

Bella thinks.

"I think maybe some people put their babies to sleep in the room with them even if this isn't forced by space constraints in the house?" she offers. "And that seems - well, for one thing, right now we have three rooms between us, so how not giving Carinna her own room to start with would work is not obvious."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:58 am (UTC)

"Any room close enough for me to hear it should be fine."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:02 am (UTC)

"Okay. You going to breastfeed?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 02:04 am (UTC)

She shrugs. "I don't see a reason not to."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:04 am (UTC)

"...How many kids do we want, eventually?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 02:05 am (UTC)

"At least one that survives to adulthood," Sherlock says dryly.

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:16 am (UTC)

"I mean - the more of them there are the less pressure is on any individual one to like politics, get married, produce children of their own," says Bella. "You two were having issues with the husband quest thing, after all. But of course there are also reasons not to have half a dozen even if that would still only involve going through childbirth twice apiece."

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 02:19 am (UTC)

Tony snorts. "How about one each?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:21 am (UTC)

"One each sounds workable to me," Bella says. "Unless of course Sherlock tells us it's disastrous and we must never try it after her turn."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 02:21 am (UTC)

"I find that unlikely."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:24 am (UTC)

"People do routinely go through the process more than once on a volunteer basis," agrees Bella. "Okay. So probably three. Their own rooms near enough Sherlock to be heard. Standard princessly tutoring, no unusual dietary arrangements, what am I forgetting - there should probably be some consistent reaction from us if they misbehave, I guess, so they don't just go to whoever the softy is." She glances at Tony. She bets Tony would be the softy.

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 02:36 am (UTC)

"Who, me?"

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:36 am (UTC)

"Maybe," says Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 02:38 am (UTC)

"And yet, we cannot predict ahead of time precisely in what ways our future children might annoy us and agree on the appropriate course of action for each one."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:40 am (UTC)

"No, of course not. But, general principles. I wasn't a defiant kid, but I wasn't perfectly behaved either. Ranata usually took away privileges, Charlie usually sat me down in disappointed silence and grounded me," she supplies. "...I think I'm pretty much just against spanking across the board."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 02:42 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 02:44 am (UTC)

"We, uh... didn't get a whole lot of parenting. Dad ignored us until I got big enough to work on stuff with him, and then he'd just kick me out of the workroom for a while if I broke something or forgot a safety rule. Probably not the best example to follow."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:45 am (UTC)

"What about your mother?"

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 02:47 am (UTC)

"If she found out we were doing something she didn't want, she'd sit us down and explain why it was a bad idea."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:47 am (UTC)

"...That seems like a generally decent principle, no?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 02:48 am (UTC)

"Yes."

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 02:49 am (UTC)

"All right then, we default to that, for anything serious we call in all of us and agree on something unless it's an emergency in which case best judgment in the moment?" says Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 02:54 am (UTC)

"Agreed."

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 02:54 am (UTC)

Tony nods.

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 03:03 am (UTC)

"Do you suppose your mother is going to have a lot of strong opinions on how we bring up Carinna, speaking of her parenting techniques?"

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 03:06 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 03:06 am (UTC)

"We should probably ask her, then, since that's going to be more of a pressing issue than anything my parents may think given living arrangements."

allthebrightest
2013-04-27 03:37 am (UTC)

"I don't think she'll butt in unless we do something bad," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 03:38 am (UTC)

"Well, that's fair, we should not do any bad things," says Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 03:39 am (UTC)

Sherlock nods.

thaumobabble
2013-04-27 03:43 am (UTC)

"We have a while to think of anything else, I guess. I could be wrong about this version of the spell working, and even if I'm right we'll have till the wedding plus nine months and then Carinna will spend a while being nonverbal."

calendarofcrime
2013-04-27 01:23 pm (UTC)

"True," says Sherlock.

fire-flower meadow

thaumobabble

The traditional location for Enchanted Forest royal weddings is Fire-Flower Meadow. This is mostly because it is very large. Bella's only inviting her parents, a handful of friends including Kexan, and her cat; considerably more people are attending just because it's a royal wedding and they expect to be invited. Kazul is there, and a handful of other dragons besides her and Kexan too; they take up a lot of room in the back corner of the field.

Bella and Sherlock are not supposed to see each other in their wedding outfits until the right moment, so Bella is in her dressing room with her one non-Tony bridesmaid (Sanda, she from whom Cricket was obtained), letting the witch pin her hair up. Kanim is also serving as a Bella-bridesperson but he absented himself from the dressing room when it came time to get into the dress. The dress itself is fairly ordinary - cloud-white and sleeveless with one shoulder strap, an asymmetrical gather at the waist, hemmed at the knee for summer coolness. But it's embroidered with a thousand little glass beads tracing whorls along the fabric and following the folds that lead away from the gather. Into each of these beads Bella has imparted a little kiss of magic. They gleam with ripples of intense diamondlike fire when she moves. She admires herself in the mirror while Sanda fusses with braids and the curling iron. (Bella's hair isn't that long, and she wears it down all the time; for a special occasion some fuss is called for.)

Bella's hair is finished. She steps into her shoes (they're white and beaded to match, enchanted like her everyday moccasins so she won't trip down the aisle).

Cricket sidles into the room to tell her when it's time.

The ceremony itself is fairly simple.

Also, it involves kissing Sherlock! That's always good.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 06:36 pm (UTC)

Sherlock's dress is steel-grey and brutally simple, and her hair is in a single braid down her back, into the top of which someone has tucked a freshly picked fireflower. It suits her perfectly.

Kissing Bella is definitely her favourite part.

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:06 pm (UTC)

And then there is a reception! Bella does not quite work around to asking Kazul about the King's Crystal. She's married into a family that is friends with Kazul and will have another opportunity. She mingles, she samples refreshments, she beams at Sherlock a lot. She walks away from people who make catty indirect remarks about her commoner origins. (She's a princess now. She has a crown to prove it, set on her head shortly after the kissing part. Tony made it for her and it's utterly lovely.)

And then all three princesses (of course Tony is coming along) are off on a honeymoon! To the beach! They spend a lot of time in the seaside cottage and not nearly as much time actually on the beach.

Bella brings her magic things. The most clinical conception in history takes place (and is then celebrated, rather less clinically). Bella thinks it worked, but there's no way to be sure until Sherlock starts exhibiting the usual symptoms.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 07:09 pm (UTC)

Bella's crown is almost as utterly lovely as Bella. Sherlock is very proud of both her sister and her wife.

Eventually, the usual symptoms do occur.

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:11 pm (UTC)

Hurray! Except insofar as the symptoms are unpleasant. They are back at the castle by this time; Bella mixes up anti-nausea potions and is generally very attentive.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 07:14 pm (UTC)

Sherlock loves Bella very much.

She is generally not quite as inconvenienced as she was expecting.

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:20 pm (UTC)

As soon as it's clear that Bella has successfully gotten her wife pregnant, preparations go forward for the second wedding, which takes place in late Red. Bella reuses her dress. She wanders away from further catty remarks. She kisses Tony a lot. The second group honeymoon is at that lovely beach, since they had so much fun last time.

"How closely spaced should Carinna and her next littlest sister be?" Bella wonders during this.

allthebrightest
2013-05-09 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I think it would be cute if they were both honeymoon babies," Tony declares.

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:23 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles and kisses her and starts setting up accordingly. "I love you. We could set numbers two and three up to be twins-of-sorts," she adds thoughtfully, "but that might be too many babies to deal with all at once."

allthebrightest
2013-05-09 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I think twins-of-sorts would be cute too! And we have palace staff to help with the babies, don't we?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:26 pm (UTC)

"That's true. All right, I'll cast me after you, then." Setup-setup-setup. "We will need more names."

allthebrightest
2013-05-09 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Tanalin," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:28 pm (UTC)

"That's cute! Where'd it come from?"

allthebrightest
2013-05-09 07:29 pm (UTC)

"No idea. Pretty, though, isn't it?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." Bella places the last setup object and casts the spell, then shoos Tony out of her spot so she can sit there instead. "For mine, hmmm." She adjusts a couple of objects. "Something-wen. Kiwen. Kiawen. How's Kiawen?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Kiawen is lovely, as are you."

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:34 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles and leans out of her spell-setup to kiss Sherlock and then she muses, "I suppose biologically speaking it doesn't matter, but I do have to pick which of you to draw on, in my case."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, you are supposedly on honeymoon with only one of us," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Supposedly," drawls Bella. "Okay, Tony it is." Cast, cast. She scoops up the materials and puts them away.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 07:40 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her.

allthebrightest
2013-05-09 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Hey, whose honeymoon is this?" says Tony playfully, and she steals Bella for a kiss of her own.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 07:41 pm (UTC)

"I feel that this is an easily solved problem," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I agree completely," laughs Bella.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 07:44 pm (UTC)

So they solve it.

campanas
2013-05-09 08:00 pm (UTC)

Carinna is born in early Pink, cute as a button, bald as an egg, and loud as a siren. She considers many of the things that happen to her immediate problems that must be solved at once lest everything be horrible forever. However, she can be quickly quieted if Sherlock picks her up, mostly because Sherlock is very good at figuring out what the matter is and can be relied on to solve the problem quickly.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-09 08:02 pm (UTC)

Sherlock considers Carinna a source of endless fascination and, when not holding her, can usually be found somewhere in sight.

thaumobabble
2013-05-09 08:09 pm (UTC)

Bella is pretty fascinated too! Bella is fascinated by a lot of things, of course, especially the royal magic she has just a touch of now, so it's very convenient that there are three parents to go around so she can go off and do that, or politics (more of it now she's doubly married than there was when she was only engaged and only to one princess). And Bella's always willing to take her turn when Carinna's other mommies are occupied. (The plan is that they will all, of course, answer to "mommy" - this will mean "whichever mommy is in the best position to respond to this outburst" - but their daughters will call them each by name.)

allthebrightest
2013-05-09 08:11 pm (UTC)

It turns out that, of the not-twins, Tanalin emerges first.

campanas
2013-05-09 08:13 pm (UTC)

Kiawen emerges second!

She is a happy happy baby. She figures out how to laugh and then she does it all the time.

carillons
2013-05-09 10:07 pm (UTC)

Tanalin spends most of her time watching Kiawen laugh.

grandma, grandma, look

campanas

Bella very carefully checked just how firewitchy her firstborn was before letting her do anything with hot glass - healing spells or no healing spells, getting burned is reportedly not fun - but now Carinna's allowed to play with the gooey warm stuff as much as she likes, provided she is careful not to get it under her fingernails where it would be hard to get out again. It's better than clay. It glows pretty - Carinna isn't firewitchy enough to heat it up again if it cools, but she can stick it in the fireplace and then pull it back out again whenever she likes. She sits on the floor next to Bella in Bella's workshop. Bella's making lenses. Carinna's making - something.

She thinks it's a pretty something! She holds it in place, covered in fingerprints and glowing bright, till it holds its own shape, and then she gets up and carries it out the door and runs around looking for Grandma Marianne. Where's Grandma Marianne?

pythbox
2013-05-14 05:51 pm (UTC)

Grandma Marianne is just leaving a meeting and on her way to the kitchens for a snack.

campanas
2013-05-14 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Grandma, Grandma! I made you this!" says Carinna, presenting her grandma with the this in question.

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:06 pm (UTC)

"What is it?" she asks, inspecting the this. Without taking it just yet.

campanas
2013-05-14 06:07 pm (UTC)

"It's glass!"

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I can see that," says Grandma Marianne. "It's pretty."

campanas
2013-05-14 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I made it! It's for you."

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:12 pm (UTC)

"That is very sweet of you," says Grandma Marianne. "Let's find somewhere to put it."

campanas
2013-05-14 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:15 pm (UTC)

So she leads her granddaughter on a tour of the castle, looking for a nice place to put the this.

campanas
2013-05-14 06:15 pm (UTC)

"It's still warm but it will be cooler soon and then it won't hurt stuff!"

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes it will," says Grandma Marianne. "Maybe by the time we find a place for it, it will be cool enough to put there!"

campanas
2013-05-14 06:22 pm (UTC)

Carinna nods vigorously. "Did you ever play with hot glass? I like it, it's goopy," she says. "I'm gonna make another thing after we find someplace for this thing."

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I have never played with hot glass," laughs the queen. "But I'm glad you're having fun."

campanas
2013-05-14 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Bella can't without gloves or tongs or whatever. Her glass stuff," says Carinna. "But I can!"

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:26 pm (UTC)

"That is because you're my granddaughter," says Marianne. "There's a little bit of fire-witch in our family."

campanas
2013-05-14 06:27 pm (UTC)

Carinna nods. "I know. I'm a little bit and Tony and Sherlock are a little bit more and you're a little bit more than that!"

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Exactly right," she says.

campanas
2013-05-14 06:28 pm (UTC)

Carinna beams at her.

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:28 pm (UTC)

She smiles back.

Look! A shelf!

campanas
2013-05-14 06:29 pm (UTC)

Oooh!

"Is this a good place for it?" Carinna asks.

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:29 pm (UTC)

"You know," says Marianne, inspecting the shelf, "I do believe it is."

campanas
2013-05-14 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Good." Carinna starts blowing on the glass thing.

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:31 pm (UTC)

Marianne waits.

campanas
2013-05-14 06:31 pm (UTC)

Eventually Carinna decides that the glass is probably cool enough to be okay on this shelf. She plunks it down.

pythbox
2013-05-14 06:32 pm (UTC)

The shelf does not catch fire! Marianne smiles approvingly.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Do you like your glass thing, Grandma?"

pythbox
2013-05-14 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I do!" says Marianne. "It's very pretty."

campanas
2013-05-14 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Yay!"

campanas
2013-05-14 07:30 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Kiawen is a-prowling the castle. Tanalin has hidden and it is Kiawen's turn to seek. (They don't let Sherlock play anymore; they can tell when she's letting them win.)

carillons
2013-05-14 07:35 pm (UTC)

Tanalin is so hidden. She is the hiddenest. No one has ever been hiddener.

(She's under the kitchen table. Sherlock is studiously ignoring her presence.)

campanas
2013-05-14 07:36 pm (UTC)

Kiawen will think to try the kitchen eventually! Right now she is stalking through the north wing's attic.

She's pretty sure Tanalin's not in the attic.

She attempts to leave the attic.

She didn't know this was one of Bella's multiply-opening doors! Maybe Tanalin went in there.

sicaria
2013-05-14 07:40 pm (UTC)

Tanalin did not go in there.

Sherlock apparently did. ...Except that this person is not really Sherlock. She looks a lot like Sherlock, but she is wearing a long swirly blue dress and she hasn't noticed Kiawen at all. Sherlock never fails to notice her children unless explicitly instructed otherwise.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:41 pm (UTC)

Kiawen peers at her. She's not Tony, either. She is not making a Tony face.

Huh.

Kiawen continues to investigate this person from a polite distance.

sicaria
2013-05-14 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Yes?" says the person, looking at Kiawen.

That is definitely a Sherlock face.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:45 pm (UTC)

Kiawen giggles. "How come you're dressed like that?"

sicaria
2013-05-14 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Because I like this dress. Who are you?"

campanas
2013-05-14 07:47 pm (UTC)

Kiawen grins at her, and claps her hands, and says: "Guess, guess!"

sicaria
2013-05-14 07:48 pm (UTC)

Sherlock looks at her.

"Do you," she inquires, "by any chance, have a mother named Sherlock?"

campanas
2013-05-14 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh!"

sicaria
2013-05-14 07:49 pm (UTC)

"And who is your other parent?"

campanas
2013-05-14 07:52 pm (UTC)

Kiawen tilts her head and blinks. She has three mommies.

sicaria
2013-05-14 07:57 pm (UTC)

She smiles a little.

"Other than Sherlock and Tony," she clarifies.

campanas
2013-05-14 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Oh! Bella," says Kiawen.

sicaria
2013-05-14 08:00 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock. "Just a moment."

She goes to the door. She opens the door.

[I have found a small child claiming to be our daughter,] she informs Shell Bell. [Please come and meet her.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:01 pm (UTC)

[...By our daughter, you mean our alts? Because if I forked again... I'm on my way.]

sicaria
2013-05-14 08:03 pm (UTC)

[Our alts, I think. She hasn't exactly specified.]

campanas
2013-05-14 08:04 pm (UTC)

"That's not the attic," Kiawen observes of the space beyond the door.

And, when Shell Bell appears:

"That's not Bella!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm not," agrees Shell Bell, stepping into Milliways. "Hi there. What's your name?"

campanas
2013-05-14 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm Princess Kiawen!" says Kiawen importantly, grinning.

sicaria
2013-05-14 08:05 pm (UTC)

"So I observe," says Sherlock.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:07 pm (UTC)

Kiawen giggles. "This place is funny. Everybody's a mirror. Is there another Grandma and another Uncle Kanim and another Cricket and another Miss Cantha too?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:08 pm (UTC)

"...Which grandma?" Shell Bell asks slowly.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Grandma Marianne. Grandma Ranata lives all the way in Linderwall."

sicaria
2013-05-14 08:10 pm (UTC)

"That is new information," murmurs Sherlock.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:11 pm (UTC)

Kiawen giggles at Sherlock. "You're silly," she tells her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to take us home with you to meet your family, Kiawen?" Shell Bell asks. "...Sherlock, should we get our Tony too?"

sicaria
2013-05-14 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I believe we should."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:13 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell sticks her head out the door. [Tony. More alts.]

ferratus
2013-05-14 08:14 pm (UTC)

[Ooh,] says Tony, and he teleports to her.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Who're you?" Kiawen asks him.

ferratus
2013-05-14 08:15 pm (UTC)

"...I'm Tony," says Tony. "Who are you?"

campanas
2013-05-14 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm Princess Kiawen! You can't be Tony," scoffs Kiawen. "She's like Sherlock and she's like Bella but you're a boy."

ferratus
2013-05-14 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I am a boy," says Tony. "It's true, you caught me. But I'm still Tony."

campanas
2013-05-14 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Pff," says Kiawen. "You're silly, whoever you are."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Kiawen, would you open the door for us?" Shell Bell asks.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay. You can help me find Tanalin! It's not cheating if you're not really our mommies," says Keziah, and she opens the door. Here is the attic.

sicaria
2013-05-14 08:24 pm (UTC)

Sherlock proceeds into the attic.

ferratus
2013-05-14 08:25 pm (UTC)

Tony follows.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:26 pm (UTC)

So does Shell Bell.

"Since you know your way around here so well why don't you take us to meet your mommies? Or any one of them," she says.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna look for Tanalin in the kitchen next. Probably Sherlock's there," says Kiawen, and she turns right back to the door that was previously Milliways, and opens it to the stairs, and trots down briskly towards the kitchen.

ferratus
2013-05-14 08:34 pm (UTC)

So... more following, then.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Tanaliiiiin," calls Kiawen as she approaches the kitchen. "You'll never guess what I foooooound..."

It's also not cheating to try to lure her sister out if she actually found something cool!

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:36 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell snickers under her breath.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 08:37 pm (UTC)

"What did you find?" inquires Sherlock from the kitchen.

campanas
2013-05-14 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Not Tanalin, yet," says Kiawen, leading visitors into the kitchen and peering into a cupboard. "Tanaliiiiin..."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:40 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell is next into view. "Hi," she says to the new Sherlock.

carillons
2013-05-14 08:41 pm (UTC)

...

Tanalin crawls out from under the table, stands up, and puts her hands on her hips.

"You found us extra parents," she accuses. "Did we not have enough of those already?"

campanas
2013-05-14 08:42 pm (UTC)

Kiawen grins, tags her on the shoulder, and runs away, whooping.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure you have plenty of parents," laughs Shell Bell softly. "We're not exactly that."

carillons
2013-05-14 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Well, what are you then?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:46 pm (UTC)

"We," says Shell Bell, with half an eye on the local Sherlock to gauge her reaction, "are alternate versions of your parents, from another world. There's lots of us, actually. More of me than anybody - the Bella who's your mom will be the thirteenth we've found."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 08:47 pm (UTC)

The local Sherlock is watching the nonlocal Sherlock.

sicaria
2013-05-14 08:47 pm (UTC)

The nonlocal Sherlock is watching her right back!

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:48 pm (UTC)

Oooof course. Shell Bell would like a peek at that conversation. And she has an avenue for same.

sicaria
2013-05-14 08:51 pm (UTC)

Pearl's brain gives the impression of not very much happening very very quickly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 08:52 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell giggles softly.

alicornucopia
2013-05-14 08:53 pm (UTC)

Cricket wanders into the room.

He peers at the scene.

He meows loudly, and when Shell Bell doesn't answer him, he goes up to the resident princess Sherlock and bats at her knee with one paw.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Kiawen has found us extras," says Sherlock, kneeling down to offer Cricket scritches. "I am sure Bella would be much obliged if you would let her know that interesting things are going on in the kitchen."

alicornucopia
2013-05-14 09:03 pm (UTC)

Cricket peers suspiciously at Shell Bell, and Other Sherlock, and Other Tony, and trots off.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:03 pm (UTC)

"...Smart cat?" asks Shell Bell.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Witch's cat," says Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:06 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell considers that statement, fails to derive firm conclusions, and decides to wait for the local Bella.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:07 pm (UTC)

The local Bella appears presently. She's trailed by Kanim, and she's quite bewildered. "...Hello?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Hi! I'm Shell Bell. I'm an alt of you from another universe. There's eleven more of you and me in other worlds. One of your kids found a door to the interdimensional hub and spotted my girlfriend."

sicaria
2013-05-14 09:10 pm (UTC)

Pearl gives a little wave.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:11 pm (UTC)

"...Have a seat," says Bella, "tell me everything."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:15 pm (UTC)

"The place Kiawen found a door to is called Milliways, but it's no longer the only way to get from place to place," says Shell Bell. "One of us brought in a -" She glances at the architecture. "...Distributed person, who can inhabit objects, like, this," she indicates her Janegem, "and move anyone she can see from such an object to anywhere she can see from such an object. We've also got a couple of shareable kinds of magic, both of which are really powerful with certain loopholes abused. You're not the only one with kids but you're the only one with a Sherlock and kids, so far. There's me, the one who brought in wish magic, one who's a witch - not of your kind; cats are not involved - and one who's an angel and one who's a vampire and one from a world with different vampires who was a vampire Slayer and the one who brought our distributed friend and one with no distinguishing features yet and the one who brought in enchanting and a boy one and an elf one and a sorceress one with a twin sister."

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:16 pm (UTC)

"...I'm the magician one. With a cat. Who married princesses," says Bella.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 09:17 pm (UTC)

"I'm completely bewildered," volunteers Kanim.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 09:19 pm (UTC)

The local and nonlocal Sherlocks both laugh.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:20 pm (UTC)

"...This is Kanim," Bella adds to Shell Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't look familiar," says Shell Bell, "but there's a first of everyone."

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:22 pm (UTC)

Bella peers at Shell Bell, then reaches into her hat for her spectacles and puts them on.

She reels back and yanks them away from her face.

"I want," she says, scrubbing at her eyes, "to know how you did all that."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Wishcoins, mostly," says Shell Bell. She lets her aura out; it's happy, excited. "This feature's enchantment-based though."

sicaria
2013-05-14 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Wishcoins," says Sherlock, "are highly convenient."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:24 pm (UTC)

"So much so," says Shell Bell, and she kisses her Sherlock on the cheek.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:25 pm (UTC)

"You're carrying more power around than any dozen dragons," says Bella frankly.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm not getting much. I felt the - enchantment thing," says Kanim, "but everything else must be - really efficient, if I can't get a sense for it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:27 pm (UTC)

"What do magicians do?" asks Shell Bell.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:28 pm (UTC)

"...Ten minutes ago," says Bella, "I would've said - everything."

sicaria
2013-05-14 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Would you like to do some more things?" inquires Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:38 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell giggles and starts giving her the rundown of the powers she is about to receive.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 09:39 pm (UTC)

Kanim eavesdrops shamelessly.

sicaria
2013-05-14 09:40 pm (UTC)

"You are also a magician," observes Other Sherlock.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I am! These two rescued me and Tony from the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises a few years back, now I am just sort of around!"

sicaria
2013-05-14 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I see," she says. And she really does.

ferratus
2013-05-14 09:42 pm (UTC)

...Tony looks from Kanim to his Sherlock and back to Kanim.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Then I asked Bella out to dinner but she is gay! And then Tony hit on me. And now I am - sort of around! I give the littler princesses magic lessons periodically when Bella is too neck-deep in politics or they're curious about something more my specialties than hers."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Wait, you're gay?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:45 pm (UTC)

"...You're not?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 09:45 pm (UTC)

"No! You're the only one. I'm straight-with-a-special-circumstances exception. Cam is bi. Amariah says 'daemons don't count'. Otherwise across-the-board straight."

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 09:46 pm (UTC)

"...Huh."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

ferratus
2013-05-14 10:08 pm (UTC)

"I absolutely believe that Tony hit on you," says Tony.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 10:10 pm (UTC)

"...And... you... are?" Kanim asks.

ferratus
2013-05-14 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Tony," says Tony.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 10:11 pm (UTC)

Kanim blinks at him.

"This is weird," he opines.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Kanim was at one time asked to be our Tony's backup husband option in case I didn't successfully manage the obvious succession issue," says Bella.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes, and then I ran screaming from the room, let's not forget how I ran screaming from the room."

ferratus
2013-05-14 10:14 pm (UTC)

Tony laughs. "Why did you run screaming from the room?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Because if I'd bolted without explanation the queen might've taken offense?" suggests Kanim. "She scares me sometimes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:18 pm (UTC)

"...Queen. The queen? There's a queen and you're not her?" Shell Bell asks Bella.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 10:18 pm (UTC)

"No-o-o? I wind up doing a reasonable fraction of her job, but she's, you know, still alive."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 10:19 pm (UTC)

"The queen is my mother," says the local Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:20 pm (UTC)

"That's unusual," says Shell Bell.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 10:21 pm (UTC)

"In what way?"

ferratus
2013-05-14 10:22 pm (UTC)

"In the way where our parents are usually dead by the time we're thirteen or so," says Tony. "And usually not royalty of any kind."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:24 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking more of the first thing. The royalty part makes sense if the template attractor is more along the lines of 'rich and famous' than 'specifically for this list of accomplishments'."

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 10:25 pm (UTC)

"...Template attractor."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:26 pm (UTC)

"We come from a lot of different worlds, some of them more different than others. There's a standard Bell backstory, but even where it can't appear in full for world-based reasons, bits of it appear. There are similar things for Sherlocks and Tonies and all the other repeats we've seen."

ferratus
2013-05-14 10:27 pm (UTC)

"All of me are almost basically the exact same," says Tony. "Yours is the first girl one we've found."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of which, should I go get her?"

ferratus
2013-05-14 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Good idea!"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 10:30 pm (UTC)

Kanim scurries off.

"Tonyyyy!"

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, what?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I am at a complete loss to explain! But they're in the kitchen!"

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:32 pm (UTC)

She giggles, and kisses him, and goes to the kitchen.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 10:33 pm (UTC)

Kanim follows her.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Hi, honey."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Princess Tony."

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Bella! Hi, Bella's mystery twin!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Alt," corrects Shell Bell. "One of us has a twin, but she doesn't look like us!"

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:39 pm (UTC)

"I can see why Kanim had trouble explaining you. You should explain you instead," Tony announces.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Besides this one who doesn't have a nickname yet, there are a dozen of us!" says Shell Bell. "We're each from a different world. I'm Shell Bell and my world is called Atlantis. One of your daughters found a door into an interworld hub called Milliways and met my girlfriend there. When Bells meet each other Bells we swap magic powers and acquire very long to-do lists."

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Got any shiny new magic powers?" she asks her wife.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Technically, yes, but I'm still getting the safety lectures and so on," says Bella. "As for a nickname, I don't know, how about 'Glass'?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Not taken," says Shell Bell, "all yours."

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Cute," says Tony. "How about us, do we get nicknames?"

ferratus
2013-05-14 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, when 'Tony' and 'Sherlock' don't cut it, I'm Screwdriver and she's Pearl," says Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:52 pm (UTC)

"You're a me? Wow, you're totally a me," says Tony. "Um... what if I can't think of a good nickname?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:53 pm (UTC)

"None of them could," says Shell Bell dryly. "They wound up deriving ideas based on their coin colors."

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 10:54 pm (UTC)

Glass nibbles her lip for a triangle in a dozen colors of stained glass, all mosaicked together.

"Ooh."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:54 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell makes a square of her own, shows it off, and spends it to produce illusion coins in the princesses' colors.

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:56 pm (UTC)

"...Red-hot iron, apparently," says Tony. She peers at Sherlock, and laughs. "And you're steel. Is there a Steel?"

sicaria
2013-05-14 10:56 pm (UTC)

Pearl shakes her head.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 10:56 pm (UTC)

"There is now."

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 10:57 pm (UTC)

Glass laughs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Any ideas on how to turn yours into a nickname?" Shell Bell asks Princess Tony.

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 10:59 pm (UTC)

Helpless shrug.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I guess you could go by 'Princess' for now? It's not perfect, you wouldn't be the only princess at a Bell party, but I think it wouldn't be that hard to keep your family and Elspeth straight, and if you can't think of anything else..."

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 11:04 pm (UTC)

"I've got to have more identifying characteristics than that," she says.

ferratus
2013-05-14 11:05 pm (UTC)

"You totally don't, there's a reason the rest of us named ourselves after coin colours."

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 11:06 pm (UTC)

"So you're all blacksmith fire-witches who make flying armor?" says Glass skeptically. "Granted I don't know how to turn any of that into a nickname..."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Blacksmiths not so much - more engineers - low-tech here? - and what is a fire witch - and yes on the flying armor, Iron Man did that."

ferratus
2013-05-14 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Iron Princess," Tony suggests whimsically.

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Bite me," snorts the iron princess.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 11:10 pm (UTC)

"A fire witch is a kind of hereditary magic user, mostly having to do with fire," says Glass. "One married into the royal family a few generations back. It's a little thinned out for my wives. The little ones can handle hot things safely - Carinna likes to play with hot glass - but that's all."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Kiawen, Tanalin, Carinna - you have three, or are there more?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Three. One apiece."

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 11:11 pm (UTC)

Tony grins.

ferratus
2013-05-14 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Cute," says Tony.

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 11:13 pm (UTC)

"They are! You met the untwins - do you want to see Carinna too?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Untwins?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 11:15 pm (UTC)

"All three are honeymoon babies. Tanalin and Kiawen share a honeymoon," Glass nods at her second wife, "but didn't share living space."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I'll go see where Carinna is," says Kanim, wandering out of the room.

ferratus
2013-05-14 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of which, where'd the other one go?" wonders Tony.

sicaria
2013-05-14 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Away," says Pearl. "Some time ago."

thaumobabble
2013-05-14 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Hiding-and-seeking," says Glass.

campanas
2013-05-14 11:36 pm (UTC)

Carinna and her Uncle Kanim arrive presently. Carinna double-takes at the foreign Sherlock. She is completely nonplussed by the foreign Tony.

sicaria
2013-05-14 11:40 pm (UTC)

The foreign Sherlock gazes serenely at her.

campanas
2013-05-14 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Sherloooock," says Carinna, because Sherlock is the mommy who can always tell what's going on, "what happened?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-14 11:44 pm (UTC)

"These are another Sherlock and Bella and Tony from another world," says Steel, indicating each.

campanas
2013-05-14 11:44 pm (UTC)

"...But he's a boy."

ferratus
2013-05-14 11:45 pm (UTC)

"You guys keep harping on that. I can't help it!" says Screwdriver. "There's like six more of me and they're all boys too, I'm not alone!"

campanas
2013-05-14 11:46 pm (UTC)

"But the Sherlocks are girls!" says Carinna.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Most of them aren't, just these two," says Shell Bell. "The others are boys. There's also a Bell who's a boy. Just one. He was very put out about it to start."

ferratus
2013-05-14 11:47 pm (UTC)

"I bet Iron isn't put out about being the only girl Tony," he speculates.

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 11:48 pm (UTC)

"You're so right!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:49 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell giggles.

campanas
2013-05-14 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Iron?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-14 11:50 pm (UTC)

"There's lots of them, so they need nicknames," Kanim explains.

campanas
2013-05-14 11:51 pm (UTC)

"...Are... are there lots of me?" Carinna asks, sounding stunned by the possibility and not really pleased about it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:51 pm (UTC)

"You're the first one," Shell Bell tells her.

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 11:52 pm (UTC)

"'Iron'," she says musingly. "That one's not taken, right?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:53 pm (UTC)

"There's Iron Man. It would be a little confusing," says Shell Bell.

allthebrightest
2013-05-14 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Not that confusing," she observes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-14 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Probably not overwhelmingly so. If you don't want to be 'Firewitch'," says Shell Bell.

campanas
2013-05-14 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Are there going to be more of me?" Carinna asks anxiously.

sicaria
2013-05-14 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Good question," says Pearl.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 12:01 am (UTC)

"We do know that if the same set of parents have children they will wind up with children who are alts of each other. Rose and Angela both married Jokers and had daughters, and Rose's girls match Angela's elder two."

campanas
2013-05-15 12:01 am (UTC)

"But I'm special," says Carinna.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-15 12:02 am (UTC)

"So are your parents, and yet, we have alts."

campanas
2013-05-15 12:03 am (UTC)

"It's weird!"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 12:05 am (UTC)

"Oh, sweetie," sighs Glass, "not all alts are much alike, anyway, if they have one of you," she gestures at the visitors, "she'll grow up in such a different place. That other Tony is even a boy, there's no telling what another Carinna would be like."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 12:06 am (UTC)

"And she wouldn't be named Carinna. Not now that we know you had the name first. Although it's a very pretty name."

campanas
2013-05-15 12:07 am (UTC)

"What would you name her?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 12:07 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure. We haven't really talked about having little princesses."

sicaria
2013-05-15 12:09 am (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 12:09 am (UTC)

...Peek.

sicaria
2013-05-15 12:10 am (UTC)

It is possible that Sherlock might want there to be little princesses, at some point in the future.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 12:11 am (UTC)

Awww.

Shell Bell kisses her cheek.

"But we might talk about it later," she tells Carinna.

campanas
2013-05-15 12:11 am (UTC)

"Will you let me name the me?" Carinna wants to know. "I think that would be fair!"

sicaria
2013-05-15 12:13 am (UTC)

"What would you name the you?"

campanas
2013-05-15 12:13 am (UTC)

"I don't know yet!" Carinna says. "It might even be a boy. Then it would need a different name from if it was a me-me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 12:14 am (UTC)

"I see no reason we couldn't take suggestions," laughs Shell Bell.

sicaria
2013-05-15 12:14 am (UTC)

"You will have time to think about it before you suggest anything."

campanas
2013-05-15 12:15 am (UTC)

"Okay then," says Carinna. "I guess that's okay."

sicaria
2013-05-15 12:19 am (UTC)

(And they need not take the suggestions, if they are particularly... six-year-old-ish.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 12:20 am (UTC)

(Indeed.)

Shell Bell puts all the adults in the room on the brainphone network so that they can continue Magic Safety Lectures without worrying about keeping the details of where coins come from G-rated.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-15 12:27 am (UTC)

...Steel is somewhere between amused and disturbed.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 12:31 am (UTC)

[Are you okay? It sounds like I can probably borrow from other Bells and that won't be a big deal.]

calendarofcrime
2013-05-15 12:51 am (UTC)

[You may end up borrowing from other Bells. I'm not sure.]
Edited 2013-05-15 00:51 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 12:53 am (UTC)

[Okay. I'm not short of local magic, anyway, I can probably scale it up really well with just a few judicious wishes.]

campanas
2013-05-15 12:54 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna go find Lin an' Wen," says Carinna.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 12:54 am (UTC)

"Okay, but don't get too involved in anything," says Shell Bell. "It's traditional when we find new Bells to throw a party!"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-15 12:57 am (UTC)

"With how many attendees?" inquires Sherlock.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:02 am (UTC)

"It tends to depend on how closely spaced the parties have been. The last one was when Jane came back online and that was a couple months ago, so we can expect a majority of the invitees, coming up on ninety people, one of them is a dragon. If you don't have a good place to put the party someone else will be happy to host. Not everyone's gotten a turn yet since by the time we threw the first Bell party there were already eight of us."

allthebrightest
2013-05-15 01:05 am (UTC)

"Fire-flower Meadow will do it, I bet," says Tony.

campanas
2013-05-15 01:13 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, Carinna has decided that Grandma should know about these extra children she has acquired. "Graaaaandma!"

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:14 am (UTC)

"Yes?"

campanas
2013-05-15 01:15 am (UTC)

"Grandma, there's extras of Sherlock and Bella and Tony in the kitchen from another world."

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:15 am (UTC)

"That," Marianne says gravely, "is surprising."

She pulls a thread of forest magic and arrives in the kitchen.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 01:21 am (UTC)

"Hi, Marianne," says Glass. "Apparently there are many universes and versions of us appear in several of them. This is Shell Bell."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:21 am (UTC)

Shell Bell waves. "And these are my Sherlock and my Tony."

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:22 am (UTC)

"Hello," says Marianne to the named parties.

ferratus
2013-05-15 01:22 am (UTC)

"Hi."

sicaria
2013-05-15 01:22 am (UTC)

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 01:24 am (UTC)

"Is this becoming a family thing? This looks like it might be a family thing. I can leave."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 01:24 am (UTC)

"But then I'd have to explain all the new magic details to you separately."

sicaria
2013-05-15 01:27 am (UTC)

"The kitchen is getting somewhat crowded," Sherlock observes. "Perhaps now is the time to move us all to that meadow you mentioned."

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:27 am (UTC)

"Fire-flower Meadow? Are we expecting a significant number of guests?" asks Marianne, her hand hovering by a thread.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 01:28 am (UTC)

"There are a lot of me. Them and all their friends will want to come meet me and my friends," says Glass. "It's not necessary to host the resulting party in this world instead of one of theirs, but as long as we can..."

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:30 am (UTC)

"Then let's," says the queen. She glances around to make sure she has everyone included, and then pulls on the thread.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:33 am (UTC)

"I can set up if you like," Shell Bell says to Glass. "Nametags and rooms and stuff. Oh, these flowers are pretty."
Edited 2013-05-15 01:35 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 01:36 am (UTC)

"Very, but they'll also set people on fire if you step on one," says Glass, "usually before an event they just all get picked."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:36 am (UTC)

"Oh, but that would be a shame, they're so decorative," says Shell Bell, "I can take care of that too."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 01:37 am (UTC)

"...Sounds good to me."

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:37 am (UTC)

"Take care of it how?" inquires Marianne.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:38 am (UTC)

"Magic," says Shell Bell brightly. "Offworld wishing magic. I won't hurt the flowers, I can put them back how they are after."

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:39 am (UTC)

"And what effect will you have on them in the meantime?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:40 am (UTC)

"They won't burn anyone or anything," says Shell Bell. "Not literally all the guests are going to show up fireproof. I mean, Bells will, but we're a little paranoid."

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:40 am (UTC)

"Go ahead, then," says Marianne.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:44 am (UTC)

Shell Bell claps her hands together and wishes a Bellparty pavilion with its appropriate subrooms, buffet, bowls for courtesy squares and triangles (which appear full), nametag setup (apparently the nametag wish thinks the queen is "a Maria"), and harmless fireflowers. Shell Bell picks one and tucks it behind her ear.

"Are we all set?" she inquires. "Where are the little beads, aren't they coming? Angela doesn't tell her kids about magic till they're a little older but the jig's up with yours."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 01:44 am (UTC)

"Beads?" says Glass.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:46 am (UTC)

"And Rose's kids are rosebuds and Angela's are cherubs. Goodness only knows what silly nickname mine will get, if and when," Shell Bell says. "If you don't like 'beads' you can pick something else; at least they're one-of-a-kind and won't go around with nametags that say 'template unnamed' till further notice."

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:49 am (UTC)

"I can gather up my grandchildren," offers the queen.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 01:50 am (UTC)

"Awesome," says Shell Bell, grinning. "And Jane can gather up everyone else." She taps her Janegem.

intelligent nametags

thaumobabble

Jane alerts everyone to the existence of a new Bell, the nature of her wives and children, and the presence of her mother-in-law.

She stands ready to move in anyone who wishes to attend this new party.

Glass stands ready to receive them.

This is a branching point; there are 10 continuations from here.

pythbox
2013-05-15 01:59 am (UTC)

Queen Marianne is not entirely sure what to think of all this.

autokinetic
2013-05-15 02:01 am (UTC)

"Hiya," says Aegis, twirling by and coming to a graceful stop. "You're alive! That's unprecedented. I think the others are planning to get their parents raised from the dead maybe eventually sometime."

pythbox
2013-05-15 02:02 am (UTC)

"...Is that something that happens?" she asks, raising one eyebrow.

autokinetic
2013-05-15 02:03 am (UTC)

"Raising people from the dead? Yeah. When Jane's working, anyway. Shell Bell and Juliet and Pattern are all sort of dead."

pythbox
2013-05-15 02:04 am (UTC)

"In that case," says Marianne, "I would like it very much if someone would fetch me my husband."

autokinetic
2013-05-15 02:05 am (UTC)

"Have to hook you up to Downside first, and I think we'd wanna make sure there's not a reason none of his alts are walking around, there's some people who're blacklisted and I don't have a Sherlock, I have a Joker, so I dunno if he's one of them."

pythbox
2013-05-15 02:06 am (UTC)

"Who would I talk to about that?" she inquires pleasantly.

autokinetic
2013-05-15 02:09 am (UTC)

Aegis shrugs. "Juliet's got a Sherlock, Shell Bell's got a Sherlock, they'd know, or you could just ask your kids to ask Glass, Glass is a Bell and has the rights and privileges thereof and this is her world." Aegis peers quizzically at Marianne's circlet. "Unless she's, like, missing key ambitions on top of being uncharacteristically gay, there's always that possibility."

pythbox
2013-05-15 02:11 am (UTC)

"Thank you. I am the Queen of the Enchanted Forest," she adds, in response to Aegis's puzzlement. "Glass is an extremely useful daughter-in-law."

autokinetic
2013-05-15 02:13 am (UTC)

"Aaaaah-hm. Golden has parents-in-law she gets along with, but I don't think they get to wear imperial jewelry."

pythbox
2013-05-15 02:17 am (UTC)

"In this case," she says, "Glass married into royalty. Twice. So it is extremely appropriate for her to wear a crown on formal occasions. Tony made her one for the first wedding. Have you seen it?"

autokinetic
2013-05-15 02:20 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I did, it's pretty," says Aegis. "It's probably not gonna make any sense for me to wear a crown in the next few decades, I'm aiming at a democratically elected kinda title, it's a pity." She peers at Marianne. "You must be a good queen."

pythbox
2013-05-15 02:25 am (UTC)

"I am," says Marianne. "And now I think I will go see my daughter-in-law about resurrecting my husband."

autokinetic
2013-05-15 02:25 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Aegis, and she spins off to find somebody else to talk to.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 02:25 am (UTC)

Marianne's daughter-in-law is over here, talking to Rose!

pythbox
2013-05-15 02:26 am (UTC)

"Excuse me," Marianne says politely to both of them. Then to Bella, "I'm told you can now raise the dead?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 02:27 am (UTC)

"I haven't done it yet, and it's actually Jane," (there is now a pale green Janegem hanging from the same necklace as Glass's power marble) "but yeah, I have the rundown on how it works."

pythbox
2013-05-15 02:28 am (UTC)

"Then I would like my husband back, please," she says.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 03:43 am (UTC)

"Ah," says Glass. "...One sec."

And she confers with some other Bells.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-15 03:45 am (UTC)

[I haven't met the template, but, my Tony invented intelligent life twice before his thirteenth birthday trying to get someone to love him back. I guess indifferent parenting isn't a hanging offense.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 03:46 am (UTC)

[Mine aren't in any great hurry about theirs. They'll be in the general queue, not jumped. Not so much indifferent parenting as their having been dead for a while and having nowhere obvious to go. The thing you should know is that if this set comes with a Stane or a Snow or anyone like that, he's a no-rez.]

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 03:47 am (UTC)

[Noted.]

And then she consults some wives.

[Is there any reason not to bring your father back into the world?]

calendarofcrime
2013-05-15 11:02 am (UTC)

[No.]

allthebrightest
2013-05-15 11:02 am (UTC)

[Are you kidding? You can do that? Do that right now!]

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 03:35 pm (UTC)

[Jane can do that, but she pretty much does what Bells ask her to do. I was just checking because the others - haven't. Okay.]

"When Jane wakes him up, do you want her to relay your voice speaking to him or say anything in particular or will her usual speech be okay?" Glass asks Marianne.
Edited 2013-05-15 16:01 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-15 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Just tell him I'm looking forward to seeing him again. The rest can wait," she says.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Jane, if you don't mind," Glass says to her new gem. "King Howard Stark, died eleven years ago."
Edited 2013-05-15 17:05 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-05-15 05:08 pm (UTC)

[On it,] says Jane merrily.

She wakes the erstwhile king, appears him a pamphlet in the language he's familiar with, and Jane tells him:

[Hello. You died, but your daughter-in-law can fix that; the pamphlet has the details. Your wife's looking forward to seeing you. If you have questions, I can answer them; otherwise, say when and I can put you in Fire-flower Meadow where the party's at.]

pythbox
2013-05-15 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Oh, by all means," says Howard, "take me to the party."

mind_game
2013-05-15 05:12 pm (UTC)

Yoink!

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 05:12 pm (UTC)

Glass waves tentatively.

pythbox
2013-05-15 05:17 pm (UTC)

Howard looks for his wife first thing.

Marianne flings her arms around him and kisses him enthusiastically. With a little giggle, he kisses back.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-15 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I brought my Renée back as soon as Jane returned, and her reunion with Charlie was not so seamless," Rose remarks to Glass, "alas."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 05:19 pm (UTC)

Glass smiles faintly, and notifies her wives and offspring that a certain someone has returned.

pythbox
2013-05-15 05:23 pm (UTC)

Marianne takes her face off her husband's face long enough to say, "Thank you very much, we'll just be—" and then she pulls a thread of forest magic and the pair of them disappear.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 05:23 pm (UTC)

[...Nevermind, they've gone. I imagine they'll be back eventually.]

allthebrightest
2013-05-15 05:24 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles over brainphone.

This is continuation number 2 from here.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:27 pm (UTC)

Kanim will just be standing over here, trying to get his magic-senses used to what have to be a dozen different kinds of the stuff. No wonder Glass half-blinded herself trying to see it all through her specs.

allthebrightest
2013-05-15 05:30 pm (UTC)

Tony wanders over, trailed by two of her boy alts. Neither one is especially magical.

"Hi!" she says brightly. "So I'm gonna go introduce myself to the rest of me. Wanna come?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I. Uh." Kanim has known her for long enough to recognize that tone even if the exact euphemism is unfamiliar. "Uh." If he had kept that tail he had for longer than a month and a half it would be twitching. "Maaaaybe?"

allthebrightest
2013-05-15 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Word is, everybody thinks you're cute," she adds.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:35 pm (UTC)

"How many of you are there?"

allthebrightest
2013-05-15 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Fusion, Screwdriver, Sapphire, Red, and Iron Man," she says. "And me. Six. Is six too many?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:37 pm (UTC)

"It's an amount!" says Kanim. "I can... accompany you on introductions. If you want."

allthebrightest
2013-05-15 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," says Tony, and she pecks him on the cheek and leads the three of them in the direction of the orgy chambers. (There are orgy chambers. That is also awesome.)

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:40 pm (UTC)

(There are orgy chambers. That is... something.)

Kanim wanders out of them awhile later, looking happily dazed.
Edited 2013-05-15 17:43 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-05-15 05:45 pm (UTC)

There's a magical person over there! He spots Kanim coming out of the orgy chambers and smiles knowingly.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:46 pm (UTC)

"...Hi! You're - something. But everybody here is something and my specialty is place magic, not people magic."
Edited 2013-05-15 17:46 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-05-15 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I am an ingot," he says. "My specialty is seeing magic. This place is incredible - there's more background magic here than I've seen in any other world, even Milliways."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:49 pm (UTC)

"It's the Enchanted Forest, by far the most naturally magical location in the world. Isn't it fantastic? That's why I live here. Although I do sometimes go on scholarly trips to magical caves and so on."

nonbird
2013-05-15 05:51 pm (UTC)

"You're reasonably interesting yourself," he adds. "Although I almost lose you in the background noise. Tell me about magical caves!"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:54 pm (UTC)

"There are lots of them! I actually started hanging around with Tony and Bella and Sherlock when the latter two rescued me and Tony from some wizards who were keeping us prisoner in the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises, which I had of course walked right into. With entrances that are often within the forest, there's the Caves of Fire and Night, and the Caves of Chance, and the Caves of Sunless Gardens, and the caves that magically refuse to have any name attached to them. There are fewer farther away - this is the highest concentration of place magic - but I wrote a thesis on the Caves of Irregular Dimensions once, years ago, that's nowhere near here."

nonbird
2013-05-15 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Those are some remarkably descriptive names," he observes. "What was your thesis?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I came to no useful conclusions whatsoever! Except that the Caves of Irregular Dimensions are extremely uncooperative. You may read the thesis if you like, although I'd have to go get it from the castle."

nonbird
2013-05-15 05:59 pm (UTC)

Lazarus laughs. "If you say you came to no useful conclusions, I think I'll believe you," he says.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:01 pm (UTC)

"So how do you know this - crowd?" Kanim asks, looking vaguely around.

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Oh - I'm from Eos. Where wishcoins come from," he says. "I met Stella back before she was a magical space empress."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:06 pm (UTC)

"This is going to be hard to keep straight," says Kanim. "All these Bellas, all this magic, all these - political entities. Are there six of you, too? I'm told I'm a new face."

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:09 pm (UTC)

"There are not six of me! There is one of me," says Lazarus. "And yes, it is a little daunting, isn't it? But you get used to it. More or less."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Do you really?" asks Kanim. "It took me a while just to get used to Bella - Glass, I guess, sensible nickname, she does some marvelous things with glass - and now there are twelve more of her! With outrageous magical powers! My skills are going to be redundant. I guess I'll still hang around on account of Tony. And the little ones are fond of me."

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:17 pm (UTC)

"'Outrageous' is a good word for it," he says. "And I could stand to be a little more redundant, honestly. If the Bells consulted me as often as they probably should, there would have to be at least six of me just to keep up with all the new magic."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Do they not consult you as often as they should?"

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:20 pm (UTC)

"There was some trouble just recently when Sarion joined the peal that could've been avoided if they'd asked me to take a look before anyone started wishing."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:20 pm (UTC)

"I guess they were in some kind of hurry? I wouldn't describe Be- Glass - as patient."

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:22 pm (UTC)

"They were in a lot of a hurry! It was a very... tense situation," he says. "And emotionally and magically complicated. But it turned out okay in the end."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:22 pm (UTC)

"That's good then!"

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes!"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:28 pm (UTC)

"So..." Kanim waves vaguely around. "I know what Fire-flower Meadow feels like, because I attended both Bella's weddings, and I know that this isn't it, but I know almost nothing else, what can you tell me about what's going on here?"

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:34 pm (UTC)

"It's a Bellparty," he says. "There are some wishes up, like the nametags and the orgy chambers. Various attendees are also magical - about half the Jokers, about half the Bells, more if you include anyone who's been minted and enchantified. All the Bells and Jokers have enchanter's auras now; I don't think anyone else does. There's ingots from Eos and witches from Aurum. Which parts do you want explained?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Kanim, "I think Glass will explain to me any new powers she brings home with her, so stuff she's likely to not bring home with her is I guess more important - for instance, that looks sort of like a dragon but feels nothing like one, that looks like a weirdly-colored unicorn but feels nothing like one..."

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:42 pm (UTC)

"The dragon and the unicorn are from Thilanushinyel. That's what dragons and unicorns are like there," he says. "Liselen - that's the unicorn - gets very excited about coming to parties like this because until recently he was subject to the usual restrictions for the species about only coming in contact with virgins. The dragon is attached to the very red person with wings and a tail who I swear I saw out here a minute ago. They belong to the Joker template."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:46 pm (UTC)

"So the virgin thing isn't a myth, there... Attached to - huh, so that's what - and - that Bell with the pointed ears over there, similar attachment?"

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes. The demon and the dragon spent about ten thousand years together like that, and then they met Sarion. That's what dragons do in that world; they attach to people."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Dragons here do not do that. And unicorns here don't really have a thing with virgins, but it's a common myth."

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Lazarus. "But you don't have demons?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:52 pm (UTC)

"No. Should we?"

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Most worlds don't seem to. But most worlds don't have dragons, unicorns, or elves, either, and Thilanushinyel does."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Elves? I don't see any of those. We have them, though."

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Sarion is an elf of the Thilanushinyel variety."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 06:56 pm (UTC)

"She's very tall for an elf."

nonbird
2013-05-15 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Are your elves shorter? Has anyone named this world?" he wonders.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Uh, no, it is without a name. Adult elves range from yea big to yea big," says Kanim, hovering a hand at about knee height and the other just below his ribs. "Depending on the sort. They do have pointed ears, but there are also some proportional differences and facial structure things that Sarion doesn't have."

nonbird
2013-05-15 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Someone should remind Glass to name it, then, if she hasn't already."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 07:12 pm (UTC)

"All the Bells name their worlds as well as themselves, then?"

nonbird
2013-05-15 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Thilanushinyel had one already, I believe. I think the rest are Bell-sourced."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 07:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm starting to follow this general undercurrent of 'wait, there is a queen and it is not Glass?' I'm detecting from my eavesdropping."

nonbird
2013-05-15 07:18 pm (UTC)

"The fact that there is a queen who is not Glass is mildly unusual," says Lazarus. "But I'm not sure why it deserves all this attention. Stella didn't overthrow the President."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I mean, Glass certainly never objected to the fact that her wives don't care for politics and that left her as default actually-doing-things queen when Marianne passed on - but that didn't stop her from spending most of her spare time on trying to figure out immortality."

nonbird
2013-05-15 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Marianne is probably not going to pass on," Lazarus observes. "I wonder if she'll retire?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 07:39 pm (UTC)

"No idea. I hope Glass doesn't wind up fighting with her about it. Glass is my best friend and Marianne frightens me sometimes and the twins and the wee ones love them both and I don't think it could possibly end well."

nonbird
2013-05-15 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't sound like it," says Lazarus. "But maybe they won't. Bells do seem to get along with reasonable political leaders."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Glass likes Marianne, they get along really well."

nonbird
2013-05-15 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Then they probably aren't going to fight."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 07:45 pm (UTC)

"That's good!"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:07 pm (UTC)

Glass wanders by. "Hi! You're Stella's magic-seeing-guy, right?" she says to Lazarus.

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Yes!" says Lazarus. "That is me. I am that."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 08:09 pm (UTC)

"He sees magic, and apparently has better modulation than your specs," Kanim says. "Seeing as he's not clutching his face and yelping."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, lucky," says Glass, pulling out her specs but not putting them on. "These things are great for anything native to the world, but all my alts just scream magic, I'd go blind if I tried to look right at them even through one lens at a time."

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:13 pm (UTC)

"...May I see those?" he asks, blinking in fascination at the specs.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:15 pm (UTC)

Glass hands them over. She enumerates where all the lenses' magic came from: "Witch spell with-cat, witch spell without-cat, got that out of a wizard staff, this one too, this I got a wizard to cast for me, we've got some reformists in the woods, Tony helped me with this dwarf spell, this was the first royal magic I ever got to work for me after I married Tony and the forest double-counted me, this is a dragon spell, that's a different one, this is elf magic..."

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Goodness," says Lazarus. "That's a lot of magic."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:18 pm (UTC)

"You can see why I couldn't pick just one," laughs Glass. "And that's a sorceress bit, and this is a unicorn spell, and this is an adaptation of a fire-witch property, and I have some spare lenses that aren't as useful in my sleeves for specialized applications."

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I could design you a lens that does something similar to my power," he says. "I'm not sure how useful it would be. My power is very me-ish."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I'd have a look, but I'd have to wish my eyes better and I wouldn't learn much," laughs Glass. "Rose thinks I might get something about all the myriad kinds of local magic when I get an aura. Apparently a lot of us did."

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a my-power-ish lens, for all the good it may or may not do you?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I'd like one, yeah!"

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:30 pm (UTC)

Lazarus thinks carefully, and then makes a wish. Glass's specs acquire a new set of lenses.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:31 pm (UTC)

Glass carefully flips all her existing lenses out of the way, and the new ones into place, and sets the specs on her face.
Edited 2013-05-15 20:33 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:43 pm (UTC)

Her visual world is now very different.

There's a kind of background fog, very greenish, with spots of flame dotted along the ground. Objects and people only exist insofar as they are magical; Liselen is a silvery-blue glow in the shape of a unicorn, Lazarus himself is layered with complex patterns. Mints show up in their coin colour, as though they are enormous self-minted coins. Enchanters' auras surround them with symbolic representations of their specialties, some very abstract, some perfectly mundane - Jellybean has a corona of candy.

It's all very orderly. Ingot powers appear in this way, the enchanting ability like so, auras like that, witchcraft in yet another. Magic created by wishcoins has a very different aspect from magic created by enchanting, although the details of what exactly each bit of magic does are not always clear.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Oooh," breathes Glass. "It'll take me a long time to learn to interpret all this, but it's sure pretty."

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:45 pm (UTC)

"It is! It is very pretty," Lazarus agrees.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:46 pm (UTC)

"You automatically read the content of this sort of thing?" Glass asks, turning slowly on the spot to get a look at everything.

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes? Sort of. It's a bit - translated," he says. "The original version is much easier for me to figure out, but not completely automatic."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:52 pm (UTC)

Glass peers closely at his ingot power. "Thank you very much! I hate it when I can't look at magical things - once I ruined a whole set of lenses when I panicked and put them on in the Cave of Unpleasant Surprises and I had to make new ones. I'd probably have kept trying to squint very carefully at all the overbright magic till I'd had to wish myself unblind at least five times without this lens set."

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:54 pm (UTC)

His ingot power is largely incomprehensible. But it's definitely an ingot power.

"You're welcome!"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:56 pm (UTC)

Glass inspects Kanim next. "I think thaaaat's the witchwell, thaaaaat's sorcery..." She looks at her marble. "Wow, I have so much to do."

nonbird
2013-05-15 08:57 pm (UTC)

"I think that's a Bell catchphrase by now," says Lazarus.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Is it? Well, of course it is," laughs Glass. "This is the best, best day." She turns to Kanim. "Say, have you seen Tony? Ours. Iron."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 08:59 pm (UTC)

"She's with her alts," says Kanim delicately, smiling faintly. "Introducing herself."

nonbird
2013-05-15 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says Lazarus.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Having fun, I hope."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes. Last I checked. You know me, I'm no fun, I found it necessary to escape before I got a lethal dosage."

nonbird
2013-05-15 09:03 pm (UTC)

Lazarus giggles.

"Large gatherings of Jokers have a similar effect on me."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I'm surprised you haven't hit on any of my alts, Kanim, I'm the only gay one."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 09:04 pm (UTC)

"I would not know at all where to start! There are twelve!"

nonbird
2013-05-15 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Amariah," Lazarus suggests.

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?"

nonbird
2013-05-15 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Cam and Amariah are the adventurous sorts, and Cam is a non-girl and I don't know how you feel about those."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Mostly not so inclined, but apparently I can make exceptions for non-girls who contain Tony's personality, because Tony is awesome."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, Amariah's a girl," laughs Glass, "and straight, and she's over there."

pleasantsurprise
2013-05-15 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Kanim. "But I am still coming down from my dose of fun. I'm not as young as I used to be."

nonbird
2013-05-15 09:16 pm (UTC)

Lazarus giggles.

This is continuation number 3 from here.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 09:44 pm (UTC)

Glass wanders around peering at everyone's aura. She has an idea for hers - and it'll be quick; she thinks the Enchanted Forest is probably going to be the next big thing for people who just want auras and not fancy enchanted results. But she does need a channel.

There's a pretty aura, and it's on a Joker.

"Hi, Brilliance," she says, flicking up one Lazaruslens to squint through the haze of magic; it doesn't make the nametag much easier to read, with the lightshow that is his aura, but it makes it possible. "Nice to meet you."

cardistry
2013-05-15 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Glass!" says Brilliance, glowing. "Nice to meet you too! What's up?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Actually, as it happens, I'm looking for an enchannel. I'm pretty sure I can just pour undifferentiated enchanting power into this forest," she gestures, "and it will consider it a pleasant snack, maybe the moss will get a little greener and some trees will gain an inch, it already knows how to be enchanted - no concentration required, I can go as fast as whoever's willing to channel for me can tolerate, I can get my aura up and running and show off while everyone's still here. I'm told you guys are the go-to for that?"

cardistry
2013-05-15 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Brilliance. "Sounds like fun. Mind if I snuggle Queenie while you do it? I like to be snuggling somebody while I channel."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I can't see why that would bother me," shrugs Glass.

cardistry
2013-05-15 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Okay, great," he says. "You wanna do that now, then?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Channeling doesn't come in convenient units like minting does, so, I'll start with a standard getting-aura-up-to-speed sized amount, tell me how much I need to step it up or down in terms of fractions?"

cardistry
2013-05-15 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Sounds good! One sec," he says, and he conjures a big squashy armchair for snuggling in.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-15 09:56 pm (UTC)

Queenie appears in the big squashy armchair and holds out her arms.

cardistry
2013-05-15 09:57 pm (UTC)

Brilliance plops into her lap and curls up happily.

"There, go for it."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:01 pm (UTC)

Glass finds his mindscape with wished skill (she finds this inelegant; Rose is going to conjure up a copy of her library so she can fill in the details properly but this will do for the immediate task). She reaches up to the sky, calls down the sun, and pushes through the deck-of-cards dreamworld that belongs to Brilliance.

"There's that. I think I can manage that much per half-second at a steady rate if you can, if that's a good ceiling - if you can tolerate more I can manage it likewise, though."

cardistry
2013-05-15 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I could do twice that, easy," he says offhandedly, nestling his head on Queenie's shoulder.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:04 pm (UTC)

Glass calls up a twice-that amount and funnels it through at the same pace. "Like so? Continuously?"

cardistry
2013-05-15 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Brilliance. "That's - comfy." He giggles at this description.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:07 pm (UTC)

Glass laughs. "All right. Stop me if you need a break."

And she funnels sunshine through the mindscapes and into the forest.

cardistry
2013-05-15 10:09 pm (UTC)

Brilliance snuggles Queenie and does not request any breaks for some time.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:12 pm (UTC)

Over that time, Glass builds aura.

This method is much, much faster than actually making things; it's also kind of boring, but it doesn't take long.

The whole thing will take an hour and a half of funneling at this rate.

cardistry
2013-05-15 10:13 pm (UTC)

By the end of that time, Brilliance will be thinking about maybe taking a break sometime soon. But mostly he will be snuggling Queenie.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:15 pm (UTC)

After her time estimate is fifteen minutes in the past (just to be sure), Glass stops, and then goes and stands next to Rose-the-benchmark for the next nearest Bell (it's Cam) to look at. She's all set.

"Thanks!" she says to Brilliance. And she spins and flares aura; she doesn't have any plainly distinctive features advertising her species or a quality like Juliet's menace or Cam's truthiness, but there's a faint forest flavor to her; she belongs here in this place.

cardistry
2013-05-15 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Neat," says Brilliance. He kisses Queenie on the nose, and they and their snuggly armchair vanish.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:17 pm (UTC)

Glass then reaches up to take her spectacles off.

She discovers that she isn't actually wearing them.

She throws her head back and laughs.

nonbird
2013-05-15 10:18 pm (UTC)

"You got an aura!" says Lazarus.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I did! And it is better than my spectacles," she laughs, "oh, wow, I can see everything. I'm supposed to get a second special feature, and I did, I can see it, but I don't know what it is. Do you?"

nonbird
2013-05-15 10:20 pm (UTC)

"It's a... knowing things... about things... thing," says Lazarus. "Other than that, it puzzles me deeply."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:29 pm (UTC)

Glass laughs. "Well, maybe it will tell me soon! I'm excited, this is an exciting day. Oooh, numerous alts of my wives," she says, and wanders in the direction of some Tonies and Sherlocks who are over there.

And then, her magic-seeing aura-feature shows a pulse of activity from her mystery aura feature, and she stops in her tracks and double-takes at the set of party guests before her.

"...Whoa."

bitofafiction
2013-05-15 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Yes?" says, according to his nametag, Cloud.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:48 pm (UTC)

"My aura is telling me really confusing things, I had it mixed up with the seeing-magic part but what I'm getting now is definitely not seeing magic," Glass says, scanning the group. "Wow, this is confusing. I think - that it's distinct because you're all from the same two templates, all standing together? I think I'm getting something about that."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-05-15 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Do tell," says Plus.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I - can you all stand with your worldmates instead of jumbled together? I think that might help." Pause. Stare, squint, headtilt.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-05-15 10:51 pm (UTC)

Plus collects his Tony, whose nametag says Fusion.

bitofafiction
2013-05-15 10:52 pm (UTC)

Cloud locates Sapphire.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-15 10:52 pm (UTC)

Minus stands next to Red.

sicaria
2013-05-15 10:53 pm (UTC)

Pearl obtains Screwdriver.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-15 10:54 pm (UTC)

Steel is already standing with Iron.

pythbox
2013-05-15 10:54 pm (UTC)

Which leaves Strat at one end of what might loosely be called a lineup, and Iron Man at the other.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Glass, pointing one finger at each of the singlets, "on - at least one of several and extremely confusing layers of stuff going on, you're each templates for your - templates. I'm not sure that we couldn't eventually find somebody templatey-er, but you're the closest in this group respectively. And you -" She waves generally at the ones from the Sunshine worldfamily. "Are sort of clustered around a blank spot containing a set we haven't met who constitute the template for what happens when those templates appear together. Something is pulling hims and hims -" She waves at Strat and Iron Man again - "into a particular shape of stuck-together-ness and it's thereabouts. I'm not sure which of you is closest - this thing operates on more than three dimensions and you're all off-standard in different directions for which I have no words. And my set and the Atlantis set are farther away from that blank spot."

sicaria
2013-05-15 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Pearl.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. The layers are particularly interesting - this is all going on on top of - under - behind? - not on the same order of existence as the stuff that actually causes things. Like, on one level, you all share names because your parents named you those names - on another it's because of a template attractor - and the differences that appear are showing little signals on all different layers, too -"

sicaria
2013-05-15 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Such as?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm - I'm not sure. This is all very new. I feel constantly on the verge of blurting things out, I probably would if anyone asked me a more specific question, but I don't understand how exactly the new sense is translating into any of the things I might say so I'm not sure I want to say it. I think until I know more about how this works my aura feature is a party trick and no one should rely on it for anything practical."

allthebrightest
2013-05-15 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Is there a reason why Sherry gets to be twice as many girls as I do?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:10 pm (UTC)

Glass squints at her, and at Pearl, and closes her eyes, and says, "I think that's a coincidence and if we find more pairs who include one or more girls it'll be roughly even in the long run average, but when they don't match, it'll be the Sherlocks who're switching away from their original sexes..."
Edited 2013-05-15 23:12 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-05-15 11:13 pm (UTC)

"...Hmm," says Pearl.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:15 pm (UTC)

Glass continues peering at Sherlocks-and-Tonies, trying to figure out why she said that.

nonbird
2013-05-15 11:16 pm (UTC)

"We should line up all the Bells in front of you and see if you produce any more knowledge," Lazarus suggests.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Ye-e-es. And all the other template groups. And maybe I can figure out why so many of them routinely come attached - let me see if I can do that, first -" She calls over Juliet and Shell Bell and sends them to stand with their Sherlocks-and-Tonies and moves a little nearer to her own and carries on staring.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 11:20 pm (UTC)

"What are we doing?" Shell Bell murmurs in Pearl's ear.

sicaria
2013-05-15 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Science," Pearl says dryly. "Of a sort. Glass has discovered the power to make pronouncements about templates."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Ooh."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-15 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Enwisdom us," says Juliet.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:23 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm gay because my set are girls," says Glass, blinking with bewilderment.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-15 11:25 pm (UTC)

"How fortunate for your set," says Steel.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 11:25 pm (UTC)

"...Um."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't actually know your special circumstances story, but it is definitely - as definitely as I can get, as confused as I am - related to your Sherlock being a girl," says Glass, peering at Shell Bell. "I'm not sure - it's different on different layers - but if you'd been impervious to your circumstances, you'd have started out not-straight or she'd have been a boy, or if your Sherlock were a boy the circumstances wouldn't have happened or might have happened differently, or if you were gay - or maybe bi, I'm not sure how strongly your Tony features here, that's indistinct - to start out with then they wouldn't have happened either."

sicaria
2013-05-15 11:29 pm (UTC)

Pearl hugs her Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-15 11:30 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"Huh."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-15 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything like that with me or did all my defaults just happen to match so nothing needed to change or what?" asks Juliet.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Your defaults matched," confirms Glass. "Straight Bell, near-template Sherlock, no - rejiggering necessary."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-15 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Lucky me," says Minus, giving Juliet a kiss on the cheek.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Um, very, I think you'd be dead if she hadn't shown up," frowns Glass, peering at him.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-15 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, that fails to surprise me."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-15 11:34 pm (UTC)

Juliet shivers and hugs him hard.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I think that affected the timing," Glass adds. "Of when you met."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-15 11:37 pm (UTC)

Minus hugs Juliet back.

"I recommend, to anyone who might otherwise have tried it, not being extremely distraught and extremely bored at the same time for months on end," he remarks.
Edited 2013-05-15 23:37 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-05-15 11:41 pm (UTC)

...Well then.

"What template do you want to do next?" asks Lazarus. "Should I fetch some Jokers? I could fetch some Jokers."

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I can look at some Jokers," agrees Glass.

nonbird
2013-05-15 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I will locate some Jokers! I bet there's one over there," he says, heading Elspethward.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:44 pm (UTC)

Glass follows him, with a remark to Shell Bell and Juliet that they may be summoned again as Bells collect after Glass has had a look at plenty of Jokers.

nonbird
2013-05-15 11:45 pm (UTC)

Lazarus arrives where Elspeth is.

He observes that Elspeth is accompanied by a small child, whose nametag says that he is a Joker whom you may call Harley Andrea.

He declaims, "Aha!"

pythbox
2013-05-15 11:46 pm (UTC)

Harley Andrea giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Hi there!" Glass says to Harley. "And hi to you too, Elspeth, I got a neat aura power that tells me vague things about templates."

nonbird
2013-05-15 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I'll be right back," says Lazarus, and teleports away.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-15 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Hear that, Harley? Glass is going to tell you and your alts stuff about how you work," Elspeth murmurs to the baby Joker in her arms.

pythbox
2013-05-15 11:50 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles some more.

yourheartstrings
2013-05-15 11:51 pm (UTC)

Ghosty's attention arrives on the scene, and a moment later she coaelsces and waves to Glass and Elspeth and Harley.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:52 pm (UTC)

Glass peers at her, and Harley, and hmmms, and issues no immediate pronouncements, but she does say, "Hi, Ghosty."

yourheartstrings
2013-05-15 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Hiya! Everybody else is saying hi to Lazarus. They'll be along in a bit."

manofmyword
2013-05-15 11:53 pm (UTC)

Here's the Joker, for example.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:55 pm (UTC)

Glass is now flicking her gaze very quickly between all the Jokers present.

"Hi," she murmurs.

endragoned
2013-05-15 11:56 pm (UTC)

Aianon appears next.

"Should I fetch my love?" he inquires.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Your - ah, maybe, but I think I'm getting a clear enough read without him," says Glass. "If he's not busy, yes, if he is, don't bother..." She takes a step back. She frowns at Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-15 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Is something wrong with Harley?" Elspeth murmurs.

thaumobabble
2013-05-15 11:58 pm (UTC)

"...No," says Glass. "I don't know. I don't think so - I need to see the rest of them."

endragoned
2013-05-15 11:59 pm (UTC)

Ansharil walks over from his previous corner of the meadow and settles into a comfortable curl; Aianon sits down on his folded foreclaws.

cardistry
2013-05-15 11:59 pm (UTC)

Brilliance appears, his aura turned down to a glimmer.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:00 am (UTC)

Micaiah shows up a few seconds later.

truthwright
2013-05-16 12:00 am (UTC)

Then Kas, with Petaal curled up on his shoulder as a white fennec fox.

deslandes
2013-05-16 12:01 am (UTC)

The Beast, in human shape.

pythbox
2013-05-16 12:02 am (UTC)

Sue, with Ivy tucked away, and Jellybean sucking on a square purple lollipop.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:04 am (UTC)

Glass looks at all of them, and then she peers at Micaiah and Jellybean more closely.

"Is there - something you two and maybe Harley and none of the others so far - have in common?"

pythbox
2013-05-16 12:05 am (UTC)

Jellybean looks at Micaiah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:05 am (UTC)

Micaiah looks at Jellybean.

pythbox
2013-05-16 12:05 am (UTC)

"Well, there's the obvious thing," says Jellybean.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:06 am (UTC)

"I'm new," Glass reminds them.

pythbox
2013-05-16 12:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I just - " and he glances at Harley.

manofmyword
2013-05-16 12:08 am (UTC)

[We should probably have most of this conversation by brainphone,] says the Joker. [We're not a kid-friendly bunch when you start talking history. Obvious thing is, Micaiah and Jellybean have never been raped.]

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:09 am (UTC)

[...Oh.]

Glass swallows, and looks at Harley again.

[...I think that attractor has decided they're probably inaccessible. It hasn't decided that about Harley.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-16 12:09 am (UTC)

Elspeth swallows and rocks Harley in her arms.

manofmyword
2013-05-16 12:11 am (UTC)

[Not surprised,] says the Joker. [What about the one for shitty childhoods, is that one passing him by?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-16 12:12 am (UTC)

Queenie arrives.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-16 12:12 am (UTC)

And last of all, so does Alice.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:15 am (UTC)

[It's... I don't want to ascribe emotions to this phenomenon. It's not mad about being thwarted, it doesn't hate him, but it's - circling. I think his childhood is blocked off as safe, now, but the attractor was - changed, postponed, it doesn't look absent, it looks patient.]

cardistry
2013-05-16 12:16 am (UTC)

[Sounds about right to me,] says Brilliance.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-16 12:17 am (UTC)

"Can I do anything about it? Can anyone?" asks Elspeth quietly.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:19 am (UTC)

[...I don't think you can. I think he could. I don't think it's in his - nature, to do it, though. He's safe at home. He's safe anyplace you'd bring him. I think he's eventually going to wander away and get into trouble and you won't make anything better by trying too hard to stop him,] Glass murmurs.

pythbox
2013-05-16 12:21 am (UTC)

"Love you Elsie," says Harley Andrea, snuggling into Elspeth's arms.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-16 12:22 am (UTC)

"I love you too," murmurs Elspeth.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:23 am (UTC)

Glass shivers once and turns her attention to the deck-in-general. She pauses her eyes over Jellybean and Micaiah again. [...You've got different... reasons on top of the commonality,] she observes slowly.

pythbox
2013-05-16 12:23 am (UTC)

[Whatcha mean?] wonders Jellybean.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:26 am (UTC)

[I think you got out of it just because you landed in a world where if you get magic it happens young, and then you got magic,] says Glass. [It's almost completely causal, not whatever I'm seeing - I mean, I can see the attractor, but I don't see signals about why it's not in operation on you. Micaiah's is being held off for higher-layer reasons.] She peers at him. [Which aren't here.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:27 am (UTC)

[Well, where are they, then?]

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:28 am (UTC)

[I don't know.] She turns around on the spot slowly, peering at the rest of the attendees of the party in case they're there.

[It's Angela. Something to do with her. But it's high-level, it's not something she did... Hey, Angela, over here.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-16 12:28 am (UTC)

Angela drifts over and puts her wing around her Micaiah. [Hmm?]

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:29 am (UTC)

Glass peers at the pair of them together, occasionally looking at the other Jokers for points of comparison.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:29 am (UTC)

Micaiah snuggles contentedly into his angel's wing, flaring his aura (innocence innocence innocence) a little.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:31 am (UTC)

[...I don't know your story and I'm sure I could put this better if I did, but what I see is a lot like - Shell Bell's special circumstances. Angela was a certain way, and you were supposed to meet and be together, and you needed to - suit her.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-16 12:31 am (UTC)

[...What did I miss?]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:33 am (UTC)

...Micaiah hugs himself and leans on Angela and appears Generally Upset.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:33 am (UTC)

Glass summarizes for Angela what she missed.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-16 12:34 am (UTC)

[I - oh, love,] sighs Angela, hugging her Micaiah and peering into his thoughts to see what the matter is in more detail.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:35 am (UTC)

Does that mean that if he had been she couldn't have loved him because that is terrible, that is the worst thing, why is that true.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-16 12:40 am (UTC)

[Oh, love. I don't know. I don't know what she's seeing.]

And she summarizes for Glass the story of how they met.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:42 am (UTC)

[I think,] Glass says, picking her words carefully, after she's heard this story, [that something about - the ways it would've changed you, the person it would've made you - would have - thrown off the way Angela's template attractors are trying to interact with stuff about your world. I'm not sure if you couldn't have wound up together. It could have affected something else. But I don't think it would've been as easy for you to be together, if you'd fallen into the attractor.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-16 12:42 am (UTC)

[Imagine,] says Elspeth softly, [if instead of you, she'd met another Joker under the exact same circumstances. How do you imagine that would've gone?]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:44 am (UTC)

Micaiah thinks about the other Jokers.

Then he snuggles into Angela's wing and cries.

pythbox
2013-05-16 12:44 am (UTC)

"Sad," Harley Andrea observes.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-16 12:45 am (UTC)

"Glass is telling us about some grownup things," Elspeth murmurs to Harley, petting his hair. "It won't help you to hear them right now."

pythbox
2013-05-16 12:46 am (UTC)

He yawns agreeably.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-16 12:51 am (UTC)

[I was so young then, so sheltered,] Angela says. [It was a challenge to adjust even to you. I was always on the - naiver end of the Bell spectrum, especially back when I saw Jovah's hand on everything.] She swallows. [If you had been any farther away from - me, my understanding of the world - then I might have found the glow in our Kisses as incomprehensible as I later found Ithiel's deformities, I might have come to my crisis of faith earlier, and I don't know what I would have done about you, then, if I hadn't loved you as quickly as I did and then I didn't believe that we were divinely intended.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:54 am (UTC)

...well then.

Micaiah continues crying.

He loves her so much, and even though it didn't happen, it hurts that this one little thing could have come between them.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-16 12:54 am (UTC)

She hugs him. [I'm so sorry, my love.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:57 am (UTC)

Hug. Hug hug hug. Hug hug cry hug.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 12:58 am (UTC)

[...Maybe I should be more. Judicious about saying things? No one should rely on anything I say, I'm bewildered about everything, I just keep being inclined to say stuff.]

manofmyword
2013-05-16 12:59 am (UTC)

[Go ahead and say stuff,] says the Joker. [We wanna hear it, even if it's gonna do - that.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 12:59 am (UTC)

Micaiah nods, sniffling.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:03 am (UTC)

[Okay... you three,] she gestures at the Joker and Queenie and Ghosty, [are all a cluster up to a point, then you branch off, I think most everything after you two died and you met Stella is regular causality and not meta-causality except for the fact that you all did get to meet everyone else. The meeting each other thing is mediated by meta-causality but since I only seem to be able to make pronouncements about people I'm looking at I don't think I can help us locate more of anybody... Insofar as you're the same you're all also template-y. I think Harley was going to go through a story like yours but the attractor is thwarted, more thoroughly than the other ones I mentioned.]

manofmyword
2013-05-16 01:05 am (UTC)

[Yep,] says the Joker. [Peas in a snuggly little pod, that's us.] He gives each of Queenie and Ghosty a kiss on the cheek.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:07 am (UTC)

[The rest of you don't cluster much. There's a little bit, with the ones from Earth, but not a lot; I think you're - very portable, so a lot of pull is going towards putting the ones outside that template cluster in places where you can meet Bells.]

endragoned
2013-05-16 01:08 am (UTC)

[Portable,] laughs Ansharil. [That is one word for it.]

[It is a good word,] says Aianon, petting his dragon's nose.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:09 am (UTC)

[You two,] says Glass, pointing at the pair, [are weird. Kas and Petaal are two because that's a thing in the world, Sue and Ivy are two for regular-causality reasons, I think you're two because the template couldn't decide which species to land in!]

endragoned
2013-05-16 01:09 am (UTC)

Ansharil laughs. The ground shakes a little. Aianon giggles along.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:11 am (UTC)

Glass peers at Kas next.

Then she calls Amariah over.

dark_light
2013-05-16 01:12 am (UTC)

[What's up?] Amariah asks, appearing beside her boyfriend.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:13 am (UTC)

Glass absently explains the exercise underway while she peers at Amariah and Kas. And then she chews her lip a bit and says, [There's a weak attractor in Bells to find our - intended significant others - attached to useful resources; I think that's why Kas can read the alethiometer like it says in the Bellbook. It also plays to some template strengths - he didn't have to be as good at it as he is, but even if he weren't a true intuitive reader he'd still be good at it.]
Edited 2013-05-16 01:17 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-05-16 01:19 am (UTC)

Kas grins.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-16 01:20 am (UTC)

(Micaiah has slowly stopped crying and is now just snuggling his angel.)

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-16 01:20 am (UTC)

(Angela is snuggling right back.)

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:22 am (UTC)

[Do the rest of you with Bells want to get them so I can see more about how the grouping works?] Glass asks. [You guys are more popular among the Bell template than my wives are, and I'm not sure why... it might be because you're so portable, but it's not like the Sherlocks and Tonies are inflexible...]

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-16 01:24 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Alice, and he brainphones Stella. [Hey, Glass is finding out about template stuff, wanna come get stared at?]

cardistry
2013-05-16 01:25 am (UTC)

Brilliance likewise summons Aurora.

endragoned
2013-05-16 01:25 am (UTC)

Ansharil notifies Sarion.

deslandes
2013-05-16 01:26 am (UTC)

Beast contacts Rose.

pythbox
2013-05-16 01:27 am (UTC)

Sue pushes a summary to Aegis and Jellybean brainphones Cam.

autokinetic
2013-05-16 01:28 am (UTC)

Aegis is the first to appear; she lands in midair and floats down, opting to sit on Sue's shoulders.

self_composed
2013-05-16 01:28 am (UTC)

Stella teleports in, looking dubious.

small_magics
2013-05-16 01:29 am (UTC)

Sarion walks, elfy aura giving a peculiar quality to her gait.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-16 01:30 am (UTC)

Rose appears presently, carrying a napping Céleste using her shoulder as a pillow, and pecks her husband on the cheek.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 01:31 am (UTC)

Cam teleports in, leans on Jellybean as casually as though Jellybean were a wall, and looks expectantly at Glass.

incanted
2013-05-16 01:31 am (UTC)

Aurora has to disentangle herself from Lexi, but eventually makes her way to the group, too.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:34 am (UTC)

Glass stares at them all.

[The metacausality that keeps bringing Bells and Jokers together is strong but it's not much anchored in any single template,] she concludes. [If there were a template, I think it'd be Stella and Alice, but - it's not, really, there's just no pull to meet in that way or to have a similar sort of relationship.]

pythbox
2013-05-16 01:35 am (UTC)

[That makes sense,] says Jellybean, putting his arm around Cam's waist and kissing his cheek. [I mean, we're us.]

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:43 am (UTC)

[I don't know any of you very well, but you have extremely strong attractors, even if they can be bent into a variety of shapes; a specific way to meet Bells just doesn't happen to be one of those attractors,] says Glass.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-16 01:44 am (UTC)

[There are some regularities. They are all older than us corresponding Bells,] says Rose. [By a little or by a lot.]

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:47 am (UTC)

[I think that's mostly a minor default thing, plus a combination of Bells tending to be young when we get into a life stage where meeting intended-people is part of our attractor set, and some of the Joker attractors being compatible with being very old - especially if a lot of that time can be spent in unpleasant circumstances.]

endragoned
2013-05-16 01:48 am (UTC)

Aianon laughs.

pythbox
2013-05-16 01:49 am (UTC)

[I don't mean not having attractors makes sense for us in general,] says Jellybean. [Just that it makes sense we don't have strong ones for the way our relationships work, even when they're with a bunch of the same other template. Well... except for the retirees, you guys all had that thing with the Bat.]
Edited 2013-05-16 01:51 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 01:59 am (UTC)

[I don't know you guys,] Glass reiterates. [This conversation, the I remind you extremely confusing stuff I can see about your attractors, and the contents of the Bellbook, are what I know about you. If this makes sense to you because of something about your personality, you are going to have to explain it. I'd have a much better chance at figuring out how you all diverge from the personality template than saying anything about what it's like without being perturbed.]

pythbox
2013-05-16 02:01 am (UTC)

...Jellybean shrugs helplessly.

[I don't know, it's hard to put into words,] he says. [It's... kind of like what you said about us being portable? Somebody help me out here.]

cardistry
2013-05-16 02:03 am (UTC)

[I think that how our relationships work depends a lot on details and circumstances,] Brilliance contributes. [And that that's not something you could change easily without changing who we are.]

manofmyword
2013-05-16 02:05 am (UTC)

[Me and Ghosty and Queenie are all pretty much the same story down to a sneeze, before I found Milliways,] says the Joker. [It's kind of a chicken-and-egg question whether that's because or why we all fell out with Batsy pretty much the same way, though. Does the Bellbook have Batsy in it, or do you want storytime?]

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 02:07 am (UTC)

[It mentions her only in brief summary. I'm not supposed to give her coins. Let's hear the story.]

manofmyword
2013-05-16 02:16 am (UTC)

[Once upon a time,] the Joker begins, [when I was younger and prettier, I met this lady who liked to dress up as a bat and beat and/or scare the shit out of criminals. I killed some people and blew up some stuff, all to get her attention so she'd turn some'a that lovely violence my way. Worked like a charm, too. She had me locked up and then I started dreaming my way to Milliways and I'm pretty sure the rest is history. Same deal for Ghosty and Queenie, but instead of finding Milliways they kept at it until they died.]

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 02:19 am (UTC)

Glass peers at the retirees again.

[Queenie and Ghosty differ by what happened when they died. Origin and the world Queenie came from were both hooked up to Downside all along, though - I think you found Milliways because otherwise you would have been a straight-up duplicate of Queenie. At least in terms of things that matter to your persons - she has a minor attractor that's on for her, she shares it with Micaiah and Beast so I assume that's the Voice attractor - but she didn't know about him, right? So it wouldn't have counted for much. I don't think our multiverse likes perfect duplicates, at least not interacting ones - you would never have run into each other till you'd accumulated distinctions, at least minor ones.]
Edited 2013-05-16 02:24 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-05-16 02:27 am (UTC)

The Joker chuckles.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 02:50 am (UTC)

"Your attractors have a different character from Bell attractors, some of them," muses Glass. "You've got the same, intense, invariable undercurrent through all of you. We have our necessities split up between - more traits, which aren't indivisible, which can interact in ways that weaken each other under difficult circumstances. The analogy I want to make is that Bells all cast the same sillhouette but Jokers are all made of the same material. Does that make sense?"

manofmyword
2013-05-16 02:53 am (UTC)

"Y'know," says the Joker, "it really, really does."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-16 02:54 am (UTC)

Rose laughs. "What of the Sherlocks and Tonies?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 02:59 am (UTC)

"They..." Glass contemplates this, nibbling her lip. "Come out of the same mold. Their templates are making their circumstances do most of the work of pulling them into shape, instead of making them turn out the same way in spite of where they wind up; that might even be why so many of them come from that one worldfamily. If you kidnapped a baby would-be Tony and brought her up in atypical circumstances I have no idea what would happen, but I'm sure Harley's going to be one of you."

manofmyword
2013-05-16 03:02 am (UTC)

"Mm, that's good to know."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 03:05 am (UTC)

"Hey," says Cam, "perhaps you can answer the age old question: why am I girls?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 03:06 am (UTC)

Glass blinks at him.

"Being a girl is a strong Bell default, but the template works - obviously - just fine in a boy, too," she says. "You probably won't be the only one forever but I think you'll always be a minority."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-16 03:08 am (UTC)

Queenie giggles.

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 03:09 am (UTC)

Golden wanders by. "I hear you are reading templates."

bellfounding
2013-05-16 03:10 am (UTC)

"I heard the same thing," says Pattern. "How come we weren't invited?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 03:11 am (UTC)

"I was looking at the Jokers first," explains Glass. "...Huh, Pattern, you and the Joker are from the same world but you are not at all attached. I think metacausally you being from the same place was almost an afterthought."

manofmyword
2013-05-16 03:12 am (UTC)

"Not surprised," says the Joker.

bellfounding
2013-05-16 03:13 am (UTC)

"Yeah, me either, what with us never having met and barely interacting," says Pattern. "Can you answer the age-old question of which Bell is the template? I act like it's me, but I don't have a mental opacity..."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 03:17 am (UTC)

"...You, and Golden, and Stella all have claims on different layers to being the template," says Glass slowly. "On the - the top layer it's Golden. Then Stella a layer down from there - they're weirdly interdependent, and then we all branch out from them in a dozen directions. And then - you're kind of an afterthought here too, I'm sorry, I can't think of a better way to put it - you're close to template baseline but - backwards. You're not the original Bell, you're the modal Bell. You're very close to the essence of Bells but we didn't start there, we started there-and-there in a weird confusing metacausal way -" She waves at Golden and Stella - "and the contingent extras got replaced as we propagated to other worlds."

manofmyword
2013-05-16 03:21 am (UTC)

(Aww.)

bellfounding
2013-05-16 03:22 am (UTC)

"Dammit."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 03:22 am (UTC)

"There's nothing stopping you from acquiring features going forward by ordinary causal means," adds Glass, "but I don't see a particular attractor for it."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 03:23 am (UTC)

"If I'm the - or a - template, then why do I have the only unique significant other?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 03:31 am (UTC)

"That... is... a hard question," says Glass, squinting at her. "It might be easier if I got a look at him. Without, my guess is... something like... okay, some templates are attached to other templates. The Obadiah template is attached to Tony, for instance," she realizes aloud, "Bells' parents are attached to us, Bats are attached to Jokers, in each case one template is leading and the other is following. Bells and Sherlocks-and-Tonies, and Bells and Jokers, are sort of attracted to each other - I don't mean in the obvious sense, I mean in the template sense - but there's not a leader-follower relationship except in the obvious causal sense that Bells make and follow through with more plans. Edward is attached to you, but not strongly enough for the rest of us to have copies, and his template doesn't independently travel, insisting on cropping up in lots of places. I think that could change - although what 'change' means when this isn't working by anything I'd recognize as time I can't tell you - but right now he's a weak template attached to a very strong template, and that means he would only show up again if a stronger template didn't take his - place."
Edited 2013-05-16 03:32 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-05-16 03:34 am (UTC)

The Joker snorts.

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 03:34 am (UTC)

Golden casts an exasperated look in her employee's direction.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 03:36 am (UTC)

"I don't know what template strength means," Glass hastens to add. "Not with so few examples, not when I'm so new at this."

self_composed
2013-05-16 03:37 am (UTC)

"Do you see anyone here who has a strong template and isn't duplicated so far?" asks Stella.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 03:44 am (UTC)

"We're the strongest template here. The Jokers are second, I don't know how to interpret the gaps but I don't think it's a particularly wide margin... Sherlocks-and-Tonies-as-sets are next, the singlets aren't particularly strong-looking to me... Actually, no, Sherlock singlet looks like there might be something major on a high layer, but this particular sort of Sherlock singlet doesn't have a lot of force. Libbies are strong but not as strongly magnetized to us as either of those, but they are a little bit... and also to Sherlocks..." She has to look harder to get the other results. "Chainsaws, Annas, Matildas, all reasonably strong templates, not too attached to us... Matildas have a weak magnetism to Jokers, I think Harley was slated to meet one, should keep an eye on that world..." She squints at Lexi, where she's hanging out with Liselen. "We might find more of us with twins. If we do they'll be Lexis." She scans the room again. "...And I'm not sure, but I think... Kanim and Lazarus could appear again."
Edited 2013-05-16 03:47 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 03:48 am (UTC)

[Hey Tilly, Glass thinks a Matilda's going to appear in the world Elspeth got Harley out of. Should any intervening happen?]

pythbox
2013-05-16 03:49 am (UTC)

(Jellybean grins a little.)

withmypowers
2013-05-16 03:50 am (UTC)

[Um... probably not,] says Tilly. [We seem to manage pretty well on our own. I'd worry if she turned seven and hadn't met a Jenny yet.]

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 03:51 am (UTC)

[Okay. I'll ask Jane to keep an eye on that.]

withmypowers
2013-05-16 03:52 am (UTC)

[Thanks.]

This is continuation number 4 from here.

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 07:13 pm (UTC)

Golden is chatting pleasantly with Juliet, over here.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 07:29 pm (UTC)

Steel is eavesdropping.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 07:31 pm (UTC)

"...so I think there must be something weird about how translation interacts with magic, because otherwise there's no reason for whatever Glass speaks to translate a word for particular sort of magic user as 'witch' - hi, Steel, what's up?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh, do continue."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 07:36 pm (UTC)

Juliet laughs. "So Amariah's a witch, and Golden's a witch, and Glass is a witch among other things, and the first two you can explain by the fact that they're both from Earths where English is spoken, but your language - super pretty, by the way - is matching up one of the kinds of magic user Glass is to the same word, and other kinds to other words, and I popped into Milliways for a second to check and started talking to a random person about it and he heard 'witch' in both cases too even when I used your language. It's weird. And Cam's a wizard, which matches word-wise with a kind of magic you have here, too, even though the execution is different, and Aurora's a sorceress but she just made up calling herself that so I don't know how to count it."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Translation magic is indeed a mystery," says Golden. "I'm not sure how to go about solving it."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Steel. "Does it need solving?"

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, otherwise we won't know why it's happening," laughs Golden. "It doesn't seem urgent for any practical reasons."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 07:43 pm (UTC)

She contemplates the question.

Then she says, "Why not ask Glass?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Do you suppose that's the kind of thing her aura-sense can do?" wonders Juliet.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I think there is one obvious way to find that out, and no obvious downside to trying."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, fair enough. Hey, Glass!"

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 07:48 pm (UTC)

Glass appears and kisses her wife and says, "What's up?"

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 07:48 pm (UTC)

"There are some odd regularities in how various languages are magically translated into one another and we were wondering if you could shed light on the subject," says Golden.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Uh. Hm. Say some of the words?" Glass asks.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Witch, witch," says Juliet, switching between languages, "wizard, wizard, sorceress, sorceress."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

"And you only just noticed this because the local language has words for those things and isn't English. Hmmmmm." Glass nibbles her lip, closes her eyes. "Witch, witch, witch - There might be a - no, I can't really make sense of it. I'm still figuring out how I work now."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her anyway.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

Kissees!

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 07:52 pm (UTC)

"What were you going to say? I promise not to take it as an irrefutable fact of the multiverse."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I was going to say, meta-language," says Glass, "but I have no idea what that would mean."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Can it not just be essentially a coincidence, deriving from the fact that the kinds of magic user in question don't have direct counterparts in the various worlds but the magic chose to translate the terms anyway?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Nnnno, I think it's not that - not on the level I'm seeing through aura, anyway, that might be what we'd find on a causal level. There's some sort of reason wizards get the same terminology as Cam and witches the same as Amariah or Golden."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 07:58 pm (UTC)

"There's witches on my world too," Juliet adds. "Just, I'm not one."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 07:58 pm (UTC)

Glass nods. "And it wouldn't be just as good to call them sorcerers-in-my-language, and when you pentagon the language you know that, and Milliways knows that."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Do we trust their judgment?" wonders Steel.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 08:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm not at all sure. It doesn't seem to be making any egregious mistakes?" offers Glass. "...I think there's a reason we have all-male wizards and Amariah has all-female witches, I think we'd never find the reverse case but I don't know why."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Interesting again."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Those words in English do have some gendered connotations, in those directions," muses Juliet. "I think in my world it's technically gender-neutral, anyone can learn the magic, but women are somewhat more likely to use the word 'witch' - I don't know for sure, I haven't met many of these people in person and my written sources are not overwhelmingly reliable."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 08:11 pm (UTC)

"There isn't another word for the phenomenon in English on Aurum, and among people who are clued in to it being a general phenomenon - which is most people without their heads in the sand, at this point - it's gender-neutral, but historically media of various sorts which has fictitious varieties of magic-user gender-biases the words like that."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 08:12 pm (UTC)

"English, or some distilled meta-version of it, could easily be the metalanguage I'm hypothesizing," says Glass.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:15 pm (UTC)

"How many languages are spoken among the peal?"

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 08:17 pm (UTC)

"We usually speak English when we're just talking to each other. We've picked up different sets for use at home," says Golden. "I know all languages on my Earth with a non-negligible speaking population."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 08:17 pm (UTC)

"I speak a bunch of demonic languages," says Juliet. "Not so much human ones, I'm starting with tidying up the underworld before I address the more run-of-the-mill problems with Sunshine."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Sarion speaks an Elvish language and a Thilanushinyel common tongue, Amariah picked up a witch language that she didn't originally speak fluently but added once she had access to coins, Aegis speaks recognizable English and a slightly less recognizable form called 'Stark' that was centrally standardized in Peace's history, Shell Bell has an accent and different idioms here and there but speaks intelligible English to us standard-Earthlings, Rose speaks something mutually intelligible with but not identical to Earth French and many of the other languages on her world have similar parallels including one that's close to English, Cam has his magic language which it turns out we can't use for magical purposes probably because we acquired it as adults, and Angela speaks Samarian and when she got coins she added Edori."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:23 pm (UTC)

"So English is by far the commonest native language among Bells," Sherlock concludes. "Cause or effect, I wonder?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 08:25 pm (UTC)

"I think it's a consequence of us generally coming from Earths," says Juliet. "And generally being born in the United States when we do. I'm not sure why Rose came from Sorta France instead of Sorta England; maybe since Sorta England never colonized Sorta America in Rêverie there was no pull to the language above and beyond the pull to the country."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Overwhelmingly born in the same town, too," says Golden, "except for you, Juliet - I believe you hypothesized that you were pulled to Sunnydale by the Hellmouth attracting interesting things to itself? - and Shell Bell, on whose world I believe the location of Forks is some feet underwater."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

"A fascinating bunch, you Bells. Are there any interesting consistencies among those not from Earths?"

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Are we counting Rose and her Sorta Earth?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Let's say yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Rose, Sarion, and Angela have married parents. But Glass doesn't, and Amariah does."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 08:33 pm (UTC)

"I think the divorced-parents attractor tries to work through regular causality when it can, and it backs off when it can't."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 08:34 pm (UTC)

"No very strong regularities that appear predominantly in unEarthly Bells," says Golden. "The non-Earths aren't even all magic; there's not a speck of the stuff natively in Samaria."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:36 pm (UTC)

"However do they manage without it?"

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Better than Shell Bell's world did," says Golden. "Origin and Peace are also natively non-magical, although Peace has by far the highest technology and Jane is only by the barest technical definition not magic. This world also seems to have much commoner magic than anywhere else. A lot of Earths have it but only a handful of people know it exists."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:39 pm (UTC)

"How peculiar," says Steel. "I almost think I'd like to visit some of these places."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 08:42 pm (UTC)

"There are some cautions about visiting Alethia, Aurum, and Samaria, everywhere else is more or less freely visitable with Jane online," says Juliet. "Alethia is safe if you wish to not acquire a daemon - or if you want one - and the wish, Minus discovered, only lasts about a week. Aurum has this problem with vampires and werewolves falling in eternal irrevocable love with people, but you can avoid that if you see Golden's precog before anyone else and have her check you over. Samaria is not public about magic and doesn't have all that great a place for visitors to hang out, so you need a cover story or to go about invisibly."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Steel.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Minus's daemon is gone now. So if you wind up with one accidentally - and if it's sad about that - then you don't have to keep it. But it's probably best to just avoid getting one if you mean to visit Alethia."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I don't completely understand that business. I saw Pathalan, and Petaal, but I'm not - at all - sure what to make of them."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 08:47 pm (UTC)

"They're external souls," says Juliet. "Alethia seems to feel very strongly that people should have them, so if you go in unprotected you'll get one, and it's a star to not. That's how Ivy happened - she was on purpose - and Minus had Steph, for a while, but she was miserable. Sherlock self-loathing problems. I never got to meet her."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 08:48 pm (UTC)

"...Sherlock self-loathing problems."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 08:49 pm (UTC)

"...Is that not universal? I guess yours doesn't have the usual reason or the unusual reason..."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 08:50 pm (UTC)

Glass turns towards her wife and peers at her, and glances around for comparison at other visible Sherlocks scattered around the room.

"Oh," she murmurs. "There it is. I didn't know. It's only a little bit, next to some of the others... Oh, honey."
Edited 2013-05-16 21:04 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:13 pm (UTC)

Steel spreads her hands.

"It doesn't trouble me very much," she says quietly.

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 09:13 pm (UTC)

Glass hugs her anyway.
Edited 2013-05-16 21:15 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:16 pm (UTC)

Hug.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Mine didn't have it for a while. When he didn't have his soul. And then he took it back, and I tried when I did the merger wish, to insert the soul without the self-loathing, but it's apparently impossible, as Steph illustrated - either that or I wished it wrong, because the coin went, I don't know - and now he's attached to keeping the soul, even though..." She shrugs, looks at her feet.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:21 pm (UTC)

"...Would you like a hug?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-16 09:23 pm (UTC)

"If hugs helped appreciably I'd be all better now," says Juliet wryly. "It's him I'm worried about; I'm going to go on being intermittently upset till something gives."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Aha."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 09:25 pm (UTC)

"It's a very insistent attractor," murmurs Glass. "It prefers to disguise itself with normal causality. When it can't it will hang around anyway. I'm not sure if there's a way other than - brute causal force of some kind - to make it go."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Brute causal force?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Minus didn't have it, for a while. There's nothing preventing that. It just takes - drastic measures, apparently soul-removal is at least one way, I can't see if there are more."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I see."

thaumobabble
2013-05-16 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Oh, honey," sighs Glass again.

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 09:32 pm (UTC)

"My husband has a little problem with that, but I don't know how closely the manifestations resemble each other; he's not a Sherlock."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:34 pm (UTC)

"And I have never met your husband."

luminous_regnant
2013-05-16 09:35 pm (UTC)

"He avoids these parties. He's not fond of being around people who closely resemble me without being me. Cam is all right, though. If you decide to tour the world and Alice gives you the all-clear regarding wolves and unmated vampires you might encounter, you could meet him if you so chose."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:36 pm (UTC)

"I will keep it in mind."

This is continuation number 5 from here.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 09:40 pm (UTC)

Cam is over here, being idly telekinetic with one of the temporarily harmless fire-flowers. He was briefly talking to Carinna but then she scampered off.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:44 pm (UTC)

Now there is a Sherlock watching him.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 09:45 pm (UTC)

"...Hullo, Steel. What's up?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Everyone seems to ask me that. My lurking abilities must be deteriorating."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

"If you're trying to sneak up on people you'll have to try a less paranoid template with less magic."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I sense a challenge."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 09:54 pm (UTC)

Cam laughs. "Well, I can tell you it won't work on Aurora if she's got her aura out, and not on Golden with her super-senses, and probably not on Sarion either, although if she determines that you're trying not to be noticed she might politely ignore you. Anybell else it'll depend on their attention and what powers they're deploying right then. And if you like hide-and-seek where one or more parties are egregiously cheating, try Pattern, she has a stealth aura feature."
Edited 2013-05-16 21:54 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 09:55 pm (UTC)

"It is charming," says Sherlock, "how you assume I will not also cheat."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I did say one or more. I would love to see how what you have stacks up against Pattern's ninja aura."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Should I suggest it to her, do you think?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:03 pm (UTC)

Smiling slightly, she follows the forest to wherever Pattern might have got to.

bellfounding
2013-05-16 10:04 pm (UTC)

Pattern might have gotten to over here, but she's sure not obvious.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I perceive that a game of hide-and-seek will not be necessary to test this particular interaction," says Sherlock, looking directly at the place that Pattern is.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Pattern?" Cam asks. "Why are you ninjaing right now?"

bellfounding
2013-05-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

Pattern un-ninjas. "Felt like it," she says. "Wasn't talking to anybody, wanted a moment to think but didn't want to go home for it. What's up?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Cam wondered if I would be able to find you while you were engaging in stealth. It seems I can."

bellfounding
2013-05-16 10:13 pm (UTC)

"How'd you do it?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:15 pm (UTC)

"The royal family of the Enchanted Forest has a connection to the forest that lets us do various useful things. Only the reigning monarch has full access, but heirs and descendants can manage little tricks. Mine is finding. Finding people, finding objects, finding my way, finding a shortcut."

bellfounding
2013-05-16 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Oh. So you knew where I was, but you couldn't directly detect me?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:18 pm (UTC)

"That is an accurate summary."

bellfounding
2013-05-16 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Now we know how that works. I guess the forest doesn't count as something with perception that my aura can refuse to permit."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:26 pm (UTC)

"That is one possibility."

bellfounding
2013-05-16 10:27 pm (UTC)

"You have another hypothesis?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:28 pm (UTC)

"It is also possible that the forest is better at knowing what is in it than you are at telling it not to."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Hey forest," says Cam experimentally in the Speech.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:34 pm (UTC)

"What are you doing?" says Steel. This is the only response.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Seeing if the forest'll talk to me. Either it's not a coherent entity by itself and I'd have to address an individual tree, or it is feeling unfriendly, or stuff on this world doesn't talk even as much as stuff on other non-Syntropy worlds tends to." He turns to the nearest tree. "Hey, tree."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:38 pm (UTC)

"The forest is not traditionally friendly towards non-residents," says Steel. The tree says nothing.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Hey, tree and/or forest, do you want to talk to Princess Sherlock, I can translate for you," offers Cam.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:43 pm (UTC)

Tree-and/or-forest continues to ignore him.

"No luck?" says Steel.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Nope. I want to teleport briefly to someplace that isn't this forest and talk to a rock or something to see if it's the forest or the world, can you suggest a destination?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:48 pm (UTC)

"The former dragonsbane cultivation site, in the Mountains of Morning."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:49 pm (UTC)

Port.

Cam picks up a pebble.

"Hi, pebble."

pythbox
2013-05-16 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says the pebble. "I'm a pebble."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:51 pm (UTC)

"So you are."

Cam ports back to where he was, still holding the pebble. "This talked."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:52 pm (UTC)

"May I see it?" asks Steel, holding out her hand.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:52 pm (UTC)

Cam hands over the pebble.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:54 pm (UTC)

Sherlock accepts and studies the pebble.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Uh, on Syntropy, everything talks, trees and stars are as smart as humans and it varies on down from there, stuff wizards talk to gets smarter. On other worlds I've checked out, stuff talks, but nothing is smarter than grass - which is to say incredibly stupid."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:57 pm (UTC)

"This seems to be an ordinary pebble," says Sherlock. "What did it say?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 10:57 pm (UTC)

"It said, 'hi, I'm a pebble', it will not be helping your children with their geography lessons anytime soon."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 10:59 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 11:01 pm (UTC)

"The Speech is useful even if you aren't a wizard. I haven't been able to make any other Bells wizards, but I think that might be just because they're too old. Aegis is youngest, at fifteen, and even fourteen is pushing it - I was fourteen when I got wizarded up and that's much older than typical. I might be able to wizard the miscellaneous Bellspawn except Dominique, but I don't know if that would get Iggy's attention between worlds, so it'd require thinking about."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Iggy?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

"It's not its real name, but when I was fourteen it pretended to be a rock named Iggy to talk to me. It's sort of an - evil god? It's a Power. And it's really unclear how powerful the Powers are, like, I'd be surprised but not astounded if they could reach across worlds with something like an offworld wizard to get their attention. And every time a new wizard comes to be, it tries to kill them. Jellybean and Matilda saved my life."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Do not make my children into wizards," Steel requests.

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Not on the agenda," agrees Cam. "Although whether you expect Powers to make attempts on their lives or not you probably want them all torchable."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Iggy doesn't usually try very hard - either that or it's got seriously limited resources - and it doesn't try more than once. I have a student, it sent a rabid dog after him, when that was taken care of nothing else happened. And if it's noticed anything I've been doing since pealing and minting it's been quiet about it. I can't really figure it out."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Forces beyond our control do not necessarily have to act in comprehensible ways."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 11:16 pm (UTC)

"My long-term plans don't include Iggy continuing to operate beyond my control."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:17 pm (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-05-16 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Especially since Syntropy's not Downsideable," agrees Pattern.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I see."

bellfounding
2013-05-16 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Neither is Alethia. I think Amariah's almost ready to get together a sub-peal and attack that problem."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I have not yet spoken to Amariah."

bellfounding
2013-05-16 11:20 pm (UTC)

"She's cool. Don't touch her owl."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

lifes_sake
2013-05-16 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Her aura reminds anyone who forgets, but she doesn't always remember to have it out, she's not fully public about stuff at home."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:25 pm (UTC)

Steel nods. She seems disinterested in asking why she should not touch the owl.

bellfounding
2013-05-16 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I saw her over there with Sarion," Pattern says, pointing.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I will go over there," says Steel. "Thank you."

dark_light
2013-05-16 11:29 pm (UTC)

Amariah is over there! She has remembered to put her aura out; she is witchy and Path is Don't Touch Me.

small_magics
2013-05-16 11:29 pm (UTC)

Sarion is with her!

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:30 pm (UTC)

Steel approaches and observes.

small_magics
2013-05-16 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I See you," Sarion says to her.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:35 pm (UTC)

"It is evident that you do. I see you also," says Steel, mildly amused.
Edited 2013-05-16 23:35 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-16 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Elf greeting," laughs Amariah. "Hi."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Hello."

dark_light
2013-05-16 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Elves also don't ask questions. Sarion in particular isn't fazed about getting asked things, but if it seems like she's hinting about something she probably is."

small_magics
2013-05-16 11:40 pm (UTC)

"I believe I have typically been found comprehensible to the sort of people who choose to keep company with Bells."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:43 pm (UTC)

"That is an interesting restriction," says Steel.

small_magics
2013-05-16 11:43 pm (UTC)

"It is not impossible for elves to ask questions. We merely consider it impolite. Demanding."

dark_light
2013-05-16 11:44 pm (UTC)

"When we went to Thilanushinyel we all had tea with another elf and Sarion had to translate. It was funny."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I can imagine that it was."

This is continuation number 6 from here.

incanted
2013-05-16 11:50 pm (UTC)

Aurora's over here chatting with her sister!

calendarofcrime
2013-05-16 11:52 pm (UTC)

So she is!

Steel listens to them.

incanted
2013-05-16 11:56 pm (UTC)

Aurora stops in the middle of summarizing Glass's deviations from template to Lexi. "- and she's gay and - has two wives, hello, one of same."

lexicality
2013-05-16 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Sherlock," says Lexi, who only uses the nicknames when there is more than one of somebody actually around.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:01 am (UTC)

"Hello, Aurora and Lexi."

lexicality
2013-05-17 12:01 am (UTC)

"What's up?"

incanted
2013-05-17 12:02 am (UTC)

"Also, my threat sensor thinks you could make my life really unpleasant if you wanted to, which you don't, why does it think that?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:03 am (UTC)

"Because I am me, and we are here, and I probably could if for some reason I needed to."

incanted
2013-05-17 12:03 am (UTC)

"Well, you don't, Bells are friendly sorts."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:05 am (UTC)

"So I've heard. I am married to one," Steel reminds her dryly.

incanted
2013-05-17 12:06 am (UTC)

"So's Edward, he doesn't want to be anywhere near most of us," snorts Aurora. "How'd you meet your Bell, anyway?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:09 am (UTC)

"Tony and I were sent out questing for a husband. We found her instead."

incanted
2013-05-17 12:10 am (UTC)

Aurora giggles. "You quest for husbands around here?"

lexicality
2013-05-17 12:11 am (UTC)

"Did you have to rescue her from a giant or anything, that sounds like the kind of thing that would happen on a quest for somebody to marry," giggles Lexi.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:12 am (UTC)

"I did rescue her from a river snake," she recalls. "But that was mainly incidental."
Edited 2013-05-17 00:13 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-05-17 12:13 am (UTC)

Lexi laughs. "Practically everybody Bells wind up dating is bisexual," she observes. "I wonder why."
Edited 2013-05-17 00:17 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:26 am (UTC)

"I could not begin to tell you."

incanted
2013-05-17 12:27 am (UTC)

"Maybe Glass can," laughs Aurora. "But it's probably just baked into the most common templates we date, not us. Edward isn't bisexual."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:28 am (UTC)

"By all means, ask my wife."

incanted
2013-05-17 12:29 am (UTC)

[Hey Glass, over here!]

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 12:29 am (UTC)

Glass teleports over. She likes being able to do that. "What?"

incanted
2013-05-17 12:30 am (UTC)

"We obviously vary in sexuality, some," says Aurora, "but we keep dating consistently bisexual templates, except Edward, what's up with that?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 12:32 am (UTC)

"I'd have to look at Edward to tell you why he's not. The other popular templates just don't vary that way like we can," shrugs Glass. "That's not a thing about us - no attractor in Bells means we can't date people who are only attracted to whatever gender we are in the relevant instance."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:39 am (UTC)

"We are enlightened," says Steel, kissing Glass.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 12:40 am (UTC)

Kisses! "My new party trick is so popular," she remarks.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:41 am (UTC)

"Of course it is." Kiss kiss snuggle. "I love you."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 12:42 am (UTC)

"I love you."

incanted
2013-05-17 12:42 am (UTC)

"Married Bells," snorts Aurora, "too cute."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:44 am (UTC)

"I object. She is precisely cute enough."

incanted
2013-05-17 12:44 am (UTC)

Aurora giggles. "Aww."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 12:45 am (UTC)

"I think I heard that Shell Bell and Pearl were reputed to be intensely cute and they aren't married," points out Glass.

incanted
2013-05-17 12:46 am (UTC)

"They're an exception. I think it has to do with the time Shell Bell spent Downside before we fixed it."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:49 am (UTC)

"An exception to the rule that only married Bells are adorable? Which Bells are married?"
Edited 2013-05-17 00:50 (UTC)

incanted
2013-05-17 12:52 am (UTC)

"The rule that married Bells are the cutest. Other ones can be cute too," says Aurora. "Besides you, there's Golden - who is kind of left out of this rule because we barely get to see Edward; Stella and Cam have seen him but haven't weighed in on the cuteness comparison - and there's Rose and Angela."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:53 am (UTC)

"I see."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 12:55 am (UTC)

"When I was reading metacausality for the Jokers, Aegis appeared in midair and sat on Sue's shoulders," says Glass. "I'm not sure it's as obviously tiered as you're suggesting."

incanted
2013-05-17 12:55 am (UTC)

"It's more of an in-joke than a rule," shrugs Aurora.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:57 am (UTC)

Steel laughs.

incanted
2013-05-17 12:58 am (UTC)

"I feel like past-watching your wedding," announces Aurora.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 12:58 am (UTC)

"Go for it," laughs Glass.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:01 am (UTC)

"Certainly."

incanted
2013-05-17 01:03 am (UTC)

Aurora smiles and closes her eyes.

"Awww," she says.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:08 am (UTC)

Steel hugs her wife.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 01:09 am (UTC)

Steel's wife hugs her back. "I still have that dress," she muses.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:10 am (UTC)

She laughs.

"It was a lovely dress."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 01:10 am (UTC)

"Yes."

incanted
2013-05-17 01:10 am (UTC)

"It's really nice, the way it twinkles," agrees Aurora.

This is continuation number 7 from here.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:13 am (UTC)

Angela is over here, talking to Alleluia, who keeps coming to Bellparties when invited in spite of finding them somewhat overwhelming every time.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:15 am (UTC)

Steel listens.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:16 am (UTC)

"- in a few years," Angela is saying. "I think I'll leave it up to you if you want to share any of the secrets with your children before then. Of course I'll be happy to make them all torchable with or without informing them, if you're worried Jane will go down again."

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 01:17 am (UTC)

"She was gone for a decade," Alleluia says. "I wouldn't want to be without one of my children that long, not if I needn't."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:18 am (UTC)

"Then sure, bring them all to the Eyrie and I can take care of it. Steel? Can I help you?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:19 am (UTC)

"I am quietly eavesdropping on all the Bells until they notice me. You are the latest," Steel says dryly. "Hello."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:19 am (UTC)

"Why are you quietly eavesdropping on Bells until you are noticed?" inquires Angela.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:21 am (UTC)

"It is a convenient and often informative way to start a conversation."

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 01:22 am (UTC)

"It's not particularly polite," opines Alleluia.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:24 am (UTC)

"Isn't it?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 01:26 am (UTC)

Alleluia shakes her head. "I don't think so." She pauses. "Perhaps things are different here?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:26 am (UTC)

"Well, I don't mind, and we wouldn't be discussing anything truly private out loud anyway, not at a party," says Angela.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:28 am (UTC)

"I consider it no more or less courteous than interrupting your conversation without first finding out what it is about."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:29 am (UTC)

"Well, we were talking about Alleluia's children, but now we have concluded that," says Angela.

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 01:29 am (UTC)

"I should have asked years ago," says Alleluia, shaking her head.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:30 am (UTC)

"I see."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:31 am (UTC)

"Did Glass cover yours yet? It's entirely possible to do it without affecting their growth," Angela says.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:33 am (UTC)

"She did."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:33 am (UTC)

"That's good."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:36 am (UTC)

"It has also come to my attention that the married Bells are supposedly the most adorable. Do you have a comment on the matter?"
Edited 2013-05-17 01:36 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:36 am (UTC)

Angela laughs. "Do you want me to see if Micaiah is busy? We could let you see for yourself."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:37 am (UTC)

She nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:38 am (UTC)

[Love, someone has been spreading rumors about the cuteness of married Bells.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-17 01:40 am (UTC)

Micaiah giggles over brainphone.

[Not now, my angel,] he says merrily.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:40 am (UTC)

"He's busy," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 01:41 am (UTC)

Alleluia shakes her head.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:41 am (UTC)

Steel looks inquiringly at Alleluia.

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 01:41 am (UTC)

"Hmm?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:43 am (UTC)

"You have an opinion?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 01:43 am (UTC)

"Well, it's none of my business, I just don't understand it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:43 am (UTC)

"It took some adjusting for me too, but that was a long time ago."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:50 am (UTC)

"Somehow we manage."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:51 am (UTC)

"Have you met my children?" Angela asks Steel. "The two who come to these parties, at any rate, I think Ariel will be old enough to learn about magic soon but not yet."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:52 am (UTC)

"I have not."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:53 am (UTC)

"Would you like to?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:53 am (UTC)

"I would."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 01:54 am (UTC)

"They're over there with Rose and the rosebuds - oh, and your girls, too, I wonder why they're all girls," says Angela, starting towards the cluster of small Bellspawn.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-17 01:54 am (UTC)

Rose waves as they approach.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:56 am (UTC)

"Mine are all girls for magical reasons, I believe."

campanas
2013-05-17 01:58 am (UTC)

"Magical reasons?" asks Keziah.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 01:59 am (UTC)

"Their mothers are all girls."

campanas
2013-05-17 02:00 am (UTC)

"So?" asks Céleste.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:01 am (UTC)

"So the magic that created them had only girls to work with."

campanas
2013-05-17 02:01 am (UTC)

"Why does that mean they're girls?" asks Keziah.

carillons
2013-05-17 02:06 am (UTC)

"Why wouldn't it?" says Tanalin. "Where would the magic get a boy from?"

campanas
2013-05-17 02:07 am (UTC)

"I'm going to be mad if those other Mommies have a me and it's a boy," asserts Carinna.

campanas
2013-05-17 02:07 am (UTC)

"How come?" asks Kiawen.

campanas
2013-05-17 02:08 am (UTC)

"It would be weird! And I don't have as good ideas for names."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:09 am (UTC)

Steel smiles.

campanas
2013-05-17 02:10 am (UTC)

"Pick me up," says Kiawen to Sherlock.

campanas
2013-05-17 02:10 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Keziah. "Mommy, pick me up."

"Me too!" says Céleste. "Me too, Maman."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-17 02:10 am (UTC)

The Griffins' mothers

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 02:11 am (UTC)

pick up their secondborns.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:11 am (UTC)

Steel scoops up her youngest daughter and hugs her.

This is continuation number 8 from here.

self_composed
2013-05-17 02:14 am (UTC)

Stella's over here, talking to Elspeth.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:15 am (UTC)

Steel commences lurking.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-17 02:17 am (UTC)

"- in 2019. Now Steel is eavesdropping on us and waiting to see how long it takes us to notice," says Elspeth. "That didn't take very long. Did it, Harley?"

self_composed
2013-05-17 02:17 am (UTC)

"How much of what you say to him does he understand?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-17 02:18 am (UTC)

"Up to the limit of his conceptual vocabulary. Which gets bigger the more I talk to and around him. I'm very understandable."

pythbox
2013-05-17 02:18 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:19 am (UTC)

"You are," Steel agrees. "What were you saying before?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-17 02:20 am (UTC)

"I was just telling Stella about how Aurum's Renée adapted to being a vampire," says Elspeth.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:21 am (UTC)

"I am interested."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-17 02:24 am (UTC)

"The short version is, she was married to a fellow named Phil, and Alice didn't see her mating to him, so she resisted the idea for a long time, but then a vampire called Patricia mated to Phil. He didn't cheat on Renée, but he did like Patricia and it put a strain on the marriage, and in 2019 they amicably divorced and Renée decided to go ahead and turn. She's not mated; she just gallivants around the world with a couple of friends."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:25 am (UTC)

"That sounds like a pleasant outcome."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-17 02:25 am (UTC)

"She's happy, yeah."

self_composed
2013-05-17 02:26 am (UTC)

"I'm curious about what makes someone mateable - or imprintable - by Aurum standards," explains Stella. "It doesn't seem to be completely random or particularly well-optimized."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:27 am (UTC)

"Perhaps we should ask my wife."

self_composed
2013-05-17 02:28 am (UTC)

"Because she can see templates or because she can see magic?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:28 am (UTC)

"Yes."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-17 02:29 am (UTC)

"I haven't been able to produce utterances about it. Maybe it will be more amenable to what Glass does," says Elspeth. Glass!

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 02:29 am (UTC)

Here's Glass!

self_composed
2013-05-17 02:30 am (UTC)

"We were curious if you can tell us how vampire mates are chosen. And werewolf imprints, for that matter."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 02:32 am (UTC)

Glass looks at the available examples of both phenomena.

"...I'm not sure," she says. "I don't think it's consistently the same on high layers, but there is something going on, on high layers. On low layers the werewolves are only choosing from among people who they could have children with were they so inclined and the vampires are only choosing people with compatible orientations, but I can't make out any patterns in what else is governing this."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:32 am (UTC)

"Interesting."

This is continuation number 9 from here.

autokinetic
2013-05-17 02:43 am (UTC)

Aegis is over here, dancing with Alice-of-Aurum for no reason.

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 02:43 am (UTC)

"Incoming," says Alice. "Hi, Steel!"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:45 am (UTC)

"Hello," says Steel.

autokinetic
2013-05-17 02:47 am (UTC)

"What's up?" asks Aegis.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:49 am (UTC)

"I heard you are surprised that my wife has not violently overthrown my mother," says Steel. "Do you care to explain yourself?"

autokinetic
2013-05-17 02:53 am (UTC)

"I didn't put it like that," Aegis says. "I'm badly socialized but I'm not that badly socialized. Violent overthrow is totally in the Bell repertoire, though, and letting other people run things mostly isn't. Sometimes we just pack up and move, Angela's being patient, I think Rose is completely ignoring monarchs-qua-monarchs, but Glass is the only one who lives in a castle and wears a crown and has someone else in the big chair. So either there's something special going on with Glass, or your mom is a really good or at least a really noninterfering sorta queen, or she was being patient and now you're all Downsided you're looking at some personal upheavals."
Edited 2013-05-17 02:53 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:57 am (UTC)

"I predict," says Sherlock, "that my mother will continue to be queen for a very long time."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 02:58 am (UTC)

"And," says Aegis, "that's weird. I'm not saying it can't happen, it's just weird."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 02:59 am (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-05-17 03:00 am (UTC)

Alice departs this area of party in response to some manner of vision.

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:00 am (UTC)

Aegis shrugs. She does a casual backflip.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:01 am (UTC)

Steel observes Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:02 am (UTC)

"I bet at least half of us were thinking it, I'm just the one who was tactless enough to say anything."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:05 am (UTC)

"I am trying to decide whether or not this is a problem."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:05 am (UTC)

"That I think it or that I might be right?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:06 am (UTC)

"No."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:07 am (UTC)

"What, then?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:08 am (UTC)

"That it is such a prevalent opinion."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:12 am (UTC)

Aegis shrugs. "We figure out how Bells are by seeing what Bells do. We imitate each other some 'cause we're all so cool, but not slavishly or anything. If Glass thinks your mom is the best queen and she pulls a Rose instead of a Shell Bell, or works on something like Amariah trying to unite all the kingdoms of the world before she sits on them collectively, or does something totally novel, we'll all go 'huh' and incorporate it and then wonder whether the next Bell is going to do that. Besides, you're her obvious mint-helper. We'll spot her some coins if you can't keep up, but even if you ignore that she must really love you to have married you, she's not likely to do anything you strenuously object to."
Edited 2013-05-17 03:14 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:17 am (UTC)

"There are plenty of excellent reasons why she should not violently overthrow my mother," Sherlock agrees. "Among them is the fact that it would not work. Nevertheless, I find the attitude disquieting."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:18 am (UTC)

"Okay, and?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:22 am (UTC)

"Perhaps it is worth considering some of your underlying assumptions."
Edited 2013-05-17 03:22 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:24 am (UTC)

"I will when I see what Glass does and I know which assumptions are suspect," says Aegis. "Before today all I knew about your mom's template was that none of your or Iron's alts wanted theirs back from the dead. Maybe yours is special, but I don't know how. Maybe Glass is relevantly unusual, but I don't know how."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:27 am (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:30 am (UTC)

Aegis shrugs again. "I'm not personally planning to violently overthrow anyone," she offers. "I live in a democracy and I'm a war hero with another war hero's endorsement. I just have to turn sixteen and hire a campaign manager and I'm a shoo-in for Hegemon. Circumstances matter. Maybe this world - did she name it yet? - maybe where we are turns out particularly non-megalomaniacal Bell results. You've been married to her for years, I found out that there were more than one of me for real and not just in a weird dream Sue had months ago by my time, maybe you know more than me."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:32 am (UTC)

"I do, in fact, know more about both my wife and my kingdom than you do."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:32 am (UTC)

"So what's it matter what I think? I'm not gonna step on Glass's toes whatever she winds up doing."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:35 am (UTC)

"It matters because this is only one of many kingdoms in one of many worlds, and I am sure it is not the only one that is being adequately governed."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:38 am (UTC)

"The outright usurpers among us are Golden and Shell Bell. Both the governments they deposed killed innocent people routinely. Rest of us are orthogonal to politics, space colonists, taking power more naturally," she raises a hand, "or doing diplomacy. Or whatever. I don't think Sarion's settled on a strategy, she's been repairing her brain, she'll probably do something soon, she seems mostly better to me."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 03:44 am (UTC)

"In which case," Sherlock says dryly, "it seems odd to predict that Glass will usurp anything."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 03:45 am (UTC)

"Is there some secret number of times I have to say that she totally might not do that which will placate you?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 12:55 pm (UTC)

"I already know she is not going to do that."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Then I don't get what the problem is."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Clearly you do not."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 05:51 pm (UTC)

"...Are you gonna explain?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 05:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure I can."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Would Glass get it? Because I bet she could explain it to me if she did."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 05:56 pm (UTC)

"She might."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 05:57 pm (UTC)

[Hey Glass, your wife is confusing me!]

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 05:57 pm (UTC)

Glass appears. "How so?" she inquires of Sherlock.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I questioned her about her troubling assumption that you are going to overthrow my mother and she does not seem to comprehend the scope of the problem."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Wait," says Glass, "why is there such an assumption? I'm not going to do that." She thinks for a moment. Then she says, "Aegis, I moved here. On purpose when I was about your age during Marianne's reign."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know that," says Aegis indignantly. "You didn't write in the Bellbook yet."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:05 pm (UTC)

"It is a problem that the first assumption, absent special circumstances, is that a Bell living in someone else's kingdom will conquer it as soon as possible," says Steel. "It is a problem that that is viewed as the default course of action."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Most of us don't live in kingdoms. There's Glass and Sarion and Rose, that's it, Rose is ignoring monarchs and Sarion's been fixing her brain so we don't know yet what her plan is. Angela's got a theocracy with term limits she can wait out, Shell Bell overthrew a technical democracy and Golden a shadow oligarchy thing. Amariah has some clan queens around but she didn't marry one's kid and live with her and I don't think they work like human queens anyway. The default course of action is to find leverage and haul on it. It's just, what that leverage looks like changes world to world."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a detailed plan yet, but I'm going to resemble Rose more than anyone, I think," says Glass firmly.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:18 pm (UTC)

Steel shakes her head and kisses her wife.

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah, I didn't know you moved here," says Aegis.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going to overthrow the king of Linderwall either!"

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:21 pm (UTC)

"What, seriously, you lucked into adequate hereditary monarchs, like, everywhere?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Is that so bizarre?"

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes, what the hell, is your entire world made of cotton fucking candy?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:23 pm (UTC)

"No."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:24 pm (UTC)

"I don't mean literally," says Aegis, rolling her eyes.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:24 pm (UTC)

"...I suppose it's certainly possible that this is a particularly high-quality world."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:26 pm (UTC)

"The question as I understood it was, does this world fail to contain terrible people who do terrible things? The answer is no."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Does your nifty aura thingamabob tell you the cotton candy ratio around here?" Aegis asks Glass.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:28 pm (UTC)

"If it did, that would be much faster than reading a lot of offworld history books... I think I'd need to see more worlds," says Glass. "Just a sec - I'll take a quick tour of the safe-to-visit ones - Jane -"

Glass disappears.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:28 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:30 pm (UTC)

Glass is back five minutes later.

"To a first approximation," she says to Steel, "compared to everywhere else, our world is made of cotton fucking candy. Although Samaria's not too awful."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:31 pm (UTC)

Steel snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:33 pm (UTC)

"I'm serious. I don't have a lot of fine detail, but those places - especially Sunshine, eugh - are not nice, and I can't really blame the other Bells for expecting me and my closest circle of friends to be the only remotely acceptable people within a stone's throw. That having been said, Aegis," says Glass, "this place is, yes, made of cotton candy, and so are the overwhelming majority of monarchs, and they can go on being so as far as I'm concerned; I have relatively minor work to do. Poor Juliet, yikes, that world..."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:34 pm (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Gonna name the place Cotton Candy?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:35 pm (UTC)

"No, I am not. Honey, are you okay?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:37 pm (UTC)

"I - worry - that someday, somebell will overthrow their home government unnecessarily, and none of you will notice."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Does it sound to you like it's happened so far?" inquires Aegis. "I mean, Glass didn't take one look at us and say 'whoop, better depose Marianne', did she? And Aurum and Atlantis totally needed the upheaval."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:41 pm (UTC)

Steel shakes her head.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:42 pm (UTC)

Glass takes her wife's hand.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:44 pm (UTC)

"If it happens," she says to Aegis, "I expect you will not notice."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Aegis, "okay, what do you want us to do about it?"

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Be sure you understand the situation before you apply your expectations to it."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Next time I'll get Glass to check the world's cotton candy ratio first," snorts Aegis.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:50 pm (UTC)

"That is adequate."

autokinetic
2013-05-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

"So glad to have your approval," snorts Aegis. "So if you're not naming it Cotton Candy what are you going to call it?"
Edited 2013-05-17 18:52 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 06:55 pm (UTC)

"...Chronicle," says Glass after a moment's thought.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 06:56 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Honey," murmurs Glass. "Oh, I'm glad you didn't meet me when I was fifteen, I was a flippant little thing too - Aegis, can you be serious, I read the note in the Bellbook about you being badly socialized but surely if you're planning to be elected you're working on turning it off?"

autokinetic
2013-05-17 07:05 pm (UTC)

Aegis sighs. "Sue thinks I'm funny," she mutters, and then she composes herself and says, "Steel, we're gonna pay attention, we're not gonna go around dismantling power structures just because they're there, only if there's something wrong with them that isn't patchable."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Steel.

autokinetic
2013-05-17 07:06 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," grumbles Aegis, and she floats into the air like a soap bubble, looking for somebody else to talk to.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 07:08 pm (UTC)

Steel hugs her wife.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 07:10 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"I'm sorry about her. She had an unusual childhood and came out rough around the edges. I think she's working on it."

calendarofcrime
2013-05-17 07:11 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"All right."

This is continuation number 10 from here.

dark_light
2013-05-17 07:27 pm (UTC)

"So yeah," Amariah says to Libby, "I'm accumulating respect as a spell innovator, which doesn't accrue me any political power, not even the way witches do it, but which does get me attention and a sort of respectful wariness that I think will serve me well. I've been in contact with all the queens, now, and that's what I was waiting for before investigating the afterlife; I'm going to grill the alethiometer about what I'll need and what will happen and then collect some help and go for it."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Best of luck," says Libby. "Let me know if I can help."

dark_light
2013-05-17 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

Glass approaches. "Hi, Amariah, hi, Libby. Amariah, you were one of the founding Belltower members?"

dark_light
2013-05-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, me and Shell Bell set it up. Why?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, I just wrote in a profile, but I think the information it asks for was better suited to the times before we could freely travel and share magic," says Glass. "It might be time to revise it."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Libby. "Profiles."

dark_light
2013-05-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan to me," says Amariah. "Do you think we need the whole peal for making revisions?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 07:35 pm (UTC)

"We should probably at least invite everyone, although I don't suppose they'll all drop what they're doing, I think Cam may be in a pile of Tonies at the moment based on where I last saw him."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 07:36 pm (UTC)

Libby laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 07:38 pm (UTC)

Glass invites Bells. A few show up - Shell Bell and Angela and Rose - and the others all pass along their confidence that their alts will come up with something satisfactory.

dark_light
2013-05-17 08:11 pm (UTC)

Amariah reads through Glass's original profile, first. "I like the idea of including aura. Maybe since we turn out to vary in sexuality more than we thought we should have a field for that, too, and optionally throw in how interested we are in, say, being dragged into a heap of Tonies."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 08:11 pm (UTC)

Glass giggles. "And there are now four of us with children, that belongs in here too."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 08:13 pm (UTC)

"And something about how readily visitable our worlds are. Mine is safe but magic isn't generally known, for example."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-17 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Coin color. Since it seems to track mental opacity so closely, in particular."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-17 08:15 pm (UTC)

"And this won't be part of the profile but as long as we're talking about how to get new Bells slotted comfortably into the peal there should be some sort of standard checklist. Minting and the safety lecture; enchanting and the skill and the cautions about that; Janegem and an introduction to her."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 08:16 pm (UTC)

"And I'll be happy to pop briefly into newly found worlds as long as they're safe, and check out the character of the place. I've seen everywhere but Alethia now, and I'm happy to go check Alethia too if someone will spot me a star."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 08:17 pm (UTC)

"What kind of character assessment do you do on a world?" wonders Libby.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 08:19 pm (UTC)

"It apparently falls under my metacausality-sensing aura feature," says Glass. "I can tell things about templates, and apparently entire worlds count. This one is by far the nicest; Aegis put it as 'made of cotton candy'. Sunshine is particularly appalling."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if the worlds should get profiles too," she muses.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Maybe, but I get very indistinct senses, and I don't think Cam can talk to the worlds themselves for us. I might get better at reading what I sense over time and then I could potentially generate enough information that it doesn't make sense to just fold it into the Bell profiles."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 08:25 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking that world profiles would run more along the lines of - a name, your impression, a list of templates known to be present, important safety information, details about technology and magic levels... they wouldn't only be useful for worlds containing Bells."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 08:27 pm (UTC)

"If some other people want to invite me to have a look at their worlds, I'll be happy to," says Glass. "But we're talking about the Bellbook, not a hypothetical Worldbook."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 08:32 pm (UTC)

"I'll design the Worldbook later, then."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Cool, let me know where I need to show up and what format you want my results in when you've got that. Anyway. And to avoid confusions like the one Aegis had about my mother-in-law being the queen, maybe an entry for tentative expected approach - or past approach, for when you all update your old profiles."

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 08:36 pm (UTC)

"And perhaps we no longer need an entry for people with keys to the Belltower, with Jane operating it at her informed discretion. Although literal keys should probably still be kept on hand in case something happens to her again."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 08:38 pm (UTC)

"And local magic is worth knowing about, and inventing terminology for recurring species is a good idea - I think we're only ever going to see more than one sort-of-thing that needs an invented name if they're named in English. I think English is on some level a meta-language for our multiverse. 'Witch' needs clarification; 'sarion' doesn't."

They continue to fiddle with their profile template until they have something they all like.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 08:45 pm (UTC)

Libby thinks this template is very reasonable!

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 08:55 pm (UTC)

Glass inaugurates it.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-17 09:34 pm (UTC)

Angela follows.

dark_light
2013-05-17 09:48 pm (UTC)

Amariah takes the book next.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-17 10:05 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell follows suit.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-17 10:19 pm (UTC)

Rose is the last of the committee to add something.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Very tidy," says Libby. "Who wants to work with me on the Worldbook?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:21 pm (UTC)

"I will, if you like. Do you anticipate needing much help?"

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:23 pm (UTC)

"It's always nice to get a second opinion on something like this."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. What are your thoughts?"

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, for one thing, has anyone else noticed that the Sunny worlds seem to be twins where everyone else is at most cousins? I wonder if we should be dividing up worlds by family."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Ooh." Glass closes her eyes, thinking. "I should visit the other Sunny worlds, real quick, and see if I can detect that and if there's anything else like it."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Go for it," says Libby.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Jane," says Glass, and she disappears.

She's back a minute later. "I hate those worlds, I hate them, they're nasty," she says. "They're similar all right, and no others I've checked are that close, but there's a weaker resemblance between Aurum and Eos."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Interesting. So a 'worldfamily' entry might be a little premature, but I think I'll put one down anyway in case we find more Sunny worlds and run out of cute sun-related things to name them after. Apart from that... a list of common intelligent species would be good, so we have some standardization for species names besides the ones that Bells happen to be. I haven't heard anyone coming up with a term for Aianon's species other than 'demon', for example, and that's also the generic term for nonhumans in the Sunny worlds. And there's some species overlap between this world and Thilanushinyel, as evinced by the two completely different types of dragons chatting over there."
Edited 2013-05-17 22:36 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:37 pm (UTC)

Glass nods. "I suspect Aianon's busy - I'll ask Sarion -" Presently she has a reply. "Thilanushinyel demons are also called 'Endarkened', is that taken?"

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Nope. See, this is the kind of thing that would go in a Worldbook."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I can ask Kexan what he'd like to call Chronicle dragons, but he'll probably lob the question to his grandmother; she's the king."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:40 pm (UTC)

"As long as someone comes up with something at some point."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:42 pm (UTC)

Glass nods. "And we've also got unicorns here that aren't like the one I saw at this party, and elves. And dwarves and giants and all kinds of things, I'm not even sure I know them all, there could easily be some I haven't heard of from sufficiently faraway places."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm not that worried about listing every single species as long as we've got distinct terms for all the ones that interact with the peal. Ooh, and there should be an entry for afterlife situation," she adds.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Syntropy and Alethia," nods Glass. "And maybe distinguish between worlds that were already attached to Downside and will have wakeful people there who Jane didn't wake, versus ones that were added later and will have only sleeping people or ones we've personally attended to."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Good point," says Libby. "All right. Can you think of anything else?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Not off the top of my head."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 11:03 pm (UTC)

"All right, then," she says. "I'll write a test profile for Eos and see if we catch any bugs."

She thinks a little, then starts writing.
Name: Eos

Worldfamily, if applicable: N/A

Primary inhabited planet(s): Earth, Mars

Known intelligent species: Humans

Technology/magic situation: Standard technology level for early 21st century Earth; one kind of transferable magic - minting/wishcoins - and one kind of innate per-person magic - ingots, which are people with single non-duplicated magical powers.

Afterlife situation: Downside world number 74, introduced to Downside post-pealing

Safety rating and notes for visitors: Magic is nonsecret to the population of Earth but individuals may be wary.

Glass's commentary: --

List of inhabiting templates: Bell, Stella; Libby, Libby; Joker, Alice; Chainsaw, Sandy; Anna, Anna. All humans, all mints. Sandy, Alice, and Stella are also ingots.
"All right, how's that look?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 11:07 pm (UTC)

"It does have that resemblance to Aurum. They're not as close as any two Sunny worlds, but it's not nothing."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says, and she puts 'Eos-Aurum' under Worldfamily. "Pending a better name. Maybe we'll come up with one if we find another cousin."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 11:13 pm (UTC)

Glass nods. "It's not an unusually nice or unusually mean world. It's exploitable - more than here; Chronicle is nice but doesn't natively lend itself to being cracked open and comprehended, I think, and Eos is fine with that. Most of the Earths I looked at seemed more or less exploitable in this way. It feels more - isolated than some of them. Like - it has features in common with Aurum, but not on the same layer as the Sunnyworlds. On the layer that Sunnyworlds are - using - for resemblance, Eos floats around completely alone and nowhere else I looked at does - though some of them do it differently."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Libby. She copies this down.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 11:31 pm (UTC)

"That's a weird layer, actually..." Glass consults her lovely perfect memory. "...Where else is there to visit? Jane, can you just drop me everywhere we have regular interactions with for quick looks?"

She's gone for another minute.

"Yggdrasil has something on that layer, that it shares with all the Sunnyworlds which have it much more weakly, Sunshine weakest of all," she reports.
Edited 2013-05-17 23:32 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Maybe a 'worldfamily' description isn't going to cut it," says Libby. "It'll do for now, I guess."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 11:37 pm (UTC)

"And Wellspring is distantly related to Sunnyworlds on a different layer."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 11:38 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what the family tree would look like."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 11:38 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea!"

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 11:39 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Milliways does the complete opposite of the Eos-floating thing. I'd say Downside does too, but it doesn't even compare to Milliways."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 11:46 pm (UTC)

"That seems logical."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I should really name all these layers, but they don't come in a sensible order to allow for numbering, and I have so little idea what any of them mean."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-17 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Wait on it," Libby suggests. "When you have a better idea of what they mean, you'll have a better idea of how to name them."

thaumobabble
2013-05-17 11:49 pm (UTC)

Glass nods.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 01:00 am (UTC)

"I'll ask my alts to profile their worlds," says Libby, and she conjures a proper Worldbook containing the Eos entry. It has a planet on the cover, and because Libby has a sense of humour, the planet on the cover is rotating at roughly Earthlike speeds.

autokinetic
2013-05-18 01:02 am (UTC)

Aegis swings by to add a new profile.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 01:04 am (UTC)

"Glass, you wanna comment on Aurum? And Helios and Sunshine, but Granny's the one who's currently writing."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 01:07 am (UTC)

"Aurum's not as mean as Sunnyworlds, but it's still pretty mean - but perfectly exploitable. It's related to Eos, like I said. I think it might have some kind of special relationship to the Bell template but I don't have any more detail."

bellfounding
2013-05-18 01:12 am (UTC)

Pattern puts in a profile too.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 01:23 am (UTC)

Shortly afterward, Libby opens the Worldbook to display a profile for Aurum:
Name: Aurum

Worldfamily, if applicable: Eos-Aurum

Primary inhabited planet(s): Earth

Known intelligent species: humans; vampires, "diamond" variety; werewolves, Quileute variety.

Technology/magic situation: Mid-twenty-first-century Earth. Apart from special characteristics of aforementioned species (pamphlets available), there is a kind of innate non-transferable per-person magic called witchcraft, where witches are people with single non-duplicated magical powers.

Afterlife situation: Downside world number 61, connected since before pealing

Safety rating and notes for visitors: Someone might fall magically and irrevocably in love with you! And magic is not fully known to the population at large. Consult the local precog, name of Alice, before meeting anyone else.

Glass's commentary: "Aurum's not as mean as Sunnyworlds, but it's still pretty mean - but perfectly exploitable. It's related to Eos, like I said. I think it might have some kind of special relationship to the Bell template but I don't have any more detail."

List of inhabiting templates: Bell, Golden, vampire; Libby, Granny, human; Joker, Joker, human, immigrated from Origin; Anna, Eights, human, died and moved to Downside; Jasper, Jazz, vampire.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-18 01:42 am (UTC)

Juliet reprofiles herself, incidentally providing an excuse for Glass to put her Sunnyworld commentary into words.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 01:52 am (UTC)

Slipstick is the next to come through with a profile for her home world, appropriately enough:
Name: Helios

Worldfamily, if applicable: Sunny

Primary inhabited planet(s): Earth

Known intelligent species: humans; vampires, "sunshine" variety; a staggeringly extensive list of nonhuman species collectively referred to as "demons".

Technology/magic situation: Early twenty-first-century Earth, with aforementioned demons and a flexible but occasionally hostile magic system common to the Sunny worlds.

Afterlife situation: Downside world number 78, introduced to Downside post-pealing

Safety rating and notes for visitors: Most nonhuman species consider humans food. Magic is not generally known among humans. Safe for cautious visits, but not a good tourist destination. Don't turn into a local vampire; the transition comes with unpredictable personality changes and a frequent hobby of recently turned Sunshine vampires is killing all their pre-transition friends.

Glass's commentary: "This place is mean as anything, all the worlds in the family are. The Sunnyworlds are distantly related to Wellspring on one layer and to Yggdrasil on another."

List of inhabiting templates: Libby, Slipstick, human, moved to Origin; Tony, Sapphire, human; Sherlock, Cloud, human.
"She might come up with a profile for Origin too," Libby comments. "And James will have Sunshine done in a minute."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 01:54 am (UTC)

"I commented on Origin for Pattern, already," says Glass.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 02:04 am (UTC)

Cam wanders by and puts down a profile.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 02:09 am (UTC)

The next two world profiles roll in shortly.
Name: Sunshine

Worldfamily, if applicable: Sunny

Primary inhabited planet(s): Earth

Known intelligent species: humans; vampires, "sunshine" variety; a staggeringly extensive list of nonhuman species collectively referred to as "demons".

Technology/magic situation: Early twenty-first-century Earth, with aforementioned demons and a flexible but occasionally hostile magic system common to the Sunny worlds.

Afterlife situation: Downside world number 29, connected since before pealing

Safety rating and notes for visitors: Most nonhuman species consider humans food. Magic is not generally known among humans. Safe for cautious visits, but not a good tourist destination. Don't turn into a local vampire; the transition comes with unpredictable personality changes and a frequent hobby of recently turned Sunshine vampires is killing all their pre-transition friends.

Glass's commentary: "This place is mean as anything, all the worlds in the family are. The Sunnyworlds are distantly related to Wellspring on one layer and to Yggdrasil on another, but Sunshine in particular is more weakly connected to Yggdrasil than the others."

List of inhabiting templates: Bell, Juliet, human, ex-Slayer; Libby, James, human, Slayer (a Slayer is a unique person with combat-related superpowers); Virginia, Virginia, human; Sherlock, Minus, vampire, with soul (important distinction); Tony, Red, human.

Name: Origin

Worldfamily, if applicable: contains a Gotham

Primary inhabited planet(s): Earth, Saturn

Known intelligent species: Humans

Technology/magic situation: Early twenty-first-century Earth; no native magic, but Saturn is heavily enchanted thanks to the local Bell

Afterlife situation: Downside world number 70, connected since before pealing

Safety rating and notes for visitors: Magic is nonsecret but not formally acknowledged; no special hazards except that Gotham is an especially unfriendly city. Please do not disturb the prison colony on Ganymede.

Glass's commentary: "Slightly mean, but without much leverage behind it. I think the Gotham is related to that."

List of inhabiting templates: Bell, Pattern, human; Joker, Queenie, immigrated from Downside, originally from world #48; Joker, Ghosty, human-ish, immigrated from #81; Joker, Joker, human, moved to Aurum; Libby, Slipstick, immigrated from Helios.
"And that's all my alts' worlds of origin or current residence," Libby concludes. "I think I'd rather these things were written by people from the world in question, generally. Who do you think I should bother next?"
Edited 2013-05-18 02:29 (UTC)

luminous_regnant
2013-05-18 02:29 am (UTC)

Golden swings by to profile herself.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 02:30 am (UTC)

"Well, I can do Chronicle, if you like."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 02:31 am (UTC)

"Go for it!"

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 02:41 am (UTC)

Name: Chronicle

Worldfamily, if applicable: N/A

Primary inhabited planet(s): It's just called "Planet".

Known intelligent species: Humans; cats when in cooperative relationships with witches and squirrels when in the Enchanted Forest, I don't know if the species are fundamentally different or not; dragons, "morning" variety; elves, "sylvan" variety; dwarves, "smith" variety; wizards, "staff" variety; unicorns, "pool" variety; giants, "citadel" variety; various others of small population

Technology/magic situation: Low tech, high magic (many kinds, some learnable by people in general, others specific to species or family lines)

Afterlife situation: Added to Downside, numbered 85

Safety rating and notes for visitors: Magic is fully public; the world is very nice, and contains pockets of temporary unpleasantness but nothing too dreadful.

Glass's commentary: By far the nicest world. No relation to any other on record, but vaguely similar in flavor to Thilanushinyel and Rêverie in some ways.

List of inhabiting templates: Bell, Glass, human; Sherlock, Steel, human with some fire-witch; Tony, Iron, human with some fire-witch

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 02:43 am (UTC)

"Perfect," says Libby. "Hmm, I should edit Aurum's entry to add the Jokerling. And Golden's warning about Addy." She does that.

self_composed
2013-05-18 02:47 am (UTC)

Stella's turn.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 02:49 am (UTC)

(Libby laughs at the nemesis part.)

self_composed
2013-05-18 02:50 am (UTC)

"I'm glad you're not my nemesis," comments Stella.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 02:50 am (UTC)

"Me too!"

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 02:51 am (UTC)

"This sounds like an amusing story."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 02:52 am (UTC)

"It is!" says Libby. "Do you want to tell it, Stella, or should I?"

self_composed
2013-05-18 02:52 am (UTC)

"You go ahead," laughs Stella.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 02:58 am (UTC)

"Short version: Stella came to my attention when there were very, very few mints around and I knew all the rest of them. I didn't really know what to make of her. She didn't appreciate the way I tried to find out. So we were having a very tense cup of coffee together when I stumbled on Milliways and started talking to Elspeth, who was delighted to tell me all about her mother the magical vampire empress. And then I went home and handed Stella the star secret."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 02:59 am (UTC)

Glass laughs. "So there's a long history of people learning about one Bell and deciding to trust another."

self_composed
2013-05-18 02:59 am (UTC)

"It wasn't that long ago for me, but yeah."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 03:01 am (UTC)

"You've got a pretty good template going on there."

self_composed
2013-05-18 03:02 am (UTC)

"We rock."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 03:04 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty pleased with us. Although I think Aegis may have upset my mother-in-law and definitely irritated my Sherlock."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 03:07 am (UTC)

"What'd she do?"

small_magics
2013-05-18 03:09 am (UTC)

Sarion writes a profile.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 03:09 am (UTC)

"Assumed that I was plotting usurpment."

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 03:13 am (UTC)

"Ouch."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 03:14 am (UTC)

"Yes. And I'm not. I expect it'll smooth over. Why did you make the worldbook planet turn like that?" she inquires.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 03:15 am (UTC)

"Because it amused me," says Libby. "It's a planet. Planets rotate."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 03:15 am (UTC)

"What planet is it meant to be?"

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 03:17 am (UTC)

"None in particular. It has about Earth's size and rotation speed but an unrelated geography."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 03:20 am (UTC)

"Earth's size?" asks Glass archly.

incanted
2013-05-18 03:21 am (UTC)

Aurora writes stuff.

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 03:22 am (UTC)

"Scaled appropriately, yes."

incanted
2013-05-18 04:51 am (UTC)

"What does it mean for something to be Earth's size, scaled appropriately? Isn't it just... smaller than Earth?"

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 12:47 pm (UTC)

"If it were a picture of Earth, wouldn't you say it was appropriate to say it was a picture of a planet with Earth's size and rotation speed?"

incanted
2013-05-18 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Uh, I wouldn't say it that way, any more than I would bother to mention that a photo of me is a photo of someone who is my size. And this planet isn't a real planet somewhere, right? Maybe you're cashing out rotation speed as a miles per hour thing instead of a revolutions per day thing...?"
Edited 2013-05-18 18:07 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-05-18 06:13 pm (UTC)

"It's an imaginary planet, but size is still an attribute planets have, even when they don't physically exist. I'm not an artist; I didn't imagine this picture and then decide it should display planetary rotation. I imagined a set of characteristics for a planet, and then I had the magic generate an appropriate image. If I'd imagined a planet the literal size of the picture on the cover of this book, it would be a lump of rock, or maybe a neutron star."

incanted
2013-05-18 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Aurora. "Well, that's my profile - nice revisions, Glass." And she wanders off.

resurrected relative

thaumobabble

Glass has completed her checklist. She's a mint, with starter coins - an extra-large batch since her Sherlock was unsure about high-output minting - mostly in a sorting wish like the one Aurora has, but with some tucked into her sleeves and her hat, and she knows all about them. She's an enchantress complete with aura, safety information, and (bonus) a copy of Rose's library in a new alternate-opening of her bedroom door. She has a Janegem around her neck and a portable, minimal, no-internet-to-eat Janepoint which she will put somewhere in the castle; Jane has explained herself and she's already tried the getting-someone-out-of-Downside procedure. Speaking of Downside, she can torch, she visited the admin long enough to be awarded the power to make others torchable, and she's already covered her wives and children. She has read the Bellbook, added her information, named herself and her world, and had her pealing party.

The party is now over; Marianne and Howard never returned to it. But they can be caught up on any details they'd like to know. At some point. When they reemerge.

Bella sets the Janepoint in the front entrance hall, on a pedestal in a corner.

pythbox
2013-05-18 06:32 pm (UTC)

It takes a little while after the end of the party, but eventually the royal couple does leave the royal suite. Howard's first stop is the Skyvault; Marianne's first stop is the location of her daughter-in-law.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Marianne," says Bella. She is in the new library with Carinna, alternating between reading and explaining to her eldest that if she's going to carry triangles around with her she will have to be responsible with them.

pythbox
2013-05-18 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Bella," says Marianne. "If you'd like to meet my husband, he's inspecting the Skyvault."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bella, and she closes her book, picks up Carinna, and goes out to the Skyvault.

pythbox
2013-05-18 06:42 pm (UTC)

Howard is wearing a shirt and trousers that look like they've been on the floor of someone's closet for approximately eleven years. Right now, his inspection of the skyvault seems to consist of tapping it lightly with his knuckles and listening to the sound.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Bella. "I'm your daughter-in-law, Bella."

pythbox
2013-05-18 06:45 pm (UTC)

He looks up, startled, and then smiles and steps away from the metal arch to offer her his hand.

"Howard," he says. "Slightly a king."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 06:46 pm (UTC)

She shakes hands with the one that isn't carrying his grandchild. "It's nice to meet you."

campanas
2013-05-18 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Bella said you're my grandpa," says Carinna, regarding Howard suspiciously.

pythbox
2013-05-18 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Howard. "That's me."

campanas
2013-05-18 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Carinna. She contemplates this information. "I already have one of those."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 06:53 pm (UTC)

"You have two grandmas," Bella tells her, "and now you have two grandpas, too."

pythbox
2013-05-18 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Howard, "and I've got three grandchildren. Never thought I'd see the day," he laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 06:56 pm (UTC)

"It was somewhat magically challenging."

pythbox
2013-05-18 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I'll bet! Can't even imagine what kind of spell you used."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I've got the notes around somewhere if you'd like a look! Kanim helped, too. It was mostly sorcery, and a touch of unicorn magic."

pythbox
2013-05-18 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Unicorn? Why unicorn?" says Howard, fascinated.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 07:09 pm (UTC)

Glass laughs, makes a square, and calls her notebooks about the subject over; she sets Carinna down. She flips through the pages. "See, here, there was this gap, where the sorcery was perfectly happy to assemble the material and perfectly happy to make sure it went where it was going and grew there, but it wouldn't bridge the gap between the two, it couldn't cover it, without the unicorn part we spliced in this would basically amount to guaranteeing more traditional conception and obviously in our case that didn't help."

pythbox
2013-05-18 07:10 pm (UTC)

Howard snorts. "No kidding. Nice workaround. Who came up with it?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Me, but Kanim was the one who first noticed there was a gap, he was trying to fix it with elf magic but the unicorn idea turned out to be more elegant."

pythbox
2013-05-18 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Very nice," says Howard. "Now, did somebody say something about a flying suit of armour...?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes, Tony made me one before I even married Sherlock, but she's still working on hers, she's trying to get it to fly without a cape attached and can't make it work."

pythbox
2013-05-18 07:19 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "That's my Tony. Never satisfied until she's done the impossible."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 07:21 pm (UTC)

"She's made other things in the interim, too, and sometimes the girls go into the forge and poke hot scrap metal - they do the same thing with me and my workshop and hot glass, there are abstract little ornaments all over the place that they presented to us or to Marianne."

pythbox
2013-05-18 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Tony used to do the same thing," says Howard, laughing and shaking his head. "But she didn't start giving away the results until they did something."

campanas
2013-05-18 09:24 pm (UTC)

"They do things!" says Carinna. "They are pretty."

pythbox
2013-05-18 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Howard with a grin, "exactly."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 09:47 pm (UTC)

"How lost are you on how exactly you came to be alive again?" inquires Bella. "I can fill you in on the details of what's happened."

pythbox
2013-05-18 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm... pretty confused," he admits. "But Marianne says you did it using magic from another world and there's no hidden catch. There isn't, right?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 09:56 pm (UTC)

"No. Except insofar as being unable to die twice is a catch," says Bella. "If something happens to you that would kill you, you reset on the spot - it's called torching. Also I'm told that Jane is technically nonmagical, and she doesn't show up to my magic sight, but she's probably easier to think of that way regardless."

pythbox
2013-05-18 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I think being unable to die twice is the opposite of a catch," says Howard.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I agree, I'm outfitted with the same thing now, so are the girls and Sherlock and Tony, but it is worth warning about; before my alts took over the afterlife we fetched you from it was a nasty place full of things not suitable for little-Carinna-ears and the torching mechanic was abused."

pythbox
2013-05-18 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," says Howard.

campanas
2013-05-18 10:35 pm (UTC)

"What's not suitable for little-Carinna-ears?"

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Tales of woe. You know you don't like sad stories," says Bella. She banishes her notes whence they came and picks up her child again. "They make you cry for such a long time."

pythbox
2013-05-18 10:38 pm (UTC)

(Nice dodge.)

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Have you talked to Sherlock and Tony yet? Or seen either of the other girls?" Bella asks her father-in-law.

pythbox
2013-05-18 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to go find them, or are you not done checking up on how the Skyvault's been doing these eleven years?"

pythbox
2013-05-18 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Not just yet," he says, patting the steel arch fondly.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 10:51 pm (UTC)

"All right," laughs Glass. She picks up Carinna. "Well, for reference, the other two are Tanalin and Kiawen, Tanalin has an inch on Kiawen for the time being and Kiawen wears more blue if you can't tell them apart to start with."

campanas
2013-05-18 10:51 pm (UTC)

"They are not exactly twins!" exclaims Carinna.

pythbox
2013-05-18 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Does that mean they're exactly not twins?" says Howard.

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"It means they were conceived at the same time to the same parents but didn't share their real estate and were born a day apart," laughs Bella.

campanas
2013-05-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"They're just like twins, except for not being twins," says Carinna.

pythbox
2013-05-18 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, that clears that right up."

thaumobabble
2013-05-18 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't it just?" laughs Bella, and she strolls back to the castle with Carinna in tow.

ma fille

beheld_beauty

Belle has just laid a grand enchantment over the city of Changsha in Cathay, and returned home to attend to her husband in the wake of this activity, and now she is telling the kitchen to fix her some lunch.

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:09 pm (UTC)

Dominique finds her there.

"Hello, Maman," she says, giving Belle a hug.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Dominique, how are you?" she says, hugging back.

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I want to learn enchanting," she says, and then she puts her hand over her mouth and giggles. She hadn't quite meant to just say it like that.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Do you. The long way around, or the shortcut that other Bells use just to get their auras?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm not sure," she says. "The shortcut is faster, but is there something better about doing it the other way?"

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Wishing for it on a pentagon will tell you what ought to work - and generally it will," says Rose. "Experience and study will tell you what to do when it does not work, and why it might not have worked. When Bells and Jokers were enchanting Saturn for Pattern, I was the one who was able to notice and repair small errors in the spells."

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Then I will do both," she says reasonably.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 07:30 pm (UTC)

Rose laughs. "I believe that is Glass's plan as well, or I don't know why she would have wanted a copy of my library. Very well." She produces a Heart-power-colored pentagon. "Here you are."

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:31 pm (UTC)

Dominique wishes, and hugs her Maman.

"And I want to do a wish like Luc, so I can channel with myself," she adds.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Of course. If you want to copy it exactly you may do it yourself; if you want any adjustments from Luc's version then perhaps I ought to, beginning as I do with more knowledge of the subject."

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:49 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "I'll copy it."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 07:50 pm (UTC)

Belle offers her a hexagon, also in Beast's color.

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:52 pm (UTC)

Dominique wishes again, and hugs her mother again. "Thank you, Maman."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 07:53 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Belle, hugging her tight. "You will do marvelous things."

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I will," she laughs.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Where are you going to start?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea!" says Dominique.
Edited 2013-05-18 19:56 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Well," laughs Belle, "when you have acquired an idea I will be most interested to hear it."

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:05 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

"I want to go tell Papa," she declares. "Is he resting?"

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:07 pm (UTC)

"He is resting, yes."

(Dominique's papa spends rather a lot of time resting.)

"But he may be up and about within the hour."

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:08 pm (UTC)

She giggles again.

"All right. I love you, Maman."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:09 pm (UTC)

"I love you too, my Dominique."

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:12 pm (UTC)

Dominique makes a face of mixed feelings.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:14 pm (UTC)

"What is it?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she says, although evidently she does.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Neither do I," remarks Belle.

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Well - I just - I don't think I like my name very much," she confesses.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Don't you? I'm sorry," says Belle.

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I like my middle name much better."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:28 pm (UTC)

"You can of course go by Yseult if you prefer."
Edited 2013-05-18 20:32 (UTC)

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:38 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she says.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:38 pm (UTC)

"There is no need. Both of your names were chosen because we liked them - and for that matter if you wanted to go by something else entirely, you would hardly be the first in the family to do so."

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:39 pm (UTC)

She giggles softly.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if Angela and Micaiah should expect Damaris to do something similar. I don't believe she has a middle name."

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:46 pm (UTC)

Dominique—Yseult shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "I wouldn't think so. I don't have... complicated reasons for disliking my name, that might come out the same way if I had a different one. And I like Yseult just fine. If you'd named me Yseult Dominique, you'd never have heard a word about it."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:47 pm (UTC)

"What if we'd named you Damaris?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:48 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "Then I would change it, because I have an alt with that name!"

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:50 pm (UTC)

Rose chuckles. "You wouldn't only pick a nickname as Bells do?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Bells are Bells," says Yseult. "I am me."

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes. That you are." Rose embraces her again. "Yseult. I can get used to that. I believe you may have more difficulty with Céleste about it."

mindfields
2013-05-18 09:21 pm (UTC)

"We'll see," laughs Yseult.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-18 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I suppose we shall. I believe your sister is outside, flying."

mindfields
2013-05-18 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I'll go find her."

campanas
2013-05-18 09:48 pm (UTC)

Céleste is outside! Flying!

mindfields
2013-05-18 09:50 pm (UTC)

So in order to find her, Yseult also flies.

campanas
2013-05-18 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Hiiii Dominique!" says Céleste. "Chase me chase me -" She takes off at high speed towards the setting sun.

mindfields
2013-05-18 09:59 pm (UTC)

...okay.

She chases.

campanas
2013-05-18 09:59 pm (UTC)

Céleste is fast! But she doesn't want to be chased forever; eventually she permits herself to be caught.

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:03 pm (UTC)

Yseult hugs her sister in midair.

campanas
2013-05-18 10:06 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:08 pm (UTC)

She's never going to manage to say this indirectly, is she.

"I came to say I don't like my name, and you should call me Yseult now."

campanas
2013-05-18 10:10 pm (UTC)

"But Dominique is a prettier name," objects Céleste.

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:11 pm (UTC)

"But I don't like it," sighs Yseult.

campanas
2013-05-18 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Why not? You never like things that are likeable," says Céleste. "Not your name and not griffins and not flying."

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:14 pm (UTC)

"I like you, and you are likeable," she says. "And I like our parents, and magic, and flying when I feel like it."

campanas
2013-05-18 10:21 pm (UTC)

"But why don't you like your name? It's pretty. Do-mi-nique."

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:23 pm (UTC)

"It sounds like it belongs to someone who's not me."

campanas
2013-05-18 10:24 pm (UTC)

"How is that a sound for a name to have?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should start calling you Dominique," she suggests, "if you're so fond of it."

campanas
2013-05-18 10:26 pm (UTC)

"But my name is Céleste! It always has been."

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:27 pm (UTC)

"And my name is Yseult."

campanas
2013-05-18 10:28 pm (UTC)

"That's your middle name!"

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes it is. And it's the one I want to use."

campanas
2013-05-18 10:34 pm (UTC)

"So if I yell DOMINIQUE," says Céleste (at the top of her lungs), "you won't even come see what's happening?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Maybe not."

campanas
2013-05-18 10:39 pm (UTC)

"What if it was really important? Or I just forgot?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should try very, very hard not to forget," she suggests.

campanas
2013-05-18 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to do a hard thing, why are you making me do a hard thing?" Céleste has mastered the art of flouncing in midair. She does this now.

mindfields
2013-05-18 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Because it's important to me, and you're my sister."

campanas
2013-05-18 11:11 pm (UTC)

"If I want you to do hard things will you?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she says. "If I can. If it's important."

campanas
2013-05-18 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Well, I guess I'll try, then," huffs Céleste. "Y-seeeeeult. That's going to be so much harder to yell across the castle though!"

mindfields
2013-05-18 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Then maybe our Papa's delicate fluffy ears will be a little happier from now on," laughs Yseult.

campanas
2013-05-18 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Pffffff," says Céleste. "If he really minded his fluffy ears being delicate there would be magic about it by now!"

mindfields
2013-05-18 11:18 pm (UTC)

"You never know, with Papa!"

campanas
2013-05-18 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes, he is silly sometimes," says Céleste solemnly.

mindfields
2013-05-18 11:20 pm (UTC)

"He is, it's true."

campanas
2013-05-18 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Maman is much less silly. Do you think I'm silly?"

mindfields
2013-05-18 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I think you're a little bit silly."

campanas
2013-05-18 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, I think you're a little bit silly," asserts Céleste.

mindfields
2013-05-18 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I think so too!"
Edited 2013-05-18 23:33 (UTC)

campanas
2013-05-18 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Chase me again," demands Céleste, and she streaks off into the distance.

mindfields
2013-05-18 11:35 pm (UTC)

So Yseult chases her.

we are not truly immortal

dark_light

After Glass's party is over with, Amariah and Kas go home.

Amariah fetches down their alethiometers.

"It's about time I took care of Alethia's afterlife, whatever it may be," she says quietly. "What can the alethiometer tell you about what I'll find?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Good question," says Kas. "You wanna be a little more specific?"

dark_light
2013-05-18 06:35 pm (UTC)

Amariah laughs. "Is it dangerous for me - or for other Bells who might help - even with all the powers we have stacked up? What is the place like, what condition are dead Alethians in?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 06:44 pm (UTC)

Kas fiddles with dials.

"Can't say boo about the other Bells unless they're here when I ask," he says first.

dark_light
2013-05-18 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Mm, okay. I'll get someone to pop in for a visit."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 06:45 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell appears, wished against the appearance of a daemon, a minute later.

truthwright
2013-05-18 06:49 pm (UTC)

Kas is just reading off, "The afterlife is a - daemon wasteland. Daemons can't go there. Dead people - aww, it's cute how you phrased that - dead people have no daemons." He asks a followup question. "But if you take the dead person out of the afterlife, you can put their daemon back. Hi, Shell Bell!"

dark_light
2013-05-18 06:50 pm (UTC)

"How hard will it be to put a daemon back?" asks Amariah.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Shell Bell. "I wonder what I'd even have, if I had a daemon. I wonder if wishing could show me, like it can with coin colors..." She tries it, and an illusory bird appears on her lap. "Huh," she says, and dismisses the illusion. "I don't even know what that is."
Edited 2013-05-18 18:52 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-05-18 06:55 pm (UTC)

"It's cute, though," says Kas. And to Amariah, "Not that hard." He doesn't consult the alethiometer anew about that. "It didn't directly say, but just by the way it was talking about it, I'm guessing you could wish it and it'd only be a star or so."

dark_light
2013-05-18 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Now Shell Bell's here can you ask if it's dangerous for her to go there? And we can extrapolate to the other Bells from that."

truthwright
2013-05-18 06:58 pm (UTC)

"...okay, sure," says Kas.

He asks.

"You'll get a daemon," he says. "You have to have one, that hangs back on the other side, or you can't go in at all. But the place can't physically hurt you, emphasis on physically. Doesn't say if it can non-physically hurt you past what it'll feel like to separate when you go in, but I'm guessing yes."

dark_light
2013-05-18 07:00 pm (UTC)

"...Well, that will seriously hamper my ability to get volunteers," mutters Amariah. "Can you get any more details about how it can non-physically hurt people...?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:03 pm (UTC)

Kas asks. He gets one symbol.

"Not... exactly," he says. "It says what kind of hurt, but I couldn't begin to tell you what it means. It's one of those symbols that's hard to translate without context, and it's not giving me context."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I might take a daemon, if you need the help," muses Shell Bell. "I can always put him away, can't I?"

dark_light
2013-05-18 07:05 pm (UTC)

"You can," agrees Amariah. "I'm not sure why you'd want to do it all the time, but that's just me being used to them; you could."

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Anything else you wanna know?" says Kas.

dark_light
2013-05-18 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Are the dead people conscious? Are they suffering, without their daemons?" asks Amariah softly.

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:11 pm (UTC)

He asks.

"They're... sad," he says. "Sad and cold."

dark_light
2013-05-18 07:12 pm (UTC)

Amariah shivers.

"But we can fix it," she says, "we'll be physically unharmed - can you convince it to give you context, about the non-physical harm...?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:18 pm (UTC)

He tries it. Several different ways.

"It just says - there's something there that might hurt you," he translates. "It's very specific about the kind of hurt, but it's not something there's directly a word for. Grief? Anguish? Hurt in your mind and your feelings, not your body or your soul."

dark_light
2013-05-18 07:22 pm (UTC)

"It it recoverable?" tries Amariah.

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Uh..."

He asks.

"...now it's getting all philosophical on me," he says. "I'd say - mostly. Or maybe."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 07:27 pm (UTC)

"I'd feel better about walking into danger if I knew more about it," Shell Bell murmurs. "I wonder if Cam can talk to these things."

dark_light
2013-05-18 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Good question. Jane, can you invite Cam over specifically, please?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 07:28 pm (UTC)

Cam shows up presently - by Jane, not by door - also anti-daemon-wished.

"Hey, alethiometer," he says.

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:30 pm (UTC)

The alethiometer's hand spins. "I tell the truth," it says to Cam.

Kas watches it in fascination.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 07:31 pm (UTC)

"You sure do. Tell me about this world's afterlife."

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:40 pm (UTC)

"The afterlife is where all the dead are," says the alethiometer. Kas snorts.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 07:49 pm (UTC)

Cam sighs. "Is there anything else there?" he asks.

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:51 pm (UTC)

"What inhabits the afterlife other than the dead causes suffering," says the alethiometer.

"That's the same way of saying 'hurt' it's been using all this time," Kas contributes.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 07:52 pm (UTC)

"What are the things that cause suffering?" asks Cam.

truthwright
2013-05-18 07:54 pm (UTC)

"What inhabits the afterlife and causes suffering is not dead," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 07:54 pm (UTC)

"How does it cause suffering?" Cam tries.

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:00 pm (UTC)

"It has knowledge and hungers for truth," says the alethiometer.

"What exactly are you getting from all this?" wonders Kas.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Not much," Cam tells Kas. And to the alethiometer: "What knowledge does it have?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:07 pm (UTC)

"This is weird," Kas declares.

The alethiometer repeats, "Knowledge." Kas frowns.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Why, what's it doing that you're picking up?" Cam asks Kas.

To the alethiometer: "What truth does it seek?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:12 pm (UTC)

"It's talking the same way it always does," he says. "But then you're talking back in English. There's way less - depth to what you're saying."

Meanwhile, the alethiometer is repeating itself again: "It hungers for truth."

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Do we have truths that will satisfy it?" Cam asks.

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:16 pm (UTC)

"You can sate its truth-hunger," says the alethiometer.

"I didn't know this thing had a word for your kind of wizard," Kas comments.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:17 pm (UTC)

"I didn't hear it talk about wizards - did it?" And to the alethiometer: "Me, or the others like me too?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:21 pm (UTC)

The alethiometer says, "Who can speak the truth can satisfy truth-hunger."

"If I'd asked it that question, I might've said it answered, 'Cam can do that'," says Kas. "But it doesn't talk about people by name; it talks about them by who they are. And it talked about you by you being a wizard. Why, is that important?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I mean, something is hungering for truth, maybe only wizards can talk to it, maybe we should bring Tilly and Jellybean, but on the other hand maybe it's calling me a wizard to tell me apart from Amariah and Shell Bell and the key thing is my truthy aura and we should bring Elspeth," says Cam. "For that matter, I'm getting sufficient heebie-jeebies around this that maybe we should borrow Mary from Stella, or Alice from Golden."

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:25 pm (UTC)

"...Can I talk to it for a sec?" says Kas.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:29 pm (UTC)

Cam hands Kas his, and takes the other, which he asks: "Are wizards particularly helpful for the thing in the afterlife that hungers for truth?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:39 pm (UTC)

"You can speak the truth," says the second alethiometer.

"It called you a wizard again," says Kas, who is watching Cam instead of questioning his own.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm just hearing 'you'... I'm going to ask Jellybean and Elspeth in here so it can compare them..."

Through Jane: [Hey Jellybean, want to wish upon a star and come be in Alethia so the alethiometer can 'see' more than one wizard?]

And a similar invitation to Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 08:41 pm (UTC)

Elspeth shows up a moment later.

pythbox
2013-05-18 08:43 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] says Jellybean, and he makes the wish. Immediately upon arrival, he kisses Cam.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:44 pm (UTC)

Mmmm, kisses.

"Are wizards, like the self-defining over here, a source of truth like what the thing in the afterlife wants?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Wizards can speak the truth," says the alethiometer.

"That's the exact same thing it just said," says Kas.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:50 pm (UTC)

"How would the princess in this room," says Cam, lacking a full wizard name for her and unsure how the alethiometer will comprehend names, "interact with the thing in the afterlife that hungers for truth?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:51 pm (UTC)

"She speaks the truth," says the alethiometer. Kas cracks up.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Was something funny about how it said that?" Cam asks Kas.

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:55 pm (UTC)

"It was just the same two meanings backwards and forwards," he says. "Truth/speak/speak/truth. But the first part meant Elspeth, and the second part meant her power."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 08:56 pm (UTC)

"The alethiometer refers to me as 'truth speak'?" says Elspeth, amused.

truthwright
2013-05-18 08:59 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't really do grammar," says Kas. "If I was trying to translate it properly instead of explain the joke, I'd say it called you Truth-Speaker, or 'the one who tells the truth', or something."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 08:59 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I can communicate with the alethiometers. Are they intelligent?" asks Elspeth.

truthwright
2013-05-18 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Um... good question," says Kas.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 09:01 pm (UTC)

Elspeth peers at the one in Cam's hand and sends, wordless: Can you hear me? Tell Cam.

truthwright
2013-05-18 09:03 pm (UTC)

The alethiometer tells Cam, "The truth-speaker is speaking to me."

Kas giggles again.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it hears you," Cam reports to Elspeth. "Maybe you'll have better luck than me."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 09:05 pm (UTC)

"What do we know so far?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 09:06 pm (UTC)

"The Alethian afterlife isn't physically dangerous, but there's some sort of other hazard there that has knowledge and hungers for truth," says Cam. "Although come to think of it I'm not sure appeasing this hunger is the best bet, maybe it'd just eat us."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 09:08 pm (UTC)

Elspeth nods and sends again. Still wordless; Cam may have to take the reply in words but that doesn't mean it can't be helpfully unconstraining to send the question freeform. Tell Cam, please - what will happen exactly if he and I and Jellybean and Amariah and Shell Bell go to the afterlife here?

truthwright
2013-05-18 09:13 pm (UTC)

The alethiometer tells Cam, "If you and the truth-speaker and the self-defining and the witch and the one whose daemon is unseparate go to the afterlife, you and the truth-speaker and the self-defining may please that which hungers for truth."

Kas says, "Wow, that was long. Do you guys want me to translate too?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, in case you got different details than me."

truthwright
2013-05-18 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay. It said that if Cam and Elspeth and Jellybean and Amariah and Shell Bell all go to the afterlife, Cam and Elspeth and Jellybean are the ones who might make the truth-wanting things happy. It doesn't mean that the rest of you can't make them happy, just that Cam and Elspeth and Jellybean have the best shot at it. And it called Cam 'Truth Wizard' and Jellybean 'Self-Defining' and Elspeth 'Truth-Speaker' and Amariah 'Witch' and Shell Bell 'Daemon Inside'."

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 09:22 pm (UTC)

"I guess as far as it's concerned Shell Bell doesn't have any other defining characteristics, huh. Elspeth, ask what happens when the truth-wanting things are happy."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 09:22 pm (UTC)

Elspeth asks.

truthwright
2013-05-18 09:25 pm (UTC)

"When those who hunger for truth are happy, they do not cause suffering," says the alethiometer.

"That one was pretty straightforward," says Kas. "Except for that thing about 'hurt' again, but I think it's given us as much as it's going to on that."
Edited 2013-05-18 21:26 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So wizards and Elspeth and possibly me-especially can calm down the truth-hungry... things... and then they will stop bothering people."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 09:28 pm (UTC)

"But anyone who goes will acquire a daemon. A square will show what you'd get," Shell Bell adds, "mine would be some kind of duck thing."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 09:50 pm (UTC)

Elspeth would apparently get a brightly colored parakeet.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 09:52 pm (UTC)

Cam's daemon would be a kickass hawk.

dark_light
2013-05-18 09:54 pm (UTC)

"And if I understand it right, the reason you have to get them to do this is because your souls can't enter the afterlife - which means separation. I've done it, all witches do, but it's not fun."

truthwright
2013-05-18 09:55 pm (UTC)

"It is not fun," Petaal confirms, curling around Kas's neck as a small black snake.

dark_light
2013-05-18 09:57 pm (UTC)

"But it doesn't cause long-term trauma if it's done purposefully, and - can one of you ask the alethiometer if the associated pain can be wished gone?"
Edited 2013-05-18 21:58 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 09:58 pm (UTC)

If I wish on a coin, can I separate from my daemon painlessly? Elspeth asks the alethiometer.

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:02 pm (UTC)

The alethiometer says to Cam, "To separate from one's daemon is a thing of anguish."

"That means no," says Kas.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if Sarion could ignore it," says Cam. "How bad is it, Amariah?"

dark_light
2013-05-18 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Bad. But I did it on the first try, on foot," Amariah says, "when the only consequence for failing was not being considered an adult witch till I managed. It's not as bad as having someone touch your daemon... I'm trying to think of comparisons you're familiar with but I've got nothing."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I judgesighted Kas along with all the other Jokers. I could pass a taste of it on, if we assume it's similar for everyone," says Elspeth.

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't see any good ways to tell," says Kas.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I can show Amariah and she can compare," suggests Elspeth, "if nobody involved minds."

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Fine by us," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-05-18 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Go for it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 10:21 pm (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-18 10:22 pm (UTC)

"...Similar intensity. Different flavor," murmurs Amariah.

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:24 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

dark_light
2013-05-18 10:25 pm (UTC)

"We both felt about the same amount of bad - well, I assume you were in worse shape at the time, but Elspeth filtered out the parts that weren't about separation in particular - but not the same kind of bad."

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

dark_light
2013-05-18 10:27 pm (UTC)

"It's probably a fine gauge for total unpleasantness, though, if you want to share it around, Elspeth."

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Hit me."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm probably not as important to the expedition but I'll have a look too."

pythbox
2013-05-18 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Jellybean.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 10:29 pm (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 10:29 pm (UTC)

"How long does it last?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's what I wanna know too."

dark_light
2013-05-18 10:30 pm (UTC)

"It varies how far away you have to get. Usually about a hundred yards."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Do people ever do this with somebody else holding their daemon for them? Someone who'd be generally allowed. I wonder if it would help."

dark_light
2013-05-18 10:32 pm (UTC)

"People usually never do this at all, except witches, who are in our early teens at the time," says Amariah. "I've never heard of it. It might help. It might even help a lot. I don't know."

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I know who to ask," says Kas, and he turns the dials on his alethiometer.

"It might help," he concludes. "It says it - won't make the bad part better, but it'll be a good part where there usually isn't one."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 10:38 pm (UTC)

"I'll go, then, if Sherlock will stand somewhere not in the afterlife and hold my duck thing for me," says Shell Bell. "If you want an extra Bell along."

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:39 pm (UTC)

"...Hey alethiometer, how would my hawk daemon interact with my notebook?" Cam asks.

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:40 pm (UTC)

The alethiometer says, "There is no precedent."

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:41 pm (UTC)

"I thought this thing was supposed to generate objective truth," complains Cam. "What does it need precedent for?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I can give you no answer where no answer exists," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:43 pm (UTC)

"But if Grace were an ordinary notebook," argues Cam, "it wouldn't interact with a daemon at all, and you'd know that. She's not ordinary notebook. Can I conclude that she would interact with a daemon?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:46 pm (UTC)

"You can conclude that she might interact with a daemon," says the alethiometer.

"...Is this the part where I point out that it's calling your notebook 'Paper Daemon'?" says Kas.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:48 pm (UTC)

"...Yes. This is the part where you point that out," says Cam. "Paper daemon. Huh."

"I could fly!" exclaims Grace.

"If it works that way! It might not work that way. Also then how would I write in you? Or read you?"

"You could wish for me to be able to turn back into a notebook," she says reasonably.

"...Alethiometer, if Grace turns into a hawk, can I safely wish for her to turn back into a notebook?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:50 pm (UTC)

"There is no precedent," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:52 pm (UTC)

"If Amariah wished for Path to be able to turn into a notebook could she do it?" Cam tries.

truthwright
2013-05-18 10:56 pm (UTC)

"He could become able to be a notebook," it says.

"I wonder if I could be a notebook," muses Petaal. "Not that there's any reason for me to be."
Edited 2013-05-18 22:56 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I'd consider it proof of concept," Cam remarks mildly. "Right now Grace can be as far away from me as we want - if I set her down somewhere, move a hundred yards and change away, and then she turns into a hawk-daemon, do I get to have the separation over with instantly?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 11:12 pm (UTC)

"If it happens that way, it will happen that way," says the alethiometer.

"Yes," says Kas. "But it's noncommittal about whether or not Grace is going to turn into a hawk-daemon."

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I can make a conditional reversal of my anti-daemon wish. Alethiometer, can I do that?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 11:14 pm (UTC)

"The wish magic works in that way," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Awesome. So I'll go if Grace gets to be my daemon, and otherwise I think I'm gonna have to pass."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-18 11:16 pm (UTC)

"...I'll hang back in reserve," says Elspeth. "I'll go in if I'm needed."

truthwright
2013-05-18 11:16 pm (UTC)

Kas shrugs. "Anything else we want to know?"

dark_light
2013-05-18 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Will all our magic work in the afterlife?"

truthwright
2013-05-18 11:20 pm (UTC)

Kas asks.

"The afterlife doesn't work the same way as other places," he reads. "Meaning: not all of it, but not none of it, or it would've just said so."

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Which magic will stop working?" Cam asks.

truthwright
2013-05-18 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Magic that depends on how things are outside of the afterlife will not work in the afterlife," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 11:29 pm (UTC)

Cam theatrically smacks himself in the forehead.

"Will we be able to use coins there?" he tries.

truthwright
2013-05-18 11:32 pm (UTC)

Kas giggles.

"Wishcoins will not receive wishes in the afterlife," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 11:33 pm (UTC)

"...What did you get from that?" Cam asks Kas. "I'm not sure I know what it meant."

truthwright
2013-05-18 11:34 pm (UTC)

"It means no," says Kas.

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 11:35 pm (UTC)

"The way it put it was weird. 'Receive' wishes."

truthwright
2013-05-18 11:41 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't translate it that way, exactly," says Kas. "It was more like - the part of using a coin where you wish on the coin, that's kind of like you're telling it what you want, right? In the afterlife, the coins won't be able to hear you do that."

lifes_sake
2013-05-18 11:42 pm (UTC)

"...Huh."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-18 11:42 pm (UTC)

"When are we going? And do you want me along?" Shell Bell asks.

dark_light
2013-05-18 11:44 pm (UTC)

"As soon as we know who's going, I think. Elspeth in reserve, I can go, Cam will if Grace works out, you will - who else, though, not everyone's going to want a daemon. Jane, please ask all the Bells to see what sort of daemon they'd get and consider coming along? With all the relevant information."

mind_game
2013-05-18 11:44 pm (UTC)

Jane passes this along.

luminous_regnant
2013-05-18 11:46 pm (UTC)

Golden would not prefer to accompany the expedition, although if no one else is willing she will do as Shell Bell plans and leave Edward with her daemon for the trip. She reports, in case anyone is curious, that she would have a small golden dragon.

bellfounding
2013-05-18 11:48 pm (UTC)

Pattern would have a firefly and doesn't want to instantiate him, thank you.

self_composed
2013-05-18 11:52 pm (UTC)

[Hey Alice,] says Stella, [Amariah's gearing up to go after her afterlife. The alethiometer says anyone who goes there will get a daemon wish or no wish, and will have to separate from it too. I don't think I want to go, but apparently a square will show me what I'd get if I did, want to see me wish it?]

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-18 11:53 pm (UTC)

[Sure!]

He teleports to wherever she is.

self_composed
2013-05-18 11:54 pm (UTC)

Stella wishes on a square.

Her result is a lap-sized dragon, red like her coins and broad-winged and with a peculiar effect like lava-flows between some of his larger scales.

"Nifty," murmurs Stella. "Tempting. But separation sounds nasty."

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-18 11:56 pm (UTC)

"You could always just go to Alethia and get a daemon anyway," Alice suggests. "I might want to go along. How nasty is nasty?"

self_composed
2013-05-18 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I want a daemon just to have a daemon, but I can always go later. Elspeth can show you what it was like for Kas to separate; Amariah compared with hers and said it was the right amount of nasty but a different kind of nasty," says Stella. "The alethiometer says it will be just as nasty but with a mitigating good part if someone who you'd let hold your daemon does that while you're separating. I'll go with you if you want. With this little cutie safely warded off, though." She dismisses the dragon illusion.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-19 12:00 am (UTC)

"If you'll snuggle my daemon I'll definitely go," he says.

self_composed
2013-05-19 12:00 am (UTC)

"All right then. Jane, please notify the Alethia contingent," laughs Stella.

autokinetic
2013-05-19 12:05 am (UTC)

The various laughable handlers of War and Peace with whom Aegis largely plays along, in addition to putting them on shuttles to get from place to place, schedule them time to sleep, for some reason. It is one of those times when Jane's message arrives, and Sue's in the room at the time.

"Huh," says Aegis, and she wishes up herself an illusion-daemon. She gets a large orangey-colored flying squirrel. "I think I'll pass. For myself, anyway."

pythbox
2013-05-19 12:07 am (UTC)

"I'll go if there's a reason to," says Sue. "I've already got Ivy. I guess it'd be handy if I could link everybody, huh?"

autokinetic
2013-05-19 12:08 am (UTC)

"Probably, yeah, you probably wouldn't even have to go into the afterlife and separate from her to link people."

pythbox
2013-05-19 12:08 am (UTC)

"Okay. So I'll go and hang back with everybody's daemons," says Sue.

"And I'll snuggle them if they get lonely," says Ivy, instantiating for this purpose.

autokinetic
2013-05-19 12:09 am (UTC)

"'Course you will," says Aegis, scritching Ivy on the head. "Thanks, Jane."

thaumobabble
2013-05-19 12:12 am (UTC)

Glass is in the middle of reading the girls a bedtime story (they can all read, at this point, but still like being read to) when she gets the notification. She now has enough processing power to continue reading without skipping a beat, and to also inform her wives of what's going on. [Some of the Bells are hanging back as a reserve force of sorts, if they don't particularly want daemons but wouldn't much mind them and have someone to look after them during the separation required to get into the Alethian afterlife,] she says. [If one or both of you would be willing to do that I think I'll be in that contingent.]

allthebrightest
2013-05-19 12:13 am (UTC)

[Of course!] says Tony.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-19 12:13 am (UTC)

[Of course,] says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-05-19 12:16 am (UTC)

[Also apparently a square suffices to see what one's daemon would be. I'm rather curious.]

"The end," she tells the girls, and she kisses them each goodnight, puts them in their respective rooms and tucks them in, and goes to where Sherlock and Tony are and wishes up an illusory daemon.

"Aww," she says of the tiny flying squirrel.

calendarofcrime
2013-05-19 12:17 am (UTC)

"That is adorable," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-05-19 12:17 am (UTC)

"Isn't it just?" Glass reports her daemon result to the rest of the peal and then dismisses the illusion.

incanted
2013-05-19 12:19 am (UTC)

Aurora bounces everything Jane tells her to Brilliance and Lexi both. [I'm not going,] she adds to all three, [but I'm gonna see what I'd get if I did.]

lexicality
2013-05-19 12:19 am (UTC)

[I wanna see what I'd get, too,] says Lexi.

cardistry
2013-05-19 12:20 am (UTC)

[I bet I know what I'd get,] laughs Brilliance, [and I'm not going anyway.]
Edited 2013-05-19 00:20 (UTC)

incanted
2013-05-19 12:21 am (UTC)

[Yeah, you'd probably get the standard unsettled thingamabob. If devices can even have daemons,] says Aurora. [Do you want to come see what me and Lexi will get though?]

cardistry
2013-05-19 12:21 am (UTC)

[Yeah!]

He goes to where they are.

incanted
2013-05-19 12:23 am (UTC)

Square! Square!

Aurora gets an awesome kite.

lexicality
2013-05-19 12:24 am (UTC)

Lexi gets a nifty sorta pigeon.

"I might just want this anyway, it's cool," says Lexi.
Edited 2013-05-19 00:24 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-05-19 12:24 am (UTC)

"Ooh, pretty," says Brilliance, hugging Aurora.

incanted
2013-05-19 12:25 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't want to have a daemon but it's nice to know what it would be if I did," grins Aurora. "Lexi, you should think really hard and talk to some people with daemons before you get one, but you can if you want."

lexicality
2013-05-19 12:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I know, I won't just scamper off to Alethia," says Lexi.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-19 12:30 am (UTC)

Rose notifies her husband. And Yseult too, why not, this even though she does not plan to go on the trip. [But it would seem that if I did, my soul would take the form of an orchid bee,] she adds.

deslandes
2013-05-19 12:31 am (UTC)

[Pretty!] says her husband.

mindfields
2013-05-19 12:31 am (UTC)

[I wonder what my soul would be,] says her daughter.

beheld_beauty
2013-05-19 12:32 am (UTC)

[You can find out with a square, if you would like.]

mindfields
2013-05-19 12:40 am (UTC)

[...My soul would be an enormous bird,] Yseult reports. [An enormous flightless bird with little fluffy wings. I do not want one.]

beheld_beauty
2013-05-19 12:42 am (UTC)

Rose laughs. [Then do not go to Alethia without a star protecting you from its existence.]

mindfields
2013-05-19 12:42 am (UTC)

She giggles.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-19 12:43 am (UTC)

Juliet tells her Sherlock what's up. [I'm gonna stay home,] she adds. [But apparently I'd get a tiger, if I didn't.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-19 12:46 am (UTC)

[Of course you would,] he says, amused.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-19 12:47 am (UTC)

[Well, everyone else who's reported in so far gets something that flies, or at least a flying squirrel that can fake it. I guess a tiger is pretty neat though.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-19 12:48 am (UTC)

[It suits you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-19 12:51 am (UTC)

[Stripy, carnivorous, and endangered, that's me.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-19 12:52 am (UTC)

[Of course. The stripes are particularly fetching.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-19 12:52 am (UTC)

[I love you.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-19 12:53 am (UTC)

[I love you too.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-19 12:54 am (UTC)

[If the first wave needs the reserve wave to bail them out and the reserve wave starts desperately looking for further assistance I may require you to follow me to Alethia and hold my tiger.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-19 12:55 am (UTC)

[Happily.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-19 12:56 am (UTC)

[No, probably not, the idea behind the holding thing is that it will make the overall experience of having to separate less unpleasant, so he'd be yowling miserably at you, but thanks.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-19 12:59 am (UTC)

[I stand by my adverb; I would be happier doing that than staying home and letting you suffer.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-19 01:00 am (UTC)

[With any luck it'll just be Amariah, who's already separated, and Cam, who expects to be able to it instantaneously, and maybe Shell Bell who wants to go for some reason maybe because she couldn't bring herself to come along beyond door-holding last time we attacked an afterlife. Second wave probably won't be necessary, let alone third.]

eversomuchfun
2013-05-19 01:01 am (UTC)

[With any luck, yes.]

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:04 am (UTC)

Sarion opens up the subset of her mind that is listening to Jane, when Jane speaks to her.

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:04 am (UTC)

Her beloveds tell her that they would go, just to find out what happens.

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:05 am (UTC)

Sarion tries a square, and gets an illusory raccoon. She is not sure if experimentation is the best way to address this matter.

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:06 am (UTC)

How else will we find out? says Ansharil, quite reasonably.

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:07 am (UTC)

Did a square not work for them? They should at least try a square first.

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:08 am (UTC)

What do we do with the square, beloved?
Edited 2013-05-19 01:08 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:09 am (UTC)

She shows them the wish that got her the raccoon illusion. They could try it once each, and for them-as-a-complete-entity.

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:10 am (UTC)

It does not go; it does not go; it does not go again.

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:11 am (UTC)

How strange.

If they would really prefer to make the experiment - well, she is curious too, just nervous.

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:14 am (UTC)

They want to find out.

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:15 am (UTC)

Will they also be attempting to help with the afterlife, or do they simply mean to appear in Alethia unprotected and see what happens?

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:17 am (UTC)

They will help with the afterlife if the afterlife wants their help.

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:18 am (UTC)

Do they want her along (with her raccoon wished nonexistent) for the same reason that Stella will be there for Alice?

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:19 am (UTC)

That would please them very much.

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:20 am (UTC)

Then she will do that.

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:21 am (UTC)

Her beloveds love her.

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:21 am (UTC)

She loves them back!

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:22 am (UTC)

Love love love.

small_magics
2013-05-19 01:22 am (UTC)

And traveling.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-19 01:24 am (UTC)

Angela relays everything Jane tells her to Micaiah. She is a tentative volunteer for a second, bailout wave. She would have a tern if she had anything.

yovahs_kisses
2013-05-19 01:26 am (UTC)

Micaiah does not think he wants a daemon of his own, but he will hold his angel's if she needs him to.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-19 01:27 am (UTC)

All right then. Angela relays this information to Jane.

bellfounding
2013-05-19 01:32 am (UTC)

After Jane tells her that some Jokers are going on the expedition for reasons of their own, Pattern notifies Queenie and Ghosty.

yourheartstrings
2013-05-19 01:33 am (UTC)

[Could be fun,] says Ghosty. [Count me in.]

bellfounding
2013-05-19 01:33 am (UTC)

[Jane'll take you if you show up at the point.]

yourheartstrings
2013-05-19 01:34 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-19 01:35 am (UTC)

[Do we have any idea how long this is gonna take?] says Queenie. ['Cause if I'm losing my snugglebuddy for a week, I want another one.]

bellfounding
2013-05-19 01:36 am (UTC)

[No clue. It's an unfamiliar afterlife, the alethiometer was cagey as hell. I have a decent coin stash, if you need to go visiting someplace.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-05-19 01:37 am (UTC)

[Mmkay. Cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.]

yourheartstrings
2013-05-19 01:40 am (UTC)

Ghosty manifests at the Janepoint.

mind_game
2013-05-19 01:41 am (UTC)

Jane contentedly serves as interdimensional transit.

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 01:51 am (UTC)

The final tally is:

Amariah, definitely going. Kas, also definitely going.

Cam, going if his experiment with Grace works out.

Shell Bell, going. Pearl, hanging around to hold her duck-thing. (It turns out that this sort of duck is called a smew.)

Alice, going, recreationally; Stella, not going but hanging around for his daemon.

Ghosty, going recreationally.

Sue, going to link everyone but not intending to separate from Ivy.

Aianon and Ansharil, showing up just to see what will happen, and Isibel along with an anti-raccoon wish in place for moral support.

Elspeth, Glass, Golden, and Angela as backup; Juliet as emergency backup. Elspeth is hanging out in Alethia as the most likely necessary backup and because she was already there. Jellybean has gone home.
Edited 2013-05-19 01:52 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-19 01:54 am (UTC)

When Alice appears in Alethia, no daemon appears with him.

yourheartstrings
2013-05-19 01:55 am (UTC)

The same with Ghosty.

endragoned
2013-05-19 01:55 am (UTC)

The same with Aianon and Ansharil.

dark_light
2013-05-19 01:56 am (UTC)

"...That's weird. Sue got one this way," Amariah says.

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 01:57 am (UTC)

Cam returns from depositing Grace in a safe place some hundred yards away from the clearing around Amariah's house. He assesses the situation and asks the alethiometer, "Why don't the three Jokers who just arrived have daemons?"

truthwright
2013-05-19 02:00 am (UTC)

"It is not in their nature," says the alethiometer.

"Let me," says Kas. He asks about the three of them separately.

"Okay, so Alice's power is apparently stopping him from getting a daemon. Aianon and Ansharil aren't the right species, and Ghosty's just... not. I think it's kind of confused about Ghosty," he says. "I mean, the world is confused about Ghosty, so the alethiometer is too. And the world being confused about Ghosty is why she's not getting a daemon."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 02:01 am (UTC)

"Okay then," says Cam. "I wonder if they can comfortably enter the afterlife." He asks the alethiometer.

truthwright
2013-05-19 02:04 am (UTC)

Of Alice, the alethiometer says, "He cannot enter."

Of Ghosty, the alethiometer says, "There is no precedent."

Of Aianon and Ansharil, the alethiometer says, "If one goes, the other must stay."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 02:04 am (UTC)

"...Is the one who stays going to be a daemon?"

truthwright
2013-05-19 02:05 am (UTC)

"Daemons cannot enter the afterlife."

"Yes," Kas translates.

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 02:07 am (UTC)

"Okay, you guys get the exciting opportunity to have one of you be a daemon, I guess, and Sarion can hang out with that one and hug him," says Cam. "My turn."

He makes a conditional wish.

There is a half-instant of discomfort, so quick as to be almost more vividly imagined than felt, and then from where he left Grace comes a hawk. She lands on his shoulder and starts fussing with his hair.

truthwright
2013-05-19 02:08 am (UTC)

"Cute," says Kas.

endragoned
2013-05-19 02:08 am (UTC)

Aianon and Ansharil confer.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-19 02:08 am (UTC)

"...So I guess there's no point in me being here," Alice observes.

self_composed
2013-05-19 02:10 am (UTC)

"Yeah, likewise," shrugs Stella. "Unless you want to hang around and help Isibel hug whichever one of those two is a daemon. I'm going home, though." She kisses Alice and cues Jane and vanishes.

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 02:10 am (UTC)

"You guys could pull off the same trick I did with Grace," Cam points out to Aianon and Ansharil.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-19 02:11 am (UTC)

"You know what," says Alice, "I wanna go to Origin and cuddle Queenie. Jane?"

endragoned
2013-05-19 02:12 am (UTC)

"We could," Ansharil agrees. "We do not know what we want to do."

mind_game
2013-05-19 02:12 am (UTC)

Jane puts Alice in Origin.

edgeofyourseat
2013-05-19 02:13 am (UTC)

Where he finds, and snuggles, Queenie.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 02:14 am (UTC)

"I guess I'm next," says Shell Bell, leaning on Pearl.

She reverses her anti-daemon wish. Her smew appears in her arms.

"You're going to have to name me, at some point," he points out to Shell Bell.

sicaria
2013-05-19 02:15 am (UTC)

Pearl hugs them.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 02:16 am (UTC)

Shell Bell melts as soon as Pearl comes into direct contact with the unnamed smew. "Oh I love you," she breathes.

sicaria
2013-05-19 02:17 am (UTC)

"I love you too," she murmurs, stroking the smew's feathers.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 02:19 am (UTC)

Standing up is hard. Shell Bell lifts one inch into the air and hovers effortlessly, sighing.

sicaria
2013-05-19 02:24 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

...they should probably be accomplishing something right now, shouldn't they.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 02:24 am (UTC)

Not really! They're waiting for Aianon and Ansharil to decide things. Shell Bell can totally bask until then.

sicaria
2013-05-19 02:25 am (UTC)

Perfect.

endragoned
2013-05-19 02:27 am (UTC)

Aianon and Ansharil... are still thinking.

They decide that if one of them is going to have daemonlike characteristics, it should be Ansharil.

"I will go to the afterlife," says Aianon.

dark_light
2013-05-19 02:34 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Amariah. "And now the question is how we get there."

She tries a boosted teleportation power, like the one Aurora has to let her get between subworlds of Rainbow - and she tries to carry everyone to the border of the afterlife, where the daemons and their attendants can sit and wait and everyone else can walk in.

This place turns out to exist.

It looks like a dock, shrouded in mist, leading out into murky water.

And here is a gentleman in a canoe.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 02:35 am (UTC)

He blinks once.

"That's new," he says.

dark_light
2013-05-19 02:38 am (UTC)

"I'd be stunned if it wasn't," Amariah says. "My understanding is that the daemons have to stay here. The rest of us can go over the water with you? Is that where the dead people are? Who are you?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 02:48 am (UTC)

"I can take you there, if your daemons stay behind," shrugs the boatman indifferently. "It's what I do."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 02:49 am (UTC)

"There's something dangerous there. Do you know what it is?" Cam asks.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 02:49 am (UTC)

The boatman shrugs. "I only go as far as shore."

dark_light
2013-05-19 02:52 am (UTC)

"Are you the only one? Or are there other ways in? It should be more crowded, here, if you're the only way there."

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 02:52 am (UTC)

"If I've missed anyone," says the boatman, "I don't know it. Time doesn't matter, not here."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 02:54 am (UTC)

"Even in the minute we've been here, with Jane syncing us up there should have been dozens, hundreds, of dead people accumulating... Jane."

There's no response.

Cam grits his teeth, and wishes himself away, and reappears a moment later. "She can't see out of our gems down here," he says. "But from her perspective we've been gone less than a second, and that and the failure of the dead to accumulate means we can continue, just have to wish out instead of getting Jane to grab us."

dark_light
2013-05-19 02:55 am (UTC)

"...Okay. I guess that's one of the things that doesn't work down here." She looks at Shell Bell, who's still floating. "But apparently we can fly. We might not need to take the boat."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 02:56 am (UTC)

[Brainphone... works,] Cam reports.

mind_game
2013-05-19 02:57 am (UTC)

[I can hear you when you do that,] Jane reports, in text, all as a block. [But time-dilated like you're traveling much slower than I am. I can compensate with more sample data like I can when I'm talking to an accelerating spaceship, though, say something else.]

dark_light
2013-05-19 02:57 am (UTC)

[Testing, one two three.]

mind_game
2013-05-19 02:59 am (UTC)

[You're proceeding through time at a rate about six thousand times slower than I am,] Jane says, still in text. [It appears constant, at least over the sampled time.]

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 03:01 am (UTC)

The boatman doesn't seem to have any comment on whether they should take the boat or not.

dark_light
2013-05-19 03:01 am (UTC)

Amariah hands Path over to Petaal for safekeeping and starts flying, but stops when she's only about ten yards out from the edge of the dock. "How far is it?" she asks the boatman.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 03:02 am (UTC)

"A ways," says the boatman. "Time doesn't matter."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 03:02 am (UTC)

"Does it matter which direction we go? Would we get lost?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 03:03 am (UTC)

"If anyone's tried it, I don't know about it," says the boatman. "I can row you there."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 03:04 am (UTC)

"And back?" puts in Shell Bell, who has been largely quiet with the distraction of her Sherlock holding her smew.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 03:04 am (UTC)

"If anyone's gone back I don't know about it."

dark_light
2013-05-19 03:07 am (UTC)

"No, of course not," mutters Amariah. "Probably safest to let him take us. We can bounce out directly when we're done, wishes still work here, has everybody got boosted teleporting?"
Edited 2013-05-19 03:08 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 03:08 am (UTC)

"Done."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 03:09 am (UTC)

"Yes."

endragoned
2013-05-19 10:20 am (UTC)

Aianon nods. (Ansharil is back at Amariah's house.)

yourheartstrings
2013-05-19 10:22 am (UTC)

Ghosty unravels.

A moment later, from right next to Sue, her voice says out of thin air, "Oh, so that's how you do it. I'm covered."

pythbox
2013-05-19 10:42 am (UTC)

Speaking of Sue, he taps all available minds, including Jane's.

truthwright
2013-05-19 11:17 am (UTC)

Kas looks up from fiddling with his alethiometer and teleports out to Ansharil, then back.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 03:52 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell pets her smew once, kisses Sherlock twice, and steps into the boat.

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 03:54 pm (UTC)

Cam has a whispered exchange with Grace, runs his hand over her feathers, and leaves her on the dock by herself and follows Shell Bell.

dark_light
2013-05-19 03:55 pm (UTC)

Amariah has already given her Path over to Petaal. She lands in the boat neatly, and hands Cam her alethiometer in case they split up.
Edited 2013-05-19 15:56 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-05-19 03:56 pm (UTC)

Up by Amariah's house, Sarion settles in comfortably with Ansharil to wait for daemonic traits to appear.

truthwright
2013-05-19 04:33 pm (UTC)

Into the boat goes Kas, after giving his daemon a hug and a kiss.

endragoned
2013-05-19 04:33 pm (UTC)

Aianon follows.

yourheartstrings
2013-05-19 04:34 pm (UTC)

The boat is getting a little crowded; Ghosty turns up her aura to let them know she's there, but she doesn't wrap herself in a body again.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 10:30 pm (UTC)

The boatman begins to row away from the dock.

dark_light
2013-05-19 10:31 pm (UTC)

Amariah preemptively wraps her arms around Shell Bell's shoulders.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 10:32 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell - and the smew, calmly nestled in Sherlock's arms - are fine. At first.

And then Shell Bell starts shaking, and tears run down her face, but she doesn't sob aloud, and the smew presses himself as close to Sherlock as he can get but makes no sound either.

sicaria
2013-05-19 10:35 pm (UTC)

Pearl cuddles the smew.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 10:36 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell peers into her girlfriend's thoughts; focusing on her instead of on the growing distance between self and soul is definitely an improvement at this time.

sicaria
2013-05-19 10:38 pm (UTC)

Pearl is thinking about love.

endragoned
2013-05-19 10:40 pm (UTC)

Aianon shivers abruptly, flaring his wings and lashing his tail, then settles again.

Ansharil, back at Amariah's house, keeps still. It might be some trouble to their beloved if he did not.

Speaking of their beloved.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 10:42 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell leans into the thoughts, drowns in them, opens them up and sinks as deep as she can. The drawing-away is a nightmare; with attention on and from Sherlock it is a lucid nightmare, it doesn't win.

small_magics
2013-05-19 10:43 pm (UTC)

Sarion wishes to know if all is well. She runs her thumb along Ansharil's foreleg.

endragoned
2013-05-19 10:47 pm (UTC)

He rumbles happily and sends her what it feels like. Love, pure love, the best thing in the world.

small_magics
2013-05-19 10:48 pm (UTC)

That is lovely, lovely, lovely. She settles in for a good long snuggle.

She wonders if he can change shape now like the other Joker daemons can.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 10:50 pm (UTC)

The boat travels.

Shell Bell cries harder, the smew shakes, and then at once they relax.

dark_light
2013-05-19 10:50 pm (UTC)

Amariah lets her alt go. "Okay?" she murmurs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Mmhm," murmurs Shell Bell.

On the dock, the smew sighs.

"We love you so much," he tells Sherlock dreamily.

sicaria
2013-05-19 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," she says, petting him. "You're beautiful. What's your name going to be?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. Do you want to name me?"

sicaria
2013-05-19 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I would, but I can't think what."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 10:57 pm (UTC)

"We'll think of something," says the smew.

sicaria
2013-05-19 10:58 pm (UTC)

"No rush, I suppose."

endragoned
2013-05-19 10:59 pm (UTC)

(Ansharil does not presently desire to change his form.)

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:06 pm (UTC)

The boat ride takes a good half an hour.

They are let off at the shore.

It's sort of like a negative of Downside. There there were buildings but no plants; here there are - occasional, dead, lonely - trees, but no buildings, just endless landscape.

Over which drift the shades of the dead.

The nearest shades are intensely fascinated by the visitors, with their color and solidity and live-ness, and several of them drift closer.

dark_light
2013-05-19 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Hello," Amariah says. "I am Isabella Amariah. I want to know all about this place."

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:15 pm (UTC)

"It's the land of the dead," says the shade of a man. He drifts near enough to touch Amariah's shoulder, but his hand goes right through her; on inspection, a number of the shades are also intersecting each other. "It's - only this."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Only this, what do you mean?"

endragoned
2013-05-19 11:19 pm (UTC)

Aianon folds his wings and watches curiously.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:23 pm (UTC)

Many of the shades seem particularly nervous of Aianon.

"However far you walk," the shade says, giving up on trying to touch Amariah, "it's never any different."

truthwright
2013-05-19 11:24 pm (UTC)

Kas reaches curiously towards a shade.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

The old-woman shade who is nearest doesn't move out of the way, but she's insubstantial - and frigid.

truthwright
2013-05-19 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Cold," he murmurs, drawing back his hand.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Always," murmurs the old woman.

dark_light
2013-05-19 11:27 pm (UTC)

"I didn't notice," murmurs Amariah.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:28 pm (UTC)

"There are some like you," says the man she's been talking to. "Who don't notice the cold. They notice everything else, though."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Everything else?" prompts Shell Bell.

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:31 pm (UTC)

"The nothingness," says the man.

"The hurt in your heart, that never goes away," murmurs the woman Kas tried to touch.

"Nothing feels like anything except cold," complains a wisp of a girl from the crowd of more distantly observing shades.

"The dark. The way you can't quite sleep," says another girl who stands with her arm in the same space as the other girl's; they look a bit alike.

"The harpies."

"The hunger and the stillness and the sameness."

"The -"

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Excuse me," says Cam, "harpies?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:34 pm (UTC)

"They come up on you when you're dozing," says the shade of a young man. "They know everything bad you've done, ever, they scream it at you, you can't ignore them."

"Maybe you could," says another shade doubtfully. "With your colors still in."

truthwright
2013-05-19 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty good at ignoring people screaming at me," Kas says cheerfully.

endragoned
2013-05-19 11:35 pm (UTC)

Aianon laughs.

pythbox
2013-05-19 11:36 pm (UTC)

Ghosty giggles out of thin air.

dark_light
2013-05-19 11:38 pm (UTC)

"What do the harpies want?" Amariah asks. When the shades have no answer ready to hand, she turns to Cam. "Cam, ask it if the harpies are - the thing."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Are the harpies the thing that hungers for truth?" Cam murmurs to the alethiometer.

truthwright
2013-05-19 11:40 pm (UTC)

"They are known by that name," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's the thing. So, based on what we learned before, I guess they'll quit screaming at people if we find them and - unravel this truth-hunger business," says Cam. "Where do we find harpies?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-19 11:41 pm (UTC)

None of the shades know where to find harpies on purpose.

truthwright
2013-05-19 11:42 pm (UTC)

So Kas does the obvious thing.

"They're around, but they move," he says. "If we stay here long enough, we'll run into some."

dark_light
2013-05-19 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Let's split up, talk to more people, congregate wherever the first person to find harpies is," says Amariah. She lifts into the air - provoking breathless surprise from the shades - and says, "I'll go that way."

lifes_sake
2013-05-19 11:45 pm (UTC)

Cam picks another direction.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-19 11:46 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell goes a third way.

truthwright
2013-05-19 11:48 pm (UTC)

Kas starts walking in yet another direction.

endragoned
2013-05-19 11:51 pm (UTC)

Aianon takes wing in a fifth.

pythbox
2013-05-19 11:51 pm (UTC)

Who knows what happens to Ghosty.

alicornucopia
2013-05-20 12:31 am (UTC)

Kas is the first to find a harpy.

She lands. She looks at him.

She takes off and flies away.

All of the nearby shades cluster close and cold around him, murmuring about how he sent her away.

truthwright
2013-05-20 12:34 am (UTC)

He shivers, thinks about going after the harpy, and then reports this event through the link instead.

dark_light
2013-05-20 12:35 am (UTC)

It turns out that the others can't teleport to where he is.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 12:36 am (UTC)

Cam asks the alethiometer he has with him: "Can we not teleport to destinations in the afterlife, or from starting points in the afterlife, or both?"

truthwright
2013-05-20 12:40 am (UTC)

The alethiometer tells him, "You can leave at will, but not so easily return."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 12:41 am (UTC)

Cam bounces this result to everyone else, along with a proposal that they all try to converge on Kas's position manually.

truthwright
2013-05-20 12:43 am (UTC)

Kas points out that the harpy is long gone by now.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 12:45 am (UTC)

If none of them runs into her on the way, they can continue their search in a group so as to better corner the next one to appear. If they can't teleport to each other, splitting up isn't as valuable as expected.

truthwright
2013-05-20 12:47 am (UTC)

True enough.

endragoned
2013-05-20 12:48 am (UTC)

Aianon circles back toward where he last saw Kas.

pythbox
2013-05-20 12:48 am (UTC)

Ghosty flickers parts of her attention between all of them; she is not any more restricted in her movements than usual.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-20 12:50 am (UTC)

Shell Bell is the next to meet a harpy! She reports this information.

That is the last thing the link hears from her.

pythbox
2013-05-20 12:54 am (UTC)

...Sue is alarmed! Bells aren't chatty on link, but this is important, he'd expect her to be talking about it.

arenaria
2013-05-20 12:55 am (UTC)

Sherlock probably notices the smew tensing and shaking in her arms before he says anything.

sicaria
2013-05-20 12:56 am (UTC)

She gathers him up and kisses the top of his head.

arenaria
2013-05-20 12:56 am (UTC)

"We're sorry," he whimpers. "We're sorry, we're sorry, we're sorry -"

sicaria
2013-05-20 12:58 am (UTC)

"It's all right," she says. "Whatever it is, it's all right. I love you."

pythbox
2013-05-20 12:58 am (UTC)

Sue reports this situation to the link.

arenaria
2013-05-20 12:59 am (UTC)

"No, no, it's not all right, we're sorry, we're sorry," he says desperately, like he expects the words to be a charm against some evil that just - isn't - working. "Sorry sorry sorry -"

dark_light
2013-05-20 01:01 am (UTC)

Amariah flies high, to see if she can spot Shell Bell - they weren't flying for that long - and -

The spatial layout of this place is like one of those impossible objects that you can draw but not actually have, she says, bouncing an image to the link.

sicaria
2013-05-20 01:03 am (UTC)

Sherlock pushes her love for Shell Bell to Sue, trusting that he will know what to do with it.

pythbox
2013-05-20 01:03 am (UTC)

He bounces Sherlock's message to the intended recipient.

truthwright
2013-05-20 01:04 am (UTC)

So what the fuck do we do? says Kas, heading back the way he came.

arenaria
2013-05-20 01:05 am (UTC)

The smew presses himself against Sherlock harder, still apologizing desperately.

There's no response from Shell Bell herself.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 01:06 am (UTC)

Tell Shell Bell to bail out, tell her to teleport to Amariah's house, or the dock, anywhere that's not here, we can start over from scratch if we have to. Scream it at her, get her attention.

sicaria
2013-05-20 01:10 am (UTC)

Leave the harpy, says Sherlock, through Sue. Teleport away. Teleport to me. I love you. I need you. Come here.
Edited 2013-05-20 01:11 (UTC)

arenaria
2013-05-20 01:16 am (UTC)

"Sorry," wails the smew, "sorry, sorry, we wish we wish we wish - sorry -"

Shell Bell is still unresponsive.

dark_light
2013-05-20 01:16 am (UTC)

Try wishing her out directly?
Edited 2013-05-20 01:16 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-20 01:19 am (UTC)

Sue goes up through every available level of coin.

Nope.

sicaria
2013-05-20 01:20 am (UTC)

Sherlock cuddles the smew.

"I love you. It's all right. I love you. It's all right. I love you..."

arenaria
2013-05-20 01:21 am (UTC)

"You shouldn't," whispers the smew.

sicaria
2013-05-20 01:21 am (UTC)

"I should. I do. I will continue," she says.

arenaria
2013-05-20 01:22 am (UTC)

"We're sorry we're sorry -"

And the smew is now beyond words, and appears to be trying, if ineffectively and with mixed feelings, to get away from Sherlock.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 01:22 am (UTC)

"What is the harpy doing to Shell Bell?" Cam demands of the alethiometer.

sicaria
2013-05-20 01:24 am (UTC)

Sherlock cuddles the smew, but doesn't hold him prisoner.
Edited 2013-05-20 01:24 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-05-20 01:25 am (UTC)

The alethiometer says to Cam, "The harpy is causing suffering in her."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 01:25 am (UTC)

"How?" Cam snaps.

arenaria
2013-05-20 01:26 am (UTC)

"Shouldn't - shouldn't," the smew is murmuring under his breath, and eventually he manages to flop out of Sherlock's hold and fall gracelessly to the dock, where he huddles and whines to himself.

pythbox
2013-05-20 01:30 am (UTC)

Ghosty is spread out a little too thin to get clear details, but there is a harpy by Shell Bell, and it is shrieking. She forwards this information to the link.

truthwright
2013-05-20 01:30 am (UTC)

"It is in their nature," says the alethiometer.

arenaria
2013-05-20 01:32 am (UTC)

The smew is not doing too well without Sherlock's comfort to mitigate whatever the harpy's doing, and he's wailing his lungs out where he's flopped on the dock but refuses to make a move towards his person's girlfriend. Occasionally he looks at her, but then clumsily hides his face under his wing.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 01:33 am (UTC)

Kas, can you get any better answers out of your alethiometer than I can out of this one about what's going on with Shell Bell?

truthwright
2013-05-20 01:34 am (UTC)

Kas tries.

Harpies have a kind of magic that makes you listen to what they say, and they use it to make people feel horrible.

arenaria
2013-05-20 01:35 am (UTC)

The smew pretty obviously feels horrible. Yep.

dark_light
2013-05-20 01:36 am (UTC)

I have no idea how we're going to find her! There are millions - billons - of shades here - and space is all folded in on itself - Kas, if we can't get her, how long will it take the damn thing to get bored with her and move on?

truthwright
2013-05-20 01:44 am (UTC)

...answer's basically 'How the fuck should I know?', in alethiometer-speak. These things can't tell the future or anything. It could be - any amount of time.

dark_light
2013-05-20 01:46 am (UTC)

Sue, if you've been concealing some ability to make people do things via link and you can force her to teleport, or sleep, or something - this is when to fess up. Otherwise I don't have any better ideas than flying around asking shades if they've seen her. Fuck.

pythbox
2013-05-20 01:47 am (UTC)

Sue wonders if she is fucking kidding him. No, he cannot do that.

...he can wish the daemon asleep, though.

Or -

no. No he can't.

sicaria
2013-05-20 01:48 am (UTC)

I have a better idea, says Sherlock.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 01:49 am (UTC)

Let's hear it.

sicaria
2013-05-20 01:50 am (UTC)

I will find her.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 01:51 am (UTC)

How?

sicaria
2013-05-20 02:09 am (UTC)

If you knew my template, you would not ask that question, she says.

She boosts her remote-viewing powers and her flight speed as high as they will go, and telekinesis for good measure. She sights on the river, extending her sense of physical space until she understands the boatman's route.

Then she flies.

Left alone on the dock, a white falcon screams. But not for long. Sherlock is moving fast.

He spreads his speckled wings protectively over Shell Bell's smew.

arenaria
2013-05-20 02:10 am (UTC)

"No, no," mumbles the smew miserably, but he can't muster the wherewithal to force himself away from comfort a second time; he doesn't move away.

dark_light
2013-05-20 02:11 am (UTC)

Is there anything we can do to help?

sicaria
2013-05-20 02:12 am (UTC)

Show me everything you know about where she might have gone.

pythbox
2013-05-20 02:13 am (UTC)

Ghosty gives up keeping tabs on everyone else and focuses on Shell Bell's location, getting as wide a 'view' as she can with her not-very-visual perceptions and sending it on to Sherlock. She can't manifest properly, though, with part of her attention caught on the other side of the river.

dark_light
2013-05-20 02:15 am (UTC)

Amariah pushes what she saw of Shell Bell's initial trajectory.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 02:15 am (UTC)

Cam tries assorted phrasings to get answers out of the alethiometer that might help find her.

truthwright
2013-05-20 02:21 am (UTC)

The alethiometer gives Cam directions, but they are cryptic and unhelpful-sounding.

Kas tries, too, and he just pushes the meanings directly to Sherlock through the link.

sicaria
2013-05-20 02:23 am (UTC)

Every available piece of information settles into her mind, and she turns and flies and turns and flies and dives and flies and turns and flies.

There.

That is Shell Bell, and that is a harpy. She gives the harpy a telekinetic shove as she comes to a stop just beside Shell Bell.

arenaria
2013-05-20 02:25 am (UTC)

Shell Bell looks up just long enough to identify Sherlock's face and then she flinches away.

alicornucopia
2013-05-20 02:27 am (UTC)

The harpy banks with vast black wings and screams at Sherlock, and in the scream is not so much words as the distilled essence of shame.

Don't leave me, no, please, I missed you, not yet, please -

No wonder the smew wouldn't let Sherlock hold him, she was always going to leave -

sicaria
2013-05-20 02:35 am (UTC)

She scoops up Shell Bell and teleports them both back to the dock.

pythbox
2013-05-20 02:36 am (UTC)

Ghosty tracks the harpy.

alicornucopia
2013-05-20 06:28 am (UTC)

The harpy is confused. Also, all the shades nearby took advantage of her preoccupation with her live victim to flee the area. She takes off and departs in a random direction.

arenaria
2013-05-20 06:30 am (UTC)

Shell Bell struggles in Sherlock's arms, crying; she wouldn't be hard to restrain, but if Sherlock's going to let her wrench out of her arms, there is some risk of her falling near enough their daemons to come into contact with the gyrfalcon, unless he moves out of the way (and the smew wouldn't follow).

The smew has quieted, but he's still shivering.
Edited 2013-05-20 07:24 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-05-20 10:24 am (UTC)

"Talk to me," Sherlock says softly. "Tell me what's wrong."

She doesn't let go.

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Shouldn't - shouldn't -" Shell Bell whimpers, scrunching her eyes shut.

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Shouldn't what."

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:25 pm (UTC)

"You shouldn't care, you should hate me," sobs Shell Bell.

The smew whines agreement.

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:26 pm (UTC)

"That is nonsense," Sherlock says flatly. "I love you."

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Last time," sobs Shell Bell, "I wanted you to."

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't understand."

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:30 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't matter," mumbles Shell Bell.

"Put her down, let us go," says the smew, "forget about us."

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Absolutely not. It is obvious that you intend this abandonment to benefit me. It will not. I refuse to allow you to make that choice on my behalf. Tell me what happened."

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:35 pm (UTC)

"She screamed," Shell Bell whispers, "and I remembered, everything bad I ever did, ever thought, and I felt it, and I still do, and it's terrible, and I'm - so - selfish I still don't know what to do -"

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:40 pm (UTC)

"The harpy hurt you," says Sherlock. "Understand what she did, and then fix it."

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:41 pm (UTC)

"She didn't lie."

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:49 pm (UTC)

"If she made you think that leaving me was some kind of moral duty, then she told one of the worst lies I can imagine, whether or not she did it using the selective application of individual truths."

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:50 pm (UTC)

"She didn't say that. I figured it out."

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:52 pm (UTC)

"It is false."

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I wished you dead, I did, I wished you dead - and hurt and away from Tony - just because I wanted you where I was," sobs Shell Bell. "And when I told you before all I said was please still love me like that made any sense -"

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:55 pm (UTC)

"But I do still love you," she says. "And if I had known where you were I would have wished the same."

arenaria
2013-05-20 04:56 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell sobs, and shivers, and mumbles something unintelligible.

sicaria
2013-05-20 04:56 pm (UTC)

"What is it?"

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what to do," murmurs Shell Bell, "I always just do whatever makes me feel better but I shouldn't feel better and I want to do something that - but then it's about what I want again - I don't know how to do anything else, I'm so, so self-centered, I can't even be guilty right."

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I want you to feel better," says Sherlock. "Your suffering helps no one but that harpy."

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:08 pm (UTC)

"No," whimpers the smew, and Shell Bell is silent.

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Does it then have some practical benefit which I fail to understand?"

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:12 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell shakes her head, slowly.

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:14 pm (UTC)

"So you are in pain, and I am in pain, and nothing good is coming of either," she says. "This is not optimal."

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:17 pm (UTC)

"But," says Shell Bell, "I should be and you shouldn't care."

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:19 pm (UTC)

"You should not be, and I do care, and I will go on caring. Your suffering does not help me. Your recovery will."

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:20 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell has no rebuttal. She weeps.

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:21 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her.

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:22 pm (UTC)

The smew squirms under the gyrfalcon's wings, whimpering, and makes a tentative escape attempt.

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:24 pm (UTC)

There is really no practical way for the gyrfalcon to keep hold of him. So he doesn't.

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:25 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell and smew regard each other.

She reaches down and picks him up and holds him, not deliberately bringing him into contact with Sherlock but not going far out of her way to avoid it either.

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:26 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs them both.

The gyrfalcon flutters up to perch on Sherlock's shoulder and then bends down to run his beak through Shell Bell's hair.

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:27 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell peers up at the falcon, wide-eyed.

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:28 pm (UTC)

He does it again.

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:29 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell thinks about that.

"Can I sleep, is that okay," she murmurs.

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

arenaria
2013-05-20 05:31 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell puts her head on Sherlock's shoulder and closes her eyes and falls asleep, smew on her chest.

sicaria
2013-05-20 05:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock sits down and holds them in her lap and snuggles them. Her gyrfalcon continues to preen Shell Bell's hair.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:35 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile Cam and Amariah are still looking for the accompanying Jokers and each other. Cam, midflight, asks the alethiometer: "Can harpies attack more than one person at a time?"

truthwright
2013-05-20 05:37 pm (UTC)

"A flight of harpies will often harry a much larger group of ghosts," says the alethiometer, "although they do not prefer to."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:38 pm (UTC)

"What about live people, can a single harpy attack more than one of us?"

truthwright
2013-05-20 05:39 pm (UTC)

"It is possible," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:39 pm (UTC)

"But it's harder for them."

truthwright
2013-05-20 05:40 pm (UTC)

Apparently this doesn't count as a question.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Right?"

truthwright
2013-05-20 05:43 pm (UTC)

"They do not prefer it."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:44 pm (UTC)

Cam bounces these results to the link and starts grilling the alethiometer for directions to find the others.

truthwright
2013-05-20 05:47 pm (UTC)

It's able to direct him, although not with perfect efficiency.

Kas, still trailed by an entourage of hopeful ghosts, is the first one to find him. He's having much better luck consulting his alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Cam. He doesn't land; he doesn't want to be among the chilly ghosts. "You're better with these things than I am, where to to meet up with Amariah and Aianon?"

truthwright
2013-05-20 05:50 pm (UTC)

"On it," he says. "This way."

He keeps walking.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Why aren't you flying?" Cam asks.

truthwright
2013-05-20 05:52 pm (UTC)

"...I don't wanna leave 'em," he says, gesturing around him. His arm passes through a dozen ghosts. "They're so sad."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:53 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to fly fast, but if they're just following you because the harpy decided not to scream at you they don't need to be that close, you must be freezing."

truthwright
2013-05-20 05:55 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, and indeed shivers a little.

"It's not so bad."
Edited 2013-05-20 17:55 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Cam continues flying, following after Kas.

He has his aura out, and the shades notice.

"Are you here to help?" one of them asks him.

"Yes," Cam says.

endragoned
2013-05-20 05:59 pm (UTC)

Is that a winged figure in the distance?

It is!

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

Hello, distant winged figure!

Now to find Amariah.

"The harpies probably can't get me or her as bad as Shell Bell, but I don't want to find out experimentally."

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:01 pm (UTC)

"No shit," says Kas, waving to Aianon.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

While Kas gets directions on where the party of three should go, Cam asks his for directions to relay to Amariah.

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:05 pm (UTC)

It references landmarks to direct her course.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:06 pm (UTC)

He bounces them to her.

dark_light
2013-05-20 06:06 pm (UTC)

Amariah obeys.

endragoned
2013-05-20 06:08 pm (UTC)

Aianon spots her first.

dark_light
2013-05-20 06:09 pm (UTC)

She flies over to join them.

"Now I guess we wander around looking for harpies," she says. "I'm probably an easier target than you, Cam, and you're the truthy one anyway."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'll get in front of you when we see 'em - not sure whether to expect them to flee both Jokers or if that's just Kas," muses Cam. He asks the alethiometer "Why did the harpy leave Kas alone?"

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:13 pm (UTC)

"They cannot make him suffer," says the alethiometer.

"Whoa, really?" says Kas. "All of us?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Did it say all of you?"

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:14 pm (UTC)

"It didn't specify singular or plural, but it didn't call me what it usually does, it called me a Joker. And it meant Aianon, too, kind of."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you guys just... don't have a 'guilty' setting?"

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's pretty accurate."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:19 pm (UTC)

"So I guess if I can't happify the harpies on my first try and I get wrecked - although I don't have nearly as much material as Shell Bell I don't know how much that matters - we bring in Jellybean, since wizards have harpy-happifying powers and he's a Joker."

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan," says Kas.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Can I fly faster than a harpy can?" Cam asks the alethiometer.

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:25 pm (UTC)

"You can."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so if the Jokers scare them off next time we're in eyeshot we can chase them," Cam tells Amariah.

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:28 pm (UTC)

Kas giggles softly. His ghostly friends cluster closer.

pythbox
2013-05-20 06:28 pm (UTC)

Ghosty observes through the link that she is still tracking this harpy, and should she find the rest of them instead?

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:29 pm (UTC)

If she could direct them to the harpy, that would be swell.

pythbox
2013-05-20 06:29 pm (UTC)

Fuck if she knows where they are.

truthwright
2013-05-20 06:30 pm (UTC)

Kas asks his alethiometer for directions to the nearest harpy.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:31 pm (UTC)

And the party all follows its lead.

pythbox
2013-05-20 06:46 pm (UTC)

The nearest harpy, it turns out, has several friends.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:51 pm (UTC)

Hmm.

Cam holds up a hand for everyone to stop.

He approaches a little nearer, just within shouting distance.

He flares aura, brightly, brightly.

pythbox
2013-05-20 06:52 pm (UTC)

The harpies—there are five—circle warily.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Can we talk?" Cam calls. "No screeching, just talking?"

pythbox
2013-05-20 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Go ahead and talk," a harpy calls back derisively.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I want to know why you hurt the shades here," Cam says. "And see if we can come up with a compromise that doesn't involve that."

pythbox
2013-05-20 07:16 pm (UTC)

"We like to," says a harpy.

"They deserve it," says another.

"It's food for us," says a third.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 07:18 pm (UTC)

Cam glances at his alethiometer.

"This truth-telling device says you hunger for truth," he tells them. "Not all truth is about bad things people have done."

pythbox
2013-05-20 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it?"

"Then why is that all we see?"

"And all they see—"

"—after a while!"

The harpies cackle.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Because you are doing screamy-magic at them," says Cam, "that brings it to the surface. One of the other harpies met one of our friends, and screamed at her, but if she'd just talked to her nicely Shell Bell could have told her all sorts of true things about her life, and the things she's seen."

pythbox
2013-05-20 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yeah?"

"Like what?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell was born in a place called District Three, in Panem," begins Cam. "In another world. With her mother Ranae and her father Shark. And he was a fisherman and she was a teacher and Shell Bell decided that when she grew up, she was going to be a clammer."

He pauses to gauge harpy reaction.

pythbox
2013-05-20 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Why should we care?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Why didn't that help?" Cam mutters to the alethiometer.

pythbox
2013-05-20 07:36 pm (UTC)

"It was not yours," the alethiometer replies.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 07:38 pm (UTC)

"All right then," he murmurs, and then he leans on his perfect recall and starts telling them about his own life, instead.

"I was born in a little town called Forks, but when my mother left my father - they get along fine, they just didn't belong married - I moved with her to Phoenix, and lived with my dad summers. I had to go to school, which was all right but not very interesting, till I was fourteen, and I found a certain book in the library."
Edited 2013-05-20 19:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-20 07:57 pm (UTC)

The harpies circle slower, and closer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 08:04 pm (UTC)

"And this book was titled So You Want To Be A Wizard. It sounded like it would be fun. Fiction. I checked it out and I brought it home and I started reading it, and it turned out to be a manual. I didn't know it was real, but it was interesting, so I pretended, and I said the Wizard's Oath. In Life's name, and for Life's sake, I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the service of that Life. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, is threatened or threatens another. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so—till Universe's end."

pythbox
2013-05-20 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Pretend," one harpy jeers, but the others shush her.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 08:10 pm (UTC)

"I thought it was pretend," says Cam. "But I found out it wasn't, quick enough. My name appeared in the list of local wizards. I could hear things around me speaking. Especially my collection of notebooks, in which I wrote everything - all my thoughts, everything I did with my life, what I wanted. And they all chorused together to say hello to me, and I was thrilled to pieces. And I talked to my manual too, and got it to teach me the spells I needed to put my notebooks all together in one, magic notebook. And I did, and I named her Grace."

pythbox
2013-05-20 08:11 pm (UTC)

One of the circling harpies bursts out with, "But what did it feel like?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Having Grace to talk to was amazing. I'd put so much of me into all those notebooks that she knew me as well as I knew myself, and she wanted to help me, with anything she could, and I was so happy to be understood that perfectly by something that was a part of me but had her own voice."

pythbox
2013-05-20 08:20 pm (UTC)

A shiver passes through the whole flock at this.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Is this what you want? Stories about people's lives and how they felt?"

pythbox
2013-05-20 08:25 pm (UTC)

"We've never had them before," says one harpy.

"They're tasty," says another.

"New."

"Different."

"Good."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Amariah, see if it works for you," Cam murmurs.

dark_light
2013-05-20 08:30 pm (UTC)

"My childhood was a lot like his," Amariah says. "Except my parents are still married even though they aren't happy that way, and except that the part of me with his own voice has been with me since I was born, and he's got feathers that feel like starlight and he always knows when I'm about to do something I'd regret, and he can't come here, but our sweetie's holding him safe on the dock, and when I had to walk away from him when I was thirteen, it felt like my heart was torn out, and some people's daemons don't forgive them for a long time but I knew my Path would and he did, because we understand ourselves and he knew why."

pythbox
2013-05-20 08:34 pm (UTC)

The harpies circle lower, lower, until they finally settle into perches on the trees and the ground.

(Kas's ghost friends have long since fled.)

dark_light
2013-05-20 08:44 pm (UTC)

Amariah tells them the story of casting her first spells and the feel of power pouring from her, of cutting her first cloud-pine and learning to fly and the wind in her hair, of choosing Metis for her teacher and moving away from her clan enclave, of meeting Kas and buying him lunch, of finding Shell Bell in Milliways and founding the Belltower. She is lavish in her details.

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 08:44 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Cam whispers to the alethiometer about what's helping and what isn't.

truthwright
2013-05-20 08:46 pm (UTC)

Kas consults his, too.

pythbox
2013-05-20 08:49 pm (UTC)

The harpies, it turns out, like true stories. Nourishment and flavour come from emotion and detail.

dark_light
2013-05-20 08:51 pm (UTC)

Amariah carries on telling her story. She skips over dull sections, but she dives into extreme detail with the parts she opts to use, when Cam and Kas report on the alethiometer's replies.

She brings up her tale to the present day.

And explains what she and the others are doing here.

"With Downside handled there are two afterlives left that aren't up to our standards. And this is one of them. And I want to fix it. That's why me and Cam and Kas and Aianon are here, and what Shell Bell was doing here before Sherlock had to pull her out, and why we wanted to talk to you."
Edited 2013-05-20 20:54 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-20 08:56 pm (UTC)

There is a general muttering among the harpies.

dark_light
2013-05-20 08:57 pm (UTC)

"There are billions of shades here. I'm sure some of them would be willing to tell you their stories, whatever they can still remember."

pythbox
2013-05-20 09:01 pm (UTC)

"And then what?" says a harpy.

"Do you expect us to just... leave them alone?"

"When they're so delicious?"

"And it's our purpose—"

"The Authority gave it to us—"

"Our very own!"

"Our duty!"

"Ours!"

dark_light
2013-05-20 09:02 pm (UTC)

"...Who is the Authority?" asks Amariah slowly.

pythbox
2013-05-20 09:07 pm (UTC)

"The Authority."

"The Creator."

"The one who made us."

"Made the worlds."

"Made everything."

dark_light
2013-05-20 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Where is he? Why did he make you like this?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 09:09 pm (UTC)

Cam has much the same question for the alethiometer.

pythbox
2013-05-20 09:13 pm (UTC)

"We don't know," says a harpy, as though this should be the single most obvious fact in the worlds. "Why would he tell us?"

"Not our business."

"To know where the Authority is."

truthwright
2013-05-20 09:14 pm (UTC)

"The Authority dwells at the summit of the Clouded Mountain," says the alethiometer. "He gave the harpies their purpose for reasons of his own."

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 09:15 pm (UTC)

Cam passes this on to the group, via link.

dark_light
2013-05-20 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to be how he made you?" Amariah asks the harpies.

pythbox
2013-05-20 09:19 pm (UTC)

"How else are we going to be?" says a harpy.

"I'd like to smell better," one of them says wistfully. It's the same one one who asked Cam what it felt like to wake up Grace. The harpy roosting beside her smacks her with a wing, and she glares and flaps off a few yards away. "Well, I would."

dark_light
2013-05-20 09:26 pm (UTC)

"You could listen to true stories and not scream at people," says Amariah. "You know how to get around this place - you could be guides, listeners, you could help me fix it. And if I can work out how to get magic to work normally down here you could smell like whatever you wanted."

pythbox
2013-05-20 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Help you fix it?"

"How?"

"Why?"

"What use would that be?"

The harpy with aspirations to perfume remains silent.

dark_light
2013-05-20 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to give everyone their daemons back. The alethiometer says it's possible. I'm going to make it so that at least some of them can go out into the world, if I can, the way people from worlds hooked up to Downside can - and either way I'm going to make this place nicer, less boring, less - cold. And the use it would be would be making billions of people's experiences better and brighter. It will be the single most spectacular thing anyone in this world has done so far."

pythbox
2013-05-20 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Their daemons?"

"Not here."

"No daemons here," says a harpy.

"I've never seen a daemon," says another.

"I have," says the nonconformist. "I've been to the other side of the river, once."

The one who hit her before stretches out a wing again, but this time she is out of reach. She shakes herself, distributing small bits of grimy feather-dust over the surrounding rocks. "I want to be spectacular," she says defiantly.

dark_light
2013-05-20 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe I'll move everyone to some kind of folded space area elsewhere that isn't anti-daemon, if I can't fix this location," says Amariah, "but the shades aren't anti-daemon, only the place."

pythbox
2013-05-20 10:02 pm (UTC)

Three of the harpies hiss loudly.

"And leave us to starve?" says one of same.

dark_light
2013-05-20 10:03 pm (UTC)

"I could move you too," says Amariah. "If one of you's seen the other side of the river, you can leave. But I won't bring you if you're going to keep hurting people. There are more of them than there are of you, and they don't deserve it."

pythbox
2013-05-20 10:06 pm (UTC)

"How dare you!" says the one who complained. "It's our right! Our duty!"

lifes_sake
2013-05-20 10:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure we can figure something out," Cam cuts in, aura still flared brilliantly to emphasize this assertion. "Something that leaves you fed and the dead people safe."

pythbox
2013-05-20 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Why should we listen to you?" says the complainer. "You want to take our purpose away. It's been ours since the beginning."

endragoned
2013-05-20 10:28 pm (UTC)

Aianon is on the ground, snuggling some warmth back into Kas. He shakes his head.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 12:22 am (UTC)

"You could have a new purpose," Cam says. "A better one."

pythbox
2013-05-21 12:23 am (UTC)

"Better for you," one of them mutters.

"This one's ours," says another.

dark_light
2013-05-21 12:25 am (UTC)

"It hurts people," says Amariah. "How would you like it? You've probably dished out more hurt than anyone you've ever screamed at has."

pythbox
2013-05-21 12:29 am (UTC)

"Is that supposed to matter?" a harpy says scornfully.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 12:30 am (UTC)

"Look," says Cam, "what would you guys want? If you could have anything?"

pythbox
2013-05-21 12:33 am (UTC)

"How about for you to go away and never come back," suggests one of the hostile ones. "I'd like that a lot."

"But they brought us something nice!" the dissenter argues. "Don't you remember? Wasn't it better?"

The others shuffle uncomfortably on their perches.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 12:34 am (UTC)

"Thank you," Cam says to the iconoclast harpy. "What's your name?"

pythbox
2013-05-21 12:35 am (UTC)

"We don't have those," she says.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 12:36 am (UTC)

"Would you like a name?"

pythbox
2013-05-21 12:37 am (UTC)

"...maybe," she says.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 12:37 am (UTC)

"I'll come up with one for you if you like."

pythbox
2013-05-21 12:42 am (UTC)

"Names," another harpy mutters.

"Who needs names."

"Don't listen to these people."

"A name like what?" says the odd harpy out, hopping closer to the living people with a flutter of dark-feathered wings.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 12:44 am (UTC)

"You can narrow it down some if you want, but if you want me to suggest something, how's 'Calliope'?"

pythbox
2013-05-21 12:55 am (UTC)

"Calliope," she says musingly. One of the other harpies lets out a disdainful snort.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 12:56 am (UTC)

"I think it's a pretty name."

pythbox
2013-05-21 01:00 am (UTC)

"I think so too!" says Calliope, almost shyly. The other harpies shake their heads and mutter.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 01:03 am (UTC)

"Do any of the rest of you want names?" Cam inquires.

pythbox
2013-05-21 01:06 am (UTC)

"Not a chance!" says one of the strident defenders of the old ways—the one who hit Calliope. The other three cluster around their proudly nameless comrade.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 01:08 am (UTC)

"Okay," Cam says. "That's fine, either way. Calliope, what would you want, if you could have anything?" Cam inquires of the friendliest harpy.

pythbox
2013-05-21 01:11 am (UTC)

"I - I don't know," says Calliope, shaking her head. "I don't know what there is to have. I just know I want it. Something - something new. Something good."

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 01:12 am (UTC)

Cam tries adding her to the brainphone; this doesn't require a separate wish, and works. "Do you want to hear another story? Just you; the others don't seem interested. I can tell you privately by magic so they can ignore me like they seem to want."

pythbox
2013-05-21 01:15 am (UTC)

There is a rustling among the other harpies. "That's not fair!" exclaims one.

Calliope looks shining-eyed at Cam, and then casts a glance back at the rest of them.

"...I think... I think I'd rather you tell all of us," she says.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 01:18 am (UTC)

"Well, if you all want to hear," says Cam, with a dubious look at the rest of the harpies. And he picks up where he left off, after the Wizard's Oath and making Grace out of his notebook archive, to learning the Speech, and meeting the trees and goats, and the way the friendly tree's name felt, and talking to Iggy, and the way the world went still when it revealed itself. He doesn't skimp on the details - especially the sensory tidbits, sprinkled on like sugar for the hungry harpies - but he speaks slowly, drawing out the sentences from end to end like stretching caramel, and he watches the effect on his audience.

pythbox
2013-05-21 01:19 am (UTC)

Calliope listens eagerly. The other ones pretend indefference at first, with varying success, but soon they are all drawn in.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 01:21 am (UTC)

Cam pauses, before saying anything about how his confrontation with Iggy went.

"I hope we're not overstaying our welcome," he says. "I remember one of you wanted us to go away and leave you alone."

pythbox
2013-05-21 01:22 am (UTC)

The harpy who said that scowls and turns away.

"No, stay, stay," says Calliope. "Tell us what happened next!"

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 01:24 am (UTC)

"Maybe you should vote," suggests Cam. "Or whatever it is you do to make decisions amongst yourselves. After all, you live here, and I'm a visitor."

pythbox
2013-05-21 01:27 am (UTC)

"We don't do anything like that," says Calliope.

"I want to hear you," says one of the more neutral harpies.

"Me too!" says another.

They all crowd closer, leaving the former heckler perched in her tree, torn between offended dignity and hunger.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 01:30 am (UTC)

"That sounds like something very near consensus," smiles Cam, and he goes on with his story. He even does impressions of Iggy's dialogue, and then he gets to the part where there was an attempt on his life, continuing to speak in slow-caramel sentences and play for suspense.

He pauses, right before it is unclear if he survives the story or not. (After all, he's from another world, and the harpies are quite familiar with people continuing to exist after death.)

"Amariah," he wonders aloud, "how much time do we have?"

dark_light
2013-05-21 01:56 am (UTC)

She takes his hint.

"Well," she says, "we can block off all the time in the world for negotiations... I don't know about just plain storytime..."

truthwright
2013-05-21 01:57 am (UTC)

"You got somewhere to be, sweetie?" interrupts Kas. "'Cause I don't."

endragoned
2013-05-21 01:58 am (UTC)

"Nor do I," says Aianon, stretching his wings and flicking his tail idly from side to side. "Finish your story, Cam. I have many more to tell after it."

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 01:59 am (UTC)

[Do you guys have a plan or do you just really care about not annoying the harpies?]

dark_light
2013-05-21 02:00 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I mean, better they sit here listening to storytime than they go terrorize the dead people, all else being equal, but meanwhile the dead people are still cold and tired and missing their daemons, I want to make progress.]

endragoned
2013-05-21 02:01 am (UTC)

[Not annoying the harpies is a fine plan,] says Aianon. [Better than yours.]

truthwright
2013-05-21 02:03 am (UTC)

[You tried asking what they want and you didn't find it out that way. There's other ways. Leave it to us.]

dark_light
2013-05-21 02:04 am (UTC)

[Does it interfere with your idea if I start poking around the edges of this place, looking for how I'm going to put the daemons back?]

truthwright
2013-05-21 02:07 am (UTC)

[Yeah, but don't start grabbing up masses of dead people yet. That'll get 'em screaming for sure.]

dark_light
2013-05-21 02:07 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 02:08 am (UTC)

Cam goes on with his story.

dark_light
2013-05-21 02:09 am (UTC)

Amariah solicits a copy of Sherlock's route from the dock to the land of the dead, in case she needs to make a trip out of the place to make wishes.

sicaria
2013-05-21 02:10 am (UTC)

She provides it.

pythbox
2013-05-21 02:16 am (UTC)

By the time Cam finishes his story, all the harpies are listening with their full attention again, even the grumblers.

"Thank you," Calliope murmurs. The others murmur agreement.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 02:18 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Cam.

dark_light
2013-05-21 02:20 am (UTC)

Amariah has spent this interval processing Sherlock's information. She doesn't perfectly understand how space works here, but she has it well enough to lift off and lead Cam away to let the Jokers take over talking to the harpies. The two Bells make for shore and start following it.

pythbox
2013-05-21 02:37 am (UTC)

They find no more harpies on the way.

endragoned
2013-05-21 02:38 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, Aianon is telling stories.

He has twelve thousand years of them. He will not run out.

dark_light
2013-05-21 02:42 am (UTC)

Amariah is curious when storytime becomes actually-figuring-out-what-to-do-with-harpies time, but she can give it a while. She sticks with Cam while they trace the shoreline. The topography is weird but it doesn't shift; distances in multiple directions don't add up right but tracing the same sequence of movements always leads to the same landmarks, same shore features. The shades exist on an island, judging by what happens when the shore is flown along. Estimating its size is futile, of course.

endragoned
2013-05-21 02:47 am (UTC)

Storytime is interspersed with conversation; Kas and Aianon express an interest in knowing the harpies' history, and in bits and pieces, they learn it. Most of what they get is not of immediate practical value, but it builds a picture, and the picture shows them how to find out what it is the harpies want.

pythbox
2013-05-21 02:50 am (UTC)

It's Calliope who finally says, after gentle coaxing and aimless conversation and many, many stories, after the Jokers admit that ambition is a thing they almost entirely lack:

"We have a purpose now. Something real, something true, something important, even if your friends don't like it. It's no good just giving us these stories, tasty as they are. We need a job that means something, or there's just no point."

The other four all nod.

dark_light
2013-05-21 02:52 am (UTC)

Jane can't see in here, Amariah says through the link. They could sort through the dead, if I wind up being able to adjust this place instead of having to move everybody out to make them whole. The thing where they can sense guilt might even be a reasonable proxy for judgesight if they can do it non-destructively.

truthwright
2013-05-21 02:54 am (UTC)

Good plan, says Kas. We'll keep it in mind. How are you doing with the river?

dark_light
2013-05-21 02:55 am (UTC)

It's an island; I can see where we started up ahead. Going to see how high up we can get, first - it looks like there's a ceiling but I have no idea if that's real or not. Funky topography.

truthwright
2013-05-21 03:00 am (UTC)

Ain't it just.

Kas starts telling the harpies about his time as a stripper in Montreal.

dark_light
2013-05-21 03:00 am (UTC)

The Bells fly up.

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:09 am (UTC)

Shell Bell wakes up.

sicaria
2013-05-21 11:20 am (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her forehead.

arenaria
2013-05-21 02:44 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell peers up at Sherlock with confused eyes, but does not cry or squirm or otherwise display anything resembling her earlier distress.

sicaria
2013-05-21 02:44 pm (UTC)

"Good morning," she murmurs, with some irony.

arenaria
2013-05-21 02:45 pm (UTC)

"Hi."

sicaria
2013-05-21 02:45 pm (UTC)

"How are you?"

arenaria
2013-05-21 02:47 pm (UTC)

"Better. But..." She pauses, thoughtful.

"I don't feel like - like I just got screamed at by a harpy - anymore - I guess that wears off - but I'm still thinking about the content."

sicaria
2013-05-21 02:48 pm (UTC)

Sherlock's gyrfalcon runs his beak through Shell Bell's hair.

"Explain?" he says softly.

arenaria
2013-05-21 02:53 pm (UTC)

The smew gazes up adoringly at the gyrfalcon and snuggles up to the nearest available Sherlock-skin.

"I'm - I think this is a template thing but I don't know how strongly - I'm so very wrapped up in what I want. All the time. It's just everyone else's luck that a lot of things I want have to do with them, and that most of the things I want that have to do with other people are nice things. And that was harpy-ammunition and I felt bad about being selfish and I was trying to do something else and I couldn't figure out how, and I'm not sure if that's good."

sicaria
2013-05-21 02:55 pm (UTC)

"Something else?" prompts Sherlock.

arenaria
2013-05-21 02:58 pm (UTC)

"Besides thinking about what I want all the time. I know you don't, at least not the way I do. I couldn't translate myself into that - mental language, though. About the closest I managed was feeling bad about everything I liked so I would want it less. I couldn't even make sense of wanting to do things for you without that being about me wanting it first."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:01 pm (UTC)

"...you could say that I prioritize others before myself because it is what I want to do," Sherlock says thoughtfully.

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:03 pm (UTC)

"You could say that. But the - order of priority is different. My wanting to do nice things for other people fights it out on a level playing field with wanting ice cream; I mean, they're rarely incompatible and the first one's usually stronger but they're not different kinds of things on the immediate level. I don't think I would say that about you."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:04 pm (UTC)

"Ah. No," says Sherlock. "That's true."

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:05 pm (UTC)

"And then wanting things felt awful and I couldn't figure out what else to do except cry and try to escape from anything that might make it stop, because if it stopped I would go back to unabashedly wanting things, and that would make me a horrible person."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:06 pm (UTC)

"That was unpleasant," says Sherlock.

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:07 pm (UTC)

"Yes. In a way it helped when you held my daemon but it was also really confusing."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:09 pm (UTC)

"How?"

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:10 pm (UTC)

"I couldn't tell myself you were lying. You weren't saying anything. But the harpy was still winning. So I had something in my head that I couldn't explain or dismiss - and it was a nice thing but under the circumstances that wasn't less confusing than a bad thing would've been."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:12 pm (UTC)

"Hm."

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:14 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

"What?"

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. There is nothing here I can solve. I don't think it would improve matters any if you began thinking like I do."

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Nnno. Probably not."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:18 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:19 pm (UTC)

"It's interesting that I couldn't do it even when I was motivated to, though."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Interesting how?"

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:21 pm (UTC)

"If you'd asked me before if I could change it if I really, really wanted to I would've thought I probably could. Maybe I need better reasons than feeling horrible and selfish, though, not just the plain want."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:22 pm (UTC)

"...I cannot imagine what sort of reason that might be."

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't know either or I bet the harpy would've made me think of it."

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:28 pm (UTC)

...Sherlock kisses her forehead.

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:28 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:29 pm (UTC)

Yes. Those.

Snuggles and hair-preening.

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:29 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell likes the hair-preening.

"They need names," she murmurs.

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:31 pm (UTC)

"We do," the gyrfalcon agrees. "We haven't thought of any."

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says the smew.

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:33 pm (UTC)

"Any ideas?" says Sherlock.

arenaria
2013-05-21 03:34 pm (UTC)

"I think daemons usually have longer, fancier names than their people," says Shell Bell. "And different ones. Cam's already had a name, but it probably wouldn't sound like a daemon's name to Alethians."

dark_light
2013-05-21 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Right," says Pathalan, from where Petaal's holding him. "But shortenings are common, so no one will notice if you go around Alethia with a daemon who you only ever call by one syllable." He addresses the gyrfalcon. "If you want an idea, how's Tinia? I think it suits you."
Edited 2013-05-21 15:44 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-05-21 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Tinia," he says thoughtfully. "I like it. Does it mean something?"

dark_light
2013-05-21 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Path, "an Etruscan sky god."
Edited 2013-05-21 16:25 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-05-21 04:26 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs. Tinia preens himself.

arenaria
2013-05-21 04:32 pm (UTC)

"What about me?"

dark_light
2013-05-21 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Nothing's jumping out at me. I can think of something relatively ordinary for a daemon to be named, if none of you have any ideas. Pathalan is a pretty ordinary daemon name."

sicaria
2013-05-21 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Poseidon," Sherlock suggests cheerfully.

arenaria
2013-05-21 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says the smew, rustling his wings.

sicaria
2013-05-21 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Whom you might know as Neptune."

arenaria
2013-05-21 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Neptune," says the smew thoughtfully.

"Tune," says Shell Bell. "For short."

"Neptune. Tune. All right."

sicaria
2013-05-21 04:44 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

arenaria
2013-05-21 04:55 pm (UTC)

Neptune presses his head to her throat. "We love you," he murmurs.

sicaria
2013-05-21 04:55 pm (UTC)

"We love you too," says Tinia, preening Shell Bell some more.

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-21 04:56 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell looks up at him and Sherlock and smiles.

sicaria
2013-05-21 04:57 pm (UTC)

Sherlock kisses her forehead and smiles back.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 04:58 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Bells who have yet to depart the island have determined that if the ceiling exists, it is super far away. They would like to know how the Jokers are progressing with the harpies and if they should turn around and come find them again yet.

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:01 pm (UTC)

The Jokers and the harpies are getting along extremely well. Kas has suggested a few variants on the 'substitute for judgesight' idea, as hypotheticals, and been well received. The harpies assert and the alethiometer confirms that they can use this perception without having to scream it out of people. Also, three more harpies have appeared - apparently there are nine in total.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:03 pm (UTC)

Would Bell presence be useful at this point or does it seem like a better idea to work through the Jokers exclusively?

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:05 pm (UTC)

Bell presence probably wouldn't help anything. The harpies seem to find them off-putting.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:05 pm (UTC)

All right then. They wish to be kept posted.

endragoned
2013-05-21 05:06 pm (UTC)

Of course.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:12 pm (UTC)

Cam and Amariah continue flying up, and they discuss afterlife designs. This little dimension-thing has the convenience - or inconvenience - of slow time (to let just nine harpies sort all the incoming) and of already collecting all the dead, but the harpies could be set up on the dock area, which also has slow time and doesn't disallow daemons...

Then of course there's this "Authority" person.

"Is the Authority dangerous to us?" Cam inquires of the alethiometer.

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Clouded Mountain is powerful and unfriendly," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:18 pm (UTC)

"...How powerful?"

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:21 pm (UTC)

"The Authority is known in many worlds as God," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:22 pm (UTC)

"...I thought you didn't work on stuff outside this world. Do you work outside this world?"

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:24 pm (UTC)

"You come from outside the worlds," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:25 pm (UTC)

"...So this world has parts?"

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Where we are now is not the same world as where I come from, which is only one of many worlds I know."

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:29 pm (UTC)

"How many?"

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I know all the worlds."

Over the link, Kas asks if Cam would like some help with this.
Edited 2013-05-21 17:31 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:31 pm (UTC)

Cam would love some help with this.

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:37 pm (UTC)

Kas starts talking to his alethiometer, leaving Aianon to tell stories to the harpies.

The problem's with the word 'world', he reports. Or - the concept. The alethiometer has a concept of 'world' and it's a lot like ours, but the set of worlds it knows about are all linked to Alethia. You could call them parts of Alethia, I guess. They're mostly the same way toward each other as, say, all the worlds that linked up to Downside before we got there, though. Some of them don't even have daemons.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 05:38 pm (UTC)

Okay, let's call worlds as in Syntropy is a world and Alethia is a world - "worlds", like we've been doing, and within each can be subworlds.

dark_light
2013-05-21 05:39 pm (UTC)

Can alts appear in the same world in different subworlds? Because they could in Downside-linked worlds even before we showed up - Queenie died Downside, and we know Origin was linked because of Pattern.

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:55 pm (UTC)

Well, I can't tell you about other worlds, but the alethiometer says it's heard of alts in worlds that are similar enough - most aren't. Uh, and it can't give a number for the worlds because they're not countable - not sure how that works.

dark_light
2013-05-21 05:57 pm (UTC)

Can it do more/fewer? Than five hundred, than twenty thousand, etcetera?

truthwright
2013-05-21 05:58 pm (UTC)

...It says there's more than any number I could ask it. I'm not sure if it's being rhetorical.

dark_light
2013-05-21 05:59 pm (UTC)

Well, says Amariah. My to-do list just got ridiculous, huh.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 06:00 pm (UTC)

I wonder if any of the other worlds we know of are actually - sheaves of them like that, muses Cam. Syntropy might be. The manual talks about worlds sometimes, there are worldgates - I wasn't sure if it was just a local mechanism within a worldfamily, like a mini-Milliways, or what. Maybe it's like here.
Edited 2013-05-21 18:01 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:07 pm (UTC)

What's the difference? wonders Kas.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 06:07 pm (UTC)

Don't know. I'll need to find out more.

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:10 pm (UTC)

Do all these uncountable worlds come through here? Jane said we were moving about six thousand times slower than her, which is a lot, but not enough to account for the uncrowded dock and the death rate of uncountable worlds.

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:14 pm (UTC)

...It says most of the worlds are too - young? - to have people, Kas reports. It still won't tell me how many do.

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:21 pm (UTC)

Not even more/fewer? Amariah sends plaintively.

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:23 pm (UTC)

Sorry, sweetie. It'll tell me there's more than one.

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:25 pm (UTC)

But it won't tell you there's more than two? How obstinate can it be?

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:27 pm (UTC)

I don't think it's being obstinate, I think there's something about the way the worlds work that means it can't answer properly, he says. Or maybe it's just not that good at numbers. It deals with them weirdly, in the symbols.

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:28 pm (UTC)

I guess we can poke it later. Goodness knows I'm not done with my original subworld yet.

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:29 pm (UTC)

Yeah. Although it'll make a difference to how you handle the afterlife thing, if you try to let people back into their original worlds, and you don't know how many there are...

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:31 pm (UTC)

Yeah. My first priority is getting these people comfortable. After that I can work out a system for letting them go home. Maybe as a stopgap I can let them communicate with the living, although the time dilation is going to be an issue there.

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:33 pm (UTC)

No kidding.

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:36 pm (UTC)

And the harpies can filter people for their ability to do harm by communicating with the living by ordering around nefarious minions or being abusive or something. And of course live people can write letters to the dead, I can have those magically handled somehow. This isn't like Downside where people sleep till they're processed, I think I might have to give all these subworlds a short sharp shock to minimize issues.

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:37 pm (UTC)

Kas giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 06:38 pm (UTC)

I'm concerned about this Authority character, personally. Kas, what can you get on that?

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:40 pm (UTC)

He lives at the top of a flying mountain that travels between worlds. And there's stuff the alethiometer doesn't know about him.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 06:40 pm (UTC)

...I thought it knew everything, within the Alethia worldsheaf...

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:44 pm (UTC)

Yeah. But it doesn't actually say it knows everything, just that it knows - lots of stuff.

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:46 pm (UTC)

Does the mountain ever come here?

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:47 pm (UTC)

It's - been here. But not for a long time.
Edited 2013-05-21 18:47 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:47 pm (UTC)

How long is a long time?

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:48 pm (UTC)

Since harpies.
Edited 2013-05-21 18:49 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:49 pm (UTC)

How long is that?

truthwright
2013-05-21 06:50 pm (UTC)

Uncountable time ago, apparently.

dark_light
2013-05-21 06:51 pm (UTC)

Well, that's obnoxious. So I think a trip to this mountain is called for - what can it tell us about the safety rating and hostility and so on of said mountain's inhabitants?

truthwright
2013-05-21 07:06 pm (UTC)

What's on the mountain is... angels, says Kas. Not like Angela. It's impossible to hide from them if you're close enough to see, but they're physically fragile. Except for their leader - 'angel' is a submeaning of 'messenger', and it calls him 'voice/messenger'. Apparently he could kick my ass in a fistfight. He's not the Authority; he's some kind of second in command. Uh, and if he knew you exist he'd hate your guts.

dark_light
2013-05-21 07:07 pm (UTC)

Could he kick my ass in a fistfight? With my boosts? What about - Golden's not here, but Elspeth's in the house, could he beat her up?

truthwright
2013-05-21 07:09 pm (UTC)

He couldn't beat up Elspeth, he reports.

dark_light
2013-05-21 07:38 pm (UTC)

What about me, though, I don't want to ask Elspeth if it's not necessary.

truthwright
2013-05-21 07:49 pm (UTC)

He could beat you up easier than he could beat me up, if we were both unarmed, Kas reports.
Edited 2013-05-21 19:49 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-21 07:50 pm (UTC)

Hmm. Okay. Might ask Elspeth, then. Is beating up definitely going to happen if we show up or does the alethiometer think we could come to a nonviolent agreement?

truthwright
2013-05-21 07:52 pm (UTC)

It can't see the future, he reminds her. Why not ask Aianon? Aianon could beat Elspeth up. Aianon arm-wrestled the Joker's sweetie and won one out of two.
Edited 2013-05-21 19:52 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-21 07:53 pm (UTC)

Oh, good idea. Is Clouded Mountain all weirdly spacey like this place? Will we be able to teleport there?

truthwright
2013-05-21 07:54 pm (UTC)

No teleporting.

dark_light
2013-05-21 07:55 pm (UTC)

Does it prevent wishing too?

truthwright
2013-05-21 07:57 pm (UTC)

Yeah, but differently. You can't wish on a coin that's in the afterlife; you can't wish on a target that's in the Clouded Mountain. I don't know if you can cast wishes while you're there; it isn't saying.

dark_light
2013-05-21 07:58 pm (UTC)

Hmm. Is there non-physical danger there? I don't mind a bit of a fight if I have to fight, but I'd really rather not be harpied or anything like being harpied.

truthwright
2013-05-21 07:59 pm (UTC)

No harpies, he says. Don't know about things like them.

dark_light
2013-05-21 08:00 pm (UTC)

Does the alethiometer know why it doesn't know much about this place?

truthwright
2013-05-21 08:02 pm (UTC)

It just says there are things there that are hidden from it.

dark_light
2013-05-21 08:03 pm (UTC)

Okay then. I should decide whether to set up the new afterlife before or after addressing that. Does it know if anything is dependent on the continued existence of the Authority or the angels such that if we wind up killing them all stuff will collapse?

truthwright
2013-05-21 08:07 pm (UTC)

Uh... it says there's angels who don't follow the Authority and you definitely shouldn't kill those, he offers.

dark_light
2013-05-21 08:08 pm (UTC)

That's good to know, how do we tell them apart? Do we just ask the alethiometer for all of them?

truthwright
2013-05-21 08:13 pm (UTC)

Well, whether or not they try to kill us should be a clue, right?

dark_light
2013-05-21 08:14 pm (UTC)

That'll point out the ones who we can try to kill right back, if any of them try to infiltrate and spy or just generally act out of self-preservation it won't help.

truthwright
2013-05-21 08:22 pm (UTC)

...Don't you have lie detector powers for that?

dark_light
2013-05-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

Will it work on the angels? It doesn't work on Bells with mental defense wishes, let alone native opacities.
Edited 2013-05-21 20:29 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-05-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

Lie detection works on angels.

dark_light
2013-05-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

Cool.

truthwright
2013-05-21 08:31 pm (UTC)

So where's that leave us?

dark_light
2013-05-21 08:32 pm (UTC)

Checking the place out before directly revamping this, I think, if they're physical pushovers and lie-detectable but have enough reality revision to make this place to begin with.

truthwright
2013-05-21 08:33 pm (UTC)

Okay.

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:00 pm (UTC)

So probably time to bid the harpies a temporary goodbye, unless you don't want to come. Oh - does the alethiometer know about the time dilation situation on the mountain?

truthwright
2013-05-21 09:02 pm (UTC)

Mountain runs on outside time.

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:03 pm (UTC)

So I guess if it takes longer than a few seconds to deal with the angels and the Authority, the harpies will be waiting a very long time. Is that okay with them, will it mess up the rapport you have with them?

pythbox
2013-05-21 09:06 pm (UTC)

I'll stick around and tell them stories, volunteers Ghosty.

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:07 pm (UTC)

You sure? If it takes us an hour - and that could be too optimistic - you will be here for almost a solid year of subjective time.

pythbox
2013-05-21 09:08 pm (UTC)

Yeah, and?

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:10 pm (UTC)

Just checking that this is okay.

pythbox
2013-05-21 09:17 pm (UTC)

It's fine, she says serenely.

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:18 pm (UTC)

Okay. Let's all coordinate on teleporting back to the house so we don't rack up more asynchronicity than we need. Sue, if you'll count us down?

pythbox
2013-05-21 09:30 pm (UTC)

Sure thing! says Sue.

He does.

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:30 pm (UTC)

Everyone reconvenes at the house, where Sarion is lounging on the larger of her beloveds drowsily.

endragoned
2013-05-21 09:33 pm (UTC)

The smaller of her beloveds snuggles her and kisses her hair.

small_magics
2013-05-21 09:33 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-21 09:34 pm (UTC)

"I think," says Shell Bell, "that I should probably go home rather than try to go help fight angels."

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I agree, but thanks for coming out to start with," says Amariah.

sicaria
2013-05-21 09:38 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs Shell Bell. "Let's go."

she_sells_seashells
2013-05-21 09:39 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell taps her Janegem. She and Sherlock and their daemons disappear from Alethia.

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Who else is coming along to the mountain, who's staying here, and who's going home?" Amariah asks.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I'll come if you want me to - I'm not a physical combatant by any stretch of the imagination but if we're going to try negotiation I might have an advantage at it. Jokers get along better with harpies but we don't know about angels."

endragoned
2013-05-21 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I am coming," says Aianon.

truthwright
2013-05-21 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Kas.

pythbox
2013-05-21 09:43 pm (UTC)

"I'll stay here," says Sue.

small_magics
2013-05-21 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Beloveds, I would not want to unduly distract you in your possible fight against angels," says Sarion.

endragoned
2013-05-21 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Would you rather go home, then?"

small_magics
2013-05-21 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Only if you will find me distracting. I am perfectly comfortable."

endragoned
2013-05-21 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Not such a distraction that I couldn't kill an angel if I had to," he says, kissing her on the cheek.

small_magics
2013-05-21 09:50 pm (UTC)

"You must let me know if I should move, of course," she says, running her hand through his hair.

endragoned
2013-05-21 09:52 pm (UTC)

"We will," rumbles Ansharil.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Am I useful past this point? Since you didn't need me for the harpies."

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

"You could also beat up angels, but so can Aianon; if you'd rather go home, go for it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-21 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Bye, everybody."

Elspeth goes.

dark_light
2013-05-21 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Let's see about batch-teleporting."

And Amariah attempts to pick up everyone in the landing party and go to the Authority.

pythbox
2013-05-21 10:02 pm (UTC)

In a word, no.

dark_light
2013-05-21 10:03 pm (UTC)

Close-as-can-be, like how she found the dock, then.

pythbox
2013-05-21 10:06 pm (UTC)

And—

They're all in the air, high above a thick layer of clouds, right next to a mountain that seems to sprout out of them and drag them up its slopes. The summit is completely misted over.

dark_light
2013-05-21 10:06 pm (UTC)

Amariah flies. Up.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 10:06 pm (UTC)

Cam follows.

endragoned
2013-05-21 10:07 pm (UTC)

Likewise the Jokers.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:08 pm (UTC)

The party ascends through the mist. Pattern's upgrade to the standard vision boost has propagated through the peal; both Bells can see through it if they want, which occurs to them after a few seconds of blind flight.

And this mountain -

Is definitely inhabited by angels.

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:12 pm (UTC)

The very top of the mountain is still enclouded; apparently there is something magical about the mist there.

But they have another problem.

The first angel who sees their party squeaks and flees, beating insubstantial wings; a scant minute later, in a thunder of ghostly feathers, what seems like every angel in the mountain all come pouring out every available crevasse and make straight for Aianon, dragging at his wings and battering him with their misty limbs.

endragoned
2013-05-21 11:13 pm (UTC)

...What am I to do? he wonders into the link, letting the celestial mob drag him slowly away from the mountain.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:15 pm (UTC)

If you can shake them off without killing them do it - can you? -

endragoned
2013-05-21 11:17 pm (UTC)

I don't think I could so much as flap my wings without breaking one in half.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:18 pm (UTC)

Uuuuh. They're not hurting you, are they?

endragoned
2013-05-21 11:19 pm (UTC)

It more sort of tickles, he snorts.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:20 pm (UTC)

Okay, then since they only attacked you in particular - I don't think we can assume they're hostile to the entire party, if you don't mind letting them carry you wherever they're going while we go try to talk to some others that would be good. You can try talking to them, if they'll listen.

endragoned
2013-05-21 11:22 pm (UTC)

All right.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:23 pm (UTC)

And up flies everyone else.

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

And out of the clouds at the very top of the mountain flies another angel, taller and brighter and more solid-looking than the rest.

He does not look pleased.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Hello," tries Amariah. "I am Isabella Amariah."

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:29 pm (UTC)

"You are trespassing," thunders the angel. "Leave now."

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:31 pm (UTC)

There weren't any signs, Amariah linkbounces but refrains from saying aloud. Instead she says, "Don't you want to know why we're here?"

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:33 pm (UTC)

"No."

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm afraid it's very important, more so than trespassing, although I do apologize that this was called for," she says.

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Leave," says the angel. He points down and away, out of the mist.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:37 pm (UTC)

"No. My errand isn't going to decrease in urgency until it is complete."

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Your errand is meaningless," says the angel. "Go, now, and you will not be harmed."

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:42 pm (UTC)

Amariah plants her hands on her hips, in a gesture that puts her hand near her dagger's hilt.

"My errand is not meaningless. I would like to talk it over peacefully, but if you escalate to violence I don't think I'll come out the worse for it."

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Tell me of your errand, then," he says disdainfully.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

"How kind of you," says Amariah. "It's about the land of the dead. I don't like it. I'd like to redesign it without interference."

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Impossible," the angel dismisses.

And he glows brighter.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:47 pm (UTC)

Amariah flares aura. "Possible. But perhaps not without a fight, if you want to stand in the way."

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Impossible," he repeats.

And a bolt of pure light swats all three of them out of the sky.

lifes_sake
2013-05-21 11:54 pm (UTC)

Cam is bedecked with standard wards, but hasn't been flying for long. He strikes the ground, swearing.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:56 pm (UTC)

Amariah has controlled less obedient flight mechanisms than this in weather nearly this hostile since she counted the Tooth Fairy in her pantheon.

She recovers her trajectory, pulls her dagger, and streaks through the air towards the angel.

pythbox
2013-05-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

Instead of swatting her again, he dives to meet her.

truthwright
2013-05-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

Kas torches in midair.

dark_light
2013-05-21 11:59 pm (UTC)

Amariah spares a split-second link-check that he's torched and reset properly, and then she's fighting.

She was "not embarrassing" with this dagger (this blessed, witch's dagger) when she could barely walk down a sidewalk without going sprawling.

Now she's in flight, and the dagger is slightly more magical than it was then, and she is very, very annoyed.

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:02 am (UTC)

The strange angel is every bit as solid as a human, and he's fast, and strong, and angry.

Which makes it more or less an even fight.
Edited 2013-05-22 00:06 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:08 am (UTC)

Amariah's invulnerable unless she chooses not to be and even a lethal hit would only delay her for a second while she torched; he can move her around, but not really damage her. That doesn't mean he couldn't pin her and make her life unpleasant, though; she pretends to need to dodge strikes, until a key moment when she doesn't, and she permits a blow to the back of her neck that pitches all her weight behind a dagger-thrust to his gut.

"Surrender," she suggests. This wound would kill a human, but not instantly.

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:10 am (UTC)

"Die," snarls the angel, and he starts glowing again.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:11 am (UTC)

She jerks the dagger across, down, out, and across his throat.

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:13 am (UTC)

The angel... dissolves.

truthwright
2013-05-22 12:14 am (UTC)

Kas... watches.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:14 am (UTC)

"There," says Amariah, and she whirls in midair, looking to see if any other angels are approaching.

truthwright
2013-05-22 12:18 am (UTC)

None.

But Kas is looking at her.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:19 am (UTC)

She winks.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 12:20 am (UTC)

Cam catches up.

"Shit," he says. "That didn't go well. Okay. Next stop, summit?"

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:21 am (UTC)

Amariah nods.

Bells fly up.

Aianon, if you'd like to tell them that I just killed the shouty glowy guy and see if that gets them to react, you may.

truthwright
2013-05-22 12:26 am (UTC)

Kas follows Bells!

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:29 am (UTC)

Soon they are totally enveloped in impenetrable fog.

endragoned
2013-05-22 12:30 am (UTC)

(Aianon would not like to tell the angels that thing.)

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:31 am (UTC)

Amariah flies with one hand held out in front of her, and slows down; she doesn't want to run facefirst into a rock or another angel.

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:32 am (UTC)

Eventually, she does encounter a rock.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:32 am (UTC)

She pats the rock, attempting to figure out how to go around.

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:33 am (UTC)

It is part of the mountainside.

But it is part of the mountainside at the very top, so it does not take all that long to feel her way around to something like a doorway.

The fog thins once they are inside, allowing them to see and hear for a few feet around.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:34 am (UTC)

Amariah goes in first, dagger clutched in her hand.

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:36 am (UTC)

The fog thins, and thins, and at the end of the tunnel there is a room, and in the middle of the room there is a - thing.

It is made of transparent crystal that catches the dim light and sparkles brilliantly, and it is absolutely without a gap or break of any kind, and there is an angel inside, small and old and wrinkled and faded almost to nothing.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:36 am (UTC)

"...Hello," tries Amariah.

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:37 am (UTC)

No reaction.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:37 am (UTC)

[Hello.]

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:38 am (UTC)

He shivers, startled.

[What? Who are you?]

His voice, even over brainphone, is as faint and old and faded as the rest of him.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:40 am (UTC)

[I'm Isabella Amariah. Who are you?]

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:42 am (UTC)

[I'm - I'm - ]

...he's falling asleep, apparently.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:43 am (UTC)

[I am on an important errand. Please pay attention.]

pythbox
2013-05-22 12:44 am (UTC)

Nope. Sleeping.

dark_light
2013-05-22 12:46 am (UTC)

Amariah taps on the crystal that surrounds the angel.

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:17 am (UTC)

The crystal rings like a bell. The angel startles awake, shuddering violently, and... swirls, like the other angel did when he began to dissolve.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:17 am (UTC)

Amariah floats back, startled. [Sorry!]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:24 am (UTC)

Slowly, he swirls back together. The ringing fades. He blinks in confusion.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:25 am (UTC)

[Sorry,] Amariah repeats. [You must be terribly fragile.]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:25 am (UTC)

Also slowly, he nods.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:26 am (UTC)

[Is that why you're in there?]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:29 am (UTC)

Another nod.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:29 am (UTC)

[Who are you?] she asks again.

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:29 am (UTC)

Slowly, sadly, he shakes his head.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:30 am (UTC)

[You don't remember?]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:30 am (UTC)

A helpless shrug.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:31 am (UTC)

[Kas, can you check if he's fixable if I decide to do that - maybe not wishing, but an enchantment, witch magic -]

truthwright
2013-05-22 01:32 am (UTC)

[You... probably don't want to do that,] says Kas, after consulting his alethiometer. [This is the Authority.]

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:33 am (UTC)

[He is a shriveled angel who can't withstand someone tapping on the glass in his tank. What happened to him?]

truthwright
2013-05-22 01:34 am (UTC)

[It doesn't know. But - he's the oldest angel there is.]

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:35 am (UTC)

She resumes talking to the Authority.

[What do you do, in there?]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:36 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:37 am (UTC)

[Please answer me. Even if you don't know, you can say so.]

And then her lie detection will work.

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:38 am (UTC)

[nothing,] he says softly.

It is true.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:39 am (UTC)

[That sounds boring.]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:39 am (UTC)

He has no answer for that.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:40 am (UTC)

[Is there anything you want to do?]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:41 am (UTC)

He shakes his head again.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:41 am (UTC)

[You want to just hang out in your box and not do anything?]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:41 am (UTC)

He nods.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:42 am (UTC)

[Say it, please.]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:42 am (UTC)

He closes his eyes instead.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:43 am (UTC)

[Say it, and then I'll leave you be if you're being honest with me.]

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:46 am (UTC)

After a minute or so, he manages,

[yes]

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:47 am (UTC)

[I can tell that's not the whole answer.]

truthwright
2013-05-22 01:48 am (UTC)

[Is grilling this guy really getting us anywhere?] wonders Kas. [Look at him, he can barely talk.]

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:49 am (UTC)

[Yes, that's what it looks like, but if he used to be a god I'm not sure how this happened and it could also have not happened, goodness knows I'd consider faking broken if someone had just killed one of my allies and was questioning me under lie detection - let me know if the alethiometer can effectively substitute for him for the questioning.]

truthwright
2013-05-22 01:50 am (UTC)

[The alethiometer says he is exactly as fucked up as he looks. What else do you want to know?]

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:51 am (UTC)

[Okay then. I guess he can go on sleeping in his box then if that's what he wants.]

She steps out of the area. [Will an enchantment clear this mist? It's annoying.]

truthwright
2013-05-22 01:52 am (UTC)

[Alethiometer doesn't know.]

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:53 am (UTC)

[Mind if I try it?]

truthwright
2013-05-22 01:55 am (UTC)

[Go for it.]

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:56 am (UTC)

Amariah tries it.

pythbox
2013-05-22 01:57 am (UTC)

The mist swirls obediently out of the way.

dark_light
2013-05-22 01:58 am (UTC)

Good for the mist.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 01:58 am (UTC)

Cam zooms down, looking for wherever Aianon's got to.

dark_light
2013-05-22 02:00 am (UTC)

Amariah circles the summit of the mountain in search of lurking angels or other items of interest.

pythbox
2013-05-22 02:02 am (UTC)

There is nothing.

endragoned
2013-05-22 02:07 am (UTC)

(Aianon is some distance below the mountain, continuing to not do much about the horde of angels battering at him.)

dark_light
2013-05-22 02:08 am (UTC)

"Well," says Amariah. "That was briefly very exciting, wouldn't you say?"

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 02:08 am (UTC)

"Angels!" calls Cam. "You're not accomplishing anything!"

truthwright
2013-05-22 02:09 am (UTC)

"It was," says Kas, looking admiringly at Amariah.

pythbox
2013-05-22 02:13 am (UTC)

It is excruciatingly obvious to everyone that the angels are not accomplishing anything.

That doesn't mean they're going to stop.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 02:15 am (UTC)

Cam sighs. [After we're out of the anti-teleporting field you can just pop out.]

dark_light
2013-05-22 02:16 am (UTC)

Amariah winks at Kas.

"And now all the witnesses are clear of the place and nothing particularly emergencylike is going on."

endragoned
2013-05-22 02:17 am (UTC)

[I suppose I can,] he says.

truthwright
2013-05-22 02:17 am (UTC)

"Let's have sex!" says Kas.

dark_light
2013-05-22 02:20 am (UTC)

"C'mere!"

truthwright
2013-05-22 02:22 am (UTC)

He goes there.

dark_light
2013-05-22 02:22 am (UTC)

Predictable results ensue.

truthwright
2013-05-22 02:34 am (UTC)

Mmmm, predictable results.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 02:58 am (UTC)

Cam's still following the flock of angels and the harried demon.

dark_light
2013-05-22 02:59 am (UTC)

Amariah enjoys the predictable results but does not permit them to go on too long; there's stuff to do and there will be time later.

Oh, damn, she can't make wishes here, she has to actually tie her silks back on. Annoying. She does it anyway.
Edited 2013-05-22 03:00 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-05-22 11:28 am (UTC)

They get far enough below the flying mountain for Aianon to teleport away.

He does that. Back to his beloveds.

pythbox
2013-05-22 11:29 am (UTC)

The flock of angels is confused!

They mill around for a few seconds, and then half of them fly back to the mountain... and half of them converge on Cam.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 03:36 pm (UTC)

They're clear of the no-teleporting range; Cam stays out of their reach. "Guys," he says, "I'd really rather just talk, can we do that?"

[Amariah, Kas, incoming half-flock.]

small_magics
2013-05-22 03:37 pm (UTC)

Aianon's beloveds are of course glad to see him unharmed by his escapade.

pythbox
2013-05-22 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Murderers!" howls an angel, and the remaining half of the swarm keeps after Cam.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Whoa," says Cam, bouncing out of the way again. "Look, we didn't come here intending to kill anyone. That guy attacked us. And he had a chance to surrender and he didn't take it. We'd also rather not kill you, now that you mention it."

pythbox
2013-05-22 03:42 pm (UTC)

This is apparently not a convincing argument.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 03:43 pm (UTC)

Cam sighs. He keeps bouncing around. Meanwhile he inquires of the alethiometer whether the remaining mountain angels are dangerous to people who don't have copious boosts and powers the way him and Amariah and Kas do.

pythbox
2013-05-22 03:44 pm (UTC)

"The mountain remains a danger," says the alethiometer.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 03:45 pm (UTC)

"In what way? To whom?"

pythbox
2013-05-22 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Through their desire to rule in the name of the Authority, to everyone."

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 03:50 pm (UTC)

Kas, can you get more detail about how the remaining mountain angels are dangerous? It's saying they are dangerous to everyone because they want to rule in the name of the Authority, but I bet it would've come up in conversation before now if 'pissed off angel' were a common cause of mishap for regular people here.

truthwright
2013-05-22 05:31 pm (UTC)

They don't do stuff directly, that much, says Kas after a short consultation. But they can go anywhere and see anything they want, and they can - encourage. And the shit they encourage is not good shit.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 05:32 pm (UTC)

What pray tell is the shit they encourage?

dark_light
2013-05-22 05:33 pm (UTC)

Enchanting at least sometimes works up here, I could maybe enchant them all into a box like his till they want to talk, says Amariah dubiously.

truthwright
2013-05-22 05:35 pm (UTC)

Kas goes quiet.
Edited 2013-05-22 17:35 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-22 05:36 pm (UTC)

Wherever the rest of the angels were going, it doesn't seem to be up to Kas and Amariah; there's no sign of them.

dark_light
2013-05-22 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Sweetie?" murmurs Amariah.

truthwright
2013-05-22 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I just - wow," he murmurs, shivering.

So I asked what the Clouded Mountain wants, he says into the link.

They want to rule every conscious mind on every world. No dissent, no disagreement, nobody doing anything without permission. Total control. Of everything. Technically they want it all for the Authority, but most of them don't know he's - like he is.

dark_light
2013-05-22 05:43 pm (UTC)

Shit.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 05:43 pm (UTC)

Amariah, your world - do I start engaging these little creeps?

dark_light
2013-05-22 05:44 pm (UTC)

Yeah. We're on our way.

She flies down the mountain.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 05:44 pm (UTC)

These little creeps aren't within no-wishing range.

Cam wishes them quick clean ends, one at a time, square by square.

truthwright
2013-05-22 05:46 pm (UTC)

Kas thinks of something to ask the alethiometer.

...Anybody care that angels don't have afterlives?

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 05:47 pm (UTC)

I care some. Could Amariah retrieve them with evils if she wanted? I mean, that worked on Shell Bell and Nathan and it wasn't moving them from Downside. Cam pauses in picking off angels. In case they are swayed by the fact that he can do it; in case the answer to his question is "no".

pythbox
2013-05-22 05:48 pm (UTC)

The rest of the angels take the opportunity to flee back into the mountain.

truthwright
2013-05-22 05:50 pm (UTC)

Yep, Kas reports from the outside entrance to the Authority's cave. You can evil 'em back.

dark_light
2013-05-22 05:52 pm (UTC)

So they're not irrecoverable then. Amariah is heartened by this notion. I'll see about enchanting them a box all the same, no sense wasting evils - you good for another spell, sweetie?

truthwright
2013-05-22 05:53 pm (UTC)

Sure!

dark_light
2013-05-22 05:58 pm (UTC)

Amariah has a spell composed inside thirty seconds.

The angels get the non-aquatic equivalent of a fishtank, wrapping around the mountain; it will suck in angels who approach too near - with "too near" responding to the recent absorption of angels, so it can swallow entire flocks even if they turn back after the first - but will not let them out, without the intervention of an enchanter.
Edited 2013-05-22 17:59 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:01 pm (UTC)

Well, that'll help, says Kas. He flies down to Amariah and hugs her.

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:01 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

Amariah goes to watch angels slurped up into the angel tank.

pythbox
2013-05-22 06:03 pm (UTC)

Since every single angel was inside the mountain by the time she finished her spell, there is an impressive amount of slurping going on.
Edited 2013-05-22 18:27 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:28 pm (UTC)

Amariah sits on top of the angel tank. Maybe one of them will talk to her now.

pythbox
2013-05-22 06:28 pm (UTC)

Nope.

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:30 pm (UTC)

Yeah, that's not too surprising, is it.

Are they going to - starve, or anything? Amariah asks. Do I need to fix this thing to provide them with angel food cake or something?

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:33 pm (UTC)

They'll get uncomfortable after long enough without food, says Kas. The Authority's special somehow, maybe because he's so old. It doesn't much matter what food, though, and they don't need a lot or anything. You could totally give them a thingy that dispenses unlimited angel food cake and that'd keep 'em.

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:34 pm (UTC)

You know what, that amuses me, I'm going for it if you're up for another enchantment.

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:34 pm (UTC)

Yeah!

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:36 pm (UTC)

Amariah designs a little enchanted bakery (enchantments cooperate more with their physical substrates than wishes tend to; the bakery part helps) which will produce angel food cake on demand. It too is editable; if she feels like supplying the angels with more variety later it will bake other things. Will that do? Do they need more water than what's in the cakes?

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:38 pm (UTC)

Yeah. Magic fountain?

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:39 pm (UTC)

Magic fountain!

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:40 pm (UTC)

Magic fountain.

So... now what?

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:41 pm (UTC)

Now I have a lot of angels in a fishtank; can they be obnoxious from there?

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:44 pm (UTC)

...They might be able to fly the mountain around and make it slurp up enemy angels and kill them, says Kas. And they can still spy on anybody who goes near 'em. Uh.

He pauses briefly, then goes on,

Apparently angels can see a bunch of stuff, and it's impossible to make them not, and some of the stuff they can see is - people's essential natures.

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:45 pm (UTC)

...Essential natures like how?

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:46 pm (UTC)

Like... who you are as a person, what your life has been like, what kind of stuff you believe in.

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:47 pm (UTC)

Then why didn't that solid angel know he was not going to get me to leave by saying so?

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:49 pm (UTC)

Maybe he did.

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:50 pm (UTC)

Hmm. How does piloting the mountain work? Also where the heck is it now?

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:53 pm (UTC)

It's... in a world, says Kas, unhelpfully. Not ours. One of the ones that doesn't have other life. The alethiometer doesn't know how to pilot it, but it says you can enchant it to stick somewhere and stay stuck.

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:54 pm (UTC)

If there's no other life here I'm gonna call it a fine parking spot. You okay for the enchantment?

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:54 pm (UTC)

Yep!

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:54 pm (UTC)

Enchanting!

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:55 pm (UTC)

The mountain has been drifting through the air this whole time, a few inches a minute.

It slows, then stops.

dark_light
2013-05-22 06:56 pm (UTC)

Are all the bad angels currently in the tank?

truthwright
2013-05-22 06:59 pm (UTC)

Maybe. There could be bad angels hiding somewhere and the alethiometer wouldn't know about them.

dark_light
2013-05-22 07:00 pm (UTC)

Why are we running into all these limits on alethiometer knowledge today?

truthwright
2013-05-22 07:01 pm (UTC)

Angels can hide things from it.

dark_light
2013-05-22 07:10 pm (UTC)

Can I stop them from being able to do that?

truthwright
2013-05-22 07:57 pm (UTC)

No.

dark_light
2013-05-22 07:58 pm (UTC)

Is it sure or might there be a way it doesn't know about because the angels can hide things?

truthwright
2013-05-22 07:59 pm (UTC)

If it's not sure, it tells me it's not sure.

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:05 pm (UTC)

So basically there are more angels around, these are all bad but the others are potentially a mix, anybody might show up - I don't think I can make the angel tank discriminate by loyalty to the Authority. Maybe I should just let it suck up all angels incoming and leave instructions on how to get in touch with me.

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:14 pm (UTC)

Yeah, if the Authority ones don't just straight-up murder any of the other ones they catch.

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:15 pm (UTC)

Are angels who would get murdered by the Authority's contingent going to approach the Clouded Mountain to begin with?

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:16 pm (UTC)

They could. We don't know they won't. We don't know anything about them except they exist.

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:16 pm (UTC)

I guess I could make individual sections pinch off for new angels and swing by once a week to see whether they get added to the general population or turned loose.

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:17 pm (UTC)

Sure. Do they get their very own bakeries? he laughs.

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:18 pm (UTC)

Nah, this bakery will send them trays. Are you good for another enchantment?

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:19 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

Go for it!

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:22 pm (UTC)

Amariah kisses him and augments the angel tank. Incoming angels will get their own cells, with delivery cake, and automatically notify Amariah.

"Does the alethiometer know if I can enchant the mountain - or for that matter the land of the dead - to permit wishes to work normally?"

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Can't. Twice," he says succinctly.

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:25 pm (UTC)

"That's really annoying. Can I affect the land of the dead with wishes from the outside? I expect I can't do that for the mountain, given how you put the explanation of how it's anti-wish."

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Depends on the wish; it can't effectively tell me more than that without a more specific question."

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Restore the daemons, is what I was thinking."

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:29 pm (UTC)

"No daemons in the afterlife."

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:32 pm (UTC)

"So I am going to have to move everybody. Okay." She closes her eyes and thinks. "Has to hold a lot of dead people, and harpies. Has to collect the dead, as they die, and not overwhelm the limited number of harpies. Has to be daemon-compatible -" She pauses. "Has everyone in this worldsheaf got an external daemon?"

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:33 pm (UTC)

He checks.

"No."

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So those people are missing pieces but not creatures with their own names. I'll have to account for that. Space could be a problem, though less so with insubstantial shades - can we get a ballpark population figure?"

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Uncountable. I'm really starting to think the alethiometer is just bad at math," he laughs.

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I'll just make an infinite plane like Downside so I'll be able to teleport and mark locations there," laughs Amariah. "With - doors - can I wish or enchant doors between worlds in this sheaf?"

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Yep! Either way," he says. "Maybe just - a door that takes whoever walks through it back to their own world? Kind of like Milliways, but smaller-scale."

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Right. And harpies as gatekeepers - and some other mechanism to slow things down, so all the worlds aren't mobbed with dead people. My land-of-the-dead will be more comfortable, of course, but a lot of people are still going to want to leave. Maybe I can slow down if I let live people go visit it."

truthwright
2013-05-22 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay. ...Speaking of visiting it, maybe we should be doing all our sitting around talking about stuff while we're in the six-thousand-times-slower time distortion thing where we left Ghosty," he suggests.

dark_light
2013-05-22 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes. That's a good idea." Amariah pings the link about this, and teleports herself and Kas to the dock.

pythbox
2013-05-22 10:49 pm (UTC)

Sue follows them there.

lifes_sake
2013-05-22 10:52 pm (UTC)

Cam shows up a minute later, dockside time.

Didja miss us, Ghosty?
Edited 2013-05-22 22:53 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-22 11:01 pm (UTC)

Nah, I've been having a great time, she says cheerfully. Calliope's a blast. And the name thing caught on - now there's Aello and Ocypete and Celaeno and Nicothoe and Aoide and Clio and Melpomene and Sappho. They really liked the Greek theme for some reason.
Edited 2013-05-22 23:10 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-22 11:12 pm (UTC)

Cool.

Amariah resumes afterlife-design. She decides that after everyone has been moved to her afterlife and had a chance to spread out, insubtantiality should be optional, except insofar as people are going to get places to live with privacy, which none of them have in the afterlife, so those who opt to remain insubstantial will not be able to walk through walls with this power.

"Might want to give the harpies the power to distribute torching, assuming they're trustworthy gatekeepers in the first place," she muses.

truthwright
2013-05-22 11:15 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah," says Kas, after consulting the alethiometer, "good plan, because right now it's possible for a shade to die and if they do they just - stop."

dark_light
2013-05-22 11:16 pm (UTC)

"...has that happened before?"

truthwright
2013-05-22 11:19 pm (UTC)

He consults.

"No."
Edited 2013-05-22 23:20 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-22 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that's good. Is there a way to catch all dead people? Including angels, who I gather don't leave shades?"

truthwright
2013-05-22 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Uh..."

He asks.

"...So there's this stuff called - the concept I'm getting is something like 'sparkles'," he says. "It's a particle, but it doesn't work like most other particles. It's generated by conscious thought. If somebody makes this stuff, they're a person. So you can tell who is and who's not, empirically. That should be enough to wish on, right? If there's even a coin big enough to do that."

He asks that, too.

"There are no coins big enough to do that currently in this worldsheaf," he says.

dark_light
2013-05-22 11:46 pm (UTC)

"...I. Have an arrow on me."

truthwright
2013-05-22 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Then I'm pretty sure the alethiometer's telling me there's at least the potential for a coin bigger than an arrow to exist. But I'm not lining up to make it," he laughs.

dark_light
2013-05-22 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Goddesses all. Ten pointed coins. Can you think of anybody in the deck who would? Or should I pop Downside and ask Eights?" asks Amariah, shaking her head.

truthwright
2013-05-22 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Try Brill?" he suggests.

dark_light
2013-05-22 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Tenners. Yambe Akka take me if I'm ever in screaming distance of the minting process for one of those."

She pauses.

"Kas?"

truthwright
2013-05-22 11:55 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah?"

dark_light
2013-05-22 11:56 pm (UTC)

"I just walked up to the Judeo-Christian God and tapped on his box. Do the witch goddesses exist?"

truthwright
2013-05-22 11:58 pm (UTC)

...

He asks the alethiometer.

"No," he says. "They're - kind of symbols. Like the ones on the alethiometer, but a different set, for a different purpose."

dark_light
2013-05-23 12:01 am (UTC)

"Oh."

Amariah allows herself a minute to process this information.

And then she says:

"Okay."

And she asks Jane to kindly inquire of Brilliance if he'd be willing to make a couple tenners, and she sits and thinks about the afterlife she is going to make.

ten points, mint vast ghostly wishes!

incanted

[Hey Brilliance!] says Jane. [Amariah is fixing Alethia's afterlife! It's a big job. She wants ten-pointed coins.]

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:06 am (UTC)

[...Wow,] says Brilliance. [Are ten-pointed coins even a thing? I guess it's up to me to find out, huh?]

mind_game
2013-05-23 12:07 am (UTC)

[Apparently the alethiometer thinks they could be! And nobody's gonna hold you down for science, or anything, you were just the first Joker Kas thought of who might be up for it.]

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:13 am (UTC)

[It is good that nobody's going to hold me down for science,] he snorts. [I have kind of had enough of that already. Okay, I'll talk to Aurora.]

And he brainphones same.

[Hey, so Jane says the latest on Amariah's afterlife project is she wants ten-pointed coins, and they're asking me first for the obvious reason. Wanna snuggle about it some?]

incanted
2013-05-23 12:14 am (UTC)

[I could totally go for snuggling about it.] She teleports to where he's at and snuggles up.

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:15 am (UTC)

He's in the Rainbowsand village, flomped into a beanbag, appropriately enough!

Snuggle.

"So Jane said nobody's going to hold me down for science and now of course all I'm thinking about is people holding me down for science," he sighs.

incanted
2013-05-23 12:16 am (UTC)

"Oh boy," sighs Aurora. "D'you want me to turn my gem off?"

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:16 am (UTC)

He nods.

incanted
2013-05-23 12:17 am (UTC)

Aurora flicks the tiny gem's switch with a triangle.

"Sometimes you can really tell which Bell her mom is," she comments.

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:17 am (UTC)

Brilliance giggles softly.

"No kidding."

incanted
2013-05-23 12:18 am (UTC)

Snuggle.

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:19 am (UTC)

Snuggle cuddle.

Snuggle cuddle telepathic love.

incanted
2013-05-23 12:19 am (UTC)

Mmmmmm telepathic love. Aurora sighs comfortably and nuzzles the side of his neck.

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:20 am (UTC)

"I love you," he murmurs, redundantly.

incanted
2013-05-23 12:32 am (UTC)

"You do, it's awesome, it's like - like the three minutes between waking up and getting out of bed," she beams.

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:33 am (UTC)

He giggles and hugs her.

"That's adorable. You're adorable. I feel better now," he says, snuggling contentedly.

incanted
2013-05-23 12:33 am (UTC)

"That's good." Hugs hugs hugs.

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:36 am (UTC)

Snuggly cuddly lovey hugs!

"So. Wanna try?"

incanted
2013-05-23 12:37 am (UTC)

"Could do. You sure?"

Pause.

"If you get unsure - at that point - nobody's tried it, are you going to be able to tell me when to stop?"

cardistry
2013-05-23 12:38 am (UTC)

"...yeah," he says. "Probably. Maybe. I dunno."

incanted
2013-05-23 12:40 am (UTC)

She pets whatever part of him is nearest the hand that isn't trapped under them. This part happens to be some ribs. "What d'you want to do about that?"

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:00 am (UTC)

"Maybe just... go really slow with it?" he suggests. "And, I dunno, if they need their thing in ten minutes or something they might have to ask somebody else. But I wanna try it, anyway."

incanted
2013-05-23 01:01 am (UTC)

"Okay. It's about afterlife-revamping, she waited this long to even start," murmurs Aurora. "I'm sure speed would be appreciated but it can't be essential."

She resettles herself into a longer-term snuggle position.

"Say when."

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:02 am (UTC)

He grins and nuzzles her. "When."

incanted
2013-05-23 01:03 am (UTC)

"Devotion," says Aurora.

She paints heat onto his nerves slowly, one layer everywhere, second layer added slowly, each one about a hundred triangles' worth.

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:04 am (UTC)

He curls up and kisses her shoulder and sends love.

incanted
2013-05-23 01:07 am (UTC)

Aurora plays with the patterns of each new layer of burning. After she runs out of clever ideas for mere patterns, the new layers are sharp instead of hot. Then twisting. Then - paradoxically, but not impossibly, with this spell - cold.

She might run out of ideas for flavors to add before they get up to ten-pointed coins. But she can always go back and add more of previous choices.

She paints, she pours, she holds him.

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:12 am (UTC)

Up they go, through pentagons, hexes, stars. Stars are comfy.

Evils are pretty good, too.

incanted
2013-05-23 01:14 am (UTC)

Aurora runs her hand through his hair. (His scalp is now dramatically more acidified, subjectively speaking. Then the rest of him, slowly, gently.)

"You okay?" she murmurs, as they approach the ceiling of previous adventures.

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:18 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he breathes, snuggling up again. "I love you."

incanted
2013-05-23 01:18 am (UTC)

"Good," murmurs Aurora, and she paints on another layer of the latest, extremities inward.

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:19 am (UTC)

Cuddle cuddle cuddle love.

incanted
2013-05-23 01:19 am (UTC)

Mmmmm that never gets old. She basks. She tattoos on swaths of this and that.

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:22 am (UTC)

Brilliance loves her some more.

As the mid-niner range approaches, he starts getting kind of wound up. In the good way.

incanted
2013-05-23 01:23 am (UTC)

Well, that's predictable.

Snuggles snuggles devotion devotion.

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:24 am (UTC)

They should do some more predictable things after this!

But for now - love, cuddles, pain.

incanted
2013-05-23 01:24 am (UTC)

All those things. Predictability later. Yes.

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:44 am (UTC)

They'll be swimming in arrows by the time they're done here.

And, eventually, with pretty much no dimming of Brilliance's enthusiasm, they are supplied with a new coin. It's shaped something like a pair of sharpened starfish having an awkward kiss with their limbs in cross-symmetrical alignment, and it looks kind of like a Christmas ornament.

incanted
2013-05-23 01:45 am (UTC)

"Pretty," murmurs Aurora, holding steady where they are. "Let me know how long you want to stay here."

cardistry
2013-05-23 01:48 am (UTC)

"Mmkay."

He's good for, oh... another minute. Sixty-one more ten-pointed coins. (In the time it takes him to say, "Okay, you can start erasing," he accumulates two more.)

incanted
2013-05-23 01:48 am (UTC)

Aurora backs off, peppering him with kisses as she does.

cardistry
2013-05-23 02:24 am (UTC)

Erasing is almost as much fun as when she paints it on in the first place. It comes off in layers, but different ones. And it feels... nice. Snuggly and soothing and nice.

He loves her so much.

incanted
2013-05-23 02:32 am (UTC)

Peel-peel-peel-peel.

"Okay if I turn on the gem for a second to let Jane pick up the tenners and send some to Amariah?"

cardistry
2013-05-23 02:35 am (UTC)

"Lemme do all the declawing first," he says, and he uses a declawed arrow to get the first tenner and then that tenner to declaw all his currently undeclawed coins. "Okay, there."

incanted
2013-05-23 02:37 am (UTC)

"Four should more than do it, at least I hope so." She flicks the gem back on so Jane will be able to see the coins. "And the rest should be distributed among other Bells but that can wait."
Edited 2013-05-23 02:40 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-05-23 02:41 am (UTC)

He produces four tenners.

incanted
2013-05-23 02:42 am (UTC)

"Send these to Amariah, please, Jane," says Aurora, "tell her they're declawed."

The coins vanish.

Aurora turns the gem off again. She rolls on top of Brilliance and goes on with the peeling.

cardistry
2013-05-23 02:43 am (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmm. Yes, that is an excellent plan.

we worship certain symbols

dark_light

Amariah stays on the dock in slow-time till she has her afterlife completely designed, and then she and Sue and Kas leave, to wait for coins from Brilliance, while Aianon tells stories to the harpies.

And then coins land in her hand with a note from Jane that they're declawed.

"Damn," she says, admiring the aurora pattern as it shifts through the kissing starfish. "Ten pointed coins. He did it."

truthwright
2013-05-23 02:50 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm not that surprised," says Kas. "He calls stars 'middle-of-the-road'."

dark_light
2013-05-23 07:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but they go up by powers of ten, if you're at stars then doubling only gets you evils," says Amariah, shaking her head. "Okay then."

She tries to fit the whole wish onto one tenner.

Nope.

She tries to fit most of it on.

Yep.

Welcome to the newest subworld in the Alethia sheaf.

It is hers, in almost the way Downside is the admin's - in particular, she can slide the passage of time however she likes relative to everything else in the worldsheaf. She slows to match the current land of the dead. No point letting them suffer any longer than they've had to.

She wishes on the second tenner, and it goes: her afterlife will catch all the new dead.

And now it's time to open the door and let in all the existing ghosts.

truthwright
2013-05-23 11:35 am (UTC)

No, it is time for Kas to hug her.

Now it's time to open the door.

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:10 pm (UTC)

And in come shades.

They will find themselves more comfortable immediately, as they pour in, thousands of them crowding into the same space and sheering in all directions as more come through. The nature of this place restores the daemon-part to anyone present who's lost it; in the cases of those who are missing physical daemons, those are back, in their original forms, intersubstantial with their people but with no one else. The nature of the door takes away the cold, the perpetual exhaustion.

There are optional features to being present in Amariah's afterlife, too, transparent on entry to anyone who'd like to use them - someone not currently co-occupying space with another shade can resume substantiality, and switch back and forth at will. A shade who's forgotten and wishes not to have forgotten can solicit from the world, and receive, a jolt of memory - not perfect recall, but enough to conjure up the general features of their life; Amariah doesn't think many of them have substantial events from the land of the dead to get in the way. Anyone who wants a visit from a living person can invite the living person when they dream; these dreams, functionally if not metaphysically like Joker dreams of Milliways, will supply an avatar to occupy, end at will of the dreamer, and be fully memorable on waking. This feature won't be fully accessible while the ghosts are still pouring in, but she will speed up time some soon enough. And anyone seeking another dead person will find that they can travel towards them unerringly at great speed, unless the individual they wish to find isn't interested in being found. Little enchantmentlike houses will pop up for those who want them and find unoccupied space to put them in; they will grow and develop features to suit their occupants with ongoing use.

The dead can also sleep, now. As long as they like. If that is what they'd prefer to do with eternity - if they don't want to take the memory jolt, visit with the living, come up with their own projects to fill their time - they have Amariah's blessing to sleep.

And this door - this door that is currently linking them to the old, blasted, pitiful land of the dead - when that's done with, when everyone has gone through, it and its like can sometimes act as a door to the living worlds, if enough living visitors cooperate to open it for a dead loved one and the harpies deem the person hoping to return to life safe.

Amariah will want to take the harpies on a little trip Downside so they can grant these departing shades torchability.

But that can wait until this vast, vast crowd of shades is done coming through and weeping with the relief of warmth and wholeness.

pythbox
2013-05-23 04:21 pm (UTC)

Unmentioned by Ghosty, but apparent next time Amariah sees the harpies, is that they have all had baths. Calliope smells like wild roses; the rest, in contrast to their original nature, just don't smell like anything much.

They're very pretty when they aren't covered in unspecified grime.

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:23 pm (UTC)

That is good. Amariah approves.

Shades and shades and shades, so many...

And finally the incoming torrent slows to a trickle,

and stops.

"Is there anyone left there?" she asks Kas. "Who didn't find the door or decided not to come through for some reason?"

truthwright
2013-05-23 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Uh - yeah," he says. "Wow. Apparently a bunch of them decided the door is some kind of test and they're - staying behind because they think the Authority wants them to."

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:26 pm (UTC)

"...Oh boy."

truthwright
2013-05-23 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm so, so tempted to scoop them up whether they want it or not - but - well, I don't have any plans that hinge directly on the old land being empty. The door can stay; I'll just have the one there perpetually lead to here and they can come in whenever they change their minds. Or forget why they're staying, I guess."

truthwright
2013-05-23 04:28 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Yeah, good plan."

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:31 pm (UTC)

"All right then. And anybody here who wants those shades' company won't have to wait all that long, because -" She brings the world up to quarter-speed relative to the standard time of the worldsheaf, leisurely but not so preposterously sluggish. And she turns to the harpies. "Let me know if this is too fast - if you're getting too many requests for exit to handle - and I can slow it down some, but I think the dream-visits and the need to get several live people to simultaneously vouch for you will probably respectively placate and slow down most of them."

pythbox
2013-05-23 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Calliope, shrugging her now sleek and well-groomed wings.

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:34 pm (UTC)

She adds them all to the brainphone, upgrading it as she does with another viral upgrade to permit communication between worlds within a sheaf. [And let me know like so if you need anything else. Are you set for now?]
Edited 2013-05-23 16:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-23 04:39 pm (UTC)

[Yep!] says Calliope. [I'm gonna go find somebody to tell me stories!]

And with a general murmur of agreement, the flock disperses.

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Wait, I need to bring you Downside to see the admin so you can make departing shades able to torch,] says Amariah.

pythbox
2013-05-23 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Sounded like you were done," says Calliope, circling back. The other harpies follow her lead again.

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Nearly so." Amariah taps her bracelet.

mind_game
2013-05-23 04:46 pm (UTC)

Jane can compensate for modest amounts of time dilation; the infancy of the ansible network on Peace was used almost exclusively to communicate with ships in relativistic transit. Yoink!
Edited 2013-05-23 16:49 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:49 pm (UTC)

[Hey admin, I adjusted my afterlife, I'd like you to make some harpies able to render people torchable.]

ending_of
2013-05-23 04:50 pm (UTC)

[Done.]

dark_light
2013-05-23 04:52 pm (UTC)

[Thanks!] And another tap to the bracelet and they're back. "Please try to usually have one of you near these doors. Gaps of an hour or two aren't a problem, though."

pythbox
2013-05-23 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Calliope cheerfully. The other harpies leave; she stays put.

dark_light
2013-05-23 05:04 pm (UTC)

And that would seem to be that.

Amariah takes Kas by the hand and departs the New Afterlife.

truthwright
2013-05-23 05:24 pm (UTC)

"So does this mean you're God now?"

dark_light
2013-05-23 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. If Jane is then I probably qualify."

truthwright
2013-05-23 05:26 pm (UTC)

He kisses her.

dark_light
2013-05-23 05:26 pm (UTC)

Mmm, kisses.

endragoned
2013-05-23 05:29 pm (UTC)

It seems that it is time for Amariah's guests to depart.

pythbox
2013-05-23 05:30 pm (UTC)

Sue drops the link and goes home.

small_magics
2013-05-23 05:30 pm (UTC)

Goodbye, Alethia.

our news publications keep our residents up to date

cross_and_bow

Jane tells everyone what happened regarding the Alethian afterlife.

And little tidbits about surrounding events, too.

Bella has been hanging out in the Jarvis she knows better, mentally composing a treaty for the Vxaabli demons, and as she hears the story she slowly, slowly tenses up like a spring.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:02 pm (UTC)

Sherlock observes this reaction.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:02 pm (UTC)

His Bella declines to say anything about it.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Dear Juliet," he says, "if tension can be described as coiling, you look like someone's winding you onto a spool."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Did you know that there can be ten-pointed coins?" she asks; she knows better than to expect this to distract him for long, but it might divert him briefly. "Brilliance made a bunch."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I did not."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:14 pm (UTC)

"We're weighing who needs how many. I'll probably get a few. A single one was enough for Amariah to make a brand new subworld in the Alethia worldsheaf that she's got root access to almost like the admin does over Downside; could be handy for sequestering demons who have objections to going offplanet or whatever."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Interesting notion."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:17 pm (UTC)

"And she's got harpies running the exit; they do a thing sort of like judgesight and she's got a couple other inconveniences set up so the living aren't mobbed by the dead."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Very tidy."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. The harpies were a problem originally, the judgesight thing they do comes with an optional 'also the target feels like utter shit about it' thing. The alethiometer wasn't very specific before the group went in, and one of them got Shell Bell."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:21 pm (UTC)

"That sounds unpleasant."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:23 pm (UTC)

"It sounds like it really was, yeah. And teleporting doesn't work in the old land-of-the-dead - you can get out, but not to any destination within - so Amariah and Cam and the Jokers who were along couldn't go find her when she told the link she found a harpy and then didn't say anything else."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Has this situation been resolved?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Yes. She got fetched out and took a nap and then she felt better."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:30 pm (UTC)

"What are you avoiding telling me?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I knew you were going to ask that eventually."

Bella sighs.

"It was Pearl who went and got her, and as previously mentioned going into that place entails leaving a daemon outside of it, and Pearl's daemon continues to exist and apparently kept preening Shell Bell's hair."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:33 pm (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:33 pm (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Do you have any feelings on the subject you would like to share, love?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:37 pm (UTC)

"...For what value of 'would like to share'?"

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Any value that means you will do so once invited to."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:45 pm (UTC)

Juliet draws her knees up to her chin and hugs them. "I don't think there's anything you could reasonably do with details about my feelings on the matter."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Know them."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 06:52 pm (UTC)

"There's that."

She closes her eyes.

"I wasn't comparing with the Jokers who have daemons because - they are obviously not a comparison point. I've been near enough Petaal to know that she wouldn't mind me petting her, let alone Amariah. But it's - a thing Bells do, seems like, to compare with each other where comparisons are at all applicable, to want to keep up with each other and learn why if we can't. I'm not sure why Pearl's daemon's apparently so well-adjusted compared to Steph, since presumably Pearl has a soul and everything. But I have a guess about why he'd preen Shell Bell where Steph didn't even want to meet me, and I hate it, and it's a past event, not some ongoing - trait, condition, circumstance, I can't undo it, and I hate that. That I can't undo it, make it never have happened - that I keep getting reminders."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 07:01 pm (UTC)

"You have a partly incorrect guess," says Sherlock. "If that were the only factor, she would've gone for Tony. She didn't. The main reason she didn't want to meet you is that she was wildly uncomfortable with her own existence and any amount of interacting with people was too much for her."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I didn't think Tony asked."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Of course he didn't. Gone for as in sought out."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Ah."

She swallows.

"That still leaves the question of why Steph was so miserable and Tinia's - not."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Steph was an unwanted surprise to both herself and me. Steph knew what it was like for me not to hate myself and considered herself the cause of the difference. Steph turned up under what were already unhappy circumstances, not in the short term as for Pearl but in what might have been a very long one."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 07:12 pm (UTC)

Slowly, Bella nods.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 07:15 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"And now we are both slightly enlightened."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of things that are likely to make you unhappy, I think my needless perfectionism about the design of that mindreading power is a sign that I'm not as keen on it as I think I am."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 07:22 pm (UTC)

"...Okay."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 07:23 pm (UTC)

He goes and sits down beside her and hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 07:23 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 07:36 pm (UTC)

Yes. Hugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 07:49 pm (UTC)

Later, when hugs are concluded, the treaty has been written and conjured and sealed with the largely invented symbols of Bella's status as a foreign negotiator and sent to the Vxaabli, and Bella is alone -

she goes down to the basement in which there is a Tony.
Edited 2013-05-23 19:49 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-05-23 07:54 pm (UTC)

Tony is doing something that involves pouring molten metal into a mold! He will probably be available for conversation in a minute when he's finished.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 07:55 pm (UTC)

Bella hangs out, watching, quiet.

toblameforit
2013-05-23 07:56 pm (UTC)

And indeed, as soon as the thing he's making no longer requires his immediate attention, he turns to her and waves.

"Hi!"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Bella. "Whatcha making?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Arc reactor. Well, part of one."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 08:52 pm (UTC)

"You going to power something in particular with it or is this mostly an exercise left to the reader out of the Being A Tony Textbook?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 08:57 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Well, I mean, who wouldn't want a cute little cold fusion reactor to take home and feed and play with?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:01 pm (UTC)

"You feed it?" she giggles.

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Not literally. Well, mostly not literally."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Mostly?" giggles Bella.

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:06 pm (UTC)

"It's not inconceivable that someday I might have an arc reactor where I have to give it new reaction material every so often."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough." She hops into the air, crosslegged like she's sitting there. "I don't talk to you that much so I don't actually know what you heard about the thing with Steph. What did you hear about the thing with Steph?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Sherry got a daemon, she was suicidal, he un-got her."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:09 pm (UTC)

"...That's all you know?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:13 pm (UTC)

"That's the summary. Why, was there more?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Just - details. I was trying to figure out how many of the details you got, though."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:19 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know, which details do you want me to have got?" He scratches his head. "I mean, Sherry told me stuff. I just don't remember it all exactly."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Nothing specific. Just, Steph seems relevant to him being - not too okay. And I have been thinking about that lately and it occurs to me that you might have relevant insights."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I bet I do," he agrees. "But I don't know what they are yet. What're you thinking?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Ineffectual guilty thoughts," says Bella. "I don't know what to do. I hate having things that are bad that I don't know how to fix."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Oh boy, do I ever know that feeling," Tony says sympathetically.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:34 pm (UTC)

"...So you know the part where the majority of his problems are basically my fault, right?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:36 pm (UTC)

Bella shakes her head. "I know you cloned yourself and he's what you got, I don't know many of the details about what happened after that. I mean, for most of my relationship with him you were dead and I didn't like to poke at sore topics, so I got into a habit of not inquiring too deeply into his childhood."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well - I was twelve," he says. "And I cloned myself. And I didn't really... have any idea what to do with him, so mostly I just left him alone with Jarvis, I didn't even give him a name or anything, it was actually kind of a hilariously ironic exaggeration of my own childhood. And now he has mega issues, which: no shit he does. I mean, I grew up, he grew up, we worked it out... but I definitely know the score when it comes to ineffectual guilty thoughts."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:44 pm (UTC)

Juliet nods.

"Did he tell you what happened after - Vampire Me woke up?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Well - yeah."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember it - I wasn't there - my continuity of experience has a discontinuity when I died and picks up again after Golden swung through the Downside catacombs to wake me up. I'm not even sure it makes sense to be guilty. But I'm not sure it doesn't, either."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure I know what Sherry would say."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I know too. But that doesn't leave me confident that he's right."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm not seeing where you're gonna get a better expert."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Anyway, now he's - not okay. And either I'm seeing a lot of it because on some level he's connecting me with her even if he wouldn't endorse that intellectually, or he's just - generally traumatized, but then you have special-properties-as-relate-to-Sherlock and he's not traumatized at you as far as I know, that's why you're the one who's doing minting here, and meanwhile the other Bells with Sherlocks don't have this going on, and I keep kicking myself for being jealous because that is in no way healthy, helpful, or an appropriate focus for anybody's emotions about the topic, but I am."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 09:58 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want a hug?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Might as well."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:00 pm (UTC)

Tony takes off his work gloves, drops his safety goggles on top of them, and hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:01 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

If hugs were going to fix the problem it would already be gone, but even ineffectual hugs are pleasant.

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I really don't know what to do about the jealousy thing," he says. "Us Tonies get a little of that, but it's about cool shit the other usses have invented and we fix it by inventing more cool shit."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:07 pm (UTC)

Bella's floating crosslegged in midair again. "Shell Bell and Pearl have daemons now," she says.

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:08 pm (UTC)

"...Should I be figuring something out from that?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:12 pm (UTC)

"And," Bella continues, "Pearl's daemon reportedly preened Shell Bell's hair. Which was presumably adorable because everything about Shell-Bell-and-Pearl is adorable, and is also - I don't know. I don't know what the factors are but there is a big chunk of me saying that because I'm Shell Bell's alt and because my boyfriend is her girlfriend's alt I should be able to have any thing she has, and I can't. Steph didn't even want to say hi - and apparently she didn't say hi to you either, so that's probably not a matter of the specific thing - but today Sherlock decided he doesn't want to figure out a mindreading protocol after all, too, and it's not like it was ever tried so I can't claim to miss it, but."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, I mean - you're alts but you're not the literal same people," says Tony. "The impression I get from that crowd is that Pearl is so close to Shell Bell because she was kind of - forced to be. I mean, not in the obvious bad way that that sentence implies, but their world used to be pretty immensely fucked up and when things are immensely fucked up sometimes it makes you kind of - grab onto people a little harder than you otherwise might've."
Edited 2013-05-23 22:18 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:18 pm (UTC)

"There was actually also an obvious bad way part. Shell Bell started out straight," remarks Juliet, looking at the ceiling.

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that too. But it's not ongoing or anything."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. What do you mean about the fuckuppedness of the world making Pearl and Shell Bell grab on harder? I don't think I get it."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll put it another way," he says. "Sherries get really intense about stuff. Pearl gets extra intense about stuff because there's always been that life-or-death thing for her, more than there's been for the rest of us because we didn't grow up with teenage gladiators on live TV every year. Like, talk about reminders of mortality, damn."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I'd think being a vampire would be a pretty significant reminder of mortality. I guess it's different in kind."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Pearl grew up knowing there was pretty much no chance everybody her age she knew when she was twelve would still be alive when she was twenty. Our Sherry grew up pretty much thinking everyone he cared about was invincible, because everyone he cared about was me and Jarvis, and then... we both died. Which messed him up pretty bad, but kind of in the opposite direction, you know?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:38 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I can speculate about how Shell Bell coped with growing up in Panem; I have much worse extrapolation powers for other templates. What do you mean, the opposite direction?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Like, it's hard for him to get close to people because part of him thinks they're gonna come home one day and get assassinated in front of him," says Tony. "...Maybe that's one of those things that's only obvious to me."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I got assassinated in front of him," muses Juliet.

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, see? So even though he knows you're immortal and everything, and even though me and Jarvis both came back from the dead - there's still that little voice in the back of his head going 'see, I was right, everyone you ever love is going to die a horrible death and there's nothing you can do about it'."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm still not clear on why this would be backwards relative to Pearl. Shell Bell died too - not in front of Pearl, but mid-conversation."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but... they're different people, who grew up differently, so a similar thing happening affects them in different ways," he says. "I think that's kind of the point I'm trying to make here. Also, didn't she resurrect her in like two minutes? Which is part of the same pattern I'm talking about with her - the Hunger Games are a thing you can win. And she did. Her and her Tony. To Pearl, holding on tight to the stuff you care about is a strategy that actually works."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 10:59 pm (UTC)

"That makes sense," murmurs Bella. "...Have you talked to Sherlock, our one, about any of this stuff?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 10:59 pm (UTC)

"...Not really."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Should you? If someone were generating insights like this about me I would want them, but I'm not sure about him."

toblameforit
2013-05-23 11:02 pm (UTC)

"He might've figured it all out already. Or not. I dunno."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Maybe worth replicating this conversation for him - I assume that's okay with you?"

toblameforit
2013-05-23 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Bella, and she smiles and hugs Tony again and then flies up the stairs, hunting for her boyfriend.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 11:06 pm (UTC)

Her boyfriend is reading a book!

No, wait, he is hugging her. That is what he is doing.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 11:06 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"I should totally talk to Tony more, he is insightful," she says.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Yes he is. I assume you talked about me, then, since his other major topics of expertise are engineering and nuclear physics."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 11:11 pm (UTC)

"We did briefly talk about the pet arc reactor he is building, but yes, you were the primary topic, I can reproduce the conversation if you want."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Go ahead."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 11:11 pm (UTC)

Brainphone-dump. Whee.

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 11:19 pm (UTC)

"As usual, Tony understands me better than I do myself."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 11:20 pm (UTC)

Nuzzles. "I'm not sure if any of this is practically useful, of course, but it's worth knowing."

eversomuchfun
2013-05-23 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-23 11:23 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

paris in the spring

her_imperial_radiance

Aedyt, I've decided to take Harley to Paris for a few days, and you want to come with me, Elspeth sends one morning.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 08:55 pm (UTC)

[I do? Yeah, I totally do!] says Aedyt. [Cool, where should I meet you?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 08:58 pm (UTC)

My rooms.

"We're going to go to France with Aedyt," she tells Harley.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 08:59 pm (UTC)

[Now?]

pythbox
2013-05-28 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Fun," Harley opines.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 09:00 pm (UTC)

As soon as you're ready.

"Yes, it'll be fun. We'll look at all the tourist attractions and show you off to French people. Can you say salut?"

pythbox
2013-05-28 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Salut," he repeats obligingly.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 09:03 pm (UTC)

Aedyt appears.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 09:04 pm (UTC)

"That is how you say hi in French," Elsie tells Harley. "Or bonjour, is more formal. Hello, Aedyt."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Elspeth! Any particular reason why Paris?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I have a list. I am visiting locations from it in strictly randomized order. Next will be visiting the Amazon coven. It is convenient that the department learned to get along without me; I can take time off whenever I like."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 09:20 pm (UTC)

Aedyt giggles. "Sounds like fun," she says.

pythbox
2013-05-28 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Fun!" Harley repeats.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Your favorite thing," Elspeth says, touching the end of Harley's nose. "All set? Do you pack stuff or just squares, Aedyt?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 09:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm covered," she says cheerfully. "I can always teleport home to grab something."

pythbox
2013-05-28 09:38 pm (UTC)

Harley playfully bites at Elspeth's finger.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 09:41 pm (UTC)

Elspeth's finger is impermeable to baby human bites. "France is full of humans. If you bite them, they might be unhappy," she tells Harley. And she teleports herself, the baby in her arms, and Aedyt to one of the small Imperial offices - not a full capitol, just a suite with pamphlets and a couple of staffpeople for Parisians interested in learning about the world shadow government.

pythbox
2013-05-28 09:41 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 09:42 pm (UTC)

Aedyt giggles, too.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 09:43 pm (UTC)

Out they go. It is a lovely day in Paris. The Eiffel Tower isn't visible from here; Elspeth starts a meandering route towards it. "What have you been up to, Aedyt?" she inquires. She's still speaking English; it will do no harm for Harley to pick up some of the other languages she speaks, but as a matter of general policy she wants him to anchor on a single native language rather than be dizzied by dozens. At least spoken languages. She signs to him all the time too.
Edited 2013-05-28 21:46 (UTC)

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Making jewelry!" She displays a necklace she is wearing, a thin chain with a series of colourfully patterned glass disks increasing in size from right to left.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I like that one. You must accumulate a lot of trinkets."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," she says, "when they start to pile them up I give some away. Do you want one? We could swing by my place later and you could have a look."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 09:54 pm (UTC)

"If there's something in particular you want to give me, I'll be happy to take it. I'm not so much inclined to go pick something out. I didn't even loot Volterra when I had the chance and my bodyguards were going through Jane's - the vampire, not the ansible network, do you know this story? - jewelry box."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I've heard it! You can tell me your version if you want," Aedyt says cheerfully.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 10:00 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs, and readjusts Harley's position so he can more easily look around them. "Well, we took over, Jane was not one of the ones we were able to safely keep alive, and Alec said he didn't care what happened to her belongings, so Maggie and a few other people looked through them and took what they wanted. She had a lot of jewelry. Aro used to give her something shiny every time she had a birthday."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Which adds up to a lot of shinies," Aedyt agrees sagely. "Well, if I come up with something I think would really suit you, I'll show it to you and see if you like it."

She looks at Harley.

"I'm kind of hazy on human development - is he old enough to wear jewelry without, I don't know, trying to eat it?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 10:05 pm (UTC)

"He would probably try to eat it," says Elsie. "I'm not sure, in this case, if that would be because he's little and babies do that, or because trying to eat things amuses him in general." She holds up her recently bitten finger.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 10:06 pm (UTC)

Aedyt laughs.

pythbox
2013-05-28 10:06 pm (UTC)

The baby beams innocently.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 10:07 pm (UTC)

"You're a little nibbler," Elspeth tells Harley. "With that habit it's a good thing you aren't very toothy and sharp."

pythbox
2013-05-28 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Nibbler!" he repeats gleefully.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Maybe we should find some tasty French food for you to try nibbling when it's lunchtime."

pythbox
2013-05-28 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm a food nibbler!" he asserts.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-28 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I sure hope so!" says Aedyt, amused.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 10:21 pm (UTC)

"If you weren't you'd get very hungry," laughs Elsie. "Look, up there, above that building you can see the Eiffel Tower." She holds Harley up above her head for a better look.

pythbox
2013-05-28 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Ooooooh," says Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-05-28 10:22 pm (UTC)

"It's more impressive up close." She sits him on her shoulders, steadying him with one hand. "We're almost there."

pythbox
2013-05-28 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Oooooh," he repeats, crossing his arms and resting them on top of her head.

we are an underrated tourist destination

cross_and_bow

Bella has just been to visit the Mikleeeeeeeee. It went well, after she flared aura and shouted abuse at the crown prince. (Demonstrating this form of "heedless confrontationalism", it was explained by a quarter-Mikleeeeeeeee girl James found for her to talk to, an essential part of the species' diplomatic process. This held up under lie-detection, but Bella found a few examples via pastwatching before actually doing it.) They have a treaty; they're going to get back to her with revisions they'd like made to their dimension and they're going to end the five hundred year "human season".

Now she's between tasks, hanging out in one of the Jarvises.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 01:10 pm (UTC)

And she gets a brainphone call from Val.

[Hey, you busy? Me and Ike can take you to see Siathe now if you want.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 02:06 pm (UTC)

[I am between things, now totally works. Shall I just pop in to where you're at?]

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 02:07 pm (UTC)

[Sure!]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 02:08 pm (UTC)

Pop!

"Hi there."

newtimov
2013-05-29 02:24 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Ike, waving. The twins are in their living room.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 02:26 pm (UTC)

"I have a cool boosted teleportation power that will let me travel to other worlds in this sheaf, no extra charge," says Bella. "Are you guys ready to go now now? Is there anything I should do before landing us all - where exactly shall we land, I should know that, but anything else?"

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 02:28 pm (UTC)

"Probably easiest to just put us on the other side of the Toronto gate," shrugs Val. "We pack stuff for long trips, but if we're just gonna be there for a few hours showing you around, there's no point."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 02:32 pm (UTC)

Siathe side of the Toronto gate it is. Bella looks around curiously.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 04:25 pm (UTC)

They are standing on top of a small hill, between two large boulders of an unfamiliar type of rock with colourful stripes. All around them is an expanse of equally colourful grass - green and red and blue and purple and orange and pink and white and yellow and so on and so forth, clumped in like-coloured tufts. It smells a little peculiar, to a human: a mix of natural and industrial. Insects with sparkling white shells buzz busily among the grasses. Behind them, the haphazard grass gives way to an obviously cultivated field of similar grasslike plants, arranged in like-coloured stripes; to either side, grass merges into scrubby bushes which merge into a forestlike arrangement of tall spindly trees with no visible leaves but plenty of branches; up ahead, there is a path through the grass, which eventually widens into a dirt road.

Val heads that way.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Cool flora, I might copy it for Mercury when I get around to setting up there," says Bella, following Val. "The beetles are pretty too."

newtimov
2013-05-29 04:29 pm (UTC)

"...You're going to set up flora on Mercury?" says Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, all the cool Bells are doing it - I mean copies of me from other worlds, not members of your family - and by 'it' I mean space colonies, not Mercury in particular, I picked Mercury in particular because it is not yet spoken for in any world and we copy each other but not that repetitively."

newtimov
2013-05-29 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I think if you were a boy I would have a crush on you," Ike declares, giggling.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 04:45 pm (UTC)

"One of me is!" laughs Bella. "You guys were asleep last time we all got together and had a party, but I can invite you next time if you're available whenever that is. We party when significant things happen, usually when we find new ones of us."

newtimov
2013-05-29 04:47 pm (UTC)

"One of you is? Well now I think I have a crush on him," giggles Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, he is, he goes by Cam," says Juliet, "looks like so," she whips up an illusion of Cam, "has a magic notebook that can turn into a bird now, he has all the standard Bell powers but also he is a thing called a wizard that does magic via diplomatically convincing stuff to behave. He is also on the list of Bells With Friendlier Auras Than Mine. And you might be pleased to note that he and his boyfriend are in an open relationship."

newtimov
2013-05-29 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh dear," says Ike, blushing. "Is he horrible in some way? People I get crushes on seem to turn out to be horrible in some way most of the time."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I like him just fine. I mean, he's a me, we all get along even when one of us has to come translate Aegis into something socially acceptable. He killed some angels? Is that horrible? They were kind of terrible angels and Amariah can get them back by magic if she ever thinks of anything clever to do with a passel of terrible angels."

newtimov
2013-05-29 04:59 pm (UTC)

"If you say that killing some angels was probably not horrible then I probably believe you," Ike decides.

The dirt road is opening up a little more now, curving around the forest on the right. There still aren't any people visible.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 05:01 pm (UTC)

"He stopped after Amariah whipped up something to trap the remaining ones instead. This was when he was helping her with the afterlife for the Alethia worldsheaf. They were part of this angel conspiracy to - how interesting is this story to you?"

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 05:02 pm (UTC)

"It's interesting as fuck!" calls Val over her shoulder from in front of them. "You should keep telling it!"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 05:08 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "I can start from the beginning, howabout? So Alethia is this worldsheaf - this where we live is also a worldsheaf, as evidenced from the fact that we are not in the same dimension we were in an hour ago but could travel here without recourse to Milliways or Jane, and this worldsheaf we're in is called Sunshine, for reference, and it has close relatives unlike most worlds. The Alethia alt goes by Amariah. Everybody on her subworld in the sheaf has an animal who is their external, talking, ambulatory soul, called a daemon, and these are Very Important. If you go there, without protective magic, one will appear for you. And Alethia couldn't hook up to the afterlife that most of the worlds we know about can, because there was one in the way. She has these artifacts that dispense objective truth - but only about things within Alethia - and her boyfriend is good at reading them, so she got him to quiz them about the Alethian afterlife to see if it was any good. And the answer was hell no, everybody in the afterlife was cold and insubstantial getting routinely screamed at by harpies with this horrible guilt-inducing screech and also they were missing the part of them that is your daemon if you have one, which I'm given to understand is an extreme sort of misery. So yeah, place was no good, and Bells do not hold with that sort of thing."

newtimov
2013-05-29 05:12 pm (UTC)

"That is a lot of knowledge," Ike remarks. "Okay, so what did you do about the horrible afterlife?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't there, I didn't want a daemon - and the afterlife won't let daemons in. If you try to go there, and your daemon-part hasn't been destroyed already via dying-in-Alethia, then it will sit on the dock by the river that surrounds the afterlife island and wait for you. But Cam had his magic notebook and was pretty okay with her possibly turning into a bird and being his daemon, and Shell Bell was also willing to go and get a cute little duck thing daemon, and Amariah already had her owl because she was from there, and there were a couple non-Bells along too who had or wanted daemons. The alethiometers - those are the truth-telling devices - could tell them some things, but not a complete guided tour amount of things, about the afterlife, so they had to go scope it out in person. Also, the place was hostile to some of our magic - they could use their built-in powers, but not come up with new stuff on the fly. Also also, if you are physically far apart from your daemon, it hurts really badly, until you get far enough away to sort of snap the tether and then you can both go anywhere you want. Cam was able to get that over with instantly - he put his notebook down somewhere, walked the requisite distance away, and magicked her into his hawk, and she was already at snapping-distance so he barely felt a thing. Amariah was already separated because she's an Alethian kind of witch and that's a thing they do when they're kids. Shell Bell was in for a rough time, so she brought her girlfriend to hold her duck-thing for her because that would make them feel better about the separation. Are you still with me or do I need to go back and put more things in context?"

newtimov
2013-05-29 05:20 pm (UTC)

"No, I'm with you, go on!" says Ike, fascinated.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so you've got Cam and Amariah and Shell Bell and Amariah's boyfriend and one of his alts all prowling the afterlife, checking the place out, talking to the shades of the dead, looking for harpies - the alethiometer warned them about harpies but it was really vague, it explained that there was some thing in the afterlife that 'hungered for truth' and 'had knowledge' and 'caused suffering', you can see why they would not immediately think 'harpy with guilt-screech attack'. And then Shell Bell found one. And it screamed at her." Bella pauses dramatically.

newtimov
2013-05-29 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh no!" says Ike, obligingly.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Now," says Bella, "of the Bells - Shell Bell wins at Traumatic Past. The details are another story - it's not a secret, if you're curious and like sad stories, but it'd be a distraction from the Story Of Alethia's Afterlife right now - but anyway, she has been through, and I do not exaggerate, hell. And in the course of being through hell she's done a couple things she's not proud of. Nothing awful, but she felt bad about it, and the harpy grabbed that and yanked. The other four who were in there tried to go after her, but, surprise! Alethian afterlife is topologically screwed up, teleporting doesn't work there - you can teleport out, but not to any point within. They could fly around looking for her, but had no guarantee of finding her anytime soon. That wasn't good enough for Shell Bell's girlfriend. Shell Bell's girlfriend is an alt of my boyfriend - they're Sherlocks - and the name is not just for decoration. So Sherlock put down Shell Bell's screaming crying unhappy duck daemon and picked herself up and flew across the river and left behind a hawk daemon she didn't intend to acquire and went looking for Shell Bell. And she found her, and picked her up, and got her out. Shell Bell was down for the count after that. The other four decided to find each other and travel in a group after that."

newtimov
2013-05-29 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Wow," says Ike. "I hope Shell Bell is okay now!"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:13 pm (UTC)

"She usually is, but she was a yummy target for a harpy, apparently. They eat - information about people's histories, basically. They like all kinds, but the only kind they can take regardless of whether you feel like telling them stories or not is stuff you feel guilty about - they scream, that dredges it up, they feast. They were made like that. They were there to punish the dead. Not even a subset of the dead, just everybody. The other people down there appeased them by telling them stories. And eventually they were much friendlier and agreed to work for Amariah in the new afterlife she was going to build. But first, she wanted to figure out who had decided to build such a thing. This is where the angels come in."

newtimov
2013-05-29 06:14 pm (UTC)

"The terrible angels," says Ike, nodding.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, there's another kind of angels from another world who are not terrible, they're just genetically engineered humans with wings, one of me is those. But Alethia's angels are these wispy fragile things, and most of them work for an angel called the Authority - also known as God. Amariah and company went and paid him a visit him where he lives, on this big floating Clouded Mountain that can traverse subworlds."

newtimov
2013-05-29 06:20 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Ike. "How did that go?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:28 pm (UTC)

"The Authority is older than the hills and in much worse shape. When Amariah found him, he was curled up in a crystal box, could barely stay awake, and almost died when she tapped on the glass. She's leaving him alone. But he had this helper angel, who was stronger and more solid than the other ones, and he blasted her and her boyfriend and Cam. Cam's as durable as anybell, he wasn't hurt, but he hit the ground really hard. Kas, Amariah's boyfriend, just torched in midair - that's a reset we can do when we encounter otherwise-lethal situations. Amariah recovered, since she's been flying since she was little, and went back up and got a knife into the pissed-off angel and offered him a surrender and he said die and was about to blast them again and she killed him. While all this was going on, one of Kas's alts - who looks like this -" She replaces the Cam illusion with an Aianon illusion - "was mobbed by a flock of lesser angels, I'm sure you can see why angels might attack him. They couldn't hurt him, but we didn't know yet if we wanted to kill them, so he was sort of letting them tow him away from the mountain; he couldn't have flapped a wing without shredding a few. Fragile. So, Cam was already down there, he followed them and tried to talk to them, it didn't work very well. They started attacking him, he teleported out of range, and then Kas got the alethiometer to tell him the Clouded Mountain agenda, which boils down to - every world in the sheaf, every thinking being in all of them, united in unthinking obedience to the Authority. This was not on. Cam started killing angels when it was clear they really, really didn't want to talk. Meanwhile Amariah figured out that while our all-purpose go-to magic didn't work on the Clouded Mountain, another kind did; she whipped up an angel aquarium that sucked the live ones up and trapped them there. And she parked the mountain, and the angels still wouldn't talk to her, so they're all just hanging out now. She'd resurrect the dead ones if there was anything to resurrect them for besides living in an aviary eating angel food cake."

newtimov
2013-05-29 06:33 pm (UTC)

"That is the most demony demon I have ever seen," says Ike, blinking at illusory Aianon. "What's his species called?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Demons," snorts Juliet. "Or Endarkened. There's only the one kinda demon on Thilanushinyel - that's where he's from. He's psychically attached to a dragon -" Illusion! - "and also to the elf one of me, but less so, he and the dragon are basically the same person."

newtimov
2013-05-29 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Those wings are amazing," he observes. "Both of them, actually, but the Endarkened's are cooler-looking."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:43 pm (UTC)

"The Endarkened is the last of his kind," intones Bella. "The dragon's an endangered species, but they're working on that, and Sarion - the elf me - will probably help. She's getting better. She also has some Traumatic Past Problems and she's mostly recovered now but it's been slow and we're not sure what she's going to do with her world yet. Anyway. So the angels were handled, the harpies were on board with the program - oh, by the way, in the Alethian afterlife space time runs about six thousand times slower, or faster, I'm not sure how to count it, as on the outside. I mean if you spend a second in the outside world, it's almost two hours in the afterlife. So one of these guys -" She waves at the dragon - "they have an alt who's a ghost, she was hanging out there telling the harpies stories while everything else was taken care of. And then Amariah had the run of her worldsheaf, no interfering horrible angels! But our primary magic things? Don't work in the afterlife. She decided she wanted to make one from scratch. She had to ask another alt of these guys to help her out - I won't trouble you with the details of how it works, but anyway he agreed and she got some heavy-duty magic and made her own subworld in Alethia over which she is God, and the conditions are much nicer there, and live people can visit dead ones while dreaming, and properly vetted dead people can go back to where they lived when they lived if they want. And then she made a door between the old afterlife and the new one."

newtimov
2013-05-29 06:44 pm (UTC)

"You guys do a lot of stuff," Ike observes.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:45 pm (UTC)

"We do! We are awesome like that. Sunshine hooks up to Downside nice and friendly - in fact, it was already like that when I got here - so I don't need to do that particular dramatic thing, but dramatic things are underway. You guys get front row seats 'cause you're helping."

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I like front row seats," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm so glad!" Bella is still taking in the Siathe scenery appreciatively.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 06:53 pm (UTC)

The Siathe scenery is still gorgeous.

The dirt road becomes a road of glittering black gravel that crunches under their feet.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:54 pm (UTC)

"We almost at someplace more inhabited? Eminently stealable flora aside, I'm mostly interested in the local people."

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it's not that far a walk," says Val.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Cool. If it were a very long walk I might want to teleport or at least fly."

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 06:56 pm (UTC)

"But then we'd leave poor Ike behind!"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Does poor Ike," Bella says, raising an eyebrow at Ike, "have a fear of teleporting and/or flying that was not disclosed before I totally teleported us all to this dimension?"

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 06:58 pm (UTC)

"He can't fly," says Val, rolling her eyes. "And he doesn't like it when I carry him."

newtimov
2013-05-29 06:58 pm (UTC)

"It is undignified," says Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know either of you could already fly. In my mental image I was fixing that with magic for my convenience."

newtimov
2013-05-29 07:00 pm (UTC)

"...Do you often give superpowers to people you barely know?" inquires Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 07:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a Superpowers: Five Cents stand at the end of my driveway," shrugs Bella, "but on top of my systematic projects, anything that crosses my mind stands a good chance of getting improved some as long as I'm thinking about it. I would be a little responsible about it, quiz you about whether you'd be flying under any circumstances I would find inconvenient, I'd check my magic supply and hmm about it some, but yeah, that totally sounds like something I would do, Val can tell you that earlier I was casually volunteering to render your mom able to go outdoors on Earth without causing riots. She didn't take me up on it though."

newtimov
2013-05-29 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," says Ike. "But if you want to make me able to fly, I will totally take being able to fly! Assuming it doesn't come with any magnificently inconvenient side effects like having big obvious wings all the time, but I bet it doesn't."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 07:06 pm (UTC)

In reply, Bella lifts into the air, twirls, and sets down on her tiptoes before resuming walking. "Nothing like that. What would you do with being able to fly? 'Cause if you want to be able to turn invisible too, that might be a little much."

newtimov
2013-05-29 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I hadn't really thought about it beyond maybe 'keep up with Val'," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Is that an ithue thing? You smoosh some wings out of nowhere and fly around?" Bella asks Val.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 07:18 pm (UTC)

"D'you get a chance to do that much?"

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Not on Earth!"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 08:41 pm (UTC)

"That's a pity. Well, sooner or later I'll have all the demons sorted out and then I can start being openly magical in front of the humans. A bunch of my alts are already doing that for this reason or that; none of them come from Sunshine-family worlds with all these thousands of sapient species to learn about and handle. I think next in number of species after here is Glass, and hers you could maybe not count on your hands but you could if you borrowed a couple other people's. Or, Angela might have a lot of kinds of aliens, but she's going very slow." She hmms and looks Ike over. "Do you think you'll even like flying or do you just want to not be the twin who can't fly?"

newtimov
2013-05-29 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Flying is cool," he says inarguably.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Hmm." Juliet checks her coin-sorting wish. She's more than topped up on coins - Aurora is very free with the largesse, especially to the Bells who have only Sherlocks at home, and there was that recent distribution after Brilliance made the tenners which came with plenty of small stuff. "Not going to be irresponsible about public magic use, perform unkind pranks on the unsuspecting, use your power for evil, etcetera? Answer in a complete sentence, I have lie-detecting magic."

newtimov
2013-05-29 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Um, no, why would I do those things," says Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Nefarious motivations, presumably." She pats him on the head and goes ahead and spends the hex. "Let's fly."

newtimov
2013-05-29 09:01 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 09:03 pm (UTC)

Val shrugs.

Her whole body turns into a ghostly glowing silhouette, with her alien iron skeleton suspended inside, and a pair of enormous ghostly glowing wings unfold out of her shoulders - moving right through her clothing as though it isn't there - and flap once to drag her into the sky.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 09:04 pm (UTC)

Bella hops into the air after her, cruising upright with her hands folded behind her back like she's on an invisible moving walkway.

newtimov
2013-05-29 09:04 pm (UTC)

Ike zooms after them both.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 09:05 pm (UTC)

"You like?"

newtimov
2013-05-29 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Fun!" he declares.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Awesome."

newtimov
2013-05-29 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Wheeeee!"

And there's what is probably a city up ahead - lots of stone buildings, not tall but solidly built, and often with rooftop entrances every bit as elaborate as the ones at ground level. A few ithuetse are even flying to and from those.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 09:21 pm (UTC)

Bella follows Val and Ike, eyes open. On reflection she decides to unfold her hands from behind her back and keep them visible; this makes no difference to her but might make her look less potentially threatening.

newtimov
2013-05-29 09:37 pm (UTC)

Ike ends up hovering a little ways behind his sister as she soars toward one of the shorter buildings at the edge of the town.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

Val lands and retracts her wings, then knocks on the door of what looks like it might be a house. She stays glowy even after returning to her normal shape.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

Bella lands behind Val, off to the side enough to see around her.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 10:33 pm (UTC)

The door opens, and out comes a Sessiaki: fine scales that resemble mother-of-pearl, short hair like steel wool, and a long pointed tail coiling around her legs.

She blinks at Val, then scoops her into a tight hug.

"Hi, Auntie Eiva!" laughs Val, speaking the local language with a noticeable accent. "Is Mom home?"

The Sessiaki, presumably named Eiva, puts her down and locates Ike to hug next.

"Not today," she says, giving Ike a slightly gentler squish and then putting him down too. She turns to Bella. "And who's your friend?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm Bella," says Bella. She has a magically perfect accent. "It's nice to meet you."

newtimov
2013-05-29 11:12 pm (UTC)

"She's our friend from Earth," Ike puts in, in similarly perfect Kiessa, not that this is hard to deduce.

"And I'm Eiva," says Eiva. "What are you here for, Bella?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm having a look around Siathe. Val and Ike are kindly showing me around. I'm trying to familiarize myself with all the sapient species in the world."

pythbox
2013-05-29 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Is there a reason you're doing that?" Eiva inquires.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:17 pm (UTC)

"I have acquired a lot of magic, so I want to learn what's around and see what needs doing with it. This morning I bribed the Mikleeeeeeeee to agree to stop eating people, but not everything's that obvious. I don't know about here yet, so far my impression of Siathe amounts to 'pretty', but maybe I can be useful."

pythbox
2013-05-29 11:19 pm (UTC)

Eiva glances thoughtfully at Val.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 11:20 pm (UTC)

Val says, "What?"

newtimov
2013-05-29 11:20 pm (UTC)

"You are the nearest ithue," Ike points out mildly.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:21 pm (UTC)

"What am I missing?"

newtimov
2013-05-29 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Ithuetse are - mediators. Diplomats," says Ike. "Which is hilarious to us, because Val is the least mediated person I know, but it's taken pretty seriously around Siathe in general. You're not going to get anywhere trying any kind of official diplomatic contact unless you can find an ithue and convince them to talk to everybody else for you."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Val, d'you want to talk to my personnel officer sometime?" shrugs Bella. "Or does anyone present have a recommendation for somebody who would?"

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Sure," snorts Val. "I'll talk to your personnel officer. Who'll tell you I'm about as diplomatic as a punch in the face."

"Which might be a little less true if you punched people less often," observes Eiva.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm only slightly more diplomatic than a punch in the face," Bella says. "I'll work with what I've got. I'll hire somebody else if somebody better for the job turns up. At least the failure mode here isn't 'people get eaten'."

newtimov
2013-05-29 11:32 pm (UTC)

"No indeed! No people get eaten around Siathe," says Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:33 pm (UTC)

"That is very good. I disapprove of anthropophagy. That's why I quarantined vampires."

newtimov
2013-05-29 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh, did you do that? Of course you did that," says Ike. "I can't imagine how I could ever have thought anyone else did that."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that was me, I covered Sunshine's relatives too, I bet the vampire community is super confused. How'd you hear about it?"

newtimov
2013-05-29 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Word just kind of gets around," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-29 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, why is it that ithuetse are mediators?"

grabsthebutt
2013-05-29 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Because we ershil," says Val, which is the first-person form of a verb meaning what ithuetse do when they touch their glowy white parts together. "How good's your language thing, anyway? Do I need to explain that?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 12:38 am (UTC)

"My language thing's good, but it ends at the limits of my conceptual vocabulary; I can tell it's a verb and it means something that happens when two glowy white person-bits interact and that's all."

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 12:47 am (UTC)

"You could say that," she snorts. "If I touch my iethat to another ithue's, we can kind of... pass thoughts back and forth, I guess you'd say. Remember when I said you couldn't," she drops into English, "shake tentacles," and back to Kiessa, "with anybody? That's what I was talking about. Around here it's the only way to get really serious talking done."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 12:49 am (UTC)

"Well, add another form of telepathy to the list of known kinds, then. It's - faster? More trustworthy? Just a cultural thing?"

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 12:51 am (UTC)

"Faster, more trustworthy, almost impossible for there to be a misunderstanding unless one of the ithuetse misunderstands whoever they're speaking for... and it's a cultural thing, yeah. Big-time."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 12:51 am (UTC)

"I can see why it'd be an important attribute in a diplomat."

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 01:12 am (UTC)

"I know, eh? Too bad I am otherwise the most terrible diplomat."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 01:14 am (UTC)

"Well, like," says Bella, "I get along with you, you are diplomatic enough for my end - do you think you would have trouble presenting stuff to Sessiakitsi on my behalf in a way that didn't make them want to burn me in effigy?"
Edited 2013-05-30 01:16 (UTC)

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 01:26 am (UTC)

"Okay, I could probably manage it," she concedes.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 01:27 am (UTC)

"So when you have a minute, brainphone James, she's my personnel officer, and you can talk to her about ambassadorship."

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 01:29 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Val. "Do you still wanna look around and stuff?"

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 01:30 am (UTC)

"Sure. It's pretty here, and I don't have any appointments till I go to the tunnels under Antarctica, ritually refuse to accept dinner from the hand of the King of the Nytree eight times, and then leave because I have to do that once a week for a month before they'll recognize me as an independent entity."

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 01:32 am (UTC)

Val giggles.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 01:33 am (UTC)

"Where to, tour guides?" asks Bella, clapping her hands.

newtimov
2013-05-30 01:37 am (UTC)

"If you don't mind being carried and you like pretty things, you should get Val to take you north a little ways," Eiva recommends.

"Oh, that's no problem," Ike says offhandedly. "Bella can fly and she gave me the same magic power."

"Is that so," Eiva says dryly. "How nice for Bella."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 01:38 am (UTC)

"It is very nice for Bella," says Bella unapologetically.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 01:14 pm (UTC)

"Sure, we can go sightseeing," says Val. She hugs Eiva again. "See you!" she says, and she takes off.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 03:49 pm (UTC)

Bella follows her into the air.

newtimov
2013-05-30 03:51 pm (UTC)

Ike zooms after them.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 03:52 pm (UTC)

[You know what would be really helpful and not just fun,] Val says conversationally, [is if you gave me and Ike and Mom and Dad your fancy teleporting power that works between dimensions.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 03:55 pm (UTC)

[A fancy teleporting power that doesn't work between dimensions is only as magically expensive as flying. One that does is extra, especially if you all want it separately. If you wind up working for me I will be happy to pay you in magic, but I think I'm at a reasonable limit on frivolous gift-giving for today.]

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 03:57 pm (UTC)

[Damn,] says Val. [You sure? Because Mom and Dad could really use it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:03 pm (UTC)

[Most of my alts have a much steadier supply of magic than me, and most of what I have on me is excess from them; I try to be a little conservative. I will pay you in magic if you work for me. And if you show up at a Bellparty and ask the right person they'll probably bestow it on you for kicks. Another thing we could do is set up Jane in your house and also here,] it occurs to her, [remember Jane? She can pick people up and put them down anywhere she likes, and I can set up nodes for her with very little magical expenditure.]

newtimov
2013-05-30 04:07 pm (UTC)

[How does Jane work?] wonders Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:10 pm (UTC)

[Not technically magic! She's from a world called Peace, the local Bell there is Aegis, and they have instantaneous communication devices called ansibles - you build one, you break it in half, and then anything you do on one end is duplicated on the other across any distance - and, it turns out, between worlds. You know how people joke about the internet waking up? Peace's internet woke up. That's Jane, and she works for us. She can scoop people up into her mind and drop them, as long as she can see them on the one end and see where they're meant to end up. I carry a half-ansible around with me all the time.]

newtimov
2013-05-30 04:12 pm (UTC)

[...I don't think we'd go for that,] says Ike. [Although it's completely fascinating.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:14 pm (UTC)

[If traveling by Jane is not for you, you will not be able to take standard transportation to Bellparties, although I guess you could go through Milliways instead if that's better.]

newtimov
2013-05-30 04:18 pm (UTC)

[It's different,] Ike says firmly.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:21 pm (UTC)

[What's different? Milliways and Jane? Jane to parties and Jane to Siathe?]

newtimov
2013-05-30 04:23 pm (UTC)

[If Jane is the standard transportation to Bellparties then it's not a big deal to go to Bellparties that way,] he says. [But whether or not it's a big deal to Jane, it'd be a big deal to us to use her as our main way of getting between Earth and Siathe. And we'd have to have a stranger sitting in both our houses all the time, and it would be weird.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:27 pm (UTC)

[You can turn the ansible-halves off if you want. I turn mine off when I want privacy.]

newtimov
2013-05-30 04:30 pm (UTC)

[It'd still be weird. But it'd be weird more in the way where nobody wants to be that person without a car who's always asking their friend for a ride.]

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:33 pm (UTC)

[There is one person who can bop around dimensions by himself, but no one else has picked up the trick yet. Jane doesn't mind being the peal's transit system. She has a few million levels of attention and it's literally instantaneous. She doesn't so much have a car as she has the ability to pass the salt - while simultaneously carrying on seven hundred conversations, resurrecting the dead, reading the complete works of every accessed civilization with networked electronics, and spying on me and my alts to see if we do anything interesting. But if it's weird, it's weird, I guess.]

newtimov
2013-05-30 04:36 pm (UTC)

[It's weird,] he confirms.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:43 pm (UTC)

[Well, Jane's on the brainphone if you're ever swayed by the desire for convenience and feel like getting to know her. Failing that, I am much better prepared to pay staff in magic than in, say, money, so that's on the table.]

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 04:48 pm (UTC)

[Paying me in magic sounds awesome,] says Val. [And: check it out.]

Up ahead, they're approaching another series of hills, these ones breaking apart like the top of a fresh muffin. The surface is covered with more of that scrubby multicoloured grass, but inside the cracks, the hills are made of stripes of sparkling rock in every shade between black and white. The effect is kind of amazing.

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, cool rocks," marvels Bella. "Mercury is so going to have a section that looks like Siathe. This is the prettiest demon dimension I've visited, and I've been to ninety-three."

newtimov
2013-05-30 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Just make sure if you copy it all directly, you warn people not to eat the grass," says Ike. "Siathe has way higher concentrations than Earth of a lot of things that tend to kill humans. Which is partly why everything's so colourful - chromium will do that."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 04:55 pm (UTC)

"I'll make the grass nontoxic," says Bella, waving a hand.

grabsthebutt
2013-05-30 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Make everything nontoxic," Val advises. "You wouldn't be too happy if you licked the rocks, either."

cross_and_bow
2013-05-30 05:03 pm (UTC)

"I'm personally immune to all kinds of things, but sure, general non-toxicity."

alleluia

jovahs_heiress

Alleluia and Caleb tell their children about magic, one by one. Isabella meets with each one to clarify a few matters. She gives Ezra a job, at the Eyrie - it is convenient to have more people around who know her secrets. And the youngest, an angel girl named Naamah, just nineteen (a last minute surprise to her parents), wants someone to talk to who is more familiar with magic than her but isn't up to their neck in it like Isabella or Micaiah - or even her own parents, who have been to all those Bell parties.

Isabella thinks about this.

[Nathaniel?]

pythbox
2013-05-30 11:04 am (UTC)

[Yes?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-30 03:48 pm (UTC)

[Alleluia's youngest, Naamah - have you met her before? - has just learned that magic and so on exist, and she's a little overwhelmed, and wanted to know if there was anyone she could talk to who'd been familiar with the facts for longer but wasn't so immersed. Do you want to talk to her?]

pythbox
2013-05-30 03:49 pm (UTC)

[Um - sure,] says Nathaniel, a little tentative but cheerful.

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-30 03:50 pm (UTC)

[I'll send her to you.]

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 03:51 pm (UTC)

A few minutes later there is a knock at Nathaniel's door.

pythbox
2013-05-30 03:55 pm (UTC)

He opens it, also tentatively.

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:00 pm (UTC)

At the door is a short, soft-faced angel with wings that are almost butter-colored in the gaslight. "Um," she says. "Hello. I'm Naamah. Are you Nathaniel?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says, smiling a tentative smile.

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Oh, good, I've been away from the Eyrie for a long time and barely know my way around anymore - did Isabella tell you I was coming? Can I come in, is that okay?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:06 pm (UTC)

"She did, and you can," he says, standing out of her way.

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:07 pm (UTC)

Naamah smiles and steps into the room. "So - how long have you known about - how very large the world really is?" she laughs uncertainly.

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Um - a long time," he says. "Since I was ten. I was... well, it's a long story, I guess."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Will you tell it to me?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:17 pm (UTC)

He looks at her consideringly.

Then he says, "Okay," and sits down.

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:19 pm (UTC)

Naamah looks around for an angel chair. There's one; Nathaniel's sister-in-law and nieces sometimes visit him. She sits down and clasps her hands on her knees.

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Well... you know who my brother is, right?" he starts.

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:22 pm (UTC)

"He's to be the angelico. Yes."

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nathaniel. "Do you know anything about our parents?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:28 pm (UTC)

Naamah shakes her head slowly.

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, they're... not good," he says. "So when I was just a little kid and Micaiah was meeting Isabella for the first time, and she heard how not good his parents were, she went and looked them up to see if they had any more children, and she found me. And she thought they probably weren't being good to me either, so she brought me here to join the Eyrie children's choir to sing for the Gloria that year. And when I was talking to her after the Gloria, she opened a door and there was Milliways on the other side of it, so she took me in to show it to me."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Milliways is - I don't think I understand that one, Isabella couldn't seem to make up her mind if it was a - world hub - or a restaurant."

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:40 pm (UTC)

"It's both of those. It's a world hub, with a restaurant in it," he says. "I've only been there just the once, though, so I can't tell you very much about it."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:47 pm (UTC)

Naamah nods. "Isabella offered to show it to me but it sounded - kind of overwhelming."

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:49 pm (UTC)

"It was," he agrees. "I didn't stay very long."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 04:52 pm (UTC)

"My parents have known about all this for more than ten years - they've known about Jovah since before I was born. They kept so many secrets."

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:59 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel shrugs. "I guess I didn't really mind all that."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm barely suited to living in a world the size of Samaria. I like to fly and I still never liked to really travel. And now there are so many more places than I knew about. Can I just - live how I have been, do you think?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Of course," he says. "That's what I do. I mean, I don't go to their parties or do much magic or - do much of anything, really."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I just live at Cedar Hills - I tried to foster with Delilah here when I was little but the singing all the time even on through the night was unbearable; I was used to the quiet at Sinai or at least the bustle of Father's workshop. So, Cedar Hills. And I do - angel things." She shrugs. "Father thinks I must have an imagination somewhere but he's given up on finding it, I think."

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:12 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel laughs softly. "I don't think anyone's ever looked for mine."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I sometimes wish I were interesting, like my parents, or Ezra, or even Zibiah - but I'm not," shrugs Naamah.

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't really wish I were interesting," Nathaniel says wryly. "Micaiah is welcome to my share of the family allotment of interesting and then some."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't know very much about him," says Naamah. "Except that he's to be angelico, but with what I've learned about Jovah - I don't even know what to think because of that."

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:25 pm (UTC)

"He's very - himself," says Nathaniel. "And about a thousand times more interesting than me. And, as I said, welcome to it." He smiles. "I'm sorry, is that a confusing description? I've never had to describe him before."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:26 pm (UTC)

"If I knew more about him then saying he was himself might be a very useful description," says Naamah. "But I don't."

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, he's... sweet," says Nathaniel. "And kind of silly, but not when it really matters. And he cares a lot about the people who are important to him. And he's very good at solving problems."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:30 pm (UTC)

"He sounds a little like my father," muses Naamah.

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Does he? I don't know your father very well," says Nathaniel.

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Father's an engineer, and he's fascinated by problems, and he has a - Mother calls it zest for life. And he is very intense about our family. He and Mother thought for a while that they wouldn't be able to get married, before they knew about Jovah, before they knew Delilah would be Archangel again, before they knew that Jovah was trying to name Father Mother's angelico but couldn't because of his broken Kiss. And they didn't like that, and then they could after all, and he's still glad about it."

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh. That sounds very nice," says Nathaniel, smiling a little.

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:40 pm (UTC)

"My parents are good role models," says Naamah. "I'm sorry yours weren't."

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:41 pm (UTC)

"It's okay," he says, and then looks mildly surprised.

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:42 pm (UTC)

"It is?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Well... not really," he says. "But I'm okay. I guess I wasn't expecting to be."

alicornucopia
2013-05-30 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad you're okay," smiles Naamah.

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Me too," he says, smiling back.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 04:45 pm (UTC)

Naamah stays a while longer, and then off she goes to start flying back to Cedar Hills.

pythbox
2013-05-31 04:57 pm (UTC)

It was a good conversation.

It also sets Nathaniel to thinking.

Not quite a week after Naamah's visit, he brainphones Isabella. [Um, can I ask you something?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-31 04:57 pm (UTC)

[Of course. What is it?]

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:00 pm (UTC)

After a moment's hesitation:

[Do you think I could go visit one of the Jokers?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-31 05:01 pm (UTC)

[I don't see why not. Do you have one in mind?]

After all, none of the Jokers live in Atlantis.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:03 pm (UTC)

[Not especially. I don't know them that well. I'll ask Micaiah, I guess.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-31 05:04 pm (UTC)

[Sure. And he can take you up to the ship so Jane can send you wherever you decide to go.]

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:04 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Um, thanks.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-05-31 05:19 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome.]

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:23 pm (UTC)

That's it for a little while.

And then, five days later, Micaiah brings Nathaniel up to the ship.

mind_game
2013-05-31 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Nathaniel," says Jane.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Hi," he says. "I want to visit Aurum, please."

mind_game
2013-05-31 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay, lemme tell Golden and Alice."

Thirty seconds later, "Ready?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:26 pm (UTC)

He nods.

mind_game
2013-05-31 05:27 pm (UTC)

Yoink!

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 05:28 pm (UTC)

Alice is waiting at the Janepoint.

"Welcome to Aurum! Okay, I don't see you interacting with anyone who might mate to you, it looks like you mostly hang out in space," says Alice. "Have fun!" And off she traipses.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:29 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel wonders how it is that he will be hanging out in space.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 05:30 pm (UTC)

He does not have long to wonder.

"Hi, sweetie!" says the Joker, teleporting in. "Wanna hug?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:30 pm (UTC)

He smiles and nods.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 05:32 pm (UTC)

The Joker hugs him.

"Wanna meet my kids? Dunno what Kerron's up to, but I was just with Aedyt. She says hi."

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Maybe one at a time," he says, smiling tentatively.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 05:33 pm (UTC)

"You got it," he says, and squeezes Nathan's hand, and then they are standing just outside of a cute little house on a cute little asteroid.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-31 05:34 pm (UTC)

Aedyt waves from the doorway. "Hey, uncleoid," she says. "Is that the right word? Whatever. Mummy made cupcakes, come have some."

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:35 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel proceeds inside for cupcakes.

So far, his brother's alt and family are delightfully nonthreatening!

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 05:37 pm (UTC)

[Hey babe, where are you at?] Nathan asks. [Kerron's crashed for the night and this is a good time to cheat at cross-country road trip by skipping out overnight.]

manofmyword
2013-05-31 05:43 pm (UTC)

[At the pumpkin's place. Micaiah's brother Nathaniel is visiting. You wanna come see him? He's a sweetheart. Kinda jumpy, though, so I better ask him first.]

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 05:43 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, sure, I'll be up when the time is right.]

manofmyword
2013-05-31 05:44 pm (UTC)

[Love you, sweetie.]

He consults Nathaniel.

[Yeah, he says it's okay,] he reports, and the optimal time to appear in Aedyt's living room occurs shortly afterward.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 05:45 pm (UTC)

Pop!

Nathaniel may be a guest, but Nathan's mate has his attention first. Kiss! And then:

"Hullo, Nathaniel. We've got excessively similar names, so if you want, you can call me Timer."

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nathaniel. "They're not really all that similar except when you write them out, though."

manofmyword
2013-05-31 05:48 pm (UTC)

The Joker gives his sweetie a hug and a kiss. "Pick me up, honey," he suggests.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 05:49 pm (UTC)

Scoop! Nathan is highly obliging about this sort of thing.

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-31 05:51 pm (UTC)

Aedyt sighs the sigh of one whose parents are unspeakably cute.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:51 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel giggles quietly.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 05:52 pm (UTC)

"So what'd I miss while I was listening to Kerron make the case for the cultural importance of the World's Biggest Rubber Band Ball?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Aedyt was telling me about her hobbies. She has a lot of them," says Nathaniel. "What is the World's Biggest Rubber Band Ball? How big is it?"

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 05:56 pm (UTC)

"It's a ball of rubber bands - pumpkin, have you got rubber bands, I don't know if they have 'em in Samaria - and it's a little smaller than this house, after a while it starts using these massive industrial ones."

pumpkin_pie
2013-05-31 05:59 pm (UTC)

Aedyt produces a rubber band.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:59 pm (UTC)

"It's... sproingy," says Nathaniel, fascinated.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 06:00 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Yup," says Nathan. "People use 'em to keep things bundled up. If you use 'em to keep other rubber bands bundled up and then you keep going, you get a ball."

manofmyword
2013-05-31 06:01 pm (UTC)

The Joker helpfully conjures a ball of rubber bands and hands it to Nathaniel.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:02 pm (UTC)

He adds the one Aedyt gave him onto it, then starts carefully disassembling the thing.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 06:03 pm (UTC)

Nathan laughs. This occasion, like the overwhelming majority of occasions, calls for him to nuzzle his mate.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:05 pm (UTC)

...That is really cute.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 06:06 pm (UTC)

It is, it is really cute!

The Joker nuzzles him back, which might be even cuter.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:06 pm (UTC)

Awwww. Nathaniel smiles at his slowly diminishing rubber band ball and the neat pile of rubber bands in his lap.

temporal_affairs
2013-05-31 06:20 pm (UTC)

Nathan hangs out on the asteroid with mate, daughter, and visitor until it is a good time to bid everyone goodbye and pop back into the car with Kerron and resume roadtripping.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:21 pm (UTC)

In this time, Nathaniel pulls the rubber band ball apart completely and then puts it back together again. Seven different times.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I think we found you a new hobby," giggles the Joker.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Can I keep it?" he asks shyly.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Sure you can," he says, grinning. "So while you're here, wanna see any more of the world? We could go hang out in an emptyish capital site for a while."

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Nathaniel, smiling a little. He tosses his rubber band ball into the air and catches it.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 06:29 pm (UTC)

The Joker waves to Aedyt and then teleports himself and Nathaniel to a random capital site not currently in use.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 06:37 pm (UTC)

No capital sites, these days, are truly empty; they all have some full-time staff, combinations of wolves and nonessential vampires. The Australian site doesn't have any permanent wolf residents in it, but it has a couple of vampires who can talk to visitors and give out pamphlets and generally serve as Golden Coven presence.

One of them is where they land.

She blinks at them.

"Hello," Renata says, tilting her head.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Um, hello," Nathaniel says, blinking back at her. "I'm Nathaniel."

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 06:42 pm (UTC)

"I'm Renata," she says. "Um, welcome to the Australia capital site of the Golden Empire."

She is definitely looking at Nathaniel more than at the Joker.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:43 pm (UTC)

Yes. Nathaniel can see that. He is not sure how to feel about it, and therefore defaults to 'vaguely worried'.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 06:43 pm (UTC)

The Joker... observes the proceedings.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 06:44 pm (UTC)

"You're pretty," says Renata to Nathaniel after a long silence.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:45 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel blushes.

"Um. So are you," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 06:45 pm (UTC)

She smiles.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:46 pm (UTC)

He smiles, too.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 06:54 pm (UTC)

Renata appears perfectly unselfconscious about just sort of staring at him. She's mostly looking at his face, although occasionally her eyes make lazy sweeps down and back up.

pythbox
2013-05-31 06:56 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel's blush is slowly developing into a blushier blush.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, this is adorable," the Joker remarks.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 06:57 pm (UTC)

Renata tilts her head when the Joker talks, but she doesn't look at him.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 07:02 pm (UTC)

Heh. He smiles.

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:03 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel glances at the Joker and dares to observe, "You know something."

manofmyword
2013-05-31 07:05 pm (UTC)

"I do!" he agrees.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:06 pm (UTC)

Renata has met the Joker before and apparently knows everything she wants to about what he knows. She has a question for Nathaniel. "Do you have all those magic wards on you?"
Edited 2013-05-31 19:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:07 pm (UTC)

"...um, what?" he says nervously.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:08 pm (UTC)

"There's a curl on your forehead and I want to put it with your other hair, but I don't want to accidentally hurt you," she explains.

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:09 pm (UTC)

He gives the Joker a pleading look.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 07:12 pm (UTC)

The Joker snaps his fingers theatrically.

"All magicked up," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:13 pm (UTC)

Renata moves her hand almost comically slowly, nonetheless, like she's trying to adjust for human tracking speed but doesn't know how much. She sweeps the curl from Nathaniel's forehead in among his other hair. She smiles again.

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:15 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel... doesn't get out of the way.

When she's done, he looks at the Joker again.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 07:15 pm (UTC)

"She's sweet on you," he explains.

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:16 pm (UTC)

He blinks.

"...Oh."

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:17 pm (UTC)

Renata thinks about this.

Then she says, "Is that okay?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Nathaniel, defaulting to Vaguely Worried again.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Oh." Now Renata looks Vaguely Worried too!

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:19 pm (UTC)

Aww.

"Maybe it is," he says hopefully.

(The stray curl floops back into place.)

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:21 pm (UTC)

(Renata fixes it again.)

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:22 pm (UTC)

Despite himself, Nathaniel smiles.

"It always does that," he says. "Sometimes there's another one that comes out to keep it company."

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:23 pm (UTC)

"That is cute," asserts Renata.

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:25 pm (UTC)

He grins and ducks his head.

Floop floop.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:25 pm (UTC)

Renata appears to think that when there are two curls out they don't need fixing.

But that means she does not have an excuse to touch him! What a troubling dilemma.

manofmyword
2013-05-31 07:28 pm (UTC)

As adorable as this is, somebody around here should start thinking about the future.

The Joker brainphones Jane.

[Could you do me a favour and tell Angela there's a vampire who's sweet on Nathaniel?]

mind_game
2013-05-31 07:30 pm (UTC)

[Sure thing.]

[Angela wants to know more about the vampire and how Nathaniel's reacting to same.]

manofmyword
2013-05-31 07:32 pm (UTC)

[Her name's Renata and she's mostly boring. She's got a witch power that means nobody can attack her. I think Nathaniel's a little sweet on her right back. They're giving each other dopey looks as we speak.]

mind_game
2013-05-31 07:33 pm (UTC)

[Oh, her.]

Pause, pause.

[If it comes up in conversation and he wants to, Nathaniel can take her home with him, she'll just have to be invisible to most people and stay out of the way.]

manofmyword
2013-05-31 07:34 pm (UTC)

[Thanks,] he says cheerfully.

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:35 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel continues giving Renata what the Joker has described as a dopey look.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:35 pm (UTC)

Renata's looking dopily right back at him, a spacey smile on her face. He's pretty! She is trying to think of a reason to touch him. She doesn't seem to have one.

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:37 pm (UTC)

Something occurs to Nathaniel.

He says, "What happens when I go home?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Where is that?" asks Renata.

pythbox
2013-05-31 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Samaria. Another world," he says. "I came to visit the Joker because he's my brother's alt."

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Oh," frowns Renata. "Can I go there?"

manofmyword
2013-05-31 08:01 pm (UTC)

"If you're invisible to anybody who doesn't know about magic," says the Joker. "And if you 'stay out of the way'. You'll have to ask Angela what that one means."

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm good at staying out of the way," says Renata.

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Me too," murmurs Nathaniel.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 08:03 pm (UTC)

Smile.

Hairpetting with no excuse at all.

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:05 pm (UTC)

Smile!

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 08:06 pm (UTC)

Yay! She is petting his hair and he is happy about it and that is just the best thing and Renata is brimful with pleasedness.

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:07 pm (UTC)

Aww, pleasedness! That is cute. She is cute.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 08:07 pm (UTC)

He's cute and his face is cute.

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:08 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwww. Cutes.

alicornucopia
2013-05-31 08:08 pm (UTC)

Yes. Cutes. Dopey smiles.

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:10 pm (UTC)

Those things. Yes.

regretful web of thought!

incanted

Jane brainphones Brilliance.

[Hey. I'm sorry I made you think about things you didn't want to think about the other day.]

cardistry
2013-05-31 07:35 pm (UTC)

[...Thanks,] says Brilliance.

mind_game
2013-05-31 07:36 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome. Should I look out for anything else like that in the future?]

cardistry
2013-05-31 07:39 pm (UTC)

[Uh... yeah,] he says.

mind_game
2013-05-31 07:39 pm (UTC)

[...I am a computer program. It would help if you were more specific.]

cardistry
2013-05-31 07:41 pm (UTC)

[I don't really know how to get more specific,] he says. [Like. Don't joke about my personal trauma? Is that specific enough?]

mind_game
2013-05-31 07:42 pm (UTC)

[I wasn't setting out to do that, though. As far as I knew, no science was involved in your personal trauma.]

cardistry
2013-05-31 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, and not a lot of literal holding down, either. It was still a nasty reminder.]

mind_game
2013-05-31 07:50 pm (UTC)

[And I'm sorry. But I don't know how to avoid more stuff like that unless you tell me. I guess I could just not talk directly to you?]

cardistry
2013-05-31 07:56 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, that's one way,] he says. [I don't know either.]

mind_game
2013-05-31 07:58 pm (UTC)

[I'll just talk to Aurora first from now on then.]

cardistry
2013-05-31 08:01 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Thanks, I guess.]

mind_game
2013-05-31 08:02 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome.]

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:08 pm (UTC)

Brilliance thinks over this conversation.

Then he says, +Hey you.+

incanted
2013-05-31 11:09 pm (UTC)

+Hi, what's up?+

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:10 pm (UTC)

+Talked to Jane, you hear anything about that?+

incanted
2013-05-31 11:11 pm (UTC)

+She said she's going to go through me if she has messages, even if they're mostly for you, 'cause she upset you the other day.+

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:11 pm (UTC)

+Yeah. She apologized and stuff, but we couldn't figure out how she could avoid doing it again.+

incanted
2013-05-31 11:13 pm (UTC)

+Well, to be fair, we aren't sure that I'm not going to deeply upset you at some point.+

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:16 pm (UTC)

+...I'm confused about where the fairness comes in here,+ he says after a moment.

incanted
2013-05-31 11:17 pm (UTC)

+...Mostly just an expression, in retrospect it doesn't make a lot of sense. There's no strong reason you and Jane have to talk, so if you don't want to risk it you don't have to.+

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:20 pm (UTC)

+Yeah. I mean, I dunno, if she seemed like she got what was wrong with the thing she actually said... but she didn't, and I couldn't explain it to her.+
Edited 2013-05-31 23:21 (UTC)

incanted
2013-05-31 11:21 pm (UTC)

+I had the impression that she got what happened when she said it, but not why it happened.+

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:22 pm (UTC)

+...Do you get why it happened? Maybe you could figure out how to say it.+

incanted
2013-05-31 11:25 pm (UTC)

+I don't think I can explain it to Jane. I have, like, a vague outline, and I model you as being generally skittish so I'd steer clear of pretty much any levity around the subject of you and hurting, but I don't think Jane distinguishes cleanly between levity and not-levity - I mean, she could probably imitate someone who happens to not be funny, she has enough sample material, but that wouldn't be talking to Jane, I could imagine she'd rather just skip it.+

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:27 pm (UTC)

+Yeah. Okay,+ he sighs. +I love you. You busy? Wanna snuggle?+

incanted
2013-05-31 11:28 pm (UTC)

+I am doing things-in-my-head stuff and it's totally compatible with snuggling!+

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:29 pm (UTC)

+Okay, c'mere, I'm in the place,+ he says.

incanted
2013-05-31 11:30 pm (UTC)

+It's good teleporting can find you and doesn't require me to decipher "the place".+ Port. Snuggle!

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:34 pm (UTC)

"It's this place," he giggles.

Also known as: a beanbag in the Rainbowsand village.

"The cuddly place! Where we usually go when you're gonna hurt me a bunch. You know. The place."

incanted
2013-05-31 11:35 pm (UTC)

"On reflection this is totally a familiar place," says Bella, snuggling.

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Damn right."

Cuddles!

incanted
2013-05-31 11:36 pm (UTC)

So many cuddles!

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:38 pm (UTC)

Cuddly cuddles. The cuddliest.

"I love you so much," he murmurs.

incanted
2013-05-31 11:38 pm (UTC)

"You're adorable."

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:39 pm (UTC)

He curls up closer and hugs her and smiles.

incanted
2013-05-31 11:39 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

cardistry
2013-05-31 11:40 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmmm.

full of new life

bellfounding

Pattern knows what Saturn needs! (There are colonists on it now, so it's not those, anymore.) Saturn needs wildlife. Flora, fauna, things defying classification as either.

[Jane, please relay to Aianon-and-Ansharil. Hey, you guys are good at designing living things, right? Do you think you could invent some cool stuff to live in the uninhabited parts of Saturn? I think it'd be fun, if you wanna help.]

endragoned
2013-06-01 11:48 am (UTC)

[We would love to,] says Ansharil.

bellfounding
2013-06-01 03:02 pm (UTC)

[Awesome.]

Jane is handy-dandy. There is just barely room for one smallish dragon and his demon at the Janepoint in Tethys.

endragoned
2013-06-01 03:04 pm (UTC)

So Ansharil teleports outdoors as soon as possible. (He still has not made an effort to change his shape.) And Aianon teleports to Saturn, where he flies around, examining the - you can't really call it a landscape. Windscape, maybe.

bellfounding
2013-06-01 03:05 pm (UTC)

He will find it very cloudy and high-gravity and Saturny. Certainly a challenge.

endragoned
2013-06-01 03:09 pm (UTC)

An interesting challenge.

[Is there any particular direction you want to give me about how this world should look, in the end?]

bellfounding
2013-06-01 03:58 pm (UTC)

[I'd like it to be pretty, and for the stuff not to be dangerous to anyone who can already handle being outside the enchantments on Saturn. It could look it, though, that might be fun if there were a couple big toothy-looking things that wouldn't actually attack people.]

endragoned
2013-06-01 03:59 pm (UTC)

[Interesting,] he muses. [Of course I will make big toothy things. That is part of the fun.]

bellfounding
2013-06-01 04:02 pm (UTC)

[Awesome.]

endragoned
2013-06-01 04:08 pm (UTC)

Aianon laughs.

Then he gets to work.

Small things, first - tiny motes of life that float on the winds, soaking up sunlight, like small colourful clumps of dust. Then little birdlike creatures to eat the motes, and flying plants that spread their blue-veined black leaves to catch the sun, and larger birds to eat the smaller birds and the plants. Even the herbivores must hunt; on this planet, nothing stands still.

bellfounding
2013-06-01 04:09 pm (UTC)

Pattern watches his progress approvingly. [This is spectacular, thanks.]

endragoned
2013-06-01 04:20 pm (UTC)

[It is my pleasure,] he says cheerfully.

As he continues making creatures, their designs get more fantastical. Here's a fluffy thing like a long-haired bat with four translucent vaned wings, which slurps the nectar from the flying flowers with its long tongue. Here's a lizard with membranes between its limbs like a flying squirrel, that glides on the wind and catches the ubiquitous motes. Here's a flying tree, branches twisting in all directions, that uses sail-like leaves to steer itself higher into the atmosphere and trails its roots beneath it to catch moisture and nutrients. The trees will grow large enough to support tiny non-flying ecosystems of their own; he designs several kinds of creature that have some of their life stages played out entirely in or on the plants, as opposed to the initial designs that gave live birth in the air or laid vaned eggs on the wind.

bellfounding
2013-06-01 04:21 pm (UTC)

He's come up with about a hundred species when Pattern says:

[I am so, so sorry, but. Jane is down again.]

endragoned
2013-06-01 04:23 pm (UTC)

But the bond—that is still there.

My love, he says, and reaches out to Sarion with this knowledge.

small_magics
2013-06-01 04:25 pm (UTC)

Oh beloved. At least we can still speak to each other.

endragoned
2013-06-01 04:26 pm (UTC)

At least, he agrees. I love you. I miss you.

small_magics
2013-06-01 04:27 pm (UTC)

And I you. So much.

endragoned
2013-06-01 04:28 pm (UTC)

Oh, my love.

small_magics
2013-06-01 04:29 pm (UTC)

She has been gone before. She returned. Perhaps she will return again. In the meantime - show me the things you've been making, beloved.

endragoned
2013-06-01 04:33 pm (UTC)

So he shows her.

The skies of Saturn are beautiful and full of life.

small_magics
2013-06-01 04:44 pm (UTC)

It's wonderful. I love you.

endragoned
2013-06-01 04:48 pm (UTC)

And I you, beloved.

in which subtle artists do not all work the same way

subtly_artistic

Bella is seriously considering refusing to tell anyone else what her major is. Honestly. The way people flinch -

Well, no, that's not fair. She'd flinch too if she were unprotected and a subtle artist walked by. Just because most don't, in fact, casually or unintentionally read thoughts, doesn't mean that none of them do. Her tutor back home thought that her aversion to having her mind read was why her arts were set up so defensively and everything else was secondary for her.

She doesn't like the flinching, but it is fair. Maybe she'll go to the lab and scribe off a few copies of a mini fact sheet so she can hand them out when she meets people. No, that would be obnoxious.

She'll wait for it to wear off. Eventually she'll make some friends who'll know how she works. Or who are other subtle artists; she's probably more likely to make friends in classes than in the dorm, anyway.

She's not sure how she feels about the mixed-sex dorms. The rooms are singles, at least - that's why she's in Thatcher Hall, automatic single rooms for no extra charge at the price of having to maybe live next door to somebody who's not all human. There's a short list of species who qualify to be out of Harlowe and in predominantly-human Thatcher. None of them scare Bella. The orientation guide called Thatcher a "salad bowl". The junior who was wandering by at the time called it a pit.

The building looks nice. Bella's room looks nice. She unpacks her stuff and then goes back out to explore a little and encounters a stark naked man.

"Dude!" she exclaims. "Put some clothes on! This is a mixed sex hall!"

pythbox
2013-05-07 01:08 am (UTC)

"Nice to meet you too," he says. "I'm a nymph. You're an asshole."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 01:21 am (UTC)

Bella considers this information.

Then she abruptly turns right and strides briskly down the hallway.

He's either telling the truth or lying, and neither result leaves her wanting close proximity.

She's in sockfeet. She forgot to put her boots back on when making up her mind to leave her room. She catches a toe on a loop of carpet fiber, pitches diagonally into somebody's doorknob, and comes to a graceless heap on the floor, with what would untended become a massive bruise. Godsdammit, those boots were expensive and she can't even remember to wear them. "Ow, ow, ow..."

pythbox
2013-05-07 01:24 am (UTC)

"Fuck's sake," snorts the alleged nymph. "You want that healed?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 01:25 am (UTC)

"I know where the healing center is," she mutters, pulling herself to her feet. But it's a hike. And he's between her and her room, where her boots are.

pythbox
2013-05-07 01:26 am (UTC)

"If you wanna walk there, I'm not stopping you," he says. "But if you're okay with divine healing, my way's quicker."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 01:28 am (UTC)

"You are kind of stopping me. You're between me and my boots of dexterity that I obviously need to get anywhere without getting myself killed, and you're either a dude who hangs around naked in semi-public for no obvious reason, or you're the world's only male nymph and you can therefore discern creepy things about me just by standing close enough and I do not think subtle arts shields will block that."

pythbox
2013-05-07 01:37 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and he walks past the door of her room to stand between it and the next room down the hall, giving her a clear path. "Just so you know, I was going to read you off to make the point that I actually am a fucking nymph, but I'm not feeling anything specific enough that you'd even be able to tell I wasn't just making it up. So congratulations on your boring fantasy life."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 01:40 am (UTC)

Bella gets up and goes to her room for her boots. "I'm so proud," she seethes, jamming her foot into one and doing up the laces. "You know, I'm not the kind of subtle artist who inadvertently reads people, those are actually very rare, but the ones who do are generally expected to work on controlling it and not casually invading everyone's privacy. I knew there were nymphs sometimes in this building. I did not know it about the hall." She gets the other boot on.

pythbox
2013-05-07 01:45 am (UTC)

"I'm not a subtle artist," he says. "I'm a fucking nymph. We're not expected to do shit except get on top of a dick a few times a week, but I like bucking expectations, so I'm a martial combat major. Seriously, I could heal you, that looked like it hurt."

The aggressive tone fades out of his voice over the course of these few sentences.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 01:47 am (UTC)

"I know you're not a subtle artist, a subtle artist would be asking about my unfriendly brain by now whether they autoread or not. My point was about learning things about people's minds without permission. Not about the subtle arts as a specific way to do it." She shifts uncomfortably. "How close do you have to get to heal me?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 01:58 am (UTC)

"Are you uncomfortable about me getting close because I'm naked or because I can read your sexuality? Not that I can do much about either. I'm still feeling you from here, I'd still be feeling you from the other end of the hall, I could feel you from inside my room with the door closed if you were having sex in yours but I'd bet my title deed you're not gonna be getting any this month, especially not after I said that. And I have to touch you to work a healing."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:01 am (UTC)

"If you're really a nymph, which I am gradually coming to believe, then I don't care if you're naked. And if - kheez, the other end of the hall, seriously? Am I the first person to even object or do you just not give a shit?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:03 am (UTC)

"I'm not a subtle artist," he says. "I go to school, I live in dorms. I live in dorms, people are going to be fucking nearby. And I can't just shut off my connection to sex any more than you can shut off your connection to breathing air and drinking water."

He takes half a step closer, holding out his hand. "I can heal and argue at the same time," he adds.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:05 am (UTC)

"I would look into not needing to breathe if I inhaled other people's private business whenever I did it!" exclaims Bella, but she flings her hands into the air and drops one into his offered extremity.

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:09 am (UTC)

A bright light flares; a golden warmth wells from her bones. All pain stops.

He drops her hand.

"See, fixed," he says. "Do you actually think I can stop looking?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:09 am (UTC)

"I have no idea. Have you bothered looking it up?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:11 am (UTC)

"Look it up how? Mom and I don't talk much."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:12 am (UTC)

Bella runs a hand through her hair. "In the library? Ask a lore professor, maybe? I don't think I could do it, but depending on how it works maybe some subtle artist could set up a sensory valve?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:21 am (UTC)

"I don't sense it, I am it," he says. "Anyway, whatever, I'm off to get yelled at for walking around naked some more."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:23 am (UTC)

"I'm off to get asked what my major is and watch people justifiably flinch," sighs Bella, stepping out of her room, closing the door behind her, and heading down the hallway.

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:26 am (UTC)

Thanks to Thatcher Hall's architect, only one end of this hallway leads to the stairs. They are off in the same direction.

"Great," he says. "We can be really uncomfortable buddies."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:27 am (UTC)

"Faaaaaantastic."

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:30 am (UTC)

"I'm not going to feel anything more from you than I've already got unless your desires change or you start getting horny around me," he sighs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:32 am (UTC)

"I'll be on the lookout for those possibilities, then, I guess."

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:37 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he says. He sounds it. Exasperated, yes, but also sorry.
Edited 2013-05-07 02:37 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:38 am (UTC)

"Well, I mean, look, I've got a boring fantasy life, right, it doesn't include nymph spying."

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:41 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "I don't actually have to embody sexuality to know you don't get off on my existence. You're making that obvious all by yourself."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:42 am (UTC)

Bella sighs and decides to stop talking. There's the lounge. She's going to hang out in the lounge and see if anyone less disturbing is around to befriend.

pythbox
2013-05-07 02:46 am (UTC)

In the lounge, the nymph - he never gave her his name, if he even has one - drops onto a couch, sprawling all the way across it with his head on one armrest and his feet on the other.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 02:53 am (UTC)

Ooooof course he does.

Bella strikes up a herbalism major. His name is Joe. She introduces herself to him too; the nymph could have read her door but that wouldn't tell him that she prefers the shortened version. Joe does flinch when he learns that Bella is -

"Majoring in subtle arts. I'm not reading your mind, it doesn't happen automatically for most of us. And a minor in public policy."

"That's a weird combination," says Joe.

"The minor is just for personal interest," shrugs Bella. "Some of the classes I'll take for it will count towards gen ed anyway."

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:00 am (UTC)

People seem to be avoiding the nymph, until one girl comes up to him, biting her thumbnail nervously, and asks him something too quiet to be heard across the room.

"Guess again," he says. "I'm a nymph."

She giggles softly and asks him something else.

"Yeah, but you can't pronounce it," he says. "Call me Celo."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:04 am (UTC)

Bella notes the name, but makes no outward sign, and compares course schedules with Joe until his pocket mirror goes off and he leaves to answer it. She sits at a bit of a loose end, waiting for another possible opportunity to get to know someone to open up.

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:09 am (UTC)

Celo is still chatting with the girl, and now he's matching her volume.

At one point he laughs and gestures to his crotch. She hides her face in her hands with a giggle, then peeks - most definitely at his face and not anywhere else.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:10 am (UTC)

If that turns into anything, then Bella's going to react either negatively - in which case she'd rather not be in the room - or positively - in which case she'd rather not be near Celo. She doesn't think she knows how to pull off indifference. She'll work on that. She gets up and heads out of the lounge.

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:13 am (UTC)

No one remarks on her departure.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:17 am (UTC)

Certainly not.

Bella goes back to her room. She shelves her books. She goes exploring a bit around the campus around Thatcher: there is the nearest dining hall and there's the food court, there's the subtle arts building, there's the building her WP will meet in, there's where she'll go to her Imperial History class.

It's started to get dark and Bella has just realized that she's not wearing her dagger when she slips back into the dorm. Luckily, no one weapon-checked her.

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:20 am (UTC)

There are soft giggles coming from a room in her hall, three doors toward the stairs from hers.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:22 am (UTC)

She has to pass it to get to her room. She glances at the door. It says Celosia. Probably his kind of plant. She goes back into her own room and gets her knife and heads back out; she wants to grab dinner at the food court. She's back again forty-five minutes later. (There's a line.)

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:23 am (UTC)

Celosia's room is no longer giggling.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:24 am (UTC)

Good for Celosia's room. Bella puts her knife away and goes to hang out in the lounge again. The nymph's not there; she meets four other people before the RAs call a general hall meeting.

Celo will be at that. Sigh.
Edited 2013-05-07 03:26 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:27 am (UTC)

Celo is indeed at the hall meeting. This time, though, he sits on the floor.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:31 am (UTC)

The RAs introduce themselves as Zack and Thea, and they want everyone to go around the room and say their name, their major, and something worth knowing about them. "At least three sentences," clarifies Thea.

Bella is third. "I'm Bella," she says, "and I'm a subtle arts major. I don't automatically read minds, you don't have to police your thoughts around me or anything. I'm minoring in public policy. And, um. I like to read," she adds lamely.

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:45 am (UTC)

"I'm Celo," says Celo, when it's his turn. "I'm a nymph. I have a double major in martial combat and domestic arts, so the next time somebody tells me to put some pants on, I can cut their head off and cook them for dinner."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:47 am (UTC)

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," says Thea. "And I didn't count three sentences," she adds singsong.

"Do you want to explain to everyone how there came to be a male nymph?" asks Zack encouragingly.

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:48 am (UTC)

"No," says Celo. "Which, in case you were wondering, is a complete sentence."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:54 am (UTC)

"O-o-kay then!" says Zack, and he signals the next person. Presently everyone has introduced themselves. The RAs talk about hall policies and how to get in touch with them, reiterate a few rules from the orientation packet like the weapon policy and the ins and outs of the meal plan. They advise everyone to leave their doors open during the day when they're not busy and get to know their hallmates, and to check out some clubs. And Thea points out a bulletin board on the far end of the lounge where everyone is welcome to post notices about things of general interest. The students are then dismissed with a reminder that "Oh, almost forgot, everybody, DRY CAMPUS!"

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:32 am (UTC)

Celo is one of the first people out of the room.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:36 am (UTC)

Bella has no significant interaction with him just from living on the same hall. Even if nymphs needed bathrooms, he wouldn't be in the girls' one. And once classes start Bella doesn't hang out in the lounge much.

Of course, then there's her Subtle Arts Tutorial Lab.

"Oh," she says, and she bites down on "you have got to be kidding me", when she sees who they paid to have his brain poked at by student psions.

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:39 am (UTC)

...Celo laughs and shakes his head.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:42 am (UTC)

Bella sighs and turns to her lab checklist. "Have you," she reads aloud, "consulted with Professor Winters about signposting anything you'd like me to avoid interacting with?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:42 am (UTC)

"Yep."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:43 am (UTC)

"Did you receive a psionics lab consent form and understand everything on it?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:46 am (UTC)

"Yep!" he says brightly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:47 am (UTC)

"Do you have any questions about what I specifically will be working on today before I start?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:57 am (UTC)

"Yeah, what are you gonna be working on?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:59 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't even have to look at her personalized assignment sheet. "My native affinities are defensively and introspectively oriented. I will be working on paying sustained attention to your surface thoughts and emotions; ideally I'll be able to do it for five minutes at a time by the end of the lab. If you happen to think about something that you've had signposted, I'll have plenty of warning to drop out of your head before I see it, but I'll find it most useful if you think about things you don't mind me watching."

pythbox
2013-05-07 05:01 am (UTC)

"It's not really about what I mind you watching," he says, "it's about what I think will give you nightmares. I'll do my best."
Edited 2013-05-07 05:01 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 05:03 am (UTC)

"Yeah, well, I get marked way down if I look at something signposted," says Bella. "Are you ready? It won't feel like anything, but you're still entitled to know when I start."

pythbox
2013-05-07 05:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah, fine," he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 05:05 am (UTC)

"Okay." Bella puts her first two fingers to her temple; this is only for show, but since he's not going to feel anything, the show is useful. And she reaches out for the mind sitting across from her and looks at it.

pythbox
2013-05-07 12:55 pm (UTC)

The mind sitting across from her is not really thinking.

He has a deeply involved sensory experience of the world, from considerably more angles than the human one. His body, sitting comfortably in his chair and experiencing the textures of air and wood, is only a small part of it; in a slightly different direction, and almost closer to the centre, is the landscape of sexuality around him. Bella's closest, and his attention is on her more than anyone else in the room, so he feels her the most clearly. He's not getting any more from her than he alluded to earlier, but he's getting it in depth. Her sexuality is kind of vague. His perception of it is not.

And along yet another dimension, different again from the embodied self and the metaphysical/sexual self, there's his field. Or something like a field. It's a patch of ground with plants growing in it, but it's surrounded by a gated stone wall, adjoining a small house and surrounded on three sides by larger buildings. Apparently Celosia is the fertility spirit of an urban garden. It's doing pretty well; he feels contentment and restful growth from it.

After all of this comes conscious thought. But he's not really having any at the moment. The totality of his experience is enough for him; it doesn't also need a running commentary.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:52 pm (UTC)

Bella makes sure her concentration is stable, and then she starts taking notes. "You may look at anything I write down about this," she murmurs, "it's not going to be about the content, just about my experience of it."

So far her notes say extra sensory tracks (nymph); minimal verbal loop (individual/species? unknown).

pythbox
2013-05-07 03:55 pm (UTC)

He laughs; something about her underlying expectation that he's serious about his mental privacy is funny. "Okay," he says agreeably.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Most people who come through here are doing it for the money and aren't actually fully comfortable with being inspected for money. The consent forms and the signposting and the permission to look at our notes are for them," Bella murmurs.

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I figured," he says.

He doesn't really need that shit. He gets a kind of vicious satisfaction from the fact that anyone who looked at things he didn't want them to see would probably regret it, and that's enough for him.

But he doesn't feel that way about Bella. (He thinks of her mostly by sexuality, somewhat by face, a little by the memory of their first conversation, and barely at all by name.) Her, he would rather protect from his worst memories. He doesn't know why, and it doesn't bother him not to; he just goes with how he feels.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:05 pm (UTC)

Bella writes predominant person-identifier along sexuality channel (species/individual? unknown) and signposts evidently for protection of observers.

She checks her timer. It's been a minute and a half. She's doing better than she usually has, but she's not at her goal for the lab yet.

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:08 pm (UTC)

He doesn't try to read her notes while he's writing them. He does watch her pen, but he's not interpreting its movement on the level of language.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:09 pm (UTC)

Bella underlines her remark about the verbal loop.

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:12 pm (UTC)

Celo is now having vague - and nonverbal - thoughts about the connection between calligraphy and sex.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:14 pm (UTC)

Bella tries to think of a genteel way to describe him as having a one-track mind. This, unlike timer-checking or reporting on lab consent arrangements, is too complicated for her to maintain concentration. She loses it, puts her hand at her temple down, and writes 2:03.

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:15 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "What threw you?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Trying to figure out how to phrase something for the lab notes. Professor Winters is going to read them even if you don't want a look first."

pythbox
2013-05-07 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, shrugging.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 04:21 pm (UTC)

Bella notes the time, puts her hand back to her temple, and starts up again.

pythbox
2013-05-07 05:21 pm (UTC)

Now he's thinking about his combat classes. The primary identifying feature of the coach is that she has a serious thing for watching hot boys get fucked up. It makes class a little more interesting, especially since Celo has a serious thing for getting fucked up.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 05:25 pm (UTC)

Bella grits her teeth and concentrates and writes single topical thread common to many thoughts (focus issue? individual/species trait? unknown)

pythbox
2013-05-07 05:29 pm (UTC)

He wonders whether the part that's getting under her skin is the violence, how much he likes it, or something else he hasn't thought of.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 05:30 pm (UTC)

Bella writes subject curious about my visible reaction to thoughts - work on suppressing that? focus of healing sessions = subject, not me

pythbox
2013-05-07 05:31 pm (UTC)

"No, really, which is it?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I show up to skirmish games sometimes like everyone else. If you weren't a nymph I'd think it was sketchy to react like you do to something ostensibly for a non-sexual purpose, in public, and I'm reserving judgment given that you are a nymph." She almost, but doesn't quite, lose concentration.

pythbox
2013-05-07 05:40 pm (UTC)

People react sexually to things in public all the time, and given the wide range of people's sexuality, those things are only usually things that are commonly acknowledged as sexual in purpose or nature. Celo sure isn't bothered.
Edited 2013-05-07 17:45 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 05:45 pm (UTC)

Bella supposes he would know. She keeps her arts fixed on his thoughts carefully.

pythbox
2013-05-07 05:51 pm (UTC)

Anyways, if it bugs her when he thinks about sex, he'd rather think about something that's not sex.

Cooking! Cooking is not sex. (It can be combined with sex, but he'll leave that alone for now.) Cooking is fun. Eating is fun. Bodily skills and bodily sensory experiences are fun even when they're not the ones nymphs are known for. He thinks about domestic arts - baking muffins and cookies and cakes, making pancakes or hot chocolate. He has an extremely vivid memory for taste and smell. Also, his muffins are fucking delicious.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 05:53 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't mean to visibly relax - she does mean to be a healer; this will require being calmly able to hear thoughts and if she couldn't avoid tensing she can at least avoid slumping gratefully in her chair. She writes vivid sense-memory.

pythbox
2013-05-07 05:57 pm (UTC)

Sewing is also among the domestic arts. Celo is fond of handcrafts. (Despite her efforts, he notices her relief.) He thinks he'd like to be a clothing designer when he graduates. A nymph in fashion should get people's attention nicely, and he bets it'll be fun, not to mention the wicked little thrill he gets when he imagines wearing his own creations.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 05:58 pm (UTC)

Odd. She wonders but doesn't ask why he takes such exception to people who don't identify his species opting to ask that he put pants on.
Edited 2013-05-07 18:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:10 pm (UTC)

It occurs to him that she saw that thought, and that she was there when he threatened to kill and eat the next person who orders him to clothe himself, and that she might be curious; consequently he thinks about his reasons.

The parts that aren't heavily signposted are not especially comprehensible or articulable.

He consciously chooses to go back to thinking about muffins.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:13 pm (UTC)

Bella steers clear of the signposts, but in so doing drops out of his mind altogether. She drops her hand, writes down 3:17, and starts up again.

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:19 pm (UTC)

Chocolate-chip banana muffins with coconut flakes and ground almond. Carrot muffins with cinnamon. He remembers eating those with significantly more loving detail than he gave to his memories of classes.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:20 pm (UTC)

Those do sound tasty...

She writes Some contagion of sense-memory interests; unsure of potential extent.

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:26 pm (UTC)

They tasted tasty. And they had that warm fresh smell, and they were springily soft in his hands when he broke them open to put a little butter in the middle.

Well, now Celo's kind of hungry. He wonders if he has time to find a kitchen he can use and whip up another batch of those before his next class with Coach Sadist. Probably not.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:29 pm (UTC)

Bella watches him think about muffins. She thinks about lunch. She peers at her timer occasionally.

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:33 pm (UTC)

Muffins. Tasty muffins.

He wonders if he should come back and do this again later. It pays pretty well. But despite having looked it up, he doesn't have a clue how to shut off his sense of sexuality, so Bella probably doesn't want him around.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:36 pm (UTC)

"There are other students in psionics lab, it's not just me," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but you're here and I'm also here," he points out.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:45 pm (UTC)

"You probably wouldn't be assigned to me again. The point of hiring people is variety or we'd just work with each other all the time. There's also another section that meets Tuesdays, I think."

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he shrugs. That works out nicely, then.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:48 pm (UTC)

Mindreading mindreading mindreading.

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:49 pm (UTC)

Intense mouth-watering sense memory of delicious food!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:51 pm (UTC)

Bella's stomach growls, she winces, and she loses the read. 2:59, she writes.

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:52 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs. "Maybe I'll bake cookies for the hall tonight."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure they'd be delicious." She underlines her remark about contagion and starts up again.

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Do you want some?"

The association to innuendo is automatic, but the innuendo is not actually intended; he literally does just want to know if she is interested in eating his literal cookies.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:56 pm (UTC)

"If they're for the whole hall I'd try some."

pythbox
2013-05-07 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Course they are. I'm a nymph. I always bring enough for everybody," he jokes, grinning.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 06:59 pm (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:00 pm (UTC)

Celo cracks up.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:00 pm (UTC)

Bella resolutely continues to read him. But humor is nearly as contagious as sense-memory, and she cracks a smile.

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:03 pm (UTC)

The joke wasn't that hilarious, but the face she made at it totally was. Celo giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:03 pm (UTC)

Read, read, read.

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:06 pm (UTC)

She has a cute smile, too. It gives him nice feelings to look at.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:06 pm (UTC)

Heh.

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:10 pm (UTC)

Well, now he's not sure if he just weirded her out or not.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm all right. Don't worry about me," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Celo says agreeably.

In that case he can go back to having nice feelings about her smile.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:13 pm (UTC)

And Bella will go on reading them. They're easy to pay attention to.

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:16 pm (UTC)

That works out nicely then!

Nice warm snuggly happy feelings. (Not sexy ones. By now he has figured out enough about Bella that if they were sexy ones, he would not be dwelling on them in front of her.)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:18 pm (UTC)

Bella sustains five minutes, and is so surprised by having managed to do so that she loses her concentration right then. She writes 5:01 and positive attention easy to focus on; part of the importance of telepath/client rapport? and then picks up again to see if she can repeat the feat.

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:19 pm (UTC)

Celo is distracted; now he wonders if it would help or hinder her purpose if he was talking more.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I cleared five minutes, which was my assignment. I'm getting an A for the day," says Bella. "At this point learning to multitask will help me in general and trying for it won't hurt my grade."

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," he says. "What do you wanna talk about? I guess the topics that get the best result so far are muffins and how cute you are, but it's probably different talking about it."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Not overwhelmingly different. In my Utility Psionics class we're learning to have relatively ordinary conversations in perfect silence. By the time I'm a sophomore all my psionics classes will be conducted silently."

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Not the direction I meant," he says, and illustratively renders a sense memory of drinking rich creamy bittersweet hot chocolate at a not-quite-scalding temperature. (It's impressive how he almost manages not to consciously entertain any sexual associations to the act of swallowing.) "Put that in words, I dare you."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm actually memorizing an impressive glossary of subtle artist jargon for Intro Perception, but I don't have it yet, and it would lose something in translation, I give you that."

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:30 pm (UTC)

Celo grins.

"Hey, did I ever give you my name?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:31 pm (UTC)

"The Pax rendering, I got. I haven't observed the original."

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:37 pm (UTC)

He shows her.

His name is - intense. Summer heat, sun on ripe grain, a complex grassy smell carried on the warm breeze. Like turning a corner and walking into the gardens of Paradise.

It suits him perfectly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:38 pm (UTC)

"You have," she murmurs, "a lovely name."

She turns it over in her mind, once, and then sends it back. "Am I pronouncing it right?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Basically, yeah," he says. "You could get closer if you wanted, but people'll know who you're talking about."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:41 pm (UTC)

"If I ever need to refer to you to someone else who knows you by that instead of Celo, then I will."

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:42 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"I like my name."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:44 pm (UTC)

"And you've had at least three chances to learn mine, which is less interesting."
Edited 2013-05-07 19:44 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:46 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs.

"It's Bella, right?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:53 pm (UTC)

He observes that if he had to translate how he refers to her in his head into words, he'd probably go with 'Boring Hallmate', even though she isn't actually boring at all.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:55 pm (UTC)

Bella sputters with amusement briefly, loses her read, writes 4:21, and picks up again.

pythbox
2013-05-07 07:56 pm (UTC)

Celo grins.

"What part of that was funny?" he wonders.
Edited 2013-05-07 19:56 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 07:57 pm (UTC)

"The contrast between thinking I'm boring on your primary people-identifying axis but not thinking I'm boring in general, yet being so attached to that axis that it's how you'd label me."

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:02 pm (UTC)

"You're not boring on that axis, though," he says. "You're only boring out loud."

He called her boring, when they first met, but it's a shallow descriptor. Sex doesn't have to be kinky to be fun, and sexuality doesn't have to be unusual to be interesting. He would happily fuck her, if she wanted to, and he bets it would not be even a little bit boring.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:03 pm (UTC)

She loses her read again.

She writes down her time and raises an eyebrow at him.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:04 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Sorry? Should I be sorry? I'm not sorry," he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:06 pm (UTC)

"You can think about whatever you want. I already have my five minutes handled, though, so if that's what you want to think about, I can turn in my notes and send you to work with one of the students who's working with another subtle artist today instead."

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:09 pm (UTC)

"It's not something I want to dwell on for the next half hour," he says. "But I'm a nymph. I'm not going to act like sex is unthinkable. I can't act like sex is unthinkable; without sex I would die."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Bella. "I am aware of that."

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:11 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"So - I'm sorry but I'm not sorry," he says. "I'll try not to get in your face about it again."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. I'm not planning to become a sex therapist," she snorts, and she reads again.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:13 pm (UTC)

Well, now he's giggling.

"Maybe I should be a sex therapist. What does a sex therapist even do?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Sex therapy," says Bella, deadpan.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:18 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles harder.

Hey, he already combines sex and healing! Twice! One way that is the usual nymph combination of having sex a lot and having divine healing properties, and another that is... a more novel way of having divine healing properties.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:19 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks.

"Well, that's unheard of," she says, "but I suppose you already were."

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "Apparently nymph semen is amazingly restorative."

There are a lot of signposted memories clustered around that thought, but he's doing his best to stay away from them. Some bad stuff happened. The fact that he ejaculates some kind of healing potion/elixir of youth combo was involved. He's trying not to go into the details.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:28 pm (UTC)

And there's signposts. She falls out of his head again and writes her time. She gives him fifteen seconds and then starts again.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:32 pm (UTC)

Fifteen seconds is long enough for him to start thinking about muffins again. Mmm, muffins.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:33 pm (UTC)

Mmm.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:34 pm (UTC)

Muffins are tasty!

"Do you cook at all?" he asks idly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I did at home. I didn't love it for its own sake so I don't think I'll do it that often here, unless I get royally sick of what's available on the meal plan."

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:37 pm (UTC)

"If you don't like cooking but wanna eat stuff the meal plan doesn't cover, I can make stuff," he says. "I love to cook."

This seems like an extremely reasonable allocation of resources to him. One person wants to cook new interesting food but not necessarily eat it all; one person wants to eat new interesting food but doesn't want to cook it.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:38 pm (UTC)

"I think you mentioned something about cookies for the hall," says Bella noncommittally.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'll probably do that," he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Cool."

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:41 pm (UTC)

Aww, there's her cute smile again. Celo smiles back.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:43 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs a little.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:44 pm (UTC)

Her laugh is cute too!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:45 pm (UTC)

That just makes her laugh again.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:46 pm (UTC)

Awwwww. Celo grins and hugs himself.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:47 pm (UTC)

She keeps up this read for six minutes, twenty seconds, before her attention flags. She marks her time, starts again.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:50 pm (UTC)

Celo is still thinking about her laugh.

The way he sees it, what he is as a nymph is not just about fucking. It's about love, too, every form of love. Liking Bella's smile and telling her so and bringing her joy that way are part of it too.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:51 pm (UTC)

Well, that's mildly interesting.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:52 pm (UTC)

He wonders what she's thinking.

And grins.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:52 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers.

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:53 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles!

"No, really, though!"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, um, I mentioned my arts are very defensive. I don't casually volunteer what I'm thinking to people I'm not close to."

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:57 pm (UTC)

...Celo finds this a bewildering assertion.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 08:58 pm (UTC)

"I can't even pair off and do this kind of work with the other students, not if they want to take turns. I have an unfriendly mind."

pythbox
2013-05-07 08:59 pm (UTC)

"What kind of unfriendly?" he asks, distracted from the original point.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Psionically unfriendly. I can send deliberately, like I did your name -" She does it again. "But apart from that I can't be detected by any but the most sensitive, reception-oriented, well-trained subtle artists. Most of them can't even tell I'm there, except by looking. My tutor in high school thinks that it's related to the fact that I really wouldn't want anyone reading my mind."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Okay," he says. "So do you not want to talk about nymphs and love, or do you just not like how I asked, or were you thinking something totally different that's none of my business at all?"

He supposes 'd) go fuck yourself' is also a valid answer, but he doesn't assume she'll give it. Actually, he's pretty sure that telling him to go fuck himself is not something she's likely to do.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:11 pm (UTC)

"You can talk about nymphs and love, if you like."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:12 pm (UTC)

"One person talking is not a conversation," he says, and refrains from making the obvious analogy out loud.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I may choose to say things, I'm just not going to tell you everything I'm thinking. Even if I were capable, you couldn't drag me into doing what you're doing for your pocket money without involving a straitjacket."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Celo, "I am officially confused. Do you have anything to say about the thing I was thinking, or don't you, or do you not know?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I do not care to volunteer any comments on the thing you were thinking."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "Then it's kind of pointless me talking about it more, because - that was it, really."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:20 pm (UTC)

But he is still confused. Bella is confusing. He's not even sure exactly what confuses him, he just feels like there's something he's not getting here.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't go around intending to stymie people, but the point of this exercise isn't actually to give you a better understanding of me."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?" he says. That is also confusing, in the sense where he's not sure why she felt the need to point it out.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:22 pm (UTC)

Bella puts her chin on her hand and reads silently.

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:25 pm (UTC)

Celo continues to be confused. It's a state of mind that doesn't directly involve sex or anything signposted, so she can probably keep looking for a while.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:27 pm (UTC)

She does. She beats her record, then loses it and shakes her head and writes her time. She checks the clock.

"You can go now and still collect the full period's payment unless you want to hang out for the last five minutes," she says.

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't really have anywhere to be," he says. "Want me to get lost anyway?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:29 pm (UTC)

"No, I may as well practice for another five minutes if you're not in a hurry."

She reads some more.

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says. He wonders idly if Coach Sadist is going to need him to heal a fellow student again this afternoon. Odds are she won't, but in one of her courses, you never know.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Is healing instinctive, or just easy for nymphs to learn?" Bella wonders idly.

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Inherent, not instinctive," he says. "Comes with the package."

Which is, yes, another dick joke. But a somewhat ironic one, considering the sex of most nymphs, and also perfectly true on a non-dick-joke level.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:40 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts softly.

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:40 pm (UTC)

Celo grins.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Where'd you look up the thing about suppressing the involuntary spying thing?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Asked a lore professor. Nothing. Had a look in the library. More nothing."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Hmm." She nibbles her lip. "If you actually care you could mention it to Professor Winters on your way out when she offers to remove your signposts."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says with a grin, "I actually came around wondering about that, but then somebody offered me money and I got distracted."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:49 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Is that how you started doing this."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:50 pm (UTC)

Cheerfully: "Yep!"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:51 pm (UTC)

"And Professor Winters told us it usually took a few weeks to filter in volunteers from the ad in the school newspaper and we shouldn't expect anyone but us to work with for the early sessions, and then there was you."

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I like money and I don't have a lot of privacy issues," he shrugs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Are you paying your own tuition or something?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Nope, I've got landowners for that," he snorts, and all kinds of signposted thoughts pop up around that word.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:58 pm (UTC)

Bella drops out of the read again. She writes her time. 4:36. "End of lab," she announces.

pythbox
2013-05-07 09:59 pm (UTC)

"'Kay," he says. "See ya."

And he bounces up out of his seat and wanders off.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 09:59 pm (UTC)

Bella turns in her notes to Professor Winters and heads to Basic Knife.

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:04 pm (UTC)

The next time she sees him, he is giving a blowjob to a tall brawny human boy outside the dining hall.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:06 pm (UTC)

Of course he is. She goes around, and has lunch, and goes out again to attend history.

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:09 pm (UTC)

That evening, the kitchen on their floor is emanating delicious smells.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:10 pm (UTC)

Bella meanders in that direction, her history homework under her arm.

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:13 pm (UTC)

Celo is baking.

Celo is also, at the moment she enters the kitchen, laughingly telling another hallmate that he doesn't want to fuck while he's got cookies in the oven.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:22 pm (UTC)

Bella sits in a corner of the kitchen and spreads out her homework to wait for cookies.

"Come on, dude, have some, like, species pride," says the hallmate. "Only difference between a naked person and a nymph is that the nymph is down to fuck."

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:27 pm (UTC)

"This nymph is baking," says Celo. "If my cookies burn because I'm too busy experiencing your glorious cock to check on 'em, I'm gonna be sad. You don't wanna make me sad, right?" He bats his eyelashes outrageously.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:31 pm (UTC)

Bella snickers in spite of herself in her corner.

"Dude, I can't wait for your cookies, I have a club meeting, come on," says the gloriously cocked hallmate. "I mean, you say you're a nymph, you gotta be happier fucking than waiting for the oven to beep."

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Nymphs have hobbies, too, hon," he says. "Don't worry about missing out on the cookies, I'll save you some." He winks. "Save you something else, too."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Why're you making this difficult, I said I didn't wanna wait, the point of you is that you aren't supposed to play hard to get," says he of the presumably glorious cock, reaching for Celo's shoulder.

Bella is watching the interaction more warily now.

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm busy," says Celo. The tone of his voice is distinctly flatter, the flirtatious note disappearing from both it and his body language. He steps back, out of the hallmate's reach, leaning his hands casually on the counter behind him.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:42 pm (UTC)

"You're just standing there, I bet you could've got me off in the time you've been taking to argue about it," complains the glorious cockbearer. "If you're even any good."

Bella asks Celo silently: Do you want me to get an RA? and listens for a reply.

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Well if I'm not any good, I guess there's no point fucking me," Celo says brightly.

Depends whose side you think the RA is gonna take, doesn't it?

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm not picky," says the unpicky and gloriously cocked hallmate. "But I'm in a hurry, dude."

I bet you RAs are not in favor of burning cookies in the shared kitchen? offers Bella dubiously. ...If you want the path of least resistance you could go off with him and I could take them out when the timer dings.

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:50 pm (UTC)

The timer dings.

"Gotta check the cookies," says Celo, reaching for the oven door. "Bet you've still got time to jerk off."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I'd call you an asshole but you're not even doing that right," snarls the operator of the glorious cock, and he shoves past Celo to exit the kitchen.

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:53 pm (UTC)

Celo snorts.

He checks the cookies.

He determines that they are not quite ready and sets the timer for another two minutes.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Does that happen a lot?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:54 pm (UTC)

"What, people whining when I've got something better to do than bend over for 'em? Yeah," he shrugs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:55 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, well, if you ever need an RA gotten, I'll be able to hear you if you think about me really hard and I'm not more than a hallway away at the time."

pythbox
2013-05-07 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," he says, with a surprised smile.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 10:57 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "I don't know how much help they'll be. I think it might be considered legally impossible to sexually assault a nymph?" She's not sure, but this sounds right; she scratches her head.

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Celo. "Turns out keeping one chained in your basement is blasphemy, though."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:03 pm (UTC)

...Bella blinks.

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:07 pm (UTC)

He checks on the cookies again and pulls them out of the oven with his bare hands, then heals himself as soon as he's set the baking sheet on top of the stove.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:08 pm (UTC)

"...Why did you not use oven mitts?" Bella asks. "Or at least a dishtowel, there's one right over there."

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:09 pm (UTC)

"No point," he says. "Didn't hurt that much, barely had time to blister."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:10 pm (UTC)

"If I tried to do that I'd drop the cookies," Bella says. "Even though you can heal yourself whenever it's a weird thing to do."

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I can heal myself whenever," says Celo. "Which makes me more casual about injury, which makes me more casual about pain because I'm more used to it, which makes me more casual about injury... get the idea?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I guess you could build up a decent pain tolerance that way," says Bella dubiously. "But the dishtowel is right there."

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't care about the dishtowel," says Celo. "The dishtowel is a solution to a problem I don't have."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. Can I have a cookie?"

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Wait'll they're cool," he says, smiling crookedly, "you'll burn yourself."

And he starts laying out the next batch on the baking sheet.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Cooler, sure, but cookies are best still warm, I think."

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Very true," he agrees. "But I better check to make sure they won't burn ya."

He grabs a cookie off the tray and pops it in his mouth, closing his eyes and doing a little wriggle of happiness while he chews.

"Perfect," he announces, wiping a smear of chocolate from the corner of his mouth and licking it off his fingers, then collecting the rest of the cookies onto a plate. "Help yourself."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:29 pm (UTC)

Bella stares intently at a cookie for a moment, then gives up and picks it up. "I have," she sighs, "no talent to speak of at telekinesis. Professor Winters thinks I might be able to get a little bit, but I sure don't have any now." She bites her untelekinetically retrieved cookie.

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:32 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:33 pm (UTC)

Bella eats her cookie. This is good, she comments with her mouth full.

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Damn skippy," he says with evident satisfaction.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:34 pm (UTC)

She giggles and takes another one.

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:36 pm (UTC)

"I love it when people eat my cookies," says Celo, leaning against the counter again. "Makes the whole thing feel that much more worthwhile."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:38 pm (UTC)

"That's why recipes make so many."

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:38 pm (UTC)

He laughs again.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Can I take a couple for later? I get munchy around an hour before bedtime and the vending cabinets are highway robbery."

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" he says. "Take as many as you want, nobody else seems to be showing up for the cookies anyway."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Did you advertise that they're for sharing?" Bella asks, forming a stack of six of them.

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Sure, but I guess everybody figures 'cookies' is a euphemism," he says with a roll of his eyes. "I'm a nymph, for fuck's sake, I don't need to eupheme, if I wanted to advertise that I was hanging out in the kitchen waiting for someone to fuck me I could just say so."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:48 pm (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes. She tucks her homework under her arm and holds her stack of half a dozen cookies. "Well, more for us, then. Thanks. I'll tell anyone who asks me where I got these."

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," he says, casually blowing her a kiss. "I'm making more kinds if you wanna come back in an hour, and leftovers are going in the fridge if you don't."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I might come back for more kinds and I wish you'd warned me before I ate three of these," she says. "No blowing me kisses, please, that's weird."

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay," laughs Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:55 pm (UTC)

Bella goes off with her cookies and does homework in her room with the door open. She goes back into the kitchen an hour later.

pythbox
2013-05-07 11:58 pm (UTC)

There are platefuls of three more kinds of cookies lined up on the counter, and Celo is watching over a fourth as they bake.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-07 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Hullo again," says Bella, taking one of each sort.

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:01 am (UTC)

"Hi!" beams Celo. "That nice girl from the other end of the hall came by and ate a bunch."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:02 am (UTC)

"Uh, Miki or Corrine?" asks Bella, trying to remember girls from the end of the hall who she'd describe as nice.

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:04 am (UTC)

"Don't remember her name," he shrugs, "probably shouldn't tell you how I think of her."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:05 am (UTC)

"What color is her hair?" suggests Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:07 am (UTC)

"Um... kinda dark brown I guess?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:08 am (UTC)

"Corrine," identifies Bella. She has taken discreet notes on her hallmates. "These are all really good, I'm having trouble imagining you actually need any of your domestic studies classes right now."

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:10 am (UTC)

"I totally learn things in my classes!" he says. "I don't need them, but I want them."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:10 am (UTC)

"Fair enough." Om nom nom.

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:14 am (UTC)

Celo nabs a few cookies, too, but mostly he leaves them on the plates.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:15 am (UTC)

"These cookies," Bella determines curiously, after going back for a second lemon one, "are not vegan, either that or you loaded them up with some serious magic. I thought nymphs were vegans? Is that a myth?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:20 am (UTC)

"It's a choice," he says. "A lot of nymphs choose it. I don't." He grins. "I'll spare you the jokes about whether or not I eat meat."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:20 am (UTC)

"Much appreciated."

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:21 am (UTC)

Celo giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:22 am (UTC)

Bella collects little stacks of each kind of cookie, gamely attempting to float them and failing, and carries them back to her room.

She's up a bit later, reading ahead in Intro to Psychology for Subtle Artists, and Miki, the other nice girl from the end of the hall, drops by to chat. She wants to know if Bella wants to go to the elementalism club with her, on the grounds that Bella was in AP magic classes in high school.

"I have a six-course load this semester," Bella apologizes. "Even if my lab is only once a week and Basic Knife doesn't exactly give homework, I don't think I want to commit to any clubs while I'm still settling in. Maybe in the spring."
Edited 2013-05-08 00:29 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:29 am (UTC)

"You're in Basic Knife?" comes a familiar voice from just down the hall.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:31 am (UTC)

"Considering that I need enchanted damn boots to walk down the hall without breaking my neck, yes, I am in Basic Knife!" Bella calls back.

Miki titters.

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:32 am (UTC)

Just-down-the-hall laughs good-naturedly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:32 am (UTC)

"Well, if you change your mind about the club let me know," says Miki, and she wanders off.

"Will do," promises Bella. She even writes this down.

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:33 am (UTC)

Celo appears in her doorway.

"Basic Knife," he says, shaking his head. "Can I come in and mock you some more?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:36 am (UTC)

"I'm not kidding about needing the boots," Bella says. "I was exempted from high school melee because I was a lawsuit liability. My knife is enchanted not to cut me, but that won't stop me from getting a serious bruise when I fall on it or accidentally fling it into my forehead. Basic Knife is a joke, but I'm not equipped to do anything with a sharp object other than standup comedy, you know?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:39 am (UTC)

He grins.

"Okay, okay, fair enough. Not everybody can live through a class with Coach Sadist."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:40 am (UTC)

"I really hope you don't mean that literally."

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:45 am (UTC)

"The first thing she ever said to me was - well, no," he amends, "the first thing she said to me was 'Fucktoy! Catch!' The second thing was 'And here I thought you'd be a solution to all those regulations against killing students for effect.' She's been doing her damnedest to send me back to my garden ever since."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:46 am (UTC)

"Okay, that would be inconvenient, I imagine, but it wouldn't be killing you in the ways that most matter. Isn't it a rule that teachers have to use formal address? I've been called Ms. Swan so many times in the last couple of days that I keep expecting to sprout wings and fly."

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:52 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Celo, "the question is, does Coach Sadist care? The answer is no. The answer is always no."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:54 am (UTC)

"Then why does she still have her job?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:57 am (UTC)

"Because she is insanely fucking good at it." He grins. "And I think her bosses are a little bit afraid she'll kill them if they fire her."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 12:58 am (UTC)

"She's good at her job and her way of being good at her job involves verbal abuse and the next step down from death threats?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 12:59 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Celo. "I like her."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 01:02 am (UTC)

"I like not ever having to interact with her, I think."

pythbox
2013-05-08 01:03 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "If that's what floats your boat."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 01:21 am (UTC)

"I can live without finding out what repulsive nickname she'd give me and worrying if my parents are going to spend the rest of their lives in debt to the friendly neighborhood clerics trying to get me rezzed," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-05-08 01:26 am (UTC)

"I'm not totally sure she'd kill you," he says. "But I bet she'd try at least once."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 01:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't want people to try to kill me. I want to live."

pythbox
2013-05-08 01:32 am (UTC)

"If you expect somebody to try to kill you, taking Jillian's classes is a great way to make sure they won't succeed," he says. "Kind of why I'm in 'em."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 01:33 am (UTC)

"Except," says Bella, "that I am an embarrassment with weaponry. I'd be much better off taking Arcane Self Defense, which I might actually do. Or learning to teek or pyro, like, at all."

pythbox
2013-05-08 01:34 am (UTC)

He grins. "Well, it's not for everybody, I guess."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 01:37 am (UTC)

"I also don't expect anyone to try to kill me. I don't go dangerous places, look locally atypical, or piss off anyone with a short temper who could get away with it."
Edited 2013-05-08 01:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-08 01:39 am (UTC)

"Good plan," he says. "Keep it up."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 01:40 am (UTC)

"That's the plan."

in which nymphs are good for more than one thing

subtly_artistic

At least four people conclude that Bella and Celo have had sex and mention this to Bella. The fact that the door was open the entire time he spent hanging out in her room is apparently immaterial (since she wouldn't have been breaking any rules if she'd had sex with him that way, and no one was loitering in the hall supervising them the whole time). She contradicts them on this. Three people don't believe her. Miki does, and is immediately promoted to Bella's favorite out-of-class friend.

In Intro Psych for Subtle Artists, there's a discussion of what subtle artists do with their own minds, and how this differs from everyone else. Bella has already talked to all her subtle arts professors about her own peculiarities, and Professor Murray has her talk a bit about how she's used lucid dreams for introspection, self-modification, and memory boosting. Professor Murray then explains that people who aren't subtle artists can only rarely lucid dream, and even those who can don't find it an effective jumping-off point for any heavy-duty self-searching.

One of the elves in the class looks at Bella oddly through her little talk.

But she doesn't say anything, so Bella ignores her.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:32 am (UTC)

The elf in the subtle arts class approaches a certain other elf in Treehome, in the evening.

"Ursula," she says, after assuming a suitably submissive position. "I have found a possibility for you."

pythbox
2013-05-08 11:12 am (UTC)

"Go on," says Ursula in bored tones.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 03:34 pm (UTC)

"A human girl in one of my classes claims to be able to use her arts to alter her own mind in ways that suit her. She has no outwardly-oriented talents and, if found alone, would not be difficult to capture and convince that you suit her."

pythbox
2013-05-08 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Bring her to me, then," says Ursula. "Be convincing."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 03:37 pm (UTC)

The subtle artist gets to her feet and nods to the other girls of the court to begin planning the retrieval.

pythbox
2013-05-08 03:40 pm (UTC)

Ursula declines to concern herself with the details; she commands one of her servant girls to rearrange her dress and bring her something pleasing to eat.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:03 pm (UTC)

Bella does not generally venture off by herself. She attends classes; she shows up to occasional student events like fairs and concerts and skirmish matches; otherwise she is rarely without company, even if it's company that doesn't personally know her.

But no part of the campus is invariably occupied. She happens to be in such a variably occupied portion of campus during a trough period, on her way back to Thatcher from an early dinner at the food court, when school has been in session for three weeks.

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:11 pm (UTC)

Someone's voice whispers in her ear, "Lovely human girl, won't you come talk to me?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:13 pm (UTC)

...Bella comes to a slow stop. She doesn't think she wants to talk to anyone who chooses to open with "lovely human girl" - as opposed to, say, her name, or a conversation topic - but she's not sure where the elf or elfblood who's whispering at her is. Which means they're very far away - or someone is blocking her, which she supposes is only fair, since she blocks everyone else.

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:18 pm (UTC)

"How would you like," the voice continues, "to break a faerie curse and be showered with every reward you can imagine?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:21 pm (UTC)

"I have," says Bella, "a really good imagination."

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:23 pm (UTC)

The elfblood laughs a beautifully musical laugh.

"So do we."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Who's 'we'?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Interested parties," says the elfblood-or-elf. "You'll have to come with me to find out more."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmno I don't think so, I make a habit of not wandering off."

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:28 pm (UTC)

The elf-or-elfblood sighs.

Wistfully: "Are you sure?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:30 pm (UTC)

"That I do not make that a habit? Yes, quite."

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh, well," says the elf(blood) regretfully.

Bella is abruptly surrounded by prettily dressed elven girls wearing veils over their mouths.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:35 pm (UTC)

"...Hi," says Bella, turning on the spot to confirm that they're all around her. She still can't sense any of their minds. "Uh, you're in my way. Please let me by." She casts out for more distant minds.

Nothing.

Shit.

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Would you like to reconsider?" the same voice asks in her ear. It's not clear who is speaking. "It's a very generous offer. The offer we're about to make will be... less generous."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:37 pm (UTC)

"What do you want me to do?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Someone is afflicted with a faerie curse that requires true love's kiss to break. We want you to supply it," the voice explains.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm not in love with anyone, and I don't think I even know anyone under a faerie curse, so I don't think I will be very helpful," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:41 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure you could do it if you really tried," the voice encourages.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm not. Especially if you require true love - I'm not sure what that means but it probably doesn't involve twisting my mind around in response to threats." She notes the gender composition of her surroundings and what she remembers about elves of an age to be students at MU. "...Also, I'm straight."

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Details," the voice says dismissively. "It can't hurt to try, can it?"

"Whereas," says one of the elves in front of her, speaking visibly and aloud, "it can certainly hurt not to."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:47 pm (UTC)

"It can hurt to try - mind modification is serious stuff," says Bella. "I - hey, aren't you in my psych class?" she asks one of the elves to her right.

The elf who may or may not be in her psych class declines to answer.

"Are you blocking me?"

The declining continues.

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:50 pm (UTC)

"You're sure as fuck blocking the path," says a different, more familiar voice from a short distance behind Bella. "Scuse me."

None of the elves move. Most of them don't even look at him.

"What," he says, theatrically aggravated, "c'mon, some of us have places to be."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:53 pm (UTC)

Bella can't exactly talk privately to him with the psychic screen the other subtle artist is throwing up. She doesn't have the outward-facing strength to break it.

"Hi, Celo," she says, softly. Maybe he'll get the hint that she said his Pax translation instead of his real name.

pythbox
2013-05-08 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Boring Hallmate," he says back. "Seriously, is somebody gonna move?"

"Go around," an elf suggests.

"Nah," says Celo.

Someone says something in elvish, pointedly audible. Now they are all looking at him.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 04:58 pm (UTC)

Bella holds quite still.

pythbox
2013-05-08 05:02 pm (UTC)

Celo grins.

"I know what that word meant," he says brightly, and he swaggers back a few steps and spreads his hands in open invitation. "Come and get 'em."

Weapons appear in elven hands. No one here seems to be paying Bella any attention at all anymore.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 05:04 pm (UTC)

Bella eyes the space behind her to see if there is a gap in the elves. The subtle artist is not distracted enough to have quit screening her, so that's out.

pythbox
2013-05-08 05:19 pm (UTC)

The wall of elves is not exactly solid, but then, a wall of elves doesn't have to be.

Two of those between Bella and Celo start toward him with deceptive elven speed. He saunters backward with his hands clasped carelessly behind his back, then at the last second brings them forward again holding paired daggers. One finds a throat, the other a stomach.

There is a moment of stunned silence before all the remaining elves rush him in a shrieking mob.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 05:21 pm (UTC)

Now the subtle artist is too distracted to screen her. Bella has never actually tried knocking someone out with subtle arts, but she read ahead in Utility Psionics - it even has therapeutic uses - and nontherapeutic ones -

She tries; she bounces off the subtle artist's shields and the screen comes back. So much for that.

pythbox
2013-05-08 05:33 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Celo and the mob of elves are rapidly exchanging grievous harm.

The difference is, grievous harm doesn't stick to Celo. And the elves seem obsessed with his genitals. If someone would take a swing at something other than his crotch once in a while, this might be a more even fight. As it is, even when one girl almost severs the offending items with her dagger, he runs her through with a sword he wasn't holding a moment ago as golden light flares from the wound.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 05:37 pm (UTC)

Bella can contribute absolutely nothing valuable to this fight. She stands well back and waits for him to take out the subtle artist -

Wait, she shouldn't just wait for him to take her out. Any minute now the subtle artist elf will determine that he's more of a threat than Bella is and start attacking instead of screening.

Bella stands ready to pounce on any drop in the screen to set up a shield around Celo.

pythbox
2013-05-08 06:05 pm (UTC)

Out of seven elves, four are on the ground and two of those aren't moving. He stabs a fifth in the leg. She goes down.

When he pauses to heal the pair he stabbed first, retrieving those daggers in the process, the one remaining opponent who is not a subtle artist pounces on him from behind and rips her knife across his throat. The cut has started healing almost before she finishes making it, but it's deep. There is a lot of blood.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 06:08 pm (UTC)

The subtle artist chooses this time to abandon the screen in favor of attacking Celo.

Bella's good at blocks. She's not as good at blocking for someone else as she is at blocking herself - but she's still very, very good. She couldn't break the elf's screen and the elf can't break her wards.

The elf subtle artist whirls and comes at Bella with a knife. Bella quicksteps back, but she is not going to be able to outrun an elf, boots or no boots.

pythbox
2013-05-08 06:28 pm (UTC)

Celo, now covered in his own blood, stabs his assailant in the ribs and bolts forward as soon as her grip falters.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 06:31 pm (UTC)

The elf is fast and Bella is slow.

The elf makes a nasty slash across Bella's face, and Bella screams, and her shields around Celo drop, and the elf whirls to face the nymph and batter at his brain with imprecise violent fury.

pythbox
2013-05-08 06:43 pm (UTC)

It's a new kind of pain, and it's intense and startling, and Celo neglects to care. He barrels right into the elf and locks his hands around her throat.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 06:44 pm (UTC)

She's still got her knife. She brings it to bear, quickly, before she runs out of air, slashing at his wrists.

Bella will be over here kneeling on the path, clutching her face and sobbing.

pythbox
2013-05-08 06:49 pm (UTC)

Celo slams his knee into the elf's stomach.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 06:55 pm (UTC)

That loses her some of the air she had.

Bella recovers some of her presence of mind and, still clutching at her face, makes another attempt on the other subtle artist's mind.

Concentration is key for opposed subtle arts.

The elf has less than Bella at this moment.

She falls unconscious.

pythbox
2013-05-08 06:56 pm (UTC)

Celo drops the subtle artist, staggers over to Bella, and touches a hand to her face. There's that pleasant analgesic rush of healing again.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:02 pm (UTC)

Bella lets out a breath she'd been holding and then bursts into tears.

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:04 pm (UTC)

He hesitates.

Then he hugs her.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:09 pm (UTC)

Bella lurches away from him. They are not hugging friends. "Thanks," she mutters anyway.

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says distantly. He looks around. The elves who were more or less mobile are gone, taking one of his favourite enchanted daggers with them; the elves who were unconscious have stayed that way. No one is dead, or likely to die without help.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:18 pm (UTC)

Bella gets to her feet; her knees wobble. "...I don't know the, um, official status, of elf students here, I think it might be different from everybody else, do you suppose there's any point to reporting them?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Do I care," he wonders flatly. The answer appears to be no.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:23 pm (UTC)

"...Oh. I'll. I'll find out for myself, then, I guess. ...Thank you."

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:24 pm (UTC)

He rubs both hands over his face. "Fuck, I need to get laid."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:25 pm (UTC)

"...I. Wish you the best of luck."

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:27 pm (UTC)

He climbs to his feet again. It takes him a couple of tries. He's not physically injured, but he seems exhausted.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Do you need help?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Somehow I don't think you can carry me," he says dryly. "Whatever, I'll be fine."

He starts walking. His coordination improves with every careful step.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:32 pm (UTC)

"If you have a standard - booty call, or whatever - I could see if I can reach them from here," she offers. They're heading in the same direction. "I don't know exactly how the needing sex thing works."

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:34 pm (UTC)

"One of the satyrs is usually a good bet," he says. "Know where to find any?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:36 pm (UTC)

Bella closes her eyes and looks. Even the very gentlest detection of minds can tell apart different species.

She finds one satyr.

[Celo's name] quote needs to get laid end quote. He's halfway between Thatcher and the dining hall, on the path that goes around the little hill.

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:37 pm (UTC)

Awesome! says the satyr. Thanks!

"Anything?" says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Found one. Told him where you are. He says 'awesome, thanks'. I didn't get his name."

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:40 pm (UTC)

Celo grins weakly. "Thanks," he says. "Might wanna clear out when he gets here, we're gonna be busy for a while."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:41 pm (UTC)

"That's my plan. I'll wait for him with you if you want."

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:44 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe a good idea," Celo acknowledges.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:44 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. She waits.

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:46 pm (UTC)

The satyr comes bounding into view. He doesn't even ask about the unconscious elves littering the path; he heads straight for Celo.

"You look like shit," he greets.

"I know, right?" laughs Celo, holding out his arms. "C'mere and make me feel better."

Bella's presence is no longer required.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 07:50 pm (UTC)

Bella trots off briskly in the direction of Thatcher Hall. She goes to the dorm ball room, writes up a complete description of what happened between her and the elves (summarizing Celo's involvement only as "violent rescue by another student"), and submits it to both her R.A.s, the student council, and four likely looking faculty a-mail addresses from the university weavesite. And her intro psych teacher. She doesn't send it to her parents, but she implies that she might, in the last paragraph after her paste of (distressingly minimally worded) school harassment policies.

pythbox
2013-05-08 07:53 pm (UTC)

Celo doesn't come back to his room that night.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:02 pm (UTC)

There is a hall meeting the following afternoon, with pizza and cupcakes to entice everyone to show up, which works on about three-quarters of everyone. Bella shows up more because she's actually potentially interested in having input on the possible hall bonding activities that could be decided on. (The current contenders are apple picking, going swimming in a lake up-province, and making the RAs arrange a scavenger hunt. None of these strongly interest Bella, but someone could come up with something else.)

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:08 pm (UTC)

When people are just starting to lose attention and leave, Celo takes the opportunity to announce, "By the way, anybody who wants to fuck me this weekend, now's your chance, because I'm going out tonight and coming back Sunday."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:10 pm (UTC)

Bella notes this information. She, unlike two of the other hall residents, does not raise her hand; she just goes back to her room. (The vote was in favor of apple picking; she'll have the hall practically to herself most of the weekend, apparently.)

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:11 pm (UTC)

Celo is discussing order of operations with the two people who did raise their hands when she leaves the room.

As promised, he comes back Sunday afternoon.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:12 pm (UTC)

Bella is having an uncharacteristically stress-free weekend. She notices his mind reappear, while she's in the lounge with her Intro Perception jargon flashcards.

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:15 pm (UTC)

He drops by the lounge and beams at her. Something has him immensely pleased with himself.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:16 pm (UTC)

"You're in a good mood," she comments.

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:18 pm (UTC)

"You would not believe the amount of dick I have sucked in the last day and a half," he sighs contentedly, flopping onto a couch. "I love everything."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Especially that, I surmise."

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmmmmyep."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:20 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs softly and goes through another few flashcards, then says: "I emailed a bunch of people about those elf girls. No response yet. I guess I'll take better-traveled routes; they might come after me again. I don't know about you. But you can obviously defend yourself."

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Fucking right I can," he agrees, stretching his arms up over his head. "I'm pissed that that one girl walked off with my best dagger in her shoulder, though. Gonna take a lot of psionics labs to replace that one."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you could get a divination student to find it for you, if you like it that much. Of course, the elf might take exception to attempts at retrieving it."

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Meh, they already want to cut my dick off and take it as a trophy," he shrugs. "How much worse can it get?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, they could want that and you could also be on their turf," Bella points out.

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:27 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Okay, yeah."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:27 pm (UTC)

Flashcard. Flashcard.

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:30 pm (UTC)

"What'd they want with you, anyway?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:31 pm (UTC)

"The subtle artist one is in my intro psych class. She heard me talking about being able to self-modify, and figured I was the perfect candidate to break her friend's faerie curse which requires true love's kiss."

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, that sounds dumb," says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I thought so too, they weren't buying it."

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:43 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:48 pm (UTC)

Flashcard. Flashcard. "Did you ever wind up talking to Professor Winters?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Professor Winters has no idea," sighs Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:53 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs and nibbles her lip.

pythbox
2013-05-08 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it's just impossible."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Maybe."

pythbox
2013-05-08 10:11 pm (UTC)

Celo puts a throw pillow over his face and makes frustrated mumbling noises into it.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-08 10:19 pm (UTC)

"What?" Bella asks, looking away from her flashcards. "Are you okay?"

pythbox
2013-05-08 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I wanna do the thing and I don't know how," he says. "It's annoying. I'm annoyed."

He sighs.

"Maybe I can just - I don't know, think about it."
Edited 2013-05-09 02:00 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:00 am (UTC)

"Maybe," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:03 am (UTC)

So he thinks about it. And hugs, squashes, and occasionally bites the pillow.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:06 am (UTC)

"I bet you that Professor Winters could figure out how to 'blind' you, but didn't bring it up on the theory that you'd rather indiscriminately look than indiscriminately not-look."
Edited 2013-05-09 02:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:11 am (UTC)

"I bet you Professor Winters couldn't," he retorts. "It's part of my divine nature, you don't fuck around with that shit."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:14 am (UTC)

Bella shifts uncomfortably in her chair the way she usually does when divinities are brought up. Mama Kh may or may not care what Bella thinks of her morals; she may or may not have the power in her portfolio to read minds through subtle artist shields given that her focus lies elsewhere; she might or might not be in a punishing mood on any given day. Bella's task is to avoid finding out.

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:18 am (UTC)

Celo shrugs. "But, you know, I'm a nymph who's majoring in martial combat, so I guess I can fuck around with that shit a little."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:19 am (UTC)

"Hasn't bitten you too badly yet?"

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:20 am (UTC)

"Nope."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:21 am (UTC)

"That's lucky."

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:22 am (UTC)

"Enh," he says. "Don't get me started on it."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:23 am (UTC)

"...Okay."

Flashcard.

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:24 am (UTC)

Pillow-crush.

"...Hmm," he says eventually.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:24 am (UTC)

"Hmm?"

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:25 am (UTC)

"Hmm," he repeats. "Think I've got something. Gonna go find out."

He gets up, tossing the much-abused pillow down where he was sitting.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:26 am (UTC)

Okay then.

Flashcard, flashcard. She's out of cards. She starts going through the deck another time.

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:26 am (UTC)

Celo is out for a while. He doesn't seek her out immediately when he returns.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:27 am (UTC)

She notices his mind when he comes back, but doesn't follow it into any detail. She's through with her flashcards and she's brainstorming essay topics.

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:30 am (UTC)

He pokes his head into the lounge. Bella is the only one there.

"By the way," he says, "if you were ever gonna - don't get in water with a mermaid."

Then he continues the few steps down the hall to the door of the adjoining kitchen.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:30 am (UTC)

What? Why?

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:33 am (UTC)

Since she's in his mind and all, he shows her what mermaids really look like.

It comes with a vivid, and shockingly pleasant, sense memory of being eaten alive - not euphemistically - by a needle-fanged fish-creature. He did not entirely mean to transmit that part, but it makes his point pretty well.
Edited 2013-05-09 02:33 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:35 am (UTC)

I did not know that was a mermaid thing.

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:36 am (UTC)

Yeah, neither do most people. I've done it a few times, but the mermaids didn't always know I was into it. So, you know, be careful. I just thought of it while I was out.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:38 am (UTC)

Uh, thanks for letting me know. Why is this not common knowledge?

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:40 am (UTC)

My guess? It'd fuck up the mers being classed as part human or whatever if people knew their top halves go scaly and they eat people, and they don't want that. And, you know, most of the people who find out don't get a chance to tell anybody.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:41 am (UTC)

Is there anything stopping you from, like, telling an investigative reporter?

pythbox
2013-05-09 02:44 am (UTC)

Some of the girls who ate me did know I was into it, and I don't want them torn apart by angry mobs?
Edited 2013-05-09 02:44 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 02:48 am (UTC)

There are other anthropophagic species on campus who aren't torn apart by angry mobs. I don't want anyone to die, and the revelation probably would lead to unrest for the first while, but there are a lot of mermaids, only a handful of them are currently in mob range, and there are a lot of other people around, and a lot of other people who don't exist yet but will in the future, who could save their lives knowing what you just casually told me.

pythbox
2013-05-09 03:02 am (UTC)

Okay, he says. Be my guest. Send somebody an anonymous tip. Bet you my title deed it all blows up.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 03:03 am (UTC)

I'm not saying it wouldn't blow up, I'm saying on balance it would probably be better for a greater number of people to have the information known. I'm also not sure anyone will believe an anonymous tip.

pythbox
2013-05-09 03:07 am (UTC)

Yeah, there's that. Well, I don't want to get those girls killed, so I'm not gonna do it.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 03:08 am (UTC)

I don't want to get them killed either! For all I know they are perfectly nice people and would never eat somebody who didn't ask nicely first! But I don't want to get their friends' future meals killed either.

pythbox
2013-05-09 03:09 am (UTC)

Uh-huh, says Celo. And I care more about the ones I've met.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 03:10 am (UTC)

You could warn them, send them off to lie low or wait till they're home on vacation.

pythbox
2013-05-09 03:16 am (UTC)

Meh.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 03:17 am (UTC)

If they or their friends eat people who aren't nymphs then the people they eat don't get to come back, [Celo's name].

pythbox
2013-05-09 03:20 am (UTC)

Yeah, believe it or not, I know people die, he says. I've killed one.

If she wants his memories on the subject, they are right there.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 03:24 am (UTC)

She's only chatting, not reading his thoughts; he'd have to verbally offer for him to know that she's welcome.

She considers arguing with him. She decides not to bother. If he doesn't care, he doesn't care. If there's a way to make someone care, she doesn't know it, and wouldn't do it anyway because that's one of the things she cares about.

Instead she says:

Why did you tell me, then? If it doesn't matter if people die unless they eat you alive when you ask nicely?

pythbox
2013-05-09 12:24 pm (UTC)

...Is that an actual question or are you being an asshole, he says, because it sounds like you're being an asshole but I'm not totally sure.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:08 pm (UTC)

You already think I'm an asshole. Never mind, I guess.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:09 pm (UTC)

You're wrong about what I think surprisingly often for a telepath, Celo observes with amusement.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:14 pm (UTC)

I'm not reading your thoughts right now like I was in lab, I'm just accepting deliberate sendings. It's not exactly like talking aloud because it's minus body language and plus optional sense-memories and so on, but I'm not spying on your inmost thoughts, I'm going by what you say. One of the things you've said to me so far in our acquaintance is that I'm an asshole.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:15 pm (UTC)

Yeah, well, I changed my mind. I don't start shit with elves for people I don't like, says Celo.
Edited 2013-05-09 16:16 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:17 pm (UTC)

So somewhere along the line I joined the elite circle with the friendly people-eating mermaids and now it matters if I live or die.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:18 pm (UTC)

Sure, if you want to think of it like that, he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:19 pm (UTC)

You're bewildering.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:21 pm (UTC)

Right back atcha, he says. Wanna muffin?

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:21 pm (UTC)

Yeah, sure. Bella puts her notebook on the arm of the couch and walks into the kitchen to fetch herself a muffin.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:22 pm (UTC)

Warm fresh tasty muffins! Mmm.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:23 pm (UTC)

Bella takes hers, waves to Celo, and walks back into the lounge. Thanks.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:26 pm (UTC)

You're welcome, he says cheerfully.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:26 pm (UTC)

Bella eats her muffin and outlines her chosen essay.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:27 pm (UTC)

Celo bakes things.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:28 pm (UTC)

Bella does homework and periodically swings by to update her collection of baked things.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:28 pm (UTC)

That works out well, then, doesn't it?

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:30 pm (UTC)

It does.

I'm curious, Bella asks about an hour later, when did I graduate from "asshole" to "worth rescuing from mad elves"?

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:32 pm (UTC)

I dunno, he says. Didn't take that long. I don't really stay mad most of the time.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:34 pm (UTC)

Oh.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:36 pm (UTC)

...Have you been going around all this time thinking I hated you because I called you an asshole once? That's weird. You read my mind for an hour, did you not notice the lack of me hating you?

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:38 pm (UTC)

Nursing an active emotional hatred doesn't always accompany thinking someone is an asshole. Not all opinions about nearby people float to the surface during every one-hour period. And I try to judge people more on what they choose to say and not on what idly crosses their minds.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:43 pm (UTC)

Well, I like you, he says. Which is why I got those elves off your back.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:44 pm (UTC)

And if you didn't like me you would've gone around and left me there.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:45 pm (UTC)

I might've. Or I might've started shit just for the hell of it.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:45 pm (UTC)

Ah.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:50 pm (UTC)

Elves are pretty serious. But none of those were ever in my martial combat classes, so I knew they wouldn't think I was a serious threat. They're probably gonna corner me next chance they get and try to cut my junk off again.

He is weirdly cheerful about this prospect.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:51 pm (UTC)

I don't think they've been permanently put off from the idea of kidnapping me to try to make me fall in love with their cursed friend, either.

pythbox
2013-05-09 04:52 pm (UTC)

Yeah, probably not. Don't let 'em catch you alone, he suggests.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 04:52 pm (UTC)

That's my plan.

And after a silence:

How did you find out about the mermaids? Was one of the unfriendly ones unaware that you'd live to tell the tale?
Edited 2013-05-09 17:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-09 05:04 pm (UTC)

Yeah, pretty sure she thought I was human, he says. She might still; I don't think I ever saw that one again.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 05:06 pm (UTC)

You walk around stark naked and don't get in trouble for it and she thought you were a human?

pythbox
2013-05-09 05:07 pm (UTC)

Yeah, the whole clothes thing? Not really universal, says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 05:08 pm (UTC)

Don't they give foreign students cultural briefings about that kind of thing?

pythbox
2013-05-09 05:09 pm (UTC)

Not as much as you might think!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 05:09 pm (UTC)

Okay then.

pythbox
2013-05-09 05:12 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 05:17 pm (UTC)

I got a response to my a-mail. Dean says she'll 'look into it'. Which is probably code for "do nothing", but at least now there's an aether trail if it happens again.

pythbox
2013-05-09 05:18 pm (UTC)

I guess that's something.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 05:19 pm (UTC)

It's less than I hoped but not really more than I expected.

pythbox
2013-05-09 05:31 pm (UTC)

Yep.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-09 05:32 pm (UTC)

Homework. Homework homework. They're not actually friends; Bella feels no strong impulse to carry on producing conversation topics.

in which bella dearly wishes to be less interesting

subtly_artistic

Bella successfully manages to stay in all weekend except for when she joins packs of students headed for the dining hall. If the elves are still stalking her, she doesn't notice them. On Monday, the subtle artist elf is present in their shared course, and looks at her, but doesn't bother her - Bella leaves with another classmate anyway.

Traveling in packs is quite effective, she decides.

Except she doesn't do it in her own dorm.

It's pouring rain outside Tuesday afternoon and Bella doesn't want to go to the dining hall. She has some stuff in her room - not serious groceries, but enough that she can heat up some broth and noodles, liven it up with a handful of miscellaneous dried herbs, and call it soup. She is hanging out in the kitchen doing this when Brad from down the hall, the same fellow who attempted to interrupt Celo at his baking, chooses to bother her.

"Hey, Isabella."

"It's Bella."

"But your full name's so pretty," says Brad. "You should go by that instead. So Isabella, let's go out tomorrow, I'll show you a good time in town, we'll have some fun."

"No," says Bella, "thank you, and it's still Bella."

"Isabella's prettier. Like you, you're pretty. It's not like I asked you to make like a nymph or something, I just want to take you out," says Brad. "Is it the money, I bet it's that, I can cover it, we can go someplace nice and you can get whatever you want."

"It's still no. It's still Bella."

"Don't be such a bitch, you never have plans," snaps Brad, "what are you going to do, eat at the dining hall and re-read your textbooks, you can come out with me."

pythbox
2013-05-10 02:10 am (UTC)

At this point, Celo enters the kitchen from the direction of his room.

"Hey Bella," he says amicably, "whatcha makin'?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 02:55 am (UTC)

"Soup," says Bella. "Well, I already made it. You can have some if you want."

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 05:08 am (UTC)

"Go suck a cock, I'm talking to her," Brad says to Celo.

pythbox
2013-05-10 12:20 pm (UTC)

Celo offers Brad a brilliant smile and says, "Yeah, but you're boring."

Then he turns back to Bella.

"What kind of soup?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 03:57 pm (UTC)

"...Noodle," says Bella, looking nervously at Brad. "Just broth and noodles."

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 03:58 pm (UTC)

"That's not what you said the other night," leers Brad. "Fuck off, leave us alone."

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'll have some soup," he says cheerfully. "Thanks."

And he serves himself a little bit of soup.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 04:05 pm (UTC)

Bella sits with her own bowl at the table. She attempts to give Brad a wide berth as she heads for the chair, but he follows her, a little too close for comfort.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:05 pm (UTC)

"That the kind of thing you like? I know a good soup place uptown."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 04:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going out with you for soup or anything," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:07 pm (UTC)

Celo sprawls into another chair, across the table from Bella and a little ways away from it, with his soup.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:08 pm (UTC)

"I know you don't have anything better to do!" exclaims Brad. "You're just playing hard to get, but there's nothing stopping you, you aren't even trying to make an excuse."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 04:08 pm (UTC)

"I expect to be assigned homework between now and then," says Bella frostily.

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:11 pm (UTC)

Celo snorts.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:12 pm (UTC)

"You spend so much fucking time studying, you can afford to go out for dinner, you do eat," says Brad, "you can eat in Enwich with me."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 04:13 pm (UTC)

"You are spending a truly staggering percentage of your brainpower on whether I can and none at all on whether I want to," says Bella.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:16 pm (UTC)

"It'll be a nice time! I'll buy you dinner, we'll hang out, I'm not telling you to get on your knees for me on the first date, it's not like you're him."

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:17 pm (UTC)

Celo makes an eloquently sarcastic face.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Fuck off," Brad tells Celo again.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm sure you can have a nice time by yourself, or perhaps with someone more enthusiastic, but I have apparently gone stark raving mad, because I continue to decline," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:19 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Dude," says Brad, "I'm not gonna tell you again to get out of here, you can eat your fucking soup in your room. Or the lounge if you can't stand to pass up any opportunity to run into somebody who might fuck you."

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:21 pm (UTC)

"You're not gonna tell me again? Good, it was getting annoying," he says, and he stays right where he is.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:22 pm (UTC)

Brad stalks in Celo's direction and grabs him by the hair.

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:23 pm (UTC)

Celo carefully puts down his soup.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 04:23 pm (UTC)

If you're planning to fight him right here in the kitchen, I could just knock him out, I'm not screened.

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:27 pm (UTC)

No point yet, says Celo.

To Brad, he says mildly, "You wanna let go of me?"
Edited 2013-05-10 16:27 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I want," says Brad, "for you to quit interrupting my conversation with Isabella." His grip on Celo's hair tightens and he starts pulling in a less than chair-sitting-compatible direction.

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:31 pm (UTC)

"No," says Celo, "actually, I think you wanna let go of me. Right now."

He stays sat. There's some tension involved, but he's not that easy to haul around.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:33 pm (UTC)

Brad hauls harder. He's not a martial combat major, but delving majors take plenty of the same classes.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 04:33 pm (UTC)

Is there some reason I shouldn't just down him right now?

pythbox
2013-05-10 04:43 pm (UTC)

Celo doesn't answer for a moment. He still seems strangely relaxed for someone getting yanked around by his hair, but the way he's staring into the distance is at odds with that calmness.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 04:57 pm (UTC)

Brad successfully hauls Celo off his chair. It's largely up to Celo whether he ends this maneuver standing or sprawled on the floor.

pythbox
2013-05-10 05:04 pm (UTC)

Standing. Definitely tense now. Also definitely not looking at either Brad or Bella.

If any subtle artists were to peek into his mind right now, they would find he was concentrating very, very hard on not killing Brad. It's taking a lot of effort.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:03 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't look into people's minds without permission.

"Brad, let him go, it's a public kitchen," says Bella. "He can be in it."

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Not a public conversation," says Brad, "and he was interrupting."

pythbox
2013-05-10 06:07 pm (UTC)

Celo doesn't respond. He seems - frozen. Frozen is a good word.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Let him go," says Bella darkly.

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Or what? He's a walking fuckhole, you think Law's gonna come after me for hauling him around a little? Anything anybody gets off on applies to nymphs, anyway, he probably likes it."

Brad pulls on Celo's hair a little harder.

pythbox
2013-05-10 06:16 pm (UTC)

Well, he's breathing a little hard. Interpretations may vary.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Well, if that's what you're up to I can go eat in my room."

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 06:19 pm (UTC)

"What, no," says Brad, "I just want him out of here, I want to talk to you, I want to take you out, come on."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I don't," says Bella clearly, "want to go out with you, so if that's your purpose here perhaps you should go and he should stay."

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 06:23 pm (UTC)

Brad processes this, then wrenches Celo's head backwards suddenly; Celo's likely to wind up in a heap on the floor. "You're throwing me over for the freaky nymph? Are you fucking kidding me? He's not an excuse either, nymphs are sluts and think everybody else is too, you don't owe him any fucking thing."

pythbox
2013-05-10 06:26 pm (UTC)

Celo does wind up in a heap on the floor. Also, he is now crying.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Go away, Brad," says Bella, "or I will knock you unconscious and drag you out."

alicornucopia
2013-05-10 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Bitch," mutters Brad, and he kicks Celo once, not particularly hard, and shuffles out.

pythbox
2013-05-10 06:28 pm (UTC)

Celo curls up on the floor and sobs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:28 pm (UTC)

Bella gets up and drops to her knees next to him. [Name.] "Are you okay? What's the matter?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 06:30 pm (UTC)

He doesn't answer out loud, but he does move a tiny bit closer so his forehead is resting against her knee.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Can I look? Is that okay?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 06:31 pm (UTC)

Hesitantly, still crying, he nods.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:31 pm (UTC)

Bella looks.

pythbox
2013-05-10 06:45 pm (UTC)

Someone else once thought of him as a walking fuckhole. Someone else once told him he must like things that he didn't want. Someone else once handled him the way Brad just did, with that same combination of violence and casual objectification.

Someone else once called him a freak.

He killed that person. It was messy and bloody and nasty and violent. He keeps remembering it in detail, over and over again, along with everything that led up to it—the years of torture and starvation, locked up underground where the only light that reached him came when his owner wanted to play.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 06:48 pm (UTC)

Fuck. Bella hasn't actually taken any courses on mental healing yet. She doesn't know what to do with this, doesn't know what to say or what to probe at with what power.

She gathers him up into a hug. [Name, name]. She doesn't know what else to tell him, but she knows his name.

pythbox
2013-05-10 06:57 pm (UTC)

Celo cries helplessly in her lap.

It helps when she tells him his name, anyway. It reminds him that he's not there anymore. He's here, at school, with Bella, crying in her arms on the kitchen floor. Here is much better.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:03 pm (UTC)

Bella holds him. Here you are. You're here, it's just you and me.

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:09 pm (UTC)

It should perhaps not come as a surprise that, under the circumstances, he feels strongly positive towards her.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:11 pm (UTC)

She's not surprised. She carries on kneeling there, hugging him, occasionally repeating his name.

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:18 pm (UTC)

It takes some time, but eventually he is thinking not very much about his trauma and very, very much about his incandescent love for the person who is hugging him and comforting him.

(Perhaps a little surprisingly, given his species, it is not primarily a sexual kind of love. He feels about her the way he feels about - sunlight. He doesn't want to fuck sunlight, but it's warm and bright and good and he likes to bask in it.)

At about the same gradual pace, the crying stops.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:20 pm (UTC)

...Sunlight.

Bella decides she likes to be sunlight. That works for her.

"You're okay," she murmurs.

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Guess so," he murmurs back.

He appears to still be in her lap.

He decides he's not doing anything about this just yet. Physical contact helps, at least if it's the nice kind, and this is.

"Sorry," he adds. "I - thought I could handle him. Turns out I couldn't."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:23 pm (UTC)

"It's okay."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Hug. Definitely hug.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:27 pm (UTC)

Yup.

And:

"D'you want the rest of your soup?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:27 pm (UTC)

He laughs shakily.

"Yeah, sure."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:28 pm (UTC)

Up they get.

Soup.

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:28 pm (UTC)

Soup! Soup and hugs?

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:29 pm (UTC)

That might be awkward to manage simultaneously.

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:31 pm (UTC)

Soup and some kind of touching, then, if Bella doesn't object. He'll settle for holding hands.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:31 pm (UTC)

Bella will hold his hand. "Everyone already thinks we had sex," she remarks.

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:32 pm (UTC)

"...Does that bug you or something?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:33 pm (UTC)

"It's not true, and even if it were it wouldn't be any of their business."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he says. "But I'm a nymph. Of course people are gonna think we've had sex."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:36 pm (UTC)

"As in fact they do. One person believed me when I told her different."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Good for her," he says, smiling.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:40 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs and drinks the last of her soup. "So, Brad is a problem, apparently."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:42 pm (UTC)

"He sure as fuck is," says Celo, with a little shiver.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:43 pm (UTC)

"The thing about thinking about me really hard to get my attention still applies. He's not a subtle artist and I got really good at downing people who weren't shielding, in Utility Psionics the other day."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Celo. "Will you be okay if he gets you alone again?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:46 pm (UTC)

"If he'd touched me he would've woken up alone an hour later with a headache from the part where I didn't catch him when he fell over."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:47 pm (UTC)

Celo grins in appreciation of this image.

"Hope so," he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if he'd escalate like that with me, though, he made a point of comparing me to you and indicating that he was not trying to imply I was nymphly."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:51 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah, but did you listen to the way he said it? That is a guy who thinks the whole world revolves around his dick."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," Bella repeats. "But I know what I'll do if he does."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Celo. "Just - it's not always that simple."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:55 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I mean - sometimes you think you can handle something, and then it turns out you can't."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:58 pm (UTC)

"...If he did something very distracting, very suddenly, I might not be able to pull it off, yeah."

pythbox
2013-05-10 07:58 pm (UTC)

Celo nods.

"Be careful, okay?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I already don't go out alone. I can probably avoid being in a room with Brad, if I keep half a subtle eye on his mind when it's in range... of course, if I'm in the middle of making soup or something here that doesn't help much."

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:05 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs. "Yeah. I don't know."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:06 pm (UTC)

"And this is comparatively mild, so far, next to the thing with the elf girls, about which absolutely nothing was done, but I might a-mail some people anyway for the aether trail."

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Bet you they care more when it's not elves," Celo predicts.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. There are so many possible special circumstances, I bet if they really feel like it they never have to treat any real situation as a 'standard harassment case' that they're obliged to manage by the book."

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:13 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Yeah, there's always that."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Of course, by the same token, I didn't get in trouble for downing that subtle artist elf once she was too distracted to screen; did you ever get in trouble?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says cheerfully.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:15 pm (UTC)

"That's good."

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:23 pm (UTC)

Celo finishes his soup.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Are we friends now?" Bella asks, tilting her head.

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:25 pm (UTC)

"You tell me," he shrugs. "Don't think I've had one before."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I've had friends but none of them substantially resembled you."

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:29 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs. "No shit?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Yes, you probably could've guessed."

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:32 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"I'd like to be your friend," he says. "I guess. Unless there's something horrible about it that I'm missing."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:33 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "You seem to have already signed up for bailing me out of hazardous situations. I think the rest is good."

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:37 pm (UTC)

Celo grins. "Okay, great."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I really wish you could figure out that thing, though," she sighs. "I don't make a habit of telling my friends all the details you pick up. I know you've already got what you got, but that just means you'll definitely notice if anything changes."

pythbox
2013-05-10 08:53 pm (UTC)

"I've figured it out some," he says. "It's hard, though."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:08 pm (UTC)

"You have?" she asks, looking up.

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?" he says. "Only some, though."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Can I see?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:15 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Sure, okay."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:15 pm (UTC)

Peer.

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:25 pm (UTC)

The essential discovery is that, while there's no way to stop him from perceiving sexuality, he doesn't always have to interpret it. Actually doing so is a little like walking around with your eyes slightly unfocused all the time - difficult, kind of uncomfortable, easy to forget about and end up stopping by accident, but possible.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. So you'd still notice if something changed but you wouldn't know what, unless you accidentally interpreted."

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "pretty much."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Tricky."

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:36 pm (UTC)

"...What's tricky?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:38 pm (UTC)

"This - entire thing. You're relying on it as a primary sense but it's invasive; you can avoid interpreting it but only so much and it takes all that attention."
Edited 2013-05-10 21:39 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Well - it takes whatever the opposite of attention is. Deliberately not looking at something."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:42 pm (UTC)

"That's a kind of attention too. More outward-focused telepaths than me have to learn it." Pause. "Some of them find various forms of meditation helpful but I don't know if they're related enough to what you're doing."

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

"...I don't think it's a meditation thing," he says. "Well, I guess I don't know. But I don't think so."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:45 pm (UTC)

Bella shrugs. "You'd know at least as well as I would."

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Then I don't think it is."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why Mother Khaele makes you guys that way."

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:52 pm (UTC)

"...Because we have to know we're doing it right," he says. "And, I mean - you're getting all hung up on the information part, which I guess is fair because that's the part that worries you, but it's not just about what we know, you know? It's about what we are, what we're made of. I don't think nymphs could be nymphs if we weren't the way we are. It's as much a part of me as my garden or my body. I don't just do sex, I am sex."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Bella, "but you being sex in the direction of people who don't want you involved in their doing sex - or for that matter their not doing it - has problems."

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Mama doesn't seem to think so," he observes, although it's not clear whether he agrees.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Or at least considers those problems irrelevant in light of other concerns." Bella scoops up her soup bowl and heads to the sink to wash it.

pythbox
2013-05-10 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Who knows," he says. "I'm not asking."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I didn't say you should."

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:00 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Avoiding divine attention is one of my goals in life, I don't know about you."

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:03 pm (UTC)

"The last time I talked to my mom, I was still with that guy," he says. "I asked her to do something about it. She said one of these days I'd learn to get comfy with my purpose in life. I told her to go fuck herself. End of conversation."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:05 pm (UTC)

Bella winces.

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:06 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "And, you know, I'm still alive, so whatever."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:07 pm (UTC)

"If," Bella starts, and then she stops and shakes her head and picks up his bowl to wash that too.

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Mm?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Nothing. Or nothing I'd feel safe saying, anyway, I have - hubristic tendencies, I try to keep them under control."

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:12 pm (UTC)

"When I was eight my mother caught me doing experiments, with the TV. I didn't actually break anything but I could easily have done. And she got me this enormous book that said The Rise and Inevitable Fall of Those Who Sought Science."
Edited 2013-05-10 22:12 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:13 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs. "That's cute."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:15 pm (UTC)

"It kind of scared the crap out of me, actually, but now I guess I have the appropriate flinch response whenever I start expecting reality to work like fantasies where everything's orderly and well-behaved even when it's important."

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:26 pm (UTC)

"It's cute that you tried it, though," he says with a smile.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I'm just glad I got caught before I tried something disastrous."

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:56 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Well, yeah."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:57 pm (UTC)

"And there's no record of anyone getting smitten for having fun with lucid dreaming."

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:58 pm (UTC)

"...Fun with lucid dreaming?" he inquires.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I get my ridiculous heroic power fantasies out of my system in my sleep in between mind-maintenance and memory review."

pythbox
2013-05-10 10:59 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles. "Awesome."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:01 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty cool, yeah. Some non subtle artists can learn to lucid dream but it's harder and you can't do as much with it."

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't sleep much anyway," shrugs Celo. "And I'd probably use it for different things."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:04 pm (UTC)

Bella can guess. "Do you not need much sleep or are you just an irresponsible partying college kid?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Do I have to pick just one?" he asks, grinning. "Nah, it's the first one. I like my classes."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:06 pm (UTC)

"What all are you in besides the one with the psycho murder teacher?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Two with the murder teacher," he corrects. "Plus a bunch of Domestic Arts stuff."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I didn't even look at that section of the catalog, I have no idea what the Domestic Arts courses are like."

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Cooking and sewing and stuff," he shrugs. "It's fun, I love it."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Cool. I have four subtle arts courses - intro perception, utility psionics 1, intro psych, and the lab. And Basic Knife to get my WP out of the way and Imperial History."

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Basic Knife is still hilarious," says Celo. "I mean, I get why you're in it and all, but it's hilarious."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Next semester I'll take Arcane Self-Defense, how about."

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Much better," he says, laughing.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:19 pm (UTC)

"But even if I'd decided to take that instead of Basic Knife this semester I'd have to pick up something for WP. Or fill out all the paperwork for a Magical Threat exemption."

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Celo. "The point of the WP requirement is supposed to be safety, but taking Basic Knife doesn't actually make you any safer, that's what's funny."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Also, so far all the threats I've encountered have been from other students, who are subject to equal requirements regarding learning to wield things."

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that too," he laughs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:26 pm (UTC)

"You're a freshman, right? Where'd you learn to take out seven elves?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I'm not a freshman, and I had one of Coach Sadist's courses last year too," he snorts.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-10 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Do they just sort of tuck the non-human students wherever in this hall regardless of year?"

pythbox
2013-05-10 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Guess so!"

in which the lesser of two evils may still be pretty evil

subtly_artistic

Bella didn't mean to take so long about eating her dinner. It's just that this book is really interesting. Supplemental history reading, recommended by the professor, by a different author than did their textbook, one who can really write, she'll have to find the rest of his work - and now she's one of six students left in the dining hall and it's closing. Four of them are a group of dwarves who she can only assume live in the dwarf housing; individual dwarves sometimes find their way into Harlowe and there is even one in Thatcher, but not a bunch of them. The other one's a mermaid.

Bella doesn't think the mermaid lives in Thatcher, which makes it Harlowe, but Thatcher's on the way to Harlowe from here.

She knows not to go swimming with her and this will have to do.

She goes up to the mermaid.

"Excuse me. I try not to walk around outside by myself. Are you heading towards Thatcher? Harlowe's right past it," she adds.

pythbox
2013-05-11 12:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Then yes!" says the mermaid, smiling. She has large bright green eyes and long black hair and a slight teal cast to her pale skin, and she's dressed in the usual mermaid ensemble of 'scaly legs and lots of heavy gold necklaces'. (The scales are also teal. So is her hair, if you look closely, but it's dark enough to pass for black at a glance.)
Edited 2013-05-11 12:53 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-11 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Bella. "I don't think we've met; I'm Bella."

pythbox
2013-05-11 11:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm Jala," says the mermaid. "It's nice to meet you!"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-11 11:25 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles. "You about ready to get out of here or are you going to grab something else first?"

pythbox
2013-05-11 11:26 pm (UTC)

"No, I'm good," says Jala. She smiles again. She has a very sweet smile.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-11 11:27 pm (UTC)

Out of the dining hall they go.

Bella is immediately glad she asked Jala rather than risking it alone; she senses one of those elves' minds by the time they're ten steps away from the door. She's not sure how much Jala will do to interfere with elf attack compared to, say, Celo, but she's at least a witness.

pythbox
2013-05-11 11:30 pm (UTC)

"So why do you not walk around outside by yourself?" asks Jala.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-11 11:31 pm (UTC)

"There are some mad elves who've already cornered me wanting to kidnap me once," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-05-11 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Jala, wide-eyed. "Wow. That's a pretty good reason."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-11 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Yep. They think I can break a faerie curse on their friend. I can't, and even if I could it would not be okay for them to kidnap me to try to make me."

pythbox
2013-05-11 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," says Jala. "I mean - I don't know - maybe if you were the only person fated to break it, or something, and it was something really horrible. Are you? Is it?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-11 11:42 pm (UTC)

"No. It requires true love's kiss, and I'm not in love with the relevant elf - and if she's the sort to send her friends to kidnap people I don't see it happening, especially on top of my being straight. One of her friends misunderstood something I said in class."

pythbox
2013-05-11 11:45 pm (UTC)

"That bites," Jala says sympathetically.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-11 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. And the administrators won't do anything about it, either."

pythbox
2013-05-11 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Of course not," says Jala. "The administrators don't do anything about anything."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-11 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I suspect they occasionally do things, just not things like 'enforce harassment policy against elves'."

pythbox
2013-05-11 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Or against anybody," says Jala.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 06:55 am (UTC)

"I bet if a - a gorgon or someone was bothering me, I could find a sympathetic staffperson if I asked around enough, even if they'd only be taking the excuse to push around the gorgon."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:22 am (UTC)

"Probably," Jala says glumly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it's pretty messed up."

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:09 pm (UTC)

"You're human, though, aren't you?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:28 pm (UTC)

"At least mostly. I suppose I might not know it if I had a little something somewhere; lots of people do."

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:29 pm (UTC)

"A little something somewhere isn't the same," says Jala, shaking her head.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:30 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:33 pm (UTC)

Apparently Jala doesn't have anything more to say about that.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:33 pm (UTC)

Walk-walk-walk. At least the weather's nice today.

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:39 pm (UTC)

After a few more seconds, Jala says abruptly, "Can I ask you a - strange question?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:40 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah."

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Is it true humans eat dolphins and whales?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I think some do. They're not a major part of Pax cuisine. I never have. Why?"

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:44 pm (UTC)

"I heard it was but I wasn't sure," she says. "Some of the things the shorebirds say... anyway. Just curious, I guess."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Shorebirds?"

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Shallow-water merfolk. I'm from the depths," she says. "We don't see a lot of humans there."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I guess you wouldn't, no."

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:51 pm (UTC)

Jala giggles. She has a sweet laugh, too.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Is there a reason you're curious about dolphins and whales in particular?"

pythbox
2013-05-12 07:57 pm (UTC)

"...What do you mean?" she asks, confused.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Why are you asking about dolphins and whales and not - seals, octopuses, penguins, sharks, jellyfish?"

pythbox
2013-05-12 08:06 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, do humans eat those too?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 11:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't know about penguins. Everything else on the list I think is eaten by some humans."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, it was whales and dolphins I heard about," says Jala. She seems slightly uncomfortable, for some reason.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Is something wrong?"

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:29 pm (UTC)

Jala hesitates, slowing down, shifting uncomfortably.

"...Have you ever eaten a dolphin or a whale?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 11:30 pm (UTC)

"No. I said I hadn't," Bella reminds her.

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:33 pm (UTC)

"It's just weird because humans make such a big deal about how they don't eat people," says Jala, twisting her hands together nervously.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Are you saying dolphins and whales are people?" Bella asks. "That's not common knowledge among humans, if true; I certainly didn't know it."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe you don't know it," she says. "Are you sure everybody doesn't?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I would expect to know it if lots of humans knew it. I suppose a handful of humans could know it and not be publicizing the information and then I wouldn't have found out. I really doubt that the humans who eat the whales and dolphins know they're eating people, although I could be mistaken."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how they could not," she says. "But maybe humans are just dumb."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Inattentive, perhaps," suggests Bella. "If I go near enough a dolphin or a whale should I expect to sense its mind with subtle arts? Do they speak a regular language of some kind? Do they do magic, tell stories, have names?"

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:48 pm (UTC)

"...Yes," says Jala, looking at Bella like she's talking complete nonsense, "because they're people."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-12 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Then the problem probably has to do with humans not being around them enough to notice," says Bella, shrugging. "They don't come up and walk around and introduce themselves like you do. I wonder what the best way to distribute this information would be."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:00 am (UTC)

"Not through me, that's for sure," says Jala.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:02 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:14 am (UTC)

"Because I wouldn't even know where to start, and I don't want to be famous or anything?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:15 am (UTC)

"Okay. Maybe I'll find some way to get within subtle-arts distance of a cetacean and then pretend like I discovered it. I don't really want to be famous either, but this seems pretty important."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Jala. She smiles a little. "You're okay, for a human."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:18 am (UTC)

"I do my best. Are most of us awful?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:19 am (UTC)

"Most of you are... what's that great word... meh," says Jala.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:23 am (UTC)

"Meh is a pretty great word."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:24 am (UTC)

Jala giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:25 am (UTC)

"Is it just you guys, dolphins, and whales, or are there other marine species who are people?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:27 am (UTC)

"I don't know, I don't have a list somewhere," says Jala. "I'd hate to have you go around thinking there weren't any more just because I spaced out."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:28 am (UTC)

"Okay, but if you think of any besides those three you can let me know, I will make a list and I will think about ways to publicize."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:30 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Jala. "It's Bella, right? Bella something?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:31 am (UTC)

"Yes. Bella Swan."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:32 am (UTC)

"Bella Swan, in Thatcher. I'll look you up if I think of more," she promises.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:33 am (UTC)

"Uh, full first name is Isabella, if you go looking for me in any official record."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:35 am (UTC)

"You humans and your names," says Jala, shaking her head and smiling.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:38 am (UTC)

"Why, how do yours work?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:43 am (UTC)

"Not that different, I guess. It's mostly the 'last names' thing that tangles my fins."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:43 am (UTC)

"You don't have them, or you have something different?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:45 am (UTC)

"Don't have them."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:46 am (UTC)

"That is simpler. Especially if you live in smaller groups or have more names to choose from than we do. There's at least one other Isabella at this school; I've heard somebody shouting for her and I didn't know them."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:48 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I've never met another Jala," she says, shaking her head.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:49 am (UTC)

"No name collisions, sounds convenient."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:54 am (UTC)

"I guess! I've never thought about it. Is that why humans do those complicated things, did you just run out of names?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:55 am (UTC)

"That's not the only reason we have last names and nicknames, but we do use both for that purpose," Bella says. "Last names are also a family thing, and they're more formal - that's why teachers use them - and nicknames allow for personalization and informality, like how I prefer 'Bella'."

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:58 am (UTC)

"What do you mean, a family thing?" she asks interestedly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 12:59 am (UTC)

"My last name is Swan because my father's last name is Swan," Bella explains. "When my parents got married, my mother changed her last name to Swan for the same reason. Modern families sometimes do different things with them, but that's the basic idea, around here."

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:02 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Jala. "I didn't know that! I thought everyone just made them up like you do with normal names."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:03 am (UTC)

"Nope! If you meet two people with the same last name there's a good chance they're related. Although it can also be a coincidence, it makes it likely enough that you can ask if you want to know."

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:05 am (UTC)

"But related through their fathers? Or through... some kind of... marrying... thing?" she hazards.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:08 am (UTC)

"They could be siblings, or first cousins whose fathers are brothers, or second cousins whose paternal grandfathers were brothers, and so on - or one could be the niece or nephew of the other, assuming the right genders and/or pattern of marriages," says Bella. "It's not going to help you figure out anyone else - it's not really designed to be completely informative about that to people who don't know the family, just to connect wives and children to their husbands and fathers."

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:13 am (UTC)

"I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it," she says, shaking her head.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:14 am (UTC)

"I think you can get along without knowing all this," says Bella. "It's not a big deal, especially here where people aren't generally present with close family."

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:18 am (UTC)

Jala grins. "Oh, good."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:19 am (UTC)

And here's Thatcher. "Thanks for the escort!"

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:24 am (UTC)

"Anytime!" says Jala, waving.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:25 am (UTC)

In goes Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:29 am (UTC)

Guess who's baking a pie!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:30 am (UTC)

Is it Celo? Bella bets it's Celo.

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:31 am (UTC)

It is totally Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:32 am (UTC)

"Hi," [name]. "Met a mermaid today."

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:33 am (UTC)

"Hi yourself," says Celo merrily. "Did she eat you?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:35 am (UTC)

"Yes. Of course she did. Did you not notice the gaping, bleeding wounds?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:36 am (UTC)

Celo cracks up.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:38 am (UTC)

"She seemed really nice, actually. She says whales and dolphins are people, so now I'm trying to figure out how to publicize that."

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:39 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Celo. "Still wouldn't go swimming with her, if I were you. I might go swimming with her. What's she look like, what's her name?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:40 am (UTC)

"Jala," says Bella. "Very - teal."
Edited 2013-05-13 01:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:45 am (UTC)

"I think I have gone swimming with her," he laughs. "She's a sweetheart."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:45 am (UTC)

"Was she one of the conscientious ones who asked first?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:49 am (UTC)

"I don't even know who brought it up first, we were hanging out and having sex and I told her how nymphs are a renewable resource and it just... went from there," he says with a reminiscent smile.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:50 am (UTC)

"Ah-huh."

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:53 am (UTC)

"She's fun, I like her. Maybe I'll look her up again."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:56 am (UTC)

"Have fun," says Bella. "What kinda pie is that?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:57 am (UTC)

"Tasty pie," he deadpans, and then laughs. "No, it's strawberry rhubarb."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 01:58 am (UTC)

"No? It's not tasty pie, you are making mediocre strawberry rhubarb pie?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:00 am (UTC)

"It is fucking delicious pie," he says loftily. "I never make any other kind."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:01 am (UTC)

"Fantastic. I want some when it's done."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:04 am (UTC)

"Sure!" says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:05 am (UTC)

"Awesome."

Bella goes and grabs some homework and sets up to work on it in the kitchen.

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:11 am (UTC)

Celo continues watching over his pie.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:13 am (UTC)

"What've you been up to today besides pie?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:15 am (UTC)

"Um... class?" he says, as though he's guessing.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:15 am (UTC)

"Nothing out of the ordinary, huh?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:17 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Yeah, no."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:24 am (UTC)

"I beat my head against trying to teek in lab and I think I got something to move. That or it was an air current. I am not at all sure."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:25 am (UTC)

"'Teek' is a cute word," says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:25 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Abbreviation is fun."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:26 am (UTC)

He giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:27 am (UTC)

Homework homework occasional glances at oven homework homework.

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:28 am (UTC)

Waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting pie!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:28 am (UTC)

Pie! Ooooh!

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:29 am (UTC)

Pie.

It is fucking delicious.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:29 am (UTC)

"Mmmmmmmmmmf," Bella says around some pie, closing her eyes happily.

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:30 am (UTC)

Celo beams.

"You know," he says, "if feeding people isn't a nymph thing, it should be. Love and good experiences, you know?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:31 am (UTC)

"I don't think feeding people is traditionally entangled with love."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:32 am (UTC)

"But that pie is clearly a good experience."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:33 am (UTC)

"Yes. Yes it is."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:33 am (UTC)

"See?" he says, grinning.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:34 am (UTC)

"Sure. I didn't think you were about arbitrary good experiences, though."
Edited 2013-05-13 02:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:40 am (UTC)

"I think it's all part of the same thing," he says. "Not that pie is sex - well, I mean, not usually - but that pie and sex are both nice things to do with your body, and people can give them to each other."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:40 am (UTC)

"I've also never heard of nymphs giving massages."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:41 am (UTC)

"That, I bet some of us do," he laughs. "But maybe mostly in a sex way. Why, did you want one?"
Edited 2013-05-13 02:42 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:43 am (UTC)

"Not in a sex way," says Bella distinctly.

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:44 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he shrugs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:44 am (UTC)

"I'm not clear on the extent to which you can separate anything plausibly sexlike from sex."
Edited 2013-05-13 02:48 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:50 am (UTC)

"...I dunno," he says. "If I give you a massage, and nobody gets off on it, then that's not sex. Does it need to be more separate than that?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:52 am (UTC)

"Mmm - I think motives come into it, too, but maybe that's just me."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:54 am (UTC)

"Motives like what? If I give you a massage and you decide my hands are pretty great and you'd like to try them out in another context, the massage still wasn't sex, at least to start out with."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 02:57 am (UTC)

"I was thinking more about your motives. I know what mine are."

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:01 am (UTC)

"Okay... what about my motives do you want to know? They're the same motives if I'm giving you pie or cookies or thinking about your smile at you. I like doing nice things for you. It'd be just about the same if it was sex, but - a little different."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:02 am (UTC)

"That's remarkably undifferentiated."

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:05 am (UTC)

Celo shrugs expansively.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:09 am (UTC)

"But, I suppose I have already taken pie," says Bella, lifting her plate with one bite left on it, "so I may as well take a neckrub offered for the same reasons, presuming you're offering." She consumes her last bite of pie.

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:12 am (UTC)

"I am definitely offering!" says Celo. "And I mean, if you care about consistency and really don't want to take stuff I give you for nice-things reasons, you could also stop taking the pie. But that would be sad."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:13 am (UTC)

"It would be sad, I do like consistency, and I do not object to you wanting to do nice things for me."
Edited 2013-05-13 03:14 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:15 am (UTC)

"Then I can give you a neckrub!" he says happily.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:16 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Bella. "Indeed your arithmetic is correct."

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:20 am (UTC)

Celo approaches.

"...Do you mind if I read you while I'm at it? It's still not a sex thing, but it's got enough in common that I can probably pick up useful stuff if I'm looking."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:21 am (UTC)

"...Stuff like what?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:25 am (UTC)

"Like - nymphs can tell what people's bodies like, what feels good to them and what doesn't, just because sex is what we usually use that for doesn't mean it goes away the rest of the time."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:26 am (UTC)

"...Yeah, okay. Can I read back to see what you're getting?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 11:04 am (UTC)

"Sure," he say cheerfully.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay then."

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:36 pm (UTC)

So, neckrub!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:37 pm (UTC)

Huzzah! Bella has had a day. There is some tension in her neck.

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:46 pm (UTC)

Celo can help her fix that!

Mm, neckrub. He likes doing nice things for her, and he likes physical contact, and he likes the feedback from his nymphly senses telling him in detail where and how he's helping. Pleasant warm snuggly feelings ensue.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:47 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm. He is good at neckrubs.

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:49 pm (UTC)

It's true, he is! The nymph thing definitely helps.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:51 pm (UTC)

Apparently!

Bella's life is not hassle-free, but nor is it a constant barrage of stressors. Eventually he's accomplished most of the ostensible purpose of the neckrub. Still feels nice, though, what with him being very careful to moderate the pressure to exactly what suits -

She sits up straight, abruptly.

"Stop."

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Huh? Oh," he says, letting his hands fall away.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," Bella adds, rearranging her hair to fall over her neck again.

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Anytime," he says, grinning.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 03:58 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles at him, and goes back to her essay.

pythbox
2013-05-13 03:59 pm (UTC)

Celo decides to eat some pie.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 04:45 pm (UTC)

The next day, Bella goes to lunch after Intro Perception - accompanied by a small group of classmates, who disperse when they get to the dining hall - and collects her food and sits at an empty table.

pythbox
2013-05-13 04:47 pm (UTC)

After a few minutes, Jala sits down next to her.

"Octopuses!" she says triumphantly. "Octopuses are people."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 04:47 pm (UTC)

Bella pulls out her notebook and writes this down. "All of them or just some species?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 04:48 pm (UTC)

"All of them that I've heard of. I haven't personally met every single octopus in the oceans," she laughs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Write write write. "I'm probably going to have to get in touch with some sort of marine explorer type about this."

pythbox
2013-05-13 04:50 pm (UTC)

Jala shrugs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 04:52 pm (UTC)

"And it might make the most sense to save the entire thing until I've done enough subtle arts classes to be able to mindtalk without having to share a language, so I can have actual conversations with the people I'm 'discovering' instead of just noting that they exist."

pythbox
2013-05-13 04:53 pm (UTC)

"That might help!" she agrees, giggling.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 04:54 pm (UTC)

Bella puts her notebook away. "So what're you majoring in?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Elementalism! With a minor in thaumatology," she says cheerily.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Cool, do you know what you want to do with it?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:03 pm (UTC)

"...Magic?" she suggests.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:04 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Yeah. That's what you do with a degree in a magic discipline. I mean that a lot of people get their degrees planning to make careers out of them - like, I'm majoring in subtle arts because I'd like to be a mental healer."

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I don't think there's a career for what I want to do with it," she says. "We do magic in the depths, but it's not like what you get up here. So I'm going to go down and... see if I've learned anything useful, you know?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Just be on the lookout for applications for what you pick up?" Bella hazards.

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Cool."

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:13 pm (UTC)

Nom nom lunch.

"...So I have another question about humans," she says. "It's about human boys, actually, but I'd feel weird asking one, like they might take it the wrong way, you know?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Uh, I'm not unusually well-informed about things specific to human boys, but you can try me, I guess," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, okay," she says. "I met this nymph over the summer, and he said it's all pretty much the same, but I'm not sure what's covered by 'pretty much'. I mean, their - whatever you call it - is it really just out there flopping around all the time?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:24 pm (UTC)

"...On humans there are clothes involved, so not so much out there, but human beings do not have any outright retractable parts."

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Weird," says Jala, blinking at her. "And when they do their thing, does it always come out like honey?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:29 pm (UTC)

"...Like honey in what way? I've never heard the comparison made."

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I mean, you know, honey. The goopy sweet see-through stuff. Honey is nice! I just wasn't expecting it right then," giggles Jala.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:33 pm (UTC)

"I don't know the typical opacity, I'm not personally familiar with the taste but I don't think it's supposed to be sweet, and 'goopy' is probably a fair description," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I guess I always thought it would be more... misty?" she says. "Because you breathe air up here, and all."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:37 pm (UTC)

"...Nope. It is a liquid. It would be a bad idea for a human to inhale it."

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:38 pm (UTC)

Jala giggles again.

"Okay! Thanks," she says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:39 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. You know, you could just talk to Celo himself about this kind of thing, he knows human anatomy, better than I do. He lives on my hall."
Edited 2013-05-13 17:40 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Oh! Wow," says Jala. "Have you—? I guess not. I'll look for him! He was... very sweet," she says with a smile.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I have not partaken," says Bella delicately.

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Why not?" she wonders.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Some people behave differently around nymphs than they do other people, but I don't see a good reason to do that, so I'd only want to have sex with him if we were dating, since that's also when I'd have sex with a member of any other species."

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't really get dating," says Jala.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Merfolk don't?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:49 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "That whole pairing-off thing you humans do is a complete mystery to me," she says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Well, it's a pretty big deal to us," Bella shrugs.

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't know all the history behind the cultural reasons, or behind the native - drives - but today, humans have romantic impulses that are pretty strongly correlated with sexual impulses, and our culture reinforces it. I don't know if you've read a lot of human fiction, but it tends to revolve around the subject more often than not. We grow up with parents who are usually romantically involved with each other, though not always, mine are divorced now. And being 'successful' at that kind of thing is also a source of status, in many social circles."

pythbox
2013-05-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Jala. "It's different under the sea."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 05:59 pm (UTC)

"What's it like there?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Well... I grew up with a pretty small pod, maybe it's different for other people," she says. "But I know my mother is one of three girls who was laying the year before I hatched, and a couple of other pods came by that year so I'm not sure which one my father was from or who he is."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Do you mind if I ask you questions about that? I don't know whether anything I might be curious about is going to be rude to ask."

pythbox
2013-05-13 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Go for it," shrugs Jala.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 06:15 pm (UTC)

"So, in human cultures, we're almost invariably certain who our mothers are and usually have a very good guess about our fathers. We use this information for all kinds of things, but the practical one that springs to mind is avoiding inbreeding - we steer clear of reproducing with close relatives, and if we do anyway the kids often turn out badly. Is that not a problem with you? Is it a problem you solve a different way?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Oh! No, you can kind of tell - if a pod's guys swam by our eggs and they smelled too familiar, we'd turn them away, and if our guys were swimming by another pod's eggs and they smelled like home, they wouldn't - you know - on them," Jala explains.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Sounds workable. Humans also get raised by our parents; what about you?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 06:25 pm (UTC)

"The whole pod does that. Well, some more than others. You know how it is. Not everybody wants to do all the same things."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Do you just always stay in the pod you're born in?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Mostly, yeah. Sometimes people shift around."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Under what circumstances?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 06:29 pm (UTC)

"...If they feel like it, I guess? Maybe if they don't get along with their home pod," she shrugs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense."

pythbox
2013-05-13 06:30 pm (UTC)

Jala nods.

in which it is unclear how this became bella's job

subtly_artistic

Bella goes about her business. Elves continue stalking her; she continues walking everywhere accompanied. Sometimes by Celo, sometimes by random people, sometimes by clusters of classmates. She does all her homework and maintains good grades in all her classes. She is now confirmed able to definitely move objects with her mind a tiny negligible bit, which means that if she works very hard for a very long time she may become able to move objects with her mind a less tiny and non-negligible bit.

pythbox
2013-05-13 07:15 pm (UTC)

One morning at breakfast, a dwarf passes by Bella's table and pauses.

"Hey, are you Bella Swan?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 07:15 pm (UTC)

"...Yes? Why?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh, nothing - I was just - look," she says with a hint of desparation, "what's a doily?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 07:18 pm (UTC)

"...A decorative mat of lace that goes under ornamental objects to protect the underlying surface from scratches and to look pretty. Why are you asking me?"

pythbox
2013-05-13 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Is that all? Thanks," says the dwarf, and she goes away, shaking her head.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Seriously! Why did you ask me?" Bella calls after her.

pythbox
2013-05-13 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Because I got tired of my roommate laughing at me!" the dwarf hisses back.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 07:37 pm (UTC)

"But how did you know that I'd answer you? We've never met."

pythbox
2013-05-13 07:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, I just heard it somewhere!"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 07:41 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs and shakes her head. "Okay."

pythbox
2013-05-13 07:42 pm (UTC)

She goes away again, this time for good.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-13 07:44 pm (UTC)

Bella goes on eating her breakfast, chuckling to herself occasionally.

pythbox
2013-05-15 10:02 pm (UTC)

That's it for breakfast, but at dinner that day, a mermaid with pale orange scales and fewer gold necklaces than Jala hurries up to her just as she's taking her seat.

"You're Bella, right?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-15 10:02 pm (UTC)

"...Yes."

pythbox
2013-05-15 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Oh good!" says the mermaid. "Okay - I get what carts and wheels are, but what's a cartwheel when it's not a wheel on a cart?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-15 10:06 pm (UTC)

"It's a relatively basic acrobatic trick - that, alas, I am unable to demonstrate for you - where one holds all of one's limbs out straight and sort of rolls from one to the next in turn," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-15 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says the mermaid. "That makes sense, in a weird kind of way! Thanks!"

She gives Bella a little wave and wanders off.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-15 10:08 pm (UTC)

Bella waves back, puzzled, and resumes eating.

pythbox
2013-05-23 11:39 pm (UTC)

A few days pass without any strange questions from nonhuman students.

Then she gets an elven whisper in the middle of lunch. The voice is soft, shy, vaguely feminine, and unfamiliar.

"Hey, is it true humans sometimes don't have sex for weeks at a time? On purpose?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-23 11:40 pm (UTC)

Bella's not entirely clear on how replying to a whispered remark works, so she just nods, furrowing her brow.

pythbox
2013-05-23 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Weird," muses the elf.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-23 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Can you hear me if I just talk like so?" Bella asks, too softly to carry beyond her unoccupied table.

pythbox
2013-05-23 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" giggles the elf. "Hi!"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-23 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Hi. So, yeah, weeks is not unusual, it can easily run much longer depending on the human."

pythbox
2013-05-23 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Wow. Do you all just masturbate really really frequently or something?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-23 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I imagine that varies depending on the human too."

pythbox
2013-05-23 11:51 pm (UTC)

"So humans just... don't... want to sometimes?"

This clearly boggles her mind.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-23 11:52 pm (UTC)

"That's right. Or just find other motives competitive with that impulse."

pythbox
2013-05-23 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Wait, other motives like what?" she asks, intrigued.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-23 11:57 pm (UTC)

"...sleep, getting homework done, hanging out with their friends, going out and doing stuff, any thing a human does can potentially compete here."

pythbox
2013-05-24 12:01 am (UTC)

"Well, we do all that stuff too," says the elf. "We just don't let it keep us away from, you know, important things."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 12:02 am (UTC)

"Humans assign widely varying importance to all these things."

pythbox
2013-05-24 12:08 am (UTC)

"Weird. Anyway, thank you!" the elf says brightly. "Enjoy your lunch!"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 12:08 am (UTC)

"You're welcome." And Bella goes back to enjoying her lunch.

in which bella's warranty is at risk

subtly_artistic

Bella is gazing on the school weavesite when she notices the inconsistent references to Vice Chancellor Embries's secretary. A second look shows that they're all from different years. A look at the public record of the school staff directory confirms: yes. Every secretary of the Vice Chancellor is from a different year. She'd expect he was just dreadful to work for, if it weren't for the way they do virtually always last out the full year -

and for the way none of them have any continued ethernet footprint after the termination of their employment.

Bella compiles this data. She a-mails it to the current secretary with a "probably nothing, just worried" note attached to it.

---

It is the following week when she is summoned to Embries's office.

This does not bode well. But she can't exactly refuse.

She finds one of the Walking Buddies looking for credit from "escort missions" to take her. The walking buddy thinks she's humoring her until Bella disabuses her of the notion that she's generously distributing an easy five-point assignment.

They arrive without incident. The walking buddy leaves; Bella is going to be on her own for the trip back.

But first she has to deal with Embries.

She goes inside, shaking in her boots.

Embries is a silver-haired, urbane man, with a long desk at which he sits in perfect stillness, and Bella feels an odd, intense pressure in her mind when she approaches - there is something out of the ordinary, with his mind or his person or just with him.

"Hello, Ms. Swan," he says. "Do sit down."

Bella sits.

"Do you know," he says, "no one has ever had the temerity to contact one of my secretaries on her own behalf, in a professional capacity, before. They sort my correspondence for me, but by and large, their own communiques are personal in nature. Until they are not in a position to receive anything at all, that is."

This doesn't seem to demand an answer. Bella sits silently, watching his eyes, shifting occasionally under psychic pressure.

"I do wonder why something has changed about this... setup."

Bella swallows.

"Something about the particular secretary, warier or more skittish? Unlikely; she had no traits of any relevance. Something about this age in which we find ourselves, breeding caution and far-off sudden opportunities to prompt career changes? No; the eras differ only superficially. Something about the communique's origin, though..."

Bella makes a small, involuntary noise.

"I think that could easily prompt an irregularity in a comfortable pattern. Don't you agree, Ms. Swan?"

Bella doesn't think she could answer him now if she wanted to.

"Ms. Swan. I find myself very disappointed. Given that you are very nearly a volunteer, venturing towards my attention as you did - surely there is something you have to say for yourself."

She opens her mouth. No sound comes out.

She's long figured out what she's talking to, at this point.

pythbox
2013-05-24 01:26 am (UTC)

And then somebody knocks on the office door. Not a polite little tap, either - it shifts visibly with each impact, one two three.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 01:28 am (UTC)

Bella flinches.

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 01:29 am (UTC)

Embries frowns.

"You see the troubles associated with prematurely losing a secretary," he says almost conversationally to Bella, and he raises his voice a bit to say, "Come in."

pythbox
2013-05-24 01:34 am (UTC)

The door opens, and in walks a girl in leather armor with a spiky red mohawk.

"Oh, good," she says with a glance at Bella. "It would've been so embarrassing if I'd walked in on a meeting with someone else." She addresses the vice-chancellor. "Claws off, Mr. Embries. You'll void her warranty."

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 01:35 am (UTC)

"I beg your pardon?" says Mr. Embries, blinking in a way that might feasibly be called polite.

pythbox
2013-05-24 01:38 am (UTC)

The newcomer points at Bella without looking at her.

"Mine," she says. "I need her for something. And if somebody tears off her nice shiny foil wrapping before I get the chance, I might just cry."

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 01:39 am (UTC)

"I don't suppose you'd favor me with the details," says Embries with intense dryness. "There is nothing remarkable about her; I did check."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 01:40 am (UTC)

Bella has never met this mohawked woman in her life.

But she does recognize her.

She does not want to belong to her.

Also she is not wrapped in shiny foil. Bella is really, really confused.
Edited 2013-05-24 01:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-24 01:52 am (UTC)

"Well, you obviously didn't look hard enough," says the woman whom Celo has called Coach Sadist. "She should be getting interesting any day now, according to the instructions on the box."

Then she smiles, displaying noticeably enlarged canines... at least compared to a human. Which she might not be.

"I have some other information you might be a little more interested in. But first I'd have to know you were done talking to Swan. Or interfering with her in any way."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 01:53 am (UTC)

What is going on what is going on what the fuck is going on, Bella does not say.

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 01:54 am (UTC)

"...What pray tell are your terms," inquires Embries, "as regards interference? She has seen and heard several pieces of information... and is here because of her propensity to gossip."

pythbox
2013-05-24 01:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah?" The coach looks mildly intrigued. "What's she got her nose into?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 01:59 am (UTC)

"Never mind that. A minor oversight about the availability of trivial information," says Embries. "One which I intend to correct. If you want me to... relax my standards... for part of the correction, I will need to know that the consequences will not outweigh the benefits of your proposal, don't you agree?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:04 am (UTC)

"Sure."

She looks at Bella, raises her eyebrows, and moves a hand across her lips as though buttoning them together.

"You make his life difficult, I'll make your life hell," she says. "Clear? Just nod."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:05 am (UTC)

Bella's eyes are so wide that they are threatening to fall out of her head, but she nods once briskly.

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:07 am (UTC)

She returns her attention to Embries.

"So that's that taken care of."

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 02:08 am (UTC)

"That's hardly my typical standard for guaranteeing silence," hems Embries, peering at Bella out of the corner of his eye.

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:10 am (UTC)

"Your typical standard won't be necessary," says Callahan. "Of course, I could always take my goodies and go home..." She flashes teeth again.

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 02:12 am (UTC)

"Must you?" says Embries in a tone that might be plaintive were it not for absolutely everything about this situation. "What in the world do you want with her that will be interfered with by the exertion of will?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:15 am (UTC)

"That," says Callahan, "is for me to know, and you to guess ineffectually at until my little caterpillar spins a cuddly little cocoon and liquefies herself to emerge as a pretty little butterfly."

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 02:16 am (UTC)

Embries considers Callahan, and side-eyes Bella, for a series of moments, and then he says, "What are you offering, then?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:23 am (UTC)

"The usual," she says. "I still have six left, after all, and what else am I gonna use them for? In exchange for your word that you won't interfere with Princess here, or with another student whose name I'll give you in the unlikely event that it comes up."

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 02:24 am (UTC)

"You want two of these noninterference guarantees? But I meant a name, I want a name."

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:26 am (UTC)

"Of course," she says. "Right after you swear to the same thing you swore before I told you Zanita's."

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 02:28 am (UTC)

"I recognize," Embries grinds out, "your claim to this unspecified hoard, and will not act to take it until you sign it over."

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:33 am (UTC)

"Adarast," she enunciates. "Also known as Darsinus."

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 02:34 am (UTC)

Embries is far too mannerly to drool.

"Fine," he snaps. "Take your creature; I will leave her be."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:34 am (UTC)

Bella squeaks.

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:35 am (UTC)

Callahan makes a shooing motion at Bella with one hand.

"The other one, too?" she says sweetly.

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 02:37 am (UTC)

"I would need to know who it was," says Embries delicately, "in order to make any such agreement in good faith."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:37 am (UTC)

Bella slooowly gets to her feet, eyes on both of the terrifying occupants of the room.

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:39 am (UTC)

"He's registered under 'Celosia'," says Callahan. "You might not have heard of him."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:39 am (UTC)

Bella is so fucking confused.

alicornucopia
2013-05-24 02:40 am (UTC)

Embries waves a hand. "Given the hoard, yes, fine."

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:41 am (UTC)

"Oh goody," Callahan says brightly. "I'm so glad we agree. Scram, kid, the grown-ups are talking."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:42 am (UTC)

Bella scrams.

She pauses at the door to the building, then decides that encountering psychotic elves would be a small price to pay for getting as far away from that dragon and that woman as possible.

She goes at a jog, though.

And she looks for Celo.

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:46 am (UTC)

Celo is in their dorm kitchen, making souffle!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:48 am (UTC)

Bella sits there.

She doesn't say anything. She just watched his coach play a greater silver dragon like a harp for a noninterference agreement about the two of them. Same will make her life "hell" if she makes Embries's "inconvenient". She is not sure how to guarantee that Embries has the most convenient of lives going forward, but probably just spilling everything that just happened to Celo isn't the way.

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:50 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Celo. "You look... slightly traumatized, what's up?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:50 am (UTC)

"I cannot even begin to tell you," says Bella, "how confused I am about what is up."

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:51 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says. The souffle goes in the oven. Celo goes to the table. He sits across from her. "Wanna talk about it anyway, or no?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:52 am (UTC)

"I..."

She chews her lip.

"Encountered your. Coach. Today."

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:55 am (UTC)

"...Which explains a lot all by itself," he says, "but not everything."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 02:56 am (UTC)

"She seemed to know who I was."

pythbox
2013-05-24 02:58 am (UTC)

"...Okay," says Celo. "Like, how?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:00 am (UTC)

"Somebody was - I don't really want to get into the details of that part, but," (she didn't say Bella couldn't talk about her, did she?) "she showed up to - I guess defend me, but she was saying bizarre things, like she thinks she bought me and I'll lose resale value if scratched."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:01 am (UTC)

"That is worrying," says Celo. "And confusing. And worrying. I'm worried."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:01 am (UTC)

"So am I. And you came up in conversation too, like she thinks she also bought you and wanted you similarly scratchproof."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:02 am (UTC)

"Ooookay," says Celo. "And I'm guessing she intimidated you into not saying anything about who might have been threatening you with what?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:03 am (UTC)

Bella shifts in her chair. Celo might choose to interpret this as confirmation.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:04 am (UTC)

"She's good at intimidating," Celo says fondly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:04 am (UTC)

Bella shivers.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:06 am (UTC)

"Are you okay?" he asks softly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:06 am (UTC)

"I have no idea what was going on, and I'm scared."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:11 am (UTC)

"Well," he says, "I can hug you, and in a little while I can feed you chocolate souffle. Will those help?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:12 am (UTC)

"My overall state, probably some. The actual thing that is going on, probably not."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:13 am (UTC)

"You never know," he laughs, getting up and coming over to her side of the table. "It's really good souffle."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:14 am (UTC)

"Heh." She hugs him.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:15 am (UTC)

He hugs her back.

"I promise not to let Jilly eat you," he murmurs.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:16 am (UTC)

"Does she eat people?" asks Bella, blinking.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:17 am (UTC)

"Only metaphorically," he snorts. "As far as I know."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:18 am (UTC)

"I didn't especially have an impression that she was out to hurt me, anyway. I don't know what the hell she does want with me and I wouldn't want to take my chances trying to find out, but I don't think she plans to eat me."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:19 am (UTC)

"Well, that's slightly reassuring," says Celo, still hugging her. "Slightly."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:19 am (UTC)

"Slightly," agrees Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:20 am (UTC)

Snuggle-hug.

"Do you want me to go ask her what the fuck is going on?" he offers.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:21 am (UTC)

"Do you think she'd tell you?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:23 am (UTC)

"I think she'll hit me, but she usually does. She might tell me what's going on, if she feels like it."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:24 am (UTC)

"...If you opted to ask her I'd like to hear what she said."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:24 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "If I ask her, I'll tell you."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:25 am (UTC)

"Thanks."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:26 am (UTC)

"No problem," he says cheerfully. "She doesn't scare me."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:27 am (UTC)

"...Why not?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:33 am (UTC)

"We have an understanding," he says. "I don't mean like we've worked out a treaty, I mean I get her and she gets me and we know how to get along. You know? She's scary, but not in ways I'm scared of."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:34 am (UTC)

"Do you doubt that she could kill you, or is that just not a thing you're scared of?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:36 am (UTC)

"She could find my garden, burn it, and salt the earth so nothing could grow there again," he says with a casual shrug. "And that's not something I'm scared of, and I don't think she cares enough about actually ending my life to do it."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:37 am (UTC)

"She cares about something having to do with you. A lot."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:38 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "I might be her favourite student," he says. "It's hard to tell."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:39 am (UTC)

"I don't think that can be it."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:45 am (UTC)

He shrugs again.

"Well, I'll find out or I won't."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:46 am (UTC)

Bella nods. "Thanks."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:47 am (UTC)

Celo smiles, hugs her one more time, and then sits down.

"Anything else going on in your life?"
Edited 2013-05-24 03:47 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:47 am (UTC)

"That's the highlight. There's still classes and so on. Also for some reason word seems to have gone around to the nonhuman students that I'm a good person to ask about human customs."
Edited 2013-05-24 03:48 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:48 am (UTC)

He laughs. "How'd that happen?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:49 am (UTC)

"I really don't know. I mean, maybe it started when Jala asked me about some stuff? I'm not sure why she'd have told everyone and their pen pal about it, though."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:50 am (UTC)

"Maybe somebody overheard?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:51 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't mind answering the questions, although some of them are kind of awkward."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:51 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Like what? Or would it be awkward to tell me?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:52 am (UTC)

"The other day some elf had a question about the human sex drive," says Bella dryly.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:52 am (UTC)

Celo cracks up.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:53 am (UTC)

"Yeah, so that was fun. I actually managed to avoid having to say anything too embarrassing."
Edited 2013-05-24 03:53 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:55 am (UTC)

"Good for you," he giggles. "Yeah, I'll just bet an elf finding out for the first time how much sex humans don't have would be super confused."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:55 am (UTC)

"How come you aren't just constantly hanging out at Treehome?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:02 am (UTC)

"Well, right now I'm steering clear because a bunch of elves want to cut my dick off," he snorts, "but before that - I only go to Treehome when I feel like taking a weekend to do nothing but get nailed by any elf guy who wants some. Because if I wanted them to stop, I'd pretty much have to fight my way out."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:15 am (UTC)

"...Oh."

pythbox
2013-05-24 12:42 pm (UTC)

"...Did you not know that about elves? You should know that about elves," says Celo. "I mean, you must've already figured out that the elves who stay in Treehome are mostly bad news, but it's not just the kind of stuff they're after you for - they also pretty much think that the natural order of things is getting to fuck anyone who can't fight you off. They cool that shit way down outside Treehome, but on their turf it's a free-for-all. Not even just because I'm a nymph."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:21 pm (UTC)

"I'll go on giving the place an exceedingly wide berth, then. I pretty much know - although you've helped expand my knowledge on the topic - which species are dangerous to be around; there are enough of them that I don't always learn about the details of the hazards beyond 'could and might choose to make life unpleasant or brief'."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," laughs Celo. "Okay."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Why do such an overwhelming majority of elves opt to live in Treehome, if it's that unpleasant? Only about half of them can be better than average fighters."

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, there's complicated political shit, too," he says. "My best guess is - the ones who get to lord it over everybody else have fun with that, and the ones who don't aren't admitting to themselves that they'd be better off out here. They also think other species are basically trash, so maybe to them being somebody's court ass-muncher in Treehome is still a better deal than living out here."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts. "Is there," she wonders, "an elf with a reputation like mine, but for elves?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:43 pm (UTC)

"You kidding? No," says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Well, let me know if you hear of one existing," she shrugs.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he snorts.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:48 pm (UTC)

Eventually souffle is had.

It's delicious, and she tells him so.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:51 pm (UTC)

"It is delicious," beams Celo. Mmm nom nom.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:53 pm (UTC)

Time passes. Bella continues to avoid a) elves b) Coach Sadist c) Embries d) swimming with mermaids.

pythbox
2013-05-24 03:56 pm (UTC)

Three days later, Celo pokes his head out of the kitchen as she walks past.

"Hey, I talked to Callahan," he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Did anything come of it?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Basically no. She was really cryptic and weird. But the way she talks about you - I'd almost say there's some kind of prophecy involved, the way she's so weirdly sure that you're about to do something really interesting."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Why would I do anything interesting?" Bella asks, throwing up her hands. "People who do anything interesting have appalling death rates. I'm going to finish school and join some mental healing practice in some city and make a lot of money and give large amounts to charity, that's not interesting."

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Beats me," says Celo. "I told her you didn't seem like the type and she just giggled."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:09 pm (UTC)

"What about you, why did you come up in almost the same breath?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:13 pm (UTC)

"She won't tell me," he says. "I could guess, but I bet you wouldn't like the guess."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:14 pm (UTC)

"What's your guess?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:15 pm (UTC)

Celo hesitates.

Then he says, "Are you sure you want to know, even though I might be wrong, and whether or not I am you might be better off not thinking about it?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:17 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to assume you're wrong, because this entire thing is bizarre and I don't think you have any plausible mechanism by which to be right; how would thinking about your guess harm me?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Hubristic tendencies."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:19 pm (UTC)

"They're under control."

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:28 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Okay. I think she thinks we're going to kill a god."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Why do you think she thinks that?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:29 pm (UTC)

"...Because I know her," he says, "and it's just the most obvious thing."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:32 pm (UTC)

"My hubristic tendencies," says Bella, "don't extend that far. I am a defensively oriented subtle artist, not any sort of adventurer."

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:37 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs. "So she's wrong. That does happen."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Is she going to take it out on me - or you, for that matter - when that occurs to her?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Nah. Not her style."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:44 pm (UTC)

"That's reassuring. To an extent, anyway. Do you have hubristic tendencies?"

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't think they call it hubris when you're technically a divine being," he snorts.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not. But you know what I mean."

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:56 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Well, I'm not planning on killing any gods."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-24 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. Your coach is weird and scary."

pythbox
2013-05-24 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" he agrees.

forgotten

mute_pen

It's past dark, but when you need the outhouse, you need the outhouse.

Isabel picks her way across the yard of her father's house in the moonlight, hoping to sneak back into bed without waking him.

pythbox
2013-04-27 03:04 am (UTC)

A silent shadow descends from the sky in a long swoop. Enormous talons close on her shoulders. With one beat of its great soft wings, the giant owl carries her off into the sky.

mute_pen
2013-04-27 03:05 am (UTC)

All hope of not waking her father evaporates. She screams.

But of course her father cannot do anything.

"Put me down! Let me go!"

pythbox
2013-04-27 03:07 am (UTC)

The giant owl either cannot hear her, cannot understand her, or does not care. It flies higher.

mute_pen
2013-04-27 03:14 am (UTC)

Isabel does her best to reach up despite the grip on her shoulders and pick at its talons. She doesn't want to fall, but if she could somehow - climb its leg, maybe, pull out its feathers till it lands -
Edited 2013-04-28 03:17 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:18 am (UTC)

Until now it has been holding her quite gently.

Now it tightens its grip, slowly, until its talons pierce her skin and she starts to bleed.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:18 am (UTC)

Isabel shrieks. Owls can hear well, can't they? Maybe it will find her too annoying to carry if she just screams and screams - maybe it will at least hold her gently again if she screams when it squeezes.

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:18 am (UTC)

It eases off again. They're traveling quite fast; already the countryside zipping past far below is nothing she would recognize.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:19 am (UTC)

Isabel quiets her screams when it lets go of her. The scenery would be amazing, beautiful, if only she could fly over it herself - instead she feels like she might throw up.

She does throw up.

It doesn't really help.

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:19 am (UTC)

The owl flies on, covering what must be hundreds of miles of strange land. They pass over forest, river, farm, lake, another forest, another farm, another river.

Another lake.

There is a castle beside this one, a lonely-looking place with high walls and higher towers. Along the nearest shore, a cluster of young women in white dresses huddles under the owl's shadow. It swoops low, low enough for Isabella to see their frightened faces looking up at her, then drops her on her feet a quarter of the way around the lake.

And then it is not a giant owl at all, but a man in a long feathered cape, his hands digging into her shoulders as he spins her around and scowls thunderously into her face.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:20 am (UTC)

Isabel stumbles when dropped, but his grip won't let her fall. She looks around in bewilderment at the lake, at the owl-man looming over her. "Where am I - why did you take me - what's going on -?"

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:20 am (UTC)

"Silence," he growls, shaking her by the shoulders.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:21 am (UTC)

"You can't just kidnap me -"

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:22 am (UTC)

He gives her a shove that sends her sprawling across the dewy grass.

"I am the Baron von Rothbart," he says, "and I can do what I please with you, Odette."

That is not her name.

But the word crackles in the air, and the talon-marks in her shoulders sting like they've been immersed in something noxious, and no other name is available to her anymore.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:22 am (UTC)

Odette shrieks - it hurts, she's afraid - and clutches one hand at one shoulder, one at her head, her name, her name -

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:23 am (UTC)

The sting fades. The talon-marks are gone. So are her clothes; she wears a white dress of feather-patterned lace, like the other girls who are now just barely visible a long way off behind the Baron.

"Listen to me," the Baron commands. His voice fills her ears. "This is your new home. When the sun rises, you will leave this shape and live as a swan for the day. When the sun sets, you will go ashore and live as a woman for the night. When I summon you, you will come to me. You cannot escape. You cannot drown yourself. There is but a single way to free you: if you win an unclaimed heart - if one who has never loved before swears to love you forever - then the curse will be broken. Until then, my swan—" He smiles and gathers his cape around him. "Welcome home."

The giant owl hoots softly, then takes off.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:23 am (UTC)

Odette sits.

She touches her uninjured shoulder, gingerly, then with greater puzzlement.

She runs over his words, committing them to memory; she has nothing to write with here.

She gets up and she stumbles towards the other girls.

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:24 am (UTC)

The other girls are all huddled together on the shore, a few minutes' walk from where the Baron dropped her. None of them is speaking or doing very much.

There is a certain physical resemblance between all of them, her included. Their height, the colour of their skin and hair, the shape of their faces.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:25 am (UTC)

"H-hello," says Odette.

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:25 am (UTC)

No one says anything. They look at her uncomprehendingly.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:26 am (UTC)

"I'm -"

Odette.

That's not her name - she doesn't even seem to be able to make something up, though, can't tell them she's called Bianka or Ingrid or Verena, it won't stick, the sentence won't happen.

She is almost too stunned to be angry, but she is angry enough to be twisty about it. She's not going to go by Odette. She's - she's going to nickname herself, that's it.

"I'm Etty. Who are you?"

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:27 am (UTC)

One of the women opens her mouth and makes a birdlike whistling sound.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:29 am (UTC)

"Can... you understand me?" Etty asks, stepping forward, frowning. "Nod if you can't speak."

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:30 am (UTC)

A different woman squawks and edges nervously backward.

No one nods.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:31 am (UTC)

"What happened to you?"

pythbox
2013-04-28 03:36 am (UTC)

It should be fairly clear at this point that no coherent answer is forthcoming, and indeed there isn't.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 03:48 am (UTC)

Yeah, Etty's getting that.

Keeping a half an eye on the... flock of girls... she starts a circuit of the lake, venturing away from shore into the surrounding forest periodically, scoping out her - new home, pessimistically; starting point from which she'll venture to rescue, optimistically. She wants hiding places in which to stash things she may acquire; sources of food, like nuts or berries, because she has no idea what she'll be fed or how regularly; and any interestingly shaped rocks that could allow the creation of tools. Or weapons. Maybe she can alternatively break the curse by stabbing the bastard.

pythbox
2013-04-28 11:56 am (UTC)

There are some interestingly shaped rocks around, and plenty of trees and bushes, some of which are indeed the sort that produce nuts or berries. In fact there is even an orchard next to the castle, surrounded by a wall but with the gate unlocked.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 04:50 pm (UTC)

Etty takes inventory of the orchard, and takes some fruit for right then - food helps one to stay awake, and if she's going to turn into a bird at dawn, she's going to be as nocturnal as possible to make the most of having hands. She's also going to try flying away, of course, but if that worked -

Then there probably wouldn't be a flock of braindead girls who look so much like her at the lake, now, would there.

On the other hand she can easily believe that none of them were particularly clever about less straightforward means of escape. Maybe she can cut his cloak and he won't be able to fly and then - well, she'll have to think this through now, even without that he'll be easily able to overpower her. She'll think.

She wishes she had paper.

She finishes her circuit of the lake and goes back through the orchard to investigate the castle itself.

pythbox
2013-04-28 06:20 pm (UTC)

The front door of the castle is enormous, forbidding, and closed.

There are other doors.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:21 pm (UTC)

Etty... considers the value of information very high right now.

She tries a side door.

pythbox
2013-04-28 06:24 pm (UTC)

The side door creaks rustily open.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:26 pm (UTC)

Etty slips in with as little creaking as she can manage, judges the wind gentle enough not to slam the door shut if she declines to re-close it, and proceeds into the castle cautiously.

growcrooked
2013-04-28 06:28 pm (UTC)

In the distance, someone is crying.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:28 pm (UTC)

...

Etty follows that sound.

growcrooked
2013-04-28 06:33 pm (UTC)

It leads her, with a few acoustic detours, to a room at the top of a tower. It's a beautiful room, containing beautiful furniture and a beautiful canopied bed, and in the bed is a girl who may or may not be beautiful under normal circumstances but is currently red-eyed and tear-streaked and cocooned in a tangle of beautiful sheets.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:36 pm (UTC)

"...Hello," breathes Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-28 06:39 pm (UTC)

She blinks and sniffs and looks at Etty.

"Oh," she says, her voice wavering. "You must be the new one."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:40 pm (UTC)

"...I guess."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 06:44 pm (UTC)

The girl wipes her face distractedly with one hand and swings her legs over the edge of the bed, not particularly bothered that her sheet cocoon is gradually sliding off.

"Did he bring you just now?"

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Tonight. I don't know how many minutes. I walked around the lake first."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 06:49 pm (UTC)

She nods.

"Why'd you come up here?"

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:50 pm (UTC)

"I was - exploring - and I heard you."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Nobody else ever did that."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:54 pm (UTC)

"They can't have all been so - despairing as to not even look for tools to get away in the obvious places. Can they? Whatever they are now." A shudder of fear goes through her. "Will that happen to me?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 06:57 pm (UTC)

"It takes years," says the stranger. "Years and years. I don't know how many. And then when you're too far gone he'll find another one."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 06:59 pm (UTC)

"What are we for?"

And -

"They all look my age."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:20 pm (UTC)

"So do I," she snorts. "It doesn't mean anything. You're for the Baron. I don't know what he does with you; I've never looked."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Who are you, why are you here?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:22 pm (UTC)

"The Baron is my father."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I hate him," she adds. "I want to kill him. But we're both immortal, as long as there's a flock..."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:30 pm (UTC)

"He told me how to break the curse, for some reason, but even if I assume he's telling the truth..."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Of course he did. He's not going to let you do it. The last time a man fell in love with Odette, he wrapped me in spells and made me go seduce him."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:36 pm (UTC)

"And now I suppose he's made it even harder to. Meet people, than it was then," murmrs Etty. "- Don't call me Odette. I can't remember what it should be instead, but. Etty."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Don't call me Odile," says the girl, smiling crookedly. "But I can't think of anything I like better."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:40 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want me to think of something?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:42 pm (UTC)

"If you want," she shrugs.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I'll think about it," Etty says. "...Is it safe for me to be here? Do you ever come out to the lake?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I've never done it before. I don't know what he'll do if he finds you here. Probably not anything you'll like."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:47 pm (UTC)

"That would be in keeping with the trend. Does he come to this room much?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Plenty."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:50 pm (UTC)

Etty considers this.

She looks around the room for hiding places.

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:52 pm (UTC)

Under the bed is probably the best prospect.

Not-Odile watches her curiously.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm trying to figure out where to hide if he comes up the stairs while I'm here."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:56 pm (UTC)

The sheet wrapped around her shoulders has been falling off all this time; it finally drops away.

"He'll know you're here, I bet," she says. "He always knows where I'm hiding."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:58 pm (UTC)

Etty - looks a moment longer than really seems prudent, then drops her eyes.

"How does he do it? More magic?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Probably," she says, declining to cover herself.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Are - you sure you wouldn't rather - put on some clothes -?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:00 pm (UTC)

"...Why?"

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Most people prefer it, in company."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't think you're going to fuck me, so what do I care?"

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:07 pm (UTC)

Etty swallows. This person is the only friendly individual remotely accessible. If she wants any help getting out she'll have to accommodate her, at least on minor subjects. "As you like."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:08 pm (UTC)

"...Something wrong?"

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Apart from my having been kidnapped and cursed?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:10 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "Guess not, then."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:11 pm (UTC)

"So someone managed to claim an unclaimed heart before? How did that happen?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Some prince was out hunting and almost shot her, then she turned human and he was smitten on the spot, apparently. He was very sweet to her. When the Baron sent me to him it was the best a man has ever treated me."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:15 pm (UTC)

"- Then what happened?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:17 pm (UTC)

"He found out I wasn't really Odette and panicked and went to her and they threw themselves in the lake. When they died it loosed the flock and the Baron had to run and get another one to get his immortality back. I wish I'd killed him when I had the chance."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:35 pm (UTC)

"He specified that I couldn't drown myself."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:36 pm (UTC)

She snorts.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:37 pm (UTC)

"I haven't tested it," Etty adds.

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to?"

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Things would have to be worse than they have been so far. Or I'd have to be able to accomplish a lot by dying that I couldn't do any other way."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:42 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 08:44 pm (UTC)

"You really don't know what he's going to do with me?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I hear him shouting at them sometimes," she offers. "He does that a lot. To me, too."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Why? What about?"

growcrooked
2013-04-28 11:40 pm (UTC)

"He tells me I'm a baron's daughter and I need to act like it," she says. "You, he named after my mother, so maybe he'll scream at you for leaving him."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 11:42 pm (UTC)

"He named me after your mother?". Etty does not have words for how twisted that is.

growcrooked
2013-04-28 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if he'll want to fuck you, but it wouldn't surprise me," she adds.

mute_pen
2013-04-28 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I - I - thank you for warning me," whispers Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-28 11:53 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter shrugs.

"You're welcome, I suppose. Me, I wouldn't wager that it helps to know ahead of time."

mute_pen
2013-04-28 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps, but - it would not be a pleasant surprise."

growcrooked
2013-04-28 11:55 pm (UTC)

"True enough."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 01:04 am (UTC)

"Do you know - any details about how the curse works? If I am the first to do something so obvious as walk through an unlocked door there might be hope."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 01:10 am (UTC)

"Less than you do, I think. Except - when the Baron sent me to seduce that prince, I was supposed to make him say he loved me."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 01:12 am (UTC)

"Something about the unclaimed heart. Probably. If he said he loved you then his heart wouldn't be properly unclaimed for his Odette?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 01:13 am (UTC)

"I guess. He didn't give me reasons."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 01:16 am (UTC)

"You said man, earlier - he didn't specify - his omission or were you just supposing...?"

Etty has known about herself for years and kept quiet, but here there is information to be gained and so little to lose.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 01:21 am (UTC)

"There's only ever been the one, and he was a man."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 01:22 am (UTC)

"But as far as you know the curse doesn't care."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 01:22 am (UTC)

"I don't know at all."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 01:26 am (UTC)

"Mm."

There is a question to ask of this (stark naked) girl, but it could offend; Etty will save it till she's sure there is nothing else she needs from her.

"Do you know what's the first thing to go when Odettes - deteriorate? And - is there any way I could get something to write with, and on?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 01:32 am (UTC)

"I don't know anything about the early times," she says, shaking her head. "I can give you pens and inks and books, that's simple enough -" and she gets up, abandoning her sheets, and rummages in the drawers of an enormous oak desk.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:27 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Etty, heartfelt. "...What do you know about the later times?"

She thinks of blank staring faces. And swan sounds. And shivers.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 12:31 pm (UTC)

"I've been to the lake when he was out looking for a new one," she says. "I've seen what they're like when they're all used up."

She returns carrying a blank scroll, a pen, and an inkwell, all of which she hands to Etty.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 03:37 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah. So've I. Do you think it's sudden or gradual?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Gradual. That's how the magic works," she says. "If he took them all at once he couldn't use them to make us immortal."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 03:40 pm (UTC)

"...So if I break the curse you're going to die."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Not right away," she says. "Unless I try to kill him and he kills me first. I just won't be young and beautiful forever anymore. But I'm tired of being young and beautiful."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Of being young and beautiful," murmurs Etty, "or just of the circumstances you have to do it in?"
Edited 2013-04-29 15:44 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 03:47 pm (UTC)

She snorts. "It's the same thing, isn't it? I don't really think I can kill him. I just know I'm going to try, next chance I get."
Edited 2013-04-29 15:47 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-04-29 03:48 pm (UTC)

"What makes him hard to kill besides the part where he's immortal?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 03:51 pm (UTC)

"He's twice my size, a trained swordsman, a sorcerer, and sometimes when I look at him I can't think for screaming?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 03:53 pm (UTC)

"...Those are all things that might make someone hard to kill."

Etty thinks.

"How does one learn sorcery?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 03:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I've tried. I've picked up a few things just living with him, but when he caught me with one of his books—" She shakes her head. "I catch fire if I try the library door, now."
Edited 2013-04-29 15:55 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-04-29 03:56 pm (UTC)

Etty hisses a sharp indrawn breath. "Eegh."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:00 pm (UTC)

"So I can light candles and freeze raindrops and make my rooms tidy themselves, but I can't do anything useful."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:01 pm (UTC)

"I take it the spells for candles and raindrops won't work on a person. At least not him."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:05 pm (UTC)

"You think I've never tried lighting his beard on fire? He put it out. I suppose I could freeze a drop of his spit but I don't see how it'd help."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:06 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking freezing his blood. Or the fluid in his spine, or his brain."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:08 pm (UTC)

"One raindrop's worth at a time, when I can't see any of it? Stabbing him would be surer."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:09 pm (UTC)

"A small ice crystal in the heart could - well, if it were sharp, otherwise I suppose it would just melt harmlessly," muses Etty, nibbling her lip.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:11 pm (UTC)

"You've a vicious turn of mind," she snorts. "I like that. But he's by far a better mage than I am. If I try a little trick like that, he'll catch me, and then he'll be on his guard and it'll be that much harder to get him on the next try."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:13 pm (UTC)

"I didn't have a vicious turn of mind until a few hours ago. Adversity makes me creative."

And:

"Pardon me if I offend. But. I don't suppose by any chance you have never loved before?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Not once."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:15 pm (UTC)

Etty lets the obvious conclusions hang in the air for a moment.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to try loving you?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Absent other ways out. If you could."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she says, perching on the edge of her bed. "I've never tried."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I'm unlovable. Although I've tried to avoid - attention - from men in my village, and doubt any women would have dared tell me if they were interested any more than I cared to chance whispering to them."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Avoiding attention," she says. "Isn't that a dream."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps we'll be out of here soon. Or if not me," she shrugs, "then - the next, I suppose, or the one after, if this goes on indefinitely, and you'd still have the chance to save yourself and all who'd have come after."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:25 pm (UTC)

"I'll try with you," she decides. "You, I like."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:26 pm (UTC)

Etty smiles a little bit. "Let me know if I can do anything in particular to help."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, tell me about you," she suggests. "I hardly know anything about who you are. Maybe princes can fall in love with just a pretty face, but I think I need a little more to go on."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:35 pm (UTC)

Etty sits on the floor and pulls her knees up to her chin. "I grew up in Astgabels. In Diotaland - are we even still in Diotaland? I have little enough sense of geography that I don't know how far he carried me. My mother died when I was small so it's just been me and my father, Carl. He's the sheriff. I kept house, but I had time to read - I was friends with the bookseller's daughter; she'd loan me things - and write. I mostly write about my own thoughts. I spend a lot of time in my head. That's what I wanted this for," and she lifts the blank scroll. "Especially since now I must fear forgetting - everything. Not just slippery brief thoughts."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:38 pm (UTC)

"We're in Diotaland," she says. "Though my knowledge of geography isn't much better. I've only ever left the lake that once."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I have not often traveled either. To a few neighboring towns, to buy things, not otherwise. But unworldly though I may be, I am puzzled about why the Kaiser calmly tolerates a baron who has been routinely kidnapping and draining the minds out of girls."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't know, doesn't care, couldn't do anything about it if he did?" she suggests. "One of those, or maybe all three."
Edited 2013-04-29 16:44 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps. Although - if it takes years to drain each, if the flock I saw is the second - there may have been more than one Kaiser since this began. I have heard that the royal court employs a sorcerer. Perhaps he is not a very good sorcerer, or the rumor was mistaken."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it's been lifetimes," she says, nodding. "When the prince came, it was his mother who ruled. That must have been fifty years back at least. Maybe more like a hundred."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:51 pm (UTC)

"You haven't been counting," observes Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:51 pm (UTC)

"What would be the point?"
Edited 2013-04-29 16:52 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:53 pm (UTC)

"To know. To have an idea of how much the world outside the lake and the castle might have changed since the last time you had a look."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm probably never going to see the world outside the lake again. I don't have anything to look forward to except my father's death or mine, and after the prince I was sure I'd never see either, until you showed up. Now - " She sighs. "I have no idea."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Carl must be frantic. I'm sure I woke him when I screamed or he might have gone without noticing till dawn, but..."
Edited 2013-04-29 16:58 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Is he likely to make trouble about you? The baron might have gone to kill him, if so."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:00 pm (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," she adds.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:01 pm (UTC)

Etty covers her face with both hands and attempts to cry very quietly.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:02 pm (UTC)

For a few seconds, she just watches.

Then she picks up a blanket and wraps it gently around Etty's shoulders.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:05 pm (UTC)

Etty tucks the blanket in around herself and continues to weep. "I know your father is - is who he is - but mine, I love him, and he would make trouble, does the Baron know that? How would he know, when he just picked me up out of the yard...?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:06 pm (UTC)

"He would've been watching you first," she says. "He does that. He's gone for months, sometimes, when he's looking for a new Odette. Has to find just the right one."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:07 pm (UTC)

Etty whimpers.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:09 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter leads her gently to the bed and sits her down and hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:10 pm (UTC)

Etty cries on her shoulder, quite effectively distracted from the nudity at this point.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:11 pm (UTC)

"You can cry all you want," she says, "I don't mind."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I think," sniffs Etty, "I'll be done soon. It won't help him if I cry. Or me, or you, or anyone."

There's an odd creeping warm feeling up her back. Sunrise approaching, maybe, she has no idea what it feels like to turn into a swan, but when she lifts her head and wipes the blur out of her eyes the sky out the window is as dark and starry as before.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:30 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter hugs her some more. "I know what you mean," she murmurs. "But sometimes I cry anyway."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I know," says Etty ruefully, and she hugs back.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:32 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Snuggly blankety hugs.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I am so afraid of losing my mind," Etty murmurs. "Of writing so carefully so I don't forget and one day looking at the scroll and not remembering what it's for, or not being able to read it."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I know," she says. "It'll be years, at least. Years and years."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Depends on what goes first. I don't know why he cares if Odettes have minds left, but it's probably not for our literacy or our introspection."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I don't think what the Baron wants matters that much to how the spell works, or there wouldn't be a way to break it like there is."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Did he just - find the entire curse in a book, or is part of how you build spells a matter of obeying restrictions like allowing a way to break them?"
Edited 2013-04-29 17:43 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:43 pm (UTC)

I'm supposed to know?" she snorts. "I just know he wouldn't have made it like that if he'd had a choice."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:44 pm (UTC)

"No," agrees Etty, sighing, "I suppose he wouldn't. How do you light candles and freeze raindrops?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:46 pm (UTC)

"With magic," she says, leaning her head on Etty's shoulder. "I don't know how to teach it; I've never tried before."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:47 pm (UTC)

"But - what do you do, are there steps or is it just like lifting your arm?" Tentatively, thoughtfully, Etty lifts her hand to rest it on the other girl's hair.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:51 pm (UTC)

She snuggles up a little, smiling.

"I just look at the candle," she yawns, "and make it burn. It takes a little time, but it's more fun than the other way."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Hm."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Hm?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:54 pm (UTC)

"...It's not almost dawn, is it? I feel - odd."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so. The sky's still dark."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:55 pm (UTC)

"That's what I thought. There's this odd warm feeling. But if I'm not about to turn into a swan I don't know what it could be."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:56 pm (UTC)

"I have warm feelings too," she offers.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:58 pm (UTC)

Etty blinks. "Do you think it's the same thing?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:58 pm (UTC)

"...Mm?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 05:59 pm (UTC)

"My odd warm feeling and your odd warm feeling. Do you think they're related or were you just saying?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Mine's not odd at all. It's nice, I like it."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Mine's - nice, I guess, it's just confusing, it's like someone's laid their arm against my spine and has their hand on the back of my neck. And I don't know why that should be because that's not where your arm actually is."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Mine's not like that," says the baron's daughter.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:02 pm (UTC)

"What is it, then?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Warm," she says. "And nice. Do you want to come into bed with me?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:05 pm (UTC)

"We're already sitting on - I - what do you mean?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I mean do you want to come into bed with me and share my blankets and hug like we're doing," she says. "I'd like that."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:08 pm (UTC)

Etty thinks about this, then nods and repositions.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:11 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter crawls under the blankets with her and snuggles up, tucking her arm around Etty's waist and putting her head on Etty's shoulder again.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:12 pm (UTC)

This is comfy.

And Etty has been up all night.

"I might fall asleep," she mumbles.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Is it bad if you do? I could pinch you to keep you awake," she offers.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Etty. "Soon enough I'll turn into a swan. I don't know if I'll start out knowing how to fly, so I might not like to be put out the window."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:15 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

"I'll carry you out the gate."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:16 pm (UTC)

"You think he's - away, then. Going back to Astgabels."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't know where he is, but he's not here."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:19 pm (UTC)

"All right. Am I going to think like a swan when I'm a swan, do you know?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:22 pm (UTC)

"If you do, I'm going to have a hell of a time getting you out of my room," she giggles.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes, probably," says Etty with a weak chuckle.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:24 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:26 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

Etty really may fall asleep.

She closes her eyes.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:26 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:28 pm (UTC)

Sleepy and warm and sleepy -

Etty drops off into sleep and begins murmuring soft words.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:30 pm (UTC)

It's sweet. She smiles.

Eventually, dawn comes, and the baron's daughter is cuddling a white swan with beautiful soft feathers.
Edited 2013-04-29 18:30 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:37 pm (UTC)

The transformation doesn't wake Etty; she sleeps a few hours longer.

And then she opens her eyes.

Being a swan is strange. It doesn't hurt - it doesn't feel like she's been mangled into this shape - but it's not fully natural either; she's the bird equivalent of an infant who can't find her toes. (Though she is a grown swan, not a cygnet. She figures this out in the course of learning how to operate her spectacularly flexible neck; her wings and feet are quite pinned in the cuddling.)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:39 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter sleeps on.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:40 pm (UTC)

She really is very pretty.

Etty bends her neck every which way, which takes a long while given all the options, and then she starts trying to extract a wing.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:41 pm (UTC)

The blankets aren't so tangled as to make escape truly impossible.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:43 pm (UTC)

With her wings out, Etty manages to fumble her way across the bed so she won't disturb the baron's daughter as she experiments with the new joints and the sensation of wind resistance when she moves. Her feet also take some figuring; the knees bend the wrong way and she's got the wrong number of toes.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:49 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter wakes.

"Oh, you," she murmurs. "Aren't you pretty."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:51 pm (UTC)

Etty dips her head.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:53 pm (UTC)

"You are," she says, delighted. "D'you want the window or the door?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 06:56 pm (UTC)

Etty's pretty sure she can't really walk, let alone fly - though she's definitely going to try flying, soon - and she turns her head in the direction of the door.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

She walks over and picks Etty up, and then she carries her out of the room and down the tower stairs.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:02 pm (UTC)

Etty nestles comfortably in her arms for this trip. But halfway down the stairs she finds her voice and peeps a soft swan noise.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Mm? What is it?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:04 pm (UTC)

Can swans give withering looks? This one is going to try. She cannot answer the question. But she can lift her head up and look over the baron's daughter's shoulder back the way they came.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says, puzzled, and she carries Etty back up.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:08 pm (UTC)

Etty points her beak at the scroll and ink and pen.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that," she says, and puts down her armful of swan, and frowns thoughtfully.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:10 pm (UTC)

Etty looks up at her. Surely she can just make two trips if she can make one? But she can't ask.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I'll bring it out to you later," she says, and picks Etty up again.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:16 pm (UTC)

Etty nods and settles her head on her own back for the ride. (It's kind of fun to do that once she's gotten over the concern that she will injure herself doing it.)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:18 pm (UTC)

Down they go.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:19 pm (UTC)

Etty waits to be put down. Not particularly impatiently. The baron's daughter is pleasant to be held by.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:20 pm (UTC)

Just outside another of the side doors, the baron's daughter puts her down, then leans down and kisses her on the beak.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:23 pm (UTC)

This surprises a little sound out of Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:24 pm (UTC)

She grins.

"Can you get in the orchard?" she asks. "I'll leave your things there."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:25 pm (UTC)

Etty is not sure.

She tries walking a step.

It doesn't work very well, and she's not used to catching herself when she's working with wings instead of arms.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:26 pm (UTC)

"...Can you get in there when you're human, though?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:27 pm (UTC)

Etty nods.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:40 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "Okay. Then that's where I'll put it. He hardly ever goes there."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:42 pm (UTC)

Etty nods again, then tries walking some more. She's not very good at it; if she thinks through each step in full detail she overbalances halfway through and if she tries to speed up she forgets how her joints work.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:49 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:50 pm (UTC)

Etty clacks her beak at the baron's daughter. She stumbles over to the water, where at least she can expect to float if she forgets how to work her legs.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:51 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter goes back inside.

A little while later, she hides pen and ink and scroll in the orchard.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:55 pm (UTC)

Etty divides her day between napping - so she'll be able to stay up all night - and figuring out how swans work. She can flap her wings by the end of the day, but hasn't worked out how to actually take off.

She sits on the shore when the sun starts going down.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 07:59 pm (UTC)

The other swans all cluster on the shore by the castle as the sun sets.

There is a definite warning - a heaviness in her limbs, a fizzing in her bones. It goes on for a little while, as the sun sinks below the treetops; when the glow is fading from the western horizon, the change finally happens. All at once, she's a woman again, complete with pretty white dress.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 07:59 pm (UTC)

Well -

Strange sensation, that, not something she'd do recreationally, but it could be worse.

Etty gets up and heads for the orchard.
Edited 2013-04-29 20:17 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 08:46 pm (UTC)

The orchard is right up next to the castle, and of its four walls, the one that it shares with the castle grounds is thick enough to walk on.

Someone is standing on it.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 08:47 pm (UTC)

Etty waves.
Edited 2013-04-29 20:49 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 08:52 pm (UTC)

The baron's daughter waves back. She appears to have put on clothes of some kind.

Then she climbs over the edge of the wall and drops to the floor of the orchard. It makes an unpleasant sound when she lands.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 08:54 pm (UTC)

Etty blinks.

Then she moves - at a brisk walk; she knows how these legs work but that doesn't mean they work well - around to the gate and into the orchard.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 08:57 pm (UTC)

She walks up to the orchard gate not long after Etty steps through it.

The clothes are her fathers - is her father's, a shirt and nothing else. It hangs loose, half-buttoned. She isn't wearing shoes. If the fall injured her, she shows no sign of it.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 08:58 pm (UTC)

"- Are you okay? That's - a drop."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 08:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm immortal," she shrugs. "And the Baron thinks scars are unladylike, so I heal clean."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:00 pm (UTC)

"But doesn't it hurt?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Not that much. I've had plenty worse."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I heard a noise, it sounded like you broke a bone."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, my ankle. It's all better now, see?" She twirls, moving lightly on both feet.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:05 pm (UTC)

"...I guess you got used to it after however many decades?" ventures Etty uncertainly.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Breaking bones is nothing new," she agrees.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Why are you dressed like that?" Etty asks next.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I hate wearing my dresses, but it's not comfortable being out here naked."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:08 pm (UTC)

"What's wrong with your dresses?" She has many complaints about her situation, but her white feather dress isn't really one of them.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:09 pm (UTC)

"He makes me wear them."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:12 pm (UTC)

Etty looks down at her own outfit. "I haven't even been yelled at yet, and yet if I were to list the sources of my displeasure the fact that I did not choose this dress would not rate highly."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:14 pm (UTC)

"That's you," says the baron's daughter. "I'm me. We're not the same."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:16 pm (UTC)

"That is true."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:19 pm (UTC)

"And you might not care about wearing dresses, but I care that my father beats me when I wear clothes he doesn't like, so I do it whenever I don't think he'll catch me."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:20 pm (UTC)

Etty nods.

"I thought of some name ideas, today," she says. "While I was trying to learn to work wings."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:22 pm (UTC)

She smiles.

"Tell me!"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:23 pm (UTC)

"My favorite is 'Nona', but if you don't like it I have second and third choices."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Nona's pretty. What are the other ones?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Verena. Saskia."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I like Nona best," she decides, and she gives Etty a hug.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:26 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:27 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Cuddly snuggly warm lovey hugs.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:28 pm (UTC)

"That odd feeling is back. Well, it didn't leave, but it's changed," observes Etty. "I think it has something to do with you."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it's the spell, telling you I love you."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:29 pm (UTC)

"- Do you?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I've never done it before, how should I know? But I like you plenty," she says, snuggling her some more.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:32 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"...If the curse tells me, does it tell him, too?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:34 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. But I think he would've come roaring back here already if he knew."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:35 pm (UTC)

Etty nods slowly. "Makes sense."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:35 pm (UTC)

Nona shrugs.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should pay close attention to when the sensation changes."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:37 pm (UTC)

"What for?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:38 pm (UTC)

Etty decides to summarize the reason as: "Impatience."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:38 pm (UTC)

"What's that supposed to mean?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:40 pm (UTC)

"If it's giving me useful information about what's helping, with the cursebreaking - then I could do more of whatever helps," shrugs Etty. "If it's smart feedback, anyway, it might not be."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:42 pm (UTC)

"What exactly breaks the curse, anyway? Or do you not know?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:43 pm (UTC)

"He said that if someone who has never loved before swears to love me forever, then the curse would be broken."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:44 pm (UTC)

"...Do they have to mean it?" she wonders.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:45 pm (UTC)

"He... didn't say. I suppose you could just try reciting a sentence to that effect, to see."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:50 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "I promise to love you forever," she says.

The curse gives Etty a cold shiver.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:51 pm (UTC)

"...The spell doesn't like it," Etty reports.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:51 pm (UTC)

"So I guess I have to mean it," she says. "...How do I mean it?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I've never been in love before at all."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, have you ever kept a promise?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes - of course. Little ones."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 09:56 pm (UTC)

"How do they work?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Someone asks me to promise something - Carl asks me to promise to be careful walking in the rain, Annika asks me to have a book back in three days - or seems unsure about something I might do - the butcher's not sure I really only left my coinpurse at home and will pay him tomorrow, the neighbor's not sure I'll tell Carl about needing to repair the fence -" She swallows a little when she mentions her father. "And I say I promise, and it means that I will try particularly hard, that as long as it's in my control it will happen and that I think it is in my control."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I don't think loving you is very much in my control," she says. "And forever's a long time."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:01 pm (UTC)

"It is a very long time," agrees Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I promise I'll do my best to love you forever," she tries.

It's not unpleasant, this time, but it definitely didn't work.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Didn't work," Etty sighs. "Not as - cold, though."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's better?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:07 pm (UTC)

"I guess."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," she says, and hugs her again.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"Where did you hide the paper and pen?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Over here."

She leads Etty to a corner of the orchard where some big loose rocks are piled. The end of the scroll is just peeking out of the gap between two of them.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:13 pm (UTC)

"...If I leave it here even after writing on it, are you going to read it?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. Do you want me to?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:17 pm (UTC)

"No."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay, then I won't." She grins. "I promise."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:21 pm (UTC)

"You seem sufficiently confused by the concept of promises that I'm not sure what to read into that."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, you just explained them, didn't you?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I suppose I did." She chews her lip. "Don't take it personally if I decide to move it anyway - sometimes I'm paranoid."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says agreeably.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:26 pm (UTC)

It's going to be hard to write in the dark, but she has all night every night to let her eyes adjust, Etty supposes. She starts looking for a flat rock that will be suitable for writing on.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:28 pm (UTC)

There's one on top of the pile that should do nicely.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:29 pm (UTC)

Excellent. And she's not going to be able to see any letters she puts down, yet, and Nona's standing right there, so it is not yet time to do her processing. "Is he still away?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I guess he is. He usually goes to the lake first, when he comes home from something."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Maybe Carl is hard to kill."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Maybe!"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:32 pm (UTC)

"But probably not."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:32 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:32 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:34 pm (UTC)

Hug hug.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm afraid," murmurs Etty. "Of what will happen when he comes back."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:37 pm (UTC)

"It's scary," says Nona, hugging her. "I'm sorry."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Why is he like this, what happened - or has it always been this way?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember it that well," she says. "I was - well, about the age I look, when Mother left. A little older when he finally brought her back."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm seventeen," volunteers Etty after a silence.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember how old I am."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Do you know what year you were born?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:47 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:48 pm (UTC)

"It's 1878 now."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:50 pm (UTC)

Nona shrugs.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Transforming isn't as bad as it could be, and being a swan isn't terrible except that I can't talk - or write," Etty comments idly. "I didn't figure out how to fly today, but I might tomorrow."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I hope you do," she says. "I bet it's fun."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I bet it is too."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:55 pm (UTC)

Nona grins.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 10:57 pm (UTC)

"I guess you don't turn into any kind of bird."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 10:58 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:00 pm (UTC)

"What do you do all day," wonders Etty, "if you can't go into the library anymore?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Eat. Sleep. Cry. Climb things. Fall off of them. Tidy the castle. Fuck myself."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:04 pm (UTC)

Etty permits herself a blink at that last.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:05 pm (UTC)

"What?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I don't usually hear people talking about that."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:08 pm (UTC)

"You asked me what I do all day. I do a lot of that."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:10 pm (UTC)

"I suppose you do have to occupy yourself somehow." She chews her lip. "...Is the bit about catching fire in the library just you, or could I go in?"

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. But if you catch fire, you might not live through it, so I wouldn't try it if I were you."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:11 pm (UTC)

"So us swan types are only eternally youthful, and not invulnerable," concludes Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:12 pm (UTC)

"He could've changed something after the prince, but if he did, I don't know about it."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I'll only try it if I become so bored or desperate as to risk immolation, then."
Edited 2013-04-29 23:14 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:15 pm (UTC)

"People say burning is the worst death. Are they right?" asks Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:17 pm (UTC)

"It hurts a lot. I don't know if it's the worst death; I've never died."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:17 pm (UTC)

"I imagine the dying part is roughly similar in all cases."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I've done a lot of things people die from, but it's different when you're immortal. I've been set on fire and beaten and raped, and I've jumped off the top of the tower and tried to drown myself in the lake and eaten rat poison and broken glass. Fire hurts the most while it's happening, but it doesn't last as long as some of the rest - but I don't know if it'd kill you faster or slower."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:45 pm (UTC)

Etty shivers.

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:46 pm (UTC)

"What?"

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:47 pm (UTC)

"It's - gruesome."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:48 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

"That's my life."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe it's fixable."

growcrooked
2013-04-29 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Maybe."

mute_pen
2013-04-29 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Do you think you could teach me to light - does it have to be candles, or could I burn leaves and tinder and the like? I think I can adjust to this level of moonlight and be able to write, but the moon will wane, and I don't know how - how long it might take to break the curse."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 12:00 am (UTC)

"I have no idea," she says. "But if you light anything, he'll see it from the castle. And there'll be hell to pay if he sees you doing magic, I bet."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 12:05 am (UTC)

"Even if I go deep into the woods? Or as deep as I can, anyway, I don't know yet what's keeping me from walking or flying away but it must exist."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 12:07 am (UTC)

"Maybe not. And I guess he can't hurt you as bad as he can hurt me, or you'll die and he'll have to find a new flock again."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 12:09 am (UTC)

"Do you know if I heal - clean, like you do? If he breaks my legs or something - for that matter what happens when I transform, if I'm hurt?"

growcrooked
2013-04-30 12:10 am (UTC)

Nona shrugs.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 12:27 am (UTC)

"Well," sighs Etty, "no need to hasten the experiment, I'm sure to trip and scrape my knee soon enough."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 12:37 am (UTC)

"Do you do that a lot?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 12:48 am (UTC)

"I'm very clumsy. Even when I'm not adjusting to an unfamiliar body."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 12:48 am (UTC)

"Oh." She shrugs again.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 12:53 am (UTC)

Etty's hands twist together. "Do you suppose it will help," she says, "if I fall in love with you?"

growcrooked
2013-04-30 12:54 am (UTC)

"I don't know. It might. Do you want to?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 12:54 am (UTC)

"- There are reasons to want to. Overall I haven't added them up yet."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 12:55 am (UTC)

"Okay."

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:18 am (UTC)

All of a sudden, the curse gives Etty another inexplicable feeling.

This one is very insistently directional.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:19 am (UTC)

Etty stiffens.

"I think I have to go," she whispers, and she lurches to her feet and stumbles in the direction of the gate.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 01:22 am (UTC)

"Good luck," Nona whispers back.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:23 am (UTC)

Etty's shaking by the time she exits the orchard. She trembles her way in the direction the curse pulls her.

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:24 am (UTC)

The Baron is waiting by the lakeshore, wearing his owl-cape.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:25 am (UTC)

Etty slows down as she gets closer.

She does not - quite - stop, till she's about five feet away.

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:26 am (UTC)

He beckons her closer. The curse doesn't have anything to say about that.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:27 am (UTC)

She considers asking him what he wants.

But it's clear - at least in terms of what she is meant to be doing right at this moment - what he wants.

And she'll find out the rest of it.

She edges closer, shuffling step by shuffling step, keeping wary eyes on him.

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:28 am (UTC)

"Are you comfortable, my swan?" he inquires.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:30 am (UTC)

There are so many ways she could answer that.

She swallows, considers which ones will have the least effect on her ability to experiment with others effectively later, and says, "Yes."

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:35 am (UTC)

He nods, as though he expected that answer.

"Come up to the castle with me," he says, offering her his arm.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:37 am (UTC)

Etty has settled on a general strategy of pretending that this is some kind of civilized and appropriate behavior to which she does not strenuously object. This might make things go smoothly; if it doesn't she will assuredly have opportunities to try other things.

She links her arm with his, swallowing.

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:41 am (UTC)

The Baron smiles, a not especially pleasant expression, and leads her to the main gate. It swings open silently at their approach, and just as silently closes behind them.

They proceed in this way up to a dining hall, where he seats her on his right; he, of course, takes the seat at the head of the table. At a careless wave of his hand, all the dishes fill themselves with food.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:43 am (UTC)

So she's not going to be consistently obliged to live on fruit from the orchard, nor will she have to work out what swans eat. That's - well, she'll decide how good it is after he's done with her. She watches him, waiting for instructions or an example to follow; she has never eaten at a noble's table, let alone this one's.

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:45 am (UTC)

"Eat well, my swan," he says, and starts in on his food. He does not at least seem to hold himself to any high standard of table etiquette.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:45 am (UTC)

Etty concludes that she can serve herself, so she takes samples of everything and tastes them.

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:47 am (UTC)

It is mostly delicious and entirely expensive.

The Baron also doesn't seem inclined to make conversation over dinner.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:48 am (UTC)

This is reasonably likely to be the pleasantest part of the whole evening. Etty makes sure she's got enough food in her to last, and then slows down but diligently continues to interact with her meal.

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:54 am (UTC)

Eventually, the Baron finishes eating. He claps his hands sharply, and the remaining dishes clear themselves; then he stands and offers Etty his arm again.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:54 am (UTC)

She gets up.

She accepts the offered arm.

pythbox
2013-04-30 01:58 am (UTC)

He nods approvingly.

"You see, my swan, it is so much better when you keep to your place."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 01:58 am (UTC)

Etty ducks her head in a manner that could be interpreted as acknowledgment.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:01 am (UTC)

He smiles.

And leads her up a different tower than the one she visited before.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:03 am (UTC)

She follows him.

One of her bare feet slips on the step and she stumbles.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:03 am (UTC)

He catches her, holding her steady with his hands on her shoulders.

"You must be more careful, my swan," he murmurs.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:04 am (UTC)

Etty gulps, and nods, and replaces her feet where they are meant to go.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:04 am (UTC)

He keeps walking, now with more of his attention on where she puts her feet.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:05 am (UTC)

She doesn't fall again on the way up.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:06 am (UTC)

In that case, they reach his rooms without incident.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:06 am (UTC)

Etty is not a perfect actress.

She drags her feet a little, as they go.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:08 am (UTC)

The Baron frowns.

"Are you shy tonight, my swan?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:10 am (UTC)

"Shy?"

Her skin is crawling, she wants to hide in a closet somewhere forever, and neither person in this room knows her name.

Perhaps this adds up to "shy".

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:19 am (UTC)

He closes the door.

"There's no call to be nervous," he says, putting his arm around her shoulders and steering her toward the bed. "You'll do just fine."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:24 am (UTC)

"I - I -"

What was her plan if she found herself trapped in a situation where she had to actually marry? She didn't have a good one, really, mostly she'd been hoping desperately for Carl to live to be a hundred. Some combination of feigned illness and unfeigned foul temper and - possibly, if she were very, very lucky - telling the truth. She supposes.

She is not lucky.

Technically her strategy calls for letting him do as he likes - it will least interfere with trying to put him off in this way or that, later, and give her a baseline by which to judge her success or failure - but -

"Not - not tonight - please?" she squeaks.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:25 am (UTC)

"Shhhh," says the Baron.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:25 am (UTC)

"Please," breathes Etty.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:26 am (UTC)

"Shhhh, my swan."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:27 am (UTC)

She is not a good enough actress to be his swan according to plan right now.

She hugs herself and bows her head and weeps.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:32 am (UTC)

The Baron... does not let that stop him.

He is gentle, but he is not kind. He doesn't seem to expect that she get anything out of it. When he is finished, he kisses her and calls her his swan again and goes to sleep, ignoring her completely.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:37 am (UTC)

Etty lies still for a minute, paralyzed, and then she gets up and she grabs her dress from where it's crumpled on the floor and she clutches it to her chest and she runs, out the door, down the hall, down the stairs -

She slips.

She falls.

She tumbles and she lands and something breaks and she chokes out a sob.

pythbox
2013-04-30 02:38 am (UTC)

Nothing at all happens for at least an hour.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:39 am (UTC)

Her legs are bruised but not broken. Etty lets herself be a crumpled whimpering heap for fifteen minutes and then she drags herself to her feet by her good arm and steps more carefully to the door.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 02:43 am (UTC)

The main doors won't open; the nearest side door is far enough that by the time she finds it, Nona is not far behind.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 02:45 am (UTC)

Etty looks at Nona, and opens the door, and goes out into the orchard, and finds a tree to sit under and curl up and go on with her crying.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:52 am (UTC)

Nona follows her out and curls up next to her.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 03:44 pm (UTC)

This might take a while.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:02 pm (UTC)

That's okay. They have time.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:19 pm (UTC)

Does Nona want to sit there for the next hour listening to Etty sobbing and pretty much ignoring her?

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:20 pm (UTC)

Sure.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:21 pm (UTC)

Then after this hour she will be rewarded with dubious eye contact.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:28 pm (UTC)

She doesn't really know what to do.

But, well, here she is.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:29 pm (UTC)

"It'll be worse if I don't go next time," whispers Etty. "Won't it."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, probably," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:32 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if I can go, even so."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I know," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:34 pm (UTC)

"He was pretending such civility. I thought I could put him off. I couldn't."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:35 pm (UTC)

"He does that."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Does he really think on some level that I - that we - that -" She can't finish the sentence.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't think he cares. About anything. He just wants us to play along, and if we don't, he makes us."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:41 pm (UTC)

Etty wipes her eyes with her good hand.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she murmurs.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:44 pm (UTC)

Etty bows her head.

"I can't even write. Not left-handed in the dark."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she says again.
Edited 2013-04-30 16:49 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Tell me what I need to do," Etty says in a low voice, "that you can promise and mean it - tell me who I need to be -"

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:52 pm (UTC)

"...I don't think I can do that," she says. "You're already yourself, and I love you, don't I? I just don't know how to make promises about it."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:53 pm (UTC)

Etty drops her forehead onto her knee and sobs again.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 04:54 pm (UTC)

Nona curls up a little closer.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 04:59 pm (UTC)

When they touch, Etty flinches back with a strangled squeak.
Edited 2013-04-30 16:59 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:01 pm (UTC)

She settles back a little and doesn't say anything.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," whispers Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:02 pm (UTC)

"For - I know you're not him."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Me too. It's okay."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:04 pm (UTC)

Etty scrunches in on herself a bit more.

"I hope my wing is okay in the morning," she murmurs, cradling her hurt elbow.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if it will be."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't either. But if it is I can -" She shakes her head ruefully. "Try flying."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I bet flying is fun."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I bet."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:09 pm (UTC)

She sighs.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:10 pm (UTC)

Etty holds her arm in place and is quiet.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:12 pm (UTC)

They could probably stay like that for a while.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:13 pm (UTC)

They could.

Etty's certainly not going anywhere.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:14 pm (UTC)

And Nona doesn't want to leave her alone, and she's slept in worse places. So.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:15 pm (UTC)

Etty doesn't fall sleep.

She doesn't usually have nightmares, but there's no time like the present.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:16 pm (UTC)

Nona does fall asleep.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:43 pm (UTC)

Etty sits.

And cries, quietly, intermittently.

And at dawn she looks at the sun.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

The change comes.

Her wing is whole.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:46 pm (UTC)

That's good.

At least she isn't in physical pain anymore.

She tries the wing.

She makes a few false starts, getting lift and then not knowing what to do with it -

And then she's in the air, wobbly but aloft, and she smooths her flight and does her level best to travel in a straight line, away.

pythbox
2013-04-30 05:46 pm (UTC)

It goes well enough, for a little while, and then - is that the lake up ahead?

It is.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:47 pm (UTC)

Etty doesn't understand.

She turns towards the rising sun, flies that way, keeping it ahead of her -

pythbox
2013-04-30 05:52 pm (UTC)

And after a few minutes, she comes upon the lake again.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:53 pm (UTC)

She tries all the cardinal directions.

To approximately the same effect.

She half-lands, half-crashes into the lake in despair.

pythbox
2013-04-30 05:56 pm (UTC)

The other swans are mildly startled by her splashy landing.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 05:58 pm (UTC)

Etty ignores them.

She floats.

She puts her head on her back.

She closes her eyes and she sleeps.

summoned

mute_pen

Etty is awoken not by her transformation, but by her summons, a few minutes after dark. In her sleep, she drifted to shore; she's lying in human form - arm intact - half in and half out of the water when she feels it.

It's very insistent.

She cannot bring herself to move. She tries - she does; intellectually she knows it's the smart thing to do - but - she can't. Cannot get up and go to him.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:20 pm (UTC)

The summons goes on for several minutes, becoming increasingly urgent as it does.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 06:22 pm (UTC)

Etty curls up in a ball and weeps. The urgency is terrible, but it doesn't actually pick up her limbs for her, walk her around the lake - it's more like someone shouting into her ear that she must jump off the tower, she must, she must, and she can't, not now that she knows the crunching sound she makes when she hits the ground.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:24 pm (UTC)

The urgency stops.

A shadow crosses the sky.

The baron lands, transforms to his human shape, and picks her up off the ground by a hand around her throat.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 06:25 pm (UTC)

Etty scrunches her eyes shut and chokes and tries to pry his hand off her, not particularly effectively.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:26 pm (UTC)

"It's not nice to keep me waiting, Odette," he says softly.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Ulllk," chokes Etty.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:28 pm (UTC)

He sets her on her feet and slaps her across the face hard enough to knock her back into the lake.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 06:31 pm (UTC)

She lands with a splash - she gasps - that was a poor choice; her head's underwater -

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:32 pm (UTC)

As promised, she cannot drown.

She cannot breathe, but she cannot drown.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 06:36 pm (UTC)

Etty coughs and gasps in more water and coughs and gasps and flails and finally, finally manages to get her head above water and expel the contents of her lungs.
Edited 2013-04-30 18:40 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:41 pm (UTC)

The Baron stands over her and watches.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 06:42 pm (UTC)

Etty's attention is on getting water out and air in. She coughs, she gasps, she coughs, she swallows, she sucks in more air and lets it out.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:45 pm (UTC)

He can be very patient, when necessary.

He waits.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 06:47 pm (UTC)

Etty finally manages to get her breathing back under control. And less wet.

She suspects she's about to regret this.

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Now," says the Baron. "You won't keep me waiting like that again, will you, my swan?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 06:54 pm (UTC)

"I tried," she coughs. "I tried - I couldn't -"

pythbox
2013-04-30 06:56 pm (UTC)

"But you can," says the Baron. "You can. Get up."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:02 pm (UTC)

She tries.

Predictably enough, she slips in the mud, and she falls.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:06 pm (UTC)

The Baron just stands there.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:08 pm (UTC)

Etty gets up again, more slowly, shaking.

She lifts one hand to touch her aching throat.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Come up to the castle with me," says the Baron.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Please," whispers Etty. "Please don't."

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:13 pm (UTC)

"You will do as I say," says the Baron.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Please don't make me."

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:14 pm (UTC)

He picks her up by one arm and the front of her dress and tosses her into the lake.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:16 pm (UTC)

She manages to hold a breath when she's airborne, and doesn't nearly drown this time.

She holds her breath and stays underwater as long as she can.

Maybe if she could find a hollow reed she could fashion a snorkel and stay forever.

She doesn't have one. She surfaces.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:18 pm (UTC)

The Baron is standing on the shore.

"Come here," he says.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:19 pm (UTC)

She shrinks back, towards the center of the lake, till it's almost too deep to stand.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:21 pm (UTC)

The Baron transforms into his owl shape, swoops down on her, and grabs her out of the water.

He drops her in the middle of the lake, from enough of a height to knock the breath out of her on impact.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:25 pm (UTC)

The flailing and coughing lasts longer when she has to work out how to float, too.

She's not even sure if this is better or worse, is the problem. If he beats her, if she drowns, if she's dropped a hundred times, well, now she knows it will all be gone by morning. What he did to her before was not gone after it was done.

But of course it's not an either-or choice. Probably. He does not seem likely to weary of commanding her to follow him. Perhaps she can just stall until she's a swan again?

If she spends all night, every night, defying him and being punished for it, she'll have no chance to write.

She splutters and coughs and gasps and manages to tread water.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:28 pm (UTC)

The owl fishes her out of the water again and drops her on the shore.

The Baron puts his hands on her shoulders and squeezes where his talons were digging in a moment ago.

"Come with me," he says.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:29 pm (UTC)

Etty hisses in pain, shrinks in fear. "I'm begging you," she pleads, "please, please, please -"

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:31 pm (UTC)

He drags her to the edge of the water and shoves her into it facefirst, stepping on her back to prevent her from climbing out.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:32 pm (UTC)

Etty struggles to no avail. She holds her breath, as long as she can, and lets it out, and inhales water and chokes and squirms.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:34 pm (UTC)

The Baron holds her under for long enough that anyone else would definitely be dead.

Then he lets her up.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:36 pm (UTC)

She has practice, now, at recovering from lungsful of water.

She does.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:37 pm (UTC)

The Baron waits.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:38 pm (UTC)

"You can," she coughs, "pick me up and carry me wherever you want me to be - why do you need me to walk to it - why do you need me to pretend willing -"

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:41 pm (UTC)

"These tantrums are unbecoming, my swan."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I should like nothing better than to be so unbecoming that you never want to see me or touch me again!" Etty shrieks heedlessly.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:44 pm (UTC)

The Baron scowls thunderously and punches her in the stomach.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:45 pm (UTC)

Etty vomits lakewater and bile into the mud.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:45 pm (UTC)

When she appears to be finished, he grabs her by her hair and drags her upright and punches her again.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:47 pm (UTC)

Etty makes an abortive pained sound.

Till dawn. Till dawn. At dawn she will be fixed.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:51 pm (UTC)

The baron hits her again.

And again. And again. And again.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:52 pm (UTC)

Etty isn't even making noise anymore.

Just thinking dawn dawn dawn like a mantra to the rhythm of her own heartbeat, pounding in her ears.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:52 pm (UTC)

Dawn is many hours away, and the baron is extremely patient.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:54 pm (UTC)

He's not leaving her in much of a condition to be able to walk even if every fiber of her being wished it, nonetheless.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:57 pm (UTC)

Her walking is no longer the point.

When she's covered in bruises and no longer able to stand, he pushes her into the lake again and leaves.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 07:59 pm (UTC)

All right.

So -

There are choices.

Etty crawls to a point where she can rest her head in the mud without effortfully keeping her head above water, and she goes limp, and she contemplates these choices.

pythbox
2013-04-30 07:59 pm (UTC)

She is alone with her thoughts for the rest of the night.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:03 pm (UTC)

And then in the morning, she is healed.

And a swan.

She has been too pained to give in to exhaustion. Now she is not. She sits right where she is and puts her head on her back and falls asleep.

When she wakes, she flies.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 08:04 pm (UTC)

In the castle, someone is screaming.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:05 pm (UTC)

Etty has enough control over her path now to go by the windows.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 08:06 pm (UTC)

The screaming is not coming from anywhere she can directly see.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:08 pm (UTC)

Etty lands on the roof.

Maybe if she's on the roof when she changes again she can just dive off of it in response to the next summons. He doesn't seem to prefer to rape her when she's badly hurt. Based on one sample, anyway.

She sits.

She isn't sure she wants to know what's happening, but any, any clues could get her out, away -

growcrooked
2013-04-30 08:09 pm (UTC)

The screaming goes on for some time, and then stops.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:09 pm (UTC)

Etty waits for sunset.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:10 pm (UTC)

Sunset comes, and the summons with it.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:13 pm (UTC)

Etty transforms, and finds that the roof is - is really very high, when she can't fly.

She's not going to be able to jump.

"I'm -" she squeaks. And then louder. "I'm up here."

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:14 pm (UTC)

The summons continues.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:15 pm (UTC)

Etty sits on the roof.

After a moment she starts looking for a way down that doesn't call for wings.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:16 pm (UTC)

The roof is generally lacking in those. There are a few ways to climb down, but none of them look promising.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:18 pm (UTC)

She will inevitably fall if she tries one.

She peers at some of the pokier stones in the wall below her, dubiously, and shivers.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:19 pm (UTC)

A large owl takes off from one of the nearby towers and flies directly to her.

The Baron stands on the roof and folds his arms.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I couldn't get down," she whispers.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:21 pm (UTC)

"And if I take you down, will you come to dinner?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:21 pm (UTC)

She's -

Starving, actually.

"Yes."

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:22 pm (UTC)

The owl flies her down to just outside the front gate; the Baron leads her inside. The table fills itself.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:23 pm (UTC)

Etty eats.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:26 pm (UTC)

The Baron also eats.

And when he is finished, the table clears itself, and he gets up and puts his hand on her shoulder.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:28 pm (UTC)

She -

Looks at his hand.

She desperately needs to get at that scroll and process. She is going to fall apart if she doesn't, just completely fall to bits.

She's not going to have any chance if he beats her like he did last night.

She swallows.

And waits for an order.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Run along, my swan."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:36 pm (UTC)

Run -

Run along?

She gets up out of her chair slowly, keeping an eye on him.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:37 pm (UTC)

He lets go of her shoulder and turns away, apparently expecting her not to follow.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:38 pm (UTC)

Etty edges towards the door.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:38 pm (UTC)

The Baron ignores her.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:39 pm (UTC)

She lets herself out, and heads for the orchard.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:41 pm (UTC)

There is no one there.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 08:43 pm (UTC)

Right now, that is the way Etty needs it to be.

She uncovers the scroll and the writing supplies, and finds a moonbeam to sit in, and puts the flat rock on her lap, and she writes.

She deliberately affects terrible handwriting - it's not hard; her hand trembles now and it's dark - in lieu of any sophisticated cipher. She doesn't want her thoughts read.

pythbox
2013-04-30 08:58 pm (UTC)

She is left alone until morning.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:00 pm (UTC)

Well before sunrise, she's tucked her implements away and put the rock back, and filled up on fruit. In the likely event that the just-dinner invitation will not be consistently repeated, she'd like to not approach a summons too hungry to think straight.

She changes.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:06 pm (UTC)

She's left alone all day, too.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:06 pm (UTC)

She starts gliding by windows again, looking for Nona.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 09:12 pm (UTC)

Nona is in her room, engaging in one of her pastimes.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:14 pm (UTC)

Etty will just fly on past, then.

Maybe Nona will come out and see her tonight after the Baron's done with - whatever is on the menu for tonight.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 09:15 pm (UTC)

Well - Nona won't be engaging in the same pastime all day.

A few hours after dawn, she's screaming instead.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:18 pm (UTC)

Etty can't help her.

She wishes she could, but even if she weren't a swan right now -

She flies over the forest, on the lookout for any signs of humans.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:20 pm (UTC)

Nothing.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:21 pm (UTC)

Of course not.

She lands on the lakeshore. She sleeps.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:22 pm (UTC)

The summons comes just after sunset.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:22 pm (UTC)

Etty weighs her options. Such as they are.

She walks step by trembling step towards the Baron.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:23 pm (UTC)

He awaits her by the castle gate, and brings her in for dinner.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:24 pm (UTC)

Etty participates in dinner.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:26 pm (UTC)

After dinner, he offers her his arm.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:27 pm (UTC)

Etty...

Looks at his arm, and freezes.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Come to bed, my swan."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:30 pm (UTC)

She swallows.

She hasn't run out of things to try yet.

Tonight she will try the truth.

"I can't move. I am too afraid."

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:38 pm (UTC)

"It is not so bad, my swan," he says, putting that arm around her shoulders.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:39 pm (UTC)

She shivers and turns her head away.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:43 pm (UTC)

The Baron tries gently leading her to his tower.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:44 pm (UTC)

She's not actively resisting him, but her legs aren't cooperating except with the general theme of shuddering.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:47 pm (UTC)

"It does you no good to be disobedient, my swan."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I can't move. I am too afraid. I can't." She swallows, and says, "If you pick me up I can't do anything about that."

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:51 pm (UTC)

"That's true," says the Baron.

He picks her up.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:51 pm (UTC)

Etty shrinks into herself and pretends not to exist and shivers.

pythbox
2013-04-30 09:52 pm (UTC)

She can do that all she wants; the end result is the same.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:53 pm (UTC)

She leaves as soon as he's done with her.

She doesn't run, this time. She's not keen to break anything.

She goes to the orchard.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 09:54 pm (UTC)

After a little while, Nona shows up.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Hi," Etty murmurs.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 09:59 pm (UTC)

"- I heard you screaming, today. And I also flew by your window at an inopportune time."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I scream a lot when he's around. What was inopportune about it?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I believe I mentioned people don't usually talk about one of your pastimes. They also don't tend to want witnesses."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that," says Nona. "I don't mind if you watch that."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:03 pm (UTC)

"...Oh."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:04 pm (UTC)

She shrugs.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:04 pm (UTC)

"...Why not?"

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, why would I?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:20 pm (UTC)

"It's - private. Usually."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, I guess I don't care about that."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:23 pm (UTC)

"...Okay."

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Why, do you want to watch?"

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:25 pm (UTC)

"...No. Not soon, anyway." Etty wraps her arms around her knees and one cold shiver runs through her.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:30 pm (UTC)

"...Flying is nice," she volunteers after a silence.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Good!" says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I'd be terribly bored during daylight hours I couldn't spend sleeping otherwise," agrees Etty.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I bet."

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:38 pm (UTC)

Etty sighs and sits quietly. It appears to be their unspoken agreement that they don't discuss exactly what the Baron has done to either of them.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:44 pm (UTC)

It appears to be, yes.

Of course, the problem with unspoken agreements is that it's hard to be sure about them.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:45 pm (UTC)

Etty's not going to be the first to volunteer.

She reaches a hand down to the dirt and starts drawing idle shapes.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:45 pm (UTC)

Nona curls up close by.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:49 pm (UTC)

Etty pauses, and thinks, and then reaches out to pet Nona's hair. Gently and quite chastely.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:50 pm (UTC)

She closes her eyes and smiles.

The curse approves.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:51 pm (UTC)

That is good. The curse should approve. Etty goes on with what she's doing.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:52 pm (UTC)

Nona goes on smiling.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 10:53 pm (UTC)

Etty's arm being tired is the least of her worries. She'll stop if the curse - or Nona - stops approving, or when the operative arm becomes a wing.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 10:59 pm (UTC)

How about if Nona falls asleep? Because Nona falls asleep.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:00 pm (UTC)

Etty stills her hand but leaves it where it is otherwise.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:01 pm (UTC)

Nona sleeps.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:03 pm (UTC)

Eventually -

Etty becomes a swan.

She doesn't fly away immediately. She sits under the tree with sleeping Nona instead.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:04 pm (UTC)

Nona wakes.

Nona smiles.

Nona reaches for Etty.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:05 pm (UTC)

Etty watches the hand approach and doesn't move.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:06 pm (UTC)

So Nona pets her feathers.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:08 pm (UTC)

Etty leans the entire length of her neck along Nona's arm.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I love you," she murmurs. "I want to love you forever."

The curse likes that a lot.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:12 pm (UTC)

Etty fluffs her wings and makes a sort of a whistling noise. She hasn't figured out all her available vocalizations but she thinks this one sounds happy.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:13 pm (UTC)

Nona grins and cuddles her some more.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:13 pm (UTC)

When Nona gets close enough Etty can actually get her neck a fair bit of the way around Nona's neck.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:14 pm (UTC)

Nona giggles.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:15 pm (UTC)

Etty whistle-sounds again. She puts her neck back in a more natural position, and then, after a moment's indecision, bites a dangling lock of Nona's hair.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:17 pm (UTC)

She giggles again and pets Etty some more. Does Etty want to be in her lap? Nona thinks that it would be lovely to have Etty in her lap.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:17 pm (UTC)

Etty will happily sit in Nona's lap.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:18 pm (UTC)

Nona likes that! She has a lapful of fluffy feathery cuddly swan-person.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:20 pm (UTC)

She does! Her fluffy feathery cuddly swan-person lapful sits and tucks her head under her wing.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:20 pm (UTC)

Pet pet pet?

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:21 pm (UTC)

Feather-rustle. Etty is going to try to sleep now.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:23 pm (UTC)

Okay. Nona is going to hug her while she does that.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:24 pm (UTC)

That is exactly what Etty had in mind!

Zzzz.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:25 pm (UTC)

Snuggly!

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:27 pm (UTC)

Etty wakes up about eight hours later. She untucks her head from her wing.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:28 pm (UTC)

Nona is gone, but the clothes she was wearing remain, made into a little nest for Etty.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:29 pm (UTC)

Awww.

Etty takes off, and she flies. The nature of the curse means she can fly in a straight line till sunset, and not worry about getting lost.

pythbox
2013-04-30 11:36 pm (UTC)

Sunset comes and goes. No summons.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:38 pm (UTC)

This fact is so utterly welcome.

Etty goes into the orchard to uncover her writing supplies again.

pythbox
2013-04-30 11:39 pm (UTC)

No summons, no summons, no summons.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:40 pm (UTC)

...No Nona?

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:41 pm (UTC)

No Nona.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:45 pm (UTC)

Etty eats fruit and processes and makes sure she has her scroll and pen and ink away before sunrise. She goes swimming with the last few hours before light; it's more fun when one doesn't float so automatically. And she wants to confirm that she doesn't have a residual fear of drowning. (She doesn't.)

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:45 pm (UTC)

There's more screaming from the castle that day.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:49 pm (UTC)

Etty wonders if screaming helps. Along any dimension.

If she doesn't get out of here soon, she supposes she'll have plenty of chances to test this and other hypotheses about what might help.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:51 pm (UTC)

It seems to help Nona, anyway, or at least there's no obvious competing explanation for why she does so much of it.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:53 pm (UTC)

Or maybe it's just what she does, like freezing and shivering is what Etty does.

growcrooked
2013-04-30 11:57 pm (UTC)

That could be it, too.

mute_pen
2013-04-30 11:58 pm (UTC)

Etty arranges to be on dry land at sunset.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:16 am (UTC)

Tonight, there is a summons.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:17 am (UTC)

Etty drags herself there.

Slowly.

She doesn't quite feel like she can breathe.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:21 am (UTC)

"Come to dinner," says the Baron, and he leads her into the castle.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:22 am (UTC)

Etty comes to dinner.

She eats.

She folds her hands in her lap and looks at them and pretends not to exist.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:23 am (UTC)

"Come to bed, my swan," says the Baron.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:25 am (UTC)

Etty is silent and still apart from the shaking.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:32 am (UTC)

The Baron picks her up and brings her to bed.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:36 am (UTC)

Of course he does.

Etty - does not feel quite so overwhelmingly compelled to flee the castle, although she still wants to be out of this room.

She starts wandering the halls. Opening doors. (She checks rooms for library status before she goes into them.)

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:37 am (UTC)

None of the doors that she can open are libraries; none of the doors that she can't open set her on fire when she tries them.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:39 am (UTC)

Is there anything else interesting? (A book left in a non-library, perhaps? Etty sorely misses reading books.)

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:40 am (UTC)

Big, imposing halls. Empty rooms. Rooms full of old furniture with cobwebs all over it. Rooms full of old furniture sans cobwebs.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:41 am (UTC)

Etty wonders if she can find where the food comes from and take some of it. She's a little tired of fruit, and he doesn't feed her nightly.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:41 am (UTC)

In a word, no. There's a kitchen, but it's haphazardly equipped and doesn't currently contain food.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:42 am (UTC)

And there aren't any leftovers on the table, either, are there.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:43 am (UTC)

No.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:44 am (UTC)

Of course not.

Etty goes out to the orchard, and finds her writing materials, and does her day's processing.

pythbox
2013-05-01 12:45 am (UTC)

She is not interrupted.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:47 am (UTC)

She puts her scroll away, and -

Is remarkably bored, really.

She climbs a fruit tree, falls, hurts her foot, and chooses lower-hanging fruit, limping around, when she has room to put away more food.

She waits for Nona, if Nona should choose to come.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 12:48 am (UTC)

Nona comes a little past midnight.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:48 am (UTC)

Etty limps in her direction. "Hi," she says.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 12:50 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Nona. "What happened to your foot?"

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:50 am (UTC)

"Fell out of a tree."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 12:51 am (UTC)

"Aww," says Nona. "I want to hug you."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:53 am (UTC)

Etty trips her way towards Nona to accept hugs.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 12:54 am (UTC)

Nona hugs her!

The curse approves.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:55 am (UTC)

"Mmm," sighs Etty, leaning on her.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 12:56 am (UTC)

Nona hugs her lots.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 12:58 am (UTC)

Good. Etty can stop putting weight on her hurt foot, then.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 12:59 am (UTC)

Instead, snuggles!

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:01 am (UTC)

Yes. Etty approves of that.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:01 am (UTC)

So does Nona. So does the curse.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:02 am (UTC)

"The curse really likes it when we snuggle," murmurs Etty.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:03 am (UTC)

"I really like it too," says Nona. "That's probably why."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:04 am (UTC)

"That is probably why," agrees Etty. "I doubt the fact that I like it enters into it much."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:07 am (UTC)

"It does, though," says Nona. "I wouldn't if you didn't."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:11 am (UTC)

"What if I was very good at pretending?" asks Etty. "I'm not, but."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:13 am (UTC)

"...don't," says Nona. "Don't pretend you like stuff for me. Okay? Don't."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:14 am (UTC)

"I'm not even good at it. You'd be able to tell."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:15 am (UTC)

"Still don't," she says, "I don't want to have to guess."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:16 am (UTC)

"Okay."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:16 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Nona hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:20 am (UTC)

"Are you crying?" It's hard to tell in the moonlight.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah, a little."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:22 am (UTC)

"Why?" Etty murmurs.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:23 am (UTC)

"I really don't want to be doing something you don't like and not know about it."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:24 am (UTC)

"Well - like compared to what - if I were going to do that it would be because I'm desperate," murmurs Etty. "I - I think I like almost anything you could do better than staying here."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:31 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah," says Nona, "I like lots of things better than the Baron that I don't actually like at all. But - but don't," she says helplessly.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:37 am (UTC)

Etty nibbles her lip, flexes her hurt foot, puts it somewhere more comfortable. "If you can't - satisfy the curse - I don't see another chance. I'm going to turn into a swanbrained - thing - if I can't get out of here - my mind is going to go - and that's the worst part, the worst, even though the rest is -" She shudders. "I don't have long. A few years isn't long."
Edited 2013-05-01 01:40 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:48 am (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

"But - I can't," she says, "I mean, if I don't know that you're really the person you are, if I can't know that you're okay when I think you're okay, if I don't know you then I can't love you forever because I wouldn't be loving you in the first place." She takes a deep breath. "So - promise," she says. "Promise you won't pretend like that."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:50 am (UTC)

Etty swallows.

If you love me, you don't get another chance with another swan, ever again -

But for all Etty knows the curse agrees with Nona about what it means for someone to love her.

"I promise," Etty says.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:52 am (UTC)

"I love you," says Nona, hugging her some more.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:53 am (UTC)

"I am so afraid," Etty whispers, hugging tight, "that it won't be enough."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:54 am (UTC)

"Me too," says Nona. "And even if I did promise - we'd still have to do something about the Baron, after. Or he'd just do it all over again."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:55 am (UTC)

"Do you think you could kill him? I don't think I could."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:57 am (UTC)

"I think I could," she says. "If I surprised him. I know where to stab somebody so it really hurts."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 01:58 am (UTC)

Etty nods.

"I have never wanted anyone dead before him," she murmurs.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 01:58 am (UTC)

"Me neither," Nona says wryly. "But I've wanted him dead for a long time."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:00 am (UTC)

Etty nods.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:00 am (UTC)

Nona sighs, and hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:04 am (UTC)

Hugs.

"If Carl is dead I don't even know what I'd do, where I'd go, but it would have to be better than here."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:05 am (UTC)

"Anywhere would be better than here," says Nona. "Dead would be better than here, for me."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:08 am (UTC)

Etty thinks.

"Dead would be better than swanbrained," she says slowly. "I'm not sure how fast swanbraining happens so I don't know when it would get that way. I'm not suicidal yet."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:10 am (UTC)

"I don't remember not being suicidal," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:11 am (UTC)

"If he died would you still be?"

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:13 am (UTC)

"I guess not."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:13 am (UTC)

"That's good."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:16 am (UTC)

"I guess."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:18 am (UTC)

"I don't want you to die."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:23 am (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:25 am (UTC)

"If he dies do you suppose the curse on the library will go away? There must be - better things to do with sorcery than curse girls to turn into swans."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:25 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't know."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:26 am (UTC)

Snuggle. "And I suppose at that point it would not be in any sense safe to try."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:39 am (UTC)

She laughs. "I'll try it," she offers carelessly.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:40 am (UTC)

Etty clutches at her.

"But I don't want you to die."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:43 am (UTC)

"I might not," she shrugs. "And all alone out here without magic to feed us and keep us alive, we might starve anyway."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:46 am (UTC)

"It was a long way from the nearest civilization to here, but not so long that we couldn't walk it, even me as bad at walking as I am - I think. Of course, that assumes they'd feed us."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:47 am (UTC)

"I don't know if they would. And I might not die even if the door is still trapped when I try it. So I think it's worth it."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:49 am (UTC)

"If you didn't heal clean then even if it didn't kill you outright you could die of it after."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 02:50 am (UTC)

"Sure," she says. "But maybe one of us could learn how to fix it in between."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 02:51 am (UTC)

"Are healing spells the sort of thing that - well, I suppose they must be, my curse has one built in, so do you."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 12:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Nona. "But I don't know how they work."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they only come with unwelcome side effects."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," shrugs Nona.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 05:01 pm (UTC)

Etty snuggles closer.

"Does it get cold here?" she asks.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Not that cold, I guess. The swans never seem to complain."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Feathers are insulating. And I don't think they have a way to complain. I'm more worried about nighttime. I - would sooner not be chased indoors by the weather."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 05:16 pm (UTC)

Nona shrugs.

"I don't know. I don't think - nobody's ever come into the castle without him before, not that I noticed, anyway. And I don't think he takes them in a lot more in winter."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 05:17 pm (UTC)

"That's good, then."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I hate him. I hate the castle," murmurs Etty.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I know," she says. "Me too."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 05:26 pm (UTC)

"You live there. I suppose he obliges you to."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I could sleep in the orchard, but it wouldn't be far enough away to make a difference, and my bed's more comfortable."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 05:54 pm (UTC)

Etty nods, shifts position, snuggles closer.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 06:12 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

"You're very cuddly."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I like cuddling you. Cuddling you is nice," she says, cuddling her.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

"That's good. It's -" Etty tries to think of words. "Feels safe." Because Nona's not going to hurt her, Nona's not going to treat her like he does, Nona only wants to hold her and is so concerned about not doing things Etty doesn't like that she extracted a promise on the subject.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

...Nona beams.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Now the curse is happy again," laughs Etty softly.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Good. I'm glad. I'm glad it feels safe," she says, snuggling Etty some more.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 06:25 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

Safety.

False and temporary safety, but felt, nonetheless.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 06:26 pm (UTC)

Snuggly snuggly snuggles. So many snuggles.

"...Do I have to make the promise to you," she wonders, "or do I just have to make it?"

mute_pen
2013-05-01 06:27 pm (UTC)

"...He didn't say."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 06:30 pm (UTC)

"It'd be easier to kill him right away if I could do it when you're not around. Or maybe when he's sleeping," she says.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 06:31 pm (UTC)

"That makes sense. Maybe even I could kill him in his sleep. But I'd have a harder job timing it than you would, considering."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Do you think you can, now? If it doesn't stick - if you don't mean it right - and he hears you -"

growcrooked
2013-05-01 06:42 pm (UTC)

"I'll only do it if I'm sure I mean it and I'm sure he can't hear me."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 07:39 pm (UTC)

Snuggle?

Snuggle.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 07:39 pm (UTC)

Yes.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 07:46 pm (UTC)

"But if you're not there," she says, "how will I know if it worked?"

mute_pen
2013-05-01 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I could - if I know when you're going to do it - stand in view of his window?" Etty suggests slowly. "...Or you could come in while I'm. There."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if I could see you from his window," she says. "And I don't know how to safely check."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I can look out the window while I'm there, see what parts of the outside it frames," says Etty. "...But your eyes wouldn't be adjusted to moonlight, would they."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 07:57 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 07:57 pm (UTC)

"So you might not be able to see me even if I stood in just the right place."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 07:58 pm (UTC)

She nods.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 07:58 pm (UTC)

"So - next time he takes me - if you think you can - then, you can come in after. He always falls asleep when he's through with me," shivers Etty.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 07:59 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

"Okay," she says. "If I think I can. I will. And then I won't have to worry about if it'll work with you not there."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 08:01 pm (UTC)

Etty nods and tucks her head under Nona's chin and sobs once.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 08:05 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 08:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm afraid I'll get used to it. I'm afraid that I won't."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if you will," says Nona. "I did, a little."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 08:10 pm (UTC)

"If I do, then, maybe it will be less - immediately unpleasant - but it would feel like giving up," Etty whispers.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 08:12 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 08:14 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

awaited

mute_pen

Etty doesn't get used to it - not exactly. Not in any sense that would leave her comfortable. She learns the routines, learns to reliably keep her dinner down, learns how limp she can go and how helpful she has to be to get it over with as fast as possible while remaining dissociated as she can manage from the experience.

She waits in the room, after, for a while, and - Nona doesn't come.

They might only get one chance. And Nona wants out too, and Etty shouldn't fault her for waiting, but she writes those thoughts on her scroll in terrible handwriting and cries and wishes that things would go faster.

She doesn't want to be one of the swans.

She's tried talking to them some more - tried imitating them, and when she does that they'll act like she's one of the flock and stop being afraid of her, but she can't get any glimmer of human memory out of them whatever prompts she tries.

She does not want to be one of the swans.

And the next girl won't even have the hope of Nona, the comfort of maybe soon.

She holds Nona, when Nona meets her in the orchard, and she thinks maybe soon, and one night she says:

"Do you - have any idea when you'll be able to say it?"

growcrooked
2013-05-01 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she sighs. "I keep trying to - think about it, and I keep not knowing."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 08:31 pm (UTC)

"What do you think, when you think about it?"

growcrooked
2013-05-01 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I love you," she says. "But I don't know how I did it, and I don't know how to make sure I never stop."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 08:35 pm (UTC)

"When you did it," murmurs Etty, "what happened, what did it feel like, what were you thinking?"

growcrooked
2013-05-01 08:37 pm (UTC)

"I don't know! I didn't really do it at all," she says. "It just happened. And not all at once or anything."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 09:11 pm (UTC)

"If you stopped loving me what would do it?" Etty tries.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she sighs. "If you weren't the person I think you are, that might do it. But you are, aren't you?"

mute_pen
2013-05-01 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes." She swallows. "For now, anyway."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 09:24 pm (UTC)

...Nona hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 09:25 pm (UTC)

"I imagine if I turn into one of those - swans - there won't be any of me left to love."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I'll still love who you were," she says, hugging her some more. "Who you are now."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 09:30 pm (UTC)

Etty turns her face into Nona's shoulder and whimpers.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 09:31 pm (UTC)

"I love you," she says helplessly. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 09:34 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," weeps Etty; she wasn't sure if she did until just this moment, but now she is.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 09:37 pm (UTC)

Nona sniffles and hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 09:44 pm (UTC)

Squeeze.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 09:46 pm (UTC)

Cuddle.

pythbox
2013-05-01 10:26 pm (UTC)

Time continues to pass. There is no summons the following night, but the night after that, it comes just after dusk.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 10:30 pm (UTC)

Etty drags herself to where she is bidden as usual.

pythbox
2013-05-01 10:31 pm (UTC)

The Baron brings her into the castle, and eats dinner with her, and carries her up to his rooms. As usual.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 10:32 pm (UTC)

Etty shuts her eyes and tries not to have nerves and cries and waits.

pythbox
2013-05-01 10:33 pm (UTC)

The Baron goes to sleep.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 10:34 pm (UTC)

The door opens, very quietly, just enough for Nona to slip into the room.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 10:35 pm (UTC)

Etty gets out of the bed and backs away from it, wide-eyed.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 10:42 pm (UTC)

Nona comes very close to Etty, and she whispers in her ear, "I promise to love you forever."

The curse approves. The curse approves itself to death.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 10:43 pm (UTC)

Etty nods, rapidly, many times, tears creeping down her face.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 10:49 pm (UTC)

Nona produces a stolen dagger from her stolen sleeve and stabs the sleeping Baron in the back.

And then she stabs him again.

And again. And again.

He wakes at the first blow; he screams, briefly; he stops screaming. Nona goes on mutilating his body.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 10:50 pm (UTC)

Etty is just going stand there.

And watch.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 10:53 pm (UTC)

The bed is soaked in blood and strewn with pieces by the time Nona finally drops her dagger.

She spits on the mess.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," whispers Etty.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Now what?" says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Etty, and she sits on the floor, shaking, still naked.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:07 pm (UTC)

Nona is covered in the baron's blood. She wants to hug Etty, but - she hesitates.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:08 pm (UTC)

If ever Etty was squeamish, it's gone now. She holds out her arms.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:09 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

"I love you," she says.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:10 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

And:

"My name is still gone. I guess I'm Etty for good."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:10 pm (UTC)

"You can be something else if you want," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll be Etty, if I can't have whatever I was before."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Hug.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:13 pm (UTC)

Hug.

"We could go rinse off in the lake."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Let's do that," she says.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:15 pm (UTC)

Etty gets up, and picks up her dress with a relatively bloodless hand, and goes out of the castle and to the shore with Nona.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:17 pm (UTC)

Nona just jumps straight into the lake.

Apparently, with the ending of the curse, all the other girls turned into swans.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:17 pm (UTC)

"They're swans," murmurs Etty. "It's night, and they're swans." She wades into the water.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's what they are now," says Nona, ribbons of blood curling away from her in the water.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:20 pm (UTC)

"...I'll miss flying," sighs Etty.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you can learn magic," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:22 pm (UTC)

"We still might catch fire if we try the library door."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:27 pm (UTC)

"I'll try it."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:28 pm (UTC)

"If - if you're sure, but let's find a bucket - or a blanket, we could soak blankets."

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nona.

She climbs out of the lake, soaking wet but mostly bloodless.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:32 pm (UTC)

Etty follows, and picks up her dress, and shimmies into it, damp or no damp. "Will there be buckets?"

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Probably somewhere."

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:33 pm (UTC)

Etty starts looking.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:35 pm (UTC)

The stable, while empty of horses, contains both buckets and blankets to spare.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:35 pm (UTC)

Etty fills them all with water and brings them to the library door as (presumably) identified by Nona.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:38 pm (UTC)

Nona helps.

She is still dripping lakewater when she tries the library door.

It swings open easily. Nothing burns.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:38 pm (UTC)

Etty follows her in and starts looking at the books hungrily.

growcrooked
2013-05-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

There are a lot of books.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:43 pm (UTC)

Are any of them about sorcery?

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:43 pm (UTC)

Most.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:44 pm (UTC)

Excellent. Are any of them introductory-looking?

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:45 pm (UTC)

None.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:47 pm (UTC)

Well damn.

Etty picks through them and skims, looking for anything to latch onto.

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:49 pm (UTC)

Many of the books contain information on how to do spells, and the recipes seem reasonably complete; some are even annotated with the Baron's additions. But there is nothing resembling a book of theory, and very little organization to the spells themselves.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:50 pm (UTC)

Etty hunts up something less cluttered than her well-used scroll to take notes on.

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:50 pm (UTC)

There is plenty of loose paper around; the Baron was also in the habit of taking notes.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:51 pm (UTC)

Etty doesn't want to think about him right now. She takes blank paper and starts up an index of useful-looking spells with actionable recipes.

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:55 pm (UTC)

The Baron's much-used spell for serving himself meals is one that requires no long list of obscure ingredients for the setup, just a kitchen and a bowl of animal blood, and after that can be invoked at any time.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:56 pm (UTC)

Can it be invoked by people other than the original caster, Etty wonders, or will she have to find an animal? (She would be squeamish about helping herself to a swan.)

pythbox
2013-05-01 11:58 pm (UTC)

No explicit information is included.

mute_pen
2013-05-01 11:59 pm (UTC)

She decides to try the invocation step and see if it works.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:01 am (UTC)

The invocation step is to find oneself at a table one wishes to fill with food, and command - through word or gesture - that the table be so filled.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:02 am (UTC)

Etty goes. She sits at the table. She waves a hand - she really could stand to eat; it's been a while since dinner at this point - and stares down the emptiness of the table.

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:02 am (UTC)

Nothing.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:05 am (UTC)

Great.

She goes back to the spellbooks and starts looking for one that might bring her, say, a deer. She identifies a little too much with the flock of swans...

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:07 am (UTC)

There are indeed spells for animal summoning. Enough searching will even let her find one.

It requires her to eat a blade of grass soaked in her blood.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:08 am (UTC)

Well, that's grotesque, but she's getting the impression that that's the general theme, here; she notes it and keeps looking through the books. (It's not like she's starving yet.)

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:11 am (UTC)

Another animal summoning spell requires her to urinate in her best approximation of a perfect circle wherever she wants the animal to appear. A third requires that she have the severed foot of the desired kind of animal, whereupon once the proper rituals are complete she can summon as many of it as she likes.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:12 am (UTC)

Sorcery is gross.

What do the healing spells look like?

pythbox
2013-05-02 12:40 am (UTC)

They are many and varied, and frequently very specific. One will only heal wounds made by steel; another will only heal sickness; another will only heal animal bites.

All-purpose immortality like what Nona had exists only in the Baron's notes.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:41 am (UTC)

Etty will get to those later, probably. The one for sickness is general enough to be useful; she makes a note of it.

Where is Nona?

growcrooked
2013-05-02 12:45 am (UTC)

At the end of a trail of blood and the occasional stray bit of flesh that leads from the Baron's rooms to the lakeshore, where a pile of blankets and Baron-bits is burning.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:46 am (UTC)

Etty goes and sits next to her.

"Sorcery is disgusting," she reports.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 12:48 am (UTC)

"I'm not surprised," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:49 am (UTC)

"It can do a whole lot of things, though. It won't be hard to re-cast the food spell, just icky."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 12:51 am (UTC)

"Icky?"

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:53 am (UTC)

"It needs a bowl of animal blood. I don't want to kill one of the swans and I don't think I could catch anything else, and the least revolting animal-summoning spell requires the caster to eat a blade of grass soaked in their own blood. There's a lot of blood involved."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 12:54 am (UTC)

"I can do it," she shrugs. "I don't mind blood."

mute_pen
2013-05-02 12:55 am (UTC)

"I found some healing spells but nothing general, not in the books. Some of the specific ones will work on things of narrow parameters - like the type of implement. If you have something made of steel to use to get the blood you can be patched up after. All-purpose versions, like what you had before, I'd have to go into his notes for."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:00 am (UTC)

"There's knives and swords and stuff," she says.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:01 am (UTC)

"Probably made of steel," nods Etty. "So we can operate out of here till - we know where else we'd go. I can't remember the way to Astgabels..."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:03 am (UTC)

"I don't know where that is."

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:05 am (UTC)

"I'm sure someone does, but I don't even know how far away or in what direction the nearest settlement is. If I could still fly..." She nibbles her lip; she wishes she could still fly.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:09 am (UTC)

It turns out that she can.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:10 am (UTC)

Etty blinks, and is briefly a swan.

And then she tries wanting to be a human again.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:11 am (UTC)

She is a human again, complete with pristine white dress.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:12 am (UTC)

"...Interesting," she says. "Okay, so I can range pretty far afield, looking for places we might go."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:17 am (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:18 am (UTC)

Hugs!

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:21 am (UTC)

"Okay, tell me how to do those spells so we can get the kitchen working again."

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:22 am (UTC)

Etty leads her to the library and shows her the relevant magical instructions.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:25 am (UTC)

Nona copies down the complicated parts of the kitchen spell and finds herself a knife, a bowl, and a blade of grass.

She summons a deer. She kills the deer. She paints its blood on all the things she needs to paint its blood on, then pours the last few drops over her head, as directed.

She sits at the head of the dining room table and summons a feast.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:25 am (UTC)

Midnight snack!

Etty declines to read at the table. The books are not good meal reading.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:26 am (UTC)

Om nom nom!

Nona eats very aggressively.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:27 am (UTC)

After eating, Etty goes back to cataloguing the usefulness of this and that portion of the library. There's a lot to cover.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:28 am (UTC)

Nona goes to her room and curls up and sleeps.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:28 am (UTC)

Etty joins her, a couple hours later, snuggled up warm.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:31 am (UTC)

Sleepy snuggles! Snuggly sleeps!

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:33 am (UTC)

Both of those things! Nona went to sleep first and will probably wake up first.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:33 am (UTC)

But when she does, she won't see any reason to move.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:34 am (UTC)

Etty wakes up.

It's daytime! She's not a swan! She grins and snuggles up to Nona.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:35 am (UTC)

Nona grins and snuggles right back.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:38 am (UTC)

"Good morning," sighs Etty.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:39 am (UTC)

"Good morning I love you," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:41 am (UTC)

"I love you too."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:42 am (UTC)

Mmmsnugglysnuggly.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:43 am (UTC)

"After breakfast I think I'll pick a direction and see what's there. West first, I think."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:46 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Snuggle!

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:46 am (UTC)

Snuggle!

Breakfast does not have to be right now.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:49 am (UTC)

Breakfast can be after snuggles.

Mmm. Snuggles.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:50 am (UTC)

After a suitable number of snuggles have been had, it's time to go summon up some breakfast, though.

Nom.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 01:52 am (UTC)

Om nom!

mute_pen
2013-05-02 01:53 am (UTC)

Etty hugs Nona goodbye, says she'll be back before sunset, and goes outside and changes and flies west.

pythbox
2013-05-02 01:59 am (UTC)

Landscape happens.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:00 am (UTC)

Etty keeps flying until just past noon or until she sees some form of habitation, and then she turns around and goes east.

pythbox
2013-05-02 02:02 am (UTC)

Habitation - a farm - comes before noon.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:02 am (UTC)

Etty lands a ways away from the farmhouse, and she changes, and she approaches slowly.

pythbox
2013-05-02 02:04 am (UTC)

No one is home. Or no one wants to talk to her.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:05 am (UTC)

Etty turns around, finds a private place to change again, and flies back to the lake.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 02:05 am (UTC)

Nona is in her rooms, having a pastime.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:09 am (UTC)

Etty leaves her to it and goes to do librarying.

pythbox
2013-05-02 02:21 am (UTC)

Sorcery is gross.

Nearly every spell that accomplishes something interesting involves a component that is either sacrificial in some way or just plain disgusting. There is a loose category of cleaning spells that only need water and occasionally soap for the setup - a common thread is that once set up, many spells can be repeated by an effort of will or a token gesture - but that is really about it.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:23 am (UTC)

Etty decides she is going to be Library Person and Nona, who plainly has a higher or possibly nonexistent disgust threshold, can be the Actual Spellcasting Person barring emergencies. Etty does find some soap and water and re-casts the spell that kept the castle clean by herself, though.

pythbox
2013-05-02 02:32 am (UTC)

The castle obligingly becomes cleaner; all she needs to do to maintain it is wander through the rooms every so often and want them to clean themselves. Apparently the Baron couldn't be bothered to do even that to the rooms that were cobwebbed before, because there's no problem cleaning them now.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:33 am (UTC)

Etty tours-and-cleans the entire castle. She saves Nona's room for last.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 02:34 am (UTC)

Nona is napping.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:36 am (UTC)

Etty watches her for a long moment. She can't go have dinner by herself, the kitchen only responds to Nona; she decides to lie down with Nona till she wakes up.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 02:37 am (UTC)

She snuggles up in her sleep.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:38 am (UTC)

That is nice. Nona is good to snuggle with.

Dozy half-awake snuggles.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 02:41 am (UTC)

Mm, snuggles.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 02:45 am (UTC)

Etty thinks, slowly, driftily.

She kisses the back of Nona's head and snuggles closer.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 02:49 am (UTC)

Mmm, snuggles.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 03:01 am (UTC)

Etty waits dozily for Nona to wake up so there can be dinner.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 03:05 am (UTC)

Snuggly snuggly snuggly -

"Mmm?"

mute_pen
2013-05-02 03:07 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Etty. "I found a farm, but no one was home, or they didn't want to answer the door."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 03:07 am (UTC)

"Mmm," says Nona, and curls up in Etty's arms.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 03:13 am (UTC)

Huggles. "Do you want dinner?"

growcrooked
2013-05-02 03:16 am (UTC)

"Mmyeah," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 03:20 am (UTC)

"Good, I'm hungry."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 03:25 am (UTC)

"Mm."

But snuggles! Snuggles.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 03:27 am (UTC)

"I've been hungry for a while. You took a long nap," says Etty, squirming. "I didn't want to wake you."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 03:27 am (UTC)

"Oh."

Nona yawns and crawls out of bed.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 03:29 am (UTC)

To the dinner table!

growcrooked
2013-05-02 03:30 am (UTC)

To the dinner table, with a blanket!

Nona summons food and then, rather than eat any, piles her blanket onto the floor and nests in it.

mute_pen
2013-05-02 03:32 am (UTC)

"Thanks," says Etty. "Sorry to drag you out of bed."

growcrooked
2013-05-02 03:33 am (UTC)

"'Sokay."

mute_pen
2013-05-02 03:36 am (UTC)

Nom nom nom.

growcrooked
2013-05-02 11:51 am (UTC)

Nap nap nap.

cheated

mute_pen

The castle is livable indefinitely. Etty flies over the space around it, but she's not as fast as the Baron was in his owl form, and she can't fly for very long if she's hungry and can pack nothing if she travels as a swan; she doesn't range farther than she can travel in a half-day, and she doesn't find Astgabels or anyone who knows where it is. (Not many people are willing to talk to a girl in a feather dress from out of nowhere, but a few are.) She flies home to Nona after each failed journey. They feast on what appears on the dining table. They snuggle. They pick through the library. Etty writes her thoughts. They sleep, curled up together in Nona's bed.

One morning they wake up together and are lying there in comfortable silence when Etty scoots up and kisses Nona.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 12:52 am (UTC)

She makes a surprised little noise, grins, and kisses back.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 12:59 am (UTC)

The Baron kissed her, sometimes, sort of, and Etty is making sure this is very different. Etty is the one starting the entire procedure - that might need to be the case for a while until she's sure she's processed everything - and it's slow and sweet and gentle. Also, Nona is not her father. Nona is not even a little bit her father.

Kisses.

She should probably tell Nona about the - "Um, I like kissing you," Etty murmurs, "but - don't surprise me? Till I say different?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:06 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Nona, and she snuggles up.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:06 am (UTC)

Snuggles.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:07 am (UTC)

Snuggles! Snuggly snuggly warm lovey happy snuggles. Mmm.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:08 am (UTC)

Best kind.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:11 am (UTC)

Time passes.

Kisses are, in general, a pleasant addition to snuggles. Nona is pleased about them. As requested, she offers no surprises... about that.

A few weeks after the onset of kisses, Nona yells from her bedroom, "Etty I found a thing! Come see!"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:12 am (UTC)

Etty comes and sees. "What'd you find?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:25 am (UTC)

She is standing in the doorway of her bedroom, only it is no longer the doorway of her bedroom. The other side of the door is now a room containing a lot of people, many of whom seem to be celebrating something, and many of those are wearing little or no clothing.

"I found a place!" says Nona triumphantly.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:26 am (UTC)

Etty is rather taken aback by the strangeness of the door. And the nudity. "Have you been casting peculiar spells?" she asks.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:28 am (UTC)

"Nooo," she giggles. "This place just does that. It's called Milliways and it has a door that goes to all different places and today it came here. And there's somebody I want you to meet!" She sticks her head through the door. "Celo? Celo, where'd you run off to?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:31 am (UTC)

"Celo?" asks Etty quizzically.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:34 am (UTC)

"Celo's a nymph," Nona explains. "He's from a different world. They have a lot more magic there, and all kinds of horrible things but some that sound pretty nice, and nymphs are a kind of person that comes out of a field of plants and has to have sex with men a lot or they'll die. But Celo says me and him are a lot like each other, and I think he's right. I think he's that other world's version of me."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:36 am (UTC)

That's a lot to take in.

"...Oh. That's... really interesting actually," says Etty. "...What else do you have in common, is he - okay?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:40 am (UTC)

"He's... more okay than me," says Nona. "He's been away from his - it wasn't his father, he doesn't have one, but his - person like that - for way longer. But he had a lot of the same not-okay stuff happen."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:41 am (UTC)

Etty shivers. "Okay. Why are so few people in there wearing clothes?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:43 am (UTC)

"There's some kind of thing happening," Nona says vaguely. "Celo said it'd been going on for a few hours already when he got here, and that was a few hours ago. He likes it because it means he blends in more; he can't wear clothes because his mother's a goddess and she said nymphs aren't allowed."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:44 am (UTC)

"His mother's a goddess? And - he had a person like the Baron, anyway?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 01:46 am (UTC)

"It's complicated," says Nona.

pythbox
2013-05-30 01:52 am (UTC)

A naked man of about Nona's apparent age, with a vaguely Nona-ish face and long curly vaguely Nona-ish hair, arrives at the door. He is carrying two large mugs, one of which he hands to Nona; then he kisses her familiarly on the cheek.

"Hi!" he says to Etty. "You must be Etty! I'm Celo."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 01:53 am (UTC)

Etty nods. "That's me. Hello."

pythbox
2013-05-30 01:59 am (UTC)

"Nice to meet you," he says. "Wow, yeah, you're definitely another one of Bella. You wanna come in? I need the door so I can go to my world and get the person I know who I think is one of you."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:01 am (UTC)

"...There's more of me?" Etty steps inside, tucking herself under Nona's arm. "Yes, please - I'd like to meet - her? Is it a her?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah, her name's Bella," he says. He closes the door and opens it again, and on the other side is a hallway; he leeeeeeeeeeans as far out as he can, looking at another door a short distance down the hall. "Bella! Hey! You in? I found a thing!"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:05 am (UTC)

I love how you're so specific. What is it?

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:06 am (UTC)

It's a - look, just come here, he laughs. You'll like it, I promise.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:07 am (UTC)

All right, all right. Up she gets, and out of her room, and, "Kheez!"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:07 am (UTC)

"...Hi."

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:09 am (UTC)

Celo beckons, grinning. "C'mon in! Can't hold the door forever, it's rude and stuff."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:09 am (UTC)

"What in the screaming abyss is this place?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:10 am (UTC)

"I don't know. Before the door opened on part of our castle."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:11 am (UTC)

"You have a castle?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:11 am (UTC)

"...Yes. But you wouldn't want it the way we got it."

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:15 am (UTC)

Celo shuts the door behind Bella.

"Should I go get more hot chocolate?" he wonders. "Anybody want some?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:16 am (UTC)

"What is hot chocolate?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:17 am (UTC)

Bella blinks at her. "Yeah, hot chocolates for us too."

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:18 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Celo, and off he goes through the crowd.

If anyone is looking, he stops to give a guy a blowjob on the way.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 02:19 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, Nona is peering curiously at Bella.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:19 am (UTC)

Bella waves at her. "So, I'm Bella, who are you?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:20 am (UTC)

Etty was looking, but she soon stops and turns her face into Nona's shoulder. This would not be her kind of party if it weren't apparently the only way to visit versions of her from other worlds.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 02:23 am (UTC)

Nona wraps her arms around Etty and murmurs, "I love you," into her hair.

To Bella, she explains matter-of-factly, "I'm who Celo is in our world. I'm not a nymph, I'm a sorcerer's daughter, but he was the same way with me that the man who planted Celo's garden was with him. My father kidnapped Etty and put a curse on her and then we killed him."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:25 am (UTC)

"Well, I'm who Etty is in my world, I guess, and I'm a subtle artist - I have mind magic, I don't use it without permission except that I can always tell if an unshielded person is around - and me and Celo go to school together. Although we don't share any classes."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:26 am (UTC)

"You're a scholar?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:27 am (UTC)

"...I think calling myself a scholar would suggest it's less common than it is to go to school where I'm from. I'm a student. I'm going to be a mental healer." She pauses, peering at Etty. "I... haven't taken any classes on mental healing yet, but you seem to be not in great shape, and if we're as alike as we look, maybe I could do something?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:28 am (UTC)

"...That would depend on what you were going to do."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:28 am (UTC)

"Talk to you. Look at anything you wanted to show me."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 02:29 am (UTC)

Nona hugs Etty some more.

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:29 am (UTC)

Celo comes back with another pair of mugs. He hands one to Bella and one to Etty.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:30 am (UTC)

Slurp.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:30 am (UTC)

Sip?

Blink blink.

"This is delicious."

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:31 am (UTC)

"I know!" says Celo, beaming. "I love this place."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:31 am (UTC)

"It is such a strange place. What is it?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:33 am (UTC)

"I'm not really sure," says Celo. "Some kind of interplanar bar or something. I tried to ask a couple people but mostly they're interested in the party, and I like the party too, so I didn't pester anyone about it."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:33 am (UTC)

"An interplanar bar. I guess stranger things have happened. It just appeared to you?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 02:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah! And then I saw her coming out of the door," he gestures to Nona, "and - I don't know, does she look like me to you? She looks like me to me. She looks a lot like me. And we compared histories and she's pretty much me, you know, accounting for species and stuff."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 02:38 am (UTC)

"She looks like you could be siblings," decides Bella after a long look at both faces. "Awfully similar siblings." She turns to Etty. "We should compare life histories."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 02:39 am (UTC)

"All right. I can't remember my name, but I can remember everything else."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:02 am (UTC)

Bella goes first. Parents, little town in Blackwater, subtle artistry, school, introspection, her questions -

mute_pen
2013-05-30 03:02 am (UTC)

"Our questions," inserts Etty when she hears them.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 03:04 am (UTC)

Celo and Nona simultaneously giggle.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:06 am (UTC)

Heh. And school and her inauspicious first meeting with Celo and the business with the elves and what she's at liberty to share about the business with Callahan. That's pretty much the story of her life.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 03:09 am (UTC)

Etty's story is shorter and less pleasant. Parents, unremarkable upbringing, figuring out that she only yearned after women and not men, getting picked up by a giant owl and cursed, meeting Nona, turning into a swan (she demonstrates), the hurt and the violation and the terms of his immortality and their ultimate victory. Poking around at sorcery, flying over the countryside looking for home.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:10 am (UTC)

Bella hugs her, partway through this recitation.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 03:10 am (UTC)

Nona hugs her as soon as Bella has stopped.

pythbox
2013-05-30 03:11 am (UTC)

"I could hug you too," says Celo.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 03:11 am (UTC)

Etty's reaction to this offer is silent but extremely dubious.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:12 am (UTC)

"No," translates Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-30 03:12 am (UTC)

"I got that," says Celo. He hugs Nona instead.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:13 am (UTC)

"...Etty, you're not going to like this and I guess Nona didn't warn you, but nymphs, like Celo, don't predominantly recognize each other by face, but by an - involuntary - read of their - sexual characteristics, basically. He's working on 'squinting' but he's not very good at it yet."
Edited 2013-05-30 03:18 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-05-30 03:19 am (UTC)

Etty peers mistrustfully at Celo.

pythbox
2013-05-30 03:22 am (UTC)

Celo throws up his hands, takes his hot chocolate, and leaves their little cluster by the door to head for the other obvious door in the room.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 03:24 am (UTC)

"We could go that way too," says Nona. "It leads to a nice little lake and a forest and some things, and it's a lot - quieter out there. Not as many people."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 03:24 am (UTC)

"That sounds better - but -"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:25 am (UTC)

"He already saw you. Unless something changes, he can't get any new information," says Bella, shaking her head. "Otherwise do you think I'd hang around him? I can't even block it with subtle arts." She follows the nymph to the outdoors.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 03:26 am (UTC)

Etty goes after her alt.

pythbox
2013-05-30 03:27 am (UTC)

By the time they get outside, Celo is not visibly nearby.
Edited 2013-05-30 03:27 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-05-30 03:31 am (UTC)

Etty and Bella sit next to each other on the grass.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:32 am (UTC)

I can relay you conversation, if you want. And I explained that you've already got what you're going to get off her.

pythbox
2013-05-30 03:39 am (UTC)

I got that she's you plus trauma and some different stuff, he says. I didn't look at which stuff was different. Which means you're wrong, by the way, I could slip up and see her properly anytime, it's just easier not to when I already know somebody. And I knew about the trauma already; Nona didn't exactly say, but - it was just obvious. So whatever. Why even talk to me? I'm just the nymph. Give me a shout when somebody needs a good fuck.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:42 am (UTC)

[Name], what'd you want me to tell her? I couldn't not tell her. I'm sorry I got it wrong, I'll let her know, it'll make her feel better. I wish Nona had warned her but she didn't.

"Apparently he was squinting some and didn't get everything," Bella reports quietly. "He's going to stay away, at least for the time being. He says you look like me plus trauma and some details he didn't get."
Edited 2013-05-30 03:44 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-05-30 03:46 am (UTC)

Etty nods.

pythbox
2013-05-30 11:06 am (UTC)

The way you said it, it ended up feeling like you were using me to hurt her, Celo sighs. And I know perfectly well that's not what you were aiming for, but it's what you hit.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:50 pm (UTC)

I - don't understand why that would be, but I am sorry I upset you.

pythbox
2013-05-30 03:55 pm (UTC)

I know.

He sighs.

Just - the way you ended up telling her was pretty much the perfect way to make sure she came off the worst from hearing it no matter what I'd actually read. And it's me who's the problem even if you're the one telling her about it. So I end up feeling like I'm a club you're hitting her over the head with, even though I know you didn't mean it that way.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 03:58 pm (UTC)

I was trying to present it neutrally.

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:00 pm (UTC)

You should maybe work on that, he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:03 pm (UTC)

What would you have wanted me to say?

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:05 pm (UTC)

Ask me privately if I'd got anything off her, and if I hadn't, which I pretty much didn't, lead with that. It's nicer that way.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:07 pm (UTC)

Okay. If we meet any - more of me - then I'll do that. I didn't realize you were that accomplished at squinting.

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:08 pm (UTC)

I've been getting better, I just don't run and brag to you about it every time I manage not to catch somebody, he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:12 pm (UTC)

Understood. Pause. I wouldn't expect her to "look" that much like me the way you said she did. I mean, we're the same, but she's gay and traumatized and I'm straight and not-traumatized, are those not relatively overwhelming features?

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:17 pm (UTC)

I told you before you're too hung up on the information part, didn't I? There's a lot more to it than just - features, like that. Stuff that doesn't tell me anything directly, and doesn't really turn into words. And on that level you're almost the same. It's like... if you saw somebody you knew, and then you saw them again and they'd been beat up pretty bad and they were wearing totally different clothes and had different-coloured hair, you'd still recognize them, wouldn't you? It's a little like that.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:18 pm (UTC)

Huh.

Meanwhile, Etty's talking about what it's like to fly.

D'you want me to relay what we're talking about to you?

pythbox
2013-05-30 04:19 pm (UTC)

Sure.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:22 pm (UTC)

Bella sets herself up as a relay. "I'll bounce everything we're saying to Celo," she informs her alt and Nona.
Edited 2013-05-30 16:28 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-05-30 04:31 pm (UTC)

"How's that work?" she says curiously. "I don't think your magic is the same as ours at all. There's less - drinking blood and peeing on things, from what I've heard."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:36 pm (UTC)

"...Ew? The subtle arts aren't like that. Some of the darker arcana might be, I guess, but I'm only a dabbler in arcane magic. I know nothing about divine magic to speak of - well, except common knowledge for my world, which I guess might be more than you have - but I don't think that involves any of that. My subtle arts are just a matter of me being able to focus my mind in certain ways that tend to produce effects in the world. Usually in minds, mine or others' - it's pretty trivial for me to talk to people mind-to-mind from a reasonable distance - but I have a little bit of telekinetic potential that I'm working on training, too."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 04:37 pm (UTC)

"That sounds much different from what we have."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we have to drink blood and pee on things and similar," says Nona. "And by we I mean I." She gives Etty's hand an affectionate squeeze. "And we don't have all different kinds of magic like that, and I don't think we have anything that'll let you have a conversation with someone's mind - do we, Etty?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 04:44 pm (UTC)

Etty shakes her head. "Not that I've found. It's all about - material objects, mostly, and a few curses that affect the mind like the one I was under."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to see if I can find your name in there somewhere?" offers Bella.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty used to 'Etty', now, but I'd like to know who I used to be," says Etty.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll avoid looking at anything else in enough detail to learn the contents."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 04:55 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs Etty. It just seems like the thing to do.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 04:56 pm (UTC)

Etty leans on Nona and waits for Bella to work her magic.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 04:57 pm (UTC)

"I can't find any memories of your actual name," Bella reports eventually, "but I can find the residue of what was blocked off when the curse was still active. It forbade you to use any name besides Odette - which you got partly around with the nickname - and forbade you to know the existence of the name Isabel, but you should be able to re-learn it now."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 04:58 pm (UTC)

"It's like yours," observes Etty. "I think I'll just go on being called Etty. Otherwise it would be confusing, and besides, 'Isabel' doesn't feel like mine anymore."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 04:58 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty," says Nona.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:03 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why they're so similar but not exactly the same."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Isabella like your name sounds like a foreign sort of name to me. Isabel is Diotalandish," suggests Etty.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:09 pm (UTC)

Nona corroborates this with a nod.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:16 pm (UTC)

"It is interesting how we are so alike, but come from such different worlds," says Etty. "I wonder if everyone has a match."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. It also seems like a strange coincidence that you have Nona who's like Celo and Celo knows me."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Celo said it seems to him like you and him are connected in some sort of Fate-ish kind of way," Nona offers.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:21 pm (UTC)

"One of his teachers said something that made it sound like she thinks so. Celo," she adds, aloud and also relaying telepathically, almost as though he were there, "have you got any other reason to think so?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:22 pm (UTC)

If Callahan thinks something's up, then something is probably up, he says. Even if she's wrong about exactly what or what it means.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:24 pm (UTC)

Bella relays this, and then, "But we don't know anything beyond that."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Do you have guesses?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Celo thinks she expects us to kill a god," offers Bella.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to?" wonders Nona.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:27 pm (UTC)

"No! I'd get myself killed, or worse. Hubris is a bad idea."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Are they doing a good job, then? The gods you have?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Hubris is a bad idea," repeats Bella firmly.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nona.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Is it not a bad idea where you come from?" Bella asks Etty tentatively.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:35 pm (UTC)

"There are churches, and people talk about God - only the one - smiting people, sometimes, but I don't think he exists, because people say he's all-powerful and all-knowing and all-good," shrugs Etty. "I don't think there's anything other than other people to punish hubris. But if it's so dangerous where you're from maybe I shouldn't invite you back with us to help me do things with your magic. In case hubris being a bad idea follows you there."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:36 pm (UTC)

"I don't want any more gods than the one we probably haven't got," Nona confirms. "It seems like they'd just get in the way."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Well -" Bella's speaking very carefully now. "They are the source of divine magic. Celo can heal because of his mother, even if she isn't attentively intervening each time. And no drinking blood is necessary."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:39 pm (UTC)

"That seems helpful of them," says Etty.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I still don't want any," says Nona.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Apart from punishing hubris they're generally a positive or neutral force in the world, I think," Bella says. "And they aren't all-powerful or all-knowing - and only a couple of them claim good, let alone all-good."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

"And they definitely exist."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

"At least some of them are blindingly obvious. There are some more controversial ones."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to talk about something else?" wonders Nona.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:47 pm (UTC)

"It might be more comfortable, yeah."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Tell us more about your world's magic."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:48 pm (UTC)

And lo, the conversation did become a thaumatology lecture.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:51 pm (UTC)

Nona is fascinated!

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:52 pm (UTC)

Etty is more fascinated!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:52 pm (UTC)

Bella is not actually equipped to teach Thaumo 101 but she will do her best!

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:53 pm (UTC)

Even I didn't know some of this stuff, Celo comments.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:54 pm (UTC)

I read a lot.

pythbox
2013-05-30 05:54 pm (UTC)

You're kind of awesome.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 05:55 pm (UTC)

I kind of am!

Bella intersperses Celo's remarks to her audience.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 05:55 pm (UTC)

Etty giggles.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 05:57 pm (UTC)

Nona giggles, too.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 06:08 pm (UTC)

Thaumatology.

Eventually Bella exhausts her knowledge of the subject in general, but she can go on with lots of practical examples of how magic is used in her world. This eventually segues into an overview of the sentient species - humans are determined to be about the same between worlds after a quick consultation, but then there's nymphs.

"Celo's actually the only male nymph in the world, or at least the only one I ever heard of; usually they're female. They exist in the wild, but some of them are sort of domesticated, because their associated fields - or in Celo's case a garden - can be cultivated to better yields with work most people find less objectionable. So to speak."
Edited 2013-05-30 18:33 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-05-30 06:34 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Nona says after a few puzzled seconds.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 06:36 pm (UTC)

"I mean," says Bella, rolling her eyes, "that in addition to all the usual effects, nymphs improve their respective plants when they have sex. So if you have some guys who want to grow, say, rice, but they don't feel like actually farming rice, they can try to get a rice nymph and have a lot of sex with her and never need to pick up a gardening implement until it's harvest time."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh!" she says, comprehension dawning. "Huh. He didn't tell me that."

pythbox
2013-05-30 06:39 pm (UTC)

Well, yeah, 'cause it's a different kind of sex that does the gardening, giggles Celo. You're welcome to explain that too.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 06:42 pm (UTC)

"He says he didn't mention it because it's only sex with men that improves the plants," says Bella.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 06:42 pm (UTC)

"...Wait," says Etty slowly.

pythbox
2013-05-30 06:43 pm (UTC)

Way not true, there's girls with dicks and I get the usual goodies out of them, Celo points out.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?" says Nona.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Clarification, it's - Etty?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Nona? Did you...?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says, puzzled. "Of course I had sex with him. He's lovely. You already know how much I like to fuck myself - I thought you didn't like hearing about it, or I would've said something earlier. Why are you upset?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 06:52 pm (UTC)

"I thought - that -"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Khersis Dei. You cheated on her," says Bella wearily.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 06:54 pm (UTC)

"What's that mean?" she asks, bewildered and unhappy.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 06:59 pm (UTC)

"You don't know what it - okay," says Bella, putting a hand over her eyes and engaging Explaining Humans Mode in spite of Nona being a human already. "By default, if two humans are being all snuggly and lovey with each other, they don't also have sex with anyone else. If they do it anyway, that's called "cheating". People make different arrangements, sometimes, and obeying the rules of a different arrangement isn't cheating, but apparently you didn't make one with Etty, and the only reason this hasn't bitten you before is because you live in a castle in the middle of nowhere. This is not a small deal; people end decades-long marriages and kill each other over cheating. It is a form of betrayal. The fact that you apparently aren't familiar with the word is probably a mitigating factor."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Nona in a small voice.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:02 pm (UTC)

Etty scrunches in towards herself.

"I know I'm being," she murmurs, "slow."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:03 pm (UTC)

"What?" says Nona, mystified again.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:04 pm (UTC)

"She thinks you got fed up with waiting for her to have sex with you," translates Bella.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:08 pm (UTC)

"What," says Nona. "No! What? I just - he offered, and I like him. I didn't know it would upset you! I didn't know you'd even have an opinion on it at all, you don't on what I do by myself! I didn't mean to upset you," she sniffles.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:09 pm (UTC)

"When it's yourself it's just - you," murmurs Etty. "Not you and somebody else. I - I guess you didn't know."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know at all," she says. "I'm sorry."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:12 pm (UTC)

Sigh.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:13 pm (UTC)

"...And now I'm wondering to what extent Celo acting like a nymph is because he's actually a nymph. Is monogamy something you could even do?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I do it really easily when I'm in a castle in the middle of nowhere!" she says, hugging herself.

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:15 pm (UTC)

She'd have a seriously hard time with it, says Celo. Like maybe dealbreakingly hard. We're a lot alike that way.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:16 pm (UTC)

Bella reports this assessment.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:17 pm (UTC)

Etty looks at her knees.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:18 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs herself some more.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I love you," Etty murmurs.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," she says. "I'm sorry. Is it - will we be okay?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I need to think."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:20 pm (UTC)

Bella has a notebook on her. She flips it to a clean page, hands it over with a pen.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:20 pm (UTC)

Etty takes a moment to figure out the unfamiliar writing utensils, but eventually she's scratching away.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:21 pm (UTC)

Nona curls up on the ground and doesn't say anything.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:21 pm (UTC)

"You going to be okay, Nona?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she mumbles.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:24 pm (UTC)

"You didn't know it would hurt me," murmurs Etty, reaching out to touch Nona's hand.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I don't know if you're going to love me anymore," she says, sniffling.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:26 pm (UTC)

Etty squeezes her hand.

She writes faster.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:26 pm (UTC)

Remind me not to even think about ever being a sex therapist.

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:28 pm (UTC)

Don't even think about being a sex therapist, Celo says obligingly. Sucks for Nona, though. I'd want to give her a hug, but her girlfriend might knife me.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:29 pm (UTC)

Etty isn't going to knife you. For one thing, she doesn't have a knife. At what point during the proceedings did you find out that Nona had a girlfriend?

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:31 pm (UTC)

It didn't really happen like that, he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:32 pm (UTC)

?

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:34 pm (UTC)

I mean it's not like we were going along and she was like, 'By the way, I have a girlfriend'. I just kind of... gradually picked up on stuff. I obviously didn't pick up on the fact that Etty was going to be upset that we'd had sex, or I would've, you know, told Nona.
Edited 2013-05-30 19:34 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:36 pm (UTC)

When did you figure out that Etty was like me?

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:37 pm (UTC)

I had half a suspicion, and then I got a look at her and it was just obvious.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:38 pm (UTC)

I'm not sure what to expect her to conclude from the thinking she's doing.

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:40 pm (UTC)

No? Nothing like it on your end?

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:40 pm (UTC)

I haven't been motivated to consider it.

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:41 pm (UTC)

So you don't secretly wanna date me? he says whimsically.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:42 pm (UTC)

Is dating even a thing nymphs do?

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:42 pm (UTC)

Ask me if I care, he giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:43 pm (UTC)

Fine, is dating even a thing you do?

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:44 pm (UTC)

Not yet, he shrugs. I was joking, anyway.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:45 pm (UTC)

Thought so.

pythbox
2013-05-30 07:46 pm (UTC)

He giggles again.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 07:47 pm (UTC)

Bella waits, while Etty writes.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:48 pm (UTC)

Etty pauses to ask Nona a question.

"If there are ever more people around - all the time, not just here - how much do you need to do this...?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she says. "Do you mean how much of it do I need to do? I definitely don't know that. Or how strongly do I feel about doing it? I'm not sure I know that either. I know how I feel about never ever doing it again, though, and it's really really bad."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I meant the first thing."

Write, write.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:54 pm (UTC)

Nona curls up and has some more sads.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," murmurs Etty. "I just - I don't want anybody but you, and I don't - understand."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't understand either," says Nona. "I don't understand why it's such a thing the way it is."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:06 pm (UTC)

Bella will Not Be A Sex Therapist some other day, apparently. "She doesn't want anybody but you. For a monogamous person that's connected with - depth of feeling, commitment. If Etty heard a reliable prophecy about the future that said she slept with somebody who wasn't you, she'd assume this meant that in the prophesied future, you'd broken up or that she didn't like you much anymore or something was unsatisfactory about the relationship - correct me if I'm wrong, Etty."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 08:06 pm (UTC)

"You're not wrong."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Nona. "That's not - no. At all. No. How much I love you doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about anybody else."

mute_pen
2013-05-30 08:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't understand how that works."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't understand how not that works," says Nona.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:12 pm (UTC)

Can you be of any help here? Bella asks Celo.

pythbox
2013-05-30 08:15 pm (UTC)

You're the telepath, he points out. Ask Nona if you can read her, then explain her to Etty and then maybe explain Etty back to her because you seem to have Etty pretty well figured out. I'm a nymph; what I know about monogamy amounts to 'don't fuck it'.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Celo suggests that I could read Nona and then try to explain you to each other," says Bella.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Nona.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything I should not look at?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:21 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "There's some stuff you might not like, but I don't think there's anything I'd be upset about you knowing."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Bella touches her temple and reads.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:25 pm (UTC)

Nona is mostly wondering what she should be thinking about. How do you explain something when you don't understand the thing it's supposed to be different from? Loving Etty and having sex with Celo don't have anything more to do with each other than loving Etty and masturbating do. Slightly less, actually.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:39 pm (UTC)

Bella picks her way through thoughts. She gets a brainful; the detail isn't graphic but it's not something she'd have asked for.

"...Okay," she murmurs eventually. "What I'm getting amounts to - you would be just about as bewildered if Etty were deeply hurt by you trying hot chocolate - you don't have so much a sex drive, an impulse to be lovey with someone, as you do an arbitrary number of these things that may or may not be operative at any time, and Etty gets her very own over here -" Bella gestures - "and it's just completely failing interact with whatever you do with Celo -" gesture far away from the first. "Am I putting that into words in a recognizable way?"

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," she says. "I guess. Do most people just have the one impulse to be lovey and they can only point it at one person at a time? That's weird. I think I have - well, one per person I feel lovey about."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Most people at least approximate the one-impulse model," confirms Bella.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 08:44 pm (UTC)

Etty nods.

She looks at what she has written, which includes notes on what Bella reported.

"Is there a way I can see what you see?" she asks Bella.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:45 pm (UTC)

"...Difficult. But not impossible. If Nona doesn't mind. I don't think I can do that and filter content at the same time, so Nona will have to present me with anything she wants to show you, on purpose, specifically."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Nona. "...What do you want me to show you? Specifically?"

mute_pen
2013-05-30 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. I don't know what there is."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:48 pm (UTC)

Not a sex therapist, not a -

Today, a sex therapist. Okay. Fine.

"I'm gonna tentatively recommend," says Bella, "how you feel about Etty. I think that's probably the best thing."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nona agreeably. "There's a lot of that."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Concentrate on some for me and I'll do my best to bounce it."

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:54 pm (UTC)

Okay.

She thinks about Etty. That's easy.

She thinks about how much it hurt to know she made Etty upset, and how much it scares her that Etty might not like her anymore, and how much she wants Etty to be safe and happy and okay. She thinks about the lovely warm feeling she gets when they snuggle, and the other lovely warm feelings she gets when they kiss. She thinks about - Etty. Just Etty. Lovely warm snuggly Etty.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 08:56 pm (UTC)

Bella focuses, hard, and reads and projects, and these are two things that are not her natural affinity and she has to do them at the same time, but she can just - about - manage.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 08:56 pm (UTC)

Etty makes a soft noise, almost like the trill she sometimes does when she's happy and a swan.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 08:57 pm (UTC)

Awww, does she like it?

Nona blossoms.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 08:59 pm (UTC)

She does like it!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:00 pm (UTC)

Bella can't keep this up for long.

She falters; the bounce stops.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 09:01 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs Etty, then turns to Bella and holds out her arms.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:02 pm (UTC)

Bella shakes her head. They are not hugging friends.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 09:02 pm (UTC)

Etty will take another hug! If Nona wants!

growcrooked
2013-05-30 09:03 pm (UTC)

Okay!

Hug.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 09:04 pm (UTC)

Hug.

Then Etty goes and re-reads her notes, and then she carefully tears those pages out of Bella's notebook and offers it back, with the pen.

"It'll be okay," Etty says to Nona.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 09:05 pm (UTC)

More hug.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 09:06 pm (UTC)

Plenty of hug.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:06 pm (UTC)

This is really cute. Celo gets a picture, too.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 09:06 pm (UTC)

So much hug!

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:06 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwww.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:30 pm (UTC)

Bella goes back into the bar to ask someone relatively unoccupied for more information about how this place works. She comes back armed with the results, shares with the group, and budgets a few more hours to stay and talk to Etty before it'll be ruinous to her sleep schedule - the holiday will be over soon and Celo will thereafter be in violation of Milliways rules, anyway. Any of them may find a door again in the future, so it's not necessarily goodbye forever; even if they aren't there at the same time they'll be able to leave notes at the bar.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 09:31 pm (UTC)

Etty and Nona have clothes and no pressing obligations at home, but Etty thinks she'll probably leave when Bella does.

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:32 pm (UTC)

Celo thinks that if there's going to be rules about him not being naked in a little while, he's going to make the best of the time he's got. He goes back inside.

mute_pen
2013-05-30 09:33 pm (UTC)

Etty and Bella start writing down things about each other to take home. They fill most of the notebook in the hours left of the bar holiday, and then they hug each other, and they head for the door.

Etty leaves first.

growcrooked
2013-05-30 09:34 pm (UTC)

Nona finds Celo to say goodbye to him, and then she leaves too.

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:36 pm (UTC)

Which leaves Celo standing by the doorway with Bella.

"Guess we should head out too, huh?" he says.

"Guess you should," agrees a voice from behind them.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:37 pm (UTC)

...Bella looks over her shoulder.

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:37 pm (UTC)

Coach Callahan grins.

Celo rolls his eyes.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:38 pm (UTC)

"What is going on?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Meet anybody interesting?" inquires the coach.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Besides you?"

(One of the things Bella learned about the bar is that it is very safe. To a first approximation, you don't get in here if you're going to be violent to other patrons. To a second approximation, there is very good security.)

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I'm a sweet, harmless little girl and don't let anybody tell you different," says Callahan.

Celo snickers.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:49 pm (UTC)

Bella will be busy restraining the urge to unethically mind-read Callahan over here.

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:50 pm (UTC)

Callahan pats Celo on the shoulder and pushes past him to walk out the door, which opens on somewhere other than their dorm, for her.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:51 pm (UTC)

When the door closes, Bella says, "I'm so confused."

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:52 pm (UTC)

"No shit," says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm also excruciatingly tempted to just look."

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't know why you're not, but in case 'she might kill you' isn't one of the reasons already: she might kill you," says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:55 pm (UTC)

"That's a reason. Also it would be unethical."

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "And she might kill you."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I do not at all doubt her ability to kill me."

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Good, 'cause she could so do it," says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Anyway." Bella pushes open the door. It is their hall again.

pythbox
2013-05-30 09:59 pm (UTC)

Out they go, into their hall.

in which informational content is secondary

subtly_artistic

In what has become a common occurrence, Bella and Celo are hanging out in the hall kitchen, eating something Celo has baked (today: blueberry handpies).

"How's the squinting coming along?" Bella asks, after she has finished her first and is contemplating a second.

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:18 pm (UTC)

"It's going fine," he says. "It's pretty much just staying in the habit of not looking too close, now. And it's actually kind of interesting, looking at this stuff just for what it's like and not for what it means."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Like - when you're kinda dozing off and you can hear the sound of someone's voice but not the words?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:19 pm (UTC)

"That's a pretty good way to put it," he says, "yeah."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Neat. I'm glad that's going well."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "How about you, anything cool going on in your life?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Those elves are still following me. I'll probably need an escort to get off campus when I graduate, if they haven't given up yet."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I'll do it," Celo says cheerfully. "I fucked 'em up once, I can do it again."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," laughs Bella. "Now I'm imagining introducing you to my parents."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what your parents are like but I can't imagine that as anything other than hilarious," he says. "'Hi, this is Celo, my nymph buddy, I promise we haven't fucked'? Unless we get around to it in the next few years, I guess. Or would they even care? I'm kind of hazy on parents."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:28 pm (UTC)

"My dad would absolutely care."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:29 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "In a 'congratulations' way or in a 'going to knife me' way?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I would not expect either of us to be congratulated. He probably wouldn't knife you."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:31 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles. "Okay, so what would he do?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Probably he wouldn't want to definitively know. If he suspected he'd make sure I had some ridiculous number of rings of protection and, I dunno, tell you to be nice to me."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Celo, "funny thing, everybody's pretty sure I can't actually get anyone pregnant, but I carry rings anyway." He grins. "And I'm already nice to you. If we had sex I wouldn't suddenly stop."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:37 pm (UTC)

He beams.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of carrying things, how does that work? It's very nifty."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:45 pm (UTC)

"How should I know?" he shrugs. "I just put stuff away, and then," a foil-wrapped ring appears between his fingers, "take it out again." He flips the ring back and forth a few times and disappears it back to wherever it came from. "It's great. There's nothing more fun than using sleight of hand to make it look like you're pulling something out of thin air when you're actually pulling it out of thin air."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I'd like to be able to do that," says Bella. "It seems really handy. I suppose it's just a nymph thing?"

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Just a nymph thing," he confirms.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh well."

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:54 pm (UTC)

"You could still learn the sleight of hand, though!" he says, grinning.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I think I'd rather learn telekinesis. Less prep time, at least as practical," she winks. And she manages to nudge a pie onto her plate without touching it.

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:57 pm (UTC)

Celo applauds.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-30 10:58 pm (UTC)

Bella grins. (She has to pick up the pie to eat it, though.)

pythbox
2013-05-30 10:58 pm (UTC)

That is okay. It is a tasty pie.

While they are enjoying their tasty pies, one of their hallmates - Corrine, the girl who spoke with Celo in the lounge the day he and Bella met - sidles into the kitchen. Celo grins and offers her a pie. She grins and takes it, along with a comfortable seat in his lap. He wraps his arms around her waist and tucks her shoulder under his chin.

"Hi," he says affectionately. "Do you guys know each other?"
Edited 2013-05-31 16:59 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:00 pm (UTC)

"We've met, yeah," says Bella, "I don't think we have any classes together or anything."

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:02 pm (UTC)

Corrine shakes her head. "No, I'm in design and Domestic Arts," she says. "You're sutble arts, right? Mm, Celo, this is really good."

"I know," Celo says cheerfully, still snuggling her. "I'll give you the recipe later."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Subtle arts," agrees Bella, nodding. She is still nibbling on the second of her pies.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:18 pm (UTC)

Corrine beams. "You're my favourite," she says to Celo, giving him a one-armed hug because her other hand has a pie in it.

"I know," Celo repeats, grinning.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:20 pm (UTC)

Aww.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:21 pm (UTC)

Cuddly!

"Anyway," Corrine says to Bella, "what's subtle arts like? I bet you don't make a lot of pies. That must be terrible."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't make a lot of pies, no. I can cook some but I'm not as good at it or as serious about it as Celo. Mostly I learn about minds and how to poke them."

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:24 pm (UTC)

Corrine giggles. "It sounds really funny when you put it like that," she says. "Is it hard?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Some of it is. I'm not very good at telekinesis, for instance. Most of the rest of it is just like - learning to orient myself in an unfamiliar location, over and over until unfamiliar locations aren't."

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Corrine. She doesn't seem like she understood that very well, but she also doesn't seem like she's bothered by it. She nibbles on her pie. Celo cuddles her.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:27 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes her pie, decides against taking a third, and starts on a set of flashcards, glancing at the cuddling pair now and again.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:28 pm (UTC)

The cuddling pair continue to cuddle! Celo has his eyes closed and a happy smile on his face. Corrine looks generally contented, especially once she starts on her second pie.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:30 pm (UTC)

They don't seem to be absconding - or for that matter not absconding - to go have sex. Huh.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:36 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Corinne finishes pie number two and flops her head onto Celo's shoulder, closing her eyes. He hugs her. She appears to nap.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:38 pm (UTC)

She asleep?

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:40 pm (UTC)

Yeah, she does that, he says fondly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:41 pm (UTC)

Falls asleep on you? Routinely?

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:43 pm (UTC)

He nods, smiling.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:44 pm (UTC)

That's really cute.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:46 pm (UTC)

It iiiiis, he agrees. She's a sweetheart, I love her. 'Love' here apparently meaning 'want to snuggle with a lot'.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:47 pm (UTC)

Aww.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:49 pm (UTC)

Aww is right! Aww is the correct response here!

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:51 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes her deck of flashcards, and then peers at them again, and then departs the room to do some thinking.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:53 pm (UTC)

Some time after she leaves, Corrine wakes up, and she and Celo clean up after the making of the pies. They leave the remaining pies out for other hallmates to eat, and go into Celo's room to have another cuddlenap.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 05:54 pm (UTC)

Bella wanders by the room on her way to the bathroom, and the door's open.

Cute.

Huh.

pythbox
2013-05-31 05:56 pm (UTC)

Celo doesn't wave, because that might disturb his cuddle buddy.

in which bella does not have long to think of something

subtly_artistic

There are more elves now. They're impatient. They ran off Bella's escort with private whispers Bella didn't hear, Bella's subtle arts are jammed again, and they're faster than she is.

Where is she -

Celo's there, there are more elves now but maybe there's someone with him or he can put Bella where he puts his stuff or something -

And this is how Bella runs headlong into the outdoor session of Mixed Melee with seventeen armed elves chasing her, and spots Callahan, and has an even better idea.

"MY WARRANTY," she screams at the top of her overtaxed lungs, "IS AT RISK!"

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:24 pm (UTC)

Callahan blows an ear-piercing whistle.

"Five percent term bonus per head for anybody who puts down an intruder!" she yells. "Screaming girl's mine, don't touch her!"

The students' weapons are mocked, but there are a lot more than seventeen of them. And when anybody takes a hit from one of Bella's pursuers, Celo is right there with his divine healing.

The coach doesn't even have to draw a weapon.

Until, that is, the seventeen elves are lying on the ground in convincing illusory death, at which point each one of them wakes up in turn to the sight of her standing over them with a mace. She points. They run. Repeat with next elf.

One or two of them might have put up a fuss even then, if it weren't for the fact that all of their weapons have gone mysteriously missing.

"All right, fun's over," she says. "Fucktoy, take Screaming Girl and get out of my sight. Everybody else, here are your bounties. Argue and I'll take them away." She starts listing demeaning nicknames.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 08:26 pm (UTC)

Bella is more than happy to follow Celo out of Callhan's sight.

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I got my knife back," he observes cheerfully. "You okay?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Just winded. And scared. I had somebody with me, they just ran him off somehow."

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Sucks," he observes. "Need anything?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I need to not have large numbers of elves after me."

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:38 pm (UTC)

Celo snorts. "Yeah, that'd be nice. Well, at least next time they come after you they won't be so well-armed."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I'd reiterate that I'm totally taking Arcane Defense next semester, except I bet at least three of those elves are also wizards."

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should just follow you around all the time," he says wryly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 08:43 pm (UTC)

"We have some classes at the same time, and there are more of them now."

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I didn't say it was a good idea."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I appreciate the thought."

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, though, it's good that Callahan's on your side," he says. "Where do you wanna go? Back to the dorm?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's where I was headed."

pythbox
2013-05-31 08:47 pm (UTC)

Then he goes that way.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Just need to grab my ID so I can get lunch," she explains. "If I dare. I might need to start - I don't know, having groceries delivered, using the kitchen more."

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I'll cook for you," he offers cheerfully.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:03 pm (UTC)

"What I really want to do is have a picnic like I used to do when I was a kid, but I don't know how long those elves are going to be running scared and I don't have any picnic stuff."

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:06 pm (UTC)

"What, you mean like... food, picnic blankets...?" he inquires, smiling.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Portable food, picnic blanket, yeah."

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I have that stuff," says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:08 pm (UTC)

"...Tucked away on you right now?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Yep! And in case those fuckheads come back, I also have all their hardware," he says brightly. "Let's have a picnic."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she beams.

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:14 pm (UTC)

They are just passing by a nice grassy spot!

Celo moves his hands as though shaking out a blanket, and at some point during this motion, the blanket appears. He lets it waft down to the ground, tugs on it to smooth it out, and then sits down and starts appearing food items for Bella to choose from.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:15 pm (UTC)

Yay food items!

"This is awesome. How come you had a picnic blanket?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:17 pm (UTC)

"In case of picnics?" he says, shrugging. "Why not have a picnic blanket?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Is there any limit to your carrying capacity?" Ooh, potato salad. Nom.

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Haven't hit it yet," he says cheerfully.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Then I guess carrying around a random picnic blanket in case of picnic makes perfect sense!"

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:20 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:21 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom. "Thank you, this is exactly what I needed."

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," he beams, nibbling on a strawberry tart.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:22 pm (UTC)

Picnicking, picnicking! "So apparently I've been demoted from Princess to Screaming Girl. How do her nicknames work?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Whim," he shrugs. "I've been Fucktoy since she met me, but these days I know she's using it ironically."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Which you can tell how?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:25 pm (UTC)

He grins. "Because I know her."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I'd say something like 'you poor soul', but except for being infuriatingly hinty at me she has been a useful force in my life."

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:29 pm (UTC)

"She's nice like that," he says. "In the nastiest possible way."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:32 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "I hope you don't object to having your class interrupted too much."

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Nah, I like picnics," he says, smiling at her.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Me too."

pythbox
2013-05-31 09:35 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 10:09 pm (UTC)

"This is really good, did you just make it all and put it away for a - sunny day?" she asks, gesturing at the clear sky. She is currently working her way through a stuffed grape leaf.

pythbox
2013-05-31 10:21 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles again.

"Well, a lot of the time when I make something I'll just grab a little to have on hand in case somebody's hungry. And I usually only grab stuff that's easily grabbable. So I guess I just end up having a picnic socked away in case of sunshine. That's adorable, by the way."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 10:24 pm (UTC)

"You can't exactly save picnic gear for a rainy day, so," Bella grins.

pythbox
2013-05-31 10:29 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles again. "Yeah," he says, and he looks at her, and he smiles.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 10:30 pm (UTC)

Mmm, dumplings. Bella pops an entire one into her mouth and leans back, arms straight out under her shoulders.

pythbox
2013-05-31 10:31 pm (UTC)

Celo watches her with a big, happy smile on his face.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 10:32 pm (UTC)

"You're in a good mood," observes Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-31 10:38 pm (UTC)

"I like you," he explains, as though that's all there is to it. Maybe it is.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Good. I like you too."

pythbox
2013-05-31 10:43 pm (UTC)

Celo beams.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I've been largely cured of the habit of starting sentences with I wish," says Bella, "but, apropos of what I just said, it must be so cool to be able to carry everything around unobtrusively like that. Totally a good tradeoff for no pockets."

pythbox
2013-05-31 10:51 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"Fuck, you're cute," he says fondly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

pythbox
2013-05-31 10:53 pm (UTC)

"And you're right," he adds, "it's awesome."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Anything else squirreled away for amenable weather conditions?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:00 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"You know, I think the one major downside is that I tend to kind of forget what's in there until something reminds me," he says. "Nothing else as weather-dependent as the picnic blanket, though." With a wry smile, "Unless there is."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:09 pm (UTC)

"You could maintain a list," she suggests.

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Sure I could," he snorts. "And by sure I mean like hell."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Not your style, huh?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:13 pm (UTC)

"No way I'd remember every time." He grins. "Besides, I like the surprises."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Like finding silver pieces in the couch," suggests Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Exactly! It feels like you're getting a present even though it is a present from your own ability to lose things," he snorts.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I'd just as soon not lose the things in the first place, but I get the appeal, sorta," laughs Aether. "Keeping lists is definitely my style."

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I know," he says fondly.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:25 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom, candied orange segments.

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:28 pm (UTC)

Celo is giving her sappy looks again.

He takes a candied orange segment. He nibbles on it. He gives Bella a sappy look. He looks back down at his candied orange segment.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:31 pm (UTC)

"You're giving me funny looks," Bella remarks.

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Are they funny?" he asks, with something not quite exactly like innocence.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:35 pm (UTC)

"As in peculiar."

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh." He studies the candied orange segment. "Well, maybe I am."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Are you gonna tell me why?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:38 pm (UTC)

"...Because I like you?" he says, oddly shy.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:39 pm (UTC)

"We were over that subject a few minutes ago," Bella points out.

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?" he says. "It's not like I have exactly one thing I do because I like you and nothing else is ever about that."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:44 pm (UTC)

"All right," laughs Bella, shaking her head. She takes another candied orange section.

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:46 pm (UTC)

Mm, candied orange.

His sappy looks now come with an added layer of shyness.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:46 pm (UTC)

"And now you look all - tentative. Like you met me five minutes ago and don't know if we're going to get along yet."

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:47 pm (UTC)

He grins and looks down at his candied orange segment. "Yeah, you caught me."

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:48 pm (UTC)

"But we did not meet five minutes ago and have been getting along for a while now," she points out. "So where's that coming from?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:50 pm (UTC)

Celo takes a deep breath.

"...Wow, how do people do this?" he wonders plaintively. "I mean - when you say you like me. What does that... mean?"

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:53 pm (UTC)

"You're the sort of person I'll happily have a picnic with?" says Bella confused. "I like your company, I like your food, I like how you rescued me from mad elves - what do you mean, 'how do people do this'?"

pythbox
2013-05-31 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I - never mind, I guess," he says, shaking his head.

subtly_artistic
2013-05-31 11:54 pm (UTC)

"But now I'm curious."

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:00 am (UTC)

"...I thought... I don't know," he says, crushing the orange slice in his hand and hugging his knees. "I'm just. Confused? Fuck." He opens his hand, looks at the crushed piece of candied orange, slurps it off his palm, and chews on it, wrapping his arms around his knees again.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:01 am (UTC)

"Well - what about, though? Are you okay?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:02 am (UTC)

"I'll be fine," he sighs.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:02 am (UTC)

"...You sure?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:03 am (UTC)

He nods.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:04 am (UTC)

"If you ever want to tell me you can. I'm your friend."

Are those truffles? Those are totally truffles. Nom.
Edited 2013-06-01 00:06 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:07 am (UTC)

The truffle is delicious.

Celo smiles wryly.

"Yeah, that's kind of - okay," he says, "you remember when I was joking about you dating me...?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:07 am (UTC)

"...Yes?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:10 am (UTC)

"If I... hypothetically started talking about it again," he says, "I would hypothetically not be joking."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:10 am (UTC)

"...Are you just... warning me not to take it as a joke if you hypothetically did that, or are those hypotheticallies for decoration?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:11 am (UTC)

"They're kind of for plausible deniability?" he says. "I get the impression that plays a pretty big part in the early stages of human courtship."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:12 am (UTC)

"Are you hoping to court me?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:13 am (UTC)

He squirms a little.

"Maybe," he says, in a way that clearly and obviously means yes.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"You can skip the plausible deniability. I'm a human, but ask me if I care."

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:15 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Okay. Do you want to date me?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:16 am (UTC)

She regards him, a little more openly than she has before.

"Yeah," she says. "We can give that a shot."

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:17 am (UTC)

Celo beams.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:17 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "You're cute."

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:18 am (UTC)

"I know," he says, a little smugly.

"But okay, I kind of have no idea where to go from here. I mean - I know how to love, I know how to fuck, I don't really know how to date."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:20 am (UTC)

"We are having a picnic," she points out. "It's a date if we say it is."

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:33 am (UTC)

"Awesome!"

He pauses consideringly.

"...So am I going to have to do a lot of awkward guessing about when you want to do sex stuff, or do you just wanna tell me when you feel like trying something, or...?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:53 am (UTC)

Bella considers this.

Then she says, "How about, I tell you verbally when you can unsquint at me?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:53 am (UTC)

"That works," he says, grinning.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:54 am (UTC)

"Good. If it didn't I'd have to think of something else."

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:55 am (UTC)

Celo giggles.

"Hey, can I hug you?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:55 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:56 am (UTC)

He scoots over to her side of the blanket and snuggles up.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 12:57 am (UTC)

Hugs. Hugs and truffles.

pythbox
2013-06-01 12:58 am (UTC)

Truffles and hugs! Mmm, snuggly.

in which the narration is suggestive, yet vague

subtly_artistic

Neckrubs become a more regular part of Bella's life. And she does not tell him to stop until she is good and done. There is hugging. There is snuggling. There is kissing. There are some impressively sappy looks from his end, some fascinated mindreading from hers. The semester wraps up, Bella goes home for a week, and she comes back (now signed up for Utility Psionics 2, Intro to Mental Healing, Arcane Defense, Intro Cognition, and her survival credit, a lecture entitled "Wilderness Triage" (subtitled: Quick And Dirty Mechanisms For Identifying The Lesser Of Several Evils).

She missed Celo! She seeks him out at once. Hugs.

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:31 am (UTC)

Celo is in the kitchen.

Hugs! Hugs and kisses. Kitchen-appropriate kisses, because that is where they are.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:32 am (UTC)

It is important to be location-appropriate. There was an Explanation about this.

I missed you. How was your intersession?

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:33 am (UTC)

It was fine, he says cheerfully. I bought a new dagger, wanna see?

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:33 am (UTC)

Sure.

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:37 am (UTC)

He steps back far enough to show off his new dagger without taking an undue risk of stabbing her with it.

It's of dwarven make, a simple, clean design with a few discreet jewels set where they do the most good, the blade long and straight and sharp with a short, strong point. It looks efficient. Also expensive.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:39 am (UTC)

"Shiny. Uh, I know the city pays your tuition, but that looks shiny enough to be kinda extracurricular."

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:42 am (UTC)

"It is," he laughs, putting his shiny new toy away. "Don't worry, I paid for it. And I figured in the taxes."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:42 am (UTC)

"Yeah, how'd you do it?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:44 am (UTC)

"Sold my body," he shrugs. "To somebody who wanted to eat a live nymph. It was fun."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:44 am (UTC)

"...That has got to fall under blasphemy laws."

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:46 am (UTC)

"Not as far as I know!" he says cheerfully. "There's a whole business for it. I mean, nymph is pretty rare, but they've got anybody else you could want on a menu."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:47 am (UTC)

...Bella thinks about that.

Bella shudders.

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:47 am (UTC)

"Aww, sorry," he says, hugging her again.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:49 am (UTC)

"I'll be okay. I hate thinking about nasty social institutions I can't change, though."

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:50 am (UTC)

He tucks his arms around her waist and kisses her cheek. "You're a sweetheart and I love you."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:52 am (UTC)

Snuggles.

"Are you in the middle of important kitchening?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:53 am (UTC)

"Nah, I was just cleaning up."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:53 am (UTC)

"Let's go hang out in one of our rooms," she suggests.

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:54 am (UTC)

"Sure! Mine? Mine is snugglier," he asserts.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:55 am (UTC)

"I defer to your expertise on snuggliness."

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:56 am (UTC)

Giggling, he leads her to his room.

It is indeed very snuggly. He has extra pillows and blankets, and they have kind of taken over. (He's added a few more since she was last here.)

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 01:58 am (UTC)

Flumph!

Bella spent much of her break practicing telekinesis - she's not much stronger than she was, but she's been playing with various common objects and knows where to apply her light taps of force to get them to behave.

She can close a well-hinged door from a flumphed position across the room, and if she really stares it down, she can latch it.

pythbox
2013-06-01 01:59 am (UTC)

"Ooh, good going," admires Celo, curling up and nestling his head on her shoulder.
Edited 2013-06-01 01:59 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:00 am (UTC)

She beams.

Then she says, "You can unsquint at me if you want."

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:02 am (UTC)

"Mmmkay," he says. He tucks his face into the side of her neck and closes his eyes and lets himself feel her, in depth, with full interpretation.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:02 am (UTC)

There is stuff to see!

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:04 am (UTC)

Oh is there.

"I'm gonna make a guess," Celo mumbles into her skin, and then he kisses the place where his mouth is.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:04 am (UTC)

Kisses kisses oh this is nicer when he's unsquinted all the way this was a good idea.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:05 am (UTC)

It was a very good idea. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, a fucking excellent idea.

Celo sets about proving that to her.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:06 am (UTC)

Bella has the best ideas apparently.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:07 am (UTC)

She does!

Also, Celo's ability to produce tasty things is not limited to the kitchen.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:12 am (UTC)

Jala did suggest something to that effect! Bella is intrigued to note its truth.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:13 am (UTC)

Celo likes being a source of tasty things! He giggles and kisses her when she has had a taste.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:13 am (UTC)

Kisses. Kisses are the best.

Bella pronounces his name. Several times.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:14 am (UTC)

Ooh, he likes it when she pronounces his name.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:14 am (UTC)

Then it's good that she can do it!

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:16 am (UTC)

Yes. Yes it is.

Also, in case she was wondering, one emission of honey does not mean that this interlude has come to an end. Or even to a middle.

He doesn't need to take a break until she is good and done.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:17 am (UTC)

How convenient that classes don't start till tomorrow.

'Cause Bella really, really missed him.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:17 am (UTC)

He missed her too!

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:21 am (UTC)

Anyone walking by this room might be in complete ignorance of what was going on, at least if they were only listening for Bella. She's very quiet, in terms of sound.

Celo's name and everything else she has to say is uttered privately and with distinctly unquiet emphasis.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:23 am (UTC)

Celo is rather less quiet, but then, no one who walks past a nymph's room should be surprised to hear him moaning.

And when he says her name, he says it privately.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:23 am (UTC)

That is very considerate of him and she appreciates that and also all of the other things he does.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:26 am (UTC)

He does many appreciable things! And he intends to do as many of those things for Bella as she wants.

He loves her so much.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:29 am (UTC)

Eventually she is worn out and just wants to cuddle. She might want to cuddle overnight and sneak back to her room in the morning.

Although apart from being exhausted she feels pretty damn good. Not in the obvious way. She also had a kind of a sore throat this morning and it's gone. Huh.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:31 am (UTC)

Celo is delighted to cuddle her. He loves cuddling, and he loves Bella, so naturally he loves cuddling Bella.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:32 am (UTC)

Excellent, that works out nicely.

I feel like I walked through a healing ward and they hit me with everything they had except a spell to remove tiredness. Is that usual?

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:38 am (UTC)

Yeah, he says comfortably. Didn't I tell you? It's not just tasty, it's basically - healing essence. My first landowner was plain human and he lived for eighty years on it, and by the end you couldn't tell he was a day over thirty.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:39 am (UTC)

Perk, comments Bella, snuzzling him.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:40 am (UTC)

Snuzzly!

No shit, he giggles. I could've sworn I told you. Maybe I just forgot I hadn't.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:40 am (UTC)

Or I forgot it. Well, now I know.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:42 am (UTC)

He kisses the end of her nose.

"And you can have as much as you want," he promises, grinning.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:43 am (UTC)

My life is awesome, Bella asserts.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:43 am (UTC)

You're awesome, he says, snuzzling her.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:44 am (UTC)

I am! And you are too. So much awesome.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:44 am (UTC)

He giggles softly.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:45 am (UTC)

Bella is tired. And they have been here for a while.

Can I stay the night and not have to get up, or do you need to go do something nourishing? She's currently flopped onto him and would have to move if he needed to go do something nourishing.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:46 am (UTC)

Nah, I'm good for tonight, he says, kissing her cheek.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:47 am (UTC)

Good. I'm comfy.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:48 am (UTC)

Love you, he says contentedly. G'night.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:50 am (UTC)

Sleeps are slept.

In the morning, Bella tucks herself into yesterday's clothes to slip across the hall to her own room and prepare for the day.

Instead, she finds Milliways.

Hey, [name], wake up, I found the bar.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:51 am (UTC)

Oh, cool! he says, waking up immediately. Are they on sexy holiday again?

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:52 am (UTC)

Nnnnno, looks like everyone has pants on.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:53 am (UTC)

Celo giggles.

Man, fuck pants.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 02:58 am (UTC)

Well, I can go in without you, if you'd rather.

pythbox
2013-06-01 02:58 am (UTC)

Yeah, go for it. You can always open the door again if you meet anybody interesting, right?

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:03 am (UTC)

Yeah, but what if they don't want to come visit? They can't count on finding the door again on a schedule that suits them.

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:06 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

And you want me to do what about this? Wear pants? I don't even have pants! Get arrested in an interplanar bar? No thanks.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:09 am (UTC)

You don't have to do anything about it, I'm just mulling over the fact that this means you won't get to meet anyone cool I find who doesn't want to visit our plane, and I'm trying to think of a fix.
Edited 2013-06-01 03:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:10 am (UTC)

He grins and gets out of his pillow nest to give her a hug.

"I love you," he says. "Go meet cool people."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:14 am (UTC)

"All right." Hugs. Kiss goodbye. In she goes.

It's breakfast-time. She goes up to the bar; she did this a couple times when she was hanging out with Etty, too, to hand them food, and the bar takes the meal plan (however that works; she tries not to dwell on it) so she can get some breakfast.

Breakfast comes with a key, and a napkin with a room number on it.

That's curious.

Bella picks up her breakfast burrito and heads up the stairs, eating it one-handed, looking for the room.

The room exists, empty, decorated with landscapes and neat rugs, and there's a sign; it directs her to go check out the new Belltower, in the backyard.

Bella walks slowly, suspiciously, back down the stairs, out the back door, and to the tower. That tower wasn't there before.

But it's there now.

mind_game
2013-06-01 03:14 am (UTC)

"Hi, new Bell! Read the book! I'll tell everyone you've found your way here."

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:16 am (UTC)

[Ooh, new Bell,] says Jellybean, conferenced to Jane and Tilly and Cam. [I wanna go meet her, how about you?]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:17 am (UTC)

[I'm in - relay to the whole peal, please, Jane - we should probably send a small welcoming committee instead of descending on her in droves now that we number more than a dozen, huh? Dibs, though.]

dark_light
2013-06-01 03:17 am (UTC)

[I'll take a spot too - what's a good welcoming committee size? Three, four?]

withmypowers
2013-06-01 03:18 am (UTC)

[I'm not in,] says Tilly, to Cam and Jellybean. [You guys have fun.]

autokinetic
2013-06-01 03:19 am (UTC)

[I'll come though.]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:19 am (UTC)

[Me, Jellybean, Amariah, Aegis - has new Bell got a Joker?]

mind_game
2013-06-01 03:21 am (UTC)

"Hey new Bell," Jane says, interrupting Bella's read of the Bellbook. "Have you by any chance got a boyfriend who looks like so?" And a series of images of Jokers appears.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:22 am (UTC)

"...Yes. He can't come in here, though."

mind_game
2013-06-01 03:22 am (UTC)

"Oh, no worries, a welcoming committee of three of you and one of him is gonna come to you," says Jane brightly.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:23 am (UTC)

"...Awesome."

mind_game
2013-06-01 03:23 am (UTC)

"There's more of both of you than that, but they don't want to overwhelm you right away."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:25 am (UTC)

"Can they come home with me? I feel bad about Celo not being able to come here when there are apparently," she gestures at the book, "interesting people to meet."

mind_game
2013-06-01 03:25 am (UTC)

"Sure, we can skip to that," says Jane cheerfully.

[Everybody ready?]

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:26 am (UTC)

[Sure thing! I wanna meet her Joker,] says Jellybean.

mind_game
2013-06-01 03:26 am (UTC)

Yoinking, one two three four!

autokinetic
2013-06-01 03:27 am (UTC)

"Hi!" grins Aegis. "Us three are Bells like you. That's a Joker. Me and Amariah have ones of our own at home too but they're not joining us today. Why can't yours come here?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:28 am (UTC)

"He's a nymph, he'd get busted by Security," says Bella, putting down the partially-read Bellbook. "Nymphs don't wear clothes - is that going to be okay? My door leads to his dorm room, and he's in it."

dark_light
2013-06-01 03:31 am (UTC)

Amariah glances around at the Bells chosen for this landing party. "This is probably the best-chosen set of three Bells for not caring about a Joker being naked. Maybe Rose or Sarion, but I don't know how they generalize beyond their respective ones. Lead the way. I'm Amariah, my entry's one of the first so you know about me; that's Cam, he's the boy one; that's Aegis, she's Jane's mom; that's Jellybean, he's Cam's Joker."

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:31 am (UTC)

Jellybean gives Cam a demonstrative hug and Aether a friendly wave.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:32 am (UTC)

"And you're all okay to come through my door? I don't know when I'll get another."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 03:33 am (UTC)

"Oh, Jane does interdimensional travel!" says Aegis proudly. "We can pop in and out whenever."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:34 am (UTC)

"...Okay, great, let's go then," laughs Un-Nicknamed Bella.

She leads her alts and Jellybean to the door, opens it, leads them all through.
Edited 2013-06-01 03:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:40 am (UTC)

"Hi, everybody!" says Celo from his blanket nest.

"You are super hot," says Jellybean.

"I know, right?" giggles Celo. "I love that skirt, did you make it yourself?"

Jellybean twirls. "You betcha!"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:41 am (UTC)

"Did we somehow manage to not be the first alts you guys met?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:41 am (UTC)

"Last semester Celo found the bar - it was on holiday, he was allowed to be naked - and we met Etty and Nona," says Bella, shutting the door. "Do you know them?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 03:42 am (UTC)

"Nope, not yet. You didn't go up to the bar, or was this due to time-screw-uppedness before the founding of the Belltower?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:43 am (UTC)

"I went up to the bar. I guess you hadn't been there - 'yet'," shrugs Bella.
Edited 2013-06-01 03:48 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:48 am (UTC)

"Or something was fucked up because of the holiday," Celo suggests idly, patting the nearest pillow. Jellybean sits on it and cuddles up to him.

"How'd you glamour your hair like that?" inquires the less clothed of the two, looking curiously at Aegis.

autokinetic
2013-06-01 03:50 am (UTC)

"It's not a glamour, it's my enchantress's aura!" says Aegis, grinning, hopping into the air, and twirling effortlessly. "If you do enough enchanting you get one. We all have them. They do different things. Amariah's makes her witchy and tells everybody not to touch Path, Cam's makes him all honest-looking, mine does - moving, basically, two different ways. I'm Aegis," she adds. "And there's ten more! Plus this one and - which was the Bell, Etty or Nona? And however many more we haven't found yet."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:52 am (UTC)

"Etty was the Bell. Nona was her - Joker, I guess - girlfriend. I guess I need a nickname?"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:53 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Cam. "I'm lucky, I got to keep my regular nickname because I'm the only boy one so far."

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:54 am (UTC)

"That is lucky," says Celo, looking up at him with a speculative smile.

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:55 am (UTC)

"You should've seen the look on my face when I found out there were eight more of Jellybean. And now there are more than that within peal reach," snorts Cam when he observes this smile.

autokinetic
2013-06-01 03:56 am (UTC)

"Depends how you count if eight was even the right word," laughs Aegis.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:56 am (UTC)

"Besides you three and Etty what are the other nicknames?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 03:57 am (UTC)

"Stella, Shell Bell, Golden, Angela, Juliet, Pattern, Rose, Sarion, Aurora, Glass."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:57 am (UTC)

"...I think I'll take Aether."

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:00 am (UTC)

"That's cute," says Celo. "I love you."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:01 am (UTC)

Aether smiles.

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:11 am (UTC)

"So what's this world like? Is it a fantasyland, I'm getting a fantasyland vibe if nymphs are a thing that exists."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:11 am (UTC)

"I don't think I catch your meaning?"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:12 am (UTC)

"The most common place for Bells to come from are variants of Earth, but there are some from farther-flung locales, with more or less magic."

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:14 am (UTC)

"Or none, Angela's from a nonmagical world and not the Earth in it. But it has an Earth, and Glass's world, or Sarion's, don't."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:14 am (UTC)

"This is definitely a magical world. I have no idea how a non-magical one would even exist," snorts Aether.

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:15 am (UTC)

"Some of us do pretty well!" says Aegis cheerfully. "Jane's the next best thing to minting and she's not magic at all, technically!"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:15 am (UTC)

"...She's not?"

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:16 am (UTC)

"Nope! Very high-tech, but not magic, not a speck, Glass and Lazarus agree."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:16 am (UTC)

"Uh," says Aether. "Then - what is she?"

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:18 am (UTC)

"High-tech, like I said. Emergent intelligence from a network of ansibles. Oh, and she's always watching, out of our jewelry," Aegis taps her earpiece.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:18 am (UTC)

"You come from a science world?"

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:22 am (UTC)

"Yeah, you could call it that, Peace is really advanced compared to basically everywhere else, although I think Atlantis has us beat in a couple fields, not that this'll mean much after I drag Peace properly into our place in the multiverse and we can network."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:22 am (UTC)

"No, I don't mean how much science do you have, I mean - you have science."

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:24 am (UTC)

"We all have science," says Amariah. "I mean, Chronicle and Thilanushinyel and Rêverie are more primitive than standard, and Peace and Atlantis and sort of Samaria and to a lesser extent Aurum are father along than standard, but - yeah?"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:24 am (UTC)

"What's your point, Aether?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:25 am (UTC)

"Science doesn't - work here. It's fantasy. You can't do it." She swallows. "Are you sure Jane is still working?"

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:25 am (UTC)

Aegis goes pale. "Jane," she murmurs. "Jane, say something -" [ - Jane -]

mind_game
2013-06-01 04:26 am (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:28 am (UTC)

"What did your emossing nuzhnik of a world do to Jane?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:28 am (UTC)

"Shit."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:30 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry!" exclaims Aether. "Etty didn't have - tech like you! She had fewer gods to worry about than I do, maybe, but I didn't realize my world was - I didn't realize the entire universe was a wonderful science fantasyland except my little part of it!"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:32 am (UTC)

"Okay, well," says Cam, "Jane's been down before, we just need to find a door and hope time doesn't unsync too bad at home. I've never tried Speeching a door into existence but maybe it can be done; maybe tenners can do it, we've all got a few of those; maybe Shell Bell or Sue will come rescue us any minute now."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:35 am (UTC)

"Hope time doesn't unsync - I have stuff to do at home, what am I supposed to do, pretend the assassination attempt stuck but only after a few months' delay? I have a political campaign to prep for, I can't disappear! What about Sue, you brought yours with you but mine and Ama's are left in the cold!"

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:36 am (UTC)

"It's okay, it'll be okay," soothes Amariah, patting Aegis's shoulder, "we can figure something out, with four of us working together I bet you there's a cheat available."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:36 am (UTC)

"Whoa," says Aether, "no, hold up, don't start talking about cheating, you can't cheat, that's not allowed, hubristic tendencies whoa -"

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:37 am (UTC)

"...Did you just use the word hubristic? Unironically?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:38 am (UTC)

"Keez, is this what I turn into unfettered by constraints on my ego - yes, I used the word 'hubristic' unironically! It will get you killed if you go too far! I thought we were just going to hang out and swap life stories probably Jellybean and Celo would have sex, I didn't think you were going to show up talking about science and cheating."

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:40 am (UTC)

"We've got a lot of magic," says Cam, "not just tech stuff - we actually carry almost no tech stuff except for the Jane-gems - we don't use technology to confront gods and so on except insofar as Jane usually lets us coordinate," says Cam.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:41 am (UTC)

"I didn't say tech wouldn't work - I said science doesn't work!"

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:42 am (UTC)

"Okay, but," says Amariah, "this isn't like when Shell Bell died and woke up Downside stripped of magic. We all walked in here, I think Jellybean's been talking in the Speech the entire time, our auras are working, my brain's still boosted, I heard Aegis try the brainphone and it behaved."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:44 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Aether, "for now those things are behaving - if you get attention from a god, or a fae, or a greater dragon, or a demon, or a sufficiently powerful anything, I wouldn't count on it staying that way! You can't do big stuff, you can't cheat, you can't assume that if something little and local like a neat aura that you're showing off to a couple of people still works you'll be able to do anything major!"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:44 am (UTC)

"So when you say science doesn't work here," Cam says slowly, "you mean it literally - induction doesn't work here, experiments aren't reliable here."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:46 am (UTC)

"Yes," breathes Aether, "yes, that's what I'm saying, maybe you come from the settings of epic novels where heroes can use the regularities of the cosmos to bend reality to their will but here we have to rely on things that are intrinsically unreliable for anything remotely big."

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:48 am (UTC)

"But - but -" Amariah gestures around at the room. "Look, this still looks, you know, habitable to me, this is a decent standard of living, how do you have mass-produced pillowcases and -" She gestures at Aether's jeans. "Denim?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:52 am (UTC)

"If something works one way one time it'll often work that way other times. You just can't start - cheating. I have denim because denim is nonthreatening. Denim doesn't antagonize faeries or gods or dragons. If I read everything there is to know about the characteristics of one of those things - if I could magically know about everything dragons have ever done in the history of always - and then I came up with a way to use denim to kill one without being personally staggeringly powerful such that it would be appropriate for me to beat a dragon, that seems like it would still make sense based on all that, then it might work, but only if the universe was in a good mood or if the dragon was due, and I probably couldn't do it twice."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:52 am (UTC)

"But we are staggeringly powerful!"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:53 am (UTC)

"If you're going to say shit like that can you at least not do it near innocent bystanders?"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:53 am (UTC)

"Are you kidding me?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:54 am (UTC)

"Okay, talking's probably safe if that's all you do, but - I'm paranoid about this, I have hubristic tendencies."

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:55 am (UTC)

"Of course you do. Bells, given enough resources, tend to take over their worlds. Oh, you poor thing, what a terrible place for you to have wound up. What were you going to do with yourself?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:56 am (UTC)

"I was - I mean, I am, it's not like you guys can change any of the relevant factors, is it - I'm going to be a mental healer. I'm a subtle artist."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:59 am (UTC)

"I guess Pattern was going to be a doctor or something," mumbles Aegis vaguely.

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 05:00 am (UTC)

"...This world won't Downside," Cam observes abruptly. "Normally that would just mean Aether has a project upcoming, but in conjunction with everything else I'm worried, can we even trust torching?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah - Aether, you're the expert here, tell us what we can and can't do while we're stuck."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:01 am (UTC)

"...What can you normally do? What's torching?"

autokinetic
2013-06-01 05:06 am (UTC)

"Most worlds - not this one, not Syntropy," Aegis gestures at Cam, "and not Alethia, but all the others we know about, started out connected to or can be made to connect to an afterlife called Downside. We sort of - we didn't actually conquer it, but it's probably the easiest way to summarize - and collected some magic from it. If you die and show up Downside, then if you suffer would-be-lethal damage you reset to a healthy state right there. One of the things on the Bell checklist is to gain the ability to do that, and also to visit the Downside admin and get her to give you the power to distribute torching to other folks. If we make somebody from a world torchable, that'll usually also hook up their world to Downside. We can do it a la carte," she gestures at Cam and Amariah, "but the way you're talking I'm not sure we should even touch you with it.'

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:08 am (UTC)

"Yeah, um," says Aether, "I'm not actually sure if that would do me harm or just fail or succeed according to universal whim, but maybe you could leave me alone on that front until and unless I would actually die otherwise?"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 05:09 am (UTC)

"Okay. And apart from that, me and Jellybean are wizards - we can speak a magical language that lets us address and command or coax plants and animals and objects that can't usually talk, and also just lets us communicate with anyone. Does that sound safe to use here? Jellybean's been doing it the whole time, he never bothers wishing up languages."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:11 am (UTC)

"...I think that sounds safe to use for communicative purposes, especially if you've had it and been using it for a while," says Aether carefully. "I wouldn't try to 'coax or command' anything big. No gods or faeries or dragons or anything - like that. And I don't guarantee that even small things will work how you're used to. But - wishing up languages?"
Edited 2013-06-01 05:11 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:13 am (UTC)

"The basic utility magic for everyday Bell use is wish-based," says Amariah. "We, or helper mints, make magical coins that can be wished on. Most of our magical powers work that way. A pentagon is the shape of the coin that's the right size for magically learning a language; we all did it for yours before we got here."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:14 am (UTC)

"Kheez, I am really glad I caught you before you tried to do anything with that - sweet happy fantasylands with well-behaved wishes - don't touch that kind of magic here. Wishes are dangerous as hell, they will not work how you want."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 05:15 am (UTC)

"But our existing powers mostly work like that! We have perfect recall and accelerable cognition and we don't trip over our own toes and you'll notice we're talking Pax right now!"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:19 am (UTC)

"Sure, you made the wishes in Science Fantasy Land," says Aether, shrugging, "and now you don't have a wish, you have a power. It's not like people here can't have powers. I'm a subtle artist, and I'd be surprised as anything if I woke up one morning and that didn't work. As long as you aren't cheating or pissing off anything big, powers you already have should work about like normal - I mean, they might glitch in some funny way, I won't rule that out, but it's safe to talk in Pax and think fast and remember things and walk upright - lucky bastards - just day-to-day."

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 05:20 am (UTC)

"How sure are you about that?" asks Cam. "Because there are some things it would be bad if we suddenly couldn't do. Our memories and whatnot are one thing, but - say - me and Amariah have daemons -"

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:20 am (UTC)

"I'm Amariah's daemon Pathalan," says Path. "Cam's is Grace and she can turn into a notebook and is in his backpack. Don't ever, ever touch us."

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 05:22 am (UTC)

"And when we want to, we can tuck them away inside ourselves, if we're worried about somebody touching them, or if it's just more convenient, or whatever," Cam says, "but neither of us do it naturally, and having something go wrong with one's daemon is disastrous."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:22 am (UTC)

Aether thinks about this. "Are there daemons who can do it naturally?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:24 am (UTC)

"Aegis's Joker Sue can. He got his daemon on purpose - he wasn't born with one like me and mine - but while he did it, he was dreaming. Jokers sometimes dream their way into Milliways, when they're locked up. So Ivy can tuck and untuck without having any wishes made about it."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 05:24 am (UTC)

"I miss 'em already," mumbles Aegis.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:25 am (UTC)

"...I don't think anything bad will happen to them if you tuck them," says Aether, "but I wouldn't bet your lives on it. They seem to be okay now, right? Don't - don't make experiments you don't have to make."

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 05:29 am (UTC)

"Okay. And I'll have Grace stick to being a notebook for the time being too, no birding."

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:30 am (UTC)

Amariah cradles Path to her breast and shivers.

autokinetic
2013-06-01 05:34 am (UTC)

"There's also enchanting?" says Aegis. "This wouldn't be much help if there weren't Jokers here, but there are. That's a kind of magic from Rêverie, the kind that got us our auras - usually you'd just pentagon knowing how to do it, and hex being able to, but we can explain - you take power from the sky, or from the earth, or from your will or your emotions, and you pass it through a spell and then through your mindscape or a channel's -" She indicates the Jokers present. "And that hurts, but, Jokers, and then you can accomplish whatever the spell was for. It's - I think it's less sciencey than wishcoins? Enchantments have personalities. Wishes work more like programs."

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:35 am (UTC)

"When I handled my world's afterlife, I went to a couple places where I couldn't make wishes, but I could do enchantments," says Amariah.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:35 am (UTC)

"I think that - again, standard caveats about annoying large things, cheating, reaching for power beyond mortal ken, hubris - that sounds much better than trying to wish for things."

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:37 am (UTC)

"Okay. That's an imperfect substitute and requires a cooperative channel to be handy - Rose is the original Bell enchantress and she can enchant through her husband at range, but she's the only one with that trick down, she had to be really familiar with his mindscape and do enchantment-style mindreading for a long time first."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 05:38 am (UTC)

"Good, I was worried I was going to be stuck with nothing, you're a wizard and you're a witch but I'm just a space admiral," grumbles Aegis.

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:41 am (UTC)

"Speaking of being a witch, I'm not a human," says Amariah, flaring aura briefly - just long enough to wonder if that's a good idea and change her mind. "On my world besides humans there's witches, like me, and we can do some magic. It's ritual-based. Poetry, some materials - thank goddesses all I have my cornucopia on me, although I guess the cornucopia's a separate question - occasional animal sacrifice, drawing runes on things. Motion, for a few spells."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:43 am (UTC)

"Usual caveats but I'd expect your racial traits to be intact. There are all different kinds of people with all different associated powers and characteristics." Aether gestures at Celo. "Tell me about the cornucopia."

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:45 am (UTC)

Amariah fishes it out from where it's hung by its twist of silk under her outfit. "It's this thing - Matilda made a bunch of them, mostly for Shell Bell, but I took one home because it's useful for generating spell components. If I name something edible - it won't do poisons, but I usually can work around that - then it'll appear it for me. If it matters, Matilda was the first person in her world to have magic."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:47 am (UTC)

"...If I heard of a local magic item that did that I would expect the conjured stuff to be temporary. Yours might fall in line with that rule. I don't know if that'll affect your spells. You shouldn't try to live on food it makes. It probably won't blow up in your face, especially if you've had it for a while."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 05:50 am (UTC)

"What is the local magic like? As long as we're exploring what's available."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:51 am (UTC)

Is it time for another thaumo lecture? Looks like!

autokinetic
2013-06-01 05:52 am (UTC)

Aegis holds up a hand in the middle, when Aether's summarizing subtle arts. "Wait, I thought of something more urgent. A lot of Bells have some form or another of native mental opacity. We're some of those, all in different ways. What should we expect?"
Edited 2013-06-01 05:52 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:54 am (UTC)

"Uh, I have that," says Aether. "I'm a naturally defensive subtle artist. I'm not all-powerful. A stronger artist can break my shielding. It doesn't affect anything else besides subtle arts, either, I can be just as easily affected by a mind-affecting arcane or divine spell or by racial traits or whatever as anyone else. You're probably all better protected than some random person, but you shouldn't expect to defy dragon will or countermand divine orders or whatever it is you people usually do with your time."

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:57 am (UTC)

"Alethia had a god," snorts Amariah. "He shriveled up to next to nothing and I wouldn't call him that anymore. And he had a right-hand angel, and he presented more of a problem, but that didn't stop me from gutting him."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:58 am (UTC)

"Okay, look, Celo's one thing, but don't say that kind of shit in front of anybody else who practices divine magic or is really religious or - you know what, just don't say it in front of anybody who's not in this room," says Aether.

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:58 am (UTC)

Amariah holds up her hands nonthreateningly.

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 06:00 am (UTC)

"Long as we're still safe in this room, my world has some ineffective sorta-okay-ish gods and one evil one," volunteers Cam. "I haven't taken on the evil one yet, but it's on the list, should I also be careful talking about that?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 06:01 am (UTC)

"Yes. Be careful talking about that. Aegis?"
Edited 2013-06-01 06:01 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-06-01 06:02 am (UTC)

"Nothing Peacewise. Unless you count Jane." Aegis takes her earpiece out of her ear and looks at it sadly.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 06:04 am (UTC)

"Okay, well, I can only imagine what it must be like to grow up with no gods - but here they exist, and they are very powerful, and we don't even spend too long speculating about taking their jobs or giving them pieces of our minds or gutting their servants."

pythbox
2013-06-01 11:22 am (UTC)

"...You know," says Celo, "I hate to say it, but: maybe we should talk to Callahan." He pauses, then amends this suggestion. "Maybe I should talk to Callahan and you guys should never ever go anywhere near her."

"Who's Callahan?" asks Jellybean.

"She's my favourite martial combat teacher, and - " he gestures helplessly to Aether, "what's safe to say to these guys that won't have them running off to intimidate her or something? I don't wanna get your nice extraplanar selves killed."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:00 pm (UTC)

"Uh," Aether squirms. "...I cannot disclose the details, for which I am extremely sorry, but I have reason to suspect that Callahan falls into the category of something big, and I doubt any of us would get along with her on a personal level, so avoiding her is probably a good strategy?"

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:01 pm (UTC)

"That makes it sound like she's been threatening you," Cam says.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:01 pm (UTC)

"She has been threatening me and I take it very seriously, okay?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:03 pm (UTC)

"Take it seriously when Callahan threatens you," Celo puts in, as general advice for anyone who is listening. "Callahan can fuck you up. I don't know whatever - Aether - knows that makes her think that, but I know it's fucking true."

dark_light
2013-06-01 03:03 pm (UTC)

"What kinda powers does she have, and if she has such powers why is she a schoolteacher?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:08 pm (UTC)

"Why would I know that?" says Celo. "Seriously, why? Bella, they're not listening, make them listen."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if she can kill you or not, and I'm the local expert, right, that should at least give you serious pause if you're used to gallivanting around with invulnerable immortality, right, surviving assassination attempts and taking over worlds and so on - do you have no self-preservation instinct at all? - do not fuck with Callahan, please, please."

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:13 pm (UTC)

"We're not going to go randomly attack her, but if Celo can't get her to tell him what he thinks she knows - I mean, she won't necessarily recognize me as being your alt, right? Maybe it'd be safe for me to talk to her? Specially since I have a layer of wizard wards under all my wished stuff and you thought wizarding would go on working about like normal..."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Unless you annoy something big, like Callahan."

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:19 pm (UTC)

"I don't know for sure that Callahan can get around whatever you've got on you, or that she'd even try. I mean, I'm a nymph, she'd have to go a ways out of her way to put me down and keep me there, and I don't just assume that she's gonna take a carriage into the city and burn me down if I ever piss her off. But if I pissed her off bad enough, she might. And let me tell you, if you'd taken any of her classes you'd know this already - you call her a 'schoolteacher' like that's a cute fluffy thing to do, but what she teaches us is how to kill people. You know, and how to stop them from killing you, but according to Callahan the best way to do that is to get there first. Are you starting to get the picture?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 03:21 pm (UTC)

"What makes you so sure that we don't qualify as something big?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:22 pm (UTC)

"It sounds like, where you're from, you do. But it also sounds like where you're from is a wacky science fantasy where you can conduct experiments and attack gods and have no restraint on your hubris, and I don't want to bet your lives on that being true here!"

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:23 pm (UTC)

"What she said," Celo agrees.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:24 pm (UTC)

"At least let Celo try talking to her first. And - and I'm going to be late for Arcane Defense. It's the first class of the semester, if you guys want to - can you be invisible?"

autokinetic
2013-06-01 03:26 pm (UTC)

"Of course!" Pause. "Usually. Wished power. We use it all the time, though - safe to try?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Should be."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 03:27 pm (UTC)

Aegis turns invisible, then turns visible again. "Okay, we can follow you to class. Won't do anything rash till we hear from Celo."

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Celo. "I have class with her later, I'll see if I can catch her then. Meanwhile, I'm gonna be fucking Jellybean, so go away unless you wanna join in."

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:38 pm (UTC)

Cam thinks about this, but then he kisses Jellybean goodbye instead. "Maybe later. We're gonna be here for a while." He turns invisible and follows the other Bells out of the room with Aether.

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:49 pm (UTC)

Celo and Jellybean have sex.

In much the same way that the Bells are following Aether to her classes, Jellybean follows Celo to his. This means he is present for Celo's conversation with Callahan.

They wait until they're back at the dorm and Celo has a batch of cookies in the oven before Jellybean brainphones the Bells to let them know the results. (Although Celo was added to the brainphone earlier, he doesn't see any reason to use it if he doesn't have to.)

[Callahan scares me,] Jellybean announces. [And she definitely knows something. Doesn't wanna cough it up, though.]

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:50 pm (UTC)

[Don't all go charging off to break down her door,] Aether tells the other Bells desperately, [please, I'm terrified of her.]

autokinetic
2013-06-01 03:51 pm (UTC)

[We could spy on her invisibly, see if we can find anything?]

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 03:51 pm (UTC)

[That is a worse idea.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:53 pm (UTC)

[Oh my fucking mother,] Celo agrees, [don't do that, really truly absolutely don't do that.]

[I'm with him,] says Jellybean.

dark_light
2013-06-01 03:54 pm (UTC)

[We have to do something! We can't just stay here forever! The arcane defense was calmly talking about logical paradox like that's a thing!]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 03:54 pm (UTC)

[We could just - wait for a door,] says Cam. [Amariah, you visited Juliet for a while...]

dark_light
2013-06-01 03:56 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, sure, but I'd gotten to Sunshine through Milliways on both ends, I knew to expect no time to pass back home - with Jane down and us having gotten here through a door only on the one end it could already have been years! I just got my afterlife sorted out. I have witch queens to talk to and subworlds to explore and trapped angels to visit once a week in case they decide to talk to me!]

pythbox
2013-06-01 03:58 pm (UTC)

[Tough shit,] says Celo. [Look, you're all more or less adults. If you want to go pester Callahan, I'm not gonna knock you down and sit on you until you think better of it. I'm just saying, you could die. You could seriously permanently no-takebacks die. Up to you if you like the risks.]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:00 pm (UTC)

[I haven't gotten to my afterlife yet. There's billions of people on Syntropy who are disappearing to some unknown fate. Don't think I don't understand the urgency of being able to go home. But, look, they find doors here. We can wait for a door. It could've been years, but it could've been less time than we've spent, too.]

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:01 pm (UTC)

[...If I for-real-forever die Jane probably does too.]

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:01 pm (UTC)

[Ugh.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:04 pm (UTC)

[Anyways,] says Jellybean, [there's no indication that how long we spend here matters at all to how long it will have been back home, right? Once Jane's down, it's all up for grabs. She was out for three seconds from her end last time and some of the gaps in other worlds lasted years. ...I guess if it is proportional, that's a big problem.]

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:05 pm (UTC)

[It's probably not proportional, but it probably is monotonic. If we got home now, less time would have passed than if we got home tomorrow.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:09 pm (UTC)

[How do we know?] says Jellybean.

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:10 pm (UTC)

[It's the simplest explanation for what Jane noticed about her clocks when she came back last time.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:21 pm (UTC)

[Why is it the simplest - you know what, never mind, I don't care,] says Celo.

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:25 pm (UTC)

[What did Scary Fighting Teacher even say?]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:27 pm (UTC)

[I stayed after class and she asked me if I'd met anybody interesting lately. I said 'like who?' and she said 'like anybody'. It's the same thing she asked me and Bella when we ran into her at Milliways that one time.]

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:27 pm (UTC)

[...She knows about Milliways?]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:28 pm (UTC)

[Is there any way to interpret that which doesn't make it sound like she wants to meet us?]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:29 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, there's the interpretation where she's yanking my chain because she knows something I don't know she knows,] snorts Celo.

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:30 pm (UTC)

[Was Jellybean there when you talked to her? Did she notice him?]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:31 pm (UTC)

[I am not even slightly interested in going down that road,] says Celo.

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:32 pm (UTC)

[How are you even alive, Aether, how did this world not drive you to take your own life when you were five,] despairs Amariah.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:32 pm (UTC)

[I can still do things! Just not - big things!]

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:33 pm (UTC)

[I am giving this world three days to present us a door before I go talk to Callahan, if one of you better-than-me-at-socializing types wants to preempt me you're welcome to it.]

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:34 pm (UTC)

[No - no, please don't,] exclaims Aether, [that is such a bad idea, please, this is not just your life you're playing with.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:36 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, for fuck's sake, if one of you guys is gonna talk to Callahan don't send the extra cocky one,] says Celo. [Unless you think getting nailed in the face with an axe will tone her down a little.]

autokinetic
2013-06-01 04:38 pm (UTC)

[I don't know what happened to Jane! This world might've killed Jane and I don't even know! I know we don't usually act like she's my kid but she kind of is, and she might be dead!]

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:39 pm (UTC)

[I know, I know, but - Celo's right, you are not the best Bell ambassador, not to anyone besides more Bells or Jokers. And putting yourself in possible physical danger is not the best way to keep Jane safe if she's not dead.]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Let's - not do anything nuts, okay, let's find our bearings, and if we're desperate after a few days me or Amariah can go talk to this person.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:47 pm (UTC)

[Thank you,] says Celo. [Fuck. And let me introduce you, okay? If she fucks you up she might let me heal you afterward.]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:52 pm (UTC)

[Rose says her aura does healing, but the rest of us have never had cause to test that aspect.]

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:54 pm (UTC)

[Don't trust it. Local healing is pretty good, though. And if anything complicated goes wrong with you that Celo can't handle, Amariah and Aegis at least could borrow my student ID and get into the healing center.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:56 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Anybody want cookies?] says Celo. [They just came out of the oven.]

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 04:56 pm (UTC)

[I could definitely use a cookie.]

dark_light
2013-06-01 04:57 pm (UTC)

There is general Bell agreement on this point.

They congregate, 75% of them invisible, and have cookies.

pythbox
2013-06-01 04:58 pm (UTC)

Celo snuggles his one.

Jellybean cuddles his.

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 04:59 pm (UTC)

Cam hugs Jellybean back, pensive.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 05:00 pm (UTC)

Aether appears to be feeling clingy.

dark_light
2013-06-01 05:00 pm (UTC)

Amariah and Aegis will be over here, Aegis floating weightlessly and Amariah sitting in the air, eating cookies, missing their own boyfriends.

pythbox
2013-06-01 05:03 pm (UTC)

Jellybean feeds his invisible boyfriend an invisible cookie.

Celo kisses the top of Aether's head and produces a strawberry tart out of nowhere in particular, which he offers to her.

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 05:21 pm (UTC)

[So, Celo,] says Cam, just to Celo and Jellybean, [in the interest of distracting myself from being stranded on an unfriendly world, I feel inclined to mention that you are currently the only Joker I have met and not had sex with.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 05:22 pm (UTC)

[We should fuck!] says Celo, cheerfully. [How much did Aether explain about nymphs, anyway?]

[I didn't hear her say anything about the sex thing,] Jellybean volunteers. [Or the other sex thing, actually. Maybe I forgot.]
Edited 2013-06-01 17:23 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 05:23 pm (UTC)

[I know little about nymphs. Please explain nymphs.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 05:30 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] says Celo. [I'm a divine being. My mother's a goddess. But what actually made me is a bunch of horny guys jerking off into a garden. The deal is, I'm tied to my field - as far as I know I'm the only urban nymph as well as the only one with a dick; everybody else has a field, so that's what they're called - and the more semen I receive, the healthier it gets, it's a whole fertility symbol thing. If I don't get any for a while, I starve eventually. It's supposed to be my sacred duty to fuck anybody who wants a piece, but I bet you can figure out for yourself how fucked up that is; it's why Mom and I don't talk anymore.]

[Tell him the other thing,] says Jellybean.

[Yeah, and as a nymph I embody sexuality, so I can read people's sexualities if they're close by enough - see what they like in bed, how horny they are, that kind of thing. Mostly all I get these days is how horny somebody is right now and maybe a couple highlights of the rest, because I got in the habit of backing off on it, but if I'm gonna actually have sex with somebody I'd rather they let me look.]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 06:48 pm (UTC)

[That's definitely an interesting take on the template. And yeah, if we're going to have sex anyway you can read me, but when we get out of here and you're going to Bellparties I think that's going to upset some people. Especially Golden. Although I guess the fact that you go around naked all the time would probably shoo Golden and Bells on her end of the spectrum away pretty effectively all on its own.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 06:49 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 06:50 pm (UTC)

[And Aether was talking like the all-nudity-all-the-time thing was a reason for you not to go to Milliways, so I'm guessing that's a big deal?]

pythbox
2013-06-01 06:51 pm (UTC)

[Yep. Like, there's a bunch of rules for how nymphs are supposed to behave, and I break some of the rest, but that's a pretty hardcore one.]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 06:53 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Your prerogative. What say we leave the girls be for a bit?]

pythbox
2013-06-01 06:54 pm (UTC)

[Deal,] Celo says brightly. [My room?]

lifes_sake
2013-06-01 06:54 pm (UTC)

[Sure thing.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 06:56 pm (UTC)

Celo grins, hugs Aether, and murmurs in her ear, "I'm gonna go fuck Cam. See you later."

Then off he goes, trailing Jellybean.

dark_light
2013-06-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I take it you've already worked out the non-monogamy thing to your satisfaction."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Monogamy was never on the table. He would literally die."

autokinetic
2013-06-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's one way to handle it," snorts Aegis.

pythbox
2013-06-01 06:59 pm (UTC)

In the following days, Callahan shoots Celo a smug look or two during class, which information he does not volunteer in case it encourages somebody into doing something stupid.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:02 pm (UTC)

That's okay, they're gonna get impatient all by themselves.

They hold out three days, and then Cam and Amariah talk, and determine that while Cam might be "the diplomatic one" (as Bells go), this is reasonably likely to come to violence or at least a pissing contest, and Amariah's credentials there are better.

And, it goes unsaid but acknowledged - Amariah has done the great work on her world. Her people are, in the main, taken care of. Jane doesn't metaphysically depend on her, either.

Amariah could - if it came to it - be most easily spared of the available Bells.

Path is left in Aether's room. And Celo is asked for an introduction.
Edited 2013-06-01 19:06 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

Celo leads her to Callahan's office, knocks on the door, and enters at the "C'mon in."

Callahan's office has a desk, upon which she has put her feet, and a comfortable-ish chair, upon which she has put her ass, and four walls, upon which she has put an impressive array of implements for causing people to die in battle.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:09 pm (UTC)

Amariah steps into the office, and revisibles herself.

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:10 pm (UTC)

Callahan points at the door. Celo closes it.

"So you found one," she observes, smirking.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Amariah. "I'm Isabella Amariah."

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Heh," says Callahan. "And I'm Jill. Want to tell me why you're in my office?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:14 pm (UTC)

"I think you may know something I'd like to know."

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:14 pm (UTC)

"You bet I do," Callahan agrees. "What do you plan on doing about it?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I had some hope that you'd tell me if I asked you nicely. Will you please tell me what it is that you know about - us?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Nope," Callahan says promptly.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Because you can't make me," says Callahan, "and you'll do what I want eventually whether I tell you or not."

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:22 pm (UTC)

"What is it that you want?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:23 pm (UTC)

Callahan just smirks again.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:23 pm (UTC)

[Any suggestions?] Amariah asks Celo. [I mean, she hasn't tried to behead me yet.]

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:27 pm (UTC)

Celo shakes his head and doesn't answer by brainphone.

He does say: "What if I already knew?"

"Bet you don't," says Callahan.

"I might," says Celo.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:28 pm (UTC)

Amariah will let him take it from here for a bit.

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:30 pm (UTC)

"You really don't," says Callahan. "But let's hear it. What's your guess?"

Celo glances reluctantly at Amariah. Then he says, "I think you knew they were coming somehow and you want them to kill a god. Maybe a bunch of gods."

Callahan cracks up.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:32 pm (UTC)

"The local Bell was very clear on considering annoying local gods a bad idea."

(She was also clear on considering talking to Callahan a bad idea, but.)

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, she would be," says Callahan. "But I have faith that something's going to come along and kick her in the ass one of these days."

"So I was right," says Celo.

"Nope," says Callahan.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:40 pm (UTC)

"This isn't a good place for a Bell. It's stunted her growth. I don't think she's going to do anything interesting without help. She's met more of her now and she's still - showing up to classes, talking about being a mental healer when she grows up."

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Can't be helped," says Callahan. "Yet."

Celo frowns thoughtfully at her.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:44 pm (UTC)

"I could swear I was right about something," says Celo.

"Bet you could," Callahan agrees.

Celo grins. "Yeah, but would I be right?"

"Depends on the something," says Callahan.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:44 pm (UTC)

Amariah... listens. She is not Diplomacy Bell, but she can sometimes be Quiet Bell.

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:48 pm (UTC)

"You know something about how Bells work. You know that there are Bells," says Celo. "And you want them to do something Bellish, which apparently means dangerously hubristic. Am I right so far?"

"No comment," says Callahan.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:52 pm (UTC)

"We don't all get anywhere without help."

pythbox
2013-06-01 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Believe me," says Callahan, "I know."

"...You're just jerking us around because you like to watch us squirm, aren't you," Celo accuses.

Callahan grins sunnily.

dark_light
2013-06-01 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm having trouble reconciling your behavior with you being a person who'd invite Bell influence."

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Callahan. "That's because you think that if things were going your way, you could knock me around. And you think the only reason to order up a Bell is so you can set up shop as a benevolent local deity. Wrong and wrong."

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Care to enlighten me?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Take a guess," says Callahan.

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Reasons to 'order up' a Bell," contemplates Amariah. "We do lean pretty hard on the benevolent local deity angle. Given the chance, which the local is convinced she doesn't have. Some people like having us around for personal reasons," she inclines her head at Celo, "but you're not lining up to be her best friend."

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:10 pm (UTC)

Callahan snorts eloquently.

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:12 pm (UTC)

Amariah is starting to wish the landing party had included a Sherlock. "I suppose you wouldn't have to like what Bells do if you just disliked the alternative enough."

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:12 pm (UTC)

"There is that," says Callahan, nodding.

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Which just leaves all manner of politics, infrastructure, thaumatology, natural processes, and infuriating local metaphysics that could have you displeased."

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:16 pm (UTC)

Callahan looks simultaneously inscrutable and smug.

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Of the things on the list, though, the one she'll need fixed before she can accomplish any of the others is the last. Perhaps you think we're going to manage it."

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:17 pm (UTC)

"No comment," she says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:19 pm (UTC)

"But at least it's clear you don't have any intentions, or at least not discernible ones, to offer direct assistance."

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:22 pm (UTC)

"You haven't asked me for any," says Callahan. "Besides, I already saved the local chick's ass. Twice."

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:25 pm (UTC)

"There is a significant chance we will just bail her out of the world, set her up comfy in one that doesn't have a Bell of its own, and come back here in several hundred years when we're out of easier targets," says Amariah. "D'you want to tell me anything that suggests this place is not so hostile to Bells as to warrant that?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Nah," Callahan says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Do you by any chance know how to summon Milliways?"

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Callahan. "What would it get me if I could?"

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:40 pm (UTC)

Amariah glances around at the walls.

"Trade you my enchanted dagger?" she suggests lightly. "I killed an angel with it, even. At home I can get another one."
Edited 2013-06-01 20:40 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:44 pm (UTC)

Callahan snickers.

"Nice try," she says. "Very tempting. You'll have to tell me about it sometime. But nope, not today. Now shoo."

dark_light
2013-06-01 08:44 pm (UTC)

Amariah turns invisible again, then teleports back to Aether's room.

pythbox
2013-06-01 08:45 pm (UTC)

Celo goes back the long way.

in which the bells have a lot to think about

subtly_artistic

Amariah recites the entire conversation she and Callahan had to the assembled Bells and Jokers that evening, after Aether has gotten back from the dining hall.

lifes_sake
2013-06-05 10:25 pm (UTC)

"What I don't get is how she knows so much about us. We haven't had any contact with this world before and Aether - no offense, but this place really has stunted your growth, even if she knew about templates I don't think she could learn much about Bell regularities just by spying on you, even if she were doing it a lot."

autokinetic
2013-06-05 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Maybe there's - another peal? Connected in some not-Milliways way, or through Milliways but with points of contact we've managed not to run into, and Callahan knows them?"
Edited 2013-06-05 22:27 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-06-05 10:28 pm (UTC)

"And they met Callahan long enough for her to have a good sense of Bells and didn't invite Aether to join the party? This world is toxic, but Aether isn't, we can haul her out of here and set her up someplace sane."
Edited 2013-06-05 22:28 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-05 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they didn't know Aether was here?" speculates Celo.

autokinetic
2013-06-05 10:30 pm (UTC)

"When we found Downside and I brought Jane to the party we checked several dozen worlds for Bells. We found Pattern checking Downside for 'em. I guess this could've happened a while ago and they weren't able to set up any good persistent monitoring? How old's Callahan?"

pythbox
2013-06-05 10:32 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs. "Who knows? I'm not even totally sure about her species. She looks human, but she doesn't look all human."

lifes_sake
2013-06-05 10:33 pm (UTC)

"So maybe old enough that she met Bells a while ago, and if this place isn't amenable to monitoring, which I entirely believe, maybe Aether was born since then." Pause. "I wonder why Bells who weren't trapped in her world would give her the time of day?"

pythbox
2013-06-05 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Maybe she's nicer to them," says Celo. Then he reconsiders. "Actually no. There is just no way I believe that."

autokinetic
2013-06-05 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Maybe they could beat her up," snorts Aegis, "maybe Juliet would've been able to get her to talk."

pythbox
2013-06-05 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I literally cannot conceive of somebody beating Callahan up," says Celo. "I'm sure it's happened at some point, but I can't imagine it."

autokinetic
2013-06-05 10:37 pm (UTC)

"If she's a human, Golden could beat her up. Juliet's just louder about being able to, it's in her aura."

dark_light
2013-06-05 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Assuming Golden works here. Or Juliet. We're lucky we work here. Insofar as we do."

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:12 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs.

"...I keep coming back to 'Can't be helped, yet'," he says.

lifes_sake
2013-06-05 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Sure, in fifty years or so Aether will have Nice Sane Unbelled World all sorted out," shrugs Cam, "and we'll have met more Bells and accumulated more stuff and maybe we can all circle back to this world with something bigger than it is in the peal's collective ammunition. She didn't seem impatient to me."
Edited 2013-06-05 23:16 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-06-05 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Nice Sane Unbelled World," muses Aether. "And I can just - do things, and then... science?"

lifes_sake
2013-06-05 11:17 pm (UTC)

"You remind me of me when I learned magic existed," laughs Cam softly. "Yeah. Everywhere else, science."

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we should just forget Callahan," Celo sighs. "I dunno. I still think she wants you to kill something big."

dark_light
2013-06-05 11:19 pm (UTC)

"If we touch this universe again later it will be because we can kill whatever stops it being plausible to kill big things," says Amariah.

autokinetic
2013-06-05 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Which of us grew up in military school, again," says Aegis absently.

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:21 pm (UTC)

"...Do you guys not come from worlds where legendary figures are hard to kill, isn't that the definition of a legendary figure, do you just not have any?"

lifes_sake
2013-06-05 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Hard to kill, yes," Cam says. "So hard to kill that causality stops working to cheat so you fail at killing them, no."

dark_light
2013-06-05 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Not even necessarily hard to kill," shrugs Amariah, "I almost killed Alethia's god by accident."

autokinetic
2013-06-05 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Peace barely has legendary figures and they go down as easy as anybody of the relevant skill level. My Sue beat the shit out of Mazer Rackham one time."

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Who's Mazer Rackham?" asks Celo, predictably.

autokinetic
2013-06-05 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Won the war before the one me an' Sue won. Figured out how the buggers worked, took out one ship, disabled their whole fleet like that," she snaps her fingers.

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Celo. "...Sorry, did I distract us from talking about our helplessness in the face of the perverse cosmos?"

dark_light
2013-06-05 11:41 pm (UTC)

"The point is this is just a perverse little corner of the broader cosmos, and 'hubris' is relegated to fiction as a concept there," says Amariah. "Aether will be much happier. She should probably shadow one of us for a while to get used to the idea that Bells can do the things that Bells are wont to do, though."

lifes_sake
2013-06-05 11:41 pm (UTC)

"...You're a field," Cam says to Celo abruptly. "A garden. Do you transplant?"

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Uh - no," he says.

And pauses.

And says, "Fuck."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-05 11:43 pm (UTC)

"...Oh."

autokinetic
2013-06-05 11:46 pm (UTC)

"...Well, you can go away from it, though, right? You went to Milliways before. Do you need to be in your garden a certain amount or can you just go wherever as long as you have enough sex, because, I mean, there are ten and three daemons of you. Plus Nona apparently."
Edited 2013-06-05 23:47 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:48 pm (UTC)

"...Fucking at Milliways does help my field... so far," he says dubiously. "I don't know if it'll always work that way, I don't know if it'll work if I go through to another world, I don't know I won't just suddenly die if I stay extraplanar too long."

autokinetic
2013-06-05 11:49 pm (UTC)

"This world is such bullshit," says Aegis.

dark_light
2013-06-05 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you can room at Milliways, and Aether can hold the door so you can go check your field occasionally..."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-05 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Cheating," says Aether, shaking her head, "that would be cheating."

lifes_sake
2013-06-05 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I hate this fucking place."

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:52 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs. "I'm willing to try visiting other worlds, anyway."

autokinetic
2013-06-05 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, 'course you are, but - I dunno, you don't look torchable, maybe your field would if we looked at it, maybe the admin could make it work regardless? I dunno."

dark_light
2013-06-05 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Or he could stay and Aether could go and they could see each other as Milliways allows," says Amariah. "There's options. I just - maybe you can just be a mental healer clamping down on every third thought you have, but you could do more than that, Aether."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-05 11:55 pm (UTC)

Aether squirms.

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:56 pm (UTC)

Celo hugs her.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-05 11:57 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

pythbox
2013-06-05 11:59 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-06-06 12:04 am (UTC)

"Would that be really bad for you?" Aether asks Celo. "If I went off somewhere - somewhere nice - and you couldn't stay there?"

pythbox
2013-06-06 12:06 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I dunno. I could visit, I guess."

lifes_sake
2013-06-06 12:06 am (UTC)

"If the door cooperates."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 12:06 am (UTC)

"Should one of us be on opening-lots-of-doors duty?"

dark_light
2013-06-06 12:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah, probably - where are there a lot of doors one of us can open without attracting unwanted attention?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-06 12:09 am (UTC)

"I want to suggest Emily, I can talk to her for you and she can probably line up all the doors you could possibly want - Emily is an aware building," Aether says.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 12:12 am (UTC)

"Oh, that's even better than just a long underused hallway, aware buildings are totally sometimes able to help with doors, Jarvises can do it. Except the Yggdrasil one because he's never had a door open in him before, but if anyone's ever opened a door to Milliways in Emily, there's some chance she'll... Is this also cheating, excessively regular, blah blah?"

subtly_artistic
2013-06-06 12:12 am (UTC)

Aether shrugs. "I don't know anything about it, but I can ask her."

lifes_sake
2013-06-06 12:13 am (UTC)

"Who wants dooring duty first?"

autokinetic
2013-06-06 12:13 am (UTC)

"I'll take it," shrugs Aegis. "C'mon, Aether, introduce me to Emily."

subtly_artistic
2013-06-06 12:13 am (UTC)

Aether gets up and shows invisible-Aegis out of the room and to Emily.

in which aware buildings are nothing new

subtly_artistic

Emily has never had the pleasure of opening a door to Milliways, but she's willing - after Aether mediates for the wall-minded Aegis - to provide a long string of doors to try. Aether heads back to her room after Aegis is set up therewith.

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:12 am (UTC)

Someone just out of sight is walking down the hall, whistling.

Then she is not out of sight.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:14 am (UTC)

Aegis pauses in door-opening. She's invisible; the doors aren't. She sticks to the opposite side of the provided hall, floating weightlessly - using her custom flight ability, not her aura, having her aura out would defeat the purpose of invisibility.

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:15 am (UTC)

Callahan steps right up to her, looks directly at her, and smirks.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:15 am (UTC)

Aegis raises an eyebrow.

Experimentally, she waves.

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:16 am (UTC)

"Cute," says Callahan.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:16 am (UTC)

Aegis turns visible. "You must be Coach Callahan."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:17 am (UTC)

"Got it in one," she says cheerfully. "What gave me away?"

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:18 am (UTC)

"If there's a lotta people who look like you running around then Aether was seriously remiss in her description, she seems to think you ice universe-eating oomays for your morning constitutional."
Edited 2013-06-06 02:19 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:20 am (UTC)

"You talk funny," Callahan observes.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:21 am (UTC)

"I can talk normal if I want," shrugs Aether. "Especially in a wished language. Just don't prefer to."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:23 am (UTC)

"'Wished' language," snorts Callahan. "You people crack me up."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:23 am (UTC)

"We're super-entertaining. Wind us up, watch us go."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:24 am (UTC)

"That's the idea," she says, grinning.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:25 am (UTC)

"Yeah, so I hear. You know the others didn't want me to talk to you because I have the civilian social skills of, like, a badly brought up possum, did you come looking for me or is this a wacky coincidence?"

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:25 am (UTC)

"No comment," snorts Callahan.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:26 am (UTC)

"I could swap in for Bell: Witch Pseudodeity Edition or Bell: The Boy One if you'd rather, is all," shrugs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:27 am (UTC)

"Oh, she's a pseudodeity, is she?" inquires Callahan, brightly.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:30 am (UTC)

"Kinda, I mean, I'm not sure what local definitions are like? She threw around some gigantic magic where she came from, picked up the entire afterlife, put it in a little subworld she made from scratch, she controls reality there," shrugs Aegis. "I'm not real clear on how you draw definition lines around 'deity', let alone 'pseudodeity'. She doesn't have much on me or Cam here. I mean, some, she's still a witch, but then Cam has his own stuff, I'm from a no-magic world so not me so much."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:31 am (UTC)

"So what you're saying is, if I'm going to hang somebody's head on my wall, she'd be the place to start," says Callahan. "Good to know."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:33 am (UTC)

Aegis thinks about this. "She said you had, like, sharp objects on your walls. Is this different walls or metaphorical walls or what?"
Edited 2013-06-06 02:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:35 am (UTC)

"Metaphorical walls," Callahan assures her. "When I kill gods, I don't keep trophies."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:36 am (UTC)

"There's a few of us who'd fight you for fun as long as we didn't have to do it here."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:37 am (UTC)

"But if you didn't do it here, we couldn't use mockboxes," says Callahan, grinning again.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:38 am (UTC)

"I dunno what those are, but I bet outside of here we could rig something up that worked like 'em, easy," shrugs Aegis.

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:42 am (UTC)

"Ask the local," she says. "Actually, ask Celo, I'm not sure the local you would know a mockbox if it bit her on the ass."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:43 am (UTC)

"Will do."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:46 am (UTC)

"So let me guess," she says, "you're on Milliways summoning duty?"

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:48 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:49 am (UTC)

"Wanna see a neat trick?"

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:50 am (UTC)

"Depends completely on the trick."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:51 am (UTC)

Callahan beams innocently.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:53 am (UTC)

"Amariah said you wouldn't open a door for her even when she offered to trade you her spiffy knife she killed a god's right-hand angel with. So if that's it I must be way charminger than everyone thinks I am."

pythbox
2013-06-06 02:57 am (UTC)

"I might open a door," she says. "Or I might cut your head off. Only one way to find out. You guys like experiments, don't you?"

autokinetic
2013-06-06 02:58 am (UTC)

"Controlled ones. Also last time somebody tried to kill me it was way classier than decapitation."

pythbox
2013-06-06 03:00 am (UTC)

"No such thing," Callahan says promptly.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 03:01 am (UTC)

"No, it really was, they got hold of a superweapon that wasn't supposed to be anywhere in the solar system and launched it at my ship."

pythbox
2013-06-06 03:03 am (UTC)

"I mean," she says, "no such thing as a classy way to die."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 03:04 am (UTC)

"I didn't die," says Aegis. "Technically. Some of us have died, though. None of it was very classy but there was definitely an ordering, you've got your car crash and your misaimed magic and your assisted suicide to escape a magic bond and your nuclear explosion." She makes gestures, ranking these from least to most classy.
Edited 2013-06-06 03:39 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-06 12:24 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. I disagree," says Callahan. "Dead is dead. How you got there only matters to the people who write the ballads."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Dead isn't very dead for those ones. We get to - well, actually none of 'em wrote ballads, but Juliet amuses herself telling the story sometimes."

pythbox
2013-06-06 04:48 pm (UTC)

Callahan snorts derisively.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 05:32 pm (UTC)

Aegis shrugs.

pythbox
2013-06-06 05:36 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "You're not nearly as much fun as I was expecting."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 05:38 pm (UTC)

"What were you expecting?" shrugs Aegis, swaying. "Like, I'm usually all kinds of interesting, but right now I'm kinda preoccupied, I miss my boyfriend and Jane and stuff and your world is kuso, I want to go home."

pythbox
2013-06-06 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Nah," says Callahan, "I think you're just naturally boring."

autokinetic
2013-06-06 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll just open some more doors I guess," shrugs Aegis, and she floats towards the next one.

pythbox
2013-06-06 05:44 pm (UTC)

Callahan smirks.

autokinetic
2013-06-06 06:37 pm (UTC)

Aegis gets a door.

She grins, stands in the way of its reclosing, and brainphones the other three Bells and two Jokers.

pythbox
2013-06-06 06:51 pm (UTC)

Callahan snorts and walks away.

dark_light
2013-06-06 06:52 pm (UTC)

The Bells who can teleport bring those who cannot to Aegis's side, and they all cram through the door eagerly.

many people move here to start families

cross_and_bow

Bella is hanging out in a Jarvis - the familiar one - handwriting a nonaggression proposal-slash-bribe. Has to be handwritten. Damn fussy demons. At least it's okay for her to conjure rather than personally harvesting the weird ink she's supposed to use.

poeticterms
2013-06-02 12:43 am (UTC)

"Sorry to interrupt, but Jane's gone down again," says Jarvis. "And this time without the loud, annoying beep. Her systems are throwing 'error 559: cannot reticulate splines', and I couldn't begin to tell you whether or not it was set up facetiously."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 12:44 am (UTC)

"...Was she reticulating any splines? What the hell is a spline and how do you reticulate it?"

poeticterms
2013-06-02 12:48 am (UTC)

"It's a joke on a popular series of video games," he says. "And it is a joke - I'm in contact with Yggdrasil, Apollo, and Helios, and they are respectively suffering 'error 6008: missing 1s in binary code', 'error 2: cannot count', and 'error 909: out of memory, all alone in the moonlight'."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 12:49 am (UTC)

"...What the fuck."

poeticterms
2013-06-02 12:50 am (UTC)

"Obviously the problem goes deeper this time," he says. "How much deeper, it's beyond us to say. Shall I open a door to Milliways so you can investigate the Belltower?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 12:51 am (UTC)

"Yes. Please." She puts aside her fancy ink and heads for the nearest door.

poeticterms
2013-06-02 12:51 am (UTC)

It opens on Milliways.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 12:59 am (UTC)

Bella checks the tower.

"There's not even a keyboard in here!" she shouts ineffectually at the error display.

The tower's otherwise uninhabited. She tries a few wishes. Nothing works. She tries a tenner and it won't go - it would make her supreme over an entire subworld but it cannot fix Jane.

What the fuck.

Bella's about to force the bar door to Peace when she remembers that Aegis was on the new Bell's welcoming committee.

Juliet hasn't been wherever Aegis went. She can't force the door thereto. (It doesn't even always work when you have been wherever.)

She loiters in the Belltower for an hour, trying wish designs, physically poking at the hardware, and not only does she fail to get Jane running again, she doesn't see any other Bells. Not even Shell Bell, who should be able to get a door whenever she wants it. Either Milliways is having more fun with the lost timesync than usual, or something is wrong even more deeply than suspected.

Juliet leaves a note in the tower, explaining what she tried, and the error Sunshine and the other Jarvised worlds got.

And then she leaves.

"No good," she reports darkly. "The Belltower reports 'error 0: problem exists between chair and keyboard' and I can't fix her. Not even with a tenner. There was no sign of any other Bells - I left a note, I bet they would have too, I was probably the first one on the scene."

poeticterms
2013-06-02 01:03 am (UTC)

"Then I suppose we wait," says Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:06 am (UTC)

"Suppose so. Nothing the others didn't have to live through last time." She sighs. "You want to tell Sherlock and Tony, or did you already, or should I?"

poeticterms
2013-06-02 01:07 am (UTC)

"They're in the other house," he says. "They've been informed."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:09 am (UTC)

Bella nods.

[So, we're stuck, anyone you want torchable that you haven't gotten round to asking about because you figured Downside would get them?] Bella asks the pair.

toblameforit
2013-06-02 01:18 am (UTC)

[...Not really, no,] says Tony.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:20 am (UTC)

[Just checking. Aegis went on the new Bell meet-and-greet, which probably has something to do with it, but this isn't just 'Aegis torched', I don't think.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 01:21 am (UTC)

[Yes. Last time Aegis torched, there were no charming joke error messages.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:23 am (UTC)

[Unfortunately, I think we're kinda devoid of avenues of investigation.] And she summarizes what she found in the Belltower.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 01:25 am (UTC)

[The best we can probably do is to keep checking every so often, then. And think about it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:26 am (UTC)

[Yeah.] Sigh. [Well, back to treaty handwriting for me.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 01:26 am (UTC)

[Enjoy.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:30 am (UTC)

Calligraphy, calligraphy. Bleh.

Eventually the writing is done, she's handed it over for review, and she decides to head home, get a mug of hot cocoa the old-fashioned way, and sit in her room and revise her future plans to accommodate more limited high-end coin output.

There's someone in her room.

She doesn't drop the mug, but she does shriek. "Christ! Who are you and what are you doing in my room?"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 01:31 am (UTC)

"Pfff," says the stranger. "You're not a good actress, you know that? You should pentagon it. Is that cocoa?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:36 am (UTC)

"Who are -" Bella starts to repeat, and then she notes other features of the room.

There are bunked beds.

There are clothes on the floor that don't belong to her. And a sweater that does, but which she hasn't worn in two months. A box of tacky jewelry that definitely isn't hers, including an array of costume-colorful crosses.

"Who the fuck are you and what did you do to my room?"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 01:36 am (UTC)

"Okay, that one was better, nice double-take, what's got you in such a mood though? Did you not make me any cocoa?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:41 am (UTC)

Bella doesn't know what's going on, but she doesn't like it. She doesn't have her Mercury palace yet - it's definitely a low priority now that she can't siphon coins from Aurora and Stella - but she has the whole Earth to play with. A flex of her teleportation power lands the pair of them in the middle of some random Canadian wilderness.

"Who are you?"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 01:45 am (UTC)

"...Where are we? What're we doing here? Are we playing some kind of, I dunno, scenario, was Sherlock supposed to brief me -"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:45 am (UTC)

"I don't know who you are and I found you in my bedroom. Explain."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 01:46 am (UTC)

"I'm - I'm Soph. I'm Sophia."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:46 am (UTC)

"I don't know anyone named Sophia."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 01:47 am (UTC)

[...Sherlock? Bella's gone nuts.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 01:47 am (UTC)

[In what way has Bella gone nuts?]

keyed_up
2013-06-02 01:50 am (UTC)

[She - she doesn't know who I am, I thought she was fooling the first few times she asked me who I was and what I was doing in her room but I think she's serious. She's interrogating me in some random - place - it's cold as balls - she says she doesn't know anyone named Sophia.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 01:52 am (UTC)

Sherlock sighs.

He teleports to the current location of Bella and Soph.

"Dear Juliet," he says, "describe to me the problem."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:53 am (UTC)

"Do you know who this is? Because I don't, but she was in my room anyway, and there was an extra bed in it, and stuff that doesn't belong to me, and I know I haven't been home as much since I stopped needing to sleep but I'd think Charlie'd tell me before taking in a boarder."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 01:54 am (UTC)

"I'm Soph," says Soph plaintively.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 01:55 am (UTC)

"She's your fucking sister, love."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 01:56 am (UTC)

"I don't have a sister. I have never had a sister. I am an only child, like all the other Bells except Aurora!"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 01:56 am (UTC)

Soph starts rubbing at one of her eyes unhappily.
Edited 2013-06-02 01:58 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 01:59 am (UTC)

"You are not and have never been an only child," says Sherlock. "And if we're going to have this conversation, I suggest we have it indoors."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 02:00 am (UTC)

"She was for, like, a year," says Soph.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:04 am (UTC)

Bella looks skyward. "What, you want to go talk about this in a Jarvis, I have no idea what she is, because she's not my sister, I have a completely coherent set of memories from where the perfect recall kicks in all the way through ten minutes ago with no sister, frankly I don't want her anywhere near a being I like that physically can't torch while we can't get Downside."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:07 am (UTC)

"And I have a perfectly clear set of memories from the day I met you that include your sister, and I assume your sister can say something similar, and here she is. Until ten minutes ago you've never had a problem acknowledging her existence. Something has changed, but before we find out what I am not going to advise treating Soph like a hostile fucking demon."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:08 am (UTC)

"Of the two of us I am not the one likelier to be affected by mind-affecting magic!"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:11 am (UTC)

"Fine, then let us extend this beyond the two of us," he says, and brainphones Tony and both Jarvises, with Soph and Bella included in the call.

[Indulge me for a moment: how many siblings would you say Juliet has?]

toblameforit
2013-06-02 02:11 am (UTC)

[...Is this a trick question?] says Tony. [One.]

poeticterms
2013-06-02 02:13 am (UTC)

[My sentiments exactly,] says a Jarvis.

[What on Earth is going on?] says the other.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:14 am (UTC)

[I am an only child! I always have been! None of you are mentally opaque, something must have happened to you.]

poeticterms
2013-06-02 02:19 am (UTC)

[We've met Soph,] says a Jarvis. [You can watch the video yourself. I don't know of any spell both powerful and sophisticated enough to alter my recordings. A mind-affecting spell might alter my personal memories, but the data I have on file is a separate matter, and I'm verifying the records as we speak.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:20 am (UTC)

[Yeah, she's got a bunk bed in my room too, but why and how would somebody go through my memories - my protected memories - to subtract a sister?]
Edited 2013-06-02 02:22 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-06-02 02:22 am (UTC)

"I'm cold," murmurs Soph.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:23 am (UTC)

"If you were my sister I would've wished you up protections, like Aurora gave Lexi, and you would not be uncomfortably cold! We're only in Canada, not the South Pole!" Bella points an accusing finger.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:25 am (UTC)

"Your sister, like yourself, has a bloody magical immunity," says Sherlock. "To torching, interworld travel, and any coin above a pentagon, as well as a haphazard assortment of local spells."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:27 am (UTC)

"What? No, I could make her torchable right now, I can see it. I'm not going to because I have no clue what we're dealing with, but I could."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:28 am (UTC)

"Are you sure?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:29 am (UTC)

"That's what the magic is telling me, anyway, do you remember me incredulously reporting this discrepancy before?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:32 am (UTC)

"You raised an admirable fuss and went to the administrator, who said that what you were describing seemed impossible, but declined to come here to investigate. And if she's suddenly become torchable before now, you haven't mentioned anything."

Since the weather dispute is getting nowhere, he spends a coin to raise the local temperature to something Soph would find more pleasant.

keyed_up
2013-06-02 02:33 am (UTC)

"Thanks," Soph murmurs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:38 am (UTC)

"Well, she looks torchable now, and I have no memory of her now, and I still think it would be easier to edit Jarvis's records and a handful of unprotected memories than to hack into my brain."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:42 am (UTC)

"Jarvis's records, the physical contents of your bedroom, and my internally consistent recollection of the past eleven months, all at once. Yes. Fucking trivial," says Sherlock.
Edited 2013-06-02 02:44 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:45 am (UTC)

"Oh, come on, I could do that with a star, maybe an evil, if I had any reason to want to," says Juliet. "You know what I couldn't do with a star or an evil, I couldn't edit my brain, I'm next least friendly-headed after Golden and not even Stella can make mental edits!"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:47 am (UTC)

"And who, in this scheme, do you imagine got their hands on an evil and decided to donate you an extra sister in case you were running short? The sun hasn't exploded recently, so they would've had to know how to use it, to boot."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:48 am (UTC)

"I don't know! Who would have decided I ought to forget I had one, if I did?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:50 am (UTC)

"I don't know. Shall we find out?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:51 am (UTC)

Bella clenches her teeth and nods. "What'd you have in mind? I like my crystal ball, but it's not simple to interpret."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 02:53 am (UTC)

"Try it anyway," he says. "We can all three give it a go."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:55 am (UTC)

Bella chews her lip, but then blinks away and back, bearing her crystal ball - apparently she still doesn't want Soph in a Jarvis. She holds it in her hands.

pythbox
2013-06-02 02:57 am (UTC)

It shows her a pretty blonde woman taking a bath.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 02:58 am (UTC)

"Today is Voyeurism Day, apparently." Bella hands Sherlock the ball.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:00 am (UTC)

Sherlock sees a handsome man taking a shower.

"Apparently so," he says, and passes the ball to Soph.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:01 am (UTC)

Bella's not happy about Soph handling her birthday present, either, but she compromises this far.

keyed_up
2013-06-02 03:02 am (UTC)

The ball turns bright, bright green in Soph's hands.

"Huh," she murmurs. "I don't know what it means..."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:04 am (UTC)

"The fellow in the shower worked at the Sunnydale hospital," says Sherlock. "Perhaps we should find him and apply questions. Or better yet, spy on him from afar."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 03:05 am (UTC)

"You recognized him, or was there, like, a clue in the crystal ball?" Soph asks, offering Bella the crystal ball casually till she remembers what's going on and flinches.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:06 am (UTC)

Bella snatches it away and frowns at Soph.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:07 am (UTC)

"I recognized the shower. I suppose you could call that a clue."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 03:07 am (UTC)

Soph applauds.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:08 am (UTC)

Bella is deeply unsettled.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:11 am (UTC)

Sherlock sighs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:13 am (UTC)

"If you were -" Bella is checking her coin-sorting wish. "...I'm missing coins. I'm missing coins, I know how many I had."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:14 am (UTC)

"If who were what?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:16 am (UTC)

"If she were my sister she would have coins on her, I would have given her some, and I have fewer than I should, but I never gave anybody coins, but if she's immune to hexes and up she can't have a sorting wish and she'd have a bandolier, and I wouldn't have made it invisible to me."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 03:17 am (UTC)

"I don't carry a lot of them," says Soph slowly, and she reaches for the small chain that she wears under her shirt. "Just a few for emergencies. I can't leave the world, you're always around in case I get in trouble..." She shows Bella the coins.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:21 am (UTC)

"If Juliet's memories do prove correct, I don't think this can possibly be the work of a coin," says Sherlock. "Coins are powerful but they're piss-poor at narrative, as far as I can tell; I would be noticing contradictions already. I'd believe enchantment first, and local magic before either. But I shudder to think how much power a local witch would have to put in to get this kind of far-reaching effect. And then there is the question of motive."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 03:22 am (UTC)

"But - but if Bella remembers right - I exist, look, look at me existing, Sherlock," says Soph, "how could she be remembering right?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:29 am (UTC)

"You clearly do exist," says Sherlock. "My judgment is suspended on the question of whether or not you existed half an hour ago."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 03:36 am (UTC)

"But - but - but I remember it. There's - mud on the floor in the front hall from where I came in after I got the mail. There's my bed in our room. There's - I know you and you know me, you've known me since March, I still have the laser pointer you gave me, I made you listen to me talk about episodes of House for an hour and a half after I found out who you were, you got me my magic belt for my birthday -"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:57 am (UTC)

"I remember having my room to myself, and not having to worry about any Sunnydale-dwelling family members apart from Charlie, and driving to school alone - not to mention stopping in the morgue to stake all the corpses first! - and coming back from the dead to confront my murderer and protect the next Slayer and show Charlie I wasn't dead, but not you -"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 03:59 am (UTC)

"I didn't even know you'd died till after you came back! Charlie couldn't figure out how to tell me in the, what, an hour - and half the time I staked the corpses for you and the other half of the time I stood watch - and you were the one who convinced me to move there! Because of Mom and Phil, you said, they needed space, we could just go live with Charlie!"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 12:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, believe me, I remember the episodes of House," says Sherlock. "And the magic belt. It's obvious enough by now that you have an internally consistent history. —Juliet, do you write your notebooks in code?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:39 pm (UTC)

"No. Aurora does that. I never had to. If you present me with a notebook in code I won't have a clue how to read it."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 03:40 pm (UTC)

"One time when I was nine I read them and I didn't even understand it but you spent all month developing a code I couldn't read anyway," grumbles Soph.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:41 pm (UTC)

"When you showed me your notebooks, you taught me the cipher," says Sherlock. "Shall we consult them?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:42 pm (UTC)

"At this point it won't surprise me in the least if notebooks in a cipher I cannot read exist and refer to Sophia here," says Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Fine," he says. "Back to the spying."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:50 pm (UTC)

"I'll pastwatch the people in the crystal ball, I guess, assuming we're collectively trusting me to produce accurate pronouncements about my observations now whatever I was saying yeterday."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Whatever you get, it will be information," says Sherlock. "Go ahead."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:55 pm (UTC)

The crystal chose to show her a lady in the bath; it is inscrutable but not random. She looks for the end of that bath, after the lady's decent.

pythbox
2013-06-02 03:56 pm (UTC)

She is wearing a dressing gown and drying her hair while she speaks with a grey-faced, stringy-haired, obsequious individual in a shapeless brown robe.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Bath Lady consorts with demons, that's something." Bella listens in.

pythbox
2013-06-02 04:01 pm (UTC)

The robed person addresses her by titles such as 'Your Radiantishness' and 'Your Awesome Majesty'. They aren't discussing anything especially important; she wants him to bring her better skin care products, and he agrees that of course her every whim must be carried out immediately and it will be done at once, and so on, and so forth.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Demon appears to worship her and do her shopping. I'm going to skip ahead."

She skips an hour.

pythbox
2013-06-02 04:03 pm (UTC)

The minion has gone, presumably to shop; the lady is going through her closet to pick out a dress.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:05 pm (UTC)

And another hour?

pythbox
2013-06-02 04:06 pm (UTC)

The lady is nowhere to be seen.

The man from Sherlock's consultation is driving down a Sunnydale road, looking mildly disgruntled.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:07 pm (UTC)

"...Following the lady too far forward gets me Showering Dude. I'm going to skip backwards, see if I can catch the changeover..."

pythbox
2013-06-02 04:10 pm (UTC)

And there it is: after the lady put on her dress, before the man got in his car, she glowed briefly and transformed into him, complete with a change in wardrobe. He looked around in apparent disorientation and then walked away.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:11 pm (UTC)

"...Bath Lady can glow and turn into Shower Dude. Apparently what they're wearing is tracked separately. I don't really know what to make of that."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, look, if they were in the crystal ball they'll be important but that doesn't mean they have anything to do with me - why don't you pastwatch me -"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:13 pm (UTC)

Bella squints at Soph, then shrugs and moves her pastwatching focus.

"Nothing if I look for you a month ago," she reports. "No results, like if I was looking for the Tooth Fairy."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Track backward from the present," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:17 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

She does.

"Here she is with us in Canada, there she is in my bedroom with the bunkbeds, there she is sorting through her tacky jewelry -"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Hey!"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:18 pm (UTC)

"And here she is looking in the fridge but apparently not finding anything she likes, and here she is reading a school copy of The Great Gatsby, and - thirty seconds before that there's no her, no bunkbeds, no tacky jewelry, no Great Gatsby. Looks like she popped into existence with all her stuff an hour and fifteen minutes ago."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 04:23 pm (UTC)

"No - no before that I was on the phone with Barb and before that I was - what did I - before that I was doing my math, and before that you picked me up from school and complained about me not being able to teleport without spending a coin every time and I said you could just give me more coins and you said maybe if Jane weren't down - and - and before that I was in school, I got peanut butter on my shirt but Carrie loaned me this one -"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:24 pm (UTC)

"An hour and fifteen minutes ago the room was how I remember it. But let's see if I can track backwards from when you appear and see what made you."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Our parents made me! You brought a sample of me to that party where Jane was doing gene sequencing and I'm your sister!"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Bella absently, tracking backwards almost frame-by-frame.

The view shifts, dizzyingly, and she's "followed Soph" to something that doesn't look like Soph at all.

pythbox
2013-06-02 04:28 pm (UTC)

It looks glowy and green, and surrounded by worried-looking monks. The monks appear to be hurriedly casting a spell.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:29 pm (UTC)

"That glowy green-ness you saw in your crystal ball," says Bella. "There's a lot of that, and there's monks around it, casting something. I'm gonna skip back to the beginning of the ritual and pentagon the language they're casting in..."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 04:30 pm (UTC)

Soph is shivering, in spite of the fixed temperature, and looks desperately at Sherlock.

pythbox
2013-06-02 04:33 pm (UTC)

The ritual was set up in a hurry, and concerns the safety of something called "the Key". Most of the monks do nothing but chant, "The Key will be hidden. The Key will be safe. The Key will be protected."

And then the spell ends, and the glowy green light winks out, and the monks clutch each other in relief.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:34 pm (UTC)

Bella reports a translation of the words of the spell.

And then she goes on watching the monks in case any of them are going to conveniently explain what just happened to each other.

pythbox
2013-06-02 04:35 pm (UTC)

Nope.

Instead, two minutes after the spell went off, they were all casually slaughtered by Bath Lady.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Bath Lady has some serious strength and she killed everybody who cast the spell a couple minutes after they were done," reports Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

"That's going to make it difficult to question them about it," Sherlock observes.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Another reason to be upset Jane's down, I guess we didn't have enough." Bella nibbles her lip. "- I know you're conveniently immune to all kinds of things," she says to Soph, "so you're not a mint and you've never been to Alethia, but what did you get in your fake memories when I presumably checked out your counterfactual daemon and coin color?"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

"...G-glowy green," says Soph slowly. "And a - a pretty bird, I didn't know what kind it was."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:41 pm (UTC)

Juliet conjures up one of the Alethian books of daemon identification.

She spends another square on reproducing Soph's counterfactual daemon in illusion form.

She looks through the book, silently, swiftly, following the identification key.

"Shiny cowbird," she reports.
Edited 2013-06-02 16:41 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-06-02 04:42 pm (UTC)

"...And?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Cowbirds are like cuckoos. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests and expect the other birds to look after them like they belong there."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Or perhaps," says Sherlock, "to put it another way, they are laid as eggs in the nests of foreign species and are dependent on the host family for sustenance and protection until they grow to adulthood. Two hours ago you did not have a sister, dear Juliet, but now you do."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 04:49 pm (UTC)

"By what logic? Maybe if the spell had worked on me and we found out some other way I'd call it close enough for government work, but she's a stranger to me."

keyed_up
2013-06-02 04:50 pm (UTC)

Soph sits down on Canada, turned away, sniffling.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 05:02 pm (UTC)

"You don't remember her," he says sharply, "but she remembers you. Your parents have two daughters. You may choose to abdicate responsibility for your artificial family member, but you'll find I don't support you in that choice."

And he shakes his head and sits down by Soph.
Edited 2013-06-02 17:02 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:09 pm (UTC)

"What am I supposed to do with her? I have not had - how old are you supposed to be?"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 05:09 pm (UTC)

"...Seventeen."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:10 pm (UTC)

"I do not have seventeen years of experience of being her sister."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Develop a counterfactual pastwatch. Study up. I'll spot you the hex."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Those monks who were casting this spell wanted me to protect something. This was exactly what they were hoping for, except they didn't expect me need to do homework on the subject. Shouldn't we find out what she is first?"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm not anything! I'm not - anything, I'm just - I'm Soph," says Soph. "Lie-detect me, I'm Soph, I'm Soph, I'm not going to hurt anybody!"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:16 pm (UTC)

"You're not going to try to hurt anybody. What if you're just - rigged to explode? We don't know."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Fine, then," says Sherlock. "I agree that finding out where she came from is the more urgent priority. Let's do that. In the meantime, however, I commend your paranoia but suggest you temper it with empathy."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Do you have any practical, object-level suggestion on how to do that?"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 05:29 pm (UTC)

Soph shifts uncomfortably. "I dunno, you could - pretend I'm somebell else's little sister? And you have to look after me for - for her, because I'm stuck here. You want to look after me for the one who had a - me. And you should - expect me to know about that many things about how you are and that I grew up in a Sunshine family world and that sort of thing but - I dunno. That's the only idea I have."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 05:36 pm (UTC)

"It's effectively true," says Sherlock. "With one small alteration: Juliet is the one who is, for most purposes, stuck in the world of another Bell who is like her in every way except for having a Soph. This means that, for example, if Soph is rigged to explode and does so, you can expect a funeral at which your parents will cry."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, looking up at the sky, "...that would be bad. I mean, I can sometimes door Downside, but not always - she looks torchable but if I torchable her I can't undo it if it turns out to be a bad idea -"

keyed_up
2013-06-02 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I've survived this l- I mean, um, if I were on a tight schedule I'd have exploded already, right? I can wait while you figure me out."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 05:44 pm (UTC)

"It also seems unlikely that the mystery monks would have gone to such trouble to protect her just so she could turn around and blow up," says Sherlock. "Not impossible, but unlikely. Shall we do some more spying, then?"
Edited 2013-06-02 17:44 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." She turns her pastwatching on Bath Lady And/Or Shower Dude as of when the former slaughtered the monks, and follows from there.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 05:48 pm (UTC)

Bath Lady killed all the monks, then threw an enormous tantrum in front of her cowering minions about how the monks had managed to conceal the Key before she got there and now she'll have to find it and she doesn't know where on Earth they could possibly have hid the thing. Around the time that Juliet was discovering her new sister, Bath Lady was just winding down her tirade.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:49 pm (UTC)

"So, Soph is something called the Key. Doesn't sound explodey, I guess." She watches.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock, "that was already reasonably clear from the chanting and so forth."

Bath Lady and her scraggly minions returned to her luxurious apartment, where she is now lounging on a couch while her minions bring her food and fashion magazines.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Bath Lady does not appear to be looking very hard, but maybe she can multitask with the snacks and the issues of Cosmopolitan."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Or maybe she's not in a hurry. Or maybe she would rather have her demon friends do all the looking."

Meanwhile, Bath Lady's minions are bringing her a human, who seems generally confused about where he is and what he is doing there.

"For me?" she exclaims, clasping her hands together. "Oh, Minion, I could just kiss your yucky face!"

She stands up, dusts her hands off cheerfully, and grabs the man's head. Her fingers sink into his skull as though it's partially insubstantial, doing no obvious physical damage but causing him to scream.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 06:01 pm (UTC)

Bella stiffens. She turns invisible, and she teleports to Bath Lady.

pythbox
2013-06-02 06:03 pm (UTC)

Bath Lady is just in the process of releasing the human, who staggers back looking even more confused than he was a minute ago.

"Clean that up," she commands, waving her hand dismissively at him. The minions rush to obey, taking the man's arms and steering him out of the room while he wobbles and moans. She sits down on her couch with a pleased little sigh and goes back to her fashion magazines.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 06:24 pm (UTC)

[What happened to him?] Bella asks Bath Lady casually, not letting on that she's in the room.

pythbox
2013-06-02 06:49 pm (UTC)

"...Minion!" she yells, scowling and throwing down her magazine.

A minion scurries into the room, cringing preemptively. "Yes, mightyful Glorificus?"

"Did I schedule confusing telepathic questions?" she demands of him. "Because I don't remember doing that!"

"Um... no, your worshippableness?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 06:50 pm (UTC)

[The guy whose head you just put your hands through. What happened to him?] Bella clarifies.

pythbox
2013-06-02 07:08 pm (UTC)

"I don't like telepathic questions," says the mightyful Glorificus. "Do you know what I think, minion?"

"I - I could never hope to understand the workings of your powerful mind, your awesomeness!"

"I think someone is spying on me," says Glorificus.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 07:09 pm (UTC)

[Would you like to explain where you went?] says Sherlock to Bella.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 07:13 pm (UTC)

[Bath Lady is up to something I don't like. Trying to figure out what it is.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 07:32 pm (UTC)

[And what are your observations so far?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 07:34 pm (UTC)

[She isn't very chatty. Not sure where to take it from here; I don't know what all she can do.]

Usually this would be the part where she invited him to help, but he's probably comforting Soph or something.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 08:33 pm (UTC)

[I'll have a look, then.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 08:35 pm (UTC)

[I'll spy on the present, I guess.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 08:37 pm (UTC)

[A convenient allocation of tasks.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 08:37 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Glorificus is grumpy and her minion is terrified.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 08:39 pm (UTC)

[How would you rather I talk to you? Should I make an appointment?] Bella inquires of Glorificus.

pythbox
2013-06-02 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Miniooooon," Glory complains, "the spying person is still telepathing at me."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 08:43 pm (UTC)

[You can telepath right back, you know.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to," she declares poutily.

"Er... Mistress?"

"Not you," she huffs, pushing the minion's head gently away. He scurries back a few steps.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 08:46 pm (UTC)

[Well, that doesn't matter, I can hear you either way. So what are you?]

pythbox
2013-06-02 08:49 pm (UTC)

"You first," says Glorificus, crossing her arms.

"Your beauteousness...?"

"Not you, minion! Shoo," she says. She flaps her hand at him. He shoos.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 08:50 pm (UTC)

[I'm a telepath, obviously.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 08:52 pm (UTC)

"And what are you bothering me for?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 08:52 pm (UTC)

[I want to know what you did to that man.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm not going to tell you," says Glorificus, sitting back down and picking up her magazine.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 08:55 pm (UTC)

[Why not?]

pythbox
2013-06-02 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Because you're annoying," she sniffs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 08:59 pm (UTC)

[I didn't mean to annoy you.]

[Sherlock, you getting anything worth knowing?]

pythbox
2013-06-02 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Well, you did," she grumbles. "You should be very sorry."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 09:07 pm (UTC)

[The bath lady's name is Glorificus, Glory for short; her alter ego is Ben, a perfectly ordinary human except for occasionally turning into her. She seems to derive power or sustenance from sucking... something... out of people's brains. Her past victims can be cured at a pentagon per, but I only did the most recent one. The rest are either dead or in mental hospitals.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:09 pm (UTC)

[How many victims are we talking about here? What does Ben know?]

[I am as sorry as I should be,] Bella asserts to Glory.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 09:24 pm (UTC)

[Ballpark of two or three hundred so far. Ben knows a thing or two, and you might have more luck getting it out of him than out of her.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:34 pm (UTC)

[Can you tell what triggers the shapeshifting?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 09:35 pm (UTC)

[Mostly random, as far as I can tell.]
Edited 2013-06-02 21:35 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:35 pm (UTC)

[How do the obsequious demons react to him if one's around when he shows up, then?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 09:37 pm (UTC)

[Obsequiously. But he doesn't like them.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:38 pm (UTC)

[I'll hang around and wait for him, then, unless she lines up another snack.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 09:42 pm (UTC)

[If you get impatient, you could always see what kind of coin it takes to force the change.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:43 pm (UTC)

[You don't think they'd notice, it's that random?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-02 09:49 pm (UTC)

[I don't think they would.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:49 pm (UTC)

Bella starts trying coins, but she's going to stop and reconsider if a pentagon won't do it.

pythbox
2013-06-02 09:53 pm (UTC)

A pentagon does it. Ben rubs his head, sighs, checks his watch, and gets up off the couch.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:53 pm (UTC)

[Hey you.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 09:54 pm (UTC)

He yelps and looks around wildly.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:55 pm (UTC)

[You can reply to me the same way,] she adds helpfully.

pythbox
2013-06-02 09:57 pm (UTC)

[Who are you? What do you want? How did you find me? What's going on?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 09:58 pm (UTC)

[I found your alter ego, first, and I want to find out why she's been brain-sucking several hundred people and put a stop to it.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 10:00 pm (UTC)

[That is not a complete answer!] he says, clutching his head in distress.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 10:01 pm (UTC)

[My name is Bella, if that actually helps.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 10:03 pm (UTC)

[Look, what I really want to know right now is whether or not you're about to do something horrible to me,] he says. [...And how you know anything about my alter ego.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 10:04 pm (UTC)

[I do not have any plans to do anything horrible to you. And I am very, very magical.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 10:35 pm (UTC)

He relaxes. Slightly.

[I'm not sure I can be much help,] he says. [I don't control Glory.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 10:35 pm (UTC)

[I just need to know what it is she's up to, so I can see about handling her myself. Why do you turn into her?]

pythbox
2013-06-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

["Handling" her? Just how magical are you?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 10:37 pm (UTC)

[Very, very.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 10:40 pm (UTC)

He looks worried.

[I still don't think she's somebody you should be messing with.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 10:41 pm (UTC)

[Why not?] Bella asks. [What can she do? Besides kill or hospitalize a few hundred people. Which needs to stop.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:03 pm (UTC)

[She's a hell goddess who was kicked out of her home dimension for being too nasty,] he says. [At least, I think that's it. I've never heard the story straight out. They bound her to a mortal vessel - me - to limit her power.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:04 pm (UTC)

[How attached are the two of you? How much do I have to worry about you when I'm addressing her?]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:05 pm (UTC)

[...Uh... what?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:05 pm (UTC)

[I mean, if she's that much of a package of bad news, are you in trouble if things turn violent, should I try to split you up first, tell me how this works, you appear to be an innocent bystander.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:06 pm (UTC)

[Split us up? Could you even do that? How?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:07 pm (UTC)

[I don't know if I can 'till I try. And: magic.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:10 pm (UTC)

[Stop saying 'magic' like it's an explanation,] he says flatly. [It's not. As far as I can tell, the things you're talking about doing should be impossible no matter how powerful a witch you are. I'm not going to help you if you can't tell me where you're getting all this.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:11 pm (UTC)

[I'm not a witch. I'm some other stuff,] says Bella cheerfully. [Glory's from far away? My magic's from farther away. It's a really, really long story.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:25 pm (UTC)

[There is nothing I want more than to get rid of her,] he says. [But it's just not possible.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:28 pm (UTC)

[If there's nothing more you want than to get rid of her, you should be all over the possibilities I am offering via fancy offworld magic. Look, how much do you know about demons and so on besides the obsequious kind that do her shopping?]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:28 pm (UTC)

[Not a lot. And you know, I would be all over it if I had any reason to believe you.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:29 pm (UTC)

[Aw, darn, I was hoping you'd already know about the vampire quarantine and I could tell you that was me. What would constitute a reason to believe me? I can show off some if that'd make things run smoother.]

And:

[Hey, Giles, two things. One, can you please see what there is to see on the subject of a hell god named Glory or Glorificus, her relationship to her mortal vessel, and anything to do with the Key? Two, Soph did not exist until a couple of hours ago, I am the only person unaffected by the corresponding memory-alteration, and there is some interpersonal fallout as a result.]
Edited 2013-06-02 23:32 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:38 pm (UTC)

[I don't know,] says Ben. [I'm not sure I'll believe you can split us until I see it. It doesn't exactly help that you still haven't told me how exactly you found me. As far as I can tell, you're just a mysterious voice who's probably spying on me, and it's kind of unnerving.]

[...I'll, er, I'll look that up,] says Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:40 pm (UTC)

[I have a crystal ball. And yes, I can see you, although if you need to change clothes or something I can stop. My cheapest Impressive Magic Trick would, unfortunately, probably scare you.]

[Thank you, Giles.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:42 pm (UTC)

[What's your cheapest magic trick?] asks Ben, warily.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:44 pm (UTC)

[I have an aura of menace. It's very impressive and makes people who don't know better think I'm a hellcreature of some kind. You'd have to really stretch the definition to qualify me as one, though. Slightly less cheaply, I can conjure up arbitrary nonmagical physical objects. Or magic ones, but they're trickier.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:46 pm (UTC)

[I think I'll skip the aura of menace, thanks,] he says. [...Look, if you're really who you say you are, I want to help. I just don't have any reason to trust you. I don't even know your species.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:48 pm (UTC)

[I'm a human. If you'd be willing for me to put us someplace where obsequious demons aren't going to walk in on us at any moment, I will be happy to turn visible.]

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:48 pm (UTC)

[...Fine.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:50 pm (UTC)

Her preselected Canadian wilderness is in use, so this is Nevada wilderness instead. She lands them near her cactus landmark, turns visible, and turns around once, arms out. "This is me."

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:50 pm (UTC)

"...Hi," says Ben, folding his arms distrustfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you properly. Welcome to Nevada. I'm not going to strand you here, but in case it makes you more comfortable, there is a highway, three miles that way -" she points. "With a rest stop not far from there. So, yeah, this is me, I'm a human, I'm very magical." She hops into the air and spins around again.

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:54 pm (UTC)

"I can see that you're magical," says Ben. "Can you split me and Glory?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I told you, I don't know until I try it and see if it works or not, and if I'm going to try it I'd like to be a little more remote than three miles from a Nevada highway, such as Mercury, and I'd also like to have a plan for what to do if it works."

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:56 pm (UTC)

"I can't help you there," says Ben.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:57 pm (UTC)

"You can give me information," says Bella. "Everything you know. Even if you don't have complete understanding of some thing you've heard or seen or read, it could inform my own research."

pythbox
2013-06-02 11:59 pm (UTC)

"I could," he says, "but I still don't trust you."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-02 11:59 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, what would you like me to do about that?"

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:00 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "It's a problem."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:02 am (UTC)

"So it would seem, yes. I don't suppose it helps any that I clearly could do something awful - to you, to anybody - and instead I'm spending my time poking around powerful hellgods because they've been making mental patients of innocent people? This doesn't suffice to demonstrate that I have benign motives?"

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:03 am (UTC)

"I wish it did," he says. "But no."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:04 am (UTC)

"I don't suppose I can solve this problem with bribery?"

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:07 am (UTC)

He looks tempted.

"...No."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:08 am (UTC)

"You're sure?"

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:09 am (UTC)

He sighs. And nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:10 am (UTC)

[Sherlock, how often does she brainsuck folks?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 12:14 am (UTC)

[She's been doing it a few times a month for several years.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:17 am (UTC)

"Glory brain-sucks people a few times a month," says Bella. "I don't have very long to gain your trust the old-fashioned way by hanging around and not doing anything evil, and she will definitely notice me if I teleport her next victim away, and I don't currently know how entangled she is with you, so I don't know if my first idea for dealing with her in a crisis situation will hurt you or not. Resurrecting the dead is more inconvenient and time-consuming right now than usual, and even the victims who don't wind up dead are a hassle to fix and don't look like they have a pleasant time on the way there or subsequently, so allowing her to go about her business is not on the table. If you really want rid of her, you want to talk to me."

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:20 am (UTC)

"...Look, why don't you just split us, then," he says, throwing up his hands. "And put her somewhere far, far away where you can deal with her and I don't have to."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:25 am (UTC)

"Look. Ben. I'm sure having her intermittently possess you is very annoying and you just want it over with without having to endure any further hassle. But I don't think you would want me to just teleport you to Mercury and attempt to pull her out of you there if you thought about it. I don't know what will happen if I do that. For all I know, you will die as soon as I do it because of some kind of dependence between you and then I have to go haul you back which could take me a while, or she'll triple in power and be strong enough to give me a difficult afternoon once you aren't attached to her, or she'll go terrorize her original subworld and then I have a difficult rebellion project on my hands, or something. Some of those outcomes are not great for you."

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:29 am (UTC)

"She can't get back to her original hell dimension," he says. "And I thought you said your magic could split us. Either you can do the impossible or you can't. How am I supposed to know exactly what impossible things you're claiming you can do when you won't tell me what they are or how you're going to do them? If you don't even know that I can live through it, why are you suggesting it at all, and especially why did you suggest it without mentioning that up front? This is not helping with the trust thing!"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:33 am (UTC)

"Dude," says Bella, pinching the bridge of her nose, "I told you, multiple times, I don't know if I can do it till I try it. I can do all kinds of wild things, but neither I nor my friends have encountered the specific scenario of 'hell god possessing human' before. And I'm trying to find out whether you can live through it, so that if the answer is 'no', I can find another solution. You aren't helping with the 'find out' project, so I'm trying to explain why it is important and you should wish to be helpful. That doesn't mean that I'm going to charge blindly forward in the absence of the relevant information."

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:42 am (UTC)

"How am I supposed to know if I can live through something that's still, as far as I've ever known, completely impossible? And if you're so keen on sharing information how come you're not telling me a damn thing about how you plan to accomplish any of this?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:43 am (UTC)

"Offworld magic," sighs Bella, looking skyward. "There are lots of worlds, you know that already 'cause Glory's from one, but Glory's from one in the same collection as this one we're standing in. I got some magic from some friends who are from other world-collections. What else do you want to know about it?"

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:56 am (UTC)

"...How it works?" he suggests. "For example?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 12:57 am (UTC)

"Wishes. I have some wishes on my person, of various sizes, and I can spend them at will."

pythbox
2013-06-03 12:59 am (UTC)

"And you couldn't, for example, wish to unstick me from Glory and put her on Mercury and leave me the hell alone...?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:05 am (UTC)

"Think of the wishes as magical computer programs," Bella says. "If I wish 'unstick Glory from Ben, put Glory on Mercury', then this will either work or not, but if it works, something I haven't thought of could cause something I don't expect, just like computers don't always behave even though no one expressly programmed in any bugs. That's why I have to think of all the things that might go wrong first. What will Glory be able to do when she's unstuck? How fast will she be able to do it - faster than I can stop her? Are you, in some way you have not chosen to tell me about, attached to her in such a way that you will come to harm in her absence if I don't specifically wish around it? I know some people whose lives are dependent on external souls that are shaped like animals, it would not be the weirdest thing I've heard if your life is in some way dependent on Glory's occupancy and I can probably work around it but I have to know how to be sure."

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:12 am (UTC)

"I'm telling you," he says, frustrated, "I don't know anything about what could possibly happen if you managed to yank her out of me somehow."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:13 am (UTC)

"And I'm telling you, I can potentially use anything you know about her at all in order to find out. I have other sources of information too, I just need to know what to look for."

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:14 am (UTC)

"What sources? Look how?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:15 am (UTC)

"I have a research guy who's investigating assorted books. I can spy on the past, if I know when and where I want to look. I have a crystal ball, but I have to interpret what it shows me in light of whatever I already know. I can wish up other information-gathering abilities if I know what sorts of things I need to find out."

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:18 am (UTC)

Ben shakes his head.

"I really can't help you," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:21 am (UTC)

"Okay," she sighs, since this is not a lie. "In the meantime - I can precipitate shifts between you and her, I did this most recent one. Would you expect anything bad to happen if I pushed you out front more often?"

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:21 am (UTC)

"...No?" he says doubtfully.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:22 am (UTC)

"You don't think it'd make her hungrier for human brains, more pissed off, anything like that?"

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:23 am (UTC)

"It might make her more pissed off," he says. "Or she might not even notice. I have no idea."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:23 am (UTC)

"Okay. I guess I'll take you back where I got you now, then, unless there's anything else you'd like to tell me."

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:24 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

"But could you put me where my car is, instead?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:25 am (UTC)

She checks to see if anyone is watching his car.

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:25 am (UTC)

No one is watching his car.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:26 am (UTC)

Pop.

"Here we go. I guess I'll see you when I work out a plan or she's about to hurt someone and I have to go with whatever I've got at the time, huh?"

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:26 am (UTC)

"Whatever," he mutters.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:27 am (UTC)

"Bye."

She heads back to Canada, although she half-suspects Sherlock will have teleported Soph to a more habitable climate by now.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 01:36 am (UTC)

She is correct.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:36 am (UTC)

Ayep.

Where's Sherlock, then?

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 01:42 am (UTC)

In this world's original Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:43 am (UTC)

"...Hi."

keyed_up
2013-06-03 01:44 am (UTC)

"Hi, Bella."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 01:44 am (UTC)

"Hi, Bella," says Tony. He is cuddling Soph.

keyed_up
2013-06-03 01:45 am (UTC)

Soph is cuddling back.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:46 am (UTC)

"So, I can poke the hellgod into turning into her mortal host with a pentagon, the mortal host doesn't trust me and doesn't know much, I've got Giles looking up Glory and - relevant topics, and I'm going to check on Glory-or-Ben every few minutes so I can intercept if she's about to eat somebody else."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 01:49 am (UTC)

"That sounds... tolerable," says Sherlock. "I think I'll go and see if Giles would like some help."

He disappears.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:52 am (UTC)

Bella looks at Tony and Soph where they are cuddling.

"And I will be on Mercury," she mutters. (Because where else is she going to go? Soph's bedroom? The other Jarvis?)

And she goes to Mercury. She's gotten as far as putting a nice breathable atmosphere and temperature and humidity on it, she's just been waiting till she has a look at more demon dimensions she might want to model aspects of the place after before she commits to any architecture or landscaping that would be expensive to replace. It's habitable.

Just boring.

She sits on Mercury and looks at the sky and looks in every few minutes on Ben/Glory.

pythbox
2013-06-03 01:58 am (UTC)

Ben drives home, takes a shower, and goes to work at the hospital.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 01:58 am (UTC)

After an hour, Sherlock appears on Mercury.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 01:58 am (UTC)

"Hi, Sherlock."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:02 am (UTC)

"Would you like to hear about the Key?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:03 am (UTC)

"Yes, please."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:07 am (UTC)

"The Key is a kind of magical artifact with no fixed physical form that can be used to open a gate between worlds. Glory's home dimension is unusually difficult to access; she wants to use the Key to go home. The monks we saw were trying to keep it from her, and when she discovered them they cast a spell to hide the Key in the safest place they could think of: under the protection of that undead ex-Slayer with mysterious powers who's been making diplomatic overtures to so many demons lately."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:14 am (UTC)

"Do we know why they didn't want her to go home?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:17 am (UTC)

"Because once she opens the gate, she is under no obligation to close it, and may instead choose to lead an army of demons out of it and conquer the planet."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:19 am (UTC)

"Ah. That would be bad."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:22 am (UTC)

"I agree. Not relatedly, Tony wants to know if you'd like someone to talk to about all this."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:25 am (UTC)

"That would be spectacular, but I'm skeptical that anyone wants to listen to me unless there is someone I know well enough to pour my heart out to but not well enough that I ever 'mentioned' having a sister." She shakes her head. "Is there a reason to want Glory not to be home that is unrelated to the gate? Like, should I not give her a lift if that seems expedient?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:34 am (UTC)

"Tony wants to listen to you and has explicitly offered to do so. I suppose it's up to you whether or not you know him well enough. It's possible that if Glory goes home she might make life even more unpleasant for the demons who live there, but it's very unlikely that anyone from that dimension could leave it again without the Key."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:37 am (UTC)

"So that's an option if I get a nasty surprise about how difficult she is to manage at some point, I guess. I kind of expect that if I talk to anyone who likes Soph and I'm not self-censoring to the point of rendering the exercise useless they will quietly hate me."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:38 am (UTC)

"Tony is not going to hate you."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:40 am (UTC)

"Maybe."

Right now she's not sure if her boyfriend hates her.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:43 am (UTC)

"I don't hate you either," he adds. "But I'm not the right person for you to talk to about Soph. The situation feels very personal for me in exactly the wrong way."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:44 am (UTC)

Bella nods.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:46 am (UTC)

"But Tony can listen to you, I promise."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:47 am (UTC)

"...Okay."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 02:49 am (UTC)

He hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:50 am (UTC)

Hugs.

Check on Ben/Glory.

Teleporting to Tony.

toblameforit
2013-06-03 02:53 am (UTC)

Tony is sitting by himself in his room in the original Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 02:54 am (UTC)

"...So apparently you signed up to listen to me process my feelings aloud, but I don't think Jarvis did, and I'm going to wind up saying a lot of things I don't endorse so I'd rather limit the audience."

poeticterms
2013-06-03 03:03 am (UTC)

The door closes.

"I won't listen," says Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 03:04 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Bella rearranges her hair edgily. "How much did you hear about how Soph and I, er, met?"

toblameforit
2013-06-03 03:10 am (UTC)

"Apparently you found her in your room and freaked out and teleported her to Canada?" says Tony.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 03:40 am (UTC)

"Yeah. And I guess she brainphoned Sherlock for help, and - to the extent that there were sides he was not on mine - and I'm talking to you instead of him now because I guess he identifies with her or something? But like - I feel like I've faceplanted into an expectation that I treat my mental opacity like it is the problem here, like, we'd all be a happy Soph-including family if only I'd had the courtesy to be brainwashable? And instead I am the only person I know who has not been brainwashed, and the problem Sherlock chose to address first after concluding that I wasn't crazy was that I wasn't being nice enough. Like - is it just me or is that a complete failure of perspective-taking - what would he do if he woke up one morning and discovered that - I don't know, that his cloning retroactively yielded an extra that everyone remembered but him? Soph was alternately defensive and quiet, I have no actual personal beef with her, but - Sherlock."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 03:49 am (UTC)

"Aww, man. It's not your mental opacity that's the problem!" he says. "Do you want me to explain Sherry? I can, I'm good at that."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 03:50 am (UTC)

"Yeah, explain me some Sherlock."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 04:11 am (UTC)

"If Sherry woke up one morning and there was an extra clone in the family that everybody remembered but him, he'd get right into figuring out what the hell was going on, but he'd treat the extra guy like family unless he found out he was some kind of camouflaged assassin or something. He empathizes way, way too strongly with the whole 'brand new extra person' situation to do anything else."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 04:52 am (UTC)

"...Okay. I don't know how to do that, though, I'm not Sherlock, I can't derive a reasonable picture of her personality from ten minutes of talking to her and her tacky taste in jewelry, she's not even an alt of Lexi. Soph had the idea that I should act like she's some other Bell's sister, which was a good idea. Which I can do because I met Lexi and didn't find her deeply bewildering. If Lexi were stranded here, I'd know how to react to that - I mean, it'd involve a lot of trying to get her home to Aurora, but I don't imagine anyone would complain about how I treated her in the meantime. But - that isn't what happened. Everyone else changed too. I don't know how much splicing her in has affected your memories or the Jarvises' or Sherlock's - let alone my parents, god, Aurora's on record speculating that she has the worst relationship with her parents of any Bell specifically because she wasn't an only child and it made her neurotic. Do my parents now remember raising a neurotic standoffish child who was never confident that she was loved enough? And I mean, Aurora is noticeably different from the rest of us, she has an exactly standard backstory right up to 'move to Forks, find magic and a significant other' but she still acts - off-center. Not in a bad way but in a different way. I don't expect this to add up to much with people I don't interact with socially on a regular basis, but my parents - And Sherlock! Now he remembers meeting and being interested in and teaching and engaging in Slaying with and - all that - a Bell with a sister. The fact that the Bell he remembers now never existed and I do instead doesn't mean it's really me he remembers. Having a sister a year younger than me would've affected me. I don't know who all the brainwashed people remember. I'm not her. For a distressingly large fraction of all practical purposes, he met me earlier today, in Canada, shouting at his friend."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 12:44 pm (UTC)

"...Well, first of all, he's off designing a wish right now to get his original memories back without fucking up the new ones," says Tony. "I might do the same thing if he doesn't think it'll mess with my head too badly."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 04:10 pm (UTC)

"That helps. He didn't tell me that."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I figured."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 04:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure I can't do an equivalent. I don't think I can pull a - variant on Shell Bell's merge with my self-who-never-was. Even if I decided I absolutely, without reservation, wanted to, I think I almost certainly resist mental editing."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 04:15 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 04:18 pm (UTC)

"And of course it wouldn't make sense for Soph - she can't well remember not existing - so she knows someone I am not and could not be even if I wanted to."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I think Sherry said something about - alternate pastwatching?" he says. "So you could find all that stuff out."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Now I have homework. And - it's a lot of homework, it's seventeen years of homework, I can watch most of it at greater than the original speed and I can skip over parts where we're just sleeping in our twee little bunk beds and so on, but if I'm at all thorough it's years of homework. And - I asked, I grabbed, responsibility for the whole world. I don't resent having to deal with Glory, or talk to demons, or eventually interface with human governments. I don't resent the obligations that I volunteered for when I helped myself to ludicrous amounts of power. But I resent the - personal imposition. If someone does something and then I have to go kill them or undo it or find their creation a nice quiet subdimension to peacefully live out its days, that's fine, that's part of the job, I signed up for that, I clock in and clock out at highly irregular hours but I can clock out of that. If I even start with Soph I don't get to live with her being my 'sister' some limited number of hours every day, or only when there's a crisis, or only when I feel like it, and I didn't sign up for that and I am not used to it from earliest toddlerhood and that's my life and I want to decide what goes in it without demands like that. Like, at least if Renée and Charlie improbably had a baby right now, I would get used to the baby from a starting point where its primary needs involved its physical safety and we'd work out our more complicated interactions over a longer period of time, from scratch, bit by bit. Soph already has some set of expectations for how having a sister works for her, and what if I hate it, what if I do all my homework and whatever she remembers only works if I'm a year old when I first encounter her and she's little and cute at the time?"

toblameforit
2013-06-03 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Then you both have to deal with that," he says. "There's not always a perfect answer. You just... have to do the best you can with what you've got."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. It's very tempting to just give up. Not bother. Wish Soph the best of luck, act extremely awkward around Charlie and Renée, get on with my life. Move officially out of Twee Bunkbed Room and be out of her way, Sherlock can pass her coins under the table if he wants, he's the one who makes them. Screw the homework, I have a world to patch and a Mercury palace to design, you know? Except I'm pretty sure if I did that I wouldn't have a boyfriend any more and that is not helping me evaluate the possibility on its own merits or dismerits."
Edited 2013-06-03 16:42 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-06-03 04:43 pm (UTC)

"...Well... I haven't actually talked to Sherry about that, and I'm not saying it wouldn't throw him because it really would, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't just dump you over it."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 04:47 pm (UTC)

"He wouldn't be happy," Bella says. "I guess if he's gone this long without dumping me he probably isn't going to, but - ugh, sometimes I feel like our entire relationship is a string of new reasons to be tense and uncomfortable. This wouldn't help. But I'm not sure if that's even a good reason to consider being all - sisterly, with Soph."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Could you think about the other reasons and then come back to that one?" he suggests.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess." She sits back in her chair. "So there's Soph herself, who near as I can tell is an innocent victim of sorts, who does not deserve to go through the subjective experience of losing her sister, and whose actual - so to speak - sister I have no hope of producing from the depths of Downside Jane or no Jane. She's probably entitled to some attention from me on that basis alone, but I don't know her well enough to know how to do that short of actually doing my seventeen-years-of-homework bit - which even if I decide to do it, I can't do it instantaneously, so there's the question of how to act in the meanwhile. There's Renée and Charlie - I don't even know whether to tell them that their younger daughter is an extremely convincing fiction."
Edited 2013-06-03 17:09 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-06-03 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I can't help with the parents," he says wryly.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I mean, I could leave that up to her, consider her in the metaphorical closet about being what she is, but I don't know how good her judgment is."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Which is something you could find out by doing your homework," he says. "I mean, or asking somebody who knows her, but I don't know if you want to trust somebody else's judgment about her judgment, and I don't know her that well."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 05:18 pm (UTC)

"It's a lot of homework," mutters Bella. "Also I have to figure out how to go about it. Learning to read my own notebook cipher and counterfactual pastwatching will do reasonably well up to the point where we got the brainphone, but after that for a complete picture I'm going to have to read my counterfactual mind, and I'm - well, for one thing I'm not sure how the fact that these events never happened will interact with the fact that even in the false history I was mentally opaque, and for another I'm not sure how I feel about reading somebell else's mind whether she really existed or not. Like, she didn't walk around doing things, but the things she would have done have had effects on you and Sherlock and Soph and Charlie and Renée and so on."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Tony. "I guess you kind of have to figure that out for yourself. But I mean... she is kind of you, isn't she? In more ways than alts usually are? It's almost like that thing with Shell Bell."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 05:33 pm (UTC)

"If she were around, we'd be talking mergers. This isn't a merger, it's a - cannibalization."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, she's not around, and you can't - wait. Can you make her be around?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 05:34 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks at him.

"I don't know whether I love that idea or hate it."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I definitely can't help you there."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 05:47 pm (UTC)

"I'll need to think about it. I guess it's an option."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:04 pm (UTC)

"It is!"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:05 pm (UTC)

"What's Soph even like?" Bella asks, closing her eyes.

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Um... she plays softball," he offers.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:14 pm (UTC)

That was not the kind of information Bella was looking for. "You and her don't really hang out, huh."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:15 pm (UTC)

"We do some. But I don't know her that well. I mean, I like her! I just don't have, like, a list of her characteristics on file somewhere."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:16 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's fair."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:17 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Do you remember me getting along with her okay, though?"

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. You guys were fine."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Like - you've met Aurora and Lexi, right, can you compare?"

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:22 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," he says. "Maybe not as close?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense, I guess, they're twins."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I really appreciate you listening to me."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Anytime."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:27 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm out of things to say. I just need to think, I guess, and - meet Soph."

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:28 pm (UTC)

He nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:34 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs him.

toblameforit
2013-06-03 07:35 pm (UTC)

He hugs back.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:36 pm (UTC)

That's good, it'd be pretty awkward otherwise.

Bella teleports to Mercury, for lack of any better ideas.

[Talked to Tony,] she reports to Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 07:37 pm (UTC)

[Any conclusions?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:38 pm (UTC)

[He had the idea of wishing up the Bella who you guys all remember, and pulling a Shell Bell therewith. I'm thinking about it.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 07:45 pm (UTC)

[I've already done something similar, although I didn't instantiate the extra self first.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:47 pm (UTC)

[I'd have to, I can't just edit my memories. How's the - pseudomerger - treating you?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 07:48 pm (UTC)

[Better than any of the altrnatives. A little strange. The two continuities correspond remarkably well.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:49 pm (UTC)

[So I wasn't that different? I'd expect to have been different. More Aurora-y.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 07:49 pm (UTC)

[Virtually identical,] he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 07:51 pm (UTC)

[I guess the spell was trying to be conservative about making changes and sacrificed a little realism, if not enough for you to notice it.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 07:58 pm (UTC)

[I invite you to argue with your proposed fork about how realistic she is.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:00 pm (UTC)

[Do you not have fabricated memories of hearing me talk about - I mean, I would've compared and contrasted with Aurora, did I counterfactually say anything about that?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:04 pm (UTC)

[You did. Apparently your parents picked favourites and that was the key difference.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:05 pm (UTC)

[I guess that'd do it. I don't like it, but at least it's not what Aurora got.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:07 pm (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Which parent now remembers liking me noticeably less than Soph, or didn't I say?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Your mother.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Okay then.] Bella sighs.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:14 pm (UTC)

Sherlock appears.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Hi."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a hug?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Please."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:21 pm (UTC)

Hug.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:22 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

"How're you feeling?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Suspending a lot of reactions until things have settled out a bit."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:33 pm (UTC)

"...Why?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Because it's easier that way."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Does that mean you don't have advice for me?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Advice about what, specifically?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:38 pm (UTC)

"How I should handle Soph. I haven't definitely decided to fork. It might not even work."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:39 pm (UTC)

"If you can fork and then merge, I think that will probably end up being the best outcome."
Edited 2013-06-03 20:39 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:41 pm (UTC)

"...I am not one hundred percent sure my fork would want to merge with me. It's not like Shell Bell where one of the forks was clearly not capable of managing alone."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:45 pm (UTC)

"My best guess is that she would, but it's only a guess."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's about where I'm at. There's also the possibility that I can make her exist but can't merge with her even if she's up for it. Shell Bell has no native opacity; I do."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:48 pm (UTC)

"And of course, we can't consult any of the available fortune tellers."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Right." Bella nibbles her lip, then goes and gets her crystal ball and reappears with it, cradling it in both hands.

It shows one of her, then two of her; they stare at each other, perhaps brainphoning; there is the one of her.

"Crystal ball suggests I can," she says.
Edited 2013-06-03 20:52 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Do we trust the crystal ball? I am inclined to trust the crystal ball."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 08:56 pm (UTC)

"In the absence of being able to ask Mary or Alice, or even consult Glass or Lazarus about how my opacity works, I think trusting the crystal ball is the best bet." She looks up at Mercury's sky; during the day it's a pleasant lilac but right now, where she is, it's nighttime. "It'd be a big change, though."
Edited 2013-06-03 20:59 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I suppose it would."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:07 pm (UTC)

"I should probably get to know Soph. As just-me. That'll help. Do you know how she's holding up, have you been talking to her?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:09 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:11 pm (UTC)

"...Has anybody been talking to her? She probably needs someone to talk to at least as badly as I did."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:12 pm (UTC)

"She claimed to have collected an adequate supply of hugs, last I heard."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Not so much a talking-through-her-feelings person? What's she like?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:15 pm (UTC)

"She is like herself. I'm not especially good at describing personalities," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I asked Tony and he told me she plays softball," sighs Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Decently well, too."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:19 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:19 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:21 pm (UTC)

"D'you want to - introduce me to her?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure what I could add to the situation," he says, "but if you want me to, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what you'd add to the situation either, but it's probably less awkward than me teleporting into her room and being like 'so... hi.'"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Granted. All right."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:24 pm (UTC)

But first, hugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:25 pm (UTC)

Yes. Those.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:26 pm (UTC)

Bella teleports the both of them to Soph.

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:27 pm (UTC)

Soph is indeed in the room with the bunkbeds, eating directly from a pint of ice cream. The ice cream appears to be helping.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Sherlock.

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Hi, guys," says Soph, when she has finished her spoonful. "Uh, how's tricks?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:31 pm (UTC)

Bella snorts. "Tricks are about as good as could be expected. Tony had an idea. But I'm not sure yet if I want to implement it. You know how Shell Bell forked and merged?"

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:33 pm (UTC)

"I could - whip up a custom fork, sort of, one who has the memories the spell was supposed to put in me. And splice with her."

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:34 pm (UTC)

"...That'd be. Weird? But maybe not as weird as having you not remember me at all."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:37 pm (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Apparently Sherlock's memories match up pretty closely, but he would've only known you since March and only through me, so. I'm looking at a bigger shift. And..." She shrugs, shifting her weight. "I don't know who I'd be shifting for. I don't know you yet."

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm..." Soph shrugs. "I'm not nearly as interesting as you are? I play softball," she offers.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

...Juliet sporfles.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-03 09:40 pm (UTC)

Sherlock cracks up.

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:42 pm (UTC)

"What, what'd I say?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:43 pm (UTC)

"I asked Tony what you were like. He said you played softball."

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Pffff."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Seriously though."

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm..." Soph shrugs. "I try to be nice, I try to be smart, I'm not as - as verbal as you are, I think I'm more social, I have a bunch of school friends who don't know about magic and stuff... um, you didn't have any trouble getting me to move here, when Mom got married... I don't call them by their first names when they're not listening except sometimes to you? And I sometimes greet people by saying 'how's tricks' and I can't remember where I picked it up."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:50 pm (UTC)

"What do you do in your spare time, besides play softball?"

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I used to be into whatever Renée was into, I'd follow her to whatever church she was going to or work on whatever craft she was halfway through. Lately I've mostly been just doing - school stuff, hanging out with my friends, listening to you talk about all the demons you're meeting."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 09:54 pm (UTC)

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" asks Bella.
Edited 2013-06-03 21:55 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-06-03 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I haven't decided! I dunno, it always looked like I'd wind up working for you in some capacity, right, but I really don't know, maybe I'd like to be a journalist."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Did you ever talk to James about working for me in some capacity?"

keyed_up
2013-06-03 10:17 pm (UTC)

"No, never got around to it."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 11:56 pm (UTC)

"What do you remember talking to me about? What did - do - what would we have - What do we do together?"

keyed_up
2013-06-03 11:58 pm (UTC)

"You do most of the talking," shrugs Soph. "Sometimes I, like, come up with useful metaphors. You talk to me a lot actually. I'm a pretty good listener, I dunno if I'm as good as Tony but you - knew me better. We'd do all kinds of random stuff. Sometimes you'd watch movies with me, I like movies... after you got Slayer powers I dragged you to a bunch of stuff like ice skating, weekends during the day..."
Edited 2013-06-03 23:59 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-03 11:59 pm (UTC)

"...Which periods of time I guess I had free because you were helping me cross the town?"

keyed_up
2013-06-04 12:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah. You wouldn't let me out at night, though. Well, I mean. You explained that I shouldn't follow you and why."
Edited 2013-06-04 00:01 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-06-04 12:02 am (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

keyed_up
2013-06-04 12:03 am (UTC)

"'Cause I might have met something dangerous," Soph adds, pointing at Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-04 12:03 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Hey, he had me good and spooked the first time I ran into him, and I was the Slayer."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-04 12:06 am (UTC)

"Grr," he deadpans.

keyed_up
2013-06-04 12:07 am (UTC)

"Eek, Bella, save me!"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-04 12:07 am (UTC)

Bella laughs.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-04 12:07 am (UTC)

Sherlock giggles.

my weight in quarters

keyed_up

Soph's not immune to large coins anymore. She has now ducked into Milliways briefly, which she could - "never do before" - and left without incident. And Bella says she's torchable. So supposedly she could do almost anything, now.

What she wants to do is this.

She finds Tony - ahahaha, she can teleport now, no spending a pentagon every time wincing when she remembers where they come from - and says:

"Let's go blow my weight in quarters on arcade games and finish that James Bond marathon?"

(She has other friends, who she knows better than Tony, but they don't know about stuff, she wants to keep it that way, and she's going to be in a bit of a mood about stuff for a while; better to put them off until she's got her equilibrium back.)

toblameforit
2013-06-11 07:18 pm (UTC)

"That," says Tony, "sounds like an awesome plan."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I know, right, I am brilliant. Uh, can you spot me the quarters, I think Bella is ninety-nine point five convinced I'm not -" Giles impression! - "evil in some way, but conjuring arcade tokens is probably counterfeiting and would not help with that thing."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 07:27 pm (UTC)

"I will absolutely spot you the quarters," he laughs.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:28 pm (UTC)

"You're the best. So how's tricks?"

toblameforit
2013-06-11 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Meh," he shrugs. "The usual. Still working on improvements to the arc reactor."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Fun stuff. Hey Jarvis, can you find where an arcade is around here, because I fail totally at knowing that thing."

poeticterms
2013-06-11 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Happily," he says. "Do I assume you will be driving, or would you prefer to teleport?"

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Going with Tony, so, sign me up for shiny car," says Soph, winking at Tony.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 07:40 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

poeticterms
2013-06-11 07:41 pm (UTC)

Jarvis lists several arcades in driving range.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Awesomesauce. Do any of those have skeeball? Who'm I kidding, every arcade that exists has skeeball - okay, which ones have DDR?"

poeticterms
2013-06-11 07:44 pm (UTC)

This narrows the choices down to two!

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Aaaand which one has the better pinball selection?"

poeticterms
2013-06-11 07:50 pm (UTC)

We have a winner!

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:51 pm (UTC)

Hooray! Soph traipses to the garage.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 07:55 pm (UTC)

Tony traipses after her!

"Viper still your favourite?"

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:55 pm (UTC)

"You know it."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Viper it is."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 07:58 pm (UTC)

Soph hops into the red car's passenger seat. "So apparently I can torch now, you don't have to be extra extra careful driving me."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but I'm gonna be anyway, 'cause I don't actually like car accidents," he snorts.

And they're off!

keyed_up
2013-06-11 08:01 pm (UTC)

Wheeeee!

"I mean you should be careful, you just don't have to, like, not speed or anything radical like that."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 08:27 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Bella says I can decide whether to tell Mom and Dad that I'm only recently real. That's how she said it, 'only recently real'."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's one way to put it, I guess."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I kinda don't think I will. Not soon anyway. My friends neither. I like having pockets of normalcy."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Must be nice."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Are you gonna be legally alive again any time soon? Take your company back and stuff?"

toblameforit
2013-06-11 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Who even knows," says Tony. "It just seems like such a hassle, you know?"

keyed_up
2013-06-11 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but, like, if you get pulled over or something right now what are you even going to do? Being dead seems like a hassle too."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 09:52 pm (UTC)

"...That is a good point," Tony admits. "And here's the arcade!"

keyed_up
2013-06-11 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Arcades don't card!" agrees Soph brightly, and she skips out of the car.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 09:55 pm (UTC)

Tony follows, giggling.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 09:56 pm (UTC)

Soph wants to play DDR first. She is really good at it. "After this you can beat me at something with cars in it," she says.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 09:57 pm (UTC)

"You're so nice to me," laughs Tony.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I am super nice!" she says, polishing off the last steps of "Butterfly" on hard mode and striking a victory pose.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 09:59 pm (UTC)

"And really good at DDR!"

keyed_up
2013-06-11 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I conjured up a home set when - well, I mean, I remember - I mean in the closet at home there's - yes. I am really good at DDR."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," he says. "Time to find a racing game for me to kick your ass at?"

keyed_up
2013-06-11 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, pick something cool."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 10:19 pm (UTC)

He picks something cool!

He kicks her ass at it.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 10:28 pm (UTC)

Soph loses gracefully, where "gracefully" means "while punching him playfully in the shoulder", and heads for skeeball. She's pretty good at skeeball.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 10:36 pm (UTC)

Tony is half decent at skeeball! They shall play skeeball.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 10:40 pm (UTC)

Then it is pinball time, that being how they chose this place!

toblameforit
2013-06-11 10:42 pm (UTC)

Pinball time is one of the best times there is!

keyed_up
2013-06-11 10:44 pm (UTC)

Soph is not very good at pinball! But they have a lot of quarters.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 10:55 pm (UTC)

They do. They have many, many quarters. A practically endless supply.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 10:57 pm (UTC)

Soph's attention span runs out before their quarters do. She blows all her tickets on plastic bangles and earrings to add to her jewelry collection.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 10:58 pm (UTC)

Tony grins.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Let's get, like, burgers or something - or no, let's go back to whichever Jarvis has a better TV and conjure burgers and stuff, I can mint now, it's awesome, she didn't hook it into my torching yet because I guess she's not totally sure but I can still do it - and watch James Bond define spy movies."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Deal!" says Tony.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:04 pm (UTC)

Into the car they go.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:08 pm (UTC)

And off they zoom.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:09 pm (UTC)

And once they are flopped somewhat cuddlishly onto the sofa Soph wishes up a nice spread of suitably greasy fast food - burgers and fries and nuggets and soda and milkshakes, mmm.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:10 pm (UTC)

"You know people used to say my dad looked like Pierce Brosnan?" says Tony.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember ever hearing that."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:14 pm (UTC)

"He used to get it all the time. Especially when he got older."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:17 pm (UTC)

"When Bella finishes what all she's got planned and Jane comes back she's going to start waking up all the dead people. What do you think you'll do about your parents?"

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:20 pm (UTC)

...He sighs.

"I really have no idea. I mean, I don't want them to stay dead forever or anything, I just - don't know how to deal with them. At all." Wryly, "Pretty sure it's mutual."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I guess they could just - I dunno, do you think they'll come back or just hang out Downside? Most people have to hang out Downside or it'll be ridiculously crowded here."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Maybe Dad'll come take the company back," he snorts.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Is there gonna be, like, a huge fight over it at that point because everyone will know that you can be dead-and-not-dead, or...?"

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Nah, I'd let him have it."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Probably easiest that way."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:27 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"It's not like he wouldn't let me help."

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Bella's thinking about forking and she's not totally sure her fork will want to merge after. And I don't like thinking about what would happen if she didn't."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:29 pm (UTC)

"...aww, man," says Tony. He hugs her.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Like, I don't see either one of them going, 'you can have it, I don't care' about the world," Soph sighs, snuggling up.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:31 pm (UTC)

"That would pretty well suck," he says, cuddling her.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:39 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. "You're cuddly," she sighs, and she eats a fry.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:40 pm (UTC)

"I am! I'm very cuddly. And I'm stealing your fries." He noms one.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Thief!" giggles Soph. "Nah, you can have all the fries you want."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!"

Nom.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:43 pm (UTC)

"You are most welcome, gracious gentlemanly sir."

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:44 pm (UTC)

He sporfles.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:46 pm (UTC)

She sips her milkshake. She does not slurp; talking over the movie is one thing but slurping over it quite another.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:50 pm (UTC)

Milkshake! Snuggles! Movie!

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:51 pm (UTC)

Yes.

If Soph didn't know any better she'd think this was a date.

toblameforit
2013-06-11 11:55 pm (UTC)

Well, it's not.

It's just... dinner and a movie, with cuddles. After an awesome arcade adventure.

Yes.

keyed_up
2013-06-11 11:58 pm (UTC)

It is. It is definitely those things. Those things are all very nice. Platonically nice.

Goddammit.

Soph focuses on the movie as best she can.

toblameforit
2013-06-12 12:00 am (UTC)

Tony does not seem to have any trouble dividing his attention between Movie, Dinner, and Cuddles.

keyed_up
2013-06-12 12:02 am (UTC)

He is very talented!

Eventually the conjured food is all gone. Soph was very clever about calibrating the amount.

toblameforit
2013-06-12 12:04 am (UTC)

And only Movie and Cuddles are left. Hooray for those things!

keyed_up
2013-06-12 12:06 am (UTC)

Hooray!

Soph is up for another movie after this one is over.

toblameforit
2013-06-12 12:09 am (UTC)

So is Tony! Also, more cuddles.

keyed_up
2013-06-12 12:10 am (UTC)

Yep. Uninterrupted cuddles.

toblameforit
2013-06-12 12:11 am (UTC)

Mmhmm. Cuddly ones.

we are the location of many significant historical events

cross_and_bow

Bella goes to Mercury to do her forking.

She decides - since she can order up a custom fork at all - that her fork might as well have a copy of all her memories since she found Soph. To understand, to know what she's doing in the world, to not instantly want to punch Juliet in the nose for mishandling Soph in some way. To know what day it is, if nothing else.

Wish.

And then there are two.

And the new one cocks her head, and says, "Don't worry, we can merge - well, I will, anyway, who knows if the crystal ball was lying - but first why don't we surprise Sherlock?"

And the not-new one smiles, and says, "Why not?"

And at precisely the same time, they teleport, wearing matching smiles.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 12:30 am (UTC)

Sherlock looks at one Juliet. Sherlock looks at the other Juliet.

Sherlock grins.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 12:32 am (UTC)

"Hi," they say at the same time.

"Hey, can you tell us apart?" giggles one of them.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 12:55 am (UTC)

"Trivially. Two different ways. I have not yet chosen to make either experiment."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 12:56 am (UTC)

"What're your ideas?" says the other one, as they sidle up to him in a snuggly manner.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 12:58 am (UTC)

He grins and snuggles both of them.

"Method one: I suspect one of you is carrying significantly more coins than the other. Method two: You do not each have a complete record of my interactions with the other, but I have a complete record of my interactions with both of you. So if I were to make some trivial statement that references a memory one of you has and the other does not, I would only need to observe who understood it."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:00 am (UTC)

"You're very clever," observes the first one, and she nibbles his ear.

"The coin thing is fixed now," adds the second, and she kisses his neck.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:01 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:02 am (UTC)

Juliets grin.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:04 am (UTC)

"I think," says Sherlock, "there has been an inefficient distribution of nibbling here."

He kisses a randomly chosen Juliet.

"Shall we remedy that?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:05 am (UTC)

"Yes," says the randomly chosen Juliet. "That sounds like a lovely idea."

The other one repositions accommodatingly. "You'll have room for seconds, won't you?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:15 am (UTC)

"Of course. I wouldn't dream of neglecting either of you."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:17 am (UTC)

"Oh good," purrs Dessert.

"Much fairer that way," says Dinner.
Edited 2013-06-12 01:17 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:18 am (UTC)

Dinner gets a kiss, and then she gets collected into his lap, and then she gets bitten.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:20 am (UTC)

"Is that what it sounds like from the outside," comments Dessert impishly, when Dinner makes a noise.

"Nnnnshutup," moans Dinner, "we're gonna - Sherlock - gonna be the same person in a bit - fuck -"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:22 am (UTC)

Sherlock snuggles Dinner and hums contentedly against her neck. [I think it sounds lovely,] he tells both of them.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:23 am (UTC)

"You ought to," giggles Dessert.

"Nnnnnnn," whines Dinner.
Edited 2013-06-12 01:23 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:27 am (UTC)

[Lovely. Endearing. Delectable. Some combination of those.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:27 am (UTC)

[I am feeling the delectable,] manages Dinner.

Dessert chuckles.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:32 am (UTC)

[You certainly are, love.]

Mmmmmmmmm.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:33 am (UTC)

Eventually predictive squirming gives way to telltale shaking and Dinner goes half-limp in his arms.

Dessert smirks.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:41 am (UTC)

Sherlock gives Dinner a kiss and a snuggle.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:42 am (UTC)

Dinner accepts both - and then gets out of the way.

Dessert slides into Sherlock's lap.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:44 am (UTC)

Dessert gets a snuggle and a kiss!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:44 am (UTC)

Dessert gives as good as she gets.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:46 am (UTC)

"I love you," he says, hugging her close and pecking her on the cheek.

And then there are nibbles!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:48 am (UTC)

Dinner snickers helplessly when the noises in question emerge from her counterpart's mouth. Dessert is also doing something helplessly but it is not snickering.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:50 am (UTC)

They are both lovely darling creatures.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:51 am (UTC)

And they love him and Dinner has obtained one of his hands to nibble on.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:53 am (UTC)

That is a delight. She is a delight. They are collectively a delight.
Edited 2013-06-12 01:54 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:54 am (UTC)

Good. They aim to delight. That was the point of showing up here.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 01:57 am (UTC)

Their aim is magnificently accurate.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 01:57 am (UTC)

Oh good.

Meanwhile Dessert is pretty fucking delighted over here in Sherlock's lap.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 02:26 am (UTC)

That is good, because Sherlock also aims to delight!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 02:34 am (UTC)

He has lovely aim. The metaphor is particularly apt when sharp objects are involved, isn't it?

Dessert quakes in his arms, whimpering.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 02:35 am (UTC)

Dessert is delicious.
Edited 2013-06-12 02:36 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 02:36 am (UTC)

That is the idea, is it not?

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 02:44 am (UTC)

Yes. Yes it is.

And how is she enjoying herself so far?

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 02:46 am (UTC)

Quite.

She collapses onto him very happily. "I love you," she sighs.

Dinner has his hand still. She bites, smirking.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 02:47 am (UTC)

"I love you too," says Sherlock, cuddling Dessert with his free arm. "Something on your mind, morsel number one?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 02:48 am (UTC)

"Maybe," says Morsel Number One.

"Yes," giggles Dessert breathlessly, and she kisses him.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 02:58 am (UTC)

Sherlock grins and kisses back.

[Oh, do let's,] he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 03:00 am (UTC)

And they do!

And later, in a cuddly row with a Sherlock in the middle of it, one of the morsels says, "Do you want to see if you can get us to react interestingly to some kinda shibboleth before we are one and the same?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 03:04 am (UTC)

"You seem to be assuming that I haven't already found you out."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 03:29 am (UTC)

"Did you?" the other one asks.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 03:55 am (UTC)

"At some point in the last half hour, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 03:59 am (UTC)

"What did you conclude?" inquires the first. They have developed a habit of taking turns to speak; when the one whose turn it is not speaks forgetfully, they generally say the same thing.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 11:44 am (UTC)

"New," he says, indicating one, "and old," the other.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Knew you'd figure it out," says Old, forbearing to choose a pronoun.

"What was the giveaway, or did little discrepancies just add up?" asks New.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Little discrepancies."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 04:30 pm (UTC)

"We should pick a merging protocol," yawns Old.

"Nothing too sophisticated with muffling or anything, though, we're both sane and the same mental age and so on," says New.

"Yeah."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Is 'full access with equal weighting to both sets of memories' not suitable? That's what I have," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 05:16 pm (UTC)

"We'd like them a little more readily distinguished."

"We'll be able to figure out which memory belongs to which, but having to do figuring doesn't sound ideal."

"Also I got ordered up with copies of everything she did since meeting Soph for the first time up to my existing, and doubling that up seems like it might have weird knock-on effects that mere cases of serendipity between our histories wouldn't."

"Also unlike you I'm actually eighteen and I'm not sure what this will do to my mental age."

"I think I have a protocol I like, though."

"Should I bother checking it?"

"If you want, but why bother?"

"All right," shrugs Old. "Kiss us goodbye, Sherlock, we're gonna undergo some changes."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Happily."

He kisses each of them.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 05:22 pm (UTC)

And one of them makes a wish, and then there is one, and she snuggles up.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 05:23 pm (UTC)

He snuggles her right back.

"All right in there, love?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Yep. I'm us, we're me, I contain multitudes, etcetera. I love you." Nuzzle.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

Snuggle!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I should probably go talk to Soph at some point." Cuddle. "But not riiiiight now."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 05:41 pm (UTC)

"There is time to snuggle first," he agrees.

Snuggly snuggle.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 05:43 pm (UTC)

Snuggliest snuggle.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 05:45 pm (UTC)

Mmmmsnuggle.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 05:56 pm (UTC)

Before Bella has decided that snuggle time may be temporarily recessed, she sits up abruptly. "Dammit. Glory's out and I can't pentagon her away anymore and she's whining for a snack."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Oh dear," says Sherlock. "To Mercury, then?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. You want to come?" She squares into her clothes.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I might as well." He does likewise.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Right then."

This seems like an occasion for aura. Juliet lets it pour out of her and teleports them to Glory and an instant later teleports them all three to Mercury.

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:03 pm (UTC)

Glory scowls thunderously.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Humans are not snackfood," Bella says.

Glory may recognize the voice.

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Says the girl hanging out with a vampire," sniffs Glory.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:12 pm (UTC)

"All right," concedes Bella, "nonconsenting human minds are not snackfood."

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:13 pm (UTC)

"You know," Glory remarks, "I don't think I like you very much."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I don't need you to like me, but I need you to quit brainsucking people."

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Too bad for you," says Glory.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Is it? Do you have a way off this planet?" asks Bella, gesturing.

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Of course I do."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:17 pm (UTC)

"How long would it take, is I guess the next question."

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Which I should answer because... why?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:21 pm (UTC)

"You answered my last question," Bella shrugs.

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:24 pm (UTC)

"How about: if you don't put me back on the right planet right now, I'll kill you," says Glory.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:25 pm (UTC)

"So you can do it, but not in less time than you're imagining it'd take to kill me."

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:27 pm (UTC)

"That," says Glory, "depends how much you annoy me first."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:33 pm (UTC)

"My goal isn't to annoy you, but that seems to be an unavoidable side effect. I don't suppose we can come to some kind of compromise? You want to go home, right?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes!" she pouts. "I want to go home!"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:34 pm (UTC)

"If I liked the idea of you being home, I could take you there. What would you do if I did that?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:36 pm (UTC)

"I'd have a big party with all my scruffy little minions," she says dreamily.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:36 pm (UTC)

"A party consisting of what?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:58 pm (UTC)

"What do you care? You're not invited."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 06:58 pm (UTC)

"So I know whether I feel like enabling that party or not."

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:21 pm (UTC)

Glory tosses her magnificent curly hair over her shoulder and hmphs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:22 pm (UTC)

"I can do it, you know, I'm in and out of demon dimensions all the time, and you wouldn't have to do much to talk me into it."

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:26 pm (UTC)

Glory eyes her suspiciously.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:41 pm (UTC)

Bella regards her impassively.

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Wouldn't have to do much, like... what?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:43 pm (UTC)

"You'd have to convince me you weren't going to hurt anybody," says Bella. "But then, that's what you'd have to do to get off this planet for more than fifteen seconds in the first place, so I don't think it's a tall order."

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:44 pm (UTC)

"And what, starve? Ugh," says Glory.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:45 pm (UTC)

"So you're saying you have to hurt people to survive?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't suck brains for fun, you know!"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:46 pm (UTC)

"And you have to do that even at home, it's not some side effect of being in this dimension?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:48 pm (UTC)

Glory makes a 'yes, duh' face.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:49 pm (UTC)

Bella makes a broad gesture. "Supposing I fixed that?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:49 pm (UTC)

Glory makes a disbelieving face!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:50 pm (UTC)

"No, seriously, indulge me, if I fixed that and you weren't going to starve without brainsucking people and I extracted you from your human host and brought you home. Would you hurt anybody?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Um... do you know who I am?" Glory wonders.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:51 pm (UTC)

"You're a hellgod named Glory who's been fucking around in ways of which I do not approve. I would like that to stop. I am investigating ways to stop it. If I can do it by giving you nice presents instead of killing you, that's grand, isn't it?" Her aura ripples a little at "killing you", then subsides. Her aura is more interested in advertising that she can kill people than that she can give them nice presents.
Edited 2013-06-12 19:56 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:58 pm (UTC)

Glory pouts.

"I really don't like you," she says.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 07:59 pm (UTC)

"That's a terrible pity."

pythbox
2013-06-12 08:01 pm (UTC)

Glory scowls.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to answer my question about what you'd do if I sent you home and you didn't have to brainsuck people?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 08:04 pm (UTC)

"No," sniffs Glory.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Then I guess I can't send you home," sighs Bella. "I guess I'll have to set something up to box you in here, or maybe someplace else."

pythbox
2013-06-12 08:05 pm (UTC)

Glory seems annoyed, but not overly worried.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:06 pm (UTC)

"At least Ben'll be happy when I've got you out of him," mutters Bella, thinking of wish designs.

pythbox
2013-06-12 08:07 pm (UTC)

Glory snorts and shakes her head.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:12 pm (UTC)

Bella runs her confine-Glory-to-this-area-of-Mercury wish by Sherlock for double checking, by brainphone. [Look good?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:13 pm (UTC)

[Entirely.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:15 pm (UTC)

[Alrighty.]

She implements that; it goes. She tries to wish Ben directly to where his car's parked on Earth - but apparently he's not budging that far to start with. She can send him away if she can just extract him -

Wish goes -

pythbox
2013-06-12 08:17 pm (UTC)

Ben and Glory appear next to one another.

At the exact same instant, Glory giggles and Ben screams.

And then Glory reaches for Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:25 pm (UTC)

He has just about had time to observe that Ben is dead when Glory's hand darts into his chest and rips something out of it.

Whatever she's doing, it hurts. It hurts an evil's worth, in fact. He just barely has enough attention left over to make the coin. His body is outwardly unmarked, but it feels like whatever she just tore loose was something he should dearly miss.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:27 pm (UTC)

Bella's at max brain clockspeed and kicking Glory in the sternum, away from Sherlock, before anything else happens. [Sherlock what happened -]

pythbox
2013-06-12 08:28 pm (UTC)

Glory stumbles back a few steps and then punches Bella in the throat.

It's like being hit by a small train.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:29 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is still apparently offline.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:30 pm (UTC)

Bella can handle being hit by a small train; she's invulnerable and the planet arrests her motion quick enough to let her kip up and return blows while she starts trying wishes.

They're not going, not yet, but she can keep Glory's attention while she works on designs. [Sherlock. Sherlock.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:34 pm (UTC)

[Oh,] he says distantly. [She appears to have torn out my soul. How magnificently ironic.]

Before he can really think about it, he uses the evil she so handily gave him to pin the change to his torching.

And with the aftershocks still worth a star every time he moves, he joins in the fight against Glory.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:37 pm (UTC)

...

Okay then, Bella can worry about that later. She sends Sherlock a list of what she's tried wishing so far. Glory is apparently a bearer of some serious godhood; she might not be able to dent Bella's invincibility, at least not via punching, but she can sure resist some extremely concerted attempts to end her.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:40 pm (UTC)

[The long way round, then?]

With two against one, the fight is starting to turn in their favour.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:44 pm (UTC)

[It would be bizarre if I couldn't tenner her dead but could punch her to any useful effect, but yeah.] Bella continues punching her, in the absence of any better ideas.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:45 pm (UTC)

[Invulnerability to magic is a property some people have been known to have.]

Sherlock also continues to punch.

The effect on Glory mainly seems to be annoying her.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:47 pm (UTC)

[Besides Soph's cover story to explain why she couldn't come into existence with all the powers I tried to give her? Yeesh.]

It's been a while since they've gone toe-to-toe with anything together. If the circumstances weren't so distressing maybe it'd be fun.

[I wonder if I can put her in Downside without killing her first. The admin can handle her, she's locally omnipotent. Not through a Jarvis, I wouldn't risk them, but I teleported her just fine...]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:48 pm (UTC)

[Try it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:49 pm (UTC)

Bella tries it. She starts with the stars, in case it can be done with stars. Nothing doing. She goes up the coins -

pythbox
2013-06-12 08:50 pm (UTC)

On the tenner, Glory vanishes.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:52 pm (UTC)

Sherlock glances at the smoking remains of Ben and then rubs his face.

"Well, that was a bit of a fuckup," he remarks.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Just a bit. Ugh. I'm going to go try dooring Downside and see if I can get him and make sure Glory didn't wreck anything from her vantage point forty astronomical units away from the nearest Downside settlement." She eyes Sherlock. "...But that is not urgent on a scale of minutes. Are you okay?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:57 pm (UTC)

"For some values of 'okay'. Still dripping hexes," he says wryly. "Losing my soul again is probably to my ultimate benefit but, alas, that didn't make it any fun."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 08:58 pm (UTC)

"...You're talking more like you used to," she observes, smiling faintly.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Am I? Yes, I do believe I am."

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I didn't realize I missed it, but I kind of did."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:10 pm (UTC)

"You know," he says, "so did I, a little."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:10 pm (UTC)

Hugs?

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:14 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:21 pm (UTC)

Bella's aura wraps itself around Sherlock and purrs.

Bella reports to Giles. [Glory was gonna eat a guy, I couldn't shove her down and get her host like I could before, brought her to Mercury, she didn't want to compromise, I was going to just trap her but when I got her host separate she killed him and also relieved Sherlock of his new soul before I could react. Sherlock is OK. She shrugged off all the magic I could think of, but I banished her alive to Downside, and expect the admin to be able to handle her. I'm gonna try dooring Downside to check on that and get the host.]
Edited 2013-06-12 21:21 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-12 09:22 pm (UTC)

[...Good luck,] says Giles.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:23 pm (UTC)

[Thanks.]

"You feeling better?" she asks Sherlock. Dooring Downside may not even work; it can wait until he's okay.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Increasingly," he says, snuggling her.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:24 pm (UTC)

Snuggles. "I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:25 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

Kiss!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:26 pm (UTC)

Kisses on Mercury standing in one of the pits in the ground left by the fight! Lovely.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Going to found your colony on the spot where you more-or-less killed the demon goddess?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Palace grounds," says Bella. "The colony will be a little farther off."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:30 pm (UTC)

He laughs and kisses her again.

"You're a darling."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I am. I'm the best."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:36 pm (UTC)

He kisses her some more.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:37 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses.

"I should probably check out her house, see what all she left behind, come up with something to do with the minions."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "All that. After we are done making out on the site of your future palace."

Kisses!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:40 pm (UTC)

Makeouts! Bella feels positively about makeouts.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:40 pm (UTC)

So, unsurprisingly, does Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:41 pm (UTC)

Delicious soulless boyfriend.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 09:54 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmakeouts.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:56 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Bella makes it down to Earth, and to Glory's house, which she stalks through, still trailing bits of flame she has yet to remember to calm.

pythbox
2013-06-12 09:57 pm (UTC)

A nervous minion peeks out from behind a door. Another comes up behind him. They hold a short whispered conversation.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes, hello," says Bella to the minions, "Glory's dead," (or near enough), "what do you lot plan to do next?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:00 pm (UTC)

The minions look at each other.

The minions look at Juliet.

One of them says, "...Do you need some minions?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:04 pm (UTC)

"...You don't have anyplace to go and see no particular issue with minioning for the person who killed your previous god?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:06 pm (UTC)

"It certainly establishes your qualifications," says the second minion. The first one nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:07 pm (UTC)

Bella runs a hand through gently flaming hair. "...You don't have anywhere else to go?" she repeats. "Glory didn't, like, steal you out of a peaceful agrarian dimension to which you would like to return?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no, your flammableness," the first minion says earnestly. "We came with her from her original dimension."

"We like this one much better," the second chimes in.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:11 pm (UTC)

Flammableness what - oh. She's still got her aura out. She puts it away again.

"And what you would most like to do with yourselves in her absence involves minioning some more, only this time for me?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:12 pm (UTC)

They both nod.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:12 pm (UTC)

"How many of you are there? What do you guys know how to do?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh, well, let's see," says one, and he starts counting on his fingers while murmuring under his breath.

"We're not good at very much," says the other, apologetically. "But we try!"

The first concludes, "Sixteen! No, wait. Seventeen? Did I count myself or not? I forget."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:15 pm (UTC)

[...Sherlock, I accidentally inherited Glory's minions, do you have any clever ideas for uses for unskilled demonic labor?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-12 10:18 pm (UTC)

[...Groundskeepers on Mercury?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:18 pm (UTC)

[...Yeah, okay, I guess that'll keep them busy.]

"How does gardening sound?" she suggests.

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:21 pm (UTC)

"That sounds perfect!" says a minion, and the other one nods enthusiastically.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I've been putting off setting up a palace and grounds on Mercury, but I can do that later today after I take care of some other business, and you can... prune topiaries and water flowers and mow various kinds of grass and stuff. I want," she adds, "a list of your living requirements and any amenities that you'd like to have, so I can set up someplace to put you too. I'll be back in an hour to fetch you; pack any personal effects and tell the other fourteen or fifteen minions what the story is while I'm gone. Okay?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says the minion on the left, clapping his hands together and beaming.

"We look forward to working for you, your menacingness!" the other one adds.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Are the titles strictly necessary?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says reasonably, "what else should we call you?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Bella is fine. If that would be uncomfortable you could get a jump on calling me 'Your Majesty', although a colonial population of sixteen or seventeen is pushing it on the accuracy thereof."

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Your Majesty," the minion echoes. The other one nods.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Cool. See you in an hour."

Bella pops into a Jarvis. "Hi, Jarvis, can I get a door?"

poeticterms
2013-06-12 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Absolutely."

Door!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

Door in, door closed, fingers crossed, star gone -

Downside.

Bella sticks her head in. [Hey, I sent you a present, did that go okay? I tried really hard to kill her first but it wasn't happening.]

ending_of
2013-06-12 10:38 pm (UTC)

[It was mildly irritating,] says the administrator. [Please don't make a habit of it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:39 pm (UTC)

[Uh, there might be more of her in other Sunshine family worlds, and I don't immediately have any better ideas, but I'll try to think of alternatives or at least warn you?]

ending_of
2013-06-12 10:41 pm (UTC)

[Thank you,] she says. [While you're here, are you aware of the interesting special case from your world?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:42 pm (UTC)

[...Besides Glory? No. What is it?]

ending_of
2013-06-12 10:46 pm (UTC)

A ghostly image of a curled-up sleeping genet appears in front of Juliet.

[She changed characteristics shortly before your present arrived. Dead people usually don't change characteristics while they are nonexistent. They also usually don't have intrinsic connections to people who are not dead.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:47 pm (UTC)

[...That's Steph. She was my Sherlock's daemon but he torched without attaching her to it. And... then my present ripped out his soul, and she sort of is a representation of his soul.]

ending_of
2013-06-12 10:47 pm (UTC)

[Interesting. What would you like me to do with her?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:50 pm (UTC)

[...Keep her sleeping for now. I'll ask Sherlock. Circumstances may have relevantly changed; we might be back to pick her up. I do need the guy my present killed, though. Are you still of the opinion that if Jane were dead, she'd turn up here in a way you'd notice?]

ending_of
2013-06-12 10:52 pm (UTC)

[Yes. If Jane dies, she will become available to me. It might not be immediate, but it will happen.]

The image of Steph disappears.

[The man you speak of is in the catacombs. Should I deliver him to you?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:53 pm (UTC)

[I wonder if it wouldn't keep Jane from glitching so dang much if she were, in fact, deceased... And yes please.]

ending_of
2013-06-12 10:56 pm (UTC)

Ben appears in front of Juliet, floating upright and asleep the way people do in the catacombs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:56 pm (UTC)

Bella decides to take him home so she can explain what's going on in familiar surroundings. [Thanks.] She tows Ben back through the door, and then back into Jarvis, and then checks his home, wherever that may be, for supervision.

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:57 pm (UTC)

His home is unsupervised.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:57 pm (UTC)

Port.

She sits him down on a couch and wakes him up.

pythbox
2013-06-12 10:58 pm (UTC)

He lets out a little shriek and flails around for a few seconds.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 10:59 pm (UTC)

"It's okay, you're okay, Glory's gone," says Bella. "I'm really sorry about that, I tried to appear you out of the way but you were stuck on but good."

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:00 pm (UTC)

He winds down over the course of this speech, until he's just huddling unhappily on the couch.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:01 pm (UTC)

"She's gone, you're okay," repeats Bella, "I went and got you, I apologize for the unpleasantness, I can owe you three wishes if that'd make you feel better."

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:03 pm (UTC)

Ben shudders.

"I will feel better if I never have to see either of you ever again," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Bella, "bye," and she pops into place on Mercury to start working on her palace.

She leaves a standard pamphlet about how to be technically dead a la Downside on his pillow for him to find later.

An hour after she accidentally inherited the minions, she pops into Glory's house.
Edited 2013-06-12 23:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:08 pm (UTC)

The minions are all collected up in the living room with a neat stack of luggage. Several of them are eating chips out of a large bowl on the coffee table, one has a cup of orange juice, and one is reading a book - I Had Trouble In Getting To Solla Sollew, by Dr. Seuss.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Is this all of you?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes, your majesty!" says one who might be the youngest, with a big smile on her face.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella teleports them all to the new Mercury palace, which is tall and made of assorted pretty rocks she has encountered in demon dimensions. The flora she's put in is also mostly demonic - although all magicked nice and nontoxic - although there are some roses, some wisteria, and one variety of tree that she completely made up. She's made the gardens a bit more extensive than planned to give all the demons things to do, with paths winding between and spiraling loosely through little ecosystem-neighborhoods. "Welcome to Mercury. Do you have that list I wanted?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Yes, your majesty," says one of the two she was speaking with before. He hurries forward with the list. It is long, and in fairly terrible handwriting, but neatly organized and fairly complete - including necessities for survival (food and water), comforts and luxuries (shelter, books, candy - M&Ms get a special mention), and long-term requirements (visits from Bella at least once yearly; clear feedback on whether or not they are being good minions).

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella. "I don't have a good impression of how your social structures interact with housing, or for that matter what they are at all; how many dwellings do you collectively want of what sizes?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:30 pm (UTC)

The youngest minion - if she were a human, she might be about sixteen - says wistfully, "It might be nice if we all had our own rooms."

"If that's all right, your majesty," adds the one who gave her the list. "One building, with enough rooms for all of us? And maybe... for a few more, in due time?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Bella, and she speeds up and designs a dormitory-style building with twenty-five bedrooms on two floors, and a common space with a TV and some computers and a kitchen and a replicator, and a library in the basement with copies of the entire current contents of the Los Angeles County public library system (absent duplicates). The whole thing's a pentagon; she puts it at the edge of the gardens, perpendicular to the main line of the palace. "There you go. I'm gonna put you all on my telepathy network so you can let me know if something comes up; it'll let you talk to each other too -" [like so.]

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Oh, thank you, Your Majesty!" beams the littlest minion.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:41 pm (UTC)

"No problem. So, the plants -" She gestures at the plants. "The red-bordered sections get watered once a week, the blue-bordered ones twice a week, the white-bordered ones every day, I hid a little garden shed with tools in that enormous white-leafed tree over there, the replicator in your dorm will make plant food as well as stuff for you guys, I don't really expect a weed problem because there weren't exactly any seeds on this planet when I conjured the garden up but some stuff might turn invasive I guess, feel free to mess with the locations and shapes of stuff or expand things past the current area if you take viable cuttings or stuff goes to seed, none of this will kill you if you eat it but I can't promise it'll taste any good because none of it's from your dimension and most of it isn't Earthly either so maybe don't try it."

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:43 pm (UTC)

The minions all nod on hearing this set of instructions, and someone gets out a pen and paper to write it all down.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:45 pm (UTC)

"You can divvy up the work and the dorm amongst yourselves assuming that's all amicable; if you need me to settle disagreements let me know. As long as you're here you can also let me know if anyone shows up on the planet who isn't with me or one of these people -" She conjures up illusions of Sherlock, Tony, Soph, James, Minnie, Virginia, and, what the heck, Giles. "These folks are all allowed, anyone else might not be and I will want to investigate."

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes, your majesty!" says the one who handed her the list. The rest all nod.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Excellent. Anything else we should go over before I go do other stuff?" asks Bella, clapping her hands in a businesslike manner.

pythbox
2013-06-12 11:48 pm (UTC)

There is a general shaking of heads.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-12 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Welcome to Mercury."

And she pops back down to Earth to find Soph, because she has not seen Soph since her fork-and-merge.

the season to be jolly

keyed_up

All supernatural excitement aside, it's almost Christmas!

Soph shows up on Tony's doorstep with a bag of gingerbread house ingredients and a big smile. "Hi Jarvis! Where's Tony?" she asks.

poeticterms
2013-06-12 11:56 pm (UTC)

"He is downstairs. Shall I direct him to meet you in the kitchen?"

keyed_up
2013-06-12 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! Thanks." In Soph saunters. She did not actually prearrange this activity, but she's pretty sure it will meet with approval.
Edited 2013-06-12 23:56 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-06-12 11:57 pm (UTC)

"It's no trouble," he says modestly.
Edited 2013-06-12 23:57 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-06-12 11:58 pm (UTC)

Soph pats a wall affectionately on her way to the kitchen and hums to herself and starts unpacking gingerbread and icing and candy onto the kitchen table.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:08 am (UTC)

Tony bounces in a few minutes later.

"Did somebody say gingerbread?" he asks, grinning, and hugs her before she can answer.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:08 am (UTC)

Hugs! "I didn't! Did Jarvis say it? I deny it completely!"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:09 am (UTC)

"The evidence is against you," Tony informs her, letting go.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:10 am (UTC)

"Pff, you sound like Sherlock. So, yes on the housemaking idea?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:11 am (UTC)

"Hell yes!"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:11 am (UTC)

"Fantastic. I baked it, even! I mean, and I burned it and had to fix it with magic, but baking happened."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:16 am (UTC)

Tony giggles.

"All right, let's get to it!"

To no one's surprise, he gets really enthusiastic about structural engineering even when it is made of baked goods and rock-hard icing.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:17 am (UTC)

Soph is more about the cosmetic features, which makes them a fine team. She makes tiny candy cameras and tucks them into corners.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:18 am (UTC)

"That is the most adorable thing I've ever seen," Tony declares when he realizes what she's doing.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:18 am (UTC)

Soph giggles. "Well, why not, right?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:20 am (UTC)

"Totally! Think the ground floor's ready for a ceiling yet?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah, go for it," she grins.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:29 am (UTC)

Tony applies icing to the tops of the walls and carefully lifts the ceiling into place. It fits perfectly.

"Time for the second floor!"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:30 am (UTC)

Soph busies herself with more candy cameras and wee gingerbread furniture. "You up to anything lately?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:30 am (UTC)

"Nah, not much. You?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:31 am (UTC)

"I met Bella's weird gardener minions! They're friendly. One of them gave me a flower."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:34 am (UTC)

"Awww, that's adorable," says Tony. "Was it a nice flower?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:36 am (UTC)

"It was some kinda demon flower. It was big and yellow and it smelled like lemon curd and it looked awesome in my hair."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:40 am (UTC)

"That is maybe even cuter than you turning our gingerbread house into Gingerbread Jarvis."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:41 am (UTC)

"I think," says Soph, "that every time you see a cute thing your potential to appreciate cute things grows, so that every cute thing you see can be the cutest thing you have ever seen."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:41 am (UTC)

"Is that a general philosophical statement, or specifically about me and how everything I see is apparently the cutest thing?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:42 am (UTC)

"Specifically you," giggles Soph.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:44 am (UTC)

"That is probably true," says Tony. "Or maybe you just have some kind of cuteness multiplying effect."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:45 am (UTC)

"That is also possible!"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:45 am (UTC)

"It would explain a lot!"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:47 am (UTC)

"Also, it would be a fair way to make up for my supposed magic immunity being fictional." She makes a little gingerbread bed and starts weaving a quilt out of bubblegum strips.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:50 am (UTC)

"Is that a gingerbread bed? A gingerbed," he giggles.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:51 am (UTC)

"Gingerbed!" giggles Soph gleefully.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:56 am (UTC)

Tony busies himself assembling wall sections for when they finish the second floor.

Somehow, he manages to get icing on the end of his nose.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:56 am (UTC)

Soph looks at him and laughs helplessly.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:57 am (UTC)

"What?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:57 am (UTC)

She's laughing too hard to answer.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:57 am (UTC)

"Whaaaaat?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 12:58 am (UTC)

"You've got - got a little -" She gestures vaguely and collapses into giggles again.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 12:59 am (UTC)

Tony crosses his eyes and peers intently at his nose.

"...How did that even happen," he exclaims, "I am not building this thing with my face!"

And he sticks out his tongue to try to lick the icing off his nose. Needless to say, this plan is doomed to failure.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:00 am (UTC)

Soph may be in danger of falling off her chair laughing.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:02 am (UTC)

Tony is giggling pretty hard himself, in between the exceptionally silly faces he makes as he tries to bring his tongue and the icing into contact.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:02 am (UTC)

"I don't think you can reach, Tony."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:03 am (UTC)

"I cannot reach," he agrees mournfully.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:04 am (UTC)

She's very tempted to lick the frosting off his nose for him.

Instead she sticks out a hand, wipes it off with her thumb, and licks it only when it has been successfully transferred. "There you go. Continue to 'not build the house with your face'. I know you're putting up walls with the strength of your eyelids when I'm not looking."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:05 am (UTC)

Tony cracks up all over again.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:06 am (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:06 am (UTC)

Yep. Still giggling.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:07 am (UTC)

Soph recovers enough to add a kitkat headboard to the gingerbed.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:14 am (UTC)

"Gingerbed," says Tony, which sets him off yet again.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:14 am (UTC)

He is funny and he is cute and he is both of those things at the same time and Soph laughs with utter helplessness.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:15 am (UTC)

Tony is in pretty much the same boat here! Pffffffff gingerbed.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:16 am (UTC)

Eventually Soph gets up and giggles her way to the dish cupboard and gets herself a glass of water, which serves to calm her down with only a little accidental inhalation and coughing.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:18 am (UTC)

Tony is also more or less recovered by that point.

"We're the greatest," he says beamily.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:19 am (UTC)

"The very best!" agrees Soph. "Like no one ever was."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:19 am (UTC)

He sporfles.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:20 am (UTC)

"If you could have Pokémon what ones would you want?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:21 am (UTC)

"Probably a Charizard," he says. "Charizard is awesome."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:22 am (UTC)

"I'd want that fluffy sheep kind."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:24 am (UTC)

"Mareep? Yeah, they're pretty adorable."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah, those! They look soft."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:25 am (UTC)

"Very huggable. Unless they decide to electrocute you."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:26 am (UTC)

"Well, obviously if I had a Mareep it'd love me and never zap me," says Soph.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:26 am (UTC)

"Obviously. Because you are naturally lovable."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:27 am (UTC)

"I'd be like Pokémon catnip. Sheepnip? Mareepnip? I'd be very popular, is my point."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:28 am (UTC)

Tony giggles.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:29 am (UTC)

"All of the other Mareeps would be jealous of my one."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:30 am (UTC)

"...I'm just having this mental image," he says, "of you being surrounded by electric sheep who are, like, eating your hair and getting really stoned - oh my god, a Mareep is an electric sheep, I just got that."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:31 am (UTC)

"What's to get?" asks Soph.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:33 am (UTC)

"There's this famous sci-fi story called 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?'," he explains. "Blade Runner was based off it, have you seen Blade Runner?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:34 am (UTC)

"I think I saw, like, one scene of it, but not the whole thing? We should watch it after we are done with Gingerbread Jarvis."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:35 am (UTC)

"Totally! How's the gingerbed coming?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:36 am (UTC)

Soph lays the gum quilt on the bed. "All made nice and neat."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:37 am (UTC)

"D'awww."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:37 am (UTC)

She likes the bubblegum weaving effect and repeats it to make a little rug.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:39 am (UTC)

"You are the best at gingerbread interior decorating," Tony declares.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:39 am (UTC)

"I should major in it."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:40 am (UTC)

"Totally."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:41 am (UTC)

"And then I can have my work showcased in glossy gingerbread decorating magazines."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:42 am (UTC)

"Tastiest career ever."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:43 am (UTC)

"Definitely. Just don't tell anyone that I burnt the gingerbread I made this morning. The gingerbread tabloids will have a field day and my reputation will be ruined."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:43 am (UTC)

"Not a peep," he promises.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:45 am (UTC)

"Of course, now you have blackmail on me and I will have to do all your gingerbread decorating for free to make sure you don't decide to squeal on me. So I guess we do this again next year," she hums merrily.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:46 am (UTC)

"Yep. I'm ruthless," Tony agrees. "Think we can stick the second-floor walls on?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:46 am (UTC)

"Yeah, go ahead," she says, adjusting the rug's angle slightly relative to the gingerbed. She starts trimming the downstairs windows.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:47 am (UTC)

On they go! He spends a triangle to make the icing dry when he's sure it's all stuck on right.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:49 am (UTC)

"How many floors d'you suppose Gingerbread Jarvis should have?" Soph asks, starting another batch of candy cameras for the second floor.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:50 am (UTC)

"Good question. Three might be pushing it. Wouldn't want him to collapse under his own weight."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:50 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that'd be bad. So I guess the roof is next. And a chimney, let's give him a chimney."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:54 am (UTC)

"Got it!"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:55 am (UTC)

"And a skylight."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 01:55 am (UTC)

"Sure."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 01:56 am (UTC)

"Oh, hey, how about an actual attic? Not a whole floor, just, under the roof there can be more candy things." Soph starts making more candy things.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:05 am (UTC)

"It's a deal."

He makes a gingerbread attic floor to stick on top of the second floor, then starts building a peaked roof to go on top of that.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:06 am (UTC)

Soph crafts and places candy junk in the attic. And empties a Pixie Stik into it to represent dust.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:06 am (UTC)

Tony blinks at the pixie dust.

Tony giggles.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:07 am (UTC)

"The gingerbread people are very negligent of their attic," explains Soph loftily.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:10 am (UTC)

"Hence all the - pixie dust."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:10 am (UTC)

"Also it used to be a cocaine den?" suggests Soph.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:11 am (UTC)

"...Pffffffffffffffff," says Tony.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:12 am (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:13 am (UTC)

"You are just totally great," he declares, giggling.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:14 am (UTC)

"I am made of seventy percent great and thirty percent mystical key energy."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:16 am (UTC)

"Eighty-twenty."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:16 am (UTC)

"Flatterer."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:16 am (UTC)

"I call it like I see it."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:17 am (UTC)

"What are you made of, then, besides your share of great?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:18 am (UTC)

"I'm made of Tony," he snorts. "I am, like, the least varying template in the multiverse."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:20 am (UTC)

"I only barely met the other one who visited here," muses Soph. "Is it bad? That you're a lot alike?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:21 am (UTC)

"Nah. Well, it made picking the nicknames a headache."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:22 am (UTC)

"I wonder if there'll ever be another Soph. A - I don't wanna say a real Soph, but one who was, like, born."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:26 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he says. "Can you leave the world now? You could go to the next Bellparty and ask Glass if you're templatey."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I went into Milliways, nothing happened, I didn't bounce off like an unwelcome vampire or anything. I think I will do that. When Jane's back."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:29 am (UTC)

Tony nods.

"Roof!" he proclaims.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:30 am (UTC)

"With a hole in it for the chimney and everything, awesome."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 02:37 am (UTC)

"Yup."

He attaches the roof, chimney and all, onto the top of the house.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 02:39 am (UTC)

The brick of the chimney is represented by red jellybeans, carefully cut in half lengthwise to reduce their profile.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 11:39 am (UTC)

"Awesome," says Tony.

Celebratory hug!

keyed_up
2013-06-13 03:56 pm (UTC)

Soph giggles and hugs him back, careful not to get the frosting on her hands onto him.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:17 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:20 pm (UTC)

Soph peers at the completed chimney, critically, rummages through her supplies, and finally bites her hand for a puff of white cotton candy to tuck in the end by way of smoke.
Edited 2013-06-13 16:20 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Best gingerbread house," Tony declares.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes. None of the others are tiny Jarvises. All the best houses are Jarvises."

poeticterms
2013-06-13 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Stop it, I'm blushing."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:31 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:31 pm (UTC)

Soph also giggles.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay, now who's gonna help us eat it?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I could probably get Bella to take, like, a wall, but basically nobody, we could just let it stand around being pretty till it gets stale and eat the spare bits?" She points at the window cutouts and remaining frosting.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Aww, but demolishing it and eating the wreckage is half the fun!"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:37 pm (UTC)

Soph laughs. "Okay, we can eat it, but I dunno if we can finish it just the two of us with Bella maybe eating one wall."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I bet we can."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:39 pm (UTC)

"It's a pity it's not in Sherlock's diet all the same." She inspects the house, looking for the best part to break off first. "Any last words?" she asks it.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:42 pm (UTC)

Tony allows the gingerbread house a moment to respond, and then says, "Guess not," and breaks off the chimney.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Rawr," says Soph theatrically, and she takes a roof-half.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:44 pm (UTC)

Nomty nomty nom!

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:45 pm (UTC)

Soph runs out of steam before they've even broken into the first floor, and pauses in her demolishing, chewing the gingerbed gum quilt and the gum rug. "You'll have to go on without me," she says, laying her hand on her forehead. "I'm done for."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:49 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:49 pm (UTC)

Soph blows a bubble at him.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:51 pm (UTC)

He pokes it with his finger.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 04:52 pm (UTC)

It has admirable resilience and does not pop all over her face. He does successfully make her giggle, though.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 04:54 pm (UTC)

He giggles right back!

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:20 pm (UTC)

Soph retrieves her bubble. Chew, chew. "You wanna watch Blade Runner now while you eat the rest of the house?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:21 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Sure, why not."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:23 pm (UTC)

To the TV! Soph carries the stray candy and extra gingerbread in with them. She may become peckish at some point during the movie.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:25 pm (UTC)

Tony carries the house. Very carefully.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:27 pm (UTC)

And movie.

And cuddles.

She didn't really cuddle up to Tony a whole lot before the thing with Bella and Soph being a velveteen rabbit, but then she needed hugs from somebody who knew what was going on and now it just seems natural.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:34 pm (UTC)

It does seem natural. And snuggly. Snuggly too.

Over the course of the movie, Tony finishes most of the gingerbread house.

Whenever he finds a chocolate Kiss or Hug in the architecture, he offers it to Soph. (They're her favourites.)

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:35 pm (UTC)

They are her favorites! She takes them happily. She incorporated lots of them in anticipation of having leftovers and eating them, since she didn't know Tony would want to eat Jarvis-in-effigy, but she is glad to eat these slightly frosted ones too.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:36 pm (UTC)

Nom nom cuddle nom!

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:37 pm (UTC)

Nom cuddle cuddle nom.

Soph likes the movie! She takes the excuse to snuggle up closer when there are any ominous sound effects.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:38 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes, she does seem do be doing that. It's very cuddly.

The movie ends. The cuddle does not.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:39 pm (UTC)

Nom Hug nom. Cozy.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:42 pm (UTC)

Cozy, yes. Cozy is just the word.

Tony snuggles contentedly.

...And something occurs to him.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Mm?" She can't well ask any more complex question, she's turning a shrinking candy over and over in her mouth.
Edited 2013-06-13 17:45 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:49 pm (UTC)

Well, now he has to say it.

"Uh... is it just me, or have we been dating for like a week?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:49 pm (UTC)

...Soph has no immediate answer to this question except to choke slightly on her Hug.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Sorry!" says Tony. "I should learn not to combine awkward questions with candy, it never ends well, you okay?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:51 pm (UTC)

Soph manages to arrest the small coughing fit. "I'm fine I'm fine - uh - do you want us to have been dating for like a week?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, yeah, maybe, kind of, do you?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:53 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah maybe kind of?"

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I just thought of it thirty seconds ago! I have not had time to catch up with my feelings!"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I - I dunno, I like you, I wasn't thinking it all methodically through, that's Bella's circus act."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I like you too!" says Tony. "But I don't wanna make everything horrifically awkward if it turns out that we are just really good cuddlebuddies? But I think maybe we are not just really good cuddlebuddies. There. Those are my feelings."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay, well, let's just - not be awkward," says Soph with a decisive nod. "If awkward tries to happen we can have it escorted off the premises."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 05:59 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:00 pm (UTC)

"So um, now that there are metaphorical hulking security guards ready to shoo incipient awkward," says Soph, "cuddling is good and should keep happening and I like you? Like, like you."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Cuddling is good!" says Tony. "Cuddling is awesome. And you are awesome. And I like-like you too."

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:04 pm (UTC)

Soph smiles.

Soph blushes.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Aww," says Tony.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:06 pm (UTC)

Soph smiles and blushes more when he does that.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwwww," he says, and hugs her.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:06 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Snuggly hugs.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:07 pm (UTC)

Snuggy hugs!

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:07 pm (UTC)

"So, we can have been dating for a week, if you want."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Tony. "Hey, we've been dating for a week! We should celebrate. With, like - candy?" He eyes the remains of the gingerbread house. "No, if I have any more candy I might actually explode. Kisses?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmaybe?" Soph squirms in his arms. "I'm probably terrible, I don't even have, like, implanted memories of kissing anybody."

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:14 pm (UTC)

"So?" shrugs Tony. "First time for everything, right?"

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:15 pm (UTC)

Soph nods tentatively.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:16 pm (UTC)

He grins.

And kisses her.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:16 pm (UTC)

Mmmmokaythiswasafantasticidea. Kissing Tony is utterly the best thing. Kissing Tony kissing Tony kissing Tony there should be a song about it.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:19 pm (UTC)

Snuggly kisses!

Tony has absolutely no complaints. Mmmmmkisses. Mmmmsnuggly. Mmm, Soph.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:19 pm (UTC)

Kisses are Soph's new very favorite thing. Yaaaaay!

enjoy expertly restored and renovated architecture

cross_and_bow

After talking to Soph and sending her off to make gingerbread houses with Tony, Bella says:

[Sherlock?]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 01:55 am (UTC)

[Yes?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 01:56 am (UTC)

[Admin says she has Steph available. Asleep. And something about her changed when Glory divested you of your soul.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 01:56 am (UTC)

[I don't suppose she specified what.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 01:59 am (UTC)

[She didn't. She did say that things don't usually change characteristics while they're inactively stored Downside. And she showed me an illusion, which was recognizable but sort of - glowed like a red Christmas light.]
Edited 2013-06-13 02:03 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 02:04 am (UTC)

[How charming.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 02:04 am (UTC)

[It was actually sorta pretty.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 02:06 am (UTC)

He snorts.

[Well. I expect she'd be happier with herself if I brought her back now,] he reflects. [I wonder if it's worth going Downside to check.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 02:07 am (UTC)

[If you want her. I wasn't sure.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 02:10 am (UTC)

[I'm not sure either,] he says. [I suppose I have time to think about it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 02:11 am (UTC)

[Yeah, Downside's contents aren't going anywhere.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 02:30 am (UTC)

[So I'll think about it. Have you got time for a snuggle, by any chance?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 02:32 am (UTC)

[Yep. Minions are set up, I have caught Soph up, I am wide open for snuggles.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 02:36 am (UTC)

[And I have a handy couch which is calling your name as we speak.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 02:38 am (UTC)

Pop!

"I don't hear name-calling," singsongs Bella, cupping her hand to her ear as she flops onto the couch and Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 11:40 am (UTC)

He grins and scoops her into his lap, kissing her cheek along the way.

"You arrived. It stopped."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 03:57 pm (UTC)

Mmm, lapsitting. Snuggle. "Well, that's good, I suppose, wouldn't do to have a couch that would just never shut up."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:18 pm (UTC)

"It would be highly irritating," he agrees, snuggling her.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:19 pm (UTC)

She puts her head on his shoulder. "Do you want to do your thinking-about-Steph in solitude or d'you want to talk about it? For that matter, I'm also curious how you're doing with the resumed lack of soul."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:22 pm (UTC)

"The resumed lack of soul is fucking delightful," he says. "I'm not sure what to think about Steph."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Nice of Glory to relieve you of the quandary of feeling obliged to keep the damn thing. For certain values of 'nice'. Do we get to see your cognition cease to be oriented around misery, now that it's gone and your people are alive?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Who in fuck knows," he sighs. "I'm not currently miserable, but I haven't really gotten used to it yet."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:28 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:32 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I loved you with the soul too, but this is how you were when I fell in love with you."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:34 pm (UTC)

"And I'm better off this way by far."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:35 pm (UTC)

"That's my impression too, yeah."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:38 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

Sigh.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:38 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:39 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle kiss?

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:39 pm (UTC)

Kiss, kiss!

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:41 pm (UTC)

Snuggle-kiss!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:42 pm (UTC)

[You're insatiable and it's awesome.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:44 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:44 pm (UTC)

Squirmy snugglekiss.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:45 pm (UTC)

Snugglekiss, snugglekiss, snugglenibble.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:46 pm (UTC)

Mmmm snugglenibbles are the best thing.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:47 pm (UTC)

[Snacktime?] he inquires brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:48 pm (UTC)

[I didn't doubly spoil your appetite? Then yes. It is snacktime.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:50 pm (UTC)

Nom.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:50 pm (UTC)

Nnnnf. [I love how you do that.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:53 pm (UTC)

[I noticed.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:54 pm (UTC)

[I love you.] Aloud, nonlinguistic sounds to this approximate effect are forthcoming.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:55 pm (UTC)

[I love you too, dear delicious Juliet.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Nnnnnnn..."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 04:56 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmm.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 06:18 pm (UTC)

Time passes.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:22 pm (UTC)

[Hi guys! Me and Tony have retroactively been dating for like a week!] says Soph merrily to both of them, Tony conferenced in.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 06:23 pm (UTC)

[Retroactive congratulations,] says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 06:24 pm (UTC)

[Good for you,] laughs Bella.

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:37 pm (UTC)

[We made a gingerbread Jarvis and then ate it and watched Blade Runner,] Soph adds.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 06:38 pm (UTC)

[A gingerbread Jarvis? That is the cutest thing.]

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:38 pm (UTC)

[I ate the gingerbread Jarvis,] says Tony. [I may yet come to regret eating the gingerbread Jarvis.]

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:39 pm (UTC)

[I helped a little, with the roof and the top floor,] says Soph. [But I knew when to quit.]

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:40 pm (UTC)

[Whereas I never know when to quit.]

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:41 pm (UTC)

Soph laughs into the brainphone conference.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 06:42 pm (UTC)

[You guys,] says Bella, [are cute. Everyone's going to coo over you at the next Bellparty.]

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:43 pm (UTC)

[They totally will. Because we're adorable.]

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:45 pm (UTC)

[Am I gonna, like, get mobbed by curious Tonies?] wonders Soph, sounding like she isn't sure if this is a welcome prospect or not.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Only if you wanna be.]

keyed_up
2013-06-13 06:47 pm (UTC)

[I will have to think about that. I mean, they might not remember me even a little? Did the spell reach into other worlds?]

toblameforit
2013-06-13 06:49 pm (UTC)

[It hit all the ones Jarvis can talk to, anyway.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 06:50 pm (UTC)

[Might be because Jarvis can talk to them, depending on how it works. I didn't ask the admin while I was there - she'd know, she judgesighted me.]

toblameforit
2013-06-13 07:02 pm (UTC)

[You could go check, I guess.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:05 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I think I will. If that's how it works I might want to, like, wish everybody not-a-carrier for the spell. If Aurora wants her end of the conversations we had about our respective sisters later instead of just having me repeat them for her, she's got coins coming out of her ears and no native opacity, she can do it that way.] Bella disentangles from Sherlock with a parting kiss and heads for a door. "Can I get me some Milliways, please, Jarvis?"

poeticterms
2013-06-13 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Certainly."

Door!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:06 pm (UTC)

Goodbye Sunshine. Hello Downside? Maybe she can do it without a star this time; she thinks about being technically dead and tries it.

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:07 pm (UTC)

Hello, Downside.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Hey,] Bella asks, [sorry to bother you - do you by any chance know me to have a sister?]

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:10 pm (UTC)

[No.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:10 pm (UTC)

[That,] says Bella, [is interesting. Would you object strenuously if, to test a hypothesis, I did something that might cause you to remember me having a sister?]

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:11 pm (UTC)

[No.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:12 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

Door. Door Sunshine. "Hey Sherlock, want to play Magical Typhoid Carrier? The admin does not remember Soph."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Happily."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:13 pm (UTC)

Door. Door Downside.

[How about now?] she asks the admin.

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:14 pm (UTC)

[Interesting,] says the admin.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:14 pm (UTC)

[Can I get a little more detail than that?]

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:17 pm (UTC)

[I now have both sets of memories available.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:18 pm (UTC)

[How peculiar; that didn't happen to anyone else without specific intervention. Did you get enough detail about how it happened to tell us how the spell does that?]

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:21 pm (UTC)

[The spell tried to alter my memories, but I chose not to let it finish the job.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:23 pm (UTC)

[And it only did that when Sherlock stepped in.] They're standing in Shell's old clutterful apartment, door held. [Okay, thanks. While we're here - what changed about Steph? Besides that she's a Christmas light now.]

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:24 pm (UTC)

[The visual effect represents a change in her nature corresponding with the loss of Sherlock's soul.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:25 pm (UTC)

[Do you not know anything else about the change in her nature?]

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:26 pm (UTC)

[Until she becomes conscious again, there is nothing else to be known.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:27 pm (UTC)

"D'you want to wake her now, or think more?" Bella asks Sherlock softly.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, it seems a little silly to come all this way and not ask her what she thinks of the whole business."

[Could you wake her up long enough for me to ask if she wants to stay that way?]

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:30 pm (UTC)

[Done.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:33 pm (UTC)

Steph appears, perched on Sherlock's shoulder, white with black spots and glowing a bright bloody red.

"Huh," she says. "That's new." She curls her tail up around Sherlock's neck. "And not completely awful."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Steph," says Bella shyly.

She looked up what genets look like; but she never got to meet her.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:37 pm (UTC)

Steph sits up, peers at Bella over the top of Sherlock's head, and waves a paw.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:38 pm (UTC)

"How's existing?"

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't suck as bad as last time."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to go on doing it, d'you suppose?"

Bella has her hands clasped behind her back. Sometimes she reaches for Sherlock without thinking, and right now there is something she is not allowed to touch curled around his shoulders.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't hate the idea," she says contemplatively. "Might stay tucked away for a while, though."

And she disappears with the usual golden flare of a daemon becoming part of their person for a while.

[Since we're here,] Sherlock says to the admin, [would you mind pinning her on?]

ending_of
2013-06-13 07:44 pm (UTC)

[Done.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Let's see, anything else I should take care of while I'm here in case the door doesn't cooperate next time," muses Bella.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:46 pm (UTC)

[Nothing comes to mind.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:48 pm (UTC)

[Bye, thanks,] Bella says to the admin, and she looks at the clutter in Shell's old apartment and kills a pentagon to wish all the miscellaneous objects into a bottomless box in a corner, and then heads back into Milliways.

"I'm gonna check the Belltower for notes," she says. "In case anyone else has been in."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Excellent plan."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:50 pm (UTC)

Pop. Pop. "Nope. I'm guessing less than a second has passed in Atlantis in the last while, or there would be a check-in from Shell Bell; everyone else could have just failed to find doors."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Very likely," he agrees.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I should try forcing to Atlantis. Probably not worth the star, though, we don't have any urgent correspondence. And also I need to wish all you typhoid-carriers to be not. Especially Jane, she'd get everybody."

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Your logic is impeccable."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:55 pm (UTC)

"That's why you love me." Kiss on the cheek, door Sunshine.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 07:57 pm (UTC)

Snuggle!

"It's a major contributing factor."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 07:58 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. [So,] Bella broadcasts to whom it may concern, [I'm not contagious, but Sherlock is, and the admin started remembering Soph-things when he walked into Downside. So we can conclude that if people in other Jarvised worlds remember Soph it's because Jarvises are contagious with each other and worldmates. I'm gonna see about containing that, especially because when Jane's back online she'll get everybody and a number of them would not appreciate that.]

keyed_up
2013-06-13 08:01 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, okay, I didn't make, like, super-close friends with any of your offworld visitors really. It'll kinda suck if Jane doesn't remember me, but... I dunno, Jarvises can catch her up from assorted camera angles? I bet she can adapt okay.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 08:02 pm (UTC)

[She can always integrate the memories like I did, I'm sure.]

keyed_up
2013-06-13 08:03 pm (UTC)

[Or that, sure.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:04 pm (UTC)

[I don't see Jane being anything other than accepting of your existence, and she'll probably quite happily install all the appropriate counterfactuals,] says Juliet. [For that matter she probably wouldn't mind that much if I didn't inoculate her at all and she had to install supplementary memories the other way around. It's her spreading it around to poorly-defended Bells and so on I'm concerned with.]

keyed_up
2013-06-13 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. I like Jane, it'll be good when she's back whether she remembers me or not, I can just flatter her about how awesome she is all over again if need be. Wish your wishes.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:09 pm (UTC)

Bella wishes her wishes.

[A star went for this world, including inoculating Jane wholesale, but I can't get any coin to go to cover the rest of the network. So the inhabitants will have to stay put next time we're having an interworld get-together until I can duck into all those worlds and cover them. A couple minutes' inconvenience.]

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 08:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock gives Bella a kiss.

poeticterms
2013-06-13 08:12 pm (UTC)

[We've notified the others and everyone promises to stay put barring emergencies,] reports a Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Thanks, guys.]

Kiss!

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 08:14 pm (UTC)

Snuggle, kiss.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:14 pm (UTC)

Insatiable.

Kiss, snuggle.

eversomuchfun
2013-06-13 08:15 pm (UTC)

His appetite for cuddles is endless!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:15 pm (UTC)

It's one of his best qualities!

local insurance rates are surprisingly reasonable

cross_and_bow

Having minions comes in handy surprisingly often. They aren't very effective at tasks, but they're very good at acting miniony, and in some contexts it is exactly what she needs for added diplomatic consequence to have three or four of them following her around, addressing her as "Your Majesty", carrying stuff for her. They wanted detailed feedback; they get it. She learns all their names and supplies reports whenever anything out of the ordinary happens and once every other month. They're even doing pretty neat things with the garden. There is now a dense red-flowered shrub that is sort of the same shape as her. Soph has taken it upon herself to teach them board games and hangs out in the palace playing Parcheesi with available minions plus Tony on a routine basis.

Val's interview with James goes well; Bella starts calling her Ambassador, but only when she feels like getting laughed at. Other ambassadors accumulate. There's always work to do, and when it becomes wearying there's always people to love. Bella doesn't sleep. Sleep is boring.

She has a crown now, which pleases the minions to no end, though she doesn't usually wear it when she's not on Mercury. It's simple, just a ring that comes to a peak over her forehead, made of glossy indigo metal that matches her Jane-necklace. It attracts flames when she auras.

Here she is, not-sleeping with two minions, Soph, and Monopoly. When it's not her turn she is reading up on the cultural practices of the Kknrr demons.

poeticterms
2013-06-13 08:28 pm (UTC)

[Yggdrasil's Jarvis just lost his connection,] says Jarvis. [Last we heard from him was a report of an incoming missile a few seconds ago.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:28 pm (UTC)

[Shit. I'll be right down to see if I can force the door and go help.]

She tells a minion to roll her turns for her - the minion nods smartly - and pops down.
Edited 2013-06-13 20:29 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-06-13 08:30 pm (UTC)

The Jarvis she lands in opens a door to Milliways.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:30 pm (UTC)

C'mon, door!

C'mon. Please?

pythbox
2013-06-13 08:31 pm (UTC)

The door does not open to Yggdrasil.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:32 pm (UTC)

Bella sticks her head back into Sunshine. [I can't get a door to Yggdrasil. Opinions on trying for Atlantis to see if Shell Bell can do it between having been there and her aura?]

poeticterms
2013-06-13 08:33 pm (UTC)

[It can hardly make things worse to try, can it?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:37 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Here goes.]

Door. Atlantis, pretty please?

Atlantis!

[Shell Bell, c'mere, somebody's been shooting at Yggdrasil Jarvis. Hi, Pearl, hi, Screwdriver.]
Edited 2013-06-13 20:39 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 08:40 pm (UTC)

[Wait, what?] Pause. [Is Jane down again?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:40 pm (UTC)

[Worse than last time. It's been months on my end, but I didn't need you a star's worth till now, and now I can't get to Yggdrasil without you.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 08:46 pm (UTC)

[What the hell is "error 3: blind mice" supposed to mean?] asks Shell Bell. [Okay, I'm coming - lemme leave Tune with Sherlock.]

Shell Bell is day-to-day functional, past psychological damage aside, but she likes having part of herself that never has to leave Sherlock's side. Constant physical contact would be distracting, but she tends to put him in the room with her if she's going anywhere farther than the other side of a building by herself.

sicaria
2013-06-13 08:47 pm (UTC)

Tinia untucks to keep Neptune company.

arenaria
2013-06-13 08:48 pm (UTC)

Feathery snuggles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 08:49 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell kisses Sherlock goodbye, and then she pops to where Juliet has doored in, and follows her out, and she flares aura - nearby humidity arranges itself rainbowlike - and opens the door again, thinking of Yggdrasil.

pythbox
2013-06-13 08:50 pm (UTC)

Success!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Let me," Juliet says, blocking Shell Bell, "all the Jarvised worlds are sorta infected with some magic you don't want, I'm safe but you don't have opacity." She steps through first, spends the star. "Okay, contagiousness averted. We should hit the others as long as we're together, but first things first." [Iron Man?]
Edited 2013-06-13 20:53 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 08:54 pm (UTC)

"You're gonna have to tell me what kinda magic," says Shell Bell, stepping through too. They're on Asgard, not the Malibu house. She hopes the Malibu house is just devoid of doors and not, like, server racks.

pythbox
2013-06-13 08:55 pm (UTC)

[Juliet! Hi,] he says. [Wow. Been a while, huh? Where are you?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 08:56 pm (UTC)

[We came in on Asgard. Sunshine Jarvises said you lost connectivity and something about a missile? Are you guys okay?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 08:57 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I expected the door to get me your house,] says Shell Bell, [are there not currently doors in your house?]

pythbox
2013-06-13 08:59 pm (UTC)

[There is... not currently my house,] Iron Man admits. [Not that house, anyway. We're fine, though, I'm fine, Jarvis is fine, Pepper is fine, all other people and things are fine. Lucky shot took out the ansible or we would've said something sooner.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:00 pm (UTC)

[Okay, well, as long as we're here we can get you a new ansible.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:00 pm (UTC)

[And fix the house, if you want.]

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:03 pm (UTC)

[I would love a new ansible,] says Tony. [You know what else I would love? I would love to be a mint. That would've saved me a lot of trouble a few weeks ago.]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:04 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, we can do that too.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:05 pm (UTC)

[And we should definitely replace the house while we're here, if only because then I can open a door in it and your Jarvis will know how to make more doors,] says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:07 pm (UTC)

[No, do not replace the house,] laughs Tony, [come here, I'm in Stark Tower, there are plenty of doors and plenty of Jarvis.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:08 pm (UTC)

[Sure, that works too.] Pop!

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:08 pm (UTC)

Also pop!

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Iron Man.

most_capable
2013-06-13 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Pepper.

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:12 pm (UTC)

Tony snaps his fingers. "Right, and while you're here, could you do the funky immortality thing for Pep?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Torching for Pepper, check," says Juliet, waving a hand, while Shell Bell seeks an appropriate door. "Anyone else?"

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:16 pm (UTC)

"No," he sighs. "Thanks."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure? It's much more inconvenient and expensive to retrieve people who get as far as Downside with Jane out. I had to make a trip a couple months ago."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:18 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell, meanwhile, flares aura - magicmagicmagic! - and doors to Milliways. "Got it, Jarvis?" she asks.

poeticterms
2013-06-13 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Fascinating," Jarvis remarks. The door closes. The door opens. The door closes again. "Everything seems to be in order."

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Tony, "there was a whole conversation about that, let's just - forget it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:22 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell lets her aura subside to a normal level of magicmagic.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Your call," shrugs Juliet. "It'll depend on how I'm doing for stars and how cooperative the door is on any given day how quick I go get anybody you lose, though, I can't readily get ahold of Aurora for a wheelbarrowful of big coins and I have a lot of demonic shit to handle with my available influx."

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Tony, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "I know that. I have been made aware."

most_capable
2013-06-13 09:27 pm (UTC)

Pepper pats him on the arm.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Anyone fetched from Downside will torch after that anyway," says Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Yes, well," shrugs Juliet, "not everyone is a sensible Bell."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of that sort of thing I wonder if I should door us to Rainbow to pick up coins? You lean on the others more than anybody, with a Sunshine world and no Joker."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:29 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe. I don't suppose you can door to 'wherever the hell Aegis and company went'."

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:30 pm (UTC)

Iron Man has no comment on dooring to Rainbow or anywhere else; he is busy looking annoyed.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:31 pm (UTC)

"I can try it, I got to Rainbow in the first place - are you okay?" Shell Bell asks Iron Man. "Are we in your way? We can go if you'd rather."

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:33 pm (UTC)

"No, it's - fine," he says, waving his hand dismissively, "I'm fine, petty grievances, fine."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So we'll go and you can quarantine all the other Jarvised worlds for what disease exactly, Juliet?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Not diseased, just - okay, I have a sister, but she was magically created including everybody's memories about her a few months ago, and the spell doesn't seem to spread world to world all by itself but it can piggyback on people, so it got the whole Jarvis network. I wished everyone in Sunshine nontransmitting - and I was anyway, I was immune to the original spell, my sister-memories are a deliberate fork-and-merge - and now here too, because I don't think everyone who fails to remember Soph wants to start doing it just from the wrong Sherlock or Tony walking into a Bellparty."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:37 pm (UTC)

"You forked on purpose?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:37 pm (UTC)

"The alternatives were worse."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:39 pm (UTC)

"...And now you have a sister."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Named Soph, dating my Tony, plays checkers with my demonic minions on Mercury, incredibly tacky taste in jewelry."

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:41 pm (UTC)

"You have demonic minions?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I sort of accidentally inherited them after killing their previous goddess when I stalked through her vacated house in full aura. They do my palatial gardening and keep forgetting that I prefer 'your majesty' to 'your flammableness' and occasionally give me consequence on diplomatic excursions. I have asked them several times if they wouldn't rather go live off by themselves, but they are adamant that they have to be somebody's minions and I'm handy."

pythbox
2013-06-13 09:45 pm (UTC)

"That's sort of depressingly adorable," he says.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:45 pm (UTC)

"That's a very good summation of my demonic minions, yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:46 pm (UTC)

[Hey, Darcy, me and Juliet are in the world; Jane's down so we're harder to call in another time if you need anything, so, while we're here, do you need anything?]

sailorheavymetal
2013-06-13 09:48 pm (UTC)

[Hi! Nah, I think I'm good, thanks!]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:50 pm (UTC)

[Okay!]

"Darcy's good; you want to hit the Sunshine-family worlds?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I think so. I'm glad you're okay, Iron Man, Pepper, Jarvis," Juliet adds over her shoulder.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:51 pm (UTC)

(Aura!) Door! Shell Bell doesn't have a Jarvis at home; she could ask but she doesn't think to when she can do it herself. She conjures up an ansible, twists off half, as an afterthought makes enough to put other halves in all the other Jarvised worlds and twists them apart too. "There you go, we'll install the others on our rounds," she says.
Edited 2013-06-13 21:53 (UTC)

poeticterms
2013-06-13 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Jarvis.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 09:55 pm (UTC)

"No problem," says Shell Bell sunnily, and through she goes, Juliet following. "Bye!"

How about Apollo next? She lets Juliet in first to quarantine the place.
Edited 2013-06-13 21:55 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:56 pm (UTC)

Which Juliet does. [Hey guys, here to restore connection to Yggdrasil,] she adds, to Jarvis and the local Tony and Sherlock.

poeticterms
2013-06-13 09:57 pm (UTC)

[Lovely,] says the local Jarvis. [You have an ansible to give to Tony, I assume?]

cross_and_bow
2013-06-13 09:58 pm (UTC)

[Yep. Do you need anything else as long as we're here or are things running smoothly by you?]

poeticterms
2013-06-13 09:59 pm (UTC)

[Thank you, we're just fine.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 10:00 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell's the one actually holding the ansible-halves; she pops to where Tony is and offers it to him.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Hi, thanks!"

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 10:19 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome!" Random hug. And she rejoins Juliet. And off they go to Helios.

toblameforit
2013-06-13 10:31 pm (UTC)

Helios also has a local Tony who is happy to accept an ansible-half!

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-13 10:32 pm (UTC)

Good for him! And that's all the Jarvises; there was going to be one in Peace but there is in fact not.

Rainbow time.

erroneous messenger, sleep!

incanted

Brilliance is probably the first person to notice Rainbow's Janepoint broadcasting the message, "error 112358: inferior pattern recognition".

This is a branching point; there are 3 continuations from here.

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:35 pm (UTC)

[...Um, Bella,] he says, [Jane broke.]

incanted
2013-06-13 10:36 pm (UTC)

[Shit, again?]

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:38 pm (UTC)

[Yep. Even worse this time; the terminal just says "error 112358: inferior pattern recognition".]
Edited 2013-06-13 22:39 (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-13 10:39 pm (UTC)

[...Shit. Well, at least we have no strandees in either direction here. Sucks for the bunch that were just going to - I wonder if that's why, actually. Aegis was with them. Maybe Jane needs her own body or something.]

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:41 pm (UTC)

[Maybe,] says Brilliance. [I wonder if she'd even want one.]

incanted
2013-06-13 10:41 pm (UTC)

[We will have to inquire. The alternative is apparently dealing with periodic outages or keeping Aegis in a box.]

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:42 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

[What a mental image.]

incanted
2013-06-13 10:42 pm (UTC)

[Ayep. Which I'm going to guess Aegis wouldn't go for, so since Jane doesn't seem to mind not even having a body, maybe she wouldn't mind having one that lives in the Belltower and doesn't do much.]

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:44 pm (UTC)

[Guess we'll ask her when she comes back. If nobody else thinks of it first.]

incanted
2013-06-13 10:45 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I guess. Oh well. On with business as usual. I feel sorry for everyone who was coming to me for spare coins, though.]

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:46 pm (UTC)

[We'll have a whole shitload to spread around by the time everybody comes back, probably.]

incanted
2013-06-13 10:47 pm (UTC)

[Yes, but who knows how long they'll have to spend being conservative. Especially Glass. I guess she can probably get a lot of leverage combining smallish coins and local magic in creative ways.]

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:48 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, Glass didn't exactly seem like she had a magic shortage problem.]

incanted
2013-06-13 10:49 pm (UTC)

[It comes down to scalability, mostly, she had all sorts of nifty small things but couldn't easily mass-produce. Oh well.]

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:49 pm (UTC)

[She'll be fine,] he says optimistically.

incanted
2013-06-13 10:51 pm (UTC)

[Probably, yeah. Oh, well, no sense worrying about it till somebody gets a door. I'll tell Lexi.]

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:52 pm (UTC)

[Love you,] he says, pushing the associated feeling as a long-distance subsitute for a hug.

incanted
2013-06-13 10:53 pm (UTC)

There could also be a short-distance not-substitute for a hug!

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:53 pm (UTC)

Ooh.

Snuggle! Love!

incanted
2013-06-13 10:58 pm (UTC)

Yay! Best things.

cardistry
2013-06-13 10:59 pm (UTC)

Snuggly lovey happy things!

This is continuation number 2 from here.

alicornucopia
2013-06-13 11:08 pm (UTC)

Teno should really stop getting ludicrously drunk in backwater dimensions and talking about his old job.

"It can have a wielder but you don't need unique wielder status to use its functions, there were a bunch of us and it needed constant supervision," he says tiredly. If he just tells them everything, they said they'd drop him off near Cenarist, where he was planning to go next anyway.

It doesn't cross his mind to worry about the treatment of the Device that killed all his old co-workers.

pythbox
2013-06-13 11:44 pm (UTC)

"But if you don't have wielder status," asks the unnamed individual sitting to his left, "how do you get access? I assume it's controlled in some way. You don't make a weapon like that and then leave it a free-for-all."

alicornucopia
2013-06-13 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Right, right, you need the access codes, not to mention the incantations for the actual functions, lemme - it's been four hundred years -" He fiddles with his memory implants. "And physical access to the Device. So yeah, the password incantation is - here, I'll write it down." He scribbles down all the incantations they're going to need, then swaps back in his standard memory module; he doesn't want to live day-to-day with four hundred years distant memories that fresh.

pythbox
2013-06-13 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says the nameless person, smiling slightly. "Those will come in handy. Does it have any protection against standard dimensional locators?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-13 11:54 pm (UTC)

"If by standard you mean any kind invented in the last four hundred years, no, it's completely locatable. It was state of the art then and it's still got a lot of juice, but we couldn't design anything that we didn't have the knowhow for."

pythbox
2013-06-13 11:55 pm (UTC)

The smile widens.

"Perfect."

alicornucopia
2013-06-13 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. That all you need?"

pythbox
2013-06-13 11:57 pm (UTC)

"I do believe it was. Cenarist, right?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-13 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's where to, thanks."

pythbox
2013-06-13 11:59 pm (UTC)

"No problem," says the stranger.

This is continuation number 3 from here.

incanted
2013-06-14 12:04 am (UTC)

+Hey, Brilliance, I accidentally told the Emperor of Japan's niece that I'm 'yes, sort of like a mahou shoujo', so the next time I'm there it might be politic to show up jacketed, fair warning if you were going to be doing anything distracting next Tuesday.+

cardistry
2013-06-14 12:06 am (UTC)

Brilliance doesn't answer.

incanted
2013-06-14 12:07 am (UTC)

+Brilliance?+

cardistry
2013-06-14 12:07 am (UTC)

Nothing.

incanted
2013-06-14 12:08 am (UTC)

[Brilliance?] Maybe the magephone is glitching.

cardistry
2013-06-14 12:08 am (UTC)

Still nothing.

incanted
2013-06-14 12:09 am (UTC)

And there's not a busy message, so he's not just asleep...

Port.

cardistry
2013-06-14 12:14 am (UTC)

Brilliance is lying on the floor of a room that looks like a futuristic cargo bay, half curled up with his arms over his head, screaming. There is no one else in the room.

incanted
2013-06-14 12:15 am (UTC)

"Brilliance -" Bella drops to her knees, reaches out for him. "Brilliance, what's going on -" A plain wish for whatever's going on to stop won't help. She tries it anyway. It doesn't help.

cardistry
2013-06-14 12:16 am (UTC)

He doesn't seem to notice she's there at all.

incanted
2013-06-14 12:17 am (UTC)

Well, he's hurting, right, she can tell that much, but if he can't tell her how or why she's going to have to try something else.

Devotion gives feedback.

"Devotion," she whispers.

cardistry
2013-06-14 12:22 am (UTC)

Someone else has been fingerpainting on Brilliance's nervous system. He is covered in indiscriminate high-intensity sensation, as though someone took the whole map and dunked it in a vat of pain.

incanted
2013-06-14 12:25 am (UTC)

...Fuck. Fuck, no one else is supposed to be able to do that, this is supposed to be impossible - they're not even here -

Can she use her own system access to turn it off? This is theirs, this is their thing, fuck if she'll let whoever owns this place hurt her Brilliance -

She buries her fingers in his hair and closes her eyes and tries.

cardistry
2013-06-14 12:31 am (UTC)

Everywhere she turns her attention, the pain fades.

Brilliance gasps in a breath and dives into her lap with a whimper.

But there's a strong counterpressure; if she lets up for an instant, the pain starts blossoming again wherever she isn't looking.

incanted
2013-06-14 12:32 am (UTC)

She has a lot of brain capacity. She can - only just - keep it up everywhere. She bites down on her lip; her arms go around Brilliance on sheer autopilot; she concentrates.

cardistry
2013-06-14 12:35 am (UTC)

He curls up closer, still whimpering faintly.

A voice over some kind of loudspeaker says, "Hey! Who the hell are you?"

incanted
2013-06-14 12:36 am (UTC)

"Who are you," she snaps back, and she loses a bit of one of his hands, snatches it back with act of will, hugs Brilliance tighter.

cardistry
2013-06-14 01:01 am (UTC)

Brilliance huddles against her and cries.

There is a short silence, and then a soft noise from behind Bella, as of a door opening.

incanted
2013-06-14 01:02 am (UTC)

Bella manages to look over her shoulder without losing her focus on Brilliance's pain map.

pythbox
2013-06-14 01:06 am (UTC)

An unfamiliar person is taking aim with an unfamiliar staff.

incanted
2013-06-14 01:08 am (UTC)

She can't think with more than a percent of her brain, she has to keep Brilliance okay - she's invincible - he's not but he torches and - she slips a little on the non-body-map part, recaptures it, grits her teeth - he will not hurt more if they are shot.

She holds still. She holds Brilliance.

pythbox
2013-06-14 01:12 am (UTC)

The stranger fires their weapon.

Invincible or not, the dull grey beam still knocks Aurora all the way back against the opposite wall. Wrecks hell with her clothes, too. Brilliance is undamaged, but the force of impact separates them and he only travels half as far.

incanted
2013-06-14 01:13 am (UTC)

Bella focuses on the pain map.

If she can hold down the pain long enough, he'll recover, and he'll be able to do - something she can't currently think of because she has to focus on the pain map.

Don't hurt don't hurt don't hurt don't hurt.

cardistry
2013-06-14 01:16 am (UTC)

The stranger walks up to Brilliance and grabs him by a fistful of his shirt, then starts dragging him out of the room. He struggles weakly.

incanted
2013-06-14 01:17 am (UTC)

- Not on.

Bella fights with her brain, trying to control Brilliance's pain, and then, for lack of any sophisticated solution, teleports in exactly the position she is in now to where Brilliance is, and then puts her and Brilliance and not the stranger back across the room where she was sitting.

She slips. A little. Not much. And then she focuses again.

cardistry
2013-06-14 01:20 am (UTC)

Brilliance clings to her as soon as she's within reach.

The stranger shrugs and takes aim again. This time, though, it's harder to knock them apart. The beam just slams them agains the wall and holds them there.

incanted
2013-06-14 01:21 am (UTC)

Bella leans over Brilliance, like a shield; she's the one with all the fancy defense wishes that Jokers disdain.

Don't hurt. Don't hurt. Don't hurt.

cardistry
2013-06-14 01:26 am (UTC)

"Look, I don't really care what you think you're doing," says the stranger. "That thing's mine, and if I have to pry you off it with a crowbar, I will."

Brilliance shivers.
Edited 2013-06-14 01:26 (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-14 01:28 am (UTC)

"Mine," says Bella.

She'd have a sophisticated argument about Brilliance's personal autonomy if she had more brain, but she doesn't. Even a very little brain can declare Brilliance more hers than this creep's.

Don't hurt don't hurt don't hurt.

cardistry
2013-06-14 01:35 am (UTC)

"Your funeral," says the stranger, taking aim.

The beam doesn't hurt Bella, but it damages Brilliance. Nowhere near enough to torch him - but enough to make Bella's job just a little bit harder.

incanted
2013-06-14 01:39 am (UTC)

"Brilliance," murmurs Bella. "Sunshine."

She might've been about to say something else but she almost slips, she mustn't slip, he mustn't hurt, not allowed.

Don't hurt.
Edited 2013-06-14 01:40 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-06-14 01:54 am (UTC)

+i love you,+ he says, hugging her tight. +i love you i love you i+

The stranger's attack barely lets up. Brilliance's shirt and jeans have almost completely disintegrated anywhere that the magical onslaught can touch him, and the skin underneath is halfway gone. There's a strange flickering hollowness to the parts of the nerve map corresponding to pieces of Brilliance that aren't physically there anymore, and that plus the uneven distribution makes it harder to keep everything suppressed.

incanted
2013-06-14 01:55 am (UTC)

Bella might say something. His name, his pet name, the same thing he just said -

She can't say anything. She has to concentrate. Don'thurtnonononononono -

cardistry
2013-06-14 02:11 am (UTC)

Her control is slipping around the edges. More and more, of what they're pushing on him with Devotion and what the blast is doing to his physical body, starts to get through.

Weirdly, that's what calms him down.

This isn't going to work forever. It's barely working now. He can wait and hope, or he can do something about it.

Any ability he might once have had to cast a spell or make a wish is a million miles away. He's too terrified to think straight. But Bella's right here. Bella can do things.

Bella is busy.

+let it go,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-06-14 02:14 am (UTC)

"Sunshine," she murmurs, and she lets slip just enough that she can evaluate the idea, and it's the only idea, and she lets him go, and she gets up.

cardistry
2013-06-14 02:15 am (UTC)

He has enough time to show her that he loves her before he starts screaming again.

incanted
2013-06-14 02:19 am (UTC)

The first order of business is to take this asshole's staff. She squares it out of his hands, and out of the way; it might be loyal and explode or something if she tries to handle it herself. "Restore." For the damage already done; it's not much but it's something and it takes two syllables. "Who's hurting him?" she asks, pouring aura out; the threat sensor should help find the answer if this creep won't. This creep doesn't likely have her attentional capacity and she was losing it at the end; someone else has to be doing it.

pythbox
2013-06-14 02:23 am (UTC)

The major threat on board this ship is a magical weapons system attached to the ship itself. The asshole's staff is the next one down. Apart from that, there are a few more devices here and there that barely register, and then some humans with varying magical potential.

"Hurting who? The device? Lady, what are you after?"

incanted
2013-06-14 02:25 am (UTC)

Turn weapons system off. The staff's being quiet for now and might be alive; she lets it be for the time being. "The device. Who's hurting him? I am after it stopping right the fuck now. Who do I have to fucking kill to make it stop?"

She'd be less casual with the death threats if she didn't expect Jane back eventually to let her rethink any lethal decisions she might make.

pythbox
2013-06-14 02:27 am (UTC)

"Are you even armed?"

incanted
2013-06-14 02:29 am (UTC)

She flares aura, brightbrightbright, a powerful sorceress wants your entrails for decorations. "I don't have to be fucking armed! Do I have to magic your head from your shoulders to threaten the next asshole with? Who is hurting him?"
Edited 2013-06-14 02:32 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-14 02:35 am (UTC)

"Calm down," the stranger says irritably, looking around for their vanished staff. "What's your stake in this? The noise is annoying, but you didn't have to come here and listen to it, now did you?"
Edited 2013-06-14 02:36 (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-14 02:37 am (UTC)

Wish.

Aurora is now the first Bell to wish for super-strength she didn't already get accustomed to.

She grabs the creep by the throat, floats into the air so as to lift all involved feet off the ground, and goes looking for the next ping on her radar, posthaste.

She is not careful about offering air supply.
Edited 2013-06-14 02:39 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-14 02:43 am (UTC)

The creep struggles ineffectually.

The next ping on her radar is a roomful of people - six in all - watching Brilliance from several angles on a row of screens.

When Aurora appears carrying their friend, with her aura still going strong, it causes something of a stir. (As one side effect, the distant sound of Brilliance screaming gets a little quieter.)
Edited 2013-06-14 02:44 (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-14 02:44 am (UTC)

"Who," she says distinctly, "is hurting my Device, and how many of you do I have to murder before it stops?"

pythbox
2013-06-14 11:58 am (UTC)

"Look, put Gem down and we'll talk," says one person.

"If it's yours then why was it abandoned on an uninhabited planet?" says another.

"If we let it up it'll kill everyone! We've heard stories!" says a third.

incanted
2013-06-14 03:24 pm (UTC)

Bella sets "Gem" down. Technically. She keeps her hand around their neck.

"Because we can fucking teleport, so it's not actually uninhabited, and he is not the one you should be worrying about killing you," hisses Bella, "let him up now, this instant, and I might not."
Edited 2013-06-14 15:26 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-14 03:31 pm (UTC)

Gem coughs and says, "Shut it down, shut it down," gesturing urgently. One by one, the other six people disengage from Devotion.

The distant screaming stops.

incanted
2013-06-14 03:34 pm (UTC)

Bella releases Gem's throat.

She pops to where Brilliance is and scoops him up into her arms, hugging tight, and then pops back into the control room.

"Now," says Bella, "you're going to tell me who you are and how you got access to my Device's functions."

cardistry
2013-06-14 03:38 pm (UTC)

Brilliance clings to her and whimpers.

Everyone else flinches.

"We had its access codes," says Gem. "Look, if you want it, take it. We won't bother you again."

incanted
2013-06-14 03:40 pm (UTC)

"How did you get his access codes?" Bella asks, threading her fingers through Brilliance's hair.

cardistry
2013-06-14 03:41 pm (UTC)

Brilliance sniffles and hugs her.

"From a combat cyborg named Teno. He said he worked on the original project," says Gem.

incanted
2013-06-14 03:42 pm (UTC)

+Sunshine, are the access codes something I can change for you? Boot them from the system...?+ "The original project should have all died."
Edited 2013-06-14 15:53 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-06-14 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Take it up with Teno, if you can find him," snorts Gem.

+don't know. don't - don't,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-06-14 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't like your tone," Bella tells Gem. "My conscience is currently the only thing keeping you in one human-shaped piece, bear in mind, and you wear it very thin." Her aura's wrapped protectively around Brilliance, hissing and fizzing at Gem and the others. "What did you want with him?"

pythbox
2013-06-14 04:01 pm (UTC)

"...It's a planet-destroying weapon, what are you using it for?" Gem says incredulously. "With that kind of firepower, we'd never have to worry about the TSAB again!"

incanted
2013-06-14 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Of the two of us, one of us kidnapped the other's Device, and it's you. My activities are none of your business. I wasn't bothering you. What is the TSAB, and why would being able to destroy planets mean you didn't have to worry about them again?"

pythbox
2013-06-14 04:10 pm (UTC)

Gem looks at her like she is the most incomprehensible thing they have ever seen.

incanted
2013-06-14 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Talk," advises Bella darkly.

pythbox
2013-06-14 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Make sense," says Gem. "What do you mean, 'what is the TSAB'? Are you trying to tell me you don't already know?"

incanted
2013-06-14 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay, seriously, do I have to kill one of you to get the rest of you to just answer my questions without being obnoxious? I'll do it, I started worrying way less about death a few months ago. I don't know what the TSAB is and you're going to tell me."

pythbox
2013-06-14 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Um... boss?" says one of the other six.

"What?" says Gem.

"There's a powerful magical signature headed this way. Looks official."

"Great!" says Gem. "Perfect! If you want to know who the TSAB is, murder lady, you can ask the agents who're about to arrest us all!"

incanted
2013-06-14 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, good, someone should arrest you if I'm not going to kill you."

She consults her threat sensor.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 04:34 pm (UTC)

Her threat sensor says that something is coming this way that is significantly more heavily armed than this ship was before she disabled its weapons systems. Not quite on Brilliance's usual power level, but much closer than anything else in this universe. (Speaking of which, where is Brilliance's power level? He's not registering at all.)

A sourceless, omnipresent voice says calmly, "Pirate ship Flare, this is Agent Matilda Honey of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. Please do us all a favour and surrender immediately."

Gem darts over to a screen to open communications. "Yes! Absolutely! We surrender! Take us all prisoner right now!"

incanted
2013-06-14 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Before you do that, do you want to tell me why my Device's power level isn't pinging my sensors?" Bella says. "Did you do something else to him?" +Sunshine?+

cardistry
2013-06-14 04:37 pm (UTC)

+i'm - lockdown,+ says Brilliance.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 04:40 pm (UTC)

A sky-blue magical diagram of counter-rotating concentric squares and circles, with runic inscriptions around the border, unfolds beneath Gem. A moment later, both of them disappear.

incanted
2013-06-14 04:41 pm (UTC)

+Can I fix that?+ Bella asks.

cardistry
2013-06-14 04:41 pm (UTC)

+yeah - don't know how,+ he says.

incanted
2013-06-14 04:42 pm (UTC)

She holds him tight. She tries just wanting - tries making up incantations, murmurs them into his hair, "freedom", "release", "unlock".

cardistry
2013-06-14 04:43 pm (UTC)

'Unlock' does the trick.

"Fuck, thank you," he mumbles, hugging her.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 04:45 pm (UTC)

The same spell diagram snatches away Gem's six friends in quick succession.

incanted
2013-06-14 04:46 pm (UTC)

With Brilliance taken care of - again - Bella notices something.

[You said your name was Matilda Honey?] she inquires of the apparent Time-Space Administration Bureau.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 04:47 pm (UTC)

[Just a moment, please, I'm busy,] she says politely.

incanted
2013-06-14 04:48 pm (UTC)

Okay then.

"Is that everything, sunshine, do I need to fix anything else?" Bella murmurs, petting Brilliance's hair.

cardistry
2013-06-14 04:50 pm (UTC)

He hugs her some more.

"I think that's it," he says hesitantly. "I don't - I don't know, I didn't know those codes were even still active."

incanted
2013-06-14 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay. If you find anything else they did - tell me - I'll fix it." She kisses his scalp.

cardistry
2013-06-14 04:52 pm (UTC)

He shivers.

incanted
2013-06-14 04:52 pm (UTC)

Pet pet pet.

cardistry
2013-06-14 04:53 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 04:54 pm (UTC)

[There, that's better. This is an interesting communication system,] says Agent Honey. [Where did you find it?]

incanted
2013-06-14 04:56 pm (UTC)

[Offworld. I found a lot of cool things offworld, including two copies of you and twelve of me. Hi. I'm Bella Swan and those assholes kidnapped Brilliance, thank you for arresting them.]

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:02 pm (UTC)

[...I think I would like it very much if you would explain from the beginning,] says Agent Honey.

incanted
2013-06-14 05:04 pm (UTC)

[It's a very long story.]

+Sunshine, this Matilda-alt wants to know stuff. Is there anything I shouldn't tell her about you?+

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:04 pm (UTC)

[I have plenty of time to listen.]

cardistry
2013-06-14 05:05 pm (UTC)

+...I don't know,+ says Brilliance.

incanted
2013-06-14 05:11 pm (UTC)

+Okay. I'll talk about other stuff first. There's lots. I'm inclined to trust Matildas, though.+

[Sure, but if it's all the same to you I'd rather go back to my planet.]

cardistry
2013-06-14 05:12 pm (UTC)

Brilliance snuggles her.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:18 pm (UTC)

[You're from Earth, aren't you? I was born there,] she says. [If you'll give me just a moment, I can follow you wherever you'd like to go.]

incanted
2013-06-14 05:19 pm (UTC)

[I'm from Earth, yeah, but by 'my planet' I mean the invisible one with the rainbow sand a few orbitals out with the enchanted village-thing on it.] She teleports thereto.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:24 pm (UTC)

About thirty seconds later, Matilda appears by sorcerous transport. She's wearing a Barrier Jacket that superficially resembles Tilly's usual outfits - pleated skirt, lots of blue, red ribbons, sensible shoes - and carrying a large book with a blank blue cover, and Bella's threat sensor wouldn't be willing to bet that she couldn't defeat Brilliance in purely mana-based magical combat.

incanted
2013-06-14 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Hi. Wow, you're really something. So, I know two of you - when they're both around one goes by Tilly, but as a rule they don't like nicknames - did you already know about alternate universes, I mean entire universes with different rules of magic and so on not just dimensions?"

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Only in a very theoretical sense," she says.

incanted
2013-06-14 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, "they exist - I'd bring in some proof, but the interworld computer-person that does our on-demand worldhopping is down right now. But there are thirteen of me that we know of so far, plus however many more that haven't joined us yet, and also a bunch of him," she gestures at Brilliance, who she's still holding, "and also a couple of you. And mes, when we get together, spread particularly useful powers around, so, I'm a local magic-person and Brilliance here is a local Device, but I also have some other stuff."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:36 pm (UTC)

"The popular non-specialized term for a local magic user in English is 'mage'," says Matilda. "What sort of other stuff?"

incanted
2013-06-14 05:39 pm (UTC)

"You can probably notice my aura." It's still wrapped up around Brilliance protectively, although she doesn't currently expect Matilda to attack him. "That's an enchantress thing - so is this village, I made it via enchanting pretty much expressly to get the aura. And I'm a thing called a mint, and I can do something called torching, and usually I can also get the aforementioned computer-person - her name is Jane - to resurrect the dead and relay messages to or move me to other connected worlds, but she's down, her host got into some kind of pickle trying to welcome another one of us to the peal."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I have noticed your aura, yes," she says. "It's very noticeable."

incanted
2013-06-14 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance has one too but his is tucked away. They vary person-to-person; I'd put mine away but it has a threat-sensing feature that I want out because I'm a little paranoid right now, seeing as someone just kidnapped and tortured him." (Pet, pet.)

cardistry
2013-06-14 05:49 pm (UTC)

(Snuggle, snuggle.)

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm very sorry about that," says Matilda. "If I'd found them sooner, I would have stopped them."

incanted
2013-06-14 05:53 pm (UTC)

"I believe you," says Bella.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Stealing and coercing devices is part of their usual operating procedure," she says. "I've been after them for a few months now over a series of similar incidents."

incanted
2013-06-14 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Yikes. What are you going to do with the other Devices? Do they have nice people to go home to?"

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Not all of them, unfortunately."

incanted
2013-06-14 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should set up, like, a Wielderless Device Shelter or something, I have room." She nibbles her lip. "I don't suppose any of them want to work with my sister?"
Edited 2013-06-14 18:06 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't believe any of them have met your sister," says Matilda. "Nor have I, for that matter."

incanted
2013-06-14 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I mean theoretically would they like to meet her and see if they'd get along."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I'll ask."

incanted
2013-06-14 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Cool. Brilliance has ethical qualms about making Devices smarter than amoebas." (Pet pet.)

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:11 pm (UTC)

"I can imagine why you might," she says.

incanted
2013-06-14 06:12 pm (UTC)

"So. What's the TSAB exactly besides a body that can arrest pirates?"

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:17 pm (UTC)

"It's an interdimensional peacekeeping and administrative agency that claims jurisdiction over all mages."

incanted
2013-06-14 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay, can I get, like, a list of things that the TSAB might inconvenience me about if I chose to do them?"

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:28 pm (UTC)

"If you're not hurting anyone or damaging the fabric of space-time, we'll usually leave you alone," she says. "Especially on a planet like Earth. There are a lot more regulations in places where magic is more common."

incanted
2013-06-14 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Cool, I do not plan to hurt anyone - I was throwing around threats when Brilliance was being hurt but they started it, if anything like it happens again maybe I can just teleport them all to you and you can make them stop - and I'm starting with Earth and it'll probably take me a while - what constitutes damage to space-time? Does space-folding and so on count? This village doesn't do it, but that's a thing that minting and enchantments can do."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:40 pm (UTC)

"No, deliberate local space-folding and so on don't count. Handling large amounts of mana improperly can cause local disturbances in the dimensional fabric," she explains. "The usual case is a couple of careless high-powered mages getting in a fight. It's a pain to clean up, and if the disturbance gets big enough before we catch it, there can be lingering temporospatial distortions that make life unpleasant for anyone nearby."
Edited 2013-06-14 18:40 (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-14 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I mostly use my other types of magic instead of fussing with mana and incantations, especially for big stuff. I'll warn my sister. Dimensional fabric disturbances don't sound like anyone's friend." Pause. "Do you believe me about having met others of you and so on or is the fact that Jane's down really hurting my credibility? I could tell you more stuff about the other yous if that'd help."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it's very likely, but I'm not ruling it out, either. What sorts of things can you tell me about the other mes?"

incanted
2013-06-14 06:52 pm (UTC)

Bella conjures up illusions of the two of them, complete with party nametags and (in one case) magical girl outfit. "Tilly's a wizard from a world called Syntropy. There's a Bell there - that's what my template is called, Bells - and a Joker, which is what Brilliance's template is called. The Bell is Cam and the Joker is Jellybean. Also wizards." They appear too, also nametagged. "The other one without a nickname doesn't have any templates we know about in her world - she named it Wellspring - except the ones that are attached to you, which are: horrible parents, horrible school principal called 'the Trunchbull', and a Jenny Honey who is the niece of the horrible school principal. Wellspring's magic system isn't like Syntropy's and Matilda unlike Tilly was working alone - Jellybean went to Syntropy Crunchem Hall, he met Tilly there - but in both cases, prodigy-early magic starting with telekinesis, showdown involving same with the evil principal, biological parents signed them over to their respective Jennies. I don't have a clear picture of what Matilda did after that, although she did get Shell Bell to bring her Jenny's parents back to life - Tilly couldn't do that, Syntropy doesn't interact correctly with the afterlife we've got access to - but Jellybean and Tilly went around touring the universe getting into trouble, introducing themselves to stars and trees and aliens, occasionally saving the lives of new wizards who were about to get killed by a sort of malevolent deitylike thing Syntropy has. That's how they met Cam, they saved him when he was fourteen - they're a little older than he is."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 06:58 pm (UTC)

Matilda listens carefully to all of this.

"Well," she says. "That's remarkable."

incanted
2013-06-14 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I didn't talk extensively to either one of them, we just met briefly at a party, so this is mostly secondhand from Cam and some from Jane."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I am increasingly convinced that you've met a couple of my alternate universe duplicates."

incanted
2013-06-14 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Spiffy. Yeah, I would otherwise be way more concerned about you, but unless you're way off-model I expect us to get along fine."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Concerned about me?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Threat sensor doesn't think you're hostile, but it does think you're a big deal, so if you were an unknown quantity I would be on my guard in spite of the admirable pirate-arresting."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:07 pm (UTC)

"I am a big deal," Matilda says serenely. "If I wasn't a big deal, I would be kind of concerned about you."

incanted
2013-06-14 07:08 pm (UTC)

"If you knew the other twelve of me you would not be concerned. We are nice," says Bella merrily.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Most people are, once you get to know them."

incanted
2013-06-14 07:11 pm (UTC)

"So there aren't a lot of regulations about handling Earth? That is good because I have been up to things on Earth."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:11 pm (UTC)

"What kind of things?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Uh, eliminated a number of common diseases, reversed some desertification in Africa, fixed some failing Pacific fisheries, cleared Southeast Asia of land mines, for my mom's birthday I hid a lot of extra panda bears in various parts of China and they'll be found any day now, that sort of thing, and I'm in talks with assorted world leaders to reveal my existence and explain all of these phenomena and allow people to start colonizing this planet we're on now."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of which, where did this place come from?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:19 pm (UTC)

"It's a copy of a planet in another dimension that I liked. One of Brilliance's alts was visiting and thought it'd be funny to give me one closer to home," says Bella.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:19 pm (UTC)

"And which kind of offworld magic does casual conjuring of planets?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Minting. It might be possible to do it with enchanting... hmmm. Yeah, I could enchant a little one, if I really wanted to for some reason. More efficient to do it with minting though."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Good to know," says Matilda.

incanted
2013-06-14 07:25 pm (UTC)

"This one was made with minting, anyway, I would've noticed if he'd enchanted it."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Minting is amenable to magic storage and enchanting isn't," explains Bella. "And I was looking right at him when he did it."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Aha. How do these things work, exactly?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:29 pm (UTC)

Bella considers her.

"Are you planning to spread the information any farther? I'm willing to trust an unfamiliar Matilda; I don't know about all your co-workers."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:36 pm (UTC)

"If you tell me that your magic is powered by the souls of the damned, or something similarly unpleasant, I might have to pass it on," she says. "But if the information isn't concealing harm, I don't see why it has to go any farther than me and my partner." She pats the cover of the book, which is still tucked under her arm.

incanted
2013-06-14 07:38 pm (UTC)

"No souls of the damned. Overwhelming net benefit to damned souls. People vary on how unpleasant they find the idea, though."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:39 pm (UTC)

"What did the other Matildas think of it?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:40 pm (UTC)

"I haven't spoken to them personally, but I don't think Tilly and Cam have had a falling-out and they show up to the parties and stuff."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Then I think it'll be fine. Go on."

incanted
2013-06-14 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Enchantment hurts as a byproduct of the spellcasting. Since it's a bad idea to lose control of an enchantment while you're doing it, we channel through helpers - consenting helpers. Although Sarion can do it by herself because she learned an elf meditation thing, but that's beside the point. And minting also hurts - that's how you make minting-type magic, is you take pain and turn it into a sort of a coin, like -" She nibbles her lip, makes a triangle, holds it up. "The more points, the more pain was invested in it, and the more it can do. Again, this is all consensual." (She pets Brilliance.) "Stella and Golden and Pattern have staff who do it, and the rest of us - including Stella - have significant others who do it."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:47 pm (UTC)

Matilda shrugs. "That all seems fine to me."

incanted
2013-06-14 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Some people are kinda weirded out. I was kinda weirded out, at first." She puts her coin away in her sorting wish.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:50 pm (UTC)

"How exactly do you get these unnerving otherworldly powers?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Minting is self-perpetuating - a six pointed coin, a hex, will turn somebody into a mint. Enchanting is from Rose's world Rêverie, and people are born with the power there, but it can be hexed on too."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I see."

incanted
2013-06-14 07:53 pm (UTC)

"And before Jane is installed in a world - or when she's not working - the way to get there is via an interworld bar called Milliways, so if a door ever leads to a bar instead of where you thought it was going, that's where you are."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Good to know."

incanted
2013-06-14 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Also if that ever happens to you I'd like to be informed so I can go check on the Belltower."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I'll let you know," she promises. "What's the range on that communication system of yours?"

incanted
2013-06-14 07:55 pm (UTC)

"The current version will work anywhere within the worldsheaf - uh, that means all the dimensions that are part of this world. Used to be it wouldn't work between subworlds but Amariah fixed it and upgrades to the brainphone propagate virally."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I might have to ask you for a list of all your alternates," she says, amused.

incanted
2013-06-14 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I go by Aurora when there are lots of me in the room. The others are Stella, Shell Bell, Amariah, Golden, Angela, Juliet, Aegis, Pattern, Rose, Cam, Sarion, and Glass. A few of us went to visit a new one who made her way to the Belltower, but then they got cut off - something in that world apparently affected Aegis in a way that broke Jane. Jane is mostly a computer network but she kind of lives in Aegis."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Got it," says Matilda.

incanted
2013-06-14 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Stella's the one from the world with minting, Shell Bell's from a nonmagical dystopia who started finding Milliways when she was six, Amariah is a witch from a world where that's a species and everybody's soul is a talking animal except there are talking polar bears who don't have those, Golden's a vampire, Angela's an angel - a biological angel, not a spiritual angel, although the lines are a little culturally blurred - Juliet is a vampire slayer but her vampires aren't Golden's kind, Aegis is a space admiral, Pattern has no distinguishing characteristics except for her aura, Rose is the native enchantress, Cam is the wizard and also the only boy so far, Sarion's an elf and has special elf magic, and Glass is a magician and also got the coolest aura features, she can see magic and also stuff about templates."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 08:06 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

"I'm lucky I don't have to take notes."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Does your Device do that? Like Cam's notebook?"

withmypowers
2013-06-14 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Yes, she's very handy that way."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Notetaking is a Bell thing until we get perfect recall, but before Cam met the peal he had already wizarded up all his past notebooks into one, and on Syntropy, things that don't talk, talk. So he was pretty attached to her and routed his version of perfect recall through her. Also since then he went to Amariah's world and got her turned into one of the external-animal-souls and now she can be a hawk, although she's still usually a notebook."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Our history is not nearly so complicated," laughs Matilda. "We found each other when I was just about seven and we've been together ever since."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to introduce me?" asks Bella.

withmypowers
2013-06-14 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Her name is Adularia, but she doesn't like talking to most people."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Neither does Cam's book-bird. Her name's Grace, but I've never spoken directly to her."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm sensing some similarities."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Apparently it's a thing with a lot of daemons - that's the name for external animal souls, which she is now - that they only talk to other daemons and their people. Although Amariah's owl Pathalan is perfectly talkative when he has something to say. I don't know enough about Shell Bell's smew Neptune to say. And the Joker daemons, where applicable, are all very friendly."
Edited 2013-06-14 20:31 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-06-14 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, as much as I'd love to keep chatting about your alternate universe adventures, I have pirates to deal with," says Matilda. "I'll drop by next time I'm in the neighbourhood."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Brainphone me anytime, I don't sleep."

withmypowers
2013-06-14 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

She deploys her spell diagram and disappears with a little wave.

incanted
2013-06-14 08:37 pm (UTC)

Bella devotes all of her attention to snuggling Brilliance.

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:38 pm (UTC)

Brilliance snuggles her right back.

incanted
2013-06-14 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Do you need anything, sunshine?" she murmurs. "Besides all of the snuggling."

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:40 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

"I wanna get rid of my access codes," he says. "But I don't know how."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to try wishing them gone?"

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I want to do it."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Pet, pet.

"I love you."

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:43 pm (UTC)

That's new.

Brilliance hugs her.

"I love you too."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:43 pm (UTC)

Bella presses a kiss to his forehead.

Snuggle.

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:45 pm (UTC)

Cuddle snuggle.

Love.

incanted
2013-06-14 08:45 pm (UTC)

Love, love.

self-devising bejeweled minds!

incanted

Bella stays with Brilliance as long as he needs. She has one or two conversations with politicians by brainphone at the same time, but she doesn't leave till he tells her he'd like to be alone, and then she goes. (She tells Lexi that she may have sourced her a Device.)

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:51 pm (UTC)

A few hours later, Brilliance says by magephone, +I fixed it! No more access codes. My functions are all mine.+

incanted
2013-06-14 08:51 pm (UTC)

+Good.+

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:53 pm (UTC)

+Love you,+ he adds.

incanted
2013-06-14 08:53 pm (UTC)

+I love you too.+

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:54 pm (UTC)

+You can come snuggle me now if you want.+

incanted
2013-06-14 08:54 pm (UTC)

She does want. Pop! Snuggle.

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:56 pm (UTC)

Snuggle!

"And when I say my functions are mine," he murmurs, "I mean I decide who gets to use 'em."

incanted
2013-06-14 08:56 pm (UTC)

"...Meaning?"

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Meaning I haven't locked you out," he says, and kisses her.

incanted
2013-06-14 08:57 pm (UTC)

Kisses.

+Pants is still just us, right?+
Edited 2013-06-14 20:57 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-06-14 08:59 pm (UTC)

He giggles into kisses.

+Yeah.+

incanted
2013-06-14 08:59 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses.

cardistry
2013-06-14 09:00 pm (UTC)

Hugs and kisses!

+Do you wanna do some now?+

incanted
2013-06-14 09:00 pm (UTC)

Nibble. +Sure - you're sure you're okay, after...?+
Edited 2013-06-14 21:02 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-06-14 09:04 pm (UTC)

+I'm okay. Well - I'm not, like, okay, I'm still kind of fucked up over the whole thing, but I love you and I wanna do nice things with you. I'm okay about you.+

incanted
2013-06-14 09:06 pm (UTC)

Nibble nibble. +Okay.+

She whispers "devotion" against his neck and begins fingerpainting. Ever-so-gentle. Little touched-a-barbed-cactus prickles following her hands.

cardistry
2013-06-14 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I love you," he sighs.

incanted
2013-06-14 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

cardistry
2013-06-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmm."

Snuggles and love. Love and snuggles. Love and snuggles and Bella's lovely fingerpainting.

incanted
2013-06-14 09:48 pm (UTC)

Gentle lazy fingerpainting, thin prickling lines crisscrossed where she draws, little kisses of fire where she presses her lips to his face and throat.

cardistry
2013-06-15 12:12 am (UTC)

It's perfect. He loves her so much. She should know how much! So he shows her.

incanted
2013-06-15 12:14 am (UTC)

Bella soaks it up.

This could go on for a while.

It does not go on forever; the next day finds Bella hanging out in the living room with Lexi, Lexi doing homework, Bella reading articles about political unrest in Eastern Europe so she'll have this information when she starts tackling things more complicated than dengue fever. (Oh, she didn't get dengue yet. Star. Bye, dengue.)

withmypowers
2013-06-15 12:16 am (UTC)

And:

[Hi!] says Agent Honey.

incanted
2013-06-15 12:16 am (UTC)

[Hi! What's up?]

withmypowers
2013-06-15 12:22 am (UTC)

[One of the devices we recovered from the Flame said she'd like to meet your sister.]

incanted
2013-06-15 12:23 am (UTC)

[Cool. Can you find us where we are or should we meet you?]

withmypowers
2013-06-15 12:24 am (UTC)

[I can find you where you are, if you don't mind me teleporting in.]

incanted
2013-06-15 12:25 am (UTC)

[Lemme warn Lexi, she's jumpy about that.]

"Matilda's gonna pop in with a Device to introduce you to."

lexicality
2013-06-15 12:26 am (UTC)

"Okay, cool."

incanted
2013-06-15 12:26 am (UTC)

[We're all set.]

withmypowers
2013-06-15 12:30 am (UTC)

[Great.]

The sky-blue circle appears on the living room floor, and Matilda appears within it. She's not carrying her book today, but she's wearing a rectangular moonstone pendant that has similar proportions, and it's hanging on a blue ribbon almost exactly the same colour as her mana.

"Hi!" she says. "Lexi, right?" She holds out a little glass peach. "Meet Persica."

lexicality
2013-06-15 12:33 am (UTC)

"Hi, Persica," says Lexi, picking up the peach.

"Hello," says Persica. Her voice isn't as cleanly human as Brilliance's is; there's a touch of the mechanical in her feminine voice.

incanted
2013-06-15 12:33 am (UTC)

"The only device either of us have had social contact with before is Brilliance, who I think is pretty unusual," says Bella, "how does this usually work?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:00 am (UTC)

"It varies. I had an easy time of it deciding to work with Adularia, because I'm one of the only mages she's ever met who has the power to wake her up. She's an old model and she needs a bit of a boost to get going," Matilda explains. "That, and she likes me."

lexicality
2013-06-15 01:05 am (UTC)

"So uh," says Lexi to the peach in her hands, "what are you like?"

"I am an Intelligent Device. I have Standby Form, currently engaged, and Device Form, and Glaive Form, as well as the potential to acquire new variants on my forms to perform specialized functions. I have been recently adapted for genuine combat applications but was originally intended for combat theater."

"Combat theater, like, people pretending to fight as a show?"

"Yes."

"Interesting."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:07 am (UTC)

"What color's your mana, Persica?"

lexicality
2013-06-15 01:07 am (UTC)

"Display Firework," incants Persica. Harmless sparkles of peach-colored mana spray out, then fade.

"Hey, that matches mine, cool," says Lexi.

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:09 am (UTC)

"Adularia's was pale blue and mine was dark blue and we met in the middle," says Matilda.

lexicality
2013-06-15 01:09 am (UTC)

"We have no idea what Bella's was before she met Brilliance, and now they match," giggles Lexi, patting the little peach. The little peach glitters.

incanted
2013-06-15 01:09 am (UTC)

"I'm not complaining, I like our mana color."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:10 am (UTC)

Matilda grins. "What's your mana colour?"

incanted
2013-06-15 01:12 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs and casts the first spell she thinks of. "Safety." It makes her glow in the relevant color. "It's not so much a single color. Me and Brilliance have our wishcoins in that color too - and Lexi's is peachy-looking - but his shift around and mine don't. Joker coins tend to shift, Bell coins glow solid colors if they have native magic that protects them from mindreading and stuff and interesting-looking but non-glowy coins if we don't."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:14 am (UTC)

"Interesting," says Matilda. "I wonder if mana colours and coin colours match across the board."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:14 am (UTC)

Bella spends a square to get a counterfactual-coin for Matilda.

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:16 am (UTC)

"Is that mine? It matches our combined colour," she says. "Interesting."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:18 am (UTC)

"Yeah, it is. I haven't gotten around into making anybody else a mage yet, although I'll happily run this test on anyone you want to present me with. Glass will probably want to get maged eventually, when we get in touch again. She maxes out the Bell-magic-geek parameter. If you find any more stray Devices after Jane's back up maybe we can introduce them to her."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:20 am (UTC)

"Mana colours are usually single unchanging colours," she says thoughtfully. "Is it the same way for coins? What's Glass's coin colour?"

incanted
2013-06-15 01:21 am (UTC)

Bella conjures up everybell and everyjoker's coin color, and as an afterthought the Sherlocks' and Tonies' too, in a neat chart. "That one," she says, pointing out the fragmented stained-glass. "So far no one's basic coin color has changed, although obviously," she gestures at the Joker coins, especially Kas's, which shifts through scales and skin and feather patterns, "that's not always saying a lot."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:24 am (UTC)

"Interesting. No, mana colours are never that complicated. Even simple things like your rainbow pattern are pretty rare. I wonder what Glass's mana would be like."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:25 am (UTC)

"We will be able to find out soon enough. I'm pretty sure Glass would do way more than tweak her genetics to get access to a new kind of magic, and near as we can tell magery is just genetic - we had Jane sequence all of us a while ago. The tested Matildas match; I assume you match except the mage thing, I'm on-template apart from that."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:26 am (UTC)

"I think I'd like to meet these people."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:27 am (UTC)

"I bet. You'll be on the guest list when we have a yay-Jane-is-back party."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:28 am (UTC)

"Oh good."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:29 am (UTC)

"Unfortunately that could be a long time. Jane syncs up the passage of time when she's on; when she's not, all bets are off. Last time Rainbow - that's what I named this world - only lost a couple hours, but some worlds were out for more than a decade."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:30 am (UTC)

"That sounds inconvenient."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:32 am (UTC)

"And that's just Belled worlds; a few of the other worlds we have contact with were gone for way longer. Fortunately, I am immortal."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:39 am (UTC)

Matilda raises her eyebrows. "Please, tell me more."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:44 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "I can make you immortal too, I don't even need a coin for it. There's this afterlife, it was connected to seventy-something worlds when we first found it, I never got the exact figure. Including Golden's world and Shell Bell's and Juliet's and Pattern's, but nobell else's to start." She points at the relevant coin colors. "Shell Bell got assassinated. She wound up there. It was really bad. I'll spare the details unless you want them. Anyway, eventually, she got a door to Milliways out of there, and when we found Aegis," she points at glowy copper, "and Aegis brought us Jane, we were able to assemble everybody and basically covertly assault the place. I say we but I wasn't in the peal yet, it was just these ones -" She gestures at some coins. "And they found Pattern, who died when she got hit by a car and didn't have any magic affecting the situation the way Stella and Golden did when the same thing happened to them. But they got caught. Then they struck a deal with the afterlife's admin, who let them install Jane to basically run the place and does us favors, including letting us get and distribute the thing that dead people do instead of dying when they suffer lethal damage. If anything gets through my miscellaneous defenses thoroughly enough to 'kill' me, I go up in theatrical flames and reset in a healthy state a second later. It's called 'torching'."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:46 am (UTC)

"I would like to be immortal, please," says Matilda. "Adularia too."

incanted
2013-06-15 01:48 am (UTC)

Bella snaps her fingers. "Done and done."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:48 am (UTC)

"Thank you."

The moonstone pendant hanging around her neck glimmers briefly.

lexicality
2013-06-15 01:49 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, Lexi and Persica are quietly magephoning, and Persica has consented to be incorporated into a conjured necklace. "You should do my Peachy too, Bella," says Lexi.

incanted
2013-06-15 01:50 am (UTC)

"Peachy?" laughs Bella. "Sure, she's all set."

lexicality
2013-06-15 01:50 am (UTC)

"Thank you, Master's Sister," says Persica.

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:51 am (UTC)

Matilda grins. "I'm glad you two like each other," she says to Lexi and Persica.

lexicality
2013-06-15 01:54 am (UTC)

"Me too!" says Lexi.

Persica glimmers. "Yes," she agrees.

incanted
2013-06-15 01:58 am (UTC)

"Fun fact, so far I'm the only Bell we've found with a sister," remarks Bella. "The others are all only children."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 01:59 am (UTC)

"Interesting. Do other templates vary in number of siblings?"
Edited 2013-06-15 02:00 (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-15 02:04 am (UTC)

"Jokers sometimes have little brothers. Who are usually bad news - Angela rescued her brother-in-law but the other ones we know about are serial killer types, one of them was part of the awful that was Shell Bell's time spent as a dead person. The others are onlies. I don't know if the other Matildas have any siblings; I get the impression it couldn't possibly matter less to them if they did. Some Tonies are twins with their Sherlocks, the others are singlets who clone themselves and get Sherlocks, except this one never got around to it," she points at Iron Man's coin color, "and this one is a solo Sherlock. And of course Bells have varying numbers of kids, who, when they have the same other-parent, also are alts of each other, and Angela has four and Rose two last I checked."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 02:06 am (UTC)

"I have a brother," says Matilda. "I haven't spoken to him since I was six. Sometimes I forget he ever existed."
Edited 2013-06-15 02:10 (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-15 04:46 pm (UTC)

"That could easily be true of the other ones too," shrugs Bella.

withmypowers
2013-06-15 04:46 pm (UTC)

"It probably is."

incanted
2013-06-15 04:47 pm (UTC)

"We haven't found any lone Lexis, but of course people haven't known to keep an eye out for as long," says Bella.
Edited 2013-06-15 16:48 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-06-15 04:48 pm (UTC)

"A Lexi without a Bella would be weird. But it's already pretty weird that there are Bellas without Lexis."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 04:49 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why," Matilda says musingly. "Why all this. The templates, the varying numbers of siblings, all of it."

lexicality
2013-06-15 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Glass knows stuff. At her Bellparty she was looking everybody over with one of her aura features, right, and saying things like 'I think I'm gay because my Sherlock and Tony are girls!' and so on. That's not really, like, explanatory though."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 04:55 pm (UTC)

"It's a start."

incanted
2013-06-15 04:56 pm (UTC)

"It's a cool party trick, anyway. Rose used to have a cool party trick but now we can all do it; comes with enchanting - enchanting works through mindscapes so we can check out our own and other people's and see what they look like."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Mindscapes?"

incanted
2013-06-15 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Do you want me to have a look at yours? It does not constitute mindreading all by itself or everybody at Rose's first party would have declined. Well, all the Bells anyway, that's a thing with us."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 04:58 pm (UTC)

"What exactly is a mindscape?"

incanted
2013-06-15 05:00 pm (UTC)

"A visual representation of your mind. Mine is actually the rainbow-sand planet, right now - I don't know what it would've been before I saw the place. A lot of people just have houses they used to live in - Lexi has our mom's house - but Bells tend not to fixate on those."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:01 pm (UTC)

"All right. I bet I know what mine is," laughs Matilda. "Is there a way you can show me?"

incanted
2013-06-15 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I can look at it and conjure up an illusion, sure."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Go on."

incanted
2013-06-15 05:02 pm (UTC)

Peer.

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:03 pm (UTC)

It's a mansion. An old, pretty, cheerfully decorated mansion.

incanted
2013-06-15 05:03 pm (UTC)

Illusion!

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Matilda. "Jenny's house."

incanted
2013-06-15 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Might be the same for the other Matildas, I don't know. The Sherlocks and Tonies all match the others in their sets where applicable," she adds, "which is cute. Except Glass's set have slightly different focuses in their forest that they are princesses of."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:06 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

incanted
2013-06-15 05:09 pm (UTC)

"You want to see everybody?" She looks around the room. "It'd be crowded for full size illusions but I could half-size 'em and they can all float."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:12 pm (UTC)

"As amusing as that would be, I think I'd rather meet them in person when I get the chance."

incanted
2013-06-15 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay. With any luck it's a short outage. I have better coin output than average and a few of the Bells without Jokers lean on me for larger coins - and Brilliance is the only person who can do the ten-pointers. They have some, but if they're stranded too long they might run low and have to cut corners on important Belling."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:21 pm (UTC)

"You made yourself a verb," Matilda observes.

incanted
2013-06-15 05:22 pm (UTC)

"We did. It's the whole curing-diseases-resurrecting-the-dead-playing-politics-ushering-in-post-scarcity bit we do when we get our hands on decent magic."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:23 pm (UTC)

Matilda giggles.

incanted
2013-06-15 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Oh, and colonizing space, we also do colonizing space."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Space has been pretty thoroughly colonized in this universe."

incanted
2013-06-15 05:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't see anybody living on the other planets in this solar system. Do you mean just conventionally habitable space?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I mean that if you take the goal of 'colonize space' to be 'put humans on more planets than Earth', which people on Earth tend to when they're discussing it theoretically, it has been done. There are something like a thousand inhabited planets across all the dimensions we know about, and plenty of room for expansion."

incanted
2013-06-15 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Aurora. "This is gonna be interesting. Anyway, I'm also motivated by alleviating crowding on Earth itself. And any other crowded planets I run into."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:34 pm (UTC)

"What's gonna be interesting?"

incanted
2013-06-15 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Belling in a world with lots of humans all over the place. Amariah's looking at something a little similar because Alethia's a worldsheaf too, but if any of her subworlds have the tech or the magic for space colonization absent her help I haven't heard about it. I think Angela's universe has other human colonies besides the one she grew up on but she's being very leisurely about ascending on her home planet, I don't think she's touched anything else yet. Aegis's world has some aliens, and humans are just starting to colonize. Syntropy has aliens too, in addition to all the talking trees-and-stars-and-cats-and-stuff. Juliet's got to deal with several thousand species of demon. But everyone else is pretty much looking at the contents of the planet they started on as far as anyone knows, so this exact setup is new. I get to be a template for the next Bell in the situation 'unbeknownst to Earth, there are humans all over the place'."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:38 pm (UTC)

Matilda laughs.

incanted
2013-06-15 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance wasn't able to tell me a whole lot about the whole interdimensional civilization situation, he didn't have a great vantage point. What's it like? Why'd Earth get left out even after you joined up with the TSAB?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Left out of what?"

incanted
2013-06-15 05:45 pm (UTC)

"The interdimensional civilization thing. It's not common knowledge and so far none of the miscellaneous presidents and prime ministers I've talked to knew magic existed. I didn't know till I met Brilliance."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Well... yes," says Matilda, "exactly. Earth has hardly any mages. So of course the TSAB doesn't bother the rest of them; they're not going around creating dimensional disturbances."

incanted
2013-06-15 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Is magic not common knowledge among non-mages in general? Is the TSAB just a free-floating enforcement organization that isn't associated with some kind of more civilian governance?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:53 pm (UTC)

"We're based on a planet called Mid-Childa. But the governing authority of Mid-Childa is vastly smaller than the jurisdiction of the TSAB. You know, come to think of it, I think Earth might be the only planet with a large enough population of non-mages that it's feasible for them not to know about magic. It's much more common everywhere else."

incanted
2013-06-15 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Well, I'm gonna fix that," shrugs Bella, "do you want to, like, appoint a liason to help me not mismanage mentioning TSAB-relevant things to the general population? Bells are good at lots of things but it seems generally a good idea for us to outsource heavy PR and diplomacy when we can."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Fix... what, exactly?"

incanted
2013-06-15 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Magic not being generally known. I'm not just pulling a Stella - she visibly terraformed Mars and put a sign with her email address on it in front of the probes when NASA flipped - I'm working with Earthly authorities on presentation and timing, might as well throw in TSAB authorities too. I mean, it's obviously possible to be a mage and not know it for at least seventeen years," she gestures at herself and Lexi, "so you might find yourself with more to do Earthwise than you currently have unless you just want to leave it all to me?"
Edited 2013-06-15 18:00 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-06-15 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Leave what all to you?" she asks patiently.

incanted
2013-06-15 06:05 pm (UTC)

"...Let me back up some. I'm going to go public on Earth as soon as I have a strategy. About magic, about my interest in doing useful things with it, about the availability of the Rainbowsand planetary colony. Now that I know that there is a TSAB, it's probably going to come up in conversation too. I don't know what your first contact policy is like for large planets rather than individual mages who happen to have been harassed by pirates, so I am inviting your organization to have input towards and/or participate in that segment of my going-public."
Edited 2013-06-15 22:05 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:06 pm (UTC)

"We don't really have a first-contact policy for large planets; it hasn't come up. I'll pass it on to some people and see what happens."

incanted
2013-06-15 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Okay, thanks. Earthside politicians move slow enough that I don't expect to be on TV in the next month anyway."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Politicians everywhere."

incanted
2013-06-15 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Rose ignores hers, but she mostly has low-tech monarchs. Golden usurped a shadow government and inherited all their spooky influence. Glass was already married into royalty when we found her. Me and Pattern and Stella and so on have to deal with," vague gesture, "Earth stuff from scratch. Well, Stella has a Libby - and Pattern imported one and Golden resurrected one, but imported and previously dead Libbies don't come with sinister networks so I'm not sure how much use the latter two get out of theirs. And Juliet has one but Juliet's working on demons before human stuff."
Edited 2013-06-15 22:19 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:20 pm (UTC)

"What is a Libby and what sorts of sinister networks do they usually come with?"

incanted
2013-06-15 10:22 pm (UTC)

"A Libby," says Bella, adding a purple cluster of coin colors to the chart, "is this template of whom we know four. In Aurum she's Golden's husband's biological mother; she hasn't matched up with the correct guy to get copies of Golden's husband anywhere else, though. Which is kind of a pity because Golden's kid is awesome. Anyway - you know what, I should probably actually check Rainbow for a Libby. I wasn't expecting you, maybe there's one of her too." Port?

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 10:29 pm (UTC)

The teleport fails.

incanted
2013-06-15 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Can't port to her right now, but there could still be one who's in the bathroom or something," shrugs Bella. "I'll try brainphoning later, that's probably a better idea anyway. Anyway, they are really good at figuring out what people are useful for. They make good personnel officers."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Sounds handy."

incanted
2013-06-15 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Quite. Stella and hers didn't make such great first impressions on each other, for a while it looked like they were going to be nemeses, but then her Libby met Golden's daughter Elspeth in Milliways and Elspeth sold her on Bells being awesome."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:38 pm (UTC)

"It's getting a little hard to keep all these people straight."

incanted
2013-06-15 10:38 pm (UTC)

"This is one of the many reasons I enjoy having perfect recall! Would you like some?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:41 pm (UTC)

"My memory is good enough for most purposes already."

incanted
2013-06-15 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Bella, who doesn't really understand turning down superpowers but isn't in the mood to argue about it.

lexicality
2013-06-15 10:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna go outside and set up a barrier and play with Persica's nifty special effects," says Lexi, hopping to her feet and waving at Matilda. "Thanks!"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:44 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome! Have fun!"

lexicality
2013-06-15 10:44 pm (UTC)

"We will!" And off she goes.

incanted
2013-06-15 10:45 pm (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:46 pm (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-15 10:48 pm (UTC)

"There's a standard suite of Bell superpowers - periodically updated when somebody comes up with something good or modifies something already in circulation - but perfect recall might be my favorite. It has some really stiff competition, too."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Such as?"

incanted
2013-06-15 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Teleporting, the defense wishes - one of those pirates shot at me a hell of a lot before Brilliance told me to let him go and deal with the cause instead of the symptom; I didn't feel a thing - the brainphone, flying. Plus torching, but that's not so much a suite thing as its own checklist item."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, I can already both fly and teleport," Matilda observes. "The brainphone is awfully handy. I wouldn't want to casually wish myself perfect recall because I have no guarantee that it would be enough of an improvement on the status quo to be worth the change."

incanted
2013-06-15 10:56 pm (UTC)

"If 'whatever the Bells are doing' doesn't suffice you could design your own, it's a hex either way," shrugs Bella.

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I might just do that."

incanted
2013-06-15 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Lemme know when you have something."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Will do."

incanted
2013-06-15 11:04 pm (UTC)

"What's the structure of the TSAB like? How big is it?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:05 pm (UTC)

"...Which you're asking because...?"

incanted
2013-06-15 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Curiosity. If you don't wanna tell me you don't have to."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I have a lot of discretion but not quite that much."

incanted
2013-06-15 11:07 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Can you tell me what your co-workers have been told about me?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Well, I took responsibility for the fact that your partner is an immensely powerful weapon. No one was really that interested in you."

incanted
2013-06-15 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Took responsibility for the fact that he's a powerful weapon meaning?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Meaning, the higher-ups wanted to know if he was likely to destroy any planets, and I said no. So if it turns out you want to play Death Star after all, I'm on the hook for it."

incanted
2013-06-15 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Me and Brilliance are agreed on no planet-destroying, so you're safe."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Good to know."

incanted
2013-06-15 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Left to his own devices he would probably mostly eat ludicrous amounts of pie. I'm more the do-gooder type."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:16 pm (UTC)

Matilda giggles. "He eats pie?"

incanted
2013-06-15 11:18 pm (UTC)

"He eats everything, he is very into gustatory experience, one time I walked into the kitchen," she waves a hand kitchenward, "and he just had this stack of pie plates, he's bottomless, he just turns food into mana."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:21 pm (UTC)

"That is precious."

incanted
2013-06-15 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I know, right?"

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:24 pm (UTC)

She nods firmly.

incanted
2013-06-15 11:24 pm (UTC)

"When I met him he had never tried any kind of food, I gave him some random leftovers and a banana and he was over the moon about it."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww."

incanted
2013-06-15 11:26 pm (UTC)

"He's very cute."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I can tell!"

incanted
2013-06-15 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, I assume you are very busy, I don't want to tie you up talking about how cute it is that my boyfriend eats a lot of pie if you have other things going on and only meant to drop by for ten minutes to see if Lexi and Persica got along."

withmypowers
2013-06-15 11:31 pm (UTC)

Matilda laughs.

"All right. I'll get back to you about the perfect recall thing," she promises, and Adularia shimmers, and they teleport away.

incanted
2013-06-15 11:32 pm (UTC)

Bella goes back to her articles on Eastern Europe.

When she is between articles some fifteen minutes later, she decides to try for a Libby again, by brainphone this time. [Testing -]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:34 pm (UTC)

[Excuse me?]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:34 pm (UTC)

[Oh! Cool! You exist! Hi. Uh, I haven't had to explain magic-and-so-on from scratch before, where do you want me to start?]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:35 pm (UTC)

[Your name would be nice.]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:35 pm (UTC)

[Bella,] laughs Bella.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:37 pm (UTC)

[Where you know me from, next.]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:38 pm (UTC)

[I don't know you. I have met four alternate-universe versions of you and only just now thought to check to see if this world had one. And it does!]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:39 pm (UTC)

[How are we currently communicating?]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:40 pm (UTC)

[It's called the brainphone, it is made with offworld magic. It also has a text channel, busy messages, and conference calls.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:42 pm (UTC)

[What exactly do you mean by 'offworld'?]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:43 pm (UTC)

[I mean, there are lots of worlds and worldsheaves - universes and collections thereof, not planets - of which this one and the dimensions that it is possible to reach with local magic is only one sheaf, and I have been to some more of them and met people from more still.]
Edited 2013-06-15 23:43 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:46 pm (UTC)

[And these people included alternate-universe versions of me? Who made a good enough impression on you that you then decided to see if you could dig up a local copy?]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:47 pm (UTC)

[The four of you work for four of me. There are more of me than of you so far, though, although I don't know if anyone else has actually run sweeps of their worlds for copies, the others ran into theirs through more coincidental means.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:51 pm (UTC)

[And what is it that you do?]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:52 pm (UTC)

[Have you noticed all those bewildered newspaper articles about oncologists being able to take simultaneous vacations all of a sudden? Among other things, but I think that made the biggest media splash.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:53 pm (UTC)

[I mean in the context of me working for you. What is it that you do?]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:54 pm (UTC)

[Oh, the other Libbies are on the books as personnel officers. Bells take over the world, is the concise way to put it - there's nuance, some of us don't actually do that, but that's the basic idea.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-15 11:54 pm (UTC)

[I see. Maybe now you'd like to explain what you mean by 'magic'.]

incanted
2013-06-15 11:55 pm (UTC)

[Do you even know about the local kind? Stella's Libby and Juliet's James knew about their local kinds. Pretty sure Slipstick knew about her original world's too although she's since moved worlds, not sure about the Aurum one.]
Edited 2013-06-15 23:56 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:04 am (UTC)

[Assume that I don't.]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:08 am (UTC)

[I'm going to take that as a "yes, I had my suspicions, but I feel like seeing how much you want me to know". Or possibly a "yes, my aunt is a mage, but...". Okay, well, local magic exists, there are people who have mana capacities and can do magic; I'm one of those, but I lean on it less than my offworld kinds lately. Apparently the word for us is "mage". There are also artificial Devices of intelligence levels varying from "amoeba" to "smart human" who can do or help mages do magic. I know less about the local system than I'd like because until the other day the only people I knew who had any were me, an equally underinformed sister, and a Device whose info is four hundred years out of date, but I recently found a Matilda-template in the Time-Space Administration Bureau and we've been talking, I bet she'll give me books on it if I ask nicely. Would you rather have this conversation in person?]
Edited 2013-06-16 00:09 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:14 am (UTC)

[Not particularly. I'm actually kind of busy right now. Go on. What can mages do? What can you do?]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:18 am (UTC)

[If you're busy we can talk later. Around the time I met the rest of me I had managed to conjure sweet potatoes with the use of mana. Also does flying, miscellaneous destruction, defense, conjured nifty magical girl outfits, teleportation, some stuff in the category my Device calls "matter manipulation", I need to ask Matilda for those books to give you any more details. My offworld magic to a first approximation does everything. Although I probably shouldn't resurrect any dead people until the interworld computer network's emergent intelligence wakes up again.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:26 am (UTC)

[I'm not too busy to talk, or I wouldn't be talking. So with your approximate omnipotence, you take over planets? And you're, what, looking to hire me to help?]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:27 am (UTC)

[Maybe. I mean, maybe you are unlike the other Libbies and do not wish to be somebell's personnel officer. Just thought it was worth looking.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:28 am (UTC)

[If you came bearing another Libby to back up your claims, I would find your offer a lot more tempting.]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:32 am (UTC)

[I can't produce one right now because Jane is down, and she's the one who does on-demand interworld travel. Unfortunately, she also does interworld time synchronization. This has happened before, although then the error message she threw was a lot less worrying; it could be hours or years before she comes back, I got lucky last time but some other places were spun off for over a decade. The old-fashioned way involves an interworld bar that appears according to thus-far-unfathomable whim. If you open a door and it goes to a bar instead of where it was supposed to go, have a look in the backyard and you'll see the Belltower; you could go in there and leave a note saying that if Stella, Juliet, Golden, or Pattern happens to see it you'd appreciate them forcing the door to Rainbow to introduce you to one of your alts. I'll let you know if I find a door, too.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:33 am (UTC)

[Thanks for the tip.]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:34 am (UTC)

[No problem. I can produce, like, illusory displays of all four of them, and mostly-secondhand information and snippets of conversation therewith from talking to other Bells about them, and common knowledge about the template from the Friends Of Bells book we maintain, but I haven't made close personal friends with any.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:38 am (UTC)

[By all means, produce those things. But not right now. Say, tomorrow?]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:39 am (UTC)

[Sure, whenever, I don't sleep and I don't have any meetings until Thursday.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:43 am (UTC)

[You don't sleep,] she repeats.

incanted
2013-06-16 12:44 am (UTC)

[Yeah. Standard Bell superpower that gets slapped on with everything else cool when we get access to the offworld magic. I can sleep, I just usually have better things to do.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:45 am (UTC)

[You know what would also make your offer more tempting? If I could get some of this lovely magic you're throwing around.]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:45 am (UTC)

[You just want me to standard-no-sleep you? I can do that.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:46 am (UTC)

[That would be nice of you.]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:46 am (UTC)

Hex. [There you go.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:49 am (UTC)

[Pleasure doing business with you.]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:50 am (UTC)

Bella snorts. [I can be freer with this kind of magic than most of my alts for reasons I'd rather not get into at this point in our relationship, but you will eventually run out of freebies like that except for the part where as far as I know you live on Earth and I'm on an Earth-improving spree.]
Edited 2013-06-16 00:50 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:52 am (UTC)

[And the magic in question is not easily mass-produced...?]

incanted
2013-06-16 12:56 am (UTC)

[Depends on what you mean by "mass" and "easily".]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:59 am (UTC)

[I mean, it wouldn't be feasible for you to produce enough of whatever magic wand you just waved at me to do the same thing to the entire population of Earth. For example.]

incanted
2013-06-16 01:00 am (UTC)

[I don't have seven billion of the thing I just did. I could do the entire population of Earth by using a bigger magic wand which can do more at once, but it would be kind of hard to get everyone's permission to magically mess with them in that way.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 01:00 am (UTC)

[I would like to know more about these magic wands.]

incanted
2013-06-16 01:01 am (UTC)

[I'm sure you would. They're not wand-shaped.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 01:01 am (UTC)

[Go on.]

incanted
2013-06-16 01:02 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. [They're wishes,] she says, [how's that?]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 01:14 am (UTC)

[I'm sensing a hint of evasiveness.]

incanted
2013-06-16 01:16 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I mentioned I haven't actually gotten to personally know the other four Libbies? I know you can probably be on board with my projects, but since I don't have a Libby Who Is Someone's Personnel Officer available to send to your house with a gift basket and literature on how awesome Bells are, and since I know sometimes Libbies have done slightly sketchy things before being in the employ of miscellaneous Bells, there is some evasiveness. Not a lot, I'll tell you most stuff, but I will not be telling you about what happens in place of a mommy wish and a daddy wish loving each other very much this very minute.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 01:25 am (UTC)

[I see. So you're afraid that I will get some of this magic power and then use it to oppose you. That suggests to me that either you don't know me very well, or I should be opposing you already.]

incanted
2013-06-16 01:31 am (UTC)

[I honestly can't think how you'd get ahold of a copy without coming into contact with more of me and therefore more of you. But I have just explained that I don't know you very well. I don't know the template except by hearsay and snatches of party chatter, and I know nothing about how on- or off-model you may individually be because you have chosen not to tell me and I have chosen not to violate your privacy. Bells vary a lot. Libbies vary too. One of them married a template who has more than once been found necessary to kill. One of them had some seriously unsavory spying behavior. As far as I know the other two have been unobjectionable, but one of them died during the Spanish Flu and the other one was like sixteen when located by her corresponding Bell for template-unrelated reasons.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 01:32 am (UTC)

[And you'll notice that I am not currently opposing you.]

incanted
2013-06-16 01:32 am (UTC)

[Yes, I appreciate that.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 01:33 am (UTC)

[Good.]

incanted
2013-06-16 01:36 am (UTC)

[Do you want to tell me anything about yourself or are you enjoying this thing where I muddle along based on having passing knowledge of several of your alts?]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 01:58 am (UTC)

[If you have anything more than passing knowledge, I'm sure you can guess why I might be reluctant to start divulging any kind of personal information to somebody I only met ten minutes ago.]

incanted
2013-06-16 02:00 am (UTC)

[You're supposed to be spectacular judges of character. I guess I wouldn't necessarily have heard about it if it only works in person or something.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 02:37 am (UTC)

[I am a spectacular judge of character, but I'm not a magical one. I need something to go on. And yes, talking to somebody in person helps.]

incanted
2013-06-16 02:38 am (UTC)

[Well, perhaps we will have a less cagey conversation tomorrow when you are not busy, then. In the meantime you are free to ask me things that aren't the one or two things I am slightly wary of telling an unfamiliar Libby.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 02:56 am (UTC)

[Tell me more about your plans for world conquest, then. That's always fun.]

incanted
2013-06-16 02:58 am (UTC)

[How much of the curing-diseases-unendangering-pandas-vanishing-landmines activity have you seen in the news? I wanna know where to start.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 12:14 pm (UTC)

[Assume I know nothing. It's not true, but it'll make your explanation more complete.]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:11 pm (UTC)

[Okay, well, I'm not going public yet but that doesn't mean I'm being discreet. I went through some lists of diseases and rendered them nonexistent. I'm currently debating what kind of consolation present to send to doctors whose jobs have been rendered irrelevant; for obvious reasons just conjuring piles of money for each one would be problematic, and they can't just all retrain as nutritionists or something. There are a lot more salmon in the Pacific Ocean now; I'm reading up to avoid damaging the ecosystems I'm trying to patch for other species, except on my mom's birthday I unendangered pandas. They might still be technically threatened, but there are a lot more of them now. There are no more lurking landmines in Southeast Asia. And I have presented myself to all uncontested world leaders, been shot at a few times, and ultimately convinced them all that shooting at me wouldn't get anywhere and they should talk to me instead; we're in periodic meetings about how to present me and my open-ended offer to the world, and so far as I know, it hasn't leaked, although I will not be stunned if six of your friends have been eavesdropping and told you something.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:17 pm (UTC)

[Did you not think of looking for me before inducing world leaders' bodyguards to shoot at you?]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:20 pm (UTC)

[I did not. I told you, everyone else found applicable Libbies organically. Golden's one is her mother-in-law. Juliet's succeeded her at a mystical destiny thing and Juliet went to warn her without finding out who she was until she brought her to Milliways and Stella ran into them and was like "aww you found a tiny Libby". Now that I have discovered that it is sometimes necessary to look for Libbies I'll tell the others as soon as I can and I'm sure we'll all run sweeps for known templates.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:25 pm (UTC)

[Well. If I was going to work for you, the first thing I'd do would be to find you some qualified diplomats.]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:25 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Please. Qualified diplomats would be awesome. I am not even the most diplomatic of Bells and even he is not all that diplomatic.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:27 pm (UTC)

[I'm getting that sense. Well, we'll see. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that you're not in such dire straits that you can't wait until tomorrow to benefit from my expertise.]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:28 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, nothing dire. It's not like getting shot at is a problem except insofar as it's a sign that something has already gone wrong. And for the record I didn't just unexpectedly teleport into anybody's office. Although I almost did that with you, which I gather would've been almost a worse idea. The ones who shot at me were like "yeah, visit at such and such a time" and when I showed up there was an ambush waiting. Very unfriendly.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:29 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Suddenly teleporting into my presence when I don't know who you are is not a friendly gesture. I'm glad you didn't do that.]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:30 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I guess you were in the bathroom or something, it's good that Shell Bell came up with that patch for the power before anyone had an embarrassing incident.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:32 pm (UTC)

[There was a time when you-plural were in the habit of teleporting to people without first making sure they weren't 'in the bathroom or something'?]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:38 pm (UTC)

[It never actually happened like that. Stella designed the original power, and she was almost invariably teleporting to places where if there was anybody there she'd talked to them first. The kind of magic in question isn't very good at plain information - it can give different results contingent on facts but it's not so great at just having us know stuff unless we pick out a sensory modality and everything, and it didn't occur to her to have her superpower just stop working sometimes. Shell Bell figured the bathroom thing wasn't a problem because it doesn't land us near enough people we're looking for to land us in a small room. Then she had a close call with a Tony she was looking for who later informed her that he had a very large bathroom, she fixed it, by the time I met the peal it had been patched for a while.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:40 pm (UTC)

[That's lucky.]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:41 pm (UTC)

[Yep.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:45 pm (UTC)

[For future reference, please don't teleport to me without explicitly warning me first.]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:45 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, sure, my sister's easily startled that way too.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:46 pm (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-16 04:48 pm (UTC)

[And I mentioned the brainphone does busy messages, if you ever want me to bounce off for some reason you can put one up.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:48 pm (UTC)

[Noted.]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:49 pm (UTC)

[Anything else you want to know now instead of later?]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 04:50 pm (UTC)

[I don't think so. I'll talk to you again when I am less busy.]

incanted
2013-06-16 04:50 pm (UTC)

[Okay, later.]

universal template sweep!

incanted

Bella's checks for templates other than herself, Brilliance, Matilda, Libby, and people attached to them like her and Lexi's parents or Libby's Chris turns up nothing - no friends, no villains.

Before Libby contacts her, she gets visitors.

"Shell Bell! Juliet! Wow, how long has it been for you guys?"

"At home, no time," says Shell Bell.

"Longer for me. I can get to Milliways anytime, but Jane is really fucking broken," says Juliet. "Not years, though, just a few months, and for a while nothing I urgently needed offworld help for came up. I finally had to force the door to Atlantis to get Shell Bell so we could go to Yggdrasil - the Jarvis there lost connection - and then we swung through all the other Jarvised worlds to quarantine a certain transmissible spell from Sunshine, and then we figured as long as we were together and Shell Bell can door near anywhere we'd stop here. For your charming company and also coins. Next is picking up Glass and trying for the world where Aegis went."

"Yeah, sure," says Aurora, "you can have coins, no problem - I'm not down much time, more than before but only about a week. It turns out I have a Matilda and also a Libby, but my Libby is less than impressed with me, I think, Juliet, can you run and get yours?"

"Working with Shell Bell's doors instead of Jane means the best way to do that without losing any time is going to your Libby and opening a door there," says Juliet. "Will she be up for that?"

"She said she'd call me today when she wasn't busy, I can bring you guys," nods Aurora. "If you don't mind waiting around a little."

"Well, in the meantime we could maybe meet your Matilda? Is she busy?" asks Shell Bell.

"I'll check."

[Hey, Matilda! Guess who's here!]

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:21 pm (UTC)

[Santa Claus?] she says whimsically.

incanted
2013-06-16 05:22 pm (UTC)

[Pff. No. Shell Bell and Juliet stopped in. Jane's still down, but Shell Bell has an aura feature that interacts with Milliways doors and Juliet has a self-aware building that can let her into Milliways anytime, and they swung by here.]

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:24 pm (UTC)

[Ooh. Introductions?]

incanted
2013-06-16 05:25 pm (UTC)

[Sure, they're in my house.]

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:27 pm (UTC)

[I'll be there in a minute. Preference for where I should land?]

incanted
2013-06-16 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Same place you landed last time will be fine.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Is she coming?"

incanted
2013-06-16 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, she'll be here in a minute."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:34 pm (UTC)

Matilda teleports into Aurora's living room with Adularia in her moonstone pendant form.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" waves Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 05:37 pm (UTC)

"That's Shell Bell, I'm Juliet," adds Juliet.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm Matilda," says Matilda. "For redundancy purposes you can call me Agent Honey."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 05:39 pm (UTC)

"That works. I assume Aurora already told you the other two are 'Tilly' and 'Matilda'."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:40 pm (UTC)

"She mentioned as much, yes."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I actually met Matilda when we were both six, in Milliways, and we conducted experiments with her magic until I got spooked by a giant squid in the lake," says Shell Bell, "and ran away and didn't find her again until I was older."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:42 pm (UTC)

"That sounds adorable."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 05:43 pm (UTC)

"It was," laughs Shell Bell. "And then it turned out she has contagious magic, but it didn't like me. I got some other magic later, though, I was the second Bell to mint."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Contagious magic, you say?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Cam tried it too, and he got a little bit, enough for small telekinesis but nothing huge. Glass was going to schedule an appointment to try it too but then Jane broke."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I will have to try her contagious magic," says Matilda.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Tilly got plenty, but it's not consistent within our template so we don't know about yours," shrugs Shell Bell.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Although you can be sure that if any of us get more than enough to just barely pour milk into our cereal in the morning we'll have the distributors' calendars booked till we've all got it."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:52 pm (UTC)

"We'll see, I guess."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Yep. If you're impatient, I can get you a door to Wellspring."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 05:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm patient. But I'll take the door anyway if it happens to be convenient."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 06:01 pm (UTC)

"It's Shell Bell's aura power. Doesn't even need a coin," says Juliet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 06:06 pm (UTC)

"But," Shell Bell says, "getting contagious magic can take a while - if it was just a minute per person we'd have all tried it by now - and we'd have to all come with you so nobody would be stranded without me. I have a design for an anniversary festival to work out; do you guys have stuff to do?"

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I have books on my to-conjure-and-read list about various demons. Always with the various demons. And also I need to catch up Aurora on what's happened in Sunshine since Jane went down."

incanted
2013-06-16 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I apparently need to be caught up, and Agent Honey recommended me some books on local magic - apparently we are 'mages', not 'sorceresses'," says Aurora. "Sounds like we're all set, let's have a door."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell flares, and opens the door, and lo, it is Milliways. "After you," she says, and the other Bells file in.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

Matilda follows.

"Ooh," she says, peering around the bar. Adularia shimmers.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 06:15 pm (UTC)

Aura still unfurled, Shell Bell closes and then reopens the door to Wellspring. [Hey, Matilda!]

withmypowers
2013-06-16 06:21 pm (UTC)

[Fancy seeing you here,] says Wellspring's Matilda. [Do you know anything about "error 18920: cannot connect to monitor lizard"?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 06:23 pm (UTC)

[Jane broke. Worse than last time. I can't fix her, but I can door places. Rainbow turns out to have one of you and she wants Wellspring magic.]

withmypowers
2013-06-16 06:30 pm (UTC)

[I see,] says Matilda. [Well, why don't you all come visit? I'm at home and Jenny's at work. It'll be just us.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Porting to her place," warns Shell Bell, and she transports the entire party to Matilda's location.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 07:46 pm (UTC)

Matilda looks at Agent Honey.

Agent Honey looks at Matilda.

They both grin.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 07:47 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell laughs, and floats in the air, and starts working through her aforementioned festival design in her head.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 07:47 pm (UTC)

Juliet laughs, and starts explaining to Aurora about Soph.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

The Matildas have a short discussion that ends in Agent Honey levitating while she reads up on the local magic system using a conjured laptop. Adularia shimmers contentedly.

incanted
2013-06-16 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Since we're going to be here a while anyway, can you get me and Juliet too while you're at it?" asks Aurora.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, even if we don't all get it sticking at the same time it'll shorten future attempts, right?"

withmypowers
2013-06-16 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Sure," Matilda says agreeably. Aurora and Juliet also begin to levitate.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Thanks." Juliet finishes her Soph-summary, then conjures a large onionskin-page grimoire and finds her spot on page 344.

incanted
2013-06-16 07:55 pm (UTC)

Aurora conjures a book about Rainbow magic and starts at the beginning.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 07:56 pm (UTC)

Book-reading levitation party!
Edited 2013-06-16 19:56 (UTC)

incanted
2013-06-16 07:56 pm (UTC)

Yep!

withmypowers
2013-06-16 08:00 pm (UTC)

After half an hour goes by, Matilda says, "Congratulations, alternate me!"

Agent Honey floats down to the ground. And then floats back up.

"Ooh, I like it," she says.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Anything sticking to me or Aurora?"

withmypowers
2013-06-16 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Not so far. Do you want to keep trying?"

incanted
2013-06-16 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Later," says Aurora. "Unless you want to come to Rainbow with us."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Nah," says Matilda. "You guys go have your fun."

"We will," says Agent Honey.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Actually, is it contagious if anyone does the levitating? Can Agent Honey do it now?"

withmypowers
2013-06-16 08:23 pm (UTC)

"...Yes," say both of the Matildas simulatenously. They exchange a glance, then giggle.

incanted
2013-06-16 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Cool, maybe next time we talk you just float me the whole time?" suggests Aurora.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 08:25 pm (UTC)

"And me too, especially if you come along to meet Rainbow Libby."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Deal," says Agent Honey.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Am I taking you back to Rainbow right now, or do you want to hang out a bit more?" asks Shell Bell of the Matildas.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm good to go," says Agent Honey.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Shell Bell reaches for the nearest door, flares, turns the handle.

incanted
2013-06-16 08:31 pm (UTC)

In Milliways, Aurora opens the door back to her own world.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 08:36 pm (UTC)

And the local Libby brainphones her.

[Hi.]

incanted
2013-06-16 08:36 pm (UTC)

[Hi! Guess who showed up!]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 08:37 pm (UTC)

[I couldn't begin to imagine.]

incanted
2013-06-16 08:38 pm (UTC)

[Shell Bell and Juliet dropped by. Shell Bell does doors and Juliet has a Libby, you want us to come by and show you Milliways? And Agent Matilda Honey is here, too.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 08:39 pm (UTC)

[Agent of what?]

incanted
2013-06-16 08:40 pm (UTC)

[The Time-Space Administration Bureau, they go around making sure no one is damaging spacetime. Matildas are a friendly template.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 08:42 pm (UTC)

[I approve of no one damaging spacetime! All right, you can come visit.]

incanted
2013-06-16 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Porting to Libby," warns Aurora, and poof!

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Hello, everyone," says the local Libby. They are in her living room, which is very similar to the Eos Libby's, not that anyone present has ever been there. It's clean and tidy and sparsely but exquisitely decorated.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Juliet. "I'm Juliet, this is Shell Bell, the one you've been talking to is Aurora. If you'll follow us to Milliways I can stick my head into Sunshine and get James, is that the idea?"

incanted
2013-06-16 08:47 pm (UTC)

"That is the idea," confirms Aurora.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 08:48 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell's aura, calm but powerful, flares, and she reaches for the nearest door, and here again is Milliways.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's intriguing," says Rainbow's Libby, who really needs a distinguishing nickname of her very own.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Yep! I love my aura."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 08:51 pm (UTC)

When everyone is inside and the door is shut, Juliet opens it again. [Hey James! Rainbow Libby exists, c'mere!]

neverbeatme
2013-06-16 09:00 pm (UTC)

James appears.

"Ooh, a me."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, a me!" agrees the Rainbow Libby.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:04 pm (UTC)

Juliet ushers James into the bar. "James, Rainbow Libby yet un-nicknamed; Rainbow Libby, this is James."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I decline to be named 'Rainbow Libby' any longer," says the referenced person. "Aurora, would you be so kind as to pick a non-redundant nickname for 'Elizabeth'?"

incanted
2013-06-16 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Nobody's using Betty yet?" suggests Aurora after a moment.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Hmm, I'm not a fan. Is anyone using Beth?"

incanted
2013-06-16 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Also not taken, help yourself."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Nicknames in use are James, Libby, Slipstick, and Granny," adds Juliet.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 09:12 pm (UTC)

"And now Beth," says Beth.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I'll go leave notes in the Belltower, for all the good it'll do," says Juliet, and she pops out.

neverbeatme
2013-06-16 09:14 pm (UTC)

"So me and Beth are going to go hang out and rudely gossip about you guys behind your backs, sound good?" says James.

incanted
2013-06-16 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Pff," says Aurora. "Yeah, go for it, me and Shell Bell can hang out waiting."

neverbeatme
2013-06-16 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Great!" says James. She leads Beth away through the bar.

incanted
2013-06-16 09:19 pm (UTC)

Aurora and Shell Bell sit at the bar, get drinks, are presently joined by Juliet, and all hang out catching up on things that have happened in Rainbow and Sunshine while Jane's been out. Nothing has happened in Atlantis, but there are half-formed thoughts about the possibility of Atlantean princesses at some point in the future, probably following an Atlantean royal wedding.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:21 pm (UTC)

"You were going to float us," Juliet reminds Agent Honey, when she joins her alts at the bar.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I was!"

She floats them.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" And Juliet begins her story about how she accidentally inherited demonic minions, and shows off a pretty illusion of her palace on Mercury.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's lovely," says Agent Honey.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! This section of plants is from a dimension where everything makes noises if you touch it. It's really loud all together - the animals scream at each other, the wind blows and all the plants sing and they don't care about sounding pretty - but I picked out some stuff that looked nice and made good chords. The minions have been playing with some of the fruits."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:28 pm (UTC)

"That's adorable," she giggles.

incanted
2013-06-16 09:31 pm (UTC)

"The most interesting thing that's happened to me since Jane went down is that Brilliance got kidnapped," says Aurora. "I didn't notice for - I don't even know exactly how long, I should check - until I tried to talk to him and he wouldn't answer. It is surprisingly difficult to intimidate confused space pirates with the mere fact of nigh-omnipotence, did you know? I wound up hexing super-strength just so I could pick one up."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Hey Bar, can we arm-wrestle here or should we take it outside?" laughs Juliet.

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:33 pm (UTC)

A napkin appears bearing the inscription, Outside, please.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Agent Honey, you're our ride, so if you please," says Juliet, gesturing at the door, "I want to see how hexed generic super-strength stacks up against Slayerishness."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:36 pm (UTC)

Agent Honey ferries her cargo out to the lake area of Milliways.

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 09:37 pm (UTC)

Juliet locates the rock on which Nathan and Aianon once arm-wrestled, patches it up, and plants her elbow on it.

incanted
2013-06-16 09:37 pm (UTC)

"This is silly," asserts Aurora, but she mirrors Juliet, and they wrestle, and Juliet wins.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:39 pm (UTC)

Agent Honey giggles.

incanted
2013-06-16 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Want to see the Belltower, Agent Honey?" asks Aurora, gesturing thereat.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

She heads for the Belltower, bringing her passengers along.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 09:45 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell's the one who can move independently and knows the place, so she takes on the role of tour guide. The broken Janepoint, the emptied party setup, the extra floors, the Bellbook and associated other books.

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, books."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Feel free to read them," says Shell Bell. "The trade secrets don't get written."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:53 pm (UTC)

She picks up the Bellbook and starts flipping through it.

"Trade secrets?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 09:57 pm (UTC)

"How to safely handle stars and up; how to deal with a rogue mint."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Aha."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I can only imagine being poor Stella before she knew how to do stars. I had to use a tenner the other month."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Fortunately we know now."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 10:02 pm (UTC)

"What are you prevented from doing if you don't know how to use stars?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Stars are important for scale," explains Shell Bell. "I needed one to put a city on the moon. Anything that affects an entire planet is probably going to be a star."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 10:05 pm (UTC)

"And the next coin up is necessary to get any of our powers to persist through torching," says Juliet, "and the next one after that is good for changes to basic laws of nature over a subworld, and a tenner suffices to make a subworld with desired parameters and give you root access to its reality - or just pick up a particularly magic-resistant hell goddess and put her Downside for the admin to deal with, which is what I spent one on."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Agent Honey.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Of those of us who rely on Aurora's excess the two of us will have the easiest time actually getting to Rainbow in a pinch. I wouldn't turn down a top-up but we should probably check on Glass first in case she's desperately low."

incanted
2013-06-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Agreed."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

"We can wait for James and Beth, though."

neverbeatme
2013-06-16 10:18 pm (UTC)

James and Beth return after a little while longer.

"Beth is now minted," James announces. "And on board with general Belling."

cross_and_bow
2013-06-16 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Excellent. Thanks, James."

incanted
2013-06-16 10:19 pm (UTC)

"That will make it easier to do my general Belling, yeah, thanks."

neverbeatme
2013-06-16 10:20 pm (UTC)

James grins.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 10:20 pm (UTC)

Beth smiles.

incanted
2013-06-16 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Are Libbies and Agent Honey accompanying us to look for Glass?" inquires Aurora.

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll go home, if it's all the same to you guys."

neverbeatme
2013-06-16 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Ditto that."

withmypowers
2013-06-16 10:22 pm (UTC)

"No way am I missing out on meeting Glass," says Agent Honey.

incanted
2013-06-16 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay, well, James knows and Beth should know that the door will take you both back where you came from; if things are working normally it'll be no time to speak of between then and when we come back."

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Unless something else is going on. I left Tune home and he's syncing me to Atlantis."

prima_sequentem
2013-06-16 10:31 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Beth.

neverbeatme
2013-06-16 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says James. The pair of them wander off.

she_sells_seashells
2013-06-16 10:33 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell heads for the door after them, waits for them to go home, and then flares again to door to Chronicle.

cotton candy

thaumobabble

In some ways, Bella does a lot, very quickly; and in other ways she does almost nothing at all.

She does not have to be secretive - she has no enemies, her world is accustomed to the introduction of strange wonders and will not fall apart with any revelation. She revives a large number of dead people - although none of Marianne's direct ancestors - and sends them home to surprised but happy families. She renders a larger number of people torchable. She sends letters to the monarchs of neighboring realms indicating that she is available to help with any unusual difficulties in which they may find themselves, and that she would appreciate introductions to their farther-flung neighbors. That is the "a lot".

But her world is made of cotton candy, and she has no intention of dumping a bucket of water on it in the hopes of rinsing off small amounts of dust. She is not usurping her mother-in-law, she is not conquering miscellaneous other kingdoms, she is not ridding the world of all its annoying but ultimately not mean pitfalls and hazards. (She does make it a condition of rendering dragons torchable that they must not eat anyone except trespassing Orthodox wizards.) She is mostly staying at home with her wives and her daughters, reading Rose's books, chattering endlessly with Kanim about all the exciting experiments they'll conduct with the new forms of magic available.

When Jane goes down, Bella has to make sheepish announcements that her resurrection powers turned out to be impermanent; she hopes they will return but can offer no timetable.

Meanwhile, news of one specific resurrection (Howard's) has spread far and wide.

pythbox
2013-06-18 08:35 pm (UTC)

Some months after Jane goes down, Queen Marianne mentions over tea with her daughters and daughter-in-law,

"The Duchess of Toure-on-Marsh has just sent us a letter saying she has twin children just about the princesses' age, and she was wondering if we would like to introduce them."
Edited 2013-06-18 20:56 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 08:56 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like a fine idea to me," says Bella.

allthebrightest
2013-06-18 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure!" says Tony.

calendarofcrime
2013-06-18 08:58 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

pythbox
2013-06-18 09:34 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Marianne. "I'll write back."

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 09:36 pm (UTC)

After tea, Bella informs the children that they'll be getting visitors soon from Toure-on-Marsh.

carillons
2013-06-18 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Where's that?" wonders Tanalin.

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 09:39 pm (UTC)

"It's a little past Sathem-by-the-Mountains, where Kanim is from. I can show you on a map if you'd like."

carillons
2013-06-18 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 09:45 pm (UTC)

Bella conjures up a political map of the continent. The Enchanted forest is geographically enormous - if variable around the edges and not densely populated - and takes up about a third of it; then here are the Mountains of Morning, and here are a lot of little kingdoms including -

"Toure-on-Marsh," says Bella, pointing.

campanas
2013-06-18 09:45 pm (UTC)

"It's little!" coos Kiawen.

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 09:46 pm (UTC)

"It has a bunch of people in it, though," says Bella.

carillons
2013-06-18 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Are they teeny tiny people?" giggles Tanalin.

campanas
2013-06-18 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Teeny people!" cries Kiawen. "Elves. Smaller! Double-elves, so high!" She holds a hand at her own knee level.

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Ordinary-sized people," laughs Bella. "They just live close together in cities, instead of all spread out like in the Enchanted Forest."

carillons
2013-06-18 09:59 pm (UTC)

Tanalin giggles some more.

campanas
2013-06-18 10:01 pm (UTC)

"But what do they do when they want to be alone?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 10:02 pm (UTC)

"They still have their own rooms per person and houses per family," says Bella. "The houses are just right next to each other."

carillons
2013-06-18 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Who's visiting?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Duchess Kiria is going to bring her children to meet you. They're twins - regular ones - and about your age."

campanas
2013-06-18 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Are they nice? I only like nice people," says Carinna.

thaumobabble
2013-06-18 11:15 pm (UTC)

"You'll have to decide for yourself if they are nice enough for you," says Bella.

campanas
2013-06-18 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I bet they are," says Kiawen optimistically.

Kiawen is so optimistic that she's out in front of the castle, playing with Cricket, when the visitors arrive, instead of waiting for them to knock.

longdistancebells
2013-06-18 11:21 pm (UTC)

The visitors are a shortish red-haired man with black-rimmed spectacles and his two shortish red-haired children, one wearing a blue dress and the other a green tunic.

"Hello!" the man says cheerfully. "Are you by any chance a princess?"

campanas
2013-06-18 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I am!" says Kiawen. "Guess which one, there are six!"

longdistancebells
2013-06-18 11:23 pm (UTC)

"I guess that you're one of the smaller three!" he says. "Did I get it right? Do I get a prize?"

His daughter giggles.

campanas
2013-06-18 11:25 pm (UTC)

Kiawen grins and hugs Cricket for no particular reason; Cricket tolerates this. "Yes but which one?"

longdistancebells
2013-06-18 11:34 pm (UTC)

"That's a hard question!" exclaims the man. "I didn't know there would be hard questions."

campanas
2013-06-18 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I'll give you three guesses," suggests Kiawen generously.

longdistancebells
2013-06-18 11:35 pm (UTC)

He peers at her, as though suspecting a trick.

"I guess Kiawen!"

campanas
2013-06-18 11:37 pm (UTC)

"You didn't even need all three!" says Kiawen, letting go of Cricket to clap for him. Cricket tends to his much-abused fur.

longdistancebells
2013-06-18 11:41 pm (UTC)

"I'm lucky that way," he says. "Hello, Princess Kiawen! I'm Ian, and these terrifying creatures are my son Icarin and my daughter Valeria."

"Boo," says Valeria gleefully, waving her arms.

"I'm not very terrifying, he's just being silly," says Icarin.

campanas
2013-06-18 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm not even a bit terrified. Hello, it's nice to meet you! Carinna says I should find out if you are nice so she can stay away if you are not nice," says Kiawen. "She only likes nice people."

longdistancebells
2013-06-18 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm very nice," Ian assures her. "My wife tells me so all the time."

"I don't know if I'm nice," Icarin says thoughtfully. "How do you tell?"

Valeria cackles.

campanas
2013-06-18 11:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure!" muses Kiawen. "But Carinna said I had to find out. She's very sensitive," she explains. "Cricket, go get Tanalin pretty please and she can help?"

"Mow," says Cricket, and he lopes castleward.
Edited 2013-06-18 23:47 (UTC)

allthebrightest
2013-06-18 11:49 pm (UTC)

It turns out that Tanalin is in the forge with Tony and Howard, watching them argue excitedly about flying armour. Tony is doing most of the talking.

alicornucopia
2013-06-18 11:54 pm (UTC)

Cricket cannot make himself understood to anyone in the room, but he can bat expressively at Tanalin's elbow with a paw.

carillons
2013-06-19 12:43 am (UTC)

"Hi, Cricket!" says Tanalin. "Do you want to show me something?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 12:44 am (UTC)

"Mew." He turns and leads her out to the front part of the palace grounds, where are visitors and Carinna.

campanas
2013-06-19 12:44 am (UTC)

"This one is Tanalin!" says Kiawen. "I won't make you guess because you heard me tell Cricket."

carillons
2013-06-19 12:46 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Tanalin. "Are you the people from the tiny kingdom?"

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 12:47 am (UTC)

"Almost!" says Ian. "We're the people from the tiny duchy. I'm Ian, and this is Icarin and that's Valeria."

"Hi," says Icarin shyly.

"Hi!" says Valeria.

campanas
2013-06-19 12:48 am (UTC)

"Do you think they're nice?" Kiawen asks Tanalin. "I don't know how to tell but Carinna wanted us to make sure."

carillons
2013-06-19 12:49 am (UTC)

"I don't know how to tell either!" says Tanalin. "Maybe we should ask a mom."

campanas
2013-06-19 12:50 am (UTC)

"Yeah! Let's ask a mom. Which one, do you think? If there's a magic to learn about niceness I bet Bella knows it but maybe there isn't."

carillons
2013-06-19 12:54 am (UTC)

"Sherlock is good at finding stuff out!" says Tanalin. "But I don't know where she is, and I don't know where Bella is, and I do know where Tony is, she's in the forge with Grandpa Howard."

campanas
2013-06-19 12:55 am (UTC)

"Is she busy?"

carillons
2013-06-19 01:09 am (UTC)

"Maybe. She's not busy busy, she's not making stuff or anything."

campanas
2013-06-19 01:10 am (UTC)

"Okay. I'll go get her and you can stay here because I have been talking to these people who might be nice for longer," says Kiawen, and off she runs to the forge.

Cricket, meanwhile, investigates Valeria.

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:11 am (UTC)

"Hi, kitty!" says Valeria. "Cricket, right?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 01:12 am (UTC)

"Mow," agrees Cricket.

campanas
2013-06-19 01:12 am (UTC)

"Tonyyyy," says Kiawen when she gets to the forge.

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:15 am (UTC)

"I wanna pet you," Val declares, reaching for Cricket.

allthebrightest
2013-06-19 01:18 am (UTC)

"Hey, you," says Tony. "What's the occasion?"

campanas
2013-06-19 01:18 am (UTC)

"Carinna wanted us to make sure the people from Toure-on-Marsh were nice! But we don't know how to tell! Can you tell?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 01:19 am (UTC)

Cricket decides to permit petting.

allthebrightest
2013-06-19 01:20 am (UTC)

"I don't know!" says Tony. "But I'm not gonna find out just sitting here! Let's go meet the people."

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:23 am (UTC)

Petpetpet!

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 01:23 am (UTC)

Flop. Purr.

campanas
2013-06-19 01:24 am (UTC)

Kiawen leads her out to where the visitors and Tanalin and Cricket are.

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:28 am (UTC)

"You're fluffy!" Val tells Cricket. "I like you. 'Cause you're fluffy."

allthebrightest
2013-06-19 01:29 am (UTC)

"Well, she's making friends with Cricket, that's a plus," laughs Tony. "Hi! I'm Tony! You must be Duke Ian. Do you guys wanna come inside?"

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 01:29 am (UTC)

Ian glances at his son and says, "Yes. Yes we do."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 01:30 am (UTC)

"Mrow," Cricket agrees.

campanas
2013-06-19 01:31 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Kiawen, and she runs in ahead of everyone to warn Carinna.

The girls are not really used to the brainphone being available yet.

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 01:34 am (UTC)

Ian collects his children and follows Tony into the castle.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 01:34 am (UTC)

Cricket unhelpfully winds around Valeria's legs while she walks. It is a cat obligation.

carillons
2013-06-19 01:41 am (UTC)

Tanalin tags along, giggling.

campanas
2013-06-19 01:43 am (UTC)

Now they are inside the castle!

Kiawen peers at Valeria and Icarin, trying to see if they are nice or not.
Edited 2013-06-19 01:44 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:45 am (UTC)

Valeria is doing her best not to step on Cricket. Icarin is doing his best to be visible to as few people as possible, which amounts to imitating Cricket with his father as the target instead of Valeria.

campanas
2013-06-19 01:46 am (UTC)

"Are you okay?" says Kiawen to Icarin. "We're nice. You can tell because Carinna will talk to us!"

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:47 am (UTC)

"I've never met Carinna," says Icarin, peeking out from behind his father. "And there are a lot of you. Two small princesses and one big princess and a cat! I didn't know there was going to be a cat."

campanas
2013-06-19 01:48 am (UTC)

"He's Bella's cat," explains Kiawen. "He's soft!"

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:49 am (UTC)

"He is!" says Valeria.

"He's unexpected," says Icarin.

campanas
2013-06-19 01:49 am (UTC)

"Do you not like surprises?" asks Kiawen. "Even soft cat surprises?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:54 am (UTC)

"Well - they're surprising," says Icarin. "So I don't know what to think about them."

campanas
2013-06-19 01:55 am (UTC)

"Sometimes Carinna doesn't like surprises either. Like if you hide and then jump out she hates that."

pythbox
2013-06-19 01:56 am (UTC)

"That is unpleasant," Icarin agrees.
Edited 2013-06-19 01:56 (UTC)

campanas
2013-06-19 02:00 am (UTC)

"I don't mind it! That's why I can test people for her even though I'm not very good at it."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 02:00 am (UTC)

Cricket, having deemed Valeria an acceptable source of petting, solicits additions to the extant amount of petting that has gone on.

pythbox
2013-06-19 02:03 am (UTC)

"Maybe I should go and talk to Carinna and Val should stay and talk to you," says Icarin. "I am much less surprising than she is."

Val pets Cricket. "Fluffy," she observes.
Edited 2013-06-19 02:03 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 02:05 am (UTC)

Cricket is exceedingly fluffy.

campanas
2013-06-19 02:05 am (UTC)

"Maybe!" says Kiawen. "I dunno. Tony, do you think he's nice enough for Carinna or will she cry?"

allthebrightest
2013-06-19 12:02 pm (UTC)

"I think he's probably nice enough," Tony decides.

campanas
2013-06-19 03:26 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Kiawen, "come on then, I'll show you where she is."

pythbox
2013-06-19 03:31 pm (UTC)

Off he goes!

campanas
2013-06-19 03:32 pm (UTC)

Carinna is up in her room with a book.

She peers at Icarin warily when Kiawen introduces him, but says, "I'm Carinna," in a perfectly polite tone.

pythbox
2013-06-19 03:34 pm (UTC)

"Hi," sas Icarin nervously.

campanas
2013-06-19 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Tony thinks he is nice but if he's not you can shoo him," Kiawen assures her sister, and then the youngest princess skips off.

campanas
2013-06-19 03:36 pm (UTC)

"So, um," says Carinna, "what do you like doing?"
Edited 2013-06-19 15:36 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-19 03:38 pm (UTC)

"...Reading," says Icarin. "And building stuff."

campanas
2013-06-19 03:39 pm (UTC)

"I like reading too. I'm not sure if it's a visitors thing, though," says Carinna thoughtfully. "You have red hair. Are you a fire-witch?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! So's my sister and both my parents," he says. "But not all my grandparents."

campanas
2013-06-19 04:09 pm (UTC)

"My grandma is a fire witch but kind of thinned out, and Sherlock and Tony only a little bit and they don't have the hair, and me and my sisters can touch hot stuff but that's all. I like hot glass. It feels neat."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:11 pm (UTC)

"I've never held hot glass," says Icarin. "What's it like?"

campanas
2013-06-19 04:12 pm (UTC)

"It's kind of gooey," says Carinna. "I am not supposed to get it under my nails because it would be hard to get out if it cooled there."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess it would," he agrees. "Like mud but way worse."

campanas
2013-06-19 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. One time I did get some under one of my nails and it was stuck, and this was before Bella got extra-fancy-magic, so I just had to hold my hand in the fire until it got soft again and then get it out like that."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:17 pm (UTC)

Icarin winces. "I bet that wasn't fun. I hate when I get stuff stuck to me."

campanas
2013-06-19 04:17 pm (UTC)

"It didn't hurt," says Carinna consideringly. "But it was annoying. I had to hold my book with just one hand while it was warming up."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:20 pm (UTC)

"It wasn't icky or anything?"

campanas
2013-06-19 04:22 pm (UTC)

"No. Kind of itchy, when it was all cooled off and hard."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Weird," he says. "I wonder what that's like, but I don't think I wonder enough to try it."

campanas
2013-06-19 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't think you should," agrees Carinna. "I get my nails cut before I'm going to make glass things that way, now."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:25 pm (UTC)

"That is sensible!" says Icarin, smiling a little.

campanas
2013-06-19 04:27 pm (UTC)

"'Wen and 'Lin mostly do things with metal, not glass. Bella is the mom who does glass. She likes it for magicking."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:28 pm (UTC)

"You have a lot of moms," Icarin observes. "Most people I know only have one."

campanas
2013-06-19 04:30 pm (UTC)

"We're lucky like that," says Carinna. "Bella said when I asked that technically I'm hers and Sherlock's and technically 'Wen and 'Lin are hers and Tony's, but it doesn't matter, we're all all of theirs and they are moms together."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:46 pm (UTC)

"How come you're the only kids with three moms?" he wonders.

campanas
2013-06-19 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Bella did magic to make us," says Carinna. "And Sherlock and Tony are identical twins and they both wanted to marry her. So they did! And now they are all moms together."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:56 pm (UTC)

"That is cute," Icarin announces.

campanas
2013-06-19 04:59 pm (UTC)

Carinna giggles. "If I hadn't come along then Tony couldn't have married Bella. Since there had to be heirs, since Grandma wasn't immortal then."

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Your grandma's immortal?" says Icarin.

campanas
2013-06-19 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. And Grandpa and all my moms and me and my sisters and Cricket and Kanim and some other people, too. That's some of the extra fancy magic Bella got. She can immortal people."
Edited 2013-06-19 17:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:03 pm (UTC)

"She should immortal my parents!" asserts Icarin.

campanas
2013-06-19 05:04 pm (UTC)

"They should ask her, then, she probably will," says Carinna.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:06 pm (UTC)

"I should go find my dad and tell him to! Otherwise he might not think of it," says Icarin.

campanas
2013-06-19 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Okay. Do you want me to come with?" asks Carinna.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "Otherwise I might get lost. I don't know your castle very well yet."

campanas
2013-06-19 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Some of the doors open to more than one place, because magic," says Carinna, hopping to her feet and leading him down to where she expects guests to be lingering.

She pauses at the doorway, peeping out at the strangers.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:10 pm (UTC)

Icarin locates his father, marches up to him, and says, "You should ask Princess Bella to immortal you!"

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:10 pm (UTC)

"All right," Ian says agreeably. "Where is Princess Bella?"

campanas
2013-06-19 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Probably in one of the stacked rooms," says Kiawen. "The library or her workshop or something."

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:14 pm (UTC)

"And how would I go about finding her?"

campanas
2013-06-19 05:17 pm (UTC)

"There is the brainphone!" says Carinna. "Then she can just come here. I almost forgot it." And she closes her eyes and tilts her head and summons Bella.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:18 pm (UTC)

Pop. "What is it?" Bella inquires. "Oh! You're here! I didn't realize. Hello, it's nice to meet you, I'm Bella."

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Bella! I'm Ian!" says Ian. "And this is Icarin and that's Valeria and I've just been told," he ruffles his son's hair, "that I should ask you to immortal me."

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Oh!" laughs Bella. "Let's see - is there any reason you or I might regret that? It's very permanent."

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know, is there? How does it work?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Once I've done it, if you would die for some reason, instead you reset on the spot," says Bella. "It also tends to pull appearances towards mid-twenties - for humans - but it's compatible with normal growing for people younger than that." She scritches Carinna's head.

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, if it works for you and your family, I don't see any reason not to want it for me and mine," he shrugs.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:32 pm (UTC)

"That's fair. Will you want me to visit the Duchess and cover her as well?"

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:34 pm (UTC)

"That would be very nice of you!"

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay then." She peers at Valeria and Icarin. "D'you two want to live forever?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes please!" says Icarin.

"Sure!" says Valeria.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:37 pm (UTC)

Bella makes three illustrative gestures. "Done, done, and done. Will Duchess Kiria be alarmed if I just teleport directly to her?"

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:39 pm (UTC)

"You know, I'm really not sure," says Ian. "You could bring me along, I'm sure she'd find that much less alarming."

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay then."

Pop!

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:44 pm (UTC)

The duchess is a woman of about her husband's height, with long curly red hair where his is short and straight. She is currently sitting behind a large oak desk in a comfortable little office, reading reports.

"Surprise, darling!" says Ian.

"Ian!" beams Kiria. "And who's this?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Princess Bella, of the Enchanted Forest," Bella says. "Pleased to meet you, Duchess Kiria."

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:48 pm (UTC)

Duchess Kiria gets out from behind her desk, kisses her husband, and turns warmly to Bella.

"Delighted," she says. "What's the occasion? The kids are fine, aren't they?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Of course. I've just made them and your husband immortal and dropped by to ask if you'd like me to cover you as well."

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Goodness," blinks Kiria. "I don't see why not, I suppose."

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:52 pm (UTC)

Bella explains how torching works, and awaits confirmation.

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, all right, then!" says Kiria.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:54 pm (UTC)

Bella gestures at her. "There you are."

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!" says Kiria. "Do you want a cup of tea or anything before you go?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine, thank you. Ian, would you rather come back to the Enchanted Forest, or should I just fetch your little ones home when they get bored?"

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you don't mind, then I don't mind either," shrugs Ian.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 05:59 pm (UTC)

"It's no trouble," Bella assures him.

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh good."

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I'll see you then. And here -" She adds them both to the brainphone network. [If you want them home before that or want to check in, you can do this.]

longdistancebells
2013-06-19 06:04 pm (UTC)

[Ooh!] says Ian. [Nifty.]

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:06 pm (UTC)

[Isn't it just? See you later.]

And home she pops. "Icarin, Valeria, I'll be teleporting you home whenever you're ready to go," she tells them.

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:07 pm (UTC)

"You are spectacularly magic!" says Icarin.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I made some very magical friends, and they shared," she says, smiling. "And I was a magician even before that."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Sharing is nice!" says Icarin. "What sorts of things did they share?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:10 pm (UTC)

"The immortality power, for one thing, and some other stuff I can do like teleporting and the brainphone," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:14 pm (UTC)

"What's the brainphone?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:17 pm (UTC)

[It's this,] says Bella. [That's how Carinna told me I should come here to immortalize you and your dad.]

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:19 pm (UTC)

[Nifty!] says Icarin. [How's it work?]

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:20 pm (UTC)

[It's a kind of magic that this world didn't use to have until my friends brought it here. It works by wishing, but not like the kind of wishes a genie gives.]

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:21 pm (UTC)

[What kind of wishing is it instead? And where are your friends from if they're not from the world?]

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:21 pm (UTC)

[They're from another world. The wishes work entirely by magic with no person involved except the wisher.]

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:26 pm (UTC)

"There's more worlds?" says Icarin. "How many? How do you get there from here?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:30 pm (UTC)

"A lot. I don't know how many, but at least eighty-eight." (Chronicle was eighty-fifth in Downside numbering, Alethia and Syntropy lack Downside numbers, and some Bells were on their way to check out a new one when Jane broke.) "There are usually two ways to get from one to another, but one of them is broken right now. The other way is to wait for a door to turn into a door to a bar called Milliways, that can touch all of those worlds. I met my friends when Kiawen found a door like that."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Woooow," says Icarin. "That's amazing!"

campanas
2013-06-19 06:32 pm (UTC)

"The friends are like people here but not!" says Kiawen. "I went and I found a Sherlock who wasn't Sherlock and she didn't even know who I was because her and her Bella and Tony don't have any kids. And her Tony is a boy! And there are more of all of them and there's so many Bellas and Sherlocks and Tonies and other people too."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:33 pm (UTC)

"...Are there any of me?" wonders Icarin.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:36 pm (UTC)

"I didn't meet any," says Bella. "But sometimes I can tell anyway..." She crouches down to his eye level, and lets her aura out (attention-super-extra-magical-magician!), and squints. "I think there might be more of you. And of your sister too; you look pretty attached, I don't think you'd find an Icarin without a Valeria... Although there might be alts of Valeria who don't quite have Icarins, I'm not sure, I would need to look at more of you."
Edited 2013-06-19 18:36 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:42 pm (UTC)

"You are really super extra magic!" says Icarin, staring back at her with wide eyes.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:44 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs and puts her aura away. "Yes."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I want to be that magic," Icarin declares.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should start with regular magic from this world," suggests Bella gently.

campanas
2013-06-19 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes Bella or Kanim gives us magic lessons!" says Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm already going to be all the magic from this world," says Icarin.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you want to be a magician? Good for you."

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to learn all the magic," Icarin asserts.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Excellent. I have to be a little careful with giving out some of the kinds. I don't have infinite amounts of all of it. I can immortalize as many people as I like, put as many people on the brainphone as I want, teleport as often as I please - I can't give out the first power by myself at all, though, and the others are expensive. So I don't think you will be taking any of the fancy offworld magic home with you today, but maybe another time."

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:17 pm (UTC)

"As long as I get it eventually," he says magnanimously.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 07:17 pm (UTC)

"You're immortal now."

campanas
2013-06-19 07:18 pm (UTC)

"We get to live forever and try everything that is fun to try!" beams Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:31 pm (UTC)

Icarin shrugs.

thaumobabble
2013-06-19 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I'll leave you kids to play. You can brainphone me if you need anything," says Bella, and away she pops.

campanas
2013-06-19 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Do you like magic too?" Carinna asks Valeria tentatively.

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:45 pm (UTC)

Valeria shrugs.

"I fell in a magic spring once!" she says. "Now I can do a glowy thing."

campanas
2013-06-19 07:46 pm (UTC)

"What kind of glowy thing?" asks Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:47 pm (UTC)

"A glowy kind!"

campanas
2013-06-19 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah but what does it do? Do you glow? Do you make other stuff glow?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I make stuff that glows," she says. "Kind of. I don't know. Ike, explain the glowy thing."

"She can make glowy shapes that stick to her," says Icarin. "If they come unstuck they disappear, but otherwise she can make whatever shape she wants. It's neat! But she's not supposed to do it in front of people who don't know about it, in case they get scared."

campanas
2013-06-19 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Now we all know about it," points out Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Do you wanna see?" says Valeria.

campanas
2013-06-19 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:09 pm (UTC)

Valeria shrugs and holds out her hands. Glowy soft-looking white stuff wells out of her palms, then merges together into a big puffy ball.

campanas
2013-06-19 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Can I touch it?" asks Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

campanas
2013-06-19 08:10 pm (UTC)

Kiawen pokes the puffy ball.

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:11 pm (UTC)

It is soft and squishable like a pillow, but with a smoother surface.

campanas
2013-06-19 08:12 pm (UTC)

"It's nice! If I could do it I would have it for blankets and pillows and stuff," says Kiawen. "'Lin, Carinna, you should try it!"

carillons
2013-06-19 08:14 pm (UTC)

Tanalin pokes the puffy ball!

"Ooh, squashy."

campanas
2013-06-19 08:14 pm (UTC)

Carinna also pokes the puffy ball.

"It's nice," she agrees.

carillons
2013-06-19 08:19 pm (UTC)

"I wanna hug it," says Tanalin.

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:25 pm (UTC)

Valeria giggles, and makes the puffy ball big enough to hug. It flops squashily onto the ground.

campanas
2013-06-19 08:57 pm (UTC)

Small princesses hug the ball!

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

The ball extends squashy arms and hugs them back.

campanas
2013-06-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

Kiawen is charmed!

campanas
2013-06-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

Carinna is alarmed!

carillons
2013-06-19 09:04 pm (UTC)

Tanalin giggles!

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:05 pm (UTC)

Val, who still has both hands pressed to the back of the ball, slurps the arm hugging Carinna back into it.

campanas
2013-06-19 09:06 pm (UTC)

Carinna declines to hug the ball further regardless, but at least she doesn't cry or run from the room.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:07 pm (UTC)

The ball unslurps its arm after she has gone away, and resumes hugging the other two princesses. Valeria grins at it.

campanas
2013-06-19 09:08 pm (UTC)

"What other stuff do you do with it?" asks Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I dunno! Whatever I want," she shrugs.

campanas
2013-06-19 09:09 pm (UTC)

"What would happen if you tried to eat it?" wonders Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I dunno!" she says. "I don't really want to, it doesn't taste like anything."

campanas
2013-06-19 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Okay," giggles Kiawen. "Hey, I'm hungry, who's hungry?"

campanas
2013-06-19 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I kind of am."

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm hungry!" says Val.

"I might be hungry," says Icarin.

carillons
2013-06-19 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm a little hungry," says Tanalin.

campanas
2013-06-19 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I think we add up to enough hungry to find Sherlock and ask her to make something!" declares Kiawen. "I wonder where she - oh! I can brainphone her instead of looking through the whole castle." [Sherloooock!]

calendarofcrime
2013-06-19 09:33 pm (UTC)

[Yeeeees?]

campanas
2013-06-19 09:33 pm (UTC)

[We're hungry! Can you make food for us?]

calendarofcrime
2013-06-19 09:43 pm (UTC)

[Of course.]

campanas
2013-06-19 09:44 pm (UTC)

[Yay! I love you.]

"Sherlock's gonna make us food," Kiawen announces, and she traipses off kitchenward.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:46 pm (UTC)

Sundry persons follow.

campanas
2013-06-19 09:47 pm (UTC)

Beads and their guests lurk outside the kitchen.

calendarofcrime
2013-06-19 09:51 pm (UTC)

Soon there is food!

carillons
2013-06-19 09:52 pm (UTC)

It is nummy.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:52 pm (UTC)

The nummiest!

campanas
2013-06-19 09:52 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom. "Thank you Sherlock!" says Kiawen winningly.

calendarofcrime
2013-06-19 09:54 pm (UTC)

"You are welcome."

gently introductory spelunking

pleasantsurprise

"I have found," Kanim announces to the small princesses (although they are getting taller) at their next group lesson with him, "a cave that I think even Carinna will like. It has not the least bit of hazard or inconvenience anywhere in it. It's very small, we'll probably be able to see all of it this afternoon, and it doesn't have a name yet as far as I can see, so we can pick something to call it while we're there."

"What is in it? Caves always have hazards and inconveniences," says Carinna warily.

"Harmless plants and creatures," Kanim says, "two springs, attractive crystal formations, a small maze, things like that - I will leave the specifics to be discovered, it's more fun that way, don't you think?"

"I think so," agrees Kiawen. "As long as you're sure Carinna won't be bothered!"

"Quite sure," says Kanim, "and if she is bothered we can always nip her out of there, it doesn't distort space or anything tricky like that."

"Okay," says Carinna decisively, "then I guess we can go to it."

forgefires
2013-06-29 02:31 am (UTC)

"Whee!" says Tanalin.

guessguess
2013-06-29 02:33 am (UTC)

Kiawen claps her hands. "How are we getting there? Walking or flying or teleporting or something else?"

exactlyright
2013-06-29 02:34 am (UTC)

"If he only just found it probably it is too far to walk," says Carinna.
Edited 2013-06-29 02:34 (UTC)

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 02:37 am (UTC)

"It would be too far to walk," agrees Kanim. "We can fly, though, if that would be more fun than teleporting; what do you think?"

forgefires
2013-06-29 02:41 am (UTC)

"I wanna see the cave!" says Tanalin. "Let's teleport."

exactlyright
2013-06-29 02:42 am (UTC)

Carinna nods agreement.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 02:43 am (UTC)

Kanim snaps his fingers as a sort of signal that teleportation is about to happen, and - here they are, in a cave that looks more like an illustration than anything, covered in interesting lichens and populated by small creatures and bedecked across the ceiling with glowing crystals in all sorts of colors. A spring burbles from one wall, and another can be heard farther back around a corner.

pythbox
2013-06-29 02:48 am (UTC)

The creatures are many and varied in kind, but most of them are small and most of them are fluffy and most of them are roundish.

A particularly small and round and fluffy creature rolls up to Kanim's feet: it is perfectly spherical, about the size of a large apple, and covered in soft-looking purple fur. It has no discernible features, but the fur moves in a way that suggests there might be a tiny mouth under it as the creature emits a tiny, tiny squeak.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 02:49 am (UTC)

Carinna gets on all fours to have a closer look at this creature. "Can I pick it up?" she asks.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 02:50 am (UTC)

"They're all completely harmless, go ahead," laughs Kanim.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 02:50 am (UTC)

Carinna scoops up the round thing in both hands.

pythbox
2013-06-29 02:52 am (UTC)

It squeaks its tiny squeak again, rocks back and forth, rolls in a circle around her cupped hands, and then settles into the bottom of the hand-bowl and starts emitting a soft purple glow and a sound like 'whmmmmmm'.

guessguess
2013-06-29 02:53 am (UTC)

Kiawen is charmed, and sets about looking for something equally cute to pick up.

pythbox
2013-06-29 02:56 am (UTC)

There are a few black-and-white creatures with round ears, round bellies, and round little paws over there by the burbling spring. One of them is nibbling on what seems to be a tiny blue flower; the other two are cuddling.

guessguess
2013-06-29 02:57 am (UTC)

Well, she'd hate to interrupt either activity. She goes and tastes the springs, first. "This one's blueberry and the other is sparkling cucumber," she announces, when this has been done, and she checks in on the black-and-whites to see if any of them could be less disruptively picked up at this time.

pythbox
2013-06-29 02:59 am (UTC)

The one with the flower is sitting up and looking at her, with its little head tipped all the way back so it can see way up high.

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:00 am (UTC)

Kiawen picks it up, and pets it gently, and then sits it on her shoulder so she can go look at all the crystals.

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:02 am (UTC)

The little creature nestles up against her neck and licks her earlobe with its tiny tickly tongue. (It can't reach any higher.)

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:03 am (UTC)

"Can we bring critters home?" asks Kiawen.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 03:04 am (UTC)

"I think Cricket would probably terrorize them, and also, the fact that none of them have left the cave on their own suggests that they need to be here," says Kanim. "But you can come here and visit them whenever you like."

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:07 am (UTC)

Tanalin is by this time sitting on the cave floor with three of the round fluffy glowy ones - blue, pink, and yellow - bouncing happily on the trampoline made by her skirt as it stretches across her knees.

"I want to come back here a lot," she announces.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:07 am (UTC)

"Me, too," says Carinna. "This is the best cave." She rubs her puffball-critter on her cheek.

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:08 am (UTC)

Her puffball-critter whmmmms contentedly.

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:10 am (UTC)

"What should we name it?" asks Kiawen, doubling back from an excursion into the crystal maze in the back. "The cave I mean."

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:11 am (UTC)

"I don't know. The Cave of Small Fluffy Things seems like a silly name for a cave."

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:14 am (UTC)

"But it's true," says Tanalin, giggling down at her lapful of small fluffy things.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:15 am (UTC)

"It i-i-is," allows Carinna. "Or the Caves of Blueberry and Cucumber?"

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:16 am (UTC)

"The Cave of the Crystal Maze. The Cave of Pocket Creatures," says Kiawen, trying her black-and-white in her pocket and finding it a good fit.

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:18 am (UTC)

"The Cave of Soft Fluffy Things," says Tanalin, when one of her puffballs rolls into her hand.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:19 am (UTC)

"They are very soft."

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:19 am (UTC)

"And they make cute little noises."

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:21 am (UTC)

"How about," says Tanalin, petting her puffballs, "the Gentle Cave?"

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:22 am (UTC)

"I like that," says Carinna. "Most caves are nasty and just want to trap you in the dark or shut you up with monsters or something - this one is nice."

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:23 am (UTC)

"Sounds good to me," giggles Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:23 am (UTC)

A green puffball hops onto Kanim's foot and squeaks at him.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 03:24 am (UTC)

Kanim picks it up and pats it. "Gentle Cave it is. I'll write a paper on it."

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:25 am (UTC)

Kanim's puffball glows brightly and whmmmmms.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:26 am (UTC)

"What should we name the creatures?"

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:29 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure!" says Tanalin. "Round Fluffy Glowy Things With No Discernible Features is a bit of a mouthful. And it leaves out how warm and soft and nice they are. And the cute little sounds they make. What about yours, Kiawen? They almost look like round little bears."

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:30 am (UTC)

"They do! Little black and white bears that don't bite and fit in my pocket. Hmmm. They are black and white. Piano bears?"

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:32 am (UTC)

"Poofs," says Carinna of her purple poof.

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:35 am (UTC)

"Poofs," giggles Tanalin. She gathers her lapful of poofs into her arms and hugs them all at once. They squeak a chorus of tiny squeaks and glow softly.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:36 am (UTC)

"What does it mean when they glow? Is glowing happy?" wonders Carinna.

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:36 am (UTC)

"How would you tell?"

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:38 am (UTC)

"It seems like they glow when you touch them," says Tanalin, setting her poofs down in her lap. They all cuddle up together, still glowing. "Kanim, what do you think?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 03:40 am (UTC)

"I'm not really sure how to tell what the glowing means, but they don't seem to object to being handled; they can get around just fine and they come right up to us," he says.

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:44 am (UTC)

"They do! It's adorable," says Tanalin.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 03:44 am (UTC)

"It is!"

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:45 am (UTC)

"Are you sure Cricket would terrorize them," sighs Carinna.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 03:46 am (UTC)

"You'd have to get Bella to ask him, but they are pretty rodent-sized."

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:46 am (UTC)

Whmmmm goes Carinna's poof.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:47 am (UTC)

"It would be nice to have one with me all the time, though."

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:48 am (UTC)

"We can hang out here all the time," says Kiawen. "Sometime we should bring Val and Ike!"

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 03:49 am (UTC)

"If Cricket promises to leave them alone, and your moms say you may, and we can figure out why none of these animals have left the cave and spread through the forest when they could just roll right out the exit if they so chose, then you can take critters home. Till then, just play with them here."

forgefires
2013-06-29 11:48 am (UTC)

"That sounds reasonable," says Tanalin.

pythbox
2013-06-29 11:49 am (UTC)

Another creature, similar to a poof, hops up to Carinna. This one has two small round feet underneath it, with tiny paw-pads, and visible features: two small round eyes set above a small nose and mouth that look something like a dog's or cat's but much flatter.

It meeps and bounces on its tiny toes.
Edited 2013-06-29 14:19 (UTC)

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:01 pm (UTC)

"How many kinds of creatures are there here?" asks Carinna, reaching down to inspect the fur texture of this unpoof.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 03:01 pm (UTC)

"I didn't count them," says Kanim, "mostly because I'm not sure how the different colors of poofs count towards their species membership."

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:03 pm (UTC)

The unpoof's fur is slightly shorter and denser than a poof's, but similarly soft and pettable. This one is bright blue. It whiffles when she pets it.

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:05 pm (UTC)

"Piano bears, poofs, and - pawlings?" suggests Kiawen, approaching and inspecting the unpoof. "Because it has little paws."

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:07 pm (UTC)

"That kind only has two little paws, though," says Tanalin. "I think I saw one with four a minute ago - I've lost it now."

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:08 pm (UTC)

"What color was it?" asks Carinna, looking around.

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:10 pm (UTC)

"Maybe blue or green," she says. "It was playing with some poofs and they were glowing on it."

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:10 pm (UTC)

Kiawen begins a systematic hunt for a four-pawling.

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:16 pm (UTC)

There are two of them splashing in the spring around the corner. Their fur seems to shed water pretty well. One is sort of turquoise, the other orange-pink.

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:17 pm (UTC)

Kiawen picks up the turquoise one. "Found it. So these could be pawlings - or - no, we might find ones with six legs or something - all the ones that are poofs with paws are pawlings and we should come up with names for the kinds with different numbers of paws."

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:19 pm (UTC)

The turquoise four-pawling whiffles and nibbles gently on her finger.

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Two-pawlings and four-pawlings?" shrugs Tanalin.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Unless we think of something better, sure," says Carinna, picking up the two-pawling that investigated her and holding it close to her poof.

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:27 pm (UTC)

The two fluffy creatures cuddle up to each other, making their respective happy sounds. The poof glows; pawlings don't seem to do that.

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:28 pm (UTC)

"I guess it's just as well we can't bring them home, how would we pick?" asks Kiawen, clearing a space of creatures and lying down and putting the ones she's picked up on her tummy.

pythbox
2013-06-29 03:45 pm (UTC)

The turquoise four-pawling meeps at the piano bear. The piano bear squeaks back. They bat at each other with their little paws; the piano bear has an advantage because its arms are longer. Then they cuddle.

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:46 pm (UTC)

Kiawen giggles and beams at them.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Do you think we should get Ike and Val today or save it for another time?"

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," muses Tanalin. "Ooh, look, a new kind!"

A somewhat bigger fluffy creature, about the size of a smallish watermelon, comes padding out of the crystal maze. It has four big fluffy paws, a stubby little tail, and a head with two large triangular ears like a fox's or cat's. Its fur is rippled with brown-and-white stripes. It drinks from the blueberry spring and then flomps down beside it, tucks its paws under its little chin, and closes its big brown eyes.

guessguess
2013-06-29 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, I didn't see any of those when I was looking around in the back," says Kiawen. "It's like a stubby fox!"
Edited 2013-06-29 15:58 (UTC)

forgefires
2013-06-29 03:59 pm (UTC)

"A round, stripey, stubby fox," giggles Tanalin. "A foxball?"
Edited 2013-06-29 16:00 (UTC)

guessguess
2013-06-29 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Foxball! Poofs and pawlings and piano bears and foxballs."

exactlyright
2013-06-29 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to write your paper on the critters with our names for them, Kanim?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 04:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't see why not," he laughs. "You'd better make sure you find all the kinds, or I'll wind up discovering something you didn't get to name and I'll call it something boring."

forgefires
2013-06-29 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, do you know about any more kinds we haven't seen yet?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-29 04:07 pm (UTC)

"It's not a big cave," says Kanim airily, "I'm sure you can find them all if you look."

forgefires
2013-06-29 04:11 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if there are any more with tails. Do piano bears have tails, Kiawen?"

guessguess
2013-06-29 04:12 pm (UTC)

Kiawen checks. "Itty bitty ones."

pythbox
2013-06-29 04:15 pm (UTC)

The piano bear whose tail she just inspected crawls around in little circles, as though trying to catch said tail.

guessguess
2013-06-29 04:16 pm (UTC)

Kiawen is charmed.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 04:16 pm (UTC)

"I think I like the poofs best," says Carinna.

pythbox
2013-06-29 04:17 pm (UTC)

Whmmmmmmmm goes Carinna's poof, as though it can tell.

exactlyright
2013-06-29 04:18 pm (UTC)

Carinna nuzzles her poof.

guessguess
2013-06-29 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I like them all, but the piano bears are cutest, I think - and the foxball would probably not get terrorized by Cricket, it's big enough."

forgefires
2013-06-29 04:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to look in the maze for more creatures," Tanalin declares, and she gently evicts her lapful of poofs and heads off into the back of the cave.

guessguess
2013-06-29 04:20 pm (UTC)

Kiawen removes her pawling, puts her piano bear back on her shoulder, and follows her untwin.

pythbox
2013-06-30 03:37 pm (UTC)

The maze is very pretty.

When they've been wandering in it for a while, a tiny little bird with bright blue-green feathers flits around a corner and hovers in front of Kiawen.

guessguess
2013-06-30 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Hummingbird!" exclaims Kiawen, and she holds out a hand to see if it will land on her finger.

pythbox
2013-06-30 03:51 pm (UTC)

It lands, gripping her finger with its tiny feet.

forgefires
2013-06-30 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwww," says Tanalin.

guessguess
2013-06-30 03:52 pm (UTC)

Kiawen pets it gently. "Hummingbirds already have a name, but this particular kind might not."

pythbox
2013-06-30 03:57 pm (UTC)

The tiny bird opens its tiny beak and cheeps.

guessguess
2013-06-30 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Cheeper?" suggests Kiawen.

forgefires
2013-06-30 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Tanalin. "Aren't hummingbirds supposed to hum?"

guessguess
2013-06-30 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. Do you hum?" she asks the cheeper.

pythbox
2013-06-30 06:59 pm (UTC)

The cheeper cheeps twice.

guessguess
2013-06-30 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I guess not. Maybe it's not a hummingbird."

forgefires
2013-06-30 07:02 pm (UTC)

"It's a cheepingbird," says Tanalin.

guessguess
2013-06-30 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Hello little cheepingbird," coos Kiawen, and she sets it on her shoulder opposite the piano bear and continues into the cave.

pythbox
2013-06-30 07:07 pm (UTC)

The cheepingbird rubs its face against the side of her neck.

Another winged creature appears soon after; this one looks something like a very round, very fluffy, very pink bat, and it lands on top of Tanalin's head and flops its wings out to either side.

guessguess
2013-06-30 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Eee!" giggles Kiawen. "It's a pink bat thing. Probably they come in other colors, most of the things here do. Do you make a sound, bat-thing?"

pythbox
2013-06-30 07:13 pm (UTC)

The bat-thing chitters.

forgefires
2013-06-30 07:14 pm (UTC)

"There is a fluffy bat-thing on my head," Tanalin observes.

guessguess
2013-06-30 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes. With its wings flopped over your ears, chittering. What should we call it?"

forgefires
2013-06-30 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't know! It is hard to see its characteristics, because it is on my head!" she giggles.

And she reaches up carefully to pick up the bat-thing off her head and hold it in front of her. It snuggles into her hands.

"Aww, look," she says delightedly, "it's got four little paws and a little fluffy tail. It's like a... rabbit... bat. A rabbat? No, that sounds weird. A bunnydragon?"

guessguess
2013-06-30 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I like rabbat!"

forgefires
2013-06-30 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I do."

She pets the fluffy pink thing anyway. It goes wheep.

guessguess
2013-06-30 07:55 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't really have bunny ears, anyway," agrees Kiawen.

Eventually they have located, named, and - they think - exhausted the species population of the Gentle Cave, put all their creatures back, and gone home.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 08:00 pm (UTC)

Kanim goes to tell Bella about the cave. "In addition to being extremely cute, it's got this anti-injury field that I figured out after a bit of looking; I don't know how robust it is, but even if a piano bear decided to bite you you wouldn't get bit."

thaumobabble
2013-06-30 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Interesting. I wonder if that's duplicable - did you find a source?"

forgefires
2013-06-30 08:05 pm (UTC)

"We were wandering all up and down the crystal maze and we didn't find anything that said 'Look at me! I'm a mystical artifact!'," says Tanalin. "But maybe Kanim saw something. Did you?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Nothing screamed it. The cave is very self-contained - none of the animals or plants in it have ventured out - could be related, or not, I'll make another trip a while later and see if I can pin it down with more data points at different times of day."

forgefires
2013-06-30 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Can I go with you?" says Tanalin. "I want to see the fluffbats again."

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Sure, all three of you can come when I go back."

exactlyright
2013-06-30 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," trills Carinna.

forgefires
2013-06-30 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Yay! Fluffbats," beams Tanalin.

guessguess
2013-06-30 08:26 pm (UTC)

"And we can figure out why they don't leave, and talk to Cricket, and bring home animals, right?"

thaumobabble
2013-06-30 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I suppose so. I don't think Cricket would hurt your pets if you acquired them, although he might find it irresistible to scare them."

forgefires
2013-06-30 08:28 pm (UTC)

"They don't seem to scare very easily," says Tanalin. "I guess living in the Gentle Cave will do that."

thaumobabble
2013-06-30 08:29 pm (UTC)

"If they never encounter anything scary, I suppose so. But you probably weren't batting them with your paws and hissing menacingly."

forgefires
2013-06-30 08:41 pm (UTC)

"True."

guessguess
2013-06-30 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I hope you figure it out, I'd like to have a piano bear."

exactlyright
2013-06-30 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I want a poof."

forgefires
2013-06-30 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I am definitely a fluffbat person," says Tanalin. "They're so fluffy and flappy and they make that little 'wheep' sound when you pet them!"

exactlyright
2013-06-30 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Poofs glow. None of the other kinds glow."

guessguess
2013-06-30 08:47 pm (UTC)

"They're all cute, I just like the black and white on the piano bears. Everything else in all those bright colors would be weird to keep with you all the time, it wouldn't match everything you might wear."

forgefires
2013-06-30 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I think I am okay with having a fluffbat that clashes with my outfit sometimes."

guessguess
2013-06-30 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, I guess we won't argue about who gets a particular critter."

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Assuming we can figure out how to remove them comfortably from the cave."

forgefires
2013-06-30 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I hope we can," Tanalin says wistfully. "They're so little and fluffy."

thaumobabble
2013-06-30 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to need to set aside a few minutes and pastwatch all this, aren't I," snorts Bella.

forgefires
2013-06-30 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Tanalin. "Yes you are."

thaumobabble
2013-06-30 10:55 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs, and hugs her.

forgefires
2013-06-30 10:56 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:00 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Kiawen brainphones their friends from Toure-en-Marsh. [Kanim found us a cave that even Carinna likes!]

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:02 pm (UTC)

[Ooh,] says Icarin. [Sign me up!]

grabsthebutt
2013-06-30 11:02 pm (UTC)

[Is it boring? I bet it's boring,] says Valeria.

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:03 pm (UTC)

[It's not boring, it's just safe and cute. There are lots of little, harmless friendly animals in it.]

grabsthebutt
2013-06-30 11:09 pm (UTC)

[Boring,] Val announces.

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:09 pm (UTC)

[There are little black and white bears that fit in the palm of your hand, and two flavored springs, and glowing crystal formations, and a maze.]

grabsthebutt
2013-06-30 11:10 pm (UTC)

[Slightly less boring.]

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:11 pm (UTC)

[I want to see the tiny bears! When can I see the tiny bears?]

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:15 pm (UTC)

[Kanim's going to make another trip soon and you can come! He wants to figure out its magical properties. If he figures out why the animals haven't left the cave by themselves, we can see if we can take them out safely and have pets from it. If Cricket promises not to scare them, anyway. I want one of the bears, and Carinna wants a glowing rolling furball called a poof, and Tanalin wants a fluffbat which is what it sounds like, and there are also little hovering birds and things like poofs only with faces and round foxes and tiny hamsters with bumblebee and tiger stripes, and in the pool around the cucumber fountain were itty-bitty ducks in all colors and even smaller ducklings, and some things we thought were rocks but turned out to be very slow turtles that change color and have flowers growing on their shells.]

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:18 pm (UTC)

[This is the most adorable cave in the universe,] says Ike.

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:18 pm (UTC)

[It is! Tanalin named it the Gentle Cave.]

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:22 pm (UTC)

[I want to go there,] he says. [Possibly forever.]

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:22 pm (UTC)

[Well, you can go there, but I don't know about forever,] laughs Kiawen.

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:23 pm (UTC)

[How about soon, can I go there soon?]

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:23 pm (UTC)

[I think Kanim plans to go back in the next few days.]

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:25 pm (UTC)

[Please include me in this expedition!]

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:25 pm (UTC)

[We will, promise!]

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:26 pm (UTC)

[Hooray!]

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 11:27 pm (UTC)

Indeed, a few days later, Kanim notifies the Duchess and Duke that he's ready to pick up Ike, and Val if she'd like to join them, for the expedition if that's all right.
Edited 2013-06-30 23:28 (UTC)

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:37 pm (UTC)

Ike would like to join them! His sister would not.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 11:38 pm (UTC)

Then she may stay behind. Off they all go!

exactlyright
2013-06-30 11:38 pm (UTC)

Carinna seeks out the nearest poofs.

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:41 pm (UTC)

Icarin seeks out the tiny ducks.

forgefires
2013-06-30 11:42 pm (UTC)

Tanalin seeks out the fluffbats!

guessguess
2013-06-30 11:42 pm (UTC)

Kiawen makes for the piano bears.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 11:43 pm (UTC)

Kanim starts inspecting the rocks around the blueberry spring in minute detail.

forgefires
2013-06-30 11:45 pm (UTC)

Tanalin, with a pink fluffbat on her head - it might even be the same one - emerges from the maze and watches him.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 11:49 pm (UTC)

Eventually he determines the spring is not what he is looking for. He starts peering at the turtle-rocks, occasionally picking them up and moving them to other parts of the cave.

forgefires
2013-06-30 11:51 pm (UTC)

On one such occasion, Tanalin's fluffbat swoops down and gobbles up a flower off the in-transit turtle-rock's back.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 11:52 pm (UTC)

Kanim laughs; this won't affect what he's looking at. Eventually he decides the turtlerocks aren't what he's looking for either. He goes farther back and checks out the sparkling cucumber spring. "Enjoying the ducks?" he asks Ike.

newtimov
2013-06-30 11:54 pm (UTC)

"They are so tiny," says Ike. "Look how tiny they are! They are teeny tiny!"

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Extremely tiny!" Kanim agrees. Hmmm, spring, pool, rocks - nope. He goes to check out the maze section.

pythbox
2013-06-30 11:57 pm (UTC)

There's something about those glowing crystals that cover the cave's ceiling and make up most of the maze walls.

Something besides the fact that they come in all of the same colours that poofs do.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 11:57 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Kanim notices that! It helps that in the maze, they're eye-level. "Ah-ha."

pythbox
2013-06-30 11:59 pm (UTC)

A sky-blue poof rolls up to his feet and squeaks.

pleasantsurprise
2013-06-30 11:59 pm (UTC)

Kanim picks it up, mostly to be polite.

And then he says, "Ah-ha!" again.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:03 am (UTC)

Whmmmmm goes the poof, and it glows happily, and the anti-injury field strengthens just a tiny tiny bit in the immediate vicinity.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:03 am (UTC)

"Aren't you magically fascinating. Now I just have to figure out why you don't roll out into the surrounding forest."

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:04 am (UTC)

Whmmmmm.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:05 am (UTC)

Kanim puts the poof down again and decides to track its behavior until the children want to leave.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:07 am (UTC)

It rolls against his foot for a while, then rolls away into the maze for a bit of exploring, and then it rolls up to the cucumber spring and nudges a duckling aside and has a drink.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:08 am (UTC)

"Hi again. Having fun?" He continues observing the poof.

newtimov
2013-07-01 12:12 am (UTC)

"Yes I am," says Ike. He is lying on the cave floor with his face near the little pool made by the spring, watching tiny cave ducks paddle around followed by their teeny tiny offspring.

The blue poof hops onto Ike's head, whmmms in his ear, and rolls away toward the blueberry spring.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:12 am (UTC)

Kanim follows it.

forgefires
2013-07-01 12:13 am (UTC)

The poof drinks from the blueberry spring.

"Hi!" says Tanalin. "Learn anything interesting yet?"

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"The anti-injury field comes from the crystals, and also the poofs, especially when they glow."

forgefires
2013-07-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Tanalin. "That is interesting."

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:15 am (UTC)

"Yep. If Carinna adopts one she'll have a little portable ward."

forgefires
2013-07-01 12:16 am (UTC)

"That sounds perfect!"

The poof rolls up to her and whmms, so she cuddles it in her lap with the pink fluffbat.
Edited 2013-07-01 00:17 (UTC)

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:18 am (UTC)

"Certainly does." If she's going to be occupying that poof for a while he can't really study its natural behavior, can he. Instead he goes to sit by the cave exit and watch animals failing to leave it.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:20 am (UTC)

A piano bear galumphs up to him and tries to hug his ankle, but its wee arms won't go all the way around.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:20 am (UTC)

Kanim laughs. He pets the piano bear.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:21 am (UTC)

It cuddles his hand. That works much better!

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:21 am (UTC)

It does!

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:22 am (UTC)

Tiny fuzzy cuddles.

Eventually it de-cuddles and goes to get a drink from the blueberry spring.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:23 am (UTC)

Thirsty things, aren't they.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:24 am (UTC)

Yes. Well, there's not much to do in this cave other than drink from the springs, cuddle, and eat interesting lichens and turtle-rock flowers.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:24 am (UTC)

No wonder they are so affectionate with their visitors!

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:25 am (UTC)

Speaking of which, another poof rolls up to him and squeaks for pettings.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:26 am (UTC)

Pet pet pet.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:27 am (UTC)

Glow glow whmmmmmmm.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:30 am (UTC)

Kanim doesn't make any other relevant discoveries on this trip.

The next time, he has a look at the springs. Not their surroundings - their water.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:32 am (UTC)

The blueberry water tastes like blueberry, and the cucumber water tastes like cucumber.

But there's a little bit of extra magic to both of them. Magic that seems to interact somehow with being drunk from.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:33 am (UTC)

He drinks some blueberry water thoughtfully.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:34 am (UTC)

It tastes like blueberry! It is pleasant and refreshing.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:35 am (UTC)

He puts a dish of blueberry water in the middle of the cave, away from the spring's usual location, and also a dish of ordinary, unflavored water.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:36 am (UTC)

Over the course of a few minutes, several creatures come up to him. Some of them want cuddles. Some of them drink from the blueberry dish.

A single piano bear sticks its nose in the unflavoured-water dish, tastes the water, meeps, and then goes and drinks from the other one instead.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:37 am (UTC)

Hmm.

The next time he is at the cave, he brings some lemon and some lime flavored water from rivers of these flavors.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:39 am (UTC)

A few creatures drink from those, but not very much - they seem to enjoy the flavour, but need water from the local springs to properly quench their thirst.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:40 am (UTC)

Hmmmmm.

He puts a bowl of blueberry water outside the cave exit, and waits.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:42 am (UTC)

After about an hour, a foxball with a glowing, whmmming poof sitting on its head trundles out of the cave. The foxball drinks from the bowl. The poof drops off its head and has some too. Then the foxball fishes the poof out of the bowl and trundles back into the cave.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:42 am (UTC)

Interesting.

He moves the bowl about a foot father away. He sits outside the cave and waits.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:46 am (UTC)

A troop of three poofs ventures past the edge of the cave, bumping into each other as they navigate the unfamiliar terrain. They have to use each other as stepping-stones to hop into the bowl and drink, but when the first two have had enough, they roll out and let the last one hop up onto them to get in.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:49 am (UTC)

Kanim keeps the bowl full, and keeps moving it farther and farther away from the cave entrance.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:51 am (UTC)

By the time it's a good ten feet away, most of the creatures have stopped coming...

...but that first foxball, with its friend the poof still sitting on its head, trundles out to the original location and sniffs around, then goes right up to the bowl and has a drink.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:52 am (UTC)

Innnnnteresting.

He stops moving it. He wants to see if anything will be lured to stay out of the cave.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:56 am (UTC)

The next time that foxball comes out, it has two more poofs riding on its back. All four creatures drink from the bowl.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 12:57 am (UTC)

Kanim is kind of impressed by the foxball's carrying capacity.

He adds a cucumber bowl, farther from the blueberry one.

pythbox
2013-07-01 12:59 am (UTC)

The next time the foxball comes out, it's back to its original number of friends.

It drinks from both bowls, then plops its head onto Kanim's foot and goes to sleep. Either it or the poof sitting on its head accompanies this activity with a snuffly little snore.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 01:00 am (UTC)

It is welcome to stay there till Kanim has to make refills.

pythbox
2013-07-01 01:01 am (UTC)

It naps for a little while, then wakes up and attempts to snuggle his shoe.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 01:02 am (UTC)

His shoe isn't very snuggly.

pythbox
2013-07-01 01:05 am (UTC)

It is not! The foxball gives up and snuggles its poofy friend instead.

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 01:22 am (UTC)

With this and further informed observations, Kanim concludes that the water is the only special cave thing the Gentle Creatures require, and determines that it will be quite possible for the girls to keep Gentle Pets if they routinely fetch both kinds of water or just produce it at home. A divided spring which will do each kind costs a pentagon.

forgefires
2013-07-01 01:25 am (UTC)

Tanalin would like to go and get a fluffbat immediately!

exactlyright
2013-07-01 01:27 am (UTC)

Carinna wants her poof!

guessguess
2013-07-01 01:27 am (UTC)

Kiawen is unwavering in her desire for a piano bear!

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 01:28 am (UTC)

And so off they go!

forgefires
2013-07-01 01:30 am (UTC)

A pink fluffbat settles onto Tanalin's head. She feeds it a wildlflower she picked earlier, which it noms up happily.

guessguess
2013-07-01 01:47 am (UTC)

Kiawen picks up the first piano bear to approach her and claims it as her own and names it Keys.

exactlyright
2013-07-01 01:47 am (UTC)

Carinna has a problem!

Poofs come in several colors and they are all friendly!

pythbox
2013-07-01 01:50 am (UTC)

They are! Pink ones and purple ones and blue ones and green ones and yellow ones and orange ones. And various shades in between. And they all love her very much. She may be accumulating a pile.

exactlyright
2013-07-01 01:52 am (UTC)

"I don't know how to pick one!" exclaims Carinna.

pythbox
2013-07-01 01:52 am (UTC)

Her poofpile cuddles up and whmmms soothingly.

forgefires
2013-07-01 01:53 am (UTC)

"...Is there a reason you can't just take all of them?" says Tanalin. "Then they'll have company!"

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 01:54 am (UTC)

"One poof to start with, I think," says Kanim.

exactlyright
2013-07-01 01:55 am (UTC)

"Ohhhhh," says Carinna unhappily.

forgefires
2013-07-01 02:06 am (UTC)

"Hmm," says Tanalin. "You could get up and go somewhere and see which ones follow you, and keep doing that until there's only one left, and say that's probably the one that likes you the most?"

exactlyright
2013-07-01 02:07 am (UTC)

"I guess that works, if they don't just all follow me," says Carinna. She brushes poofs out of her lap, and gets up, and heads out of the cave.

pythbox
2013-07-01 02:09 am (UTC)

A blue one and a green one and an orange one all roll after her, squeaking.

exactlyright
2013-07-01 02:09 am (UTC)

She continues away from the cave.

pythbox
2013-07-01 02:12 am (UTC)

The blue one turns back. The orange one follows it.

The green one hops onto her foot and squeaks the biggest squeak its tiny voice possibly can.

exactlyright
2013-07-01 02:12 am (UTC)

"Okay!" says Carinna, and she picks up the green poof and snuggles it up against her cheek.

pythbox
2013-07-01 02:15 am (UTC)

It whmmmmmmms and glows brightly.

exactlyright
2013-07-01 02:16 am (UTC)

Carinna decides to call it Mossy.

pythbox
2013-07-01 02:17 am (UTC)

Mossy goes whmmm.

exactlyright
2013-07-01 02:17 am (UTC)

That is a thing Mossy does! Good for Mossy.

Now they all have their pets.

in chronicle

she_sells_seashells

When Shell Bell opens the door to Chronicle, she gets the attic Kiawen first led her to. In she steps, trailed by Juliet, Aurora, and Agent Honey.

pythbox
2013-07-01 09:33 pm (UTC)

There is a pink fluffy creature in the attic, with pink batlike wings and a round fluffy body and four small paws arranged in the usual quadrupedal manner.

It lands on top of Shell Bell's head, settles in, flops its wings out to either side, and goes 'wheep'.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-01 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Shell Bell. "That's very cute."

[Glass, Steel, Iron! How long has it been here?]

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 09:35 pm (UTC)

[Wow! Hi, guys! Just about seven years.]

calendarofcrime
2013-07-01 09:35 pm (UTC)

[I observe that Jane is not yet up,] says Steel.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 09:39 pm (UTC)

[She's not,] agrees Juliet. [We're here by virtue of Shell Bell's aura. As long as we can't communicate freely and this is the only unJokered universe without at-will, independent access to Milliways, thought we'd drop in and see if you need a coin infusion from Aurora. Or anything else.]
Edited 2013-07-01 21:41 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-01 09:41 pm (UTC)

[After this I'm going to see if my aura will get me a door to 'wherever that new Bell was supposed to be from', in which case it'd be nice to have Glass along to take a look at the place and see if she can see what might be the matter that way, but it might not work.]

incanted
2013-07-01 09:41 pm (UTC)

[Also, what is this pink thing on Shell Bell's head?]

calendarofcrime
2013-07-01 09:43 pm (UTC)

[I strongly suspect it is a fluffbat,] says Steel. [Its name is Sunrise and it belongs to Tanalin.]

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 09:44 pm (UTC)

[Why don't you come out to the parlor, bat and all? There's not very much point to hurrying, I don't think.]

incanted
2013-07-01 09:45 pm (UTC)

[Sure. We brought a Matilda, there turned out to be one in my world - you might want to sweep for templates, I checked for a bunch after I met Agent Honey and found a Rainbow Libby, who'll be going by Beth.]

And the visitors, bat and all, teleport to the parlor.

withmypowers
2013-07-01 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Goodness," says Agent Honey. The moonstone pendant around her neck shimmers.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Hi! Yep, you're a Matilda all right," says Glass. "I also think the girls' friends from Toure-en-Marsh are some sort of template but I haven't seen them before."

incanted
2013-07-01 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Let's have a look?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 09:48 pm (UTC)

Illusion!

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh hey yeah, I have a set of those," says Juliet. "I was going to bring them to a party but it just hasn't happened yet. Ike and Val. Mine're older."

withmypowers
2013-07-01 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Templates everywhere," says Agent Honey.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I think being a template is contagious, actually," says Glass. "Not invariably, but significantly."

withmypowers
2013-07-01 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yes. You didn't catch it - you were 'already' a template. I think Kanim caught it, though, for all that we haven't found more of him - unless we have?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Not so far as I know. We'd've recognized him. Although in other news I have retroactively acquired a slightly younger sister." And she repeats the story of Soph.

withmypowers
2013-07-01 09:57 pm (UTC)

"You have such interesting lives," Agent Honey observes. "And fascinatingly varied magical systems."

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I know, right? You've got -" Aura, magicalmagicalforestymagical - "the Rainbow kind, and Wellspring, I guess you stopped there on your way here?"

incanted
2013-07-01 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Me and Juliet are in progress for Wellspring, nothing sticking so far."

withmypowers
2013-07-01 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I can levitate you too if you want in," she offers.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes, please! I was going to set that up before Jane broke."

withmypowers
2013-07-01 10:00 pm (UTC)

Float!

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:02 pm (UTC)

Whee!

"Given that there's no need to hurry, how long would you all like to stay? The girls are fourteen and thirteen, now, and besides the fluffbat nesting on Shell Bell there's also two more ridiculously cute pets they acquired from a cave Kanim found; perhaps you'd like to meet Icarin and Valeria, I'm sure they'd think you were interesting. In any case I'll take the coin influx, if you don't mind, Aurora."

incanted
2013-07-01 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, here you go," says Aurora, tossing an assortment in Glass's direction, "were you run down?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:03 pm (UTC)

"No, I'm very careful with anything big - I'm just lucky I live in such a nice world. I was able to layer a few hexes onto some of my local magic capacities, which helps enormously, of course."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I'd be happy to meet Icarin and Valeria if they want," says Juliet.

withmypowers
2013-07-01 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I want to learn all about the local magic," says Agent Honey. "And the nonlocal magic, for that matter."

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I should refer you to Kanim, probably, while I'm catching up with my alts. He's a magician just as much as I am," says Glass. [Kanim! Offworld visitation!]

And:

[Icarin, Valeria! Do you remember how I told you about my alts?]

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 10:06 pm (UTC)

Kanim appears presently. "Why hello!"

withmypowers
2013-07-01 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Agent Honey. "I want to learn about local magic."

newtimov
2013-07-01 10:09 pm (UTC)

[Ye-es...?] says Icarin.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:10 pm (UTC)

[Some of them are here. Jane is still broken, but one of them has the ability to walk from world to world by ordinary doors whenever she likes and she's come with a couple of the others. And another one says she has an Ike and a Val in her world.]

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Well!" says Kanim. "There are many kinds. Witchcraft, sorcery, wizardry, various racial magics, various species magics - those are not quite the same thing, mind - and of course locational magics of all sorts! Where would you like to start?"

withmypowers
2013-07-01 10:13 pm (UTC)

"What is a locational magic?"

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 10:13 pm (UTC)

[Okay, so can we come visit or what?]

pleasantsurprise
2013-07-01 10:15 pm (UTC)

"My specialty! The kind that just happens, in places, without people involved in making it, and does stuff. You're marinating in it right now; this is the Enchanted Forest and it is the most magical place in the world. Come look at the Skyvault! It regulates forest magic." He beckons doorward.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:16 pm (UTC)

[Sure, would you like me to come get you right now?]

withmypowers
2013-07-01 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Just a moment," says Agent Honey, and she considers the levitating Bells for a second or two and then snaps her fingers. "Brainphone me if you want to touch the ground," she tells them, and follows Kanim out the door.

newtimov
2013-07-01 10:29 pm (UTC)

[Yes please!] says Icarin.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:30 pm (UTC)

Glass pops to Toure-en-Marsh, and fetches the twins, and brings them in.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Aww, middle-school-aged Ike and Val," says Juliet. "My set are nineteen."

newtimov
2013-07-01 10:33 pm (UTC)

"We are thirteen and a half!" says Icarin.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 10:34 pm (UTC)

"So it would seem! My set are also only half-human and their hair is not quite so vividly red. What are you guys?"

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Fire-witches," says Valeria. "What's their other half?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 10:38 pm (UTC)

"A kind of demon called Sessiakitsi, on their mom's side. Also 'Ike' and 'Val' are short for 'Isaac' and 'Valerie'. I haven't met their mom, but here's a Sessiaki I have met -" She produces an illusion of the relative-of-some-kind she was introduced to on her tour of Siathe. And then her Ike and Val for good measure. "Hybrids can pass for human except when Val does iethat stuff."

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 10:40 pm (UTC)

"What's iethat?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 10:40 pm (UTC)

The illusion-Valerie produces glowy tentacles and wings. "That. A certain fraction of Sesskiakitsi and their mixes can do it."

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I can do that!" says Val. "I fell in a magic spring!"

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:43 pm (UTC)

Glass peers at the illusion, squinting intently; it's harder to get a read off something that's not really there.

"I think," she says, "one way or another, that's always going to be a Val thing."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 10:43 pm (UTC)

"So I guess now you know why you fell in a magic spring!"

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 10:45 pm (UTC)

"That is weird," Val announces.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:46 pm (UTC)

"If you think that's weird, there's also the part where according to the same metacausality-detecting mechanism, I am gay because Sherlock and Tony are girls here."

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 10:48 pm (UTC)

Val shrugs. That doesn't seem weird at all.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:49 pm (UTC)

All right then. "I might be able to produce more pronouncements but I think you'd have to actually be standing next to each other."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-01 10:51 pm (UTC)

"If people are curious, I'm willing to open the relevant doors, although I think everyone who isn't in their own world should probably stick by me even though Jarvis should be able to let you out of Sunshine any time - I'm just not sure how to figure the time-syncing when it gets this complicated."

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, if we're gonna go traipsing through strange worlds, we should probably tell Mom and Dad first," says Val.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Probably," agrees Glass.

incanted
2013-07-01 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Do you want help sweeping for other templates here, meanwhile, Glass?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah - who all's worth checking for? Matildas, Libbies..."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Ruperts, Minnies -"

Eventually they have a list of everyone they'd be glad to have located if they located one, but it turns out Chronicle lacks any person known to the peal in a form yet unaccounted for.

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 11:05 pm (UTC)

"That's a lot of people," Val observes.

incanted
2013-07-01 11:05 pm (UTC)

"We encounter lots of fascinating people, most of whom turn out to be templates."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-01 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Did you ask your parents yet about visiting Sunshine?" Shell Bell inquires.
Edited 2013-07-01 23:06 (UTC)

newtimov
2013-07-01 11:07 pm (UTC)

"No, I will," says Ike.

He looks contemplative for a moment, then shakes his head.

"Mom says she doesn't want us leaving the universe."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-01 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh well."

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose meeting in Milliways instead of going all the way to Sunshine makes a difference? If you can't leave the universe at all you won't be able to attend future Bell parties when Jane is back. Presuming she comes back."

newtimov
2013-07-01 11:11 pm (UTC)

"She would probably feel much better about it if she had more advance warning and also if leaving the universe was a thing people did more often," he predicts.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 11:12 pm (UTC)

"All right then."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-01 11:13 pm (UTC)

"I'd offer to see about bringing Sunshine's set to you, but without Shell Bell I can't easily exit universes without Jarvises and get into universes that aren't mine. I hope Jane is back soon. Glass, it sounds like you've been waiting longer than me or Aurora, let alone Shell Bell who hadn't even noticed when I forced her door."

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but it hasn't been so bad. I've had a lot to do. I've read through Rose's enchantment library, now."

incanted
2013-07-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"We should see about maging you. Apparently I'm a 'mage'," says Aurora.

newtimov
2013-07-01 11:16 pm (UTC)

"What's a mage?" says Icarin. "Is it like a magician but shorter?"

incanted
2013-07-01 11:18 pm (UTC)

Aurora laughs. "No, I'm precisely Glass's height. It's a kind of magic user from Rainbow. I actually don't know that much about the technical details of using it, because until I met Agent Honey the other day my only teacher was Brilliance, who wasn't really designed for teaching magic. But I assume we can conjure up a library at least as good as Rose's for Glass to play with. You will be hampered by the lack of Device, but maybe Jane will be back soon and Agent Honey can hook you up; she found a stray one that got along well with Lexi."

newtimov
2013-07-01 11:19 pm (UTC)

Icarin peers at Glass and Aurora as though trying to verify the assertion about their relative heights.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-01 11:21 pm (UTC)

"We're all almost exactly the same height," laughs Shell Bell, "except when there's reasons for us not to be - Cam is taller, because he's a boy, I'm a little shorter because I didn't eat well growing up and Rose is between me and standard for similar reasons, Aegis is taller because she grew up in space. And if you count Angela's wings she's got a few inches even on Cam, but otherwise she's like everyone else."

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 11:23 pm (UTC)

"There's a one of you with wings? What kind? Is she a dragon?"

incanted
2013-07-01 11:23 pm (UTC)

"She's an angel. They're big feathery wings - she looks like this." Aurora banishes previous illusions and replaces them with an Angela.

grabsthebutt
2013-07-01 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Pretty," says Valeria, and she makes herself a pair of wings with a roughly similar shape - it's hard to see the details on hers, though, with the glowy undifferentiated whiteness.

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 11:38 pm (UTC)

Bells continue catching up with each other; if and when the duke and duchess's children become bored, Glass ferries them back home.

withmypowers
2013-07-01 11:39 pm (UTC)

Some time after that happens, Agent Honey comes back into the parlor, looks at Glass, and gently disengages her from the levitation spell.

"It caught pretty well with you," she comments. "I didn't know it varied that widely by template; it doesn't with us."

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 11:40 pm (UTC)

"No, it wouldn't," Glass says, squinting, "I think you'll all catch it like fire, it's sort of attached to you as a group - how much did I get?"

withmypowers
2013-07-01 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm not completely solid on magic-seeing yet," says Agent Honey, peering back at her, "but I'm seeing high perception, medium-high entanglement - do you even know these terms?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-01 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Nnno, I was going to talk it over with Matilda or Tilly, whichever, and then - Jane broke."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:01 am (UTC)

"Okay," Agent Honey says cheerfully. "Short version: there are five qualities that dictate how you interact with magic. Perception is how well you understand the system intuitively; entanglement is how easily you can add new patterns or introduce variations on existing ones; handling is how much power you can use effectively at a time; storage is the maximum amount of power you can personally have 'on' you, so to speak; and generation is how fast you make more power. Your HSG is all within normal range, which I'm given to understand is not that normal for a Bell; your perception is unusually high, and your entanglement is on the high side of normal. These things can all increase over time, roughly in proportion to how much you started with, if you use magic a lot. Oh, and if you use magic a lot, there's a good chance your world will catch it and other people will start coming up with it, but that's generally considered a good thing because Wellspring magic is very very nice. Do you want me to conjure you a laptop with all the latest research notes on it? Will I have to explain laptops?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 12:03 am (UTC)

"I know a few things about computers. Jane didn't break instantly on being introduced to me, and we talked. But - yes, explaining a few things about laptops would help. I'm not surprised my perception is high; I can see magic as an aura feature - although I can only interpret it once I've learned how; it's a bit like being able to see invisible ink written in all manner of foreign languages I can't even pentagon."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:04 am (UTC)

She snaps her fingers. A laptop appears. She hands it over and offers a short tutorial on how to navigate the file system, open files, and read them; it's reasonably intuitive, and the holographic three-dimensional interface is very pretty in addition to being easy to handle.

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 12:05 am (UTC)

Glass watches all this with interest, aura out and watchful.

And then she twitches and squints in Juliet's direction.

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:06 am (UTC)

Matilda glances at Juliet.

And blinks.

And lowers her to the floor.

"Well that's interesting," she says. "I'm not even sure what I'm seeing."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:07 am (UTC)

"...What?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 12:07 am (UTC)

"Remember when I said Wellspring was related to the Sunshine family?" asks Glass slowly.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah, of course."

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 12:09 am (UTC)

"I think the Sunshine magic system might be - on some level - the same as Wellspring magic. Except Wellspring is - nicer, newer, friendlier? The Sunshines are all Voices and Wellspring is Nathaniel? I don't know. And you already had statistics in the system, but they were blocked up, and now you've sort of - stepped sideways into a version of the system that your opacity doesn't object to so much."
Edited 2013-07-02 00:13 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:18 am (UTC)

"You have all these patterns stuck to you," says Agent Honey. "They were barely visible before, I just took them for random noise, but I can see them more clearly now. It definitely looks like you're from another world where the same magic system has been used in a completely different way for hundreds or thousands of years. I mean, I wouldn't have previously thought I'd recognize that if I saw it, but... there it is."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:20 am (UTC)

"Sunshine family magic is terrible. I haven't touched it - I tried, when I was less well-informed, but it's dangerous as all get out, addictive, involves treating with semi-hostile powers, etcetera - I would never have guessed it."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:22 am (UTC)

"Well, that explains why the patterns you've got are all so... icky," she says. "Do you want a laptop too? Maybe if you stick to my world's spells, you'll have a positive influence on your world's patternspace. Your entanglement's not terrible."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:23 am (UTC)

"Yes please. And I understand how to laptops. You don't think I'll get hooked on Wellspring magic if I use it in Sunshine?"

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:24 am (UTC)

"Wellspring magic doesn't have an 'addictive' pattern at all," she says. "I... can't swear that it won't happen, but I don't expect it to."

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 12:26 am (UTC)

"I think -" begins Glass slowly. "I think Bells are very susceptible to magic addiction, come to mention it, I think if we get too close to any magic system that has that potential we will immediately be stuck in it. It's sheer luck you were steered away. I'd wish against it before trying anything if I were you, Juliet, just in case Sunshine leaks into your Wellspring-version system."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:27 am (UTC)

Juliet nods.

She wishes.

A pentagon goes.

"I should be good. I'll keep an eye out."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:34 am (UTC)

Agent Honey is now frowning slightly.

"I wonder if we should try to straighten out your world's patterns," she says. "All that nastiness can't be good for anybody, and Matildas have ludicrously high entanglement - until Matilda met Tilly, the second-highest entanglement figure she'd ever found was about one-twelfth of hers. Tilly and I are more like forty-nine out of fifty."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:37 am (UTC)

"There are a few Sunshine family worlds, so if you can do it, you will be able to keep yourselves occupied for a while between Sunshine itself and Helios and Apollo. It would be very nice of you. On the other hand, I bet part of the reason the worldfamily is so mean is because it's full of demons, many of whom are straight-up evil. I'm not sure how much you guys can counteract millennia of large populations using magic to do nasty things, however deeply entangled you are."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:39 am (UTC)

"We'll definitely want to give it a shot, anyway," she says. "As a long-term project, after your interdimensional transport system is up and running again. As another long-term project, I think we want to work on a better interdimensional transport system..."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:40 am (UTC)

"We've asked the Jarvises if they'd mind spreading out more. They're reluctant; they prefer to be houses, containing friendly people, and Bells aren't really homebodies, although it's possible we should have pushed it more when we had the chance."

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 12:41 am (UTC)

"This castle, for example, is occupied," says Glass.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:42 am (UTC)

"Well, now I'm considering running back to Sunshine and asking if Jarvises want to be it. I've also discovered that a tenner will put someone Downside directly - at least from Sunshine; tenners are not freely available enough to afford much experimentation and Sunshine was natively Downside-attached so it might not generalize."

incanted
2013-07-02 12:47 am (UTC)

"I mean, I can probably finagle more tenners, but not huge numbers, especially with a baker's dozen Bells to distribute them among, so they should probably remain an emergency or Dramatic Large Project thing and not the basis of any sort of regular transit."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:51 am (UTC)

"Minting really is a remarkable magical system," says Agent Honey. "Although they're not all positive remarks."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:52 am (UTC)

"Stella ran all the sensible experiments about trying to make it run on sunshine or something, no dice."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:55 am (UTC)

"If only it was nice and flexible like Wellspring's. Then again, considering Sunshine, maybe not."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 12:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Juliet, shaking her head, "and so far we've found more of Sunshine than we have of Wellspring."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 12:57 am (UTC)

"I'm going to maintain that Sunshine might be fixable until we actually try and fail," says Agent Honey.

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 12:59 am (UTC)

"I think you can significantly affect it. I don't think you can walk in and command it to suddenly behave."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 01:00 am (UTC)

"You have interesting ideas about our methods," says Agent Honey.

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 01:00 am (UTC)

"I don't mean methodologically. This is coming out of metacausality-vision, not magic-seeing. You can make progress, I don't think you can complete the job."
Edited 2013-07-02 01:04 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-07-02 01:04 am (UTC)

"Walking in and commanding it to suddenly behave was not the plan," she says. "It sounded like you meant it more or less literally, as a course of action that you predicted wouldn't work - did you not?"
Edited 2013-07-02 01:30 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 01:33 am (UTC)

"No, of course not. I meant I didn't think the resources you'd throw at the project, whatever they are - I don't know what they are, this is a metacausality pronouncement about how Matildas and Sunshine worlds might interact with no comment on the details - would complete the task. Although I think that might have changed since I said it."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 01:35 am (UTC)

"Yes, telling us we probably can't do something often has that effect," says Agent Honey.

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 01:35 am (UTC)

Glass squints at her.

"Yep," she agrees after a minute. "Noted."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 01:36 am (UTC)

She grins.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 01:37 am (UTC)

"Awesome. I haven't swept Sunshine for native Matildas, yet, but if there isn't one I'll be happy to take outside help."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-02 01:37 am (UTC)

"Matildas are neat," agrees Shell Bell approvingly.

withmypowers
2013-07-02 01:39 am (UTC)

"We are, it's true!"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 01:40 am (UTC)

"Do you want to ask your wives and mother-in-law about Jarvising the castle, or should I?" Juliet asks Glass.

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 01:40 am (UTC)

"I got it, but I'll conference you in." [Honeys, Marianne? Juliet is here, with a couple of the others; Jane is still down but Juliet's suggested that a Jarvis might like to be installed in the castle.]
Edited 2013-07-02 01:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-02 01:41 am (UTC)

[What exactly is a Jarvis like?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 01:43 am (UTC)

[They're the same general sort of entity as Jane, in that they're computer-based intelligences, but more local - they inhabit buildings, not networks. It'd mean cameras - uh, mechanical seeing devices - and microphones, mechanical listening devices - all over the place, but they are good about respecting privacy on request. They are nice and helpful and prefer to be occupied by friendly people.]

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 01:44 am (UTC)

[The template is attached to Tony's, but can't be realized without help in low-tech worlds like Chronicle, and doesn't crop up everywhere, like Atlantis doesn't have one.]

pythbox
2013-07-02 01:54 am (UTC)

[I'd ask what my alts think of this, but - well,] sighs Marianne. [All right.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 01:55 am (UTC)

[Okay. This might involve hosting one or more foreign Tonies for a while.]

pythbox
2013-07-02 01:59 am (UTC)

[We have room.]

allthebrightest
2013-07-02 02:00 am (UTC)

[Bring on the Tonies!]

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 02:01 am (UTC)

[Yes, I don't imagine anyone will be upset about the eventuality. I suppose Carinna might find it disconcerting, but not prohibitively. Okay. I guess us Bells and Agent Honey will be out for a moment talking to Jarvises and retrieving Tonies.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-02 02:03 am (UTC)

Shell Bell produces a door. "I guess we'll have to impose on your hospitality a bit longer to wait for Jarvis to be installed; the forked one in Sunshine doored okay but they might produce this version differently and I'm not sure if the ability will carry."

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 02:07 am (UTC)

"That's fine," says Glass serenely.

withmypowers
2013-07-02 02:10 am (UTC)

"Out we go, then?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 02:11 am (UTC)

Out they go!

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 02:12 am (UTC)

To Sunshine!

"Hi, Jarvis! Do y'all want to be the royal castle in the Enchanted Forest?"

poeticterms
2013-07-02 02:15 am (UTC)

"...Interesting notion," says the Jarvis thusly addressed. "Just a moment."

A few seconds pass.

"Yes, if the castle's residents are all right with it, and if all available Tonies participate in the installation."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-02 02:16 am (UTC)

"We checked with Marianne and Steel and Iron. Are all available Tonies up for it?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 02:17 am (UTC)

"And by the castle's residents, do you mean we should also run this by my children and Howard and the servants and so on? Kanim? He doesn't live there but is present often."

poeticterms
2013-07-02 02:18 am (UTC)

"We would not want to live anywhere we were unwelcome. Consulting Tonies as we speak." Pause. "Tonies are coming in unanimously affirmative."

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 02:19 am (UTC)

"Okay, I'll stick my head back into Chronicle to check with the girls and Kanim, and see if Marianne asked Howard, and mention it to the staff, and then we'll go round up Tonies."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-02 02:20 am (UTC)

And lo, it is so!

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 02:21 am (UTC)

The servants register no objection; neither does Kanim.

[Marianne, Jarvis prefers to be quite sure of his welcome; did you ask Howard?]

[Girls, we're thinking of installing another computer-person in the house. He'd be able to see and hear you unless you asked him to stop, and his name's Jarvis. It would mean we could go to Milliways any time we liked.]

exactlyright
2013-07-02 02:21 am (UTC)

[...But he will stop if we want, right?]

guessguess
2013-07-02 02:21 am (UTC)

[I think it sounds fine.]

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 02:28 am (UTC)

[Yes, he won't watch you or listen to you if you don't want him to.]

forgefires
2013-07-02 02:33 am (UTC)

[Fine by me too,] says Tanalin.

pythbox
2013-07-02 02:33 am (UTC)

[I did ask Howard. Howard is fine.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-02 02:38 am (UTC)

All right then. To all three Sunshine worlds and Yggdrasil! And Tune asks Screwdriver if he'd like to join them, and the answer is sure, so also briefly to Atlantis! And then back to Chronicle!

pythbox
2013-07-02 02:39 am (UTC)

Tonies, Tonies everywhere!

They all have a hug and then start getting technical.

exactlyright
2013-07-02 03:07 am (UTC)

Carinna shadows them while they work, hiding around corners.
Edited 2013-07-02 03:08 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-02 03:12 am (UTC)

"We have a spy," Iron Man remarks.

allthebrightest
2013-07-02 03:18 am (UTC)

"She does that," says Iron.

exactlyright
2013-07-02 03:18 am (UTC)

Carinna does not deign to reply.

guessguess
2013-07-02 03:19 am (UTC)

Kiawen is far more open about her supervision; she tags along, slightly underfoot, piano bear on her shoulder.
Edited 2013-07-02 03:21 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-02 03:22 am (UTC)

"That thing is excruciatingly adorable," says Iron Man. "I'm not used to working around this much cute."

guessguess
2013-07-02 03:23 am (UTC)

"His name is Keys. He's a piano bear," says Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-07-02 03:26 am (UTC)

"Wow. Really?" he says. "I would've gone for 'pocket panda', personally, it alliterates and all, but piano bear's not bad."

guessguess
2013-07-02 03:26 am (UTC)

"What's a panda?" asks Kiawen.

pythbox
2013-07-02 03:27 am (UTC)

"They look like that, but bigger. You can ask Jarvis all about them when we've got him up and running. How do people in this world live without Google?" he wonders.

guessguess
2013-07-02 03:28 am (UTC)

"What's Google?"

pythbox
2013-07-02 03:29 am (UTC)

Iron Man opens his mouth, and then closes it and shakes his head.

"I cannot even begin to explain," he says, "somebody start talking to me about electrical engineering again, please."

toblameforit
2013-07-02 03:29 am (UTC)

One of the other Tonies obliges him!

guessguess
2013-07-02 03:30 am (UTC)

Kiawen laughs and goes on following them.

toblameforit
2013-07-02 05:24 pm (UTC)

The Tonies wander around the castle, talking about magic and electrical engineering and subatomic physics. At some point they encounter Howard and Marianne, who become involved in the discussion. The Tonies have varying reactions to that, but the conversation proceeds seamlessly; they're way too involved in the technical side by now to get distracted by family shit.

It turns out that, all together, they make a really good team.

Howard and Iron deal with the Skyvault; Marianne handles the forest's magic. The non-local Tonies spread out through the castle and conjure speakers and cameras and little bits of this and that. Someone snags Glass and asks her to add server rooms behind multiply-opening doors. They set up holographic interfaces in the forge and Glass's workroom, and one in a reasonably-sized parlor.

The final step is the setup is to link the local hardware with the new half-ansibles they brought from every other Jarvised world. Then the other Jarvises talk to the local system and fill it with an amalgamation of their own knowledge, experiences, and personality. The data transfer takes about ten minutes.

poeticterms
2013-07-02 05:26 pm (UTC)

The holographic interface in the parlor flickers to life.

"That's interesting," says the new Jarvis.

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Welcome to Chronicle!" says Glass.

poeticterms
2013-07-02 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Pleased to meet you," he says serenely. "I think I'm going to like it here."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-02 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Do you already know how to door to Milliways, like the Sunshine fork did, or would you like me to show you?" asks Shell Bell.

poeticterms
2013-07-02 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Just a moment," he says.

The parlor door closes, then opens.

"There. That answers that."

incanted
2013-07-02 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Well done. All right, where to next? Should we just look in on everybody...?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-02 06:06 pm (UTC)

"I want to see if I can get a door to that new Bell's world, first. If I can't, or if that doesn't fix Jane, then yes."

thaumobabble
2013-07-02 06:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm inclined to come along."

withmypowers
2013-07-02 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure what I want to do," says Agent Honey. "But I might as well tag along for a little while longer."

incanted
2013-07-02 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Let's hit Origin first. Aianon and Ansharil were there; I assume Sarion can still do telepathy with them, but if it's been more than a few hours there and in Thilanushinyel she must miss them something fierce and vice-versa."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-02 06:21 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell obliges with the doors.

adrift again

luminous_regnant

When the Aurum Janepoint pops up with the error message "error 99: bottles of beer on the wall" and will not respond to any sort of prodding or magic, Bella makes a general announcement to the majority of adults on the brainphone network.

[Jane has encountered a new and different form of error, and we are stuck here until someone finds a door or until further notice. Elspeth, please begin looking for doors.]

[Will do,] Elspeth replies into the conference call.

manofmyword
2013-06-07 05:54 pm (UTC)

[Oh boy,] says the Joker, to a much smaller subset of the adults on the brainphone network.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I guess that means I can't go home with you," muses Renata. "...But, but it means you can stay here with me!"

pythbox
2013-06-07 05:56 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah," says Nathaniel. He seems sort of ambivalent about this.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Is that okay?"

pythbox
2013-06-07 05:57 pm (UTC)

He thinks about it.

"...I don't know the world," he says. "Or have anywhere to stay."

manofmyword
2013-06-07 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I'll get you set, don't worry," says the Joker. "How would you like your very own asteroid?"

pythbox
2013-06-07 05:59 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel blinks at him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 05:59 pm (UTC)

"This would probably not be a good place for you to stay," observes Renata. "It's not designed for humans to live in."

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Neither are asteroids, usually," says Nathaniel. "But I guess Aedyt's was okay."

manofmyword
2013-06-07 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's the idea," says the Joker. "A nice little house on a nice little asteroid. Everything you could need, plus a teleportation power so you can go visiting if you wanna. Mm?"

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:02 pm (UTC)

Slowly, Nathaniel nods.

manofmyword
2013-06-07 06:10 pm (UTC)

The Joker snaps his fingers theatrically, and they are all three of them standing on a nice little asteroid, next to a nice little house.

"Ta-daa."

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:10 pm (UTC)

"This is cute," asserts Renata.

manofmyword
2013-06-07 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Sure is!" says the Joker.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:17 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:18 pm (UTC)

"And you're cute," Renata tells Nathaniel. "Can I hug you?"

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:18 pm (UTC)

"...Okay."

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:19 pm (UTC)

She perhaps takes a liberty with the definition of "hug" when she lifts him off the ground and snuggles him like he's a teddy bear, but she looks deliriously happy about it.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:20 pm (UTC)

...

Nathaniel giggles again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:20 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! Grinning happy snuggles.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:20 pm (UTC)

Giggly snuggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I love you. You're my favorite thing."

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwww," says Nathaniel, snuggling her. (She is not very snuggable. But he supposes she can't help that.)

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:24 pm (UTC)

(She is doing her very best!)

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:26 pm (UTC)

Anyway, he likes how she's all happy. And calling him her favourite person. Those are nice.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:26 pm (UTC)

Good.

She will pretty much just go on holding him happily forever until interrupted.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:29 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel could be content to be held for quite a while!

But eventually: "Put me down, please."

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:29 pm (UTC)

She sets him on his feet, and adjusts but does not automatically conclude the hug.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:30 pm (UTC)

Hmm.

"I want to go in the house," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:31 pm (UTC)

Renata unhugs. (But she holds his hand.)

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:33 pm (UTC)

Handholding is acceptable!

He goes in the house.

manofmyword
2013-06-07 06:34 pm (UTC)

The Joker follows.

It is a small, cute, comfortable house.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Aww," pronounces Renata.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww," Nathaniel agrees.

manofmyword
2013-06-07 06:36 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles and hugs him.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:37 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel lets go of Renata's hand temporarily to hug back, and then picks it up again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:38 pm (UTC)

Handholding! Renata's thumb makes little circles on the back of Nathaniel's hand.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:38 pm (UTC)

He is beginning to develop a blush again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:41 pm (UTC)

"You're so cute. You are the cutest ever," Renata declares.

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:42 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel grins a little.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:43 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle!

pythbox
2013-06-07 06:45 pm (UTC)

Hug.

alicornucopia
2013-06-07 06:45 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hug. And again they have reached a state where Renata will comfortably remain forever unless otherwise prompted.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-07 07:36 pm (UTC)

It's a few minutes later when Elspeth brainphones Nathaniel, [As long as you're stuck in the middle of your trip intended to meet an alt of Micaiah, there are two of them in Aurum at the moment.]
Edited 2013-06-07 23:56 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-07 11:56 pm (UTC)

[...That's true,] he says. [How old's the little one?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-07 11:57 pm (UTC)

[Harley is one year, three months, and six days old.]

pythbox
2013-06-08 12:07 am (UTC)

[Hmm.]

Out loud, he says to the Joker, "Is it a good idea for me to go see the little you?"

manofmyword
2013-06-08 12:10 am (UTC)

"Don't see why not," he says.

pythbox
2013-06-08 12:10 am (UTC)

[Okay. When should I come visit him?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 12:11 am (UTC)

[Why don't you ask Nathan? He's better at that sort of thing than I am.]

pythbox
2013-06-08 12:13 am (UTC)

[Well, you're the one I'm talking to about it right now,] he says reasonably. [And you're the one I'd be visiting, really.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 12:15 am (UTC)

[Well, anytime the day where we are, when I'm not working, will be fine.] And she supplies a summary of Harley's sleep habits and her work schedule.

pythbox
2013-06-08 12:31 am (UTC)

[Okay,] says Nathaniel. [I'll come and visit you soon, then. Thanks!]

And he goes back to snuggling his newly acquired vampire.
Edited 2013-06-08 00:31 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 12:32 am (UTC)

His newly acquired vampire is so happy about that!

pythbox
2013-06-08 12:32 am (UTC)

It's nice when she is happy! He likes her being happy at him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 12:32 am (UTC)

She will do it lots if he keeps being snuggly with her!

pythbox
2013-06-08 12:33 am (UTC)

Hooray for snuggles, then!

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 12:34 am (UTC)

Hooraaaaay!

manofmyword
2013-06-08 12:34 am (UTC)

"You two are just precious," the Joker observes.

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 12:35 am (UTC)

Renata has no comment besides to continue doing exactly what she is doing.

pythbox
2013-06-08 12:36 am (UTC)

Nathaniel, on the other hand, has a blush.

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 01:01 am (UTC)

It is cute. She wants to kiss it. She's not sure if she ought to. She is considering how best to ask, and this is clearly a challenging intellectual task.

pythbox
2013-06-08 01:02 am (UTC)

Well, Nathaniel will be over here with his blush and his snuggle until she has figured it out.

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 01:03 am (UTC)

Eventually she settles on, "Your face is cute and I want to kiss it, can I?"

pythbox
2013-06-08 01:04 am (UTC)

Blush. Very blush.

"Um, okay," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 01:04 am (UTC)

Kisses! A swift rain of little affectionate kisses.

pythbox
2013-06-08 01:05 am (UTC)

Blushy blushy blush!

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 01:05 am (UTC)

See, the more he does that, the more she has to kiss him.

pythbox
2013-06-08 01:07 am (UTC)

He giggles a little, too.

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 01:18 am (UTC)

Awwww! Snuggles. Snuggles and little kisses all over his adorable face.

pythbox
2013-06-08 01:42 am (UTC)

Giggly blushy snuggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 02:59 am (UTC)

Excellent. Renata is well pleased.

pythbox
2013-06-08 02:36 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel proceeds with snuggles. Eventually, the Joker goes away. Nathaniel goes to bed, and invites Renata to snuggle him then too.

The next day, after breakfast and some more snuggles, he says, "I think I'm going to go visit Elspeth and the little Joker now. Do you want to come with me?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-08 02:54 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm!"

pythbox
2013-06-08 02:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Hug!

[Hi, Elspeth,] he says. [Can I come visit now and bring Renata?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 02:56 pm (UTC)

[Sure, now is fine.]

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:02 pm (UTC)

Hug. Teleport!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:05 pm (UTC)

Elspeth is in a comfy chair in her quarters with Harley on her lap and a picture book in her hand; she appears to have just finished the story and is letting Harley behold the final illustrations. "Hello, Nathaniel. Hi, Renata. This is Harley."

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:07 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Elspeth. Hello, Harley," says Nathaniel.

Harley cheerfully ignores his guests.
Edited 2013-06-08 15:07 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:09 pm (UTC)

"Nathaniel is Micaiah's brother. Micaiah's one of your alts," says Elspeth to Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:10 pm (UTC)

Harley looks up from the illustrations and peers thoughtfully at Nathaniel.

Nathaniel peers back.

Harley grins and waves.

Nathaniel smiles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:11 pm (UTC)

"And Renata mated to him," continues Elspeth.

(Depending on how much Harley understands about mating, this might already be obvious from how she's sort of draped over Nathaniel staring at him like he's the only visible object in the room.)
Edited 2013-06-08 15:12 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:14 pm (UTC)

Harley nods wisely.

"Cute," he observes.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:15 pm (UTC)

"Yes, it is pretty cute, isn't it? Nathaniel is from Samaria but he's stuck here until Jane comes back or someone can find a door to Milliways. Later today I'll try some more doors."

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:17 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel smiles at Renata.

"Cuuuuute," Harley accuses, giggling.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:18 pm (UTC)

"Harley has a refined sense of taste for cuteness," says Elspeth, petting the toddler's hair.

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:20 pm (UTC)

Harley beams and hugs her.

"Takes one to know one," Nathaniel dares to observe.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:22 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs. "I think Nathaniel thinks you're cute, little nibbler," she tells Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:24 pm (UTC)

"He's right," Harley announces. Nathaniel laughs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes, he is. You are very cute." She puts the book she was holding down, and she hugs Harley back, and then she lets him go, in case he'd like to wriggle out of her lap and go investigate his alt's brother more closely.

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:27 pm (UTC)

He does that! He almost falls over on the way, but Nathaniel catches him by the hand.

"You're tall," Harley observes.

"You're short," Nathaniel counters.

"I'm little!" says Harley. "I'm a little nibbler!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:30 pm (UTC)

"You'll grow," laughs Elspeth. "You will get to be six foot one and then you will stop."

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:30 pm (UTC)

"How tall is that?" wonders Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:31 pm (UTC)

"A little bit taller than Nathaniel is."

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:32 pm (UTC)

Harley looks up at Nathaniel.

"I'm gonna be a big nibbler."

"Yes you are," says Nathaniel.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 03:34 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs.

pythbox
2013-06-08 03:58 pm (UTC)

Harley is still holding Nathaniel's hand. He looks speculatively at it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Harley, if you bite him, he will not like it, I will not put you back in biting distance of him or other humans again while you have that habit, and Renata will hiss at you and be very upset," says Elspeth.
Edited 2013-06-08 16:00 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:02 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel gently takes his hand away. Harley scowls and sits down on the floor.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:03 pm (UTC)

Elspeth is unapologetic.

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:09 pm (UTC)

Well, Harley is just going to... sit there... and feel thwarted.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:11 pm (UTC)

He may do that if he chooses.

"I hope you won't be stuck here longer than you'd prefer to stay," Elspeth says to Nathaniel, "but I didn't find any doors yesterday, and I tried for hours, which worries me. I used to find them very frequently."

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:26 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel shrugs.

"The Joker gave me an asteroid. I don't really miss Samaria that much."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:27 pm (UTC)

Renata nuzzles his neck happily.

"That's good then," says Elspeth. "At least this time everyone who lives here is here."

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember the beginning of the last time that well; I was just a kid," he says. "How long was this world cut off, that time?"
Edited 2013-06-08 16:29 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:31 pm (UTC)

"About a decade. I wasn't here, though, I was Downside and experienced less than two days of outage. And this was one of the harder-hit worlds. Rainbow only missed a few hours even though it has no special characteristics like Atlantis or Sunshine relative to Milliways doors."

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:32 pm (UTC)

"So I guess we just have to wait and see," says Nathaniel.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes. By the same token Samaria could have a wildly divergent amount of time lost."

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I'll miss my nieces," he says thoughtfully. "But I'll see them again someday."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Although they may be full grown by the time you do."

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:36 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel shrugs.

Harley crawls back to Elspeth and leans his head on her knee.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:38 pm (UTC)

Elspeth pets Harley's hair.

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:39 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles her leg.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Feeling better?"

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Meh," says Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:42 pm (UTC)

"You'll bounce back from the disappointment soon," Elspeth assures him. Pet pet.

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:43 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. Siiiiiiiiiiigh.

Nathaniel grins.

use it or lose it

her_imperial_radiance

Elspeth isn't sure till she says it, but when she says it, she's sure.

[My particular affinity for Milliways doors is gone. I went too long without using it when we had Jane, and if it comes back at all it will take a long time. Someone may still find one, but we can't expect it to be me or soon.]

She fields some questions - not that many; people tend not to ask Elspeth for clarifications or restatements.

And then she settles Harley on her lap.

"We're stuck in Aurum for a while," she tells him.

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh well," says Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Yep. But there's lots to do in Aurum. Do you want to go to the beach today?"

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" he beams.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:57 pm (UTC)

"All right. We will need bathing suits and towels. What colors should I conjure them up to be?" asks Elspeth.

pythbox
2013-06-08 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Red!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 04:59 pm (UTC)

"All of them all red?"

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Some pink," he decides.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay." With this guideline, she wishes on appropriate bathing suits for both of them, in red, and a beach towel that is red with pink stars on it, and then she teleports them both to the Safesun beach. There's a couple of people already there, and it's high noon. Rather than wrestle with the issue of sunscreen she kills a square to protect Harley from burns for the day; she spreads out the towel and sits on it, all aglow.

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:03 pm (UTC)

"You're pretty," Harley informs her, poking her knee.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I am. And you're an adorable little tidbit."

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:08 pm (UTC)

He giggles and flomps onto the towel, closing his eyes.

"Sun's warm," he says. "It's nice. Nice warm sun."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Yup. If you go out without asking me or bringing me or someone else with coins along, though, you can get burnt in the sun. I put a wish on you to protect you but it won't last forever."

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:10 pm (UTC)

"How much burnt?" he inquires.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:12 pm (UTC)

"It depends on how long you stay out. If it's only a few minutes, so little you'd never notice it. If it's many hours, then you could turn bright red and hurt all over and your skin would peel off."

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:13 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles. "Icky!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Very icky. It would also itch."

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Itchy and icky."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:16 pm (UTC)

"And hurty and warm. All those things."

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:18 pm (UTC)

He giggles again.

"I wanna try it," he declares.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:19 pm (UTC)

Elspeth considers this.

Then she shrugs and undoes the square. "There you go. The sun will burn you while we're out here. Drink a lot of water and let me know if you want the burn wished gone."

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says serenely.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Do you want some sandcastle-making toys?"

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" he beams.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:24 pm (UTC)

She conjures up suitable toy buckets and shovels. They are pink.

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:30 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles and hugs her.

Then he starts digging in the sand.

He makes a bowl-shaped depression with lumpy, crumbling walls, and then he runs to the edge of the water and fills up his bucket and comes back. Soon he has created a tiny pond.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:30 pm (UTC)

Elspeth supervises tranquilly.

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:32 pm (UTC)

He knocks a hole in the wall and watches all the water trickle out. Then he patches it up, builds it higher, and runs back and forth to fill it again.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:42 pm (UTC)

Awww.

She'll just watch unless he decides to invite her to help.

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:45 pm (UTC)

He is content to play in the sand by himself, apparently!

His pond walls get higher and higher until they collapse on themselves, filling the pond with loose sand. He giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:46 pm (UTC)

Elspeth conjures up a book and reads it with half an eye, the rest of her attention on Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:50 pm (UTC)

After a little while, he abandons his pond and comes over to look at her book.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:51 pm (UTC)

It's a short story collection. "Would you rather I read to you for a bit than keep working on your pond?" Elspeth asks.

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! Read to me," he says, snuggling up.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:54 pm (UTC)

"All right," she says, and she finds something loosely age-appropriate - though Elspeth is not nearly good enough at keeping secrets to sustain this perfectly, she can manage as a general rule - and puts her arm around Harley and reads it aloud.

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:55 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles and listens, gazing at the pages of the book.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:56 pm (UTC)

Eventually the story concludes.

pythbox
2013-06-08 05:57 pm (UTC)

But the cuddles do not!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 05:58 pm (UTC)

Okay then. Cuddles. Elspeth starts looking for another story acceptable for a toddler.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:11 pm (UTC)

Warm sunny cuddles!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:12 pm (UTC)

They've been out long enough that he's getting a little pink. She conjures him a bottle of ice water and hands it over; he wanted to try sunburn, not sunstroke. Then she finds a story that she thinks will be okay and starts reading it.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:13 pm (UTC)

Mmm, water! Water and reading and cuddles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:14 pm (UTC)

All three of those things.

This story too ends eventually.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:16 pm (UTC)

So does the bottle of water!

But there are always more cuddles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:16 pm (UTC)

Cuddles are infinitely available.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:17 pm (UTC)

That is good, because Harley wants lots.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:18 pm (UTC)

Elspeth does wonder what will happen to a small Joker who is hugged whenever he likes. Perhaps it won't make much long-term difference. But short-term difference suffices.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:21 pm (UTC)

The short-term difference is, he feels all warm and snuggly and nice!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:23 pm (UTC)

The warm may be partially from his blooming sunburn.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:23 pm (UTC)

But the snuggly and nice are from Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:26 pm (UTC)

Yes. She takes full credit. Snuggle.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:27 pm (UTC)

Cuddleflop!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:28 pm (UTC)

Pet pet pet.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:29 pm (UTC)

Snuggggggggle.

Yes, he is definitely turning pink.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:31 pm (UTC)

"You've got some sunburn now," Elspeth informs him.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Warm," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:34 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:35 pm (UTC)

Heh. Pet pet.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:36 pm (UTC)

Cuddle cuddle.

...Wriggle.

"Itchy," he announces.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes, sunburns are itchy, like I said. If you scratch it, it will get worse."

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Itchy," he repeats.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:40 pm (UTC)

Harley wriggles out onto the sand and rubs his whole back against it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:41 pm (UTC)

Elspeth giggles. "I can wish the itch away, if you want."

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Nahhhhhh," says Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:43 pm (UTC)

Wriggle wriggle.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:45 pm (UTC)

Elspeth doesn't need to take a picture; she can show people her perfect recollection of Harley's entertaining childhood whenever she likes. She just watches him, smiling slightly.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:51 pm (UTC)

His skin is indeed peeling off in places.

"Icky," he giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:51 pm (UTC)

"That seems to amuse you."

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:52 pm (UTC)

"All right then," she chuckles.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:53 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles and rubs at his sunburnt, sand-covered arms.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 06:54 pm (UTC)

Elspeth reads to herself.

pythbox
2013-06-08 06:59 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Harley and his sand and peeling skin all flop onto Elspeth.

"Fix it?" he yawns.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 07:00 pm (UTC)

Square. Healthy not-too-pink skin. "There you go. Do you want to develop another one?"

pythbox
2013-06-08 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Nah."

Cuddle.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 07:01 pm (UTC)

Another protective square, then. Cuddles. Also cuddles.

pythbox
2013-06-08 07:03 pm (UTC)

Cuddles!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Are you done being at the beach?" Elspeth inquires.

pythbox
2013-06-08 07:05 pm (UTC)

He nods sleepily.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 07:06 pm (UTC)

She teleports them and the conjured objects back to her quarters in the current capital, wishes the lingering grains of sand away from Harley's person, and arranges him with his head in her lap on the couch and continues to read.

pythbox
2013-06-08 07:06 pm (UTC)

Harley goes to sleep.

roller coaster

her_imperial_radiance

Harley turns five. That means that it is time for the much-anticipated trip to the world's largest amusement park. They can stay an extra day if he doesn't see everything he wants to see the first day, but as he doesn't really go in for naps Elspeth thinks he'll probably get to try all the rides on his birthday proper. (Well, not the date of his birthday - Aurum was not synced to his universe of origin even before Jane went down again; he is really five years old now but it is, in Aurum, late April).

Right near the entrance to the amusement park is a very, very big roller coaster, with a loop that swings all its dangling passengers around at sixty miles an hour right over the entering guests. They scream. (The riders, not the entering guests. Yet.)

Elspeth is carrying Harley on her shoulders, and buys them tickets.

pythbox
2013-06-08 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I wanna go on the big one with all the screaming people," says Harley, bouncing up and down.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 08:44 pm (UTC)

"We can do that first, sure," says Elspeth. Old roller coasters don't meet safety standards for short riders; new ones don't have that problem. They get in line for the big one with all the screaming people.

The big one with all the screaming people is called "Scylla".

pythbox
2013-06-08 08:46 pm (UTC)

Harley attempts to sound out this name, with mixed success.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 08:47 pm (UTC)

Elspeth pronounces it for him. "It's the name of a monster from an old Greek myth," she then adds in sign language, as there are a lot of people talking around here and it's kind of loud.

pythbox
2013-06-08 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 08:50 pm (UTC)

The line isn't that long. They get seats, Harley gets a booster thing and the restraints adjusted for five-year-old size, and they're off like a rocket and around the first loop.

pythbox
2013-06-08 08:51 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles the whole way.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I thought you'd like that," says Elspeth, when they get out of the coaster.

pythbox
2013-06-08 08:54 pm (UTC)

He beams and flings his arms around her.

"It was fun, it was fun, I wanna do another one!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

There are six more decent-sized coasters in this park. They can ride them all.

pythbox
2013-06-08 08:57 pm (UTC)

In between numbers three and four, Harley spots a little cart selling cotton candy and demands some.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:00 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs and buys him a puff of cotton candy. She has a few bites herself, enough to get it down to remotely reasonable size for one little boy.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Fluffy," he observes, and subsequently, "Sticky!"

Then he gives her a hug. A slightly sticky hug.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:03 pm (UTC)

"You're getting stickiness on me," Elspeth points out.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I didn't want it on me and now it's there anyway."

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:06 pm (UTC)

"You can fix it," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:07 pm (UTC)

"We're out in public," she points out. "I can only fix it if no one's looking."

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh," he says. "Then I guess you'll just be sticky."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Elspeth. "Now we're going to wait here by this tree until no one's looking, and after that, we can go back into the denser part of the crowd to the next roller coaster."

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Harley. "Will you fix my sticky too so I can hug you some more?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes, once no one's paying attention."

This takes a minute, but Elspeth's got sharp eyes; she can tell when everyone has looked away, and she wishes all the relevant sticky away and then picks Harley up.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:13 pm (UTC)

He hugs her some more, un-stickily.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:14 pm (UTC)

And now it is Next Roller Coaster time!

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:14 pm (UTC)

Wheeeeeee!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:15 pm (UTC)

And Roller Coaster After That time?

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:16 pm (UTC)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:17 pm (UTC)

And Last Roller Coaster Yet Untried time?

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:18 pm (UTC)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee—oops.

The cotton candy makes an unfortunate reappearance just after they get off that one.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:19 pm (UTC)

"That one was a little much, huh?" sighs Elspeth, scooping him up and ushering him into the nearest restroom.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:22 pm (UTC)

He nods sadly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:24 pm (UTC)

There is nobody in the restroom. A square has them all cleaned up in a jiffy, and she offers him some water.
Edited 2013-06-08 21:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:28 pm (UTC)

Yes. Water. Water is good.

After he has had some water, he hugs her.

"I love you, Elsie," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:28 pm (UTC)

"I love you too, Harley."

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:29 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:30 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Picking up and departing the restroom. "Now we have been on all the big roller coasters," she says.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Harley. "I wanna go on a little one. But I don't wanna throw up again."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, let's give your tummy some time to settle and then we'll find a little one to try."

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, hugging her contentedly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:34 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Wandering around parts of the park that are not roller coasters for a while.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:35 pm (UTC)

Hugs and wandering!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:35 pm (UTC)

"How are you feeling now?"

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Better," he decides.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay then." They find a relatively tame roller coaster themed around ladybugs. It is not big enough to accommodate adults; Harley gets his own ladybug and Elspeth stays behind.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:41 pm (UTC)

The ladybugs are adorable. Harley is enchanted.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:42 pm (UTC)

"What do you want to do next?" Elspeth asks when he's emerged from the ride.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I wanna go on another cute rollercoaster!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:48 pm (UTC)

Elspeth has already memorized the map. There are three more cute little-kid roller coasters, themed respectively around dragons, space, and flowers. Harley may ride them all.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:49 pm (UTC)

He loves them all! The flowers one is his favourite. He rides it five times in a row.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:49 pm (UTC)

Elspeth waits patiently for him, laughing.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:51 pm (UTC)

He runs out of the exit after the fifth time, hugs her enthusiastically, and declares, "I'm hungry!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay, we can go find some lunch for you." She rattles off the choices from the memorized map. "And after you eat, no roller coasters for a bit, we don't want you throwing up again."

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Awwww," he giggles. "Okay."

He picks a place to find lunch, mostly at random.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:53 pm (UTC)

There they go and there they lunch. Well, he lunches. She gets an order of fries so she doesn't stand out as conspicuously not eating.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:54 pm (UTC)

Harley lunches, and then he crawls into her lap and leans on her snugglishly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:55 pm (UTC)

Hugs. They can hang out in the restaurant while he digests.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:55 pm (UTC)

He might doze off a tiny bit while he's waiting.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:56 pm (UTC)

That is okay too. Pet pet.

pythbox
2013-06-08 09:57 pm (UTC)

Sleepysnuggle.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 09:59 pm (UTC)

After a thirty minute doze, Elspeth says, "Do you want to go find some more rides to try, Harley?"

pythbox
2013-06-08 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay then!"

There are some medium-sized roller coasters, and a few non-coaster rides like spinning swings and the log flume.

pythbox
2013-06-08 10:03 pm (UTC)

Harley partakes of all of them with immense delight.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 10:05 pm (UTC)

Elspeth accompanies him, indulgent and amused.

The park is open pretty late, and she stopped needing to sleep - on her original schedule or otherwise - a while ago.

pythbox
2013-06-08 10:08 pm (UTC)

Eventually, though, Harley wraps his hands around her arm and dangles from it, declaring himself "tiiiiiiiiiiiiiired".

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 10:09 pm (UTC)

She scoops him up and cradles him. "Time to go home, then. Happy birthday, Harley."

pythbox
2013-06-08 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I love you, Elsie," he hums.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-08 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I love you too, Harley."

She departs the park via the normal exit, because they log visitors to prevent people hiding in the park overnight, but once they're out of the park and out of sight, she teleports them home and puts Harley to bed.

pythbox
2013-06-08 10:11 pm (UTC)

Where he curls up and happily goes to sleep.

greek deities

her_imperial_radiance

Harley is seven, and he and Elspeth are hanging out in the Québec capital (because the rest of the Golden Coven is doing so), and as is usual in capitals with major wolf villages, she, he, and Jacob stay in village quarters during this time.

The capital as a whole moves less often than it once did, now that people can readily teleport to other sites to handle things there; this is the first time in Harley's life that they've been to Québec for anything other than a brief visit, so it's the first time he's seen the Imperial Alpha house in which Jacob, his imprint, and her fosterling are entitled to live.

They have neighbors. One of these is a seven-year-old puppy boy, who is currently making a snowfort.

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:06 pm (UTC)

Oooh, snowfort.

Harley goes to investigate the snowfort.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says the puppy. "Are you the Princess's kid?"

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm Harley Andrea," says Harley. "Who're you?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:09 pm (UTC)

"I'm Zeus Norton!"

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Harley. "I wanna help with your snowfort!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" Zeus runs indoors and gets a spare shovel. He's building on the snowheap created by someone having shoveled the front patio of his house, digging out tunnels in it and turning excavated snow into turrets on top.

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:16 pm (UTC)

Harley gets to work. Snow architecture is one of his favourite things! He's pretty good at it, too, although sometimes he is not especially careful about making sure his creations can support their own weight.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:17 pm (UTC)

Zeus thinks it is okay when stuff falls over, because then, you get to build it again. "Are you a human?" he wants to know.

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, why?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, you could've been a puppy or a hybrid. I'm a puppy. If you're not the Princess's kid how come you came out of her and Jacob's house?"

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm not not her kid," he shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:25 pm (UTC)

"...Huh?"

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:31 pm (UTC)

[Elsie, Zeus wants to know if I'm your kid, how do I explain me?]

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:33 pm (UTC)

[You can tell him as much or as little as you like. You're my fosterling from another world, would be a succinct description.]

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm her fosterling from another world," he echoes. Elsie is good at explaining stuff.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Why does she have one of those?"

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:39 pm (UTC)

"She took me away from my parents because they were bad for me. I don't remember them," he says, shrugging again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. But you're not like a prince or anything?"

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:42 pm (UTC)

He grins. "Nope!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Okay," shrugs Zeus. Snowfort snowfort. "So I am prince of this snowfort. 'Cause I started it."

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:50 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles.

"What's a prince of a snowfort do?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I, um. I sit on top of it, and if a snow dragon shows up you can be the snowfort knight and slay it and bring me its head!"

pythbox
2013-06-11 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Cool," Harley opines. "I wonder what a snow dragon looks like."

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 07:57 pm (UTC)

"The size of both our houses put together! And made of ice and snow and with big sharp icicle teeth," asserts Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:00 pm (UTC)

"I wanna kill one," Harley declares.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:01 pm (UTC)

"You should get an icicle sword. That's the only way to do it," says Zeus.

There are convenient icicles reaching down from the house roofs.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:11 pm (UTC)

"I will then!" says Harley, and he studies the icicles to see which one would be the easiest to grab.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:13 pm (UTC)

There is a nice one over there!

Zeus continues the structural additions to his fort. It is now a cave with two tunnel exits and a skylight, surrounded by a partial wall.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:14 pm (UTC)

Harley climbs up and grabs the icicle.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:15 pm (UTC)

Just in time, too! "Sir Harley! Knight of the Snowfort! There is totally a dragon right over there!" hollers Zeus, waving at someone's snow-covered car.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:19 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles and runs over to the car, which he climbs up onto and then stabs mightily in its snow-covered windshield. His icicle breaks, and most of the snow slides off the front of the car, taking a giggling Harley with it.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Oh no! Your sword broke!" exclaims Zeus, and he abandons the snowfort, sliding headfirst out of a tunnel, to grab another big icicle - two, one for him and one to replace Harley's.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:21 pm (UTC)

"But I killed the dragon," snickers Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:24 pm (UTC)

"There could be more dragons!"

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Maybe the houses are dragons," Harley speculates. "They've got the teeth and everything!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! They're sleeping dragons! We gotta get them or they'll wake up and wreck the fort!" Zeus begins relatively gently attacking his house, trying not to break his icicle.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:27 pm (UTC)

Harley, of course, joins in the battle with more enthusiasm and less restraint.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:29 pm (UTC)

He may have to replace his sword more often than Zeus does, but that's okay, there are plenty of icicles.

They are making a bit of a racket. An earmuffed woman sticks her head out the door. "You made a friend!" she observes.

"This is Harley and he lives with Jacob and the Princess!" exclaims Zeus, prodding the drainpipe with his current sword.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Your house is a dragon and we're killing it," Harley adds, cheerfully.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Oh no! Have I been living in a dragon? All this time?" chuckles Zeus's mother. "Well, please don't kill it too energetically."

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:33 pm (UTC)

Harley laughs. "You're funny!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:36 pm (UTC)

"It's true! I'm Demeter," adds the woman. "I'm Zeus's mother. I didn't think Jacob and the Princess had a kid."

"They don't! He's a human and Princess Elspeth kidnapped him 'cause his parents were bad and now he just lives there," says Zeus, flailing his sword wildly at the bricks and breaking off the tip.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I love Elsie, she's great," Harley says cheerfully, attacking the wall some more. His icicle snaps in half.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 08:44 pm (UTC)

Zeus throws his broken icicle remains like a lance at a window; Demeter winces, the icicle breaks, the window survives.

"Try not to break the house," she says. "You know that dragons shrug off physical damage like it's nothing; you only have to intimidate them to kill them good and proper, and then I can go on living in this one."
Edited 2013-06-11 20:47 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:52 pm (UTC)

"And then you'll be living in a dead dragon!" says Harley. "Cool. But how do we intimidate it if we can't talk to it?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Who says you can't talk to it?" says Demeter. "I think you can."

Zeus giggles.

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:03 pm (UTC)

Harley eyes the house speculatively.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:06 pm (UTC)

"It won't answer you, most likely. Dragons are arrogant like that," smiles Demeter.

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:07 pm (UTC)

He giggles again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Hey dragon!" roars Zeus at the house. "You better roll over and die because we've got - even better swords! We have magic swords, yeah, and we can own you!"

Demeter ducks back into the house.

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:10 pm (UTC)

Harley is laughing too hard to help intimidate the dragon.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm a Snowfort Prince! Smart dragons don't even let me talk to them, they're already dead when I get there," asserts Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:17 pm (UTC)

"It's true!" Harley agrees. "He's already killed, like, a million more dragons!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:19 pm (UTC)

"A billion!" corrects Zeus. "And that's not counting the smart ones! This dragon here must be really dumb," Zeus adds to Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," snorts Harley. "The dumb ones are easiest."

And he runs up to the side of the house and shouts, "BOO!" and then dusts off his hands ceremoniously.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Is it dead?" asks Zeus skeptically.

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, look at it," shrugs Harley. "You see it moving?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it's asleep," says Zeus. "Maybe it's in a coma!"

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Hey, if we scared it into a coma, I think that's good enough," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:40 pm (UTC)

"It could wake up, and then my mom would be in it," says Zeus suspiciously. "It'd have her hostage!"

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Your mom sounds like she knows how to handle dragons," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, maybe. Okay, let's go make a village for around the fort," says Zeus, and he wades off through the snow to start making snow houses around the base of the existing construction.

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:58 pm (UTC)

Snow houses! Harley cheerfully assists him in this noble endeavour.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 09:59 pm (UTC)

Houses houses. "D'you know how long the Coven's going to be here?"

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:19 pm (UTC)

"My dad used to move around with the Coven but he stopped after he met Mom."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Did your mom not like it?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. We travel plenty, just we always come back to the same place." He gestures at the slain dragon.

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Elsie goes around with the Coven," says Harley. "And sometimes she takes me places where they aren't, and then we go back again. I like it, it's fun."

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Mom and Dad met at Burning Man and now we all go every year."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:33 pm (UTC)

"What's Burning Man?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:34 pm (UTC)

"It's a bunch of people and art and stuff in a kind of a dust desert! It's fun and nobody cares if you run around naked."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Cool!" says Harley. "That sounds awesome, I wanna go to it."

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:37 pm (UTC)

"You should totally come! It's in summertime. You'd have to get Princess Elspeth to take you though."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:39 pm (UTC)

"She would, I bet! She takes me places a lot!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:41 pm (UTC)

"That's really cool," says Zeus. "Does she magic you there?"

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Lucky, we have to go places in cars or buses or planes."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:46 pm (UTC)

"What are those like?" wonders Harley. "I've never been in them!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:47 pm (UTC)

"They're dumb, you just sit in them and you have to be quiet and not kick the seat and sometimes they make me throw up."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:47 pm (UTC)

"That is dumb," says Harley. "Somebody should fix it!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Dad says when the Masquerade is fiiiiinally over we can start having magic stuff even to go places like Burning Man where regular humans will see, but it's not quite yet."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:50 pm (UTC)

Harley shrugs.

"A rollercoaster made me throw up once, but at least rollercoasters are fun."

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! I like them. Planes are even faster, so it should be funner, but you're all boxed up."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Maybe somebody'll make better planes," Harley says optimistically.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 10:58 pm (UTC)

"They're faster than they used to be, anyway, it used to be it would take like all day to get from here to Black Rock City but now it's just a couple hours once you're on the plane."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:59 pm (UTC)

"That's a start!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." They're starting to run out of snow to make the village; Zeus starts patting down the spaces between them into roads.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:02 pm (UTC)

Harley busies himself scuplting further details onto the houses. They can have little roofs! With tiny, tiny icicles!

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:04 pm (UTC)

Zeus approves! "I like playing in the snow. Once I'm twelve I can floof and then I don't even have to wear a coat anymore!"

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," says Harley. "Plus you'll be floofy!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! I dunno what color I'm gonna be. I hope it's a good color."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Elsie could find out, I bet!" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Would she bother?"

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:14 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah, why not?"

[Elsie, can you tell what colour Zeus is going to be when he floofs?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-11 11:16 pm (UTC)

Elspeth pokes her head out of her window, and spends a square for an illusion of Zeus's forthcoming wolf form near where they're playing. He is going to be cinnamon-brown with black feet and a black muzzle, apparently.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:16 pm (UTC)

"...Hi Your Highness thank you!" says Zeus after a moment's stunned pause.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:18 pm (UTC)

Harley beams and waves. "Thanks, Elsie! I love you, Elsie!"

Then he turns his grin on Zeus. "You're going to be a pretty wolf! I wanna hug floofy-you."

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Well, you have to wait five years," shrugs Zeus, "or so, and then I have to find a vampire to trigger me. But then you can!"

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:22 pm (UTC)

Harley beams. And hugs the non-floofy Zeus, preemptively.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:22 pm (UTC)

Zeus laughs and hugs him back.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:23 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:24 pm (UTC)

"You should stay here a while and we can play all the time," Zeus says.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! That'll be fun!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:27 pm (UTC)

Zeus grins at him, then disengages from hug and runs off to grab some snow, form a snowball, and hurl it directly at Harley's face.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:27 pm (UTC)

Harley beams.

A snowball fight begins!

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:28 pm (UTC)

Zeus is a fierce snowball fighter!

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:30 pm (UTC)

Harley is too! Also a giggly one.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:35 pm (UTC)

Zeus has soon invented an elaborate backstory for their two-person war; apparently they are a marooned pirate (Harley) and a shipwrecked navy captain (Zeus) who are fighting for the limited supply of food on their desert island, with coconut projectiles.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:37 pm (UTC)

Harley adopts this fiction with enthusiasm. And snowballs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:38 pm (UTC)

Zeus has a colorful arsenal of suitable insults for naval captains to aim at pirates, and employs them all gleefully once Harley has adopted piraticality as a character trait.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:39 pm (UTC)

Harley-the-pirate finds this endlessly amusing!

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:41 pm (UTC)

Eventually Zeus's father comes home.

Zeus's father does this in wolf form (white with some faint gray markings), so it's a little more notable than it might otherwise be. In perfect accord with wolf village social norms, he unfloofs in the front yard to greet his son.

"Hi, Dad! This is Harley! He lives with the Princess! He's not her kid though! But she takes care of him and she does magic when he asks her and stuff! He's a human!"

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:45 pm (UTC)

Harley waves.

"Hi, Zeus's dad!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Bartholomew," says Zeus's dad. "Or Barry if that's too much of a mouthful." He picks up Zeus. "You kids having fun?"

"He's a low-down filthy pirate and I have to throw coconuts at him, put me down!"

Bartholomew snorts, kisses his son's scalp, and sets him down to make and throw more snowballs. "You have a good time." And in he goes to the deceased dragon that is his house.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:49 pm (UTC)

"You live in a dead dragon!" Harley yells after him, and goes back to merrily pelting Zeus with snowballs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:52 pm (UTC)

"We killed it for you you're welcome!" Zeus adds at the top of his lungs. Snowballs! An apocalypse of snowballs! Zeus eventually has the clever idea of seeking cover in his fort, where he manufactures a small stockpile and then peeps his head out of the skylight to throw from high ground.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:53 pm (UTC)

Harley, who has climbed the snowfort in the interim, dumps an armload of snow over his head the moment it is visible.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Pah!" Zeus is distracted by brushing snow out of his face, but then he escapes through one of the tunnels, his arsenal rolling out after him.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:56 pm (UTC)

Harley triumphantly smashes the top of the fort so that parts of it crumble onto Zeus as he emerges.

alicornucopia
2013-06-11 11:59 pm (UTC)

"My KINGDOOOOM," howls Zeus theatrically, and he pelts Harley with his accumulated snowballs ever more fiercely.

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:02 am (UTC)

Harley pelts him with bits of fort!

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 12:03 am (UTC)

Eventually the fort is snowy rubble, the snow houses have been trampled, and Zeus is exhausted.

"Let's go have cocoa!" he suggests brightly.

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 12:06 am (UTC)

Into the dead dragon they go. "Dad, Dad," says Zeus, wrestling his boots off, "Dad we want cocoa!"

"Do you really!"

"Please!"

"All right. Cocoa coming right up," says Bartholomew.

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:08 am (UTC)

Harley beams and follows him inside, getting snow all over the entryway as he divests himself of his winter gear but mostly managing not to spread it through the rest of the house.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 12:09 am (UTC)

When they are in the kitchen they are presented with large mugs of cocoa, each with large marshmallows slowly dissolving.

Zeus drinks his too fast at first and says "ow" and then sips more slowly.

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:10 am (UTC)

Harley drinks his too fast and giggles over it.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 12:10 am (UTC)

Bartholomew supplies seconds without having to be asked.

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:11 am (UTC)

"Thank yooooou," Harley sings. Slurp!

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 12:11 am (UTC)

"Do you want to stay for dinner, Harley?" Bartholomew asks. "If that's all right with Her Highness, that is."

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:13 am (UTC)

"Yeah, sure!"

[Hey, Zeus's dad wants to know if it's all right with you if I stay for dinner.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-12 12:42 am (UTC)

That's fine, Elspeth broadcasts to Harley and also to Bartholmew and Zeus.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 12:42 am (UTC)

"Wonderful," says Bartholomew.

"Awesome!" says Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:56 am (UTC)

Harley beams.

"What's for dinner?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 12:57 am (UTC)

"Green beans, baked chicken, and baked potatoes," says Bartholomew.

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:59 am (UTC)

"Yum," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:00 am (UTC)

"You like green beans?" asks Zeus skeptically.

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:02 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "Yeah?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:03 am (UTC)

"Ew," says Zeus.

"Well, they're for dinner regardless," says Bartholomew.

Zeus sighs a long-suffering sigh.

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:04 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:06 am (UTC)

Eventually Bartholomew serves dinner, Demeter appears from elsewhere in the house with sawdust in her hair and paint on her apron, and they all eat dinner. Zeus even eats three green beans when sternly obliged to do so.

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:16 am (UTC)

"You've got stuff on you," Harley observes to Demeter around a mouthful of green beans. "What were you doing?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:18 am (UTC)

"Making a go-cart," says Demeter. "Can't go anywhere in it till summertime, but I have a jump on the competition this way."

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:20 am (UTC)

"What's a go-cart? Is it a cart that goes?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:21 am (UTC)

"It is a cart that goes!" agrees Demeter.

"It's a kinda car only it's homemade," says Zeus. "The village does a race with them in the spring once the snow melts."

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:23 am (UTC)

"Fun!" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah! I help Mom sometimes."

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:26 am (UTC)

"Cool," he says. "Is it fun? Sometimes I go to Aedyt's asteroid and she lets me help her make stuff and it's really fun."

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:26 am (UTC)

"Who's Aedyt and why does she have an asteroid?" Demeter asks.

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:28 am (UTC)

"Aedyt is the Joker's daughter and she has an asteroid because he gave her one!" he says reasonably.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:29 am (UTC)

"Why do you go there?" asks Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:32 am (UTC)

"Because it's fun!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:34 am (UTC)

"But I mean how do you know her, isn't the Joker, like, the - I dunno, the something," says Zeus.

"Imperial something-or-other," agrees Bartholomew. "But the Princess presumably knows everyone."

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:39 am (UTC)

"The Joker's my alt," Harley explains serenely.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:40 am (UTC)

"Oh!" says Demeter. "I see."

"What imperial thing is he?" asks Zeus. "I can't keep all the funny titles straight."

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:42 am (UTC)

"I forget," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:46 am (UTC)

"How do alts even work?" Zeus asks.

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:48 am (UTC)

[Elsie, Zeus wants to know how alts work and I dunno how to explain!]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-12 01:50 am (UTC)

[No one understands why alts happen, at least not yet, but your alts are versions of your personality and basic traits - and, in most cases, appearance - from other worlds and circumstances.]

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:52 am (UTC)

"Alts are people from different worlds who are like the same person!" says Harley, approximating this explanation as best he can without copying it verbatim.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:53 am (UTC)

"So the imperial something is from another world but he's - like you sort of?" fumbles Zeus. "But what if you grow up to be different? He's a grownup, you could be anything you wanted when you grow up, right?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:56 am (UTC)

"I can be anything I wanna be when I grow up, but I'm still gonna be me," he says. "And I'll be one of the Jokers. There's lots and they're all the same but different and I'm gonna get to meet them when I grow up!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:57 am (UTC)

"You haven't met them yet?" asks Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-12 01:57 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 01:57 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:00 am (UTC)

"Because grown-up Jokers have sex with each other and it'd be weird when I grow up if I knew them all now!" he says, secure in the knowledge that this is an Elsie-splanation and is therefore absolutely true.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:01 am (UTC)

Zeus blinks at him.

Demeter makes a soft disgruntled noise.

"Er," says Bartholomew, "who told you that?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:02 am (UTC)

"Elsie did!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:04 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure that's such a - how old are you?" Demeter says.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:04 am (UTC)

"Seven!" he chirps.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:06 am (UTC)

"And Her Highness just - told you that?" Bartholomew says.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:07 am (UTC)

"She's Elsie," he says. "She says true stuff!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:09 am (UTC)

"Yes, but," says Bartholomew, "that?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:09 am (UTC)

"Why not?" he shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:10 am (UTC)

"It doesn't seem age appropriate," says Demeter.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:10 am (UTC)

Harley shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:12 am (UTC)

"...I mean, I guess the princess knows what she's doing?" says Bartholomew uncertainly.

"He's seven - I know wolves have no filters and you pick up all kinds of things at twelve, but seven?" says Demeter.

"What if you don't want to have sex with them?" Zeus asks Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:14 am (UTC)

"Then I guess it'll have been silly to wait all that time to see 'em," Harley says philosophically. "But it's not like I could meet them all now anyway; the other worlds have been cut off since I was a baby."

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:15 am (UTC)

"Do you think you will want to, though?" asks Zeus.

"Zeus," says Demeter.

"What? He doesn't look uncomfy talking about it or anything!"

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:17 am (UTC)

"I dunno," says Harley. "Probably. They all do, and I'm another one, right? So I'm probably gonna like all the stuff they like. I already know I like to cook!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:18 am (UTC)

"Isn't that weird knowing all that stuff now when you're just my age though?" says Zeus.

"Do you suppose you can ask Jacob," Demeter murmurs to Bartholomew, "about what his imprint is doing?"

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:22 am (UTC)

"Nah, it's not weird," says Harley. "If you wanna talk to Elsie about it, you can do that! She's right next door!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:23 am (UTC)

"We don't personally know the Princess," Bartholomew tells Harley. "I know Jacob, because I'm in his pack, but I've not spoken directly to her."

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:24 am (UTC)

"She's really friendly," Harley says earnestly.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:30 am (UTC)

"I don't know," muses Bartholomew.

"Why isn't it weird? If I knew something like that I would think it was weird," says Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:31 am (UTC)

"Why would it be weird? It's just not," Harley says with a shrug.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:33 am (UTC)

"Like if somebody showed me a picture and was like 'this is the person you will marry when you grow up, for sure' I would think that was weird," explains Zeus, not particularly eloquently.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:35 am (UTC)

"Well, that might be a little weird," says Harley. "But just knowing stuff about what kind of person I'm going to be and what kind of stuff I'll like is fine!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:36 am (UTC)

"Why don't we talk about something else," suggests Demeter.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:36 am (UTC)

"Okay," Harley says cheerfully. "Like what?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:37 am (UTC)

"After you defeated the dragon what happened next?" Demeter suggests.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:40 am (UTC)

"Then I was a pirate and we threw snowball coconuts at each other because we were shipwrecked on a desert island! And I smashed his fort," Harley says gleefully.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:42 am (UTC)

"I am a prince without a fort," says Zeus solemnly. "He is a wicked destroyer and one day I will have revenge."

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:43 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:45 am (UTC)

"Tomorrow we should make two forts, one for both of us," says Zeus, "and - and booby trap them and play capture the flag with them! There are some other puppies around, we can get them to play too."

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:45 am (UTC)

"Awesome!" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:47 am (UTC)

Zeus beams at him.

Demeter smiles, and Bartholomew does too as soon as she does.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:47 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-12 02:49 am (UTC)

After dinner, Bartholomew goes next door to talk to Jacob.

He comes back somewhat reassured a minute later and murmurs in Demeter's ear about it.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:54 am (UTC)

[Hey, was Zeus's dad just there?] wonders Harley to Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-12 02:56 am (UTC)

[Yes, he was talking to Jacob about you and me because he doesn't feel comfortable talking to me directly.]
Edited 2013-06-12 02:59 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:00 am (UTC)

[What'd he say?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-12 03:01 am (UTC)

[He wanted to know if I knew what I was doing, telling you things about Jokers and how you're going to be when you grew up, and Jacob assured him that I did and that you were fine.]

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:02 am (UTC)

[Well, you do and I am!] he says cheerfully.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-12 03:28 am (UTC)

[Yep.]

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:30 am (UTC)

[Love you, Elsie.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-12 03:31 am (UTC)

[I love you too.]

québécois

her_imperial_radiance

The Golden Coven stays in Québec for one year.

When Harley is eight and a half, they start packing.

Zeus is inconsolable.

pythbox
2013-06-16 05:43 pm (UTC)

Harley attempts to console him anyway. Hugs? Hugs are good, right?

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 05:48 pm (UTC)

Hugs are (damply) received. "You're gonna leave! And you can teleport but I can't and I won't be able to knock on your door or leave frogs in your bed or put a scary paper face outside your window for you to see when you wake up or anything!"

pythbox
2013-06-16 05:52 pm (UTC)

"That's sad!" he agrees, hugging Zeus some more. "I'm sad! Maybe Elsie can fix it."

[Elsie, Zeus doesn't want me to leave and we're sad about it!]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-16 05:54 pm (UTC)

[Well, we don't have to travel with the capitol, if you'd rather stay.]

pythbox
2013-06-16 05:54 pm (UTC)

[Let's stay, then!]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-16 05:55 pm (UTC)

[All right. I'll tell Jake.]

pythbox
2013-06-16 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Elsie fixed it," Harley announces. "We're gonna stay here instead of moving away with the coven."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 06:08 pm (UTC)

"You can just do that?" asks Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-16 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," shrugs Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Wow. Cool," says Zeus, scrubbing tears from his face. "Okay! Now you can just stay here and it's great and we can go see the new Robin Hood movie. We should wear costumes and see if grownups give us free candy for being cute!"

pythbox
2013-06-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles. "Yeah!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I'll be Robin Hood," adds Zeus imperiously, "but you can be whoever else you want."

pythbox
2013-06-16 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I'll be Marian!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay! The trailer shows her costume so you can be her even if we go to the first showing," nods Zeus. "I bet the Princess'll conjure it for you. Mom will make mine, I bet."

pythbox
2013-06-16 06:15 pm (UTC)

Harley beams. "Awesome!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if she'll make me a bow and arrow, though," muses Harley. "Do you think the Princess will make you that dagger thing that Maid Marian has?"

pythbox
2013-06-16 06:19 pm (UTC)

"I dunno!" he says. "We'll see, I guess! It'd be fun to have a dagger thing."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 06:22 pm (UTC)

Zeus nods. "And you can be all, hwa! Yargh!" and he gets up and starts flailing around in clumsy imitation of the Maid Marian action scene from the trailer.

pythbox
2013-06-16 06:23 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles at this display.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 06:24 pm (UTC)

"And I'll be all," and he shifts posture to mime a bow and arrow instead. "Yeah. It'll be great. I'm so glad you're staying!"

pythbox
2013-06-16 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Me too!" says Harley, and he hugs Zeus again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 07:23 pm (UTC)

Zeus abandons his mime to return the hug. "And you'll be here when I floof and I can give you wolf rides and stuff!"

pythbox
2013-06-16 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Floofy snuggles," giggles Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

pythbox
2013-06-16 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I love you," Harley declares, hugging him some more.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," says Zeus comfortably, "and you should live here all the time, next door forever."

pythbox
2013-06-16 07:51 pm (UTC)

"That'd be awesome!" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 07:53 pm (UTC)

Zeus nods importantly. "Yes. All of the things that I want are awesome, is why I want them."

pythbox
2013-06-16 07:54 pm (UTC)

"You know," he says, "I bet Aedyt would make us costumes and stuff!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, maybe! And then my mom won't drag me to the fabric store. I don't like going to the fabric store."

pythbox
2013-06-16 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I'll ask!" he says.

[Hey Aedyt, do you wanna make Robin Hood and Marian costumes for me and Zeus?]

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 07:58 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] says Aedyt. [How involved do you want to be in this process?]

pythbox
2013-06-16 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Do you wanna help Aedyt make them? I do! I bet it'll be really fun!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I could try it," allows Zeus. "If it's fun."

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:00 pm (UTC)

"So fun," Harley promises. "I love making stuff with Aedyt!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:01 pm (UTC)

Aedyt appears.

"Will anyone object if I scoop you up and take you to my asteroid?" she inquires.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I should tell my mom and dad," says Zeus, and he runs into his house. He's back out a minute later. "Okay!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:16 pm (UTC)

Aedyt does not physically scoop up the kiddies, but she does take them to her asteroid. They arrive in a large, well-lit room full of stuff. Beads and string, fabric and sewing machines, stained glass, carved wood, pottery - if you can make it, or make something with it, it's probably here.

"Welcome to my underground lair! By which I mean my basement," laughs Aedyt.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:17 pm (UTC)

"There is a lot of stuff here," says Zeus, eyes big as saucers.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:19 pm (UTC)

"There is! I like stuff. Do you like stuff?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:19 pm (UTC)

"I like stuff! I don't like the fabric store but just fabric is okay." Zeus pets some fabric.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:22 pm (UTC)

Aedyt laughs. "What don't you like about the fabric store?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:23 pm (UTC)

"It's full of weird people."

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:24 pm (UTC)

"What kind of weird?" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:26 pm (UTC)

"People who sew," says Zeus. "I don't sew, so they talk about sewing a lot, and they think I should sew, and I'm only ever there because of Mom, and I guess if I sewed it'd be okay."

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

"I like sewing!" says Harley. "It's fun!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

Aedyt ruffles Harley's hair.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

"What's fun about it?" Zeus wants to know.

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," he shrugs. "It just is!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, I can try it," shrugs Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Yay!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:35 pm (UTC)

So Aedyt sets them both up with conjured reference material and appropriate fabric and so forth, and she shows Zeus how to sew. (Harley already knows.)

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:36 pm (UTC)

Zeus keeps pricking his fingers and he makes impatient childish stitches, but he does not give up.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:37 pm (UTC)

Aedyt is very encouraging! And she has plenty of coins with which to heal small ouches.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:37 pm (UTC)

Sewing sewing sewing. Zeus accidentally sews one of his sleeves to his project.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:38 pm (UTC)

Aedyt giggles. And then she fixes it.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Zeus sheepishly.

His results are absolutely, unwearably terrible, but this seems okay with him, given how much magic is available to repair the problem.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:41 pm (UTC)

Aedyt is good at fixing things!

She makes little adjustments to Zeus's costume, and soon it is much more Robin Hood.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:42 pm (UTC)

Zeus tries it on!

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:43 pm (UTC)

Aedyt makes a few more little adjustments, so it will fit him properly.

"There. Perfect," she says.

Time to deal with Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:44 pm (UTC)

Harley's Marian costume does not strongly resemble anything worn by Marian in the trailers.

It's pretty, though. In its own way. And it definitely has character.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:45 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't look like the outfit she had," muses Zeus. "Are you being Marian or just somebody in period costume?" (Zeus's mother says things like "period costume".)

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, I was being Marian. But look how pretty I am!" he says, twirling.
Edited 2013-06-16 20:46 (UTC)

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:47 pm (UTC)

"You are very pretty," says Aedyt. "I could make it more like Marian's, if you want."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 08:49 pm (UTC)

"It looks fine, it's just not Marian-y right now," shrugs Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay, you can make it more like Marian's," says Harley. "But only if it stays pretty!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 08:59 pm (UTC)

Aedyt edits the dress. The sleeves become slightly puffier, the hem slightly straighter, and the gold trim shifts around until it matches Marian's more closely.

"There, how's that?"

pythbox
2013-06-16 08:59 pm (UTC)

Harley twirls.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:05 pm (UTC)

"More Marian-y," pronounces Zeus approvingly.

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:07 pm (UTC)

"And still pretty!" says Harley. He tackle-hugs Aedyt.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:07 pm (UTC)

Aedyt is untackled, but very hugged.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:09 pm (UTC)

Zeus giggles.

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:10 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles too.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:11 pm (UTC)

Aedyt scoops up Harley, snuggles him, and puts him down again.

"So is that all for you two?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:12 pm (UTC)

"You have a lot of stuff," observes Zeus. "Can you make bow-and-arrows?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Yes I can! The question is, will I regret it afterward?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:14 pm (UTC)

"...No?" tries Zeus.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Then I will make you a bow and arrow."

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I want a dagger!" says Harley.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure you do," says Aedyt.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Maid Marian has one!" defends Zeus. "He's being Maid Marian."

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:17 pm (UTC)

"And I won't stab anybody with it," Harley says virtuously.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:18 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Aedyt. "I will make you guys some weapons. Do you want to watch?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Zeus, grinning.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Then you can!"

She makes Zeus a cute little bow with a cute little foam-headed arrow that he can fire at the walls, and Harley a cute little dagger, also with its sharp parts made of foam.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:23 pm (UTC)

Zeus immediately starts shooting at things.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Careful, please," says Aedyt.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:25 pm (UTC)

Zeus only shoots at non-fragile things.

On the other hand, his marksmanship is pretty terrible.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:27 pm (UTC)

The first time the arrow heads for something it probably shouldn't hit, it gets stuck in midair.

Aedyt serenely continues using her power to tweak the shape of Harley's Marian dagger.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:28 pm (UTC)

Zeus reaches for his arrow. When it won't go, he says, "It's stuck!"
Edited 2013-06-16 21:40 (UTC)

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Yes it is," says Aedyt. "And it's going to stay that way until you can take it somewhere with fewer fragile things it might accidentally break."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I can't take it anywhere. It's stuck," objects Zeus.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I will unstick it when I take you home."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:48 pm (UTC)

Back to the dagger!

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:48 pm (UTC)

Zeus shoots mime-arrows. He shoots them much more indiscriminately than he did with the foam one.

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:49 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

Presently Zeus has invented a game according to which he must rescue Maid Marian from the telekinetic witch who has stolen her dagger, and hauls Harley out of the basement of stuff in search of an escape route.

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:52 pm (UTC)

Harley cheerfully allows himself to be rescued up to the rest of the house.

The rest of the house contains more stuff! And a kitchen and bathrooms and so forth.

Also, outside, it is an asteroid.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:56 pm (UTC)

Zeus is fascinated by the visible curvature of the asteroid and runs around with wild abandon.

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:56 pm (UTC)

Harley runs around right along with him! Running around on Aedyt's asteroid is fun.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:57 pm (UTC)

Wheeeee!

pythbox
2013-06-16 09:58 pm (UTC)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Aedyt appears.

"If you're done rescuing each other from me, I have your weapons and some snacks," she announces.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Snacks!" exclaims Zeus approvingly. "Yes. That's next."

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 10:00 pm (UTC)

"C'mon inside!"

Snacks are served in the kitchen. There are yummy muffins!

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:00 pm (UTC)

Harley is enthused about the muffins.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:01 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom. Zeus eats like a puppy, which is to say a lot and enthusiastically.

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:02 pm (UTC)

Harley cannot keep up in volume, but he can keep up in enthusiasm!

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 10:03 pm (UTC)

And Aedyt can keep up in quantity of muffins.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:05 pm (UTC)

After they have demolished the muffins, Zeus says, "I want my arrow back."

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Please do not fire it inside my house," says Aedyt, and she hands it to him.

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:08 pm (UTC)

"I want my dagger!" says Harley.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Please do not stab anyone or anything that somebody might not want stabbed," says Aedyt, and she gives Harley the dagger.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:10 pm (UTC)

Zeus considers his instruction, and then fires the arrow at her house.

pumpkin_pie
2013-06-16 10:11 pm (UTC)

It bounces harmlessly off a wall.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

He retrieves it and carries on playing with it.

The premier is fun, their costumes are adorable, some adults do appear tempted to give them free candy but none actually do, and -

Time passes.

Zeus is nine, ten, eleven, twelve and he goes down to the main compound and shakes hands with a secretary vampire.

He runs home in full fur, tongue lolling out of his mouth, and pushes the doorbell to Harley's house with his nose and sits back, wagging madly.
Edited 2013-06-16 22:41 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:44 pm (UTC)

Harley opens the door.

"Fluffy Zeus?!" he exclaims delightedly.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:44 pm (UTC)

Zeus barks, and wags harder.

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:46 pm (UTC)

Harley tacklehugs him.

"Man, you are so floofy," he says, snuggling industriously. "You are my best fluffy buddy. I love you."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:47 pm (UTC)

Zeus licks his face with a tongue about the size of the face it's licking. Slurp!

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:47 pm (UTC)

Harley cracks up. And hugs him more.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:48 pm (UTC)

Wag wag wag wag. Zeus cannot talk, so he cannot suggest anything.

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:50 pm (UTC)

Cuddle cuddle cuddle! Zeus is so floofy. It's awesome.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:51 pm (UTC)

Zeus has brand new quadrupedal super-speed, and he wants to use it, and there will be all the time in the world for floofy hugs later! He stands up, crouching on the porch, and backs away, wagging more slowly. If Harley wants a ride he can have one.
Edited 2013-06-16 22:51 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Hey, you can't talk like this, can you," Harley observes. "I should get Elsie to put you on the brainphone! Want me to?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 10:57 pm (UTC)

Zeus nods; it's awkward but he can do it. (He can talk to the other wolves in the Imperial pack who are wolfing at this time, but that's not the same thing.)

pythbox
2013-06-16 10:58 pm (UTC)

[Elsie, Zeus is floofy and he wants to be on the brainphone so he can talk to me still!]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-16 10:59 pm (UTC)

[There you are, then,] says Elspeth, to both boys.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:00 pm (UTC)

[Thanks! Harley, Harley, I wanna run, running's amazing like this, come with me, come on,] and he crouches low, so Harley could vault up onto him if he wanted.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Harley, and he jumps onto Zeus's back and hangs on tight.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:01 pm (UTC)

Zeus bolts at once, like a bullet, legs eating up yards of empty Québec wilderness with every stride. [I'm so fast!]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:02 pm (UTC)

[You aaaare, it's awesome,] giggles Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:02 pm (UTC)

[It's better than roller coasters! Aren't I, huh?]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:04 pm (UTC)

[You're a fluffy roller coaster, oh man,] cackles Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

They're approaching forest; Zeus doesn't slow down, although a few times he pushes a paw off a tree instead of the ground to maneuver. [That's meeee!]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:06 pm (UTC)

[This is so awesome, I love you,] says Harley, clinging to Zeus's back.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:07 pm (UTC)

[I love you too! And running! And being a grown-up wolf!]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:09 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles happily.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:11 pm (UTC)

[It's weird being able to hear what everybody else is thinking. It's not anything too interesting all by itself, just it's strange.]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:12 pm (UTC)

[I bet!] he agrees.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:13 pm (UTC)

[My dad's coming,] he adds. [I wanna see if I can outrun him!] And he puts on a burst of speed, runningrunningrunning.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:16 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles and clings.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:16 pm (UTC)

Bartholomew does catch up to them eventually and falls into step beside them. [Dad says I have to be careful not to drop you, but, duh, of course I don't wanna drop you,] says Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:20 pm (UTC)

[Duh!] agrees Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:21 pm (UTC)

Running running running running it's the best thing Zeus could run all day long!

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:22 pm (UTC)

Running is awesome! Zeus is awesome. Harley loves those things.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:23 pm (UTC)

Eventually Bartholomew seems satisfied that his son isn't going to drop Harley and turns back.

Zeus goes on and on and on.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:24 pm (UTC)

Harley clings to him and giggles intermittently.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:29 pm (UTC)

Soon they come upon a river.

[I dunno if I can jump that,] muses Zeus, skidding into a turn and running alongside it. [D'you think I can jump it?]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:30 pm (UTC)

[I bet you can jump it! Try!] he says gleefully.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:30 pm (UTC)

Zeus turns again, leaps.

He clears the river.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:33 pm (UTC)

But the impact of landing on the other side overwhelms Harley's grip on Zeus, and he goes flying over the wolf's shoulder, directly into a tree. Several things break, and only one of them is a branch.

Harley yells.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:34 pm (UTC)

[Harley! Harley Harley Harley are you okay call the princess tell her to fix you Harley Harley,] whines Zeus, digging his claws into the earth to arrest his movement and doubling back. [Or I can, I'll do it, PRINCESS - did that do it - how does it work -]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:37 pm (UTC)

Harley yells some more.

He's a bit beyond coherent requests for wishes, but he does manage, [Elsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-16 11:37 pm (UTC)

[What's the matter?]

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:38 pm (UTC)

Zeus sits hard on the ground, tail between his legs, and howls.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:39 pm (UTC)

[I hit a tree and Zeus is sad!]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-16 11:39 pm (UTC)

Elspeth tries a healing pentagon. [Did that do it?] she asks.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:41 pm (UTC)

Harley stops yelling.

[Kinda sorta,] he says, and aloud (somewhat shakily), "I'm fine! Elsie fixed me!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-16 11:41 pm (UTC)

She spends another. She doesn't bother admonishing him to be careful.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:42 pm (UTC)

Zeus makes another whining noise and noses at him. [Are you sure? All better, honest? You could've died! I shouldn't've jumped it.]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine," he promises, hugging Zeus around the neck and kissing his wolfy nose. "And no I couldn't, I'm immortal! It was fun."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:45 pm (UTC)

Zeus flops onto the ground. [But you could've died if you weren't immortal!]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:47 pm (UTC)

"But I am immortal," he says, "and I didn't die anyway, I just broke some bones, Elsie fixed me up fine, it was fun, I'm fine, it's fine!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:48 pm (UTC)

Zeus can make some very impressively whiny noises in wolf form.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:48 pm (UTC)

Harley gives him scritches. It just seems like the thing to do.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:49 pm (UTC)

Zeus lays his massive head down on the ground and accepts scritches, making dismayed whuffly sounds.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwwww," says Harley. "I'm sorry you got scared."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:50 pm (UTC)

[How was it fun?]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I liked the jumping over the river part! And I've never been hurt that bad before, it was really - itself. I think I wanna do it again," he says consideringly. "But not with you if you're gonna get scared." Snuggle-hug!

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:55 pm (UTC)

[You wanna do it again?] asks Zeus incredulously.

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:56 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles. "Yeah."

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:56 pm (UTC)

[You are a weirdo. I know I'd heal with or without magic if I got beat up like that and I still don't wanna try it.]

pythbox
2013-06-16 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I am a weirdo!" he agrees happily.

alicornucopia
2013-06-16 11:59 pm (UTC)

Zeus whuffs out wolf-warm air in Harley's direction.

After a moment, he unfloofs and he's just himself, maybe a little taller already, lounging naked on the forest floor.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:03 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

"Aww, no more floof," he says. "Can I still hug you?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah," sighs Zeus, sitting up. Wolves are, of necessity, pretty casual about nudity.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:05 am (UTC)

Hugs!

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:06 am (UTC)

Hugs!

"So uh," says Zeus, "I don't really know how to change on purpose yet? So if I don't figure it out at about when we wanna go home we need to call Dad, or the Princess, to come get us."

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:07 am (UTC)

"Okay," shrugs Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:08 am (UTC)

Zeus sets about Trying To Floof On Purpose.

He does not get anywhere, although he makes some entertaining faces while he fails at it.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:10 am (UTC)

Harley laughs at him. In a friendly, affectionate sort of way.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:10 am (UTC)

Zeus shoves him in the shoulder, not hard. "You don't have to figure it out," he snorts.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:12 am (UTC)

"Nope! I get to watch you do it. And it's hilarious," he says, grinning.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:14 am (UTC)

"Right now I'm trying to be floofy, not hilarious," snorts Zeus. He chews on his lip, trying to replicate the mental state he occupied right before he floofed the first time. "...This is hard."

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:15 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I bet!" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:16 am (UTC)

"Mrrr. Hmm. Can you, like, pinch me or something?" Zeus holds out his arm.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:16 am (UTC)

Harley pinches him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:17 am (UTC)

"Ow-" The exclamation is cut off by abrupt refloofing. [Okay cool let's go home! And HOLD ON this time!]

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:18 am (UTC)

"I will!" he promises, climbing back onto Zeus's floofy back.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:19 am (UTC)

Zeus makes a much gentler lope over the river, and trots, fast but not blindingly so, back towards the village. [I can smell everything,] he remarks. [It's pretty amazing.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:20 am (UTC)

"Ooh, what stuff can you smell?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:21 am (UTC)

[Everything! You and the trees and myself and the water and all the other plants and even some village stuff even way out here. I think someone's making something with pineapple in it.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:22 am (UTC)

[I like pineapple!]

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:23 am (UTC)

[Me too! We can have some when we go home, I'm hungry.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:23 am (UTC)

[Awesome.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:24 am (UTC)

They arrive home. Zeus hangs out in the front yard for a while, trying to figure out how to defloof, and even when he manages it, his mother doesn't want him near the knicknacks till he has himself under better control; this means picnic. It involves pineapple.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:25 am (UTC)

It also involves hug! Lots of hug.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:26 am (UTC)

Hug.

Zeus's father presents him with a magnetic uniform, in Imperial pack brown.

It hangs loose on him, but he'll grow. (He's eating a ridiculous amount, more than when he was just a puppy.)

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:26 am (UTC)

Harley noms on pineapple and giggles at Zeus in his uniform.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:27 am (UTC)

"I'll get bigger!" says Zeus, fiddling with one of the magnets.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:28 am (UTC)

"Yeah, and then you won't look as funny, so I better enjoy it while I can!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:28 am (UTC)

Zeus sticks out his tongue at Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:30 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:31 am (UTC)

Om nom nom nom nom picnic, oops, floof, wait wait wait, unfloof, snap uniform back on, om nom nom nom.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:33 am (UTC)

This description misses a vital step! The step is 'be hugged'. It goes between floof and unfloof.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:33 am (UTC)

Very well; amendment accepted. [You are super huggy,] Zeus remarks fondly while hugging is ongoing.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:34 am (UTC)

"I am!" Harley agrees, hugging him. "I like hugs. Hugs are nice."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:34 am (UTC)

[They are,] agrees Zeus, and this is when he unfloofs.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:38 am (UTC)

Mid-hug!

Okay, back to nomming.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:40 am (UTC)

Om nom nom. Zeus was a hungry puppy. Now he is a ravenous wolf. He will turn it all into floof and an extra two feet of height and lots of muscle over the next couple months.

(His mother is taking a lot of pictures of this picnic; wolves' parents do this in the time between first floof and the cessation of growth.)

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:42 am (UTC)

Nomty nom!

"Okay, I'm done," Harley announces. He curls up next to the picnic blanket.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:43 am (UTC)

Zeus isn't done. He finishes the pineapple, and the whipped cream Demeter put on it, and the leftover hamburgers she warmed up for them, and the green beans. He doesn't even like green beans.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:45 am (UTC)

"You don't even like green beans," observes curled-up Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:46 am (UTC)

"I'm really hungry," says Zeus. "I want pizza. Let's go get pizza."

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:48 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:49 am (UTC)

Zeus manages to floof on purpose, to be transportation to the village cafeteria. (The village doesn't have many of its own establishments, when they can just travel to the capital compound or farther to town, but it's full of wolves: it has a cafeteria.)

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:51 am (UTC)

Pizza is obtained! Harley does not eat it, but he derives great joy from watching Zeus do that.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:51 am (UTC)

Zeus eats six slices of pizza. Then he is done. With pizza. He gets a bowl of ice cream after that.

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:54 am (UTC)

Harley giggles at him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:54 am (UTC)

"Now," says Zeus, when he finishes his ice cream, "I am not hungry anymore."

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:55 am (UTC)

"Are you sure?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:56 am (UTC)

"Well, I'll be hungry in an hour, but now, yeah."

pythbox
2013-06-17 12:56 am (UTC)

Harley laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 12:57 am (UTC)

"Come on, let's go see how much floofing sometimes messes up one on one basketball," suggests Zeus, "while I'm still not that much taller than you."

pythbox
2013-06-17 01:01 am (UTC)

"Okay!" he agrees, giggling.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 01:01 am (UTC)

And off they go.

the history channel

her_imperial_radiance

It's something of a truism that "it's not like the Empress is going to make a speech or anything" when the Masquerade folds up. Regardless, there comes a time when the incessant requests to be allowed to make a documentary about the Golden Coven are met not with "absolutely not", but instead, "let's talk".

Elspeth does a fair amount of the negotiating for this - she does run PR. Harley, presently thirteen, is allowed to sit in on a few of the storyboarding discussions - the documentary will not be fictionalized, but they still have concern for narrative flow. It's going to be very long, after all.

Significant portions of the documentary will be conjured recordings of events, from outside or even first-person perspectives, but an entire segment is devoted to personally profiling members and peripheral associates of the Golden Coven, one by one. Harley's not on the list - it's mostly a history documentary, with younger generations present almost entirely for 'where are they now' color, and he's not, technically, her son - but Elspeth and most of her family is. And Harley is permitted to lurk around the studio setup while various people prep with their interviewers, or eavesdrop, or - if they are sufficiently non-vampiric to allow makeup to stick - get that applied. It's a big production; the supernatural community would have found it just as convenient to spread it out, but the film people want everything taken down, edited for a consistent look-and-feel, and released according to schedule within a certain time frame.

So there are a lot of people around. Mostly vampires, but plenty of hybrids - there are most of Emmett and Rosalie's kids, over there, with the proud parents themselves - and wolves; Jacob is over with Elspeth - and even a few humans, ranging from imprints to Lizzie who's with Carlisle, Esme, and Lily, and also Alice and Jasper and their son Brandon. People not normally seen around the Golden Capitols have been hauled in. There's Marcus, no longer as craquelure thanks to magic, and Didyme at his elbow, literally radiating happiness. (Bella rendered her power opt-in along with several other mind-affecting abilities that can't be turned off, but it's very inviting, so people usually do so opt.)

And of course Bella and Edward themselves are present, flitting around, mingling. Their interviews aren't until later.

Kerron waves to Harley when he shows up.

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:04 am (UTC)

Harley waves back! There is all this stuff going on, and it is kind of fun to wander around and bother the people who actually have to worry about the stuff in between their stuff-doings. Kerron looks like a prime target.

"Why are you even here, are you getting in everyone's way? I'm getting in everyone's way," Harley says brightly.

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:05 am (UTC)

"I'm not important enough to be here on my own merits, but I'm here to talk about Safesun," says Kerron. "Maybe lean into frame when Dad gets interviewed. Thwarted anyone's schedule yet?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:06 am (UTC)

"Give me time," he giggles.

Random hug!

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:07 am (UTC)

Hug! "So how've you been, mini-mum?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:12 am (UTC)

Harley sporfles.

"I ate a whole pie by myself the other day," he brags. "And then Zeus was sad that he didn't get any pie so I made him another one."

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:14 am (UTC)

"Are humans supposed to eat entire pies?" asks Kerron dubiously. "Is this a full-sized sugary kinda pie we're talking about?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah," giggles Harley. "It was strawberry with whipped cream on top and it was really good."

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:18 am (UTC)

"Sounds like it. Did your wolf get the same kind to be fair or would that've been too repetitive?" It amuses Kerron to speak as though Harley is Zeus's imprint, solely on the basis of the amount of time they spend together.

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:19 am (UTC)

"Well, I still had the rest of the strawberries, and I wasn't gonna eat the second one," Harley shrugs.

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:23 am (UTC)

"Makes sense. I try not to eat too much solid food unless it's for social reasons. Makes my hair grow faster."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:26 am (UTC)

Harley giggles. "I think you'd look good with long hair! Maybe I should feed you pies."

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:28 am (UTC)

"I did grow my hair out for a bit when I was six but I didn't care for the look. Besides, there's apparently a guy in another world who looks like me but isn't an alt, and he has his down to the shoulder."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:30 am (UTC)

Harley peers thoughtfully at Kerron's shoulders.

"Yeah, I could see that working for you," he says. "I will bake you tons of delicious pies until your hair grows out as long as mine. It'll be an evil scheme. An evil, tasty scheme."

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:30 am (UTC)

"I will thwart it with a set of clippers and you'll run out of pie crusts."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:32 am (UTC)

"I never run out of pie crusts," says Harley, grinning.

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:34 am (UTC)

"You know, I don't think anyone has actually experimented with the appetite capacity of half vampires? I know we can eat as much as wolves do if we want, I dunno what happens if someone just keeps offering us pie and we never say 'no I couldn't possibly'."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:35 am (UTC)

"I bet it doesn't make you grow tons of hair all of a sudden," snorts Harley. "But if you ever want me to bake you a million pies just to see what happens, you got it."

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:36 am (UTC)

"Sure, we should do that sometime. I think I'd get sick of pie in particular at some point, though, might have to throw in mozzarella sticks and swordfish steak and chicken soup and whatnot for variety."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:40 am (UTC)

"Sure," Harley says cheerfully. "I like cooking. Cooking's fun."

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:42 am (UTC)

"For you, sure. Mini-mum," says Kerron affectionately.

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:46 am (UTC)

Harley rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. Jokers are not literally the only people who like to cook," he says.

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:48 am (UTC)

"Sure, but you look way less like Lily."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:48 am (UTC)

Harley cracks up.

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:50 am (UTC)

"Besides, she does fancy molecular gastronomy. Deconstructed haggis or whatever's new this week. If she ever made a 'pie', the crust would be over here, probably raw and cut into some kind of shape with a cookie cutter, and the fruit would be over here arranged in a flower, and there'd be a little pile of cinnamon-sugar over here and then she'd drizzle it all with a caramel spiral and lecture everyone on how to eat it."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:52 am (UTC)

Harley wrinkles his nose. "No thanks," he says. "I think the best way to eat a meal like that is to throw it at a wall and go get pizza."

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:52 am (UTC)

"If you pick a fight with Lily I want to watch."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:53 am (UTC)

"Hey, I didn't say I'd throw the pie at her," Harley points out, grinning.

pina_colada
2013-07-03 02:57 am (UTC)

"She gets fierce about the value of deconstructing food. Also about appointment-keeping and dressage and comic books. Things in general. It's weird, her parents are lambs."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:59 am (UTC)

"This is not a person I would get along with and if I have to hang out with her I am going to throw food at something," Harley predicts.

pina_colada
2013-07-03 03:00 am (UTC)

Kerron considers, then discards the possibility of telling Harley that on some occasions Lily's ferocity has taken the form of biting. "Well, she lives in Barcelona, these days, so you won't run into her if you don't want to."

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:02 am (UTC)

Kerron is wise in the ways of Jokers.

"Good!" says Harley. "She can stay in Barcelona and keep her half-baked pie."

pina_colada
2013-07-03 03:04 am (UTC)

"Well, she's here," says Kerron, glancing around, "but I don't think she'd be hard to elude."

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:05 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

pina_colada
2013-07-03 03:11 am (UTC)

"Mr. Corlett?" says one of the film people. "Are you Mr. Corlett?"

"If you'd drop the formality I could tell you if you're looking for me or my dad," Kerron says.

"...I don't know how to pronounce the first name."

"Then yep, I'm Mr. Corlett. It's Keh-run."

"All right. This way, please?"

"Sure. Later, Harley!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:18 am (UTC)

Emmett hears Harley's name. "Harley!" he calls, waving. "We're bored, come distract us."

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:54 pm (UTC)

"My favourite thing to hear!" says Harley, skipping over to Emmett and company. "Hi, Emmett. Hi, Rosalie. You're still pretty."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 02:56 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Rosalie, chuckling.

"What are you up to?" asks Henry. "Are you getting interviewed or are you just tagging along with Elspeth?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:58 pm (UTC)

"Tagging along with Elsie, getting in everybody's way, threatening to feed Kerron pie," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 02:59 pm (UTC)

"How terrifying," says Parker.

"I doubt anyone appreciates you deliberately getting in their way," says Nicole.

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:00 pm (UTC)

Harley blinks at Nicole.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:03 pm (UTC)

Nicole rolls her eyes.

Emmett says, "You coming to watch the Olympics this year, Harley?"
Edited 2013-07-03 15:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Dunno. Maybe," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm in for swimming and Lindsay for gymnastics," Parker volunteers.

"Are you going t-" Lindsay starts to ask Harley. "Oh, right," she corrects herself. "Maybe there should be a human division."

"That's just the regular Olympics," says Nicole.

"They're different in other ways," Oliver says.
Edited 2013-07-03 15:14 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:16 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Are you ever gonna turn into a vampire, do you think?" Henry asks.

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says. "Well, not and stay that way."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Temporary turning?" asks Emmett thoughtfully. "I don't think anybody's - well, no, that one Joker alt did it, I remember hearing about that."

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, see?" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:33 pm (UTC)

"Don't think anyone else has though. Especially now Bella wishes the thirst away on request, it's nice."

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," says Harley. "But I'd miss food, for sure. And being squishy."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:42 pm (UTC)

"What's good about being -" Lindsay begins, but Rosalie shakes her head and she stops, puzzled.

"Food's a thing. I guess. I can't remember it much," says Emmett.

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Food is so a thing," says Harley, "food is the greatest thing, I love food."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Bubbly's tastier," shrugs Oliver.

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Not to me!" snorts Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:46 pm (UTC)

"What does it taste like to you? Have you ever tried it?" Parker inquires.

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Weird and kind of bitter," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Nicole.

"Quarter-vampires don't like it as much but they still like it. I don't know about one-eighth," muses Parker.

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:54 pm (UTC)

"I wonder how little vampire somebody can have in 'em before it stops even mattering," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:56 pm (UTC)

"It will probably always matter a little, but it can start getting washed out by normal human variation around one-sixteenth, I think," says Henry.

pythbox
2013-07-03 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Are there any one-sixteenth vampires running around?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Lemme think," says Parker.

"Yyyyes," says Oliver. "Yeah, I think Catrina and Lucio are one-sixteenth. Ella's great-grandkids? Via, I don't think I know if it's Rodrigo or Silverio but it's one of her sons, not Francisca."

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:02 pm (UTC)

"How old are they? Are they immortal?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:03 pm (UTC)

"They're nine and six, so, no idea," says Oliver. "I met them one time at the big Safesun festival."

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:05 pm (UTC)

Harley shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:07 pm (UTC)

"One-eighths do stop aging though," Oliver says.

"I think being a half is the best deal," says Lindsay.
Edited 2013-07-03 16:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I like being human," Harley says cheerfully.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Why, though? I mean, I guess you can patch a lot of the problems with it by magic, but even still," Lindsay says.
Edited 2013-07-03 16:10 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:12 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"'Cause it's me and I like being me."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:14 pm (UTC)

"There's nothing the matter with being human," says Rosalie. "I liked it perfectly well most of the time."

"You didn't change back when you had the chance, though, Mom," says Nicole.

"I could have what I wanted about being human without changing everything. And Harley can have anything he would like to have about being a vampire without changing everything."

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:15 pm (UTC)

Harley beams at Rosalie.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:17 pm (UTC)

Rosalie pats him on the head.

Nicole snorts quietly.

"All right, Cullen family interview," calls a poorly informed crew member.

"Which one?" call Henry and, from across the room, Brandon, at the same time.

"Er. Emmett, Rosalie, and their participating children?"

"See you around, Harley," says Emmett, and he claps Harley gently on the shoulder.

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Bye, everybody," says Harley, and he wanders off in search of someone else to distract.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:27 pm (UTC)

Some more of the Cullen family is over there. Esme waves happily at Harley.

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:30 pm (UTC)

Harley waves back.

"Hi, Esme!" Hug!

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:30 pm (UTC)

Hug!

"How have you been, Harley?" Carlisle wants to know.

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Baking stuff! I like baking, it's awesome."

He hugs Carlisle too.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Do you usually go by recipes or just make it up?" asks Brandon.

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:39 pm (UTC)

"I go find a recipe if it's something I haven't done before but somebody else has," he says. "Or if I wanna remember how to do something tricky. Otherwise I just go by memory or make it up."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Going by memory doesn't count as - oh, do you not have that hexed?" asks Brandon.

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:40 pm (UTC)

"No," giggles Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Why not?" asks Alice curiously.

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:42 pm (UTC)

"'Cause it's more fun when I can forget stuff," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Why?" asks Brandon, fascinated.

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Well - okay, cooking, for example," he says. "If I remembered exactly how I made something last time, and it turned out really good, then I might just decide to do the same exact thing again. But that would be boring as hell if I kept doing that! If I don't remember it exactly then I'm going to do something different, and maybe it'll turn out worse and I'll figure out how I did it before and go back to that, but maybe it'll be even better and then I'll do it more like the new way next time. Or maybe it won't be better or worse, just different. I like different."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, I mean," says Brandon, "I can remember exactly how I made particular lego sculptures when I was eight months old, but if I would find it boring to make them again, I don't have to. I don't see where forgetting has to come into it."

"I suppose you'd always be consciously varying a theme or starting from scratch," says Esme. "You wouldn't be surprised the same way."
Edited 2013-07-03 16:54 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-03 04:54 pm (UTC)

Harley beams at Esme. "Exactly."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 04:59 pm (UTC)

Lily appears. "Hi guys. I'm all interviewed."

"Did you bite the interviewer?" asks Brandon with mock interest.

Lily scowls. "No."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:00 pm (UTC)

"...Do you bite people a lot or something?" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:00 pm (UTC)

"No!" says Lily.

"More than never," says Brandon.

"Brandon," sighs Jasper.

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I used to bite people," Harley says cheerfully. "When I was like two."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't just go around biting people," says Lily.

"Of course not. You have to be pretty riled first," says Brandon, smirking.

"I'll get riled," Lily snaps, and Brandon holds up his hands in a placating gesture.

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:02 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:04 pm (UTC)

Lily crosses her arms. "Anyway, my interview went fine, thank you for asking, she had lots of thoughtful questions about how our family is put together compared to families that have to deal with aging and dying and crap like that, and about me personally, and stuff."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Elspeth hasn't technically adopted you, right? I guess if she did you'd be my grand-nephew," Lily says, peering at Harley. "If we insisted on humanizing all the relationships, which like I explained to the interviewer is a little silly."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Nah, she hasn't," he says. "Humanizing as opposed to what? Vampirizing?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Basically. Or I think I heard someone say 'transhumanizing', I liked that. Like, you can't even do that anyway without it being weird, because me and Alice and Jasper and Bella and Edward and Rosalie and Emmett all have Mom and Dad as parent-figures, but then if you cash that out, whoops, incest, and for everyone except me it was mostly a convenient front, except, built on actual scaffolding of respect and stuff. Jasper's older than Mom, but - whatever, you can watch my interview later if you care."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Harley. "Maybe I will."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:20 pm (UTC)

"You live in the Québec capital, right? With wolves?" Lily inquires. "What's that like?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Very fluffy," he giggles. "And there's always somebody who'll eat my pie."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:21 pm (UTC)

"You frequently have pie and no idea what to do with it?" asks Lily archly.

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'll eat it myself if nobody else wants to," he snorts. "But I like cooking and it's more fun when somebody wants to eat it."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Do you. What kind of cooking?" asks Lily.

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Um... kinds... that produce food?" says Harley quizzically.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:25 pm (UTC)

"So no particular style or anything, just home cooking, basically?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? If I want something and I don't know how to make it I ask the internet."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh. I'm saving up for my own restaurant; I'm going to call it Piecemeal."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:28 pm (UTC)

"That's cute," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:28 pm (UTC)

"It wasn't actually my idea, it was Cara's, but she said I could use it."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:29 pm (UTC)

Harley shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm calling it that because it's going to be about deconstructed food," says Lily. "I've been really into it lately, taking standard dishes apart to see what makes them work."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:31 pm (UTC)

"How does that work?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:33 pm (UTC)

"People have got taste-memory; if you eat something it's still vivid for a little while after. If you separate something into all its parts, and then have them in sequence instead of all muddled together, they're all sharper, and you can do the blending in your head, and even if you don't want to eat that way all the time it'll make it easier to pick out the flavors next time you eat the regular thing. I don't just take apart ordinary food, though, I've been trying some experiments, I came up with a soup I really like."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:35 pm (UTC)

"How do you do taken-apart soup, though, isn't that like the opposite of the point of soup?" he wonders.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Well, obviously it's not soup anymore once you've done it," says Lily, "but it can have its basis in soup - if I deconstruct clam chowder, you wind up with potatoes and clams and celery and so on on a plate, arranged nicely, spiced correctly, and I turn the broth into a reduced cream sauce, but it's still clam chowder even though it isn't clam chowder, you know what I mean?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:40 pm (UTC)

"N...o," says Harley, "well - yes, but it's still not soup, it's like - unsoup. You've taken all the stuff that goes into a soup and made it into something that is definitely not soup."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Right," says Lily, "but the kind of soup that it isn't, is clam chowder, you'd never mistake it for a lasagna."

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:42 pm (UTC)

"The kind of soup that it isn't," giggles Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:43 pm (UTC)

"You know what I mean!"

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," he says, "that's why it's funny, it wouldn't be as funny if it didn't make any sense."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I actually really liked the deconstructed trifle," says Brandon.

"I like deconstructing foods that are normally conceived as inherently layered. Arranging them horizontally instead of vertically," says Lily happily.

"I mean, it was some cake, and some custard, and some fruit," Brandon says.

"Yes, that's what trifle is."

"But then there was also this side dish of excessive philosophizing that I thought had a weird aftertaste -"

"You don't have to eat my food if you don't like it!"
Edited 2013-07-03 17:49 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:49 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles again.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:50 pm (UTC)

"What, would you like if it people took something you made and didn't care about it at all and didn't want to talk to you?" Lily demands of Harley.

pythbox
2013-07-03 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Um, no?" he says. "But that doesn't make it not funny. I mean, I also think it's funny when I fall out of a tree and break my arm."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 05:54 pm (UTC)

"What's funny about that?" asks Brandon.
Edited 2013-07-03 17:55 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, it just is," says Harley. "What's not funny about it?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:01 pm (UTC)

"No joke setup, no clever wordplay, no comedic timing, I'm not really seeing elements of humor in falling out of a tree and breaking your arm unless you, like, fled into the tree to escape vengeful mobsters who wanted to break your arm and you have irony to lean on," Brandon says.

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:03 pm (UTC)

"And yet, I did it, and I was giggling for like ten minutes," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:03 pm (UTC)

"High on endorphins," suggests Alice chirpily.

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:04 pm (UTC)

"And it was funny," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:05 pm (UTC)

"You have some crossed wires," snorts Brandon. "I guess we knew that."

"Your reputation precedes you," whispers Lily loudly.

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:06 pm (UTC)

Harley snickers.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Do you even know the other guy?" asks Brandon. "Man, I would be so weirded out if there were more of me. There's another Dad but he doesn't have another Mom."

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:08 pm (UTC)

"I saw 'em all when I was just a baby, I don't remember it," says Harley. "Which is another good reason not to want a perfect memory, 'cause I'm gonna meet 'em all again and I want that to be the first time."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:11 pm (UTC)

"If Jane's ever back. If she doesn't come back you're stuck with the Imperial Mint," says Lily. "He's not here today - actually I don't think they're interviewing him at all, I think the reveal here is limited to the array of species and witches. Elspeth told everyone that if we mention magic we should keep it kind of vague."

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind being stuck with the Imperial Mint," laughs Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I would rather like to meet another of me, I think," says Lily.

"Not me," says Brandon.

"Well, it's academic, Peace doesn't have an Alice and there haven't been copies of Mom and Dad found anywhere."

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what makes there be piles of some people but one each of everybody else," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:17 pm (UTC)

"No idea," says Lily.

"Glass was the best hope of figuring it out and we can't get at her now," sighs Alice.

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:17 pm (UTC)

Harley shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:21 pm (UTC)

And then it's Brandon and Alice and Jasper's turn to be interviewed, and off they go, and Lily says, "Well, Mom, Dad, I'll see you Thursday, I'm going to hop home, I'm meeting Solana in a few," and she hugs Carlisle and Esme, and ruffles Harley's hair - she remembers when he was a baby - and teleports away.

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:22 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles. His hair is very ruffleable! He understands why people ruffle it. If he were somebody else he'd ruffle his hair too.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:24 pm (UTC)

"It's so nice to have this sort of thing finally happening. No more hiding," says Esme.

Carlisle nods. "It's been a long road."

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:25 pm (UTC)

Awww.

"I'm gonna go find somebody else to pester," says Harley, and he hugs them both and wanders off.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Off" takes him in the direction of Marcus and Didyme, who are not talking to anyone else right now, just quietly smiling at each other and their surroundings while they wait. They are holding hands; they are rarely seen doing otherwise.

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:30 pm (UTC)

Harley beams at them.

"Hi! You're adorable," he says.

Of course he opted in to the aura of happiness.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Didyme sunnily. "I believe you're called Harley, is that right?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:33 pm (UTC)

"We've been somewhat withdrawn from Imperial affairs, since I'm no longer asked to help newborns settle in with other sorts of magic available; what is your story?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm a Joker," he says. "Elsie took me from another world 'cause she found me when I was a baby and Jokers have really nasty parents, so now she's raising me instead. I love Elsie, she's great."
Edited 2013-07-03 18:36 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:37 pm (UTC)

"She is," agrees Didyme warmly. "She was a great help to Marcus and I, in the aftermath of the revolution."

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I kinda sorta heard about that!" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I would imagine she'd be an excellent storyteller if she so chose," laughs Didyme.

pythbox
2013-07-03 06:39 pm (UTC)

"She iiiis," he giggles.

And then looks at Marcus, and wonders, "Do you talk?"
Edited 2013-07-03 19:08 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Not frequently," says Marcus.

pythbox
2013-07-03 07:16 pm (UTC)

Harley laughs. "Okay. Why not?"
Edited 2013-07-03 19:21 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 07:22 pm (UTC)

Marcus shrugs. "I rarely have anything to say that has not already been said."

pythbox
2013-07-03 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Harley. "Why'd you take over the world?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 07:27 pm (UTC)

"I was not much of an active participant by the time takeover was attempted," Marcus says dryly. "It was easier to do as Aro and Caius asked than to attempt to gainsay them, and I was much drawn to ease after my mate was killed." He lets go of her hand and puts his arm around her shoulders; she pats the back of his hand. "Aro feared the coordination humans were capable of in the face of vampire fractiousness - it was why he was so pleased to find Chelsea, and to have me to abet her - and Caius desired power."

pythbox
2013-07-03 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm really glad you got brought back to life," Harley says earnestly to Didyme.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 07:28 pm (UTC)

"So am I," says Didyme. "And glad too that Paola did not have to be permanently displaced for it."

pythbox
2013-07-03 07:30 pm (UTC)

"You're nice," Harley observes.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 07:31 pm (UTC)

"So I'm told," laughs Didyme.

pythbox
2013-07-03 07:40 pm (UTC)

"You aaare, you're really sweet, I like you," he declares.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 07:40 pm (UTC)

Didyme laughs. "You're very kind."

pythbox
2013-07-03 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm very friendly," he says. "I like people!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 07:43 pm (UTC)

"How convenient that there are so many," she laughs.

pythbox
2013-07-03 07:53 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 11:27 pm (UTC)

Presently it's time for Marcus's interview, and he won't go anywhere without Didyme, so they both go, Didyme waving to Harley as they leave.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-03 11:27 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes looking over somebody's clipboard of checklists, and has a moment of stillness, no longer running around micromanaging everything to her satisfaction.

pythbox
2013-07-03 11:28 pm (UTC)

So naturally Harley decides to pester her next.

"Hi, Bella!"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-03 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Harley. How've you been?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:05 am (UTC)

"Kerron wants me to feed him tons of pie for science! And Marcus and Didyme are adorable."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:23 am (UTC)

"What form of science is advanced by feeding Kerron tons of pie?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:24 am (UTC)

"Seeing what happens if a hybrid just keeps eating food," he says. "Maybe he'll explode!"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:24 am (UTC)

"I don't think that would be pleasant for Kerron. Also, I think he might call off the experiment before it happens."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:25 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:30 am (UTC)

"It would be interesting to know the results, regardless."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:31 am (UTC)

"I'll tell you if he explodes," Harley promises.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:31 am (UTC)

"All the other witnesses would presumably be too busy mopping up the aftermath to think of notifying me."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:32 am (UTC)

Harley snickers.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:38 am (UTC)

"Any activities besides cooing over everyone's favorite reunited-after-centuries-of-despair couple and plotting to detonate your nephewoid?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:40 am (UTC)

"General pestering," he giggles.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:41 am (UTC)

"Always productive."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:43 am (UTC)

"I am the most productive," he says. "They should credit me in the thingy when it's released. Nobody'd get anywhere without me pestering them."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:44 am (UTC)

"We shall see," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:44 am (UTC)

Harley beams at her.

"Best empress!"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:45 am (UTC)

"Locally, at any rate, I will accept the title."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:46 am (UTC)

"Why, is there some other empress you think is actually better?" he wonders.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:47 am (UTC)

"You know," says Bella, "at Bellparties we would occasionally talk about having contests, but never actually set one up or even discussed how it would be judged."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:49 am (UTC)

"You should have us judge it," giggles Harley.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:49 am (UTC)

"That would be one way to do it, I suppose. What sort of criteria do you have in mind?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:51 am (UTC)

"I dunno!" he says. "Besides just being awesome?"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:53 am (UTC)

"I imagine Aurum and Atlantis and Eos and whatever other empires have been formally established by the time we meet again all have our own unique characters of awesomeness."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Harley. "And I bet you'd love having all the Jokers tell you how awesome you all are."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:57 am (UTC)

"I don't imagine any of you require the excuse of an explicit contest to do so if inclined."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:58 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but the contest would get us thinking about it," he says.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 12:59 am (UTC)

"It could do the same thing if we had Sherlocks or Matildas or Libbies doing the judging," chuckles Bella.

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:01 am (UTC)

"And those ones would probably come up with a winner," says Harley. "So maybe you wanna go with them."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 01:02 am (UTC)

"Possibly. I may bring this up with other Bells, if I ever see them again."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:03 am (UTC)

"Do you think you're gonna?"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 01:04 am (UTC)

"See them again? I don't know. I certainly hope so."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:06 am (UTC)

"I hope so too," says Harley. "Anyway, you're my favourite empress."

He hugs her.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-04 01:07 am (UTC)

She hugs him back. "I'm glad."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:08 am (UTC)

He beams at her.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:10 am (UTC)

And here is the Emperor. "Hello, Harley."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:13 am (UTC)

"Hi, Edward!" says Harley. "What's up?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:15 am (UTC)

"The interviews are going smoothly - your mother is holding up fine, Bella - and there has been no mayhem so far."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:17 am (UTC)

"Aww," says Harley, grinning. "But I like mayhem!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:18 am (UTC)

"What sort of mayhem do you imagine would suit this project?" inquires Edward.

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:24 am (UTC)

"I don't," he laughs. "But you knew that already."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:25 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Edward archly, "or the conversation would have gone a bit differently, I suppose."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:27 am (UTC)

Harley cracks up.

prophesied wanderings

her_imperial_radiance

Time passes. Well before Zeus's thirteenth birthday, he looks human-25, and then he stops, and Harley catches up; Zeus is still taller, but not by much, and burlier, but not by much.

Wolves have a lot of casual sex amongst themselves; the girl wolves can't get pregnant, and with pack telepathy it would be pretty hard to hide a secret crush. Everyone avoids getting serious - well, the lesbians don't, but any couple involving a male wolf has to avoid deep emotional entanglements that would shatter if he imprinted; the Imperial Seer helps, but she is not perfect and they will live for long enough that even a slim chance adds up. But casual sex absolutely happens. Zeus has a friend with benefits by the time he's fifteen (her name is Kitty, but she thinks this is ridiculous, and prefers "Xanthe" after her yellow fur).

He helpfully passes on to the pack that Harley thinks they are all hot; several people take advantage of this information, and Harley has more than one friend with benefits at the age of fifteen.

(Meanwhile, the masquerade is in tatters; wolves are just more convenient than looking for human partners, at least until Zeus decides he's interested in the Seer finding him a suitable imprint.)

This newfound interest does not mean Zeus and Harley don't hang out, even now that they're both sixteen. Presently, Harley is getting his ass handed to him by his wolf-reflexed sparring partner at a mo-cap fighting video game entitled Bloodsport V.

pythbox
2013-06-17 01:53 am (UTC)

And he is having the time of his life. Getting virtually shredded is almost as much fun as getting actually shredded.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 01:55 am (UTC)

Finally, Zeus's avatar (a scary demonic sort of creature with a lot of spikes all over it) delivers an irrecoverable blow, and Harley's is out of handicap potions.

"Gotcha," says Zeus, smirking.

pythbox
2013-06-17 01:57 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

"That was fun!" he says, flopping onto the couch.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 01:58 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Zeus, "I told you it was a good game." He grabs his water bottle, drains it, heads for the sink for a refill and helps himself to a couple apples out of the fruit bowl. "Next time we can use a bigger handicap, I'm still too fast for you to have a fighting chance."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:00 am (UTC)

"You hungry?" inquires Harley. This is something of a joke.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:01 am (UTC)

"Nope, couldn't eat a bite," says Zeus, and then he consumes nearly half of his apple in a single bite, "especially not one of your omelets with ridiculous amounts of cheese in it, such a thing would definitely go to waste, even if it had, like, mushrooms and peppers in it."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:05 am (UTC)

Harley gets up off the couch, gives Zeus the squishiest imaginable hug, and commences making an omelet.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:06 am (UTC)

"Waste of effort!" says Zeus around apple. "Your labors will be in vain! I am eternally full!"

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:07 am (UTC)

"Pshhhhh," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:08 am (UTC)

"Also I suspect you're going to poison me and my food taster's away on important business." The first apple is gone now. "So I couldn't eat that anyway. And, and I am suddenly a vegan. Also it's Ramadan and I've just converted to Islam. And I have developed multiple spontaneous allergies." He begins apple the second.

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:09 am (UTC)

"Liar," he says affectionately. "Hungry, terrible liar."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:10 am (UTC)

"How dare you, I've the Princess's own honesty," says Zeus. (Knowing the princess personally hasn't made him more willing to call her by name, and besides, this is a common figure of speech now.)

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:12 am (UTC)

"Liiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaar," sings Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:13 am (UTC)

"Poisoning chicken-murdering infidel," snickers Zeus. "Who... I can't think of a good word for the allergy one."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:14 am (UTC)

"Terrible, uncreative liar," says Harley. "The gravest of sins. I should take away your omelet."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:15 am (UTC)

"Noooooooo," cries Zeus, discarding denuded apple cores and falling dramatically to his knees, hands clasped, "anything but that, I'll be good, I'll fetch your slippers for you."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:18 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

"Yeah, yeah," he says. "You're adorable. You're so adorable, I should make out with you."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:19 am (UTC)

Zeus blinks politely. "I was thinking you should make me an omelet, but now I'm really curious where you got that conclusion."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:20 am (UTC)

"I'm already making you an omelet!" Harley says cheerfully. "Look, it's an omelet, it's going to be so tasty."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:21 am (UTC)

"It smells fucking amazing," says Zeus, hauling himself to his feet.

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:22 am (UTC)

"Yep! No but anyway, did you not know I want to make out with everyone? I thought we covered that like a year ago," he laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess you did say 'everyone', I didn't think that meant me, we all know I'm not really a werewolf but actually a figment of your imagination," says Zeus easily, flopping into a kitchen chair and leaning hopefully in the direction of unfinished omelet.

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:24 am (UTC)

"You're the best imaginary figment ever," Harley agrees. "And I would totally make out with you."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:26 am (UTC)

"Checking, checking... Still prefer to kiss only people with breasts," says Zeus. "It's this weird, uncommon kink I have, you probably haven't heard of it."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:26 am (UTC)

Harley cracks up.

"I hear that's not an insurmountable barrier!" he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:30 am (UTC)

"If that's what you want for your birthday or something, I dunno, I'd see what I could do," snorts Zeus, "I'm not sure it's a thing that can happen, though."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:35 am (UTC)

"...No, I mean my lack of boobs," snorts Harley. "Like, I know this may come as a shock to you, but magic exists! I could totally have boobs. I should have boobs sometime," he declares. "I bet they're fun, they look fun."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:36 am (UTC)

"They're definitely fun to be in proximity to. I don't care to own my own set. I mean, I don't know what to feed them or how often they need to be walked." He taps his chin. "That'd be interesting, anyway."
Edited 2013-06-17 02:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:38 am (UTC)

Harley grins.

"Omelet!" he announces, serving it onto a plate.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:38 am (UTC)

Zeus is instantly engrossed in his omelet. It is the best omelet. Harley is the best omeletter.

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:39 am (UTC)

He beams.

"I love cooking for you, you're so appreciative," he says, ruffling Zeus's hair.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:39 am (UTC)

[Who wouldn't be, this is fucking delicious,] says Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:40 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

"Damn right."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:41 am (UTC)

[You are the best. This omelet is the best. I conclude that you are this omelet.] He pauses between bites long enough to grab Harley by the arm and bite his wrist, not hard. [I may have miscalculated.]
Edited 2013-06-17 02:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:43 am (UTC)

He cackles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:44 am (UTC)

Zeus returns to the much more rewarding task of biting his omelet instead. [This is so tasty that I don't even care that you definitely poisoned it and I shall suffer sickness unto death. What a way to go.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:47 am (UTC)

"Yeeeep," laughs Harley. "I would be the best assassin, people would just line right up to be poisoned."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:48 am (UTC)

[You could be an executioner. People would tell you what they wanted for their last meal and then eat up their sentence.] Zeus has never lived in a world where the death penalty was standard - at least not for anyone for whom a choice of last meal would be meaningful - but there is always fiction about the past.

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:49 am (UTC)

He giggles so hard he has to sit down. On the floor.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:50 am (UTC)

Zeus makes short work of the omelet despite its wolf-appropriate portion size. "Thank you," he says warmly, "you are great and that was great and I am no longer in danger of withering away to a wisp of nothing."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:51 am (UTC)

"I am great," beams Harley. "I'm so great. I'm amazing."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:53 am (UTC)

"I'm amazed," says Zeus in mock astonishment, flinching as though Harley is very surprising, "I cannot figure out how you happened, it must be magic that is even more magic than regular magic. Double magic. That is the only explanation for you and how amazing you are."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:53 am (UTC)

Harley scoots over and hugs his leg.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:54 am (UTC)

Pat pat pat. "Remind me which of us periodically turns into a tail-wagging fluffy canine creature?" he asks dryly.

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:54 am (UTC)

"Me," he says firmly.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:55 am (UTC)

"Oh, okay, then this makes perfect sense," says Zeus, "nothing incongruous about this picture, I must have been daydreaming."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:55 am (UTC)

Snuggle.

"Woof."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:56 am (UTC)

"Very good, you get a -" Zeus scans the kitchen for something to stand in for a dog treat, and settles for a bit of mushroom that didn't make it into the omelet. "Facsimile of a biscuit."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:57 am (UTC)

Om nom snuggle nom!

"I love you," giggles Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:57 am (UTC)

"I love you too."

pythbox
2013-06-17 02:58 am (UTC)

Leg-hug.

Idly, "What's it like only wanting to kiss people with boobs? I mean, you know me, I'll kiss anybody with a face."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 02:59 am (UTC)

"I bet you'd kiss somebody without a face, if you could figure out how the hell to do it," says Zeus. "I dunno, it's... I am aware that mouths work the same on everybody? I just don't ever feel like putting that knowledge to practical use. No matter how hot Xanthe insists it'd be."

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:01 am (UTC)

"I would absolutely kiss somebody without a face," Harley agrees, grinning up at him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:06 am (UTC)

"Pack telepathy makes it kind of confusing because I am aware of what it's like for other people to want to kiss the unboobened population," says Zeus. "Xanthe, any of your miscellaneous playmates, random traveling-pack-people, whatever. When I'm sorted out in my head I know it's not mine, though." He taps his chin again. "At least insofar as I've bothered to think about it, which, I'm not completely un-self-aware, but also am not Her Majesty, you know? Maybe kissing is boobs-only and, I dunno, blowjobs aren't." He contemplates this. "I just made that up but now I think it might be true."

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:07 am (UTC)

"Which way around?" he says curiously.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:08 am (UTC)

"I think you'd probably have to bribe, threaten, or magic me to get me to figure out how to give one."

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:09 am (UTC)

"I'll pass," laughs Harley. "I'd give you one, though."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:10 am (UTC)

Zeus considers this. "If you were anyone else I'd be saying 'just like that?' 'what kind of alien are you?' 'what's the catch?', but I already know that the answers to that are 'yes', 'a Harley kind of alien' and 'I poisoned your omelet, duh'."

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:11 am (UTC)

Harley beams up at him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:13 am (UTC)

"Of the activities I am willing that Jake or Her Highness walk in on unexpectedly, though, that is not on the list, so if you mean anything resembling now a change of room is necessary. Like, Jake'll know about it eventually if it's remotely memorable, because, pack telepathy, but that is not the same thing."

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:16 am (UTC)

Harley giggles.

"Okay! My room?" he suggests.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:17 am (UTC)

"Sure thing," says Zeus, and he rolls up out of his chair onto his feet, bounces once, smiles, and offers the floorsitting Harley his hand.

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:19 am (UTC)

Harley grabs Zeus's hand, hauls himself up, hugs him, and then scampers to his room.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:19 am (UTC)

Zeus follows at a more leisurely pace.

He closes the door behind him.

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:19 am (UTC)

It is memorable.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:20 am (UTC)

"Glffngh," says Zeus eloquently.

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:21 am (UTC)

Harley beams.

"I'm so great!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:21 am (UTC)

"Dmmglflgl."

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:22 am (UTC)

He giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:23 am (UTC)

"Hflrgl," objects Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:23 am (UTC)

"You're adorable. I adore you." Giggly hug!

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:24 am (UTC)

Zeus can, at least, hug back without suffering critical vowel failure.

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:24 am (UTC)

It is a terrible affliction!

Mmmmmhugs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:25 am (UTC)

Hugs. The resumption of pantsedness.

Zeus experimentally attempts words again after a minute. "Thanks," he says, "you are great."

pythbox
2013-06-17 03:26 am (UTC)

"I aaaaam," beams Harley. "And you are very welcome."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 03:27 am (UTC)

Zeus grins at him. "I am," he says, "really glad that there is such a person as you."

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:56 am (UTC)

Harley giggles. And hugs him again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 04:39 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

pythbox
2013-06-17 04:40 pm (UTC)

A few days later, Harley finds Elsie, hugs her, and announces, "I want a pentagon."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 04:41 pm (UTC)

"All right," she says, and she reaches into her coin-sorter for a pentagon in the Joker's colors. "I hope you're being thoughtful about how you're going to use it."

pythbox
2013-06-17 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Pff," says Harley, hugging her again.

He takes the pentagon. He wishes on it.

He twirls around happily, showing off his lovely new body.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 04:45 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs. "Aren't you pretty."

pythbox
2013-06-17 04:46 pm (UTC)

"I am! I'm the prettiest," he says gleefully.

[Hey Zeus, guess what!]

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 04:47 pm (UTC)

[Uuum... what?] asks Zeus, who is very creative but never knows what to do with that question.

pythbox
2013-06-17 04:47 pm (UTC)

[I have booooooobs,] he giggles. [Come look at them!]

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 04:48 pm (UTC)

[Pff. Sure, incoming.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 04:49 pm (UTC)

Elspeth pats Harley on the head - this requires jumping, now, but she's more than up to it - and says, "I have some work to do; I'll be home in a couple of hours," and she teleports away.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 04:49 pm (UTC)

Zeus lets himself into the house a moment later.

pythbox
2013-06-17 04:54 pm (UTC)

Harley beams at him.

He came out more on-type than other Jokers tend to when they swap sex; his face has barely changed, and he doesn't quite have the Joker's magnificent hourglass figure. But he is, nevertheless, very pretty.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 04:56 pm (UTC)

Zeus sure seems to think so.

(you are the center of the universe and I worship the ground you walk on and your wish is my command and I will defend you with my life)

"Harley," he says, unusually soft and hoarse, "uh," he continues, and finally he settles on "please please don't freak out?"

pythbox
2013-06-17 04:56 pm (UTC)

Harley blinks. "...About what?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 04:58 pm (UTC)

Zeus sits down heavily on the nearest available chair. "Um," he says, not taking his eyes off Harley's face. "I think I. Um."

pythbox
2013-06-17 04:59 pm (UTC)

Harley looks down at his lovely new body.

"...Oh," he says. "Oh. Wow, I did not think of that at all."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:00 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry. Should I be sorry? I don't know if I actually am," says Zeus anxiously.

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:03 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to be sorry! I might have to be sorry, that would be a new experience," laughs Harley. "I mean - I don't know - you're my best fluffy buddy and I love you, I'm not, like, mad. I just - has this ever even happened before? What happens if I change back? Would you explode, I don't want you to explode, I like you!"

He is now turning in anxious little circles and waving his hands expressively.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I'm - pretty sure I don't explode?" says Zeus. "Wolfsplosions are usually just - the furry kind. I don't think this has ever happened before but one or two imprints have had, like - hysterectomies - and their wolves are still imprinted."

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Wow."

Harley sits down on the floor and hugs Zeus's leg.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:07 pm (UTC)

Zeus smiles at him, half ordinary fluffy-buddy smile and half new warm imprint-face smile, and pets his hair.

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I love you," sighs Harley, resting his head on Zeus's knee.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:15 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

"...Hey, does that mean you want to make out with me now?" he wonders.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:16 pm (UTC)

"That sounds awesome," agrees Zeus. "I mean, if we're not treating me as though I'm drunk off my ass on consent-warping magic, or anything."

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:17 pm (UTC)

"You kind of are, but you're not going to not be," says Harley. "So you might as well - not be. You know?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Not gonna ask Her Highness to - fix me?" asks Zeus wryly.

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if that can even happen," he says, "and I don't think you'd want her to, so - no? Unless you do want her to. Or unless we were going to turn into some kind of... big, huge, horrible disaster, like - oh shit." He blinks up at Zeus, realization dawning. "Oh, shit, I can't break my arm again or anything, can I, you'd explode."
Edited 2013-06-17 17:26 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:28 pm (UTC)

"...Not... literally?" says Zeus, wincing. "But - but that sounds really, really bad - like, even though I know how you are about it and I know you're immortal it just -" He bites his lip and shuts his eyes and whines. "And - also Pamela's not gonna be able to hit you anymore."

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwww, man," says Harley, and he climbs up into Zeus's lap and hugs him. "Can we fix that? I hope we can fix that, I don't want you to be sad like this all the time!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:33 pm (UTC)

Zeus hugs him, snuggly-like, tucking his face in against Harley's neck. "The thing with Pam and the thing with me are separate things. I dunno. Not even Jake could get Pam to hit you now, not with all the alpha voice in the world... I don't think anybody's tried the other thing."

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I am mildly sad that Pam can't hit me anymore but it's not a life-changer," says Harley. "The other thing is actually a problem."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:35 pm (UTC)

"'m sorry," mumbles Zeus. "I know how you are, I just - can't - stand to think about it."

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Then don't think about it," says Harley. "And we'll try to fix it." He winces. "Is it okay if we try to fix it?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:37 pm (UTC)

"You need it fixed, right?" says Zeus. This is a complete answer to Harley's question.

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:37 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

"Yeah. Like - yeah. I do."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:38 pm (UTC)

Zeus nods, just a little, shifting his head where he's put it on Harley's shoulder.

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:38 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:38 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! Snuggles with imprint: best thing.

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:39 pm (UTC)

[Elsie?] he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 05:39 pm (UTC)

[Yes?]

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:40 pm (UTC)

[Zeus imprinted on me.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 05:41 pm (UTC)

[Are you okay?]

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:43 pm (UTC)

[...Yeeees. Mostly. I am okay in the short term. In the long term - you know that thing where wolves can't stand their imprints getting hurt? We need to do something about that. I mean, if it's possible, I don't know, but - if it's not possible then I really, really don't know what to do.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 05:44 pm (UTC)

[It... has not been tried,] says Elspeth. [Imprinting isn't like vampire mating in that way. I'll speak to Mama and Jake about a wish design. We'll see what we can do. Is Zeus on board with the change?]

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:45 pm (UTC)

[Quote, "You need it fixed, right?", end quote.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 05:46 pm (UTC)

[Yes, I suppose I should've expected that,] sighs Elspeth. [We'll have something to try soon. Do you or Zeus need anything else?]

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:46 pm (UTC)

[Nah, we're good. Thanks.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 05:47 pm (UTC)

[Okay. If you have questions about how imprinting works that you didn't ask before, you can of course ask me.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:49 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

[I know. I love you, Elsie.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 05:49 pm (UTC)

[I love you too, Harley.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:50 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles Zeus.

"I told Elsie," he says. "She says she'll talk to some people and try to fix the thing."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Zeus.

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:53 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 05:54 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle snuggle. Wolves in general tend to simple desires; imprinted wolves more so.

pythbox
2013-06-17 05:59 pm (UTC)

If Zeus desires snuggles, Harley is so on board with that. He might just curl up right here and take a cuddlenap.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:00 pm (UTC)

Zeus would be happy to snuggle his sleeping imprint! That sounds like just about the best thing.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:02 pm (UTC)

Awesome. Cuddlenap!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 06:03 pm (UTC)

Elspeth is home a few hours later, and holding a hexagon.

She stands in the doorway, and coughs.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:03 pm (UTC)

Harley remains asleep.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 06:09 pm (UTC)

Harley, Elspeth sends.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:09 pm (UTC)

He yawns.

"Mm? Hi, Elsie!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 06:10 pm (UTC)

Jake thinks it will be best to make the wish while Zeus is asleep. Do you want to hear how we've designed it up or shall I just go ahead?

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:10 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I wanna hear.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 06:17 pm (UTC)

She lobs a summary of the entire conversation leading up to the design. Jake advocated for the minimal change - an exception made for deliberate masochistic experiments only, not random mayhem. Elspeth, armed with the judgesighted histories of eleven Jokers, suggested that this would still leave tension between imprint instincts and Harley's interests - Zeus has never been a restraining influence on Harley's risk-taking behavior and starting now wouldn't really help anyone. Bella's general discomfort with mental editing led her to suggest simply selectively reverting Zeus's opinions about Harley's safety to whatever he had before, since apparently that was working so well, and Jake grudgingly allowed that this would be okay. The hexagon Elspeth holds is intended to do exactly that.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:19 pm (UTC)

[Sounds good to me,] says Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 06:20 pm (UTC)

Elspeth nods.

She wishes.

The hexagon won't go.

She sighs, puts it away, and pulls out a star, on which she wishes. This goes.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:20 pm (UTC)

Zeus sleeps on, still holding Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:21 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles down in Zeus's lap.

[Thanks, Elsie.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 06:21 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome,] she says. [I wish I'd thought of this before.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:22 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 06:22 pm (UTC)

She smiles an indulgent smile, pats him on the head as she walks by, and heads up to her home office.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:23 pm (UTC)

N'aww.

Snugglesnuggle.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:23 pm (UTC)

Eventually Zeus wakes up.

He yawns.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Elsie fixed the thing!" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:25 pm (UTC)

"She did?" Zeus makes a puzzled, searching face, and then he smiles. "Hey, she did. Neat."

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:26 pm (UTC)

Harley beams and kisses him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:26 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Zeus is so on board with kisses, you have no idea.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:26 pm (UTC)

Harley has some idea!

Kisses.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:26 pm (UTC)

Kisses. Best thing. Best best best thing.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:27 pm (UTC)

Harley can think of some other things they could be doing that would also be pretty best!

Maybe he will suggest some. In a minute. Because right now, kisses.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:28 pm (UTC)

Zeus is very suggestible at this moment. Also at all future moments.

(kisses kisses kisses)

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:28 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses.

[You have a faaaace,] giggles Harley. [And I am making out with you!]

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:31 pm (UTC)

[I totally have a face! It's very important. For kissing you. Also breathing and eating and seeing and stuff.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:37 pm (UTC)

[You should continue breathing and eating and seeing! And kissing me!] says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:37 pm (UTC)

[I will do all those things.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:39 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle kiss.

[You wanna go to my room and make out some more?]

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:40 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

Zeus chooses to interpret this as involving making out en route. He can pick up Harley pretty easily; that's not even new.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:40 pm (UTC)

Making out en route is a fantastic idea.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:41 pm (UTC)

Zeus has those, sometimes!

And here is Harley's room.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:42 pm (UTC)

Here is Harley's room. A lovely, lovely room.

"Hey, I haven't shown you my boobs yet," he giggles. "I haven't even shown me my boobs yet! I should do that!"

He does that.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:43 pm (UTC)

Zeus is appropriately fascinated.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:43 pm (UTC)

Harley beams.

He encourages interaction with his new and fascinating anatomy!

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:44 pm (UTC)

Zeus is nothing if not responsive to encouragement.

pythbox
2013-06-17 06:44 pm (UTC)

Zeus is awesome. Harley is awesome. Boobs are awesome. Everything is awesome.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 06:45 pm (UTC)

Zeus is in firm agreement with all of these evaluations.

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:12 pm (UTC)

Time passes.

Zeus and Harley spend most of that time in Harley's room, except for the parts they spend in somebody's kitchen.

After about a week, Harley says to Elsie, [I feel like switching back, but maybe it'd be a good idea to ask the Imperial Seer what'll happen first.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 07:13 pm (UTC)

[I'll ask her.]

A moment later:

[Alice says the imprint will remain no matter what you turn into.]

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:14 pm (UTC)

[Okay!]

"Hey," he says out loud, to the Zeus he is snuggling. "I think I'm gonna go get a pentagon from Elsie and switch back."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:15 pm (UTC)

Zeus play-bites at the nearest Harley body part. (It is a shoulder.) "Uh, what's gonna happen to me when you do that?"

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:18 pm (UTC)

"According to the Imperial Seer, nothing exciting," he shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I suppose excitement'll have to come from other sources then." He kisses the bitten shoulder.

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure we can dig some up if we really try," he laughs. "Okay, gonna go find Elsie."

First, clothes! Well, pants. Pants are clothes. Oh, and boobs go with shirts, he keeps forgetting that. He will put on a shirt.

There, now he's gonna go find Elsie.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

Here is Elsie! She is illustrating a pamphlet.

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Elsie! I want a pentagon," he says cheerfully. "Ooh, what's the pamphlet?"
Edited 2013-06-17 19:30 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 07:31 pm (UTC)

"It's about offworld magic," says Elspeth, producing a pentagon and handing it over.

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Cool!"

He switches back.

"Gonna go see if Zeus still wants to make out with me, bye!"

And back to his room he goes.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:35 pm (UTC)

The answer is a slightly confused yes!

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:37 pm (UTC)

How confused? Should they have a conversation about it, or is Zeus just going to make some funny faces before resuming makeouts?

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:38 pm (UTC)

Looks like it's the second thing, unless Harley really wants to discuss it!

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

Well.

"You are cute when you make funny faces," Harley informs him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Am I making funny faces?"

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:41 pm (UTC)

"You are, it's adorable." Harley kisses Zeus's nose.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:42 pm (UTC)

Zeus grins. "I dunno, it's just, this isn't the first time imprinting decided to take some wolf's sexuality out back and shoot it? But it's the first time it's happened this way."

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm full of surprises," Harley says brightly, and he pounces on Zeus.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:44 pm (UTC)

Mmmm pouncing! Highly appreciated pouncing.

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:47 pm (UTC)

Hooray for highly appreciated things! Harley decides to do some more things that he expects will be highly appreciated.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:47 pm (UTC)

Pretty much anything Harley-related is highly appreciated.

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:50 pm (UTC)

Awesome, because giving Zeus blowjobs is lots of fun and he would be sad if Zeus stopped appreciating them.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:51 pm (UTC)

There has been no cessation of appreciation there! It has if anything increased.

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:52 pm (UTC)

Awesome, perfect, excellent, he's so pleased.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:53 pm (UTC)

Also, on the "bribed, threatened, or magicked" front?

Zeus has now been pretty thoroughly magicked.

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:54 pm (UTC)

Ooh.

Harley is terribly pleased.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 07:55 pm (UTC)

It is very important that Harley be pleased. That is the point. (Of Zeus's existence, if you ask Zeus.)

pythbox
2013-06-17 07:59 pm (UTC)

If you asked Harley, he would say that the point of Zeus's existence is to be Zeus.

Luckily for both of them, Zeus being Zeus is a source of endless delight!

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:01 pm (UTC)

It's so convenient! If Zeus had had to pick an imprint he would've picked Harley if he'd known Harley was an option.

pythbox
2013-06-17 08:16 pm (UTC)

That is good. Harley would be glad to know that, if he did.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:17 pm (UTC)

Eventually - during a lull in the proceedings - Zeus tells him so.

pythbox
2013-06-17 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwwwwwww," says Harley, hugging him tight. "I'm glad. I love you."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:18 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," says Zeus, "so, so much."

pythbox
2013-06-17 08:18 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle. Ferocious snugglings.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:19 pm (UTC)

That is delightful and Harley is delightful and Zeus is delighted!

pythbox
2013-06-17 08:19 pm (UTC)

Harley is delighted too. They are just a big cuddly pile of delight.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:19 pm (UTC)

Good, good.

pythbox
2013-06-17 08:28 pm (UTC)

Time passes some more.

Harley reads a book. This is not unusual; Harley frequently reads books. He likes this one. It's old sci-fi, and one of the main characters calls herself Aenea, which sounds amusingly similar to his second name. She has a trick where she can move from one place to another without passing through the space in between; it's very evocatively described, in terms of poetry he hasn't read but now kind of wants to. This trick is called freecasting.

One night, he is falling asleep thinking about the book. He imagines the way it might feel, to cut loose from your surroundings and recenter yourself somewhere different. It must be just—like—

He vanishes right out of Zeus's arms.
Edited 2013-06-17 20:29 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Harley."

"Harley?"

[HARLEY!]

By the time Zeus thinks to try contacting the Princess he's a gibbering wreck, arms wrapped around and face buried in Harley's pillow, because something has to have happened, Harley was just - they were cuddling, Harley does not abandon cuddles without so much as a word -
Edited 2013-06-17 20:42 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 08:43 pm (UTC)

The Princess, much to her dismay, knows what happened.

"Did he ever tell you about what Glass said, when he was a baby?" she asks softly. "That he would one day wander off somewhere and there was nothing I could do."

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:43 pm (UTC)

"You should've done something anyway!" cries Zeus.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Done what? I couldn't predict where he was going to go, or how, let alone stop him. But," she says, "I think he will be back, eventually." She sighs. "When I was gone and no one knew how long I'd be gone -"

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," breathes Zeus, "yeah, I remember hearing about that, please - just - I'll sleep. Can - it doesn't matter but -"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 08:44 pm (UTC)

"You can stay here," agrees Elspeth quietly.

alicornucopia
2013-06-17 08:44 pm (UTC)

Zeus hugs Harley's pillow.

He tucks himself under Harley's blankets.

He closes his eyes and he shivers and he lets the Princess send him unconscious for goodness only knows how long.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-17 08:44 pm (UTC)

Elspeth watches him for a moment, then goes next door to tell Bartholomew and Demeter, and then to Jaipur to tell the Golden Coven.

good morning everyone

warmfeelings

Chelsa has just finished the morning announcements. She loves doing the morning announcements; it's like piping hot coffee, the rise in the world's warmth. Most of it is for Aelise, of course, but Chelsa gets her own share, and of course she's not selfish, everyone loves their neighbors too. Everyone gets along so well.

She is on her way from the broadcasting studio where she does her announcements to the living quarters where she keeps her dearest friends. She makes sure to pay them plenty of attention. They watch the announcements - everyone does, unless they are doing some sort of emergency work right at that moment, and then they're caught up as soon as possible with the next installment - but they're kept closer and need more fine detail work to stay happy with her. It is terribly important that they be happy with her.

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:21 pm (UTC)

A teenage boy wearing bright red pajama pants appears in midair about three feet off the ground and falls to the floor with a yelp, as though he just rolled out of a nonexistent bed.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:23 pm (UTC)

Chelsa blinks.

And then she reaches out with both hands, inspecting his temperature. Something's off about it. He's not completely cold, not like that one distressing child Aelise had killed for her all those years ago, but none of the warmth is aimed at her or Aelise.

That's incorrect, and confusing.

"Where did you come from?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:24 pm (UTC)

"What the fuck?" he says, turning over and blinking up at her. "I don't know, I—was just—"

Doesn't he know that face from somewhere?

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:26 pm (UTC)

So he's clearly some kind of Gifted, even if he found it late. Hmm, he looks a little like her Corona, doesn't he. This is terribly curious.

"Why don't you come with me to see Aelise," suggests Chelsa, smiling at him and holding out a hand, "she'll know what to do."

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Where even am I?" he asks, squinting at her. He makes no move to take her hand.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Mont Blanc," says Chelsa patiently, still holding her hand out. "It looks like you've landed here accidentally, but Aelise will know what to do."

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:33 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head. "Who's that?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Aelise is - Aelise," says Chelsa. "She's the Empress, but no one really calls her that. Wherever can you have come from if you don't know me or her? What's your name?"
Edited 2013-06-17 22:36 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Harley," says Harley. "Who are you?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm Chelsa," says Chelsa. She's still holding out her hand.

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:38 pm (UTC)

He blinks.

He screams and runs away.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:40 pm (UTC)

Well, that's hardly polite.

She was going to leave him untouched to report on his initial state to Aelise, but now she has little recourse but to reach out for his chilly self and strike matches.

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:40 pm (UTC)

This does not seem to have an effect on the screaming and running away that he is doing.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:41 pm (UTC)

She runs after him. "Harley!" she calls. "Calm down! I only want to bring you to Aelise!"

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:42 pm (UTC)

Still running away!

Now too out of breath to scream.

(But, running away or no - he has properties in common with her Corona other than just his face.)

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:44 pm (UTC)

That's familiar. And lovely. She doesn't like the running away, but perhaps he can be calmed down eventually.

He's running in the direction of her friends' quarters.

She follows him, exasperated.

pythbox
2013-06-17 10:51 pm (UTC)

He runs through her friends' quarters, to the balcony at the end of the hall, and he does not stop running when he reaches it.

It's a beautiful view, and a long way down the side of the mountain from here.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Anneia!" exclaims Chelsa. "Someone's just jumped off the balcony - come with me -" He's likely to land near where the south elevator lets out, and if he's alive at all he'll need healing.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 10:55 pm (UTC)

Anneia dashes out of the room she shares with Sandre and follows Chelsa to the south elevator.

"What happened? Who is it?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. He just appeared, in the hall. He looks a lot like Corona but he definitely wasn't, none of the right warmth until I kindled it; I was trying to bring him to Aelise when he took off running."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Maybe Corona learned how to double himself," she suggests wryly.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I suppose stranger things have happened," allows Chelsa. "But I think anyone Corona conjured up like that would have heard of me and Aelise. He didn't know who she was."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 11:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, then. And Corona's still not home, right? I hope he's okay - the stranger I mean."

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Corona's still off on his vacation, yes. The stranger said his name was Harley."

Here is the bottom of Mont Blanc! It's a fast elevator.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 11:06 pm (UTC)

Anneia rushes out.

The stranger is lying on the path that leads down the mountain from this elevator. Well, most of him is. He hit a few trees on the way down, and it seems they kept some parts.

She heals him.

He lets out a very familiar moan.

"...Are you sure this isn't Corona? I mean, he's too young, but - look at him."

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:09 pm (UTC)

"They do look very alike," agrees Chelsa, peering down at Harley. "Similar capacity for warmth too, even if it was aimed all wrong - but - I don't think Corona would do what he did."

She leans over the visitor. "Harley," she says. "This is Anneia. She's your friend, so am I, we're all friends here, okay? You're very off-balance right now, I know, but the best thing for it is to take you to Aelise - she's friendly too, we're all friends here - and let her sort it out."

And her hands dance to enforce what she says.

pythbox
2013-06-17 11:10 pm (UTC)

Harley curls up into a little ball and whimpers.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 11:11 pm (UTC)

"It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck..."

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Do you suppose we can carry him between the two of us?" asks Chelsa. "Into the elevator at least?"

Finding a new Corona, even an impolite one, is not all bad. Although if she's going to keep him she'll have to rotate someone out.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," says Anneia. "And do what with him then?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Fetch some of the others, haul him to Aelise together? I am really not cut out for making critical decisions about strange things," says Chelsa helplessly.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 11:18 pm (UTC)

"No kidding," sighs Anneia. "All right."

She crouches down beside the curled-up Harley and scoops him up with an oof. He's tall but not very broad; she can manage him all by herself, although not very comfortably. The fact that he clings to her the moment she makes contact helps a lot.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:20 pm (UTC)

Chelsa shadows Anneia on the way back to the elevator in case she needs help, and then up they go.

Her hands make little patterns in the air, fanning the flames.

pythbox
2013-06-17 11:26 pm (UTC)

Harley buries his face in Anneia's shoulder and cries.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, at least he'll act like he likes you," says Chelsa. She doesn't begrudge her friends their affection with each other. It's so much more convenient this way. She just wishes Harley would act like he likes her, too. The warmth is catching and crackling just like it ought, but... hm.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if he's acting like he likes me," says Anneia. "It's hard to tell, with just the crying to go on."

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:31 pm (UTC)

"He isn't trying to run away from you, let's put it that way. Honestly. I'm not scary," says Chelsa.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-17 11:33 pm (UTC)

Corona might disagree, but there's no point getting into that. Corona's just Corona, that's all. Anneia sighs and pats her bundle of Harley.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:35 pm (UTC)

This is a fast elevator. Here they are. "I'll get Sandre to help you carry him," says Chelsa. And back she goes into her friends' quarters. "Sandre!"

guiltless
2013-06-17 11:37 pm (UTC)

Sandre peers out of his and Anneia's room. "Huh? What?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:40 pm (UTC)

"We need to transport someone to Aelise and he's very upset and needs to be carried; Anneia can manage him, but only just."

guiltless
2013-06-17 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Okay," he shrugs, and he gives Chelsa a hug and a kiss on the cheek and follows her to... wherever.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:49 pm (UTC)

Here is the elevator; here is Anneia with Harley in her arms.

Onward.

guiltless
2013-06-17 11:51 pm (UTC)

With some difficulty, Sandre transfers Harley from Anneia's arms to his.

warmfeelings
2013-06-17 11:52 pm (UTC)

Now where might Aelise be at this hour?

salus_populi
2013-06-18 12:29 am (UTC)

She is extremely likely to be in her office!

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 12:29 am (UTC)

To her office!

"Aelise," calls Chelsa as they approach.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 12:31 am (UTC)

"Yes?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 12:33 am (UTC)

"A few minutes ago a boy who looks and sounds and kindles very like Corona appeared in the hallway right in front of me, in his pajamas, and spoke to me briefly, and had none of the generally possessed warmth for me or you but wasn't cold like that one horrible girl and kindled just fine when I tried, and when I told him my name in trying to get him to come see you, he took off screaming and jumped the balcony. Anneia's fixed him, though."

salus_populi
2013-06-18 12:42 am (UTC)

Aelise inspects the boy.

"He is very like Corona," she comments.

guiltless
2013-06-18 12:43 am (UTC)

"But he's younger," says Sandre. "And he doesn't have any scars. Inside or out."

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 12:44 am (UTC)

"Yes, I'm frightfully confused," complains Chelsa.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 12:45 am (UTC)

"I can tell," says Aelise. "Who have you kindled him to so far?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 12:46 am (UTC)

"You, me, Anneia - me and you because I was trying to convince him to come talk to you, her to calm him down when we fetched him from the bottom of the mountain."

salus_populi
2013-06-18 12:47 am (UTC)

"Leave him with me for now," she decides. "I'll see if I can't get some sense out of him."

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 12:49 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Chelsa agreeably. "...He does kindle exactly like Corona. And I've heard Jony muttering about going to bring up his grandchildren with his daughter gone, if crowding is a concern."

Hint hint new live-in friend hint hint.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 12:52 am (UTC)

"If he's not dangerous, you can keep him," Aelise promises.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 12:52 am (UTC)

"Thank you!"

And off traipses Chelsa.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 12:54 am (UTC)

Aelise contemplates the shivering bundle in Sandre's arms.

"Anneia, could you go and get our new friend a blanket and maybe a new pair of pants?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-06-18 12:55 am (UTC)

"Sure thing!"

pythbox
2013-06-18 12:55 am (UTC)

Harley seems quite content to do nothing but cry on Sandre.

guiltless
2013-06-18 01:00 am (UTC)

Sandre avails himself of a comfy chair, since the office has an extra.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:02 am (UTC)

Aelise has plenty of work to do while she waits for the mystery boy to calm down.

pythbox
2013-06-18 01:04 am (UTC)

It takes a while.

Not forever, though. He spends about an hour cycling betweeen whimpers, sniffles, and sobs, and finally quiets down after that.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:08 am (UTC)

Aelise closes the latest report from the orbital ring, gets out from behind her desk, and pulls up the other comfy chair next to the one Sandre and Harley are occupying.

"Hey, you," she says gently. "I don't think we've been introduced."

pythbox
2013-06-18 01:12 am (UTC)

Harley gives her a look. It contains heavily mixed emotions, but the one he's trying to get across is contempt.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:13 am (UTC)

"I want to help you, but I can't do that unless I know what's wrong," she says patiently.

pythbox
2013-06-18 01:14 am (UTC)

"My - feelings," Harley says helplessly, and he pulls the blanket Anneia gave him over his head and starts crying again.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:16 am (UTC)

"Corona all over again," Aelise murmurs. "Oh, dear."

pythbox
2013-06-18 01:17 am (UTC)

"Who the fuck is Corona?" says the blanket.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:20 am (UTC)

"He's... very like you," says Aelise. "I think you should be introduced to him."

pythbox
2013-06-18 01:22 am (UTC)

The blanket sniffles.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:23 am (UTC)

"Do you want to tell me anything about who you are or where you came from?"

pythbox
2013-06-18 01:23 am (UTC)

"No," sniffs the blanket.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:30 am (UTC)

Aelise sighs.

"All right. Sandre, would you take him to Corona's room, please?"

guiltless
2013-06-18 01:31 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Sandre, scooping Harley up.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:32 am (UTC)

"And keep an eye on him. In case he decides to take another trip down the mountain."

pythbox
2013-06-18 01:32 am (UTC)

"Fuck you," sobs the blanketed Harley.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 01:34 am (UTC)

"I hope Corona gets back soon," says Aelise.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 01:36 am (UTC)

Chelsa hopes Corona gets back soon, too. When he is expected, she can be found pacing at the entrance to the Mont Blanc stronghold.

pythbox
2013-06-18 01:59 am (UTC)

He jogs up the path from the landing pad and hugs her. As always, it's like getting cuddles from the sun; as usual, he looks most of the way to tears.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:00 am (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs! "Hello! I'm so glad to see you," coos Chelsa. "And there's a surprise for you, too."

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:04 am (UTC)

"Surprise! Show me the surprise," he says.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:05 am (UTC)

Chelsa beams and shows him to his room, where Harley has been stashed. "Harley," she sings. "Corona is home."

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:06 am (UTC)

Harley is in Corona's bed, under a large pile of blankets. He does not respond.

Corona peers curiously at the blanketpile.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:06 am (UTC)

"Come on out," encourages Chelsa. "I think you two will get along so well."

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:08 am (UTC)

The blanketpile cries.

Corona... frowns at it.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:10 am (UTC)

"He's having trouble adjusting. We're not sure where he came from," explains Chelsa. "He just appeared. He didn't even know who me or Aelise were. She hasn't been able to convince him to tell her anything much, yet."

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:15 am (UTC)

"Why is he in my bed?" wonders Corona.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:16 am (UTC)

"It seemed like the best place. Haaaar-leeeey," sings Chelsa, tugging at the blanket. "Come on out."

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:17 am (UTC)

The blanket whines and resists, but not effectively. Harley's face is revealed.

"...Whoa," says Corona.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:18 am (UTC)

"He's so much like you," beams Chelsa. "Not just the face, but he sounds the same - including when he jumped off the mountain - and he kindles just like you do." She pets Harley's hair.

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:19 am (UTC)

Harley bites her hand.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:20 am (UTC)

Thank goodness for Kers. He can try to bite her hand all he likes. "And," she says, frowning, "he has some antisocial habits he picked up wherever he's from."
Edited 2013-06-18 02:31 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:32 am (UTC)

"I can tell," says Corona. Slightly enviously.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:34 am (UTC)

Chelsa waits patiently for the release of her hand. "Anyway, it seemed like you should meet. Harley, this is Corona!"

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:35 am (UTC)

"I hate you," says Harley. He drags the blanket back over his head.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:35 am (UTC)

"You love me," sings Chelsa, fluttering her hands through the air. Twin suns, lovely twin suns.
Edited 2013-06-18 02:36 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-18 02:37 am (UTC)

"Go fuck yourself," hisses the pile of blankets.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 02:40 am (UTC)

"I'm sure you'd have a much better time of it here if you tried to be nice," says Chelsa. "I think I'll let you two get to know each other, how does that sound?" And she goes off to see which of her friends is most in need of company; she kisses Corona on her way out.

guiltless
2013-06-18 12:16 pm (UTC)

Sandre! Sandre wants cuddles. (He usually does.)

Sandre is also keeping half a metaphorical eye on Corona's room through the wall that separates them. But it looks like Corona and Harley are just cuddling, so after a while, he stops checking on them so frequently.

This is a mistake.

salus_populi
2013-06-18 12:19 pm (UTC)

Aelise wears shoes that make a very distinctive, echoing sound on the tiled stone floors, and she doesn't visit Chelsa's friends very often. The sound of her walking down the hall in a hurry is both unmistakable and unexpected.

warmfeelings
2013-06-18 04:48 pm (UTC)

Chelsa obligingly cuddles Sandre until she hears Aelise's footsteps, and then she gets up and peers out into the hall. "Aelise?" she asks, puzzled.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 12:21 pm (UTC)

"Our new guest has an interesting talent," she says. "I'd like to ask him about it."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 03:26 pm (UTC)

Chelsa blinks, confused, but opens the door to Corona's room.

pythbox
2013-06-19 03:29 pm (UTC)

Corona is snuggling Harley, who is weeping inconsolably.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 03:30 pm (UTC)

Aelise gives them both a thoughtful look.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 03:31 pm (UTC)

"What's going on?" Chelsa asks again.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 03:34 pm (UTC)

"All things considered," says Aelise, "I think you'll be happier if you leave them to me for now."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 03:34 pm (UTC)

"...All right," shrugs Chelsa, and she goes back to her Sandre-cuddles. He's so cuddleable.

pythbox
2013-06-19 03:39 pm (UTC)

It's not actually all that unusual to hear Corona screaming from his room, but in context it might be a little worrying.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 03:40 pm (UTC)

A little, but Chelsa trusts Aelise to have the situation under control!

guiltless
2013-06-19 03:51 pm (UTC)

Sandre is curious. He glances at the wall between his and Corona's rooms, and focuses past it.

...And is confused.

There's Aelise and Corona and Harley; Harley is the one who's screaming. Aelise is using her Gift on him. Sandre can't see her Gift, not properly, but he can see its effects - the way people wither or bloom from the cellular level on up. Harley is withering.

Then he stops withering. Stops living.

Something unfamiliar happens - like fire without the heat, except not really like fire at all - and Harley's back, unwithered, good as new.

Sandre is even more confused.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 03:52 pm (UTC)

"What's wrong, dear?"

guiltless
2013-06-19 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Um - nothing," he says, bewildered. "I guess."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 03:56 pm (UTC)

All right then. Snuzzle. Nice and warm.

guiltless
2013-06-19 04:01 pm (UTC)

Snuzzle! Confused snuzzle.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 04:02 pm (UTC)

After about an hour and a lot more screaming, Aelise leaves.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 04:03 pm (UTC)

Chelsa decides to let whatever just happened filter to her at some more convenient time. Aelise has good judgment about these things.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:03 pm (UTC)

Tima, on the other hand, drops by Corona's room and knocks curiously.

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:07 pm (UTC)

Corona answers the door and smiles tiredly when he sees who it is.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" Hug. "Welcome home. What's going on?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm not really sure," Corona says wryly. "Um - that's Harley," with a gesture to the very Corona-like figure curled up in his bed. "He fell out of thin air a while ago. He's almost exactly like me, except his Gift is different."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:11 pm (UTC)

"That's peculiar," says Tima, sidling in and sitting down. "What does he do?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:13 pm (UTC)

"He's immortal. And not the same way as Luhan - Aelise was just in here draining him, she must've done it like thirty times, and he just bounces right back."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Wow. That explains the screaming, I thought you were just having fun with self-mutilation again."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:15 pm (UTC)

Corona giggles. "Nope, it was all him."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Is he okay? I mean, physically intact yes, but - okay?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:20 pm (UTC)

"...Not really," he says. "He's - well, he's like me. And Chelsa wants to keep him and he really doesn't want to be kept. But the draining was fine," he adds. "He liked that."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:21 pm (UTC)

"If he's just infinitely renewable I guess Luhan's going to leave, isn't he," Tima remarks. "I still don't really get what you have against Chelsa. Either of you, I guess. You're full of contradictions."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:25 pm (UTC)

"She's a fucking mind rapist," snarls Harley from the bed.

Corona looks conflicted, but he doesn't actually disagree.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you talk," says Tima. "So where are you from?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:27 pm (UTC)

Harley sighs.

"Everybody keeps asking me that," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Well, you don't have to tell me, but it seemed worth asking."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:30 pm (UTC)

"I am not feeling super sociable right now," Harley says flatly. Corona winces.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Tima. "If it bothers you when Chelsa kindles you, can I give you some advice? Pretend to be sociable when she's around. She doesn't like it when people aren't getting along."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:34 pm (UTC)

"How about I just set her on fire instead," says Harley, with a tone of deliberately false cheer.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:34 pm (UTC)

Tima winces. "I get that you have mixed feelings about her but - dude, that's a little much. Besides, Kers covers her."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I know," says Harley. "If she wasn't magically invincible I wouldn't be joking about it, I'd've fucking done it already."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:42 pm (UTC)

Tima looks away. She's used to Corona, but Corona doesn't talk like that.

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:44 pm (UTC)

Corona sighs.

"See?" he says. "It's awful, he's even worse off than me."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:46 pm (UTC)

"I can see that," says Tima quietly. "Sometimes I wish there was something I could do. I don't know what, just something. But I'm pretty useless, all I do is kindle pretty."

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:47 pm (UTC)

Corona smiles sadly and hugs her.
Edited 2013-06-19 16:47 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:49 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"How much like you is he? How does that even work? He doesn't sound like he came from an awful place like you did or he'd be glad to be out of it, right?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 04:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't know exactly," murmurs Corona, hugging her some more. "I know he doesn't have scars like I do. I think he's scared to say anything about where he came from but I don't know why. But - he looks like he could be my twin, and Sandre says he's all the same inside except for the scars and being a teenager, and Chelsa says he kindles the same. It's almost like somebody - I don't know, cloned me and raised the clone somewhere in secret like that story with Zeus and the goat."

(Harley starts crying again.)

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Is Aelise worried? I'd expect her to be worried if someone's raising baby Gifted someplace where they don't get kindled on the regular. That's what she put a stop to."

Kindling comes in flavors. Chelsa gets warm personal affection. Aelise gets the awe due a world ruler. Tima's tone of voice is appropriate for this distinction.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:03 pm (UTC)

"She didn't seem worried, but it's hard to tell with her," says Corona with wry fondness. (Some people are less flavour-receptive than others.)

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I guess, yeah. Huh. Corona-clone. I wonder if there are more of anybody else. More Aelises, more Chelsas."

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:05 pm (UTC)

"One Chelsa is enough," shudders Corona.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, Harley doesn't have your gift, maybe another Chelsa wouldn't have hers?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:07 pm (UTC)

"One Chelsa is still enough," says Corona.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 05:09 pm (UTC)

Tima shrugs.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna go snuggle Harley now," says Corona. "You can come sit with us if you want."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 05:12 pm (UTC)

Tima does. Tentatively she pats Harley's head.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:13 pm (UTC)

Harley sniffles, but doesn't pull away. Or bite her.

Corona snuggles up to Harley and kisses the top of his head.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:23 pm (UTC)

Later in the day, after Tima has gone back to her and Pacco's room, Chelsa swings by.

"How are we feeling?" she inquires.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:27 pm (UTC)

"I want to rip your throat out and drain you like a juicebox," growls Harley. Corona sighs and cuddles him.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Not so good, huh?" sighs Chelsa. "And you're not making friends around here as fast as I hoped you would, either..." She lifts her hands.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I will fucking kill you," Harley spits. "I hate you so much."

And he bursts into tears.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:31 pm (UTC)

"There, there, you'll settle in soon, you're among friends," says Chelsa tiredly, and her hands make patterns, and Harley is very distinctly among friends.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:33 pm (UTC)

Harley is also very distinctly crying.

"I don't want to settle in!" he sobs. "I want to die, and I can't—" His breath hitches; he wails incoherently.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, since you can't, you should really try to be comfortable here," says Chelsa reasonably.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Fuck you!" yells Harley. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck - aaaaaaaaaah," and he's back to the crying again.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I don't understand why he's so upset," Chelsa sighs, looking at Corona.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I know you don't," says Corona tiredly. "And you don't understand how I feel about you, either. And you probably never will."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't have anything else I can do for him. Does he miss whoever he used to live with, is that it?" She's holding her hands out palms-forward, now, not working, just inspecting.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:47 pm (UTC)

"He doesn't want you to touch him," says Corona. "The more you mess with him, the worse he's going to feel about it."

Harley does, in fact, miss a lot of people. He has an intense love for several people who aren't anywhere nearby.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:48 pm (UTC)

"How is missing all these people going to help?" wonders Chelsa.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:51 pm (UTC)

"If you stop him missing them, it will hurt," says Corona. (Harley whimpers and burrows under the blanket.) "Having our own feelings is better than having somebody else come along and change them even if they're not feelings we like."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:52 pm (UTC)

"But you're happier than he is and you don't miss anyone from home," Chelsa says.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Look, if you want to know how to make Harley happy, I'm telling you," says Corona. "The answer is leave him alone."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:54 pm (UTC)

"And that will make him happy?" Chelsa asks skeptically.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Happier than he'll be if you do anything else to him," says Corona. "I think maybe he's just never going to be happy ever again."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:56 pm (UTC)

Chelsa hmmmms. "Well, we can try it that way and see what happens," she sighs.

pythbox
2013-06-19 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Corona, cuddling Harley.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 05:57 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. I love you, you know," she says to Corona. "My warm sun."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," Corona sighs. Because it'll make her happy, and it's not false. It's just not - the whole story.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 06:01 pm (UTC)

Chelsa beams at him, doesn't kiss him because Harley is in the way and would probably bite her, and goes off to pay attention to her other friends.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:03 pm (UTC)

Tima's back late that evening. "How is he?" she asks Corona, nibbling on something chocolatey.

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Pretty bad," says Corona.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Can I do anything?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:05 pm (UTC)

"You can come snuggle with us," he suggests.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:05 pm (UTC)

Tima joins the snuggle.

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:10 pm (UTC)

Harley cuddles up to her willingly enough.

"How can you not hate her," he sniffles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't see how anyone would," says Tima. "I understand that you do, just not - how."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:13 pm (UTC)

"She fucked around with my head," says Harley, shivering. "She literally forced me to love her and you don't think that's fucked up?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:16 pm (UTC)

"She's been around my entire life," says Tima. "I'm only fifty." (She doesn't look fifty.) "I've loved her from the day I was born and one day she found me, out walking around, and she thought I kindled pretty and now I get to live here with her and see her in person, every day, and she hugs me and tells me she loves me. I can't think of anything nicer. I don't know where you're from, but - this is where I'm from."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm from... somewhere else," says Harley. "I'm not just a clone of Corona. There's a bunch of us, twelve or something. We're called the Jokers. And we all have really shitty childhoods, except me, because the other ones found me when I was a baby and they gave me to somebody who wasn't shitty."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Twelve Coronas," whistles Tima. "Wow. I think it's probably best if nobody tells Chelsa that."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, because she'd want to track them down and mind-rape them," snorts Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:30 pm (UTC)

"And she's not allowed to have all the live-in-friends she wants. I don't think kindling pretty will keep me a spot next to that many of you, and I like my spot."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:32 pm (UTC)

"...Think about why she's not allowed to have all the pets she wants, though," says Corona, glancing at Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:32 pm (UTC)

"...Ooh."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Corona.

"You know what, fucking sure, use me as a battery," says Harley. "I'd rather be that than a pet. And the other twelve of me are already immortal, anyway, they don't need your life-sucking witch queen to keep them going."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:43 pm (UTC)

Tima makes a face at this description of Aelise.

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:45 pm (UTC)

"What? She sucks the life out of people," says Harley. "That is the literal truth. Who's she usually kill, anyway? I bet she wouldn't have drained me to the ground if she wasn't trying to stop killing somebody."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh, they don't matter," shrugs Tima. "Sometimes she'd drain Luhan, he's renewable - just not as much as you are."

(Chelsa makes sure no one minds.)

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I didn't ask if they mattered," says Harley, "I asked who."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Just," Tima shrugs, "babies, usually, not ones anyone will miss."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:49 pm (UTC)

Harley hisses.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:51 pm (UTC)

"But she didn't like to do it too often, so there was Luhan, and Chelsa has to send someone away if she wants to rotate someone in - or she did, anyway, I guess she can keep you and Jony now."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:54 pm (UTC)

"How do you not understand how fucked up that is?" says Harley. "You live in an empire built on dead babies and mind control!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:55 pm (UTC)

"It's not very many dead babies," says Tima. "And before Aelise found Chelsa and took over there were a lot of wars, and now everyone gets along."

pythbox
2013-06-19 06:57 pm (UTC)

"It's not very many dead babies," Harley repeats incredulously. "How about I just kill everybody on this mountain, then, there's not that many of you!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 06:57 pm (UTC)

Tima shrinks away from the cuddling.

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:00 pm (UTC)

Harley turns and buries his face against Corona's chest. Corona hugs him.

"You didn't mean that literally, right?" says Corona.

"No," says Harley, somewhat muffled. "I didn't mean it literally."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 07:01 pm (UTC)

Tima relaxes fractionally.

"I have a family," she says, reproachful.

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:04 pm (UTC)

"So do I," Harley says into Corona's shirt. Corona cuddles him some more.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 07:06 pm (UTC)

"If they were here she'd let you visit them. We all leave sometimes except Amdon," says Tima. "Chelsa isn't setting out specifically to make you miserable."

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:08 pm (UTC)

"No," says Harley, taking his face away from Corona's chest. "She's just making me miserable by accident because she wants to get high on my feelings and doesn't care how bad she fucks me up in the process."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 07:09 pm (UTC)

Tima doesn't really have anything to say to that.

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:14 pm (UTC)

"It's not okay," says Harley. "It won't ever be okay."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 07:14 pm (UTC)

"I wish I could make it okay for you," says Tima tentatively.

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Then get Chelsa to leave me the fuck alone," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I can't," says Tima. "She loves me; that doesn't mean she does what I say. I'd say ask Amdon, but..." She shrugs; that wouldn't actually work.

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Harley. "I figured."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Aelise could make her but I don't think she would."

pythbox
2013-06-19 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Course not," says Harley. "Well, fuck her too."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 07:22 pm (UTC)

Tima shivers.

just behave

warmfeelings

Chelsa permits Harley's original affections to persist intact. For a while. (She maintains regular upkeep of his kindlings to his lovely new friends, of course.)

And then she gets impatient, because he's so antisocial, she can feel him all kindled warm but he refuses to act like it, it's not even just her he's nasty to but her other friends as well, and there's one thing left she hasn't tried.

She doesn't really like dousing people. Even when warmth isn't aimed her way, it's still warmth, and warmth is good. But she can do it.

She does a few repetitions of the douse, late at night, while he's sleeping, and then she cuddles up to Amdon and goes to sleep herself. With any luck Harley'll be better behaved in the morning and won't even notice why.

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:04 pm (UTC)

In the morning, Harley is gone.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 08:05 pm (UTC)

Chelsa is alarmed!

She asks Sandre if he can find him, first, and when the answer is no she asks Corona if he knows where Harley would have gone.

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Corona. "Not a clue."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 08:06 pm (UTC)

Chelsa goes to Aelise next, wringing her hands.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Yes?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Harley's gone. He's out of Sandre's range and Corona says he doesn't know where he went either."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:12 pm (UTC)

"That is extremely unfortunate," says Aelise. "But unless he teleported again, I don't think he can have gone that far. I'll look for him."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Thank you. I'm hoping he just needs a little longer to get comfortable here and start acting as warm as he is..."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:17 pm (UTC)

"If that doesn't happen," says Aelise, "I might have to take him off your hands. If I can keep him, I can expand the circle of immortality by a lot... but only if I can keep him."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Just... shut him up somewhere?" asks Chelsa, shivering. "I don't like that - it's so unfriendly - but if he's going to keep running off - I suppose."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Not unless I have to," says Aelise. "But if I have to, I will. In the meantime, I'll call Demauri."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:38 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 08:39 pm (UTC)

Off Chelsa goes to be loved by less problematic friends.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:40 pm (UTC)

And Aelise calls Demauri.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 08:41 pm (UTC)

He picks up. "Aelise!" he says warmly. "What's on your mind?"

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Lost little lambs," she says. "Specifically, the newest guest at Mont Blanc ran away from home. His name's Harley and he has an amazing resemblance to Corona. Think you can bring him back for me?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Sure. I'll drop him in your lap in - triangulating - call it two hours, he hasn't got far."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:46 pm (UTC)

"You're a dear. Thank you," she says. "He might be difficult about it. Use your judgment."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Do you need him all in one piece or is anything Anneia can fix okay or what?"

salus_populi
2013-06-19 08:50 pm (UTC)

"He is amazingly immortal," she says. "Think Luhan, but the healing doesn't kick in until he's to all appearances dead. I'd prefer minimal damage, but whatever you have to do to get him here, you can safely do."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Got it," says Demauri. "See you in a bit. Love and loyalty."

He hangs up, and hops on his hoverbike, and closes in unerringly on Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:53 pm (UTC)

Harley is hiking determinedly away from the mountain.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 08:53 pm (UTC)

Demauri gets in his way.

"Hullo. Harley, right?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Who the fuck are you?" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Name's Demauri, and you're gonna have a much nicer morning if you want to just hop in the sidecar now."

pythbox
2013-06-19 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Um... get fucked?" says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 08:56 pm (UTC)

Demauri sighs. "Look, Harley, I dunno what you think you're gonna accomplish, but Aelise wants you, Aelise gets you. This can involve violence but it doesn't have to."

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:00 pm (UTC)

"I don't," he says, "actually, think I'm going to accomplish anything. There's no way it was gonna be that easy. Nice bike, by the way."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 09:01 pm (UTC)

"It's a very nice bike. You're gonna be riding in it. Prefer to spend the ride conscious?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:06 pm (UTC)

By way of answer, Harley bolts.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 09:06 pm (UTC)

Demauri sighs, pulls his paralytic taser, and shoots.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:07 pm (UTC)

Yeah, that was a foregone conclusion.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 09:08 pm (UTC)

He hauls Harley into the sidecar, zipties his wrists and ankles together, and drives back to the stronghold.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:13 pm (UTC)

It's not very comfortable.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 09:14 pm (UTC)

Nobody can say Demauri didn't give him an option.

Demauri has to carry him by hand to get him from the entrance to Aelise herself, but he's strong enough to do it. Ho hum.

"Found him, Aelise," he calls as he approaches the office.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm so pleased," says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 09:18 pm (UTC)

Demauri puts Harley in a chair. "He'll be able to move around in another five, ten minutes," he says. "I found him hiking east. Do you need anything else?"

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Not right now," she says, smiling warmly. "Thanks."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Love and loyalty," says Demauri, smiling at her, and he goes to retrieve his bike and head out.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:24 pm (UTC)

Aelise closes her office door and sits with Harley.

"Here's the thing," she says. "I need you. Chelsa wants you. If we can both have you, fine. But I'm not so sure we can; her methods clearly aren't working like they usually do. So if you'd rather be my battery than her pet, that can be arranged."

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:33 pm (UTC)

It takes Harley ten minutes to answer.

(Aelise doesn't go anywhere during those ten minutes, and he hates that he likes that, but he likes it anyway.)

"You been spying on me or something?"

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Naturally."

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:41 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Shit, at least you're honest."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I can afford to be," says Aelise.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:46 pm (UTC)

"...If you don't ever, ever let her touch me again," he says, "then I won't run away." He shivers. "Not that you care, but I used to love some people. Now I don't love anybody. Except maybe Corona."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I think Chelsa would disagree," says Aelise.

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I think I don't give a shit," says Harley.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm starting to get that," says Aelise. "I'll see what I can do."

pythbox
2013-06-19 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? And in the meantime... what? Just go back and let her fuck with my head some more?"

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:50 pm (UTC)

"In the meantime, go wherever you want. Although I'd appreciate it if you stayed handy, so I don't have to send Demauri after you again."

She gets out of her chair and goes to talk to Chelsa.

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 09:52 pm (UTC)

Chelsa is with Amdon in their room. She has had Amdon longer than anybody; he doesn't kindle as warm as Corona, but in some ways he's her favorite.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:54 pm (UTC)

"It turns out," says Aelise, "that he ran away because you doused him."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I thought it would help," exclaims Chelsa. "I can't exactly go find his old friends for him, they aren't here."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 09:57 pm (UTC)

"He is a very unusual person," says Aelise. "And he's more or less promised to keep running away as long as you keep interfering with him. It would be inconvenient if that happened."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 09:58 pm (UTC)

"...Not even maintenance for the kindling? I won't douse him again, but..."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Could you manage that?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 10:01 pm (UTC)

Chelsa squirms. (Amdon kisses her shoulder and pets her hair.) "It'll burn out so quick if I don't. If this is how he acts when he loves me..."

salus_populi
2013-06-19 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I think he is doing his very best not to act like he loves you," says Aelise. "And doing a pretty good job. I'm sure it won't be hard to make sure he avoids you, if you're worried about upsetting behaviour."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 10:07 pm (UTC)

"But then what's the point?" asks Chelsa.

She can sense warmth at great range, but only in quantity - world-population quantity. She notices the change when she does morning announcements for billions of people in one go. She can't even feel Corona from two rooms away.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 10:14 pm (UTC)

"The point," Aelise reminds her, "is that with him in my pocket, I don't have to worry about how many of your friends I can safely immortalize."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 10:14 pm (UTC)

"...Yes. I suppose there's that. It will be very tempting anyway, though - he gets so warm -"

salus_populi
2013-06-19 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Don't douse him again," she says, "and try not to kindle him. And I'll keep him away from anyone he doesn't get along with."

warmfeelings
2013-06-19 10:17 pm (UTC)

"All right," sighs Chelsa, and she buries her face in Amdon's hair.

salus_populi
2013-06-19 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Aelise.

She leaves them alone.

managing not to

warmfeelings

Aelise keeps Harley in her room, and allows visits - mostly Corona, sometimes Tima - but doesn't let him run around being obnoxious to anyone. Chelsa avoids him. Corona is home, after all, and he's just as warm and isn't horrible to her. And now she can invite more friends in. There's that girl she rotated out to make room for Tima, still alive, in Wales - there's that pleasantly sparky boy she met on her trip to Egypt - Chelsa is able to content herself with the situation.

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:35 pm (UTC)

So is Harley, more or less. He hates it, but he doesn't hate it nearly as much as he hated having Chelsa working on him.

He stays in Aelise's room. He reads Aelise's books, the millions and millions in her electronic library. He cuddles with Corona when Corona visits. And he torches, every time Aelise drains him, which is often.

One night he goes to sleep, and he wakes up falling out of the air— in Milliways.

He starts crying from pure relief, right there on the floor in front of the fireplace.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Are you all right?" says a nearby old man with a glass of port. "Goodness, where'd you come from?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:37 pm (UTC)

With some difficulty, between sobs, he says: "I don't - I don't know -"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Do you need some water?" the man asks.

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:39 pm (UTC)

He sniffles, and nods.

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:40 pm (UTC)

The man goes and gets him some water. "Whatever's happened to you?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "I keep randomly teleporting places, and the last place I ended up was this horrible world where they use mind control to make you love everybody."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:43 pm (UTC)

"That's awful," says the man. "I've never heard of such a thing. Goodness."

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:47 pm (UTC)

"It was the nastiest thing," he says, hugging the glass. "Thanks for the water."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:47 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. Can you get home from here?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea," he says. "For all I know, I could end up back where I just was."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:51 pm (UTC)

"And we can't have that," says the man. "Well. I suppose I could open the door for you? I don't rightly know what you'd do once you were there, but it doesn't have mind control like that going on, at least."

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I'll manage," he shrugs. "Your world doesn't have an empress named Aelise, right?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says the man. "I think she's called something else. I don't pay much attention to that kind of thing, but I'd remember if it were 'Aelise', sounds a little like my daughter's name."

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Then sure," he says, "fine, anywhere's better than there."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:55 pm (UTC)

The gentleman knocks back the remainder of his beverage and gets up to show Harley to the door, and then out they go.

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Harley, wiping his face and smiling. "You're nice. I like you."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 10:58 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says the man. "So, this is Wilmington, Ohio. I can spot you a train ticket if there's somewhere you'd rather be, I think, poor boy."

pythbox
2013-06-19 10:59 pm (UTC)

Harley shrugs. "I'll be fine," he says. "I'll just... wander."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 11:00 pm (UTC)

"All right then, if you're sure."

pythbox
2013-06-19 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

alicornucopia
2013-06-19 11:03 pm (UTC)

The man shows him out of the house, and gives him a fun-sized candy bar out of a bowl on the windowsill, and bids him goodbye.

pythbox
2013-06-19 11:15 pm (UTC)

He is a nice guy. Harley eats the candy bar.

And he picks a direction, and he walks.

It's a little lonely. He misses those people, how sick is that? But he just keeps going.

He walks for a long time. When he gets tired he sleeps. When he gets hungry or thirsty he torches. He's not even sure how long it's been, after a while. He's not even sure he's still in Ohio. He's sure that Chelsa isn't in this world, and that's good enough for him. Everything else, he can deal with when he's ready.

temporal_affairs
2013-06-19 11:25 pm (UTC)

After Harley's been on the road for a week, a confused vampire teleports to within a few hundred feet of him - flares his nostrils - says, "Babe? No, that's... Harley?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 11:28 pm (UTC)

"...Fuck me, I'm home?" he says incredulously.

temporal_affairs
2013-06-19 11:29 pm (UTC)

"This is Aurum. If you're some kind of parallel Harley whose world is not named Aurum, speak now," says Nathan, scratching his head. "You've been missing for nearly a year."

pythbox
2013-06-19 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I - no, it's me, I'm here," he says dazedly. "Fuck. Is - is everyone okay?"

temporal_affairs
2013-06-19 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Her Highness is worried, your wolf's been asleep in your room since you vanished, everyone else is carrying on more or less acceptably," says Nathan.

pythbox
2013-06-19 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Elsie." He rubs his face with both hands. "Fuck. I should - she's gonna cry, shit - I should see Elsie, will you take me to Elsie?"

temporal_affairs
2013-06-19 11:35 pm (UTC)

"'Course."

Port.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-19 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Harley," breathes Elspeth, when they appear. She's sitting with Jacob.

This isn't the Québec house; this is her quarters in the Safesun capitol.

pythbox
2013-06-19 11:37 pm (UTC)

Harley bursts into tears.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-19 11:37 pm (UTC)

Elspeth promptly gathers him up into a hug as Nathan teleports away to update his mate. "Harley. What happened?"
Edited 2013-06-19 23:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-19 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I went - to another world - I don't know how, I tried to come back and I couldn't, I tried every night - I met someone who is an alt of Chelsea and she has this horrible mind control empire run by an alt of your grandma."
Edited 2013-06-19 23:44 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-19 11:45 pm (UTC)

Elspeth's arms do-not-tighten in the manner of someone who is working very hard at not-squeezing.

"Did she get you?"

pythbox
2013-06-19 11:50 pm (UTC)

He nods miserably.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-19 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I should be able to undo anything she added." Elspeth swallows. "If you would like me to. I can't put back anything she took." She lets him go.

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:04 am (UTC)

Harley grabs her and clings, sobbing.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:05 am (UTC)

She hugs him again, instantly, as soon as it's clear that he wants the hug.

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:11 am (UTC)

"Get rid of her, get rid of her," he whimpers. "Get rid of everything she did to me that you can."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:12 am (UTC)

Elspeth tries.

It's harder - Chelsa soaks in deeper than Chelsea ever did - but Elspeth does not let up.

She keeps pushing until there is nothing to push against.

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:15 am (UTC)

Harley curls up in her lap and cries.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:16 am (UTC)

Elspeth -

Holds him.

And resolutely declines to cry.

But she does, after a few minutes, ask:

"Should I leave Zeus asleep?"

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:29 am (UTC)

"I don't - I don't know," he sniffles. "I don't wanna hurt him."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:30 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Hugs.

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:33 am (UTC)

Cuddly cuddly hugs.

"I love you, Elsie," he whispers.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:34 am (UTC)

She shuts her eyes tightly.

"I love you too."

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:36 am (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her and squeezes as hard as he possibly can.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:37 am (UTC)

She doesn't squeeze him as hard as she possibly can.

But she matches his own hug.

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:38 am (UTC)

"That world was so fucked up," he mumbles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:39 am (UTC)

"It sounds very much so."

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:42 am (UTC)

He is pretty thoroughly too big for Elsie's lap.

He stays there anyway.

"I think... I think I wanna see Zeus," he says softly. "I don't know. Can I just... see him?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:43 am (UTC)

"Yes."

She picks him up. He's awkwardly sized, but not hardly too heavy.

And she teleports to his room in the Québec house, which, except for a handful of perishables that would have rotted away if they hadn't been picked up, hasn't been touched for nearly a year.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 12:44 am (UTC)

Zeus is sleeping, arms wrapped around Harley's pillow, tucked under Harley's blankets.

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:46 am (UTC)

He gives Elsie a hug and a kiss, and then he crawls into bed with Zeus and snuggles up to him.

"You're my best fluffy buddy," he murmurs, "and - I - "

He starts crying again.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:47 am (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:54 am (UTC)

Harley doesn't say anything more for a while.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:54 am (UTC)

Elspeth waits.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 12:55 am (UTC)

Zeus, oblivious, sleeps.

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:56 am (UTC)

Eventually, he says,

"I... I want to sleep here. For a night. And then wake him up tomorrow."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 12:57 am (UTC)

"All right," says Elspeth. "I'll tell everyone you're home again. Do you know how you disappeared?"

pythbox
2013-06-20 01:00 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

"I was just falling asleep, and thinking about a kind of teleportation from a book I read - and then - " He shrugs. "But when I tried to do the same thing on purpose, it didn't work."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 01:04 am (UTC)

"That sounds - maybe a little like what Sue does," she murmurs. "If he were accessible - but he isn't." She sighs. "Thank you. I'm sure Mama will want to talk to you tomorrow."

pythbox
2013-06-20 01:08 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Harley. He snuggles up to Zeus again.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 01:09 am (UTC)

"Let me know if you need anything," Elspeth murmurs, and she runs her hand over Harley's hair, and she ports away.

pythbox
2013-06-20 01:12 am (UTC)

Harley goes to sleep.

When he wakes up in the morning, he says, [You can wake him up now.]
Edited 2013-06-20 01:30 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 01:30 am (UTC)

[All right.]

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 01:31 am (UTC)

Zeus stirs.

When he meets resistance in the form of Harley cuddled up to him, his eyes snap open, and he abandons the pillow in favor of its owner.

"Harley."
Edited 2013-06-20 01:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-20 01:37 am (UTC)

Harley bursts into tears and hugs Zeus as hard as he can.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 01:44 am (UTC)

"Harley, Harley, my Harley - what happened - where did you go, are you all right, you disappeared right out of my arms - how long has it been -"

pythbox
2013-06-20 01:46 am (UTC)

"It's been like a year," he says, "a month or something for me, I went to another world, I dunno how I did it, I tried again and couldn't, and then I guess I managed it but I ended up in Milliways - lots of awful shit happened but I'm fine now, I love you - I love you," and he dissolves into incoherent sobbing.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 01:46 am (UTC)

"I love you," echoes Zeus, and he holds Harley tight.

pythbox
2013-06-20 01:50 am (UTC)

Harley just cries.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 01:52 am (UTC)

Zeus wants to know what happened.

But he will be cried on if that is what Harley wants.

pythbox
2013-06-20 01:55 am (UTC)

"There was an alt of Chelsea," he sniffles.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 01:56 am (UTC)

Wolves react to the name "Chelsea" about like Jewish people react to the name "Hitler".

"Harley."

pythbox
2013-06-20 01:59 am (UTC)

"It was horrible," he says, "she had her whole world done up all lovey, she did it to me too - and the other thing - " He clings, pressing his face against Zeus's shoulder.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 02:00 am (UTC)

Zeus doesn't stop hugging him, but he's now much more confused about why he's doing it. "My Harley," he murmurs.

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:04 am (UTC)

"I love you," he says helplessly. "But it's like - like she cut off all my feelings and now they're just growing back."

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 02:05 am (UTC)

"Can you tell me how to help you?" murmurs Zeus, tucking his face in where Harley's neck and shoulder meet. "I'll do anything to help you."

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:07 am (UTC)

"Just... be you," he says. "You're good at that, right?" He laughs shakily.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 02:08 am (UTC)

"I can be me," agrees Zeus. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:10 am (UTC)

"I love you too," Harley says hoarsely. He curls up close and hugs Zeus some more.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 02:10 am (UTC)

Hugs. Silent teary hugs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 02:11 am (UTC)

[Mama would like to speak to you at your earliest convenience,] says Elspeth to Harley.

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:12 am (UTC)

[If my earliest convenience can be cuddling Zeus, it's whenever,] he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 02:12 am (UTC)

[Yes, you can bring him.]

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:14 am (UTC)

"Elsie's mom wants to talk to me about the thing," Harley murmurs, "and I wanna snuggle you, will you come?"

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 02:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Zeus hoarsely, and he arranges himself to be carrying Harley, close and snuggly-like. "I'll go wherever you go if you want me."

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:17 am (UTC)

[Then yeah, sure,] he says to Elsie, cuddling up in Zeus's arms.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 02:18 am (UTC)

Elspeth pops into Harley's room, and then brings them all to the Safesun throne room.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-20 02:19 am (UTC)

"Hello, Harley," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:20 am (UTC)

"Hi," he sniffles.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-20 02:22 am (UTC)

"Please tell me everything that happened."

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:28 am (UTC)

"I was falling asleep and I fell out of bed and the next thing I knew I was staring at an alt of Chelsea," he says. "I didn't realize it really was until she said her name - it's Chelsa - and then she, she made me love her—"

He bites his lip and presses his face against Zeus's shoulder, hugging him tight.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 02:29 am (UTC)

Zeus squeezes him, and kisses his forehead.
Edited 2013-06-20 02:31 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 02:31 am (UTC)

Elspeth puts her hand on Harley's knee.

pythbox
2013-06-20 02:40 am (UTC)

He takes a deep breath.

"And there was an empress, named Aelise, she's an alt of Elsie's grandma. And Chelsa had a bunch of pets, one of them was a Joker called Corona. I asked him to kill me but I just torched. Aelise got curious, she came and asked me if I'd mind if she killed me some more - they've got superpowers there, they call them Gifts - that place is so fucked up, it's a fucking empire of dead babies and mind control, I hate it - "

And he bursts into tears again, and hugs Zeus even tighter, and

vanishes.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 02:41 am (UTC)

Zeus screams.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 02:41 am (UTC)

Elspeth sends him back to sleep immediately.

floofcoaster
2013-06-20 02:41 am (UTC)

Zeus collapses on the floor.

luminous_regnant
2013-06-20 02:49 am (UTC)

"...I think we can tentatively conclude that he was dreaming," says Bella. "Someone let him back into Aurum - someone has been getting doors to Milliways from Aurum and I didn't know - Alice, keep an eye out for that, I want it prioritized over everything else you've been doing lately - and now he's woken up. I don't think there's - anything we can do, except continue to look for doors."
Edited 2013-06-20 02:49 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-20 02:49 am (UTC)

Elspeth nods once, slowly, and picks up Zeus to put him back into the bed he only recently vacated.

sudden ice

warmfeelings

"Aelise! Aelise!"

salus_populi
2013-06-20 02:54 am (UTC)

"What is it?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-20 02:57 am (UTC)

"I can barely feel Harley from where I was usually, but I noticed just now - it's like someone dropped him in a bucket of ice, not even like I doused him, there would be regrowth if I'd done it. There's nothing left for me, just a flicker for you - plenty for Corona, a little spark each for Tima and Sandre, nothing else, and everything I doused is back, not like I never touched it but like it's had a month to rekindle - what happened?"
Edited 2013-06-20 03:01 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:04 am (UTC)

"I don't know," she says, "but I would dearly like to find out."

warmfeelings
2013-06-20 03:05 am (UTC)

"So would I," says Chelsa. "This changes things - I said I'd leave him be when he was still nice and warm - now he's not."

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:09 am (UTC)

"I'll go talk to him," she promises.

warmfeelings
2013-06-20 03:10 am (UTC)

Chelsa nods, teeth clenched. She appears to intend to wait right where she is while this occurs.

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:13 am (UTC)

Her room's not far.

She goes there.

Harley is curled up in his bed, shaking and crying.

She sits down next to him and waits.

pythbox
2013-06-20 03:18 am (UTC)

"If you're going to sit there, you might as well kill me some more," he says eventually.

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:18 am (UTC)

"I'd rather talk," she says evenly.

pythbox
2013-06-20 03:19 am (UTC)

"I don't give a shredded fuck what you'd rather," says Harley.

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:19 am (UTC)

"That's a shame."

pythbox
2013-06-20 03:20 am (UTC)

"Eat me."

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:26 am (UTC)

"I can see this isn't going to be a productive conversation," she sighs. "Chelsa is upset that you don't love her anymore."

pythbox
2013-06-20 03:27 am (UTC)

"Chelsa should crawl into a hole and die," says Harley.

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:29 am (UTC)

"That's not going to happen," says Aelise.

pythbox
2013-06-20 03:29 am (UTC)

"Too fucking bad."

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:30 am (UTC)

"Do you know anything about where all your kindled connections mysteriously went while you were asleep?"

pythbox
2013-06-20 03:31 am (UTC)

"Up my ass, wanna take a look?"

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:32 am (UTC)

She sighs.

"Believe it or not, I'm trying to help you."

pythbox
2013-06-20 03:34 am (UTC)

"You're doing a pure shit job."

salus_populi
2013-06-20 03:36 am (UTC)

"I stopped Chelsa from dousing you again," she points out. "Is there anything, anything at all, that I could offer you to get you to put up with Chelsa kindling you to her?"

pythbox
2013-06-20 03:36 am (UTC)

Harley hisses.

salus_populi
2013-06-20 12:36 pm (UTC)

"I'll take that as a no."

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:38 pm (UTC)

"Can you not just get her to leave me the fuck alone?" he growls.

salus_populi
2013-06-20 12:40 pm (UTC)

"I'll try," she says. "I don't expect it to work. Feel free to run away again. It worked so well the last time."

pythbox
2013-06-20 12:40 pm (UTC)

He pulls the blanket over his head and turns away from her.

salus_populi
2013-06-20 12:41 pm (UTC)

She sighs.

She goes back to Chelsa.

warmfeelings
2013-06-20 04:34 pm (UTC)

Chelsa is standing in her office still, frowning.

salus_populi
2013-06-20 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Harley is not feeling cooperative today," she says.

warmfeelings
2013-06-20 11:52 pm (UTC)

"You're not trying to add him to Kers's coverage. He doesn't need to cooperate for your power to work. Or mine."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 12:36 am (UTC)

"Something tells me I would rather have him cooperating than otherwise," she says. "How far away do I have to keep him before you won't be annoyed by his existence?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-21 12:38 am (UTC)

"Before he was just fading out and now he's gone cold. Our deal was everyone. You provide the broadcast equipment and I include you in the kindling and I kindle everyone. He's someone."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 12:39 am (UTC)

"You are very good at solving the problem that I made that deal to solve. Harley is a problem you are demonstrably very bad at solving," says Aelise. "I would like it if you would consider leaving him to me."

warmfeelings
2013-06-21 12:40 am (UTC)

"I was going to! And then - I don't even - how did he do it?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 12:41 am (UTC)

"I don't know," says Aelise. "I hope to find out. It's not completely impossible to get information out of him; it just takes patience."

warmfeelings
2013-06-21 12:41 am (UTC)

"What if I wake up one morning and Corona's gone cold too?" whispers Chelsa.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 12:43 am (UTC)

"I don't think he will," says Aelise. "There's a lot of things about Harley we don't fully understand yet. I want to understand them. But I only have the one source of information, so I need to handle him carefully. Okay?"

warmfeelings
2013-06-21 12:44 am (UTC)

"How long?" Chelsa asks.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 12:44 am (UTC)

"I don't know. A while. Until I know what's going on, ideally."

warmfeelings
2013-06-21 12:45 am (UTC)

"How long will it take you to give up?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 12:46 am (UTC)

"I won't give up."

warmfeelings
2013-06-21 12:47 am (UTC)

"So maybe forever, then, you might want me to wait hundreds of years, with a cold spot on the planet you said I could warm up entirely."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 12:48 am (UTC)

"Do you want him off the planet? I can do that."

warmfeelings
2013-06-21 12:49 am (UTC)

"Fine. Put him off the planet. And I'll wait. But you'll try, won't you?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 12:49 am (UTC)

"I will try."

warmfeelings
2013-06-21 12:50 am (UTC)

"Thank you," sighs Chelsa. And she droops, but she goes back to her friends' quarters to warm up.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 01:05 am (UTC)

Aelise goes back to Harley.

"Good news," she says, sitting down by the side of his bed. "I'm launching you into space."

pythbox
2013-06-21 01:08 am (UTC)

Harley pokes his head out of his blankets and grins at her.

"You get me the best presents."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 01:13 am (UTC)

"Well, I'm glad somebody around here is happy," she remarks. "C'mon, up you get, I want you off this planet in an hour."

pythbox
2013-06-21 01:14 am (UTC)

"What's the rush?" he asks, crawling out of bed.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 01:16 am (UTC)

"I don't want to test Chelsa's patience."

pythbox
2013-06-21 01:16 am (UTC)

Harley shivers.

"Off the planet in an hour. Got it."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 01:41 am (UTC)

"Glad we're seeing eye to eye," she says wryly. "And I'm sorry we have to have her hanging over us like this."

She takes his hand and leads him to where she keeps her personal vehicles. There's one rated for spaceflight, because of course there is.

And up they go.

horrible cold

warmfeelings

Chelsa buries herself in her friends, and the warmth of the world that Harley isn't on anymore. She doesn't understand him. She never will. But there's Corona, sun-scorching and intense; there's Amdon, her oldest and closest; there's Anneia, sweet and smiling; there's Sandre, cuddly and fun; there's Tima, pretty-kindling and empathetic; there's Pacco, bright and deferent; there's Jony, hot as a kiln; Lionara hot as molten glass. And Aelise herself, who makes so many compromises but who does love Chelsa after all.

Harley wasn't like that one cold, cold girl, who - she wasn't even technically a sociopath. Sociopaths kindle like everyone else. She was just - cold. Like an airless environment in which no fire can burn.

But Aelise had her killed, and Chelsa made sure no one would miss her, and if anything like that ever happened again, Chelsa has every confidence that Aelise would make it right. Harley's one thing. He can just be - out of sight, out of mind. Aelise would never expect Chelsa to compromise on the existence of such a terrible cold.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:00 pm (UTC)

Something like that - although not very like - has happened again.

Mr. and Mrs. Coscoroba of Forks are concerned. Their daughter does not seem to react like a normal child to the announcements, or to pronouncements of "love and loyalty" - she's just - off, in a hundred little ways. When she is six they are concerned that she may be unwell in some way. Of course in Aelise's empire care for the unwell is easy to come by. They bring her to a doctor.

The doctor is concerned.

He quietly forwards the information up.

There's something Aelise - and only Aelise - might like a look at, here.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:06 pm (UTC)

Aelise would indeed like a look.

She visits the family the day she hears the word.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:14 pm (UTC)

The Coscorobas are at home to receive her.

"Aelise!" says Rinnah, answering the door. "It's - truly an honor to see you - but I didn't realize our Mehitabel's troubles would require your attention, we didn't mean to put you out of your way."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:18 pm (UTC)

"It's not a problem," she says. "My attention goes where it's needed. Can I borrow your daughter for a while?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Mehitabel!" calls Rinnah. "Aelise is here to see you!"

"I'm reading!" complains Mehitabel from up the stairs.

"I'm very sorry about her," says Rinnah, embarrassed. "Mehitabel Marika Coscoroba, come down here right now! You can read later!"

"But I'm in the middle of a chapter!"

"Now, Mehitabel!"

Mehitabel stomps down the stairs. She has her book open in her hands.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Is it a good book?" she asks, smiling gently.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Mehitabel.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:25 pm (UTC)

"What's it about?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:26 pm (UTC)

"It's about a man who made a monster person and then he wasn't nice to it so now it's mad. It's an old book."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I think I've read the same one," says Aelise. "It's very good. I'd like to take you to see some people; do you think you could finish your chapter in the air?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Who?" Mehitabel wants to know.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure yet. Why don't you come along and we'll both find out?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:38 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel is not impressed by the idea of going to visit a mystery person. "Why can't I just stay home and read my book?" she asks.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Because I am your Empress and I said so," Aelise suggests.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:46 pm (UTC)

When this doesn't instantly win Mehitabel over, Rinnah says, "Honestly, Mehitabel, just go!"

Mehitabel heaves a great sigh and plods in Aelise's direction.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Aelise, leading her out to where the imperial vehicle is parked. It's not spaceworthy, but it's still impressive in an understated kind of way, with sleek engine pods and stubby little wings.
Edited 2013-06-21 17:50 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:51 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel climbs into the vehicle, sits, and opens her book.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:53 pm (UTC)

The vehicle takes off.

Aelise sits quietly in the passenger compartment with Mehitabel and lets the autopilot take them around the world.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:55 pm (UTC)

Eventually Mehitabel comes to the end of a chapter. She is about to turn to the next one.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Is that the end of the chapter?" says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Yes. There are some more left though."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I'd like you to put your book down and talk to me for a while," says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Are you more interesting than this book?" inquires Mehitabel curiously.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I like to think so. You might not agree, but you're not going to find out if you don't try talking to me."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:04 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel sighs and dog-ears her page and closes the book. "What do you want to talk about, anyway?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:07 pm (UTC)

"A few things. Your parents are worried about you," she says. "I'm sure you've noticed."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:08 pm (UTC)

"They made me go to a doctor," agrees Mehitabel. "I think I'm okay though."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Do you know what it is they're worried about?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Something about paying attention to announcements."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:15 pm (UTC)

"The morning announcements," Aelise agrees. "What do you think of them?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:16 pm (UTC)

"They're not interesting, I don't know why everyone likes them so much. Half the time there isn't even anything to announce and Chelsa just says good morning and stares at the camera."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Why do you suppose everyone else likes them so much?" she inquires.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Mommy says it's because Chelsa is very likeable."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:22 pm (UTC)

"She is," says Aelise. "That's her Gift."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Right, that's what it was," says Mehitabel. "I dunno. I think it's weird how much everybody likes her. She doesn't even do anything like you."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Am I more likeable than Chelsa, then?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:29 pm (UTC)

"You do stuff," says Mehitabel. "I don't know all of it but you're the Empress and you made there not be wars and stuff. Chelsa doesn't do anything but make everybody pay attention to her every day for no reason."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Aelise. "Well, that's interesting. Is doing stuff what makes people likeable?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:32 pm (UTC)

"If it's good stuff. Not if it's bad stuff."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Naturally," Aelise agrees. "What if I told you that Chelsa is the reason there are no wars?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Is she?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Partly, yes," says Aelise. "And partly it's me."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:36 pm (UTC)

"How?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:37 pm (UTC)

"What do you know about what the world was like before I was Empress?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:38 pm (UTC)

"There were a lot of wars."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:42 pm (UTC)

"That's true," says Aelise. "Do you know why?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:43 pm (UTC)

"No."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:48 pm (UTC)

"There were a lot of complicated reasons," she says. "But what it boils down to is that there were a lot of people with a lot of power and none of them liked each other very much. So they fought. And because they had a lot of power, and they weren't being very careful with it, a lot of people died when they did that."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Why weren't they being careful?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Good question," she says. "Some of them didn't care who they killed as long as they got what they wanted. Some of them did care, but they wanted to get ahead more than they wanted not to hurt anybody. Some of them thought that if they were too careful, they might get killed by the people who weren't. And some of them were just too scared to think it through."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Those are reasons," acknowledges Mehitabel thoughtfully.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 07:11 pm (UTC)

"They are," Aelise agrees. "But they weren't very good ones. Have you heard of Toronto?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It's not there anymore."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 07:35 pm (UTC)

"That's right," says Aelise. "Some of those not-very-careful people dropped a nuclear bomb on it. It's all cleaned up now, but for a while afterward, nothing and nobody could live there at all. When trees started growing there again, I made it an imperial park."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 07:36 pm (UTC)

"There were a lot of people in it, right?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 07:43 pm (UTC)

"About five million."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 07:46 pm (UTC)

"That's a lot of people," says Mehitabel solemnly.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 07:48 pm (UTC)

"It is," Aelise agrees. "But it's not the worst thing that could have happened. The way things were going, I was afraid there would be a war so big, all the people would get killed."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 07:49 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel nods.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 07:55 pm (UTC)

"And then I found Chelsa. Do you know what her Gift does, exactly?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:02 pm (UTC)

"You said her gift was to... be likeable," says Mehitabel slowly. "So - not exactly."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:05 pm (UTC)

"She makes people like people," says Aelise. "Herself. Each other. So one day everyone was at war with everyone else, and the next day they were pretty much friends. And nobody dropped any more nuclear bombs, and the world didn't end."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:06 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel stares at Aelise, holding very still.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:07 pm (UTC)

"The reason your parents are worried about you," she says, "is because Chelsa can't make you like anyone."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:07 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel relaxes visibly, although not all the way.
Edited 2013-06-21 20:08 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:09 pm (UTC)

"They think you might be sick," she says. "But I'm not sure that's true. I think you might be Gifted."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:10 pm (UTC)

"And my Gift is to be safe from that," Mehitabel surmises.
Edited 2013-06-21 20:10 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Is 'safe' the word you'd use?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Mehitabel firmly.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:13 pm (UTC)

"It's my brain and I live in it and I don't want anybody but me to make it do things!"
Edited 2013-06-21 20:14 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Can you make it like everyone?" wonders Aelise. "Me and Chelsa and your parents and everyone else?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:17 pm (UTC)

"If I want to," says Mehitabel, "maybe. I don't know about Chelsa. I don't think I want to like her."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:18 pm (UTC)

"I think she's doing a bad thing." Mehitabel chews her lip a little and looks with sudden suspicion at Aelise.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:19 pm (UTC)

"I think she did a very, very good thing once," says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," says Mehitabel. "This thing might be worse. And it's going on for a longer time!"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:25 pm (UTC)

"If everyone had died," says Aelise, "then everyone being dead would have gone on forever. I wouldn't be alive, and you wouldn't be alive, and your parents and grandparents and great-grandparents wouldn't be alive. There would be no more people in the world at all, ever. So in a way, the good thing Chelsa did is still going on too. And if she ever stops doing the bad thing, the good thing will still be going on. It'll be going on for as long as there are still people, and I mean for that to be a very long time."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Everybody dies anyway except you and Chelsa and your very best friends," Mehitabel points out.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm working on that. Anyway, it's still true that there are people, isn't it?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, people who get Chelsa'd all the time," says Mehitabel in an attempt at a disgruntled growl that mostly sounds kittenish from a six-year-old. "Nobody ever even asked me if that was okay! I'm just safe because I'm Gifted and if I hadn't been she would've done it to me too!"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Would you rather," asks Aelise, "that everyone was dead?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:32 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel thinks about that.

She eventually settles on, "I'm not sure. I would need paper and stuff to figure it out. But if anybody would rather it for just them they should get to pick before anybody does any things to their brains."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Chelsa doesn't agree," says Aelise. "Chelsa thinks that everyone should get along, and she especially thinks that everyone should like her. So to get her to save the world, I had to promise that she could make everyone like her, for as long as she lived."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:37 pm (UTC)

"But her Gift isn't being immortal. She could've died a long time ago," Mehitabel says.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:45 pm (UTC)

Aelise shakes her head.

"If she died of old age at a hundred or so, the way people used to, it would've been too close to when everybody was at war with each other. Things might have just gone right back to the way they were before, but with no Chelsa to step in and save everybody. And once I made her immortal, well, if I told her that I was just going to let her die she wouldn't like that very much. She might do a lot more bad things, to try to make me keep her immortal still. It'd be the same kind of problem but nastier."
Edited 2013-06-21 20:45 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:46 pm (UTC)

"But this thing she is doing is bad."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:48 pm (UTC)

"It is better than everyone being dead," says Aelise. "And in three hundred years, I haven't found a way to stop it that I think wouldn't lead to everyone being dead."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:49 pm (UTC)

"That's a long time to think of something," says Mehitabel. "And you're grown up and an Empress and stuff. Were you trying?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "It is not a simple problem. Do you think you could do better?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I would try very hard," says Mehitabel. "I would need to know a lot of things and think a lot, though."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:54 pm (UTC)

"You have time," says Aelise. "Your generation is expected to live to about a hundred and sixty. Do you want to try?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:54 pm (UTC)

"If I think of something will you do it?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:55 pm (UTC)

"If you think of something that I think will work, I'll do it," she says. "If you think of something that I think will lead to everyone dying, I'll tell you why."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 08:56 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel considers this.

"What if you're wrong?" she asks. "Then Chelsa keeps Chelsa-ing everybody and that's also really really bad."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Have you ever heard someone say, 'err on the side of caution'?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Mehitabel. "Mommy says it when she's deciding to overcook fish. But I think that's when being very cautious doesn't mean something really really bad happens. Like if overcooked fish would make you like people you don't want to like."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I think that everyone dying is much, much worse than Chelsa making everyone like each other. So when it comes to everyone dying, I'll err on the side of caution. I have all the time in the world to think of a way to get rid of her, but I'm only going to get one chance to try it, and if I do it wrong, everyone might die."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Do you like her?" Mehitabel inquires.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Why do you ask?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes at school people who are especially friends let each other do bad things," Mehitabel says.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm the empress," says Aelise. "That means that I can't let people do bad things just because I like them. I have to have a very good reason."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:09 pm (UTC)

"But do you like her?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But since I also know why I like her, I'm not going to let it get in my way."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Hmmm," says Mehitabel.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Yes?" says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I dunno. I need paper," says Mehitabel. "Or my computer."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:18 pm (UTC)

"You can borrow a computer, if you want."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Then someone might read what I put on it," says Mehitabel.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:25 pm (UTC)

"I could make whatever you put on it a state secret," says Aelise. "Or I could find you some paper, or I could take you back home and get your own computer to bring with us. The first one is fastest, and makes it hardest for anyone to read what you write down. Which one do you want?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:26 pm (UTC)

"If it's a state secret doesn't that mean you get to read it because you are the state?" asks Mehitabel.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but I'm not going to."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I don't know you, not really," Mehitabel points out.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:36 pm (UTC)

"There is nothing you could possibly write down that I couldn't read if I really, really wanted to," she says. "I haven't so far, and I don't plan to start."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:37 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel thinks about this.

Then she says, "I can just borrow a computer, then."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Aelise finds a tablet.

"State secrets or no?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't matter," says Mehitabel, and in fact she makes no effort to hide the contents of the screen as she paints them on, which are completely incomprehensible isolated symbols connected by lines and squiggles.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:42 pm (UTC)

Aelise makes no effort to read them.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:43 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel will be incomprehensibly squiggling for a long while.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:44 pm (UTC)

They have time.

Aelise gets out another tablet and starts reading something on it.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:45 pm (UTC)

Eventually Mehitabel concludes, "I need to know more things."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:45 pm (UTC)

"What things do you need to know?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:46 pm (UTC)

"About Chelsa and you and how things were hundreds of years ago and stuff. All the things. When I know how they all work I can figure out how to fix them."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Aelise. "It's going to take you a long time to learn all those things. In the meantime, we have a different problem. Do you know what that is?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:47 pm (UTC)

"No. I fixed the problem where people could read stuff I write."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes you did," says Aelise. "The problem we have now is that if Chelsa finds out that you exist, or that I spent all this time talking to you about how to get rid of her, she's going to be very upset. Making sure Chelsa doesn't get very upset is one of the ways I make sure everyone doesn't die."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I won't tell her that you're thinking of how to get rid of her. Or that I am," says Mehitabel.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:53 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't help at all," says Aelise. "If you were even in the same room as her, she'd be very upset already. If she heard somehow that there was a person in the world who didn't like her, she'd be very upset already. And you're a person, and you're in the world, and you don't like her."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:54 pm (UTC)

"...So, nobody should tell her?" says Mehitabel. "You can tell Mommy and Daddy and the doctor that I'm not sick and they shouldn't worry. They'll all listen to you."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Could you go home and pay attention to the morning announcements every day, and pretend that you like Chelsa as much as everyone does, and never talk to anyone about getting rid of her, or say that it would be better if she wasn't making everyone like each other, or anything like that?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 09:59 pm (UTC)

"...Ever?" asks Mehitabel dubiously.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:10 pm (UTC)

"There are two people you could ever safely talk to about any of that. One of them is me," says Aelise. "The other one is my aunt Kerestine. And you wouldn't be able to talk to either of us for a while, if you went home. You'd have to pretend everything was normal - normal the way it is for most people, not for you - without any help, for at least a little while. And once you were grown up, you'd have to keep pretending for as long as it took to find a way to get rid of her. It's been three hundred years and I haven't found one yet; it might take you your whole life. You couldn't ever go anywhere that Chelsa might be, because if you ran into her by accident she'd know you didn't like her and she'd be very upset. That's one option."

She pauses.

"The other option is, you could go somewhere that you wouldn't have to pretend, and grow up there and live there until you solved the problem. It would be lonely, but it would be safer. And you could read whatever you wanted without anybody interrupting you. And you'd have my aunt for company."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:11 pm (UTC)

"What about my mommy and daddy, though?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:12 pm (UTC)

"What about them, specifically?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Either which way what would I tell them?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:15 pm (UTC)

"If you went back to pretend for the rest of your life, you'd tell them that I took you to a doctor and I let you read your book all the way there and back. If you went to live with Kers, I would tell them that you'd been terribly sick and died."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:16 pm (UTC)

"...Oh."

Mehitabel considers her book.

"I don't like lying."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:18 pm (UTC)

"You would have to do a lot of it, to pretend you liked Chelsa and everything."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Chelsa is spoiled," Mehitabel asserts, "if she can't stand having even one person not like her."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:20 pm (UTC)

"That is not new information," says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

"If I were picking somebody who I had to keep happy or everyone would die I would not pick her," Mehitabel says.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," says Aelise. "But things like 'somebody you have to keep happy or everyone will die' usually don't come with a wide range of available choices."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Things like that? What other things are like that?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Fortunately, not very many."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:35 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel giggles. "I dunno," she says, and she sighs, and reaches for the borrowed tablet again and doodles incomprehensibly on it some more. These meaningless symbols are in something like a chart format.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:36 pm (UTC)

Aelise goes back to her reading.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:36 pm (UTC)

"My mommy and daddy will be very sad if they think I died," says Mehitabel after a few minutes.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Yes, they will," says Aelise. "Chelsa could do something about that, but I don't think either of us wants her to."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:41 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel shakes her head firmly. "She's done way too much to them already."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:42 pm (UTC)

"So where does that leave you?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:44 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel considers her doodles. She makes a few dots, and a circle, and underlines a sequence of consonants.

"If I pretended you got a doctor to fix me even though I'm not broken," she says, "Mommy and Daddy would be happy about that, but they shouldn't be. If you pretend I am very sick and that I died - then they will be sad about it, but they should be."

She sighs, and pokes along all the lines in her chart, re-checking.

"When I fix it they can find out I'm alive, right?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Of course," says Aelise. "And they'll probably still be alive too, even if it takes you a very long time."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Maybe since you have already paid special attention to me, you could immortal them, to make sure," suggests Mehitabel. "You could say 'I am sorry I could not fix your sick daughter, would you like to live forever?'" She pauses. "Also, could I be dying slow enough to say goodbye? Is there a disease that would do all that but also be slow?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

"You'd have to lie," Aelise reminds her. "But yes, I could find a disease like that, and a doctor to lie and say you have it. As for making them immortal... right now, I can only make very few people immortal. I'm going to try something soon that might let me make everyone immortal. If it works, your parents will be part of everyone. If it doesn't, I might have room for them, or I might not. But your parents aren't very old right now, so there's plenty of time to figure that out."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:05 pm (UTC)

"I can lie a little bit to say goodbye," Mehitabel says. "I think that's better than just pretending to die without saying anything. If you can make everyone immortal does that mean you don't need Chelsa anymore because the problem with wars is people dying?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:08 pm (UTC)

"No," says Aelise. "I can't make people that kind of immortal. I can only make them younger, down to about eighteen or twenty, and a little bit healthier, so they don't die of old age and usually don't get sick."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh. That is not as good a kind of immortal but it is still pretty good, I guess," sighs Mehitabel.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:10 pm (UTC)

"It's what I've got. If I found a way to make everyone properly immortal, that would solve a lot of problems. And I don't think I'd use it on Chelsa."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:11 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel nods once, decisively.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:14 pm (UTC)

"So. Do I find you a doctor?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes," sighs Mehitabel, "and then I guess I go and I live with your aunt? Is she nice? I don't think I knew you had an aunt."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Not a lot of people do," says Aelise. "I think she's plenty nice. My mother died when I was a little younger than you are, and Kers raised me from there."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Where does she live?"

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:21 pm (UTC)

"That's a secret. It's such a big secret, I can't tell you until I take you there, even though you're a pretty big secret yourself."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm a secret," giggles Mehitabel.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes you are. A state secret."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'm a secret and I'll go live with your secret aunt and my mommy and daddy will think I died and I will get to say goodbye but I have to lie a little to do it." Mehitabel sighs and traces her finger in apparent idleness across her borrowed tablet.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

"That's the plan," Aelise agrees.

She calls a doctor.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:30 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel gets her story straight.

It is with unfeigned sorrow that she tells her parents that she loves them and bids them goodbye.

They cry. She cries.

She doesn't have to do a lot of explicit lying, what with all the crying.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:32 pm (UTC)

Aelise keeps a respectful distance from these proceedings.

The doctor collects Mehitabel eventually, and then Aelise puts the doctor back where she found him.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:33 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel rubs her stinging eyes and follows Aelise.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:50 pm (UTC)

After dropping off the doctor, she does something to a control panel and heads south.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:50 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel picks up her book.

There are only a few chapters of it left.

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:55 pm (UTC)

Aelise takes them to one of the orbital towers, parks at the bottom, and waits.

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:56 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel closes her book.

"Where I'm going there are enough things to keep me, aren't there? I've left all my stuff at home."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

"There are plenty of things," Aelise promises. "And it's always possible to get more."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay. That's good. I don't want to actually die."

salus_populi
2013-06-21 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you to either," says Aelise. "C'mon, let's go meet Kers."

alicornucopia
2013-06-21 11:58 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel follows her, book clutched in her hand.

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:06 am (UTC)

They enter the tower and take the elevator up.

It's a long way, but the elevator is fast.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:07 am (UTC)

"I wish there were windows," sighs Mehitabel.
Edited 2013-06-22 00:09 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:11 am (UTC)

"There are windows at the top," says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:11 am (UTC)

"Will I be able to see the Earth from them?"

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:14 am (UTC)

"Yes."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:15 am (UTC)

"I bet it's pretty," predicts Mehitabel. "Does anyone live where I'm going besides your aunt?"

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:24 am (UTC)

"No one lives where you're going besides my aunt. Someone else does live in the orbital ring, but he's almost as big a secret as you are, and he doesn't know Kers is there."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:25 am (UTC)

"Do I get to meet him ever?"

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:26 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I'll have to think about it."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:26 am (UTC)

"Why does he live up in it?"

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:29 am (UTC)

"Also a secret. I'll tell you sometime, but I won't tell you today."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:37 am (UTC)

"When is sometime?"

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:37 am (UTC)

"I don't know. I have to think about it."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:38 am (UTC)

Mehitabel frowns.

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:39 am (UTC)

"I'm going to tell you when you're older; I haven't decided how much older."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:40 am (UTC)

"Do you have a guess?" Mehitabel tries.

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:41 am (UTC)

"I haven't had time to think about it properly. Not much more than ten years from now, I don't think."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:42 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Mehitabel.

She opens up a little file on her tablet, and writes this down, in plaintext.

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:49 am (UTC)

The elevator stops. Aelise gets out and leads Mehitabel down a short hallway to a large, ring-shaped room that goes all the way around the crown of the orbital tower.

It has windows. Big ones, angled down so you can stand at the edge and lean over the railing and watch the world stay in exactly the same position relative to your feet.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:50 am (UTC)

Mehitabel peers down at the planet with fascination.

"I'm gonna fix it," she announces, after she has had a good long look. "So Chelsa doesn't have to hurt it any more to keep it alive. She's the worst medicine."

salus_populi
2013-06-22 12:56 am (UTC)

"I hope you can," says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 12:57 am (UTC)

"I will try very hard. I am very smart," says Mehitabel.

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:15 am (UTC)

"Yes you are," says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:16 am (UTC)

"Where's your aunt?" Mehitabel asks.

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:24 am (UTC)

"Somewhere in the orbital rings. She knows we're here; she'll be along."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:25 am (UTC)

"Okay. What do I call her?"

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:25 am (UTC)

"You call her Kers."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:26 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Mehitabel goes on staring out the window. "Is there a lot of stuff people know about how Gifts work?" she asks.

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:27 am (UTC)

"There's some. I don't know what qualifies as 'a lot'."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:27 am (UTC)

"I want to learn it. It seems like it will help, I think."

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:29 am (UTC)

"You can learn whatever you want."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:31 am (UTC)

"Yes," agrees Mehitabel. "Teachers and stuff are useful for finding the best things to read to learn whatever, though. Is Kers good at that?"

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:32 am (UTC)

"She's pretty good at it, yeah."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:32 am (UTC)

"That is good and important if I am going to fix the world any time soon," Mehitabel nods.

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:35 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't get your hopes up about doing it in the next decade," says Aelise. "All things considered."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:35 am (UTC)

"Well," says Mehitabel, "maybe not, but it would be good if I did, so I shouldn't waste any time just because maybe not."

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:37 am (UTC)

"True. But on the other hand, it's not nice to be disappointed because you didn't solve a complicated problem unreasonably fast."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:38 am (UTC)

"Being disappointed would waste time," Mehitabel says after a moment's thought. "So I won't do it, at least not very much."

salus_populi
2013-06-22 01:44 am (UTC)

"That's good."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:45 am (UTC)

"Yes," agrees Mehitabel.

And finally she has seen all of the Earth she wishes to behold just now, and she sets about finishing her book while they wait for Kers.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 01:52 am (UTC)

Kers shows up just before the end of the book.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:53 am (UTC)

"Hello," says Mehitabel politely. "I'm a secret. Are you Kers?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 01:55 am (UTC)

"I am Kers," she says. "And you're Mehitabel."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:55 am (UTC)

"Yes. I'm not a secret from you," says Mehitabel.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 01:58 am (UTC)

"Correct."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 01:58 am (UTC)

"I am supposed to live secretly up here and figure out how to fix the world," Mehitabel says.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 02:01 am (UTC)

"Yes, you are," says Kers. "Want a tour?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 02:01 am (UTC)

"Yes please," says Mehitabel.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 02:03 am (UTC)

"It's a deal. C'mon."

And with a perfunctory wave to Aelise, Kers leads Mehitabel out of the windowed room and into the rest of the orbital ring.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 02:04 am (UTC)

Mehitabel is duly fascinated by all the intricacies of her new home.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 02:11 am (UTC)

There's a lot of it, even counting only the parts they visit, and none of the gravity-free sections that Kers points out but doesn't enter. There are more windows, some looking down, some looking up. There are long corridors. Lots and lots of long corridors. There is a magnetic train suspended in a vacuum tunnel, for getting from place to place on the ring quickly; in fact there are four such tunnels and a considerable number of individual train cars.

And there are living quarters, which is where they end up.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 02:11 am (UTC)

"Where will I stay?" asks Mehitabel.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 02:15 am (UTC)

"Anywhere you want," says Kers. "Well, anywhere that's not section 214, because there's another secret living in that one. But that's miles away. Right now, I'm in this room," she indicates a door, "and you can pick any other room on this hallway."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:49 am (UTC)

"Okay." Mehitabel evaluates the rooms, one at a time, in case they have salient differences. "Are you supposed to tell me which section the other secret is in?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 11:45 am (UTC)

"How else are you going to know to stay out of it?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:00 pm (UTC)

"By it being miles away," suggests Mehitabel.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:00 pm (UTC)

"'Miles away' isn't as much of a barrier as it sounds like, up here."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Because of the train," Mehitabel surmises.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Why is the other secret a secret?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:03 pm (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:03 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel sighs.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:04 pm (UTC)

"It's not nice to do that," says Kers.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I want to know things," says Mehitabel.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:10 pm (UTC)

"I said it's not nice to do that," says Kers. "I didn't say don't. But remember that every time you ask me to tell you something that we both know you're not supposed to know yet, I get a little bit more suspicious about all the other questions you might ask me and whether or not you're supposed to have the answers."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:11 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel considers this thoughtfully. It seems an eminently reasonable sort of statement to her, so after a while, she nods.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:11 pm (UTC)

Kers smiles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:12 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel continues inspecting rooms, and she chooses one, and puts her sole souvenir from home on the bookshelf.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Check out the computer," Kers advises.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:27 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel follows this suggestion.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:31 pm (UTC)

It is a pretty excellent computer!

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:57 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel sets about fixing all the preferences how she likes them. "Aelise said you might be good at helping me pick out books to read so I can learn all the things I have to know to figure out how to fix the world," she says.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I might!" she agrees.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I need to know how Gifts work and why people have wars and stuff," Mehitabel says.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Right to the hard stuff, huh," laughs Kers. "I'll queue up some history."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:02 pm (UTC)

"History and science."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:03 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel nods. "How come you live up here?" she asks.
Edited 2013-06-22 18:10 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Because nobody thinks there is anyone living up here, which makes it a good place to hide. And the reason why I'm hiding is because I have a Gift," she says. "I'm a shield. A very, very powerful shield. So I keep my Gift covering all the people Aelise most wants protected, and I hide, because I can't cover myself."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I cover myself," says Mehitabel. "How do you do other people?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:17 pm (UTC)

"How do you cover yourself?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I didn't even know I was doing it until today."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:22 pm (UTC)

Kers shrugs.

"The point is, 'how' is not really a meaningful question between Gifts. No two Gifts work exactly the same way. I cover other people because that's how my Gift works, and I do it by using my Gift, and that's about as much useful detail as anybody's ever been able to get across without involving a telepath."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I could do other people, though."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:25 pm (UTC)

"How would you test that?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:32 pm (UTC)

"It would have to be somebody Chelsa wouldn't notice. Because I'm a secret," Mehitabel says, after thinking this over. "And then I would try stuff."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:33 pm (UTC)

"But right now, the only thing you're sure you shield against is Chelsa," Kers observes.
Edited 2013-06-22 18:33 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Ye-e-es. But she didn't notice me not paying attention to the morning announcements, right?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Right. But how are you going to experiment on people down there, without anybody noticing, when you're up here?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Would she notice if you didn't like the morning announcements anymore?" inquires Mehitabel.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:38 pm (UTC)

"As a matter of fact, she didn't."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Oh - do you already not watch them?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't get them up here. Chelsa thinks I'm on the planet."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, then I guess I can't test on you, huh."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Guess not."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:42 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel contemplates this problem, stumped. "Maybe if I could shield you I could just tell somehow. I don't know."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you could. You've got time to think about it, anyway."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:43 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel nods. "And if I do manage to do it for you nobody else will see. Because we're secret."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Exactly."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:45 pm (UTC)

"What would happen if Chelsa knew you were not on the planet listening to her say good morning every day?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:45 pm (UTC)

"I believe the phrase is 'very upset'."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't like her one bit," Mehitabel announces. "In fact I think I hate her."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Good thing you're living in the only place where you can safely say that, huh?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but there should be more places like that." Mehitabel ponders. "What do you keep people safe from?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Just about everything. Except Chelsa. It's possible I could keep people safe from Chelsa too, but I can't experiment with that, because when I make a change to what my Gift covers it's the same change for everyone I'm covering. And most of those right now are Chelsa's very special friends."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:57 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel makes a face.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, pretty much."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 06:58 pm (UTC)

"How did you find out what you could do?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:00 pm (UTC)

"My kid sister used to run into things a lot."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:01 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel giggles. "What about the rest of it - that you could cover more people, and that you could change what from but not per person, and stuff?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I couldn't always cover more than one person, actually."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:04 pm (UTC)

"How did you get to be able to? How did you know when you could?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I can tell who I'm covering; that part wasn't hard. As for getting to... I tried for a while once when I was pretty young, and it didn't work at all, and then years and years later I tried again and it worked fine. Maybe I was doing something different, or maybe it was all the practice the first time around, or maybe my Gift just grew an extra trick as I got older."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Do many peoples' Gifts grow like that?" Mehitabel asks.

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes. Not that often, but it happens. More often if you use it a lot, and more often than that if you keep trying new things with it."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Does anyone's Gift ever shrink?"

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Nope. Not that I've ever heard of."
Edited 2013-06-22 19:42 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:42 pm (UTC)

"So Chelsa's won't ever just shrivel up all by itself."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:42 pm (UTC)

"It would be very unlikely."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:43 pm (UTC)

Mehitabel frowns. "Drat."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, if it shrivelled up too fast, we'd have the same problem as if she just up and died one day. People wouldn't take the transition well."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but maybe it could shrivel up slow. And she could go on the broadcast and say whatever Aelise told her to to make people be okay with it. And it would just be shriveling up by itself so she couldn't get mad at anybody."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:47 pm (UTC)

"You know what else would be nice? Getting a flying pony for Christmas."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:47 pm (UTC)

"That would also be nice, except I don't know where it would fly up here," says Mehitabel, "and also a flying pony would not make billions of people safe from Chelsa so I don't think it would be as good."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:49 pm (UTC)

Kers laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I would like to fly," muses Mehitabel idly. "I think that would be fun."

queensidecastle
2013-06-22 07:50 pm (UTC)

"You live in the orbital ring now," says Kers. "You can bounce around the zero-gravity sections all you want."

alicornucopia
2013-06-22 07:51 pm (UTC)

"I want to try that," says Mehitabel, and up she goes and off she traipses.

dead babies and mind control

her_imperial_radiance

[Grandma, Mama wants me to speak with you about what Harley said about the world he landed in when he vanished,] Elspeth says, shortly after it's clear that Harley's second vanishing was just him waking up. [He said it was run by one of your alts.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:02 pm (UTC)

[...Go on,] says Lizzie.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:05 pm (UTC)

[He woke up and disappeared again before he could go into much detail, but apparently an alt of Chelsea was heavily involved, who kept 'pets' and used her powers on the entire world population. He also mentioned something about dead babies, but didn't have a chance to elaborate. Mama's now suspicious of you by proxy; she's also considering the possibility that Harley misidentified the Empress's template, since face doubles that aren't alts exist, but she doesn't think so. I'm supposed to find out from you if this sounds like a plausible instance of your template, and what conclusions should be drawn if so, especially about how to deal with the world once we can get to it freely.]
Edited 2013-06-26 18:18 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:22 pm (UTC)

[The first question that comes to mind when I hear about an alt of me using an alt of Chelsea to rule the world is, what must it have looked like before she did that? As abhorrent as I find Chelsea, it's not inconceivable that another me could put her to work averting some catastrophe she considered worse.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:25 pm (UTC)

[Based on what I know about Chelsea - which is her entire history except for a few weeks before she died, via Aro and Addy - she wouldn't work for anyone who wouldn't let her use her power on them. Does it seem likely that she got to your alt, Aelise, first, and that this clouded Aelise's judgment?]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:31 pm (UTC)

[...Not especially,] she says. [It's possible, but it's not that likely. Putting myself in Aelise's hypothetical shoes, if Chelsea needed to go, the fact that I liked her wouldn't stop me.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:33 pm (UTC)

[The alt was named "Chelsa",] supplies Elspeth. [So you expect that Aelise is using Chelsa in a clear-minded fashion to avert something she considers worse.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:36 pm (UTC)

[That's the possibility I consider likeliest,] says Lizzie. [In which case my recommendation for how to deal with the world is to take out Chelsa and then give Aelise the resources to avert the thing in a different way. Optionally reverse the order of those two. Also optionally, send you through to un-Chelsify Aelise, before or after getting rid of Chelsa.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:39 pm (UTC)

[I would need to bring Mama to avoid getting Chelsaed myself. I'm not immune, I can just undo - half of it. And it was very hard to do, with Harley, it took longer than undoing Chelsea's work, she sank in deep. The fact that I could reverse it at all probably means that Mama could shield against her, but she must be stronger than any witch I'm aware of. Chelsea needed seeds to start with - she couldn't work from nothing. I'm sure Harley gave Chelsa nothing.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:40 pm (UTC)

[In that case it might be safest to take out Chelsa before anything else.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:42 pm (UTC)

[If Chelsa has that much scope, and that much power, other people on the world might, too. So far all of you come with corresponding Chrises. Hers might be gifted like the Eos one - it might be impossible to take out anyone Aelise considers important to keep safe.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:44 pm (UTC)

[In that case maybe I should go along,] says Lizzie. [Not that the idea of Chelsa getting her hands on me isn't horrifying, but I bet I'd be handy for negotiating with Aelise.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Mama doesn't want to trust anyone from that world with minting until she or somebell else has cleared them.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:48 pm (UTC)

[If I do mint her, it won't be until after the dust settles and it definitely won't be part of the negotiation process.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:49 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure if that means you'd wait for somebell to clear her or just that you wouldn't mint her first thing.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:51 pm (UTC)

[It means that the issue of whether or not I'd wait for somebell to clear her is separate from the issue of whether or not I should be included in the expedition.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:53 pm (UTC)

[All right.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 06:54 pm (UTC)

[Anything else? Is Bella still going to be suspicious of me?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 06:59 pm (UTC)

[...Probably not enough to matter. She does consider this empire - from the sound of it - a case of failing really badly, not a form of succeeding, and I don't think that will change even if we confirm that Aelise was averting something else that was also awful. But Mama has no reason to distrust your ability to handle personnel as you have been, and Dad is still paying attention to everyone's thoughts for her so I don't think she'll expect sudden backstabbing so you can go ally with Aelise or anything given the chance. I think Bells in general might be more suspicious of new Libbies, once this information makes it to the peal, though. Like the reverse of the Voice template - the one from Samaria who lives here now is fine and harmless, the others are understood to be generally awful. Maybe Aelise is a one-off under extreme circumstances and we'll never see anything like it again, but we don't know yet, and an entire world under constant Chelseaing is just about the worst thing Mama can think of.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Worse things exist,] says Lizzie. [An entire world under constant mind control from someone whose obsession is with other people's suffering, for example.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 07:11 pm (UTC)

[Yes, if you gave Mama a list of excessively horrible things she might not put this world at the top, but this one has more emotional repellence, considering.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 07:15 pm (UTC)

[I understand.]

She pauses, then adds, [It might be worth talking about why "go ally with Aelise" is a nonsense idea.]
Edited 2013-06-26 19:44 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 07:44 pm (UTC)

[All right, why is it?]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 07:56 pm (UTC)

[If "ruled by all-encompassing mind control" is how Aelise ultimately prefers her world, then I disavow identity with her and I bet the rest of my template does too,] says Lizzie. [I'm going on the assumption that she wants to get rid of Chelsa, but has what she considers a good reason not to, and I would probably more or less agree with her that it's a good reason if I knew what it was. What I want to do is find out what that reason is and then find a way around it. I cannot ally with Aelise against Bella because my entire stake in this is that I want to bring Aelise's interests and Bella's interests into alignment. A world ruled by one of me could be a place Bella would love, if we got around whatever problem made her include Chelsa in the first place.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 08:05 pm (UTC)

[What about a scenario where the problem can be fixed, but only to a point, such that Mama would rather go through with it and be rid of Chelsa and Aelise would rather stick with what she's got? Since we don't know what the problem is, it's not impossible.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 08:10 pm (UTC)

[Then who I tried to convince would depend on who I agreed with. But I will go on record as saying that I think it's premature to think of Bella and Aelise as already being in conflict.]
Edited 2013-06-26 20:15 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 08:23 pm (UTC)

[I don't think Mama's going to like her.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 08:28 pm (UTC)

[I don't think so either, but there is a wide range of possibilities between 'best friends' and 'open war', and I want to avoid tending toward the second extreme.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 08:29 pm (UTC)

[For that matter, I don't think I'm going to like her,] Elspeth goes on quietly. [You may have to do most of the talking.]

prima_sequentem
2013-06-26 08:55 pm (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-06-26 08:55 pm (UTC)

do: read; don't: visit 214

giftedandtalented

Mehitabel reads a lot.

She starts calling herself "Tab", for short, not that anyone calls her anything apart from Kers. She writes suitably encrypted emails to Aelise about ideas for fixing the world - mostly she asks questions, to start, forming a picture of the exact problem she has to solve.

She misses her parents, but not very much. At least she got to say goodbye.

When her brain won't absorb new information, she bounces around in zero-g.

After six months, Aelise visits again.

Tab says, "Anybody you store up here must be important somehow. If I don't know about the other secret person, I won't know how to come up with ideas that work with them being important however they're important."

salus_populi
2013-07-02 08:30 pm (UTC)

"What do you want to know about him?" says Aelise.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Why he's up here. I don't know what way he's important until you tell me."

salus_populi
2013-07-02 08:47 pm (UTC)

"He is up here for complicated reasons," says Aelise. "I'm not sure what the best summary is."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 08:47 pm (UTC)

"You could tell me the whole story," suggests Tab.

salus_populi
2013-07-02 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Not while you're still seven."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 08:50 pm (UTC)

"You could tell me all the parts that are okay for someone who is seven and who is also me."

salus_populi
2013-07-02 08:57 pm (UTC)

"I could also just introduce you to him and let him tell the story himself," she says, "but I'm fairly sure that if he finds out Kers is up here he will find a way to kill her, and I don't know how good you are at maintaining that kind of information security."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 08:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't want Kers to die," says Tab. "It would be strange if somebody my age were up here all alone though, even if I didn't say anything."

salus_populi
2013-07-02 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Something tells me he won't think of that," says Aelise. "Besides, he doesn't have to know you live up here."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Should I just talk like I live back where I used to, then, if he asks me?"

salus_populi
2013-07-02 09:04 pm (UTC)

"That would be a good idea."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:04 pm (UTC)

"I can do that."

salus_populi
2013-07-02 09:08 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Aelise. "And there's a small chance he might try to hurt you, but Kers can keep you safe."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Tab, who has already noticed the benefits of Kers's power just by walking around for six months.

salus_populi
2013-07-02 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I'll go see what he thinks about visitors," says Aelise, and that is the end of that visit.

Some time later, Tab gets an email that says she can visit section 214 whenever she wants, as long as she pretends she still lives on Earth, pointedly refuses to answer questions about how she got there, and makes sure not to imply she has ever met Kers.

And the name of the person living there is Harley.
Edited 2013-07-02 21:21 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:21 pm (UTC)

Tab emails back, asking if it's okay for Harley to know about her Gift.

salus_populi
2013-07-02 09:27 pm (UTC)

It takes about a day for Aelise to answer.

She says yes.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:27 pm (UTC)

Tab then hops into a vehicle and drives herself to 214.

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:30 pm (UTC)

All of the airlocked doors dividing section 214 from the rest of the ring show the red 'no unauthorized access' sign, but they'll open for her.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:31 pm (UTC)

Tab giggles as she lets herself through. "Harleeeeey?" she calls.

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Who the fuck are you?" a voice yells back from the distance.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm Mehitabel! But you can call me Tab if you want!"

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:33 pm (UTC)

No response.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Aelise says I can visit you whenever I want!" Tab adds, skipping forward towards the source of the voice.

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Good for Aelise," says Harley, at a somewhat more normal volume; he's only just around the corner now, and then he isn't. He is in a room in the section's living quarters, with a book open on the computer, lying in bed rather than reading it, wearing a pair of rumpled pajama pants in sky-blue dotted with fluffy white sheeps. He is maybe sixteen or seventeen years old.
Edited 2013-07-02 21:42 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:43 pm (UTC)

"How come you're up here?" Tab asks.

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Because I hate Chelsa," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:44 pm (UTC)

"She's awful," agrees Tab solemnly.

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:44 pm (UTC)

Harley squints at her.

"What's your name again?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Tab."

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Why are you up here?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm here to visit you!"

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:46 pm (UTC)

He rolls his eyes. "And why are you doing that? Why do you even know I exist?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm trying to figure out a safe way to get rid of Chelsa, and if you're up here being secret, you must be important, so I want to know why, so my ideas can have you in them if you have to be in them."

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:50 pm (UTC)

"And what, Aelise sent you to get it from me? Shit," says Harley. "Maybe she's halfway serious about it. So how much do you already know?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:51 pm (UTC)

"About you? I know your name and where to find you and that you are secret for complicated reasons and what you told me and that Aelise doesn't think the whole story is okay to tell me while I am seven."

pythbox
2013-07-02 09:53 pm (UTC)

Harley snorts.

"Yeah, that's probably because of all the sex," he says. "Fine. So for starters, I come from another universe."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Wow," says Tab, eyes going wide. "Really?"

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes, really," he says. "I got rescued out of one and grew up in another, and then I randomly disappeared out of that one and practically fell right into Chelsa's lap, and it turns out that she can make you like her but she can't make you not hate her, and I hate her a lot."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:04 pm (UTC)

"She can't make me like her," says Tab.

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I figured as much," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:05 pm (UTC)

"How did you move around between all these universes?" Tab asks, pulling out her tablet to take notes.

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:07 pm (UTC)

"I mean 'randomly disappeared' pretty well literally," he says. "For the first move, though, I had help."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:07 pm (UTC)

"How did that work?"
Edited 2013-07-02 22:08 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I was like a year old," he says, "I don't actually remember it or anything."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:11 pm (UTC)

"And they never told you how? Who was it anyway?"

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:12 pm (UTC)

He drags his pillow over his head.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:13 pm (UTC)

"What? What'd I say?"

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:39 pm (UTC)

"I kind of fucking miss her," Harley growls from under his pillow.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Tab. "I don't know how to send you home."

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," says the pillow.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Do you not want to talk about her?"

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I really don't!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'm sorry."

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:46 pm (UTC)

He sighs, removes the pillow from his face, and hugs it instead.

"Whatever."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:48 pm (UTC)

"What's the world you lived in like?" asks Tab after a respectful silence.
Edited 2013-07-02 22:50 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:52 pm (UTC)

"No Chelsa," he says.

And then, "They had one, but she died."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:52 pm (UTC)

"And everybody didn't start killing each other?" asks Tab, sitting up at attention.

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:54 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Nope."

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Aelise thinks that if something happened to Chelsa here people would start having wars again. I'm supposed to think of a way for that to not happen, and then Chelsa can go away here too."

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:57 pm (UTC)

"The other Chelsa wasn't doing her thing to the whole world," says Harley. "Just a little piece of it. It was the other you who killed her," he adds offhandedly.

alicornucopia
2013-07-02 10:58 pm (UTC)

"There's another me?" Tab asks, sitting bolt upright and looking utterly fascinated.

pythbox
2013-07-02 10:59 pm (UTC)

"There's like twelve," says Harley, with a little smile. "I've only met one, though. Her name's Bella and she's a vampire empress."
Edited 2013-07-02 23:19 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 03:53 am (UTC)

"Wow." Tab isn't sure if she believes this story, but it promises to be fascinating. "There are vampires in that world? And my - mirror universe twin is the empress of it? I bet she isn't seven, though. How do you know I'm her?"

pythbox
2013-07-03 02:44 pm (UTC)

"You look like her and you talk like her, if she was seven."

alicornucopia
2013-07-03 02:53 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Wow. What are the vampires like?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:35 am (UTC)

"...They're... like vampires," he says. "I only know about the one kind. I mean, they drink blood and they're immortal and stuff?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 12:37 am (UTC)

"I think being immortal would be nice," says Tab. "I don't think drinking blood would be very nice."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:41 am (UTC)

"Being immortal kind of sucks sometimes," says Harley. "But drinking blood would suck worse, I can't believe they don't miss food more."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 12:42 am (UTC)

"How does being immortal suck?" asks Tab.

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:44 am (UTC)

"When you want to die and can't."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 12:44 am (UTC)

"Why would you want to?" Tab asks, furrowing her brow and frowning.
Edited 2013-07-04 00:48 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:48 am (UTC)

"Chelsa," sighs Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 12:49 am (UTC)

Tab considers. "I might be able to make you safe," she says. "But you're already up here, being secret."

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:50 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "As long as she doesn't ever have to see me again, there's no point. I can just stay up here and be Aelise's battery."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 12:50 am (UTC)

"Battery?" asks Tab, nonplussed.

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:55 am (UTC)

"...Wait, you don't know that part?" he says. "Why do you think she's keeping me away from Chelsa in the first fucking place? Besides the fact that I cry and break things every time she comes near me, I mean, there's more than one reason, but the main thing is Aelise's Gift moves lifeforce around and mine is a renewable resource. I'm pretty sure that's why she stuck me up here and, like, let me have visitors, instead of just dropping me on the moon or something."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 12:56 am (UTC)

"I knew she could make people immortal, I didn't know how she did it," Tab says.

pythbox
2013-07-04 12:58 am (UTC)

"Before I showed up, she used to kill babies," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 12:59 am (UTC)

Tab isn't quite sure how to react to that.

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:00 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"And Chelsa cut them off, so nobody thought it was that fucked up, but I mean of course it's that fucked up."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:01 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Tab. "...She didn't tell me that. I will have to ask her about it."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:03 am (UTC)

"Wonder why she didn't," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:04 am (UTC)

"I don't know. Maybe because I'm seven."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:07 am (UTC)

"Probably," says Harley.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:08 am (UTC)

"She's not doing it any more, though?" Tab asks slowly.

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:09 am (UTC)

"Nah. She uses me instead," says Harley. "Maybe not for long, though, I'm going nuts up here."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:10 am (UTC)

"I could visit you a lot," says Tab anxiously, "if that would help. I don't want any babies to die."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:12 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he says. "Aelise already visits me a bunch. But I think I need more people than this. This fucking place is just so empty, you know?" He hugs his pillow some more.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:13 am (UTC)

"Maybe she could secret more people?" Tab says. "How many people?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:17 am (UTC)

"Enough people. I don't think she's gonna do it," he says. "Anyway, if she brought me twenty people who are all still all fuzzy over Chelsa, I'd probably launch myself into orbit. And there aren't twenty people who aren't."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:17 am (UTC)

"I don't know if I can unfuzz a person," frowns Tab. "I think maybe I could keep them getting more fuzzed."

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:23 am (UTC)

"And if you could unfuzz a person—" Harley shakes his head. "Fuck it. I need to be on the ground, that's all. And if I can't be on the ground then I'll just - find somewhere else to be."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:24 am (UTC)

"...with people in it?" asks Tab dubiously.

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:26 am (UTC)

"Somewhere with people in it would be good," he says. "But there's plenty of things that are worse than good but better than here."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:27 am (UTC)

"Like what?" Tab asks, bewildered.
Edited 2013-07-04 01:27 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:28 am (UTC)

"Like dead," he says. "Dead would be great compared to lonely all the fucking time."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:29 am (UTC)

"I thought you were immortal?" Tab says, clearly confused.

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:30 am (UTC)

"Yes," he says, "and I wish I wasn't, did we not just cover that?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 01:30 am (UTC)

"But can you not be? Is that a thing you can do?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 01:35 am (UTC)

"Nope. Dying is not my actual plan," he says. "I'm not telling you my actual plan, because you'd tell Aelise, and then she'd find a way to stop me."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 05:31 am (UTC)

"She didn't tell me I had to tell her any things, so I could promise not to," Tab says, "and then I wouldn't."
Edited 2013-07-04 05:31 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-04 11:07 am (UTC)

"You sure?" he says. "Even though if I got away for long enough she'd go back to killing babies?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 04:39 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want her to go back to killing babies?" frowns Tab.

pythbox
2013-07-04 04:42 pm (UTC)

"No," he snorts. "And I'd stick around and let her drain me all day long if that was all it took. But this place, this universe, with Chelsa and everything, and being up here all alone - it fucks me up, I can't take it forever."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I thought you couldn't get home."

pythbox
2013-07-04 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's kind of the root of all my problems," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 04:50 pm (UTC)

"So... aren't you going to keep being in the universe with Chelsa and it sucking, here or someplace worse, whatever you do? Unless you help me think of something. You could do that. If I think of something good Aelise can get rid of Chelsa."

pythbox
2013-07-04 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I thought we covered the part where I already have a bad solution and I'm not telling you what it is," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Tab. "But it's bad."

pythbox
2013-07-04 04:59 pm (UTC)

"There aren't any good ones," he says, throwing up his hands. "I am past good solutions. My bad solutions are bad but at least they're mine."

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 05:00 pm (UTC)

"How do you know there aren't any good ones?" Tab insists.

pythbox
2013-07-04 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Because I need things I cannot possibly get," he says. "I need to be home, I need to be somewhere Chelsa isn't, I need to be around people who don't care about her - there aren't enough people who don't care about her in the fucking world, and there aren't going to be, there's no way she's going to let go, do you get me? If you get rid of her everyone is going to be devastated about it, and I will want to set them on fire, I hate her so much—"

He starts crying into his pillow.

alicornucopia
2013-07-04 05:12 pm (UTC)

"If you got here randomly maybe someone else could too, or you could randomly co somewhere else. Maybe I'll think of something good enough and Aelise will get rid of Chelsa. Maybe it turns out Chelsa doesn't work perfect over broadcast and blind people or something don't like her but they keep it quiet 'cause they know what's going on better than I did and they could come live up here, I don't know because I only found out about this problem a couple of minutes ago and haven't asked yet. Help me think of stuff! I hate her too, we could get rid of her if we could think of something!"

pythbox
2013-07-04 05:13 pm (UTC)

Right this second, he is too busy crying.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 05:16 pm (UTC)

Tab waits.

pythbox
2013-07-04 05:22 pm (UTC)

Eventually:

"Look, trying to solve the problem makes it worse, okay? Because it means I have to think about Chelsa and the entire planet fully of people she's got wrapped up in her snuggly mind control blankets, and I can't even get my head around that, and when I try I just want to hurt myself until I can't think about it anymore. At least when I'm thinking about something else, I go nuts slower."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 05:23 pm (UTC)

Tab thinks about that.

"So," she concludes slowly, "you can't help me and I can't help you?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Pretty fucking much," says Harley.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 05:27 pm (UTC)

Tab hugs her knees, then picks up her tablet again and thinks on it.

"I wish the vampire empress me was here," she sighs after a minute.

pythbox
2013-07-04 05:27 pm (UTC)

Harley snorts.

"Yeah, me too."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 05:28 pm (UTC)

Tab opens her mouth to ask him something else, but then decides against it.

pythbox
2013-07-04 05:30 pm (UTC)

He hugs his pillow and sighs.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 05:31 pm (UTC)

Think, think, write, write, think.

"You do want me to do what I'm trying to do, though, so before you go do a terrible plan and maybe depending what it is I can't talk to you again, can you tell me stuff? Even if it sucks to talk about?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 05:33 pm (UTC)

He sighs again.

"Yeah, okay."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 05:33 pm (UTC)

Tab sits ready to take notes. "I don't know what all you know so I don't know what's maybe useful."

pythbox
2013-07-04 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what's useful either," he says. "You have a bunch of alts. The one I've met is a vampire empress, there's more that are other kinds of empress, basically all of you end up taking over the world somehow or other but there's different kinds of taking over and 'empress' isn't always it. Um - vampires in Aurum used to all eat people, now they mostly eat fake blood instead, the ones who eat people tend to get violent with each other and you usually couldn't get more than a group of three or so to hang out for long without somebody ripping somebody's head off and setting them on fire - Chelsea, our Chelsa, she was a vampire and she worked for the previous vampire government making their employees all like each other so they could stick together and not fight."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 06:58 pm (UTC)

"This world is already taken over," frowns Tab. "How do they take over their worlds? Do they have to do anything horrible like Chelsa-ing people to do it?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 07:03 pm (UTC)

"I think one of them blew up a building once or something," he says. "But the rest just set up colonies on Mars and stuff."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 07:06 pm (UTC)

"How would blowing up a building help?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 07:08 pm (UTC)

"I should know? I just heard it from somebody once," he shrugs.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, how do they run the worlds once they take them over, then?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Pretty well, I guess."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 07:13 pm (UTC)

"No, I mean - what do they do? They've had more time to think of ideas than me, maybe they have good ones I can copy?"
Edited 2013-07-04 20:00 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-04 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I should know?" he repeats, frustrated. "I don't follow Bella around all day watching her empress."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Oh," muses Tab.

pythbox
2013-07-04 08:11 pm (UTC)

Harley sighs.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 08:12 pm (UTC)

"You knew she killed the Chelsa in your world, though, what did she do when all those people who liked her didn't have her any more?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Uh, killed a bunch and hired the rest?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 08:14 pm (UTC)

"How did she get them to work for her if she just killed a person they liked?"
Edited 2013-07-04 20:18 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-04 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that. Um, her daughter could un-Chelsea people," he says. "Wipe out what she put on, I mean, not grow back what she cut off."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Wow," says Tab. "Do you think she would work on Chelsa too?"

pythbox
2013-07-04 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "She couldn't do a whole planet in one shot, though, and if she did there'd be riots. Even just the fifty-some people she got for her mom's takeover, some shit went down - I mean, suddenly everybody didn't automatically like each other, you know?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Tab. "I'm safe but that's just me."

pythbox
2013-07-04 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Ask Aelise, then, I bet she remembers," he says.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 10:22 pm (UTC)

"She remembers what it's like to have never liked everybody. I don't think she remembers what it's like to stop."

pythbox
2013-07-04 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't either. I wasn't there."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-04 10:25 pm (UTC)

"This is a really hard problem," sighs Tab, looking at her notes.

pythbox
2013-07-04 10:28 pm (UTC)

"No shit," says Harley.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 12:51 am (UTC)

Tab stays a while longer, since Harley is lonely, but it doesn't take her long to agree with him that she's not making much difference on her own. And he has nothing else of much use to tell her. She goes back to Kers, after.

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 12:51 am (UTC)

"Well that was interesting," says Kers.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 12:52 am (UTC)

"Were you listening?" Tab inquires. This doesn't surprise her, although she would have liked to be told.

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 12:53 am (UTC)

"I usually am."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 12:54 am (UTC)

"That is useful to know," says Tab. "I don't think Harley knew it."

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 12:54 am (UTC)

"Of course he didn't. He doesn't know I'm here, remember?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 12:55 am (UTC)

"Right, but he didn't know anybody at all might be listening."

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 12:57 am (UTC)

"I'm sure he could have figured it out," says Kers.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 12:57 am (UTC)

"Really?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 12:59 am (UTC)

"I find it hard to believe he might not have."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 01:00 am (UTC)

"All right, I guess. Did you think of anything I should ask him if I go visit again?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 01:01 am (UTC)

She shakes her head.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 01:16 am (UTC)

"Will you tell me if you do?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 01:17 am (UTC)

"No," she says dryly, and then snorts and shakes her head. "Yes, I'll tell you."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 01:19 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Tab, and she goes back to her reading. She is working on a great big map of dependencies between things so she will be able to trace it and see where everything unravels with each of her half-formed ideas for displacing Chelsa. She needs to know a lot of things to complete this map.

She isn't going to rule out a flash of insight that solves everything, but it isn't looking likely.

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 01:23 am (UTC)

A week later, Kers mentions offhandedly that section 214 is no longer inhabited. Harley asked to be moved, and Aelise found somewhere to put him.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 01:35 am (UTC)

"Is he safe from Chelsa and with people?" asks Tab.

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 01:39 am (UTC)

"He's safe from Chelsa. With people was a tall order, so he decided he'd rather be unconscious all the time. Aelise can drain him just the same."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 01:41 am (UTC)

"I guess that's okay-ish, then. He can wake up when I figure something out."

Tab is very dedicated to working something out. Chelsa is an ongoing, quietly humming, epic disaster. She is not less urgent just because things are not cinematically toppling into the sea and catching fire.

Tab is going to think of something.

She thinks of a lot of things, actually; but the first one to elicit more than a detailed, thoughtful rejection is:

I might be able to shield somebody else inside-out, so their powers couldn't get out. I don't know if I can do this and I shouldn't try on Kers, but if I can, it would make Chelsa think she was breaking if I flickered her off and back on again on whatever schedule you thought was safe, and then she would probably cooperate with helping to gentle everybody into not needing her anymore.
Edited 2013-07-05 01:59 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:00 am (UTC)

You could try it on me, says the return email.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:01 am (UTC)

Okay, Tab writes back, I will next time you visit. If I can do it may I?

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:02 am (UTC)

I will think about it.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:03 am (UTC)

But you think it's worth trying out?

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:04 am (UTC)

It's woth knowing if you can do it at all.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:05 am (UTC)

Okay.

And Tab waits for her to visit.

She doesn't know Chelsa personally, so she doesn't know how Chelsa will react to seeming like she's breaking; she has to rely on Aelise for that part of the plan assessment. But she pokes the idea through her map of the world's institutions. She thinks it might work, especially if she worked slowly.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:08 am (UTC)

Aelise arrives a few days later.

"It could work," she says. "If you can do it. But don't get excited just yet. I'd want to think about it very carefully first."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:16 am (UTC)

Tab nods. And she closes her eyes and concentrates.

Her Gift feels like a blanket, complete with the supernatural, unexplained ability to protect her from monsters under the bed. She didn't know that this wasn't something everyone felt until she asked, but once she picked it out as a magic thing and not as just part of the sensory background, she was able to start considering how to do things with it, and eventually figured out how to blanket Kers. She can keep Kers under the blanket without much attention, until she goes to sleep, at which time her Gift decides that it needs to wrap her up in one hundred percent of the blanket; sometimes if she's deep in thought about something unrelated she'll also lose it. She can put it on and take it off even if her and Kers are on opposite sides of the orbital ring.

Aelise is right there, and she just needs to turn the blanket inside-out...

She tries. She had a long list of things to try, full of invented words and exclamation points and little synaesthetic diagrams.

It doesn't work. Her blanket does not want to be inside-out.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:20 am (UTC)

Aelise lets her keep trying as long as she likes; then she shrugs and says, "So much for that. Maybe it'll grow in as you get older; that happens."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:20 am (UTC)

"Okay. I might as well try it whenever you're up here."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:22 am (UTC)

"Good plan."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:31 am (UTC)

Tab does not manage it that year.

Or the next, or the next few.

But she doggedly tries every visit, because there are no better ideas going, everything has some dreadful flaw, everything makes her map fall to bits or Aelise thinks it's untenable per risk aversion. Aelise may not like using Chelsa - or says so, anyway - but she doesn't consider her quite as much of a disaster as Tab does, so she passes up a couple possibilities Tab would have jumped on.

And one day, a few weeks after she turns twelve -

"It - I think it - did it work?"
Edited 2013-07-05 02:34 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:46 am (UTC)

"Apparently it did," says Aelise.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:47 am (UTC)

"So you can't sense my life force anymore but for this to really work you have to not be able to do things - so - I guess you should try immortaling Kers some?"

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:49 am (UTC)

"I guess I should," she says, and goes off to find Kers.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:49 am (UTC)

Tab trots after her, eager to see the experiment's results at once.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:52 am (UTC)

The experiment's results aren't much to look at.

"Of course, I can't properly see if it worked or not, but it doesn't feel like it did," she says. "I'm not any lower."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:52 am (UTC)

"So can I try it on Chelsa? Quick flicker, gauge reaction, write up a schedule?"

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:53 am (UTC)

"Yes. Wait until I'm on the ground again, in case something unexpected happens. I'll email you to tell you when."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:54 am (UTC)

"Okay," beams Tab.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 02:57 am (UTC)

Aelise smiles slightly.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 02:58 am (UTC)

At Aelise's prescribed time, Chelsa experiences a split-second... outage.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:01 am (UTC)

It's like dying.

The worst death, drowning in cold, like the world is made of frigid motionless hate, like there is nothing else but chill animosity.

Chelsa screams.

And then the world comes back, every pinpoint of warmth a lifeline in exquisite detailed liveliness - there's her pretty Tima and her devoted Amdon and her gentle Anneia and her warm sun -

Her warm sun.

And another very like.

The sensitivity is gone almost as soon as the cold is, but now she knows.

There were only two like that.

Harley is on the planet.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 03:05 am (UTC)

Anneia is closest; she runs to the sound.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:06 am (UTC)

Chelsa throws herself into Anneia's arms immediately. "My Gift, it was gone, just for a moment, but totally - it was so cold -" She's crying and she doesn't care. She twists her hands around, behind Anneia's back, pulling on the near warmth.

And because Aelise broke her word, Chelsa sees no reason to keep her agreement.

She reaches for the far sun and pulls on that one too.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 03:12 am (UTC)

Anneia cuddles her helplessly.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:13 am (UTC)

Chelsa clings and sobs and kindles everything she can reach as hot as it will go.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 03:14 am (UTC)

Tima sits up in Corona's room from where she's been snuggling, when Chelsa screams. "Did you hear that?"

pythbox
2013-07-05 03:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Corona. "Who was it?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 03:15 am (UTC)

"It sounded like Chelsa." She swings her feet out of the bed, brow furrowed in confusion.

pythbox
2013-07-05 03:16 am (UTC)

"...it kind of did," he says. "What the hell's she screaming for?"

He gets up and goes to investigate.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:17 am (UTC)

They find Chelsa with her face buried in Anneia's shoulder, sobbing, hands plucking frantically at the air.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 03:17 am (UTC)

Tima unhesitatingly turns this into a group hug. "What's wrong?"

pythbox
2013-07-05 03:18 am (UTC)

Corona also cuddles up.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:18 am (UTC)

"My - my Gift broke - just for an instant but it broke - and it was so cold -"

pythbox
2013-07-05 03:20 am (UTC)

Corona wriggles in close and hugs her tight.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:22 am (UTC)

"Oh my warm sun," she sighs.

It takes about an hour of group hug - other friends filter in and crowd around, too - before Chelsa feels well enough to disentangle herself and confront Aelise.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:23 am (UTC)

Aelise is in her office.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:24 am (UTC)

Chelsa doesn't bother knocking.

"You lied to me."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:25 am (UTC)

"About what?"

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:26 am (UTC)

"What, is there more than one thing? Harley! My power - glitched or something - but when it came back everything was sharp for a second and I know that warmth when I feel it! You didn't even put him far away, let alone in orbit!"

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:31 am (UTC)

"I put him in orbit," she says. "It's harder to keep an eye on him in orbit, and there's a lot of mischief he could get into up there if he put his mind to it. I took him back down when he looked like he might be getting into some. I didn't mention it because I didn't want to upset you. Are you all right?"

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:31 am (UTC)

"I am now," says Chelsa darkly.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:38 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," she says. "Harley's ten kinds of trouble, but I need him in reach if I'm going to use him to keep everyone immortal. I've been keeping him unconscious most of the time; he wakes up when I drain him and that's it."

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 05:55 am (UTC)

"Consciousness doesn't make a difference to how it feels. It never has."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 11:05 am (UTC)

"I am hoping," Aelise says dryly, "that it will make a difference to him."

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:03 pm (UTC)

"Excellent, best of luck," says Chelsa, still fuming at the deception.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:08 pm (UTC)

"He's a troublemaker. I am trying to make sure he doesn't have either the means or the motive to cause much trouble."

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:09 pm (UTC)

"You promised me, and of all the ways I could find out - I don't understand what's wrong with me," says Chelsa sitting down heavily.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't either," says Aelise, coming up and hugging her. "But I intend to find out. All right?"

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Fix it," says Chelsa desperately, clinging. "I can't live like that, not all cold - I don't know how anyone else can stand it."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:28 pm (UTC)

"We manage somehow," she says, hugging her some more. "I'll do everything I can."

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 03:29 pm (UTC)

Chelsa sobs, once.

And pulls on all the warmth she can reach, again.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:33 pm (UTC)

Aelise pets her hair soothingly.

pythbox
2013-07-05 03:49 pm (UTC)

Some days later, on her next visit to Harley, he wakes up as usual - unconscious one second and screaming the next.

But this time, when she's done draining him, instead of looking dazed but contented he takes a breath and starts crying.

And when she moves to put him under again, he hits her ineffectually and twists away—and disappears.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:49 pm (UTC)

Aelise calls Demauri.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 03:50 pm (UTC)

"Hullo, Aelise! I usually don't hear from you this often," laughs Demauri.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Harley's gone missing again," she says. "Be a dear and haul him back to me, would you?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Wow, he got a ways away, this is gonna take a while, and I need to requisition a boat."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 03:54 pm (UTC)

"I think he might have learned how to teleport. I recommend you knock him out when you find him."

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Learned how to teleport? Lucky kid, I want to do that. Will do."

A few hours see Demauri and a laughing fishing crew speeding along in a boat to the correct location, Demauri calling directions to the driver.

They reach the correct location and Harley is - down.

The fishermen haul him up while Demauri loads up a tranq gun.

pythbox
2013-07-05 03:57 pm (UTC)

Hauling him up is an interesting proposition, because he drowns along the way and for a moment the net is holding nothing but spectral flames. But drowning is slow enough that he doesn't do it again on the way up.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 04:00 pm (UTC)

Demauri's really tempted to try bantering again, but instead he just tranqs the kid, puts him on the floor of the boat head turned sideways so he can cough up ingested ocean on reflex without just swallowing it again, and ties his ankles together and his hands behind his back.

The fishermen turn around and head back for shore. Demauri watches the kid.

pythbox
2013-07-05 04:01 pm (UTC)

Harley is too unconscious to be very interesting. But even unconscious, he doesn't look happy.

Perhaps it's all the drowning that did it.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 04:02 pm (UTC)

Demauri reserves judgment on that. Aelise wants him, and he loves her, and he can take or leave Harley.

He hauls a salt-stained Harley before the Empress, when he gets there.
Edited 2013-07-05 16:04 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Aelise. She gives him a smile.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Love and loyalty. See if you can keep him teleporting to such inconvenient places, that immortality thing he does can foul up a net," says Demauri, half-smiling.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:06 pm (UTC)

"I'll try my very best."

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 04:09 pm (UTC)

Demauri salutes, and sees himself out.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:11 pm (UTC)

And Aelise makes sure Harley is tucked in safe and sound, and then she goes about her business.

She comes back a week later to do the whole thing over again.

There's no way to get him unconscious again instantly after the draining stops, so she tries persuasion this time.

"Can't we talk about this...?"

pythbox
2013-07-05 04:12 pm (UTC)

"No," he snarls, scrunching his eyes shut. A wavering moment, and then he's gone again.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:13 pm (UTC)

Aelise sighs.

At least this time she drained him for longer. She probably has a few thousand years' worth of immortality stored, to be distributed as she pleases, unless it drains faster over time when it's all piled up like this.

She calls Demauri again.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 04:14 pm (UTC)

"On it," sighs Demauri, and he follows the trail.

pythbox
2013-07-05 04:24 pm (UTC)

Harley is, it turns out, in Hawaii.

Specifically, in Mauna Loa. And that is in, not on. He is somewhere in the middle, well below sea level, and not going much of anywhere.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 04:25 pm (UTC)

...Demauri is not equipped to handle this.

He calls Aelise.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Of course he is," she sighs. "I'll deal with it. Thank you."

Then she finds Sandre and Anneia.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Aelise! What's up?"

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I need to borrow you two for a little while. Could be dangerous. Likely to be painful," she says with a quirk of a smile.

guiltless
2013-07-05 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Sign me up," laughs Sandre.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that's what I thought you'd say."

She explains on the way: Harley, whom she's sure they remember, has managed to get himself stuck in the middle of a volcano. She is hoping that some combination of Sandre's telekinesis and Anneia's indifference to extremity will let them conspire to fish him out. It's likely to push Sandre's range, but maybe not that far. And although Kers is protecting both of them and is more than proof against a little lava, her protection against unpleasant sensations has been known to give out long before her protection against real physical harm. Hence why Anneia will be the one diving in after Harley, with Sandre keeping hold of her to haul them both out.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I'm all for it," Anneia says cheerfully.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I know you are."

guiltless
2013-07-05 04:40 pm (UTC)

They find the volcano; they perch as close to Harley's last known position as they can get without an undue risk of falling in; Sandre reels Anneia down, letting her familiar body anchor his perception to pull it past its ordinary limits. She's just at the edge of his range when he feels something else beside her that's not lava - there and gone and there again, in a bizarre but familiar way.

He hauls them both out. It takes twice as long as he expects it to, because he can't move Harley while Harley is doing his mysterious immortality thing, and he's bouncing in and out of it as rapidly as you'd expect from someone swimming unprotected in hot lava. But eventually, they both emerge, and Anneia snuggles up to Harley and pours healing into him, and Sandre pulls them up to where he waits with Aelise and hugs them both.

pythbox
2013-07-05 04:40 pm (UTC)

Harley weeps desperately into Sandre's shirt.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 04:41 pm (UTC)

"What happened to you?" murmurs Anneia, petting his miraculously regenerated hair.

pythbox
2013-07-05 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Chelsa got me again, I was miles away, I wasn't even awake and she got me, I can't fucking stand it," he sobs. "I hate it, I hate her, I hate everything, I want to die and if I can't have that I want to hurt until I stop caring."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:46 pm (UTC)

"There are other methods available for that," says Aelise.

pythbox
2013-07-05 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Fucking do it then," Harley spits. "'Cause next time you're not gonna fish me out so fast."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 04:54 pm (UTC)

So Aelise starts draining him again.

There is less point in keeping him so thoroughly hidden now, and something will need to be done about all the screaming to avoid disturbing people; she takes him back to Mont Blanc and arranges for a thoroughly soundproofed little suite tucked into the mountainside, with an office where she can do actual work while she pulls lifeforce from his endless supply. And then, after several hours of draining, she puts him to sleep as fast as she can.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 05:02 pm (UTC)

When Anneia and Sandre are home, Chelsa calls them from where she's snuggling with Corona. "Where did you go?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 05:08 pm (UTC)

Anneia cuddles up.

"Oh, Aelise wanted us to fish Harley out of a volcano," she says.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 05:09 pm (UTC)

"A volcano?"

guiltless
2013-07-05 05:10 pm (UTC)

"I dunno how he got there, but he was pretty wrecked when we pulled him out," sighs Sandre. "Wouldn't stop crying until Aelise started draining him."

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 05:11 pm (UTC)

"That's awful. I'm so glad you got him out."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't think he is," Anneia says pensively.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 05:12 pm (UTC)

"He was never going to be happy," sighs Chelsa.

pythbox
2013-07-05 05:14 pm (UTC)

Corona frowns.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 05:14 pm (UTC)

Chelsa pets him.

pythbox
2013-07-05 05:16 pm (UTC)

He wriggles discontentedly and sighs.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 05:21 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Tab wants updates about the results of the experiment.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:24 pm (UTC)

Chelsa is... not as stable as Aelise was hoping. The thing with Harley is a complication, which she explains in as much detail as Tab requests.

Right now, she can't make good predictions about Chelsa's reaction if they continue to push. Better to sit on it for a while. Six months, maybe.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 05:24 pm (UTC)

Tab is annoyed and impatient, but she waits.

pythbox
2013-07-05 05:29 pm (UTC)

For a while, draining Harley for six to eight hours at a time works to keep him out of trouble. He's too exhausted by the end of it to go anywhere, and Aelise puts him under again too fast to let him.

But it's not a permanent solution.

Three months after he is installed in his little room, Aelise finishes a particularly lengthy session of draining him, and he takes a breath and shudders and disappears.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:30 pm (UTC)

Aelise calls Demauri.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 05:32 pm (UTC)

"...Triangulation's not working," Demauri says, after a while of looking. "Or, I dunno, maybe it is, but I've walked four blocks now and if the direction's changed I don't have the sensitivity to tell. He'd have to be ridiculously far away. Not on Earth."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:34 pm (UTC)

Aelise sighs.

"All right. Thank you."

At least all this draining has her supply higher than it's ever been. She won't have to worry about where to get her immortality for a long, long time.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Love and loyalty," says Demauri. "I can look in on him occasionally if you want, see if he moves?"

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Love and loyalty," repeats Demauri.

And a few days later he calls back.

"Er, you're not gonna believe this, but his direction matches the. The sun."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:39 pm (UTC)

"...Of course it does," sighs Aelise. "Thank you, Demauri. Well, that's going to be a thorny problem."

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I wish I could help you."

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:40 pm (UTC)

"You found him. That's something."

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 05:41 pm (UTC)

And it is, alas, the extent of Demauri's skills. He bids her goodbye and hangs up.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:47 pm (UTC)

Well, she can leave Harley to sort himself out, then.

Meanwhile, how's Chelsa doing?

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 05:48 pm (UTC)

She has calmed down some, since recovering from the... breakage.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:48 pm (UTC)

That's good.

Aelise monitors her for a while, then okays another flicker.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 05:49 pm (UTC)

Tab is more than happy to obey.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 05:51 pm (UTC)

Chelsa is not happy.

Chelsa is hysterical.

This means it's not a one-off, this means she didn't just break but that she is breaking. She gathers her friends in a pile around her and doesn't want any of them to leave her. She turns up the literal heat in the quarters until everyone's sweating. She wrings her hands and, when she can bear to drag herself away from the comfort of her beloveds (and she brings Jony with her, anyway) she asks Aelise if she's got any idea what could be going on, yet.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 05:59 pm (UTC)

Aelise shakes her head.

Aelise finds a doctor.

The doctor pronounces that there is, as far as she can see, nothing wrong with Chelsa at all.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 06:00 pm (UTC)

Chelsa wants a second opinion.

Chelsa wants an arbitrary number of opinions, she wants someone to know what the matter is and fix it.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 06:02 pm (UTC)

Aelise can find her, literally, all the opinions in the world.

They all come down to the same thing: her Gift may be flickering, but if it is, they can't tell that it is, and they certainly can't tell why.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 06:04 pm (UTC)

It's like being told she's dying, and she wasn't supposed to die, she was supposed to live forever, with her friends, with the warmth of the world on her, and instead she has nightmares about freezing to death.

She won't sleep alone; she needs to wake up warm.

One night she sleeps entangled in Corona's arms and half-wakes and says Harley's name.

pythbox
2013-07-05 06:08 pm (UTC)

Corona shivers.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 06:09 pm (UTC)

Chelsa falls back asleep, cuddled up close.

pythbox
2013-07-05 06:33 pm (UTC)

Corona... doesn't.

He doesn't even know where Harley is. He just - hasn't thought about it. Well, he has, but he didn't get anywhere.

He doubts Harley is happy, though, wherever he ended up.

And he can guess why.

He gets up. Tima is here too; Chelsa won't have to sleep lonely. He hates that he still cares. But he does. She's going to be wrecked, and it tears him up inside, and he won't let it stop him.

He gets dressed; he goes out to grab a vehicle. He's left on his little trips at weirder times, with no more warning.

He doesn't know where to find a volcano, so he just... goes. Off in a random direction until he's over enough water that he can't see the land. And he lights a match, and holds it in his hand, and calls on his Gift to multiply the fire, and lets it wrap him up - nothing he hasn't done before, so far. Kers is still keeping him safe. Anneia could heal him no problem. He's hardly even toasted.

Kers can only keep you safe if you let her, if you want her to.

Corona stops wanting her to. The fire roars. He keeps feeding it as long as he can, hotter and hotter until he's burning in the middle of a falling blob of molten plastic and metal. He loses consciousness on the way down.

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 06:34 pm (UTC)

Kers happens to be awake.

She calls Demauri immediately, and then Anneia.

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 07:41 pm (UTC)

Demauri wakes up when that signal goes. "'lo?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I need you to find Corona. Urgently."

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 07:43 pm (UTC)

"He's north by -" Demauri pauses. "He's gone."

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Dammit," says Kers. She sighs. "Thank you. You can go back to sleep."

alicornucopia
2013-07-05 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Love 'n loyalty," mumbles Demauri, "sorry," and he goes back to sleep.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 07:48 pm (UTC)

Anneia finally answers, with a sleepy, wordless mumble.

queensidecastle
2013-07-05 07:49 pm (UTC)

She takes a breath.

"Corona just killed himself. I called to see if you could get to him in time, but - you couldn't have. It was maybe half a minute from when he cut me out."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Shit," says Anneia.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 07:57 pm (UTC)

In the morning, Chelsa winds up curled up to Tima, since Corona isn't there.

She isn't worried right away. He may have gone to get a snack. It would be sort of thoughtless of him to go on a trip while she's so frazzled, but she never said he couldn't, she supposes.
Edited 2013-07-05 19:58 (UTC)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 08:01 pm (UTC)

And she continue supposing that until she sees Anneia, a little while later.

She's been up half the night trying to think of some way to say it - she's sure Kers has told Aelise by now, but Aelise isn't going to make a special trip to Chelsa's friends' quarters just to break the news, she doesn't think - and in the end she just blurts out, "Corona killed himself last night."

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 08:02 pm (UTC)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 08:04 pm (UTC)

"I don't know - why, or where, or anything - Kers called me when he shut her out, but she says it wasn't more than a minute from then until Demauri couldn't find him."

She sniffles. She liked Corona. Well - of course she did.
Edited 2013-07-05 20:04 (UTC)

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 09:24 pm (UTC)

Chelsa hugs her and bawls.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 09:25 pm (UTC)

Anneia hugs her tightly.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 09:26 pm (UTC)

Chelsa is inconsolable.

She is not in a position to deliver announcements for the next time zone cluster's morning.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-07-05 09:28 pm (UTC)

Anneia and Sandre both stay with her.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 09:33 pm (UTC)

In three hundred years, this is not the first time that Chelsa has missed a set of morning announcements. Aelise fills in just like always, greeting the appropriate section of the world with a smile and some inconsequential news, and explaining that Chelsa was called away because one of her close friends died unexpectedly that morning.

Then she finds the time to notify Tab, because in no way is Chelsa ready for another flicker, and she probably won't be for a while.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 09:34 pm (UTC)

Tab agrees to wait.

Maybe Chelsa will just fall apart all by herself.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 09:35 pm (UTC)

That sure looks like it's a possibility.

Chelsa can't stop crying. She'll let Amdon feed her, when he begs her to eat something, but mostly she just cries.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 09:38 pm (UTC)

This is... not ideal.

But it's not the worst way it could've happened, she supposes.

Aelise visits Chelsa, amidst her friends. She expresses her condolences and gives Chelsa a hug.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 09:39 pm (UTC)

Chelsa will take hugs. She is very tearfully welcoming of hugs.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 09:41 pm (UTC)

Then Aelise will give her hugs.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 09:55 pm (UTC)

Chelsa doesn't really get better.

She's bidden friends goodbye before, to trade them in for warmer models, but they don't die, not anytime soon, and they don't kill themselves, and none of them were her warm sun.

She does a few announcements, on her better days, but she has to have someone sitting with her, out of sight of the camera, and her smile is a little forced.

She stops crying perpetually, but she's listless, and she sleeps a lot.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 09:57 pm (UTC)

Aelise observes all this.

She suggests gently that maybe Chelsa would like to retire, to a comfortable little island, with all her special friends.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 09:58 pm (UTC)

Chelsa would like that.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 10:01 pm (UTC)

Aelise makes the arrangements. She would like it if Chelsa did one last set of announcements, to say goodbye to everyone, reassure them as much as she can. But she'll understand if Chelsa doesn't feel up to it.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 10:02 pm (UTC)

Chelsa doesn't want to upset anyone. She'll do the set, but it will have to wait for a good morning, which delays her departure.

Finally, she has an unusually calm-dreamed night and wakes up and tells the world she's going into retirement, and will miss them.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 10:04 pm (UTC)

The world will miss her too. They love her very much.

Aelise sees everyone to the island personally.

warmfeelings
2013-07-05 10:05 pm (UTC)

Chelsa isn't even upset that this all means she'll start aging again. She's afraid her power will go, maybe stay gone; she would like to leave before it does, if it's going to go.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 10:16 pm (UTC)

And she won't die anytime soon. And her friends will be with her - Aelise makes sure they're all on about the same level, immortality-wise, and they have Kers to repel accidents and Anneia to keep everyone healthy in their old age.

All in all, a comfortable retirement.

Aelise doesn't visit often, after that first time; she has a considerable amount of work to do. A lot of little changes will have to be made to compensate for Chelsa's absence. That was already underway, but it's accelerating now; there are a rocky few years ahead of them.

She also consults with Mehitabel over the best time for her to come back down to the ground.

"I don't think it's time yet," she says frankly. "I don't think it'll be genuinely safe until Chelsa is dead. As long as there is no conceivable way she could know you exist, we still have the inverse shield to fall back on, but once the cat's out of the bag the only thing I could possibly do to avoid an enormous shitstorm would be assassinate her on the spot."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 10:18 pm (UTC)

"I wish I could tell my parents, even if walking around on the planet was too risky," Tab says. "How would she find out, if I told them?"

salus_populi
2013-07-05 10:24 pm (UTC)

"They might conceivably mention something to someone, who might conceivably mention it to someone else. And so on. It's not likely, but it's not impossible. And they might not understand - it hasn't been that long since she quit the announcements."

She sighs.

"If you want to see them again and tell them the truth, my best recommendation is that you help me find a way to fish Harley out of the sun. Or a way to get my draining range high enough to hit him while he's still in there. I'm already working on broadcast, but of course I don't have an infinite supply to play with, so I have to be careful not to waste it on experiments."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-05 10:25 pm (UTC)

Tab frowns and nods and starts reading more physics, less sociology.

salus_populi
2013-07-05 10:34 pm (UTC)

Aelise also provides her with up-to-date copies of the list of all the Gifted people in the world, which is expanding now as she encourages more people to get themselves and their children officially tested.

So far, there are no obvious combinations. There are telekinetics other than Sandre, many with better range, but none with his kind of perceptual detail and none who could work at the kind of ranges required. There are no teleporters except for Harley himself, who can apparently only teleport into uncomfortable situations. Aelise is planning to get a spaceship made that can travel as close to the sun as possible, and have Demauri do a fly-around to map Harley's position. But that project will take years, and it might not help them very much.

So far, no one has been born with the Gift of infinite life.

friendly door

her_imperial_radiance

Elspeth gets a door.

It's been so long she reels for a moment, and then she throws herself forward and almost lands in a peal of Bells. Yes, there's Shell Bell, there's Juliet and Aurora, there's Glass, there's some Matilda she hasn't seen before.

"Elspeth!" exclaims Glass.

"How long has it been?" Aurora asks.

"Seventeen years. Shell Bell - I need you to help me find Harley," says Elspeth.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 01:50 am (UTC)

"What happened to him?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 01:51 am (UTC)

"He disappeared - like a variant on Sue's trick, but not controlled. He landed in another world and dreamed his way to Milliways from there. Someone let him into Aurum and he told us about it, but then he woke up. They're - they have an alt of Chelsea."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 01:52 am (UTC)

"Get your mother. We're not opaque except Juliet," says Glass tightly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 01:53 am (UTC)

Elspeth nods, leans back through the door, calls Golden on the brainphone. She's there in a moment, and then Elspeth says, "I'll tell Lizzie, too. The place is run by one of her alts."

[Grandma. Found a door. Found Shell Bell.]
Edited 2013-07-06 02:00 (UTC)

prima_sequentem
2013-07-06 02:02 am (UTC)

[Well, that's convenient,] says Lizzie, and she teleports to Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:03 am (UTC)

"Are you coming? Do you want to know what's going on?" Elspeth asks Agent Honey.

withmypowers
2013-07-06 02:04 am (UTC)

"I would very much like to know what's going on!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:04 am (UTC)

"Unagumented human?" Elspeth asks.

incanted
2013-07-06 02:05 am (UTC)

"Act like it," advises Aurora after a glance at Adularia.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:11 am (UTC)

Elspeth nods, and sends summary at human-tolerable speed.

It's still fast, and still nests within itself with fractal context for instant comprehension. (Addy was so pleased when she learned to do that.)

Harley (her fosterling, a Joker) went missing (like Sue, not controlled, like Glass said) (Elspeth tried and the attractor got him anyway) to another world (no name, has a Libby and a Chelsea (she's a monster, she does this thing)) and it's an empire (dead babies; mind control) run by the first with the aid of the second; Harley dreamed his way to Milliways (Jokers do that, when trapped...) and someone let him out their door and it was Aurum after all (and then she deprogrammed him (with her witchcraft; it is like this -) but she can only do it halfway (she can disillusion but not restore) and it was harder than Chelsea's work ever was to undo) (and his wolf woke (wolves are this thing)) and they did not realize he hadn't only teleported again, that he was dreaming, that he might wake, until he vanished (and Zeus screamed) - and it has been months since in Aurum and who knows how long in the other world.

And she wants him back and home and safe and to tear out everything Chelsa has put into his head and to ask Glass if that was enough, if the template has taken all the toll it needs to be satisfied.

Golden will shield them. Lizzie will talk to Aelise. Elspeth will get her fosterling back again.
Edited 2013-07-06 02:14 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-07-06 02:17 am (UTC)

Matilda blinks.

"Excuse me," she says, "but do you think you could copy that to Adularia?" She taps the rectangular moonstone pendant hanging around her neck, which shimmers.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:18 am (UTC)

"Does she also need it that slowly?" asks Elspeth.

withmypowers
2013-07-06 02:19 am (UTC)

"I think that would be safest for now, pending a controlled test," says Matilda.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:19 am (UTC)

Elspeth nods, and starts sending, again.

She waves impatiently at Shell Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 02:20 am (UTC)

Shell Bell moves for the door. She flares. She concentrates, hard.

withmypowers
2013-07-06 02:24 am (UTC)

Adularia shimmers, then expands into a large, closed book with a sky-blue cover, which Agent Honey hugs against her stomach. If Aurora has her threat sensor out, it may note that Matilda is now prepared to get into some serious shit.

incanted
2013-07-06 02:26 am (UTC)

Aurora does have her threat sensor out. All the Bells have their auras out; hers and Shell Bell's unflavored and Glass's just barely sylvan, Juliet dripping flames and hazard, Golden every inch a vampire half stillness half speed.
Edited 2013-07-06 02:27 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 02:27 am (UTC)

Shell Bell opens the door.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 02:28 am (UTC)

They emerge in Aelise's office.

She raises her eyebrows, taps something on the screen in front of her, and says, "Tell Tab her alts are here."

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 02:29 am (UTC)

"Will do," says Kers's voice out of the computer.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:33 am (UTC)

"Aurora, how are we?" asks Elspeth softly.
Edited 2013-07-06 02:33 (UTC)

incanted
2013-07-06 02:34 am (UTC)

"...Covered. Not an overwhelming safety margin, but covered, and she's not hostile."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 02:35 am (UTC)

Glass is looking at the world. "I do not like this world," she concludes. "It's not as - the thing Sunshine is as Sunshine, but it's not nice."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 02:36 am (UTC)

"Let's hear about Tab," invites Juliet, in tones that do not match her general hellgoddessy-ness.
Edited 2013-07-06 02:37 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:37 am (UTC)

Elspeth, meanwhile, acts on Aurora's information and kills a hex to yoink Harley into her arms.

pythbox
2013-07-06 02:40 am (UTC)

Whatever Aelise was about to say is interrupted by the air catching on fire everywhere it touches the incandescent figure in Elspeth's arms.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 02:41 am (UTC)

Juliet's aura slurps up the fire; she's very bright, for a moment, but then it calms down in among the usual harmless licks of flame that dance on her person. Nothing catches; it is merely warm while her aura performs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:42 am (UTC)

Harley. It's me. With Bells. And she works her witchcraft on the vestiges of what Chelsa did to him.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 02:45 am (UTC)

Aelise looks at Harley (who has by now finished torching and is back to an ordinary temperature) with startlement, then relief. Then she shakes her head and looks at Juliet.

"Tab. Mehitabel Marika Coscoroba. I met her eleven years ago, when she was six. And if I'm going to say anything more about her, I'm going to want some assurance that you're not quite as hostile as you look." She glances at Lizzie when she says this.

prima_sequentem
2013-07-06 02:46 am (UTC)

Lizzie opens her hands slightly in an understated shrug.

pythbox
2013-07-06 02:46 am (UTC)

Harley clings to Elsie and makes muffled sobbing noises.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 02:47 am (UTC)

Elspeth holds him and she works.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 02:48 am (UTC)

"Weren't you going to do the talking?" Juliet asks Lizzie. "Does she mean she wants me to turn my aura off?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 02:49 am (UTC)

Tab writes to Aelise: Would you please ask them if they can grab me down there like they did Harley?

salus_populi
2013-07-06 02:50 am (UTC)

Aelise glances at the screen and says, "Tab would like to be included in this conversation, if you wouldn't mind fetching her. And since she is not currently buried in the sun, it shouldn't be quite so spectacular this time."

prima_sequentem
2013-07-06 02:52 am (UTC)

"Turning your aura off would be conducive to reasonable negotiations," says Lizzie. "She means that she wants to know what we're doing here, what we want, and that we're not going to harm her or Tab or anyone else who might drop into the line of fire while we're talking it over. And there are probably some dicey secrets in the mix that she would rather we not mention to anyone without her say-so."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 02:55 am (UTC)

Juliet withdraws her aura. "Tab's safe if she's a Bell like it sounds like she is, probably safe even if she's not, and if she is a Bell this is her jurisdiction and we are just here to hand her the ability to do whatever she pleases with the place; if you're lucky, she likes you." She snaps her fingers and spends a pentagon, and here is Tab.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 02:56 am (UTC)

"In the interests of full disclosure, Elspeth is not a suitable repository for secrets."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 02:57 am (UTC)

Here is Tab, indeed. The auras didn't come through on the security feed; she blinks a lot, when she gets a look at them. "Wow."

incanted
2013-07-06 02:58 am (UTC)

"All this and more can be yours for nine ninety-nine," Aurora mutters under her breath. "Should any subset of us duck into Milliways?" she adds at normal volume.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 02:59 am (UTC)

Aelise is now looking analytically at Harley.

prima_sequentem
2013-07-06 03:01 am (UTC)

"Good question," says Lizzie. She is looking analytically at Aelise.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:02 am (UTC)

Aelise says, very definitely to Harley: "Chelsa is retired."

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:02 am (UTC)

He bursts into tears and clings to Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 03:04 am (UTC)

"Just retired?" mutters Elspeth.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 03:04 am (UTC)

"World's Downsideable," reports Golden in an undertone.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:06 am (UTC)

"I don't know what that means, but it sounds murdery; don't just up and kill her, please," says Tab, "she still has enough contact with the population for it to be a sharp shock."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 03:06 am (UTC)

Golden's aura is still out, like all of them except Juliet's; her hiss is very nonhuman, but she doesn't disagree aloud.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:09 am (UTC)

"And Corona is dead."

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:09 am (UTC)

Harley pulls his face away from Elspeth to give Aelise a look of astonishment.

Hoarsely: "What?"

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:12 am (UTC)

"He denied Kers's protection and died about a minute later, a little while after you dropped yourself into the sun," she says. "We never found his body."

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:13 am (UTC)

He stares some more - frowns - licks his lips - shakes his head and hugs Elspeth some more.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:14 am (UTC)

"Corona was Harley's local alt," says Aelise, in case anyone might find this clarification useful.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 03:15 am (UTC)

"World's Downsideable," says Glass. "We can pick him up on our way out. We were going to Origin next anyway." She nibbles her lip, then says, "World's related to Eos and Aurum, in that way they have."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:16 am (UTC)

"...Pick him up," Aelise echoes.

prima_sequentem
2013-07-06 03:17 am (UTC)

"From the afterlife," says Lizzie.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:17 am (UTC)

"Well that's a game-changer," Aelise says thoughtfully.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 03:20 am (UTC)

"And is also some, although admittedly not most, of why I sounded murdery," Golden adds to Tab. "If we eventually come up with some way to safely store Chelseas - perhaps we accumulate a few hundred of them and can store them far away from anyone who doesn't produce informed consent in triplicate after Elspeth's gone over them - then they won't be irretrievable."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:20 am (UTC)

"What is Elspeth doing?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 03:21 am (UTC)

"I am deprogramming Harley," says Elspeth quietly. "My power is oriented around truth. I can make people stop lying to themselves in the ways that support what Chelsa's power does. It's harder for this one than it was for the Aurum version, but I can do it."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:23 am (UTC)

Aelise shudders slightly.

"That's a disaster waiting to happen," she says. "Not for Harley - you can have Harley with my best wishes - but please do not do that to, for example, me. I still have to deal with her occasionally and if I fade any faster than standard, she'll want to know why."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 03:25 am (UTC)

"I hadn't even gotten to the point of thinking to offer. I'm only working on Harley. For Chelsea I could do a lot of people all at once. I can barely do one at a time with this one. It took almost half an hour last time."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:29 am (UTC)

"Well, just for future reference," she says, relaxing slightly. "I'd ask you not to spread it around, too, but apparently you can't."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 03:30 am (UTC)

Elspeth looks at her.

She does not have it in her to be tactful; that is not her nature.

"It was very inconvenient for the last mind-control-using murderer overlords whose subjects I deprogrammed, certainly."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:38 am (UTC)

"As far as I can tell," says Aelise, unruffled, "either people from my world just have a higher inclination to go to war with each other than people from yours, or throwing Gifts into the mix changes the game significantly. When I let Chelsa loose on the world, I was trying to avoid it being nuked down to a population of one. As far as I can tell from what Harley said to Tab about ten years ago, your world has never faced down a crisis of that magnitude, or at least not from such a short distance. Now that I've finally got her back in the box, I am not going to let the last three hundred years go to waste by ripping the band-aid off six billion minds."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 03:39 am (UTC)

"It's the Gifts," reports Glass. "That's what I was seeing - the world isn't meaner, it just has higher stakes, bigger powers than Aurum or Eos have."
Edited 2013-07-06 03:40 (UTC)

incanted
2013-07-06 03:45 am (UTC)

"I think a subset of us should go to Milliways," puts in Aurora. "Shell Bell and Golden are the only Bells who need to be here - and maybe Tab but we'll only be out for a moment and she's got New Bell Stuff to do. Me and Glass and Juliet between us can get Downside to grab Corona, to Rainbow to snag Brilliance if Corona's not on board with enchanneling, and to Chronicle so Tab can dump power into the forest, and have her back all nicely Belled up, yeah? And Harley and Elspeth don't need to be here unless anyone besides him needs deprogramming. You have been safe, right, Tab?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:46 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's my Gift."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 03:47 am (UTC)

"I'm on board with going to do New Bell Stuff, trying to do diplomacy is -" Juliet shakes her head. "Shell Bell, if you would? Agent Honey, sticking around or following us?"

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:48 am (UTC)

"Have fun," Aelise says dryly to Tab. "Don't stay out too late."

withmypowers
2013-07-06 03:51 am (UTC)

"...I think I will follow you," Agent Honey decides. Adularia shimmers back into her dormant form as a pendant around her neck.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:51 am (UTC)

Tab sticks out her tongue at Aelise.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 03:53 am (UTC)

Aelise grins at her.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 03:53 am (UTC)

Shell Bell's aura flares from normal to blinding, and she opens the door to let the departing contingent out.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 03:55 am (UTC)

Out they go. Juliet concentrates and reopens the door shortly after it closes. Downside! They don't want to split up, without Jane syncing them, so she just sticks her head in, torchables Tab while Elspeth starts summarizing things at her, and says to the admin, [Just added a world. Can I get its Joker?]

ending_of
2013-07-06 03:59 am (UTC)

[Of course.]

The requested party appears, fresh from the catacombs and entirely unclothed. That isn't usual; apparently he died naked. Well, he is a Joker.

incanted
2013-07-06 04:00 am (UTC)

Aurora squares him clad in something Brilliance might wear.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 04:00 am (UTC)

"He might not want to go back to my world - do I get to name it? Is that how we do it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 04:01 am (UTC)

"That is how we do it," says Juliet. "If he doesn't, we drop him off in the Home for Wayward Jokers, also known as Pattern's world Origin." And she wakes clothed Corona.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:02 am (UTC)

"...What the hell?" says Corona, blinking. "Shit, why am I not dead?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 04:03 am (UTC)

"You are! So'm I. We're the queens of Hell," says Juliet, waving him into Milliways.

incanted
2013-07-06 04:04 am (UTC)

"Juliet," chides Aurora. "Elspeth, could you - I know you're trying to concentrate on Harley and explain to Tab, but -"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:06 am (UTC)

Elspeth pets Harley's hair and nods.

(He died (there is an afterlife (it was once awful (torture and eternity and the uncaring infinite) but it has been fixed by these and their alts (alts are this thing; like him and Harley (she is Harley's Elspeth, if ever he mentioned her or Corona guessed)) and they can remove people from it at will; and they knew he took his own life (but the other Jokers, of whom there are many, whom he may meet, like to be alive, and Chelsa can never touch him again, and Elspeth can deprogram him as she is doing for Harley, if he likes, when she is done with her fosterling.))

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:07 am (UTC)

Corona blinks.

And grins at Juliet, and says, "I'll be your queen of Hell any day."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 04:08 am (UTC)

"Some of me would be all over you. I'm not one of them," Juliet says. "After we've brought Tab up to speed we're headed for Origin. We can drop you off there with some other stray Jokers if you don't have anywhere else in mind."

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:10 am (UTC)

"I don't really care where I go as long as it's not back and you scrub Chelsa off me first," he says. "And I get to hug Harley. I wanna hug Harley."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:12 am (UTC)

"Probably he will let you at some point," says Elspeth, looking down at Harley who she's holding so he doesn't have to support his weight, who doesn't currently appear to harbor any intention of ever letting her go.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 04:12 am (UTC)

Tab is now reading a copy of the Bellbook eagerly.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:13 am (UTC)

Harley clings to her some more.

Corona smiles fondly at them.

incanted
2013-07-06 04:14 am (UTC)

"One of the things on Tab's checklist is acquiring an enchantress's aura. This requires a helper. The helper hurts," says Aurora. "I dunno where you are psychologically; if it's not good I can lean into my world and get Brilliance instead, but you're more convenient."

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:18 am (UTC)

Corona shrugs. "I can do hurting."

incanted
2013-07-06 04:19 am (UTC)

"Okay. Depending on how much hurting, this is gonna take at least an hour. I maybe should get Brilliance anyway for the taking of breaks." She leans around him to get the door. [Hey Sunshine?]

cardistry
2013-07-06 04:20 am (UTC)

[What's up?]

incanted
2013-07-06 04:21 am (UTC)

[The repealing effort ran into Elspeth and we had to go rescue Harley from a nasty world. Had a local Bell and a Joker. Wanna come participate in the aura part of her checklist with him?]

cardistry
2013-07-06 12:13 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] he says. [Wait, which him? How old is Harley now?]

He appears just the same, though.

incanted
2013-07-06 02:48 pm (UTC)

[Nasty world one. Corona. Harley's in a state. He's seventeen - or, at least so, not clear how much time passed in Tab's world since he's been there - and we haven't asked him if he wants to help.] She greets Brilliance with a kiss.

cardistry
2013-07-06 02:50 pm (UTC)

Kiss. Snuggle.

To Milliways!

incanted
2013-07-06 02:51 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance, Corona. Corona, Brilliance."

cardistry
2013-07-06 02:52 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Brilliance. Just for the hell of it, he turns on his aura. Colourful flares of light glint from his skin and hair and clothes. "Lemme guess, Aurora put you in that?"

pythbox
2013-07-06 02:55 pm (UTC)

"You're pretty," Corona says admiringly. He touches the hem of his T-shirt. "I have no idea who put me in this, I just woke up like two minutes ago, I'm still kind of dealing with not being dead. What is that?" He reaches out a hand, and a pink glimmer tucked into a curl of Brilliance's hair brightens into a tiny sun.

cardistry
2013-07-06 02:56 pm (UTC)

"It's my aura," laughs Brilliance. "You can have one too, but I bet it won't be this pretty."

And first he is going to hug his new friend!

pythbox
2013-07-06 02:56 pm (UTC)

Snuggy hugs!

Brilliance's aura wraps around both of them, and the colours flare brighter and more vivid than usual.

incanted
2013-07-06 02:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I put him in that, he apparently died naked," says Aurora, "and I'm the only person repealed so far who has a Joker in, you know, a personal sense, so I didn't expect anyone else to think of an outfit before I did."

pythbox
2013-07-06 02:59 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Corona cheerfully from the middle of the lightshow. "Aww, I wanna hug you forever, we're so shiny."

This last is presumably not directed at Aurora.

incanted
2013-07-06 03:00 pm (UTC)

Aurora does not deign to suppose that it might. "You're welcome."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 03:00 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Elspeth is speeding along Tab's introduction while she deprograms Harley slow-and-sure -

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:03 pm (UTC)

- and Tab is putting the finishing touches on her very limited deviations from the Bells standard wish set. (She's taking something halfway between standard flight and Aegis's version.)

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:05 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Corona lets go of Brilliance, although not without a promissory grin.

"So are we gonna go do something or what?" he asks the general crowd.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:06 pm (UTC)

Tab is super-fast now and flipping through the end of the Bellbook. "We're going to go to Glass's world and I'm going to cheat at aura-getting with her enchanted forest."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 03:07 pm (UTC)

"You can pick up an aura there too, if you'd like," Glass adds to Corona, heading for the door. "And Harley too, if he recovers enough while we're there. The forest likes the extra magic; Marianne has taken to low-level channeling almost all the time."

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:08 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun. What's channeling like?" he says curiously.

cardistry
2013-07-06 03:08 pm (UTC)

"Fun!" beams Brilliance, his aura swirling with colours.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 03:13 pm (UTC)

"It hurts for the channel - sort of a stinging stretchedness? - and lasts awhile, if the channel isn't the same person as the enchanter." Glass opens the door. "Jarvis, please tell everyone who might care to know that we've found a new Bell Tab, a new Joker Corona, and a grown-up Harley, and we're stopping in for aura purposes." (Jarvis is handy for filtering for people who are likely to care to know, and he is better at timing than her previous strategy of "indiscriminate immediate brainphone".)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 03:13 pm (UTC)

"We can go to Chronicle, or back to Aurum, or stay here," murmurs Elspeth to Harley, who she's still holding.

poeticterms
2013-07-06 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Will do. Welcome, all," says Jarvis.

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:15 pm (UTC)

As the rest of them pile through, Harley clings to Elspeth and cuddles her wordlessly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 03:15 pm (UTC)

In the absence of a decision from Harley, Elspeth follows the crowd.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:18 pm (UTC)

"...Hi, Jarvis," says Tab shyly. "So, um, I have enchanting all wished up, who's channeling for me first?"
Edited 2013-07-06 15:18 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:19 pm (UTC)

"I wanna try!" says Corona, grinning at her.

incanted
2013-07-06 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Start with something medium-sized because they vary in tolerance some, and, Elspeth warned you in her explanation this is a thing with Jokers, right, you don't have to do anything about it but if that bothers you we should go back Downside and see if Eights is free."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:23 pm (UTC)

"It can be his thing as long as no one expects it to be my thing," shrugs Tab. "Symbiosis, yeah? I just dump power in the forest and it'll suck it up?" At Glass's nod, she tilts back into her mindscape - the orbital ring - and reaches for Corona's.
Edited 2013-07-06 15:32 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:33 pm (UTC)

Corona's mindscape is a broad, bright field of wildflowers, dotted with trees and bordered by water. The shape of that ring of water almost suggests a moat, and there are piles of old, tumbled stones covered with ivy that hint at a tall building that might once have stood here. A castle, maybe. But it's hardly possible to tell under all that vegetation.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:34 pm (UTC)

Pretty.

And now it has a medium-sized amount of Heart flowing through it. Tab is definitely having emotions at this time.

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," murmurs Corona.

Without really thinking it through, he wraps his Gift around the feeling of power passing through him, and turns up the dial.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Whoa, that is not in the standard enchanting manual," says Tab. "Did you run it through your Gift?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Not medium-sized at all," agrees Glass, "as it hit the forest. Wow."

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," laughs Corona. "This is fun." He hugs himself and beams and turns it up - brighter, hotter, more.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 03:41 pm (UTC)

"I'm intensely curious to know if the aura counts what you're putting in or what he's putting out," says Glass. "Maybe he can have this all done in fifteen minutes."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay," laughs Tab, and she carries on channeling at medium-size until Corona tells her otherwise.

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:43 pm (UTC)

Corona keeps on amplifying the stream of power, although he has to snuggle into Brilliance's lap after a few minutes. He doesn't ask for a break, though.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:46 pm (UTC)

And in, indeed, about fifteen minutes, Tab is as brightly auraed as her counterparts. There's not a flavor to hers, though.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it would have been more efficient to mint him first," sighs Glass, "I didn't think of it, that's a pity - anyway - I'm seeing stuff, but I can't tell you exactly what it does. Lazarus could, he gets interpretation with his magic-seeing. This feature here looks slightly teleportation-colored but not shaped like the Bell standard..."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 03:48 pm (UTC)

"I'll find out," beams Tab.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 03:48 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Harley is as deprogrammed as Elspeth can get him.

I'll start un-Chelsaing you now, she tells Corona.

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:49 pm (UTC)

Corona hugs Brilliance, since Brilliance is closer, and beams at Elspeth.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 03:51 pm (UTC)

Carinna peeps around the doorframe into the room curiously.

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:52 pm (UTC)

Corona spots this new face and waves from where he's snuggled up in Brilliance's lap.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 03:53 pm (UTC)

Carinna has not really met Jokers before; she was shy of most everyone at the only Bellparty she has attended, and that was five years ago when she was seven. She does not unhide.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to come in, Carinna?" asks Glass.
Edited 2013-07-06 15:56 (UTC)

exactlyright
2013-07-06 03:56 pm (UTC)

Carinna shifts uncertainly. "I dunno."

pythbox
2013-07-06 03:57 pm (UTC)

Corona shrugs and cuddles down again, nestling his head on Brilliance's shoulder. Brilliance hugs him. Light plays over them both.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 03:59 pm (UTC)

"What's wrong with that one Princess Elspeth is holding?" asks Carinna. Princess Elspeth is remembered, because she is a) a princess and b) Elspeth.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:00 pm (UTC)

That one Princess Elspeth is holding has no answer for this; he just snuggles her and shivers.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:00 pm (UTC)

"He's been to a world that is not as nice as this one, and some bad things happened to him," says Elspeth.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 04:02 pm (UTC)

Carinna considers this, and then, slowly, tentatively, and ready to bolt if anyone makes a sudden movement, she steps into the room, takes Mossy out of her skirt pocket, and puts it (poofs have never been found to have discernible sexes) on Harley's chest.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:04 pm (UTC)

The poof whmmms and glows.

Harley opens his eyes, and blinks at it, and unwraps one arm from around Elspeth to pet its soft green fur. Mossy glows and whmmmms. Harley cuddles it and closes his eyes again with a soft, sad smile.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 04:05 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 04:05 pm (UTC)

Glass hugs her daughter.

incanted
2013-07-06 04:07 pm (UTC)

"So we're waiting for Corona to come out of afterglow from an entire aura's worth of enchanting and then he'll get his own and then we go back to Tab's world, is the plan, right?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Corona, you can torch, now, if you want to speed that up any."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 04:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna call my world Gift, I think."

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Torch? What, you mean like Harley? Awesome," says Corona. He snuggles comfortably into Brilliance's lap. "But I think maybe if we could just get a room, that'd be just as good."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Yes, like Harley. The white guest room is open, I think - go left out that hall, through the double doors, down the stairs, up the other stairs, first on the right, Jarvis can help you if you get lost."

cardistry
2013-07-06 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Brilliance says cheerfully, scooping up Corona and starting off on the indicated route.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:14 pm (UTC)

Elspeth has sufficient range to continue from this distance.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 04:17 pm (UTC)

Bells set about gossiping and talking to Tab about how she's going to handle her world. They discover that her coins are glowing mirrors, which catch surrounding colors but give them back brighter. They fit her with a starting set, mostly in Brilliance's color, in all sizes.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:18 pm (UTC)

Harley curls up and cuddles Mossy and doesn't say anything. But he seems more content now.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 04:19 pm (UTC)

Carinna lurks, making sure he is nice to Mossy.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:20 pm (UTC)

Are cuddles nice? Cuddles and sleepy petpets.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 04:20 pm (UTC)

Those are acceptable.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:21 pm (UTC)

Good. Because Mossy is fluffy and cute, and cuddling it seems to be extremely restorative.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 04:22 pm (UTC)

That is the idea!

"There's a whole cave full of those," Carinna ventures softly after a while.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says Harley, smiling and petting Mossy.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 04:38 pm (UTC)

Carinna looks him over, then says, "I think you should put him in it, Princess Elspeth. Then he can be in a pile of Gentle Animals. And he should try the magic spring water."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:38 pm (UTC)

Elspeth looks Harley over for reactions to this idea.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:39 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles up to her and nods slowly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:39 pm (UTC)

She kisses his forehead. "Please let me know when the group is leaving," she says to the Bells.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Of course," says Glass, taking Mossy off Harley and giving it back to Carinna.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:40 pm (UTC)

Elspeth teleports them to the Gentle Cave.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:42 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles into her lap.

A trio of poofs, pink and purple and blue, roll up to them and bump against Elspeth's feet, squeaking a squeaky little chorus.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:43 pm (UTC)

Elspeth looks quizzically at poofs, but scoops some up onto Harley.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:43 pm (UTC)

Harley gathers them into his arms with a smile.

The poofs glow and whmmm and snuggle down fluffily.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:44 pm (UTC)

Elspeth kisses Harley's forehead.

She can't reach Corona from here, but Harley is her priority.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:46 pm (UTC)

He leans on her and cuddles his armful of poofs. A few more roll up and bump into available bits of Elspeth, squeaking hopefully.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:47 pm (UTC)

She continues piling poofs onto him. They seem to help.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:48 pm (UTC)

Harley mumbles something. It doesn't come out as any kind of intelligible utterance. He tries again, and manages a slurred, "Love you, Elsie."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:49 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:50 pm (UTC)

He smiles and scoops a blue poof into his hand and, somewhat clumsily, rubs it against her cheek. It is fluffy and soft.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 04:50 pm (UTC)

That does appear to be the characteristic of poofs, yes.

pythbox
2013-07-06 04:51 pm (UTC)

His feelings thus expressed, Harley goes back to cuddling the poofpile.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 04:55 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Tab has started composing a profile to splice into the Bellbook when they go back through Milliways. As soon as she puts any of it on paper, she makes a face. "Oh, huh. I think - Glass, have you got a library? Without anything especially private in it?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Glass, and she teleports Tab into same. "Figured out an aura feature?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 04:56 pm (UTC)

Tab reaches out for a shelf-ful of books. "Yeah. I'm just - instantly reading everything I'm near. Within about a foot, but if I'm close enough to a little bit of a book, I get the whole thing."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to suck up all the books I own, or just note it and move on?" laughs Glass.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 04:57 pm (UTC)

"I'll finish the enchanting section, I think." Tab flies around the enchanting section, then says, "All done," and they teleport back to the other Bells.

pythbox
2013-07-06 05:02 pm (UTC)

Corona returns with Brilliance, wearing a new set of conjured clothes and giggling to himself. His happiness is radiant, the brightest thing in the room, warm and comfortable with a bubbly overtone of laughter. Joker auras do tend to project their emotions more readily than standard, but this takes it to a whole new level; you could cozy up to it like a fireplace to warm your hands at in winter.

It's not just that the depth, intensity, and detail of the projection are all incredible, either. It comes with other effects - physical comfort like Aianon and Ansharil's aura, but with a flavour to it that echoes the 'happy, comfortable, contented' theme; a subtle shimmer in the air around him; a pleasant ring to the sound of his laughing voice. As though his aura is determined to make being around him more pleasant, on every available level, in a way that marches in step with the flavour of his emotional projection.
Edited 2013-07-06 17:54 (UTC)

incanted
2013-07-06 05:55 pm (UTC)

"That's nifty," says Aurora, smiling.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 05:56 pm (UTC)

Juliet is least impressed of the subpeal, but she smiles approvingly too.

pythbox
2013-07-06 06:04 pm (UTC)

Corona beams.

"It's even more fun when I turn it up," he says, and flares the aura with a touch of his Gift in the mix. The amount of coziness in the room just about triples, and the amount and intensity of available information about his mood (cheerful, open, friendly, snuggly) does likewise.

cardistry
2013-07-06 06:05 pm (UTC)

Brilliance wraps his arms around Corona's waist and nuzzles his cheek, sparkling with his own aura's version of happiness.
Edited 2013-07-06 18:05 (UTC)

exactlyright
2013-07-06 06:06 pm (UTC)

Carinna, who has been sitting on the floor at Glass's feet with Mossy in her lap, is fascinated.

pythbox
2013-07-06 06:07 pm (UTC)

Corona grins and waves at her.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 06:08 pm (UTC)

She waves back.

pythbox
2013-07-06 06:09 pm (UTC)

He giggles and hugs Brilliance, causing another brief coziness flare.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Corona's all set with his aura, we're about ready to get out of here,] Juliet reports to Elspeth, conferencing in Harley as a courtesy.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to ask if you can take one of these things home with you?" Elspeth asks Harley.

pythbox
2013-07-06 07:09 pm (UTC)

Harley nods, hugging his armful of glowing, humming poofs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 07:10 pm (UTC)

Elspeth asks. "Glass says they are called poofs, and you can take one but they need the water that's found here, which can be replicated with coins to no ill effect."

pythbox
2013-07-06 07:12 pm (UTC)

Harley nods again, and hugs his poofpile.

After a moment, he sits up and scoops them all out of his lap and onto the floor as gently as possible. A big bluish-lavender poof immediately hops back into his lap; he hugs it and grins.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 07:13 pm (UTC)

Elspeth stands up again and teleports them to the subpeal.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 07:13 pm (UTC)

"You kept one," observes Carinna. "What are you going to call it?"

pythbox
2013-07-06 07:14 pm (UTC)

Harley closes his eyes and pets his poof. After a few seconds, he shrugs.

exactlyright
2013-07-06 07:15 pm (UTC)

"You'll think of something," says Carinna. "Mine is named Mossy."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 07:16 pm (UTC)

"We ready to leave?" Juliet asks everyone.

pythbox
2013-07-06 07:19 pm (UTC)

Harley pets his nameless poof.

Corona says, "Sure! Hell if I'm going back where I came from, though." To Elspeth, he says, "You're not either, right? Can I come wherever you're going?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 07:23 pm (UTC)

Elspeth is deprogramming Corona again. "I'm going back to Aurum. I think my door-friendliness is back to normal, so even if Mama turns out not to want arbitrary numbers of Jokers in her world it should be relatively straightforward to send you to Origin instead."

pythbox
2013-07-06 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Corona. "Count me in, then." He gives Brilliance a goodbye kiss.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Jarvis, if you would?"

poeticterms
2013-07-06 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Of course."

He opens a door to Milliways.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 07:27 pm (UTC)

Through go Bells and Jokers and Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 07:27 pm (UTC)

Elspeth opens the door once it has closed, and lo, it is Aurum.

Before she goes through, she looks over her shoulder at Glass.

"Is that attractor done with Harley yet?" she asks softly.
Edited 2013-07-06 19:27 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 07:28 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah," says Glass, after a long stare. "He's not - safe exactly, but it's not pulling on him, any more."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-06 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

Elspeth holds the door for Corona, then follows, carrying Harley.

pythbox
2013-07-06 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Bye, everybody!" says Corona. "Thanks for raising me from the dead!"

And the door closes behind them.

incanted
2013-07-06 07:31 pm (UTC)

[Agent Honey, you still lurking in here?]

withmypowers
2013-07-06 07:32 pm (UTC)

[Yep! Why, did you need me for something?]

incanted
2013-07-06 07:32 pm (UTC)

[Nope, we're just going back to Gift if you want to come.]

withmypowers
2013-07-06 07:32 pm (UTC)

[No, thank you.]

incanted
2013-07-06 07:33 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

"Agent Honey's staying here. Brilliance, you following us or going to Rainbow or hanging out in the bar or what?"

cardistry
2013-07-06 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Back to Rainbow, I think," he decides. And gives Aurora a hug and a kiss. "See you later. Grab me if you find more Jokers."

incanted
2013-07-06 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Will do," laughs Aurora.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 07:38 pm (UTC)

When Brilliance has gone, Tab opens the door, and they're back in Aelise's office. Her aura's out, bright as the other unflavored sorts, but she comes up short when she gets within a few feet of Aelise's desk. "Uh, Aelise, I automatically slurp up books I get near enough now and I don't know if it works on computers. Do you want me to stand back from yours or am I cleared?"

salus_populi
2013-07-06 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Go right ahead," she says, with an inviting gesture.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 07:40 pm (UTC)

Tab waves her hand over the computer. "Does slurp, doesn't decrypt," she laughs.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 07:41 pm (UTC)

She smiles. "Well, that doesn't sound very useful."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 07:43 pm (UTC)

"A square, maybe a pentagon, will probably do decryption, and that's before Jane's back online," says Golden, glancing at Tab's new bracelet.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 07:43 pm (UTC)

Aelise raises her eyebrows slightly.

prima_sequentem
2013-07-06 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Should I explain Jane?" wonders Lizzie.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 07:47 pm (UTC)

"I got it, Elspeth was pretty thorough," says Tab. "Jane's an accidental AI who basically works for the peal of Bells. She's broken now, but when she works she does at-will interworld transit and eats Internets. She can avoid parts of them - she hasn't bothered the various Jarvises, who are non-accidental AIs who are attached to another template we don't have here - and I think she'll need to steer clear of a few things here, too. But there's no harm in just having a gem that connects up to her Belltower hub so she can talk to me if she reappears."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Aelise. "Thank you."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Elspeth has gone home to Aurum with Harley, but it's still possible to get her back, if there is anyone who should be deprogrammed," Tab adds. "Oh, and Golden, she took Corona with her for the time being but he's aware you might send him to Origin."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 07:51 pm (UTC)

"I have all the Jokers I need; if he prefers Aurum to Origin for some reason I suppose I have little reason to object to an extra."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 07:55 pm (UTC)

[Aelise, lookit, telepathy,] Tab adds. [I was thinking - there is a problem, with Jane broken, that time doesn't sync between worlds. This sub-peal ran into Elspeth who sent them here in the process of collecting all the other Bells to regroup. The interworld signaling tech, ansibles, is one thing that works for syncing, but it doesn't do it without an awake person on both ends - Jane's ansibles are still hooked up but Aurum's been out seventeen years and Atlantis mere seconds. I'm wondering if Kers would count?]

salus_populi
2013-07-06 08:01 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, telepathy,] says Aelise. [That does sound like a solvable problem. Can we manage a trial without markedly increasing the likelihood that someone here will assassinate me?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:03 pm (UTC)

[Well, I can make you Harley-style immortal,] says Tab. [I don't think they'll assassinate you. They take jurisdiction pretty seriously and I've been theoretically capable of killing you since I was twelve.]

salus_populi
2013-07-06 08:06 pm (UTC)

[Please do make me Harley-style immortal. And try not to drop me in the sun afterward if you can possibly avoid it. Make Kers Harley-style immortal, more to the point. And after you've done that, ask her if she'd like to come down and say hello.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:07 pm (UTC)

Torchable. [I do not anticipate dropping you into the sun.] "One sec, guys." Pop up to the orbital ring! "Hi, Kers, wanna be Harley-style immortal?"
Edited 2013-07-06 20:09 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 08:09 pm (UTC)

"You have been busy. That sounds like a great idea, as long as nobody is planning on launching me into the sun."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:10 pm (UTC)

Tab laughs. Torchable. "Nobody plans on doing that. Wanna come talk to my alts?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Sure, why not."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:11 pm (UTC)

Pop!

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 08:11 pm (UTC)

"There is definitely some interaction between your teleporting and your aura, I just can't figure out what," muses Glass. "Maybe we should go to Eos next and get Lazarus to look at you."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Hello, you must be Kers." Juliet is the only Bell in the room without her aura on; it's paradoxically conspicuous.

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Must I?" says Kers, raising her eyebrows.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Libbies all have aunts," Tab explains. "They just wanted the name variant; they figured there had to be one because Aelise isn't an Elizabeth and I'm not an Isabella."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I have a Libby at home, myself," Juliet says. "Nicknamed James. I got politely introduced to her Chris like five minutes after I teleported uninvited into their house, are you some kind of secret?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 08:18 pm (UTC)

"I am the most secret of secrets," says Kers, "but someone has an excellent reason to want to introduce me to you guys and I would love to know what it is."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I think you might be able to sync time between various universes," says Tab brightly.

incanted
2013-07-06 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Oh, bravo, ways to do that are good things, I hate waiting for doors," laughs Aurora. "What's the mechanism?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 08:21 pm (UTC)

"How many universes? Special requirements? We'd just have Jarvises everywhere if they didn't insist on being inhabited houses."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Kers wants to be houses. Kers, they've got instantaneous signaling that persists between universes," Tab explains. "It syncs time, if nothing's at relativistic speed - and if there's a person on both ends. Their usual person is not working, and the backup person insists on being houses. Very nice houses, but it's a constraint."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Although I feel silly for not having thought of installing him in the castle before the most recent breakage."

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 08:25 pm (UTC)

"I have never had any particular ambition toward being a house," says Kers. "Sure, I'll try it."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 08:28 pm (UTC)

"One of you is a werewolf," volunteers Shell Bell impishly. "One to start? Where should we put the other end, the Belltower?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Belltower's good. Tab, you want to run it there?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Sure." Tab conjures up an ansible with Gift-friendly plugs, twists it in half, waves one in Kers's direction. "Where do you want this?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Orbital ring would be good. It's not like we're short on network hubs up there."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 08:41 pm (UTC)

Tab nods, pops up, inserts the half, pops back down, gestures at Shell Bell, goes to Milliways, plugs in the other half, and returns to Aelise's office. "All set," she tells Kers.

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's definitely a computer system," she says after a moment. "Weird aftertaste to it, though. And it's six kinds of fried. Some of the problems go right down to the hardware, I think. I can barely get it to squeak when I poke it."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 09:00 pm (UTC)

"The hardware, really? I guess that's another reason to go to Eos next instead of Origin."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 09:01 pm (UTC)

"I tried wishing it fixed. Maybe I didn't know enough to be specific correctly."

incanted
2013-07-06 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Are the clocks synced up?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 09:09 pm (UTC)

"In the ring and the tower? As much as they can be," she says. "Right now there's such pervasive instability, the tower isn't synced up with itself. But the two ends of the link you gave me agree with each other. I'm guessing there's more links in the tower, but I can't reach them to tell you how their clocks are doing."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 09:10 pm (UTC)

"She is so, so broken," sighs Shell Bell. "Last time wasn't this bad. What is in that world?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I'll stick my head in first and find out but I want Golden covering me while I do it. Or Tab, if Tab can do that," shudders Glass.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I can blanket other people as long as I'm awake," Tab assures her. "I can also do it inside-out but that's probably not what you have in mind. And - Kers, I didn't wink out when I left the world, did I?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Nope," she says. "Do you want me to start covering your friends?" She eyes the small crowd. "I can get these, but how many more are there?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm number fourteen, total," says Tab. "If you only count Bells and not anybody's partners or children or siblings. It's mostly Glass, she's the one who'd need to peer into uninvestigated worlds like the one that broke Jane. The rest of them should be fine coasting on wishes and torching."

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Done," shrugs Kers.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Glass. "I like my aura powers. On net. The part where I'm the bellwether for - oh, hey, that's a pun in English, cute - for nasty worlds is a little scary."

queensidecastle
2013-07-06 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Well, now you have fewer things to be scared of."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 09:23 pm (UTC)

Glass smiles at her.

Then she suddenly squints at Tab, and at Aelise, and frowns, and says, "How did you two meet exactly?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 09:28 pm (UTC)

"...Why, what are you seeing?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 09:28 pm (UTC)

"...It looks like she almost killed you."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 09:29 pm (UTC)

"It was an option on the table but I was pretty smart when I was six so she could stash me elsewhere instead, I sulked about it for a while when I was thirteen," says Tab. "How is that the sort of thing you can see? It's not exactly a Bell attractor, is it?"
Edited 2013-07-06 21:30 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 09:30 pm (UTC)

"...No, it's not a template thing, it's a metacausality thing that isn't a template thing," says Glass. "It looks - ugh, this power - it looks like she retroactively didn't kill you."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 09:31 pm (UTC)

"...What kind of sense is that supposed to make?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 09:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't know!" exclaims Glass. "My aura didn't come with an instruction manual, I just say things."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 09:32 pm (UTC)

"...Well, I'm alive," says Tab. "And well. And I had to fake my death, but that's not unprecedented." She waves at Shell Bell and Golden.
Edited 2013-07-06 21:33 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-07-06 09:57 pm (UTC)

Aelise smiles.

"And we're halfway to solving the immortality scale issue, if you can create Harleys at will. So in a hundred years or so, when Chelsa dies of old age, you can contact your parents without risking the stability of my empire."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking of putting Toronto on Venus," says Tab. "And then they could just quietly emigrate."

incanted
2013-07-06 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Putting Toronto on Venus would be a lot easier with Jane, but you should be able to do it with a hex for the city - maybe a star - on top of terraforming the planet, and the population will probably go with an arrow, and the admin solved the duping problem. I can spot you the coins, but you'll want your own mint. Maybe we can finagle Ghosty for you if Corona never wants to come back."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:06 pm (UTC)

Aelise nods thoughtfully.

"You can have Toronto, sure. And a certain amount of quiet emigration. That will definitely solve some problems. But keep an eye on your Gifted and call me if you sense trouble; I would like to have the Last War stay that way. And don't resurrect Delphi. There's a reason they dropped a nuclear bomb on that crowd."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 10:08 pm (UTC)

"We'll stop by Origin and you can talk to Stella about managing ingots. They're not as scaled-up and splashy as Gifted, but they do invariably 'win' versus coined stuff."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Delphi sleeps forever, I crib Stella's notes," says Tab agreeably.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Chelsa also sleeps forever, when she sleeps, even if you opt to let that be in a century," says Golden, "we have a do-not-wake order on that template, among others."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 10:11 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell shivers slightly.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:13 pm (UTC)

"...One of you is managing a world full of people with Gift-like powers?" says Aelise.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Two of us, but on my world coined wishes can interfere with and modify witchcraft - although not with perfect reliability. On Eos with ingot powers, that's simply impossible - coins are native to there and they always lose the contest. Stella's experience will probably be more relevant to Gift than mine in this respect."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Aelise. "I think I'd like to see Stella's notes."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I have a perfect memory now," chirps Tab. "I can report back."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Stella's also got a Libby - the eponymous - and it briefly looked like they were going to be nemeses," volunteers Juliet. "Instead, Elspeth sold Libby on Bells-as-benevolent-dictators and they started the trend of Libbies as Bell personnel officers."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I think that's a pretty sensible trend," says Aelise.

prima_sequentem
2013-07-06 10:20 pm (UTC)

"It's working out reasonably well for me," says Lizzie.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Lizzie," says Golden, gesturing, "is my mother in law, in case that wasn't clear via any form of telepathy."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I hadn't actually caught that part, no. Congratulations."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 10:24 pm (UTC)

"And Elspeth's my daughter; I don't think that came up either."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-06 10:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm the only one who's older than my Libby. She succeeded me at a mystical destiny sort of thing after I got assassinated; I showed up to warn her."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:26 pm (UTC)

"I did actually know that Elspeth was your daughter," says Aelise to Golden. "Harley mentioned her to Tab once."

incanted
2013-07-06 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Hey, Glass, why is it always daughters? And for that matter, albeit on two data points, sisters?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 10:29 pm (UTC)

"There's... a reason, but I can't interpret it. Something about faces?" says Glass vaguely.

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:30 pm (UTC)

"You have interesting powers," says Aelise to Glass.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I do!" she chuckles. "It's an interesting party trick. And I predicted at the last Bell party that something awful was going to happen to Harley and there was nothing we could do about it - fat lot of help that was."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:33 pm (UTC)

"...If he was in some way fated to have horrible experiences, that actually explains a lot about the last ten years," Aelise says thoughtfully.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 10:35 pm (UTC)

"It's a template attractor. Horrible things have to happen to Jokers; there are strong tendencies for it to be a certain short list of things, and there's flexibility on the amount, but it's not escapable. Elspeth took Harley away from bad parents when he was a baby and he grew up happy and safe in Aurum, so of course he had to develop uncontrollable teleporting ability and land somewhere that wouldn't treat him kindly."

incanted
2013-07-06 10:36 pm (UTC)

"If they re-run the Trauma Olympics I wonder if he's competitive with Aianon and Brilliance, now? Probably depends on how they count psychological tampering."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:39 pm (UTC)

"He teleported three more times while he was here, apparently deliberately - once to the bottom of the ocean, once to the middle of the largest active volcano on the planet, and once into the sun. I managed to retrieve him from the ocean and the volcano. The sun was a tougher problem."

incanted
2013-07-06 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Aianon was tortured by demons for a couple thousand years and Brilliance has an unprecedented pain ceiling," says Aurora. "If Harley's in the running at all, it's because of Chelsa."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:43 pm (UTC)

"But now at least I have a better idea of why he teleported to those places in particular," she says. "Corona was rescued from a bad home situation too, for that matter. Was it the stepfather, with Harley?"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Harley was taken from his biological parents. That's it in every case where parents are the thing, I believe, although I suppose it could have escaped common knowledge if Jellybean or Kas had stepfathers, and Brilliance is not an organism and has creators instead of any form of parent. And I don't know about the one from the Jane-breaking world; that Bell had a Joker but we don't know about his provenance."
Edited 2013-07-06 22:47 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Corona's stepfather was an unpleasant individual. His biological father was just absent. Interesting that that appears to be the exception," says Aelise. "Any comments from the template expert?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 10:50 pm (UTC)

"There was a bit of an - off - twist to the attractor. Not as off as Brilliance, but nonstandard - or maybe an alternate standard. I'd recognize it if I saw it again."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Aelise. "This alternate-universe information thing is fascinating. Are there more templates we should be keeping an eye out for?"

incanted
2013-07-06 10:56 pm (UTC)

"We should do a sweep. And through Downside, too, now we've added Gift to it. I only found my Beth when I ran a check for all the templates I knew after meeting Agent Honey. I'll just run through the list we did in Chronicle -"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 10:57 pm (UTC)

"And I think I'll look for some more people from Aurum who aren't known to be templates, since apparently Chelsea was one and there could be more... surprises, pleasant or un-."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 10:58 pm (UTC)

"I can also tell by looking whether someone's templatey even if I haven't met any of their alts, if there's someone you'd like to be on the lookout for more of," Glass says.

incanted
2013-07-06 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Found an Anna, found a Sandy. They're together."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-06 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Chelsa comes with an Afton alt. Of course she does. ...Found a Demetri. I suppose if he's not a vampire he's probably not doing what Demetri did in Aurum. And no Allirea."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 11:04 pm (UTC)

"...Anneia, Sandre, Amdon, Demauri?" says Aelise. "Do templates tend to cluster like that? I wonder if there are any alts of Luhan... your guess is as good as mine about where to find him, though, he's been roaming the Canadian wilderness for a decade."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Templates do cluster. Some of them are attached to each other - Bells all come with the same set of parents, Libbies all come with Chrises, etcetera - and some just drift together a lot; Bells and Jokers do that. Will Luhan have a heart attack and die if I just teleport in front of him to see? Would that be a bad idea for any reason?"

salus_populi
2013-07-06 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Luhan once survived being very close to the epicenter of a nuclear explosion, but he might be displeased if you just teleport in front of him without warning."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-06 11:08 pm (UTC)

"That would've been a convenient talent to have," murmurs Shell Bell.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I could brainphone him instead, would that be a bad idea? You seem to have some snug operational security at work."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Luhan's cleared pretty high, I don't know about this high. Frankly I don't know how high 'this high' is. We are apparently a big deal."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 11:14 pm (UTC)

"...actually," says Aelise, "given which nuclear explosion Luhan survived, you might want to talk to him before you set up on Venus, Tab. So by all means, brainphone away."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:15 pm (UTC)

[Hey, Luhan, I'm an extradimensional visitor who is an expert on what person-templates repeat across universes and how, and Aelise wants me to look at you; is that okay?]
Edited 2013-07-06 23:15 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-06 11:16 pm (UTC)

Silence.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:16 pm (UTC)

[Hello? You can reply to me like this, just think it at me.]

pythbox
2013-07-06 11:18 pm (UTC)

[Who are you? Where are you?]

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:19 pm (UTC)

[I am in Aelise's office but I can teleport to you if you'd like to let me; I'm an alt of a friend of hers. My name is Bella but you can call me Glass.]

pythbox
2013-07-06 11:19 pm (UTC)

Some more silence.

Then, gruffly, [Fine.]

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:20 pm (UTC)

[Incoming.]

"Be right back."

Pop! Here is Glass; tunic and utility belt and leggings and boots all under witch robes and princess crown, aura declaring her some kind of Extremely Magical Forest-Dwelling Creature.

pythbox
2013-07-06 11:22 pm (UTC)

And here is Luhan, wearing battered old jeans and a red-and-black plaid shirt over a white tank top, sitting in an armchair in what seems to be a log cabin with a bottle of beer in his hand.

He is templatey. Also regarding her with an extremely dubious look.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Glass, waving. "Possibly good news: you probably have alts running around somewhere!"

pythbox
2013-07-06 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Which means... what, in practical terms?" he inquires.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:26 pm (UTC)

"If you make friends with the one of me who lives here and she invites you to parties, or if you get out of the world by other means, you might meet people who look like you and have the same basic personality and..." She squints. "You're also pretty attached to the kind of magic you have. And Canada, I think virtually all of you will come from Canadas when there are Canadas available."

pythbox
2013-07-06 11:27 pm (UTC)

"By 'magic' do you mean my Gift? Because damn right I'm attached to my Gift," he snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Sure, but most worlds don't have Gifts, they have other forms of magic, or in a few cases none at all. Your alts will do the same thing in different ways. My template has something like that too, except my world doesn't support it so I don't have a native version."

pythbox
2013-07-06 11:38 pm (UTC)

Luhan eyes her for a moment, then shakes his head. "We done here?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Sure, if you're through with my charming company," shrugs Glass. "Tab is the local me, she'll probably introduce herself and talk to you about Toronto in a short while."

pythbox
2013-07-06 11:40 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:40 pm (UTC)

Glass waves and leaves. "He's templatey," she reports. "Attached to the type of power - like Bells are - and to Canada."

salus_populi
2013-07-06 11:44 pm (UTC)

"And none of you has heard of a Canadian man who self-regenerates?" says Aelise.

incanted
2013-07-06 11:45 pm (UTC)

"No, but we can all check when we get home."

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:46 pm (UTC)

"He's not especially personable," says Glass. "Also sort of acted like he didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned his magic."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-06 11:47 pm (UTC)

"There's a cultural thing about calling Gifts 'magic'. If you say otherwise I'll buy it."
Edited 2013-07-06 23:59 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-07-06 11:59 pm (UTC)

"It's definitely magic. And that's not just my seeing rounding up; Peace's mutant powers don't register this way and they're just as good as the magic kind."

salus_populi
2013-07-07 12:02 am (UTC)

"I suppose using your perceptions as the litmus test at least gives an easy categorization. For you. If your perceptions are that clean-cut."

thaumobabble
2013-07-07 12:03 am (UTC)

"I bet you Lazarus says the same thing when he sees Tab," says Glass.

incanted
2013-07-07 12:04 am (UTC)

"Magic in my world has genetic markers and interacts with advanced magical technology. Still magic," says Aurora.

salus_populi
2013-07-07 12:05 am (UTC)

Aelise shrugs.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-07 12:08 am (UTC)

"Speaking of going to see Lazarus, do we need to hang around here any longer? Should we just pack up some Kers ansible-halves, sweep Downside for more Gift alts, and move on? I mean, we are agreed that if anything needs doing about the dead babies and mind control thing Tab can do for the peal, right?"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-07 12:08 am (UTC)

"Grudgingly," mutters Golden.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 12:08 am (UTC)

"Your core staff is composed almost entirely of former serial killers," Tab says to Golden.

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 12:11 am (UTC)

"How many ansible-halves do you think you're going to need?" says Kers. "I can do a bunch more connections like that, but not an infinite amount. And if they require active attention, there's going to be a problem when I sleep."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 12:12 am (UTC)

"Are you very attached to sleeping?" asks Tab brightly.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-07 12:13 am (UTC)

"And one per Belled world should do, optionally skipping either Chronicle or Sunshine but not both. We have regular contact with the other Jarvised worlds, but Jarvises do their own time-syncing amongst themselves."

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 12:15 am (UTC)

"So, thirteen or fourteen? I think that's doable," says Kers. She smiles fondly at Tab. "And no, I'm not especially attached, although if your solutions to sleeping are particularly gruesome I might pass."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 12:16 am (UTC)

"Nothing gruesome! Just perpetually feeling like it's ten in the morning and you've had a cup of coffee," grins Tab. "Pealed Bells sleep only recreationally."

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 12:17 am (UTC)

"In that case, hit me," says Kers.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 12:19 am (UTC)

Tab hits her. "Other superpowers for the two of you should probably wait till you have a full set picked out, because then I can stick them onto your torching all at once. Not that I expect either of you to need to torch."

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 12:21 am (UTC)

"Ideally not," Kers agrees. "All right. Set for now? Tab, do you want an extra gem to carry around personally? For that matter, I think I want an extra gem to carry around personally, but installing it might get delicate and my usual connection is just fine for now."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 12:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'll take a spare, if you can cover that many," says Tab. She conjures up a batch of the requisite size, including one with a charm that matches the dormant Jane-charm on her wrist. "I can probably wish the installation, if you wanted."

incanted
2013-07-07 12:24 am (UTC)

"...So, cyborg, Gift feature, other local oddity, what exactly is going on?"

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 12:27 am (UTC)

"Cyborg," says Kers. "My Gift is an externally-focused multiple-target shield against various kinds of harm. I also happen to be hooked into the orbital ring's computer systems. And I think I'd rather wish the installation myself, Tab, if it's all the same to you. I'm the one who knows all my specifications."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 12:31 am (UTC)

"Sure," shrugs Tab, and she makes her three mirrory squares and hands them over.

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 12:35 am (UTC)

Kers peers thoughtfully at them, then wishes up an ansible pair and wishes half of it mysteriously disappeared.

"Gotta love instantaneous transmissions," she murmurs, smiling crookedly. "Do you want to go plug this into the ring?" She offers Tab the other half, along with the unused square.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 12:36 am (UTC)

"Sure." Tab scoops up all of the half-ansibles that will be remaining in Gift, and goes to plug them in. She is back a minute later. "All done. I guess we'll just stick the other halves in the Janepoints?"
Edited 2013-07-07 00:47 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 12:49 am (UTC)

"Seems reasonable," says Kers.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-07 12:51 am (UTC)

"Shall we? Anybody staying behind?" asks Shell Bell, particularly glancing at Lizzie.

prima_sequentem
2013-07-07 12:53 am (UTC)

"If you don't mind, yeah, I think I'll hang out and catch up with my alt."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-07 01:02 am (UTC)

Golden hesitates, but ultimately doesn't say anything.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-07 01:02 am (UTC)

Out go Bells.

Downside peer Bells, and they sweep for templates from Gift.

pythbox
2013-07-07 01:04 am (UTC)

There are four - an Ike, a Val, a Lazarus, and a Kolya.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 01:07 am (UTC)

Tab expects them to be inconvenient to fetch later, since she can't door at will and Shell Bell has her own empire to run, but she doesn't have anything to do with them immediately; she retrieves them asleep, thanks the admin, and brings them home to stash in an out-of-the-way bit of orbital ring. Shouldn't make any difference to them.

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 01:08 am (UTC)

"You get me such interesting presents," Kers remarks.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 01:16 am (UTC)

"Don't unwrap them till the correct holiday."

queensidecastle
2013-07-07 01:17 am (UTC)

"It's a deal."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 01:18 am (UTC)

Stash. Departure. Installing a Kersible in the Downside Janepoint.

And now to Eos!

six weeks of winter

self_composed

Jane has been out a while. Not that long. It is not yet time to panic; really it wouldn't be anyway, not with everybody in Eos belonging there and everyone belonging there in Eos. Bella is worried, but mostly for social reasons, not practical ones.

edgeofyourseat
2013-07-07 01:28 am (UTC)

At this particular moment in time, Alice happens to be in his lair, curled up in bed with a good book, naked. (It's a really good book.)

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-07 01:29 am (UTC)

Shell Bell's doors do not have failsafes against this eventuality like teleporting!

In walks Shell Bell!

"Eep!"

edgeofyourseat
2013-07-07 01:32 am (UTC)

Alice cracks up and drags a blanket over the problem area.

"Hi!" he giggles. "What's up?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-07 02:09 am (UTC)

"Lazarus needs to look at this new Bell and Stella needs to try fixing Jane," says Shell Bell.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 02:09 am (UTC)

"Hi," says this new Bell.

edgeofyourseat
2013-07-07 02:12 am (UTC)

"Hi, new Bell," says Alice, waving cheerfully. "Welcome to Eos, sorry you saw my junk."

He squares some clothes on and ditches both book and blanket.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 02:14 am (UTC)

"I think I'll survive the experience," says Tab. "You must be Alice. I'm Tab."

edgeofyourseat
2013-07-07 02:16 am (UTC)

"Yep! Nice to meetcha. Man, you know, that door thing could get really awkward if it keeps dropping you in bedrooms," he says to Shell Bell. "Are you guys gonna call Stella or should I?"

incanted
2013-07-07 02:18 am (UTC)

"I got Stella; Glass, wanna call Lazarus?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-07 02:18 am (UTC)

"Mm-hm." [Hey Lazarus, it's Glass!]

nonbird
2013-07-07 02:19 am (UTC)

[Hi!] says Lazarus. [This is unexpected.]

thaumobabble
2013-07-07 02:20 am (UTC)

[We have a new Bell and we don't know one of her aura features. I think it has to do with teleportation but I'm not sure how. Come meet her!]

self_composed
2013-07-07 02:20 am (UTC)

Stella pops into place. "Hi, all. Nice to meet you, Tab."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 02:20 am (UTC)

"Likewise."

nonbird
2013-07-07 02:22 am (UTC)

Lazarus also teleports in.

"...Well that's interesting," he says, peering at Tab. "You're - sparkly. We'll go with 'sparkly'."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 02:29 am (UTC)

"Gifted?" suggests Tab. "Glass says my world's related to Eos and Aurum, with the random magic powers."

nonbird
2013-07-07 02:33 am (UTC)

"Ye-es. Hmm. Gifts seem to be a lot more eye-catching than witchcraft and ingotry," he says. "Your aura features are getting a little drowned out. But I think... one of them's informational, and the other one..." He blinks. "Yes, teleportation. Teleportation and... convenience? You're never going to unknowingly teleport into an awkward or dangerous situation, and if you don't have your destination picked out clearly enough, the aura will cover it."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 02:34 am (UTC)

"I like it," laughs Tab.

self_composed
2013-07-07 02:37 am (UTC)

"So how am I supposed to fix Jane? I wasn't any good last time."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-07 02:38 am (UTC)

"Kers says some of the problem is hardware."

self_composed
2013-07-07 02:39 am (UTC)

"Huh. It wasn't last time. And we still don't know what happened to Aegis, right? Aegis might be part of the required repair steps too."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-07 02:40 am (UTC)

"I haven't tried to get to that world yet, but we can put that step first, sure."

self_composed
2013-07-07 02:54 am (UTC)

"Alice, you want to join us? Lazarus?"

nonbird
2013-07-07 02:54 am (UTC)

"Er, no haring off to dangerous places for me, thanks," says Lazarus with a quirk of a smile. "Call me if you need some magic identified."

edgeofyourseat
2013-07-07 02:55 am (UTC)

"And I am gonna go somewhere with fewer doors and get back into my book," says Alice. "Have fun, guys!"

self_composed
2013-07-07 02:57 am (UTC)

Stella kisses each of them goodbye and traipses into Milliways with her alts.

thaumobabble
2013-07-07 02:59 am (UTC)

"Origin next?"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-07 02:59 am (UTC)

"Origin next."

where shall i begin?

small_magics

Isibel is without her loves, her mints, her enchannels.

She does have a coin stash. A reasonably large one, in her beloved's shifting geode colors, and a few in the higher denominations imported from Rainbow; she can make small ones herself. And she is still linked to her beloveds - she can still access Ansharil's magic, is still a functional elfmage.

And unlike any other Bell cast adrift without her convenient masochist(s), Isibel can enchant alone. It's the simplest application of hyperfocus: contemplate her spell and wake up again with it complete. Channeling through oneself leaves no lingering discomfort after the initial burst, and she can fail entirely to attend to that initial burst.

And -

She is reasonably well recovered from her earlier breakage.

It seems to her that it is time to do some... Belling, although she has not yet decided how to start.

She teleports from her folded-in-on-itself enchanted village to the town in which Magania resides, and there she looks for the other elf, who has given such good counsel in the past and already knows of the features of Bells.

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:17 pm (UTC)

Magania is in her garden, making subtle adjustments to the placement of stones in the path that leads to her door.

small_magics
2013-06-11 08:18 pm (UTC)

"I See you."

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I See you, Isibel," she says, getting to her feet and dusting off her hands. "It would please me very much to take tea with you."
Edited 2013-06-11 20:29 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-06-11 08:30 pm (UTC)

"And myself as well. I seek your advice on how to go about the traditional calling of my template in this world. I do not believe the exact approaches chosen by any of my alts will suit precisely, most particularly since I fear I must be conservative with my coins for an unknown period of time."

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Then we will discuss this thing," Magania says agreeably. "Be welcome in my home and at my hearth."

She leads the way inside and puts the kettle on.

small_magics
2013-06-11 08:33 pm (UTC)

Isibel follows her in and sits. "My beloveds traveled to another world, to assist Pattern with something there, but they have been stranded; Jane is in some way unwell. This has happened before, and she recovered, but it may be any amount of time before that day."

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:37 pm (UTC)

"You have the most interesting problems," Magania murmurs.

small_magics
2013-06-11 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Some of them, certainly. But the last time Jane suffered this problem, I was yet in recovery, and I think that I am now well enough to go about using my foreign magic - much of which I can still use - for the benefit of the world at large. Yet I fear missteps. I will speak to Liselen, as well, but I would hear anything you had to say to me on how to order and present interventions."

pythbox
2013-06-11 08:51 pm (UTC)

"It is my thought that if one would do a great magic in the world, one should consult first the Wild Magic, and then the dragons," says Magania. "And if one would do a great magic in the Elven Lands, one should consult the King."

small_magics
2013-06-11 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I will speak with the dragons, yes, especially to inform them of where my beloveds have gone, and perhaps to discuss magical address of their population issue," says Isibel. "The only immediate need in the Elven Lands is, I think, for genuine immortality - our ancestors sacrificed greatly for the long lives we enjoy, but still we age and die after a few centuries. I can consult the King about it first, I suppose. And then I would be inclined to move outward and speak to other kinds of people about their needs."
Edited 2013-06-11 21:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:16 pm (UTC)

"If you could bring genuine immortality to the Elven Lands, without causing any old troubles to return, that would be a great gift," says Magania.

small_magics
2013-06-11 09:19 pm (UTC)

"The sort which I have received is easily distributed, but only in person. I think it will be the best choice for the dragons and their Bondmates, who do not number many. However, when my beloved and I defeated the most recent incursion of Darkness, we found some research belonging to its author, some of which might work without the other effects he unfortunately was poised to bring about. This would be simpler to spread without my personally following at its heels everywhere it must go."

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:20 pm (UTC)

"A fine plan," says Magania. "Particularly if you keep Liselen close to hand while you are conducting your research."

small_magics
2013-06-11 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes, it has been made clear that his presence is invaluable when using or interacting with large amounts of native Thilanushinyel magic."

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:23 pm (UTC)

Magania nods.

The tea is ready. She pours it.

small_magics
2013-06-11 09:31 pm (UTC)

Isibel drinks. "I confess I do not know how to approach the King."

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:34 pm (UTC)

Magania nods, as though this is entirely reasonable. "I will convey something of the situation to him, and let him speak with you as he deems appropriate."

small_magics
2013-06-11 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I am uncertain what the best policy is for managing the details of my - extraworldly friends and adventures," says Isibel. "With the King or otherwise. Some Bells act with complete openness, others with secrecy, others with partial publicity about their power but full transparency about their deeds."

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:42 pm (UTC)

"A thing that is not known may be told," says Magania, "but a thing that is known may not be hidden. It would be wise, I think, to tell all to the dragons and the King; beyond that, perhaps not yet."

small_magics
2013-06-11 09:45 pm (UTC)

"...I remember with perfect clarity the King standing over me and my beloveds, suggesting that they die, in spite of my remarks about their benign nature and Liselen's prior words. Liselen's own presence sufficed to stay his hand, but - I have no other personal memory of the King, his judgment, or his... ability to handle the unfamiliar."

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Then it may be that you will not tell him everything," says Magania. "And it may be that he will be wary of your promised immortality until you do. Perhaps Liselen could be some help to you there as well; I have heard that he was - most persuasive, when last he spoke with the King."

small_magics
2013-06-11 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I shall speak to Liselen before the King, then, perhaps he will wish to join me."

pythbox
2013-06-11 09:57 pm (UTC)

Magania nods, and sips her tea.

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:05 pm (UTC)

Sip. Sip.

Eventually the tea is gone.

"I believe I would do best to seek Liselen sooner rather than later."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps that is true," says Magania. "Good luck."

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for the tea and the advice." Isibel gets to her feet, leaves the house so as not to be standing around awkwardly while ensuring that Liselen has no company who will find her unpleasant, and says: [Liselen?]
Edited 2013-06-11 22:10 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:13 pm (UTC)

[Hi!] says Liselen.

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:14 pm (UTC)

[Hello! I would speak with you, but do not wish to discomfit any other unicorns who may be in your company.]

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:16 pm (UTC)

[Good call, I'm kind of surrounded,] he says. [What did you want to talk about? Should I meet you somewhere?]

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:19 pm (UTC)

[I can go wherever you can appropriately receive me.]

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:20 pm (UTC)

[Just a minute, then.]

A minute passes.

[Okay, you can come see me now.]

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:27 pm (UTC)

Port.

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:31 pm (UTC)

Liselen is quite alone, in the middle of a forest, with a herd of unicorns just barely in earshot to the north.

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I See you. And would hear your advice on some of my ideas for improving Thilanushinyel, now that I am quite recovered from my previous breakage."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Liselen. "My advice, or the Wild Magic's?"

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I am on the lookout for anything the latter may have to say, but your personal advice could also be relevant. Particularly - you were present on the one and only occasion I have met the King of the Elves. Some of the things I wish to do will be of scope sufficient to - warrant his attention."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:43 pm (UTC)

"I could call him a clod again," Liselen says brightly, swishing his tail. "'Cause it worked so well the first time."

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I am hoping he will not behave in a cloddish manner again."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he sighs, "me too. Okay. I'm with you there." He brightens a little. "Especially since I can actually have a conversation with him without feeling like my blood is made of ants!"

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:47 pm (UTC)

"You invariably come up with such colorful metaphors to describe that sensation."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Might as well get something good out of it, right?"

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:50 pm (UTC)

Isibel chuckles. "Magania also advised that I be on alert for notifications from the Wild Magic on the subject of popularizing the immortality research I recovered when I and my beloved defeated the most recent essay of the Darkness."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Got it," says Liselen. "Nothing yet!"

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Please do be advised that you can brainphone me at any time should something urgent be revealed to you."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:54 pm (UTC)

He swishes his tail and dips his head. "Of course!"

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Magania will be speaking to the king on my behalf, first - if there are constraints on your schedule it would be good to learn them now."

pythbox
2013-06-11 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says, tossing his head. "Hey, can I have one of that nifty teleporting power?"

small_magics
2013-06-11 10:58 pm (UTC)

"...Yes. But please be aware that I must be careful with the magic that does that kind of thing; I have a limited supply. My beloveds have been trapped in another world."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Aww, I'm sorry to hear that!" he says. "I bet it'll be more convenient for me to follow you around helping you with stuff if I can teleport, though."

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes. And some other things I can do with enchantment, and other things still with elfmagery - but teleportation in particular draws from my limited supply of coins." She makes the wish. "You can do it now, regardless."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Liselen, and he prances closer and leans his shoulder against her side.

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:06 pm (UTC)

Isibel pets his mane.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:09 pm (UTC)

He makes a happy whuffly sort of noise and shoulder-leans her again.

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I do not know much of what unicorns in general do in their spare time, let alone you, but admit to some curiosity as to what you do when you are not communicating with me on behalf of the Wild Magic."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Hang out with friends and family and stuff. Eat. Learn things."

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:14 pm (UTC)

"All good things."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Well. Thank you very much for your willingness to help."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:19 pm (UTC)

He swishes his tail. "I like you. You're gonna be good for the world."

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I will try my very best. So far my accomplishments are limited to helping my beloved find the would-be raiser of Darkness, and making a charming little village on the island."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, a charming little village! Can I see it?"

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes. And you will not even have to become seasick to do so."

Teleport!

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:23 pm (UTC)

Liselen prances around when they reach their destination.

"Teleporting is the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeest," he crows.

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:25 pm (UTC)

"It is among my favorite uses of magic," agrees Isibel. She shows him into the tiny village. "It takes up less than one square mile, but it contains more than it would seem by that logic."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Nifty," says Liselen. He investigates the village.

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:27 pm (UTC)

It is spatially inconsistent in the most convenient possible way, and the buildings are elvishly subtle.

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:28 pm (UTC)

"It's beautiful!" says Liselen. "I love it!"

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Thank you. It is what I made to generate my enchantress's aura."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:29 pm (UTC)

He swishes his tail. "What's yours do?"

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:31 pm (UTC)

"The same things all auras do, and -" She releases it; it's a cloud of elveniness, wrapping her up in the perfection-grace-and-loftiness that elves have relative to others, but a step above her fellow elves. "And it protects my mind, too late but perhaps usefully in the future."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:37 pm (UTC)

Liselen giggles.

"I wonder what'd happen if you wore that out around the King."

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:39 pm (UTC)

"I do not know. It seems like it would either improve or worsen matters, but I cannot readily predict which."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," he says with a swish of his tail. "Maybe better not, then."

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Unless things go so badly that worsening the situation would be meaningless."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:45 pm (UTC)

Liselen snorts. "Yeah, that."

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I hope it does not come to that, but I do not feel easy about it, when the last occasion on which I spoke to him nearly went so awry."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:52 pm (UTC)

Swish. "I think it'll be better this time."

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I could share your confidence if I knew why you thought so."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:54 pm (UTC)

"No demons," he says succinctly.

small_magics
2013-06-11 11:56 pm (UTC)

"I suppose that would be a mitigating factor, yes. It is fortunate that it was only I who found my beloved in the lake, and not someone else."

pythbox
2013-06-11 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Liselen. "It really was."

small_magics
2013-06-12 12:00 am (UTC)

"I wonder what Glass would have to say about that. I wish I had found out when she was accessible. Perhaps Jane will return soon," sighs Isibel.

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:03 am (UTC)

"What Glass would have said about what? The Wild Magic did it," says Liselen. "I mean, I don't know that completely for sure, it didn't tell me or anything, but - the Wild Magic did it."

small_magics
2013-06-12 12:05 am (UTC)

"...Glass has the ability to see templates, like that which I have in common with other Bells, and things related to them. She might have been able to explain why or how the connection between Bell and Joker templates ensured that I and not another would find my beloved. I do not understand what you mean about the Wild Magic having done it."

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:06 am (UTC)

"Well, the Wild Magic knew you were going to have to save the world together, right, that's why it sent for me to tell you so," he says. "So the Wild Magic probably made sure you'd meet each other, too."

small_magics
2013-06-12 12:07 am (UTC)

"Not only that I found him, but also that no one else found him for ten thousand years, is necessary for what you describe."

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:08 am (UTC)

He tosses his head. "It doesn't sound like it would've been that hard, weren't they on an island all by themselves for most of that?"

small_magics
2013-06-12 12:09 am (UTC)

"Yes. It is not clear why it was never previously colonized."

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:10 am (UTC)

"The Wild Magic did it," Liselen reiterates.

small_magics
2013-06-12 12:11 am (UTC)

"Perhaps. Yet in other worlds, too, Bells and Jokers manage to find each other through - not identical but significant odds against it."

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:12 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't know about those," says Liselen.

small_magics
2013-06-12 12:15 am (UTC)

"That is why I wished to speak to Glass. She has seen them all and might know."

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:15 am (UTC)

He tosses his head again. "I guess you'll see her someday, right?"

small_magics
2013-06-12 12:43 am (UTC)

"Someday, yes. Even if Jane is irrecoverable we will eventually find Milliways again, I think."

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:56 am (UTC)

"Probably," says Liselen.

small_magics
2013-06-12 12:58 am (UTC)

"You are welcome to explore the village as long as you like," Isibel adds. "I believe I will go to the borders of the Elven Lands and begin flying, to see what there is to see where our neighbors live."

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:59 am (UTC)

"Have fun!" says Liselen.

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:01 am (UTC)

"I will try."

And she teleports, and she flies, and she opens up her bond and shows her loves what she has been up to.

endragoned
2013-06-12 01:03 am (UTC)

Her loves love her very much! They have been on Saturn, refining the ecosystem. They are delighted that she's keeping busy.

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:04 am (UTC)

They can both keep busy and update each other on what they are doing. She is so glad the bond works across worlds. It would be unbearable otherwise.

endragoned
2013-06-12 01:05 am (UTC)

It would be. But the bond does work across worlds, and so they are all... content.

Does she have a moment? No, she is flying. They wouldn't want to interrupt.
Edited 2013-06-12 01:06 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:06 am (UTC)

...She can hover. She can hover without having to give it a bit of thought, a mile above everything.

endragoned
2013-06-12 01:17 am (UTC)

Then perhaps they should pass some time together. Their bodies may be apart, but their minds are not.

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:18 am (UTC)

That is true.

Isibel hovers.

endragoned
2013-06-12 01:21 am (UTC)

Time is passed.

Her beloveds love her so very much. They would like to express it in as many ways as possible.

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:22 am (UTC)

She loves them back. Exquisitely much. She wishes they did not have to be so far from her, and she has opinions about what she would do about it if they were not.

endragoned
2013-06-12 01:24 am (UTC)

Her beloveds are quite pleased by her opinions! They have opinions of their own, which they are willing to share in detail and at length.

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:24 am (UTC)

That's... useful.

endragoned
2013-06-12 01:33 am (UTC)

Is it?

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:35 am (UTC)

Yes, rather. Quite.

endragoned
2013-06-12 01:36 am (UTC)

Oh, good. They do so love to be... useful... to her.

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:37 am (UTC)

They are the usefulest! She hopes they find her useful likewise.

endragoned
2013-06-12 01:43 am (UTC)

Extremely.

small_magics
2013-06-12 01:44 am (UTC)

Good.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:09 am (UTC)

Some weeks later, Magania contacts Isibel.

[I would speak with you, if you are available.]

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:10 am (UTC)

[I am.]

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:15 am (UTC)

[I have spoken with Andoreniel. He wishes to meet with you, and will see you if you present yourself at the House of Leaf and Star at a time that is convenient.]

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:19 am (UTC)

[I can be there instantly, if that would qualify as a convenient time.]

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:21 am (UTC)

[I would not know; I have returned home since speaking with him.]

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:22 am (UTC)

[I will collect Liselen and appear there, then. Thank you.]

[Liselen, the King is ready to speak with me "at a convenient time".]

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:23 am (UTC)

[You are welcome,] says Magania.

[Now is convenient!] says the unicorn.

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:24 am (UTC)

[I could collect you or you could meet me at the House of Leaf and Star.]

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:30 am (UTC)

[I'll meet you there,] he decides. [Poof!]

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:31 am (UTC)

Isibel catches up to Liselen.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:32 am (UTC)

He is some distance away from the House of Leaf and Star, because it is always worth walking through an elven city when you have the opportunity.

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:33 am (UTC)

It is! They walk together towards the House companionably.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:33 am (UTC)

Several elves peer at them as they pass, but no one says anything.

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:35 am (UTC)

Isibel resists the temptation to release her aura.

Here they are at the House of Leaf and Star!

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:40 am (UTC)

A member of Andoreniel's household appears at the door.

"I See you, Isibel and Liselen," she says. "Be welcome to the House of Leaf and Star. If you follow me, I will take you to where Andoreniel will join you for tea."

She leads them, not into the house (because it was not designed with visiting unicorns in mind), but rather around it and along a short path to a comfortably sized pavilion.

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:40 am (UTC)

Isibel follows agreeably.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:43 am (UTC)

So does Liselen!

There is tea waiting, although it has not yet been made, along with a tray of small cakes and similar things set at such a height as to be easily reachable by a hungry unicorn. Liselen blinks at them. Their escorts smiles, nods, and departs.

"I know it's at the right height and stuff but I'll mess it up if I just start eating them," says Liselen. "You could feed me some!"

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:44 am (UTC)

Isibel picks up a cake and offers it to the unicorn, laughing softly.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:45 am (UTC)

Liselen nibbles the cake delicately out of her hand and swishes his tail contentedly.

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:46 am (UTC)

She offers him items such that he may try them all until they are joined by their host or he loses interest.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:50 am (UTC)

Their host enters the pavilion while Liselen is still eating small cakes out of Isibel's hand.

"I See you," says Andoreniel.

"Mmf!" says Liselen, agreeably.

The king of the elves smiles.

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:51 am (UTC)

"I See you," agrees Isibel, and she sits down as soon as her hand is empty of cake and cleans off the sheen of sugar from her palm with a triangle.

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:53 am (UTC)

"We will take tea," says Andoreniel.

He sets about making the tea.

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:55 am (UTC)

"While we are taking tea, I hope that we can discuss some of my planned projects. I do not know which Magania may have told you about in advance of my visit."

pythbox
2013-06-12 02:57 am (UTC)

"Magania mentioned to me that you plan to bring true immortality to the elves, if the Wild Magic wills," says Andoreniel.

Liselen swishes his tail.

small_magics
2013-06-12 02:59 am (UTC)

"To everyone, eventually, but most relevantly to you, elves. Yes. I can do this individually and in person, easily, in one way - the way I now possess for myself - but there is other research I have recovered which would propagate more readily without my personal supervision if allowed to do so."

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:02 am (UTC)

Andoreniel contemplates this.

"The other research is from the guy who almost brought the Dark back, but it's not all Tainted, and I'm going to be there so I can tell if she puts her nose in the wrong book," Liselen says helpfully.

"To know this makes good hearing," the King murmurs.

small_magics
2013-06-12 03:28 am (UTC)

"It would also make good hearing if I could be assured that you would not leap to your own conclusions before seeking Liselen's statement on this, or any other, matter that is of particularly grave importance," murmurs Isibel.

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:34 am (UTC)

Andoreniel regards her impassively.

small_magics
2013-06-12 03:35 am (UTC)

He knows why she might say that. She regards him impassively right back.

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:38 am (UTC)

The tea is ready.

He pours it.

small_magics
2013-06-12 03:38 am (UTC)

Isibel drinks some tea.

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:42 am (UTC)

So does the king.

Liselen swishes his tail and eyes the tray of cakes.

small_magics
2013-06-12 03:43 am (UTC)

Isibel offers him another cake.

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:43 am (UTC)

Liselen noms it.

small_magics
2013-06-12 03:46 am (UTC)

"By matters of particular importance I primarily mean large magical projects or suggestions that anyone's loved ones be put to death. I have no particular complaints with your day-to-day governance," Isibel clarifies after a silence.

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:48 am (UTC)

"Large magical projects are a matter for the Wild Magic," says Andoreniel. "As, it seems, are your loved ones."

small_magics
2013-06-12 03:49 am (UTC)

Isibel smiles thinly.

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:53 am (UTC)

Andoreniel sips his tea.

small_magics
2013-06-12 03:53 am (UTC)

Ah, tea, that indispensable social lubricant.

pythbox
2013-06-12 03:55 am (UTC)

"I will," he says, "consider all that you have told me."

small_magics
2013-06-12 03:57 am (UTC)

"That is good to know. Since," she adds magnanimously, "the dragons presently reside within elven borders, perhaps you would like to know that I mean to offer their population and their Bondmates both the kind of immortality I already possess, and a means of addressing some of their population constraints."
Edited 2013-06-12 03:58 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-12 12:16 pm (UTC)

"I am sure," says Andoreniel, "that the dragons will be pleased."

Liselen swishes his tail.

small_magics
2013-06-12 04:06 pm (UTC)

Tea. Sip sip.

pythbox
2013-06-12 04:30 pm (UTC)

Sip sip.

small_magics
2013-06-12 04:32 pm (UTC)

"This is a fine leaf, and finely brewed," comments Isibel.

pythbox
2013-06-12 04:37 pm (UTC)

Andoreniel nods. "The teas of autumn have been particularly fine this year."

small_magics
2013-06-12 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Autumn tea has always been my favorite."

pythbox
2013-06-12 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Each tea is best enjoyed in its own season," says Andoreniel, "but I find for the most part my taste runs to the teas of summer. They have a lightness to them which I find pleasing."

small_magics
2013-06-12 04:44 pm (UTC)

Some amount of inane tea talk later, the tea is gone.

"My next stop is with the dragons," Isibel remarks.

pythbox
2013-06-12 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I am sure they will be pleased to see you," says Andoreniel.

small_magics
2013-06-12 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Liselen, I would be much obliged if you would accompany me," Isibel adds to the unicorn.

pythbox
2013-06-12 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" he says brightly.

small_magics
2013-06-12 04:50 pm (UTC)

Isibel inclines her head to the King, and she brings herself and Liselen to the cave that her beloveds once lived in.

pythbox
2013-06-12 04:56 pm (UTC)

Saravasse pokes her large scarlet head in the entrance almost immediately.

"Oh, look, it's Ansharil's Bonded," she says, amused. "And the world's rudest unicorn."

Liselen snorts.

small_magics
2013-06-12 04:57 pm (UTC)

"I See you," chuckles Isibel. "I have come to offer all the dragons and their Bondmates true immortality, if Liselen offers no warning from the Wild Magic."

pythbox
2013-06-12 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Liselen. "Not a peep. There's something about the other thing, but it's not coming clear yet."

small_magics
2013-06-12 05:08 pm (UTC)

"One caution about the matter is that - while I cannot access the ability now and do not know when I will recover it - the dead of this world are not irrecoverable, and under other circumstances I can retrieve them to a condition indiscernible from life," Isibel says. "I know that under my particular circumstance, my Bond was cut and then restored when I died and then awoke, but I do not know what may happen when there are larger numbers of Bondmates about."

pythbox
2013-06-12 05:20 pm (UTC)

"That'll cause a stir," Saravasse remarks.

small_magics
2013-06-12 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I would imagine. But it could be many years before that power is restored to me, and in the meantime it will help no one if dragons or their beloveds who are alive now should die."

pythbox
2013-06-12 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Not to mention, at least we'll stop accumulating new ones," says Saravasse. "Come on outside and let's all have a nice chat."

small_magics
2013-06-12 05:34 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods and follows her.

pythbox
2013-06-12 05:40 pm (UTC)

All the nearby dragons assemble themselves - Saravasse, Ancaladar, Petrivoch, and more besides. It quickly becomes very crowded, even in the open air with plenty of perches for everyone.

"Isibel here wants to make us all immmortal," Saravasse announces.

"How, exactly?" says Ancaladar.

small_magics
2013-06-12 05:42 pm (UTC)

"There is a certain afterlife, shared between many worlds, including, now, this one," says Isibel. "If someone who has died and gone there suffers lethal damage, they reset to a healthy state on the spot instead. And it is possible to distribute that power to those who have never died. I can do it."

pythbox
2013-06-12 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I'll take it," says Saravasse.

Ancaladar nods.

One by one, so do the rest.

small_magics
2013-06-12 05:50 pm (UTC)

Isibel torchables them all. "I can do the same for your Bondmates if they are willing, but only in person," she says.
Edited 2013-06-12 17:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-12 05:53 pm (UTC)

"It won't take long to assemble them," says Saravasse. "Those who are interested."

"Which will be most of them, I'm sure," says Ancaladar.

"Perhaps a day or two," says Saravasse.

small_magics
2013-06-12 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps some or all of you would like to be added to my network of telepathy so that you may speak to me and each other at any distance," suggests Isibel.

pythbox
2013-06-12 05:58 pm (UTC)

Saravasse laughs. "That would be fun," she says, curling her tail around her paws.

The other dragons echo this sentiment.

small_magics
2013-06-12 05:59 pm (UTC)

[Here you are, then,] she says to all the dragons, and she explains the features of the brainphone.

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

[Fascinating,] says Saravasse.

small_magics
2013-06-12 06:01 pm (UTC)

[I think so. I can teleport and do not sleep, so you may ask for me whenever it is convenient for you and your beloveds.]

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:02 pm (UTC)

A chorus of dragons is quick to inform her that this is very convenient indeed.

[Thank you,] says Ancaladar on behalf of all of them.

small_magics
2013-06-12 06:04 pm (UTC)

"You are welcome. And while I am here - there is another matter I can help you with to some degree. The matter of your collectively - limited ancestry. I am unsure how you would most like to address this issue, beyond what my beloved has already assisted with - but I do not think it beyond my current abilities to conjure from nothing some modest number of dragon eggs unrelated to any of you, for instance. Not a large number, at least not while my beloved is gone, because he assists me with magic in more ways than one, but a few."

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:12 pm (UTC)

Liselen swishes his tail.

"If you do that, you have to be careful about it," he says. "You could end up stealing a lot of magic from places that need it. But if you make sure to create the magic instead of just moving it around, then it's fine."

small_magics
2013-06-12 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I will design that in," promises Sarion.

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:14 pm (UTC)

Liselen nods.

"We could always use a few more kids around the place," says Saravasse.

small_magics
2013-06-12 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Your opinions about timing or other traits would be valuable," says Isibel.

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Make them dragons," says Saravasse.

"All at once would make the next few years interesting, especially since so many of us are already going to be laying soon," volunteers a smallish sky-blue female.

"But 'interesting' is not necessarily a bad thing," says Ancaladar.

"All at once it is," says Saravasse.

small_magics
2013-06-12 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Dragons, of course," laughs Isibel. "I can leave other features up to the magic provided they are not too similar to any of you, then."

She carefully lays down the parameters of the wish in her mind and starts trying coins.

pythbox
2013-06-12 06:25 pm (UTC)

One evil produces one dragon egg to her specifications.

small_magics
2013-06-12 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I can do - five. If five would be a good number," Isibel says, evaluating her coin supply. Aurora was always generous; she is not short on evils but is reluctant to expend many in a single go. "...This one is a female. I can produce whatever gender ratio you prefer." The egg she has made has a pretty red-and-white-swirled eggshell.
Edited 2013-06-12 18:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Four girls and a boy," Saravasse says firmly.

small_magics
2013-06-12 07:13 pm (UTC)

"All right." And Isibel makes four more eggs, all next to the first, designed the same way. One is a glittery, cloudy gray; one is gold, patched with red; one is midnight blue with crackling white patterns; and the last, the boy's, is iridescent black.

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Pretty," says Saravasse.

"We'll take good care of them," promises Ancaladar.

small_magics
2013-06-12 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I know you will," says Isibel. "With that I think our business is concluded until your Bondmates are available to be made immortal."

pythbox
2013-06-12 07:16 pm (UTC)

Ancaladar nods.

small_magics
2013-06-12 07:17 pm (UTC)

Isibel inclines her head and vanishes back to her folded-up island village.

filtered with care

bellfounding

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

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

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

Can you raise the dead?

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

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

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

I want to be able to torch.

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

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

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

Are you sure you can't raise the dead?

I really, really wish I could do that for everyone who asks. I maintain a waiting list of people whose resurrection has been particularly requested so that as soon as I have this capability I'll know who to use it for first.

pythbox
2013-07-07 05:40 pm (UTC)

One day, someone named Ethan Rayne sends her an email which goes like so:
Subject: What exactly is the holdup?

I want someone resurrected. Name of Randall White, died of a dream overdose six months ago in London. Assuming you're not some kind of elaborate hoax, it would be nice if you explained just what your technical difficulties are, because I'm not buying this 'exaggeration' crap for a second. You're lying or you're onto something: which is it?

bellfounding
2013-07-07 05:47 pm (UTC)

This email never hits Bella's eyes. Ethan gets a reply from the vestiges of Jane.

Re: What exactly is the holdup?

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

Please feel free to email with any further questions.

- Imperial Staff

Edited 2013-07-07 17:47 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-07 06:29 pm (UTC)

He shows Ripper the email and asks if he's bloody well satisfied yet. The answer is no. Well, the answer is 'fuck off, Rayne', but these things require a certain amount of interpretation.

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

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

Maybe all he needs is more pressure.

tearingup
2013-07-07 06:50 pm (UTC)

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

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

bellfounding
2013-07-07 06:54 pm (UTC)

Re: Look, can you do it or not?

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

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

- Imperial Staff

tearingup
2013-07-07 06:56 pm (UTC)

Re: Look, can you do it or not?

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

Try me.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 06:59 pm (UTC)

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

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

- Bella

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:00 pm (UTC)

That's... a lot more than he expected, really.
Re: Look, can you do it or not?

Be my guest.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 07:06 pm (UTC)

At eight thirty, his time zone, the next morning, there's an Empress in his room.

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

Her aura is out, but toggled to "ninja", and she's only interested in being observed along any axis by the person who emailed her, not his roommates, neighbors, or recording devices. It hums magic magic magic in an understated sort of way.

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:15 pm (UTC)

Roommates, neighbours, and recording devices are thin on the ground. It's a messy little flat full of guitars and old laundry, and the only person present is a man in his early twenties with vivid green eyes, wearing artfully torn black jeans and an artlessly rumpled white T-shirt. He is drinking tea from a chipped brown mug when she appears, and immediately drops it in his lap with a startled yell.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 07:17 pm (UTC)

A triangle leaves his lap devoid of tea.

"Good morning. I am inclined to tell you stuff, but I don't really want you running to the tabloids with it; would you be so kind as to consent to a geas enjoining you not to repeat anything I say to anyone else without my express permission?"
Edited 2013-07-07 19:19 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:24 pm (UTC)

"I - you - doors," he says, "people have doors, you knock on them, that's how this 'visiting' thing works in England - "

He reaches for a crumpled shirt on the floor, then frowns and sits up again, glancing into the now-pristine mug and then plonking it down on the table (actually a tidy stack of encyclopedia volumes topped by a plank) next to his chair.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I said I was going to teleport," Bella points out. "I apologize for startling you, although I will point out I'm precisely on time."

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:29 pm (UTC)

He checks his watch. He frowns. He gets up and goes to the kitchen to check the oven clock, and comes back muttering and fiddling with the watch.

"You said you were going to teleport, sure," he says without looking up from this vital task, "you didn't specify it was going to be into my flat."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 07:31 pm (UTC)

"It wouldn't have accomplished much if I had elected to teleport to the Andromeda Galaxy. If I find your company charming enough that I want to visit you again in the future I'll put you on the brainphone network and I can warn you when I'm incoming, how does that sound?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Are you telling me you honestly don't think anything of hopping into a stranger's living room without a word, and advance warning is reserved for people you actually like? For fuck's sake, the door's right there," he gestures, "is it somehow mystically impossible for you to land on the other side of it?"

bellfounding
2013-07-07 07:37 pm (UTC)

Bella looks at him, debates the wisdom of having this argument, and then disappears to the other side of the door and knocks as sarcastically as it is possible to knock.

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:41 pm (UTC)

He opens the door and steps back to let her in.

"Thank you," he says. "I promise I'm much more charming when no one's died recently."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Yes, about that, were you listening when I asked about the anti-tabloid precaution?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Not really," he admits frankly, and closes and locks the door behind her, and resumes his seat in the chair. There are two other chairs close by; he gestures invitingly to the one that has obviously seen less use.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 07:45 pm (UTC)

She looks at it, then sits on it. "It's not really a problem if one bereaved individual gets some information one morning. My PR people will yell at me if it gets any farther. If you'll agree to it, I can magically enforce a nondisclosure agreement."

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:47 pm (UTC)

He thinks it over. It doesn't take very long.

"Fine."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 07:52 pm (UTC)

"All right." Geas goes; she can feel it settle. "So. I can raise the dead. I just can't do it a lot. The magic I can use to do it is a renewable but finite resource, unlike torching, which I can do as much as I want. Additionally, anyone who died prior to April 4, 2009, may be currently awake in the afterlife, and bringing that class of person back is more complicated - they'll have attachments there, stuff, friends, residences, and I don't have a way to talk to them before I resurrect them. People who died after that date are asleep, but I still can't meaningfully scale things. I used to have a way to handle all of this, but it broke, I can't fix it, and while I wait for it to get fixed from the outside, the passage of time in this universe is not correlated with the passage of time in said outside - it could happen next week or in a hundred years or never."
Edited 2013-07-07 19:53 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-07 07:57 pm (UTC)

Somewhere between wry and pathetic, "And I can't convince you to put Rayne on the shortlist?"

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you can. He'd have to predictably agree to the non-disclosure, too, and so would anyone else who learned that he died and would subsequently learn that he's alive. I've done this a few times since the system broke, but largely as a favor to political entities who could notify me instantly on point of death before the news spread and already have the operational security to order the resurrected individuals to keep their mouths shut. Or, I'd have to think that having him back now, as opposed to when the waiting list gets long enough that I'm willing to try some extra big magic on handling it all in a batch, was very important - enough to be worth the risk of getting a hundred million emails from people just like you in a week because Ethan wants to tell the nice reporters about how he was dead and then he wasn't. Well, sort of. He'd be technically dead still, like me."

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:05 pm (UTC)

"It's important to me," he mutters, rubbing his face with both hands. "Important to Rayne, too, for that matter. I can't imagine him running to the press about it; his only interest in your entire scheme as far as I could tell was getting me to shut up about Randall already."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Randall? I don't read ninety-five percent of the emails that go to my public address, if Ethan wrote in about him before."

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:08 pm (UTC)

"My other dead friend," he says flatly.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Another one? I've been kind of busy on the public health front and the prime minister let me put anti-car-crash magic on the U.K. last June, what happened?"
Edited 2013-07-07 20:11 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Randall ODed on dream seven—no, eight months ago," he says. "Ethan got shot - the, the night before last—"

His voice wavers. He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his clenched fist against his mouth.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:16 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs.

"Okay. How many people know Ethan got shot? Did he turn up in the morgue with ID on him, has he got family...?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:20 pm (UTC)

He takes his hand away from his mouth after a few seconds, shaking his head.

"Just me, whoever - did it, and whoever helped him hide the body," he says.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:20 pm (UTC)

"So - you, Ethan, and some people who'd have to confess to crimes to tell anyone?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:23 pm (UTC)

He nods.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, all right, I can spare it." She pulls an evil out of her coinsorter.

She wishes on it.

It doesn't go.

She frowns at it.

"...How sure are you he's dead?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:29 pm (UTC)

"As sure as it gets," he says. "I heard it - I was ten feet away - is your magic not working?"

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:31 pm (UTC)

"It's worked for bringing people back before, and that's not the kind of thing that would change for no reason. You heard it? You didn't, for example, see it."

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:34 pm (UTC)

Slowly, he shakes his head.

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

Realization dawns. "That rat bastard," he hisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Bella, putting the evil away with a flick of her hand, "as long as I'm here, anything else need doing?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, could you drag Ethan back here for me?" he just about growls. "The absolute fucking shit - he did this because I wouldn't email you about Randall, you know, he actually went and faked his own death to get me talking to you."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Why did he want you talking to me? Is it just about Randall, did he bounce off my filter a couple times and want you to give it a shot?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:45 pm (UTC)

"He bounced off your filter once," says Ripper, "two months ago, and apparently his backup plan was to murder his ex-dealer, because of course it was!" He throws up his hands. "Heaven forbid that Ethan Rayne ever do something sane and normal!"

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:46 pm (UTC)

"This is the guy you wanted me to resurrect?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:49 pm (UTC)

"He hasn't murdered anyone before," Ripper clarifies hastily, and then amends, "that I know of. It's just... not as much of a shock as I'd like it to be."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Is the ex-dealer a great loss to society of any kind?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Not remotely, no."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:51 pm (UTC)

"All right, then he can wait for general admission. You just want Rayne yoinked here?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:53 pm (UTC)

"That," says Ripper, "would be lovely, thank you."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:53 pm (UTC)

"You don't, for example, want him landed out in the hall and instructed to knock."

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:54 pm (UTC)

"He lives here," says Ripper, quirking a smile, "so no."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 08:55 pm (UTC)

She can treat pentagons like they're cheap, with three and a half Jokers in Origin, but there's no reason to use one when she can do without. Still stealthed to everyone except Ripper, she flickers to Rayne and back, quicker than blinking.

tearingup
2013-07-07 08:59 pm (UTC)

Rayne stumbles slightly on the landing, surprised by the abrupt change of location.

Ripper stands up and calmly punches him in the jaw.

pythbox
2013-07-07 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Ow," he says, cradling it. "What kind of reaction is that when your best mate comes back from the dead?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 09:01 pm (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-07 09:03 pm (UTC)

"All right, all right," Rayne sighs. "It was a nasty trick, and I'm sorry. But it worked, didn't it?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Define 'worked'."

pythbox
2013-07-07 09:04 pm (UTC)

"You got your precious empress to conjure me up; don't tell me she didn't do the same for Randy," he snorts.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 09:06 pm (UTC)

"He can't perceive me," Bella puts in. "Unless I decide to let him. We can discuss Randall separately if you'd like though."

tearingup
2013-07-07 09:12 pm (UTC)

He tries to say something, shoots Bella a brief exasperated look, and amends to, "I'm sure you can guess who I asked for first, and funny fucking thing, he wasn't dead!"

pythbox
2013-07-07 09:13 pm (UTC)

Rayne follows the aim of that look and squints curiously at the imperceptible Bella.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 09:14 pm (UTC)

Bella slooooowly unstealths.

pythbox
2013-07-07 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Well would you look at that," says Rayne, impressed.

tearingup
2013-07-07 09:18 pm (UTC)

Ripper sits back down in his chair and drops his head into his hands.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 09:20 pm (UTC)

"You went to considerable and asinine trouble to get ahold of me," Bella says to Ethan. "I have an appointment in seventeen minutes, but if there's something you'd like to say before then, you may."

pythbox
2013-07-07 09:21 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Could you dig up Randall while you're here?"

bellfounding
2013-07-07 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Assuming you mean that metaphorically, no."

Privately to Ripper, she adds, [We can discuss it if there's some way to cover it up, I just don't particularly want Rayne here to have the information.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 09:24 pm (UTC)

[Honestly, of the two of them, Randall's more likely to go to press with it,] he says without lifting his head.

pythbox
2013-07-07 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Ta ta, then," says Rayne unconcernedly.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 09:27 pm (UTC)

[Then he can sit on the waiting list a bit, but I'm hoping to have a batch resurrection planned out inside the next year,] Bella tells Ripper.

"Before I go, do either of you need to be un-addicted from any mind-altering substances?"

pythbox
2013-07-07 09:31 pm (UTC)

"What have you been telling her majesty?"

tearingup
2013-07-07 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I can't speak for Rayne," says Ripper, ignoring him, "but I'm fine."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 09:33 pm (UTC)

"All right. D'you want to be able to torch?" she inquires of Ripper. She does not include Ethan in this query.
Edited 2013-07-07 21:35 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-07 09:38 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Why not."

bellfounding
2013-07-07 09:40 pm (UTC)

"All right." She torchables him, and conjures and hands him the pamphlet on how it works and how to contact one of her emergency-recovery staff by brainphone if he gets into a repeated-torching sort of fix. And then out she pops.

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:14 pm (UTC)

Leaving Rayne and Ripper to argue it out.

It doesn't go well.

Two days later, Ripper brainphones her.

[That invisible lurking gig, do you do that a lot?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:15 pm (UTC)

[In public places, sometimes - often, really, I don't like paparazzi. I don't sidle imperceptibly into people's houses as a general rule. Although it is per person, so if I'm in stealth mode at all, anyone who I don't know to be present can't detect me.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:17 pm (UTC)

[I don't like paparazzi either,] he snorts. [Good thing I'm not famous enough for them yet.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:17 pm (UTC)

[Yet?]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:20 pm (UTC)

[Oh, I'm in a band,] he says. [I s'pose there's no reason for you to know that.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:21 pm (UTC)

[I did not know it, no. Explains all the guitars.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:22 pm (UTC)

[All? There's only - er, four. Okay,] he concedes, [all the guitars.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:23 pm (UTC)

She laughs. [How come you're curious about my lurking habits? Were you worried I was going to suddenly appear after you replaced your ill-fated tea?]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:26 pm (UTC)

[I have actually had multiple cups of tea since you left,] he informs her, with a hint of a laugh. [No, it's just - Rayne stormed out in a huff yesterday and I've been feeling watched ever since, I'm trying to narrow it down between 'paranoia about magical empress with lapsed sense of personal boundaries' and 'paranoia about morally depraved ex-friend'.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:27 pm (UTC)

[I have not been spying on you,] she says. [At the risk of doing nothing to improve the situation, I would not have to lurk anywhere nearby to do it if I wanted to.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:29 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:29 pm (UTC)

[Do you think he's going to do something unfortunate? I can jump you through the queue to colonize Saturn or something.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:31 pm (UTC)

[For a broad definition of 'unfortunate', almost certainly. ...What's Saturn like?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:32 pm (UTC)

[Enchanted. Populated with a designer ecosystem, outside the habitats. People tend not to choose to move away from it, so far.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:34 pm (UTC)

[Can it use a rapidly disintegrating punk band?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:35 pm (UTC)

[I don't know about use, but it can accommodate one. It's not designed to require much from its occupants; Saturn is post-scarcity.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:37 pm (UTC)

[Shit. Sign me up,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:38 pm (UTC)

[Are you bringing the band or should I just issue you a passport?]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:39 pm (UTC)

[I'll ask the band, but I think I know what they'll say.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:41 pm (UTC)

[Will you also drop your tea if I drop a passport in your lap?]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:41 pm (UTC)

A short pause, then, [I put it down.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:44 pm (UTC)

[Of course you did.] And a passport appears in his lap.

Empire of Rings passports look about like normal ones, in blue-white with her ring symbol on the cover, but they're attached to their persons with magic, not by fallible photographic evidence; it doesn't even have his name in it, just pages for stamps. [Welcome to the Empire. If you can't get to a transit office by yourself, the torching pamphlet I gave you has a bit in the back about arranging a pickup. Or you might catch me at a free moment and I could give you a ride.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:47 pm (UTC)

[Is this not a free moment?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:48 pm (UTC)

[In a meeting with the King of Sweden. I'm just good at multitasking.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:55 pm (UTC)

He cracks up.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:56 pm (UTC)

[We are talking about whether it makes sense to give me a Nobel Prize given that I had all this magic that's not generally available.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 10:58 pm (UTC)

[Doesn't everyone who gets a Nobel Prize have resources that aren't generally available?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 10:59 pm (UTC)

[Yes, but not magic, so I don't think it's very fair. Although, ironically, I could use the money.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:00 pm (UTC)

[Not much I can do for you there, unless you want to bribe him with my autograph,] he says whimsically.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:02 pm (UTC)

[Nah, I'm arguing for not nominating me. There's other ways to get Earth currency.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:04 pm (UTC)

[But if you need the money why are you making an effort not to get it that way...?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:07 pm (UTC)

[Same reason I'm not cheating at a lottery. I'd take the Randi Prize in a heartbeat, but I didn't get on it quick enough; it folded up before I could try. The money's not urgent. I can magic up any things I need, and people are buying up some Imperial Rings. I just don't have enough to throw around casually in terrestrial markets for things that do need to be denominated in cash instead of magical favors, and I don't want to charge for most of the services I offer.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:08 pm (UTC)

[I guess that's reassuring behaviour in a magical empress,] he concedes dubiously.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:09 pm (UTC)

[The other magical empresses I know mostly don't have this problem.]

She's not joking, although this might not be immediately evident.

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:11 pm (UTC)

[Which problem? Needing money, or caring how you get it?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:11 pm (UTC)

[Needing it,] laughs Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:19 pm (UTC)

[And are there more magical empresses I should be worrying about?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:20 pm (UTC)

[Not here,] Bella sighs.

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:21 pm (UTC)

[Where else?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:21 pm (UTC)

[Other worlds. I can't get to them, just like I can't get to the afterlife, right now. Used to be we could bounce around wherever we liked.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:24 pm (UTC)

[What changed?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:25 pm (UTC)

[There used to be a person who lived in a faster-than-light computer network, and worked even when spread out between many worlds. She could pick people up and put them down, anywhere she could see, and she worked for us. She's broken.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:33 pm (UTC)

[Oh,] he says. [...Sorry.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:34 pm (UTC)

[It's happened before, and she came back. She's broken worse this time and I don't know what happened.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:35 pm (UTC)

[And I guess you can't just magic it better...?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:36 pm (UTC)

[No. The problem isn't here; it's probably with the person her personality sort of sits in, and she's in some other world, and she has all the power I do and then some; I have to wait for her or someone who's with her to fix it, but for all I know it could take a hundred years in this world for thirty seconds to pass there.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:38 pm (UTC)

[Damn,] he concludes. [I'm sorry.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:39 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, it's frustrating and I'm worried about them, but at least I have most of what I need here.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:41 pm (UTC)

[Anything missing other than interdimensional travel?] he asks wryly.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Jane - the computer person - was also really, really good at handling email and other computer tasks. The programs she ran for it are mostly local, so I can still use them, but they're not quite as high quality without consciousness operating them. Everything else does boil down to interdimensional travel and communication.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:46 pm (UTC)

[...So "Imperial Staff" is actually a robot? Some robot,] laughs Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:47 pm (UTC)

[My personnel officer is hunting up an actual secretary to help out, but yeah, any emails signed 'Imperial Staff' are from bits of Jane's code.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:49 pm (UTC)

[It takes you two months to find a secretary?]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:51 pm (UTC)

[Well, it has to be someone I can trust with most of my information, ideally without resorting to geases, and someone who gets along with me personally, etcetera. There have been candidates, I just haven't kept any of them so far.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:52 pm (UTC)

[Hm,] he says. [I'd volunteer, but you don't want me answering your email.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:52 pm (UTC)

[Why not, what awful things would you do?]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:54 pm (UTC)

[I have - how did Rayne put it - 'an unforgivable combination of bad manners and soppiness'.]

bellfounding
2013-07-07 11:55 pm (UTC)

[I am having a failure of imagination in trying to figure out how those traits might combine.]

tearingup
2013-07-07 11:59 pm (UTC)

[Nice when I should be nasty and nasty when I should be nice. Although given that that's Rayne's assessment, maybe I should be rethinking it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:01 am (UTC)

[Possibly. Though I'm not the embodiment of tact myself.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:02 am (UTC)

Innocently, [Aren't you then?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:03 am (UTC)

[Nah. Not my strong suit. Personnel officer's better at that sort of thing.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:04 am (UTC)

[But she's too busy to answer your email...?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:06 am (UTC)

[Yeah. I have, you know, personnel, though, and she vets them, she picks out ambassadors who are good at ambassadoring, that sort of thing.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:06 am (UTC)

[Aha.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:08 am (UTC)

[The secretary in particular is proving difficult, but I imagine someone will turn up; I could always go back to one of the rejected candidates if my email starts piling up too badly. I don't want you thinking Slipstick - the personnel officer - isn't good at what she does; it's just she's an import from another world and hasn't had as long as she'd ideally need to build up her network.]
Edited 2013-07-08 00:21 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:22 am (UTC)

[This whole 'other worlds' thing is a bit of a leap for me to begin with,] he says. [Although, oddly, not as much of a leap as Saturn.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:23 am (UTC)

[The other worlds are less of a leap than Saturn? Really?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:25 am (UTC)

[Haven't you ever found that when something incredibly, fantastically impossible turns out to be true, it's much easier to take than something that was only just barely impossible?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:27 am (UTC)

[Nnnno, not really. I lived an unremarkable life, died at age seventeen, and then was woken up by seven alternate versions of myself, three of whom weren't even human, and they gave me lots of magic powers and we took over the afterlife together. I got dropped directly into 'fantastic', took it really well, and have not been much surprised since.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:28 am (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:28 am (UTC)

[Oh, I forgot to mention, the other magical empresses I know all look exactly like me.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:29 am (UTC)

[Er... why?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:32 am (UTC)

[We're all of a template. Personalities - and faces and life narrative features - crop up over and over, and there are lots of me. They don't all look precisely like me,] she amends. [There is a boy one and an angel one and an elf one and a vampire one. And of the girls, two of them are shorter than the rest of us and one is taller due to childhood malnutrition and growing up in low gravity, respectively. And our thing is being magical empresses.]
Edited 2013-07-08 00:34 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:34 am (UTC)

[And one magical emperor, apparently.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:35 am (UTC)

[Well, last time I saw him he hadn't progressed to emperor, he was doing motivated capitalism - there are some questionably acceptable deity-things in his world, at least one of which is evil, and he isn't sure he's ready to have their attention.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:37 am (UTC)

[You have the strangest problems.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:38 am (UTC)

[I don't. I'm the boring one. My nickname to distinguish me from all the others who are also named Bella is 'Pattern'. Because I do not deviate from the pattern.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:39 am (UTC)

[That seems... cruel,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:39 am (UTC)

[Oh, I picked the nickname myself. I didn't have a better idea. I might change it, later, when I see them again, something on the 'rings' theme, I did Saturn because no one else was doing Saturn.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:41 am (UTC)

[I can't believe that you're the only one with no distinguishing features. How do you know you don't deviate from the pattern if everyone else does?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:45 am (UTC)

[Because they all deviate from the same pattern - imagine you saw a sentence written a dozen times and each iteration had a different word changed to something random, you'd be able to work out what the sentence was. Also, because the one of me who is the princess of a fairytale forest and can magically see template properties says so.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:48 am (UTC)

[No,] he says, [I think you do have the strangest problems, actually.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 12:55 am (UTC)

She laughs. [For a certain reading of 'strange', maybe I do. I'm not completely indiscernible - like, I'm the only single one, I am the only Bell from a world that has a Gotham in it - they're not usual; most worlds have no Gotham and a more significant New York City instead - and anything I do with the knowledge of what the others have done, like starting on Saturn instead of Mars, is a chance to be distinguished. I just didn't start out with anything much beyond the fact that all the worlds are a little different and this one's mine.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:58 am (UTC)

[Is there a reason you're the only single one?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:04 am (UTC)

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

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:08 am (UTC)

He puzzles through this, then says,

[I'm not hearing a reason you, personally, are single.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:10 am (UTC)

[None of the things that cause Bells to have significant others have happened to me,] Pattern says. [None of them went out looking. They just sort of had these people fall in their laps and wound up being pleased about it.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:11 am (UTC)

[And you, being all template-y, aren't going to go out looking...?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:12 am (UTC)

[It hasn't really been a priority. I sort of flirted with one of the stray Tonies at a Bell party one time.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:14 am (UTC)

He laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:15 am (UTC)

[- Does "stray" sound bad? It just means that he's from a world we're in contact with - when we're in contact with anywhere, although I bet Juliet can still talk to those worlds - but doesn't have a Bell of its own.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:16 am (UTC)

[...If that's what it means, then yes, it sounds bad.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:17 am (UTC)

[Well, an unBelled Tony, at any rate. Three of 'em appear with Bells, three of 'em appear only with their own template attachments, so far.]
Edited 2013-07-08 01:17 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:26 am (UTC)

[And you flirted with one. Good to know.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:30 am (UTC)

[They're a flirty bunch, although not as much as the more common template I mentioned.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:44 am (UTC)

[But the other ones weren't flirting with you. Do any of these people have names?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:45 am (UTC)

[They've flirted with me, I just don't really flirt back with them. The Tonies are all named Tony, although I think it's short for a variety of things. The others have no name consistency at all - the ones here are named Queenie, Ghosty, Aianon, and Ansharil.]
Edited 2013-07-08 01:45 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:46 am (UTC)

[Which one's the 'and a half'?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:47 am (UTC)

[Aianon and Ansharil. They're the same template, which landed in two bodies in that world - Template-Things Seer Bell says the template couldn't decide which species to land in - and are basically one person.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:51 am (UTC)

[Do the templates have names? You're a Bell apparently, the Tonies are Tonies...]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:52 am (UTC)

[Yeah, and Tonies come with Sherlocks most of the time, and the personnel officer is a Libby, etcetera.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:53 am (UTC)

[And Queenie and Ghosty and Aianon and I forget the last one...?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:54 am (UTC)

[...Put your tea down.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:55 am (UTC)

[...So you were actually dodging that one? It's put.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 01:55 am (UTC)

[They call themselves Jokers.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 01:59 am (UTC)

[Is there an explanation for this that I can pick up my tea before hearing?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:00 am (UTC)

[Probably not. I was busy being dead while the local, eponymous Joker was active, so I'm not completely up on how his activities were covered in the news, but he's a one of them. There are lots more, though.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:02 am (UTC)

[And there are three and a half of them in the world right now, not making the news?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:03 am (UTC)

[Queenie and Ghosty describe themselves as 'retired'. Aianon and Ansharil hang out on Saturn, filling in gaps in the ecosystem and wishing they were back with Elf Bell back in their world and thinking at her a lot via telepathic bond thing. Jokers are really useful if you know what to do with them; the problem was the Bat had one and a worse than useless idea of what to do with him.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:10 am (UTC)

[What are they useful for?] he asks, with a slightly desperate edge. [I mean, that man is fucking terrifying. I had nightmares about him. Sexy nightmares.] Half-laughing, [Fuck, did I say that out loud? I'm sorry, TMI.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:13 am (UTC)

[I'll survive,] says Bella, amused. [I could introduce you to one or more of the available three and a half, if you want, although fair warning, Aianon and Ansharil are not humans. Jokers're useful for magic generation.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:14 am (UTC)

[Do you make your magic out of fear or something?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:15 am (UTC)

[No. They're not terrorizing the populace.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:17 am (UTC)

[And what do you mean you could introduce me? Is it safe? Would they flirt with me? Do people generally survive their flirting?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:18 am (UTC)

[I mean I could introduce you to them and they'd probably hit on you. They're not going around doing nefarious things! They're retired, they don't want Batlady's attention anymore - Aianon and Ansharil don't even come from a world that has one of her - and they wouldn't hurt you unless you're into that.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:22 am (UTC)

[...Leaving aside the question of whether or not I'm into that, how did you ever manage to collect three and a half nice Jokers?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:25 am (UTC)

[They're not unusually nice for Jokers. The Joker, from here, is living peacefully in a world called Aurum with his vampire boyfriend and their adorable hybrid children. Jokers aren't so much 'nice' or 'not nice'. It's a matter of what abilities and opportunities they're presented with. I hired Queenie, Ghosty followed her here, Aianon and Ansharil are stranded here because they were still around when Jane broke and they were doing Saturn's ecology.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:30 am (UTC)

[I'm not sure I buy it,] he says. [And, you know, sexy nightmares are still nightmares.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:31 am (UTC)

[Okay, I won't introduce you if you don't want,] says Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:35 am (UTC)

[...well,] he says, wavering. [I'll think about it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:36 am (UTC)

She laughs into the brainphone. [They're as immortal as me and you, so no rush.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:39 am (UTC)

[Oh, good. —Am I likely to run into one if I move to Saturn? How settled is Saturn?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:40 am (UTC)

[They don't really hang out in inhabited parts of Saturn. Aianon and Ansharil are out in the non-habitats making critters sometimes, but they don't like the ground rules, they like more chaotic settings than Bell-operated colonies ever shake out to be.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:42 am (UTC)

[Ground rules like the ones that mean if Rayne follows me to Saturn I can't punch him again? Yes, I'm not a fan either,] he laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:43 am (UTC)

[And yet you plan to move there?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:46 am (UTC)

[I think not being able to punch people but not having to pay rent is a great tradeoff.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:47 am (UTC)

She giggles. [Saturn does have that, among other, advantages.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:53 am (UTC)

[So I'll talk to the band and see what they say about moving, and they'll say no, and we'll play what was probably going to be our last concert anyway - do you want tickets?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:54 am (UTC)

[Sure, why not. I'm not sure about plural, though, I don't know who to invite. What's the band's name? I can see if anyone I know is familiar, since probably you don't want me to bring a Joker.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:57 am (UTC)

['Wretched'. Please don't bring a Joker.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:57 am (UTC)

[I will not bring a Joker. Most especially not the dragon.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 02:58 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 02:59 am (UTC)

[Or, for that matter, the one who is six and a half feet tall, bright red, horned, tailed, winged, and inclined to forgetting that pants exist.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:00 am (UTC)

Well, Ripper is now giggling helplessly.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:01 am (UTC)

[Might ask Slipstick. We should hang out more.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:03 am (UTC)

[I think I want to hear more about the other one's trouser problems. Does he forget that they exist or does he just not care?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:04 am (UTC)

[You know, I'm actually not sure, he just doesn't default to wearing them. He'll put them on when reminded, sometimes he remembers by himself. Probably has to do with the part where him and the dragon lived on an island all by themselves for several thousand years.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:06 am (UTC)

[...Yeah, that'll do it. Wait, does he walk around naked all the time...? I am getting the most incredible mental images.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:07 am (UTC)

[I don't really hang out with him while he's being naked,] Bella says. [I'm sure he would be thrilled to demonstrate if you need something clarified.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:08 am (UTC)

He sputters with laughter.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:10 am (UTC)

The King of Sweden gets up to go to the bathroom; Bella has the brainspace to start another side conversation. [Hey Slipstick.]

prima_sequentem
2013-07-08 03:12 am (UTC)

[Hi! What's up?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:13 am (UTC)

[Going to go to this random person's concert. Want to come?]

prima_sequentem
2013-07-08 03:14 am (UTC)

[Sure!]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:14 am (UTC)

[Slipstick says she'll come. When is it?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:19 am (UTC)

[A week Saturday, eight o'clock.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:20 am (UTC)

[Should I stealth or do you think I can manage not to be recognized?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:22 am (UTC)

[Leave the halo at home and you'll be fine.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:22 am (UTC)

[Will do.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:25 am (UTC)

[See you then. Trousers optional.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:25 am (UTC)

[Is there something you wanna tell me about the kind of concert you put on?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:27 am (UTC)

[No one's stopping you if you want to wear a skirt,] he says innocently.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:28 am (UTC)

[Good to know. Nothing good comes of an overly restrictive dress code.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:31 am (UTC)

[It's punk rock. You're not going to fit in, but fitting in isn't the point. Wear a ballgown for all anyone will care.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:32 am (UTC)

[I am not up on the performing arts fandom, what do you mean about fitting in?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:35 am (UTC)

[I mean - and this goes for my particular crowd, maybe not for the entire genre - you're not one of us, you don't dress like one of us, but no one cares that you're not one of us as long as you're not there to shit on anybody.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:36 am (UTC)

[All right.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:37 am (UTC)

[Right,] he says, satisfied.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:47 am (UTC)

[I suppose I'll see you then. You know, I have no idea if I like punk rock?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:51 am (UTC)

[Then you have the perfect opportunity to find out!]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:51 am (UTC)

[So I shouldn't study up first?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 03:55 am (UTC)

[Well... "punk rock" might have been an oversimplification, come to that. I won't be offended if you leave in the middle of the show,] he says cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:57 am (UTC)

[All right,] she laughs, [noted.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:00 am (UTC)

[See you then.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:29 am (UTC)

[See you!]

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

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

Queenie made her this dress. She likes it, but doesn't wear it much; it's loose and drapes over itself in folds and folds and folds, around the neck and shoulders, but it gets itself under control at the point where it's belted and falls to her ankle in a slimmer sheath. It's green, with one bullseye of cheerful yellow tie-dye at her hip to match the gold belt.
Edited 2013-07-08 04:48 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 12:47 pm (UTC)

Ripper spoke accurately: there is an aesthetic to this crowd, and she and Slipstick don't fit it, but no one seems to mind.

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

The sound check concludes. The concert begins.

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

bellfounding
2013-07-08 03:58 pm (UTC)

Oooh.

Bella leans her elbows on her knees and listens and smiles.

prima_sequentem
2013-07-08 04:02 pm (UTC)

...Well, that's interesting.

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:15 pm (UTC)

The concert goes on for a while, and includes a few covers of songs by better-known bands, of which the most memorable is definitely Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now".

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

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

And then he starts to sing.

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

To most of the crowd, it won't be obvious that he wrote it this week about Rayne.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:17 pm (UTC)

It's obvious to Bella. All this and he also writes songs.

She smiles and bites her lip in all the right places, and applauds enthusiastically when it's over.

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:19 pm (UTC)

And now the band really does pack up and leave.

Ripper grins at her again on his way out.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:19 pm (UTC)

[Nicely done,] she says.

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:22 pm (UTC)

[Thanks,] he laughs. [So what do you think of punk rock?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:22 pm (UTC)

[I dunno about the rest of the genre, but I like your band. You can really sing. I'm right about what inspired that last song, aren't I?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:24 pm (UTC)

[Yes, you are,] he sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:25 pm (UTC)

[It was really good, I'm impressed you pulled it together in that time.] She's filtering out of the crowd on foot; as far as she know no one has recognized her yet.

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:30 pm (UTC)

[It's not finished yet, but it's getting there. It was good enough for an encore, anyway.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:31 pm (UTC)

[One of my alts and her Joker can sing, but I've never wished it up, let alone developed the skill naturally.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:31 pm (UTC)

[You can wish up singing?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:32 pm (UTC)

[Probably. I don't think any of us have tried singing - the one of me who can sing can do it because she's an angel and they're all about the singing where she's from - but one of me wished up flute skills and she's really good.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:35 pm (UTC)

[One of you is an angel?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:37 pm (UTC)

[Genetically engineered space angel, big speckly wings, grew up in a tech-relinquished culture that thinks she's an agent of their god and uses angels to control the weather via song, she later found out the god was a reasonably intelligent spaceship. Not a person, though. Jane ate it and cribbed the notes from the software so now I can still talk to my systems even though she's gone.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:39 pm (UTC)

[You're just never going to stop casually mentioning more impossible things, are you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:39 pm (UTC)

[I'll run out eventually.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Like hell.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Speaking of Hell, I didn't tell you very much about the afterlife.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:40 pm (UTC)

[...You now have my full attention!]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:42 pm (UTC)

She laughs. [It's not Hell any more. It was just really, really awful for a long, long time, and we found out about it in the obvious way - not me, I was asleep the whole time, but Shell Bell had a nasty time of it - and we did not like it. It's not quite accurate to say we took it over, but we caused enough of a stir to get a meeting with the admin, and she doesn't really like... doing things, as far as we can tell... so she let us change a bunch of stuff and now it is not Hell.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:44 pm (UTC)

[Hell - ex-Hell - has an 'admin'?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:46 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, she set up the place's initial conditions, and changed them a few times in response to miscellaneous badgering, and she's locally omnipotent. She's not bad, just kind of apathetic; she was perfectly happy to replace her existing systems for sorting people with Jane and us Bells. The place is called Downside - there's also a section called Upside but it doesn't come up as frequently.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:48 pm (UTC)

[Well, that's... sort of existentially depressing,] he says.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:49 pm (UTC)

[Is it? How so?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:50 pm (UTC)

[The omnipotent ruler of the afterlife is apathetic? That doesn't depress you at all?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:51 pm (UTC)

[No, not really. If she'd had a vested interest in things being how they were we would have had a devil of a time getting them changed. And they were bad. Lots of torture going around.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:53 pm (UTC)

[Well, right, that's depressing on a whole different level, but wouldn't it be nicer if someone cared?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:54 pm (UTC)

[We care.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:54 pm (UTC)

[Who's 'we'?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:55 pm (UTC)

[Bells. We do Belling. Belling involves ramping up everyone's quality of life.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 04:58 pm (UTC)

[I don't think that's... exactly what I meant.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 04:59 pm (UTC)

[Why don't we count, then? Were you hoping for benevolent literal deities?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:04 pm (UTC)

[Never mind,] he sighs. [I'm gonna go to sleep. No other takers for Saturn, by the way.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:05 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Sleep well.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:06 pm (UTC)

[G'night,] he yawns, and up goes his busy message.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:07 pm (UTC)

Bella pops back to her palace, puts on her crown, and continues about her business.

She also orders a copy of the band's album, paying real money and arranging for it to be sent to Renée's house for her to pick up.

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:18 pm (UTC)

Several of the songs they played at the concert are on there, along with several they didn't, and they sound even better on the studio recording.

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

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:18 pm (UTC)

Ah-huh.

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:27 pm (UTC)

A few weeks later, he brainphones her again.

[Managed to dodge that Nobel Prize yet?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:28 pm (UTC)

[Oh, the king agreed to recommend against nominating me to the committee, but it's anybody's guess whether they'll do it anyway. How are you doing?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:34 pm (UTC)

[Moved to Saturn. It's pretty up here. I think I'll write a song about it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:35 pm (UTC)

[I'm glad you like it! A bunch of my alts and some Jokers swung by to enchant it with me, it was a fun group project and we got auras that way.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:40 pm (UTC)

[I'm beginning to lose track of all this magic,] he half-complains.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:41 pm (UTC)

[There is a lot of it. I only have the Bell-standard kinds, since there isn't any from around here and I never got around to asking the unicorn how to safely copy elf magic like I was planning. I should maybe ask Aianon to ask Sarion to ask him for me.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:42 pm (UTC)

[There's a unicorn?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:43 pm (UTC)

[There's an entire population of them - actually two worlds have unicorns, but Thilanushinyel is the one with elf magic I wanted to copy and also the one I can currently talk to.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:45 pm (UTC)

[What's so great about elf magic?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:50 pm (UTC)

[I don't need it for any specific effects, but insofar as it does things, it does things without running down any finite resources.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:50 pm (UTC)

[That does sound convenient.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:52 pm (UTC)

[Yep. In Thilanushinyel, you get it by, one, being an elf, and two, being psychically bonded to a dragon, and the dragon serves as a power source; the unicorn showed up to warn us that if I just naively copied the magic I'd wind up stealing it from the elves, so I have to work out a design for the duplication with him, or possibly another unicorn but most likely the same one. Unicorns in that world go around reporting on what the Wild Magic has to say, and it knows stuff.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:53 pm (UTC)

[What is the Wild Magic? It sounds exciting.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:55 pm (UTC)

[We're not totally clear on that; it won't talk to us directly, even Sarion, and it's kind of vague with the unicorns too. I think it's like a cross between an instantiation of magic in general in that world - although only one of several kinds of magic user is actually called "Wildmage" - and maybe a god, but not an omnipotent one or anything.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 05:56 pm (UTC)

[How is it on caring?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 05:57 pm (UTC)

[On a personal level, no idea. In terms of stuff it's motivated to do, not awful - it cared that I was about to accidentally steal elf magic, it told Sarion what she had to do to save the world. It has a history of telling people to do things to save the world.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:02 pm (UTC)

[That's not bad,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:02 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, Sarion doesn't look poised to take its job so much as render it obsolescent.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:06 pm (UTC)

[Render it what?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:07 pm (UTC)

[It mostly puts people where they need to be to save the world; she intends that the world cease to need saving. Although I suppose it will continue to supply Wildmages with their powers indefinitely.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:14 pm (UTC)

[...If saving the world is a regular enough thing there that it's someone's job to arrange saviors, how's she going to do that?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:18 pm (UTC)

[Well, it needs saving from a specific set of things that no one has managed to completely eradicate. And this world-needs-saving thing only occurs about once every thousand years, so she has a while to figure it out.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:23 pm (UTC)

[Specific set of things like...?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:25 pm (UTC)

[Demons. Aianon's the last regular one, and he in particular is fine, but there are demonic spirits of various sorts, spooky dark things.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:26 pm (UTC)

[Ouch. Real actual demons, huh?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:26 pm (UTC)

[I did tell you Aianon is bright red and has a tail and horns and wings, didn't I?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:34 pm (UTC)

[And naked, you also mentioned that he is often naked,] Ripper reminds her cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:35 pm (UTC)

[Yes. I mean, so is Ansharil, but it matters less for scaly quadrupeds, yeah?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:36 pm (UTC)

[Definitely. I've been assuming this fellow is reasonably humanoid, correct me if I'm wrong. Or let me keep my pleasant illusions.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:36 pm (UTC)

[Dragon isn't, demon is apart from the mentioned add-ons. Also claws, he has claws.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:37 pm (UTC)

[I can see the sexy nightmares coming already,] he giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:37 pm (UTC)

[Enjoy,] snorts Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:38 pm (UTC)

[I will!]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:39 pm (UTC)

[I bought your album,] adds Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:41 pm (UTC)

[Speaking of nudity. What'd you think?] he laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:42 pm (UTC)

[Of the nudity or the music?] she asks archly.

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Take your pick.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:48 pm (UTC)

[Wasn't expecting the former, was quite pleased with the latter. I didn't realize you wrote virtually all the songs; you're very talented and I look forward to seeing what Saturn inspires.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:57 pm (UTC)

[Anything in the name of art,] Ripper says cheerfully. [I'll let you know when I come up with something good.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:58 pm (UTC)

[I don't have an anthem yet,] she says impishly.

tearingup
2013-07-08 06:58 pm (UTC)

[Ooooooooooh. Oooh, you temptress,] he giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 06:59 pm (UTC)

She laughs. [No promises. I haven't seen you work in an anthem-y genre.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:00 pm (UTC)

[Is that a challenge?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:01 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Yes it is.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:01 pm (UTC)

[Oh my.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:02 pm (UTC)

[I am sure the results will be interesting.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:03 pm (UTC)

[You can bet on it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:06 pm (UTC)

[I need to pick something by the time the next Olympics roll around, even if I have to wish up some skills and write it myself, so it's good you can apparently write songs fast.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:07 pm (UTC)

[Do you need an anthem for the Olympics?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Only if your athletes win something, but yeah, if you win your anthem plays.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:10 pm (UTC)

[And is Saturn entering the Olympics?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:11 pm (UTC)

[In a few events. Don't have the population to field contestants for everything, but I have two gymnasts, a sprinter, and an archer up here.]
Edited 2013-07-08 19:12 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:13 pm (UTC)

[I am devoid of patriotic feelings, but I'll write you an anthem anyway.]
Edited 2013-07-08 19:14 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:14 pm (UTC)

[Awww, but I so hoped to inspire patriotism,] says Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:15 pm (UTC)

[Eh, patriotism's fucked.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:16 pm (UTC)

[I'm not particularly attached to my country of origin, but I really really like my magic space empire!] she protests.

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:19 pm (UTC)

[I like your magic space empire fine, but I'm not cheering for it in sporting events.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:20 pm (UTC)

[And I don't qualify to participate in Eurovision, what a pity.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:21 pm (UTC)

He snickers.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:21 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, turns out Saturn is not even slightly in Europe.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:23 pm (UTC)

[What a pity.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:23 pm (UTC)

[I know, right? I could have just got on the Euro instead of inventing my own adorable currency.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:24 pm (UTC)

[On second thought, stay out of Europe. The adorable currency is very adorable.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:25 pm (UTC)

[I'm glad you like it. I stole the origami birds idea from Stella - it was too cute, I couldn't think of anything I liked as much - but I picked different ones except the swan, and the coins are all mine.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:28 pm (UTC)

[Stella being another of you, I'm assuming?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:29 pm (UTC)

[Yep. She's the one who brought the peal of Bells our most everyday-useful sort of magic, and her empire is called the Empire of the Stars and her adorable currency is called asters.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:30 pm (UTC)

[...Peal. Peal of Bells.]

He giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:31 pm (UTC)

[Yep. We are the peal of Bells. The Jokers form a deck,] she adds, [no one else has a collective noun.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:32 pm (UTC)

[No? Not enough of them, or no convenient puns?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:33 pm (UTC)

[There are fewer of all the other templates - except attached templates, like, all of us Bells have parents - so probably a combination of the two.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:34 pm (UTC)

[The way you say that makes me think there are templates for whom parents are optional.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:36 pm (UTC)

[There are! One of the Jokers is a magical construct. Also there are some clones floating around.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:36 pm (UTC)

He just laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:37 pm (UTC)

[Siblings also vary; one of me has a fraternal twin sister, the rest of us are only children. Jokers occasionally have little brothers - those don't usually turn out well.]
Edited 2013-07-08 19:38 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:38 pm (UTC)

[Meaning they turn out worse than the Joker? That I have to - never, ever see.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:41 pm (UTC)

[We call them Voices. They're - different, and not as easily adaptable as Jokers are. And if they're rescued early enough, they can turn out okay; Angela's Joker has one and he's - okay. But they can get very bad.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:44 pm (UTC)

[How many cities do they terrorize?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:45 pm (UTC)

[They do kill people, but they're less theatrical about it. Our primary exposures to them apart from Angela's okay one has been the one who found Shell Bell Downside and decided to take her home and torture her for twenty-five years. There was also the one who kidnapped Rose's husband and gave him brain damage; she killed him.]
Edited 2013-07-08 19:45 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:48 pm (UTC)

[Well, that's... charming,] says Ripper. [Twenty-five years? I suppose that's not long to a dead person.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:50 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. She was down there for way more than that total before she found a door out.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:52 pm (UTC)

[Sucks to be her,] he says sympathetically.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:53 pm (UTC)

[She's okay now. Although her girlfriend felt pretty awful about not having known she needed help. Because right after she got assassinated, said girlfriend resurrected her, only the problem was that back then if you did that it just forked the resurrected person, so there were two of her. They merged later.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:54 pm (UTC)

[It is,] he says after a moment, [weird that you know someone who has been assassinated.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 07:57 pm (UTC)

[We actually get assassinated a fair amount! I'm just an ordinary car crash victim, but Shell Bell got nuked by a political rival, people have tried and only just barely failed to kill Golden twice, somebody who didn't like Juliet got his hands on a wish and killed her, Aegis's spaceship got shredded by a local superweapon, Cam was nearly suffocated in his sleep by the evil deity-thing I mentioned. Also, if you want to count it, at one point we killed Sarion on purpose because we were trying to solve a problem she had that could conceivably have been solved by sending her through Downside. Didn't work, though.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 07:58 pm (UTC)

[...What the hell kind of a problem is solved by dying?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:00 pm (UTC)

[The "till death do us part" kind. Her thing with Ansharil and Aianon involved involuntary mind-reading, and that tops the list of ways to break Bells into non-functional shells of our former selves - Shell Bell got broke too but it took way longer her way. We were trying to get Sarion out of the dragon bond thing. Eventually we hauled in Stella's magic-seeing guy and got him to design a patch for it, once it turned out that the dragonbond snapped back into place as soon as we woke up Technically Dead Sarion.]
Edited 2013-07-08 20:00 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:04 pm (UTC)

[Well, that's... I have no idea what to think about that,] he admits.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:05 pm (UTC)

[Sarion is better now. Cam designed her an assistive version of our standard perfect recall, based on his magic notebook but without involving another personality, and she had some recovery time, and now she's doing the whole curing-diseases-setting-up-ground-rulesed-colonies-recovering-endangered-species Bell thing.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:10 pm (UTC)

[Nothing like a happy ending,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:10 pm (UTC)

[Well, except that now her beloveds are stranded here and can't get to her. But yeah.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:13 pm (UTC)

[Her - beloveds?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:13 pm (UTC)

[That's what she calls them; it's a dragon bond thing. For a while they didn't have names at all and then they let Sarion's mom name them.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:17 pm (UTC)

[...Okay then.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:17 pm (UTC)

[What?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:19 pm (UTC)

[Is there a reason they didn't have names...? I seem to remember something about ten thousand years wandering naked on an island, is that related?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:21 pm (UTC)

[Jokers never keep their birth names. The demon had one, I don't know what; the dragon didn't, he just hatched all alone and wandered around till he found the demon. And they didn't need names until later, when they were interacting with more people.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:28 pm (UTC)

[Okay then,] he says, in a slightly different tone. Ditching your birth name is nothing new to him.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:29 pm (UTC)

[Do you not like your birth name either?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:32 pm (UTC)

[I prefer 'Ripper'.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:32 pm (UTC)

[Where'd you get it? 'Cause I'm pretty sure it wasn't from Sarion's mom.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:36 pm (UTC)

[Rayne, actually.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:37 pm (UTC)

[Do I want to know what exactly you are inclined towards ripping?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:37 pm (UTC)

[I don't know,] he says innocently, [do you?]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:38 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I think so. Curiosity is a very strong impulse for us Bells, and as we know I am undeviating from template.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:44 pm (UTC)

[Well, you could ask Rayne, but he keeps changing his story.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:44 pm (UTC)

[Also I don't feel like engaging in social interaction with him.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:45 pm (UTC)

[That too.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:45 pm (UTC)

[I assume he had some virtues that simply haven't been made apparent to me?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:46 pm (UTC)

[Well... 'virtues' might not be the right word.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:46 pm (UTC)

[What would be?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:51 pm (UTC)

[Eh, maybe there isn't one. He's good to have on your side, most of the time. Nasty sense of humour, but funny nasty, not vicious nasty.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:53 pm (UTC)

[He seemed to care about Randall,] she ventures.

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:54 pm (UTC)

Ripper sighs. [Not really. He just wanted me to shut up about him already.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 08:56 pm (UTC)

[Seriously?]

tearingup
2013-07-08 08:58 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. That's Rayne's idea of a nice gesture. I'm upset about our friend dying, but I'm not doing anything about it, so he fakes his own death to make me do something about it. In his mind, that makes sense.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:00 pm (UTC)

[Well, it nearly worked, I'll give him that. At any rate, my dead people waiting list cleared four hundred thousand this morning; I don't know how many at once a relevantly sized wish will do, but it's getting to the point where I'm willing to try one even at the risk of wasting some of its capacity.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:06 pm (UTC)

[Isn't four hundred thousand dead people at once going to, I don't know, mess things up somehow?]
Edited 2013-07-08 21:07 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:08 pm (UTC)

[You begin to understand the kinds of problems I get to play with. Yeah. I'll be storing them asleep on Titan and waking them up a few at a time.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:08 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:09 pm (UTC)

[Titan's where I keep my palace,] she adds.

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:09 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, palace.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:10 pm (UTC)

[You wanna see it?] she asks whimsically.

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:11 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:12 pm (UTC)

[Put down your tea.]

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:13 pm (UTC)

[Yes, Your Majesty,] he giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:14 pm (UTC)

In she pops.

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:15 pm (UTC)

He is not actually drinking tea at all; he is tuning his guitars. Shirtless.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:15 pm (UTC)

She looks. A little. "Say when."

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:17 pm (UTC)

He shrugs and stands up. "When, unless your palace has a dress code."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Nope." Pop! They are in the blue garden.

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Did you figure out who it was on the album cover, by the way? I couldn't tell."

Ooh, a garden. How blue.
Edited 2013-07-08 21:18 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I have boosted eyes, I pick up on that kinda thing."

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Most people don't, or at any rate they're not sure. If you want to see an argument, all you have to do is find some Wretched fans on the internet and say, 'So was it Ripper, really?' Hilarious to watch."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:23 pm (UTC)

"What, you guys never told?" she laughs.

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Of course not."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Because the arguments are so entertaining?"

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:25 pm (UTC)

He grins and nods.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I know not to casually let it slip to the United Nations."

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:27 pm (UTC)

Ripper cracks up.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:27 pm (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Not that they'd believe you. Or people would start wondering how you knew, and then there would be a whole different argument."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, couldn't I just tell them?" she laughs. "'Ah yes, he told me himself, while admiring my magic blue plants; you see, I am the Empress of Rings and I can teleport so I don't really have a hard time introducing myself to miscellaneous musicians'?"

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:31 pm (UTC)

"And that will stop the rumours? I hope you have PR people," he laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I do. They are often tactfully exasperated with me. Sometimes I almost wish I had an Elspeth."
Edited 2013-07-08 21:34 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Elspeth?"

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Golden's daughter. She has magical truth-telling powers and runs Golden's PR department; if she tells you something true you're going to believe it. I imagine she's very effective at shutting down unwanted rumors."

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Except when the rumours are true."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, except then, and then I suppose Elspeth's silence would be fairly damning. So perhaps it's just as well I don't have one, especially since by all accounts her father's not such a prize. I haven't gotten to meet him because Bells who aren't his wife make him uncomfortable, except Cam, who doesn't count."

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:41 pm (UTC)

Ripper laughs and shakes his head.

"I could listen to you talk about your other universes all day."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:43 pm (UTC)

"It's nice to have an audience who doesn't already know it all. The staff are mostly imports from other worlds already, or the multiverse doesn't fall under need-to-know and we don't hang out socially."
Edited 2013-07-08 21:45 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:46 pm (UTC)

He grins. "Oh good, not bored then?"

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Not a bit. I will, however, eventually run out of stories."

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Not anytime soon, I don't think."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:48 pm (UTC)

"There are twelve others of me," she concedes, "all of whom are more interesting than I am and told me all the highlights."

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Lies," says Ripper. "None of them are as interesting as you."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:53 pm (UTC)

"One of them," says Bella, "is a naturally immortal witch whose soul takes the form of a talking screech owl. She has assassinated a president, defeated an archangel in single combat, rescued all of the dead shades from her Downside-incompatible worldsheaf from an eternity of sleepless despair, and co-founded the Belltower that allowed us to all find each other."
Edited 2013-07-08 21:53 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:54 pm (UTC)

"But," says Ripper, "she's not standing here telling me all this." He winks. "And she's not single."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:55 pm (UTC)

Bella blushes.

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:56 pm (UTC)

Ripper grins.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:57 pm (UTC)

"And that's more interesting than the owl soul thing?" Pause. "I checked to see what my soul would be if I had an external one - they're a thing you can get, if you go to that world. I'm a firefly."

tearingup
2013-07-08 09:58 pm (UTC)

"To me, personally, right this second? Yes," he says. "Yes it is."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 09:59 pm (UTC)

Blushing. Blushing blushing.

tearingup
2013-07-08 10:00 pm (UTC)

Grinning! Grinning grinning.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to see what yours would be, if you went unprotected to Alethia?"

tearingup
2013-07-08 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 10:17 pm (UTC)

Bella expends the necessary square.

tearingup
2013-07-08 10:18 pm (UTC)

And receives an illusion of a bird.

"Not bad," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-08 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I think that's some kind of kingfisher, but I don't know what kind," muses Bella. "I could conjure up one of the books of possible daemons to look it up and what it's supposed to mean, if you like."

tearingup
2013-07-08 10:21 pm (UTC)

"It means things?"

bellfounding
2013-07-08 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, like horoscopes but more reliably - daemons settle into single forms around puberty for reasons having to do with personality. Unless they belong to a Joker and then they never settle at all. Witches like my alt from that world, Amariah, always have flying birds, but otherwise it can be anything."
Edited 2013-07-08 22:25 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-08 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Let's hear it, then."

bellfounding
2013-07-08 10:30 pm (UTC)

Bella conjures up the bird daemon books, flips through the key guide, and finally finds it. "Green kingfisher. Chloroceryle americana - I think you've got the mathewsii subspecies. There's nothing specific to the green kind, but kingfisher-people in general are supposed to be adaptable, supposedly adopting any of several nigh-contradictory personalities to suit varying circumstances at different points in their lives."

tearingup
2013-07-09 02:48 am (UTC)

Ripper looks thoughtful.

bellfounding
2013-07-09 02:48 am (UTC)

"What?"

tearingup
2013-07-09 02:49 am (UTC)

"Sounds like a horoscope, all right."

bellfounding
2013-07-09 02:55 am (UTC)

Pattern shrugs. "They vary in how much information they have. Some kinds of daemons are so common that it's hard to make any general statements because there will be exceptions whose relevant personality features shifted after puberty or something - some are so rare that it's hard to make any general statements because there are negligible data points. Fireflies are in the sweet spot where there's a good amount for information-gathering; they mean insight and - the book said 'intellectual sparkle', I'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to mean."

tearingup
2013-07-09 03:01 am (UTC)

"It means your brain is sparkly," he suggests.

bellfounding
2013-07-09 03:02 am (UTC)

"Somehow I doubt it. And it didn't appear on my chart when I got hit by the van."

tearingup
2013-07-09 03:02 am (UTC)

Ripper snorts.

bellfounding
2013-07-09 03:04 am (UTC)

"Interestingly, some of me produce glowy magic. I don't. It seems to match up with which of us have native forms of mental opacity."

tearingup
2013-07-09 03:35 am (UTC)

"Glowy as opposed to what?"

bellfounding
2013-07-09 03:36 am (UTC)

"Not-glowy. Mine looks like notebook paper; it's pretty painfully generic for a Bell."

tearingup
2013-07-09 03:37 am (UTC)

"When does it look like notebook paper?"

bellfounding
2013-07-09 03:38 am (UTC)

"Wishes have physical form. Little pointy coins. What color they are depends on who makes them," Bella explains. She makes a triangle, appears it in the palm of her hand. "This is one of mine."

tearingup
2013-07-09 03:39 am (UTC)

He peers at it.

"That's a little pointy coin, all right," he agrees.

bellfounding
2013-07-09 03:42 am (UTC)

"I don't make most of my own wishcoins; that's what the Jokers are for. But it's nice to know what my coin color is. There haven't been any exact matches so far. If you made coins they'd look like -" She puts the triangle away, pulls a square, wishes on it. An illusion square appears next to the illusion kingfisher; it looks like gray suede. "That. Neat."

tearingup
2013-07-09 10:52 am (UTC)

"Does that mean anything?" he wonders, looking at the illusory coin.

bellfounding
2013-07-09 03:45 pm (UTC)

"You'd know better than I would about your own coin color. Some of them are pretty clearly referring to particular things; if you don't recognize it, though, I don't know what it's likely to be." She banishes both illusions.
Edited 2013-07-09 16:26 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-09 04:27 pm (UTC)

"What's so painfully generic about notebook paper, anyway?"

bellfounding
2013-07-09 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Until Bells get perfect recall, most of us do this thing where we write down everything we think, so we can look at it from the outside. We're very introspective. My coin color is clearly a Bell thing, but it isn't a Pattern thing in particular. Angela's look like her feathers - Glass's look like little chips of colored glass melted together - Golden's glow gold which matches with her whole empire theme, Aegis's are copper like the assistive exoskeleton she used to wear, Amariah's look like the tree branch she flies around on, Aurora's look like her mana. I guess Sarion's coins aren't any better than mine - parchment, with inkspots."
Edited 2013-07-10 06:19 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 03:42 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to have to start keeping notes on all these people, aren't I."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 03:43 pm (UTC)

She giggles. "If you're having trouble keeping them straight, maybe, yeah. They might be more memorable in person - not that I know, I got my recall less than thirty seconds after I met any of them."

tearingup
2013-07-10 03:45 pm (UTC)

"People are always harder to keep track of when you haven't actually met them," he says. "Well - when I haven't actually met them. It might help if I had some idea where all these nicknames were coming from, though."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 03:52 pm (UTC)

"Golden has gold eyes - on her world, if you are a vampire and you don't drink human blood, your eyes turn gold. Since she usurped a vampire government that did eat people, she themed her empire around the not-eating-people cosmetic feature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Rose's mindscape is full of roses.

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

"Sarion is just Elvish for 'elfmage'.

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

"And Glass calls herself that because she uses glass a lot when working with her local magic."
Edited 2013-07-10 15:54 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 04:02 pm (UTC)

He starts keeping count of some things after Amariah, then gives up again after Cam.

"So... species things, magic things, some plain old nicknames, one boy... what are you going to do if you find another boy? Cam the Second?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 04:03 pm (UTC)

"If he's named Campbell and goes by Cam, I suppose they'll have to work something else out, yeah. He might not be named Campbell, though - the girls don't all match. It's usually Isabella, but there's a Bell and a Belle and an Isibel. The 'bel' part is the only guaranteed part."

tearingup
2013-07-10 04:15 pm (UTC)

"...The only other boy's name with a 'bel' in it that springs to mind is 'Cymbeline'," laughs Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 04:17 pm (UTC)

"For all we know we'll find one of those," shrugs Bella. "But there's also 'Abel', and non-English names, and non-Earthly names for that matter."
Edited 2013-07-10 16:19 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Belial," he suggests, now that he's thinking about it. "Belshazzar. Béla - or does the pronunciation matter? Sibelius? Not a first name, but half the time neither is Campbell."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Pronunciation has some wiggle room. Shell Bell and Aegis are native English speakers but have noticeable accents relative to standard because they're from the future; Rose and Glass and Sarion and Angela didn't originally speak English at all - although Rose's language is mutually intelligible with regular French and Angela's culture uses a lot of Biblical names - and the correct pronunciations of their full names are slightly affected by that."

tearingup
2013-07-10 04:29 pm (UTC)

"'Because they're from the future', right, I love how that's a sensible explanation now," he giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Not the same future. Shell Bell grew up in a flooded dystopia where the totalitarian government had all the tech, Aegis grew up in space to learn to fight aliens," giggles Bella. "Angela's also from the future, but by a lot more, except her ancestors plunked down on this other planet, destroyed most of their technology and lied to their kids about the rest. She hasn't left the planet to check out the rest of civilization yet; she's trying to take it slow so she doesn't shock her population too badly, since the complete revelation involves telling them that God doesn't exist except in the form of a spaceship that addresses her as 'Captain'."
Edited 2013-07-10 16:31 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 04:33 pm (UTC)

"...So Angela is from the future that tried to be the past," Ripper interprets. "And failed."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, apparently they colonized the planet from someplace that had a lot of wars and thought it was technology's fault. There's supposed to be one person who knows about the god and the technology and stuff at any given time, so they can go up and fix the ship, if it needs it."

tearingup
2013-07-10 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that doesn't sound precarious at all," he snorts.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 04:36 pm (UTC)

"It totally is, the chain was broken not long before Angela was born and the microphones that detect the weather-control songs weren't working," snorts Bella, "and another angel figured out what was wrong and fixed it. She's the one who told Angela, because - do you want this whole story or just the overview?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Let's have the story," he decides. "Does this palace have anywhere to sit down while I hear it?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure," she says, and she leads him through the blue garden into the tower, where there is assorted seating upholstered in navy blue leather. She flops onto a couch. "So this other angel's name is Alleluia. The Archangel - the spaceship picks those, they serve twenty years, they are supposed to co-rule with a spouse the spaceship picks out for them - broke her wing, and Alleluia was picked to fill out the rest of her term; Archangels have to be able to fly so they can get near enough the microphones to sing prayers for weather and seeds and medicine to fall from the sky. The microphones were breaking, but the most important oracular site - read: ancient computer terminal - was standing unused, previous oracle died without picking a successor. So the spaceship was all, 'send help', but no one was reading the screen.

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

"Then, though, Angela finds us, and she takes some magic - she had misgivings about it, she was really religious, but she actually asked Alleluia to ask Jovah, that's the god's name, if magic was forbidden, and he said no. So she took it, and started doing covert miracles, and then there was this deformed baby born in her angel hold. So she swipes him and flies up where no one can see her, and asks Jovah to fix it, and of course he doesn't, because he's a spaceship, so she does it with magic and flies back down and tells everyone that Jovah did it - but Alleluia knew she was lying. So she confronted her and they swapped secrets, because Angela of course wanted to know how Alleluia could have figured out she was lying. Oh, and meanwhile, Angela had also asked who would be her angelico if she were ever named Archangel, and her Joker Micaiah who she'd already met was the answer, and so by the time she learned that Jovah was just a spaceship she was already married and knocked up. Bit of a rough day. They're okay though, they had four little cherubs last time I saw them."
Edited 2013-07-10 16:51 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Little cherubs meaning baby angels? The Joker with children, now there's a terrifying thought," laughs Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Little angels, yeah, oldest one was ten last I saw her. Micaiah is definitely the sweetest Joker, though. Except literally in which case it's Jellybean. All the Joker kids I know about are doing fine - there's Angela's four, Rose's two who match Angela's eldest, and then the ones the Joker from here had with his vampire boyfriend."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:04 pm (UTC)

"There's a literal sweetest Joker?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, he's from Cam's world, and he used wizarding to make himself taste like candy, and now he has an enchanter's aura that does it much more effectively. I haven't sampled him, but it's easy to tell even from a distance even if it weren't for the other Jokers always mentioning it."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:06 pm (UTC)

Ripper contemplates the mental images invoked by this explanation.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:07 pm (UTC)

Bella watches him contemplate this, amused.

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:08 pm (UTC)

"You know, I don't even know what the Joker looks like under all that makeup," he says musingly.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Want to see illusions of one or more of the deck? Since I'm assuming you'd let me know if you wanted an introduction to one of the ones here."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Illusions! Bring on the illusions."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:10 pm (UTC)

Since he didn't specify, she just conjures up all the known Jokers, including a miniature Ansharil with an equally illusory note stating that he is not to scale. She includes nametags in the conjuration. Also, Aianon appears wearing pants.

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:14 pm (UTC)

"He doesn't look unusually sweet," says Ripper, examining Jellybean's illusion. "Cheerful, though."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I can't duplicate anyone's aura but mine like this. At least not properly; I've seen about twenty seconds of Brilliance's lightshow and I could replicate that."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Different kinds of magic?" he guesses.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Enchanter auras are what happens if you do a lot of enchanting. Most of us and most of the Jokers got ours by working on Saturn, although since we found Glass and Saturn won't need any more work for a while, the going thing is now to visit Glass's fairytale forest and just dump a lot of magic into it; it's not exactly the same stuff, but it's compatible."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:19 pm (UTC)

He laughs and shakes his head. "Incredible."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Wishes are like programs, sort of. They can fill in a lot of gaps, but they work best when you know exactly the effect you want. Enchantments have personality, without intelligence, but enough to sometimes provide things you didn't expect to want in a convenient way."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Only in a convenient way?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Convenient for the enchanter or enchantress, at any rate. It can be excruciatingly inconvenient for other people if that's intended. Rose and her Joker got caught in an enchanted castle for a long time - him more than her."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Enchanted to do what?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Enchanted to keep him there, and steer away anyone who wasn't a candidate for curse breaking by means of falling in mutual love with him. While he was enchanted into a sort of a cat-monster body. On a deadline." She waves her hand and the relevant illusion changes. "He waited for about a hundred years, Rose wandered into the surrounding bewitched forest and got funneled into the castle, she immediately raided the library to see if she could just disassemble the curse by magic, and now she's a great enchantress but she wound up breaking the curse the intended way anyhow."
Edited 2013-07-10 17:28 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:29 pm (UTC)

Ripper looks at the illusory cat-monster.

"...I have so many rude questions," he snorts.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Do you."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Wouldn't anyone? Look at him."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Rose's early studies of enchantment permitted her to see his 'true form' even while he was still a cat monster, and breaking the curse made it so he could change back and forth," says Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:43 pm (UTC)

"...Well, that answers some of my rude questions."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:43 pm (UTC)

"You might have to spell them out before I can answer them."

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure you want me to spell them out," he snorts.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Up to you," snorts Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-10 05:45 pm (UTC)

"...So did they have sex while he was...? Because if he's as much like a cat as he looks, that could get very uncomfortable very fast."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 05:46 pm (UTC)

"They didn't have sex until they got married, which happened subsequent to cursebreaking. It is my confident speculation that his ability to swap back and forth hasn't been used this way with Rose, but you'd have to ask somejoker about what they get up to at parties. Or retroactively supervise them, I guess, they've issued blanket willingness to be retroactively supervised."
Edited 2013-07-10 18:23 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:23 pm (UTC)

"What," he inquires, leaning forward a little, "do they get up to at parties?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:25 pm (UTC)

"A lot of templates, Jokers most enthusiastically among them, wind up rendering it necessary that if Bells are going to throw parties and invite them, we have to have designated rooms for people to have sex in."

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:26 pm (UTC)

...

He cracks up.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:26 pm (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," he giggles. "And they let people watch? With magic?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, one of the Bell standard powers is past-watching, so they thought they'd make it known in case any of us felt like using it that way or anyone else felt like picking up the power."

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to make that face at me some more if I ask for Joker-watching powers?"
Edited 2013-07-10 18:30 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Probably. But I'd also let you have them."

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:31 pm (UTC)

"But will you disapprove?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:31 pm (UTC)

"On what grounds would I disapprove?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Was that not a disapproving face? It looked like one," he says. "And, you know, I do care if you disapprove of me. Not enough to let it keep me away from the magic Joker porn channel, but I care."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:50 pm (UTC)

"It's not my cup of tea. But my preferences aren't even universal within my own template," shrugs Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:52 pm (UTC)

"So I'm allowed to like things that aren't your cup of tea? Good, because otherwise I'd have a lot of trouble flirting with you," he says. "Can I get that magic Joker porn channel now?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure." She spins up to higher cognitive speed to design a limited form of pastwatching and waves her hand in his direction and spins down again. And then she conjures herself a cup of elf tea and sips it.

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:54 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:55 pm (UTC)

"D'you want to try this? It's a sort of Thilanushinyel tea, the elves drink it all the time, I like it."

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:57 pm (UTC)

She conjures a teapot full of it and another cup and pours him some. "If we were actually elves this tea would be accompanied by a lot of excruciatingly polite circumlocution around the fact that they consider it rude to ask questions."

tearingup
2013-07-10 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I'll just take the tea, thanks," he says, accepting the cup.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 06:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't blame you. Fortunately, Sarion doesn't mind if we ask her things, although she doesn't do it herself. If we didn't have a Bell who was an elf we'd have a really hard time interacting with them."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I can imagine!"

He tries the tea, and declares of it, "Not bad."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:02 pm (UTC)

"You haven't seen the other Bells," observes Bella, clearing away the illusions of Jokers. "Want to?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:05 pm (UTC)

And lo, there were all the other Bells, Angela in the back with her wings spread to full span and everyone else arrayed in front of her. These, too, wear nametags. Those who have crown designs are wearing theirs.

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Ripper, "that's a bunch of you, all right."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:07 pm (UTC)

"There are some axes on which we vary considerably, but at our most basic, yeah."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:10 pm (UTC)

He grins at her.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:11 pm (UTC)

"It is once again a pity I can't duplicate the auras properly. Angela's in particular is nice."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? What's it do?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Auras do most of the same things except they each have two unique features - for Bells, anyway, Jokers all get one that's the same and one unique - and hers are an aura of benevolence, and musical accompaniment when she sings."
Edited 2013-07-10 19:15 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:16 pm (UTC)

"...Dare I ask what the Jokers' common feature is?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Nothing terrifying. They get soundtracks that flare up at appropriate moments."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:19 pm (UTC)

...He snorts.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Micaiah's will cooperate with Angela's if they sing together, it's really cute."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:23 pm (UTC)

"That is cute."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:24 pm (UTC)

"I could conjure up a recording if you want to hear. They perform at parties sometimes."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:26 pm (UTC)

And lo, music begins to play, of a Samarian song of some sort, entwined voices and supportive auras.

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:27 pm (UTC)

Ripper listens appreciatively.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:28 pm (UTC)

It comes to an end. "Samarian culture is very big on music."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting that impression," he says. "They're not bad, those two."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I can't sing like her. It's an angel thing."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:31 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"You've got magic coming out your ears; I'm sure you could sing like her if you wanted to."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:32 pm (UTC)

"I imagine I could duplicate the voice and fake the training, but I wouldn't love it like she does."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:33 pm (UTC)

"I think that comes under 'don't want to'."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Mm, I don't think so exactly. The fact that I haven't intensely cared about music since I was capable of making intelligible sound means I'd be worse at singing; I don't think I could sing like Angela as a pure hobbyist even if I were really interested in acquiring the hobby."

tearingup
2013-07-10 07:54 pm (UTC)

"A pure hobbyist as opposed to what, a professional? Is there that big a difference?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm not actually sure," Pattern confesses. "But Angela's just a musical person, on a basic level - she got music for an aura feature, it's been her work and her passion for her whole life. Maybe I could almost completely close the gap with some combination of magic and practice but my feeling is there would always be some difference. Possibly unless time stalls in Samaria while I spend twenty years catching up."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:01 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Maybe it just looks different from the other side. Or maybe I'm overestimating your magic. I mean, to me, singing is much less impressive than raising the dead, but for you it seems to be the other way around."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Depends what you mean by impressive. I know exactly what steps I take to bring a dead person back. It's not complicated. You could do it, if I gave you a sufficiently pointy coin. It's not a skill, it's a matter of having fallen in with the right crowd and been the right sort of person for that crowd to trust me with the power. And the same magic can impress people with skills, but that doesn't make the skills unimpressive when they're gained the ordinary way, and I don't think the limiting factor on how good a pentagon could make me at singing is that it's just a pentagon and not a hex."
Edited 2013-07-10 20:09 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Right. Which should make sense, because I know perfectly well not everybody can sing like I can, but - " He shrugs. "It just doesn't feel that hard, you know?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Of course it doesn't. You can do it."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Exactly!"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I suppose I could always spend a pentagon on actually testing my guess, but who's going to judge? You? You've already indicated yourself biased where Bells are concerned."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Is that a drawback?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:23 pm (UTC)

"For judging contests, probably. Perhaps not for other purposes."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:23 pm (UTC)

He grins.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Maybe all of the Bells should pentagon miscellaneous forms of musicality and form a band. We can call ourselves The Peal."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:25 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"And play where?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I suppose we'd have to go on interdimensional tour. Jane would have to be up and we'd have to patch whatever issue broke her and be pretty sure we wouldn't get stranded."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:31 pm (UTC)

"What kind of music would you play?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Probably a mix of stuff - Samaria has its own musical tradition, like the hymn I played you, and I imagine there's all kinds of futuristic music from Peace and Atlantis and even Aurum, and exotic offerings from Chronicle and Thilanushinyel, and probably vaguely but not exactly Earthly stuff from Rêverie, and even us boring Earthlings might be able to come up with unique offerings - I bet Alethia produces songs about daemons or witches or armored bears at a sufficient rate, people have written songs about Gotham, Cam and Aurora could go crib notes from their respective extraterrestrials, I'm not sure what Stella would do."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Hey, I object to 'boring Earthling'," laughs Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:37 pm (UTC)

"You don't live on Earth anymore," Bella points out cheerfully.

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Exactly. So there's some pretty good music coming out of Saturn, and you shouldn't be ignoring it," he giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:39 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "My mistake. I can put my new anthem on this hypothetical album, how does that sound?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Perfect."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if anyone else is working on an anthem," Bella muses. "While time is all unsynced and everything. I don't think Samaria has one, amusingly enough - I suppose the Enchanted Forest might have come with one already when Glass married into the royal family - I might actually beat everyone to it unless Stella or Aurora also enter colonists into the Olympics or others catch up with the space colonization."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:46 pm (UTC)

"You'll have the best one," he promises cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Unless you turn out to be a template and at the next Bell party you wind up looking at six or seven of you who have written equally good anthems."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:47 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah, right."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:48 pm (UTC)

"It could happen. Glass could tell by looking if you're likely to have alts, I can't but people do keep turning up who wind up being templates."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:51 pm (UTC)

"I'll believe it when I see it."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:52 pm (UTC)

"What has you so skeptical?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:53 pm (UTC)

"If there were six of me writing anthems for the rest of you, wouldn't you have noticed already?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Not unless they'd found them before Jane broke. For all I know thirty years have passed in Rainbow or wherever since then. I do know Sarion hasn't found one of you; that's all I can say for sure."

tearingup
2013-07-10 08:57 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head. "We'll see, I guess."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 09:25 pm (UTC)

A voice - not Jane's; it's weird to have not-Jane sound like Jane - emanates from the Janepoint. "Your Majesty, the President of Mexico is requesting an unscheduled meeting on a matter of urgency."

"Tell him I'll be there within ten minutes, J," Bella tells it. "Sorry," she sighs to Ripper.

tearingup
2013-07-10 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Duty calls, apparently. Drop me off at home before you go?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, of course, I'm not gonna strand you here." She teleports them both to the door to his new Saturn place, and winks at him, and knocks.

tearingup
2013-07-10 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Keep trying, you'll get the hang of it eventually," he says, grinning, and he opens the door and brushes past her to step inside.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should just pentagon it," she suggests lightly, and she's off to Mexico.

song of saturn

bellfounding

Here is Bella, catching up on her email, trying to come up with a reasonable mathematical approximation of the known abilities of evils versus arrows to guess how many dead people she can bring back with one of the latter, trying to come up with a prioritization scheme for putting her waiting list in order.

tearingup
2013-07-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

[You have an anthem!]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 09:44 pm (UTC)

[Oooh! An anthem! What is the best way for me to hear it?]

tearingup
2013-07-10 09:47 pm (UTC)

[You could come by and I could sing it for you,] he suggests. [And then you'll be one of very few people who's seen me sing while wearing a shirt.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 09:48 pm (UTC)

[Somehow I doubt this particular distinction is one that would make me the envy of the fandom, but sure.] She pops down. She knocks.

tearingup
2013-07-10 09:49 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he opens the door.

He is indeed wearing a shirt! And jeans! What a marvel.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 09:50 pm (UTC)

Shirted people! Two of them!

Bella makes herself comfortable and waits attentively.

tearingup
2013-07-10 09:53 pm (UTC)

Ripper fetches his acoustic guitar and sits down and sings.

It's a good anthem. It's a good song, for that matter. Simple and singable and pretty and heartening.

"No title," he adds when he's done, "I'm shit at titles, it's my major failing as an artist."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 09:55 pm (UTC)

"It's beautiful, I love it," beams Bella. "How about 'Song of Saturn'? Can you orchestrate or should I find somebody else for that part?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 09:59 pm (UTC)

"'Song of Saturn'. Sounds like something out of a video game," he laughs. "It's perfect. And yeah, I don't exactly have a lot of experience with orchestras."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, Slipstick'll find me somebody or I'll arrange it myself," shrugs Bella. "It's gorgeous, it's my new favorite song, want to record a version to put on the website?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says cheerfully. "Know where I can borrow a decent studio? Or can you just conjure one up?"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Tell me what you need and I can conjure one, no problem."

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:05 pm (UTC)

Ripper names the virtues of a good recording studio, chief among which are equipment and soundproofing.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:06 pm (UTC)

"You want me to set it up here or on Titan?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:06 pm (UTC)

"I'll probably get more use out of it here. You might get more use out of it on Titan."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:08 pm (UTC)

"If I find another use for a recording studio I can always put one there too. I'll just stick it in the corner." She pentagons up an appropriate studio, with magic handwaving the functions of a technical crew.
Edited 2013-07-10 22:11 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. You're a very convenient friend to have."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:15 pm (UTC)

"I am, it is true! And you are welcome."

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:18 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"I'll let you know when I've got something worth releasing."

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Awesome. It's a beautiful song, I'm so glad I asked you - can I hug you?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes you can!"

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:19 pm (UTC)

She does! Hug.

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:20 pm (UTC)

Unexpected but delightful hug!

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:21 pm (UTC)

When it's over, Bella hops into the air, does a bit of a twirl, and disappears.

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:22 pm (UTC)

Well, that's adorable.

A few days later, he emails her the final version.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:22 pm (UTC)

She thanks him and puts it on the Internet with appropriate - ahem - fanfare; she has already asked Slipstick to keep an eye out for someone who could orchestrate it.
Edited 2013-07-10 22:23 (UTC)

yourheartstrings
2013-07-10 10:25 pm (UTC)

A few days after that:

[Bella,] says Queenie, [did Ripper from Wretched write the Saturn planetary anthem?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:25 pm (UTC)

[...Yes?]

yourheartstrings
2013-07-10 10:26 pm (UTC)

[You know him?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:26 pm (UTC)

[...Yes. You're a fan, I take it?]

yourheartstrings
2013-07-10 10:27 pm (UTC)

[Are you kidding? He's gorgeous, and that voice—! Ooh, do you think you could introduce us?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:28 pm (UTC)

[Lemme ask him.]

[Er, Ripper?]

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:29 pm (UTC)

[Yeah?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:30 pm (UTC)

[So, turns out Queenie is familiar with Wretched, and she heard the anthem and recognized your voice, and wants to be introduced.]

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:30 pm (UTC)

[Seriously?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:31 pm (UTC)

[Aaaaayep. Also she describes you as gorgeous.]

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:32 pm (UTC)

[...So she wants to be that kind of introduced, huh?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:32 pm (UTC)

["That kind of introduced" is pretty much always an option with Jokers.]

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:33 pm (UTC)

[Wow,] says Ripper. [This is not how I expected my morning to go.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:33 pm (UTC)

[Well. Congratulations on an unexpected morning. What d'you want me to tell her?]

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:35 pm (UTC)

[...Part of me says 'hell yeah, bring it on', part of me is still sort of terrified, part of me thinks that I will lose all chance of ever flirting with you again if in addition to handing me a subscription to the magic Joker porn channel you also set me up with one.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:36 pm (UTC)

[You make it sound as though flirting with me is of supreme importance.]

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:37 pm (UTC)

[Good, I'm glad you picked up on that.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:38 pm (UTC)

[Meeting Queenie and conducting yourselves however you like will not interfere with that significantly.]

Blushes are not conveyed over the brainphone, but one is happening.

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:39 pm (UTC)

[In that case, yes, introduce away.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:40 pm (UTC)

[Ripper says he's willing to be introduced,] Bella reports to Queenie.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 10:41 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, goodie,] says Queenie, in a slightly different voice. (That happens sometimes.)

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:41 pm (UTC)

[I'll fetch you to his place; he has this thing about knocking.] She pops to wherever Queenie is.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 10:43 pm (UTC)

Queenie is in the latest of many little apartments in Gotham, wearing a beautiful long silky red dress; Ghosty is not visibly present.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:44 pm (UTC)

"He signed up for one of you, not two, so if Ghosty wants to join the party, ask first," Bella advises, and she pops them into the hall outside Ripper's place and knocks.

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:46 pm (UTC)

"It's nice how you're getting the hang of that," he says as he opens the door, and then he catches sight of Queenie. "Oh, hello."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" beams Queenie. "I think you're really cute, wanna fuck?"

tearingup
2013-07-10 10:47 pm (UTC)

Ripper (glances at Bella and) grins a very affirmative grin.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, I guess actually introducing you will be unnecessary," chuckles Bella, and out she pops.

tearingup
2013-07-10 11:01 pm (UTC)

The next morning, Ripper brainphones Bella to say dazedly, [So that worked out well. Thanks for the introduction.]
Edited 2013-07-10 23:02 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:02 pm (UTC)

[Heh. No problem.]

tearingup
2013-07-10 11:03 pm (UTC)

[And now I'm going to sleep.]

His busy message is, [mmmmmmmmmmmm.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:04 pm (UTC)

Well, that's kind of adorable. It's so nice to make - er, nightmares - come true.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:05 pm (UTC)

A few minutes later, Queenie brainphones her, too.

[Thanks for dropping me on Ripper,] she says brightly. [He's scrumptious.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:06 pm (UTC)

[I'm glad you guys had fun.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:07 pm (UTC)

[He mentioned something about flirting with you. You gonna get any?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:07 pm (UTC)

[Flirting has been happening. Nothing beyond that has been particularly suggested.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:08 pm (UTC)

[I could make a few suggestions,] she says, giggling.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:09 pm (UTC)

[I would not put it past you for a moment.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:11 pm (UTC)

[Well, do you like him?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:11 pm (UTC)

[Yeah.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:13 pm (UTC)

[You're adorable,] Queenie says fondly. [I think you should make out with him! Well, I think you should fuck him, but if I tell you to make out with him you might actually try it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:14 pm (UTC)

[Had I dreamed of doubting the availability of your advice, I would now be thoroughly assured of my mistake.]
Edited 2013-07-10 23:17 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:17 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

[That a no?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:17 pm (UTC)

[I don't know. I can't tell how serious he is. I mean, he seriously wants to flirt with me, but anything else, I don't know.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:18 pm (UTC)

[He thinks you're precious,] says Queenie. [Trust me, I can tell.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:19 pm (UTC)

[Okay - and? I'm not Amariah.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:20 pm (UTC)

['And' what?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:22 pm (UTC)

[And I don't want to make out with somebody who just wants to make out with me and that's it.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:26 pm (UTC)

[And he doesn't just want to make out with you. Like I said: he thinks you're precious. Cute. Dare I say, dateable. Not that he actually told me any of that, but I can kind of tell, you know?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:26 pm (UTC)

[How, pray tell, can you kind of tell?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:27 pm (UTC)

[He gets this look.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:27 pm (UTC)

[Huh?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:29 pm (UTC)

[We did some talking in between all the sex, and he gets this look when he talks about you. It's really cute.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:29 pm (UTC)

[...Really.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:30 pm (UTC)

[Yes, really.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:34 pm (UTC)

[...That is cute.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:38 pm (UTC)

[What'd I tell you? So you should make out with him,] Queenie says firmly. [I'll even quit fucking him if you think you'd get jealous, and I do not say that lightly, because he is extrrrrremely fuckable.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:39 pm (UTC)

[Uh, wow.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:40 pm (UTC)

Queenie giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:41 pm (UTC)

[Only now I don't know what to actually do.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:48 pm (UTC)

[Take him to dinner somewhere fancy. Tell him I think you guys should make out. Take him home again. Do I have to give you detailed instructions from there? 'Cause I can.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:50 pm (UTC)

[There are steps missing from the beginning of this plan. I think if I just kidnap him and appear him at that seafood place somebody opened in the Arkady Bubble he will drop his tea.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:52 pm (UTC)

[Awww, you,] Queenie says fondly. [Call him up, ask him if he wants to get dinner sometime, he'll say yes, suggest a place...]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:53 pm (UTC)

[I dunno, I'm not as confident as you seem to be.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:55 pm (UTC)

[Or I could call him and tell him you want to date him but you're getting all shy about it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:56 pm (UTC)

[...Is that an offer or a threat?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-10 11:57 pm (UTC)

[It can't be both?]

bellfounding
2013-07-10 11:58 pm (UTC)

[I suppose the key difference is whether you're planning to do this whether I want you to or not.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:01 am (UTC)

[I won't do it if you really don't want me to. If you're kinda-sorta-not-sure and not planning to ask him out yourself, I totally will.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:04 am (UTC)

[...What if I conspicuously refuse to tell you which of those it is?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:05 am (UTC)

[Then I conspicuously refuse to tell you what I'm gonna do about it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:06 am (UTC)

[I probably should've guessed that.]
Edited 2013-07-11 00:06 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:07 am (UTC)

She giggles unrepentantly.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:10 am (UTC)

[This is reminding me of that time Aurora went to everybell except me and Golden and asked them how they dealt with polyamory and concluded that everybody had special circumstances and she was on her own. I don't know how to do this and I want to copy somebody because that would be comfortable and I can't.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:11 am (UTC)

[It's cute,] says Queenie. [You should let me play matchmaker, I'll fix you up good.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:12 am (UTC)

[I have a sneaking suspicion that if I do I will wind up blushing beet red wondering why I ever invited you to move to my universe.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:13 am (UTC)

[Only a little bit,] Queenie promises.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:13 am (UTC)

[What is that supposed to mean?]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:15 am (UTC)

[It means I think you guys would be cute together so I'm not gonna get too awful about it because I might make you really uncomfortable and that would be sad?]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:16 am (UTC)

[...Okay, I'll buy it.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:18 am (UTC)

[Good!]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:20 am (UTC)

[Yes, heaven forfend I dither for a while like a nineteen-year-old girl who's never been on a date before instead of sending a staff member to tell the guy I like that I like him like a third-grader. I mean, like a dignified magical space empress.]
Edited 2013-07-11 00:20 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:21 am (UTC)

[Awwwwwww,] giggles Queenie. [Well, if you wanna dither, nobody's stopping you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:22 am (UTC)

[I don't assign intrinsic value to dithering, I suppose.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:23 am (UTC)

[So you should ask him out,] Queenie concludes. [Or conspicuously not tell me not to ask him out for you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:23 am (UTC)

Bella is conspicuously silent.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:23 am (UTC)

Queenie giggles again.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:24 am (UTC)

[Shush,] says Bella, squirming, not that the squirming is visible.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:24 am (UTC)

[Okay,] Queenie says merrily. [Talk to you later!]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:25 am (UTC)

[Later.]

tearingup
2013-07-11 12:32 am (UTC)

A week later, Ripper brainphones her.

[So, a little bird told me it might not be a bad idea to ask if you wanted to get dinner sometime.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:33 am (UTC)

[Of all the ways you could have reported this to me, this one is not a way that tells me whether to regret talking to the little bird.]

tearingup
2013-07-11 12:36 am (UTC)

[Were you expecting to regret it? I don't regret it. Well, not if you say yes.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:36 am (UTC)

[Yes.]

tearingup
2013-07-11 12:40 am (UTC)

[I'm just going to take that as a 'yes Ripper I will get dinner with you' and not a 'yes I was expecting to regret letting Queenie be the messenger here'. Mostly because, on second thought, the second one goes without saying. She also said she would make us both, and I quote, 'nice clothes you won't mind being on a date in', which is sweet of her. And apparently the Jokers are getting together and making both the dinner and the place we'll be eating it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:41 am (UTC)

[That's very nice of them. Queenie actually makes most of my clothes even though that's not her job, but I guess this calls for a per-occasion outfit.]

tearingup
2013-07-11 12:43 am (UTC)

[I guess it does!]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:44 am (UTC)

[Did they also schedule it for us?]

tearingup
2013-07-11 12:44 am (UTC)

[Nope, that part they're leaving up to us. When are you free?]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:47 am (UTC)

[Assuming by "dinner" is meant "something around dinnertime in the Cronian time zone" - tomorrow at six.] Saturn has ten-hour days and the habitats are under sufficiently dense cloud for natural sunlight to be irrelevant; the bubbles obey a cycle of light and dark that corresponds to Greenwich and matches the length of Earth days.

tearingup
2013-07-11 12:50 am (UTC)

[It's a date.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:50 am (UTC)

[I suppose I shall swing by your place to pick you up? I'll remember to knock.]

tearingup
2013-07-11 12:52 am (UTC)

[It's not like I can pick you up from wherever you spend your time when you're not empressing. Do you want to tell Queenie so she can have everything ready on time, or should I?]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:53 am (UTC)

[I can. And I spend my intermittent odds and ends of not-empressing time in the palace you saw, but there aren't that many.]

[Hi, Queenie. Thanks. We picked a time. Tomorrow, six, Saturn time.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:55 am (UTC)

[Got it,] Queenie says cheerfully. [We'll have it all set up for ya. Swing by my place first to pick up your outfit, 'kay? You'll like it, it's pretty.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:55 am (UTC)

[I'm sure it'll be gorgeous.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 12:56 am (UTC)

[Damn right.]

bellfounding
2013-07-11 12:59 am (UTC)

Bella shows up at Queenie's a little in advance of six to collect her dress.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 01:01 am (UTC)

Queenie provides the dress.

It is, as promised, pretty.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:05 am (UTC)

It's exquisite. It doesn't even have a zipper; Bella has to triangle herself into it lest she tear it trying to shimmy into the close fit, and she peers into the mirror; she's like a stroke of midnight-purple ink against the background. It's sleeveless and floor-length with a high mandarin collar showing just a narrow line of throat and sternum, and the folds of the skirt have lazy swirls of ruby beads creeping over them; when she twirls and the skirt leaps out they shine. "I love it," she says, and she sets her crown to hovering where it belongs and it picks up the color, violet striped red.
Edited 2013-07-11 01:07 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-11 01:07 am (UTC)

"It's almost as pretty as you are," says Queenie. "Go on, have fun."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:08 am (UTC)

Bella grins, and teleports to pick up Ripper.

Knock, knock.

tearingup
2013-07-11 01:12 am (UTC)

Ripper answers the door wearing black silk trousers and a white silk shirt, the former pinstriped, the latter pleated; on close inspection, the shirt turns out to have decorous little hints of lace tucked away here and there.

"Aren't you a vision," he says admiringly.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:13 am (UTC)

"You don't look bad yourself," she grins. "Shall we?"

tearingup
2013-07-11 01:14 am (UTC)

He grins and takes her hand.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:15 am (UTC)

Pop! She has no idea where they're going, but it's still a unique location.

tearingup
2013-07-11 01:39 am (UTC)

And:

They are standing on a flat wooden floor, next to a round wooden table that seems to be all of a piece with it, and not as though they were carved that way but as though they were grown into that shape. The surface of the table is flat and smooth, but not polished. Each of the twining wooden limbs that makes it up just independently happens to flatten out at exactly the same level as its neighbours, and join up snugly with them on every side.

The branches or vines of the floor also reach up and out around the edges of the circular chamber to make, not walls, but a kind of loose leafy lattice; distant stars, none familiar, show through the wide gaps between them. Here and there, a leafless branch leans in to wrap around the base of a candle, all pointing upright and flickering merrily. There is one burning in the very centre of the table, too, between the two empty place settings with their two comfortably cushioned chairs (which do not grow out of the floor, because that would make them hard to move around). Either the leaves or the candles or something else entirely is releasing a pleasant, subtle foresty scent.

And up above, where the branches spread outward without bothering to approximate a ceiling, leaving the view in that direction unobstructed...

"Is that the fucking Milky Way," says Ripper, staring.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:40 am (UTC)

Bella looks up.

"It sure looks like the Milky Way," she laughs. "I guess growing us a little gazebo somewhere in Saturn or orbiting Jupiter wouldn't have cut it. This is cute."

And she takes a seat.

tearingup
2013-07-11 01:43 am (UTC)

Ripper takes... another moment to stare.

Then he also sits.

Their plates fill up with delicious-looking, delicious-smelling, slightly mysterious food.

"I don't think 'cute' is the first word that comes to mind," he says. "'Stunning', maybe."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:44 am (UTC)

"It's also that," she agrees. "The sentiment behind it is cute, is more what I meant." She commences cutting a bite of mystery food.

tearingup
2013-07-11 01:45 am (UTC)

"All right, I'll give you that."

He shakes his head and tries the food.

It is delicious.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:46 am (UTC)

"Mmm. Designer organisms." Because that definitely isn't chicken, but whatever it is is yummy.

tearingup
2013-07-11 01:50 am (UTC)

"I have no idea what this is, but I want to eat it more often," says Ripper.

Behind him - all around them, in fact - buds are forming on the vines that make up the loose weave of the walls, and blossoming into flowers. Big, pretty flowers with many layers of soft petals, all in shades of purple that match or complement Bella's dress.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:52 am (UTC)

"It was probably invented specifically for the occasion. Make up a name for it and the dining enchantment on your apartment should be able to produce it; enchantments are good at that kind of thing." She reaches out and strokes a flower petal.

tearingup
2013-07-11 01:56 am (UTC)

"...The flowers match your dress," he observes. "The flowers match your dress."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 01:57 am (UTC)

"Queenie made the dress, so there was a chance to set that up, although it could also be the same kind of enchantment on my crown," giggles Bella. She picks a flower and tucks it into her hair.

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:00 am (UTC)

The flower nestles securely there and starts to glow.

Ripper giggles helplessly.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:01 am (UTC)

"So yeah, this is the kind of thing that amuses Jokers when they aren't busy antagonizing bat ladies."

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:10 am (UTC)

"Wow. Yeah, Queenie was a lot - I don't know, cuter? Than I expected, but this is something else."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:12 am (UTC)

Om nom nom designer organisms. "So the anthem's been well-received, I don't know if you've seen the buzz or been getting heaps of fanmail about it or what."

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:13 am (UTC)

"Nah, haven't been paying attention. There was buzz?"

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:15 am (UTC)

"Some. I don't have comments sections on my own websites, but there are unofficial fora, and J pokes around for interesting articles of relevance, and there've been a lot of hits to the page. People like it. And the orchestration's in progress."

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:16 am (UTC)

"Well, that's nice."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:31 am (UTC)

"I think so. With any luck one of Saturn's entrants will win an event and it will get public airtime. What have you been doing besides songwriting since you moved?"

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:34 am (UTC)

"Things," he says vaguely. "It's been mostly songwriting, honestly; I've barely even gotten out to see the rest of the bubble."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:35 am (UTC)

"Oh, that's a pity, you know if you never leave the house you don't get to see what bubbles have come to visit yours."

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:36 am (UTC)

"We did get an ice skating rink a while back. That was interesting."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:36 am (UTC)

"And did you skate?"

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:36 am (UTC)

"Not very well."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:37 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Well, perhaps it will drop by again and you can have another try."

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:39 am (UTC)

"And fall on my face some more!" he says brightly.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:41 am (UTC)

"I didn't dare skate when I was a kid, I'd have gotten myself killed earlier than I actually did. I was the clumsiest little girl - Bells all are, without magic or in one case assistive tech. I've only tried it once since, but it was fun."

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:42 am (UTC)

"Maybe we should go ice skating sometime," he laughs. "You can watch me fall on my face."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:43 am (UTC)

"I could hold your hand and you could not fall on your face," she says, blushing.

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:45 am (UTC)

"Even better," he says, admiring her blush.
Edited 2013-07-11 02:49 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:49 am (UTC)

Bella completes her first course and sets down her fork.

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:53 am (UTC)

The contents of her plate vanish, to be replaced by an entirely different kind of mysterious food.

Ripper busies himself finishing his own first course, and when he succeeds, his plate does the same thing.

The original set of purple flowers is joined by a set of black ones, with their petals edged in white.

"...Are we going to get new flowers every time we get new food? They really went all-out with this, didn't they."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:54 am (UTC)

"It was probably the most fun they've had all week, barring things I am disinclined to speculate on." She plucks a black flower and tucks it behind his ear for him.

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:57 am (UTC)

The flower snuggles up, arranges its petals nicely, and starts to sparkle with gentle little sparkles like a dusting of tiny stars.

Ripper grins.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:57 am (UTC)

Mystery food time! Nom.

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:59 am (UTC)

This round of mystery food is even tastier than the last, or at least Ripper seems to think so, judging by the way he's devouring it.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:59 am (UTC)

"Aianon makes the best custom food."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:00 am (UTC)

"I can tell!" he says, with his mouth full.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:00 am (UTC)

Om nom nom. "I wonder how many courses they set up."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:02 am (UTC)

"I'm not full yet," he says logically, "so there's probably more."

And indeed there is! This time the accompanying flowers are small and red, matching the beads on Bella's dress. Ripper picks one and offers it to her.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:03 am (UTC)

She tucks it into the dip of her collar.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:05 am (UTC)

Where it nestles happily, blooms a little bigger, and glimmers with blood-red light.

"Pretty," says Ripper. "Pretty and slightly disturbing. Just the way I like it."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:05 am (UTC)

"What's disturbing about a glowy flower?"

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:06 am (UTC)

"...The colour?"

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:06 am (UTC)

"It's red. It matches the little rubies."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:25 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "and it kind of makes you look like you've been stabbed in the heart. But in a pretty, floral way. I don't know, something about the way it bloomed, or the light - it didn't look so gory on the vine."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:27 am (UTC)

She peers down at herself. "Huh. Stabbed in the heart in a pretty, floral way. Of course if I got actually stabbed it would bounce off my wards."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:31 am (UTC)

"And it would not be so pretty and floral. Now I want one," he laughs, picking a red flower and tucking it into his own collar, where it spreads out its petals so that their increasingly ragged edges take on the silhouette of an open wound across the front of his throat.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:32 am (UTC)

"Okay," she says, peering at it, "now I kind of see it. That would be an interesting cover image for a solo album, if you want to continue with the theme of you pretending to be dead."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:34 am (UTC)

"Ooh, tempting." He grins. "I like it."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:35 am (UTC)

"Are you liable to do solo albums? I just made that up, I actually have no idea what your plans are post-band-dissolution."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:39 am (UTC)

"Well, now I definitely want to take pictures of myself rocking the 'sexy, dead, and covered in flowers' look."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:40 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "That will be interesting, I'm sure. But hardly answers my question; you could do a photoshoot and not attach music to it if you wanted."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:42 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna keep playing. And now apparently I'm gonna have brilliant cover art just begging me to use it. Yeah, I think I'll make a solo album."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:42 am (UTC)

"Awesome. How convenient that you have your own autonomous recording studio."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:47 am (UTC)

"Right? I should find some really, really nice way to say thank you."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:47 am (UTC)

"I can't wait to see what you come up with." She pops the last bite of the current course into her mouth.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:52 am (UTC)

Ripper also finishes his.

Their plates clear themselves away entirely, to be replaced by smaller, daintier plates accompanied by smaller, daintier forks, and each plate burdened with a single perfect piece of dark glistening chocolate cake.

All around them, white flowers bloom on the vines, unfurling delicate petals whose lacelike edges match the lace on Ripper's shirt.

"How about a kiss?" he suggests. "The real question being: before or after cake?"

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:53 am (UTC)

"Well, I suppose that boils down to how patient we are and how important it is for kisses to be chocolate-flavored," says Bella. Her voice is even enough but she's blushing harder than ever.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:54 am (UTC)

"I'm not that patient, but I do like chocolate," says Ripper. "Hmm, compromise?"

He has one bite of cake. And then looks at her hopefully.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:55 am (UTC)

She looks at him, and squirms, and eats a bite of her cake too.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:56 am (UTC)

Leaning across the table would be awkward, small though it is; he gets up and goes around.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:56 am (UTC)

She tips her face up, smiling, pink-cheeked.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:58 am (UTC)

He leans down and kisses her.

It is chocolate-flavoured. Also very nice.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:58 am (UTC)

Niceness! Chocolate niceness! That is good.

Pattern has no earthly clue what she's doing, but they're not on Earth, so maybe that is okay.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:01 am (UTC)

They are very, very far from Earth.

Also, the air is full of drifting flower petals.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:03 am (UTC)

When they break apart, Bella plucks a petal from her shoulder. "I should have expected they'd have something folded in to, er, celebrate."

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:05 am (UTC)

Ripper laughs and presses a kiss to her forehead.

None of the flower petals have landed on their cake, which is nice, but the floor is now covered in drifts of black-white-purple-red.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:06 am (UTC)

Bella plucks one of the newest flowers and puts it behind the unflowered one of Ripper's ears. And she smiles, and she blushes, and she takes another bite of cake.

tearingup
2013-07-11 11:23 am (UTC)

He grins, and kisses the top of her head, and smooths his hand over her hair opposite the flower.

And says thoughtfully, "You know, this 'sitting across the table' thing just doesn't seem like the best idea anymore."

His chair sidles around the circumference of said table and nudges the back of his knee. He sits in it and reaches for his plate, which scoots obligingly over in front of him. And then, because he is left-handed and Bella is right-handed and it's convenient that way, he holds her hand while he eats his cake.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:51 pm (UTC)

Awwwww! Bella giggles helplessly at the encouraging enchanted-things and squeezes his hand and blushes rather a lot. She keeps peering at him out of the corner of her eye between bites of cake.

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:55 pm (UTC)

Eventually:

"Ye-es?"

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:56 pm (UTC)

"Nothing?" says Bella unconvincingly.

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:57 pm (UTC)

"Suuuure."

bellfounding
2013-07-11 02:58 pm (UTC)

She blushes fiercely, but leans in his direction and kisses him again.

tearingup
2013-07-11 02:59 pm (UTC)

Ooh, kisses. For this he will abandon cake.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:00 pm (UTC)

That's good. It's lovely cake, but it will keep.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:01 pm (UTC)

Yes. Kisses are a much higher priority.

Mmmmm. Kisses.

(The walls grow a whole new set of flowers to rain petals on them again.)

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:02 pm (UTC)

(Of course they do.)

Nummy chocolatey Ripper, om nom nom. Bella is getting the hang of this, she thinks. Also making thoughtful little noises in the back of her throat.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:03 pm (UTC)

He is both nummy and chocolatey, it's true! And kissable. So very kissable. Much like Bella.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:05 pm (UTC)

She finds the fact that he keeps kissing her very reassuring on the subject of her kissability, certainly.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:08 pm (UTC)

Yes. Those things are very much related.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:09 pm (UTC)

She rather suspected so!

Fun fact: She doesn't actually have to breathe. She makes a habit of it, but she can stop.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:11 pm (UTC)

...Well that seems handy.

Ripper, sadly, does have to breathe. But he is not inclined to let that deter him from kissing her a lot.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:12 pm (UTC)

That is good. He should kiss her a lot. She is definitely in a state of approval about this activity.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:14 pm (UTC)

Great, because he has no plans to desist anytime soon. Although if they keep on at this rate, they might end up buried in a mound of flower petals.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:15 pm (UTC)

Bella can always vanish the excess petals, if that little foresight has been demonstrated.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:18 pm (UTC)

They're definitely piling up, but there's no indication of whether or not they are set to stop eventually.

On the other hand, they are very soft and very light, and probably not all that difficult to dig one's way out of. And, as Ripper discovers when he removes one from Bella's hair, they smell nice when crushed.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:21 pm (UTC)

Well, that's lovely. Also floral.

Bella pauses - tapering off from fascinated deep kisses to cute little ones, then looking at her plate and blushing and eating another bite of cake. It is really good cake.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:23 pm (UTC)

Ripper steals another cute little kiss after she has bitten the cake. It's slightly awkward leaning across the gap between the chairs, but as soon as he notices that, the chairs wriggle together and merge into a small comfortable couch.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:24 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs, and pats the couch. "Enchantments. Convenient."

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting that!" says Ripper, scooting a little closer.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:27 pm (UTC)

Bella decides that leaning her head on his shoulder and putting her arm around his waist is compatible with finishing her cake.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:28 pm (UTC)

Ripper puts his arm around her shoulders and kisses the top of her head and finishes his cake.

And then they have finished their cake.
Edited 2013-07-11 15:36 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:36 pm (UTC)

Snuggles and kisses?

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:37 pm (UTC)

Excellent plan!

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:38 pm (UTC)

She is pretty good at plans!

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:40 pm (UTC)

She's not bad at kisses, either.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:41 pm (UTC)

Not anymore! And she has no point of comparison, but suspects that he is also pretty good at kisses.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:44 pm (UTC)

He is.

Also, the couch seems to be changing its form for greater snuggability - the cushions becoming deeper and softer, the back curving outward and sinking down to give them more room.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:44 pm (UTC)

Convenient cuddly couch. Lovely cuddly Ripper.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:47 pm (UTC)

It is the most convenient of couches, and he is the loveliest of Rippers. And now that the couch has as good as told him to, he might as well curl up in it with her. And kiss her some more.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:47 pm (UTC)

That is good. She approves of plans involving further kisses.

She's not blushing any more, although he might or might not notice.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:48 pm (UTC)

He does notice! The blush was adorable, but he's not entirely sad to see it go.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:49 pm (UTC)

It does symbolize that she is less shy. Unshy enough to snuggle riiiight up.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:50 pm (UTC)

Ooh.

Yes. That is definitely an improvement.

Kisses? Kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:50 pm (UTC)

Kisseeeeeees!

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:52 pm (UTC)

Lovely chocolatey snuggly kisses.

Also, increasingly-covered-in-flower-petals kisses. At least the petals mostly don't land on their faces.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:52 pm (UTC)

[They may have overdone the flower petals,] says Bella wryly, without interrupting the kisses.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:54 pm (UTC)

[I dunno, I kind of like 'em,] he says cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:55 pm (UTC)

They do provide an interesting sort of blanket. (Under which to snuggle.)

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:56 pm (UTC)

Mm, yes. And they are soft and pleasant to the touch. Which goes well with all the snuggling.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:56 pm (UTC)

The involved humans: also pleasant to the touch. (Bella is experimenting with this now.)

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:58 pm (UTC)

Don't tell anyone, but Ripper is a little bit ticklish around the ribs. It makes him wriggle charmingly.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 03:58 pm (UTC)

That is very charming.

Bella can keep a secret.

And exploit this knowledge all on her own.

tearingup
2013-07-11 03:59 pm (UTC)

In which case he is going to be doing a lot of giggling and squirming helplessly.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:00 pm (UTC)

That is cute. It is not enticing her to quit, not one bit. Also when he squirms like that it draws attention to his neck. Might his neck be kissable?

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:04 pm (UTC)

His neck is extremely kissable! Observe how delighted he is when she kisses it.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:04 pm (UTC)

Delight is had by all!

Snuggles and the careful mapping of neck with kisses.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:13 pm (UTC)

The geography is not wholly consistent, but there are definitely spots that tend to generate particular reactions, ranging from 'generally pleased' to 'melting like butter'.

And how about when he kisses her neck?

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:14 pm (UTC)

She too has a "melting like butter" setting. It's really not hard to get at with neck-kisses.

"Mmmm."

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:17 pm (UTC)

The flower in Ripper's collar is just getting in the way by now. He tries to extract it, but it doesn't want to go, so he takes his shirt off and tosses it into a pile of flower petals.

There, that's better. Back to melting Bella!

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:17 pm (UTC)

Melt melt melt happy noises.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:18 pm (UTC)

Very nice. More neck-kissing is definitely in order.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:18 pm (UTC)

Bella is nnnnnot going to complain. She's going to sort of press herself against Ripper and make noises.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:19 pm (UTC)

Awesome.

Being covered in flower petals, he discovers, is even better with his shirt off. They are so soft and nice! He begins to suspect that this is all part of a plan. But it's a pretty great plan, if so.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:21 pm (UTC)

Bella is also developing plan-related suspicions, but she does not voice them. She is too busy enjoying neck-kisses. The collar of this dress kind of interferes but she's not sure she wants to take it off yet; she obliges it to turn down perhaps farther than the fabric would normally allow. With magic.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:23 pm (UTC)

The flower tucked into her collar is low enough to be out of the way for now, at least. Ripper busies himself distributing kisses to all available neck locations.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:24 pm (UTC)

Squirm melt squirm happy-little-humming-sounds.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:26 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle kiss. Nibble? Are nibbles a positive sort of thing?

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:27 pm (UTC)

Yessssssssss.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:27 pm (UTC)

In that case, nibbles!

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:27 pm (UTC)

Oh lovely.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:29 pm (UTC)

Bella, Ripper is discovering, is extremely nibbleable.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:34 pm (UTC)

She is making every effort to be nibbleable, on the theory that this will yield nibbles.

tearingup
2013-07-11 04:35 pm (UTC)

Her theory is sound. Nibbles are had.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 04:39 pm (UTC)

Excellent.

She is also enjoying the fact that he is shirtless. She does not tickle him again, at least not on purpose - that might distract him from what he's doing - but she does investigate this fascinating phenomenon.

tearingup
2013-07-11 05:42 pm (UTC)

He has many touchable areas! Some of which are covered in flower petals, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 05:43 pm (UTC)

But it is, a little, because they get in the way. Shoo, flower petals in the way of Ripper.

tearingup
2013-07-11 05:46 pm (UTC)

They are easily shooed!

bellfounding
2013-07-11 05:46 pm (UTC)

Good. Skin.

tearingup
2013-07-11 05:49 pm (UTC)

Skin is good, it's true. Also touchable.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 05:49 pm (UTC)

And kissable.

tearingup
2013-07-11 05:50 pm (UTC)

Ooh.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 05:50 pm (UTC)

Yep. Bella is just full of clever ideas.

tearingup
2013-07-11 05:50 pm (UTC)

So very clever! Mmmm.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 05:51 pm (UTC)

She's abusing the collar of this poor dress. That will never do. She triangles the collar back where it belongs, and squares the entire dress off her person, folded up on some flower petals over there.

Snuggle.

tearingup
2013-07-11 05:54 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Snuggle! Snuggly nuzzly snuggle. With lots of skin.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 05:54 pm (UTC)

Yes. Considerable amounts of it. Also kissing.

tearingup
2013-07-11 05:55 pm (UTC)

These are all good things!

bellfounding
2013-07-11 05:56 pm (UTC)

Bella agrees! It is so nice that they are in accord about this.

tearingup
2013-07-11 05:56 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes it is.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 06:21 pm (UTC)

Maybe they are also in accord about other stuff.

tearingup
2013-07-11 06:28 pm (UTC)

It turns out that they are!

It also turns out that the flower petals are not quite done with them yet.

In the midst of discovering certain ways in which Bella is extremely touchable, they also discover that certain events cause the entire carpet of petals covering the floor to lift off and fly away in all directions, scattering through the gaps in the walls and out the lack of a ceiling.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 06:29 pm (UTC)

Bella is a little distracted at that moment; she notices, but doesn't complete her thoughts on the subject until a breathless minute of kissing later, at which time she says: "If they come and check on this place I will never hear the end of it."

tearingup
2013-07-11 06:33 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles.

"I wonder if it's just you, or...?"

More kisses! Petals continue to rain on them.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 06:33 pm (UTC)

[Wanna find out?] she murmurs.

tearingup
2013-07-11 06:34 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

Kisses kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 06:34 pm (UTC)

Empirical testing follows.

tearingup
2013-07-11 06:37 pm (UTC)

Turns out it's not just her!

Also turns out that Ripper gets really aggressively cuddly after petal-banishing. He wraps his arms around Bella and hugs her tight, nuzzling the side of her neck.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 06:38 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmmcuddles. Bella is perfectly thrilled to cuddle.

tearingup
2013-07-11 06:39 pm (UTC)

Cuddles! Happy snuggly squishy cuddles. And kisses. But mostly cuddles.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 06:40 pm (UTC)

She has a while before she has anything time-dependent to go and do.

Snuggles and kisses and snuggles.

tearingup
2013-07-11 06:46 pm (UTC)

Ripper pretty much doesn't have anything time-dependent to go and do. So he can just stay here and snuggle her on this extremely comfortable couch. That seems like a great plan.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 06:46 pm (UTC)

It does!

"I like you," Bella sighs happily.

tearingup
2013-07-11 06:47 pm (UTC)

"I like you too," he says, and he kisses her cheek.

bellfounding
2013-07-11 06:47 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Cuddles! A successful dinner-date.

tearingup
2013-07-11 06:48 pm (UTC)

Yes indeed.

completely covered in flowers

bellfounding

[Thanks, everybody,] says Bella, later, to the local Jokers. [That was the best date venue ever.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 03:57 pm (UTC)

[Of course it was,] says Queenie. [Did you like the food? Did you like the flowers? Did you like the view? Did you make out with him?]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 03:57 pm (UTC)

[I liked the food and the flowers and the view,] says Bella primly.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 04:01 pm (UTC)

[I bet you made out with him,] says Queenie. [Isn't he delicious?]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:01 pm (UTC)

[I decline to comment.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 04:02 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

[Okay, okay. But do you guys know if you're doing the exclusive thing or not? Because that is actually kind of my business.]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:03 pm (UTC)

[We didn't discuss it. I guess we should.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 04:04 pm (UTC)

[Guess so,] Queenie agrees.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:04 pm (UTC)

[I'll get back to you.]

[Ripper?]

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:05 pm (UTC)

[Yeah?]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:06 pm (UTC)

[So, Queenie wants to know if we're "doing the exclusive thing", and I do not currently have something to tell her.]

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:07 pm (UTC)

[That... is a good question,] says Ripper. [A very good question. Do you want to come talk about it?]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:08 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, sure.]

She lands in the hallway. She knocks.

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:09 pm (UTC)

He opens the door and greets her with a hug.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:10 pm (UTC)

Hug!

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:11 pm (UTC)

Hug. Kiss.

"C'mon in."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:11 pm (UTC)

She comes in.

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:13 pm (UTC)

He sits in a comfy armchair, with another nearby for Bella.

"So - 'the exclusive thing'," he says, "I think I can guess why Queenie is asking - would it bother you if I kept seeing her?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:14 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks about this.

"Not - exactly. I do think I'd wind up dwelling on it. I think non-exclusivity would take mental energy to keep up with, not necessarily in a negative way but definitely in a way."

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:15 pm (UTC)

"'Keep up with' meaning...?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:17 pm (UTC)

"I manage my own feelings, a lot," Bella explains. "I think non-exclusivity would generate feelings that would require management. They might not be bad but they seem likely to be intrusive."

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:20 pm (UTC)

"...well," says Ripper, "I don't want to date anyone else, but if sleeping with Queenie is an option, it's an option I want to take. Queenie and Ghosty and so on," he amends.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:21 pm (UTC)

"It's not a dealbreaker," says Pat.

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:24 pm (UTC)

"That's encouraging," he snorts.
Edited 2013-07-12 16:25 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Hm?"

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Nothing. Sorry. I'm having trouble imagining what kind of intrusive not-bad feelings you think might come up."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:32 pm (UTC)

"I think that when I do my processing for the day, it will keep coming up, and I'll process it, and it'll be fine, and then it'll be back again the next day. Just sort of - an extra mental errand to run. The majority of Bells wind up dating people who need to be polyamorous, and work it out okay, but I don't think it would have been any of our first choice."

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Well - tell me if it gets annoying, all right?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:43 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," she adds, smiling a little.

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:48 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"And, you know, for the record, I don't much care if you sleep around. But if you want to take another boy out to the intergalactic flower palace, we might have to talk."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I'm liable to do either thing."

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Suits me."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Oh, but," she adds, snapping her fingers, "did Queenie tell you where coins come from or do I need to explain that to explain this thing?"

tearingup
2013-07-12 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Queenie did tell me where coins come from."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 04:59 pm (UTC)

"So, sometimes coinmaking is a cooperative activity, I have this thing called an agony beam," says Bella, waving a hand, "it's not anything but a way to get coins for me, but the Jokers, they enjoy it as Jokers are wont to do."
Edited 2013-07-12 16:59 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Jokers do do that," he says, grinning reminiscently.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:00 pm (UTC)

"It is a thing with them, yes."

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:02 pm (UTC)

Ripper laughs.

"'Agony beam', is it? How does it work? Can I have one? I bet Queenie would like it if I had one."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Stella designed it and it's part of the standard powerset now; it delivers the eponymous agony in integers of units called 'triangles', pretty much any flavor you can think of. I don't think just on general principles I should be handing out general-purpose ones that you could use on anybody, but one for use with Jokers I don't see why not."

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:06 pm (UTC)

"...What, but yours works on anyone?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:08 pm (UTC)

"I have lots of abilities I wouldn't hand out without knowing someone - or at least their template - really well. I carry around ten-pointed coins."

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Nnno, that's not quite where I was going with that," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Yeah, mine works on anyone."

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's good to know," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Is it?"

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Noted."

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:14 pm (UTC)

Ripper grins.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:15 pm (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:16 pm (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:16 pm (UTC)

Kisses?

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:17 pm (UTC)

Definitely.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:17 pm (UTC)

Good, because kisses are nice.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:18 pm (UTC)

They are.

Kisses! Mm, kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:19 pm (UTC)

They are in separate chairs. Bella would rather be in his lap right now.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:19 pm (UTC)

She can easily remedy that if she likes!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:20 pm (UTC)

And lo, it was done!

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:21 pm (UTC)

A lapful of Bella! Just what he wanted.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:21 pm (UTC)

A snuggly lapful of Bella. Kissing him.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:22 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Even better.

Is she feeling nibbleable today? He would like to find out.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:24 pm (UTC)

She is! She is pretty much always nibbleable, at least when she is already in his lap. He will learn this.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:25 pm (UTC)

He's beginning to get an inkling.

Nibbles ensue.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:25 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmnibbles.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:31 pm (UTC)

Yes. Mmmm. Nibbles are very mmmm.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:32 pm (UTC)

Ripper is also pretty mmmmm, and if she unmelts long enough to do any things she will take advantage of this fact.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:34 pm (UTC)

As soon as she shows some indication of wanting to mmmm on him, he takes off his shirt.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:34 pm (UTC)

Nibble, nibble, nibble.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:35 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:39 pm (UTC)

Yes indeed.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:40 pm (UTC)

It's nice how they are both such tasty people, isn't it?

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:41 pm (UTC)

It is! It is nice.

And Bella has perfect recall. She remembers what nibbling locations have gotten good results before, at least from among those she has tried.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:42 pm (UTC)

There are many she has not tried!

She is welcome to get around to them anytime she wants.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:42 pm (UTC)

She might just do that. It will be good to have a complete map.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:44 pm (UTC)

Some places produce stronger reactions than others.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:44 pm (UTC)

That is only to be expected.

Bella takes careful mental notes, of course, and is very thorough.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:46 pm (UTC)

That is only to be expected. Ripper appreciates her thoroughness very much.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:46 pm (UTC)

And then snuggles?

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:48 pm (UTC)

Yes. Snuggles. Snuggles are an excellent plan.

Not the only plan. But an excellent one.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:48 pm (UTC)

Oh, does he have competing plans he'd like to share?

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:51 pm (UTC)

He does!

They involve kisses. Variously located kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:52 pm (UTC)

Well, it is only fair that he also have an accurate map.

Perhaps some objects should be gotten out of the way of his cartographic efforts.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:53 pm (UTC)

That sounds promising!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:53 pm (UTC)

It does, doesn't it?

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:55 pm (UTC)

It really does.

Ripper proceeds to map with considerable enthusiasm.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:56 pm (UTC)

That is nice.

Also, he doesn't have perfect recall. She will of course understand if he needs to run multiple passes over complex locations.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:57 pm (UTC)

Don't tell anyone, but he might be going over certain areas more times than is strictly necessary.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:58 pm (UTC)

Bella's lips are sealed.

Well, not literally.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:58 pm (UTC)

That is good to know.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:58 pm (UTC)

One would certainly hope so.

tearingup
2013-07-12 05:59 pm (UTC)

In conclusion: Snuggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 05:59 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm, snuggles.

tearingup
2013-07-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

Mmmm.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I could get used to this kinda thing," giggles Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-12 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Mm," Ripper says agreeably, nuzzling her ear.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 06:11 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

tearingup
2013-07-12 06:12 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle-snuggle-hum.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 06:13 pm (UTC)

Cuddle-squeeze-purr.

tearingup
2013-07-12 06:14 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle. Kiss.

"...get used to what, exactly?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 06:15 pm (UTC)

She makes a vague hand-waving gesture. "This entire class of thing."

tearingup
2013-07-12 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Hm?"

tearingup
2013-07-12 06:19 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 06:19 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

tearingup
2013-07-12 06:20 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. Kiss!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 06:21 pm (UTC)

Ooh, kiss.

tearingup
2013-07-12 06:22 pm (UTC)

Yes. Kiss.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:31 pm (UTC)

It is a bit later when Bella tells Queenie, [We are not going to be dating anywhere else but we're not doing sexual exclusivity.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 07:32 pm (UTC)

[Works for me,] Queenie says cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:33 pm (UTC)

[Thanks again,] Bella adds.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 07:34 pm (UTC)

[Noooo problem.]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:35 pm (UTC)

So that's that, it would seem. Back to work!

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 07:37 pm (UTC)

Several days later, Queenie brainphones her.

[Hey, you don't mind if I give Ripper an agony beam type thing, do you?]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:37 pm (UTC)

[If it just works on you guys, that's fine; on general principle I don't think it should do for arbitrary targets.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 07:38 pm (UTC)

[...mmmmnot quite what I was thinking,] says Queenie. [Arbitrary consenting targets work for you?]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:39 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, that works.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 07:40 pm (UTC)

[Great,] she says cheerfully. [So we're gonna borrow your boyfriend for a while now.]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:40 pm (UTC)

[Have fun.]

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-12 07:41 pm (UTC)

[You betcha!]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:42 pm (UTC)

Bella presumes that fun will indeed be had. She goes back to sorting her list of dead people, and makes a catacomb-like structure that will hold them all on the far side of Titan from her palace.

tearingup
2013-07-12 07:43 pm (UTC)

Her boyfriend is borrowed, and returned in good working order several days later.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:46 pm (UTC)

The catacombs are now full of dead people - an arrow proved able to produce thirty thousand and change - and she now has a small department of suitably empowered staff who can check that they have places to go and that their loved ones are ready for them and transport and wake the dead accordingly. J helps. Bella steers for the first couple of days, but by the time Ripper is returned to her she isn't quite so busy anymore.

[Wanna go ice skating?]

tearingup
2013-07-12 07:46 pm (UTC)

[Sure!]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:48 pm (UTC)

Pop. Knock, knock.

tearingup
2013-07-12 07:51 pm (UTC)

Open door; hug; kiss!

He is even wearing a shirt.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:53 pm (UTC)

Hug, kiss! Shirt-wearing is not such an advantage in the general case, but for ice skating it could be important. She conjures a pair of skates that will fit him behind her back and then dangles them by their laces where he can take them.

tearingup
2013-07-12 07:54 pm (UTC)

...He looks at the skates.

He takes the skates.

He wraps his free arm around her waist and kisses her again.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:57 pm (UTC)

Kisses! She's not in much of a hurry.

tearingup
2013-07-12 07:57 pm (UTC)

Good. Because kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:58 pm (UTC)

Kisses are excellent.

She teleports them to an ice skating rink that is not currently hooked up to any neighboring bubbles mid-kiss.

tearingup
2013-07-12 07:59 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 07:59 pm (UTC)

She conjures herself a pair of skates, kisses him again, and sits in midair to put them on in place of her boots.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Showoff," he accuses. He has to sit on a bench.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Unabashedly so," she laughs. She gets her skates both on, and floats, waiting.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:02 pm (UTC)

Ripper puts on his conjured skates and wobbles out onto the ice.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:03 pm (UTC)

Bella alights beside him and holds his hand.

She doesn't actually know how to skate, and hasn't pentagoned it, either. Magic grace does give her decent balance, but everything more sophisticated she has elected to figure out from scratch, at least for now.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:04 pm (UTC)

Ripper has reasonably good balance also.

It doesn't always help as much as he'd like.

But falling over is part of the fun, right?

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:06 pm (UTC)

Of course! Especially because it turns out if he pulls her down with him she laughs and kisses him.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:07 pm (UTC)

In the middle of a skating rink is a terribly uncomfortable place to make out.

It is amazing how little he cares.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:08 pm (UTC)

Eventually she hauls him up again, and they skate on.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:09 pm (UTC)

Whee!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:10 pm (UTC)

Whee! Bella starts trying to skate backwards. It's pretty hard.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:12 pm (UTC)

Ripper decides to complicate matters by chasing after her and giving her a kiss.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:12 pm (UTC)

That complicates matters sufficiently that down they go! It's okay; Bella's invulnerable. Kiss kiss.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:13 pm (UTC)

Ripper is not invulnerable, but eh, what're a few more bruises? Kiss!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:14 pm (UTC)

Although -

[If you're going to keep falling over like that, d'you want me to ward you?]

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:16 pm (UTC)

[No thanks,] he says, very cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:17 pm (UTC)

She giggles, insofar as she can without breaking the kiss. [As you like.]

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:18 pm (UTC)

Mmkiss.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:20 pm (UTC)

Mmm. She's on the bottom of this particular pile-up, so it's a little harder to extricate herself and carry on skating. She will stay put till Ripper is done.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:24 pm (UTC)

...He is kind of having fun with this 'making out on ice' thing, with Bella as a nice warm comfy insulator!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:25 pm (UTC)

And the ice doesn't bother her! What a suitable symbiotic relationship.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:25 pm (UTC)

Yes.

Nibble nibble.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:26 pm (UTC)

Eeeeeeee.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:30 pm (UTC)

Okay, Bella's a good insulator but she's not perfect. It's chilly down here. Ripper attempts to climb to his feet.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:30 pm (UTC)

She scoots out of his way and does her best to help.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:32 pm (UTC)

"There we go."

Skate skate! While holding her hand. For balance. Yes.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:35 pm (UTC)

That is obviously the only reason he would ever hold her hand. Not because she can warm up his chilly fingers or because it feels nice or because he likes her, certainly not.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:36 pm (UTC)

Well, she does warm up his chilly fingers, and it does feel nice, and he does like her. Those are all true.

He tries for the 'kissing while skating' thing again.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:38 pm (UTC)

They have the hang of skating a little better now!

Not that well.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:38 pm (UTC)

Hmm, Ripper appears to be on top of her again.

Nibble time!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:39 pm (UTC)

Ooooh. Nibbles.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:43 pm (UTC)

Yes. Nibbles.

Now, about warming up Ripper's chilly fingers...

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:44 pm (UTC)

She isn't uncomfortable with the cold; that doesn't mean she doesn't feel it. "Eep!"

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," he giggles, and kisses the affected area.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:46 pm (UTC)

"It's okay," she laughs.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:47 pm (UTC)

Kisses?

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:49 pm (UTC)

Kisses!

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:50 pm (UTC)

Kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:50 pm (UTC)

As many as he likes.

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:53 pm (UTC)

Really? Because he likes many.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:53 pm (UTC)

Then many he may have!

tearingup
2013-07-12 08:57 pm (UTC)

Awesome!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 08:57 pm (UTC)

Many many many.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:06 pm (UTC)

His chilly fingers are warming up some more.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:07 pm (UTC)

That is more comfortable for both of them!

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:07 pm (UTC)

Yes it is!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:09 pm (UTC)

Mmmm, comfort.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:10 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmm.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:11 pm (UTC)

Skating?

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:12 pm (UTC)

Skating!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:15 pm (UTC)

And maybe a little less falling this time.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:16 pm (UTC)

Maybe a little. The skating part is fun too, after all.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:30 pm (UTC)

It is! Especially without the falling.

They can skate a little faster now.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:32 pm (UTC)

It's what happens after the falling that Ripper is keen on, not so much the falling itself.

Skating a little faster is a little more exciting!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:34 pm (UTC)

Maybe after all this skating they can find somewhere more comfortable to fall.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:35 pm (UTC)

That is also an option.

Or they could figure out how to make out while skating without falling over, that's good too.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:36 pm (UTC)

What an interesting challenge! Bella's all for it.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:36 pm (UTC)

They are getting better!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:37 pm (UTC)

But not all at once!

There is some more falling on the way.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:37 pm (UTC)

And therefore more making out on the ice.

An acceptable loss.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:38 pm (UTC)

No complaints.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:39 pm (UTC)

Bella continues to be extremely nibbleable.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:40 pm (UTC)

Sooooo nibbleable.

Next time they fall over she is going to surprise him by tasting like vanilla sugar.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:41 pm (UTC)

He is surprised!

There may be licking.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:41 pm (UTC)

Ooh.

Licking.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:42 pm (UTC)

Yes.

Cartographically, even.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:44 pm (UTC)

Ooh, cartography.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:45 pm (UTC)

Well, he wants to verify which parts of her taste like vanilla sugar, you see. And how it interacts with her other available flavours.

The answer, apparently, is 'all the parts' and 'really really well'.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:46 pm (UTC)

Yes. That is the answer.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:47 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmm.

"Well, now I'm cold," he giggles, sprawled out on the ice. "Worth it, mind you!"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:49 pm (UTC)

She laughs, rolls over onto him, and snuggles up. For warming purposes. "One of these days we might need to try actually making it to a bed of some sort."

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Eh, beds are overrated."

Snuggle!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:51 pm (UTC)

"You wouldn't be cold in one," she points out, idly tracing shapes on his chest with her fingertips.

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Mmmm, true. Are we done skating? You could teleport us to a bed."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Your place or mine?"

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Depends. How nice is your bed?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Very. And no one will chide us for not knocking if I teleport us directly there."

tearingup
2013-07-12 09:59 pm (UTC)

He snorts and kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:01 pm (UTC)

Kisses.

By the time they break apart, they are in her bed. She doesn't use it as much as typical humans do, but she does use it, and it's nice, blue and white sheets of exquisite softness and plenty of room and snuggly pillows. She squares their skates off.

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:02 pm (UTC)

Ripper takes off his shirt, and then everything else for good measure, and snuggles up.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:03 pm (UTC)

What a fine idea. Off goes everything else currently being worn in this bed.

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:04 pm (UTC)

Slightly shivery snuggles!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:05 pm (UTC)

She will just have to warm him up, won't she?

The long way around. More fun that way.

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:10 pm (UTC)

Ripper is all in favour of pretty much any way in which Bella would like to warm him up.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:11 pm (UTC)

Then he will find her plans satisfactory, presumably!

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:12 pm (UTC)

"We should do this more often," he announces, some time later. "The ice skating, and the you tasting like sweets, and the sex. Definitely the sex."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Snuzzle. "It'll be easier to schedule dates if you don't mind if I quietly take care of empire stuff by brainphone. I don't like to be unreachable for more than an hour or two at a time."

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:15 pm (UTC)

"...I would sort of rather you weren't empressing during the sex part?" he says. "But the rest of the time it's fine."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Do you have any plans for the sex part to last more than an hour or two at a time?" she inquires archly.

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Should I not?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:19 pm (UTC)

Snuggles. "Oh, maybe. Some quiet day when nobody I should avoid snubbing is asking me to obliterate Israel or curse their wayward grandchild or eradicate pornography from the Internet."

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Can you not just tell people to fuck off when they do that?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I can when it's some random nutcase, it's a little harder when it's the king of Saudi Arabia."

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Mm, remind me not to become an empress," he says, cuddling up.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Don't become an empress," advises Bella, chuckling.

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I won't."

But he will kiss one.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:31 pm (UTC)

Kissing one is highly recommended!

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:32 pm (UTC)

He would be the first to recommend it.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:33 pm (UTC)

Kissing rock stars: also recommended.

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:34 pm (UTC)

Many, many people would recommend that one!

But right now Bella is the most important of those.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:34 pm (UTC)

She is very important and is glad that he has noticed.

After a while:

"I fetched up a batch of dead people. Turns out a nine-pointed coin will do thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixty-eight dead people in a batch. Randall's in the one I currently have asleep awaiting processing."
Edited 2013-07-12 22:42 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:46 pm (UTC)

Ripper sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:47 pm (UTC)

"There's no longer an issue with covering it up, I can wake him if there's someplace for him to go," she adds. "Anybody whose requesting person doesn't concoct such a place still gets waked, I can always put them on Saturn, but I figured I'd ask you first."

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Honestly, I didn't even like him that much," he says. "I'm not really sure if he has family."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I suppose the department that's handling all the other dead people will look into it, then."

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:54 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Why were you moping so much about him if you didn't even like him?"

tearingup
2013-07-12 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I didn't like him, but I still watched him die," he says. "And I felt sort of responsible. Not for any good reason, but it's amazing how much that doesn't help."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Now you've got me wondering if I should go identify myself to the various people who saw me get hit by a car. I'm not confident they've all connected the dots."

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:06 pm (UTC)

"...Especially the guy who was driving the damn thing, I should have thought of this earlier."

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he murmurs.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:07 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

"You okay?"

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine."

He kisses her.

"Just - thinking about all that again."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:09 pm (UTC)

"He'll be okay in the long run. Everyone'll be okay in the long run. That's my job."

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. But he still died," says Ripper. "And I still saw it. It didn't look fun."

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I bet it wasn't. Wasn't fun how I did it either, and I'm fine," she says encouragingly. (Nuzzle, nuzzle.)

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:14 pm (UTC)

Snuggle hug.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:17 pm (UTC)

Snuzzle. (Discreet brainphone with J removing Randall from the special processing list so the regular staff can get to him whenever they get to him.)

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:18 pm (UTC)

Snuzzle!

"Are you gonna talk to whoever hit you with a car?"

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'll look him up - probably worth having the conversation in person rather than brainphoning him out of nowhere, though." She kisses the corner of Ripper's jaw. "And I will be sure to knock, too."

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:21 pm (UTC)

He laughs and kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:21 pm (UTC)

Kisses! These do not even slightly discourage her from continuing to treat the knocking thing as a running gag.

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:25 pm (UTC)

That is not even slightly the point of them.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:25 pm (UTC)

That is good.

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:50 pm (UTC)

A week later, Ripper brainphones her to say,

[So I've done the photoshoot for that album cover. Wanna see?]

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:50 pm (UTC)

[Of course.]

Pop.

Knock.

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:53 pm (UTC)

Door open. Kiss! Snuggle! Shirtlessness!

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:53 pm (UTC)

Oooh, those are some of Bella's very favorite things!

tearingup
2013-07-12 11:54 pm (UTC)

"C'mon, you have to see this," he says, taking both her hands and gently towing her inside after a decent amount of kissing.

bellfounding
2013-07-12 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay! Let's see what you've been up to."

tearingup
2013-07-13 12:01 am (UTC)

The photos are all on his computer, which has a nice big screen to display them with. He pulls up the first one: he is lying on a carpet of rose petals in every colour but red, naked, with more petals heaped up over the crucial area and scattered generally over his body, and one of those blood-red flowers lying across his neck looking like an open wound.

"I might actually use that one," he says. "But there's some pretty great shots later on, too."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 12:01 am (UTC)

"Ooooh. I love the colors."

tearingup
2013-07-13 12:05 am (UTC)

"I know, gorgeous, isn't it? Thank Queenie, she conjured the roses. And violently dismembered them all over me."

Next shot, Ripper is in much the same position but now cracking up, caught in the middle of dragging an arm out of a drift of petals to cover his mouth while he laughs. The gory flower has fallen off his neck into the petal-pile.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 12:06 am (UTC)

"And then she did something entertaining?" hazards Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-13 12:09 am (UTC)

"You betcha," he snorts.

Next shot, Ripper is trying to control further giggles. Next shot, he has calmed down again and replaced the goreflower in a slightly different position. The shot after that, someone has freshened up the petals, replacing crushed ones with new.

The shot after that, he is trying and failing to smother a smirk.

"They kept saying filthy things, trying for a rose avalanche," he says, gesturing to the part of the picture where saying filthy things to him would have been most likely to disturb some rose petals. "And I kept laughing instead."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 12:10 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "You are too cute." She kisses his temple.

tearingup
2013-07-13 12:14 am (UTC)

The next few pictures, during which he gives up completely on controlling his laughter and starts flinging handfuls of rose petals at the camera, are indeed pretty fucking adorable. Ripper grins and hugs her.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 12:15 am (UTC)

Hugs!

tearingup
2013-07-13 12:26 am (UTC)

For the next set of pictures, the lighting is much dimmer - more reminiscent of the Wretched album cover - and the petals are gone, replaced by a marble floor and a strategically located shadow. He plays dead pretty convincingly even in the first few shots, with no goreflowers; subsequently, a flower makes an appearance, moving from his throat to his chest to his stomach.

He is very good at this Sexy, Dead, Covered In Flowers business.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 12:27 am (UTC)

"I like this photo set," says Bella happily.

tearingup
2013-07-13 12:39 am (UTC)

"I thought you might!"

And now there is a familiar figure creeping into the frame, menacing him. Sexily.

Ripper is particularly pleased by the shot where Aianon was leaning over him, mouth to his throat, wings mantled.

"I don't think I'm releasing these," he laughs, "but I had to keep them, they're too perfect."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 12:40 am (UTC)

Bella bursts out laughing. "You're making me wish I'd supervised the shoot, this is hilarious. Can I peek?"

tearingup
2013-07-13 12:50 am (UTC)

"Go on then," laughs Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 12:50 am (UTC)

She leans her head on his shoulder, and closes her eyes, and peers into the past.

tearingup
2013-07-13 12:58 am (UTC)

Much of the conversation seems to have taken place via brainphone. There's Queenie, flinging rose petals over Ripper and giggling; there's Ghosty, appearing now and then to give Queenie a hug and a peck on the cheek, and perhaps causing the odd rose petal to straighten itself out or curl up more fetchingly; there's Aianon, working with the goreflowers and flirting shamelessly with Ripper.

"Which part are you looking at?" wonders Ripper of the present.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 12:59 am (UTC)

"Queenie is heaping you with petals and Aianon is making those red flowers. Looks like you were mostly talking by brainphone, though, and I don't catch that."

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:03 am (UTC)

"Don't worry," laughs Ripper, "they said most of the fun things out loud."

And indeed, after taking the first picture, Queenie looked speculatively at Ripper's crotch and said, "Wonder what happens if I turn you on?"

To which Ripper replied, grinning, "Try it and see."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:04 am (UTC)

Bella snickers. "Here we are."

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:22 am (UTC)

Quoth Queenie, "I'm gonna fuck yooooou," in an extremely Jokerish singsong.

Ripper started giggling helplessly, and Queenie took a picture. And then a few more, as he calmed down and Ghosty rearranged the vegetation.

And just before Queenie took the next picture, a voice out of thin air chirped, "Remember that time you fucked me into a wall? That was fun," and Ripper failed not to smirk.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:25 am (UTC)

"I was expecting more creativity," giggles Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:27 am (UTC)

"They were just fucking around," laughs Ripper. "Why, what would you have said?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:28 am (UTC)

"I didn't say I could do any better," Bella laughs.

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:30 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:31 am (UTC)

"I don't have the correct brand of shamelessness, I think."

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:31 am (UTC)

He laughs and kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:32 am (UTC)

Kisses! She is quite shameless within the domain of kisses.

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:39 am (UTC)

In the past, Queenie did indeed get more creative, and that is approximately when Ripper started throwing petals at her. She dropped the camera; they implemented a few of her suggestions, to vocal approval from Aianon and Ghosty.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:40 am (UTC)

[The photo shoot has been temporarily abandoned, in the past,] giggles Bella. [I think I'll stop watching.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:41 am (UTC)

[Yeah, we did a lot of fucking in between takes. I hope you're not surprised.]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:41 am (UTC)

[I am not surprised. It would be a sort of unpleasant surprise. Please don't spring it on me if non-Jokers are added to the circle of interest,] she adds.

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:43 am (UTC)

[...Meaning what?]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:44 am (UTC)

[If you want to have sex with someone who isn't me - in specific - or a Joker - anybody from the template - please let me know first.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:45 am (UTC)

He blinks, then shrugs.

"All right."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:46 am (UTC)

"Is that a weird request?" She leans her head on his shoulder again.

tearingup
2013-07-13 01:47 am (UTC)

"I don't know. A bit. But not a bad kind of weird, just - " He laughs softly. "What was it you said about extra housekeeping?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 01:48 am (UTC)

"Sounds familiar," she laughs softly. "Extra prompt to do a value-neutral thing."
Edited 2013-07-13 02:02 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:03 am (UTC)

"Yeah. That. Exactly."

Snuggle.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:05 am (UTC)

Snuggle.

"Speaking of people who are me but not in specific, at least two of them would probably take you up on it if you hit on them," she mentions.

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:05 am (UTC)

"Ooh. Consider them added to the circle of interest," he says, grinning. "Which ones?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:07 am (UTC)

"Cam and Amariah. Stella's a maybe, everyone else is probably a no."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:08 am (UTC)

"Why is Stella a maybe?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:11 am (UTC)

"I haven't discussed this with her, but she's got a something going on with Lazarus, her magic-seeing guy, and the only other ones of us who are engaged in anything other than Cam and Amariah's strictly casual activities with more than one person are with Sherlock-and-Tony sets. ...Did that make sense? I mean that there seems like there's, Cam and Amariah who have primaries but don't stay put to speak of, and then on the other end of the spectrum is, like, Golden, but most of us are sticking with one person or a Sherlock and the accompanying Tony, and Stella displays nonstandard behavior in that sense."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:12 am (UTC)

"...It makes sense now that you've explained it," he says.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:14 am (UTC)

"It's kind of fun mapping out all the ways Bells handle any given thing, especially when you throw in the confounder that once we meet each other we tend to copy each other's strategies for anything and everything. When Aurora hit the peal she went around the entire Bellparty asking everybody except me and Golden how they dealt with polyamory."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:15 am (UTC)

Ripper snorts.

"Did she get any good tips?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:16 am (UTC)

"No, she concluded that everyone but her had special circumstances at work, accidentally uncovered some kinda unsettling things about Stella's relationship with Alice, and wound up finding her own special circumstance."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:17 am (UTC)

"...Are these the sort of unsettling things that make good gossip, or no?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:22 am (UTC)

"It might actually make more sense to hear the story from one of the Jokers. I know Stella's side of it but most of the unsettlement was Alice's. The basic idea was that Stella surprise-turned Alice into an Aurum type vampire, on the grounds that this hurts beyond the ken of mere mortals - awesome Christmas present for a Joker, yeah? - and this comes with some adjustments besides hurting intensely during the transition, and she and Alice didn't communicate well enough about the significance to each of them about the 'eternal mate bond' feature. And the way Stella explained all this to Aurora made Alice kind of skeeved out and he went and torched away being a vampire."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:23 am (UTC)

"...What is an 'eternal mate bond'," Ripper wants to know.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:25 am (UTC)

"Exactly what it sounds like. Aurum vampires mate for life and they take it really, really seriously. It does not go away. It is matey and bondy in nature. Usually monogamy is part of the package, but that didn't happen to Alice. Aurum werewolves do something a little similar but unidirectional and it's only male ones."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:27 am (UTC)

"Ouch," says Ripper. "I can't begin to imagine."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:28 am (UTC)

"There are some pretty bad corner cases, but the typical case is a couple of vampires being adorably devoted to each other," says Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:30 am (UTC)

"Forever," he says. "Immutably forever. Maybe I'm just thinking too hard about the corner cases."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:32 am (UTC)

"It does go away if you stop being a vampire, which can be done via torching or just going through Downside."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:34 am (UTC)

"Well, that's... nice. Still. Remind me not to be a vampire."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:36 am (UTC)

"Don't be a vampire," says Bella. "Also, maybe don't go to Aurum, because vampires can wind up mated to people who are not themselves vampires, that being the source of most of the awful corner cases. Golden has a precog who checks out visitors, but she's not perfect - I mean, she's really good, but people's decisions can throw her off, so if you meet anyone she didn't see you meeting there's a chance."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:38 am (UTC)

"Right. Never going to Aurum," he concludes.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:39 am (UTC)

"Vampires who aren't mated already don't show up to Bell parties," Bella adds. "Except Addy showed up to one, but she isn't allowed anymore, and they're pretty sure she can't mate anyway, and I don't think Golden would hesitate to kill her on the spot and retrieve her out of Downside and not bother to turn her back into a vampire, if she did anyway."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:42 am (UTC)

"...Who in fuck is Addy, then?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:43 am (UTC)

"Her title is Imperial Factotum. Her witch power - those are random magic powers people are sometimes born with or get when they turn, in Aurum - is to copy other witch powers, so she's handy, but she's also kind of amoral and creepy."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:44 am (UTC)

"Yeah, tell me about it," snorts Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:46 am (UTC)

"Yeah, Golden would have killed her after she usurped the previous vampire government if her husband couldn't read minds and make sure Addy wasn't doing any more amoral-and-creepy-things."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:50 am (UTC)

"What kinds of amoral and creepy things did she do...?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:54 am (UTC)

"On top of the part where all vampires besides about a dozen of them ate humans on a regular basis before Golden took over and she was one of those? Addy really likes copying powers. They taste like things to her," explains Bella. "Before the previous vampire government found out that she existed, she sort of wandered the earth, finding witches, checking out their powers, tutoring them in making them more interesting, playing with them, and then moving on. The Volturi - that's the previous government in question - then threatened her into working for them, and her primary job was to copy and use the powers of witches who they couldn't threaten into working for them. They kept those witches in small pieces in the basement, since keeping vampires in small pieces doesn't kill them. And in her spare time Addy badgered Golden's daughter Elspeth into working on making her own power more interesting, more than she wanted to work on it, and when Elspeth tried to stand up to her Addy sent her off to get tortured by the witch whose witchcraft did that."

tearingup
2013-07-13 02:57 am (UTC)

"Euhhhhhhh," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 02:58 am (UTC)

"Yeah. The fact that she's so interested in getting to taste powers makes her pretty easy to control, though. Golden doesn't really need her any more, since she has coins and enchanting and so on, which creates some tension, but - we're not big on revenge, us Bells, so as long as Addy behaves going forward and doesn't inconveniently mate to anyone who'd rather not be mated to she's probably just going to carry on as she has been."

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Ripper. "...Now I'm just imagining Rayne as a vampire, I should stop imagining that."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:01 am (UTC)

Bella sporfles. "When Jane's back I'll tell her not to send him to Aurum, shall I?"

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah, good plan."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:03 am (UTC)

"Elspeth's witchcraft is really cool. She's basically so good at telling the truth that it's a superpower."

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:04 am (UTC)

"...That doesn't sound like a useful superpower."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:06 am (UTC)

"You wouldn't think so, but it's great. She can do it without talking if she wants, across a long range, really fast, with nested explanations of context for everything she's saying. She can do simultaneous translations into any language she knows. Sometimes she just randomly says things that are true that she has no way to know. There is a distinct, definite difference between when she says true things and false things, so you can tell if she decides to lie, which she only ever does as a demonstration of this difference anyway."

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:08 am (UTC)

"Weird," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:10 am (UTC)

"It's also weaponizeable! And it was usable in that form as a sort of faux resurrection even before Aurum had access to Downside. If she gave a human too many high-fidelity vampire memories, it was not a good day for the human's continuity of experience, and it became possible to convince the human that they were one of the vampires whose memories they had. Elspeth didn't wipe anybody herself - Addy did that. She also had all these memories in the first place because of Addy. There was another witch who copied the entire life histories of anyone he touched, and Addy touched him and then broadcasted everything she had with Elspeth's power later to a bunch of people, including some human bystanders."
Edited 2013-07-13 15:13 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:15 pm (UTC)

"...That's a nasty kind of resurrection," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It was kind of a mess to sort out once there was access to Downside to be had, but it got sorted out."

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:17 pm (UTC)

"What happened to the... extras?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Magic," says Bella. "Downside had the - this'll be easier to explain with an example - one of the people Addy blasted 'recognized herself' as a dead vampire without help. The human was called Paola and the vampire was called Didyme. Didyme's mate was still alive and the resurrection was high-fidelity enough to satisfy his mate bond, so they were all happy together and Didyme made nice with Paola's family insofar as she could and so on. Then, Downside was available, and as far as Downside was concerned, Didyme was dead, and Paola was the person who was going around calling herself Didyme. So the admin heard the entire story, imported the blast memories in the walking-around individual from since the blast into the dead version and took them out of the live version, and had a live vampire-bodied Paola and a dead human-bodied Didyme. Didyme went home, got turned over again, I don't think I ever heard if Paola in particular decided to go through Downside and be human again or stay a vampire but she got the option and a heap of reparation money."

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Magic," he concludes, shaking his head and smiling.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:23 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Isn't it great?"

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Better than the alternative, I guess. Anyway, want to see the rest of the pictures?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:27 pm (UTC)

After the one where Aianon is pretending to nibble on Ripper, there is a long stretch of obvious silliness - first Aianon tickles him, and then they play-fight. Well, mostly play. Some blood is spilled. But everyone is laughing about it, so it can't be that bad.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:27 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles.

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:31 pm (UTC)

Ripper grins.

And after that, he kept the scratches from Aianon's teeth and talons, and played attractively dead for a few more shots. 'Lightly mauled' turns out to be a good look on him.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:31 pm (UTC)

Bella traces her finger along a former site of a mark. "I guess they patched you up before they left."
Edited 2013-07-13 15:33 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

He kisses her.

And indeed, the next series has him all freshened up - now in an artistically overgrown graveyard, draped over fallen trees or broken headstones or propped up against the walls of crypts, occasionally even wearing some amount of clothes in addition to the flowers. The lighting varies wildly, sometimes night and day and dusk and dawn in four consecutive shots; it is very likely that the entire set was conjured on an asteroid somewhere for just this purpose.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:40 pm (UTC)

Mmmkiss.

"How much of the setup is your design as opposed to theirs?"

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm not even sure," he says. "It was all very collaborative."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Is that all the photos?"

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says cheerfully. "The last set's even more fun."

For the last set, he is floating in space, surrounded by various decorations - swirls of glitter in one shot, billowing fabric in the next, flames and stars and flower petals. In the very last one, Aianon is tackling him out of the middle of the field of carefully arranged floating water droplets from the last shot.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:55 pm (UTC)

"I know that these weren't Photoshopped, and my instinct is still to declare them all obviously Photoshopped," comments Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-13 03:57 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Aianon's very photogenic, but not as much as you." Nuzzle.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:00 pm (UTC)

"And I don't even have wings or a tail," he laughs, and kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:01 pm (UTC)

Kissesssssss!

[Hardly insurmountable drawbacks.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:02 pm (UTC)

[Would I look better with wings and a tail, you think?]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:04 pm (UTC)

[Oh, I don't know,] giggles Bella, [it would probably depend, and they might just get in the way.] (She illustrates where they might get in the way. It is a hands-on demonstration.)

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:09 pm (UTC)

"All right, I'm convinced," he says, laughing.

Is it time to stop looking at pictures and start making out instead? He thinks it is!

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:09 pm (UTC)

It would sure seem to be that time! He did say that last set was, well, the last set.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:10 pm (UTC)

It was. Now there are no more pictures of sexy dead naked Ripper to show her, and if she wants more sexy naked Ripper she will just have to content herself with the live version.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:10 pm (UTC)

A more than satisfactory substitute.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:11 pm (UTC)

He'd certainly hope so!

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:13 pm (UTC)

Bella herself is not substituting for any sexy photo shoots (there have been some, for press purposes, but all clothed and businesslike), but here she is regardless.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:14 pm (UTC)

And Ripper is very fond of her, no matter what her photoshoots are like.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:14 pm (UTC)

Oh good. She likes that he is fond of her; this is fitting and nice.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:15 pm (UTC)

Allow him to demonstrate his fondness!

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:15 pm (UTC)

She will so allow.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:17 pm (UTC)

In which case, he will so demonstrate.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:18 pm (UTC)

Lovely!

He did say he liked it when she tasted like sweets, didn't he? Flavor of the day is... let's say raspberry.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:18 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Raspberry.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:19 pm (UTC)

Delicious raspberry!

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:19 pm (UTC)

Most delicious.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:19 pm (UTC)

Bella is the most appreciative raspberry ever.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:20 pm (UTC)

Bella is the tastiest raspberry ever.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:20 pm (UTC)

All this and she's not even a real raspberry! It's amazing! Must be magic.

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:21 pm (UTC)

The best magic.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:22 pm (UTC)

Later, Bella wonders aloud: "So which one do you think is most likely to be an album cover?"

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:23 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," he says. "Did you have any favourites?"

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:25 pm (UTC)

"The ones with Aianon acting scary at you were hilarious, but perhaps that's not the right metric."

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:27 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, I thought they were kind of hot," he laughs. "Which definitely is the right metric."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Also, 'slightly the worse for wear' is a good look on you."

tearingup
2013-07-13 04:28 pm (UTC)

Cheerfully, "Don't I know it."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:09 pm (UTC)

She grins and nuzzles him.

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:09 pm (UTC)

He smirks and kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:14 pm (UTC)

Mmm.

[Did the Jokers ever wind up installing that revised agony beam for you?]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:15 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. And then we played with it. They like it much better than yours, did they never say so?]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:16 pm (UTC)

[Didn't come up. Why, what did they fiddle with?]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:23 pm (UTC)

[Less 'fiddle with', more 'built from scratch', I think,] he says. [I don't know what yours is like firsthand, but the new one is... interesting. 'Agony beam' is really the wrong name, it's more like a... sensory synthesizer.]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:25 pm (UTC)

[I'm not sure I follow.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:29 pm (UTC)

[Well, for one thing, it doesn't just do pain - it does heat, cold, pressure, anything you can feel. And it doesn't just beam it all over, like yours does - it goes where you want it to. I'm not that good at it yet, but some of the things Ghosty can do with it are pretty incredible.]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:30 pm (UTC)

[Should I upgrade?]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:31 pm (UTC)

Ripper grins.

[Maybe you should!]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:32 pm (UTC)

[Sounds kind of like Aurora's thing, I wonder if it'll weird her out if the revision gets to be standard.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:32 pm (UTC)

[Aurora has a thing?]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:33 pm (UTC)

[Well, no, Brilliance has a thing. He was made from scratch with a built-in torture function, it's kind of fucked up, but has the obvious recreational applications, and she solved the Monogamy Problem by having that thing be just for them.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:38 pm (UTC)

[Huh,] says Ripper. [Yeah, that's fucked up all right. But I'm sure she won't mind if other Bells start using something like it recreationally, aren't you lot all about the sharing that way?]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:41 pm (UTC)

[We are about... I'd call it collaborating, but yeah. I'm thinking more about the scenario where everybody's playing with it at a party and Brilliance wants in and Aurora starts squirming.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:42 pm (UTC)

[That, I can't speak to.]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I guess they'll have to work something out, but I'm not planning to apply any form of agony beam to Brilliance so I suppose my own upgrade possibilities are immaterial.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:44 pm (UTC)

[Go on then.]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:45 pm (UTC)

Bella snuggles up. She spends the hex.

[Done.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:46 pm (UTC)

[Well, are you gonna try it or what?]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 05:47 pm (UTC)

[I dunno, this thing doesn't come with - convenient integer settings - what do you want me to do with it?]

tearingup
2013-07-13 05:59 pm (UTC)

It does not, indeed, come with convenient integer settings. The settings it has are fairly self-explanatory, though: she can point it at a person and it will show her their nervous system, mapped out by what kinds of sensation are deliverable where. There is also an associated number, currently at 0, which represents the total amount of pain he is feeling.

He can tell when she points it at him; he bites his lip, which shows as a pretty little flare in the nerve map and an uptick to a total of 1 1/2. When the total clears 1, there starts to be a feeling of triangleness about it.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:03 pm (UTC)

"- Huh, not integer settings but numerical... results."
Edited 2013-07-13 18:15 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "it goes down to sixteenths, I'm not really sure why."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to do anything with it?"

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "I think that's what I've been getting at." He kisses her. "Play around a bit."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:23 pm (UTC)

"That's - okay, but at least give me a numerical range, guidelines, I don't want to do anything you wouldn't like," she says. "...Huh, there are all kinds of things in here."

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Ripper. "I told you, not just pain. Although on that front, anything up to about a hundred and fifty is fun most of the time; after that it gets dicey."

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:30 pm (UTC)

"This is definitely gonna percolate through the peal," predicts Pat, snuggling up. Where to start, where to start -

Well, scratched up was a good look on him. She drags a trio of 'scratches' across his chest, slowly, keeping an eye on his body language. And then, parallel, interleaved, the negative image of those scratches - lines of nice.

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:31 pm (UTC)

...Ripper grins.

"Ooh, I like it."

(The total reads 12 3/8.)

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:34 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles and traces the invisible lines. She deepens the scratches, and their neighbors, and repeats, watching the numbers go up.

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:36 pm (UTC)

Twelve, twenty, fifty - he snuggles up and kisses her, humming.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:38 pm (UTC)

Those will keep for now. Maybe there should be more scratches and unscratches elsewhere. Like from his shoulder down to his elbow.

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:38 pm (UTC)

He wriggles most becomingly and kisses her again.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:39 pm (UTC)

[God you're cute.]

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:40 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:41 pm (UTC)

He's also nibbleable. She nibbles him. In reality quite gently. With the magic illusion not so gentle.

[D'you think I should mint you?]
Edited 2013-07-13 18:41 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:42 pm (UTC)

[I dunno, should you?] he laughs. [It sounds convenient. Mmm.]

You know who else is nibbleable, Bella is nibbleable, he is going to nibble her some.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:53 pm (UTC)

Bella is chocolate now.

[Not going to get up to any awful mischief with your own coin supply, are you?]

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:54 pm (UTC)

['Course not. Ooh, chocolate.]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:56 pm (UTC)

[Good, mischief is so upsetting.] She spends the hex; if she's misjudged him she can torch it off him later. [To make a coin you just move the pain across your mind, in a way that should have just begun to make sense. Do you want your own coin sorter or do you want to keep them loose or what?]

tearingup
2013-07-13 06:58 pm (UTC)

He makes a square, in between nibblings.

[Coin sorter sounds more convenient. Have I mentioned I like chocolate?]

bellfounding
2013-07-13 06:59 pm (UTC)

[I gathered.] She spends another wish on giving him a sorter.

tearingup
2013-07-13 07:00 pm (UTC)

The square disappears into it. Ripper nibbles her some more.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 08:13 pm (UTC)

This is very much distracting her from playing with the new and improved sensation-synthesizer.

tearingup
2013-07-13 08:16 pm (UTC)

But it's fun. And nibbly.

bellfounding
2013-07-13 08:17 pm (UTC)

It is both those things.

And they will have plenty of time to play with recreational magic.

tearingup
2013-07-13 08:17 pm (UTC)

True.

Nibbles!

bellfounding
2013-07-13 08:21 pm (UTC)

Distracting, chocolatey nibbles.

open to visitors

bellfounding

Bella is allowing a book to be written about her. She's given plenty of interviews for shorter articles, but at this time she thinks she (and Slipstick thinks she) has the measure of this particular author well enough to expect even a book-length piece to be neither a hatchet job nor an inconvenient exposé. They are having regular meetings, in the journalist's home, talking about what Bella's willing to reveal about magic, the death date prior to which she won't resurrect anyone 'just yet', and the ground rules of Saturn.

Bella's personal life is, for the time being at least, personal. The author asks, but stays shut down when Bella shuts her down.

tearingup
2013-07-14 03:59 pm (UTC)

[Hey, you busy?] says Ripper, sounding uncharacteristically diffident.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 03:59 pm (UTC)

[Talking to the book person. Why?]

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:01 pm (UTC)

[Eh, nothing. Well, something, but nothing urgent.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:02 pm (UTC)

[We're done for the day in twenty minutes, and after that nothing time-dependent. I can talk to you while I talk to her, she's not sped up or anything. What happened, are you okay?]

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:04 pm (UTC)

[Y...es,] he says. [Er. You might not want to talk to me while you talk to her...] He trails off, then adds unhappily, [Rayne came round for a drink last night.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:05 pm (UTC)

[Well, that sounds... awkward.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:05 pm (UTC)

[You have no idea,] he sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:06 pm (UTC)

[But nothing urgent, I can just come by when I've wrapped up for the day here?]

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:07 pm (UTC)

[Yeah.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:08 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

Twenty minutes later, there is a knock at the door.

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:09 pm (UTC)

Ripper opens it, wearing pajamas and looking disheveled.

"C'mon in," he sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:10 pm (UTC)

She comes in. "You don't look so good. What happened?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:12 pm (UTC)

He stands there for a moment, opening and closing his hands as though trying to pull the right words out of thin air, and then gives up and says, "I slept with Rayne."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:12 pm (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I didn't plan on it or anything, it just sort of... but I should've known it was going to happen, it always does," he says helplessly. "I'm sorry. I should've told you. At some point in the last four months. Not that I've been - I haven't even seen him since he moved out of our place in London. I just." He rubs his face with both hands. "Sorry."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:19 pm (UTC)

Bella still has not produced anything to say.

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:21 pm (UTC)

Ripper waits.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:22 pm (UTC)

"If you'd mentioned this when I originally asked for no surprises it wouldn't upset me now," she murmurs. "I had no idea."

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:24 pm (UTC)

"I didn't plan on ever talking to him again, let alone fucking him," says Ripper, throwing up his hands. "I have no idea how he found me. I suppose I should've expected it, though, God knows he'd be incapable of just leaving me alone."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:24 pm (UTC)

"The problem is that he found you?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes and no," he says, "the problem is that I make bad decisions where Rayne is involved, but if he hadn't found me it wouldn't have come up."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:29 pm (UTC)

"What I mean is, should my first order of business be arranging for him not to be able to find you - is that a thing you would like me to do, is he harassing you or stalking you in such a way that he should be obliged to stop - or is the primary issue at hand the bit where you cheated on me?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:31 pm (UTC)

...He considers this.

"I don't know," he says. "I really don't. Rayne has been Rayne for a long time, I should've known he wouldn't stop just because I kicked him to the curb again."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Let me know when you figure it out. I can bar him from Saturn, or from this bubble, or whatever."

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:34 pm (UTC)

"In the meantime - I cheated on you. I'm sorry. Now what?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I don't know." Bella slumps into a chair. "How did it happen? If you wanted to, it would've taken ten seconds to warn me."

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:42 pm (UTC)

"I was just going to talk to him," he says, "the thought of fucking him didn't cross my mind until much later in the evening - I told him I should tell my girlfriend first, he said I'd never done before so why should I start now, I told him his logic was terrible, and he... did something distracting." Ripper sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:44 pm (UTC)

"And you didn't tell me simultaneously with telling him you ought, or simultaneously with critiquing his logic, because -?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I was much too drunk to have two conversations at the same time."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:46 pm (UTC)

"...The fact that he got you drunk first is lending support to the 'he should not be allowed on Saturn' hypothesis."

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it just," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Were you drunk enough that I shouldn't be holding you responsible for the event at all?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:49 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

"I don't know. I could have just not gotten drunk with him in the first place and saved all this trouble."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I don't really know what being drunk is like, I don't partake - please help me figure out how to factor that in."

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:52 pm (UTC)

"It... makes it easier to do things I'm going to regret without realizing how much I'm going to regret them," he says. "Then again, so does Rayne."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:54 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs.

tearingup
2013-07-14 04:54 pm (UTC)

Ripper shrugs.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 04:57 pm (UTC)

"I clearly don't understand the effect this person has on you, and that's clearly key to understanding what happened well enough that I can process it."

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:01 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I understand the effect he has on me," Ripper admits. "We were friends for... a long time. He never got me into any trouble he couldn't get me out of, but he did get me into plenty of trouble. We've had our fights before, but he always came back and I always let him. This time... I don't think I want to let him." He sighs. "He obviously has a different plan."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:02 pm (UTC)

"What does he want with you? Why would he even object to you notifying your girlfriend?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:08 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea why he objected to me notifying my girlfriend. With Rayne, it could be anything from 'part of some elaborate plan' to 'didn't want to wait five more seconds'."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:09 pm (UTC)

"How worried should I be about the elaborate plan possibility?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:10 pm (UTC)

He opens his mouth.

He closes his mouth.

He says, slowly, "I don't think he knew I was seeing somebody before I mentioned it..."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:11 pm (UTC)

"But now he knows."

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "and I'm pretty sure the only reason he didn't want me telling you was because he knew you'd want to know. Ugh, I am such an idiot."

He flops into his comfy chair.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:15 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs again. It appears that this is a sigh-inducing topic.

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:18 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes it is.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm still not clear on whether or not you were sufficiently impaired that I should maybe be considering this an instance of rape instead of an instance of voluntary cheating."

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:20 pm (UTC)

Ripper winces.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:21 pm (UTC)

Bella reaches for his hand and squeezes it.

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:24 pm (UTC)

He squeezes back.

"I honestly don't know," he says. "It's not that clear-cut. I mean... I probably would've slept with him even if I wasn't drunk, but I definitely would've told you first." He hesitates, then amends, "I hope so, anyway."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:24 pm (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:26 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

"I think I do want him locked out of this bubble at least. Since I obviously can't trust myself around him."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Done," says Bella, adjusting the enchantment with a tilt of her head and an eyelash-flutter.

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:29 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome."

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he says again.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:32 pm (UTC)

She squeezes his hand. "That helps."

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Good."

He sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:34 pm (UTC)

Squeeze.

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:34 pm (UTC)

Squeezeback.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything else in this general category of things that I should learn now rather than later?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:41 pm (UTC)

"...Which general category? People I've slept with since we started dating and not told you about? No," he says. "People I slept with before we started dating? Plenty, but none of them is Rayne, they're not going to come looking for me."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Were you expecting Rayne to come looking for you?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't, but I should've been," he says. "It's something he'd do. It's not something most people would do."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:44 pm (UTC)

"People do just sometimes move to Saturn. You could run into any number of them that way."

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "I've run into an ex in a pub before, it can be awkward, it doesn't result in this. Rayne is the only person who results in this."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay." She shakes her head, sighs again. "Why does he result in this, what is it about him?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:54 pm (UTC)

"He knows me, he knows how to talk me into things, and I keep falling for it," says Ripper, frustrated. "He's mostly benign about it, but you saw his definition of benign when you met me."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes, harmless, killing a man to make you think he was dead so you'd get my attention."

tearingup
2013-07-14 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Exactly. He means well, but it's a very special kind of well. And he doesn't care about anyone but himself and me."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 05:58 pm (UTC)

Bella shakes her head. "Well. He can't get in here anymore. If you run into him the next time a beach visits your bubble, or something - then what?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I'll tell you when I see him," Ripper promises. "And I'll try not to get drunk with him again, that seems like a bad plan."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I know technically all I asked was that there not be surprises, but - Rayne in particular seems like a bad idea whether I wind up literally surprised or not."

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:05 pm (UTC)

"He is a bad idea," says Ripper, "but he's my bad idea."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:05 pm (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I know, it's terrible, isn't it? I can and will do my best to stay away from him for my own sake, but I just don't have it in me to promise not to go near him again."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:15 pm (UTC)

He shrugs helplessly.

"I don't know. It's complicated. He was my best friend for a long time."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I can forgive you for not telling me this time. If self-sabotage-by-means-of-Rayne becomes a habit I likely cannot emotionally afford to include you in my personal life."

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:21 pm (UTC)

"It's been a habit for years," he sighs. "I'm trying to break it."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Isn't there anything I can do to help besides keep him out of this one little bubble? I could keep him off the entire planet. The ground rules would allow you to block him."

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:26 pm (UTC)

"How do I..." he says, and trails off, and shakes his head. "My problem is that I can't trust myself around him. If I lock him completely out of my life with magic, that's not solving the problem. What I want to do is stop making such bad decisions when Rayne is involved."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:27 pm (UTC)

"...That's fair. Do you have a plan on doing that, though?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:28 pm (UTC)

Wryly, "That'd be the hard part."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I think - sometimes the best way to not make bad decisions about something is to make them in advance, in a way that doesn't invite later changing of mind."

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Meaning...?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, in this case, if you want to not make bad Rayne-related decisions, and have no idea how to do that while he's actually in the room, you could decide to not be in the room with him, till you have that figured out at least."

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:38 pm (UTC)

"How am I going to figure anything out without trying it? Not that I'm going to go looking for him, but..." He sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Well - the way I'd do it if it were me would be by thinking long and hard about exactly how he got to me. But I have perfect recall and when I didn't have that I had notes I'd taken about everything. Do you want perfect recall?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Does perfect recall help that much?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:43 pm (UTC)

"It replaces notebooks, for me. I can remember what I was thinking, and figure out what made me think it. But then, figuring out what we think and why we think it is a Bell thing and I don't think anyone else has successfully adopted our techniques."

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll try it my way first."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:47 pm (UTC)

He squeezes her hand.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:48 pm (UTC)

Squeeze.

"I hope you know what you're doing."

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:52 pm (UTC)

"I know I don't. I hope I figure it out," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:53 pm (UTC)

"What does he even want with you still, besides the obvious, or is that it?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:54 pm (UTC)

"He wants me back," says Ripper. "We were best friends, and if you ask him, we still are."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 06:55 pm (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-14 06:57 pm (UTC)

"It's not the sex, if that's what you meant by obvious."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:04 pm (UTC)

"That's just the icing on the cake?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:04 pm (UTC)

...He sighs.

"If you want. I don't know."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:06 pm (UTC)

She, too, sighs.

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:07 pm (UTC)

Ripper squeezes her hand.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:09 pm (UTC)

Squeeze.

"Thank you for telling me, regardless of what happens next."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:10 pm (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Are you okay?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:14 pm (UTC)

"If you look at it one way, I just cheated on my girlfriend, and it you look at it the other way..." He shakes his head.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Well - which way it is, is pretty much up to you, isn't it?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't really like either of the options!" he exclaims.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. They both suck."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:18 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

"So. No, I'm not really all right. But I don't even know if that should matter - I mean, I feel bad for cheating on you, someone fetch the world's tiniest violin, right?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm so tempted to conjure a ridiculously tiny violin just to lighten the mood."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:20 pm (UTC)

...Ripper laughs.

It's only a pentagon to make a little violin appear, about an inch long, hovering in the air and playing very very quiet sad music.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:21 pm (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:23 pm (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:25 pm (UTC)

She squeezes his hand, then sighs and floats into his chair and wedges herself in beside him.

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:26 pm (UTC)

He wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head.

"Sorry," he murmurs.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I'll be okay."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:27 pm (UTC)

He sighs and hugs her some more.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:28 pm (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs.

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:30 pm (UTC)

Lots of hugs. All the hugs.

The tiny violin is still playing.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I suppose me locating him and telling him off wouldn't accomplish anything."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, it might make you feel better."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Eh, that would probably depend a lot on his reaction. I know that I can locate him and tell him off with effective impunity; the only satisfying part would be if he acted suitably told-off."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Not bloody likely."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I didn't think so."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:38 pm (UTC)

He sighs and hugs her.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:39 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:39 pm (UTC)

Yes. Hugs.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Well, I suppose if he hadn't exercised his particular brand of awful we wouldn't have met."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:42 pm (UTC)

"There is that. Maybe you should track him down and thank him."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I will be doing that. He knows now you have a girlfriend - does he know it's me? Actually come to think of it you've still got that non-disclosure geas on you, don't you."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I still do." He looks at her quizzically. "Why, would it have stopped me from telling him who my girlfriend is?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Nnnno, because strictly speaking I didn't ever tell you who your girlfriend is. It just made me think of it."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:46 pm (UTC)

"...Have I been going around all this time not being able to tell anybody anything you tell me? And if so, can I stop?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I relaxed it some a while ago - I imagine you would have noticed if you couldn't discuss certain things with the Jokers and the relvant information isn't secret from them - but yeah. ...If you run into Rayne again are your bad decision-making habits likely to extend to making poor choices about what to tell him?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going to tell him magic things," he says. "I don't know what else I shouldn't be telling him."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Personal stuff about me. Possibly I should not want him to have my identity at all, I'm not sure what he'd do with it."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Nothing good, I'm sure. But look, I meant it about the geas, can you get rid of it?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I can make it less restrictive along any dimension I like, or abolish it altogether, at will, that's built in."

tearingup
2013-07-14 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Right. Will you?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:04 pm (UTC)

"- you just want it completely gone and even if you run into Rayne on a beach-bubble I'm not going to regret it?"

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind not being able to tell anybody about the stuff from that one conversation, I guess," he says. "It's not my favourite thing, but I agreed to it. I didn't agree to never be able to repeat anything my girlfriend tells me to anyone who's not a Joker. From anybody else, that sounds like a horror story waiting to happen. I don't think you're going to be that horror story, but I shouldn't have to trust you that much, d'you see what I mean?"

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I get it." She waves a hand. "All gone."

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:14 pm (UTC)

He sighs and hugs her. "Thanks."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:15 pm (UTC)

Hugs. "You're welcome. Please don't make my public relations department run around like chickens with their heads cut off."

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I won't, I promise."

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. It's not a good look on them."

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:18 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:19 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:19 pm (UTC)

Definitely snuggle.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:20 pm (UTC)

Prolonged snuggle. And brainphone multitasking, but not of the sort that interferes with snuggle.

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:22 pm (UTC)

Good, because he could really do with some snuggle right now.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:23 pm (UTC)

Both of them could, it seems.

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:29 pm (UTC)

Eventually, he spends a square to make the tiny violin shut up and land on a table.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:29 pm (UTC)

Bella chuckles softly.

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:30 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

rife with adventure

bellfounding

[United Nations meetings are boring. What are you up to?]

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:48 pm (UTC)

[Writing songs. What's the United Nations up to?]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:49 pm (UTC)

[Economic sanctions. What are the songs about?]

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:50 pm (UTC)

[Sex.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:51 pm (UTC)

[That's so much more interesting than economic sanctions.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:52 pm (UTC)

[It is! You should come have a listen when you're done with your meeting.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:54 pm (UTC)

[After the UN I'm talking to some representatives from miscellaneous medical unions about how very unkind of me it was to put them out of jobs and what I'm going to do about that. You could sing it at me over the brainphone, but then I guess I'd miss the instrumentation.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 08:56 pm (UTC)

[And it might distract you from your meetings.]
Edited 2013-07-14 20:56 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-14 08:56 pm (UTC)

[And we can't have that.]
Edited 2013-07-14 21:00 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:01 pm (UTC)

[I don't know, can we?]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:02 pm (UTC)

[Do you want to be responsible for me blushing in front of the Mayo Clinic representative?]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:03 pm (UTC)

[Maybe.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:07 pm (UTC)

[That would be embarrassing.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:09 pm (UTC)

[Does that mean I shouldn't sing you my lovely new song just yet?]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:11 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, let's wait until I figure out doctor retirement packages. In the meantime whatever shall we do about this boring meeting? Wanna listen to more Stories Of The Adventures Of Bells or something?]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:12 pm (UTC)

[Always.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:13 pm (UTC)

[I could tell you about how Amariah's afterlife got handled, I haven't gotten to that one yet. Unless Ghosty or Aianon told you; they were there and I wasn't.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:15 pm (UTC)

[They haven't mentioned it, no.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:15 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Amariah's world is the one with the external animal souls, I know I mentioned that but did it stick?]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:17 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Green kingfisher. I remember.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:21 pm (UTC)

[So if you have one of those, you have to stay close together, or it hurts, unless you do it anyway for long enough and far enough, and then the bond is all stretched out and you can be as far apart as you like. Witches like Amariah do that as a coming-of-age thing, but humans also never do unless they're spies or in horrible accidents or have inconvenient fish daemons or something. Even though it would be really useful to be able to leave your bear or your whatever at home sometimes. It's just that unpleasant. The Alethia worldsheaf doesn't have daemons out-and-about in all of the subworlds, but the parts of people that are daemons have this property even when they're all folded up 'asleep' inside their people - you don't want to be without it. And the thing about the Alethia afterlife is that it didn't let daemon-parts in.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:22 pm (UTC)

[...Ouch,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:26 pm (UTC)

[So everyone who ever died in Alethia was in a state of what amounts to perpetual physical and emotional torture, not so fun,] continues Bella. [Time also went faster there, so if someone died fifty years ago they would have centuries of being dead under their belt. And on top of that, the afterlife was populated by harpies, who have this magic screaming thing they can do to make everything bad you've ever done bubble up and make you feel like crap. They feed on - emotions and stories from life and stuff in general, but the only one they can elicit on purpose is guilt, so they did a lot of that.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:28 pm (UTC)

[That sounds horrible. I bet Amariah wasn't happy.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:30 pm (UTC)

[She was not! She found all this stuff out partially by asking this artifact she has called an alethiometer. It dispenses objective truth - only it's hard to use. Her boyfriend Kas can do it intuitively, though, so that's not such a problem. The alehtiometer couldn't tell her everything, though. Some stuff is hidden from it. By this character called the Authority, who made the afterlife, and the harpies, in the first place. The Authority is also known as 'God'.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:31 pm (UTC)

[Eugh,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:36 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. This didn't really bother Amariah on a theological level, of course, since witches have this pantheon of goddesses they call on for spells and don't go in for human religion, but it gives you an idea of the kind of power this fellow was throwing around when things were made. So, she figured first she'd investigate the afterlife, fill in the gaps in what the alethiometer could tell her. She could leave her daemon Pathalan - he's a cute little owl - behind, because she's a witch and got that taken care of when she was younger. And her boyfriend did the same thing, later in life, to save her and Path from some asshole, but that's another story. Anyone else who tried to walk into the afterlife without dying first would leave a daemon behind who couldn't get in, which, as aforementioned, is pretty unpleasant.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:37 pm (UTC)

[Doesn't sound like she'd be getting a lot of volunteers.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:42 pm (UTC)

[Most of us turned her down. I didn't particularly want a firefly-soul, personally. But she got a few. Aianon, Ansharil, and Ghosty all showed up without daemons appearing for them. They weren't the right species. Ghosty wound up having to leave some of her presence outside the afterlife, but otherwise could move around normally. Aianon and Ansharil were different - as long as they didn't try to go into the afterlife, nothing happened, but the alethiometer said that if one of them went the other would acquire daemon properties. Bear that in mind if you ever consider touching Ansharil - daemon-touching is a huge thing, even if Joker daemons are a little more gregarious than normal.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:46 pm (UTC)

[Got it,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:50 pm (UTC)

[To deal with the discomfort of separation, they used a couple tricks. First, daemon-touching is a huge thing for both positive and negative reasons. Sarion went with a wish on to prevent her from getting a daemon and snuggled up to Ansharil while Aianon went to make it less unpleasant. Shell Bell went too, and she brought her girlfriend - a Sherlock nicknamed Pearl - along, to hold her smew. Smews are a kind of duck, they're pretty. Cam used a different trick - his magic notebook, the alethiometer suggested, could turn into a daemon, but before she did that, there was nothing stopping him from being as far away from her as he liked, so he put her down and went the requisite distance and then made a contingent wish stating that if she would be his daemon instead of a new one appearing out of nowhere, that could happen. And then his notebook flew out of the woods where he'd left her and landed on his shoulder. She can switch between notebook and bird shapes now.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:51 pm (UTC)

[Flying notebook bird. All right.]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:54 pm (UTC)

[She's a Cooper's hawk, when she's a bird,] Bella adds. [So you've got Cam and Amariah and Shell Bell and Ghosty and Kas and Aianon, prowling the afterlife, and on the dock by the river that runs around the place you've got Pearl holding the smew, Sue coordinating everybody, and Petaal and Pathalan and Grace just sort of hanging out. Sarion and Ansharil weren't on the dock, they were just by Amariah's house.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:56 pm (UTC)

[All right. And what happened?]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 09:58 pm (UTC)

[Well, they didn't really understand how harpies worked. The alethiometer told them there was some danger about and it was hurting the dead people but it couldn't be more specific. Kas found one, but it took one look at him and flew away - Jokers don't really do guilt. And then,] Bella says, [Shell Bell found one.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 09:59 pm (UTC)

[...And Shell Bell does guilt?]

bellfounding
2013-07-14 10:01 pm (UTC)

[She shouldn't really, but she does. The thing she feels guiltiest about is that when she died she wished Pearl was there with her to help her. So when the harpy screamed at Shell Bell, Shell Bell's smew started bawling and apologizing to Pearl and feeling bad about being comforted by being held and trying to get away.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 10:01 pm (UTC)

[Owww,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 10:07 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. And the topography of the land of the dead is all screwed up, wishes don't work there, and you can't teleport to destinations inside of it - you can leave, but nobody could teleport to Shell Bell, she wasn't listening to anything people said over Sue-link, they couldn't wish the smew asleep and hope he'd drag Shell Bell with him, the alethiometer could give them directions for how to get to her but it wasn't very quick about it. Pearl got fed up with waiting. She's a Sherlock, and they can find stuff - she flew over the river, left a gyrfalcon daemon behind her, and located Shell Bell. The harpy screamed at Pearl too, but Sherlocks are pretty good at working through negative emotions; she scooped Shell Bell right up and teleported her out to the dock to recover.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 10:08 pm (UTC)

[Good for Pearl,] he says, impressed.

bellfounding
2013-07-14 10:13 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, she is intensely devoted to Shell Bell. So newly-split Pearl reassured newly-split Shell Bell. Everyone else who was exploring the land of the dead got alethiometer directions so they could converge on each other and not get caught alone, and they found a group of more harpies.]

tearingup
2013-07-14 10:15 pm (UTC)

[Did that end in tears and horror?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:26 am (UTC)

[No, they talked to them, and Bells aren't all that diplomatic, even Cam, but the Jokers did a slightly better job of not antagonizing them and telling them non-guilt-related stories to keep them happy, and Amariah eventually got them to agree to work for her in the revamped afterlife, to make sure no one too awful returned to the world of the living. Jane does that, Downside, and I'm muddling along without her here; in Alethia it's reformed harpies. But I'm getting ahead of myself; the harpies said that they'd been made by the Authority, and the alethiometer couldn't tell them all that much about him, and Amariah was concerned that if she did anything to the land of the dead he'd made, he'd just undo all her work. So obviously he had to be handled next.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:36 am (UTC)

[So of course she dragged everybody off to have a friendly word with God,] snorts Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:37 am (UTC)

[Well, Shell Bell and Pearl went home.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:39 am (UTC)

[Right, that makes sense. And how did the word with God go?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:41 am (UTC)

[They couldn't teleport directly to him. They had to go to the base of this floating mountain and fly up the rest of the way, and they got interrupted by some angels. Not the same kind as Angela.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:44 am (UTC)

[What kind, then?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:45 am (UTC)

[A semi-insubstantial magical kind, whereas Angela's ancestors just genetically engineered some of them to have wings and warm blood and pretty singing voices and good muscle tone. So a flock of these little angels who could barely hurt a fly all tackled Aianon. He could have gotten them off, but he'd have wound up killing six of them if he so much as beat a wing, and Amariah wasn't quite ready to authorize lethal force, so he just sort of let them carry him off.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:46 am (UTC)

[...This is an incredibly hilarious mental image,] giggles Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:48 am (UTC)

[Isn't it just? So everyone else kept flying up, because I guess they weren't as high a priority as the literal demon, and they meet this bigger, more substantial angel, and he said they had to leave.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:49 am (UTC)

[I wonder what they did next,] Ripper says innocently.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:49 am (UTC)

[Oh, turned around, gave up, went home,] says Bella merrily. [It's kind of an anticlimactic story, I don't know why I bothered telling it.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:50 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:53 am (UTC)

[Nah, they wouldn't leave, and the angel let Amariah describe what she wanted but turned her down, and they still wouldn't leave, and the angel charged up some kind of light bolt attack and swatted her and Cam and Kas. Kas torched on the spot - Jokers don't load up on wards the way Bells do - and was kinda stunned. Cam hit the ground. Amariah recovered faster, she's been flying since she was little because witches do, and she got her dagger out and fought the angel.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:54 am (UTC)

[Oooooh, did she win? I'm in suspense!]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:55 am (UTC)

[She stabbed him in the gut, offered him a chance to surrender, he told her to die and started charging the beam again, she cut his throat, he dissolved.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:56 am (UTC)

[Damn,] laughs Ripper. [Remind me not to piss her off.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:57 am (UTC)

[Oh, it's safe to piss Bells off under normal circumstances, it's just not safe to get in our way when we are trying to end the torment of several billion suffering creatures.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 12:57 am (UTC)

[Got it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 12:59 am (UTC)

[Not that I advise pissing Bells off, it's just that summary execution isn't the standard response. Anyway. They went on up through some magic fog they couldn't see through even with the see-through-specific-stuff power I invented, and felt around for a way into the mountain, and found it. And in this mountain was a crystal box with no openings that contained a wrinkly faded old angel.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:01 am (UTC)

[...uh-huh,] says Ripper. [Wonder who that was.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:02 am (UTC)

[He wouldn't say. She tapped on the glass to get him to wake up and talk to her, but he almost fell apart. He couldn't remember who he was. The alethiometer knew, though. It was the Authority.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:02 am (UTC)

[Thought so.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:07 am (UTC)

[He didn't want to do anything. He just wanted to be left alone. He wasn't going to get in her way. So she left him alone. The other angels, on the other hand, continued to be a problem. They wanted - on the Authority's behalf, but they didn't know how far he'd dwindled - complete control of everything. Everyone in unthinking obedience. Cam tried to talk to them, but they didn't want to talk. The mountain still forbade wishing, but not enchantment. Amariah made an angel tank that slurped them all up and kept them there and gave them food and water, and made it so new angels would get their own compartments in case they weren't friends with the main flock, because the alethiometer said not all angels followed the Authority. And she stuck the mountain where it was, since it was conveniently in a subworld that didn't have any life in it.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:08 am (UTC)

[That is convenient.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:10 am (UTC)

[And then everything was set up for her to design her own land of the dead. She made a subworld, from scratch, that worked how she wanted it.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:11 am (UTC)

[...That's a thing you can do?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:11 am (UTC)

[With a big, big coin. She tried an arrow and it didn't work. She got Brilliance to make some tenners for her.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:13 am (UTC)

Ripper is quiet for a moment, thinking this through.

Then he says, [I cannot imagine what it would take to make a tenner.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:15 am (UTC)

[Neither can I. Unboosted humans can't even make evils, and pretty much need magic to survive making stars. But Brilliance can.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:16 am (UTC)

[Wow.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:18 am (UTC)

[Yeah. He made a significant batch, they got handed out to the peal, Amariah needed two - one to make the subworld work how she wanted it, and one to make sure it caught forthcoming dead people instead of the old afterlife.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:20 am (UTC)

[That is incredible.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:21 am (UTC)

[There's a reason she's the one I described when I was contending that I am not the most interesting Bell.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:22 am (UTC)

He laughs.

[She's never taken me on an intergalactic date. It's all a matter of perspective.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:22 am (UTC)

[I kind of have a complex about being the undistinguished one. I'll probably show you off a bit at the next party, be all 'Iiiii have a unique boyfriend'.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:31 am (UTC)

[You can show me off as much as you want,] he promises. [Make all the other Bells jealous.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 01:33 am (UTC)

[Except Amariah and Cam, who I think it has been established are likely to work out any incipient jealousy by borrowing you.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 01:34 am (UTC)

[But they don't get to keep me.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:55 am (UTC)

[It's true! I am pretty lucky on that count.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 02:26 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 04:23 pm (UTC)

[So anyway, now the afterlife in Alethia is all nice, and people there have their daemon-bits back, and can sleep, and get a nice little memory jolt so if they spent a million years being dead forgetting who they were they get it back on moving locales, and if they are nice and enough live people want them back they can go be alive again.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 04:25 pm (UTC)

[I thought Bells disdained sleep.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 04:26 pm (UTC)

[For ourselves, yeah, except recreational naps, but not everyone has something better to do with their time. And they couldn't sleep, in the previous afterlife. They just had to be conscious all the time.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 04:34 pm (UTC)

[Which was tremendous fun, I'm sure. So what was that 'other story' you mentioned earlier, about Amariah's boyfriend...?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 04:39 pm (UTC)

[Ah, Amariah sent Path on an errand. Witches do that sometimes, since their daemons can go wherever they want. And on his way, some random psychopath got hold of Path. Daemon-touching is a bad thing. If you're not a Joker, you don't want anybody but your very favorite person in the world getting their hands on your daemon - the way Amariah talks about it I think it must be worse than rape - Jokers have slightly longer lists of favorite people and a lot of tolerance for shit happening to them but otherwise same deal. And she woke up as soon as the guy got Path, and Kas figured out what was going on and asked the alethiometer how to save him. And the alethiometer said the way to do it was for Petaal to turn witch-shaped and fly, alone, as fast as she could to the right place and kill the guy. If Kas went with her it would have slowed them down too much or he would have been too obvious on the final approach since he can't shapeshift and Joker daemons can. It took hours, it was a long flight, but the kidnapper was being really slow about getting around to killing Path, so she was there in time, and she killed him, and she brought Path home.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 04:41 pm (UTC)

[Wow,] says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 04:41 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Since then, Kas is a one-person list of non-daemon people allowed to touch Path.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 04:42 pm (UTC)

[No kidding.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 04:44 pm (UTC)

[Her aura tells everybody else to back the hell off. Kas and Petaal's aura does something a little like it - you can tell if it's okay for you to touch them - but anybell can, pretty much, although I haven't tried it.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 04:50 pm (UTC)

[...Anybell can touch Petaal? How much longer is this 'slightly longer' list of favourite people?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 04:55 pm (UTC)

[Much. It came in handy, though, Sarion was broken when she met Kas and Petaal in Milliways, and their aura told her it was okay to snuggle right up, and they got her in touch with the peal and we fixed her.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:10 pm (UTC)

[...I feel like I should remember what happened to Sarion - oh, was she the one with the telepathic thing?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:19 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, she's the one who had to bond with Ansharil to save the world and this involved involuntary mind-reading and after a while she'd pretty much stopped having thoughts because having them hurt.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:20 pm (UTC)

[Right,] he says. [That one.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:22 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Yaaaay, UN meeting over, I get to go listen to doctory grievances now.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:22 pm (UTC)

[Have fun with that.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:23 pm (UTC)

[I'm sure it will be fascinating. All, 'but people NEED to suffer from kidney stones, it builds character and lines my pockets!']

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:26 pm (UTC)

[How many people have actually made that argument so far?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:27 pm (UTC)

[In those words, not at all, but I have been asked very solemnly if I considered the economic implications of curing cancer.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:29 pm (UTC)

[...Right. Remind me never to go to one of those meetings. I'd fucking punch someone.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:34 pm (UTC)

[And you wouldn't believe how people get about immortality, especially religious groups.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:40 pm (UTC)

[Oh, do tell.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:44 pm (UTC)

[I'm depriving life of its natural meaning, I'm going to slow down science and politics because conservative theorists and ideologues won't shuffle off the mortal coil in a timely manner, I'm depriving people of reasons to have faith in something greater than themselves, I'm the literal Antichrist, torching is snake oil and I'm encouraging people to behave unsafely, resurrection obstructs a healthy mourning process and how dare I interfere.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:54 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, are you the Antichrist?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:55 pm (UTC)

[No. I can't wait to hear what kind of results Juliet gets when she starts working with humans as well as demons, though, she has an aura of menace and also fire.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:55 pm (UTC)

[...She can turn it off, can't she?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:56 pm (UTC)

[She can, she probably will, but it'd be funny if she left it on to talk to the local Pope, wouldn't it?]

tearingup
2013-07-15 05:57 pm (UTC)

[Hilarious.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 05:58 pm (UTC)

[She was all nervous about it when she first got it, but she got to like it.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:00 pm (UTC)

[Is there another story there?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:03 pm (UTC)

[Yyyyyes but it's not for general audiences. The abridged version is that she comes from a world where vampires lose their souls and this has behavioral consequences, and she got murdered, and turned, and there were behavioral consequences, and the one of her that's running around now is just the one from Downside so she doesn't have continuity with the vampire her but she still feels bad.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:04 pm (UTC)

[All right.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:05 pm (UTC)

[Hmm, Bell stories, Bell stories... any requests?]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:05 pm (UTC)

[Nothing springs to mind; I don't think you've left any major loose ends dangling that I remember...]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:06 pm (UTC)

[There's a funny one about how Glass got engaged.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:06 pm (UTC)

[All right, let's hear it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:12 pm (UTC)

[So Glass lived in this little house in the Enchanted Forest, which is the name of a kingdom which is both enchanted and a forest. And the Sherlock and Tony from her world - Steel and Iron respectively - are princesses of it, and they show up and introduce themselves to her cat - cats belonging to magic-users in Chronicle are smart, but only their people can understand them when they talk - and she meets them and they invite her to come back to the castle with them to look at a magic thing, 'cause Glass is a magician, she's the most magic-geeky of any of us and we're all kinda magic-geeky.

[So they go hiking through the forest, and they're talking about how the princesses are supposed to be on a quest to find a husband because they need at least one kid between them to inherit the throne, right? And Glass is like 'husbands, not really my area, I am gay as a rainbow that is only attracted to rainbows of the same sex' and Iron keeps flirting with her and Glass mentions that it's probably a minor technical problem to figure out how two women could have kids, and by the time they get to the castle, they're both engaged to her contingent on their mom the queen allowing it.

[And they go up to their mom, and say, 'We found this magician and we want to marry her!' and their mom was like 'well, what's her name' and it turned out that Glass had not introduced herself and Iron and Steel hadn't asked her name the entire time they were getting to know each other and deciding they wanted to get hitched.]
Edited 2013-07-15 18:22 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:23 pm (UTC)

...

He cracks up.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:28 pm (UTC)

[So Glass introduced herself and the queen said she could marry one of them and if she could get that one pregnant she could marry the other one too. So she married Steel and knocked her up and married Iron too and they have each emitted one kid now, one a little older than the other two.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:29 pm (UTC)

['Emitted',] he giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:30 pm (UTC)

[Yep. Three girls. There are eight kinds of Bell kids and so far they're all girls for some reason - I mean, Glass has a causal reason, the magic just worked that way for when it's two moms.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:31 pm (UTC)

[Eight kinds?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:33 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Glass's three are unique so far - the other ones with Sherlocks and Tonies don't have kids. Angela has four, Rose's two match the older two of Angela's, and Golden has one with Edward.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:35 pm (UTC)

[I'm tempted to start drawing family trees, here.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:38 pm (UTC)

[There's a bit of confusing terminology for relationships to the families of alts, or alts of families. The going thing is to talk as though alts are siblings, find the closest one, branch from there, and then add -oid - so, Rose's eldest Yseult and Angela's eldest Damaris are alts, Yseult and Angela's youngest Peninnah are sisteroids, the rosebuds and cherubs relate to the Joker's kids or Glass's little beads as cousinoids, etcetera. It breaks down a little, but it's close enough for many purposes.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:41 pm (UTC)

[Has anyone drawn family trees? And - rosebuds, cherubs, beads, seriously?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:42 pm (UTC)

[Why, what would you call them to refer collectively? And I don't think anyone's drawn trees, no - perfect memories make them less useful.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:44 pm (UTC)

[At least they're self-explanatory. And Golden's kid doesn't get a cutesy collective noun because there's only one of her?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:44 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, she's just Elspeth. If she had any siblings we'd probably call them nuggets or something.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:46 pm (UTC)

He splutter-giggles.

[That's awful. Adorably awful. What about the rest of them? If Stella had kids would they be starlings?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:51 pm (UTC)

[Well, now that you've suggested it, absolutely. I think Shell Bell is considering having kids and they'll be saddled with something molluscy, I don't know about Amariah's but maybe something to do with those pine branches witches fly on, I don't think Juliet's planning on it any time soon and it probably won't have been fifty years for her when we repeal because she has Jarvises but maybe they'd get something fire-themed, no clue for the others.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 06:53 pm (UTC)

['Something molluscy' like what? Pearls?]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 06:59 pm (UTC)

[No, that's Shell Bell's Sherlock's nickname. Something like cowries or scallops.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:00 pm (UTC)

He laughs again.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:01 pm (UTC)

[I don't know what they'd do with me. 'Pattern' doesn't really lend itself. 'Ringlets' or something I guess.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:01 pm (UTC)

['Ringlets' is all right.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:05 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. I'm not in any hurry to produce ringlets, though.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:06 pm (UTC)

[Good to know.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Okay, I think I have convinced these doctors that their problems are important to me and I will do my best to address them and I can refer them to staff for more detailed negotiations about their retirement packages now.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Oh good.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:16 pm (UTC)

[Bidding them a polite goodbye, and -]

There is a knock at his door.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:16 pm (UTC)

Ooh!

He answers.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:17 pm (UTC)

Hug!

"So, I can hear that song now, if you wanna sing it for me. No crusty old gastroenterologists will wonder why I am blushing."

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:19 pm (UTC)

"It's a deal," says Ripper, and he gives her a kiss and goes and gets his guitar.

Yep, that's a song about sex all right. Which he is singing. To her. In his living room. While shirtless. And grinning.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:20 pm (UTC)

Squirm.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:20 pm (UTC)

The song is now over!

Whatever shall they do?

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:28 pm (UTC)

She could kiss him! That's a thing they could do.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:28 pm (UTC)

It certainly is.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:30 pm (UTC)

Mmmm, kisses.

[Have I mentioned lately that I like your music?]

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:31 pm (UTC)

[Not lately,] he says cheerfully. [But you can always mention it again.]

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:33 pm (UTC)

[I liiiiiike your music.]

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:33 pm (UTC)

[I am definitely getting that impression,] he says, and kisses her some more.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:34 pm (UTC)

Kisses kisses kisses. Squirm.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:35 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Lots of kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:36 pm (UTC)

Flavor of the day is - let's say praline.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:37 pm (UTC)

Ooh. That's new! New and tasty. Om nom.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:38 pm (UTC)

She does strive to be yummy. It has such pleasing results, after all.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:39 pm (UTC)

And Ripper strives to make those results very pleasing! Because she is yummy. And he likes her. And she squirms so delightfully. And he likes her. And she keeps trying on all these interesting new flavours. And he likes her.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:39 pm (UTC)

All of those are good things.

She squirms very delightfully.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:40 pm (UTC)

She does. That is a characteristic of hers, is delightful squirming.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:43 pm (UTC)

Also tasting like things. She does that.

And she's getting to be a damn good kisser, of course.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:43 pm (UTC)

Ripper is very happy about all of those.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:44 pm (UTC)

As well he should be.

She is likewise happy about him and many of his characteristics. Doesn't that work out nicely?

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:45 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes it does.

And when they have reached a temporary lull in celebrating each other's characteristics, they can cuddle!

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:45 pm (UTC)

Yes.

Cuddles.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:47 pm (UTC)

Cuddles are nice.

bellfounding
2013-07-15 07:48 pm (UTC)

Soooo nice.

tearingup
2013-07-15 07:49 pm (UTC)

Nice and cuddly!

carrying a torch

bellfounding

Bella is catching up on emails. It amuses her to agree to play the role of royalty at this random Renaissance faire that had the audacity to ask her if she'd be so kind to guest-star for a day, so she's telling them she'll do it presuming no emergencies come up and they don't give her excessively absurd lines to say.

tearingup
2013-07-16 03:59 pm (UTC)

[Soooo, you're not busy, are you?] asks Ripper. He sounds very amused about something.

bellfounding
2013-07-16 03:59 pm (UTC)

[Just email. What's up?]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:23 pm (UTC)

[My minting's gone, and I'd like it back if that's all right.]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:24 pm (UTC)

[Did you torch? What happened, are you okay?]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:25 pm (UTC)

He laughed.

[Yeah, I torched. I'm fine. Aianon decided to give me some sexy nightmares, that's all. Does minting go away when you torch? That sounds inconvenient.]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:27 pm (UTC)

[You can stick properties onto torching with evils, and take them off the same way, but those are also what I need to resurrect people if I don't want to wait for a batch, so even when I add new tweaks to my own powers I wait until I have a bunch of them lined up and get them all with one evil instead of doing it piecemeal, since I have hexes coming in more regularly.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:28 pm (UTC)

[All right. I'll stick to hexes, then. I don't plan on torching that often.]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:29 pm (UTC)

[You want me to swing by and re-mint you now?]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:30 pm (UTC)

[That'd be nice.]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:32 pm (UTC)

Knock knock.

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:32 pm (UTC)

Door open. Hug! Kiss!

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:33 pm (UTC)

Yay!

Mint!

"And you are all minty again."
Edited 2013-07-16 16:34 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Brilliant," he says, and kisses her some more.

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:35 pm (UTC)

Bella is all minty too!

[Do I want to know what exactly torched you?]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:36 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles into the kiss.

[I don't know, do you?]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:36 pm (UTC)

[Maaaaybe.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:37 pm (UTC)

[Aianon has sharp parts,] he says merrily, still kissing her. [He likes to menace me with them. I like to be menaced. It's a good arrangement.]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:38 pm (UTC)

[So basically the photo shoot but with less giggling, more blood.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:39 pm (UTC)

[More or less. And not that much less giggling. But a lot more blood,] he recalls.

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:40 pm (UTC)

[Evisceration is hilarious, of course.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:42 pm (UTC)

[Of course!]

He hugs her and nibbles on her neck. (The fact that she is currently a mint-flavoured mint is still adorable.)

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:44 pm (UTC)

Ooh, nibbles. She leans on him, squirmily.

[So I'm going to go play the part of the queen at a renaissance faire that thought it would be fun to ask me just in case, and I told them I'd do it for a day if they didn't give me silly lines and I could bail in case of emergency.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:50 pm (UTC)

He giggles! This interrupts nibbling. But it does not interrupt hugs.

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:51 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. What do you think, will Queenie make me a pretty Renfest dress?]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:52 pm (UTC)

[That's not even a question. The question is, can I have sex with you in your pretty Renfest dress?]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:52 pm (UTC)

[Hmm. Tricky, but not impossible.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:53 pm (UTC)

Nibbles.

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:53 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmm, nibbles.

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:55 pm (UTC)

Snuggly nibbles.

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:55 pm (UTC)

Squirmy snuggles.

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:57 pm (UTC)

[This mint flavour is growing on me,] he informs her. [You're adorable, by the way.]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 04:58 pm (UTC)

[I am adorable. And minty. And punny.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 04:59 pm (UTC)

[Right. Those too.]

She is also wearing far too many clothes. And if she wants them to be anywhere other than just inside his front door when he does something about that, she'd better act fast.

bellfounding
2013-07-16 05:01 pm (UTC)

They could go be on his bed, how about that? Teleportation is super convenient like that.

tearingup
2013-07-16 05:02 pm (UTC)

Great. Beds are comfy. Ripper loves beds.

bellfounding
2013-07-16 05:04 pm (UTC)

Bella also approves of beds! And of Ripper. Also nibbling. Bidirectional nibbling.

tearingup
2013-07-16 05:08 pm (UTC)

Mmmmnibbling. Mmmminty.

[Should I taste like things, too, I wonder?]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 05:09 pm (UTC)

[Mayyyybe.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 05:25 pm (UTC)

[Any requests?]

bellfounding
2013-07-16 05:46 pm (UTC)

[Surprise me.]

tearingup
2013-07-16 05:53 pm (UTC)

[All right.]

How about... that cake they had on their first date? Is that a good flavour?

bellfounding
2013-07-17 01:47 am (UTC)

It is apparently an excellent flavor, judging by Bella's extremely nibbly reaction.

tearingup
2013-07-17 01:51 am (UTC)

Perfect.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 01:51 am (UTC)

Nibble nibble nibble.

tearingup
2013-07-17 01:52 am (UTC)

Ooh. Nibbly!

He nibbles right back.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 01:53 am (UTC)

Mutual nibbles! Yummy ones. Best kind.

tearingup
2013-07-17 01:54 am (UTC)

Yummy, yummy mutual nibbling. And related activities.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 01:57 am (UTC)

And subsequent snuggling. Complete with fond sighing gazes. It's kind of sappy, really.

tearingup
2013-07-17 01:59 am (UTC)

It is. And Ripper is right there with the fond sighing gazes. And the brushing her hair out of her face and then kissing her forehead.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:00 am (UTC)

Bella giggles.

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:04 am (UTC)

"I love you," he says, hugging her.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:04 am (UTC)

She beams, and hugs him back tightly. "I love you too."

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:07 am (UTC)

That is among the better possible reactions!

Time for snuggle-kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:07 am (UTC)

Ooh, snuggle-kisses. Bella likes those.

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:09 am (UTC)

They are snuggly. And flavourful.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:09 am (UTC)

That is why she likes them.

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:11 am (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle kiss. Snuggle snuggle. Aww, he's all fizzy and giddy now, he likes that feeling.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:12 am (UTC)

Good. It is important to experience feelings that one likes. Bella is currently in the middle of a rendition of bubbly relaxation.

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:17 am (UTC)

They can cuddle and have positive feelings together! That sounds like a great plan.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:17 am (UTC)

It sure does.

"So I'm guessing if you wanted to come play king at the renaissance faire you would have said, but maybe I should invite you out loud anyway?"

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:19 am (UTC)

"I didn't know that was an option," he says. "What are the odds Queenie's gonna make me a dress?"

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:20 am (UTC)

"I'm sure if you invite her to make you a dress, she'll make you a dress, but she can probably come up with something more traditionally kingly if you prefer. And yeah, the email said I could bring a co-star if I wanted. They were kindly gender-neutral about it, actually, had a little footnote about how they like to live in an alternate version of the past where things are nicer than they really were."

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:21 am (UTC)

"Well, that's adorable, and now I'm genuinely tempted to show up in drag."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:23 am (UTC)

Bella snickers. "You realize people are probably going to want to take pictures and my relationship status has thus far not been public. Is that how you want your debut to go?"

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:24 am (UTC)

"Could there possibly be a better way?"

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:24 am (UTC)

"...I dunno, appear on the Colbert Report, make everyone think you're just pretending to be my boyfriend as part of a bit, and then have me confirm on international television?"
Edited 2013-07-17 02:35 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:36 am (UTC)

"That would also be pretty good," he admits, giggling. "But I think 'in drag as your queen-consort' is my favourite."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:37 am (UTC)

"You are welcome to appear at the renfest in drag."

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:38 am (UTC)

He kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:38 am (UTC)

Kisses!

"Is it going to be convincing drag, such that my next twelve interviews all involve questions about my sexual orientation?"

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:41 am (UTC)

"I make a very pretty girl," he says. "Seeing me in drag gives lots of people questions about their sexual orientation."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:42 am (UTC)

"I'll take that as a yes."

tearingup
2013-07-17 02:44 am (UTC)

"Is it going to give you questions, or are they questions you've already answered because you like interrogating yourself?"

bellfounding
2013-07-17 02:46 am (UTC)

"Are you asking if I'm going to think you're hot in your Renfaire dress?"
Edited 2013-07-17 02:59 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-17 03:01 am (UTC)

"It's an important question!" he says. "I've had a guy break up with me because he couldn't handle how good I look in ladies' underwear."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 03:03 am (UTC)

"I am not going to break up with you for looking any which way in a Renfaire dress." She tilts her head thoughtfully. "I don't think it's going to be a bonus, really. Frankly on you anything in the category of 'clothes' is not a bonus. Whether it'll be significantly differently attractive than you-in-clothes-at-baseline will probably depend on the dress, but I've never found drag appealing before. I do hope that's not a disappointment."

tearingup
2013-07-17 03:05 am (UTC)

Ripper laughs.

"Eh, I'll live. You might've noticed I have a thing for being eye candy, but if I want someone to appreciate how I look in drag, there's no shortage."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 03:06 am (UTC)

"I noticed your thing for being candy. Of multiple sorts." (Lick.)

tearingup
2013-07-17 03:07 am (UTC)

He giggles and kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 03:48 am (UTC)

Their guest-starring at the renfaire is in two months, which should give Queenie plenty of time.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-07-17 12:30 pm (UTC)

Queenie makes them an incredible pair of dresses. Lots of purple velvet, purple-and-silver brocade with a concentric circle theme for Bella, black-and-silver with a theme of birds and flowers for Ripper. And she and Ghosty insist on doing their hair. The result is rather magnificent.

tearingup
2013-07-17 12:32 pm (UTC)

Ripper does make a very pretty girl. And those long black lace gloves with silver trim do surprisingly nice things for his wrists.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 04:02 pm (UTC)

Bella is not swept away by a desire to tear the dress off him, but she does conjure up a matching crown for him - her own usual halo-thing is set aside in favor of a more Renaissancey circlet too.

And they arrive on time for the faire. The person who is supposed to greet them is pretty startled when they actually show up. "I was like," he says, "ninety-five percent convinced that one of your staff people agreed as some kinda prank and I was going to have to fill in."

"Nope," says Bella. "Any email that leaves my account signed 'Bella' is from me; the others say 'Imperial Staff'."

tearingup
2013-07-17 04:09 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 04:11 pm (UTC)

"And this is your -" The faire person peers at Ripper, then goes with, "consort?"

"This is my consort," agrees Bella, not sure how convincingly Ripper cares to present on any non-visual level.

tearingup
2013-07-17 04:12 pm (UTC)

He grins.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 04:13 pm (UTC)

"...And how should we announce your consort?" asks the faire person. "Her Majesty Isabella and -?"

"If you don't have anything suitable picked out, maybe you could take the name they use for the non-guest-star queen?" Bella suggests. "I believe it was Annabelle. Unless that would be confusing or whoever plays Annabelle normally would object."

"No, that's fine," says the renfaire person.
Edited 2013-07-17 16:21 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-17 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Works for me," says, apparently, Annabelle.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Their Majesties Isabella and Annabelle. All right," says the renfaire person. "Now, the only things you need to show up for are the knighting ceremonies for the kids at ten and noon and the joust at three; other than that you can just mingle and try to be Renaissancey. Faire food is comped for you but souvenirs aren't because those are independent suppliers. If you go to any of the shows they might riff a little on your presence, you can riff back if they seem to want you to and you have anything to say but it'll usually be fine to just smile and nod."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 04:26 pm (UTC)

"All right." Bella takes a map and schedule off a nearby stack. "Thanks, I think this'll be fun."

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 04:26 pm (UTC)

"I didn't think you were going to come," laughs the renfaire person, "I just figured, well, she doesn't seem to smite people for impertinence, might as well ask, right?"

tearingup
2013-07-17 04:28 pm (UTC)

The person temporarily known as Her Majesty Queen Annabelle giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I hope you do have fun," adds the faire person earnestly. "We try to set up a good time."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Shall we?" inquires Bella of her consort.

tearingup
2013-07-17 04:31 pm (UTC)

He beams. "Let's!"

bellfounding
2013-07-17 04:51 pm (UTC)

Off they go! The faire is full of things. People are hawking food (turkey legs, chili and chowder in bread bowls, corn on the cob, assorted desserts deep-fried, on sticks, or both) and souvenirs (ceramic ocarinas, satyr horns, flower crowns, pointy princess hats, wooden swords, tiny pewter dragons, shiny sharp daggers, snoods, corsets, handmade leatherbound books, hair ornaments, cloaks) and services (hair-braiding, palmistry and tarot, devil stick lessons) and midway-style games such as a Jacob's ladder and a dart-throwing range. There are several stages, offering, at various times of day, music and dancing and medieval-themed comedy and acrobatics and juggling and (for small children) puppetry; the falconer who will appear later at the midpoint of the joust also has a morning show with his birds.

Bella is recognized, although the fact that she's not in her standard crown makes a few people dismiss her as a lookalike. Her appearance wasn't heavily advertised; they weren't sure she'd come. No one appears to know who "Annabelle" is, at least so far.

tearingup
2013-07-17 04:54 pm (UTC)

That's okay. Ripper is having tremendous fun strolling around in this gorgeous dress, eating interesting foods and and looking at things and holding hands with Bella.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 04:55 pm (UTC)

Handholding!

"Do any of the shows interest you?"

tearingup
2013-07-17 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I have to admit I'm intrigued by the music."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Celtic metal or a capella folk songs?"

tearingup
2013-07-17 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Celtic metal!"

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Celtic metal it is." Off they meander to the correct stage, arriving a few minutes early, in plenty of time to get front-row seats while the band is setting up. One of the band members is trying to attract more audience, and immediately hits upon the royal attendance as a selling point to holler into the passing crowds ("Come on, you tasteless louts, even you can see that we're good enough for Their Majesties!"). Present the instruments are arranged, the seats are filled and there are more people standing in the back craning their necks, and the music begins. It is both Celtic and metal.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:02 pm (UTC)

Ripper approves! It is totally good enough for Her Majesty Queen Annabelle.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 05:04 pm (UTC)

After two songs, there's a bit of patter by the same person who was yelling at people to come see the show while someone straps her bagpipes on. During this he double-takes at Her Majesty Queen Annabelle. "- speaking of musical influences, is it just me or does Her Majesty on the left over there look like Ripper from Wretched? Nina, do you see it?" Nina (the one with the bagpipes) nods.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:08 pm (UTC)

...

Ripper cracks up.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Have we got a lookalike or did Queen Isabella actually show up with Ripper as her consort? And he's looking splendid in drag, too, folks, take a look," crows the singer. "Come on, fess up or make me look out of my mind, whichever you like, Your Majesty."

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:12 pm (UTC)

"I do look splendid," Ripper calls up to him, grinning.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I know that voice when I hear it! Want to come sing? We're doing Danny Boy, everyone knows Danny Boy!" grins the singer.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Love to!" he says, and kisses Bella on the cheek, and makes his way up to the stage.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 05:17 pm (UTC)

Danny Boy (appropriately metaled up) ensues, with the singer gracefully yielding the mic to Ripper and clapping along off to the side.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:19 pm (UTC)

It is even more fun than the rest of the faire, and the rest of the faire has been pretty damn fun already.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 05:21 pm (UTC)

Ripper's performance is well-received!

The next song is original to this band, so they don't expect Ripper to know it; the singer claps him on the back as a send-off, thanks him warmly, and on they go. The set ends five songs later.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:24 pm (UTC)

He blows a kiss toward the stage as he resumes his seat next to Bella, then hugs her and beams through the rest of the set.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:25 pm (UTC)

[Nicely done,] she laughs.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:26 pm (UTC)

[That was fun. I like these guys.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:27 pm (UTC)

[They're doing another show at five.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:31 pm (UTC)

[We should be there!]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:32 pm (UTC)

[All right.] She kisses him on the cheek.

The band members come off the stage after they pack up, and shake Ripper's hand, and Bella's too. "Thanks, man," says the singer to Ripper.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:34 pm (UTC)

"No problem," he laughs. "I loved it."

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I was devastated when Wretched broke up," the singer confides. "Absolute tragedy."

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Eh, I moved to Saturn, these things happen," he says with a wry grin.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:37 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. [Not going to tell him about the solo album in the works?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 05:37 pm (UTC)

"You guys made such spectacular music, though," sighs the Celtic metal singer.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:39 pm (UTC)

[Am now!]

"We still are," he says. "Just separately."

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Oooh," says the singer. "Well, I for one am looking thoroughly forward to it. If I had my CDs with me I'd want your autograph, but I don't - so, thanks, good to meet you, we're going to go score some lunch on a stick."

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:43 pm (UTC)

Ripper grins. "Good to meet you too!" he says, and off they go.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:43 pm (UTC)

"That was cute. You're cute."

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I am cute."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:45 pm (UTC)

She grins, and ushers him into a cute shop full of pewter things.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:46 pm (UTC)

Ooh, pewter things. He browses the things.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:47 pm (UTC)

They continue to browse things, until Bella has to go knight some children - Ripper is not part of this ceremony, but is welcome to supervise.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:48 pm (UTC)

He does supervise! It is adorable.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:49 pm (UTC)

It is quite adorable! A few of the savvier children want wishes as well as knighthoods. Bella provides, where the requests are within reasonable bounds and she doesn't get frantic headshaking from the parents.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:49 pm (UTC)

That's his magic girlfriend all right.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:51 pm (UTC)

She is! She is his magic girlfriend! Presently the knighting ceremony is concluded and his magic girlfriend is hand-in-hand with him again as they look at a shopful of cunning wooden objects.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:52 pm (UTC)

He kisses her on the cheek. Just because.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:55 pm (UTC)

That's one of the best reasons.

There are more cunning little shops, and a stunningly bawdy comedy show, and a juggler who invites Bella onstage - she does a quick pentagoning and acquits herself much better than the juggler was expecting. There is another knighting ceremony, better-attended than the earlier one. There is chocolate-dipped cheesecake on a stick. And then their majesties are invited to preside over the joust. Bella has lines, for this; there's a bit of plot, with a wicked foreign knight challenging the local knights who were just having a friendly competition, and she got the script ahead of time and delivers it with appropriate vim. Ripper doesn't have to say anything, although he would do well to look appropriately approving or horrified at the correct points during the sequence of events.

tearingup
2013-07-17 05:58 pm (UTC)

He cam absolutely look approving and horrified as required!

bellfounding
2013-07-17 05:59 pm (UTC)

Eventually the good knights of Underspecified Medieval Country Of Which They Are Queens defeat the intruder. There is falconing and more jousty-type stuff, Bella bids everyone a ceremonious goodbye and enjoins them to have fun at the remainder of the faire, and the queenly duties are officially discharged for the day.

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:01 pm (UTC)

So they can wander around until it's time for the second Celtic metal show, right?

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:02 pm (UTC)

They can!

They do.

The Celtic metal band is thrilled to see them again.

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:03 pm (UTC)

Ripper is so pleased!

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 06:05 pm (UTC)

Ripper is invited to sing here, too! (It's the same set, with two songs changed, but they're still doing Danny Boy.)

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:06 pm (UTC)

He cheerfully accepts the invitation, and does an even better job this time around.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 06:08 pm (UTC)

He is roundly applauded, hugged by the band's singer, and then on they go.

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:09 pm (UTC)

Hug! Aww, hug. This guy is adorable.

Back he goes to sit with his empress and hold her hand and enjoy the music.

alicornucopia
2013-07-17 06:10 pm (UTC)

It is highly enjoyable music.

Eventually it comes to an end.

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:11 pm (UTC)

So it does. And Ripper kisses Bella again, because why would you not?

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:12 pm (UTC)

Why indeed?

(She tastes like the chocolate-covered cheesecake that they previously ate on sticks.)

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:12 pm (UTC)

(He giggles.)

"I love you," he informs her, and kisses her again.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:13 pm (UTC)

Snugglekiss!

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Want to wander around a little more or call it a day?"

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm... I think I'd rather call it a day," he decides. And kisses her again. Perhaps to indicate what sort of a day he'd like to call it.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:16 pm (UTC)

Bella waves goodbye to the onlookers - many of whom are holding cameras - and away they pop.

To her bedroom. On her bed.

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:17 pm (UTC)

He seems to recall asking once if he can have sex with her in her faire dress! They should try that now.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:17 pm (UTC)

There is enough leeway in this skirt.

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:19 pm (UTC)

Excellent.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:20 pm (UTC)

Bella is inclined to agree. Also inclined to taste like cheesecake.

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:20 pm (UTC)

Bella is the most delicious empress.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:21 pm (UTC)

She is!

Ripper is the most delicious imperial consort. (At least until Cam declares himself an emperor.)

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:22 pm (UTC)

At which point he will remain the most delicious rock star.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:23 pm (UTC)

He will. Om nom nom.

connected by a dragon

bellfounding

[Hey guys,] Bella says to Aianon and Ansharil one afternoon, [Sarion free for some catching-up? Been a while.]

endragoned
2013-07-17 06:31 pm (UTC)

They consult their beloved.

small_magics
2013-07-17 06:32 pm (UTC)

Their beloved is not too busy to talk to her alt!

endragoned
2013-07-17 06:34 pm (UTC)

[She is,] says Aianon.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:35 pm (UTC)

[Awesome. You want to be telephone in person, one of you, or brainphone only today?]

endragoned
2013-07-17 06:39 pm (UTC)

[I will,] says Aianon.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:40 pm (UTC)

[You can port in.]

endragoned
2013-07-17 06:41 pm (UTC)

Port!

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:42 pm (UTC)

"So me and Ripper went to the renaissance faire and played queens, that was fun," says Bella, closing her eyes almost like Sarion has come over in person for tea. She conjures a cup of that nice elf tea to complete the illusion, sips it. "It was his first public appearance attached to me; there are pictures and speculation everywhere. I haven't had an interview since then but I imagine it'll come up on Thursday's. What are you up to?"

small_magics
2013-07-17 06:43 pm (UTC)

Isibel is up to Belling. She can do very, very large enchantments all on her own, and has been painstakingly designing them for large-scale deployment. The city of Armethalieh is currently debating whether to name her a saint.

She would like to 'meet' Pattern's boyfriend.

endragoned
2013-07-17 06:48 pm (UTC)

Aianon uses magic to relay all this in his beloved's voice, and when he reaches the part about Sarion meeting Ripper, he laughs.

"That would be fun," he opines.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Could be. I'll ask him," chuckles Bella.

[Hey, Ripper.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:49 pm (UTC)

[Yeah?]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:49 pm (UTC)

[I'm catching up with Sarion. She wants to meet you.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:50 pm (UTC)

[...All right.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I'll go get him, one sec."

Pop. Knock.

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

Door open. Hug!

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:52 pm (UTC)

Hug! Pop.

"So, you've met Aianon before, obviously, but right now he's being a telephone," says Bella. "Say cheese, he's a video-enabled telephone."

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:54 pm (UTC)

He laughs and waves.

endragoned
2013-07-17 06:55 pm (UTC)

Aianon relays this visual to his beloved.

small_magics
2013-07-17 06:56 pm (UTC)

It is Isibel's opinion that he is very charming and Pattern is lucky to have him.

endragoned
2013-07-17 06:57 pm (UTC)

Aianon relays this right back!

tearingup
2013-07-17 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Of course I am," Ripper says smugly. He gives Bella a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

small_magics
2013-07-17 06:58 pm (UTC)

Awwww!

bellfounding
2013-07-17 06:59 pm (UTC)

"So yeah, this is Ripper, I've told you about him and probably your beloveds have filled in some stuff too. He's a rockstar, has this thing about knocking before I show up in his apartment, and unless we get interesting news when we hit the peal again nobody else has one."

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm unique and beautiful," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Both of those things." Bella pecks him on the temple.

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:03 pm (UTC)

Awwwwww. Unique and beautiful and funny, too.

endragoned
2013-07-17 07:04 pm (UTC)

"And tasty," Aianon contributes.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:04 pm (UTC)

"You know it."

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:06 pm (UTC)

That is interesting and adorable.

(She misses her beloveds. This is just another thing they cannot really try until they are together again.)

endragoned
2013-07-17 07:08 pm (UTC)

Her beloveds miss her too.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:08 pm (UTC)

"You've got that look again," says Ripper, and he hugs Aianon.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 07:10 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry. We could find a door any time," Bella sighs. "If you wanted we could try finagling something with the thing where Jokers can dream to Milliways, maybe, but it probably wouldn't even work and Sarion's not getting doors either anyway."

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:12 pm (UTC)

Isibel does not think Pattern should be sorry. Her request for help with Saturn was reasonable, her beloveds accepted of their own will, and no one foresaw that Jane would break again with Aegis so well-protected.

And she isn't getting doors, and would not be able to meet her beloveds at Milliways, and that could not be trusted as a mechanism anyway, given how long Beast languished trapped before it happened to him.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:13 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

endragoned
2013-07-17 07:13 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:14 pm (UTC)

Isibel would just as soon speak of happier topics. She has heard what Pattern thinks of Ripper; what does Ripper think of Pattern?

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:16 pm (UTC)

He giggles, still hugging Aianon, then kisses him and goes back to Bella.

"I think she's amazing, of course." Snugglekiss!

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:17 pm (UTC)

Isibel was hoping for slightly more detail.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure nobody wants me to start listing all the things she's amazing at, except maybe you," and he grins at Aianon.

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:33 pm (UTC)

That is fair.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 07:33 pm (UTC)

Bella blushes and giggles.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

Ripper kisses the top of Bella's head.

"And you're adorable," he tells her. "And funny. And the magical empress part doesn't hurt."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I am adorable and funny and also a magical empress. Apparently some people have decided Sarion is a saint," she adds.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:35 pm (UTC)

"How's that work?"

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:37 pm (UTC)

Isibel is not intimately familiar with the human religion, but they apparently think she is an agent of the Light - deliberately or coincidentally - and the title puts her in company with Idalia, who died to defeat darkness more than two thousand years ago.

endragoned
2013-07-17 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Although," says Aianon, "they might change their minds if they knew about me."

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

Isibel has been planning not to make him generally known until she is better known and better trusted. It would frighten people; it would make it harder to do her job.

endragoned
2013-07-17 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Of course it would."

bellfounding
2013-07-17 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't put Aianon on the cover of the imperial newsletter either," says Bella. "Helpful though he is."

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Aww, he's harmless really," says Ripper. "Big red teddy bear."

endragoned
2013-07-17 07:44 pm (UTC)

Aianon grins fangily at him.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, shivers," he murmurs.

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:46 pm (UTC)

It is good that Isibel's beloved is not too lonesome without her.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Big red teddy bear with fangs and claws and horns a spiky tail and batwings, yes," snorts Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:50 pm (UTC)

"But still cute and cuddly."

endragoned
2013-07-17 07:50 pm (UTC)

Aianon laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 07:51 pm (UTC)

"I'll grant it," laughs Bella.

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:51 pm (UTC)

The cutest, the cuddliest. Her own.

endragoned
2013-07-17 07:52 pm (UTC)

All those things.

tearingup
2013-07-17 07:53 pm (UTC)

Ripper decides to demonstrate Aianon's cuteness and cuddliness by hugging him some more.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 07:57 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs softly and closes her eyes again and catches Sarion up on how her empressing is going, what with the resurrections and colonization and such.

small_magics
2013-07-17 07:59 pm (UTC)

Isibel cannot replenish her coin supply, and has to be exceedingly judicious about using anything that she could find herself in dire need of in an emergency. She is doing her empressing by enchantment, still, and triangles and squares, here and there. She has implemented no significant resurrection project, though she willingly distributes torchability to those who'll take it. She catches Pattern up on how that has been going; a great many elves now boast true immortality, and more humans are taking the offer now, too.

tearingup
2013-07-17 08:43 pm (UTC)

"You'd think, if elves live ten times longer, humans would be ten times as excited about immortality," says Ripper.

small_magics
2013-07-17 08:46 pm (UTC)

And yet it does not seem so. Isibel believes this may be because elves already valued long life - this is why they gave up their magic for it in the first place.

endragoned
2013-07-17 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I have only ever met one human from Thilanushinyel," says Aianon, shrugging.

small_magics
2013-07-17 08:51 pm (UTC)

And he in particular could certainly be said to value long life.

endragoned
2013-07-17 08:52 pm (UTC)

He nods.

tearingup
2013-07-17 08:52 pm (UTC)

"...Is there a story here?"

small_magics
2013-07-17 08:53 pm (UTC)

There is!

It is a somewhat anticlimactic story.

tearingup
2013-07-17 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Let's hear it."

small_magics
2013-07-17 09:01 pm (UTC)

Isibel "tells" the story from the beginning. How she was on an expedition to the island (now home to a growing colony of elves, many of whom now live in her enchanted village) and found unicorn statues, and a demon, and was confused afraid, but did not flee. And how he was harmless, and how he had a beautiful dragon. And how she did run from the beautiful dragon. And how she later learned that she had to go back.

And how she learned meditation, and went to the island again, and fell in love.

And learned elfmagery, and how they found the one who was going to bring the Dark, and how he died.

tearingup
2013-07-17 09:02 pm (UTC)

"You're right," says Ripper, "that was anticlimactic. But it's almost better that way, isn't it?"

small_magics
2013-07-17 09:29 pm (UTC)

It is, yes, although it somewhat highlighted the enormity of Isibel's sacrifice - however temporary it later turned out to be. A prolonged, difficult fight would have been distracting.

(She is all right now.)

tearingup
2013-07-17 09:30 pm (UTC)

Ripper hugs Aianon.

endragoned
2013-07-17 09:30 pm (UTC)

That was probably for Sarion, if she wants it.

small_magics
2013-07-17 09:31 pm (UTC)

She appreciates hugs and the sentiment behind them.

tearingup
2013-07-17 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Good."

Hug! Extremely long-distance hug. Aianon is a hug-enabled telephone.

small_magics
2013-07-17 09:34 pm (UTC)

Far, far away, Isibel wraps her arms around herself and closes her eyes and sighs.

endragoned
2013-07-17 09:35 pm (UTC)

Oh, my love.

small_magics
2013-07-17 09:36 pm (UTC)

It is nice to be able to talk to Pattern, but Isibel would so much prefer to have her beloveds here with her.

endragoned
2013-07-17 09:37 pm (UTC)

So would her beloveds. Although they definitely don't regret meeting Ripper.

small_magics
2013-07-17 09:38 pm (UTC)

It is good that they have people with them to console them.

(She is not planning on it, exactly, but if this separation goes on much longer she might find herself doing something uncharacteristic.)

endragoned
2013-07-17 09:41 pm (UTC)

(Her beloveds encourage her to to whatever will make her happy.)

small_magics
2013-07-17 09:41 pm (UTC)

(Of course they do.)

deluged with emails

bellfounding

Bella's inbox is very, very full.

She sighs. "J, partition all emails on the subject of the renaissance faire, my date thereto, and Ripper. Drop in ten typical cases for you to learn on."

J obediently empties her inbox of excess email. She reads the ten of them, answers one herself (it's about her willingness to appear at events; the renfaire is not the only place she'd be welcome) and refers the writer to her PR people who schedule her stuff so they can filter such requests. If there are going to be a lot of them, she can't evaluate all the offers herself - although she does add a tick in her schedule for updating her list of things and people she likes and would be particularly happy to appear with.

The other nine have to do with Ripper.

[Hey, you.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:09 pm (UTC)

[Hey, yourself!]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:10 pm (UTC)

[I have a whole lot of email about you. How d'you want me to handle it?]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:10 pm (UTC)

[...good question. What about me?]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:16 pm (UTC)

[I had J pick out a sample of the emails - there are way more than I've read. Some of the emails are from your fans, since I have a public address and you don't. They want to know if that was really you, tell you that you looked hot in the pictures they saw, one person likes both you and that Celtic metal band and wants you to join them. People who don't know who you are want to know who you are, several of them are confused about your gender and consequently my orientation, one person is raving incoherently about how she can get an entrez to the fancy royal wedding she is presuming is in the works.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:26 pm (UTC)

[I did look hot! I am not going to join that Celtic metal band, adorable as that guy was. Do you usually bother answering stuff like that?]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:27 pm (UTC)

[Usually J would do it, but J needs answers from me to learn on or policy or both, so I have to have a policy about discussing you before it can take over.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:29 pm (UTC)

[Eh, I don't have much of an opinion. You can tell people who I am and that I'm not a girl and all that, or not, whatever's convenient.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:30 pm (UTC)

[Do you care how flatly I inform people that there is not a massive royal wedding in the works?]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:30 pm (UTC)

[Not at all.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:31 pm (UTC)

[Okay then.]

Typety typety.

[Probably will stem the tide some if I put you in my FAQ.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:32 pm (UTC)

[Do that, then.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:34 pm (UTC)

She does:

Are you seeing anybody?

Yes; Ripper (formerly of the band "Wretched".)

Is there going to be a big royal wedding?

Not for the foreseeable future.

[Put. And linked to the Wretched website.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:35 pm (UTC)

He looks it up.

[I love you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:35 pm (UTC)

[I love you too - was there something particularly cute about the FAQ?]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:36 pm (UTC)

[Imagining you saying 'not for the forseeable future' is hilarious.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:37 pm (UTC)

She laughs. [Why?]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:38 pm (UTC)

[I don't know. Because I love you?]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:40 pm (UTC)

[I love you too. I still don't get it.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:43 pm (UTC)

[It's just, I don't know, very you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Okay. I am very me.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:44 pm (UTC)

[You are! And I like you that way. Hey, are you busy?]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:45 pm (UTC)

[Just teaching J how to handle this class of emails. I'll be all done in a minute.]

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:45 pm (UTC)

[I like the sound of that.]

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:47 pm (UTC)

[I should hope so.]

And a minute later, J has been taught - she'll still get a disproportionate number of these for a while, as it calibrates, but it should be able to do most of them - and there is a knock at Ripper's door.

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:48 pm (UTC)

And the door opens, and Ripper kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:48 pm (UTC)

Oooh, kisses. She's so surprised.

(She's coconut today.)

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:49 pm (UTC)

Coconut! What goes well with coconut? Ripper decides to be... pineapple. Yes.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:49 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm pineapple.

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:50 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:56 pm (UTC)

Yes. Quite.

tearingup
2013-07-17 11:57 pm (UTC)

Some time later, they are curled up together in Ripper's bed.

He starts giggling for no discernible reason.

bellfounding
2013-07-17 11:57 pm (UTC)

"What?" asks Bella, poking him in the chest and giggling with contagious amusement despite not knowing what's funny.

tearingup
2013-07-18 12:00 am (UTC)

"Aianon just brainphoned me," he snickers. "He says he discovered tentacle porn today and he's wondering if I want to go have interesting new kinds of sex."

bellfounding
2013-07-18 12:00 am (UTC)

"Oh lord."

tearingup
2013-07-18 12:01 am (UTC)

Ripper giggles some more.

"I can't decide whether that is a great idea or a terrible idea, what do you think?"

bellfounding
2013-07-18 12:02 am (UTC)

"Do I even want to know where he's planning to get the tentacles? Is he going to make a tentacle porn plant, I bet he is, wow, I am going to be the proud empress of a world that contains tentacle porn flora."

tearingup
2013-07-18 12:03 am (UTC)

Ripper cackles helplessly. "I'm telling him you said that!"

bellfounding
2013-07-18 12:04 am (UTC)

"Of course you are. Please note the sarcasm in the word 'proud'. I'm not going to ban tentacle porn foliage but I would not want to be described as encouraging it."

tearingup
2013-07-18 12:06 am (UTC)

He is giggling too hard to answer that out loud.

endragoned
2013-07-18 12:06 am (UTC)

But apparently not too hard to brainphone Aianon, who inquires by conference call a moment later, [Is there something wrong with tentacle porn flora?]

bellfounding
2013-07-18 12:07 am (UTC)

[No. Just not my thing.]

endragoned
2013-07-18 12:09 am (UTC)

[Then I will not trouble you with it. Except to borrow your boyfriend for... experiments.]

tearingup
2013-07-18 12:09 am (UTC)

[How experimental are these experiments? Am I going to regret this?]

bellfounding
2013-07-18 12:10 am (UTC)

[D'you want me to hex you with teleportation so you can escape the flora if it goes rogue?]

tearingup
2013-07-18 12:12 am (UTC)

[Good plan.]

bellfounding
2013-07-18 12:13 am (UTC)

She kisses his nose and spends the hex. [There you are.]

tearingup
2013-07-18 12:19 am (UTC)

[I love you.] Snuggle-kiss! [And I'm off to get fucked by a plant. Wish me luck.]

bellfounding
2013-07-18 12:19 am (UTC)

Kiss. [I love you too. Good luck.]

tearingup
2013-07-18 12:20 am (UTC)

He spends a few extra seconds snuggling her before he kisses her again, disentangles himself, and teleports away.

what brings you here?

small_magics

Isibel lives in her enchanted village, in a hollowed and conveniently-shifting great tree. She travels from it frequently, when she has a new enchantment or elfspell designed that will help someone, or when she meets with the leaders of this or that culture to learn more about their needs, or when someone accepts her offer of torching. The population of Thilanushinyel is not as large as that of Origin, and it may even contain fewer political units, but certainly there are more species; she has a steep learning curve and she throws herself into it.

Today, she is at home. She is not in deep meditation, but she might look like it, eyes closed, floating crosslegged in the air, not paying attention to the weight of the clothes on her body or the wreath of sunny yellow-berried blue-leafed holly resting on her hair, just thinking about hurricanes and the most efficient way to prevent them from forming over the sea. (She can channel immense spells. She is not sure how immense, and it would be very dangerous to lose hold of one. She retains some concern for limiting the size of her enchantments.)

When she is busy with something she cannot interrupt, her door is locked. Today it is not. There were no hurricanes when she last checked, and if any form in the next few hours, she will be able to address them on the spot, she knows; this spell is not urgent on that scale.

If anyone needs her they may come in.

pythbox
2013-07-18 02:24 am (UTC)

A shortish human, dressed after the fashion of Armethalieh with a pack on his back and several pouches hanging from his belt, opens the door and hesitantly enters the tree.

small_magics
2013-07-18 02:25 am (UTC)

Isibel opens her eyes when he enters. "I See you."
Edited 2013-07-18 02:25 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-18 02:28 am (UTC)

"Hi," he says, brushing his hair out of his face; it just barely isn't long enough to get in his eyes. "Um, my name's Lycaelon. I'm here to... see if you need any help, and then help you with things. Mageprice," he adds, by way of explanation.

small_magics
2013-07-18 02:30 am (UTC)

She tilts her head. "To know what help I might receive from someone, it is useful to know what they have to offer, beyond their general magical discipline. Also, I would not want to receive the services of anyone who would rather be elsewhere, and will turn you away if that will satisfy you as well as it would the Wild Magic."

pythbox
2013-07-18 02:32 am (UTC)

The boy snorts. "I guess you don't know much about Mageprice."

small_magics
2013-07-18 02:33 am (UTC)

"Only a few things. Enough to know that it does not offer you an informed exchange."

pythbox
2013-07-18 02:38 am (UTC)

"What's that supposed to mean?" he says, rudely for someone who's been avoiding questioning the elf so far.

small_magics
2013-07-18 02:41 am (UTC)

She is unfazed. "Wildmages ask for a spell, and get it, in exchange for a task that is revealed only during or after the spell's completion. I do not say the Wild Magic is unfair in its requests, particularly, only that I do not operate as it does and would do my best to avoid taking the services of anyone who did not know they were agreeing to provide them."

pythbox
2013-07-18 02:46 am (UTC)

"But that's what being a Wildmage is," he says. "If I didn't like it, I could always give up my Books. Or turn to the Dark. I didn't have to come all this way. There's always a choice. Three choices. Once when you do the spell, once when you find out what the price is, and once when it comes time to pay it."

small_magics
2013-07-18 02:51 am (UTC)

"Very limited choices are not the kind of choices I distribute, when I have the freedom to do otherwise," says Isibel patiently. "Someone held at knifepoint and given orders may also have a choice; I do not wish to be a knife if I can avoid it. Although I do strongly advise against turning to the Dark."

pythbox
2013-07-18 02:51 am (UTC)

"You're not much of a saint," he observes.

small_magics
2013-07-18 02:53 am (UTC)

"I did not solicit the title. I only call myself Isibel Sarion."

pythbox
2013-07-18 02:54 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"So do you want my help or not?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 02:55 am (UTC)

"I do not know what you have to offer," she points out.

pythbox
2013-07-18 02:57 am (UTC)

"The Wild Magic didn't send me here just to argue with you about how good at consent it is," he says. "There's something I can help you with. I just don't know what. And there has to be a better way to find out than standing here telling you my life story until you say 'aha! If only you'd mentioned two hours ago that you've been to the Selken Isles!'."

small_magics
2013-07-18 02:59 am (UTC)

"If you have been there, that may in fact be useful. Much of my time these days is spent in learning what people need, so that I can think of ways to supply it, and there are many sorts of people in the world."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah, and I've met most of them."

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:01 am (UTC)

"Then that seems the obvious place to start. I would hear anything you would tell me about what I can do for far-flung peoples I have not yet spoken to."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:06 am (UTC)

Lycaelon considers this.

Then he says, "That's going to take a while. I mean, on the order of weeks. Where can I stay while we're talking about it?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:06 am (UTC)

"This village is not full. It will show you to a place you may stay."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:10 am (UTC)

"It will show me?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:11 am (UTC)

"Yes. It will rearrange itself so that where you walk will be the correct direction. I can accompany you, if you prefer."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:13 am (UTC)

"That... would be nice," he says, looking slightly unsettled. "Why does the village do that? Did you make it that way? How does it work?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:14 am (UTC)

"I did make it that way. I am unsure what sort of explanation for it you would find satisfactory." She sets her feet on the floor and makes for the door. "You might have noticed that it was not difficult to find my tree."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:15 am (UTC)

"Of course it wasn't; I was following my Mageprice," he says, stepping out of the tree.

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:16 am (UTC)

"It would have taken longer to follow your Mageprice if the village were not enchanted. It is less than a square mile going by circumference, but contains considerably more interior than that would suggest." She picks a direction; plants subtly bend out of the way.

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:25 am (UTC)

Lycaelon follows her.

"Okay, so back to how it works," he says. "It's magic. What kind? How did you make it?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:29 am (UTC)

"It's called 'enchantment'. I received the ability to use this, and another, kind of magic from distant friends of mine."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:30 am (UTC)

"...I have more questions now than I did before you said that," he observes.

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:31 am (UTC)

"That is all right. I am unusual among elves in that I am not bothered by being asked questions."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:32 am (UTC)

"I noticed that! What friends, how distant, why aren't you asking them about the needs of far-flung peoples, how come I've never heard of this kind of magic before, how did you make the village?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:33 am (UTC)

Isibel laughs. They come to an empty house, which is presented to them directly enough that it must be an empty one suitable for Lycaelon to stay in. She opens the door and gestures that he may enter. "If you would like, I can sit with you and discuss it, since you will be helping me." (The house will be his for the duration of his stay; she won't just walk in.)

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:34 am (UTC)

"That sounds good," he says, entering the house and looking around.

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:47 am (UTC)

In she goes. It is an elfy house, in comfort and aesthetics and subtlety, and an enchanted house, in obliging convenience. She sits in a chair. "My friends are not of this world. They are from others, very different, with other magics and people - and their own work to do. Moreover, it is - not always possible to travel between worlds at will."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:48 am (UTC)

"...Seriously?" says Lycaelon, blinking at her.

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:49 am (UTC)

"I am simplifying slightly, but yes."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:51 am (UTC)

"Wow. Okay. So... enchanting is a whole different kind of magic? How different? What's its price?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:52 am (UTC)

"Completely different. It hurts to cast spells with it, but I can ignore that by going deep into meditative hyperfocus."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:53 am (UTC)

"How does it work?" he asks, fascinated.

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:59 am (UTC)

"I draw on power from the sky, or the earth, or emotion or willpower - which works best depends on what I am doing and what is available - and channel it through my mindscape, in the shape of the spell I wish to cast."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:00 am (UTC)

"Where does it come from? Will it work for anyone?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:01 am (UTC)

"Enchanting comes from a world called Rêverie. It only works for enchanters; I was not one, but my friends made me one."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:02 am (UTC)

"How do you make someone an enchanter? What's the catch? Is there one?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:03 am (UTC)

"It cannot be done with enchantment itself, but it can be done with another sort of off-world magic, called minting. There is no particular disadvantage to merely being capable of enchantment."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:04 am (UTC)

"...That sounds like there is a catch somewhere," he says.

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:05 am (UTC)

"Losing control of an enchantment while casting it is dangerous," says Isibel. "And, as I mentioned, it hurts for the channeler, unless you can elven-hyperfocus as I do. And minting is not without its own price, which I cannot ignore in the same way."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:07 am (UTC)

"Hmm. Okay," says Lycaelon. "What's minting like, then?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:08 am (UTC)

"It turns pain directly into small objects which can be used to grant wishes. The mint's own pain, not anyone else's," she adds, because it would not do to confuse her magic with what the Endarkened used to do.

(Her counterparts are mostly secretive about how their magic works. Isibel is not. Thilanushinyel expects magic to be costly.)

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:12 am (UTC)

And yet, he inhales a whistling breath.

"Ouch. Okay. ...How much pain to a wish?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:17 am (UTC)

"It depends on the size of the wish. They come in eight known kinds, the objects different shapes with different numbers of points from three to ten. The smallest two sorts are easy to make. I produce them every day as a matter of course. I would not care to try to make anything larger except in direst emergency; I have a supply, from my friends, but they cannot reach me with more right now and I do not know how long it will be before I can see them again. An ordinary human - or elf - cannot make the kinds with eight, nine, or ten points; the requirements are beyond the limit of what you can feel without some sort of change to how you work. And maintaining the concentration to make a six-pointed coin, let alone a seven-pointed coin, while suffering the requisite discomfort, would take considerable effort for most people."

pythbox
2013-07-18 12:07 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Lycaelon. He looks thoughtful.

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:42 pm (UTC)

"But I can do the majority of my work with enchantment alone."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:43 pm (UTC)

"What can all these strange magics do?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Almost anything. Not literally anything, and not things to do with other worlds unless one goes there first, but almost. If you have a large enough coin or enough enchanting capacity, and know exactly what you want."
Edited 2013-07-18 15:44 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:48 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon looks thoughtful some more.

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:51 pm (UTC)

"If I knew your thoughts, I could answer them."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:53 pm (UTC)

"I want to be a mint and an enchanter."

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:54 pm (UTC)

Isibel considers this.

"I hope," she says, "that this is not because you would prefer to avoid asking me directly for some other effect I can produce by myself. I am here to help people, and you are a person."

pythbox
2013-07-18 03:57 pm (UTC)

He looks at her quizzically.

"No? But look, you're one person - I'm sure you're good at what you do, but it doesn't look like you're hiding a barrel of apprentices behind the counter. And there's only so much that one person can do at a time."

small_magics
2013-07-18 03:59 pm (UTC)

"That is true. Although I can work very quickly, and on several things at a time. I just - you are not an elf, and attempts to learn elven hyperfocus without being an elf have failed for my friends; and there is no making minting pleasant without certain peculiarities most people do not have."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says patiently, "I got that impression."

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:03 pm (UTC)

Well, she can't exactly ask, but she can blink quizzically at him.

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:04 pm (UTC)

"...What's confusing you, here?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Whether you have this peculiarity yourself, or wish to acquire it, or simply are very motivated to help me, or if something else I do not recognize is going on."
Edited 2013-07-18 16:24 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:31 pm (UTC)

"...yeah, I think it's a something else," he says. "It's not exactly about helping you, personally - this isn't part of my Mageprice or anything. The week I'm going to spend telling you about half the world's problems covers that. But look, I'm a Wildmage. Fixing things with magic that can't be fixed any other way, or can't be fixed as well, is why there are Wildmages. If you say you've got new kinds of magic that can do almost anything and the only price is that they hurt, well, I've done plenty of hurting without getting any magic out of it and never minded that much. I mean - I wasn't going to ask you outright yet, we barely know each other, but you wanted to know what I was thinking and now you do."

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:32 pm (UTC)

"I will think about it."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:32 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Okay."

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I do not think you being an enchanter would be particularly useful. Even those of my friends who actively enjoy pain do not attempt to control significant spells while channeling through themselves, and I would not make a good channel for someone else. But a mint - perhaps."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:39 pm (UTC)

"And depending on how well I mint, there might not be much reason not to make me an enchanter," he shrugs.

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:40 pm (UTC)

"That is true. Making you an enchanter would be a hexagon - as would making you a mint - but enchanting unlike minting comes with a component of skill, so there would also be a great deal of reading or a pentagon or both."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind reading," he says cheerfully.

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:42 pm (UTC)

She smiles slightly. "Perhaps at some point you would like to borrow my enchanting library - although I fear being able to read it would require several pentagons more. It is none of it in any language found in Thilanushinyel."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Of course not," he snorts.

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:46 pm (UTC)

"If you had more questions, I could answer them as well," says Isibel after a brief silence.

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you're a strange one that way," he says, grinning. "You know, I still don't know how much it hurts to make polygons; that would probably go a long way toward figuring out if I'd be a worthwhile mint."

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:50 pm (UTC)

"I can show you, if you like," says Isibel. "It goes up in powers of ten, in units we call triangles. I have a wished power I used when my beloved was still here to help him produce coins."

(She refers quite freely to her beloved. No one will be alarmed that she has a dragon.)

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Sure," shrugs Lycaelon.

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:52 pm (UTC)

"The smallest amount necessary to make a triangle is this." One, just for a pinprick-burst of time, 'plain'. "Squares begin here." Ten, delivered the same way. "Pentagons begin at one hundred, if you would like me to go on."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:53 pm (UTC)

He nods agreeably.

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:53 pm (UTC)

One hundred.

"Hexagons begin at one thousand, if you would like me to go on."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Pentagon's not bad," he comments, apparently unfazed. "About like a broken arm. Sure, let's have a thousand."

small_magics
2013-07-18 04:55 pm (UTC)

One thousand.

"Stars begin at ten thousand."

pythbox
2013-07-18 04:58 pm (UTC)

At the one-thousand, he makes a face. "Wouldn't wanna do that all day. Not so bad for just a squeak's worth, though. How long does it take to make a coin?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Only as long as I have been demonstrating, to make a single one at that level. It is possible to speed up slightly if one goes above the minimum threshold for a given coin size. But it is necessary to retain enough concentration to perform the mental action associated with creating the coin, which is not automatic."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:02 pm (UTC)

"And you can't make hexagons at all?" he says wonderingly.

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:03 pm (UTC)

"It may be that I could. One of my friends who is more like me than like you in this respect managed it, once, when she was gravely injured and did not have another source. I would not choose it unless the need were immense. I do have some left. My friends could return at any time."
Edited 2013-07-18 17:04 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:05 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head.

"I could sit around making those for an hour," he says. "I mean, it would be boring and uncomfortable, but it wouldn't be an only-in-emergencies-thing."

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:06 pm (UTC)

"This makes good hearing."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:07 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Good."

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:22 pm (UTC)

Isibel smiles.

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Who are all these friends, anyway? How did you find them?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Many of them are the other worlds' versions of myself. Many others are other worlds' versions of my beloved. And their own friends from their own worlds, who are not copied here. There is a thing that happens to doors, sometimes, not when mages will it but at seeming random barring a few exceptions. I found such doors on a couple of occasions and went through them to a place where all worlds meet, and found one alt of my beloved, and later found another, and the second called his alt of me in to meet me. I was not well at the time. They healed me as best they could, and gave me my magic."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:30 pm (UTC)

"What kind of not well?" he wonders.

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I did not adapt well to my dragonbond, having my beloved constantly in my thoughts. I underwent a sort of mental deterioration over the first moonturns I spent Bonded, and by the time I met my friends, I could no longer think clearly because it hurt when I tried."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:33 pm (UTC)

He frowns sympathetically. "I wouldn't even begin to know how to heal that."

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:35 pm (UTC)

"My friends tried a number of things, some of them less than comfortable for myself or my beloved or both, but eventually one of them had to bring in someone she employs who has the power to see and interpret all kinds of magic, to understand the Bond and how it needed to be edited and to make the wish. I can now share thoughts with my beloved when I wish, and only when I wish."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Editing a Dragonbond," he says with a shudder. "I can't even imagine."

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:41 pm (UTC)

"They also tried cutting me out of it completely, but that did not persist. I prefer this anyway, now."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Wow."

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:43 pm (UTC)

"This way, with my beloved trapped in another world, we can still be somewhat together. Although I still miss him very much."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:44 pm (UTC)

"...Your Bondmate is in another world?" he exclaims.

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It used to be that we could travel between them whenever we pleased. He was away when our ability to do that was lost."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Wow," he says, shaking his head. "How... how long has it been?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Three years. For me, and for my beloved - time may have passed differently in other worlds, without the web that connected them for us in good condition."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Wow," he repeats.

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:47 pm (UTC)

"It may come back at any time. It has broken in the past, and returned - we thought we had corrected the problem, but it would seem another has been found."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Can I help you with that, I wonder?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I doubt it." She touches the red Janegem on her ring idly. "It was not a magical thing, but a thing of technology - not clockwork, far more complicated and advanced than that, but that is the closest approximation we have here. It was a technological person, called Jane, who could be a billion things in a hundred worlds and link them all and move things from one to the other whenever we asked her to. Something has happened to her, and it did not happen here."

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:53 pm (UTC)

He thinks about this.

Then he shrugs. "Oh, well."

small_magics
2013-07-18 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh, well," echoes Isibel.

pythbox
2013-07-18 05:54 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon smiles wryly.

small_magics
2013-07-18 06:24 pm (UTC)

"As long as you are here, I can make you able to torch, if you would like," volunteers Isibel.

pythbox
2013-07-18 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Able to what?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I thought the news had spread - perhaps not as far as it would need to. Torching is a form of immortality. If someone who can do it suffers lethal damage, they reset to a healthy state."

pythbox
2013-07-18 06:27 pm (UTC)

"That... sounds too good to be true, what's the catch?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Torching will not, on its own, remove you from a lethal situation, which could allow for prolonged trapping. It is also quite permanent. Otherwise there is none; it does not even have the prices of minting or enchanting."

pythbox
2013-07-18 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I'll take it, then," he says.

small_magics
2013-07-18 06:30 pm (UTC)

She torchables him. [And here is the brainphone,] she adds, [which will allow you to notify me if you do become trapped somewhere, however unlikely that may be.]

pythbox
2013-07-18 06:31 pm (UTC)

[Wow, that's impressive,] he says. [Does it just - work like this no matter where we are?]

small_magics
2013-07-18 06:32 pm (UTC)

[It does not work between worlds. Otherwise, yes. Also, it is possible to set a message to refuse incoming queries, although mine are layered and in direst emergency you will always be able to speak to me unless you abuse the privilege.]

pythbox
2013-07-18 06:35 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Torching is from yet another world besides the one that produced minting and the one from which enchantment came," Isibel adds conversationally.

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:20 pm (UTC)

"How many worlds are there?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:22 pm (UTC)

"We don't know. But we were aware of eighty-eight and looking into an eighty-ninth at the time of Jane's breakage."

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:25 pm (UTC)

"...Wow," says Lycaelon. "That is a lot of worlds."

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Only thirteen - and the one some of us were looking into - have Bells in them, though. Bells is what those of my template call ourselves."

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Template?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I mentioned that they are versions of myself; we are all versions of each other. Sewn in the same pattern, as it were. The recurring sort-of-person that we are is our template."

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Lycaelon. "Does everyone have one?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:32 pm (UTC)

"No. At least, we don't think so. Certainly some templates are much more common than others - Bells most so, thus far, closely followed by my beloved."

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Really? How many of your Bondmate are there? It must get crowded if you put them all together. Dragons are big."

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:34 pm (UTC)

"There are eleven of my beloved, or fourteen, depending on how you count - one world does some peculiar things to personal identity. Only the one of them is a dragon. I am also the only Bell who is an elf, so far. Most worlds don't have either species, although humans appear everywhere we've looked."
Edited 2013-07-18 19:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:40 pm (UTC)

"...Where do the three extras of him come from? Or go to? What other species are there besides humans, everywhere else? Or is it just humans? You'd think it would be just elves if it was going to be just anybody; you were here first, weren't you?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:42 pm (UTC)

"The histories of worlds don't match in that way - well, many do, but ours is off-type," says Isibel. "There are all manner of species, although some worlds have only humans among those who think and speak, and others blur the question of whether their inhabitants are the same species or not. The world that does peculiar things to personal identity has its inhabitants' souls exist outside of them, in the form of animals generally speaking, called daemons. There is one of me and one of my beloved from there - depending on how you count, because their souls have their own bodies and names. And visitors to this world, if they go unprotected by magic, will acquire the same. My beloved and another of that template have visited the world and obtained daemons of their own. As have two of me, not including myself."
Edited 2013-07-18 19:44 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Talking animal souls," he says. "Wow."

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes. If I had one, it would be a raccoon, but I do not particularly want my soul to be a raccoon."

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I'd want my soul to be a raccoon, either," he says, blinking. "How did you know what it was going to be?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:49 pm (UTC)

"A square suffices to show it. Do you want to know yours?"

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:49 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Okay!"

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:50 pm (UTC)

Square.

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:57 pm (UTC)

Skunk.

Lycaelon laughs.

small_magics
2013-07-18 07:58 pm (UTC)

Isibel giggles. "They are supposed to mean things about oneself, but I do not know how accurate these suppositions may be, particularly outside the world where they are commonplace."

pythbox
2013-07-18 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I like my skunk," says Lycaelon, looking at it approvingly. "I mean, I don't want my skunk, but skunks are all right."

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:01 pm (UTC)

"I have similar feelings about raccoons." She dismisses the illusion. "Those of me who have instantiated daemons have birds. An owl, a hawk, a duck."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Is there some reason for that?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:09 pm (UTC)

"It is not clear. The accuracy of anything natives of Alethia have learned about what daemon species mean is in question. It is probably not a coincidence that those with birds were more interested in acquiring them than me, although there were more possible birds among us and two of us would have received tiny dragons -" She holds her hands three feet apart. "And had not chosen to do so last I heard."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:10 pm (UTC)

"...Tiny dragons," he giggles. "That's adorable."

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:11 pm (UTC)

"It is!"

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Why is the accuracy in question...?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Because there are so many kinds of animal a daemon could be," says Isibel. "If one is very common, of course the people who have it will be different from each other - any large group of people are different from each other. If one is less common, there is no way to know whether commonalities between those people are related to their daemon or sheer coincidence. They have drawn some conclusions anyway - but then daemons normally choose forms around puberty. Acquiring them as an adult might be different in some way; we do not know."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Do all the worlds have... weird, unexpected things about them like that?" wonders Lycaelon.

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Not all of them. But they do have many strange properties. And people from them think many things about Thilanushinyel are strange, too."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Like what?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Dragonbonds. The way Wild Magic works - High Magic bears more resemblance to some offworld forms than does Wild Magic. The way unicorns communicate with the Wild Magic. The other and better-known property of unicorns. Our persistent problem with the Dark."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Our problem with the Dark is a lot less persistent than it used to be," he comments.

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:38 pm (UTC)

"One hopes. It has been coming every thousand years or so for some time now. I do anticipate being able to interrupt it before the next appearance."

Her recent run-in with the Dark was not particularly well-publicized.

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:39 pm (UTC)

"...Interrupt it how?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I do not yet know. But I probably have about a thousand years to locate assorted avenues by which it might reappear and places where it may yet lurk and preemptively destroy them."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:41 pm (UTC)

He gives her a studying look.

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:41 pm (UTC)

"It looks as though you may harbor thoughts on this subject."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:42 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon laughs. "You caught me," he says. "I'm thinking that seems kind of ambitious."

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I am," says Isibel, "kind of ambitious."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:43 pm (UTC)

...He cracks up.

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:43 pm (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:44 pm (UTC)

Still giggling.

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:44 pm (UTC)

"All of me are. It is a Bell thing," Isibel volunteers.

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Well, good luck rooting out the Dark," he snorts. "Maybe you can get tips from the rest of you, if you see them again."

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Or from my unicorn friend; he is routinely helpful."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:48 pm (UTC)

"You're friends with a unicorn?"

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes. His name is Liselen."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't have much to do with unicorns," says Lycaelon. "I've healed them a few times. Uncomfortable for everybody. They sure are pretty, though."

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Liselen in particular is not uncomfortable around the things that bother other unicorns."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:50 pm (UTC)

He gives her a suspicious look.

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:50 pm (UTC)

"One of my friends wished it, when they first came here," she explains.

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I thought it might be something like that," he says. "Does it work the other way around, do you think? Wishing someone not uncomfortable to unicorns even though...? Because that would make a big difference when it comes to healing them."

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. And I should ask Liselen before I try it; Thilanushinyel magic can react oddly with the offworld kinds. But potentially."

pythbox
2013-07-18 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, keep it in mind," he says. "It would make a big difference if more Wildmages could heal unicorns easily."

small_magics
2013-07-18 08:56 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. "I would need to think about it for a while to try to design an enchantment to accomplish it, and I cannot afford to spend coins of that size on the project, but it will be worth doing if I can."

pythbox
2013-07-18 09:28 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon nods.

"It seems to be the kind of thing you were looking for," he says.

small_magics
2013-07-18 09:28 pm (UTC)

"It is! Thank you."

pythbox
2013-07-18 09:29 pm (UTC)

He grins. "There's more where that came from, believe me."

small_magics
2013-07-18 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I have a very long to-do list."

pythbox
2013-07-18 09:41 pm (UTC)

"It's about to get longer," Lycaelon predicts.

This turns out to be extremely true.

He has been a lot of places, and seen a lot of kinds of people, and healed many of them from injury or illness that would have killed them if he hadn't been there. And in between these events, he has spent a lot of time alone in various kinds of wilderness. He is personally familiar with every climate on the continent he calls home, from the Madiran Desert to the Lost Lands of the north.

After several hours of rambling discourse on the subject of people and their preferences and problems, he concludes an explanation of centaur architecture and stretches. "About time for me to hit the hay," he says. "We can pick this up tomorrow."

small_magics
2013-07-18 09:42 pm (UTC)

"Very well," agrees Isibel, rising to her feet. "You can brainphone me when you are ready to talk more."

pythbox
2013-07-18 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Sounds good," he yawns.

small_magics
2013-07-18 09:45 pm (UTC)

Isibel teleports away.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:08 pm (UTC)

The next morning, about an hour after dawn, he brainphones her.

[G'morning.]

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Good morning.]

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:10 pm (UTC)

[Ready for more interesting stories about far-off places?]

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:11 pm (UTC)

[Yes.] And Isibel appears at his door, and knocks.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:12 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon opens it. "C'mon in," he says cheerfully. "I made tea. I didn't make it very well, but I made it."

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:13 pm (UTC)

"I am sure it will be fine," laughs Isibel, stepping inside.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, you're welcome to try it."

He sits down and picks up his own cup of tea, gesturing to where the teapot sits beside an empty cup.

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:17 pm (UTC)

She pours herself some tea and tastes it.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:19 pm (UTC)

It is imperfectly brewed, but adequate.

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:22 pm (UTC)

"In the future you may find it improved by waiting a little longer after the water boils to pour it."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I'll remember that," says Lycaelon. "Thanks. Anyway, where were we? Centaurs?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Right. After that is when I hiked up to the Lost Lands..."

And spent most of a year there, working both magically and physically to help life return to the mage-blasted ground. There are no thinking creatures in the Lost Lands anymore, although he says he found the ruins of several old villages - human, if he's any judge, and abandoned for hundreds of years at a bare minimum.

"It was the best time of my life. I want to go back someday," he says, smiling wistfully. "I know I'm probably more use as a healer, but clearing fouled springs and herding lost rainclouds with a mountain range between me and the nearest settlement suits me much better."

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Hopefully you will not find your time in this village too crowded for comfort."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:44 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I survived Armethalieh. This is easy in comparison. Although that reminds me - have you noticed that almost everything on this island is poisonous, venomous, or both? The whole balance of life here is strange."

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Not everything is," says Isibel. "But I had noticed, yes. Nothing harmful will come into the village; most of it is not inclined to attack outside of it either."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I'll see if it needs any help while I'm here," he decides.

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:48 pm (UTC)

"That is kind of you. Mind that you do not eat anything that will hurt you if you attempt to live off the land. There are booklets available that say what things here are safe to eat."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Where can I find one of these booklets?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:49 pm (UTC)

"You ask the village. You can also ask it for food, if you had not noticed, but it does not deliver into the wilderness."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:50 pm (UTC)

"...Ask... the village?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:52 pm (UTC)

"It's part of the enchantment. It looks after the people in it. It would have fed you without being asked if you had run out of food, but it otherwise waits." She touches the wall of his house. "Please bring one of the wilderness pamphlets. And a plate of cookies."

Presently his window opens itself and in floats a tray with a pamphlet and assorted desserts. Isibel takes a cookie from the top of the plated heap and bites it.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:53 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon gives the cookies a look of deep suspicion.

But he takes one, and nibbles on it.

"Pretty good," he says grudgingly.

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I am glad you like it."

The tray settles itself on a table. The pamphlet flutters open to the first page.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:55 pm (UTC)

Now somewhat distracted from telling stories, Lycaelon eats his cookie and flips through the pamphlet.

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:56 pm (UTC)

It has drawings of various flora and fauna and says which are safe to eat and interact with under what conditions.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Where'd this come from?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I wrote it. And the drawings are wished, as I am not much of an artist."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I mean, how'd you find out all this?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 07:59 pm (UTC)

"From my beloved. It was here that I found him."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:00 pm (UTC)

"...You came to this island and just sort of... found a dragon lying around?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:02 pm (UTC)

"In a cave," says Isibel.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:03 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's a reasonable place to find a dragon."

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:03 pm (UTC)

He snorts and shakes his head.

"So, the Lost Lands," he says, and goes on from there.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:04 pm (UTC)

Isibel listens attentively.

She may eventually trust this man enough to say what she has not been saying about her beloved.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:15 pm (UTC)

He talks for the rest of the day, with a break for lunch, delivered by mysterious flying tray. The progression of his actual journey around the world is the framework for what he's saying, but he frequently goes back and forth when new things remind him of old ones.

And then he says goodnight, and mentions that he thinks he'll take the next morning to hike around the island.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:17 pm (UTC)

"I hope you enjoy your hike," says Isibel, and she lets herself out. She designs spells; she has one ready by the wee hours of the morning, teleports to the optimal casting site, and focuses and channels. The Lost Lands will be the better for it, and come back to life at a swifter but gentle pace.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:20 pm (UTC)

That afternoon, Lycaelon brainphones her.

[I'm back! And I made better tea!]

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:20 pm (UTC)

[Welcome back.]

Port. Knock.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:23 pm (UTC)

He opens the door and beckons her inside.

The tea is indeed better today; he followed her advice.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:24 pm (UTC)

"This is much improved," she remarks.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Good!" he says. "I'm glad it worked. So... how much do you know about this island?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:25 pm (UTC)

"A fair amount."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Because it's amazing," he continues enthusiastically. "It's the most cultivated wilderness I've ever seen. I have no idea how it happened, but I want to meet whoever did it. And maybe kiss them. It's just so—" He opens his hands in a helpless shrug.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:27 pm (UTC)

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:27 pm (UTC)

Concerned: "What is it?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:28 pm (UTC)

"I -" She rubs at her eyes. "It's only - yes, the island is amazing."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:29 pm (UTC)

"It's amazing but I wasn't expecting you to cry over it," he says. "What's wrong?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:30 pm (UTC)

Softly: "I have a co-Bonded. He made it. He is in the other world, with my dragon."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm so sorry," he murmurs.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:31 pm (UTC)

"And they - are so close as to be one person, one mind, they have been together so long and began so similar," she says shakily. "And I miss them so much."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:33 pm (UTC)

Helplessly: "Do you want a hug?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:34 pm (UTC)

She nods.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:35 pm (UTC)

He gets up and crosses over to her chair and hugs her.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:36 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"I don't usually mention this part," she murmurs.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:38 pm (UTC)

Hug hug.

"Why not?" he murmurs back.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Because - people would not understand if I explained my co-Bonded."

He already has enough clues to guess. The island took thousands of years; no Wildmage or High Mage lives that long, and Isibel is obviously the Elfmage in the group.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:40 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon thinks about it.

He thinks about it for a while.

He doesn't stop hugging her.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:42 pm (UTC)

"The King of the Elves knows. Magania - I do not know if you have encountered her; she is sometimes here, she was part of the original colony expedition - knows. My parents. The other dragons. My friends, of course, who don't have Thilanushinyel preconceptions. No one else."

Hug.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:43 pm (UTC)

"And... your co-Bonded is a demon," he says softly. "How...?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:44 pm (UTC)

"They lived together on this island, alone, for thousands and thousands of years. He did not know he was the last until I told him."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:45 pm (UTC)

"How is he not evil?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:46 pm (UTC)

"He is himself, instead. It may have to do with the template. But he is free of taint; he is not even burned by the touch of a unicorn's horn, anymore."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:47 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon laughs shakily.

"Wow."

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Perhaps on your hike you saw the unicorn statues."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:54 pm (UTC)

"A few of them."

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I saw those first. And I knew that whoever had made them loved that unicorn. And then I saw my beloved - the smaller of the two - and I did not run away."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Wow," murmurs Lycaelon.

small_magics
2013-07-19 08:59 pm (UTC)

"We had no common language. I had to teach him. And he told me what was and was not safe to eat, of the plants and animals he had made."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:00 pm (UTC)

"...That definitely explains the booklets."

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It also explains some of the fruits that the elves who live here like so much, if you have seen those. He made them. He likes to make custom fruit for people."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:04 pm (UTC)

"I haven't noticed the custom fruits. But I'll keep an eye out now that you've mentioned it."

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:06 pm (UTC)

"He has not made any specifically intended for humans that are here in this world, although the elf fruits will be safe for you if you want to try them."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I might as well."

He has stopped hugging her, but he has not yet gone back to his own chair; he stands by hers.

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:10 pm (UTC)

"This is," she adds, "why they left the world. One of my alts wanted plants and animals on a planet that had none of its own."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:11 pm (UTC)

"...And he can do that?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Even on a planet so unlike our own. It is full of beautiful life, now."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I want to see that someday."

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Someday perhaps you will. You are immortal now."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I guess I am."

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:17 pm (UTC)

"My beloved has shown me what he has done with the planet in our shared thoughts. I could conjure illusions, if you wished to see."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:19 pm (UTC)

She squares up illusions of some of her favorite organisms that now live on Saturn.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Amazing," says Lycaelon.

"...What does he look like?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:21 pm (UTC)

Isibel hesitates, but conjures up a picture of both her beloveds, side by side. Ansharil is a scale model.
Edited 2013-07-19 21:23 (UTC)

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:24 pm (UTC)

He flinches slightly when he sees the demon. But only slightly.

"They're beautiful."

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:24 pm (UTC)

"They are," she sighs, resting her chin on her hands and looking at them.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:25 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon hugs her again.

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:26 pm (UTC)

Hug.

"I miss them so much," she murmurs. "And they miss me - but at least there are more of them in the world they are in, for company."

She looks at the illusions a moment longer, then dismisses them and shuts her eyes.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:27 pm (UTC)

Hug.

"More of them?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Of their template. There are two who live in that world. They work for my alt there."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:29 pm (UTC)

"How did there get to be two...?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:30 pm (UTC)

"They are not from the world. My alt hired them from other worlds to make coins for her. There was one who was native to it, but he moved away, on purpose."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I can't imagine leaving the world to go and do magic somewhere else," he says, shaking his head. And hugging her some more. She's very huggable.

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:34 pm (UTC)

"This will be easier to talk about if I tell you their names," remarks Isibel. "My beloveds are called Aianon - the demon - and Ansharil - the dragon. The world they are in is named Origin. The Jokers who moved there are Queenie, and Ghosty, and the one who was born there and moved away is only called the Joker. He did not move away to do magic; he moved to be with his boyfriend in a world called Aurum. Ghosty and Queenie had both died when they met the rest of my friends and did not particularly want to stay where they were."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:35 pm (UTC)

"...Is Ghosty," he inquires, "by any chance a ghost?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Of her own sort, though. We don't know of any who are the same kind of ghost."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:39 pm (UTC)

"...Really? I was expecting a... world full of ghosts, or something."

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:41 pm (UTC)

Isibel shakes her head. "She died, and became a ghost, and there is no sign of other people who have died in her original world doing the same thing. Her world is attached to the same afterlife most of us use, now."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:42 pm (UTC)

"That is bizarre," says Lycaelon.

Hmm, he still appears to be hugging her. Well, she seems all right with that.

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:43 pm (UTC)

She is all right with that.

It's nice.

"Yes," she agrees. "Most Jokers live in their original worlds. With their Bells."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:44 pm (UTC)

"...'Their' meaning...?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:46 pm (UTC)

"The ones from their worlds." Pause. "Generally romantically entangled. Pattern, the Bell from Origin, is the only Bell we know about who was born in a world with a Joker and did not wind up that way."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Lycaelon, almost elvishly.

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps you have heard about how elves find soul-sympathy."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:49 pm (UTC)

"...I haven't, actually."

small_magics
2013-07-19 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Ah. It is a subtle - fitting, between two souls, almost like a lesser dragonbond. It is difficult to detect until it is already firmly in place. If you have heard a relatively unadulterated story of Idalia and Jermayan, she initially spurned him because she feared dying before he did and leaving him unable to get over her loss - this was based a misunderstanding of the phenomenon on her part; he was already committed. I found it for my beloved shortly after I was through convalescing."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Oh," he says again, this time without so many questions attached.

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Hopefully that addresses your curiosities."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Some of them."

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:02 pm (UTC)

"If you have others, you may describe them."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Some of them are embarrassing."

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Ah."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:04 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:08 pm (UTC)

"It would not do for you to be embarrassed."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says.

He is still hugging her.

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:09 pm (UTC)

He is. This is all well and good.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:10 pm (UTC)

Good! Because he likes hugging her, but he would not like to hug her if she wanted him to stop.

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:10 pm (UTC)

That is the correct attitude for a hugger of her to have.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:11 pm (UTC)

Perfect.

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I still communicate with my beloveds, of course. They have been sleeping, but when they wake up I will probably tell them about you."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:18 pm (UTC)

"What will you tell them about me?"

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:22 pm (UTC)

"It is reasonably likely I will reproduce all of our conversations in complete detail, if you would not object. They cannot be here in person, but I can keep them up to date."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:23 pm (UTC)

"No reason not to, I guess."

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:24 pm (UTC)

Hug.

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:25 pm (UTC)

Hug.

"If I have satisfied your non-embarrassing curiosities now, you could continue to tell me about the world and what I can do for it."
Edited 2013-07-19 22:30 (UTC)

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says agreeably.

Leaning against her chair and hugging her is reasonably comfortable; he doesn't bother to stop doing those things while he tells her about the moonturns he spent in the Madiran and what he learned there. For the most part, the desert is doing well, but he suggests that its sandstorms could be gently diverted from passing over inhabited areas.

"As long as you don't try to get rid of them completely," he adds. "The desert depends on them too much."

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Weather is tricky in this way," she agrees. "But I can keep the storms away from people."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 10:44 pm (UTC)

"That'll help a lot."

From there, he took a ship to Armethalieh, and then another one to the Selken Isles, where he spent about half a year healing sick and injured people. He recounts everything he can think of about the (mostly human) inhabitants of those islands.

small_magics
2013-07-19 10:48 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods, and probes unquestioningly for details where his descriptions are incomplete.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 11:01 pm (UTC)

One of the people he healed was a man in debt bondage, which is a thing the Selken Isles do.

small_magics
2013-07-19 11:01 pm (UTC)

Isibel's eyes narrow.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 11:03 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon explains as much as he knows about the practice, which isn't a lot. He had his mind on other things at the time; there were a lot of difficult healings to do in those six moonturns.

small_magics
2013-07-19 11:05 pm (UTC)

"I will need to think of something to do about that. I don't like it," murmurs Isibel.

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 11:06 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon shrugs. "All right."

Then it was back to Armethalieh, where he spent another little while - as long as he could stand it. Industrial accidents are a big problem in that city.

small_magics
2013-07-19 11:10 pm (UTC)

"That would be easier to solve with a wish than an enchantment - an enchantment would be likely to throw off the industries themselves unless I knew more about them. Hmm."

wildlymagical
2013-07-19 11:12 pm (UTC)

"You could get somebody to look at exactly what was going on and suggest more specific ways to fix it, but I'm not volunteering," he says.

small_magics
2013-07-19 11:16 pm (UTC)

She nods. "I can probably find someone to look into it."

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 01:00 pm (UTC)

"Good, because I really don't want that job," he laughs.

small_magics
2013-07-20 05:23 pm (UTC)

"I understand," she laughs softly. "You are being quite useful as it is."

(The hugging is more useful than she'd like to admit aloud. Her parents aren't really huggy, and she doesn't see them that frequently - Liselen is affectionate but it's not really the same with an ungulate - this helps.)

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 05:25 pm (UTC)

"It's what I'm here for."

endragoned
2013-07-20 05:36 pm (UTC)

In Origin, Aianon wakes from his three-day nap.

small_magics
2013-07-20 05:37 pm (UTC)

Isibel shifts position. "He's awake," she says. Hello again, beloved.

endragoned
2013-07-20 05:54 pm (UTC)

Hello, my love. How are you?

small_magics
2013-07-20 05:55 pm (UTC)

She is okay! She has met this Wildmage, who is helping her. She sends what has passed between them.

endragoned
2013-07-20 05:57 pm (UTC)

...This Wildmage is adorable. Aianon is pleased that he likes the island so much.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 05:57 pm (UTC)

"...Should I say hello or something?" says Lycaelon.

small_magics
2013-07-20 05:58 pm (UTC)

"You may. My beloved thinks that you are adorable and is pleased that you like the island so."

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

...Lycaelon blushes.

"Well, uh. Hello. It's a really nice island."

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:00 pm (UTC)

Isibel passes this on.

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:01 pm (UTC)

Oh, Aianon just wants to kiss him. But he doubts that his beloved would like to reproduce that particular message.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

Isibel squirms, and goes bright red.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

"...What is it?"

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:03 pm (UTC)

Aianon laughs.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Not all of the messages my beloved might care to pass on are verbal."

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:05 pm (UTC)

"...I am so curious right now," says Lycaelon.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:08 pm (UTC)

"If he were here he would want to kiss you," murmurs Isibel. "Well - if he had been here. If he just appeared here right now I think carrying me off would take precedence." (She is copying her beloved on this conversation.)

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:11 pm (UTC)

Very likely. Well, he might find the time to kiss Lycaelon once first, since they were talking about it and all. Just as long as his time with Isibel went uninterrupted for at least a sennight afterward.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:11 pm (UTC)

"If he were here I'd want to kiss him too," laughs Lycaelon. "And then get out of his way."

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps once he has returned to me and we are sufficiently reunited this can happen," says Isibel, still blushing hard.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:16 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon is blushing, too.

"If I'm not needed elsewhere before then," he says.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:18 pm (UTC)

Isibel shrugs a little. "We can teleport. There is the brainphone. Finding you to deliver a promised kiss even after a long interval is the sort of thing he would do."

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Lycaelon, and he blushes some more.

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:19 pm (UTC)

He is so terribly sweet. Is Isibel very sure she doesn't want to kiss him?

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:20 pm (UTC)

Not very sure.

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:20 pm (UTC)

Perhaps she should find out what Lycaelon thinks of the idea. If she wants.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:28 pm (UTC)

She does not know how to go about asking it.

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:30 pm (UTC)

Of course.

If only Aianon were there - well, had been, as she said - he is sure he could find a way to get them talking about it. But then, if he were there, perhaps the prospect of kissing Lycaelon would seem less attractive to her.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:30 pm (UTC)

"What are you talking about?" wonders Lycaelon.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:33 pm (UTC)

"About - passing on messages. That are not verbal."

She wouldn't think twice about kissing Lycaelon if she had her beloved, her own, with her - but she does not. It may be any number of years before she has him back again to leave her brimful with kisses.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Should I stop asking?" he wonders.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind the asking."

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Good."

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:36 pm (UTC)

They should definitely kiss.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:37 pm (UTC)

"My beloved is of the opinion that I should kiss you."

She doesn't specify whether this would be on her beloved's behalf or not.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:38 pm (UTC)

"...For him, or...?"

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I do not think that if I do, it will stop him from doing it himself later on when he has come home."

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:39 pm (UTC)

"That's... not really an answer," he observes.

"Do you want to kiss me?"

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:40 pm (UTC)

Squirm.

(Also not an answer. But a hint.)

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:42 pm (UTC)

"That's not an answer either," he says, laughing.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:42 pm (UTC)

"I know!" she laughs. "This is - complicated!"

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Does it help if I want to kiss you, too, or does that just make it more complicated?"

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:49 pm (UTC)

"It makes it continue to be complicated. If you do not want to kiss me then that is that, of course."

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, here we are, then."

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:50 pm (UTC)

Is there some reason why she has not kissed him already?

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:50 pm (UTC)

She has never kissed anyone but her beloved before! She is nervous!

endragoned
2013-07-20 06:52 pm (UTC)

That is sweet. She is sweet.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:52 pm (UTC)

She is squirming.

(But in a snuggly way.)

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:53 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon hugs her.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:53 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

And a swift little kiss.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:54 pm (UTC)

Awwww!

How about another one, then?

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:55 pm (UTC)

Okay.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:55 pm (UTC)

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Kisses.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:56 pm (UTC)

Kisses.

She missed kisses. She misses her beloved too - but kisses are nice elsewise.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:56 pm (UTC)

Kisses are very, very nice!

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:57 pm (UTC)

Yes. Kisses.

wildlymagical
2013-07-20 06:57 pm (UTC)

Many snuggly kisses.

small_magics
2013-07-20 06:58 pm (UTC)

She would never be able to do this if she couldn't feel her beloved's unreserved approval in the back of her mind; it would feel like a betrayal of the soul-sympathy whatever he said, but she can feel it, and knows it's all right.

endragoned
2013-07-20 07:01 pm (UTC)

He thinks it's wonderful. He would snuggle them both if he could.

small_magics
2013-07-20 07:02 pm (UTC)

She loves her beloved so.

endragoned
2013-07-20 07:17 pm (UTC)

He loves her too. He is glad she can have kisses.

small_magics
2013-07-21 06:57 am (UTC)

It is not much time later that Isibel elects to spend the hex from her supply minting Lycaelon. (It's not, really, that small a supply - the only trouble is she has no idea how long it will need to last her. Even if he can make no sustained hex output he can probably at least replace the one it took to mint him.)

"Moving pain across your mind should make sense now," she tells him, when she's done it.

wildlymagical
2013-07-21 11:41 am (UTC)

He bites his lip experimentally.

"Strange," he says, examining the resulting triangle. It's mostly black, with a soft buttony shine, and has thin white lines radiating from the hole in the center out to each of its points.
Edited 2013-07-21 15:50 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-07-21 04:04 pm (UTC)

"It is," Isibel agrees.

wildlymagical
2013-07-21 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, all right."

small_magics
2013-07-21 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Now you and I are the only two mints in the world."

wildlymagical
2013-07-21 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Guess so."

small_magics
2013-07-21 04:13 pm (UTC)

"My beloved and his alts have invented a more - sophisticated version of the agony beam. I have not upgraded, due to a need to conserve coins and because I had nothing to use it for anyway, but it does work reflexively, if you find that it would be useful."

wildlymagical
2013-07-21 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that does sound handy. I can replace the coins you're using now, too," he offers. "And then go make some more."

small_magics
2013-07-21 04:18 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods, and takes another hex out of her sorter and lets out a sigh and spends it.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 01:08 am (UTC)

"Interesting," says Lycaelon.

He makes a pentagon. Then several more pentagons. Then a small pile of hexes, with a slight thoughtful frown but no other sign of pain.

small_magics
2013-07-22 01:09 am (UTC)

"You are much calmer than I would be," she murmurs.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 01:11 am (UTC)

He shrugs, still pouring hexagons into a pile in his lap.

"It's not that bad."

small_magics
2013-07-22 01:12 am (UTC)

"I wonder if the Wild Magic had this in mind," she laughs softly, "when it sent you to see if I needed help."

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 01:19 am (UTC)

"Probably."

small_magics
2013-07-22 01:20 am (UTC)

She reaches for the coins, but doesn't pick any up. "You should probably carry some of these yourself, for when you travel, in case there is no time to call me for help or I am busy - I do not know how many would be best."

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 01:56 am (UTC)

"How do you carry yours?"

small_magics
2013-07-22 01:58 am (UTC)

"I have a magical coin sorter. It takes a hexagon to make one. Before this technique was designed, we used to carry our coins on bandoliers."

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 01:59 am (UTC)

"Well, here's plenty of hexagons. How do magical coin-sorters work?"

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:01 am (UTC)

She picks up a hexagon; it disappears and then reappears in her other hand. "It stores the coins - tucked away where nothing can touch them until the person the sorter belongs to wants to retrieve them."

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:04 am (UTC)

"That sounds handy," says Lycaelon.

He wishes on one of his hexagons, and then slurps up about half the pile into his new coin-sorter. Hexagons continue tumbling from his hand onto what's left.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:06 am (UTC)

Isibel starts collecting the unslurped coins. With her other hand she takes and squeezes one of his.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:07 am (UTC)

Aww. He squeezes back, smiling.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:14 am (UTC)

"Thank you very much," she says warmly.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:19 am (UTC)

"You're welcome."

Hugs? He thinks it is time for hugs. Hugs and hexagons.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:20 am (UTC)

Hugs and hexagons. Her coinsorter takes them from him as soon as they're made.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:22 am (UTC)

That's convenient. Large piles of coins aren't very snuggly.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:22 am (UTC)

They're not! They are pointy and hard. Not soft and warm like the people who are currently snuggling.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:23 am (UTC)

Mmm, soft warm snuggles.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:24 am (UTC)

Soft warm kisses.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:27 am (UTC)

They are soft! And warm! Mmm.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:28 am (UTC)

Indeed.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:29 am (UTC)

Soft warm snuggly kisses.

Yes. This is good. He could get used to this.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:29 am (UTC)

It is much nicer than no kisses. Much, much nicer.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:35 am (UTC)

So much nicer!

Mmmmsnuggly. There is definitely snuggling.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:36 am (UTC)

Definite snuggling is happening, yep.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:37 am (UTC)

And it might be getting more definite than usual.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:37 am (UTC)

Oh.

That's nice.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:38 am (UTC)

Good! It's good that it's nice.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:41 am (UTC)

That is good. Many things about this situation are good.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:42 am (UTC)

Many, many things. Soft warm snuggly things.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:43 am (UTC)

All good attributes for things in any quantity, especially large quantities.

endragoned
2013-07-22 02:46 am (UTC)

They are such darlings. It's nice that they are having a good time together. A soft warm snuggly time.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:47 am (UTC)

Isibel loves her beloveds so, and all the more for not asking that she go without comfort in their absence. It is comforting.

endragoned
2013-07-22 02:49 am (UTC)

They could never ask such a thing; it would be just the opposite of what they want. She should comfort herself as much as she desires, however she pleases.

small_magics
2013-07-22 02:51 am (UTC)

Love love love.

And elsewhere, warm snuggly - comfort.

wildlymagical
2013-07-22 02:52 am (UTC)

It is very warm and snuggly and comfortable.

why don't you try?

small_magics

Isibel's workload is under two opposing forces. On the one hand, she makes routine progress. Every day, she has done more of the things she wants to do; and now she has a replenishable supply of pentagons and hexagons and could probably prevail upon Lycaelon for stars too if it ever became particularly vital. On the other hand, she is still becoming aware of things to do, and more and more people every day are willing to come to her with problems.

One day she says to Liselen, [I wonder if I ought to make more people enchanters.]

pythbox
2013-07-24 01:30 am (UTC)

[I wonder if you should,] muses Liselen. [They'd still need to come to me for advice, though, unless they were Wildmages. ...Or unicorns. ...I could be an enchanter.]

small_magics
2013-07-24 01:31 am (UTC)

[You could! You would only be able to do small spells unless you had a channel, though.]

pythbox
2013-07-24 01:33 am (UTC)

[But that's true for anybody, right? Except another elf who knows how to meditate - and elves aren't Wildmages. So it's me or a Unicorn Knight. And you don't know any Unicorn Knights.]

small_magics
2013-07-24 01:35 am (UTC)

[It is true for anybody. Although there has been a Wildmage helping me of late, not with channeling, but with coins, which amounts to the same sort of help; I suppose I have not chanced to mention him to you.]
Edited 2013-07-24 01:35 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-24 01:36 am (UTC)

[If he's been helping you with coins, maybe he could be a channel,] says Liselen. [Or an enchanter, and channel through himself. Or both!]

small_magics
2013-07-24 01:37 am (UTC)

[Quite possibly. I will add him to this conversation.]

[Lycaelon, this is my unicorn friend, Liselen. We have been discussing making more people enchanters.]

pythbox
2013-07-24 01:37 am (UTC)

[Hi, Lycaelon!] says Liselen. [Do you want to be my enchanting channel?]

wildlymagical
2013-07-24 01:38 am (UTC)

[...I don't know,] he laughs, [do I? How bad is it, compared to coins?]

small_magics
2013-07-24 01:40 am (UTC)

[It depends on the spell. I cast immense ones, myself, but they can be split into smaller pieces - hexes, pentagons - and the aftereffects of channeling for another person, unless layered considerably, peter out into square territory within minutes. The lingering effects can also be cleared away with torching if preferred. And there is nothing preventing one from using enchanting pain to make coins.]

wildlymagical
2013-07-24 01:41 am (UTC)

[Sounds just fine to me, then,] he shrugs.

small_magics
2013-07-24 01:42 am (UTC)

[Liselen, if you will come here, I can make you an enchanter now.]

pythbox
2013-07-24 01:42 am (UTC)

[Okay!]

Kerpoof.

small_magics
2013-07-24 01:43 am (UTC)

She scritches his mane and spends the hex, then the pentagon, for the power and the skill.

pythbox
2013-07-24 01:44 am (UTC)

He leans his shoulder on her. [Thanks! What stuff can I help with?]

small_magics
2013-07-24 01:46 am (UTC)

Isibel starts going over aspects of her to-do list that are straightforward enough that she's willing to delegate, or that interact enough with local magic that she'd need Liselen consulting closely anyway.

pythbox
2013-07-24 01:47 am (UTC)

Liselen swishes his tail and listens and makes comments.

small_magics
2013-07-24 01:59 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, Isibel reports to Lycaelon, [I've made Liselen an enchanter, in ability and skill.]

wildlymagical
2013-07-24 02:00 am (UTC)

[I suppose I should meet him, then.]

small_magics
2013-07-24 02:02 am (UTC)

[He is here with me.]

wildlymagical
2013-07-24 02:02 am (UTC)

[I'll come by.]

He teleports. (Teleporting is wonderful.)

pythbox
2013-07-24 02:03 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Liselen, swishing his tail.

wildlymagical
2013-07-24 02:03 am (UTC)

"By the Light, you're pretty," says Lycaelon.

pythbox
2013-07-24 02:03 am (UTC)

"I'm a unicorn," Liselen says smugly.

small_magics
2013-07-24 02:04 am (UTC)

"That is how unicorns work," giggles Isibel.

wildlymagical
2013-07-24 02:06 am (UTC)

Lycaelon laughs.

"Believe me, I know."

pythbox
2013-07-24 02:55 pm (UTC)

Liselen giggles.

"You can teleport, right?" he says. "Let's go fix a thing!"

wildlymagical
2013-07-24 02:57 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Lycaelon. He steps forward and tentatively puts his hand on Liselen's back, which is not strictly necessary for them to teleport together, but seems like the thing to do anyway.

And they're off.

small_magics
2013-07-24 05:08 pm (UTC)

[I will be interested to hear news of how this partnership works out,] Isibel tells them.

pythbox
2013-07-24 05:28 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] giggles Liselen.

singing all alone

bellfounding

Being Bella's consort has some perks of reflected fame; by the time Ripper's solo album is done, he has plenty of fans, enough to support a significant tour through even Earthly venues.

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:12 am (UTC)

A certain Celtic metal singer receives a signed copy of the album (which is titled Decadent) teleported into his mailbox the very second it officially comes out, and then Ripper goes on tour.

Touring, it turns out, is fun. Exhausting and occasionally frustrating, but fun.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:13 am (UTC)

Well, he can teleport to take breaks in the comfort of his own home. Or Bella's own home. No endlessly beige hotels.

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:17 am (UTC)

Breaks in Bella's own home are definitely a major plus of this teleportation business.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:18 am (UTC)

She agrees completely!

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:20 am (UTC)

So, his tour goes through London (because how could it not?)

And on his second night in the city, late at night after a fantastic show, someone knocks on his hotel door as he's getting into bed and he goes and peers through the peephole—

And brainphones Bella.

[Guess who just showed up.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:21 am (UTC)

[I'm going to guess the Easter Bunny. Am I right, do I get a prize?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:23 am (UTC)

[I love you. And, somewhat against my better judgment, I'm opening the door.]

He opens the door.

"The fuck, Rayne?"

"Miss me?" says Rayne, stepping forward. Ripper doesn't budge. Rayne (looks briefly surprised, and then) smirks at him.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:23 am (UTC)

[I love you too, and why are you neglecting your better judgment?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:25 am (UTC)

[Only somewhat.]

"Unfortunately, yes," he sighs.

"We should have a chat," says Rayne. "Catch up a little."

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:25 am (UTC)

[There's a reason they call it better judgment and not worse judgment.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:33 am (UTC)

"By a chat do you mean a fuck?" he says bluntly.

"Well, if that's on the menu," laughs Rayne.

"When isn't it?"

"I seem to remember something about a girlfriend..."

"Yeah, she knows you're here," says Ripper.

"Good," says Rayne, and kisses him.

Ripper puts both hands on his chest and gives him a shove that sends him sprawling in the hall.

[So this two conversations at once thing,] he says, [turns out it's a little much for me even when I'm not drunk - I promise not to fuck him if he's transparently trying to make you jealous, is that enough to be going on with?]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:34 am (UTC)

[Yeah.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:36 am (UTC)

[Love you,] he says. [I'll talk to you tomorrow.]

Rayne gets up. "The hell was that for, mate?"

Ripper rolls his eyes. "Oh, come in here already before somebody calls the press."

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:37 am (UTC)

[Love you.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:38 am (UTC)

His busy message is a little I'm-going-to-regret-this sigh.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:39 am (UTC)

Bella leaves it alone. She spends a while tweaking J's email-handling protocols and then she appears at a tiresome ceremonial event in New Guinea and then she grabs Queenie to patch the enchantment on a bubble-cluster.

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:42 am (UTC)

Three hours later, Ripper brainphones her again.

[Didn't sleep with him. Did make out with him a little. Now he's gone and I'm gonna sleep. Love you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:42 am (UTC)

[Love you. Sleep well.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 02:43 am (UTC)

[Mmm,] he agrees, sleepily, and that becomes his busy message.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 02:44 am (UTC)

Aww.

Now it is time to argue with various people about international adoption laws between Saturn and other places. People have mostly been handling it so far as citizens from their countries of origin, but it's about time that Saturn had its own protocols.
Edited 2013-07-24 02:44 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-24 03:03 pm (UTC)

The next day, he brainphones her sometime around noon.

[Well, that went better than it could've.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:08 pm (UTC)

[Sounded like that, yeah.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:21 pm (UTC)

[I don't even know if he'll be back. Anytime soon, I mean. I'm pretty sure there's no getting rid of him in the long run.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:21 pm (UTC)

[Not without drastic measures, maybe. He's awfully persistent.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:22 pm (UTC)

[No drastic measures, please.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:23 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:27 pm (UTC)

He sighs. [Thanks.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:28 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome. I don't suppose you know why he's so interested in popping up in your life on a regular basis?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:29 pm (UTC)

[Because he likes me?]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:30 pm (UTC)

[Or something.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:31 pm (UTC)

[Really, that's why. He likes me and he's Rayne and this is how Rayne likes people.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:32 pm (UTC)

[Why does he like people in this way?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:32 pm (UTC)

[I'm supposed to know?]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:33 pm (UTC)

[Well, I'm not planning to ask him.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:35 pm (UTC)

[He'd lie, anyway.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:35 pm (UTC)

[Among the reasons I'm not planning to ask him. I mean, I could tell if he was lying, but that doesn't tell me what the truth is.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:37 pm (UTC)

[Does there have to be something more to it than 'because he's Rayne and that's how he works'?]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:37 pm (UTC)

[That doesn't tell me what the - moving parts are.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:39 pm (UTC)

[Mm?]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:40 pm (UTC)

[Well, impulses to do things are made of stuff, even if they're mostly just smaller impulses. I don't expect humans to have a 'like people by intermittent stalking' basic indivisible drive. Vampires maybe, the Aurum kind.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:42 pm (UTC)

[Intermittent stalking isn't exactly how he likes people. But, I don't know, intermittent stalking is not a surprise coming from him. He just - he doesn't like very many people. I might be the only one, actually. I've never seen him get like this about anybody else.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:43 pm (UTC)

[Also vampiric. Have you ever seen him eat solid food?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:45 pm (UTC)

Ripper laughs.

[Yeah, and I don't think he drinks blood, either.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:46 pm (UTC)

[A mated vampire wouldn't leave you alone for stretches as long as he does anyway, I guess.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:47 pm (UTC)

[Right, definitely never let him visit Aurum.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:48 pm (UTC)

[He's already on the definite-no-list for when Jan'es back.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:50 pm (UTC)

[Good. I'm all right with the intermittent stalking but I don't want it getting any less intermittent.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:51 pm (UTC)

[The real danger if he turned and came out all over Fated, Eternal at you would not be that he'd stalk you more, it would be that he'd bite you and you'd be all symmetrical.]
Edited 2013-07-24 17:52 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:53 pm (UTC)

[That would be hell. I don't ever, ever want to be Fated Eternal with anybody, least of all Rayne.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:55 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, it does not universally appeal. Golden likes it, but nobell else signed up.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 05:56 pm (UTC)

[I love you and all, I don't plan to stop, but losing the option would be terrifying.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 05:58 pm (UTC)

[You could torch it off like Alice did, but yeah. And there's no guarantee you'd settle on me anyway, you can't conjure up illusions for it like you can with coin colors and daemons and it could just as easily be anyone else, we'd have to ask a precog.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:01 pm (UTC)

[Which we're not doing, because I don't want to no matter who I'd get.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:02 pm (UTC)

[I understand.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:02 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:04 pm (UTC)

[You okay?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:08 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Well, no. Well, mostly.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:09 pm (UTC)

[...Can I do anything about that?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:10 pm (UTC)

[I can think of things, but they'd probably all make me late checking into the next hotel.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:11 pm (UTC)

[I eschew outright time travel, but time dilation isn't a big deal.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:13 pm (UTC)

[So we can go have a cuddle and I can come back and it'll only be a few seconds? Deal.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:13 pm (UTC)

[Sure.] Wish. [C'mere.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:14 pm (UTC)

Poof!

Snuggle.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:14 pm (UTC)

Snuggle, snuggle.

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:16 pm (UTC)

So much snuggle.

What's a flavour they haven't tried yet? Today Ripper will taste like... lemon drops.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:17 pm (UTC)

Mmm, lemon drops. Bella replies with maple sugar.

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:21 pm (UTC)

Bella is the nummiest empress!

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:21 pm (UTC)

She is!

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:21 pm (UTC)

Ripper is so pleased with her numminess.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:22 pm (UTC)

She is pleased with what he does when he is pleased.

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:22 pm (UTC)

Well, everyone is pleased, then, aren't they!

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:23 pm (UTC)

Universal pleasedness and all the time in the world!

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:26 pm (UTC)

Yes. They should've thought of this before, really. No interruptions!

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:27 pm (UTC)

Indeed! She might just leave the time dilation feature in place on this room. Indefinite recreational naps. Leisure activity.

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:35 pm (UTC)

Sex.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:35 pm (UTC)

That is the kind of leisure activity, yes.

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:36 pm (UTC)

It is one of the best kinds of leisure activity!

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:36 pm (UTC)

It is!

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:37 pm (UTC)

Mmm. Leisurely.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:38 pm (UTC)

Also yummy.

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:39 pm (UTC)

That too.

Cuddles? Cuddles.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:40 pm (UTC)

All the cuddles he wants.

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:40 pm (UTC)

Good, because this is one of those times he gets very very cuddly.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:41 pm (UTC)

He does, it's great.

tearingup
2013-07-24 06:42 pm (UTC)

Cuddles!

bellfounding
2013-07-24 06:42 pm (UTC)

Cuddles cuddles cuddles.

Time passes. Ripper's album is not the only cultural item to come out of Saturn; it attracted a lot of starving artists, what with the free food and rent, and they produce art. The population starts to cohere more, turning from thrown-together bubbles full of immigrants to collections of neighbors who befriend each other in absolute confidence of their safety and no concern about lawn height or noise pollution or anything else the enchantments take care of for them. They form clubs and small businesses and bands and conventions and community gardens and impromptu schools and charitable organizations. (Residents of Saturn aren't much in a position to need charity, but they're in pretty good shape to deliver it to Earthlings.)

Bella, as the Empress presiding over all this activity, is invited to the grand openings of the first zoo of Saturn (she did not install one of those, but an all-purpose bubble allowed the conversion), conventions about comics and model railroads and quilting and astronomy and library science and biotechnology and video games, and the celebrations orchestrated by the unofficial Imperial Society of Saturn when the planet's population surpasses various round numbers. She goes to some of these things and does not go to others of these things.

The Imperial Society of Saturn (which is still unofficial, mostly because she doesn't want to manage it and they're doing such nice things even without her direction) puts together a big party for the fourth anniversary of Saturn's bubbleforming. (It is not called "terraforming"; it is too unterrestrial in construction.) She is invited, of course, especially if she wants to give a little speech. Ripper is also invited.
Edited 2013-07-24 19:18 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-24 07:21 pm (UTC)

Ripper is willing to attend!

bellfounding
2013-07-24 07:25 pm (UTC)

Spiffy!

The Imperial Society wants him to sing. They're packing the schedule of the party-slash-patriotic-convention with Cronian performers of all sorts, in fact, but he's of particular note as imperial consort. There will also be many booths in which Saturn's various organizations and grassroots institutions and producers-of-things can advertise themselves and recruit and sell, and of course Bella will give her little speech.

tearingup
2013-07-24 07:28 pm (UTC)

If they want him to sing, then he'll sing. Presumably by now they know what they're getting; his solo album has been out for months.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 07:30 pm (UTC)

Well, there will be children present, so they have opinions about which songs, but they do want him to sing.

Bella's little speech is written by her speechwriter with fairly minimal edits from herself, but it is nonetheless sincere; she talks about how the entire bubbleforming project would have been for nothing if it weren't for her wonderful citizens coming in and bringing them to life, and how she is so glad to have them, and is so pleased with what they've done with the place.

tearingup
2013-07-24 07:33 pm (UTC)

Just as long as he doesn't have to wear a shirt.

And since it turns out he doesn't: he sings.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 07:36 pm (UTC)

The party is well-attended, well-recorded - Bella puts video of the highlights on the Imperial website - and well-received. It lasts three days, although most people don't attend all three. Bella's speech and Ripper's set are both on day one; on the second day Bella has a little booth set up for wish-requesting, and the line gets very long but there are things to see on the way and enchanted trays of food will fetch people snacks and beverages while they wait.

tearingup
2013-07-24 07:40 pm (UTC)

Ripper mostly leaves it alone after his set. Massive parties aren't his favourite thing. He does drop in on Bella's wish booth every so often, though, to give her a kiss and see who's asking for what.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 07:44 pm (UTC)

Some people are enjoying the comfortable complete lack of need to do anything when you live on Saturn and have, therefore, negligible income, but harbor desires for small consumer goods that cannot be obtained without money or magic. Some people want things about their bubbles edited. Some of them want Earth family coaxed into moving. Some of them want languages. (Bubbles tend to be monolingual, but this party distinctly isn't. Bella wonders to Ripper if Saturn is going to develop an interesting panlinguistic pidgin after some children have grown up on it.) Some of them are just lining up to thank her.

tearingup
2013-07-24 07:53 pm (UTC)

Well, that's adorable.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 07:55 pm (UTC)

She also signs some autographs, removes someone's mole, and takes pictures with a bunch of people.

tearingup
2013-07-24 07:56 pm (UTC)

Ripper wanders off again during an instance of picture-taking.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 07:57 pm (UTC)

[Having fun?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 07:58 pm (UTC)

[Eh.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 07:59 pm (UTC)

[Not your thing? They're planning to do this every year, although maybe after a while it'll settle down into years divisible by five.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:00 pm (UTC)

[The singing was fun. And watching you grant wishes is cute, I just don't want to spend an entire day on it.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:00 pm (UTC)

[Fair enough, I'm totally also remotely having a meeting with the disaster relief team and double-checking J's sort of the next resurrection batch.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:07 pm (UTC)

He laughs. [That's my empress.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:09 pm (UTC)

[I am, it is true. After this thing is over we should do something less crowded.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:11 pm (UTC)

[I like the sound of that.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:12 pm (UTC)

[That's not even what I meant, although it is admittedly an occupational hazard of spending uncrowded time together. I meant we could - watch a movie or go skating again or return to the intergalactic gazebo and see if any of the Jokers have quietly set it up for another visit just in case.]
Edited 2013-07-24 20:13 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:15 pm (UTC)

[Ooh. Yeah, let's check out the intergalactic gazebo.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:16 pm (UTC)

[And if they haven't set anything up, we can.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:17 pm (UTC)

[I like the sound of that.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:18 pm (UTC)

[Do you now.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:18 pm (UTC)

[You, me, intergalactic gazebo, delicious dinner, flower petals everywhere? Yeah, sounds like a date.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:19 pm (UTC)

[It does sound that way, doesn't it? I love you.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:20 pm (UTC)

[I love you too.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:25 pm (UTC)

The party is all through on schedule, with a fireworks display and the orchestral version of the anthem, and then Bella pops into Ripper's hallway and knocks.

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:33 pm (UTC)

He opens the door and kisses her, tasting of carrot cake.

[Hi.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:34 pm (UTC)

[Hi!] She is mixing things up today. She tastes like rosemary.

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:35 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Fun! Nom nom.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:36 pm (UTC)

Nom nom nom.

She pops them into place in the gazebo.

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:38 pm (UTC)

Mmmmakeouts.

It's been long enough - have they really been dating for more than a year? - that the previous explosions of petals are nowhere to be seen, and the gazebo is not currently flowering. But it's still there, still in good condition, still enchanted.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:39 pm (UTC)

Bella pulls Ripper down onto the couch-thing that formed when they stopped sitting in opposite chairs, in case anything happens when they do that besides the predictably obvious.

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:44 pm (UTC)

The couch-thing assumes its snuggliest configuration, and Ripper kisses her some more—

And flowers bloom from the walls and the floor and around the edge of the uncluttered table. These ones have a collar of black leafy spikes surrounding a flower that starts red-orange at the base of each petal and moves through brilliant yellow to fiery yellow-white.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:46 pm (UTC)

[So apparently we didn't see all the flowers last time.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:47 pm (UTC)

[Or there's new ones. I wonder if it's going to - yep,] he says, as flamelike petals start gently raining on them.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:49 pm (UTC)

[Very charming. Hopefully tentacle porn flowers aren't in its repertoire, that'd be a surprise.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:50 pm (UTC)

[No, that's not what tentacle porn flowers look like.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:51 pm (UTC)

[I mean if it changes from this kind to another kind.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 08:51 pm (UTC)

[I doubt it. Anyway, they don't just up and fuck you, you have to ask nicely first.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 08:52 pm (UTC)

[I feel so much safer.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:08 pm (UTC)

[Well, it's Aianon,] he says.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:10 pm (UTC)

[He might not have expected us to come back here,] says Bella. [Whatever.]

Nibble nibble. [Should I conjure up some actual food, do you suppose, since there doesn't seem to be any lined up?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:11 pm (UTC)

[Maybe the enchantment just knows we're not sitting down to have dinner,] he laughs. [I am kind of hungry, though. For something other than you.] Nibble kiss.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:12 pm (UTC)

[I'm not very filling,] she giggles. And she conjures up a few baskets of assorted fried things, ranging from breadcrumb-dredged avocados to plain old seasoned curly potato fries to churros.

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:14 pm (UTC)

[Tasty as hell, though.]

But he does sit up (and snuggle her) and have a go at the Actual Food.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:14 pm (UTC)

It is good and fried (in the sense of results, if not the process of its creation) and actual. Om nom nom.

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:18 pm (UTC)

Nom nom! Nom snuggle. Nom kiss.

A flower petal lands in his hair.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:18 pm (UTC)

Bella brushes it away for him. Nom. Kiss. Snuggle. Nom.

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:26 pm (UTC)

Mm. Yes. This is a good date. Bella is a good girlfriend.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:27 pm (UTC)

It is and she is!

[So,] (her mouth is full), [have you been up to interesting non-me-related things of late?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:31 pm (UTC)

[This and that. Writing some more songs. I think I'll do another photoshoot with the clowns sometime soon.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:32 pm (UTC)

[The clowns,] chuckles Bella. [Any ideas for sets so far?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:33 pm (UTC)

[Not yet. But I'm taking suggestions. Anywhere in particular you want to see me naked?]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:35 pm (UTC)

[Oh, everywhere. You could take a few pictures here,] she suggests, [maybe angled so you can see you and also the Milky Way through the roof.]

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:36 pm (UTC)

[I like that plan,] he says. [Want to take some pictures?]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:37 pm (UTC)

She grins. [You don't think we'll get distracted?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:38 pm (UTC)

[I'm sure we'll get distracted.]

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:39 pm (UTC)

[Aha. Well then, why not?]

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:40 pm (UTC)

He laughs and hugs her.

Naked photoshoot time!

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:41 pm (UTC)

She does in fact take several photographs before becoming irretrievably distracted.

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:44 pm (UTC)

Nothing is irretrievable.

"What do you think," he muses, cuddling up to her, "more pictures while the petals are still flying?"

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Sure," she laughs, "if we can disentangle ourselves. I do not wish to appear naked on your album cover."

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:45 pm (UTC)

He giggles and kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:46 pm (UTC)

Kisses! This isn't photographic at all, but it is yummy. (She has switched flavors from rosemary to blueberry.)

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:48 pm (UTC)

Ripper decides to taste like cherries. He likes cherries.

Eh, they can take more pictures later.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:49 pm (UTC)

They can! They can do that thing. First, they can do this thing.

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:51 pm (UTC)

Ripper likes this thing.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:52 pm (UTC)

So does Bella. It is a happy time all around.

Eventually she really does peel herself off of him and a few more pictures are set up and shot.

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:55 pm (UTC)

He likes that, too. And they are very nice pictures. All those petals flying through space, and the flowers on the walls framing his floating body - gorgeous.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 09:55 pm (UTC)

Space is pretty. Flowers are pretty. Ripper is pretty.

tearingup
2013-07-24 09:59 pm (UTC)

Ripper is very pretty.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:00 pm (UTC)

Yep. Pretty, pretty pictures. Pretty, pretty rockstar model.

tearingup
2013-07-24 10:03 pm (UTC)

So much prettiness!

And now he keeps grinning irrepressibly between takes.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:04 pm (UTC)

"You're happy," she hums, smiling herself.

tearingup
2013-07-24 10:06 pm (UTC)

"How'd you guess?"

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:08 pm (UTC)

"The big smiles. They were kind of a hint."

tearingup
2013-07-24 10:08 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"I just really like being eye candy, what can I say."

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:09 pm (UTC)

"You are," she says, "absolutely eye candy."

tearingup
2013-07-24 10:10 pm (UTC)

Ripper beams.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Occasionally also other kinds of candy."

tearingup
2013-07-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Does that mean we should take a break for kisses again? I think it does!"

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:12 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles, puts down the camera, and holds out her arms.

tearingup
2013-07-24 10:19 pm (UTC)

Cuddlepounce! With flavourful kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:19 pm (UTC)

This could be a very prolonged cycle. Bella time-dilated the gazebo when they arrived, though, so that's okay.

tearingup
2013-07-24 10:20 pm (UTC)

It's so nice that she thinks of these things. It is one of the many reasons why he loves her.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:21 pm (UTC)

She is very lovable.

So is he.

tearingup
2013-07-24 10:22 pm (UTC)

They are mutually lovable! And loving. Mmmm. Love.

bellfounding
2013-07-24 10:22 pm (UTC)

Delicious love.

rich with activity

bellfounding

Bella keeps her empire humming. Her staff swells; her population booms. Earthlings solicit more and more tweaks here and there until it's nearly as safe and pleasant as Saturn in some places, although the realities of economics, prejudice, and politics mean that Saturn continues to be particularly inviting to certain classes of people. Bella receives Earth's tired, its poor, its huddled masses yearning to breathe free. There are political cartoons with spikes on her halo-crown, a torch in her hand, and her telling Uncle Sam, "Well, someone ought to do your job."

People on the Internet complain that she is technically an absolute monarch who has not, in fact, limited herself with a Constitution of any kind, only posted about what she does and does not expect to want to do on her website. Other people on the Internet point out that she seems to want and not want to do those things just as predicted and that it doesn't really affect anyone's quality of life if she happens to wear a ringcrown while she does it. Still other people point out that even if she wrote up a Constitution and swore to uphold it, this would not, in any way, shape, or form, cut her magical power in such a way that anyone could make a practical objection should she change her mind.

A lot of dead people come back to life. She does not make a particularly big dent, but it's enough to give hope, and the fact that the resurrected immortals don't suffer unusual levels of existential dread or lose their ability to appreciate classical music leave a lot of those who have never died more willing to try immortality.

Time passes. The Empire of Rings is the new normal. She still gets attention, but she's not nearly as memetic anymore. Her spotlight continues to shed spare interest on Ripper and his musical career.

tearingup
2013-07-25 10:52 pm (UTC)

Ripper keeps making music. He does more tours. Around the time of his third solo album, he figures out the logistics of touring completely by teleport and stops needing to spend any money on airplanes or hotels. And he has money, now; his musical career is actually starting to pay for itself. Which is probably because of his imperial girlfriend, and he is okay with that.

There are things he likes and things he doesn't like about being somewhat more famous. Being able to teleport away from overeager fans is a big plus. Living on a planet that actively guards its inhabitants against unwanted media intrusion is an even bigger one. Without those, he thinks he might quit - but he has those, and he likes getting on stage in front of thousands of people who want him to be there.

So, all in all, he's okay.

bellfounding
2013-07-25 10:53 pm (UTC)

Bella is glad that he is okay. And that he can teleport away from overeager fans. It would not do if he were helpless against a mob of people who have seen him mostly naked and want to correct the "mostly" without undergoing accepted procedure.

tearingup
2013-07-25 10:58 pm (UTC)

Yes. That would be bad.

And plenty of people have seen him mostly naked by now; his album covers are still distinctly... themed. Not to mention the fact that performing shirtless is so routine for him that he has been good-naturedly booed for wearing a jacket to an outdoor venue on a cold day.

bellfounding
2013-07-25 10:59 pm (UTC)

When Bella hears about this, she offers him a copy of her Bell-standard comfort in arbitrary weather.

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:05 pm (UTC)

Ooh.

[I love you,] he says. [Yes please.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:05 pm (UTC)

Poof. [Poof. I love you too.]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:07 pm (UTC)

[Now I can be shirtless more often! My fans will also love you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:07 pm (UTC)

[As well they ought.]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:10 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

[You up to much presently?]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:12 pm (UTC)

[Talking to the speechwriters. Whyever do you ask?]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:19 pm (UTC)

[Take a guess.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:19 pm (UTC)

[Mmmm, drawing a complete blank, here.]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:21 pm (UTC)

[Well, I'll be at home, playing the guitar, shirtless, while you figure it out.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:22 pm (UTC)

[It is times like this that I am most tempted to ignore your knocking thing.]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:24 pm (UTC)

[We-ell. Just this once, if you warn me first, you can skip the knocking.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:24 pm (UTC)

[But if I warn you how will I sneak up on you with kisses?]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:25 pm (UTC)

[If you sneak up on me with kisses I might drop my guitar, and that would be tragic.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:26 pm (UTC)

[It's fixable.]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:31 pm (UTC)

[Or you could wait until I'm not holding my guitar,] he suggests thoughtfully. [Don't you have that superspy power?]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:31 pm (UTC)

[That is true. I could just be imperceptible until you happened to put it down.]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:32 pm (UTC)

[This is a strangely appealing plan.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:32 pm (UTC)

[Well, then I believe I shall not tell you when this meeting is scheduled to end.]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:34 pm (UTC)

Ripper laughs. [Ooh. Suspenseful.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:35 pm (UTC)

[In a good way?]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:51 pm (UTC)

He thinks about it, then says, [Yeah. I mean, as long as the meeting isn't going to run for a day or something. Somewhere between a few minutes and a few hours?]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:52 pm (UTC)

[Somewhere in that range, yes. My speechwriters still have to eat and sleep. Well, most of them.]

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

[Brilliant, then. I'll see you at some unspecified time in the next few hours. Love you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:55 pm (UTC)

[Love you.]

About half an hour later, there is absolutely no sign of Bella in his apartment.

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:58 pm (UTC)

Ripper has finished playing the guitar, and has apparently decided to tempt fate, because he's having a cup of tea while he goes through his archive of mostly naked pictures of himself. (There are a lot of them by now. He thinks he might go back to that original graveyard shoot for his next album cover; he hasn't used any from it yet.)

bellfounding
2013-07-25 11:59 pm (UTC)

Bella insinuates herself into his lap. There is still no sign of her. She watches pictures go by and leans her head on his shoulder and is a snuggly ninja. She waits for tea to be put down. She decides to see if his earlobe tastes like anything right now.

tearingup
2013-07-25 11:59 pm (UTC)

His earlobe tastes like a certain delicious chocolate cake. Apparently he was feeling nostalgic for their first date.

He puts down his tea.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:00 am (UTC)

There is now some sign of Bella.

Not a complete complement of signs, but he can feel her on his lap now. And her teeth on his ear.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:03 am (UTC)

He shivers.

"Ooh, hello, love," he says, wrapping his arms around her. (He is, of course, shirtless.)

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:04 am (UTC)

She snuggles up. She renders herself audible, breathing near his ear. "Hello."

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:05 am (UTC)

"This was a good idea," he murmurs.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:08 am (UTC)

"Mm-hm."

She decides to remain invisible. And commences neck-nibbling.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:09 am (UTC)

Ripper mmmmmmmaybe whimpers a little bit.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:10 am (UTC)

Bella has not played a lot with finer control than "per sense, per person", but she decides to see what her aura will do.

And it turns out that it will hedge out all experience of her that isn't those nibblings and her hands. No weight on his lap, no tickling hair on his unshirted parts, just nibbles and slightly wandery hands.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:16 am (UTC)

It further turns out that this makes Ripper get kind of squirmy! In the good way. The extremely good way.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:16 am (UTC)

She is still sitting on his lap, and will find that this limits his squirming, despite the fact that he can't detect her weight. That could be interesting.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:18 am (UTC)

That - yes, that is interesting. And a little weird. He's not sure if it's in a good way.

The nibbles and the wandering hands are definitely good, however.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:19 am (UTC)

Wander wander. Nibble nibble. She fades the rest of her tactility back in, but not all the way.

She is also smellable. She smells like cinnamon-sugar.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:20 am (UTC)

"I love you," he says dreamily.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:20 am (UTC)

"I love you too," she murmurs against the part of him she is currently nibbling.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:27 am (UTC)

Squirm.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:28 am (UTC)

Bella has decided that this is Induce Maximum Positive Ripper Squirms Day.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:29 am (UTC)

That is a good day for it to be!

Many positive Ripper squirms are had.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:30 am (UTC)

Oh, good. Bella does like to succeed at her goals.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:34 am (UTC)

She is succeeding the hell out of this one.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:36 am (UTC)

Good, good.

Eventually she decides her purposes are no longer served by ninjahood, and she flips her aura the other way, since it's so nice and flattering.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:37 am (UTC)

Lapful of movie star!

Ripper kisses her. There are extremely kisses.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 12:38 am (UTC)

Mmmm, Extreme Kisses. Best kind.

tearingup
2013-07-26 12:41 am (UTC)

Mmhmm.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 01:01 am (UTC)

Bella tries to catch up with Sarion a minimum of twice a year if nothing she just has to tell a fellow Bell about comes up in the intervening time. After about six months have elapsed, she asks Aianon and Ansharil if either of them (and, of course, Sarion herself) are free for such a catching-up.

endragoned
2013-07-26 01:21 am (UTC)

Aianon is!

small_magics
2013-07-26 01:24 am (UTC)

So is Isibel.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 01:25 am (UTC)

Excellent. They meet in Bella's palace and Bella conjures elf tea and she starts talking about the latest batch of escapees from Arkham - the Joker's old prison-asylum - who got out, started causing trouble, eluded local police, and now live on Ganymede.

small_magics
2013-07-26 01:28 am (UTC)

Isibel listens, and replies with the enchantments she has been doing - and also what Lycaelon and Liselen have been doing to help. Lately she has adjusted the parameters of her enchanted village to accommodate the needs of centaurs, a few families of which have moved in. It sounds like both of their worlds are doing quite well.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 01:42 am (UTC)

It's a few weeks after that when Bella says to Ripper, [Renée wants to meet you. Charlie probably does too, but Renée is the one who thought to ask.]
Edited 2013-07-26 01:43 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-26 01:44 am (UTC)

[...well,] says Ripper. [All right.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 01:45 am (UTC)

[It took her this long to ask because I was kind of dead for kind of a long time and I think she has some sort of weird hybridized view of me where I am only partially real and only partially her kid, but yeah. When's good?]

tearingup
2013-07-26 01:46 am (UTC)

[Anywhen, really, I don't have any commitments in the next few days.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 01:48 am (UTC)

[Okay. She moved to Saturn the other week, so she's on your time zone, does lunch tomorrow sound good?]

tearingup
2013-07-26 01:49 am (UTC)

[Sure! Any horror stories I should know first?]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 01:49 am (UTC)

[Huh?]

tearingup
2013-07-26 01:49 am (UTC)

[I'll take that as a no.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 01:50 am (UTC)

[What'd you mean?]

tearingup
2013-07-26 01:58 am (UTC)

[Some people's parents come with warnings attached.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 01:59 am (UTC)

[Oh. No, not mine particularly, they're not particularly interesting. Renée's been divorced twice now, broke up with my stepdad while I was dead, is that a relevant warning?]

tearingup
2013-07-26 01:59 am (UTC)

[Not the kind I was thinking of, but it's good to know.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 02:01 am (UTC)

[Golden's identical stepdad also eventually ceased to be married to the Aurum Renée but under somewhat different circumstances. Even though that Renée totally thought Golden was dead for like five years,] hmms Bella. [I wonder why.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 02:03 am (UTC)

Ripper laughs. [You and your analyzing. Different times in their lives, maybe?]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 02:07 am (UTC)

[Not by much. Me and Golden share a birthdate; I died the February I was seventeen and she faked her death the subsequent October. I suppose it could be relevant that she was pretending to have died in a fire and I kicked it in a hospital after getting creamed by the same car that got Stella and almost got Golden. Might be relevant that Golden was married and telling her mom that she was pregnant at the time, I guess, although I can't see how that would help.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 02:07 am (UTC)

[It doesn't have to help; it just has to change things.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 02:08 am (UTC)

[Well, I mean help the relationship stay together. I never liked Phil all that much but Renée sure did at one point.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 02:13 am (UTC)

[Right, no, I mean - did yours actually break up because you were dead?]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 03:21 am (UTC)

[It's the most obvious difference between my case and Stella's. Or Juliet's. Juliet also died, but she came back way quicker than I did, her parents didn't find out. Stella got hit by the car, didn't avoid it altogether like Golden, but Alice patched her up before she would've died.]
Edited 2013-07-26 06:15 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-26 10:52 am (UTC)

[Sure, but that doesn't mean you being dead was what broke them up, directly. So whatever it was about you being dead that made the difference, it just might not have come around like that with Golden. Or, I don't know, maybe it did and half the time when that happens your mom gets a divorce and half the time she doesn't and you're seeing one of each.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 04:57 pm (UTC)

[I suppose. Or, I dunno, maybe it's some knock-on effect of the magic in the other worlds that didn't take place here, or conversely something about Gotham, or some different template that appears here or there but hasn't made itself obtrusively relevant yet. But it's not as tempting an explanation - we have disturbingly similar childhoods, we can recite the exact same conversation about why blue raspberry exists as a flavor from when we were six, and that seems much easier to perturb than anyone's marital status.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:00 pm (UTC)

[Eh. Wait'll you can ask Glass, I guess.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:01 pm (UTC)

[I did. Renée was already divorced when I came back from the dead. Glass said she'd have to look at her to get an idea why, and I haven't told my parents about alts and stuff yet. They actually have pretty much only common knowledge about what I can do.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:03 pm (UTC)

[Why's that?]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:05 pm (UTC)

[Different reasons per parent - I think Charlie would find it overwhelming and Renée would want to meet everybody I mentioned as examples. I have no idea what her and any one of the Jokers in the same room would do. I might get around to it eventually, if it comes up, if they ask prying questions.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:09 pm (UTC)

[Has no-Bell else introduced her mum to a Joker?]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:14 pm (UTC)

[Oh, sure they have. All under very different circumstances - in particular most of them were combining the 'hi, Mom or Dad, this is a Joker' visit with the 'hi, Mom or Dad, this is my boyfriend' visit. Sooner or later, anyway - Aurora went the other way around but she has a noticeably different parent-child relationship from everybody else because of her sister. Stella was friends with Alice first, but Alice was a fellow high school student at the time, not her mysterious magical staffperson, and also Stella's Charlie was friends with his family's housekeeper.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:18 pm (UTC)

[Aha. Well, no rush, I guess.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:20 pm (UTC)

[It's maybe possible I can explain alts without getting her interested in meeting any Jokers, I suppose. I probably should. It's been years, and none of the other informed parental figures insist on showing up to Bellparties.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:21 pm (UTC)

He laughs.
Edited 2013-07-26 17:21 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:21 pm (UTC)

[Which is good, because that would be really weird.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:22 pm (UTC)

[Would it?]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:23 pm (UTC)

[Foreign Renées and Charlies milling around with miscellaneous otherworldly species, gossiping about us with each other, Charlies being conspicuously uncomfortable, Renées wanting to go visit each other without getting how a lot of us are working under secrecy constraints, both of them trying to be parental at Bells who don't belong to them? Yes. Weird.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:28 pm (UTC)

He laughs. [All right, I'm convinced.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:29 pm (UTC)

[Good. So I guess that's a warning of sorts. Hmmm, I wonder if there's anything else.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:30 pm (UTC)

[Couldn't tell you.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:31 pm (UTC)

[Well, I can urgently relay information to you by brainphone if something comes up.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:32 pm (UTC)

[It's a deal.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:38 pm (UTC)

The next day, Bella announces at about lunchtime, [Lunchtime.] And there is a knock at Ripper's door.

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:39 pm (UTC)

He opens it. Wearing a shirt!

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Ah, good, you are clothed." And she links elbows with him, and they pop into Renée's dining room; apparently Renée does not have a knocking thing. "Hi, Mom!"

"Hello, Bella! And this must be Ripper," says Renée, "it's good to meet you! I'm Bella's mother Renée."

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:41 pm (UTC)

"So I've heard!" he says. "Hi!"

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Sit down, sit down - I actually cooked today, not that the magic food isn't a lovely convenience -" Renée fetches a dishful of pasta with chicken, and a bowl of salad, and a pot of broccoli cheese soup. "So how have you been, Bella?"

"Pretty good. Spent most of yesterday in Lebanon. But I also took enough of a shine to a historian who kept emailing me that I pastwatched some things for her, that was fun."

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, what'd you watch?"

bellfounding
2013-07-26 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Key scenes from the battle of Troy. Very gruesome."

"I'm sure she appreciated the help, though. Maybe you'll do more of that sort of thing once the politics are all sorted out," says Renée.

"Yeah, probably my focus'll shift over time when politics settles down. Politics and also the bottleneck in torching, I'm hoping for demographic shift to cut the birthrate so I can eventually get everyone who wants in. Bigger groups of people are signing up for torching now and just because I can do as much as I want doesn't mean it's instantaneous. At least I've offloaded most of the screening process and can basically fly down a line every time I do a batch."

"Why do you call it torching?"

"It looks like going up in flames," says Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:49 pm (UTC)

"That it does," says Ripper. "It's sort of pretty."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Have you done it? Goodness," says Renée.

tearingup
2013-07-26 05:57 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Well, I've seen what it looks like."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Why does it look like that?" Renée asks.

"Why not?" says Bella. [I actually have no idea,] she adds to Ripper. [Should maybe ask the admin when I can.]

"I suppose. Well, go on, eat up," says Renée, and she takes some salad and then starts ladling soup into everyone's bowls. "And leave room for cake."

"Mmm," says Bella appreciatively.

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, cake," says Ripper.

He commences eating up.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:04 pm (UTC)

It is all nice home-cooked food. "This reminds me of being eight," remarks Bella.

"Well, of course," laughs Renée. "I used to make these recipes all the time - and then I started trying to eat less fat but it doesn't matter anymore, does it?"

"It does not," agrees Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:07 pm (UTC)

"'S good," Ripper says cheerfully. Nom nom nom.

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad you like it. I asked Bella if you would want anything specific but she told me you were an omnivore," says Renée. "I know you sing - I love the Song of Saturn, I haven't looked into your other work - what else do you do?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I also play the guitar," he says, laughing.

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:10 pm (UTC)

"And write songs - but I meant nonmusically?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Honestly, nothing much," he says. "Music's enough to keep me busy."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:12 pm (UTC)

"What bubble do you live in? Have you and your neighbors named it yet or is it still going by number? When I moved in here it was already called Shipley for some reason, I should ask Agatha why."

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:15 pm (UTC)

"No name yet. And I'm not gonna think of one; I'm terrible at naming things."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:17 pm (UTC)

"It also seems to slow people down that they have to be unique names and no one living in the bubble at the time can strenuously object before the transit system will officially log it."

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:19 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:21 pm (UTC)

"And I wasn't going to think of a hundred thousand names for neighborhoods and common-areas, so. A little project for inhabitants."

"I think Shipley is a fine name. I didn't know how else to pick from the list of places with open homes that had people living in them. And I didn't want to move in somewhere empty," says Renée.

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't even remember if I checked the population of my bubble before I moved there," Ripper admits. "Too long ago. It's pretty full now, though."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Do you talk to your neighbors much?" Renée asks. "Mine were very friendly. Agatha came over the day I moved in with a nice little cross-stitch to hang in my window and we talked about setting up a nice group visit to the zoo."

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:33 pm (UTC)

"That's cute," he says. "I don't see mine much. Every so often when we hit a skating rink or a park or something."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Introvert?" inquires Renée, taking a second helping of pasta. "Or do your friends just all live on Earth or in other bubbles?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Introvert. More or less."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:35 pm (UTC)

"More or less?" inquires Renée.

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:37 pm (UTC)

"I get gregarious moods, but they don't last long."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Ah, fair enough. And I believe you still perform? In front of lots of people!"

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:40 pm (UTC)

"That's different."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:41 pm (UTC)

"I believe I'd be quite terrified to be on stage in front of such an audience," confides Renée.

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:42 pm (UTC)

"I actually love it. But yeah, it's not for everyone."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Nobody here knows that Bella's my daughter," confides Renée. "I don't know at all what would happen if they did."

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:44 pm (UTC)

"If anyone in my bubble knows I'm dating her, they don't pester me about it, which I'm very thankful for."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:46 pm (UTC)

"That's good of them," says Renée contently. "Famous people are just like everyone else and like to go home to peace and quiet. And I'd go out of my mind if I had a moon all to myself like Bella."

"I like my moon," says Bella. "Besides, people visit it."

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:47 pm (UTC)

"I like Saturn. The bubbles thing is a good design. Well done, Bella."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Thanks." [I had help. Sandy - one of Stella's staff mints.]

"I particularly like how the common areas will visit of their own accord. It's very whimsical," says Renée.

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's the best part."

[Do I know this Sandy? Anything interesting about him? Eh - tell me later.]
Edited 2013-07-26 18:49 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:51 pm (UTC)

[He hasn't come up before except in unremarkable passing. Will do.]

"Two days ago," says Renée, "we got a trampoline park, I didn't know there were any of those floating around but apparently there were, and we got to meet people from three other bubbles that were also attached to it and jump around like five-year-olds, it was lovely."

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:52 pm (UTC)

"That's beautiful," laughs Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:53 pm (UTC)

"And of course the trampolines were magical, so they were enormous and didn't need to be supported in the middle. It was tremendous fun."

"Glad you like it," says Bella. "Yeah, there's only the one of those so far, next time I expand I'll put in another one or two."

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:55 pm (UTC)

"I want to visit the trampoline park," Ripper declares, grinning at Bella. "We should go there sometime."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Then we shall," grins Bella. "We can jump around like five-year-olds. It'll be hilarious."

"Awww," says Renée.

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:56 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 06:58 pm (UTC)

After everyone seems to be done with pasta and soup and salad, Renée brings in a sheet cake, with clumsy pink icing rosettes on a background of chocolate buttercream, and cuts slices. Ripper and Bella both get corner pieces.

"Mmm," declares Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-26 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Mmm!" agrees Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm so glad you like it," says Renée. "I almost forgot the salt, but then I added it in time."

"Can't have unsalted cake," laughs Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:01 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles again.

Om nom cake!

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Have you met Charlie yet?" Renée asks Ripper.

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:04 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head.

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Are you likely to?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:06 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Maybe."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:07 pm (UTC)

"He hasn't asked, Mom. You did. Are you talking to Charlie much?"

"Occasionally," shrugs Renée. "Not a lot."

Eventually cake is gone, and coffee is offered, and there is chat about other common-area bubbles that may visit Shipley or Ripper's bubble at some point, and then Bella and Ripper take their leave. She teleports them to his hallway, and knocks on his door, smirking at him.
Edited 2013-07-26 19:12 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:18 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "I love you," he says, and kisses her.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:19 pm (UTC)

Mmmkisses. Hallway kisses. He might want to "answer the door".

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:20 pm (UTC)

Or he could just teleport them directly into his bedroom.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:20 pm (UTC)

That also works! Kisses kisses. Bella is mocha-flavored.

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:24 pm (UTC)

Ripper tastes like hazelnut! Together they are some kind of delicious dessert.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:24 pm (UTC)

They are the most delicious dessert. Mmmm.

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:24 pm (UTC)

Tasty.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:37 pm (UTC)

They are intensely tasty.

Months go by. The waiting list for resurrection is long; she torchables a lot of people but there are billions of them and they keep dying. Bella gently wheedles Aianon for niners as often as seems prudent. She revamps the interplanetary transit system when enough people have significant quantities of stuff they want to import and export. Another Olympics happens; a Cronian skier wins silver in two events. Bella is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize over her objections, gives all of the prize money to a Cronian charity that does social work on both inhabited planets, and wears her medal to formal occasions. There are more political cartoons; she starts collecting the cleverer ones, trading small magical favors for the originals, and keeps them on walls in her palace. She catches up with Sarion again, newsy little exchanges of how their worlds are going (Sarion is not an "empress", so it cannot be "empires").

And then:

[Charlie wants to meet you, now.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:39 pm (UTC)

[No special warnings for him either, I guess? Sure.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:40 pm (UTC)

[You might or might not get a "if you hurt her, insert vague threat here" speech. He can't do anything, he's a small-town cop and you are magic. Okay. Dinner Thursday?]

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:43 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

[I'm okay with vague ineffectual threats. Dinner Thursday sounds good to me.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:44 pm (UTC)

[That's our time zone, mind, his time zone will be claiming that it's brunch, so we're looking at breakfasty food.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:45 pm (UTC)

[Oh no,] he says dryly, [breakfast at dinnertime. The horror. I may never recover.]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:54 pm (UTC)

[Be strong, love.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:56 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:57 pm (UTC)

Thursday, at dinnertime, Bella knocks on Ripper's door.

tearingup
2013-07-26 07:57 pm (UTC)

He answers, shirtfully, and gives her a hug.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 07:59 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Bella drops them in front of Charlie's house and rings the doorbell. "He doesn't mind if I teleport in myself," she says, "but doesn't want me bringing people."

Presently, Charlie opens the door. "Bella," he says, and he hugs her. "And - 'Ripper'? Everyone calls you that?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he laughs, "everybody does."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:06 pm (UTC)

Charlie shakes his head. "All right then. Come on in."

Breakfast is conjured - Charlie says, "Wouldn't inflict my cooking on a guest". Bella gives him squares so he can do the honors; he supplies omelets for everyone, and also bagels and fixings, and bacon. Plenty of bacon.

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Ripper. "Bacon."

Om nom.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:10 pm (UTC)

"You like bacon?" inquires Charlie. "Good."

"Bacon is one of Charlie's favorite things," Bella tells Ripper.

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:11 pm (UTC)

"I can tell," says Ripper.

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 08:12 pm (UTC)

"So tell me about yourself," Charlie tells Ripper.

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:14 pm (UTC)

"What's there to tell? I make music. I like bacon. I live on Saturn."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Charlie, mouth twitching slightly, "I looked up some of your music. What genre would you call that?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:19 pm (UTC)

"I've been described as 'punk rock'."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Those kind of lyrics typical for the type?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:22 pm (UTC)

"More or less. Well, depends which songs you heard."

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 08:22 pm (UTC)

"First few on each album. A sampling."

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:23 pm (UTC)

Ripper laughs.

"What'd you think?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-26 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Would've quit after the first one if you weren't dating my daughter," says Charlie frankly, cream-cheesing a bagel half.

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Eh, and? I know I'm not for everybody."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:29 pm (UTC)

Charlie shrugs. He bites his bagel.

"Don't be judgmental, Dad. I like his music. Besides, he wrote the Song of Saturn too."

"I do like the Song of Saturn," Charlie admits around bagel.

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm proud of that one."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:31 pm (UTC)

"It is," says Bella, "the best anthem. When Saturn gets crowded and I start putting bubbles on Jupiter, I will have you write a Jovian anthem too."

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says affectionately.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:34 pm (UTC)

Charlie smiles slightly.

Bella nibbles her omelet delicately.

"You've been together a while now," Charlie observes.

"Yep," agrees Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Ripper, smiling.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:35 pm (UTC)

"That looking to continue for a while?"

"We don't have a breakup scheduled for next November," says Bella, "if that's what you mean, but we aren't engaged either."

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:36 pm (UTC)

Ripper nods.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Hrrmph," says Charlie.

Bacon. It is time for bacon.

"You ever going to move to Saturn, Dad?" Bella asks.

"Maybe if cops become obsolete," snorts Charlie.

"I do seem to be improving the Earthly crime rate, although perhaps not in the department of graffiti and shoplifting."

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:39 pm (UTC)

Bacon!

Ripper decides not to voice any opinions about the obsolescence of cops.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:41 pm (UTC)

[Penny for your thoughts.]

"I haven't seen much dent in either. Maybe an uptick in vandalism. People move offplanet, they leave houses empty to be taken apart, you've messed up the real estate market some."

"I'm not gonna apologize for that, I don't think," grins Bella.

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:44 pm (UTC)

[Ask me later.]

"You could apologize a little," says Ripper. "Not everybody wants to move to Saturn."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:46 pm (UTC)

"And now they have all these vacated Earth houses to choose from," says Bella. "The people who significantly lose out are the ones who were using real estate as an investment, not people who want places to live."

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Can they get the vacated Earth houses, though?

bellfounding
2013-07-26 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I'm making it harder for people to get houses by indirectly rendering more available for the getting."

Charlie shakes his head, smiles, sighs, eats a bite of omelet.
Edited 2013-07-26 20:58 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-07-26 08:59 pm (UTC)

"All right," he concedes.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:04 pm (UTC)

Brunch-dinner continues in a similar vein, until they're picking at the last crumbs of bagel and bacon and Bella's agreeing to go with Charlie to see some movie the following Saturday. Eventually she and Ripper make their goodbyes and she teleports them to his hallway. (And knocks.) "What was it that I was supposed to ask you later about?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Oh - not actually that interesting, sorry. I was thinking unkind thoughts about cops, that's all."

He teleports them into his living room.

"As adorable as this 'teleporting me to the outside of my own flat and then knocking on the door' thing is, it got old a while ago," he adds.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll stop." She flops into a chair. "I'm now imagining you and Rayne committing assorted medium-sized crimes and encountering cops."

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Really?"

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:13 pm (UTC)

"What should I be imagining instead? Why do you think unkind thoughts about cops?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I think unkind thoughts about cops because they'll give you shit whether you break the law or not, that's—how do you run a planet and not know that?"

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Saturn doesn't have cops," she points out. "And my interaction with Earth cops is mostly Charlie; it is probably fair to say that I'm biased, I guess, but still. There are bad cops, but there are also bad kindergarten teachers and bad retail workers and bad doctors and people don't think unkind thoughts about those professions as groups."

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:21 pm (UTC)

"There are good cops. Seems like your dad might be one of them. But when you live where I've lived, how I've lived, you mostly can't afford to bet on that."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I know very little about UK law enforcement. Mostly when I interact with them we are talking about how I can make them more redundant, I mean efficient."

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:24 pm (UTC)

"It's not just a UK thing. Whatever, this probably isn't an argument we need to have."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess."

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:25 pm (UTC)

He sighs.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:26 pm (UTC)

"You okay?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

He sighs again, and then he hugs her.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:27 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:28 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Hugs are good.

Snuggle time.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:28 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

welcoming to all

bellfounding

Bella's empire settles down, grows, expands, produces art and music and designs for interesting lamps. She works doggedly at getting the populations of both planets torchable and the former population that she didn't get to back up and running. She goes on a charming television spot with a little old man who managed to avoid or staggeringly misinterpret every reference to magic and Saturn he ever heard until the other day when his son-in-law put in a request for his wife to come back, and she shows him a few little tricks and then presents him with his wife. (Bella did not just resurrect her on TV. She was prepped a few hours ahead of time.) The Imperial Society puts on annual parties, then shifts to years-divisible-by-five. Bella puts in more bubbles. She and Ripper test out some of these, from the trampoline playground to the slightly less buggy encapsulation of a mock rainforest to the large self-cleaning white room supplied with crayons and paint. (This last is ostensibly intended for children, but so what?)

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:49 pm (UTC)

It is a fun self-cleaning white room. Good for paint fights.

(Ripper and the Jokers have a few rounds of paintball in it. They are messier than paint fights with Bella, on a number of levels.)

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:51 pm (UTC)

That is definitely not what the room is intended for, but it is okay as long as there are no children present.

[Still playing paintball?] she asks Ripper, from her palace, where she is sifting through e-mail.

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:53 pm (UTC)

[Just got back, actually,] he says with a shaky laugh. [Why, what're you up to?]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:54 pm (UTC)

[Boring, boring things. I'm bored. And lonely.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:55 pm (UTC)

[Ooh. I bet I can do something about those. Is anyone going to scream if I teleport to you without getting dressed first?]

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:56 pm (UTC)

[I am aaaaall alone up here.]

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:57 pm (UTC)

He teleports to her.

He is indeed not dressed.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 09:58 pm (UTC)

She's dressed, but he's welcome to fix that. She holds out her arms and tastes like key lime pie.

tearingup
2013-07-26 09:59 pm (UTC)

Oooh.

Ripper tastes like cinnamon hot chocolate.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 10:00 pm (UTC)

That is a good taste for him to wear.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-26 10:02 pm (UTC)

There is the sound of a door, and the sudden pour of aura, and a voice exactly like Bella's, saying, "Eep!"

thaumobabble
2013-07-26 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Not again."

tearingup
2013-07-26 10:06 pm (UTC)

Ripper is distracted from his enjoyment of key lime Bella by a fit of the giggles.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 10:07 pm (UTC)

Key lime Bella smacks herself in the forehead, squares clothes back whence they came, and says, "Hi, guys."

incanted
2013-07-26 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Pattern! We're collecting everyone and then we're going to try to retrieve Aegis and company from wherever they went. Who's the boyfriend? How long's it been?"

bellfounding
2013-07-26 10:11 pm (UTC)

"This is Ripper," sighs Pattern, "it's been sixteen years, and we need to take Aianon and Ansharil with us and bring them home first thing."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-26 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Of course. Nice to meet you, Ripper."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-26 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm new," says Tab. "I'm Tab. Hi."

bellfounding
2013-07-26 10:13 pm (UTC)

Bella conferences all the Bells, plus Ripper for politeness, and Aianon and Ansharil.

[Peal's here. No Jane, just Shell Bell.]

endragoned
2013-07-26 10:17 pm (UTC)

Aianon teleports to them and looks at Shell Bell.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-26 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Next stop is Thilanushinyel," says Shell Bell. "Does Ansharil do the Joker daemon shapeshifting thing or do we need to get him through a door another way?"

bellfounding
2013-07-26 10:19 pm (UTC)

"You wanna come?" Pattern asks Ripper softly. By brainphone she perfunctorily informs everyone else who knows about worlds - Queenie, Ghosty, Slipstick.

endragoned
2013-07-26 10:20 pm (UTC)

"He is with me," says Aianon.

tearingup
2013-07-26 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Ripper, "why not."

small_magics
2013-07-26 10:36 pm (UTC)

Soon her beloved will be home, home, home, home.

Isibel clears her schedule.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-26 10:36 pm (UTC)

Out they all go. Once Milliways is full of Bells and Aianon and Ripper and the door is closed, Shell Bell opens it again, and this time it's Thilanushinyel.

endragoned
2013-07-26 10:43 pm (UTC)

Aianon teleports to Sarion, and then teleports them both to an unoccupied part of his island; Ansharil emerges in a flare of golden light.

The rest of the peal will not be hearing from them for a while.

small_magics
2013-07-26 10:44 pm (UTC)

She loves them so. They are home, home, home.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 10:46 pm (UTC)

"So, it's been sixteen years here, and it could easily be another sixteen if we leave unless Tune shows up to anchor the place or something, do we just have to wait for the happy reunion to end? I mean, we can time-dilate them, I don't think Sarion'll mind."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-26 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no, we have that covered," says Tab, holding up a Kersible, "these aren't exactly Janegems but they'll sync all right. Is this a good place to drop it?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-26 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, this is Sarion's house, although it doesn't look like she uses it that much lately," says Juliet. She keeps looking at Ripper funny from the corner of her eye, and is the only member of the peal with her aura withdrawn.

thaumobabble
2013-07-26 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I'll leave her a brainphone message," volunteers Glass, "so she doesn't sit up next month wishing she'd asked us to wait in a panic expecting to be adrift. Juliet, why are you looking at Pattern's Rupert like that?"

tearingup
2013-07-26 10:51 pm (UTC)

"...Pattern's what?" says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 10:52 pm (UTC)

"My what," echoes Pattern.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-26 10:52 pm (UTC)

"That's why you look familiar," says Juliet, snapping her fingers, "you're an alt of Giles, that's just -" And she cannot continue her sentence because she is laughing too hard.

thaumobabble
2013-07-26 10:53 pm (UTC)

"You didn't know that?" Glass asks Pattern.

bellfounding
2013-07-26 10:53 pm (UTC)

"No! I didn't really talk to Giles and I saw Merryweather out of the corner of my eye once and - Juliet, will you stop?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-26 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I caaaaaan't," laughs Juliet.

tearingup
2013-07-26 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I have an alt who actually lets you call him Giles?"

cross_and_bow
2013-07-26 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh, he's," laughs Juliet, "he's got to be at least fifty and he's a high school librarian and belonged to the Watchers' Council till one of them murdered me, and," she dissolves into helpless laughter again.

tearingup
2013-07-26 11:01 pm (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-07-26 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I am sorry about her," says Pattern to her boyfriend.

incanted
2013-07-26 11:03 pm (UTC)

"The other one, Merryweather, is from Peace," volunteers Aurora. "Picked Aegis out for the prodigy space soldier program."

tearingup
2013-07-26 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Right," says Ripper, "moratorium on new facts about my alts until I actually meet them, please. This is one kind of Bell story I am just not up for."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-26 11:08 pm (UTC)

"We could stop in Sunshine," giggles Juliet.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-26 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Let's not," says Tab, picking out a nook into which she deposits Thilanushinyel's Kersible. "It's just Rose and Angela before we have everybody who wasn't spun off, right? Who first?"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-26 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't matter," shrugs Golden, "no strandees, let's get Angela first."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-26 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Samaria it is," says Shell Bell, and she opens the door to Milliways again.

thaumobabble
2013-07-26 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry if you didn't want me to mention your template," Glass murmurs to Ripper. "I figured Pattern would have had a chance to find out and would've said something if it was a secret."

tearingup
2013-07-26 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, well, she didn't," he says. "Whatever, it's over and done now."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-26 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Did you literally not tell her your real name? I thought that was just Jokers," says Golden.

tearingup
2013-07-26 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Name's Ripper," he says mildly.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-26 11:30 pm (UTC)

Juliet starts giggling again.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-26 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Invisible, everyone," Shell Bell says before reaching for the door again, "auras in except unavoidably mine - last we checked Samaria wasn't public - easier to cover for just a door than for a door and all of us -"

But before anyone obeys her and before she touches the handle, someone else is incoming.
Edited 2013-07-28 22:47 (UTC)

ma mère

beheld_beauty

Jane's out again.

But at least this time Rose fetched Renée up from Downside first. Renée's been reacquainting herself with life; Charlie has been catching her up. Belle was a small child when her mother died, and her mother has spoken with her a little, but mostly wants to catch up on the past decades from Charlie, who is more or less as she left him.

Today Renée is ready, she says, to meet her son-in-law and grandchildren.

They walk, because why not. Céleste is obliged to leave Rainier at home; creatures more mythical than grandchildren are not for today's revelations for Renée. Renée is living with Charlie, of course, in his cottage that he has allowed Belle to renovate but not expand.

Belle knocks on the door. Charlie opens it, and holds out his arms to solicit hugs from granddaughters. Céleste provides gladly.

mindfields
2013-07-28 05:50 pm (UTC)

Grandhugs!

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 05:54 pm (UTC)

And finally Belle hugs her father, and in they go.

Renée is sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, and she peers with restrained curiosity at Yseult and at Céleste.

"Maman, this is Yseult, and this is Céleste," says Belle, "and of course this is my husband."

"Hello," says Renée with a tentative smile. "Won't you sit down?"

mindfields
2013-07-28 05:55 pm (UTC)

Yseult sits.

deslandes
2013-07-28 05:56 pm (UTC)

So does Beast.

campanas
2013-07-28 05:58 pm (UTC)

Céleste considers the available seats, then hops into her papa's lap. "Hello Grandmère," she says. "It is nice to meet you. How is being alive again?"

Renée blinks. "It's - good. A lot to get used to."

mindfields
2013-07-28 05:59 pm (UTC)

"But plenty of time to get used to it," says Yseult.

campanas
2013-07-28 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes, you can be alive forever now," says Céleste.

"So I'm told," laughs Renée. "Which is nice. There are a lot of places and things I hadn't seen yet."

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I can take you anywhere you'd like to go. Kemet is nice; my student Luc manages enchanting there. And of course Yseult is old enough to go places without me or her papa, now."

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I am! There are some beautiful places in the world," says Yseult. (She decides not to mention that she has considered visiting the moon. This isn't the time.)

campanas
2013-07-28 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Last year we all went to visit the Hauda- the Haudenosaunee," says Céleste. "They live very far away. Maman helped them like she helps everyone."

"I have never heard of them before," remarks Renée.

"They live very far away."

deslandes
2013-07-28 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Very, very far," Beast agrees. "But I like the place they live. It's lovely."

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 06:08 pm (UTC)

"What did you do there, Belle?" asks Renée.

"I acquired their language and spoke with them and then laid enchantments on some of their villages and crops, and made several of them immortal, although not all. They may want to send me a student if they can find someone with the inclination."

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:11 pm (UTC)

"I think it would be nice if you had another student," says Yseult. "If it was a good student."

campanas
2013-07-28 06:12 pm (UTC)

"It has to be a good student. Luc is good," says Céleste. "Students have to learn the long way around instead of magicking knowing things because Maman has to know they can be trusted."
Edited 2013-07-28 18:12 (UTC)

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Yseult. "It would be no good to anyone if they were a bad student and you had to send them back."
Edited 2013-07-28 18:17 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 06:19 pm (UTC)

"I suppose," says Renée. "Since you have so very much magic."

"And with Jane broken again, I am even more limited in my ability to recover from particularly malicious choices another enchanter could make," says Belle. "So, the long way. Luc was a lucky find, and of course I have known Yseult her whole life and therefore she did not have to learn the long way, although the books nonetheless seem to interest her."

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I like them," she says. "They are very interesting."

campanas
2013-07-28 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't very much," says Céleste. "They are technical and long."

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 06:23 pm (UTC)

"You may like them more when you are older," says Belle.

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:26 pm (UTC)

"It's very possible," says Yseult. "A few years ago I did not like them as much."

campanas
2013-07-28 06:27 pm (UTC)

"They are dull," says Céleste firmly. "And badly written. I like stories better."

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, then perhaps you will not like them when you grow up."
Edited 2013-07-28 18:49 (UTC)

campanas
2013-07-28 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I will not," agrees Céleste airily.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 06:50 pm (UTC)

Renée smiles at her grandchildren.

Belle reaches over the table to pat her mother's hand.

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:51 pm (UTC)

Yseult smiles back.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 06:53 pm (UTC)

"There is such an age gap between the two of you," muses Renée. "And you seem to get along very well anyway. Belle, are you thinking of having more?"

"We haven't discussed it," says Belle leaning her head on her husband's shoulder.

deslandes
2013-07-28 06:54 pm (UTC)

"I think it is a fine idea," says Beast, kissing the top of his wife's head.

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Another little sister? I would like that," says Yseult.

campanas
2013-07-28 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Sister sister sister!"

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 06:55 pm (UTC)

"What makes you so sure it would be a sister?" asks Renée. "Magic of some kind?"

"We cannot in fact be sure, unless, I suppose, we want to use magic of some kind," chuckles Belle.

mindfields
2013-07-28 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I would like a sister," says Yseult. "I wouldn't mind a brother, but I'm not sure I'd know what to do with him." She smiles at Céleste. "I have experience with sisters already."

campanas
2013-07-28 06:58 pm (UTC)

"And now you want another. That means I am a good sister!" crows Céleste.

mindfields
2013-07-28 07:02 pm (UTC)

"You are a very good sister," says Yseult. "And I love you very much."

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 07:04 pm (UTC)

Renée says, "Awww."

Belle grins. "Perhaps another, then. What do you think, mon cœur?"

deslandes
2013-07-28 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I think we should do it, ma belle."

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 07:06 pm (UTC)

"All right then," grins Belle.

"I think, if it is a girl like your existing girls think," chuckles Renée, "that you should call her Avril, isn't that a pretty name?"

"It is pretty," acknowledges Belle. "But perhaps not a first name. Middle name, maybe."

deslandes
2013-07-28 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Hyacinthe," suggests the Beast. "Hyacinthe Avril Cygne."

campanas
2013-07-28 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Pretty!" opines Céleste.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I like it," laughs Belle.

mindfields
2013-07-28 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Yseult.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 07:19 pm (UTC)

"But what if you have a boy?" asks Renée.

"Oh, I don't know," says Belle. "We'll see. Hyacinthe is unisex, at least."

deslandes
2013-07-28 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Saves trouble that way," says Beast.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I suppose," laughs Renée.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 07:29 pm (UTC)

Belle kisses her husband on the cheek.

campanas
2013-07-28 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Mushyyyy," accuses Céleste.

deslandes
2013-07-28 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes we are," says Beast, and he kisses Belle back.

campanas
2013-07-28 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Muuuuushy!" shrieks Céleste, giggling and clapping her hands over her eyes.

"Grownups do that, chérie," says Ranata. She kisses Charlie's temple, and Charlie laughs softly and puts his arm over her shoulders.

mindfields
2013-07-28 07:42 pm (UTC)

"It is cute," declares Yseult.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I am so glad you think so," says Belle to her eldest, amused.

mindfields
2013-07-28 07:43 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 07:46 pm (UTC)

The visit with the rosebuds' grandparents continues with approximately insubstantial chat, Renée progressively more comfortable with her new situation as time wears on.

And then the family goes home to their castle, and Belle gives herself the night off from running around enchanting things, and the rosebuds are left to their own devices.

deslandes
2013-07-28 07:47 pm (UTC)

And Beast endeavours to make another rosebud with her.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 07:48 pm (UTC)

Whether they succeed on the first try or the thirty-first is anyone's guess. Belle does not check by magic until other symptoms have appeared.

She proceeds through being a pregnant enchantress, and then there is a little Hyacinthe Avril Cygne.

carillons
2013-07-28 07:50 pm (UTC)

She is little! And quiet and calm and thoughtful, for the most part, even as a baby. She gets even quieter and thoughtfuller as she grows up.

campanas
2013-07-28 07:50 pm (UTC)

"What are you thinking about?" Céleste asks her one day.

carillons
2013-07-28 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Mice," says Hyacinthe. "They are small and fuzzy."

campanas
2013-07-28 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes. And Rainier eats them sometimes."

carillons
2013-07-28 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Then I should not have one as a pet," says Hyacinthe. "Unless it was a magic uneatable mouse."

campanas
2013-07-28 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I can train him not to eat your mouse, if you get a mouse. You could get a mouse with wings!" suggests Céleste.

carillons
2013-07-28 07:55 pm (UTC)

"What would a mouse do with wings?" wonders Hyacinthe. "I think they might get in the way of its mousiness."

campanas
2013-07-28 07:57 pm (UTC)

"It would fly with them! There are alts of us who have wings," says Céleste. "They fly with them. They have them because their alt of Maman has wings."

carillons
2013-07-28 08:01 pm (UTC)

"People with wings is okay," says Hyacinthe. "I am not sure about mice with wings."

campanas
2013-07-28 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Why? It'd be cute!"

carillons
2013-07-28 08:09 pm (UTC)

"What if the mouse did not like its wings? Then it would not be cute," she says. "It would be sad."

campanas
2013-07-28 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Why wouldn't it like them? Maman could make a pet mouse with wings from scratch like Rainier, she wouldn't have to give them to a mouse that didn't want them."

carillons
2013-07-28 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Hyacinthe. "But I would worry about the mouse."

campanas
2013-07-28 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Awww," says Céleste, and she hugs her.

carillons
2013-07-28 08:14 pm (UTC)

Hyacinthe hugs back.

campanas
2013-07-28 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Do you want a pet mouse without any wings?"

carillons
2013-07-28 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," she says. "I will think about it some more."

campanas
2013-07-28 08:17 pm (UTC)

Céleste nods. "D'you want to go fly around?"

carillons
2013-07-28 08:24 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so. I will stay here and think about mice."

campanas
2013-07-28 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Céleste, and she launches herself out of a pretty stained-glass window that opens at her approach, falls until the last minute, and then zooms off into the sky.

carillons
2013-07-28 08:28 pm (UTC)

Hyacinthe watches her go, with a little smile.

And then she returns to thinking about mice.

They are fuzzy, and small.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:29 pm (UTC)

Belle wanders by not long after, eating a pear. "Hello, Hyacinthe. How are you?"

carillons
2013-07-28 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Do you think a mouse with wings would be happy? I think they might get in the way," she says.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't think they would get in the way for a well-designed winged mouse."

carillons
2013-07-28 08:31 pm (UTC)

"How would you design a good one?"

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:33 pm (UTC)

"I would think about how mice are shaped, and how wings work. I already did some of the thinking about how wings work when I made Rainier for Céleste."

carillons
2013-07-28 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Could you design a good winged mouse, and show me, but not make an alive one yet?"

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Of course. What color would you like your not-alive-yet winged mouse?"

carillons
2013-07-28 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Grey," says Hyacinthe.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:46 pm (UTC)

"All over?"

carillons
2013-07-28 08:47 pm (UTC)

She nods.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:48 pm (UTC)

"All right." Belle thinks about mice, and spends a pentagon, and eventually she has the requisite skeleton alterations picked out. She conjures up an illusion of a dove-grey mouse with a twelve-inch feathery wingspan.

carillons
2013-07-28 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Pretty," says Hyacinthe.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

The illusion mouse flaps, then folds, its soft grey wings.

carillons
2013-07-28 08:54 pm (UTC)

Hyacinthe smiles.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:55 pm (UTC)

Belle dismisses it. "You may have one if you like, although you would need to look after it as Céleste does with Rainier."

carillons
2013-07-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"How do you look after a mouse with wings?"

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 08:58 pm (UTC)

"You would need to feed it - mice can eat most anything and so could one with wings - and make sure it had water and exercise. I would make it so it would be okay if it got lost - in case one day you don't want it anymore and you set it loose - but if you do lose it, you won't have it."

carillons
2013-07-28 09:00 pm (UTC)

"How do I not lose it?"

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 09:01 pm (UTC)

"You could put a little leash on it, or train it to come when you call it, or keep it in a cage most of the time."

carillons
2013-07-28 09:08 pm (UTC)

Hyacinthe thinks about this.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Rainier comes when Céleste calls him and he's also much larger than a mouse, so he would be harder to lose."

carillons
2013-07-28 09:10 pm (UTC)

"A mouse with wings shouldn't be in a cage," she says. "And I don't think a leash would be very nice either. But I don't know how to make a mouse come when I call it."

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I could enchant it that way. If you want to train it, then you will need to do something else in the meantime while it is still being trained."

carillons
2013-07-28 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I will think about it," Hyacinthe decides.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 09:17 pm (UTC)

"All right." Belle pets her hair. "Anything else on your mind apart from winged mice?"

carillons
2013-07-28 09:20 pm (UTC)

Hyacinthe shakes her head and hugs her Maman.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 09:22 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

carillons
2013-07-28 09:25 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"I love you, Maman."

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I love you too, Hyacinthe."

carillons
2013-07-28 09:29 pm (UTC)

Snuggy hugs!

Over the ensuing months, Hyacinthe continues to think about winged mice. She does not ask for one, not even for her sixth birthday.

A week after she turns six, she is walking through the castle lost in thought, and when she looks up she is not in the castle at all.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-28 09:31 pm (UTC)

And here are eight of her maman.

thaumobabble
2013-07-28 09:32 pm (UTC)

One double-takes at her.

carillons
2013-07-28 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Hello, mamans!" says Hyacinthe.
Edited 2013-07-28 21:34 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-07-28 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Hi, um, alt of Ariel," says Glass, who hasn't seen Ariel in person but is guessing from attractors.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 09:36 pm (UTC)

"That's an Ariel? Aww," says Tab.
Edited 2013-07-28 21:36 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-07-28 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Rose's?" says Juliet, inspecting Hyacinthe's world signature via her torchabling power.

carillons
2013-07-28 09:38 pm (UTC)

"My maman is Belle Cygne and I am Hyacinthe Avril Cygne," says Hyacinthe. "Who are you, besides more mamans?"

incanted
2013-07-28 09:42 pm (UTC)

"We are," says Aurora, and she points with every name, "Aurora, Juliet, Shell Bell, Tab - she's new, you won't have heard of her - Stella, Golden, Pattern - that's Pattern's boyfriend Ripper - and Glass. We're collecting all of us to sync up the worlds again. Wanna take us home with you?"

carillons
2013-07-28 09:44 pm (UTC)

She peers at all of them, especially Ripper because he is not a maman.

"What is a boyfriend?"

bellfounding
2013-07-28 09:46 pm (UTC)

Pattern says, "We're together, like your parents, except we aren't married."

carillons
2013-07-28 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Hyacinthe. She nods. "Okay. Would you like to see Maman now?"

luminous_regnant
2013-07-28 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes, please."

carillons
2013-07-28 09:52 pm (UTC)

She turns around back the way she came, and opens the door, and leads many mamans (and one boyfriend) through it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-28 09:56 pm (UTC)

[Rose!] calls Shell Bell, with Hyacinthe and the other two rosebuds and Beast and all the Bells and Ripper conferenced in. [We have an alternative timesyncing solution and then we're going to see if we can fetch the welcome committee.]
Edited 2013-07-28 21:58 (UTC)

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 09:58 pm (UTC)

[Oh! Hello, welcome!]

carillons
2013-07-28 09:59 pm (UTC)

[I found many mamans,] Hyacinthe contributes. [They were in a place. Now they are here. One of them has a boyfriend.]

deslandes
2013-07-28 10:00 pm (UTC)

[A boyfriend?] says Beast.

bellfounding
2013-07-28 10:01 pm (UTC)

[I was out for sixteen years,] says Pattern. [It happens. Beast, Ripper; Ripper, Beast.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 10:01 pm (UTC)

[And a new Bell. I am novel and exciting and come bearing the alternative timesyncing solution. I'll just stick it in your Janepoint if you don't mind.]

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 10:02 pm (UTC)

[Yes, please.]

tearingup
2013-07-28 10:06 pm (UTC)

[Hi, Beast,] says Ripper. [I've heard about you.]

deslandes
2013-07-28 10:06 pm (UTC)

[Have you,] says Beast. [Pattern, may I borrow your boyfriend please? I will return him in good condition.]

bellfounding
2013-07-28 10:08 pm (UTC)

[Ripper, you want to hang out here with Beast or come with us to Samaria? Shell Bell can swing by to pick you up on our way home.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-28 10:08 pm (UTC)

[Well, that depends on what, exactly, got the welcoming committee stuck. But certainly I will if I can.]

tearingup
2013-07-28 10:10 pm (UTC)

[Eh, it's not like I'll be much use if you run into something nasty out there.] He gives Pattern a hug and a chocolate-flavoured kiss. "Good luck," he murmurs.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 10:11 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Tab has finished installing the Kersible.

bellfounding
2013-07-28 10:12 pm (UTC)

Pattern kisses her boyfriend and hugs him tight. "Have fun," she murmurs back, "we'll be back in just a little while, only Samaria and New Bell's World left to go."

self_composed
2013-07-28 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Awww."

cross_and_bow
2013-07-28 10:12 pm (UTC)

Juliet starts laughing again.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 10:13 pm (UTC)

Rose appears, having bidden her husband and elder daughters goodbye. She kisses Hyacinthe on the forehead. "Shall we?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-28 10:14 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell opens the door again.

tearingup
2013-07-28 10:15 pm (UTC)

Ripper teleports to Beast.

carillons
2013-07-28 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Bye, mamans!" says Hyacinthe, waving.

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Goodbye, Hyacinthe."

preces meæ non sunt dignæ

jovahs_heiress

Isabella thinks it's time to start spreading the word. Before she ascends to Archangelhood. She'll have more work on her plate, then, and it will be easier if she can trust more people with the details of how she's carrying it out.

Alleluia should be the one to tell Delilah. But she's going to tell Serah herself.

"I have been thinking about telling your auntie Serah about magic-and-everything," Isabella says to Damaris one morning. Magic-and-everything has been a term unto itself; it encompasses the magic, and where it is from, and the nature of Jovah and Jane. "Do you want to be there when I do?"

carillons
2013-07-11 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 07:32 pm (UTC)

"I might bring Keziah, too."

carillons
2013-07-11 07:34 pm (UTC)

Damaris shrugs.

campanas
2013-07-11 07:46 pm (UTC)

Keziah is excited to get to tell Auntie Serah!

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 07:47 pm (UTC)

And so the three travel to Auntie Serah's, while little Gideon is in school and Daniel at work. Serah greets Isabella with a hug, and exclaims over the girls, and gives them each a sweet.

carillons
2013-07-11 07:49 pm (UTC)

A sweet! This occupies Damaris thoroughly.

campanas
2013-07-11 07:50 pm (UTC)

Keziah agrees: sweets are delicious. She sits in Serah's lap, when Serah sits down across from Isabella and wants to know what the visit is about.
Edited 2013-07-11 19:50 (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 07:52 pm (UTC)

Isabella says, "I have something to tell you. I've kept it a secret from almost everyone for a very, very long time, and it's going to be hard to believe."

"Well, now you've got me curious," laughs Serah. "Go on, what is it?"

"There's a few parts to it," says Isabella. "First of all - magic exists, and I can do it."

campanas
2013-07-11 07:53 pm (UTC)

"It's true," puts in Keziah when Serah doesn't reply immediately. "We've seen her do it."

carillons
2013-07-11 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Mom is very magic," Damaris corroborates.

campanas
2013-07-11 07:57 pm (UTC)

"We're not supposed to tell people but now we can tell you!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 07:59 pm (UTC)

"But what can you do?" Serah wants to know.

"Almost anything you can think of. Not quite, but almost," says Isabella. "...This is how I healed Ithiel."

Ithiel is a perfectly healthy angel around Damaris's age, and there is a certain amount of hubbub surrounding him; it comes and goes. His father has never been identified. He doesn't have any younger siblings.

"I thought Jovah - I thought you prayed and -" Serah breathes.

carillons
2013-07-11 07:59 pm (UTC)

Damaris shakes her head. "Magic," she says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 08:01 pm (UTC)

"But - but then why would Jovah have, if he were willing that Ithiel be healed...?"

Isabella bows her head. "He was willing; it didn't matter to him either way. It was not something he could do."

"You're saying you can do things Jovah can't do. I can't believe I'm hearing this - you're to be Archangel - the spiritual leader of the entire world!"

carillons
2013-07-11 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Mom is smarter than Jovah," says Damaris, indelicately.

campanas
2013-07-11 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Jovah can do what Mommy tells him, and only some of those things," says Keziah, nodding.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 08:08 pm (UTC)

"What they mean," says Isabella quietly, "is that Jovah isn't, exactly, a god. He's technological - from such an advanced civilization that we can't tell the difference from down here unless we're told. Without magic, anyway."

"One of - of Caleb's inventions?" says Serah. "I can't believe I'm hearing this -"

"Caleb didn't invent it. Our ancestors did, and they destroyed almost all of the other technology they had," says Isabella. "But it's in the sky, and it can respond when we pray for weather, or seeds, or medicine."

"Where does it get those things, then, if it can't just will them into existence divinely?" exclaims Serah. "Jovah is a much simpler explanation - remember you taught me about simpler explanations -"

"Jovah is a simpler explanation for what you have seen," Isabella says. "But not for what I've seen, and not for everything I can show you if you'd like me to."

carillons
2013-07-11 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I've seen where Jovah keeps all the plants that make the seeds," Damaris chimes in. "There's these huge rooms with special electric lights and plants growing in long troughs and machines that take care of the plants and harvest their seeds to send them down when we pray."

campanas
2013-07-11 08:14 pm (UTC)

"And he talks!" adds Keziah. "If you get close enough. He'll say right out what he is."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 08:19 pm (UTC)

"But this is all impossible," says Serah.

"Not really," says Isabella. "I would have said it was unlikely, too, but - Alleluia knew before I did."

"Alleluia?" asks Serah, scandalized. "But she's an oracle!"

"That's why she knows," says Isabella. "The oracles at Sinai always know. That way if something goes wrong with the sky ship, they can go up, and fix it - it can instantly transport people from the Sinai oracular chamber to itself, although the way I do it with magic is more comfortable. Alleluia knew Jovah hadn't healed Ithiel and wanted to know how I did it - I wanted to know how she knew it wasn't him. We traded secrets."

carillons
2013-07-11 08:21 pm (UTC)

"And now Alleya's our friend and she knows all about magic!" says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Caleb knows, too, and their children know - and Micaiah, of course, learned everything when I did. Ariel and Peninnah are too young to keep it discreet - and the reason I had you babysit those two and not these, a few months ago, was because we were going to a party where there was a lot of magic."

"I had wondered," murmurs Serah.

"Is this too much revelation for one day already or do you want to hear the rest?" asks Isabella.

"I - I don't know."

carillons
2013-07-11 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should do some magic, Mom," Damaris suggests. "Just a little. To show it's for real."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 08:27 pm (UTC)

[I think that's a good idea,] Isabella agrees to everyone in the room.

Serah lets out a soft cry.

campanas
2013-07-11 08:27 pm (UTC)

[It's okay! It's just the brainphone!] says Keziah encouragingly.

carillons
2013-07-11 08:28 pm (UTC)

[I like the brainphone a lot! You can use it to talk to anybody who has it, no matter where they are! But if you don't want to be talked to you can make it say you're busy instead!]

campanas
2013-07-11 08:29 pm (UTC)

[Not quite wherever they are,] corrects Keziah. [Uncle Nathaniel is too far away now.]

carillons
2013-07-11 08:30 pm (UTC)

[Well, if they're in the world,] says Damaris. [But he's not.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 08:32 pm (UTC)

"If they're in the world," says Serah blankly.

"That's the rest of it," sighs Isabella. "I got the magic from another world. There are many, and I've been to several. It used to be that anyone who knew how to ask could go to any world they liked, any time - but the machine that used to do that has broken. Nathaniel was visiting another world at the time, and he can't come home until the machine is fixed."

"I thought you said your magic could do anything."

"Almost," says Isabella. "Only almost."

carillons
2013-07-11 08:33 pm (UTC)

"And almost anything is still a lot of things!" says Damaris. "But it's not always all the things you want."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 08:36 pm (UTC)

"So that's what you meant when you said he moved out," says Serah faintly. "Gone as far away as the Samarian settlers went -"

"Farther," says Angela. "In a way. The settlers came from another planet. You can travel there, by moving through space. The other worlds can only be reached by magic - not the kind I have; a sort that acts randomly - or with the help of the machine I mentioned, which is a person where Jovah is not, and which is broken. It has broken before, and come back; but it may take a long time. It was a decade, last time."

"Randomly?" says Serah.

"It doesn't scoop you up and deposit you," Isabella puts in hastily. "It offers you a door, that normally leads someplace in your own world, and makes it lead to the hub between the worlds instead. You don't have to go if you don't want to; you can close the door without going through. Although if you ever do find one of these, please tell me by brainphone, right away."
Edited 2013-07-11 20:57 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-11 09:00 pm (UTC)

"The hub is called Milliways!" says Damaris. "It's really busy and it has a huge window all down one side that shows stars exploding."

campanas
2013-07-11 09:03 pm (UTC)

"And there is a bar who is a lady and she can't talk but she can write!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Sweet Jovah singing," murmurs Serah. "Or - maybe not. I had wondered why you became so suddenly noncommittal about the faith. I don't remember what excuse you gave."

"I told you," murmurs Isabella, "that I thought everyone would come to understand Jovah in due time and there was little point to my rushing things."

"Why didn't you tell me then?"

"I didn't know how you'd take it. Or if you could keep it secret."

"What am I supposed to tell Daniel?"

"You can tell him the truth, if you like. I'm ready for more people to know. No singing it from rooftops, but individual people - can be told."

carillons
2013-07-11 09:12 pm (UTC)

"And you're an individual person and Daniel is an individual person!" says Damaris.

campanas
2013-07-11 09:15 pm (UTC)

"And Gideon! But he is only Ariel's age and she isn't big enough to know."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 09:17 pm (UTC)

"We'll tell Ariel soon," says Isabella. "When she's six or seven."

campanas
2013-07-11 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Maybe by the time Jane is back again there will be another Ariel how there is another me and another Dars!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Excuse me," says Serah, "what?"

"...Oh," says Angela. "In these other worlds... sometimes there are copies of people. If there are more of you, I haven't encountered them, but there are several of me, and of Micaiah, and some of them are also together, and one of those sets has two daughters. The eldest looks like Damaris, only older and not an an angel - the younger is like Keziah in the same way."

campanas
2013-07-11 09:20 pm (UTC)

"The other me is called Céleste and she has a pet griffin because in her world they can do as much magic as they want in front of anybody!"

carillons
2013-07-11 09:21 pm (UTC)

"The other me is called Dominique - I mean Yseult," says Damaris, "and she's an enchantress!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 09:23 pm (UTC)

"What odd names," murmurs Serah.

"Most of me are named Isabella, but when we are all together we use nicknames; they just call me Angela," says Isabella. "The Micaiahs have all sorts of different names. But of course in all these different worlds they don't speak Samarian, so there are many different names as well as some that are similar."
Edited 2013-07-11 21:26 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-11 11:23 pm (UTC)

"People in other worlds have weird names," Damaris asserts.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 11:26 pm (UTC)

"But of course I have only your word to go on," says Serah.

"Mine, Damaris's and Keziah's, Micaiah's if you like, Alleluia and Caleb and their children," says Isabella. "And any magic you'd like to see done, and a visit to the spaceship, if you want, and I hope that suffices to convince you about the worlds and the alts - the other versions of people."

carillons
2013-07-11 11:29 pm (UTC)

"And you could ask Nathaniel if he was here but he's not 'cause he's in Aurum," says Damaris.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Aurum?"

"One of the other worlds. This one is just called Samaria."

"I... suppose that makes sense."

campanas
2013-07-11 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Uncle Nathaniel went to go visit another Joker! Daddy is one of those."

carillons
2013-07-11 11:31 pm (UTC)

"But they mostly don't have brothers," says Damaris. "Nathaniel is special!"

campanas
2013-07-11 11:31 pm (UTC)

"And we have little sisters but Yseult and Céleste don't!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 11:33 pm (UTC)

"...I think I need a while to think about all this," says Serah. "The... brainphone?... will keep working, yes?"

"Of course," says Isabella.

"Then I suppose I can let you know if I have more questions, when I'm ready to absorb anything else," laughs Serah faintly.

carillons
2013-07-11 11:33 pm (UTC)

Damaris nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Let's go back up to the Eyrie and let Auntie Serah think, treasures," says Isabella, and she leads the girls out of the house.

liber scriptus proferetur

jovahs_heiress

When Ariel is six, Isabella judges that she is ready to hear about Things, and sits her down.

She starts the same way she did with the elder girls:

"Have you noticed that your daddy and I seem to be able to do some things that other people can't?"

carillons
2013-07-11 11:45 pm (UTC)

Ariel nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 11:46 pm (UTC)

"What have you noticed?"

carillons
2013-07-11 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Things work better around you," says Ariel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 11:53 pm (UTC)

"That's a good way of putting it. If I tell you why, can you keep it secret from everybody who doesn't know yet?"

carillons
2013-07-11 11:53 pm (UTC)

Ariel nods again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-11 11:56 pm (UTC)

Isabella has been experimenting with various ways of presenting this story - she tried different orderings of information with Daniel, with Delilah, with Elisha - but in Ariel's case, the most bookish of her children, she thinks it will work best if she tells it like a story. From the beginning, as she experienced it. "I've already told you about how your daddy and I met. Not long after that, we opened the door out from our old quarters, but instead of the hallway, we found a restaurant, called Milliways."

carillons
2013-07-11 11:57 pm (UTC)

Ariel listens.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:11 am (UTC)

"And in Milliways, we met a young man who looked just like your daddy, and he introduced himself as Kas, and he explained that there was not just one world, but many, and in some of these worlds were people who resembled each other very closely - like him and your daddy. Or like me, and Kas's girlfriend, whose name is Isabella Amariah."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:12 am (UTC)

"Amariah is a pretty name," says Ariel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:16 am (UTC)

"I think so too. And I called her that, so we wouldn't be confused about both of us being called Isabella, and she called me Angela for the same reason. And she told me that there were several more people like us, and that her world was very different from mine - it has magic, and she isn't an angel and the angels they have there are different, and everyone's soul there lives outside their body in an animal's shape."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:16 am (UTC)

Ariel listens gravely to this, too.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:27 am (UTC)

"And I met several more of me, and they were from all sorts of places, and some of them had alts of your daddy, and some of them did not," says Isabella. "They had magic, and they offered me some to take home and use, because we were all alike in what we wanted done and wanted to help each other. I asked Alleluia to ask Jovah if magic was permitted, and she said that he said it was like technology - fine if it was kept under control. So I accepted, and I began to do some magical things, quietly, that no one would notice."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:28 am (UTC)

Ariel nods. That seems like a very Mommy thing to do.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:29 am (UTC)

It is definitely a Mommy thing to do.

"And then Ithiel was born. You've heard the story, but the way it is usually told, I prayed for his healing, and Jovah made him whole. That story is not true."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:34 am (UTC)

"What did you do?" says Ariel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:35 am (UTC)

"I did pray. But nothing happened. And so I used magic, instead, and Ithiel was a healthy angel, but still nothing happened, and I didn't know why that would be. I brought him back down to the Eyrie and told them half-truths. But," she says, "later, a little after Daddy and I got married, Alleya asked me how I'd done it. She knew it wasn't Jovah."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:36 am (UTC)

Ariel waits to hear how it is that Alleya knew that.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:38 am (UTC)

"Alleya had her own secret, but it wasn't about magic, it was about Jovah. She knew he couldn't possibly have fixed Ithiel, because Jovah isn't a god."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:40 am (UTC)

...Well.

Ariel nods slowly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:43 am (UTC)

"The oracles at Sinai have to know this, because instead of being a god, Jovah is a spaceship." (Isabella has always told bedtime stories about spaceships, pretty much specifically to prepare for this revelation.) "Sometimes something goes wrong with it, and then it needs to be able to tell an oracle to come fix it. So Alleluia told me her secret, and I told her mine, and I went up to the spaceship, and it wasn't very smart at all. It could talk, but it didn't really understand things; it only did what the settlers told it to do, and what it heard prayers for. I didn't think it was doing a very good job of being a god, but all I had to do to make it listen to me was just a little bit of magic, and now I'm the spaceship's captain."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:45 am (UTC)

Ariel nods again. It is quite obvious to her that her mother's natural place in the scheme of things is captain of their god.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:49 am (UTC)

"We found the restaurant a few more times, and we met more and more of me, and of Daddy, and of some other people none of whom you've met," says Isabella. "And then we met one of me who had a computer-person that was much smarter than Jovah. Her name was Jane, and she moved into the computers on the spaceship, and she had the power to pick up anyone she could see and put them down in any place she could see, even between universes. So all of us could visit each other whenever we wanted, and not have to wait for Milliways to appear, and we could have parties, and coordinate on large projects, and share magic. But then, well before you were born, when Damaris was still a baby, Jane broke - Jane's soul lives in the one of me from her world, and that person was attacked, and it hurt Jane. While Jane was broken, time started passing differently in different worlds. Her own world had three seconds go by while ten years passed here."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:50 am (UTC)

Ariel looks thoughtful for a moment, then returns her attention to her mother.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:53 am (UTC)

"But then Jane got better, and we all celebrated, and we found some more people and added them to the group - several of me are a peal of Bells, several of Daddy are a deck of Jokers. And during this time your older sisters both got to meet everyone, and there are others of them, although their parents only have two children so there was not one of you, then. There might be now, I don't know."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:54 am (UTC)

That is an interesting notion. Ariel blinks.

"Would the other of me have my name, or a different name?" she wonders.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 12:57 am (UTC)

"A different name, at least if she were from that family. Because Rose - that's that Bell's nickname - already knows what you are called, and wouldn't want to make it difficult to keep track of you. She named her Damaris 'Dominique', but she prefers her middle name 'Yseult', and she named her Keziah 'Céleste'. I don't know what she would name a third child but it wouldn't be Ariel and might not be a Samarian name at all."

carillons
2013-07-12 12:58 am (UTC)

"That's good," says Ariel. "I wouldn't want us to get mixed up."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:00 am (UTC)

"It can be very confusing. Luckily no two of the Jokers use the same name and Bells don't have a hard time choosing nicknames, but it became difficult with a few other repeating people."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:17 am (UTC)

Ariel nods again.

"What happened after Damaris and Keziah got to meet the others of them?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:18 am (UTC)

"All kinds of things, but the next part of the story I'm telling you is that Jane broke again. A little over a year ago. We don't know when she'll be back."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:18 am (UTC)

She nods thoughtfully.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:20 am (UTC)

"That's why your uncle Nathaniel left. He was visiting another Joker, in a world called Aurum, when it happened, so now he can't come home until she's better. He's safe, though."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:21 am (UTC)

Ariel thinks this through, then says, "He wasn't visiting the other of him?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:22 am (UTC)

"Most Jokers don't have others of Nathaniel, though there are a few," says Isabella. "And... your uncle is the only one of the few who is nice."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:23 am (UTC)

"What are the other ones like?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:24 am (UTC)

"They are bad people. They hurt some alts of Daddy and of me very badly. I was very worried about Nathaniel, when I found out who his alts were, but - he seems to be fine."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:25 am (UTC)

"Worried he would be not nice?" inquires Ariel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:25 am (UTC)

"Yes. But I think I got him away from his parents early enough."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:27 am (UTC)

"Were they making him not nice?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:27 am (UTC)

"Yes. They are not themselves very nice, and Nathaniels don't react to that the same way that Jokers do."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:28 am (UTC)

Ariel contemplates this, then says, "It's good you got him away, then."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:28 am (UTC)

"Yes. So, those are the broad strokes of the story."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:30 am (UTC)

"And it's secret from people who don't know it," says Ariel. "And you and Daddy and Alleya and Keziah and Damaris know it. And Nathaniel but he's not here."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:31 am (UTC)

"And Serah, and Caleb, and Daniel, and Elisha, and Alleya's children, and Delilah but Delilah only found out recently so she is still adjusting and hasn't decided how to tell her husband yet."
Edited 2013-07-12 01:31 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-12 01:31 am (UTC)

Ariel nods.

"Okay," she says. "I won't tell anyone who's not one of those."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:32 am (UTC)

"Thank you, treasure." Forehead-kiss.

carillons
2013-07-12 01:33 am (UTC)

She smiles.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:33 am (UTC)

"Do you have any questions?"

carillons
2013-07-12 01:34 am (UTC)

She thinks about it, and then shakes her head.

"Not now," she says.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 01:35 am (UTC)

"All right. And now that you know," Isabella adds with a wink, "if you think of something that should be solved with magic that no one who doesn't know about it would notice, you can tell me, and I can fix it." [And you can tell me privately, like this. Everyone who knows about magic can do this.]
Edited 2013-07-12 01:37 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-12 01:38 am (UTC)

[Okay!] says Ariel. [I will.]

sed tu bonus fac benigne

jovahs_heiress

One of the most awkward things about being the leader of the host is that Isabella has to issue assignments to people who are or have been in positions of authority over her. Delilah knows enough about what needs doing to keep herself occupied with useful errands when she isn't explicitly enjoying her retirement, but Rinnah is another story; she doesn't quite grasp that sometimes her daughter wants to talk to her for non-social reasons, might really just mean to talk to her to send her a hundred miles west and pray for rain.

This is how Rinnah winds up with the privilege of taking her eldest granddaughter on her first weather intercession.

(Rinnah was told about magic and worlds and Jovah a month prior, and absorbed all this information with admirable calmness, and proceeded to behave as though none of it makes a whit of difference - which Isabella has not prodded at, since of course this is optimal for secrecy.)

Rinnah knocks on Damaris's door, in her flying leathers, grinning from ear to ear.

carillons
2013-07-12 01:52 am (UTC)

Damaris peers suspiciously at her.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 01:54 am (UTC)

"Hello, Damaris! We're going to go to the coast and bring down some rain."

carillons
2013-07-12 01:54 am (UTC)

"Okay!" says Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 01:55 am (UTC)

"Get in your leathers, and we will go pack little snacks and go," beams Rinnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 01:57 am (UTC)

"Little snacks!" giggles Damaris. She goes and gets in her leathers.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 01:58 am (UTC)

Rinnah takes her to the kitchens, and they get little bags of dried fruit and nuts, and then off they go! Rinnah keeps to Damaris's flight pace and leads the way. "I remember my first intercession! I had to calm wind near Semorrah," says Rinnah nostalgically.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:00 am (UTC)

"That must've been a while ago," says Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:00 am (UTC)

"It was!" agrees Rinnah. "A little more than forty years ago. I was your age, maybe a little older, and I went with my father."

carillons
2013-07-12 02:02 am (UTC)

"You were never twelve," Damaris accuses.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:02 am (UTC)

"I was twelve!" returns Rinnah. "I was even younger than that, before I was twelve!"

carillons
2013-07-12 02:03 am (UTC)

"You were noooot, you're older than Mom and Mom is older than me and I'm twelve," says Damaris, "you were twelve so long ago it barely even happened!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:03 am (UTC)

"Things that happened a long time ago still happened, dear one," laughs Rinnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:04 am (UTC)

Damaris giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:06 am (UTC)

"One day you will be my age and you will tell your grandchild about this day, and he or she will not believe that you were ever twelve," Rinnah declares.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:08 am (UTC)

"What if I stay twelve forever instead," says Damaris, "what then?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:08 am (UTC)

"Do you want to be twelve forever?" inquires Rinnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:09 am (UTC)

"No-o. But I'm not sure I want to be forty and have grandchildren either," she says consideringly. "How old is Mom? Maybe I'll get to be that age and then stop."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:10 am (UTC)

"She's thirty-two. Although she doesn't look it; she looks at least five years younger than that."

carillons
2013-07-12 02:11 am (UTC)

"Then I will grow up until I am five years less than thirty-two and be that old forever," Damaris says firmly.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:11 am (UTC)

"You might look that old forever, but that is not how time works," says Rinnah lightly.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:13 am (UTC)

"Says who?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:13 am (UTC)

"To be really twenty-seven forever, you would have to not have any experiences after you would turn twenty-eight," says Rinnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:21 am (UTC)

"Well, I'm gonna still be twenty-seven when I'm a hundred," says Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:21 am (UTC)

"That is not how numbers work, little one," laughs Rinnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:22 am (UTC)

Damaris giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:23 am (UTC)

"Who has been teaching you your sums? Should I have a word with them?" asks Rinnah playfully.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:24 am (UTC)

"Noooooooooo," she laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:25 am (UTC)

"Because I wouldn't want my granddaughter to be getting a substandard education," says Rinnah lightly.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:26 am (UTC)

"I know the rules, I just don't let them stop me," giggles Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:27 am (UTC)

"Is that so? Just math rules, I hope."

carillons
2013-07-12 02:28 am (UTC)

Damaris giggles some more.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:28 am (UTC)

"Numbers will not get angry at you if you misuse them."

carillons
2013-07-12 02:29 am (UTC)

"They're nice that way!" says Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:31 am (UTC)

"It's convenient!" agrees Rinnah. "But if you want to do any things with your nice cooperative numbers you need to know how. If we can fly forty miles in an hour, and we are going to intercede at a settlement that is one hundred miles away, how long will we have to fly?"

carillons
2013-07-12 02:32 am (UTC)

"Two hours and some," says Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:32 am (UTC)

"How much is some?" prods Rinnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:33 am (UTC)

"Half an hour?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:33 am (UTC)

"That's right! Very good," approves Rinnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:34 am (UTC)

"How far away is it where we're going?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:35 am (UTC)

"A little less than a hundred miles. We are going west, except that when we reach the river, we'll follow it south, and there we'll find a little town that needs rain."

carillons
2013-07-12 02:36 am (UTC)

"Okay!" says Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:36 am (UTC)

"We can rest there for a little if your wings are tired after we fly all that way and pray for the rain."

carillons
2013-07-12 02:37 am (UTC)

"Okay," giggles Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:39 am (UTC)

They reach the river, and turn south, and find the town, and they land for Rinnah to ask about the details of their needs, and then they go aloft and she starts the correct rain-inducing prayer for Damaris to harmonize with.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:40 am (UTC)

Damaris sings cheerfully. And loudly. There is no doubt at all that Jovah will hear them.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:41 am (UTC)

Presently, it begins to rain.

"Are you ready to fly home, or do you want to rest for a little while first?" Rinnah asks.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:42 am (UTC)

Although she laughed at the suggestion originally, Damaris shakes her head and says, "I want to rest a little."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:43 am (UTC)

So they land in the village, and are plied with pastries and juice, and thanked for the weather, and are encouraged to sing non-prayers.

Rinnah obliges with a long ballad of easily improvisable verses.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:44 am (UTC)

And Damaris eats pastries and drinks juice and is generally pleased with herself.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:45 am (UTC)

When it is a couple of hours before dark, Rinnah says, "It will be easiest to find the Eyrie again if we go now, so we don't have to look after sundown."

carillons
2013-07-12 02:46 am (UTC)

"Okay!" says Damaris. She thanks the villagers for their pastries and juice, and follows her grandmother into the sky.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:46 am (UTC)

"What do you think of doing weather intercessions?" Rinnah wants to know.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:47 am (UTC)

"I like the part where they feed you nice things afterward!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:50 am (UTC)

Rinnah laughs.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:50 am (UTC)

So does Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:53 am (UTC)

Eventually they reach the Eyrie again, and Rinnah scoops up Damaris and carries her back to her grandparents' quarters. "Guess who's brought rain!" she calls cheerfully to Charles.

"I'm going to guess," says Charles, looking up from his book, "that it was Damaris!"

carillons
2013-07-12 02:54 am (UTC)

"It was meeeee," she laughs. "And the villagers gave me juice and pastries!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:54 am (UTC)

"That's because you helped them, so they were kindly disposed," says Charles.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:55 am (UTC)

"I want to help everyone," Damaris declares. "So they will all give me food."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:56 am (UTC)

"If everyone gave you food, and you ate it all, you would burst," laughs Rinnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 02:56 am (UTC)

"I would not!" she objects. "Mom wouldn't let me."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 02:58 am (UTC)

"Maybe not, but probably best not to live like she'll rescue you from every silly thing you could do," says Charles.

carillons
2013-07-12 03:01 am (UTC)

"Why not? She will."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 03:01 am (UTC)

"So you want to live a life of doing silly things and having your mom fix it?" asks Charles.

carillons
2013-07-12 03:04 am (UTC)

"When I really want to do the silly things? Yeah," she laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 03:05 am (UTC)

Charles shakes his head but makes no further comment.

"In a way, everyone in Samaria already gives you food," Rinnah says. "Taxes go to support the Eyrie, and everyone pays them."

carillons
2013-07-12 03:06 am (UTC)

"It's more fun when they give me pastries, though," says Damaris.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 03:06 am (UTC)

"Pastries are pretty yummy," Rinnah says conspiratorially. "What do you think, is he maybe just jealous because he's never gotten pastries from doing intercessions?"

Charles snorts.

carillons
2013-07-12 03:07 am (UTC)

"Maybe so!" says Damaris. "It's okay, Grandpa! I'll give you pastries for being a good grandpa."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 03:08 am (UTC)

"He is a very good grandpa, and deserves pastries!" agrees Rinnah.

Charles laughs, and hugs his granddaughter.

carillons
2013-07-12 03:08 am (UTC)

She hugs him back.

The next time pastries are available, she finds her grandpa and gives him one.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 03:09 am (UTC)

He takes a moment to remember the significance, but then he takes it, and laughs, and hugs her again.

carillons
2013-07-12 03:10 am (UTC)

Hugs.

coget omnes ante thronum

jovahs_heiress

Here is Isabella, meeting with Linus, who has flown in to make sure that Bethel is running fine. She has a lot of reports - all carefully maintained since the beginning of her time as host leader - to go over with him.

carillons
2013-07-12 03:50 pm (UTC)

[I want to see the spaceship,] says Ariel.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 03:51 pm (UTC)

[I'm in a meeting, treasure, and Daddy's keeping some petitioners occupied. Alleya or Caleb can teleport you up, if you want to go up right now.]

carillons
2013-07-12 03:51 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 03:52 pm (UTC)

[You could even ask them yourself by brainphone.]

carillons
2013-07-12 03:52 pm (UTC)

[Okay!]

[Alleya, I want to see the spaceship and Mommy says you'll take me.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 03:53 pm (UTC)

[Oh. I suppose I can. Are you alone?]

carillons
2013-07-12 03:54 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 03:55 pm (UTC)

Alleluia pops into place beside her. "Are you ready to go now?"

carillons
2013-07-12 03:57 pm (UTC)

Ariel is in her room, alone.

She nods.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 03:58 pm (UTC)

"All right. Here we go, then," says the elder angel - she's old enough to be Ariel's grandmother. And up they pop.

A voice emanates from nowhere in particular. "Alleluia, and the angel Ariel, daughter of the angel Isabella and the mortal man Micaiah," it says.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Are you Jovah?" says Ariel, looking around curiously.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:00 pm (UTC)

"I am," agrees the voice. "Originally known as Jehovah."

carillons
2013-07-12 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Why'd your name get shorter?" she wonders.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Language changes over time. While the shortening was popular beforehand, its use in the Magnificat for superior scansion solidified its popularity over the original."

carillons
2013-07-12 04:05 pm (UTC)

"I want to see the plants," says Ariel.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Proceed forward, and take your second left," instructs Jovah.

Alleluia follows Ariel.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:07 pm (UTC)

Ariel proceeds forward and takes the second left.

She studies the machine-run garden thoughtfully.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:08 pm (UTC)

It is not currently in a state of harvest or planting or other activity, except for distant plots of tomatoes barely visible from the vantage point. Plants grow under bright lights and stir in recirculating air.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:09 pm (UTC)

Ariel stands still and watches them, counting all the kinds of plants she can see and identifying the ones she can recognize.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:09 pm (UTC)

Alleluia and Jovah will both let her look as long as she cares to.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:10 pm (UTC)

Eventually:

"Can I see where you make the medicines, too?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Turn around, take your first left, and then take your first right," says Jovah.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:11 pm (UTC)

She follows these directions carefully.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:13 pm (UTC)

And here is a laboratory of sorts, with robotic arms tending dishes of goop, and mixing it with powders, and pouring the whole mess into machines that print out little conveyer belts full of pills.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:14 pm (UTC)

Ariel studies this, too, for a while.

"How old are you, Jovah?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Nine hundred and thirty-two."

carillons
2013-07-12 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Where were you before you were here?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:19 pm (UTC)

"I was built in an orbiting shipyard above a planet called Eleison, and carried the Samarian settles from there to here."

carillons
2013-07-12 04:21 pm (UTC)

"What was Eleison like?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:23 pm (UTC)

"It was a densely populated world that suffered from almost continual war among various factions. These are the primary reasons the faction known as the Harmonic Christers elected to leave and relinquish their technology."

carillons
2013-07-12 04:31 pm (UTC)

Ariel nods thoughtfully.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Eleison had much more advanced technology than is currently present on the ground in Samaria. It is likely that non-Samarian human civilizations have developed beyond that technological point in the intervening centuries, although your ancestors assigned significant probability to their rendering themselves extinct through war. As of the time of the archangel Gabriel Aaron, there were still other human societies in the galaxy, but I have no more recent information."

carillons
2013-07-12 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Has Mommy looked for more people in the universe?" she asks, mostly to Alleya because she supposes that if Jovah knew he would've mentioned it under 'more recent information'.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:40 pm (UTC)

"If she has done so, she has not informed me," says Jovah.

"She says there are some humans left," says Alleluia, "but the ones who are still alive appear to be mostly societies like ours at least to the extent of relinquishing their weapons, even if they kept more technology than we have, and that if they were still fighting she would have prioritized intervening there over a slow start here."

carillons
2013-07-12 04:45 pm (UTC)

Ariel nods. That seems very Mommy-like.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Let me know when you want me to take you home," adds Alleluia.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:49 pm (UTC)

"I want to look around more," she says. "Are there other things to see?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:55 pm (UTC)

"There is the bridge; the settlers' living quarters, sickbay, and cafeteria; engineering and maintenance rooms; the satellite control room; empty cargo bays; and the ship media room," says Jovah.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I want to see the media room," she decides.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 04:56 pm (UTC)

Jovah issues directions thereto. This involves traveling to another deck via elevator.

carillons
2013-07-12 04:57 pm (UTC)

Off she goes. She is good at following directions.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:14 pm (UTC)

The media room mostly has computers in it, although there are a few shelves with a few lonely-looking paper books, the titles all in the old oracular language no longer in common use on Samaria.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:15 pm (UTC)

Ariel heads straight for the books.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:16 pm (UTC)

They are old and fragile, but not dusty; something about the way air circulates in the ship prevents dust buildup.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:16 pm (UTC)

She examines them very very carefully, even though she can't read the writing.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:17 pm (UTC)

Alleluia sits sideways in a chair - none of the chairs in the ship are intended for angel use - and waits.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:18 pm (UTC)

"This is the oracle language, isn't it?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Yes. It's the same language the settlers spoke, it's just changed a lot in the last few hundred years," says Alleluia.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I want to learn it," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:19 pm (UTC)

"The long way, or with magic?" asks Alleluia.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:21 pm (UTC)

"If you would like to do it the long way I can help you, but of course your parents are the ones with the magic."
Edited 2013-07-12 17:21 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-12 05:21 pm (UTC)

She considers for a moment, then says, "The long way."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:23 pm (UTC)

Alleluia looks at the books available, then shakes her head at them and starts poking around on the computers until she finds an e-book of reasonable starting grade. The alphabet, at least, is roughly the same, even if the precise ways the letters are shaped has degraded over centuries of handwriting and no typing. She begins to go over the simpler words with Ariel.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:31 pm (UTC)

Ariel is attentive! Attentive and quiet.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:32 pm (UTC)

Alleluia is a pretty good teacher. She walks Ariel through the book, and then loads up another one and invites Ariel to sound out words.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:33 pm (UTC)

Which Ariel does.

She is a pretty good student.

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:34 pm (UTC)

Then they will make plenty of progress!

Eventually, Alleluia says, "It's been a while. It's probably about time I brought you home."

carillons
2013-07-12 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Ariel. "Thank you for showing me things."

alicornucopia
2013-07-12 05:37 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Alleluia, and she closes the file on the computer and teleports them back to Ariel's room.
Edited 2013-07-12 17:37 (UTC)

campanas
2013-07-12 05:38 pm (UTC)

There is a wee winged figure peering into Ariel's closet.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:39 pm (UTC)

"That's my stuff!" exclaims Ariel.

campanas
2013-07-12 05:40 pm (UTC)

Peninnah jumps. "Where'd you came from?" she squeaks. "I close the door." (She has a little problem with inept grammar.)

carillons
2013-07-12 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Where'd you come from?" scowls Ariel.

campanas
2013-07-12 05:42 pm (UTC)

"From out," says Peninnah.

"...I think I'll go look in on Isabella and see if she's free," murmurs Alleluia.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:43 pm (UTC)

Ariel folds her arms, wings rustling behind her.

"I don't want you in my room when I'm not here," she tells Peninnah.

campanas
2013-07-12 05:44 pm (UTC)

"But, you were not," says Pen reasonably.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you in my room when I'm not here!" she repeats. "I don't want you in my room right now either! Shoo!"

campanas
2013-07-12 05:45 pm (UTC)

"You are here!" complains Peninnah. "You are here and I are here."

carillons
2013-07-12 05:47 pm (UTC)

"You don't make any sense and this is my room and you should go away," says Ariel unhappily.

campanas
2013-07-12 05:47 pm (UTC)

Peninnah considers this, then wraps her wings around herself and sits on the floor and starts sniffling.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:49 pm (UTC)

Ariel goes into her water room and shuts the door.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 05:50 pm (UTC)

Isabella appears a minute later. "Pen, treasure, what are you doing in Ariel's room?"

campanas
2013-07-12 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Looking," says Peninnah. "And I close the door! And she come from some place! And she mad!"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 05:51 pm (UTC)

Isabella sighs, and rustling consistent with her picking up Peninnah and taking her out of the room can be heard.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:52 pm (UTC)

Ariel remains in her water room.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 05:53 pm (UTC)

[Would you like a lock for your door?] Isabella asks her, a couple of minutes later.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:54 pm (UTC)

[Y-yes,] she says, sniffle-ly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 05:55 pm (UTC)

[I'll come put it on for you.]

There is a polite knock at the door a moment later.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:56 pm (UTC)

Ariel appears after half a minute, rubbing her eyes and trailing the tips of her wings on the ground.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 05:57 pm (UTC)

Isabella conjures up a lock, and a key, which she gives to Ariel.

carillons
2013-07-12 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," she says, and she hugs her mommy.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 05:59 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome, treasure. Did she damage anything?"

carillons
2013-07-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

"I didn't look yet."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:00 pm (UTC)

"If she did, I will fix it."

carillons
2013-07-12 06:01 pm (UTC)

Ariel hugs her some more.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:03 pm (UTC)

Hugs. "I don't think she's focused too much on your having appeared suddenly, and I don't think she's mature enough to keep the secret, so she still doesn't know about - things."

carillons
2013-07-12 06:03 pm (UTC)

Hug; nod.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:06 pm (UTC)

Isabella pets her hair. "Did you have fun on your trip?"

carillons
2013-07-12 06:06 pm (UTC)

She nods again.

"Alleya taught me the oracle language some. I want to learn it more."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Do you want me to wish it for you, or do you like studying it?"

carillons
2013-07-12 06:09 pm (UTC)

"I like studying it."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Then Alleya's the best choice for helping you, since she learned it the long way around herself."

carillons
2013-07-12 06:11 pm (UTC)

She nods again.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry Pen upset you."

carillons
2013-07-12 06:19 pm (UTC)

"She didn't mean to," says Ariel. "But she did."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Eventually she'll understand to stay out; until then you have a lock."

carillons
2013-07-12 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Can I still have the lock after then?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but hopefully you won't need it."

carillons
2013-07-12 06:25 pm (UTC)

Ariel nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything else you need, treasure?"

carillons
2013-07-12 06:26 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-12 06:26 pm (UTC)

"All right." And out Isabella goes to continue discussing appropriate behavior with Peninnah.

per admirabilem ascensionem tuam

jovahs_heiress

Peninnah is now five, and her wingspan should be sufficient to carry her aloft; she's just having a little trouble with the necessary coordination. Isabella has worked with her, and so has Rinnah, but Peninnah is impatient and has given up on both of them in favor of asking Damaris for help, on the poorly articulated theory that Damaris, at age thirteen, is closer to Peninnah's own size and might make more sense.

carillons
2013-07-12 06:46 pm (UTC)

Damaris is happy to help! Or at least happy to try. Definitely happy to demonstrate proper takeoff technique.

campanas
2013-07-12 06:46 pm (UTC)

Peninnah watches her intently. She tries. She does not get off the ground. "I dunno what I do wrong!" she exclaims.

carillons
2013-07-12 06:48 pm (UTC)

"I dunno either!" says Damaris. "Lemme see."

campanas
2013-07-12 06:48 pm (UTC)

Peninnah tries it again.
Edited 2013-07-12 18:48 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-12 06:50 pm (UTC)

Damaris tries to get it wrong the same way.

She succeeds in not leaving the ground.

She tries it the right way again, circles, then lands.

campanas
2013-07-12 06:51 pm (UTC)

"What'd you do different?"

carillons
2013-07-12 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," she admits.

She tries again. Wrong way: no liftoff. Right way: liftoff!

campanas
2013-07-12 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Dars, I already know you can fly and not fly whenever," complains Peninnah.

carillons
2013-07-12 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm trying to figure out what the difference is!" she says. "You can try too, watch my wings!"

campanas
2013-07-12 06:58 pm (UTC)

Peninnah watches her sister's wings intently.

carillons
2013-07-12 06:59 pm (UTC)

There is a difference in how she uses them, when she's taking off and when she's staying on the ground. It's hard to describe, but it's there.

campanas
2013-07-12 06:59 pm (UTC)

Peninnah adjusts as best she can, and jogs and flaps. She gets a little lift, but doesn't get much of anywhere. This doesn't stop her from being excited about it.

carillons
2013-07-12 07:04 pm (UTC)

"See? You did it a little!" says Damaris. "Try again!"

campanas
2013-07-12 07:05 pm (UTC)

Peninnah tries, gets aloft, and completely fails to correct for no longer wanting to ascend; she starts spiraling up and up and up.

carillons
2013-07-12 07:06 pm (UTC)

Damaris chases after her to demonstrate gliding.

campanas
2013-07-12 07:09 pm (UTC)

Peninnah is initially very nervous about the concept of holding her wings still in order to accomplish anything in midair, but eventually she manages it, promptly loses too much altitude and has to flap wildly, and tries again to somewhat better effect.

carillons
2013-07-12 07:15 pm (UTC)

Damaris encourages her every flap of the way!

campanas
2013-07-12 07:16 pm (UTC)

Flap flap flap! Eventually Peninnah is making circles around the Eyrie. She even has updrafts figured out a little, from being carried in Mommy's arms.

Then:

"Dars, I dunno how to land."

carillons
2013-07-12 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Glide slowly down to a terrace," says Damaris. "Watch, I'll show you."

She demonstrates an easy, safe landing.

campanas
2013-07-12 07:20 pm (UTC)

Peninnah glides, and realizes at the last minute she's going to overshoot and crash into a wall, and brakes, and falls to the ground from four feet up and five away from the wall - she runs a few steps to keep her footing and smacks, mercifully hands-first, into said wall.

carillons
2013-07-12 07:21 pm (UTC)

"You did it!" says Damaris.

campanas
2013-07-12 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Kinda!" giggles Pen.

carillons
2013-07-12 07:22 pm (UTC)

"You can practice and get better!"

campanas
2013-07-12 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I can!" And Peninnah has two more false starts, successfully takes off, and begins trying swooping sorts of tricks that are a bit too advanced for her and having to correct her course a lot.

carillons
2013-07-12 07:25 pm (UTC)

Damaris takes off again, the better to keep an eye on her sister.

campanas
2013-07-12 07:25 pm (UTC)

Swoop! Swoop! Wheeeeeee!

carillons
2013-07-12 07:25 pm (UTC)

Wheee.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:29 pm (UTC)

Keziah has been flying for a while, but when she is twelve, it is time for her to go on her first intercession as soon as something suitable within her flying range is found.

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:30 pm (UTC)

Her older sister offers to take her along.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Keziah.

And in due time there is a request for cooling, just seventy-five miles northeast of the Eyrie. It's too hot up there.

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:33 pm (UTC)

Isabella's daughters to the rescue!

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:34 pm (UTC)

Two of them, anyway! Off they go. "Is this fun?" asks Keziah as they head out. "The whole thing. I know flying is fun and singing is fun."

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Flying is fun, singing is fun, grateful villagers feeding you pastries is fun," says Damaris.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:36 pm (UTC)

"You and your pastries," giggles Keziah.

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Pastries are nice!" she defends.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but what does it matter where we get them?" laughs Keziah. "If the cafeteria serves them or if the villagers give them out or if you conjure one?" (Both of them are now considered mature enough to have little strings of triangles and squares invisibly on their persons.)

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:40 pm (UTC)

"I just like making people happy, I guess."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:41 pm (UTC)

"I guess it's a better hobby than putting tacks on people's chairs."

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Ow," giggles Damaris.
Edited 2013-07-12 19:42 (UTC)

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, not an appropriate angelic calling," Keziah grins.

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Unless you know a lot of people who really like to sit on tacks."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't!" says Keziah. "...Do you think our lives will be a whole lot different, when everybody knows about things? Mom could fix all the weather everywhere for good, easy, she just doesn't because it'd be showy. Are we learning pointless stuff?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:50 pm (UTC)

"...A little bit pointless," says Damaris. "Not completely pointless. She might fix all the weather, but I don't think she's going to get rid of 'angels go places and fix things'. And it isn't pointless now - we're going to have to do it for years before she does anything like that."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:52 pm (UTC)

"You think it'll still be, 'angels go fix things', not just 'people who work for Mom go fix things'? Because - once everyone knows, anybody could fly, or even teleport, and be better at fixing stuff than we are now, and everyone will know angels are just genetically engineered."

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:57 pm (UTC)

"We'll see, I guess."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I guess we can go fix things, either way."

fortissima
2013-07-12 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:00 pm (UTC)

"And probably get pastries, even."

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:00 pm (UTC)

"I sure hope so!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:01 pm (UTC)

"That would be really sad, if we had to trade pastries for Mom otherwise optimizing the world!"

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:03 pm (UTC)

"It would! I would ask her to make there be pastries again."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:03 pm (UTC)

"And she would send an aaaaangel to fix your problem," laughs Keziah.

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:04 pm (UTC)

"But then," exclaims Damaris, "I would have to give them pastries!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Are you saying you won't share? Will I have to fight you to get some of my own pastries where we're going?" cackles Keziah.

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:06 pm (UTC)

"You can have all the pastries that are yours," says Damaris.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Who decides which ones are mine, huh?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Me."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Who died and made you captain of Jovah?" snorts Keziah.

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:12 pm (UTC)

Damaris giggles.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:15 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what Yseult and Céleste are doing right now, they don't have to go through the motions of being professional angels... I wonder how old they are now. And if they have little sisters by now."

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:17 pm (UTC)

"That's a weird thought," laughs Damaris. "I wonder if we'll be older than they are, when Jane comes back?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:19 pm (UTC)

"You were once!" says Keziah. "I mean, not exactly, but our mom was pregnant with you when Rose hadn't even decided to have Yseult."

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't think that counts," she says, giggling.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I guess not. I wonder if time ever goes backwards? Like, could they be younger than they were when we saw them?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't think that works," says Damaris. "Where would the time go? What would happen to the Yseult and Céleste who met us?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:23 pm (UTC)

"They'd happen later, I guess? And not mention that they saw us when we were younger?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Can you imagine them doing that? I can't."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe something bad would happen if they mentioned it. Maybe things wouldn't happen how they remember them, if they did?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:31 pm (UTC)

"You two were seven! Can you imagine acting perfectly like you'd never met somebody you already knew, when you were seven?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Nnnnno," acknowledges Keziah, laughing softly.

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:35 pm (UTC)

Damaris giggles.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Do you think there will be more of you by the time Jane is back? From one of the other worlds? Maybe me too, I guess it gets less and less likely for Ariel and Pen though, depends how many kids they have."

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Unless there's one family where we all come out in the wrong order, or something," laughs Damaris.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Do you think that could happen? All four of us backwards maybe, Pen oldest and you youngest? I don't think so, you're such a big sister."

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Weirder things have happened!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:45 pm (UTC)

"What weirder things?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Cousinoids. Cousinoids are weirder."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:48 pm (UTC)

"How are cousinoids weird? It would be really strange if - if Glass's kids and the Joker's kids were the same as us, because then they'd be the same as each other without any of the same parents!"

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:52 pm (UTC)

"It's not their not being us that's weird, it's their being at all," she says. "I mean - not that I want them to stop. It's just, I can wrap my head around alts, but alts of our parents getting together with people who aren't alts of our other parent and having kids that are almost kind of like our cousins or half-siblings or something... it's weird!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, Glass doesn't have one of Daddy," says Keziah reasonably.

fortissima
2013-07-12 08:57 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't make it less weird."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 08:58 pm (UTC)

"What if by the time Jane is back you and Yseult are both grown up and married? Do you think the people you marry will be alts?"
Edited 2013-07-12 21:02 (UTC)

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea. I have no idea how I could have an idea. I have no idea if I'm going to get married!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:05 pm (UTC)

"If you did get married what kind of person would you want to marry?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Somebody I got along with, I guess."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if by the time we grow up it will be allowed to marry other angels?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Why, are you looking at any?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Nooooo!"

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:12 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Well, what if I was?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Then you'd have to wait a while, I guess. Or arrange special dispensation."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Only if she liked me, though."

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:18 pm (UTC)

"There is that."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:19 pm (UTC)

Flap, flap.

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:20 pm (UTC)

Flap flap.

"Almost there!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, do you see it? I don't see it."

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Over there!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:23 pm (UTC)

Keziah requires a little more altitude and some squinting, but then she can see it. "Ooh. Cool. Wow, it is too warm around here, isn't it."

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:24 pm (UTC)

"That's what we're here for!"

And after a little more flying to get them over the right area, it is time to sing.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:25 pm (UTC)

Keziah has about an average angel's voice along all dimensions, except that she can sing ludicrously high notes with it.

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:26 pm (UTC)

Damaris is, as always, louder than your average angel.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:27 pm (UTC)

And lo, they are heard!

It begins to cool off quite nicely.

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:29 pm (UTC)

A job well done.

And will there be pastries?

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:29 pm (UTC)

Looks like in this town there are little cakes and caramel apples. Keziah is just as happy.

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:31 pm (UTC)

Ooh, caramel apples. Those might be even better than pastries.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:33 pm (UTC)

They are pretty swell!

Keziah has good stamina, and she's ready to head back to the Eyrie as soon as they've filled up and sung some pretty little songs for the townspeople.

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:34 pm (UTC)

That sounds like a fine plan to Damaris!

On the way home, she conjures another caramel apple.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Ha!" laughs Keziah. "Didn't they give you enough of those?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:35 pm (UTC)

Via brainphone on account of her mouth being full: [Evidently not!]

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:36 pm (UTC)

[You have such a sweet tooth.]

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:37 pm (UTC)

[Who, me? Never.]

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:38 pm (UTC)

[Yes, you!] Keziah sticks out her tongue at her sister.

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:39 pm (UTC)

Damaris does not return this gesture. Because her mouth is full of tasty caramel apple.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:39 pm (UTC)

[So that was an intercession. It was pretty neat.]

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:40 pm (UTC)

[Yep!]

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:41 pm (UTC)

[It would probably be cheating to just hover for a while and brainphone Jovah and tell him what to do. At least singing's fun.]

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:42 pm (UTC)

[It is!]

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:44 pm (UTC)

[Why do you suppose we got made angels? I mean, somebody has to control the weather, but there could be more ears to hear prayers from the ground - or more interfaces - or something. And instead there's angels.]

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:46 pm (UTC)

[Maybe Jovah knows. We could get Mom to find out.]

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:48 pm (UTC)

[We can ask him ourselves! Hey Jovah!]

[Yes,] says Jovah.

[Why did the settlers pick angels as a way to get the weather under control?]

[Your appearance is similar to some creatures that appeared in their religious mythology, and many of the settlers found the prospect appealing for themselves personally.]

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:48 pm (UTC)

Damaris laughs.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:49 pm (UTC)

Keziah beams.

campanas
2013-07-12 09:54 pm (UTC)

Peninnah meets them, when they land. "Did you intercession good?" she wants to know. "Is it weathering nice there now?"

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:56 pm (UTC)

"We did! It is!"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 09:57 pm (UTC)

"And we got cakes and caramel apples!" agrees Keziah, picking up Peninnah to toss her into the air and catch her again as she wafts down on braking wings. "It was fun. When you're a big girl you'll go too."

campanas
2013-07-12 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I'll be big and eat cake!" laughs Peninnah.

fortissima
2013-07-12 09:59 pm (UTC)

"A flawless plan."

campanas
2013-07-12 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Is a good plan," says Peninnah, fluttering happily.

fortissima
2013-07-12 10:04 pm (UTC)

Damaris grins at her.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:05 pm (UTC)

So does Keziah. Back into the Eyrie they go.

campanas
2013-07-12 10:11 pm (UTC)

Whee!

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:12 pm (UTC)

It is a couple of months later when Keziah can be found sort of moping in her room, lying on her front on her bed with a book open that she isn't reading.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:13 pm (UTC)

A knock on the door.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Come in?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:16 pm (UTC)

Her father steps inside and closes the door.

"What's got you glooming, my lovely?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Oh, just - stuff?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:18 pm (UTC)

He perches on the edge of her bed, out of the way of her wings.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:19 pm (UTC)

She squirms. "I dunno. Just - I have a crush on a person."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says Micaiah. "Everything is explained."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Really?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe not everything. A lot, anyway."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Oh. It's complicated," complains Keziah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm good at complicated," he assures her.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:31 pm (UTC)

"It's Junia."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Ahh," says Micaiah. "Yeah, that's complicated all right."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I told you!" Keziah puts a pillow over her head and groans.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:33 pm (UTC)

Micaiah pats the pillow gently.

"Does she know?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Nooooooo."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Do you want her to?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:35 pm (UTC)

"She'd think I was gross for one reason or the other or both!"

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Maybe so," Micaiah agrees. "Or maybe not."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 10:40 pm (UTC)

"But if she does that would be awful."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 10:41 pm (UTC)

"It would," he says. "Awful things happen sometimes."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:08 pm (UTC)

"And - and maybe she'd tell everybody, and everybody in the whole hold would also think I was gross."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:09 pm (UTC)

"There's plenty of people around who know you're the furthest thing from gross," he says. "Me. Your mother. Your sisters."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Keziah, "yeah, but - it would still be pretty bad if everybody else thought it."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he agrees. "Or even if only some of them did."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." She takes the pillow off her head and is somewhat more audible when she says, "So maybe I shouldn't tell her. I think I maybe like boys, and mortals, too."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:18 pm (UTC)

"It wouldn't ruin your whole life, though," he says. "If you did tell her, even if the rest of the hold did decide you were gross for a while. It might feel that way, but in a few years hardly anybody would care."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Years is a long time, and I'm scared."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I know," he says. "These things are scary. Want a hug?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." She sits up enough to hug him.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:24 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"I'm sorry it's all so complicated," he says. "Someday, no one will think it's gross for a girl to love a girl or an angel to love an angel."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Nobody at all?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Not any more than anybody thinks it's gross for me to love your mom."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Only when you get mushy," says Keziah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:36 pm (UTC)

He grins unrepentantly.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:36 pm (UTC)

She squirms. "I dunno what I wanna do."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Then maybe you just wanna think about it for a while," he suggests. "Until you figure it out."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," decides Keziah. "I think I'll do that."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan to me."

He hugs her again.

"Good luck."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, Daddy."

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-12 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Anytime, precious."

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:44 pm (UTC)

So Keziah doesn't say anything, and thinks, and doesn't get much of anywhere, and continues to be flusteredly friendly when she sees Junia at music lessons or in the cafeteria or around the Eyrie.

pythbox
2013-07-12 11:52 pm (UTC)

And then...

Junia is becoming increasingly unhappy and distracted.

One day, someone asks her if she wants to go down to Velora next week, and she blushes and ducks her head and says, "I will not be here."

"...What?"

"I am leaving the hold," says Junia, and she rushes off, golden wings fluttering.

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:53 pm (UTC)

Keziah doesn't finish her dessert; she runs after Junia. "Junia?"

pythbox
2013-07-12 11:54 pm (UTC)

Junia slows down slightly and looks awkwardly over her shoulder.

"Um, yes?"

inherpiety
2013-07-12 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Why are you leaving? Are you going to another hold?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:01 am (UTC)

"I am going - away," says Junia. "For. Reasons."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:02 am (UTC)

"Why though? Don't you like it here?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:02 am (UTC)

She bites her lip, slowing down further.

"Reasons," she repeats.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:03 am (UTC)

"If there's something wrong my mom can fix it! She can fix anything!"

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:06 am (UTC)

"She can't fix this," says Junia. "Nobody can fix this."

She shakes her head and starts walking faster again.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:06 am (UTC)

"My mom can! She can!" insists Keziah. "What is it? Or - or if you don't want to tell me you can just tell her, or my dad, they can fix it."

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:12 am (UTC)

"I do not know your mom!" exclaims Junia. "I do not know your dad! You do not know my problem! And I do not want to talk about it in the middle of the hall!"

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:14 am (UTC)

Keziah wilts. "Well - well we can go somewhere else - but she can," she says more softly.

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:16 am (UTC)

Junia comes to a halt and wraps her arms and her wings around herself.

"It would take a miracle."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:16 am (UTC)

"Mom's done those," Keziah points out swiftly.

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:28 am (UTC)

Junia looks somewhere between suspicious and hopeful.

"Can she? Again? On purpose?"

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:29 am (UTC)

"She can fix it," Keziah says firmly.

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:30 am (UTC)

"You do not even know what it is," says Junia, looking despairingly at the floor, "how do you know?"

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:31 am (UTC)

"Because my mom can do almost anything there is and the things she can't do aren't even things you know are things," says Keziah, folding her arms. "...Let's go talk in a music room."

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:34 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Junia.

She unwraps her wings.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:34 am (UTC)

To a music room.

Keziah shuts the door behind them.

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:37 am (UTC)

"I - I do not know how to explain," she says, wrapping her wings around herself again. "Something is wrong. Something is wrong and very soon everyone will know it is wrong and it will be very bad and I need to go away first."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:37 am (UTC)

"What's wrong?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:49 am (UTC)

"I am - I have - wrong things," she says, wringing her hands. "There is something about me, about my - " She hugs herself and shakes her head rapidly.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 12:50 am (UTC)

"Are you sick?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:59 am (UTC)

"Not... exactly," she says falteringly.

"I am afraid you will not like me if I tell you."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 01:00 am (UTC)

Well, that makes two of them with secrets.

"Did - did you do something? Mom can probably fix that too, just - I won't not like you, I like you, really," says Keziah.

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:05 am (UTC)

"I did not - I am not - I am going to - "

Junia starts crying.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 01:06 am (UTC)

Keziah pitches forward and hugs her on complete impulse.

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:08 am (UTC)

Junia clings.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 01:08 am (UTC)

"If you can't tell me can you tell my mom?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:09 am (UTC)

"I do n-not know," she sniffles.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 01:11 am (UTC)

"What would happen if you stayed?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:13 am (UTC)

"I w-would grow up," she says, "and I would not - I - I would not appear to be a girl any longer."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 01:15 am (UTC)

Keziah takes a moment to figure this out, but then she makes the necessary connections.

"Oh! Mom can fix that. We know somebody like that," she adds. "It'll be okay!"

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:23 am (UTC)

"...How?" she says plaintively.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 01:25 am (UTC)

"It's -" Kez starts, but then she says, "Maybe I'd better let her explain. Let me get her." She's about to brainphone when she decides she'd better actually leave the room. "I'll be right back - will you wait here?"
Edited 2013-07-13 01:25 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:25 am (UTC)

Junia nods.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 01:26 am (UTC)

"Okay. It's going to be okay!" Keziah assures her, and she hugs the other angel again and slips out of the room, closes the door, and runs to her mother's office.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 01:27 am (UTC)

Isabella, fortunately, is not doing anything time-critical, and at her daughter's hasty explanation of the problem comes to the music room in question.

She sits down. "Hello, Junia."

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:28 am (UTC)

Junia shrinks a little.

"Hello, Isabella," she murmurs.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 01:29 am (UTC)

"It's okay. There's nothing to be afraid of. Do you think it would be all right to include your mother in this conversation?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:31 am (UTC)

"...Why?" says Junia.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 01:31 am (UTC)

"Because I can fix it," says Isabella, "and perhaps she would find that surprising if it happened without warning."

pythbox
2013-07-13 01:33 am (UTC)

"...it would be all right," says Junia.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 03:39 am (UTC)

"Keziah, treasure, will you run and find Junia's mother, please? Their quarters are in the north section on the third level."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 03:40 am (UTC)

Keziah nods and dashes out again in search of Junia's mother.

pythbox
2013-07-13 12:48 pm (UTC)

While Keziah is looking, Junia continues to be sniffly and unhappy.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 03:44 pm (UTC)

Keziah is back a few minutes later with a slightly graying mortal woman in tow. "Here she is," she announces.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Isabella as Keziah closes the door. "In short - I can give Junia a body to match her self, but unless she wants to be as famous as Ithiel, I don't think this information should go any farther."

pythbox
2013-07-13 03:46 pm (UTC)

"I do not want to be famous!" says Junia.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Does anyone else know that you do not currently match?" asks Isabella. "Who would have to be asked to keep the secret - is it only those of us in this room?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 03:48 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

"It is just us."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 03:51 pm (UTC)

"All right then," says Isabella. And she clasps her hands and closes her eyes and makes a wish.

Nothing about Junia's appearance visible past her clothes changes - that would be conspicuous - but it may be felt regardless.

pythbox
2013-07-13 03:56 pm (UTC)

Junia frowns slightly, and stretches her wings, and adjusts her clothes.

And then she flings herself at Isabella and hugs her.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 03:57 pm (UTC)

Isabella smiles, and hugs her back.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 03:57 pm (UTC)

Keziah squirms and smiles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-13 03:57 pm (UTC)

"I don't understand," murmurs Junia's mother. "Everyone says that with Ithiel, you went up, you prayed."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I did those things," says Isabella, "but I didn't have to."

pythbox
2013-07-13 04:02 pm (UTC)

Junia detaches herself from Isabella and turns to hug Keziah instead.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 04:02 pm (UTC)

Keziah is perfectly thrilled!

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Jovah can do some things, but this isn't one of them. I used magic," explains Isabella.

Junia's mother is quietly shell-shocked by this pronouncement.

pythbox
2013-07-13 04:11 pm (UTC)

Junia lets go of Keziah and says, "I did not know that magic was a thing."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Most people don't. My family does, and the oracle Alleluia and her family, and a few of my friends. And now you. Eventually everyone will know, but I want to take it slowly."

pythbox
2013-07-13 04:14 pm (UTC)

Junia nods.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 04:15 pm (UTC)

"But if you ever need anything else, you can ask me, or my husband - or if it's something little, Keziah and her big sister Damaris can do a little bit of magic."

pythbox
2013-07-13 04:22 pm (UTC)

"How much is a little bit?" inquires Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 04:24 pm (UTC)

"I can do small things, and not too many at once before I have to go back to Mom or Dad to get more magic," says Keziah. "Uuuum, I fixed the window in the big choir room? Mark thought John did it and John thought Mark did it but it was really me."

pythbox
2013-07-13 04:28 pm (UTC)

"That is magic," Junia says thoughtfully.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Keziah. "My mom can fix anything, that's what I meant. So - so now you can stay."

pythbox
2013-07-13 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Junia. She blushes slightly. "I wonder what I will say to - to - I forget who I told that I was leaving."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Provided you didn't tell them why, it should be fairly simple to simply say that your plans changed."
Edited 2013-07-13 17:15 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-13 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I am not good at - saying. Things. To people," says Junia, wings drooping.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I can tell if you want," volunteers Keziah, "if anyone asks."

pythbox
2013-07-13 05:23 pm (UTC)

She nods hesitantly.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 05:25 pm (UTC)

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Do either of you have any more questions or need any more help right now?" asks Isabella.

pythbox
2013-07-13 05:26 pm (UTC)

Junia shakes her head.

alicornucopia
2013-07-13 05:27 pm (UTC)

Junia's mother also shakes her head, and she goes and hugs her daughter and sighs with relief into her hair.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-13 05:27 pm (UTC)

"All right then. Don't hesitate to let me know if something does come up."

And out Isabella goes.

pythbox
2013-07-13 05:29 pm (UTC)

Junia hugs her mother.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 05:30 pm (UTC)

Keziah shifts her weight awkwardly, then goes out after her own mother. Junia is not leaving and that means she has more time to be indecisive, right?

pythbox
2013-07-13 05:31 pm (UTC)

Junia does not, indeed, leave.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 05:39 pm (UTC)

It's about two weeks later when Keziah develops the courage to ask her:

"Sometime if you want maybe do you think we could do a harmonics, like together, whatever song you want except I have a really high range so not something alto-y but whatever song we both can sing is fine?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Junia, blinking at her.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay, um, what songs do you like?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I like many songs!" says Junia. "Do you have a favourite?"

inherpiety
2013-07-13 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Um, I like - the Coruscating Praises?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Junia. "We can sing those."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay! Um - when is a good time?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I do not know what times are free next week," she says. "Do you?"
Edited 2013-07-13 18:14 (UTC)

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:16 pm (UTC)

"...No. We could go look at the sign-up sheet though."

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Let us do that!" says Junia, smiling.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:18 pm (UTC)

And off they go! The sign-up sheet offers perennially unpopular early morning slots, and a few scattered middays and afternoons.

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I do not have any objection to mornings," says Junia. "Do you?"

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:24 pm (UTC)

"I can get up early as long as I know to go to bed earlier the night before," says Keziah, pointing at a sunrise slot the following morning.

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Junia. "We can sign up for sunrise tomorrow."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:30 pm (UTC)

Keziah writes their name and their song. "You know the alto part?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Yes I do," says Junia. "But it might be a good idea to practice."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

Music rooms are this way.

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:35 pm (UTC)

Junia does, indeed, know the alto part.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:35 pm (UTC)

Keziah knows the soprano part! She can even do it in the original octave.

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:37 pm (UTC)

Junia is impressed. She keeps smiling.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I think we sound pretty good. But, um, we could go through it again, if you want."

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I think I would like that!" says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:40 pm (UTC)

Keziah grins and starts over again.

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:41 pm (UTC)

Junia sings with her. Beamily.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:42 pm (UTC)

"You have a really pretty voice."

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!" says Junia. "Your range is amazing."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:54 pm (UTC)

"It's not big, it's just really really high," says Keziah. "But I like it."

pythbox
2013-07-13 06:55 pm (UTC)

"I like it too!" says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 06:57 pm (UTC)

Keziah blushes. "Thanks."

pythbox
2013-07-13 07:00 pm (UTC)

Junia smiles tentatively.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Um, we sound pretty good together, maybe we should practice something else and we can fill in more spots?"

pythbox
2013-07-13 08:15 pm (UTC)

"That would be nice!" says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-13 08:16 pm (UTC)

Keziah starts flipping through the discs of music. "Do you know this one?" she asks, putting out another soprano-alto duet.

pythbox
2013-07-13 08:17 pm (UTC)

"I do not know that one! But I can learn it."

inherpiety
2013-07-13 08:18 pm (UTC)

Keziah puts it on. She hums with parts of the soprano part, but she wants Junia to be able to learn the alto so she doesn't sing along.

pythbox
2013-07-13 08:19 pm (UTC)

Junia listens carefully!

inherpiety
2013-07-13 08:20 pm (UTC)

"How many times do you want to hear it before we sing along?" Keziah asks, when it's over.
Edited 2013-07-13 20:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-13 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Once more," she decides.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 12:37 am (UTC)

Keziah puts it on again and flutters her wings to the beat.

pythbox
2013-07-14 12:40 am (UTC)

Junia listens! Junia is a good listener.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 12:46 am (UTC)

And then Keziah starts it over, and sings soprano.

pythbox
2013-07-14 12:47 am (UTC)

Junia joins in, and pretty well, too.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 12:49 am (UTC)

Singing is fun! And Keziah doesn't have to think of what to say because there are lyrics!

pythbox
2013-07-14 12:49 am (UTC)

That is a tremendous advantage to singing, it is true!

inherpiety
2013-07-14 12:55 am (UTC)

Singing singing singing.

The next morning at a quarter to six Keziah goes looking for Junia.

pythbox
2013-07-14 01:03 am (UTC)

Junia is extremely findable!

inherpiety
2013-07-14 06:09 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Keziah. "We should go be ready to take over when Paul and Luke are done."

pythbox
2013-07-14 10:56 am (UTC)

"Okay!" says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 03:37 pm (UTC)

They go to the place where Paul and Luke are currently singing, and lurk in polite quietude at the edges, and then they're up.

Keziah counts them in, and they sing!

pythbox
2013-07-14 03:41 pm (UTC)

They do sound good together.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:09 pm (UTC)

Yay! Keziah has been imagining various possible disasters that could befall their attempt, but none of them happen. She's beaming when they're through and turn over the floor to a trio of mortals.

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:10 pm (UTC)

So is Junia!

"That was fun," she declares. "I have not done a harmonics session before but now I think I would like to do more of them."

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:11 pm (UTC)

"We can - I mean, you can sign up for as many as you want pretty much, as long as you have at least one person to go with you, and I'm usually free, if you want."

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Would you like to go and look at the schedule again?" she says brightly.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:14 pm (UTC)

Off they go!

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:14 pm (UTC)

There are more early slots, and scattered day slots, and one late at night two days in the future.

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Do you have a preference?" wonders Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:21 pm (UTC)

"More people will hear us if we sing during the day," muses Keziah. "Because more of them will be awake. Is that good or bad?"

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I think it is neutral," says Junia. "But it will be different from singing in the morning. So we should do it, to find out if it is better or not."

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Keziah writes them in for noon in three days.

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:24 pm (UTC)

Junia smiles.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:26 pm (UTC)

"We should practice more if we are going to do this a lot," ventures Keziah.

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:28 pm (UTC)

"That is a good plan," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Let's get breakfast and then we can go do that?"

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says happily.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:34 pm (UTC)

Breakfast! It is scones and sausage and spinach-y eggs.

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I like scones," Junia announces. "Scones are one of my favourite things."

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Scones are pretty good!" agrees Keziah. "What else do you like besides singing and scones?"

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Engineering," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Like - what Caleb does?"

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes! Like that," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:47 pm (UTC)

"My parents are friends with Caleb and Alleluia," says Keziah. "We go to Sinai, sometimes. They make neat things in the workshop."

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:48 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like fun," says Junia, a little wistfully.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I can ask if we can bring you next time!"

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:50 pm (UTC)

...Junia beams.

inherpiety
2013-07-14 04:52 pm (UTC)

Yay! Smiling Junia!

(Scone nom nom.)

"I don't know when we'll go next though."

pythbox
2013-07-14 04:53 pm (UTC)

"That is okay."

Nom nom scone.

the end of vigil

inherpiety

Keziah continues to routinely invite Junia to sing with her.

Today they are practicing the Third Angelic Rite.

And then - how rude! - the door to the music room opens.

But not to the hallway - and not to any visible hand - and there is a strong press of magical presence emanating from it, and a faint sheen of rainbow water droplets hanging in the air.

pythbox
2013-07-28 10:41 pm (UTC)

Junia lets out a very un-angelic squeak.

Then she turns and looks, and... tilts... her head... slowly... to one side, wearing a completely mystified expression.

"Keziah," she says, "is this a magic thing?"
Edited 2013-07-28 22:49 (UTC)

inherpiety
2013-07-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

"This is a magic thing - who's there? This is Junia, she knows about magic things," says Keziah in the direction of the door.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

Bells fade in; Shell Bell's aura fades out. "Hi, Keziah. It's us. Well, most of us."

self_composed
2013-07-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

"And Junia is apparently an alt of my college roommate. That's interesting."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I'm new, I'm Tab," says Tab. "Is your mom busy?"

inherpiety
2013-07-28 10:52 pm (UTC)

"She's with some people but you can still talk to her," says Keziah, "just don't go there."

pythbox
2013-07-28 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I am extremely confused," announces Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-28 10:53 pm (UTC)

"These are versions of my mom from other universes," explains Keziah. "They're all friends."

pythbox
2013-07-28 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I am not very much less confused," says Junia.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-28 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, I suppose we're hanging out until Angela can leave with us, so we can answer questions."

self_composed
2013-07-28 10:55 pm (UTC)

"There's an other-universe version of you too, in my world," Stella tells Junia, "only she's older, and not an angel because angels are mostly a here thing. Unless I'm wrong? Glass?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-28 10:56 pm (UTC)

"No, she looks templatey," agrees Glass, "if you recognize her you're probably not wrong."

pythbox
2013-07-28 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Who are you all? Where are you from? What does it mean for a place to be another universe? How did you get here? Why did you get here? Are you all named Isabella and does that confuse you as much as it does me?"

inherpiety
2013-07-28 10:59 pm (UTC)

"You couldn't bring Elspeth, guys?" Keziah says to the peal. "They're like my mom, but from other places," says Keziah. "They're from all different worlds with a bunch of names I can't remember. You can get to other universes with magic doors like the one they made, and there used to be another way that worked better but it broke. They're here to get my mom to do some thing with all of them, I guess. Most of them are named Isabella so they have nicknames and they call my mom Angela so they don't get confused."

luminous_regnant
2013-07-28 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Elspeth is occupied. Harley was in a bad spot."

pythbox
2013-07-28 11:02 pm (UTC)

"...I see," says Junia. "It is good to meet you, Isabella...s."

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-28 11:03 pm (UTC)

"We call ourselves Bells," supplies Shell Bell. "It's nice to meet you, too. Did anyone brainphone Angela? Are we waiting so we don't surprise her or something? Keziah, is your dad busy too?"

inherpiety
2013-07-28 11:04 pm (UTC)

"As far as I know he isn't," allows Keziah. "But we've been in here for a while." She flicks the music machine off.

incanted
2013-07-28 11:04 pm (UTC)

[Hey Micaiah,] says Aurora to everyone in the room plus Micaiah. [Will anything delicate be disrupted if we brainphone Angela right now?]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:07 pm (UTC)

[Depends what you mean by 'delicate'. Hi! It's been a while!]
Edited 2013-07-28 23:07 (UTC)

incanted
2013-07-28 11:09 pm (UTC)

[It has! If the brainphone's not public she probably has more trouble than some of us reacting to multiple conversations at the same time, is the thing.]

bellfounding
2013-07-28 11:09 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I carry on three or four conversations as a matter of course but people know what's going on if I suddenly frown or smile or whatever.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:11 pm (UTC)

[She's with the Jansai. Better leave it for now.]

beheld_beauty
2013-07-28 11:12 pm (UTC)

[All right. Please let us know when we can talk to her. After this we're going to see what happened to the welcoming committee. In the meantime, a new Bell has an alternate time-sync solution which she'd like to plug in if that's all right.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:13 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, go ahead. Hi, new Bell!]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 11:14 pm (UTC)

Tab winks up to the spaceship and plugs in the Kersible. [Hi to you too! I'm Tab.] And she's back with the others.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:15 pm (UTC)

[Cute name. What's your story?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 11:17 pm (UTC)

[I'm from this world that Harley accidentally Sueported to, that's how everybody found me was they were looking for him. I named it Gift. Harley did not have a nice time in it, unfortunately.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:18 pm (UTC)

[That's sad. What happened?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 11:19 pm (UTC)

[We've got an alt of Chelsea, and the world was already taken over with her as an instrumental part of it for hundreds of years before I was born, by the Gift Libby. He landed right smack dab in front of Chelsa.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:24 pm (UTC)

[Wow. Yeah. That's bad. Is - is he okay?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 11:25 pm (UTC)

[He didn't look great, but he's in Aurum again with Elspeth and he collected an adorable puffy creature from Chronicle to hold on the way.]

thaumobabble
2013-07-28 11:25 pm (UTC)

[A poof. My eldest has one,] supplies Glass.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:26 pm (UTC)

[Aww,] says Micaiah. [Okay.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 11:29 pm (UTC)

[He also kept Sueporting into increasingly inhospitable locations to get away from Chelsa, such as, lastly, the sun,] adds Tab, [but I have the impression he preferred it, so. Gift had a local Joker called Corona, too, but he's in Aurum at the moment.]

luminous_regnant
2013-07-28 11:30 pm (UTC)

[Currently his ongoing residence there hasn't been negotiated. Speaking of people in Aurum, I will talk to Nathaniel about coming back here after we've investigated the welcoming committee, but it's been almost sixteen years in Aurum and he might prefer to stay at this point.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:36 pm (UTC)

[How's he doing?]

luminous_regnant
2013-07-28 11:39 pm (UTC)

[He has been living an unremarkable life on an asteroid the Joker terraformed for him with the vampire who mated to him. He hasn't turned, at least so far.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:40 pm (UTC)

[Aww,] says Micaiah. [That's cute. Is he happy? I bet he's happy.]

luminous_regnant
2013-07-28 11:40 pm (UTC)

[He seems so, yes.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:41 pm (UTC)

[Good. I'm glad. My angel's out of her meeting now,] he adds, and conferences in Angela. [Hey guess who came to visit!]

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-28 11:42 pm (UTC)

[Oh! Hello, everyone! What's going on?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-28 11:43 pm (UTC)

[We're collecting all of us - except Sarion who desperately needs the alone time what with Aianon and Ansharil having got stranded - to go see what went wrong with the welcoming committee. And time-sync the worlds, which is now done for here.]

self_composed
2013-07-28 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Keziah's friend Junia is an alt of my college roommate Janine,] Stella adds.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-28 11:44 pm (UTC)

[I'll be along in just a second. Am I the last you're picking up?]

incanted
2013-07-28 11:44 pm (UTC)

[Yep. Oh, and new Bell here is Tab.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-28 11:44 pm (UTC)

[Nice to meet you.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-28 11:44 pm (UTC)

Angela appears.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:46 pm (UTC)

Micaiah appears too, and hugs his angel, because when would he ever not do that?

pythbox
2013-07-28 11:46 pm (UTC)

"There are a lot of people in this room," observes Junia, from a small corner of it.

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-28 11:47 pm (UTC)

"We'll be on our way soon. Micaiah, you coming along or staying behind?" asks Shell Bell, reaching for the door again and flaring her aura.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Good question," he says. "I think I'll stay."

He gives his angel a kiss.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-28 11:50 pm (UTC)

Kiss!

Angela also kisses Keziah's hair, and she follows her alts out of the world.

inherpiety
2013-07-28 11:51 pm (UTC)

"So, um, those are my mom's alts," says Keziah. "I have one too! At least one. Some of them could have had two children since the last time we saw them and then I would have more."

pythbox
2013-07-28 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I do not think I can concentrate on the Third Angelic Rite any longer," Junia says consideringly.

inherpiety
2013-07-28 11:53 pm (UTC)

"That's okay," says Keziah, laughing softly.

pythbox
2013-07-28 11:53 pm (UTC)

Junia smiles tentatively back.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:53 pm (UTC)

Micaiah grins.

inherpiety
2013-07-28 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Um, I can answer questions," Keziah adds, "Mom and Dad have been telling me about all those people half my life. Dad and Dars might remember them better than me though since she was older when we saw them last."

pythbox
2013-07-28 11:57 pm (UTC)

Junia glances at Micaiah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-28 11:57 pm (UTC)

"See you guys later," he says cheerfully, and off he trots.

inherpiety
2013-07-28 11:58 pm (UTC)

Keziah's wings flutter a little.

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:08 am (UTC)

"...I do not especially know where to start," says Junia, glancing sidelong at Keziah.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 12:13 am (UTC)

"...Once upon a time there was a mysterious door," says Keziah, turning pink as she recites a bedtime story she heard before she knew it was true. "It was supposed to lead to a hallway, but it did not. Instead, it led to a place in the center of everything, everywhere, that could touch doors so far away that no one from nearby knew they existed."

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:19 am (UTC)

...Junia grins at her.

"That is cute. That is very very cute. You are cute," she says. "Go on."

inherpiety
2013-07-29 12:21 am (UTC)

"It's just how my mom used to tell the story before she told me it was true," squirms Keziah, blushing fiercely. "Um, and then the protagonists of the story who later turned out to be Mom and Dad went through the door, and they met - Amariah first, she wasn't in the group you saw. And Amariah keeps her soul in a talking owl and she has a flying tree branch instead of wings and she can do magic - not the kind we have, a kind she gets for being a witch which is a thing in her world."

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:25 am (UTC)

"A flying tree branch?" says Junia, fascinated. "Does it fly because it is magic?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 12:31 am (UTC)

"Yeah. There's magic in a lot of worlds, and it all works different. Mom has - like - sort of two and a half kinds - two kinds that do a lot of things and one kind that only does one thing - or, no, there's also a magic language she knows but she doesn't use it much - and there are more that aren't as easy to share around."

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:32 am (UTC)

"What are all these kinds? Which is the one that does only one thing?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 12:37 am (UTC)

"The kind I use is called minting, and it makes little wish coins that you can spend on wishes," says Keziah. "I don't make them, I just get them from Mom and Dad. There's also enchanting. And she can make people immortal with the kind that only does one thing."

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:38 am (UTC)

"That sounds extremely useful," notes Junia. "How does it work?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 01:13 am (UTC)

"The immortaling one? I haven't tried it, but, I don't know, if I was out and I got struck by lightning - then I'd just - be okay instead of dead, it would reset me."

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:15 am (UTC)

"Wow," says Junia. "How does the making people like that work?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 01:20 am (UTC)

"There's a person in another world who can make people able to do that, and all the people who are my mom can."

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:35 am (UTC)

"All the people who are your mom," Junia repeats. "This is extremely strange, have I mentioned that recently?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 01:36 am (UTC)

"Yes," giggles Keziah.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:37 am (UTC)

Junia grins at her.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 01:39 am (UTC)

"They're Bells. Me and my alt decided to be Griffins - she has a pet one and I would too if magic wasn't secret. That was when we were seven, I don't know, maybe we'll think of something better now. Dars and her alt couldn't think of anything and the last time there was a Bell party Ariel and Pen were too little to go and there weren't more of them anyway. There might still not be. Depends how many Bells who have alts of my dad - those're called Jokers - have the right number of kids."

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:41 am (UTC)

"It's all so - bizarre," says Junia. "Why are there alts of different people? Are there alts of everyone's parents and their parents' parents and so on back along into forever? How did all these people meet each other despite not being exactly quite alike?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 01:43 am (UTC)

"All the Bells have the same parents. I don't think the grandparents match as close. I don't know why there are alts at all, though. I'm not sure what you mean by the last thing?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:49 am (UTC)

"Parents," says Junia. "You have a set of parents, and your parents each also have two parents, and so do theirs, and so on. And each of those pairs of people met somehow or other and decided to have children, with or without the intervention of the divine, but mostly without, on the whole. And for there to be another you, there has to be another of your mother, and another of your father, and another of each of their mothers and fathers - doesn't there? And how can all those people come together just the same even living in entirely different places and - and Isabella's an angel, but none of them were - why does this work so that people who are together in one universe tend to be together in all the rest?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 01:52 am (UTC)

"Oh, not all of them are," says Keziah, "some of the Bells are with other people and some of the Jokers aren't with Bells either. Also templates don't just work by parents, they only mostly do - there's a Joker who was made out of magic by some people and doesn't really have parents at all."
Edited 2013-07-29 01:53 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:56 am (UTC)

"...there is a Joker - that is a one of your father," says Junia, putting this together. "There is a Joker who was made out of magic by some people. There are worlds where people can make other people out of magic?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 01:57 am (UTC)

"Yes. A lot of worlds are really strange."

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:57 am (UTC)

"I am beginning to see that," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:00 am (UTC)

"The one who said she had one of you at home is not from the world with the talking animal souls or the one where people can be made out of magic, though," says Keziah. "Minting is from there and sometimes people have magic powers - supposedly I should have one of those by now, but if I do I don't know what - but nothing else that weird except for more technology and they don't live on one of this planet. Nobody lives on one of this planet but us, actually, it is not very popular."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:00 am (UTC)

"I wonder why that is," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:02 am (UTC)

"The most popular planet is this one called Earth. There's one in this world but no one lives on it anymore. The whole ancestors-had-a-lot-of-wars thing goes really far back."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:03 am (UTC)

"Goodness."

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah, except in other worlds they didn't have quite the same thing so there are still people on Earths in all the worlds that have Earths. And no angels, except there's a different kind of thing called angels that aren't like us much at all except sort of being shaped alike in the animal-souls world, and they aren't very nice."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:05 am (UTC)

"In what way are they not nice?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:08 am (UTC)

"Well, most of them worked for a god who wasn't very nice. The one of my mom from there had to make them stop doing what they were doing so she could save some people."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:09 am (UTC)

"...A god," Junia repeats.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:11 am (UTC)

"Ye-e-es."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:11 am (UTC)

"I am confused," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:13 am (UTC)

"- Um, there is a god there. And there's another world with a bunch of them but they aren't that good and one of them is bad. There aren't any most places though."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:13 am (UTC)

Junia looks at her.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:14 am (UTC)

"Um."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:15 am (UTC)

"You seem to be leaving things out," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I just didn't realize till now that I'd left this stuff out and now I'm trying to - figure out how to not leave it out."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:24 am (UTC)

"Take your time," she says, and waits.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:25 am (UTC)

"Our world, um, doesn't have gods in it."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:26 am (UTC)

"How does it not?" says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:27 am (UTC)

"It just - doesn't?" says Keziah. "Um, there is a thing that is Jovah that does weather and stuff, just - it's not a god thing, it's another kind of thing."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:28 am (UTC)

"What kind of a thing is it, then?" says Junia. She is confused, intrigued, focused, but not necessarily disbelieving.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:30 am (UTC)

"It's - Mom told me stories about the kind of thing when I was little so I would know what she was talking about later - it's called a spaceship? It's an - enclosed - giant - boat - thing - that goes in the sky, up where there's no air - you know how if you fly really high there's less air, if you go high enough there's none, and this is a kind of boat that can be there and move around there. And there's a machine on it, a smart machine that can hear and - make it rain and stuff."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:31 am (UTC)

"How do you know?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:32 am (UTC)

"Well, Mom told me, and I've seen it and talked to it - but it'll talk differently soon because now all the Bells are going to try to fix Jane and she's another machine but she's smarter than the spaceship and she sort of absorbed it and when she's working she talks through it instead of the voice it had before."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:33 am (UTC)

"I do not understand this well enough to believe it," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:34 am (UTC)

"I can't take you up there by myself because Mom isn't sure I won't teleport in front of people if she lets me be able to," says Keziah. "I don't know how else to explain it."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:41 am (UTC)

"Maybe I will wait for your mother, then," says Junia. "Will she be a very long time coming back?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:42 am (UTC)

"I don't know. It depends. Probably not all that long?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:42 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:43 am (UTC)

"Or Dad can do it too."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:44 am (UTC)

"Is your dad good at explaining? Or can he go to the... airless sky boat?"
Edited 2013-07-29 02:44 (UTC)

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:45 am (UTC)

"He can go to the spaceship, I mean. He's also kind of good at explaining though." [Dad, I'm trying to explain Jovah to Junia and I dunno how.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-29 02:46 am (UTC)

[Aha,] says Micaiah. [I'll be right there.]

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:47 am (UTC)

"He's on his way."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:47 am (UTC)

"Because of magic?" she guesses.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:48 am (UTC)

"Yeah, we can all talk to each other from far away. Mom will put you on the network too if you want."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:49 am (UTC)

"There seem to be a lot of things that only your mother can do."

inherpiety
2013-07-29 02:50 am (UTC)

"Dad can do them all, but mostly Mom does them," shrugs Keziah. "And the others of mom can do all the same things."
Edited 2013-07-29 02:50 (UTC)

at the door

she_sells_seashells

The Bells are assembled, except the ones missing into the unknown world.

Shell Bell opens her aura up as far as it will go. (Back in Atlantis, Neptune glows with the spillover, snuggled up to Tinia.)

She reaches for the door.

She gets Atlantis.

She tries again and gets Downside.

"It doesn't look like I can get it," she says softly. "It looks like they're stuck until -"

The door opens, again.

"Thank fucking everything," Aegis says, "hello. Aether, Celo - these are - everybody and then some."

"Tab," supplies Tab.

Meanwhile, Glass staggers in the direction of the bathroom. [THAT IS NOT A NICE WORLD.]

[We fucking KNOW,] says Aegis, [how broke is Jane?]

[Very broke,] says Juliet, [tried a tenner, didn't go.]

[I might be able to do something now you're here,] Stella says, [with aura.]

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:16 am (UTC)

"Wow there's a lot of you," says Celo. "I mean, I'd heard, but wow."

He steps through with the rest of them; Jellybean follows.

incanted
2013-07-29 12:18 am (UTC)

"I don't think nudity's allowed in the bar, do you want some clothes or should we just stash you in the Belltower or what?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-07-29 12:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah, something, we have run into too many naked people dooring around today," says Shell Bell.

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:24 am (UTC)

"Fuck you, I'm a nymph," Celo says mildly. "'Stash' isn't a word I necessarily like; define 'stash'."

"Can I just - fix this," says Jellybean, and Celo glances back at him and shrugs agreeably, and Jellybean snaps his fingers for effect, and Celo acquires an opt-out censor bar. Any observer can want it to be there or gone for them according to their preference, and Celo can tell who is seeing him censored and who is seeing him uncensored at any given time if he cares to find out.

"Better?" says Jellybean. "Fuck, I love being able to wish for things again."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 12:25 am (UTC)

[Is that door gone? Can I come out?] asks Glass plaintively.

incanted
2013-07-29 12:26 am (UTC)

"Nicely done," Aurora tells Jellybean. [Yeah, you're safe, Glass. It's that bad?]

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 12:27 am (UTC)

Glass pops back out, pale and trembly. "It's nauseating. You're well rid of it, whatever-your-nickname-is."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 12:28 am (UTC)

"I might want to evacuate my parents or something later, and it might be that Celo can't stay out forever," says Aether. "...Aether. I'm Aether."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-29 12:28 am (UTC)

"You won't have heard of me. I'm Tab, I'm new. I have a timesyncing alternative to Jane but apparently I don't want to get it anywhere near where you're from."

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:31 am (UTC)

"Wow, are you okay?" says Celo to Glass. "You look like you need a healer. Or maybe a hug."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 12:32 am (UTC)

"I need to never look directly at that world again, is all. I see - metacausality - and I'm astonished a Bell lived to adulthood in that."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 12:33 am (UTC)

"I would really like it if people would stop being surprised I wasn't suicidal. It's not like a relatively unambitious life is so awful as to be not worth living."

dark_light
2013-07-29 12:35 am (UTC)

"Sorry. Ugh. I want to go home. I want Jane fixed and then I want to go home. How long has it been?"

self_composed
2013-07-29 12:36 am (UTC)

"We didn't check your three worlds," says Stella, shaking her head. "Aegis, let's you and me see what we can do." She teleports the entire group out to the Belltower, and lets her aura loose.

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:37 am (UTC)

Celo looks around in fascination. Jellybean snuggles him affectionately.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 12:38 am (UTC)

Aegis - is present. And contains Jane.

mind_game
2013-07-29 12:39 am (UTC)

The Janepoint sloooowly reassembles itself. "Moooooom, what'd you doooo to me," she says plaintively. "And who's plugged in? There's somebody plugged into me."

autokinetic
2013-07-29 12:39 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-29 12:40 am (UTC)

"That's Kers. She's your time-sync backup now," says Tab, distributing the remaining Kersibles to the Bells who don't have them in their own worlds yet. "Hi. I'm Tab, I'm new."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 12:40 am (UTC)

"My sincerest apologies for my apparently nauseating world."

incanted
2013-07-29 12:41 am (UTC)

"I was thinking maybe Jane should have her own body. Maybe not a biological body. Devices are lower-maintenance and might interface better."

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 12:42 am (UTC)

"That sounds like a job for you, maybe Brilliance, and Aegis. I want to go home," says Cam, peering at the Kersible Tab gave him. "We can have a party later."

dark_light
2013-07-29 12:43 am (UTC)

"Seconded. Narrate the executive summary to Jane and she can send us emails about it," says Amariah, waving a hand, "I'm out."

And she teleports to the bar door.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-29 12:43 am (UTC)

"Hi, Jane, bye, Jane," says Tab.

Bells disperse.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 12:44 am (UTC)

Except Aegis and Aurora, both of whom want to contact their respective Jokers promptly but don't plan to go home.
Edited 2013-07-29 00:54 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 12:56 am (UTC)

"Want to go get auras and stuff in Chronicle?" Aether asks Celo. "I don't know if they'll help, but they're supposed to be generally - helpful."

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:58 am (UTC)

Jellybean heads home with Cam.

"Sure," says Celo, smiling crookedly.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 12:59 am (UTC)

"Jane?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 01:00 am (UTC)

"Yeahhhhh can do just give me a sec, that was some disorienting hardware failure and now I have a Chris attached to me, hello Kers nice to meet you I am Jane... okay, Glass's palace, coming up, oh it has a Jarvis in it now - here you go."

Yoink.

guessguess
2013-07-29 01:01 am (UTC)

Glass's youngest is near the Janepoint in the castle.

"You're naked," she giggles.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:03 am (UTC)

"I'm a nymph!" says Celo, grinning friendly-like. "We do that."

guessguess
2013-07-29 01:07 am (UTC)

"But you're totally naked," giggles Kiawen. Her piano bear is batting at her hair from his position on her shoulder.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:08 am (UTC)

"I didn't actually get a coin supply before everyone scattered or I'd have perfect recall by now, but you must be one of Glass's kids."

guessguess
2013-07-29 01:09 am (UTC)

"I'm Kiawen. Do you need to talk to Be- to Glass? She doesn't have all that many coins."

mind_game
2013-07-29 01:10 am (UTC)

"I'm awake, I'm awake," says Jane, "hang on, lemme ask around - okay, Pattern's gonna spot you a starter set - I'll just drop them over there - you can fish around for an evil and get your standards all in a batch and coinsorter them up."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:11 am (UTC)

"...Okay," says Aether, and she does indeed fish around in the resulting pile of assorted coins for an evil, tentatively wish for state-of-the-art Bell standards, blink, and slurp up the remaining heap into her sorter.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:12 am (UTC)

"What'd you get?" wonders Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:16 am (UTC)

"Teleporting, perfect recall, enchanting, invisibility - apparently the state of the art agony beam is updated from what the visitors told us about - flying - all kinds of stuff - I'm going to need to go Downside too to be able to torchable people, I guess, even if I can't get you. That magic language Jellybean was speaking, I have that now. Lots of stuff. And of course it'll all probably go haywire if I ever go home." She sighs and leans on Celo. "...So there's a Jarvis here? Hello, Jarvis, can you point me at someplace private me and Celo can go for aura-getting?"

poeticterms
2013-07-29 01:23 am (UTC)

"Certainly," says the local Jarvis. "Just out the door and down the hall to your left, then up the stairs, the first door on your right will be a guest room which you may occupy for whatever purpose you like."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:26 am (UTC)

Aether follows these instructions. "Thanks."

She flops onto the guest room bed.

"So apparently I just dump enchanting energy into the forest, and this will probably take a few hours," she tells Celo. "You wanna be my channel?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:36 am (UTC)

"I really do!" says Celo, flopping onto Aether and snuggling up.
Edited 2013-07-29 01:36 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:37 am (UTC)

You lemme know if you need a break or for me to tone it down. And she starts up.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:38 am (UTC)

"Ooh," he murmurs, wriggling. "I like it."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:40 am (UTC)

She nuzzles him. "Oh, good."

Pour pour pour.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:43 am (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmsnugglesnugglemmmmm.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:44 am (UTC)

Snuggle enchant snuggle enchant snuggle.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:49 am (UTC)

So many snuggles. Extremely snuggles.

"I love yooou," sighs Celo. "Fuck, this is incredible."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:53 am (UTC)

"I can go faster if you want," chuckles Aether.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:53 am (UTC)

"Ooooh yes please," he says, nuzzling her cheek affectionately.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:54 am (UTC)

Pouuuuuur.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:54 am (UTC)

"I love you," says Celo, and then he commences having a predictable reaction to all this gorgeous pain.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:55 am (UTC)

Bella flicks her Janegem off and says Can you shoo? to Jarvis.

And snuggles up.

poeticterms
2013-07-29 01:56 am (UTC)

I have not been watching that room since you entered it, says Jarvis.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:57 am (UTC)

Celo kisses her.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 01:57 am (UTC)

Good, thanks.

Kisses!

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:59 am (UTC)

All kindsa kisses.

Better watch it, says Celo, apparently losing control of an enchantment fucks you up good - you okay on that front?

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:01 am (UTC)

Can kiss you, dunno about anything more intense on my end. I am a subtle artist and have excellent mental control, she replies merrily.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:04 am (UTC)

Mmkay, I'll be over here getting intense, he says, continuing to kiss her. I love you. You're awesome.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:08 am (UTC)

Nuzzle nuzzle pour kiss.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:09 am (UTC)

Nuzzle nuzzle kiss mmmmmmmm.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:10 am (UTC)

Time passes. Lemme know if you need a break.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:11 am (UTC)

I really really don't, he hums, snuggling up.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:12 am (UTC)

Good, good.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:12 am (UTC)

Love you so much.

And soon there will be honey.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:15 am (UTC)

I cannot believe I forgot to mint you.

She does that.

It's a hex. He's not torchable and she can't torchable people anyway.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:19 am (UTC)

Mmkay, I'll figure out coins, gimme a sec—

It is somewhat more than a literal seconds, but he finishes doing the thing that is occupying him right now, and then (licking purplish honey from his fingers) he makes a coin.

It is a pentagon, and it is... purplish. It is, in fact, exactly the colour of this particular round of honey, down to the slightly smoky translucence and the way it glistens in the light.

Celo giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:20 am (UTC)

Aether giggles too. Cute.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:24 am (UTC)

"It's better than cute," he laughs, "it's wonderful, it's fucking amazing."

He makes another hexagon; this one shades into blue. The original is slowly reddening. Actual emitted honey doesn't do that, but apparently coins are different. Celo likes the effect.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:24 am (UTC)

They're pretty.

Pour. Pour. Pour.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:25 am (UTC)

"They are! I love 'em," he says, curling up closer and licking his fingers some more.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:26 am (UTC)

She steals a taste. (Delicious and nutritious.)

Poooooour.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:27 am (UTC)

Aww. Celo grins and kisses her.

"Want some more?" he offers.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:29 am (UTC)

Oh, but what about my appetite for dinner, she teases. (Kiss. Pour.)

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:30 am (UTC)

Kisskisskissmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I'm better than dinner, he assures her, and sets about making some more.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:31 am (UTC)

You are, it is true.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:32 am (UTC)

Celo giggles affectionately.

It doesn't take as long this time - only a few minutes. A few extremely nice minutes. This time it's amberish, a proper honey colour. It mixes oddly with the remnants of the purple.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:33 am (UTC)

Licking might be called for. It won't do to make a mess on these nice guest sheets. And licking isn't cognitively taxing enough to prevent her from continuing to pour-pour-pour.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:35 am (UTC)

Celo is all in favour of licking.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:36 am (UTC)

Oh, good.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:37 am (UTC)

Mmmmmmmmm.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:39 am (UTC)

And on they proceed.

Time passes.

Aether's aura is not one of the unflavored kinds.

It's a little subtler than Juliet's. She's not a hellgoddess. She's an unspecified form of - Power. She's something you don't want to cross, not because she is threatening, but on general principle.

In terms she used to describe her home world to her alts:

She's something big.

(She goes on pouring; she's not sure if she's done yet.)

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:40 am (UTC)

"Nice," says Celo, cuddling her some more. "My epic-level girlfriend."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:40 am (UTC)

"Is that what I'm getting?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:42 am (UTC)

"Yeah, you've got 'don't mess with this one' written all over you, it's hot," he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:43 am (UTC)

"Probably just makes you want to mess with me," she snorts.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:43 am (UTC)

"Depending on your definition of 'mess with'..." He grins.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:44 am (UTC)

She giggles. "When it's in at full strength. I'll compare with Glass, I guess."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:45 am (UTC)

"'Kay," says Celo, and he nestles close. He's feeling more snuggly now, not so much with the honey.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:46 am (UTC)

"She'll be able to tell what else it does, too." Snuggle. "I think I might be coming up on done, based on the estimates..."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:47 am (UTC)

"Wanna go check? Or give it a little more first? I'm good either way," he says, snuggling.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:49 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna check. Wanna come along?" She tapers off the channeling.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:50 am (UTC)

"Nah," he says, "you go, just don't be too too long with it, okay?" He grins. "I might get lonely."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:52 am (UTC)

"And that would be terrible." She nuzzles his throat and pops out of the room. "Hi, Glass. Hi - person."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 02:53 am (UTC)

"This is Tony. One of my wives. Nickname Iron," introduces Glass. "Tony, this one's Aether. Looks like your aura's all full up and -" Glass peers at it.

allthebrightest
2013-07-29 02:54 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Tony, waving.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:55 am (UTC)

"Hi," waves Aether. "Celo called me 'epic level', so I guess that's one thing?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 02:56 am (UTC)

"Yes and - and - I think - you can go home," says Glass. "I think this is - the opposite of the thing that is horrible about your world. I think you cancel it out, near yourself."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:56 am (UTC)

Aether bounces this to Celo.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:56 am (UTC)

...okay but like what does that mean, says Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:57 am (UTC)

"Can you be more specific?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 02:58 am (UTC)

"Your world is - anti-causal. Not all the time, but much more often than is healthy. Your aura won't let that happen within -" Glass squints. "A mile or line of sight whichever's farther. Even if you withdraw it. That's an always-on feature - well-behaved causality. It doesn't make you invincible, but - you can take actions and rely on their effects and nothing can cheat to stomp on you."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 02:58 am (UTC)

Bounce.

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:00 am (UTC)

That is pretty fucking helpful, says Celo. I want one.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:01 am (UTC)

You're not going to get the exact same thing probably, but you'll get something. "I can go home," she says slowly. "I can do my Belling at home."

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:04 am (UTC)

Yeah, but if that's how helpful they get, I want something that's that helpful to me, says Celo. I don't really give a fuck about causality the way you do, but I've got my own shit, you know?

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 03:05 am (UTC)

"Yep, you can! And I won't throw up again if I look at your world while I'm close enough to you. And it won't break Jane if you take a gem home as long as you keep it on or near you," says Glass.

mind_game
2013-07-29 03:05 am (UTC)

[That's nice to know.]

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:06 am (UTC)

Still bouncing everything.

Yeah, I get it. D'you want to call in one of your alts to channel for you?
Edited 2013-07-29 03:07 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:07 am (UTC)

That'd be awesome, he says cheerfully. Wanna come mess with me first?

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:08 am (UTC)

Sure do. "Thanks so much, Glass," she beams at her alt, "nice to meet you, Tony," and she pops back into the guest room.

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:09 am (UTC)

Where Celo proceeds to - mess with her.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:10 am (UTC)

Hurray!

She leaves her aura out. Why not?

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:10 am (UTC)

He loves her so much.

He tells her so, in every conceivable way.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:11 am (UTC)

Mmmmmm psychic powers are good to have. Celo is good to have. She has him. More than once.

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:12 am (UTC)

He is so there for that right now. Mmm.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:12 am (UTC)

Good, good.

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:14 am (UTC)

And eventually, when she has had him as many times as she wants, he can summon another Joker. Corona happens to volunteer.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 04:02 am (UTC)

Aether goes Downside to collect torchabling (it is on her checklist) and makes a Janegem with a chain that tucks under her hair and hangs on her forehead. It'll look like a psionic enhancer, hanging over the third eye location like that. She reminds Shell Bell that she should find Etty at her earliest convenience, though Glass remarks vaguely that the amount of time it takes to get around to visiting a place doesn't affect how much time will have passed there at the time one arrives, so there's not a particular hurry. She writes a Bellbook entry and learns about the history of the template. And when she has done all of these things, she checks in on her boyfriend's aura progress, since handling it through Corona's supposed to be particularly swift.

pythbox
2013-07-29 12:49 pm (UTC)

Come see, come see! he says delightedly.

Celo and Corona are snuggling; Corona has his aura turned on low, projecting warm snuggly contentment that makes the whole room a nicer place to be, and Celo...

Nymphs have a divine nature. They can express it if they choose, and glow with the gods' own light.

Celo is doing something very like that.

His aura says that he does not just have a divine nature; he is divine. There's a slight sunny glow rising from his skin, and a hint of his name in the air, the ripe-grain scent and impression of summer heat mingling pleasantly with the comfort/warmth of Corona's aura. And he loves Aether, and his aura tells her so; he literally radiates it, in a way similar but not identical to the way he used to glow divinely when he healed someone.

"My aura," says Celo, "took Mama Kh out of me and put me there instead." He takes a breath. "And I think I figured out how to get my field out of Materia."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:32 pm (UTC)

"You did? How?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Jokers do this thing - Sue does it, and Harley did it," he says, "we pick ourselves up and shift worlds. I'm gonna see if I can learn it. And if I can, my field's part of me—I can just pick it up and put it somewhere! I wanna talk to Sue and Harley about it, though, and it sounds like they're both busy. And I'm not sure where I'd put it, anyway. Maybe this world. This world's nice. Would that be okay by the locals, you think?"

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:39 pm (UTC)

"I can ask Glass for you. This world is definitely nice. I'm not sure how your field's magic would interact with the forest magic if you were inside this country, though, so Glass should maybe stare at you for a while first."

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:39 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine with Glass staring at me," Celo says cheerfully. Corona giggles and kisses him.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Should I call her in here or should we go to her?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Either one," shrugs Celo. "Might as well go to her, I guess."

"Now that the interdimensional thing is up and running again, I'm gonna go say hi to some more Jokers," says Corona. He gives Celo another kiss, and a snuggle, and wanders off in search of the local Janepoint while he thinks about who he wants to visit first.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Bye," says Aether to Corona, and she teleports herself (with Celo) back to Glass. "Hi, Glass. If Celo figures out how to transplant his garden can he put it here? Asking both on the subject of permission and magical compatibility."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 03:49 pm (UTC)

Glass sets about peering at Celo. "I'll have to consult Marianne about permission but I don't think she'd mind - there's the question of how, if at all, you want the place signposted or warded, since people here won't be familiar with nymph fields - and - There will be magical interaction between nymph stuff and the forest, but I think it will be friendly interaction, I don't expect it to do you any sort of harm."

pythbox
2013-07-29 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Cool," he says. "What can you tell me about my aura?"

His aura is currently informing her that he has friendly feelings towards her. And is a god.

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 03:54 pm (UTC)

"It says you're - at some point I should go starred into Alethia and look at some of the angels there for comparison, but I think it's claiming you're divine. Also friendly, at least to me. And if Aether didn't mention it, you're torchable now, do you want to be torchable? You're more - self-contained, now, than you were when I first saw you, you used to be attached to something that wasn't you and now you aren't. That perception power you have turned way down right now is more under your control now, I think, in convenient auraly fashion - aaaaand - did there used to be - things you couldn't touch without hurting them? I don't think that's a thing anymore, I think your divine energy is more about your preferences than categorizations of things as divine or not-divine or anti-divine now."
Edited 2013-07-29 16:06 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:10 pm (UTC)

"...That... makes a surprising amount of sense," says Celo, "and will come in handy if I ever need to heal a demonblood, I guess. Uh, I'll skip being torchable until I've moved my field, I think. And I might not want it even then - if it's just gonna make this body immortal, well, there's plenty of uses for a nymph corpse and I'll just pop out of my field again anyway."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Torching in general is more - absolute, than the respawning thing you do. I'd give torching good odds even against the nauseating anti-causality in Materia, I don't think the welcoming committee could have been permanently destroyed there no matter who they bothered - not that I'd advise trying it. Your field would be quite safe here, but if you do hope to be properly immortal that's a lot of time for small chances to add up, and Materia isn't Downsideable. It might make sense to consult the admin to see if there's a way to make your field torchable instead of your body."

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Good idea," says Celo. "Potentially. What's the admin like?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:16 pm (UTC)

"She's - locally omnipotent, kind of apathetic, willing to let us run her afterlife so she doesn't have to do it, quite amenable to requests."

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay, then sure," says Celo. "As long as she doesn't randomly decide to eat me."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I do not know her to have ever eaten people," says Glass.

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:21 pm (UTC)

"That's promising!" says Celo. "I mean, not that I've never been somebody's snack, but usually only when I'm having fun or getting paid or both."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:25 pm (UTC)

"I did not really need to hear that," says Glass pleasantly. "I'll ask Marianne about hosting your field, how about."

[Marianne, new Bell Aether has a Joker who is magically attached to a field. It's not normally transplantable, but he may be able to learn a template teleportation thing that would allow him to move it. Do you think it would be all right for him to put it in the forest?]

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:27 pm (UTC)

[...In what way is he magically attached to this field?] says Marianne. [How big is it?]

"You didn't?" says Celo, blinking.

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:29 pm (UTC)

"The only reason I'd need that information was if I was thinking of putting you in contact with someone who would eat you. How big is the field?"

[I haven't seen the field, so this is going off what I can see looking at his non-plant-part, but he is the field. If his body's killed, he'll appear in the field - like torching but he moves in the process and I think it's slower. If the field is destroyed so is he.]
Edited 2013-07-29 16:31 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Never mind," says Celo. "Uh, it's - kind of garden-sized, I don't know, I've never measured it. I could walk it out for you if we were outdoors, though."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Bigger or smaller than this room?" asks Glass.

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Bigger, or I'd just walk it out here," he says. "Like - if you start from this corner, it'd go out past that wall a ways, and out past that one a little less, and there'd be a house just about over there that's not part of it."

[Assuming his field is not significantly larger than the palace, I can find a place for it fairly easily,] says Marianne.
Edited 2013-07-29 16:40 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:41 pm (UTC)

[It sounds smaller than the palace. Do you want exact dimensions?]

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:43 pm (UTC)

[It would make finding a place for it much easier,] says Marianne.

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:43 pm (UTC)

Glass puts herself, Celo, and Aether out in a nice flat place for walking out the dimensions. "If you don't mind."

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:46 pm (UTC)

Celo closes his eyes and thinks, and then he paces the perimeter of a garden that is more or less rectangular and not all that much smaller than the palace, with a bite taken out of one corner where a small house apparently sits.

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:47 pm (UTC)

Glass composes a little diagram of it for Marianne, with dimensions attached, in the text brainphone feature.

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:50 pm (UTC)

[Thank you,] says Marianne. [I wonder if someone should upgrade the brainphone to do pictures? I'll look for somewhere nice to put it.]

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 04:51 pm (UTC)

[I'll bring it up after things have settled down a bit. Some of the worlds lost a lot of time and there might be other upgrades to propagate before we add anything like that.]

"Marianne is looking for a nice place to put your garden," Glass reports to Celo.
Edited 2013-07-29 16:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-29 04:52 pm (UTC)

"That's nice of her," says Celo. "I wonder if it'll come with the wall? I don't actually know."

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 07:06 pm (UTC)

"No idea. Sue doesn't register as magic when I look at him, except for stuff of known provenance like minting and aura. So whatever - moving around thing he does is not something I can help you with the details on."

pythbox
2013-07-29 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Not even to tell me if it really is all of us or not?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 07:09 pm (UTC)

"I might need to watch one of you actually doing it."

pythbox
2013-07-29 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Is Sue still busy?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-29 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Good question. Jane?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:27 pm (UTC)

[Sue's snuggling with Aegis in Peace, I can pass him a message if you like. And, hey, Aether, Amariah wants to talk to you.]

i'm not here

autokinetic

Unfortunately, when Sue comes back from Alethia, Peace is still empty of Aegis. Jane is still down.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:03 pm (UTC)

Figures.

Hell with it; he knows what he has to do.

Aegis's campaign for Hegemon has just barely crawled out of the domain of rumour when she vanishes. It's not too late to switch gears a little. So Sue does that.

He maintains absolute public ignorance of what the hell happened to Admiral Peace, and publicly grieves her absence. He continues to be the only person who can talk to the buggers; there's some exchange of language going on, but first he has to demonstrate what a language is and why they should care, and it's not an easy job. He doesn't explicitly point out that he could quit doing that anytime and leave the two species with a hell of a diplomacy problem, but the spectre of this threat hangs over him nonetheless, and he is okay with that.

Early on, one of his more prominent allies decides to provide one of his nastier rivals with some information on the sly that could lead to his assassination, if his assassination was a physically possible thing. Sue decides that he does not like this. His ex-ally is poisoned the next morning, with a substance that is nearly but not quite entirely undetectable. Sue calls for an investigation. It's the method they were planning to use on him, and while there isn't enough evidence to convict in an international court of law, the court of public opinion is another matter. His rival's reputation goes down in flames.

The media discovers that he has an unprecedented ability to make himself look good. Copious use of magic and his mutant power means that he's never caught off-guard by an unexpected question; he can spin any scandal, explain any policy. Everyone loves him, except a few vocal minorities - increasingly vocal, but increasingly minor - who hate him for some combination of being a mutant, negotiating peace with the buggers, changing his name to Sue Ivy War, and being unapologetically sixteen (seventeen eighteen nineteen) years old.

Three years after Aegis disappears, the previous Hegemon retires. An election is called. Admiral War beats the next candidate down by a twenty percent margin, and proceeds to show the world that he meant every single word he said in those three years about transparency, accountability, and making the universe a better place.
Edited 2013-07-29 18:06 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:07 pm (UTC)

Bird! Birdbirdbird

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:10 pm (UTC)

Shit! says Sue. Aegis, fuck, I missed you - are you okay, is Jane okay, where are you? I'll give you what I've been up to but it's kind of long, like four years long, I don't wanna hit you with it all at once.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:12 pm (UTC)

I'm fine! Jane's loopy but up, I'm apparently in a disused space station, I dunno, the door just went here - where are you, can I pop in? Four years, shit.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:13 pm (UTC)

Hold off, I'm in a press conference. Five more minutes and I'm all yours. I can catch you up in the meantime if you want, or you can tell me what happened to Jane; yours is probably shorter.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:16 pm (UTC)

New Bell has a shitty world that made Glass puke when she got a look at it - has a kind of anti-causal thing, it doesn't play fair basically, science - like, the concepts of induction and empiricism - do not work - fried Jane but good - we didn't dare make wishes or use half our magic, there was this weird lady - Picture of Callahan! - who seemed to know something but wouldn't tell us shit, eventually I found a door, we were only there a couple days but it was way long enough. Problem is her Joker's not portable, he's a field that doesn't transplant in addition to the part that looks like you. And goes around naked all the time, which amused Cam 'n Ama okay but I just missed you.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:18 pm (UTC)

I love you, says Sue, in full emotional depth. ...And you're still fifteen, wow, I might have some weird feelings about that?

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:19 pm (UTC)

You realize Rose and Aurora and Golden and Sarion rock waaaaay bigger age gaps, right?

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:20 pm (UTC)

Yeah, I think Sarion kinds of wins that contest, but I'm still gonna have weird feelings. You fifteen and me sixteen is okay; you fifteen and me twenty is - less okay than that.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:21 pm (UTC)

Dooooes that mean I do not get welcome-home kisses?

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:24 pm (UTC)

I'm definitely not going to dwell on the idea of welcome-home kisses while I'm talking to reporters, he says fondly. We can talk about it in a bit, okay?

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:25 pm (UTC)

Sure, bird.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:25 pm (UTC)

Love you.

That part hasn't changed at all.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:26 pm (UTC)

Love you too. And we're going to make Jane a body - a Devicey one like Brilliance's - to live in the Belltower nice and safe so this never happens again and I don't have to, like, be under house arrest for her protection.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:27 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Why did we not already do that? We should've already did that, says Sue.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:28 pm (UTC)

We should've, yeah. In fairness if we'd expected that shithole world we wouldn't've gone into it.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:37 pm (UTC)

Yeah, but it's always the thing you don't expect that bites you in the ass, he sighs. Anyway. Here's what I've been up to...

He gives her a condensed summary of three years of campaign and one year of being Hegemon. The existence of magic is now classified information; the circle of people in the know is small, but steadily expanding, and he freely makes use of coins to help things along wherever it wouldn't be obvious to anyone who doesn't know. He has long-term plans for dropping the secrecy eventually, any of a number of ways depending on how things go.

The Hegemony is not what he would have chosen to do with his life, but he is really, really good at it.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:38 pm (UTC)

Thanks, bird.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:44 pm (UTC)

I wasn't gonna just leave your campaign hanging, he says. Anyway. Now I can hand it off to you, but probably not in the next few years. And we'll have to cook up a story to explain your disappearance. If Jane's stable enough, though, we can unveil resurrection and maybe say you were dead - that'd be a good next step, I think, we could get that station you were talking about up and running. It'll hit pretty hard but I think people can take it. Bet it'll kick up the numbers in the colonization program; you think Earth's crowded now, wait'll it's full of dead people, right?

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:49 pm (UTC)

No kidding. If I'm being resurrected does that mean I should not magic myself to look nineteen so it looks like I've been aging the last four years?

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:53 pm (UTC)

...goooood question, says Sue. I would maybe have fewer weird feelings if you looked nineteen. Which is silly and shallow, but there it is.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:53 pm (UTC)

Silly shallow bird. I love you anyway.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:55 pm (UTC)

I love you too. See, the problem is, I don't actually want you to spend four years growing up without me but I want the results of you spending four years growing up without me. Whatever. I'll live with what I've got; I'm good at that.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:55 pm (UTC)

The best.

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:56 pm (UTC)

He laughs, entirely in their heads, and hugs her similarly.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:56 pm (UTC)

Mindhugs!

pythbox
2013-07-29 06:57 pm (UTC)

Mindhugs. The huggiest of mindhugs.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 06:58 pm (UTC)

Idly, Aegis looks in on the press conference with pastwatching, delayed by only a fraction of a second.

pythbox
2013-07-29 07:11 pm (UTC)

It's just wrapping up; Sue is concluding his response to a question about a proposed rewrite of the Hegemony constitution, reminding everyone that the date of the first international conference to discuss it is a month and a half away, and throwing one last charming smile at the cameras.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 07:12 pm (UTC)

I can seeeeee you. And I love you.

pythbox
2013-07-29 07:17 pm (UTC)

I love you too.

The conference is over. He announces that he's sorry but he has to go, and teleports Sue-style directly to Aegis. (The fact that he can teleport is widely known, and it's how he gets to and from most places he goes.)

Hug! Snuggly snuggly hug. "I missed you so much," he mumbles into her shoulder.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 07:18 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hug hug hug. "I missed you too. You wanna keep Aurora waiting or go embody Jane right now?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Ummm," he says, "can I keep Aurora waiting for like... thirty more seconds of snuggles?"

autokinetic
2013-07-29 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Yes." Snuggles. "Our thing we need to do is basically be there being the Virgin Mary and the Holy Ghost while Rainbow people export Jane - we're not sure if any of her is in you but it seems possible, right? - so we can snuggle then too."

pythbox
2013-07-29 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Sounds good to me."

Snuggle, snuggle, and snuggle.

"Where to? The Belltower?"
Edited 2013-07-29 19:22 (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-07-29 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Jane, you're all Kersibled here, right?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 07:23 pm (UTC)

[Yup, new roomie is plugged in. Yoink!]

And here is the Belltower.

pythbox
2013-07-29 07:27 pm (UTC)

Sue follows.

layered net conjuration!

incanted

[Hey Brilliance, the welcoming committee and the new Bell are basically okay and we're going to make Jane a Device body as soon as Aegis gets back with Sue, c'mere and help.]

[Agent Honey? You back in this world?]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 07:28 pm (UTC)

[I am! What is it?]

cardistry
2013-07-29 07:29 pm (UTC)

Brilliance teleports to Aurora.

incanted
2013-07-29 07:30 pm (UTC)

Aurora wraps up Brilliance in a hug. [Gonna make a Device body for Jane so Aegis can stop carrying her around everywhere, thought you might want to consult.]

cardistry
2013-07-29 07:31 pm (UTC)

Snuggle!

withmypowers
2013-07-29 07:32 pm (UTC)

[Interesting. I don't think anyone's made a Device to incorporate an existing consciousness before. Adularia and I will be happy to help - where should we go?]

incanted
2013-07-29 07:32 pm (UTC)

[My door came out in the rainbowsand village, can you find me here?]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 07:33 pm (UTC)

[Yes, I think so.]

She appears almost immediately.

incanted
2013-07-29 07:34 pm (UTC)

Into Milliways they go, and then from the door to the Belltower. "Aegis'll be back with Sue soon."

mind_game
2013-07-29 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Hiiii," says the Belltower speakers. "Pardon me for not producing a face, I am refactoring a couple yottabytes, I am scraaaaambled. I totally have a face picked out, though, people have seen it, I'm pretty."

cardistry
2013-07-29 07:37 pm (UTC)

"You are very pretty," Brilliance agrees.

mind_game
2013-07-29 07:38 pm (UTC)

"This body thing," Jane says, "kind of weirds me out, will I have to do anything with it or can I just stash it on the top floor and let it collect dust?"

incanted
2013-07-29 07:39 pm (UTC)

"The idea is that the Device will be very low-maintenance. I have the impression you want it human-looking, though? Since you have a face picked out?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 07:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to look like anyone besides my face," says Jane. "If it's more convenient to put me in a Janegem or something that's fine, I just don't want to look like a person and not like my face."

cardistry
2013-07-29 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Devices don't have, like, bodily needs," says Brilliance.

withmypowers
2013-07-29 07:49 pm (UTC)

"More complex ones do tend to have humanoid forms available, but they also all have object-type ones," says Agent Honey. "If we managed to put you in a Device, it could certainly spend all its time as a Janegem if you preferred."

mind_game
2013-07-29 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I mean, maybe I will like some things that can go on with bodies, if I try them, but I'm not impatient to give them a whirl or really expecting it even if I do."

cardistry
2013-07-29 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Food is awesome," says Brilliance. "So is sex, but I think that one might actually be less universal."

mind_game
2013-07-29 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Sue sent me a lot of stuff when I first talked to him and Aegis and it was informationally interesting, but not really compelling. Not that he had perfect recall or a particularly positive sexual history then, but none of the sensory stuff grabbed me at all. Are his transmissions low-fi or something?" She is apparently unscrambled enough to be a face now; she appears on the screen.
Edited 2013-07-29 19:56 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-07-29 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Beats me," shrugs Brilliance. "What's holding him up, anyway? Aegis went to get him, right?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Hang on, unscraaambling - oh, he's on TV, hiiiii Daaaaaad... Probably can't get away right now. This thing iiiiis scheduled to eeeend in - a minute - and - looks like him being able to teleport is common knowledge - and there's nothing else down on his schedule for a bit - so - after however long it takes him to reunite with Aegis I guess - he should be all set to come here."

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:02 pm (UTC)

Brilliance giggles.

"You're adorable."

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Hey, if you guys make me a body to be in does that mean I have extra sortaparents? That'd be weird."

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:07 pm (UTC)

Brilliance shrugs. "Up to you, I think."

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm not even supposed to talk to you," observes Jane, as though she is remembering something from very far away, "I might scare you."

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:09 pm (UTC)

"I think we can put that on hold until this thing's sorted out."

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:10 pm (UTC)

"'Kay." The image of her spins around, like she's twirling. "My clocks are all messed up agaaaaaaain. It was a really long time in Alethia! And Pattern's been using my residual programs a lot and now I gotta eat them all back up agaaaaain..."

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:10 pm (UTC)

Brilliance laughs.

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Gems gems gems - okay those are all all right even the ones that were in the land of breaking Jane - whee - and here come the parentals, yoink!"

autokinetic
2013-07-29 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says a parental.

pythbox
2013-07-29 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says another parental, hugging the first one.

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Yoooooou got older," Brilliance observes, looking at Sue.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 08:14 pm (UTC)

"It was four years there," says Aegis, nudging Sue in the ribs. "We're gonna have to work out how to have me publicly alive again and whether to make me look nineteen or not."

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:15 pm (UTC)

"Wow, okay," says Brilliance. He grins at Sue. "Looking good."

pythbox
2013-07-29 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes I am," says Sue, "but we're not here so you can hit on me, what's the plan? Is there a plan?"

incanted
2013-07-29 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance and maybe Agent Honey are the ones who know how to make Devices, I have not actually gotten to any books about it or anything. You guys are pretty much here so we can get at Jane to put her into one. I'm - spectating basically."

pythbox
2013-07-29 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Sounds good to me," shrugs Sue. He snuggles Aegis some more.

withmypowers
2013-07-29 08:19 pm (UTC)

"What exactly is our goal here?" says Agent Honey.

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:21 pm (UTC)

"I need to be not in Aegis - and Sue if I am at all in Sue, we don't know - and in something else," says Jane, "so the something else can stay here and not go to horrible Janebreaking worlds."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 08:31 pm (UTC)

"So that's not solely a matter of Device engineering," says Agent Honey.

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Nah, we'll have to wish it," says Brilliance. "But we should probably do the engineering first. Jane, any preferences about what your dormant form's gonna look like?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Like a Janegem. Except it doesn't need to be in a piece of jewelry, I guess."
Edited 2013-07-29 20:34 (UTC)

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Sure, okay," says Brilliance. "We can probably even install ansible links in it."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 08:37 pm (UTC)

Adularia shimmers.

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:38 pm (UTC)

"So - Device body that is Jane, humanoid form with that face, Janegem dormant form, compatible with ansible installations? What am I missing?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Should I have any add-ons like you do? Like your coinsorter? Am I going to be able to do Rainbow magic?"

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:41 pm (UTC)

"You're going to be - oh," says Brilliance. "Yeah, shit - complex Devices kind of need wielders, you probably don't want that. The whole point of this is that you should be tucked up safe in the Belltower, not running around doing magic with somebody."

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Why don't I want that? They don't have to run around with me doing magic, do they? Whoever it was, probably Aegis or maybe Glass since she was planning to turn into a mage anyway?"

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but - you don't want to need a wielder, right?" he says. "Like, that is not a thing you would include on purpose, if you were designing this?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I don't want to need anything," says Jane. "But needing a wielder sounds easier to handle than needing food and sleep and climate control, so being a complex Device might still be a better deal than being a biological."

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna try to wish it so you don't need a wielder," says Brilliance. "Because I don't know how that kind of need would work with you being the way you are, and I don't want it to fuck things up. Okay?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Why, is it that bad?"

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:57 pm (UTC)

"It's not bad," he says. "Not always. But I mean - that's me. I have my Aurora and we work the way we work. I think if you needed a wielder, having somebell link up to you and then never do magic with you might not cut it, and then it could get pretty bad, and I don't want that."

mind_game
2013-07-29 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll defer to your Devicive expertise."

cardistry
2013-07-29 08:59 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Cool. Agent Honey, Adularia, anything to add?"

withmypowers
2013-07-29 09:00 pm (UTC)

Matilda shakes her head.

cardistry
2013-07-29 09:04 pm (UTC)

Brilliance tries a hex, then a star.

The star goes, with all specifications included.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:12 pm (UTC)

And here is Jane.

She holds perfectly still for four seconds, then she takes a step, and then she lifts her arms and tilts her head. "Okay, I can operate this," she says.

cardistry
2013-07-29 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Awesome!" says Brilliance.

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you sure did move," says Sue.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Hi, parentals," Jane says, waving.

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Sue. "Can I hug you?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Jane.

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:15 pm (UTC)

Hug.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:17 pm (UTC)

Hug.

autokinetic
2013-07-29 09:18 pm (UTC)

Aegis takes a turn next. "I have given birth," she giggles.

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:18 pm (UTC)

Sue cracks up and hugs them both.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:19 pm (UTC)

When the hugging is all through, Jane turns into her gem form, floating at about eye-level.

"Can somebody torchable me and hit me with the standard wards and then I can go put myself on a shelf?"
Edited 2013-07-29 21:21 (UTC)

incanted
2013-07-29 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Torchabled. Warded."

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:23 pm (UTC)

Float float float. She disappears up the stairs. "Thanks guys!"

cardistry
2013-07-29 09:24 pm (UTC)

+No problem!+ says Brilliance.

syntropic

lifes_sake

Home again. [Tilly! We're back! How long were we out?]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 03:54 pm (UTC)

[Welcome back,] she says. [It hasn't quite been a year. Your parents are worried, but everything else is doing fine.]

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 03:55 pm (UTC)

[- Okay! It could've been worse! I will go smooth parental feathers, I guess. Thanks for holding down the fort.] He kisses Jellybean and teleports away.

withmypowers
2013-07-29 04:06 pm (UTC)

[No problem. It was interesting, but I wouldn't want to do it forever. Good luck with your parents.]

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 04:07 pm (UTC)

[Thanks.]

Cam is occupied for a couple hours, longer with Charlie than Renée because Charlie started with less background information. After that:

[So what happened while we were gone, anything interesting?]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 04:19 pm (UTC)

[Nothing exceptional. I ran the company. We've expanded in a few directions. Would you like to read the reports? I'm very proud of my reports.]

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 04:20 pm (UTC)

[I would love to read the reports.]
Edited 2013-07-29 16:22 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-07-29 04:24 pm (UTC)

[Come have a look, then. I'm at the office right now, catching up with Jellybean.]

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 04:25 pm (UTC)

Pop! "Hello in person."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 04:28 pm (UTC)

Matilda hugs him.

"Hello to you too! What happened on your end?"

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 04:30 pm (UTC)

"We went to meet the new Bell - her name's Aether - there'll be a party after everybody who's been cut off has had a nice long time to reunite with people - and her world has an irregular causality feature that made Glass throw up when she looked at it. It broke Jane but good. Aurora and Aegis are going to make Jane her own body so Aegis doesn't have to sit at home twiddling her thumbs to safeguard the interdimensional transit. It was only a few days for us, and that was more than enough - all kinds of things are dangerous there."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh, dear," says Matilda. "Well, at least you're all back now."

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Thank goodness."

mind_game
2013-07-29 04:38 pm (UTC)

[Heyyyy I am so awake and functional lookit me. Also there is a Rainbow Matilda calling herself Agent Honey. She exists. This has been an announcement.]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 04:42 pm (UTC)

Matilda giggles.

[Ooh, I should meet her. Are you up and running in Wellspring? Has Agent Honey already met that one?]

mind_game
2013-07-29 04:43 pm (UTC)

[I am up in all of the places! Agent Honey has met Matilda and acquired Wellspring magic! Yep.]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 04:44 pm (UTC)

[You're so cute,] giggles Matilda.

mind_game
2013-07-29 04:44 pm (UTC)

[I am recovering from the Jane equivalent of a head injury. Also I am in a body now.]
Edited 2013-07-29 21:29 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-07-29 09:33 pm (UTC)

[Congratulations, if those are in order. I'd like to meet Agent Honey if you don't mind.]

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:34 pm (UTC)

[You want me to put you there or put her here or relay messages or what?]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 09:35 pm (UTC)

[I'd rather she came here, but I can go there if that's her preference.]

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:37 pm (UTC)

[Hey Agent Honey! Tilly wants you to visit Syntropy!]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 09:38 pm (UTC)

[That sounds fine to me,] says Agent Honey. She transports herself to somewhere convenient for Jane to pick her up from.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:44 pm (UTC)

Yoink.

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Agent Honey, nice to meet you."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you too," says Agent Honey, smiling. "Will anyone relevant mind terribly if I ask for the Wellspring Matilda to be brought in too? Adularia," she taps her vaguely book-shaped moonstone pendant, "wants to talk to all of us."

"Ooh," says Tilly. "That sounds interesting."

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't mind," shrugs Cam.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:48 pm (UTC)

[Matiiiiiilda. I am alive again. Also Agent Honey and Tilly invite you to Syntropy to talk to Adularia.]

withmypowers
2013-07-29 09:51 pm (UTC)

[I'd be delighted! Congratulations on your aliveness,] says Matilda, and she appears in front of the Wellspring Janepoint.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:52 pm (UTC)

Yoink.

withmypowers
2013-07-29 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Tilly.

"Hi and hi," says Matilda. "And hi."

"So the thing Adularia was thinking," says Agent Honey, "is that she might like to partner with you both. If she can successfully split herself into three Devices linked by ansible connections."

"Ooh," say the other two Matildas, with perfect simultaneity.

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 09:59 pm (UTC)

Cam laughs when the Matildas speak in sync.

withmypowers
2013-07-29 10:07 pm (UTC)

"I thought you might say that," says Agent Honey.

"Can we do it, though?" says Tilly.

"We can try," says Matilda. "Whose magic?"

"Wish is cleanest," says Tilly. "Let's try that first. And as the local expert—"

She makes an over-to-you gesture to Agent Honey, who smiles.

"Try both-at-once first, then one at a time, going up sizes from pentagon," Tilly advises. "And definitely include the ansible installation."

A moonstone pendant appears around Tilly's neck, then around Matilda's.

"Two hexes," Agent Honey reports.

"Four," says Tilly, "now that I've maged us."

The Matildas share a grin.

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Congratulations."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 10:18 pm (UTC)

"We like magic," says Matilda, grinning.

"We like it a lot," says Tilly.

"And now we've all traded kinds," says Agent Honey.

"Except mine, which doesn't trade as usefully," says Tilly. "But I might as well hand it over anyway."

"The universal language? Limited applicability, especially now that we all have Devices," says Agent Honey. "But go for it."

Tilly nods.

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Maybe eventually I'll figure out what's up with the Powers and Ordeals and fix it up a bit, and then it'll be a worthwhile project to figure out how to wizard adults. There was a person in Materia who went in for deicide, it could be highly entertaining to throw her at Iggy," muses Cam, "if the world weren't a biohazard."

mind_game
2013-07-29 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Biohazard? But anyway Aether's new aura fixes that," chirps Jane. "Near her, anyway."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Refresh my memory - Iggy?" says Agent Honey.

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Local evil deity, sends nastiness after newly oathed wizards," says Cam. "He is not actually named Iggy, that's just how he introduced himself to me when he was pretending to be a talking rock."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 10:27 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Agent Honey. "That does sound unpleasant. Can we do something about him?"

"Nothing immediately obvious," says Tilly. "But you never know."

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Don't understand enough about how he works," Cam says. "He has either confused motivations, intensely variable competence, or some kind of agenda beyond my comprehension - his pattern of behavior doesn't make sense if he's trying to achieve some result, has as much power as it sometimes looks like he has, and works, psychologically, like all the other kinds of people we've met."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 10:37 pm (UTC)

"I do think he has limitations that aren't apparent to us," says Tilly, "but whether they're psychological or practical I'm really not sure."

"Hmm," says Matilda. "Something to think about."

The Matildas share a smile.
Edited 2013-07-29 22:38 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 11:02 pm (UTC)

"The fact that this world isn't Downsideable has me nervous about making a move, in case he gets backed into a corner - or some alien-psychology equivalent - and kills a bunch of people I can't get back," Cam says. "He hasn't been making an unusual amount of nuisance of himself so far even though he considered me threatening enough back when I was newly wizardy to try to strike a deal with me."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I haven't been able to acquire any good detail about this world's afterlife," says Tilly, "but I'm pretty sure at this point that it has some kind of a one."

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 11:10 pm (UTC)

"That does appear to be the way things are not-Downsideable, based on a sample size of one that isn't this one."

mind_game
2013-07-29 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Two. Aether has the same problem, although she knows more about her afterlife than you do."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Tilly. "Should we investigate that more, I wonder? Do we know if resurrection works on locals? Is it safe to experiment?"

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Before the Downside glitch was fixed that caused forking," says Cam, "and there are certainly worse-case scenarios - I'm not sure the set of people I want to resurrect and the set of people you could talk me into experimenting on even intersect."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Then I think," says Matilda, "you should probably find out what your afterlife is like."

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Tackling afterlives is a peal job, though, and I think everybody wants a settling period - well, enough of us do, anyway - that peal parties, let alone peal projects, are gonna have to sit for a few weeks."

withmypowers
2013-07-29 11:58 pm (UTC)

"It can go on the to-do list," says Tilly. Her Adularia shimmers; she pauses, then smiles.

lifes_sake
2013-07-29 11:58 pm (UTC)

Cam laughs. "Welcome to the magic book club."
Edited 2013-07-30 00:00 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-07-30 12:01 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Agent Honey, "I've been told you're in a similar situation to me and Adularia, but I didn't get details."

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 12:03 am (UTC)

Cam reaches into his backpack and takes out Grace. "This is mine." She turns into a hawk, on his shoulder, in a cascade of gold, and starts preening Cam's hair. "She's not very talkative with people other than me though."

withmypowers
2013-07-30 12:20 am (UTC)

"Neither is Adularia," say all three Matildas in chorus.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 12:21 am (UTC)

"Have you," Cam says, "become a hive mind?"

withmypowers
2013-07-30 12:22 am (UTC)

"We have not!" says Matilda.

"We're just extremely similar," says Tilly.

"And sometimes the thing to say is just that obvious," says Agent Honey.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 12:24 am (UTC)

"Well, Grace is a daemon, like Pathalan or Neptune, although they're both chattier - I think the part where she was a notebook who could not in fact talk to anyone other than me affected Grace some." He pets her feathers.
Edited 2013-07-30 00:25 (UTC)

withmypowers
2013-07-30 12:18 pm (UTC)

"Adularia just doesn't like talking to anyone other than - us," says Agent Honey. "And occasionally another Device."

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Apparently most daemons that aren't chatty with people will talk to other daemons, but Grace doesn't even like to do that - I suppose she might if I desperately needed to talk to a daemon who wouldn't talk directly to me, if I was hanging out on Alethia."

Grace turns back into a notebook; he tucks her into his backpack again.

withmypowers
2013-07-30 03:34 pm (UTC)

The Adularias shimmer.

"It's not impossible," says a new soft female voice that presumably belongs to them. "I just don't prefer it."

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Understood. No need to put yourself out on my account," says Cam. "It is, however, nice to meet you; welcome to Syntropy, and I appreciate the incidental triple- backup syncing."

withmypowers
2013-07-30 03:50 pm (UTC)

The Matildas grin.

"You're welcome," says Adularia serenely.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Or double in Wellspring's case, our new syncing solution is spread a little thin and only a majority of Belled worlds have instances," Cam allows. "How long has it been in Wellspring?"

withmypowers
2013-07-30 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Not very long," says Matilda. "And the lack of contact doesn't affect me very much one way or the other. But it'll be nice to have my alts in reach."

Her Adularia shimmers.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Expect so, yeah."

withmypowers
2013-07-30 04:16 pm (UTC)

"And there's that other project," says Matilda.

"Other project?" says Tilly.

"The Sunshine worlds have a - corrupted version of the Wellspring magical system," says Matilda. "It should be possible to uncorrupt it somewhat, if we get enough high-entanglement magic users spreading positive patterns."

"Ooooh," says Tilly.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 04:17 pm (UTC)

"That would be nice. Glass does not approve of those worlds at all. Although not as much as she does-not-approve of Materia, which has a whole separate issue."

withmypowers
2013-07-30 04:24 pm (UTC)

"What is the issue with Materia?" asks Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Anti-causality. Regularities of the place stop working if you look too hard or they feel like it."

withmypowers
2013-07-30 05:40 pm (UTC)

"That sounds irritating," says Agent Honey.

"I wonder if we can do something about that," says Matilda.

"Are there plans to do something about that?" says Tilly.

mind_game
2013-07-30 05:41 pm (UTC)

[Aether's new aura will fix it within a limited radius,] reports Jane. [Systematic fixes aren't in the works as far as I know.]

withmypowers
2013-07-30 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Matilda. "After the Sunshine project, maybe. Or let us know if the Bells get there first."

Her alts both nod.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

"The Sunshine project might keep you occupied for a while if you're going to do them all. We might even find more, since they're so populous."

withmypowers
2013-07-30 05:53 pm (UTC)

"That's all right. We have plenty of time," says Matilda.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I approve of this attitude."

withmypowers
2013-07-30 05:55 pm (UTC)

Tilly laughs and hugs him.

lifes_sake
2013-07-30 05:56 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

withmypowers
2013-07-30 05:58 pm (UTC)

Yes. Those.

sicut erat in principio, et nunc

jovahs_heiress

[I'm back,] Isabella tells her husband and children, [and so is Jane.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-07-29 08:22 pm (UTC)

[Junia needs Jovah explained to her,] says Micaiah, [I was on my way there but something came up - do you think you could do it?]

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-29 08:32 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

Pop. "Hello again, Junia."

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Um. Hello," says Junia. "I am confused about Jovah."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-29 09:27 pm (UTC)

"What about him?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:32 pm (UTC)

"The part where Keziah says he is a flying boat, mainly," says Junia.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-29 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Would you like to see it?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:34 pm (UTC)

"I think that would definitely help."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-29 09:35 pm (UTC)

Isabella nods and teleports all three of them to the spaceship.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Hi! Usually you would be greeted in the ship's original voice but I am awaaaaaake again!" says Jane. "And moved back in. Nice and cozy. Hello, Junia-daughter-of-an-unspecified-angel-and-the-mortal-woman-Anna!"
Edited 2013-07-29 21:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Hello, sky boat goddess," says Junia, blinking. "How do you work?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes not very well! But I have been fixed. Iiii am an instantaneous network of computers from several dozen worlds. I have moved into the software that runs this spaceship. It used to talk," she switches voices, "like this," she switches back, "but I like my voice better."

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I like your voice better too," Junia decides. "I want to learn all about spaceships."

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:48 pm (UTC)

"That," says Jane, "is a whole lotta stuff, even if you only mean spaceships from this world and not the kinds in other worlds."

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:50 pm (UTC)

"That is okay," says Junia. "I am patient."

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm also not necessarily a good teacher. I know lots of stuff, but not good ways to put it in order, and aaaaaall of the textbooks I have anywhere on spaceships assume heaps of education that you do not have."

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Then who can I learn from?" says Junia.

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I dunno. I mean, you can read the textbooks, I'll even translate them for you, you'll just have to be kind of self-directed and know what questions to ask yourself."
Edited 2013-07-29 21:59 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Are there textbooks for the things I am supposed to know before I read the other textbooks?" she inquires.

mind_game
2013-07-29 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Some of them. I can knock together a spaceship-aiming curriculum from Peace; I have patchier history-of-education from here, the settlers didn't keep everything, so it won't translate fully to this ship, but it'd be better than nothing."

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Then I would like the one from Peace, please," says Junia.

mind_game
2013-07-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I called up some intro science stuff on one of the terminals in the ship library."

inherpiety
2013-07-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

"You'd have to be up here a lot to study this sort of thing much," Keziah says.

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Would that be okay?" says Junia, wings fluttering slightly.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-29 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Yes, as long as no one is looking for you down on the ground I can take you up here sometimes."

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Then I would like to do that," says Junia.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-29 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Would you like to stay up here for a while now?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Yes, please," says Junia.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-29 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Keziah, are you staying or going?"

inherpiety
2013-07-29 11:00 pm (UTC)

"...Do you want company, Junia?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I might become terribly boring," she says, with a shy smile.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I can always ask Mom to bring me back down. Or the ship can actually do it too, just to Mount Sinai - it used to be really unpleasant but Mom fixed it so it's not."
Edited 2013-07-29 23:03 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-29 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Then okay," says Junia. "You can stay if you want."

inherpiety
2013-07-29 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Bye, Mom."

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-29 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I'll see you later, Keziah, Junia."
Edited 2013-07-29 23:06 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-07-29 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Also now I am awake again I can put you places other than Mount Sinai, although admittedly not that many of them," says Jane, "in this world - more of them in others. But," she adds, "I would want Angela's permission first."

pythbox
2013-07-29 11:09 pm (UTC)

Junia nods.

"Which way to the books, please?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 11:10 pm (UTC)

Jane supplies directions.

pythbox
2013-07-29 11:11 pm (UTC)

Junia goes to the books.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 11:13 pm (UTC)

The textbooks Jane has called up for her are on a computer, not on paper. She has translated them into slightly clunky Samarian with lots of terms clickable for definitions. Keziah, who has used an interface before if not enough to be an expert, shows her how to operate it.

pythbox
2013-07-29 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!" says Junia. "Ooh. This is fascinating."

She looks up things, and then she looks up more things, and then she looks up things that the more things suggest she should look up—

And she practically glows with happiness.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 11:21 pm (UTC)

Keziah -

Sits over there. And watches her a bit, and goes on another computer and pokes around for things to do. She finds a shape-matching game that does not distract her attention that much from Practically Glowy Junia.

pythbox
2013-07-29 11:25 pm (UTC)

Junia learns.

inherpiety
2013-07-29 11:27 pm (UTC)

Companionable computing. La la la.

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:15 am (UTC)

It is fun!

"I am glad I am not boring you," Junia says without looking away from her screen, some time later.

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm just - doing - things," says Keziah. She has abandoned her game and is now playing a different one that involves solving algebra-like problems, albeit under so many bells and whistles that it's hard to tell.

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:17 am (UTC)

"I can see that you are doing things," says Junia. "Although I cannot quite tell what things they are."

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:18 am (UTC)

"Oh, there are a lot of game things on these computers," says Keziah. "Pen likes them especially, but I like them too."

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:19 am (UTC)

"That sounds interesting," says Junia. She goes over to where Keziah is playing.

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:20 am (UTC)

"Yeah - see, the idea is to make them balance, or overbalance if this symbol were different - and I stack things, but it has to be according to rules that depend on the things I'm stacking."

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:21 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Junia. "I want to try!"

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:23 am (UTC)

"Okay, but I'm on level four, you want to start at the beginning - there's one of these on your computer if you want to start your own game -" Keziah reaches over and minimizes the textbook and pulls up the algebra game.

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:23 am (UTC)

Junia's wings flutter slightly. She examines the game, and starts playing.

She turns out to be good at it.

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:25 am (UTC)

"It's fun, isn't it?"

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:26 am (UTC)

"Yes it is!"

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:42 am (UTC)

"There's got to be hundreds of games, I haven't tried them all."

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:42 am (UTC)

"This one is fun," says Junia. "What other ones are fun? I will try them next."

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:43 am (UTC)

"All the ones I've tried are fun except there's a puzzle game I don't like."

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:46 am (UTC)

"What do you not like about it?"

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:47 am (UTC)

"If you make a mistake it explodes. I mean on the screen, the computer doesn't explode."

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:48 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Junia. "It would be very inconvenient if the computer exploded."

inherpiety
2013-07-30 12:50 am (UTC)

"Yes, I don't think anyone would design a game that way."

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:17 pm (UTC)

"Only very unpleasant people or people with strange senses of humour," says Junia, smiling a little.

inherpiety
2013-07-30 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Who had more than a few computers."

pythbox
2013-07-30 03:35 pm (UTC)

Junia giggles.

inherpiety
2013-07-30 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Because you have to test these sort of things, apparently, they don't work by magic - well, I guess Mom could make one by magic or Jane could make a perfect one on the first try because of how she works, but most people have to test them."

pythbox
2013-07-30 03:47 pm (UTC)

"That is interesting," says Junia, examining the game on her screen. "How are they made?"

inherpiety
2013-07-30 03:52 pm (UTC)

"People 'write' them," says Keziah. "That's about all I know. I'm pretty sure they don't write them in Samarian though."

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I would like to learn how," Junia muses. "Along with learning about spaceships."

mind_game
2013-07-30 04:06 pm (UTC)

"You are assigning yourself approximately a lifetime of work. Fortunately I'm much better at producing programming curriculum than spaceship curriculum," says Jane.

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Keziah's mother can make people immortal," Junia observes. "A lifetime is not a meaningful unit of measure anymore."

mind_game
2013-07-30 04:16 pm (UTC)

"It still means 'about seventy or eighty years'," says Jane. "Although what do I know, maybe you're a prodigy and you can get up to speed in complete ignorance of background concepts really fast." The screen of Junia's computer shifts. "Here's intro to programming. Cute little beginner's language from Peace. I'm dual-running operating systems on this terminal now so you'll be able to try it."

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:17 pm (UTC)

Junia pokes fascinatedly at it.

mind_game
2013-07-30 04:19 pm (UTC)

It's very, very beginnery - it tells her how to open a blank program file, shows her where to find all the special characters she will need to type, and then walks through writing and running a program that will print "Hello, world." before launching into how to make it do arithmetic.

inherpiety
2013-07-30 04:20 pm (UTC)

Keziah goes back to playing computer games, giggling softly.

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:25 pm (UTC)

Junia plays with her intro to programming.

It is even more fun than computer games. It is the best computer game.

repatriative possibilities

luminous_regnant

Golden goes home. She considers speaking to Elspeth or Harley, but decides that they probably wouldn't benefit from her inserting herself. She has Dwi issue the general announcement to whom it may concern about the return of Jane. She herself brainphones Nathaniel.

[Jane is back. You can go back to Samaria if you choose to, although you're welcome to remain in Aurum.]

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:54 pm (UTC)

[Oh. Um, thank you, your majesty,] he says.

luminous_regnant
2013-07-30 03:33 pm (UTC)

[While we think we have solved Jane's problem, we thought that last time, too, so I don't advise taking overlong to decide. It has been about six years in Samaria.]

pythbox
2013-07-30 03:39 pm (UTC)

[Thank you,] he repeats. [I will think about it.]

He snuggles Renata some more. Snuggling Renata is nice.

alicornucopia
2013-07-30 03:43 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! Renata loves snuggling Nathaniel more than anything else. He is soft and warm and cute and she loves him so much.

A few seconds later, she goes still, which is mostly noticeable because before her fingertips were tracing a pattern along his arm and now they are stalled near her elbow.

pythbox
2013-07-30 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?" says Nathaniel.

alicornucopia
2013-07-30 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Dwi says Jane is back again," she says.

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Yse," he says. "The empress told me the same thing. I'm not sure what I want to do. I want to see Micaiah and his family again, but I don't want to go back to what I was doing before... I wonder if Isabella would let us have a little place like this in Samaria somewhere. On the moon, maybe. I don't know if there are asteroids. Would that be good?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-30 04:11 pm (UTC)

"I'll go anywhere you go," says Renata, nuzzling him.

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:21 pm (UTC)

He smiles, and snuggles her.

"You're nice. Okay. I'll - ask Jane, I guess."

[Jane? Could you ask Angela if me and Renata can have a little house in space somewhere in Samaria? On an asteroid or the moon or something, close-ish by but not on the planet where someone might find us?]

mind_game
2013-07-30 04:23 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

And then a moment later, [Angela says there isn't an asteroid belt in Samaria's solar system and she doesn't know how long Samaria's own moon will stay undisturbed at this point, but there's a cute little moon orbiting the sixth planet you can have.]

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:28 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] says Nathaniel. [Thank you.]

"Jane says that Angela says that we can have a cute little moon," says Nathaniel. "Want to go to Samaria?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-30 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Nuzzle.

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:47 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

"I think I will say goodbye to the Joker and Nathan and Aedyt and Kerron first," he says.

temporal_affairs
2013-07-30 04:59 pm (UTC)

[Hullo,] says Nathan, predictably.

pythbox
2013-07-30 05:05 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel giggles softly.

[Hi,] he says. [Now that Jane's back, me and Renata are going to go live in Samaria on a cute little moon. But I want to say goodbye to everyone first. Do you know what the Joker and Kerron and Aedyt are all up to?]
Edited 2013-07-30 17:06 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-07-30 05:07 pm (UTC)

[Nope, but I can find out.]

[Babe?]

[Aedyt?]

[Kerron?]

pina_colada
2013-07-30 05:07 pm (UTC)

Kerron is presently conferenced in. [Cute little moon, huh?]

pythbox
2013-07-30 05:17 pm (UTC)

[Cute little moon,] Nathaniel affirms. [I'm told it is little. And cute.]

manofmyword
2013-07-30 05:18 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles. [That's adorable.]

temporal_affairs
2013-07-30 07:25 pm (UTC)

[It is, quite.]

pumpkin_pie
2013-07-30 07:26 pm (UTC)

[I hope you like it there!] says Aedyt.

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:26 pm (UTC)

[Me too,] says Nathaniel.

pina_colada
2013-07-30 07:27 pm (UTC)

[You'll visit and stuff, yeah?]

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:28 pm (UTC)

[I will!]

temporal_affairs
2013-07-30 07:29 pm (UTC)

[Brilliant. Enjoy your adorable moon.]

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:31 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel laughs. And snuggles Renata.

[We'll do our best,] he says.

And to Jane: [Can we go to Samaria now?]

mind_game
2013-07-30 07:36 pm (UTC)

[I have to be able to see you. Show up at the Janepoint.]

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:43 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

Nathaniel picks up his latest rubber band ball, tucks it under his arm, and teleports himself and Renata to the Janepoint.

mind_game
2013-07-30 07:44 pm (UTC)

Pop!

"This is the spaceship in orbit around Samaria. Angela will have your moon set up in a couple of minutes," reports Jane.

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Thank you!" says Nathaniel, and he hugs Renata.

alicornucopia
2013-07-30 07:45 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Spaceship hugs are like other hugs in that they are awesome and Renata wants to have them with her Nathaniel.

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:00 pm (UTC)

Nathaniel can happily hug Renata for quite a long time without wanting to do anything else in particular.

alicornucopia
2013-07-30 08:01 pm (UTC)

That is the best thing.

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-30 08:01 pm (UTC)

Presently, Angela says, [I've set up a nice little place for you on the moon in question.]

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Thank you,] says Nathaniel.

He teleports there, with Renata. There is a comfy couch. He sits on it.

[It's very nice.]

jovahs_heiress
2013-07-30 08:08 pm (UTC)

[I'm glad you like it.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-30 08:08 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! All of the snuggles with her Nathaniel who is the best.

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:09 pm (UTC)

Many snuggles. Wonderful snuggles.

Yes. This was a good decision.

alicornucopia
2013-07-30 08:09 pm (UTC)

Not that there would be fewer snuggles in Aurum, but yes.

i might as well be the man on the moon

truthwright

Their Isabella having just gone to welcome a new Bell into the peal, Kas and Petaal snuggle up together and take a nap. They'll want to be well rested for the party.

When they wake up, she still isn't back.

[Jane?]

No response.

Kas teleports down to the Janepoint, Petaal wrapped snake-shaped around his shoulders.

The display reads: error 7788: lycanthropy

"...So that's new," he says.

"No shit," says Petaal. "Now what?"

He shrugs. She coils tighter.

"Hang around and wait, I guess."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 01:43 am (UTC)

It's four days later, with no Isabella walking through the door from Milliways, and no change in Jane, when a witch queen next shows up to meet with the revolutionary young witch (who is now, thanks to some savvy dead people, widely rumored to be responsible for the funny dreams everyone's been having about their loved ones). Queen Atassa Mikalmia knocks on the door.

truthwright
2013-06-03 01:48 am (UTC)

Kas has hung around and waited.

He answers the door wearing sweatpants, a Queen T-shirt, and a frilly pink apron, with fox-shaped Petaal tucked into the apron pocket.

"Hi."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 01:48 am (UTC)

"Hallo," says the queen, whose daemon is not accompanying her today. "I'm looking for Isabella Amariah. This is her house, isn't it?"

truthwright
2013-06-03 01:50 am (UTC)

"Yeah. She's not home," says Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 01:52 am (UTC)

"But I made an appointment. She was expecting me."

truthwright
2013-06-03 01:56 am (UTC)

"She's not home," he repeats. "Something came up. I don't know when she'll be back. Could be ten minutes, could be ten years."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 01:57 am (UTC)

"What is it that came up?" asks Atassa testily.

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:02 am (UTC)

"Last I heard of her, she went to check on the afterlife," he says. "But that was days ago. I expected her back by now."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:04 am (UTC)

"...Oh," says Atassa, far less testy. "I see. Might I borrow the use of pen and paper to leave a letter for her?"

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:09 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Kas. He grabs a notebook and pen out of a drawer that didn't contain a notebook and pen until just before he opened it. "You can have some muffins, too, if you want, I just baked 'em."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:13 am (UTC)

"Thank you, I accept." She starts writing.

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:15 am (UTC)

Kas goes to fetch the plate of muffins from the kitchen. When he comes back with it, the fox in his apron is a different colour - white instead of orange.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:17 am (UTC)

Atassa looks at Petaal, but doesn't comment; either she's heard about Amariah's boyfriend's weird daemon or it just doesn't interest her. She takes a muffin and eats it while tapping the notebook thoughtfully with the pen.

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:19 am (UTC)

He takes a muffin for himself and hands one to Petaal. They stand around nomming contentedly.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:20 am (UTC)

Atassa eventually finishes her muffin and her letter, the latter of which she folds up and presents to Kas. "For her eyes only, please."

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:21 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says agreeably.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:22 am (UTC)

And out Atassa goes, and up up and away on her cloudpine.

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:31 am (UTC)

Kas finds somewhere slightly reasonable to put the letter.

He eats his muffin.

He changes his clothes.

He puts Isabella's alethiometer downstairs at the Janepoint and makes the room impassable and its contents inviolable to anyone but himself and his girlfriend.

He packs his own alethiometer in a little backpack, and closes and locks the door, and pins a note to it: Isabella Amariah is gone on important business and may be some time.

And then he teleports to a random city on the same continent.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:33 am (UTC)

After Jane has been down and Amariah gone for two weeks, Ranata, her mother, tentatively brainphones Kas. [Hello?]

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:35 am (UTC)

[Hi.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:37 am (UTC)

[Isabella is not answering me - do you know what's going on?]

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:42 am (UTC)

[Not really. I just know she went somewhere that time works differently and something went wrong. She's going to come back, but it might take - a long time.]
Edited 2013-06-03 02:42 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:42 am (UTC)

[Oh. Oh dear. Does this have to do with what people are saying about - about the dead?]

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:44 am (UTC)

[What are people saying about the dead?]

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:46 am (UTC)

[People are saying that the dead are contacting them in their sleep. I haven't been contacted, but Mother says Father has spoken to her and plans to invite me, later. And people are saying it has something to do with Isabella.]

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:48 am (UTC)

[Yeah, that was all her. She fixed the afterlife.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:50 am (UTC)

[Is - that why she's gone? That must have been - I can't even imagine the spell that would take - and some of them - require sacrificing - things -] says Ranata plaintively.

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:51 am (UTC)

He hesitates.

[...She had help,] he says. [She's going to come back. I just - don't know when.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:52 am (UTC)

[Oh,] breathes Ranata. [Oh, that's good, if she's going to come back. Do you know approximately how long...?] She says this with the mild curiosity afforded an immortal.

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:53 am (UTC)

[There's no way to know.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 02:54 am (UTC)

[Oh. Well. Thank you very much for letting me know, Kas.]

truthwright
2013-06-03 02:57 am (UTC)

[No problem,] he says wryly, and goes back to his wandering.

It's not all that different, really, from having her waiting for him at home. There's only the one thing between them.

But she isn't waiting for him at home, and it is different, and he hates it more than a little.

He drifts around the States, then up into Canada. He visits his friend Augustine in Quebec City. While he's there, staying in a mediocre hotel, he buys a postcard.

He writes on it: I miss you. And when he checks out of his hotel, he drops it in the trash.
Edited 2013-06-03 03:08 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 03:14 am (UTC)

At least in this subworld in the Alethia sheaf, the effects of the revamped afterlife slowly becomes more well-known and well-acknowledged. People who have communicated with dead individuals go on television and talk about it. Several dead people are haphazardly dictating books. Amariah made it so inconvenient and - relatively speaking - pointless enough to return to life that not many have done it, but the first few are met with fanfare and media deals.

truthwright
2013-06-03 03:25 am (UTC)

He wonders vaguely if any of the dead people he knows will invite him to visit. None of them do. He's glad.

After the first one, he writes more postcards. None of them reach the mail. Sometimes he's passing by a store and sees a cute one that he wants to write on; other times, he thinks of something to write and goes out and gets a postcard.

I love you. I miss you.

You wouldn't believe the cookies we just made. Love you.

Got laid last night! Fuck, I miss you.

A month goes by like this, and then another one. He shoves his postcards down gutters and into recycling boxes and occasionally burns one.

Eventually, he checks on the house.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 03:26 am (UTC)

There are a few letters from various witches and news outlets tucked into the mailbox.

The Janepoint is undisturbed.

truthwright
2013-06-03 03:45 am (UTC)

He puts the witches' letters with that first one and the news outlets' letters somewhere else, and he cleans the place and stays there for a few days cooking and sewing and feeling sorry for himself. Then he gets the hell out.

For lack of anywhere better to go, he takes Petaal to the cloudpine forest where they cut their first branch - the long way, no teleporting. They cut another one and fly to England. Why England? Well, why not?

A lot of things are like that, these days.

He cries. He writes a postcard about it. He writes a postcard apologizing for the postcard about crying. He giggles over that one for so long that he starts crying again, and a stranger asks if he's all right, and he says his girlfriend might be dead, and the stranger says that's not so bad these days, and he wants to hit something but instead he just cries some more.

His supply of coins is - well, not running low, but it's been neglected for a while. He and Petaal spend a week on a certain asteroid replenishing it in creative ways. He feels better for a little while after that, until the next time he bursts into tears in the middle of breakfast.

It occurs to him one day that he hasn't seen a movie in a while, so he spends a day in a movie theatre, writing on his tickets like they're postcards before he throws them out and goes to get one for the next show. Little miniature reviews about which parts made him laugh or which characters he wanted to fuck or how fucking much he misses her. (He tears that one in half before he throws it away.)

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 03:49 am (UTC)

Months wear on.

And years.

Dead people go on trickling back into life at a slow, filtered rate. The afterlife is a decent hub for inter-world communication, since they all go to the same place. Witches and scientists alike are talking about finding a way to make permanent gates.

Someone makes a movie about Isabella creating the afterlife. It's fictionalized to hell and back, they spell her second name "Ammaria", it's clear they couldn't get interviews with anyone who knew her more than passingly, and it makes a ridiculous amount of money anyway.

truthwright
2013-06-03 03:58 am (UTC)

Kas... goes on.

After the movie tickets, his repertoire of things he writes to Amariah on expands considerably. He'll scribble a heart on a grocery receipt or doodle an owl on a bar napkin. He writes her little notes on hotel stationery about who he just fucked and how much he got paid for it.

When the movie comes out, he writes HA FUCKING HA in red Sharpie across the first poster he sees. A few weeks later he gives in and watches the damn thing, and by the end his ticket is too shredded to write on and he doesn't feel like stealing someone else's.

One of the postcards says, I don't know whether I'm writing these to you or to me.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 04:02 am (UTC)

It's not the last movie. She's a public figure, not intellectual property; anyone can make a movie (write a book, put on a Broadway production) about Isabella Amariah (subsequent media gets the name right). There are various subtitles for her, ranging from the fanciful "Shade-Dreamer" to the preposterous "Second Coming of Christ" (playing on the absurd self-sacrifice angle; Amariah's old teachers have talked but apparently Ranata hasn't).

She's been gone fifteen years before Kas is likely to run into any information about the little cult that's sprung up about the latter interpretation.

truthwright
2013-06-03 01:03 pm (UTC)

A little before then - it's been about eleven and a half years - he writes her a letter.
Sweetie,

I can't handle this. I really can't. I miss you too much. I don't know what to do. If you were here I could see you, and if I knew when you were coming back I could wait, and if you were gone forever I could be wrecked about it and then move on. But I know you're coming back, I just don't know when, and it's killing me. I keep wondering what happened, where you are, how you're doing, if you're okay. And I have no idea and no way to find out.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're not coming back.

I love you.
He signs it with tearstains and sets it on fire.

There are fewer notes after that. Writting the letter helped a little. Less crying, less I miss you. But still plenty of both.

When he finds out about the cult, he considers telling these people that he fucked their messiah, but it would be mostly pointless and only a little bit funny, so he leaves them alone.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 04:10 pm (UTC)

Isabella passes into the generic public consciousness along with all the other cultural touchstones. Some people name their children after her; some people start using her name as a component of irreverent oaths. More religions incorporate her; the original cult shoots up in membership, schisms twice, settles down into relative obscurity again.

Isabella doesn't come home.

truthwright
2013-06-03 09:53 pm (UTC)

More years go by.

The frequency of postcards to nowhere waxes and wanes unpredictably. He stops really counting the years. Twenty, thirty. How old is he? He forgets, he doesn't care; he's as ageless as a witch.

He's friendly and chatty but he doesn't make friends. He drops in on Augustine once in a while, but not very often. When she dies, she invites him to visit and it's the first he hears of it. She tells him that she doesn't think she'll come back anytime soon. He hugs her. Her fur is thick and warm.

They don't talk again after that.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:00 pm (UTC)

Ranata Ekamma witches around as much as ever. She pops up in random places.

Once it's a random place where Kas is.

She doesn't recognize him, but -

She looks a lot like her daughter.

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:04 pm (UTC)

Except for the broad-tailed hummingbird, yes she does.

Kas recognizes her immediately.

Petaal climbs out of his sleeve as a shrew and then flits over as a sparrow to say hi to Castarilan.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" Castarilan says.

He doesn't recognize Petaal, either.

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Guess who, guess who," Petaal says merrily. She changes into a blue jay in midair.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:07 pm (UTC)

Castarilan is surprised! He backs up in his eternal hovering a bit, then flies forward again. "Petaal! Hi! We haven't seen you in ages!"

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:10 pm (UTC)

Petaal giggles, flutters back to Kas, and drapes herself across his shoulders as a linsang.

"Sure haven't," Kas agrees, petting her head. "How've you been?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:14 pm (UTC)

Ranata joins the conversation directly. "I've been all right," she says. "Traveling, avoiding the media, sidestepping politics - Charlie died a little while ago but he came right back, looks thirty again, it's really something - how about you, how've you been, dear?"

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:18 pm (UTC)

"I've been... getting by," he says. "I miss everybody's favourite legend a lot."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:19 pm (UTC)

"It's been such a long time... She must've done a fantastic spell on you before she left - or did you die and come back too at some point?"

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Nope, this is all her."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, you look fantastic," asserts Ranata.

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:28 pm (UTC)

"You bet I do," he laughs. "How's Charlie, besides revenant?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:29 pm (UTC)

"He's all right. Considering getting his job back again. He'd retired for the last few decades, he has to catch up on how things are nowadays, but he doesn't like puttering around the house now he's got the energy again."

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Good luck to him, I guess. What are you in town for, anything in particular?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Me and Lutammi are following Micaela and the Pages on tour," explains Ranata.

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Cool. They any good?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Of course, or we wouldn't be following them," laughs Ranata. "We traded for season passes, but if I remember right Petaal can turn witch and you can fly - tonight's show is outdoors, you can just hover over it, no one will give you trouble."

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:40 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like fun," says Kas. "Count us in."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Excellent, have you got a pen...?" Ranata writes down the showtime and location for him when a pen is provided.

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" he says, tucking the paper away somewhere. "We'll be there for sure."

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:45 pm (UTC)

Ranata smiles. "Now, I'm supposed to meet someone for lunch while I'm in the area, got to fly - see you at the concert!" And she and her hummingbird are up in the air a moment later.

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

He buys the first postcard he sees and writes, Talked to your mom today. She's still adorable. I miss you so much.

He and Petaal show up at the concert, Petaal witch-shaped and wrapped in appropriate silks, both of them riding a cloudpine branch.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:49 pm (UTC)

The concert is loud and frenetic and lyrically impossible.

Ranata and her friend are in the front row, whooping at intervals.

truthwright
2013-06-03 10:52 pm (UTC)

It's awesome. They love it.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

Ranata and her friend loiter around afterwards; they don't go backstage, but they hang out where the band members are signing merch.

truthwright
2013-06-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

Just for the hell of it, Kas acquires a T-shirt. But he doesn't get it signed.

He catches Ranata's eye and waves to her as he leaves.

alicornucopia
2013-06-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

Ranata waves back.

truthwright
2013-06-04 01:49 am (UTC)

Yeah. And that's the end of that.

The next postcard he writes, a week later, says: I can't do this anymore.

He burns it, cuddles his sweetie for a while, and leaves that city the next morning.

It's true: he can't do this anymore. He can't live his life around the empty space where Isabella used to be. There's other people he misses, too, but he's not so completely and utterly fucked to hell over the rest of them.

But thinking about the Jokers, about the Joker, makes him realize what he really needs.

He thinks about it for a while. There's no rush. He switches sex and lives that way full-time, to get used to it first, because he's going to be stuck in it a lot longer than the Joker and he doesn't want to get fed up in the middle.

And then, a year and a half after he saw Ranata, Kas wishes himself pregnant.

He doesn't get fed up in the middle.

The baby is born in late summer. He names her Helen.

pythbox
2013-06-04 02:04 am (UTC)

Helen is a very loud baby, but well-behaved other than that. Well, it might just be that her parent has a broad definition of good behaviour.

When she is four months old, being carried along the side of a country road late at night, the moonlight falls on her and she reaches her little hands up and coos intensely. Her daemon - Petaal named her Kalavar - takes the form of a duckling and flaps her small fuzzy wings as though trying to fly.

truthwright
2013-06-04 02:10 am (UTC)

Kas stops walking.

"What is it, sweetie?" murmurs Petaal.

"Maybe nothing," he says.

But now that he's thought of it...

When he wished himself a child, he never specified a father. Or would that be mother? Whichever way around, he left it to chance. He definitely didn't specify that the kid should be a witch.

He spends a square to conjure an illusion of Helen's other parent.

Helen's other parent has a very familiar face.

"Well, fuck," mutters Kas.

pythbox
2013-06-04 12:23 pm (UTC)

Helen makes noises and waves her hands in the moonlight some more.

truthwright
2013-06-04 12:25 pm (UTC)

Kas sighs. He cuddles his baby.

He brainphones Ranata Ekamma.

[Hey, you busy?]
Edited 2013-06-04 12:25 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 03:24 pm (UTC)

[Not at the moment. What's up?]

truthwright
2013-06-04 03:29 pm (UTC)

[...I think I accidentally gave you a granddaughter,] he says. [It's - kind of complicated.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 03:30 pm (UTC)

[...It sounds that way.]

truthwright
2013-06-04 03:31 pm (UTC)

[Do you wanna meet somewhere and talk about it?]

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 03:31 pm (UTC)

[I can do that. Where?]

truthwright
2013-06-04 03:37 pm (UTC)

[I'm just outside of New York City right now.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 03:37 pm (UTC)

[I can be there tomorrow afternoon.]

truthwright
2013-06-04 03:40 pm (UTC)

[All right.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 03:41 pm (UTC)

[Where should I find you?]

truthwright
2013-06-04 03:48 pm (UTC)

He names a hotel.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 03:48 pm (UTC)

[All right.]

truthwright
2013-06-04 03:50 pm (UTC)

[See you then.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 03:51 pm (UTC)

Ranata cruises into the city and finds the hotel the next afternoon, as promised.

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:01 pm (UTC)

And there he is, sitting in the lobby with a cute little baby in his arms.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:02 pm (UTC)

Ranata lands, strides into the lobby, looks at Kas, looks at the baby, and says, "I don't understand."

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," says Kas, getting up. "You wanna come upstairs? I've got something to show you that... will probably just confuse you more."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:07 pm (UTC)

Ranata doesn't look happy about being as confused as she is, but she shrugs and nods.

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:09 pm (UTC)

Kas brings Ranata and the baby up to his hotel room.

He closes the door.

He switches sex.

"I've got a lot more weird magic stuff going on than just immortality," he says, cuddling the baby.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:10 pm (UTC)

Ranata turns her head, looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

"What did she do with you before she left?" she murmurs.

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Magic," says Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Yes - but - I knew she was working on some astonishing spells, but -"

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay, well," he says, "this is my daughter. I made her by myself. I wasn't expecting her to be... anyone else's in particular. But I think she's a witch, and I've only ever been with one witch. So - I don't know - is there some way you could check...?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:14 pm (UTC)

"How old is she?" Ranata asks.

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Four months."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Then there's still time for me to put a birth blessing on her and see if it sticks, but I don't have all the materials I'd need..."

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:16 pm (UTC)

"What do you need?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:17 pm (UTC)

"It depends on which goddess I want to call down for her..."

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know all the goddesses, so I can't help you there."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:39 pm (UTC)

"There are seven. Is there something in particular you'd like her to have? It's not guaranteed, but I can try. Isabella's was Evisa Iannakara; Mother was aiming for an art blessing but she got her protection from mind-affecting spells instead."

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "How about - the goddess Isabella was named after? Just... because."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Amariah Lytess. All right. Then I need pine sap and white peppercorns, ideally I'd cast during the full moon, and it would be better if I worked outside."

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "Can you find the stuff? Is the next full moon soon enough?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I can get it." She peers at the baby. "You really think she's - hers? Somehow? ...She does have Isabella's eyes."

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't know who else's she'd be," he says. "If she's a witch, I mean, and I think she is - she's never cold, she likes moonlight..."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:49 pm (UTC)

"But how did this happen, I don't understand."

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't either," he says. "I didn't think she was going to be anybody's. But I guess that's what I get for messing around with magic stuff." He cuddles the baby. "Her name's Helen," he adds.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:52 pm (UTC)

"If she's a witch she should have a second name," says Ranata.

"What's her daemon called?" asks Castarilan.

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Kalavar," says Petaal.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Kalavar," coos Castarilan.

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:55 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a duckling again.

Kas thinks.

"Ianthe," he decides. "Helen Ianthe."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:55 pm (UTC)

"May I hold her?" Ranata asks.

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

He hands over the baby.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 04:58 pm (UTC)

Ranata joggles her. "Aren't you precious," she coos.

"So cute," agrees Castarilan.

"If she's a witch," Ranata says, "she should be brought up like one."

truthwright
2013-06-04 04:58 pm (UTC)

"What's that mean?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Learning to do magic, and fly, and shoot and dagger-fight, and if she's Isabella's she's in our clan and should learn about that, and she'll need to separate when she's old enough, and - well, witches are different, dear."

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:03 pm (UTC)

Kas shrugs.

"Sure," says Petaal. "Can we just bring her to you to learn all that stuff?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Of course," says Ranata.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Okay then," Petaal says unconcernedly, snuggling Kalavar.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Why don't we go back to the Olympic enclave tomorrow? It will be the full moon the day after."

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:09 pm (UTC)

Ranata nods. She goes on holding Helen, rocking her slowly. "And when your mommy comes back she will find the cutest little baby ever, won't she," she murmurs to Helen, apparently provisionally buying the story that this is her grandchild.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:10 pm (UTC)

Helen waves her arms and babbles.

Kas looks away.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:10 pm (UTC)

"She is coming back, right? You told me she would," Ranata says, looking up at Kas.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "I just don't know if she's going to be back while Helen's still little."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:12 pm (UTC)

Ranata pets Helen's hair. Cas hovers closer to Kalavar.

"Oh."

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:14 pm (UTC)

Petaal, in the shape of a fox, curls up around the duckling and licks her face.
Edited 2013-06-04 17:14 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:15 pm (UTC)

Cas lands.

Ranata sighs, sits down, and starts singing a lullaby without any lyrics. It's probably hazardous for witches to sing songs with lyrics.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:16 pm (UTC)

Kas sits on the floor.
Edited 2013-06-04 17:16 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, I can teach her to be a witch. I did it once and Isabella turned out beautifully."

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:17 pm (UTC)

Kas giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:18 pm (UTC)

"If she's a witch," amends Ranata. "But it sounds like she is. Somehow.'

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. It does."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:22 pm (UTC)

The next day, they fly to the Olympic clan's enclave, and Ranata collects her materials, and under the light of the full moon she casts an elaborate spell calling the blessings of Amariah Lytess down on Helen Ianthe.

It sticks.

Ranata gets help from a cousin to cast the spell to see what it actually did, and concludes: "It's about Kalavar. Daemons are in Amariah Lytess's portfolio. Helen will have an easier time of separating, when it's time, than most people. Kalavar will be stronger than she looks, too."
Edited 2013-06-04 17:22 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:27 pm (UTC)

Kas cuddles his daughter.

"How 'bout that," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Helen isn't a very witchy name," says the cousin.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Didn't know she was a witch when I named her," he says. "It's hers until she says different."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:31 pm (UTC)

"How could you not know your baby daughter is a witch?" says the cousin.

[...I haven't explained that she's my granddaughter,] Ranata tells Kas. [I don't know what to say instead, though.]

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:38 pm (UTC)

Kas switches sex.

"'Cause I'm her mother," he says, "and I'm not one."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:39 pm (UTC)

...The cousin blinks at him. Her potoo daemon squawks. "I want to know what's going on," she says.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, don't we all," says Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Where did this baby come from?" asks the cousin.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Me."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Then why is she a witch? What is going on? Are you from some other world?"

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:46 pm (UTC)

Kas shrugs. "It is what it is," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:47 pm (UTC)

"The clan is entitled to know what Ranata Ekamma has brought into it," says the cousin, pointing at Helen.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:48 pm (UTC)

He shrugs again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:49 pm (UTC)

Ranata sighs. "Can you keep a secret?" she asks.

"From the rest of the clan, absolutely not, we should all know! From everyone else, of course."

Ranata looks at Kas.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:50 pm (UTC)

[She's not here,] he says. [It's up to us. What do you think?]

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:51 pm (UTC)

[The clan probably should know. I'm just worried it will leak beyond that and Helen will have more attention than she should.]

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:53 pm (UTC)

[Make really sure that doesn't happen,] he says. [If she gets too much attention, I'll just keep her away from whoever's bugging her.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I'll explain to the queen," Ranata suggests to the cousin.

"Fine," huffs the cousin. "As long as this doesn't stay something mysterious you've cooked up with this mortal."

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Watch who you're calling a mortal," Kas snorts.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:56 pm (UTC)

"The possibility of revenance doesn't make you an immortal," says the cousin dismissively, and she hops on her cloudpine and flies away. The potoo stays behind a moment later, inspecting Kalavar, and then flies after his witch.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:57 pm (UTC)

Kas just laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 05:58 pm (UTC)

"...So, let's go speak to Narida Memma," says Ranata.

truthwright
2013-06-04 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:01 pm (UTC)

Ranata leads him to where the queen lives, which is in a handmade-looking but beautiful cottage within the enclave area. She is accompanied by her daemon, stark naked, and sitting in front of her house crosslegged with her eyes closed, apparently in some sort of contemplation.

Ranata lands and stands quietly, waiting for the queen to acknowledge her.

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:04 pm (UTC)

Petaal shifts into a male tiger and sits, setting Kalavar in front of her. Kas remains female and cuddles his daughter.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:09 pm (UTC)

After a minute the queen opens her eyes. She sweeps her eyes over the assembled. "What is it, Ranata Ekamma?"

"Hello, Narida Memma. This is Kas. My daughter was Kas's girlfriend. This is their child Helen Ianthe, conceived by magic I don't understand in spite of her departure. I've birth-blessed her and it stuck. My honored cousin Lisset Arainen does not understand where Helen came from, but I fear for the comfort of her childhood if her parentage were widely rumored. Can you assure the clan that Helen is a witch, and under my shadow a member of the Olympics and that I will have charge of her as she learns to be what she is - and that all is well - but say nothing more?"

Narida peers at Kas.

"That the legendary Isabella Amariah could have performed such a feat, I do not doubt. That she would be motivated to do so - I doubt," she comments.

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Mm?" says Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Why would she have been motivated to do as Ranata suggests?" Narida asks.

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure she didn't mean to get me pregnant with her daughter fifty years after she disappeared," Kas says. "If she did, she didn't tell me, so I couldn't tell you why. She did give me the magic that let me get pregnant without anybody else's help, but I only just figured out that I could use it for that. She might not even have known."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:15 pm (UTC)

"So you have magic she gave you, under your own control," muses the witch queen, "is that right? What else can you do?"

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:16 pm (UTC)

He switches sex.

"That," he says. "And I'm the first person she made immortal."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Narida. Her daemon hops from her knee towards where Petaal and Kalavar are curled up. "Yes, we can surround the inclusion of Helen in the clan with enough vagueness to keep her away from Isabella's shadow, I think. Thank you for coming to me with this matter, Ranata."

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:21 pm (UTC)

Petaal becomes a lion.

Kas smiles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Mysterious motives indeed," mutters Narida's daemon, and he hops back towards his witch.

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Petaal. "That one's all us."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:30 pm (UTC)

Narida shrugs. "Is there anything else?"

"I think that's all. Thank you," says Ranata, and she hops on her cloudpine again.

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:35 pm (UTC)

Petaal changes to human form - female - and scoops up Kalavar. She and Kas leave the presence of the witch queen.

"So that's it, huh?" says Kas to Ranata.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Narida will put the word out that Helen's mother is not a question of interest, and that I'm sort of fostering her," says Ranata, shrugging. "You were never nearly as well known as Isabella, and even people who might recognize you wouldn't expect you to look like this at this time without having gone revenant, and you don't have the - air of shadow about you that revenants do. People might wonder, but no one will know." She looks at Helen and sighs. "Poor Isabella - when she comes home - she'll have missed so many things, but this most of all."

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:47 pm (UTC)

Kas sighs.

"Yeah."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:48 pm (UTC)

"She will come home, right? I've got only your word to go on that she'll be home one day," Ranata says quietly.

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:54 pm (UTC)

"I think she will. I hope she will. I don't know if I believe she will, but that's just because fifty years is a long time to me and it's hard to keep waiting."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Where did she go?"

truthwright
2013-06-04 06:55 pm (UTC)

He shrugs helplessly.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 06:56 pm (UTC)

Ranata sighs.

"Well," she says. "I think I should have Helen here - you can take that time off or stay here too, as you like - at least one week of every month, and one solid month out of every year, does that sound reasonable to you?"

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:01 pm (UTC)

"...Not really," he says. "I wander around a lot. Coming back here once a month for a week would make it hard to do that."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I can come pick her up wherever you are," says Ranata. "I don't have a lot of demands on my time, and she's important."

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:06 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head.

"I don't mean it would be hard to get here, I mean I'd only ever have her to myself for three weeks at a time and that's not okay. Why not one week every other month? And one month every year."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:07 pm (UTC)

Ranata nibbles her lip. "...For now. If she likes magic, when she gets old enough to do it, she may want more lessons than that, to keep up with the other little witches."

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:10 pm (UTC)

Kas shrugs. "That'd be up to her."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:11 pm (UTC)

"All right then," says Ranata. "There's really no good place for a mortal in the enclave, but Charlie's house isn't far, I live there most of the time anyway. Shall we go introduce Helen to her grandpa?"
Edited 2013-06-04 19:12 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:12 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:13 pm (UTC)

Ranata leads the way through the air to the house in Forks where Isabella grew up.

Inside, there are pictures of her everywhere.

Charlie's sitting at the kitchen table with a jigsaw puzzle, and apparently Ranata's already briefed him about Helen, because he says, "This must be Helen."

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Kas.

Helen yawns.
Edited 2013-06-04 19:14 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Lemme have a look at her," says Charlie, holding out his arms, and his wolverine Kesathi sits up attentively at his side.

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:16 pm (UTC)

Kas hands over the baby.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:16 pm (UTC)

Charlie rocks her. "Hi there, Helen. I'm your grandpa. But that's a secret. You can just call me Charlie. Your mommy did that too when she thought I couldn't hear her."

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:17 pm (UTC)

Kas giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:18 pm (UTC)

Kesathi wants to nuzzle Kalavar. Where is Kalavar?

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:18 pm (UTC)

Petaal has Kalavar!

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:19 pm (UTC)

Kesathi trots up to them and nuzzles grandbaby-daemon as is right and proper. Kesathi can be fierce and toothy, but right now she just looks like a fuzzy critter.

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:21 pm (UTC)

Petaal is being a smallish dragon. Kalavar is being a duckling. Kalavar makes excited noises and bops her beak against Kesathi's face.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Hey little fuzzy one," Kesathi says to Kalavar.

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:25 pm (UTC)

Kalavar bops Kesathi's face with her beak again.

Petaal giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:25 pm (UTC)

Charlie chuckles and goes on holding the baby. "Thanks for bringing her by. Will we get to see much of her?"

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, once in a while," says Kas. "Grandma wants her with the clan a lot."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Gonna learn to be all witchy like her mommy," murmurs Charlie. "Just - mind she doesn't get into anything too big?"

"Kas says Isabella's coming back. I told you."

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:33 pm (UTC)

"It was still too big," says Charlie.

"You're back," Ranata murmurs.

"So," Charlie says, "I can say that."

Everyone thinks the disappearance was related to the afterlife; it's a natural thought.

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:41 pm (UTC)

A natural thought and a rumour Kas started.

"If Helen wants to do something that impressive, I'm not stopping her," he says with a shrug.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:42 pm (UTC)

Charlie grits his teeth, and he doesn't tighten his grip on Helen, but he looks like he'd like to. The hackles on the back of his daemon's neck rise a bit.

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:47 pm (UTC)

"What would I even do? I can ask her to be careful, but I can't make her listen."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Charlie. "Do ask her."

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Of course."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 07:50 pm (UTC)

Charlie nods, and he pet's Helen's hair. Ranata sits next to him and puts her arm around his shoulders.

truthwright
2013-06-04 07:52 pm (UTC)

Petaal nuzzles Kalavar's fuzzy feathers.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:03 pm (UTC)

It's a couple months after Kas has departed when Ranata says, [Are you thinking of bringing Helen by soon, dear?]

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:05 pm (UTC)

[Has it been two months? Yeah, sure,] he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:06 pm (UTC)

[Do you want me to come get her or are you coming too?]

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:07 pm (UTC)

[I'm coming too,] he says. [I'll be there in a while.]

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:08 pm (UTC)

[We'll see you soon, dear. The queen's got everyone to quiet down about where she came from.]

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:10 pm (UTC)

[See ya!]

Cheating with teleportation, he arrives by cloud-pine a few hours later.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:14 pm (UTC)

Charlie and Ranata are both home; Charlie reading a newspaper on the porch, Ranata fixing a few missing shingles on the roof.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:17 pm (UTC)

Petaal lands on the roof, wearing witch-silks and carrying Kalavar while Kas carries Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Hello, dear," says Ranata, holding her arms out for the baby. Cas lands on Petaal's wrist to peer at Kalavar.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:19 pm (UTC)

Kas hands over the baby to her grandma.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Hello there, Helen," coos Ranata. "How's my secret grandbaby? Is she cute as a button? She is." She abandons the work in the middle and swings herself onto her cloudpine to come down off the roof and let Charlie have a look, moving slowly so Petaal can follow with Helen's daemon close enough for comfort.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:24 pm (UTC)

Petaal obligingly follows.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:24 pm (UTC)

Charlie coos over the baby too, and asks, "So what have you and Helen been up to?"

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Nothin' much," shrugs Kas. "Went to Europe for a bit. Came back."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:26 pm (UTC)

"What all did you see in Europe?" Charlie asks.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Just places. A few big cities in France and Germany. None of the big touristy stuff. I'm not that interested and she's not old enough to notice."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:30 pm (UTC)

"'Course," laughs Charlie. "She's half a year old now, right, when's her birthday exactly?"

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:32 pm (UTC)

"August."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:32 pm (UTC)

"August what?" Charlie asks.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Third."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Have to get her something nice," murmurs Charlie.

"A set of silks," Ranata says. "That's when the first set gets given - before that witch babies are just carried in slings if we have to go among mortals with them."

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:37 pm (UTC)

Kas giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:38 pm (UTC)

"You can get her silks. I'll find something else," chuckles Charlie. "Maybe a teething ring." His wolverine plants her forepaws on his knee, peers at Helen from a safe distance, settles down at his feet again.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:40 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a gosling and flaps her little wings industriously, going absolutely nowhere. Petaal kisses the top of her head.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:42 pm (UTC)

After an afternoon where Charlie gets to shower attention on the baby, it is time for a trip to the witch enclave. ("The more she's seen there, the less of an oddity she seems, and there are a couple of small children almost her age and one witch due in four months who's expecting a girl, she can have witch friends and should start now.")

These people do in fact all exist, and the two babies who have been born are playing together on a beach part of the enclave, pushing sand around; they aren't really interacting, just sitting near each other. The elder of them can walk, and she sometimes toddles naked into the frigid water and splashes before her mother determines she's gone too far and fetches her out again.
Edited 2013-06-04 20:43 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:45 pm (UTC)

So Kas brings Helen to the beach to play next to the other babies.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:46 pm (UTC)

The babies all three play next to each other and their daemons change shapes and knock one another over into the sand, mothers and Ranata supervising from farther up the beach. It's absolutely freezing near the water. The witches don't care.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:48 pm (UTC)

Kas doesn't care either, and Petaal is being witch-shaped so she really doesn't.

Kalavar squalls every time someone's daemon knocks her over, but Helen giggles.
Edited 2013-06-04 20:50 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:51 pm (UTC)

The eldest baby's daemon becomes a snake, cleverly acquiring immunity from knocking-over, and the middle baby finds this a frightful disappointment; her daemon whines, kitten-shaped.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:54 pm (UTC)

Kalavar becomes a dragon, almost as big as Helen, and bops her nose against the snake's middle as though trying to use her face as a shovel.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:57 pm (UTC)

The snake rolls over, then rights himself, making a noise that sounds like "wheep!" He turns into a katydid and lands on his witch.

The middle daemon stops being a kitten and starts being a marmoset, and then a lungfish; he goes a few feet towards the water and is buoyed up slightly by the next wave.

truthwright
2013-06-04 08:58 pm (UTC)

Kalavar flaps her wings triumphantly.

Kas and Petaal giggle.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 08:59 pm (UTC)

Katydid becomes sandpiper. He hops towards Kalavar, pecks inquisitively at her foot.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:00 pm (UTC)

Kalavar peers at him, and then nudges him with her nose.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Wheep!" Now he's a clam, digging under the sand.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:02 pm (UTC)

Kalavar nudges him again.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:04 pm (UTC)

He undigs. He's a sea turtle, itty-bitty.

Middle daemon is a seagull chick now.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:06 pm (UTC)

Kalavar flaps her wings.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:07 pm (UTC)

Eventually eldest witchbaby's mother scoops her baby into her sling, and the crane daemon puts the turtle in after her, gently-carefully, and off they fly.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:08 pm (UTC)

Helen and Kalavar keep playing in the sand. Kas and Petaal keep awwing at them.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:09 pm (UTC)

Ranata's enthralled too. She takes occasional pictures, and video snippets.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:21 pm (UTC)

After a little while longer, Kas starts writing a postcard to Isabella.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:23 pm (UTC)

Pregnant Witch drops by - with her husband, who's bundled up in several coats - to acquaint herself with Ranata and with the other witch baby's mother.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:24 pm (UTC)

But not with Kas?

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:25 pm (UTC)

The husband appears to be trying to figure out who Kas is. "I know you're not Renata's husband or Luda's," he says.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm Kas," he says, and points at Helen. "She's mine."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I thought she was Ranata's? Maybe I misheard something."
Edited 2013-06-04 21:28 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:29 pm (UTC)

"She's not Ranata's kid."
Edited 2013-06-04 21:30 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Ranata's what, then? My honey tells me things, but it's hard to keep straight."

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm the only parent she's got. Ranata's giving me a hand with the witch stuff."

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Yours run off?" asks the fellow sympathetically.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:40 pm (UTC)

Kas shrugs and shakes his head. "It's kind of not my favourite subject," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Sorry," says the guy. He produces a beach towel, unrolls it on the sand, and sits with his pregnant wife.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:45 pm (UTC)

"It's okay," he says.

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 09:46 pm (UTC)

The remaining non-Kalavar witchbaby daemon turns into a cygnet, and then a lizard, and then a barn owlet.

truthwright
2013-06-04 09:47 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a series of different brightly coloured dragons.

Kas giggles at her.

A week later, the visit draws to a close; Kas collects his daughter and wanders away. He's back in two months, at Ranata's prompting. He decides that the month Helen spends with the witches every year should be August, since so many witchy things seem to depend on birthdays.

He gets back in the habit of burning postcards. Most of them are about Helen, one way or another.
Edited 2013-06-04 22:53 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-06-04 10:54 pm (UTC)

When Helen turns five, she is supposed to start dagger lessons. Work with a blade doesn't start right away; first she has to learn footwork and drawing and some basic moves with a wooden practice dagger. Shura starts at about the same time; she is younger than Helen, but she's been getting early coaching from her mother.
Edited 2013-07-19 02:56 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-19 02:57 am (UTC)

Helen is very excited about her wooden practice dagger!

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 02:58 am (UTC)

Shura wants a real dagger. She wants to learn to make arrows, and stab dummies, and cut her cloud-pine.

But she knows the fastest way to get her real dagger is to be good with the wood one, so here she is, lunging and slashing it through the air, insulting imaginary enemies. Since she is not even five yet, this mostly consists of calling them: "Frostbitten - um - spinach heads!"
Edited 2013-07-19 03:00 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-19 03:05 am (UTC)

This makes Helen giggle uncontrollably, which in turn makes it difficult for her to properly attend to her lessons.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:07 am (UTC)

"Wha-a-at?" giggles Shura.

carillons
2013-07-19 03:09 am (UTC)

"Spinach heads," says Helen, still giggling. "Spinach heads! Spinach heads!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:10 am (UTC)

"Spinach heaaaaads!" hollers Shura gleefully, stabbing invisible spinach heads.

carillons
2013-07-19 03:14 am (UTC)

Helen giggles helplessly and fails to stab any things. She cannot see the invisible spinach heads when she is laughing so hard!

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:15 am (UTC)

"Girls," says the dagger teacher. "If you want to fight spinach heads or anything else you will need to work on your footwork."

carillons
2013-07-19 03:16 am (UTC)

Helen attempts to stop giggling.
Edited 2013-07-19 03:16 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:17 am (UTC)

"Up you get, come on," says the teacher, and Shura stops stabbing invisible spinach heads and listens while the teacher describes how to correctly place your feet for optimal mobility.

carillons
2013-07-19 03:19 am (UTC)

Helen listens too! She wants to learn these things.

(She keeps grinning, though. Spinach heads!)

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:20 am (UTC)

The teacher keeps them pivoting and lunging around the practice area until they're both tuckered out. She quite ignores the supervising Kas until the lesson is over.

Shura's mother is apparently a little late to fetch her.

carillons
2013-07-19 03:23 am (UTC)

Helen prances up to Kas and says gleefully, "Spinach heads!"

truthwright
2013-07-19 03:24 am (UTC)

"So I've heard," he says, ruffling her hair.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:25 am (UTC)

"Are you a spinach head?" Shura asks Kas. Her Nicoa is clinging to her hair as some kind of lizard.

truthwright
2013-07-19 03:27 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he says innocently.

And for just a moment, his head looks extremely leafy and green.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:27 am (UTC)

Shura shrieks with half-laughter and half-alarm. She flings her wooden dagger at his head.

truthwright
2013-07-19 03:28 am (UTC)

The hilt of the dagger bonks off his forehead. He catches it on the way down and laughs.

"Ouch! What was that for?" he says, handing it back to her.

carillons
2013-07-19 03:29 am (UTC)

"It was 'cause you're a spinach head!" says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:30 am (UTC)

"Yeah! Spinach heaaaaad!" giggles Shura.

"Shura!" says the dagger teacher. "If you attack innocent people with wood, we will not give you steel!"

"Sorry!" says Shura contritely.

carillons
2013-07-19 03:32 am (UTC)

Helen giggles and hugs Kas.

"It's okay," she says, "I love you even when your head is made of spinach."

truthwright
2013-07-19 03:33 am (UTC)

"Aren't I lucky."

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:34 am (UTC)

Shura inspects her dagger from damage it may have sustained during contact with the spinach. "Spinach head, spinach head, spinach hea-a-ad," she sings.

"Shura! Too close to meter!" says the dagger teacher. "You know better!"

"Sorryyyyy," groans Shura.

truthwright
2013-07-19 03:35 am (UTC)

"Careful, or you might turn me into spinach," laughs Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:37 am (UTC)

"Then could Helen come live with meeeee?" asks Shura thoughtfully.

truthwright
2013-07-19 03:44 am (UTC)

"I dunno! Helen, if I turned into spinach would you move in with your new best friend here?"

carillons
2013-07-19 03:45 am (UTC)

"We-ell, that depends," she says. "Would you be talking spinach?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:46 am (UTC)

"Spinach can't take care of a kid," says Shura. "Even if it talks. That is why when you play house there is a mommy and a daddy and not a spinach."

carillons
2013-07-19 03:49 am (UTC)

"...Which one are you?" says Helen, peering at Kas.

truthwright
2013-07-19 03:49 am (UTC)

"I can't be all three?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:49 am (UTC)

Shura giggles. "He's a daddy, isn't he? Also maybe a spinach."

carillons
2013-07-19 03:52 am (UTC)

"He's a mommy too! I came out of his uterus," Helen asserts. "He has one of those sometimes. He's a daddy and a mommy and a spinach."

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:53 am (UTC)

"I don't think that is how mommies," says Shura dubiously. "Adopting mommies don't that thing."

carillons
2013-07-19 03:54 am (UTC)

"Show her the thing, mommydaddyspinach!" says Helen.

truthwright
2013-07-19 03:55 am (UTC)

Kas laughs, and switches sex.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:55 am (UTC)

Shura tilts her head. "Mommydaddyspinach," she concludes. "Do you have a - a daddymommyspinach? Or a spinachdaddymommy?"

carillons
2013-07-19 03:58 am (UTC)

Helen shakes her head.

"I just have Kas," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:58 am (UTC)

"Why?"

carillons
2013-07-19 03:59 am (UTC)

"Dunno!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 03:59 am (UTC)

"Did grownups who like spinach eat the other one?"

carillons
2013-07-19 12:16 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

"Noooo," she says. "I don't think so."

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Then why?"

carillons
2013-07-19 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I dunno! Mommydaddyspinach, why aren't there two of you?"

truthwright
2013-07-19 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Because I made you by myself," he says, hugging her.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Why?" Shura asks.

truthwright
2013-07-19 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Because I wanted to have a kid."

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 04:42 pm (UTC)

"How come she's a witch?" Shura asks.

truthwright
2013-07-19 04:50 pm (UTC)

He shrugs, and suggests, "Magic?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Can you just make anybody a witch? Can you make my daddy a witch?"

truthwright
2013-07-19 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I didn't make her a witch on purpose," he says, ruffling Helen's hair. "She just came out that way."

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Why not on purpose?"

truthwright
2013-07-19 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I didn't really think about it one way or the other," he says, very truthfully.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Are there going to be more witches with spinaches instead of witch mommies?"

truthwright
2013-07-19 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea," Kas says cheerfully.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Are you going to make more ones?"

truthwright
2013-07-19 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty happy with the one I've got," he says. "I think I'll wait for her to grow up first."

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:09 pm (UTC)

"That will take a long time," observes Shura solemnly.

truthwright
2013-07-19 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Not that long," says Kas. "Another ten years or so."

carillons
2013-07-19 05:13 pm (UTC)

"In ten years I'll be... fifteen," says Helen, frowning arithmetically. "Is that grown up?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Mommy says I will be most of the way grown up when Nicoa picks something and we separate," says Shura. (Nicoa becomes a polecat and slithers from her head into her arms.) "And the rest of the way grown up when I like to eat vegetables - so -" She points at Kas. "Watch out!"

carillons
2013-07-19 05:23 pm (UTC)

"What are you going to be when we grow up, Kalavar?" says Helen.

Kalavar becomes a snake and coils around her shoulders. "I'm gonna be like Petaal and never ever settle," she announces.
Edited 2013-07-19 17:24 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:25 pm (UTC)

"You have to be a bird," opines Nicoa. "Mommy says." He illustratively turns into a tawny frogmouth.

carillons
2013-07-19 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Only if I be something," says Kalavar, turning into a tiny dragon with gold-edged green scales and green-streaked gold wings.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:29 pm (UTC)

"If you don't be anything how will you know when to separate?" asks Shura. (Nicoa becomes a crow, and a bluejay, and a chickadee.)

carillons
2013-07-19 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I dunno!" says Kalavar. "Maybe we won't. Maybe we'll just never grow up." She giggles, curling around Helen's neck as a fuzzy little red panda.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I guess then you won't eat your spinachdaddy," allows Shura.

carillons
2013-07-19 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't eat him anyway! He's nice," Helen asserts. She hugs her mommydaddyspinach.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:35 pm (UTC)

Shura giggles.

"I'm going to be a pretty bird," asserts Nicoa, experimenting with finches now.

carillons
2013-07-19 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to be a scary bird," says Kalavar. She turns into a vulture.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:36 pm (UTC)

Shura giggles.

carillons
2013-07-19 05:37 pm (UTC)

Kalavar stands on Helen's head and flaps her wings. Helen squeaks.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:38 pm (UTC)

Shura's mother chooses this moment to appear and pick up her daughter.

"Mommy, he's a spinach head," Shura reports.

"Really," says Shura's mother. "That's unusual."

carillons
2013-07-19 05:39 pm (UTC)

"He's my mommydaddyspinach," giggles Helen, and she hugs Kas some more. Kalavar turns into a dragon again and lands on Petaal, who is being a white tiger at the moment.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 05:41 pm (UTC)

Shura's mother plunks her child onto her cloud-pine; Nicoa turns into a bat and hangs from the branch, and off they fly.

carillons
2013-07-19 10:04 pm (UTC)

Helen sits in Kas's lap and declares him her favourite spinach in the whole wide world.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 10:06 pm (UTC)

Magic lessons start a bit later, and Helen has these with Shura, too - and also with Inkeri and Kaydi. They begin with simple verse spells, in non-English to discourage making up variations. This doesn't stop Shura from identifying a goddess's name in one spell, replacing it with another, and causing a small explosion and getting a time-out.

carillons
2013-07-19 10:07 pm (UTC)

"What'd you do that for?" says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know it'd explode!" says Shura, when she bounces out of time-out and bends over her book of introductory spells again. "I just wanted to try something."

carillons
2013-07-19 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Your something exploded," says Helen. "What was it supposed to do if it didn't explode?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," says Shura. "We don't have to know to get stuff to happen, right? That's why we don't verse out of lessons?"

carillons
2013-07-19 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Well, which one was it? Do it properly and let's see."

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 10:49 pm (UTC)

"It was this one -" Shura reads off the syllables from the book, and Nicoa starts glowing; he cycles through several forms and the glow persists and he laughs. "It's to see in the dark!"

carillons
2013-07-19 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Coooool," says Helen. She reads the spell, and Kalavar turns into a firefly and flutters bright bright circles around her head.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what all these words mean. Do you think I should learn these old witch languages nobody our age speaks?"

carillons
2013-07-19 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Helen. "I'll learn them too and then we can both speak them!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 10:53 pm (UTC)

"And nobody will understand us!" giggles Shura. "Except really old people. My great-great-grandma knows them!"

carillons
2013-07-19 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Will she teach us, do you think?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Maybe!"

The magic teacher says, "Perhaps, but right now we are studying spells. Keep reading your books."

carillons
2013-07-19 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen. She looks in her book for another spell.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 11:04 pm (UTC)

There are several in this little book. Simple first-aid, the snow-circle, a spell to thicken liquids so they'll make clear runes without soaking into the ground or splashing, a few they can't use yet that pertain to cloud-pine maintenance. It also has a section about the uses of herbs, although none of the spells in this book actually use them - that's more advanced.

carillons
2013-07-19 11:05 pm (UTC)

She reads that section anyway, fascinated.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 11:09 pm (UTC)

The teacher's style is to assume that they know all the things they have read, and quiz them, impromptu single questions that require synthesizing the knowledge - creatively or logically; either can world. "Kaydi. What would adding marjoram to the spell for small cuts do?"

"Uh - make it work faster?" guesses Kaydi.

"Inkeri. The spell on page sixteen invokes Segaard Oskei. What might happen if you substituted Farakhel Nimah?"

"...It would make the liquid hot?" Inkeri supposes.

"Helen. What would happen if you omitted a line from the middle of the snow-circle?"

carillons
2013-07-19 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make a snow-circle," she says, "but I don't know what it would do instead." With a glance at Shura, "Hopefully not explode."

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 11:16 pm (UTC)

The teacher smiles. "Shura. You exchanged goddesses in the daemonglow spell and got an explosion, which you are very lucky did not involve your daemon. What might happen if you used a different one - any of your choice?"

"Um, it said Amariah Lytess... probably because she does daemons... and I put Farakhel Nimah and it exploded - because she does fire?... um... maybe if I put Yambe Akka it would make something cold?"

The teacher inclines her head. "That spell is actually a very versatile one, which you will be able to vary to assorted effects as an adult; it calls on numbered domains from the named goddess, which in the case you see in your book results in combining your daemon and the full moon, but if the numbers, the goddess, or both are changed can do any number of things. Including make something cold."
Edited 2013-07-19 23:19 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-19 11:46 pm (UTC)

"What if you put in Kas Petaal?" wonders Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 11:47 pm (UTC)

"If you don't change the numbers, it will snuff out light around a target male mortal," says the teacher. "Not particularly useful."

carillons
2013-07-19 11:48 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-19 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Because this spell is so useful, though," says the teacher, "it is worth learning the numbers in this language even if you learn nothing else. Turn to the back; there is a chart."

Little witches turn pages.

carillons
2013-07-19 11:49 pm (UTC)

Ooh, a chart. Helen peruses the chart.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 12:04 am (UTC)

It has goddesses in it, and domains in neat columns, and numbers in the spell's language.

carillons
2013-07-20 12:07 am (UTC)

This is a good chart. Helen likes this chart. She reads it over and over and hums to herself.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 12:09 am (UTC)

"This is worth memorizing," comments the teacher. "Just remember that if you need a mnemonic -"

"No verse," chorus little witches.

"Especially with all those goddesses," says the teacher. "Anything could happen."

carillons
2013-07-20 12:10 am (UTC)

Helen giggles.

"Explosions! People turning into spinach!"
Edited 2013-07-20 00:11 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 12:29 am (UTC)

"Spinach is specific enough that it would probably need herbs or runes or both, but yes," says the teacher gravely.

carillons
2013-07-20 12:29 am (UTC)

Helen looks speculative.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 12:30 am (UTC)

"Do not try it," says the teacher sharply. "Someone could be badly hurt."

carillons
2013-07-20 12:33 am (UTC)

"He's already a spinach head, though," muses Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 12:34 am (UTC)

The teacher crouches down to Helen's eye level. "If you make jokes about using magic unsafely when I am trying to be serious, I will assume you are going to use magic unsafely, and you will be sent away and not learn any for at least another year. Is that what you want, Helen?"

carillons
2013-07-20 12:43 am (UTC)

"I wasn't even doing that!" she exclaims unhappily.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 12:45 am (UTC)

"People do not have spinach for heads," says the teacher.

"Yeah," says Kaydi. "If they did they'd die."

"He does though, I saw," Shura pipes up.

"Don't you start," says the teacher.

carillons
2013-07-20 12:48 am (UTC)

"I saw it too," says Helen, "it was all green and curly and floppy! So people's heads can be spinach and they don't die!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 12:51 am (UTC)

"Magic lessons are not the time to make up ludicrous stories," snaps the teacher. "We are working with dangerous forces. Shura could have easily hurt someone playing carelessly with the most basic of spells. Later we learn to control immense forces and to curse and to kill! If your judgment does not even extend to controlling your imagination while I am explicitly telling you to, perhaps you are not mature enough to be studying spells!" She reaches for Helen's book and closes it with a snap; the raven on her shoulder croaks. She looks speculatively at Shura's book, too, and Shura starts sniffling.

carillons
2013-07-20 12:54 am (UTC)

"That's not fair!" she yells. "Mommydaddyspinaaaaach!"

The wailed word fills the air like a shockwave. It's not especially loud in comparison to what any other five-year-old's lungs could generate, but it carries like nobody's business.
Edited 2013-07-20 00:57 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:00 am (UTC)

Kas arrives almost immediately, flown by a witch-shaped Petaal on their cloudpine.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:01 am (UTC)

The teacher is still looking quizzically at Helen.

Shura looks hopefully in Kas's direction.

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:03 am (UTC)

"Helen, sweetheart," says Kas, coming up to the semicircle of rocks and hugging his daughter, "what's wrong?"

carillons
2013-07-20 01:05 am (UTC)

Helen hugs him fiercely, pressing her face into his chest. "The teacher thinks I'm making it up!" she says, somewhat muffled now.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:08 am (UTC)

"About the spinach!" Shura clarifies.

"As I was just explaining to Helen," the teacher tells Kas, "we are working with potentially hazardous forces; if she cannot take that seriously, she can study magic later, when she is more mature. It's too dangerous to teach magic to a girl who persists in silly games when receiving serious warnings."

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:10 am (UTC)

Kas sighs.

"No, that's my fault," he says. "They were calling me a spinach head and I made it look like it was true for a second. The kids saw what they said they saw."

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:12 am (UTC)

"...You made it look like it was true," says the witch skeptically.

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:12 am (UTC)

"Yep."
Edited 2013-07-20 01:12 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:12 am (UTC)

"And how did you do that? Moreover, why?"

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:15 am (UTC)

"A trick," he says, "and... because it was funny?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:17 am (UTC)

"If your daughter goes around imagining that people's essential organs can be transformed into salad ingredients with no lasting damage she could easily kill someone before she turns seven. Does this prospect appeal to you? Is it funny?" asks the teacher.

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:25 am (UTC)

"Okay," he concedes, "no, that doesn't sound like fun." He pets Helen's hair. "Don't turn people into spinach, honey, okay?"

carillons
2013-07-20 01:26 am (UTC)

Helen sniffles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:27 am (UTC)

"The safe use of magic requires an understanding of what reality is, and what effects are needed, and what further effects they will have. I strongly advise against little tricks like that until Helen is old enough to see them for what they are."

But she gives Helen her book back.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:30 am (UTC)

Kalavar climbs up onto the book as a scarlet dragon with orange-red claws and curls up on top of it. Helen keeps hugging Kas.

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:32 am (UTC)

Kas sighs and hugs his daughter. Petaal flits to Kalavar's side as a tiny hummingbird, then curls up with her as a chinchilla.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:34 am (UTC)

Nicoa is coiled around Shura's neck as a long white ferret.

The teacher sighs. "I think we should call it a day, girls; we'll go on tomorrow. Run along."

Inkeri runs along. Kaydi lingers, looking suspiciously at Helen. Shura dawdles.
Edited 2013-07-20 01:34 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:36 am (UTC)

Kas sits and snuggles his daughter.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:37 am (UTC)

Eventually, Helen turns around in his lap to see who is still there. She's a little red-eyed, but not actively crying.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:37 am (UTC)

"How'd you yell like that?" Kaydi asks.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:37 am (UTC)

"Like what?" she asks, blinking.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:38 am (UTC)

"Like a - a boomy thing."

carillons
2013-07-20 01:38 am (UTC)

"Dunno," says Helen. "I just yelled really loud."

truthwright
2013-07-20 01:39 am (UTC)

Kas hugs her. Thoughtfully.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:39 am (UTC)

"I heard it too, it was different," opines Shura.

"Not normal," says Kaydi.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:41 am (UTC)

Helen shrugs.

"I didn't do it specially on purpose. I was just - yelling."

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:41 am (UTC)

"Can you do it again?" asks Shura curiously.

"Don't!" says Kaydi, clapping her hands over her ears.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:42 am (UTC)

Helen considers.

"I don't really want to yell right now," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:43 am (UTC)

Kaydi puts her hands down. Lexaryn, on her shoulder as a mouse, chitters.

"What if you did, though?" asks Shura.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:44 am (UTC)

"What what if I did?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:44 am (UTC)

"If you wanted to yell could you do it like that again," says Shura.

Kaydi runs along.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:45 am (UTC)

"I don't know! Maybe," she says. "Do you want me to try?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:46 am (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Shura. (Nicoa turns into a box turtle and hides his head in his shell.)

carillons
2013-07-20 01:51 am (UTC)

Helen giggles at Nicoa, and un-sits from Kas's lap, and thinks for a moment, and yells, "I'm yelling for no reason!"

It doesn't come out quite right; she can feel it. She frowns for a moment and then tries again.

"I'm yelling for no reason!"

There it goes. She giggles again.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:51 am (UTC)

Shura laughs and claps.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:53 am (UTC)

Helen beams.

"I did a thing!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:54 am (UTC)

"What thing is it, though? How do you do it? I'm yelliiiiiing," Shura tries experimentally.

carillons
2013-07-20 01:56 am (UTC)

"I don't know!" she says. "I don't knooooooooooooow..."

This time she does it without the volume, just filling a twenty-foot radius with her ordinary voice.

"Maybe it's magic," she says more normally. "But it's not in the book anywhere."
Edited 2013-07-20 01:56 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 01:56 am (UTC)

"And you didn't verse it. Have you been eating funny herbs or spilling honey in shapes or something?"

carillons
2013-07-20 02:08 am (UTC)

"Not even a little bit!" says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:09 am (UTC)

"Then how'd you do it?"

carillons
2013-07-20 02:13 am (UTC)

"I dunno! I just did," she says. "It's just a thing I can do."

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:13 am (UTC)

"I don't have a thing like that."

carillons
2013-07-20 02:18 am (UTC)

Helen shrugs.

"Well, I don't know what kind of thing it is. Maybe I'm just the only one who has it."

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:19 am (UTC)

"That's not fair," huffs Shura.

carillons
2013-07-20 02:22 am (UTC)

"I'd give you one too if I could!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:23 am (UTC)

"It's not your birth blessing, right?" says Shura, scrunching up her face trying to remember.

carillons
2013-07-20 02:24 am (UTC)

"No, my birth blessing's something about Kalavar," she says. Kalavar arches her spiny neck.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:24 am (UTC)

Nicoa turns into a puffy rabbit. "Mine is boring, and I don't even get a shouting power," Shura says.

carillons
2013-07-20 02:25 am (UTC)

"What is yours?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:26 am (UTC)

"I don't get sick much," shrugs Shura. "I guess it's okay, it's just not interesting."

carillons
2013-07-20 02:28 am (UTC)

"What one would you pick, if you could pick one?" wonders Helen. She nudges Kalavar off her book and opens it to the goddess chart.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:30 am (UTC)

"Something cool. Like - like my great grandmother only has to sleep three hours a day, I like that one."

carillons
2013-07-20 02:34 am (UTC)

"That would be cool," Helen agrees.

truthwright
2013-07-20 02:36 am (UTC)

"It sure would," says Kas.

And it's not even a hex. A pentagon will do it.

(There's tricks, and then there's tricks. He's willing to risk this one.)

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:38 am (UTC)

"Oh well," sighs Shura theatrically. "I'm gonna go find grandma and we are going to the lake to feed ducks." (Nicoa becomes a duckling, illustratively.) "You can come probably."

carillons
2013-07-20 02:40 am (UTC)

"Okay!" says Helen, scooping up Kalavar onto her shoulder with a last glance at the book. "Let's go feed ducks!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 02:58 am (UTC)

They locate Shura's grandmother, and they go to the lake, where there are ducks.

carillons
2013-07-20 03:00 am (UTC)

"It would be more fun if you got to pick your birth blessing," says Helen, apparently out of the blue during duck-feeding. "I'd want grace as mine."
Edited 2013-07-20 03:00 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-07-20 03:02 am (UTC)

(Kas is writing a postcard. He crushes it in his hand and stuffs it into his pocket.)

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 03:04 am (UTC)

"That would be a good one too," agrees Shura. "It'd be good for dagger fighting!"

carillons
2013-07-20 03:05 am (UTC)

Helen giggles.

truthwright
2013-07-20 03:05 am (UTC)

It's a pentagon.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 03:09 am (UTC)

Shura flings corn kernels to the ducks and giggles when they quarrel over them.

truthwright
2013-07-20 12:52 pm (UTC)

Well, that's adorable.

carillons
2013-07-20 12:53 pm (UTC)

Kalavar becomes a duckling and squeaks and flaps her wings at Helen until Helen feeds her. This is a source of great amusement to both of them.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 05:19 pm (UTC)

"You're not a real duck," Nicoa scoffs at Kalavar.

carillons
2013-07-20 05:20 pm (UTC)

"So?" says Kalavar, and she flaps her fuzzy wings some more.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 05:25 pm (UTC)

Nicoa, quite at random, becomes an anteater and sticks out his tongue at Kalavar.

Shura giggles and goes on feeding ducks.

"Even the ducks can tell the difference between themselves and daemons, whatever the daemon form," remarks Shura's grandmother.

carillons
2013-07-20 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?" wonders Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:07 pm (UTC)

"It's a little like magical sensitivity, except animals don't react in special ways to enchanted things," says Shura's grandmother, "they can only tell the difference between daemons and animals. In people, being able to tell that easily and quickly usually comes with being able to tell things about magic. The faster a mortal could tell that Kalavar isn't a duck, the more likely they'd be to notice my dagger's enchantments, or my birth blessing, or tell that I'm not a mortal even if I dressed up like one. Of course witches have higher magical sensitivity than mortals do."

carillons
2013-07-20 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Helen. She pets Kalavar's fuzzy head and throws a handful of corn kernels to the ducks. "Why's it different for animals and people that way?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:11 pm (UTC)

Shura's grandmother starts explaining evolution. If animals couldn't tell that daemons were part of people, they could not act correctly afraid of them - which they must do. Daemons don't have to eat for themselves, and if they help their people hunt, they may attack animals that their current shapes would not disturb. Children's daemons are even more versatile; if the ducks were fooled by Kalavar, Helen could hide, Kalavar could go among them, and then she could turn into a fox right on top of a real duck and there would be dinner.
Edited 2013-07-20 18:12 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-20 06:15 pm (UTC)

...Kalavar turns into a small blue dragon and looks speculatively at the ducks.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:16 pm (UTC)

The ducks don't react to this transformation. They are just as inclined to keep their distance as before. (Which isn't that much; when witches want to kill these ducks they lure them away with magic, they don't attack them in front of the flock.)

carillons
2013-07-20 06:17 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

Kalavar becomes a duckling again. Ducklings are fuzzy.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:18 pm (UTC)

Nicoa is tempted by fuzz. He turns into a small monkey and pets Kalavar.

carillons
2013-07-20 06:20 pm (UTC)

Kalavar snuggles up to Nicoa and makes happy duckling squeaks.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:21 pm (UTC)

Shura giggles.

"How come you make so many animal-noises?" Nicoa asks Kalavar.

carillons
2013-07-20 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Because they are fun and cute!" says Kalavar. Squeak!

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:23 pm (UTC)

Nicoa tries some experimental monkey-noises, then shakes his head.

carillons
2013-07-20 06:24 pm (UTC)

Kalavar giggles and duckling-squeaks at him some more. It is indeed adorable.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:24 pm (UTC)

Nicoa turns into a dragonfly and adorns Shura's hair like an ornament.

The ducks seem to be pretty full.

carillons
2013-07-20 06:25 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a fuzzy moth and perches in the palm of Helen's hand.

"You're tickly," she giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Shura's grandmother, setting her cloudpine in the air and setting Shura on it, "we're going to have dinner. Say goodbye, Shura."

"Bye," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-20 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Bye, Shura!" says Helen. "Bye, Shura's grandma!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-20 06:29 pm (UTC)

And off they go.

alicornucopia
2013-07-22 10:47 pm (UTC)

It is later, when Helen is just past her sixth birthday, that Ranata brainphones Kas who is off somewhere. [There's a lovely-looking children's aquarium opening in Chicago,] she says. [I thought perhaps Helen would like it. We could all three go, with Charlie if he's up for the flight but he probably won't be.]
Edited 2013-07-22 23:22 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-07-22 11:24 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, sounds like fun. Sure, we can go.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-22 11:25 pm (UTC)

[Can you meet me there Tuesday or Wednesday?]

truthwright
2013-07-22 11:27 pm (UTC)

[Sure! Tuesday works.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-22 11:28 pm (UTC)

[Okay!] And she supplies the address. [There's a lot of exhibits, we should start at at least ten in the morning to see everything before Helen gets tired.]

truthwright
2013-07-22 11:32 pm (UTC)

He laughs. [Sounds good to me.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-22 11:33 pm (UTC)

At ten in the morning, Ranata hovers over the walk that leads up to the aquarium entrance. She's already healed an ailing otter for tickets.

truthwright
2013-07-22 11:36 pm (UTC)

Kas arrives on foot, with Helen. Petaal is coiled around his neck as an iridescent black snake, and Kalavar is perched on Helen's ear as a fuzzy bumblebee.
Edited 2013-07-22 23:36 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-22 11:37 pm (UTC)

Ranata lands to join them and scoop Helen up in a hug. "Hello there!"

carillons
2013-07-22 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Ranata!" says Helen, giggling and hugging her. (Kalavar buzzes over to say hi to Castarilan.)

alicornucopia
2013-07-22 11:42 pm (UTC)

(Castarilan hovers and chatters politely at his granddaemon.)

"Are you ready to see lots of cool swimming animals? There are tanks with friendly ones that Kalavar can go into if she's the right shapes," says Ranata.

carillons
2013-07-22 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Oooooh," says Helen. "I wanna see!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-22 11:54 pm (UTC)

In they go! Ranata flashes the pass she got for the otter's healing. There are themed wings; different environments, divided with glass for civilized coexistence, lit in colors and architectured with coral and plants and populated with fish and mollusks and aquatic mammals and birds and cnidarians and echinoderms and undersea arthropods. There's a show by a woman with a dolphin daemon - keeping real cetaceans in captivity hasn't been allowed for years now, but some people have inconvenient settlements and find the performing arts more appealing than separation or living on a houseboat or trying to finance a home tank, so the general idea persists, in choreography if not in the impressiveness of training across the communication barrier.

There are touch-tanks, where little human hands can pick up starfish and gingerly run their fingers along urchins and unglue snails from tank walls, and there are swim-tanks, where little humans can cross a bridge or creep through a tunnel into central islands surrounded by inhabited water, and their daemons can turn into penguins - or rays - or trout - or eels - or creative little sea-serpents - or otters - and join similarly shaped creatures in capering around. (There are signs up; it is important to turn into a saltwater or freshwater creature, in the corresponding tanks, although exact shape doesn't matter very much. The aquarium is not responsible if some child's daemon provokes an animal and the daemon is pulled farther from their human than they'd like, although none of the tanks in question are big enough to make this more than moderately uncomfortable. Daemons are not to chase, attack, or frighten the animals.)

carillons
2013-07-22 11:59 pm (UTC)

Helen is delighted by the dolphin dance, and pleased with the snail-petting, and then Kalavar gets to play with the creatures and that is just the best thing. Penguins! Otters! They are especially fond of the otters.

alicornucopia
2013-07-22 11:59 pm (UTC)

Ranata is perfectly charmed to watch Helen amuse herself with the creatures.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:00 am (UTC)

Helen is so amused.

truthwright
2013-07-23 12:01 am (UTC)

Don't tell anyone, but the iridescent snake is missing from around Kas's neck and there is an extra otter going around.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:01 am (UTC)

Ranata's lips are sealed.

truthwright
2013-07-23 12:02 am (UTC)

Good, because he doesn't feel like explaining that to a bunch of strangers today.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:04 am (UTC)

Kalavar totally knows, though, and she is cheerfully playing tag with Petaal-the-otter. They go around and around, and the other otters join in, and a fun time is had by all.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:05 am (UTC)

And whenever they want to move on, there are plenty of neat creatures to see! Ranata picks up Helen so she can see the higher informational plaques and helps her pronounce words.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:07 am (UTC)

Ooh, pickings-up! Ranata is best grandma.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:08 am (UTC)

She is pretty great! And she can send Castarilan humming through the aquarium to get a better feel from the place than the map affords, and they traverse it efficiently but at a leisurely pace, never lost or backtracking.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:10 am (UTC)

It is fuuuuuuuuuun. Helen is the most delighted of children.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:11 am (UTC)

That's the idea!

Here is an octopus. It wafts around its tank like a particularly purposeful, solid plastic bag on the wind.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:15 am (UTC)

"Awwwww," says Helen, clapping her hands. "It's pretty!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:16 am (UTC)

"It is!" Ranata agrees. Kalavar isn't allowed to play with this one, but they can watch it. It gloms onto the near glass, showing off suckers.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:18 am (UTC)

"And squishly," says Helen. Kalavar turns into an octopus-like fantasy creature with bright green-and-gold tentacles and pokes the glass where the octopus is.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:18 am (UTC)

The octopus mirrors this motion, peering curiously out.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:20 am (UTC)

Kalavar wiggles her tentacles. (There are seven of them. She is only octopus-like.)

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:20 am (UTC)

The octopus loses interest and wafts away and squeezes into its tiny little hideyhole, which should not be able to accommodate so much octopus.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:21 am (UTC)

"It is very squishly," Helen observes. "Look at it squish!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:22 am (UTC)

"It doesn't have any bones," says Ranata. "It's an invertebrate!"

carillons
2013-07-23 12:25 am (UTC)

"No bones at all? Wow," says Helen. "No wonder it squishes!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:26 am (UTC)

"Well, lobsters don't have bones either, on the inside," says Ranata. (They saw lobsters a little while ago.) "They have exoskeletons - their shells hold them together. But octopuses don't even have those."

carillons
2013-07-23 12:27 am (UTC)

"I like octopuses more," she says. "Because they squish up."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:28 am (UTC)

"They do! They can get through really tiny spaces."

carillons
2013-07-23 12:30 am (UTC)

"I saw!" she says. "It's coooool."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:31 am (UTC)

"The next time we come to a saltwater swim tank maybe Kalavar can try." It won't make any difference to the inhabitants of the tank whether Kalavar is an octopus or a shrimp or a shark; daemon is daemon, exactly the same threat level as attached person and less edible due to their habit of disappearing.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:39 am (UTC)

"Squishy!" says Kalavar, twining her green-gold tentacles in Helen's hair.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:40 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

Next is a tiny cuttlefish, its little beard of tentacles constantly flexing.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:42 am (UTC)

"Wiggly!" says Helen, thoroughly charmed.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:42 am (UTC)

"Yep! This is related to the octopus. They're both molluscs."

carillons
2013-07-23 12:42 am (UTC)

"Does this one squish too?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:43 am (UTC)

"Not as much," says Ranata. "A little, though, it still doesn't have any bones."

carillons
2013-07-23 12:45 am (UTC)

"What makes it less squishy, then?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:46 am (UTC)

"This sign says it has something a little like a shell inside of it. It's called a cuttlebone, but it's not really a bone." Ranata picks her up for a better look at the sign.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:47 am (UTC)

Helen oohs at the sign and reads it carefully. It contains knowledge about the squishiness of cuttlefish!

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:47 am (UTC)

It does!

This section also contains small squids.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:48 am (UTC)

Small squids.

Small squids.

SMALL SQUIDS.

Helen might just want to stare at the small squids forever.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:49 am (UTC)

Ranata will let her observe small squids for a good long time, certainly.

truthwright
2013-07-23 12:51 am (UTC)

Helen being delighted by creatures is adorable.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:52 am (UTC)

She is definitely just going to keep staring until she gets hungry.

But she does, in fact, get hungry.

"Can we have lunch now?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:53 am (UTC)

"Of course."

The aquarium has a cafeteria, with tables oriented around a koi pond. (You are not supposed to feed the koi, but daemons may join them.)

carillons
2013-07-23 12:55 am (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a tiny sea serpent with brilliant turqoise scales and a dragonish head, and she swims around with the pretty pretty koi.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:56 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, humans eat food! It is adequate cafeteria food.

carillons
2013-07-23 12:56 am (UTC)

Om nom.

"What other creatures are there to see?" wonders Helen. "Are there more squishy ones?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:57 am (UTC)

Nothing quite as squishy, but:

sea cucumbers!

carillons
2013-07-23 12:58 am (UTC)

Ooooooh.

"They're lumpy," she giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 12:58 am (UTC)

"Yup!"

And there are many kinds.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:00 am (UTC)

Helen is pleased with all the kinds. She goes and looks at them all.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:01 am (UTC)

And then there are assorted sharks!

carillons
2013-07-23 01:01 am (UTC)

Ooooh, sharks.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:02 am (UTC)

Sharks are not squishy, but they are very sharky.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:02 am (UTC)

They are!

"I like sharks," Helen announces.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:03 am (UTC)

"They are cool!"

Next: brightly colored tropical fishes all mixed up together.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:04 am (UTC)

"Ooh, colours," says Kalavar. She sits on Helen's head and turns into a dragon with big arched wings that contain all of the colours.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:16 am (UTC)

There are a lot of colors, although a surprising fraction of the fish just use black and white and yellow.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:18 am (UTC)

Still, it is plenty of colours! And Kalavar is all of them. She is so pretty.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:18 am (UTC)

She is. A few passing children's daemons copy her.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:19 am (UTC)

She preens her vivid wings with her little dragon nose.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:19 am (UTC)

Aww.

After the colorful tropical fish are eels. Including electric ones.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:20 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Helen. "They're wiggly!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:22 am (UTC)

They are wiggly, and the electric ones have sensors in their tanks to tell you how electric they are being at any given time.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:24 am (UTC)

Kalavar becomes a snake and coils around Helen's shoulders while Helen peers at the wiggly eels and reads the sensors on the electric ones.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:25 am (UTC)

After eels are funny fishes that pop up vertically from the sand at the floor of their tank, like grass.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:27 am (UTC)

She giggles at the funny fishes! They are funny.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:31 am (UTC)

Next are manatees. They drift about peacefully and eat lettuce.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:32 am (UTC)

"They look huggable," Helen declares.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:32 am (UTC)

"No swimming with these ones, sorry," says Ranata, peering at the sign. "But they do, don't they?"

carillons
2013-07-23 01:34 am (UTC)

"I will just have to hug you instead," says Helen, and she does.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:35 am (UTC)

Hug!

carillons
2013-07-23 01:35 am (UTC)

"You are huggable like a manatee," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:36 am (UTC)

"Oh, I'm not sure I'm like a manatee. I think I'm differently huggable," laughs Ranata.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:39 am (UTC)

"But you are huggable and they are huggable! And you are out here where I can hug you! You're the best manatee ever," Helen declares.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:39 am (UTC)

"I do seem to have a practical advantage, there!"

carillons
2013-07-23 01:40 am (UTC)

Beam!

Hug.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:40 am (UTC)

Hug.

Here there are frogs. Brightly colored poisonous frogs.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:42 am (UTC)

"Ooh, pretty colours," says Helen. Kalavar turns into a dragon with many colours again, but a more rounded froggy sort of dragon.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:43 am (UTC)

There are many pretty colors, and the frogs are cute, and tiny.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:45 am (UTC)

They are so tiny and cute! Kalavar flaps her colourful wings in glee, clinging to Helen's shoulder with her rounded froggy toes.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:46 am (UTC)

"If Kalavar ever becomes something poisonous to touch," Ranata tells them, "she won't hurt you, Helen, but she can still hurt other daemons."

The question of her hurting other people is not mentioned.

truthwright
2013-07-23 01:47 am (UTC)

"And animals. And people," says Petaal.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:50 am (UTC)

"Well," says Ranata. "Technically, but people wouldn't be touching Kalavar anyway. And if they did, and they didn't stop right away, she can turn into a poison frog and Helen can scream at the top of her lungs. Understand, dear? If anyone ever does that and it's not an accident they correct right away, you be poisonous or spiky or slippery and you get away. That's not ever okay until you are grown up and decide so."

carillons
2013-07-23 01:51 am (UTC)

Helen nods.

"Because it's bad," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:52 am (UTC)

"That's right. Everybody's daemon belongs to them and nobody else."

carillons
2013-07-23 01:54 am (UTC)

Helen hugs her rounded froggy dragon daemon.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:55 am (UTC)

Next are water bugs, that skim across the surface of their water.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:55 am (UTC)

"Oooooooh," marvels Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:55 am (UTC)

Puffins!

These are swimmable-with.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:57 am (UTC)

Kalavar swims with the puffins as a magnificently colourful sea serpent with winglike fins.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:58 am (UTC)

The puffins are rather friendly!

And now, they have seen everything, from anemones to zebrafish, and the aquarium will close in fifteen minutes.

carillons
2013-07-23 01:58 am (UTC)

"That was fun," says Helen, hugging Ranata again. "You're my favourite manatee."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 01:59 am (UTC)

Ranata laughs, and picks her up for a properly snuggly hug. "I'm so glad."

carillons
2013-07-23 02:02 am (UTC)

It is snuggly and huggly!

"I love you, favourite manatee!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 02:02 am (UTC)

"I love you too, Helen." Forehead-kiss.

carillons
2013-07-23 02:02 am (UTC)

Huggly snug.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 02:03 am (UTC)

Yup.

Out they go.

Far away, a spell is cast, with herbs and a design in thickened goat's blood and low chanting and the death of an owl.
Edited 2013-07-23 02:25 (UTC)

i've written home to mother

truthwright

They fly from the aquarium to Charlie's house, because Helen wants to see Charlie.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 04:48 pm (UTC)

It's a longish flight. Ranata elects to follow the highway. There are a lot of billboards. For miscellaneous services, for miscellaneous products, for miscellaneous movies.

Apparently in four months audiences may expect yet another movie about the Shade-Dreamer. This one is entitled "Isabella Amariah and the Harpies' Bargain"; the actress they have got to play her at least looks like a convincing witch when photographed and does have an owl posing dramatically on her shoulder, albeit a barn owl.
Edited 2013-07-25 16:56 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-25 05:02 pm (UTC)

"What's a harpy?" says Helen. "And isn't that my secret mom's name?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:03 pm (UTC)

"A harpy is a creature that lives in the afterlife and acts as a gatekeeper there," says Ranata, "and - yes - yes it is, they're talking about the same person."

carillons
2013-07-25 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Why's there a movie about my secret mom? Isn't she a secret?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:05 pm (UTC)

"It's a secret that she's your mom. It's not a secret that she did what she did."

carillons
2013-07-25 05:07 pm (UTC)

"What'd she do?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:08 pm (UTC)

"She made the afterlife."

carillons
2013-07-25 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Really?" says Helen. "How'd she do that?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:10 pm (UTC)

"No one knows exactly." Ranata swallows. "Most witches think she did a sacrificial spell - with herself as the sacrifice - and that that's why she hasn't turned up since - but something Kas said makes me think maybe that isn't what happened - he would know more than me about it, though, he was closer to her at the time it happened and he won't tell me everything."

carillons
2013-07-25 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

Helen contemplates this.

"Why not? Is it because she's secret?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't know why he won't tell me. He just won't."

carillons
2013-07-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

"I bet it's because she's secret," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:22 pm (UTC)

"She's only partly secret. They make movies about her," says Ranata. "But that you're her daughter needs to stay a secret, because people would bother you about it if they knew."

carillons
2013-07-25 05:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't want people bothering me about her," says Helen. "Because she's secret."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Very good," sighs Ranata.

carillons
2013-07-25 05:26 pm (UTC)

And that is all Helen has to say on the subject of her secret mom for now.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:26 pm (UTC)

They arrive at Charlie's eventually.

carillons
2013-07-25 05:27 pm (UTC)

Helen swoops upon him for hugs.

"Hi, grandpa! Manatees are really huggable, did you know? And Grandma is more huggable than manatees. She is like the best manatee. She's a granatee!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:27 pm (UTC)

He hugs her. "I did not know that about manatees," he says, laughing softly.

carillons
2013-07-25 05:32 pm (UTC)

"It's true! We looked at some and they looked huggy," she asserts.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:33 pm (UTC)

"But you didn't try it and see?"

carillons
2013-07-25 05:34 pm (UTC)

"There was a sign that said we're not s'posed to. So I hugged Granatee instead!"
Edited 2013-07-25 17:34 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Is that my name now?" chuckles Ranata.

carillons
2013-07-25 05:37 pm (UTC)

"No! Your name is Ranata Ekamma," says Helen. "Granatee is your other thing."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Her other thing?" asks Charlie, amused.

carillons
2013-07-25 05:38 pm (UTC)

"The other thing that's not a name but it's what you call somebody! Like grandma and grandpa and granatee and mommy and daddy and spinach!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:39 pm (UTC)

"All right then," laughs Ranata. "But I'm still only secretly your grandma, so 'granatee' is a word for in private, okay? I only ever had - the one child, so if people knew you were my grandchild, they would know about your... secret mom."
Edited 2013-07-25 17:40 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-25 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Good." Forehead-kiss. "Let's have some food, that was a long flight."

carillons
2013-07-25 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Food!" says Helen. "I like food!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 05:41 pm (UTC)

And thus, a late dinner is produced and consumed.

carillons
2013-07-25 05:42 pm (UTC)

Omty nomty nom.

you can throw me if you want

truthwright

It turns out that there was really not much point to making a schedule. Kas and Helen visit the witch clan whenever Helen feels like it, and stay as long as she wants, and go when she wants to be somewhere else, and it all adds up to plenty more time spent with the clan than away.

After the aquarium jaunt with Ranata, it's a little more than a month before they visit the clan again.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 02:32 am (UTC)

Shura is excited to see her friend! She has been up to things. She has been writing clumsy little stories, and learning spells, and making arrows to practice with. She has done rather more of all these things than would normally be expected from a child her age in the time since last Helen saw her.

carillons
2013-07-23 02:36 am (UTC)

Helen is likewise excited, and excited about all of the things!

"That is a lot of things," she observes. "I only saw squishy octopuses and huggable manatees and lots of cities and ate a whole bucket of popcorn and learned how to bake a cake and some more stuff like that!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 02:37 am (UTC)

"I've been getting up really early and sitting in the moonlight and the starlight and doing things," says Shura. "And my daddy took me to go on roller coasters, too, when I got mad about not being big enough to fly yet."

carillons
2013-07-23 02:39 am (UTC)

"Roller coasters! My spinach should take me on roller coasters," Helen declares.

truthwright
2013-07-23 02:39 am (UTC)

"Sure thing, button," says Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 02:39 am (UTC)

"They're good! You go up and up and then down," says Shura, gesturing.

carillons
2013-07-23 02:40 am (UTC)

"Fuuuuuun."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 02:41 am (UTC)

"And some of them go upside down!"

carillons
2013-07-23 02:42 am (UTC)

"Ooooh!" says Helen. "Fun fun fun! Maybe even more fun than baking cakes. I'll have to try it and see!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 02:43 am (UTC)

"Is baking cakes fun?" Shura asks dubiously.

carillons
2013-07-23 02:43 am (UTC)

"Yeah! You make the stuff and it's all gooey and then you put it in the oven and wait and then it's a cake and you can eat it!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:17 am (UTC)

"I know eating cake is fun," giggles Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:49 am (UTC)

"It's more fun when you made the cake!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:09 pm (UTC)

"How come?"

carillons
2013-07-23 03:11 pm (UTC)

"I dunno! Just is," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Weird," pronounces Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 03:13 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:13 pm (UTC)

"Where do you make cake when you're off away?" Shura asks, gesturing vaguely towards off away.

carillons
2013-07-23 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Wherever we are. We made a little cake in a microwave in a hotel room once! It was extra fun because it was tiny and cute!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:16 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know you could microwave cake."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:17 pm (UTC)

"You can! It's fun!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Did you put frosting? Frosting's the best part."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:18 pm (UTC)

"We diiiiid," she giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:18 pm (UTC)

"What kind?"

carillons
2013-07-23 03:19 pm (UTC)

"Chocolate! The cake was also chocolate. And there were chocolate sprinkles."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:19 pm (UTC)

"Chocolate," say Shura, "is good."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Chocolate is good!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes when I get up early if I'm very quiet I take a little bit," whispers Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 03:22 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles conspiratorially.
Edited 2013-07-23 15:22 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:23 pm (UTC)

"I live with my daddy and brother and uncle and cousins who live together, some of the time, and they have a lot in the house."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:24 pm (UTC)

"That's a lot of relatives!" says Helen. "Are they fun?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:24 pm (UTC)

"They're okay," shrugs Shura. "I like my daddy."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:26 pm (UTC)

"Good! I'm glad," she says. "I like my mommydaddyspinach."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:27 pm (UTC)

"How come you call him that still?"

carillons
2013-07-23 03:27 pm (UTC)

"Because it's fun?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:27 pm (UTC)

"You do a lot of things because they are fun," Shura observes.

carillons
2013-07-23 03:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! It's the best reason."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:29 pm (UTC)

"Don't you sometimes have to do things that aren't fun?"

carillons
2013-07-23 03:30 pm (UTC)

"Like what?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes I have to clean. Or work on stuff even if I don't want to. Or listen to my uncle even if he's boring."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Why's your uncle boring?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:32 pm (UTC)

"He wants me to learn -" Shura gestures. "Mortal stuff. I don't have to go to school but I have to listen to him tell me stuff that I'd get told if I went."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:33 pm (UTC)

"What kinds of mortal stuff?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:34 pm (UTC)

"Uuuugh, like stuff about mortal wars from before even my grandma was born, and science, and boring books."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Awwww," says Helen. "I don't have to read any boring books!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:38 pm (UTC)

"That's lucky!" says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 03:42 pm (UTC)

"I read fun books about fun things," she says. "I wish your uncle wasn't boring! He should tell you fun stuff instead."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:42 pm (UTC)

"He says I have to learn it or I'll be badly educated."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Do you care about that?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't even know what being badly educated is supposed to, you know, do."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should ask," she says. "To make sure it's not important."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:45 pm (UTC)

"If it is are you going to start learning the boring things so you aren't badly educated?"

carillons
2013-07-23 03:46 pm (UTC)

"I don't know!" she says. "I like learning the fun things. Maybe I can just be really well educated about things that I like."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:47 pm (UTC)

"My uncle says that's not how it works."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:48 pm (UTC)

"But he never said what's so bad about being badly educated?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:48 pm (UTC)

"No, just that being not-badly educated has to do with knowing lots of different things even if the things are boring."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:53 pm (UTC)

"That's weird," says Helen. "Does that mean you're badly educated if you don't know any boring things?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:53 pm (UTC)

"I guess so!"

carillons
2013-07-23 03:54 pm (UTC)

"What if you like everything, then are you just badly educated no matter how much stuff you know?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not. I'm not sure. Sometimes when I say something is boring he says it's not. He's wrong though."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes stuff that's boring for one person is fun for somebody else," says Helen. "Maybe lots of things are fun for your uncle and that's why he doesn't care that they're boring for you."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Shura. "Whatever, I don't have to do it a lot. I can just learn magic and stuff most of the time."

carillons
2013-07-23 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Magic is fun!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" agrees Shura brightly.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:00 pm (UTC)

"And so is cake. I wonder if there are spells about cake?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:00 pm (UTC)

"There are spells to warm stuff up!"

carillons
2013-07-23 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you can bake cake with some of them! I wanna find out," she says. "Who should I ask?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:01 pm (UTC)

"I dunno. Maybe my mom knows."

carillons
2013-07-23 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Let's ask your mom!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:03 pm (UTC)

Off they go in search of Shura's mom!
Edited 2013-07-23 16:04 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-23 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Shura's mom! Are there spells you can use to cook stuff when you don't have an oven?" says Helen. "Like cake?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:06 pm (UTC)

"If you don't have an oven, you can cook with magic," says Shura's mom. "It would never be worth the trouble if you did have one, though. Lot of runes."

carillons
2013-07-23 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I want to learn how!" she says. "I like cooking and I don't have ovens all the time!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:10 pm (UTC)

"You're not up to runes yet," says Shura's mom. "Too fiddly for little witches. You'll start them when you're nine or ten depending."

carillons
2013-07-23 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Awwww," says Helen. "Not even if I try really really hard and learn really really well?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:12 pm (UTC)

"You'd have to be a little prodigy," says Shura's mom.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, how do I do that?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:13 pm (UTC)

"You'd need to learn all the verse and herbs you're supposed to learn before getting to runes," says Shura's mom. "And convince whoever would be teaching you runes that you are responsible and not reckless."

carillons
2013-07-23 04:14 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

"Okay!" she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:15 pm (UTC)

"You're off away from witches a lot," says Shura. "Unless you are hiding a mom somewhere off away." (She gestures again to off away.)

carillons
2013-07-23 04:19 pm (UTC)

"I am not hiding any extra parents anywhere!" she says. "I only have the one. But that's why I wanna learn an oven spell, see, because when I'm with the clan I can cook at Charlie's house but when I'm off away sometimes there isn't anywhere to cook at all!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:20 pm (UTC)

"I think you are the only person who only has one parent," says Shura thoughtfully.

Even orphans "have" parents, now.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I am!" says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:21 pm (UTC)

"That's pe-cu-li-ar," says Shura, sounding it out.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:21 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

"Where'd you hear that word?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember. I read it someplace."

carillons
2013-07-23 04:22 pm (UTC)

"It's a fun word! Pecuuuuuuuuuuliar," she says, giggling again.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Peculiar peculiar," echoes Shrura, and Nicoa adds an iteration. (He's on her shoulder as a squirrel.)

carillons
2013-07-23 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Pecuuuuuliaaaaaaaaaaaar," trills Kalavar, climbing up Helen's hair as a teeny tiny dragon.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:24 pm (UTC)

"You're so often dragons," Nicoa comments to Kalavar.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:25 pm (UTC)

"I like dragons! Dragons are fun!" says Kalavar. She flaps her flame-red wings.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:26 pm (UTC)

"In some years we'll be birds forever," says Nicoa with mixed feelings.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not," says Kalavar. "Not everybody settles. Petaal didn't!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:27 pm (UTC)

"That's pecuuuuuliar," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:28 pm (UTC)

Helen and Kalavar both giggle.

"My spinach is a peculiar person," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Yep," agrees Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:30 pm (UTC)

"He's the peculiarest!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:30 pm (UTC)

Shura says, "I don't think I'm very peculiar."

"We're going to be a bird," Nicoa finishes. "I don't know what kind though."

carillons
2013-07-23 04:32 pm (UTC)

"I wish I could be a dragon," says Kalavar. "I like dragons."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Dragons aren't birds," says Nicoa. "Maybe if you were a feather dragon."

carillons
2013-07-23 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I could be an archaeopteryx!" she crows.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:33 pm (UTC)

"What's that?" asks Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:35 pm (UTC)

"It's a like this," says Kalavar, shifting.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Looks like a bird to me!" says Nicoa.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:35 pm (UTC)

"It's a dinosaur sort of!" says Kalavar.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:36 pm (UTC)

"But it looks like a bird," Shura says.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:38 pm (UTC)

"It's like the first bird there ever was or something," says Kalavar, draping her long feathered tail over Helen's shoulder.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Wow!" says Shura. "I guess there weren't witches around then, huh?"

carillons
2013-07-23 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Nope!" says Helen. "But there were dinosaurs and stuff!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I think lots of dinosaurs were too big."

carillons
2013-07-23 04:43 pm (UTC)

"No way," says Helen. "The biggest ones are the most fun! I saw a T. Rex skeleton once that was so huge it could've eaten me up in one bite!" She giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't think getting eaten up in one bite would be very nice!" protests Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Nooooo. But it was still really cool to look at, since it wasn't alive and wasn't going to eat me."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:44 pm (UTC)

"I guess," allows Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 04:45 pm (UTC)

"It was! I loved it," she beams.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 04:46 pm (UTC)

"I still think they're too big. Some of them were very very big."

carillons
2013-07-23 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Big things are cool," says Helen.

Kalavar perches on her shoulder and turns into a velociraptor, chicken-sized and feathery.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:07 pm (UTC)

"I like big trees," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Me too! They're fun to look at."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:09 pm (UTC)

"When we get older we can go get cloud-pines off of really, really big trees," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-23 05:10 pm (UTC)

"That'll be fun!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:10 pm (UTC)

"And then we can flyyyyy!"

carillons
2013-07-23 05:13 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles happily.

Over the coming months, she does her very best to be a little prodigy. She studies hard at magic, and seems to pick up dagger skills almost effortlessly. She still goes off away with Kas - on a trip to three different amusement parks, where she discovers that rollercoasters are more fun than cake - but the lost time doesn't seem to slow her down much. Her seventh birthday comes and goes; she celebrates by baking a cake and sharing it with Charlie and Ranata and Kas and Shura and anyone else who wants some, and then she goes off away again.
Edited 2013-07-23 17:27 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-07-23 05:36 pm (UTC)

This time, they wander across Canada. Now that Helen is a little older, Kas is letting her be by herself more, as long as he's nearby; he takes hotel rooms near libraries so she can go down the block and have lots of books to keep her company, or sits in the outside sections of restaurants while she plays in the park across the street.

carillons
2013-07-23 05:38 pm (UTC)

On one of the latter occasions, Helen gets bored with the park and goes back across the street to collect her spinach so he can find her more fun things to do.

He is not there.

She frowns at the empty tables.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:42 pm (UTC)

There is no spinach here, except in the salad, but there are some witches.

"Are you lost?" one of them asks Helen.

carillons
2013-07-23 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly," says Helen. "I know where I am, I just don't know where my daddy is." (She has learned that the 'mommy' and 'spinach' parts are best left out when talking to strange grown-ups, because they get terribly confused and it's a bother to untangle them.)

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Oh, goodness," says the witch.

"Hmm," says the other. "What about your mommy?"

carillons
2013-07-23 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I don't have one," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:46 pm (UTC)

"What a pity," says the second witch.

"We're just about done here," says the first witch. "Why don't you come with us and we'll look after you while we find your daddy?"

carillons
2013-07-23 05:48 pm (UTC)

Helen peers at the witches.

"Maybe," she says. "Can you find him? He should be close by. Maybe I should look in the bathroom first."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:49 pm (UTC)

"But he'd be in the men's room," says the first witch. "We can find him for you, you needn't worry."

carillons
2013-07-23 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to look in the ladies' room," says Helen.

She goes into the restaurant.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:50 pm (UTC)

The witches do not expect that she will find her daddy in the ladies' room. They wait.

carillons
2013-07-23 05:52 pm (UTC)

And sure enough, Helen comes out again.

"He wasn't there," she reports. "And I asked somebody to look in the men's room for me and he wasn't there either. I guess he's lost. How are you going to find him? Will you use magic?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:52 pm (UTC)

"We know plenty of magic," replies the first witch reassuringly.

carillons
2013-07-23 05:53 pm (UTC)

"I know lots of magic too!" she says. "But I don't know any daddy-finding spells. Will you teach me one? Or are there runes and things in all the ones there are? I don't know runes yet."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Lots of runes," says the second witch. "If he's very hard to find it might even take a sparrow or a pigeon."

carillons
2013-07-23 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Can I watch?" says Helen, fascinated.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:56 pm (UTC)

"I suppose," says the first witch.

carillons
2013-07-23 05:58 pm (UTC)

"What are your names? I'm Helen," she says. "Helen Ianthe."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm Kana Setira and this is Loviisa Lerandi," says the first witch.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:00 pm (UTC)

"It's nice to meet you!" she says. "Where are you going to do the spell to find my daddy?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:00 pm (UTC)

"All our magic things are home," says Kana. "It's not a long flight. You can sit on my cloud-pine with me."

carillons
2013-07-23 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Helen says agreeably.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:02 pm (UTC)

And so off they fly. The flight is a little long, but Kana happens to have a children's book on her for Helen to read.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:05 pm (UTC)

She hasn't read it before, but it is cute and she likes it.

"I hope he's not worried," she says when she finishes it, most of the way through the flight.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, if he is, he will soon stop," says Kana. "All done with the book?" She tucks it away again. "Do you like magic? Are you studying old languages?"

carillons
2013-07-23 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I love magic!" says Helen. "It's so much fun! I can count to fifty in Svaaric, but I don't know real words yet."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Counting is a fine place to start," says Kana.

They land in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere, and Kana helps her off the cloud-pine. An osprey daemon is peering out the window at them.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:12 pm (UTC)

Kalavar perches on Helen's head and becomes a gorgeous violet dragon with black-edged scales and blue-striped wings.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:13 pm (UTC)

In they go. Loviisa starts setting up a complicated spell diagram, with lots of runes and lines, out of dark wine.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:14 pm (UTC)

Helen peers thoughtfully at it. She doesn't really understand it, but it's interesting anyway.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:19 pm (UTC)

It takes a long time to set up the spell. The osprey - Loviisa's - keeps murmuring to Kana's bluejay softly, not near where Helen can hear. Kana summons an animal to sacrifice; the pigeon takes a while to arrive and doesn't look happy about it when it shows up. Loviisa scatters a great many different herbs around the diagram.

And then she recites a verse in Svaaric.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:20 pm (UTC)

Helen listens, but there aren't any numbers, or any words she vaguely sort of recognizes. Or any goddesses.

She waits to see if they have found him or not.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Now we wait," Kana tells Helen. "Would you like a snack?"

carillons
2013-07-23 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:22 pm (UTC)

Kana makes her a little plate of fruit with frosting to dip it in.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:23 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:24 pm (UTC)

And then there is tea, and Kana has more books.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:27 pm (UTC)

Tea! Books!

Helen settles into a comfortable chair near an open window, and she waits.

truthwright
2013-07-23 06:29 pm (UTC)

She hardly has time to get comfy; only about five minutes after the spell was cast, a raven flies in the window and turns smoothly into a naked witch.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:30 pm (UTC)

Helen jumps up and claps her hands. "Petaal!" she exclaims. "You got unlost!"

Kalavar launches herself from the back of Helen's chair into Petaal's arms.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:31 pm (UTC)

The witches peer at this scene.

They are very confused.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Where's my spinach?" says Helen. "I wanna hug him! Was he worried?"

truthwright
2013-07-23 06:34 pm (UTC)

"He's back at the hotel, button," says Petaal, cuddling the now chincilla-shaped Kalavar. "I'll fly you back, c'mon."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:35 pm (UTC)

The witches start whispering to each other.

truthwright
2013-07-23 06:36 pm (UTC)

Petaal leads Helen out of the cottage.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for finding my daddy!" says Helen, waving to the two witches. "Bye now!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:37 pm (UTC)

The witches decide not to follow them.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:42 pm (UTC)

It's a much shorter flight back, for some reason. Maybe Petaal's cloudpine is faster. Anyway, after only a few minutes Helen can see the city in the distance.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:43 pm (UTC)

Back in the cottage, another small animal dies.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:45 pm (UTC)

The first Helen knows of this, the branch on which she sits starts to fall out of the sky. She twists around and sees a blur of flame where Petaal should be.

truthwright
2013-07-23 06:47 pm (UTC)

The flame unblurs - she's a peregrine falcon, diving to catch the falling branch - she's a witch again, clinging to the back of the cloudpine while Helen clings to the front, and their flight levels out.

"You okay, button?" she says shakily.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:47 pm (UTC)

"What happened?"

truthwright
2013-07-23 06:49 pm (UTC)

Petaal angles the branch up to regain lost altitude.

"Somebody's trying to kill me," she says. "But I'm very immortal."

carillons
2013-07-23 06:50 pm (UTC)

...Helen can only think of one obvious suspect.

"Oh no," she says, dismayed.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 06:51 pm (UTC)

The witches are in flight, now, but they won't catch up if Petaal continues to make forward progress.

truthwright
2013-07-23 06:55 pm (UTC)

Especially since Petaal's branch is considerably augmented.

They land in front of the hotel - Petaal brought enough silk with her to cover one problem area, and assumed the appropriate witch shape, so no one gives them excessive trouble while they go up to their room.

carillons
2013-07-23 06:56 pm (UTC)

Where Helen immediately flings herself at Kas.

"I met these witches and they said they'd do a spell to find you but they did it in Svaaric and—"

She can't finish the sentence; she just bursts into tears.

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I know," he says, hugging her and kissing the top of her head.

And he brainphones Ranata Ekamma.

[So a couple of witches just tried to kill me and take my daughter.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:01 pm (UTC)

[What? Who? What clan?]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:03 pm (UTC)

[Don't know. I'd ask Helen if they told her anything, but she's busy crying.]

[Didn't see any clan tattoos,] says Petaal.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:05 pm (UTC)

[Where are you?]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:05 pm (UTC)

[Toronto.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:06 pm (UTC)

[Most likely the Ontario clan then, but not a guarantee - do you have any idea why?]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Nope.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:09 pm (UTC)

[What did they do, just come at you blades out on the street -]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:12 pm (UTC)

[Helen was in a park, I went to the bathroom, I came out, Helen wasn't in the park. Then somebody hit me with a death curse out of nowhere while I was looking for her. But I am extremely immortal, so it didn't put me down for long.]
Edited 2013-07-23 19:12 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:14 pm (UTC)

[I'm going to need to tell the queen, and Helen should talk to her, too, can you bring her here as soon as you're both up to the trip?]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:14 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, of course.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:15 pm (UTC)

[All right. Please let me know right away if you learn anything else that could be a clue to who it was.]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:16 pm (UTC)

[Yeah.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:16 pm (UTC)

[I can't believe someone would - it's an act of war.]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:17 pm (UTC)

[No shit,] he says. [You mean between witches, though?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:17 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:20 pm (UTC)

[Guess they really wanted Helen,] he says, hugging his daughter some more.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:20 pm (UTC)

[Or didn't think they'd be caught because her mother's not in evidence, I suppose,] says Ranata disgustedly.

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:21 pm (UTC)

[Sucks to be them, either way.]
Edited 2013-07-23 19:21 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 07:22 pm (UTC)

[Oh yes.]

truthwright
2013-07-23 07:22 pm (UTC)

Kas cuddles Helen. Petaal cuddles Kalavar.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:19 pm (UTC)

It's about six hours later when a sudden shock of cold descends over Kas and Petaal, freezing them solid and stuck together.

carillons
2013-07-23 08:24 pm (UTC)

They are all asleep by then, so Helen doesn't notice until the next morning.

She shouts. She cries. She hugs the parts of Kas that are not too close to icy Petaal. She inventively boils the kettle and pours hot water over them. It freezes.

She curls up in bed with Kalavar as a fluffy viscacha, and she tries to think.

She wishes Ranata were here. Ranata could protect her from the scary witches, and maybe even fix what happened to Kas and Petaal, or bring them to the clan and find someone else who could.

She closes her eyes, and—listens...

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:26 pm (UTC)

Ranata is asleep, apparently, and snores whuffly little snores.

carillons
2013-07-23 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Ranata!" says Helen, putting her voice where her listening is. "Wake up, wake up! Something scary happened and I don't know what to do!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Wh- huh - Helen?"

carillons
2013-07-23 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Kas and Petaal froze all up," she says, sniffling, "and I don't know how to melt them, and the scary witches who tried to kill him might be coming for me again!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:30 pm (UTC)

"How - I - where are you exactly?"

carillons
2013-07-23 08:31 pm (UTC)

"In our hotel room in Toronto," she says. She even has the hotel address and room number memorized.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:32 pm (UTC)

"...I can come for you, but it will take me hours to fly there. Are you all right right now?"

carillons
2013-07-23 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," she says. "I'm just really scared."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Don't you open up the door until you see Castarilan at the window telling you it's okay, all right? Call the front desk from the hotel room, and tell them that some witches from another clan cursed your daddy, but that someone from your clan is on the way, and they shouldn't let any witches except me in, tell them Castarilan's a broad-tailed hummingbird."

carillons
2013-07-23 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I'll do that," says Helen. She gets out of bed and finds the phone and calls the front desk.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Are you still - how are you talking to me?" Ranata asks. There are the sounds of silk tying on and cloud-pine brushing against and lifting from the floor.

carillons
2013-07-23 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," she says to Ranata, "I can just do that, it's a magic thing," and she explains the situation to the front desk person. She doesn't know how to make her voice heard where Ranata is and over the phone at the same time, so Ranata does not get to hear what she's saying to them.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:49 pm (UTC)

The front desk person agrees not to let any witches past the lobby unless they have broad-tailed hummingbird daemons, and asks if Helen wants a staff person to come sit with her while she waits for her clanmate.

carillons
2013-07-23 08:51 pm (UTC)

"No, that's okay," says Helen. "I'd just be scared if it was more people I don't know. I'll wait for Ranata Ekamma by myself."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:51 pm (UTC)

"All right. Call us if you need anything," says the front desk person.

carillons
2013-07-23 08:53 pm (UTC)

"I will," says Helen. "Bye now."

She hangs up the phone and curls up in bed and cries, still listening to Ranata.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:54 pm (UTC)

The wind is whistling past Ranata; she's flying fast, murmuring to Castarilan about possible spells that could have afflicted Kas in spite of his largely mysterious protections from Isabella.

carillons
2013-07-23 08:55 pm (UTC)

Helen definitely listens to that.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:57 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what she did," Ranata is saying. "I don't know anything about what she did, or how. It sounds like any number of curses - why wouldn't she have - or couldn't she? - but if she could make him immortal -"

"Helen's the important thing," says Castarilan, "even if he's not fixable we can look after her."

carillons
2013-07-23 08:57 pm (UTC)

"I love you, Granatee," Helen murmurs in their ears.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 08:58 pm (UTC)

"You're still - how does this work? I can't tell when you're listening or not," frets Ranata. "I love you too, Helen."

carillons
2013-07-23 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how it works," she says. "I just - listen for you, and there you are. And it helps me not be scared."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Ranata. "I'm coming. I'll be over the national border soon."

carillons
2013-07-23 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm going as fast as I can."

Ranata decides to save the question of whether she'll be able to fix Helen's spinach for when they're talking in person.

carillons
2013-07-23 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I know," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:06 pm (UTC)

"The queen will find whoever did it and make sure they can't ever do it again."

carillons
2013-07-23 09:07 pm (UTC)

Softly but still very, very clearly: "Are you sure?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:07 pm (UTC)

"It might take her a while, but she will find them."

carillons
2013-07-23 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen.

She hugs Kalavar, and listens to Ranata, and waits.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:09 pm (UTC)

Ranata is out of things to say, but there is still the rush of wind, and her breathing.

carillons
2013-07-23 09:10 pm (UTC)

The time passes with an occasional 'I love you' or 'where are you now?'.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:11 pm (UTC)

Ranata always answers her - "I love you too." With the number of miles yet to go.

carillons
2013-07-23 09:12 pm (UTC)

Eventually the number of miles becomes small, and Helen says, "Can you see the building yet?"

She remembers the approach with Petaal; she can say what it looks like from the air.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Not yet, I need to get my bearings - I'm coming up the street now."

carillons
2013-07-23 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

She hugs Kalavar.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to go show the front desk people Castarilan and then he'll come find your window."

A minute later, there is a hummingbird at the window.

carillons
2013-07-23 09:17 pm (UTC)

Helen goes to it and opens it, and Kalavar buzzes up to Castarilan as a fuzzy bumblebee.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:18 pm (UTC)

In comes Castarilan, and presently there's a knock at the door.

carillons
2013-07-23 09:20 pm (UTC)

She hears it with a funny echo, because it's where Ranata is and where she is.

She stops extra-listening and runs to the door and opens it and hugs Ranata the huggiest hug of all hugs that have ever hugged.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:20 pm (UTC)

Ranata hugs her back hard, and says, "Let's get Kas tied to the cloudpine, and go home."

carillons
2013-07-23 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she says, looking dubiously at Kas and Petaal where they are snuggled up and glazed over. Petaal is coiled around Kas as a constricting snake of some kind; the species is hard to tell under the ice.

Helen cannot imagine how they are going to get Kas tied to a cloudpine branch.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:35 pm (UTC)

It's pretty difficult, and on one occasion Ranata asks Kalavar to turn into something big so they can roll him over onto the rope Ranata brought when the easiest way to do this involves touching Petaal, but eventually she has them coiled up in rope, secured to the cloudpine, and does not dislodge them in an experimental low circuit around the room.

"Okay," she says. "Do you need to pack anything?"

carillons
2013-07-23 09:40 pm (UTC)

She picks up Kas's backpack off the floor and puts it on, and picks up her own backpack and holds it, and looks at Petaal's cloudpine branch leaning against the wall by the door.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:41 pm (UTC)

Ranata considers the cloudpine, then picks it up and wedges it in under one of the rope knots. "Okay, up you get, she says, helping Helen onto the cloudpine.

She flies them into the elevator, descends with it, and then goes out the lobby and into the sky, cursed spinach still hanging where he's tied.

carillons
2013-07-23 09:43 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into an albatross and flies along beside them.

Helen holds onto the branch and hugs her backpack and is uncharacteristically quiet.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:44 pm (UTC)

"It'll be okay," says Ranata.

carillons
2013-07-23 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure?" says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:47 pm (UTC)

"You'll always be taken care of. And the clan can protect you from the bad witches."

carillons
2013-07-23 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I want my spinach, though," she says unhappily.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I know, sweetie." Ranata is out of the cityscape now and doesn't need both hands to steer; she strokes Helen's hair.

carillons
2013-07-23 09:50 pm (UTC)

Helen sighs.

"I love you, Granatee."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

And on they fly.

It's a long trip. They land in the clan grounds, and Ranata cuts the ropes to detach Kas from her cloudpine rather than go through the complicated rigmarole of avoiding Petaal again.

"I need to speak to the queen, and then start asking the best cursebreakers what they can do," Ranata says. "Do you want to come with me or do you want me to bring you to Charlie's house to wait?"
Edited 2013-07-23 21:54 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-23 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I want to come with you," she says, with a sad glance at frozen Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Queen Narida Memma is not in her house, but she's not too hard to find once that's ruled out; she's with her sister.

Ranata goes up to her. "Helen and I need to speak to you alone," she says.

The queen looks between grandmother and grandchild, then makes her excuses to her sister and goes aside with them.

"Can you tell her everything that happened?" Ranata asks Helen gently.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:09 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a fluffy bunny. Helen hugs her.

"I was in the park and I went to look for Kas across the street and he wasn't there," she says, "and some witches were there and they asked if I was lost, and I said no, I was just looking for my daddy, and they said they'd help me find him, and I looked in the bathrooms first but he wasn't there so I went out and asked the witches their names and they said Kana Setira and Loviisa Lerandi, and I asked if they could find him with a spell and they said yes, so they took me to their little house far away from things and did a spell but I didn't understand the verse because it was in Svaaric, and they gave me books and tea and snacks and told me to wait, and then Petaal came in the window and they looked really surprised and kind of started whispering at each other and didn't say anything while Petaal took me out to fly me back to the hotel."

She takes a deep breath.

"And on the way back the cloudpine fell a little bit and I looked at Petaal and she was fire, and then she wasn't and she was a witch again and she made the cloudpine work, and I asked her what happened and she said somebody tried to kill her, and that's why those witches were so weird, they were kidnapping me only I didn't even know until I was almost back at the hotel! And when we got back I cried a lot and Kas called Ranata and I went to sleep and when I woke up Kas and Petaal were all frozen! I think the scary witches cursed them again! I tried to melt them but it didn't work so I called Ranata with some magic and she came and got me. And I'm scared and I want my mommydaddyspinach. He is not a mommydaddyicecube."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:12 pm (UTC)

"How did you try to melt them?" asks the queen.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I poured hot water on Kas. But it just froze."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:13 pm (UTC)

"You called Ranata with magic?" asks the queen next.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," she says. "I don't really know how. I can do a thing, where I can listen far away, and I can put my voice far away too."

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:17 pm (UTC)

The queen contemplates this.

"This was in Toronto," Ranata adds.

"I'll speak to the queen of the Ontario clan. Consult Rinda about the curse. Helen shouldn't leave clan lands until this is settled."

Ranata nods.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:18 pm (UTC)

Helen hugs Kalavar.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Come along," Ranata murmurs to Helen, and she leads her away to look for Rinda. Castarilan splits off to cover more ground.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:21 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a dark red dragon with bright orange spines, and climbs up onto Helen's shoulder, and preens Helen's hair with her nose and her bright orange claws.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:22 pm (UTC)

Rinda takes longer to find than the queen did, but eventually she's located, and brought to see Kas.

"Hmm, don't know," she says, after looking him over, tossing some celery seed onto him and muttering a verse, and looking him over some more.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:24 pm (UTC)

Helen sniffles a bit.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Deep curse, very fast, very permanent," says Rinda, mostly to Ranata. "Might be able to unravel it with the sacrifice they used but they'll have burnt it, yes?"

"Probably," says Ranata softly.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:27 pm (UTC)

Kalavar curls her tail around Helen's arm and arches her wing around Helen's head.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:30 pm (UTC)

Ranata puts her hand on Helen's other shoulder. Castarilan hums in patterns around girl and daemon both. "Is it worth finding a second opinion?"

"Oh, if you must, call the allied clans, ask them what their cursebreakers say, but I think they'll tell you the same," says Rinda, shaking her head.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:31 pm (UTC)

Kalavar becomes a viscacha and flumps into Helen's arms, and Helen hugs her and cries into her fluff, leaning on Ranata.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm so sorry," Ranata murmurs to Helen.

Rinda makes an apologetic gesture and departs.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:33 pm (UTC)

Kalavar buzzes bee-shaped up to Castarilan, and Helen hugs Ranata and cries on her instead.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:34 pm (UTC)

Prolonged hugs ensue.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:37 pm (UTC)

A lot of hug.

And a lot of crying.

And then... Helen doesn't know what then.

Her tummy grumbles. Well, that's a suggestion.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Let's go to Charlie's house," murmurs Ranata, "or - no - should stay on clan grounds - let's get some food into you, at any rate."

The clan grounds are culinarily self-sustaining, and presently they have scared up some chicken and vegetables.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:40 pm (UTC)

Helen eats the chicken and also the vegetables, and she leans on Ranata, and she shivers. Kalavar turns into a mouse and perches on her foot.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:41 pm (UTC)

"It'll be okay," Castarilan tells Kalavar.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:44 pm (UTC)

"We're scared," says Kalavar.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:45 pm (UTC)

Long hummingbird beaks are not very good for nuzzling, but Castarilan does his best to be comforting anyway. "You'll be fine. We'll take care of you."

carillons
2013-07-23 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Will Kas be fine?" cries Kalavar, huddling mousily against Castarilan.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sweetie," says Ranata. "We'll try the other clans' cursebreakers. Rinda doesn't know everything."

carillons
2013-07-23 10:48 pm (UTC)

Helen sniffles and hugs Ranata.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:49 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"I can call Charlie and he can come here," she offers.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:50 pm (UTC)

She nods between sniffles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:50 pm (UTC)

Ranata has a phone; she calls Charlie.

"He'll be here in an hour," she reports.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:52 pm (UTC)

Helen nods again and closes her eyes.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 10:54 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

After the promised hour, Charlie finds them. He sits on Helen's other side and puts his arm around her; his daemon snuffles at Kalavar.

carillons
2013-07-23 10:58 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a chinchilla and huddles up to Kesathi; Helen sits between her grandparents and closes her eyes and sniffles periodically, and if she's not crying she only just barely isn't.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Y'know," says Charlie, "if you can't break the curse - then - well, I died, once, got out easy because I was - special to Isabella."

Ranata makes a hmm sound.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Is it okay being dead?" sniffles Helen. "Is it better than being frozen?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it's not bad there at all," says Charlie. "I didn't stay long but - it's not bad, better than being frozen. And Kas was special to Isabella, too."

carillons
2013-07-23 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Then..."

The thought of killing Kas is terribly frightening. But the thought of Kas just staying frozen forever is also terribly frightening.

Helen falls silent.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:03 pm (UTC)

Charlie pets Helen's hair.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:04 pm (UTC)

Helen hugs him and sighs.

"Everything is scary and I don't know what to do," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:04 pm (UTC)

"It'll be okay, honey," Charlie says.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure?" she says plaintively.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Nobody's ever perfectly sure," Charlie says. "That's one of the hardest things there is. But that doesn't mean it won't be okay."

carillons
2013-07-23 11:06 pm (UTC)

She hugs him some more. Kalavar nuzzles Kesathi's paw.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:07 pm (UTC)

Kesathi is a huggy creature. She demonstrates this now.

"It's probably worth checking with a couple other cursebreakers, but if they say the same thing, I don't know what else we can do," says Ranata.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:08 pm (UTC)

Helen nods and hugs Charlie tighter.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:15 pm (UTC)

Ranata delegates hugging to Charlie and starts calling other clans.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:28 pm (UTC)

Charlie is a good hug delegate.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:30 pm (UTC)

He is.

The first foreign cursebreaker declines to second-guess Rinda at all. The second listens to the symptoms and the circumstances, asks whether Kas happens to smell of mace, and eventually concludes that he cannot be helped. The third's phone is answered by her son-in-law, who says that she's going to be spending the next six months on a retreat in the Alps and will not be speaking to anyone until the end of same.

Ranata puts her phone away.

"Not much sense in waiting," she murmurs.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:31 pm (UTC)

Helen sniffles and hugs Charlie.

"What are you going to do?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:32 pm (UTC)

Ranata kisses her forehead. "I'm not sure what will get through the ice. It's probably better if you don't watch."

carillons
2013-07-23 11:33 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

"I want to," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:34 pm (UTC)

"No, sweetie. Stay here with Charlie, okay?"

Charlie holds Helen securely.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Please?" she says. "I want to see. Even if it's going to be scary and awful. Not seeing would be worse, because then it would be scary and awful and I wouldn't know—" She clings to Charlie and presses her face against his shoulder.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:37 pm (UTC)

"I don't want you having that image in your head, Helen," says Ranata.

"She's right," Charlie opines.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:38 pm (UTC)

Helen shakes her head vigorously.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Stay put," says Ranata, and she leaves.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:40 pm (UTC)

Helen starts crying and trying to get away from Charlie.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:40 pm (UTC)

Charlie holds onto her. Kesathi wraps her forepaws around Kalavar and nuzzles her.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:43 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a flea and hops away, and turns into a dragon and launches herself into the air, flying after Ranata. She can't get very far, but she pulls as hard as she can, even though Helen is now crying hysterically.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Helen, honey," says Charlie. "Looking won't help. Kalavar, come back - sit down - just wait. It'll be over soon."

carillons
2013-07-23 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Let us go," wails Helen.

And she listens to Ranata.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:47 pm (UTC)

"We said no, Helen," Charlie says.

Ranata is producing footsteps.

And the sound of a dagger unsheathing.

And an apprehensive sigh -

And the sound of ice shattering.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Mommydaddyspinaaaaaaach!"

truthwright
2013-07-23 11:48 pm (UTC)

The crackle of flames.

"—Button? What the hell—"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh, thank goddesses all," says Ranata, sitting heavily down on the ground.

truthwright
2013-07-23 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Did you just—? What happened? And where is my daughter?"

carillons
2013-07-23 11:52 pm (UTC)

"They wouldn't let me see!" says Helen, the words inaudible to Charlie, unless he can hear her all the way from where Kas and Ranata are. "I'm with Charlie—Granatee, bring him here!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:53 pm (UTC)

"This way," says Ranata, getting up again and leading Kas Helenward. "The witches who took Helen cursed you, and it wasn't looking breakable - I was betting on your extra immortality. Isabella's afterlife if it didn't work; it let Charlie out quick enough."

truthwright
2013-07-23 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Kas, and he hugs Ranata. Petaal bounds along beside them as a doe.

As soon as they're in sight of Charlie, Kas rushes forward and scoops Helen out of her grandpa's arms.

"Button, I'm here, I'm okay, see?" he says.

carillons
2013-07-23 11:56 pm (UTC)

Kalavar dives onto Petaal's back and clings.

Helen clings likewise to Kas, still crying.

alicornucopia
2013-07-23 11:58 pm (UTC)

Ranata sits down again. She puts her dagger in its sheath, and leans her head on Charlie's shoulder, looking drained.

truthwright
2013-07-23 11:59 pm (UTC)

"It's okay," Kas murmurs into Helen's hair. "I'm right here, I'm fine."

carillons
2013-07-23 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Are - you - sure?" she sobs.

truthwright
2013-07-24 12:00 am (UTC)

"Sure as sure," he says, hugging her tight. "I promise."

carillons
2013-07-24 12:06 am (UTC)

In half an hour or so, Helen is calmed down enough to say,

"I wanna see Shura."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:07 am (UTC)

"I'll go find her," says Ranata, and she gets up and flies away.

A while later, Castarilan leads Shura to where they've all been sitting; Ranata returns a minute later.

"Helen, what's wrong?" Shura asks.

carillons
2013-07-24 12:08 am (UTC)

"I got kidnapped by some scary witches from another clan and they froze Kas into ice and Ranata had to stab him to make him better!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:10 am (UTC)

"How does stabbing make somebody better?" asks Shura, peering at Kas, who doesn't look very stabbed.

carillons
2013-07-24 12:11 am (UTC)

"I dunno," says Helen, "but she did it and it worked." She hugs Kas tightly.

truthwright
2013-07-24 12:12 am (UTC)

Kas pets Helen's hair.

"It's 'cause I'm so peculiar," he says to Shura. "If somebody tries to kill me, I get better from things instead."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:15 am (UTC)

"Wow," says Shura, "I bet that comes in useful. And now you are all okay?"

truthwright
2013-07-24 12:15 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Kas.

carillons
2013-07-24 12:16 am (UTC)

"I'm still scared, though," sniffles Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:17 am (UTC)

"The clan lands are blessed a lot. Nobody can curse us here," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-24 12:19 am (UTC)

"That's good," says Helen.

Kalavar turns into a kitten and bounds up to Nicoa.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:20 am (UTC)

Nicoa has been being a turtle, but now he turns into another kitten.

carillons
2013-07-24 12:21 am (UTC)

Kalavar snuggles up to him.

Helen sighs and hugs Kas.

"I'm still scared," she murmurs. "Even though we're safe now, I'm scared."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:22 am (UTC)

"Can we help?" Nicoa asks.

carillons
2013-07-24 12:23 am (UTC)

"You're helping now," says Kalavar, nuzzling him.

"And you reminded us the clan lands are blessed," says Helen, "that helped."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:24 am (UTC)

"Any witch who's any good at magic does a blessing of the lands when she gets to be about fifty or sixty," says Ranata. "They add up. I did one myself."

carillons
2013-07-24 12:26 am (UTC)

Helen nods slowly.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:27 am (UTC)

Nicoa snuggles Kalavar and purrs soothingly.

carillons
2013-07-24 12:52 am (UTC)

Kalavar is soothed. So is Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:53 am (UTC)

That is good. That is the idea.

"The queen will find who did it," Ranata sighs.

carillons
2013-07-24 12:53 am (UTC)

"I hope so," says Helen. "She should find them and make them stop."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:54 am (UTC)

"She will."

carillons
2013-07-24 12:54 am (UTC)

Helen nods.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 12:56 am (UTC)

The queen does in fact do this.

The Ontario queen is not interested in defending her subjects; they are flown onto Olympic ground, trussed up and gagged, their daemons tangled up in nets with them. (While not as traditional as bows and daggers, nets are sometimes used for things like this.)

"Are these those who harmed you?" the queen inquires of Helen and Kas.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:00 am (UTC)

Helen inspects them.

"Yeah," she says.

truthwright
2013-07-24 01:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah," Petaal confirms, wearing her witch shape.
Edited 2013-07-24 01:01 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:02 am (UTC)

The accused are not given an opportunity to speak in their defense; there is always the risk of verse. The queen reads off the charges - kidnapping of an Olympic, interference-spell on an Olympic, attempted murder of a relative of an Olympic. She then sentences them to death. This is open to supervision.

truthwright
2013-07-24 01:03 am (UTC)

Kas supervises.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:03 am (UTC)

So does Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:04 am (UTC)

The queen slits their throats. The associated birds dissolve into gold and vanish.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:06 am (UTC)

Helen turns to Kas and hugs him tight, hiding her face against his chest. Kalavar curls up in Petaal's arms as a blue-grey dragon with soft pebbled skin.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:07 am (UTC)

The queen sends someone to burn the bodies, clasps hands with Ranata in a sort of ceremonial acknowledgment that the damage to her family has been avenged, and departs.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:09 am (UTC)

"What does 'interference spell' mean?" says Helen to Ranata.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:10 am (UTC)

"That is how we think they found you. It's a complicated kind of spell that makes little chances add up over a long time to get something - like making you cross their path so they could take you home," says Ranata quietly.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:11 am (UTC)

Helen shivers.

truthwright
2013-07-24 01:11 am (UTC)

So does Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:12 am (UTC)

"Hardly anyone does them."

truthwright
2013-07-24 01:13 am (UTC)

"Yeah," murmurs Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:14 am (UTC)

"It's all over," Ranata says reassuringly. "If they hadn't acted alone, the Ontario queen wouldn't have turned them over so quickly."

truthwright
2013-07-24 01:17 am (UTC)

Kas nods and pets Helen's hair.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:19 am (UTC)

It's not too long before this mess is well in the past and it is time for Helen to go up to the cloudpine forest and cut her first branch and learn to fly.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:20 am (UTC)

Well in the past but not entirely in the past; Helen has been more serious, more withdrawn, and even more dedicated to studying magic.

None of which makes her any less enthusiastic about her very first cloudpine.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:21 am (UTC)

That's good! It is a time to be excited. Ranata flies her up to help her pick one out.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:22 am (UTC)

She spends some time looking at all the trees - they are beautiful trees, and worth looking at - before she finally starts inspecting the branches, and then picks one that is pretty and looks right, and cuts it from its tree.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:23 am (UTC)

It will float for her, because she cut it herself, in the way that Ranata's or Petaal's won't.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:24 am (UTC)

Eeeee! Helen hugs it.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:24 am (UTC)

"Try flying!" beams Ranata, taking a picture.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:27 am (UTC)

Helen tries flying.

Flying works.

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeee," she says, zooming around Ranata in an only slightly wobbly circle.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:28 am (UTC)

Ranata grins and zooms as well.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:29 am (UTC)

Helen chases her!

"This is better than rollercoasters!" she shouts.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:30 am (UTC)

"It is!" agrees Ranata.

She leads Helen around in a series of maneuvers that will let her surreptitiously check for balance or steering issues.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:31 am (UTC)

No such problems manifest themselves.

"Wheee!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:32 am (UTC)

"Whee!" agrees Ranata, and homeward she leads her grandchild.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:34 am (UTC)

Her flying grandchild.

(Along the way, she listens for Kas and tells him that she cut herself her very own cloudpine branch and it is perfect and nice and she's flying and flying is the best thing. Petaal agrees that flying is super great.)

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:36 am (UTC)

Flying is super great!

It is a long flight with plenty of opportunities for learning the finer points of the sport back to clan lands.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:36 am (UTC)

Helen is extremely attentive.

Whee!

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:37 am (UTC)

Ranata is good at teaching small witches how to fly!

Don't mind the occasional nostalgic expression on her face; they are soon cleared away by smiles.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:39 am (UTC)

Helen has so many smiles.

And the very second they get back and land, she has so many hugs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:40 am (UTC)

Hugs! Hugs are wonderful.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:42 am (UTC)

Hugs are wonderful.

"I can flyyyyy," beams Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:42 am (UTC)

"Of course you can. You're a witch," grins Ranata.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:43 am (UTC)

"I'm a grown up enough witch to flyyyyyyyyyyy!"

She twirls around and around and around and around and dizzily hugflops onto Ranata.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:44 am (UTC)

Ranata laughs and catches her.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:47 am (UTC)

"Flyyyyyy," she mumbles into Ranata's silks.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:47 am (UTC)

"Just mind you don't spin yourself dizzy and then crash into a tree."

carillons
2013-07-24 01:48 am (UTC)

She giggles. "I won't!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:48 am (UTC)

"Good." Forehead-kiss.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:50 am (UTC)

Hug. Hug hug hug hug hug hug hug. Also, hug.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:50 am (UTC)

All the hugs.

carillons
2013-07-24 01:58 am (UTC)

When she un-dizzies, she races off to find Shura.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 01:59 am (UTC)

Shura is in her grandma's house, reading a storybook.

carillons
2013-07-24 02:00 am (UTC)

"Shura Shura Shura I can flyyyyyy," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:02 am (UTC)

"Lucky, I still have to wait!"

carillons
2013-07-24 02:06 am (UTC)

"When you can fly too we should fly together!" says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:06 am (UTC)

"Yeah!" agrees Shura. "We can go way out over the ocean and swoop around the big waves!"

carillons
2013-07-24 02:08 am (UTC)

"Yeahhh," says Helen, beaming. "It'll be fun! Tell your mom to hurry up and take you to the cloudpine place!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:09 am (UTC)

"She says in two months," grumbles Shura.

carillons
2013-07-24 02:09 am (UTC)

"Awww." Helen hugs her. "Wanna come flying on mine?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:10 am (UTC)

"I dunno, are you gonna drop me? You just started."

carillons
2013-07-24 02:13 am (UTC)

"We can go only a little bit and not very high," she says, "and then I'll learn how to not drop you, and then later I can fly you more!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:14 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Shura, finding this satisfactory, and she puts down her book.

carillons
2013-07-24 02:17 am (UTC)

And off they go onto Helen's cloudpine, and their feet dangle not very high off the ground at all, and Helen flies her around the clan grounds.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:17 am (UTC)

Wheee!

"I can't wait to do this myself," chatters Shura.

carillons
2013-07-24 02:18 am (UTC)

"It's lots of fun!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah! I bet it's better at night."

carillons
2013-07-24 02:21 am (UTC)

"I'll try it at night when night happens and then I'll see!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah! It's almost dinner time now."

carillons
2013-07-24 02:23 am (UTC)

"It will be night soon and then I will be flying at night!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah! Flying under the staaaaars."

carillons
2013-07-24 02:25 am (UTC)

Helen giggles delightedly.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:26 am (UTC)

"And the moon but it's a new moon tonight."

carillons
2013-07-24 02:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah. So the moon later when there is more of it."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:27 am (UTC)

"Yes. It will grow."

carillons
2013-07-24 02:34 am (UTC)

"Moons do that!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:34 am (UTC)

"And then they shrink!"

carillons
2013-07-24 02:37 am (UTC)

"And then they grow some more!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:37 am (UTC)

"Forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever."

carillons
2013-07-24 02:39 am (UTC)

"Until the sun explodes," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 02:49 am (UTC)

"Explodes? Why would the sun explode?"

carillons
2013-07-24 11:42 am (UTC)

"Suns aren't immortal! They live a really really really really long time, and then they go boom," says Helen. "I learned that the other day."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Going boom is a funny way to die," snorts Shura.

carillons
2013-07-24 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Not if you're a star!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:23 pm (UTC)

"I guess! Why do they do it like that?"

carillons
2013-07-24 05:27 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "I dunno!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Do moons die?"

carillons
2013-07-24 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't think they die the same way," Helen says consideringly. "But I dunno if they do at all."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Do any other things besides stars die by exploding?"

carillons
2013-07-24 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure! I wonder how to find out," she muses. "Maybe my spinach would know."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Should we ask him?"

carillons
2013-07-24 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

She listens for Kas and says, "Do any things other than stars die by exploding?"

truthwright
2013-07-24 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, button," he laughs. "Maybe galaxies or something."

carillons
2013-07-24 05:34 pm (UTC)

"He says he doesn't know but maybe galaxies or something," Helen reports.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Galaxies are made of stars," says Shura. "I know that."

carillons
2013-07-24 05:36 pm (UTC)

"So maybe a galaxy dies when all of its stars explode," muses Helen. "I wonder if it happens all at once or one by one?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Dunno. I didn't know they did it at all."

carillons
2013-07-24 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Now you are better educated," giggles Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:38 pm (UTC)

"And I didn't have to do any boring things!"

carillons
2013-07-24 05:39 pm (UTC)

"That's the best kind of education! The kind that isn't boring!"
Edited 2013-07-24 17:40 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 05:41 pm (UTC)

"It is the best kind," agrees Shura.

and my ears will listen

truthwright

Time goes by. Shura's mother lets her cut a cloudpine branch, and she and Helen go flying together.

Helen celebrates her eighth birthday by baking all her favourite people a cake again. And then she goes away with Kas, to Iceland and Russia and back by way of Alaska.

When they fly in, Kas on Petaal's cloudpine and Helen on her own, Helen is wearing blue jeans and a pink T-shirt.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 08:35 pm (UTC)

Shura isn't within view of where they opt to land, but Kaydi is.

She is clearly bewildered and upset by Helen's choice of dress.

carillons
2013-07-24 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Kaydi!" says Helen, hopping off her cloudpine with a wave. (She is still witchily barefoot.) Then she takes another look.

"...What's wrong?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Why are you dressed like that?" asks Kaydi with scorn.

carillons
2013-07-24 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Uh... felt like it," says Helen, looking down at her clothes and up at Kaydi with a quizzical expression.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 08:41 pm (UTC)

"But you're a witch," says Kaydi. "Witches don't dress like that."

carillons
2013-07-24 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I am a witch," says Helen. "And I'm dressed like this."

Kalavar perches on her shoulder as a condor.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 08:48 pm (UTC)

"You're dressed like a mortal," sneers Kaydi.

carillons
2013-07-24 08:52 pm (UTC)

Helen frowns.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Don't you even want to be a witch? You're gone all the time and you don't even have a mom and now you're wearing jeans and a t-shirt."

carillons
2013-07-24 09:25 pm (UTC)

"I am a witch," Helen insists, scowling unhappily. "No matter what I do with my clothes."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Then why don't you act like one?"

carillons
2013-07-24 09:30 pm (UTC)

Helen turns away and hugs Kas. Kalavar flutters to Petaal's shoulder, where Petaal strokes her feathers.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 09:31 pm (UTC)

Kaydi has her own cloud-pine with her; she hops onto it and streaks away.

carillons
2013-07-24 09:35 pm (UTC)

Helen clings to Kas and cries.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 09:36 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Ranata is in the Midwest, visiting Isabella's old house in a fit of nostalgia.

pythbox
2013-07-24 09:43 pm (UTC)

There are piles and piles of old letters; the place hasn't been touched in decades.

And—

A boy with a face like Kas's but none of Kas's witchlike agelessness - he looks about sixteen or seventeen - appears out of thin air in one of the spare rooms. He's wearing some kind of unfamiliar uniform that looks both futuristic and military.

"Holy shit," he says, staring around at the abandoned house. "How long has it even been?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 09:43 pm (UTC)

"...Kas?" Ranata asks. It's not, but she doesn't have a better guess.

pythbox
2013-07-24 09:47 pm (UTC)

"No. Sue," he says distractedly, turning in circles one way and then the other. "This is their house, right? How long—?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 09:47 pm (UTC)

"This was Isabella's house," says Ranata slowly. "I suppose Kas lived here too. Where did you come from?"

pythbox
2013-07-24 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Peace," he says. "One sec."

And he flickers out of view, and back again a few seconds later.

"How long has it been?" he asks, looking straight at Ranata for the first time since he arrived, intense and a little worried.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Peace? How long since - what?"

pythbox
2013-07-24 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Since she left!" exclaims Sue from Peace.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 09:53 pm (UTC)

"She's been gone for - sixty years now," says Ranata, "but Kas says she's coming back - look, who are you?"

pythbox
2013-07-24 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm Kas's alt from Peace," he says. "My girlfriend's Aegis, she's one of Isabella, she's gone too but it's only been a couple of minutes for me - sixty years? Fuck. I can't stay, then, not if it's gonna be anywhere near that long." He runs both hands through his shortish curlyish hair.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Alt? Peace? One of Isabella? What are you talking about?"

pythbox
2013-07-24 10:05 pm (UTC)

"...Wait, do you not know? Shit," he says. "Look - I'm sorry but I have to go, the clock is fucking ticking on this, I'm probably not gonna get any sleep this month - "

And he vanishes again, this time for good.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:08 pm (UTC)

[Kas?]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:09 pm (UTC)

[Yeah?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:09 pm (UTC)

[I was just - visiting Isabella's old house - and a boy who looked like you appeared out of nowhere, and said some bewildering things, and then left.]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

[...was he wearing a kind of uniform jumpsuit thing?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:11 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:12 pm (UTC)

[What exactly did he say?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:14 pm (UTC)

[I - he wanted to know how long it had been, he said his name was Sue and he was 'from peace' and that he was your 'alt', and his girlfriend is 'one of Isabella', and that he - that 'the clock was ticking on this' and he probably wasn't going to get any sleep this month...]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:18 pm (UTC)

[Yeah.]

He sighs.

[Look, I'd explain it to you, but I'm kind of in the middle of Helen crying. One of the other kids was giving her shit. Raincheck?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:18 pm (UTC)

[Why not, I've waited sixty years. Helen okay?]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:19 pm (UTC)

[She'll be fine, she's just not happy right now.]
Edited 2013-07-24 22:20 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:20 pm (UTC)

[Which kid was it?]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:21 pm (UTC)

[Kaydi.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:23 pm (UTC)

Ranata sighs. [I can have a talk with her mother, if she's a problem.]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:30 pm (UTC)

[Could be. Could be it won't help. What's Kaydi's mom think of witch kids in mortal clothes?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:31 pm (UTC)

[I - don't know, we've never discussed it. Is that what set Kaydi off?]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:32 pm (UTC)

[Yep.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:32 pm (UTC)

[So Helen was playing dress-up or something?]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:33 pm (UTC)

[Or something, yeah.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:34 pm (UTC)

[Why?]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:35 pm (UTC)

[She just felt like trying some stuff on, and then she felt like getting it, and now she feels like wearing it sometimes.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:36 pm (UTC)

[She has to know that will confuse people.]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:36 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I think she's noticed.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:38 pm (UTC)

[I suppose it's ultimately harmless, and I don't know what Kaydi did exactly, but she will get negative reactions.] Ranata has been meandering the house. The basement won't let her in; she doesn't push it. She lets herself out and takes to the air. [I'm on my way back now.]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:43 pm (UTC)

[It sure was a negative reaction,] Kas agrees. [Reminds me of wearing drag in high school.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:44 pm (UTC)

[It is rather like drag. Species-drag.]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:45 pm (UTC)

[Wonder what would happen if I started dressing like a witch.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:46 pm (UTC)

[I can't claim to recommend it.]

truthwright
2013-07-24 10:46 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:50 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Shura wanders by.

She stares at Helen.

"I thought Kaydi was making it up," she says.

carillons
2013-07-24 10:51 pm (UTC)

Helen stares back, somewhat uneasily.

"You're not gonna yell at me too, are you?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:53 pm (UTC)

Shura peers uncomfortably at the outfit, but she shakes her head.

carillons
2013-07-24 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Helen. "I don't like getting yelled at. It's not fun."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:55 pm (UTC)

"It's not," agrees Shura.

carillons
2013-07-24 10:55 pm (UTC)

Helen nods firmly.

"Wanna go flying?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 10:59 pm (UTC)

"...Are you going to be dressed like that?"

carillons
2013-07-24 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

carillons
2013-07-24 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Because I felt like wearing it and I don't feel like stopping."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:02 pm (UTC)

"But why?"

carillons
2013-07-24 11:03 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean, why?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:03 pm (UTC)

"The same thing why always means, how come, what makes you feel like it?"

carillons
2013-07-24 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, part of why I feel like not taking them off is 'cause I'm mad that Kaydi thinks I'm not a witch or something," she says. "But I just tried on mortal clothes to see if I'd like them, and then I did, and now I wear them sometimes, there's not a thing that made me feel like it, I just do."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:09 pm (UTC)

Shura shuffles her feet and doesn't seem to know what to say.

carillons
2013-07-24 11:09 pm (UTC)

"...Shura? What's wrong?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:10 pm (UTC)

"It's weird and I don't get why you're doing it but I'm worried you're gonna be mad at me for not automatically understanding."

carillons
2013-07-24 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't get what there is to understand!" she says unhappily. "Can't it just be another thing about me, like how Kalavar likes being dragons, and I give people cake on my birthday?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:20 pm (UTC)

"You never did it before," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-24 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, 'cause I only started now!" she says. "And I never baked a cake before I baked my first cake, but now I like baking cakes!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah but - baking cakes isn't a mortal thing like jeans are."

carillons
2013-07-24 11:21 pm (UTC)

"So?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:22 pm (UTC)

"So this is weird and that wasn't."

carillons
2013-07-24 11:25 pm (UTC)

"You thought the cake thing was weird too," says Helen. "What's it matter if it's a 'mortal thing'? I'm still a witch, see?"

She gets on her cloud-pine and floats up off the ground.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, I know," says Shura. "You couldn't just decide not to be a witch, that's not how it works, but - you're - wearing a mortal costume."

carillons
2013-07-24 11:28 pm (UTC)

"It's not a costume," she says. "Any more than Petaal's wearing a witch costume when she puts silks on to fly. Or Kas is wearing a girl costume when he puts on a pretty dress. It's just different stuff to wear."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:28 pm (UTC)

"...That's what costumes are, is wearing different stuff," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-24 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Is it? I don't think so," says Helen. "I think dressing up as something because you want to dress up as the thing is one thing, and just wearing stuff because that's the stuff you want to wear is a different thing."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:35 pm (UTC)

"But either way you have on jeans and a t-shirt."

carillons
2013-07-24 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. But not for reasons," she says. "Just for feeling like it. Kas does the same thing."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, he's peculiar."

carillons
2013-07-24 11:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm peculiar too," Helen asserts. "Not all the same ways, but I am."

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:41 pm (UTC)

Shura shifts her weight. Nicoa has been hiding under her silks; he peeps a shrew-nose out from a gap in them at her waist.

carillons
2013-07-24 11:44 pm (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a bee and buzzes away from Petaal to hover between Helen and Shura.

alicornucopia
2013-07-24 11:56 pm (UTC)

Nicoa hops out of the silks and turns into a jerboa for a bouncy landing, going a few hops forward.

carillons
2013-07-25 12:03 am (UTC)

Kalavar buzzes down and becomes a chinchilla.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:04 am (UTC)

"Do we have to understand this thing or think it isn't weird?" Nicoa asks her.

carillons
2013-07-25 12:07 am (UTC)

"No-o," says Kalavar. "But if you think it's bad weird, or you don't want to be near us when we do it, then we'll be sad."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:13 am (UTC)

"It's - weird weird," Shura says. "Like if you were a cat with a turtle shell on."

carillons
2013-07-25 12:16 am (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a turtlecat.

"Like this?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:17 am (UTC)

"Like that," says Nicoa.

"And - I don't know if it means things, what if Kalavar isn't even a bird? Could you make her not a bird by doing not-witchy things? I never heard of anybody else trying," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-25 12:24 am (UTC)

"What if I'm not a bird?" says Kalavar. "What then? I don't think I'm not a bird. But I don't know what being a bird or not a bird feels like, we're not that old yet."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:25 am (UTC)

"But all witches' daemons are birds," says Nicoa. "If you're not I don't know what that means."

carillons
2013-07-25 12:26 am (UTC)

"Me neither," says Kalavar. "But if I'm not then I'm not, and that's just how we are. We won't know until I settle. If I do."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:26 am (UTC)

"Are you really a witch," Shura asks slowly, "or just - a kind of peculiar that can do some witch things?"

carillons
2013-07-25 12:29 am (UTC)

"I don't know!" exclaims Helen. "I think I'm a witch. I can do all the witch things I've tried, so far."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:31 am (UTC)

"Well," says Shura, "you do more witch things than Petaal. But not as many as the rest of us."

carillons
2013-07-25 12:35 am (UTC)

"Is 'wearing silks all the time' the kind of witch thing you mean? I don't think that's the kind of witch thing I mean. I mean the kind of stuff that mortals really can't do. I can do all that."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:36 am (UTC)

"It's a witch thing. I guess maybe it's not the same kind," says Shura dubiously.

carillons
2013-07-25 12:39 am (UTC)

"I can do the kinds of witch things that are about being a witch," says Helen, "but I don't always decide to do all the witch things that are about witches deciding to do stuff some particular way. Because - if I just feel like doing something some way, and it's not hurting anybody just by me doing that, then that's important. Even if I don't have a really good reason, or if people think I'm weird, it's important that I want to do the thing."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:42 am (UTC)

Shura mulls this over.

"I think," she says after a while, "you are probably pretty lucky that you have your dad and not somebody else's if that's how you are going to be."

truthwright
2013-07-25 12:43 am (UTC)

(Kas grins.)

carillons
2013-07-25 12:44 am (UTC)

"I am!" says Helen. "I love my spinach."

She smiles at him.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:45 am (UTC)

"Okay, well," says Shura, "if I don't have to understand or think it isn't weird, I guess that's okay then."

carillons
2013-07-25 12:46 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen. "So do you want to go flying?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:47 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Shura hops on her cloudpine; Nicoa hangs from it as a little white cottonball of a bat.

carillons
2013-07-25 12:49 am (UTC)

Helen lifts off higher, and Kalavar takes off as a dragon and then keeps pace with her as a condor.

Whee.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 12:58 am (UTC)

Ranata is at the clan lands a few hours later. She finds Kas before she runs across Helen, and lands near him.

"Helen all better?"

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah. She talked it out with Shura and they went out flying."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:00 am (UTC)

Ranata smiles.

And then she says, "So. Sue."

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Sue," says Kas. He sighs.

[Where do you want me to start?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:03 am (UTC)

[I don't know! I don't know enough to know what the places you could start might be.]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:07 am (UTC)

[All right,] he says, [well - Sue. Sue is me from another world. I don't mean another world like the kind you already know about; I mean that every world you've ever heard of is all part of one collection called Alethia, and there are more whole collections out there. Sue's is called Peace and there's only one world in it. Me and Isabella found a way to get to different collections - we just call them 'worlds', we didn't realize worlds could have more worlds in them until we'd already been calling them that for a while, I know it's confusing. And in different world-collections, there can be different versions of the same people.]
Edited 2013-07-25 01:08 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:11 am (UTC)

[...How did he get here?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:12 am (UTC)

[Sue can just do that.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:12 am (UTC)

[What does this have to do with Isabella having gone missing?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:17 am (UTC)

[She went to another world. One none of us had been to yet - there's a lot more of us than just me and Isabella and Sue and Aegis, I think there was thirteen of Isabella or something and a dozen or so of me, and one more of Isabella found us and our Isabella was one of the ones who went to her world to say hi. And... there was this way we had of keeping in touch in between worlds, keeping time moving the same way in all of them, and it breaks sometimes if something happens to Aegis, and Aegis was one of the other people who went, and it broke while they were both there. Without that, time passes all differently in different worlds; that's why it took two minutes for Sue and sixty years for us. So Isabella is in some other world, I don't know where or what's happening with her or even how long it's been for her - but she's extra super immortal, like me, that's one of the things we found in another world, so I know no matter what happens she's gonna be back someday.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:18 am (UTC)

[Why did you never tell me about this before?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:19 am (UTC)

[Because she never did, and I don't know why she never did, and if she wants you to know then she can tell you when she gets back but if she doesn't and I tell you anyway then there's not much she can do.] He sighs. [But now you've met Sue, the cat is pretty much out of the bag, so I might as well tell you the rest.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:20 am (UTC)

[How much are you like Sue - or how much is Aegis like Isabella - why are there several of people? Are there several of anyone else?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:24 am (UTC)

[There's several of you; the Bells all have the same set of parents,] he says. [The Jokers - that's me and my alts - mostly do too, but some of us have different ones, or don't have any parents at all. Speaking of which, Helen happened because of some magic we got from another world. I used it to make myself pregnant, but I didn't specify another parent, and I guess the magic just picked one. People are... more like their alts than they're like anybody else. It's different for different sets. We don't really know why; one of the Bells has magic that can see stuff about alts and things, but she can't see that.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:26 am (UTC)

[...Are there more Helens?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:26 am (UTC)

[There's two. One named Damaris, one named Yseult.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:27 am (UTC)

[But they have their mothers.]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:27 am (UTC)

Kas covers his face with his hands.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:28 am (UTC)

[I'm sorry,] says Ranata helplessly.

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:31 am (UTC)

[I love Helen so much, but - I had a kid because I couldn't stand waiting, fifty years of waiting, I needed to be doing something that wasn't completely about how much I miss Isabella, and, and shit.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:32 am (UTC)

Ranata hugs him.

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:34 am (UTC)

Kas hugs back. He cries on her a little.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:35 am (UTC)

[So - what are the other worlds like?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:38 am (UTC)

[I barely remember, it's been so long. Um... Sue is from a couple hundred years in the future or something, I forget what year it actually is for him, guess there's less of a difference now. Nobody else has witches or daemons or armoured bears except us. Samaria, where Damaris is from, has angels - humans with big fluffy wings - Damaris is one, so's Angela, her mom.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:42 am (UTC)

[That's incredible.]

There has been some contact with the shades of other worlds for decades now, but the dream-based communication method, plus, in most cases, the language barrier, has limited how much cultural interchange there has been. The average person, such as Ranata, knows almost nothing about the rest of the sheaf.

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:50 am (UTC)

[I guess.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:51 am (UTC)

[Can't anyone else do what Sue does?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:51 am (UTC)

[Not so far.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:51 am (UTC)

[Goddesses all.]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:52 am (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:53 am (UTC)

[Is this otherworldly magic also why you can do all the other odd things you do - and - how Isabella did what she did?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:55 am (UTC)

[Well... yes and no. Petaal didn't settle because that's how I am, and she can be a witch and fly cloudpine because that's how she is. But this thing we're doing right now, that's otherworldly magic. And not dying when somebody hits me with a death curse, or stabs me somewhere important, that's otherworldly magic too. And Isabella fixed the afterlife with otherworldly magic, and some otherworldly help.]
Edited 2013-07-25 01:57 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:57 am (UTC)

[This is a lot to take in.]

truthwright
2013-07-25 01:58 am (UTC)

[Yep.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 01:58 am (UTC)

[At least now I don't have to just - take your word for it that she'll come back.]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:00 am (UTC)

[...you still kind of do. But yeah.]
Edited 2013-07-25 02:00 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:00 am (UTC)

[I mean, there's a more complete story now.]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:01 am (UTC)

He nods.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:01 am (UTC)

[What else haven't you been telling me? Does this have to do with how Helen can talk over such distances?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:05 am (UTC)

[Yeah. One of the kinds of otherworldly magic, I think - Helen is only about the second or third time it's happened - that if you make a lot of it, your kids get born with superpowers.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:06 am (UTC)

[Make it?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:10 am (UTC)

[It's called 'minting'; the magic comes in the form of coins that grant wishes. I've made a bunch but hardly used any in comparison, and same for another of me who also had some kids who came out with the kind of superpowers that people from Eos sometimes get - Eos is the world where minting comes from.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:11 am (UTC)

[This is a lot of worlds. How did you keep track of them?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:12 am (UTC)

He shrugs. [I dunno. I don't, anymore, I know there were a bunch more but I couldn't list them or anything.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:12 am (UTC)

Ranata bows her head.

[Does Helen know - any of it?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:14 am (UTC)

[Nope.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:15 am (UTC)

[Are you going to tell her?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:15 am (UTC)

[Yeah. I just don't know when.]
Edited 2013-07-25 02:15 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:16 am (UTC)

[How are you going to tell her?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:17 am (UTC)

[What do you mean?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:19 am (UTC)

[What are you going to start with - are you just going to drop in bits and pieces or sit her down like the talk about how sex works or something - what are you going to do?]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:20 am (UTC)

[There's a talk about how sex works?]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:21 am (UTC)

[...Most people get one, at about her age, sometimes a little younger. I can do it if you haven't and don't want to.]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:24 am (UTC)

[No, information has changed hands there, it just hasn't been a big sit-her-down conversation. Whatever. I don't know. I've got time to think of something.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:25 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:25 am (UTC)

He sighs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 02:25 am (UTC)

Ranata hugs him again.

truthwright
2013-07-25 02:27 am (UTC)

He leans on her.

carillons
2013-07-25 02:44 am (UTC)

After she has gone flying with Shura, Helen looks for Inkeri.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 06:09 am (UTC)

Inkeri is on her cloudpine, sitting in the sky among some treetops, watching clouds; Veravia is a crane at the moment, perched beside her.

carillons
2013-07-25 11:23 am (UTC)

Helen pulls up next to her and says, "Hi," somewhat uncertainly.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:13 pm (UTC)

Inkeri looks at her.

"Hi," she says.

carillons
2013-07-25 03:14 pm (UTC)

That is encouraging. Helen brightens a little.

"Whatcha doing?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Thinking about stuff," says Inkeri, shrugging.

carillons
2013-07-25 03:14 pm (UTC)

"What kind of stuff?" wonders Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:16 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking about people, especially my dad, but now you're here and I'm thinking about you instead."

carillons
2013-07-25 03:17 pm (UTC)

"What are you thinking?" she says curiously. She's never bothered asking before.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, you're dressed differently, so I'm thinking about that because it's new and I haven't thought about it before."

carillons
2013-07-25 03:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Helen. "Kaydi got mad and Shura got really weirded out and you're not doing either of those. I think I like your way better."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:20 pm (UTC)

"You aren't brandishing a bloody dagger or reaching for Veravia or trying to knock me off my cloudpine or announcing that you are the bearer of a prophecy about the end of the world," says Inkeri, "or doing anything else that would make that happen."
Edited 2013-07-25 15:20 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-25 03:24 pm (UTC)

Helen laughs.

"Those don't sound like fun things to do. Well, maybe the prophecy about the end of the world. I could make one up and tell my spinach and he'd laugh."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, sometimes there are actual prophecies. I don't think I would like it if there were one about the world ending. Because then the world would end."

carillons
2013-07-25 03:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah," says Helen. "I like the world. Maybe if I make up a joke prophecy I'll make it so there's a way to save the world in it. Just in case."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Like, The Shade-Dreamer will return on the eve of the sixty-sixth year of her vanishment, and call on the magics of all the worlds," says Inkeri, closing her eyes. "Then I would be much less worried, wouldn't you?"

carillons
2013-07-25 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Helen. "Yeah, I would. That sounded very prophecyish, do you read a lot of prophecies or something?"
Edited 2013-07-25 15:38 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:39 pm (UTC)

"...No," says Inkeri, "not really, they're very uncommon."

carillons
2013-07-25 03:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure I've even ever heard one before," she says. "But that sounds like what I think one would sound like if I did."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:41 pm (UTC)

"They can only be made by people with a certain birth blessing and not all of those," says Inkeri thoughtfully.

carillons
2013-07-25 03:43 pm (UTC)

"...do you have that one?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:44 pm (UTC)

"I have the right goddess and the right domain but it could be something else, my grandma wasn't sure."

carillons
2013-07-25 03:45 pm (UTC)

Helen tries to think her way through all the goddesses and their domains, to see which one seems most prophecy-ish, and then she shrugs and says, "Which?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Evisa Iannakara. Time," says Inkeri thoughtfully.

carillons
2013-07-25 07:01 pm (UTC)

"What does that blessing do when it's not prophecy?" she wonders.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. Maybe it makes you be on time to things, or fast, or have a good memory."

carillons
2013-07-25 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Helen, "there must be some way to tell that prophecies are prophecies, or we wouldn't know things about them, would we? So how do we tell?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:05 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. Probably some grown-up witches do."

carillons
2013-07-25 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to find a grown-up witch and say the thing at her and see what she says?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I guess. My mom and my grandma are both busy right now, though."

carillons
2013-07-25 07:07 pm (UTC)

"I'll see what Ranata's doing," she says, and listens.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:08 pm (UTC)

"You will?" asks Inkeri, after Helen fails to go anywhere.

Ranata appears to be talking to one of her cousins.

carillons
2013-07-25 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Ranata," she says, out loud to the named party but in utter silence to Inkeri, "I was talking to Inkeri and we think she did a prophecy, how do we tell?"
Edited 2013-07-25 19:12 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:15 pm (UTC)

Inkeri tilts her head and watches Helen's mouth move.

"Just a second," Ranata says, to the cousin. There are footsteps. "Ah, I would ask the queen about that. She isn't a prophet, but as far as I know the clan doesn't have any prophets unless Inkeri is one."

carillons
2013-07-25 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen. "Should I talk to the queen like this, or find her where she is and talk to her that way?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Find her," advises Ranata, "and bring Inkeri."

carillons
2013-07-25 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay! Thanks, manatee!"

She grins at Inkeri.

"Ranata says we should go find the queen and ask her and there aren't any prophets in the clan unless you are one."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know you could do that," observes Inkeri, tilting her head the other way.

carillons
2013-07-25 07:19 pm (UTC)

"It's a thing I can do," says Helen. "Because I'm peculiar. I can listen where anybody is if I know where they are, or where anyplace is if I remember it well, and I can put my voice wherever I'm listening or make it go all over."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Memma Belir, wind?" says Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-25 07:21 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "It's not my birth blessing or I would've said. My birth blessing's Amariah Lytess, daemons."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh." Inkeri shrugs thoughtfully. "Okay. We can look for the queen."

Veravia hops off the cloud pine to fly alongside her as she heads towards where the queen is most often located.

carillons
2013-07-25 07:22 pm (UTC)

Helen and a now albatross-shaped Kalavar follow her.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:23 pm (UTC)

The queen isn't there, but someone who knows where she went is, and presently they have found her, in one of the clan gardens, weeding.

carillons
2013-07-25 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Um, hello, Narida Memma," says Helen, floating on her cloudpine having entirely forgotten what she is wearing. "I was talking to Inkeri and we think she said a prophecy and we want to know how you tell."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:29 pm (UTC)

Narida turns to look at them.

"What," she asks, gesturing to Helen, "is the intended meaning of this -?" She sounds like she intended to finish the sentence with another word or phrase but cannot come up with one that suits what she means.

carillons
2013-07-25 07:31 pm (UTC)

Helen looks down. Pink cotton and blue denim, instead of black silk.

"Oh," she says. "I forgot I was wearing that. It doesn't mean anything."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:41 pm (UTC)

The queen makes a restrainedly distasteful face and turns from her. "Inkeri Saara," she says, "what were the words you spoke?"

"The Shade-Dreamer will return on the eve of the sixty-sixth year of her vanishment, and call on the magics of all the worlds," repeats Inkeri.

"Are those the exact words?"

"Yes."

"Does it refer to Isabella Amariah?"

"Yes."

"When exactly is the eve of the sixty-sixth year of her vanishment?"

"The day before she would have been gone sixty-six years. I don't know the date."

"Is there anyone else you are supposed to tell?"

Inkeri tilts her head again, and says, "I think so."

The queen pinches a leaf off a plant a row away from where she was weeding, shreds it, and mutters a Svaaric verse, tossing the shreds at a blinking Inkeri.

"Who do you think you should tell?" the queen inquires, after squinting at the possible prophet.

"Helen's father," says Inkeri.

"Go and do it, and then come back and tell me how he reacts."
Edited 2013-07-25 19:43 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-25 07:46 pm (UTC)

...Helen hovers a little ways back, and she listens to Kas.

"He's at Ranata's house," she murmurs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Inkeri. She gets back on her cloud pine and flies to Ranata's little cabin that she uses for extended stays on clan lands.

truthwright
2013-07-25 07:50 pm (UTC)

Petaal is curled up just outside the cabin door as a tiger, and Kas is leaning back against her with an arm slung comfortably around her neck.
Edited 2013-07-25 19:50 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:51 pm (UTC)

Inkeri lands.

Without preamble, she announces, "The Shade-Dreamer will return on the eve of the sixty-sixth year of her vanishment, and call on the magics of all the worlds."

truthwright
2013-07-25 07:51 pm (UTC)

"What," says Kas.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:52 pm (UTC)

Inkeri tilts her head and repeats herself, and then adds, "The queen thinks I might be a prophet."

truthwright
2013-07-25 07:55 pm (UTC)

"Why are you telling me this," he says. The words form a question, but the intonation doesn't.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm supposed to," says Inkeri. "I think knowing who I am supposed to tell might be part of being a prophet, because the queen asked me if I was supposed to tell anyone else, and then told me to tell you."

truthwright
2013-07-25 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Well," shit," says Kas. He rubs his face with both hands. "Are you done, then?"
Edited 2013-07-25 19:57 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that's the whole thing. I am supposed to tell the queen how you reacted."

truthwright
2013-07-25 07:59 pm (UTC)

"You do that," he says, and he gets up, and Petaal turns into a witch and follows him into the cabin and shuts the door.

carillons
2013-07-25 08:00 pm (UTC)

(Helen winces.)

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:03 pm (UTC)

Inkeri hesitates, but then flies back to the garden where the queen is, and lands again, and describes how Kas behaved.

"I think you're a prophet," the queen concludes.

"Will I make more prophecies?" inquires Inkeri.

"Possibly not. Some people with your birth blessing don't make even one prophecy in their lifetimes."

"Oh," says Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-25 08:05 pm (UTC)

Helen drifts back a little more, and then turns and flies away.

She doesn't quite mean to listen behind her, but she does.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:08 pm (UTC)

"How can you tell if someone is a prophet if they never make a prophecy?" asks Inkeri.

"If they have the right goddess and domain and no obvious birth blessing. Prophets occasionally appear even in clans that don't birth-bless, although then it's harder to be sure," the queen replies. "You should tell your friend not to come to me in mortal garb again."

"I can tell Helen you said so."

carillons
2013-07-25 08:10 pm (UTC)

Helen notices she is listening to the queen. She decides to stop.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:11 pm (UTC)

After a minute, Inkeri catches up to her. "The queen doesn't want you to talk to her while you're wearing mortal clothes," she reports.

carillons
2013-07-25 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I know, I heard," she says. "Then I stopped listening."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh. After that she told me that even when I am not making prophecies I'm still a prophet and this gives me special clan status and I will learn more about that soon," she volunteers.

carillons
2013-07-25 08:14 pm (UTC)

"That's cool," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:16 pm (UTC)

"It might be," allows Inkeri. "Your dad seemed very upset about my prophecy."

carillons
2013-07-25 08:17 pm (UTC)

"That happens sometimes," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Has he heard prophecies before?"

carillons
2013-07-25 08:18 pm (UTC)

"No, but he gets very upset about stuff sometimes," she says. "And it doesn't always make sense why."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why I was supposed to tell him that prophecy."

carillons
2013-07-25 08:20 pm (UTC)

Helen shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:21 pm (UTC)

Inkeri doesn't seem to have anything else to say, but she flies alongside Helen companionably.

carillons
2013-07-25 08:23 pm (UTC)

Helen smiles at her.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 08:23 pm (UTC)

Smiles.

Kaydi is a full year older than Helen, and her daemon settles when she's just eleven. Lexaryn is a tree swallow, and very vain about it. She separates on the first try, and Lexaryn is barely within thirty feet of her for the next week, showing off.

Shura has been anxious about separating, and keeps asking Kaydi about it and getting told, "Everybody does it, don't be a baby."
Edited 2013-07-25 22:47 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-25 10:54 pm (UTC)

Whereas Helen prefers to hug Shura when she expresses such concerns.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 10:55 pm (UTC)

Helen does not have the important attribute of having, in fact, walked across the Waste - "And even when you do, your birth blessing will help. I'm scared." (Shura is hugging Nicoa hard. He's being a Dalmatian; he's been being mostly mammals in deference to her nervousness.)

carillons
2013-07-25 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Helen. "It's okay to be scared. Kas was scared when he did it."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:07 pm (UTC)

"He didn't have to, though, did he? He's not a witch, if he didn't then he wouldn't have been a little kid forever."

carillons
2013-07-25 11:09 pm (UTC)

Helen says, a little hesitantly, "He kind of had to. Somebody he cared about was in trouble, they were going to die, and the only way to save them was for Petaal to be a witch and fly to where they were and rescue them."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:10 pm (UTC)

"...Oh. I think that might be worse," muses Shura.

carillons
2013-07-25 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Helen. "And he was really scared, he says, and it was awful and scary and sad, but then he rescued his friend and hugged Petaal a lot and everyone was okay."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:14 pm (UTC)

Shura nods. "I know witches all do it, but it hurts if Nicoa even goes - over there." She waves at a tree.

carillons
2013-07-25 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it does," says Helen. "We pulled pretty hard once, and it hurt a lot."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:18 pm (UTC)

"And you have the thing. I don't have that thing."

carillons
2013-07-25 11:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know what the thing does," says Helen. "Maybe it hurts me less to pull, or maybe it's just going to be - easier another way, less distance maybe? I don't know."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I guess there's no way to tell."

carillons
2013-07-25 11:22 pm (UTC)

"But it does hurt," she says. "I'm a little bit scared too."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:22 pm (UTC)

Shura lets go of Nicoa and hugs her.

carillons
2013-07-25 11:25 pm (UTC)

Helen hugs her back.

"Everybody does it," she says. "And they're all okay. We'll be okay too."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Some people's daemons are mad at them for ages."

Nicoa nudges Shura's ear with his nose comfortingly.

carillons
2013-07-25 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I hope you won't be like that," says Helen. "That would be sad."

"You don't want to be mad at her, right?" says Kalavar to Nicoa.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't know!" says Nicoa, turning into an armadillo. "I don't know why it happens."

carillons
2013-07-25 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't know why either," says Kalavar. "But it's got to help if you don't want to be mad."

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it doesn't," says Nicoa.

carillons
2013-07-25 11:34 pm (UTC)

"When we get ordinary mad at people for ordinary things, it goes away faster when we don't want to be mad," says Helen.

"But I guess I don't know if that works for this thing," says Kalavar.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," sighs Shura.

carillons
2013-07-25 11:35 pm (UTC)

Helen sighs too, and hugs her.

alicornucopia
2013-07-25 11:36 pm (UTC)

Nicoa turns into a red panda and snuggles up to Kalavar.

Hugs.

subastra
2013-07-25 11:37 pm (UTC)

When Nicoa does settle, Shura's almost thirteen. Her trip to the Waste is scheduled for the next day.

carillons
2013-07-25 11:40 pm (UTC)

Nicoa is little and poofy!

Kalavar turns into a chinchilla and gives him little poofy snuggles. Helen hugs Shura.

"Good luck."

subastra
2013-07-25 11:43 pm (UTC)

Poof.

"Thanks," says Shura.

She gets white silks, for the walk across the Waste.

She is back a day later, unseparated, Nicoa huddled in her arms, to rest for a few days before trying again.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:02 am (UTC)

And Helen hugs her again, careful of Nicoa.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:03 am (UTC)

"It's really hard," Shura mumbles.

"What happens if we don't," Nicoa says, "what actually happens, why don't we know any witches who just never did?"

carillons
2013-07-26 12:07 am (UTC)

"I - I don't know," says Helen. "We can ask somebody. Is there somebody we can ask? Somebody old, who's known a lot of witches? Would that help, asking somebody?"

subastra
2013-07-26 12:09 am (UTC)

"Nnnnno probably not," sighs Shura, "they'd just - tell us, I guess, and whatever the answer is it can't be good if we've never heard of anyone who did it."

carillons
2013-07-26 12:09 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen, hugging her some more.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:11 am (UTC)

Hugs are good.

"At least I like my form," says Nicoa optimistically.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:19 am (UTC)

"It's cute," says Kalavar. "Want to snuggle?"

subastra
2013-07-26 12:20 am (UTC)

Nicoa bobs his head in a ptarmigany nod.
Edited 2013-07-26 00:20 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-26 12:21 am (UTC)

Kalavar turns into a long-haired cat and snuggles up fluffily.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:23 am (UTC)

Shura's second try, the following week, succeeds.

Shura gets home first. Nicoa is apparently flying back on his own.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:24 am (UTC)

...Is it time for Helen to hug her some more? Helen thinks it is probably that time.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:24 am (UTC)

It is definitely that time.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:24 am (UTC)

Hug hug hug hug hug.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:25 am (UTC)

Shura is quiet, but very huggable.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:26 am (UTC)

Helen is also quiet. And very huggy.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:27 am (UTC)

Nicoa doesn't fly as fast as a cloudpine, but he is seen on clan grounds a bit later. He lands in a tree within eyeshot of Shura, but doesn't come closer.
Edited 2013-07-26 00:30 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-26 12:33 am (UTC)

"What happened?" murmurs Kalavar. She's sitting with Helen and Shura, curled up next to Helen as a black dragon with silver-edged scales, but her voice reaches Nicoa and only Nicoa.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:35 am (UTC)

Nicoa picks up one foot, then the other. "We went to the edge. And she put me down. And she walked away. And I tried to follow her but I couldn't go, and I screamed at her to come back when it hurt too much and she didn't. And then it didn't hurt anymore and she left. And I left too after a while."

carillons
2013-07-26 12:37 am (UTC)

"That's sad," says Kalavar. "I want to snuggle you."

subastra
2013-07-26 12:37 am (UTC)

"She didn't come. I called her and I know she heard me and she didn't come back. They would have let us try again and she didn't come back."

carillons
2013-07-26 12:39 am (UTC)

"That's really sad," says Kalavar. "Will you come where I can reach so I can snuggle you?"

She goes to the very edge of her comfort zone with Helen, and turns into a viscacha. They are one of the snuggliest things.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:40 am (UTC)

Nicoa hesitates, but flutters down for snuggles.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:40 am (UTC)

Kalavar snuggles him.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:41 am (UTC)

Nicoa is quiet.

So is Shura.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:44 am (UTC)

Helen hugs Shura, and Kalavar snuggles Nicoa.

And Helen says, "Do you want to talk to each other?"

subastra
2013-07-26 12:45 am (UTC)

"Not yet," says Nicoa.

Shura doesn't say anything.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:47 am (UTC)

Helen and Kalavar snuggle their respective snuggles some more.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:48 am (UTC)

Eventually, Shura says she wants to be alone.

And she goes off alone.

Nicoa stays.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:49 am (UTC)

Kalavar snuggles him some more.

There's not really much else she can do.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:50 am (UTC)

Yep.

Shura and Nicoa are next seen together - with him sitting in his place on her shoulder - a few days later. They don't seem to be talking to each other much, and they're still subdued, but not miserable or standoffish anymore.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:52 am (UTC)

Helen smiles tentatively at them.

"Are you okay?"

subastra
2013-07-26 12:53 am (UTC)

"We'll be fine," says Shura.

carillons
2013-07-26 12:53 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen.

"Want to go flying?"

subastra
2013-07-26 12:54 am (UTC)

"Sure."

carillons
2013-07-26 12:54 am (UTC)

They go flying.

subastra
2013-07-26 12:58 am (UTC)

When Inkeri is twelve, almost thirteen, she settles too. Her Veravia is a barred owl. She makes the separation on her first try, and Veravia is not nearly as resentful as Nicoa was, although he's away - whether on errands or because he wants the space isn't clear. Inkeri is always perfectly happy to see him when he comes back to her.

"You're next, I guess," Nicoa tells Kalavar when this happens.

carillons
2013-07-26 01:00 am (UTC)

"Guess so," says Kalavar. "Unless I just - don't."

She shifts to a condor again. She is condors a lot, especially for long flights, but the rest of the time too.

subastra
2013-07-26 01:02 am (UTC)

"If you don't settle I wonder if you have to separate anyway?" wonders Shura.

carillons
2013-07-26 01:11 am (UTC)

"I don't know," says Helen. "I don't think it's happened before."

subastra
2013-07-26 01:22 am (UTC)

"I wonder how come you're last. You'd think Inkeri, since she's younger than us."

carillons
2013-07-26 01:23 am (UTC)

"I dunno," says Helen. She sighs. "Maybe we really won't."

Kalavar says to Nicoa, "What does it feel like?"

subastra
2013-07-26 01:23 am (UTC)

"Like - glue setting," says Nicoa. "I was fewer and fewer things, and then I was this thing."

carillons
2013-07-26 01:24 am (UTC)

"Weird," says Kalavar. "I can't imagine."

subastra
2013-07-26 01:26 am (UTC)

"It might be different for different people."

carillons
2013-07-26 01:27 am (UTC)

"Yeah, maybe," says Helen.

"I wonder why Petaal never settled," muses Kalavar. "I mean, because she's peculiar, but - why?"

subastra
2013-07-26 01:30 am (UTC)

"We don't know," says Shura.

"Maybe she isn't any things. Or she's kind of like in that book where there are aliens whose daemons settle but only to a color, not a shape. Except she's all kinds of colors," Nicoa says.

carillons
2013-07-26 01:37 am (UTC)

"Maybe she's all the things," says Helen. "Sometimes she's really strange things. She was a human with big fluffy bird wings once."

"They were soft," says Kalavar.

subastra
2013-07-26 01:37 am (UTC)

"I've never heard of that," laughs Nicoa.

carillons
2013-07-26 01:38 am (UTC)

"It's peculiar," says Helen, giggling.

subastra
2013-07-26 01:39 am (UTC)

"He's super, super peculiar. He should be in superhero movies. Super-Peculiar!"

carillons
2013-07-26 01:39 am (UTC)

Helen cracks up.

subastra
2013-07-26 01:40 am (UTC)

"Actually having an unsettled daemon and being a grownup would be a pretty good superpower," muses Shura.

carillons
2013-07-26 01:41 am (UTC)

"It is! It's useful," says Helen. "Petaal can do all kinds of stuff."

subastra
2013-07-26 01:43 am (UTC)

"Maybe one day I will draw comic books and they can be Super-Peculiar and fight crime."

carillons
2013-07-26 01:44 am (UTC)

Helen giggles.

"That would be silly!"

subastra
2013-07-26 01:45 am (UTC)

"It would! But it'd be based on a true story, or at least a real person, like all the ones where the Shade-Dreamer does stuff."

carillons
2013-07-26 01:46 am (UTC)

Helen snorts. "Yeah."

subastra
2013-07-26 02:00 am (UTC)

"If we'd been born earlier we would've gotten to meet her. She was in our clan."

carillons
2013-07-26 02:02 am (UTC)

"I know," says Helen.

subastra
2013-07-26 02:03 am (UTC)

"I just think it's cool," shrugs Shura.

carillons
2013-07-26 02:03 am (UTC)

"I guess."

subastra
2013-07-26 02:04 am (UTC)

"You don't seem to think it's that cool."

carillons
2013-07-26 02:04 am (UTC)

"Don't I?"

subastra
2013-07-26 02:07 am (UTC)

"You don't! How come?"

carillons
2013-07-26 02:12 am (UTC)

She shrugs.

"I dunno. I'm hungry; do you want to come see what there is to eat at Ranata's house?"

subastra
2013-07-26 03:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah, okay."

carillons
2013-07-26 10:56 am (UTC)

They go to Ranata's house.

There are muffins!

Nom nom.

subastra
2013-07-26 05:02 pm (UTC)

Muffins!

i bought some postcards

truthwright

Kas is sadder, after Inkeri's prophecy. And it gets worse as time goes on. The closer they get to Isabella's return, the more it hurts.

He tries to do the best he can for Helen regardless. Helen, in turn, hugs him a lot and doesn't fuss when he cries on her. They make a good team that way.

subastra
2013-07-27 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Your dad is really upset lately," Shura observes to Helen.

carillons
2013-07-27 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I know," she says. "It's been bad this week."

Kalavar hops off her shoulder and perches on the ground as a huge black bird; Helen hardly has to reach down to pet her head.

subastra
2013-07-27 06:00 pm (UTC)

"What are you?" Nicoa asks Kalavar.

"What's the matter with him?" Shura asks Helen.

carillons
2013-07-27 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm a teratorn," says Kalavar.

"He's just sad," says Helen. "Sometimes he's just sad."

subastra
2013-07-27 06:04 pm (UTC)

"You're big," says Nicoa.

"Not about anything?" says Shura. "Aren't there doctors for being sad not about anything?"

carillons
2013-07-27 06:06 pm (UTC)

"I don't think he wants to see a doctor for his sad," says Helen.

"I am big," says Kalavar, preening her long black feathers.

subastra
2013-07-27 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Why not?" asks Shura.

carillons
2013-07-27 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Because he doesn't want a doctor to do anything about it," says Helen. "He's like that."

subastra
2013-07-27 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Just peculiar," says Shura. "A lot of things about your dad come down to him just being peculiar, don't they."

carillons
2013-07-27 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Helen. "They really do."

subastra
2013-07-27 06:12 pm (UTC)

"It would bother me if my dad was very peculiar and I didn't know why. Do you know why or do you not care about knowing?"

carillons
2013-07-27 06:14 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean, 'why'?"

subastra
2013-07-27 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Why he's peculiar, instead of... not peculiar."

carillons
2013-07-27 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure there is a reason," says Helen. "I think maybe he just is."

subastra
2013-07-27 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that would bug me if it was mine," says Shura. "But my dad is very normal."

carillons
2013-07-27 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Then everything should be fine as long as your dad and my spinach don't decide to switch places."

subastra
2013-07-27 06:18 pm (UTC)

"That would be the peculiarest thing ever," declares Shura.

carillons
2013-07-27 06:19 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

subastra
2013-07-27 06:20 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if you're so good of magic because of your own peculiarity or if you just are. That's a thing people can just be."

carillons
2013-07-27 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I think that's a just-is," Helen says consideringly. "Or maybe it's because I worked so hard when I was little so I could learn runes early and bake cakes in the wilderness. So it's indirectly because of being peculiar."

subastra
2013-07-27 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Wilderness cake," giggles Shura.

carillons
2013-07-27 06:26 pm (UTC)

"It's delicious because it's unexpected," Helen says cheerfully.

subastra
2013-07-27 06:27 pm (UTC)

"How is it unexpected if you make it yourself?"

carillons
2013-07-27 06:37 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "Not unexpected like surprising, unexpected like - unusual."

subastra
2013-07-27 06:51 pm (UTC)

"So you don't do it a lot?"

carillons
2013-07-27 06:55 pm (UTC)

"No matter how many cakes I bake in the wilderness, there is still a whole planet full of people out there who don't do that at all."

subastra
2013-07-27 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's true," laughs Shura.

carillons
2013-07-27 07:22 pm (UTC)

"So I think my unusual cake is safe."

subastra
2013-07-27 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Yes, probably."

carillons
2013-07-27 07:24 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

subastra
2013-07-27 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Unless a bunch of other people copy your idea. Where do you even get cake ingredients in the wilderness?"

carillons
2013-07-27 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Kas brings them," she says.

subastra
2013-07-27 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I guess that makes sense. I was imagining making acorn flour and maple sugar from random wild trees."

carillons
2013-07-27 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I'll try that next time."

subastra
2013-07-27 07:27 pm (UTC)

"It sounds like a lot of work and probably the cake wouldn't be that good."

carillons
2013-07-27 07:27 pm (UTC)

Helen laughs.

"But it might be fun!"

subastra
2013-07-27 07:28 pm (UTC)

"You have a funny idea of fun."

carillons
2013-07-27 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Yes I do," says Helen.

subastra
2013-07-27 07:29 pm (UTC)

"But at least you also like regular things like flying."

carillons
2013-07-27 07:31 pm (UTC)

"That's true, I do!" says Helen. "Wanna fly?"

subastra
2013-07-27 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

carillons
2013-07-27 07:39 pm (UTC)

So they do that.

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 07:46 pm (UTC)

Inkeri still doesn't initiate conversations much, but she tends to lurk around Helen, since the prophecy.

Lurk, lurk, lurk.

carillons
2013-07-27 07:47 pm (UTC)

"You are lurking," Helen informs her, and smiles. "Think any interesting thoughts lately?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I have been thinking about geography," says Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-27 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. What about it?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I have been wondering if anything interesting with spells that deal in cardinal directions happens if you try to cast them near the poles."

carillons
2013-07-27 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Good question!" says Helen. "If you were at the north pole, would you be at the northiest north because there wasn't any more north to go to, or the southiest south because it's south any way you point, or both? And would the magnetic poles do the same thing or is it the geographic ones that are important? What if you were on the moon?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't know at all," says Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-27 07:56 pm (UTC)

Helen grins. "It's still fun to think about," she says.

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I don't think any witches have been to the moon," muses Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-27 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Witches should go to the moon," Helen asserts. "When I grow up if nobody else has I'll do it."

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Where will you get a space suit?"

carillons
2013-07-27 07:59 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "I'll think of something."

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Will you tell me how spells with cardinal directions work there if you do this?"

carillons
2013-07-27 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Of course!" she says, grinning.

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-27 08:02 pm (UTC)

Helen beams at her.

alicornucopia
2013-07-27 08:02 pm (UTC)

Inkeri smiles back.

carillons
2013-07-28 01:32 am (UTC)

Helen bounces happily.

Kalavar leaps from her shoulder as a dragon, then circles them as a teratorn. There's hardly room for her to stretch her wings without tugging on the bond a little.

"I wanna go flying," says the enormous bird. She shifts species subtly, once and then again—her wingspan in this last form is massive, twenty feet or more. "I wanna - oh."

The massive black bird lands on the ground beside Helen and preens her hair with a beak longer than her hand. Standing up, not stretching, Kalavar in this form is a good six inches taller than her human.

"I think - I think I'm done," says Kalavar. "I think I found it. What we're supposed to be. I think I settled."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 03:47 am (UTC)

Inkeri claps. "What are you?" she asks politely.

carillons
2013-07-28 11:01 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure," Kalavar says thoughtfully, leaning gently into Helen as Helen hugs her. "I'm a teratorn - a big one. They're exctinct; I think they might have been related to condors, or maybe just similar to them."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 04:54 pm (UTC)

"You did always like those," observes Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-28 04:58 pm (UTC)

Kalavar laughs. "Yeah. And I've been teratorns a lot lately, but I was never the right one until now, and then—" She makes a shruglike gesture, lifting her wings slightly and then folding them close again.

"I'll tell Ranata," says Helen, and she puts her voice where Ranata is. "Manatee, manatee, I settled!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:18 pm (UTC)

"You did? Oh, congratulations!" says Ranata. "What are you?"

carillons
2013-07-28 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Some kind of teratorn," says Kalavar. "We might have to look it up to get the exact species."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's lovely. We can go north first thing tomorrow."

carillons
2013-07-28 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Congratulations, Helen," says Ranata again.

carillons
2013-07-28 05:21 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles a little.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything you want me to pack you for the trip? Food is usually it - and I'll get your white silks."

carillons
2013-07-28 05:24 pm (UTC)

"If food is usually it, then food can be it," says Helen.

For Inkeri's benefit, she says with her voice in place, "We're going north tomorrow."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:24 pm (UTC)

Inkeri nods. "That is usually how it goes."

carillons
2013-07-28 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

Helen hugs her enormous daemon.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:25 pm (UTC)

Inkeri's Veravia shows up, and lands on her shoulder, and inspects Kalavar for himself.

carillons
2013-07-28 05:26 pm (UTC)

Kalavar stands in place and spreads her wings.

That is a lot of wing.

Helen looks at her thoughtfully.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:27 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if you could ride her," says Veravia.

carillons
2013-07-28 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I was just thinking that," says Helen.

"I bet you could!" says Kalavar. "I'm wondering how I'm going to get off the ground like this. I'm not sure I can jump high enough to get a wingbeat in; I might need a run-up. Or a good headwind."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Sit on Helen's cloudpine," suggests Inkeri. "Get up that way."

carillons
2013-07-28 05:33 pm (UTC)

"I could manage that," Kalavar acknowledges. "I'll have to figure out something else for when I'm by myself, though."

Helen hugs her some more.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:33 pm (UTC)

"If the bird existed they must have had some way to do it," says Veravia. "Unless that is why they went extinct."

carillons
2013-07-28 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, they're extinct, so nobody's sure, but some people think they did use the wind," says Helen.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Wind is useful," opines Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-28 05:50 pm (UTC)

"It is!" laughs Helen. "I'm glad I know how to make it."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:50 pm (UTC)

"It may come in handy," agrees Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-28 05:52 pm (UTC)

"It just might!"

She hugs her daemon. Kalavar's feathers are shiny and nice to touch.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Are you worried about separating?" asks Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-28 05:57 pm (UTC)

"We are, some," Kalavar admits.

"It's supposed to be easier for us or something," says Helen.

"But easier doesn't really mean easy," says Kalavar.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 05:58 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't," agrees Inkeri.

Veravia shakes his head as only owls can.

carillons
2013-07-28 05:59 pm (UTC)

Kalavar chuckles.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:02 pm (UTC)

"We did it on the first try and it was not easier for us," says Veravia.

carillons
2013-07-28 06:03 pm (UTC)

Helen nods.

"I don't know how many tries it'll take us. I hope it's only one. It must be worse to have to do it a lot of times."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:05 pm (UTC)

"That is part of how we did it on the first try," says Inkeri.

carillons
2013-07-28 06:07 pm (UTC)

Helen smiles wryly.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:09 pm (UTC)

Inkeri shrugs.

The next morning, carrying bagged lunches and a length of white silk, Ranata collects her grandchild.
Edited 2013-07-28 18:13 (UTC)

carillons
2013-07-28 06:17 pm (UTC)

Helen and Kalavar are a little nervous, but not fretting too badly.

truthwright
2013-07-28 06:17 pm (UTC)

Kas and Petaal hug them goodbye.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:20 pm (UTC)

Ranata instructs Helen in how to tie on the white silks - it's a simple tie, not used with the everyday black ones - and they go north.

Ranata lands at the edge of the waste.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 06:34 pm (UTC)

Kalavar lands a little ways along the edge; Helen lands beside her, and hugs her, and then starts walking.

"It hurts," Kalavar murmurs, pressing forward against the edge of the waste as far as she can.

"I know," Helen murmurs back. "Me too."

She keeps going.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:35 pm (UTC)

Castarilan hovers close to Kalavar. "It'll be okay," he says.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 06:42 pm (UTC)

Kalavar rustles her wings unhappily, careful not to disturb the air too badly for Castarilan's sake. "I know," she says, "but it hurts."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:44 pm (UTC)

"I know, sweetie," sighs Castarilan.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 06:48 pm (UTC)

Kalavar waits.

Helen walks. Pretty quickly, too. The sooner she gets there, the sooner it's over, right?

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:49 pm (UTC)

That is how it works, yes.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 06:50 pm (UTC)

And—

Kalavar lets out a sigh of relief.

"We did it!" says Helen, to all three of them.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Wonderful!" cries Ranata. "Well done, well done."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 06:53 pm (UTC)

Helen is very shortly visible dashing back across the waste. She tackle-hugs her daemon; Kalavar nuzzles her exuberantly.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:53 pm (UTC)

Ranata lets out a small sigh of relief. "Let's eat our lunches and head home," she suggests.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Good plan," says Helen.

"I'll race you!" says Kalavar.

"I'll ride you," laughs Helen.

"Ooh," says Kalavar. "Better plan!"

"Lunch first," Helen says firmly.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 06:56 pm (UTC)

Ranata proffers lunch and starts on her own salad.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:00 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom lunch lunch lunch.

And then it is time to fly!

Helen climbs on Kalavar's back holding her cloudpine. It is surprisingly comfortable. The wind is good enough that Kalavar hardly has to run; she just spreads her wings, lumbers into the wind for a few steps, and lifts off.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 07:00 pm (UTC)

Ranata follows on her cloudpine, matching pace and smiling.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:04 pm (UTC)

Kalavar has a pretty good sustained top speed. A cloudpine could outpace her, but not by a lot.

And flying daemonback is, apparently, even more fun than flying cloudpine.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 07:04 pm (UTC)

"You're having a good time," laughs Ranata.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:05 pm (UTC)

"We aaaaaaaare," giggles Helen.

truthwright
2013-07-28 07:20 pm (UTC)

The moment they land, Kas is there to hug his daughter.

"Lookit you, button," he says.

"And look at you," says Petaal to Kalavar, running her fingers (she is presently human) along those gorgeous black feathers. "You're just - magnificent."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh!" exclaims Kalavar. "Argentavis magnificens. That's what I am." She stretches her wings out to their full twenty-four-foot span, then folds them again and gives Petaal a nuzzle.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 07:23 pm (UTC)

"She's beautiful," agrees Castarilan, hovering near both other daemons.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I am," Kalavar agrees smugly. "I'm amazing."

"You are," laughs Helen. "Hey, spinach, can we - go? I don't know, somewhere? I want to go places and see things."

truthwright
2013-07-28 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing, button," says Kas. "I'll pack up; you tell me when you wanna go."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:27 pm (UTC)

"I should say bye to my friends first," Helen decides. She gives Ranata a hug and whirls away to go look for Shura or Inkeri or both.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 07:30 pm (UTC)

Inkeri is easier to find - or rather, Veravia is and he leads Helen to her.

"Hello," says Inkeri.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:34 pm (UTC)

"We did it!" says Helen. "Now I think I'm going to go away for a few months and then come back and find someone to teach me more exciting kinds of magic."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I hope you have a good time," says Inkeri.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, I will!"

Is this an appropriate time for Exuberant Hugs? Helen thinks it might possibly be that.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 07:38 pm (UTC)

Inkeri calmly accepts her Exuberant Hugs.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:41 pm (UTC)

Well, they are exuberant from Helen. From Inkeri they are just hugs. But that's okay, that's how Inkeri is.

"Gonna go tell Shura," she says, "bye!"

And off she zips.

subastra
2013-07-28 07:41 pm (UTC)

Shura is over here, apparently learning to weave silk.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:42 pm (UTC)

Ooh. That is worth hovering to watch.

subastra
2013-07-28 07:43 pm (UTC)

Weave weave weave.

Nicoa spots her. "Hi!" he calls, and Shura looks up.
Edited 2013-07-28 19:44 (UTC)

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Helen. "We did it!"

subastra
2013-07-28 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Yay!" says Nicoa, and Shura claps her hands.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:48 pm (UTC)

Helen swoops down and hugs her. Exuberantly.

subastra
2013-07-28 07:49 pm (UTC)

Shura is much more exuberant about hugging than Inkeri is. "Are you and Kalavar okay?" she asks.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we're good," she says, "we're fine - I rode her all the way back, she's big enough to carry me and I don't hardly slow her down, it's awesome."

subastra
2013-07-28 07:54 pm (UTC)

"That is awesome! Will she still be big enough to carry you when you're all done growing, d'you think?"

telesonorous
2013-07-28 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Probably. I hope so," she laughs.

subastra
2013-07-28 07:56 pm (UTC)

"That would be really, really cool."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:00 pm (UTC)

"It so would! Anyway, I think I'm taking off for a while," she says. "Enjoying my newfound adult freedom and stuff. But I'll be back in time for my birthday."

subastra
2013-07-28 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Have lots of fun!" says Shura brightly.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:06 pm (UTC)

"You bet I will!"

subastra
2013-07-28 08:09 pm (UTC)

And another hug for the road.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:11 pm (UTC)

Hug hug.

"Bye, Shura!"

And she goes back to Kas, and tells him she is ready to leave, and they gather up their things and Helen climbs on Kalavar and away they go.

truthwright
2013-07-28 08:15 pm (UTC)

Kas decides that this trip is a good time to tell Helen some things.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:16 pm (UTC)

[Hey guess what,] says Helen to Ranata, when they have been gone for a few days.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:16 pm (UTC)

"What?" asks Ranata.

She does not register the difference between this and the usual method for Helen to suddenly communicate with her from arbitrary distance.
Edited 2013-07-28 20:19 (UTC)

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

[I'm on the brainphone is what!]

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

[...Oh! So you are! Hello!]

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

[I love you, Granatee.]

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

[I love you too.]

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:27 pm (UTC)

[Anyway. Kas told me a bunch of things. I think I'm going to visit the moon now,] she says merrily.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:27 pm (UTC)

[...Have fun, dear.]

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:28 pm (UTC)

[For sure!]

And she does.

She is back with the clan in time for her thirteenth birthday, and so is Kas, although he arrives later in the day. Helen waits for him before she bakes and distributes the cake. It is delicious.

After cake, she seeks out Inkeri.
Edited 2013-07-28 20:45 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:46 pm (UTC)

Inkeri is over here, planting vegetables.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Sooo," says Helen, "do you remember when we were talking about casting spells on the moon?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:48 pm (UTC)

Inkeri thinks, then nods.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:51 pm (UTC)

"It turns out that on the moon, 'north' is where you think it is, if you're definite enough about it. If you're not sure, then spells that draw on the cardinal directions just don't work."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:52 pm (UTC)

Inkeri tilts her head.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Also," says Helen, "I've been to the moon."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:54 pm (UTC)

Inkeri tilts her head the other way.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 08:55 pm (UTC)

"There's a big, complicated explanation full of interesting secrets," she says. "Want to go to the moon and hear it?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 08:58 pm (UTC)

"You can take me to the moon?" asks Inkeri.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:00 pm (UTC)

"I can take you to the moon!"

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Will I be alive there?"

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," laughs Helen, "I'm not going to take you to the moon and kill you, why would I do that?"

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I do not know how you survive on the moon," says Inkeri reasonably, "so I did not know if I could do the same thing."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Special secret magic," Helen asserts.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:10 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Inkeri cautiously.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:15 pm (UTC)

Helen grins.

She closes her eyes and listens hard, making sure there's no one else around to see them disappear.

And then—

—they are on the moon, standing next to a perfectly straight arrow scratched in the dust.

"That's one of my north marks," she says, gesturing to it. "I made five in different places, and no three of them point to a single north pole; I checked."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:16 pm (UTC)

Inkeri looks around, somewhat more interested in the moon than the diagram.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:22 pm (UTC)

It is the moon. It is very moonlike.

Helen is beaming.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:23 pm (UTC)

"You were going to explain interesting secrets?"

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," she says. "I'm just - kind of not sure where to start? Um, I'm the Shade-Dreamer's daughter. That's where Kas started when he told me, it kind of explains some things all by itself a little."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:33 pm (UTC)

"It could. Sort of. She was missing long before we were born, though."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "That was big secret number one. Big secret number two: she had a lot of magic that isn't anything like witch magic, and she gave Kas some before he left. That's what he used to make me, and what I used to bring us here - it grants wishes, and it's nice about it, as long as you more or less know what you're doing. I would've been in trouble if I'd tried to go to the moon without thinking about air first, but Kas took me the first time and I could just copy what he did after that."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Inkeri, looking up at the sky.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I took us to somewhere away from the Earth and the sun, but I could show you the Earth if you want," she says. "It's beautiful from up here."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Yes, please."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:45 pm (UTC)

Teleport, and there's the Earth.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:47 pm (UTC)

There is Earth. Inkeri admires it.

"When the Shade-Dreamer comes back like I prophesied, what's going to happen?"

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I... really don't know," she says. "That's what Kas has been so depressed about, actually. He's always had a hard time with her being gone, and now he's having a hard time with knowing when she's going to be back and having to wait for it. And I've never met her or anything - Ranata's told me stories, and so has Kas, and of course there's about a million movies, but I don't really feel like she's someone I know."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Does she know you exist?"

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. Probably not. I can't imagine how she would; if there's yet another secret kind of magic that would tell her, I don't know what it is."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:57 pm (UTC)

"That sounds difficult," says Inkeri.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. For everybody."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 09:58 pm (UTC)

Inkeri nods. "What are you going to do when she comes back?"

telesonorous
2013-07-28 10:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," she says. "I can't help thinking... what if she doesn't like me?" She sighs, and looks up at the Earth. "I'd be okay. But I'd rather get along with her, and I don't know how to do that, or if I can even make a difference to it at all."
Edited 2013-07-28 22:02 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 10:06 pm (UTC)

Inkeri nods, still admiring the Earth in the sky.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it'll be okay," says Helen. "I don't know. I guess I'll find out soon."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Very soon," agrees Inkeri. "I don't know exactly when because I don't know when she left. Do you?"

telesonorous
2013-07-28 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Late spring next year. That's when Kas says."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Not long now."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 11:03 pm (UTC)

She nods, looking up at the Earth.

"Yeah."

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 11:18 pm (UTC)

Inkeri is quiet.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 11:19 pm (UTC)

For once, Helen is quiet too.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 11:21 pm (UTC)

Inkeri will be content to sit on the moon looking up for a long time.

But after that long time is up, she says, "I would like to go home now."

telesonorous
2013-07-28 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen, and she listens to Kalavar and murmurs, "Who's there?", and Kalavar says "Nobody," and Helen teleports them down off the moon.

alicornucopia
2013-07-28 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for showing me that," says Inkeri.

telesonorous
2013-07-28 11:27 pm (UTC)

Helen smiles.

"You're welcome."

truthwright
2013-07-28 11:35 pm (UTC)

Time goes by.

Helen stays with the clan, more or less; Kas more or less doesn't. He'll drop in to see her, but mostly he keeps in touch by brainphone and spends his time - elsewhere. Every kind of elsewhere.

He cannot handle this. He plainly can't. Late spring gets closer and closer, and he gets less and less sure of what the hell he is doing. He burns an entire stack of half-finished postcards and cries. He cleans Isabella's house and cries. He bakes her a tray of welcome-back muffins and eats them all and throws up in the backyard and cries. He leaves for a month, gets into fights and has sex with strangers and cries in public bathrooms, and then he comes back and cleans Isabella's house again and falls asleep in tear-stained exhaustion on her immaculate living room floor.

dark_light
2013-07-29 12:58 am (UTC)

Amariah goes home. She makes sure the local Janepoint is reasserting normalcy, even if it's a bit of a sluggish process from a break this bad. She spots Kas curled up on the floor. She conjures up something more comfortable under him and curls up beside him, the big spoon to his little spoon, Path perched on her head.

truthwright
2013-07-29 01:00 am (UTC)

Petaal, wearing one of her big-snake forms, flops a few loops over Amariah in their sleep.

Kas cuddles up, too.

He has definitely been crying; there are still tearstains on his face, long dried.

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:03 am (UTC)

Poor sweetie. Jane's fried enough she didn't know how long it had been right away, although she promises to figure it out. Amariah figures anyone who's been waiting besides Kas can wait another few hours. She closes her eyes and goes to sleep.

truthwright
2013-07-29 01:03 am (UTC)

Time passes.

Kas wakes up.

He bursts into tears.

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:06 am (UTC)

Isabella wakes up as soon as he makes a noise. "Oh, sweetie." She wraps her arms around him tight and hugs him. "How long was it? Jane was so fried she didn't know -"

truthwright
2013-07-29 01:09 am (UTC)

"Sixty-six years," he half-sobs, hugging her back. "I love you - I missed you - I could not take missing you like that, fuck."

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:12 am (UTC)

"I'm so sorry." Hug, hug hug. Path nuzzles his cheek. "I love you too, sweetie, I'm so sorry - we went to this fucked up world that broke Jane as soon as Aegis walked in - they're going to give Jane her own body and she's gonna sit nice and snug in the Belltower doing fuckall with it and there's a backup for time syncing now."

truthwright
2013-07-29 01:13 am (UTC)

Kas snuggles her, and so does Petaal. Cuddly cuddly cuddly.

"I - I wrote you postcards," he says, "you might wanna go to the moon or something to read them, I'm not sure how many and the room might get full if you conjure 'em all at once."

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:17 am (UTC)

"Must have been a whole lot of postcards. I can conjure them in batches," she says, "right now I'm too glad to be home - I wasn't gone nearly as long on my end but the world was pretty terrible, Glass puked when she saw it through the door." She conjures up the first couple hundred, starts reading.

telesonorous
2013-07-29 01:28 am (UTC)

"—Who's that?" says an uncertain voice out of thin air.

truthwright
2013-07-29 01:29 am (UTC)

"Fuck." Kas rubs his face with both hands. "C'mere, button."

telesonorous
2013-07-29 01:31 am (UTC)

A somewat confused thirteen-year-old girl teleports into the room, hovering on a cloudpine branch.

She sees Amariah.

She stares.

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:32 am (UTC)

Amariah stares back.

[That's an Yseult. That is an Yseult. What did you do.]

truthwright
2013-07-29 01:34 am (UTC)

[I had a kid!] he says. [I wished myself pregnant and I didn't specify by who and apparently the magic picked you!]

telesonorous
2013-07-29 01:35 am (UTC)

The Yseult in question is looking increasingly uncomfortable.

"Hi?" she tries.

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:36 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Amariah automatically. "I - apparently haven't - gotten to that part yet." She waves the postcard she's holding, drops it negligently into the "done" pile.

telesonorous
2013-07-29 01:37 am (UTC)

"...I could go away," she offers. "Until you've caught up."

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:37 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

telesonorous
2013-07-29 01:38 am (UTC)

"Okay. Bye," she says, and tilts her head as though listening, and vanishes.

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:41 am (UTC)

"How old is she?" asks Isabella quietly.

truthwright
2013-07-29 01:45 am (UTC)

"Thirteen," says Kas, also quietly. "Her birthday's in August, I said the third but I could've been wrong. It's in a few months - you've been gone exactly sixty-six years minus a day."

dark_light
2013-07-29 01:50 am (UTC)

Path goes slowly fluffy, all his feathers standing on end.

"I am not old enough to have a thirteen year old daughter, fuck, I'm not even old enough to be her irresponsible preteen mother!" says Isabella, "I just - we never even talked about having - goddesses all - I can't." She gets up. She conjures the remaining postcards into a magic bag that will hold them all. "I can't right now - I am going to the Belltower, I will be back, this place is synced and brainphoneable twice over if you need me or you can get Jane to send you after me but - I can't." She flicks her bracelet.

Jane picks her up, and puts her down.

truthwright
2013-07-29 01:52 am (UTC)

Kas sits by himself, on her living room floor, and he hugs his daemon, and he just... doesn't do anything. Not a thing at all.

we do not bear children until we have so chosen

dark_light

Amariah appears in the Belltower, throws herself into a chair, and tries to read postcards, but her eyes won't focus on them. She tries the Bellbook, and scarcely has better luck, although her eyes do catch on a certain word.

"Jane."

"Yep?"

"I want to talk to Aether."

"I'll let her know!"

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:42 pm (UTC)

Aether has a tagalong.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Amariah," says Aether, when she and her tagalong have arrived. "Wow, you're - what's wrong?"

dark_light
2013-07-29 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Went home," says Amariah in clipped tones. "Saw Kas napping on the floor. Curled up, napped a bit too, woke up, there was hugging and crying, I've been gone sixty-six years, he wrote me a lot of postcards, I started reading them - and then who should appear - but his thirteen year old daughter who looks just like Yseult or Damaris."

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:49 pm (UTC)

...Celo blinks. (His aura, previously expressing that he is a friendly minor deity, now also announces him to be sympathetic. The low-key rendition of his name remains constant.)

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm. I'm really not a qualified therapist."

dark_light
2013-07-29 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I'll take suggestions for other people to vent to besides Kas or the innocent thirteen-year-old girl with half my genes running around in Alethia."

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:52 pm (UTC)

"You can vent to me," Celo offers. "I'm not a qualified therapist either, but I can care with the best of 'em."

dark_light
2013-07-29 09:54 pm (UTC)

Ama glances at him with vague wariness. "You're also a Joker, though, I - don't know to what extent the thing Kas did is a Joker thing."

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Juliet also acquired a spontaneous teenage relative! She recommends ranting to a Tony. Do you want me to ask some Tonies?"

dark_light
2013-07-29 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Juliet acquired a - what? She didn't get stranded."

mind_game
2013-07-29 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Nope, she has a magically constructed sister and her opacity prevented the memory implant from working."

pythbox
2013-07-29 09:58 pm (UTC)

The conversation seems to have temporarily moved on from Celo; he waits.

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:01 pm (UTC)

"What happened after she ranted to her Tony?"

mind_game
2013-07-29 10:02 pm (UTC)

"She deliberately forked and merged with a copy of herself who did have the sister-related memories. After addressing the problem that precipitated the magic sister, that is."

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's -" Amariah shakes her head. "That's not going to work for me."

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:10 pm (UTC)

"What exactly did Kas do?" says Celo.

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:12 pm (UTC)

"It was an accident, I guess," says Amariah, hugging her knees. "He got lonely. He wanted a kid. He turned female and wished himself pregnant and didn't - think - it - through - and the wish filled me in for the other parent."

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:14 pm (UTC)

"...I want to hug you," says Celo, "you look like you need a hug."

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:17 pm (UTC)

Path fluffs up on her shoulder and huddles close to her neck under some of her hair. "I need to figure out how to solve the approximately twelve problems I have now," she says. "And I don't want to put Path down while I'm upset." (She lets her aura out. Path is Not To Be Touched.)

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Celo, "then I want to help you solve your problems. And then maybe hug you."

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't want a kid. I wasn't ready. I'm not even old enough to have a kid her age, I'm subjectively twenty. We never talked about having kids. Witches don't - can't - conceive accidentally, not the first time at least, we're sterile till we first want to get pregnant and I still am. Hell, Golden was older than I am when her half-vampire child looked thirteen. I have no idea how he's been bringing her up or what she thinks of me or anything. And maybe this shouldn't even be my business, maybe I should go back and ignore her, but one, I can't ignore her, because she's Kas's kid and she'd be relevant even if she weren't mine - and two I can't because she is mine, even if I wasn't there, even if I didn't decide to have her, because she's the firstborn Bell-and-Joker-kid template, she is the kid I would've had if I had ever wanted one, if we ever have one together now she'll be a - a Griffin, they call themselves - instead - my firstborn child has been stolen from me by the person I love most of anyone -"

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:34 pm (UTC)

Celo's aura tells Amariah that he is a friendly god who cares about her and wants her to be happy.

Celo hugs himself.

"Wow, that sucks," he says. "I'm sorry. Does it make it better, that it was an accident?"

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:36 pm (UTC)

"It means he wasn't setting out to hurt me. That he was just careless. It's different. It means I can't just scream at him, stab him somewhere squishy, and dump him and have done with it. It doesn't hurt less, it just means the hurt is - undirected."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 10:40 pm (UTC)

"...Is stabbing a usual method of expressing displeasure in your, er, culture?"

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Hm? Yes, actually, I mean I wouldn't do it under normal circumstances but I'm pretty sure if I wanted to dump him he'd rather I get a good hit in first than not. Or maybe he wouldn't. It's been sixty-six years, what do I know."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 10:42 pm (UTC)

"...The reason I'm in school for therapy is because I have the ability to perceive and interact with the mind. Is there anything you want done - I have taken no actual classes on therapy per se but I know the subtle arts okay."

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:43 pm (UTC)

"...can you perceive and interact with my mind? Through the opacity?"

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 10:44 pm (UTC)

"I can tell you're there, which means I should be able to do some things, although you could hedge me out in ways I'm not familiar with that don't affect my ability to detect that you're a mind at all. I can't tell that some of the others are minds, but yours must be lighter-duty or operate on a different wavelength."

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:46 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know if I want you to do anything, but I'll bear it in mind."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so - putting on my completely unqualified therapist hat - it sounds like there are separate problem-bundles here - there's the girl, what's her name? - and there's what Kas did - and there's the fact that you've been gone a long time and there will be fallout in your relationship. And you can have feelings about any one that don't translate in obvious ways to the others."

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:51 pm (UTC)

"- I don't know. He called her 'button'. He probably did not literally name her Button. Fuck if I know, maybe he just let her go without a name altogether, didn't the Joker persistently call his kids 'munchkin' and 'pumpkin' and let Nathan pick their names, maybe single parent Jokers will literally refer to their children by nicknames forever if no one gets in the way." She starts fishing around in the postcards, looking for one with the kid's name.

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:52 pm (UTC)

The first one that comes to hand just says, Helen baked a cake today!

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Helen. He named her Helen. I wouldn't have named her that. I guess it's better than Button."

pythbox
2013-07-29 10:53 pm (UTC)

Celo decides not to express any name-related opinions.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 10:59 pm (UTC)

"So," says Aether slowly, "if things had gone as they should've - if, um, Materia hadn't broken Jane - then there's a meaningful sense in which you'd still have the chance to have this particular child one day, but a lot of things about her situation would be different. And all of those things are reminding you about how things didn't go as they should've."

dark_light
2013-07-29 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Are you reading my mind a little bit or are you just a Bell?"

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Just a Bell. I won't read you past being aware you're a mind unless you ask me to."

pythbox
2013-07-29 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I dunno if anybody mentioned it but I've got a reading thing too and it's vagued all the way out," says Celo. "I read sexualities. Yours at this detail level is 'probably straightish'. For, you know, complete information and stuff."

dark_light
2013-07-29 11:04 pm (UTC)

"...Thanks for telling me," blinks Amariah.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 11:05 pm (UTC)

"I should make a note about that in the Bellbook or something, maybe."

dark_light
2013-07-29 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Thilanushinyel unicorns do something a little similar - they don't have control over the detail level, though, it's all vague enough we don't mind - and nobody's bothered noting about them," shrugs Amariah.

pythbox
2013-07-29 11:07 pm (UTC)

"I can get even vaguer than I used to, since I got my aura," says Celo, "and that was pretty vague already. But anyways, enough about me."

dark_light
2013-07-29 11:09 pm (UTC)

Amariah hugs her knees tighter. Path hoots softly.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-29 11:09 pm (UTC)

Aether shifts her weight uncertainly, then also takes a chair.

mind_game
2013-07-30 12:49 am (UTC)

[Sue's free to attempt porting lessons,] Jane reports to Celo and Harley (and also Elspeth and Aether and Amariah, since they are in the relevant rooms).

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:51 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Celo. "I'll go do that, then, I guess. Good luck," he says to Aether and Amariah.

He wanders into another room of the tower.
Edited 2013-07-30 00:55 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-07-30 01:09 am (UTC)

"So - you don't actually have any advantage over generic Bells unless I want you to poke my brain, huh?" Amariah asks Aether after a silence.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 01:10 am (UTC)

"Nnnot really, except that I am considering staying in school and I can log this as extracurricular practice. All the details zipped up in patient confidentiality," she adds. "So I might be more willing to listen than somebell else, but I really haven't taken any therapy classes at all, Juliet might have more specific expertise or you could take her Tony-related advice."

dark_light
2013-07-30 01:11 am (UTC)

"I think Juliet's case only sounds superficially similar. Probably very different on an emotional level."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 01:12 am (UTC)

"Probably. She might still know things about how good listeners Tonies are, and the cases do share the characteristic of an innocent person having suddenly dropped into your life without your permission."

dark_light
2013-07-30 01:12 am (UTC)

"True." Amariah swallows, closes her eyes. "Jane, you wanna poll some Tonies?"

mind_game
2013-07-30 01:13 am (UTC)

"Sure."

And she pings Tonies. [Juliet told Amariah that Tonies were good listeners in case of spontaneous teenage relative. Anybody want to listen to her rant?]

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:17 am (UTC)

Fusion, Iron, Sapphire, and Red all answer in the affirmative, Red fastest. Screwdriver says [Maybe?]

Iron Man says [Huh? Never mind, not me, no.]

mind_game
2013-07-30 01:21 am (UTC)

[Should I just assume you are exempt from statements in this category about the template?] Jane inquires of Iron Man as she relays the results to Amariah and Aether.

dark_light
2013-07-30 01:21 am (UTC)

"I guess in the absence of other distinguishing criteria I'll take Red," says Amariah.

mind_game
2013-07-30 01:22 am (UTC)

[You answered first and have spontaneous-teenage-rant-listening-experience, you win, ding ding,] Jane tells Red.

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:23 am (UTC)

[Yeah,] says Iron Man, [good plan.]

toblameforit
2013-07-30 01:23 am (UTC)

[Ooh, do I get a prize?] says Red. [Is the prize interdimensional travel?]

mind_game
2013-07-30 01:24 am (UTC)

[The prize is interdimensional travel. Report to the Janepoint to collect. Or they're in the Belltower, you could go by door if you feel like walking.]

toblameforit
2013-07-30 01:26 am (UTC)

He reports to the Janepoint.

mind_game
2013-07-30 01:37 am (UTC)

Yoink!
Edited 2013-07-30 01:37 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-07-30 01:38 am (UTC)

Here is Amariah, looking like she has had her - well, not her soul stepped on, her soul is sitting on her shoulder in perfect physical health - but at any rate like she is in very poor emotional shape.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 01:38 am (UTC)

And there is Aether, looking totally out of her depth.

toblameforit
2013-07-30 02:00 am (UTC)

"Wow, hi," says Tony, taking a seat. "You look - unhappy. I barely know what's going on, but I guess that might conceivably make me a better person to rant to? Jane just said 'spontaneous teenage relative' and I'd give good odds you didn't get hit with a Soph."

dark_light
2013-07-30 02:01 am (UTC)

"No, her name is Helen. I hear Juliet has a sister now. I have a - a daughter."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 02:02 am (UTC)

"...Wow," says Tony. "Okay. What, like - happened?"

dark_light
2013-07-30 02:03 am (UTC)

"Kas had her. He wasn't trying to have her be anybody's in particular but his, I guess, but the wish - filled in the gap. She looks like a thirteen-year-old Damaris or Yseult, I recognized her right away when she showed up. I was gone a long time."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 02:07 am (UTC)

"At least thirteen years, I guess," says Tony. "Wow. I'm sorry."

dark_light
2013-07-30 02:09 am (UTC)

"Sixty-six. He didn't have her immediately. I mean, I understand he'd be lonely, I just wish he'd addressed that by - talking to the harpies or hanging out with that bear he was friends with or meeting new people - I could even get it if he'd met someone and fell in love with them and wanted to have kids with them - but this is so much worse."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 02:10 am (UTC)

Tony nods.

dark_light
2013-07-30 02:20 am (UTC)

"We never talked about having kids. Not even the perfunctory conversation about prophylactics - witches can't get pregnant until the first time we want to, it's supposed to be literally impossible for me to have a surprise kid even more than it would be for anyone else - and - Now if I ever want to, the one we would've had is already grown, she's probably already settled and separated, at thirteen - if she's even going to settle, if she's even separating, she was wearing mortal clothes when I saw her. I don't know anything about how he's bringing her up - culturally, personally, induction into the mysteries of the multiverse; she didn't look surprised when she saw me but who knows why that would be. I don't know what possessed him to spontaneously reproduce at all, let alone anything about what he opted to do once he'd managed it. I wouldn't have wanted to name her Helen. I wouldn't have left her alone for thirteen years. Even if I hadn't meant to have her. If I'd gone home and he'd presented me with a newborn I could - I'd be mad, I'd be bewildered, but I'd step in. It's not like I'd decided to be eternally childless, you know? And now the - possibility I was supposed to have is gone. I'm not even old enough to have a thirteen-year-old daughter. I am only seven years older than her."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 02:24 am (UTC)

"That really sucks," says Tony. "On the subject of not being old enough to have a thirteen-year-old daughter, I can say some stuff about when I was thirteen if you want, Sherry wouldn't mind."

dark_light
2013-07-30 02:25 am (UTC)

"- Yes, actually, that hadn't occurred to me, but yes."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 02:29 am (UTC)

"Also kind of relevant to spontaneously having children, I guess," he says. "Except that wasn't really what I was after, I just - I was a bored, lonely genius and I thought I probably could clone myself if I tried, and I'm not even sure I was expecting it to work, and then suddenly there was this baby and he had needs and I kind of freaked out and by the time I'd almost started to figure out what to do with him, he was practically my age and I had a whole different set of problems. Which I will totally talk about at length if you want, but I don't really know where it stops being relevant for you, you'll have to tell me."

dark_light
2013-07-30 02:32 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure. It's probably closer to relevant than most things? I'm not sure anyone has had my exact problem before, so."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 02:40 am (UTC)

Tony shrugs.

"So, there I was," he says, "thirteen years old, with this one-and-a-half-year-old clone most of the way caught up to me - it seemed like every time I turned around he was a year older. And, uh, it was kind of freaky and I did a lot of stuff I ended up regretting. Mostly I didn't talk to him enough. Because it was new and weird and I didn't know what to do and I was vaguely afraid of fucking it up, so I didn't do anything, which definitely fucked it up. Wow, that is a super depressing story with a super depressing moral, I'm sorry."

dark_light
2013-07-30 02:49 am (UTC)

"- Yeah, quite apart from whether Kas thought through the effect on me I don't know if he fully thought through the effects on Helen. Even if it'd turned out how he wanted to and she was just some random kid, I was always going to come home eventually and then she'd have a - we aren't married, so not a stepmother, but the same general idea - who was there first and simultaneously had no idea she existed. And instead she's mine and she's been growing up without a mom except insofar as Kas counts, so even if I'd talked to Yseult and Damaris more I wouldn't know that much about her, I don't know how that will have affected her, I don't know what if anything she wants from me now, and I don't feel like I can ask her till I'm more calmed down and have read these - postcards. He wrote me a lot of postcards while I was gone." She brandishes her postcard bag.

toblameforit
2013-07-30 02:55 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Tony. "Postcards. Okay. Um, well, is this," he gestures between the two of them to indicate their conversation, "helping with the calming down part?"

dark_light
2013-07-30 02:56 am (UTC)

"Yes. I am calming down," says Amariah. "Probably I'll be fit for innocent-thirteen-year-old company any minute now."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 03:00 am (UTC)

Tony smiles wryly. "Okay, good."

dark_light
2013-07-30 03:01 am (UTC)

"You are totally getting a second recommendation next time a Bell comes down with Spontaneous Teenage Relative Syndrome."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 03:02 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"Great. The job I've always wanted." Smiling, he adds, "No but seriously, glad I could help."

dark_light
2013-07-30 03:11 am (UTC)

"I appreciate it." Amariah closes her eyes. "I suppose the option of pastwatching her childhood exists, but that might make it worse. I can't exactly go 'no, I don't like the name Helen' or 'why are you letting her eat that bug' and have it change anything."
Edited 2013-07-30 03:17 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-07-30 03:18 am (UTC)

Tony winces. "You don't like her name? Ouch."

dark_light
2013-07-30 03:19 am (UTC)

"I know, right? Don't tell her," says Amariah ruefully. "It's not terrible, it's not like he called her Euphemia or something, just - I definitely would not have named her that."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 12:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Tony. "On the other hand, at least she has a name."

dark_light
2013-07-30 03:28 pm (UTC)

"Yyyes, although I did briefly wonder if she had when it occurred to me all I heard Kas call her was 'button' and the Joker let his boyfriend name their kids."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Still, he's got one up on me there."

dark_light
2013-07-30 03:39 pm (UTC)

"And Sherlock turned out all Sherlocky, which is, as the multiversal observational study proves, not strongly related to anything you did - so I guess I should expect Helen to turn out templatey, too, unless that's just a way the templates in question differ. I suppose I could see if Yseult or Damaris wants to talk to me."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 03:45 pm (UTC)

"You could do that!" says Tony. "That is something you could do. And if they both want to talk to you at the same time, that might be a better way to get a handle on what's template stuff and what's just so-and-so stuff."

dark_light
2013-07-30 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Oh, good point. Yeah, that probably makes sense now I'm not - about to burst into tears." (Path leans his head on her cheek.)

toblameforit
2013-07-30 03:56 pm (UTC)

Tony winces. "Also I could hug you," he says. "If that would help any."

dark_light
2013-07-30 04:00 pm (UTC)

Amariah considers this, and then she gently tucks Path away and stands up from her chair and holds out her arms.

toblameforit
2013-07-30 04:04 pm (UTC)

Tony hugs her.

dark_light
2013-07-30 04:06 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"Thanks for listening."

toblameforit
2013-07-30 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Anytime," he says. "I mean, hopefully never again? But anytime."

dark_light
2013-07-30 04:17 pm (UTC)

"I understand completely," she laughs. "Jane, can you talk to Yseult and Damaris for me?"

mind_game
2013-07-30 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I will invite them over."

[Hey, Yseult, Jane here.]

[Hey, Damaris, it's Jane.]

fortissima
2013-07-30 04:25 pm (UTC)

[Hi, Jane!] says Damaris.

mindfields
2013-07-30 04:26 pm (UTC)

[Hello,] says Yseult.

mind_game
2013-07-30 04:27 pm (UTC)

[So,] Jane says to both of them, [Amariah would like to talk to you and your alt about your template. She's in the Belltower. D'you have a while?]

mindfields
2013-07-30 04:37 pm (UTC)

[Yes,] says Yseult.

fortissima
2013-07-30 04:37 pm (UTC)

[Sure!] says Damaris.

mind_game
2013-07-30 04:38 pm (UTC)

[I can yoink you there if you'll head for your Janepoint.]

fortissima
2013-07-30 04:57 pm (UTC)

They both

mindfields
2013-07-30 04:58 pm (UTC)

do that.

mind_game
2013-07-30 04:58 pm (UTC)

Yoink, yoink.

dark_light
2013-07-30 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Hi, guys."

mindfields
2013-07-30 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Yseult. "What is it?"

dark_light
2013-07-30 05:35 pm (UTC)

"When I got home," Amariah says, looking away, "it had been sixty-six years. There is a thirteen-year-old you there named Helen. And I don't know what to do."

fortissima
2013-07-30 05:37 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not sure I know what to do either," says Damaris, glancing at Yseult with a nervous flutter of her wings.
Edited 2013-07-30 17:37 (UTC)

mindfields
2013-07-30 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I can't imagine," Yseult murmurs.

dark_light
2013-07-30 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm calmed down now, but I'm not even old enough to have a thirteen-year-old you, right, and we'd never talked about it."

fortissima
2013-07-30 05:41 pm (UTC)

"...I'd like to meet her," says Damaris. "Another us. - We never even named our template, did we?"

mindfields
2013-07-30 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I can donate 'Dominique', since I'm not using it," Yseult offers wryly.

dark_light
2013-07-30 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Dominiques it is. Do you think that's the best next action, is inviting her to meet you guys?"

mindfields
2013-07-30 05:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Yseult. "But I'd like to meet her, too. And I don't think it would be a bad thing to do."

dark_light
2013-07-30 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I could get out of the way and Jane could invite her here? Or not get out of the way, I guess, I'm going by your expertise on yourselves here."

mindfields
2013-07-30 05:51 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what I would or wouldn't want if I was seeing Maman for the first time at thirteen," Yseult says apologetically. "Besides that - I'd want to get along with her, I think."

fortissima
2013-07-30 05:53 pm (UTC)

"But if all you know is that you want to get along with someone, it can be hard to do," says Damaris.

dark_light
2013-07-30 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

fortissima
2013-07-30 05:54 pm (UTC)

Damaris's wings droop.
Edited 2013-07-30 17:55 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-07-30 05:56 pm (UTC)

"This is still sounding like the best plan we have going?"

mindfields
2013-07-30 05:57 pm (UTC)

"It seems to be the only plan we have going," says Yseult, "and not a bad one."

dark_light
2013-07-30 05:57 pm (UTC)

"...Okay. Jane, if you wouldn't mind?"

mind_game
2013-07-30 05:58 pm (UTC)

[On it.]

[Hullo, Helen, I am Jane!]

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:02 pm (UTC)

[Hello, Jane,] says Helen, tentatively.

mind_game
2013-07-30 06:03 pm (UTC)

[Your alts are in the Belltower and want to talk to you. Amariah's there too but she'll leave if you'd rather.]

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:06 pm (UTC)

[I wouldn't rather that. I don't know if - well. How do I get to the Belltower?]

mind_game
2013-07-30 06:06 pm (UTC)

[I can take you there, just go to the basement of Amariah's house.]

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:08 pm (UTC)

She tries to do that.

She cannot do that.

She goes where Kas is instead.

truthwright
2013-07-30 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Hey, button," Kas says quietly from the living room floor.

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Hey. How do I get into the basement?"
Edited 2013-07-30 18:10 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-07-30 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh." He flutters a hand. "There ya go."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:11 pm (UTC)

Helen hugs him.

She tries teleporting into the basement again.

It works this time.

mind_game
2013-07-30 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" say Jane's speakers. "Ready? D'you want to bring your daemon?"

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't planning to. Will something terrible happen if I don't?"

mind_game
2013-07-30 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Not if you're separated, no."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:16 pm (UTC)

Helen nods. "Okay."

mind_game
2013-07-30 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Here goes."

Pop!

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:21 pm (UTC)

"...Hi," says Helen, to the assembled.

dark_light
2013-07-30 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Hi."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:28 pm (UTC)

Helen just sort of stands there for a few seconds.

Then she says tentatively, "I'm Helen Ianthe. And um, my daemon's Kalavar but she stayed home. She doesn't really do indoors that well."

dark_light
2013-07-30 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm - Isabella Amariah, and this is Pathalan," (Path is on her shoulder again since the hugging concluded), "which you probably already knew, and - doesn't do indoors?"

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:32 pm (UTC)

"She's six feet tall with a twenty-four-foot wingspan," Helen explains. "Argentavis magnificens. She can more or less fit in most buildings, but she feels cramped there, and even if people are careful, somebody could bump into her."
Edited 2013-07-30 18:33 (UTC)

fortissima
2013-07-30 06:33 pm (UTC)

Damaris's wings unfold slightly and she peers at them as though trying to compare.

dark_light
2013-07-30 06:36 pm (UTC)

"You can't tuck her away, then? - Kas didn't - how much stuff about - stuff do you know?" Amariah asks, gesturing generally at the Belltower.

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, I grew up knowing that my mother was... you," she says. "They call you the Shade-Dreamer now, there's a million movies and things, I guess you wouldn't know that if you haven't been back. But it was all a big secret - Granatee, I mean Ranata Ekamma, just told the queen whose daughter I was and let the rest of the clan think I was Random Witch Baby. And then after I separated, Kas told me about worlds and Bells and minting and stuff."

dark_light
2013-07-30 06:44 pm (UTC)

"The Shade-Dreamer, of all the - okay - anyway if Kalavar's that big you might find it useful to -" Path tucks, then appears on her other shoulder. "That. Borrowed it from Sue and Ivy, if you've heard of them."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:48 pm (UTC)

"...That is useful," says Helen. "Kal might rather stay out most of the time, but it'll still be good to have in my pocket. Did you just wish it, or is there some special trick?"

dark_light
2013-07-30 06:49 pm (UTC)

"It's a wish generally - Sue and Ivy do it naturally because Sue was dreaming when he went to Alethia to get Ivy, but she sometimes slips in and out in his sleep. At least last I checked; he may have patched that recently."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Wow," muses Helen. "There's a lot of stuff in all these other worlds."

She glances at her alts.

"Um...?"

fortissima
2013-07-30 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Hi. I'm Damaris."

mindfields
2013-07-30 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Yseult," says Yseult, with a little curtsy.

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:52 pm (UTC)

"I probably could've guessed that, if I'd thought about it. Uh, nice to meet you."

dark_light
2013-07-30 06:54 pm (UTC)

"There is indeed," says Amariah wryly, "a lot of stuff."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 06:55 pm (UTC)

Helen smiles tentatively at her.

dark_light
2013-07-30 07:23 pm (UTC)

telesonorous
2013-07-30 07:24 pm (UTC)

fortissima
2013-07-30 07:25 pm (UTC)

mindfields
2013-07-30 07:25 pm (UTC)

dark_light
2013-07-30 07:26 pm (UTC)

"So this is somewhat less awkward than it could have been. If there are movies of me and Ranata's been helping out with you and stuff you probably have most of my life story, with whatever cinematic innacuracies - um - tell me about you?"
Edited 2013-07-30 19:26 (UTC)

telesonorous
2013-07-30 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm not really sure where to start," she says. "Kalavar used to love being dragons when I was younger... I'm really good at magic... I was kidnapped very briefly once, we never really found out why - oh, I have an ingot power, I can throw my voice arbitrary places. And listen arbitrary places, too."

dark_light
2013-07-30 07:32 pm (UTC)

"That sounds potentially handy, the ingot power," says Amariah. "Also being good at magic."

"I wanted to be a dragon," Path says. "If Stella or Golden got daemons they'd have dragons."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Kalavar wasn't even sure she'd settle," says Helen. "Because, well, Petaal. But she did, and she likes what she is now."

mindfields
2013-07-30 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I checked once," Yseult volunteers. "I would have an ostrich."

dark_light
2013-07-30 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I take it you didn't instantly need an ostrich in your life."

mindfields
2013-07-30 07:54 pm (UTC)

"I am happy to remain ostrich-free."

dark_light
2013-07-30 07:55 pm (UTC)

"You ever check?" Amariah asks Damaris, since this seems to be what they're talking about now.

fortissima
2013-07-30 07:59 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

"But now I'm curious," she says, and deploys a square. An illusory albatross appears in front of her and spreads its wings; illusory feathers ghost through two walls of the room.

"...'Large bird daemons' seems to be a template feature," she observes.

dark_light
2013-07-30 08:00 pm (UTC)

"It does seem that way," chuckles Amariah.

telesonorous
2013-07-30 08:01 pm (UTC)

"It's interesting," says Helen. "—Do either of you have ingot powers?"

fortissima
2013-07-30 08:01 pm (UTC)

Damaris shakes her head.

mindfields
2013-07-30 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Mine concerns mindscapes," says Yseult. "They are more understandable to me, and more malleable, than they are to most people."

dark_light
2013-07-30 08:03 pm (UTC)

"So I guess if you haven't turned up with one yet that's evidence in favor of the mint-parents-at-time-of-conception theory," Amariah says in Damaris's direction, "have Keziah or Céleste demonstrated anything yet, though?"

mindfields
2013-07-30 08:04 pm (UTC)

The relevant Dominiques

fortissima
2013-07-30 08:05 pm (UTC)

shake their heads.

dark_light
2013-07-30 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I guess we'll see. So far no one has been deliberately reproducing to get specific ingotry, anyway."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Specific...?"

dark_light
2013-07-30 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Well, Bells all have the same power when we can get powers at all. With variations."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Helen, with a glance at Yseult. "Doesn't seem to work that way for us."

dark_light
2013-07-30 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Apparently not. So it varies template to template."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Should someone be consulting Glass? I hear she's the go-to for this kind of thing."

dark_light
2013-07-30 08:32 pm (UTC)

"She is! Jane, does Glass want to pop in and peer thoughtfully at Dominiques?"

mind_game
2013-07-30 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Inquiring - yep!"

thaumobabble
2013-07-30 08:33 pm (UTC)

Pop!

Glass peers thoughtfully at Dominiques.

telesonorous
2013-07-30 08:36 pm (UTC)

Dominiques peer thoughtfully back.

thaumobabble
2013-07-30 08:43 pm (UTC)

"You have some - themes to you, nothing that unusual to have in common as templates go - daemons, coin colors, obviously appearance. None of you are standing out as the template instance at all. I think you might be - almost a subtype? You are a kind of person, the specific kind of that kind of person that appears for Bell/Joker pairings' firstborns. There might be a theme to the ingot powers but I can't tell until I see more of them, I think. I think you're going to continue to usually be female as more of you appear but it's not a guarantee the way it is with - Matildas, say, I don't think we'll ever see a boy Matilda."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I wonder who else there is that we're - subtypes of," muses Helen.

thaumobabble
2013-07-30 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I'll let you know if I see any!"

telesonorous
2013-07-30 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Helen, smiling.

(And she glances at Amariah and looks... maybe worried. Worried might be the word.)

dark_light
2013-07-30 11:28 pm (UTC)

"...What is it?"

telesonorous
2013-07-30 11:29 pm (UTC)

"...Kas is still - being sad," she says quietly.

dark_light
2013-07-30 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'm - not in a position to be really comforting, just yet. I think I need to finish reading the postcards first, minimum. If only I'll do - then nothing doing. If he wants somejoker to show up and be soothing, Jane's up, she can fetch him anybody who'll come. Although I guess the ones who have daemons already are busy so they'd need the star."

telesonorous
2013-07-30 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen. "...Do you want to read the postcards?"

dark_light
2013-07-30 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Now, you mean?" Path utters a considering hoot. "Yeah. I guess."

She fishes around in her bag for the next one.

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:51 am (UTC)

The postcards have stopped being postcards, at least primarily; now they're just about anything you could write on.

After a spate of doodled owls - it looks like he went through an entire pad of hotel stationery - the next thing she pulls out of the bag is a crumpled movie poster with her name misspelled in the subtitle and HA FUCKING HA scrawled across it in red Sharpie.

dark_light
2013-07-31 12:51 am (UTC)

Amariah makes an eloquently repulsed face at the movie poster.

telesonorous
2013-07-31 12:53 am (UTC)

Helen peers at it.

"Wow, that came out waaaaaay before I was born. They've gotten a little better. Well, they figured out how to spell your name, at least."

dark_light
2013-07-31 12:54 am (UTC)

"Wow. Wow this is mortifying." She rolls up the poster, stuffs it back into the magic bag, and grabs the next thing.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:01 am (UTC)

A restaurant receipt - I love you.

A hotel business card - I miss you so much.

A postcard from Vancouver - Just had the most amazing thunderstorm.

A scrap of lined paper - Shitty morning, better afternoon. ♥

A postcard from Detroit - I don't know whether I'm writing these to you or to me.

dark_light
2013-07-31 01:02 am (UTC)

She sighs. She keeps reading.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:04 am (UTC)

More of the same - snippets of his life, the constant refrain of I love you, I miss you.

After a while, a letter, looking somewhat the worse for wear - some of these things bear hints of how they were destroyed, and this one was apparently cried on profusely and then burned.

dark_light
2013-07-31 01:06 am (UTC)

This letter is crushed a little in her hand and pressed to her lips, not quite in a kiss, and then she puts it away and moves on.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:20 am (UTC)

The tone of the postcards changes a little, after the letter; fewer of them just say 'I miss you', and the rest are somewhat happier.

There are still a lot of them.

And as the years of one-sided correspondence wear by, the 'I miss you's start creeping back in.

One postcard, from Quebec City, says: Augustine died. I didn't even know. Talked to her last night and she says she's not coming back. Fuck.

Subsequent postcards take on a darker tone. He's not happy; he misses her. There are moments of joy, and he tells her about most of them, but there's a melancholy edge to it even when he's talking about the amazing waffles he had this morning or how gorgeous the Aurora is from the air.

dark_light
2013-07-31 01:21 am (UTC)

Amariah reads. And reads. She's not paying attention to the Dominiques anymore.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:28 am (UTC)

(The Dominiques are talking quietly by themselves, across the room.)

Eventually, there is a postcard that says, Talked to your mom today. She's still adorable. I miss you so much.

And another one after a week that says, I can't do this anymore.

And the next postcard - after almost two years, the longest stretch of silence yet - says, in smallish writing:
Shit fucking hell, sweetie. I don't even know how to say this.

You have a daughter. Her name is Helen. Her daemon's Kalavar. Likes being ducklings.

I meant to have a kid - I didn't mean her to be yours. She wasn't supposed to be anyone's. I don't even know if that makes it better or worse. I don't know what happened. Fuck.

dark_light
2013-07-31 01:29 am (UTC)

This one is very thoroughly crushed, after she's memorized it.

She rubs her eyes. She reads the next one.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:35 am (UTC)

The next one says, Helen Ianthe.

And they are almost all about Helen, now. Helen's daemon branched out from ducklings to snakes. Helen's birth blessing is gonna make Kalavar stronger than she looks and give them an easier time separating. Helen met Charlie. Helen likes strawberries. Helen's birthday is August third - well, August something, but third is what he told Charlie so that's what'll stick. Helen is playing with some other witch babies and it's cute. Helen, Helen, Helen.

dark_light
2013-07-31 01:37 am (UTC)

It does sound cute.

(Mercifully, Amariah's getting used to the name.)

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:47 am (UTC)

Helen made a friend, and now she calls Kas her mommydaddyspinach. Helen's learning dagger; Helen's learning magic. Helen likes magic. Helen probably has an ingot power, something to do with her voice.

Shura (the friend) wished she didn't have to sleep so much. A drawing of a pentagon, with a line slashed off the edge of the card like he was interrupted while drawing it - and then, Helen wished too. She said it would be more fun if you got to pick your birth blessing. She wanted grace. (The card is extremely crumpled, and the second message was obviously written after the crumpling, much more shakily.)

dark_light
2013-07-31 01:48 am (UTC)

Amariah stares at this one for a long time, then puts it away and draws the next.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:51 am (UTC)

Took her to an aquarium with Ranata. Now she's calling Ranata a manatee. Because they're both huggable, apparently. I love this kid so much.

Next postcard just says, "Granatee" and a grinning smiley face.

dark_light
2013-07-31 01:53 am (UTC)

"Aww."

telesonorous
2013-07-31 01:54 am (UTC)

"What is it?" says Helen.

dark_light
2013-07-31 01:55 am (UTC)

"'Granatee'."

telesonorous
2013-07-31 01:58 am (UTC)

Helen giggles.

"Yep! I still call her that."

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:02 am (UTC)

"That's adorable."

Next postcard.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:13 am (UTC)

More things about Helen. She baked a cake (with help); she wants to go on a roller coaster; Kas is now her 'spinach', apparently; she wants to learn runecasting early so she can bake cake wherever she goes; 'peculiar' is her new favourite word; Kalavar really likes being dragons.

The 'become amazing at magic' project went well, apparently. For her seventh birthday, she baked a cake and gave some to everybody.

The next thing after the postcard about cake is a letter.
Helen got kidnapped. She's fine, don't worry. Some asshole witches got her lost and said they'd take her back to me, and then they did a spell to kill me instead, right under her nose. Sent Petaal after her as soon as I torched. They killed me again on the way back.

And then they wised up and put me under some kind of freezing curse. I went to sleep and the next thing I knew your mom was standing over me with a knife. Really freaked Helen out - the freezing, not the stabbing, Ranata wouldn't let her watch the stabbing, she's pissed about that but she'll get over it.

The queen found the kidnappers, got their queen to hand them over, killed them both. Still don't know what they were after. I can guess, though. Nobody's supposed to know whose daughter Helen is, but shit gets out.

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:15 am (UTC)

"Getting kidnapped is not fun," says Path softly.

telesonorous
2013-07-31 02:17 am (UTC)

"It really wasn't," Helen agrees.

mindfields
2013-07-31 02:17 am (UTC)

Yseult hugs her.

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:21 am (UTC)

Next card.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:31 am (UTC)

Back to the minutiae of Helen's life. Cake, magic, her first cloudpine, Kalavar likes being condors and albatrosses, Helen really likes flying, she's more comfortable with her ingot power now, baking her own birthday cakes is now a tradition -

She wanted to try on some clothes she saw in a store today. I let her keep 'em. She looks cute in pink.

A few days later, Turns out one of the other kids can be a real asshole about the clothes thing. Shura's not happy either, but she's trying. Also, Sue visited today and Ranata saw him, so I told her a bunch of stuff. I don't even know why you never did.

Not very long after that: FUCKING PROPHETS

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:35 am (UTC)

"Prophets? Is there one around?"

telesonorous
2013-07-31 02:37 am (UTC)

"Inkeri Saara," says Helen. "One of my friends. She prophesied that you were going to come back, and when. That's when Kas started crying a lot more."
Edited 2013-07-31 02:38 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:38 am (UTC)

"Oh, geez."

Next.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:39 am (UTC)

A sheet of paper covered in the words I can't repeated over and over and over and over in decreasingly legible handwriting.

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:40 am (UTC)

"And she told him, I take it. I wouldn't have guessed it would make things that much worse..."

telesonorous
2013-07-31 02:43 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure why, exactly," says Helen. "I just sort of chalked it up to Kas being peculiar. But I think it was something about hearing it six years in advance, after so long not knowing."

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:44 am (UTC)

"I guess I'll have to ask him, if these postcards don't get any more coherent."

Next.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:52 am (UTC)

For about a week, the postcards suffer a total breakdown - occasionally it's just a piece of paper that has been marked up with a pen and then cried on.

After that, it's a lot of incoherent helpless scattered phrases with occasional perfectly lucid reports about Helen's life. He can hold it together talking about Helen, but talking about his feelings leads to things like the page full of I can't and the postcard with a heart-shaped bloodstain blurred by tears.

As time goes on, the proportion of incoherent messages about his feelings decreases.

All of Helen's friends settle before she does; when she gets around to it at last, it's just before her thirteenth birthday and she separates on the first try.

Postcards get sparse after that.

The very last one says, Maybe I'll clean your house again.

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:53 am (UTC)

She puts the bag down.

telesonorous
2013-07-31 02:54 am (UTC)

"Are you okay?"

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:57 am (UTC)

"I've been better." She sighs. "I - guess I'll go home again - are you coming along or getting to know the other Dominiques a bit more?"

telesonorous
2013-07-31 02:57 am (UTC)

"...I think I'll stay here for now," she says.

dark_light
2013-07-31 02:58 am (UTC)

"Okay."

It has not really been that nice to meet her, so Amariah doesn't say it, but she does smile a little at her - daughter - and tap her Janegem.

And here she is in her basement again.

truthwright
2013-07-31 02:59 am (UTC)

Someone is crying in the living room.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:03 am (UTC)

Amariah goes up.

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:08 am (UTC)

It is Kas. Kas is the person who is crying.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:10 am (UTC)

What a surprise.

Amariah goes and sits next to him.

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:11 am (UTC)

Petaal is wrapped up in his arms as a viscacha.

He curls up a tiny bit closer to Amariah, and sniffles, and doesn't say anything.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:12 am (UTC)

She leans her head on his shoulder.

Path leans over and nudges his beak a little against Kas's chin.

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:17 am (UTC)

Kas shudders, and pets Path's feathers, and Petaal squirms out of his lap and turns into a human and hugs Amariah.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:19 am (UTC)

Hugs.

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:20 am (UTC)

Hugs.

"I love you," he mumbles.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:22 am (UTC)

"I love you too, sweetie."

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:22 am (UTC)

"Are... are we okay?"
Edited 2013-07-31 03:22 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:25 am (UTC)

"We will be."

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:25 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Snuggle. Weepy snuggle.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:26 am (UTC)

Quiet snuggle.

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:26 am (UTC)

Snuggly snuggle.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:27 am (UTC)

This will probably take a while.

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:28 am (UTC)

A while of snuggles?

That would be okay.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:29 am (UTC)

Yep.

truthwright
2013-07-31 12:39 pm (UTC)

The crying mostly trails off after a while, and then there are only snuggles.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:21 pm (UTC)

Snuggles snuggles snuggles.

"Did Ranata or Charlie know when I was prophesied to come back?"

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Don't think so," he says. "Inkeri just told me 'n Helen. And the queen."

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:23 pm (UTC)

Amariah nods slowly.

In that case she is not in any hurry.

Snuggle.

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:28 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

"And nobody knew exactly when, 'cause I didn't remember down to the day," he says.

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:29 pm (UTC)

"I would've checked. It didn't look like you were doing well even with as much information as you had, I guess."

truthwright
2013-07-31 03:34 pm (UTC)

Kas shudders.

"I couldn't—if I'd known from the start I would've been fine," he says. "And if you'd just shown up one day I at least wouldn't have spent six years getting good and wrecked about it first. The finding out too late to do me any good, but in plenty of time to worry about it for years - that was bad."

dark_light
2013-07-31 03:35 pm (UTC)

She nods slowly.

"So - so I read some postcards. And Juliet recommended talking to a Tony so I did that, after trying to talk to Aether and that not working all that well. And then I talked to Helen's alts. And then Helen. And then I finished the postcards. And - now I am back."
Edited 2013-07-31 19:13 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-08-02 03:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't know... what happens now," says Kas. "I don't know what - you know, when I first met Stella, I told her something like this was going to happen? Because... I don't know you perfectly, and I'm not perfect, and forever is too long a time not to make any mistakes in. But I didn't think it was going to be so soon." He sighs. "I guess you never do. If I'd known it was going to turn out like this, I wouldn't have done it."

dark_light
2013-08-02 03:56 pm (UTC)

"You didn't think I'd mind," says Isabella slowly. It's inflected like a question, except at the end of the sentence.

truthwright
2013-08-02 03:59 pm (UTC)

"I thought you might mind, you might think it was inconvenient or something that I'd gone off and had a kid by myself, I didn't think you'd - hurt," he says helplessly. "And then she came out yours, and I didn't know what the hell you were going to think, but I still didn't really know it would be this bad. This is - I don't know what this is. I don't know what's going on. You said we're going to be okay but I don't know how."

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't know specifically. I was figuring I'd - try not being missing for a while - see if that helped."

truthwright
2013-08-02 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Help - what," he says. "Help me miss you less? Sure. Help me know what happened, what things I need to not do if you go missing again - no. Not really."

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Don't create sapient life," says Amariah. "I would've dealt a lot better if she'd been somebody else's too, if you'd just met someone and wanted a kid with them - I would have managed even better if you'd run into some orphaned or mistreated moppet and decided to look after them, some kid who already existed - this I don't understand."

truthwright
2013-08-02 04:14 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know what the difference is," he says. "I don't - okay. Sure."

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:22 pm (UTC)

"If you'd met somebody else," Amariah says, "and you had a kid with them I wouldn't be - like - There would be another factor in the situation besides you being disastrously wrong about how I tick. I'd have started out imagining that you met someone who really really wanted kids and that was a compelling feature of the situation. And the kid would have a full set of parents instead of a gap where I was supposed to be - which would be the case even if you'd spontaneously impregnated yourself with a clone of yourself, unless I missed a postcard where you broke up with me in absentia, people are involved with their partners' children, you knew I was coming back and you knew everybody involved would carry on existing forever, maybe if I'd shown up when Helen was thirty this wouldn't be an issue but you sure couldn't rule out my appearing during her childhood. And if you had adopted someone who already existed - then they were already in the set of people I count within my sphere of things-to-take-responsibility-for because I picked up the entire worldsheaf, that would be the more involved equivalent of you making a close friend who was going to be around a lot."

truthwright
2013-08-02 04:24 pm (UTC)

He curls up and shivers.

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:25 pm (UTC)

She sighs and puts her arm around him.

"I didn't think I was that - hard to understand."
Edited 2013-08-02 16:29 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-08-02 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Did we ever even talk about it at all? I don't think we did," he says. "I don't know what you'd think of me... I don't know... carving the moon into one of those lacy balls with more lacy balls inside them by hand, either. I can guess that you might not mind it because it doesn't really affect anything important, or you might mind it because everyone is going to be weirded out that the moon rattles now, but I don't actually know, you've never said anything either way about anything that's even enough like that for me to tell."

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:38 pm (UTC)

"It'd fuck up tides if you carved away ninety percent of the moon. If you fixed that, don't care. If you didn't fix that, then I'd come home and I would have to deal with a lot of fucked up tides. And if you have a kid, I come home and I have to deal with you having a kid - it's close enough to me and my life, through you, that I do have to deal with it. A perfectly innocent kid who seems nice enough and was not complicit in her own mistimed conception, so it is in fact much less fixable than the lacy ball moon problem, although she's probably destroyed fewer coastal cities."

truthwright
2013-08-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

"None, last I checked," he says with a quirk of a smile.

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Then she has an excellent record on the subject of destroying coastal cities, I suppose."

truthwright
2013-08-02 04:40 pm (UTC)

"She's awesome. I love her."

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Mmm."

truthwright
2013-08-02 04:41 pm (UTC)

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:42 pm (UTC)

Pet pet.

"What are you thinking?"
Edited 2013-08-02 16:52 (UTC)

truthwright
2013-08-02 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I know you don't love her; I don't know why you're not telling me that."

dark_light
2013-08-02 04:57 pm (UTC)

"People don't like unrestrained negative feelings around their children. I had my rant; you don't have to be its audience."

truthwright
2013-08-02 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Because it's going to hurt? Sure it is. But it hurts already," he says. "If we actually understood each other, it might stop hurting."

dark_light
2013-08-02 05:04 pm (UTC)

"I - that's not what I'm worried about. People resent negative feelings about their children, people don't like people who produce negative feelings about their children."

truthwright
2013-08-02 05:10 pm (UTC)

"But... you're you," he says, utterly at a loss. "And you feel how you feel. I can't resent you for being you, it would be like - like resenting Petaal for not settling, you couldn't be any other way, something would be wrong if you weren't who you are, I don't know everything about you but I know that finding out more things isn't going to make me love you any less. Probably cry. Never love you any less."

dark_light
2013-08-02 05:18 pm (UTC)

Isabella kisses his hair.

"I didn't want her. I don't know if I ever would have wanted children, but now if I ever do they won't be the ones we would've had and you took that from me and I hate it. Your life is - almost incomprehensibly different to me now, we didn't get to learn to be parents together, I'm the one who vanished but you left me behind and now I have to scramble desperately to catch up and I can't even insta-cheat with magic like Juliet did with her spontaneous teenage relative. Or I could mostly ignore her, but - that's not who I want to be."

truthwright
2013-08-02 05:21 pm (UTC)

He sighs and hugs her.

dark_light
2013-08-02 05:25 pm (UTC)

"I mean, at least I didn't already have plans in place to have a little Dominique - Yseult donated the name to the template since she's not using it - at least I hadn't formed expectations that specific - although if we'd talked about it maybe you'd have called her something I like more than 'Helen' - I'm getting used to it but I wouldn't have named her that, Ianthe is fine and Kalavar is fine but -" She sighs.

truthwright
2013-08-02 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Helen of Troy," he murmurs. "That's why I picked it."

dark_light
2013-08-02 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Sure. It's not terrible, just - another thing I missed."

truthwright
2013-08-02 05:29 pm (UTC)

Kas snuggles her.

dark_light
2013-08-02 05:31 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

truthwright
2013-08-02 05:33 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

dark_light
2013-08-02 06:55 pm (UTC)

"I mean," says Isabella tentatively, "she - seems nice, I don't know, maybe we'll get along great."

truthwright
2013-08-02 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I hope so," says Kas. "...Do you not think you will?"

dark_light
2013-08-02 06:56 pm (UTC)

"...Guardedly optimistic."

truthwright
2013-08-02 07:02 pm (UTC)

dark_light
2013-08-02 07:05 pm (UTC)

"It's the best I can do. I didn't want her. I haven't started just because I got her anyway. But - but maybe we will get along fine."

truthwright
2013-08-02 07:08 pm (UTC)

"...Okay."

Snuggle.

dark_light
2013-08-02 07:10 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

Sigh.

truthwright
2013-08-02 07:10 pm (UTC)

Yes. Those.

mixed bag

thaumobabble

After the guests have left, Glass goes back inside to find the nearest spouse. She didn't like to talk about it when Aether was around, however little Aether seemed inclined to actually defend the place, but she really didn't like that world - she's still a little ashy-faced; she hadn't even known her various wished enhancements would let her react to something in that way via any sensory modality and it wasn't a nice surprise.

Is that a Sherlock over there?

calendarofcrime
2013-07-30 12:22 pm (UTC)

It is! It is a Sherlock that's over there!

Now it is a Sherlock who is hugging her.

thaumobabble
2013-07-30 03:34 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"Materia was aaaaaawful," Glass mumbles into her shoulder.

calendarofcrime
2013-07-30 03:40 pm (UTC)

"So I observe," says Sherlock. Hug hug. "In what way was it awful?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-30 03:46 pm (UTC)

"It has this - anticausality. Not even just metacausality - metacausality lines things up and lets them go, there's reasons for them, layers and layers of reasons, you can pick apart the line of dominoes if you want, find out why this person was here and that one there. On Materia, cause and effect can just - stop - working. It's most likely to do it around certain kinds of entities - half Aether's aura now goes to advertising that she belongs to that class, even though the other half keeps causality behaving around her. It would also do it if you - looked too hard at things. Formed too much of an expectation that it would go on doing as you'd seen it do."

calendarofcrime
2013-07-30 03:48 pm (UTC)

"That sounds extremely unpleasant," says Sherlock.

thaumobabble
2013-07-30 03:56 pm (UTC)

"It was. It was awful. So - little unambitious people without incorrigibly scientific minds can live there - and a handful of ambitious people, if they got lucky or the world liked them, could live there too - and it was a terrible place for a Bell to be. She managed, basically, with - stunted growth of sorts - and now she can go enforce a - a bubble of sanity - but it was so awful to look at."

calendarofcrime
2013-07-30 04:12 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs her some more.

"Well, now you do not have to go there again, correct?"

thaumobabble
2013-07-30 04:13 pm (UTC)

"I don't have to go there, no - I didn't even actually go there before, I just saw it through the door at Milliways - although it should be okay as long as I'm within her aura, and it might be good to get a second less - sickly - look at the place."

calendarofcrime
2013-07-30 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I will be here to hug you when you come back."

thaumobabble
2013-07-30 04:23 pm (UTC)

"I love you."

calendarofcrime
2013-07-30 04:28 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

Snuggle.

home at last

her_imperial_radiance

Here is Aurum. Harley is home again.

"I minted you," Elspeth murmurs to him, sending a notice to the Joker that he's got a new alt he could choose to entertain because she's busy and teleporting herself and her ward to their living room in Québec. "And stuck it on."

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:06 am (UTC)

Harley emits an untintelligible mumble and hugs her.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 01:12 am (UTC)

Hugs.

She will sit holding him as long as he needs.

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:15 am (UTC)

He needs to be held for a while.

Eventually, he says haltingly, "Love you, Elsie."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 01:18 am (UTC)

"I love you too, Harley."

pythbox
2013-07-29 01:58 am (UTC)

Snuggly hug. Where is his poof? His poof is cuddling him. He cuddles it back.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:00 am (UTC)

And Elsie is holding him and everything else can wait.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:02 am (UTC)

Everything else waits for... a while.

But not forever. Nothing lasts forever.

Harley sits up, still hugging her but now more uprightly.

"I've... kind of - forgotten - words," he says. "How long...?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:03 am (UTC)

"You were in the sun for five years in Gift. Here it's been only a few more months since you dreamed here," says Elspeth, petting his hair.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:05 am (UTC)

"Five. Years," he echoes, leaning his head into her hand. "Long time."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:09 am (UTC)

"Yes." Pet. Hug.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:10 am (UTC)

"—Zeus okay?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:11 am (UTC)

"Asleep in your bed until you're ready to wake him."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:12 am (UTC)

"I - not," says Harley. "Until. Until I can come back."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:13 am (UTC)

"What do you mean?" asks Elspeth gently.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:15 am (UTC)

"I went," he says. "I couldn't come back. I won't - wake him up - until I can."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:16 am (UTC)

"You can have a Janegem. She's working again now."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:17 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

"Not. Good enough."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:18 am (UTC)

"Zeus will wait as long as you need him to."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:20 am (UTC)

"I know," he says. "Love him."

He hugs her some more.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:21 am (UTC)

Hugs.

"You can talk to Sue, when you're ready. He knows how to move like that controllably and it's possible he could teach you."

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:22 am (UTC)

"Okay," Harley murmurs. "Later."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:24 am (UTC)

"Yes."

She conjures up a little two-sided fountain for the poof. She doesn't know when it last drank or how often it needs to. She sets it aside. She hugs Harley.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:24 am (UTC)

Harley snuggles back into her lap.

His tummy rumbles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:25 am (UTC)

"Do you want something to eat?"

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:26 am (UTC)

He thinks about it. For a few seconds.

"...Yeah?" he says hesitantly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:28 am (UTC)

She doesn't burden him with the effort of deciding what. She produces a sandwich with approximately everything on it, the kind of messy thing he'd make on lazy afternoons when sandwiches were called for, and holds it out for him.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:34 am (UTC)

Harley looks at the sandwich.

He reaches for it clumsily.

Nothing about his body is actually broken, but he is unaccustomed to using it to do things; this sandwich is probably going to be more spilled out of than eaten. (His poof wisely rolls out of the way, into the fountain.)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:35 am (UTC)

Elspeth patiently deploys triangles where triangles will be useful. When the sandwich has been used as thoroughly as possible she chooses something neater to follow it up with. (Apple slices, devoid of complications such as apple core.)

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:36 am (UTC)

Harley munches contentedly on the apple slices.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:37 am (UTC)

And Elsie holds him, and when they are gone, she supplies cookies. (Soft cookies that won't get crumbs everywhere if they are clumsily handled.)

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:38 am (UTC)

Harley noms up some cookies and then curls up in her lap again.

"Love you, Elsie."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:39 am (UTC)

"I love you too." Hugs.

pythbox
2013-07-29 02:43 am (UTC)

Snuggles.

Harley goes through another period of not doing very much.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-29 02:43 am (UTC)

Elspeth waits. After a while, she conjures up some bubbly for herself.

mind_game
2013-07-30 01:03 am (UTC)

[Sue's free to attempt porting lessons,] Jane tells them both, after considerable time has gone by.

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:04 am (UTC)

[okay,] says Harley. [Elsie, come with?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 01:05 am (UTC)

[Sure.]

mind_game
2013-07-30 01:05 am (UTC)

Yoink. Here is the room with Celo in.

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:07 am (UTC)

It's a room with Sue in, too.

"Hi," says Sue.

Harley doesn't say anything.

Sue links him.

Harley snuggles Elsie, and sends—the sun.

"...Whoa, okay," says Sue, blinking rapidly. "Wow."

"Huh?" says Celo, and Sue links him too.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 01:08 am (UTC)

"...Should I know what's going on or am I just here to be a lap?" asks Elsie softly. (She is fine with being a lap. She signed up to be a lap sometimes.)

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:09 am (UTC)

"...You can if you want," says Sue. "I don't know if you want what he's sending me, though, it kind of hurts."

"Kind of a lot," says Celo. "I mean it's not hurting right now, but - he was in the sun for five years."

Harley nods slowly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 01:16 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty resilient. If it would be good for me to have it I'll take it, that way or judgesight-wise, whatever."

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:22 am (UTC)

"I think I can kind of... interpret," says Sue, and he sends her:

Contrast. Absence. This (an impression of pain-everywhere without as much visceral reality as even a straight memory would offer) is what's missing from Harley now, like a sucking void in his sensory perception, like he's been throwing himself against a wall for five years and the wall is gone and he's hurtling dizzily through the open air.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 01:23 am (UTC)

Elspeth was already hugging him.

She continues in that vein.

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:26 am (UTC)

Harley snuggles her.

Sue relays his love. There is a lot of it. It's - out of focus, right now, because all his thoughts are out of focus, but it is very loving. Love is a thing Jokers are good at.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 01:27 am (UTC)

Elspeth does not have to go through Sue to return the favor in high-fidelity, gently enough for a human brain but only just.
Edited 2013-07-30 01:28 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:31 am (UTC)

Harley smiles, and snuggles her.

"That's good," Sue murmurs. "Aww, you guys are sweet."

Celo finds himself somewhere to sit, and Sue finds himself Celo's lap to sit in. Snuggling!

"So - " says Sue, and Celo pushes him a haphazardly constructed but basically sound summary of The Problem With Fields, and Sue pushes back what-it-feels-like-to-teleport. All of this gets summarily bounced to Harley and Elspeth.

Harley tentatively pushes back what-it-feels-like-to-freecast.

It's not quite the same, but there are similarities, and the Jokers recognize them immediately.

"You know," says Sue, "this is actually a really good time to experiment, because if I'm linking you you're never gonna be out of reach or out of sync..."

Harley thinks this over, and snuggles Elspeth. Celo thinks it over and snuggles Sue.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 01:33 am (UTC)

Elspeth conjures up two ansibles, twists them apart, gestures with them in Jane's direction; Jane swipes half of each. She puts one of the remaining pieces on Harley's finger as a ring and offers the other to Celo. "Backup," she murmurs. "Extra layer of redundancy."
Edited 2013-07-30 01:35 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-30 01:43 am (UTC)

"Awesome," says Sue, "good thinking. And - "

if you try it, just push me (sense-of-place), he sends to the two Jokers, echoing Elsie out of courtesy.

Harley latches onto that and turns it over in his mind. He pushes Sue a blurred impression of the Gentle Cave.

Almost, says Sue. Kind of? I don't know if it's a style thing - you could try it.

Harley nods. He snuggles Elsie. With a running commentary to Sue, he lets his mind drift a little, and

(sense-of-place)

Sue smiles. Okay, good, he says. Can you come back?

This (Harley sends) was always the hard part.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 01:43 am (UTC)

Elspeth waits, hands clasped in her lap.

pythbox
2013-07-30 02:21 am (UTC)

With some coaxing and locational data from Sue, Harley appears.

He hugs Sue immediately.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 02:22 am (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-30 02:26 am (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs.

"Hey, good for you," Sue murmurs, kissing Harley's forehead. "—How old even are you? Am I the youngest Joker again?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 02:27 am (UTC)

"It's hard to judge how to count the sun time. Harley's still younger than you if you don't," Elspeth says quietly.

pythbox
2013-07-30 02:32 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I took a four-year hit, I'm twenty now. Harley looks about my age, but it's kind of hard to tell."

"Also, I look about that age too and I'm actually closer to a hundred," says Celo. "I wonder if I can move just this part of me around... Harley, hit us with the fuzzy cave again? It looked cute."

Harley displays sense-of-place for the fuzzy cave.

"I'll go first," says Sue, "see if it's enough for me," and he flickers out and back. "Yep."

Celo thinks it over.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 02:33 am (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-30 02:51 am (UTC)

What Celo tries is something closer to Harley than Sue, and not quite the same as either.

He spends a while not quite getting it - about a minute - but he's patient, and doesn't let himself get discouraged, and then there it is and he's broadcasting sense-of-place from a cave full of round fluffy creatures.

They're so soft! he says. Awwwwwwwww. I wonder if I can ask Queen Whatserface to put my field near here. I'll bring it up later.

He pets a poof and sends back the sound it makes. Harley giggles softly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 02:52 am (UTC)

Poofs are nice.

pythbox
2013-07-30 02:53 am (UTC)

Poofs are nice.

Celo gets his bearings from Sue and comes back.

"So, that's a start," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 02:54 am (UTC)

Elspeth nods.

pythbox
2013-07-30 02:59 am (UTC)

Harley sends a jumble of thoughts to Sue. He takes a moment to disentangle it, and then nods. "Yeah. Now we know you can go places if you're getting place-data in real time. The weird thing is, I could never do what you did the first time - jump when I didn't have a clue where I was going. I tried once and I ended up floating in some kind of mysterious void outside Milliways."

Harley mumbles a questioning sort of mumble.

"Good question," says Sue. "Why not." He conjures himself an ansible pair, twists it apart, taps Jane to request that she whisk away a half.

mind_game
2013-07-30 03:00 am (UTC)

Whisk.

pythbox
2013-07-30 12:21 pm (UTC)

And Sue... freecasts.

Yep. Mysterious void. He pops back into the tower.

"Guess it varies," he says with a shrug. "Or I just don't have the hang of it yet. Wanna try the mysterious void, Harley?"

Harley nods. He flickers out.

weird, he sends, in a dreamy mumbly sort of thought-voice. don't think I like it here.

And pop - he's back in the room with them.

Sue grins and hugs him.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 03:30 pm (UTC)

Elspeth smiles.

pythbox
2013-07-30 03:36 pm (UTC)

Harley flickers over to Elspeth and hugs her, too.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 03:40 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

pythbox
2013-07-30 03:46 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hugs.

"Aww," says Sue, snuggling Celo because he is there and snuggable. "Did I mention you guys are cute? I did. I'm mentioning it again."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Elspeth.

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:07 pm (UTC)

"I guess now you just need - practice," says Sue. "To keep getting it on purpose. I know I've gotten way better at targeting since I started doing it practically all the time."

"And me," says Celo, "I need to see if my field will even - go. But I'm pretty sure it will."

Harley mumbles wordlessly and hugs Elsie some more, nodding.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 04:08 pm (UTC)

Hugs, hugs. "Let me know when you're comfortable enough with it to wake Zeus."

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:19 pm (UTC)

Harley says - through Sue, because words are hard - that he will wake Zeus when he can talk and eat and move again, and he can freecast reliably without any safety net at all.

It might be a while.

But that is okay. He has time.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 04:20 pm (UTC)

"As long as you need."

pythbox
2013-07-30 04:26 pm (UTC)

Nod. Hug.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 06:00 pm (UTC)

Aether comes up the stairs to see how Celo's doing.

pythbox
2013-07-30 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Celo, waving.

"Hi," says Sue. "I don't think we've met. I'm Sue."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Aether," says Aether. "I'm sorry my world broke your kid."

pythbox
2013-07-30 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," Sue says wryly. "Yeah, I had to get elected world ruler, it was fun times."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Your world rulers get elected?"

pythbox
2013-07-30 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Well, technically I don't rule the whole world, but I'm working on that."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Cool. I was thinking maybe I'd ascend to godhood without pausing at the 'politics' step."

pythbox
2013-07-30 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Awesome plan, if you can work it," says Sue. "Would've caused me more problems than it solved, though, and the office of the Hegemon was right there waiting for me."

Celo laughs.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Ascending to godhood is a thing on Materia. Although it's possible my aura will get in the way of it, I don't really know how it works."

pythbox
2013-07-30 06:25 pm (UTC)

"I think I ascended to godhood while your aura was sorta around," says Celo. "I guess we'll find out when we go back. ...And we should probably go straight to my field without saying hi to Callahan first, because I'm not totally sure she won't randomly decide to kill me now that I'm a big enough target."

"What," says Sue.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 06:27 pm (UTC)

"You could withdraw your aura and hope she doesn't notice. I think the door will take us right back to that part of Emily whatever we do, though we can teleport to your field immediately after going through if you like."

pythbox
2013-07-30 06:30 pm (UTC)

"...Could you go through, and go to my field, and I could Jane there?" he wonders. "Or freecast. I'll freecast there."

"Is that the word for it now?" says Sue.

"I like it," says Celo. "Kinda gets the point across, doesn't it?"

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I guess we can do it that way. At least the epic part of my aura does withdraw. I wouldn't want to be brandishing that around Callahan either."

pythbox
2013-07-30 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I know, right?" laughs Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Whatever Glass says about torching having absoluteness that would stand a chance against even the causal irregularity. Yeah."

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Seriously," says Celo. "I don't know from this causality shit, but I know from Callahan."

"I'm getting the sense that this Callahan is a fun character," says Sue.

"Sure, if you like getting stabbed in the gut," says Celo.

"Who doesn't?" says Sue.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 07:28 pm (UTC)

Aether rolls her eyes and raises her hand.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I haven't tried it personally, but I have many negatively valenced memories of it and very few positive ones," remarks Elspeth.

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:32 pm (UTC)

"And let me guess," says Sue, "most of those are from us?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Most of them, yes."

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Who are they from that's not us?" wonders Celo. "Should I be meeting any of those people? - Stop me if this isn't a thing you want to talk about."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Not wanting to talk about things is not usually a thing with me. There's a case of triumph from a fellow who managed to commit seppuku before the vampires got him and was only barely alive when Aro reached him, a case of pain asymbolia, and one masochist who might have approached your level."

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Just one?" laughs Celo.

"Anybody we know?" wonders Sue.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 07:45 pm (UTC)

"No, I don't think she was a template."

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:53 pm (UTC)

"What was she doing getting stabbed in the gut?" says Celo.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Fighting off Mongols. She even succeeded, survived the stabbing, and lived another three years before being eaten by vampires."

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I think I like this lady," says Celo.

"I think I do too!" says Sue.

Harley giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 07:56 pm (UTC)

"She was cool. I hadn't had cause to think about her specifically until I checked for happy stabbings."

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Glad I asked, then!" says Celo.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 08:01 pm (UTC)

"D'you want me to inform you once resurrection on Aurum gets that far back?"

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Celo, and Sue nods.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Noted," chuckles Elspeth.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:04 pm (UTC)

"I have fallen into a social circle that has really peculiar conversations," remarks Aether.

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:05 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles, and freecasts across the room to hug her.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:06 pm (UTC)

Huggles.

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:07 pm (UTC)

Huggles and snuggles!

"Awww," says Sue. "Can I hug you too?"

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Sure, why not."

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:09 pm (UTC)

Sue also freecasts directly to hug.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:10 pm (UTC)

Aether giggles and hugs him too.

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:12 pm (UTC)

Harley thinks Sue a question.

"Oh hey," says Sue, "what's your opacity situation? Also, Harley wants to hug you."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm a subtle artist - psion - I can defend really effectively against other subtle artistry but it doesn't work on arcane or divine mind-affecting magic from home so I really doubt it works on much outside Materia unless it's very similar to what I do. And Harley may also hug me."

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I ask 'cause I've got this mutant power, I can link minds, and it doesn't work on some of you but the ones it does work on are okay with it," he says. "And Harley's having serious word trouble right now, so he's talking by link."

Harley looks at Aether and her huggy jokers, and then he also freecasts there and also hugs her.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:21 pm (UTC)

Hugs. "Can do that, or I could shallow-read him directly."

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Linking also comes with some boosts," Sue adds, and demonstrates by adding her to the link. With him, Celo, Harley, and Elspeth already there, the cognitive speedup and expansion is very noticeable.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's nice."

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Ain't it just?" laughs Sue.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:29 pm (UTC)

"As long as we're all extra brainful - right now my best idea for having a Janepoint in Materia that I can ever leave is 'acquire daemon, separate to split aura, leave him home' - I don't even know yet what I'd get. I might wind up having to skip a lot of parties and stuff if I don't want the place desynced. Which is not the worst thing that could have happened, but isn't tremendous fun."

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure it'd work if you did," says Sue. "I leave Ivy home when I freecast anywhere."

"Isn't separating, like, nasty, though?" says Celo.

"Yeah," says Sue. "But people do it anyway."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Amariah did it the long way around, I might be able to get it over with quick by walking through a Milliways door or having Jane put me somewhere, almost like Cam did. It's doable if necessary. I might just not have a Janepoint, only my gem that I'll wear all the time - if it turns out Emily can do doors like Jarvis. And then Materia will be synced when I'm home, and not synced, but paused, when I leave it."

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:39 pm (UTC)

"That also seems like a pretty good workaround," says Celo. "Assuming it doesn't just decide to unpause because fuck you. Can worlds do that? If worlds can do that, I bet ours can."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I might need to ask Glass to come in well within the protection of my aura and see if she can tell. I don't think I really want a - I don't even know what I'd have -" She spends a square to get an illusion. "...I still don't even know what I'd have, what the hell."

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, pangolin," says Sue. "Those are cool."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 08:47 pm (UTC)

"What is it though?"

pythbox
2013-07-30 08:49 pm (UTC)

"...Possibly a mammal?" says Sue. "And they look like that. And they're cool. And they're called pangolins. That's pretty much what I know."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 11:31 pm (UTC)

"They're a mammal, sort of like armadillos with the armor," says Elspeth, "and that kind is a long-tailed pangolin and it lives in Africa. At least on Earth; I don't know about your world."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Is getting animals you've never heard of common?"

pythbox
2013-07-30 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Beats me," shrugs Sue. "Jokers don't settle."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. Well, I don't particularly want a long-tailed pangolin on its own merits, but if Emily can't door, or I can't rely on dooring pausing the world, I might get one just for the aura split, I s'pose."

pythbox
2013-07-30 11:36 pm (UTC)

"How much do we actually care if Materia goes on without you when you're out?" wonders Celo. "Actually, if I'm there and my field's in Chronicle that'll probably keep us pinned down anyway, so the question is how much we care if Materia goes on without both of us."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 11:38 pm (UTC)

"My parents probably care if Materia goes on without us while I'm out. See also: 'plan to maybe stay in school' - especially if my alts are going to keep operating under the assumption that I'm a therapist. We'll both be out when it comes time for Bell parties, unless you want to miss all the associated carousing."

pythbox
2013-07-30 11:39 pm (UTC)

"I am a pretty big fan of carousing," laughs Celo. "Well, we'll see, I guess."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Best case scenario, I bring Glass home while she clings desperately to my arm, she tells me Milliways logic is not subject to Materia unlogic and the pausing will behave itself, and Emily says she can door whenever she would like to door. Less good case scenario, I bring home a pangolin, find an out-of-the-way extraplanar corner to tuck it in, and build a Janepoint there."

pythbox
2013-07-30 11:48 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs.

"You know what," he says, "I think I'll see if I can visit the rest of the Jokers. Anybody got a list?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-30 11:49 pm (UTC)

Elspeth sends him a list.

pythbox
2013-07-30 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Celo, and disappears.

"He found Beast," Sue reports, grinning.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 11:53 pm (UTC)

Aether sends an approximation of applause through the link. She doesn't push anything automatically - Bells never do - but she's more comfortable with playing with the extended features of the thing than anybell save Aegis.

pythbox
2013-07-30 11:55 pm (UTC)

Celo sends a giggle and some love.

"Awww," says Sue, smiling.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 11:56 pm (UTC)

Aether laughs.

pythbox
2013-07-30 11:57 pm (UTC)

"You're cute," says Sue.

"Cute," Harley agrees.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-30 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Why thank you."

pythbox
2013-07-30 11:59 pm (UTC)

Harley hugs her.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 12:00 am (UTC)

Hugs.

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:12 am (UTC)

Hugs!

Sue giggles. Let us not speculate on why.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 12:14 am (UTC)

Aether speculates, but doesn't get anywhere.

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:29 am (UTC)

"You wanna try going somewhere?" says Sue to Harley.

Harley thinks about it. He nods. He flickers out.

Sue grins. "Aww, he went to the cute cave again," he says, and shares what Harley is sending him - he's snuggling a foxball.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 12:29 am (UTC)

"It's a very cute cave."

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:31 am (UTC)

"It is!" says Sue. "I love it."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 12:32 am (UTC)

"What is this cave exactly?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 12:32 am (UTC)

"It's a little cavern full of glowy crystals in Chronicle, with assorted friendly harmless animals. Harley took one of them home with him."

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:34 am (UTC)

"Harley seems to like it there," says Sue. "I think it helps with the - sensory depressurization thing."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 12:35 am (UTC)

"What exactly," says Aether, "happened to him?"

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:36 am (UTC)

"He spent five years in the sun," says Sue. "And felt it. There was some other stuff before that, but that's what's screwing him over so badly right now."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 12:37 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I definitely need to finish school, this entire group of people needs a therapist on call."

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:38 am (UTC)

"Which group?" laughs Sue.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 12:56 am (UTC)

"The peal and all our friends, seems like, given the number of obvious applications for therapizing I've encountered in the last hour."

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:58 am (UTC)

Sue giggles.

"Yeah, I kinda see your point."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 12:59 am (UTC)

"So between that and the fact that a pentagon for subtle arts only helped a little I think I'll finish my degree, maybe accelerated or something."

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:05 am (UTC)

He nods. "Sounds like a plan to me."

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 01:08 am (UTC)

"Yeah. So - Elspeth, I hear you're good at summarizing things? Can you get me up to speed on all the things?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 01:09 am (UTC)

Elspeth commences getting her up to speed on all the things.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:16 am (UTC)

Harley pops in and out a few times, back and forth from the Gentle Cave. Sue occupies himself encouraging Harley and listening in on Celo's exploits.

Eventually, Sue sends Aether a quick heads-up and Celo appears, hair slightly mussed but as sparkling clean as usual, with a big grin on his face.

"Yeah, I think I've got the hang of this shit," he says. "Sue, you wanna anchor me in Chronicle just in case? Aether, wanna go grab my field?"

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 01:39 am (UTC)

"Can do. Let me get Glass for a second peek at the world without so much vomiting this time. Sue, can you keep me in link just in case?"

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:47 am (UTC)

"No problem," Sue says cheerfully.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 01:48 am (UTC)

"Thanks. Jane, can you ask Glass -?"

mind_game
2013-07-31 01:51 am (UTC)

[Yep!]

thaumobabble
2013-07-31 01:52 am (UTC)

And here is Glass.

"Here we go again," she says wryly.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 01:53 am (UTC)

"I don't need you to go very far or leave my aura at all," soothes Aether. And out they go to the door, which Aether opens - discernible aura snugly withdrawn.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:54 am (UTC)

Callahan is just visible at the end of the hall, walking away. She doesn't seem to have a reaction to Aether's return.

thaumobabble
2013-07-31 01:55 am (UTC)

Glass's aura is visibly out. She stares at Callahan.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 01:55 am (UTC)

"What?" murmurs Aether.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:57 am (UTC)

Callahan makes a rude gesture in their direction without looking back, and then she turns the corner and she's off.

thaumobabble
2013-07-31 02:01 am (UTC)

"...Don't cross her," Glass mutters, and she slips back out the door.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 02:01 am (UTC)

Aether blinks, and teleports to Celo's garden, and informs the link that she has done so.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:03 am (UTC)

Celo appears next to her and hugs her. The garden smells like his name, and it's vibrant and healthy and beautiful - apparently celosia comes in colours.

Sue freecasts to Chronicle. [Hey Glass, know where I can find the place Celo's supposed to put his garden?]

thaumobabble
2013-07-31 02:05 am (UTC)

[Yes, it's -] and she sends the place Marianne picked out.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 02:05 am (UTC)

Hugs! "You are a pretty garden."

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:16 am (UTC)

"I am, I'm gorgeous," says Celo, and Sue freecasts to the future location of the garden and shows it to Celo, who kisses Aether and—

Vanishes, garden and all. About eight feet of dirt is suddenly no longer under Aether.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 02:19 am (UTC)

Whoop! Now she's hovering.

She teleports back into Emily, and touches the building's mind.

Emily knows how to do that door thing! She can do it right now if her friend Bella wants her to. She is a smart building.

Aether shares this with everyone - Emily is so cute, Bella really likes her - Glass, will time in fact pause here if I go out again?

thaumobabble
2013-07-31 02:20 am (UTC)

Yyyyyes. Or at least, if it doesn't, it will be for Milliways reasons and not for Materia reasons. Also THAT WOMAN IS TERRIFYING.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:28 am (UTC)

Terrifying how? says Sue.

thaumobabble
2013-07-31 02:34 am (UTC)

This is a link; Glass can show them.

Some metacausal thing wants it to be fatal to have Callahan want you dead. This doesn't, in itself, give Callahan particularly exceptional powers - if she's good in a fight, it's in some fairly usual way modulo Materia, she's not a The Slayer or anything like that as far as Glass can see, not that this should make her less intimidating if she is in fact very good. But it would still be a very wise idea not to have her want you dead. Glass is still pretty firm on torching being absolute, which just means that it would be a bad idea to have Callahan want you dead in some completely novel and probably horrifying way. Also, things Glass sees have changed before, and she is not sure which thing would win between the absoluteness of torching and the insistence that it is a metacausally bad idea to have Callahan want you dead. They may both go on being true as long as no one torchable ever instigates a contest.

She's also blaring Extremely Special on another layer which Glass hasn't seen before; she'd need to see more of it to know what it does, but whatever it is is bright and scary and intense and - Materia-flavored, not in a nauseating way, just in a sense of hereness. If Callahan isn't a Materian god, Glass has a (purely academic) curiosity about what the hell does qualify.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:41 am (UTC)

...Wow, okay, I am scared, says Sue.

I know, right? laughs Celo.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 02:43 am (UTC)

I wasn't really planning to bother her, and now I really plan not to bother her, says Aether.

thaumobabble
2013-07-31 02:44 am (UTC)

I mean, on the other hand, if she's hireable, she could be handy if we run into anything that needs to die that we can't handle? Maybe? I don't really want to go near her and Chronicle doesn't have any of those things but if someone else needs to hire a metacausally potent assassin.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:44 am (UTC)

Celo apparently finds this suggestion hilarious.

thaumobabble
2013-07-31 02:46 am (UTC)

I have no idea if she's remotely hireable and I am not going to test the hypothesis, just throwing it out there. I am snug at home in my cotton candy world with my lovely wives and daughters not antagonizing anything that glows like that.
Edited 2013-07-31 02:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:55 am (UTC)

Good plan, says Celo. I love your world. Your world is my favourite. Hey, Aether, wanna come have sex in my garden?

(Sue notes that he has bounced that last sentence only to Aether.)

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 02:58 am (UTC)

How very kind of him.

She doesn't reply through the link, just pats Emily's wall, asks for a door, and from Milliways asks Jane to put her in Chronicle.

And then she pops into the garden's new home.

pythbox
2013-07-31 02:58 am (UTC)

Sue and Celo are both there! Sue waves cheerfully, kisses Celo, and freecasts back to Harley.

subtly_artistic
2013-07-31 02:59 am (UTC)

Now it is Aether's turn to kiss Celo.

pythbox
2013-07-31 03:00 am (UTC)

It is! It really really is.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 03:03 am (UTC)

Elspeth is still hanging out in the part of the Belltower they have been using to practice freecasting.

pythbox
2013-07-31 03:06 am (UTC)

Sue gives Harley a hug and a kiss.

Harley suggests a thing to him.

"...So we're gonna have sex," he says to Elspeth, "see ya," and he and Harley freecast in near-unison to one of the Belltower's party rooms.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 03:07 am (UTC)

Elspeth will go home to Aurum and wait for Harley there.

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:41 pm (UTC)

Some time later, Harley appears.

He hugs her.

He seems to be doing somewhat better on the motor skills front!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 03:20 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

pythbox
2013-07-31 03:25 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"Love you, Elsie."

Yes, he's definitely speaking more clearly, too.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 03:26 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

pythbox
2013-07-31 03:37 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles her.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 03:38 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

She's not going to ask about Zeus again for a while. Probably Harley hasn't forgotten about him and just doesn't feel ready yet.

pythbox
2013-07-31 03:43 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

That is indeed the case.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 03:44 pm (UTC)

Pet pet pet.

pythbox
2013-07-31 09:51 pm (UTC)

Practically speaking, he is much too big to fit in her lap, but he has never been inclined to let that stop him from the moment it started being true.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 09:52 pm (UTC)

She is not concerned with his weight. The length of her arms is more of an issue, but she can still prop him up with one hand.

pythbox
2013-07-31 09:56 pm (UTC)

Anyways, even if all of Harley will not fit in her lap at once, he can sit next to her and flop over into it and curl up. That is a winning strategy.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 09:57 pm (UTC)

That works too. And he is pettable this way. Pet pet pet.

pythbox
2013-07-31 10:03 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

Where is his poof? It is in its fountain. He reaches toward it and it rolls into his hand. He hugs it against his chest.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 10:04 pm (UTC)

That is cute. The poof was a good idea.

pythbox
2013-07-31 10:07 pm (UTC)

The poof was a very good idea. It is soft and fluffy and huggable and he loves it very much.

It glows and whmmmmmms.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 10:08 pm (UTC)

Elspeth pets Harley. (She also sneaks a pet of the poof.)

pythbox
2013-07-31 10:09 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 10:11 pm (UTC)

Harley does not glow when petted, but that is okay.

pythbox
2013-07-31 10:15 pm (UTC)

He doesn't, it's true! But he does smile and make contented snuggly sounds.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 10:16 pm (UTC)

Those are good sounds. With any luck they mean he is feeling better.

pythbox
2013-07-31 10:27 pm (UTC)

He is definitely improving.

Snuggles and snuggles and snuggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 10:28 pm (UTC)

Also, snuggles. Must not forget the snuggles.

pythbox
2013-07-31 11:00 pm (UTC)

The snuggles are extremely important.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 11:01 pm (UTC)

Yep.

When it's been a while since the sandwich Elspeth asks him if he's hungry again.

pythbox
2013-07-31 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. Look! A word!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 11:03 pm (UTC)

It's a word! It is a meaningful word. She is not sure if he is up to utensils, so it's chicken fingers and fries.

pythbox
2013-07-31 11:03 pm (UTC)

Harley totally succeeds at eating those things.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 11:03 pm (UTC)

And a milkshake. With a straw.

pythbox
2013-07-31 11:07 pm (UTC)

Milkshake!

He hugs Elsie and drinks the milkshake. Mmm. Mmmmilkshake.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 11:08 pm (UTC)

And now back to snuggling.

Elspeth decides it probably won't interfere too much if she conjures up a book to read while this continues.

pythbox
2013-07-31 11:09 pm (UTC)

It does not interfere! Harley snuggles her.

Eventually, he falls asleep.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-07-31 11:10 pm (UTC)

Elspeth doesn't have to sleep anymore. She stays right where she is, dims the lights, and reads her book.

do: make introductions; don't: usurp the government

giftedandtalented

Tab goes home by door, right into Aelise's office. "Hello again."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 12:23 pm (UTC)

"And did you have fun on your trip?" says Aelise.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 03:35 pm (UTC)

"If I have to say 'I'm Tab, I'm new' one more time - which thankfully I don't expect to - I will become very consternated with my situation of being both Tab and new. But otherwise all is well. There are Kersibles on their way to everywhere and the welcoming committee has been found and they're going to patch this particular Jane-related problem, although I don't know if that will get all possible Jane-related problems, they don't exactly dare experiment on how to break her."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I can see how that might be a thorny problem. In the meantime - still running with the 'resurrect Toronto' idea?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Ye-e-es, but first I'm going to see if I can't hire a Joker, either one of the two from Origin or maybe entice Corona back on the condition that he doesn't have to be anywhere near Chelsa. If I can't get one of those I need to live off the largesse of other Bells, which I can do - Pattern's been acquiring more coins than she uses for sixteen years from three and a half Jokers, and Brilliance is really high output, and Stella has spares too. Anneia and Sandre would also make good mints, Stella has alts of them on payroll, but I don't think I can convince them to work for me, at least not for the next few hundred years."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 03:55 pm (UTC)

Aelise nods. "I'd like Anneia and Sandre made Harley-style immortal, if you don't mind and can get it done without letting them know you exist; I think they're good candidates for replacing him. And I expect I could probably get them to work for me, if all they had to do was funnel coins in my direction. So you're not without a local source even if you can't get a Joker to touch this world with a ten-foot pole."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 03:59 pm (UTC)

"It's called 'torchable'. I can sneak up on Anneia, I think, if she's alone - I don't know about Sandre - we've never tested whether he can sense me through my Gift, and a Gift will cut through coined wards like butter most likely."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Point," says Aelise. "I don't suppose I could have the distribution? That would solve a few problems."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Involves traveling Downside and getting it from the admin - I only have torchability one meta level up, not two. D'you want to do that? She has the ability to read all the thoughts of the lifetime of anybody who gets near, especially if they're torchable - doesn't do it to Bells anymore, but I don't know about you. She's also generally omnipotent but that's the one thing she has a history of doing without asking first."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Is there any reason to think that she will be interested in reading my thoughts in particular, or do anything about it if she does?"
Edited 2013-07-30 16:30 (UTC)

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Interested not necessarily, do anything about it almost certainly not - she's not much for doing things, reportedly."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Then I can probably risk it."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Jane can take you there and back right now if you want."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 04:57 pm (UTC)

"That would be convenient."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 04:58 pm (UTC)

Tab reaches for her Janegem, then pauses. "Do you want your own one of these?"

salus_populi
2013-07-30 04:59 pm (UTC)

"That... would also be convenient," she says. "Potentially."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 05:01 pm (UTC)

"She can see and hear out of it but you can turn that off, there's a little switch," says Tab, "and then she can't do anything with it except mind the clock, and brainphone people in the relevant world even if there aren't other nodes. She has no yoinking-people-without-permission habit."
Edited 2013-07-30 17:01 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-07-30 05:02 pm (UTC)

[I'm very well-behaved,] agrees Jane.

salus_populi
2013-07-30 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Good to know," says Aelise. "All right."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 05:05 pm (UTC)

Tab hands over a square. "Unless you want me to make it? I don't know what you want the gem part to look like."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 05:16 pm (UTC)

Aelise thinks for a moment, and then conjures an Imperial seal - a cylinder with the stylized globe from the Empire's flag, showing no continents and circled by the orbital ring, embossed on one end. This particular seal is made of silver, with a faceted black glass sphere enclosed in the upper part of the cylinder, showing through diamond-shaped cutouts all around the top. She hangs it around her neck.

"Does that work?"
Edited 2013-07-30 17:24 (UTC)

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure." Tab makes an ansible with a matching gem as half; she twists them apart, Jane whisks away the ungemly half, and she swaps it in for the non-ansible one.

salus_populi
2013-07-30 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Great. Okay. In that case - Downside?"

mind_game
2013-07-30 05:34 pm (UTC)

[Coming right up.]

And here is the Bell office in the catacombs.

salus_populi
2013-07-30 05:34 pm (UTC)

She brainphones the admin.

[Can I have the power to distribute torchability, please?]

ending_of
2013-07-30 05:35 pm (UTC)

[Done.]

salus_populi
2013-07-30 05:35 pm (UTC)

[Thank you.] And to Jane, [I can go home now.]

mind_game
2013-07-30 05:36 pm (UTC)

Pop!

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 06:12 pm (UTC)

"So, at the risk of too much information, I'm probably going to sleep with Cam. That's the boy one of me," Tab clarifies.
Edited 2013-07-30 18:12 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-07-30 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Is there some particular reason for this or is it an act of pure whim?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm not badly socialized in the same way as Aegis - she's a Bell who was raised in military school - but I did kind of grow up with only you, Kers, and briefly Harley for in-person company and had to lie a lot to everyone I talked to on the internet. So if I want to be rid of my virginity with someone who isn't approximately a total stranger, I can comb through a lot of people - probably dead Torontonians or something, since I still have to lie a lot to local Earthlings - learning how to be a social primate properly, or I can skip that part and proposition the conveniently-shaped version of myself who escapes strangerhood on that basis."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Reasonable strategy. Go for it," says Aelise.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Plan to. But he was on the stranded welcoming committee, so I think I'll let him settle in to where he lives first."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that could be an awkward proposition to get out of nowhere while busy."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Rather, yes. Jane, what's Corona up to?"

mind_game
2013-07-30 06:30 pm (UTC)

[In Origin. Doesn't have a gem on him, so I can't be sure about what he's doing, but I can offer an educated guess!]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Of course. When he asks you for a lift out of the world can you tell him I'd like to talk to him?"

mind_game
2013-07-30 06:31 pm (UTC)

[Okay!]

salus_populi
2013-07-30 06:43 pm (UTC)

"So. What's your plan for reviving Toronto?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 06:46 pm (UTC)

"After I figure out coin sourcing, one way or another, I terraform a planet, possibly in another solar system so astronomers around here don't notice anything if I'm careless invisibling everything, and ask the admin to instantiate it whole cloth less Delphi and company, where Jane can see it, and Jane puts it where I want it."
Edited 2013-07-30 18:50 (UTC)

salus_populi
2013-07-30 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Another solar system would be a nice touch. And probably enticing to Corona, as a bonus."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I think I'll take my guided teleporting for a spin and see if it finds me a nice place!"

Tab teleports - somewhere!

pythbox
2013-07-30 07:42 pm (UTC)

'Somewhere' turns out to be a planet. It has a purplish blue sky, a breathable atmosphere, and - where Tab is standing - a beachful of glittering silver-grey sand.

Some distance away, the sand gives way to scrubby pale purple grass, which in turn heralds the beginning of a forest. The trees are huge. Their craggy black trunks grow in thick, majestic spirals up to at least a few hundred feet, with branches spreading out in wider arcs from the corkscrew trunks, sparsely near the bottom but in thick sprays up top. The end of each branch has a wide pointed leaf with blotchy zigzag stripes of colour banding from the base to the tip, almost like they were tie-dyed. Colourful vines twine around trunks and branches and dangle like leafy ropes all the way back down to the forest floor.

But there's no sound except the rustle of vegetation in the slight breeze - no squirrels, no mice, no birds. No mobile life of any kind.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 07:43 pm (UTC)

[This place is awesome! Also this air appears to be pretty airlike, want to come see?]

salus_populi
2013-07-30 07:45 pm (UTC)

[Ooh.]

Aelise teleports.

"...Very nice," she says, tipping her head back to squint up at the treetops.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 07:47 pm (UTC)

"No kidding. I will hunt up a good place to put a Toronto." And Tab kicks off the ground, clears the treeline, and zooms.

salus_populi
2013-07-30 07:51 pm (UTC)

Aelise laughs.

The planet turns out to be heavily forested, but there is one low-lying plain nearby - covered mostly in various purple grasses - that happens to have a configuration of lake and rivers very similar to pre-nuking Toronto. The city could be plopped right onto the edge of the lake with only minor adjustments to the surrounding landscape.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 07:51 pm (UTC)

[Guided teleportation! It is awesome!] whoops Tab.

salus_populi
2013-07-30 08:28 pm (UTC)

[You found a good spot, I assume?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 08:30 pm (UTC)

[Even the water is very nearly right. I'll have to level a little terrain and nudge the mouth of that stream and otherwise I can just plunk the city down, looks like.]

salus_populi
2013-07-30 08:33 pm (UTC)

[Good for guided teleportation,] says Aelise.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 08:35 pm (UTC)

[Hip, hip, hooray! I need to name this planet, hmmm.]

salus_populi
2013-07-30 08:38 pm (UTC)

['Spiral',] she suggests. ['Arborea'.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 08:39 pm (UTC)

Tab flies higher for a better view of the broader landscape, the global climate. Up-up-up. [Maybe.]

salus_populi
2013-07-30 08:43 pm (UTC)

The global climate varies almost as much as Earth's, but those huge spiral trees are definitely a theme - there must be hundreds of species with the same basic shape.

[Got any better ideas?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 08:46 pm (UTC)

[I just wanted to see if the big spiraly trees were all over the place, and they are. Arborea it is.]

salus_populi
2013-07-30 08:46 pm (UTC)

[All right.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 08:47 pm (UTC)

[Awesome awesome awesome. Hey Jane, can you star chart this place and figure out where we are?]

mind_game
2013-07-30 08:48 pm (UTC)

There is a pause, and then Jane says, [I have definitively determined that I have no clue at all! We are probably not even in the Milky Way!]

salus_populi
2013-07-30 08:50 pm (UTC)

Aelise laughs.

"I wonder if asking Demauri would help. With time and math we could probably figure out what direction this solar system is from ours, anyway."
Edited 2013-07-30 20:51 (UTC)

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 11:32 pm (UTC)

"You want to explain to Demauri that you have traveled to a planet you have no idea where the heck it is, please find you?"

salus_populi
2013-07-30 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Hmm, point. But he's Demauri. He's used to my bizarre requests."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. Golden recognized him, apparently on her world he was a vampire, they do this mating-for-life but he spun the mate-for-life roulette wheel and wound up with a half-vampire and they don't do that, he wound up kind of mad-stalker until she - the stalking victim - killed him."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," she says. "I can see how that would work Gift-wise - did the alt have the same power? - but Demauri's never been the stalking type."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Same approximate power, yeah, less powerful as seems to be the theme - he had to have met the person and couldn't triangulate very effectively. Golden thinks he thought he was playing some elaborate game of hide-and-seek game with her till the very end."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's unpleasant," says Aelise. "Is that a common feature of Aurum vampires?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 11:45 pm (UTC)

"No, usually they wind up symmetrically attached to other vampires, or they meet humans, bite them, and then are symmetrically attached to other vampires."

salus_populi
2013-07-30 11:58 pm (UTC)

"But the - potential," she says, "to react badly to the asymmetrical case. That seems like a major flaw."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-30 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. It's not invariable, and also being a vampire is no longer permanent, you can fix it on a nontorchable by sending them through Downside or on a torchable with an evil. Werewolves from Aurum do something similar but they don't go stalkery, just kind of dependently depressive, in the worst case."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:00 am (UTC)

"Good to know," says Aelise.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:01 am (UTC)

"One of you has a werewolf," Tab adds. "Libby from Eos. Wandered in among some wolves and one of them imprinted on her and she brought him home and turned her Kers into a werewolf too because it's not a great idea to have one wolf all by themselves - the alphas can take it, Elspeth can bring hers places, but Libby's wolf isn't one of the alphas."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:02 am (UTC)

"Also good to know," she says. "Aurum species seem to have a lot of drawbacks."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:03 am (UTC)

"A lot of perks too, though, I can see why Golden wanted to turn when that plus witchcraft was the magic she had going. Also she was already in love with her associated mated-for-life vampire."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:11 am (UTC)

"That would be a major plus, under the circumstances."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:13 am (UTC)

"Yep. It does seem like the vampire thing selects for personal compatibility as best it can. The wolf thing - does not. They've been having a precog help out the wolves for a while now."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:18 am (UTC)

"But the personal compatibility factor clearly isn't infallible, or it wouldn't result in stalkers."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:19 am (UTC)

"Golden theorizes that Demetri and his lady love would have gotten along really well if her power had worked on him. She does a kind of - not-mattering thing, where you can technically see her but you can't think she's important. And Demetri could not think she wasn't important, so she had his attention constantly and couldn't stand it and was scared of him."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:23 am (UTC)

"Aha."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:24 am (UTC)

"She didn't get along that well with Golden either, except Golden could blanket her - she calls it shielding when she does it - so Demetri couldn't track her, so they worked something out."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:25 am (UTC)

"Now that's interesting."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:27 am (UTC)

"Yeah. If Golden had been more reliable about the shielding back then they could have taken over the world together, because Allirea could share, too - only with one person and only while she was faded out herself, but Golden would still be able to see her, and Golden blocked everything that got past Allirea. They could've walked into the throne room of the previous rulers and casually disassembled everyone while their next victims were trying to figure out how to blame the weather. But Golden kept slipping so they had to go with something more complicated involving Elspeth and Nathan and a straight-up fight."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:30 am (UTC)

Aelise laughs.

"Now there's a mental image."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:31 am (UTC)

"Blaming the weather? Yeah."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:33 am (UTC)

"Still, congratulations to Golden, not that she wants them."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:34 am (UTC)

"I think it's probably best if you and Golden don't directly talk to each other very much. Go through Lizzie or me."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:35 am (UTC)

"That's about what I figured."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:36 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I didn't think she was hiding it very well."

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:38 am (UTC)

"I don't get the impression she meant to."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:42 am (UTC)

Tab nods. "Okay. So here's Toronto on the planet Arborea which is probably not even in the Milky Way. Home?"

salus_populi
2013-07-31 12:43 am (UTC)

She shrugs; she teleports back to her office.

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:45 am (UTC)

Somewhere else, Corona tells Jane, [Think I'll head out now.]

mind_game
2013-07-31 12:46 am (UTC)

[Tab wanted to talk to you about minting for her.]

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:52 am (UTC)

[...Seriously?]

mind_game
2013-07-31 12:53 am (UTC)

[Yep. It would not, most likely, involve setting foot on Gift's Earth at all.]

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:53 am (UTC)

[...okay,] he says. [Where would I be setting foot instead?]

mind_game
2013-07-31 12:54 am (UTC)

[Tab found a planet that is not even in the Milky Way probably and she's going to put Toronto on it.]

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:56 am (UTC)

[That's just about far enough away,] says Corona. [Okay.]

And he teleports to the local Janepoint.

mind_game
2013-07-31 12:56 am (UTC)

[Tab is on the planet in question, want to just go there?]

pythbox
2013-07-31 12:57 am (UTC)

[Yeah.]

mind_game
2013-07-31 12:58 am (UTC)

Pop!

He appears before Tab has left.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 12:58 am (UTC)

"Oh! Hi, Corona. Welcome to Arborea."

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:06 am (UTC)

"Hi," he says, glancing around at the planet. "You wanted to talk?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 01:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I need a mint. I can try to hire away Pattern's spare, but I thought I'd try you first, in case 'probably not even in the Milky Way' is far away enough from Chelsa to suit you. I'll be resurrecting Toronto just about as soon as I have coin influx sorted out. I'm gonna put it there." She points at the place.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:11 am (UTC)

"You know, I wouldn't have thought I'd want to come back, but a galaxy away is actually far enough," he says. "Surprisingly."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 01:13 am (UTC)

"I hoped so! Anything else we should work out? I'm probably going to install ground rules on Arborea not unlike what other space-colonist Bells are doing, I hear this might annoy you, will routine vacations out of the world do the trick or do we need to think of something else?"

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:15 am (UTC)

"...Define 'ground rules'," says Corona.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 01:19 am (UTC)

"They will basically make all kinds of antisocial behavior physically impossible. Nonconsensual violence, propagation of unwanted noise, harassment, etcetera - I'm copying the state of the art from Pattern. If you would like to be specially excepted so people can attack you, harass you, and keep you up at night with saxophone practice, that can be arranged."

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:21 am (UTC)

Corona laughs.

"I'll think about it. Vacations out of the world should help, anyway. And consensual violence still works, right?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 01:21 am (UTC)

"Of course."

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:30 am (UTC)

Corona grins.

"That's good. I'd really have a problem if it didn't."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 01:31 am (UTC)

"No reason to ban it if everyone's having fun," shrugs Tab.

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:36 am (UTC)

"Some people would just ban it anyway," he shrugs.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 01:39 am (UTC)

"Those people are stupid."

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:47 am (UTC)

He laughs.

"You're okay."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 01:55 am (UTC)

"Thanks!"

pythbox
2013-07-31 01:57 am (UTC)

Corona grins fondly at her.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 01:59 am (UTC)

[Hey, Jane, can you check with the admin for me that I can get Toronto-minus-Delphi-and-his-cohort?]

mind_game
2013-07-31 02:00 am (UTC)

[Tab would like to resurrect an entire city that was nuked into oblivion a few centuries ago on her world,] Jane reports to the admin, [and would like to know if she can get it back all in one piece, without the people responsible for the nuking - a fellow named Delphi and the people who were working with him. Can we do that?]

ending_of
2013-07-31 02:01 am (UTC)

[Yes,] says the admin. [You'll have to move it out, of course - I assume you can manage if I give you a view of the city?]

mind_game
2013-07-31 02:04 am (UTC)

[Yep! I am such a big Jane these days, I can fit a city.]

ending_of
2013-07-31 02:19 am (UTC)

The admin instantiates the city, very far away from any existing settlement, and provides Jane with a view.

mind_game
2013-07-31 02:22 am (UTC)

[That's paused, right? Tab doesn't want it right this second.]

ending_of
2013-07-31 02:33 am (UTC)

[It is, yes. At this rate local development shouldn't overtake it for about a thousand years, and if you haven't claimed it before then, I can move it.]

mind_game
2013-07-31 02:36 am (UTC)

[I do not think it will take a thousand years,] Jane says merrily, and she reports to Tab.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 02:37 am (UTC)

"Alrighty," says Tab, and she cracks her knuckles and brainphones Aelise and Kers. [Corona's on board. I'm going to start figuring out the best M.O. for reviving a city, it should be alive again inside an hour.]
Edited 2013-07-31 02:37 (UTC)

queensidecastle
2013-07-31 02:45 am (UTC)

[Have fun.]

salus_populi
2013-07-31 02:45 am (UTC)

[Let us know if you need a sounding board.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:02 am (UTC)

Tab thinks.

She thinks about how old cities used to work (she has read a lot about them, especially now that her entire to-read list was slurped up when she got near enough to her computer) and what things about them will need to be tweaked. She lays down state-of-the-art ground rules. She contemplates mechanisms for informing the citizens of Toronto. They will appear afraid; the city was in tension for a long time before the nuke fell, and she wants to calm them down, although by the same token she doesn't want to wake anyone who is asleep or overly shock anyone who managed to live sufficiently under a rock that they weren't freaked out already. There's several revelations to cover - the bomb fell, it's been a long time, they've been brought back, they're all torchable now, this isn't Earth, they're under new management, anyone they knew from other places will have to be fetched up separately, the new management is - she's going to start out calling it 'extremely Gifted'.

She composes a public address that covers the "everything's okay, you're safe, remain calm" part - everyone will hear it in her voice, and all people will also get writing on the subject of the more complex topics to read at their leisure. She composes the address and the pamphlets both in the Speech for convenient general dissemination; Toronto was not a monoculture, after all. She sets up some more wishes, pentagons herself old-timey English - she'd be mutually intelligible without, or in the Speech, but just for completeness. The people of Toronto are going to have enough to get used to anyway.

It'd be pretty hard not to notice the trees on Arborea.

mind_game
2013-07-31 03:02 am (UTC)

When Tab cues her,

Jane picks up Toronto,

and puts it down.

pythbox
2013-07-31 03:07 am (UTC)

"...Nice," says Corona. "Wow, it was kind of pretty."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:10 am (UTC)

"Kinda, yeah," says Tab.

The streets of Toronto say soothingly in the Speech, "It's okay. You're all safe, Delphi and company are gone, please remain calm. Further information has been delivered in writing."

Further information is, in a timely manner, delivered in writing.

pythbox
2013-07-31 03:15 am (UTC)

People more or less fail to panic. There is definitely some more and some less, though.

queensidecastle
2013-07-31 03:15 am (UTC)

Kers says, [You remember those presents you got me?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:16 am (UTC)

[Yeah. Why, did Toronto just absorb some of them?]

queensidecastle
2013-07-31 03:17 am (UTC)

[All four, actually.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:18 am (UTC)

[That is an interesting coincidence. Thanks for letting me know.]

queensidecastle
2013-07-31 03:20 am (UTC)

[No problem.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:24 am (UTC)

After people have had an hour to read the pamphlets and talk amongst themselves, there is a second flurry of notices, this one inviting people to list any people they would like to have back who were not in Toronto at the time of the nuke and therefore will have to be fetched separately, in writing on the back of the notice. This will magically copy to Jane, who will then put these people into some sort of sensible order, vet them, and send them up. They may also issue other requests, statements, or complaints on the back of the notice, which Jane will also take up and sort for Tab.

[Hey, Luhan, this is Tab - I'm the resident version of the person who teleported over to you a while back.]
Edited 2013-07-31 03:26 (UTC)

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 02:00 pm (UTC)

[Yeah?] says Luhan.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:20 pm (UTC)

[I thought you might want to know that I have recovered and instantiated Toronto as it was before it was nuked, minus the causes for said nuke, on another planet.]

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:21 pm (UTC)

[Huh,] he says. [Which planet?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:23 pm (UTC)

[Named it Arborea. I don't think it's in the Milky Way.]

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:23 pm (UTC)

[Seriously?]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:25 pm (UTC)

[Yep. I have a guided teleportation magical thingamajig and I let it pick me a place and it found me this great planet that already had breathable air and plants but no animals and water in almost precisely the right layout to plop Toronto on it, so I nudged what needed nudging and plopped Toronto.]

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:29 pm (UTC)

[Wouldn't mind seeing that,] says Luhan.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:30 pm (UTC)

[I can come fetch you if you like, are you by yourself?]

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:34 pm (UTC)

[As usual.]

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:35 pm (UTC)

Pop. "Hullo."

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Luhan. He picks up his beer and gets up out of his chair.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:37 pm (UTC)

"I was hovering over Toronto when I left; do you want any particular non-hovering vantage point?"

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Top of the CN Tower, of course."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:42 pm (UTC)

Pop.

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:45 pm (UTC)

It's empty of people up here, which is mildly unusual.

Luhan looks around, inhales, and nods.

"Yeah," he says, "you brought back Toronto, all right. What are you gonna do with it?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm taking requests on who else to bring back and will be making places to put them, since I imagine plenty of people from here had friends who died later - or earlier - in unrelated ways. So I'm using it as a jumping-off point to populate this planet with. It's possible the actual structures here won't be inhabited for that long; I mean, Toronto comes with its own micro-economy, I'm not going to interfere directly with it except to ensure that there's food and water incoming despite the lack of farms, really, but I'm not planning to build anything that requires rent paid or what have you. Anybody dead you want back?"

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Not especially."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay. And the people here can know what all has happened since they've been gone," she waves at the cityscape bordered by its alien trees, "but if you want to go back to Earth please don't spread it around. Aelise knows, obviously."

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Obviously," he agrees.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to go back to Earth anytime soon?"

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 04:00 pm (UTC)

He looks past the edge of the city, to the treetops that average a little higher than eye level from here.

"The forest is interesting, I gotta say."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 04:00 pm (UTC)

"I like it, yeah."

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 04:01 pm (UTC)

"There's really no animals on the planet?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Possible there are sea creatures, I didn't check." She checks. "Nope."

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Bizarre."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, there are animals on it now," she says merrily, gesturing at Toronto.

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 04:07 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Actually, I should probably worry about invasive species nibbling up all the cool alien plants." She snaps her fingers; the nonhuman life of Toronto is stuck within its borders until she thinks of something else. "There."

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Good thinking."

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 07:03 pm (UTC)

"I am rather good at thinking."

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 07:04 pm (UTC)

He chuckles.

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 07:06 pm (UTC)

"You didn't say if you were staying or going. You can decide later, if you want to just brainphone me if you need a lift."

areyouabeer
2013-07-31 07:20 pm (UTC)

"You don't have better things to do than be the interplanetary taxi service?"

giftedandtalented
2013-07-31 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I have lots of things to do, but I can do a lot of them all at once."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 01:46 am (UTC)

"Because on the one hand, I want to climb those trees, and on the other hand, I want to get home sometime today."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 01:48 am (UTC)

"I really will take you back when you want to go back. If you don't believe me I can introduce you to someone else who can do it."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 01:51 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "There's always Aelise, if I'm that hard up."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 01:51 am (UTC)

"Yeah, she can teleport now too."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 01:53 am (UTC)

"Figured."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 01:54 am (UTC)

"D'you want a copy of the factsheet everybody got when I woke them?"

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 01:55 am (UTC)

"Sure."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 01:58 am (UTC)

Poof.

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:00 am (UTC)

That sure is a factsheet. He skims it idly.

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 02:01 am (UTC)

"The thing about torching doesn't apply to you, but I can make it do if you like," says Tab casually. "Or Aelise can."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:03 am (UTC)

"Any horrifying drawbacks I don't know about?"
Edited 2013-08-01 02:03 (UTC)

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 02:04 am (UTC)

"If you are stuck somewhere that will not stop trying to kill you, it gets a lot of tries."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:05 am (UTC)

"That's not much of a change. Sure, hit me."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 02:23 am (UTC)

Tab flicks her fingers illustratively in his general direction. "You're all set."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:25 am (UTC)

"That was easy."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 02:28 am (UTC)

"Yep. Very simple procedure. All you have to do is go to the underworld and receive it as a gift from she who commands the fundament of reality. Piece of cake."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:32 am (UTC)

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 02:32 am (UTC)

Tab laughs.

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:33 am (UTC)

Luhan snorts.

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 02:37 am (UTC)

"No, I mean I did literally have to do that but it's pretty straightforward, I didn't have to beat her at chess first or anything."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:46 am (UTC)

"And she gave you Toronto as a bonus?"

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 03:40 am (UTC)

"Yep. And will supply any other departed people or things I want as long as I have my trusty way of moving them out of there."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:33 pm (UTC)

"Nice of her."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Well, most of them she wouldn't have to call up special like Toronto, most of them Jane can get for me without the admin's intervention. And in return she does not have to actually run the afterlife on a day-to-day basis, which apparently she didn't love doing."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 06:06 pm (UTC)

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

"You keep looking at me like that."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 06:27 pm (UTC)

"You keep saying things like that."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Like that how?" laughs Tab.

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Casually unbelievable," he says, after a moment's thought.

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 07:24 pm (UTC)

"You met Glass, I figured that'd make the rest of it credible."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 07:45 pm (UTC)

"How's that?"

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know all the contents of your conversation with her, but I gather she showed up and made a lot of arcane pronouncements and then left. And here I am and I look like a younger version of her not in a witch costume, right? Which is one arcane pronouncement down, so more of them shouldn't be such a stretch."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 07:47 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Also here is Toronto, so that's another pronouncement demonstrated."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Sure. I'm not saying I don't believe you. Just that if you're going to talk about going to the underworld and exchanging favours with the administration, you're gonna get some funny looks."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 07:50 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't with random people but you're cleared pretty high."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he agrees.

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 07:54 pm (UTC)

[Aelise, anybody I invite to a Bellparty who's been Chelsa'd is going to have the option of getting Elspeth to clear that up for them if they want, is there anyone I should not invite, like Luhan?]

salus_populi
2013-08-01 08:02 pm (UTC)

[Luhan in particular is extremely low-risk,] says Aelise. [Anyone else who habitually lives on Earth, I'd ask you to check with me first.]

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 08:03 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Apart from you and Kers I don't have any other Earthly invitees in mind, although the newly wakened Torontonian templates might get asked just since they have alts in the circle-of-knowns.]

"My alts throw parties occasionally and there'll probably be one in a couple weeks. You can come if you want," Tab says.

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Not usually my kind of thing," he says. "I'll think about it."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Sure, no hurry, we don't even have a date and time picked out."

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 08:21 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Guess I'll go climb some trees, then. And let you know when I want to go home."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Sure. See you whenever. You want a lift to the trees or can you get there from here?"

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 08:22 pm (UTC)

"A lift would be nice."

giftedandtalented
2013-08-01 08:23 pm (UTC)

Pop.

"See ya."

And off she goes to address the concerns of the Torontonians, as relayed by Jane, and to think about what an appropriate palace would look like.

Maybe she should have a treehouse.

through a mirror

self_composed

Bella comes home and tells everyone who knew she was gone that she has come back, and everyone who knew Jane was down that she is up.

And then she brainphones Janine, who knew neither thing. [Hey, Janine!]

cheerfulish
2013-07-31 11:47 pm (UTC)

[Hello!] says Janine. [What is it?]
Edited 2013-07-31 23:48 (UTC)

self_composed
2013-07-31 11:48 pm (UTC)

[I have encountered an alternate universe version of you.]

cheerfulish
2013-07-31 11:54 pm (UTC)

[...I am surprised,] says Janine.

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:05 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I was, too, I didn't you know you were a recurring theme, but she looks like a thirteen year old version of you with wings and her name's Junia.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 12:05 am (UTC)

[I contine to be surprised! Where did she get the wings?]

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:06 am (UTC)

[Born with them. It's a thing where she's from. The version of me from there has a set, too.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 12:07 am (UTC)

[That is fascinating. How do they work?]

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:08 am (UTC)

[...The wings? Or the alternate universe people?]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 12:08 am (UTC)

[The wings. The alternate universe people too, for that matter.]

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:11 am (UTC)

[I do not know how the wings work mechanically. They look like you'd expect angel wings to look, pretty much, twelve foot wingspans on adults, angels aren't lighter than humans but they are stronger, and I know they were genetically engineered on with a few other perks. The alternate universe people are mostly a mystery as to the why, although we have met enough of me and Alice and some other people you haven't met to give us an idea as to the what - basically doubles of people, some more than others, crop up in all kindsa places and are us-as-we-would-be-if-we'd-been-them. And templates have these things we call 'attractors' so our stories sometimes run in suspiciously similar ways even when they needn't necessarily.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 12:13 am (UTC)

[That is extremely peculiar,] says Janine. [And angel wings sound fun but inconvenient. Are they less inconvenient in that world?]

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:15 am (UTC)

[Well, the angels seem to like them. Apparently they make it inconvenient to dance or ride horseback or swim.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 12:15 am (UTC)

[Yes, that would make sense.]

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:18 am (UTC)

[So anyway, in a week or two or three a lot of my alts and our miscellaneous friends will probably all have a party, and Junia appears to be friend with one of Angel Me's daughters so she might be there, do you want to come too? I can give you a more detailed invitation when I know when it is.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 12:18 am (UTC)

[That sounds potentially interesting! If I am not busy at that time I think I will go.]

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:19 am (UTC)

[Cool. It is, I warn you, a big party, there's fourteen of me - maybe fifteen by party time, there's another one we have to swing by and connect up.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 12:20 am (UTC)

[Oh my. Where do they all come from?]

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:31 am (UTC)

[Bunch of different worlds. Not all the worlds have mes in. Mes are called Bells, by the by. We met some people who are templates but aren't from worlds with Bells and they get to come to our parties too.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 12:31 am (UTC)

[Do people who are not templates get to come or are they template parties?] she inquires.

self_composed
2013-08-01 12:33 am (UTC)

[People who are not templates get to come, although it appears - according to the template expert who can magically see template stuff - that being a template is contagious. You may have caught it from me.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:08 am (UTC)

[Should I will be worried that I will pass it on to all of my friends?] she jokes.

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:08 am (UTC)

[Only if you don't think more worlds could benefit from having copies of them.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:09 am (UTC)

Janine giggles.

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:10 am (UTC)

[One of the Bells who goes by Glass when there are lots of us around can check them over for templatehood if it does concern you, certainly.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:11 am (UTC)

[I think I will pass on that. I do not want to explain to everyone I know that I am friends with an empress.]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:12 am (UTC)

[Is that not generally known? Am I embarrassing?]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:14 am (UTC)

[Embarrassing is not the word I would use.]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:15 am (UTC)

[Disproportionately attention-getting?]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:16 am (UTC)

[Yes. Yes exactly.]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:23 am (UTC)

[Yeah. Being disproportionately attention-getting is kind of a Bell thing. We are not all Empresses, but we are all powerful busybodies.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:36 am (UTC)

[I am okay with knowing a powerful busybody but I am not okay with everyone knowing that I do.]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:37 am (UTC)

[Understood.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:40 am (UTC)

[So how has your empressing been going?]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:41 am (UTC)

[Pretty well, but I am behind several of my alts who have had longer at it than I have, especially since we recently had a temporal de-syncing and I lost way less time than many of the others. On the other hand, now I can steal more of their ideas.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:42 am (UTC)

[That sounds like a win to me!]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:43 am (UTC)

[Quite likely!]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:44 am (UTC)

[It is always nice when someone else goes first to make all the mistakes for you,] Janine says wisely.

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:47 am (UTC)

[They didn't make that many mistakes.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:50 am (UTC)

[That is also nice!]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:51 am (UTC)

[Anyway, how are you doing, how's school?]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:53 am (UTC)

[School is good! I am doing well. I continue to be good at things. I also have not dropped anything irreplaceable in some time, that is nice.]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:54 am (UTC)

[Not dropping things is great. If you do drop anything irreplaceable, lemme know, I'll replace it.]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 01:55 am (UTC)

[You are handy to have around!]

self_composed
2013-08-01 01:59 am (UTC)

[I try!]

cheerfulish
2013-08-01 02:00 am (UTC)

Janine giggles.

we encourage the meetings of like-minded individuals

cross_and_bow

After Bella has gotten a temporary sufficiency of snuggling (cough) from her Sherlock on her return, and announced to everyone it may concern that Jane is up and the missing Bells found, she calls a person who is now known to have an interesting alt.

[Hey, Giles!]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:32 pm (UTC)

[Yes?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-30 11:33 pm (UTC)

[Found another one of you!]

This, it is clear from her tone, is not the whole story.

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:34 pm (UTC)

[...Yes?] he repeats.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-30 11:35 pm (UTC)

[He's from Origin,] says Juliet merrily, and a giggle is creeping in around the edges of her messages. [Pattern found him.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:39 pm (UTC)

[Ye-es...?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-30 11:40 pm (UTC)

[He was confused that he had an alt who let me call him 'Giles',] singsongs Juliet.

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:42 pm (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-07-30 11:46 pm (UTC)

[For his own part, he went by Ripper, he's dating Pattern, apparently he's a rock star!]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:47 pm (UTC)

['Rock star' is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-30 11:48 pm (UTC)

[What d'you mean, a bit of a stretch? He has albums and tours and stuff. Pattern was trying to get me to quit laughing at her. He wrote her a planetary anthem. How come you never wrote me a planetary anthem, Giles?]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:50 pm (UTC)

[I haven't written a song in about twenty years, and the ones I did write weren't all that good,] he says. [I was in a band, but we were never big enough to tour.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-30 11:51 pm (UTC)

[Well, this one went differently, it would seem. He wanted me to stop describing you.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:54 pm (UTC)

[I wonder why. Well, this has been a charming look at my misspent youth. I do hope he didn't say anything I'm going to regret.]
Edited 2013-07-30 23:54 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-07-30 11:55 pm (UTC)

[I don't know about say, but do you regret the fact that when Shell Bell doored into Pattern's palace her and Ripper were in flagrante delicto?]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:56 pm (UTC)

He bursts out laughing.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-30 11:58 pm (UTC)

[And this was after we walked into Alice's lair and he was stark naked, so Shell Bell just said 'not again', and we didn't find out he was even a you - I thought he looked sorta familiar but I didn't quite get it - until Glass asked me 'why I was looking at Pattern's Rupert like that'.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-30 11:59 pm (UTC)

[I imagine he wasn't pleased. About the name, that is.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:00 am (UTC)

[Did not seem so, no, he was all, 'Pattern's what'. Are you guys going to be able to come to a consensus about what to call your template?]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:03 am (UTC)

[Oh, I'm sure he'll come round.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:05 am (UTC)

[Maybe. He didn't tell Pattern he was ever called Rupert Giles - I'm assuming it's 'Giles' since he reacted to that more than 'Merryweather' - and I'm not sure exactly when she acquired him but it could have been as long as sixteen years ago, Origin was out for a while.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:09 am (UTC)

[That is a bit odd. But then, with his music career taking off, maybe he just never - I want a phrase slightly less condescending than 'grew up' and I can't honestly think of one.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:10 am (UTC)

[You will have to ask him for his story. Pattern was definitely filtering to make me stop giggling. I do apologize for the giggling, I really, really couldn't help it.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:11 am (UTC)

[Was there any particular reason for the giggling? Or is this going to offend my librarian sensibilities?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:12 am (UTC)

[The fact that she managed to accidentally wind up dating a one of you. Also it caused some pretty bizarre mental juxtapositions when we left him in Rêverie so Beast could borrow him.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:13 am (UTC)

...Giles starts giggling.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:13 am (UTC)

[He promised that he'd be returned to Pattern in good condition,] adds Juliet, singsong.

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:15 am (UTC)

[I don't doubt it.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:16 am (UTC)

[Might also be a factor that Origin, being a non-magical not-especially-spacey world, does not have a convenient International Fleet, let alone Watcher's Council, to funnel a 'grown up' one of you into.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:17 am (UTC)

[There is that. Did he express any opinion one way or another about meeting me?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:18 am (UTC)

[He wanted to stop hearing you described until he met you. No word on whether he wanted that to be sooner than the next Bellparty, and the next Bellparty is waiting for everybody who was stranded to catch up back home.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:18 am (UTC)

[I think I can manage to keep my curiosity under control until then.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:21 am (UTC)

[It might be a while. Sarion was split up from her sweethearts for sixteen years, since they were in Origin doing Cronian ecoforming when Jane crashed. That's getting fixed, by the by, she's getting her own body that isn't in Aegis and it will live nice and safe in the Belltower. And I don't know how long Syntropy and Alethia and Peace were out.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:22 am (UTC)

[I see.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:23 am (UTC)

[So yeah. New you. Pattern's boyfriend Ripper. Thought you ought to know.]

jellyinthemix
2013-07-31 12:24 am (UTC)

[Yes, thank you, much obliged.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 12:25 am (UTC)

And that's that.

[Hey Ike and Val!]
Edited 2013-07-31 00:27 (UTC)

newtimov
2013-07-31 12:44 pm (UTC)

Val has a blank busy message up.

Ike says, [Hi, Bella!]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 03:18 pm (UTC)

[Found alts of you guys. Two sets, actually, although I only spoke to one, the others were dead and are waiting for their local Bell to have someplace to put them. The ones I met are a duke and duchess's kids in a fairytale kinda world called Chronicle. Also they are fire-witches, and the Val fell into a magic spring and can do something strikingly similar to iethat. They are friends with that local Bell's three daughters.]

newtimov
2013-07-31 03:20 pm (UTC)

[That is... bizarre,] says Ike, [I'll go with bizarre. What's a fire-witch?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 03:22 pm (UTC)

[A kind of Chronicle magic user. Involves fire - the three daughters have a little bit of fire witch in them and apparently like to play with hot glass and metal - full fire witches also invariably have red hair and they can also know things about stuff by touching it.]

newtimov
2013-07-31 03:23 pm (UTC)

[In-ter-es-ting.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 03:24 pm (UTC)

[So you guys should definitely turn up at the next Bell party, but it might be a while.]

newtimov
2013-07-31 03:25 pm (UTC)

[We should! Why will it be a while?]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 03:26 pm (UTC)

[While Jane was down some people were stranded, some of them for a very long time, and they're catching up at home.]

newtimov
2013-07-31 03:35 pm (UTC)

[Well. That makes sense. Okay,] says Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 03:35 pm (UTC)

[Yep. You want to tell Val yourself or should I ping her again later?]

newtimov
2013-07-31 03:37 pm (UTC)

[I can tell her.]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 03:37 pm (UTC)

[Okay, cool. I'll let you know when a Bellparty is scheduled.]

newtimov
2013-07-31 03:56 pm (UTC)

[Thank you!]

cross_and_bow
2013-07-31 03:57 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome!]

i'm back again

autokinetic

After Sue comes back from freecasting lessons and inaugurating Harley into the exciting world of Jokers having sex with each other, Aegis asks him, "So who all knows what really happened to me? Anybody but you?"

pythbox
2013-08-01 02:05 am (UTC)

"Howlett, Whitlock, Merryweather," he lists. "Nobody else knows about alternate worlds."

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:07 am (UTC)

"I vaguely wonder what my parents think. I guess they can get the public story to start with, whatever we settle on. I think I will let those three know I am back."

She starts with Howlett and Whitlock, because she is not sure how to tell Merryweather he has an alt who's dating one of hers.

[Guess who!]
Edited 2013-08-01 02:07 (UTC)

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:09 am (UTC)

[No idea,] Howlett says dryly.

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:10 am (UTC)

[Pff,] Aegis tells him. [It is me. Now you know.]

[Welcome home,] Whitlock says, which seems to be that.

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:11 am (UTC)

[Welcome back. Your boyfriend stole your Hegemony.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:13 am (UTC)

[He took very good care of it while I was indisposed,] corrects Aegis loftily, [and will give it over as soon as we know how not to traumatize the poor fuzzy dear.]

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:18 am (UTC)

[Sure.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:19 am (UTC)

[How've you been?]

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:20 am (UTC)

[Just dandy, you?]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:22 am (UTC)

[I was only gone for a few days but I was in this insane world where causality doesn't work, it was not fun.]

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:23 am (UTC)

[Doesn't sound it.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:24 am (UTC)

[Yeah. There was a Bell in it and the place kinda stunted her growth.]

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:24 am (UTC)

He snorts.

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:26 am (UTC)

[I mean like psychologically. She's shorter than me, but they all are except the boy one on account of zero gee and good old Battle School Science Diet. Do you wanna come to the next Bellparty?]
Edited 2013-08-01 02:27 (UTC)

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:30 am (UTC)

[I've heard about those,] he says. [Not sure if I like what I heard, but maybe you have a different take.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:30 am (UTC)

[Lotta Bells, lotta people Bells know, Glass says being a template is contagious so maybe you run into a surprise.]

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:32 am (UTC)

[Uh-huh.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 02:35 am (UTC)

[It'll be in the Belltower, I think; after twice no matter how safe we think Jane is there is no way we're putting that many people in one world at the same time again without a Jane-independent way to get home. Or maybe Sunshine will host, there's a Jarvis there and they can do Milliways doors.]

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:43 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I've heard about Milliways, too.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 03:42 am (UTC)

[I will be a while catching up on how in the know everybody is, I guess.]

areyouabeer
2013-08-01 02:33 pm (UTC)

[Guess so.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 03:45 pm (UTC)

[I'm gonna tell Merryweather that Pattern is dating his rockstar alt now.]

[Hey Merryweather!]

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 06:05 pm (UTC)

[Yes?]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

She decides to just go for it. [Turns out Pattern is dating your rockstar alt!]

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 06:23 pm (UTC)

autokinetic
2013-08-01 06:24 pm (UTC)

[I didn't meet him, the reassembling peal left him in Rêverie before they found me and the rest of the welcoming committee, but apparently his name is Ripper and he is a rock star and Glass says he's a you.]

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 06:26 pm (UTC)

[Is that so,] he sighs.

autokinetic
2013-08-01 06:27 pm (UTC)

[It is so! And most of the peal has now seen him naked, which has to have been weird. Shell Bell's doors are not as good a mechanism for getting places as Jane is when Jane is available.]

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 06:28 pm (UTC)

[...Noted.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 06:30 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, they walked in on Alice too. Anyway. How have you been in your not-a-rock-star-ness?]

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 06:31 pm (UTC)

[Continuing not to be a rock star, thank goodness.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 06:32 pm (UTC)

[Lucky you. I hope it was not a terrible disruption that I did not wind up installing a Jarvis station before I left.]

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 06:33 pm (UTC)

[I managed. But if you do still plan on installing such a station, I'd be happy to move there.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 06:35 pm (UTC)

[I will once it's clear how to fold it into eventual Hegemony transfer, public relations, et cetera, I don't want to screw things up. Glass has a Jarvis now too.]
Edited 2013-08-01 18:40 (UTC)

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 07:17 pm (UTC)

[Best talk to the admiral about that. I'm sure you can work it out between you.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 07:24 pm (UTC)

[Sue being the admiral? I hope they haven't retroactively stripped my rank.]

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 07:26 pm (UTC)

[There are plenty of admirals. I've just taken to calling him that.]

autokinetic
2013-08-01 07:27 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Yeah, we have a lot of figuring to do.]

jellyinthemix
2013-08-01 07:28 pm (UTC)

[Best of luck.]

meet you again for the first time

keyed_up

When Tony returns to the Sunshine Janepoint, Soph is there, sitting in a beanbag, midsentence with Jane. "- always seemed to. Hi, Tony!"

toblameforit
2013-07-31 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Tony. "Apparently now I'm an interdimensional expert on spontaneous teenage relatives."

keyed_up
2013-07-31 11:44 pm (UTC)

"That is the weirdest job title of all time. High five." She proffers her hand.

toblameforit
2013-07-31 11:46 pm (UTC)

He high-fives her, then leans over to give her a kiss.

keyed_up
2013-07-31 11:47 pm (UTC)

Kisses! "So who else has a spontaneous teenage relative and do I need to go hug the spontaneous teenage relative? I could do that now, I can go places."

toblameforit
2013-07-31 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Amariah now has a thirteen-year-old daughter named Helen, we're not actually sure why beyond some kind of 'it made sense at the time' deal while she was stranded. And you can totally go hug her if you want, I support the hugging of spontaneous teenage relatives." He plops onto the edge of the beanbag and hugs Soph. "But it didn't look like she desperately needed one or anything, they seemed to be getting along okay."

keyed_up
2013-07-31 11:56 pm (UTC)

Hugs. "Well, that's good, nobody needs to not get along with the people of whom they are spontaneously teenage relatives. I guess Amariah was flailing around and Bella recommended you?" (Soph is not accustomed to calling her sister Juliet; that is what Sherlock calls her.)

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:01 am (UTC)

"Pretty much."

Hugs!

"And she talked to me for a while and then decided to talk to Helen's alts, which I guess went okay, because the next time I saw them Helen was there and nobody was yelling or anything."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:03 am (UTC)

"And nobody was being teleported to Canada or anything either, I hope?"

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:04 am (UTC)

"No Canada involved whatsoever!"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:13 am (UTC)

"Good. Boo, Canada, it is cold."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"Aww, you're gonna hurt Canada's feelings."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:15 am (UTC)

"It is Canada. It will apologize for being cold and offer me a donut."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:16 am (UTC)

Tony cracks up.

"True! But it'll still feel all sad inside."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:18 am (UTC)

"Aww, poor Canada."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:19 am (UTC)

"Someone should hug it."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:20 am (UTC)

"I believe it is being hugged by some oceans."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:22 am (UTC)

"Whew, okay, good."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:26 am (UTC)

"Canada is in a committed relationship with its oceans. They keep each other cold."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:27 am (UTC)

Tony cracks up. Again.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:27 am (UTC)

"I like making you laugh."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:28 am (UTC)

"You're really good at it!" he giggles.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:32 am (UTC)

"It's not really hard." Pause. Eyelash-bat. "Phlogiston."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 12:33 am (UTC)

He cackles helplessly.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 12:33 am (UTC)

Soph grins and squirms happily and hugs him again.

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:08 am (UTC)

Hugs! Hugs and kisses. Extremely giggly kisses.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:09 am (UTC)

[I'm gonna go to my first Bellparty soon and I'm kinda nervous about that,] she informs him as kisses proceed.

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:10 am (UTC)

[Aww!] he says, snuggling her. [Nervous why?]

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:11 am (UTC)

['Cause - Bella made sure none of the others would remember me existing, so they won't, but I'm not some - new friend Bella made and is bringing along, so that's weird.]

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:14 am (UTC)

[...Yeeeees that's true.]

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:14 am (UTC)

[You've been to bellparties, what are they like?]

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:15 am (UTC)

[Uh - they have orgy chambers?] He giggles. "Sorry, I swear that's not their only feature, but it does kind of spring to mind."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:16 am (UTC)

"I bet those are memorable, yep."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:19 am (UTC)

"Extremely! Also kind of a misnomer, actually, they don't tend to be orgies so much as giant cuddlepiles with maybe some people having sex occasionally. Well, maybe the Jokers have orgies."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:20 am (UTC)

"Sounds cuddly and occasionally sexy. Wow, that sounds like the most stoned weather forecast ever."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:20 am (UTC)

Tony cracks up. Yet again.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:21 am (UTC)

"With a front from the northwest of man I could really go for some nachos."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:36 am (UTC)

He giggles into her shoulder.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:36 am (UTC)

Nuzzle nuzzle. "So in other news I am pretty much reacquainted so to speak with Jane."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:37 am (UTC)

"I figured something like that."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:37 am (UTC)

"It went pretty good."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:38 am (UTC)

"Awesome!"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:40 am (UTC)

"Yeah! Jane says she might do the memories-she-would-have-had thing except she wants to 'refactor a few yottabytes'."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:41 am (UTC)

"That is a lot of data," says Tony.

mind_game
2013-08-01 01:42 am (UTC)

"I am a big Jane," says Jane, "and that thing that knocked me out did it very thoroughly."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:43 am (UTC)

"I'm getting that sense!"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:43 am (UTC)

"Poor Jane."

mind_game
2013-08-01 01:44 am (UTC)

"I'm okay! I am also now literally shiny."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:45 am (UTC)

"...How literally?"

mind_game
2013-08-01 01:47 am (UTC)

"Very. Brilliance put me in a Device body, and when I'm not making it be human shaped, it is a jewel. And I can glitter. Also float."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:49 am (UTC)

"Cool!"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:50 am (UTC)

"And she lives in the Belltower on a shelf collecting dust. She didn't really want a body for its own sake."

mind_game
2013-08-01 01:50 am (UTC)

"It's okay, I just don't get what the fuss is."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:52 am (UTC)

"Yeah, you and Jarvis both."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 01:52 am (UTC)

"I bet Jarvis wouldn't even take a body."

mind_game
2013-08-01 01:53 am (UTC)

"I bet he would if someone had carelessly wandered his soul-or-something into Materia," says Jane. "Bleah."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 01:54 am (UTC)

"I am actually not so sure," says Tony. "They're really not into that. The closest they get is Malibu installing on the Iron Man suits."

mind_game
2013-08-01 02:01 am (UTC)

"That reminds me, Materia has an aware building in it. I don't know if she's remotely like Jarvis or me though."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 02:02 am (UTC)

"I'm guessing she's not that much like you guys if she's from Materia. I mean - implementation-wise."

mind_game
2013-08-01 02:22 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah, I don't think we can talk to her unless Aether translates, but in terms of being a building."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 02:24 am (UTC)

"Are you a building?"

mind_game
2013-08-01 02:25 am (UTC)

"I'm a network. Also now a Device, but it doesn't feel special compared to any of my points or gems. I can operate buildings just fine given the hardware though. I'm more like a building than I am like a human, it's natural to be - distributed over multiple places, for me."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 02:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah. The Jarvises don't do the distribution thing much, except, again, Iron Man's."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 02:27 am (UTC)

"Well, except multiple places within a house," says Soph.

mind_game
2013-08-01 02:27 am (UTC)

"Exactly. We are going to have been friends, you and I."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 02:30 am (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-08-01 02:32 am (UTC)

"Yay."

mind_game
2013-08-01 02:32 am (UTC)

"Hey, I don't mind being called upon for my practical usefulness, but it's kinda nice to know that I never picked you up and put you down and you missed me anyhow."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 02:33 am (UTC)

"You guys are cute," says Tony.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 02:35 am (UTC)

"I am so glad you think so." Nuzzle.

toblameforit
2013-08-01 02:48 am (UTC)

Snuggle!

"You are cute."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 03:41 am (UTC)

"Your face is cute."

toblameforit
2013-08-01 02:33 pm (UTC)

"It is! I have a cute face," he agrees, nuzzling her with it.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 03:45 pm (UTC)

"It is good that you have healthy and accurate face-related self-esteem." Nuzzles!

toblameforit
2013-08-01 04:17 pm (UTC)

"You have a cute face too," he adds. Nuzzle-kiss!

keyed_up
2013-08-01 04:17 pm (UTC)

[I'm adorable.] Kisses kisses kisses.

toblameforit
2013-08-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

[You are!]

Kisses.

It's possible that kisses should be had somewhere other than the Janepoint, but meh.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 06:22 pm (UTC)

As long as they are just kisses this is a fine place. Jane doesn't mind.

If he has any other ideas they might need to move.

toblameforit
2013-08-01 06:23 pm (UTC)

They are currently just kisses.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 06:25 pm (UTC)

Kisses are Soph's favorite thing.

toblameforit
2013-08-01 06:27 pm (UTC)

Kisses are pretty fucking awesome!

keyed_up
2013-08-01 06:28 pm (UTC)

Yep!

After a while, though, Soph says, "Jane, is Helen still in the Belltower?"

mind_game
2013-08-01 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Want to visit?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, if you don't mind." She kisses Tony one last time and hops up from the beanbag.

toblameforit
2013-08-01 06:29 pm (UTC)

Tony waves. "See ya!"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 06:30 pm (UTC)

And off Soph goes!

There are three people here. Only one of them looks thirteen, though, and one of the others has wings. "Um, hi," she says.

fortissima
2013-08-01 06:32 pm (UTC)

The one with wings waves tentatively.

"Hi?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 06:34 pm (UTC)

"I'm Soph. I'm - Juliet's - sister. I thought I would come, um, meet the other Spontaneous Teenage Relative, that seems to be what we are being called now?" She waves at Helen. "But I haven't met you guys before either - I'm sorry I can't remember your names."

mindfields
2013-08-01 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Yseult," says Yseult, curtsying.

fortissima
2013-08-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Damaris," says Damaris.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Helen," says Helen. "Hi." She waves back.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 06:40 pm (UTC)

"So I'm not the same kind of spontaneous, but basically some people wanted to hide a magical artifact where it would be safe and they thought the best way to do that would be to turn it into the little sister of the mysteriously immortal ex-Slayer with spooky magical powers. Only, the opacity thing, so she had no idea why there were suddenly bunk beds and didn't really take it well."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:01 pm (UTC)

Helen winces. "That doesn't sound fun at all."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I got teleported to Canada and interrogated, she thought I might be a demon or something, which, kinda fair, there are a lot of those at home. It was not the best day."

fortissima
2013-08-01 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Wow," says Damaris. "I can't imagine. ...Does that make you my - auntoid?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Yyyyes I think that's how it works."
Edited 2013-08-01 19:18 (UTC)

mindfields
2013-08-01 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Bizarre," says Yseult.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Is it? I mean apart from the magical artifact thing I am not very weird."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Yseult is twenty-two," says Helen, "and she's sort of your niece in an interdimensional way. That's kind of weird. But I don't think it's weird about you, necessarily, it's just - a peculiarity."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:26 pm (UTC)

"People can have aunts who are younger than them even without interdimensional time weirdness."

fortissima
2013-08-01 07:27 pm (UTC)

"True," says Damaris.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:29 pm (UTC)

"So anyway in the department of Your Closely Related Bell Is Alarmed To Discover Your Existence, I have been there, do you want a hug?" Soph asks Helen.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I will absolutely take hugs," says Helen.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:30 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:33 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"Thanks," she says. "...It's really weird that nobody outside Alethia has daemons, by the way."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:34 pm (UTC)

"I know what I would have. It's a shiny cowbird. What's weird about it, though? Sherlock - the Sunshine one - Minus - has one but she's almost never out."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Well - I just had the thought, 'oh, Kalavar isn't here, or she'd be trying not to maul your—' and then I realized I didn't even know what species you'd hypothetically get. Because you don't have a daemon. Kalavar's a teratorn," she adds by way of explanation. "Huge extinct birds, when she snuggles my friends' daemons she does it really carefully."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:38 pm (UTC)

"I am led to understand that if I had my shiny cowbird I would be really unhappy if he got mauled. Bella - my one - would have a tiger though."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Tigers are cool," says Helen. "Kalavar has never actually mauled anybody."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:44 pm (UTC)

"That's good! Not-mauled magic talking soul animals are the best kind."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:46 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

"You're cute," she says. "We should start a Spontaneous Teenage Relatives Club or something."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Is two enough for a club?" muses Soph.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:48 pm (UTC)

"It is if we say so!"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Okay. We can hang out in Milliways and eat madeleines and drink interesting coffee beverages - well, do you drink coffee, you're thirteen, whatever, interesting hot chocolate variations - and stuff."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:52 pm (UTC)

"I haven't tried coffee! I should try coffee," says Helen.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:53 pm (UTC)

"It's an acquired taste, but I went and acquired it," giggles Soph.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:54 pm (UTC)

Helen laughs.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I started with mocha though, it's like beginner dessert coffee."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Good to know."

mindfields
2013-08-01 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Should we all go and have coffee?" wonders Yseult.

fortissima
2013-08-01 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we should all go and have coffee!" says Damaris.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 07:58 pm (UTC)

"Let's all go and have coffee! I don't have any alts of my own, I'm stealing you guys."

mindfields
2013-08-01 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I accept," says Yseult.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 08:03 pm (UTC)

Helen laughs. "Awesome. And hey, I guess the bar thing's right here, isn't it? Right - where?" She looks around for an obvious way out of the tower.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Uuum, Jane?"

mind_game
2013-08-01 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Just go out the tower front door and the bar is the only other building in evidence," says Jane serenely.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. Yeah, I don't even remember being here before, the spell that made me couldn't figure out how to make memories of being anywhere besides Sunshine so I remember having this annoying magical affliction where I couldn't leave the world," says Soph, heading for the door, "or get wished on with anything bigger than a pentagon, because it couldn't copy those effects either, but now it is gone and I can go wherever."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Peculiar," says Helen. "But nice that you didn't stay that way!"

The Dominiques troop off after Soph.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 08:18 pm (UTC)

"It is! I can teleport and stuff." Here is the door; here is the "backyard" of Milliways; here is the door to the bar, which Soph holds. "I'm not used to it so I don't do it as much as Bella - Juliet - calling her that is weird, her boyfriend calls her that - but it's really nice for sometimes."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I don't know very much about individual Bells," says Helen. "What's your world like?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Full of demons. There's magic in it, but it's kind of gross mean magic, I tried a teeny bit - well, I remember trying a teeny bit - and it didn't work so I stopped, that's probably to 'explain' why Bella didn't have all kinds of magical resources around. She can't do Sunshine magic herself, her opacity is protecting her from it being gross and mean is the going theory."

fortissima
2013-08-01 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Is it the kind of magic everyone knows about or is it a big secret?" says Damaris.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 08:24 pm (UTC)

"The demons all know about it! Humans mostly don't."

fortissima
2013-08-01 08:37 pm (UTC)

"What's a demon?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 08:38 pm (UTC)

"That's a kind of a catchall term for anything on Sunshine that's not a human and is smart. Vampires count or don't depending on who you ask. Most of the demons are from other sub-worlds originally."

fortissima
2013-08-01 08:46 pm (UTC)

"There's so many that you need a catchall term?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yeah. Thousands."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Thousands, really? Wow," says Helen. "And nobody notices? Do they just - not interact with humans who don't know already?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes they interact with humans who don't know already and usually what happens next is the human dies."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Oh," she says. "Yeah. That'd do it."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. There are some nicer demons. The Sessiaki are supposed to be neat, I haven't been to where they're from but Bella based a lot of the garden around her palace on neat plants from there."

mindfields
2013-08-01 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, plants," says Yseult. "What do they look like?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:11 pm (UTC)

Soph commences describing wacky demonic plants from her sister's garden as they find seats in the bar. This naturally leads to: "She wasn't going to have such a complicated garden, except she needed something for her demonic minions to do."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Your sister has demonic minions?" says Helen. "Not the people-killing kind, I hope?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh no they're really sweet actually! But they're not very pretty, to humans anyway. They wanted someone to be minions of after Bella had to kill the hell-goddess they were working for. They like M&Ms and they don't get bored if I want to play Monopoly and insist on playing through the whole endgame, I like them."
Edited 2013-08-01 21:20 (UTC)

telesonorous
2013-08-01 09:20 pm (UTC)

"That's cute," says Helen.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:22 pm (UTC)

"It is! Bella made them a dorm on Mercury and they do her gardening and sometimes she takes a couple along when she is going on diplomatic excursions to try to get other demons to stop eating people, for added consequence. They are supposed to call her Your Majesty, they won't say 'Bella' - and sometimes they forget even that and they call her 'your flammableness' or something."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Your flammableness?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:25 pm (UTC)

"It's her aura, it makes her all flamey, it's really cool-looking."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Kas's aura just makes him look huggy," says Helen. "I haven't seen anyone else's."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I haven't seen anybody's besides my Bella's. I'm all excited and nervous about the next Bellparty."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I don't even know that much about Bellparties," says Helen.

mindfields
2013-08-01 09:45 pm (UTC)

"They are fun," says Yseult.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Tell us about 'em," Soph says to Yseult and Damaris.

fortissima
2013-08-01 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I think I was ten the first time I went to one," says Damaris. "All of the Jokers hugged me."

mindfields
2013-08-01 09:49 pm (UTC)

Yseult laughs. "I remember that."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Aww!"

mindfields
2013-08-01 09:52 pm (UTC)

"It was adorable," Yseult confirms.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I am slightly expecting to be surrounded by curious Tonies, but I don't think they will insist on hugging me."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Curious Tonies?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm dating my Tony, and there are a bunch more of them."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says Helen.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure I want to be mobbed by otherworldly Tonies, but I'm also not sure I don't."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:00 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

mindfields
2013-08-01 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps if you told them to form a line," Yseult suggests.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:01 pm (UTC)

"That sound so adorable, I'm totally doing that if they flock around me in groups exceeding three."

fortissima
2013-08-01 10:05 pm (UTC)

"How many of them are there?" wonders Damaris.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Uh..." Soph starts ticking off fingers. "There's mine. There's Shell Bell's one. There's Glass's one. There's the one who's older than the other ones. And there's two other ones. So six total."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Very precise," laughs Helen. "The Tonies are the ones who don't nickname easily, right?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, they just figured things out based on coin colors. Some of the Sherlocks did that too. My Tony is 'Red'."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Nice and simple, at least."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:17 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if there'll be ever be more of me or if I'm a one-off because of the magic artifact thing. Maybe Glass will know."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Isn't there a Joker who's a magic artifact too?" wonders Helen. "But differently."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Yyyyeah, there is one of those, but not the same way I don't think. I wasn't made to be a magic artifact, I was made from one."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it's different, then." She shrugs. "I don't know."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, maybe he wants to start a Magic Artifacts Club. Jane can join now, they gave her a body that's the same kind of thing as him."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:24 pm (UTC)

Helen laughs.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Anyhow weren't we going to get coffee, I'll go order, what do you guys want?"

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Mocha?" shrugs Helen.

fortissima
2013-08-01 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I will also have mocha," says Damaris. "It sounds tasty."

mindfields
2013-08-01 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Me three," says Yseult.
Edited 2013-08-01 22:29 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay then!" And off Soph traipses to order mochas for all the Dominiques and a caramel latte with sprinkles for herself.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:31 pm (UTC)

It turns out that

fortissima
2013-08-01 10:31 pm (UTC)

the Dominiques

mindfields
2013-08-01 10:32 pm (UTC)

enjoy their mochas.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:33 pm (UTC)

Oh very good. And Soph enjoys her latte, so that works out.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:33 pm (UTC)

"This was a good idea," Helen declares.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Yes it was."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:35 pm (UTC)

She laughs.

mindfields
2013-08-01 10:35 pm (UTC)

So do her alts.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:37 pm (UTC)

"So - potential moodkiller but - how are things with your mom, Helen? Are there even things? With your mom?"

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:41 pm (UTC)

"I - don't really know," she says. "We didn't talk that much. She, um, she thinks it's cute that I call her mom 'Granatee'? That might be promising?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:42 pm (UTC)

"That is profoundly cute, if she didn't think that was cute I would be pretty sure she was actually a statue."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:44 pm (UTC)

Helen laughs.

"Because manatees are huggable," she says, "and so is Ranata. Also Kas used to be 'mommydaddyspinach', for... reasons that I'm sure made sense when I was five."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:45 pm (UTC)

"That is also really cute."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:45 pm (UTC)

She grins.

fortissima
2013-08-01 10:46 pm (UTC)

"It is! I declare you the most adorable Dominique," says Damaris.
Edited 2013-08-01 22:46 (UTC)

mindfields
2013-08-01 10:48 pm (UTC)

Yseult conjures a little silver tiara and puts it on Helen's head.

"A crown for your achievement."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:48 pm (UTC)

Soph giggles.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:49 pm (UTC)

So does Helen!

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:50 pm (UTC)

"So you guys don't call your relatives cute things, huh?"

fortissima
2013-08-01 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Not especially," says Damaris.

mindfields
2013-08-01 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I call my little sisters 'cherie' but that is hardly on the same level."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Aww, that's adorable too though."

mindfields
2013-08-01 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Should I also wear a little crown?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Soph firmly.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:56 pm (UTC)

Helen conjures one and puts it on Yseult's head. It is made of iron in thin lacy spirals, and it is very pretty.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 10:56 pm (UTC)

Soph applauds.

fortissima
2013-08-01 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Beautiful!" says Damaris. "...Are you minted, Helen?"

telesonorous
2013-08-01 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" She displays a square, patterned like layers of pine needles with the sun shining through them. "Why, aren't you?"

mindfields
2013-08-01 11:00 pm (UTC)

"I see what Glass meant about a theme," Yseult comments, producing a square that looks like oak leaves backlit by the sun in a similar fashion.

fortissima
2013-08-01 11:00 pm (UTC)

Damaris shakes her head. "No. Those are pretty; I wonder what mine look like?"

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:01 pm (UTC)

"You can check with a square," says Soph brightly, nibbling her thumb for a glowy green square and spending it.

fortissima
2013-08-01 11:03 pm (UTC)

And there is an illusory square in front of Damaris that looks like sunlight through brown-banded white feathers, very much like those on her wings.

She laughs.

"I like our coin theme. It's pretty."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Mine looks like mystical artifact," says Soph. "All of my check-to-see-what-you-get-with-a-square features are mystic artifact related. The cowbird too."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Are there any other than daemon and coin colour?" wonders Helen, tucking her square away.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, no, but still."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 11:08 pm (UTC)

She nods sympathetically.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I suppose I have a Tony. You cannot check for him with a square but I have him and he is not about the artifact thing."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 11:09 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

mindfields
2013-08-01 11:10 pm (UTC)

"You can so check for him with a square," Yseult announces, and spends her example square to produce a little illusory Tony.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:11 pm (UTC)

Soph laughs. "Okay, you can check for him with a square. I stand corrected."

mindfields
2013-08-01 11:11 pm (UTC)

"He is cute," says Yseult. She pats the little illusion on his little illusory head.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:12 pm (UTC)

"He's soooo cute. And he has the best laugh and he is a really good kisser."

mindfields
2013-08-01 11:13 pm (UTC)

"These are good attributes in a boyfriend," says Yseult.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Super important."

mindfields
2013-08-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Not that I would know."

fortissima
2013-08-01 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," says Damaris.

telesonorous
2013-08-01 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, me neither," Helen agrees. "I wonder why that is? I wouldn't mind one or anything."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Search me. I'd offer to set you up with somebody or something but I know - peal people who you could find yourself and not all that many of those - and my school friends who don't know about Things In Capital Letters, so."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 11:24 pm (UTC)

Helen laughs and nods.

"There is that. I only have one friend who knows - Things."

fortissima
2013-08-01 11:24 pm (UTC)

"I don't have any," says Damaris.

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:26 pm (UTC)

"You have sisters though, does that help?" Soph asks Damaris.

fortissima
2013-08-01 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes. But I am not going to suggest that Helen date them."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that'd be weird," Soph agrees, making a face. "I just meant for the nobody-knows-all-this-stuff-and-that's-kinda-lonely thing."

fortissima
2013-08-01 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes. The sisters help with that."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:48 pm (UTC)

"And on your world everybody knows everything?" Soph asks Yseult, not quite sure if she remembers right.

mindfields
2013-08-01 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Everyone knows about enchanting. Not everyone knows about other worlds, or other kinds of magic. But plenty of people do; it's not secret, just not common knowledge."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:50 pm (UTC)

"By rights more people in Sunshine ought to know about magic. It's not really uncommon, especially in the town where we live. Sometimes I wonder if everyone is just pretending not to know and doesn't know everyone else is pretending. Like we're all putting on a no-magic-themed improv play together without knowing it."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 11:54 pm (UTC)

"But how would you find out? You'd have to tell somebody, and then if they didn't know, they'd - look at you funny."

keyed_up
2013-08-01 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah. And I mean, I remember finding out when I was, um, hallucinating being sixteen, so probably some people really don't know, like, I found out because my sister was the Slayer."

telesonorous
2013-08-01 11:57 pm (UTC)

Helen nods. "Yeah. It must be so weird living in a world where most people don't know about magic," she says. "I get a little of that when I'm out around mortals - they sort of know it exists but they don't really know much about it, you know? Even though there's the thing with the afterlife. But I guess that's different from what witches do."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:00 am (UTC)

"What is the thing with your afterlife? I sort of heard the adventure-story-type leadup, it was when Bella found out she would have a tiger if she got a daemon, but I don't know what actually happened at the end except that it seemed reasonable to summarize it as 'then Amariah made everything better'."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:02 am (UTC)

"Oh - well, the dead have their daemons now, or their daemon-parts if their worlds don't have those. And they can contact the living in dreams, and if enough people want them and the harpies let them out, they can come back as revenants. My grandpa Charlie's a revenant," she adds.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:03 am (UTC)

"Good for alt-of-Dad," says Soph.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:05 am (UTC)

She laughs.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:05 am (UTC)

"What do he and Mom have how they are in your world, for daemons?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:07 am (UTC)

"Castarilan - Granatee's daemon - is a broad-tailed hummingbird, and Charlie's Kesathi is a wolverine."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:08 am (UTC)

"I guess my parents wouldn't necessarily have the same things. A tiger isn't very much like a little puffy owl."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:09 am (UTC)

"Pathalan is little and puffy," says Helen. "Tigers are not those things. Well, I guess they could be puffy if they had very fluffy fur."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:10 am (UTC)

"I saw the illusion tiger. It was super puffy, and about the size of a sedan, it was ridiculous."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:11 am (UTC)

Helen laughs.

"Awesome! Big enough to ride, do you think? Kalavar is."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:14 am (UTC)

"If she tucked her feet in maybe? It wasn't that high off the ground, just long and big."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:15 am (UTC)

"Yeah, when I ride Kalavar I have to kind of - flop on her," says Helen. "But it's not hard, because she's taller than I am."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:16 am (UTC)

"Flop on her? I don't think I understand."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:17 am (UTC)

"Like - lie on her back with my arms around her neck," she says. "Because I can't really sit on her without kicking her wings."

fortissima
2013-08-02 12:17 am (UTC)

"Having my own wings is much more convenient," says Damaris.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:18 am (UTC)

"I fly around sometimes but just by magic. I like it but not nearly as much as Bella does."

fortissima
2013-08-02 12:19 am (UTC)

"I don't think I would like flying with magic nearly as much as I like flying with my wings."

mindfields
2013-08-02 12:19 am (UTC)

"I think you're right!" says Yseult.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:21 am (UTC)

Soph giggles. "Why's that?"
Edited 2013-08-02 00:21 (UTC)

mindfields
2013-08-02 12:23 am (UTC)

"Helen likes flying on her daemon, and Damaris likes flying with her wings, and I don't like flying very much," she explains. "So I think that we might not like flying with just magic very much."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:23 am (UTC)

"I like flying my cloud-pine," Helen muses. "But you're right. Plain old magic flying doesn't sound nearly as fun."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:25 am (UTC)

"I mean, it's a useful way to move around occasionally, and I like not having to have a stepladder," says Soph. "But teleporting is better if I'm really in a hurry and I still like hopping in a car with Tony. He has nifty cars."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:26 am (UTC)

"I don't think I've ever been in a car I'd describe as 'nifty'," says Helen. "What's nifty about them?"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:28 am (UTC)

"One of them has the driver's seat in the middle," Soph says. "And they're shiny and just - cool." She peers at the other Dominiques. "Do you not know cars? I guess you don't know cars."

fortissima
2013-08-02 12:29 am (UTC)

"I don't know cool cars," says Damaris. "Cars are loud and ugly and give off noxious smells. I wouldn't ride in one for all the pastries a small village could give me."

mindfields
2013-08-02 12:30 am (UTC)

"I am a little bit lost," Yseult admits.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:31 am (UTC)

"My favorite one of Tony's looks like -" Soph produces an illusion.

mindfields
2013-08-02 12:33 am (UTC)

"Pretty," says Yseult.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:34 am (UTC)

"Ancient," says Helen. "Even I can tell that and I barely know anything about cars. But I guess that makes sense; I'm something like sixty or seventy years ahead of you, aren't I?"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:35 am (UTC)

"It's just 2006 in Sunshine."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:37 am (UTC)

"Wow, yeah. 2081," she says.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:43 am (UTC)

"And Samaria's so far future it's changed calendars and Rêverie is a whole nother thing."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 12:44 am (UTC)

She laughs.

fortissima
2013-08-02 12:45 am (UTC)

"Yeah, it's 691 for us," says Damaris.

mindfields
2013-08-02 12:48 am (UTC)

"1768," says Yseult.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:49 am (UTC)

"How positively medieval," Soph giggles in Yseult's direction.

mindfields
2013-08-02 12:49 am (UTC)

"Which means what?"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 12:50 am (UTC)

"Oh, on Earths there was a period of history that's called 'medieval'. Actually the seventeen hundreds might not have been it, I don't actually know, I didn't do very well in European History."

mindfields
2013-08-02 12:59 am (UTC)

She laughs.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:00 am (UTC)

"You do dress kind of in - period clothes, though, I don't know what period but it is a period."

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:02 am (UTC)

"I think everyone dresses in clothes that are from a period," says Yseult.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:05 am (UTC)

"Except witches," says Helen. "Witches have been wearing silks the same way for thousands of years and it doesn't look to be changing anytime soon." She gestures at her outfit - jeans and a blue T-shirt with a pink flower on the front. "Me, personally, I switch it up sometimes, but almost nobody else does and everyone thinks I am extremely weird for it."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:06 am (UTC)

"How come you do it, then?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:08 am (UTC)

"Because I can?"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:08 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but you can wear paper party hats all the time, and you don't. Like, even if you do it a lot, you clearly do not do it all the time."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:09 am (UTC)

"I don't wear mortal clothes all the time, either. Just when I feel like it."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:09 am (UTC)

"Mortal clothes. Makes it sound like the clothes are in hospice or something."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:10 am (UTC)

She giggles.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:11 am (UTC)

"I wonder what clothes would die of? Split seams and frayed hems? Spilled ketchup is recoverable."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:13 am (UTC)

She giggles more!

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:14 am (UTC)

"This conversation is making me glad I can just repair my dresses with squares or let the wardrobe fix them," remarks Yseult.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:14 am (UTC)

"Ooh, do you have a magic wardrobe?"

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:15 am (UTC)

"I do! At the castle, anyway. Sometimes I travel and then I do not."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:15 am (UTC)

"So it is not a magic walking wardrobe with little magic wardrobe feet."

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:17 am (UTC)

"No," she laughs. "Although that is adorable and I might enchant one now."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:17 am (UTC)

"Awww!"

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:19 am (UTC)

She conjures an illusion of a little wardrobe with round stubby little wooden feet. It walks in circles around the table, edging one foot forward at a time and wobbling back and forth a little as it moves.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:19 am (UTC)

"Awwwwwwwww!"
Edited 2013-08-02 01:20 (UTC)

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:20 am (UTC)

Yseult laughs.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:21 am (UTC)

"That is adorable!" exclaims Helen. "I want one! I want to give one to Kas! He loves clothes and he travels a lot, it'd be perfect."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:22 am (UTC)

"It doesn't look like it goes all that fast though," giggles Soph.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:27 am (UTC)

"That's okay. It's the spirit of the thing. He'll understand."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:28 am (UTC)

"I've never actually met a Joker. None of 'em have been to Sunshine."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:29 am (UTC)

"I've only met the one," says Helen. "He's very - himself."

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:29 am (UTC)

"They all are," says Yseult.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:30 am (UTC)

"I only have hearsay to go on. Bella - my one - says that her and the other Bells who don't have them don't really see the appeal - wait, is that rude, those are your dads, should I not say that?"

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:31 am (UTC)

"I am all right with not everyone seeing the appeal of marrying my father," laughs Yseult.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:32 am (UTC)

"Yeah, same," says Helen.

fortissima
2013-08-02 01:32 am (UTC)

"My father is universally appealing," says Damaris. "...That came out wrong."
Edited 2013-08-02 01:33 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:33 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I have no idea what that was supposed to mean."

fortissima
2013-08-02 01:35 am (UTC)

"Everyone likes him! At home, I mean. Well, not literally everyone, but - he is very likeable and friendly and nice."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:35 am (UTC)

"All of those things are good qualities."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:37 am (UTC)

"Kas is like that too, but... maybe not as much," says Helen. "Not so that that's how I would describe him offhand, anyway."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:37 am (UTC)

"How would you describe him offhand, then?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:39 am (UTC)

"Sad," she says without really thinking about it.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:39 am (UTC)

"Aw."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:40 am (UTC)

She sighs.

"Yeah. Maybe it'll be better with my secret mom around."

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:41 am (UTC)

Yseult is closest; she scoots her chair over and gives Helen a hug.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:42 am (UTC)

"Maybe. Uh, lemme know if it would help for me or my Bella or whoever to talk to - 'secret mom'? Why is she secret?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:43 am (UTC)

"She fixed the afterlife and then disappeared," Helen explains. "There are a bunch of legends about her and stuff. And varyingly terrible movies. So Kas and Ranata decided that I should probably not grow up with everybody knowing I'm the Shade-Dreamer's daughter."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:43 am (UTC)

"Why is she called that? That doesn't make any sense as a title. Like, 'Slayer' might not be the best title but it's very comprehensible, Slayer slays stuff."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:44 am (UTC)

"I... don't really know? I mean, shades and dreams are both... components of what she did..."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:44 am (UTC)

"Alethia should fire its title-inventing department."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:45 am (UTC)

She giggles.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:48 am (UTC)

"Bella only has a very very small empire," says Soph, pinching her fingers together. "Just her demonic minions pretty much, and one village of refugee demons with three heads each that didn't have anywhere to go. I'm not sure if it's big enough to qualify her as an empress, let alone for me to get any spillover princessyness. So I don't have any titles at all."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:48 am (UTC)

"Refugee demons?"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:49 am (UTC)

"She's been talking to a lot of demons, and she found some demons that were being jerks to some other demons so she talked to the less jerky ones and set them up in a little village on Mercury, not too close to the palace."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:50 am (UTC)

"That sounds about right."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:51 am (UTC)

"And these demons are still kinda jerks so I don't go visit them and play Monopoly, but they can't actually do anything on Mercury because of the ground rules, which they agreed to as a condition for getting to live there away from the jerkier demons."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:52 am (UTC)

"I just realized you specified 'three heads each' and now I'm imagining a village of demons with three heads, like, shared communally," says Helen.

mindfields
2013-08-02 01:53 am (UTC)

Yseult giggles.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:54 am (UTC)

"I would actually not put it past Sunshine to contain a kind of demon that works like that? But no, three heads on every pair of shoulders in that village, except there is a blue one who lost her left head in an accident."

fortissima
2013-08-02 01:54 am (UTC)

"That sounds unpleasant. Is she okay?"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:55 am (UTC)

"I don't visit, but she's, you know, alive, so more okay than I would be if I lost my head? I think if she were desperately impaired by it Bella would have fixed her jerkiness or no jerkiness."

fortissima
2013-08-02 01:56 am (UTC)

"Sunshine is strange," she concludes.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:56 am (UTC)

"Yes. Sunshine is strange and full of demons who are many and varied."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:57 am (UTC)

"I am definitely getting that sense," says Helen.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:57 am (UTC)

"I heard you have, like, talking polar bears in your world though, we don't have those!"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 01:59 am (UTC)

"Armoured bears!" laughs Helen. "Yes. I've met a few, but not talked to them for very long. I think Kas was friends with one once, but she died and didn't come back."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 01:59 am (UTC)

"She didn't want to or nobody wanted her back or the harpies stopped her?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:00 am (UTC)

Helen shrugs.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:01 am (UTC)

"Are they basically like regular people who are bear shaped or are they strange?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:02 am (UTC)

"...I'm not sure," Helen says thoughtfully. "They are themselves. I don't think they're exactly like humans and they're certainly not very much like witches."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:03 am (UTC)

"For that matter how different are witches from humans?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:07 am (UTC)

"...Somewhat," she says. "Definitely somewhat."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:08 am (UTC)

"Okay, how are witches different from humans?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:08 am (UTC)

"We have magical powers and don't come with an expiry date," she says. "And then there's a bunch of cultural stuff."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:09 am (UTC)

"Like what kinda cultural stuff?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:12 am (UTC)

"Oh - no nudity taboo, wearing ripped-and-tied silk when we wear anything, clans and queens and fighting with bows and daggers and separating from our daemons when they settle so they can be as far from us as we want - I'm glad I did that, there's no way Kalavar could come in here. Too crowded."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:14 am (UTC)

"You don't do the tucking-away thing? Sherlock does it practically all the time, I've never even seen Steph."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:14 am (UTC)

"I only just found out about the tucking-away thing! From my secret mom!"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:15 am (UTC)

"Oh. Huh. Kas has to know about it, though, it was a thing before Jane passed out."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:18 am (UTC)

She shrugs.

"It would be convenient sometimes, but... it would be convenient sometimes if you could make your arms or legs disappear when you weren't using them, but you wouldn't go around suggesting it to everybody, would you?"

fortissima
2013-08-02 02:19 am (UTC)

"Or wings," says Damaris. "It would be convenient sometimes if I could make my wings vanish away. But I don't think I actually want the power."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:21 am (UTC)

"I can't actually think of a time when it'd be useful to be missing a leg, however painlessly and temporarily."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:22 am (UTC)

"Sitting on a bus with no leg room," says Helen. "No legs! Problem solved!"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:23 am (UTC)

"I don't know how to sit without legs, I think I'd topple over."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:24 am (UTC)

"There is that."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:26 am (UTC)

"I'd say being down an arm would solve that problem when somebody's arm is trapped and guaranteed to fall asleep during certain kinds of cuddling? Except then that arm doesn't get any cuddles if it's gone, not even squashy fall-asleep ones."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:27 am (UTC)

"Is that bad?"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:28 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Soph. "Arm-falling-asleep cuddles are better than no arm cuddles at all."

fortissima
2013-08-02 02:30 am (UTC)

"Good to know."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:30 am (UTC)

"I am full of useful knowledge!"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:31 am (UTC)

"You are!"

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:32 am (UTC)

"What else do you need to know?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:33 am (UTC)

"I dunno! Things," she says. "Things."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:34 am (UTC)

"Uuuum. How's gossip, is gossip a thing?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:34 am (UTC)

"Yes."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:35 am (UTC)

"Bella has picked a name for her tiger. She won't tell me what it is, but that means there definitely could be something that could happen that would make her go get one."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:35 am (UTC)

"What sort of a thing, I wonder," says Helen.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:36 am (UTC)

"I don't know. For a while she couldn't go to Alethia for it, but now she could and I don't think she has."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:37 am (UTC)

"It's already a little weird that some people don't have daemons, but I think it might be weirder to not have one and then go and get one," she says contemplatively.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:38 am (UTC)

"Why's that?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:39 am (UTC)

"I don't know! Maybe because it makes me think about the reverse, and - ick," she says.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:39 am (UTC)

"Sherlock did get rid of Steph for a while," says Soph. "...Should I not have said that, is that horrible to say?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:40 am (UTC)

"Slightly horrible."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:40 am (UTC)

"Well - he got her back!"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:41 am (UTC)

"That's good?" she says. "I guess? I'm torn between wanting to know why he did it in the first place and - not actually wanting to know that ever."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:42 am (UTC)

"Okay, well, let me know if you decide?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:42 am (UTC)

"Will do."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:46 am (UTC)

"I don't know the whole story but I have the general idea. Anyway. Hey, is it weird that you all have different numbers of little sisters but you know they'd line up? I don't even know what would happen if somebody else's version of Mom and Dad decided to have another kid, if it'd be a me, but if it would be a me I don't know how I'd feel about that."

mindfields
2013-08-02 02:48 am (UTC)

"I don't think it is very weird," says Yseult. "I don't think any of us had met Ariel when Maman and Papa had Hyacinthe, though. Perhaps it would be different if we had."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:49 am (UTC)

"Jane said Samaria was out six years so probably the littler cherubs are partygoing age now?"

fortissima
2013-08-02 02:49 am (UTC)

"I think so," says Damaris. "They know Things now."
Edited 2013-08-02 02:51 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:52 am (UTC)

"Is it offensive or anything to say cherubs, rosebuds, etcetera? That's just how Bella collectivizes you guys with the sisters."

fortissima
2013-08-02 02:58 am (UTC)

Damaris shrugs. "It's sort of cute," she says.

mindfields
2013-08-02 02:58 am (UTC)

"I don't mind," says Yseult.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 02:59 am (UTC)

"I am perfectly okay with being an etcetera," says Helen.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 02:59 am (UTC)

"Well, you don't need a collective word, you aren't a collective."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 03:01 am (UTC)

"Yep."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 03:02 am (UTC)

"I wonder what kind of collective you would be if you were one though."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 03:05 am (UTC)

She shrugs.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 03:06 am (UTC)

"Amariah's nickname doesn't really suggest anything the way 'Angela' and 'Rose' do," hums Soph thoughtfully.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 11:45 am (UTC)

"It's weird that they're all named after their Bell, anyway," says Helen. "Most people have multiple parents. Aren't Rose and Beast's kids really more like - rosecubs?"
Edited 2013-08-02 11:45 (UTC)

mindfields
2013-08-02 11:46 am (UTC)

"I think that is cute," Yseult declares.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Rosecubs! Awwwww. I dunno, does 'Kas' mean anything?"

telesonorous
2013-08-02 03:24 pm (UTC)

"A witch goddess," she says. "Kas Petaal. She's the only goddess with a male aspect."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 03:26 pm (UTC)

"...Demigod? I dunno, is the thing they call Amariah that the Alethia title department needs to be fired for also supposed to be a kind of god, because then you wouldn't be very demi-..."

telesonorous
2013-08-02 03:33 pm (UTC)

"I am okay with being a demigod," she decides. "And an etcetera. I don't think people have deified my secret mom; not explicitly, anyway. Maybe I'm a - something about myths? Because one of my parents is a legendary figure and the other one's named after a goddess? Well, Amariah is the name of a goddess too, but she didn't call her daemon Lytess or anything, it's not quite the same."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 03:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay, unless something else comes up you can be that," says Soph.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

fortissima
2013-08-02 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Mythlet?" says Damaris, doubtfully.

keyed_up
2013-08-02 03:37 pm (UTC)

"I dunno. Actually, ascending to godhood sounds like the sorta thing Bells are going to do in more than one world the more I think about it."

mindfields
2013-08-02 03:55 pm (UTC)

"But perhaps some of those will have better other themes available," says Yseult.

telesonorous
2013-08-02 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Back to being an etcetera," laughs Helen. "I think I like etcetera. I'm taking that one. It's mine."

keyed_up
2013-08-02 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay, etcetera," giggles Soph.

fortissima
2013-08-02 03:59 pm (UTC)

All the Dominiques laugh.

we feel misfortunes deep and keen

dark_light

Pensive cuddling goes on a long time.

Path nudges against Kas occasionally, almost like he's testing over and over to see if it hurts, but he never flinches, so it must not.

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:36 am (UTC)

Helen comes out of the basement.

dark_light
2013-08-03 02:36 am (UTC)

"Hi."

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:37 am (UTC)

"Hi," she says nervously.

dark_light
2013-08-03 02:38 am (UTC)

"How are you holding up?"

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:39 am (UTC)

"...Okay, I guess. How are you?"

dark_light
2013-08-03 02:39 am (UTC)

It's Path who answers. "Dealing. I want to see Kalavar."

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:41 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen. She pauses, then adds, "She's in the backyard now."

dark_light
2013-08-03 02:43 am (UTC)

Path nudges Kas one more time, then takes wing and goes out the window.

He lands in front of Kalavar.

He is much, much smaller than she is.

"Hello."

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:45 am (UTC)

"You're little," says Kalavar. "And puffy."
Edited 2013-08-03 02:45 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-08-03 02:46 am (UTC)

"You are enormous and extinct," says Path.

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:46 am (UTC)

Kalavar giggles.

dark_light
2013-08-03 02:47 am (UTC)

Path stretches out a wing and preens a little self-consciously. "My Isabella has never been especially good at getting to know new people. High stakes don't help. She's nervous."

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:50 am (UTC)

"Helen's nervous too," says Kalavar. "She wants to get along but she doesn't know how."

She hunkers down and sits on the ground, putting herself more on Path's level. Well. Her head is only about two or three feet above him now, instead of five or six.

dark_light
2013-08-03 02:53 am (UTC)

Path conjures up a little perch to put him at eye-level. "Talking to the other Dominiques didn't help?"

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:55 am (UTC)

"Well... it helped her feel less nervous then," says Kalavar. "But the other Dominiques don't really know how to get along with their mothers - they've never had to try. Talking to Soph helped a little more," she adds. "But it's not really very much the same thing."

dark_light
2013-08-03 02:56 am (UTC)

"If my Isabella could do what Juliet did, if that would make any sense here," Path says, "she would."

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:59 am (UTC)

"That's good," says Kalavar. "But - it wouldn't." She sighs. "I wonder if there's a similar thing that would make sense?"

dark_light
2013-08-03 03:00 am (UTC)

"She can pastwatch. But it takes a long time and it's not the same."

telesonorous
2013-08-03 03:05 am (UTC)

"It's not," Kalavar agrees. "It wouldn't be like her knowing us. I guess the only way to do that is to... get to know each other." She sighs gustily, her head dipping lower. "I wish we were twelve again so I could be a chinchilla and snuggle up to you."

dark_light
2013-08-03 03:06 am (UTC)

"If you wish it very much there's shapeshifting magic. I don't think any daemons who don't already shapeshift have tried it though."

telesonorous
2013-08-03 03:09 am (UTC)

"I can snuggle anyway," she says. "It's just - hard."

And she leans forward and turns her head and touches the side of her face against Path's fluffy feathers, keeping her enormous beak out of the way.

dark_light
2013-08-03 03:16 am (UTC)

Snuggle.

Inside, Isabella says, "I should probably tell my parents, at some point. Did they know I was going to come back? Did they know anything?"

telesonorous
2013-08-03 11:28 am (UTC)

"I don't think Inkeri told her prophecy to anyone but us," says Helen. "Granatee knows about Things now - minting and other worlds and stuff - but Charlie doesn't."

truthwright
2013-08-03 02:00 pm (UTC)

"I told 'em you were coming back. Didn't say when," says Kas.

telesonorous
2013-08-03 02:03 pm (UTC)

"Oh, and the queen," Helen adds. "Inkeri told the queen her prophecy. But it just said sixty-six years after you vanished, and nobody knew what day that was."

dark_light
2013-08-03 03:12 pm (UTC)

"But she'll know approximately, I suppose." Isabella sighs. "Why does Ranata know if Charlie doesn't - she see something?"

truthwright
2013-08-03 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Sue dropped in for two minutes."

dark_light
2013-08-04 12:07 am (UTC)

"And ran into her?"

truthwright
2013-08-04 12:09 am (UTC)

He nods.

dark_light
2013-08-04 02:29 am (UTC)

"Can you give me any idea what to expect when I go see them, how are they doing?"

truthwright
2013-08-04 02:35 am (UTC)

Kas shrugs.

telesonorous
2013-08-04 02:35 am (UTC)

Helen also shrugs.

truthwright
2013-08-04 02:36 am (UTC)

"Neither of us really knew them before you were gone," says Kas. "I don't know what might've changed."

dark_light
2013-08-04 02:37 am (UTC)

"Fair enough." She sighs. "I guess I'll - go find out."

She kisses Kas, briefly, lightly, and away she pops.

Pathalan, however, stays where he is.

truthwright
2013-08-04 02:42 am (UTC)

Petaal goes out to where Path and Kalavar are snuggling and flops down next to them as a tiger, nuzzling one of Kalavar's folded wings.

dark_light
2013-08-04 02:43 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Path.

truthwright
2013-08-04 02:45 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Petaal. She nuzzles him, too.

dark_light
2013-08-04 02:46 am (UTC)

And lo, Path was nuzzled. "I missed you," he sighs at her.

truthwright
2013-08-04 02:51 am (UTC)

"I missed you too," says Petaal. "I love you." Fuzzy nuzzles!

telesonorous
2013-08-04 02:52 am (UTC)

"Awwwwwwww," says Kalavar.

dark_light
2013-08-04 02:52 am (UTC)

"Love you too, sweetie."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:00 am (UTC)

"Aww!" says Kalavar.

truthwright
2013-08-04 03:00 am (UTC)

Petaal purrs.

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:10 am (UTC)

After a silence, in which neither other daemon comes up with a conversation topic, Path says, "There will probably be a Bellparty in a couple of weeks."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:12 am (UTC)

"Ooh, party," says Kalavar. "Where? Will I fit?"

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:15 am (UTC)

"The Belltower is big, and it can always be made bigger," says Path. "I'm usually tucked away regardless just because we're nervous about being in crowded places with me out, aura or no aura."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:17 am (UTC)

"Is it any better being tucked away than just being somewhere else and out?" she wonders.

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:21 am (UTC)

Path fluffles. "Like staying behind here? That would be fine, I suppose, we just wouldn't rather it. I like to be with her or doing something specific."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:22 am (UTC)

"I'm off on my own a lot," says Kalavar. "I like to fly."

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:23 am (UTC)

"Flying is lovely," agrees Path. "We've always liked it. Even when I had mixed feelings about being a bird I wanted to be able to fly."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:26 am (UTC)

"I like open sky," says Kalavar. "Nothing to bump into or knock over, just me and the wind."

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:28 am (UTC)

"I like flying through trees in the dark. The branches change the texture of the light."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:32 am (UTC)

Kalavar giggles softly.

"Yeah. That used to be fun. Harder to do now, though."

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:34 am (UTC)

Path tilts his head, a little. (A little for an owl. Owls can move their heads around very thoroughly.) "Sounds like you need bigger, wider-spaced trees."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:39 am (UTC)

"Maybe so," she says. "Know where I can find any?"

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:41 am (UTC)

"Well," says Path, "do you care if they grew that way all by themselves?"

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:42 am (UTC)

Kalavar laughs. "Not really."

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:43 am (UTC)

"Then you can find them anywhere you like," says Path serenely, "if they won't get in anyone's way there."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 12:03 pm (UTC)

She giggles and snuggles the side of her face against his feathers again.

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:53 pm (UTC)

"But there might already be some somewhere. Jane would be likeliest to know, when she's sorted herself out and caught up on everything that's happened."

telesonorous
2013-08-04 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Kalavar.

dark_light
2013-08-04 03:59 pm (UTC)

Well, there's a topic exhausted.

"Have you been checking on the angel tank?" Path asks Petaal, meaning her and Kas, either or both.

truthwright
2013-08-04 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Once in a while. Nothing much happened to it."

dark_light
2013-08-04 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Did you hear about the angel tank?" Path asks Kalavar.

telesonorous
2013-08-05 01:56 am (UTC)

"Huh?"

dark_light
2013-08-05 01:58 am (UTC)

"I'll take that as a no. There were some angels who were involved in the afterlife being how it used to be. Now they are in a tank my Isabella made so they can't make trouble. She'll have to check on it soon."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 01:59 am (UTC)

"Oh. Okay," says Kalavar, bobbing her head a little.

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:00 am (UTC)

"Not the same kind of angels you'll meet at the party. Another kind," Path clarifies.

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:04 am (UTC)

"That makes sense," she says.

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:05 am (UTC)

"It seems like only humans are about the same everywhere."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:12 am (UTC)

"I wonder why."

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:13 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure. And not exactly the same, anyway. This is the only place humans have daemons, and it's only one subworld in a sheaf at that."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:15 am (UTC)

"But they seem to be more the same," she says thoughtfully. "I hadn't noticed, but it's interesting."

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:15 am (UTC)

"It's almost as though species - and planet Earth, if not so much others - are templates like kinds of individual people are. And have more or less variation and commonality."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:18 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Kalavar. "Huh. There aren't any other planets that template like that, then?"

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:20 am (UTC)

"Well, Earths come with Marses and so on. And Jane finds the stars familiar world to world and can use them to figure when and where her vantage point is, and they're pretty similar in Rêverie, which is very Earth-like but has a variant history. But there's nothing we've found yet that is as similar to Chronicle's or Thilanushinyel's planets."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:21 am (UTC)

"Do Chronicle and Thilanushinyel have familiar stars, or no?"

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:22 am (UTC)

"No, they're different. Materia might be too, and Lake, Jane hasn't checked yet that I know of."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:28 am (UTC)

"It would be interesting to know," she says. "Does the light in different worlds feel different?"

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:29 am (UTC)

"A little. Not by very much, in the worlds we've been to. But we haven't been to Chronicle or Thilanushinyel at night, so they might be different."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:31 am (UTC)

"Moonlight on the moon is amazing," she says. "Have you ever been?"

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:32 am (UTC)

"My Isabella has. I wasn't there myself but she agreed with you."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:33 am (UTC)

"You should go sometime," she says. "It's even better when you turn invisible so you don't cast shadows."

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:34 am (UTC)

"That's a good idea," agrees Path.

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:34 am (UTC)

Kalavar giggles.

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:35 am (UTC)

"Stella has her palace on her moon. We haven't decided where to put ours, but we're thinking the new land of the dead, since it's cheap for us to modify things there."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 02:36 am (UTC)

"A palace on the moon would probably be distracting," says Kalavar.

truthwright
2013-08-05 02:36 am (UTC)

"No kidding," says Petaal.

dark_light
2013-08-05 02:37 am (UTC)

"Yes," agrees Path. "Not just the moonlight but the unobstructed stars, all day long. So probably either the land of the dead, or one of the poles."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 03:16 am (UTC)

"The land of the dead would be more... legendary," says Kalavar. "And harder for people to show up and bother you. Well, depending where you put it, I guess."

dark_light
2013-08-05 03:17 am (UTC)

"We think we are legendary enough already. More than enough," shudders Path. "That movie poster looked awful."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 03:20 am (UTC)

"There's lots more," says Kalavar. "Not very many of them are that bad, though."

dark_light
2013-08-05 03:20 am (UTC)

"You've seen them?"

telesonorous
2013-08-05 03:23 am (UTC)

"The posters, yeah. We skipped the movies."

dark_light
2013-08-05 03:26 am (UTC)

"We would not be happy about it if awful movies about us were a primary source of information about us for you."

telesonorous
2013-08-05 11:51 am (UTC)

"Awful movies aren't a good source of information about anything," says Kalavar.

dark_light
2013-08-05 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But we don't know what else there was to go by. We have never been legendary and extremely missing before."
Edited 2013-08-05 16:01 (UTC)

telesonorous
2013-08-05 04:05 pm (UTC)

"For a while we didn't even know the Shade-Dreamer and our secret mom were the same person," says Kalavar.

dark_light
2013-08-05 04:06 pm (UTC)

"When did you find out?"

telesonorous
2013-08-05 04:21 pm (UTC)

"After we saw the aquarium," she recalls. "Ranata was flying us to Charlie's house and we saw a billboard with Isabella's name on it."

dark_light
2013-08-05 04:22 pm (UTC)

"And you noticed the name matched and asked?" guesses Path. "Or Ranata just chose then to tell you?"

telesonorous
2013-08-05 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we noticed."

dark_light
2013-08-05 04:24 pm (UTC)

"What do you know about us? What did Ranata and Kas say?"

telesonorous
2013-08-05 04:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Kalavar. "Things. They talked about you sometimes. They missed you a lot."

dark_light
2013-08-05 04:26 pm (UTC)

Path's wings shush against his sides. "We knew time might be different. We didn't know it was going to be this different."

truthwright
2013-08-05 04:31 pm (UTC)

Petaal nuzzles him.

dark_light
2013-08-05 04:31 pm (UTC)

Nuzzles. "We missed you too, though," he murmurs.

telesonorous
2013-08-05 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Aww," says Kalavar.

found

mute_pen

Etty catalogues and indexes the library of magic.

Since she has not had luck finding Astgabels or anyone who can direct her to it by flying in slightly different directions each day and asking random people, she stops trying, and instead tries to come up with ways to rejigger the available divination spells into producing a compass direction for her to follow. Or maybe she can come up with some variant on the food-generation spell that would be practical for a long trip, and bring Nona with her, and then they could be gone for days looking farther afield than she can get in half a day's flight.

Eventually she finds a spell that is not exactly right, but might be close enough, and she shows it to Nona.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'll cast it," shrugs Nona.

Magic has been getting easier and easier the more she has been doing it. That didn't happen before she started casting spells for Etty; maybe what she used to do was not big enough to count.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 08:20 pm (UTC)

Etty kisses her and helps set up. The materials for this one aren't gross in and of themselves, it's just the procedure.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 08:41 pm (UTC)

Nona is, as usual, completely serene about what she has to do to cast these things.

And after she has done it, and then had a good wash, there can be snuggles! The broken-off head of a boar-spear that is going to serve as their compass will continue to point in the right direction until and unless they bury it for a month.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 08:46 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! Snuggles are good.

The next morning, Etty sets out, carefully, in the direction the spell indicated. She doesn't stop at mid-day; there's a river in this direction, so she will at minimum have water, and she thinks that if she flies straight she will be at Astgabels before sundown - even accounting for the Baron's greater flight speed - where she will meet people she knows who will feed her. Hopefully, her father.

She is back the evening of the next day, and when she transforms, she doesn't look happy.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Etty? What's wrong?"

mute_pen
2013-08-02 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Carl's dead."

growcrooked
2013-08-02 08:49 pm (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 08:50 pm (UTC)

Hugs. "Everyone else I knew is fine - they kept calling me Isabel, of course, which felt weird, but I wasn't about to explain - but Carl's gone."

growcrooked
2013-08-02 08:54 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Lots of hugs.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 08:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to - look through the library again - maybe if I understand it well enough - he had stuff on immortality, maybe I could figure out how to bring someone back."

growcrooked
2013-08-02 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nona. "I'll help. I'll cast whatever you want."

mute_pen
2013-08-02 08:58 pm (UTC)

Etty nods. And hugs her again, once, and then starts in the library's direction, and then changes her mind and spins around, she is not done, she kisses Nona fiercely before resuming course.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 08:59 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Also hugs.

"I love you," says Nona. "Good luck."

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

Etty reads a lot, the next few days. She breaks to eat with less regularity, her sleep cycle keeps skewing later and later, but often - when she can't go through any more notes, decipher any more handwriting - she finds her way into Nona's arms. And there, there are kisses.

Increasingly squirmy kisses with increasingly whimpery little noises behind them.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:04 pm (UTC)

Kisses. Kisses and snuggles and love and kisses and snuggles and happy sighing and kisses.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I love you," breathes Etty. "I love you so much."

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:07 pm (UTC)

The squirms get squirmier. The whimpers get whimperier.

Etty doesn't appear to have the vocabulary to say whatever she means under that "I love you", but she has the motor skills to squirm squirmily out of her dress.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:11 pm (UTC)

That... is definitely a thing that just happened.

Somewhat tentatively, Nona kisses her again.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:12 pm (UTC)

Kisses. Also, Etty appears to have nonlinguistic opinions about Nona's state of dress too.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:13 pm (UTC)

Nona is totally okay with that.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:14 pm (UTC)

Etty did not expect to meet any form of not-okayness.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:15 pm (UTC)

Etty is perceptive!

Nona is pleased.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:15 pm (UTC)

Good. Pleasedness is the general idea here.

A certain specialized sort of pleasedness.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:16 pm (UTC)

Ooh.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:19 pm (UTC)

Ooh?

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:20 pm (UTC)

Ooh.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:22 pm (UTC)

Etty is seeking a slightly more... complex... reaction.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:25 pm (UTC)

That can definitely be arranged.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:25 pm (UTC)

Oh good!

Etty gets to the arranging.
Edited 2013-08-02 21:26 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:27 pm (UTC)

Nona is extremely pleased.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:37 pm (UTC)

Pleasedness continues to be the idea.

This sort of pleasedness becomes a more frequent feature of Etty's breaks from research.

The research, meanwhile, progresses. Etty copies Baronly notes into more atomic, more easily legible parts, and strews the pages around the library, rearranging them, adding extra bits, connecting them with bits of string and paperweights, writing and rewriting.

She doesn't get to the point of coming up with anything to resurrect Carl, but eventually she thinks she has a form of immortality with much mitigated side effects. Two, actually, one for her, one for Nona: Etty's age will re-set every time she changes between swan and human, so as long as she does this regularly, she won't get any older. (Defenses against other mishap will have to be handled separately.) Nona's is more complicated, and she can't draw on captive swangirls or a reasonable facsimile as a sacrifice for the spell any more, so -

"I could probably think of something else, but you might think this one is fine - um -" And she shows Nona the spell summary, which will allow Nona's age to re-set if she skins one of her hands. "As long as it's a steel knife we can heal it after just fine."
Edited 2013-08-02 21:39 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:40 pm (UTC)

Nona giggles. And kisses her.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:40 pm (UTC)

Kisses!

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:43 pm (UTC)

"I think that sounds lovely," says Nona.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:44 pm (UTC)

"And I don't think it would ever kill you before the reset and the opportunity to heal you, which removing one of your ribs well might."

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:46 pm (UTC)

"You're so thoughtful," she says merrily.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I am."

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:47 pm (UTC)

Nona kisses her again.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:47 pm (UTC)

Kisses!

They have this whole castle to themselves, there is really no reason they have to go all the way up the stairs for. Things.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:48 pm (UTC)

Mm. Yes. Lovely things.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:52 pm (UTC)

Later, Etty puts the finishing touches on the spells, helps Nona set up to cast them - the maintenance for hers is gentle and easy but she didn't have as much incentive or ability to mitigate the casting - and turns into a swan to see if it worked. There's no visible difference when she changes back; she really is the age she resets to, but she can feel it work.
Edited 2013-08-02 21:54 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:56 pm (UTC)

Nona, of course, tests hers soon afterward.

And when she has healed her hand, there can be kisses! She feels like kisses.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 09:57 pm (UTC)

Kisses, yes, good.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 09:57 pm (UTC)

Yes very good indeed.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:07 pm (UTC)

Time goes by.

Etty continues working on her resurrection project.

She doesn't get much of anywhere, but there isn't a lot else to do. (She'd go around disseminating the immortality spell that doesn't require turning into a swan if she thought anybody in the world but Nona would eagerly skin their hand for the result in question, but she does not think so. She'd try offering the spell to call up meals to people who don't have enough, but she is somewhat concerned someone would attempt to burn her or Nona or both at the stake.)

She flies for fun. She has other fun with her girlfriend. She studies. She eats, she sleeps.

(Lots of that second thing.)

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:13 pm (UTC)

Nona does occasional magic, and eats, and sleeps, and has plenty of Other Fun.

It's lovely.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:14 pm (UTC)

One morning, in the midst of some Other Fun, there is a sound from downstairs - one of the heavy doors opening, and voices murmuring to each other.

Etty stops what she is doing and lifts her head to listen, puzzled.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm?" says Nona.

Then she hears it too.

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:18 pm (UTC)

The quiet voices are not speaking Diotalandish at all, but they both sound rather like Etty.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Etty," says Nona after a moment, "I think some yous have arrived."

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:21 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know they could come in, like that," says Etty. "Huh." It's faster to swan and back than to actually change into her dress; she does that, then kisses Nona apologetically and tiptoes to the staircase.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:23 pm (UTC)

Nona supposes she should also get dressed. She doesn't feel like it, though, so she just snuggles into her blankets.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Hello?" says Etty, when she gets down the stairs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-02 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, good, this is your place, I was worried when the teleport wouldn't go that I'd got the wrong world altogether," says one of the visitors.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:28 pm (UTC)

Nona gets curious.

Nona still does not feel like getting dressed.

Nona comes down the stairs.

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:30 pm (UTC)

The other visitor looks at her a moment longer than would be considered polite in most social circles, and then she averts her eyes. "Hello. I'm Glass, this is Shell Bell."

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I'm Etty." She looks at Glass, and at her naked girlfriend, and says, "Do you need her to put some clothes on...?"

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:31 pm (UTC)

"That would be great."

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-02 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Shell Bell, looking at the ceiling, "I have seen more naked people than I have wanted to over the last few days."

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:34 pm (UTC)

Nona shrugs.

"Okay," she says, and she turns around and goes back up the stairs.

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-02 10:36 pm (UTC)

"You guys met Celo, right? He's going around with magic censor bars on now."

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:37 pm (UTC)

"We did, yes - you met him? And Bella?"

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

"His Bella's going by Aether, now, since there are a lot of us and a lot of us are called Bella," says Glass. "You can keep 'Etty', no one has anything like it. We can go from world to world more or less whenever we want and there are a lot of us and we're here to collect you, since Aether told us about you."

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh! How do you do it? Is it more otherworldly magic?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-02 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly, but the thing it is instead is hard to explain if you're from a low-tech magicky world - is Nona going to get clothes or is she just not interested in talking to us if she has to wear clothes?"

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. Celo spent a lot of the time away and Bella - Aether? - was able to relay what he was saying, can you do that?"

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:44 pm (UTC)

[Sort of. Hi, Nona.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:44 pm (UTC)

[Hello!] says Nona. [This is interesting. What are you doing?]

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:46 pm (UTC)

[This is called the brainphone. We have a lot of magic and we're here to give it to Etty.]

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:46 pm (UTC)

[I hope it's nicer than the kind I have here.]

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:47 pm (UTC)

[Oh, much, the kind here is gross and you won't even be able to do it outside of your world - the ongoing effects will be stable but casting spells will only work here.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:47 pm (UTC)

[Strange,] says Nona. [Does that mean no more skinning my hand to stay young?]

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:48 pm (UTC)

[Well, you could do it recreationally or for other reasons, but it will not be necessary for staying young.]

arenaria
2013-08-02 10:48 pm (UTC)

(Shell Bell shudders.)

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:49 pm (UTC)

Nona cannot see Shell Bell shudder.

[Okay,] she says cheerfully. [What will I need to do instead?]

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:51 pm (UTC)

[Nothing in particular. We're going to wander off with Etty for a bit and hand her a lot of magic powers and she'll be able to do it when she comes back. You could join us if you wanted to put some clothes on.]

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-02 10:51 pm (UTC)

(Shell Bell gets ahold of herself and makes a Janepoint for Etty.)

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:54 pm (UTC)

[Will it be interesting if I join you? It doesn't sound that interesting,] she says.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:55 pm (UTC)

[What's that you just - made?] Etty wants to know.

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-02 10:56 pm (UTC)

[It's a Janepoint. It'll make sure that time doesn't travel more slowly or quickly here than the other worlds we have access to. Whether you'll think it's interesting or not I couldn't say, Nona. It does involve going to some places you haven't seen and you could learn about the magic Etty's getting, you'll probably want some of it yourself.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:57 pm (UTC)

[What kind of magic?]

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:58 pm (UTC)

[Two of them you'll probably wind up helping Etty with. They hurt.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 10:58 pm (UTC)

Nona giggles. [Ooh.]

mute_pen
2013-08-02 10:59 pm (UTC)

Etty laughs. [I love you. They hurt but they aren't gross?]

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 10:59 pm (UTC)

[Right. One makes magic directly out of pain, the other hurts as a side effect of doing the magic. Minting and enchanting.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:00 pm (UTC)

[But no drinking blood and peeing on things?]

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-02 11:00 pm (UTC)

[Ew! No.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:04 pm (UTC)

She giggles again.

And comes back down the stairs, now wearing a dress.

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 11:06 pm (UTC)

Now Glass can look at her comfortably. "Shall we?" she asks Etty.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Sure. How do we go? The door closed."

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-02 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I can get doors whenever I want," says Shell Bell, reaching for the door and opening it back up to Milliways, "but even if I couldn't, Jane can move people between any two places she can see - she's the complicated thing I mentioned - and she can see out of that Janepoint, or my gem, or Glass's, and soon you will have your own."

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:09 pm (UTC)

"How's she do that?" wonders Nona.

thaumobabble
2013-08-02 11:09 pm (UTC)

"We don't actually know how. It's not magic. She may have gotten it from her dad. Jane, say hi."

mind_game
2013-08-02 11:10 pm (UTC)

[Hi!]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Nona. "Do you have a magic dad?"

mind_game
2013-08-02 11:11 pm (UTC)

[My dad's a one of you. His name's Sue. He can't move other people, though, just himself. Some other ones of you have learned to do it too.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:11 pm (UTC)

[How many ones of me are there?]

mind_game
2013-08-02 11:13 pm (UTC)

[Thirteen, not counting you. And fifteen of Etty, not counting her.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:14 pm (UTC)

[I want to meet them,] Nona decides.

mind_game
2013-08-02 11:17 pm (UTC)

[You can. Some of them are busy right now, but not all of them are.]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:18 pm (UTC)

[Busy with what? Who can I meet?]

mind_game
2013-08-02 11:35 pm (UTC)

[Reunion after multi-year separations from their Bells, mostly. I can ask the others!]

And she asks the others.

pythbox
2013-08-02 11:38 pm (UTC)

Alice, Ghosty, Corona, Celo, Sue, Queenie, Brilliance, Beast, Micaiah, Jellybean, and the Joker would all be delighted to meet the new one!

mind_game
2013-08-02 11:39 pm (UTC)

[Eleven of them are free, though. How about you all just congregate in the Belltower, and Bells can walk Etty through new magic and you can meet those eleven?]

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Eleven," says Nona speculatively. "Wow. Sure!"

mind_game
2013-08-02 11:41 pm (UTC)

Jane picks up and puts down a lot of people over the ensuing several seconds. Here are a dozen Jokers and three Bells in the Belltower!

mute_pen
2013-08-02 11:41 pm (UTC)

Etty is set up with the Bellbook while Glass and Shell Bell sit on either side of her footnoting the contents.

growcrooked
2013-08-02 11:42 pm (UTC)

Nona grins at the assembled Jokers.

yourheartstrings
2013-08-02 11:43 pm (UTC)

"C'mere, you," says Ghosty.

And the Jokers, Nona included, all head up to one of the orgy chambers.

mute_pen
2013-08-02 11:44 pm (UTC)

Etty watches them go.

Then she goes back to the book.

She goes through her checklist, except for her aura (she wears her Janegem in an earring, with another Janeless one to match on the other side) and waits for Nona for aura-ing. She writes in the book.
Edited 2013-08-02 23:56 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:05 am (UTC)

Nona takes a little while!

But she does come back.

"Everyone's learning how to move between worlds!" she says. "I tried a few times but I didn't get it yet. Ghosty did, and Brilliance. Brilliance is pretty!"

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:05 am (UTC)

"Oh, is that what you were doing."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:07 am (UTC)

Nona giggles.

"It's one of the things," she says. "They gave me some magic, too!"

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:08 am (UTC)

"Do you want to go to Chronicle and get auras?"

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:09 am (UTC)

"Yes! And Corona says he'll come if he's figured out how to freecast by the time I want to do mine, and otherwise Ghosty will."

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:11 am (UTC)

"That's nice of them." (Etty has a perfect memory now and knows who these people are and which of her alts they work for.)

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 12:12 am (UTC)

"Will I be scandalized if I go up there and have a look? I'm curious if this is just a Joker thing or if anyone could theoretically learn it."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:14 am (UTC)

"If you knock on the door and ask nicely they might put clothes on."

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 12:15 am (UTC)

"Except Celo, presumably, but I can leave him censored. All right." Up she goes, only as far as the door. She knocks. [Guys, I want to see if freecasting is a template thing.]

pythbox
2013-08-03 12:18 am (UTC)

[Does that mean you want to come in?] says Corona.

[We're mostly decent in here,] says Jellybean, to a round of giggles from the rest. [Make that completely decent - Celo's under a blanket now.]

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 12:19 am (UTC)

[Thank you.]

In she comes. At Jokers she peers.

Eventually she says, "Can one of you go just across the room or something? Actually - Sue and any other one of you."

pythbox
2013-08-03 12:21 am (UTC)

Sue flickers across the room.

cardistry
2013-08-03 12:21 am (UTC)

Brilliance follows, scooping him into a hug.

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 12:35 am (UTC)

"Okay, interesting. I think Jokers can all pick it up but some of you will have an easier time than others - ones without any magic or practice splitting their attention and who've never dreamed to Milliways will have it hardest. It's related to dreaming Milliways; your template interacts strangely with being stuck in both cases. I don't think freecasting is exclusive only to you forever, but trying to pick it up probably is not worth the time investment for anyone else whose life's ambition isn't to be able to do it. It's not-technically-magic, in the sense that it doesn't show up to my witchsight, only to my metacauasality sight."

cardistry
2013-08-03 12:36 am (UTC)

"Interesting," says Brilliance, snuggling Sue.

pythbox
2013-08-03 12:39 am (UTC)

"Makes sense," says Celo. "Who's picked it up so far? Me - I've got my field. Sue's got a daemon. Brilliance is magic as fuck and has his disembodied pain thing going on. Ghosty's Ghosty. Harley's the odd one out, but he had all that thwarted fate going for him."

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 12:40 am (UTC)

"The thwarted fate was definitely working overtime. It saved up something very, very special for the only Joker with an adequate childhood."

pythbox
2013-08-03 12:40 am (UTC)

Celo laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 12:42 am (UTC)

"Anyway. So that's that." She goes back down the stairs.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:43 am (UTC)

"You'll tell us what our auras do once we have them, right?" Etty asks her.

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 12:43 am (UTC)

"Sure. Let's all go to Chronicle. Jane?"

mind_game
2013-08-03 12:43 am (UTC)

Pop!

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:44 am (UTC)

Nona is popped!

She hugs Etty when they arrive. Not for any particular reason. Just because hug.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:45 am (UTC)

Because hug is a fine reason. "Where do we go?"

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 12:45 am (UTC)

"Any free guest room is fine. Jarvis can tell you the way to one," says Glass.

poeticterms
2013-08-03 12:46 am (UTC)

Jarvis is happy to give directions!

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:47 am (UTC)

Etty is happy to follow them. And happy to flop onto the guest bed with Nona. "Ready?"

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:48 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Nona, snuggling up.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:49 am (UTC)

"Let me know if I should ease off or step up," says Etty, nuzzling the side of Nona's neck, and she commences pouring enchantment power into the forest.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:50 am (UTC)

"Mmm, that's nice," she says dreamily. "You could go more if you wanted."

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:51 am (UTC)

Etty goes more, accordingly.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:51 am (UTC)

Nona smiles and cuddles her. And wriggles a bit.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:53 am (UTC)

Channel-channel-channel. "Your mindscape's the orchard," she murmurs. "If you didn't already check."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:55 am (UTC)

"I like that orchard."

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:56 am (UTC)

"Mine's the lake."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:57 am (UTC)

"Do you like it?"

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:57 am (UTC)

"It's a perfectly nice lake. And it's only like the real one on the surface. The water's clearer and deeper in my head."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:58 am (UTC)

"That sounds pretty."

Snuggle.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 12:59 am (UTC)

Snuggle, snuggle. Channel, channel.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 12:59 am (UTC)

Snuggle. Extremely snuggle.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:00 am (UTC)

Time goes by.

The room gets colder.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:00 am (UTC)

Nona shivers and snuggles up closer.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:01 am (UTC)

This does not really help. Etty is herself rather chilly right now, and doesn't seem to notice.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:01 am (UTC)

"You're cold," Nona complains.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:02 am (UTC)

"I am? That's weird. I don't feel cold. To me anyway."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:03 am (UTC)

"You feel cold to me," she says, shivering.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:04 am (UTC)

"...If I have an aura of cold, is that going to be a problem?" Etty asks, pausing her channeling. "It's not supposed to be inconvenient, it shouldn't hurt you..."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:06 am (UTC)

"It doesn't hurt, it's just - not snuggly."

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:07 am (UTC)

"Maybe it'll - get - snugglier? I can withdraw it for now." The cold sucks away and the room is back to normal, and so is Etty.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:08 am (UTC)

"Much better," says Nona, hugging her. "I love you."

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:08 am (UTC)

"I love you too."

And she resumes channeling.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:09 am (UTC)

Mmmmm.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:10 am (UTC)

Eventually:

"That should be about it. I should go ask Glass to check me over."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:11 am (UTC)

"Is that exactly what you want to be doing right now?" says Nona. "It's not what I want to be doing right now."

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:12 am (UTC)

"Oh, is that so."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:12 am (UTC)

Nona grins.

And kisses her.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:13 am (UTC)

Kisses!

It is somewhat later when Etty makes it out of the room to find Glass and get checked out.

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 01:18 am (UTC)

Predictably enough, Glass diagnoses her with an aura of cold. "It's developed enough now that it should behave itself with people you're close to, though, and shouldn't actually harm anyone you don't want to hurt. I'm not sure what this other part does - I'm getting better at interpretations but still... It looks like a cross between Aurora and Kerron, so I guess it's something like detecting other people's intentions? Are you getting anything like that - let it out?"

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:19 am (UTC)

Etty lets her aura out. (Humidity crystallizes around her; frost gathers on her skin and snowflakes adorn her hair and eyelashes, and in the white feather dress she looks like some kind of ice-spirit.) "...Yeah. Kind of - I can't tell exactly what either of you want, but I can tell that you aren't set up to be in my way?"

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:20 am (UTC)

"I want to hug you," says Nona, and does.

The cold is not unsnuggly anymore!

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:21 am (UTC)

Hug!

(Pleasantly tickly frost collects on Nona as soon as she touches Etty.)

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:22 am (UTC)

Giggle-hug.

"...What happens if you put it away?" she wonders. "Or if I go away from you - will we still be all icy?"

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:23 am (UTC)

Etty withdraws her aura. The frost disappears in a burst of mist. She puts it back; frost draws itself back on both of them. She takes a step back. Nona's melts; Etty's stays.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:24 am (UTC)

"I'm all slushy," giggles Nona.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:26 am (UTC)

Etty laughs and touches her again; it refreezes, and she withdraws the aura, and it's gone - no slush.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:28 am (UTC)

Nona hugs her.

"I love you. My turn?"

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:29 am (UTC)

"Sure. I can't channel for you, though, do you want me to hang around anyway?"

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:30 am (UTC)

"Well, you probably won't want to hang around right where I am."

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:31 am (UTC)

"I mean, should I go home, or take further advantage of Glass's hospitality."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:32 am (UTC)

"You could stay! And then you'll see what my aura is when I get it. Jane, is Corona freecasting now?"

mind_game
2013-08-03 01:33 am (UTC)

[Hey Corona, Nona wants to know if you can freecast.]
Edited 2013-08-03 01:38 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-03 01:40 am (UTC)

[Sure can!] he says, and he pops into the room.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:42 am (UTC)

"Well. Um, have fun."

pythbox
2013-08-03 01:46 am (UTC)

"We will!"

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:47 am (UTC)

Giggling, Nona leads him back to that guest room.

pythbox
2013-08-03 01:48 am (UTC)

They are gone for half an hour or so.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:53 am (UTC)

And then they are back! Nona has her aura out.

It acts superficially similar to Kas and Petaal's, but with a difference - Kas and Petaal's aura is focused on being very inviting to people who they'd like to touch them, and then on discouraging people they wouldn't. Nona's aura is less welcoming - more of a 'why yes, you could snuggle me, if you want' than a 'come snuggle me! right now!'.

Etty could definitely snuggle her. Glass would also be allowed, if she liked.

And there's one more thing, although no one presently in the room is experiencing that aspect directly.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 01:55 am (UTC)

Etty decides to snuggle her. "Interesting."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:56 am (UTC)

Snuggles!

"Anything not obvious about it?" she asks Glass.

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 01:56 am (UTC)

"I think part of it is always on. Withdraw it and I'll see if I can figure out which," Glass says.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:57 am (UTC)

Nona withdraws.

thaumobabble
2013-08-03 01:58 am (UTC)

"Nobody is going to be able to touch you if you don't want to," she concludes, squinting at the remainder of the aura. "But advertising it and enforcing any distance beyond no-touching are only when it's out."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 01:58 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Nona. "I like it."

pythbox
2013-08-03 01:59 am (UTC)

Corona grins at her.

"Back to the Joker party for me," he says. "You coming?"

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:00 am (UTC)

"Maaaaaaaybe. - Oh, Etty, my coins are pretty, look!"

She produces a square.

It looks like it is filled with fresh blood; when she turns it over, the liquid moves with the motion of the coin.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 02:01 am (UTC)

"...Okay then."

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:02 am (UTC)

Nona giggles. "I love you," she says. "Jane, can you put me in the Belltower please?"

mind_game
2013-08-03 02:02 am (UTC)

Pop!

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:08 am (UTC)

She follows Corona back to where all the Jokers are teaching each other how to freecast.

Besides Corona, three others learned it while she was gone - Jellybean, Beast, and the Joker. Sue shares the sensations around; no two Jokers do it quite the same way, and there are departures in flavour going off in all different directions from just his and Harley's original independent discoveries.

Nona isn't next. That's Alice and Queenie, within a few minutes of each other. But she manages it a little while after that, and then it clicks for Micaiah, and there's nobody left here without it.

They celebrate.

And then Nona decides she would like to celebrate with Etty some, so she freecasts home - landing in the orchard, because it's the easiest place to get to. (She's learned how; that doesn't mean she's perfect at it yet.)

mute_pen
2013-08-03 02:11 am (UTC)

Etty is at home.

The orchard is the same and the lake is the same. The castle has been remodeled; it is no longer somber dark stone, but instead made of cheerfully diverse varieties of opal.

Etty is sitting with her father in the parlor.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:13 am (UTC)

"Oh! You found him!" she exclaims, and dashes in to hug Etty.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 02:14 am (UTC)

Hug.

"He was Downside, once Lake was added to it."

Carl shifts in his chair, peering at Nona and Etty out of the corner of his eye.
Edited 2013-08-03 02:14 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:17 am (UTC)

"Hello! I'm glad you're not dead anymore!" says Nona. She has her aura out; it says he is not allowed any closer than a foot or so.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 02:18 am (UTC)

He doesn't appear to have any desire to approach her. "Thank you. You're... Nona?"

"This is Nona," agrees Etty. "...I hope you understand."

Carl doesn't answer right away.

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:19 am (UTC)

Nona snuggles Etty.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 02:20 am (UTC)

[I'm not sure if you will like to be here for the rest of this conversation. He's not taking the thing about me only liking women as badly as I feared but not as well as - say - Glass's parents.]

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:21 am (UTC)

[Would it be bad if I was here?]

mute_pen
2013-08-03 02:21 am (UTC)

[It might hurt and it probably won't help.]

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:25 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

She vanishes.

mute_pen
2013-08-03 02:25 am (UTC)

Etty tries to apologize, but Nona has apparently left the world.

She continues talking gently to her father.
Edited 2013-08-03 02:26 (UTC)

growcrooked
2013-08-03 02:29 am (UTC)

Nona is back with the pile of Jokers. She snuggles them. They snuggle back.

It is nice. She likes being part of a deck. All these people - they understand. They are her and she is them, even though the details may vary.

And Queenie has the most comfortable lap in several universes.

i'm just as i was before

autokinetic

Aegis is puttering around in an anonymous patch of vacuum. Jane is eating up the news that has passed in their absence and feeding Aegis a steady stream of it by brainphone so she can catch up, while she waits for Sue to get back from teaching the other Jokers to freecast. (Or "teaching them to freecast", whatever.)

She still hasn't gotten any welcome-back kisses. Hugs, yes, but not kisses. Probably this is going to require a conversation.

pythbox
2013-08-04 01:51 am (UTC)

Hey, where are you? he says cheerfully. The deck's splitting, everybody's learned now except Kas and Aianon and they might be a while each.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 02:29 am (UTC)

Floating around noplace in particular with a nice view of some stars. Have you got a better place to be?

pythbox
2013-08-04 02:34 am (UTC)

Nope.

And there he is.

Snuggles!

autokinetic
2013-08-04 02:35 am (UTC)

Snuggles.

You thought any more about the age difference thing?

pythbox
2013-08-04 02:40 am (UTC)

A little, he says, hugging her some more. It's silly and shallow to care that you look fifteen; I'm not sure it's that silly and shallow to care that you are fifteen. You know? I grew up a lot while you were gone. You didn't. I still love you, but... I don't know. It's complicated.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 02:42 am (UTC)

When does it stop mattering?

pythbox
2013-08-04 02:44 am (UTC)

That's the tough part. A year? A few years? I don't know. I was fucking my way through the deck when I was sixteen, but I'm me. You're not.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 02:46 am (UTC)

I don't want to fuck the deck. I can do without fucking anybody for a while. I want to kiss you, though.

pythbox
2013-08-04 02:50 am (UTC)

...Maybe. I don't know.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 02:52 am (UTC)

There's no meaningful sense in which you'd be taking advantage of me. I don't really get it.

pythbox
2013-08-04 02:59 am (UTC)

Well, there's an obvious solution to that.

He pushes:

He kind of wants to kiss her, but - what wants to is mostly the memory of being sixteen; he has aged out of finding fifteen-year-old Aegis physically compelling the way he used to. He still loves her - he loves her a lot - but there's that distance there now, one-fifth of his life spent without her, a quarter of his life in the space between them. It matters. Maybe it would be better for both of them if it didn't, but it does. He loves her, but he needs... time. Time where she is around, growing up with him.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 03:08 am (UTC)

She doesn't sigh. She's floating in a vacuum, not breathing, weightless, floaty, clinging to her bird; she doesn't sigh.

She burrows her face into his shoulder.

Okay.
Edited 2013-08-04 03:14 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-04 03:16 am (UTC)

Sue loves her some more. It seems like the thing to do.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 03:18 am (UTC)

She loves him too.

There's an empty-achey-missingness to it - she barely had time to get used to wanting to kiss him before he grew right past her and now she has to wait and she's never been patient and it makes her feel small and patronized and frustrated - but he's still her bird. He's always been her bird.

pythbox
2013-08-04 03:21 am (UTC)

I'm sorry, he says, snuggling her. Snuggles and love. Lots of those things.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 03:22 am (UTC)

Snuggles and love and stars.

I'll be subjective-sixteen in less than a month.

pythbox
2013-08-04 03:25 am (UTC)

Yeah, he says. Maybe that'll change things some. I don't know. It's not exactly about the numbers, they're just - something to point to.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 03:27 am (UTC)

Yeah. Meanwhile, I guess if we're presenting me as dead and resurrected I have to look it, which, since there aren't any awake Peaceful dead people except the soldiers I fetched, means going on looking fifteen and smoothing out to mid-twenties if I torch, unless we fess up about magic too in which case I can look however I want.

pythbox
2013-08-04 03:34 am (UTC)

That's about the size of it.

Snuggle.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 03:35 am (UTC)

Speaking of torching, you ever find out who Little Doctored us?

pythbox
2013-08-04 03:37 am (UTC)

Yeah. I check up on them once in a while to see if they've cooked up anything similarly stupid - I should hand that off to Jane...

And off they go into the practicalities.

Sue has gotten very good at the practicalities.

autokinetic
2013-08-04 03:44 am (UTC)

Mmm. Practicalities. Delicious Bellish practicalities.

beside herself

she_sells_seashells

Shell Bell is currently explaining to her Director of Media that, yes, if she is gone, he is supposed to take orders from the duck, just like the Imperial Consort said. Neptune is nestling in Shell Bell's arms comfortably. The Director of Media is also now supposed to meet Jane and coordinate with his opposite numbers in Origin and Aurum about setting up an interworld generally-accessible internet with the use of ansibles.

pythbox
2013-08-05 04:50 pm (UTC)

Harley appears in the palace.

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-05 04:51 pm (UTC)

The Director of Media is startled! So is Shell Bell, but less so. "Hi, Harley. How are you doing?"

pythbox
2013-08-05 04:53 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Better," he says. "Ish."

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-05 04:54 pm (UTC)

"It looks like you can get around on your own now. Assuming you meant to wind up here." She shoos the Director of Media. "Go. Talk to Jane, she'll tell you what's going on." The Director of Media skedaddles.

pythbox
2013-08-05 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Harley. "I'm going everywhere. Just to see."

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-05 04:57 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell pets Neptune. "It's nice to be able to go wherever you want to be - I like my aura power, it sounds like freecasting might be even better. Is your wolf awake yet?"

pythbox
2013-08-05 04:58 pm (UTC)

Harley shakes his head.

"I'm still not sure," he says. "You know? It hasn't been that long. I'm getting better, but - not that confident yet."

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-05 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I trust my aura, basically, but I don't like being away from my Sherlock so I just leave Tune home when I go and she doesn't."

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:00 pm (UTC)

He tilts his head thoughtfully.

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-05 05:02 pm (UTC)

"You could do the same thing. Separating's not fun, though. If you don't have a trick to do it all at once like Cam or Aianon - or maybe even if you do - you should leave someone you love holding your daemon for you, it helps."

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," he says, and thinks about it a little more.

she_sells_seashells
2013-08-05 05:04 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell pets Neptune some more. "It time-syncs too."

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:06 pm (UTC)

He smiles a little.

And he freecasts back to Elsie.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Hello again. You seem to have the hang of this."

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Everybody keeps saying that," says Harley, with a wry smile. "I want a daemon."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:09 pm (UTC)

"All right. That just involves going to Alethia; you can go yourself or Jane could take you. If you want me to come along I need to spend a star; do you?"

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Shell Bell says when you separate it's good to have someone you love to snuggle your daemon. I think I'm gonna do it fast, like Sue. Don't know if I'll have to do it from there or not."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't know either. I'll come along if you'd rather it be me than Zeus."

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:18 pm (UTC)

"If he was going to do it he should be awake," says Harley. "But I don't want him awake until I've done it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:19 pm (UTC)

Elspeth nods. She pulls out a star. "Right now?"

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:19 pm (UTC)

Harley nods too.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Jane, please let Amariah know."

mind_game
2013-08-05 05:20 pm (UTC)

[She says you can pop in if you want.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:20 pm (UTC)

"All right." Elspeth spends the star. She taps her Janegem.

mind_game
2013-08-05 05:21 pm (UTC)

Here is Amariah's basement.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:23 pm (UTC)

Harley follows a moment later.

And beside him, there is a naked male half-vampire who looks almost exactly like him.

Harley grins and hugs his shiny new daemon. "Hi, Andrea."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:24 pm (UTC)

Andrea. Heh. "Hi," says Elspeth.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Andrea, and hugs her.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:26 pm (UTC)

Hugs. After a moment's pause in case there's a misjudgment and he needs to flinch away, but he doesn't. It's an interesting sort of feeling.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Andrea, snuggling up.

"Gonna try now," says Harley. He gives them both a hug, and - flickers out.

Andrea clings to Elspeth for a moment, then relaxes with a shudder.

When Harley reappears, Andrea pounces on him with a bone-cracking hug.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:29 pm (UTC)

Elspeth loves him. Them both. She sends so.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I love you too," says Harley, whose bones decline to stay cracked for long. Andrea shifts female-human.

Snugglepile!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:31 pm (UTC)

The snugglepile engulfs Elspeth. She lets it. Her star will keep her free of sun conure infestation for days at least.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:32 pm (UTC)

"We should go back now," Andrea says at last, after considerable snuggling.

"Yeah. And wake up Zeus," says Harley.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:33 pm (UTC)

"All right. Jane, if you wouldn't mind?" Since Elspeth cannot freecast.

Pop. Port.

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 05:34 pm (UTC)

Here is Zeus, asleep in Harley's bed, strangle-hugging Harley's pillow.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:38 pm (UTC)

Harley snuggles up to him.

Andrea turns into a leopard and sits next to the bed, curling her tail around her feet.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Ready?"

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:38 pm (UTC)

Herley nods.

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 05:40 pm (UTC)

Zeus's eyes open, and he draws a shuddering breath, and he abandons the pillow and seizes Harley in a superhumanly tight hug.

"Harley."

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:44 pm (UTC)

Harley hugs him back.

"I fixed it," he says. "I got a daemon."

"Hi," says Andrea.

"And now she can stay with you all the time," says Harley, "and I'll always know where to come back to."

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 05:45 pm (UTC)

Zeus has never encountered a daemon before. He looks quizzically at Andrea.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm his soul," Andrea says helpfully. "You should pet me."

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Zeus pets her.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:46 pm (UTC)

Andrea purrs and rubs her head against his hand.

Petting her is like - well - touching Harley's soul.

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 05:47 pm (UTC)

Zeus decides that he likes this confusing new development. He goes on petting Andrea.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-05 05:47 pm (UTC)

(Elspeth quietly teleports away.)

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I love you," Harley sighs, snuggling Zeus.

Andrea climbs up onto the bed and flops down between them. She is fuzzy and warm.

"We called me Andrea, by the way," she adds. "And I can shapeshift, all Joker daemons can, look!"

Suddenly she is, while still warm, rather less fuzzy. And more human-shaped.

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 05:50 pm (UTC)

She's still pettable. Zeus goes on petting her. "I love you," he says.

pythbox
2013-08-05 05:53 pm (UTC)

"We love you too," says Andrea.

Snuggles!

"And we don't have to do anything but sit here and cuddle," says Harley. "There's gonna be a Bellparty but that's not for ages. Oh, Jane's back, by the way, we're all hooked up again. And I met all the Jokers - well, almost all, Kas and Aianon were busy..."

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 05:54 pm (UTC)

"When is it?" wonders Zeus. "I dunno how long I was out this time, the princess knocked me out before you'd been gone more than a second."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:00 pm (UTC)

"2060," says Harley. "Not that I even remember what year it was when I came back the first time."

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure either," confesses Zeus, nuzzling Andrea and then Harley and then Andrea again and then Harley again. "I hope my parents aren't too broken up about things."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:03 pm (UTC)

"I hope so too," sighs Harley. Andrea hugs Zeus.

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:03 pm (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs. "You're not gonna vanish again, right?"

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:05 pm (UTC)

"I figured out the vanishing thing," he says. "It's something Jokers can do, we go places, I just started out not knowing how to control it, and now I can and if I go anywhere I know how to come back."

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:05 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hug. "Good."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:07 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hug.

"And last time when I vanished it was 'cause I was dreaming, but this time we know for sure I'm not."

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I do not understand the dreaming thing."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:10 pm (UTC)

"It's another Joker thing," Harley explains. "If we're trapped somewhere, we can go to Milliways in our dreams. Last time I got here, it was through Milliways and I was dreaming and didn't know. But this time, Elsie and some people came and rescued me."

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:12 pm (UTC)

"It is going to be so much easier for people who are born in like thirty years to exist in this multiverse when children's book publishers have caught up with this sorta thing." Nuzzle nuzzle huggle snuggle.

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:13 pm (UTC)

Harley and Andrea both giggle.

"I love you so much," says Harley, snuggling him.

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:13 pm (UTC)

"I love youuuuuu," sighs Zeus, "I am so glad you're home."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Harley, hugging him tight. "I missed you."

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I had very little time to do it in but I missed you anyway."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I know."

Snuggle.

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:17 pm (UTC)

All the snuggle.

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:17 pm (UTC)

So much snuggle! Every snuggle.

floofcoaster
2013-08-05 06:18 pm (UTC)

One hundred and four percent snuggle.

nonstranger

lifes_sake

Cam has his head in Jellybean's lap and is reading reports (levitated above his face with his little dollop of Wellspring magic), when his eye twitches like he's getting brainphoned. Then he chuckles softly.

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:38 pm (UTC)

"What?" says Jellybean, grinning down at him.

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Hang on, just a - okay. Tab's going to come over and we're going to have sex," he says. "I wasn't expecting that, but I probably would've if I'd gotten more of her history before coming back here."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:43 pm (UTC)

Jellybean giggles and pets Cam's hair. "That's cute," he says.

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Sometimes I wish Bells were guys more than one time in, apparently, sixteen, but I am pretty okay with being Tab's go-to here."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:47 pm (UTC)

He pets Cam's hair some more. "I sure wouldn't complain if another boy of you showed up."

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, you can't assume he'll be attracted to guys. Glass says me being bi and a guy are completely independent and Bells default straight regardless."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:48 pm (UTC)

"But he'd still be pretty," Jellybean says serenely.

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 06:49 pm (UTC)

"He would still be pretty, but you also can't assume he'll be cool with you admiring him very much, since Bells also don't default nearly as poly-friendly as me."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:51 pm (UTC)

"...Do all the girl Bells who aren't Amariah secretly resent me for thinking they're pretty, or are you just warning me off treating the next boy Bell like I treat you?"

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Thinking they're pretty, no, if there has been any gazing going on they're probably quietly resigned to it depending on the Bell, especially the ones without their own Jokers."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he snorts. "So why's Tab want to fuck you, anyway? Doesn't sound like she's another 'poly-friendly' one. You and Amariah tried each other out, but you didn't set up an appointment for it."

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 06:58 pm (UTC)

"She's been kind of isolated, doesn't want to keep her virginity in a little box to present to somebody boyfriend-shaped who might or might not materialize anytime soon, doesn't want to sleep with a stranger," shrugs Cam, "so, me, not-a-stranger by virtue of althood."

pythbox
2013-08-05 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense," says Jellybean. Pet pet.

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Yep." Mmm, petting.

pythbox
2013-08-05 07:01 pm (UTC)

Snuggly petting! Mm.

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 07:02 pm (UTC)

Snuggly petting. And report-reading. Because Tab will be here soon.

giftedandtalented
2013-08-05 07:02 pm (UTC)

And lo, here is Tab. "Hey, Cam. Hey, Jellybean."

pythbox
2013-08-05 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Jellybean cheerfully. He waves with his free hand.

lifes_sake
2013-08-05 07:04 pm (UTC)

Cam sets the report down, sits up away from Jellybean's lap and petting hand, ruffles Jellybean's hair, and offers a gentlemanly hand to Tab with an ungentlemanly raised eyebrow.

giftedandtalented
2013-08-05 07:05 pm (UTC)

Tab laughs, and takes his hand, and lets her guided teleporting do the work of finding where they're supposed to do this.

we harbor assorted family planning facilities

cross_and_bow

Bella teleports to where Sherlock is and flops down somewhat lapward. "Just checking," she says, "if I disappeared for several decades I would not come home to an unexpected alt of Carinna, right?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 12:52 am (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 12:53 am (UTC)

"I hope this is a silence of 'of course not, that is a completely left-field sort of question, what could possibly have inspired you to ask', because what has inspired me to ask is that apparently while Amariah was gone, Kas went slightly mad and had their firstborn child all by himself without waiting for her input. Said firstborn child is now thirteen."
Edited 2013-08-06 00:53 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:01 am (UTC)

"Leaving aside surmountable technical problems, I cannot think of a single earthly fucking reason why I would want to have children in your absence, and if I did, they certainly wouldn't be yours. What happened to Kas? Or is the answer just 'Jokers'?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:03 am (UTC)

"He didn't mean for her to be Amariah's, in all fairness, I think he was trying to have some unspecified variety of offspring and just got an Yseult-alt. As for what happened it's only what I said - she was gone a long time. Sixty-six years. Meanwhile Aegis's Joker handled her political campaign for her, so, you know, if you happen to spot Amariah looking murderously in Aegis's direction at the next Bellparty see if you can distract her."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:15 am (UTC)

"Noted. Will do. What did Aegis's Joker do with her political campaign, exactly? Get her elected in absentia? Impersonate her? That would've been a trick."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:17 am (UTC)

"No, he got elected himself, it was kind of time-sensitive, but behind the scenes they can work out whatever now one of them has the position," shrugs Bella, "and maybe they can wrangle a changeover at some point, I don't know enough about Peace politics to guess."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:21 am (UTC)

"And I suppose 'let him keep the bloody job if he's handled it this long' was never an option."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:22 am (UTC)

"Maybe it is," shrugs Bella, "like I said, I don't know about Peace politics. I somewhat doubt he wants it indefinitely though."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:24 am (UTC)

"Because that would be incongruous. I always lose track of how many levels of incongruity I am supposed to expect, with that lot."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:25 am (UTC)

"Six," says Bella decisively.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:25 am (UTC)

He snickers and hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:27 am (UTC)

Hugs!

"It feels mean to say it, but even if I wanted kids anytime soon I would be tempted to try to skip Carinna. Like, she seems sweet, but - fragile? And she grew up in Chronicle."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:30 am (UTC)

"Under no circumstances am I going to inflict Sunshine on a Carinna. I'd be hesitant to inflict myself on a Carinna."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:31 am (UTC)

"The other two seem more portable. How would you personally upset one, though?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:32 am (UTC)

"Has it escaped your notice that I don't have a soul?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:32 am (UTC)

"No. I noticed that. Would the bare fact of you not having a soul upset a Carinna, do you think? I wasn't modeling her like that."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:41 am (UTC)

"Quite possibly, but apart from that, it's not exactly a cosmetic fucking difference. In the hypothetical distant future where I am for some reason considering having a child at all, I'd just as soon aim for one who will laugh when I joke about getting them fresh demon heads for their birthday."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:42 am (UTC)

"Okay, I could see you doing that," concedes Bella. "A Kiawen would totally laugh, I'm not as sure about a Tanalin."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:43 am (UTC)

"I haven't heard as much about the other two; Carinna has the obviously relevant characteristic."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:46 am (UTC)

"I talked to Kiawen for a while. She seems to think that the entire multiverse is divided into hilarious wonderful things and things that will soon be fixed."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 01:46 am (UTC)

"Appropriate, I suppose, for the context."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 01:47 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:02 am (UTC)

"But not, unfortunately, true."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:04 am (UTC)

"Depends on your definitions of 'soon' and 'fixed'. Anyway, I last talked to any of the little beads when they were like seven, maybe in the intervening years Kiawen has begun wearing black and writing moody poetry, I don't know. We did stop in Chronicle while re-pealing everyone, but we were mostly picking up Wellspring magic and catching up with each other."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:05 am (UTC)

"Is this question relevant to any immediate concerns, love?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:08 am (UTC)

"Nah. Hey, speaking of Wellspring magic, apparently that is the mysterious way in which Wellspring is related to Sunshine worlds. Same kind of magic, except Sunshine has icky 'patterns' stuck to it. We might have a Matilda-type guest seeing if she can unglue them here at some point. My magic system switched from Sunshine, which my opacity wasn't letting me use, to Wellspring, which it will, when a Matilda floated me for long enough. I got better than Cam and not as good as Glass."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:12 am (UTC)

"Fascinating," he says. "Does Wellspring also have demons, or are those separate?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:12 am (UTC)

"Separate. Probably responsible for gluing on many of the icky patterns."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:13 am (UTC)

"I don't doubt it. Well, well, well."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:17 am (UTC)

"Glass also thinks that Bells are intensely susceptible to magic addiction wherever it's possible, so even though that's not something that should technically happen with Wellspring patterns in place of Sunny patterns, I went ahead and made a wish against it before doing any -" She crooks a finger in the direction of a rug's edge, rolling it up. "Of that."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:19 am (UTC)

He laughs and kisses her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:19 am (UTC)

Ooh, kisses.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:24 am (UTC)

Very kisses.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:24 am (UTC)

Oh, that's the best kind.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:34 am (UTC)

Naturally.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:40 am (UTC)

Subsequently:

"So there are sixteen of me now," Bella says, draped lazily across Sherlock's lap. "Three new. The next party's going to be ridiculous."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:41 am (UTC)

"Three new? Where do they all come from?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:48 am (UTC)

Bella counts off on her fingers. "There's Tab. She named her world Gift. We found her when we ran into Elspeth and Elspeth wanted to go rescue Harley; Gift is where he wound up when he uncontrollably Sueported to a random place, and there he was nonconsensually mind-controlled and more-consensually tortured and eventually spent five years torching repeatedly in the sun; when Elspeth pulled him out my aura had some work to do to keep his residual heat from incinerating the room. Tab's Libby has already taken over Earth and they get along surprisingly well considering the mind control thing, so Tab is going to colonize space with dead people."

She ticks off another finger. "There's Aether. She's the one the welcoming committee was originally trying to fetch, her world broke Jane. She's a psychic sorta thing they have in Materia, which is what she named her terrible anticausal world, and she was studying to be a therapist because that is what psychic Bells in terrible anticausal worlds do apparently. She has a Joker who goes around naked all the time for religious reasons and is also a garden; he now has censor bars. His name's Celo."

And a third finger. "And there is Etty, who is the peal's second lesbian, turns into a swan occasionally, had a nasty if not Shell Bell level time of it with her Joker's dad until he got dead, and has a grotesque magic system. Her Joker is girl-shaped, apparently from the beginning and not with the assistance of grotesque magic, and is called Nona."
Edited 2013-08-06 02:48 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:50 am (UTC)

"Turns into a swan, you say. Of all things. Have you ever considered the theory that the circumstances of the peal are one big cosmic joke?"
Edited 2013-08-06 02:50 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:52 am (UTC)

"Well, she was one of a long string of people who got turned into swan-people by Nona's dad," says Bella. "It's not like, aside from the name, we are otherwise swan-themed as a group. No recurring swan daemons or swan-related magic powers or whatever, some of us don't even have the surname. Etty can just turn into a swan."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:53 am (UTC)

"Right. But Etty can still turn into a bloody swan."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:54 am (UTC)

"And as a side effect of the spell the dress she appears wearing when she turns back into a human is made of white feathers. I don't know, we can ask Glass if it's related." She picks up her Janegem and flicks it on. "Hey, Jane, can you ask Glass if she got a look at Etty to see if the swan thing is related to the name attractor?"

mind_game
2013-08-06 02:56 am (UTC)

[Sure.] And a moment later, [She says they're separate and basically coincidental, the swan transformation thing is a completely different kind of attractor, similar to Beast turning into a cat-monster - Etty was supposed to turn into a swan and Beast was supposed to turn into a beast in about the same way.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:58 am (UTC)

"This does nothing to put a dent in my 'cosmic joke' theory," Sherlock observes.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 02:58 am (UTC)

"I'm hilaaaaarious."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 03:00 am (UTC)

"You are. You're fantastically entertaining."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 03:02 am (UTC)

"I am so pleased. Anyway, latest word on the horrible Janebreaking world that I heard is that Aether's aura will fix it within a limited area, so she can go home, with a Janegem, but not install a Janepoint."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 03:03 am (UTC)

"What exactly does that world break...?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 03:05 am (UTC)

"Causality. Science - not tech, science - doesn't behave there. If you look at the world's moving parts too hard, or you annoy something sufficiently epic, or it looks like you're cheating, or the universe feels like it, the reliability of induction bids you an impolite goodbye."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 02:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, that sounds irritating."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 04:57 pm (UTC)

"It kinda stunted Aether's growth, it's sad."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes, you mentioned a projected career as a therapist. Is that a terrible disappointment to the rest of you?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 05:49 pm (UTC)

"We're frankly impressed she made it to adulthood. And she may stay in school, on the grounds that the peal having access to a therapist could be useful."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Bloody right it would."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 05:54 pm (UTC)

"And since she's a Bell there aren't the problems with operational security - and way fewer problems around Bells being cagey - than there would be with anyone else we could procure. But she'll be a few years; she hasn't actually taken courses in therapy, only in being psychic."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh, perish the thought that anybell should have to complete a standard education in something. Can't she cheat?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:00 pm (UTC)

"She did cheat, but apparently being Materia-psychic is only weakly amenable to pentagoning. Certainly she'll go faster than standard now she has her speedup and recall and so on. Besides, Glass and Aegis and Amariah all completed locally standard educations for what they were trying to learn before they got the cheat codes. Rose too depending on what you mean by 'standard'. And I am still slightly enrolled in high school because Charlie doesn't want me to be one of those Sunnydale kids who just stops showing up one day, even if I'm ninety-five percent checked out whenever I show up."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 06:04 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:06 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to be the proud owner of a high school diploma. Aren't I impressive? Nobell else has one. Well, Aether does, if that's the same kinda thing, I don't know about her native education system."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Truly astonishing."

He kisses her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:16 pm (UTC)

Kisses! [I love you.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 06:17 pm (UTC)

[I love you too,] he says, snuggling her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:17 pm (UTC)

[Good. I feel all lovable.]

Snuggle snuggle.
Edited 2013-08-06 18:32 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 06:33 pm (UTC)

[You are extremely lovable.]

Also kissable and huggable.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:34 pm (UTC)

[I would not like to be otherwise, I'd probably get all existential about it, it'd be awful.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 06:36 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

[Lucky for everyone that I am here to love you, then.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:37 pm (UTC)

[Yes. You are my favorite.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 06:38 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:40 pm (UTC)

Snuggles, snuggles. [The world we got Tab from is super discomfiting. You remember about how Aurum had that problem with the vampire named Chelsea?]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 06:48 pm (UTC)

[Not in detail. Something about mind control?]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:50 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Chelsea was a witch and she could build up or destroy relationships. The government Golden deposed used her to keep a larger-than-normal people-eating coven together without falling apart, and keep their enemies divided, and collect useful witches, and control the wolves. There's one in Tab's world, and she's stronger and she has better range and the local copy of James used her to take over the world, and Tab, astonishingly, has not assassinated either of them. Her jurisdiction, but it weirds me out.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 06:51 pm (UTC)

[I am sure she has her reasons, although I confess I can't imagine what the hell they are.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 06:55 pm (UTC)

[The Gifts people have there are serious business, it's not just the Chelsea alt who's got major horror potential. I suppose turning everybody into a Care Bear might compete favorably with letting them run amok if people there are particularly prone to running amok. And Aelise - that's the James there - said Chelsa was retired.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 07:00 pm (UTC)

[I think I can see what would tempt a James to take over that world. I'm less sure about the Care Bear part. What does a 'retired' Chelsa look like?]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 07:01 pm (UTC)

[They didn't say exactly. I'm sure Tab will explain herself to everyone at the next Bellparty.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 07:04 pm (UTC)

[Now there is something I'd love to hear.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 07:06 pm (UTC)

[Tab herself is safe from Chelsa, of course, and she's got a level of opacity that's competitive with or even better than Golden even though Golden has both the vampire boost and the aura boost.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 07:09 pm (UTC)

[That was also a deciding factor, I'm sure.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 07:12 pm (UTC)

[In Chelsa not having gotten assassinated? I'm not sure, actually. We don't know what happens if a Chelsea-type actually gets at a Bell. Jokers are capable of intense mixed feelings, we know - Harley got got, the Gift Joker got got, I'm pretty sure neither of them acts in a way consistent with unambiguous Chelsa-adoration. But we haven't seen the case where a Bell has her feelings modified like that and I'm not sure what would happen.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 07:14 pm (UTC)

[I think it's safe to say we won't be experimenting.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 07:16 pm (UTC)

[Not deliberately, but now we know Chelsea's a template, and not every Bell has opacity.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 07:24 pm (UTC)

[There is that. Poor hypothetical Bell.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 07:24 pm (UTC)

[Very much so. At least Elspeth can deprogram half of it.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-06 07:27 pm (UTC)

[Which half?]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-06 07:38 pm (UTC)

[She can undo any positive Chelsea-based affections. She can't put back what was taken.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-07 12:34 pm (UTC)

[Oh, delightful,] he sighs, snuggling her. [We kill these people when we find them, yes?]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-07 03:54 pm (UTC)

[Golden killed hers. Tab explicitly told her not to kill the Gift one, on the grounds that she still has enough contact with the population for it to be a sharp shock.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-08 12:00 pm (UTC)

[Right. Never visiting Gift, then.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-08 04:05 pm (UTC)

[Tab is setting up on another planet that Chelsa doesn't know about, with the resurrected city of It Got Nuked This One Time Toronto, not that there's any reason you need to visit Gift.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 03:05 pm (UTC)

"The next galaxy over is not far enough for comfort."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Nuzzle. Idly, "Which part spooks you more?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 03:59 pm (UTC)

"The irreversible one."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 04:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah, but what if you factor out Elspeth."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Is there some purpose to this line of inquiry?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Idle curiosity. If I factor out Elspeth I'm way more freaked out by the part she can fix. You don't have to answer if you don't want."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 04:58 pm (UTC)

"If I factor out Elspeth they are much less comparable. In a very 'they both lose' sort of way."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 05:43 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

"...And, I should definitely check for templates in this world, I don't think I want to rely on finding them organically via metacausality anymore."

She sets about pastwatching for everyone she has heard of other Bells meeting. Starting with Chelseas.

"We don't have one of her, thank goodness."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that's a relief."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 05:45 pm (UTC)

Checking, checking...

pythbox
2013-08-09 05:53 pm (UTC)

When she checks for a Lazarus, one turns up who is an interesting new kind of demon: pebbled pine-green skin with iridescent black streaks in a vaguely spiky pattern, 'hair' made of thin iridescent black spines, short tidy iridescent black claws. Controlling for obvious species differences, his face is recognizably that of a Lazarus. He's even the same height, under that spiky crown of hair.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Got a Lazarus," she remarks. "He's a demon, I don't know the kind."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, let's see," says Sherlock. He looks. "Damned if I know. Doesn't seem to be on Earth, either. Perhaps we've discovered a whole new demon dimension. I wonder if he's a friendly sort?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 05:57 pm (UTC)

"It's hard to imagine an unfriendly Lazarus, but we only know the one of him, so who knows. Maybe having a tail wreaks awful psychological damage on the personality type."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 05:58 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Or maybe not having one is a calming influence. All a matter of perspective."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 05:59 pm (UTC)

"What do you suppose, should I say hi right now, invite Stella's one over to help make introductions, or just be generally aware that he exists and see if metacausality does cause us to intersect in some charmingly coincidental way?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:04 pm (UTC)

"The last one. Or tell Stella's that we found him an alt and see what he says about it. Perhaps he'll have a more interesting suggestion."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:04 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle. "Hey, Jane, can you tell Lazarus we found a demon of him here and could use his input?"

mind_game
2013-08-09 06:05 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

[Hey Lazarus, Juliet swept for templates and there's a demon of you on Sunshine and she wants input.]

nonbird
2013-08-09 06:07 pm (UTC)

[That... is interesting,] says Lazarus. [What kind of demon?]

mind_game
2013-08-09 06:07 pm (UTC)

[She didn't recognize the kind, but reportedly he's got a tail.]

nonbird
2013-08-09 06:08 pm (UTC)

[I've never considered getting a tail before. Is it a nice tail?]

mind_game
2013-08-09 06:09 pm (UTC)

[Didn't see him myself.]

nonbird
2013-08-09 06:12 pm (UTC)

[Well, I'm not sure what to do about him, exactly. If he's one of me, he might not like to have the entire multiverse situation dropped on his head all at once. Or he might get his first hint of something extraworldly going on and demand to know the rest. Or both.]

mind_game
2013-08-09 06:13 pm (UTC)

[The options being currently considered are Juliet saying hi, importing you to say hi for her, or doing nothing to see if metacausality presents him to her by coincidence.]

nonbird
2013-08-09 06:14 pm (UTC)

[The last one seems to have the most potential for interesting but probably not disastrous surprises.]

mind_game
2013-08-09 06:14 pm (UTC)

[Shall I pass that on as your recommendation?]

nonbird
2013-08-09 06:14 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

mind_game
2013-08-09 06:15 pm (UTC)

[Okay!]

And she does.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:15 pm (UTC)

"This will be an interesting observational experiment."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:16 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs and hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:17 pm (UTC)

Hugs! "No, seriously, this is the first time there has been preexisting knowledge of a template's presence followed by not showing up and telling the template All The Things. If metacausality does drop him on my doorstep that'll be interesting."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:19 pm (UTC)

"It will! I look forward to seeing what happens."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:20 pm (UTC)

"It is however super tempting to drop in on him and explain him things."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:20 pm (UTC)

"But that would spoil the fun, love."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:21 pm (UTC)

"It would spoil some fun and replace it with other fun. I will have to get my other fun someplace else, I suppose. If I become desperate to explain everything to someone I can always go surprise Renée. Or sit down a minion or three and present them with a slideshow."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:22 pm (UTC)

Sherlock giggles.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Minions are sometimes convenient."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:23 pm (UTC)

"So I see!"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:24 pm (UTC)

"If you ever want to borrow one, I can ask them how they feel about being loaned out."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:25 pm (UTC)

"I don't anticipate the need, but I suppose you never know."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Yep. I did not set out to acquire them in the first place, but they're handy regardless."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Indeed they are. And sort of cute too."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:27 pm (UTC)

"In an ugly way. Like those wrinkly dogs."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes, exactly."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:30 pm (UTC)

"It is pretty weird that they unanimously want to be minions, but it would be unkind of me to second-guess their lifestyle choices."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps there's some reason for it. Cultural or otherwise."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Presumably. I don't feel right about asking pointed questions as long as they're being miniony at me, and they don't volunteer the information when hinted. Maybe I should get Soph to ask them or something."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Or someone could spy on them. But perhaps you wouldn't feel right about that either."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Indeed not. Also I'd have to find them talking about it amongst themselves, and they might all consider it such common knowledge as to not be worth discussing."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, I could spy on them."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I am very curious what you might see or overhear that would lead you to a conclusion about why they like to be minions if they didn't actually talk about it, but not enough to authorize spying."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:35 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"All right."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:36 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle. "If someone does a template sweep and finds a Sherlock they weren't expecting what do you think the protocol should be?" she giggles.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Get all the Sherlocks together to talk about how to say hello. It might be a very short conversation, but it might not, depending."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes you guys just look at each other and pretend to be telepathic, it's half funny and half eerie."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:42 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"It is, isn't it? And so efficient."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Have there been any cases of inter-Sherlock misunderstanding with the Pretend Telepathy Technique?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 06:46 pm (UTC)

"None that I know of. I wouldn't expect any."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 06:48 pm (UTC)

"How does it even work, it must be fascinating - Bells get each other more than typical interacting persons do, I think, but we're doing, 'if I were a No Questions Elf with thus and such a traumatic past and a Joker-and-a-half and I was from that world, why would I say that', and I think you're just doing a more efficient version of the same thing you do all the time with everyone, not so much deploying special template knowledge of each other, right?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Oh, debatably. What makes it so efficient is that I know very accurately what another Sherlock is going to notice about me, and about our surroundings, so I don't have to waste time with unnecessary explanations. And if I observe them failing to pick up on something, I am very likely to know what it is and deduce all sorts of interesting things about them from there. It's the same thing we do with everyone, but the special template knowledge and the symmetry is what makes it so pretend-telepathic."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 07:15 pm (UTC)

"What kinds of things do you gather from another Sherlock failing to pick up on something?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh - Pearl and Steel have their respective shifted cultural contexts, and even if I hadn't guessed from how Steel dresses, I'd know from how they both react to how I dress in comparison to the other Sunshine-family Sherlocks. They can tell the difference, but their understanding isn't as fine-tuned as it would be if they were from the same time period. Pearl is picking it up a little faster, because Panem fashion is closer to our sort of Earth than Chronicle's is. Or for another example, it's screamingly obvious that Plus knows what it's like to lack a soul. The other Sherlocks are all guessing about the relevant bits of my internal architecture; he knows. Not that it's easy for most people to tell the difference. But every so often, he'll notice something before they do."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Huh. That's close in some ways to what Bells do and different in others. The peal all have a sense now of what things are Us Things and what things vary more or less freely, and the new ones get the gist pretty fast - so if I meet a Bell, I assume whatever she's wearing, less the crown if applicable, is either a completely unexceptional thing to wear, or overwhelmingly convenient for some reason, or something someone around her somehow induced her to wear. And the less to my taste it is, the more likely it is to be towards the end of the list of reasons than to the former. Etty's feather outfit and Aegis's uniform are convenient, all the jeans-and-T-shirt-crowd are unexceptional and so are Angela and Amariah with their leather and silk, I'm pretty sure Sarion's kind of elf is vaguely communist and she wears whatever some clothes-handling person gives her, if I see a Joker-having Bell in a pretty dress I assume her Joker made it for her. Or in Aurora's case that he is it for her. The mental architecture bits - vary less, although Shell Bell sometimes - sort of twitches. And we all know why, not because we've been there but because we don't twitch like that so it must be the different thing. If a new Bell does the same thing we'll know something awful happened to her."
Edited 2013-08-09 19:33 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Interesting. Yes, we don't have any particular special tricks for detecting trauma in foreign Sherlocks."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 09:35 pm (UTC)

She squeezes his hand. "Well, you're a stoic breed, I wouldn't expect you to do obvious twitching."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Not obvious to most people, you mean. We do notice each other's twitches, it's just that we each have a different palette of sensitivities and it's not always immediately clear which twitches are coming from where."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, non-transparent highly subtle twitching. Can you elaborate or would that be telling?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Not so much that it would be telling as that talking about the details of intra-Sherlock signals using existing vocabulary would be a bit like trying to describe the dance choreography of an alien species from scratch without having specific labels for any directions, limbs, or appendages. Except that I could probably give you a lesson in alien anatomy a lot faster than I could teach you the anatomy of Pearl's emotional expression."
Edited 2013-08-09 21:58 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Is Pearl a special case for some reason? I don't think I've ever talked to her when Shell Bell wasn't around and Shell Bell's an order of magnitude more comprehensible, just because we are both Bells, so she gets most of my attention."
Edited 2013-08-09 22:18 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I estimate that any expression of hers in the range from 'neutral' to 'murderous fury' will read as 'slightly bored' to an outsider. Most of us have some tendency to be excessively subtle, but hers is off the fucking charts even by comparison."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Probably helps Shell Bell that she can read her mind, I suppose."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But she exhibits some ability to tell regardless, which is also interesting."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 10:55 pm (UTC)

"How can you tell that she can tell? I mean, I guess she's probably got some giveaway when she reads Pearl, is that all you mean?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Pearl said so, love. We do use words once in a while."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Ah yes, I had forgotten in all this discussion of pseudotelepathy that words are not just a way of communicating with those of us who are not oddly-appendaged aliens."
Edited 2013-08-09 22:58 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 10:58 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Do you gossip about your respective Bells often?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Define 'gossip'."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:01 pm (UTC)

She elbows him gently, repositions the snuggle. "Do you talk about us. How good we are at reading you and so on."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:04 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snug.

"Now and then. Between other topics."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Good things, I hope."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:05 pm (UTC)

"True things."

He kisses her on the cheek.

"But mainly good ones, yes."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh, now I'm imagining you whispering about my defects to your alts."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Surreptitiously spreading around critiques of your pre-training autopilot."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:19 pm (UTC)

Bella thoughtfully considers her pre-training autopilot. "It was pretty wretched," she concedes with a light sigh, and then she grins. "But then you fixed it. I can prove it if you like."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Oh, please do."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:29 pm (UTC)

She unpeels herself from cuddling, unhurried, and drops into stance.

"Surprise me," she says in familiar old tones.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:29 pm (UTC)

Sherlock endeavours to surprise her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:32 pm (UTC)

She's surprised, but not productively.

He taught her well, and she wasn't a slouch to start.

She's not even cheating significantly - no extra speed in mind or body beyond what Slayerhood gave her, and the wards are immaterial since he never aimed to really hurt her anyway.

And eventually she has him pinned to the wall.

"Why hello there."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:34 pm (UTC)

He grins brilliantly.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:34 pm (UTC)

Bella's eyes glow with bright flame, and more of it trickles down her hair, burning nothing but crackling softly anyway. Her aura whispers, I'm dangerous, I just proved it, but you, you I like, I think I'll keep you.

And she kisses him.
Edited 2013-08-09 23:36 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:38 pm (UTC)

Yes. This was an excellent plan.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:39 pm (UTC)

It really was, wasn't it? Kisses kisses. Eventually she's not so much pinning him to the wall as she is plastered to him with the wall incidentally involved as a prop.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:41 pm (UTC)

At which point he might as well scoop her up and carry her to the nearest couch.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:42 pm (UTC)

A fine plan. Couches also make suitable props.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:45 pm (UTC)

They do!

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:46 pm (UTC)

And Sherlock is suitable for kissing. Bella was already pretty sure about this but it cannot hurt to check.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:47 pm (UTC)

Extremely suitable.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:48 pm (UTC)

Oh good. She would be surprised, and not happily, if that changed.

All of the kisses. Bright harmless flickers of fire, creeping away from her to tickle over him. Purring aura of menace. Good things.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:49 pm (UTC)

Yes. Those.

And, eventually, fewer of those things and more snuggles. Which are also good.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:50 pm (UTC)

Snuggles are also, certainly, good. Sherlock is also, certainly, suitable as a pillow.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:52 pm (UTC)

He is! He is adequately insulating and exceptionally cuddly.

There is a brief golden sparkle from behind the couch, then a more persistent red glow.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:54 pm (UTC)

Bella lifts her head slightly.

She looks at Steph's glow, the visible fading edge of it.

She then stops looking at it and puts her head back down.
Edited 2013-08-09 23:56 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-09 11:57 pm (UTC)

Sherlock snuggles her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-09 11:58 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

Bella puts intruding snuggle-unrelated thoughts away for later. Snuggles are good.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:03 am (UTC)

Snuggles are good.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:04 am (UTC)

Bella's aura is all tucked away. Her eyes are not glowing; the only glowing thing about is Steph.

"Tempted to fall asleep on you," Bella murmurs.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:04 am (UTC)

"Be my guest, dear Juliet."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:07 am (UTC)

"'Kay."

And she curls up on him and pillows her head on his chest, and falls asleep, and commences uttering random words.

"Lightbulb. Cloud four. Vitamin."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:08 am (UTC)

Well, that's adorable.

Sherlock closes his eyes and tucks his arms around her and listens.
Edited 2013-08-10 00:08 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:09 am (UTC)

It goes on being adorable. "Sprinkles. Cran-apple. Rug."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:10 am (UTC)

These things would not combine into a pleasant beverage!

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:11 am (UTC)

They would not!

"Goosedown Olympic vole. Percentage."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:14 am (UTC)

An Olympic vole would surely be interesting. He isn't sure how the goosedown plays into it. Perhaps the vole is a swimmer and needs to be dried off and snuggled back to comfortable warmth after a race.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:16 am (UTC)

"Yodel sprite. Being. Goat."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:16 am (UTC)

He giggles softly.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:17 am (UTC)

"Spandrel. Once upon a time."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:28 am (UTC)

A complete phrase. How unusual.

Steph hops up onto the back of the couch.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:29 am (UTC)

"Yawn, jingle, aircraft carrier."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:31 am (UTC)

Steph walks along the back of the couch, climbs down onto the armrest, and curls up next to Sherlock's head.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:32 am (UTC)

"Stepladder," mumbles Bella. "Peanut. Perseid."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:33 am (UTC)

Also an intriguing combination.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:33 am (UTC)

"Bewilderment sandwich. Helicopter hatchling."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:35 am (UTC)

The one could certainly lead to the other.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:36 am (UTC)

"Spraaaaaaawl. Page. Weedwhacker."

She is starting some other word that begins with M when she shifts and yawns and opens her eyes, then squints against the Stephglow. "Oh, hi," she murmurs.
Edited 2013-08-10 00:44 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:55 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Steph.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:55 am (UTC)

"How are you doing?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 12:56 am (UTC)

"Not bad."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 12:58 am (UTC)

"That's good. Well, it's not bad, at least." Bella closes her eyes and chooses a pastwatching viewpoint from a moment ago above herself and Sherlock and Steph so she knows where it's safe to move, where she won't touch the glowing genet; and then she repositions.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-10 01:01 am (UTC)

Sherlock snuggles her. Steph continues to exist.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-10 01:02 am (UTC)

Snuggles. Existence. Both are good things. Bella mentally picks up her attempt to decipher the coy, oblique style of the author of the most recent demonology text she read.

we can live wherever we find ourselves

dark_light

Isabella takes awhile catching up with her parents, and the queen.

She is back at the house late that night, not tired but a little ragged. Path alights on her shoulder when she reappears.

She inspects her house.

"I'm going to keep this place, since people sometimes use it as a landing pad to get daemons, and sometimes I want to be able to receive visitors from within the world," she decides, "and a castle in the afterlife won't do that, but I'm going to go build a castle in the afterlife, who wants to see it?"

telesonorous
2013-08-07 12:34 pm (UTC)

"I do!" says Helen.

dark_light
2013-08-07 03:59 pm (UTC)

"All right then."

Pop. They're in midair for a split second, but then Isabella summons the ground up into a hill, and then they are standing on it, overlooking the gates that go into the worlds from the land of the dead. "Have you seen this place at all before?"

telesonorous
2013-08-08 12:00 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

dark_light
2013-08-08 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Well, this is it. I was going to add more geographical variety, but I hadn't gotten around to it, before..." She shakes her head. "Whatever, I can do it now. Starting with a castle. Any suggestions?"

telesonorous
2013-08-09 03:19 pm (UTC)

"Well, what kind of castle do you want?" she says consideringly. "I hear enchanted ones are convenient. If the walls and floors and so on keep themselves clean, then you can make them out of much more interesting things than if they don't. And there should be a stand of cloud-pine, because who wouldn't want their own stand of cloud-pine?"

dark_light
2013-08-09 04:02 pm (UTC)

"I can make it behave in all kinds of ways, here, without specifically enchanting it, albeit not with quite the same degree of autonomy as a proper enchantment," muses Isabella. "Interesting flooring like - what are you thinking, here?"

telesonorous
2013-08-10 01:12 am (UTC)

"Oh... marble," she suggests. "Or bare wood."

dark_light
2013-08-10 01:16 am (UTC)

"Wood's nice, marble's more palatial... maybe I'll make it mostly out of live wood and tile the bottom floor with marble."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 01:19 am (UTC)

"Good idea," says Helen, grinning. "What kind of shape will it be? More round, or more rectangular? Round is more interesting, but harder to fit a bunch of rooms on the same floor. You could still do it, though..."

dark_light
2013-08-10 01:21 am (UTC)

"Maybe an ellipse. Rectangles in the middle, half-circle rooms on each end with nice curvy windows."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 02:34 am (UTC)

"Hmm," says Helen. "I'm imagining that and it just looks like a big pill from the outside. How about something more like this?"

She conjures an illusion: an octagonal courtyard enclosed by a thick wall, with circular towers at the corners and a much larger circular tower in the middle. Four of the outer towers have outward-facing doors, and all eight have doors facing into the courtyard; the main tower has one big door facing north, in line with the north outer door. Everything is made of wood; the octagonal wall linking the outer towers also has spiky glittering ice running along the top.

dark_light
2013-08-10 02:37 am (UTC)

"Fortressy," comments Isabella. "Meshes oddly with the wood structure; I expect things shaped like that to be made of blocks. Might go with marble like your first suggestion."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 02:39 am (UTC)

Helen changes the entire outer structure in the illusion to black-and-white marble, but keeps the icy spikes and lets the inner tower stay wood.

"Better?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 02:41 am (UTC)

"Are you attached to wood for a particular reason?"

telesonorous
2013-08-10 02:45 am (UTC)

"I like the way it looks," she shrugs. "Like the tower is a giant tree." Whimsically, she replaces the tower with an actual giant tree of roughly the same size, a nonspecific conifer, spreading enormous branches over the top of the outer wall and between the outer towers. It looks surprisingly good all together, although the door at the bottom is now a little incongruous.

dark_light
2013-08-10 02:47 am (UTC)

"Sarion's kind of elf has these..." Amariah tweaks the illusion to ensubtle the door. "Very sneaky houses. They're cool." And she tweaks the tree into a specific conifer; it's a giant cloudpine now.

telesonorous
2013-08-10 02:48 am (UTC)

"Very nice," admires Helen. "Do you know what you want the inside to look like?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 02:51 am (UTC)

Amariah adds windows - glass in the marble parts, cutouts leaving webs of wood in the outer trunk of the tree and dappling the inside with light - and reveals furniture and interior decoration. "I've had a while to think about eventually having a castle."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 02:52 am (UTC)

"I guess so," says Helen. "That's pretty."

dark_light
2013-08-10 02:55 am (UTC)

"Thanks." Amariah makes a few adjustments - she didn't, after all, have the layout picked out before now. She fills in the illusion courtyard with plants and bejeweled-mosaic paths. She nudges the arrangement of the cloudpine branches, and hmms, and then she taps into her custom plane and there they are, on the ground floor of the tree-tower.

telesonorous
2013-08-10 02:57 am (UTC)

Helen proceeds to the middle of the tower, stands in the open central column, and looks up at the spiral stair winding around and around and around all the way to the top.

"Awesome," she says.

dark_light
2013-08-10 02:57 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Amariah, taking a little bow.

telesonorous
2013-08-10 02:58 am (UTC)

Helen grins at her.

dark_light
2013-08-10 02:59 am (UTC)

There's a Janepoint here, and Amariah has sped up the castle environs to match outside time in contrast to the rest of her afterlife plane. She makes an ansible; Jane takes half and the other half plugs in. "And now arbitrary people can visit me without having to spend stars to ward off their potential daemons."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 03:03 am (UTC)

"That'll be handy," says Helen.

dark_light
2013-08-10 03:03 am (UTC)

"Quite. Especially since the star only lasts about a week, did you hear that story?"

telesonorous
2013-08-10 03:07 am (UTC)

"I didn't!" she says. "What happened?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 03:10 am (UTC)

"Minus - Juliet's Sherlock, from Sunshine - came over for a visit, and while he was here Jane went down for the first time. After he'd been here about a week he woke up in the middle of the night with a genet. She went by Subtrahend, till I told him what the canonical Sherlock Holmes's daemon was called - didn't like Stephirashal entire but she took Steph. They weren't thrilled, though, either one."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 03:15 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 03:16 am (UTC)

"Well, she wasn't on purpose, and Sherlocks have some mixed feelings about existing, so existing more was an unpleasant surprise."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 03:16 am (UTC)

"Oh. Poor Minus. Are they okay now?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I don't have up-to-date information," confesses Isabella. "All kinds of things could've changed since I last saw him, I don't even know how long it was in Sunshine."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Well - I met Soph, and she said somebody from her world got rid of their daemon and then got her back later. But I didn't ask her any questions about it. I'm pretty sure it was the same person, though."

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:39 pm (UTC)

"That would be him, yes, nobody else from Sunshine ever had one in the first place." Isabella shudders slightly.

telesonorous
2013-08-10 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. People with no daemons are only slightly unsettling, but - " She shakes her head.

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:43 pm (UTC)

"It took me some getting used to. The first time I walked into Milliways I called everyone a zombie, for a while."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I hardly notice most of the time, and then something reminds me and it's weird all over again. But I'm getting used to it."

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Steph didn't like it that it made me more comfortable around Sherlock when she existed."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 04:51 pm (UTC)

"...I don't get it," says Helen. "Why?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:52 pm (UTC)

"It was a reason to continue existing, with which she had issues."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 04:53 pm (UTC)

Helen thinks about this.

"Steph is confusing," she concludes.

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Very confusing, yes. If she's stopped and then started again that's promising."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 04:55 pm (UTC)

"I guess. But she still - stoppped." Helen shivers.

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:56 pm (UTC)

Isabella nods. "I suppose it must have seemed like a reasonable option to them at the time."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I can't see how."

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:56 pm (UTC)

"No, me either, but we're the odd ones out, no one else has daemons as a fact of life."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," she sighs. "It's so - peculiar."

dark_light
2013-08-10 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Very much so. Some of my alts and some of your dad's have acquired daemons but I don't think they think of them in quite the same way as Alethia natives with them do."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 05:03 pm (UTC)

"What other way is there?"
Edited 2013-08-10 17:03 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-08-10 05:05 pm (UTC)

"It's hard to characterize. Most of what makes me think this is that they're a lot more cavalier about tucking them away. I don't remember Kas ever doing it with Petaal at all, and I only do it when it's crowded or something. Also, Cam's daemon is also his magical notebook, so there's that."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 05:07 pm (UTC)

"The magical notebook thing is definitely peculiar," says Helen. "And I'd kind of have to be cavalier about tucking Kal away if we weren't separated, especially if I lived somewhere that people mostly didn't know about daemons, but I guess I'm a special case."

dark_light
2013-08-10 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'd expect the same thing if Juliet got a daemon; a lot of big-cat daemons here are kind of shrunk to travel size but hers was anything but when she got an illusion. But Shell Bell has a smew, and yet." She shrugs.

telesonorous
2013-08-10 05:09 pm (UTC)

"What's a smew?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 05:11 pm (UTC)

"It's a kinda duck." Isabella produces an illusion of Neptune.

telesonorous
2013-08-10 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, he's pretty," says Helen. "Soph said that Juliet picked a name for her tiger and that means she might maybe hypothetically get one, but she doesn't know why she hasn't yet or what might get her to."

dark_light
2013-08-10 05:12 pm (UTC)

"I have a guess," says Isabella after a moment.

telesonorous
2013-08-10 05:14 pm (UTC)

"What is it? Unless it's private. Then forget I asked."

dark_light
2013-08-10 05:14 pm (UTC)

"If I'm right you probably shouldn't tell Juliet's Sherlock, but I don't think she'd care if you knew."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I won't tell," she says.

dark_light
2013-08-10 05:21 pm (UTC)

"She doesn't have one, so acquiring one would be about what she could do with him that she couldn't otherwise; he looks terrifying but she doesn't live in a place where that gives her any advantage in, say, a fight - which is particularly relevant to Juliet - because there aren't any other daemons for him to engage with and anyone else she meets at home won't know that they mustn't touch him, or if they found out they'd have an entirely incorrect reaction to the information. She has no strong incentive to separate, so she doesn't expect to be able to send him on errands without inconvenience and unpleasantness she could more easily skip. The only thing she could do with a daemon that she can't without is send him to snuggle up to her Sherlock. I think she's waiting to see if Steph will touch her."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Helen. "That does make sense."

dark_light
2013-08-10 05:39 pm (UTC)

"After a fashion, yes, but I suspect Sherlock would feel pressured if he figured it out. If he hasn't already."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe he doesn't know about the name. Or maybe he's trying not to," she says hopefully. "Because aren't they supposed to be really good at figuring things out?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Sherlocks are extremely good at figuring things out, yes."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Goes with the name," says Helen. "Which is also peculiar."

dark_light
2013-08-10 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, they're a weird case. Some of them actively model themselves after the book character - well, the version found in their worlds' literature, without a Stephirashal attached - but some of them just sort of happen."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Other worlds are funny that way. - Wow, and of course their books wouldn't have daemons in them either, I hadn't even thought of that."

dark_light
2013-08-10 06:33 pm (UTC)

"I imagine it must make casting actors for television shows and so on a lot easier."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 06:37 pm (UTC)

"No kidding," she laughs.

dark_light
2013-08-10 06:38 pm (UTC)

"But I haven't watched any offworld TV, so I don't know how much it matches or fails to match. I'm more than half a century behind on media from this world."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 06:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't watch a lot of movies, so I can't recommend anything," says Helen. "Are you going to start going after the people who make bad movies about you?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 06:45 pm (UTC)

"For what value of 'going after'? I'm not going to hurt them or anything. They might get made fun of at a press conference or something."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 06:50 pm (UTC)

"I was thinking getting them to stop. You don't seem to like it very much."

dark_light
2013-08-10 06:52 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea what the current legal state of public figures not wanting movies made about them may be. And I have no power to change that. So there's not a good way to stop a determined person, but I can make it clear that I don't approve and hope that torpedoes ticket sales."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Here's hoping," says Helen.

dark_light
2013-08-10 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Yep. And I will probably accumulate legal power over time, anyway. And maybe I can find a decent filmmaker who wants to make a not-terrible movie about me and help them out and hope that crowds the market."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 06:56 pm (UTC)

"People will probably want a movie about you with you actually in it more than they'll want ones without," she muses.

dark_light
2013-08-10 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if I'd go so far as acting in the thing. But I would endorse a decent movie."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 06:58 pm (UTC)

"What would a decent movie about you be like?"

dark_light
2013-08-10 07:00 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... depends on how much interdimensional stuff I want to disclose, I guess, which I won't know until I'm up to speed on what's been going on in my absence."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Well... what do you want to know about what's been going on?" she wonders.

dark_light
2013-08-10 07:07 pm (UTC)

"What do people think happened? How is the new afterlife affecting things? What's politics like at this point, culture - is there any intersubworld exchange going on to speak of - what's happened with tech?"

telesonorous
2013-08-10 07:14 pm (UTC)

"There are some people talking to shades from other worlds," says Helen. "I don't hear that much about them, but they're there. I think maybe mortals are more affected by the afterlife than witches, or maybe it's just that the mortals I've met are usually younger than it is, and the witches sometimes aren't - I've known witches who forget once in a while about revenants and shade-dreams and things, and mortals don't do that so much."

dark_light
2013-08-10 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Interesting. I don't suppose you've personally dreamed your way here before?" Isabella gestures at her homemade subworld.

telesonorous
2013-08-10 07:29 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head.

"I don't know any shades."

dark_light
2013-08-10 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Well, I guess you could count the people who kidnapped me - I met them, and they're dead now - but they haven't tried dreaming at me so far."

dark_light
2013-08-10 07:38 pm (UTC)

"I would hope not. They can stay where they are."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 07:39 pm (UTC)

"They were unpleasant. Well, that's not technically true, they were very nice to me if you ignore the part where they kept trying to kill Kas and probably had some kind of secret horrible plan."

dark_light
2013-08-10 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Do you care what the plan was? Have you been bothered since?"

telesonorous
2013-08-10 07:47 pm (UTC)

"I don't care especially. I'm sort of curious, but not enough to bother trying to find out. And nobody else has tried to kidnap me or cast horrible curses on Kas since then. As far as I know. If he's caught any more horrible curses, he hasn't told me about them."

dark_light
2013-08-10 07:48 pm (UTC)

Isabella declines to mention the cluster headache curse. "Probably an isolated incident, then. I may look into it but it's not a priority."

telesonorous
2013-08-10 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Helen.

find a mom

exactlyright

Carinna goes looking for a mom. Probably she will need to talk to all of them, so it does not much matter which she finds first.

calendarofcrime
2013-08-07 04:04 pm (UTC)

There's one!

exactlyright
2013-08-07 04:04 pm (UTC)

Carinna goes up to her. "The one of you who is not a boy like the other ones," she says, "and her Bella and her Tony were thinking about having princesses but they don't have any yet, Jane said, and if they do I think they should maybe skip me."

calendarofcrime
2013-08-08 01:32 am (UTC)

"Go on."

exactlyright
2013-08-08 01:35 am (UTC)

"I'm not sad. Except when I am, but I don't just - be sad all the time," says Carinna. "But that's - here. And other mes wouldn't be here, they'd be other places. And 'Lin and 'Wen help me a lot and I don't know how many princesses the other yous want to have. So especially if they only want one, they should skip me."

calendarofcrime
2013-08-08 01:40 am (UTC)

"I see the logic," says Sherlock.

exactlyright
2013-08-08 01:41 am (UTC)

"Do you think the other yous will?"

calendarofcrime
2013-08-08 01:49 am (UTC)

"Yes."

exactlyright
2013-08-08 01:50 am (UTC)

"What about the other Bellas and Tonies?"

calendarofcrime
2013-08-08 01:52 am (UTC)

"Any of me could explain to any of Tony and be understood. As for Bella, why don't we find her and ask?"

exactlyright
2013-08-08 01:53 am (UTC)

Carinna nods.

calendarofcrime
2013-08-08 01:55 am (UTC)

Sherlock queries the forest, then transports them to Bella.

thaumobabble
2013-08-08 01:57 am (UTC)

Bella is at the Tree of Pearls, sitting under it with Cricket in her lap, eating pearl-fruits. She has her eyes closed, presumably thinking about something she's read or plans to do, but she opens them when the magic shifts Sherlock and Carinna into place. "Hi, honey. Hi, Carinna."

exactlyright
2013-08-08 01:57 am (UTC)

"Hi, Bella."

calendarofcrime
2013-08-08 01:58 am (UTC)

exactlyright
2013-08-08 01:59 am (UTC)

Carinna peers up at Sherlock, wondering if she is going to say the thing. When Sherlock does not immediately say the thing, she looks at Bella and says herself, "I think the other Bellas and Sherlocks and Tonies who want little princesses should skip me."
Edited 2013-08-25 15:46 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-08-25 03:48 pm (UTC)

"...Oh, dear," sighs Bella. "Okay. I can tell them all at the party and they'll see if they can - no one has tried to skip a template before, but it seems like it should be doable." She sighs again, and holds out her arms for a hug from her daughter.

exactlyright
2013-08-25 03:48 pm (UTC)

Carinna goes and hugs her.

calendarofcrime
2013-08-25 04:00 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs both of them.

thaumobabble
2013-08-25 04:00 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"Are you okay, Carinna?"

exactlyright
2013-08-25 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Most of the time," Carinna assures her. "I just seem like a risky kind of person to have more of. Don't you think?"

thaumobabble
2013-08-25 04:02 pm (UTC)

"That seems like your decision, since you're in a position to make it."

And privately to Sherlock: [So at least she won't be offended if people skip past her, I suppose.]

calendarofcrime
2013-08-25 04:08 pm (UTC)

[That is good. I would not like her to be offended, and I would not like her to have an abundance of perpetually unhappy alts.]

thaumobabble
2013-08-25 04:10 pm (UTC)

[I'm pretty sure my alts with yous were already considering it contingent on reproducing at all, though they didn't say as much.]
Edited 2013-08-25 16:13 (UTC)

calendarofcrime
2013-08-25 04:14 pm (UTC)

[It seems likely.]

Hugs.

thaumobabble
2013-08-25 04:15 pm (UTC)

Hugs.
Edited 2013-08-25 16:15 (UTC)

dating doubly

keyed_up

[Hey!] Soph says, one Sunday morning when it is beastly hot - especially for a January - to her sister, her boyfriend, and her, uh, Sherlock. [It is water park weather, how does that sound to you guys? And then, like, Italian food, I am thinking fond pesto thoughts, are you guys with me on fond pesto thoughts?]

toblameforit
2013-08-12 12:29 am (UTC)

[I am fond of pesto!] says Tony.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 12:30 am (UTC)

[Sounds like fun,] says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 12:31 am (UTC)

[I'm in more of a marianara mood, does that disqualify me?]

keyed_up
2013-08-12 12:32 am (UTC)

[Not a bit. As long as you want to go on water slides and stuff.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 12:32 am (UTC)

[Do you want to go on waterslides, love?]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 12:38 am (UTC)

[I think I would like to go on waterslides. Do we know a good place to teleport in at a water park or are we driving?]

keyed_up
2013-08-12 12:39 am (UTC)

[Let's drive. If Tony wants to drive. D'you want to drive?]

toblameforit
2013-08-12 12:41 am (UTC)

[I always want to drive.]

keyed_up
2013-08-12 12:42 am (UTC)

[Good, 'cause, if you didn't want to drive, we'd have to expect that the sun was about to turn into bees and the water in the water park was all going to spontaneously boil off, since, apocalypse, and then Bella couldn't come since she'd be running around fixing the apocalypse.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 12:43 am (UTC)

[But in fact he wants to drive, so I can come. I'll meet you wherever you are in a minute.]

toblameforit
2013-08-12 12:44 am (UTC)

[Awesome,] says Tony. [I hate it when the sun turns into bees.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 12:45 am (UTC)

[Yeah, that's a messy cleanup job, there.] She appears where Tony is a moment after Soph does.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 12:46 am (UTC)

Tony hugs Soph.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 12:47 am (UTC)

Sherlock hugs Juliet.

They are in a Jarvis's garage; one of Tony's cars is right there. And, unusually for one of Tony's cars, it has enough seats for all of them.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 12:50 am (UTC)

Hugs! Bella lets her sister take shotgun.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 12:50 am (UTC)

Which Soph does. After hug, because hug.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 01:02 am (UTC)

Hug is a good reason for hug. Hug is the best reason for hug.

Hug, and then water park!

keyed_up
2013-08-12 01:04 am (UTC)

The water park is watery and parky! There is a lot of descending significant distances rapidly without any of the controlled sensation of hexed flight. Soph looks very fetching in her white-and-pink bathing suit with her hair all bedraggled, and she whoops unrestrainedly when the various water park rides fling her about. And has to cough up water once or twice.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 01:05 am (UTC)

Bella is also fetching but less pink and less whoopy. Fun is, nonetheless, had.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 01:06 am (UTC)

Sherlock is extremely fetching, not even slightly pink, and hardly whoopy at all. But he does giggle quite a bit.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 01:07 am (UTC)

Tony is moderately fetching, pink in the face if not in the shorts, and whoops with the best of them.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 01:08 am (UTC)

Both of the Swans present think their respective boyfriends are the fetchingest and their amounts of whooping the most correct. It is a good arrangement.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 01:08 am (UTC)

After they have all been on everything, and the best things twice and the very best things three times, Bella says, "Italian food, yes?"

toblameforit
2013-08-12 01:09 am (UTC)

"Yeah!" whoops Tony.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 01:10 am (UTC)

That is cute. Tony gets nuzzled. "Pestoooooo!"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 01:10 am (UTC)

"Marinara," counters Bella. "Poor Sherlock. You could probably hex it if it is a hardship."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 01:19 am (UTC)

"You know, there is really no good reason for me to be unable to digest food," says Sherlock. "I'll fix that."

He fixes that.

"Let's go get Italian."

keyed_up
2013-08-12 01:20 am (UTC)

"Woo!"

And they narrow down their choices to a single Italian place with a combination of Jarvis and magic, and Soph orders pesto gnocchi.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 01:21 am (UTC)

Spaghetti. With meatballs.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 01:28 am (UTC)

Spaghetti with meatballs sounds perfect.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 01:28 am (UTC)

Pesto gnocchi it is!

keyed_up
2013-08-12 01:29 am (UTC)

"Awwwwwwww."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 01:30 am (UTC)

"A fine inaugural meal."

[Don't fill up, love.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 01:34 am (UTC)

"I like to think so," he says, grinning at her.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 01:34 am (UTC)

Tony starts giggling.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 01:35 am (UTC)

"What?"

toblameforit
2013-08-12 01:36 am (UTC)

"Nothiiiiing," snickers Tony.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 01:37 am (UTC)

[Tony has a fine-tuned sense of when I am thinking about sex,] Sherlock explains to Juliet.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 01:38 am (UTC)

Soph starts laughing, not because she has any idea what's going on but because Tony is and he's contagious.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 01:38 am (UTC)

[Well, that's good to know, I suppose.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 01:39 am (UTC)

[He can also probably guess that you were the cause.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 01:41 am (UTC)

[Given the hypothesis-space I'd be kind of disappointed in his reasoning skills if he could not.]

Bella merrily coils spaghetti onto her fork.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 01:43 am (UTC)

Tony decides to save his food until after giggles, because doing it the other way never ends well.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 01:43 am (UTC)

Om nom nom.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 01:44 am (UTC)

Nom nom. "I have such fond thoughts about pesto. Pesto is such a good thing."

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:00 am (UTC)

"I love you," giggles Tony.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:01 am (UTC)

Soph blushes hard enough to teach colorblind people to identify red. And she smiles at her knees.

"And you are also a good thing and I also have fond thoughts about you and I also love you."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 02:01 am (UTC)

"Awww!"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 02:15 am (UTC)

"Awww," Sherlock agrees.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:15 am (UTC)

Tony hugs Soph.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:17 am (UTC)

Hugs! Hugs hugs hugs. She has a Tony and she loves her Tony.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:19 am (UTC)

And the Tony that she has loves her right back! Mmm, hugs.

Okay, now he is not giggling too hard to eat anymore, but hugs.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:20 am (UTC)

Also pesto. Soph also loves pesto.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:24 am (UTC)

Tony loves pesto too! But he loves Soph more than he loves pesto.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:27 am (UTC)

If Soph had to give up pesto to keep Tony, she would make a show of agonizing, and then she would keep Tony! Luckily she does not have to do that. She can have Tony and pesto. At the same time.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 02:27 am (UTC)

"You guys are too cute to be allowed in public."

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:27 am (UTC)

"Aww, but I want tiramisu."

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:29 am (UTC)

"Then you should have tiramisu!" says Tony, snuggling her.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:31 am (UTC)

"But Tony, we're not allowed in public, we're too cute. We're about to be ushered out of this restaurant by the cuteness police and they don't have any tiramisu in cuteness jail."

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:32 am (UTC)

"I am too cute for cuteness jail," Tony declares. "They wouldn't even take me."

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:34 am (UTC)

"Maybe they have to put bags over our heads. I bet that's how they do it. They are a specialized jail and know how to deal with the likes of you and me."

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:37 am (UTC)

"We could totally be cute even with bags over our heads."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 02:37 am (UTC)

"Now that is an assertion that needs testing," says Sherlock.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:38 am (UTC)

"This sounds like the subject of a cute indie short film. Two people with bags on their heads being adorable. There would be no dialogue but the title would be in French and there would be background piano."

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:41 am (UTC)

"We could hold hands," says Tony. "And cuddle."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 02:41 am (UTC)

"While the room slowly fills with teddy bears," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 02:45 am (UTC)

"Les Sacs Mignons," intones Bella, playing an imaginary piano.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:45 am (UTC)

"Are we generating the bears or attracting the bears with the cute?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 02:46 am (UTC)

"Generating them," says Sherlock. "They just appear out of thin air."

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:48 am (UTC)

"We could actually make this short film. If the credits were anonymous and we had bags on our heads no one would know how to track down the suspicious special effects!"

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:49 am (UTC)

"We should totally make this short film," says Tony.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:50 am (UTC)

"Yes. Les Sacs Mignons, coming soon to an Internet near you."
Edited 2013-08-12 02:50 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 02:51 am (UTC)

"That is just even more adorable, you are going to be America's most wanted cuteness criminals and you'll have to flee to Mercury and then you'll probably just play board games with my minions and it will be even cuter, you are not allowed."

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:52 am (UTC)

"We are too allowed," says Tony, "you just try to disallow us, look," and he hugs Soph some more and leans his head on her shoulder with the most terribly sappy expression on his face.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 02:54 am (UTC)

"Careful, she is totally the Empress of She Hasn't Named It Yet," giggles Soph, but then she is peppering Tony's hair with little kisses.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 02:58 am (UTC)

"I laugh in the face of empresses," says Tony, nuzzling Soph's shoulder. "Adorably."

keyed_up
2013-08-12 03:00 am (UTC)

"The most adorably. So adorably. That's why I adore you, probably."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:01 am (UTC)

"If I order you a tiramisu will you eat it and give the cute a break? Because it would attract attention if I torched of preciousness overload right here in the restaurant."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 03:02 am (UTC)

"There, there, love," says Sherlock. "Have a teddy bear."

He reaches over and appears to pull a teeny tiny one out of her ear, then hands it to her gravely.
Edited 2013-08-12 03:02 (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:03 am (UTC)

Bella accepts the teeny tiny teddy bear.

She looks at it.

She looks at Sherlock.

She puts the teeny tiny teddy bear on her her head, sticks it in place with a triangle, and flags down the nearest waitress for dessert menus.
Edited 2013-08-12 03:04 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-08-12 03:05 am (UTC)

"I should actually eat some food," says Tony. He commences doing that, which sadly necessitates un-snuggling from Soph a little bit.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 03:06 am (UTC)

Soph is a fast eater. Her fondly-thought-of pesto gnocchi is all gone. She checks the dessert menu for anything to supplant tiramisu, but nothing better catches her eye.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:06 am (UTC)

Bella wants a cannoli.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 03:30 am (UTC)

The boys go for gelato.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 03:32 am (UTC)

The girls steal tastes!

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 03:41 am (UTC)

And they are welcome to do so.

keyed_up
2013-08-12 03:43 am (UTC)

Welcome tastes are just as tasty as nefariously stolen tastes.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:43 am (UTC)

And they, too, will share.

"Good first solid meal in a while?" Bella inquires of Sherlock.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 03:44 am (UTC)

"Perfect," says Sherlock. And grins at her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:45 am (UTC)

[We can let them drive back by themselves.]

toblameforit
2013-08-12 03:47 am (UTC)

Tony takes one look at Sherlock and volunteers to stick around and pay for the food.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:48 am (UTC)

"That's very kind of you."

keyed_up
2013-08-12 03:48 am (UTC)

"Yeah, you never really got the appeal of cars, did you."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:49 am (UTC)

"It is true, I have never done that thing."

toblameforit
2013-08-12 03:50 am (UTC)

"So me and Soph can drive back, and you and Sherry can... not do that."

keyed_up
2013-08-12 03:50 am (UTC)

Soph looks at Tony. She looks at Bella. She looks at Sherlock. She starts giggling to herself.

toblameforit
2013-08-12 03:51 am (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:52 am (UTC)

Bella rolls her eyes. "Well. Off we go to somewhere not under observation. Splendid waterpark-and-Italian idea, Soph, thank you."

keyed_up
2013-08-12 03:53 am (UTC)

"For teleporting," says Soph gravely. "Must not teleport in front of people. That is certainly what you meant. Yep."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 03:54 am (UTC)

"Indeed we mustn't," says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:55 am (UTC)

"Come on, you," snorts Bella, and she takes Sherlock's hand and heads for the restaurant bathroom alcove. They don't have to actually enter either bathroom to be unobserved for the time it takes to port into a Jarvis.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 03:57 am (UTC)

It turns out that Sherlock did not fill up.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 03:58 am (UTC)

Good. Very good. Best.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 04:01 am (UTC)

Mm. Tasty Juliet.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 04:01 am (UTC)

Most tasty of Juliets.

Also most snuggly of Juliets!

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 12:20 pm (UTC)

The very snuggiest! Mmm. Snuggly.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 05:27 pm (UTC)

Snuggles snuggles snuggles. "I looooove you."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 05:29 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

Snuggles. Kisses?

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 05:30 pm (UTC)

Kisses. Yes. Always, always kisses.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 05:36 pm (UTC)

Snuggly kisses! Sherlock is in a snuggly mood.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 05:36 pm (UTC)

Such moods are contagious. Sherlock can be a pillow. A kissable snuggly pillow.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 06:03 pm (UTC)

Very kissable. Very snuggly. Very pillow.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 06:03 pm (UTC)

Very very very. Mmmmm.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 06:08 pm (UTC)

So very snuggly. And cozy. So cozy.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 06:09 pm (UTC)

Cozy cozy cozy. Cozy and warm and snuggly.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 06:10 pm (UTC)

Cozycozycozzzzzzzzzzzzz.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 06:11 pm (UTC)

Awwww. Huh, she doesn't think she's ever happened to see him sleep before, what with him being nocturnal and then magically not needing to.

She does work in her head for a bit - composes an essay for English to conjure into existence on the due date, confirms appointments with a few demons - and then she sighs comfortably and naps on him.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 06:12 pm (UTC)

When she wakes up from her nap, Sherlock will also be awake. And snuggling her. Cozily.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 06:13 pm (UTC)

She yawns awake mid-word ("bubbles") and gives him a little kiss on the cheek. "Hullo. I've fallen asleep on you before but I don't think I've ever been around you asleep, what with nocturnalness and then magic."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I had trouble sleeping around people even before I was nocturnal or magical, actually."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Really? Huh." Snuzzle.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 06:34 pm (UTC)

"I could manage it if the person in question was Tony, but I didn't prefer to. Didn't even like having Jarvis watching. Now I mostly just don't sleep, which avoids the whole issue."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

Hugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 06:36 pm (UTC)

Snuggles.

"I never mentioned it because it never came up."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense. I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-12 06:38 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-12 06:38 pm (UTC)

Snuggles and love.

we travel far and wide

dark_light

It has been - a few days. There are long silent snuggles with Kas. There are tentative chats with Helen, which go encouragingly. There are difficult and uncomfortably revelatory conversations with her parents. There are heaps and heaps and heaps of things to catch up on, read, check, look into, so she can regroup, reappear, resume work.

She hasn't slept with Kas since coming home. She loves him, and she'll be feeling like it eventually, but not right away.

She's sort of restless after a few days of not having sex, though. Let's see. There's a couple new Jokers she hasn't tried, although one is not shaped in an Amariah-amenable way. And maybe that's a little too close to what she's waiting on, anyway.

Pattern's boyfriend isn't a Joker and is amenable to being loaned out, she has heard.

[Hey, Jane...]

bellfounding
2013-08-12 11:16 pm (UTC)

[Hey, Ripper,] says Pattern, a while later, [Amariah wants to borrow you.]

tearingup
2013-08-12 11:18 pm (UTC)

[For...?]

bellfounding
2013-08-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

[Unless you've materialized specialized magical skills of some kind, I'm going to assume she wants to have sex with you, although come to think of it Jane did not actually specify in those words.]

tearingup
2013-08-12 11:22 pm (UTC)

[Maybe she wants me to write her an anthem.]

bellfounding
2013-08-12 11:22 pm (UTC)

[That is also actually possible. Maybe Jane played her the Song of Saturn and now she wants one. But she doesn't have a formal empire yet, so the timing's peculiar for it.]

tearingup
2013-08-12 11:36 pm (UTC)

[Well, whatever. She can borrow me if she wants. As long as she returns me in good condition,] he jokes.

bellfounding
2013-08-12 11:37 pm (UTC)

[She will certainly do so. Probably makes the most sense to meet her in the Belltower. Save the star. Unless you want a green kingfisher.]

tearingup
2013-08-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

[I'm fine without one, thanks. Got time for a kiss on my way out?]

bellfounding
2013-08-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

[Yes.]

tearingup
2013-08-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

Teleport.

Kiss!

bellfounding
2013-08-12 11:40 pm (UTC)

Kiss! "Have a good time. Don't touch her owl."

tearingup
2013-08-12 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, so I've heard."

Okay, two kisses.

Then, "Right, I'm off. Jane...?"

mind_game
2013-08-12 11:43 pm (UTC)

[Putting.] Pop! Here is the Belltower.

And a moment later, Amariah joins him.

dark_light
2013-08-12 11:45 pm (UTC)

Amariah gives a little wave. Path flutters one wing, then tucks away in a whorl of golden sparkles. "Hi," Amariah says. "You must be Ripper. Nice to meet you."

tearingup
2013-08-12 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you too!" says Ripper. "So what are you borrowing me for? Pat says sex, I say you want me to write you an anthem." He grins. "Maybe it's both."

dark_light
2013-08-12 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a political entity that needs an anthem, though I'll keep you in mind for when I do, certainly. Or if, I suppose. In my absence my world seems to have slotted me into the role of 'inscrutable messiah' over that of 'incipient queen'."

tearingup
2013-08-12 11:51 pm (UTC)

"How's that going for you?"

dark_light
2013-08-12 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I have had a number of truly terrible movies made about me, there are several cults, someone tried to kidnap my daughter and kill my boyfriend and that probably wasn't unrelated to my relationship thereto, and I have a really dumb title, which people utter in moments of distress. I can't say I care for the setup, but I'll work with it."

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:00 am (UTC)

"Whoa," says Ripper. "I'm sorry about your family - are they okay?"

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:01 am (UTC)

"They're fine. Kas torched a couple of times and got cursed and my mother had to torch him again to undo it, Helen was freaked out but the kidnappers didn't hurt her, my clan queen got their clan queen to turn them over and now they're cooling their heels in my afterlife."
Edited 2013-08-13 00:02 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:06 am (UTC)

"Better than it could've gone, I guess."

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:07 am (UTC)

"Yep. So rumor has it you're the same template as Giles and Merryweather and nobody noticed till Glass had a look at you. The resemblance is pretty subtle."

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:08 am (UTC)

"I haven't met either of 'em, so I wouldn't know. It can wait until the party."

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:09 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. We don't have a date set; some of us - mostly me - are dealing with lost time at home. I am taking a break, as you probably noticed."

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:10 am (UTC)

"Taking a break, borrowing your alts' boyfriends..." He grins. "Or am I the only one?"

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:14 am (UTC)

"I have borrowed other ones in the past. In a not-a-Joker mood today, though."

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:14 am (UTC)

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:14 am (UTC)

"Hm?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:15 am (UTC)

"Sorry, probably none of my business, but - no, actually, I think it is my business, is your boyfriend okay with," he makes a gesture that encompasses the two of them, "this?"

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:16 am (UTC)

"I didn't make a point of specifically asking him in this particular case, but he is in full generality okay with me borrowing anybody who makes themselves borrowable. Why?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:20 am (UTC)

"I heard you guys were having a rough time and I don't want to be a part of making it any worse, that's all."

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:22 am (UTC)

"We are, but you're not gonna make it worse," says Amariah. "Being borrowed is of course optional if you'd rather not for any reason, though."

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:35 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "If you say it won't hurt anything, I believe you."

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:37 am (UTC)

"Cool. 'Cause you look pretty borrowable." She starts untying knots on her person. This is a prerequisite for sex, but she occupies nudity and the transition thereto much more casually than the one of her alts Ripper is accustomed to.
Edited 2013-08-13 00:38 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:45 am (UTC)

"I am very borrowable," he says cheerfully.

It turns out that Ripper also occupies nudity and related states pretty casually! But it's somewhat different in his case. He just really, really likes it when people find him nice to look at.

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:47 am (UTC)

He's quite nice to look at! Amariah looks at him. And proceeds with the borrowing.

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:48 am (UTC)

He also hasn't lost the habit of rotating flavours. Today's is peach.

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:48 am (UTC)

[Ooh, you are yummy.]

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:49 am (UTC)

[I am! I do that.]

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:50 am (UTC)

[You do. It is a nice idea. And a delicious one.] Nibble nibble nibble.

tearingup
2013-08-13 12:51 am (UTC)

Ooh. Nibbles. Those are fun. This was a good idea.

dark_light
2013-08-13 12:52 am (UTC)

Amariah has those! She is a clever person.

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:00 am (UTC)

Apparently so.

Ripper has a pretty good idea of how one Bell works. He doesn't know how much of that is going to transfer, but he is very willing to experiment.

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:00 am (UTC)

It transfers pretty fucking well. They're all built the same, even if the superficial details differ.

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:03 am (UTC)

Oh. Awesome.

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:04 am (UTC)

Amariah doesn't have that kind of advantage with Ripper, but she is prepared to try to compensate!

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:05 am (UTC)

Her efforts are wholeheartedly appreciated.

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:05 am (UTC)

That is good.

Peachy, even.

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:06 am (UTC)

So, is she a snuggler? Because he is very much a snuggler.

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:07 am (UTC)

She snuggles. For some reason she doesn't seem to relax into it as much as Pattern does - even as much as Pattern did early on - but she snuggles.

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:09 am (UTC)

"...Are you uncomfortable or something?" he says after a few seconds of snuggling.

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:10 am (UTC)

"Hmm? No, not at all, quite cozy, I'm just not - all here. You haven't got anybody for Path to snuggle up to, so he's away."

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:12 am (UTC)

"Oh," he says. "Uh, okay."

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:14 am (UTC)

"It's not a problem, or I wouldn't have borrowed you, just, Path is literally my soul, and he isn't being at all snuggled right now. The rest of me is doing fine. You've had daemons explained, right?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:41 am (UTC)

"Sort of? Apparently I'd be a green kingfisher."

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:42 am (UTC)

"Ooh. Yeah, I can see that," chuckles Amariah. "And if you had a kingfisher she - he? - would be sitting over there with Path and then I'd be one hundred percent snuggled instead of like eighty percent. That's all. If you had the kingfisher I'd insist, actually, I would really not like to be having sex with someone who had a daemon that didn't want to hang out with Path."

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:44 am (UTC)

"I can... sort of see that?" he says. "But it's all abstract to me."

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:46 am (UTC)

"Since you don't have one it's incidental. Like - hmm - if you were blind - or even if the lights just weren't working so we couldn't see each other, then it wouldn't mean anything that less seeing was going on. If you had one and she didn't want to sit with Path that would be the approximate equivalent of wanting me to wear a bag on my head, by comparison."

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:49 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Got it."

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:50 am (UTC)

"Cam doesn't have this thing with his Grace, if that was likely to come up. It doesn't make a difference to him. I don't think Shell Bell does either, but she's way less likely to hit on you than Cam is."

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:51 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I've heard."

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:53 am (UTC)

"And Minus may hit on you but last I knew of it he actively preferred to have Steph tucked away, and you'd know more about how Aianon and Ansharil have it worked out than I do at this point and my sweeties are probably more like them than not, same with Sue and Ivy."

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:54 am (UTC)

"Aianon and Ansharil have it worked out interestingly," says Ripper.

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:55 am (UTC)

"Yeah?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:56 am (UTC)

"Eh. Should I gossip? How much gossip do you want? Pat rolls her eyes whenever I mention tentacles."

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:57 am (UTC)

"I am less uptight than - Pat? That's cute - but I do not require R-rated tentacular detail."

tearingup
2013-08-13 01:59 am (UTC)

"Well - Ansharil shapeshifts," he says. "He doesn't get in on things every time, but he likes to bring surprises when he does."

dark_light
2013-08-13 01:59 am (UTC)

"Interesting. Petaal shapeshifts too, but nothing in her standard repertoire is tentacled."

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:08 am (UTC)

"I guess Ansharil's more creative," he laughs. "Anyway, the tentacles are mostly Aianon's - he gets very creative with his custom plants."

dark_light
2013-08-13 02:09 am (UTC)

"That's sort of disturbingly adorable."

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:15 am (UTC)

"Right?" He laughs. "Aianon's great."

dark_light
2013-08-13 02:16 am (UTC)

"I bet he and Sarion are having a much less complicated reunion than I did," says Amariah wryly.

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:18 am (UTC)

"I bet they're having a lot of sex," says Ripper. "You all right?"

dark_light
2013-08-13 02:19 am (UTC)

"I'm okay. Helen's actually really neat, which helps a lot, I'd be at my wit's end if it turned out I couldn't stand her. It's just tricky."

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:22 am (UTC)

"I'd be in way over my head if I were you." He snuggles her some more.

dark_light
2013-08-13 02:23 am (UTC)

Snuggles. "Hey, several thousand people think I'm a deity, I can't disappoint them by falling apart on account of unexpected offspring. Or, as Juliet was putting it when comparing my kid to her sister, 'spontaneous teenage relative'."

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:30 am (UTC)

"Maybe I should write you a hymn," he jokes.

dark_light
2013-08-13 02:31 am (UTC)

"Oh dear. It would have to be better than the samples Jane found for me from this one little church's online recording repository."

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:46 am (UTC)

"I am pretty good."

dark_light
2013-08-13 02:47 am (UTC)

"I have not actually heard the one you wrote for Pat."

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:47 am (UTC)

"You should, it's awesome."

dark_light
2013-08-13 02:49 am (UTC)

"You wanna sing it for me?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:50 am (UTC)

"Sure," he laughs.

And he does.

It's beautifully evocative.

dark_light
2013-08-13 02:57 am (UTC)

"That is a pretty anthem. Maybe I will look you up for your songwriting services when I have anything to anthem. Unless there's one of you in Alethia, I guess." Pause. "I should, you know, actually check. For other templates too, I should do a full sweep, it's been a while and Kas wasn't really keeping an eye out."

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:05 am (UTC)

"I think there's enough of me already," says Ripper. "...Although maybe I'd think differently if we found one who was my age."

dark_light
2013-08-13 03:06 am (UTC)

Amariah laughs. "I can have Jane check right now," she suggests.

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:19 am (UTC)

"Sure, why not."

dark_light
2013-08-13 03:19 am (UTC)

[Hey Jane, you want to see if you can find a Rupert in Alethia?]

mind_game
2013-08-13 03:20 am (UTC)

[Sure. Checking.]

[Yep, there's one!]

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:21 am (UTC)

[Really?] says Ripper. [A young one or an old one? Or can't you tell?]

mind_game
2013-08-13 03:22 am (UTC)

[Well, I could ask, but the sweep protocol doesn't give me that kinda detail. Lemme see if he or she's got an Internet footprint I can connect up.]

Checking, checking.

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:28 am (UTC)

Well, Alethia does contain a punk rock band called Wretched, with a singer called Ripper. The cover of the first album is remarkably similar, even.

mind_game
2013-08-13 03:31 am (UTC)

[Yep, here he is, here's his copy of Wretched, he is still going by 'Ripper' in band-related material, found his birth records and his driver's license though and it's a match. Twenty-one, pied kingfisher - would he not want me sharing her legal name either?]

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:38 am (UTC)

Ripper winces. [Look, I know you can see anything anyone has ever put on a computer, but that doesn't mean you should. We ditch our names for a reason.]

mind_game
2013-08-13 03:41 am (UTC)

[It's not that I can, it's that I do, I am those computers. It's significant attention that's optional - or being on them at all, like Syntropy. Don't send me to look at things you don't want me to pay attention to,] huffs Jane. [Okay, secret pied kingfisher legal name. He doesn't have it in his website bio as anything.]
Edited 2013-08-13 03:44 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:45 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I didn't know how you'd be checking. Won't be making that mistake again.]

mind_game
2013-08-13 03:46 am (UTC)

[The checking for the existence of the template at all is just sending whitespace by text brainphone,] Jane says. [That part's very unintrusive.]

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:48 am (UTC)

[Great. Thanks.]

mind_game
2013-08-13 03:48 am (UTC)

[No problem. Should I say hi to him?]

dark_light
2013-08-13 03:48 am (UTC)

"What do you think?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:50 am (UTC)

"Maybe I should say hi to him," says Ripper.

dark_light
2013-08-13 03:51 am (UTC)

"If you want to come to Alethia you need a star, unless you want a kingfisher so your kingfishers can chat. And people from Alethia will have reactions to you ranging from Kas's 'you are a different way to be people' to my initial 'this bar is full of ZOMBIES, AAAAAH', and I don't know where the local Ripper will fall on this continuum. But you are welcome if that's understood and you still want to."

tearingup
2013-08-13 03:54 am (UTC)

"Well. Okay, maybe I shouldn't. But, hm - I feel like dropping in on him myself is the best way to get all the shocks over with as fast as possible without souring him on the whole idea of," he waves a hand vaguely, "things."

dark_light
2013-08-13 03:55 am (UTC)

"You can, it's just more complicated with Alethia than it would be if we were talking about someplace more like, I don't know, Eos, Rainbow, whatever. Although - consider the fact that I'm a mythical figure, have been for longer than he's been alive, would that help or hurt if I just went up to him myself?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:01 am (UTC)

"...Could work," he says. "Thing is, he's not going to like it if you just teleport in front of him and say hi, and I don't think he'll think much of the brainphone as a surprise either. Actually..."

He pauses, contemplating something.

"Those stars, how long do they last?"

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:02 am (UTC)

"A little shy of a week is how long it took in the only case one's been allowed to wear off. Why?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:03 am (UTC)

"Should be fine, then. I just thought, if he's got the name and he's got the band he's probably got the best friend too," he explains. "And I know Rayne'd be all over introducing two of me. But it might take us a while to get it all sorted out."

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:04 am (UTC)

"Well, you are, as I said, quite welcome to visit the world."

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:07 am (UTC)

"Right," he says. "Jane, mind popping me back home for a minute so I can tell Pat what's going on and pick up a star from the Jokers?"

mind_game
2013-08-13 04:08 am (UTC)

[Sure.]

Pop!

Pat's location is one of the places Jane can put him, and she's not doing anything private at the moment, so that is where he goes.

bellfounding
2013-08-13 04:08 am (UTC)

"Hey you. Have a good time?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:12 am (UTC)

"I really did." He kisses her. "And then Amariah found one of me in her world, so I'm gonna go say hi." [And I'm going to introduce myself to his Rayne first, because I bet that'll go much better, but going much better is probably going to mean having a lot of sex with both of 'em, and I figured you'd want to know.]

bellfounding
2013-08-13 04:13 am (UTC)

[Oh boy. Thanks for the warning. You want a star?]

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:17 am (UTC)

[Was gonna get one from the source, but if you're offering, sure.] He kisses her again.

bellfounding
2013-08-13 04:17 am (UTC)

She passes one into his coinsorter. Kisses! [You make the wish before you go into Alethia,] she warns.

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:20 am (UTC)

[Yeah, figured.]

Kisses kisses.

"I love you," he says, and kisses the end of her nose, and makes a wish. "Guess I should put some clothes on, too." Another wish. "All set. Jane, could you put me in Alethia?"

bellfounding
2013-08-13 04:20 am (UTC)

"Love you."

mind_game
2013-08-13 04:21 am (UTC)

[You want Amariah's palace in the land of the dead, or her basement in the daemon-having subworld?]

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:23 am (UTC)

[Daemon-having subworld, I guess, that'll be where I'm going anyway.]

mind_game
2013-08-13 04:23 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

Pop.

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:23 am (UTC)

Amariah's there already. "Hi. Am I joining you or are you going on your own?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:25 am (UTC)

"...Ooh." He considers this. "You could join me, if you want, but you might not want. Rayne's trouble."

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:25 am (UTC)

"What kind?" asks Path, out on her shoulder again, tilting his head. She's back in silks; he's got his talons around one of the twists of black.

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:29 am (UTC)

"Complicated kinds."

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:30 am (UTC)

"...Should I just ask Pat?"

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:31 am (UTC)

"You can. I'm not sure what she'll tell you."

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:32 am (UTC)

Amariah tilts her head, confers briefly with Pattern through Jane, and says, "I'll join you, if you don't mind, unless he's the going-to-tabloids sort? I don't mind minor rumor about the Second Coming of the Shade Dreamer, but firsthand reports to media outlets should wait."

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:34 am (UTC)

"He won't go to the tabloids unless there's something in it for him, and I don't think there wil be."

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:35 am (UTC)

"Okay then. Is this an uninvited teleportation situation or a brainphoning first situation or what? I will follow your lead."

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:37 am (UTC)

"Uninvited teleportation," he says. "Spying on him first to make sure I'm not interrupting anything important."

He does that. Rayne is at home, alone - even the flat is familiar, although not completely.

Poof.

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:40 am (UTC)

Amariah follows. Aura billows out around her - the witchiness blurs her age; she could be twenty, ninety, eight hundred. And she's definitely magical enough to make a custom afterlife. If anyone who sees her in full aura has previously been taken in by an impostor, this will put a stop to that.
Edited 2013-08-13 04:59 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-13 02:00 pm (UTC)

When she arrives, Rayne is in the middle of jumping to his feet in shock. His daemon - a skinny, leggy ginger cat with bright golden eyes - leaps into his arms, hissing.

He looks at Amariah very intently, for a moment, but his eyes are drawn irresistibly back to Ripper.

"Hi," says Ripper, smirking.

"What in Christ happened to you?" says Rayne. "And who's the witch?"

"Be nice," says Ripper, "she's a friend."

Rayne shakes his head slowly. His daemon climbs up to his shoulder and directs a look of deep suspicion at Amariah, then jumps lightly down to curl up in his armchair while he nods politely to the apparent mythic figure.

"Right," says Ripper. "Isabella Amariah, Ethan Rayne. And me - let's say I'm not the Ripper you know."

"I can tell," Rayne murmurs.

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:40 pm (UTC)

Amariah chuckles softly. Path turns his head around and around, taking in the room.

tearingup
2013-08-13 04:57 pm (UTC)

The room is small and messy and extremely lived-in.

"Where'd you come from?" says Rayne.

"Another universe," Ripper says cheerfully.

Rayne snorts. "Figures. And what are you doing here?"

"Visiting," says Ripper. "By the way, friendly word - if you're ever thinking of faking your own death, don't do it."

Rayne gives him a thoughtful look. Ripper shrugs.

"You are different," says Rayne. "And I'm, what, supposed to introduce you to the local?"

"That was the idea," Ripper agrees.

"Fine. He'll be back soon. Cup of tea in the meantime?"

"I'd love one," says Ripper. He sits down in one of the two chairs not currently occupied by a daemon.

dark_light
2013-08-13 04:59 pm (UTC)

[Faking his death would have kind of different fallout here compared to Origin,] Amariah points out to Ripper, helping herself to the other chair.
Edited 2013-08-13 17:04 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-13 05:09 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. I just figured he should know why I'm not as close with him in my world.]

Rayne goes to put the kettle on. Rayne's daemon climbs onto the arm of Rayne's chair and perches there, tail flicking, peering at Amariah and Path.
Edited 2013-08-13 17:15 (UTC)

dark_light
2013-08-13 05:15 pm (UTC)

Path looks impassively at her. His do-not-touch aura doesn't apply to the cat, but the fact that he's on Amariah's shoulder is probably sufficient deterrent.

tearingup
2013-08-13 05:15 pm (UTC)

The cat regards him steadily for a few more seconds, then turns and jumps to the arm of Ripper's chair and butts her head against his hand. He makes a startled sound, then pets her tentatively; she curls up in his lap and purrs.

dark_light
2013-08-13 05:16 pm (UTC)

Amariah watches this. Path watches Rayne himself.

pythbox
2013-08-13 05:18 pm (UTC)

Rayne is just coming out of the kitchen. He sits down in the chair his daemon just vacated and watches Path right back.

dark_light
2013-08-13 05:19 pm (UTC)

[So to what extent do you understand what just happened?] Amariah asks Ripper.

tearingup
2013-08-13 05:21 pm (UTC)

[Not very well.]

dark_light
2013-08-13 05:23 pm (UTC)

[His soul walked up to you and solicited petting. There are special cases - Jokers in particular are special cases - but the overwhelming majority of daemons literally never do that, and the ones that do save it for their very, very favorite people in the world. And he didn't ask and he did it in front of me, which suggests he's not just checking to see if it's okay - which it could have not been.]

tearingup
2013-08-13 05:26 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I know all about Jokers being special cases. But... well, he's Rayne. It's not all that surprising when I think about it. Same reason I knew he wouldn't freak out too hard that I don't have a daemon. I'm not the me he knows, but I'm still me. Rayne lives a very me-focused life.]

dark_light
2013-08-13 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

tearingup
2013-08-13 05:49 pm (UTC)

So.

Ripper pets the cat.

Rayne stares at Path.

dark_light
2013-08-13 05:51 pm (UTC)

Path stares right back. Amariah, though, closes her eyes, and prompts Jane to deliver reading material by brainphone while they wait for the local Ripper.

pythbox
2013-08-13 05:59 pm (UTC)

The kettle clicks.

"Tea's up," says Rayne. He goes and pours two cups, and brings Ripper his, and then he sits down with his own and says, "So how'd you two meet?"

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:00 pm (UTC)

"He's dating one of my friends," says Amariah.

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:01 pm (UTC)

Rayne glances at Ripper. Ripper smiles. Rayne raises his eyebrows. Ripper laughs. After a moment, so does Rayne.

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:02 pm (UTC)

[What just happened?]

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:03 pm (UTC)

[He wanted to know what this friend of yours thinks of the fact that I've slept with you. I told him she's fine with it.]

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:04 pm (UTC)

[Reminds me of watching Sherlocks have entire conversations with their posture,] snorts Amariah.

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:05 pm (UTC)

[Rayne can read me like a book. Always has.]

"Anything you two want to share with the class?" Rayne says dryly.

[Case in point,] laughs Ripper.

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:07 pm (UTC)

"We're telepathic," smirks Amariah.

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Rayne. "There's a trick."

"Do I want to know what you're thinking right now?" says Ripper. Rayne just laughs.

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:09 pm (UTC)

Amariah snorts. [Do you think your alt would care if I looked in on him to see if he's almost here as reported?]
Edited 2013-08-13 18:11 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:12 pm (UTC)

[Yes, definitely, don't.]

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:14 pm (UTC)

[All right.] She conjures her own cup of tea and sips it.

pythbox
2013-08-13 06:16 pm (UTC)

Rayne studies her thoughtfully.

"Why are you here?"

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Along for the ride. I can leave if I'll only be in the way."

pythbox
2013-08-13 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Really," he says. "It's a bit much for me to believe that you came back from the dead just to watch my best mate fuck himself."

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Wasn't planning to supervise that part. Also, wasn't dead."

pythbox
2013-08-13 06:24 pm (UTC)

Rayne grins.

"Aren't you, though? I know I am."

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:25 pm (UTC)

"That's between you and them."

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:27 pm (UTC)

"That means, don't start selling tickets," Ripper says helpfully.

"Me? I would never," says Rayne, mock-offended. Ripper laughs and pets his lapful of purring cat.

Someone opens the front door and walks in.

And just sort of stands there, utterly stunned.

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Amariah. Her aura's still floating around her, magicmagicwitchwitchmagicmagic.

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:34 pm (UTC)

"What," says the Ripper with the kingfisher on his shoulder.

"Ripper, Hec, this is... Ripper," says Rayne. "And Isabella Amariah, who apparently isn't here to watch you two have sex, can't imagine why, wild horses couldn't get me to pass that up."

"He doesn't—" the local Ripper says distantly.

"Kit doesn't mind, so why should you?" shrugs Rayne. "C'mon in, shut the door, say hello, steal his tea."

The local Ripper manages to shut the door.

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:36 pm (UTC)

"People from other worlds don't, usually," says Amariah. Even within the sheaf Alethia is unusual; she's read sensationalist media screaming about it from fifty years ago.

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:41 pm (UTC)

The cat in Ripper's lap looks at the local Ripper and sniffs.

He comes forward hesitantly, sits on the floor in front of his alt, and joins him in petting her.

Rayne bites his lip. It's the first time he's shown a visible reaction to Ripper touching his daemon.

"I have no idea what's going on," the local Ripper murmurs. His kingfisher leaves his shoulder and perches on a nearby clock, giving it an extra set of talon-marks on top of the many it already has.

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:42 pm (UTC)

[Is this my cue to get out of here?]

tearingup
2013-08-13 06:43 pm (UTC)

[Yeah,] says the nonlocal Ripper, [unless you want to join in.]

dark_light
2013-08-13 06:44 pm (UTC)

[All right. Lemme know if you want me to help with Explaining Things after the stuff I'm not participating in is out of the way.]

And she gives a little wave and vanishes, Path with her.

tearingup
2013-08-13 07:26 pm (UTC)

[Will do,] laughs Ripper.

dark_light
2013-08-13 07:31 pm (UTC)

Amariah finds Kas. She flops on him. "There's a local alt of Pattern's boyfriend who's a younger and more interesting Rupert," she reports.

truthwright
2013-08-13 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Pattern's boyfriend is a younger and more interesting Rupert? I need to get out more," he says, snuggling her.

dark_light
2013-08-13 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Goes by Ripper, wrote her a pretty imperial anthem, rock star, tastes like peaches," says Amariah. "I borrowed him, then swept Alethia and found one here."

truthwright
2013-08-13 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Did you say hi?"

dark_light
2013-08-13 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, both Rippers and the local's best friend are presumably having sex now."

truthwright
2013-08-13 07:36 pm (UTC)

"That's cute. Maybe I'll say hi when they're done."

dark_light
2013-08-13 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, do. I'm not interested in the best friend, but the Rippers are cute."

truthwright
2013-08-13 07:41 pm (UTC)

"I will, then."

He hugs her some more.

"Love you, sweetie."

dark_light
2013-08-13 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I love you too." Snuggle. "Ripper wanted to make sure you wouldn't mind, about the borrowing, I said you wouldn't - right?"

truthwright
2013-08-13 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, of course." Hugs.

dark_light
2013-08-13 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Thought so." Hug.

truthwright
2013-08-13 07:44 pm (UTC)

Snuggle hug.

how long has it been?

small_magics

Isibel's beloveds are home. And they are with her. And they are quite undisturbed.

Anyone who could not guess the ensuing events would not know them very well.

She has spent over a sennight, now, with them, entangled and sleepless and so very, very glad to have them again.

It is during a lull in the proceedings - if it can really be called that, when they are sandwiched around her, Ansharil in one of his humanoid shapes, Aianon with his wings wrapping them all up in a bundle - when it occurs to her that Lycaelon was promised a kiss, once, years ago.

endragoned
2013-08-14 06:29 pm (UTC)

Oh, that he was.

Aianon supposes he could deliver that kiss sometime soon. If it did not come as too much of an interruption. Perhaps if they just summoned Lycaelon here, and Aianon kissed him, and then he - well, went away again or didn't, whichever seemed like the most delightful option.

small_magics
2013-08-14 06:30 pm (UTC)

It would not be too much of an interruption.

endragoned
2013-08-14 06:30 pm (UTC)

Hm.

Would she like to brainphone him, or should Aianon?

small_magics
2013-08-14 06:31 pm (UTC)

She can.

[Hello.]
Edited 2013-08-14 18:35 (UTC)

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 06:35 pm (UTC)

[Oh! Are you—? Um, hello,] he says.

small_magics
2013-08-14 06:36 pm (UTC)

[If you wished to collect your kiss from my beloved now - perhaps you remember, from when you first saw the island, wanting one - then you could visit us and do so.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 06:37 pm (UTC)

[...All right,] says Lycaelon.

He teleports to where they all are.
Edited 2013-08-14 18:38 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-08-14 06:39 pm (UTC)

Isibel extracts one hand from the cuddle-wrap to wave lazily at him.

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 06:41 pm (UTC)

That looks to be an admirably cuddly cuddle-wrap. Lycaelon admires it for a moment.

endragoned
2013-08-14 07:13 pm (UTC)

Aianon gently unwraps his wings from around the snuggling Isibel and Ansharil, so that he can sit up and beckon to Lycaelon.

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:15 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon leans in to kiss him.

Except—

He keeps looking at Ansharil, currently in the form of a human with long luxurious purple hair in all the sunset shades of his scales. He is just so beautiful. It's hard to pay attention to anything else.

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:17 pm (UTC)

Aww, they're -

Isibel blinks, and sits up abruptly. "Lycaelon." And, silently, to her beloved - do they see what she's seeing?

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Huh?" he says distractedly.

endragoned
2013-08-14 07:18 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes, they see it.

They are not sure what to do.

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:19 pm (UTC)

"You are gazing at my dragon. You may wish to stop and think." She puts her hand between his eyes and Ansharil.

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Oh," says Lycaelon. "He's - not a dragon right now, does that...? I guess it doesn't."

He shuts his eyes.

"I should ask Liselen what's going on," he concludes.

And he conference-calls them all on brainphone.

[Liselen, why am I about to bond with Ansharil?]

pythbox
2013-08-14 07:23 pm (UTC)

[Fate, I guess,] says Liselen. [I don't have anything specific to tell you about it.]

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:24 pm (UTC)

[So presumably you do not have to do it to save the world.]
Edited 2013-08-14 19:24 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-14 07:26 pm (UTC)

[Absolutely no world-saving involved,] Liselen confirms. [It's all up to you.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:27 pm (UTC)

[Okay...] says Lycaelon. [That's... good? I guess?]

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:28 pm (UTC)

[If you share my initial discomfort with the idea but would otherwise like to, it can, of course, be patched by magic.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Right," he murmurs. [Thanks, Lise.] "Are - what do you think, I'm not just deciding this for me, am I?"

endragoned
2013-08-14 07:33 pm (UTC)

"We are all deciding it," says Ansharil. "For all of us."

Aianon causes the floor of the tree to grow a comfortable chair for Lycaelon to sit in, and stands up to guide him into it. His wings arch around the chair, shielding Lycaelon from stray glimpses of his dragon even if he were to open his eyes.

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:35 pm (UTC)

Isibel flops onto Ansharil. (She is already Bonded with him and can look at him as much as she likes.) "It would be different. Perhaps in a good way, though."

endragoned
2013-08-14 07:38 pm (UTC)

"I would not mind," says Aianon, running his fingers through Lycaelon's hair (and being careful with his talons) as Ansharil hugs Isibel. "I could love you happily."

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Apparently I could love you too," says Lycaelon. "But - sharing each other's minds, that's optional? Right? You fixed that?"

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:41 pm (UTC)

"...I do not know how the wish will hold, with another mind added to the Bond. I will be safe; my aura will do it - you might have to wait a short while for Lazarus to have another look at us all and make a replacement wish."

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:45 pm (UTC)

"It's not the mind-reading that I can't stand so much as the closeness," he says, "and I can live with that in small doses. And... I want to. I think I want to."

endragoned
2013-08-14 07:47 pm (UTC)

Aianon hugs him.

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:49 pm (UTC)

"If these are small enough doses, then if you continue staring at my beloved now, we might have to become presentable for Lazarus sooner than I would prefer," remarks Isibel.

endragoned
2013-08-14 07:51 pm (UTC)

"You could collect your kiss now and come back later," Aianon suggests.

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:52 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon laughs, reaching up without opening his eyes to locate Aianon's face and pull it down for a kiss.

Mmmm. Kiss.

endragoned
2013-08-14 07:53 pm (UTC)

Mmmm.

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how small," he says, when there has been enough kiss. "I've never bonded with a dragon before."

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:54 pm (UTC)

"It is like falling," murmurs Isibel.

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:55 pm (UTC)

He shivers, leaning his face against Aianon's chest.

"What else is it like?"

endragoned
2013-08-14 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Like always knowing the person you love is there, even when they are far away," says Aianon.

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 07:56 pm (UTC)

He shivers again.

small_magics
2013-08-14 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I was afraid. I'm sure it's different if you aren't afraid."

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 08:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, maybe," he says. "I don't do too well with people being there all the time."

endragoned
2013-08-14 08:05 pm (UTC)

"There are not very many of us," Aianon reminds him, "and we will love you very much. And we can go as far away as you want."

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 08:06 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon thinks. He leans on Aianon while he does it. Aianon is very comfortable to lean on.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:07 pm (UTC)

Very comfy. Isibel is still snuggling Ansharil. "I will be a bit at arm's length," she clarifies. "Co-bonded are not always so close. But I already like you very much."

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 08:11 pm (UTC)

"If I didn't like you both very much, I would be gone already," he laughs.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Naturally."

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 08:30 pm (UTC)

He snuggles Aianon. Snuggly, snuggly Aianon. Aianon who made this amazing island, and all those things on Saturn...

"I don't want to do it unless I know you're all okay with it, though," he says.
Edited 2013-08-14 20:37 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:39 pm (UTC)

"I would need to think about it. And in the meantime I might like to have Aianon back." She pauses, tilts her head. "Pattern has left me a message, recommending time-dilation, so you might not need to wait long."

wildlymagical
2013-08-14 08:39 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"Okay," he says, and kisses Aianon again, and teleports away.

endragoned
2013-08-14 08:40 pm (UTC)

Aianon unmakes the chair he made for Lycaelon and pounces on his loves.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:41 pm (UTC)

Ooh! Pouncing!

(And before she forgets a quick time-dilation wish -)

endragoned
2013-08-14 08:42 pm (UTC)

Mmm. Pouncing. There is already magic in place to ensure that his sharp parts do not harm Isibel, and Ansharil of course is very fond of those sharp parts and would not dream of banning them from his person.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:43 pm (UTC)

Personalized sharpness enjoyment for everyone!

endragoned
2013-08-14 08:43 pm (UTC)

Yes. That.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:44 pm (UTC)

Also beloved-enjoyment, more generally. Lots of it. A sennight is not enough after sixteen years.

endragoned
2013-08-14 08:45 pm (UTC)

Not nearly enough. Try three, or four. Or more than that. More, generally. More time, more pouncing, more kisses, more of everything they missed.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:46 pm (UTC)

And there was so much to miss. (Not least because Ansharil keeps turning into things. When he's an angel he makes the loveliest sounds when Isibel strokes his wings.)

endragoned
2013-08-14 08:49 pm (UTC)

His wings as an angel are the same vivid array of purples as his hair in any humanoid shape. They are very beautiful, and he loves to wrap her up in them and kiss her.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:50 pm (UTC)

And she loves to be wrapped up and kissed! What a lovely arrangement.

endragoned
2013-08-14 08:51 pm (UTC)

Yes. If possible, Ansharil would like to go on touching her for - oh, the next several years at least.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:52 pm (UTC)

She would not dream of sending him away from her.

endragoned
2013-08-14 08:53 pm (UTC)

Good. He'll just do that, then.

small_magics
2013-08-14 08:54 pm (UTC)

Of course, several years spent doing what they are doing now might be excessive, time-dilation or no, but that doesn't mean she wants to stop yet. And she can bring Ansharil with her wherever she goes, shaped like this or that, without it necessarily always devolving into sennights or moonturns of prolonged "reunion".

endragoned
2013-08-14 09:17 pm (UTC)

Perhaps he will be some sort of small pretty extravagant bird and perch himself on her shoulder. Small, pretty, extravagant, and purple.

But for now - reunion. Yes. That.

small_magics
2013-08-14 09:19 pm (UTC)

Very very much that.

endragoned
2013-08-14 09:24 pm (UTC)

Very much of that. As much of that as they want. Especially now that they are tucked away out of time, there is absolutely no reason to stop until they are entirely done.

small_magics
2013-08-14 09:24 pm (UTC)

That will take a lot of that.

endragoned
2013-08-14 09:24 pm (UTC)

Yes. It will.

small_magics
2013-08-14 09:25 pm (UTC)

Best get started. Well. Continue, more.
Edited 2013-08-14 21:25 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-08-14 09:31 pm (UTC)

Yes.

It takes a very long time, but eventually, they are snuggling and snuggling and have not kissed in a while and Aianon decides that he might like to have a nap.

small_magics
2013-08-14 09:33 pm (UTC)

Isibel kisses his forehead, not to break the lull but to punctuate it. She sits up. She squares herself presentable and clothed, ensures that the tree won't allow anyone in to disturb or be disturbed by Aianon, and stands and stretches, yawning contently.

endragoned
2013-08-14 09:37 pm (UTC)

Ansharil becomes a small purple creature with a long fluffy body, a longer, fluffier tail, and beautiful feathery purple wings. He flutters up to Isibel's shoulder, perches there, curls his tail loosely around her neck, and nuzzles her cheek.

small_magics
2013-08-14 09:38 pm (UTC)

She pets his fluff. And she breaks the time dilation on her tree, and takes a step outside.

endragoned
2013-08-14 09:39 pm (UTC)

Will she be seeking out Lycaelon now?

small_magics
2013-08-14 09:42 pm (UTC)

She should think about that, shouldn't she. Hmm.

She likes being her beloveds' - favorite, for lack of a better word. She does not begrudge them their affection for others, but none of it is central in the same way as what they have for her. She is wondering how she will do if there is another in their Bond, another Binding permanently anchored, on the level with hers. Perhaps it would change nothing, particularly since Lycaelon likes to be alone so very much of the time. But perhaps she is wrong.
Edited 2013-08-15 02:32 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-08-15 02:41 am (UTC)

Well...

Ansharil knows it would not change how much he loves her, or how. He does not know what it would change, exactly. Neither Isibel nor her beloveds has ever thought about adding another Bonded before; they are thinking new things, and Ansharil is not sure he understands all of them. It would be new. It would be different.

He wants to do it. But if Isibel feels that she would be losing something with the change, something important that she does not want to lose, then he won't. He does not want it that much. How could he? She is his Bonded, and he loves her.

small_magics
2013-08-15 02:48 am (UTC)

Isibel takes Ansharil from her shoulder and tucks him under her chin and holds him, eyes closed.

She thinks, and sends along thoughts as they happen.

They haven't ever considered adding another person to the Bond. There have never been that many people - bodies? - in a Dragonbond before; she didn't know it was possible. But from the shape of her beloveds' thoughts now, this fact was doing more work for her than for them. She was - only. Not the only person they loved or made love to or anything like that, but the only something, and here is another person - who she does quite like, but who - threatens is not the right word. But who presents himself as a second of this thing that she was previously all by herself.

This doesn't seem to have been important to her beloveds. It isn't how they work. But it is how she works. The onlyness has been doing something. Replacing it is not impossible, and then everyone could have what they want, but it is potentially fraught.

endragoned
2013-08-15 03:15 am (UTC)

So...

What else could she be the only one of, if she was no longer their only Bonded?

She could be their only wife. That seems to be working for some other Bells. Would it work for Sarion?
Edited 2013-08-15 03:17 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-08-15 03:19 am (UTC)

It would, except - that all of her feelings about marriage are elfy feelings, not angel feelings or enchantress feelings. And elf-marriage is about soul-sympathy. And that is only operating in one direction, here.
Edited 2013-08-15 03:29 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-08-15 03:36 am (UTC)

Well.

Ansharil could be an elf. He has not done that very much; he likes being an angel better, because of the wings. He could be an elf, and if he was an elf, he could have soul-sympathy. For her. And then they could be married.

He thinks he would like to do that anyway, now that he has thought of it.

small_magics
2013-08-15 03:39 am (UTC)

...That is a good idea. Either way.

She slips back into her tree; Ansharil is currently a fuzzy fictitious creature and therefore not wearing anything.

It shouldn't take long.

endragoned
2013-08-15 04:07 am (UTC)

Ansharil becomes an elf.

He kisses her. Well, he has not gotten the impression that he would need to stay idle, to make this thing happen. And he likes kissing her. He likes it very much.

small_magics
2013-08-15 04:08 am (UTC)

She likes kissing him too. Not that she is currently feeling low on her kiss supply, but it is not like she has limited storage space, either.

Certainly idleness is not required.

endragoned
2013-08-15 04:09 am (UTC)

Mmmmm. Kisses.

It is not very different, when it comes, from what is already there. Isibel is his love and his Bonded and he loves her in so many ways already. But it's different enough to notice, this new thing. And very elfy.

He shifts angel and wraps his wings around her, just to see what happens.

The new thing does not go away, but it - settles. Not an elusive wisp of a half-familiar feeling anymore, but a beautifully simple steady presence that almost feels like it has been there all along, in a way. Like a new shadow cast from a familiar object by a new source of light.

Ansharil likes it. It's nice.
Edited 2013-08-15 15:10 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-08-15 06:10 pm (UTC)

Isibel likes it too. She sighs and puts her head on his shoulder. Now they are all matched up. She could take him to any elven celebrant and be married formally. (She could have done this before, but it was never pressing; now she thinks she would like to do it soon.)

endragoned
2013-08-16 12:02 am (UTC)

Ansharil is very amused by the image of the three of them going together to be married. Himself in his natural shape, and Aianon in his.

small_magics
2013-08-16 12:03 am (UTC)

Isibel is not sure she can convince a celebrant to participate in this arrangement.

endragoned
2013-08-16 12:04 am (UTC)

Nor is Ansharil. That is why it's funny.

small_magics
2013-08-16 12:06 am (UTC)

It is funny. Perhaps they can get one of her alts to perform that ceremony. Angela is so empowered by her office, she believes, and any of the empresses could award herself the power. But herself and elf-Ansharil for the local one.

endragoned
2013-08-16 12:08 am (UTC)

Yes. Plenty of weddings. That seems like a good idea.

small_magics
2013-08-16 12:11 am (UTC)

It does.

She could go seek Lycaelon now. She will not lose anything she needs to keep if there is further gazing.

endragoned
2013-08-16 12:13 am (UTC)

They might as well wait until Aianon wakes up. Which means there is time to get married first, unless getting married takes an especially long time for reasons Ansharil cannot imagine.

small_magics
2013-08-16 12:19 am (UTC)

Since it would be difficult and merely symbolic for Aianon to be physically present at the wedding, and since there will be another ceremony anyway, that makes sense. It will not take too terribly long as long as someone has betrothal pendants available for them. (She has an amusing mental image of the fluffy long creature he was on her shoulder a few minutes ago, wearing a betrothal pendant.)
Edited 2013-08-16 00:21 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-08-16 12:22 am (UTC)

Ansharil giggles.

small_magics
2013-08-16 12:23 am (UTC)

People will ask her why her husband is on her shoulder and she will tell them that he is more portable that way. It will be very amusing.

endragoned
2013-08-16 12:24 am (UTC)

He kisses her, because he loves her and she is hilarious and lovely and kissable.

small_magics
2013-08-16 12:24 am (UTC)

All of those things! Isibel closes her eyes and kisses back and starts peering through the elven jewelry repositories of the world for pretty pendants. It would be gauche to conjure them.
Edited 2013-08-16 00:25 (UTC)

endragoned
2013-08-16 12:38 am (UTC)

Mmm, kisses.

Ansharil will offer opinions, if she likes. (The one she gives to her beloveds should be something that will look well on any body where they might choose to wear it. Perhaps even the little furry creature she liked so much.)

small_magics
2013-08-16 03:42 am (UTC)

She would like them to match, in some ways if not necessarily in all. So this suggests purple, or green, or maybe blue which will go nicely with either color and her hollyplant-wreath, and an easily adjustable chain for Ansharil's assorted sizes. From her place in her beloved's arms she inspects the available jewelry until she finds a paired set she likes. They're heavy eggs of banded blue agate trapped in lacy swirls of delicate white wire, and they don't come with their own chains - her beloved's can be attached by their little white-metal hooks to something easily relinked for wearing on a small form. She thinks her chain will be gold; her beloveds might have any sort they like, since the chain can be conjured up.

endragoned
2013-08-16 12:32 pm (UTC)

Yes. That sounds lovely. Ansharil snuggles her.

small_magics
2013-08-16 05:22 pm (UTC)

And Isibel thinks it will look nice on Aianon too.

endragoned
2013-08-16 05:23 pm (UTC)

That is good. Aianon will want to wear it also, when Ansharil does not. (It would look a little silly around the neck of a dragon.)

small_magics
2013-08-16 05:24 pm (UTC)

Just a little, yes.

(People might ask her why she married her dragon and she could tell them, "Because I love him, of course.")

endragoned
2013-08-16 05:26 pm (UTC)

Ansharil giggles again. She is the most adorable of sarions.

small_magics
2013-08-16 05:28 pm (UTC)

She is! She is a very adorable sarion.

...

If her beloveds share their mind with Lycaelon, then things she thinks to them will no longer be private.

endragoned
2013-08-16 05:35 pm (UTC)

—Her beloveds' mind is theirs. They will want to share it with their Bonded. How much would she need them to keep back...? It would be very hard to do, if they did not know exactly which things. (It won't be like lending their experience to Elspeth, where they could just drop everything since they Bonded to Isibel.)

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:04 pm (UTC)

Nothing specific comes to mind. It would be different if she were not already having sex with Lycaelon, but she is, and does not much mind if he observes her stray thoughts of the subject, bounced from mind to mind, or those of her beloveds that concern her. It only seems in principle - troubling, if she could never have a truly private intimacy with her beloveds. Lycaelon is too introverted to want perpetual sharing anyway; perhaps she could simply - retain the option to mark things? She doesn't know what things. It would just feel more comfortable to have such a marker available than to commit to eternal flow of thought to another person for anything she wants to show her beloveds.

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:09 pm (UTC)

Well, yes, of course. If there is some particular thing she does not want shared, she has only to think so and they will do their best. They can consult Liselen and Lazarus beforehand about how to make sure that the bond cooperates.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:11 pm (UTC)

Her beloveds are wonderful and she loves them ever so.

And Lycaelon has, over the last several years, demonstrated himself perfectly competent at verbal discretion; she is not worried about that.

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:13 pm (UTC)

Ansharil laughs and kisses her, wrapping her up in feathered purple wings.

He loves her too.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

Good good.

If he will be an elf - a clothed elf - they can go and collect those pendants.

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:16 pm (UTC)

He becomes an elf (with his usual rather un-elven colour scheme) and then becomes clothed.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:17 pm (UTC)

She takes his hand in hers and teleports them to the place where the agate pendants she likes are to be found.

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:19 pm (UTC)

The artisan welcomes them, delicately ignoring Ansharil's vividly purple hair, and offers tea.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:20 pm (UTC)

Socially acceptable amounts of tea are consumed, and Isibel issues compliments about the blue agate pendants.

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:24 pm (UTC)

The artisan agrees that they are some of her finest work, and lets it be known that Isibel Sarion is welcome to them.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:25 pm (UTC)

Isibel is appropriately thankful. She conjures up chains for them. She puts her beloved's on around his neck. (She would like it if he would put hers on for her.)

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:25 pm (UTC)

He does that.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:26 pm (UTC)

She kisses him. They are engaged! She is so pleased.

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:27 pm (UTC)

He is pleased also! Perhaps they should celebrate.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:29 pm (UTC)

Her beloved is insatiable.

Of course, who is she to talk?

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:29 pm (UTC)

Back to the tree, then?

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:30 pm (UTC)

Apparently!

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:31 pm (UTC)

It is a nice tree. Ansharil likes it.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:32 pm (UTC)

She is so proud of her tree. It is a useful enchanted private tree. In which celebrations.

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:32 pm (UTC)

Mmm. Yes. Those.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:35 pm (UTC)

And after (comparatively brief) celebrations, there is the question of celebrants.

Isibel supposes her parents would probably like to be at the wedding. Lycaelon cannot be at this one because he would gaze at the groom and that is to wait until Aianon is awake, but he can be at the ceremony with the peal, which her parents will not likely attend. (They have learned bits and pieces of her interdimensional activities, over the years, but she does not plan to bring them to the party, where everyone will ask questions and everything will be so busy and crowded.)

She confers with her mother and father by brainphone. They can make time whenever it would be convenient for her and her beloved to be married, if she will pick them up.

endragoned
2013-08-16 06:36 pm (UTC)

Then they can be married whenever they find someone to marry them. Good.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:39 pm (UTC)

Very good!

Let's see.

Hmm. Perhaps Magania would like to do it.

[Magania, my beloveds are home again.]

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:39 pm (UTC)

[This news makes good hearing,] says Magania.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:40 pm (UTC)

[And Jane has recovered.] (This too was in her brainphone messages, when she checked them.) [And my dragon has turned into an elf and we would like to be married.]

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:41 pm (UTC)

A moment of silence.

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:42 pm (UTC)

[He can turn into anything he likes,] Isibel explains. [They went to another world and he gained the ability.]

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:44 pm (UTC)

[I did not know this,] says Magania. [Life with you is never short of surprises.]

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:46 pm (UTC)

[Perhaps I should have mentioned it sooner. At any rate, he can be an elf, and we are wearing betrothal pendants now, and he will probably accompany me wherever I go for the next several years at least, in small portable shapes, but today he is being an elf for purposes including marrying me.]

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:47 pm (UTC)

[It would be good to know, of your courtesy, if you have yet chosen a celebrant.]

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:49 pm (UTC)

[I had hoped you might assist us. My parents - oh, and I ought to ask Liselen, although we will perform the ceremony all over again when there is next a Bell party and he could be at that one - will comprise the guest list.]

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:51 pm (UTC)

[I would be pleased to do so,] says Magania, [at whatever time might be convenient for all of us.]

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:51 pm (UTC)

[I will speak to Liselen. Myself and my beloved and my parents are all available at any time.]

[Liselen, you have heard that my beloveds are home. I am going to marry them - well, Ansharil, in the elven style, and later the both of them with somebell else's help; perhaps you would like to be at both ceremonies.]
Edited 2013-08-16 18:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:53 pm (UTC)

[That would be great!] says Liselen. [Congratulations and stuff! I've never been to a wedding before.]

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:54 pm (UTC)

[Myself, my beloved, Magania, and my parents are all quite free in our schedules.]

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:54 pm (UTC)

[Me too,] Liselen says cheerfully. [I don't have any urgent unicorning to do in the next little while, not that I know about anyway.]

small_magics
2013-08-16 06:56 pm (UTC)

[Well, then,] says Isibel, conferencing in everyone who will appear at the wedding, [there are no time constraints at all. Perhaps we should begin right now.]

pythbox
2013-08-16 06:58 pm (UTC)

[So long as your magic can provide a well-laid feast table in an appropriate pavilion,] says Magania. [Otherwise we may be some time finding those things.]

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:02 pm (UTC)

[My enchanted village can certainly do it.] There is a platform suspended high in the trees, to which she teleports herself and Ansharil; it is currently unoccupied, but when she claps her hands and asks it for a feast, it sets about arranging one.

pythbox
2013-08-16 07:03 pm (UTC)

Liselen shows up first.

"Lycaelon says congratulations," he reports, swishing his tail.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:05 pm (UTC)

Isibel pets Liselen's mane. "That is kind. He can be at the other ceremony. If he were at this one he would distract the groom, alas." She supposes she should inform Lycaelon of as much. [We are planning to have two weddings. You can be at the other, after Bonding, if you still want to. My beloved thinks that should wait until after Aianon has finished with his nap, however.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-16 07:06 pm (UTC)

[I thought it might be something like that,] says Lycaelon.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:08 pm (UTC)

[Yes. Probably Angela will perform the other ceremony, at or around the next Bellparty.]

Isibel goes and fetches her parents.

pythbox
2013-08-16 07:09 pm (UTC)

By the time she has done that, Magania is present also, admiring Ansharil's hair.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:13 pm (UTC)

It is lovely hair! Is this everyone? This looks like everyone. Isibel touches her pendant and smiles.

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:16 pm (UTC)

Ansharil smiles, too.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:17 pm (UTC)

Elven weddings are simple - so much of the guesswork that humans and so on like to shore up with ritual is handled by soul-sympathy. Magania speaks, and Isibel and Ansharil speak, and it's done, and all that remains is to feast.

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:19 pm (UTC)

Ooh, feasting.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:20 pm (UTC)

Feasting, and sappy looks between bride and groom, and Rania cooing over her child, and Cariel giving Ansharil possibly approving nods that are probably meaningful if you are actually a male elf and not pretending.

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:21 pm (UTC)

The sappy looks are Ansharil's favourite part.

pythbox
2013-08-16 07:21 pm (UTC)

The feasting is Liselen's!

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:22 pm (UTC)

And eventually Rania and Cariel go home.

pythbox
2013-08-16 07:26 pm (UTC)

And so do Magania and Liselen.

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:29 pm (UTC)

And Ansharil scoops up Isibel and kisses her.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:29 pm (UTC)

Scooping! Kissing! Isibel approves. These are good things.

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:30 pm (UTC)

Perhaps they should go and have some more sex. Ansharil is vaguely aware that some cultures consider that a marriage tradition.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:31 pm (UTC)

Some do! They should belong to one.

(And then - she will finally go catch up with other things.)

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:32 pm (UTC)

Yes. That seems like a good plan.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:32 pm (UTC)

Hello again, Isibel's tree!

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:33 pm (UTC)

It is such a lovely tree. Ansharil is pleased with it.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:34 pm (UTC)

Best tree.

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:34 pm (UTC)

Indeed it is.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:35 pm (UTC)

Anyway.

There was a week that has gone by before she received the time-dilation suggestion, and there are other Bells and a restored Jane to catch up with.

Out of her tree goes Isibel, a bit later, Ansharil on her shoulder.

endragoned
2013-08-16 07:37 pm (UTC)

He is being small and furry and snuggly. Snuggle snuggle.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:38 pm (UTC)

He is the best for snuggling, whatever shape he takes. Perhaps unless he decides to experiment with being a porcuipine.

Isibel checks with her various helpers about the events of the world over the past week, and then she asks Jane to ask Lazarus if in a few days he will find it convenient to supervise the addition of another Bonded to their Bond and making sure it does not intrude more than Lycaelon would like.

nonbird
2013-08-16 07:39 pm (UTC)

Of course he would.

small_magics
2013-08-16 07:40 pm (UTC)

That is good.

i'm almost sixteen

autokinetic

Aegis has her Sue back. Sort of.

She also has her Jane back, less sort of, and right now that's way less complicated and way less sad and Aegis doesn't, actually, have anything to do apart from reading to catch up, which she can only do so many hours in a row.

So she's dug up her old save file and she's playing with her animal-people. With Jane, although Jane says she's mostly running the original software, not inserting her mature personality. (She does commentate, for color.)

Clearing the jellyfish for the seahorses.

She remembers it like it was yesterday.

Her bird stopped playing before she did, so she doesn't even slightly expect him to show up all candleflame and join her, when she's doing this.

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:00 am (UTC)

Her bird was never very expectable.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:01 am (UTC)

[Jane, are you fucking with me?]

mind_game
2013-08-14 12:01 am (UTC)

[No, he logged into it. What, you want me to put him in his own sandbox?]

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:02 am (UTC)

[No. This is fine.]

Her avatar waves at him, slow in the water.

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:04 am (UTC)

The fiery fish waves back and swims closer, trailing a long candleflame tail.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:07 am (UTC)

Aegis's birdperson, fishbowl airpocket on her head, looks at him for a moment longer, then goes back to exterminating the jellyfish.

[Hi.] No need to clumsily write in the sand.

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:10 am (UTC)

[Hi,] says Sue. [Having fun?]

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:11 am (UTC)

[It's more fun when you're younger, I think,] she says, dryly self-deprecating. [I just needed a break from reading.]

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:13 am (UTC)

[Gotcha.] The fish does a barrel roll.

[This is weird.]

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:14 am (UTC)

[Being back in the game?]

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:16 am (UTC)

[Yeah. Well, that and everything.] He sighs over brainphone. [I want to hug you, or tell you I love you, or - something, but I don't know if any of that would be a positive contribution.]

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:17 am (UTC)

[I know you love me. We did some hugging. I mean, it was better than coming home and not having that, so that's one possible value of positive, yeah?]

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:20 am (UTC)

[Yeah. But 'positive' meaning 'an improvement on the current situation', not so much?]

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:21 am (UTC)

[Yeah, I think I'm gonna be about like so until something else happens.]

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:27 am (UTC)

[I don't want you to keep being about like so,] says Sue. [I want you to be happy. I—]

He cuts himself off and goes silent.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:27 am (UTC)

[I'll grow up eventually. What?]

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:31 am (UTC)

[I just had an idea,] he says, and links her, and sends:

What he wants is to separately be both the person he is now, with all his age and experience and responsibilities, and the person he was when he was sixteen and still extremely keen on the idea of making out with Aegis.

Magic exists. He can do that. There is no reason Aegis has to wait some unspecified amount of time to get her boyfriend back, not when Sue can just pull him out of the past and hand him to her.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:32 am (UTC)

Whoa. This is clever. Sue is clever. It wouldn't cause some kind of problem for there to be two of you?

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:34 am (UTC)

Nope. Well, it might if we paraded him around in front of a bunch of cameras, but I think we can manage not to do that.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:35 am (UTC)

Would you go back to being one Sue later or what?

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:37 am (UTC)

Yeah. Probably. And if we didn't I'm sure we'd get in the habit of linking and catching up every little while, eventually. Or even stay linked permanently like I am with Ivy. With a mental laugh, You could end up with a two-for-one deal on boyfriends.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 12:40 am (UTC)

If I hit you with a rock, does that mean I get two birds with one stone? she snorts. Should ask Jane to poll the peal, see if anybody has input on forking and merging you should use before you start making wishes.

pythbox
2013-08-14 12:55 am (UTC)

Only if you hit both of us with the same rock, he says. Sure.

[Hey, kid, what can the peal tell me about forking and merging?]

mind_game
2013-08-14 01:00 am (UTC)

[I'll check, Venerable Father And/Or Holy Ghost,] says Jane sarcastically.

A moment later: [Juliet's done it to get access to memories about her sister but didn't stay separate for long. Shell Bell's done it and hopes you are not experiencing similar circumstances. Minus has advice that only applies to a subset of Sherlocks. Nathan says it's a perfectly elegant solution to a certain sort of problem he'd be surprised if you had. You wanna be more specific?]

pythbox
2013-08-14 01:04 am (UTC)

[Looks like I'll be the first person to do it, then - I'm forking and staying that way for a while, so Aegis can have her boyfriend back.]

mind_game
2013-08-14 01:10 am (UTC)

[Juliet says it worked out nicely for her to give her fork her own unadulterated memories of the past little while so she'd pop into existence knowing what was going on,] Jane relays.

pythbox
2013-08-14 01:24 am (UTC)

[Thanks.]

Sue is not going to do this; he has his own solution. The point is to fork a double who isn't up to date on his life in full depth, after all. But arbitrary amounts of linked rapid summarizing have yet to turn Sue into Aianon or Ghosty or Brilliance or Corona.

He thinks.

He decides to pull his copy from the exact moment that would make him the same age relative to Aegis that he was when Jane went down - the moment of discontinuity, plus the amount of subjective time Aegis spent out of the world, plus the amount of time it has been since she got back. He doesn't have an exact count of how long that is, but there is no time in that ballpark he could pull from that won't be a busy moment. So he leaves Ivy floating in space as an anchor - can't be too careful - and freecasts to the Gentle Cave in case Past Sue is startled.

'Sue' and 'Past Sue' is going to get confusing fast. The past version can keep 'Sue'; the older one decides he will be Admiral War.

He spends an evil.

It's not clear who links who first, and for a few seconds thoughts are roaring back and forth, but Sue stabilizes fast. He hugs War hard; his Ivy instantiates to join the cuddle. It's like she's wrapping her coils around two of Sue, appropriately enough.

Still linked, Sue does a brief freecasted tour of all known worlds just to make sure his skills there are as up-to-date as War's.

He ends this tour standing in front of Aegis with Ivy perched on his shoulder as a candleflame bird.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 01:27 am (UTC)

Aegis has been idly sweeping up jellyfish while Sue - Admiral War - did all this.

She looks up when Sue appears.

Bird? she asks, tentative.

pythbox
2013-08-14 01:29 am (UTC)

Sue hugs her. Yes, bird, definitely bird, it's so sad what happened, War is sad and Sue is sad but now he's here and everyone can stop being sad because he absolutely wants to kiss her.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 01:29 am (UTC)

Oh good.

pythbox
2013-08-14 01:31 am (UTC)

So he's just going to be in her lap now, that sounds like an awesome place to be, did she miss him? Because he missed her! He missed her a lot!

autokinetic
2013-08-14 01:32 am (UTC)

She missed him so much and he should definitely be in her lap.

The desk where she was playing the fantasy game quietly drops into standby mode.

pythbox
2013-08-14 01:33 am (UTC)

The desk can do that. Sue has way better uses for Aegis's time.

autokinetic
2013-08-14 01:33 am (UTC)

Oh yes, she agrees completely.

pythbox
2013-08-14 01:34 am (UTC)

Good. That is good. That is a good thing.

mind_game
2013-08-14 01:40 am (UTC)

Around when Aegis turns off her Janegem, Jane reports to everyone who is presently open to receiving general peal-news-blurbs that Sue has forked and why.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 01:45 am (UTC)

"Aww."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 01:46 am (UTC)

"Aww," Sherlock agrees. "Clever solution to a tricky problem."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 01:47 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Um, so if Amariah looks murderously in Aegis's direction - I still don't think this is likely but it remains a good idea to distract her."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 01:49 am (UTC)

"Noted once again." He kisses her on the cheek. "Why, did Aegis's bragging rights just expand?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 01:50 am (UTC)

"Aegis went home to a relatively more minor discomfort than Amariah did and even that has now been fixed, so yeah."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 01:52 am (UTC)

"What an odd lot you Bells are."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 01:53 am (UTC)

"We make sense to us. Is it really that strange?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 01:54 am (UTC)

"I've never spared a moment's envy for Pearl or Steel, and I don't imagine they have for me."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 01:55 am (UTC)

"At all? About anything?"

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 02:07 am (UTC)

"I can wish I had escaped certain things that never happened to them in the first place, but that doesn't make me angry with them. And in the other direction - I'm sure every Sherlock has spent an idle moment or two wishing to hate themselves just a little bit less, but they wouldn't take it at the price I paid. I remember."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 02:09 am (UTC)

"Inter-Bell jealousy doesn't usually result in anger. Amariah is just in an extreme situation of thing should not have happened, no appropriate fixes or outlets."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 02:09 am (UTC)

"What does it result in, then?"

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 02:10 am (UTC)

"Competitive furor."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 02:39 am (UTC)

"Hah. Yes, you won't get a lot of that from us."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 02:41 am (UTC)

"In theory I should remember what it was like not to want to show up to a party going, 'Look at what I did! Look at what cool stuff I have! Look at how totally together my personal life is! Look at what clever ideas I have had! Am I not an excellent example of this thing we all are? Beat that!', but the things I did before this kicked in were relatively less interesting."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 02:42 am (UTC)

He kisses her.

"Mystifying, but adorable."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 02:44 am (UTC)

Kiss!

"And at the same time we copy off each other a lot, because, one, we actually care about achieving the ends of our various projects and not nearly as much about doing them in original ways so tested solutions are good, and two, because there would be way less point in trying to impress each other if we did not in fact flatter each other with imitation when we do cool stuff, so we are being cooperative."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 02:53 am (UTC)

"Interesting," he says. "When Tonies get competitive, they try to outdo the results without directly copying the methods. But not for some particular end as much as just to say that they could. I'm sure if one day we found an urgent reason why every Tony has to have a suit of flying armour by approximately yesterday, they'd jump to it just like they did for installing a Jarvis in Chronicle. But until then, they're each fiddling with it separately for the bragging rights."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 02:56 am (UTC)

"It also allows us to sort of skip ahead for more interesting challenges that haven't been done yet. I'm not doing this so much since nobell else has my particular cornucopia of population segments to handle, but, like, Pattern's got farther than anyone else now on the 'colonize space, be a Good Samaritan to a basically standard Earth' strategy, so I bet Stella and Aurora and Cam crib her notes, see if they can do it faster and tidier and with niftier stylistic curlicues, and then when they're caught up they're on a level playing field."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 03:03 am (UTC)

"Right. Which is all noise to me, because Sherlocks don't seem to have a drive for material accomplishments."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 03:03 am (UTC)

"That is okay." Nuzzle.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 03:05 am (UTC)

Ooh, nuzzles.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 03:06 am (UTC)

Juliet's just such a nuzzly person. And Sherlock is so nuzzleable.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 03:07 am (UTC)

He is. He is that thing.

Nuzzle nuzzle.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 03:09 am (UTC)

Ooh, mutual nuzzles.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-14 03:09 am (UTC)

They are extra nuzzly!

cross_and_bow
2013-08-14 03:10 am (UTC)

Double the nuzzles. Best. Snuggle nuzzle love.

temporal_affairs
2013-08-14 03:21 am (UTC)

Meanwhile, in Aurum, "So now there's an extra Sue. It just keeps getting harder to count you all, babe."

manofmyword
2013-08-14 03:22 am (UTC)

"Mm, not sorry," the Joker says cheerfully. "Good for Sues, anyway. It's a nice trick, don't you think?"

temporal_affairs
2013-08-14 03:23 am (UTC)

"The forking? I don't know, didn't do that part on purpose myself, but sounds like it'll suit their little problem to a T."

manofmyword
2013-08-14 03:25 am (UTC)

This calls for a hug and a kiss. Because love. Love is why.

temporal_affairs
2013-08-14 03:25 am (UTC)

Love! Love is not in short supply here at all.

manofmyword
2013-08-14 03:27 am (UTC)

There is plenty to go around. Of love and also snuggles.

"I hope War doesn't get lonely," he murmurs. "Remind me to go give him a hug sometime."

temporal_affairs
2013-08-14 03:28 am (UTC)

"Noted," says Nathan cheerily. He will inform his mate of the best time.

manofmyword
2013-08-14 03:30 am (UTC)

"I love you," says the Joker, snuggling him.

temporal_affairs
2013-08-14 03:31 am (UTC)

"I love you too, babe."

manofmyword
2013-08-14 03:36 am (UTC)

Now there will be kisses.

temporal_affairs
2013-08-14 03:38 am (UTC)

Ooh, kisses! Nathan likes those. (The Joker has probably figured that out. It is not a well-kept secret.)

manofmyword
2013-08-14 03:42 am (UTC)

(It is the most poorly kept of secrets. And the Joker likes it that way.)

our interactions with mortals are often limited

dark_light

Isabella is interviewing shades. It's easier to control PR from here - if she doesn't want to send one back to the living, she doesn't have to, and anything they tell their dreaming friends is hearsay twice over with no chance for soundbites or recordkeeping - and they have nearly as much up-to-date information about their worlds, if she picks the right ones. Simultaneously, Jane is feeding her books and news articles and her personal impressions of the things that have gone on recently. (Isabella already planted ansibles in all the other subworlds with Internets for her.)

tearingup
2013-08-16 08:05 pm (UTC)

It has been about a day since Amariah witnessed the introduction of the local and nonlocal Rippers.

Now, the nonlocal brainphones her. [Hey, we're done getting to know each other for now,] he says.

dark_light
2013-08-16 08:06 pm (UTC)

[And I'm sure you now know each other very well. Has he been disclosed of things?]

tearingup
2013-08-16 08:07 pm (UTC)

[Some of 'em. And Rayne picked him a nickname - you can call him Keth if having two Rippers around is too much for you.]

dark_light
2013-08-16 08:11 pm (UTC)

[Sure. Where'd that come from?]

tearingup
2013-08-16 08:14 pm (UTC)

[They didn't say. So I'm betting it has something to do with Hecate.]

dark_light
2013-08-16 08:14 pm (UTC)

[That's his daemon?]

tearingup
2013-08-16 08:20 pm (UTC)

[Yeah. Keth's. Rayne's won't admit to a name.]

dark_light
2013-08-16 08:23 pm (UTC)

[Huh. Do you want me to help disclosing any things?]

tearingup
2013-08-16 08:24 pm (UTC)

[None that I can think of. Do you want to have sex with me and Keth?]

dark_light
2013-08-16 08:25 pm (UTC)

[Sounds like a good time. Rayne out of the picture, yeah? Pat told me to avoid being in any situation where it mattered to me what he did.]

tearingup
2013-08-16 08:28 pm (UTC)

[Pat's smart. Yeah, Rayne fucked off a while ago, it's just us now. Oh, I minted Keth and gave him some goodies, by the way.]

dark_light
2013-08-16 08:30 pm (UTC)

[Fine by me but I wish you'd asked. Gimme a minute to wrap up this other conversation and I will appear.]

tearingup
2013-08-16 08:32 pm (UTC)

[Sure.]

dark_light
2013-08-16 08:32 pm (UTC)

Isabella wraps up her conversation.

She appears.

tearingup
2013-08-16 08:44 pm (UTC)

The Rippers are in Keth's living room, neither wearing much more than underwear, having a cup of tea and a chat.

When Isabella appears, Keth swears and drops his tea. And then swears some more.

dark_light
2013-08-16 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Sorry about that," says Isabella, fixing the cup of tea for him with a triangle, "thought he would have warned you I said I was going to appear."

tearingup
2013-08-16 10:03 pm (UTC)

"He said you were going to show up," says Keth, "he didn't mention the part where you appear without warning in the middle of my living room."

"Shit, I didn't even think," says Ripper, "it's been years since Pat did that - when you're visiting a Ripper, come in through the door."

dark_light
2013-08-16 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Okay, noted," laughs Amariah. "Well, hi. I'm Isabella, apparently at this point you're more likely to have heard of me under the title 'Shade-Dreamer', and every single one of the movies is drastically wrong."

tearingup
2013-08-16 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Keth, "so I've heard. So what is the story?"

dark_light
2013-08-16 10:10 pm (UTC)

"You know those little magic coins you can make now? They come in many sizes. I used some really really pointy ones. After conquering some angels, making sure God wasn't going to be a problem, and getting the harpies to cooperate."
Edited 2013-08-16 22:29 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-16 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Right," says Keth. "Conquering angels. All in a day's work."

dark_light
2013-08-16 11:59 pm (UTC)

"I had help."

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:01 am (UTC)

"Aianon was there," says Ripper.

"I'm still not sure I believe you about him," says Keth.

"He's pretty unbelievable," says Ripper. "You'll meet him at the party."

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:03 am (UTC)

"Aianon is totally real," agrees Amariah. "And my boyfriend, and one of my alts - there was another one along but she went home early - and a few other people who weren't with me through the whole business."

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:23 am (UTC)

"Your boyfriend's another Joker, right?" says Keth.

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:24 am (UTC)

"Yes."

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:29 am (UTC)

Keth grins at Ripper. Ripper grins back.

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:31 am (UTC)

"He mentioned maybe looking you two up, actually, when I mentioned you to him."

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:32 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Ripper, grinning some more.

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:33 am (UTC)

Amariah laughs and addresses Keth. "So you're up to speed, sounds like, and you're invited to the Bellparty, which I'm thinking of offering to host, except in my afterlife palace so not everyone has to burn coins avoiding daemon acquisition."

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:34 am (UTC)

Hecate rustles her wings. "'Avoiding daemon acquisition'," says Keth, "there's a phrase you don't expect to hear often. You have an afterlife palace?"

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:36 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I just made it the other day. Easiest place to put up a palace, for me. Reality there obeys my whims directly. It'll make party setup super easy."

Path tells Hecate, "People who don't have us think it's almost as weird as we think not having us is."

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:42 am (UTC)

"Well aren't you special," says Keth. Ripper giggles.

Hecate says, "Was there going to be sex or was Ripper kidding about that?"

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:45 am (UTC)

Amariah grins.

Path flutters away from her shoulder, and gazes owlishly at Hecate.

"Can be," she purrs.

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:46 am (UTC)

Hecate is perched in her customary place on top of a somewhat battered clock. She takes wing and heads for the bedroom; Keth puts down his tea and follows.

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:48 am (UTC)

Presently the birds are snuggled up in the appropriate manner. This is and has always been a satisfactory workaround for Isabella.

Ayep. Rippers are nice. Pat has good taste.

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:51 am (UTC)

Rippers are nice. The one she has already sampled has changed flavours by now - he's dark chocolate, and Keth is caramel.

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:52 am (UTC)

"Oh, I thought the peach was a stable thing, silly of me."

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:54 am (UTC)

"Nah," says Ripper.

"More fun this way," Keth says cheerfully.

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:55 am (UTC)

Nibble nibble nibble.

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:56 am (UTC)

Ooh, nibbles. Would she like some of those back?

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:57 am (UTC)

Why yes, she is somewhat undersupplied!

tearingup
2013-08-17 12:58 am (UTC)

Lucky for her, she gets a two-for-one deal!

dark_light
2013-08-17 12:59 am (UTC)

That is very lucky indeed. Keth may not have his alt's years of experience with operating a Bell, but that does not make him significantly less enjoyable.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:01 am (UTC)

And it's possible that Ripper may be giving him a few helpful pointers.

dark_light
2013-08-17 01:01 am (UTC)

Isabella does not object in the slightest.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:05 am (UTC)

Good! That is good. That is a good thing.

dark_light
2013-08-17 01:06 am (UTC)

There are so many good things!

And satisfying feathery snuggles over there mean there is none of Amariah's not-all-here-ness from before.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:07 am (UTC)

Ripper notices and appreciates this! Keth doesn't even think of it.

dark_light
2013-08-17 01:08 am (UTC)

It is probably most obvious during the afterglowy snuggles.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:09 am (UTC)

They are some good afterglowy snuggles. Rippers are a cuddly bunch.

dark_light
2013-08-17 01:10 am (UTC)

Yay!

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:11 am (UTC)

Snugglyay.

dark_light
2013-08-17 01:15 am (UTC)

It is the snugglyayest.

Eventually Isabella gets up, wishes her silks on, and retrieves her daemon. "That was lovely."
Edited 2013-08-17 01:16 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:20 am (UTC)

"It really was," says Ripper, snuggling up to Keth. "Mmm."

dark_light
2013-08-17 01:20 am (UTC)

"I'll see you both at the party if not sooner, yeah?" laughs Isabella.
Edited 2013-08-17 01:20 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Keth.

dark_light
2013-08-17 01:22 am (UTC)

"Awesome." She blows them a kiss - Path waves a wing at Hecate - and then she's gone.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:25 am (UTC)

Somewhat late the next day, Ripper finally teleports to the Janepoint and asks her to take him home.

bellfounding
2013-08-17 01:26 am (UTC)

He lands right in front of Pattern, who is inspecting some of Saturn's bubbles but currently unaccompanied.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:31 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Ripper. He kisses her. "I've just had a lot of sex, want to go have some more?"

bellfounding
2013-08-17 01:33 am (UTC)

She laughs. "Is that all you were doing? You were gone a long time, I figured Amariah decided to take you on a tour of half her worldsheaf or something. But regardless, yes, absolutely." Sometime during this utterance they cease to be on Saturn and begin to be in her bed in her tower.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:49 am (UTC)

"Well, there was Rayne and Keth - that's what we called the local Ripper - and then there was Keth and Amariah, and then there was Keth and Kas."

He kisses her again.

bellfounding
2013-08-17 01:50 am (UTC)

Kiss! "Very eventful."

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:52 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Like I said. A lot of sex. And a few cups of tea in between."

bellfounding
2013-08-17 01:52 am (UTC)

"You and your tea."

Now she tastes like tea. With lemon.

Kiss.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:55 am (UTC)

Ripper currently tastes like cherries! Lucky they don't have to match.

He giggles. "I love you so much."

bellfounding
2013-08-17 01:56 am (UTC)

"I love you too."

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:57 am (UTC)

Snugglesnugglekiss.

bellfounding
2013-08-17 01:57 am (UTC)

Kisskisssquirm.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:58 am (UTC)

Ooh a squirm! Bella has the cutest squirms. They must be vigorously snuggled.

bellfounding
2013-08-17 01:59 am (UTC)

That is one of several things you can do with a Bella-squirm, certainly.

tearingup
2013-08-17 01:59 am (UTC)

That's true. There are more.

bellfounding
2013-08-17 01:59 am (UTC)

He should go through all of them in some kind of sensible order!

tearingup
2013-08-17 02:02 am (UTC)

Yes. He will do that thing.

bellfounding
2013-08-17 02:03 am (UTC)

Oh good! She is so pleased. More squirms are generated.

tearingup
2013-08-17 02:04 am (UTC)

Perfect.

our facilities are regularly upgraded

cross_and_bow

[So there's an upgrade out to the agony beam, the Origin Jokers came up with it,] Bella informs Sherlock, [and I know I never actually use my agony beam, but I went ahead and got the new version anyway.] There is a suggestive lilt to her tone, not that she'd have to deliberately put one there for him to notice it.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:08 pm (UTC)

[Do go on,] says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:09 pm (UTC)

[New version is called a 'sensory synth'. All kinds of fun features. I am pretty sure it is sophisticated enough that if you wanted you could try a convincing facsimile of my favorite thing.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:09 pm (UTC)

[Now that would be interesting.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:10 pm (UTC)

[I thought so! And there are other pleasing un-agony-beam-like applications - Pattern recommends using it like a sustain pedal on a piano - but that was the first thing that came to mind when I heard it.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:11 pm (UTC)

[Fascinating. I want one.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:12 pm (UTC)

[Then you should have one!]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:14 pm (UTC)

[And now I do.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:16 pm (UTC)

[Excellent.] Pause. [I have two hours before I have to go to school for Charlie-placation.] (It is currently five in the morning. Sleep? What sleep?)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:19 pm (UTC)

[That sounds like a decent amount of time for experiments.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:21 pm (UTC)

[It does! C'mere?]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:22 pm (UTC)

He goes there.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:23 pm (UTC)

Pounce!

"Hi."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Hello, love."

Kisses? Kisses. Definitely kisses.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:26 pm (UTC)

Kisses!

And she takes aim with her synth, though that is all she does without explicit invitation.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:29 pm (UTC)

[Interesting,] says Sherlock. [Go on.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:33 pm (UTC)

[With the biting, or do you want to start somewhere else?]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 08:44 pm (UTC)

[Ooh, let's try the biting first.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Mmmkay." She tucks her face in against his neck, and plants a kiss there, watching sensations shift on her map.

And then she touches her teeth to his skin, and carries on by magic, from memory.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 09:56 pm (UTC)

[That is nice,] says Sherlock, snuggling her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 09:57 pm (UTC)

[Isn't it?] She carries on, hugging him tight, nibbling gently with her real teeth while she duplicates Her Favorite Thing with synth ones. [It feels like it doesn't make sense for it to feel good but it does it anyway. Emphatically.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 09:58 pm (UTC)

[It makes plenty of sense to me.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

[Ha.]

Nibble nibble snuggle snuggle. This can go on a while; she has some rather lengthy biting memories to pass along since she stopped having to worry about blood loss.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 10:03 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle squiiiiiiiiiiiirm.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 10:04 pm (UTC)

Good squirming, yes? She would like to induce good squirming.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 10:06 pm (UTC)

Extremely good.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 10:07 pm (UTC)

Yay!

Bite-bite-snuggle-bite.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 10:11 pm (UTC)

[I love you,] says Sherlock.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

[I love youuuu.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-16 11:59 pm (UTC)

He laughs and snuggles her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:00 am (UTC)

Bite bite bite. Nice-bite.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:02 am (UTC)

[Nice biting,] says Sherlock, [is nice.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:03 am (UTC)

[Isn't it? I love it, it's the best. It is good that you get to try it.]

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:22 am (UTC)

[—yes,] says Sherlock, abruptly distracted. [But I think I've had enough of it for now.]

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:23 am (UTC)

Juliet stops. She sits up with Slayer speed, eyes wide, and disentangles her synth from her boyfriend.
Edited 2013-08-17 00:27 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:29 am (UTC)

He hugs her.

"I'm fine, love. Just - thought of the wrong thing and rapidly exited the mood."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:29 am (UTC)

Hugs.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:30 am (UTC)

Yes. Hugs. Hugs are good.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:30 am (UTC)

"Sorry. I didn't think it all the way through."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:31 am (UTC)

"Neither did I, until just now. It's really not a strong association."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:33 am (UTC)

Hugs. "I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:36 am (UTC)

"I love you too," he says, snuggling her.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:37 am (UTC)

Snuggles. "This a not-ever, not-till-further-notice, not-this-week...?" She does not consider it a desperately problematic gap in their sex life, but it's useful to know these things.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:40 am (UTC)

"Further notice. I'm not sure yet when that is."

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:41 am (UTC)

"Okay." She sighs, she snuggles up.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:44 am (UTC)

He snuggles back.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:45 am (UTC)

Snuggling: also good. Something would be seriously missing if there were not that.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:47 am (UTC)

Snuggling is good. Snuggling is lovely. Juliet is lovely.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:50 am (UTC)

Sherlock is lovely. She loves him.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:52 am (UTC)

He loves her too.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:54 am (UTC)

That is good. It has carried them through a lot of crap.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:55 am (UTC)

Yes, yes it has. But now there are snuggles, and snuggles are good.

cross_and_bow
2013-08-17 12:56 am (UTC)

Snuggles are definitely good.

eversomuchfun
2013-08-17 12:56 am (UTC)

Yes.

how are you feeling?

small_magics

[It seems that perhaps we should speak,] Isibel says to Lycaelon. She wishes him a cup of tea, wherever he is, hovering in the air waiting for him to take it. [Though I confess I do not know where to begin.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 01:25 am (UTC)

[I've been thinking exactly the same thing for a while now,] he says, accepting his tea and conjuring her one in return.

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:21 am (UTC)

She takes her tea and sips it. [As probably the most obvious matter - you are welcome to Bond with my beloved if you still wish to do so. I had a moment of uncertainty but it has been resolved to my satisfaction.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:22 am (UTC)

[Did that have something to do with getting married?]

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:23 am (UTC)

[Yes. Although once we had thought of Ansharil becoming an elf long enough to complete the prerequisite, it most likely would have happened anyway.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:25 am (UTC)

[It wasn't a surprise. But I did notice the timing.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:25 am (UTC)

[It came up when I was expressing concern about - dilution, as it were.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:26 am (UTC)

[...I'm not sure I understand.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:31 am (UTC)

[I was worried about feeling less special as one of two instead of as the only.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:35 am (UTC)

[Oh. Yes, I see,] he says. [Well, whatever else happens, I'd wager you'll remain their only wife.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:35 am (UTC)

[I expect so, yes.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:36 am (UTC)

He laughs.

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:38 am (UTC)

[So, yes, that has been settled, but perhaps you have other questions you did not have time to get to before you were shooed from my tree.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:48 am (UTC)

[...I think I might want to finally get my enchanter's aura,] he says. [I've had flickers, but nothing like Liselen's. And I don't know if it would help like yours does, but it can't hurt to find out, right?]

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:51 am (UTC)

[It will not hurt you. Unless you develop your aura without a channel, and then only in the literal sense. The quickest way is to travel to my alt Glass's world and pour power into her forest.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:52 am (UTC)

[I'll do that, then. How quick is quick?]

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:55 am (UTC)

[It depends on the channel - how much channeling they can tolerate, and one of the Jokers has an amplification ability that speeds it up considerably.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:57 am (UTC)

[I was thinking of doing it by myself, but I wouldn't mind having help.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:58 am (UTC)

[Jane is back again, and can poll the Jokers for their availability.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 02:59 am (UTC)

[All right.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 02:59 am (UTC)

[You could ask her yourself, or I can do it for you.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 03:04 am (UTC)

[I'm not sure how to talk to her, although I guess I'll have to learn.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 03:05 am (UTC)

[I can introduce you if you would like.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 03:06 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 03:10 am (UTC)

[Jane, this is Lycaelon. Lycaelon, Jane. He needs a channel for developing aura, and then he will need a ride to Chronicle.]

mind_game
2013-08-18 03:10 am (UTC)

[Hi, Lycaelon! Polling Jokers now.] She polls Jokers. [Do you know where my Janepoint is?]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 03:11 am (UTC)

[No,] says Lycaelon.

pythbox
2013-08-18 03:13 am (UTC)

Corona is available! So are Jellybean, Alice, Beast, Queenie, and - surprisingly - War.

mind_game
2013-08-18 03:14 am (UTC)

[Well, you can still teleport to it if your teleporting works like Bell teleporting. There's a bunch of Jokers handy! Corona's fastest. Jellybean, Alice, Beast, Queenie, and War also volunteer.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 03:15 am (UTC)

He teleports to the Janepoint.

[I might as well ask Corona, then. And whoever else wants to come along for fun.]

mind_game
2013-08-18 03:34 am (UTC)

[Oh hey! You're a template!]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 03:34 am (UTC)

"...I am?"

mind_game
2013-08-18 03:37 am (UTC)

[Yep. There's one of you in Peace. Maybe more, but none I've seen.]

[Hey War, this guy turns out to be an alt of Howlett.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 03:42 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Lycaelon. "That's—"

pythbox
2013-08-18 03:44 am (UTC)

War freecasts to the Thilanushinyel Janepoint.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 03:45 am (UTC)

"—surprising. Hello."

pythbox
2013-08-18 03:46 am (UTC)

"Awww, it's a cute little Howlett," War says delightedly. "Hi! I'm War."

He gives Lycaelon a hug, links him, cues Jane to send him to Chronicle, and freecasts there himself.

mind_game
2013-08-18 03:47 am (UTC)

Yoink!

pythbox
2013-08-18 03:50 am (UTC)

The other polled Jokers have assembled at the Chronicle Janepoint by the time War finishes hugging Lycaelon again.

poeticterms
2013-08-18 03:51 am (UTC)

The local Jarvis directs them all to a nearby guest room.

pythbox
2013-08-18 03:51 am (UTC)

Some time later - rather longer than it would have taken just to channel up the aura, especially considering Lycaelon was already most of the way there - Corona brainphones Glass.

[Hey, got time to look at an aura?]

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 03:52 am (UTC)

[Sure, although I can't always figure them out completely, you want Lazarus for the full interpretive diagnosis.]

pythbox
2013-08-18 03:53 am (UTC)

[Yeah. Are you in the castle, or should we teleport?]

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 03:53 am (UTC)

[I'm up in my library.]

pythbox
2013-08-18 03:54 am (UTC)

Corona teleports.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:02 am (UTC)

A moment later, so does Lycaelon.

His aura is noticeably different in flavour from the Bells' magicmagicmagic and the Jokers' theatrical center-of-attention. It advertises that he is powerful and capable, but doesn't bother specifying exactly what he is capable of.

"I've figured out one part," he says. "Enhanced senses. But I can tell there's more to it, and I have no idea what it does."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:07 am (UTC)

"Ooh, the senses are a template attractor," Glass says, blinking at him, "that didn't have a way to get at you till just now but took the chance when you gave it an opening. The rest of it looks - not exactly like Sarion's. Yours is more... metaphorical? Is it okay if I have a peep at your mindscape? And it's cooperating with some other stuff that isn't aura that was already protecting your mind, looks very Thilanushinyel-y."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:10 am (UTC)

"Go ahead and look. It got bigger all of a sudden," he says. "Or - not exactly bigger - but it used to be a forest in the middle of nothing in particular, and now it's a forest in the middle of more forest. A lot more."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:11 am (UTC)

Glass nods, closing her eyes to focus on the forest. "Yeah - the outer forest will sort of entrap anything that tries to get into the inner forest, unless you lead it in. The mind-protecting magic you already had wouldn't have done anything about a dragonbond, but this will, you'll basically be able to escort Ansharil between inner and outer forests whenever you like."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:12 am (UTC)

"Well, that's convenient."

pythbox
2013-08-18 04:13 am (UTC)

Corona laughs and hugs him.

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:15 am (UTC)

"Auras are that! So, if you didn't already know it, you have an alt in Gift, named Luhan."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:16 am (UTC)

"And apparently one in Peace named Howlett. Alts everywhere," he snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:19 am (UTC)

"Howlett I never got a look at, but Luhan I checked over for templatehood," laughs Glass. "You've got easily enough for two alts, probably more somewhere but not necessarily in worlds we have access to yet."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:19 am (UTC)

"It comes in amounts?"

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:21 am (UTC)

"Yes. It's also contagious. Bells are the strongest template I've ever looked at, Jokers a very close second."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 12:20 pm (UTC)

"Well that's... bizarre."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:02 pm (UTC)

"Very bizarre, yes!"

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:07 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head. "Thanks, anyway. It's good to know what that extra forest is all about."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:10 pm (UTC)

"Glad I could help. What is that other mind protection it's fitting up against?"

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:10 pm (UTC)

"...I have no idea, actually," says Lycaelon.

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:11 pm (UTC)

"It's part of a bigger thing?" says Glass helpfully. "There's a - suite of traits you have, that one's just the easiest for me to recognize because it's cooperating with the aura one and I have more practice recognizing auras."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:14 pm (UTC)

"The only Thilanushinyel magic I have is Wildmagery and I don't think it comes with any special - hm," he says. "Well, maybe it does, come to that. What else can you tell me about this thing?"

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I've never looked at a Wildmage before, so these are all guesses based on how it's shaped and so on," Glass says, squinting at him. "It's... hooked up to something that isn't you which isn't here. That hookup might be at least partly informational in nature - telling you - things of some kind. There's something in your pocket involved. It's very attached to you, whatever it is, I think it could get ahold of you regardless of world-hopping, what have you got in your pocket?"

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:20 pm (UTC)

"My Three Books," he says, drawing them out for her inspection. "You can only read them if you're a Wildmage, and they follow their Wildmage around - I'm not surprised that they could do it across worlds; they're very persistent."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:22 pm (UTC)

She flips through them. "They look blank to me, with my regular vision anyway, they're extremely shiny by magic-sight - huh." She hands them back. "Anyway, they're part of the same suite of traits."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:24 pm (UTC)

"In that case, I might know what that is," he says. "But I wouldn't have expected it. There are supposed to be signs that someone is a Knight-Mage, and I'm missing most of them. Still, stranger things have happened, I guess."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:24 pm (UTC)

"I'd need to look at some other Wildmages. What are the signs you're missing?"

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Knight-Mages are supposed to be bad at casting spells. I'm not. They're supposed to have some kind of mystical attunement to the arts of war, and I haven't noticed anything like that either."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I'd have to compare you to other Wildmages to see if you're relatively bad at spells in any way I can detect... You have a template attractor for being good at fighting, which might be substituting for a magical boost?"

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:38 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "The Wild Magic knows what it's doing, I guess."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I suppose! I don't suppose it has some convenient physical form I could peek at? Liselen is hooked up to it too but not in quite the same way you are, but that's not the same as actually seeing it."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:40 pm (UTC)

"No. Well, you could go to Thilanushinyel and look around. That's the closest you'll get."

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I should, then. Well, unless you want to summon your alts here and have me stare at you all together and comment on your respective templateyness, that's all I have to say."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:41 pm (UTC)

"All right. Thanks again," he says, and off he goes.

thaumobabble
2013-08-18 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Bye!"

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:56 pm (UTC)

He spends some more time with the Jokers. The Jokers are fun.

Then he returns to Thilanushinyel.

[Apparently I'm a Knight-Mage,] he says to Sarion.

small_magics
2013-08-18 04:56 pm (UTC)

[That is surprising, both that you would be one and that Glass would be able to tell when she has no other Wildmages to compare you against.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 04:58 pm (UTC)

[She told me I had some kind of mind-protecting magic. There's only one kind I could think of that I might have without knowing about it. And she said it was part of the same thing as being a Wildmage.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 04:58 pm (UTC)

[Ah, that explains it. It would be good to know what else she has seen.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:02 pm (UTC)

[My aura gave me a different kind of mind protection. I was right; it was exactly what I was looking for. My mindscape is now a forest hidden in a bigger forest - no one can find it without an invitation. So I won't feel like there's someone just around the corner all the time.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:05 pm (UTC)

[That sounds like it will be helpful, yes. Although it would still be potentially problematic if Lazarus's protective wish broke on adding another mind to the Dragonbond, it would not be immediately so - I would like at least in principle to be able to share things with my beloveds that I do not wish passed on, even though no examples come to mind.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:07 pm (UTC)

[We can ask Lazarus to come have a look, maybe?]

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:09 pm (UTC)

[Yes. But because our respective auras will do all of the immediately necessary work, and because Lazarus might well need to look at all of us to make a diagnosis, it should probably wait until Aianon has awoken and you and Ansharil have gazed at each other for some time and appropriate celebrations have concluded.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:15 pm (UTC)

[All right,] says Lycaelon. [One of you will tell me when Aianon wakes, won't you?]

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:16 pm (UTC)

[Of course.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:17 pm (UTC)

[Then all I have to do is wait. I'm good at that.]

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:19 pm (UTC)

And when Aianon un-naps, the wait is over.

[He is awake.]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:22 pm (UTC)

[Good morning,] says Lycaelon, conferenced to Aianon.

endragoned
2013-08-18 05:23 pm (UTC)

[A very good morning. And it is about to get better, I think. Won't you come visit?]

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:23 pm (UTC)

So Lycaelon teleports to Aianon.

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:24 pm (UTC)

And Isibel, with Ansharil in tow, joins them.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:30 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon looks at Ansharil.

endragoned
2013-08-18 05:31 pm (UTC)

Ansharil turns into an angel, and looks at Lycaelon.

His eyes are very green.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:33 pm (UTC)

He is perhaps the most beautiful thing in the entire world.

And - there he is, somewhere in the outer forest, waiting patiently.

Lycaelon draws him in.

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:35 pm (UTC)

Isibel dilates time, again.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:40 pm (UTC)

There are... celebrations.

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:42 pm (UTC)

How celebratory!

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:42 pm (UTC)

Extremely.

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:44 pm (UTC)

The time dilation proves useful! Albeit not as staggeringly necessary as it was when Isibel's beloveds first returned home.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:53 pm (UTC)

Ansharil is lovely and Aianon is lovely and Sarion is lovely and time dilation is lovely. Everything is lovely. Lycaelon is the happiest he's ever been in someone else's company.

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:54 pm (UTC)

It is good that he is happy. Isibel would never wish it otherwise.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:56 pm (UTC)

This is also the first time he has ever been tempted to call anyone 'my love'. But Aianon and Ansharil get such smiles when he does it.

small_magics
2013-08-18 05:57 pm (UTC)

They have lovely smiles, most especially when they are reminded of being loved.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 05:58 pm (UTC)

Lovely, lovely smiles. And extremely kissable ones.

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:00 pm (UTC)

Aren't they just?

(They make an entirely different class of lovely smiles when they're in pain. If Lycaelon is curious about the full range of their beloved's facial expressions.)

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 06:00 pm (UTC)

Oh, he is.

endragoned
2013-08-18 06:01 pm (UTC)

Their beloveds love them ever so much.

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:01 pm (UTC)

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 06:02 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon is very willing to experiment with ways to make Aianon and Ansharil smile.

endragoned
2013-08-18 06:03 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon is lovely.

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:04 pm (UTC)

He is! It was very kind of the Wild Magic to send him to her and she is glad she decided to keep him.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 06:05 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon is glad he decided to be kept. (He pauses in his experiments to hug her. No one minds.)

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:06 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 06:08 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Isibel is a good friend and a good co-Bonded.
Edited 2013-08-18 18:09 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:09 pm (UTC)

She is happy to welcome him into the Bond.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 06:10 pm (UTC)

That is good. He is glad.

And now, back to what he was doing to Aianon.

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:11 pm (UTC)

Oooooh.

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 06:12 pm (UTC)

Yes.

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:15 pm (UTC)

Time passes. (In the tree, not out of it.)

Eventually all celebrations have been celebrated.

"I can tell Jane to call Lazarus to have a look at us now," Isibel says, from where she is lounging across Ansharil's lap.
Edited 2013-08-18 18:19 (UTC)

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 06:19 pm (UTC)

"All right," says Lycaelon, idly spending a square to clothe himself and then snuggling up to Aianon. Mmm, snuggly.

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:20 pm (UTC)

With everyone clothed, Isibel undoes the time dilation, turns her Janegem back on, and speaks to Jane.

mind_game
2013-08-18 06:21 pm (UTC)

[Hey Lazarus, Sarion and company added another person to their Dragonbond and want you to come check it over for effects on the wish you made.]

nonbird
2013-08-18 06:22 pm (UTC)

[Sure,] says Lazarus, teleporting to the local Janepoint.

mind_game
2013-08-18 06:22 pm (UTC)

Jane drops him right in Isibel's tree.

nonbird
2013-08-18 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Lazarus. "My goodness, there's a lot of magic going around here. Let's see. The wish seems to be intact - actually, it's almost like your auras are supporting it. That's convenient."

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Very. I was unsure they would cooperate."

nonbird
2013-08-18 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Auras are cooperative. They're very friendly," he says. "To you, not necessarily to anyone else. But if they can do something the convenient way, they will."

small_magics
2013-08-18 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for checking up on them anyway."

nonbird
2013-08-18 06:41 pm (UTC)

"It's no trouble," he says cheerfully. "You could hardly get someone else to do it. Well, there's Glass, and now I'm apparently sprouting alts from every direction, but I'm the only one of me currently attached to the peal."

small_magics
2013-08-18 07:01 pm (UTC)

"I have not yet checked Thilanushinyel for alts," muses Isibel. "Perhaps I should do so now."

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 07:02 pm (UTC)

"You might as well," says Lycaelon from where he is curled up under Aianon's wing.

small_magics
2013-08-18 07:03 pm (UTC)

Isibel nods. She starts with Lazarus's template, because why not.

pythbox
2013-08-18 07:04 pm (UTC)

Why, there is a local alt of Lazarus!

He is a dragon. An iridescent black dragon.

small_magics
2013-08-18 07:05 pm (UTC)

"You are a dragon," she informs Lazarus, "or rather, your local alt is - but not one I have met - so - he must be one of the eggs I conjured up to bolster the population, some sixteen years ago. There was an egg in that iridescent black color."

nonbird
2013-08-18 07:06 pm (UTC)

"...That is unexpected," says Lazarus. "Is there a local Kolya?"

small_magics
2013-08-18 07:06 pm (UTC)

Isibel checks.

ignorable
2013-08-18 07:08 pm (UTC)

This one's human.

small_magics
2013-08-18 07:08 pm (UTC)

"There is one; he is a human."

nonbird
2013-08-18 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's all right then," says Lazarus.

small_magics
2013-08-18 07:11 pm (UTC)

"It is strange that a conjured egg should have collected a template. At any rate -" She begins checking for others, beginning with the most common templates known to Bells. She becomes steadily more puzzled as she goes on checking for everyone who's ever attended a Bellparty.

"...All of the dragons whose eggs I conjured up are templates. Your alt; and then a Tony, a Sherlock, an Anna, and a Darcy. There is a Sandy, who is an elf, and a Libby, a Chris, and a Virginia, all human."
Edited 2013-08-18 19:23 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-08-18 07:24 pm (UTC)

"I refuse to believe that's a coincidence," says Lazarus. "Should we get Glass?"

small_magics
2013-08-18 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Quite possibly. It would be good to know how all of these people in the forms we have previously met them - such as yourself - advise introducing things to new members of the templates."

nonbird
2013-08-18 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I... have no idea how to talk to a dragon one of me," says Lazarus, "but I definitely want to, dragons are amazing."

endragoned
2013-08-18 07:26 pm (UTC)

(Ansharil smiles.)

wildlymagical
2013-08-18 07:27 pm (UTC)

(Lycaelon gives him a sappy look.)
Edited 2013-08-18 19:27 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-08-19 12:38 am (UTC)

(Isibel gives Ansharil a sappy look too.)

"Dragons are no more difficult to talk to than elves are. Perhaps less, for you, because they do not have the elven preoccupation with questions."

nonbird
2013-08-19 12:44 am (UTC)

"I'm not comparing talking to dragons and talking to elves; I'm comparing talking to myself and talking to an alt who is an entirely different species with an entirely different culture, body plan, and set of magical properties. Talking to myself is much easier," says Lazarus.

small_magics
2013-08-19 12:45 am (UTC)

"I suppose I could simply go visit the dragons I made, all of them, so as to be able to properly introduce you."

nonbird
2013-08-19 12:46 am (UTC)

"You could do that."

small_magics
2013-08-19 12:47 am (UTC)

"It is not clear, though, if you believe it would be a wise choice. Also, perhaps if I am going to visit them all I should also speak with the alts of the other four. Jane, if you please."

mind_game
2013-08-19 12:48 am (UTC)

[Hey Darcy! Turns out you have an alt in Thilanushinyel! Who's a dragon!]
Edited 2013-08-19 00:54 (UTC)

sailorheavymetal
2013-08-19 12:56 am (UTC)

[...Seriously?]

mind_game
2013-08-19 12:57 am (UTC)

[Yup! Sarion conjured up some dragon eggs sixteen years ago to help with the population bottleneck, one of them turned out to be a you. She didn't do it on purpose. They're just all templates for some reason.]

sailorheavymetal
2013-08-19 01:01 am (UTC)

[Oookay. Well, that's... weird, but kind of cool, I guess. I've never even been to that world. I'm not sure I can pronounce that world. Am I supposed to meet-and-greet with the new me or something?]

mind_game
2013-08-19 01:03 am (UTC)

[You're supposed to help Sarion figure out how to tell the other you about, you know, things. If that's you showing up, I can tell her that, if that's sending a note on nice stationery, I can tell her that, what do you think?]

sailorheavymetal
2013-08-19 01:03 am (UTC)

[Dude, I have no idea.]

mind_game
2013-08-19 01:05 am (UTC)

[Okay. Well, maybe if someone else has an idea for their dragon alt Sarion can just include the Darcy-dragon in the meet-and-greet for them. Let me know if you think of something.]

[Hey Anna, hey Eights! Turns out you guys have an alt in Thilanushinyel who is a dragon!]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-08-19 01:07 am (UTC)

Both of them answer, almost simultaneously:

[Whoa, really?]

mind_game
2013-08-19 01:07 am (UTC)

[Yup!] Jane repeats the explanation about the dragon population bottleneck.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-08-19 01:08 am (UTC)

[That's fascinating,] says Eights.

[That's weird,] says Anna.

mind_game
2013-08-19 01:08 am (UTC)

[Anyway, Sarion is trying to figure out how to tell all these dragons about stuff and wanted to consult you about your one.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-08-19 01:09 am (UTC)

[Not a clue, sorry,] says Anna.

[Yeah, no idea,] says Eights. [There isn't a general How To Tell People Things Guideline already?]

mind_game
2013-08-19 01:12 am (UTC)

[Well, she can presumably think up something generic if nobody has a better idea. Oh well.]

[Hey Tonies and Sherlocks! There are alts of you both on Thilanushinyel. They're dragons.] Insert explanation of dragon egg thing here.

pythbox
2013-08-19 01:28 am (UTC)

There is a brief explosion of inter-template conferencing.

When the dust settles, the conclusion is: the Tonies have no idea what to do about a new one of them without any obviously recognizable reference points, and the Sherlocks think that someone with dense information output like Sue or Elspeth should give their dragon alt a crash course.

mind_game
2013-08-19 01:30 am (UTC)

[Okay!]

[Nobody knows what to do except maybe send Sue or Elspeth to pour a lot of information into the Sherlock dragon,] Jane reports. [Maybe the Sherlock dragon will have an idea what to do with the other four.]

small_magics
2013-08-19 01:31 am (UTC)

[Is Elspeth available?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 01:32 am (UTC)

She is!

And here she is.

"Should I just appear directly to the Sherlock dragon?" she inquires.

small_magics
2013-08-19 01:33 am (UTC)

"Let me see -"

Is said Sherlock dragon alone now?

pythbox
2013-08-19 01:36 am (UTC)

No. She is with the Tony dragon.

small_magics
2013-08-19 01:37 am (UTC)

Isibel gets Jane to ask the Tonies if they think their dragon alt would be alarmed by Elspeth appearing to talk to the Sherlocks' dragon alt.

pythbox
2013-08-19 01:38 am (UTC)

The Tonies come to a consensus of "Not if Sherlock wasn't."

The Sherlocks come to a consensus of "Try it and see."

small_magics
2013-08-19 01:39 am (UTC)

"Proceed."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 01:40 am (UTC)

Elspeth nods, and teleports, and gets started.

She's friendly (Isibel sent her) (there is such a lot to say, she's good at saying things) -

pythbox
2013-08-19 01:42 am (UTC)

The dragons are startled. A startled dragon is quite a sight.

They calm down soon enough, though.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 01:49 am (UTC)

There are many worlds (that's where Elspeth's from) (that's where Isibel gets all her unheard-of magic) (that's why she's talking to them - worlds have copies of personalities - their alts (alts are this thing (Elspeth is the daughter of an Isibel alt, herself)) thought this would be a good way to summarize things.) Alts are not always the same species (none of theirs are dragons (many worlds don't even have dragons) (Isibel's dragon has alts who aren't dragons, too)) and only usually have similar names. Both of them are common templates, second only to Isibel's, and Isibel's dragon's (and those directly attached to them such as Isibel's parents) (and attached templates aren't always friendly; there is in particular a problematic one attached to Tonies, but Isibel will be happy to take care of him if one here makes himself known, though she does not expect one in this case).
Edited 2013-08-19 01:50 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-19 01:53 am (UTC)

"Whoa," says the patchy red-and-gold dragon.

"Hmm," says the cloudy grey dragon whose scales glitter slightly up close. She arches her neck to peer down at Elspeth. "You're interesting. Do you have magic that makes you particularly believable?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 01:54 am (UTC)

"Yes. It expanded into being able to communicate very rapidly. It only works on true things."

pythbox
2013-08-19 01:56 am (UTC)

"I only have your word for that," the grey dragon points out reasonably.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 01:57 am (UTC)

"You would only have anyone else's word on it, too, if I brought them in to corroborate me," Elspeth points out. "Whose word on it would you like?"

pythbox
2013-08-19 01:59 am (UTC)

She thinks about it, curling her long scaly tail around herself where she sits.

Then she says, "Isibel Sarion. And Kareta's son."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 02:00 am (UTC)

Elspeth tilts her head, and calls up Sarion, and also Liselen: [Liselen, Sherlock-dragon doesn't buy it that I can only say true things, can you come confirm for her?]

small_magics
2013-08-19 02:01 am (UTC)

Isibel appears.

"Hello. I can confirm that Elspeth's magic does not cooperate with her on the vanishingly infrequent occasions she utters falsehoods."

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:06 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says the glittery grey dragon.

Liselen appears.

"Hi!" he says. "Elspeth is unicorn-approved, promise." He prances up beside her and leans his shoulder on her a little.

"All right, I'm convinced," the grey dragon admits.

"Sherial," the other one exclaims, "you just made important people come here and tell us things! Why did you do that?"

"Well, presumably, if this person is here telling us things - " she points a single large claw at Elspeth " - then they're important things and it matters whether or not we believe them. And if she was here telling us nonsensical lies, I'd think the Bonded and the unicorns should be the first people to know, wouldn't you?"

"I guess," says the red-gold dragon.

small_magics
2013-08-19 02:09 am (UTC)

"I do not mind in the least," laughs Isibel. "I have some responsibility for you, after all, and your alts are friends of my friends. I would have come to speak to you myself if it were not more efficient for Elspeth to do so. I would have your advice on approaching the other three from your - batch, as their alts did not have particular advice."

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:20 am (UTC)

Sherial nudges the red-gold dragon with her foot. "Go find Elasirae," she says. "Tell him there's something interesting and he should come here."

"Okay," says the red-gold dragon, and she takes off.

small_magics
2013-08-19 02:21 am (UTC)

"Thank you." She sneaks a quick glance at Elasirae to confirm that the name matches the dragon she guesses - "His alt is already in this world, if it would be useful to have him present."

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:26 am (UTC)

"He might as well come here too," says Sherial. "Is he very enthusiastic about magic? They can be enthusiastic about magic together."

small_magics
2013-08-19 02:27 am (UTC)

"He is in fact very enthusiastic about magic."

[Sherial invites you to come here, where your alt will soon appear.]

nonbird
2013-08-19 02:32 am (UTC)

Lazarus appears.

He looks up at Sherial.

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:33 am (UTC)

Sherial looks down at him.

"You don't look very much like Elasirae at all," she observes.

nonbird
2013-08-19 02:33 am (UTC)

"Are you sure? Maybe you should wait until he shows up and you can compare us," Lazarus says dryly.
Edited 2013-08-19 02:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:35 am (UTC)

"But you do talk very much like Elasirae," says Sherial, giggling.

small_magics
2013-08-19 02:36 am (UTC)

"One of my alts can see things about the sort of causality that produces alts. I can invite her here to confirm, and will probably do this sooner or later anyway."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 02:38 am (UTC)

"But the template sweep will have been perfectly accurate, so all she will be able to add is fine detail."

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:38 am (UTC)

"What kind of fine detail?" says Sherial.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 02:39 am (UTC)

"What template attractors you do and don't have, and any other ambient metacausality. She is better at it when she can compare things directly against each other - you with other Sherlocks, for example."

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:40 am (UTC)

"Will you be inviting more Sherlocks here, then?" she asks.

small_magics
2013-08-19 02:41 am (UTC)

"They are certainly welcome. Although none asked particularly to come when Jane inquired of them how best to introduce you to the news. If nothing else, there will in some days be a large party of my alts and our friends, including all of the Sherlocks who care to appear."

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:50 am (UTC)

"I've never been to a party before," says Sherial. "Dragons don't really have them. I don't think there are enough of us. And we don't easily all fit in the same place at once."

small_magics
2013-08-19 02:51 am (UTC)

"A sufficiently large place can be made," Isibel assures her. "Although perhaps this eventuality will make Amariah reconsider her offer to host in her new palace, which I do not believe was created with a population of dragon guests in mind."

pythbox
2013-08-19 02:55 am (UTC)

"If you say so," says Sherial, tapping her tail idly against the ground with a considerable thump. "Elasirae must be off somewhere. I'm less sure what to do about Sidanar and Arianna. Maybe Tianthonet will think of something; she knows them better."

small_magics
2013-08-19 03:01 am (UTC)

Isibel quickly checks the names against her pastwatching: Sidanar is the Darcy, Arianna the Anna. "Perhaps."

pythbox
2013-08-19 12:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to guess that Amariah is one of your alts," Sherial adds. "That thing you do is magnificently useful, Elspeth."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-08-19 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

small_magics
2013-08-19 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Amariah is one of my alts, yes. There are sixteen of us in total."

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:04 am (UTC)

"That's a lot," says Sherial. "You can tell me more things about them while we wait for the others if you want."

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:07 am (UTC)

Isibel laughs softly. "I can - I also do not mind being asked questions, which helps with interacting with my alts, none of whom are elves. They are mostly humans, although Amariah and Angela and Golden would not call themselves so."

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:09 am (UTC)

"What would they call themselves instead?"

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:10 am (UTC)

"Amariah is a witch, Angela an angel, and Golden a vampire. Whether these things are species in their own right is an ambiguous matter, as all three sorts of people are normally interfertile only with humans."

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:11 am (UTC)

"That's interesting," says Sherial. "Are there any apart from you who aren't human or not-quite-human like that?"

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:12 am (UTC)

"Not of my own template - unless one counts a newly located one's ability to turn into a swan and back, but it was a magically acquired power, not an intrinsic feature."

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:13 am (UTC)

"And if she's human the rest of the time, that still counts," says Sherial. "None of my alts are dragons, right? Maybe this world is just strange. Are most people here different species than everyone else of them?"

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:16 am (UTC)

"None of your alts are dragons. Most worlds do not have dragons; there is one other world that has, but they are very different, and we do not know any of them to be templates of any kind. Humans are overwhelmingly common for all of the templates we have found, with exceptions like you and me, here and there. It is the same with elves. Some templates here that I have just discovered," (this description is intended to include Lycaelon, who she only recently discovered to be a template, though it was years ago she discovered him at all) "are human, like their alts, but I, the five of you, my beloveds, and another recently-discovered template who is an elf do not match."
Edited 2013-08-20 02:20 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:21 am (UTC)

"Very interesting," says Sherial. "I want to meet my alts and see their worlds!"

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:22 am (UTC)

"I can invite the other Sherlocks here right now, if you wish, but they will all be at the party in a few days either way. Visiting their worlds would be somewhat more problematic, as you would be highly conspicuous, but perhaps you can work that out with them."

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:24 am (UTC)

"I'm not that conspicuous," she says. "For a dragon I'm positively stealthy. But I guess in a world that doesn't have dragons, that wouldn't be much help."

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:25 am (UTC)

"Indeed it would not. You would need to be invisible, avoid leaving footprints or making inexplicable sound - I suppose you could change shape if desired."

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:28 am (UTC)

"I don't desire to change shape," she says, arching her glittery grey neck.

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:30 am (UTC)

"Then you will find your travel accordingly constrained. There are a few worlds where magic and so on are generally known, and there you could appear undisguised and receive only peculiar looks."

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:31 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't mind being imperceptible," she says thoughtfully.

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:32 am (UTC)

"That is also possible."

pythbox
2013-08-20 02:37 am (UTC)

"Which worlds are the ones where magic is known? What's it like where it isn't?"
Edited 2013-08-20 02:37 (UTC)

small_magics
2013-08-20 02:44 am (UTC)

"There are as many ways for magic to be known or hidden as there are worlds. For example, on Angela's world Samaria, only a handful of people know that magic of any kind exists at all. The world has none of its own, and she has not told more than a few family members and friends about the sort she has brought in from elsewhere. In Glass's world Chronicle - this is the only other world with elves or dragons - there is no particular secret about magic existing; the local sort is abundant and varied and Glass has no reason to be secretive about the exotic varieties. In Pattern's world Origin there is no native magic, but she has been using foreign kinds for more than a decade and a half. While most people do not know how it works or where it comes from, and she might not like to explain you if you asked to visit because people would think she had made you instead of realizing that you could have come from somewhere else, she performs useful workings openly. In Rêverie, enchanting - what I have mostly done, if you have heard much of how I spend my time - is the native sort of magic, but few people knew about it until my alt there, Rose, began using it on a grand scale; other kinds are not common knowledge, but nor are they secret, and so you would be puzzling but not alarming to a typical resident."
Edited 2013-08-20 02:51 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-20 12:36 pm (UTC)

"Elasirae will want to visit some of these worlds," Sherial predicts. "And learn all about their magics. He'd probably even change his shape for it."

small_magics
2013-08-20 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I am not surprised."

pythbox
2013-09-23 06:29 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if he'd decide to look like you, or like something else?" Sherial wonders, studying Lazarus. "Do alts of the same species always look the same?"

nonbird
2013-09-23 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Looking like me would at least be a reasonable default," says Lazarus. "I'm not actually sure about alts - I know there's a little variance at least, but I don't know how much we've seen so far or how much we can expect in the future."

small_magics
2013-09-23 06:35 pm (UTC)

"We can present this curiosity to Glass, when she arrives. But we do learn that things previously invariant are not so on a regular basis and she is not always equipped to provide advance notice without examples to look at. For instance, I expressly wished that the five dragons I conjured up be unrelated to each other and the existing dragons, yet in all other cases where Tonies and Sherlocks have existed in pairs, they are genetically identical."

pythbox
2013-09-23 06:43 pm (UTC)

"That is interesting," says Sherial. "I wonder if Tianthonet got distracted. She does that sometimes. Not usually when it's important."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-23 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Should we brainphone her?" (Brainphoning is this thing -)

pythbox
2013-09-23 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I'd better do it if anyone does," says Sherial, curling her tail around her forefeet. "Otherwise she might be needlessly alarmed."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-23 06:54 pm (UTC)

Elspeth adds the relevant parties to the brainphone network and makes it clear to Sherial that she has done so.

pythbox
2013-09-23 07:06 pm (UTC)

Sherial gazes thoughtfully into the distance.

small_magics
2013-09-23 07:06 pm (UTC)

Her visitors wait.

pythbox
2013-09-23 07:08 pm (UTC)

She snorts.

"Tianthonet," she says, "has chosen this of all moments to find her first Bonded. Impeccable timing as always."

small_magics
2013-09-23 07:19 pm (UTC)

"There are," says Isibel, "some non-dragon templates who I recently discovered, also."

pythbox
2013-09-23 07:56 pm (UTC)

"...Go on," says Sherial.

small_magics
2013-09-23 07:57 pm (UTC)

"The names would mean nothing to you as yet, but -" She takes a look at Tianthonet's new Bonded.

pythbox
2013-09-23 07:59 pm (UTC)

Tianthonet's new Bonded is also the local Virginia alt.

small_magics
2013-09-23 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Tianthonet's new bonded is an alt of a template of whom there are two others. They call themselves Virginias."

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:02 pm (UTC)

"And do they normally associate with Tianthonets?" inquires Sherial.

small_magics
2013-09-23 08:03 pm (UTC)

"One of them does. The other is primarily associated with a Libby, although the world does contain a Tony. There is also a Libby here, who is human, but we have been addressing the dragon alts first."

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Tianthonet finding her Bonded just now, who just happens to be of a template previously associated with hers, is the kind of coincidence that usually isn't," says Sherial. "Who are all of the other unaddressed templates, and do they come with any existing associations to one of us like that?"

nonbird
2013-09-23 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Well, there's apparently a Kolya," volunteers Lazarus. "They're attached to mes. And vice versa."

small_magics
2013-09-23 08:10 pm (UTC)

"The Libbies have no obvious attachments to any particular other template, although Glass has said they are slightly attracted to your own template even if we haven't routinely seen the combination appear together. I... suppose we could expect Arianna to wind up attached to the elf of Sandy. There is no one obviously lying in wait for Sidanar."

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:12 pm (UTC)

"'Sandy' is a template attached to Arianna's?" asks Sherial.

small_magics
2013-09-23 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Yes, they've appeared together three times now and never separately."

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps," says Sherial, "we should tell all of these people about their potential attachments."

small_magics
2013-09-23 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Quite possibly. I am an advocate of thoughtful Bonding. I hope Tianthonet and her new Bonded are adjusting comfortably."

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:24 pm (UTC)

"She isn't very talkative at the moment."

small_magics
2013-09-23 08:25 pm (UTC)

"I suppose not. Perhaps Arianna and Sidanar and Elasirae would be alarmed if summoned by brainphone and I should fetch them in person, but you would know better than I."

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Elasirae would be likely to mind, but he'd get distracted by wanting to know what you were doing and how you were doing it and where it came from. I'm less sure about the other two," says Sherial.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-23 08:31 pm (UTC)

"I'll see if he's in range of my witchcraft, then. That'll be faster."

Elasirae? (And: now he's on the brainphone this is how it works this is where it is from this is who she is this is where she is and who she's with and why.)

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:33 pm (UTC)

[My goodness,] says Elasirae.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-23 08:34 pm (UTC)

And she could teleport him in to join the conversation, if he would not like to risk unexpected Bonding without thinking about it first!

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:38 pm (UTC)

[That would be extremely convenient,] he says, [thank you.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-23 08:38 pm (UTC)

Pop, pop. "You're welcome."

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh, hello, Sherial."

"Hello, Elasirae," she says. "I sent Tianthonet to get you, but she got Bonded instead." She points a claw delicately at the tall beaky human. "This is Lazarus. He is one of you from another world."

nonbird
2013-09-23 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says Lazarus, waving at the iridescent black dragon.

pythbox
2013-09-23 08:47 pm (UTC)

Elasirae peers down at him.

"You're very small," he says. "Well, not proportionally."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-23 09:24 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs. "He's taller than most humans," she offers.

small_magics
2013-09-23 09:24 pm (UTC)

Isibel giggles.

pythbox
2013-09-23 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Elasirae, "but, inarguably, shorter than most dragons."

small_magics
2013-09-23 09:25 pm (UTC)

"That is true."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 12:24 am (UTC)

"I think it's probably time to get Glass. Jane, will you please get us Glass?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 12:24 am (UTC)

Glass is got!

Glass blinks at the dragons present. "That's interesting. Oh, no wonder about Helen..."

small_magics
2013-09-24 12:25 am (UTC)

"Helen is not a dragon," says Sarion.

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 12:25 am (UTC)

"No, I mean - if you conjure people up out of nowhere, and you aren't specific, apparently you're overwhelmingly likely to get templates."

nonbird
2013-09-24 12:28 am (UTC)

"That's... bizarre but not entirely surprising," says Lazarus. "It makes a kind of sense. As much as metacausality ever does."

pythbox
2013-09-24 12:29 am (UTC)

"What," says Elasirae in tones of fascination, "is metacausality?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 12:31 am (UTC)

"We don't really know, but I can see it," says Glass, continuing to peer at the dragons. "I can tell by looking what template someone is, some things about what that means for their personal characteristics, and how templatey they are - Bells and Jokers are the templatiest, but Sherlocks aren't far behind - and things about how their template attractors have interacted with their worlds, and about the worlds themselves, and about how templates are sometimes inclined to appear together."

pythbox
2013-09-24 12:33 am (UTC)

"That's bizarre," says Elasirae, with a thoughtful glance at Lazarus when he realizes he echoed the phrase. "How did it come about that you can tell all those things?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 12:34 am (UTC)

"It's my enchantress aura. If you do a lot of enchanting you get one, with unique features - that's one of mine. I can also see magic, though I'm not as good at interpreting it as Lazarus is."

pythbox
2013-09-24 12:41 am (UTC)

"I want to see magic too," Elasirae declares.

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 02:07 am (UTC)

"Well, you could maybe approximate it with a wish, and maybe you'd get lucky if you tried enchanting, but native powers like Lazarus's are generally better than acquired powers."

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:10 am (UTC)

Elasirae hmphs.

Unsurprisingly given the size of his nose, there is a very noticeable puff of air.

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 02:13 am (UTC)

Glass's witchy robes flutter. "Sorry," she says. "Fortunately, though, the fact that we're all connected up again means that the local coin supply isn't nearly as bottlenecked as it was a couple weeks ago."

small_magics
2013-09-24 02:14 am (UTC)

"I see no reason not to offer you as good a copy of your alt's power as a hexagon can supply, if you would like."

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:15 am (UTC)

"I would very like," says Elasirae.

small_magics
2013-09-24 02:15 am (UTC)

Hex.

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:16 am (UTC)

"...Oooh."

He peers fascinatedly at everyone.

Sherial ducks her nose under her wing and giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 02:18 am (UTC)

Glass pulls her marble out from under her shirt.

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:19 am (UTC)

Elasirae snakes his neck down to get a closer look.

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 02:19 am (UTC)

Glass laughs.

small_magics
2013-09-24 02:20 am (UTC)

"At any time," Sarion remarks, mostly to Sherial, "Elspeth could collect Arianna and Sidanar in the same way."

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:23 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure how they'd react," says Sherial. "Although I suppose most people aren't going to be suspicious of Elspeth the first time they see her..."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 02:23 am (UTC)

"Most people are not!"

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:24 am (UTC)

"Are most of me?" she wonders. "I'd think they would be. But maybe they mostly meet you already vouched for by someone they trust."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 02:28 am (UTC)

"You're the first of your template to have met me for the first time out of a corroborating context, yes."

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:29 am (UTC)

"If it happens again," says Sherial, "expect them to have doubts."
Edited 2013-09-24 02:30 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 02:30 am (UTC)

"All right. I can still go get Sidanar and Arianna, if it's time to go talk to them. And warn the latter that she may have a Bondable elf wandering around."

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:34 am (UTC)

Sherial shrugs, resettling her glittery grey wings. "I won't stop you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 02:34 am (UTC)

Elspeth laughs.

Arianna?

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:35 am (UTC)

[What,] says Arianna.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 02:36 am (UTC)

(alts and visitors and likely-Bondable and the offer of teleportation...)

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:37 am (UTC)

[I'm not confused but I feel like I should be confused,] says Arianna. [I'm confusingly unconfused. Yes, okay, you can teleport me.]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 02:37 am (UTC)

Pop pop!

small_magics
2013-09-24 02:38 am (UTC)

"Hello, Arianna."

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:44 am (UTC)

"Hello," says Arianna. "There's a lot of, of... I guess you're not Bonded, not all of you... a lot of not dragons here. I'm afraid I might sit on someone."

small_magics
2013-09-24 02:45 am (UTC)

Isibel hovers a bit closer to dragon eye level. "Perhaps this will help."

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 02:45 am (UTC)

Glass follows suit.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 02:46 am (UTC)

Elspeth could fly, but declines in favor of climbing up a nearby tree.

nonbird
2013-09-24 02:48 am (UTC)

"I'm certified unsquashable," Lazarus volunteers, "but still not keen to be sat on, I must admit."

He climbs on top of a large rock, which puts him still somewhat lower than dragon eye level but at least farther from anywhere Arianna might reasonably decide to sit.

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:49 am (UTC)

"How," wonders Arianna, "do you get certified unsquashable?"

nonbird
2013-09-24 02:51 am (UTC)

"You get acquainted with a very huggy person whose hugs can squash granite," says Lazarus, "and then magic."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 02:53 am (UTC)

"Magic is really useful!"

pythbox
2013-09-24 02:54 am (UTC)

Arianna snorts.

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 02:56 am (UTC)

"Elasirae just got a little bit, is there anything you want while we're here?"

pythbox
2013-09-24 03:00 am (UTC)

She cranes her head around rapidly to stare at Elasirae.

"Well, it's not our magic," he says, with a shrug that ripples his iridescent black wings. "Of course it doesn't not want to work for dragons; dragons mostly don't exist where it's from."

"Do I want magic," scoffs Arianna. "Of course I want magic! Dragons are the most magic thing in the world but we don't get to keep any of it, it's supremely unfair." She digs her glossy white claws into the ground.

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 03:02 am (UTC)

"Okay, but you might have to be a little more specific. Although I guess I could just mint you, you have an alt who's a mint - Elsie, if you would? -"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 03:03 am (UTC)

(Minting is this thing!)

pythbox
2013-09-24 12:56 pm (UTC)

Arianna grins. A dragon's grin can be somewhat alarming.

"You should definitely mint me."

small_magics
2013-09-24 03:50 pm (UTC)

"I have some little hesitation on the matter - it is inconvenient to undo and in the right person affords considerable power. Your minted alt is in the employ of one of mine, but I do not know your own plans."

pythbox
2013-09-24 11:35 pm (UTC)

"What plans?" says Arianna. "I'm a dragon. I'm going to... dragon."

small_magics
2013-09-24 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Presumably, you will dragon, yes," says Sarion. "The fact that you have a likely potential Bonded wandering about also warrants some caution. One of him works alongside your aforementioned alt and is reasonably harmless. Another has a list of crimes that would be longer than you are even if it were written in fine print. I do not know which sort the local is."

pythbox
2013-09-24 11:40 pm (UTC)

Arianna snorts. "Go bother him about his plans, then. I want minting."

She bounces a little on her four taloned feet. The ground only trembles very slightly.

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Your templates are pretty thoroughly paired," Glass says. "If you're saying you can just avoid him, that's going to take more work than it would if he were just some guy, and I'm not sure if it would work anyway even if we wish up a bubble enforcing sufficient distance. Template attractors have produced ridiculous improbabilities before. One person we know spontaneously developed the tendency to uncontrollably teleport between worlds specifically because his template requires its constituents to undergo more suffering than he was going to get where he was from."

pythbox
2013-09-24 11:49 pm (UTC)

"...So you're saying I'm just going to Bond to this guy, and there's nothing I can do about it?" says Arianna, peering suspiciously at Glass. "In that case, definitely go bother him! Bother him right away!"

thaumobabble
2013-09-24 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I can't guarantee you are, I just can't promise to keep him out of the way as effectively as I could promise to keep..." She points at a random rock. "That rock, out of the way. Elspeth?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 11:50 pm (UTC)

Elspeth laughs and teleports to the Sandy-elf.

thinklikethis
2013-09-24 11:56 pm (UTC)

The Sandy-elf is sitting on a tree stump with a small piece of wood and a tiny knife, carving something. He doesn't seem to notice Elspeth's arrival at all.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-24 11:57 pm (UTC)

Elspeth has lots of little tricks. Rather than say something and startle him, she just...

Advertises her presence.

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:03 am (UTC)

Intent on his carving, he still doesn't acknowledge her presence. A long thin curl of wood comes away from the piece; he inhales, flicks the shaving off onto the ground, exhales, studies the result, and looks up.

"...Um," he says, blinking, and continues hesitantly: "I See you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:04 am (UTC)

Elspeth grins. "I See you too." (This is who she is and why she's here -)

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:05 am (UTC)

The elf stares.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:06 am (UTC)

Elspeth tucks some of her hair behind her ear and smiles.

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:07 am (UTC)

He eyes her rather as though he is afraid she might eat him.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:08 am (UTC)

"I won't hurt you."

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:09 am (UTC)

"That... makes good hearing," he says cautiously. "Um. My name is Sandalon."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:10 am (UTC)

"And you already know who I am," replies Elspeth.

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:11 am (UTC)

Which apparently leaves him at something of a conversational loss.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:13 am (UTC)

"I can just go try telling Sarion that you won't mess up her world if given the chance, and see if it comes out all sparkly-true," says Elspeth, "but that's more likely to produce conclusive results if you give me some information to work with. I can only produce sourceless truth on an unreliable basis."

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:17 am (UTC)

"Um," says Sandalon. "I... don't know what to tell you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:18 am (UTC)

Elspeth taps her chin. "Not asking elves questions is hard," she comments.

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:21 am (UTC)

"It comes easier with practice," he murmurs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:22 am (UTC)

"Probably. I haven't had much. Isibel doesn't mind being asked questions and she doesn't bring any of her elf friends to parties."

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:23 am (UTC)

"I have never," he says, "met Isibel Sarion."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:25 am (UTC)

"Well, people are allowed to ask her questions. And she has interesting friends from other worlds. And she considers this entire world to be her responsibility and she will be embarrassed in front of all her interesting otherworldly friends if one of its population acquires a minted dragon and does anything destructive to or with her before she can put a stop to it."
Edited 2013-09-25 00:25 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:27 am (UTC)

"I do not want a dragon, in mint or any other flavour," Sandalon says plaintively. "I want to live by myself and make beautiful things and not be especially remembered by history."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:32 am (UTC)

"She doesn't seem to want you very much, either, and we aren't positive that you'd Bond if you met anyway, but we've seen copies of you three times before and copies of her three times before and they always show up together."

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:38 am (UTC)

"Then—if it is a matter of fate—" He bites his lip, then bursts out, "It would be good to know of your courtesy what you expect me to do about any of it!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:41 am (UTC)

"I'm here to learn enough to have a better chance of saying accurately whether it'll be okay or not," says Elspeth. "If you don't have any idea then you can't tell me, I suppose, maybe Sarion will just have to disappoint the dragon." She hmmms. "I could," she says, "invite one of you here in case that would be any help."

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:43 am (UTC)

"...I don't think I want to meet a one of me who is—unsuitable for dragons," Sandalon says quickly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:44 am (UTC)

"No, the one I'd invite is the one who works for Sarion's alt," says Elspeth, shaking her head.

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 12:45 am (UTC)

"Well... that might be all right," he says cautiously.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:45 am (UTC)

"Okay." Elspeth taps her Janegem.

mind_game
2013-09-25 12:46 am (UTC)

[Hey Sandy! Elspeth is trying to talk to an elf of you! She is having trouble and wants help. She can explain the details way faster than I can if you want me to just drop you there.]

guiltless
2013-09-25 12:48 am (UTC)

[Uh... sure!] says Sandy.

mind_game
2013-09-25 12:49 am (UTC)

Yoink!

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 12:49 am (UTC)

"Sandy, this is Sandalon. Sandalon, Sandy, your alt from Eos."

(And this is what has passed between them so far, and there is Arianna who is an Anna and a dragon of Ansharil's kind, and maybe they won't Bond but it sure seems likely, and she wants minting, and there's Sandy, but then again there's Chainsaw, and then there's the one who's Chelsa's pet -)
Edited 2013-09-25 00:54 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 01:11 am (UTC)

Sandalon peers at the new arrival.

"You're a human," he says, surprised. "I mean—I See you, Sandy. Um. It would be good... to... hear what you might have to say."

guiltless
2013-09-25 01:22 am (UTC)

"...I think I at least know what the problem is," says Sandy, studying Sandalon. "And it's... hmm. Probably not as much of a problem as you think."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 01:24 am (UTC)

"What is it?" Elspeth asks Sandy. (And to Sandalon she flicks the knowledge that humans are just everywhere; Sandalon's species, like her own, is confined to a single world, though variants on their themes can be found in a handful of others.)

guiltless
2013-09-25 01:35 am (UTC)

"...So our entire template is sadists," says Sandy, "I mean, as far as I know, I haven't personally met the one in Gift or anything, but we're not necessarily bad sadists. Chainsaw is only Chainsaw because of Downside, and if you read between the lines with what Eights says about him he's pretty much settled right down, he just can't admit it because he spent so long needing to be the scariest asshole around that it's probably going to take him a few centuries to shift gears."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 01:37 am (UTC)

"We're not supposed to go near the Gift one because he's telekinetic and a Gift could cut through wished defenses like butter," says Elspeth, "and he's not supposed to know about multiversal stuff because he's still with Chelsa."

guiltless
2013-09-25 01:42 am (UTC)

Sandy snorts.

"Anyway, though, if I didn't have my very own special circumstances I'd probably be pretty worried about myself. I've been pretty worried about myself a time or two. But there is ultimately not that much to worry about."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 01:44 am (UTC)

"Special circumstances?"

guiltless
2013-09-25 01:47 am (UTC)

"My ingot power is that I go to this place in my dreams with a bunch of... kind of distilled versions of me in it? And I have for a really long time, so I'm used to them by now, and I've figured out that they're ultimately pretty harmless if you take them on their own terms and therefore so am I. It, uh, took a lot more figuring than it sounds like."

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 01:47 am (UTC)

Sandalon is listening in utter fascination.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 01:48 am (UTC)

"Huh. So your opinion is it's safe to mint Arianna and let Bonding happen or not, whichever?"

guiltless
2013-09-25 01:53 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Sandy. "And, you know, don't then turn around and drop the guy into a basically literal Hell where the only obvious career paths are torturer and tortur-ee. But like. I don't think you're going to do that anyway."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 01:54 am (UTC)

"Not on anybody's agenda," agrees Elspeth.

guiltless
2013-09-25 01:55 am (UTC)

Sandy shrugs. "So there you go, that's my advice."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 01:56 am (UTC)

"All right. Do you want Jane to drop you back in Eos before I go pass that along, or not?"

guiltless
2013-09-25 01:57 am (UTC)

"Yeah, might as well. Nice meeting you," he says to Sandalon.

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 01:57 am (UTC)

"...And you as well," Sandalon manages.

mind_game
2013-09-25 01:58 am (UTC)

And yoink.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 01:59 am (UTC)

"If there's anything else Arianna or Isibel should hear, now would be a good time to tell me," Elspeth tells Sandalon.

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 02:01 am (UTC)

"Um... I don't want to bother a dragon," says Sandalon. "And I don't want to be famous or do spectacular magic or anything. But... if the dragon would like to meet me... I don't think I would mind." He ducks his head. "That's all."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 02:03 am (UTC)

"Okay. Bye."

And Elspeth goes back to the group and relates what went on.

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:05 am (UTC)

"Really," says Arianna.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 02:06 am (UTC)

Elspeth bursts out laughing.

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:06 am (UTC)

"What?" she says indignantly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 02:07 am (UTC)

"It's just cute."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 02:08 am (UTC)

"I can confirm that I haven't, actually, seen a perform-unspeakable-acts attractor stuck to Chainsaw, let alone Sandy. I can go have a look at Sandalon, I guess."

small_magics
2013-09-25 02:08 am (UTC)

"If you wouldn't mind."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 02:09 am (UTC)

Pop. "Hi, Sandalon, I'm one of Isibel's alts, looking over your template features, don't mind me."

thinklikethis
2013-09-25 02:10 am (UTC)

After one deeply curious glance, he appears to take this elven-literally, and commences ignoring her in favour of his neglected carving.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 02:11 am (UTC)

Glass inspects him, then pops away again.

"Yeah, nothing spooked me there."

small_magics
2013-09-25 02:11 am (UTC)

"Very well. I suppose we may as well grant Arianna her wish."

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:12 am (UTC)

Arianna bounces again, gleefully.

small_magics
2013-09-25 02:13 am (UTC)

And Arianna's wish is granted. Presumably to the fascination of Elasirae, who hasn't seen this done before.

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:16 am (UTC)

Elasirae is duly fascinated!

Arianna giggles and leaps into the air, calling back "Thank yoooooooooooooou~" as she flies away.

small_magics
2013-09-25 02:17 am (UTC)

"I suppose Sidanar is next."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 02:17 am (UTC)

Sidanar gets the same long-distance Elspeth introduction that the others did.

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:34 am (UTC)

"Pity her best friend just flew away cackling," Elasirae observes.

Sidanar, meanwhile, reacts to this introduction with stunned silence.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 02:34 am (UTC)

Elspeth can fetch her, if desired...

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:40 am (UTC)

[...okay,] she says, still sounding generally lost.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 02:41 am (UTC)

Pop, pop.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 02:41 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Glass, "that's a Darcy. Should we ask the previously encountered Darcy here or would that even accomplish anything?"

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:46 am (UTC)

"What's a Darcy?" says Sidanar, settling onto the ground with a nervous glance to make sure she isn't squashing anyone.

She is definitely the most visually impressive of the five conjured dragons. Tianthonet's symmetrical patchy red-and-gold is striking, Arianna's asymmetrical swirling red-and-white is fascinating, but Sidanar's scales are a deep midnight blue with a pattern of branching white lines that look like lightning.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 02:47 am (UTC)

"A template, apparently, although you're the second one we've encountered. Like me and Sarion are the same template, there's another person from another world who's like you. Only she's a human. And named Darcy."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 02:48 am (UTC)

"She has a magic hammer," says Elspeth, "with which she does heroism."

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:49 am (UTC)

"What's magic about it, specifically?" Sidanar wonders.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 02:50 am (UTC)

"You can't pick it up if it doesn't like you," says Elspeth, "and it does lightning, that's all I know, it might do other things."

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:55 am (UTC)

Sidanar glances speculatively at her own scales. "Huh."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 02:57 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's a template theme," laughs Glass.

pythbox
2013-09-25 02:58 am (UTC)

"Apparently so," says Sidanar.

"Is it the same way for the rest of us?" wonders Sherial, glancing between Lazarus and Elasirae as though trying to identify any visual similarities she might have missed.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 03:01 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Glass, after a moment's thought. "Iridescent black is a Lazarus thing - not for this Lazarus, particularly, but for Lazaruses in general - red-and-gold and red-and-white and various forms of gray are things for the respective other templates."

pythbox
2013-09-25 03:03 am (UTC)

"Hmm," says Sherial. The very end of her tail taps thoughtfully against the ground.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 03:04 am (UTC)

"Do you want to meet Darcy now, or should it wait until the next peal party?" Elspeth inquires of Sidanar.

pythbox
2013-09-25 03:05 am (UTC)

Sidanar glances at the other two dragons.

"...Yeah, I can wait," she decides. "I mean, it's not an emergency, right, the world will go on perfectly well without me meeting my tiny human self and probably stepping on her because that's just my luck?"

"I haven't stepped on mine!" Elasirae says proudly.

small_magics
2013-09-25 03:07 am (UTC)

"I begin to develop the impression that I brought hazardous person-squashing dragons into the world and should have been more careful with my wish," remarks Sarion lightly. "Surely it would not be so concerning if it were not at least an occasional occurrence."

pythbox
2013-09-25 03:12 am (UTC)

"It's not that," says Sidanar, "it's just..." She shrugs, wings rippling.

"It is not that it has ever happened," says Sherial, "it is just that none of us has very much experience with people of your stature, and it is a natural worry given that lack. Also I imagine it is unsettling to be teleported directly into the midst of an unprecedentedly large number of small fragile people."

"Yes," says Sidanar, "that."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 03:13 am (UTC)

"We are not as fragile as we look."

pythbox
2013-09-25 12:20 pm (UTC)

"You're still small," says Sidanar, "and it still wouldn't be polite to step on you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Anyway," says Elspeth. "There's still a Kolya and a Libby to talk to, although I probably shouldn't fetch them here unless more possible Bondings are intended for today. Should I do that now, or do you have questions, Sidanar?"

pythbox
2013-09-25 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I have questions," she says.

nonbird
2013-09-25 05:28 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not sure you should talk to the Kolya," says Lazarus.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

nonbird
2013-09-25 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, I know that if there were hypothetical strangers from another world considering whether or not to contact the Kolya I am most familiar with, he would much rather they went away without bothering him."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 05:33 pm (UTC)

"This in spite of the fact that this one has a dragon probably ready to dragon-thing at him if they get within eyeshot of each other? He wouldn't want a heads-up?"

nonbird
2013-09-25 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't know this Kolya," says Lazarus. "But I know a Kolya. And I don't think he or I could honestly tell you which one he would prefer. But we'd both be absolutely sure he won't thank you for showing up out of nowhere to tell him things."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay... Elasirae, what do you think about the likely-Bondable human wandering around, do you want us to see if we can enforce some space while you think about it, leave it up to metacausality, what do you prefer?"

pythbox
2013-09-25 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Well... I was already going to leave the matter of my future Bonding up to fate and the Wild Magic," he says. "I don't think any of this new knowledge changes that, except that it seems my likely future Bonded and I are already good friends in another world. So I don't think I need to do anything different."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. Elspeth, you want to go surprise the Libby?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

Pop. (Behind the nearest door. On which she knocks. She has known her Grandma Lizzie long enough to make this guess.)
Edited 2013-09-25 17:53 (UTC)

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 05:54 pm (UTC)

The nearest door happens to be the front door of a small cheerful cottage.

A familiar-looking person opens it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Hi! I'm Elspeth, your alternate universe granddaughter, and I am here to tell you a lot of things."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 05:55 pm (UTC)

"...Go on," says the local Libby.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 05:58 pm (UTC)

(This is how the granddaughter thing is, complete with a footnote about vampires in Aurum and Elspeth's princesshood, and how Isibel Sarion figures into it, and how alts work, and also they are about 60% confident that there is a dragon the local Libby could Bond to...)

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Is there now," she murmurs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Yep. We're not as sure with you as we are with a couple others, because the templates aren't that tightly connected - plenty of you and plenty of her appear by yourselves. But there's enough to guess at."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 06:04 pm (UTC)

"I think I should meet this dragon," she says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Lemme see what the dragon thinks of that." Elspeth tilts her head. [Hey Sherial, the Libby wants to meet you.]

pythbox
2013-09-25 06:07 pm (UTC)

[I am reasonably tempted to meet the Libby,] says Sherial. [They're not dangerous, are they?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 06:08 pm (UTC)

[Not usually. One of them took over the world with the use of a helper who does relationship-editing mind control, and I am not equipped to defend her if you want to hear that defended.]
Edited 2013-09-25 18:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-09-25 06:10 pm (UTC)

[Hmm,] says Sherial.

To Glass, she says, "What can you tell me about Libbies?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Most of them work for Bells - one of them moved universes to work for a Bell when her existing plans didn't pan out. They make good personnel officers - they're good at reading people, figuring out how to arrange them so they have what they need. They set priorities - actually that's probably why she wants to meet you; if she runs into you when having a dragon enshrined in her priorities would upset something then that will be inconvenient, so she may as well incorporate you now if it's going to happen. The connection between your templates isn't that strong. You can easily spring up alone completely independent of each other, neither of you is 'leading' or 'following' there, but when there's the both of you in a world you'll eventually wind up being important figures to each other - there's a certain set of books you're both attached to, in worlds where the books exist, and the characters in question are enemies but there's none of that necessarily spilling into reality. There is one who took up world conquest with the use of a template Bells do not like, who has the power to make people like or stop liking each other - the Bell in that world has yet to produce her explanation of why she didn't do more about this than she did, but the regime is being phased into something more palatable now they have coins available, anyway."

pythbox
2013-09-25 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Set priorities?" inquires Sherial.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 06:24 pm (UTC)

"I don't have one in my world even though I have - am married to, actually - a Sherlock," says Glass, "so this is hearsay and a smidgen of looking-at-templates, but it has sounded to me like they organize things - especially people - in their lives as more or less important in a way that's legible to us as opposed to sort of... haphazardly not doing that, the way that, say, Jokers do."

small_magics
2013-09-25 06:24 pm (UTC)

"My beloveds and their alts become aware of opportunities and are or are not moved to take advantage of them on a case by case basis. Libbies, as Bells, seem more systematic."

pythbox
2013-09-25 06:45 pm (UTC)

[I would like to meet her,] says Sherial to Elspeth.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 06:45 pm (UTC)

"She says yes. I can teleport you there if you like."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 06:46 pm (UTC)

"I would definitely like."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 06:46 pm (UTC)

Pop!

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 06:50 pm (UTC)

She looks at her dragon. There are three dragons present, but only one of them is the right one; it's as obvious as the direction of the sun.

pythbox
2013-09-25 06:51 pm (UTC)

Sherial looks back, lifting her wings slightly in an involuntary gesture of fascination.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 06:52 pm (UTC)

"You're," Glass begins, staring at the Libby, but she falls silent, not wishing to interrupt.

pythbox
2013-09-25 06:53 pm (UTC)

Sherial takes a few steps forward and bends her head to look her imminent Bondmate directly in the eye.

"What's your name?" she murmurs.

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Lissa," breathes Lissa, reaching up to put her hands on either side of Sherial's glittery grey jaw.

pythbox
2013-09-25 06:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm Sherial."

They gaze at each other for a moment longer; then Sherial blinks and tucks her wings tightly against her sides.

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 06:58 pm (UTC)

Lissa grins and hugs Sherial around her long snaky neck.

Then she asks Glass, over her shoulder, "I'm what?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 06:59 pm (UTC)

"You," accuses Glass, "are shiny. I have seen it once before and I still don't know what it means. You're not as shiny as the other person, though..."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 07:01 pm (UTC)

She unhugs her Bonded, but keeps a hand on Sherial's neck as she turns to face Glass properly.

"Define 'shiny'."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I can see metacausality - I can tell what template someone is by looking and stuff like that - and there is something about you that I'm seeing, have seen on one other person who wasn't a template from another world, and have no idea what it means. Except that it involves you being attached to this world particularly."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you figure out anything else about it, do let me know," she says. "Can I have some of that magic you were handing out earlier?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Minting? Yeah, Libbies are safe to mint and you're definitely also a Libby," says Glass. "Unless Sarion has some objection."

small_magics
2013-09-25 07:05 pm (UTC)

"No, I believe it will be fine." And she spends the hex with a wave of her hand.

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Lissa. "And any other magic you feel like giving us would also be appreciated."

pythbox
2013-09-25 07:07 pm (UTC)

Sherial chuckles.

small_magics
2013-09-25 07:09 pm (UTC)

Sarion mints Sherial, too. "Sherial is already torchable; I did that for all of the dragons years ago. I will add you, too."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Lissa repeats. She's grinning again.

small_magics
2013-09-25 07:12 pm (UTC)

"You are welcome. And if you are looking for something to do with yourself, the traditional occupation of Libbies stands open."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Personnel officer? Don't mind if I do," she says. "To start with, anyway... I think my ultimate plans are going to end up a little more expansive than that. Oh, while we're at it, would somebody like to make my aunt immortal?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I can. Should I fill her in on the rest of the goings-on?"

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Lissa, "sure, good idea."

nonbird
2013-09-25 07:23 pm (UTC)

Lazarus has been looking fascinated for quite some time now, but he is beginning to direct his fascinated look at Lissa in particular out of all available targets.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 07:23 pm (UTC)

Elspeth pops away to deliver summary and torchability to the local Chris.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:24 pm (UTC)

Glass is still peering at Lissa, too. "Well," she says, "Lycaelon was right about not being the usual kind of Wildmage, assuming you are. It looks very differently shaped on you."

nonbird
2013-09-25 07:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Lycaelon is necessarily more unusual," says Lazarus.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Are there more unusual kinds of Wildmages?"

small_magics
2013-09-25 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Not that I know of."

nonbird
2013-09-25 07:33 pm (UTC)

"...The closest comparison I can make," Lazarus says slowly, "is that in something like the way people's ingot powers and witchcraft and Gifts suit them, being a Wildmage suits Lissa. That's not quite it. But I can't think of a better analogy."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:34 pm (UTC)

"I can," says Glass, "see why you'd be tempted to describe it that way... I want to look at another Wildmage who doesn't have anything weird going on, is there one I can pop in and peer at? Is Tianthonet's new Bondmate one?"

pythbox
2013-09-25 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, she's either a Wildmage or a High Mage," says Sherial, "and Wildmage is likelier."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Do you suppose we can go stare at her without interrupting anything?"

pythbox
2013-09-25 07:39 pm (UTC)

"...I'll ask."

She does.

A moment later, she reports, "Tianthonet and Virgivere say it's all right if you bring them here to look at them."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:40 pm (UTC)

Glass goes and fetches them. "Hi," she says.

pythbox
2013-09-25 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Tianthonet.

"Hello," says Virgivere.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:41 pm (UTC)

And Glass commences peering at Virgivere.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 07:41 pm (UTC)

(Elspeth catches up the new arrivals on Things.)

nonbird
2013-09-25 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes, see?" says Lazarus. He points at Virgivere. "Perfectly ordinary Wildmage." At Lissa. "Not perfectly ordinary. Perfectly something, maybe, but ordinary isn't it."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 07:54 pm (UTC)

"It's..." Glass flares her aura, and squints. "Hooked into her Libbiness. Somehow."

nonbird
2013-09-25 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm not surprised," says Lazarus. "I'm the opposite of surprised."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 07:59 pm (UTC)

"And to think," says Lissa, "before today I wasn't aware I had a Libbiness to hook into."

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 08:04 pm (UTC)

Glass laughs. "I have no idea what it's doing with your magic exactly, but it's sure something. And the - shininess - is related too, I think."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Shiny Libbiness."

pythbox
2013-09-25 08:06 pm (UTC)

Sherial giggles.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Glass, "shiny Thilanushinyel-themed Wild-Magic-related Libbiness. My power is kind of frustrating sometimes. Elspeth, do you have anything?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 08:07 pm (UTC)

Elspeth opens her mouth and waits a moment, then shakes her head. "No pronouncements today, sorry."

pythbox
2013-09-25 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh, well," says Sherial. "If that's everything, my Bonded and I have some magic to go and do."

small_magics
2013-09-25 08:09 pm (UTC)

"I confess to some curiosity."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 08:11 pm (UTC)

"No specific plans just yet," says Lissa. "I think I'll cast a scrying spell and see what the Wild Magic wants to tell me today."

She climbs up onto Sherial's back.

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I confess to large amounts of curiosity about that," says Glass. "You can brainphone Jane and she can tell me even after I've gone home to tell my wives about their dragon alts."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 08:15 pm (UTC)

"I might," Lissa says cheerfully. "I can't promise anything. Some visions are private."
Edited 2013-09-25 20:15 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-09-25 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Sure," agrees Glass.

small_magics
2013-09-25 08:17 pm (UTC)

"It has been good to meet you."

neverbeatme
2013-09-25 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Likewise!" says Lissa.

And she leans forward and hugs Sherial around her neck again, and Sherial takes off.

explained

mute_pen

Etty calls Nona home after a day and a half more of talking to Carl. He has a lot to take in - a lot; Etty can see why explaining everything to one's parents is not the norm among Bells - and then she retrieved her mother Renate from even longer ago, and caught her up on even more things, most of which she took better than Carl.

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:14 pm (UTC)

She freecasts to the orchard again.

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:15 pm (UTC)

Etty is inside the castle, but she's looking out a window; she waves when she sees Nona.

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:17 pm (UTC)

Nona waves back, appears beside her, and gives her a hug. She's wearing some of Alice's old clothes - blue jeans and a faded black T-shirt.

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:18 pm (UTC)

Etty's still in her feather dress; she just doesn't care enough to bother changing it when it fits and appears all by itself so conveniently. Hug! "Carl and Renate are back in Astgabels, now, but they visit some time in a few days. I think they will adjust to everything, but it may take time."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nona, snuggling her.

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I am sorry if Carl made you uncomfortable."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:21 pm (UTC)

"He didn't, exactly. I just - didn't want to be here when there was someone here who didn't want me to be. So I went somewhere else."

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:22 pm (UTC)

"He will get used to you."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:24 pm (UTC)

"If you say so."

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:25 pm (UTC)

"I think so, anyway. If he does not perhaps I will borrow somebell else's father from a more enlightened culture and see what he makes of that."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:26 pm (UTC)

Nona laughs. "I love you. Would you really?"

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, I am not sure who might loan me theirs, but I might really inquire."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I love you," says Nona. "I hope your father does get used to me."

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:40 pm (UTC)

"I love you too. And I hope so too."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:40 pm (UTC)

Snuggle hug.

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:41 pm (UTC)

Huggle! "How did you spend your time somewhere-else, or don't I want to know?"

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:42 pm (UTC)

"With Jokers," says Nona. "We did some things that weren't sex."

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Interesting things?"

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I baked a cake!" she says proudly.

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Probably it's all gone now."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:56 pm (UTC)

"I could conjure you a piece."

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, will you?"

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:57 pm (UTC)

She does.

It is tasty cake. Black Forest, to be specific.

mute_pen
2013-08-18 05:58 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmmm.

Etty enjoys her slice of cake very thoroughly.

growcrooked
2013-08-18 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad you like my cake so much," says Nona. "I will make more."

mute_pen
2013-08-18 06:00 pm (UTC)

"That sounds lovely."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Good! I like baking cake."

mute_pen
2013-08-18 06:02 pm (UTC)

"I used to make cake occasionally but I don't miss it."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 06:03 pm (UTC)

"It's fun. And then it's cake!"

mute_pen
2013-08-18 06:04 pm (UTC)

"That is how it works, yes."

growcrooked
2013-08-18 06:06 pm (UTC)

She giggles.

mute_pen
2013-08-18 06:07 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle.

growcrooked
2013-08-18 06:09 pm (UTC)

Ooh. Nuzzles. They're nuzzly!

mute_pen
2013-08-18 06:10 pm (UTC)

They are!

growcrooked
2013-08-18 06:11 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle nuzzle.

sweeping changes

mind_game

Jane has finally been updated in all of the "extra" worlds with no Bells, Jarvises, or other routine visitors to the peal, and she is conducting template sweeps in them.

[Hey,] she tells all the Jokers and all the Bells. [There's a Joker in world number twelve who wasn't there before I crashed. Can't find him online at all, though.]

pythbox
2013-09-25 09:59 pm (UTC)

Without any apparent coordination, Jokers start congregating in the Belltower. War is among the first, so subsequent arrivals are linked and freecast into the same room even if they initially appeared in a different one.

autokinetic
2013-09-25 10:00 pm (UTC)

Bells confer amongst themselves, and send Aegis as their representative Joker expert.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 10:00 pm (UTC)

Plus, Elspeth.

In case it's a little one.

manofmyword
2013-09-25 10:03 pm (UTC)

"All right," says the Joker. "So what have we got, exactly? Template sweep turned up a Joker and there's nobody on the grid with, mm, the wrong name?"
Edited 2013-09-25 22:03 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-09-25 10:04 pm (UTC)

[Not the standard wrong name or any seen before, anyway,] says Jane.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-25 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Innnnteresting," muses Queenie. "And how many wrong names are there to go around, here? Without naming any."

mind_game
2013-09-25 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Four. I haven't been told and have no wherewithal to find on an Internet whatever Nona, Beast, and Aianon started with."

endragoned
2013-09-25 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Good," snorts Aianon.

yourheartstrings
2013-09-25 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says Ghosty, out of thin air as usual; her intangible presence hovers around Queenie. "What kind of a world is twelve, anyway?"

mind_game
2013-09-25 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Earth. Has a Gotham. No magic or aliens or anything else that I've been able to detect. Currently June, 1988. No Bell, and a standard Earth one would be born by now," Jane adds.

yourheartstrings
2013-09-25 10:35 pm (UTC)

"How old were we in '88?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-25 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmmm... twelve?" hazards Queenie.

manofmyword
2013-09-25 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Think so," says the Joker.

yourheartstrings
2013-09-25 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Thereabouts."

pythbox
2013-09-25 10:42 pm (UTC)

"...I'm in this, right, this is a question to me, I used to have a Gotham," says Harley. "But I have no idea what year."

mind_game
2013-09-25 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Gothamed Jokers were all born in 1976," confirms Jane.

manofmyword
2013-09-25 10:47 pm (UTC)

"So our new friend is probably roundabout twelve," says the Joker. He looks at Elspeth.
Edited 2013-09-25 22:47 (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Assuming Harley wants to recommend me as a foster-parent for Jokers," says Elspeth, "I'll go talk to this one."

pythbox
2013-09-25 10:58 pm (UTC)

Harley grins at her. "Of course I do," he says warmly.

Corona is shaking his head. "Twelve, though, oh man. Do you really know what you're signing up for?"

"Elsie's awesome," Harley assures him.

"Yeah, I'm getting that, but you" (Corona freecasts across the room to give Harley a hug) "are a special case - unless I'm the special case? Back me up here, guys, are twelve-year-old Jokers mostly incredible little shits or what?"

manofmyword
2013-09-25 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Mm, well, you are a special case," says the Joker, "but that doesn't mean we weren't."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Harley was lovely when he was twelve, but of course we shouldn't expect him to be typical. What may I be signing up for?"

manofmyword
2013-09-25 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Theft," says the Joker. "Destrrruction of property."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-25 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Indiscriminately pissing off everyone in sight just to see what they do."

pythbox
2013-09-25 11:22 pm (UTC)

Corona frowns thoughtfully and doesn't add anything right away.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not the wolf village house, then," muses Elspeth. "Wolves are easier to piss off than vampires."

pythbox
2013-09-25 11:24 pm (UTC)

"This is true," says Harley. He gives Corona a hug.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 11:27 pm (UTC)

"But I can go back to following the capital around. And property can be fixed with coins," shrugs Elspeth. "And I don't piss off easy - although there's Jake."

yourheartstrings
2013-09-25 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Ghosty. "If you're gonna take on a twelve-year-old Joker, don't keep 'em near somebody who pisses off easy."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Jake doesn't, especially for a wolf," says Elspeth, shaking her head, "on his own behalf. If someone goes after me he has a problem."

pythbox
2013-09-25 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Hard to say if a twelve-year-old Joker would hit that button," says War.

"Mm," says Corona.

"Well, depends," War concedes.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-25 11:44 pm (UTC)

"What on?"

pythbox
2013-09-25 11:50 pm (UTC)

"He doesn't wanna hurt anybody, but he wants to make somebody hurt him," says Jellybean.

"And we don't know how far he'll go to get it, because we don't know how far he'd have to," says Corona. "Or what it's been like for him, how he's feeling—"

"He could be another one of me," says Jellybean, "and you'd be pretty much fine, I was all right by twelve."

"Or he could be another one of me and you'd be in for it," says Corona.

manofmyword
2013-09-25 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I know where I'd put my money," says the Joker.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 12:04 am (UTC)

"Maybe Jake had better be part of this conversation. I don't know what else to do with a twelve-year-old Joker. Although I suppose if he doesn't want to go with me something else will have to be thought up. Jane, can you get my wolf please?"

Elspeth's wolf is got. She holds his hand and explains, silently.

Jake winces. "So, worst case scenario where he's trying to get under my skin through my imprint, what's he going to do to her?"

manofmyword
2013-09-26 12:05 am (UTC)

"Worst case?"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-26 12:06 am (UTC)

"What's the first thing you can think of that'd piss you off?" says Queenie.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 12:09 am (UTC)

"Uh," says Jake. "I don't know. A twelve-year-old human can't really physically hurt her... even if he got ahold of some vampire's tooth or something he'd have to have a way around the wards."

"I'm sufficiently full of distressing memories that it would be hard, but if he could think of something sufficiently awful to say to me that I cried," says Elspeth, "Jake would explode."

Jake wraps his arms protectively around Elspeth. He is about three times her size, so this is pretty cute.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-26 12:10 am (UTC)

"Jokers," says Queenie, "are really good at buttons."

pythbox
2013-09-26 12:13 am (UTC)

"...But if he knows you, he'll like you," says Harley to Elsie. "He might not want to make you cry."

manofmyword
2013-09-26 12:14 am (UTC)

"He might," says the Joker, "try it anyway."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 12:15 am (UTC)

"It would at least be difficult," says Elspeth. "I can't think of anything, which means I'm probably not broadcasting it to anyone who pays attention."

manofmyword
2013-09-26 12:18 am (UTC)

"Mm, that's good," says the Joker. "Promising."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 12:21 am (UTC)

"But - even in the capital away from the wolves a lot of the vampires around have mates. And things they're sensitive about. And I don't think it would be a good idea to plunk him down in the middle of nowhere."

manofmyword
2013-09-26 12:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says the Joker. "Populated is better."

endragoned
2013-09-26 12:24 am (UTC)

"But the opposite is not impossible," Aianon observes.

deslandes
2013-09-26 12:24 am (UTC)

"As long as there is someone," says Beast.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 12:25 am (UTC)

"Me, and where there's me there's Jake, and presumably visitors, at least until and unless he drives them all off."

pythbox
2013-09-26 12:31 am (UTC)

Corona snorts.

"Okay," says Harley. "So are you gonna do it?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 12:34 am (UTC)

"I'll go talk to him, anyway," says Elspeth. "Maybe he'd rather be dropped off in Southeast Asia with three hundred and fifty thousand baht and a few new language proficiencies. I'm not just going to pick him up and wander off like I did with Harley. I hope it's not a bad idea for me to tell him things about how you're predicting he'll behave, because keeping secrets is close to impossible for me."
Edited 2013-09-26 00:35 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-09-26 12:38 am (UTC)

War shakes his head. "It shouldn't be a problem."

"What are we gonna call him?" says Jellybean. "He might not have a nickname picked out, but he sure won't let you use the wrong one."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-26 12:38 am (UTC)

"Felicity," Queenie suggests.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 12:41 am (UTC)

"Unless he has something else in mind, Felicity will do," chuckles Elspeth. "Okay. Jake, we're all right?"

He sighs. "If he does go off on you and it's bad, can we call over - I don't know, who's really impossible to ruffle? Carlisle or Esme. Didyme maybe. Call over a babysitter and go off for a while."

"Yes," says Elspeth. "I'm sure Grandma and Grandpa will be happy to help."

"Then I'm fine."

"Okay." She's still holding his hand; she kisses it, and he pops back to Aurum. "Jane, I'm ready."

And then Elspeth is in world number twelve, and then she is invisible, and then she is where the local Joker is.

inhispockets
2013-09-26 03:30 am (UTC)

Late afternoon in Chicago, a boy of indeed about twelve bolting down the street with his long black hair whipping in the wind. The way he's running, you'd think someone or something would be after him, but nothing seems to be. His face is somewhere between focused and frightened, and more than a little familiar.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 03:31 am (UTC)

The street's otherwise deserted; she pops into visibility. Elspeth checks to make sure that nothing is chasing him. She does this by magic; for her own part she falls into step easily beside him. "Hi," she says.
Edited 2013-09-26 03:33 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-26 03:35 am (UTC)

He gives her a suspicious glance and nothing more. Definitely doesn't slow down.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 03:36 am (UTC)

"My name's Elspeth. Do you have one you like at the moment? Also, what's the hurry?"

inhispockets
2013-09-26 03:37 am (UTC)

He gives her a deeply suspicious look, shakes his head, and runs faster.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 03:38 am (UTC)

"I'm here to kidnap you," she adds. "None of the alternate universe versions of you have nice childhoods except the other one I kidnapped, so I'm assuming you aren't having a very nice one either."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 03:40 am (UTC)

He skids to a halt so fast he nearly overbalances.

"You're what?" he demands.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 03:40 am (UTC)

"I said," says Elspeth, coming to a much more graceful stop, "I'm here to kidnap you."
Edited 2013-09-26 03:41 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-26 03:42 am (UTC)

"Fine," he says, "let's go."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 03:45 am (UTC)

"Jane, Aurum please," says Elspeth.

And then they are in front of a computer terminal in a clean white room, otherwise deserted.

"This is my world," says Elspeth. "It's more like yours than some, but we don't have a Gotham, it's the year 2060, there are vampires and werewolves, and my mother is the Empress Regnant."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah? So what'd you grab me for, anyway?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Because your template - fifteen-ish other times versions of you have come to exist that I and people I know have run across - you guys have lousy childhood situations, except the other one I also grabbed. Also, if I left you where you were, you were almost certainly on-track to eventually fall into obsessively unrequited love with a costumed superhero and terrorize a city for her - or possibly his, in that world - attention."

("Fifteen-ish" is accompanied by a largely cosmetic hint about what sorts of things could constitute "ish"ing a number of Jokers: the situations with daemons, Sue's fork, Aianon and Ansharil. It doesn't so much convey this information as that the "ish" represents actual ambiguity about how many of him there are in circulation, not ignorance on Elspeth's part.)
Edited 2013-09-26 17:40 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-26 08:41 pm (UTC)

The boy considers this.

"So... what took you?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 08:43 pm (UTC)

Elspeth pats the Janepoint. "Our interworld transportation system, which also syncs up time between worlds, breaks sometimes. Before she broke, you hadn't been born. After she came back online, you were twelve."

mind_game
2013-09-26 08:43 pm (UTC)

"But we think I'm fixed for good now," says Jane.

inhispockets
2013-09-26 08:46 pm (UTC)

He eyes the Janepoint mistrustfully.

mind_game
2013-09-26 08:47 pm (UTC)

"One of your alts is kinda my dad!" says Jane conversationally. "Well, sort of one of them. Sort of one of your alts is sort of my dad."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 08:48 pm (UTC)

...He boggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 08:52 pm (UTC)

"It's true," adds Elspeth helpfully. "There are a lot of alts going around. You won't be seeing much of yours until you're older though."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? Why's that?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Because," shrugs Elspeth, "adult Jokers - that's the template name - generally have sex with each other, so it'd be weird if you met them before you were at least sixteen or so. You could meet their kids, though - there's more besides Jane. And one of them has a little brother who's nice enough, although usually they don't turn out well."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 08:55 pm (UTC)

He snorts derisively.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

inhispockets
2013-09-26 08:57 pm (UTC)

"You tell me."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 08:58 pm (UTC)

"I can only produce sourceless truth on an unreliable basis."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Fine," says the boy. "So what now?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Elspeth, "you can live with me. I'm not sure where yet. I brought Harley up in a village in Québec, but your alts think you're going to be really obnoxious for a while, and the werewolves can be kind of volatile, so that doesn't seem like a good idea at least to start. Vampires aren't necessarily any better if you decide you want to push their buttons. I'd consider Denali, but I don't think you'd get along with Irina, and maybe not Kate either. So right now it's mostly between Nebraska and Isle Esme, but I'll have to ask my grandfather if I can have the latter for the next four-ish years. And of course maybe you don't want to live with me and would rather be dropped off in a randomly selected not-world-number-twelve's-Chicago location with some money and the local language. That can be arranged too."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:08 pm (UTC)

(At 'really obnoxious', he grins.)

"What are you gonna do with me, if I live with you?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Probably depends on how fit for company you are and how soon, but at minimum there will be me, and my wolf Jacob, around, so probably no pickup soccer but we can occupy ourselves. I'm not sure what hobbies you've picked up at this point. Cooking and sewing are popular, though."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:24 pm (UTC)

"What's your stake, anyway?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:25 pm (UTC)

"My stake?"

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:26 pm (UTC)

"What do you care, why are you the one kidnapping me?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm a good candidate for it. Particularly since there was Harley. And you needed help."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:31 pm (UTC)

"What's the deal with Harley?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:32 pm (UTC)

"What do you mean? He's grown up, now, he won't need me around as much."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:39 pm (UTC)

He gives her an impatient look. "If the reason you're so perfect for me is 'cause of him, why were you so perfect for him? Where is he?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I last saw him twenty minutes ago in the backyard of the interdimensional hub, in the tower that my mother and her alts maintain, but he could be anywhere by now. I think he left his external shapeshifting soul with his wolf in Québec, though. I volunteered to fetch him and look after him when Jane found him when he was a baby. There weren't any other obvious candidates, I had the wherewithal to do it, and the existing group of Jokers okayed me."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:44 pm (UTC)

"What's their stake?" he mutters.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:45 pm (UTC)

"The Jokers?" says Elspeth, bewildered. "They're versions of you. Alternate selves."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:49 pm (UTC)

"So? They're all grown up, aren't they?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes. What does that have to do with anything?"

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Well... if I got to never think about Reggie again, I wouldn't ever."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 09:54 pm (UTC)

Elspeth blinks. She consults her judgesighted memories.

"I think," she concludes, "that you have an atypical history for the template. Most of the unpleasant parental figures are not named that. So that might be related, although I think it's more likely you're just underestimating how much distance you could get in a few years."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 09:57 pm (UTC)

He peers suspicously at her. "What do you mean, atypical history? What's the typical one, then?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, typically you guys are born in New York City when born on Earths at all, for one, so the fact that when I went looking for you I landed in Chicago was already a clue. You also don't look like them - they all mostly look like -" She sends a picture of Harley as he is now, grown-up, smiling. "Or -" Nona's face. "One born like that so far but she's not from an Earth, the others get that way by magic on whim. They're initially named after their fathers, who are rich, also physically and verbally abusive, and if left to their own devices long enough they blow up their houses with both parents inside and wander away and, where a Gotham exists, do the unrequited-love-with-costumed-superheroine thing, that's played out in its entirety three times now."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:07 pm (UTC)

He digests this.

"How do you even know I am one, then?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Jane was able to send a blank brainphone message to 'the local Joker' in your world, and I was able to teleport to you with 'the local Joker' as my target, but if you're not sure enough yet, we can ask Glass; she's an alt of my mother's and she can tell by looking."
Edited 2013-09-26 22:08 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Tell how?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:10 pm (UTC)

"She has an enchantress's aura that lets her see something called 'metacausality' - templates, the things that templates attract, that kind of thing. Auras develop if you do enough of a certain kind of magic. You can have one when you're older if you like."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I can have magic? Are you sure you know more of me?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I did say," says Elspeth, "when you're older. Right now I'm not going to give you anything bigger than the smallest kind of wishcoin, and if you get up to anything particularly irritating with the triangles I won't distribute those either."
Edited 2013-09-26 22:12 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:13 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah, that sounds more like it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:14 pm (UTC)

"I can make you immortal, though," she adds casually.

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you died, then I'd have to go get you out of the afterlife, and I couldn't even do that if Jane happened to break again."

mind_game
2013-09-26 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going to break again. I'm all snug in the tower."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Most people like being alive. Even most of you like being alive most of the time," Elspeth adds to the yet-unnamed Joker. "You don't have to go back where you came from. You don't even have to come home with me if you don't want to. There are plenty of things to do with being alive that aren't being mistreated."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:22 pm (UTC)

"So... you want to make me immortal for me, not for you?"

He looks like he can't quite wrap his head around this notion.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Principally, yes. I mean, there's a sense in which just by being born in a world attached to the relevant afterlife you're already immortal. If you died, you'd be unconscious for a while, and you'd miss whatever went on during that time."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:30 pm (UTC)

He shivers.

"Then... sure," he says, "I guess."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:31 pm (UTC)

Elspeth torchables him. "There you go."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:32 pm (UTC)

"...What, that's it? I don't feel any different."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that's it," she says. "If something ordinarily fatal happens to you, you'll reset on the spot; otherwise it doesn't affect much."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

He looks speculative, but doesn't pursue the point.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Do you have a name you like? If you don't, one of your alts suggested 'Felicity'."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Huh," he repeats thoughtfully.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:50 pm (UTC)

"'Felicity'. Not bad," he says. "I'll take it."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:51 pm (UTC)

"All right."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:52 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I think it probably would be a good idea to have Glass in to look at you, if you don't mind."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:53 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Okay."

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 10:55 pm (UTC)

Presently, Glass pops into place. "Thanks, Jane. Hi, Felicity, nice to meet you. Hmm." And she peers at him. "Well, you are a Joker. Face-variant. You look more like Corona than the others... and - huh. Maybe you just come in kinds."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 10:56 pm (UTC)

"What's Corona look like, then?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Well, not visually. Visually he looks like all the others except you. I mean metacausally, and that's not really something I can describe - I can bounce it if Sue's around but Sue probably shouldn't be around. Just - I think you're the same kind as Corona. And Jokes and Queenie and Ghosty and Alice and Sue and Micaiah and Jellybean and Kas and Beast are a kind, and Harley would've been too, and you and Corona are another kind, and Brilliance and Aianon and Ansharil and Celo and Nona are all other - well, either kinds or one-offs, I can't tell until I see more of the same."
Edited 2013-09-26 23:04 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:07 pm (UTC)

"So is that why all that stuff about the other ones' lives is all wrong? Where they're from New York and have dads and stuff?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:09 pm (UTC)

"They're oriented around a different subset of attractors," says Glass. "Corona probably matches you in more particulars. Especially since his world is an Earth, though it's an odd one as Earths go."
Edited 2013-09-26 23:11 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:13 pm (UTC)

"And I don't get to meet any of these people 'cause they all want to fuck me later," he says as though seeking confirmation.

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Well," shrugs Glass, "yes, and predictably vice-versa, that's definitely a thing with you guys and I don't see any blips in your metacausality significant enough to suggest that you differ, awkward as it is to be informing a twelve-year-old of this."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:16 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "At least they don't want to fuck me now."

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:18 pm (UTC)

"They do not," Glass agrees. "Oh, and there is no particular metacausal pull inducing you to wander off and collect the template minimum amount of suffering the way there was with Harley, so, I guess there's that."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:19 pm (UTC)

"He's already up to par, then?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I sort of wonder exactly how young you could kidnap one without them spontaneously freecasting into disaster zones later, actually, but I don't see anything that specific so I guess all we know is older than a year, younger than twelve. And he was lined up like Harley was to do the whole Batlady shtick but that attractor continues not to care if people get in its way."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Freecasting?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:25 pm (UTC)

"It's like teleporting, but Jokers can learn to do it regardless of having any other magic, and it can go between worlds. Sue figured it out first, then Harley learned to do something very similar but without the ability to control it, when he was seventeen, and landed in Gift and couldn't figure out how to get home."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Jane was down at the time. There was mind-control involved and eventually he freecasted into the sun and stayed there for several years. Once we could get at the world, we fetched him out. He's basically recovered now."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Into the sun?" he says, deeply impressed.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:29 pm (UTC)

"He tried the bottom of the ocean and a volcano first, but the local version of my Grandma Lizzie, Aelise, was able to get him out."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:36 pm (UTC)

Felicity laughs. "Damn. I think I like this guy."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:38 pm (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Anyhow," says Glass, "that's what I've got. Do you need anything else, Elsie?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:39 pm (UTC)

"No, I'm all set. Say hello to my cousinoids for me."

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Will do. Jane?"

And Glass is gone.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:47 pm (UTC)

"So you aren't fated to vanish for unpleasant adventures, that's good. Harley's wolf was not at all okay when Harley vanished, and had to sleep through the wait. Not that there's any strong reason to expect you to acquire a wolf."
Edited 2013-09-26 23:48 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:49 pm (UTC)

"A wolf?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Male werewolves do this thing called 'imprinting' - the imprint is the center of the wolf's universe, basically. It definitely won't happen to you unless you magically turn female, and it might not happen even then. Harley turned into a girl and then invited his best friend over and now he has a wolf. I have one too."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:51 pm (UTC)

"That's weird," says Felicity. "I don't want a wolf."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Then if you plan to turn female and wander into the line of sight of any un-imprinted male wolves, you'll want to check with my aunt first. She can see the future."

inhispockets
2013-09-26 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Can I turn female?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-26 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I'll do it for you, and back too whenever you want, if you like, though I'm not yet willing to hand you the wishcoin that would let you do it yourself."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:06 am (UTC)

"Then nah," he says. "Maybe later."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:08 am (UTC)

"All right. Do you know yet what you want to do?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:13 am (UTC)

"No," he admits.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:14 am (UTC)

"Is there anything else you'd like to know in the meantime?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:15 am (UTC)

He thinks about it.

Then he says, "What's the catch?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:19 am (UTC)

"There isn't one. Which I suppose means the catch is that you're going to spend a while looking over your shoulder for something that isn't going to happen."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:27 am (UTC)

Felicity snorts. "Sure."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:29 am (UTC)

"I usually don't have nearly this much trouble being convincing," remarks Elspeth.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:31 am (UTC)

"Good for you."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:32 am (UTC)

Elspeth laughs softly, then falls silent, and starts checking with her grandfather by brainphone about the availability of Isle Esme.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:33 am (UTC)

"Whatcha doing?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:36 am (UTC)

"Talking to my Grandpa Carlisle about the family island. It's out of the way of anybody liable to take offense to obnoxiousness, plenty of things to climb on and swim in and accidentally lacerate yourself on if you're in the mood, and not too far from Rio de Janeiro if it is ever called for to take you out in public and we'd prefer to boat rather than teleport. He says I can move there with you for the next few years. Presuming you're amenable."
Edited 2013-09-27 00:36 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:44 am (UTC)

"Well... maybe."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:46 am (UTC)

"There's no rush. Although there is a bit of work I should handle in person in about an hour."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:50 am (UTC)

"Yeah, what?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:54 am (UTC)

"I run public relations for my mother's empire. I'm going to attend a meeting to talk about the upcoming merger of this world's Internet with a couple other worlds' via ansible."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 12:55 am (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 12:59 am (UTC)

"It's the year 2060," reiterates Elspeth, "here, and the other two worlds involved in the pilot project are currently experiencing 2025 and 2320. The Internet is a bigger deal than you're used to."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:00 am (UTC)

"...Okay," says Felicity.

mind_game
2013-09-27 01:01 am (UTC)

"I am kind of the internet!" asserts Jane.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:02 am (UTC)

"You are kind of weird," says Felicity.

mind_game
2013-09-27 01:03 am (UTC)

"Yep."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:03 am (UTC)

"I'll get you a computer," laughs Elspeth.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:05 am (UTC)

He flicks her a suspicious glance but doesn't actually voice the suspicion that goes with it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:06 am (UTC)

"What?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:07 am (UTC)

"Nothing," he says, in blatant defiance of reality.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:08 am (UTC)

"If you want to know something, I'll tell you. I can't even lie effectively, watch: My name is Kelly."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:10 am (UTC)

...Felicity cracks up.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:10 am (UTC)

"'Telling the truth' usually doesn't sound like a good superpower to people who haven't met me."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:13 am (UTC)

"That was hilarious," says Felicity, "do it again!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:15 am (UTC)

"I'm five years old," laughs Elspeth, "ummm, let's see - the moon is made of cheese - I'm not actually very good at thinking of false things to say."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:16 am (UTC)

He giggles helplessly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:17 am (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:19 am (UTC)

Yep. Still giggling.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:21 am (UTC)

"It was pretty inconvenient when I was a kid and traveling incognito constantly. There was a very, very short list of nicknames I could use for myself or my mother that wouldn't alert everyone I talked to."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:26 am (UTC)

"What, you couldn't just pick a new name and use that?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:27 am (UTC)

Elspeth shakes her head. "I mean, maybe if I'd wanted to stop being Elspeth Annarose Cullen I could have changed my name and the new one would have stuck, but my mother still called me Elspeth in private, I just had to introduce myself to humans as Beth or Ann or something."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:29 am (UTC)

"How do you be a name?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:31 am (UTC)

"You don't," says Elspeth. "I do. I can remember all the way back to when I was born and being told what my name was. It's my name, really and truly, and my witchcraft cares about that."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah, you're right I don't."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:37 am (UTC)

"None of you like your original names. Except Celo, whose name is not actually 'Celosia' but rather -" (Elspeth, like Aether, can actually pronounce Celo's name.)

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:38 am (UTC)

"...Cool," says Felicity. "I'd like that too if it was my name!"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:38 am (UTC)

Elspeth laughs. "He's a nymph. His name came with him, nobody had to give it to him. Celosia is the name of a plant that grows in his garden."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:42 am (UTC)

"What's a nymph?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:44 am (UTC)

"They're a species from a world called Materia. It's got a Bell - that's an alt of my mother - and Celo, who's one of you, and no other templates that we know about -"

mind_game
2013-09-27 01:44 am (UTC)

"And it's horrible. Worst world ever," says Jane.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:47 am (UTC)

"And nymphs are sort of the spirits of fields or gardens or similar, and Celo is the only male one, and they've got some fertility-symbol features that no one has fully explained to me, and they are divinely commanded to go around in the nude all the time."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:48 am (UTC)

...Picturing this, Felicity giggles again.

"Does he do it? Have you met him? What's so bad about the world?"

mind_game
2013-09-27 01:49 am (UTC)

"It broke me," says Jane petulantly. "Aegis walked in and it just broke me. Worse than the time she torched."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:50 am (UTC)

"I've met him. He does. Although someone has installed magical censor bars, so that his religious prohibition and others' propriety can coexist."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:51 am (UTC)

Felicity giggles some more.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:53 am (UTC)

"He has an interesting aura," adds Elspeth. "Standard aura stuff, plus it sort of perpetually announces that he's a minor deity."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 01:56 am (UTC)

"I think I like this guy."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 01:58 am (UTC)

"I think you'll like all of you when you meet them."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:02 am (UTC)

He laughs again.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:04 am (UTC)

"In a few days, there's going to be a big interdimensional party," Elspeth says. "I'm not sure yet whether you should be at it. You'd at least catch glimpses of your alts, and maybe they'd talk to you a little - Sue met some others when he was close to your age - but they wouldn't hang out with you extensively, I imagine."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:06 am (UTC)

"I'll skip it," says Felicity.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:07 am (UTC)

"Okay. There will probably be other chances, assuming Jane remains up. There's a party every time another Bell is found."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:15 am (UTC)

"How come Jane's so sure she's staying up and you're so not?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:17 am (UTC)

"I'm not because she's gone down twice. I got stranded in the afterlife, the first time."

mind_game
2013-09-27 02:18 am (UTC)

"I'm not going anywhere because I have been thoroughly decanted from Aegis and my containing body now sits in the Belltower, collects dust, and encounters no superweapons and no horrible worlds."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:19 am (UTC)

Felicity looks thoughtfully at Elsie, for lack of a visible Jane to take a share of his glances, and then shrugs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:20 am (UTC)

"I can't produce definitive truth either way," says Elspeth. "I'm just cautious."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:26 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Felicity.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:28 am (UTC)

"There have been strandings both times. At the party, though, there will be Shell Bell, whose aura lets her open doors to Milliways, from which everyone will be able to get home."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:31 am (UTC)

"Lucky for whoever goes, I guess."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:32 am (UTC)

"Yep."

mind_game
2013-09-27 02:33 am (UTC)

"And there's also that thing where I'm not going to break and even if I broke I have my new roomie syncing up time for everybody and she can pass messages," grumbles Jane, "so some judicious door-forcing and Jarvising could get everyone home anyway, and also I'm not going to break, I am done breaking."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:35 am (UTC)

"The way you keep saying that, I'm expecting you to explode any minute," Felicity informs her.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:35 am (UTC)

Elspeth laughs. "I definitely don't think she's going to explode."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:52 am (UTC)

He giggles. "You sure?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:54 am (UTC)

"She's software. And heavily warded. It would be extremely difficult to make her explode."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 02:54 am (UTC)

"If you say so."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 02:55 am (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-27 03:04 am (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 03:08 am (UTC)

"I should leave for my meeting soon. It's scheduled to take an hour, and could run a little over or under. I can leave you here or bring you somewhere else. Jane can get me if something comes up, or I could get one of my grandparents to watch you. What do you prefer?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 03:11 am (UTC)

"...I dunno," says Felicity. "Somewhere else like where?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 03:13 am (UTC)

"The island comes to mind. For such a short period of time the active capital might be okay, too, although since your alts expect you to run around pushing people's buttons and destroying property it might not be a good risk."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 03:51 pm (UTC)

"Well, here is boring," he says, looking around. "I don't wanna be stuck here for an hour."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 04:16 pm (UTC)

"All right. I can take you down to the island." Elspeth holds out her hand invitingly in his direction, mostly to see if he'll take it.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 04:18 pm (UTC)

He eyes the hand suspiciously.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to go to the island, or somewhere else?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Island," he says. "Sure."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Okay." She drops her hand, and teleports them without that signifier.

The island on which her parents spent their honeymoon is mostly covered with tropical plants, with an attractive house perched on it near the beach. Elspeth spends a coin to fill the kitchen with human food, with reference to what the Québec house tended to contain after Harley restocked. "The kitchen's full," she tells Felicity. "You have the run of the place." [You can contact me like this if you need anything.]

There aren't currently any boats docked here.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 04:28 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 04:28 pm (UTC)

Elspeth smiles back. "I'll be back in about an hour. Jacob is going to wait until I'm around to introduce him before he turns up."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 04:30 pm (UTC)

"See you," says Felicity.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 04:30 pm (UTC)

And she vanishes.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 04:35 pm (UTC)

Felicity investigates the house.

alicornucopia
2013-09-27 04:43 pm (UTC)

It's not a mansion, but it's spacious and gorgeously designed - big windows, lots of exposed pale-stained wood and some marble, all on one floor, long sprawling floor plan so every room has at least two directions of natural light. The front door doesn't have a lock, but the doors to the bedrooms do. There are two bedrooms, each with a king-size bed and a walk-in closet, one done up in white and yellow and the other in blue and lavender. The kitchen hasn't actually been used for years, but now there's fruit in a bowl on the warmer (it may or may not be immediately recognizeable as the higher-tech equivalent of a 'microwave', though the stove, oven, and fridge still look about like instances of those things as long as he doesn't actually touch the fridge door to turn it transparent). If he goes out the back door, there's not really a yard, but there are artful flagstone lines that lead to points of interest on the island - there's a freshwater swimming hole, and a spiraling path up to the top of the hill, and a walk through some of the more interesting plants.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 04:46 pm (UTC)

Of course he touches the fridge door.

He spends a while in the kitchen, investigating everything, and then grabs some fruit and takes it with him while he explores.

several kinds

thaumobabble

Glass appears in the Belltower, where the Jokers less Felicity are still assembled.

"There are," she announces, "kinds of you."

manofmyword
2013-09-26 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, sure," says the Joker.

cardistry
2013-09-26 11:50 pm (UTC)

"You mean metacausally?" says Brilliance. "Like how?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-26 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Like," says Glass, "Corona and Felicity are the same kind as each other but not anyone else, and you and Aianon and Ansharil and Nona and Celo are either representatives of yet more kinds or one-offs, and the rest of you are all of a kind."
Edited 2013-09-26 23:57 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-26 11:57 pm (UTC)

"How 'bout that," says Queenie. "Makes sense. But if you asked me to divide us up into kinds, that's not how I'd do it."

pythbox
2013-09-27 12:06 am (UTC)

War looks thoughtful. "Yeah, I see what you mean," he says. "You three on one end," this evidently referring to the retirees, because without any visible signal they freecast together to one side of the room, "and then the middle bunch, and then Alice and Nona at the other end. And me and Sue and Aianon and Harley all off to the side in our own directions."

The Jokers arrange themselves as described; the 'middle bunch' consists of Brilliance, Micaiah, Jellybean, Kas, Beast, Corona, and Celo. War and Sue come as a unit, but Sue stands closer to the central mass.
Edited 2013-09-27 00:14 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 12:15 am (UTC)

Glass squints at them. "When you're all standing like that there's kind of - but that's not kinds, it's... amounts? No, not amounts. Um. Gosh, I don't know what that is at all."

pythbox
2013-09-27 12:24 am (UTC)

"They're something about how we think," says War. "I couldn't begin to put it in words - I'm not even sure I could summarize it in link. But I see a lot of it 'cause I'm the hub when we link up. The retirees are one thing, and me and Sue are another thing, and the middle bunch are all different flavours of a third thing, and Alice and Nona are a fourth thing, and Aianon and Harley are fifth and sixth things."

manofmyword
2013-09-27 12:26 am (UTC)

"We grow through 'em, some of us," says the Joker. "That might be where you're getting 'amounts'. I used to be a lot like Alice, and after that I used to be a lot like Kas. And then there was Gotham, and now there's me."

truthwright
2013-09-27 12:26 am (UTC)

Kas studies Alice thoughtfully, then turns the same look on the Joker.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 12:29 am (UTC)

"Like..." Glass starts tracing lines between the clusters of assembled Jokers. "Yeah, that's why 'amounts' popped into my head even though it's wrong... Anyway, Felicity is that 'amount'." She waves in Alice and Nona's direction. "But Corona's kind. And a new face - I'd tell you where he looks like he's from but it wouldn't mean anything to somebody who wasn't from Chronicle."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-27 12:30 am (UTC)

"Well, what's he look like?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 12:31 am (UTC)

Glass conjures up a little illusion of Felicity.

pythbox
2013-09-27 12:33 am (UTC)

The Jokers examine it.

Then: "Phases," says War. "That's what I'd call 'em."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 12:33 am (UTC)

"That's," says Glass, and she peers at them all again, "a serviceable word for it, better than 'amounts' anyway."

pythbox
2013-09-27 12:40 am (UTC)

"Harley got rescued before he was any phase," War continues, "he's been off course for most of his life. Me and Sue... I'm not sure, it's harder to see from the inside. Aianon, I feel like he got off course just about when he hit his island; the way he remembers being before then is like middle-phase with more fear. Ansharil is weird, he was never on course in the first place but when he met Aianon he got to be the same phase right away before they went off to the island."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-27 12:42 am (UTC)

"You and Sue had that Battle School thing," says Queenie. "Pretty sure that's where it starts for you."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 12:45 am (UTC)

"I wonder what affects when you move from phase to phase."

manofmyword
2013-09-27 12:46 am (UTC)

"It's pretty obvious how you become a retiree," says the Joker. "Not gonna say that's the only way, but there's only the one we've seen."

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-27 12:47 am (UTC)

"I'd almost say... but Nona killed her dad, and she's still not in the middle," says Queenie. "For us old folks it was definitely that."

growcrooked
2013-09-27 12:49 am (UTC)

"...I killed him," she says slowly, "but I didn't leave home. We're still living in the castle. I didn't - wander."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 12:51 am (UTC)

"Hmmmmmm."

yourheartstrings
2013-09-27 12:52 am (UTC)

"Mmm?" says Ghosty inquiringly.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 12:55 am (UTC)

"Just, wandering seems like an apt word for the middle bunch. Fits aesthetically."

manofmyword
2013-09-27 12:56 am (UTC)

"That it does," the Joker agrees.

pythbox
2013-09-27 12:58 am (UTC)

"I don't wander," Celo points out.

"Nah, you go to school instead," says Jellybean.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:00 am (UTC)

Glass nods. "That's a sub-phase."

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:06 am (UTC)

"Mm, more like a variant," says War. "Sub-phase would be like it's something everybody goes through. Did I do school instead of wandering that way? Guess I did." He and Sue both glance thoughtfully at Jellybean.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:08 am (UTC)

"As you like. I'm only getting this very faintly," says Glass.

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:13 am (UTC)

"So what do we call the other thing?" says Jellybean. "The kinds. Just 'kinds'?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:14 am (UTC)

"Clusters, maybe?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:15 am (UTC)

"'Clusters'. Sure," says Jellybean. "What are they? I mean, can you tell us anything about the way that Corona and the new kid are different from the rest of us are different from the extras?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:16 am (UTC)

"Not just by looking at you. Maybe if I looked at you next to whatever's different, or something. I mean, I can make guesses. It's near the requisite-amount-of-suffering attractor..."

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:18 am (UTC)

"It could be the obvious thing," says Corona. "It almost has to be the obvious thing, at least partly, doesn't it?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:19 am (UTC)

"Er, what obvious thing, should I know the obvious thing?"

manofmyword
2013-09-27 01:20 am (UTC)

"No, I don't think you do," says the Joker.

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:25 am (UTC)

Corona sighs.

"The big group of us that you said was one cluster, they all grew up with a dad who hit them," he says. "Or would've, in Harley's case. I grew up with a stepdad who raped me. He hit me, too, but it's the other thing that's different."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:26 am (UTC)

"Oh. Um, should Elspeth know?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:27 am (UTC)

"I dunno, should she?" says Corona. "I don't know her as well as some of you guys."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:29 am (UTC)

"Of people in this room probably Harley knows her best, but mostly I mean - will it affect how she ought to interact with him? Is it likely to be important to him to have the chance to say or not say himself?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:32 am (UTC)

Harley and Corona glance at each other.

"...yeah," says Corona, "don't tell her. Yet, anyway. If she finds him so impossible to handle that she comes to us for advice, we can tell her then."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:33 am (UTC)

"Everything seemed calm when I left."

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:35 am (UTC)

"Give it time," says Corona. "Now that we know he's one of me and not any of the rest of you."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:38 am (UTC)

"I'm wondering now if I should warn Golden, only I'm not sure what there is to warn about."

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:41 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Corona, "except that he'll do his damnedest to piss her off if he ever meets her, I guess." He adds after a reflective pause, "Probably. He'll probably do that. Might decide not to. We're not a hugely predictable bunch that way."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:43 am (UTC)

"I imagine she will meet him. I mean, her daughter is being his guardian. She met Harley, didn't she."

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:44 am (UTC)

"She did," says Harley. "We get along okay."

edgeofyourseat
2013-09-27 01:46 am (UTC)

"...But it might be better if she hears what she's gonna hear about it before he pisses her off," says Alice. "I dunno."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:48 am (UTC)

"Bells in general tolerate things with known explanations better than things without," says Glass after a moment's thought.

edgeofyourseat
2013-09-27 01:50 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Alice. "But would that even be enough of an explanation for her?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:51 am (UTC)

"Well - what do you mean, 'enough'?"
Edited 2013-09-27 01:52 (UTC)

edgeofyourseat
2013-09-27 01:55 am (UTC)

"I mean," says Alice, "if we tell her he's twelve years old and fresh out of hell and he's gonna be dealing with that by being a total little shit to everyone in sight, will she get it, or will she walk off thinking he should know better?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 01:58 am (UTC)

Glass lifts her hands. "What do you mean, 'get it'? I can pass on recommendations about what to do, and she'll more likely follow them than not. She is also more likely than not to privately think that she emerged from hell and promptly conquered the world."

edgeofyourseat
2013-09-27 02:00 am (UTC)

Alice sighs.

yourheartstrings
2013-09-27 02:01 am (UTC)

Ghosty disintegrates and rematerializes to hug him.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 02:03 am (UTC)

Glass sighs.

pythbox
2013-09-27 02:05 am (UTC)

"It's not like it's your fault or anything," says Corona.

manofmyword
2013-09-27 02:05 am (UTC)

"Not exactly hers either," says the Joker.

pythbox
2013-09-27 02:05 am (UTC)

Harley sighs.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 02:06 am (UTC)

Glass looks at Harley questioningly.

pythbox
2013-09-27 02:14 am (UTC)

"...I feel weird 'cause I'm on the other side of this from most of us," he says. "I was never the kid they're talking about. But I wish there was a way for Golden to understand it better than that. But I get what the Joker's saying about her, too; she's the way she is because that's the life she's lived and the way she's lived it, and you can't just wish people would stop being themselves."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 02:19 am (UTC)

"I mean, she will probably follow reasonably well-operationalized advice about how to interact with Felicity. I just can't promise she won't feel smug while she does it."

pythbox
2013-09-27 02:20 am (UTC)

"Fuck it, then," Corona mutters.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-27 02:23 am (UTC)

Queenie pops across the room to snuggle him.

"Thing is," she says, "I don't think we have advice. We just have - feelings."

pythbox
2013-09-27 02:25 am (UTC)

"How about 'don't ever talk to him, 'cause he can smell smug from a mile upwind and he'll hate you for it'," Corona suggests, "is that operationalized?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 02:26 am (UTC)

"'Don't ever talk to him' is operationalized," says Glass. "The rest of it would probably only serve to make her defensive."

pythbox
2013-09-27 02:27 am (UTC)

Corona opens his mouth, and then shuts it again.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-09-27 02:28 am (UTC)

Queenie hugs him some more.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 02:29 am (UTC)

Glass looks at Corona, but doesn't actually formulate a question.

manofmyword
2013-09-27 02:30 am (UTC)

The Joker nods approvingly.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 02:31 am (UTC)

"So - am I telling Golden not to interact with her new grandfosterling?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 02:33 am (UTC)

"If she's going to be smug about him—" says Corona, and then he stops himself and takes a breath and continues more calmly, "yeah, that's a pretty good plan."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 02:34 am (UTC)

"I don't know that she is!" exclaims Glass. "She's in a position from which smugness is easy, that doesn't mean that she'll react to everything that way."

pythbox
2013-09-27 02:50 am (UTC)

"Well," says Corona, "if she's smug about him, and if he notices - and I'm pretty sure he'd notice - then either he won't give a shit about her any which way, or it'll hurt him and he won't deal well. So maybe better just to avoid the whole problem. Unless she wants to take the chance, I guess. But you said telling her what's up would make her defensive, so..." He shrugs.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 02:53 am (UTC)

"Putting it the way you put it would. I'm trying to think if there's - I mean, if one of my daughters were bringing up a fosterling, I'd want to meet the kid," says Glass. "If the kid needed particular care in handling, I'd do my best to accommodate that - but then my eldest already requires care in handling, so maybe I'm just used to it."

pythbox
2013-09-27 03:03 am (UTC)

"Yeah?" says Corona, slightly hopeful. "Do you get it, then?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 03:04 am (UTC)

"I still don't know what you mean by 'get it'. I think maybe all I get is that I don't get it."

pythbox
2013-09-27 03:09 am (UTC)

"Well, that's a start," says Corona.
Edited 2013-09-27 03:12 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 03:15 am (UTC)

"I keep thinking about Carinna. Probably Felicity isn't anything like Carinna. Carinna's not traumatized, she just - she got all my malcontentment and most of Sherlock's depressive tendencies and none of either set of coping mechanisms."
Edited 2013-09-27 03:35 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-09-27 01:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Well, if Felicity is anything like me at that age... he hasn't really figured out people yet," says Corona. "The way he sees the world is - everything is dangerous, everything is going to hurt him, it's just a matter of when and how. You get so you don't even feel scared anymore, you don't notice it as a feeling, but even when you're not feeling it it's still there. Under everything. It's exhausting. Sometimes it's almost comforting to just sit there and feel it for a while, and sometimes it's the worst thing in the world and there's nothing you can do to get away from it."

He closes his eyes and leans into Queenie's arms.

"Like when I was in the sun," says Harley. "But with fear instead of pain."

"Yeah," says Corona, "a lot like that."

Harley piles on to the Queenie-and-Corona hug.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:14 pm (UTC)

"I hestitate to - but - Golden has that empath brother-in-law, is this the sort of thing that could be usefully addressed directly?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 04:17 pm (UTC)

Harley and Corona both shake their heads.

"He'd never agree to it," says Corona. "And I'm not sure how much it would help even if he did."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, long shot. Should I bring him a poof?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 04:22 pm (UTC)

...Harley giggles. "You know what, yes," he says. "Bring him a poof. And a poof fountain."

Corona nods slowly, looking thoughtful.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:23 pm (UTC)

Glass looks at Corona, again without forming a question.

pythbox
2013-09-27 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I think it might be good for him," says Corona. "To have a happy fuzzy little thing that couldn't hurt him if it tried, to take care of."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll get him a poof. I'll try to think of something not-counterproductive to tell Golden. Anything else?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-09-27 04:34 pm (UTC)

"...About talking to Golden," says Alice. "The way being terrified all the time is like being in the sun, it's also kind of like turning. Might make it easier to think about, that way; she knows what turning's like."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:35 pm (UTC)

Glass does a momentary double-take to see who's speaking.

"I will," she says, blinking, "convey that."

edgeofyourseat
2013-09-27 04:41 pm (UTC)

Alice shrugs. "I hope it helps."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:44 pm (UTC)

"It seems likelier than other methods of presentation, anyway."

pythbox
2013-09-27 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Are you gonna talk to her first, or give Felicity his poof first?" wonders Harley.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Poof first. Felicity can have a poof either way," shrugs Glass. "Do you suppose the color matters, or should I just teleport into the Gentle Cave and pick the one that most insistently follows me?"
Edited 2013-09-27 16:50 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-09-27 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Is there any reason you can't take him to the Gentle Cave and let him pick one?" says Harley.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that works too," agrees Glass. "I'll do that, presuming he wants to come."

pythbox
2013-09-27 04:53 pm (UTC)

Harley smiles.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:55 pm (UTC)

"All right. Here goes, unless there's any last-minute advice - he's not going to be offended or anything if I teleport him right away from the Chronicle Janepoint rather than run any risk of him interacting with Carinna, is he?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Nah," says Harley. Corona shakes his head corroboratively.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Aurum, please, Jane."

And then she is in Aurum, and then she is where Felicity is.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 04:59 pm (UTC)

Felicity is lying on the ground beside one of the paths, eating an apple. He looks up at her.

"Where'd you come from?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:00 pm (UTC)

"The Belltower. Via Janepoint. Harley and Corona think you might like to have a poof - they're a cute little animal my world has. Want to come with me and pick one out?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 05:01 pm (UTC)

"...sure," says Felicity, after a moment's thought. He climbs to his feet and wipes apple juice from his hands onto his pants.
Edited 2013-09-27 17:02 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:03 pm (UTC)

Glass taps her Janegem, and they're in the castle for the briefest instant and then they're in the gentle cave. "The poofs are the featureless round ones, but if something else catches your fancy I don't see a reason to restrict you."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 05:08 pm (UTC)

A pale pink poof rolls up to Felicity's foot and meeps.

"...awwwwwww," he says, crouching down to pet it. It whmmmmms and glows. He sits on the cave floor and scoops it up, hugging it to his chest.

"They don't bite or anything, do they?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Nope. They don't even have teeth."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 05:14 pm (UTC)

"How do they eat, then? Do they even eat? Or do they just - cute all the time and that's it?"
Edited 2013-09-27 17:14 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:15 pm (UTC)

"They need the flavored water from those springs," Glass points, "I can magic up a little fountain for you, and they manage to eat plants in very small bites. Any kind of plants, and they don't need much."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 05:16 pm (UTC)

Felicity snuggles the pink poof.

"It's really cute," he says.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:17 pm (UTC)

"They are. Is that the one you want?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 05:18 pm (UTC)

He nuzzles it. It makes its happy sound and glows some more.

"Sure," he says.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Jane?"

And they are back at the Aurum Janepoint, and then they are where Glass found him on the island, and then she produces a little poof-fountain for him. "Here you are."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Aww."

He grins happily at her.

"Thanks."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:20 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. Where's Elspeth?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 05:22 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Doing something."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Okay. Well, enjoy your poof."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 05:24 pm (UTC)

"I will," he says, hugging it.

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:24 pm (UTC)

Elsewhere, something occurs to the Jokers:

"Can I be there when Glass talks to Golden?" says Harley.

mind_game
2013-09-27 05:25 pm (UTC)

Jane confers with Glass. "Sure," she says.

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Harley. "Is she there already, or going soon, or are they still in the Gentle Cave...?"

mind_game
2013-09-27 05:28 pm (UTC)

"She just gave Felicity his poof fountain and is currently waiting in the active capital for Golden to get out of a meeting. Golden's not going to be at the entire meeting like Elspeth is, just the overview, so she'll be done in a couple minutes."

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Harley.

He freecasts to Glass.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Glass. "What are you thinking you'll add to the - I mean, I'm totally on board with having you there, but what wasn't covered when I was asking for advice?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Harley. "But if I'm there, then if something comes up..." He shrugs.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So, Felicity has a poof and a fountain now. It's sort of rose-pink."

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:36 pm (UTC)

He smiles. "Aww."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Wanted to know if they bit."

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:38 pm (UTC)

Harley smiles again, wryly. "Yeah. I'm not surprised."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:38 pm (UTC)

"But he seemed to believe me that they don't, anyway."

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:40 pm (UTC)

"That's good."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I mean, where would a poof even keep teeth? Did you ever name yours?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:42 pm (UTC)

He laughs and shakes his head. "Nah."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 05:44 pm (UTC)

Golden emerges from the meeting room. "Hi, Glass, Harley. What did you want to talk about?"

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:45 pm (UTC)

"It looks like the twelve-year-old Joker that Jane found is going to be living with Elspeth," says Glass, "but, since he's twelve and not a baby, he's probably going to be harder to deal with than Harley was."

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:46 pm (UTC)

(Harley grins wryly.)

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 05:47 pm (UTC)

Golden looks at Glass.

"You think I'm going to upset him somehow," she guesses.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:48 pm (UTC)

"It's possible," says Glass. "The possibility that you shouldn't interact with him at all was floated."

pythbox
2013-09-27 05:48 pm (UTC)

Harley... decides not to say anything.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:51 pm (UTC)

"He's twelve. He had enough of a dose of Terrible Childhood that the minimum-suffering attractor is all done pulling on him. And Corona's concerned that - Corona's particularly relevant here, he's metacausally clustered closer to Felicity than the others - that he'll be able to tell if there's any hint of 'smug' going on, on your end, when you evaluate how he deals with having recently been traumatized. How he deals with it is probably going to boil down to 'not well'."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I am aware that most people do not cope as well as me with devastatingly unpleasant events."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's not quite the - not quite it. Alice says," Glass adds, "that the state Felicity is in right now, where he's sort of background terrified of everything, is comparable to turning."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 06:08 pm (UTC)

"On what axis?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 06:41 pm (UTC)

"It's like... whiteout," says Harley. "Like being in the sun. Turning actually wasn't like that for Alice - he didn't ever not like it. But we can imagine that if you started out not liking it, it would be similar."

He considers his next words for a moment, perhaps also conferring with Alice and/or Corona.

"The way they're all like each other is... there's something you're feeling, and it's bad, and you can't get away from it, and it changes the whole landscape of what it's like in your head. Anything else you were going to think about, anything you were going to do, it all gets that much harder. Being in the sun was the worst for that - I couldn't think at all, most of the time. Turning we guess is somewhere in the middle, but we can't be sure where it'd be for somebody who didn't like it the way Alice did. Being scared all the time like Corona was, like we figure Felicity is... well, it's not as bad, Corona could still walk and talk and do stuff most of the time, but it's the same kind of thing. Inescapable pressure."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 06:45 pm (UTC)

When Golden doesn't reply immediately, Glass puts in, softly, "You're not better, you're luckier. Not the same way as me, but still -"

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Mm."

pythbox
2013-09-27 06:46 pm (UTC)

Harley shrugs.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 06:55 pm (UTC)

"He'll need a while. I don't know how long a while. The resources don't exist yet in a - usable way."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 06:56 pm (UTC)

"I believe I take your meaning."

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:01 pm (UTC)

Harley nods, relieved.

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Carinna may yet grow better coping mechanisms," Golden adds to Glass in what only sounds like a topic change.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 07:04 pm (UTC)

Glass sighs. "She may. She may not. She wants me to tell all the other Bells with Sherlocks to skip her. I can't expect it to get any better. At least there are test cases demonstrating a light at the end of the tunnel for Felicity."

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Harley. "Jokers even out. I think... if you give us enough time, we might all get to that last phase."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Even the off-course ones?" Glass asks. "Oh - Golden, when they were all in the Belltower they were dividing themselves into phases. Sort of the Joker version of the Bell life-cycle."

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:13 pm (UTC)

"The off-course ones I'm less sure about," says Harley. "But I still feel like we're all headed to something like the same place, even if no two of us are getting there exactly the same way. I mean, I'm never gonna be a retiree, right, I'm not planning to go back to my Gotham and blow a bunch of things up and then die, but... I'd like to get to where Ghosty and Queenie and the Joker are, someday. That way they have of just being okay, even when they're not. I don't know, maybe it doesn't make sense if you're not a Joker."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not."

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:26 pm (UTC)

He smiles crookedly. "That happens."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Anyway. Have I satisfied you that I won't be conspicuously self-satisfied at Felicity?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Harley. "Thanks."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:31 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome."

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Time for me to go home, I guess."

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Guess so," says Harley.

thaumobabble
2013-09-27 07:34 pm (UTC)

Glass taps her Janegem. She goes.

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Regardless of this conversation I think I'll give him a little longer to settle in before I pay him a visit," remarks Golden.

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Probably a good idea," says Harley. "Glass gave him a poof; I bet that'll help."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Ah, poofs."

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:40 pm (UTC)

Harley giggles.

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:40 pm (UTC)

"How have you been doing, anyway?"

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:42 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Better. I can, like, move now." Demonstratively, he opens and closes his hands. "I might go get my aura soonish."

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what you'll get."

pythbox
2013-09-27 07:45 pm (UTC)

Harley shrugs.

luminous_regnant
2013-09-27 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Anyway. If you aren't letting Edward read you today he'll be wondering what's kept me. I'll see you later, Harley."

And off she goes.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 07:52 pm (UTC)

When the rest of the meeting has concluded, Elspeth teleports to Isle Esme. She lands in the house, first, to see if there's any sign of Felicity having picked one of the bedrooms.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 07:53 pm (UTC)

None whatsoever. Felicity, however, is curled up on a couch with his poof.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh, did Glass bring you a poof? That's a good idea."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 07:55 pm (UTC)

"She did! It's cute and snuggly," he says, snuggling it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Poofs are both of those things, yes. Do you care which bedroom is yours? Jake and I will take the other."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:00 pm (UTC)

"The white and yellow one, I guess," he says after a moment's thought.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Did you see much of the island while I was gone? Do you like it?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:03 pm (UTC)

"I saw some," he says. "It's a nice island."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:05 pm (UTC)

"My grandpa Carlisle bought it for my grandma Esme a long time ago." She snaps her fingers. "I said I'd get you a computer." And she conjures up a tablet laptop for him and bounces an overview of how to work it in simple enough terms for a twelve-year-old from the nineteen-eighties. "The hookups to the internet from Origin will roll out in a week, and Gift will take a little longer, and once the kinks have been ironed out we're going to add Atlantis too."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:07 pm (UTC)

"...huh," says Felicity.

He ruffles his poof and turns on the computer.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:08 pm (UTC)

It's a nice computer, fast and sleek and with standard software already installed. And it has Internet, albeit only the Aurum internet as of this day.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:10 pm (UTC)

Felicity is entranced.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:11 pm (UTC)

"If you have any questions I'll answer them," Elspeth says, and she makes sure there is a fountain for the poof and then conjures herself a bottle of bubbly. "Jake will be here to introduce himself around dinnertime."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says absently.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:31 pm (UTC)

Elspeth finishes her bubbly, makes a couple of teleporting trips between the Québec house and the island for personal effects, arranges them where they belong, and then sits on the other sofa with her own computer.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:33 pm (UTC)

Felicity messes around on his computer and snuggles his poof. It's pretty obvious when he discovers the games, because they make sounds.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:38 pm (UTC)

Elspeth remains quietly in place, following him with her eyes when he gets up to fetch snacks or visit the bathroom but making no particular comment.

Eventually, dinnertime rolls around, and Jacob opens the front door, and Elspeth hops over the back of the couch to traipse over to him and give him a hug.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:38 pm (UTC)

Felicity... observes this interaction.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Felicity, this is Jacob, my wolf. Jake, this is Felicity."

The way Jake looks at Elspeth would make it pretty obvious he was her wolf even if Felicity had not been previously introduced to the concept.

"Hi, Felicity," says Jake. "Huh, this one's not white."

"He is not," agrees Elspeth. "Just barely not the first discovered case - the elf Sandy looks Asian, I'm not sure what the equivalent phenotype in Thilanushinyel is called."

"Huh," says Jake.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:45 pm (UTC)

Felicity has no comment on any of this, apparently.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:47 pm (UTC)

Jacob starts rummaging in the kitchen. "Did you just tell it to make like Harley just made a grocery trip?" he asks Elspeth.

"As a shortcut. Yeah."

"Heh. Well, at least I know what's around. Lots of ingredients."

"Feel free to conjure a pizza," chuckles Elspeth.

"Might just. Felicity, you want pizza?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Felicity.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:51 pm (UTC)

"What do you eat on yours?" asks Jacob, around the banana he is eating as a stopgap food for apparently very impatient hunger. "Man, I can't even remember what pizza toppings were popular seventy years ago. I think pepperoni's traditional, they had pepperoni, right?"

"Pepperoni is more than seventy years old as a pizza topping. Felicity is more likely to be puzzled by the availability of mashed potatoes. Or fig slices."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Fig slices? You know what, go for fig slices," says Felicity.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:55 pm (UTC)

"All right, one with fig slices, coming right up." Jacob conjures two pizzas, on platters rather than in cardboard boxes; his is covered in assorted forms of meat and cut into very wide slices, Felicity's is dotted with sliced figs and has more standard cuts. Jacob proceeds to sit in front of and eat his pizza. He gives Elspeth a bite when she leans over his shoulder.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 08:56 pm (UTC)

Felicity eats his pizza and snuggles his poof.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 08:58 pm (UTC)

Elspeth is satisfied with one bite of pizza, but she sits next to her wolf and continues computing.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:00 pm (UTC)

Most of Felicity's pizza goes by before he slows down. (He manages not to smudge the computer any more than slightly.)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:06 pm (UTC)

When he does slow down, Elspeth takes five triangles out of her coin sorter. Two of them are the same color as her hair, one of them is Harley's white-and-streaked-with-color, and two are a warm, chocolate brown sort of like the weird magnet-clasped uniform Jacob's wearing. "Here are some little wishcoins. They'll make little wishes - they'll clean off your computer screen or braid your hair or flick a lightswitch from across the room, that sort of thing."
Edited 2013-09-27 21:09 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Felicity, inspecting them.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:11 pm (UTC)

"If you run out, let me know."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:12 pm (UTC)

"They're different colors depending on who makes them. These are mine, those are Jake's, this is Harley's."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:14 pm (UTC)

Looking at the coins and their respective sources that he can see, he asks, "Does Harley wear a lot of funny rainbow shit?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Not especially. And Jake's uniform is brown because his fur is brown, when he's a wolf, so that's the Imperial pack color. His sisters' packs wear black and white respectively."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Uh-huh," says Felicity. "So where's Harley's coin colour come from?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:18 pm (UTC)

"A lot of the Jokers do rainbowy coins, actually. The eponymous Joker, the one who works for my mom, makes these -" She pulls out a clear triangle, also streaked. "It's not always clear why coin colors are what they are, though. Sometimes they're obvious." She tugs at her hair. Then she pulls out one of her mother's triangles, gold and glowy. "Bells' coins glow if they have native magic for defense against mental spying and tampering, in all different solid colors, and they're other, non-glowy patterns if they don't. Do you want to see what yours would be?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:29 pm (UTC)

Elspeth puts away excess triangles and spends a square.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:34 pm (UTC)

The illusory square that appears in front of Felicity is black - almost like Alice's colour-glimmering obsidian - but instead of those now-you-see-it-now-you-don't highlights, or Harley's more substantial but still wispy streaks, it has thick veins of red and blue and green and gold and violet and pink chasing each other across its surface.

"Pretty," he says admiringly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:34 pm (UTC)

"It is!"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:35 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:37 pm (UTC)

Jacob finishes his entire pizza. Then he rummages in the freezer for ice cream.

Elspeth flops onto the sofa again.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:43 pm (UTC)

Felicity scoops up his poof and wanders out of the house with it. He takes his supply of triangles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:46 pm (UTC)

Neither of the adults present follow him. Unrelatedly - really! - a giant brown wolf with a half-vampire on his back may be seen making a lazy circuit of the island while the sun sets.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:48 pm (UTC)

...Yep. That sure is a wolf.

They're kind of cute together.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:49 pm (UTC)

They're very cute. Elspeth waves at Felicity while they go by.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:56 pm (UTC)

He waves back.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 09:57 pm (UTC)

And on go the wolf and his imprint along the beach. Afterwards they go back into the house.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 09:58 pm (UTC)

Felicity stays out for a while.

He creeps back in very very quietly, for a human.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:00 pm (UTC)

She can totally hear him, but has no special reaction. Jake is napping in the bedroom Felicity didn't pick. Elspeth is up and on the couch; she isn't planning to sleep for a while with the Internet thing underway.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:01 pm (UTC)

He goes straight to bed without looking for either of them.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Do you need a set of pajamas?" Elspeth calls when he heads into his bedroom.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:03 pm (UTC)

He comes out and finds her.

"Uh, sure."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Any preferences?"

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:05 pm (UTC)

Shrug.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:07 pm (UTC)

Elspeth shrugs too, and conjures him a light set of pajamas to match the warm climate, white with yellow edging like the bedroom he picked out. "Here you go. I'll come up with a few outfits to magic into your closet overnight, if you don't have any requests."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, bundling up the pajamas and letting his poof tumble onto them so he can carry it all back into his room together.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:10 pm (UTC)

Elspeth continues her work.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:12 pm (UTC)

And Felicity sleeps. For a value of 'sleep' that includes rather a lot of quiet crying.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:15 pm (UTC)

Elspeth doesn't think - in spite of the fact that most people feel like they've known her for a long time after only a little - that her presence would be a comfort right now.

She doesn't go into the room.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:18 pm (UTC)

In the morning, he stays in the room a long time, curled up with his poof and his computer. He emerges in search of food around lunchtime.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:20 pm (UTC)

The kitchen is full of ingredients, and Elspeth is eating grapes and tapping away at her tablet. "If there's some sort of food you'd like around that isn't here let me know," she says.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Mnh," says Felicity. He stares meditatively through the fridge door, inventories all the cupboards (again), and then makes himself a sandwich and disappears back into his room.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:22 pm (UTC)

Elspeth does nothing to interfere.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:25 pm (UTC)

He appears again a few hours later, dressed in clothes from his closet instead of the pajamas, and silently begins making spaghetti.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:27 pm (UTC)

"If you're planning to let Jacob have any, you'll want to make about four times as much for him as you would for a human," says Elspeth. Jake isn't in the house at this time. "He can fend for himself if you weren't intending on sharing, though."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:28 pm (UTC)

Felicity glances at her.

"Okay," he says, and goes back to what he was doing.

He does not make a fourfold portion.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:32 pm (UTC)

When Jake comes home for dinner, either Elspeth tells him privately the spaghetti's not for him or he figures it out, because he fixes himself a plate of sandwiches and eats them between items of pack gossip that he catches Elspeth up on. Apparently she owes Kim a visit and Alice found an imprint for Sawyer who he'll meet in two weeks and Pamela's thinking of moving to Becky's pack and teaching third grade there.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:34 pm (UTC)

When the spaghetti is finished, Felicity eats it, leaves the dishes scattered haphazardly, and takes his poof for a wander around the island.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:35 pm (UTC)

When he comes back, the kitchen is clean, and Elspeth is sitting on the roof to do her work for no obvious reason, and Jake has fallen asleep again.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:39 pm (UTC)

Elspeth is sitting on the roof; therefore it is possible to get to the roof. But Felicity can't see how. Maybe she used magic.

He puts his poof back in his room next to its fountain and circles the house, looking for the best place to climb.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:40 pm (UTC)

There is, in fact, a way to climb up the back between the edges of the window and the lip of the roof, if you're very nimble or very determined.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:45 pm (UTC)

Felicity manages an adequate combination of the two.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:45 pm (UTC)

And then he is on the roof.

"Hi there," says Elspeth, looking up from her tablet.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Hi."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I like the view up here," she comments.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:49 pm (UTC)

He looks around.

"It's nice."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:51 pm (UTC)

And until he asks her something else, she will remain quiet and talk to Pattern's PR people about rolling out the interworld ansible service.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:52 pm (UTC)

He finds himself a reasonably comfortable seat, and sits quietly for a few minutes, and then says:

"Whatcha doing?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm talking to the people who do the nearest equivalent of my job in Origin. We're talking about how to reveal other worlds and the upcoming general interworld ansible services to the populations of Aurum and Origin. They'll be able to talk to each other soon enough, so we need to match reasonably well."

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Huh," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:57 pm (UTC)

Typety typety.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 10:58 pm (UTC)

He sits there for a little while longer.

Then he pursues strategies for getting down off the roof.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Do you want help getting down?" she asks.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says.

After some time spent figuring, he climbs down successfully.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 11:01 pm (UTC)

Okay then.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 11:13 pm (UTC)

Once inside, he makes himself some more food and goes back to his room with it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 11:15 pm (UTC)

Elspeth jumps down off the roof and lands on her feet, after a while, and puts her tablet on her pillow while she takes a break (she brushes out her hair by hand, and braids it with a triangle, then sits with her eyes closed and her hands clasped to sort through the many thousands of years of unprocessed memories she still holds).

inhispockets
2013-09-27 11:24 pm (UTC)

Felicity does not emerge from his room again that day.

He grabs breakfast early the next morning, and then spends almost the whole day wandering around the island.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 11:30 pm (UTC)

He is quite allowed to do that.

Elspeth puts a few cookbooks on the kitchen counter but draws no special attention to them.

The following morning, Jake leaves first thing in the morning. Elspeth says a couple hours later, "Felicity? I'm going to be out for a few hours. Do you need anything before I go?"
Edited 2013-09-27 23:30 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-27 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 11:33 pm (UTC)

"All right. You can brainphone me, or if that doesn't work, you can go through Jane."

And then she is gone.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 11:41 pm (UTC)

Felicity does some more wandering. He takes his poof. He takes his poof's fountain, too.

An hour after Elspeth leaves, he goes back in the house. It takes a little time and ingenuity to set an empty cereal box on fire - he's already out of triangles anyway, and hasn't asked for more - but he manages it, and then he carries it around to as many flammable things as he can, and then he curls up on the living room floor and waits.

alicornucopia
2013-09-27 11:42 pm (UTC)

The house is not particularly flame-retardant.

inhispockets
2013-09-27 11:46 pm (UTC)

Good.

Unfortunately for Felicity's grand plan, even when the house collapses around him, he doesn't quite torch. And, pinned flat under a smoldering chunk of ceiling with what feels like more bones broken than not, there's not much he can do to change that.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-27 11:48 pm (UTC)

In the complete absence of any information on this subject (Jokers give Alice headaches) Elspeth doesn't find out until she comes home.

She puts out the remaining fire, first, and then she picks through the wreckage calmly in search of Felicity.

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:00 am (UTC)

Perhaps the faint whimpering will guide her.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:02 am (UTC)

It helps, yes.

She sits down next to him. She's not sure if his ears are working, with this extent of damage. But Elspeth can talk to the comatose, and he's not that far gone. I can heal you. I can torch you better. I can leave you alone. What do you prefer?

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:03 am (UTC)

[heal me?]

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:04 am (UTC)

It's a hex. She spends it.

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:05 am (UTC)

He whimpers some more, and drags himself out from under the wreckage.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:07 am (UTC)

"Did you have fun?"

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:08 am (UTC)

"...No."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:09 am (UTC)

"Oh." She spends a pentagon to restore the house; it's surrounded by enough space that not much surrounding flora has been damaged. She gets up and triangles away the soot.

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:10 am (UTC)

Somewhat disbelievingly: "Did you just magic the house back?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:10 am (UTC)

"Yes."

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:11 am (UTC)

"Wishes, huh?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:12 am (UTC)

"Yes. It actually took a bigger one to fix you than the house. Living creatures are complicated, and the house didn't have any inherently magical installations."

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:13 am (UTC)

He is quiet for a moment.

Then: "Is... is that why you're not mad?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:17 am (UTC)

"It's a little more complicated than that. I wouldn't have left you unsupervised near anything both destructible and irreplaceable in the first place. Had I done so for some reason, I would probably mourn the loss of whatever was destroyed. But in reality I have plenty of magic and I was warned to expect destruction of property, so there's nothing to be mad about."
Edited 2013-09-28 00:23 (UTC)

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:26 am (UTC)

"Oh," says Felicity.

He looks contemplatively at the restored house.

Then he turns and walks away.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:27 am (UTC)

Elspeth goes out and inspects the smallish amount of damage to the plants around the house. She fixes it as she finds it.

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:28 am (UTC)

He's back a few minutes later, with his poof and its fountain.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:29 am (UTC)

"Aww. You took them out first."

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:30 am (UTC)

He shrugs, cuddling the poof.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:31 am (UTC)

"Poofs," she adds, "emit an anti-injury field. It works on them and anyone nearby."

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:32 am (UTC)

He smiles crookedly.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:33 am (UTC)

Elspeth fixes a tree.

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:33 am (UTC)

Felicity carries his poof inside.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-09-28 12:34 am (UTC)

Eventually there is no remaining fire damage or ash that Elspeth can see. She goes back inside and picks up her tablet from her pillow where her wish restored its existence.

inhispockets
2013-09-28 12:35 am (UTC)

Felicity and his poof remain in his bedroom.

do: consult alts; don't: unexpectedly appear

giftedandtalented

[Hey Jane. Can you relay to the known Ikes and Vals that I have a set of them, in the destroyed city I resurrected, and want to know whether and how to tell them things and invite them to the party? And relay for us?]

[Sure,] says Jane. And she says to the Ikes and Vals in Sunshine and Chronicle, [Hey, Ikes and Vals. Tab has a pair of you in her world who she's just resurrected along with the rest of the city they lived in before it was destroyed and wants tips on whether and how to tell them things and invite them to the party.]

grabsthebutt
2013-10-03 08:32 pm (UTC)

[...Okay, back up a little,] says Val of Sunshine. [The city they lived in was destroyed?]

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:34 pm (UTC)

[Yep. Toronto was nuked a couple hundred years ago, in Gift. I took it out of Downside for Tab.]

grabsthebutt
2013-10-03 08:36 pm (UTC)

[What's 'nuked'?] says Val of Chronicle.

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:38 pm (UTC)

[The details require a lot of background information, but for the purposes of this conversation it means "destroyed really thoroughly".]

newtimov
2013-10-03 08:39 pm (UTC)

[I'm really not sure how to approach resurrected alts whose city was destroyed,] says Ike of Sunshine.

grabsthebutt
2013-10-03 08:39 pm (UTC)

[Is 'don't' an option?] says Val of Sunshine. [If not, it should be.]

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:40 pm (UTC)

[It's an option, sure, I can tell Tab you suggest leaving them alone.]

grabsthebutt
2013-10-03 08:42 pm (UTC)

[Yeah,] says Val. [I mean, if I had just been nuked, I would not be in my friendliest mood, you know?]

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:43 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Also, Gift Toronto is part of the interdimensional internet project. Sunshine's not, neither is Chronicle, but on a small scale I can pass packets if you want to send her an email or something when she's had a while to get used to things.]

grabsthebutt
2013-10-03 08:44 pm (UTC)

[Yeah, I'll think about it,] she says.

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:45 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Anything else Tab ought to hear?]

grabsthebutt
2013-10-03 08:47 pm (UTC)

[Don't think so,] says Sunshine Val.

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:48 pm (UTC)

[Okay.]

Jane passes this on to Tab, and is presently also sent to the extant peal-contacted Lazaruses (but not the Kolya, because he is Kolya) with a similar message:

[Hey, Lazarus and Elasirae. Tab has a you and a Kolya in her world who she's just resurrected along with the rest of the city they lived in before it was destroyed and wants tips on whether and how to tell them things and invite them to the party.]

pythbox
2013-10-03 08:49 pm (UTC)

[A human one, right?] says Elasirae.

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:51 pm (UTC)

[All humans in Gift, yep.]

nonbird
2013-10-03 08:53 pm (UTC)

[I think... don't invite them to this party, at least,] says Lazarus. [There will be future ones. After they've had time to settle in.]

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:54 pm (UTC)

[Okay,] says Jane, [and no non-party-invitation contact or disclosure either, like the Sunshine one of you?]

nonbird
2013-10-03 08:55 pm (UTC)

[Yes. There would be no point in telling them and then not inviting them to the party. The idea is that they will probably take the news better if they've had more time to get used to the new planet and so forth first.]

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:55 pm (UTC)

[Okay. Anything else Tab should hear?]

nonbird
2013-10-03 08:58 pm (UTC)

[Hmm... it's all right to tell the Lazarus things if he chases her down and asks about them,] says Lazarus. [Which he might.]
Edited 2013-10-03 20:58 (UTC)

mind_game
2013-10-03 08:58 pm (UTC)

[She is making herself pretty available to be chased down, with me as the multiverse's best email filter,] says Jane merrily. [Okay, thanks!]

we have a low rate of unemployment

cross_and_bow

Bella visits her minions (and other demonic populations on Mercury) regularly, compliments them on nifty bits of gardening when applicable, makes sure they don't need anything, and is considering soon asking them if they want an Interdimensional Internet terminal despite the fact that her Earth is not yet prepared. Not today, though. The other worlds don't even have that rolled out yet.

In she pops to their common room.

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Hello, your majesty!" says the only minion in the room when she appears - one of the oldest. He clasps his hands together in front of him, seeming excited and a little nervous.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Hey, you." They have never admitted to having names; Bella picks out particular ones to address, when necessary, by pointing or referring to what they're wearing. "How are things?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Things are, um, good, your majesty," he says. "Yes. And... we have a request, if it's not too soon..." He wrings his hands a little.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:20 pm (UTC)

"...Too soon? Have you been putting off asking me something?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no, your majesty!" he says earnestly. "This is much sooner than we'd be asking anyone else."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay, what is it that you want?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:27 pm (UTC)

"We, um, that is... some of us would like to have some children," he says, peering at her hopefully.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:28 pm (UTC)

"There's space in the dorm, I'll expand it if you need more," Bella says. "If that isn't the question I'm really confused."

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Well... we're your minions, your majesty," he says. "We need your permission. I mean, the ones who want to have children do, specifically, I'm not one of them—if you, ah, have time, do you mind if I go get them now...?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Wait, hang on - they need my permission because they don't want to go around affecting my minion supply without my say-so, or they need my permission, literally, otherwise no baby minions?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Um. The second thing, your majesty."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:33 pm (UTC)

"How," says Bella, "does that work, exactly, what do I need to do to formally supply permission?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it's not difficult or complicated," he assures her hastily. "The minions who want to have children will ask, and hand you a beverage, and you just hand it back. With whatever blessing you feel is appropriate. Your majesty."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:40 pm (UTC)

"A blessing such as? On the beverage or the minions or the future child or what?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:44 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't matter," he says, wringing his hands again. "Glory used to say 'Make me little yucky babies!', or nothing at all."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Well, that was hardly polite of her. You know, I could probably just magic it so you don't have to go through this rigmarole?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:45 pm (UTC)

He cringes slightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Would that be unwelcome?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Y-yes, your majesty."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I can skip it. Uh. Is this why you guys are minions?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly, your majesty!"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Well... we want to be minions, your majesty," he says. "And, well... with most people, once you've started minioning, it's not very easy to stop..." He wrings his hands again.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm not most people, if any of you would prefer stop minioning you can. Is there any reason you want to be minions besides that just being the kind of species you are?"
Edited 2013-10-03 22:56 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-03 10:58 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know, your majesty," he says helplessly.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Well, I'll bless beverages, if the would-be-parents are ready now."

pythbox
2013-10-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

He nods several times and scurries off, reappearing a few minutes later with a string of five minions, each carrying an unopened can of grape soda.

The first one in line holds out his can and says humbly, "May I have your permission to breed, your majesty?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:03 pm (UTC)

Bella takes the can and then hands it back. "You may, and with my blessing," she says.

pythbox
2013-10-03 11:05 pm (UTC)

He beams. "Thank you, your majesty!"

Up steps the next one. She does the same thing. There are three apparent she-minions and two apparent he-minions in the group, arranged in no particular order.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:06 pm (UTC)

Bella blesses them all, and only then asks, "You guys don't reproduce pairwise?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

"No, your majesty," says the last minion to be blessed. "Well, sometimes."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Well, best of luck at parenting to all of you. Is there anything else while I'm here?"

pythbox
2013-10-03 11:10 pm (UTC)

The original minion shakes his head. "No, your majesty! Thank you!"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:11 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. I'll see you guys later."

And down she pops to a Jarvis.

poeticterms
2013-10-03 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Hello," says the Jarvis.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Jarvis!" She can faintly hear the sounds of violin playing and floats her way up the stairs towards it.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:15 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is playing the violin! What a surprise.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:16 pm (UTC)

Surprise. Right. Bella floats in through the open door and hovers, listening.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:17 pm (UTC)

He grins at her and keeps playing.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:18 pm (UTC)

It's pretty music. Bella winks when he smiles, and watches.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:20 pm (UTC)

Eventually, he finishes the piece, puts the violin down, and twirls over to give her a hug.

"What's new with the minions, love?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:20 pm (UTC)

Hug! "Turns out they require divine permission to reproduce, so I blessed... five cans of grape soda... and presumably can expect baby minions in the future."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:23 pm (UTC)

...He laughs.

"Of fucking course they do," he says, definitely not in the tone of someone who actually predicted this. "Why grape soda in particular, or did you decline to ask?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:24 pm (UTC)

"I did not ask why grape soda in particular. From the description of what I was supposed to do it could have been any beverage, maybe they just like it. If it was supposed to be a solid food I would have expected M&Ms."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:25 pm (UTC)

He giggles into her shoulder.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I asked the one who explained it to me if this was why they were minions and he said 'not exactly' -" She proceeds to relate the conversation, verbatim.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:26 pm (UTC)

The conversation causes Sherlock to giggle some more. While snuggling her.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:28 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! Giggles! "He looked uncomfortable so I didn't push him any farther about what is so great about being a minion," she adds. "I wonder if baby minions with a, you know, non-hellish deity will be so keen on the career prospect. I'd be perfectly happy to set them up in another little village like I did with the other Mercury imports."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:30 pm (UTC)

"We'll see, I suppose. Do you happen to know how fast baby minions grow into the non-baby variety?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:31 pm (UTC)

"No idea. I'm not sure how old the ones I have are."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:34 pm (UTC)

"And we are likewise ignorant about how long it takes from grape soda to the onset of baby minions," he muses. "Well, it will just have to be a surprise."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I could ask them, but I'm really not confident in their ability at this time to distinguish between 'her majesty is just curious and I can tell her to mind her own business' and 'I must answer her majesty because I am a minion'."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Yes, there is that."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:36 pm (UTC)

"I suppose I could get Soph to ask. Or you, maybe, but they seem more casual around Her Majesty's Sister than Her Majesty's Consort."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps because Her Majesty's Consort visits so rarely," he says, and kisses Her Majesty's cheek.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:40 pm (UTC)

"That could be it, yeah, Soph is up there all the time teaching them interesting forms of poker and stuff." She kisses the end of his nose.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:42 pm (UTC)

Now his nose is especially majestic! He nuzzles her with it.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:43 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs, and squeezes him. "I love you."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I love you too."

Hugs!

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if baby minions are any better-looking than grown-up minions. Probably not, but maybe in a wrinkly-puppy kinda way? I suppose I will probably see."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Are wrinkly puppies especially endearing?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Not more than regular puppies, but enough to earn the adjective."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Aha."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:52 pm (UTC)

"They look old and baby at the same time," Bella explains.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:53 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:55 pm (UTC)

Snuggles. Sherlock is even cuter than a wrinkly puppy.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-03 11:55 pm (UTC)

And terribly proud of this achievement.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-03 11:56 pm (UTC)

Apparently he is also smugger than a wrinkly puppy. Wrinkly puppies are mostly kind of confused.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-04 12:03 am (UTC)

Sherlock is not at all confused. He generally isn't, in fact, but at this particular moment he is especially not.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-04 12:03 am (UTC)

That is good. Bella is not confused right now either. She is just snuggly.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-04 12:09 am (UTC)

That is how Sherlock is also! What a coincidence.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-04 12:09 am (UTC)

It is not really a coincidence at all!

eversomuchfun
2013-10-04 12:10 am (UTC)

That is true. It is not. It is a snuggle.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-04 12:10 am (UTC)

A highly non-coincidental sort of snuggle.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-04 12:11 am (UTC)

Yes.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-04 12:11 am (UTC)

Good, all narration is agreed.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-04 12:12 am (UTC)

And all participants are snuggly.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-04 12:12 am (UTC)

They are! Very snuggly. Very very snuggly.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-04 12:13 am (UTC)

Soooooooo snuggly.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-04 12:14 am (UTC)

The snuggliest snuggle-participants ever?

Who is to say? There has not been a contest yet.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-04 12:16 am (UTC)

And a contest would be likely to distract from the snuggling. Much better to snuggle uncontested.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-04 12:16 am (UTC)

Soooo much better.

do: distribute invitations; don't: kidnap party guests

giftedandtalented

[Hey, Kers, Aelise, we've worked out a party time and place, it's tomorrow, five p.m. your time, in Thilanushinyel - are you guys gonna come?]

salus_populi
2013-10-20 05:26 pm (UTC)

[Well,] says Aelise. [That depends. Approximately how unwelcome am I going to be?]

giftedandtalented
2013-10-20 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Eh, Golden and Elspeth and possibly other Aurumites who had bad Chelsea experiences are not going to be your best friends. I'll run interference if they glare at you or anything.]

salus_populi
2013-10-20 05:28 pm (UTC)

[And they will be a relatively small proportion of guests, I suppose. All right.]

queensidecastle
2013-10-20 05:29 pm (UTC)

[I think I'll pass,] says Kers. [I'd rather not travel out of the universe if I can avoid it.]

giftedandtalented
2013-10-20 05:32 pm (UTC)

[How come?] Tab inquires of Kers.

queensidecastle
2013-10-20 05:34 pm (UTC)

[It would be inconvenient if I got stuck or ran into some unforeseen kind of trouble.]

giftedandtalented
2013-10-20 05:36 pm (UTC)

[I suppose that would be problematic, yeah.]

queensidecastle
2013-10-20 05:37 pm (UTC)

[Have fun!]

giftedandtalented
2013-10-20 05:38 pm (UTC)

[Will do!]

[Hey Luhan, do you want to come to the Bellparty? It's tomorrow, two-thirty p.m. New Toronto time. You can meet your alts.]

areyouabeer
2013-10-20 05:42 pm (UTC)

[Short notice,] he observes. [Not that I have plans.]

giftedandtalented
2013-10-20 05:43 pm (UTC)

[We were juggling some scheduling stuff. There'll be another one next time we find a new Bell or there's some similar occasion, if the notice is too short.]

areyouabeer
2013-10-20 05:44 pm (UTC)

[Are my alts going to be there?] he inquires.

giftedandtalented
2013-10-20 05:45 pm (UTC)

[The native one in the world we're holding the party at will be. I'm not sure about the Peace alt.]

areyouabeer
2013-10-20 05:46 pm (UTC)

[I wouldn't bet on him showing up. But what do I know? Maybe he likes these things. Sure, I'll go. Meet the local guy.]

giftedandtalented
2013-10-20 05:47 pm (UTC)

[Cool. I'll pick you up when it's starting.]

areyouabeer
2013-10-20 05:53 pm (UTC)

[That's handy, thanks.]

giftedandtalented
2013-10-20 05:54 pm (UTC)

[You're welcome.]

who will be coming?

small_magics

Aianon has made a plant in the open airless space above the surface of Thilanushinyel. It is a very, very large plant - some dragons will be attending the party, after all, even if Ansharil in particular is going to be assorted small things and stay on Sarion's person the bulk of the time.

The locals will be Sarion, her beloveds, their other beloved, the five conjured dragons (and their Bondmates, where applicable: Virgivere and Lissa), and Liselen - Magania has, as usual, declined, and so far no Bell party has featured Bell parents.

Amariah is bringing her boyfriend and spontaneous daughter and two of the spontaneous daughter's friends, as well as an Alethian instance of the Rupert template.

Shell Bell is bringing Pearl and Screwdriver.

Golden is bringing her usual large contingent, as usual not including her husband but including her daughter and daughter's grown fosterling (the other remaining at home) and his wolf, both mothers-in-law and one father-in-law, adopted siblings, staff members including the Joker and Nathan, and the children of the aforementioned.

Glass is bringing both wives, all three daughters, Kanim, and her cat. She invited Icarin and Valeria, but their parents are not willing to let them gallivant into other worlds unsupervised and had a scheduling conflict.

Stella's bringing a smattering of people including Alice, Anna, Sandy, Libby, Bridget, her college roommate Janine, and Lazarus.

Tab is bringing Aelise (but not Kers) and Luhan.

Etty is bringing only Nona.

Aether, likewise, brings no one but Celo.

Pattern comes with Ripper, Slipstick, Queenie, and Ghosty.

Aegis is accompanied by her four-bodied boyfriend, Merryweather, Whitlock, and Howlett.

Aurora comes with Brilliance, Lexi with her Device Persica, Agent Honey with her Device Adularia, and Beth.

Rose brings her husband and three children and her former apprentice, Luc.

Angela brings her husband, her four children, several of her friends, and some of those friends' children and grandchildren with and without wings. Keziah also brings a friend.

Juliet shows up with Soph, Minus, Red, Giles, James, Virginia, Minnie, Ike, and Val.

Cam brings Jellybean and Tilly and stops there.

And from unBelled worlds hail additional Sherlocks and Tonies, Darcy, Matilda, Pepper, and Eights.

This is a branching point; there are 28 continuations from here.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 06:46 pm (UTC)

"So I hear you two have dragon alts," Shell Bell remarks to her companions.

sicaria
2013-10-20 07:12 pm (UTC)

Sherlock looks around. No dragons are in evidence in the main room, although it is large enough to contain several, with dragon-sized archways leading out onto what seems to be a dragon-sized platform encircling the... plant.

"Perhaps we will find them outside," she suggests.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Let's, I wanna see what a dragon you looks like."

sicaria
2013-10-20 07:16 pm (UTC)

Out they go.

pythbox
2013-10-20 07:19 pm (UTC)

The plant is surrounded by sufficient air for the dragons to fly, which they are doing.

One of them - her scales are bright gold with patches of red - comes in for a landing nearby as soon as the three humans emerge.

"Hi!" she says. "Who're you?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm Shell Bell, and this is my Sherlock, Pearl, and that is my Tony, Screwdriver."

pythbox
2013-10-20 07:24 pm (UTC)

"I'm Tianthonet," says the dragon. "A Tony, apparently."

She sits back, folding her hind legs and curling her tail around her forefeet, and peers down at the three of them.

ferratus
2013-10-20 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Screwdriver.

sicaria
2013-10-20 07:26 pm (UTC)

Pearl looks around. She is sure that her dragon alt will be here any moment.

pythbox
2013-10-20 07:28 pm (UTC)

And there she is, flying in remarkably silently and perching on the edge of the wide platform next to Tianthonet.

"Hello. I'm Sherial."

ferratus
2013-10-20 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Well," says Screwdriver, "at least we don't have to come up with nicknames for you guys. We kinda scraped the bottom of the barrel already."

pythbox
2013-10-20 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes, what is a screwdriver?" says Tianthonet.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 07:36 pm (UTC)

"It's a small tool used to twist screws around so they'll stay put and attach things to other things," says Shell Bell. "It's not a very good nickname, but none of them for either of your templates are very good."

ferratus
2013-10-20 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Screwdriver, "we suck that way. Most of us had to name ourselves after our coin colours, and most of our coin colours are weird or boring or both. I mean, I have an alt named 'Sapphire' after a colour of paint."

pythbox
2013-10-20 07:45 pm (UTC)

"...Is it significant paint, in some way?" wonders Sherial.

ferratus
2013-10-20 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Well, he owns something that is painted that colour. I'm not sure it's significant."
Edited 2013-10-20 19:57 (UTC)

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Red's are red, Iron's look like hot iron, etcetera. Iron Man already came with a nickname. So did Strat, he's a Sherlock."
Edited 2013-10-20 20:01 (UTC)

sicaria
2013-10-20 08:04 pm (UTC)

"I believe Strat skipped this one," says Pearl. "He does that. But you are likely to meet Minus and Steel and reasonably likely to meet Plus and Cloud."

ferratus
2013-10-20 08:05 pm (UTC)

"The Tonies usually all show up," says Screwdriver. "For... reasons."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 08:06 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell giggles.

pythbox
2013-10-20 08:14 pm (UTC)

Tianthonet snorts. "Uh-huh."

keyed_up
2013-10-20 08:18 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Soph has finished her long-distance gawking at the crowd of beings ranging from numerous angels to one demon to several magical Devices, then says to her Tony, "I think it will for some reason be less weird to meet the one of you who's a dragon first and therefore doesn't look like you."

toblameforit
2013-10-20 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'll go with it," says Red. "What do you figure, are they outside? I bet they're outside."

keyed_up
2013-10-20 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't see 'em here." Outside they go, then.

toblameforit
2013-10-20 08:29 pm (UTC)

Outside they go!

"I bet that one's the me," says Tony, pointing to the red-and-gold dragon.

pythbox
2013-10-20 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I bet you're right!" says Tianthonet.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Oh, pretty. Hi. I'm Soph, I'm Juliet's spontaneous sister."

pythbox
2013-10-20 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Hi! I'm Tianthonet, I'm a dragon!"

"I think they can tell," Sherial says dryly.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, you could've been something else, disguised as a dragon?" shrugs Soph.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 08:35 pm (UTC)

"There is a dragon at this party who is disguised as a purple and green furry winged animal sitting on Sarion's shoulder, but I don't think any of the reverse."

pythbox
2013-10-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

"I don't think Ansharil is exactly disguised," says Sherial.

"If he is, it's not a very good disguise. I recognized him," giggles Tianthonet.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh man, I have so many people to meet."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Quite a few, yeah, these things are getting crowded."

pythbox
2013-10-20 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Tianthonet, "try being three times the size of the next smallest person around. It was nice of Ansharil's Bondmate to make the inside part big enough for dragons, but I still get nervous about going in there."

toblameforit
2013-10-20 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Wow, no kidding," says Red.
Edited 2013-10-20 20:53 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-10-20 09:05 pm (UTC)

"You're scared you'll step on somebody? Most anyone'd bounce back pretty quick," says Soph. "I guess I wouldn't want to step on a tiny person even if they'd be fine, though."

pythbox
2013-10-20 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, exactly!" says Tianthonet. "Even if you're not seriously hurt, it's embarrassing."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Do you guys just not normally hang out with small people much?"

pythbox
2013-10-20 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Well, the Bonded," says Tianthonet. "But they usually come in smaller groups, and they're just... different."

keyed_up
2013-10-20 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Different how?"

pythbox
2013-10-20 09:45 pm (UTC)

"It's... easier to keep track of them, somehow," says Tianthonet. "I'm not sure."

"You're used to them," says Sherial. "You know them all as individuals and you haven't had to meet more than one new one at a time since you were big enough to step on any. And they frequently appear riding or otherwise accompanying their Bondmates, in which case you can avoid stepping on the human or elf by keeping out of the dragon's personal space."

"Yeah," says Tianthonet. "What she said."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Does this still apply when it's Sarion with her dragon in a little fuzzy shape on her shoulder?"

pythbox
2013-10-20 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Well..." says Tianthonet.

"No," says Sherial, "but she is a semilegendary figure, so it's easier to pay attention to her."

keyed_up
2013-10-20 09:52 pm (UTC)

Soph giggles. "Are all the Bells semilegendary figures like that or does only the local one count for you?"
Edited 2013-10-20 21:54 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-20 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Only the local one," says Sherial.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh, well."

keyed_up
2013-10-20 09:56 pm (UTC)

"My Bella's from a whole dynasty of semilegendary figures," snorts Soph.

pythbox
2013-10-20 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh?" says Sherial. "How's that?"

keyed_up
2013-10-20 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Oh, she's the Slayer - well, was the Slayer, now James is the Slayer. It's this thing in our world where she's supposed to... slay... things. Demons and vampires."

pythbox
2013-10-20 10:16 pm (UTC)

"You have demons? What are your demons like? Ours are all either dead and evil or Aianon," says Tianthonet. "I've never met one, even the one who's not evil or dead."

keyed_up
2013-10-20 10:17 pm (UTC)

"We have more kinds from more places. And some of them are pretty nice, just not most of them. Bella - Juliet I mean - has some of them being her gardener-minions, she accidentally inherited them. Minus and Plus are both our kind of vampire but Plus is from a different world that's only like ours."

pythbox
2013-10-20 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Does she have a lot of gardens, or something, that she needs minions for?" wonders Tianthonet.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Nah, she got the minions, and then made the gardens to keep them busy. She was going to make them self-containing originally."

pythbox
2013-10-20 10:34 pm (UTC)

"...In that case I have to wonder how and why she acquired the minions," says Sherial.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, they like to be minions, and the last person they were minioning for was bad news and Bella had to slay her. Or rather send her Downside for the admin to put in stasis or something? But basically slay her, and then she found the minions and they were like 'so do you want some minions'."

pythbox
2013-10-20 10:39 pm (UTC)

"...Your world is bizarre," Sherial concludes.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Glass says it and the worlds like it are really really mean."

pythbox
2013-10-20 10:41 pm (UTC)

"And yet, minions," says Sherial.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 10:51 pm (UTC)

"What d'you mean, and yet?"

pythbox
2013-10-20 10:53 pm (UTC)

"It's not historically been common for the losing side's loyal followers to spontaneously convert on the death of their leader, around here."

keyed_up
2013-10-20 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Yeah, that was kinda weird. Bella kept offering to set them up an independent colony but it turns out they have to have someone to be minions of to have baby minions."

pythbox
2013-10-20 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Ah," says Sherial. "And now it makes sense."

keyed_up
2013-10-20 11:02 pm (UTC)

"So there are going to be ugly-cute wrinkly babies soon!"

pythbox
2013-10-20 11:03 pm (UTC)

Sherial snorts.

"I've never even seen a baby," says Tianthonet. "Of any species."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Weren't you and the other conjured dragons babies at the same time? Do you just not remember it?"

pythbox
2013-10-20 11:06 pm (UTC)

Tianthonet shakes her head. It's an odd gesture on a dragon, but recognizable.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 11:08 pm (UTC)

"There are some little kids here but not baby little."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-20 11:08 pm (UTC)

"I think Hyacinthe is the youngest. Peninnah's next and she's like eight."

pythbox
2013-10-20 11:22 pm (UTC)

"...Are human children a lot smaller than humans?" says Tianthonet, looking down at her feet as though she is afraid a small child could have snuck under one without her noticing, although she stops short of actually picking them up to check.

keyed_up
2013-10-20 11:23 pm (UTC)

"They start yea big," says Soph, gesturing. "They're about full size by the time they're in their mid-teens."

pythbox
2013-10-21 12:45 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Tianthonet. "Dragons start bigger than that, I think."

"I've seen our eggshells," says Sherial. "Much bigger. But not bigger than a grown human."

"And we're nowhere near full size yet," says Tianthonet.

"But then we have much farther to go," says Sherial. "And some dragons are just small. Ansharil is."

keyed_up
2013-10-21 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Is he? How big? I've never seen him being, uh, himself."

pythbox
2013-10-21 05:34 pm (UTC)

"He's... Ansharil-sized," says Tianthonet.

"Just about large enough to comfortably carry one Bondmate," says Sherial. "So not all that much bigger than we are."

"We can both carry ours," objects Tianthonet.

"Yes, but not as easily as Ansharil could. And yet he still doesn't have room to pack on a dozen children like Ancaladar still occasionally complains about."

keyed_up
2013-10-21 05:35 pm (UTC)

"...Dragon children or human-oid children?"

pythbox
2013-10-21 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Elf children," says Sherial.

"Two thousand years ago, in Jermayan's time," says Tianthonet. "There was a war on, and the elves wanted to send their children to a special fortress where they'd be safe, and of course the best way to go was by dragon, but Ancaladar didn't like having - what was the phrase - "

"An infestation of tiny passengers," Sherial supplies.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 05:41 pm (UTC)

Shell Bell giggles.

pythbox
2013-10-21 05:44 pm (UTC)

"It's really strange how the Dark keeps coming back every thousand years," says Tianthonet.

"It wasn't always that way," says Sherial. "Before Jermayan, Ancaladar slept through ten thousand years of peace."

keyed_up
2013-10-21 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Well, I bet Sarion's going to arrange for there to be more of it. She's a Bell."

pythbox
2013-10-21 05:49 pm (UTC)

Sherial smiles a dragony sort of smile.

Tianthonet looks sidelong at her and giggles.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 05:49 pm (UTC)

"What?"

pythbox
2013-10-21 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Sherial's Bonded has plans," says Tianthonet. "Sherial's Bonded thinks the semilegendary figures shouldn't get to have all the fun."

"She's only doing what Wildmages do best," says Sherial.

"Virgivere is a Wildmage and she doesn't plot like that," says Tianthonet.

Sherial sniffs. "My Bonded does not plot, thank you very much."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm not an expert on Libbies..."

keyed_up
2013-10-21 05:55 pm (UTC)

"I know one, she's fine."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Most of them are, it's only - Sherial, have you heard about Aelise?"

pythbox
2013-10-21 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Lissa has an alt by that name," says Sherial. "She appears to be an empress."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, she did it by using a person with the power to force people to like or stop liking each other to take over the world. She's got a Bell who put up with her, so there may be mitigating circumstances that Tab hasn't explained, but it seems worth mentioning."

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Sherial expressionlessly.

Tianthonet leans in to give her a gentle shoulder-bump. "It's not bad plotting," she assures the humans. "It's not even bad-good plotting like when the High Mages dug into Armethalieh and kicked everybody else out. It's nice plotting. It's just funny how she does it, like - like she's trying to be the Wild Magic, finding out everything about everything and then figuring out the best way for it to go."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Most of them are fine," reiterates Shell Bell. "This one sounds fine too."

keyed_up
2013-10-21 06:07 pm (UTC)

"And Thilanushinyel's been swept, right, there isn't one of those whatsherfaces here?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Jane checked everywhere."

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:17 pm (UTC)

Tianthonet huffs. It is Sherial's turn to give her a comforting shoulder-bump.

keyed_up
2013-10-21 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Now what?"

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Nothing," says Tianthonet, huffily.

"She is offended on behalf of my Bonded," says Sherial.

keyed_up
2013-10-21 06:23 pm (UTC)

Soph flops her head on her Tony's shoulder. (Because it's there.) "Aww."

toblameforit
2013-10-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

Her Tony hugs her. Because she's cute.

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:32 pm (UTC)

"It occurs to me to point out," says Sherial, looking at Shell Bell, "that a warning to me about my Bondmate's possible corruption would be misplaced as a practical effort. The dragon is subordinate to the will of the Bonded. I and my magic are available to Lissa regardless of my personal choice."

"But Lissa is a nice Bondmate and she listens to you," says Tianthonet, shoulder-bumping Sherial again. "Because she's nice. There haven't been any Bonded who pushed their dragons around like that almost since Bisochim."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 06:36 pm (UTC)

"...Wait, what? I don't think I knew about this part."

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:39 pm (UTC)

"It's not commonly known, except among dragons and some Bonded," says Sherial. "Perhaps Isibel Sarion did not see fit to mention it. I can hardly doubt she knows."

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 06:40 pm (UTC)

"She must know - oh."

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh?" inquires Sherial.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't think she'd like it if I speculated out loud."

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Then you have some reason to think she knows from practical experience," Sherial concludes.

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 06:53 pm (UTC)

"If you make her uncomfortable because of something I gave away I will be annoyed."

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Noted," says Sherial.

keyed_up
2013-10-21 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Iiiii don't get it. Should I not get it?"

she_sells_seashells
2013-10-21 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Yes, please continue."

pythbox
2013-10-21 06:58 pm (UTC)

Sherial says nothing.

keyed_up
2013-10-21 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I've met two Tonies who are not my Tony and I still seem to have all my higher brain functions, let's go find more," says Soph to her Tony.

toblameforit
2013-10-21 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Sounds good to me!"

This is continuation number 2 from here.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 07:42 pm (UTC)

Carinna is being very brave. She is not clinging to any of her moms or her sisters. She is mingling.

"So um," she says tentatively to a red-haired woman, "...are you a fire-witch?"

most_capable
2013-10-20 07:58 pm (UTC)

"...Potentially," says the woman. "What's a fire-witch?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh, on Chronicle they're... a kind of witch, but not like regular witches. They do fire and some other things. I'm a little bit a fire witch, just enough to hold hot stuff. Tony and Sherlock are more and Grandma Marianne is more than that. I have some friends who are all fire-witch though. They aren't here."

most_capable
2013-10-20 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Then no, I don't think I'm a fire-witch," she says, smiling.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 08:02 pm (UTC)

"They have red hair," says Carinna. "Most people on Chronicle with red hair are fire-witches."

most_capable
2013-10-20 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Not the case on Earth," says Pepper. "As far as I know. I did recently have... a fire-related experience, but I wasn't any kind of fire-anything before then."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 08:08 pm (UTC)

"A fire-related experience?"

most_capable
2013-10-20 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Someone came up with a treatment that was supposed to make very sick or injured people healthy again," she says. "There were complications."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 08:21 pm (UTC)

"...Fire-related complications."

most_capable
2013-10-20 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately, yes," she says. "Everything's under control now, but there were some chancy moments. And now I have a few fire-related complications myself, although they usually don't come up."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Um, okay. Mostly all I do with being a bit of a fire witch is play with hot glass."

most_capable
2013-10-20 08:33 pm (UTC)

"My fire-related complications wouldn't be much good for that. But they do come in handy whenever I need to light a candle."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I heard that in worlds with a lot of technology they don't use candles."

most_capable
2013-10-20 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Not as a major light source, but we do use them for decoration," she says.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Like the pretty carved kind with all the layers? But those are too pretty to burn."

most_capable
2013-10-20 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Actually," she says thoughtfully, "there are some people who make candles with sculptures inside them, so the sculpture comes out as the candle burns down. I like those."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, those sound neat! I don't think I've ever seen one."

most_capable
2013-10-20 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure you could get someone to conjure one for you," she suggests.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:03 pm (UTC)

"I have squares... but I would have to think of a sculpture. And a candle."

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I have one in mind," says Pepper.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:07 pm (UTC)

Carinna takes a square out of her sorter - it's in Kiawen's transparent, rainbow-misted color - and hands it to the fire-related nonwitch.

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:09 pm (UTC)

She takes it, and a moment later hands back a candle: a perfectly unexceptional cylinder, blue at the bottom shading to white at the top.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:09 pm (UTC)

Carinna takes it and smiles. "It's pretty but not too pretty to burn. What's inside?"

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:26 pm (UTC)

"It's a copy of one I've seen at home. I'm not sure how to explain it exactly - a kind of lattice made of circles. I liked it because it cast pretty shadows."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:27 pm (UTC)

Carinna puts it in her skirt pocket. "I think I will light it later when I'm at home."

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:31 pm (UTC)

"My name's Carinna," she adds abruptly. "Of the Enchanted Forest. I didn't say."

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:34 pm (UTC)

"My name's Virginia, but I have alts, so you can call me Pepper. It's lovely to meet you, Carinna."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I have a nametag but it wound up under my scarf." Carinna moves her scarf. It falls back over her nametag. She growls at it and takes it off and goes to put it in her uncandled pocket, then takes Mossy out of the pocket so it has room.

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Oh, what a cute little... puff!" says Pepper. "What is it?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:47 pm (UTC)

"It's a poof!" beams Carinna. "This one is mine and it's named Mossy. Poofs come from the Gentle Cave."

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:48 pm (UTC)

"The Gentle Cave sounds... very positive," says Pepper. "What is it?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:50 pm (UTC)

"It's a cave! A nice cave with cute little animals, like poofs, and piano bears, and fluffbats, and pawlings, and cheepingbirds. Kanim found it and said there wasn't going to be anything that would scare me in it so we all went and named all the kinds of animals and figured out why they weren't leaving the cave. It's because they need spring water from in it, so now we have little fountains with the same kind of water and we took pets home. Me and my sisters. Bella's cat promised not to terrorize them."

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:52 pm (UTC)

"It sounds very relaxing," says Pepper. "Do you think I could visit?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. It is and I bet you can. Jane can put you in Chronicle but you have to get to the cave some other way."

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I happen to be able to teleport."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:57 pm (UTC)

"That's a way," laughs Carinna. "I can, too, but most people in most worlds can't."

most_capable
2013-10-20 09:58 pm (UTC)

"True. It's very convenient, though, isn't it?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Sometimes I can get the forest to cooperate with me too, but I'm not really good at it. Sherlock does it really well, and Grandma Marianne."

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:03 pm (UTC)

"You live in a cooperative forest?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I'm one of the princesses," says Carinna. "The Enchanted Forest gives its royalty some special magic. Bella gets a little bit too - usually she would just get courtesy stuff like being able to pick up the sword, because she married in, but she married two princesses so she can get some of the other things to work, too."

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:13 pm (UTC)

"That sounds friendly!"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:14 pm (UTC)

"It is! Oh, and our forest is where Bells go to get auras, it can just suck up the enchantment magic. It's getting bigger."

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Interesting," says Pepper. "If it keeps getting bigger is it going to run into something, or is there magic at work?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:16 pm (UTC)

"It's only got more room in it, it isn't any bigger around," explains Carinna.

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:19 pm (UTC)

"In nonmagical worlds those things tend to go together unavoidably," says Pepper.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:20 pm (UTC)

"That sounds really inconvenient," says Carinna thoughtfully. "Can you at least stack places, even if you can't grow them on the inside only?"

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:22 pm (UTC)

"...Yes, I suppose we can," says Pepper. "In fact, most of our cities turn out that way. We run out of sideways and start making things taller instead."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:23 pm (UTC)

"No, not taller," says Carinna. "Stacked. In the same - box as each other." She starts gesturing; this is less effective than it might otherwise be since she has Mossy in one hand. "Like Bella's rooms, they all have the same door and you go to the one you want."
Edited 2013-10-20 22:25 (UTC)

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:29 pm (UTC)

"No," says Pepper, "I'm afraid not. But we seem to get by anyway."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:31 pm (UTC)

"So you have to find different places to put everything. Gosh."

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:41 pm (UTC)

"You could think of an elevator as a kind of multiply opening door," Pepper muses. "But with more waiting. Not much more waiting, though, if it's a good elevator."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:41 pm (UTC)

"What's an elevator do?"

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:44 pm (UTC)

"It's a... box big enough to stand in that moves up and down between floors of a tall building much more quickly than you could climb the same distance using stairs."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I... guess that's better than just having a lot of stairs? I mean, we have stairs too, the castle is pretty big. Also you have to go all the way up one of the towers to get to the dungeons."

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:46 pm (UTC)

"That sounds inconvenient," says Pepper.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but it's not like we use the dungeons much."

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I'd hope not! Frequently used dungeons are so rarely a good sign," says Pepper.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:50 pm (UTC)

"...None of my moms will actually tell me what we would use them for, if we used them. The tablecloth drying rack used to be down there, though," she adds.

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I see."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:56 pm (UTC)

"But they're inconvenient to get to anyway and there's not too little room in other parts of the castle, so that's okay." Carinna puts Mossy on her shoulder. Mossy snuggles up to her neck and whmmmmmms.

most_capable
2013-10-20 10:58 pm (UTC)

Pepper smiles.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to hold Mossy?"

most_capable
2013-10-20 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I think I would like that very much."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 11:03 pm (UTC)

Carinna hands over Mossy. "The glowing and the whmmming are happy," she says, sounding like she fancies herself a multiverse-class expert on poofs.

most_capable
2013-10-20 11:24 pm (UTC)

Pepper accepts the poof.

It whmmmmmmms.

"What a little darling," she says, petting it tentatively.

exactlyright
2013-10-20 11:25 pm (UTC)

"They're so nice! You don't have to be careful, either, it just looks like it - you can't hurt them, when they glow it makes an anti-injury field and it works for people near them too."

most_capable
2013-10-20 11:29 pm (UTC)

"That's convenient," says Pepper, petting Mossy's fluff. "Do they, um... make more poofs somehow or other?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I guess they must. I've never seen them doing it. There's always plenty in the cave."

most_capable
2013-10-20 11:45 pm (UTC)

"A mystery," she says. "Well, all right."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Kanim might know. He studies caves and stuff and he's been studying the Gentle Cave."

most_capable
2013-10-20 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Is Kanim here?"

exactlyright
2013-10-20 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. He's probably with Tony, I mean Iron."

most_capable
2013-10-20 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I have a Tony, too," Pepper mentions. "Mine is Iron Man."

exactlyright
2013-10-20 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I guess that makes sense, if he is a boy Tony. It's weird that most of them are boys."

most_capable
2013-10-21 12:09 am (UTC)

Pepper considers this. "I don't think I find it weird that some of them are women," she concludes.

exactlyright
2013-10-21 12:10 am (UTC)

"I guess there's two now, the dragon one is a girl, right? Her and the one of my moms."

most_capable
2013-10-21 01:12 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Pepper. "The dragon one is also bonded to one of my alts."

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:13 am (UTC)

"Right, I remember hearing about that because the Thilanushinyel of Bella has a Thilanushinyel dragon. They're not that much like our dragons."

most_capable
2013-10-21 01:15 am (UTC)

"My world doesn't have any dragons to compare them to."

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:16 am (UTC)

"Your world sounds weird."

most_capable
2013-10-21 01:20 am (UTC)

"I like it just fine."

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:21 am (UTC)

"Bella says our world is the nicest world. You can come to it some time and get a poof if you want one, people do that."

most_capable
2013-10-21 01:22 am (UTC)

"I think I will definitely visit," says Pepper.

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:23 am (UTC)

Carinna smiles at her. "I would like Mossy back now," she says.

most_capable
2013-10-21 01:25 am (UTC)

Pepper hands Carinna back her poof.

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:26 am (UTC)

Carinna puts Mossy on her shoulder and wanders into the crowd, looking for the nearest mom (and checking name tags to be sure she gets the right one).

allthebrightest
2013-10-21 01:27 am (UTC)

There's one!

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:28 am (UTC)

"Tony, Tony, I talked to a stranger and she was nice and nothing bad happened and she wants a poof and she made me an interesting candle and she's sort of fire related!"

allthebrightest
2013-10-21 01:34 am (UTC)

She beams.

"That's fantastic, have a hug!" she says, holding out her arms.

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:34 am (UTC)

Hugs!

allthebrightest
2013-10-21 01:35 am (UTC)

Beamy enthusiastic cuddlesome hugs!

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:36 am (UTC)

"Her name is Pepper and in her world you can't stack rooms or grow things on the inside and not the outside, but they have things called elevators so they don't have to climb stairs," Carinna adds.

allthebrightest
2013-10-21 01:38 am (UTC)

"Ooh, she must be from Yggdrasil," says Tony. "With Iron Man. He mentioned elevators too, when he was grumbling about the stairs in the castle. And he has a friend called Pepper."

exactlyright
2013-10-21 01:39 am (UTC)

"Yeah! She said her Tony was the Iron Man one."

allthebrightest
2013-10-21 12:45 pm (UTC)

"That makes sense! I'm glad you had a good talk," says Tony, hugging her again.

exactlyright
2013-10-21 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I am too!" Hug hug hug.

allthebrightest
2013-10-21 05:09 pm (UTC)

Hug hug!

This is continuation number 3 from here.

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:08 pm (UTC)

This... space plant... is very recognizably Aianon's work, and not just for the sheer fact of being a space plant. Ripper is amused.

He spends a while on the floor of the main room, then takes a glass of mystery fruit juice and explores the organic stairways lining the walls. Eventually he ends up at the highest available vantage - a round cozy little room lined with cozy padded benches and dotted with small convenient tables and cozy padded stools, with a wide-lipped railing of intertwined vines where guests can put down their food or drink and gaze down at the various minglers.
Edited 2013-10-20 22:08 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:09 pm (UTC)

[Hey, where'd you wander off to?] Pattern asks after he has been wandered for a few minutes.

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:13 pm (UTC)

[Up top,] he says, and he comes to the railing and looks for her. There she is, next to some other Bell - Juliet? Probably Juliet.

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:13 pm (UTC)

[Is the view nice?]

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:14 pm (UTC)

[It's not bad.]

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:15 pm (UTC)

[Incoming. Put down your tea.] And then she is beside him, peering over the railing with him.

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:18 pm (UTC)

He snugs an arm around her waist and kisses her cheek. "Not tea for once, actually," he says. "Some kind of juice that I suspect comes from an Aianon fruit."

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Ooh." She steals his glass and tastes a sip. "Yeah, I have no idea what that is, but I bet it would make a really nice shortcake."

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:21 pm (UTC)

Ripper laughs, kisses her cheek again, and steals it back. "Say that where a Joker can hear you; I think I want to try that cake," he says cheerfully.

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, will do. Yum."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 10:26 pm (UTC)

Someone emerges into the room from the archway at the back, and says, "Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt—"

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:26 pm (UTC)

—at the same time as Ripper glances back to see who it is—

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 10:28 pm (UTC)

—at which point Giles drops his tea.

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:29 pm (UTC)

Pattern rescues the tea. "Hello there," she says.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Hello," he says. "Sorry." He sets the rescued tea down carefully on one of the small convenient tables, never taking his eyes off Ripper.

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:32 pm (UTC)

"...You all right?" says Ripper, concerned. "You look like I'm about to explode. Or you are. You look like at least one of us is about to explode."

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Pretty sure neither of you are gonna explode. Ripper, this is Giles. Giles, Ripper; I'm sure Juliet managed to explain him in between uproarious laughter."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 10:35 pm (UTC)

"She did mention something, yes. I'm sorry, I didn't expect—I didn't realize—" He shakes his head and trails off.

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Sit down," Ripper suggests. "Take a minute."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 10:36 pm (UTC)

He installs himself on the nearest cozy bench and picks up his tea.

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:37 pm (UTC)

Pattern glances between them, curiously.

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Is this the sort of thing you want to talk about or the sort you want to ignore until it goes away?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 10:48 pm (UTC)

Giles snorts.

"Not sure," he says. "Tea first."

tearingup
2013-10-20 10:48 pm (UTC)

"All right."

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Do you two want me around for this, or should I wade back into the throng and leave you be?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 10:50 pm (UTC)

"...You must be—er, Pattern?" says Giles.

bellfounding
2013-10-20 10:55 pm (UTC)

"That's me, yeah."
Edited 2013-10-20 22:57 (UTC)

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Good to meet you," he says, not without irony.
Edited 2013-10-20 23:20 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-10-20 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, we've been at the same parties before but never really talked," she snorts.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 11:23 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure I've made a wonderful first impression."

bellfounding
2013-10-20 11:24 pm (UTC)

"The tea dropping? Nah. I am accustomed to occasional tea-dropping." She elbows Ripper, a little.

tearingup
2013-10-20 11:25 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles and gives her a little one-armed hugsquish.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 11:26 pm (UTC)

Giles observes this interaction.

bellfounding
2013-10-20 11:26 pm (UTC)

Pattern flops her head onto Ripper's convenient shoulder.

tearingup
2013-10-20 11:40 pm (UTC)

Ripper beams.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-20 11:41 pm (UTC)

Some combination of the tea and the adorable definitely seems to be calming Giles down.

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:00 am (UTC)

So of course now is the perfect time for a near-exact duplicate of Ripper to enter the room, nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie and trailing a pied-kingfisher daemon.

Ripper cracks up.

Ripper part two looks from Ripper to Giles and laughs.

"Giles, this is Keth," says a grinning Ripper. "Keth, Giles."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:00 am (UTC)

"I was not informed that there would be two of you," says Giles.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:02 am (UTC)

"Do you not talk to Jane much? Amariah found this one on a template-sweep after she met mine," says Pattern, gesturing illustratively. "I think that's all of them, except Merryweather, of course."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:03 am (UTC)

...Giles is now looking between Ripper and Keth with an expression that might be best described as dawning realization.

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:04 am (UTC)

"...What?" says Keth, blinking back at him.

Ripper starts giggling into Pattern's hair.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:05 am (UTC)

"I second the question."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:06 am (UTC)

"Nothing whatsoever," says Giles.

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:07 am (UTC)

"Ohhhhhhh," says Keth. "...Well, wouldn't you have done?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:07 am (UTC)

"I can't say that it's crossed my mind, no!"

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:08 am (UTC)

"Oh, that," Pattern snorts.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:09 am (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:10 am (UTC)

"Ooh, it's crossing your mind now, isn't it," giggles Ripper.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:11 am (UTC)

Giles sniffs primly. His delivery is really quite impeccable.

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:12 am (UTC)

Neither of his alts is buying it for a second.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:13 am (UTC)

"Is it time for me to leave you guys alone now?" inquires Pattern archly.

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:14 am (UTC)

The Rippers grin at Giles.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:17 am (UTC)

"In all seriousness," says Giles, although he is not entirely successful at looking the part, "I really think we have more to discuss than, than idle recreation."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:18 am (UTC)

"Want me to grab Merryweather for you? Little template convention? You can agree on a replacement collective noun."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:19 am (UTC)

"Wait five minutes, I'm sure he'll turn up," says Giles. "Given recent trends."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:19 am (UTC)

Pattern laughs.

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:22 am (UTC)

"The replacement collective noun is a point," says Ripper, his snickers subsiding.

"Don't ask me," says Keth, plopping himself onto a section of bench near Giles but not within arm's reach. "I couldn't even pick my own nickname, Rayne had to do it for me."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:22 am (UTC)

Giles looks up from the remains of his tea in startlement.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:23 am (UTC)

"Yeah, those are a thing."

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:25 am (UTC)

"I ditched mine after he faked his own death to get me to talk to Pattern about resurrecting him," says Ripper.

"I have not ditched mine," says Keth, "although I understand why some of you might want to."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:36 am (UTC)

"...Mine and I," says Giles, sounding as though the 'mine' part doesn't quite fit, "...drifted apart. Much as tectonic plates might, with considerable disturbance to the environs and an occasional volcano."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:37 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna register the prediction that Merryweather doesn't talk to his, either, being of the one sort and not the other. Presuming he has one, but I'm also going to register the prediction that he has. Maybe Glass should go look at some of them to figure out what it is with you guys."

tearingup
2013-10-21 12:38 am (UTC)

"I'll introduce her to mine," Keth offers.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:45 am (UTC)

"I'd rather mine went undisturbed by any reminder of my existence whatsoever," says Giles.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:46 am (UTC)

"If I have the right read on them, reminding him won't make a lot of difference."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 12:47 am (UTC)

"He hasn't troubled me anytime in the last decade and I would prefer to have that state of affairs continue."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 12:47 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's fair."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:01 am (UTC)

"But yes, returning to the subject of template names. I observe that neither of you is wearing your name tag," says Giles.

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:02 am (UTC)

"It said 'Rupert' on it," says Keth.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:02 am (UTC)

"Is that really so terrible?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:03 am (UTC)

"Yes," chorus the Rippers.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 01:03 am (UTC)

"I'm curious, Giles, how old were you when you resumed the name?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:05 am (UTC)

"Oh... thirty?" he hazards. "Thereabouts."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 01:06 am (UTC)

"So that can't just be a chronology thing," Pattern says, glancing at her Ripper, who is older than he looks.
Edited 2013-10-21 01:08 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:08 am (UTC)

"No," he agrees.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:09 am (UTC)

"I'd hesitate to call it a maturity thing, but..."

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:10 am (UTC)

Keth rolls his eyes. "Right, that must be it."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 01:12 am (UTC)

"Yeah, pretty tempted to fetch Glass, at this point, make her line you up and squint at you."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:13 am (UTC)

"Go on then," says

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:14 am (UTC)

every member of the template, simultaneously.

"...Huh," says Ripper.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 01:15 am (UTC)

Pattern laughs. "I'll send Merryweather up, too." She kisses her own Ripper and pops away to find him first.

"Hey," she informs him, "the other three of you are all in one place, I'm gonna get Glass to peer at you and make pronouncements, you may wish to join them."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:17 am (UTC)

"Is that so," says Merryweather. He pauses in climbing the stairs.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 01:18 am (UTC)

"Yup. You're actually en route already, they're all over there, see, making each other drop beverages." She points.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:19 am (UTC)

He snorts.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 01:20 am (UTC)

"I'll be along in a moment with Glass."

Pop, pop, and she is along, in a moment, with Glass.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:22 am (UTC)

They arrive just in time to see Merryweather give Keth and Ripper a look remarkably similar to the one Giles was giving them some time ago!

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:22 am (UTC)

"Oh, now this," says Glass, "is remarkably like the Joker phases, now I've gotten a look at those to compare."

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:24 am (UTC)

"Jokers come in phases?" says Ripper.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:26 am (UTC)

"They come in phases and also in kinds, yes. This -" (she gestures at the Ruperts and then at the Rippers) "is more like the phases."

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:26 am (UTC)

"All right," says Keth, "and that means...?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:27 am (UTC)

"That you can grow from one into the other. I don't think it's obligatory and I'm not sure if you can go backwards."

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:29 am (UTC)

The Rippers look consideringly at the Ruperts.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:30 am (UTC)

The Ruperts look back. Merryweather starts to say something, stops, and shakes his head; Giles pats him on the shoulder.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 01:33 am (UTC)

"You might also want a look at one of their Raynes. They seem to come with them - Merryweather, have you got one of those?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 01:34 am (UTC)

"I haven't thought about him in years," says Merryweather. "They're attached?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:35 am (UTC)

"Well, they're four for four - which one should I go look at?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:37 am (UTC)

"Mine," says Keth, "definitely mine, I will introduce you."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:37 am (UTC)

"Okay, now or later?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:39 am (UTC)

"Maybe he'll think of a name for the template," snorts Ripper.

Keth laughs. "All right, now, then."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:41 am (UTC)

"Okay. Lemme just prevent incipient flying squirrel..." Glass wishes on a star, then taps her Janegem, and then they are in Amariah's house in Alethia. "Do you teleport, do you want to lead the way?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:44 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I teleport," says Keth.

He teleports them to his living room.

pythbox
2013-10-21 01:44 am (UTC)

"Another one?" says the local Rayne.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:45 am (UTC)

"There's lots," says Glass. She peers at him. "Oh yeah, that's - about as attached as you get, these are not optional."

pythbox
2013-10-21 01:46 am (UTC)

"Tell me something I don't know," snorts Rayne.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:52 am (UTC)

"And the - template we don't have a name for -" (Glass waves at Keth) "are the 'leader' template here, except that's less meaningful than it is in some cases because you're just always going to appear together, one for one. Oh, wow, you are so attached, but apart from always showing up in the same place it's almost totally unidirectional... Also I think everyone should be glad there aren't a set of you in Aurum, that would get potentially gross very fast... Thilanushinyel could do the same thing, come to think of it..."

pythbox
2013-10-21 01:52 am (UTC)

"Template you don't have a name for?" inquires Rayne.
Edited 2013-10-21 01:53 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:54 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Keth, "we were hoping you could help with that, actually."

pythbox
2013-10-21 01:55 am (UTC)

"Kingfishers," Rayne says offhandedly. "What's this about potentially gross?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:56 am (UTC)

Keth looks at his daemon. Hecate looks at Keth.

They both burst out laughing.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 01:56 am (UTC)

"Oh, Kingfishers, that works. The gross is potentially unreciprocated eternal bonding. Aurum has two kinds of it, and if you landed there..."

tearingup
2013-10-21 01:59 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that could get ugly," says Keth. Hecate flutters behind an armchair.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:00 am (UTC)

"The Rayne in such a world would inevitably wind up stuck on the Kingfisher, and there isn't a shred of metcausality enticing it to be all sewn up the other direction. Metacausality has no interest in making sure Kingfishers like their Raynes, the Raynes have to do that themselves."

pythbox
2013-10-21 02:04 am (UTC)

"Naturally," says Rayne, eyeing his Kingfisher.

tearingup
2013-10-21 02:05 am (UTC)

Keth smiles at him. It is a smile full of communication not meant to be intercepted.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:07 am (UTC)

"...I - huh. Can your daemons come out where I can see them?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 02:08 am (UTC)

Hecate zips out from behind the armchair.

pythbox
2013-10-21 02:09 am (UTC)

A stripey ginger cat follows her just a moment later.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:10 am (UTC)

Glass peers at them. "I think they're helping you with the not-having-a-falling-out. They are, however, not a guarantee."

pythbox
2013-10-21 02:11 am (UTC)

The cat begins washing herself unconcernedly.

tearingup
2013-10-21 02:12 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Keth, "I think we guessed that part."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:13 am (UTC)

"Anyway, I think that's all I have to say unless it ever becomes worth everyone's while to collect the other three Raynes and line you all up."

pythbox
2013-10-21 02:23 am (UTC)

"Even I don't think that's a good idea," says Rayne.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:25 am (UTC)

Glass snorts. "Back whence we came?" she inquires of Keth. "Or is there anything else I should look at while I'm here and already covered versus flying squirrel?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 02:27 am (UTC)

"Not that I can think of."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:33 am (UTC)

"Okay."

And back they go, right where they came since Pattern is still there. Glass relays the information.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 02:35 am (UTC)

"Attached," sighs Merryweather.

"Apparently," agrees Giles.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:36 am (UTC)

"And I don't think any of them had better be allowed to visit Aurum, just on principle, as vampirism is transmissible."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 02:38 am (UTC)

"Agreed. Are you all kingfishers...?" Square.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 02:39 am (UTC)

Both Ruperts would have Common Kingfishers, if they had daemons.

"Apparently so," says Merryweather.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 02:40 am (UTC)

"Hey, Glass, which one is the template?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:40 am (UTC)

Glass points at Giles.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 02:44 am (UTC)

Giles blinks. "Really?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:47 am (UTC)

"Yep, pretty clearly too, none of the vagueness there is around Golden versus Stella. You aren't modal like Pattern - I actually think we're more likely to run into more Ripper-phase Kingfishers in the future - you're just the template."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 02:47 am (UTC)

"Is one of them modal like me?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 02:48 am (UTC)

"Nah. Yours is closest, but too - serendipitous."
Edited 2013-10-21 17:03 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-21 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm serendipitous?" inquires Ripper.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, not very, but just a little -" Glass holds her fingers pinching a little bit of air. "You're right next to Pattern, who is perfectly modal in terms of her - original setup - or I don't think I'd be able to tell. You have small but noticeable effects from being from Origin in particular, and she doesn't, maybe because she was dead while the Joker and that bat person were up to what they were up to. You're less serendipitous than - Merryweather, say, who was set up to interact in a specific way with Aegis - if he has other setups it's with people I haven't gotten a look at. Juliet is actually serendipitous relative to Giles; he is exactly where he would have been anyway and she showed up in that place."

tearingup
2013-10-21 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Ripper.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 05:28 pm (UTC)

"And yet," says Giles, "I was sent to Sunnydale because the Council had such trouble finding her. I suppose, metacausally speaking, if not for Juliet there would have been some other reason?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Juliet's also the only Bell who lives in Sunnydale - maybe the only one who has one, though it's a smaller town than Gotham so we'd have to actually look it up instead of just knowing. Sunnydale was collecting the next Slayer, far enough in advance for her to be born there; if it hadn't been her it would have collected whoever it was instead."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 05:35 pm (UTC)

"The notion of Sunnydale collecting Slayers doesn't surprise me in the least," says Giles.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 05:36 pm (UTC)

"There you go. It's the sort of place that collects things. It collected you, but not because of Juliet in particular."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Right. Where is Juliet? I expected her to turn up and laugh at us at some point."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I could go get her, if you are finding her absence problematic."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 05:41 pm (UTC)

"No, not at all," he says, grinning.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure she's made at least some token effort not to laugh."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure there's plenty else to amuse her than the motions of templates through neighboring worlds."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 05:46 pm (UTC)

"She was inordinately entertained by the existence of Ripper," says Giles. "Someone should really tell her we've found another one, if she doesn't already know."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 05:47 pm (UTC)

Glass peers over the railing into the crowd. "She's talking to Amariah. It could easily come up that way."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Ah, then all we have to do is wait," says Giles. "My favourite."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Aegis didn't seem to find it nearly as funny. I guess she hasn't done as much in-person interacting?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Very little of it," agrees Merryweather. "She mostly knows me from my paperwork."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 05:59 pm (UTC)

Pattern snorts. "I guess that would do it."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if we'll ever find the reverse setup. Someone who more often appears as a partner turning up in some basically incompatible capacity and the new Bell looking at the rest of us askance."

tearingup
2013-10-21 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Like what?" says Keth.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Oh... I don't know, the obvious way would be if somebody got adopted into somebody else's family. Although since Aegis and Sue wound up together despite meeting at age six maybe that wouldn't do it."

tearingup
2013-10-21 06:13 pm (UTC)

Ripper envisions some future Bell turning up as some future Kingfisher's sister.

Ripper makes a face.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 06:14 pm (UTC)

Pattern pats him on the arm.

tearingup
2013-10-21 06:20 pm (UTC)

He hugs her.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 06:22 pm (UTC)

Juliet pops into place. "Hi, Alethia instance of - was Giles right that you'd 'come around' to calling the template Ruperts?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Kingfishers," says Hecate, from Keth's shoulder.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that's cute. I'd have a tiger, if that's the sort of thing you'd rather know. A really big tiger."

bellfounding
2013-10-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Firefly," says Pattern, disdain for possible firefly obvious.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, the kingfishers are a very definite template thing, you'll all have them," reports Glass. "And I already said, flying squirrel - cute little gray one."

tearingup
2013-10-21 06:33 pm (UTC)

"And you can call me Keth," Keth adds. Since he is not wearing his nametag.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Do you want your nametags back now they won't say Rupert on them?"

tearingup
2013-10-21 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, all right," says Ripper. Keth nods.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 06:41 pm (UTC)

Glass snaps her fingers. Nametags appear.

tearingup
2013-10-21 06:42 pm (UTC)

The Rippers look at each other, then at Giles.
Edited 2013-10-21 18:42 (UTC)

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything else to discuss?" he asks of the assembled Bells.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Not especially, I don't think."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 06:52 pm (UTC)

Juliet looks at Rippers.

And at Giles.

Finally she looks at Pattern and bursts into gales of howling, helpless laughter.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 06:53 pm (UTC)

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 06:54 pm (UTC)

Juliet tries and fails to get herself under control. Finally she teleports away.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 06:55 pm (UTC)

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 06:57 pm (UTC)

"My sentiments exactly," says Merryweather to Pattern.

"Does that mean you won't be joining us for tea?" says Giles, perfectly innocently.

bellfounding
2013-10-21 06:58 pm (UTC)

...At that, Pattern too laughs.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 06:58 pm (UTC)

Glass snorts, vaults over the railing, and wafts (robes billowing) down into the main party.

tearingup
2013-10-21 07:02 pm (UTC)

Ripper grins and kisses Pattern's forehead.

"So we're all going to go have... tea," he says. "Possibly not including Merryweather. All right?"

bellfounding
2013-10-21 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Have fun. Let me know if and when you want me to introduce you - singular or plural - to Cam." She kisses him, and then follows Glass over the railing.

This is continuation number 4 from here.

self_composed
2013-10-21 07:17 pm (UTC)

"So," says Stella, when she and Janine show up to the party, "do you want to meet the thirteen-year-old angel of yourself?"

(Her nametag says what it always says, in case Janine did not know her nickname; Janine's says she's a [Template Unnamed] who you can call Janine.)
Edited 2013-10-21 19:17 (UTC)

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I think I do!"

self_composed
2013-10-21 07:22 pm (UTC)

"All right then..." Stella flies a couple feet in the air, enough to scan the crowd easily, then lands again. "This way." She greets most of the people they pass, but heads straight for Junia where she is with Keziah.

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 07:25 pm (UTC)

Janine follows.

Yes, those are definitely angels!

self_composed
2013-10-21 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Keziah, hi, Junia. Junia, this is your alt I mentioned, Janine."

inherpiety
2013-10-21 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Hi! Ooh, is Junia going to look like you when she's your age?"

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I am given to understand that it is very likely!" says Janine.

"Wow, you are a me," says Junia.

inherpiety
2013-10-21 07:28 pm (UTC)

Keziah laughs. "Now we both have alts! Mine is probably around somewhere."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 07:32 pm (UTC)

"We should choose a template name," says Junia.

Janine looks at her nametag, and looks at Junia's nametag, and says: "Jnis."

Junia giggles. "That is acceptable!" she says, and their nametags update accordingly.

self_composed
2013-10-21 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Kind of hard to pronounce."

inherpiety
2013-10-21 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Ju-nees. Not too bad."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 07:37 pm (UTC)

"It is perfectly pronounceable," says Junia. "Jni jni jni!"

inherpiety
2013-10-21 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Jni," agrees Keziah.

self_composed
2013-10-21 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Your template, you can name it whatever you want," snorts Stella.

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 07:51 pm (UTC)

"And we named it Jni," says Janine. Junia giggles.

self_composed
2013-10-21 07:53 pm (UTC)

"So you did. Anyway, I already gave Janine the rundown on Samaria, but how much do you know about Eos?"

inherpiety
2013-10-21 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, I've been hearing about it since I was little, even if I thought it was just bedtime stories for the first while, but I don't think everything worth knowing has come up with Junia yet..."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I do not know very much about Eos at all," says Junia. "It is a world that has an Earth and is more or less like other worlds with Earths, and some magic comes from it."

inherpiety
2013-10-21 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Minting is from Eos, unless I'm mixing it up? And ingots. I might be an ingot but we don't know yet. So might my little sisters but probably not Damaris."

self_composed
2013-10-21 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, minting and ingots are both Eos things."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I am not either one of them," says Janine.

"Angels come from Samaria and I am one of those!" says Junia.

"I noticed," says Janine.

inherpiety
2013-10-21 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Everybody who is an angel that I know on Samaria and isn't other places looks funny and overbalanced," says Keziah, waving at Janine and Stella both.

self_composed
2013-10-21 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I did often use to overbalance. Not sure a set of wings would help. Hey, maybe Glass should look at you and see if you caught templatehood from me..." Stella waves Glass over.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:03 pm (UTC)

And over comes Glass, and Stella must catch her up by brainphone, because she peers at Janine and says, "Yep."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 08:07 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure how I feel about that!" says Janine.

"Me neither," says Junia.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:08 pm (UTC)

"I can't tell you how to feel about it. I've contagioused templatehood onto my cat and my best friend, it's kind of an occupational hazard of hanging out with Bells."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Your cat?" the Jnis ask, in exact unison.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:10 pm (UTC)

"...Cats in my world are people," clarifies Glass. "We haven't found any more of him yet, but any other Bells in a position to have sapient pets will have alts of Cricket. You may see him around here. He will be able to understand you but not vice-versa, I'm the only person who can do that."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 08:11 pm (UTC)

The Jnis make very similar faces.

newtimov
2013-10-21 08:12 pm (UTC)

Someone wanders by.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Hey - Ike? Ike. Hang on a second -" says Glass suddenly. "C'mere?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeeeeeeeees?" says Ike, turning around slowly.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Hi - stand over there? There's something..."

newtimov
2013-10-21 08:18 pm (UTC)

Puzzled but cooperative, he stands over there.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:19 pm (UTC)

Glass stares at him, and at Jnis.

"This would be easier to see if Icarin were here too but I've looked at him before, so I can pretty much... your template and their template are closer together than most independent templates. You aren't the same thing, but like - if Jnis are metaphorical sisters, Ikes are metaphorical cousins to them."

newtimov
2013-10-21 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure what to think of this!" says Ike.

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 08:23 pm (UTC)

"You do seem to sort of talk like us," says Janine.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

"I'm just reporting what I see, I can't tell you what to do with the information."

self_composed
2013-10-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

"So all the other templates are equally 'far apart'? And these ones are just - nearby each other?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Y- no. No, we're not all equally far apart. Bells are closer to -" She looks around, sees her cat approaching, scoops him up. "Bells are closer to Cricket's template than to Jnis or Ikes. There's almost..." She puts Cricket down over his yowled protest, flies up, spins in the air to look at everybody. She lands again. "Now that I'm looking for it there are clusters. Two of them. Two slightly different - colors."

newtimov
2013-10-21 08:28 pm (UTC)

"...Who belongs to which ones?" wonders Ike.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

"There's you and Jnis in the one color, Bells and Crickets in the other color, I think Sherlocks and Tonies are yours - These are not literal colors but maybe I should start referring to them as though they were anyway."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 08:31 pm (UTC)

"The two groups should definitely be named in some way," says Janine. "Otherwise it will get confusing."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Kanim is in the same cluster as Bells... yes, and you, Cricket." She picks her cat back up and rubs his fuzzy belly. "I think two of my daughters are in the Bell-and-Cricket cluster and Tanalin is in the other one..."

self_composed
2013-10-21 08:34 pm (UTC)

"If only we had a convenient cluster in our coin colors to tell us what to call these - halves."

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Moieties?" suggests Glass. "But we don't."

manofmyword
2013-10-21 08:37 pm (UTC)

The Joker has been told that now would be a good time to get a snack. He appears at a charming little table covered in plates of cookies, grabs one, and then turns toward the nearest conversation.

"What don't we?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:38 pm (UTC)

"We don't have a good name for the two clusters templates appear to fall into. You're in the other one."

manofmyword
2013-10-21 08:40 pm (UTC)

"The other one from - you?" he guesses, drifting over from the cookie table with a few more acquisitions. "Mm, that's nnnot a huge surprise. Who else is where?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Cricket here and my first and thirdborn and Kanim are with us, Jnis and Ikes and Sherlocks and Tonies and their parents and Tanalin are with you, and I'm not positive I can reliably make this distinction from memory with anyone I don't see all the time."

manofmyword
2013-10-21 09:00 pm (UTC)

One of his hands is full of cookies, but he gestures with the other one, illustrating each named person separated into the appropriate groups.

"Who else," he says thoughtfully. "My kids? Golden's crowd? Bet you dollars to donuts Aedyt's on my side." He taps the air and his aura obligingly adds a little illusory Aedyt to the group on his left. "Kerron's with my sweetie, I bet—" and Kerron and Nathan join the crowd on the right. "Now, if you wanna name the teams something fancy, I'm not your guy. But if you just wanna tell 'em apart..."

He wiggles the fingers of his free hand. The illusions on his right acquire an afterimagey green halo shimmering around their edges; the ones on his left become similarly purplish.

The Joker giggles.

"I love auras," he says, and eats a cookie.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Auras have their uses! Green and purple? Okay. You're purple, Bells're green, I'll have to check everybody else to make sure, it's distinct when I'm looking for it but I never was before I saw these close together." She waves at the Jnis and Ike.
Edited 2013-10-21 21:04 (UTC)

newtimov
2013-10-21 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I feel so useful," says Ike.

manofmyword
2013-10-21 09:05 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles again.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Jane, you want to tell everybody about this exciting new discovery so I don't get deluged in confused brainphoning more than my boosts can handle?"

mind_game
2013-10-21 09:08 pm (UTC)

[Sure. Hey, what am I, or do you have to go look at my actual body in the Belltower?]

[Hey, everybody! Glass has discovered that templates come in two moieties. We're calling them purple and green for now. She can look at you and find out which you are if you want, but don't crowd her.]

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I think I would have to go there, yeah. I'll stop in on my way home from here, how about?"

manofmyword
2013-10-21 09:13 pm (UTC)

The Joker snaps his fingers; his aura's helpful illusions disappear. A moment later, so does he.

newtimov
2013-10-21 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Now there is someone who knows how to make an exit," observes Ike to no one in particular.

self_composed
2013-10-21 09:15 pm (UTC)

Stella snorts. "I'd like to be copied when you identify my staff, no rush though," she tells Glass, and she wanders away.

thaumobabble
2013-10-21 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure," Glass says to her departing alt.

"Mow," says Cricket.

"I don't think turning it into a contest will accomplish anything useful, 'ket-cat."

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 09:21 pm (UTC)

"I think I will go outside and fly," says Junia. "Do you want to come?" (This to Keziah, on account of she also has wings.)

inherpiety
2013-10-21 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, let's!"

cheerfulish
2013-10-21 09:26 pm (UTC)

Off they go!

This is continuation number 5 from here.

segreant
2013-10-21 07:25 pm (UTC)

Céleste is inspecting this space plant. It is nice, and has lots of parts, so there is a bunch of it to explore.

telesonorous
2013-10-21 07:30 pm (UTC)

If she climbs around on the network of stairs spread over the walls of the main room, she might encounter a person perched on a cloud-pine branch and following them from the air.

segreant
2013-10-21 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Hi! You're not Yseult and you aren't Damaris! You must be Helen!" says Céleste, waving.

telesonorous
2013-10-21 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Hi! You're very logical!" says Helen, waving back. "I am Helen. And you are..." (she peers) "...Céleste!"

segreant
2013-10-21 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Céleste. "I'm a rosebud. You're... something, I guess? Aren't you from the world with animal souls? Where's your one?"

telesonorous
2013-10-21 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Kalavar's outside," says Helen. "I'm definitely a something. An etcetera, to be specific."

segreant
2013-10-21 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Why an etcetera?"

telesonorous
2013-10-21 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Cherubs, rosecubs, etcetera," she explains. "I'm the etcetera."

segreant
2013-10-21 07:55 pm (UTC)

"I guess. If I had an animal soul it would be a griffin," Céleste adds helpfully. "It only just settled into being anything instead of not working when I tried to see, a little while ago. But I already have one as a pet, so I don't want an animal soul one. Are you my age? That's weird. Even Damaris is older than me, and Yseult is a lot older."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 07:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm thirteen! Are you thirteen? If so, then we are the same age."

segreant
2013-10-21 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I am thirteen! Jane said Keziah is too. We matched last time we saw each other too."
Edited 2013-10-21 20:02 (UTC)

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:05 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if that will keep happening," says Helen. "I guess it will automatically if the worlds don't unhook again."

segreant
2013-10-21 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but we stayed matching even with the unhooking. I guess it could just be a coincidence. Our sisters don't match since the age gaps are different."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Helen, "I mean I wonder if it is a coincidence or if it's a Thing of some kind."

segreant
2013-10-21 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Dunno. Glass can tell about Things! We could ask her. Maybe we will."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Glass does do that," says Helen. "She told me and my alts some Things about us already. Like that our daemons and coin colours are themed."

segreant
2013-10-21 08:14 pm (UTC)

"My coin color is this complicated - thing," says Céleste. She makes a triangle; it's divided into three parts, one sky blue, one bright gold (albeit without metallic sheen), and one white with a scallopped almost furlike pattern in it. "I don't know about Keziah."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Mine are like so," says Helen, and she displays a square: it seems to be filled with sprays of pine needles that are always backlit by sunlight no matter how you turn the coin. "Damaris has feathers and Yseult has leaves, but they all do the sunlight thing."

segreant
2013-10-21 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Pretty!"

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:17 pm (UTC)

"I thought so too!" She disappears the square.

segreant
2013-10-21 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Mine look sort of like a coat of arms, but it's not any real coat of arms."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it's yours," suggests Helen.

segreant
2013-10-21 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, obviously it's mine. But it's not the Cygne coat of arms, we don't have one - and it's not Papa's Marche's either - it's not any one that existed before I started printing it on coins."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:22 pm (UTC)

"So your coins gave you a coat of arms. Neat."

segreant
2013-10-21 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I guess. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with a coat of arms! I don't ride my griffin into battle."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Would your griffin be amenable to being dressed up anyway?" giggles Helen.

segreant
2013-10-21 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Oooh, maybe, I could make him pretty barding!"

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

"And then you would have a use for your coat of arms," says Helen. "Perfect!"

segreant
2013-10-21 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I don't know, though, I've never tried to put clothes of any kind on Rainier. Perhaps he wouldn't like it."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:33 pm (UTC)

"You could try just a little bit of clothes," says Helen. "And if he's not bothered then you could try more, and if he's bothered then you could not."

segreant
2013-10-21 08:35 pm (UTC)

"That is a good idea. First I will make him a scarf."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:39 pm (UTC)

"That sounds really adorable," says Helen. "If he likes the scarf I want to see."

segreant
2013-10-21 08:40 pm (UTC)

"In person? Are you allowed to come visit Rêverie?"

telesonorous
2013-10-21 08:42 pm (UTC)

Helen blinks. "Might I not be? Who decides?"

segreant
2013-10-21 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Your parents, I guess? It's okay for people to visit Rêverie, so years ago we had the older two cherubs over, but we couldn't go to them because people in Samaria don't know about magic."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Kas doesn't really not allow things," says Helen. "I don't know about Amariah. I wonder if I should ask her." She contemplates this prospect.

segreant
2013-10-21 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't not allow things? What, at all?"

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Pretty much."

segreant
2013-10-21 09:09 pm (UTC)

"I guess Papa doesn't make most of our rules, but Maman does..."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

"If something's not a good idea, Kas says why," says Helen. "Or asks me not to do things. But if I wanted to do something anyway, he wouldn't stop me."

segreant
2013-10-21 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Maman explains things too, but they are still rules even if I still want to do them after she explains."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Kas doesn't do rules," says Helen.

segreant
2013-10-21 09:16 pm (UTC)

"I guess that could be nice, but I'm mostly embarrassed by times I did things Maman said not to when I was littler. That I didn't think to be embarrassed of back then. If I did more of them I would be more embarrassed."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:20 pm (UTC)

Helen shrugs. "I like the way I grew up. I wouldn't want to swap childhoods with anybody."

segreant
2013-10-21 09:21 pm (UTC)

"You liked not having your one of Maman around?"

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:25 pm (UTC)

"I liked some parts. Like having a secret mom, that was kind of fun. I didn't like that everyone was sad about her being gone. I liked going places with Kas, and baking cakes in the wilderness, and not having rules except with the clan. I didn't like getting kidnapped. But I like the whole thing, and how it made me turn out me instead of some alt of me, enough to want to keep it."

segreant
2013-10-21 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how I'd be if Papa had raised me by himself."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," says Helen. "And I don't know how I'd be if my secret mom had not disappeared and not been a secret. Well. I guess I wouldn't exist, that's kind of an answer."

segreant
2013-10-21 09:29 pm (UTC)

"You'd probably exist at some point! I mean, Yseult and Damaris do."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:31 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't exist now. I might not exist in the next three hundred years. I might not exist ever."

segreant
2013-10-21 09:32 pm (UTC)

"I guess. My parents had us slower than Angela and Micaiah had our alts."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 09:59 pm (UTC)

"And a bunch of other Jokers and Bells haven't had any kids yet at all. I'm not even sure I have the whole list - Stella and Alice, Aegis and Sue, Jellybean and Cam, Aianon and Sarion, Brilliance and Aurora... I wonder if Brilliance and Aurora can have kids, isn't he not even biological? I guess magic solves a lot of things, but I don't know what solving that would look like in the first place."

segreant
2013-10-21 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I guess they'd just wish her pregnant with one of you?" shrugs Céleste. "Since they know it'd be a you if it were just solved all by itself."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, but what if Brilliance wanted to be more involved in the process? Kas made himself pregnant with me. When it's just that two people can't have kids the traditional way because they don't have the right combination of parts or aren't species that normally go together, I can imagine fixing that with magic, but I can't imagine what you would even wish for to get a kid out of someone who isn't a kind of thing that reproduces." She shrugs. "I guess it's not my problem."

segreant
2013-10-21 10:08 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe they would make a Device that was a you like Jane is a Device now? I don't know if Devices are babies ever, though, and people who want kids seem to think it is important that they spend some time being babies."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it wouldn't be important for Devices, since they don't," says Helen.

segreant
2013-10-21 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Aurora's a human, though."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I mean maybe it wouldn't be important for kids who were Devices to be babies if Devices don't do that," she says. "But I don't know that much about Devices anyway. I haven't actually met the other Jokers. They'll probably get around to mobbing me in a few hours."

segreant
2013-10-21 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Probably. I don't know where they all are now, and I told Maman I had lost track of Papa, and she said that was probably for the best."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:18 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah, I bet they're off somewhere having... fun," says Helen.

segreant
2013-10-21 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I know, I don't want to think about it though."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:21 pm (UTC)

"In fairness, we don't actually know that they're not baking an enormous cake," says Helen. "Or making each other silly costumes. I'm now imagining Kas dressed up as a frog and it's really funny."

segreant
2013-10-21 10:23 pm (UTC)

"...Now I'm imagining Papa being fluffy and dressed up as a bird, at the same time."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:25 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles. "Fluffy bird! We should tell them, they'll do it."

segreant
2013-10-21 10:26 pm (UTC)

"He would be like a weird layered griffin. Rainier would be ashamed of him."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:27 pm (UTC)

She giggles some more.

segreant
2013-10-21 10:30 pm (UTC)

"And -" Whatever Céleste was about to say get cut off; she turns around. "There's... something coming."

inherpiety
2013-10-21 10:31 pm (UTC)

A moment later, her angel alt lands on the nearest balcony.

They look at each other, and then in the direction of the something that is coming.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 10:36 pm (UTC)

The stairs on which Céleste is standing enter a closed section about a dozen steps below the gathering. Someone emerges from that archway, sipping his tea as he climbs.

inherpiety
2013-10-21 10:37 pm (UTC)

The Griffins look at each other again, then approach him tentatively, stepping in sync.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 10:38 pm (UTC)

"...Er. Hello," he says.

segreant
2013-10-21 10:39 pm (UTC)

"We can fix that," they say at the same time.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Fix... what?"

inherpiety
2013-10-21 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Your arm," says just Keziah.

segreant
2013-10-21 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Have you ever done this before, because I haven't."

inherpiety
2013-10-21 10:43 pm (UTC)

"No, but I can tell you can fix it, too."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 10:44 pm (UTC)

"What about my arm? What—oh, not that bloody thing again," he says.

segreant
2013-10-21 10:45 pm (UTC)

"It's okay! We can fix it and then it won't bother you again!"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Fix it how," he says.

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm really confused," says Helen.

inherpiety
2013-10-21 10:48 pm (UTC)

Keziah snaps her fingers. "Oh! I was wondering if I'd ever get an ingot power! Maybe this is it!"

segreant
2013-10-21 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh, and then it makes sense that we both do it, too."

telesonorous
2013-10-21 10:51 pm (UTC)

Helen looks from the Griffins to Giles and back to the Griffins.

"...Should I just go away instead of asking?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes, sorry, please and thank you," says Giles.

segreant
2013-10-21 10:52 pm (UTC)

"You should let us fix it, though. You don't have to tell us how you got it on you."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 10:55 pm (UTC)

"What precisely do you mean to fix?"

inherpiety
2013-10-21 10:56 pm (UTC)

"...The thing on your arm. It's... all..."

segreant
2013-10-21 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Gooky," suggests Céleste.

inherpiety
2013-10-21 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it's really gooky."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

"And you want to get rid of the... gook," he says, "and you have some very good reason to think that will be an improvement?"

segreant
2013-10-21 10:58 pm (UTC)

"...Well, we haven't tried it before. There isn't any gook around at home."

inherpiety
2013-10-21 10:59 pm (UTC)

"But we can tell that we are anti-gook," says Keziah firmly.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 11:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm not entirely sure I want to be the first test subject," says Giles. "The, ah, thing on my arm has seen quite enough ill-considered decisions already. Do we have anything more to go on here than... gooky feelings?"

segreant
2013-10-21 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, we could ask Maman? Or her one of Maman. Or some other Maman, there are lots."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes, all right," sighs Giles. "Let us by all means ask a Bell."

inherpiety
2013-10-21 11:26 pm (UTC)

"But which one?"

segreant
2013-10-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

"I'll call mine," shrugs Céleste.

beheld_beauty
2013-10-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

Presently Rose teleports in. "What is going on?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm not quite sure," says Giles. "According to these girls, I have... 'gook'... on me."

beheld_beauty
2013-10-21 11:33 pm (UTC)

"...Are they correct?"

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 11:35 pm (UTC)

...He sighs. "Almost certainly."

beheld_beauty
2013-10-21 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, then, perhaps Lazarus could look at the three of you and tell us more."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-21 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Ah, yes. And where is Lazarus?"

beheld_beauty
2013-10-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I'll find him." She ruffles Céleste's hair and teleports Lazarusward.

nonbird
2013-10-21 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Hello!" says Lazarus.

beheld_beauty
2013-10-21 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Hello. Céleste and Keziah appear to have materialized ingot powers telling them there is unspecified 'gook' on Giles. Before doing anything about any of this I thought it would be wise to consult you; will you come look at them?"

nonbird
2013-10-22 12:00 am (UTC)

"Oh, of course," says Lazarus.

beheld_beauty
2013-10-22 12:00 am (UTC)

"Thank you." Teleportation.
Edited 2013-10-22 00:10 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-10-22 12:15 am (UTC)

These stairs are getting a little crowded.

Lazarus peers at Giles.

"...You have a... something," he says. "It's definitely a something. A very subtle something."

He turns to look at the Griffins.

"And you have ingot powers!"

inherpiety
2013-10-22 12:17 am (UTC)

"That's what we thought! We can fix him, right? We think we can fix him."

nonbird
2013-10-22 12:29 am (UTC)

"It... seems that you can fix him," he says. "At least, you can definitely do something, and you're definitely calibrated to expect that it's a positive something, and ingot powers don't really lie... actually," he says, "in a very distant sort of way, you remind me of a unicorn I met recently. You especially," he indicates Keziah, "but it's not much of a difference. You're both... purifiers, I could say. You clean things up."

inherpiety
2013-10-22 12:29 am (UTC)

"I'm like a unicorn?"

segreant
2013-10-22 12:30 am (UTC)

"But we're the Griffins."
Edited 2013-10-22 00:30 (UTC)

nonbird
2013-10-22 12:32 am (UTC)

"I don't think your ingot powers know that," says Lazarus. "It's just a comparison, anyway. But yes... let me look at you again." He turns back to Giles.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-22 12:33 am (UTC)

"If you must."

inherpiety
2013-10-22 12:33 am (UTC)

"Gooky," mutters Keziah.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-22 12:36 am (UTC)

"Yes, thank you, I'd noticed," says Giles, somewhat irritably.

nonbird
2013-10-22 12:39 am (UTC)

"You have a... connection to... something," says Lazarus. "I might be able to get more details if we were in your world. But it's definitely hostile, although very dormant, and it's definitely the kind of thing that the girls' ingotry can get rid of for you. There shouldn't be any unforeseen side effects, unless you were depending on your connection to a malevolent force or entity for something."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-22 12:40 am (UTC)

"Not especially," says Giles. He sighs. He looks around for somewhere to put his tea, discovers a lack of any such place, and sets it down on the stairs in front of him very close to the wall. "All right, you may... de-gook me."

segreant
2013-10-22 12:51 am (UTC)

The Griffins converge on his arm, and each hold it in both hands, interspersed, like they choreographed it in advance.

And they do - something.

inherpiety
2013-10-22 12:52 am (UTC)

It isn't quite painless, but it hurts in a good way - like removing a splinter or draining an abcess.

And there is a vaguely chilly clean feeling left behind after they're done.

jellyinthemix
2013-10-22 12:55 am (UTC)

Giles frowns slightly and rubs his shoulder.

"Thank you," he says.

inherpiety
2013-10-22 12:55 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Keziah brightly. "All gone."

jellyinthemix
2013-10-22 12:57 am (UTC)

"I'm just going to..."

He turns away, turns back, picks up his tea, turns away a second time, and heads down the stairs in the direction from which he came.

segreant
2013-10-22 12:58 am (UTC)

"Bye!"

This is continuation number 6 from here.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 09:28 pm (UTC)

Juliet locates Ike. "Hey you. I said I'd introduce you to the boy one of me. Is this a good time?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 09:29 pm (UTC)

"It is not a bad one!" says Ike.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Cool, he's over there investigating the snacks." Juliet leads Ike through people towards Cam.

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 09:30 pm (UTC)

Cam: is a boy of Juliet.

newtimov
2013-10-21 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Hello!" says Ike.
Edited 2013-10-21 21:32 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Hi! Who's this?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Cam, this is Ike. Ike, Cam. Ike was very interested to learn that I come in boy."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Oh was he."

newtimov
2013-10-21 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Um. Yes," says Ike. "Yes I was."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 09:40 pm (UTC)

"We have truly fascinating taxonomy, don't we, us Bells."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Slayer, angel, witch, elf, admiral, mage, psion, vampire, magician, enchantress, ingot, swanperson, and boy."
Edited 2013-10-21 21:48 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 09:49 pm (UTC)

"On that list I think I'd rather be represented as 'wizard'."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-21 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I'm sure one day you'll have company and it will no longer be such a tempting distinguishing feature. Besides, I left out a couple of us altogether."

newtimov
2013-10-21 09:51 pm (UTC)

"You are also a wizard?" says Ike. "What kind?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 09:51 pm (UTC)

"...Speech wizard?" suggests Cam. "Only one kind on my world. Learn magic language, convince stuff to do stuff with it."

newtimov
2013-10-21 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yes, that was a question about methods rather than nomenclature," says Ike. "I am not a wizard! I am an undergraduate student. Someday I will build robots. Well, I already build robots, but someday I will build much better ones."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Rumor has it that's a much wiser occupation on Sunshine than wizarding, robotics is. At least until Tilly and her alts camp out there long enough to scare the magic system straight."

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I have not heard about Tilly, who is Tilly?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:03 pm (UTC)

"She's a Matilda? There isn't one in Sunshine, maybe you haven't heard of them. There's three - mine, Rainbow's, and one from an unBelled world called Wellspring. Matildas are great."

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:09 pm (UTC)

"I had not heard of Matildas," Ike confirms. "That is interesting! How do they scare magic?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it turns out that Wellspring's magic system is actually lots like the Sunshine-family worlds, except Sunshine-family worlds have had it for a long time and demons or something have been using it in unpleasant ways. It's kind of impressionable magic, so it gets unpleasant when used that way. But Matildas are all really intensely good at this kind of magic, so if they went and were good examples for it, they might be able to shift things some."

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Ooooooh," says Ike. "That's interesting. They should do that! Our magic kind of mostly sucks right now."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:20 pm (UTC)

"They plan to! I don't think they have a timetable though."

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:24 pm (UTC)

"I am sure they will get around to it someday. Did you know you are extremely pretty?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:25 pm (UTC)

"I've heard this from reliable sources before. But not from you. It's good to know."

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh good," says Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:27 pm (UTC)

"You're cute, do people inform you of that often enough?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:28 pm (UTC)

"With reasonable frequency! But mostly they are members of my immediate family and that is not at all the same."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't expect it to be, no. But here I am, not related to you, thinking you're cute."

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:37 pm (UTC)

"I have noticed that," says Ike. "I am very pleased!"

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Good, I hate it when my flattering opinions are unhappily received."

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:40 pm (UTC)

Ike giggles.

Then he scans the surrounding airspace.

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:40 pm (UTC)

Cam looks up.

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I was looking for my sister," Ike explains. "She is likely to show up and interrogate you if she notices that we are talking. But she does not seem to have done that yet."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Why is she likely to do that?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:46 pm (UTC)

"She is very protective."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:47 pm (UTC)

"What, exactly, is she likely to expect me to maybe do to harm you?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:49 pm (UTC)

"...Lots of things, none of which I think you are actually going to do, but there is a really long list, because I have had very bad luck with boys," says Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Aw, that sucks."

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:54 pm (UTC)

"So now she makes sure to intimidate anyone she catches maybe sort of slightly flirting with me, but I don't think she is going to try to intimidate you in particular because you are probably not very afraid of being punched even if it's by Val, but I think she will probably still glare at you a little just in case."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I am fully warded up, yeah. Is she unusually good at punching?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if 'good' is the word. Maybe 'enthusiastic'. Also Sessiaki have iron bones."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Sessiawhonow? Are you one of the innumerable forms of Sunshine demon?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes! Well, partially. Full Sessiaki also have scales and tails," he says. "I'm slightly more than half human. I have shiny fingernails, an iron skeleton, some human-toxic dietary requirements, and I never need a compass or a ruler."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 11:03 pm (UTC)

"That is an interesting array of features. Can I have a look at the fingernails?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Ike. He holds out his hand. His fingernails are, indeed, shiny - and a little smoother than human ones, and faintly opalescent.

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 11:07 pm (UTC)

Cam takes his hand and peers at them. "Very cool. I'd think it was a deliberate aesthetic if you hadn't told me. How does the geometry thing work?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I have a perfect sense of distance and direction, by eye and by physical orientation," he says. "The Sessiaki writing system tends to boggle humans because they don't see angle and distance automatically. But for example I can tell you that you're slightly taller than five-ten, about a sixteenth of an inch to be exact - heights are really interesting around here actually, with all the templates, your alts are mostly about five-four but very few of them are exactly the same as each other, and some of the other templates I've seen really are exactly the same across the board." He takes a breath. "And if I close my eyes and spin around several times I still know which way is north. Or, well, any direction. And if I were to walk around blindfolded I could tell you exactly how far I'd gone and draw the route on a map. Moving between worlds is always weird that way because it doesn't feel like going anywhere, but I am still demonstrably somewhere else."
Edited 2013-10-21 23:23 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Is your sense of direction freaking out about being in space?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Not particularly. Most things are in space if you step back far enough," he says. "I don't have trouble with the moon orbiting the Earth or the Earth orbiting the sun, either. Actually when I was little it took me a while to get used to moving around in vehicles - I used to get horribly carsick, and I have thrown up on at least five separate trains - but it did not stay a problem for very long."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 11:32 pm (UTC)

"I would not actually have speculated that the moon would give you trouble. Do you generally track arbitrary moving objects? Tides in the Indian Ocean, tectonic plates, comets, particularly energetic whales?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Only ones I can see," he says. "And I can pay more or less attention to particular ones. But I see dimension and distance with about the same immediacy as colour."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 11:42 pm (UTC)

"So other stuff gets in the way of it? How much stuff does it take to be 'opaque' to this sense?"

newtimov
2013-10-21 11:56 pm (UTC)

"It's a visual sense," he says. "Well, partly. Mostly. One is... as though everything in my field of vision comes with little labels saying what the distances are between any part and any other part, and the other is orientation relative to known landmarks. But—" he starts to make a gesture, discovers that Cam is still holding his hand, goes very suddenly very pink, and continues after a short pause without continuing to gesture "—I don't orient relative to where something is, I orient relative to where I remember it. I can always find where we parked the car, but if somebody moves the car I can't immediately tell where they put it. If someone teleported my house three feet backward, I'd notice the next time I looked out the window or went outside, but I don't think I'd be able to tell right away. I haven't actually experimented with teleporting, come to think of it."

lifes_sake
2013-10-21 11:57 pm (UTC)

"What about distorting lenses, funhouse mirrors, that kind of thing?" Cam asks. He appears to find the blushing very cute. "Also, happy to teleport you someplace if you'd like."

newtimov
2013-10-22 12:09 am (UTC)

"Distorting lenses... imagine looking at a ruler in a curved mirror," he says. "You can see all the tick-marks even though it looks like it's a funny shape. Visual distortions don't change the underlying dimensions, and they don't change my perception of the underlying dimensions. But mirrors are interesting, actually, because they're almost like those optical illusions where it's two faces and you blink and it's a vase. I see the real relative position of reflected objects, but I can imagine the relative position they would have if the reflected light had been travelling in a straight line through a transparent pane. There's, um, a science museum back home that has a hallway lined with two not-quite-parallel mirrors, and I used to stand in it and make myself dizzy trying to see all the imaginary relative positions of all the reflected Ikes."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 12:11 am (UTC)

"This is fascinating. And the science museum part is adorable."

newtimov
2013-10-22 12:13 am (UTC)

Ike giggles.

"You can teleport me somewhere if you want!" he says. "That would be interesting."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 12:13 am (UTC)

"Sure. Should we find your sister and get her attempt at intimidating me out of the way?"

newtimov
2013-10-22 12:14 am (UTC)

...Ike giggles harder.

"Sure!"

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 12:14 am (UTC)

Cam makes sure his hold on Ike's hand is secure and smiles and ports them both to wherever Ike's sister may be.

newtimov
2013-10-22 12:17 am (UTC)

They appear in midair, outside the space plant, with nothing below them but the planet of Thilanushinyel very very far away.

Ike squeaks.

grabsthebutt
2013-10-22 12:26 am (UTC)

An indistinct glowing figure with massive indistinct glowing wings, swooping through the air toward them from about ten feet up and thirty feet forward, brakes suddenly. The humanoid silhouette drifts to a halt standing upright in midair at the edge of conversational distance, with her wings spread out flat to either side and rippling gently to keep her in place.

If those darker shapes blurrily visible in the glowing white form are what Sessiaki skeletons look like, they have a lot more differences from the human kind than just being made of iron.

Then the glowy white stuff around that skeleton shimmers and contracts slightly, revealing a very human-looking person with a definite family resemblance to Ike. She's wearing jeans and a T-shirt; the glowy white stuff seems to flow through the material to reach her skin, and stops being a window to her skeleton as soon as it is all the way through.

"Hi, what the hell?" she says.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 12:29 am (UTC)

"Hello, you must be Ike's sister. I'm Cam."

grabsthebutt
2013-10-22 12:30 am (UTC)

"Val," says Val. (She is not wearing her nametag.)

newtimov
2013-10-22 12:31 am (UTC)

"He is sort of slightly flirting with me," Ike says helpfully. "I think."

grabsthebutt
2013-10-22 12:31 am (UTC)

Val snorts.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 12:32 am (UTC)

"I didn't think I was being that ambiguous about it."

grabsthebutt
2013-10-22 12:35 am (UTC)

"You have to be pretty direct before Ike will stop looking for alternate interpretations," says Val. "Try not to make him cry. I punch people who make him cry, and I think I might get kicked out of the party or something."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 12:36 am (UTC)

"I don't think I have ever made anyone cry. Also, it wouldn't be automatic for you to be kicked out, it'd depend on how mad I was and how much Juliet likes you and whether you seemed likely to be otherwise disruptive."

grabsthebutt
2013-10-22 12:43 am (UTC)

"Well, if you don't make him cry, we won't have to worry about it," says Val.

newtimov
2013-10-22 12:44 am (UTC)

"I think he is very unlikely to make me cry!" contributes Ike. "He is nice and interesting! And very pretty."

grabsthebutt
2013-10-22 12:46 am (UTC)

"He is definitely pretty," says Val.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 12:54 am (UTC)

"Just once I wish people would look past my stunning exterior and see me for the wizardly millionaire philanthropist that I really am inside," deadpans Cam.

grabsthebutt
2013-10-22 12:56 am (UTC)

"Uh-huh," says Val.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 12:57 am (UTC)

Cam tilts his head, and says, "My notebook bird reminds me that it is the recorded opinion of the world Alethia that I am actually a notebook bird inside," he reports.

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:00 am (UTC)

"You are and/or have a notebook bird?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:03 am (UTC)

"Yep." He reaches with the hand that is not still holding Ike's into his ever-present backpack, and pulls out Grace, currently in notebook form. "Don't touch her," he warns. "She's my daemon. Have you heard about daemons?" She turns into her hawk-self, standing on his forearm.

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:05 am (UTC)

"I have sort of vaguely heard about daemons!" He blinks at the hawk.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:07 am (UTC)

The hawk blinks back, and spreads a wing to preen.

"She used to be just a notebook - well, not just, I magicked all my preexisting notebooks into a single one, she was the smartest and most magic notebook ever," Cam says. "Then I was helping Amariah with her afterlife and needed a daemon to be there, but managed to get Grace to be my daemon instead of getting a separate one, and now she can switch."

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:09 am (UTC)

"That... is a story," says Ike. "About a thing that happened. My goodness."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:11 am (UTC)

"She's a Cooper's hawk. If there are future boy Bells who are also called Cam I'll probably go by Cooper for that reason."

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:15 am (UTC)

"Every so often I almost manage to forget how far outside my experience this party is," says Ike, "and then it occurs to me that I am floating in space above a planet in another world holding the hand of someone whose soul is a bird that is also an amalgamation of notebooks." He smiles a tiny smile. "And I don't hold people's hands very often," he adds.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:18 am (UTC)

"The situation isn't too far out of the scope of things that my life tends to contain, and I still do a mental double-take when I notice things like, 'hey, I'm holding the hand of a part-demon introduced to me by my alternate universe self and floating near some dragons outside of a plant magically generated by a completely unrelated kind of demon, and also my soul turned out to live in my magic notebook and is a bird now'," Cam chuckles. "I don't know if that goes away, I'd have to ask one of the older ones of me."

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:19 am (UTC)

Ike giggles. "I'm glad it's not just me!" he says.

grabsthebutt
2013-10-22 01:21 am (UTC)

Val eyes them both.

"All right, you pass," she says to Cam. "Have fun."

The glowy white stuff wells up out of her skin to cover her clothes again, and she folds her wings and dives under the space plant.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:23 am (UTC)

"Ooh, I pass. Do I get a prize?"

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:24 am (UTC)

"Maybe," says Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:25 am (UTC)

"Maybe?"

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:26 am (UTC)

"Well, I think the prize is that Val leaves you alone while you possibly flirt with me," he says.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:27 am (UTC)

"Aha. And hold your hand, that also seems to be ongoing."

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:30 am (UTC)

"Yes! Those," says Ike. "Those are examples of things we can do without Val's interference."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:36 am (UTC)

"Cool. Are those the kind of activity you prefer to do with a floor under you?" Cam inquires. Grace turns into a notebook again; he catches her and tucks her back in his backpack.

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:37 am (UTC)

"Generally speaking, yes," says Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:39 am (UTC)

"There are floors to be had."

The floor that Cam picks out is a floor up from the main party area, looking out into the crowd.

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:46 am (UTC)

Ike relaxes slightly. "This is a floor," he says, gazing down at it. "It is very a floor." He looks out past the railing. "And there's where we were standing earlier - teleportation does wipe out my orientation the same way interdimensional travel does. But I can get it back the same way, too, by placing myself relative to known landmarks again."
Edited 2013-10-22 01:49 (UTC)

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:50 am (UTC)

"And then it's all - restored from backup? How good is your memory for this stuff?"

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:53 am (UTC)

"Very, very good," he says. "I couldn't retrace every step I've taken in my entire life, but I could probably draw you an accurate map of the parts of Toronto I've been to more than once."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 01:56 am (UTC)

"Cool. Are you working with about the same quality senses that a full Sessiaki would have, or did you get a toned down version?"

newtimov
2013-10-22 01:59 am (UTC)

"About the same," he says. "Sessiaki-human mixes seem to be lucky that way. I can also see violet, which full Sessiaki can't; their visible spectrum is a little smaller."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:01 am (UTC)

"And that glowy thing your sister was doing, is that also a thing you do or something else?"

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:02 am (UTC)

"That is iethat. She is an ithue," he says. "About a third of Sessiaki are. I'm not."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:05 am (UTC)

"...Stop me if all the questions are intrusive or you get them all the time or they are insufficiently flirtatious. Alternatively, ask me questions about wizardry or notebook birds or what I have learned from talking to inanimate objects."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:07 am (UTC)

"I don't actually get them very often, because the set of people who know my mom is Sessiaki but don't already know all about them is extremely small," he says. "You talk to inanimate objects? I suppose you implied that earlier. What do they say?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:10 am (UTC)

"Depends! Plants range from extremely stupid, like grass, to fully sapient - most trees. This is only on my world, Syntropy - not even the stars outside of Syntropy are worth holding a conversation with, and stars back home are really smart. My wizard manual will talk to me about what's inside it, answer questions, direct me to page numbers. Grace is a person and always knows what I've written in her. Other stuff will answer basic questions about its properties if I ask it."
Edited 2013-10-22 02:18 (UTC)

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:19 am (UTC)

"Does this space plant say things?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:20 am (UTC)

"Good question." Cam looks at the nearest part of contiguous space plant, which is the railing. "Hello, space plant!"

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:21 am (UTC)

"I'm a space plant," says the space plant.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:22 am (UTC)

"Yes you are. Anything else to say?"

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:23 am (UTC)

Pause.

"I'm a big space plant!"

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:24 am (UTC)

"Is it saying things?" says Ike. "I can't tell."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:25 am (UTC)

"It says it's a space plant. It's a big space plant. This isn't Syntropy, so that's probably all I'm gonna get out of it."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:26 am (UTC)

Ike giggles. "It's true! It is a big space plant. It might even be the biggest space plant ever. It's definitely the biggest one I've seen. But then, I have only seen one space plant."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:27 am (UTC)

"I am not aware of larger, but then, I don't know what Aianon has been up to for the last sixteen subjective years in Origin while Jane was broken."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:29 am (UTC)

"Maybe he was space gardening the whole time," says Ike. "Maybe Origin has space forests now."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:31 am (UTC)

"Maybe! I know he was there in the first place to put an ecosystem on Saturn. Do plants on Saturn count as space plants?"

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:31 am (UTC)

"No," he says decisively. "Saturn is a planet. They are planetary. Planetary plants."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:33 am (UTC)

"Planetary plants," snorts Cam. "Very well. But perhaps he became bored with ecosysteming Saturn, and Pat's world has space forests now with space plants ten times the size of this one. I cannot ask it, for it is not the sort of thing it would know."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:33 am (UTC)

Ike giggles.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:36 am (UTC)

"Aianon made me a fruit once. It was heart-shaped - I mean, anatomically correct heart-shaped - and it was tasty so I kept the seeds. The trees have not turned out very clever - they are brighter than this plant, probably since I grew them in Syntropy, but they wouldn't win any contests within the world. But they are uncommonly emotional. They're always happy to see me and know who I am because they were made for me."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:37 am (UTC)

"...That's adorable," says Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:38 am (UTC)

"Isn't it just? I mean, I have befriended a tree, but this is on another kind of level."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:40 am (UTC)

"Heart fruits!" he says, giggling. "Heart fruits. Heart fruits that love you."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:42 am (UTC)

"Well, the trees love me. The fruits, once picked, are not so full of mental activity that I feel any qualms about taking bites out of them. I did have a very anxious few days when I first learned to talk to things. Quizzed muffins, etcetera. I'm still slightly vegetarian on those occasions when I don't eat conjured food."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:43 am (UTC)

"...Yes," he says, "I suppose eating food that was aware enough to love you would be slightly horrifying. Did the muffin pass the quiz?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:44 am (UTC)

"Failed it miserably! All it could say was, 'I'm a muffin'! It did not react when I warned it I was going to bite it. It did not complain when I did so."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:46 am (UTC)

"That's good," says Ike. "I would hate to think about all food being smart enough to complain when you try to eat it."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:47 am (UTC)

"Most food is not. I mean, nothing in actual food form is smart, but I talked to a goat and she was capable of telling me that she didn't want to be eaten, so I don't eat anything that used to be potentially brighter than a chicken. Chickens are really stupid, though."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:51 am (UTC)

"I am glad my visions of screaming cupcakes are not supported by reality."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:52 am (UTC)

"At one time I thought I had met a very clever rock but it turned out to be a disguised evil deity."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:53 am (UTC)

"...I think I just had another 'floating in space holding hands' moment," giggles Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:54 am (UTC)

"Yeah. The disguised evil deity introduced itself to me as Iggy," Cam adds, winking.

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:55 am (UTC)

"Pfffffffffff," says Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 02:56 am (UTC)

"And then it tried to convince me not to do so much Belling because I was cramping its style and I didn't bite and then it tried to kill me and Jellybean and Tilly saved my life, so that was exciting."

newtimov
2013-10-22 03:00 am (UTC)

"It sounds it!" says Ike. "I am glad the evil rock did not kill you."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 03:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah, me too. It does continue to exist, I'm not sure yet what to do about it, although the list of possibilities recently expanded to 'hire the assassin from Materia who terrifies both her local Bell and Glass'."

newtimov
2013-10-22 03:02 am (UTC)

"...I don't think I would like to hire an assassin that terrified multiple Bells!" says Ike. "But I guess an evil deity would be a good reason to do it."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 03:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah, ordinarily I wouldn't wanna interact with her, I have had enough unfortunate experiences with Materia, but Iggy's kind of a problem. Syntropy's not hooked up to Downside, there's something in the way, and I bet Iggy's involved."

newtimov
2013-10-22 02:09 pm (UTC)

"I cannot even imagine trying to solve this problem," Ike says after a moment. "At home you don't solve evil gods, you avoid them as much as possible. Or at least I don't. I guess somebody probably does, or we'd have evil gods popping up like mushrooms."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Juliet solved an evil god," says Cam. "I think it was in her job description even apart from being a Bell."

newtimov
2013-10-22 09:34 pm (UTC)

Ike nods.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 09:36 pm (UTC)

"So what do the robots you build do?" inquires Cam.

He is still holding Ike's hand.

newtimov
2013-10-22 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Things," he says, with great authority, and then grins. "Actually not very many things. I tried to build a robot puppy once but I did not succeed. That's what trying again is for, though! The latest thing I'm working on is stairs. Because we have a Roomba, and they're really only good for relatively unobstructed flat surfaces, and stairs get dirty too, so I'm trying to build a robot that can climb up and down stairs, and then I'll figure out how to make it also vacuum them."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 09:44 pm (UTC)

"A stair-climbing Roomba. That's adorable. It's probably cheating on the robot puppy thing if you just make something that bends in all the right places and someone gets it to come when called by magic, isn't it."

newtimov
2013-10-22 09:49 pm (UTC)

"That would be very cheating!" he says. "Magic usually is. Which is all right for some things, but I want to build a robot puppy, not just get one from somewhere else."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's fair, it'd be like wishing a crossword puzzle filled in. There is already something which does the job of being a puppy without having to be built and it is called a puppy."

newtimov
2013-10-22 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes. They are very cute," he says. "That is why I want to build a robot one. I would be much better at taking care of it than I would be with an actual dog, and it would still be cute and fluffy and reasonably huggable."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I've never had a pet. Most of us don't. Glass has a cat, but on her world cats are people and also magically useful."

newtimov
2013-10-22 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I have not had any pets either. But someday I will have a cute fluffy robot friend."

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I wish you the best of luck. The fur exterior won't present insoluble problems with cooling the processors or anything?"

newtimov
2013-10-22 10:05 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Not very many things are really insoluble if you are clever and have flexible parameters!"

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 10:05 pm (UTC)

"I like that attitude."

newtimov
2013-10-22 10:25 pm (UTC)

Ike beams!

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 10:28 pm (UTC)

"You are very cute and I would rather like to kiss you."

newtimov
2013-10-22 10:29 pm (UTC)

...Ike beams more!

"I would like to kiss you too!" he says.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Excellent," says Cam, "that's very convenient."

Ike is shorter than he is, so Cam just leans right down and kisses him.

newtimov
2013-10-22 10:35 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Kind of grinny kisses. Hopefully that is okay.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 10:37 pm (UTC)

It is okay, if a little giggle-inducing.

newtimov
2013-10-22 10:43 pm (UTC)

Giggles can be a bad sign, but in this case Ike tentatively concludes that they are okay.

Kisses. Kisses are nice. Cam is so pretty. Also he is very kissable.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 10:44 pm (UTC)

Cam is pretty and kissable and nice! Ike is also those things.

This kiss should be accompanied by more of a hug. The one of Cam's arms that is not attached on one end to Ike's hand participates in bringing this about.

newtimov
2013-10-22 10:46 pm (UTC)

A hug! Hugs are nice too. Ike squeaks, but it is a delighted sort of squeak. And he hugs back.

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 10:47 pm (UTC)

[You are adorable.]

(This particular use of the brainphone is a large fraction of its use cases, really.)

newtimov
2013-10-22 10:57 pm (UTC)

[I am glad you think so!] says Ike. [You are really attractive, wow.]

lifes_sake
2013-10-22 10:57 pm (UTC)

Well, the only appropriate response to that is more kisses.

newtimov
2013-10-23 12:26 am (UTC)

That is the best response. Ike is so pleased.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 12:40 am (UTC)

Good. Pleased kissing: best kind.

newtimov
2013-10-23 12:41 am (UTC)

And Ike is very pleased, so it is very best.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 12:43 am (UTC)

Cam is pretty damn pleased too. Cute boy, pleased kissing, all is well.

newtimov
2013-10-23 12:47 am (UTC)

They could be at this for a while.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 12:48 am (UTC)

They could.

[So do you prefer this display of affection public? Because there are less-public rooms available in the space plant.]

newtimov
2013-10-23 12:50 am (UTC)

Ike considers this!

He says [Hmm,] and disengages from kisses so he can think about it properly.

And then he says: "Yes I think that is a great idea."

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 12:53 am (UTC)

"I wonder if the space plant knows where to send us. Hey, space plant, where is an unoccupied room with a door?"

pythbox
2013-10-23 12:55 am (UTC)

"There are many rooms like that under the main floor, reachable by stairs next to the archways," says the space plant, in the mode of the Speech used by unthinking objects when queried about their physical structure.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 12:56 am (UTC)

"Excellent." And Cam drapes an arm around Ike's shoulders and follows the space plant's directions.

newtimov
2013-10-23 01:12 am (UTC)

Ike leans on him and beams the whole way down.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 01:14 am (UTC)

And here is a room! With a door! And a bed. And nobody in it.

newtimov
2013-10-23 01:17 am (UTC)

Ike takes the greatly daring step of kissing Cam on his own initiative after they have closed the door.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 01:18 am (UTC)

That is great! Cam, of course, kisses him back, because what else is he supposed to do with a cute boy who kisses him?

newtimov
2013-10-23 01:22 am (UTC)

He could do many things, but this is obviously the best option. Kisses.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 01:23 am (UTC)

Oh could he? Do many things? For example, could he resume that hug? With a view to no longer being in public, even?

newtimov
2013-10-23 01:29 am (UTC)

Ooh. Yes he could. Ike hugs him back in a snuggly fashion.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 01:30 am (UTC)

Snuggliness is best. Cam approves. They should sit down. There is a bed to sit on. Cam sits on it, tugging Ike gently after him.

[D'you have an idea of where you want this to go?] he inquires lightly, after this has been going on for awhile and he's made some use of his ability to do without oxygen.
Edited 2013-10-23 01:38 (UTC)

newtimov
2013-10-23 01:41 am (UTC)

[I haven't been thinking about it particularly,] he says. [Because of kisses. They are highly distracting.]

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 01:42 am (UTC)

[Mmm, they can do that, it's true.]

Is it less distracting if Cam starts kissing Ike on the neck instead?

newtimov
2013-10-23 01:43 am (UTC)

It causes him to squeak! And then no it is even more distracting. And nice. Extremely nice.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 01:44 am (UTC)

[You want me to quit distracting you?] asks Cam teasingly.

newtimov
2013-10-23 01:46 am (UTC)

"Noooo," giggles Ike. "Continue."

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 01:46 am (UTC)

Cam obliges happily.

newtimov
2013-10-23 03:28 pm (UTC)

Oh good! That is good. Cam is good. Ike is so pleased.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 04:25 pm (UTC)

Nibble?

newtimov
2013-10-23 04:26 pm (UTC)

This is a positive development.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 04:27 pm (UTC)

In that case, plural nibbles.

newtimov
2013-10-23 04:31 pm (UTC)

"You are really great," sighs Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 04:32 pm (UTC)

[You are adorable.]

newtimov
2013-10-23 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I am glad you think so!"

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:27 pm (UTC)

Nibble nibble kisses.

Cam is arranging to be in a position where at least one of his hands might notice that Ike's ribs are angled funny, but at least this won't come as a surprise.

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:28 pm (UTC)

If Cam's hands wind up in a position to notice that, Ike is very likely to squeak! He seems to do that a lot.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:28 pm (UTC)

[Are these good squeaks?]

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he giggles. "That was a good squeak. Well, a surprised squeak, but it's a nice surprise!"

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:30 pm (UTC)

[Spiffy.]

Om nom nom Ike.

[Lemme know if you want me to stop distracting you so you can answer more complex questions.]

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:36 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "But they're such nice distractions."

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:37 pm (UTC)

"No shortage," laughs Cam, pausing briefly in nibbles for some repositioning. Then he resumes. Nibble nibble.

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:38 pm (UTC)

"You are really great," sighs Ike. "I said that already. But then you kept being great."

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:39 pm (UTC)

[I am so glad you think so.]

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:41 pm (UTC)

He giggles again. He has a cute giggle.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:42 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle nibble nibble, just how many cute sounds can Cam get Ike to emit?

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:44 pm (UTC)

Quite a few! There is the giggling, and the sighing, and the happy little hummy sounds...

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:45 pm (UTC)

All good things. Cam is not going to get tired of them anytime soon.

Although he will observe: [We are both wearing shirts. Does that seem right to you?]

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Now that you mention it, I think it is non-optimal!" says Ike.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:47 pm (UTC)

Cam decides that shirts can be removed the long way around on this occasion.

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:49 pm (UTC)

Ike supports this decision fully! Or he would, if he knew Cam had made it. He is definitely pleased about both the outcome and the process, anyway. Also it has been a long time since he has kissed Cam, and he is going to fix that now.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:49 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm shirtless kisses.

newtimov
2013-10-23 05:54 pm (UTC)

Yeeeees.

(Ike's ribs are indeed angled funny, and his spine is human in general curvature but not in the shape or placement of individual vertebrae. It's not something you'd notice with his shirt on, but it's pretty obvious now. He is mostly not self-conscious about it; it's not like the fact that he's part demon is news.)

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 05:55 pm (UTC)

Cam has an only-mildly-academic interest in all these shapes. He will investigate them a little.

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:07 pm (UTC)

...ooh.

Ike gets kind of squirmy when thusly investigated! But in a good way. With grinning.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:08 pm (UTC)

That is good. Cam does check periodically to make sure that the squirms are good squirms.

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:12 pm (UTC)

They continue to be that. Yes. Definitely positive.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:14 pm (UTC)

Good, good.

Eventually there is a natural lull in the proceedings during which the snuggle to nibble ratio is rather high.

"Have you formed an idea what you wanna do here?" Cam inquires lightly, putting a lock of hair behind Ike's ear.

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly..." says Ike. "I mean, I definitely have a general idea, but I am lacking in specific ones."

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:29 pm (UTC)

"What is your general idea like?" (He nuzzles the side of Ike's neck.)

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:31 pm (UTC)

"It involves the same broad category of thing that we have been doing for the last... hour or so? I have completely lost track of time."

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Hour and eleven minutes."

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:32 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "You're handy."

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:32 pm (UTC)

Cam walks one of his hands up Ike's chest. "Yep."

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:33 pm (UTC)

He giggles harder.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:35 pm (UTC)

"I could break the question into smaller bits if that helps. For example, should we continue wearing pants?" (Nibble. It's really cute when Ike is distracted, okay?)

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:37 pm (UTC)

"You are distracting me on purpose," Ike accuses, giggling.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Because it causes adorableness."

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:38 pm (UTC)

Ike attempts to glare, but there is too much giggle.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:38 pm (UTC)

Cam kisses his nose.

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:39 pm (UTC)

Ike squeaks.

Then he kisses Cam's nose right back, so there.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:40 pm (UTC)

Cam beams.

And says, "Pants?"

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:40 pm (UTC)

Ike contemplates pants.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:41 pm (UTC)

Cam waits. And doesn't distract him again. (Unless ogling is distracting. It might be.)

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:42 pm (UTC)

(It is a tiny bit distracting but not so much that Ike completely loses his train of thought, so that's okay.)

After a minute or so, he says, "I think we do not need to continue wearing pants!"

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Ooh."

Well then, these pants Cam is wearing are just unnecessary, then. He will be rid of them forthwith.

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:44 pm (UTC)

Ike giggles. And kisses him. This is apparently his reaction whenever Cam removes an article of clothing.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:45 pm (UTC)

Is it really? Cam could take his socks off, too. Test this hypothesis.

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:48 pm (UTC)

That would be very logical!

Also Ike kisses him again.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:48 pm (UTC)

Excellent.

Ike is also wearing pants. He could stop.

Cam could help.

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:49 pm (UTC)

Ike supports this course of action in all particulars.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:49 pm (UTC)

Cam is very helpful, then.

(He gets Ike's socks too, while he's at it. Socks are unnecessary.)

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:50 pm (UTC)

(Ike's toenails are, like his fingernails, slightly opalescent. Not very many people have ever had cause to notice this.)

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:51 pm (UTC)

Cam notes it, finds it unsurprising, and proceeds back up. For kisses.

newtimov
2013-10-23 06:56 pm (UTC)

Kisses, yay!

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 06:59 pm (UTC)

Pantsless kisses.

In case the revealing absence of denim yields anything Ike finds interesting. No rush, Cam isn't going out of his way to point it out, but it's there.

newtimov
2013-10-23 07:02 pm (UTC)

Well. Yes. That does appear to be a thing.

Ike is not entirely sure what to do about this thing!

But they appear to have plenty of time, and there are always kisses. Lovely kisses.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 07:03 pm (UTC)

Kisses are quite lovely, yes.

newtimov
2013-10-23 07:10 pm (UTC)

Lovely. Lovely and pantsless.

If Cam has any more suggestions to make in the nearish future, Ike may be feeling receptive.

lifes_sake
2013-10-23 07:11 pm (UTC)

Well. Asking Ike questions (in small, bite-sized pieces; when Cam can restrain himself from distractions) has been going so well.

This is continuation number 7 from here.

segreant
2013-10-22 01:08 am (UTC)

The Griffins are a-prowling the space plant, looking to see if anyone else requires their services!

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:18 am (UTC)

There is someone over there who might qualify! She is sitting by herself in a roomlet high on the wall of the main room, perched on a stool next to the railing and watching the people milling around on the floor below.

inherpiety
2013-10-22 01:18 am (UTC)

"You have gook on you," announces Keziah. "We can fix it, though, we just found out!"

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:21 am (UTC)

"What kind of gook, exactly?"

inherpiety
2013-10-22 01:22 am (UTC)

"I don't know. It's not in a place like the gook on that man's arm was."

segreant
2013-10-22 01:22 am (UTC)

"Yes, it's on your self, not your body."

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:23 am (UTC)

"Can you tell me anything else about the gook?"

segreant
2013-10-22 01:24 am (UTC)

"We can get rid of it?" offers Céleste. "We've tried it now. But we aren't magic-seers like Lazarus."

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:25 am (UTC)

"I'd rather not get rid of something about me without knowing what it is," says (according to her nametag) a Libby whom you can call Aelise. "I might turn out to need it later."

inherpiety
2013-10-22 01:26 am (UTC)

"Well, we could get Lazarus."

segreant
2013-10-22 01:26 am (UTC)

"But it's gooky, why would you want it on you?"

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:29 am (UTC)

"I don't feel especially gooky, and I don't know what kinds of things you think of as gook," says Aelise.

segreant
2013-10-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"Bad gooky kinds of things," says Céleste.

inherpiety
2013-10-22 01:35 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna call Lazarus."

[Lazarus, we found more gook, but this lady won't let us take it off without telling her what it is, help?]

nonbird
2013-10-22 01:37 am (UTC)

Lazarus teleports to them.

"...You must be from Gift," he says to Aelise, blinking. "Goodness."

inherpiety
2013-10-22 01:38 am (UTC)

"I do not remember any bedtime stories about Gift. Is it gooky?"

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:40 am (UTC)

"Debatably," says Aelise.

nonbird
2013-10-22 01:40 am (UTC)

"...Oh," says Lazarus.

inherpiety
2013-10-22 01:43 am (UTC)

"What?"

segreant
2013-10-22 01:43 am (UTC)

"Tell us what it is so she'll let us take it off," says Céleste. Unlike the last instance, this kind of gook is more her specialty than Keziah's.

nonbird
2013-10-22 01:48 am (UTC)

"It's... I think it's the effect of the Chelsea alt local to Gift," he says.

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:48 am (UTC)

Aelise sighs. "That, unfortunately, will have to stay."
Edited 2013-10-22 01:48 (UTC)

segreant
2013-10-22 01:49 am (UTC)

"But it's gooky!"

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:50 am (UTC)

"I need it for now. Talk to me about it again in approximately a hundred years," she says.

segreant
2013-10-22 01:51 am (UTC)

"That's a long time!"

salus_populi
2013-10-22 01:55 am (UTC)

"Yes," she says. "If you'd like, I could point you at some people who I'm sure would love to have any lingering effects of Chelsa removed - two Jokers, Harley and Corona."

segreant
2013-10-22 01:57 am (UTC)

"Okay. Maybe Papa knows where they are." [Papa?]

deslandes
2013-10-22 02:00 am (UTC)

[Yes?]

segreant
2013-10-22 02:00 am (UTC)

[Me and Keziah have this ingot power and we can get gooky magic off people and there's this lady who won't let us take it off her, but she says Harley and Corona are other Jokers who might, do you know where they are and if they want us to ungook them?]

deslandes
2013-10-22 02:01 am (UTC)

[What kind of gook do you suppose Harley and Corona—? Never mind, I think I know,] he says. [I will find them and ask them.]

segreant
2013-10-22 02:02 am (UTC)

[Okay, thanks!]

deslandes
2013-10-22 02:06 am (UTC)

A very short while later, he says, [They are sitting outside together and would be happy to see what you can do about their gook.]

segreant
2013-10-22 02:07 am (UTC)

[Thanks, Papa!]

"Can you teleport?" Céleste asks her alt, and when Keziah shakes her head, she does it herself, and there they are.

"We are here to ungook you. There isn't nearly as much of it on you, though."

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:10 am (UTC)

Harley and Corona are sitting side by side on the platform that rings the space plant, tucked up against the outer wall of the main room. Corona has his arm around Harley's shoulders and Harley is leaning into him comfortably.

"Yeah," says Harley, "probably 'cause Elsie got most of it."

inherpiety
2013-10-22 02:12 am (UTC)

"Well, she didn't get it all. It's - it's like -"

segreant
2013-10-22 02:13 am (UTC)

"It's like if someone burned down a forest and salted the earth and then put a bunch of fake trees, and then someone took away the fake trees," says Céleste. "I think we can get the salt, too."

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:13 am (UTC)

"...yeah," says Harley, "that would be awesome, do that."

segreant
2013-10-22 02:14 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Céleste, and she and Keziah put their hands on Harley's head, and unsalt him.

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:17 am (UTC)

He shivers;

he beams;

he vanishes.

Corona laughs. "I bet he's off to hug his wolf," he says. "Chelsa doused him from everybody. He's got most of it back - it's easy to get Jokers to like people, hard to get them to stop - but I guess not all."

segreant
2013-10-22 02:19 am (UTC)

"We can do you too."

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:20 am (UTC)

"...Yeah," says Corona, folding his hands in his lap and looking down at them, "that'd probably be... good."

inherpiety
2013-10-22 02:21 am (UTC)

"Are you okay? Do you want another of Dad here when we do it?"

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:25 am (UTC)

Corona shrugs. "I'll be fine," he says. "I'll go find the rest of us after, it's not like there's a shortage."

segreant
2013-10-22 02:26 am (UTC)

"It's true. There are quite a lot."

She reaches for his head.

They do their magic.

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:28 am (UTC)

For a moment there is no visible effect; he breathes out calmly, looking a little distant.

And then he pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them and drops his head into the space thereby created and cries.

segreant
2013-10-22 02:30 am (UTC)

"A-are you okay?"

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:32 am (UTC)

"I'm—fine," he sniffles, shivering. "Just—there were so many..."

inherpiety
2013-10-22 02:33 am (UTC)

"So many what?"

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:34 am (UTC)

Too much crying. Cannot answer.

inherpiety
2013-10-22 02:37 am (UTC)

Keziah hugs him, fluffing one wing around his back.

segreant
2013-10-22 02:38 am (UTC)

Céleste tucks in too.

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:42 am (UTC)

Corona sniffles and leans into Keziah a little when she hugs him.

"Thanks," he says haltingly.

segreant
2013-10-22 02:43 am (UTC)

"You're welcome. Are you gonna be okay?"

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:45 am (UTC)

Still shivering, he manages, "Yeah."

inherpiety
2013-10-22 02:45 am (UTC)

"What were there so many of?"

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:47 am (UTC)

"People," he says. "Chelsa... could make you - like somebody, or stop. I was with her a long time. She did a lot of - stopping. When somebody left, or died. So we wouldn't be..." He trails off, shuddering.

segreant
2013-10-22 02:48 am (UTC)

"That's what the gook was?" shudders Céleste.

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:52 am (UTC)

Corona nods unhappily, with his head still mostly tucked into his arms.

segreant
2013-10-22 02:52 am (UTC)

The Griffins go on snuggling him.

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:54 am (UTC)

That is good. They are good snugglers.

Eventually he uncurls enough to hug them back.

"Thanks," he says.

inherpiety
2013-10-22 02:55 am (UTC)

"You're welcome," says Keziah.

pythbox
2013-10-22 02:56 am (UTC)

He takes a deep breath and lets it out again.

"I'm gonna go hug some Jokers," he says. "See you."

And he's gone.

This is continuation number 8 from here.

small_magics
2013-10-22 03:02 am (UTC)

Sarion knows perfectly well that Lycaelon is not generally a party person, so she (Ansharil on her shoulder in purple furry winged creature form, tail around her neck) goes and checks on him after she has welcomed incoming contingents to her world.

wildlymagical
2013-10-22 02:07 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon has found himself a mostly-enclosed roomlet halfway up a wall, partway up an enclosed flight of stairs and with only a narrow balcony overlooking the main room. He suspects it was made with him in mind.

"Hello, Isibel," he says.

small_magics
2013-10-22 04:09 pm (UTC)

"I See you. I hope the quantity of people is not too overwhelming even with this little retreat. I will leave you more thoroughly alone, if you prefer."

wildlymagical
2013-10-22 09:36 pm (UTC)

He smiles. "I'm all right. No one's bothered me yet. Thank you, though."

small_magics
2013-10-22 09:38 pm (UTC)

"You are welcome. I believe," she adds, "that both of your alts have appeared today. I was not sure if they would."

wildlymagical
2013-10-22 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I wonder where they are," he says. "I haven't seen them."

small_magics
2013-10-22 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I caught glimpses when Jane first brought them here, but there are dozens of guests and I soon lost track. I could go and find them easily enough if you would like them invited up here to meet you."

wildlymagical
2013-10-22 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, I would like to meet them..." he says consideringly.

small_magics
2013-10-22 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I will go and see if this interest is reciprocal." She pecks him on the cheek, and teleports first to the Peace instance.

"I See you."

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Howlett, raising an eyebrow.

small_magics
2013-10-22 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I am Isibel Sarion. The local instance of your template, my co-Bonded Lycaelon, has expressed interest in meeting you."

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:02 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "All right."

small_magics
2013-10-22 10:03 pm (UTC)

She takes that as consent to teleport him to where Lycaelon is. Pop!

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:05 pm (UTC)

Howlett looks at Lycaelon.

wildlymagical
2013-10-22 10:06 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon looks at Howlett.

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:10 pm (UTC)

"You're so young," he says finally, shaking his head.

wildlymagical
2013-10-22 10:11 pm (UTC)

"You're not that old... is this a magic thing?" he wonders.

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:12 pm (UTC)

He snorts, and explains, "Mutant. The local not-magic thing. I'm older than I look, and I'm not gonna look any older."

wildlymagical
2013-10-22 10:13 pm (UTC)

"...How much older than you look...?"

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Three hundred years," he says. "Give or take. I'm sure about the last hundred and seventy of them, but before that it gets patchy."

small_magics
2013-10-22 10:30 pm (UTC)

"This may or may not make you the oldest human in the party. I will go and look for the third one of you."

And she goes and looks for the third one of them.

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Luhan, raising an eyebrow. He is remarkably similar to Howlett: same apparent age, same mannerisms, roughly the same style of dress and personal grooming.

small_magics
2013-10-22 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I See you. Your alts have met, and you could join them, were you so inclined."

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Might as well," says Luhan.

small_magics
2013-10-22 10:35 pm (UTC)

Pop!

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:36 pm (UTC)

Luhan and Howlett... just kind of stare at each other.

small_magics
2013-10-22 10:37 pm (UTC)

Sarion giggles a little.

wildlymagical
2013-10-22 10:47 pm (UTC)

So does Lycaelon.

small_magics
2013-10-22 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps you are also older than you look," Sarion ventures to say to Luhan.

areyouabeer
2013-10-22 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Mm? Yeah," he says, "I'm about four hundred and thirty."

small_magics
2013-10-22 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Presumably this is due to a Gift," she speculates. "I wonder if there are any older humans here. Living ones, at any rate. Older nonhumans certainly. I am not sure how old Nona is, I suppose, and Beast could be counted as a human and is roughly that old."

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 12:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Luhan. "My Gift is immortality. Well, and a few extras."

"Heh," says Howlett. "How's your skeleton?"

"...Nothing special, why?"

"Mine's been... improved," says Howlett. "Back in the twentieth century. And I've got these." He makes a fist with his right hand, and three long metal claws erupt from between his knuckles, clicking audibly into place. He displays them to Luhan and Lycaelon, demonstrates that his wrist still bends, and then retracts them to a presumable housing in his forearm.

"I don't have those," says Luhan.

wildlymagical
2013-10-23 12:24 am (UTC)

"You wish you had those," says Lycaelon.

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 12:25 am (UTC)

Luhan throws him a startled glance, and then bursts out laughing. Howlett joins in.

small_magics
2013-10-23 12:26 am (UTC)

Sarion laughs, too. "Improved, and you have claws. I suppose the claws are original."

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 12:39 am (UTC)

"The claws are original, but they used to be bone. They got improved with the rest," Howlett explains.

Luhan is still laughing.

small_magics
2013-10-23 12:39 am (UTC)

"A curious form of improvement."

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 12:41 am (UTC)

"Well, my bones don't break anymore, that's nice," he says. "And I can cut through steel, although there's not much call for that these days."

small_magics
2013-10-23 12:42 am (UTC)

"I do not know what call there may have been in the past to cut steel," remarks Sarion.

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 12:52 am (UTC)

Howlett shrugs. "I've led an active life," he says dryly. "Made a few friends and a lot of enemies. I was pretty glad to outlive all the ones who had a habit of locking me up."

"I know the feeling," says Luhan.

small_magics
2013-10-23 12:54 am (UTC)

"It would seem that Lycaelon is the odd one out of the three of you."

wildlymagical
2013-10-23 12:56 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "I know. Apparently there are a lot of template things that I missed out on because the magic of this world doesn't work that way."

small_magics
2013-10-23 12:57 am (UTC)

"Apart from the Knight-Magery, which I suppose was as close as you could get."

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 01:02 am (UTC)

"And Knight-Magery is...?" says Howlett.

wildlymagical
2013-10-23 01:10 am (UTC)

"Knight-Mages are a kind of Wildmage. Wildmages are... I don't know how to explain," he says. "But Knight-Mages in particular have... an unshakeable will, which I haven't yet had cause to demonstrate, and an affinity with the arts of war. And they're supposed to be bad at doing most magic, but I'm not."

small_magics
2013-10-23 01:13 am (UTC)

"Thilanushinyel has three kinds of mage. Wildmages receive a set of three Books which contain spells, which they can perform at the cost of some personal energy and services done for the Wild Magic - the cost may be split among several parties, however. By contrast, High Mages pay only an energy cost and require more complicated materials and setup. Elfmages like myself have no such inconveniences, but cannot operate at all without dragons; elves who do not have dragons are only capable of 'small magics'."

wildlymagical
2013-10-23 01:18 am (UTC)

Lycaelon nods along with this explanation.

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 01:18 am (UTC)

"I think I like Gifts better," says Luhan.

small_magics
2013-10-23 01:21 am (UTC)

"I do not imagine I could convince Tab to trade circumstances with me, there is that."

endragoned
2013-10-23 01:40 am (UTC)

(The fluffy purple creature apparently sleeping on Isibel's shoulder curls his long fluffy tail around her neck and nuzzles her jaw with his small fluffy head.)

small_magics
2013-10-23 01:40 am (UTC)

(She pets him.)

endragoned
2013-10-23 01:42 am (UTC)

(He loves her ever so.)

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 01:42 am (UTC)

small_magics
2013-10-23 01:46 am (UTC)

"I can explain, if you would like, but it is not a particularly cheering story."

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 02:12 am (UTC)

Lycaelon's alts exchange a glance.

"We're fine," says Howlett. "Unless you want to tell us."

small_magics
2013-10-23 02:13 am (UTC)

She shrugs. "In your position I would prefer to be told, but if you are indifferent I would as soon refrain."

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 03:25 pm (UTC)

Howlett and Luhan also shrug, in near-unison.

small_magics
2013-10-23 04:24 pm (UTC)

"You seem even more similar than most alts, even though I would not have categorized your worlds as being unusually alike."

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Luhan.

"Guess we are," says Howlett.

small_magics
2013-10-23 04:26 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why."

areyouabeer
2013-10-23 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Couldn't tell you," says Luhan.

small_magics
2013-10-23 04:45 pm (UTC)

"I believe I shall leave you all to get acquainted."

She pecks Lycaelon on the cheek again, and departs.

This is continuation number 9 from here.

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 09:27 pm (UTC)

Zeus (with Andrea draped over his shoulder as some sort of furry dragon) is currently making a valiant effort to rid this party of the scourge of eclairs.

pythbox
2013-10-22 09:47 pm (UTC)

Harley appears out of nowhere and hugs Zeus enthusiastically.

"Hi! I love you!"

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 09:48 pm (UTC)

Spontaneous imprint hugs are way more important than eclairs! "I love you too!" Hugsnuggle.

pythbox
2013-10-22 09:52 pm (UTC)

Snugglehug!

"Some girls came and said they could get rid of more of what Chelsa did and they did and it's gone and it's wonderful," he says, mostly into Zeus's shoulder.

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 09:54 pm (UTC)

Squish-hug. "That's great! I didn't even know there was anything left."

pythbox
2013-10-22 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Jokers bounce back fast from being doused but she still did it," he explains, "and it was still slowing me down, and now it's not and did I mention I love you? I love you." Snuggle snug.

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I love you." Zeus kisses the top of his imprint's head.

pythbox
2013-10-22 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I love you tooooo." Snuggle snuggle. "Hey, do you wanna come meet some Jokers? You haven't, right? They're fun!"

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Uh, maybe. I actually do not know what will happen if I am presented with a bunch of people who look just like you but aren't!"

pythbox
2013-10-22 10:01 pm (UTC)

"They don't really look just like me," he says thoughtfully. "Well, not to me, anyway, I dunno about you, would it be too weird?"

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 10:02 pm (UTC)

"I guess we can find out. Maybe if the Imperial Seer is not busy she can check to see if I will explode, first?"

pythbox
2013-10-22 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Harley. "Let's go bug her."

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 10:31 pm (UTC)

Eventually Alice is located.

She makes kind of a face. "Jokers give me a headache," she sighs, but she closes her eyes anyway. "No, no explosions, not even Edward's weirdness around Bella's alts, you're fine."

"Thanks!" says Zeus.

pythbox
2013-10-22 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" beams Harley. "Sorry about your headache!"

And he leads Zeus to the predictable location of a large number of Jokers: the orgy chambers located among the roots of the space plant, under the main room and its encircling platform.

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 10:36 pm (UTC)

Zeus is sufficiently Harleysexual that he wasn't likely to wander into an orgy for reasons of his own, but he's also a wolf with the consequent casualness around both nudity and personal privacy. He follows his imprint happily.

pythbox
2013-10-22 10:38 pm (UTC)

Anyway, Harley brainphones ahead, and when they enter the correct room everyone is mostly just snuggling.

"Hi, everybody! This is Zeus, he's my wolf and he's the best," he says, giving Zeus the huggiest of hugs.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-10-22 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Aww, you're adorable," says Queenie from amid the general pile. "Wanna hug?"

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 10:42 pm (UTC)

Zeus does not need to worry about Andrea coming into contact with other Jokers, so he just says, "Okay!"

gunpowdergelatine
2013-10-22 10:44 pm (UTC)

Queenie extricates herself and comes up and hugs the Zeus-and-Harley concatenation.

She is extremely cuddly. The cuddliest. Magically cuddly. It's pretty great.

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 10:45 pm (UTC)

"You are really cuddly!" Zeus observes.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-10-22 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I am," Queenie agrees. "I have an aura of cuddly. Well, also an aura of fuckable, but you won't be meeting that one."

pythbox
2013-10-22 10:49 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty great, too, though," says Harley. "If you don't wanna be mass-hugged, speak now."

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I could go for some mass-hugging."

yourheartstrings
2013-10-22 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Beautiful," says a voice out of thin air, and Ghosty materializes to pile on.

manofmyword
2013-10-22 10:54 pm (UTC)

Other

endragoned
2013-10-22 10:55 pm (UTC)

Jokers

cardistry
2013-10-22 10:55 pm (UTC)

follow.

deslandes
2013-10-22 10:55 pm (UTC)

One of them is fluffy!

floofcoaster
2013-10-22 10:56 pm (UTC)

Zeus laughs. "You guys having fun dividing me up when I'm yea big or should I arrange for there to be more of me to hug?"

pythbox
2013-10-23 12:39 am (UTC)

"You mean get floofy? You should totally get floofy," says Harley, snuggling him.

floofcoaster
2013-10-23 12:41 am (UTC)

"Right then," says Zeus, and he divests himself of outfit (he isn't in uniform today, it didn't seem like party wear) and then:

Floof!

It's very fast and very sudden; Andrea's sitting on top of him and just gets bounced a little, but Jokers standing near him may be flung into walls.

pythbox
2013-10-23 12:43 am (UTC)

There are quite a lot of Jokers standing near him.

manofmyword
2013-10-23 12:43 am (UTC)

And they all think getting flung into walls is hilarious.

deslandes
2013-10-23 12:44 am (UTC)

Beast, appropriately enough, is the first one to recover and pounce on floofy Zeus for floofy snuggles.

floofcoaster
2013-10-23 12:45 am (UTC)

Fluffy Zeus flops onto his side and accepts cuddles!

[Yeah, I thought that'd get a laugh.]

yovahs_kisses
2013-10-23 12:57 am (UTC)

"It was fantastic," giggles Micaiah. "Oh, you're so fluffy!"

truthwright
2013-10-23 12:59 am (UTC)

Kas pounces too. Petaal turns into a fluffy dragon along the same lines as Andrea and tackles her in midair; they land on Zeus's fluffy shoulder and commence snuggling it.

floofcoaster
2013-10-23 01:00 am (UTC)

Zeus licks the nearest Joker's face.

cardistry
2013-10-23 01:11 am (UTC)

Brilliance giggles and kisses Zeus's nose in retaliation.

floofcoaster
2013-10-23 01:13 am (UTC)

Zeus barks a wolfy laugh and his tail wags.

yourheartstrings
2013-10-23 01:20 am (UTC)

"That tickles," giggles Ghosty, who has ended up near his tail.

floofcoaster
2013-10-23 01:21 am (UTC)

[Good,] laughs Zeus. Wag wag wag!

yourheartstrings
2013-10-23 01:23 am (UTC)

Ghosty continues to giggle!

pythbox
2013-10-23 01:24 am (UTC)

"I love you," says Harley, curling up and flopping his head onto Zeus's fluffy tummy.

floofcoaster
2013-10-23 01:25 am (UTC)

[I love you too.] Harley also gets licked.

pythbox
2013-10-23 01:27 am (UTC)

Harley giggles and snuggles in closer. The Jokerpile in general distributes themselves comfortably for snuggling.

floofcoaster
2013-10-23 01:28 am (UTC)

Wag wag wag wag snuggle snuggle (slurp) wag wag.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-10-23 01:31 am (UTC)

Queenie pets Zeus's fluff. "You're a sweetie," she says. "I'm glad Harley found you."

floofcoaster
2013-10-23 01:32 am (UTC)

[Me too!]

pythbox
2013-10-23 01:37 am (UTC)

"Me three," says Harley, snuggling Zeus some more. Snuggling everyone, actually. Being in a pile of Jokers is great. Zeus is great. Snuggles are great. Everything is great.

This is continuation number 10 from here.

exactlyright
2013-10-23 03:07 am (UTC)

Even though it went so well last time, Carinna's reserves of bravery are not infinite, and now she is sticking to her sisters.

guessguess
2013-10-23 03:07 am (UTC)

Kiawen doesn't mind!

forgefires
2013-10-23 03:19 pm (UTC)

Neither does Tanalin!

She brought her fluffbat. It is flopped on her head. She thinks it is extremely fashionable.

guessguess
2013-10-23 04:24 pm (UTC)

Kiawen agrees completely. Her piano bear Keys is sitting on her shoulder, wearing a tiny waistcoat.

exactlyright
2013-10-23 09:44 pm (UTC)

"Do you want food? I might want food."

guessguess
2013-10-23 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I want a beverage. They're in the same place!"

That place is the buffet!

forgefires
2013-10-23 09:46 pm (UTC)

It is!

"I love all the little snacky things," says Tanalin. She is currently investigating the depleted eclairs.

guessguess
2013-10-23 09:51 pm (UTC)

They're not very depleted.

Kiawen pours herself some fruit punch.

exactlyright
2013-10-23 09:51 pm (UTC)

Carinna looks at large amounts of unrecognizable food before settling on some clearly identifiable strawberries with chocolate on them.

forgefires
2013-10-23 09:52 pm (UTC)

"I enjoy these little snacky things in particular!" concludes Tanalin of the eclairs. "They're puffy and tasty."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Are they sweet, or... what?" says Carinna, suspicious of the eclairs.

forgefires
2013-10-23 09:56 pm (UTC)

"They're sweet and kind of cake-ish with chocolate on them and this creamy airy sweet stuff inside," says Tanalin, displaying a bitten eclair.

exactlyright
2013-10-23 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh, that sounds nice." Carinna takes one too.

forgefires
2013-10-23 09:59 pm (UTC)

Tanalin scarfs down the rest of hers.

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, tiny cupcakes," says another girl, approaching the tiny cupcakes (which are close by the eclairs). She is sitting on a hovering pine branch, barefoot, wearing a lot of black silk arranged in mysterious configurations. And no nametag.

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:06 pm (UTC)

"You don't have a nametag," observes Carinna. This is consternating!

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:08 pm (UTC)

"I know," she says. "I'm Helen Ianthe."

She grabs a tiny cupcake. Nom.

guessguess
2013-10-23 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Where are you from? You look kind of familiar, are you a template? We're Glass's kids, we're from Chronicle."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Alethia," she says. "I'm the same template as Yseult and Damaris."

guessguess
2013-10-23 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Oh, so you're our cousinoid!"

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I guess!" she says, and takes another cupcake.

forgefires
2013-10-23 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Are those good?" wonders Tanalin.

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:13 pm (UTC)

"They are tiny and cute and delicious!" says Helen.

forgefires
2013-10-23 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Tanalin, and she grabs one.

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:15 pm (UTC)

Carinna waits for Tanalin's food-tasting verdict.

"Doesn't Alethia have those animals? Where is your animal?"

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Kalavar's outside. She's kind of huge, so it'd be hard not to bump into anybody in here. And bumping into people would be bad."

forgefires
2013-10-23 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I like the tiny cakes!" says Tanalin. "They're tiny and cake-y."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:20 pm (UTC)

Carinna takes a tiny cake.

"Why is yours huge?"
Edited 2013-10-23 22:20 (UTC)

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Apparently it's a template thing," she says, "my alts would both have enormous birds too."

guessguess
2013-10-23 10:24 pm (UTC)

"We don't have any alts. I wonder if we'd have the same animals if we did. I don't even know what we'd have. Bella said it doesn't stay put till you're - well, our age, I guess, I asked when we were ten."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:24 pm (UTC)

"I'm not going to have any alts. Bella and Sherlock are going to tell the others not to make any."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:25 pm (UTC)

"...Why not?" says Helen, cautiously.

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:26 pm (UTC)

"I asked them to. I don't think there should be more."

guessguess
2013-10-23 10:27 pm (UTC)

Kiawen pats Carinna's elbow. "She's very sensitive, even though we live in the nicest world."

forgefires
2013-10-23 10:30 pm (UTC)

"That's why I tell her about foods!" says Tanalin, beaming at her sisters and raiding the buffet table for a wee pie. She takes a bite and proclaims, "Tiny apple pie! I'll check to see if there's more kinds."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Carinna.

guessguess
2013-10-23 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I'm not a very good food tester, I like everything."
Edited 2013-10-23 22:31 (UTC)

forgefires
2013-10-23 10:32 pm (UTC)

Tanalin begins to systematically investigate the wee pies.

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Awww," says Helen.

guessguess
2013-10-23 10:34 pm (UTC)

"I can't remember which of Bella it is in Alethia. I mean, I guess it's the one with the soul animal, but I can't remember her peal name."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Amariah. She's a witch," says Helen. "An Alethia witch - I guess there are different kinds."

guessguess
2013-10-23 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Chronicle has two all by itself! We're part fire-witch, just a little -" Kiawen pats the bottom of a chafing dish full of sausages illustratively. "On Sherlock and Tony's side. And Bella's a magician, which means she does all kinds of magic including witching, but not fire witching because that's a family thing."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:40 pm (UTC)

"And we have friends from Toure-en-Marsh who are entirely fire-witches."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Witching is just about the only available kind of do-able magic in Alethia - well, the subworld I'm from, I guess I don't know about the rest. And it's hereditary. You're either a witch or you're not, and witches' kids are witches if they're girls and not if they aren't."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:44 pm (UTC)

"That doesn't seem very fair!"

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:47 pm (UTC)

Helen shrugs. "I guess it's not."

guessguess
2013-10-23 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Maybe her Bella is going to fix it?" Kiawen suggests to Carinna. "For boys who want to be Alethia witches."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Maybe."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 10:51 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not sure there are any of those," says Helen. "I guess it's always possible." She looks at Carinna, and decides not to continue on to mentioning the possible negative social repercussions of such a change.

forgefires
2013-10-23 10:55 pm (UTC)

Tanalin has finished investigating the wee pies!

"There are cherry ones and apple ones and peach ones and ones that are a kind of fruit I don't know," she says. "The mystery fruit is mysterious and really tasty. They all have different shapes of holes in the top for what kind they are."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Which ones are peach?"

forgefires
2013-10-23 10:59 pm (UTC)

"The ones with the little spirals!"

exactlyright
2013-10-23 11:16 pm (UTC)

Carinna takes a spiral pie and bites it.

guessguess
2013-10-23 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Why wouldn't boys want to be witches?" asks Kiawen.

telesonorous
2013-10-23 11:25 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, I just can't think of any I've ever met who did. Which means there's probably not lots, even if there's some."

guessguess
2013-10-23 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I guess most not-fire witches at home are girls. Not anywhere near all, though."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 11:31 pm (UTC)

"It's something about the way the magic works, in Alethia."

guessguess
2013-10-23 11:43 pm (UTC)

"But most magicians are boys. Not by as much, I think. Bella's best friend is another magician and he's a boy. So I wonder what you'd get if you counted all the magicians like they were witches? I mean, they mostly sort of are."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea," says Helen.

guessguess
2013-10-23 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Apparently there are entire worlds without magic."

exactlyright
2013-10-23 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I talked to somebody from one! I think so, anyway, if they have magic it isn't very practical. She said they can't even stack rooms, there."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Stack rooms?"

exactlyright
2013-10-23 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Make them be all in the same place."

telesonorous
2013-10-23 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Alethia magic can't do that either," says Helen.

exactlyright
2013-10-23 11:55 pm (UTC)

"What can it do?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 12:00 am (UTC)

"Things," she shrugs. "Mostly subtle things. Making sick trees healthy, lighting fires, stuff like that. Sometimes bigger stuff, though, like flying," and she gestures to the branch on which she sits.

exactlyright
2013-10-24 12:38 am (UTC)

"Chronicle witches ride broomsticks too. Except Bella doesn't like them. She has flying armor and a flying carpet and she can just plain fly."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 12:40 am (UTC)

"Alethia witches ride cloud-pine," says Helen. "It's a special kind of pine. Amariah made her palace be a giant one. And because my daemon's so big, I can ride her, but I don't know of anybody else who can do that with theirs."

guessguess
2013-10-24 12:42 am (UTC)

"Broomsticks on Chronicle can be made out of anything. They don't even really have to be broomsticks. You can make flying laundry baskets, if you want!"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 12:53 am (UTC)

"...Flying laundry baskets actually sound a lot more stable," she muses. "I mean, if it was a big enough basket. You could sit in it. Falling off of cloud-pine branches isn't a huge widespread problem or anything, but something basket-shaped has more of a sense of... snugness to it."

guessguess
2013-10-24 12:54 am (UTC)

"Yeah, it's only they're not very aerodynamic, and hard to steer."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 12:55 am (UTC)

"I can imagine!" she says. "Maybe if it was more... boat-shaped? Like, I don't know, a flying kayak."

forgefires
2013-10-24 12:56 am (UTC)

"Oooh, flying boats," says Tanalin. "I want a flying boat! I'm gonna ask Tony to make a flying boat."

guessguess
2013-10-24 12:57 am (UTC)

"That sounds like fun! It could have sails! You could sail around in the clouds!"

forgefires
2013-10-24 12:59 am (UTC)

"If she makes it big enough for more people, we could sail around in the clouds!"

exactlyright
2013-10-24 01:00 am (UTC)

"I like just plain magic flying best, I think. It just sort of works without being all complicated."

guessguess
2013-10-24 01:00 am (UTC)

"We can sail around in the clouds and you can fly next to us like a sky dolphin!"

forgefires
2013-10-24 01:02 am (UTC)

"This is such a great idea," says Tanalin.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 01:02 am (UTC)

Helen giggles.

exactlyright
2013-10-24 01:02 am (UTC)

"That does sound fun," admits Carinna.

guessguess
2013-10-24 01:03 am (UTC)

"I have fun ideas," says Kiawen.

forgefires
2013-10-24 01:05 am (UTC)

"You do! You're a fun person."

guessguess
2013-10-24 01:05 am (UTC)

"Yes."

Keys nearly falls off her shoulder, but she catches him.

forgefires
2013-10-24 01:06 am (UTC)

Tanalin giggles.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 01:07 am (UTC)

"What is that, by the way? It looks like a tiny panda," says Helen. "A really adorable tiny panda. In a really adorable tiny waistcoat."

guessguess
2013-10-24 01:14 am (UTC)

"This is Keys! He is my piano bear. I made him the waistcoat so he would be able to get dressed up for the party, too." (Kiawen is in a pretty princess dress being a pretty princess.) "Piano bears are from the Gentle Cave, like fluffbats -" She waves at Sunrise. "And poofs. Carinna has a poof."

exactlyright
2013-10-24 01:14 am (UTC)

Carinna takes Mossy out of her pocket.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 01:16 am (UTC)

"So many small cute fluffy things!" says Helen.

forgefires
2013-10-24 01:16 am (UTC)

"The Gentle Cave is the best cave," says Tanalin. "I love my fluffbat."

exactlyright
2013-10-24 01:17 am (UTC)

"A couple of people have taken poofs home with them who don't even live in Chronicle. This is because poofs are obviously best."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 01:27 am (UTC)

"It is very round and fluffy," says Helen. "I think Petaal might want to be one."

exactlyright
2013-10-24 01:27 am (UTC)

"Maybe!"

guessguess
2013-10-24 01:28 am (UTC)

"Petaal's one of the soul animals, right? One who can change?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 01:30 am (UTC)

"Yeah, she's Kas's daemon. All Joker daemons can change," says Helen. "There's something like four of them now."

guessguess
2013-10-24 01:31 am (UTC)

"How come they can?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 01:35 am (UTC)

"Because they're peculiar!" says Helen. "I don't know. Usually daemons change when you're little, and then settle into something when you grow up, something that suits who you are. Jokers just... don't ever settle. It makes sense to me but I don't know if that's just because I grew up with Kas and Petaal around being themselves all the time."

guessguess
2013-10-24 01:47 am (UTC)

"Huh. Bella, our one, checked what she'd have if she had a daemon. She got a kind of flying squirrel."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 01:50 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Helen. "Amariah has an eastern screech owl."

exactlyright
2013-10-24 01:51 am (UTC)

"I wonder why alts wouldn't all be the same."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 02:10 am (UTC)

"Well... because alts aren't all the same," says Helen. "I have alts and they're like me but they're not... me. And not me enough to have teratorn daemons, apparently."

exactlyright
2013-10-24 02:13 am (UTC)

"I wouldn't know, I don't know anybody with a soul animal besides you and I don't have any alts and I'm not going to. They all look the same, more or less, why wouldn't their souls all look the same too if you can see them?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 02:55 am (UTC)

"Well... because what your soul looks like is different from what you look like," says Helen. "Maybe there's some people whose alts would have the same daemons. I don't know that many people with alts who've checked."

guessguess
2013-10-24 02:56 am (UTC)

Kiawen hugs Carinna's arm. "What makes people have different animals at all?" she asks.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 12:33 pm (UTC)

"Being different people, I guess," she says. "Your daemon's shape means something about you, but it's not always clear what."

guessguess
2013-10-24 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Do you know what yours means?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 08:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm the only person I've ever heard of with a teratorn. I think it means I'm peculiar."

guessguess
2013-10-24 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if ours've settled yet. We're thirteen now."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. You can check."

guessguess
2013-10-24 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" Kiawen pulls out three squares, enough for all three sisters.

She gets...

A piano bear.

She laughs.

exactlyright
2013-10-24 08:54 pm (UTC)

Carinna doesn't get a poof. She gets a nervous-looking rodent with big feet.

forgefires
2013-10-24 09:09 pm (UTC)

Tanalin gets a little spotted kitty!

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what any of those mean," giggles Helen.

exactlyright
2013-10-24 09:11 pm (UTC)

"What would you know what it meant if we had it?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm not really sure," she says. "Mostly I don't, but every so often something just makes sense. And there are all these things people say about what different daemons mean, but I've seen them be wrong as often as they aren't."

exactlyright
2013-10-24 09:14 pm (UTC)

"...Like what?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:30 pm (UTC)

Helen looks around. And then giggles.

"I was going to look at someone's daemon for inspiration, but of course there aren't any—oh, hey, I think that's an alt of my friend Shura!" She sits up straighter on her cloud-pine and peers.

subastra
2013-10-24 09:31 pm (UTC)

It does rather look like an alt of her friend Shura! She is standing around, holding a glass of wine, looking distinctly unwitchy both in visible age and in clothing choices and lack of bird. She seems to find the party a bit overwhelming.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:35 pm (UTC)

Now thoroughly distracted, Helen directs her cloud-pine over thataway. Perhaps Shura's mystery alt is wearing a nametag!

subastra
2013-10-24 09:36 pm (UTC)

Her nametag says that she is an [Unnamed Template] called Serah and that she is from Samaria!

She double-takes when she sees Helen. "Dama- no, you're not, are you."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:39 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles. "How could you tell?" she teases.

subastra
2013-10-24 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Damaris has wings. And she's older."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I know," she confesses. "We've met. I'm Helen Ianthe. I think I know an alt of yours!"

subastra
2013-10-24 09:43 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know I was supposed to have any, I'm only here because Isabella - I refuse to call her 'Angela', it's ridiculous, we've been best friends our whole lives - invited me."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I invited Shura! You look just like her, only old and not a witch."

subastra
2013-10-24 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm not even forty yet! 'Shura' - that's pretty."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Shura Talkaivan. You still look older than witches ever do," says Helen.

subastra
2013-10-24 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, that hardly sounds fair."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:49 pm (UTC)

Helen laughs. "Maybe it isn't."

subastra
2013-10-24 09:50 pm (UTC)

"So what are you, secretly a hundred?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Not-at-all-secretly thirteen."

subastra
2013-10-24 09:52 pm (UTC)

"And I suppose Shura is approximately yea big too and she's going to make me feel like I'm already arthritic and forgetting why I walked into rooms?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, the second part's up to you."

subastra
2013-10-24 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I might risk it. Where is she?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea, but I can look!"

subastra
2013-10-24 09:59 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't really expecting to be interesting enough for two universes to have me in them," muses Serah, craning her neck to look for a younger version of herself.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:02 pm (UTC)

Helen, of course, lifts herself on her cloud-pine until she is high enough to survey most of the room.

subastra
2013-10-24 10:04 pm (UTC)

Shura is over in a corner, talking to Lexi, not that Helen is liable to recognize Lexi.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:06 pm (UTC)

Helen zips over.

"Hi, Shura! I found your alt! She's from Samaria and she's human and forty or something."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Wow! Really?"

lexicality
2013-10-24 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Man, everybody has alts but me."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Aww," says Helen. "Anyway, Shura, want to come meet her? Her name's Serah!"

subastra
2013-10-24 10:10 pm (UTC)

"That's a lot like my name! I guess that makes sense? Anyway, yeah, sure!"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:12 pm (UTC)

"C'mon! She's over there," says Helen, pointing.

subastra
2013-10-24 10:13 pm (UTC)

Shura follows Helen.

"You don't really look forty-something," she says consideringly upon coming face-to-face with Serah.

"That's because I'm not," says Serah, with a reproachful glance at Helen.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:16 pm (UTC)

"You said you weren't forty but you didn't say what you were," says Helen.

subastra
2013-10-24 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Thirty-six."

"That sounds closer," agrees Shura. "And you don't have a daemon either. This doesn't get any less weird anytime soon, does it?"

"I don't have a what now?"

(Nicoa is not in immediate evidence.)

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:22 pm (UTC)

"A daemon," says Helen. "People have them in Alethia. They're like your soul walking around outside your body as an animal. My Kalavar's a teratorn, and Shura's Nicoa is a ptarmigan."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what either of those are," says Serah. "Why would your soul do that? Isn't that dangerous?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:25 pm (UTC)

"That's just how it works in our world. It's dangerous sometimes, but I still wouldn't want it any other way."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:27 pm (UTC)

"And it's really weird that you don't have one. What would it be, I wonder?" says Shura.

"I couldn't begin to tell you. If most worlds don't have them isn't it yours that's weird?"

"Hmph."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Weird is relative," says Helen. "I could show you yours if you want."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:29 pm (UTC)

"You could - show me? How?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:30 pm (UTC)

"It's just a square, to get an illusion of what your daemon would be if you had one."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Oh. One of those coin things. You have those? Well - all right. As long as my real soul stays where it belongs."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:34 pm (UTC)

Helen produces a square (sunlight through pine needles) and wishes on it.

"I'm not sure what that is, but it's really cute," she says.

subastra
2013-10-24 10:35 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know what it is either, but it is cute, yes," Serah agrees.

"We both have round, cute things," laughs Shura.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Round cute souls," giggles Helen. "Aww."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:38 pm (UTC)

"What would I do with it if I had it? Would I just - keep it at home in a pen, like a pet -"

"What, no!" exclaims Shura. "Ew! You're not a witch, so you'd have to keep him with you all the time. You could carry him or he'd sit on your shoulder or maybe he'd be fast enough to just follow you around. Daemons aren't pets."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Witches can go far from their daemons, which is lucky for me because mine is a six-foot-tall bird," says Helen. "I'd barely be able to go indoors if Kal had to stay close like most daemons do."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:41 pm (UTC)

"A six-f- that's enormous," says Serah.

"Yeah, Kalavar's a giant. Nicoa's more travel-sized," says Shura.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:44 pm (UTC)

"I have the hugest daemon I've ever heard of," says Helen.

subastra
2013-10-24 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Does... that mean you have... I have no idea what that is supposed to mean," says Serah.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I think it means I'm peculiar."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Peculiar is Helen's word for all things that are unconventional in sometimes magic ways," Shura explains. "Especially her dad."

"...Is her dad another of Micaiah?"

"...Maybe? I don't know who Micaiah is."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Helen. "Micaiah and Kas are both Jokers. Jokers are extremely peculiar."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I can still remember back when Isabella met Micaiah," reminisces Serah. "It was terribly cute..."

"Isabella Amariah in our world is this legendary figure who went missing for like half a century before we were even born," says Shura.

"Oh. In my world she's going to be the Archangel in a couple of years, and Micaiah the angelico."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I want to hear the cute story!" says Helen.

subastra
2013-10-24 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, er -" Serah peers at the witches' arms, sees no Kisses, and rolls up her sleeve. "We get these, when we're babies," she says. "And they say that when they light up it means you've found your true love. When Isabella and Micaiah met theirs were glowing like falling stars and he looked at her like she was the whole world."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwww," says Helen.

subastra
2013-10-24 10:57 pm (UTC)

"And soon enough she had made sure that if she was going to be Archangel he was going to be angelico, and they got pregnant, and married - I planned the wedding and it was beautiful if I do say so myself. And then they had a little angel baby who looked just like you, and then three more."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 10:58 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles. "That is cute."

subastra
2013-10-24 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if all the - Jokers and Bells - meet similar ways - I mean not exactly the same, because you're me and I'm you, sort of, and I wasn't there when the ones in my world did, but I wonder if the story would be alike somehow?" Shura says.

"I have no idea. I don't know how any of this works," shrugs Serah.

campanas
2013-10-24 11:00 pm (UTC)

Peninnah has been wandering around aimlessly when she sees someone she recognizes. She makes her way up to Serah and hugs her leg.

subastra
2013-10-24 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Pen'," Serah says, petting the little angel's hair. "This one is number four. Are there more of her too?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure, but I don't think so," says Helen. "Hello, number four."

campanas
2013-10-24 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Am Peninnah," mumbles Peninnah.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:04 pm (UTC)

"And I'm Helen! It's nice to meet you."

campanas
2013-10-24 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Are one Dars," observes Peninnah.

subastra
2013-10-24 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Pen' sometimes talks a little funny," says Serah. "It takes some getting used to."

campanas
2013-10-24 11:06 pm (UTC)

"But she does be," says Peninnah.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:09 pm (UTC)

"An alt of Damaris? Yes I am," says Helen.

campanas
2013-10-24 11:10 pm (UTC)

"I haven't one."

subastra
2013-10-24 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Well, maybe you will, one day, I think that's how it works?" says Serah uncertainly.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:12 pm (UTC)

"If another Bell and Joker get around to having four kids," says Helen. "Maybe it'll be Rose and Beast; I hear they've already got three."

subastra
2013-10-24 11:13 pm (UTC)

"So that's one of you and one of Keziah and one of Ariel, I guess? Are they always in order like that?"

campanas
2013-10-24 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Am last," sighs Peninnah.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:15 pm (UTC)

"If one of the sets gets around to having five kids someday, you won't be last anymore," Helen points out.

campanas
2013-10-24 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Am last from us," Peninnah says, but she seems to find Helen's remark cheering anyway.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Probably not forever."

campanas
2013-10-24 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Your parents have had four kids in the - how long have they been together?" she asks Serah.

subastra
2013-10-24 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Seventeen years, now, they had Damaris awfully quick."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Right. Four kids in seventeen years," says Helen, "I'm guessing they'll probably have another one someday."

campanas
2013-10-24 11:23 pm (UTC)

"A little sister," muses Peninnah thoughtfully. "Little little."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Or brother. Or sibling in general," says Helen.

campanas
2013-10-24 11:24 pm (UTC)

"All girl sisters," says Peninnah. "Cousinoids also!"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Actually, we have one cousinoid who's a boy!" says Helen. "The Joker and his vampire boyfriend Nathan in Aurum have a son named Kerron."
Edited 2013-10-24 23:29 (UTC)

subastra
2013-10-24 11:30 pm (UTC)

"What's a cousinoid?" asks Shura.

"What's a vampire?" asks Serah.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:34 pm (UTC)

"A cousinoid is somebody who's got a parent who's an alt of your parent," says Helen. "A vampire's a kind of person from Aurum that drinks blood and doesn't get older."

campanas
2013-10-24 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Ew!" exclaims Peninnah.

subastra
2013-10-24 11:35 pm (UTC)

"So are you and Peninnah here just cousinoids or are you something else since both parents match? If I understand right?" asks Shura.

(Serah pets Peninnah's hair.)

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:36 pm (UTC)

"I think we're sisteroids!" says Helen.

subastra
2013-10-24 11:39 pm (UTC)

"But you and Damaris are alts. Right?" Serah asks.

campanas
2013-10-24 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Is complicated."

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes we are, and yes it is. You might even call it peculiar," says Helen.

campanas
2013-10-24 11:40 pm (UTC)

"...Why is funny?"

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I just really like the word peculiar. It's fun to say, and so many things are it."

campanas
2013-10-24 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Peculiar," says Peninnah experimentally. She does not appear to see what is so much fun about it.

telesonorous
2013-10-24 11:43 pm (UTC)

Helen giggles.

truthwright
2013-10-26 01:20 am (UTC)

[Hey, button,] says Kas, [want some hugs?]

telesonorous
2013-10-26 01:20 am (UTC)

"You mean you guys are finally done?" she says, audible to Kas and only to Kas. (Using her power still comes more naturally to her than the brainphone.)

campanas
2013-10-26 01:21 am (UTC)

"You moved but don't sounded!" exclaims Peninnah.

truthwright
2013-10-26 01:23 am (UTC)

[Yep!]

telesonorous
2013-10-26 01:24 am (UTC)

"I do that!" says Helen. "I was talking to Kas. He says all the Jokers are going to come hug me." And she adds, "Go right ahead," to the Jokers as a whole.

campanas
2013-10-26 01:25 am (UTC)

"Why not brainphone and not sound or not move but talk?" asks Peninnah, with some difficulty; apparently extended sentences are trickier.

telesonorous
2013-10-26 01:27 am (UTC)

"I was using my ingot power way before I knew the brainphone was a thing, so I'm more used to it," she says.

truthwright
2013-10-26 01:29 am (UTC)

And

deslandes
2013-10-26 01:29 am (UTC)

then

endragoned
2013-10-26 01:29 am (UTC)

the

manofmyword
2013-10-26 01:30 am (UTC)

Jokers

cardistry
2013-10-26 01:30 am (UTC)

start

yovahs_kisses
2013-10-26 01:31 am (UTC)

appearing.

campanas
2013-10-26 01:31 am (UTC)

"Daddies!" exclaims Peninnah.

yovahs_kisses
2013-10-26 01:33 am (UTC)

"Lots of 'em!" says Micaiah, getting down on her level to give her a hug. "Didn't know you were with the button."

telesonorous
2013-10-26 01:35 am (UTC)

The button is giggling as she is engulfed by a pile of cuddly Jokers.

campanas
2013-10-26 01:36 am (UTC)

Peninnah hugs her very own daddy. "Button?"

yovahs_kisses
2013-10-26 01:39 am (UTC)

"Kas calls Helen his little button," says Micaiah. "It's cute. Do you want a big pile of hugs like she's getting?"

campanas
2013-10-26 01:40 am (UTC)

"All piled hugs! Careful, feathers," she adds, waggling a wing.

yovahs_kisses
2013-10-26 01:43 am (UTC)

"All right," he says, and beckons to the Jokerpile without really looking at them.

endragoned
2013-10-26 01:44 am (UTC)

Aianon is the first one to detach and come over and sit with them and give Penninah feathers-careful hugs.

campanas
2013-10-26 01:45 am (UTC)

Peninnah hugs him happily! Yay!

subastra
2013-10-26 01:45 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Shura, almost to herself, "that's a demon hugging a little angel."

deslandes
2013-10-26 01:52 am (UTC)

Beast is next! He is fluffy.

campanas
2013-10-26 01:52 am (UTC)

"Softs!"

deslandes
2013-10-26 01:53 am (UTC)

"That I am," he agrees, nuzzling the top of her head.

campanas
2013-10-26 01:54 am (UTC)

Peninnah snuggles up. "Softs softs softs."

deslandes
2013-10-26 01:55 am (UTC)

Beast chuckles.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-10-26 01:56 am (UTC)

"Is there room for me?" inquires Queenie, snuggling up to Micaiah-and-Aianon-and-Beast-and-Pen'. It turns out that there is! It also turns out that Queenie is remarkably snuggable.

campanas
2013-10-26 01:56 am (UTC)

"Eeeee!" says Pen' when she discovers this, not even attempting words, just flinging all six limbs around Queenie.
Edited 2013-10-26 02:22 (UTC)

gunpowdergelatine
2013-10-26 02:25 am (UTC)

Queenie beams and snuggles her carefully.

campanas
2013-10-26 02:25 am (UTC)

Peninnah doesn't have to be particularly careful! Snuggles.

gunpowdergelatine
2013-10-26 02:29 am (UTC)

Snuggly snuggles.

This is continuation number 11 from here.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 08:54 pm (UTC)

Juliet has now introduced Cam and Ike. She feels that she has done a good deed. Now she is telling Minnie that, no, really, she should not go supervise them, that would not be okay.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:01 pm (UTC)

"If you want to watch someone doing things people don't normally want you to watch, I recommend the Jokers," says Minus. He gives Juliet a peck on the cheek in greeting.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Ooooh, do you think I could?" muses Minnie.

"Yeah, they made a point of telling everybody they were available as porn, a while ago," snorts Juliet, "that's a good idea. Introduce yourself and make sure they don't have anybody extra in with them first, though."

"Okay!" says Minnie, and she ghosts off to do that.

Juliet returns the peck. "So Tab didn't feel like getting up and making a speech in front of a couple dozen people about why she didn't assassinate her approximately-adoptive-relatives to try get through them to Chelsa, so she just told Jane about it and Jane relayed."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:04 pm (UTC)

"What did Jane relay, in particular?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Basically Tab had herself and Aelise representing people who had different priorities regarding Chelsaing versus warfare, and both of them had been in positions to get what they wanted in that department - Aelise sought Chelsa out in the first place, had to deliberately allow herself to be 'kindled' because Chelsa won't work with anyone who doesn't like her; Tab had her gift keeping her safe. And both Tab and Aelise are reasonable people who don't actually approve of mind-control, and Tab didn't have any strong reason to believe that the general population of Gift - even if they were presented the question without Chelsa having been involved - would prefer her risk tolerance over Aelise's. Certainly she was never confident enough to gamble on it by, as a teenager, attempting a high-risk assassination of her surrogate family who were taking significant chances to keep her safe and guarantee the destabilization of an empire that was otherwise working pretty well. Probably all bets would have been off if Tab's personal affections had been on the line - we're kind of selfish like that, Bells are - and she would definitely have gotten impatient if she hadn't found an Aelise-tolerable solution when she did, but that's her explanation for why she didn't immediately attempt to set everything on metaphorical fire."
Edited 2013-10-23 21:12 (UTC)

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:14 pm (UTC)

"...My next question, of course, is what Aelise sought Chelsa out for."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:16 pm (UTC)

"An end to warfare. Such as the one that ended with Toronto destroyed so Tab had to resurrect it on a planet with giant trees."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:18 pm (UTC)

"...That does seem reasonable," he concedes.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't have done it, but I can understand Tab not committing several murders of people she liked, at age twelve or so, in order to make a low-probability attempt at undoing it."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:20 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't have done it, but for purely selfish reasons," he says. "And because I wouldn't know what to do with an empire if I had one."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:22 pm (UTC)

"If you ever find yourself in possession of a spare I'm sure you know someone who'd look after it for you."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:24 pm (UTC)

He kisses the end of her nose. "You will be my first port of call if ever I need to get rid of an empire," he assures her.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:24 pm (UTC)

"I'm so pleased."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:26 pm (UTC)

"But I hope to keep from accumulating any in the first place. Saves trouble."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I would imagine so. You get to live the cushy Imperial Consort life."

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Much better than trying to run the bloody thing, in my humble opinion."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it convenient that we have these compatible specialties?"

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Extremely."

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:36 pm (UTC)

Kisses! Not particularly specialized kisses, but really, that is how they are supposed to work.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:38 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure this thing was grown with a plentitude of comfortable private little rooms," he says, after there have been some kisses. "D'you want to go find one?"

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, what an idea." A pleasing idea, judging by the look on her face.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Let's," he says brightly.

cross_and_bow
2013-10-23 09:41 pm (UTC)

She kisses him again and teleports them to the nearest unoccupied private little room.

eversomuchfun
2013-10-23 09:42 pm (UTC)

Where they will do private things, which Minnie will hopefully not supervise.

This is continuation number 12 from here.

tearingup
2013-10-24 12:43 am (UTC)

The Kingfishers are done having... tea... for the moment, so Ripper is coming by the buffet for a cup of real actual tea. There are so many kinds! It's hard to choose. This is a good problem to have.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 12:47 am (UTC)

Soph is investigating the -

Soph was investigating the coffee. Now she is investigating Ripper. She reads his nametag. She leans to her right, where stands her Tony, and is about to whisper in his ear when she decides on brainphone instead.

[Oh my god Bella said there was a young-Giles-alt but she didn't say he was hot. Look, Tony, he's hot!]

toblameforit
2013-10-24 12:54 am (UTC)

[Wow, he is super hot,] Tony agrees. [I think I'm gonna hit on him.]

keyed_up
2013-10-24 12:55 am (UTC)

[I do not blame you for a second, damn. It is just a little weird that he is a Giles but he's a really hot Giles.]

toblameforit
2013-10-24 12:58 am (UTC)

[I might actually be a tiny bit retroactively attracted to Giles now,] Tony admits, [but I'm not dwelling on that because I'm hitting on his hot young alt instead.]

He approaches Ripper.

"Hi!" he says. "You're really hot, can I maybe make out with you?"

keyed_up
2013-10-24 12:59 am (UTC)

(Soph giggles. She pretends, badly, to investigate coffee.)

tearingup
2013-10-24 01:00 am (UTC)

Ripper laughs. "You maybe can!" he says, glancing between Tony and Soph. "If it's all right with your...?"

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:01 am (UTC)

(Soph giggles more, and cannot answer.)

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:04 am (UTC)

"Girlfriend," Tony supplies. [Should I ask if you can watch? I'm getting a vibe that that is a thing I could ask.]

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:04 am (UTC)

[Maybe? Is that weird? I don't wanna be weird.]

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:05 am (UTC)

[I don't think it's weird!]

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:06 am (UTC)

[Then maaaaybe?]

tearingup
2013-10-24 01:08 am (UTC)

Ripper is raising his eyebrows at them.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:14 am (UTC)

"Can she maybe watch?" says Tony.

tearingup
2013-10-24 01:14 am (UTC)

"Definitely," says Ripper.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:16 am (UTC)

Soph squirms and giggles again.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:17 am (UTC)

"Cool, let's get a room!" says Tony.

tearingup
2013-10-24 01:20 am (UTC)

Ripper grins.

"I know where to find those!" he says, and leads them away. Assuming they follow.

[Going to make out with a Tony,] he says to Pattern.

bellfounding
2013-10-24 01:21 am (UTC)

[You know, I find I'm not even particularly curious which one? Enjoy.]

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:22 am (UTC)

Soph shuffles after, still giggling.

tearingup
2013-10-24 01:25 am (UTC)

"You're both adorable," says Ripper.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:25 am (UTC)

"I know!" says Tony.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:26 am (UTC)

"We would win all the adorableness contests! If there were any."

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:29 am (UTC)

"But there aren't. Ooh, stairs. So that's where they're keeping the orgy chambers this time around," says Tony as they descend beneath the main floor.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:30 am (UTC)

"I don't know what these things usually look like, is this not usual?"

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:32 am (UTC)

"It's a giant plant floating in space and it was designed by a Joker. No, it's not usual," says Tony. "It's been somewhere different every time, though, so I don't know if 'usual' is even a thing."

tearingup
2013-10-24 01:32 am (UTC)

"Aianon's space plants are very convenient," says Ripper.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:49 am (UTC)

"Well, I mean, it's not like the ability to make space plants is new! Maybe there are space plants for Bell parties all the time and I just never heard about it!"

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:54 am (UTC)

"We could have made space plants before, but we didn't," says Tony. "Probably because we weren't Aianon. But now there is Aianon, therefore space plants. I think."

tearingup
2013-10-24 01:56 am (UTC)

"Ooh, cozy," says Ripper, poking his head into an unoccupied room.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 01:57 am (UTC)

Tony looks. There is a big comfy-looking bed, and several big comfy-looking beanbag-chair type things, and piles and piles of comfy-looking pillows in all sizes.

"I like it," he declares.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 01:57 am (UTC)

Soph divebombs a beanbag!

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:02 am (UTC)

Tony flops into a pile of pillows!

"Man, this room was made for pillow forts," he says. "I'm practically swimming in pillows and it's awesome."

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:04 am (UTC)

"I can almost guarantee you that it actually was made for pillow forts," says Ripper, "given who made it." He shuts the door and flops cheerfully into Tony's pillowpile.

It also occurs to him to amend his previous report: [And his girlfriend is watching.]

bellfounding
2013-10-24 02:05 am (UTC)

Pattern snorts. [Okay then. Who's she?]

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:05 am (UTC)

Soph snuggles into her beanbag in a comfortable supervisory position.

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:07 am (UTC)

[Soph from Sunshine, according to her nametag.]

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:09 am (UTC)

Tony pillow-swims over to Ripper. It is highly undignified but very fun.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:10 am (UTC)

Soph laughs. Hers is most adorable boyfriend.

bellfounding
2013-10-24 02:10 am (UTC)

[Oh, Juliet's spontaneously occurring sister. Okay.]
Edited 2013-10-24 02:13 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:14 am (UTC)

[Yeah, her. She's cute. Her Tony is cute.]

Ripper chooses to celebrate Tony's cuteness by kissing him in a giant pile of pillows.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:14 am (UTC)

"Eeeeee."

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:17 am (UTC)

Kisses! Mmmm. Yes this was an excellent plan.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:18 am (UTC)

Soph sooooo approves!

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:40 am (UTC)

Tony approves too. He approves lots. So much approval.

Wow, Ripper is hot. And extremely kissable. And they are making out in a pile of comfy pillows. It's awesome.

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:41 am (UTC)

Tony is flatteringly enthusiastic and really cute! These pillows are comfy! Being watched is definitely a positive contribution to the whole experience!

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:41 am (UTC)

Soph is definitely watching. They are definitely watchable.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:43 am (UTC)

Mmmmm kisses kisses.

"I think this would go better with fewer shirts," Tony says after a while, "how 'bout you?"

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:44 am (UTC)

Ripper laughs and takes off his shirt.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:44 am (UTC)

"Nice," says Tony.

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:45 am (UTC)

He beams.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:45 am (UTC)

"Eeeeee," Soph says again, squirming in her beanbag.

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:46 am (UTC)

Ripper grins.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:47 am (UTC)

It is only fair at this point for Tony to take off his shirt too! So he does. And then he kinda sorta pounces.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:48 am (UTC)

Soph almost applauds!

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:49 am (UTC)

Mm yes shirtless makeouts good excellent.

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:53 am (UTC)

It's not like Ripper was previously unaware that he is really hot, but everyone here is so delighted about it, he is gaining a whole new appreciation. He makes a mental note to definitely say yes if any more Tonies want to make out with him, in case it's a template thing.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:54 am (UTC)

Soph is certainly really pleased! Alas, there aren't more of her around to partake.

tearingup
2013-10-24 02:56 am (UTC)

One Soph is enough for all their purposes at the moment. And wow, her boyfriend knows how to kiss.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 02:57 am (UTC)

Yes. Yes he does. He's so glad Ripper noticed!

keyed_up
2013-10-24 02:57 am (UTC)

Did Bella really have issues about this, what issues, sharing is fun.

toblameforit
2013-10-24 12:35 pm (UTC)

It really is, isn't it?

Mmm kisses kisses.

tearingup
2013-10-24 01:25 pm (UTC)

Mmmmmmm shirtless kisses. The shirtless part is important. Both for immediate makeout-related reasons (skin!) and because Tony and Soph seem to really like that Ripper is shirtless, and Ripper really likes when that happens.

keyed_up
2013-10-24 04:57 pm (UTC)

Soph definitely really likes all the hot-boy-shirtlessness going on around here!

toblameforit
2013-10-24 08:42 pm (UTC)

There is definitely a lot of really liking going around!

keyed_up
2013-10-25 12:32 am (UTC)

Soph can be heard giggling softly to herself from her beanbag vantage point occasionally. It's difficult to actually catch her peeking for more than a moment, but she presumably is staring to her heart's content when neither of them is looking right at her.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 12:36 am (UTC)

Tony hardly looks. On account of he is busy. Happily, happily busy.

tearingup
2013-10-25 12:39 am (UTC)

Ripper, once he has glanced over a few times, also stops looking. Because if she only looks at them when they are not looking at her, then clearly he should just let her get on with it! Also, kissing Tony occupies a lot of attention. He's just so kissable. And so happy about it. Mmmmmmmmm.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 12:40 am (UTC)

"Eeeee," giggles Soph quietly. (She doesn't want to distract them from what they're doing.)

tearingup
2013-10-25 03:02 am (UTC)

They are magnificently undistracted.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 03:02 am (UTC)

Yaaaaay! Carry on making out, hot boys, Soph will just be over here grinning till her cheeks hurt!

tearingup
2013-10-25 03:03 am (UTC)

They will definitely do that.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 03:05 am (UTC)

But alas, they cannot carry on making out literally forever.

So during one of the inevitable lulls, in which Tony is sprawled contentedly about 30% on pillows to 70% on Ripper, he lifts his head from Ripper's shoulder and says, "We should totally make a pillow fort."

tearingup
2013-10-25 03:12 am (UTC)

"...Yeah," says Ripper, "we should."

keyed_up
2013-10-25 03:27 am (UTC)

"I am so promoting myself to a participatory role for pillow fort!"

tearingup
2013-10-25 03:27 am (UTC)

Ripper beams at her.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 03:28 am (UTC)

So does Tony.

Then he snuggles down against Ripper for a prolonged celebratory pre-pillow-fort kiss.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 03:28 am (UTC)

Soph giggles and starts categorizing pillows.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 03:34 am (UTC)

Tony sits up and notices that she is doing that.

"Wow, awesome, you're the best, I love you," he says, beaming some more.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 03:35 am (UTC)

"I love you too! I mean I figured we are going to be doing serious architecture, here, I remember you with the gingerbread, so there will be no going 'now where did I put that one lego, I mean pillow'."

toblameforit
2013-10-25 03:35 pm (UTC)

"You are right," says Tony. He rubs his hands together gleefully.

tearingup
2013-10-25 03:36 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 03:37 pm (UTC)

Soph leans over to kiss Tony, too (who doesn't want to kiss Tony?) and then resumes pillow-sorting.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 03:38 pm (UTC)

Aww kisses yay kisses!

Tony gets in on the pillow-sorting too. It is a necessary step before the architecture can begin.

tearingup
2013-10-25 03:39 pm (UTC)

Ripper helps! He is so helpful.

"That is a lot of pillows," he observes.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 03:42 pm (UTC)

"The better to make a fort with, my dear."

tearingup
2013-10-25 03:47 pm (UTC)

He cracks up.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 03:48 pm (UTC)

Sort sort sort. Soph begins testing various pillows for properties like their ability to stand on end and form stable stacks.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 03:59 pm (UTC)

Tony spontaneously hugs her.

"Pillow science!" he proclaims gleefully. "No, better. Pillow engineering."

keyed_up
2013-10-25 03:59 pm (UTC)

Eee hugs! Those are distracting though! A pillow topples over when she is seized. "I love you."

toblameforit
2013-10-25 04:54 pm (UTC)

"I love you toooo." Snuggle snuggle. Okay, back to pillow science!

Tony seems to be the test-as-you-go type: he starts laying foundations on the bed, paying attention to the shape of the pillows but not the colour.

tearingup
2013-10-25 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Going to let the rest of us in on your grand plans?" inquires Ripper.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Yes!" says Tony. "Yes I will."

His plans are very grand. This pillow fort is going to have four walls, an arched doorway, a blankety roof, and room enough for all three of them inside. (It's a big bed, so space at least won't be an issue.)

It's that archway that gives him trouble. Pillows just aren't made to do that. But Tony is sure he can persuade them, if he builds the walls well enough.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 04:59 pm (UTC)

Soph believes in him! She will hold key pillows in place while he tries things.

tearingup
2013-10-25 05:00 pm (UTC)

Ripper gets swept up in the excitement and is happy to serve as a third pair of hands where necessary.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 05:06 pm (UTC)

Experimentation proceeds. Eventually, with the rest of the walls already up, he gets it stable. He kisses Ripper (briefly) and Soph (less briefly) to celebrate.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 05:07 pm (UTC)

Kissing Tony is Soph's favorite thing. (Although apparently watching attractive third parties kiss Tony would also make any multi-item list.)

toblameforit
2013-10-25 05:11 pm (UTC)

Tony beams.

"Okay, let's do the roof."

Blanket! Big colourful thin-but-snuggly patchwork quilt, to be specific. It's the lightest blanket available and therefore the easiest to stabilize. Tony rolls it up and hoists an end.

"Somebody wanna take the other end so we can unroll it over the walls, and somebody else wanna lay down more pillows on top?"

keyed_up
2013-10-25 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I'll take the end," says Soph, and so she does.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Awesome! Over here," he says, hauling his end higher so they can carry the rolled blanket to the back of the fort.

tearingup
2013-10-25 05:15 pm (UTC)

Ripper follows with some long flat pillows he judges suitable for pinning the blanket down atop the walls.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 05:15 pm (UTC)

And then their fort is complete!

"I haven't made a blanket fort since -" says Soph, and then she stops and shrugs and flops on Tony.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 05:19 pm (UTC)

Hugsquish!

tearingup
2013-10-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

Ripper awws at them a little, and then crawls into the fort to test its coziness level.

"Cozy as hell," he reports. "I've definitely never made a pillow fort this awesome."

keyed_up
2013-10-25 05:22 pm (UTC)

In goes Soph.

"It's kind of dark in here," she chuckles.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 05:23 pm (UTC)

Tony follows.

"But snuggly!" he says, snuggling up between the other two.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 05:24 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! "It is! Best pillow fort."

toblameforit
2013-10-25 05:24 pm (UTC)

Snuggggggggles.

"Best pillow fort," Tony agrees.

tearingup
2013-10-25 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Best pillow fort," laughs Ripper.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 05:39 pm (UTC)

And also pretty best snuggles. Snug.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 05:45 pm (UTC)

Snug! Mmmmsnug.

tearingup
2013-10-25 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Now, I don't know about you two, but I know what I do with pillow forts when I'm done with them," says Ripper.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 05:47 pm (UTC)

"What?"

tearingup
2013-10-25 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Wreck 'em, of course," he says promptly. "Either with everybody inside, or in a huge pillow fight, or both."

keyed_up
2013-10-25 11:25 pm (UTC)

Soph hmmmmms. Then she seizes a long foundational pillow and thwacks both of the boys at the same time.

tearingup
2013-10-25 11:27 pm (UTC)

Cackling, Ripper pulls a pillow out of the wall on his side and hits back.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 11:28 pm (UTC)

Wheeeeeeee pillow fight!

Soph is nearly as unfairly good at pillow fights as Tony is at driving-oriented video games. They might have to gang up on her.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 11:31 pm (UTC)

So they do.

The walls of the fort are definitely beginning to sag after all three participants have pulled out their first weapons, but it's one of Tony's wild swings that thwacks against the ceiling and pulls one corner completely out of its supporting pillow structure. That end of the blanket settles gently down onto the combatants.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 11:33 pm (UTC)

Soph immediately attempts to trap Tony in it.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 11:34 pm (UTC)

He manages to escape to the fort's opposite corner, where the blanket is still anchored.

tearingup
2013-10-25 11:34 pm (UTC)

Ripper covers his retreat.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 11:37 pm (UTC)

Soph is relentless! Bow to her pillow-wielding might!

tearingup
2013-10-25 11:39 pm (UTC)

She is pretty mighty, it's true!

Either because of something someone did or just because of the general ruckus, the side walls of the fort collapse soon afterward, dropping the whole ceiling on all three of them. Ripper starts giggling uncontrollably.

keyed_up
2013-10-25 11:41 pm (UTC)

Soph pops up like a daisy and picks up the pillows that were holding the ceiling in place as long-range weapons.

toblameforit
2013-10-25 11:47 pm (UTC)

Tony wriggles out from under the collapsed ceiling to discover that the archway is the only part of the structure still standing. He whoops. "Engineering in action!"

keyed_up
2013-10-25 11:48 pm (UTC)

His distraction earns him a downy thwack.

toblameforit
2013-10-26 12:08 am (UTC)

"Pffffff," says Tony. He starts pelting Soph with pieces of the collapsed walls.

keyed_up
2013-10-26 12:08 am (UTC)

She bats several of them away midair and is undaunted by the ones that land.

tearingup
2013-10-26 12:10 am (UTC)

How about when Ripper joins in on the bombardment?

keyed_up
2013-10-26 12:11 am (UTC)

Well at some point she's just going to be in a pile of them, isn't she?

And then she has plenty to throw back!

tearingup
2013-10-26 12:12 am (UTC)

Damn.

Well... well...

Ripper eyes the beanbags on the floor.

keyed_up
2013-10-26 12:15 am (UTC)

Soph is faster!

They're bulky, but not too much for her to fling one straight at Ripper's midsection, quite possibly knocking him over.
Edited 2013-10-26 00:24 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-26 12:34 am (UTC)

Knocking him over and onto a pair of beanbags, and completely covering his head and torso, so that he briefly looks like some kind of beanbag monster with human legs.

He sits up, beanbag in his arms, and heaves it back at her.

keyed_up
2013-10-26 12:35 am (UTC)

She rolls out of the way and launches another one!

toblameforit
2013-10-26 12:37 am (UTC)

Tony tackles it out of the air. This is a disadvantage of large slow-moving projectiles. Then he flings a pillow at her head.

keyed_up
2013-10-26 12:38 am (UTC)

This one hits her. She laughs and flings it back.

toblameforit
2013-10-26 12:41 am (UTC)

Tony catches and returns it!

keyed_up
2013-10-26 12:41 am (UTC)

And now they're just kinda playing catch.

tearingup
2013-10-26 12:44 am (UTC)

Until Ripper also discovers a loose pillow to throw at her.

keyed_up
2013-10-26 12:45 am (UTC)

And now she's on the offensive again, pelting them both with pillows nigh-ambidexterously!

tearingup
2013-10-26 12:50 am (UTC)

Curses! They just can't win!

keyed_up
2013-10-26 12:54 am (UTC)

Eventually Soph is flopped across two beanbags, pinning each of her opponents, panting with mad laughter.

tearingup
2013-10-26 01:02 am (UTC)

The beanbags wriggle.

toblameforit
2013-10-26 01:03 am (UTC)

The beanbags giggle.

The unfortunate souls trapped beneath them have chosen to admit defeat by making out with each other!

keyed_up
2013-10-26 01:04 am (UTC)

How kind of them! Soph supervises benevolently from on high.

toblameforit
2013-10-26 01:05 am (UTC)

It is slightly difficult to make out while squashed under a beanbag, but Tony gives it his best effort!

keyed_up
2013-10-26 01:06 am (UTC)

Soph is fantastically amused.

tearingup
2013-10-26 01:08 am (UTC)

That's the idea!

This is continuation number 13 from here.

lexicality
2013-10-25 05:29 pm (UTC)

Having been abandoned by the young witch she was recently talking to, Lexi is now vaguely in a search pattern, since people keep telling her she should meet the other Bell-sister and she'd like to be able to tell them they're late to the party. No immediate sign of her, though. Hmm.

pythbox
2013-10-25 05:38 pm (UTC)

A naked Joker equipped with a magical censor bar over the critical region appears next to the buffet table and starts investigating the tiny pies.

lexicality
2013-10-25 05:39 pm (UTC)

Lexi yelps. "What is with people and abrupt teleporting and what is with Jokers and not wearing pants?"

pythbox
2013-10-25 05:44 pm (UTC)

He glances up from the pies. "Hello to you too," he snorts. "Sorry about the teleporting, didn't know it'd bother anybody. Not sorry about the pants, it's a nymph thing."

lexicality
2013-10-25 05:46 pm (UTC)

"A what now? I can't keep track of you, all I know is that this is like the third time I have been around a Joker who was not wearing pants and that is too many times. Four if you count Brilliance being a deck of cards but I'm not gonna be unreasonable there."
Edited 2013-10-25 17:46 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-25 05:58 pm (UTC)

"I'm Celo," he sighs. "I'm a nymph. Nymphs don't wear clothes."

lexicality
2013-10-25 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Why? I mean, I appreciate the censor bar, at least, but still."

pythbox
2013-10-25 06:09 pm (UTC)

"It's kind of a cultural/religious thing," he says. "And religious thing in Materia means actual literal existing god who occasionally appears on TV and will fuck your shit up if you piss her off. Nymphs are the divine children of Mother Khaele, and she says no clothes, so no clothes. I don't toe the line on every single thing, but I do on this one, 'cause it's important to me."

lexicality
2013-10-25 06:11 pm (UTC)

"I would not have pegged Jokers for containing religious types who allow gods named after lettuce to dictate wardrobe, however literal they are. Huh."

pythbox
2013-10-25 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm kind of not on speaking terms with her anyway, but for mostly unrelated reasons," he says. "And I'm technically my own god these days, but I still don't wear clothes, because it's not a religious thing for me, it's about being who I am. The religious thing is why nymphs in general walk around naked - without censor bars, that's actually violating the divine edict, just not in a way I personally care about - and why I don't get arrested when I do it at home."
Edited 2013-10-25 18:26 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-10-25 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Why could you not be who you are now with added pants?" She does jazz hands at "now with added pants".

pythbox
2013-10-25 06:37 pm (UTC)

Celo sighs.

"It's complicated. Part of it's that wearing clothes for somebody feels, like, really kinky, which I'm not totally opposed to, but I feel like the kind of people who don't want me walking around naked definitely don't think of it that way, so then it just gets weird and uncomfortable and gives me bad feelings? And part of it's that I just don't want to. In an important personal way, not a meh-don't-feel-like-it way. It's important to me to not wear clothes."

lexicality
2013-10-25 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Wearing clothes as kinky. Wow. That is one of the stranger things I've heard today and this is a Bellparty so it has competition."

pythbox
2013-10-25 06:41 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Yeah, I'm getting the picture."

lexicality
2013-10-25 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I think I've been some people's weirdest-thing, showing off my Peachy." (Persica, hanging round her neck, glitters.) Lexi inspects miniature sandwiches and takes one with prosciutto or some sort of custom organism that can pass for it.

pythbox
2013-10-25 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Your Peachy being...?"

lexicality
2013-10-25 06:44 pm (UTC)

Lexi picks up the necklace chain from which Persica dangles. "Persica. You've met Brilliance, right? I mean, I don't know if you actually talk to each other when you're all piled up, but he's a deck of cards, she's a little peach."

"Hello," says Persica politely.

pythbox
2013-10-25 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Celo. "Yeah, we talk. We just haven't specifically talked about other Devices much."

lexicality
2013-10-25 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Well, there's mine and there's Agent Honey's and there's Bella's - Aurora's I mean - there's Brilliance. And that's probably all the ones you're going to find at a party, I haven't met any other ones unless you count the really really dumb one Be- Aurora has on her hair elastic to do her anti-clumsiness that's not smart enough to say hi."
Edited 2013-10-25 18:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-25 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Celo, smiling.

lexicality
2013-10-25 06:54 pm (UTC)

"So which world are you from, are you from the one that broke Jane or one of the other new ones, which has nymphs?"

pythbox
2013-10-25 07:06 pm (UTC)

"The one that broke Jane. Materia."

lexicality
2013-10-25 07:07 pm (UTC)

"The Bells went to all this trouble to set up the nametags and like half the people I meet aren't wearing theirs."

pythbox
2013-10-25 07:10 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs. "Guess they didn't feel like it."

lexicality
2013-10-25 07:11 pm (UTC)

"Or don't have anything to stick it to. I bet you could get one that sort of floats illusionishly if you wanted."

pythbox
2013-10-25 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I could even get one with my name on it," he snorts.

lexicality
2013-10-25 07:54 pm (UTC)

"What, is it impossible to spell or something?"

pythbox
2013-10-25 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "pretty much literally - I mean, when I need a name on paper or out loud, I use Celosia because that's what grows in my garden, but my actual name is... kind of a psychic impression. Another nymph thing. Lemme see..."

He stands there looking thoughtful for a moment, idly doing tricks with a coin that he wasn't holding a second ago. His aura comes out.

His aura says that he is a god. He glows with the faintest touch of sunlight, and smells like a field of grain on a summer day, and is somehow warm to look at, and he is unquestionably divine. Helpfully, the aura also advertises his friendly regard for people in general (including Lexi in particular) and currently positive mood.

After a few seconds, the aura fades and an illusory nametag floats in the air near his shoulder. It proclaims his template to be Joker and his world to be Materia in the usual fashion, but the name entry is just a smear of vibrant colour, which when looked at with the intent to read produces Celo's name. It turns out that his name was part of his aura, but it's much more intense in the original. (The coin he was fiddling with is also back where it came from, wherever that is.)

lexicality
2013-10-25 08:27 pm (UTC)

Lexi's eyebrows go up when his aura comes out. "Keen aura. My Bella's is kind of boring compared to some of 'em. Also, keen name."

pythbox
2013-10-25 08:28 pm (UTC)

Celo grins. "Thanks! I love my name. I'm the only Joker who likes the one they started with."

lexicality
2013-10-25 08:29 pm (UTC)

"How come?"

pythbox
2013-10-25 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, most of us hate ours because we got them from shitty people one way or another, and Harley doesn't even remember his parents but he still likes the one he grew up with and not the one they gave him, but nobody gave me mine, it just came with being me. And it suits me."

lexicality
2013-10-25 08:32 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's different then. I think my whole name is just too long. Al-ex-and-ra. I played with a bunch of ways to shorten it when I was a kid but I like 'Lexi' best."

pythbox
2013-10-25 08:33 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty nice," Celo says amicably.

lexicality
2013-10-25 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. So how are you liking being plugged in to the awesome interdimensional community of People Bells Like?"

pythbox
2013-10-25 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Being plugged into the awesome interdimensional community of Jokers in particular is fucking amazing," he says, grinning. "And I'm pretty happy about the rest of it, too - I moved my garden to the Enchanted Forest, which is probably going to cause me some trouble with bureaucrats but at least means that nobody can claim to own me anymore."

lexicality
2013-10-25 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Somebody used to be able to claim to own you?"

pythbox
2013-10-25 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah. Every nymph has a field, and somebody owns the land your field is on, and once in a while it turns out that technically speaking that makes you their property. Usually not a big concern, because most nymphs don't leave their fields in the first place, they just hang around doing the nymph thing. But me—" he gets a distant look in his eye for a moment, then shakes his head and resumes his interrupted sentence "—when my garden was claimed by the city, they decided to send me to school. So now I'm double-majoring in martial combat and domestic arts."

lexicality
2013-10-25 08:55 pm (UTC)

Lexi doesn't ask about the moment's distant expression; that looks like a can of worms to her. "Yeah, that sounds like a Joker kind of double major all right. You could qualify for college without having ever gone away from a garden?"
Edited 2013-10-25 20:56 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-25 08:57 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Sure, why not?"

lexicality
2013-10-25 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, assuming I go to college instead of living on Bella's enchanted planet playing video games all the time, they're gonna want to know how I did in high school and stuff."

pythbox
2013-10-25 09:03 pm (UTC)

"There's different ways to qualify," he says. "Tests and stuff. A lot of the students at MU are from places where high school is not really a thing."

lexicality
2013-10-25 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Huh. And you can just major in fighting, so I guess that's different too."

pythbox
2013-10-25 10:34 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "What, can't you in your world?"

lexicality
2013-10-25 11:25 pm (UTC)

"No? You can't even major in, like, football, that's extracurricular."

pythbox
2013-10-25 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Football?" he asks.

lexicality
2013-10-25 11:29 pm (UTC)

"It's a game, with a ball. There's tackling in it so it's kind of fighting-ish."

pythbox
2013-10-25 11:33 pm (UTC)

"So kinda like skirmish, I guess. You can't major in skirmish either. But man, what's the point of a school that won't even teach combat?"

lexicality
2013-10-25 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Most people don't get into fights a lot? I mean, you can take a martial art, I think some schools will even offer those, but mostly people go and learn to be veterinarians or engineers or art historians or something."

pythbox
2013-10-25 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Well... most people don't major in martial combat, I guess, but there's enough," he says. "When you say most people don't get into fights a lot, do you mean, like... your world is just generally safe enough that it's not worth teaching most people to use a weapon? I haven't been getting that sense from the other Jokers, but maybe I wouldn't; Jokers go where the trouble is."

lexicality
2013-10-25 11:47 pm (UTC)

"I mean, I guess I could get mugged? But I'd have to be in a bad neighborhood or something and even if I took a semester of - weapons? Seriously? Okay, a semseter of knife-fighting, then I couldn't probably beat off a mugger, it'd be way safer to just give him my purse and cancel my credit cards and write off the fifty bucks. If I didn't have magic, I mean, now I could just teleport away and be like 'dad come arrest this mugger'."

pythbox
2013-10-25 11:53 pm (UTC)

"...yeah, okay," says Celo, "I'm seeing it. In my world, though? Magisterius University has a weapons policy. As in, unless you have an exemption, you have to carry a magical weapon ready to draw if you're on campus and not indoors. And if you stray off the warded paths at night the school's not responsible if you get eaten by a ghoul or whatever."

lexicality
2013-10-25 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Eww, ghouls. We don't have those. Wait, someone made a policy that requires an alt of Bella to carry a sharp object, seriously, that doesn't sound very safe, she's okay chopping carrots but not if she has to walk around at the same time."

pythbox
2013-10-26 12:07 am (UTC)

"Oh - Aether has boots to help her with the walking around part," he says. "And obviously she's got all that handy Bell magic now. But yeah, the weapons policy kinda failed her there."

lexicality
2013-10-26 12:08 am (UTC)

Lexi snorts. "But yeah, I guess if there's ghouls and stuff all over it makes sense to try to teach people how to not get... ghouled. What do they do, do they eat you?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 12:09 am (UTC)

"Yep! It's pretty nasty," Celo says cheerfully.

lexicality
2013-10-26 12:10 am (UTC)

"Anyway we don't have ghouls, just humans. And Devices but they are not instigating a crime spree on Earth, I don't know about other places."

pythbox
2013-10-26 12:11 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah. Brill's info is a little out of date there."

lexicality
2013-10-26 12:16 am (UTC)

"No kidding, what is it with Bells and older men?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 12:21 am (UTC)

"We're all really hot?" suggests Celo.

lexicality
2013-10-26 12:24 am (UTC)

Lexi snorts. "I'll grant you don't look centuries old, not a one of you. What would that even look like, I don't know."

pythbox
2013-10-26 12:26 am (UTC)

Celo giggles. "Yeah, the kind of people who live to be centuries old aren't usually the kind who'd show it."
Edited 2013-10-26 00:36 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-10-26 12:37 am (UTC)

"Exactly. I'll probably just look seventeen forever, I think seventeen is a good look on me."

pythbox
2013-10-26 12:40 am (UTC)

"Huh," Celo says contemplatively. "I never thought about it, but I could change how old I look now, if I wanted. Nymphs don't really age; I've looked this way since the first time I came out of the ground."

lexicality
2013-10-26 12:40 am (UTC)

"You just sprouted whole?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 12:43 am (UTC)

"Pretty much! I mean, I don't literally grow these bodies like plants," he says with a gesture at himself. "They just kind of... happen. Not exactly appear, it's not like a teleport, more of a process than that, but not anything observable and definite like sprouting."

lexicality
2013-10-26 12:46 am (UTC)

"These? Are there like four of you walking around?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 12:53 am (UTC)

He giggles. "No, but when one of me dies, I grow another one. Nymphs are like that. To actually kill us you have to burn our fields and probably salt 'em too."

lexicality
2013-10-26 12:54 am (UTC)

"Oh. Well, that probably won't happen in the Enchanted Forest, that place is made of friendly fairy tales and really big trees."

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:02 am (UTC)

"I've heard!" he says. "It wasn't that likely at home either, but it's way less likely now."

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:03 am (UTC)

"Does that work funny with torching?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:04 am (UTC)

"Probably. We keep meaning to go talk to the torching expert about it, but we haven't done it yet. It's not hugely urgent."

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:05 am (UTC)

"I guess, if your field is safe in Happy Fluffy Land and you already do a thing just about as good."

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:07 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:09 am (UTC)

"Nymphs are like unicorns and vampires and stuff, there's stories about them at home, but all the stories are about girl nymphs," Lexi muses.

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Celo, "I am the one and only nymph with a dick in all of Materia, as far as I know."

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:19 am (UTC)

"Huh, why?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:22 am (UTC)

"Well, nymphs tend to match the desires of the people who seed us," he says. "I guess at least one of those people really, really wanted a boy." (He's got a little of that distant look again.)

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:23 am (UTC)

"Seed you? Do I wanna know?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:26 am (UTC)

"You probably don't," he snorts.

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:27 am (UTC)

"Okay, not touching it."

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:28 am (UTC)

Celo laughs.

"I mean, I bet you could guess."

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:29 am (UTC)

"No, actually? Like, right now my mental image is someone goes to the store and buys a packet of nymph seeds and then blows out the candle on their birthday cake and makes a wish, and I'm sure that's totally wrong but it sounds like I would rather keep thinking it anyhow."

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:32 am (UTC)

"...yep," says Celo, "I bet you would."
Edited 2013-10-26 01:32 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:34 am (UTC)

"Why do people go do whatever it really is instead of buying nymph seeds? Is it just like they decide to have kids and the long way around is too much work or what?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:38 am (UTC)

"...noooooooo," says Celo, "as much of the exact opposite of that as it is possible to get, pretty much, except I guess in some really fucked up circumstances - okay, one of the practical reasons to want a nymph is because you don't just seed a nymph in bare dirt, you do it in the middle of a field of some kind of crop, and then you don't have to do anything else except keep the nymph happy and you'll get a nice crop of whatever it is every year."

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:39 am (UTC)

"Oh, I guess that kind of makes sense? Farmer nymphs, okay."

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:41 am (UTC)

"Nnnnot exactly," says Celo. "I don't do things to my field, I just am it. It's healthy when I'm healthy."

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:42 am (UTC)

"Okay, farm nymphs, then," shrugs Lexi.

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:45 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Sure."

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:47 am (UTC)

"And I guess it's easier to keep nymphs happy than to keep broccoli or whatever happy."
Edited 2013-10-26 01:49 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:50 am (UTC)

"Way, way easier," Celo agrees.

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:51 am (UTC)

"Because you can move around and get your own nymph food or whatever. Cool."

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:52 am (UTC)

"Or whatever, yep," he agrees with a crooked smile.

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:53 am (UTC)

"...Do I wanna know?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:54 am (UTC)

"Probably not!"

lexicality
2013-10-26 01:55 am (UTC)

"Okay then! Wow, there is a lot of stuff about you I do not wanna know."

pythbox
2013-10-26 01:56 am (UTC)

"Yep," laughs Celo.

This is continuation number 14 from here.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 01:48 am (UTC)

Cam (having bidden Ike an extremely friendly goodbye) is currently talking to the Griffins about what they feel like the limits of their ingotry might be. They don't know much.

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:00 am (UTC)

A pair of alts wanders by, arms around each other's waists, dressed in similar and similarly rumpled dark-jeans-and-tight-shirt outfits. One has a pied kingfisher perched on his shoulder.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:02 am (UTC)

Cam double-takes at them. The Griffins, who are already bored with technical questions about de-gooking, escape while he isn't paying attention.

"Hi," he remarks. He takes in the kingfisher, glances at the nametags, produces and birdifies Grace to sit on his shoulder out of courtesy to the Alethian. "You must be Ripper and Keth."

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:04 am (UTC)

"You must be Cam," says Ripper.

"Hi," says Keth.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:05 am (UTC)

"The nametag's a dead giveaway, I imagine."

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:16 am (UTC)

"I wasn't looking at your nametag," says Ripper.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:16 am (UTC)

"Oh no? What, then, is revealing my identity?"

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:17 am (UTC)

"The daemon's a clue," says Hecate from Keth's shoulder.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:18 am (UTC)

Grace preens Cam's hair.

"Fair enough," Cam says.

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:23 am (UTC)

"So," says Ripper, "Pat mentioned you might like to borrow me."

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:24 am (UTC)

"Well, I'm presuming if she said that you come highly recommended. It looks like for a limited time only you might also be buy one get one free."

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:26 am (UTC)

Keth snorts.

Ripper glances sideways at Keth, and then starts giggling.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:28 am (UTC)

"Intra-template telepathy? I thought that was just Sherlocks."

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:30 am (UTC)

"Nah," says Ripper, "you just reminded us of somebody for a second there."

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:31 am (UTC)

"In a good way?"

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:34 am (UTC)

"Mmm..." says Ripper.

"Yeah," says Keth, "we'll go with that."

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:34 am (UTC)

"I do prefer to be pleasantly reminiscent. Pleasantly everything, for that matter."

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:36 am (UTC)

"You're certainly pleasant to look at," says Keth.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:36 am (UTC)

"So are the both of you. I had heard that Juliet found you hilarious but had no warning that you were this attractive."

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:38 am (UTC)

Ripper laughs. "You should've asked Pattern, then."

"Or Amariah," Keth says cheerfully.

"Want a closer look?" says Ripper.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:40 am (UTC)

"I definitely do. You wanna get a room?"

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:41 am (UTC)

"We definitely do!" says Keth.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:41 am (UTC)

Excellent, then all of them can be teleported to a room, right? How about now? Here is a room.
Edited 2013-10-26 02:45 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-26 02:47 am (UTC)

The Rippers laugh.

"Usually we like a little more warning with the teleporting," says Ripper.

"But we'll let it slide this time because you're so pretty," says Keth. Hecate leaves his shoulder to approach Grace.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 02:48 am (UTC)

"I am very pretty, I'm glad you noticed."

Grace hops off Cam to a convenient daemon-sitting place.

"Ah, fair warning, Grace doesn't really talk to anybody except me, even other daemons," Cam remarks. "Not like Path. She'll snuggle up, though."

tearingup
2013-10-26 03:00 am (UTC)

"Fine by me," says Hecate. "Kit's not talkative either."

She snuggles up.

Keth and Ripper give Cam extremely similar speculative looks.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 03:01 am (UTC)

Cam stands open for speculation. He spreads his arms and takes a step forward. And regards them openly, the one and then the other, like he's going to be giving an extremely sexy presentation later on their point-by-point similarities and minor differences.

Grace doesn't say a word, but she does laugh softly and put a wing over the smaller bird.

tearingup
2013-10-26 03:05 am (UTC)

Hecate snuggles comfortably with Grace.

Ripper says, "I think this would be more fun with fewer shirts," and he and Keth take theirs off.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 03:06 am (UTC)

Cam's is wished away before theirs are over their heads. Poof!

"I think you are absolutely right."

tearingup
2013-10-26 03:07 am (UTC)

The Rippers gaze at Cam admiringly.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 03:08 am (UTC)

It's mutual.

Cam steps forward again. There is now personal space overlap. Isn't that exciting?

tearingup
2013-10-26 03:11 am (UTC)

"Fewer clothes in general, really," says Ripper, and this time they use wishes.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 03:18 am (UTC)

Cam follows suit, laughing, and closes the distance with a randomly chosen Ripper (he winds up with the one who most recently spoke) and kisses him.

tearingup
2013-10-26 03:23 am (UTC)

Mm, kisses. Reasonably familiar kisses!

Keth steals a turn at the first available opportunity.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 03:23 am (UTC)

He's welcome to one! Plenty of Cam to go around. He has dived into a pile of Jokers before; two Rippers doesn't begin to be too much.
Edited 2013-10-26 03:24 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-26 03:52 pm (UTC)

That's good. They'd hate to overwhelm him.

When Ripper steals Cam back, he tastes like maple sugar.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Mmmm," Cam comments.

tearingup
2013-10-26 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you did it again?" says Keth, intrigued. And at the next opportunity, he steals Ripper.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 03:59 pm (UTC)

Cam isn't gonna complain, here.

Nope, catching Ripper by the wrist and kissing from there to his elbow and back up again is not very much like complaining at all.

Cam likes tasty boys.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:04 pm (UTC)

Ripper giggles, which causes Keth to giggle too. When Keth grabs Cam for a kiss, he also tastes like maple sugar. Aren't tasty boys the best?

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:05 pm (UTC)

Tasty boys are fantastic! Cam goes ahead and completes the sweetness trifecta, although he has decided to be kiwi-flavored instead.

(That'll be fun to surprise Jellybean with later.)

Grace laughs from where she's sitting with Hecate.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Mm," says Keth.

Ripper kisses the back of Cam's neck.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:09 pm (UTC)

That is a good place to kiss Bells! Cam is not different in this respect. He leans in and makes a rather whimpery noise.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:11 pm (UTC)

Oooooh.

Well, now Ripper is just going to have to go through everything he knows about where to kiss Bells, and see which parts are the same and which are different.

It might take a while. Luckily, he has Keth to help!

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:12 pm (UTC)

Adjusted for shape -

Yep, Cam's a Bell all right. A kiwi-flavored and exceptionally pleased Bell.
Edited 2013-10-26 16:14 (UTC)

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:15 pm (UTC)

Mmm, but that adjusted shape is so interesting.

And tasty.

Lucky thing Keth and Ripper like to share.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:16 pm (UTC)

Cam also makes appreciative noises like a Bell, just in a deeper register.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:18 pm (UTC)

And such lovely noises they are! Ripper and Keth are very pleased.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:19 pm (UTC)

Everyone in this room is very pleased!

Also very tasty.

Did Cam's narration mention that he likes tasting tasty boys?

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:22 pm (UTC)

Not in so many words. But after all, what's the point of being a tasty boy if not to be tasted?

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:24 pm (UTC)

That is absolutely the point! They are all on the same page here.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:25 pm (UTC)

And such a tasty page it is.

Also, snuggly. Really snuggly. The Rippers are prime snugglers when not directly engaged in tastiness.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:26 pm (UTC)

Mmmm, Ripper sandwich. Snuggliest and most maple-y sandwich.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:27 pm (UTC)

Very snuggly. Very maple-y. With bonus kisses.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:27 pm (UTC)

Mmmmm.

Kisses.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:30 pm (UTC)

Tasty kisses.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:31 pm (UTC)

Rather squirmy kisses. It's hard to resist, sandwiched between such lovely people to squirm against.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:32 pm (UTC)

Ooh, squirming. Well, they will just have to snuggle up closer and kiss him some more, then.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:33 pm (UTC)

Highly recommended reactions!

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:35 pm (UTC)

Excellent!

They have some other ideas about what to do with a squirmy Cam, too. Perhaps those will also be positively received.

lifes_sake
2013-10-26 04:36 pm (UTC)

Oh yes. Yes they will.

tearingup
2013-10-26 04:36 pm (UTC)

Perfect.

This is continuation number 15 from here.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 02:39 am (UTC)

Kerron's currently between conversations, having just lost Lily to a sudden idea of some kind that she didn't stick around long enough to describe or display in colorshape form. That's okay, somebody else interesting will come along soon enough. He looks around at colors and shapes to see if anybody wants somebody to talk to, especially if somebody could readily be him.

pythbox
2013-10-26 02:52 am (UTC)

Here is someone whose colorshapes look like heads of grain, emerging from an enclosed stairway next to the buffet table and grabbing a cup of hot chocolate.

Oh, and he's a Joker wearing nothing but an illusory censor bar. That too.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 02:54 am (UTC)

Kerron makes a noise too high for human ears to catch and scrunches his eyes shut. (Fortunately, his colorshapes don't actually rely on his eyes; he can still see the grain-shapes.) "That is way more than I prefer to see of people shaped like my mum!" he yelps.

pythbox
2013-10-26 02:56 am (UTC)

Celo looks at him.

"What—oh, fuck, you're the Joker's kid," he says. "I'm censored, aren't I?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 03:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah, and you're still broadcasting the intention to go around stark naked for all eternity, and the censor bar covers up about forty percent of typically covered whatnot."

pythbox
2013-10-26 03:02 am (UTC)

Celo sighs. "It's a nymph thing, okay?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 03:03 am (UTC)

"That does not make you less naked or less Mum-shaped."

pythbox
2013-10-26 03:06 am (UTC)

"Would you rather I was just invisible to you or something?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 03:07 am (UTC)

"Possibly! At least your colorshapes don't look like his." (Kerron's eyes are still firmly closed.)

pythbox
2013-10-26 03:10 am (UTC)

"And those are...?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 03:13 am (UTC)

"The little -" Kerron waves at them where they swirl. "It's my witch-ingot thing, I see intentions, goals, that sort of thing, signified by colorshapes, which are not literally colored or shaped or seen. Yours look like some kind of grain thing, assorted colors. Mum usually walks around in a cloud of knives or something like that. 'Possibly' means 'yes until we think of something better', by the by."
Edited 2013-10-26 03:22 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-26 03:34 am (UTC)

Celo laughs. "Yeah, that sounds like him." He pulls a coin out of nowhere and wishes on it. "All right, you can open your eyes."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 03:35 am (UTC)

Kerron's eyes are already open when he sees the intention dissolve. "Thanks," he sighs in the direction of the swirling grain.

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:05 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," Celo says cheerfully. He produces his hot chocolate, which is not invisible to Kerron, and resumes drinking it.
Edited 2013-10-26 16:06 (UTC)

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:08 pm (UTC)

"So. Which Mum are y- oh, I can still see your nametag. Thaaaat's interesting."
Edited 2013-10-26 16:11 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:12 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "You can call me Celo," he says. "Short for Celosia. Since some people find my name a little hard to pronounce."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't think I can say that. It's a cool name, though."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:14 pm (UTC)

"It is!" says Celo. "I'm the only Joker who likes the one I came with."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I guess Harley doesn't count? I wouldn't expect him to remember the name he came with when the Princess took him home."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:17 pm (UTC)

"He knows what it was. He doesn't hate it the same way as the rest of them, but he's not fond either."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Is it just objectively terrible, I don't actually know it."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:21 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "It's not great."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I like my name, but Mum called me 'munchkin' till I got to be taller than him."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Of course he did," snorts Celo. "That's adorable."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Aedyt got 'pumpkin'. If they ever have another one I dunno what that one will get."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Kas's kid got 'button'," he says. "That one's pretty cute too."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:29 pm (UTC)

"Aww. I haven't met her yet."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you will sometime," he says. "I have no idea where she got to after everybody hugged her."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:32 pm (UTC)

"First time I was at a Joker party the deck all congregated around me and watched me be adorable and Mum turned me into a blue fox."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww," says Celo.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Ayep. Made it a little awkward when another party rolled around and I was old enough to hit on girls who'd been adults at the previous one, but, you know, I managed."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:40 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs. "Good for you!"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Thanks. Hey, have you seen any golden bubbly at this buffet? Kinda thirsty."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. But a square like red-gold honey flashes briefly in his invisible fingers, and then he hands Kerron a glass. "What is that, anyway?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Synthetic blood - well, not exactly, doesn't taste like blood," he takes a swig, "and it's fizzy, but it fills the same nutritional requirements."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Right, Aurum bloodsuckers," he says, grinning and shaking his head although Kerron can see neither thing. "What kinds of blood work for you guys, besides human?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Uh, I think Dad bit Aianon once, full vampires can't stand wolf blood but it's just sort of weird-tasting to half-vampires - I haven't bit a wolf, Lily did, she's interested in culinary applications of sanguinary flavor-space or something - animal blood works fine and tastes lousy to vampires but okay to us, I'm not aware of any other experiments."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Celo. "Maybe some adventurous nibbler should give me a try. Not you," he adds with a hint of a giggle.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm not your guy," snorts Kerron. "Dad or Lily. Or both for that matter."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:55 pm (UTC)

"I'll keep 'em in mind," he laughs.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Lily's yea high, blue eyes, hair somewhere between blonde and chestnut depending on the lighting, she'll let it get to her knees before she hacks it off but today it's about two feet long," says Kerron. "If you don't want to go around reading large numbers of nametags to locate her. She was wearing pink last time I saw her but that might change."

pythbox
2013-10-26 04:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't really go by the visuals most of the time, but I guess they're better than nothing," he says. "Thanks."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Why, how else would I describe her? I could tell you how she smells but English is kind of crap at that."

pythbox
2013-10-26 05:01 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles. "I'm a nymph," he says. "I have senses you don't. Makes it harder to work from descriptions of people unless the person doing the describing is another nymph, but what can you do."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Huh. What kinda senses?" Kerron's squinting at the grain now, but nothing comes clear.

pythbox
2013-10-26 05:02 pm (UTC)

"If you must know," he says, laughing, "I see sexuality."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 05:03 pm (UTC)

"...And you're at a Bellparty which has Bells at it. That sounds, eh, what's the word I'm looking for..."

pythbox
2013-10-26 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I've been through that with Aether," he snorts. "Took me a while, but I figured out how to stop interpreting."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 05:07 pm (UTC)

"So now you see, what, the Monet equivalent of - er - Monet painted blurry things," clarifies Kerron.

pythbox
2013-10-26 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Not really? Like, you get all hung up on the information aspect because that's the only part you know about, but that's not the important part," he says. "I get the same amount of detail, I just don't go the extra step of thinking about what it means in practice."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I don't get it."

pythbox
2013-10-26 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I know," snorts Celo. "Most people don't."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, anyway, if it helps, Lily's straight but in that way where she's weirdly affectionate with her female friends even though they don't actually have anything going on."

pythbox
2013-10-26 05:38 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles. "Thanks! Of course, I'd have to go around interpreting to use it, and then Aether would give me that look."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 05:38 pm (UTC)

"I guess you'll just have to read a lot of nametags, then."

pythbox
2013-10-26 05:39 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Celo. "Oh well."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh, there's Lily," says Kerron, pointing. "Still wearing pink, didn't change her sweater."

pythbox
2013-10-26 06:27 pm (UTC)

Celo looks. "Yeah, I see her," he says. "Might as well go say hi. See ya!"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Bye!"

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 06:29 pm (UTC)

Lily is apparently lost in thought, leaning on a wall with her ankles crossed, looking at the ceiling.

pythbox
2013-10-26 06:30 pm (UTC)

Celo makes his way over, still drinking his hot chocolate.

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 06:31 pm (UTC)

Lily glances at him. "Okay," she says, looking him up and down, "this I've got to hear, why are you naked?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 06:32 pm (UTC)

Celo sighs.

"Because I'm a nymph," he says. "And nymphs don't wear clothes."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Didn't stop Glass's kid from putting her miniature panda bear in a vest, I bet those don't occur in the wild. Why don't nymphs wear clothes?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Sacred duty," he says. "Which isn't my reason, but it's the general one. My reason is because I don't wanna."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 06:36 pm (UTC)

"And the magical black bar is for those around you who don't wanna likewise, I see."

pythbox
2013-10-26 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "Or I could just never leave my world, but where's the fun in that?"

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I really like these parties. They're good for people-watching." She glances at his nametag, blinks, and then stops looking at it.

pythbox
2013-10-26 06:43 pm (UTC)

"No kidding," he snorts. "Call me Celo; my name's kinda hard to pronounce."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 06:43 pm (UTC)

"And I'm Lily, which is easy to pronounce and also easy to spell."

pythbox
2013-10-26 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I heard," he says. "I asked Kerron who might wanna take a bite out of me and here's where he pointed."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 06:47 pm (UTC)

Lily sniffs the air thoughtfully. "Hmm. Yeah, possibly, I have an interest in - well, food - and I'm looking to branch out from human cuisine a little, which means seeing what's out there, everyone's so content to drink their bubbly seven days a week - I'm not knocking the stuff. It's great. But variety is worth investigating too. I'm not going to go all slasher-film on you, I'm just a half-vampire, you want me to take some from your wrist right now or what?"

pythbox
2013-10-26 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Go for it," Celo says cheerfully, offering her his hand. "I'm curious."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 06:57 pm (UTC)

Lily takes his hand, sniffs again, and then bites his wrist neatly open and tastes. She hums to herself, thoughtful and apparently pleased, while she drinks, then eventually laps up the last of the blood and lets his hand go. "That's really interesting. I think your blood, straight-up no fiddling, would be decently competitive with bubbly if you could bottle the stuff in sufficient quantity and get it to a decent shelf life without affecting the flavor. You're the blood equivalent of one of those ecologically responsible smoothies with wheat grass that poked its head out of the dirt not five minutes ago in it. Very thirst-quenching - unusually so, actually, I'd want to see how a full vampire without a thirstlessness wish on reacted. Kind of herbaceous. I bet vampires who used to be vegetarians before they turned would love you."

pythbox
2013-10-26 07:01 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs as a brief golden glow engulfs the bite mark and smooths it away.

"Wonder if I can just conjure some," he says, and pulls a square out of the air and tries it - nope - puts it away, tries a pentagon - and gets a gallon jug of blood, which he hands to Lily for lack of anything better to do with it.

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I'll find some taste-testers when I get home," she grins. "Hold a little tasting with, oh, sesame crackers and Brie."

pythbox
2013-10-26 07:15 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "I love it," he says. "—Ooh, there's a thought. How adventurous are you with trying new things?"

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Try me," says Lily, raising an eyebrow.

pythbox
2013-10-26 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Male nymphs ejaculate honey," he says, grinning. "It's got some nifty healing properties and it's reeeeally tasty."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 07:18 pm (UTC)

"That would be much harder to market," she snorts. "And I doubt it'll do much for the vampire crowd. If you want to conjure some up I'd taste it, though."

pythbox
2013-10-26 07:22 pm (UTC)

He pulls another pentagon out of nowhere in particular and conjures a bottle - glass, like the jug, with a metal screw-on cap. The honey inside shades from dark purple at the bottom through dark blues to lighter ones and finally a vivid, slightly smoky green.
Edited 2013-10-26 19:23 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 07:24 pm (UTC)

Lily sets down the jug of blood to unscrew it and pour a drop onto her finger to taste. "Not bad. The blood's going to be more popular in Aurum for palatability reasons as well as provenance reasons, though."

pythbox
2013-10-26 07:47 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs. "Now that's not usual," he says. "Most of the people who've had both like the honey better."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Half-vampire," she reminds him. "Honey tastes like, well, human food, I can take it or leave it unless it's my very favorite thing - I'm interested in food, but it doesn't grab me by the survival instinct and say 'more please'. Blood, on the other hand - blood's life. It and its imitations."

pythbox
2013-10-26 07:51 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Food doesn't nourish me at all, but I still like it."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Sure, and I like science fiction turn-based strategy games and they don't nourish me. I'm just saying, the blood's going to be a hit, the honey's a weird novelty."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Mm, not what I meant, but whatever."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:08 pm (UTC)

Lily shrugs. "Anyhow. Do you suppose all nymphs taste the same? Will they want to export? Her Majesty arranges mass conjurations of bubbly, but if I saw the coin you spent right this stuff'd be more expensive."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm a nymph, my blood is a magical substance, kicks it up a notch," he says. "I bet you other nymphs don't taste exactly the same. I could try talking to some, but not until Aether comes out with the whole other-universes thing."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Of course not identical. I just meant all with the herbaceous health food theme. Our Bella told individuals before she went completely public, so maybe yours will too."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't really want to be the one to explain other worlds to them, and Aether's not gonna jump at the chance to hang out with a bunch of nymphs," he says. "Herbaceous health food theme, yeah, probably. But I still might be different because I'm the only male nymph."

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh, hm, with humans I know gender doesn't make a huge difference, it's easier to taste if two people are related than if they're the same sex," muses Lily, "no idea about nymphs."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:18 pm (UTC)

"If it was half and half I wouldn't expect it to make a big difference," he says, "but I'm such a one-off, there's no telling what else might be different, you know?"

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's a reasonable point. I'm almost tempted to visit, but Materia's flagged as no tourism."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Seriously no tourism," Celo agrees. "It's dangerous in all kinds of nasty ways. If you want girl nymph blood that badly—"

He spends a pentagon. His magical censoring shifts configuration. He offers her his hand.

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:22 pm (UTC)

Lily laughs, bites his wrist again, and has a taste. "Yeah, it's a little different, not very."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:23 pm (UTC)

Another little flare of warm light heals the second bite. "And now you know," he says cheerfully.

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Thanks for letting me nibble," Lily says cheerfully.

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:24 pm (UTC)

Celo laughs. "No problem. Lemme know if you come up with any interesting uses for that stuff," with a general wave at the jug of blood and bottle of honey.

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Will do. I'll get people to fill out comment cards," she suggests.

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:38 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "Wonderful. And now," with a grin, "I'm gonna go see who else wants a bite."

[Hey, where's your sweetie?] he asks the Joker.
Edited 2013-10-26 20:42 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-10-26 08:44 pm (UTC)

[Right here,] he says brightly, snuggling into Nathan's arms. Being carried by his sweetie is one of his very favourite things.

alicornucopia
2013-10-26 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Have fun," laughs Lily, picking up her bottles and wandering off.

manofmyword
2013-10-26 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Celo's gonna come visit," the Joker says to Nathan.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Nathan agreeably, kissing the Joker on the forehead.

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:48 pm (UTC)

Celo appears, nudity and nametag and all. He has forgotten to change back to his usual shape.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 08:49 pm (UTC)

Nathan's perfectly accustomed to shapeshifting Jokers and not fazed by casual nudity. "Hullo there, good to meet you."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Hi! So I hear you might bite me?"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Stranger things have happened."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:52 pm (UTC)

"I think that would be fun!" he says. "And apparently I'm tasty - Lily had a nibble."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh, and she's a picky eater," laughs Nathan. "All right. But I'm a regular vampire, not a hybrid, and shouldn't be drinking from the vein in public."
Edited 2013-10-26 20:53 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:54 pm (UTC)

"We could stop being in public," Celo suggests. "Or I could conjure you some. Which would you rather?"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Oh, privacy's already tremendous fun, and then if you're in a mood after you can pounce on babe here."

pythbox
2013-10-26 08:56 pm (UTC)

Celo beams. "Sounds good to me!" he says, and teleports all three of them to an empty room downstairs.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 09:04 pm (UTC)

Nathan puts his mate down, and takes a bite out of Celo. He does not go for the delicate wrist-nibbling so much.

pythbox
2013-10-26 09:06 pm (UTC)

Celo is just delighted by his choice of approach.

Also, really tasty.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 09:07 pm (UTC)

And filling, too! Nathan breaks off after one normal-sized meal. "You're tasty but not compulsively tasty," he remarks. "...Actually, I'm not thirsty at all, right now."

pythbox
2013-10-26 09:08 pm (UTC)

Celo heals himself, looks into Nathan's eyes, blinks, and grins. "Aww, you're all pretty!" he says.

manofmyword
2013-10-26 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Is he? Ooh, I wanna see!"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 09:10 pm (UTC)

Nathan makes obliging eye contact. "Why, what color are they now?"

manofmyword
2013-10-26 09:11 pm (UTC)

"Lots!" the Joker says gleefully. "Yellow and orange and red and pink and purple and silver." He gives Nathan a hug and a kiss in celebration of this delightful fact.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, isn't that interesting," laughs Nathan. "I can turn myself all kinds of miscellaneous pastels apparently."

manofmyword
2013-10-26 09:17 pm (UTC)

"You are nnnot remotely pastel right now," giggles the Joker.

pythbox
2013-10-26 09:17 pm (UTC)

"You're every colour my garden grows in, actually," says Celo. "And that shit is bright."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Babe," (kiss) "can I get a mirror?"

manofmyword
2013-10-26 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing, hon." He snaps his fingers. A mirror appears.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 09:19 pm (UTC)

Nathan checks out his eye color. "Wow, that's really striking, isn't it."

manofmyword
2013-10-26 09:22 pm (UTC)

"It's gorgeous," says the Joker. "I love it." He kisses Nathan's cheek.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 09:22 pm (UTC)

Snugglehug!

pythbox
2013-10-26 09:25 pm (UTC)

"You guys are so cute," says Celo, hugging them.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-26 09:26 pm (UTC)

Hugs for all.

pythbox
2013-10-26 09:29 pm (UTC)

Snuggly hugs!

Snuggly hugs that somehow end in Celo kissing the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-10-26 09:30 pm (UTC)

It's just one of life's little mysteries.

This is continuation number 16 from here.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Darcy. Looks like you're stalling about something that has nothing to do with me, want help?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Darcy. "Hi! Are you thinking about a particular kind of help?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm not particular! How've you been?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Pretty good, pretty good. So it turns out I have an alt who is a dragon," she says. "I'm really not sure how to deal."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 09:58 pm (UTC)

"That explains the stalling then, yeah. Wow. I don't have any advice socked away for this occasion, Mum pretty much had no special reaction to his dragon alt."

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Your mom is, like, up to his eyebrows in alts," Darcy points out. "I only have one, and she's a freaking dragon! I mean, it's awesome, but what do I even talk to her about?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I guess you could go up to her and say, 'you're a dragon, that's awesome' - like, she's your alt, so how would you feel if a dragon went up to you and said - 'you have a magic space hammer, that's awesome'?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I... would feel pretty good about that," Darcy admits. "Huh." Her desire to stall is lessening.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 10:12 pm (UTC)

Kerron smiles.

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:13 pm (UTC)

She grins and hugs him. "You're a champ, dude. Wanna come meet my dragon alt with me?"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Sure, why not?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Cool!"

The archways leading outside are dragon-sized. They're not hard to find. Darcy heads for the closest.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 10:33 pm (UTC)

Kerron follows along agreeably.

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:37 pm (UTC)

There are dragons in flight outside, but too far off for Darcy to see them clearly. She squints.

"Okay," she says, "I'm thinking this is gonna take flying. How do you feel about me carrying you?"

(Darcy feels pretty good about her carrying him, personally.)
Edited 2013-10-26 22:37 (UTC)

pina_colada
2013-10-26 10:40 pm (UTC)

He glances at her colorshapes. He decides to omit to mention that he once mentioned casually at age two that flying looked fun and that his mum rendered him able to do it thereafter. "Sounds like a plan."

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:42 pm (UTC)

Darcy beams.

"Okay, hug me," she says, putting one arm around his waist and unholstering Mjolnir with her other hand. "We can catch you if you slip but I'd rather not have to."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 10:43 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:47 pm (UTC)

Darcy spins her hammer, and they depart the platform in a swirl of wind. The arm around his waist is pretty strong for a human - she's been training - but it's not just that strength keeping him close; some of the hammer's magic wraps around him too.

She brings them in a wide arc out away from the platform, looking for likely dragons.

pythbox
2013-10-26 10:49 pm (UTC)

The closest one turns toward them and flies closer still. Her scales are a deep midnight blue, patterned with branching white lines.

"You smell like thunderstorms!" she calls from above.

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I know!" Darcy yells back. "It's the magic space hammer that does it!"

pythbox
2013-10-26 10:53 pm (UTC)

The dragon giggles and banks toward the space plant with its roomy encircling platform.

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:55 pm (UTC)

Darcy follows. If it's a race, she wins it, or more accurately Mjolnir does; she sets herself and Kerron down neatly before the dragon's claws touch wood.

"So hi!" she says. "I'm Darcy."

pythbox
2013-10-26 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm Sidanar," says the dragon. "Are you my alt? I think you're my alt."

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I think so too!"

pythbox
2013-10-26 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," says Sidanar. "What's a magic space hammer?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 10:57 pm (UTC)

She holds up Mjolnir.

"It's magic, and from space!"

pina_colada
2013-10-26 10:59 pm (UTC)

(Kerron recovers his footing and watches this exchange with amusement.)

pythbox
2013-10-26 11:01 pm (UTC)

Sidanar snakes her head down until her nose nearly touches the hammer.

"I like it," she says. "What's it for? Besides smelling like thunderstorms and flying?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Heroing, basically," says Darcy. "I can summon thunderstorms with it, but with all those people out flying I probably shouldn't. And when I put it down it stays put and when I hit things with it they stay hit."

pythbox
2013-10-26 11:06 pm (UTC)

"That sounds magic, all right!" says Sidanar approvingly.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 11:08 pm (UTC)

Kerron says, "And I'm Kerron. Not sure if this is large enough to read. Or if dragons go in for literacy, for that matter."
Edited 2013-10-26 23:09 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-26 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Reading small letters is kind of a challenge," Sidanar admits. "It's usually easier to just get someone to read it. Hello, Kerron! You're big for a human. Warm, too."

pina_colada
2013-10-26 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Not a human," he chuckles. "Only half. Other half is vampire."

pythbox
2013-10-26 11:15 pm (UTC)

"What's a vampire?" she says interestedly.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Species from Aurum. Really fast, really durable, really strong - Aianon beat my dad arm-wrestling but it was close - and made out of humans, with vampire venom, takes three days if you do it the natural way."

pythbox
2013-10-26 11:20 pm (UTC)

Sidanar's head pulls back and her wings half-open in startlement. "Your father nearly won a contest of strength with an Endarkened?"

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-26 11:21 pm (UTC)

A startled dragon is an impressive sight. Darcy is impressed.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. With anybody but Aianon it wouldn't be close - Dad could pick you up easy. Might not be comfy, he's human-sized and you wouldn't have very well-distributed pressure, but he could do it."

pythbox
2013-10-26 11:25 pm (UTC)

"...really?" she says dubiously.

pina_colada
2013-10-26 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Stand him up there, put a sling under you that wouldn't snap, he could pick you right up."

pythbox
2013-10-26 11:28 pm (UTC)

She considers this.

"I don't think anyone's ever tried picking up a dragon before, except for another dragon. And even that's usually difficult."

pina_colada
2013-10-27 12:03 am (UTC)

"You're not really shaped for it. I just meant to indicate that vampires are very, very strong."

pythbox
2013-10-27 12:04 am (UTC)

"It worked," Sidanar says dryly.

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-27 12:04 am (UTC)

Darcy cracks up.

pina_colada
2013-10-27 12:06 am (UTC)

"So that's my dad, and my mum is a Joker like Ansharil and Aianon."

pythbox
2013-10-27 12:07 am (UTC)

"What species is she—? Human?"

pina_colada
2013-10-27 12:08 am (UTC)

"Yeah, pretty much, but she throws so much magic around I don't usually categorize her like that."

(Kerron just kind of runs with it when people pronoun his mum.)

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-27 12:12 am (UTC)

Darcy gives him a quizzical look, but, well, Jokers.

pythbox
2013-10-27 12:12 am (UTC)

"Human mages are still human, aren't they?" says Sidanar.

pina_colada
2013-10-27 12:14 am (UTC)

"Maybe on Thilanushinyel. At home you've got witches, who can be any species but only have single specific powers, and then you have imported magic, and pretty much everyone except my mum who has access to that stuff is not a human. Or at least was when I was growing up; there's Harley now, he's another Mum."

pythbox
2013-10-27 12:15 am (UTC)

"There are a lot of Ansharil and his Bonded running around," Sidanar observes.

pina_colada
2013-10-27 12:17 am (UTC)

"Yeah, loads, I think they're still second to Bells unless you count all the daemons or something though."

pythbox
2013-10-27 12:18 am (UTC)

"Has someone counted?"

pina_colada
2013-10-27 12:20 am (UTC)

"Probably, but oh, lemme see, if you count daemons you've got nineteen Bells, if you count daemons and Sue's fork you've got... twenty-two Jokers, actually, but if you don't count the daemons and Sue's fork they're tied at sixteen now that Felicity's been added on. He didn't come with a Bell. I guess you could count Shell Bell and Juliet one extra time each, they used to have forks and then merged, but the Jokers are still ahead unless you only count as few of both as you can justify."
Edited 2013-10-27 15:28 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-27 03:30 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what makes there be so many of people," says Sidanar. "It's odd, isn't it?"

pina_colada
2013-10-27 03:31 pm (UTC)

"There aren't that many of most people. Only one of me or Dad, so far, just the two of you, etcetera."

thaumobabble
2013-10-27 03:32 pm (UTC)

Glass appears unexpectedly, points at Kerron, says, "Green, he was right," moves on to the Darcies, and says, "Purples."

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-27 03:32 pm (UTC)

"...Purple whats?" inquires Darcy.

thaumobabble
2013-10-27 03:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sorry. I recently discovered that there are two big clusters of templates who are 'closer together' than to those in the opposite cluster in - templatespace. I can go into more detail if you want, but the short version is that these clusters have been named 'purple' and 'green' and you are purple and Kerron is green."

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-27 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Darcy.

pina_colada
2013-10-27 03:35 pm (UTC)

"Who guessed me?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-27 03:36 pm (UTC)

"The Joker did. You match your dad," she adds. "And Jokers are purple, Bells are green."

pythbox
2013-10-27 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Does everyone have these colours? What colours are Sherial and Tianthonet and Elasirae and Arianna?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-27 03:39 pm (UTC)

"I haven't looked at them specifically, but Sherlocks and Tonies that I have looked at are purple. Haven't checked Lazarus or any of the Annas."

pythbox
2013-10-27 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Is Lazarus the human one of Elasirae, then?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-27 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Yep. They've met, he didn't mention?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Sort of. I wasn't paying much attention," she says, shrugging her folded wings.

thaumobabble
2013-10-27 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, now you all know your moieties, which as far as I know is practically worthless information but I'm sorting everyone anyway." And Glass departs.

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-27 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, that was... weird," says Darcy. "Weird is what that was."

pina_colada
2013-10-27 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I wonder if that'll turn out to be anything but a weird curiosity."

sailorheavymetal
2013-10-27 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Who knows."

This is continuation number 17 from here.

pythbox
2013-10-27 04:40 pm (UTC)

Celo is back at the buffet table, trying one of every dessert. He's also still female, partly because he hasn't had any good reasons to change back and partly on the theory that maybe this way fewer people will question him about his lack of pants.

keyed_up
2013-10-27 04:45 pm (UTC)

No such luck.

"You are wearing zero clothes, did you know that?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Nooooo," says the nymph, rolling his eyes. "I had no idea."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Hey, could've been someone pranked you, how would I know?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Okay, yeah, sure," he says, "it's just you are not exactly the first person who's noticed and I get less happy about explaining every time."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Put it on your nametag?" she suggests.

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Technically if somebody could prank me they could prank my nametag too," he points out. "I mean, not easily, I enchanted it myself, but they could."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:10 pm (UTC)

"It could say to... check with... some third party? I don't know, that gets kind of involved."

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm. Well, it still might cut down on it a little." He concentrates briefly; his illusory nametag extends itself to add the line Yes, I know I'm naked at the bottom.
Edited 2013-10-27 17:15 (UTC)

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Would I also be the millionth person to ask why you're naked? Did you lose a bet?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:21 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "No. I am naked on purpose. Because I'm a nymph, and nymphs do that."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I guess that's not really weirder than Bella having demonic minions who need her to bless grape soda so they can have babies."

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:24 pm (UTC)

"...I'd actually say being naked because I'm a nymph is less weird than that," says Celo. "And I'm pretty sure your demons are not like my demons."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, Sunshine has lots of kinds of demons," says Soph. "And then there's Aianon who is the kind from this world. What are yours like?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Usually up to no good," he snorts. "Vulnerable to divine energy. They can possess people or take physical shape on the mortal plane, and they need to feed on really specific things - I remember hearing about one who had to eat the hearts of virgins, which sounds pretty messy."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:31 pm (UTC)

"I would not be surprised to find a kind like that in a Sunshine demonology book, but that's not the only sort."

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Because lots of kinds," he says. "Yeah. You know, I kind of wish we'd find another world with nymphs in it."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:37 pm (UTC)

"They probably wouldn't be much like you. Humans seem to be about the same everywhere, but nothing else."

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I mean I'd like it if we found another world with specifically my kind of nymphs," he says, "mostly so there would be at least some people at these things whose first words to me would not be any variation on the theme of 'Hi! You're naked!'."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Don't hold your breath. I mean, there's a unicorn and some dragons who don't wear clothes? Maybe they wouldn't mention it?"
Edited 2013-10-27 17:44 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:47 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah, but they could still tell I'm the only naked humanoid walking around up here."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:49 pm (UTC)

"They might not think it's worth mentioning? I don't know, I haven't tried going up to the unicorn while naked."

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:50 pm (UTC)

Celo grins. "If you do, lemme know how it goes!"

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Not part of my plans for the day."

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Didn't think so," he giggles.

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:55 pm (UTC)

"So you're from the world that broke Jane, right? With the therapist-Bell?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Yep, that's me."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:56 pm (UTC)

"I have a really, really hard time imagining Bella as a therapist, but maybe that's just my one."

pythbox
2013-10-27 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Aether isn't actually trained yet," he says. "She's going to school to learn to be a mental healer, 'cause that's where she felt like she could do the most good with the smallest splash. But I don't think she's bad at it or anything."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 05:59 pm (UTC)

"My Bella kind of spent a while having problems that were best solved by blunt force trauma."

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, blunt force trauma to who?"

keyed_up
2013-10-27 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Miscellaneous demons!"

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:08 pm (UTC)

Celo giggles. "Sounds like fun."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes. One time a magical construct thing stomped on her and she was in the hospital for a while."

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Aww, that's sad. Well, okay, it sounds like a fun time to me, but I recognize that not everybody likes getting stomped."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 06:15 pm (UTC)

"She almost died. She would've done if Amariah hadn't put protective spells on her. Usually when Slayers get hurt they pretty much pop right back up or they're dead. I mean, then she actually did die, but I didn't find out about that until she was already back up walking around from Downside."

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "readily available resurrection is pretty great, isn't it?"

keyed_up
2013-10-27 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:25 pm (UTC)

"It's available back home but not readily," he says, "kind of an 'if your family has money and it hasn't been too long and they can still find your body' thing."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 06:25 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's better than nothing? Unless it isn't because people take stupid risks? Also, is there some obvious way to pronounce your name that I'm missing?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "I'm Celo out loud."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Maybe your nametag should say that, too."

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:29 pm (UTC)

"My nametag is going to be like a page long," he snorts.

keyed_up
2013-10-27 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Why, what else are you skipping that should be on it?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:36 pm (UTC)

"I can't think of anything specific, but at this rate?"

He alters his illusory nametag again, glowing briefly with the sunny divine light of his aura. Now it reads: Hi! I'm a Joker from Materia and my name is (the smear of colour that produces it when read) but you can call me Celo, and on the next line Yes, I'm naked, and on the line after that Yes, on purpose.

It is in fact getting kind of long.

keyed_up
2013-10-27 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Well, at least it isn't covering up any carefully chosen accessories or anything."

(Soph is wearing even more brightly colored plastic jewelry than usual today.)

pythbox
2013-10-27 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Covering up any part of me is technically blasphemy," he snorts. "Not that I care."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Yanno, I have never had to worry about whether something was technically blasphemy? Like, I try not to offend my religious friends and stuff, but the details of theology have never come up."

pythbox
2013-10-27 07:50 pm (UTC)

"In Materia the difference between not blasphemy and technically blasphemy can be permanently fatal," says Celo. "I cannot overstate how bad an idea it is to piss off a god."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm not supposed to visit Materia anyway, I guess."

pythbox
2013-10-27 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you definitely should not do that," snorts Celo. "Nobody from out here in your nice safe fantasy paradise should visit Materia."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 07:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm not from a nice safe fantasy paradise, I'm from a mean world with lots of things in it that would like to eat me."

pythbox
2013-10-27 08:03 pm (UTC)

Celo shrugs. "'Nice safe fantasy paradise' was more about the part where the laws of reality stay put when you squint at them and there are basically no ways to permanently die anymore. The entire rest of the multiverse is a nice safe fantasy paradise as far as I'm concerned, until we find another world that works like Materia."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Syntropy's not hooked up Downside," Soph points out. "You might be able to permanently die there. They also haven't figured out how the gods work, there."

pythbox
2013-10-27 08:23 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "So maybe people shouldn't be visiting Syntropy either."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 08:24 pm (UTC)

"People don't. I don't think so, anyway, I - have not been visiting places before."

pythbox
2013-10-27 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," laughs Celo. "Well, not until I learned how to freecast; I've pretty much spent all my time since then bouncing between Jokers."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 08:26 pm (UTC)

"But not to the Syntropy one?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Huh? Yeah, why not?"

keyed_up
2013-10-27 08:48 pm (UTC)

"You just said, maybe people shouldn't be visiting Syntropy either."

pythbox
2013-10-27 08:51 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah, but one, I didn't mean me, and two, I said that after I went there."

keyed_up
2013-10-27 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

This is continuation number 18 from here.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 04:44 pm (UTC)

There are some Samarians who aren't immediately related to the Archangel-elect at this party.

Some of them have wings and are therefore more conspicuous than others.

newtimov
2013-10-27 04:56 pm (UTC)

Wings are conspicuous! They draw attention. Ike's attention is drawn.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 04:58 pm (UTC)

The goldish-winged angel notices, and draws his wings in towards himself a little. (They're still huge, of course.) "Uh, hi."

The nametag on his angel-cut vest says that he is untemplated, named Lucas, and from Samaria.

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:06 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Ike. He is not really sure how to go on from there.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:08 pm (UTC)

Lucas reads his nametag. "Isaac. Now that's a name I know how to pronounce." (He pronounces it with an accent, but he pronounces it.) "Apparently not everybody picks their baby names out of the Librera, off Samaria, who knew?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:10 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "Other worlds are like that! I have an alt named Icarin. But he is not here because his parents don't want him traveling to strange universes by himself."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:11 pm (UTC)

"This place definitely qualifies. I did not quite believe Grandma and Grandpa's stories about the Archangel-Elect and all her faraway friends till I actually got here."

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm told they're not usually so, um..." He gestures helplessly at the living architecture. "...Giant plant floating in space... ish?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Is that what - I was not even told that part," laughs Lucas. "In space? A plant in space."

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Yes! Have you been outside? It's very - space. Out there. Where I have been."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:21 pm (UTC)

"No, I've been staying indoors, someone told me there's big - scaly things, flying around in the airspace out there. I do not know what they are or how to politely find out."

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:23 pm (UTC)

"They are dragons!" says Ike. "They're local. And friendly. I haven't met any, but my sister has and she got along fine. My sister can fly," he adds as a partial explanation.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:24 pm (UTC)

"So can I," laughs Lucas. "Your sister would... probably not be an angel, so why can she fly?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:26 pm (UTC)

"She can fly because she's an ithue!" he says. "Ithuetse can sort of shapeshift. Val makes herself wings. It's very pretty."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Huh, that sounds convenient if she can just make them when she wants them. I can't ride horses, the wings spook them. Or swim."

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:33 pm (UTC)

Ike peers at Lucas's wings. "Ye-es," he says, "it does sort of look like swimming would be difficult, especially if those aren't waterproof. Actually, of the two of us, Val is the only one who can swim. We both sink like rocks, but she can grow fins."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:36 pm (UTC)

"They're okay in rain," says Lucas. "I can fly in a storm just fine - more comfortable to go above the clouds, but I don't have to. In the water, though, there's just no way to fold them up so they don't wind up with more water on top of them than under them and then they'd drag me down. I haven't tried it, this is my engineer grandpa explaining it to me."

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Ike. "Weirdly, it makes less sense after the explanation. But I think I still have sort of a mechanical intuition for it... I mean, wings aren't designed for swimming, not that kind anyway, you are not made of penguins."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Made of what?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Penguins! They're a kind of bird that lives in very cold places and swims instead of flying, so they use their wings as flippers."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if we have those."

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:48 pm (UTC)

"You might not," says Ike. "Wow, that's weird. I mean, worlds without approximately three thousand species of demon I can understand, but I don't know what to do with a world without penguins."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we do and I just haven't heard of them? I think we're missing a bunch of common animals, for - some reason."

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Interesting! I wonder why. Do you have a bunch of common animals that the rest of us don't, or are you just generally undersupplied?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:54 pm (UTC)

"So far I haven't mentioned anything except angels and gotten a 'we don't have those'. Uh, horses? Cows? Cats? Rabbits? Chickens? Hawks? Mice? Doves? ...Salmon?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes," says Ike. "That's really interesting. What do the rest of us have that you don't?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Penguins, apparently. Demons. Dragons, I guess, if those are an animal? We also don't have that vaguely goatlike thing I saw wandering around with a single antler or whatever it was coming out of its forehead."

newtimov
2013-10-27 06:07 pm (UTC)

"That would be a unicorn," says Ike. "I don't think we have unicorns in my world either. I also don't think we have dragons, but I wouldn't be astonished if I found out that we actually did have one or both of those."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Also I definitely don't know about any animals that live in my world but not on my planet," Lucas adds.

newtimov
2013-10-27 06:12 pm (UTC)

"And your planet... is not Earth, right? So actually if you have an Earth in your world and you don't live on it, it would make a lot of sense if your planet had some subset of Earth species, because whenever humans made the trip in the first place they probably brought a bunch with them but it would be really difficult to bring every single species on Earth to some new planet. There are a lot."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, the planet is just called Samaria. So is the main continent. It's not as confusing as it sounds."

newtimov
2013-10-27 06:14 pm (UTC)

"It sounds moderately confusing," says Ike.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 06:16 pm (UTC)

"It's usually pretty easy to tell from context. If you're sailing to Samaria, you mean the continent. If you're taking a spaceship, you mean the planet. If 'Jane' is helping then you mean the world."

newtimov
2013-10-27 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Contextual distinctions!" says Ike, giggling.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Maybe eventually the world will get renamed, I don't know, the Archangel-Elect is in charge of that."

newtimov
2013-10-27 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Which is sort of weird," muses Ike. "I mean, not that I know any other good ways to do it, but it feels like naming entire universes should be a slightly more democratic process. Or at least more collaborative."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 06:23 pm (UTC)

"What does 'democratic' mean?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Um, a way of making decisions where everyone has an equal say in the outcome," he says. "Roughly speaking. I could explain more but then there would be politics and that is not my area of expertise."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 06:28 pm (UTC)

Lucas thinks about this. "But how does it work?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 06:47 pm (UTC)

"By approximation, most of the time. People decide on a bunch of options for something and then everyone says which one they like best and the option with the most support wins. It gets more complicated with more people involved."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it sounds it. Why would that be a good way to name worlds?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 07:48 pm (UTC)

"It wouldn't necessarily, I'm just not sure the way they're currently getting named is better."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Yours has a kind of funny name," says Lucas.

newtimov
2013-10-27 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Sunshine. Because our vampires catch fire in it," says Ike. "I feel like we probably have better distinguishing characteristics than that."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 07:52 pm (UTC)

"What would you name it?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," he says. "And there's the whole rest of the family to consider, too - they named Apollo and Helios after the theme. I think our most obvious distinguishing characteristic is probably all the different species of demons, and I'm not sure how to turn that into a name exactly, but if I could I would probably like it better than 'Sunshine'. Actually, come to think of it, I wonder if there is a name for our worldsheaf already in some local language? Thousands of species of demon makes for a lot of languages. I will ask Juliet to find out."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Juliet's... one of the Archangel-Elect's alts? I'm sure I've seen a list at some point but I don't have it memorized."

newtimov
2013-10-27 08:06 pm (UTC)

"Yes! She is the one from my world. There are a bunch more but I also don't have the list memorized. One of them is a boy," he adds, blushing slightly.
Edited 2013-10-27 20:07 (UTC)

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 08:22 pm (UTC)

"A boy one? I don't remember hearing about that, wow."

newtimov
2013-10-27 08:24 pm (UTC)

"His name is Cam and he is very pretty."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

newtimov
2013-10-27 08:26 pm (UTC)

"...Hmm," says Ike, in response to that huh.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 08:30 pm (UTC)

"...Uh, I didn't know alts worked like that."

newtimov
2013-10-27 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Alts do work like that! Cam is extremely friendly," says Ike. "I could introduce you to him if you want."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 08:35 pm (UTC)

"I haven't even really met the Archangel-Elect. I'm here because she's friends with my maternal grandparents. One of her from another world seems like a step beyond that."

newtimov
2013-10-27 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's up to you, I guess. But he really is friendly."

Friendly in a way that causes Ike to blush every time he brings it up.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 08:46 pm (UTC)

"You keep, uh, blushing."

newtimov
2013-10-27 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Ike, blushing harder. "Yes I do."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 08:48 pm (UTC)

"...If you don't want to say why, that's fine."

newtimov
2013-10-27 08:52 pm (UTC)

"It is not particularly a secret or anything, but if I say it I might not stop blushing for a week, so I think I will not."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Um, okay."

grabsthebutt
2013-10-27 09:01 pm (UTC)

A red-haired girl with a strong family resemblance to Ike happens to be passing by. She says helpfully, "They had sex," and then keeps walking.

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:01 pm (UTC)

Ike blushes harder. "Thank you, Val," he mutters.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:02 pm (UTC)

Ike continues to blush.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:03 pm (UTC)

"...And that's not a secret," Lucas clarifies.

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:03 pm (UTC)

"It is not a secret!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:04 pm (UTC)

"...At home," says Lucas, subdued, "it would be a secret."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Things of that general nature have to be a secret in some parts of my world too," he says. "But where I live it's mostly okay."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:12 pm (UTC)

"...When I was a kid, Isabella suddenly made it legal for two men or two women to get married, if they wanted, in her province, and about a third of the people I knew thought she was being bribed by Jansai to make it easy for them to find - people who would, um, take the bait."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:16 pm (UTC)

"...The bait being... marriage, and the Jansai's interest being...?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:18 pm (UTC)

"It didn't actually happen very much, crime in Bethel has been way down, but people thought they wanted to know who to avoid doing business with or who to send their violent teenagers after or something."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Happily, I have my sister to deal with violent teenagers for me. Even more happily, she almost never has to."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:26 pm (UTC)

"That sounds useful."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Val is very handy."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I have three sisters and two brothers. They're all mortals, though, and none of them would be of particular use against violent Jansai teenagers."
Edited 2013-10-27 21:30 (UTC)

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:33 pm (UTC)

"I only have the one, but she is good at dealing with violent people. Mainly by hitting them until they go away."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I suppose that would be the way to do it. I've never actually been in a fight, partly because everyone knows better than to pick one with an angel, which is just as well because I'm not as confident as conventional wisdom that I'd be able to make any use of angel strength."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:37 pm (UTC)

"I think I know what you mean," says Ike. "Val is not any more physically equipped to hit people than I am, at least when she's not using iethat, but mentally it's no contest."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:38 pm (UTC)

Lucas nods. "I mean, I suppose I know the thunderbolt prayer too, but nobody uses that, which is probably why no one has noticed that allegedly all of those requests have to go through Isabella now."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:45 pm (UTC)

"...What, um, is the thunderbolt prayer?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:47 pm (UTC)

"It's a song. If you sing it - at home, anyway, on the right planet - then you get a thunderbolt, aimed where you called it to. I don't think anyone's called one since the accident at Cedar Hills, and the last time one was called on purpose it was almost two hundred years ago when the Archangel Gabriel destroyed Windy Point."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:50 pm (UTC)

"...Someone called one by accident?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, when you're learning the song you're supposed to stop in the middle, sing something else, then pick up with the rest. Somebody forgot."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Oh dear," says Ike.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:53 pm (UTC)

"That was before Isabella inserted herself between the singing and the actual thunderbolts, of course."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Do people know she did that? I guess you said they didn't. I wonder what happens when someone tries one and it doesn't work."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure. Nobody knows she did that except people who know the rest of it about Jovah being a spaceship she's the captain of and so on."

newtimov
2013-10-27 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Sounds very science fictiony," says Ike.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 09:59 pm (UTC)

"...Whatever that is, I'm not sure we have it?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 10:00 pm (UTC)

"You probably don't, and I am really not sure how to explain," he says.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I have this sense that Samaria is missing out on a lot of stuff."

newtimov
2013-10-27 10:26 pm (UTC)

"If you want," says Ike, "I could give you some science fiction books, and then you will know what they are."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 10:28 pm (UTC)

"...In Samarian? I'm not magicked into the common language here, I think there's some kind of effect on the party itself."

newtimov
2013-10-27 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I am absolutely sure that is a solvable problem," says Ike. "Someone could put a similar effect on the books, for example."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I suppose. I don't think I understand to what extent magic is - available. I don't have any, the Archangel-Elect has lots, other people seem almost random in how much of it they have and whether any of it might be used in ways I'd ever notice."

newtimov
2013-10-27 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Well... I wouldn't just generally expect to be able to get books with translation magic on them, but given that we are at a Bellparty, I am very sure that there is someone here who is both willing and able to do that and the only potentially tricky part is finding them and asking nicely."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Even if the language thing is handled, will I be able to make any sense of the stories?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Potentially. Some more than others. But good science fiction explains itself pretty well."

thaumobabble
2013-10-27 10:44 pm (UTC)

Before Lucas can reply, Glass wanders by, pauses, points at Lucas, says "Green," and moves on.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 10:45 pm (UTC)

Lucas blinks.

"Do you know what just happened?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 10:47 pm (UTC)

"Glass can see things about alts and stuff. She discovered earlier that apparently everybody here is in one of two groups, and the Joker came by and named them 'purple' and 'green'. I'm purple. We don't really know anything about them except for who's in which ones, and that people who are alts of each other are always in the same group."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 10:48 pm (UTC)

"...Okay. That's very strange."

newtimov
2013-10-27 10:54 pm (UTC)

"It is!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 10:55 pm (UTC)

"So she's just going around, pointing at people, naming colors."

newtimov
2013-10-27 10:56 pm (UTC)

"We have just seen inarguable evidence of that, yes."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay then. This is a really strange party. The previous contender for weirdest party I've ever attended was the one where everyone was drunk and singing bawdy lyrics to the tunes of masses."

newtimov
2013-10-27 11:07 pm (UTC)

Ike giggles. "It doesn't really compare, does it."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 11:08 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't! Even though the songs were highly entertaining. This is - nobody at home who isn't here would get it."

newtimov
2013-10-27 11:10 pm (UTC)

"That," says Ike, "is definitely a feature of Bellparties."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Have you been to a lot of them? Since you know - at least two - Bells personally?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 11:18 pm (UTC)

"This is actually my first one! I have heard about others, but I did not go. And I met Cam here," he adds.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh. And you have alts and everything."

newtimov
2013-10-27 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I do! I have two alts. But I only really know things about one of them."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?"

newtimov
2013-10-27 11:31 pm (UTC)

"The other one is not in contact with any Bells or anyone Bells know, so all we know about him is that he is in Gift and lives in Toronto and has a Val. And was dead. But then they brought all of Toronto back to life, which included him because that is where he is from."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 11:33 pm (UTC)

"...The fact that people can have been dead in the past tense, I'm still not used to."

newtimov
2013-10-27 11:47 pm (UTC)

"It is unexpected!" he agrees.

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 11:48 pm (UTC)

"My mother was - I'd almost call her apologetic - every time she told me a new tidbit about the multiverse. She finds it all overwhelming. She's not even here."

newtimov
2013-10-27 11:52 pm (UTC)

"My mother and my father live in different subworlds of the Sunshine worldsheaf, so their tolerance for extradimensional shenanigans is fairly high," he says. "They might even come to a party someday."

snowandsparks
2013-10-27 11:53 pm (UTC)

"...Worldsheaf."

newtimov
2013-10-28 12:00 am (UTC)

Ike giggles.

"Okay. There are worlds that are separate, like Samaria and Sunshine and Thilanushinyel. But sometimes there are groups of them that are not separate from each other - that have their own internal ways to get from one to another that don't work for traveling outside of that sheaf, and the worlds in the sheaf share the same laws of physics and kinds of magic and so on, at least mostly. Sunshine is a worldsheaf like that, and I think Alethia is too, and I forget if I've heard about any others."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 12:00 am (UTC)

"This is complicated."

newtimov
2013-10-28 12:17 am (UTC)

"It is! It is very that," says Ike.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 12:18 am (UTC)

"How did you get used to it?"

newtimov
2013-10-28 12:47 am (UTC)

"...Science fiction, mainly," he says.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 12:48 am (UTC)

"How did that help?"

newtimov
2013-10-28 01:06 am (UTC)

"Well... what science fiction is is more or less stories about other worlds. Just ones the writer happens to have made up. Things like 'what would it be like if people lived on the moon', or 'what would it be like if people lived on flying trees in a huge cloud of air with no gravity', or even 'what would it be like if there were a whole bunch of different universes where things turned out differently than they have in this one'. The science part means mainly trying to answer those questions using things we actually know about how the world works instead of things we make up about how it might."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 01:14 am (UTC)

"Those sound really interesting, actually. Without being as intimidating as the actual flying tree."

newtimov
2013-10-28 01:16 am (UTC)

"Yes! I really like them," says Ike. "And having read plenty of that stuff made me a lot more prepared for the, um, actual flying tree." He gestures vaguely at the actual flying tree in which they find themselves. "So to speak."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 01:18 am (UTC)

"So you didn't feel all dizzy when you got dropped into it, huh."

newtimov
2013-10-28 01:29 am (UTC)

"I did not."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 01:30 am (UTC)

"My grandmother had to catch me, it was embarrassing. I don't get vertigo when I'm just flying."

newtimov
2013-10-28 01:30 am (UTC)

"Awwww," says Ike.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 01:31 am (UTC)

Lucas blushes and looks away.

newtimov
2013-10-28 01:37 am (UTC)

"Aww, no, it's okay, I have had embarrassing vertigo too!" says Ike. "When I was a small child I could not ride any kind of moving vehicle without it!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 01:39 am (UTC)

"...Did you often have cause to - are those things common in other worlds? I hate them, they're not as bad as a skittish horse but they're miserable to travel in."

newtimov
2013-10-28 01:41 am (UTC)

"Various kinds of moving vehicle are extremely common in my world, and they are mostly not miserable as long as you're not a small child with spatial orientation issues," he says.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 01:43 am (UTC)

"Well, they're probably designed to fit you. There's fewer than two hundred angels and we can fly, so no one bothers making sure the vehicles have room for a big set of wings." He checks his surroundings, then unfurls one wing to its full six-feet-and-change span. "What kind of spatial orientation issues?"

newtimov
2013-10-28 01:51 am (UTC)

Ike looks at the wing. Ike smiles.

"—Oh," he says. "Um, me and Val are not entirely human, and the kind of not human that we partly are comes with some talents. Like always knowing exactly how big or far away things are by looking at them, and always knowing how far we're going when we walk or move. Which makes it impossible to get lost without teleporting, but also means that traveling at high speeds not under our own power can be, um, kind of rough until we get used to it. Val mostly didn't have a problem, but I threw up on a lot of trains."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 01:54 am (UTC)

"What's a train?" Lucas asks. He looks at his wing, like he expects to find a bit of spinach between a pair of feathers, then looks at Ike looking at the wing, then holds it in place for a long moment before letting it re-fold.

newtimov
2013-10-28 02:03 am (UTC)

"A train is a kind of vehicle that runs on rails and usually goes much faster than the kinds that use roads."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 02:04 am (UTC)

"Huh, I don't think we have those at all."

newtimov
2013-10-28 02:10 am (UTC)

"Then if I had grown up in Samaria I would probably have had a much less nauseous childhood!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 02:12 am (UTC)

"Probably! Vehicles are mostly for cargo, anyway. People get around on horses for everyday still. Unless they can fly, or know people who will pick them up and can fly."

newtimov
2013-10-28 02:28 am (UTC)

"I know very few people who can pick me up," says Ike. "Well, more now that I know a bunch of people who are magic. But I mean, unassisted humans generally can't."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 02:28 am (UTC)

"I could pick you up," says Lucas, almost casually.

newtimov
2013-10-28 02:32 am (UTC)

"I am heavier than I look," says Ike. "My bones are mostly iron."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 02:33 am (UTC)

Lucas looks him over. Almost casually. "I could pick you up," he repeats.

newtimov
2013-10-28 02:35 am (UTC)

"I am not sure I believe you!" says Ike. "I demand empirical testing."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 02:35 am (UTC)

Lucas grins, and -

scoops him right up.

newtimov
2013-10-28 02:39 am (UTC)

"Eee!" squeaks Ike. "I am surprised and delighted!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 03:16 am (UTC)

"You are heavier than a regular mortal your size would be, but not four times heavier or anything," grins Lucas. "I'll admit I probably couldn't carry you and your sister at the same time even with a basket or something."

newtimov
2013-10-28 11:57 am (UTC)

Ike giggles. And, since he is scooped and all, hugs Lucas.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 04:40 pm (UTC)

Lucas laughs; he's already using his arms, but he's got wings! Swoosh. Now they are around Isaac.

newtimov
2013-10-28 04:41 pm (UTC)

Isaac is surrounded by fluffiness! "I feel very snuggled," he says.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 04:44 pm (UTC)

"Let me know if you get too warm. Angels are. Warm, I mean."

newtimov
2013-10-28 04:47 pm (UTC)

"I have noticed that. It's nice," he says.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 04:50 pm (UTC)

Lucas grins. "It's so we can fly at high altitudes and not freeze."
Edited 2013-10-28 16:59 (UTC)

newtimov
2013-10-28 05:02 pm (UTC)

"That's convenient!" he says. "Convenient and also cuddly."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Although not all the mortals know about it, so if we stay in inns or things like that the fire's usually piled way too high in our rooms and so on. The angel holds are too cold for mortals and they all go around in long sleeves and extra layers."

newtimov
2013-10-28 05:15 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, Cedar Hills isn't that cold, since it's at ground level," amends Lucas. "But I live in Monteverde."

newtimov
2013-10-28 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I do not know what either of those places is like!" he says.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Monteverde, and the Eyrie, where the Archangel-Elect leads the host, are carved into mountains, lots of chambers and it's a long walk if you want to take the stairs. Windy Point used to be the least accessible of the lot, but then the Archangel Gabriel destroyed it and built Cedar Hills instead."

newtimov
2013-10-28 05:27 pm (UTC)

"...For... reasons?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Oh, it was a den of wickedness, all of its angels were dead, half on Mount Galo and half because the previous Archangel Raphael had poisoned everybody who wouldn't go with him to Mount Galo." Pause. "Mount Galo is the first thing the spaceship everyone thinks is a god smites if we don't sing the Gloria every year, and that year the Windy Point faction wanted to skip it to prove divine impotence so Raphael could keep power instead of handing it off to Gabriel."

newtimov
2013-10-28 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I take it that did not go as planned."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Nope. Spaceship exists, spaceship really does smite Mount Galo if we don't sing, a bunch of angels from Windy Point and some of their mortal friends were up there and they all died, it took a long time for the angel population to recover."

newtimov
2013-10-28 05:42 pm (UTC)

"That is sad," says Ike, snuggling up.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes," says Lucas, adjusting his wings around Ike, "but if Raphael had stayed in power we'd still have slavery and so on, so."

newtimov
2013-10-28 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Ye-es. It's sad that he poisoned a bunch of people and then got a bunch more killed trying to play chicken with a spaceship," says Ike. "It would have been much better if he had just not done any of that."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes. That would have been an improvement."

newtimov
2013-10-28 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Ike. Snuggle snuggle.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 05:54 pm (UTC)

"All happened hundreds of years ago, anyway." (Snuggle.)

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:02 pm (UTC)

"True. Plenty of sad things have happened in my world too." Snuggle! "They should quit that."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Seems to be the - Bell manifesto, doesn't it?"

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Yes. That is a good thing about Bells."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:08 pm (UTC)

"That and these interesting parties they throw."

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Those too!" (Snuggle.)

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:20 pm (UTC)

(This is a very snuggly picking-up.)

"How did you meet Juliet, anyway?"

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh, she came to our house because she was looking for part-demons using magic."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Bell reasons," he summarizes. "I guess she wanted us to introduce her to our Sessiaki relatives and show her around Siathe and stuff. Which we did, and it was okay."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I have... no frame of reference at all, for being half demon and being able to show a Bell around a place she hasn't been."

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:28 pm (UTC)

Ike giggles.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I mean, angels are relatively exotic, there aren't that many of us, but the Archangel-Elect lived at Monteverde for a year once working with Linus - he's the current Archangel."

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Juliet was the Slayer for a while - that is a legendary sort of thing to be, among demons anyway. Now she's just meddlesome. But in a good way!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:36 pm (UTC)

"What's a Slayer?"

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:43 pm (UTC)

"A... magic... legendary... person. There is one of them at a time and she has superpowers and beats up evil things."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Are there any Bells whose own worlds don't frame them as special according to local - ideas of specialness? I heard somebody saying that the one who's hosting this party is a saint."

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I suspect that in cases where they are not already special in some way, they arrange to be," says Ike.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, there's that," snorts Lucas. "I'm not actually sure if Isabella was already going to be the next Archangel or if she arranged it."

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, what's the difference?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:54 pm (UTC)

"The spaceship does what she says now, but it used to pick Archangels by itself," explains Lucas. "I don't know if it had picked her out before, or if she had to tell it to pick her."

newtimov
2013-10-28 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Yes, there's that," he says. "You could always ask, I guess."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 06:58 pm (UTC)

"It would be a kind of presumptuous question! And I still don't really know her."

newtimov
2013-10-28 07:13 pm (UTC)

"I could ask Juliet," he says.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Would she know? I'm not clear on how much they talk to each other about that kind of thing. Also there was something to do with time going on that I don't understand."

newtimov
2013-10-28 07:19 pm (UTC)

"If she doesn't know, I'm sure she can find out!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay then."

newtimov
2013-10-28 07:31 pm (UTC)

He brainphones Juliet.

[Hey, do you know if Angela made herself be going to be Archangel or if she was already going to be anyway?]

cross_and_bow
2013-10-28 07:32 pm (UTC)

[She was a likely candidate but her probability hadn't gone up enough to be announced until she interfered. Why?]

newtimov
2013-10-28 07:33 pm (UTC)

[Idle curiosity. Thanks!]

He relays this information word-for-word to Lucas.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Kind of between the guesses."

newtimov
2013-10-28 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Ike.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 07:37 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea how the spaceship used to pick them, though. I mean, it picked Raphael."

newtimov
2013-10-28 07:38 pm (UTC)

"So clearly whatever way it picked them had problems."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Most people are pretty happy with Isabella succeeding Linus, though."

newtimov
2013-10-28 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Good!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it'd be messy if there were a lot of disagreement about it. She's made some unpopular choices but Bethel's been doing really well with her leading the Eyrie host, so people are optimistic."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Unpopular choices?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, after people realized she didn't make the marriage amendment because the Jansai were paying her, there was some opposition to that."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Ike, unhappily.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. And I'm not very good about following the details of economics, but I don't think all of that was popular either, and she's married to an Edori so people who don't like Edori aren't thrilled with her."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:28 pm (UTC)

"What's an Edori?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:29 pm (UTC)

"They're this - culture. Most of them live on Ysral, the smaller continent, now, but there are still some on Samaria. They wander around, even more than Jansai do. They pronounce Jovah 'Yovah', I think they have their own language, they don't believe in marriage except apparently the angelico-to-be was fine with it."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Oh. And there are people who don't like them?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Back when we had slavery they were the ones who were slaves. The Jansai in particular don't get along with them too well."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:32 pm (UTC)

"...I see," says Ike.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Also they look different. Isabella's husband doesn't because the Edori adopted him, but mostly they're kind of distinctive. Darker, by and large."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Is, um, Angela's husband a template of some kind...?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:37 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know? Maybe? His name is Micaiah."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:38 pm (UTC)

"That might be vaguely familiar. Or not."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:40 pm (UTC)

"He's -" Lucas can't gesture, as he's holding Ike. "Tall, a little taller than me, and he's got curly brown hair about to his shoulders? And they have four kids, all angel daughters."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I think that people Bells have kids with are mostly templated... I guess it doesn't matter that much. But I'm curious."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I could ask my grandmother, she might know."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:44 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like a sensible solution!"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:45 pm (UTC)

Lucas nods, and tilts his head, and says, "She says she vaguely remembers that they were called something to do with jokes for some reason."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Jokers? I think Jokers. I don't really know very much about Jokers, except that Cam's boyfriend is one and they are most of the reason why Bellparties come with large rooms for people to have sex in."
Edited 2013-10-28 20:52 (UTC)

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:54 pm (UTC)

"There's - here? In this plant? Seriously?"

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Under the main floor," he says, beginning to blush again.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

newtimov
2013-10-28 08:57 pm (UTC)

Ike continues to blush!

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:00 pm (UTC)

Lucas looks at the floor, and blushes too!

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:01 pm (UTC)

Blush blush blush. Snuggle? Blush.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:04 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. "I'm probably coming off like some kind of uptight prude."

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Um, not especially," says Ike. "Not any more than I am."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:07 pm (UTC)

"...I wasn't getting that from you at all. Blushing doesn't count."

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Not even if it's a lot of blushing?"

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:10 pm (UTC)

Lucas shakes his head.

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Well. Okay," says Ike. "But I don't know, you didn't drop me or anything, you just said 'oh'."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:14 pm (UTC)

"It would be very bad if I reacted to being startled by dropping people!"

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:17 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "Yes. And you weren't sufficiently horrified to drop me on purpose. So."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:17 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't do that."

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Aww," says Ike, snuggling him.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:21 pm (UTC)

Snuggles!

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Val would probably drop me, if I was really annoying her and I was only four feet off the ground," he says, laughing. "You are nice! I like you."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Eh, I'd probably drop my little brother under the same circumstances, but I like you and he mostly gets on my nerves."

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:42 pm (UTC)

Ike grins and snuggles him.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:46 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:49 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snuggle.

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

"- Um, let me know if you want me to put you down, at some point. Because my arms aren't going to get tired for hours."

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I will do that! But probably not soon. You're very snuggly."

snowandsparks
2013-10-28 09:52 pm (UTC)

Lucas fluffs his wings happily.

newtimov
2013-10-28 09:54 pm (UTC)

Ike snuggles him. Because he is so snuggly.

This is continuation number 19 from here.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:09 pm (UTC)

Elspeth, uncommonly but not uncharacteristically, is dancing in the corner of the space plant currently supplied with the music of an angelic choir. Jacob is with her, dancing less beautifully but not badly.

yourheartstrings
2013-10-27 09:14 pm (UTC)

A Joker-flavoured sense of presence close by becomes the rapidly assembling body of Ghosty, already dancing even before she has muscles to move her bones or skin to cover them.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Ghosty!"

yourheartstrings
2013-10-27 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Hiiii," says Ghosty, twirling her way into a lovely black dress with a long swirly skirt. "How've you been?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I'm doing fine. Felicity burned down the house, but it and he were both fixable."

yourheartstrings
2013-10-27 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," she says sympathetically. "Any other casualties?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Nope. He took his poof out beforehand, even."

yourheartstrings
2013-10-27 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwwwww. That's sweet," she declares.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes. And he didn't want to come to the party today, which is convenient since I hadn't decided whether it would be a good idea to bring him or not at all."

yourheartstrings
2013-10-27 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Proooobably better not to," sighs Ghosty. "How's he doing in general?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Not very talkative. He likes the computer games. He fixes food for himself, he'll eat what Jake conjures, he wanders around the island. He didn't register any opinions on colors or anything when I offered him a set of pajamas, so I made something up, but I did get him to pick out which bedroom he wanted. He seems to find it entertaining when I fail dismally at lying."

yourheartstrings
2013-10-27 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Ghosty. "Mm, one sec."

She dissipates; a short time passes, but longer than a literal second; she reappears—

pythbox
2013-10-27 09:35 pm (UTC)

—accompanied by Corona, who declines to dance.

"What's it like when you fail dismally at lying?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:36 pm (UTC)

"My name is Kelly," asserts Elspeth. (Nope. It is not. It is very much not Kelly. At all.)

pythbox
2013-10-27 09:37 pm (UTC)

...Corona cracks up.

"That's beautiful," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:39 pm (UTC)

"What's so great about it?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 09:44 pm (UTC)

"You mean apart from being hilarious?" He grins and shakes his head; the grin fades. "It means you can't lie. Sounding all trustworthy all the time is one thing, but there are people who can sound all trustworthy and still be lying. It happens. You can't."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:45 pm (UTC)

"I can actually lie to people who haven't ever heard me say anything true before, but obviously most people don't fall into that category."

pythbox
2013-10-27 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Right, yeah. And he doesn't. That's the important part. He's not going to give a fuck if you can lie to anybody else."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:48 pm (UTC)

"What would he be imagining I'd lie about?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Anything. Everything. How safe he is. Whether or not somebody's going to hurt him if he fucks up."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well, I can't, and he burned the house down anyway."

pythbox
2013-10-27 09:50 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not following," says Corona.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 09:53 pm (UTC)

"He was going to be testing boundaries and so on, right? He burned down the house, and when I asked him he said he didn't have fun, so he wasn't just doing it for kicks. So I guess my not being able to lie convincingly isn't completely closing the gap in his confidence."

pythbox
2013-10-27 09:58 pm (UTC)

"I bet it didn't," says Corona, "but I also bet it helps. And that's not the only reason he might burn the house down, anyway."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 10:00 pm (UTC)

"What reasons am I missing?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 10:25 pm (UTC)

"...I'm not sure if 'reason' is even the word," says Corona. "Just. Sometimes he'll do things that don't make any sense. He'll hurt himself or hurt somebody else or cry for days or break things, not because he's trying to get anything out of it, not because he decides to, but just because he has to do something and that's what came up. It won't all necessarily be destructive, either. I used to clean things a lot. The kitchen, my room, other people's rooms, whatever I could get my hands on."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 10:26 pm (UTC)

"I see."

pythbox
2013-10-27 10:29 pm (UTC)

Corona shrugs.

"If he's like me. We still don't know for sure. We're the same cluster, but we're the only two of it so far. I'm more - fragile, I guess, than other Jokers, and we're pretty sure my cluster has something to do with it, but we're not sure sure."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 10:30 pm (UTC)

"How much is known about the clusters, apart from that they exist and Glass can see them? I mean, I've been informed that I'm 'green', but I don't know what to do with that, either."
Edited 2013-10-27 22:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-27 10:41 pm (UTC)

"We know some things about 'em," says Corona. "Not a lot. There's only the one big one with all those Jokers in it, and then the rest of us."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 10:43 pm (UTC)

"I might be able to provide more insight if I'd judgesighted you or Felicity, but I haven't."

pythbox
2013-10-27 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Corona.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 10:56 pm (UTC)

She doesn't press that point, but: "Felicity mentioned his stepfather's name. It's not the usual unpleasant parental figure name."

pythbox
2013-10-27 10:58 pm (UTC)

Corona nods. "It's stepfathers for us, fathers for the big cluster, mostly fathers for everybody else - all the ones with the 'usual unpleasant parental figure name' are in the big cluster."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Hmm."

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Only me'n'Felicity and the big cluster have anybody with a Gotham attached," he adds. "We think that's probably important but we're not sure how."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:03 pm (UTC)

"I don't know either."

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Corona, "figures. None of us have much to go on."

alicornucopia
2013-10-27 11:13 pm (UTC)

Jake puts in, "Is whatever you're avoiding saying something Elsie had better know to deal with Felicity?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:17 pm (UTC)

Corona looks at Jake. "It's... part of it, the kind of big main crucial part, is something that I think it would be better for Felicity if he gets to tell her himself. And I don't know how much I can give you around the edges before you'll get the middle." Looking at Elsie again, "You know our best guess at what he'll be like; knowing our best guess at why is a lot less important."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Elspeth. "I can wait."

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." He smiles slightly. "I figured."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:23 pm (UTC)

"As long as we're on the subject, do you have a general idea of how long it's okay to leave him by himself on the island, given that loneliness is known to be a problem? By himself except for his poof, I mean, which he'll have unless he throws it into the sea."

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:28 pm (UTC)

He is quiet for a moment, perhaps consulting other Jokers.

Then he says, "A general idea - a few days is fine; a week might hurt; a month is probably bad."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Okay, then we shouldn't run into any problems there. I had been wondering if it would be a good idea to stop briefly at home mid-party."

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:32 pm (UTC)

"It wouldn't hurt to. He'd probably like it. But it wouldn't hurt not to, either," says Corona.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Do you think I should offer him a Janegem?"

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:35 pm (UTC)

"You could. He might not take it," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Of course. It would mostly be useful in case he spontaneously learned to freecast. He can already talk to her at any time as long as he's at home, and he could turn it off if he didn't want her looking at him."

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Well, he doesn't have Harley's reason to spontaneously freecast," says Corona. "But yeah, it could happen. Would you miss him if it did?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Not yet, really, I'm still quite prepared for him to ask for a ride to a randomly selected world's version of some large city and some of the local currency. If he stays long enough, of course."

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I think maybe you better not offer him a Janegem until you would," he says. "If spontaneous freecasting is the reason. He won't take a way to come back unless he thinks he'll want to. And even if you tell him all about what happened to Harley, I don't think he'll expect to want to come back unless he expects you to miss him and cares that you would."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll wait on that then."

pythbox
2013-10-27 11:52 pm (UTC)

He nods.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-27 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Elspeth adds.

pythbox
2013-10-28 12:00 am (UTC)

Corona smiles.

This is continuation number 20 from here.

lexicality
2013-10-27 10:04 pm (UTC)

Lexi has once again (temporarily) exhausted her drive to be constantly around the available unicorn, so she has hugged Liselen a (temporary) goodbye and now is wandering around.

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 10:45 pm (UTC)

Someone else who is wandering around catches sight of her nametag and smiles.

lexicality
2013-10-27 10:47 pm (UTC)

Lexi pauses, looks at his nametag, rereads hers ("Hi! I'm from Rainbow and my name is Lexi!") and says, "What?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, sorry," says (according to his nametag) a [template unnamed] from Thilanushinyel whom you can call Lycaelon. "I just recognized the name. You're Liselen's huggy human friend, right?"

lexicality
2013-10-27 10:54 pm (UTC)

"...I guess? Sure. I'm his huggy human friend. He's a unicorn, people who don't want to be his huggy human friends are either not humans or not thinking straight."

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 10:55 pm (UTC)

...He giggles.

lexicality
2013-10-27 10:57 pm (UTC)

"So you know him? Are you also his huggy human friend?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Well... I'm human, and his friend, and I suppose I am huggy with some people, but not especially with him," he says.

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:01 pm (UTC)

Lexi giggles. "Who're you huggy with, then?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:06 pm (UTC)

"My Bondmates and co-Bonded, mainly."

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Who're they? I don't subscribe to Jane's little newsletter, it makes me dizzy to have updates scrolling along."

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:10 pm (UTC)

"You would know them as Aianon, Ansharil, and Sarion."
Edited 2013-10-27 23:11 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, them. My sister's a Bell," she adds. "The only - or, no, not anymore. One of two with sisters, but the other sister isn't my alt, I'm my Bella's twin and she's a little sister."

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says Lycaelon. "I'm not related to any templates. My alts are from Peace and Gift respectively and they're a lot more like each other than I am like them."

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:15 pm (UTC)

"It's really a pity I don't have any alts because my name turns into nicknames so easily!"

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Does it?" he asks, looking in puzzlement at her nametag.

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Lexi is short for Alexandra," Lexi explains. "But I wouldn't mind going with a different shortening if I had an alt who liked 'Lexi' best too."

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:23 pm (UTC)

"What else does it shorten to?" he wonders. "Lycaelon shortens to various things, but I don't like any of them."

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Alex, Alli, Andi, Sandra, Sandy. And I have a middle name that I like okay, Phyllis."

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I think I've heard about a Sandy around here somewhere, but I don't think he's an alt of you."

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no, yeah, that's a different person," says Lexi, waving a hand, "so that wouldn't be the best nickname in this case, but it's still a nickname."

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:34 pm (UTC)

"True," he says. "Does your world have magic? I can never remember which ones don't."
Edited 2013-10-27 23:34 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" says Lexi. "I'm a mage actually! We're the world with Devices, if you heard about those. This one's mine." She holds up Persica on her necklace-chain. "Her name's Persica."

"Hello," says Persica's mechanical-ish voice.

wildlymagical
2013-10-27 11:53 pm (UTC)

"...Hello," says Lycaelon. "I haven't heard about Devices, no."

lexicality
2013-10-27 11:56 pm (UTC)

"They can turn into different shapes - Brilliance is one, even, but Persica doesn't have a humanoid shape, just the peach and the staff. She's a really keen staff though. And they do mana regulation - um, mana is the energy we use to do magic - and they have their own spells that they know."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 12:03 am (UTC)

"That is not at all how magic works in Thilanushinyel."

lexicality
2013-10-28 12:03 am (UTC)

"What do you do instead?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 12:17 am (UTC)

"...I'm not entirely sure how to explain," he admits. "I've never had to before."

lexicality
2013-10-28 12:17 am (UTC)

"I don't have any place to be," laughs Lexi.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 12:46 am (UTC)

Lycaelon grins. "Okay. Well, first of all, there are three kinds of mage that I know of - High Mages and Wildmages, who are human, and Elven Mages, whose species I'm sure you can guess."

lexicality
2013-10-28 12:47 am (UTC)

"Sarion's one of those," nods Lexi.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:01 am (UTC)

"She is!" he agrees. "Each of the three kinds works differently. A High Mage casts spells using energy drawn from themselves or the people around them, and their spells are very reliable and predictable: the same spell done the same way will have exactly the same effect every time. It's hard for them to improvise, though, for just that reason; a High Mage might take several years to invent a new spell, because they have to build it out of existing pieces using formulas and experiments. Wildmages, on the other hand - I'm a Wildmage - our magic is less like doing a spell and more like asking a friend for a favour. An incomprehensibly vast and powerful friend."

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:04 am (UTC)

"Man, I don't have any incomprehensibly vast and powerful friends. I have an incomprehensibly vast and powerful sister, does that count?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:07 am (UTC)

"...no," he says. "Your sister is less vast and more comprehensible than the Wild Magic."

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:07 am (UTC)

Lexi laughs. "Okay, so you ask it for favors, and then it - usually does them, I guess?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:14 am (UTC)

"You ask the Wild Magic to do something - heal someone, find a lost object, change the weather, many other sorts of things. The energy to do it usually comes from yourself, the people around you, or objects where you've stored energy that ultimately came from those places, but once in a very long while the Wild Magic will power a spell itself. And apart from that immediate cost, every spell of the Wild Magic also comes with a Mageprice, which is like your friend asking you for a favour in return."

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:16 am (UTC)

"Huh, that sounds kind of cool. Do you stop getting spells if you don't do its favors? What kind of favors do incomprehensibly vast and powerful friends even want?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:28 am (UTC)

"...It's... complicated. But, um, shirking your Mageprice is generally considered a very bad idea. And it can ask for all kinds of things, but mostly it wants things that will - help. The Wild Magic wants to make the world a better place, and it's incomprehensibly vast and powerful, but it's also, well, limited. Mageprice is one of the only ways it can make changes in the world. So it sends each of us to improve things in whatever ways we can. Sometimes we have no idea what a particular Mageprice is doing to help, but sometimes it's obvious. A lot of mine have just been 'go there and heal this'."

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:29 am (UTC)

"What happens if someone else does it before you get there?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:29 am (UTC)

"They don't."
Edited 2013-10-28 01:29 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:30 am (UTC)

"What, ever? What if they're just being a jerk and ask you what your price is and then run as fast as they can?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:32 am (UTC)

"...The people I've been sent to heal usually weren't capable of running when I got there."

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:33 am (UTC)

"No, like if somebody else asks you and goes ahead of you. Not if they just heal themselves."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:40 am (UTC)

"Why would anyone do that? Never mind," he says. "Yes, I suppose it's possible that sometimes your Mageprice turns out to be something that someone else has done before you get there, but it's never happened to me or to any other Wildmage I know. I told you, the Wild Magic is incomprehensibly vast and powerful. I think it thinks these things through."

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:40 am (UTC)

"Huh. Cool. Does Sarion, like, talk to it?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:43 am (UTC)

"Liselen does, actually. Most people can't, and even Wildmages can only really communicate through spells and Mageprice, but when the Wild Magic needs something said or done that Mageprice won't cover, it sends a unicorn."

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:44 am (UTC)

"Oh, huh, I don't think that ever came up, mostly I just admire him and his unicorn-ness."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 01:54 am (UTC)

"He's very admirable that way."

lexicality
2013-10-28 01:55 am (UTC)

"He is! How do you communicate through Mageprice, it doesn't sound much like - you know, talking."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 02:06 am (UTC)

"It's exactly as not like talking as it sounds, but it's still more communicative than not interacting directly at all," he says. "When I cast a spell, the Wild Magic learns something about what I want; when I get a Mageprice, I learn something about what it wants. Not exactly a conversation, but still kind of an exchange."

lexicality
2013-10-28 02:06 am (UTC)

"That sounds really frustrating."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 02:12 am (UTC)

"I like it just fine," he says, shrugging. "I don't need any more from the Wild Magic than I get."

lexicality
2013-10-28 02:14 am (UTC)

"I'm glad I don't have to do that with Persica. She just talks."

"Yes," agrees Persica, glittering.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 02:28 am (UTC)

"Not very much," Lycaelon observes.

lexicality
2013-10-28 02:30 am (UTC)

"She's not a chatty peachy, but she can talk in complete sentences and understand English," says Lexi, patting her Device.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 02:33 am (UTC)

Lycaelon laughs.

lexicality
2013-10-28 02:33 am (UTC)

"And did I mention she can turn into a kickass staff, because she can, do you want to see?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 02:35 am (UTC)

"All right."

lexicality
2013-10-28 02:40 am (UTC)

Lexi plucks Persica from her chain, and Persica changes. She's a long pearlescent coruscation of warm colors ranging from pastel orange through yellow and rose, capped in a small peach-colored gem at one end, and at the other end sporting a larger gem with a peachlike cleft impressed in it, which is surrounded by golden, sleekly mechanical leaf-shaped protrusions.

"Device Mode," Persica announces. Smugly.
Edited 2013-10-28 03:40 (UTC)

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 11:57 am (UTC)

"Very pretty," says Lycaelon.

lexicality
2013-10-28 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Persica and Lexi at the same time.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 04:41 pm (UTC)

He grins.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 04:45 pm (UTC)

Glass pops into existence beside them. "Hi. I'm dividing everybody's templates into clusters, of which there are two, we don't know anything else yet. You're green," she says to Lexi, "like the Bells are - and you're purple," she says to Lycaelon.

lexicality
2013-10-28 04:46 pm (UTC)

"What about my Peachy?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Huh? Oh. Not a template, but green."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Who else is purple?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Sherlocks, Tonies, Jokers, Ikes - I don't know who all you've met so I'm not sure who to list."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 05:02 pm (UTC)

"I have met Jokers," he laughs. "The others, no."

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Oh, and Darcy and Sidanar, Sidanar being one of the conjured dragons, are purple too, although if you haven't met any Sherlocks or Tonies then you haven't made an investigation of the conjured dragons."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 05:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't meet very many people."

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting that sense. So, Bells and Lexi here are green, Jokers and you are purple."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what it means. I suppose you've said you don't know."

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 05:25 pm (UTC)

"No idea. Something might come clear as I sort everybody."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Good luck."

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" And she is off.

lexicality
2013-10-28 05:30 pm (UTC)

"That was kinda weird."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Lycaelon.

lexicality
2013-10-28 05:35 pm (UTC)

"I think I like that I'm in the same color as Bella and my Peachy though."

(Persica glitters.)

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I'm all right with being in the same colour as my Bonded."

lexicality
2013-10-28 05:44 pm (UTC)

"It's funny that you call them that all the time."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 05:48 pm (UTC)

"What should I call them? 'Aianon and Ansharil' takes longer to say."

lexicality
2013-10-28 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I think Sarion says 'my beloveds'. Which isn't any less weird, but I already got used to it and now you're saying a different thing."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 05:53 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says. "I could call them that, yes. But I don't."

lexicality
2013-10-28 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Why not? Is it because it's sappy, because it is totally sappy."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:02 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"All right, maybe. Not that I don't feel sappy. But I don't need to go around advertising it to everyone."
Edited 2013-10-28 18:03 (UTC)

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:03 pm (UTC)

Lexi laughs too. "Awwwww."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:07 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Awwwwwww! Oh hey did you hear Sarion's going to marry them?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:18 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon laughs. "I did, yes."

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:20 pm (UTC)

"And Angela's gonna officiate, an angel is going to get a demon and an elf and a dragon all married, it's hilarious!"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Is there something I'm missing about angels?"

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Oh, at home, demons - not like all the millions of kinds Sunshine has so much, red ones with horns and tails and wings just exactly like Aianon pretty much - and angels, basically like Samaria angels only with halos sometimes - are kind of, like, mythical opposites? The angels are the good guys and the demons are the bad guys."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Aha," says Lycaelon.

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:27 pm (UTC)

"We don't actually have either thing and so far the worlds with demons don't have angels and vice-versa, but it's still funny!"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I can see that."

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:31 pm (UTC)

"There's this thing - people don't actually believe it but like in cartoons and stuff if someone is trying to decide between a good and a bad choice, they get a tiny little demon and a tiny little angel, one on each shoulder, telling them what to do. Sometimes I call Bella my shoulder angel. My shoulder Bella, anyway."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:33 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon laughs.

"There are legends here of the Dark being able to influence people in a similar way, but unfortunately I think those are true. And we have no angels."

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, since the shoulder angel and shoulder demon idea exists and everybody recognizes it, there are cartoons that, like, play with it, making it so there's only the one of them if the person is very good or very bad, or having them fight each other, or whatever."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Ansharil sometimes turns into the Samaria kind of angel," he mentions.

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:40 pm (UTC)

Lexi thinks about this. She tilts her head. "Okay, that's kinda weird."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:44 pm (UTC)

"He likes the wings. So do the rest of us. They're very soft."

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:45 pm (UTC)

"They look it! I haven't grabbed any though, Aurora says Angela says it's like grabbing their butts."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Lycaelon.

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:51 pm (UTC)

Lexi blinks, then bursts out laughing again.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:54 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon laughs.

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:55 pm (UTC)

"That kinda thing cannot be usual with dragons and their dragon-havers," says Lexi, "I mean mostly they go around dragon-shaped, right?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Mostly they do," he agrees, "and mostly Bonded are not - like that. But my Bonded are very much like that."

lexicality
2013-10-28 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Jokers," snorts Lexi.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Jokers," he agrees, grinning.

lexicality
2013-10-28 07:15 pm (UTC)

"How come you haven't named your template?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 07:20 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "We were busy talking about other things. Or not talking."

lexicality
2013-10-28 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Not talking," giggles Lexi.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 07:22 pm (UTC)

"My template likes to have a drink and sit quietly sometimes. I don't know what you're thinking." (Yes he does.)

lexicality
2013-10-28 07:24 pm (UTC)

Lexi laughs harder.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 07:26 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon grins.

lexicality
2013-10-28 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I have," giggles Lexi, while she calms down, "no idea what I'd do if I met a one of me who was a boy. It'd have to be a boy one for me to even wonder. An Alexander I guess."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 07:32 pm (UTC)

"I haven't done anything worth giggling about with mine. It's not out of the question, but none of us jumped at the chance."

lexicality
2013-10-28 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I wonder if the purples are all the bisexual ones or something."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 07:35 pm (UTC)

...He laughs.

lexicality
2013-10-28 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Except no, one of the Bells is bi, right, so that can't be quite it."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Which one?"

lexicality
2013-10-28 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Cam. The boy one. Apparently Glass says the being a boy and the being bi don't have a lot to do with each other but we haven't found any bi girl ones yet. Two lesbians, though."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I knew that," says Lycaelon.

lexicality
2013-10-28 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Cam is also one of the ones who sleeps around. It's him and Amariah."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know that either!" says Lycaelon.

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:21 pm (UTC)

Lexi laughs. "Now you do!"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "I feel so informed."

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:24 pm (UTC)

"I bet Sarion would've told you if she knew you'd be so interested."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I knew I'd be so interested!"

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:27 pm (UTC)

Lexi giggles. "Why do so many people want to sleep with alts of my sister, it's kind of weird!"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Would it be any less weird if I answered?"

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't know! Maybe. Maybe not."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:31 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Well, I can't speak for anyone else, anyway."

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:32 pm (UTC)

"It's a lot of people, though. It's not weird that alts of my sister would have, you know, boyfriends or girlfriends or husbands or wives, just that so many people want to pick them up at parties is strange."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Well... I don't think I would be so interested if I hadn't already," he makes an extremely vague and abstract gesture, "with Sarion. I might be interested in the other Jokers too, if there weren't so many of them."

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:36 pm (UTC)

Lexi giggles helplessly. "There are so many of them, how would you even pick one."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I will tell my Bonded I want one and they can choose which."

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Maybe! That'd be one way to do it. I don't want a Joker personally. I flirted with a Tony at one party, though, have you met any of those?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I have."

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:43 pm (UTC)

"They're fun! The one I flirted with danced with me and then we played video games. Glass is married to one, and Shell Bell has one and I think they have a thing but she's mostly with her Sherlock - Sherlocks go with Tonies, mostly - and Juliet has one but they're not together."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. Doesn't ring any bells."

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:46 pm (UTC)

"There are a lot of them. Not as many as Bells or Jokers though. Like - sixish, I don't know exactly."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:53 pm (UTC)

"More than there are of me!"

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Or me! I hope we eventually find another me. Maybe one who doesn't even have a Bella, since so many Bellas don't have Lexis and that's weird!"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we will."

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Do you like having alts?"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:58 pm (UTC)

"It's... yes," he says. "It's not what I expected. But I'm not sure I expected anything, really."

lexicality
2013-10-28 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Bella loves having alts to trade magic with and impress."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 08:59 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:02 pm (UTC)

Someone walks up to them. "Hey do either of you know where I can find oh it's you hi."

lexicality
2013-10-28 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Oh! It's you! Hi!" repeats Lexi.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 09:05 pm (UTC)

...Lycaelon giggles.

lexicality
2013-10-28 09:07 pm (UTC)

"So yeah, you're you, I'm me, do we actually, like, have things to talk about?"

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:08 pm (UTC)

"I didn't... make a list or anything."

lexicality
2013-10-28 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I don't know, what is there to talk about. Bells without sisters are weird? Magic is neat? Tonies are cute?"

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:12 pm (UTC)

"I have a Tony!" squirms Soph happily.

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 09:17 pm (UTC)

Lycaelon awws.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't just mean I have one in my world like I'd mean if Bella said that -"

lexicality
2013-10-28 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Oh my god, I can never remember to call mine 'Aurora', either."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Heh. Juliet. I mean me and my Tony are dating and he's awesome."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 09:20 pm (UTC)

"I thought it might be something like that," says Lycaelon.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Anyway I've lost track of him."

lexicality
2013-10-28 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, he'll turn up. Or you could brainphone him."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I could, but I could also mill around the party looking the long way around in case I run into anyone interesting on the way!"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 09:23 pm (UTC)

"That sounds... potentially exciting."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Hey, I ran into Lexi, who everybody thinks I should meet, that's something."

lexicality
2013-10-28 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Aurora kinda wanted to meet you," remembers Lexi. "I guess Juliet's already met me though."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I'll look for her at some point, then." Soph glances at Lycaelon. "I'm, uh, newer than I look, is why she hasn't already met me."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Lycaelon. "I don't hardly know how new anyone is; this is my first Bellparty."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:44 pm (UTC)

"I think my newness might actually be the weirdest newness, if only because Sherlocks have happened several times? I look and feel seventeen but I was made with all my and everybody else's memories intact to account for me like a couple months ago, out of some mystical energy that someone wanted to put in a safe place. Except it didn't work on Bella, because, opacity, so she didn't know who I was."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 09:46 pm (UTC)

"...Wow," says Lycaelon.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:46 pm (UTC)

"But then she figured out what happened, so she made a fork of herself that remembered me and then merged and now she remembers things both ways and we're okay."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's good."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Also the spell couldn't get ahold of stuff that wasn't in Sunshine, or duplicate torching or any really big coin effects, so I remembered being unable to leave the world or get any good hexed powers or be torchabled, and then once I actually existed I could."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 09:52 pm (UTC)

"That must have been strange."

lexicality
2013-10-28 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Wow, yeah."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I remembered her worrying about me all the time because Sunshine is dangerous and I wasn't as safe as her or Tony or Sherlock."

lexicality
2013-10-28 09:54 pm (UTC)

"If I woke up one day and Bella couldn't remember me I would be so pissed off at her, wow."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, at first I thought she was joking. And then I thought something was wrong with her. And then I found out something was wrong with me."

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:04 pm (UTC)

A Tony emerges from some nearby stairs, spots Soph, and waves. (It is her one.)

keyed_up
2013-10-28 10:05 pm (UTC)

Her Tony is best Tony! "Hi! I was looking for you but I found Lexi instead!"

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:07 pm (UTC)

"I was downstairs!" he says, swooping in for a hug. Hug! Hug hug. "The rest of me wanna meet you. Where by meet I probably mean make out with. If you want."

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 10:07 pm (UTC)

(Lycaelon grins.)

keyed_up
2013-10-28 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Oooh good question. Maaaybe? Let's see! Bye, Lexi, bye, Lycaelon!"

lexicality
2013-10-28 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Bye!"

wildlymagical
2013-10-28 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Bye," says Lycaelon.

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Bye!" says Tony. Off he goes with Soph, all asnuggle.

This is continuation number 21 from here.

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 01:49 am (UTC)

Minnie's entertainment (they had a sign on the door; she omitted to ask first about permission to supervise) having dispersed, she is now floating visibly - but, as usual, insubstantially - about the party.

pythbox
2013-10-28 02:00 am (UTC)

One of Minnie's entertainers is browsing the buffet! He is still naked. An illusory black rectangle obscures certain parts, but it goes away very obligingly at the observer's whim.

(His nametag - which he wasn't wearing last time she saw him - is rather longer than the usual ones. Apparently he's a Joker from Materia whose name is... something... but you can call him Celo. And yes he is naked. And yes it's on purpose.)

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 02:01 am (UTC)

Minnie experiences whim! And she grins, and in spite of the nametag feels compelled to gleefully remark on the fact that: "You're naked!"

pythbox
2013-10-28 02:06 am (UTC)

Ooh.

"Yes I am," says Celo, grinning right back. "Hi!"

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 02:07 am (UTC)

"Hi! I saw you naked before, too - there was a sign on the door! It was very considerate! - but you didn't have your nametag on like that then."

pythbox
2013-10-28 02:15 am (UTC)

"I didn't, yeah," he says with a laugh. "It would've just gotten in the way."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 02:16 am (UTC)

Minnie nods. "I noticed!"

pythbox
2013-10-28 02:29 am (UTC)

"Wanna go get a room where you can look at me naked some more?" he inquires, grinning.

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 02:30 am (UTC)

"...You are already completely naked right here. What would the room do?"

pythbox
2013-10-28 02:34 am (UTC)

"I could do things it wouldn't be polite to do out here," he says. "You could help."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 02:34 am (UTC)

"I can't really help," she says, waving a hand through his shoulder. It's slightly chilly. "I can only be solid when I'm really mad."

pythbox
2013-10-28 02:36 am (UTC)

"Well, one, there's plenty of things we could do that don't need physical contact," he says, "and two, do you like being that way? Because I bet we could change it."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 02:41 am (UTC)

"Do I like it? No, it's kind of inconvenient. I like being able to go through stuff and pop in and out, though. What are the things? I want to know what the things are."

pythbox
2013-10-28 11:59 am (UTC)

"Come get a room with me and I will tell you all about the things," laughs Celo. "I'm trying to be a good nymph here and not shock any eavesdroppers."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Minnie, and she drifts after him, presuming he is so kind as to lead her roomward.

pythbox
2013-10-28 04:43 pm (UTC)

He is, in fact!

"I could make it so you can be solid when you want to be," he offers on the way.

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 04:47 pm (UTC)

"I'd probably lose track of something and wind up solid and also halfway through a wall."

pythbox
2013-10-28 04:50 pm (UTC)

He grins. "There's ways around that."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Like what?" asks Minnie.

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I could just make it that trying to go solid while you're halfway through a wall doesn't work and doesn't hurt," he shrugs. "I don't think it'd be that hard. I have safe wishes to play with."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Oooh," says Minnie. "I didn't think of anything that complicated or I might've asked Juliet."

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it's hard to really get what safe wishes can do," says Celo. "Look, a room!"

Into the room he goes.

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 05:17 pm (UTC)

Minnie goes in too. Through the wall.

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Sooooo," he says, "I could tell you all about things, or I could figure out a nice safe way to make you get solid on and off whenever you want... what're you feeling, here?"

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Is both an answer?"

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says, "but we still have to pick one to do first, I'm not that magic."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 05:30 pm (UTC)

Minnie giggles. "Things first!"

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:37 pm (UTC)

"All right," Celo says cheerfully. "Well, broadly speaking: you could watch me do things, or I could watch you do things, or we could talk about doing things, or one of us could tell the other what things to do, or any combination of those. Where the specific nature of 'things' depends on what we think is fun." He grins. "I have some suggestions if you want."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I can't really do things. My shape sort of - pretends to exist. Actually trying to make it not go through itself falls apart for anything more complicated than clapping my hands," sighs Minnie.

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Awwww," says Celo. "Well, that still leaves some options open. Or we could figure out the solidity thing now, and then we'd have lots of options."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 05:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay, let's do that!"

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:48 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Okay, lemme think. Do you wanna fix the thing about not being able to do things while you're all see-through, too?"

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes," grins Minnie.

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:58 pm (UTC)

Celo beams at her.

"How about: you're always solid to yourself, and you can turn solid to everything else when you want, but if there's something in the way it just doesn't work? And then you're solid until you decide not to be. But without all that inconvenient stuff about needing to breathe and eat and pee. Just like you are now but with more touching going on."

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 05:59 pm (UTC)

"That sounds good to me!"

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:04 pm (UTC)

He pulls a honey-coloured hex out of thin air and wishes on it.

"Try being solid," he suggests.

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 06:05 pm (UTC)

Minnie scrunches up her face. Then she falls an inch to the floor and stumbles and doesn't actually fall over but has a difficult time catching herself.

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:08 pm (UTC)

"You okay?" says Celo, holding out his arms invitingly.

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 06:10 pm (UTC)

Minnie sort of falls into his arms and squirms snuggly-like there. "Uh-huh!" she beams.

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:12 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," says Celo, and he kisses her forehead and sits on the edge of the room's nice comfy bed and settles her in his lap.

So about those options that they now have...

alicornucopia
2013-10-28 06:14 pm (UTC)

Minnie died a virgin on prom night and has spent the last century or so a very frustrated ghost.

She wants all of the options. All of them.

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:16 pm (UTC)

She can have as many as she wants, for as long as she wants, in as many variations as she wants.

Celo loves being a nymph, he really does.

This is continuation number 22 from here.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 01:52 am (UTC)

Nathan wandered off while his mate was distracted, and is currently making a curious circuit of the party main room all by himself.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 02:01 am (UTC)

There's a couple of familiar faces over there! One of them is slightly more familiar than the other.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 02:02 am (UTC)

"Hi, Eights! Hi, Anna!" (Vampire speed and eyesight means he doesn't miss a beat checking the latter's nametag.)
Edited 2013-10-28 02:07 (UTC)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 02:09 am (UTC)

"Hey, Nathan," Eights says cheerfully, hugging him.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 02:10 am (UTC)

Hug! Eights gets a friendly broken rib for her trouble. "How're you doing?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 02:25 am (UTC)

Awww. Nathan is such a sweetheart. She hugs him tighter, then lets go. "I'm awesome. How're you? How's the boyfriend?"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 02:27 am (UTC)

"He's doing good, having fun reuniting with all his alts and meeting the new ones. You been up to anything neat?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 02:30 am (UTC)

"Not especially. Chainsaw's still cranky about losing his job, but I'm sure he'll get over himself sometime this century."

"Like sure sure?" says Anna. "I'd've thought it'd take longer."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 02:31 am (UTC)

"I have no tears for him," snorts Nathan.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 02:34 am (UTC)

"Nobody does," snorts Anna.

"Well, not for that," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 02:35 am (UTC)

"Have people been generating tears for him for other reasons?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 02:38 am (UTC)

"Before your time," says Eights. "He's had some pretty good reasons to be miserable. Not in the last several thousand, though."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 02:43 am (UTC)

"Well, that's a long time."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:59 am (UTC)

"To some people," says Eights.

"Me among them!" says Anna.

Eights laughs.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Hey, I'm centuries old, but even with my stint Downside counting I don't approach millenia."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 04:44 pm (UTC)

"You will eventually," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 04:47 pm (UTC)

"Yep. Pretty good deal."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 04:51 pm (UTC)

"So have you heard about the dragons?" says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I have heard that there are dragons. One of them is an alt of the Joker."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 05:07 pm (UTC)

"One of them is an alt of us," says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 05:09 pm (UTC)

"That sounds interesting!"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 05:18 pm (UTC)

"We haven't met her yet," says Eights.

"Because I'm a coward," says Anna cheerfully. Eights gives her a fond look.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 05:18 pm (UTC)

"What's to be scared of? Even if she was going to chew you up and swallow you I wouldn't expect that to be terribly off-putting, considering."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh, y'know, what if we don't have anything to say to each other, the usual," says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 05:26 pm (UTC)

"The pair of you seem to get along just fine."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Eights, "it helps that we're so similar."

"I have no idea what a me who is a dragon would even be like," says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Like you, except a dragon, is I think the idea. I don't know that I'll be very helpful; the pair of me, when there was a pair, were a fork and we still didn't get along that well till we merged."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 05:38 pm (UTC)

Eights pats him on the arm.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 05:40 pm (UTC)

"But we got that handled and now I'm fine. And I don't think either of you are mad at your dragon alt for putting the moves on your boyfriend, am I right?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 05:44 pm (UTC)

"No," snorts Eights. Anna giggles.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 05:44 pm (UTC)

"So you are quite without my problem."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Very," they agree simultaneously.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Has this one got a Chainsaw-alt associated with her?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Anna. "Sandy's met him. He's an elf. They haven't met each other, though."
Edited 2013-10-28 17:59 (UTC)

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Huh, an elf. I don't know what conclusions to draw from that."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:05 pm (UTC)

"He has pointy ears and doesn't like questions," says Anna. "And he's a lot like Sandy but less happy."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Aww."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Which kind of makes him the opposite of Chainsaw," says Eights. "Thankfully. I think one Chainsaw is enough."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I could not agree more."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:19 pm (UTC)

Eights smiles fondly at him.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:22 pm (UTC)

Glass appears. "Green," she says to Nathan, "and, purples."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:24 pm (UTC)

"...Eh?" says Anna.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Sorry - I've discovered that templates fall into one of two categories, which we're calling 'moieties', one green, one purple. You guys are purple. Nathan is green. Jokers are purple, Bells are green, I haven't sorted everybody yet though."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Well okay then," says Eights.

"Which one's Sandy?" says Anna.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I haven't checked him yet. Also, we don't know what, if anything, these categories mean."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Well that's useful," says Anna.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it just? I can go check Sandy real quick if you're curious."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes please," says Anna.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

Pop. Glass goes and finds Sandy.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:40 pm (UTC)

While she is doing that, Eights says, "Hey Anna, could you fix my rib?"

"You can't fix it yourself?"

Eights shrugs. "It's not bugging me enough to be worth a torch."

"...yyyyyes, but... wait, do you mean you're not minted? I thought for sure you were," says Anna, blinking. "That's so weird, why not?"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 06:41 pm (UTC)

"The Bells mostly seem to mint people who'll work for them. Or date them, in some cases."

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:46 pm (UTC)

Glass reappears. "Sandy's purple, and surprisingly unfazed about having me appear to him and suddenly name a color."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm not a Bell," Anna is saying as Glass arrives.

"Does this mean Chainsaw is also purple?" says Eights. She touches the site of the formerly broken rib and smiles. "Ooh, thanks, Anna."

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, templates are all within the same moiety. I actually started noticing this when I spotted two people whose templates are not identical but are unusually close together, standing near each other. What about you not being a Bell?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:52 pm (UTC)

Eights laughs.

"Apparently nobody's minted Eights yet? I'm gonna fix that," says Anna.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Uh," says Glass, "in this particular case I'm not aware of any reason not to except a vague nervousness about her hanging out with Chainsaw, but in general don't just up and mint people without checking with some Bell, in your case Stella will usually be handiest."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Seriously? She's Eights," says Anna.

Eights shrugs.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 06:57 pm (UTC)

"And you can mint her, as long as she's not going to mint Chainsaw or give him coins," says Glass, "but that's her, in particular. Don't just mint all your friends."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 06:59 pm (UTC)

"What are you on," says Anna. Eights becomes minted.

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Did Stella actually hire you without warning you about not minting people?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 07:08 pm (UTC)

"No," says Anna. "Which is why I find it weird and kind of insulting that you're telling me it's okay to mint Eights but I shouldn't do it to just anybody, like wanting to mint my alt who has spent more time being a Downside contractor than the Bells have collectively been alive somehow means I'm going to start flinging hexes at people I pass in the street?"

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Some templates vary more than others and Bells are holding some information that doesn't necessarily percolate to everybody for assorted reasons. And I don't know you and Stella's not here, and I can't tell by looking if your algorithm is 'she asked nicely' or 'if one member of a template is minted they all should be' or 'I felt like it' or what you said."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Anna. "Well, next time, try leading with the part about Bells having secret information nobody knows about, because that actually makes sense. Let's go meet our dragon alt, Eights."

She heads for the nearest dragon-sized doorway. Eights doesn't follow immediately.
Edited 2013-10-28 19:19 (UTC)

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 07:22 pm (UTC)

Glass shakes her head, shoots an apologetic look at Eights, and moves on.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 07:22 pm (UTC)

Nathan takes a couple steps following Anna, waiting for Eights.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 07:23 pm (UTC)

She starts walking as soon as he does.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 07:25 pm (UTC)

"You guys okay?" he asks, once they're all moving as a group.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Annoyed but fine," says Anna. Eights just shrugs; she seems unaffected.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Minting has got a lot more casual over time. When Golden imported the Joker it was this complicated negotiation with a precog and Stella."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 07:38 pm (UTC)

"Well, and the Joker was under some kind of suspicion at the time, wasn't he?" says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Stella had stranded him on an asteroid for terrorism."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 07:43 pm (UTC)

"That's a kind of suspicion!" says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 07:45 pm (UTC)

"Sort of, yeah."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 08:19 pm (UTC)

"He's seemed like a total sweetheart the times I've met him," says Anna.

"People are complicated," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Jokers more than some. Now new Jokers are minted as a matter of course, but I'm not actually sure how much of that is because the Bells couldn't stop the minted Jokers from doing it if they wanted to."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 08:22 pm (UTC)

Anna snorts. Eights pats her on the shoulder.

"So," says Anna, stopping midway between the enormous archway and the edge of the enormous platform. "How do we tell which one's an us?"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 08:24 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. Do you think she does?" He scans the visible dragons. "Have you guys got a template color scheme?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 08:27 pm (UTC)

Eights produces a square: white, with liquidy red streaks like smears of stylized blood.

"So, red and white," says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Then - maybe that's her?" he says, pointing.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Anna.

Eights waves.

pythbox
2013-10-28 08:29 pm (UTC)

The indicated dragon circles closer.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" calls Nathan. "We think you might be their alt!"

pythbox
2013-10-28 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says the dragon. She lands on the edge of the platform. "Hi! I'm Arianna. Who're you?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Anna," says Anna.

"Eights," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Well, that sounds like a suspiciously alty name, Arianna."

pythbox
2013-10-28 08:46 pm (UTC)

"How come yours doesn't fit?" she asks Eights.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I used to be an Anna too, actually, but then I died."

pythbox
2013-10-28 08:48 pm (UTC)

"You don't look very dead," Arianna observes.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Dead people don't, if they hang out with the right people."

pythbox
2013-10-28 08:54 pm (UTC)

"More weird other-world magic stuff?" she guesses.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

pythbox
2013-10-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"There's a lot of that going around."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Can't argue with that," laughs Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Are you minted?" Nathan inquires of Arianna.

pythbox
2013-10-28 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:00 pm (UTC)

"All right, then there will be no further arguments with Bells about that, I guess."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Probably not," Eights agrees.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Although isn't there another one of you in Gift? I didn't hear much about the details."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I haven't heard much more than that," says Eights.

"She's not here, though, so either she didn't want to come or they didn't want to invite her," says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, Gift is currently plagued by a Chelsea alt."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Maybe that has something to do with it," says Anna.

"Chelsea?" says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Chelsea was an Aurum-dwelling vampire witch - like myself, but the similarities end there. She worked for the government that Golden usurped by using her magical ability to make people like each other or stop doing it. The Gift one has the same power, amped up."

pythbox
2013-10-28 09:24 pm (UTC)

"...ewwwwwww," says Arianna.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:24 pm (UTC)

Her alts both nod agreement.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Whereas I'm guessing your Gift alt would say 'hey! that's my favorite person you're talking about!', so."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Anna.

"Is their Chelsea-alt problem going to go away?" wonders Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Eventually, I assume, the Bells won't tolerate her being a permanent fixture too calmly."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:37 pm (UTC)

Eights shrugs. "In that case, I can wait."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Wait to do what, mint that one?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:40 pm (UTC)

"To meet her in general."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Ah, yeah."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:47 pm (UTC)

Eights shrugs. "Somehow I don't think it's going to be that long. At least not by my standards."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Probably not. I don't see the Bells rendering Chelsa torchable or anything."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

"So fifty or a hundred years, not that big a deal," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:51 pm (UTC)

Nathan chuckles. "Yeah."

pythbox
2013-10-28 09:53 pm (UTC)

"It's weird hearing that from a human," says Arianna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Species has less to do with longevity all the time."
Edited 2013-10-28 22:12 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-28 10:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting that!"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 10:35 pm (UTC)

"I was already potentially immortal, but practically speaking no vampires have cleared four millenia."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Pff. Small change," Eights says fondly.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 10:37 pm (UTC)

He elbows her. (Maybe another rib will break, maybe not!)

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 10:43 pm (UTC)

No more than a crack. She giggles.

pythbox
2013-10-28 10:43 pm (UTC)

Arianna looks speculatively at them.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 10:44 pm (UTC)

"What?" asks Nathan.

pythbox
2013-10-28 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Didn't that hurt?" she says.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Eights.

pythbox
2013-10-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

Arianna grins a dragony grin.

"Is that a template thing?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Looks like!" says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 10:51 pm (UTC)

Nathan laughs. "You're not the only template that does it, either."

pythbox
2013-10-28 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Which other ones?" says Arianna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Jokers, most notably. I think the Bells who don't have those get their Sherlocks to help, although I don't think it's that extreme in those cases. Stella has Sandy working for her as a mint, I'm not sure whether in his case that's a template thing or an individual trait."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:04 pm (UTC)

"Debatably a template thing," says Eights. "Chainsaw could swing that way, but he wasn't gonna try it while torturers were still a thing. Too easy for something to go wrong. Is it just me or are a lot of these people purple?"

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 11:05 pm (UTC)

"You know what, all of those people are purple. Huh."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I wonder," says Eights, "if that is a thing."

"It sure looks like it," says Anna.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 11:24 pm (UTC)

"That seems like a weird thing for templates to cluster around!"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Does it?" says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't have any better ideas, but yes, it does."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll tell Glass," says Eights.

[I'm not sure if you've noticed, but it seems like purple people like pain more than green ones.]

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 11:32 pm (UTC)

[That does seem to be a trend. It's not a perfect trend, though. Matildas are purple and as far as I know that's not a trait they have.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:35 pm (UTC)

[I wouldn't know; I haven't met one.]

thaumobabble
2013-10-28 11:37 pm (UTC)

[I'm going to finish sorting people, but after that there'll be a list generally available and we'll see what we can see.]

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:43 pm (UTC)

[All right,] she says agreeably.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 11:44 pm (UTC)

"What's the verdict?" inquires Nathan.

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Definitely a thing, maybe not a thing one hundred percent of the time, she still hasn't sorted everybody," says Eights.

"I still don't see what's so weird about clustering around that," says Anna.

"Me neither."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, what would the greens be clustering around, non-masochism?"

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:49 pm (UTC)

"There's not necessarily an opposite to every possible thing that some people can have in common," says Eights.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's just that there's only two kinds. If there were an entire rainbow it would make more sense, but a bifurcate division..."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it's the only difference, but it definitely seems to be a difference," she says. "Anyway, do we know for sure that every single person in every single universe is one of those two things? We only know it about people Glass has looked at so far, and that's not a lot, in comparison."

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, no, I suppose she's only checking the party attendees, but we weren't sorted for green-or-purple-moiety-membership ahead of time. She discovered this phenomenon today."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:54 pm (UTC)

Eights shrugs.

temporal_affairs
2013-10-28 11:54 pm (UTC)

"It's a mystery, apparently."

lookingforwardtoit
2013-10-28 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

This is continuation number 23 from here.

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 05:53 am (UTC)

When Tab notes that the Jokers appear to be mingling with the general population, she goes looking for Aianon. He kind of stands out, even in this weird crowd, so that shouldn't be too hard.

endragoned
2013-10-28 12:00 pm (UTC)

She will find Aianon outside, flying. Closer to the space plant than most of the other airborne guests.

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 04:43 pm (UTC)

She lights out into the air after him. "Hey, Aianon!"

endragoned
2013-10-28 04:45 pm (UTC)

He looks down at her and grins.

"Hello. What is it?"

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 04:48 pm (UTC)

"I think this plant is great. I want a treehouse-palace. I'd understand if you just wanted to, like, describe a design for me to set up myself, though, considering last time somebell borrowed you for planting."

endragoned
2013-10-28 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I would not like to describe a design," he says. "I like making things. This time, if I am stranded far from home, I have my own way to return."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you picked up freecasting? Nifty. I wonder if anybody else can learn that. Glass wasn't sure. I'd probably have a better chance at it than most Bells."

endragoned
2013-10-28 05:09 pm (UTC)

"I did. We all have. You can try to learn, if you like; I recommend asking Harley and War. It is much easier for new Jokers to learn it now that War has felt us all try it our own ways."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Putting it on my to-do list. So you'll come to Gift sometime and make me a treehouse castle? My planet has these fantastic enormous trees, they're taller than this plant, just not quite as big around."

endragoned
2013-10-28 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I would love to see your trees."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I named the planet Arborea because the trees are so great."

endragoned
2013-10-28 05:23 pm (UTC)

"That is a good name. I will see your trees and make you a treehouse palace."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Awesome. Just lemme know when's a good time and I'll make room in the schedule to show you around."

endragoned
2013-10-28 05:30 pm (UTC)

"After the party, perhaps."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I have a longer blank space for it than I expect to need just in case it runs really long with all these people here meeting-and-greeting."

endragoned
2013-10-28 05:39 pm (UTC)

"They are getting to be very large," Aianon agrees. "I enjoyed making the flying plant for this one."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 05:40 pm (UTC)

"It's an awesome flying plant. Is it gonna stick around after the party disperses?"

endragoned
2013-10-28 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I do not have anywhere to put it," he says. "But it would be a shame to destroy it. Perhaps I will leave it here in case there is another party someday."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Sure. There might be, although we seem to find new worlds that haven't hosted parties yet more often than we have parties."

endragoned
2013-10-28 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I believe that if we ever go a very long time without finding any new Bells or meeting any disasters with Jane, that might change."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, probably. So keep the plant, it's a great plant."

endragoned
2013-10-28 06:00 pm (UTC)

"It is! I am proud."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-28 06:01 pm (UTC)

"So I shall see you after the party," concludes Tab, "thanks!" And she flies off.

This is continuation number 24 from here.

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 05:57 am (UTC)

Cam has been sidetracked several times now from his long-term goal of... keeping current with... the entire deck of Jokers. And now they're not even in the orgy chamber. But that's hardly insurmountable. [Hey, sweetness,] he says to Jellybean, [is this a good time for me to get introduced properly to Corona and/or Nona?]

pythbox
2013-10-28 12:01 pm (UTC)

[Lemme check,] he says. There is a pause. [Corona says go for it, Nona says she'll think about it.]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 04:43 pm (UTC)

[Huh, does she have something going on I haven't heard about?] Cam inquires. [That's not usual.]

pythbox
2013-10-28 04:46 pm (UTC)

[I dunno,] says Jellybean, [have you heard about her dad?]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 04:49 pm (UTC)

[I presume he is or was awful, par for the course?]

pythbox
2013-10-28 04:58 pm (UTC)

[Awful yes, par for the course nnnnot exactly. He used to fuck her. She's... well, she's dealing better than Corona did, but she's still - kind of shy for a Joker? It'll pass. The fact that they lived by themselves in a castle in the middle of nowhere with nobody for company but the swans isn't helping anything. Before she hit the deck she'd been around as many people as there are at this party once in her whole life. Not even enough to know that's what she was missing.]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 04:59 pm (UTC)

[Huh. Okay. I'll warn Glass, I guess, I'm not sure but just in case.]

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:13 pm (UTC)

[Warn Glass about what, Nona probably not wanting to fuck her? Is that a thing? I didn't know that was a thing,] laughs Jellybean. [If she wants some girl-flavoured Joker she'd be better off trying Ghosty or Celo - I know Celo was walking around swapped a while ago, and Ghosty can be whatever shape she wants.]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 05:15 pm (UTC)

[If Glass generically wanted some girl-flavored Joker I'd have expected her to hit one up already. I don't know if she was planning to ask Nona or not, but if she asks and gets a no that will probably not do anything good for her odds of asking Nona or anyjoker else later on.]

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:19 pm (UTC)

[...So wait, why Nona and not the rest of us, then?]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 05:23 pm (UTC)

[I haven't actually talked to Glass in particular about this, but the impression I get from monosexual Bells - who aren't Amariah, anyway, she's flexible about exact details here because daemons - is that it goes on being somewhat important which pronouns and which shape you are by default, and Ghosty gets interpreted as not having a default shape. And Queenie gets interpreted as having female default pronouns but not a matching default shape. If Glass works like that then Nona would be the first viable candidate.] Pause. [You might want to tell Etty, or get Nona to tell Etty, about this too, I could also see Glass asking Etty first to make sure she wouldn't be stepping on her toes.]

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:26 pm (UTC)

[...mm,] says Jellybean. [What's me telling Etty gonna do?]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 05:27 pm (UTC)

[Means Etty will be able to tell Glass if Glass asks her, instead of me having to go interrupt whatever Glass is doing - probably sorting people into moieties, have you heard about that yet? - and presume that it's useful information. A bit less awkward.]

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:31 pm (UTC)

[You could tell Etty,] Jellybean suggests. [Yeah, I got the news from the Joker grapevine. Apparently we're purple.]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 05:33 pm (UTC)

[You'd be able to explain it to Etty better than I could if she wants details. Unless Nona has enough introspective insight to just explain herself? Is this thing something she told you or something you guys noticed?]

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:40 pm (UTC)

[...I'm not sure there's a difference,] says Jellybean. [There sometimes isn't, when we're all linked. She definitely doesn't know any less about it than I do.]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 05:41 pm (UTC)

[Oh, in that case I'll tell Etty to ask Nona about it. And then I'll go hunt up Corona, I suppose.]

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:45 pm (UTC)

[Have fun!] says Jellybean. [Corona is fun. You know about his Gift, right?]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 05:46 pm (UTC)

[I've heard a description?]

pythbox
2013-10-28 05:51 pm (UTC)

[He amplifies things. All kinds of things. Including sensory things,] says Jellybean, very cheerfully. [If you let him. It's pretty awesome.]

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 05:52 pm (UTC)

[...So yeah I think I'll go do those things I said I would do, now, love you sweetness.]

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:01 pm (UTC)

[I love you too,] Jellybean says fondly.

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 06:02 pm (UTC)

Cam has a brief brainphone exchange with Etty.

And then he goes looking for Corona.

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:06 pm (UTC)

At the moment, Corona can be found outside, sitting on the edge of the platform with his legs dangling over the side and watching the dragons.

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 06:07 pm (UTC)

Cam sits next to him. "Hey," he says.
Edited 2013-10-28 18:11 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Hey," says Corona. "So Jellybean says you wanna fuck me?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Yep. I like to keep current with the deck. For more reasons than it suiting my aesthetics."

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:20 pm (UTC)

Corona laughs. "All right, let's get a room."

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 06:22 pm (UTC)

Teleportation! So handy!

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:24 pm (UTC)

Extremely handy!

"So," says Corona, "you've heard about my Gift, right?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Jellybean mentioned it. Yep."

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:27 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Wanna try?"

lifes_sake
2013-10-28 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

pythbox
2013-10-28 06:29 pm (UTC)

Corona kisses him.

Things are amplified.

This is continuation number 25 from here.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 10:13 pm (UTC)

Soph is following her Tony to more Tonies! Many Tonies. This promises to be exciting.

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:19 pm (UTC)

There is a whole pile of Tonies in that room with all the pillows. Signs indicate that they have built and disassembled at least one pillow fort. Many of them are only partially dressed.

"Fusion, Screwdriver, Sapphire, Iron," says Red, pointing. "Everybody, this is Soph."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Hi everybody!" says Soph, waving, doing a little pivot-fidget.

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" chorus the Tonies. Red hugs her.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 10:27 pm (UTC)

Hugs! "Um, what've you all heard about me, I don't know what the buzz is?"

allthebrightest
2013-10-28 10:29 pm (UTC)

"You're really cute," says Iron.

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Gingerbread houses!" says Fusion.

ferratus
2013-10-28 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Pillow forts!" says Screwdriver.

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Arcades!" says Sapphire.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Those are kind of the highlights! Did he mention I made the gingerbread house into a gingerbread Jarvis, because I did that."

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:35 pm (UTC)

All of the Tonies except Red go, "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"

Red just grins and hugs her.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 10:36 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

toblameforit
2013-10-28 10:54 pm (UTC)

Snuggy hugs!

"So if you wanted to make out with some of us," says Fusion, "that would be pretty cool."

keyed_up
2013-10-28 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Myyyy internal magic eight-ball says okay!"

toblameforit
2013-10-28 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Awesome!" says Sapphire. "C'mere!"

Red flops into the general pillowpile and kisses Iron, who is closest.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 11:02 pm (UTC)

Flop! Soph kisses Sapphire.

toblameforit
2013-10-28 11:05 pm (UTC)

Sapphire kisses back. Kisses! Kisses are awesome. Soph is awesome. Tonies are awesome.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 11:06 pm (UTC)

Tonies are awesome kissers is what they are!

toblameforit
2013-10-28 11:23 pm (UTC)

Yes. They are that. That is a thing that they are.

Other things that are awesome: piles of snuggly kissing people and pillows! They're snuggly and pile-y and full of kisses.

keyed_up
2013-10-28 11:25 pm (UTC)

Yay!

Soph does not kiss Iron, and Iron Man isn't here, probably because the other Tonies are, well, teenagers, but Soph kisses all of the teenage boy Tonies.

toblameforit
2013-10-28 11:27 pm (UTC)

And all the teenage boy Tonies kiss Soph, and everyone snuggles, and there are pillows, and it's awesome.

This is continuation number 26 from here.

mute_pen
2013-10-28 10:14 pm (UTC)

Etty is trying to find her girlfriend.

growcrooked
2013-10-28 10:23 pm (UTC)

Etty's girlfriend is in one of the orgy chambers by herself. One with a lot of pillows. Pillows are cuddly.

mute_pen
2013-10-28 10:25 pm (UTC)

Etty knocks on the door.

growcrooked
2013-10-28 10:27 pm (UTC)

It opens. Magically, because Nona is still flopped among the pillows, snuggling them.

mute_pen
2013-10-28 10:28 pm (UTC)

Etty comes in and closes the door and flops down with her. "Hi."

growcrooked
2013-10-28 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Nona, snuggling up.

mute_pen
2013-10-28 10:30 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. "Cam told me that Jellybean told him and that I should tell Glass and that I should ask you about - apparently Cam is not supposed to hit on you yet?"

growcrooked
2013-10-28 10:32 pm (UTC)

"...Hmm," says Nona. "Yes. He asked Jellybean and Jellybean asked me. I didn't mind, but I didn't say yes, either."
Edited 2013-10-28 22:32 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-10-28 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

growcrooked
2013-10-28 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, because I don't want to," she says. "I like the Jokers because... they're comfortable. It wouldn't be so comfortable with him. If there weren't so many Jokers I might not know the difference so well, or if we weren't all immortal I might do it because now is better than never, but I can wait until I'm comfortable, so I am."

mute_pen
2013-10-28 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Bells aren't comfortable?"

growcrooked
2013-10-28 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Not the way Jokers are. Why?"

mute_pen
2013-10-28 10:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm one. I don't know how this is all - interacting."

growcrooked
2013-10-28 10:52 pm (UTC)

"If I'd just met you today and you wanted to have sex with me I'd say no," she says. "But I didn't. I know you and I love you. It's a different thing."

mute_pen
2013-10-28 10:53 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. "I guess Cam isn't enough like me to count but the Jokers are enough like you to count?"

growcrooked
2013-10-28 11:00 pm (UTC)

"To be enough like you to count for what you count for he'd have to be you. Jokers are enough like me to count for something else. I understand them, and they understand me, and we all know how to make each other feel good and not hurt each other except in ways we like. And if there's anything going on that someone might not notice we can just pass it through War. So fucking them is just... not even a little bit scary, in a way I didn't even know could happen until I got used to them, and even then I didn't really notice until Jellybean said Cam wanted to fuck me and I thought about whether or not I wanted to."

mute_pen
2013-10-28 11:00 pm (UTC)

Didn't even know could happen.

"Am I scary?"

growcrooked
2013-10-28 11:18 pm (UTC)

...Nona sighs. "Words are hard. You're not scary. Having sex with you is a little bit scary, because I already know I can hurt you by accident and I think you could probably hurt me by accident too. But it's okay, because I love you, and we try not to hurt each other, and if we did we could just stop. It's not worth it just to have fun with somebody like Cam when I could wait until I feel better about things instead, but it's worth it with you."
Edited 2013-10-28 23:21 (UTC)

mute_pen
2013-10-28 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Snuggle. "I'm not dying for you to go have sex with Cam, it just - didn't make immediate sense. Can I help you feel better about things?"

growcrooked
2013-10-28 11:25 pm (UTC)

Nona giggles and cuddles up. "I think I just need to wait and get used to knowing more than three people at a time," she says.

mute_pen
2013-10-28 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Have you met anybody at the party besides the other Jokers, so far?"

growcrooked
2013-10-28 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Not really. Not to have long conversations with. It's nice, though, just being here and knowing there are all those people around having fun."

mute_pen
2013-10-28 11:30 pm (UTC)

"I've mostly just been talking to other Bells. Apparently I'm proof that we come in states intermediate between 'broken' and 'not broken'."

growcrooked
2013-10-28 11:32 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. "Did no one else do that before?"

mute_pen
2013-10-28 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Not really. There were times when most of them had bad things happen, but they didn't impede their functionality. Golden was broken for a few years but didn't have much in the way of residual effects when she unbroke. Shell Bell - well, Shell - was broken and patched it with her merge. Sarion was broken and the others put her in a position to heal. I don't need anything specific and dramatic to happen to me before I'll be able to do anything, but I'm not up and running like it was minor either."

growcrooked
2013-10-28 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Can I help you feel better? Any ways I'm not already doing?"

mute_pen
2013-10-28 11:43 pm (UTC)

Etty shakes her head. "Nothing specific and dramatic. Just - like you have been."

growcrooked
2013-10-28 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Snuggle. Snuggles are a thing she has been!

mute_pen
2013-10-28 11:45 pm (UTC)

Snuggles! They are!

This is continuation number 27 from here.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-29 12:06 am (UTC)

Elspeth is meandering towards the golden bubbly, which, along with the blue and other less popular synthetics, is labeled "For Vampire Consumption Only".

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:08 am (UTC)

"You know, they really ought to specify," remarks a-Sherlock-from-Apollo-whom-you-can-call-Plus. "No one's actually tested it on our sort."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-29 12:09 am (UTC)

"Oh. I suppose," says Elspeth. "Does it even smell appetizing to you?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:13 am (UTC)

He sniffs. "Not espcially. Sort of like... salted tinfoil. Some value may be present but it would be a bad idea to give it a bite."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-29 12:14 am (UTC)

"Salted tinfoil! Of all things." She pours herself a shot of bubbly and adds three drops of blue; it turns a sea-green. "Well, I could change the sign anyway, in case one of you decides to give it a try regardless."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:16 am (UTC)

"Well, if you're going to change the sign, I may as well try it first. Just so we know whether or not it is genuinely toxic."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-29 12:17 am (UTC)

"If you like." She downs her shot and pours him one.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:19 am (UTC)

He tries it.

"Not pleasant, but not vile," is his conclusion. "I could see it as an acquired taste but I have no urge to acquire it. I also don't appear to be keeling over."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-29 12:20 am (UTC)

"Well, if you do, update the sign when you're up again."

alicornucopia
2013-10-29 12:20 am (UTC)

"Is someone doing sanguinary experiments?" asks Lily. "Hello, Princess. Hello - Plus, nice to meet you."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:24 am (UTC)

"The experiment has just concluded," says Plus, displaying his empty glass. "Your synthetics are not to my taste, and I don't think they're very nourishing, but if I'm dying of them I'm doing it very slowly."

alicornucopia
2013-10-29 12:24 am (UTC)

"I have here," says Lily, "a gallon of Materian nymph blood, which both I and the Imperial Minister of Temporal Affairs find delectable, want a sample?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:27 am (UTC)

"Why not." He peers into his glass and then spends a triangle to clean it.

alicornucopia
2013-10-29 12:28 am (UTC)

Lily pours him a little nymph blood.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:32 am (UTC)

Plus drinks it.

He starts giggling. Mid-giggle, he dissolves into a cloud of dust, which is replaced by the illusory flames of torching, which are replaced in turn by a still-giggling Plus.

alicornucopia
2013-10-29 12:32 am (UTC)

"Well, that's got to be the most interesting reaction I've ever had from giving somebody a beverage," says Lily. "What happened?"

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:36 am (UTC)

"Apparently," he says, vanishing the dropped glass with a square, "in my world's terms Materian nymph blood is a kind of holy water. To which, as you have just observed, we vampires are violently allergic. Gives us nasty burns when we touch it. I've never drunk the stuff before, but I'm not surprised it turned out to be fatal."

alicornucopia
2013-10-29 12:46 am (UTC)

"How peculiar. Tastes like health food to me," says Lily.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:49 am (UTC)

"It smells perfectly appetizing, in a bizarrely plantlike sort of way. But I don't think I'll be having any more."
Edited 2013-10-29 00:50 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-10-29 12:50 am (UTC)

"It is pretty bizarrely plantlike, isn't it? And I don't blame you." She caps the bottle. "I'll save it for the Aurumites. I'm going to throw a tasting."

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:51 am (UTC)

"Best of luck."

alicornucopia
2013-10-29 12:51 am (UTC)

"Thanks!" And off goes Lily.

dearsweetsoulful
2013-10-29 12:53 am (UTC)

"Well, that was informative."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-10-29 12:54 am (UTC)

"Yes, quite."

This is continuation number 28 from here.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-29 01:02 am (UTC)

[Hey, Matildas, where are you? Is this a good time for the remaining Bells to get Wellsprung?]

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:04 am (UTC)

[In one of those little rooms,] says Matilda.

[Wellsprung,] giggles Tilly.

[I don't see why not,] says Agent Honey.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-29 01:04 am (UTC)

Assorted Bells accumulate! They bring or materialize books, or assume the faraway looks of people receiving reading material from Jane.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:06 am (UTC)

The little room gets slightly crowded. Matilda solves this by expanding its interior volume while leaving the exterior unchanged. The three Matildas combine to levitate the assortment of Bells.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-29 01:07 am (UTC)

Floating Bells float floatily. "This is a cool magic system," asserts Aether.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:07 am (UTC)

"It really is!" says Matilda.

mute_pen
2013-10-29 01:19 am (UTC)

Etty appears last of the un-Wellsprung Bells, and then they're all there: Stella, Golden, Amariah, Angela, Aegis, Pattern, Rose, Sarion, Aether, Tab, and her.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:21 am (UTC)

The Matildas double-check that nobell's feet are in contact with the ground, even out their contributions so that each one supplies a third of each levitation, and then open up their conjured laptops.

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:22 am (UTC)

[Whatcha doin'?] says Alice to Stella, a few minutes later. (Alice is presently cuddling with Queenie.)

self_composed
2013-10-29 01:23 am (UTC)

[Getting floated to acquire yet another sort of magic.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:23 am (UTC)

[Ooh. Is it fun?]

self_composed
2013-10-29 01:24 am (UTC)

[Not all by itself. We're reading.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:24 am (UTC)

[Can I come keep you company?]

self_composed
2013-10-29 01:24 am (UTC)

[Sure.]

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:25 am (UTC)

He kisses Queenie, acquires clothes, teleports to Stella, and gives her comfy midair snuggles.

self_composed
2013-10-29 01:25 am (UTC)

Snuggle!

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:26 am (UTC)

Oh, hey, Matildas. He wonders what happened to that other one he met that time.

self_composed
2013-10-29 01:27 am (UTC)

"Hey, Matildas," says Stella. "None of you met Alice in Milliways relatively-subjectively-recently. Right?"

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:28 am (UTC)

Three Matildas shake their heads.

self_composed
2013-10-29 01:30 am (UTC)

"Okay, then we're missing one. Alice, how come you never mentioned you recognized them? I wasn't paying enough attention to the read at the time to recognize her. I figured it was a name collision."

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:32 am (UTC)

"Just never thought of it, I guess. I haven't talked to these ones a whole lot or anything."

But it seems fairly obvious to him that they are the same kind. There's name collisions, and there's face collisions, and then there's collisions of face, name, adoptive mother's name (in at least Agent Honey's case), general demeanour, and propensity for levitating things.

self_composed
2013-10-29 01:33 am (UTC)

"And I was also way too distracted at the time to notice that the one you were talking to is apparently from the Roald Dahl book."

bellfounding
2013-10-29 01:33 am (UTC)

"...What? Like Strat?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess," says Alice.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:38 am (UTC)

"...We've all read the book," says Matilda, "it doesn't exist in our worlds but I found it in Milliways when I was six - are you saying she was actually from it? Our lives have plenty of similarities but also some obvious differences. Like being set in Lyndonville instead of Probably England."

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:39 am (UTC)

"She was definitely Probably English," says Alice. "And she'd read the book too."

mute_pen
2013-10-29 01:40 am (UTC)

"...Can someone catch me up, here?"

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 01:43 am (UTC)

"There's a book called Matilda in my world about a little girl who comes from a shitty family and gets magical powers. One time I met somebody who seemed to pretty much be the girl from the book, and we talked about stuff for a while and it was pretty great and I never saw her again."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:43 am (UTC)

"And now it seems like she's our alt, except that we're only mostly like the girl from the book and she's at least a little bit more like her than we are."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-29 01:44 am (UTC)

"So she's the Strat to your other-Sherlocks, or something. I guess that's not the kind of thing Glass would see unless she had her handy to look at? I wonder if Shell Bell can find her world if Alice stands next to her or something."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-29 01:45 am (UTC)

"I haven't read the Matilda book, though I did read some Holmes stories - but that's two templates discernibly book-related, are we just assuming Milliways cross-contagion and timefuckery or what?"
Edited 2013-10-29 01:49 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-10-29 01:50 am (UTC)

"How would we find out? Unless Glass sees something, how do we figure out what the books have to do with the Matildas? Resurrect some world's Roald Dahl and interrogate him? It's not necessarily something he'd know; Sherlocks converge on their template without their books when they have to."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:59 am (UTC)

"I've always thought of it as just an interesting coincidence," says Matilda. "The sort of thing that seems perfectly reasonable when it happens at Milliways."

dark_light
2013-10-29 02:00 am (UTC)

"...I had that book when I was a kid. It had daemons in it. So do the Sherlock Holmes books. Maybe books have templates and modify to fit their worlds? Or can be templates, just like intelligent species?"

giftedandtalented
2013-10-29 02:01 am (UTC)

"Maybe everybody should bring me copies and I should insta-read them to see how many little textual differences there are?"

luminous_regnant
2013-10-29 02:02 am (UTC)

"I imagine Glass would have mentioned it if she could see templateness or metacausality hanging around written media, but it could just be a gap in her aura."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:03 am (UTC)

"Has Glass ever perceived the templateness or metacausality of an inanimate object?"

jovahs_heiress
2013-10-29 02:05 am (UTC)

"No. Which, come to think of it, is already known to be a bit odd because so many worlds have duplicate planets and cities and so on in them."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:06 am (UTC)

"Sounds like a gap to me," says Agent Honey.

autokinetic
2013-10-29 02:14 am (UTC)

"Okay, so you have alts who are books, apparently, and we have another Matilda to look for. I didn't have this book when I was a kid, is it any good?"

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:15 am (UTC)

"It has definite charms."

edgeofyourseat
2013-10-29 02:15 am (UTC)

"It made me cry," volunteers Alice.

autokinetic
2013-10-29 02:16 am (UTC)

"Okay. I wanna read the version with daemons, that sounds entertaining." Aegis conjures up a copy of Alethia's version of the story.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:18 am (UTC)

"What would our daemons be, if we had them?" wonders Matilda.

dark_light
2013-10-29 02:18 am (UTC)

"The book doesn't have an opinion, the character's too young to be settled."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:27 am (UTC)

"Well, we can find out," says Tilly. She spends squares.

...Matildas' daemons are, apparently, Matildas. They're not precisely identical to their originating persons - Tilly's daemon has slightly curlier hair; Agent Honey's daemon has blue eyes instead of hazel; Matilda's daemon is a few inches shorter - but the resemblance is extremely close.

dark_light
2013-10-29 02:28 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Amariah. "Human daemons happen at home, but they're not at all common."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:29 am (UTC)

"Do they mean anything in particular?" wonders Matilda, banishing the illusions.

dark_light
2013-10-29 02:29 am (UTC)

"Do you want the positive stereotypes or the negative ones?"

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:30 am (UTC)

"All of the above, of course," says Agent Honey.

dark_light
2013-10-29 02:42 am (UTC)

"Intelligence, literal-mindedness, it's one of about forty daemon types associated with being a bad driver - my information is out of date but I think there was actually a supported correlation with asexuality. Personal isolationism, or self-sufficiency, depending on whether you're talking to someone who approves of introversion."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:43 am (UTC)

"Well," says Tilly.

"Some of those are accurate," says Matilda.

dark_light
2013-10-29 02:44 am (UTC)

"That's about par for the course with daemon stereotypes, yeah."

autokinetic
2013-10-29 02:44 am (UTC)

"Which ones?"

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:45 am (UTC)

"Self-sufficiency," says Matilda.

"Intelligence," says Tilly.

Agent Honey just smiles.

self_composed
2013-10-29 02:48 am (UTC)

"So you're not asexual? Because Glass has been trying to pin down what purples and greens have in common besides looking purple or green to her metacausality-sight and one thing that keeps turning up in purples is bisexuality, but reportedly you're purple."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:52 am (UTC)

"...Has someone been theorizing that we're asexual before it came up just now?" wonders Tilly.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-29 02:53 am (UTC)

"I was suspending judgment, given you're all single and asking Celo would be hypocritical."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:55 am (UTC)

The Matildas exchange glances, or maybe just one glance passed back and forth between the three of them.

"If there's a purple pattern for experiencing attraction to multiple genders, we don't break it," says Matilda.

autokinetic
2013-10-29 02:57 am (UTC)

"I wonder if the ones of you who are books do the same thing," giggles Aegis.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 02:58 am (UTC)

"You're welcome to ask one," says Tilly.

autokinetic
2013-10-29 02:59 am (UTC)

"Pffff."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 03:23 am (UTC)

Time passes.

Rose is the first Bell in this batch to be wordlessly un-levitated.

beheld_beauty
2013-10-29 03:24 am (UTC)

"How are my magical properties?"

withmypowers
2013-10-29 01:45 pm (UTC)

"Handling, storage, and generation on the low end," says Matilda, "but high for a Bell. Medium-high entanglement, medium-high perception."

"About in the middle between Juliet and Glass," says Agent Honey.

beheld_beauty
2013-10-29 05:17 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what causes the different results. You can't tell?"

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:05 pm (UTC)

"There's theories at home," says Matilda, "but I don't think they apply very well to the situation at hand. You're really unlikely to vary that widely in relevant personality factors, for example."

beheld_beauty
2013-10-29 09:06 pm (UTC)

Rose laughs a little. "Yes, rather. Maybe when we've all got as much of this magic as we're going to something will make itself obvious."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Maybe!" she says agreeably. "Or maybe Glass will get something."

beheld_beauty
2013-10-29 09:16 pm (UTC)

Rose nods. She swaps her book for one on Wellspring magic. When Tab leans in her direction, she waves it to within Tab's aura range momentarily and then goes back to reading it.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:18 pm (UTC)

The next Bell to be lowered is Amariah.

dark_light
2013-10-29 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Amariah. "Glass-Rose-me isn't an obvious lineup of any characterstic."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:25 pm (UTC)

"You've got about the same properties as Rose," says Tilly, "but your perception is a little higher and your entanglement a little lower. It's not a big difference; a less sensitive reading might not even pick up on it."

dark_light
2013-10-29 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Path.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:32 pm (UTC)

The Matildas shrug.

Next is Sarion, a few minutes later. "Same category as the other two," says Agent Honey, "but with slightly lower perception and noticeably higher entanglement."

small_magics
2013-10-29 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Of the three of us, Amariah's native magic is the one that affords the most advantages in detecting magic," observes Sarion thoughtfully.

dark_light
2013-10-29 09:34 pm (UTC)

"What would explain your better entanglement? If my information's in-date between elfmagery and enchantment even you prefer the latter for most things, and you and Rose were about the same age when you got your respective things."

beheld_beauty
2013-10-29 09:35 pm (UTC)

"It's hard to say."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:38 pm (UTC)

"We'd have to Wellspring a lot more witches and elfmages and native enchanters before we could say that your native magic system has an effect," says Matilda. "Although it's an interesting idea and very plausible."

small_magics
2013-10-29 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't an elfmage when I was young, but I did practice small magics," muses Sarion.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-29 09:40 pm (UTC)

"I think this theory predicts that I'm next."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:45 pm (UTC)

"We'll see," says Matilda.

Aether is not next.

Etty is next.

"You're just about in the middle of those three," says Matilda. "Higher storage than any of them, though."

mute_pen
2013-10-29 09:47 pm (UTC)

"I've barely practiced magic, and not for long, and Glass says it works for anyone just the same as long as they're in Lake when they try it," says Etty. "I don't know what this does to the theory."

giftedandtalented
2013-10-29 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Nothing informative. Cam's got plenty of magic and he got it when he was fifteen and he's - not as good as those of us who are now in contact with the ground, right? And Juliet's world is Wellspring-compatible to begin with and we're beating her too."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:50 pm (UTC)

"There's nothing saying that a lot of this isn't just plain noise," says Matilda. "We really don't know a lot about how Wellspringing interacts with templates. I guess we'll know more in a while, though."

bellfounding
2013-10-29 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I hope it is noise, this theory here predicts that me and Angela and possibly even Aegis get nada just like Shell Bell."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 09:55 pm (UTC)

"We'll see about that too," says Agent Honey.

It turns out that Aether is next after that.

"Interesting," says Matilda. "Your entanglement is about on par with Sarion's, but everything else is coming in just under Juliet."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-29 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I haven't actually gotten the rundown on what these statistics mean," Aether mentions. "I can guess based on the names, but what are the details?"

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:13 pm (UTC)

Matilda volunteers an explanation.

"The working stats - handling, storage, and generation - respectively measure how much magic you can work with directly at once, how much magic you can have in your personal store without using it immediately, and how fast that personal store refills over time. People with high generation and low storage tend to leave a trail of loose magic wherever they go, but it's not harmful, just handy for your neighbours. Entanglement is how easily you can create or affect patterns—magic strongly prefers to work in ways it's already been used, and the higher your entanglement, the better you are at getting it to work in new ways and the more of an impression you'll make when you do."

"The theory is that Wellspring has had this kind of magic all along," Tilly puts in, "but Matilda was the first person in human history with a high enough entanglement to get it to work for her when it hadn't ever been used before and there weren't any existing patterns to go on."

"Or at least the first person with a high enough entanglement who really, really tried," says Matilda. "Magic was pretty hard work for me in the early days. And lastly, perception is how well you can tell what patterns are available, and it also relates to magic-seeing in general. If you have high perception, you won't need to rely on spell descriptions as much, because you'll be able to read the patterns intuitively."

dark_light
2013-10-29 10:15 pm (UTC)

"And meanwhile Sunshine and its siblings were infested with enough demons that some of them got to it first."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Matilda. "And it seems like they went the opposite direction from Wellspring - in Wellspring, the available patterns are so overwhelmingly positive that it's hard to use magic destructively. In Sunshine... they seem to have it the other way around."

small_magics
2013-10-29 10:20 pm (UTC)

"If I understand correctly, we now have Wellspring patterns and not Sunshine ones."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:23 pm (UTC)

The Matildas nod.

"There's plenty of available reading material to conjure, if you want to know more about exactly how it all works," says Tilly. "In Wellspring, that is. I have no idea what the literature is like in Sunshine."

small_magics
2013-10-29 10:23 pm (UTC)

Sarion nods. She swaps her book.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:26 pm (UTC)

Next up is Stella.

"Another one about on Juliet's level," says Agent Honey as Stella's feet touch the floor. "With no surprises this time."

self_composed
2013-10-29 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's my ambition right there, unsurprisingness." New book.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:31 pm (UTC)

After that comes Tab, whom the Matildas declare to be part of the same group as Stella and Juliet.

giftedandtalented
2013-10-29 10:32 pm (UTC)

"If Golden's next I'd guess opacity would have to do with it."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:34 pm (UTC)

Golden is not next! Aegis is next.

"Less than Tab or Stella - about the same as Cam," says Tilly.

autokinetic
2013-10-29 10:35 pm (UTC)

"Opacity could still have to do with it," Aegis says, celebrating not floating under someone else's power anymore with a backflip and then zero-g-aura-ing her way back into a more self-powered float. She opts to read up on Wellspring magic on a desk instead of paper.

small_magics
2013-10-29 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Even if we assume I count, now, Glass has no such thing."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:38 pm (UTC)

And the next one after that is still not Golden; it's Pattern.

"Barely anything," says Agent Honey.

"Even less than Cam," says Tilly.
Edited 2013-10-29 22:40 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-10-29 10:41 pm (UTC)

"But not as little as Shell Bell?" says Pattern.

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:42 pm (UTC)

"No," says Matilda, "not as little as Shell Bell."

bellfounding
2013-10-29 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's something, then."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 10:45 pm (UTC)

And then Angela, and last of all Golden, both with similarly tiny-but-not-quite-functionally-worthless amounts.

luminous_regnant
2013-10-29 10:45 pm (UTC)

"How fortunate that we don't expect this to make or break any practical projects."

withmypowers
2013-10-29 11:02 pm (UTC)

Matildas shrug.

will you marry me?

small_magics

When the party has been going on for a few hours but no one has left yet, everyone is called into the main room. (The dragons will have a sufficient view if they prefer to perch at the outer doors.)

Angela has worked out a ceremony that will satisfy the involved parties, a reworking of standard Samarian traditions with some revised wording and adjustments for the fact that the groom inhabits two bodies. This ceremony, unlike the elven one, doesn't involve any jewelry.

And then Sarion and her beloved are married. Again.

This is a branching point; there are 6 continuations from here.

endragoned
2013-10-29 11:27 pm (UTC)

The moment the ceremony ends, a fantastic variety of flowers in every imaginable shape and colour begin to sprout from the walls.

Aianon grins.

small_magics
2013-10-29 11:29 pm (UTC)

And his wife kisses him.
Edited 2013-10-29 23:29 (UTC)

bellfounding
2013-10-29 11:30 pm (UTC)

And Pattern, in the audience, leans on Ripper and laughs helplessly.

tearingup
2013-10-29 11:31 pm (UTC)

Ripper is giggling kind of helplessly himself.

endragoned
2013-10-29 11:34 pm (UTC)

Aianon kisses Sarion. And maybe smirks. And perhaps lets her know about a certain other space plant in which flowers once bloomed. This one does not share particular relevant features; all of these flowers are keeping their petals.

small_magics
2013-10-29 11:35 pm (UTC)

So no one will have uncomfortable levels of detail if they happen to abscond right at this moment, then.

endragoned
2013-10-29 11:35 pm (UTC)

Indeed not! What a wonderful idea.

small_magics
2013-10-29 11:35 pm (UTC)

She kisses him again. And teleports them away.

This is continuation number 2 from here.

pina_colada
2013-10-29 11:38 pm (UTC)

Kerron applauds with everybody else. That was cute.

telesonorous
2013-10-29 11:43 pm (UTC)

It really was!

"Suddenly flowers," giggles someone standing behind him and also applauding.

pina_colada
2013-10-29 11:44 pm (UTC)

Kerron glances around and reads her nametag. "Yep! I think festive plants are kind of Aianon's thing. Are you my cousinoid? I believe you are."

telesonorous
2013-10-29 11:46 pm (UTC)

She peers at him. "Probably! If you're the Joker's son then definitely!"

pina_colada
2013-10-29 11:47 pm (UTC)

"That's me. And your dad would be Kas, presumably. I don't think I'd heard that he had kids."

telesonorous
2013-10-29 11:50 pm (UTC)

"He has a kid," says Helen. "It's... a thing."

pina_colada
2013-10-29 11:51 pm (UTC)

"A thing," says Kerron, scanning colorshapes. "What kinda thing?"

telesonorous
2013-10-29 11:54 pm (UTC)

A thing she wants to talk about, apparently!

"Amariah was gone for something like sixty years while Jane was down. Kas really didn't take it well. He decided to have a kid, and he wished himself pregnant without really specifying, and I turned out to be me, and when she got back and I was me and thirteen Amariah really didn't like it."

pina_colada
2013-10-29 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Ow."

telesonorous
2013-10-29 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

pina_colada
2013-10-29 11:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't really know Her Majesty that well, let alone any of her alts - was the not-liking-it a huge thing..."

telesonorous
2013-10-29 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Moderately huge? We're on speaking terms, and she didn't dump Kas or anything. But it's still pretty awkward."

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:00 am (UTC)

"That really sucks."

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:01 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Helen. It's possible that she would kind of like a hug.

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:02 am (UTC)

So Kerron hugs her.

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:03 am (UTC)

...Surprised and pleased, Helen hugs back.

"Thanks."

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:03 am (UTC)

"You're welcome. I can do hugs, I learned from the best."

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:04 am (UTC)

Helen giggles.

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:04 am (UTC)

"How are you liking your first Bellparty?"

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:12 am (UTC)

"It's pretty good."

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:13 am (UTC)

"I was much littler than you at my first one, yea big," says Kerron, holding a hand above the floor. "Capering around being adorable. This is my sister's second, though."

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:16 am (UTC)

This reminds Helen that she had vaguely planned to meet Kerron and his sister. She has now met Kerron!

"Did all the Jokers hug you?"

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:18 am (UTC)

"There weren't as many of 'em back then, and they didn't all literally hug me, but they all crowded around watching me be a munchkin. They did all hug Aedyt when she first turned up to one, let's see if we can find her and introduce you." He starts looking around for his sister, or her colorshapes, whichever is easiest to spot.

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 12:24 am (UTC)

There she is! Next to the buffet, with Lily.

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:25 am (UTC)

"I bet you were cute."

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:26 am (UTC)

"I was very cute, and to cap it all off I got Mum to turn me into a blue fox. My sister's over there," he adds, pointing and leading Helen thataway.

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:28 am (UTC)

"Well spotted!"

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 12:34 am (UTC)

As they approach, Aedyt is saying, "Pretty good, actually! I will definitely put a word in with Mummy if you run out and want to conjure more."

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:35 am (UTC)

"What's good?" Kerron asks. "Aedyt, Lily, this is our cousinoid, Helen. Helen, my sister, and Lily of no relation - Emperor's little sister."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:36 am (UTC)

"Nymph blood," says Lily, holding up her slightly depleted glass jug. "Want a sip?"

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:38 am (UTC)

"No thanks, I already turned it down from the source."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:38 am (UTC)

"This is conjured, and it's really good," says Lily, pouring him a taste anyway.

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:38 am (UTC)

Kerron sniffs it, then drinks it. "Okay, I'll admit, that is tasty stuff."

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:42 am (UTC)

"Well, now I'm tempted," snorts Helen.

pina_colada
2013-10-30 12:43 am (UTC)

"I don't think it'd do anything for you. The three of us are half-vampires."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:43 am (UTC)

"Aurum ones," adds Lily. "One of the other kind of vampires tried it and torched on the spot."

telesonorous
2013-10-30 12:44 am (UTC)

"But no not-at-all-vampires have tried it yet, right?"

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:45 am (UTC)

"Not and reported back to me. Do you really want it?"

telesonorous
2013-10-30 01:18 am (UTC)

"Sure, why not."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 01:19 am (UTC)

Lily pours her some too. Just enough that she'll be able to see if she likes it.

telesonorous
2013-10-30 01:22 am (UTC)

Helen tries it.

"...Yep, blood," is her conclusion. "Sort of weird-tasting, not that I have a lot of experience tasting blood."

pina_colada
2013-10-30 01:22 am (UTC)

"Well, we don't really, either, except maybe Lily. Mostly it's bubbly if we're in that region of comestible at all. Very modern."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 01:23 am (UTC)

"And even I've only tasted a handful of cooperative people, hardly the range old vampires have had."

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 01:28 am (UTC)

"I've had conjured human blood," volunteers Aedyt. "I think I like nymph better."

telesonorous
2013-10-30 01:29 am (UTC)

Helen giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 01:30 am (UTC)

"I'd like to be able to compare to singer blood, but I don't think hybrids have ever been confirmed to have those."

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 01:38 am (UTC)

"Can magic affect singerness?" wonders Aedyt. "Maybe you could get a similar experience even if we don't."

telesonorous
2013-10-30 01:39 am (UTC)

"And a 'singer' is...?"

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 01:41 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure if it can," Lily says to Aedyt, and to Helen she says, "A 'singer' is someone who smells and tastes ludicrously delicious to a specific vampire. I've heard that Bella - Golden - used to be Edward's before she turned."

pina_colada
2013-10-30 01:41 am (UTC)

"...I am pretty sure that magic can affect singerness, please do not ask me how I know."

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 01:44 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Aedyt, who can guess.

telesonorous
2013-10-30 01:45 am (UTC)

Helen looks at Kerron, then at Aedyt. Wheels begin turning.

pina_colada
2013-10-30 01:46 am (UTC)

"What's on your mind?" Kerron asks Helen.

telesonorous
2013-10-30 01:49 am (UTC)

"Guesses."

pina_colada
2013-10-30 01:49 am (UTC)

He snorts.

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 01:51 am (UTC)

"Anyway," says Aedyt, "if you wanted to experiment, Lily, I could try to conjure you pretend singer blood."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 01:52 am (UTC)

"I'd rather not make an idiot of myself in the middle of a Bellparty if it works. Maybe when we're back in Aurum. You can come to the tasting, stay after?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 01:54 am (UTC)

"Sure!" she says agreeably.

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 01:55 am (UTC)

"Cool, I'll send you an invitation when I have the details of the scheduling and all worked out."

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 01:57 am (UTC)

pina_colada
2013-10-30 01:58 am (UTC)

"So anyway. Helen here is Kas's kid. Slightly awkward amount of emphasis on 'Kas's'."

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 01:59 am (UTC)

"Awkward emphasis because—?"

telesonorous
2013-10-30 02:05 am (UTC)

"Because he had me by himself after he'd been wandering around missing Amariah for decades, and he didn't even mean for me to be hers but it happened anyway because of some weird thing about wishing and templates, and when she finally got back she was really mad at him for it."

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 02:05 am (UTC)

"...I want to hug you, do you want me to hug you?"

telesonorous
2013-10-30 02:06 am (UTC)

Helen nods.

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 02:06 am (UTC)

Hug.

pina_colada
2013-10-30 02:08 am (UTC)

Kerron hugs her again too.

telesonorous
2013-10-30 02:10 am (UTC)

Helen loves her cousinoids.

"You guys are pretty great," she mumbles.

pina_colada
2013-10-30 02:10 am (UTC)

"Guilty as charged."

pumpkin_pie
2013-10-30 02:11 am (UTC)

Aedyt giggles.

pina_colada
2013-10-30 03:58 am (UTC)

"Have you met our other cousinoids? Your - sisteroids, I guess? Or for that matter your own alts."

telesonorous
2013-11-02 01:51 pm (UTC)

"Some of them!" she says, cheering up somewhat. "My alts, and Pen the tiny angel, and the griffins. I still haven't seen sisteroid number three - I don't even know if any of them are here."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 04:29 pm (UTC)

"They should be. I haven't met Hyacinthe or Ariel yet either, the one wasn't born and the other wasn't old enough last time - Aedyt?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-11-02 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Haven't seen them. Well, I don't know what they look like, so 'haven't noticed them' might be more accurate. I might have seen them and not paid attention."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, did you see any angels who were younger than Keziah but not as young as Pen?"

pumpkin_pie
2013-11-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Not clearly enough to tell," she says after a moment. "There are a lot of angels I don't recognize at this party. Should we go looking for them?"

pina_colada
2013-11-02 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

Kerron starts scanning for appropriately sized angels. Or, for that matter, humans - there are kids but not that many kids here.

telesonorous
2013-11-02 05:35 pm (UTC)

Helen perches on her cloud-pine and gets some altitude to look around.

"I don't see anybody," she says.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I'll go see if I can turn them up," says Kerron, and he heads out into the crowd.

carillons
2013-11-02 06:15 pm (UTC)

If he's looking for an eleven-year-old angel, he might find one tucked into a roomlet on the main floor level. But she is quiet enough and still enough to be easy to miss, even with those bright white wings.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 06:16 pm (UTC)

He's got pretty keen vision. "Hey there! Are you Ariel?" he inquires.

carillons
2013-11-02 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Ariel. "Who are you?"

pina_colada
2013-11-02 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm Kerron! I'm your cousinoid - one of the Joker's kids."

carillons
2013-11-02 07:17 pm (UTC)

"I haven't met any cousinoids yet," says Ariel. She smiles.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, you've got a bunch. Alts of your sisters and me and my sister and since you're also a Bell kid the Chronicle little princesses count for you even though they don't for me."

carillons
2013-11-02 08:30 pm (UTC)

"That's a lot," says Ariel. "I think I'm okay with seeing you one at a time. What's it like in your world?"

pina_colada
2013-11-02 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm from Aurum. We're the world with the vampires and the werewolves and the witches."

carillons
2013-11-02 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Does everybody know about magic there?"

pina_colada
2013-11-02 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Most people. Not literally everyone, but it gets closer every day."

carillons
2013-11-02 09:07 pm (UTC)

"That must be nice," she says. "Magic is a secret in Samaria."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I've heard. You'll get there. It used to be secret in Aurum too."

carillons
2013-11-02 09:10 pm (UTC)

"We will," she agrees, nodding. "But not for a long time."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 09:12 pm (UTC)

"How old are you, anyway?"

carillons
2013-11-02 09:17 pm (UTC)

"I am eleven," says Ariel.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I think that makes you older than your alt, have you met her yet?"

carillons
2013-11-02 09:22 pm (UTC)

She shakes her head. "I haven't. Have you?"

pina_colada
2013-11-02 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Nope, I was looking for the one or the other of you and found you first."

carillons
2013-11-02 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm not very findable in here," she says. "Did you have to look hard?"

pina_colada
2013-11-02 09:30 pm (UTC)

"I looked for a while, but you were still more findable than Hyacinthe."

carillons
2013-11-02 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I bet she is somewhere you wouldn't expect anyone to be," says Ariel.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Why's that?"

carillons
2013-11-02 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Because I go places like that, and if you found me before her she's probably even less findable."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Suppose so. Do you want to be alone, when you do that, or is it something else?"

carillons
2013-11-02 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Not alone, exactly," she says. "But out of the way. There can be other people there if I don't mind them."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to go looking for Hyacinthe?"

carillons
2013-11-02 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:01 pm (UTC)

And awander they go. Kerron lets her take the lead on the theory that the same sorts of places will look like appealing hideyholes.

carillons
2013-11-02 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Can she fly, do you know?" she wonders.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Probably. Not with wings, I imagine."

carillons
2013-11-02 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Then I'll look at flying places." She heads for the outside of the plant.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:18 pm (UTC)

Kerron follows her, and flies when she flies.

carillons
2013-11-02 10:20 pm (UTC)

She checks the top of the plant first, but she doesn't have to do much more than peek at the arch of the domed roof, covered in magnificently enormous flowers, before she shakes her head.

The bottom of the plant is much more promising; there are lots of little spaces amid the tangle of roots to tuck oneself into. Ariel investigates them.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:22 pm (UTC)

Kerron follows her, humming.

carillons
2013-11-02 10:25 pm (UTC)

There are lots of little spaces. And some of them are too small for either of them to fit, but could probably admit a six-year-old human.

"Hmm," says Ariel, contemplating such a gap.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:25 pm (UTC)

Kerron starts listening for small breathing noises such as those a six-year-old human might make.

carillons
2013-11-02 10:32 pm (UTC)

There are some! They are faint. Hyacinthe is somewhere very deep in the roots.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Hyacinthe?" he calls.

carillons
2013-11-02 10:37 pm (UTC)

The small breathing noises become small crawling noises, and then a small face peeks out of the small gap.

"How did you know?" she asks.

carillons
2013-11-02 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Me," says Ariel.

The two of them look at each other.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

Kerron laughs. "Hyacinthe, meet Ariel. Ariel, Hyacinthe."

carillons
2013-11-02 10:42 pm (UTC)

"You're big," says Hyacinthe.

"You're little!" says Ariel.

Hyacinthe thinks for a moment, and nods gravely. And then thinks for another moment, and asks, "Do you think a mouse with wings would be happy?"

"...I don't know," says Ariel. She finds a dangling loop of root to perch in, since she'd get tired of hovering otherwise, and looks at Kerron. "What do you think?"

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Well, that'd probably depend on how it was made," he muses. "People with wings seem pretty happy, though." He pats Ariel illustratively on the head.

carillons
2013-11-02 10:47 pm (UTC)

Ariel giggles.

"Yeah," she says, "if I was a mouse I'd want to still have wings. But maybe if I was a mouse, I wouldn't want to if I hadn't ever."

Hyacinthe nods again. "Maman says she will make me a winged mouse if I want but I don't know if I do."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, can she make it come out happy?"

carillons
2013-11-02 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Hyacinthe. "But I don't know if that counts."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

carillons
2013-11-02 10:49 pm (UTC)

Ariel is nodding. Despite the age gap, they really are very obviously similar.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I guess I don't know either," allows Kerron. "I never asked for a magic pet. I did use to ask to get turned into things."

carillons
2013-11-02 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I've never done that," they say simultaneously.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Different tastes, I guess."

carillons
2013-11-02 10:58 pm (UTC)

"My sister has a griffin," says Hyacinthe. "I don't want a griffin."

pina_colada
2013-11-02 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what I'd do with one of those either, no."

carillons
2013-11-02 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Mice are small and fuzzy," says Hyacinthe.

"They are!" says Ariel.

"And if a mouse with wings was happy then it would be good. But it wouldn't otherwise. And I don't want one. I just want to... meet one."

"And experience its smallness and fuzziness," says Ariel, nodding.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you'll find a world with winged mice."

carillons
2013-11-02 11:10 pm (UTC)

"That would be good!" says Hyacinthe.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 11:10 pm (UTC)

"And then you won't have to take one home, just catch it and pet it a little and then let it fly away."

carillons
2013-11-02 11:17 pm (UTC)

"I would like that!" says Hyacinthe.

pina_colada
2013-11-02 11:20 pm (UTC)

"The multiverse is big. If you're patient I bet winged mice aren't far away."

carillons
2013-11-02 11:21 pm (UTC)

Hyacinthe smiles.

This is continuation number 3 from here.

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:10 am (UTC)

A fluffy cream-colored cat with dark points of color is weaving through the legs of the crowd like he owns the place. There is a nametag clipped to his fur that says his name is Cricket and he is from Chronicle.

He comes across an unshod foot, accompanied by an unpanted leg, and, well, really, that's just not polite.

"Mreowww!"

pythbox
2013-10-30 12:15 am (UTC)

Celo does not have any kind of detailed comprehension here, but nymphs are connected enough to the natural world that he picks up on tone and topic.

"Seriously?"

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:16 am (UTC)

"Mow," says Cricket emphatically. He is just as entitled as everyone to have opinions and it is highly offensive when anyone thinks differently.

pythbox
2013-10-30 12:19 am (UTC)

"No shit," says Celo, "but everyone else who's given me a hard time for walking around naked was wearing clothes at the time."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:19 am (UTC)

"Meow mew meow!" Cricket is wearing fur. He is beautiful, fluffy, and perfectly modest in so doing.

pythbox
2013-10-30 12:21 am (UTC)

"Great," sighs Celo. "Well, get used to it, I technically live in the Enchanted Forest now."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:22 am (UTC)

Cricket sniffs disdainfully and flicks his tail. "Mrow."

pythbox
2013-10-30 12:27 am (UTC)

"I'm a nymph," he says tiredly. "Nymphs don't wear clothes. That's just a thing."

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:28 am (UTC)

"Mewow," opines Cricket, glancing around at the distinctly non-native location in which Celo finds himself.

pythbox
2013-10-30 12:35 am (UTC)

"You know what, I don't actually give a shit," says Celo.

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:37 am (UTC)

"Mrow," says Cricket. No good can come of people who are not his magician understanding him, apparently, his cleverness falls on deaf ears.

pythbox
2013-10-30 12:38 am (UTC)

Celo makes a rude gesture and freecasts away.

alicornucopia
2013-10-30 12:39 am (UTC)

Cricket resumes weaving through the crowd, supremely unconcerned.

This is continuation number 4 from here.

inherpiety
2013-10-30 12:42 am (UTC)

Keziah is looking for a water room. She was already thinking of looking for one when the wedding started, and now she kind of needs it.

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:16 am (UTC)

Suddenly, naked Joker!

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:17 am (UTC)

"Naked Joker!" she exclaims.

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:18 am (UTC)

"Nice to meet you too!" the naked Joker snaps.

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:18 am (UTC)

Keziah shrinks and hides behind one gray-banded wing.

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:19 am (UTC)

"Sorry," he sighs. "I am in a shitty mood right now. I can go away if you want."

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:20 am (UTC)

"You didn't have to yell at me!" She's a little muffled behind her feathers. "Dad never yells at me!"

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:25 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," he says, as gently as he can manage. "Do you want me to get your dad, or - something?"

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:27 am (UTC)

She shakes her head; this is visible in the bounce of her hair, though she's still behind her wing, whether because of residual alarm or because he's naked it's unclear. "But why'd you yell at me?"

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:37 am (UTC)

"Because I was trying to get away from somebody who was giving me a hard time about being naked and ran right into somebody whose first word to me was 'Naked!' without any time in between to calm down about the last guy," he says. "It's not fair to you, I know, I'm sorry."

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:39 am (UTC)

"Well - why are you naked, then?"

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:43 am (UTC)

He covers his face with his hands and says, reasonably clearly despite the muffling, "Because I am a nymph and nymphs don't wear clothes and wearing clothes makes me feel really weird and bad except in very special circumstances, so Jellybean made me this magical censor bar, but judging from my experience at this party a magical censor bar is definitely not enough."

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:44 am (UTC)

"I didn't know about you in advance, maybe there should be, I don't know, signs, warnings somehow?"

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:48 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he sighs. "I don't have the first clue what kind of signs to put up or where, though. I already have a nametag but it hasn't helped so far."

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:49 am (UTC)

Keziah peeps tentatively over her wing to read his nametag.

"It's really much less conspicuous than the thing it's warning about," she says.

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:49 am (UTC)

...Celo starts giggling.

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:50 am (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:53 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "it really is."

inherpiety
2013-10-30 01:55 am (UTC)

"Anyway, I kind of need the water room." She starts to continue in the direction she was going, still shielding herself from excess naked Joker with her wing.

pythbox
2013-10-30 01:55 am (UTC)

"Bye," says Celo, and there is no more naked Joker.

This is continuation number 5 from here.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:04 am (UTC)

Since Sarion doesn't mind Wellspring magic being used in her world, Aether is experimenting with boosting subtle arts telekinesis with Wellspring telekinesis. They don't work together all that well, at least not yet.

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:11 am (UTC)

[Hey you,] says Celo. [Got a minute?]

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:11 am (UTC)

[Sure, what's up?]

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:18 am (UTC)

[People have been giving me various amounts of shit about not wearing clothes and it's kind of getting to me and I want to do something about it but I'm not coming up with any good ideas,] he says.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:19 am (UTC)

[...Well, I don't really have any good ideas either, but you could come hug me and I could - be accustomed to the fact that you go around naked?]

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:20 am (UTC)

[Are you around anybody who's not?]

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:20 am (UTC)

[Nah. This little room doesn't have a door but I'm in it by myself.]

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:22 am (UTC)

Celo appears and hugs her.

"I love you," he sighs.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:24 am (UTC)

She hugs him back. "I'm sorry people have been freaking out about you. I mean, I did it too, but at least I understood what 'I'm a nymph' meant."

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:27 am (UTC)

"Yeah. And it's just 'well why can't you wear clothes' over and over again, and I get really fucking tired of explaining."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:31 am (UTC)

Aether pets his hair. "The Bells all know, I explained - I guess they didn't propagate it to their people too thoroughly."

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:33 am (UTC)

"Guess not," he agrees with a sigh. "Fuck. I don't know, would changing my censoring help?"

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:34 am (UTC)

"Maybe? You're sort of very - technically censored, right now."

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:41 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah. I could just be a silhouette with a nametag until people decide they want to see more of me. But then it'd probably be 'Why do you look like somebody painted over you?' 'Because I'm naked' and back to the same old conversation."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:43 am (UTC)

Pet, pet. "I guess people who don't have nymphs pretty much just - react like you're a naked human."

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:44 am (UTC)

"Yep." Snuggle.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:45 am (UTC)

"You've probably thought of all the standard cartoonish not-technically-clothes solutions like wearing a barrel and rejected them, I imagine."

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:47 am (UTC)

"Yeah. If it's wearing something, it counts. Illusions like Jellybean's censor bars are okay. Illusions of clothes would be - kind of borderline? Better than actual clothes but I still wouldn't be happy."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:48 am (UTC)

"Also if someone hugged you while you had on illusion clothes they might be unpleasantly surprised."

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:51 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Yeah. Maybe I should try enchanting something. Might be more flexible. So people get something closer to their individual comfort levels than black box or no black box."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:53 am (UTC)

"- Can you tell if people un-black-box you? As it's currently set up?"

(Aether, for her part, sees no particular reason to have her nymph boyfriend censored.)

pythbox
2013-10-30 02:54 am (UTC)

"Yeah, why?"

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 02:55 am (UTC)

"People are reacting to you like you're a human. Telling a nymph you want to see him naked means almost less than nothing. Telling a human that you want to see him naked is something else again. I don't think the censor bar is gonna be a good long-term solution."
Edited 2013-10-30 03:03 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-30 03:07 am (UTC)

"...If somebody doesn't want me to know they're looking at me naked, I think I can live with them not," he says. "And I don't see a better long-term solution anywhere. Than illusory censorship in general, I mean, I still want to find a better way to do it than what I've got now."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 03:09 am (UTC)

Scritch scritch. "Okay. I was figuring between the sign that's apparently up on Joker-occupied orgy chambers and what were apparently unwarranted assumptions that you wouldn't mind if people were sneaking peeks without wanting to advertise it."

pythbox
2013-10-30 03:12 am (UTC)

"Well - I wouldn't mind exactly? But if I'm talking to them I'd rather know." Snuggle. "This whole thing is so weird."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 03:13 am (UTC)

Hugs. "People are kinda weird."

pythbox
2013-10-30 03:14 am (UTC)

"...How do you explain nymphs to people who don't have nymphs?" he wonders.

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 03:21 am (UTC)

"To the other Bells? The wording of the explanation was nothing special, we kind of lean a lot on the fact that we're alts and therefore don't have to sanity-check each other nearly as much as we would want to with other people. I said you're a semi-spontaneously-generated race with divine magic and certain divine strictures, of which not covering up your divine selves is one. I also told them that at home you can not only go naked in public without being arrested, but also you and people with you can do anything else that might otherwise get one arrested for indecency, no problem - I think that made more of an impression, they're calibrated to suppose that if you're just going around naked that's relatively considerate of you, I guess."
Edited 2013-10-30 03:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-10-30 09:23 pm (UTC)

He giggles and hugs her some more. "Yeah, there's that, I guess. But I'm not sure everybody else will be so impressed."

subtly_artistic
2013-10-30 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, doesn't seem like it. I'm sorry."

pythbox
2013-11-02 02:11 pm (UTC)

Snuggle snug.

"I think I still want to change the censoring. I mean, if I can make it so it fits people's individual comfort levels better, I want to, you know?" He sighs. "And maybe once in a while somebody will start a conversation about something other than my nonexistent pants."

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Have you really had no other conversations today?"

pythbox
2013-11-02 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I can remember some that ended up at another subject, but I can't remember any that didn't start with the naked thing. I mean, not that starting with the naked thing is necessarily bad," he grins, "but it is when they disapprove, y'know?"
Edited 2013-11-02 16:34 (UTC)

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Did anybody approve?"

pythbox
2013-11-02 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, and she was really cute, too."

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Congratulations."

pythbox
2013-11-02 05:18 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 05:20 pm (UTC)

"So yeah, a bigger censor bar with more - wraparound - might help. You'd probably also get less shit about it if you weren't shaped humanoid? You could turn into something, I don't know how you'd feel about that."

pythbox
2013-11-02 05:31 pm (UTC)

He makes a face. "I could, sure, but I don't want to. I like my body. It's a nice body."

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I think so too," says Aether.

pythbox
2013-11-02 05:39 pm (UTC)

Celo grins. "I know," he says, and hugs her again.

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 05:41 pm (UTC)

"But not everyone is interested in enjoying it, and the ones who are can be ushered into private and the ones who don't are kind of ruining your party."

pythbox
2013-11-02 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he sighs. "So - I mean, I don't just want to give myself a bigger censor bar, because maybe there's somebody who'd be okay with what I've got but doesn't want to see me without it, right? I want it to have levels. And just settle at where everybody wants it. And maybe be less obviously censor-y than a big black square. Little cloud of magic fog, maybe?"

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if fog would be an improvement for anybody, but it probably wouldn't make anything worse."

pythbox
2013-11-02 07:05 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I think it'd be an improvement for me."

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Then that seems like an obvious win."

pythbox
2013-11-02 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." Snuggle. "Now I guess I just have to figure it out and then cast it. It'll probably be too big to cast by myself, especially since we don't know if fucking up an enchantment could actually kill me."

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I could do it, or you could channel it through some other Joker."
Edited 2013-11-02 20:31 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-11-02 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Mm... another Joker, I think," he says. "Jellybean made me the censor bar; I wanna make this one myself."

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 08:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay then."

pythbox
2013-11-02 08:43 pm (UTC)

But first, apparently, more hugs.

subtly_artistic
2013-11-02 08:44 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

This is continuation number 6 from here.

thaumobabble
2013-10-31 07:41 pm (UTC)

After Glass has checked everyone at the party, she visits the Belltower to check Jane (green), and then Downside to visit the admin.

[Hey, can I come have a look at you? I've discovered that everyone we know falls into one of two clusters we're calling 'moieties' and I'm trying to gather more data to find out what that means.]

ending_of
2013-11-02 02:46 pm (UTC)

[Yes. While you're here, there are some adjustments I'd like to make to the ability to distribute torching. We can discuss those, if you think your responses will be representative of your alts.]

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 04:28 pm (UTC)

[I can probably at least predict where they'll differ if they will.] Glass teleports to the admin. "Also, you may be pleased to know that we've removed Jane from Aegis and the former's stability shouldn't be dependent on the latter staying out of trouble anymore."

ending_of
2013-11-02 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I find her absences only mildly inconvenient," she says.

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 04:30 pm (UTC)

Glass nods, and in the course of so doing, gets a look at the admin.

"...You're shiny. I keep finding shiny people and I don't know what it means. You're the third one."

ending_of
2013-11-02 04:35 pm (UTC)

"In what way am I shiny?"

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

"You're also purple - so far I think all the shiny people are purple, though I'd have to double-check the scary one to be sure - and - you're just very bright, metacausally. Attached to your world." She waves generally at Downside. "Which come to think of it is also strange, most people aren't attached to Downside like that even after dying to it, it's too catchall."

ending_of
2013-11-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

"I am attached to my domain. It is mine," she says.

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Yes, yes it certainly is, but I don't think Lissa's attached to Thilanushinyel the same way and I hope that Callahan's not like that about Materia. Lissa's at least known not to be omnipotent - but then she's less shiny..."

ending_of
2013-11-02 05:30 pm (UTC)

"The shininess comes in quantities?"

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Sort of. At least two quantities. Yours and Callahan's, and then there's Lissa, who's - less - shiny, but still very noticeable."

ending_of
2013-11-02 05:47 pm (UTC)

"I see."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 05:49 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose you know what it could be - or have a guess? It'd have to be something that applies to several worlds, including two that weren't initially hooked up to Downside and one that still isn't - but be world-flavored per person..."

ending_of
2013-11-02 07:04 pm (UTC)

"...I do have a guess," she says. "But the thing I am thinking of doesn't come in quantities as far as I know."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 07:04 pm (UTC)

"What is it?"

ending_of
2013-11-02 07:07 pm (UTC)

"There is a... place," she says. "At most one person per world is able to go there. Once someone is able to go there, they do not stop being able. I have been there once. I did not like it. I will not be returning."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 07:08 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah, that doesn't obviously sound like it comes in amounts. I don't want to ask Callahan and if Lissa knew I think she would have brought it up."

ending_of
2013-11-02 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Some of the people I met there could be said to embody their respective universes," she adds. "Others could not, at least not obviously, and I would say no such thing of myself. I believe they all shared my ability to observe any part of my world to which I might direct my attention, but I did not confirm it before I left. It was long enough ago that recalling specific details about individuals would require more effort than I care to apply."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Hmmmm. Why didn't you like it?"

ending_of
2013-11-02 08:32 pm (UTC)

"It was... unaesthetic," she says.

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 08:34 pm (UTC)

"This place sounds interesting even if it's unrelated to shininess; what else can you tell me about it and the people in it? Without the," Glass waves, "excess effort, anyway."

ending_of
2013-11-02 08:38 pm (UTC)

"It did not have a fixed physical reality."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 08:39 pm (UTC)

"That's interesting - did it have a fluctuating one? What controlled it?"

ending_of
2013-11-02 09:09 pm (UTC)

"It was mutable. Responsive to the influence of anyone present."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 09:10 pm (UTC)

"What's it for?"

ending_of
2013-11-02 09:19 pm (UTC)

She shrugs. "Its purpose is not obvious to me."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Huh. I guess I'll tell Lissa to keep an eye out. Anyway, what changes to torching did you have in mind?"

ending_of
2013-11-02 09:49 pm (UTC)

"To the ability to distribute it," she says. "It's irritating to bestow it individually on your alts and their friends. I would rather make it replicable. And you seem to do enough editing of which characteristics persist that it would be worth including that capacity. To distribute the effort even further, you could optionally make the recipient able to modify their own persistent characteristics."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 09:50 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like a great idea. I can take that to the party and propagate it to all the other Bells and most everyone else who'd need it now."

ending_of
2013-11-02 09:54 pm (UTC)

She doesn't take any visible action, but: "You are updated."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! Anything else while I'm here?"

ending_of
2013-11-02 10:00 pm (UTC)

"No."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 10:02 pm (UTC)

"All right then."

And Glass taps her Janegem, returns to the party, updates torching for everyone who needs it, and -

goes looking for Lissa.

neverbeatme
2013-11-02 10:06 pm (UTC)

Lissa is admiring the flowers that have bloomed on one of the huge archways.

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Remember how I said you were shiny?"

neverbeatme
2013-11-02 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Yes I do," she says, looking away from the flowers toward Glass.

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 10:27 pm (UTC)

"The Downside admin is also shiny, but more-shiny like Callahan and not less-shiny like you, and she had a guess about what that could mean, although it doesn't fit perfectly, since her guess doesn't really come in amounts." And Glass describes as best she can the place that the admin mentioned. "Have you seen anything like that?"

neverbeatme
2013-11-02 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I definitely haven't," says Lissa. "It sounds memorable."

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 10:28 pm (UTC)

"It does. So maybe you're going to find it, or something. If you ever do I would love to hear all about it."

neverbeatme
2013-11-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Lissa.

thaumobabble
2013-11-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

And that is all.

exeunt space plant

her_imperial_radiance

Elspeth (and Jacob) return home to Aurum, and promptly from there to Isle Esme, after the party has concluded, and Elspeth starts looking for Felicity. (And incidentally assessing the house and island for damages.)

inhispockets
2013-11-04 02:33 pm (UTC)

Felicity is in his room, snuggling his poof and playing a computer game. Nothing appears to have burned down or been demolished while Elspeth and Jacob were gone.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Hello again. We're back."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 04:27 pm (UTC)

"How was the party?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 04:30 pm (UTC)

"It was fun! Glass discovered that templates come in two clusters we're calling the purple moiety and the green moiety, although we don't know what that means yet. Jokers are purple. Jake and I are green."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Why green and purple?" he wonders.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 05:08 pm (UTC)

"The Joker named them. Maybe more descriptive names will turn up if we find out more about what it means. So far all we know is that most purple templates trend bisexual and a lot more of you are masochists."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 05:14 pm (UTC)

...He giggles.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Also it looks like when people of one moiety have kids they have the same moiety children, but inter-moiety relationships appear to alternate."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Felicity. "Weird."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 05:23 pm (UTC)

"It is! Glass's aura keeps turning up interesting things."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? Like what else?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Templatehood is apparently contagious. She got some on her best friend and her cat, so we can expect to see more of those. I'm templatey, too, but I didn't exactly catch it, she says - also, she hasn't checked my father so it's an open question whether other Elspeths would have my parents."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? Who else's parents would she have?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Possibly none! Brilliance is one of you and doesn't have any parents. And it also seems like which parents you guys have when you have them at all varies cluster to cluster."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 05:56 pm (UTC)

"How do you end up with no parents?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 05:56 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance is a magically created device. He had terrible creators, but no parents."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 06:01 pm (UTC)

"And we've always got terrible somebody," says Felicity. It's obvious to him; how wouldn't they?

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes, although Harley doesn't even remember his."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 08:19 pm (UTC)

"'Cause of you," says Felicity.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Yes. He was about a year old, I teleported into his room and picked him up and explained myself to his mother and left. She wasn't pleased."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 08:21 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 08:22 pm (UTC)

"I told her she could send an email later and it didn't matter where, that Jane would collect it, but she never did."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 08:25 pm (UTC)

Felicity shrugs. "Why would she?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 08:26 pm (UTC)

"I didn't particularly expect her to, but she's not the awful parent for that cluster, so it was possible."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Is there anybody where it's their mom?" he wonders.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Not so far. Dads, stepdads, magical creators."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 08:31 pm (UTC)

He thinks about that. He doesn't really conclude anything, but he thinks about it.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 08:33 pm (UTC)

"And Ansharil didn't have any parental figures at all, but he's sufficiently attached to Aianon that Aianon's history approximately counts for them both. I suppose Aianon's mother was also fairly horrible," Elspeth reflects, "but not in a way that stood out from the general population of demons."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 08:34 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 08:38 pm (UTC)

"They married Sarion," Elspeth adds. "Aianon and Ansharil did, at the party - technically she'd already had a ceremony with the latter, but wanted to do it over again with both of them, and didn't think an elven ceremony would readily accommodate a demon, even if it could be stretched to fit a dragon who'd turned himself into an elf."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 08:40 pm (UTC)

...Felicity giggles.

"I can't even imagine one of me getting married," he says.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Oh, several of you are. Beast and Rose are married, so are Micaiah and Angela, and now Ansharil and Aianon with Sarion. And they all hug each other's children at the parties. At this one there were a few who hadn't been at the last."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm. Micaiah has four angel daughters. Damaris, Keziah, Ariel, and Peninnah. Beast has a set of three, with larger age gaps but the same templates as the first of those - Yseult, Céleste, and Hyacinthe. And Kas has one girl, Helen, who is the same template as Yseult and Damaris. They call themselves Dominiques because Yseult donated her first name after starting to go by her middle name. Keziah and Céleste call themselves Griffins. And then there's the Joker, who has a son and a daughter with a local vampire called Nathan. Kerron and Aedyt."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:06 pm (UTC)

"So many kids," he says. "It's weird."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Kerron was an accident, Damaris was a sort of indeliberate but accepted consequence of angels not believing in birth control, and Helen was conceived on purpose but her being a Dominique was unintentional. But yes, a bunch of you are parents. Why is that weird?"

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Because... why," he says and/or asks.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Because they wanted to. And their partners were up for it too, except in Helen's case, Amariah was very upset with Kas about that."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:14 pm (UTC)

"What for?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Amariah missed the first thirteen years of Helen's life, isn't actually subjectively old enough to have a thirteen-year-old daughter, and feels like she's been robbed of her firstborn."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:29 pm (UTC)

Felicity shrugs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to meet any of your niblingoids?" inquires Elspeth.

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:33 pm (UTC)

He does not know that word. Well. He didn't until a second ago.

"...maybe?"

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Kerron in particular might make sense to have visit. He has a witch-ingot ability that lets him detect goals and intentions and the like, so if you decided to be obnoxious to him he could leave, first, if he wasn't in the mood."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:44 pm (UTC)

Felicity snorts.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Let me know if you'd like him invited over."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:45 pm (UTC)

"You can, I guess."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Now, or another time?"

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I don't care."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I'll ask him tomorrow; his sleep cycle may have been thrown off by being in a space plant."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:56 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Aianon makes all kinds of interesting plants. It's something of a specialty of his."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 09:57 pm (UTC)

"What a hobby."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 10:00 pm (UTC)

"It's useful, anyway. But he did get stuck in Origin when he was there ecoforming the Saturn there and Jane broke."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 10:05 pm (UTC)

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 10:06 pm (UTC)

"But now he's learned to freecast so he's going to make a treehouse palace for Tab."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I bet it'll be pretty."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 10:11 pm (UTC)

"I imagine so. Jane will be able to show you pictures on your computer, if you like, once it's done."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Mm."

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Corona says I shouldn't offer you one of her gems yet."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Mmh," says Felicity.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 10:20 pm (UTC)

"On the grounds that its primary purpose would be to let her take you back if you wandered out of the universe, and he judges that you aren't yet likely interested in coming back."

inhispockets
2013-11-04 10:23 pm (UTC)

"I'm not interested in being brought back," he says, and he scoops up his poof and walks out.

her_imperial_radiance
2013-11-04 10:24 pm (UTC)

Elspeth doesn't follow him.

a cloud of poofs

pina_colada

The morning after the Bellparty (Safesun time), Kerron arrives at Isle Esme in response to Elspeth's invitation and starts looking for his uncloid. He comes bearing a little box of danishes.

inhispockets
2014-02-14 10:54 pm (UTC)

Felicity is curled up on the couch with his poof in his lap, playing a computer game that involves making twinkly stars collide to either merge into bigger stars or produce explosions of smaller stars. It is fun! He wants to see how long he can keep the chain reaction going.

...And that's it.

Jokers can be weird about goals, but most of them at least have an assortment, even if they tend heavily to the short term and frequently change without notice. Felicity is just void of any intentions not directly related to what he is doing at this exact moment.

pina_colada
2014-02-14 10:55 pm (UTC)

Kerron espies this intention, and hangs back without interrupting until he will not be disrupting the game.

...He peers at the sort of void of intention that is the rest of the cloud of poofs surrounding this new mini-mum, and contemplates it.

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:01 pm (UTC)

After about fifteen more seconds, the last two teeny-tiny stars on the field collide in a shower of sparks. Felicity looks up.

"Hi," he says, absently petting his poof. ('Keep the stars going' is replaced by 'continue petting fluffy lap occupant'.)

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Hi, mini-mum," says Kerron, finding a place to sit opposite Felicity's chosen sofa. "I'm Kerron. How're you doing?"

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Mini-mum?"

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Would you rather I didn't?" asks Kerron. "You're one of my mum only smaller."

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:06 pm (UTC)

"It's just weird," he says. His cloud of poofs expresses no opinion one way or the other. "...Is your mom a girl?"

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:07 pm (UTC)

"About as much as you are, I'm guessing, plus shapeshifting magic. I call her that because it's less confusing on account of I also have a dad who is just my dad."

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Huh." He contemplates this. And pets his poof. Fluff fluff fluff. "Why'd you come visit, anyway?"

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Princess said you might like it. I can leave if you want," he shrugs. "Or if it looks like you're going to try to set me on fire, she mentioned that was also a valid reason to leave. Brought you some pastries," he adds, holding out the box.
Edited 2014-02-14 23:13 (UTC)

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:17 pm (UTC)

Felicity giggles. He wants the pastries! He takes the pastries. This displaces poof-snuggling in his apparently drastically limited goal hierarchy until he actually has a pastry in his hand and can eat it and pet the poof at the same time; the two goals then coexist peacefully.

Om nom mmf - "Why would I set you on fire?"

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Search me. Doesn't look to be on your to-do list. It's a pretty short to-do list unless something's fouling up my magic."

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I have a to-do list?"

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:22 pm (UTC)

"I'd lay money you haven't written it down, but Elspeth said she told you I see goals and intentions and whatnot? You've got a bunch of colorshapes - they look kind of like your pet there, only more colors - and they're moving around pretty sluggishly till there's something you want right in front of you. You wanted to rack up a good chain reaction in your game, you want to pet your critter, you want to eat danishes - Mum has weird colorshapes too but you take the cake."

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Huh."

He thinks about it. He nibbles on a danish. He pets the poof. Nom nom fluff fluff.

"...Do you wanna pet it too?" he asks. "'S fluffy."

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Kerron. He reaches out and scritches the poof.

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:31 pm (UTC)

The poof goes whmmmmmmmmmm and glows with a pale pink light the same colour as its fur. Felicity smiles.

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:32 pm (UTC)

"It's cute. It's an it? Has it got a name?"

inhispockets
2014-02-14 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says, to the second question. "It's just my poof. It's not like there's another one around to confuse it with."

pina_colada
2014-02-14 11:34 pm (UTC)

"If I was gonna get one of these I'd probably have a hard time taking just one."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 01:47 am (UTC)

"I wasn't the one who got it," he says. Very misleadingly, but he's not concerned with that. "I don't know if I would've gotten more, though. It'd be harder to carry them all around." He pets his poof. It whmmmms some more.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 01:49 am (UTC)

"I never went in for pets anyway. When I was little I used to ask to get turned into stuff myself."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 01:49 am (UTC)

"What kind of stuff?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 01:51 am (UTC)

"Usually blue versions of animals. Blue fox, blue hawk, blue hare, blue snake. Red cat."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 01:51 am (UTC)

He giggles.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 01:52 am (UTC)

"Was going to be a blue cat, but I was hanging out with my friend Lily at the time and she thought I should be a red cat, and she was pretty convincing."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 01:54 am (UTC)

"What'd she threaten you with?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 01:55 am (UTC)

"She used to bite people. She has since outgrown the habit."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 01:56 am (UTC)

He giggles again.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 01:58 am (UTC)

"She's the Emperor's sister," adds Kerron. "His adoptive parents' biological kid. Technically the Princess's aunt. But adoptive vampire relationships get kind of weird and Lily'd be the first to tell you so."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 01:59 am (UTC)

"What's weird about 'em?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:04 am (UTC)

"So, when Her Imperial Majesty Elspeth's Mom started learning about the exciting undead underworld," says Kerron, "the Emperor, and two other guys and two girls all about his visible age, were all passing for the adopted children of this other vampire couple, Lily's parents, who look a little older and were pretending a bigger age gap. But they're not actually related, any pair of them. The 'parents' didn't turn them all. Two sets of them are mates. The parents-and-children thing was a front for the humans - other times the Emperor was pretending to be his 'mom's' brother, or a subset of them would splinter off and do its own thing for a while and the cover story wouldn't include the whole family. The thing they actually are all together is a 'coven', but they're used to using parent and sibling relationships for each other. The Princess calls them aunt and uncle and grandma and grandpa as appropriate. But Lily thinks it's nonsense and won't hear 'Aunt' out of her mouth."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:05 am (UTC)

"Huh," he says. "Sounds complicated."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:06 am (UTC)

"Very much. More now the Emperor's biological mom's back from the dead."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:10 am (UTC)

"It's still weird that that happens."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:11 am (UTC)

"I'd say you get used to it, but I probably don't have a great perspective on that. Both my parents have died without it making a lick of difference to me. Maybe it'll be weird for you."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:14 am (UTC)

"If my mom dies, I won't notice," he says.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:16 am (UTC)

"Well, if you want to be informed, I bet Jane could do it," says Kerron. "But my point wasn't about parents in general, it's that I grew up such that someone could die one day and play how-high-into-the-air-can-Kerron-be-flung the next."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:20 am (UTC)

Felicity forms no wants about being notified if his mom dies. (There is a vague flicker of wishing for someone else to die, but it doesn't stay long.)

"How high in the air can Kerron be flung?" he inquires.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:21 am (UTC)

"Depends on whether Mum's throwing me or Dad and whether magic's involved. I think the record is six stories up. This is when I was yea high, though." His hand hovers considerably lower than his current height.

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:22 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Did you hit the ground when you came down?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:23 am (UTC)

"Nah, Dad caught me. I would've been fine if he hadn't, though, half-vampires are pretty durable, like two steps up from a pet rock. Feed once daily, do not psychologically scar."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:25 am (UTC)

"Nice," he says, giggling.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:27 am (UTC)

"It's a pretty good deal. Also, I don't need magic to avoid wanting to go for your jugular, which is an advantage we have over vampires."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:30 am (UTC)

This notion cracks him right up.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:32 am (UTC)

"And we pass for human better and we sleep - not everybody agrees on whether that's a plus - but we have to breathe and we're slower and weaker and so on compared to full vamps. All kindsa tradeoffs."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:33 am (UTC)

"I think sleeping is a plus."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:34 am (UTC)

"I agree with you, some of my friends don't. There's magic going around for it now if they don't want to do it, though."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:40 am (UTC)

"Is there anybody who doesn't sleep and magics so they do?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:40 am (UTC)

"If anybody does they haven't told me about it."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:45 am (UTC)

"Huh."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:46 am (UTC)

"I have some guesses, but for some reason it feels like intrusive gossip? Vampires all used to be humans, and wanting to go back to that seems like more private information than who's using - performance-enhancing hexagons to stay up late."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:49 am (UTC)

"I don't get it."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:51 am (UTC)

"Well, I was born a half-vampire, never been anything else. If I don't like it it's pretty neutral if I'm like 'Mum, can I have a hex' and fix whatever's bugging me. If a vampire does the same thing it means they feel like they lost something when they turned. That make any more sense?"

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:52 am (UTC)

"N...maybe? I dunno."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:53 am (UTC)

Kerron shrugs. "I don't know another way to say it."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:55 am (UTC)

"Mm."

He pets his poof contemplatively.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 02:55 am (UTC)

"Kind of academic, I don't expect you to want to turn any more than Mum or Harley."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 02:59 am (UTC)

"Do me-s just not wanna be vampires?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 03:01 am (UTC)

"Mum and Harley don't. One of you was for a while but then undid it with magic because he had a fight with his girlfriend or something? I'm sort of peripheral to major social news like that, I don't have the ins and outs of that."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 03:02 am (UTC)

"It's weird that me-s have girlfriends," says Felicity. "It's weird that they have kids."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 03:03 am (UTC)

"I was an accident," says Kerron. "Bear that in mind when you're grown up and carelessly playing with shapeshifting."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 03:04 am (UTC)

...He laughs.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 03:05 am (UTC)

"But yeah, most of you have girlfriends or boyfriends or wives or whatever," says Kerron. "Doesn't seem weird to me, but this is probably another place where I fail at neutral observation, yeah?"

inhispockets
2014-02-15 03:14 am (UTC)

"I guess that means I'm the weird one. But I just can't imagine. Well, I can imagine one of me having a kid by accident."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 03:14 am (UTC)

"You're also, what, twelve?" shrugs Kerron.

inhispockets
2014-02-15 03:16 am (UTC)

"Are you seriously gonna tell me I'll understand when I'm older?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 03:18 am (UTC)

"I dunno, I haven't quizzed what I remind you is my mum's template on their puberty-related experiences, but for humans twelve is on the young end, isn't it?"

inhispockets
2014-02-15 03:38 am (UTC)

"I've had sex," snorts Felicity.

His background desires to pet his poof and maybe have another danish abruptly disappear. He continues petting the poof, just as he was - he displays no significant outward signs of stress, nothing to suggest that what he just said might be a problem for him - but he is now completely devoid of wants about things.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 03:42 am (UTC)

Kerron - blinks.

Kerron watches the cloud of colorshapes go still.

Kerron is silent for a long moment, then says, "That... is... surprising? I'm sorry, I don't - if you - the colorshapes have all stopped broadcasting anything and I don't have a checklist to go by on how to react when a human twelve-year-old tells me that to fall back on."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 03:53 am (UTC)

"This colorshapes thing really throws you, huh? What's the big deal?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 03:55 am (UTC)

"Witches and ingots kind of orient around our powers a lot. I'm really used to navigating by the - you realize Elspeth cannot possibly know this? Same reason - she doesn't do secrecy - I'm not saying if she knew it'd be in the next imperial press release, but she would have mentioned it to me in the course of inviting me here expressly to talk to you. She definitely has no idea."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 04:22 am (UTC)

He hadn't meant to get into the subject any less obliquely - he hadn't really been thinking about the subject much less obliquely, come to that - but now he is thinking differently.

"She kidnapped me and she didn't even know what from?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 04:25 am (UTC)

"She knew it was something bad that it would be better to be out of than in. The specifics? I don't think that's usual. Elspeth soaked up a lot of Joker childhood memories as a crash course before she got Harley - if there'd been anything like that in there she would've known or at least guessed, and then because she's Elspeth and works how she works it'd be something approaching common knowledge. Which it's not."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 04:28 am (UTC)

"Approaching common knowledge how close?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 04:34 am (UTC)

"Someone like... Lily probably wouldn't know," says Kerron. "It wouldn't come up with her - if Elspeth tried to communicate everything in her head constantly regardless of its relevance she'd wind up killing unprotected humans, she doesn't just randomly share absolutely everything. But I'd know, the Imperial Alpha - Jacob - would know, Mum and Harley would know, people close to them like me or Dad or Harley's wolf would probably hear it, Her Majesty would know. So - given that if you don't want me to tell Elspeth I don't have to. She gets that there's reasons to not tell her things."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 04:36 am (UTC)

"I don't actually know if I care," he says contemplatively.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 04:38 am (UTC)

"Well - up to you."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 04:53 am (UTC)

He shrugs. He pets his poof. He has a vague flicker of actually wanting to pet his poof. It doesn't stay.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 04:54 am (UTC)

"Are you okay?" asks Kerron helplessly.

inhispockets
2014-02-15 05:00 am (UTC)

"What does that even mean?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 05:02 am (UTC)

"I... don't have a comprehensive definition. You're doing this not-wanting-anything thing except for a flicker about petting your critter and I've never seen it before. I don't know if it means you're hurting or you're shut down or I should leave or I should hug you or what."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 05:12 am (UTC)

"What difference does it make to you?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 05:15 am (UTC)

"I don't want to make anything worse? I don't know if I'm qualified to make anything better but I hold myself to a firm standard of not making things worse."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 05:06 pm (UTC)

"I don't think you could make it worse if you tried," he says. He doesn't necessarily believe it, but then, that isn't always a factor when Jokers say things.

pina_colada
2014-02-15 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Well - I'm not as sure. Anyway, maybe I'm more qualified than I think I am, except it's beyond me how."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't get why people keep acting like they care, anyway."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 05:12 pm (UTC)

"...Er. Have you considered the possibility that we do?"

inhispockets
2014-02-15 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Why, though?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Because you're a kid who had some lousy shit happen and that sucks and most people are not totally void of empathy?"

inhispockets
2014-02-15 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I don't get it," he says. "It doesn't make any sense. It sucks for me but it doesn't suck for you, you don't have to care, why would you?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Well - I guess I might regret asking this, but if against all probability I - I don't know - tripped and wound up accidentally biting off half of my hand and for some reason didn't have any coins on me and had to wait for it to heal the long way and was thoroughly unhappy about that? Would you care?"

inhispockets
2014-02-15 05:19 pm (UTC)

He contemplates this scenario.

"I dunno."

pina_colada
2014-02-15 05:21 pm (UTC)

"I was going to say what if I picked a fight with the Princess and the Imperial Alpha decided to rip my arm off but that's less likely on a couple levels. Anyway, if it was that it'd be me doing something stupid, which makes it different. You didn't do anything to deserve it."

inhispockets
2014-02-15 05:22 pm (UTC)

"He rips people's arms off?"

pina_colada
2014-02-15 05:22 pm (UTC)

"No, that is one of the ways in which this is unlikely."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 03:59 am (UTC)

Felicity giggles.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 04:38 am (UTC)

"Anyhow, most people care when lousy things happen to other people and this comes to their attention. And the ones who don't aren't too popular with the rest of us, by and large."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Well, not if they can't fake it," he says. "But almost everybody can fake it."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay," concedes Kerron, "people who don't care and don't fake it effectively aren't very popular, but there's enough non-fakers for it to be the standard thing, yeah?"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 05:05 pm (UTC)

"You sure?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 05:05 pm (UTC)

"I see what people want to do, remember? I'd notice."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 05:09 pm (UTC)

"...huh," he says, and gives Kerron a thoughtful/suspicious look.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 05:10 pm (UTC)

"I mean, I guess you could decide I'm full of it."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Guess I could," he agrees. "Are you?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Nah. Ask Elspeth if you want, she's got a million people's memories in her head and magic sorting so she can find facts about them whenever she wants, she could probably cough up an actual percentage breakdown. Ask the Imperial Alpha, wolves have collective consciousness when they're phased and basically the same psychology as humans most of the time. Ask the Emperor, when you meet him, he reads minds. Meet Addy and notice how weird she is next to everybody else, she really doesn't care."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Maybe this world's just weird."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Couldn't tell you. I've been to others, but only for Bellparties. Oh, and once I wandered into Milliways when I was little, met Mum's Batlady."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Batlady?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:01 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, some of you guys if you're born in worlds with Gothams meet this lady who dresses up like a bat and fights crime and there's a weird bit of extended violence? I think you were lined up to do it, I know Harley was, Mum actually did, so did a couple others."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? And what's she like?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Did not care for Mum. Far as I know she's otherwise good on the minding-when-bad-things-happen-to-people. Hence the fighting crime."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:09 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Dad was spooked when he found out I met her. She accidentally killed him one time."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Accidentally?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:12 pm (UTC)

"He stood up too fast - like, way too fast, I am incapable of demonstrating, that fast - because he was pissed off at her for vampire-mate-jealousy-stuff-reasons, and she got scared, and she had a hexagon in her pocket and wasn't very careful wishing him something safe but not dead."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:14 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:15 pm (UTC)

"So then Mum resurrected him but we didn't know how to do it properly then, so then there was one of him in the afterlife and one alive, and the afterlife had a century go by in the meantime, and then they found out this had happened and the Dads merged so there's only one Dad again now. This was all way over my head at the time, but I've picked it up since."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:17 pm (UTC)

Felicity shrugs.

"It's good that you got him back, I guess?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:17 pm (UTC)

"I sure prefer it that way."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't know."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you guys get the very short end of the stick in the parent department."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:19 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:19 pm (UTC)

"But hey, then you get to grow up and have fascinating children."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Uh-huh."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:21 pm (UTC)

"There's only the one of Dad, though, so far, so you'll have to settle for some other variety of fascinating child. Depending on how it works, anyway, maybe there's more than one way to make Kerrons."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't really want one."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Not all of you become mums, I'm not reading your palm infallibly over here. Whatever you wanna do."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:24 pm (UTC)

What he wants to do is... pet his poof some more, apparently. Fluff fluff.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:25 pm (UTC)

Kerron relaxes, maybe not enough to notice. "It's pretty impressive they manage to be that cute without, like, eyes."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:25 pm (UTC)

"They're fluffy," he says, snuggling it. "Little and round and fluffy."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:26 pm (UTC)

"And they make the best noises."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:27 pm (UTC)

Whmmmmm.

"They're pretty cute noises," he agrees.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Harley has one too but his is sort of purple."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Does it try to run him over? Mine does sometimes."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't filming a nature documentary, 'and here we observe the animal's reaction to this environmental stimulus as it attempts to run over the Harley'. Just saw him with it at the party yesterday."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:32 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:33 pm (UTC)

"One of the non-Elspeth princesses floating around in the relevant social circle has one too. Hers is green."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:34 pm (UTC)

"And I guess you didn't see it try to run her over either?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Nah, she kept it in her pocket, took it out occasionally, it wasn't rolling around."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:50 pm (UTC)

"Pocket poof," he snorts. (Fluff fluff fluff.)

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I was kind of surprised when it turned out the dress had pockets, actually. It was a really princessy dress."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:52 pm (UTC)

"I guess she needed somewhere to keep her poof."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Suppose so."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:54 pm (UTC)

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Mum sews. Do you know how?"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:56 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Want me to teach you? My sister would be better for anything advanced - she's very arts-and-crafts - but I know the basics."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Sure, why not."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Right then -" Kerron materializes a square in his mum's colors, spends it, and has a little sewing kit and some squares of fabric. He threads a needle, without recourse to licking it - "You'll probably find it easier to do this if you stick the end of the thread in your mouth first but if I did that the thread and maybe even part of the needle would dissolve" - and knots the end and picks up two squares. "So, there's running stitch, which is the simplest thing. Up, down, up, down, steer it all around for decorating a quilt or whatever, any length of stitches but shorter ones are stronger." He hands over the twice-stitched squares and the threaded needle attached thereto.

inhispockets
2014-02-16 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Things dissolve when you put them in your mouth?" he asks, fascinated.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Except glass and a few other things. Anybody more than fifty percent vampire, and anybody exactly fifty percent if male, is venomous, and vampire venom's powerful stuff." He gestures at the fabric. "If you want both sides to look the same, you move the same distance every time you make a stitch. If you want one side to be the "top", you make it so it's longer stitches going along there and only very short ones to anchor them on the other side."
Edited 2014-02-16 19:49 (UTC)

inhispockets
2014-02-16 07:54 pm (UTC)

Well, okay then.

He tries it. He is not an instant expert, but he's got the idea.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 07:56 pm (UTC)

Kerron picks up another couple of squares and threads and knots another needle, and waits. "You'll want to nudge the fold in the thread around the eye up some, or you'll be stitching in double the thread," he points out after a while.

inhispockets
2014-02-16 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Huh? Oh," he says.

Intricacies!

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:17 pm (UTC)

Yep!

Once running stitch has been subdued, Kerron covers backstitch in much the same vein, then blanket stitch, and then:

"And that's pretty much what I know. That and that you can turn things inside out to hide seams. Apply to my sister Aedyt - or the Princess, I guess, she knows how to do most everything - for complicated advanced sewing, tailoring, quilting, etcetera."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:25 pm (UTC)

Felicity giggles. "Okay."

He doesn't specifically plan to, but then, apparently he just doesn't specifically plan things.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:26 pm (UTC)

Yeah, Kerron has noticed. He doesn't remark on it.

"I think the other massively likely hobby is cooking, but that one I don't know the first thing about, I mostly live off bubbly."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I like cooking."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Ah, and if you already know that you probably don't need the 101."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:28 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:35 pm (UTC)

"You got any other things you like?"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:36 pm (UTC)

Shrug.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:37 pm (UTC)

Yeah, that's not overwhelmingly surprising.

"Well, there's lots of stuff to try. I'm picking up windsurfing. Already knew how to regular-surf, it's a little different."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Windsurfing?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:38 pm (UTC)

"You get a surfboard, you stick a sail on it," says Kerron, "you go out when it's windy."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Is it fun?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! Sort of like sailing except you don't have to fuss with maintaining an entire boat."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:42 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:42 pm (UTC)

"My roommate's got a sailboat. He likes it. I like borrowing it."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:43 pm (UTC)

Giggle.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I live in Safesun, which is one of the imperial capitals but has a large permanent population of mostly hybrids," Kerron adds. "It's on a beach in Florida. I moved there with Brandon - he's the Princess's cousin, if you take all the ostensible adoptive relationships in the coven at face value - when I turned five."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

"It's still weird that you guys grow up at five."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, we don't stop growing altogether till we're seven. And the superhuman memory helps with the picking up enough life skills thing."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't make it not weird," he asserts.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Wolves do it differently. They work like humans till they activate, when they're about your age - and then they take less than six months to look twenty-five. Is that more or less strange? Same amount of strange?"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 09:58 pm (UTC)

"No, that's weirder."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

"And then there's vampires, who are humans for however long and then they stop right where they are. Turning humans who aren't your age bare minimum is extremely not allowed."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Why's that?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Psychological development. Little kids who get turned - stay little kids. For centuries. Nowadays if somebody turned a kid anyway, you could fix that with magic or torching or whatever, but the dead vampire children who've been resurrected had a hell of an adjustment period getting used to being human again with childlike emotional processing. Grownups can swap between species without too much of an issue, not so much seven-year-olds."
Edited 2014-02-16 22:03 (UTC)

inhispockets
2014-02-16 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Sucks for them, I guess."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Not a particularly happy chapter in supernatural history."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 10:20 pm (UTC)

Felicity shrugs.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Stop me if I start sounding too much like a textbook."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Never had a textbook about vampires."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 10:25 pm (UTC)

"There are some! Mostly they're for puppy schools - half-vampires mostly get away without formal education, we grow too fast and remember enough that we can do without - but they exist. Elspeth wrote a lot of them."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 10:28 pm (UTC)

"I still never had one."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, you could probably download one," says Kerron, gesturing at Felicity's computer. "I'll conjure you one if you prefer paper."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Nah."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Not such a history buff, I take it."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 10:33 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Guess not."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 10:42 pm (UTC)

"I've never been to this island before," Kerron says after a pause. "Feel like showing me the place?"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I guess."

He gets off the couch, leaving his poof and his computer behind. The poof hops off the couch and rolls away down the hall toward his bedroom. The computer stays put.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

Kerron follows his uncloid. "Very tropical," he remarks.

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

Also there is a beach!

The beach has sand.

The sand has castles.

They are variously sized, variously architected, and in various stages of being destroyed by tides and weather; one of the newest ones is also the biggest, almost as tall as Felicity. It has towers like teeth and a sandy snake coiling around its outer wall. It looks like the kind of place you would find an evil wizard.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, somebody's been playing with architecture. These are neat."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:12 pm (UTC)

"They were fun," he says.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:12 pm (UTC)

"There's a sand sculpture contest in Safesun every August."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:14 pm (UTC)

Felicity laughs. "You gonna steal my ideas?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Maybe, maybe not. Certainly not if you show up to check up on me."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:15 pm (UTC)

"How'm I gonna do that? It's a long way to swim."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I wouldn't recommend showing up the long way unless you get into hardcore long-distance boating or acquire a small aircraft. If the Princess clears it I could pick you up but apparently she's been warned by the coalition of your alts that you're going to be inconsistently acceptable company for a while?"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:20 pm (UTC)

...He cracks up. "Inconsistently acceptable?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Not her exact words, but it seemed to be the general idea. One day you're somewhere between okay and antisocial, the next day, pyromania."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, I did burn down the house," he admits cheerfully. "It didn't stay down, though."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, lots of magic floating around courtesy of Mum."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Lucky her."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Par for the course. There's practically a caste system going on for common templates."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Huh?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Elspeth's mom and her alts take over the world, Jokers make coins for 'em, Elspeth's grandma Lizzie and her alts do personnel officer stuff," Kerron shrugs. "There's exceptions and other people floating around but there's also really obvious patterns."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I wanna have so much magic to go around that I end up giving a bunch of it away."

He sort of does, but he is hampered in forming that want by the fact that he is completely unable to imagine it.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:36 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty likely, but you're gonna have to be a little patient."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:37 pm (UTC)

He makes a face. "Patience."

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Oh no! You have to live on a tropical island with a magical princess, building sandcastles and playing computer games and cuddling your glowing pet, before you are awarded masochism-powered unlimited wishes!"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:39 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"You jealous?"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Nah. I get to live on a beach with my best friend, windsurfing and teaching myself Sanskrit and occasionally entering the Ultra Olympics, and have already collected my award."

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Good for you," he snorts.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty cool with it!"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I bet!"

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:44 pm (UTC)

"So what's your favorite place on this island?"

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Don't have one. I'll show you some of the good spots, though."

There are paths. He even sticks to them. The first 'good spot' is a large and very climbable rock.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:56 pm (UTC)

Kerron traipses up the rock, looking rather like a mountain goat in so doing, and investigates the view.

inhispockets
2014-02-16 11:57 pm (UTC)

...Felicity giggles at him.

It's a really good view! Significant amounts of island are visible.

pina_colada
2014-02-16 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Nice," says Kerron, leaping lightly down. "Good vantage point."

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I really like it."

Good spot number two also has a nice view, this time mostly of some vegetation and a lot of beach; it's at the top of a short hill or cliff facing out towards the ocean.

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:03 am (UTC)

Kerron takes a good long look at this one so he can memorize it.

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:05 am (UTC)

"Okay, that's all I got."

(There's also the place he put his poof when he burned down the house. But he's not showing Kerron that.)

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:07 am (UTC)

"Cool. This is a nice place. I guess Carlisle has good taste in - anniversary presents, or whatever the occasion was when he got it for his mate."

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:08 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "I guess."

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:09 am (UTC)

"Carlisle's nice. Kind of bland unless you want to talk about the bland things he finds interesting, but nice."

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:10 am (UTC)

"So wait, he's not bland when he's talking about bland things?"

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:11 am (UTC)

"I guess? I mean, if you're interested in theology or whatever I imagine it's less bland."

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:11 am (UTC)

"Gotcha."

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:12 am (UTC)

"But I'm not so I don't find him the most entertaining company."

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:13 am (UTC)

"I'm not even sure I know what theology is."

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:13 am (UTC)

"Speculating about God. Religion's pretty out of fashion these days but Carlisle sticks to it."

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:16 am (UTC)

Snort.

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:25 am (UTC)

"Esme too. She's his mate. Lily thinks they're out of their minds, and most of the rest of their coven was never much on board with it. The Emperor was, but he's by far the less assertive between himself and Her Majesty and wound up sort of agreeing with her about everything. By and large when vampires pair off there's a leader and a follower, even if it's not explicit."
Edited 2014-02-17 00:26 (UTC)

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:39 am (UTC)

"You'd think with all this magic somebody would've found out for sure by now."

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:40 am (UTC)

"I'd think finding Downside would've done the trick, but nope. The sort of people who believe in God don't think he'd have to play by the rules, even magic rules."

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:43 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "Whatever, then."

pina_colada
2014-02-17 12:43 am (UTC)

"See? Bland topic."

inhispockets
2014-02-17 12:45 am (UTC)

He laughs.

doors are complicated

campanas

Pen' was just going to go practice singing. (She likes singing. The words are all lined up for her already and she doesn't get them wrong.) But this doesn't look like the practice room. So it's probably the magic restaurant.

Pen knows about the magic restaurant! You can go in it, and get food or things to drink (she has bracelets!) and then you just go back out the door and it's been no time at all and you're right where you went in.

She goes in. She is going to have cake.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:05 am (UTC)

Someone else is already having cake, it turns out! He is sitting at the bar wearing some kind of uniform, and he has a very tasty-looking slice of chocolate cake.

campanas
2013-11-03 12:09 am (UTC)

Pen goes up to the bar, and peers at the cake, then waves her bracelet at the bar. "That cake!" she says, hoping she will be understood.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:10 am (UTC)

The bar provides her with a slice of that cake.

The original cake-eater looks from his plate to hers and smiles slightly.

campanas
2013-11-03 12:11 am (UTC)

"Hi," Pen says, hoisting herself onto the barstool, and then she takes a great big forkful of her cake, fluttering her wings happily.
Edited 2013-11-03 00:14 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:15 am (UTC)

"Hi," says the stranger. "Nice cake."

campanas
2013-11-03 12:20 am (UTC)

"Eeeheehee." Pen nods rather than trying to construct a joke.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:22 am (UTC)

He laughs anyway.

"It's my birthday," he says, "what's your excuse?"

campanas
2013-11-03 12:26 am (UTC)

"Uuuum?" Pen was unaware that cake required an excuse. "...Happy Birthday!"

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:27 am (UTC)

"Thanks." He grins. "I was kidding about the excuse, don't worry."

campanas
2013-11-03 12:28 am (UTC)

"Okay."

Cake nom nom nom.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:31 am (UTC)

Cake nom nom!

campanas
2013-11-03 12:32 am (UTC)

Pen swings her feet and wafts her wings back and forth.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:33 am (UTC)

"Are you okay in here by yourself?" he asks, after some more cake.

campanas
2013-11-03 12:34 am (UTC)

"Mmhm! Safe bar," says Pen.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:38 am (UTC)

"True," he concedes. "All right."

campanas
2013-11-03 12:39 am (UTC)

Pen pats the bar. And then goes back to her cake.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:42 am (UTC)

Well, that's adorable.

The stranger finishes his cake, but he doesn't go anywhere.

campanas
2013-11-03 12:43 am (UTC)

Pen finishes her cake too, and then contemplates whether she wants seconds or anything.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:48 am (UTC)

The stranger is having similar contemplations! Finally, out of a feeling that ordering a beer in front of a small child would just be vaguely off somehow, he gets a Coke.

campanas
2013-11-03 12:54 am (UTC)

"What are Coke?" Pen asks.

pythbox
2013-11-03 12:56 am (UTC)

"It's, uh... this," he says, gesturing to his glass. "Do you want to try some?" Should small children not have caffeine? He has no idea. It probably won't be a total disaster, anyway.

campanas
2013-11-03 12:56 am (UTC)

"'Kay." Pen takes his cup and sips. "Sweet," she comments.

pythbox
2013-11-03 01:01 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "And fizzy."

campanas
2013-11-03 01:06 am (UTC)

"Yeah!"

pythbox
2013-11-03 01:14 am (UTC)

He grins. "You now know pretty much all there is to know about Coke. Can I have mine back, or do you want it?"

campanas
2013-11-03 01:15 am (UTC)

Pen offers it back.

pythbox
2013-11-03 01:17 am (UTC)

"Thanks," he says, accepting it. "What's your name? I'm John."

campanas
2013-11-03 01:18 am (UTC)

"Am Peninnah. Pen."

pythbox
2013-11-03 01:20 am (UTC)

"Nice to meet you," says John.

campanas
2013-11-03 01:22 am (UTC)

"Yes!" agrees Peninnah. "I meet so many of the people, yesterday. Now you!"

pythbox
2013-11-03 01:23 am (UTC)

"Milliways is nice like that."

campanas
2013-11-03 02:43 am (UTC)

"Yes. Nice bar."

pythbox
2013-11-03 02:50 am (UTC)

"Definitely the nicest I've been to," he says.

campanas
2013-11-03 02:52 am (UTC)

"Mommy like nice bar. Daddy also."

pythbox
2013-11-03 02:53 am (UTC)

"And where are your mommy and daddy right now?"

campanas
2013-11-03 02:53 am (UTC)

"Home."

pythbox
2013-11-03 02:57 am (UTC)

"Seems reasonable."

He finishes his Coke; he takes a look around the bar, savouring the moment; he gets up.

"I should get back to work," he says with a sigh. "Nice talking to you, Pen."

And he heads for the door.

campanas
2013-11-03 02:59 am (UTC)

Pen gets some milk, and drinks it, and then goes to the door too. Huh, it's still a little open.

She opens it up, peering over her shoulder as she does for a last look at the nice bar, and then she's through and it closes properly this time.

pythbox
2013-11-03 03:14 am (UTC)

This is definitely not the same place she left. It's a deserted street in an unfamiliar city, under a cloudy predawn sky, and the door that just closed belongs to a small office tower.

campanas
2013-11-03 03:15 am (UTC)

That's not how it's supposed to work.

She turns back to the door and pulls on it.

pythbox
2013-11-03 03:15 am (UTC)

It is locked.

campanas
2013-11-03 03:17 am (UTC)

That's really not how it's supposed to work.

Pen tries to brainphone Mommy.

She tries to brainphone Daddy.

She tries to brainphone Jane.

She tries her sisters and all the grownups she knows.

It doesn't work.

Gosh.

She tries to find an alt of Mommy, and that doesn't work.

She tries to find an alt of Daddy.

[Hi?]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:27 am (UTC)

[Who's this?]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:27 am (UTC)

[Am Pen! Am lost. You one Daddy.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:28 am (UTC)

[Am I now.]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:28 am (UTC)

[Are many many, you one. Am lost.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:30 am (UTC)

[Where are you lost?]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:31 am (UTC)

[By door.] She looks around for landmarks. [It not working. Supposed to home, but here!]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:36 am (UTC)

There are street signs at a nearby intersection: Seneca and Claude.

[Where's home, then?]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:36 am (UTC)

[The Eyrie. Sign says 'Seneca' and other is 'Claude'? Green sign.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:43 am (UTC)

[Is that so,] he says interestedly. [Is there a big ugly building nearby - grey brick, rust coming down the sides, and headless gargoyles everywhere?]

There is indeed! It's across the street.

campanas
2013-11-03 03:43 am (UTC)

[Yes! So ugly.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:46 am (UTC)

[It usedta be a library,] he says. [I do my grocery shopping near there.]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:46 am (UTC)

[Am lost. Door won't working. Help?]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:48 am (UTC)

[I can't fix your door,] he says, [but if you give me a few minutes I can take you back to my place and make you breakfast.]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:49 am (UTC)

[Okay.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:54 am (UTC)

[What's your name again, kiddo?]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:55 am (UTC)

[Pen-in-nah. Pen.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:56 am (UTC)

[Nice name.]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:56 am (UTC)

[Mommy studented for one oracle named it!]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:57 am (UTC)

[And what's an oracle do?]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:58 am (UTC)

[Read spaceship words.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:59 am (UTC)

[I don't have the first clue what that means,] he admits serenely.

campanas
2013-11-03 03:59 am (UTC)

[Is -] Pen sighs. [Is complicated. I grammar bad.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:03 am (UTC)

[I noticed,] he says. [That's all right. No rush.]

campanas
2013-11-03 04:06 am (UTC)

[Is a spaceship Mommy captains. Named Jovah. It writes for oracles! Alleya's one. Is secret spaceship. People think it a god.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:08 am (UTC)

After a moment, he says, [Sounds like you're even farther from home than I thought.]

campanas
2013-11-03 04:08 am (UTC)

[So lost. Door won't working.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:15 am (UTC)

[What's this door supposed to do, exactly?]

campanas
2013-11-03 04:16 am (UTC)

[Supposed go nice bar, then home! Goed nice bar. Then here.]
Edited 2013-11-03 05:05 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-03 01:26 pm (UTC)

[Magic door, huh? What's it look like?]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:53 pm (UTC)

[Was practice room door. This side red. Locked.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:56 pm (UTC)

[D'ya think unlocking it would help?]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:57 pm (UTC)

[Maaaaybe? Dunno.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 03:58 pm (UTC)

[We can try it, anyway.]

campanas
2013-11-03 03:59 pm (UTC)

[Okay! You soon here?]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:01 pm (UTC)

[Yep. Where are you? Next to the library, or across the street?]

campanas
2013-11-03 04:02 pm (UTC)

[Cross it. Can go ugly building.]

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:06 pm (UTC)

[Nah, stay by your door, I'll find ya. Are you looking at the front of the library or the side? The front's got a big ugly door, can't miss it.]

There are no doors at all visible on the part of the ugly building facing Pen.

campanas
2013-11-03 04:06 pm (UTC)

[Side,] Pen concludes.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:07 pm (UTC)

[All right, I know where you are. I'm just around the corner.]

campanas
2013-11-03 04:08 pm (UTC)

[Yay!]

A one of Mommy would probably be best for fixing the thing, but a one of Daddy will be just fine for staying with while the door is being fixed.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:17 pm (UTC)

And indeed, around the corner he appears: green vest, purple suit, and interesting makeup.

He stops short when he sees her, cocks his head quizzically, then shrugs and keeps walking.

campanas
2013-11-03 04:19 pm (UTC)

It's dark, and this is one of the ones with scars, but the color scheme's a dead giveaway, and besides, he is one of her daddy. Pen runs right towards him, feathers trailing behind her.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:20 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"Aren't you a surprise."

campanas
2013-11-03 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Pen. "Mostly more ones finded in nice bar."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Now where's this locked door that's giving you such trouble?"

campanas
2013-11-03 04:24 pm (UTC)

Pen leads him back to it. "Not working," she says, pointing at it.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Well, we'll see about that."

He cheerfully sets about picking the lock.

campanas
2013-11-03 04:25 pm (UTC)

Pen watches and giggles.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:29 pm (UTC)

Soon enough, the door is unlocked; he opens it. A short, empty hallway opening onto a stairwell after a few feet: definitely not Milliways.

campanas
2013-11-03 04:30 pm (UTC)

Pen looks. "No," she sighs. "Not working. Maybe somedoor other bars now."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't know," says the Joker. "Now how 'bout that breakfast?"

campanas
2013-11-03 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:37 pm (UTC)

"C'mon then."

He leads her back the way he came.

campanas
2013-11-03 04:38 pm (UTC)

Pen follows him, wings swishing in her wake. "Kinda world you have?" she asks curiously.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:38 pm (UTC)

"One where people don't have feathers."

campanas
2013-11-03 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Am angel," Pen explains. "Like Mommy."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:39 pm (UTC)

"I can see that. Your daddy's not an angel too? What is he instead?"

campanas
2013-11-03 04:40 pm (UTC)

"He mortal," says Pen. "Some daddies other things!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah? Other things like what?"

campanas
2013-11-03 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Ummmm. Ghosty!" says Pen, who identifies "Ghosty" as both the individual's name and as her apparently single-person species. "Annnnd dragon. And magic... thing, forget word. And red tallest one have wings! And Beast have softs. But, mostly mortals."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:46 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "How 'bout that. A dragon, really? How big?"

campanas
2013-11-03 04:47 pm (UTC)

Pen looks around for something to compare Ansharil to. "He big. Other dragons more big..."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:51 pm (UTC)

"Taller'n me? Taller thannn two of me?"

campanas
2013-11-03 04:53 pm (UTC)

Pen eyeballs his height. "Yyyyes. Except, dragon, so - tall wrong word."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I bet," he says. "Still, that's pretty big."

campanas
2013-11-03 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:56 pm (UTC)

He grins down at her.

campanas
2013-11-03 04:57 pm (UTC)

Pen skips a little. "Mommy find me," she assures him. "You too. Then you meet Daddy, all daddies. There parties!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Parties, huh?"

campanas
2013-11-03 04:59 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh! Last party in space plant in Thilun - Thilsh - in dragons world. Tall red wing one daddy make plants."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:01 pm (UTC)

...He giggles. "Space plant?"

campanas
2013-11-03 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Yes!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:02 pm (UTC)

"Is that by any chance a plant, in space?"

campanas
2013-11-03 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Yes!" crows Pen, skipping again.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:03 pm (UTC)

He giggles some more.

campanas
2013-11-03 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Mommies some different things. Not so many. Witch mommy, vampire mommy. New one can be swan! But mortal elsewise."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:08 pm (UTC)

"And 'mortal' means human, same as me?"

campanas
2013-11-03 05:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Angels," she gestures with one hand, "mortals." She gestures with the other hand. "Funny other worlds things," she adds with a gesture in a third location.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha."

campanas
2013-11-03 05:11 pm (UTC)

"How far place?"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Not far."

campanas
2013-11-03 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Faster fly?" asks Pen, spreading her wings questioningly.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:18 pm (UTC)

"For you, maybe, but you don't know where it is," he says.

campanas
2013-11-03 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Bring you," she asserts.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:20 pm (UTC)

"A little bitty angel like you can pick me up?"

campanas
2013-11-03 05:21 pm (UTC)

"You tall, not heavy," she giggles.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:21 pm (UTC)

"You sure?"

campanas
2013-11-03 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! I fly Daddy, little bit. Same."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Mmm, better not anyway," he says. "People aren't used to seeing little angels around here. Could be we'd get noticed. I wouldn't want that."

campanas
2013-11-03 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Secret, okay." Pen peers over her shoulder dubiously at her brown-flecked white wings.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:26 pm (UTC)

"As long as you're on the ground and nobody looks too close, they'll think it's just a costume. If you were in the middle of carrying me home it'd be mmmmuch harder to explain."

campanas
2013-11-03 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Costume?" asks Pen, puzzled.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. They don't have those where you're from?"

campanas
2013-11-03 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Not angel costume," laughs Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, here angel costumes are the only kind of angel we get."

campanas
2013-11-03 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Except me!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:36 pm (UTC)

"We-ell, you're not exactly local."

campanas
2013-11-03 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Samarian," Pen says.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:38 pm (UTC)

"'S that where angels come from?"

campanas
2013-11-03 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Yes!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:40 pm (UTC)

"I'm learning so many new things today," he says, glancing down at her with a hint of a smile.

campanas
2013-11-03 05:41 pm (UTC)

"I know lot things!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:48 pm (UTC)

"You sure do. Annnnd here we are," he says, turning off the street onto a path that winds through beds of plants and the occasional tree. There are apartment buildings on both sides, one right next to the tiny park, one separated from it by a small parking garage with unhealthy-looking potted trees sporadically lining the roof.

campanas
2013-11-03 05:50 pm (UTC)

Pen looks around.

"Okay," she says. She looks up at the tall buildings and spreads her wings again before looking confused and folding them.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 05:53 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "You don't have to fly to get there, but it might help."

This remark is at least partially explained when he continues down the path all the way to the back of the parking garage, where the path ends at a rusted water fountain and the Joker heads for a large and extremely climbable oak tree next to the garage.

campanas
2013-11-03 05:54 pm (UTC)

Pen has never climbed a tree before; this one looks maybe more navigable than average, but she still wouldn't care to try it when she could just fly. She stands back to see where he's headed.
Edited 2013-11-03 17:57 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:02 pm (UTC)

The tree's branches are numerous enough and strong enough and conveniently enough arranged that they more or less form stairs, albeit stairs designed by a thoroughly intoxicated architect. The Joker strolls up to the roof of the parking garage and beckons to Pen.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:02 pm (UTC)

Oh, the roof, that's easy, she was thinking she'd have to cling to a windowsill and scramble in. She takes a running start and gets aloft and is up on the roof in no time.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:06 pm (UTC)

The top of the garage is covered with a more or less even layer of small rocks, and probably isn't meant for people to walk on. The Joker leads Pen to the nearest corner of the attached apartment building, where he opens a window as tall and broad as a door and hops down a few feet into someone's living room. Probably his.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:07 pm (UTC)

Pen follows him right in.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:09 pm (UTC)

He closes the window and draws the curtains, then proceeds into the kitchen, which is separated from the living room only by a long counter island.

"I'm thinking waffles," he says. "How d'you feel about waffles?"

campanas
2013-11-03 06:09 pm (UTC)

"What waffles?" inquires Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:15 pm (UTC)

"You can watch me make 'em and see if you wanna try any," he says.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:18 pm (UTC)

So he commences making waffles.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:18 pm (UTC)

Pen sits at a barstool at the counter, and watches. She decides that they look tasty!
Edited 2013-11-03 18:21 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:23 pm (UTC)

He hums to himself as he works, and offers her the first waffle when it's ready, along with an assortment of things (maple syrup, chocolate sauce, applesauce, bananas, blueberries, and strawberries) to put on top if she's feeling adventurous.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:24 pm (UTC)

Pen has to taste the maple syrup and the chocolate sauce first to see if she likes them, then adds generous amounts of both and all the fruit except the applesauce. Om nom nom.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:25 pm (UTC)

When he serves himself the second waffle, he has it with a little bit of everything.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:25 pm (UTC)

"Ish good," opines Pen around a mouthful.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Mhm!" he chirps.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:26 pm (UTC)

Pen manages to finish her entire waffle, even though she had cake.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:27 pm (UTC)

The Joker has two.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:27 pm (UTC)

Pen licks her plate.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:28 pm (UTC)

She's not the only one.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:28 pm (UTC)

Pen giggles and then sets about exploring the rest of the apartment.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:39 pm (UTC)

The apartment is... not remotely childproof. He closes the door to one small room next to the kitchen before she can enter it, then steers her away from the front door to show her the master bathroom (which is perfectly clean and pretty and ordinary) and the big room down the hall, which might once have been a bedroom but is now full of tables, clothes, and sewing machines.

There is a distinct lack of beds, although the living room is well supplied with couches.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:43 pm (UTC)

Pen notes the lack of beds, and frowns and tries flopping on her front on a couch, but it doesn't have enough lateral space; one wing winds up sort of draped over the back of the couch and the other spills onto the floor. It's not terribly uncomfy, but she doesn't think she can sleep like that. "Hmm," she says, popping up again.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

campanas
2013-11-03 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Where I sleep?"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Need a bigger bed, huh? That's fine," he says serenely. "I've got one, it's just hiding."

campanas
2013-11-03 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:46 pm (UTC)

campanas
2013-11-03 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Where hiding?"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:47 pm (UTC)

"In there," he says, pointing to one of the couches. "Folded up under the cushions. Take 'em off and pull on it and out it comes."

campanas
2013-11-03 06:47 pm (UTC)

Pen removes the cushions, stacks them up, and looks for something to pull on.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:51 pm (UTC)

The Joker shows her: it doesn't look much like a handle, but there's a place where you can grab the middle of the bed's frame and pull, and out it does indeed come.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:52 pm (UTC)

She flops on this one. It is comfortable diagonally; it can nearly accommodate her entire wingspan that way.

She's not actually tired, though. It's daytime still in her home time zone. Soon she sits back up.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Better?" he asks.

campanas
2013-11-03 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I sleep there. When I tired."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:54 pm (UTC)

"All right."

campanas
2013-11-03 06:54 pm (UTC)

Pen goes back to the room she hasn't explored yet. She wants to know what's in there.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Bad idea," he says when she heads for the closed door. "It's not safe in there; you could get hurt."

campanas
2013-11-03 06:56 pm (UTC)

"No, I not."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Not what?"

campanas
2013-11-03 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Not hurt. Mommy safed us."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:02 pm (UTC)

"I could get hurt, then," he says. "I keep some things in there that could blow up the apartment if you don't treat 'em right, and you might be a magic angel and all but I'm just a plain old human. I get blown up once, and that's it. Same for the people living next door."

campanas
2013-11-03 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Mommy get you back, later," Pen assures him. "Oh but then where I go? Okay." She turns away from the door.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

campanas
2013-11-03 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Welcome." She goes back to the kitchen and starts peering at the unfamiliar appliances.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:11 pm (UTC)

Since she claims she can't get hurt and he doesn't keep any explosives in his kitchen, he doesn't interfere.

campanas
2013-11-03 07:11 pm (UTC)

She doesn't wind up doing anything that would get her hurt anyway, just pushes microwave buttons and peers into the oven and fridge.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:12 pm (UTC)

Well, that's all right then.

campanas
2013-11-03 07:13 pm (UTC)

Eventually she is bored with appliances, and she sits on one of the barstools. There is no sheet music and no music machine here - as far as she knows - but she knows some songs from memory. She's an angel.

She sings in Samarian, of course.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:14 pm (UTC)

Aww, that's pretty. He sits and listens.

campanas
2013-11-03 07:16 pm (UTC)

An audience! Pen's so pleased. She sings the entire solo, and then some hymns, and then a ballad, all in the same distant language.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:17 pm (UTC)

He listens to all of it.

campanas
2013-11-03 07:19 pm (UTC)

She forgets the lyrics to the Edori folk song she tries next - she speaks the language, she just doesn't practice this music as much. She stumbles mid-line and sighs and falls silent.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:20 pm (UTC)

"You're pretty good," he says admiringly. "Was all that from home?"

campanas
2013-11-03 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Am angel," she says. She's nothing special for an angel. "Home songs, yes."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:23 pm (UTC)

"You mean all angels sing like that?"

campanas
2013-11-03 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Mommy better. Mommy will Archangel. Dars got - 'powerful voice', she loud. Keziah best fast songs... Ariel maybe not better though. Ariel quiet, just okay. For angel."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:27 pm (UTC)

"And who're all these people?"

campanas
2013-11-03 07:27 pm (UTC)

"Mommy mommy. Dars Keziah Ariel sisters. Dars Keziah Ariel Pen." She points to herself when she names herself.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Three sisters, huh? Lucky you."

campanas
2013-11-03 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm! Am only Pen. Two more Darses one more Keziah one more Ariel only one Pen anyplace."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:14 pm (UTC)

"How many of me? Seemed like a lot."

campanas
2013-11-03 10:15 pm (UTC)

"Lots. Uuuum count extras or no?"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Well," he says reasonably, "what's an extra?"

campanas
2013-11-03 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Is animal-soul. Or dragon and tall red one, extras each other. Or new-Sue."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:19 pm (UTC)

"All right. How many without 'em, then?"

campanas
2013-11-03 10:20 pm (UTC)

Pen starts counting on her fingers, loses track several times, and says, "Paper?"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:21 pm (UTC)

He giggles, and fishes a pad of paper and a ballpoint pen out from under a couch.

campanas
2013-11-03 10:27 pm (UTC)

Pen starts writing:

Daddy
tall red one forget name
Beast
Sue
new girl one forget name
Jellybean
Kas
magic thing forgot word one can't spell name
Ghosty
one who naked
one who the one with cousinoids
Queenie
other new one
Alice
one who was baby
other one Elspeth taked home

When she can't think of any others, she counts the lines: "Sixteen."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:30 pm (UTC)

"What's a cousinoid?" he inquires.

campanas
2013-11-03 10:31 pm (UTC)

"That one daddy's kids. Or Glass's ones. Or Elspeth."
Edited 2013-11-03 22:35 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:37 pm (UTC)

Next question, "Am I on this list somewhere?"

campanas
2013-11-03 10:38 pm (UTC)

Pen shakes her head and then adds to the list, one I finded.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Aha," he says.

campanas
2013-11-03 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Seventeen," she amends. "Got nickname?"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:44 pm (UTC)

"People call me the Joker, that work for you?"

campanas
2013-11-03 10:44 pm (UTC)

Pen shakes her head and writes the Joker next to the line which mentions cousinoids.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Mm." He regards the paper thoughtfully.

campanas
2013-11-03 10:46 pm (UTC)

Pen shrugs. She remembers Harley's name and writes it on his line.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

"How about Cindy?" he inquires. "Is Cindy taken?"

campanas
2013-11-03 10:48 pm (UTC)

Pen thinks, then says, "No! You be Cindy." She writes it on the line designated for this very newest Joker.
Edited 2013-11-03 22:49 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Mmkay."

campanas
2013-11-03 10:51 pm (UTC)

Pen bounces happily. Then she starts trying to spell Brilliance's name. (The closest she gets is "Birlans".)

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Can you say his name?"

campanas
2013-11-03 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Brillance?" It's not quite right. "Brill-ee-ance. Like that."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Brilliance! Cute name," he says. "Wonder where he got it. Want me to write it down for you?"

campanas
2013-11-03 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:53 pm (UTC)

He writes Brilliance beside her attempts.

campanas
2013-11-03 10:54 pm (UTC)

Pen crosses out the misspellings and underlines the correct version. She resumes trying to remember Joker names.

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:55 pm (UTC)

"What's the deal with Mister Naked?"

campanas
2013-11-03 10:56 pm (UTC)

"He from Jane-breaker place. Some not-mortal kind, no clothes. He magic black box thing Jellybean put though so is okay."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 10:57 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

campanas
2013-11-03 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Dragon and mostly animal souls and sometime Brilliance when not mortal shape, them too. Always this one you though. He a funny real name. All sunshiney. Don't remember nickname."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Sunshiney?"

campanas
2013-11-03 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Is not a sound name. Is... feeling-name. With sunshine!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Huh," he says thoughtfully.

campanas
2013-11-03 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I not say it, though, can't. Elspeth can! And his one Mommy."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Who's this Elspeth, then?"

campanas
2013-11-03 11:05 pm (UTC)

"She cousinoid. Golden's one. Her daddy not a daddy one, somebody else, I not met him."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

"So a cousinoid is somebody who's got one parent that's one of yours, but not both?" he guesses.

campanas
2013-11-03 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Glass got three small princesses, they cousinoids too."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

"And the one of me who calls himself the Joker already has kids too. Who with?"

campanas
2013-11-03 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Vampire. Name was - um - oh, yeah, is Nathan. Almost like Uncle Nathaniel, different template though."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:10 pm (UTC)

"And who's Uncle Nathaniel?"

campanas
2013-11-03 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Daddy's brother. Except, he stuck Aurum - is Elspeth's world! - when Jane breaked. For years. Got back home couple weeks ago. I not know him too much. Dars and Kez maybe do more."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:13 pm (UTC)

"So people getting stuck in worlds is something that happens once in a while?"

campanas
2013-11-03 11:14 pm (UTC)

"If they wrong place when Jane break. I not think she broke now, though. Mommies fixed her. Is door won't working. Jane not here at all."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:16 pm (UTC)

"But," he says, "seems like you're stuck anyway."

campanas
2013-11-03 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Uncle Nathaniel gone a long time. He find a girlfriend while he gone though!"

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Did he? Good for him!"

campanas
2013-11-03 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Mommy made a moon they live at now."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Really?"

campanas
2013-11-03 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Or put stuff on moon? Moon might be there before that. Dunno."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Mm, well, putting stuff on a moon's easier than making one."

campanas
2013-11-03 11:24 pm (UTC)

"I dunno. I not get wishes to play."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Wishes?"

campanas
2013-11-03 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Are a magic. Daddies make them be and Mommies wish them."

manofmyword
2013-11-03 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Daddies never do the wishing? That doesn't seem right."

campanas
2013-11-03 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes. Usually Mommies. Dars and Kez' growed enough, so now have little wishes. Not Ariel yet or me."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:00 am (UTC)

"If I had a way to make wishes..." He grins. "Well, I don't."

campanas
2013-11-04 12:01 am (UTC)

"What if?" Pen prompts. "You get to probably, when I found."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:02 am (UTC)

"I know I'd use 'em plenty, but I don't know what for."

campanas
2013-11-04 12:02 am (UTC)

Pen giggles.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:03 am (UTC)

"You can bet I'd think of something, though."

campanas
2013-11-04 12:03 am (UTC)

"Yes. I bet that."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:04 am (UTC)

He laughs.

campanas
2013-11-04 12:05 am (UTC)

Pen starts writing a list of mommies. Some of them are on the same lines as the daddies, on the opposite side of the page, and some have their own lines.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:06 am (UTC)

Cindy watches.

campanas
2013-11-04 12:09 am (UTC)

She remembers most of their peal names. The Bell list looks like:

Mommy
pointy ears one
Rose
floaty one can't spell name
Etty
Cam
owl one
Aror Aurora

new one can't spell name

Stella

Golden
Pattern
Glass
Tab
Juliet
Shell Bell

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:11 am (UTC)

"Hm," he says, observing the lists.

campanas
2013-11-04 12:14 am (UTC)

In the space between these columns (there isn't much on Brilliance's line what with all the crossed out misspellings, but there doesn't need to be anything there) she fills in extra partners that she can remember:

Nathan

that wolf

Elspeth's daddy
that one guy
those princesses forget nicknames

that one who is other vampire kind
another of those

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:16 am (UTC)

"Lotta people," he says.

campanas
2013-11-04 12:17 am (UTC)

"So many!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:17 am (UTC)

"Yep!"

campanas
2013-11-04 12:19 am (UTC)

"And at mommyparties are also friends and stuff."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:20 am (UTC)

"How big are these parties?"

campanas
2013-11-04 12:20 am (UTC)

"So big! Space plant!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:20 am (UTC)

"A biiiiiig space plant?"

campanas
2013-11-04 12:21 am (UTC)

"Biiiiiig!" Pen stretches her wings out to gesture bigness rather than using her hands.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:22 am (UTC)

"That's pretty big!"

campanas
2013-11-04 12:22 am (UTC)

"Yeah!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:45 am (UTC)

A thought occurs to him. "Do you wanna hear some of my music?" he asks.

campanas
2013-11-04 12:46 am (UTC)

"Okay!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:50 am (UTC)

He beams.

And decides to start with Queen.

campanas
2013-11-04 12:50 am (UTC)

Pen listens attentively. She has a well-trained ear and starts cooing along with some of the tune when bits of it reprise.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:52 am (UTC)

Cindy just sits and smiles and listens. He loves this music.

campanas
2013-11-04 12:53 am (UTC)

It seems to appeal to Pen reasonably well, too.

"Daddy auras sing this," she comments after a couple of songs have gone by.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:57 am (UTC)

"Auras?"

campanas
2013-11-04 12:58 am (UTC)

"Enchanty things! Mommies and daddies get them when meet others of them."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 12:59 am (UTC)

"Do they do anything besides music?"

campanas
2013-11-04 12:59 am (UTC)

"All different things!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:00 am (UTC)

"Like what?"

campanas
2013-11-04 01:01 am (UTC)

"Mommy's of benevolence. Daddy's of innocence. Am not allowed seeing Juliet's, hers scary."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:01 am (UTC)

"There's one'a me with an aura of innocence?"

campanas
2013-11-04 01:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah! Daddy. And it sing. Mommy's do music too."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:08 am (UTC)

"Well, if I was gonna have an aura that sang anything, I'd want it to sing Queen," he says.

campanas
2013-11-04 01:09 am (UTC)

"It do sometimes."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:09 am (UTC)

"That makes me happy."

campanas
2013-11-04 01:09 am (UTC)

"Yay!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:09 am (UTC)

campanas
2013-11-04 01:10 am (UTC)

Pen continues listening to the music, occasionally making little hand gestures to herself to solidify the notes in her head. "Are words writed?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, here," he says, and digs up the lyric sheet.

campanas
2013-11-04 01:14 am (UTC)

She starts singing along, at least insofar as the tunes have enough duplication to let her pick them up.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:15 am (UTC)

Normally he has mixed feelings about people singing along to Queen, but this is just adorable.

campanas
2013-11-04 01:15 am (UTC)

Pen is most adorable.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:16 am (UTC)

She is definitely the cutest thing going!

campanas
2013-11-04 01:17 am (UTC)

Eventually she starts yawning.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:22 am (UTC)

"Bedtime?" he inquires.

campanas
2013-11-04 01:23 am (UTC)

"Yaaaah," yawns Pen, getting up and stretching out all of her limbs. Feathers brush the walls. She yawns her way to the bed, picks at the hem of her flying vest but doesn't take it off since she doesn't have a nightgown here, and then just toes her shoes off and flops facefirst onto the bed, wings asprawl.
Edited 2013-11-04 01:23 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:46 am (UTC)

"G'night," he says, helpfully turning off the lights.

It is not, however, nighttime. It is in point of fact late morning.

Cindy does not go to bed; he has things to do today.

whole new world

campanas

Pen wakes up at about four in the afternoon. It takes her a few seconds to remember why she's here, but then she remembers and starts looking for Cindy.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 01:49 am (UTC)

Cindy isn't there, but he left some snacks on the counter - assorted fruits and a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

campanas
2013-11-04 01:50 am (UTC)

Pen eats them and tries to see if she can make his funny music machine work.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:00 am (UTC)

The funny music machine is reasonably cooperative!

campanas
2013-11-04 02:00 am (UTC)

Yay!

She listens to funny English-words music and learns the words and the harmonies and sings and sings.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:03 am (UTC)

And soon enough, Cindy comes home. He grins at her as he climbs in the window.

campanas
2013-11-04 02:04 am (UTC)

"Hiiii," says Pen. "Where you went?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:05 am (UTC)

"Here'n'there. I had some people to talk to. Could be I'm making a new friend," he says cheerfully.

campanas
2013-11-04 02:06 am (UTC)

"Ooh, who?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:07 am (UTC)

"We-ell, that part I don't know yet," he says. "You couldn't really say we've met. It's more like we're, hmm, writing letters."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:07 am (UTC)

Pen giggles. "Penfriend!" she jokes.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:09 am (UTC)

"Something like that," he says, laughing.

campanas
2013-11-04 02:10 am (UTC)

"Maybe are many thems!" says Pen. "I can see? When seeing happen?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:17 am (UTC)

"I don't know yet if I'm gonna see 'em at all," he says. "It only could be I'm making a friend. Could be I'm getting to know somebody who's gonna try to kill me." Brightly, "Could be both."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:17 am (UTC)

"Where I go if you die till Mommy get you back?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:20 am (UTC)

"Can't help you there," he says. "But I'll try not to get killed."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:21 am (UTC)

"Okay," sighs Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:24 am (UTC)

"Are ya hungry? I think I'm gonna make lunch," he says, proceeding into the kitchen area and scooping a cookie on the way.

campanas
2013-11-04 02:25 am (UTC)

"Yeah, lunch!" agrees Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:26 am (UTC)

He makes lunch! It is mysterious but tasty. And he washes all the dishes and cleans everything up afterward.

campanas
2013-11-04 02:26 am (UTC)

Pen noms the lunch. She approves the lunch.

"Wanna go flying," she asserts.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:28 am (UTC)

"You can if you want," he says. "But people are probably gonna see you, and if they see you and believe themselves there's no telling what they'll do. Could be something you won't like."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:28 am (UTC)

"Like what?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:31 am (UTC)

"Somebody might try to take you apart to see what you're made of, or lock you in a box for people to stare at."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:31 am (UTC)

"I don't come apart," shudders Pen, wrapping her wings around herself.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:32 am (UTC)

"Doesn't mean they wouldn't try."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:33 am (UTC)

"If somebody grab me and I not want I allowed hitting them!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:34 am (UTC)

"There's a lot of them, though," he says, "and only one of you. Things can get scary pretty fast that way."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:35 am (UTC)

Pen droops.

"What if stuck long time?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:38 am (UTC)

"It'll probably get boring in here," he says. "If you're stuck here a really long time, though, I'll see if I can't get us a trip out to somewhere with no people around where you can fly all you want."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:38 am (UTC)

"...In dark?" Pen suggests. "Way high?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:39 am (UTC)

"Not much danger there, no. Except maybe from airplanes."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:40 am (UTC)

"Am safe," Pen reminds him. "Mommy safed us. We Mommy's treasures. What airplane?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:44 am (UTC)

"An airplane is a great big metal thing that people fly in when they don't have wings to do it the fun way. They fly at night sometimes, and they go way high. There's an airport near here - someplace where they take off and land. If somebody in one of those saw you it'd be all the same problems as somebody on the ground."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:45 am (UTC)

"Oh. Hard avoiding?" Pen asks.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:46 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "Maybe you could, maybe you couldn't. I can't fly; I wouldn't know."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:47 am (UTC)

Pen sighs.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:48 am (UTC)

"Sorry, kiddo."

campanas
2013-11-04 02:49 am (UTC)

"I want go home. Door was supposed to home."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:54 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "But it didn't. And I don't know how to fix it. Wanna hug?"

campanas
2013-11-04 02:55 am (UTC)

Pen flumphs featherily onto him and hugs him hard.

(Really quite hard, actually.)

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:58 am (UTC)

He hugs her back, careful of the wings. He's a little surprised by how strong she is, even though she told him already, but she isn't squishing hard enough to break anything so he doesn't squawk.

campanas
2013-11-04 02:59 am (UTC)

Eventually she relaxes her hold some.

And then she lets him go and sighs again.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 02:59 am (UTC)

Yeah. It's a sighing kind of thing.

campanas
2013-11-04 03:02 am (UTC)

"What do if not fly?" she asks.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 03:15 am (UTC)

"Mm... we could play cards," is the first thing that comes to mind. And the second is, "While I'm thinking about it, do you want some more clothes? I don't think we'll find anything lying around that works with the wings, but I could make you some."

campanas
2013-11-04 03:16 am (UTC)

"Yeah! Only have these. Did not packed."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 03:18 am (UTC)

"Mmkay," he says. "C'mon down the hall and we'll see about designing something."

campanas
2013-11-04 03:18 am (UTC)

Pen follows him, somewhat cheered.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 03:32 am (UTC)

Fashion design is a cheering thing! At least, the Joker thinks so.

campanas
2013-11-04 03:33 am (UTC)

It seems to occupy Pen well enough. She describes which of the possible fastener-configurations that work for angels she approves of, and inspects his fabric supply, and approves enthusiastically of light floaty fabrics and lace trim. She wants a nightgown and a pretty dress (especially since she isn't going to be flying around too much) and a top and some pants that aren't as warm as her leathers. (It's warm here.)

manofmyword
2013-11-04 03:37 am (UTC)

He can supply all of these things! Everyday clothes first, then nightgown, then pretty dress. By the time he starts the pretty dress, he is beginning to yawn; "past my bedtime," he declares, and leaves the sewing where it is while he washes off his makeup and gets into his nightgown and flops onto a couch.

campanas
2013-11-04 03:38 am (UTC)

Pen sews fabric scraps together with no particular aim in mind and then she goes to bed too.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

The next morning when she wakes up, Cindy is still asleep.

campanas
2013-11-04 05:55 pm (UTC)

Pen considers waking him up, then starts looking for doable breakfast on her own.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 06:00 pm (UTC)

The kitchen is very well supplied, but more with complicated things than simple ones. There's some more cookies in the fridge, though, and milk and cereal.

campanas
2013-11-04 06:01 pm (UTC)

Pen doesn't really know the first thing about cooking. Hmmm.

She observes the picture on a cereal box, with the milk and the bowl - breakfast cereal is not an Eyrie staple - and manages to follow the directions and then dunk cookies in the milk while the cereal gets appropriately sogged.

She eats her sogged cookies and her sogged cereal and leaves her bowl carelessly on the counter.
Edited 2013-11-04 19:30 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-04 07:34 pm (UTC)

A few minutes after she finishes her breakfast, Cindy yawns and sits up.

"G'morning," he says cheerfully.

campanas
2013-11-04 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Hi. Do play cards?" Pen asks, since that was his other idea to make up for not being able to fly and they didn't get to it yesterday.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Sure we can," he laughs. "Just lemme get dressed first."

He wanders into the sewing room and emerges a few minutes later wearing a shirt and trousers (purple and black respectively) and socks (green and purple argyle) and carrying a pack of cards.

campanas
2013-11-04 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Are strange cards," says Pen, peering at them. "Not stars and apples and kisses and feathers?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Nope." He sits on the floor and fans out the cards in front of him. "Hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades," he says, indicating each.

campanas
2013-11-04 08:22 pm (UTC)

Pen peers at the suits. "And not angel-oracle-archangel," she says, pulling out some face cards.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Queen, king, jack," he explains. "And ace. And—" he pulls one from the bottom of the deck "—joker."

campanas
2013-11-04 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Ace one?" Pen asks, searching the deck for ones and finding none.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 08:31 pm (UTC)

"Mmyep."

campanas
2013-11-04 08:34 pm (UTC)

Pen pulls out all the diamonds and arranges them: ace, numbers, queen-king-jack like he said.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Well, usually it goes like this," he says, rearranging the face cards into the conventional order.

campanas
2013-11-04 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh, 'kay." She arranges the other three suits too, then sweeps them all up into a pile and starts clumsily shuffling. "What play? I know, um," she thinks, "Bite the Apple, but no apples..."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 08:38 pm (UTC)

"I know some games I could teach ya," he offers.

campanas
2013-11-04 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 08:40 pm (UTC)

He starts with poker. Poker seems like a good place to start.

campanas
2013-11-04 08:41 pm (UTC)

Pen has a terrible poker face.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 08:46 pm (UTC)

She does! It's adorable.

The important question is, does she have fun?

campanas
2013-11-04 08:51 pm (UTC)

She likes winning, if he ever lets her! And telling blatant obvious lies.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:00 pm (UTC)

Sure, she can win once in a while. And her blatant obvious lies are very entertaining.

campanas
2013-11-04 09:00 pm (UTC)

Then Pen will have lots of fun!

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:09 pm (UTC)

Excellent. That is definitely the idea.

campanas
2013-11-04 09:10 pm (UTC)

But eventually she is tired of this game and wants lunch.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:11 pm (UTC)

Lunch is provided!

campanas
2013-11-04 09:13 pm (UTC)

Yaaaay!

"Make me dress?" she asks, after lunch has been eaten up.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Sure thing," he says cheerfully.

And soon enough, there is a dress.

campanas
2013-11-04 09:16 pm (UTC)

Pen changes into it and twirls around. She doesn't twirl all that well - the wings provide a lot of wind resistance, it's what they're for - but she can do a little.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:19 pm (UTC)

The Joker applauds her twirling!

campanas
2013-11-04 09:29 pm (UTC)

Soon she is done. "Now what?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... d'you like books?" he inquires.

campanas
2013-11-04 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Books okay," she says. "Kinda books?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I've got a buncha kinds," he says. "Wanna see?"

campanas
2013-11-04 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:43 pm (UTC)

So he shows her his books! They are many and varied and stored in diverse locations, including under several couches and in bathroom cupboards. But he knows where they all are.

campanas
2013-11-04 09:44 pm (UTC)

Pen eventually settles on a book and starts reading it.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:45 pm (UTC)

The Joker disappears into the dangerous room for a while.

campanas
2013-11-04 09:45 pm (UTC)

Pen tries to sneak a peek when the door's open, but she doesn't touch it.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:47 pm (UTC)

She gets a glimpse of a half-open cupboard. And then he closes the door.

campanas
2013-11-04 09:48 pm (UTC)

Pen goes back to her book, and sings wordless tunes that she makes up in her head.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:54 pm (UTC)

Sometime later, he emerges, looking cheerful.

"I'm gonna go talk to somebody," he says. "You gonna be okay here by yourself?"

campanas
2013-11-04 09:54 pm (UTC)

"I come?" she asks.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 09:55 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Nah, you wouldn't like these people. They're not very friendly."

campanas
2013-11-04 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Why you talk them then?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Complicated reasons," he says, flapping a hand to illustrate the inconsequential nature of the reasons. "I don't mind unfriendly people, anyway. Not all the time."

campanas
2013-11-04 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I go anyway? Small in here. Ignore unfriendly people."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 10:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I know it's small," he says. "Hmm-mm... I could maybe take you someplace bigger. Not today, though. Maybe tomorrow. I'll see if I can set it up while I'm out."

campanas
2013-11-04 10:10 pm (UTC)

"I fly there?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna try to find you somewhere big enough to fly in, yeah."

campanas
2013-11-04 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Good. Angel. Supposed flying."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

He goes to the real bathroom to change and freshen up. When he emerges, he still isn't wearing the makeup, and he has his hair slicked back and a drab-looking jacket on over his cheerful purple shirt. (His socks are as colourful as ever.)

campanas
2013-11-04 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I do your paint sometime," asserts Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 10:20 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

"You bet!" he assures her. "All right, I'm off." He puts on a battered baseball cap, tugs on the brim, and climbs out the window.

campanas
2013-11-04 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Find friendlier people!" she commands as he goes.

And then she returns to her book.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 10:27 pm (UTC)

He is out for a few hours.

campanas
2013-11-04 10:29 pm (UTC)

Pen finishes the one book. She discovers aluminum foil, and wraps various household objects in it. She pokes a fork in an electrical socket, and leaves it there when it gets stuck. (Nothing happens to her.) She takes his fabric pen from the sewing area and starts drawing on the walls, not particularly well, pictures of her family. (With clouds of miscellaneous Samarian-style musical notes clouding around their heads.)

manofmyword
2013-11-04 10:42 pm (UTC)

And then he comes back! Wearing the makeup, now, and carrying the jacket and hat.

campanas
2013-11-04 10:46 pm (UTC)

"You painted! Without me!" exclaims Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Yep. I had a busy day out there," he says, dropping the jacket over the back of a couch and the hat on top of it. "You can do my makeup tomorrow morning when we go on our trip."

campanas
2013-11-04 10:58 pm (UTC)

"Where we go?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Somewhere I think you'll like. A lot bigger than here," he says. "I know a few places I thought might be okay, but I think you'll really like this one."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I fly?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Mmmmyep."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Yaaaay!"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:03 pm (UTC)

"That's what I wanna hear," he says. "Hungry? I'm making dinner."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! Dinner."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:05 pm (UTC)

He makes dinner! Today's dinner is spaghetti. It is delcious.

campanas
2013-11-04 11:05 pm (UTC)

Pen noms spaghetti. She isn't very neat. She gets sauce on her feathers.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:06 pm (UTC)

He offers her a napkin. "You gooped," he says.

campanas
2013-11-04 11:07 pm (UTC)

Pen peers at herself. She dabs at the sauce. The feathers come reasonably clean.

"Soon I need bath. You have small bath," she says. "No stretching space." (She extends her recently desauced wing illustratively.)

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

"True," he says. "I can try'n find a bigger one. No promises. I don't know if they come big enough."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I fly in rain?" she suggests, thoughtful.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Would that get you clean or just wet? Mm, I'll think of something."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:11 pm (UTC)

Pen shrugs.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:12 pm (UTC)

He grins.

campanas
2013-11-04 11:12 pm (UTC)

Pen flaps a little bit. "Fly fly fly tomorrow tomorrow fly fly."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Mhm!"

campanas
2013-11-04 11:14 pm (UTC)

She folds her wings again. "Home I fly all days," she sighs.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Well, this isn't home," he says.

campanas
2013-11-04 11:16 pm (UTC)

She folds her arms on the table and drops her head onto them. "Know that," she says. "Want door. Or Jane."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I can't get you any of that," he says. "But I can get you someplace nice to fly tomorrow."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Know that," says Pen. "Want anyway."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:36 pm (UTC)

"Miss Mommy and Daddy and sisters and people."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Do you dreaming thing?"

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:47 pm (UTC)

"What's the dreaming thing?"

campanas
2013-11-04 11:49 pm (UTC)

"A Jokers nice bar thing. They dream, they be at it."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:52 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head. "I've never done that."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:52 pm (UTC)

"If you dream it tell Jane and she tell everyone."

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:53 pm (UTC)

"And where will I find Jane?"

campanas
2013-11-04 11:54 pm (UTC)

"She in Belltower, or you just," [brainphone.]

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:55 pm (UTC)

"All right," he says. "I'll remember."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:56 pm (UTC)

Pen nods. She plops her head onto her arms again.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Wanna hug?"

campanas
2013-11-04 11:57 pm (UTC)

"No," Pen sighs.

manofmyword
2013-11-04 11:58 pm (UTC)

"'Kay."

campanas
2013-11-04 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Now what?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:00 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna make cookies," he decides.

campanas
2013-11-05 12:01 am (UTC)

"Okay. The before cookies gone."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:02 am (UTC)

"Yep."

To the cupboards!

campanas
2013-11-05 12:02 am (UTC)

Pen supervises the making of cookies. She will stir things, if he wants help.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:12 am (UTC)

He will absolutely call upon her to stir things. Superstrong little angels are handy!

And then the cookies go in the oven. As an afterthought, he says, "Couldja bring that fork back now?"

campanas
2013-11-05 12:13 am (UTC)

"Okay." Pen pulls the fork back out of the outlet. She does her best to bend it back into shape; she is strong enough to bend it but it's delicate work.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:15 am (UTC)

"Thanks."

campanas
2013-11-05 12:16 am (UTC)

"What holes for? Not forks, I think."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:19 am (UTC)

"No, not for forks. Most people could get hurt doing that, actually. Those're electrical sockets. They're for things like the fridge, the microwave, the toaster, the TV, the CD player," indicating each thing as he lists them. "That stuff runs on electricity, and they get it from the holes in the walls through plugs, liiiike... this."

He unplugs the toaster to show her, since it's closest.

campanas
2013-11-05 12:20 am (UTC)

"Oh. Eyrie music machine not got plug in a hole."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:22 am (UTC)

"Some things you can't tell where they plug in without taking 'em apart. Or maybe your music machine runs on somethin' else." He plugs the toaster back in.

campanas
2013-11-05 12:23 am (UTC)

"Dunno. Caleb know probably."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:29 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

campanas
2013-11-05 12:30 am (UTC)

"Caleb do machines," Pen explains.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:30 am (UTC)

"Aha."

campanas
2013-11-05 12:31 am (UTC)

"And his wife Alleya, she oracle. She finded that Jovah be spaceship and tell Mommy and Daddy."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:32 am (UTC)

"Sounds exciting."

campanas
2013-11-05 12:32 am (UTC)

"Mommy was do magic, saying, 'Jovah did it!', but Alleya knew he not!"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:33 am (UTC)

"Makes sense, if he wasn't a magic spaceship."

campanas
2013-11-05 12:34 am (UTC)

"Nope," agrees Pen, "not a magic. Just do weather, drop things. If we singing right."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:35 am (UTC)

"Innnteresting. That why angels sing like that?"

campanas
2013-11-05 12:35 am (UTC)

"Those songs. Other songs just fun!"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:37 am (UTC)

"Mhm."

campanas
2013-11-05 12:38 am (UTC)

Pen, accordingly, starts singing an Edori song she is pretty sure she knows all the words to.

(She messes up twice, but he doesn't know the language, so maybe that is okay!)

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:42 am (UTC)

He listens. It's pretty!

campanas
2013-11-05 12:42 am (UTC)

"That Edori song. Daddy sorta Edori," says Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:43 am (UTC)

"Sorta?"

campanas
2013-11-05 12:44 am (UTC)

"They adopt him when he run away from the bad grandparents. He not look Edori."
Edited 2013-11-05 00:51 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:53 am (UTC)

"Huh," he says.

campanas
2013-11-05 12:54 am (UTC)

"Mostly Edori live Ysral, not Samaria. We go for Gatherings."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:56 am (UTC)

"And what's a Gathering?"

campanas
2013-11-05 12:57 am (UTC)

"All Edori that be, be one place. And whoever else wants."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:58 am (UTC)

"Sounds like it could be fun."

campanas
2013-11-05 12:59 am (UTC)

"And singing and food and stuff!"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:01 am (UTC)

"Ooh."

campanas
2013-11-05 01:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah. And Daddy see all tribe friends."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:02 am (UTC)

"I bet he has fun."

campanas
2013-11-05 01:03 am (UTC)

"Yeah. He pick me up and carry me and remind me all names and is fun." Now she's sad again. "I miss it probably."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:04 am (UTC)

"Aww."

What a perfect time for the cookies to be ready!

campanas
2013-11-05 01:04 am (UTC)

Pen picks up and eats a hot cookie. It is cheering.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:08 am (UTC)

Good.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:09 am (UTC)

Cookies cookies cookies. She picks them right up off the pan; it doesn't burn her.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:12 am (UTC)

He's noticed that things don't tend to hurt her. But she did mention she was safe.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:14 am (UTC)

Pen stops at four cookies.

"Now what?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:16 am (UTC)

"Mm... I think I'll go to sleep," he says.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:16 am (UTC)

Pen considers this idea.

Pen yawns and goes to change into her nightgown.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:23 am (UTC)

It's pajamas today for Cindy. He flops onto a couch again. The couch is kind of small for him, but he seems comfy there.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:24 am (UTC)

Pen flops onto the bed, wingtips in opposite corners, hugging a pillow, and sleeps.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:33 am (UTC)

The next morning, Cindy wakes up before she does. He makes breakfast.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:34 am (UTC)

Pen wakes up to kitchen noises. "What is breakfast?" she asks, almost philosophically, stretching as she opens her eyes.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:34 am (UTC)

"French toast!" he says cheerfully.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:35 am (UTC)

"What is?" She heads into the kitchen to get a look at it.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:36 am (UTC)

He hands her a plate with a French toast on it.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:36 am (UTC)

Pen eats some.

"Is interesting," she says. She eats some more. "Crispy soft."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:40 am (UTC)

"I like it," he says. He finishes the last toast, serves it to himself, and brings the plate with the rest of the toasts piled on it to the counter. There is also most of the same stuff out that there was with the waffles.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:40 am (UTC)

Pen experiments with topping combinations. She seems to really like maple-and-blueberries.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:41 am (UTC)

Experimenting is fun! He has a different combination of things on each toast.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:42 am (UTC)

Pen is full after two toasts.

"Now go flying place?" she asks.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:46 am (UTC)

"When I'm done," he says. Half a toast to go! He washes it down with the rest of his previously unmentioned glass of milk. "All right, c'mon."

campanas
2013-11-05 01:47 am (UTC)

Pen follows him. "Fly there? No airplanes day?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:48 am (UTC)

"Nope. Drive there," he says.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:48 am (UTC)

Pen makes a face. "Ew."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:49 am (UTC)

"Aw, it's not that bad. I hope not, anyway."

campanas
2013-11-05 01:49 am (UTC)

"Been in a truck one time. Bleah."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 01:58 am (UTC)

He closes the window behind them and, for a change, goes to where there is a door in the middle of the roof. It's locked, but not for long. Inside, there are stairs; he takes her down the stairs into the dimly lit parking garage, and from there all the way to the back, where there is a dark blue minivan. He extracts the keys from his pocket, unlocks the vehicle, and rolls open the door for her. Inside, the backs have been removed from the middle row of seats.

campanas
2013-11-05 01:59 am (UTC)

Pen examines the vehicle, apparently determines that it's not going to eat her, and sits on a backless seat.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 02:00 am (UTC)

And Cindy closes the door, gets in the driver's seat, and starts driving.

campanas
2013-11-05 02:00 am (UTC)

Pen fidgets, and peers out the windows.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 02:01 am (UTC)

Soon they are out of the parking garage; after that, they are on the streets of Gotham, at such an hour of the morning that hardly anyone else is. Still a few cars, though.

campanas
2013-11-05 02:02 am (UTC)

"This not so bad as truck," Pen eventually concludes.

She watches the other cars they pass.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 02:27 am (UTC)

"Good," he says cheerfully. The car has a radio; he turns it on. Someone is forecasting the weather.

campanas
2013-11-05 02:28 am (UTC)

"Ick weather," pronounces Pen. "You need angels. No Jovah here to sing though."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 02:33 am (UTC)

"Then I guess we'll just have to live with a little rain."

After weather comes news!

"...Wayne Enterprises was publicly embarrassed yesterday when unknown vandals disguised as window cleaners spray-painted a crooked smiley face on the front of Wayne Tower."

The Joker giggles.

campanas
2013-11-05 02:33 am (UTC)

"Paint sprays?" asks Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 02:45 am (UTC)

"Spray paint does. It's fun," he says happily.

"...associated with the tragic events of June 2008, but there is no indication that the Joker is making a public return."

campanas
2013-11-05 02:45 am (UTC)

"That you!"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 02:48 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "That's part of what I was up to when I went out yesterday."

campanas
2013-11-05 02:48 am (UTC)

"You paint a wall. I draw a wall!" she adds conspiratorially.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 02:50 am (UTC)

"I saw!" he says. "Do you want some more things to draw with?"

campanas
2013-11-05 02:50 am (UTC)

"Yes."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 02:50 am (UTC)

"I'll get you some later," he promises.

campanas
2013-11-05 02:51 am (UTC)

"Yay! I draw wall because of bored," she adds. "You bored, paint wall?"
Edited 2013-11-05 02:52 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:03 am (UTC)

"Mm, not exactly. Remember I told you I might be making a friend?"

campanas
2013-11-05 03:05 am (UTC)

"Yeah?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:13 am (UTC)

"Well, we haven't been sending each other letters exactly. We both know a lot of people, and we're kind of playing a game where we each try to figure out who around here knows the other one. All very secret 'n stuff. He got some people I know arrested last week, so this week I found somebody he knows who works in Wayne Tower and I had some guys paint the outside of the building like my makeup, with a little extra bit of smile right where that person's office is. So now my maybe-friend knows I've found that one, and it's his turn to do something."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:14 am (UTC)

"Ooh. What if he finds me? You know me!"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:16 am (UTC)

"I bet he won't," he says, "'cause you're particularly hidden. As hidden as I am, and it's been four years and nobody's found me yet."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:17 am (UTC)

"So if he do he get so many points."

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:19 am (UTC)

"He sure would."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:20 am (UTC)

"How you win game?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:21 am (UTC)

"Don't know yet. We're making it up as we go along. That's part of the fun."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:22 am (UTC)

Pen giggles. "Iiiif he win you make him waffle?" she suggests.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:22 am (UTC)

"I might!"

campanas
2013-11-05 03:23 am (UTC)

"If you win he make you waffle," Pen continues.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:23 am (UTC)

"I don't know if he's any good at waffles. He could probably find somebody to make me one, though."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:24 am (UTC)

"Cheating," giggles Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:24 am (UTC)

"We-ell, I'd let him. Good waffles with cheating are better than bad waffles played straight."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:26 am (UTC)

"Waffles important? Cheating not?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:28 am (UTC)

"If you have to eat the waffles, yeah."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:29 am (UTC)

"Okay," Pen giggles. "How far place flying?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:32 am (UTC)

"Not that far. A few more minutes."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:33 am (UTC)

"Okay. How long flying?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:35 am (UTC)

"All day, if you want."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:35 am (UTC)

"Eeeee! You want me fly you too?"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:37 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

campanas
2013-11-05 03:37 am (UTC)

Pen claps. She looks merrily out the windows all the rest of the way there.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:47 am (UTC)

They drive past a large building with elaborate fancy architecture covered in pigeon poop, and enter an underground parking garage with no lines painted on the floor. He parks them near some stairs and gets out. It's very dark, but he brought flashlights.

campanas
2013-11-05 03:48 am (UTC)

Pen follows him. In the dark, even with flashlights, she prefers to hold hands.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:56 am (UTC)

That is an entirely reasonable preference which he is happy to accomodate!

Up the stairs, pick a lock, down a hall, pick another lock, down a somewhat prettier hall, and into an

enormous

empty room.

It's still dark. He hunts for lightswitches.

campanas
2013-11-05 03:57 am (UTC)

"Oooh," says Pen, on the basis of the provided light from the flashlights; and then: "Ooooh!" at the acoustics, and she bursts into song, a high fluttery hymn, filling the space.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 04:02 am (UTC)

Cindy beams.

He finds the lights.

There's a stage, and several ranks of balconies going up and up all around the sides, and a huge empty space in the middle of it all where long metal strips on the bare concrete floor hint at an unrealized potential for seating. The white paint is peeling off the pillars that support the balconies, but the brass railings still gleam under a light coating of plaster dust.

campanas
2013-11-05 04:05 am (UTC)

Once Pen can see clearly, she runs, still singing, and flings her wings open, and catches air and flies.

She's not very graceful at first - there's no wind in here, she can't catch any updrafts and isn't making her usual course corrections - but she's strong and eager to be airborne, so she beats her wings harder, and sings and sings.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 04:07 am (UTC)

He perches on the edge of the stage and watches with a smile.

campanas
2013-11-05 04:07 am (UTC)

Eventually, when Pen has the hang of the limited space and the knack of indoor flying, she swoops down on him and, one hand under each of his arms, scoops him up into the air with her.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 04:08 am (UTC)

Cindy laughs gleefully.

campanas
2013-11-05 04:10 am (UTC)

She takes him a couple laps around the hall, then puts him down again - landing in the process, dropping him is potentially unapproved - and takes off again.

"Not floating-up wind here," she informs him when she's aloft once more and her song is over.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 12:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "'Cause we're inside. I could find you someplace outside but it'll take longer."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:56 pm (UTC)

"This okay a little while. And good singing!"

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Mhm! This was supposed to be a concert hall," he says. "But they never finished building it."

campanas
2013-11-05 03:58 pm (UTC)

Pen sings another song, swooping around as high as she can without bumping into the ceiling.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 03:59 pm (UTC)

He giggles quietly.

campanas
2013-11-05 04:00 pm (UTC)

After a few hours, she is tired of flapping so much. She lands on the stage, and finishes her current song, and then folds her wings and yawns and goes up to him and hugs him.

manofmyword
2013-11-05 04:00 pm (UTC)

He hugs back, smiling.

campanas
2013-11-05 04:01 pm (UTC)

She wraps her wings around him and sighs, rather more happily than she has previously sighed, and then says, "Now what?"

manofmyword
2013-11-06 02:29 am (UTC)

Snughug.

"Mm, now we go home and I get you some things to draw with," he says. "Any other stuff you want? More books?"

campanas
2013-11-06 02:30 am (UTC)

"Books're good. I dunno, fun things."

manofmyword
2013-11-06 01:10 pm (UTC)

"Then I'll get you fun things," he promises.

campanas
2013-11-06 05:40 pm (UTC)

Pen hugs him snuggily and then lets him go.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 05:48 pm (UTC)

Back to the car they go, turning out the lights on the way.

campanas
2013-11-06 05:49 pm (UTC)

And soon she is ensconced in his apartment again, peering around the kitchen.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 06:04 pm (UTC)

He goes right back out to acquire things, so she has the run of the place. The kitchen has all the same things in it that it did the last time she looked.

campanas
2013-11-06 06:23 pm (UTC)

She nibbles on some fruit. She's hungry after all that flying.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 06:31 pm (UTC)

And Cindy is back in an hour, carrying a white plastic bag full of things and a large cardboard box.

campanas
2013-11-06 06:32 pm (UTC)

Pen capers up to him. "What things what things?"

manofmyword
2013-11-06 06:41 pm (UTC)

He sets down the large box. It says K'Nex on the side and has colourful pictures of mysterious objects.

"Mmmmarkers," he says, pulling the first thing out of the plastic bag and handing it to her. "Colouring books," second. "Books in general." An almost random selection of five that looked like fun. "And a helicopter!"

The helicopter is in a cardboard box of its very own, and it is the last thing in the bag.

campanas
2013-11-06 06:42 pm (UTC)

"What helicopter?"

manofmyword
2013-11-06 06:50 pm (UTC)

"I'll show ya," he says cheerfully, grabbing a knife to cut open the box. (It's the Joker's apartment. There is always a knife.)

He makes short work of the sticker holding the box shut, and then he takes out the little plastic helicopter with its little remote control, and he supplies them both with batteries, and he shows Pen how to make it go.

campanas
2013-11-06 06:51 pm (UTC)

Pen is enthralled!

manofmyword
2013-11-06 06:54 pm (UTC)

"This is a toy one," he adds, "but there's bigger ones that people fly around in."

campanas
2013-11-06 06:54 pm (UTC)

Pen catches the flying helicopter and peers into its windows. "Heeee," she giggles.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 06:58 pm (UTC)

He grins.

"And there's this stuff," he adds, giving the K'nex box on the floor a gentle, indicative kick. "It looked fun."

campanas
2013-11-06 06:59 pm (UTC)

Pen sets the helicopter down and starts picking at the box. She is not particularly familiar with corrugated cardboard.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:01 pm (UTC)

The Joker helps open this one too!

campanas
2013-11-06 07:02 pm (UTC)

And then she investigates the plastic things, and observes the picture on the box, and starts snapping them together, giggling.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:03 pm (UTC)

He leaves her to it and goes to make a pie.

campanas
2013-11-06 07:03 pm (UTC)

Pen sings and builds things and tries to land her helicopter on the things.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:19 pm (UTC)

The pie is peach. It smells tasty.

campanas
2013-11-06 07:20 pm (UTC)

Pen wants some pie!

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:40 pm (UTC)

She can have as much as she wants!

campanas
2013-11-06 07:40 pm (UTC)

She wants one big slice and then one itty bitty second slice. And then she goes and colors her coloring books.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:42 pm (UTC)

And he cleans up after the pie.

And then he says, "I'm gonna go out again. You wanna do my makeup?"

campanas
2013-11-06 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" beams Pen, hopping to her feet. "I paint you pretty."

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:45 pm (UTC)

He beams. Into the good bathroom they go!

campanas
2013-11-06 07:46 pm (UTC)

Pen arranges the necessary supplies, and sits him down, and hops into his lap, where she sits crosslegged and starts painting.

His ordinary makeup isn't tidy enough for her lack of dexterity to make much visible difference, except there's more smears of pink where the white and red mix, and she draws a smiley face on his left cheek.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:49 pm (UTC)

He examines himself in the mirror and giggles.

"Perfect," he says, hugging her.

campanas
2013-11-06 07:49 pm (UTC)

Hugs! "So pretty!" she asserts.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Mmhm!"

campanas
2013-11-06 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Where you go?" she asks.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Mm, out. Nowhere special. Just gotta talk to a few of those unfriendly people I hang around with."

campanas
2013-11-06 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Pff. Unfriendlies," says Pen. "Go pretty at them."

manofmyword
2013-11-06 07:59 pm (UTC)

"That's the plan!" he says cheerfully, and he gets all dressed up in his nice purple suit, and off he goes.

campanas
2013-11-06 08:00 pm (UTC)

Pen builds things and flies her helicopter and draws (on coloring books and the walls) and sings songs and eats applesauce.

keeping occupied

campanas

Pen waits for somebody to come find her. She knows abstractly that this can go on for years, but she's still alarmed, when it turns out it's going to take more than a week.

At least there is Cindy, even though he isn't her real daddy. Cindy is fun and makes tasty food and brings her presents to keep occupied with and doesn't mind that she draws on the walls and likes it when she sings and takes her to the place with room to fly most days, and lets her paint him pretty. Pen makes elaborate K'nex structures, becomes quite adept at piloting her helicopter (it has room to fly even inside the apartment), and improves at drawing. She learns the lyrics to a lot of Queen songs. She does not go in the dangerous room or out the dangerous door; she's safe but Mommy isn't here to safe Cindy too and Pen can't do it because she's not a mint. She can do other things, though. She can play and read and eat waffles and paint Cindy.

She paints him most of the time, now, and she sings while she does it.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 08:23 pm (UTC)

Tonight, not for the first time, he needs to be painted after dark; he has business with the unfriendly people again. So he brings his makeup out to where Pen is playing in the living room.

campanas
2013-11-06 08:24 pm (UTC)

Pen puts down her K'nex and goes to sit on him for easy access to his face without skipping a beat in the chorale she's singing. Paint paint paint!

manofmyword
2013-11-06 08:25 pm (UTC)

He is going to be so pretty.

pythbox
2013-11-06 08:26 pm (UTC)

Opinions may differ on that.

They are interrupted by someone crashing through the closed window.

campanas
2013-11-06 08:27 pm (UTC)

Pen jumps at the sound, making a smear across Cindy's forehead. "Eek!" she squeaks, twisting around in his lap to look past her wings at the intruder.

pythbox
2013-11-06 08:32 pm (UTC)

The intruder is a man in dull black armour, a black mask with short pointed ears or horns standing up from the top of his head, and a long black cape. He stares at them, frozen with surprise, crouched on the floor amid the spray of broken glass.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Batsy!" exclaims Cindy, half delighted, half admonishing. "Not that I'm not thrilled, but you could've picked a better time."

pythbox
2013-11-06 08:36 pm (UTC)

The costumed man growls.

"Who is this," he says flatly.

campanas
2013-11-06 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Cindy, this your friend who find people?" asks Pen quizzically.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Cindy. "This is Batman. And Iiii would just love to know what - he's - doing here."

campanas
2013-11-06 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Break window," observes Pen. "That what he do here."

manofmyword
2013-11-06 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Mm, but why," he says, "that's the question. I haven't even hardly done anything - not like lllast time."

pythbox
2013-11-06 08:46 pm (UTC)

Batman growls again. It seems to be his only setting.

"Public graffiti," he says, still in that harsh voice with that same flat angry stare. "An office worker with mob ties. You were sending a message. To who?"

manofmyword
2013-11-06 08:47 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

"Not to you," he murmurs. "And yet - here you are. I'm al—most—touched."

campanas
2013-11-06 08:48 pm (UTC)

"You ruin voice talking growly, not sing pretty," Pen advises Batman.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 08:54 pm (UTC)

(Cindy - the Joker - giggles.)

pythbox
2013-11-06 08:56 pm (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-06 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says the Joker, regarding Batman thoughtfully. "You just don't know what to do with yourself, do ya?"

pythbox
2013-11-06 09:10 pm (UTC)

Well. No. He really doesn't.

The Joker has a small child in his apartment. On his lap. Doing his makeup. She seems perfectly happy to be there. (If she were scared, this would be much easier to handle.)

She has wings.

After a long moment, he says (still in that growly voice): "He's a killer, you know." Just in case she doesn't. Just in case she cares.

campanas
2013-11-06 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Mommy fix it later," shrugs Pen.

pythbox
2013-11-06 09:18 pm (UTC)

"...He set a man on fire," says Batman, a hint of incredulity in his customary growl.

campanas
2013-11-06 09:18 pm (UTC)

"She fix it," asserts Pen. "Or other Mommies fix it. Mommies fix stuff."

(But she does draw her wings a little closer to herself when he says "fire".)

pythbox
2013-11-06 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Some things can't be fixed."

campanas
2013-11-06 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Pen. "That not one."

pythbox
2013-11-06 09:25 pm (UTC)

His eyes flick up to the Joker's half-painted face.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Don't look at me," he says.

pythbox
2013-11-06 09:30 pm (UTC)

Batman does look at him - looks at both of them, for a few silent seconds.

Then he turns and disappears out the broken window.

campanas
2013-11-06 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Unfriendly," comments Pen.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 09:32 pm (UTC)

The Joker laughs softly. "Yeah, he really is."

campanas
2013-11-06 09:32 pm (UTC)

Pen does her best to fix the smear she made while startled. "What do for window?"

manofmyword
2013-11-06 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Pick up all that broken glass, for a start," he says. "You can help if you want. Then I guess I'll go find something to cover it with."

campanas
2013-11-06 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Paint first?"

manofmyword
2013-11-06 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Mmhm!"

campanas
2013-11-06 09:36 pm (UTC)

Pen finishes painting him, then hops off his lap and starts picking up glass.

manofmyword
2013-11-06 09:38 pm (UTC)

Cindy helps. They get it all cleaned up - he drags a vacuum out of the back of a closet to make sure - and then he goes out.

campanas
2013-11-06 09:39 pm (UTC)

Pen walks out through the broken window, wings folded discreetly behind her, to see if she can watch him go from the roof.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 12:38 am (UTC)

Off he trots, carrying the bag they collected the glass in and the bag out of the vacuum with all the extra little bits in it. He climbs down the tree and crosses the park and turns down the street out of sight.

(Batman is going to do one of two things now that they're apart. But the Joker expects that if he didn't try to grab Pen right out of his lap, he's not going to try it now. Why would the Joker be an inhibiting presence? It's not as if he was holding her hostage, a fact which even Batman clearly noticed, or that conversation would have gone... differently.)

pythbox
2013-11-07 12:42 am (UTC)

His guess was correct.

A nearly silent flutter, a nearly invisible shadow, and the Bat is on him, knocking the bags - potential weapons - out of his hands, grabbing the back of his jacket to hurl him into a wall.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 12:47 am (UTC)

That's the stuff.

"Just like old times," he sighs. "Me, I'm getting soft in my old age, but yoouuu—" the sudden shift in emphasis caused not by whim this time but by Batman punching him in the back of the head "—you're the same old Bat."

Both hands braced on the brick wall that is now marked with a smear of face paint, he turns around slowly. There he is, in all his glory. Gotham's dark knight. Oh, he never thought he'd see the day. Not after Dent - not after Dawes - not after four years without a whisper of his best enemy.

pythbox
2013-11-07 12:51 am (UTC)

"I'm not here to reminisce," he says in his best gravel-chewing terror-of-the-night voice. Odd how it all comes back. Like it was yesterday.

"I want to know what game you're playing."

manofmyword
2013-11-07 01:02 am (UTC)

He lets out a wheezing giggle.

"Are you really that incapabllle of believing that something - just - doesn't - concern you?" He could stand on his own now, but he leans back against the wall instead, smoothing his gloved hands over his pockets but deliberately not tucking them in because he wouldn't want to give the wrong impression. "And I thought I had it bad," he continues, with a sympathetic shake of his head.

pythbox
2013-11-07 01:13 am (UTC)

He growls, but doesn't bother making a physical threat. It's all too obvious in hindsight that the Joker doesn't find violence a significant motivator.

(In fact, he - no. Some things are just too disturbing to contemplate.)

"I want. To know. What. You're. Doing," he enunciates.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 01:17 am (UTC)

"Mm, well," he says. "I assume you know that after your little - sleight of hand - with Dent, Gotham's crime took a turn for the distinctly disorganized. Or you would've come back sooner." He cocks his head inquisitively. "Ah-huh?"

pythbox
2013-11-07 01:17 am (UTC)

Grudgingly, he nods.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 01:21 am (UTC)

"Well, I don't know about you, but I have been keeping tabs on that scene." He quirks a smile. "In between... en-ter-tainments. And you know, it was quiet enough for long enough that I almost thought it was just..." he shrugs, "over for good. But of course good and Gotham have never been the best of friends."

pythbox
2013-11-07 01:22 am (UTC)

"Get to the point, Joker."

manofmyword
2013-11-07 01:33 am (UTC)

"Why?" he says cheerfully.

pythbox
2013-11-07 01:34 am (UTC)

He almost makes a move, almost grabs the Joker again to shake it out of him, but then checks himself. Barely a twitch, all in all.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 01:45 am (UTC)

"Not the same bat after all," he murmurs, and grins.

"So. There've been a couple squeaks and grumbles over the years, but never anything - serioussss. Until a few months ago. Then I start hearing there's somebody new in town. The new blood isn't even based in Gotham. Whoever this is, they're big." He opens his hands sharply, bouncing them outward, to demonstrate the bigness. "And noooobody's talkinnng, which let me tell you, is nnot usually the case when I start asking questions."

He smiles crookedly.

"But then, you'd know, wouldn't ya?"

pythbox
2013-11-07 01:49 am (UTC)

Know what? That the Joker is more intimidating than he is? He's not likely to forget it.

(What it's like when you're used to frightening answers out of people and then it doesn't work anymore? That too. He's getting a fresh reminder now, in fact.)

He doesn't repeat his demands for information, just waits. Still and silent. Watching. Some people would be terrified, but Batman is not sure the Joker even feels fear. It would be far too human of him.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 01:52 am (UTC)

"So of course I just had to know more. I squeezed a few people - you don't need the details."

pythbox
2013-11-07 01:53 am (UTC)

(Breathe. Just breathe.)

manofmyword
2013-11-07 01:58 am (UTC)

"And I found out that the new outfit is extrrrremely professional, veeery tidy, and answers to a guy calling himself Moriarty. I love it! Don't you love it? It's so charming," he says. "Nobody knows who he is or where he lives. It's all a big mystery. Fun and exciting, don'tcha think?"

pythbox
2013-11-07 01:58 am (UTC)

"No," he says. Flatly.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 02:10 am (UTC)

The Joker sighs wistfully. "Nnnoo. Of course not. Anyway, funny thing, a week after I tickled his toes this literary enthusiast started trying to clean me out! Can you believe it? We've been going back and forth," his hands sway left and then right in time with the words, "ever since. I threaten his people, he has mine followed. He sends my people to jail - amazing resources this guy has, honestly, I'm impressed - and I impersonate a window washer and commit a little vandalism. Which," he adds, "is somehow enough to bring you out of the woodwork - I have to wonder why, I really do."

pythbox
2013-11-07 02:14 am (UTC)

He should have known coming here would be a mistake.

(He had to know.)

"Too far into the public eye," he says, giving nothing away. "I had to know if you were picking up old habits."

manofmyword
2013-11-07 02:19 am (UTC)

The Joker grins, slowly, enjoying the moment.

"I wasn't," he says, "but I could."

pythbox
2013-11-07 02:19 am (UTC)

He actually shudders.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 02:21 am (UTC)

The Joker, not to put too fine a point on it, cracks up. He loses the support of the wall in so doing, and stumbles forward almost into Batman, giggling helplessly.

pythbox
2013-11-07 02:28 am (UTC)

...Not for the first time tonight, Batman honestly has no idea what to do.

He could leave the Joker on the roof of the MCU for Commissioner Gordon to find - he's at least confident that this time there will be no exploding minions - but he has no illusions about the ease of getting him there. Letting himself be knocked around is one thing; the Joker isn't going to lie down for an arrest unless it's in his game plan. And then there's the kid. But if he leaves the Joker loose, what's to stop him from getting ideas? A repeat performance of that is the last thing Gotham needs.

So he just... waits.
Edited 2013-11-07 02:43 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-07 02:45 am (UTC)

He sobers eventually, straightening up from his doubled-over hysteria.

"Somebody's all grown up," he says with a fond little smile.

pythbox
2013-11-07 02:45 am (UTC)

It's as good a segue as any.

"Who's the girl?"

manofmyword
2013-11-07 02:56 am (UTC)

"None of your business," he says amicably.

pythbox
2013-11-07 02:57 am (UTC)

...

He finds that... strangely hard to argue with.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 03:06 am (UTC)

The Joker leaves those words hanging in the air for a long moment, watching Batman watch him.

Then he says, softly, evenly, "Just about kills you to find out I'm human, doesn't it?"

pythbox
2013-11-07 03:06 am (UTC)

He flinches—almost snarls—bites it back.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 03:10 am (UTC)

"That was always half your problem," he continues thoughtfully. "To you, some people are people, and some people are monsters."

pythbox
2013-11-07 03:12 am (UTC)

He shouldn't ask. The Joker might not be playing his games with all of Gotham - yet - but that doesn't make him less dangerous. He cannot be allowed to take control of this conversation.

But Batman is curious. He's never seen the Joker this unguarded. It might be something he can use.

"What's the other half?"

manofmyword
2013-11-07 03:51 am (UTC)

"When I was a kid I read this adorable little story," he says, "where the Birds and the Beasts went to war. The Birds wanted the Bat on their team - figured having wings was good enough for them. But he said no, he's fuzzy and has a soft little nose, that makes him a Beast, right? So then the Beasts ask him to join their team."

He leans forward, away from the wall, and looks up into Batman's eyes.

"Can you guess what he said?"

pythbox
2013-11-07 03:54 am (UTC)

...This is more than he signed up for.

But he knows the answer. And knows where the Joker is going with it, much as he might wish he didn't.

"He said no," he says. Reluctantly.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 03:55 am (UTC)

The Joker flashes a grin. "Got it in one. He can't be a Beast, see, he's got these flappy little—" he reaches out and flicks the edge of Batman's cape with a fingertip "—wings."
Edited 2013-11-07 04:08 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-11-07 04:48 am (UTC)

He scowls and smacks the Joker's hand away, realizing just slightly too late that this is exactly the reaction he was intended to have.

It is past time to cut his losses here.

(He is abruptly reminded that he has seen the Joker this unguarded. Once. The words 'you complete me' in that hushed tone of absolute sincerity are still burned into his mind.)

Coming here really was the worst thing he could've done, wasn't it? Here he is with more questions than answers, and an uncomfortable sense that the Joker has just explained the last decade of his life with a single slightly twisted Aesop reference. And if he goes home and the Joker takes this conversation as a reason to get back into the game the way he did four years ago, there is nothing Batman can do to stop him. He made sure of that when he took the fall for Harvey Dent. Gotham doesn't need him anymore.

Which leaves him... where? A mammal with wings. Not a monster like the Joker, or Dent himself, or Crane, or Ra's... but not a person, either.

"You're wrong," he says finally, knowing as he says it that it's worse than futile. "I chose my side."

manofmyword
2013-11-07 04:51 am (UTC)

The Joker shrugs fluidly. "Who are you arguing with? I don't believe in monsters. Just people, doing what people do."

pythbox
2013-11-07 02:58 pm (UTC)

"Everyone's a monster to you," he growls, remembering (...these civilized people, they'll eat each other.)

manofmyword
2013-11-07 03:30 pm (UTC)

He grins again.

"Nahhh. We can be vicious little weasels sometimes, I'll give you that, we mmmortals. But we don't come in these neat - little - categories. Good and evil, guilty and innocent—nobody's all one thing or the otherrr." He straightens his jacket, tugging the panels flat. "And now you're gonna tell me I'm just saying that to cover for what a vicious weasel I am. Aren'tcha."

pythbox
2013-11-07 03:32 pm (UTC)

Deeply and increasingly uncomfortable, he closes his mouth on just such an accusation.

Instead he says: "Why are you telling me this?"

manofmyword
2013-11-07 03:34 pm (UTC)

The Joker shrugs. "I saw the opportunity, and I took it. I like you, you know, I honestly do. Flaws and all. I've missed you all these years. Nobody else throws me off buildings like you do."

pythbox
2013-11-07 03:40 pm (UTC)

—He almost laughs. It's absurd.

If he ever had control of this conversation, he has lost it and then some.

He steps back. A stray bit of glass from the dropped bags crunches under his boot. Should he make some last comment, some parting shot? The Joker would just take it as encouragement. Like a playground bully, the best response is ignoring him until he goes away.

(It rarely worked that well on playground bullies, either.)

Finally he just turns and walks away. He is almost sure the Joker isn't carrying a concealed gun, and almost sure he wouldn't use it if he did, but his shoulderblades itch with that tiny remaining uncertainty until he's around a corner and out of sight.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 03:45 pm (UTC)

The Joker walks on, abandoning the bags of broken glass. He still has business to do tonight, and he's going to have to get something to cover that window with on his way back.

Oh, it would be so much fun to play the old game again. Especially now that he knows Batman's watching.

(And what was it exactly about that charming little act of vandalism that caught the Bat's eye? It was the most public and obvious thing the Joker's done in a while, that's true. But as an explanation, it just doesn't - quite - feel right. Well, he has time to think about it.)

It's several hours before he comes home, carrying a large board to tape over the window frame. It'll do for now. They'll have to move anyway; as charming as that little visit was, Cindy isn't keen on a repeat.

campanas
2013-11-07 04:10 pm (UTC)

He finds Pen trying to figure out why her helicopter won't work (she doesn't really understand batteries). She abandons this mystery to help him hold the board in place. "How was people?" she asks.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Boring," he says. The tricky part is taping it so they can still open and close the window, but he manages it with effort and ingenuity.

campanas
2013-11-07 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

manofmyword
2013-11-07 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Why were they boring? I don't know. They probably can't help it."

campanas
2013-11-07 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Why you go, if boring?"

manofmyword
2013-11-07 08:47 pm (UTC)

"'Cause they're gonna help me with something," he says. "There." He stands back and dusts off his hands. "Window's done; now I'm going to bed."

campanas
2013-11-07 08:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm hungry," objects Pen. He was gone a while.

manofmyword
2013-11-07 08:48 pm (UTC)

He yawns.

"Mmkay, I'll make dinner first."

But he is tired, so it will be unelaborate. Tasty, but unelaborate.

campanas
2013-11-07 08:49 pm (UTC)

Pen doesn't complain. She eats, and then she reads a little bit, and then she kerflops into bed too.

Another week passes.

She draws a lot of gems in all colors, attached to all sorts of jewelry, especially bracelets like her own - like her mother's - and occasionally has moping fits, but mostly proceeds with equanimity from day to day.

Sometimes Cindy leaves the news on; Pen is interested in the concept of television but not the news in particular.

With help, she solves the helicopter mystery and it soon flies around again.
Edited 2013-11-08 02:26 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-08 02:33 am (UTC)

And then one day, Cindy comes back from one of his trips outside to say,

"I found us a bigger place to live! With an enormous bathtub."

campanas
2013-11-08 02:36 am (UTC)

"Yay!" Her wings are getting kind of dingy in the places she can't reach by hand.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 02:38 am (UTC)

"Pack up whatever stuff you wanna keep and we'll truck it all over there."

campanas
2013-11-08 02:39 am (UTC)

Pen puts her K'nex in their box, and finds something else to put her other toys and supplies in.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 03:07 am (UTC)

Cindy packs himself three big boxes and one backpack. The backpack contains books and music; the boxes contain clothes and weapons, many of them taken out of the dangerous room, and the last half of the last box is filled with all his sewing supplies. It's a chore wrestling everything down to the van he obtained for the occasion, but once they get there, it all fits with room to spare for Pen and a pile of pillows for her to sit on.

The drive takes a while. When they get there, he pulls the truck around to the little parking lot behind the building and lets Pen out of the back.

"See up there," he says, pointing to the second floor, "that balcony with all the fake plants on it? That's ours."

campanas
2013-11-08 03:08 am (UTC)

"In window?" she asks. "I fly up?"

manofmyword
2013-11-08 03:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "Bring whatever stuff you wanna carry; I'll take the rest up a different way."

campanas
2013-11-08 03:15 am (UTC)

Pen takes up one of her bags, flapflapflap, and she makes a rather neat landing on the balcony and tries the window.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 03:29 am (UTC)

It's a sliding glass door, and therefore opens differently from the previous window, but it still opens just fine.

Inside, there is a very large living room adjoining a very large kitchen, with a hallway just to her left leading to an oddly constructed bedroom. In the bedroom, past an assortment of desks and a very large walk-in closet lined with wardrobes on both sides, there is the bathroom containing the promised bathtub.

campanas
2013-11-08 03:30 am (UTC)

Pen sets about exploring. A bath can wait.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 03:47 am (UTC)

While she is exploring, the Joker ferries boxes in the front door, then starts unpacking them. His sewing equipment sprawls across the assortment of desks in the bedroom's bizarre anteroom; clothes find their way into wardrobes; the music and books pile up next to one of the numerous couches. Various weaponry gets tucked away in closets and drawers.

campanas
2013-11-08 03:51 am (UTC)

Eventually Pen has observed all of the rooms, and then she tries to figure out the plumbing. She thought she had Earth taps down, but apparently they vary, residence to residence.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 03:54 am (UTC)

The plumbing, while unfamiliar, is functional and not too difficult to master.

campanas
2013-11-08 03:54 am (UTC)

Pen starts drawing herself a nice big bath.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 03:58 am (UTC)

Cindy makes dinner, leaves her some, and flops onto one of those numerous couches to sleep.

campanas
2013-11-08 03:59 am (UTC)

Pen gets squeaky clean, wings and all, and then eats the remaining dinner, and then flops onto the bed.

moved house

campanas

Pen likes the new apartment. It's bigger, she has new walls to draw on (she's got paper, too, but sometimes she wants to do a proper mural), and she doesn't have grit under her feathers anymore.

She gets left alone a lot, though. Cindy is out doing things all the time. He doesn't have as much time to take her to the flying place. (Once, when he is out and she can't even ask, she hops out over the patio balcony onto the neighboring roof, and checks to see if there is anybody around, and flies a little bit, low and owl-quiet. She doesn't think anybody sees.) She builds elaborate structures. She solicits another box of pieces.

He leaves the news on, a lot. Pen mostly ignores it. She knows English, technically, but the pentagon didn't tell her the concepts her upbringing has left her missing.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 04:26 am (UTC)

And then one day Cindy is making lunch and listening to the TV with half an ear, and the news anchor interrupts himself in midsentence.

"...of more than—oh my God."

The Joker bolts out of the kitchen just in time to catch the replay of the collapsing football field. He watches the screen intently, scrambling onto the closest couch for a better view, and the voiceover notes shakily that this is now coming in live as the camera pans over the flaming ruin that used to be part of the stands. Specifically, he is informed, the part of the stands containing the mayor of Gotham.

campanas
2013-11-08 04:27 am (UTC)

Well, Cindy appears to find this exciting, and it's delaying her lunch. Pen goes and watches when he runs.

She frowns at the television.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 04:40 am (UTC)

And out comes a large, powerfully built man wearing a strange mask, and he addresses the people of Gotham in a garbled but comprehensible voice. The Joker hears the words, but he's less interested in them than he is in the person doing the speaking. This has to be the new player in town, the one who's been stirring things up, the source of that strange mood that's been spreading through Gotham's criminal element like a nasty flu. Nobody knew anything, but everybody felt it. And now here he is making his play.

He has a sense of theatre, at least, when he brings out that scientist type and has him identify the big round thing as a nuclear bomb.

"Who can disarm it?"

"Only me."

As soon as he hears that, the Joker winces preemptively; half a second later, the masked man breaks the physicist's neck. Of course. How could he do anything else, with a setup like that? Telegraphs the punchline from a mile away. Effective, though, all the same.

campanas
2013-11-08 04:42 am (UTC)

Pen ducks behind the sofa when it's clear someone's going to be hurt onscreen.

She peeks.

She whimpers, "I not have wishes. Can't make them."

manofmyword
2013-11-08 04:52 am (UTC)

"A little magic sure would be handy right now," he murmurs, eyes locked on the screen as Bane orates about the ultimate nobility of his cause and just how fucked everyone is going to be if they don't toe the line.

Part of him is falling a little bit in love, but most of him is going in quite the opposite direction. This Bane guy has a talent for public speaking, but when you look at his actions, it becomes obvious that this is not someone with the best interests of any part of Gotham at heart. This is a con, and it's a con that's going to end with the city of Gotham becoming a glowing hole in the ground - if the part about the nuclear bomb is true, which he has to assume it is.

campanas
2013-11-08 04:52 am (UTC)

"I only - safed. Is all my magic."

manofmyword
2013-11-08 04:57 am (UTC)

"'S all right," he says distractedly. "I'll get this numbnuts sorted any which way."

Just as soon as he thinks of a plan.

campanas
2013-11-08 04:59 am (UTC)

"Okay," sighs Pen. She climbs over the back of the sofa to flop half into his lap.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 05:02 am (UTC)

He hugs her and keeps watching. He's going to have to track down reruns of this; he isn't taking in one word in five. The emotions are more important right now, anyway. Bane is calm, controlled, projecting benevolent superiority.

And then Bane is leaving.

The Joker rubs his face with both hands, hard. A few stray smears of makeup smear further. Now the news people are stuttering some more. He isn't interested. They can't tell him anything he wants to know.

He has to think. He has to—mm. Maybe. Not his usual style, but this is not a usual situation.

First things first, though.

"You get what the guy on TV was saying?" he asks, looking down at Pen.
Edited 2013-11-08 15:25 (UTC)

campanas
2013-11-08 05:28 pm (UTC)

"...Some?" Pen says. "The thing can..." She snuggles up, thinking. "Like thing hurt Shell Bell? Same word, 'nuke'. Wards better now but only me..."

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Mhm," he says. "He said he'll kill everybody in Gotham if anyone tries to leave or take his bomb away, and he wants to show us something tomorrow. I'm pretty sure that whatever he's doing, killing everybody in Gotham is gonna figure into it at some point, even though he didn't say so. So I wanna figure out how to take the bomb away without him setting it off. And I think I'm gonna see if Batman wants to help me with that."

campanas
2013-11-08 06:06 pm (UTC)

"The unfriendly man," remembers Pen. "Will he?"

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Don't know yet," he says. "I think I'll have to spend a night at the old place. And I'm gonna have to, mm, make a call first." He glances into the kitchen. "I'll finish lunch first, but then I gotta go. Will you be okay without me? I'll probably be back tomorrow morning. You can talk to me the magic way if you get lonely or run into trouble."

campanas
2013-11-08 06:15 pm (UTC)

"What for dinner though?"

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Leftover lunch?" he suggests.

campanas
2013-11-08 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Pen, in the voice of someone nobly making a great sacrifice.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

He hugs her again, then bounces to his feet to finish making lunch. There is plenty to be left over; he barely eats before he scrambles into a hat and jacket and out the front door.

campanas
2013-11-08 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Bye!" calls Pen. She eats lunch at a more leisurely pace. She watches some TV.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:27 pm (UTC)

The Joker makes some arrangements.

While the news is mostly occupied with discussion of Bane and his threat, several channels do find time as the afternoon wears on to mention that Wayne Tower has been vandalized again: someone spraypainted CALL ME across the back of the building, in black letters outlined sloppily in red over a background of white scribbles. Although the message is large enough to be seen from a distance, no one has yet come forward to report witnessing the crime.

campanas
2013-11-08 06:29 pm (UTC)

Pen doesn't bother to turn the TV off, but she loses interest after a while. She amuses herself as best she can and doesn't bother Cindy. Eventually she goes to bed.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:38 pm (UTC)

And the Joker goes back to the apartment they vacated only a short while before. He doesn't know how long he'll have to wait. He doesn't know if Batman will even show. Maybe one monster seems as good as another to him. Maybe he crashed his newest mystery vehicle after that rumoured chase a while back, and he's at the bottom of a river right now waiting for some unlucky soul to dredge him up. No telling.

So he cleans out the fridge, puts on his makeup from what he left here when they moved, dismantles the deadly traps on the front door, and settles in to see what happens.

pythbox
2013-11-08 06:39 pm (UTC)

He does get a visitor, but it's not the visitor he expected.

A few hours after sunset, someone knocks on the door.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:40 pm (UTC)

That is not Batman. He took down the traps because he didn't need them anymore; he didn't expect anyone to actually come in that way.

He gets up and peers through the spyhole to see who on Earth it could be.

pythbox
2013-11-08 06:43 pm (UTC)

A young man with an unfamiliar face, in plain clothes but still obviously a cop. He isn't carrying his gun openly, but that doesn't mean he's not carrying it, and that is definitely a bulletproof vest under that jacket.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:43 pm (UTC)

Well, well, well.

He opens the door.

pythbox
2013-11-08 06:48 pm (UTC)

The stranger doesn't flinch even slightly. No fear, no surprise.

"Batman couldn't make it," he says. "My name's John Blake. Can we talk?"

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:49 pm (UTC)

"Curiouser and curiouser," the Joker murmurs. "You come right on in, Johnny."

He steps back with an inviting sweep of his arm.

pythbox
2013-11-08 06:56 pm (UTC)

He scans the room as he enters, tensely alert; he's not afraid, but he's not stupid, either. All he sees is a lot of beat-up secondhand furniture, an ancient TV, playing cards scattered on the floor, drawings on the walls, and a spotless kitchen. No men in clown masks waiting to ambush him.

He's not sure if that's a good thing.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 06:57 pm (UTC)

"So what held up Batsy?" he says, locking the front door and sauntering past Blake to plop himself onto the couch.

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:04 pm (UTC)

"He went to confront Bane. Didn't come back," John says succinctly. "What do you want?"

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:06 pm (UTC)

"No-o," he says, drawing out the sound as he looks up at Blake. "You first. Why are you here?"

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Because I don't think you're connected to - that," he says with a wave at the dark and silent TV. "And I wanted to know what you're after. Just 'Call me'? No dead bodies, no kidnappings, no bomb threats? From you that's practically two doves carrying an olive branch."

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:10 pm (UTC)

He chuckles. "How old were you four years ago?"

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Not that young," he says, raising his eyebrows.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Not that old, either. And you weren't a cop."

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:18 pm (UTC)

"...Are you going somewhere with this?"

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:28 pm (UTC)

He grins. "Maybe. All right, I'll lay out my cards. I want this new kid and his toy nuke the hell out of Gotham. Last I saw Batsy we managed to talk for five minutes without anybody doing any violence, so I thought I'd see if he wanted to help. Too many people all trying to move on this at once - I'm sure you can imagine." He makes an illustrative blowing-up gesture. "No good. Gotta work together. Less chance of somebody fucking it up that way."

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:28 pm (UTC)

He shifts his weight, perhaps uncomfortably.

"And I should believe you because...?"

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:34 pm (UTC)

"You already do," the Joker informs him. "The real question is, what're you bringing to the table here? I've got people. Resources. Not a lot, maybe not enough, but something. You? You're a rookie cop with a line to a man who's probably dead, and we can't count on him either way. From where I'm standinnng, you're just one more gun, and I'm not short'a those."

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:35 pm (UTC)

"You're not standing anywhere," says John. "You're sitting down."

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:35 pm (UTC)

He declines to dignify that with a response.

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:40 pm (UTC)

John sighs. "All right, all right. No, I don't have much right now. But if you're serious about this, I can't believe you'd turn away help just because it doesn't come with a tank."

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Maybe not. But if you're hiding any tanks, I wanna know about 'em. Sooner before later. I'm betting that whatever this guy whips out tomorrow isn't gonna be something I'd want in my Christmas stocking."

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:44 pm (UTC)

"No tanks," he says, with a hint of a half-concealed smile.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Mm, but something," the Joker guesses. "Something worth a little more than your," he grins, "pretty face."

pythbox
2013-11-08 07:48 pm (UTC)

Despite himself, John flinches at the combination of that emphasis with the Joker's wide red smile.

manofmyword
2013-11-08 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Oooooh, this little piggy's got some squeal in him after all," he says, and laughs. "Don't fret, I'm just teasing."

pythbox
2013-11-08 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Ha ha," he says flatly. "Let's be clear about something here. We might be working together on this, and I might not have been with the force in '08, but you're still a terrorist and a cop-killer and if I ever think you're about to seriously hurt someone I don't want seriously hurt, I will shoot you."

manofmyword
2013-11-08 08:15 pm (UTC)

The Joker scoffs. "And what makes you think you could shoot me?"
Edited 2013-11-08 20:32 (UTC)

mylegalname
2013-11-09 03:42 am (UTC)

He's a little scared—who wouldn't be—but he's more exasperated.

"Are we really gonna do this?"

manofmyword
2013-11-09 03:46 am (UTC)

"You tell me, Johnny." He tugs on the lapels of his suit jacket, straightening them. "'Cause if you're gonna threaten me..." He grins. "Better be sure you mean it!"

mylegalname
2013-11-09 03:51 am (UTC)

"I wasn't threatening you," he says, controlling the urge to raise his hands placatingly; he doubts the Joker would appreciate it. "I was just making sure you know where we stand."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:03 am (UTC)

"Suuuure," he says. "I make you uncomfortable, you start talking about when you would hypothetically shoot me." He sniffs and straightens his jacket again. "Typical."

mylegalname
2013-11-09 04:13 am (UTC)

...okay, he can kind of see the Joker's point. That's disturbing.

He discards several responses that amount to 'you started it', because that seems like it would be really unhelpful right now, and is left with...

"You're right," he says—reluctantly, but he says it. "I was out of line."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:14 am (UTC)

"Huh," says the Joker, impressed. "I wouldn't have thought you had that in you."

mylegalname
2013-11-09 04:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, well, don't expect me to make a habit of it."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:16 am (UTC)

He grins.

"You know what, Johnny? I think I lllike you."

mylegalname
2013-11-09 04:17 am (UTC)

"Just what I've always wanted," he says dryly. "And could you stop calling me Johnny?"

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:18 am (UTC)

"Make me," he challenges.

mylegalname
2013-11-09 04:19 am (UTC)

Much to his own surprise, John starts laughing.
Edited 2013-11-09 04:20 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:24 am (UTC)

The Joker bounces in his seat and claps his hands gleefully.

mylegalname
2013-11-09 03:20 pm (UTC)

It's... he feels like 'adorable' should definitely not be the right word, but it kind of is.

manofmyword
2013-11-09 03:54 pm (UTC)

"This is going to be funnn," he proclaims.

mylegalname
2013-11-09 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Fun. Sure."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:08 pm (UTC)

"What?" he says, amused. "Don't tell me you were expecting all serious all the time. Not from the Joker."

mylegalname
2013-11-09 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Okay, no," John concedes. "That would clearly be too much to ask. You know," he adds, while they're on the subject, "I used to think at least some of it was an act."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:14 pm (UTC)

"And what do you think nnnow?"

mylegalname
2013-11-09 04:50 pm (UTC)

He considers the question for a few seconds.

At last: "I've definitely lost all illusions about your sense of humour."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:50 pm (UTC)

He cackles.

mylegalname
2013-11-09 04:50 pm (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-09 04:57 pm (UTC)

"You're funny," the Joker accuses, grinning broadly. "On purpose! That is a rare distinction."

mylegalname
2013-11-09 04:58 pm (UTC)

Caught up in the interplay, he asks without fully considering the consequences, "Do I get a prize?"
Edited 2013-11-09 16:59 (UTC)

manofmyword
2013-11-09 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Don't tempt me, honey."

mylegalname
2013-11-09 05:03 pm (UTC)

...well that is not a direction he expected this conversation to go. Although maybe he should have. Unless he's imagining things? No, he is not imagining 'honey', and he's not imagining that smile, either. Should he say something? He probably should have said something several seconds ago.

manofmyword
2013-11-09 05:04 pm (UTC)

The Joker just grins at him.

mylegalname
2013-11-09 05:11 pm (UTC)

"...We need a way to keep in touch," he says, well aware of certain implications but unable to think of a better way to steer the conversation away from the Joker flirting with him. At least this is a legitimate practical concern. "Graffiti is notoriously insecure."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, I'll come up with something," he says. "Who else knows I used to live here?"

mylegalname
2013-11-09 05:14 pm (UTC)

"In Gotham? Me."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Then how about we meet back here tomorrow night?"

mylegalname
2013-11-09 05:15 pm (UTC)

Well, it's better than meeting at his place. "Sure."

manofmyword
2013-11-09 05:17 pm (UTC)

"And you think about your hypothetical tanks, and I'll think about - everything else."

mylegalname
2013-11-09 05:18 pm (UTC)

"It's a deal," he says, and (just to see what happens?) holds out his hand.

manofmyword
2013-11-09 05:19 pm (UTC)

The Joker stands up and shakes it firmly. No tricks.

mylegalname
2013-11-09 05:21 pm (UTC)

He can't decide if that's reassuring.

There's a name for cops who turn their backs on the Joker, and it's usually not 'alive and healthy'. But right now he thinks it's more important to make the point. He turns and walks out without a backward glance.

manofmyword
2013-11-09 05:22 pm (UTC)

Well, well, well.

The next morning, he's back in his new home, asleep on a couch with the news going quietly on the TV close by.

campanas
2013-11-09 05:23 pm (UTC)

Pen wakes up. She rummages for breakfast she can handle herself, finds nothing appealing, and sits on Cindy.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 02:06 am (UTC)

He yelps, opens his eyes, and grins at her. "G'morning, sweetheart. Do I need to make breakfast?"

campanas
2013-11-10 03:06 am (UTC)

"Yeah! I hungry."

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:06 am (UTC)

"Mkay. Lemme up, then."

campanas
2013-11-10 03:07 am (UTC)

She hops off of him. "How things doing?" she asks.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:12 am (UTC)

"Well, Batman's probably dead, but I talked to somebody who might be able to help anyway. Your magic brainphone thing, how's it work? Can anybody do it?"

He wanders into the kitchen and starts making breakfast while he talks.

campanas
2013-11-10 03:15 am (UTC)

"I can put people brainphoned. Those people not do same thing though. Mommies make it so you put putter people. I put regular people."

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:16 am (UTC)

"Can you put just anybody? I want to be able to talk to this guy that way. It'll save a lot of trouble."

campanas
2013-11-10 03:17 am (UTC)

"Have to know what anybody. Not know guy."

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:19 am (UTC)

"How 'bout if you came back to the old place with me tonight and met him?"

campanas
2013-11-10 03:19 am (UTC)

"Then sure."

She gets to go someplace!

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:20 am (UTC)

"All right."

Breakfast is served! Breakfast is delicious.

campanas
2013-11-10 03:21 am (UTC)

Om nom nom.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:24 am (UTC)

Nom nom!

After breakfast, he sits in front of the TV and turns up the news while he does maintenance on all his guns.

campanas
2013-11-10 03:25 am (UTC)

Pen peers at the guns. She has never seen these objects before!

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:29 am (UTC)

"These're dangerous," he says. "They're some of what I was keeping in that room I told you not to go into. They won't blow anything up, but they could still kill somebody if you mess around with them."

campanas
2013-11-10 03:31 am (UTC)

"Won't," Pen agrees.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:31 am (UTC)

He glances up from his work to smile at her.

campanas
2013-11-10 03:33 am (UTC)

She watches from a safe non-tampering distance.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:53 am (UTC)

It's not particularly interesting, but it seems to absorb all his attention.

Except that when he is most of the way through, a little before lunchtime, the news anchor says the words "...live from the steps of Blackgate Prison" and he puts down the shotgun he was examining and looks up intently at the screen.

Bane is there, climbing out of a vehicle with an interestingly familiar silhouette. He'll have to see if John knows anything about that. Maybe it's just a coincidence.

Symbol of oppression, yeah, sure. The Dent Act is fucked up from the inside out, but the Joker still isn't buying what Bane is selling. Burn a picture of Dent, yeah, good one. It's a pity there are no pictures of what he looked like with half his face burned off. But what's this? He knows. Bane says 'the truth about Harvey Dent' like someone who understands exactly what he's talking about.

"Jimmy's gonna pop," the Joker murmurs when Bane starts quoting from Commissioner Gordon's unpublished, undelivered resignation speech. "If they haven't killed him yet."

The speech rolls on, all the way to the end. Bane's delivery is perfect.

'The things we did in Harvey's name brought desperately needed security to our streets... But I can no longer live with my lie. It is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth, and it is time for me to resign.'

And of course Bane asks the crowd, "Do you accept this man's resignation?" And of course they start cheering. He's got them in the palm of his hand now. On he goes, all about taking Gotham back from the wealthy and the corrupt and giving it to the people. Well, that would sure be nice, except for that tiny insignificant problem of the nuclear bomb he's got rolling through the streets. Fat chance of anybody else remembering that now, though.

They bust into the prison and let everybody out. Arming them on the way, of course. Bane keeps talking. He's good at that.

The Joker watches.

campanas
2013-11-10 03:56 am (UTC)

Pen watches too. It's unclear how much of it she's following.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 03:59 am (UTC)

Eventually that speech, too, winds down. The Joker stares at the screen for a moment, lost in thought, after they cut away from the prison; then he shakes his head and picks up the shotgun again.

campanas
2013-11-10 03:59 am (UTC)

Pen snuggles under his arm, obstructing him a little but not all that much.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:00 am (UTC)

He can work with it. He hugs her and keeps right on going.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:01 am (UTC)

She is quiet and thoughtful.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:05 am (UTC)

In only a few more minutes, he finishes the rest. And hugs her properly.

"How're you doing?"

campanas
2013-11-10 04:06 am (UTC)

"Want Mommy find me, fix all things."

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

campanas
2013-11-10 04:08 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:08 am (UTC)

In the meantime, there are hugs.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:08 am (UTC)

Yep.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:10 am (UTC)

Also lunch. That too.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:11 am (UTC)

Lunch is good.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:23 am (UTC)

It is! It is good.

He puts all the guns away after lunch and gets out his knives to check those, also in front of the TV. Some time later, he puts those away too. He washes his face. He changes into comfortable clothing: one of his nice blue shirts, unremarkable black pants, and a faded old grey sweater with a band logo on the front and the words THE FREAK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH on the back.

He says, "Still wanna meet this guy?"

campanas
2013-11-10 04:24 am (UTC)

"Sure."

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:28 am (UTC)

"All right. C'mon."

He has the altered minivan again tonight. It makes for a reasonably comfy ride across town to his old apartment, where once again he goes up the tree and in the window.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:28 am (UTC)

Pen flies up and follows him in.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:29 am (UTC)

And there they wait, until...

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:30 am (UTC)

...somebody knocks on the door.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:30 am (UTC)

The Joker answers it. Comfy sweater, lack of makeup, and all.

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:31 am (UTC)

"All right, I'm surprised," says John.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:31 am (UTC)

"YOU!" exclaims Pen. "YOU broke door! You break it and I here!"

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:32 am (UTC)

He steps in far enough to see her.

"...I what?"

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:33 am (UTC)

"You two know each other already?" inquires the Joker, closing and locking the door.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:34 am (UTC)

"He break door!" exclaims Pen plaintively. "He be in nice bar, and he go, then door break!"

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:35 am (UTC)

"I broke the door? I did not break the door," says John. "And there's not much I could do about it if I had. I only get them once a year."

campanas
2013-11-10 04:36 am (UTC)

"How door break then?" demands Pen. "Door supposed to home. This not home."

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:37 am (UTC)

"I don't know! I didn't do anything to it!" he says. "I just went out like I always do."

campanas
2013-11-10 04:38 am (UTC)

"Well, door broke. Now I stuck till Mommy or Daddy or one them finds me. This one not count." She waves at Cindy.

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:39 am (UTC)

...

He looks at the Joker.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:41 am (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "Apparently there's a bunch of me and one of 'em has four kids. She's the littlest." He addresses Pen. "Do you still wanna put Johnny on the brainphone even though he maybe broke your magic door?"

campanas
2013-11-10 04:41 am (UTC)

"You get more door?" she asks John suspiciously. "Birthday?"

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:42 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Every year, since I was a kid."

campanas
2013-11-10 04:43 am (UTC)

"You let me door? So I not stuck years like Uncle Nathaniel."

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:45 am (UTC)

"Yeah, of course."

Assuming they're all still alive by that point, which is not really an assumption he's willing to make, but he doesn't see much point in making that part explicit.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:46 am (UTC)

"Then okay, I brainphone you, if want."

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:46 am (UTC)

"What's a brainphone?"

manofmyword
2013-11-10 04:47 am (UTC)

"What it sounds like. Handy way to keep in touch, 'cause you can be damn sure nobody's listening," says the Joker.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:48 am (UTC)

[Is this thing!]

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:50 am (UTC)

He blinks.

"...Okay," he says. "And you can only - brainphone - people who have it? And," he looks between Pen and the Joker and settles on Pen, "you're the only one here who can give it to people?"

campanas
2013-11-10 04:50 am (UTC)

Pen nods. "Mommies can make more giving people. I only make regular people."

mylegalname
2013-11-10 04:53 am (UTC)

"O...kay. Well. Thanks."

He looks at the Joker again, then at Pen. Pen, Joker. Joker, Pen.

campanas
2013-11-10 04:53 am (UTC)

"What?" asks Pen.

mylegalname
2013-11-10 01:21 pm (UTC)

"Uh..."

He decides after a final look that the chance of the Joker not knowing what he's thinking is negligible.

"...I'm wondering if you're okay with him or if I should find somebody else to take care of you," he says.

campanas
2013-11-10 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I find him. On purpose. He one Daddy, here hasn't one Mommy, checked that." says Pen. "Makes waffles!"

mylegalname
2013-11-10 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says John. "So... now what?"

manofmyword
2013-11-10 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Mmm... d'you know if they've strung up Jim Gordon yet?"

mylegalname
2013-11-10 09:37 pm (UTC)

He hesitates for a moment, unsure how much he should be revealing, and then realizes that his hesitation signals that he has something to hide and there's really only one thing he could be hiding about the answer to that question, so he probably just gave it all away. Good work, rookie.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 09:38 pm (UTC)

Indeed: the Joker grins. "He your tank? Mm?"

mylegalname
2013-11-10 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," he says, more for form's sake than anything. Trying to keep things from the Joker seems to be a losing battle.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, we could've used him before Blackgate," he says. "Now... well, he can probably get more cops on his side than I can, but most of the cops in this city are down a hole right now." He thinks for a second, then adds, "He'd make good traitor bait, at least."

mylegalname
2013-11-10 09:56 pm (UTC)

John follows the logic—tell someone where he is, wait to see if they turn him in—and then is ashamed of himself for considering it, and then wonders if they can afford not to. Maybe he'll suggest it to Gordon.

He still hasn't mentioned the Joker to Gordon. Maybe he'll explain who he's been meeting at night and Gordon will shoot him. But who is he to talk? Wasn't he just saying that someday John would be grateful to have somebody around to dirty their hands for him? There can't be many people more qualified for the job.

campanas
2013-11-10 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I more brainphoning?" inquires Pen.

mylegalname
2013-11-10 09:58 pm (UTC)

"...I don't know," says John.

manofmyword
2013-11-10 10:09 pm (UTC)

"You'd have a hell of a time convincing Gordon to work with me," the Joker says thoughtfully. "But we need more help than we've got. My boys are good to have around, but I wouldn't count on 'em not to be taken in by Bane's savior-of-the-people line."

mylegalname
2013-11-10 10:10 pm (UTC)

"So you think it's just a line?"

manofmyword
2013-11-10 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Watch one of his little speeches sometime. Tune out the words and watch how he says 'em. Very inspiring, right? Now think about what he's doing. Truck a nuclear bomb into Gotham and tell us he'll let it off if anybody tries to walk. Get people fired up about Dent, then let everybody out of Blackgate, arm 'em up, and turn 'em loose."

His hands sketch the result in the air, a dispersal of violence through the streets of the city; he shakes his head.

"I think a lot of people believe in what Bane's selling, but I don't think he does. 'Cause take it from me, what he's done so far is a great plan if you want a lot of people killing each other and feeling good about it. If you start out thinking about freedom and equality, you don't come up with this."

mylegalname
2013-11-10 10:34 pm (UTC)

"And you'd know."

manofmyword
2013-11-10 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Well, yeah."

campanas
2013-11-11 02:32 am (UTC)

Pen, sober-faced, hugs Cindy. Arms and wings both.

manofmyword
2013-11-11 02:13 pm (UTC)

He hugs her back, although he has fewer available limbs to do it with.

campanas
2013-11-11 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Is complicated," she mutters.

manofmyword
2013-11-14 03:56 pm (UTC)

"No kidding, sweetheart."

mylegalname
2013-11-14 03:57 pm (UTC)

Well, that's... touching? Is that touching? That might be touching.

John wonders what he's gotten himself into.

campanas
2013-11-15 03:04 am (UTC)

"What?" Pen asks. "Keep look funny at us."

mylegalname
2013-11-15 03:06 am (UTC)

"I'm just... thinking," he says, after a pause. "Don't worry about it. It's not important."

campanas
2013-11-15 03:09 am (UTC)

Pen thinks, then nods. Then she thinks some more and nudges Cindy. "You maybe friend help doing things?" she asks.

manofmyword
2013-11-16 04:04 am (UTC)

"Thaaat depends," the Joker says musingly. "Could be. Could be he won't bite. But I don't think we'll lose much by asking. Hey, Johnny, wanna do me a favour?"

mylegalname
2013-11-16 04:05 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says, after a somewhat longer pause.

manofmyword
2013-11-16 04:18 am (UTC)

He giggles.

"Not even a 'depends on the favour'? Don't tempt me." But he flaps a hand, dismissing this subject. "No good playing tricks when we should be working, though. Nah, there's a couple people I want you to find. Nothing too dangerous. Not even too shady. Well... comparatively."

mylegalname
2013-11-16 04:18 am (UTC)

"...I'm listening."

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:04 am (UTC)

"For the last little while, I've been playing tag with a mob boss. New kid. Calls himself Mmmoriarty. Hasn't done much, but he's been sniffing around. I want to talk to his people. But in case his people don't want to talk to me, I don't want to show up in person right away." He spreads his hands.

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:04 am (UTC)

"So your brilliant plan is to send the cop instead," says John. "Don't you have people for this?"

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:05 am (UTC)

"I have people for... other things," the Joker says, shaking his head. "Not for this. This is delicate stuff."

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:05 am (UTC)

"Right," says John. "Am I really the best messenger you've got, here?"

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:06 am (UTC)

"I could send any old bozo to drop a note in somebody's mailbox," he says. "You, though - I send you, I'm saying, llllook how serious I am about making this a collaborative effort." He pauses, then adds, "The brainphone thing won't hurt either."

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:07 am (UTC)

"Uh-huh. And do I even want to know what you mean by 'playing tag'?"

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:07 am (UTC)

"Probably not," the Joker says serenely. "So will you do it?"
Edited 2015-04-10 04:08 (UTC)

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:08 am (UTC)

...John sighs.

"Sure. Fine. It's not like I've got a better plan."

campanas
2015-04-10 04:11 am (UTC)

Pen reaches out and taps Cindy on the arm. "Tag," she giggles.

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:11 am (UTC)

He giggles right back.

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:12 am (UTC)

It is deeply weird.

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:14 am (UTC)

"Anyway," he says. "Gimme a day or so. I'll tell you where to go and what to say when you get there. You probably won't get killed."

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:14 am (UTC)

"I feel so reassured."

campanas
2015-04-10 04:15 am (UTC)

"Don't getting killed! Mommy can only fix if finding and you are one who door!"

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:17 am (UTC)

"I won't get killed," says John. "He's just making fun of me."

He may be overstating the case a little, but, well, he's not sure any of the alternatives will make getting killed that much less likely.

campanas
2015-04-10 04:18 am (UTC)

"Good. Can't saving you without some of wishes."

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:19 am (UTC)

"Which... are a thing you don't have?"

campanas
2015-04-10 04:19 am (UTC)

"Don't have," agrees Pen. "Too little. Is very silly Mommy because look now I should be have some!"

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:20 am (UTC)

"Well, your mom probably didn't expect this to happen. Can't say I blame her."

campanas
2015-04-10 04:21 am (UTC)

"Bleh."

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:22 am (UTC)

"Anyway." He looks at the Joker. "Is that all?"

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:23 am (UTC)

"Pretty much." [Not like we can't get in touch if something comes up.]

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:23 am (UTC)

"Okay. Nice talking to you."

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:24 am (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

campanas
2015-04-10 04:24 am (UTC)

"Do not be killed," Pen admonishes him, shaking a finger. "Have birthday fix thing."

mylegalname
2015-04-10 04:25 am (UTC)

"I'll do my best," he says.

Out he goes.

campanas
2015-04-10 04:26 am (UTC)

Pen sighs.

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:28 am (UTC)

"It's not very nice of me," says the Joker, "but I really hope Moriarty's in town. He's kind of a shady character. I wouldn't be surprised to find out he bailed when Bane rolled the ball into that stadium, or even that he was never here in the first place. If he's here, though, I bet he's smart enough to work with me, and that'll be better for everybody."

campanas
2015-04-10 04:29 am (UTC)

"I wonder if is a one of space plant person kind," muses Pen.

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:30 am (UTC)

"Mm?"

campanas
2015-04-10 04:31 am (UTC)

"If is a one of someone knowing the Mommies and Daddies. Like you but not like door break person with birthday."

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:32 am (UTC)

"Good question. How do you tell?"

campanas
2015-04-10 04:33 am (UTC)

"Glass tell. Can do brainphone, sorta. Or recognize face if a same face one."

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:34 am (UTC)

"Brainphone-sorta? Like how you found me, just guessing until you get somebody who's here?"

campanas
2015-04-10 04:34 am (UTC)

"Yes like find you. Trying call many people, then trying call the here one Daddy, got you."

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:39 am (UTC)

"Well, who else would you guess?"

campanas
2015-04-10 04:39 am (UTC)

"Bunch of people. Trying call now?"

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:43 am (UTC)

"Mm... we'll see. If any of 'em are in Gotham, Moriarty or not, now is probably not the best time to interrupt them."

campanas
2015-04-10 04:43 am (UTC)

Nod. "I did already trying Mommies and sisters and Jane and stuff, but did not trying everyone before find you."

manofmyword
2015-04-10 04:46 am (UTC)

"Figures."

campanas
2015-04-10 04:46 am (UTC)

"Mm-hm." Hug.

each another's audience

mylegalname

John waits a day, and goes where he's told and delivers his message.

"The Joker wants to arrange a meeting with Mr. Moriarty. He says it's time to put aside our differences."

And they have to have been expecting it, because the person he talks to doesn't even ask for proof of the message's origin, just nods and says she'll see about contacting the boss.

It's two more days of back-and-forth before they get their meeting - not with Moriarty, but with his local representative, or something. Everyone is very vague on the details, for which he can't really blame them, all things considered. Somewhat to John's surprise, Moriarty's people accept the Joker's offer of one of his many abandoned warehouse lairs (seriously, does the man have a collection?) as a meeting spot. They show up early. John feels... out of place. The Joker is meeting with a mob boss to discuss an alliance against the guy who just took over the city, and for some reason John Blake is invited.

He still hasn't told Gordon a thing. It's not that he's afraid to, exactly, more that he can't even figure out how to bring it up. How do you explain that the Joker is actually weirdly approachable as long as you can make your peace with his sense of humour? Not to mention the little girl with the wings. Definitely don't mention the little girl with the wings. If he mentions the little girl with the wings, Gordon will probably be out the door before he can even try to explain.

manofmyword
2015-04-21 11:37 pm (UTC)

"What's got you in a tizzy?"

mylegalname
2015-04-21 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Absolutely nothing," says John. "Everything about this situation is completely normal."

manofmyword
2015-04-21 11:37 pm (UTC)

The Joker giggles.

mylegalname
2015-04-22 12:00 am (UTC)

And of course that's when somebody knocks on the door.

"I'll get it," says John. He crosses about thirty feet of bare concrete littered with fragments of disintegrating cardboard. The little side door is made of metal, with bits and pieces that add up to half a paint job remaining and the rest of its surfaces gone to rust, but the handle still works. He opens it.

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:05 am (UTC)

There's a woman standing there, well-dressed and smiling.

"Hello," she says. "You must be John. I'm Elle."

mylegalname
2015-04-22 12:07 am (UTC)

That was the name. So either this is the right person, or they're in very deep shit.

"Nice to meet you. Come on in. Sorry about the," he waves vaguely at their surroundings.

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:10 am (UTC)

"Not a problem," Elle assures him. She steps inside and picks her way across the floor to the little folding table they brought with them. That and the accompanying plastic folding chairs are clean, at least.

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:16 am (UTC)

"Hi," the Joker chirps. He came in the full suit and makeup. "So, what do you think of" (he flutters his fingers dismissively) "that Bane guy?"

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:21 am (UTC)

"I think he's even more dangerous than he wants us to believe," she says. "I think he's planning something more than enforced anarchy, and I don't want to wait around for it, whatever it is."

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:22 am (UTC)

"I knew it," says the Joker, leaning back satisfiedly in his chair.

mylegalname
2015-04-22 12:23 am (UTC)

John blinks. "Uh," he says, not entirely sure he should be asking, "knew what?"

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:23 am (UTC)

"You're not just a local representative. Are you."

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:25 am (UTC)

"I had intended to wait a little longer before revealing that, but yes," says Elle. "I am the person you know as James Moriarty."

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:26 am (UTC)

"Thought so."

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:30 am (UTC)

"Very astute of you. I'm honestly not sure how you figured it out."

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:34 am (UTC)

"Our little game of tag's been going for a while now. Enough for me to get a sense of you. Now isn't the time to be screwing around. If you were in town and you believed it was me, you wouldn't send an underling, make it another week until we actually talked. You'd come yourself, or you wouldn't deal at all. And then you sit down like you own the place and talk like you're the boss? It wasn't that hard."

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:37 am (UTC)

"Fair enough. So, to business. What are you bringing to the table here? You're not the first group I've contacted who thought they were starting the resistance, but you're definitely the first one I thought might have had a chance of getting anywhere on their own."

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:38 am (UTC)

"I tried Batman first, believe it or not," he says. "Batman didn't show. Johnny here's got a line on Jim Gordon, though."

mylegalname
2015-04-22 12:39 am (UTC)

John stiffens slightly with surprise. He didn't expect that to come up so soon.

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:40 am (UTC)

"...That's a lot of trust to be placing in someone you only just met, game of tag or no," says Elle/Moriarty.

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:53 am (UTC)

"Now is not the time to be screwing around," the Joker repeats. "But Gordon's not even our best resource, necessarily. The other one's just... harder to explain. Of the 'seen to be believed' variety, you might say. D'you know that half-finished opera house on Martial?"

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:53 am (UTC)

"Let's suppose I do," she says. "What about it?"

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:55 am (UTC)

"If you're serious about working with me on this, meet me there tomorrow. You, personally, nobody else. And I do believe you're serious about working with me on this."

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:56 am (UTC)

Elle studies his face thoughtfully.

"And you're not going to explain until I see it for myself, whatever it is?"

manofmyword
2015-04-22 12:57 am (UTC)

"Right," he confirms serenely.

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 12:59 am (UTC)

"And it's enough of a game-changer that you don't want to discuss anything else until I've seen it. More so than Commissioner Gordon, even."

manofmyword
2015-04-22 01:01 am (UTC)

"Mm. You came alone," he says. "Didn't try to dodge when I found you out. Clearly you have decided to trust me. Only polite to do the same. And, of course..." He lets the sentence trail off, quirking an eyebrow.

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 01:03 am (UTC)

"...now is not the time to screw around?" she finishes for him. "I see what you mean. Thank you for being so willing to share your resources with me. I think we will be able to work together more easily than I was expecting."

manofmyword
2015-04-22 01:04 am (UTC)

"That's what I wanna hear."

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 01:04 am (UTC)

She turns to John.

"Out of curiosity, where do you come into this?"

mylegalname
2015-04-22 01:07 am (UTC)

"I... found out a few things about what happened to Batman. Stumbled across the Joker's message while I was at it. Decided to meet him and see if there was any chance he could help. Seems like there's a pretty big chance."

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 01:08 am (UTC)

"It does seem that way," Elle agrees. "What did you find out about Batman?"

mylegalname
2015-04-22 01:11 am (UTC)

John hesitates, second-guessing the idea of following the Joker's lead on how much to tell her. But the Joker has led him some reasonably effective places so far. Trusting the mob boss it is.

"He went to confront Bane and never came back."

And his name is Bruce Wayne. But that, much more than the rest, is emphatically not John's secret to tell.

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 01:11 am (UTC)

"Well, that's not the most reassuring thing I've heard all day," Elle remarks.

mylegalname
2015-04-22 01:12 am (UTC)

...John snorts.

causas_rerum
2015-04-22 01:14 am (UTC)

"Still, I would definitely categorize it as useful information. Thank you."

mylegalname
2015-04-22 01:14 am (UTC)

He shrugs slightly.

manofmyword
2015-05-22 06:18 pm (UTC)

"What, 'got a line on Jim Gordon' wasn't enough to explain him?"

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 06:18 pm (UTC)

"To explain why he's here, yes, at least partially. To explain how he got here? No."

manofmyword
2015-05-22 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough."

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 06:20 pm (UTC)

"When should I be meeting you tomorrow?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Let's say... afternoon. Fourish. Sound good?"

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 06:21 pm (UTC)

"That works for me."

She stands up.

"I'll see you then."

manofmyword
2015-05-22 06:23 pm (UTC)

"See ya," he echoes. "Take care."

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 06:23 pm (UTC)

"I generally do."

She makes her way back to the door and leaves.

mylegalname
2015-05-22 06:25 pm (UTC)

John watches her go, then looks over at the Joker. (When did he stop keeping half an eye on the Joker at all times?)

manofmyword
2015-05-22 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Curiouser and curiouser," he says cheerfully.

mylegalname
2015-05-22 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad you're having fun."

manofmyword
2015-05-22 06:28 pm (UTC)

The Joker grins.

"Oh, I'm always having fun."

mylegalname
2015-05-22 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Should I be coming to this meeting tomorrow?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Oh, suit yourself. I bet you know what I'm gonna do."

mylegalname
2015-05-22 06:37 pm (UTC)

"Introduce her to the little girl with wings, get her on the brainphone? Why do you trust this Elle person so much?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Because she gets what's important and she's not fucking around. And Moriarty treats his people like gold. As long as she trusts me to stay on the right side of this mess and not fuck her over, she'll play as nice as you please. And the quickest way to get that is to be, mm, generousss."

mylegalname
2015-05-22 07:40 pm (UTC)

"How'd you end up so good at this stuff, exactly?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Natural talent?"

mylegalname
2015-05-22 07:41 pm (UTC)

Snort.

"Okay then. Call me when you need me, I guess."

Off he goes.

the flying place

campanas

Pen likes the flying place. It is not as good as open air (it's really not) but she's getting okay at the tight maneuvering and constant flapping required for indoor flying. And it's the only place she can go to fly. Not that Cindy would stop her if she decided to ignore his advice but his advice is probably good. Sigh.

Flap flap. Flap flap bank swoop flap. At some point Cindy's friend Moriarty will come over, even though this seems like a terrible place for whichever one of them got found to make the victor waffles.

manofmyword
2015-05-22 08:39 pm (UTC)

Cindy's friend Moriarty will come over at around fourish!

Around fourish approaches steadily. (Cindy brought lunch, which is tasty despite the fatal flaw of not being waffles.)

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 08:41 pm (UTC)

At about one minute past four, someone steps into the cavernous room through a different side entrance than the one Cindy and Pen habitually use.

She walks in far enough to spot the little girl with wings flying around.

She stops.

She looks at Pen, and at Cindy, and back at Pen, and then back to Cindy.

campanas
2015-05-22 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Pen, swooping closer and making a neat landing. "You Cindy's friend who done finding? Do he find you or you finded him?"

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 09:05 pm (UTC)

"He asked nicely and I came to meet him," says Cindy's friend. "Cindy?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 09:06 pm (UTC)

"I can't have a nickname?" he asks rhetorically.

campanas
2015-05-22 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Is taken regular name," explains Pen. "Are so many of them!"

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Your regular name being...?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 09:07 pm (UTC)

"The Joker, of course."

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 09:08 pm (UTC)

"How many of those are there?"

campanas
2015-05-22 09:08 pm (UTC)

Pen starts counting on her fingers. "Don't remember... Cindy how many do put on list?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 09:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember either. About a dozen? Anyway, Pen, can you give my friend the brainphone, please?"

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 09:11 pm (UTC)

"What pray tell is a brainphone?"

campanas
2015-05-22 09:12 pm (UTC)

[Is thing.]

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 09:13 pm (UTC)

"...I see."

manofmyword
2015-05-22 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Handy, ain't it?"

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 09:14 pm (UTC)

"That it most certainly is," she agrees. "Are you going to explain any of this?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Not much to tell. Magic little girl from another world shows up, says I'm one'a her dad, I take her home and bake her cookies."

campanas
2015-05-22 09:17 pm (UTC)

"And waffles," says Pen. "And, and when door breaking person find door again then I will tell Jane where am and Mommy come find me."

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 09:44 pm (UTC)

...Elle looks to Cindy for a translation.

manofmyword
2015-05-22 09:46 pm (UTC)

"The door in question leads some kind of magic place between worlds, and Johnny's the one who broke it - by accident, I'm told."

campanas
2015-05-22 09:47 pm (UTC)

"It was supposed going home but come here instead and here is not any of Mommy or Jane but is a one daddy," says Pen, pointing at Cindy. "So goes home with him for wait to find door or Mommies finding me."

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Seems like a workable plan, from what I can tell. Although I don't know anything about these other worlds of yours."

campanas
2015-05-22 10:04 pm (UTC)

"I mostly only go one world but sometimes visit Rose and Beast and other Dars and other Keziah and other Ariel in Rêverie," says Pen. "Other Keziah name Céleste and has griffin pet her one Mommy made her! Is why Keziahs called Griffins like Daddies called Jokers. Am only Pen so far so no name for all Pens yet. Also went can't pronounce world for space plant party! There dragons."
Edited 2015-05-22 22:04 (UTC)

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Dragons."

manofmyword
2015-05-22 10:11 pm (UTC)

"One of 'em was a me," Cindy says helpfully.

campanas
2015-05-22 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm. Daddies be lots things. Most Mommies just mortals but mine angel and my one Daddy just mortal." Shrug.

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 10:13 pm (UTC)

"And that's why you have those lovely wings?"

campanas
2015-05-22 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm. Could have be mortal instead. Like Serah, Serah have angel daddy and angel brother but she mortal. But Mommy want angel babies so me and sisters all wings."

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 10:28 pm (UTC)

"She had you all angels on purpose? Is that the sort of thing people usually decide?"

campanas
2015-05-22 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Not usual but Mommy magic." Pen taps her chin. "Dars maybe just lucky, not sure."

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I see."

campanas
2015-05-22 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Dars oldest," explains Pen. "Then Keziah then Ariel then me. There three of Dars and two each other sisters."

causas_rerum
2015-05-22 10:31 pm (UTC)

"And there manages to be so many of everyone because...?"

manofmyword
2015-05-22 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Seems to be how it goes, with the different worlds and all."

campanas
2015-05-22 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Mommies lots of times marrying Daddies," says Pen. "And when having kids have a Dars first and so and so and so on, but only one world having four kids of the kind we all are. Sometimes Mommies or Daddies marrying other people having other kinds kids like Elspeth or the forest princess kids or the -" handwave "ones with that one guy or whatever. Also sort of Jane but she strange."

causas_rerum
2015-05-24 01:30 pm (UTC)

"Oh? And who is Jane, exactly?"

campanas
2015-05-24 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Jane a computer person and she do be Jovah when working and also put people without door and her mommy a Mommy and her daddy a Daddy but only sort of she a computer person and rocks also and so she not a Dars even though not having sisters first."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 05:13 pm (UTC)

"She's a person who is a computer?"

campanas
2015-05-25 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Mm sort of kind of yes mostly? Is also rocks."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Rocks."

campanas
2015-05-25 05:30 pm (UTC)

Pen points at one of her bracelets. "Like, in Mommy bracelets one of gems actually a Jane rock, so Jane can seeing hearing where Mommy. All ones Mommies have a jewelry for rock of Jane."
Edited 2015-05-25 17:31 (UTC)

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 05:32 pm (UTC)

"I see. Sounds convenient."

campanas
2015-05-25 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes. But not me having one because was not supposed going other worlds and door breaked. Bet when Mommy finding I get."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

campanas
2015-05-25 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Unless not because putting Jane in wrong world and she all break everywhere and very important because she does putting and also time. This world seem pretty normal but door breaking guy could have broken to anyplace."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 05:44 pm (UTC)

"She does time?"

campanas
2015-05-25 05:45 pm (UTC)

"When Jane break then all the time in worlds go whee," handwave, "do whatever, not match. Unless Jarvises do time or I think another person also do some of time now but before was Jane, went years no other worlds, some people get stuck because no putting."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Complicated situation," she murmurs thoughtfully.

campanas
2015-05-25 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm. I don't a Jane rock in bracelet so time here go whee. But, she not broke, this time. Everybody probably not even realize I'm gone, yet, or would get Shell Bell doing door magic of aura finding me like when finding Harley."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 05:59 pm (UTC)

"So at any moment, some people from another world might be here to rescue you?"
Edited 2015-05-25 17:59 (UTC)

campanas
2015-05-25 06:00 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!" Sigh. "But probably having wait for door because time go whee."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 06:02 pm (UTC)

"Right."

campanas
2015-05-25 06:03 pm (UTC)

"And they magic so they fix all the things, dead people, whatever," handwave, "but don't be let Cindy die because having to take care of me while waiting."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Mm."

campanas
2015-05-25 06:05 pm (UTC)

"Also maybe having to wait for dead people because is complicated to make everybody okay for having dead people around. Isn't happen yet my world. Is have complicated start conditions."

causas_rerum
2015-05-25 06:05 pm (UTC)

"I can imagine."

campanas
2015-05-25 06:05 pm (UTC)

Nod nod.

the non-princess of raxwell

greatcomposure

As is customary, Duke Ainar and Duchess Celyta of Raxwell hold a large party to announce the birth and naming of their first child. The guest list is carefully assembled, with much checking and re-checking, because it wouldn't do to leave someone off who might object and make a fuss, but neither do they want to invite more people than their medium-sized castle can actually hold. They send off their messengers a few days before the ceremony: to the elderly Duke of Ferdinandia and his young grandson, to all other applicable neighbouring princes, to all their own nobles and the most prominent or easily offended of Ferdinandia's, and to Raxwell's four fairies, three in the east and one in the north. The fairies almost never show up to anything, but it would be the height of rudeness to exclude them.

The day arrives, and with it the guests. The Duke of Ferdinandia sends a nicely worded apology note with his gift, as expected; he is very old and doesn't travel well. Nearly everyone else shows up, though.

Including the fairies.

The youngest fairy has hair as gold as sunlight and wings as green as grass, and wears a crown of braided daisies. Her name is Summerleaf and she has a tendency to giggle. She flutters into the banquet hall just as everyone is settling into place with their gifts, and hovers excitedly near the front of the room. A harried herald pokes his head in belatedly, clears his throat several times, and announces, "The - um - the fairy Summerleaf, your graces."

"Thank you for coming," Celyta says politely.

"I've never been to a real baby-naming before!" says Summerleaf, doing a little twirl in the air. "I'm so excited, I can't wait!"

Celyta looks at Ainar. Ainar shrugs. Celyta conceals a sigh. The first few barons come up to present their gifts to the baby, who blinks huge grey eyes at them and makes vaguely approving meeping sounds.

The next oldest fairy in Raxwell has hair as white as snow and wings as blue as sapphires, and wears a crown of lilacs. Her name is Winterheart, and she is sweet-natured and a bit of a daydreamer. She arrives after several of the barons have gone past, her wings buzzing like a hummingbird's; the herald manages to get ahead of her this time, and squeaks, "The fairy Winterheart, your graces!" as Winterheart drifts over to take her place beside Summerleaf.

Celyta frowns slightly, but produces a welcoming smile. "Thank you for coming," she says to the second fairy.

"It's the proper thing," murmurs Winterheart. "For a baby's naming."

The duke and duchess are beginning to feel a little apprehensive about this, but there's nothing to be done about it now. The procession proceeds, nobles of higher and higher rank coming up to offer the baby their gifts.

By now it's hardly a surprise when the third fairy shows up. Her name is Nightfire, and she has hair the colour of amber and wings the colour of sunset and a crown made of rose petals and silk ribbons, and she is both unusually shy and unusually sensible for a fairy. She waits politely for the herald to step into the hall and announce, "The fairy Nightfire, your graces," and then she wafts up to where Summerleaf and Winterheart are hovering, and edges in between Summerleaf and the wall.

"Thank you for coming," says Celyta.

"It was no trouble," Nightfire says anxiously, peeking over Summerleaf's shoulder.

The nobles finish their orderly presentation of gifts; last of all, Ainar holds up the child-sized golden circlet sent by the Duke of Ferdinandia, to appreciative oohing from the crowd and a tiny sneeze from the baby. Celyta discreetly leans over with a handkerchief and pulls down a corner of quilted blanket to wipe the baby's mouth.

Ainar sets the circlet on top of the stack of gifts and turns to offer the three fairies a small bow. "You may now present your gifts," he says.

Summerleaf claps her hands and zooms in a circle around the cozy cradle. "Oh, oh!" she says. "I give the princess—"

Celyta sits bolt upright. Ainar's eyes widen slightly. But it would be the height of rudeness to interrupt a fairy.

"—the gift of charm!" continues Summerleaf obliviously. "So that she will be beloved by all who meet her." She touches the baby's tiny nose with the tip of one finger, producing a brief flare of green light, and zips back up to the fairies' corner.

"Um," says Celyta. But Winterheart is already making a stately descent.

"I give the princess the gift of wit," the second fairy says dreamily, hovering over the cradle with her hand extended. "Her clever mind and clever tongue will never fail her."

"Um," says Celyta, as Winterheart dusts a drift of snowy sparkles over the cradle and returns to her place with the other fairies. Nightfire peers down timidly at duke, duchess, and cradle.

The doors at the end of the hall are already open, but they rattle and bang against the walls in a gust of icy wind as Raxwell's fourth fairy makes her entrance. Her hair is as black as ink, her wings are made of spider-silk, and she wears a crown of raven feathers. On her way in, she turns the herald into a frog.

"Ribbit ribbit ribbit, ribbit ribbit," he croaks, and hops shamefacedly over to hide under a chair.

"What is the meaning of this?" demands the fairy.

Ainar bows politely to her. "Good afternoon, Fairy Stormberry," he says.

"Impertinent boy. Why was I not invited?"

"My humblest apologies," he says, "for failing to deliver your invitation. It was sent, you have my word on that."

"Was it?" she says, narrowing her eyes. "Or are you only making excuses? You know what happens to little princesses whose parents aren't polite to fairies."

"Ah... about that..." says Celyta.

Stormberry glares at her. "What?"

"I'm afraid someone has gotten very confused about something somehow," says the duchess. "Our baby isn't a princess."

"What is she then, a toad?" sneers Stormberry.

"A prince," says Celyta, "actually."

Stormberry gasps. Summerleaf squeaks. Nightfire covers her mouth with both hands. Winterheart blinks and looks around confusedly.

"How dare you," cries Stormberry. "Not a princess? Then what's the point? I can hardly curse a prince to fall into an enchanted sleep only to be woken by true love's kiss! I'd be a laughingstock! You - you set me up!"

"I assure you we did nothing of the kind," Ainar says hastily. "There must be some miscommunication—"

But Stormberry is approaching the cradle, black sparks of magic gathering in her hands. "A prince, is it? Then let him be a prince as fragile as glass, who shatters at the lightest touch!" Dark clouds bloom in her open palms, covering the cradle completely. "True love's kiss will not save him, nor any power in this world break my curse, until—until the crown of Raxwell is made whole! Ha!"

"Oh noooo," moans Nightfire behind her hands.

Stormberry vanishes in a crack of thunder.

Nightfire darts away from the wall and down to the cradle, where the clouds are just beginning to clear. "Then I—I give the prince the gift of perfect health," she says desperately. "So that however he is injured, he will always heal as good as new, a-and never will he fall ill!" She alights beside the cradle and kisses the baby's forehead; a radiant orange glow chases away the last few scraps of cloud.

"...Thank you, Fairy Nightfire," says Celyta. "That was - well thought of."

The amber-haired fairy ducks her head modestly.

"So," says Duke Ainar. He clears his throat. "Ladies, gentlemen, honoured guests, I present our son, Prince Milo of Raxwell."

A halfhearted ripple of polite applause arises from the stunned guests. Summerleaf flits out of the banquet hall immediately, looking embarrassed. Winterheart follows, looking apologetic. Nightfire pauses by the door to haul the frog-herald out from under his chair and kiss the top of his little green head, restoring his humanity, but flies away before he can thank her. The nobles disperse in a haphazard stream.

Prince Milo shifts in his nest of blankets, and starts crying very loudly. When his mother unwraps him as gently as possible, she finds he has managed to break his arm.

precarious

abeance

Jann is minding his own business. He is playing by himself in the courtyard with a wooden sword: this definitely constitutes minding his own business. Nothing that follows is his fault.

pythbox
2015-01-09 09:07 pm (UTC)

A thing that follows:

Five-year-old Milo comes marching determinedly into the courtyard, hugging his left arm against his stomach, a position that generally means he broke and set it within the last hour and it's still at the stage where any significant bump or strain will knock it loose again.

"Hey Jann," he says. "I need you to get something off a shelf for me. I tried to climb up but it didn't work."

That is probably where he got the broken arm.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Sure. Where?" asks Jann.

pythbox
2015-01-09 09:24 pm (UTC)

"This way!"

He leads Jann into the castle and down to one of the treasure rooms.

There is a rolled-up carpet on a high shelf, partly unrolled and looking like it might slide off the shelf any minute now, and a stepladder next to it, and the remains of a small wooden crate scattered over and around the stepladder. Clearly, Milo tried to use ladder plus crate to reach the carpet, only to discover the crate was unable to hold up to even his tiny weight.

"I wanna get that carpet down before it falls down," he explains. "Cause it's right over that magic sword and nobody knows what the magic sword does, and dropping things on magic swords is usually bad even if you do know what they do."

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Are we supposed to be in here?" Jann wonders.

pythbox
2015-01-09 09:26 pm (UTC)

Milo shrugs, one-shouldered so as not to jar his left arm excessively.

"It's my treasure room, isn't it? My family's, anyway."

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes. Where do we put the carpet after I get it down?"

pythbox
2015-01-09 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Over with the other flying carpets, probably, unless it doesn't fly, then it belongs somewhere else."

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Does that mean we have to test it?" Jann asks, standing on his tiptoes to reach for the carpet.

When he grabs it, he abruptly can no longer do that, because he is a rabbit. A long-furred white rabbit with brown blodges and lop ears.

"Ack!"

pythbox
2015-01-09 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Argh!" exclaims Milo. "What kind of person enchants a rabbit carpet?! Now how am I going to get it off the shelf? ...Are you okay?"

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 09:36 pm (UTC)

"I'm a rabbit? I'm a rabbit! I'm never getting anything off a shelf for you again!" exclaims Jann, performing a remarkably rabbity whisker-cleaning gesture with one paw. "And not just because I can't if I'm a rabbit!"

pythbox
2015-01-09 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Well - well, let's go find my mother," says Milo.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 09:58 pm (UTC)

Jann hops out of the room. He has a little puffy tail. "AUNT CELYTA. MILO TURNED ME INTO A RABBIT."

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:07 pm (UTC)

"I DID NOT TURN HIM INTO A RABBIT," yells Milo. "IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!"

And there is Celyta, summoned by this commotion. She regards the pair of them.

"Hello, Milo. Hello, Jann. How exactly did you end up a rabbit, Jann?"

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Milo accidentally turned me into a rabbit!" says Jann, thumping the floor with one of his big hind feet angrily. "With a carpet! He told me to get it from the shelf for him!"

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Why did you tell him to get the carpet, Milo?"

"Because it was gonna fall on the magic sword and I didn't think it turned people into rabbits!"

"Why did you tell Jann in particular to get the carpet?" she clarifies.

"...Because he was there?"

"Maybe next time, when you want something gotten from a shelf in the part of the treasury room where we keep unsorted magic objects, you should look for someone who might know things about them," suggests Celyta.

"...but I thought it was just a flying carpet," says Milo.

"And now your cousin is a rabbit," says Celyta.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Do I have to stay a rabbit?" says Jann. "I can't be a knight when I grow up if I am a rabbit!"

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:24 pm (UTC)

"You don't have to stay a rabbit," Celyta reassures him. "I remember that carpet. All you have to do to stop being a rabbit is stand outside under a new moon. And if you make sure to touch only the bottom side of the carpet it doesn't turn you into a rabbit at all, which is why, Milo, you should let the grown-ups deal with the magic artifacts."

Milo looks very sheepish.

"Now. Do you have anything to say to Jann?"

"...I'm sorry I accidentally turned you into a rabbit," sighs Milo.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Hmph," says Jann, but he follows this with, "I accept your apology. Why is there even a rabbit carpet?"

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:34 pm (UTC)

"It used to belong to a wicked witch, I believe. She had a peculiar sense of humour. When she was defeated by a pair of clever children, we had anything of hers that still worked put into storage, to prevent the kind of mischief that might ensue if it was left unattended in her old cottage. Milo wasn't born yet at the time, so we neglected to account for him. Now what's this about a magic sword?"

"The new magic sword, the one that hero dropped off on his way through, that nobody knows what it does, it's on the table under the shelf with the carpet and the carpet's half off the shelf and it might fall on the sword and that would be bad," says Milo.

"Yes. That much is true. I'll have someone move the carpet," says Celyta. "Safely. And you are not to go into those parts of the treasure room anymore without an adult."

"But," Milo begins indignantly. His mother raises her eyebrows. He shuts up.

"You can, of course, be allowed back in if you demonstrate that you are responsible enough to handle the magical treasures safely."

"I never had any problems until just now!"

"Which is very lucky, but just now, I remind you, you accidentally turned your cousin into a rabbit."

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:35 pm (UTC)

"When is the new moon?" asks Jann. "I don't know how long moons take to wear out."

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I'll look it up, but I think it's tomorrow night."

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Okay," sighs Jann.
Edited 2015-01-09 22:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2015-01-09 10:47 pm (UTC)

"You're fluffy," Milo observes.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I'm a rabbit," Jann says, nose atwitch with rabbitude.

pythbox
2015-01-09 10:48 pm (UTC)

"You're a fluffy rabbit."

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:49 pm (UTC)

"It's better than being a bald rabbit. That would look really dumb. I want a mirror."

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:51 pm (UTC)

"We can find you a mirror," says Celyta. "Would you like to be carried, since you're smaller than usual?"

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Hopping feels weird."

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:53 pm (UTC)

She picks him up. Off they go to find a mirror. (She finds one that is not magic, because a magic one might feel the need to provide unnecessary commentary.)

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:53 pm (UTC)

Jann squirms around until he finds a comfortable way to be carried. He looks at himself.

"I'm not even a cool rabbit," he laments.

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:54 pm (UTC)

Celyta pets his head comfortingly.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Why did the carpet make me a splodgy lop? I could have been - I dunno - there are cooler rabbits."

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Wicked witches are not known for turning people into kinds of creatures the people want to be."

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Well, she should have been a good witch with better taste in rabbits instead."

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 11:29 pm (UTC)

"If she was a good witch, she would probably not have made a rabbiting carpet and almost certainly not have been defeated by clever children and left all her things for Ainar and I to deal with."

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 11:29 pm (UTC)

"And then I wouldn't be a rabbit. So that would be fine too. Put me down? I want to see if I can get better at hopping if I'm going to have to do it for a whole day."

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 11:35 pm (UTC)

"All right."

She puts him down.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 11:35 pm (UTC)

Jann attempts hopping.

He's not too bad at it. He manages to take a flying leap onto a table and then off of it again.

greatcomposure
2015-01-09 11:36 pm (UTC)

The table suffers no damage, so Celyta does not caution him.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 11:37 pm (UTC)

Jann bops around the castle in rabbit form. He's very fast, lop ears and all.
Edited 2015-01-09 23:38 (UTC)

pythbox
2015-01-09 11:44 pm (UTC)

Milo follows him around. Chasing rabbits, even - perhaps especially - cousinly rabbits, turns out to be the height of entertainment.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 11:45 pm (UTC)

Jann is mostly disinclined to be caught, although he doesn't object to attempts, he just eludes them.

pythbox
2015-01-09 11:49 pm (UTC)

Anyway it's mostly the chasing that's fun. Whee!

This time, Milo is lucky enough not to fall or run into anything, so he only has the one broken arm to deal with for the next week or so while it heals.

alicornucopia
2015-01-09 11:53 pm (UTC)

Jann eventually has to explain to his mother why he is a rabbit. He gets a lecture about letting his cousin talk him into things he knows better than to do, and then she pets him, which he allows, and then she puts him to bed, which is kind of comically huge for a rabbit but what can you do.

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:34 am (UTC)

The next morning Milo trips on his blanket getting out of bed and shatters his right hip. This makes him exceptionally cranky; broken legs always do, because he can't walk on them until they're at least mostly healed, but the hip means he can't even get out of bed for the next several days. And he's never broken a hip this badly before, so he doesn't know how long it's actually going to be until he can use it again.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:34 am (UTC)

Jann hops up next to him (near his shoulder, not his legs) and is a fuzzy bunny.

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:36 am (UTC)

Milo sighs grumpily and pets the fuzzy bunny.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:37 am (UTC)

"Tonight I can stop being a rabbit," says Jann. This is good news and should therefore be cheering. "Mother made me eat vegetables for breakfast because she doesn't think I'd better have anything good while I'm a rabbit." This is minor misfortune that has befallen Jann and is not directly Milo's fault, and will probably also be cheering.

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:38 am (UTC)

"Do vegetables taste better when you're a rabbit?" he wonders.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:38 am (UTC)

"They still taste like vegetables! I guess they're sort of interesting to chew, but they still taste like vegetables."

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:39 am (UTC)

"Maybe real rabbits like them better. Or it must be pretty terrible to be a rabbit."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:39 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't know which. I'm a talking rabbit, I don't think most rabbits talk, so I don't know about other rabbits."

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:42 am (UTC)

"I wonder if you can talk to other animals now, like how dragons can talk to cats without being witches."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:43 am (UTC)

"I tried to talk to one of the dogs that's around and it just barked and it sounded like barking. I haven't tried any cats though."

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:44 am (UTC)

"Maybe you can't, then." Pet pet. "You're really fluffy."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:44 am (UTC)

"I know! But I can't pet myself, it's kind of frustrating."

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:45 am (UTC)

Milo considers this quandary.

"When you're a person again and my hip is better I can go touch the rabbit carpet and then you can pet me," he offers.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:46 am (UTC)

"Oooh," says Jann, this appealing both to his sense of fairness and his sense of fluff. "...Wait, but you're not allowed in the treasure rooms anymore."

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:51 am (UTC)

"I never said I wouldn't go in them," Milo points out, this being the crucial distinction as far as Milo is concerned. "It wouldn't be that hard to sneak in, I bet. And if I did it right when there was gonna be a new moon, I could just go outside when you were done petting me and nobody might even know."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:52 am (UTC)

"Oh, I guess that makes sense. But you're stuck in bed, now," Jann says. "And now is a new moon."

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:54 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I'd have to wait a month. That's how long there is between the same kind of moon happening."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:54 am (UTC)

"Oh. What happens to all these moons?" wonders Jann.

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:55 am (UTC)

"I think it might be the same moon just being different shapes at different times," says Milo.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:55 am (UTC)

"Then how is it a new moon, if it's just shapeshifting repetitively?"

pythbox
2015-01-10 12:56 am (UTC)

"I dunno, that's just what it's called. Maybe it's like how the start of a year is a new year?"

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 12:57 am (UTC)

"Are we living the same year over and over?" asks Jann, whiskers twitching. "That doesn't make sense, we couldn't get any older."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:00 am (UTC)

"I mean maybe it's called that because the moon shapes are sort of like the moon is having little seasons in little moon-years."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:01 am (UTC)

"Oh." Pause. "Wait, why do seasons exist in the first place? If the moon can have them so fast why are ours slower?"

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:02 am (UTC)

"I dunno. I think years are a good length, though," says Milo. "If they were shorter and the seasons went around really fast it might be harder to grow things."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:03 am (UTC)

"Well, I don't think I'd mind after two more rabbit food meals just having to eat not-grown things like cheese which is made from milk and bread which is baked annnnnd bacon which is fried."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:05 am (UTC)

"...I think bread is made from grown things..." says Milo dubiously.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:06 am (UTC)

"It's mostly flour. Flour is milled," says Jann. "You can put seeds in it but you shouldn't because then your bread will have seeds."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:06 am (UTC)

"What's it milled from though," says Milo, "wheat I think, wheat is grown."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:06 am (UTC)

"Oh."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah. So bread is made from grown things. And I like bread."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:07 am (UTC)

"I like bread too. I guess years will have to stay as long as they are."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:08 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

Pet pet.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:10 am (UTC)

Bunnies don't do anything as obvious as purring, which is good, because Jann would be highly embarrassed if anyone knew that he was not just magnanimously tolerating all this petting.

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:11 am (UTC)

Milo won't tell anybody.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:11 am (UTC)

Milo counts as "anyone", so he'd better not even tell Jann.

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:11 am (UTC)

Observe his silence.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:14 am (UTC)

Distinguished, sophisticated lack of purring matches it.

Eventually Jann hops off to go out in the garden and see if anything there tastes better than carrots and lettuce. He is extremely alarmed by the shadow of a hawk, goes back inside, investigates under all the furniture with enough room for a bunny under it, submits to being dusted by his mother, has lunch (broccoli and celery and an apple slice), and goes back to Milo's room to see how Milo is faring.

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:15 am (UTC)

Milo is (a) reading and (b) grumpy.

"Hi, Jann."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:15 am (UTC)

"Hi. Apples taste like apples, too, apparently rabbits eat apples. What're you reading? Has it got knights in it?"

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:18 am (UTC)

"It's boring, it's just less boring than staring at the ceiling," grumps Milo. "I wanted to read it because it's about a magic cave but I didn't know magic caves got this boring."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:19 am (UTC)

"I didn't know magic caves were boring either. What's wrong with this one?"

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:20 am (UTC)

"I think maybe what's wrong with it is that the most boring person in the world went there and wrote a book about it."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:20 am (UTC)

"Oh. Why would a boring person write a book? He'll get his boring on other people that way."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:21 am (UTC)

"Maybe he wanted to. Maybe he's evil and boring."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:22 am (UTC)

"Shouldn't being evil be slightly interesting?" says Jann, flopping gently and bunfully on Milo's chest.

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:23 am (UTC)

"Maybe not always! Maybe some people are just evil and boring and want to bore everyone because they're evil."

Milo closes his boring book and pets his fluffy cousin.
Edited 2015-01-10 01:26 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:26 am (UTC)

"You could read something else. With knights in it."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:27 am (UTC)

"Maybe," he sighs.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:27 am (UTC)

"What're you sighing so much about?"

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:29 am (UTC)

"I hate being stuck in bed," he grumps.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:30 am (UTC)

"It doesn't look like any fun. Too bad all the sorceresses went away and aren't around to do magic healings."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:32 am (UTC)

"At least I'm not stuck here for months, like I would be if it weren't for Fairy Nightfire."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:33 am (UTC)

"Yeah. She's nice."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:33 am (UTC)

"She is the best fairy."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:38 am (UTC)

"I would go get you a book with knights but I can't carry books until tonight."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:38 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:39 am (UTC)

"I could go ask somebody to get you a book with knights."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:41 am (UTC)

"It's okay." Pet pet. "You can get me one when you have hands again." (And are not so fluffy.)
Edited 2015-01-10 01:41 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:41 am (UTC)

"Okay. I'm going to be a knight, though, so I need to know knight things."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:42 am (UTC)

"So you can read lots of books with knights."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:42 am (UTC)

"It's sort of hard to read with eyes on opposite sides of my head."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:54 am (UTC)

"You don't read that much anyway," snorts Milo.
Edited 2015-01-10 01:55 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 01:55 am (UTC)

"Well, no, but I can't play swords, either, or ride horses, because I'm still a rabbit," says Jann reproachfully, "and reading books is something you could do for me, while I'm a rabbit, if you had a book with knights, instead of an evil boring book."

pythbox
2015-01-10 01:58 am (UTC)

"Well, if you go get someone to get me a knights book I'll read it to you, then. But I couldn't pet you and read to you, I can't use my left arm still. And you're really fluffy."

Think of your convalescent cousin, Jann!

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:00 am (UTC)

"Oh. I guess you can't," muses Jann.

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:01 am (UTC)

"I'm glad the carpet was a rabbit carpet and not, like, a bug carpet."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Then you wouldn't be fluffy."

Pet.

"Unless you were a moth or something."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:02 am (UTC)

"I think I'd be scared of being petted if I was a moth. They're even easier to break than you."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:03 am (UTC)

"Yeah," Milo concedes.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:04 am (UTC)

"Although I could fly. Maybe it would be best if it was a bird carpet."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:04 am (UTC)

"Birds break easy too, I think. Maybe not as easy as a moth though."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:05 am (UTC)

"I think you can pet birds? I don't know, I never petted one."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:05 am (UTC)

"I think maybe you can pet birds. But maybe not baby birds."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:05 am (UTC)

"Well, I wouldn't be a baby bird. I'm not a baby rabbit."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:07 am (UTC)

"Yeah. But if it was a baby bird carpet you'd be in trouble."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:07 am (UTC)

"I guess. Especially if it was a not a talking baby bird carpet. I would have to eat worms and I couldn't even complain about it."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:09 am (UTC)

"Ew," says Milo. "Even vegetables are better."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:09 am (UTC)

"So much better. I'm glad rabbits don't have to eat worms."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:10 am (UTC)

"That would be awful."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:10 am (UTC)

"The worst! Maybe the witch was only about as evil as somebody who writes boring books and not really really evil."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:19 am (UTC)

"Maybe!"

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:21 am (UTC)

Eventually Jann is bored of being petted and he lollops off. He has vegetables and a strawberry for dinner (the strawberry makes it look like he's been drinking blood and he won't let his mother clean it off, tearing off down the hall before she can come at him with a napkin). He waits for the nighttime.

When it is nighttime, he goes out under the new moon and he's a human boy again. He goes back to see Milo.

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:32 am (UTC)

Milo smiles a little when he sees his cousin back in his usual shape. "Hi, Jann."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:32 am (UTC)

"Hi. All better. How're you doing?"

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:33 am (UTC)

"Bored."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:33 am (UTC)

"I could bring you cards and we could play cards. I can hold cards now."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:34 am (UTC)

"I'm not supposed to do things with my left hand still... maybe I can play cards one-handed, though."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:34 am (UTC)

"I think you can if I deal."

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:35 am (UTC)

"Okay. Let's try it."

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:35 am (UTC)

Jann goes and gets cards, and deals them out for a game that doesn't involve reflexes or anything that would make it very important to have the cards in a certain order in one's hand.

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:36 am (UTC)

Milo plays! Now he is not bored.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:37 am (UTC)

Good!

Jann loses. This is okay.

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:39 am (UTC)

It is a sign that all is right in the world.

"Play again?"

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:40 am (UTC)

"Sure."

They play cards until Jann's mother comes to inform him that it is his bedtime. She ruffles Milo's hair on the way out.

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:41 am (UTC)

Milo tolerates the ruffling.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:43 am (UTC)

A month passes.

Jann, for his part, has completely forgotten about Milo's moon-relevant offer.

pythbox
2015-01-10 02:57 am (UTC)

So he will probably be surprised when, late one afternoon, he comes back from riding his horse and there is a small ball of silky black fluff waiting for him in the stable.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 02:58 am (UTC)

Well, now he remembers.

"Milo?" he asks.

pythbox
2015-01-10 03:02 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Milo's voice from within the fluff. Some fluff wiggles near one end; on close inspection, those are two little ear-tips poking up, and some distance below them there is a small soft nose. "I'm fluffier than you!"

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 03:04 am (UTC)

"Probably it does fluff in proportion to deviousness." He picks Milo up so the horse won't step on him, sets the fluff on his shoulder, and installs the horse where it belongs. "How'd you get back in the treasure rooms without getting caught?" Pet pet.

pythbox
2015-01-10 03:06 am (UTC)

"I just waited until the guard wasn't looking and ran past. It wasn't hard. And it was even easier getting out, I'm so little now." Triumphant ear-wiggle.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 03:07 am (UTC)

"You're teeny. And fluffy and black. Do you like being a rabbit?" Pet pet pet pet pet pet pet.

pythbox
2015-01-10 03:10 am (UTC)

"It's fun! I can hop around! But I'm scared in case I break a bone like this, cause I couldn't set it by myself."

His parents have tried to discourage him from doing that, but Nightfire's blessing means that it's very easy to set Milo's bones, and he can almost never be bothered to go and get an adult and make them do it if he still has at least one working hand that can reach the problem area.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 03:11 am (UTC)

"Well, I won't drop you," promises Jann. "And if you break something anyway I can set it probably."

pythbox
2015-01-10 03:13 am (UTC)

"Okay."

This is a satisfactory arrangement. And being petted as a rabbit is nice.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 03:13 am (UTC)

Pet pet pet. Jann goes out of the stable but doesn't go indoors lest someone notice the rabbit in his possession and get Milo in trouble for trying to be fair.

pythbox
2015-01-10 03:15 am (UTC)

Milo doesn't actually know when it will count as being out under the new moon, but clearly that time has not yet come, because he remains teeny and fluffy and a rabbit.

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 03:16 am (UTC)

Jann decides to sit down because this makes it less likely that he will drop Milo injuriously whenever this event occurs. Much petting ensues.
Edited 2015-01-10 03:17 (UTC)

pythbox
2015-01-10 03:21 am (UTC)

Milo remains teeny and fluffy and a rabbit until a little after sunset, at which point he reverts to a human, still perched in Jann's lap. He giggles and hops triumphantly to his feet.

"I did it!"

alicornucopia
2015-01-10 03:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah! Thanks! You were super soft."

pythbox
2015-01-10 03:21 am (UTC)

Milo beams.

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:05 am (UTC)

When Milo is not quite ten and Jann is not quite twelve, the Duke of Ferdinandia dies. His fifteen-year-old grandson Reko inherits.

Ainar and Celyta and a vast array of miscellaneous Raxwellian nobles - and Milo, and Jann - all go to Ferdinandia for the funeral. It is huge and impressive and there are solemn speeches and wine and less-solemn speeches after the advent of the wine. The new Duke Reko puts on his half of the crown of Raxwell, and nothing happens, not that anyone was expecting it to; it just falls over the way half a crown will tend to when you put it on someone's head. Later, in private, Reko and Ainar try to fit their respective halves back together. It doesn't work. It has never worked, but there's not much to do other than keep trying.

Reko escapes the ceremonies at the earliest polite opportunity. There aren't many places he can go and completely avoid well-meaning strangers congratulating him on his new title or wanting to talk about his grandfather... but his little Raxwellian not-cousins aren't strangers. He seems to remember someone having let the children into a courtyard earlier. He finds it.

pythbox
2015-01-10 05:08 am (UTC)

Reko has the distinction of being the only person other than Ainar who has ever beaten Milo at chess. Milo respects him greatly.

When Reko enters the courtyard, Milo runs over and hugs him.

abeance
2015-01-10 05:11 am (UTC)

Jann pays attention to the possibility that Reko might want to hug him (what with the deceased grandfather), but isn't quite so spontaneously enthusiastic about it.

"Hi," he says, trotting up behind Milo.

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:15 am (UTC)

Reko seems pretty content with his Milo-hugs. He sits on the cobblestones and hugs back.

"Hi. I'm a Duke now," he sighs.

"I saw," says Milo. "It didn't fix the crown."

"There was no reason it would've."

Hugs.

abeance
2015-01-10 05:19 am (UTC)

"I don't think I understand how that's meant to work anyway. The crown," says Jann, sitting down too.

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:32 am (UTC)

"Well, back when Raxwell was one kingdom, it had one entire crown," says Reko. "Then its king made some bad decisions, and it split into two half-kingdoms with half a crown each. The Dukes of Raxwell and Ferdinandia have been trying to put the crown back together ever since, but nothing's worked yet. Before it came apart, the crown would glow when crowning a new king, and if it didn't glow that person couldn't be king, and that's why we're dukes instead."

"The bad decisions were kind of funny," opines Milo.

"I think they were less funny to the people involved," says Reko.

abeance
2015-01-10 05:34 am (UTC)

"What've they tried?" asks Jann. "Glue?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:39 am (UTC)

"It's a magic crown," says Reko. "It came apart by magic and it has to go together again by magic or it's not going to work."

"And if it doesn't work my bones stay messed up forever."

"That too."

abeance
2015-01-10 05:39 am (UTC)

"Well, they've tried magic, then, I assume? Somebody magic has tried it. Or they tried magic glue."

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:46 am (UTC)

"Fairy Nightfire looked at it," says Milo. "And she said if the two halves of the kingdom married back together it would work. But I don't have a sister and neither does Reko."

"She also said that just trying to stick it back together with a spell wouldn't do anything good. I think magic glue falls into that category," says Reko.
Edited 2015-01-10 05:46 (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-10 05:47 am (UTC)

"Oh. So it has to wait for like a long time."

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:49 am (UTC)

"Yeah," says Milo.

"Probably," agrees Reko.

abeance
2015-01-10 05:50 am (UTC)

"Probably?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:52 am (UTC)

"Something strange might happen," says Reko. "Sometimes strange things do."

abeance
2015-01-10 05:53 am (UTC)

"That's true. Like the time Milo turned me into a rabbit."

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:53 am (UTC)

"Yes. Like that."

"It was an accident," says Milo, aggrievedly.

abeance
2015-01-10 05:54 am (UTC)

"Yes, which is why it was so much stranger than the time you turned you into a rabbit, that one not being an accident."

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 05:58 am (UTC)

"...Oh?" says Reko.

"You can't tell anybody!" says Milo. "I wasn't supposed to. But Jann was so fluffy and he didn't get to pet himself while he was fluffy, so I snuck into the treasure room again and touched the rabbit carpet and snuck out and let him pet me while I was fluffy. I was even fluffier than him."

"I see," says Reko. "And nobody knows about this?"

"Except us and now you."

abeance
2015-01-10 05:59 am (UTC)

"It's Reko, he's not going to tell anybody. ...Unless being a duke makes you officially a grownup all of a sudden."

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 06:01 am (UTC)

"I think it does," says Reko. "But it also means there's no one I have to tell things to if I don't want to."

"Good," says Milo firmly.

abeance
2015-01-10 06:01 am (UTC)

"That's nearly as good as not being a grownup yet," nods Jann.

seewhathappens
2015-01-10 06:03 am (UTC)

"I agree," says Reko.

Milo giggles.

abeance
2015-01-10 06:05 am (UTC)

The funeral proceeds funereally.

The Raxwell contingent goes home.

Jann develops a crush on the stable groom's daughter, who is four years older than him and thinks this is cute and gives him enough tidbits of attention that it's a long time in winding down. When it does wind down he promptly develops a crush on a village milkmaid, who doesn't think it's quite so cute; when he has wrested his attention away from her it is pretty clear that "Jann is fascinated by damsels" is going to be an ongoing theme.

pythbox
2015-01-10 06:07 am (UTC)

Milo is entertained by Jann's girl problems for about a week. Then he is bored. Then he is exasperated. He doesn't see what's so interesting here.

abeance
2015-01-10 06:08 am (UTC)

"Well, they're - you know, damsels! I'm going to be a knight and you're already a prince, we are supposed to be interested in damsels. And rescue them from things and then kiss them, it's like a rule."

pythbox
2015-01-10 06:10 am (UTC)

"You can if you want," snorts Milo. "I'd rather play chess than kiss girls."

abeance
2015-01-10 06:12 am (UTC)

"I should see if Alirra wants to play chess or something," says Jann dreamily, Alirra being the name of a baron's daughter who is Jann's current object of affection, about the same age, and willing to indulge him some of the time.

pythbox
2015-01-10 06:13 am (UTC)

"If she beats you, tell me and maybe I'll play her too."

abeance
2015-01-10 06:13 am (UTC)

"You wouldn't even properly appreciate it," says Jann loftily.

pythbox
2015-01-10 06:13 am (UTC)

"I appreciate chess way more than you do!"

abeance
2015-01-10 06:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but I appreciate Alirra more than you do! You can play chess with your dad."

pythbox
2015-01-10 06:16 am (UTC)

"If she only wants to play chess for weird reasons then fine, but if she likes it and she's good at it then I don't have to not play her just because she's a girl that you like."

abeance
2015-01-10 06:17 am (UTC)

"I mean, I guess, but if she's going to be over here I want to hang out with her," says Jann. "I like her. If anything carries her off I'm going to rescue her and then I will get to kiss her, she said if I rescue her from something for real I can have a kiss."

pythbox
2015-01-10 06:15 pm (UTC)

Milo makes a face. "Kissing is gross."

abeance
2015-01-10 08:50 pm (UTC)

"No it's not! I thought so too but it isn't."

pythbox
2015-01-10 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Well, you can go kiss girls then. Maybe if you did it more you'd talk about it less," Milo says optimistically.

abeance
2015-01-10 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, I haven't rescued Alirra from anything, not actually. And I don't really want something to carry her off, either," muses Jann. "If something did I'd rescue her but probably she wouldn't like it very much all together."

pythbox
2015-01-10 09:05 pm (UTC)

"Kiss a different girl," Milo suggests. "One with lower standards."

abeance
2015-01-10 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I like Alirra right now. Maybe later I'll find a different girl I want to kiss who wants to kiss me."

pythbox
2015-01-10 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Or maybe you should tell Alirra that getting carried off by something isn't any fun and if she'd want to kiss you after you rescued her from something maybe she should just skip the bad part," says Milo thoughtfully.

abeance
2015-01-10 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Ooh! That's a good idea."

pythbox
2015-01-10 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Do that," says Milo.

abeance
2015-01-10 09:15 pm (UTC)

"I will next time I see her." Nod, nod.

Alirra proves unmoved by this line of argument, alas. Jann moves on to someone who doesn't need to be argued into kissing him in due course. It doesn't really make him talk about it less.

pythbox
2015-01-10 09:18 pm (UTC)

Well, that's annoying.

abeance
2015-01-10 09:19 pm (UTC)

Jann ignores Milo's annoyance! He has a girl to kiss. All is right with the world.

Predictably enough, when Jann is not quite fifteen he is enrolled in knight school, where he will receive more systematic education in knight-related subjects and acquire knightliness-inclined friends with whom to practice knightfulness, with a view to being formally knighted when he's probably about eighteen.

Jann likes knight school quite a bit and usually forgets to write home until he has three or four insistent letters from his mother or other relations piled up on his knightstand.

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:27 pm (UTC)

Not-quite-thirteen-year-old Milo (and, subseqently, quite-thirteen-year-old Milo) writes him about once a month, asking after his knightly adventures. The regularity of the letters suggests that his mother is probably reminding him, but he is legitimately interested in the subject even so.

Somewhat wistfully interested. Milo cannot go to knight school. He has tried learning several weapons, and although he's quite good at archery, any kind of fighting that involves two or more people hitting each other with things will inevitably break his bones even when his opponent is trying to be gentle. Milo would love to go to knight school, would probably even be allowed to go to knight school, but there's no way he could be the kind of knight who saves damsels from being carried off by monsters. At least not if he had to do it with a sword.

Halfway through Jann's first year at knight school, he gets a letter from Milo two whole weeks ahead of schedule. I bet I had a more exciting day than you! it begins. A giant tried to pillage the town I was visiting with Mom and Dad, and I argued him out of it! His name is Porabor and he's surprisingly nice for a marauding giant. Dad's going to let him move into that old ruined castle near the southern border, and send some people to help fix it up for giant habitation, in return for Porabor not marauding anymore and helping us clear out blocked roads and similar.
Edited 2015-01-10 21:27 (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-10 09:28 pm (UTC)

That is way more interesting than my day! agrees Jann when he gets around to reading this letter and writing back. All I did today was have various kinds of practice. Nice work with the giant! I know how to fight them but only in theory and it sounds a little too interesting all around. Why did you even start talking to the marauding giant in the first place though?

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:31 pm (UTC)

Well, I was hardly going to go after him with a sword. Talking seemed the safer option.

abeance
2015-01-10 09:32 pm (UTC)

No, I don't mean why didn't you go after him with a sword, I mean why did you do anything at all?

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:35 pm (UTC)

He was trying to pillage the town, was I supposed to just let him?

One might almost develop the impression that Milo is trying to avoid bringing something up.
Edited 2015-01-10 21:35 (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-10 09:36 pm (UTC)

Jann doesn't bother replying to this letter. When he is home from school on a break he corners Milo and says, "So what's the whole story on the giant thing?"

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Jann, nice to see you, Jann," says Milo, rolling his eyes.

abeance
2015-01-10 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Nice to see you too. Spill."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Ugh. Fine," says Milo. "He got confused and thought I was a princess and tried to carry me off. I set him straight, he came back and put me down and apologized."

abeance
2015-01-10 09:39 pm (UTC)

"How did he confuse you for a princess, Milo, were you wearing a dress at the time?"

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:39 pm (UTC)

"No!" he exclaims. "I was wearing, you know, usual clothes! Prince clothes!"

abeance
2015-01-10 09:40 pm (UTC)

"Were you hanging out with princesses? If you know princesses you need to introduce me."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:41 pm (UTC)

"I was not hanging out with princesses. Why would I introduce you to princesses? You'll just start kissing them and then probably want to tell me all about it."

abeance
2015-01-10 09:42 pm (UTC)

"I could shut up about it if it would get me introduced to princesses!"

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:43 pm (UTC)

"Why do you want to be introduced to princesses in particular?"

abeance
2015-01-10 09:44 pm (UTC)

"They're all... princessy. But anyway I know you don't care so tell me about the giant instead, I'm sure you'd prefer it."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, he was really embarrassed about his mistake, so he listened to me when I suggested he look into alternative career paths. And Dad said he wouldn't mind pardoning him for the one attempted pillaging, since he did seem to be very sorry about it, and they talked it out, and now Porabor lives in the southern ruins and we send for him whenever somebody needs something really big and heavy moved."

abeance
2015-01-10 09:56 pm (UTC)

"That's useful, then. But how did he even make that mistake? You don't look like a girl. You're little, but that probably won't make you look like a girl even from far away until you're at least my age, maybe older."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:56 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea. Porabor has no idea either."

abeance
2015-01-10 09:57 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm glad I didn't have to be hauled home from school to rescue you from a giant. I'm not even especially good at giants."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 09:57 pm (UTC)

"I can rescue myself perfectly well, thanks."

abeance
2015-01-10 09:58 pm (UTC)

"You can if a giant carries you off, apparently. Giants can talk. What if it was a manticore?"

first_and_final
2015-01-10 10:00 pm (UTC)

"Well, it wasn't."

abeance
2015-01-10 10:00 pm (UTC)

"I'm good at manticores, though. I mean, in theory. I haven't tried fighting a real manticore yet."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Do they have fake manticores for you to fight?"

abeance
2015-01-10 10:02 pm (UTC)

"There's an enchanted marionette."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Cool."

abeance
2015-01-10 10:04 pm (UTC)

"It's fun! I wish you could come."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Me too," he sighs.

abeance
2015-01-10 10:06 pm (UTC)

Jann pats him on the shoulder. "So what've you been up to besides getting mistaken for a princess and not kissing any girls, huh?"

first_and_final
2015-01-10 10:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh, you know. Breaking exciting new combinations of bones. Learning statecraft from my parents. Visiting Reko with Mom."

abeance
2015-01-10 10:18 pm (UTC)

"I hear if you break your shoulder and all of the opposite toes and both elbows you win a stuffed unicorn."

first_and_final
2015-01-10 10:20 pm (UTC)

Milo snickers.

abeance
2015-01-10 10:34 pm (UTC)

Jann enjoys his break and then goes back to school. Swords! Horses! Manticore marionette! Protocol and tactics and tourneys and armor and lances and calisthenics!

Jann does solidly okay on everything. It would be pretty hard to be more exactly smack dab in the middle of what is expected of knight students, down to being slightly better at some things than other things but the whole shebang being a wash.

When they reconvene there are also new would-be knights, and it is customary for them to get shepherded around by preexisting students. Jann had one; they're still friends. He turns up to be assigned one of the newbies himself.
Edited 2015-01-10 23:14 (UTC)

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:20 pm (UTC)

His assigned newbie is a boy named Glynn. It's easy to pick him out of the gaggle, because he is the youngest, shortest boy present, just past thirteen in contrast to everyone else's fifteen-or-nearly. He has bright green eyes and bright blond hair and a positively scintillating smile.

abeance
2015-01-10 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Hullo, Glynn, I'm Jann," says Jann, when he has located his assignment. "Are you as young as you look?"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you, Jann! I don't know, how young do I look?"

abeance
2015-01-10 11:22 pm (UTC)

"About thirteen? I know they sometimes take younger students but I don't know how you're supposed to manage it, what did you do, beat a teacher in a duel?"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:24 pm (UTC)

"I turned thirteen last month. And, well, not a teacher..."

abeance
2015-01-10 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Okay, better stay on your good side, noted! On that note, want a tour?"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:26 pm (UTC)

Glynn giggles.

"Yes please!"

abeance
2015-01-10 11:27 pm (UTC)

So Jann shows him around; he picks a different route from the other pairs to avoid traffic. "You always want to be a knight?" he asks. "Or did you wake up the other week having come over all swordy?"
Edited 2015-01-10 23:27 (UTC)

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:29 pm (UTC)

"No, always, definitely always. What about you?"

abeance
2015-01-10 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Also always. But I have never beaten a teacher in a duel. I can try to trade you with the best in my year if you prefer to have a buddy who is similarly impressive."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Not at all! I like you. We should be friends," he says firmly.

abeance
2015-01-10 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Can't scare me. So over here are the stables, did you bring your own horse?"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:35 pm (UTC)

"I don't have a horse," he admits.

abeance
2015-01-10 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Okay, you can use school horses, avoid the big black one, he bites. You can borrow mine too if I'm not using her and you know what you're doing with a horse, she's the strawberry roan paint over there, see? Name is Morganite. I think that's a rock, I let my cousin name her because I couldn't think of anything."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I can ride. I'm not as good at it as I am at other things."

abeance
2015-01-10 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's what school's for."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Yes!"

abeance
2015-01-10 11:47 pm (UTC)

"So those're the stables and up here is the practice yards, that's where we have tourneys, jousting goes over there, there's the archery range but that's pretty much optional once you know which end of a bow's which, I skip it."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:48 pm (UTC)

"I like archery," says Glynn.

abeance
2015-01-10 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Then the archery teacher will like you, she gets very tired of people dropping out of her sequence when they're allowed."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:53 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

"Does anyone stay in it? I can't be the only person in the world who thinks archery is fun."

abeance
2015-01-10 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, some people, just not most of them."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I'll be one of the weird ones, I guess. That's nothing new."

abeance
2015-01-10 11:56 pm (UTC)

"No? You are the only would-be knight in an entire village full of knitters and pumpkin-gardeners and competitive scone-bakers?"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:57 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly. Do you actually know any competitive scone-bakers? Are there scone-baking competitions I've been missing out on all this time?"

abeance
2015-01-10 11:58 pm (UTC)

"There are baking competitions. I don't know if they get as specific as scones. But they're great to attend because the judges don't tend to finish a whole batch of anything and people can take some!"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-10 11:59 pm (UTC)

"Next time you go to a baking competition I want to come."

abeance
2015-01-11 12:00 am (UTC)

"When I wind up going to that sort of thing it's usually with a girl, but we could double-date, if you brought one of your own."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:01 am (UTC)

"I don't really know any girls. Not to go to baking competitions with, anyway."

abeance
2015-01-11 12:03 am (UTC)

"Well, I know what to do, then, next time I get the 'oh but my friend will be lonely' bit from somebody. Long as her friend isn't too much older than you, I guess."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:03 am (UTC)

Glynn giggles.
Edited 2015-01-11 00:04 (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-11 12:07 am (UTC)

"Which is good! My other friends respectively have steady girlfriends or like boys or do not care for baking competitions and similar. You fill a niche. Congratulations."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:20 am (UTC)

Glynn giggles again.

"Like boys and don't like girls, you mean?"

abeance
2015-01-11 12:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's what I meant. Or only like girls about as much as I like boys."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:25 am (UTC)

"Oh? How much do you like boys?" he wonders.

abeance
2015-01-11 12:26 am (UTC)

"I basically didn't notice that it was 'at all' until I'd been mad about girls for a couple of years? And then a girl expressed the opinion that boys should kiss each other more, so me and the other fellow in the room sort of shrugged at each other?" Jann shrugs illustratively. "Very much an afterthought."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:28 am (UTC)

Glynn laughs. "Oh. I like girls and boys about the same amount, I think. I haven't noticed a difference, anyway."

abeance
2015-01-11 12:29 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that happens too. Usually if I get the 'my friend will be lonely' thing the friend's a girl though. Though one time it was the girl's twin brother."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:30 am (UTC)

"What is the 'my friend will be lonely' thing, exactly?"

abeance
2015-01-11 12:32 am (UTC)

"Oh, I'll be talking to some girl - there's the magic manticore marionette, it's fun! - and we'll be trying to make plans and she feels responsible for entertaining her friend cousin sister next-door neighbor classmate whatever during the time we'd like to have our date, and then the plans are on if and only if I can find a date for this extra person. It's perfectly understandable. I'd probably have done it myself once or twice if my cousin ever showed interest in, like, company as desirable for things other than chess games and would find it helpful."
Edited 2015-01-11 00:32 (UTC)

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:34 am (UTC)

Giggle.

"Your cousin doesn't like anyone that way?"

abeance
2015-01-11 12:35 am (UTC)

"Not yet. He's about your age, some people take a while. Or just remain perpetually confused, I suppose."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:37 am (UTC)

"He can just play chess instead, I guess."

abeance
2015-01-11 12:37 am (UTC)

"He is very good at chess."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:38 am (UTC)

"I should play him!"

abeance
2015-01-11 12:38 am (UTC)

"Oh, you like chess? Sure, why not, you can do it over the mail, right?"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:40 am (UTC)

"Yes! It isn't as much fun as in person, but it's still fun. Where does your cousin live?"

abeance
2015-01-11 12:41 am (UTC)

"The ex-royal ducal castle of Raxwell. I live there too, but he's the actual prince, I'm just his cousin."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:42 am (UTC)

"Oh! That's exciting," says Glynn. "Well, maybe not to you, I guess."

abeance
2015-01-11 12:42 am (UTC)

"I don't want my life to be quite that exciting. Too much statecraft, not enough swords."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:43 am (UTC)

"Castles are kind of exciting, though. To me."

abeance
2015-01-11 12:44 am (UTC)

"Oh, that. Yeah, that's not very exciting to me, I grew up there."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:46 am (UTC)

"Maybe I can visit sometime. And be excited about your cousin's castle."

abeance
2015-01-11 12:47 am (UTC)

"Sure, why not? You might want to get your own horse if you're going to make international trips like that, though, unless you packed a flying carpet."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:51 am (UTC)

"I probably should," he agrees.

abeance
2015-01-11 12:52 am (UTC)

"Horse breeders sometimes come around and try to advertise to us, since we're in the market."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:53 am (UTC)

"Do you know things about horses? Could you help me find a good one?"

abeance
2015-01-11 12:54 am (UTC)

"I know a few things. I'm not an expert but I'll help. First rule: don't get one that bites."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:55 am (UTC)

"That does sound important."

abeance
2015-01-11 12:55 am (UTC)

"Yep! If you disobey this rule you will find tadpoles in your drinking water for a year and a day. Also your horse will bite you."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:57 am (UTC)

"I do not believe you about the tadpoles," Glynn asserts.

abeance
2015-01-11 12:58 am (UTC)

"You caught me. That part only lasts a month. But horse bites, ah, horse bites are forever."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 12:59 am (UTC)

Giggle.

abeance
2015-01-11 01:12 am (UTC)

"Anyway, play chess by mail with Milo and he'll love you, win and he'll love you more but it will be a snarly love."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:16 am (UTC)

"Snarly love is fine with me."

abeance
2015-01-11 01:17 am (UTC)

"It seems to work for the, like, two people who've ever beaten him."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:17 am (UTC)

"So he's very good at chess?"

abeance
2015-01-11 01:19 am (UTC)

"Yeah. His dad can win, Reko - duke of Ferdinandia, technically no relation if I recall right - can win, I think that's it."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:20 am (UTC)

"So I'll be in distinguished company if I beat him."

abeance
2015-01-11 01:20 am (UTC)

"Yep. I play him sometimes but I never even expect to have a shot."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:23 am (UTC)

"I'll give it my best," he says, grinning. Jann has no way of knowing this, but it is the same grin he grinned when he asked how many instructors he would have to beat in practice duels before they'd let him into the school two years before the normal age with no money, no disclosed lineage, and no recommendations.

abeance
2015-01-11 01:26 am (UTC)

"And here's the dormitories. Your cohort's going to be down that hall, they don't assign rooms, just pick one that nobody's in and it's all yours. I'm upstairs, third on the right, if you have any questions you want to bring to your, what's my formal title, mentor? I will also be upstairs if you do not."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:28 am (UTC)

Giggle.

"Okay!"

abeance
2015-01-11 01:28 am (UTC)

Jann grins and trots up the stairs.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:34 am (UTC)

Glynn does not have very many questions to bring to his mentor. He lets Jann know when he picks a room, and he asks how to address a letter to Jann's cousin, and every so often he seeks Jann out for a chat.

He is very, very good at nearly everything they teach here. His worst subjects are etiquette and equitation, but only in comparison to his astronomical talent at all the martial disciplines; he's still in the top third of both.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 01:35 am (UTC)

Milo, for his part, sends letters to Jann more frequently when he's exchanging chess moves with Glynn as fast as the couriers will carry them. He is impressed with Glynn's chess ability, although to no one's surprise Milo still wins their first game.

abeance
2015-01-11 01:36 am (UTC)

Jann is supportive of his, wosscalled, mentee! Yay! And it is good that Milo has a willing chess victim.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:38 am (UTC)

Glynn has been playing chess with Milo for a month and a half (and has known Jann for only a few days longer than that) when he knocks excitedly on Jann's door one afternoon.

"Jann, Jann, guess what I did!"

abeance
2015-01-11 01:41 am (UTC)

"Rescued a damsel? Thwacked a teacher? Rode the big black horse for a league without getting bitten?"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:42 am (UTC)

"Beat your cousin at chess!"

abeance
2015-01-11 01:45 am (UTC)

"Wow! That's even more impressive. This is what, your second game, now? He will have you in his castle to play chess with come fire or flood."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:46 am (UTC)

"Hopefully there will be no fire or flood. That would interfere with playing chess."

abeance
2015-01-11 01:47 am (UTC)

"Yes. Yes it would. Well, maybe depending what was on fire."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:50 am (UTC)

"If anything is on fire that should not be on fire, I would rather deal with it before playing any chess."

abeance
2015-01-11 01:51 am (UTC)

"That's fair."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 01:54 am (UTC)

"I thought so, yes."

abeance
2015-01-11 01:55 am (UTC)

"I should go catch up on my correspondence, if Milo has even noticed that you give him a close game I'm probably already supposed to bring you home with me."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 02:00 am (UTC)

Glynn laughs.

abeance
2015-01-11 02:03 am (UTC)

Indeed, when the term ends Jann brings Glynn home with him.

"Hi, Milo!" he says when he has located Milo. "This is Glynn, your chess nemesis. Glynn, this is Milo, my cousin." Glynn has already been briefed on "be careful not to break him, he's under a faerie curse".

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 02:13 am (UTC)

"It's nice to properly meet you!" beams Glynn.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 02:15 am (UTC)

"Same to you," says Milo. "He's not my nemesis, Jann, he's still only beat me once."

abeance
2015-01-11 03:19 am (UTC)

"On your second game."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 03:31 am (UTC)

"We've played ten more times since then!"

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 03:32 am (UTC)

"More than that, I think," says Glynn. "But now we don't have to wait for the mail, so we can play much faster."

abeance
2015-01-11 03:33 am (UTC)

"Now this I am interested to see. Although I might not watch if you decide to play ten times."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 03:40 am (UTC)

"I don't think we'll be limiting ourselves to ten."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 03:41 am (UTC)

"Of course not."
Edited 2015-01-11 03:41 (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-11 03:42 am (UTC)

"Chess nuts," snorts Jann. "Just don't convince Glynn to abandon knight school for a chess career, Milo, I'd be lonesome."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 03:44 am (UTC)

"Not intentionally."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 03:44 am (UTC)

"I'm not going to abandon knight school."

abeance
2015-01-11 03:45 am (UTC)

"Good."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 03:46 am (UTC)

"But I am going to play a lot of chess with Milo while I'm here."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 04:09 am (UTC)

Milo brings Glynn to a room where there is a chessboard. They play a game.

They play fast.

Milo is very excited.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 04:10 am (UTC)

Glynn is pretty excited too!

He loses. But not catastrophically.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 04:11 am (UTC)

Then they play again.

abeance
2015-01-11 04:12 am (UTC)

If they're going to play that quickly Jann might actually sit through ten entire games.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 04:15 am (UTC)

Glynn wins the third game.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 04:26 am (UTC)

"Right," says Milo. "Let's play again."

He wins the next several, by varying margins.

abeance
2015-01-11 04:26 am (UTC)

Jann giggles when Glynn wins.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 04:29 am (UTC)

"You shut up."

abeance
2015-01-11 04:29 am (UTC)

"I didn't say anything."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 04:31 am (UTC)

"You giggled."

abeance
2015-01-11 04:32 am (UTC)

"That's not, technically, saying anything."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 04:37 am (UTC)

"Uh-huh."

abeance
2015-01-11 04:37 am (UTC)

Jann smiles and doesn't technically say anything.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 04:38 am (UTC)

Milo's subsequent string of victories is very mollifying.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 04:39 am (UTC)

Glynn doesn't seem to mind losing. He has fun anyway.

abeance
2015-01-11 04:40 am (UTC)

Eventually Jann gets bored and wanders off.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:01 am (UTC)

Glynn spends a lot of time over this break playing chess with Milo.

He can be coaxed into hanging out with Jann too, though.

abeance
2015-01-11 05:02 am (UTC)

Jann gets to see Glynn all the time at school, but he will occasionally steal him away from Milo to get a little practice in. No good falling out of condition.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:04 am (UTC)

Glynn is pretty excellent to practice with! Also he thinks it's great fun.

abeance
2015-01-11 05:05 am (UTC)

It is! Knight-stuff is fun! Glynn is better at it than Jann is, but oh well.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:09 am (UTC)

Glynn is better at it than just about everybody. But he's happy to give Jann tips.

abeance
2015-01-11 05:10 am (UTC)

And thus will Jann improve.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:11 am (UTC)

Perhaps by the end of the break he will no longer be so aggressively average!

abeance
2015-01-11 05:14 am (UTC)

Jann is pretty thoroughly average, but he can float on the better side of average for awhile. Pity Milo can't join them.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 05:14 am (UTC)

He only occasionally gets grumpy about it.

abeance
2015-01-11 05:15 am (UTC)

"I wish you could learn knighting. Maybe you should learn something else. You could learn magic."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 05:16 am (UTC)

"You're suggesting I learn magic?"

abeance
2015-01-11 05:17 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's a point, you'd probably turn me into a rabbit again or something."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:17 am (UTC)

"...You turned him into a rabbit?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 05:18 am (UTC)

"By accident! When I was five!"

abeance
2015-01-11 05:19 am (UTC)

"Neither of which made me any less: a rabbit. I had to eat salad ingredients exclusively."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 05:23 am (UTC)

"For all of a day. Almost ten years ago."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:23 am (UTC)

"How did you end up a rabbit, exactly...?"

abeance
2015-01-11 05:24 am (UTC)

"There's a magic carpet in the treasure room that he wanted me to get off a shelf because he didn't like how it was looming precariously over something else, and when you touch the wrong side of it, rabbit."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:25 am (UTC)

"...How do you stop being a rabbit?"

abeance
2015-01-11 05:25 am (UTC)

"...you... go out under the new moon. Milo tried it later, actually, for a few hours."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:26 am (UTC)

"When is the next new moon?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 05:27 am (UTC)

"...Are you just going to go be a rabbit?"

abeance
2015-01-11 05:27 am (UTC)

"Do I look like an astronomer to you? Less than a month off, that I do know."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:28 am (UTC)

"I want to know what it's like!"

abeance
2015-01-11 05:29 am (UTC)

"It's... like being a rabbit. Eyes on both sides of your head, nose-twitches that won't quit, hoppability. Lettuce. Heck, we're probably old enough now that you could ask permission, if you don't want to be caught rummaging in the treasure rooms."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:30 am (UTC)

"I wasn't planning to just go rummage in your treasure room without permission."

abeance
2015-01-11 05:31 am (UTC)

"I mean, permission from Uncle Ainar or Aunt Celyta, as opposed to, say, Milo, who has been known to claim that he as good as owns the place."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 04:38 pm (UTC)

first_and_final
2015-01-11 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Hey, it's my castle too!"

abeance
2015-01-11 05:41 pm (UTC)

"There's probably a calendar around somewhere that says when the next new moon is, which you'd want to know in case you don't like being a rabbit very much."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I don't see what's not to like."

abeance
2015-01-11 05:44 pm (UTC)

"It makes it hard to do much of anything but chew on greens and be petted. And hop, I guess. Can't read, can't hold a sword, can't even open doors. I went outside and a hawk spooked me."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, I wouldn't want to be one for an entire month, I don't think. But I wouldn't mind just a day or two. It would be interesting."

abeance
2015-01-11 05:47 pm (UTC)

"So, if the new moon was last week, you probably want to experiment with the carpet some other time. I'll go find a calendar."

Jann goes looking for a calendar. When pray tell is the next new moon?

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:09 pm (UTC)

It turns out to be in two days.

Glynn secures permission from Duchess Celyta to go touch the rabbit carpet, and the next morning, Milo takes him down to the treasure room.

He is even fluffier than Milo, a practically spherical blond orb of softness. Not even ear-tips are visible.

"It's hard to see in here," he giggles.

abeance
2015-01-11 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, you have a lot of fluff. Milo was pretty fluffy but I think you've got him beat," snorts Jann, trying to brush some of the fur away from Glynn's eyes without poking him anywhere a rabbit should not be poked.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:14 pm (UTC)

Glynn blinks at him. His eyes are still green.

"I'm proud of my fluffy accomplishment," he says solemnly.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 06:14 pm (UTC)

Milo cracks up.

abeance
2015-01-11 06:15 pm (UTC)

"We could try to find something to keep your fur out of your eyes," says Jann. "Some kind of hair tie. It'd look very silly but you could see."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 06:16 pm (UTC)

"I think that fur is long enough to braid," snorts Milo.

abeance
2015-01-11 06:16 pm (UTC)

"We could do that! I know how to do a basic braid. But you still have to tie them off eventually."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:17 pm (UTC)

"You can braid my fur if you like."

abeance
2015-01-11 06:19 pm (UTC)

"I'll go see what there is in the way of objects to make that last for more than a minute and a half."

Jann wanders off and comes back with some clips, none of which were originally intended for use by men, or on rabbits, or with the other clips in the handful (they are accumulated discards from girlfriends, not a set), but which should suffice, and he sets about braiding Glynn's fur out of his eyes.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:22 pm (UTC)

Glynn looks pretty thoroughly ridiculous, but he can see now.

And he is the softest fluffiest most pettable rabbit in the world, which brings him great joy.

abeance
2015-01-11 06:23 pm (UTC)

Not all of his fur must be braided into submission to allow him to see. So there is some to pet left! Pet pet.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:26 pm (UTC)

Yes. Petting is the correct thing to do with a Glynn-rabbit.

He has no dignity-related concerns here. Being petted is great and he doesn't mind saying so.

abeance
2015-01-11 06:27 pm (UTC)

Jann does not object to petting Glynn. Or carrying him around and opening doors for him. If Glynn gets bored Jann could probably even be talked into reading to him or moving his chess pieces for him for reasonable lengths of time.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:28 pm (UTC)

He is pretty content to be carried around and petted until lack-of-moonrise.

abeance
2015-01-11 06:28 pm (UTC)

Upon which occasion Jann lets him out into the garden.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:31 pm (UTC)

And he turns back into a human. There is a minor rain of hairclips.

"That was fun! I was right, this castle is exciting."

abeance
2015-01-11 06:32 pm (UTC)

Jann picks up the hairclips. "Glad you like it."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:36 pm (UTC)

"And your cousin is fun to play chess with. Maybe if I try I can beat him a third time."

abeance
2015-01-11 06:36 pm (UTC)

"Maybe! If you didn't try, he'd be so disappointed."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:38 pm (UTC)

"And I wouldn't want to disappoint him."

abeance
2015-01-11 06:39 pm (UTC)

"'Course not. You aren't the disappointing sort. We go back to school soon, though, and then you'll have to go back to playing by mail."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-11 06:45 pm (UTC)

"I'd better play him some more while I'm still here, then."

And he goes and finds Milo and a chessboard.

He does win one more game before the break ends and they have to go back to knight school.

abeance
2015-01-11 06:46 pm (UTC)

And then back to school they go.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 06:52 pm (UTC)

Another year goes by. Glynn and Milo play a lot of chess. Glynn continues to outshine the entire school.

A month after Milo's fifteenth birthday, he gets restless and goes out for a long afternoon ride. It's not that unusual for him. As long as he tells his parents where he's going and when he expects to be back, they judge it perfectly safe.

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 06:54 pm (UTC)

Well, it's usually perfectly safe, but today a dragon swoops down out of the sky and hooks a claw into his outfit and carries him off.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 06:55 pm (UTC)

"HEY!" yells Milo. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 06:56 pm (UTC)

"What'd you say?" asks the dragon. "Bit hard to hear you!"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:00 pm (UTC)

Milo considers his knowledge of dragons. Big on manners - usually give you one chance to impress them before they decide for sure whether to eat you or not - tendency to carry off princesses.

He has a sinking feeling about this.

"IF YOU DON'T MIND, I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHY YOU'RE CARRYING ME OFF," he tries.

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Last princess ran off with a knight about five years back and it's about time I borrowed a new one!" explains the dragon jovially. "Don't worry, I'm sure someone will be by to rescue you pretty soon."

Those would be the Mountains of Morning up ahead.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:03 pm (UTC)

Milo sighs.

"I'M NOT A PRINCESS."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:03 pm (UTC)

"What was that?" The dragon's unoccupied forefoot goes up to scratch by his ear.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:04 pm (UTC)

Just his luck to be carried off by a deaf dragon.

"I. AM. A. PRINCE."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I know!" says the dragon, presumably mishearing. "My eyes aren't what they used to be but I still know a princess when I smell one."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:05 pm (UTC)

Milo growls under his breath.

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:05 pm (UTC)

The dragon does not hear or reply to this.

Mountains mountains mountains.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:06 pm (UTC)

The mountains are very pretty. He is not too upset to appreciate this.

But ugh.

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:08 pm (UTC)

Eventually the dragon finds an entrance to his own cave. He lands pretty neatly, hind feet first, and sets Milo on the ground and unhooks his claw from Milo's shirt. "Here we are then. In you go. Take your third left."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:09 pm (UTC)

Milo is mildly surprised to have been carried all the way here without breaking anything, but then, he supposes dragons have reason to be gentle with their princesses.

(Ugh.)

He sighs and follows the dragon's directions.

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:11 pm (UTC)

The dragon trundles along heavily behind him. The third left leads to a network of caves that apparently belong to this specific dragon.

"I'm Roxim," says the dragon. "What's your name, princess?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Milo."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Well, Milo," says Roxim, apparently not up on princess naming trends in Raxwell, "you can make yourself comfortable in that little room over there, might be dusty but there should be whatever princesses need, and I'll show you where everything else is in a couple hours."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:16 pm (UTC)

...There are going to be dresses, aren't there. Oh boy.

Well, maybe he can escape. And... make his way back to Raxwell from the Mountains of Morning, alone, with no horse and no map. Hmm.

"Thank you," he says, because there is no point in being rude to the dragon. Still - "I'm not a princess, though."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:17 pm (UTC)

"You're what?" asks the dragon, blinking.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I am a prince," he enunciates. "I am a boy."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:18 pm (UTC)

"You don't smell like a prince," says Roxim suspiciously.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I've had problems with this before," he says. "It's very inconvenient. The giant Porabor made the same mistake a few years ago."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, I can't just put you back," says Roxim. "Wouldn't work."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:21 pm (UTC)

"...Why not?"

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Haven't got the faintest idea how to go about putting a princess back - sorry, a - you're entirely sure you're not a princess? You smell exactly like a princess and I can't see. You wouldn't be having fun with me, now, would you?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:23 pm (UTC)

"I promise you, I am a prince. You could just carry me back to where you found me and put me down. I can find my own way home from there."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm not entirely sure I could find the spot again, and anyway, I'm not quite sure you're not really a princess," says Roxim. "You'll just have to wait for someone to rescue you. I'm sure somebody will be along eventually. I don't put up much of a fight."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:32 pm (UTC)

...Now that he thinks of it, Milo has concerns about being rescued.

He thinks of asking Roxim if Roxim has any friends with better eyesight... but maybe he'd better stay away from other dragons, who, if they noticed he wasn't a princess, might be inclined to treat him as a prince. And princes in the Mountains of Morning are usually there to fight dragons.

"Well. All right."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:33 pm (UTC)

"It's not so bad," says Roxim cheerily. "If I've punctured your clothes there, the King gave me her enchanted wardrobe a while back, didn't need it anymore, you'll be able to find new ones. Get comfortable."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:42 pm (UTC)

"...Thank you."

Oh boy.

He goes to investigate the enchanted wardrobe.

On the first try it's full of dresses. On the second try it's still full of dresses. On the third try it's full of dresses in his size, and he closes the door firmly and sits down on the floor and cradles his head in his hands for a minute, and then gets up and addresses the wardrobe.

"Look, I know this is weird, but I really am a prince and I really do need clothes. Work with me here. Please?"

He opens the wardrobe again. Now the selection looks more like something he'd get at home - a little fancier than he usually likes, maybe, but no skirts. He can live with that. "Thank you," he says, patting the side of the wardrobe. "I appreciate it." And he changes into one of the subtler outfits, with silver embroidery rather than gold.

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:43 pm (UTC)

Roxim comes back down that area of his caves a bit later. "Come on out, Milo, I'll show you the place. There's some things that need organizing and some other things that need dusting and some of them probably need both. Can you cook?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:45 pm (UTC)

Milo emerges from his new room. "Yes, I can cook. Not especially well, but I know a few things."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's better than nothing!" chuckles Roxim. "This way."

Roxim shows him the library and the treasure rooms and the kitchen. There is a frozen entire cow in the kitchen, thawing. Roxim does not direct Milo to do anything with this cow. "How are you on dead languages?" he asks when they're at the library.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm much better at those than I am at cooking!"

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:50 pm (UTC)

"That'll help with organizing the books, then! Turned the place upside down the other month and still couldn't find my Duplace omnibus."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'll organize your library for you."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:52 pm (UTC)

"There's a good princess," says Roxim, and he dragons off to elsewhere.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Prince," Milo calls after him.

But he's not holding out much hope of making his case at this point.

Oh well. He can organize the hell out of this library, while he's here.

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 07:56 pm (UTC)

Roxim is a pretty decent host as dragons go. He doesn't nag Milo about the speed at which he's doing his assigned chores and does not invite over his dragon friends to overtax Milo's cooking abilities. He is friendly and cheerful and nearsighted and persistently confused about Milo's gender.

When Roxim is out doing something, there are two visitors to his part of the caves, both of them princesses. "Hullo?" calls one of them, echoing in the halls. "We heard Roxim had a princess?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 08:01 pm (UTC)

Milo has by this time come to a much better accord with his wardrobe, and is wearing clothes suitable for cleaning a kitchen in, which is what he was doing before they showed up. He makes his way to the entrance of Roxim's caves.

"I'm afraid you heard an inaccurate rumour," he says, giving each princess a small bow. "Prince Milo of Raxwell. Pleased to meet you. Roxim mistook me for a princess when I was out for a ride."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 08:04 pm (UTC)

The princesses - both of whom are, in fact, princesses - peer at him.

"How peculiar," comments the taller one, a brunette; hers is the same voice that called out in his direction. "Well, I am Beryl of the kingdom of Querath, captive of the dragon Tharwex, and this is Chirailia of the Duchy of Otashire, captive of the dragon Nandgar."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 08:08 pm (UTC)

He smiles up at both of them.

"Hello, your highnesses. Did you want to come in for tea? I'm not the world's best cook but I do make a perfectly respectable pot of tea."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Beryl. "We would like that."

"I've heard that Roxim can't see very well," says Chirailia, "so he could have been mixed up, but if you're a prince, why don't you just defeat him yourself and go home?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm under a curse," he explains. "A particularly nasty one. I'll spare you the details, but it means I can't fight. This way to the kitchen."

He leads them there and puts the kettle on.

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 08:46 pm (UTC)

The princesses sit. "That's a pity," says Beryl sympathetically. "But if you're a prince is anybody going to rescue you? They couldn't reasonably expect your hand in marriage unless you have very forward-thinking parents."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 08:55 pm (UTC)

...Well, that would be one way to unite the crown of Raxwell...

Oh dear.

Banishing all thought of Duke Reko riding to his rescue (he probably still thinks of Milo as a kid anyway, and does he even like boys, Milo has not asked, Milo is still largely pretending not to like anyone), he gets out an appropriate number of teacups.

"I think once my parents find out I'm here they'll send a relative or something. They're not going to offer half the kingdom to a stranger for me, though, Raxwell has had enough trouble with that sort of thing already."
Edited 2015-01-11 20:56 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh?" asks Chirailia politely.

"I suppose a relative would also work. Although my brother tried and he lost," says Beryl thoughtfully.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Have you not heard the story of the kingdom of Raxwell? Would you like to?"

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Please," nods Chirailia.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Well. Many years ago, Raxwell was a bigger kingdom, with a magic crown. Then one of my ancestors, the last King of Raxwell, offered half his kingdom and his daughter's hand in marriage to whichever hero could solve the problem he was having. Lot of rampaging monsters, nothing very unusual. A man named Ferdinand completed the task and claimed the reward, but the promised princess didn't like the look of him, so she ran away. Ferdinand was not amused. The king got a bit desperate, lacking any more spare daughters; he went out and found an orphan girl of an acceptable age with dreams of being a princess, adopted her on the spot, and presented her to Ferdinand. Whereupon, in protest of his insincerity, the crown of Raxwell promptly cracked in half."

The kettle boils. He pours the tea.

"Now there's Raxwell and Ferdinandia, both ruled by Dukes, because without a whole crown neither one can confirm a king. We've been trying to reunite the kingdom ever since Ferdinand died, but it hasn't been that many generations and nobody's managed it yet."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 09:54 pm (UTC)

"Oh, what a curious situation," says Beryl. "What ever happened to the runaway princess?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 10:02 pm (UTC)

"She moved in with a retired sorceress. Never married. The king went on a quest of his own to try to convince her to come back to Raxwell in case it fixed the crown, but she told him to go jump in a lake."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Oh dear," titters Chirailia. "So I suppose you're hoping that one day your children and the children of whoever's ruling Ferdinandia will marry?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 10:11 pm (UTC)

"That's the idea. But Duke Reko's not married and I'm only fifteen, so it might be a while before either of us has children." He shrugs. "Someday, I guess."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Why is it particularly desirable to reunite them?" wonders Beryl. "Was the crown just that lovely all by itself?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 10:15 pm (UTC)

"It was very pretty, and a lot of people think Ferdinandia is a silly name, and like the idea of being a kingdom better than the idea of being two duchies - and for me personally, my naming-day curse ends when the crown of Raxwell is made whole."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 10:16 pm (UTC)

"Oh! How did that come about?" Beryl asks. "What an odd way to end a curse."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Raxwell has a wicked fairy who mostly doesn't bother anyone, but she was very annoyed that day."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Maybe someone should defeat her. Would that help?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Unfortunately, no. It's a strong curse with a perfectly legitimate ending condition; she couldn't break it even if she wanted to, and defeating her wouldn't do a thing."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 10:27 pm (UTC)

"How annoying," sympathizes Chirailia. "I have a curse too but it's very minor. I think the faerie was running out of ideas."

"She's tone-deaf," explains Beryl.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 10:29 pm (UTC)

"That sounds slightly inconvenient for a princess. Sorry to hear it."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 10:30 pm (UTC)

"And it must have an ending condition, but no one heard the faerie say it, and someone defeated her for unrelated reasons since then, so it will probably last forever," sighs Chirailia. "But it sounds like yours is probably worse!"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 10:31 pm (UTC)

"It's a lot more inconvenient than that, yeah."

alicornucopia
2015-01-11 10:33 pm (UTC)

"I didn't have any faeries around when I was born either way," says Beryl, "because my mother was in hiding at the time, but that's all long been sorted out."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:08 pm (UTC)

Meanwhile, Jann hasn't gotten much better about reading his mail.

He graduates from knight school and comes home to be actually knighted. He brings Glynn, because it's a special occasion and Glynn's his best friend.

Now where's Milo? It's a special occasion and Milo's his cousin.

greatcomposure
2015-01-11 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Jann," says Celyta. "You didn't read our letter, did you."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:11 pm (UTC)

"...Uh? No. What'd I miss?"

greatcomposure
2015-01-11 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Milo," she sighs, "has been carried off by a dragon."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Recurrence of the 'things keep mistaking him for a princess' problem?"

greatcomposure
2015-01-11 11:14 pm (UTC)

"It seems so. Naturally, we would like him rescued by someone who understands the situation, because it'll be a bit of a mess if he's rescued by someone who doesn't."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Right. D'you know which dragon it was?"

This is Jann's Knight Face. Even though he has not technically been knighted yet.

greatcomposure
2015-01-11 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Roxim. He lives in the Mountains of Morning, he's very old, and he has a reputation for being unusually agreeable for a dragon when someone comes to rescue a princess from him. But I'd still recommend that you try explaining the situation before making a more traditional challenge."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Right then. Can Glynn stay here while I'm off fetching Milo? I wanted him to be there when I got properly knighted and all."

greatcomposure
2015-01-11 11:19 pm (UTC)

"Of course."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:20 pm (UTC)

And so Jann in properly knightly fashion saddles up his horse and armors up and finds Roxim's caves on his map and rides off. It takes him several days to get there.

Knock, knock?
Edited 2015-01-11 23:21 (UTC)

first_and_final
2015-01-11 11:34 pm (UTC)

Milo has organized the library. And the treasure rooms. And the kitchen. And his own room. And the other rooms that don't really contain anything as illustrious as treasure but do contain an awful lot of miscellaneous objects. He has cleaned everything. He has explained his clever yet straightforward organizational systems to Roxim. He has read a few of the more interesting books.

When he hears the knock, he finishes drying the plate he just washed, to give him time to think about whether he really wants to go see who it is. That didn't sound like Beryl or Chirailia. If he's lucky, it's someone who understands what's going on. If he isn't... well.

He answers the door.

"Oh good, it's you," he says. "And just in time, too. I was starting to get bored."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:35 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome, Milo. Where's your dragon? I'd better try to explain rather than just sneaking off with you."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 11:38 pm (UTC)

"He's napping in the back. You can come in and have a cup of tea if you want, while we wait for him to wake up. You look very dashing. Did I miss your knighting? I missed your knighting, didn't I."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:39 pm (UTC)

"I postponed my knighting to come get you, Princess," snorts Jann, stepping into the caves. "We'll go home and I'll get knighted and you'll have a front-row seat."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Alternately, I could pour the kettle over your head," grumbles Milo, but he shows Jann to the kitchen and provides tea and does not dump boiling water on him.

abeance
2015-01-11 11:41 pm (UTC)

Jann drinks tea. "So what's it like being carried off by a dragon?"

first_and_final
2015-01-11 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Exasperating. But I did get to organize the dragon's library and treasure rooms. That part was fun."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:44 pm (UTC)

Jann sips tea. "Well, at least you had something to do."

Dragon footsteps approach and Jann puts his teacup down and clears his throat.

"I smell a knight!" says Roxim.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Roxim, this is my cousin Jann, who is here to verify that I am a prince," says Milo. "Jann, the dragon Roxim."

abeance
2015-01-11 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Hello, dragon Roxim!" says Jann politely, standing up and making a slight bow. "I don't mean to presume on your hospitality. I'm just here to clear up the misunderstanding about my cousin Milo, who is, in fact, a prince. You're not the first to make this mistake but it's probably best if I just take him home now."

"Hmmm," says Roxim. "He does smell like a princess."

"Probably he should change soaps," says Jann blandly.

Roxim chuckles. "Oh, very well, he's running out of things to do anyway. Go on then. If you'd like to tap me with the flat of your sword to have a story to embellish for all your friends, you may, since you're so polite."

"That's very kind of you," says Jann, and he taps Roxim on one of his horns quite gently with the flat of his sword, and then bows again and gestures to Milo.

first_and_final
2015-01-11 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Thanks, Roxim," says Milo. "You've been very reasonable about this, all things considered."

He finishes his tea and rinses out the cup and puts it away - Jann's too, and the teapot and kettle - and bows to Roxim and departs with Jann.

abeance
2015-01-11 11:58 pm (UTC)

Jann has had the foresight to bring along a second horse. Onto the second horse goes Milo. "This way. I'm glad I didn't have to actually fight him, graduation or no."

first_and_final
2015-01-11 11:59 pm (UTC)

"I get the impression he wouldn't have fought very hard even if you'd challenged him the usual way. Roxim's pretty mellow for a dragon."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:00 am (UTC)

"That's lucky. I wonder why I already smell like a knight? How does that even work?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:01 am (UTC)

"Magic, probably. I'm more worried about the fact that apparently I smell like a princess."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:02 am (UTC)

"Change soaps. Or something."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah. 'Or something'. Or what?"

abeance
2015-01-12 12:05 am (UTC)

"I don't know. Uh, marry up? Probably less inconvenient to smell like something other than a princess, and they're getting your noble status right, just not your gender?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:08 am (UTC)

"Marry up. Right. And smell like a queen, I guess."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:09 am (UTC)

"Well, queens tend not to be carried off!"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:11 am (UTC)

"Yes. That would be an advantage. However, I don't know any single monarchs I want to marry."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:13 am (UTC)

"Well, you never seem to like anybody, and you can't just stay single forever unless you're planning to stick me with Raxwell. Please don't, by the way."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:21 am (UTC)

"I've liked people!" he exclaims, perhaps unwisely. "I just don't tell you about it the way you seem determined to make sure everyone you've ever met knows Jann of Raxwell has kissed yet another girl."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:21 am (UTC)

"Oh really? Who've you liked?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:22 am (UTC)

"Ugh. It doesn't matter."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:22 am (UTC)

"But I want to know! You look so dejected. I could give you tips."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:23 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure your tips will not help me."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:23 am (UTC)

"They work for me!"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:25 am (UTC)

"I'm not you!"

abeance
2015-01-12 12:26 am (UTC)

"What, do you think I get damsels solely by being tall?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:28 am (UTC)

"Tall, handsome, seventeen years old, able to wield a sword without breaking your arm..."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:29 am (UTC)

"There's more to it than that, though. Moping hopelessly isn't doing you any favors."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:29 am (UTC)

"But it's so much fun."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:30 am (UTC)

Jann snorts. "Come on, though, who? I don't even know what gender I'd be trying to set you up with if you wanted me to help."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:31 am (UTC)

"I don't feel like saying!"

abeance
2015-01-12 12:32 am (UTC)

"Well, it's going to take about four days to get home, what do you want to talk about?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:34 am (UTC)

"Kissed any girls lately?"

abeance
2015-01-12 12:35 am (UTC)

"No, I've been busy with my final exams and riding home and finding out you were carried off and coming here to get you. Before that also no, had a dry spell."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:36 am (UTC)

"Congratulations, by the way. Or should I save those for when Dad knights you?"

abeance
2015-01-12 12:37 am (UTC)

"Save 'em."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:37 am (UTC)

"Sure."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:39 am (UTC)

It takes them several days to get home, and then Jann's knighting, a bit more than a week late, occurs. Jann looks very knightly.

on_my_word
2015-01-12 12:45 am (UTC)

And Duke Ainar knights him, and he is a knight. They have a small feast in his honour.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-12 12:45 am (UTC)

Glynn gives him a congratulatory hug.

abeance
2015-01-12 12:46 am (UTC)

That is a reasonable thing to do! Jann feasts and hugs congratulatory persons and is made much of by his proud mother and tends not to mention that he had Roxim's permission before hitting the dragon with a sword when he tells the story.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 12:48 am (UTC)

Milo declines to spoil these retellings with extraneous details.

abeance
2015-01-12 12:49 am (UTC)

That's very kind of him.

It's nice to have everybody around for a while! Even Reko showed up. Probably Milo will monopolize him with chess, but that's all right.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 12:53 am (UTC)

Reko wasn't originally going to be able to make it, but the extra delay induced by Milo's carrying-off allowed him to find room in his schedule.

He does go up to Jann once the crowd has cleared a little - Reko isn't fond of crowds - and offer his personal congratulations.

abeance
2015-01-12 12:53 am (UTC)

"Thanks! I'm glad you could make it after all. Thank Milo for apparently smelling like a princess."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 12:54 am (UTC)

He snorts softly. "Somehow I don't think he'd take those thanks in the spirit intended."

abeance
2015-01-12 12:54 am (UTC)

"Probably not."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 01:06 am (UTC)

"But yes, I'm glad I could make it too. Where is Milo? Did he steal a plate of cakes and run off? I seem to recall that's one of his favourite maneuvers."

abeance
2015-01-12 01:06 am (UTC)

"I think it was marzipan this time."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 01:07 am (UTC)

"Well, I almost had it."

abeance
2015-01-12 01:08 am (UTC)

"Very close. Contains sugar. Decorative."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 01:15 am (UTC)

"Yes."

Other people come by to congratulate Jann. Reko makes himself scarce.

Predictably, he ends up playing chess with Milo in a cozy sitting room.

abeance
2015-01-12 01:15 am (UTC)

Jann wanders by later and peers into the room.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:17 am (UTC)

Milo is winning.

abeance
2015-01-12 01:17 am (UTC)

That was pretty predictable. Jann plunks down and watches.

And blinks at Milo.

And sloooowly tilts his head.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:21 am (UTC)

Milo glances at him, looks briefly puzzled, then even more briefly alarmed, then goes right back to the game as if nothing happened.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 01:22 am (UTC)

Reko is busy planning his next move and doesn't notice any of this.

abeance
2015-01-12 01:23 am (UTC)

Jann doesn't say anything. He watches for a fairly typical amount of time and then wanders off.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:26 am (UTC)

The feast ends; the various guests, Reko included, disperse back to their various points of origin. (Except Glynn, who's staying until he goes back to knight school.)

Milo continues to pretend Jann never looked at him funny.

abeance
2015-01-12 01:26 am (UTC)

Eventually Jann and Milo are alone in a room and Jann says, "So that'd probably fix the crown, huh?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:27 am (UTC)

"I don't know what you're talking about. And if I did I'd tell you to shut up."

abeance
2015-01-12 01:27 am (UTC)

"So I should feel free to write Reko about this hilarious totally false hallucination I had, ha-ha?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:28 am (UTC)

Growl.

abeance
2015-01-12 01:28 am (UTC)

"Hey, I think it makes sense, what's got you in such a mood about it?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:30 am (UTC)

"I don't actually think Reko likes boys, for one thing. And he's five years older than me and has known me literally all of my life, for another thing. And even if he does like boys I have no indication he has ever considered liking me. And - and it would fix the crown - I can't - if I just went and asked him, he'd be in kind of an unfair position, all things considered!"

abeance
2015-01-12 01:31 am (UTC)

"Do you think he'd marry you just to fix the crown if he didn't like you? For one thing even if he felt very wedged about it he could point out that you can't produce heirs. For another it doesn't seem very like him."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:33 am (UTC)

"I know, but... I don't want to make him turn me down. Given everything. And if he did marry me just to fix the crown that would be - just - ugh."

abeance
2015-01-12 01:34 am (UTC)

"Somebody else could suggest it," says Jann.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:35 am (UTC)

"...maybe. I don't know. Not - I mean - I'm fifteen, I don't currently want to marry anyone."

abeance
2015-01-12 01:36 am (UTC)

"Sure, not right this minute, but at some point. Since it would probably fix the crown nobody would have to have any inklings of anything else to bring it up, if you wanted somebody to bring it up."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 01:37 am (UTC)

"Yeah." He sighs. "...Thank you."

abeance
2015-01-12 01:37 am (UTC)

"You're welcome."

Jann's knighthood, combined with his general social position, means that he is a default escort when anyone in the Raxwell ducal family wants to go anywhere, such as when Milo is invited to Chirailia of Otashire's wedding (she has been rescued by a prince and they are in the way of things getting married).
Edited 2015-01-12 01:41 (UTC)

first_and_final
2015-01-12 02:33 am (UTC)

Milo is very pleased to go to Chirailia's wedding! He liked her and Beryl when they were all being captives of dragons together. It's nice that they kept in touch.

It grates on him a little bit that he needs a knightly escort, but it's hardly Jann's fault. And it sure beats being carried off again by who knows what sort of creature this time.

The wedding is beautiful. Chirailia and her husband seem pleased with each other. The food is also very good. Milo congratulates the happy couple, eats delicious food, and wanders off with a slice of the incredible cake. By the time he reaches the library, the cake is gone. He admires some books and then goes looking for Jann, on the off chance that Jann has not yet found any girls to kiss.

Unbeknownst to Milo, he acquires a small grey passenger during this time. She blends in almost perfectly with his fine grey trousers; one would have to be looking from just the right angle to spot the little fuzzy lump behind his ankle.

abeance
2015-01-12 02:35 am (UTC)

Jann has actually found a girl to kiss (she is one of the maids and has a thing for knights! being a knight works out so well for Jann!) but he has made plans to do more substantial amounts of this later in the evening when the party has wound down more thoroughly, and he is not kissing her right now.

When Milo finds Jann, Jann peers down at him and says, "You've got an addendum on your leg, there."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 02:38 am (UTC)

"A what?"

He twists to look. The kitten climbs around his pant leg and out of view. He twists around the other way and glimpses the tip of her tail before she whisks it out of sight.

"Hello," he says. "What's this all about?"

Tiny meow.

"I can't understand you, I'm afraid, not being a witch. Puts me at a bit of a disadvantage here."

abeance
2015-01-12 02:40 am (UTC)

"I don't think witches can understand other people's cats, anyway," says Jann.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:01 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure this is anyone's cat in particular."

Tiny meow.

"If we're going to have a conversation and I can't understand anything you say, it might be more convenient if you weren't clinging to the back of my leg at the time so I could at least try interpreting body language."

The kitten considers this line of reasoning, and then climbs daintily around to perch on his boot. Milo peers down at her. "Hello there. I'm Milo. And you're a kitten."

This meow has sort of a mildly sarcastic tone.

"Well, if I knew your name, I'd happily use it. Do you have one? Is there someone I could ask to find it out?"

She darts around to hide behind his foot again.

"...You don't want me talking about you to anyone?" he hazards.

She emerges into view again.

"All right then, I won't."

abeance
2015-01-12 03:01 am (UTC)

"This is a very strange conversation."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:13 am (UTC)

"No kidding," says Milo. "So. Kitten."

Meow.

"I don't think I'd have much luck trying to guess your name, I'm afraid. I'm not even sure what gender of kitten you are. Did you have a particular purpose in attaching yourself to me?"

She hops off his boot and walks a short distance away and turns back and climbs on again and looks up at him expectantly.

"You... want me to take you somewhere?"

This meow sounds affirmative, as meows go.

"I'm going to take that as a yes. Is this place you want me to take you any more specific than 'away'?"

Silence.

"I'm going to take that as a no. Is anyone going to be very angry with me if I let you stow away with us when we leave?"

Silence again.

"I'm going to take that as another no. In that case, you're welcome to join us."

She meows and rubs her small fluffy cheek against his leg. He smiles.

abeance
2015-01-12 03:14 am (UTC)

"So now you have a cat," says Jann. "An arguably stolen cat."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:16 am (UTC)

"I'd sure argue it, if the accusation was made," says Milo. "The kitten is clearly coming with us of his or her own will."

abeance
2015-01-12 03:16 am (UTC)

"Yes, but it's a kitten, not a grown cat, and you can't actually understand it."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:20 am (UTC)

"I don't know, I think we've been managing pretty well under the circumstances."

The kitten meows.

"Sounds like Kitten agrees. I'm going to have to come up with a name for you, aren't I, Kitten."

Meow.

"I'll think about it. I don't have any good ideas off the top of my head. Um, which variety of kitten are you, though? Boy?"

Silence.

"Girl?"

The particular meow that has come to mean 'yes'.

"Girl it is. That narrows down the name selection somewhat."

abeance
2015-01-12 03:21 am (UTC)

"Are you going to name her after a rock like you did my horse?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:26 am (UTC)

"Would you like to be named after a rock, Kitten?"

A meow of a different variety.

"...Need more information to decide?" he guesses.

Yes-meow.

"The horse is named Morganite. Morganite is a pretty pink rock. You're not any shade of pink, though, you're grey and white... there's 'Silver', I guess, not a rock but the same sort of genre, do you feel like a Silver?"

Silence.

"Not Silver then. Um... how about, I don't know... Catherine?"

Yes-meow.

"All right. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Catherine. I'd bow, but it's awkward to bow to someone who is standing on my foot."

Catherine hops off his foot and strolls away a short distance. Milo grins and bows to her. She sits and starts washing her ears with one white-tipped paw.
Edited 2015-01-12 03:26 (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-12 03:27 am (UTC)

Jann giggles. "Are you going to teach your cat to play chess?" he wonders.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:35 am (UTC)

"It might be difficult. But I do like a challenge. What do you think, Catherine?"

Unidentified meow.

"I suppose there's no good reason for you to know what chess is, being a cat. Do you know what chess is?"

Different unidentified meow.

"Hmm... was that a 'sort of'?"

Repeat of different unidentified meow.

"It wasn't a 'yes'... was it a new 'no'?"

Yes-meow.

"All right then. My Catherine-vocabulary is expanding by the minute."

abeance
2015-01-12 03:36 am (UTC)

"At some point this probably counts as understanding a cat without being a witch," snorts Jann. "You'll be famous."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:38 am (UTC)

"Anyone could do it if they just took the time to listen. And had a cooperative cat. And were good at guessing what questions to ask."

Meow.

"Commentary from Catherine. Proud of your choice of human, by any chance?"

Yes-meow.

Milo grins at her.

abeance
2015-01-12 03:39 am (UTC)

Jann snickers. "Congratulations to the both of you, I suppose."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:40 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Milo. Catherine contributes a meow.

abeance
2015-01-12 03:46 am (UTC)

Jann escorts Milo, and the cat, back to Raxwell, after they have taken advantage of the hospitality of the Otashire family.

It's not long before Glynn has been through his course of knightly study and is graduated, young but not strictly speaking early.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:50 am (UTC)

Purely on the strength of both of them being decent at chess, Milo whimsically invites Duke Reko to the little party at the Raxwell castle for Glynn's knighting. Much to his surprise, Reko actually accepts.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 03:50 am (UTC)

And shows up, and plays chess with Glynn once Duke Ainar has knighted him.

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-12 03:52 am (UTC)

They're about evenly matched, but Glynn wins three of the five games that they play with Milo as an interested spectator.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:53 am (UTC)

"Glynn gets more practice, of the two of you," Milo suggests as an explanation for this discrepancy. "You should play more, Reko."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 03:54 am (UTC)

"Not everyone is as enthusiastic about chess as you are."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:54 am (UTC)

"You can spare a minute every day or two to play a game by mail, can't you?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 03:55 am (UTC)

"If you insist."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-12 03:55 am (UTC)

"It's fun," contributes Glynn.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 03:57 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure how closely your sense of fun resembles mine, in light of that story I heard about you intentionally turning yourself into a rabbit."

avec_le_coeur
2015-01-12 03:57 am (UTC)

Glynn cracks up.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 03:57 am (UTC)

"What's wrong with intentionally turning yourself into a rabbit?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 03:58 am (UTC)

"Nothing at all," Reko says dryly.

abeance
2015-01-12 04:09 am (UTC)

It's a few months' worth of chess-by-mail later when Jann observes:

"Given any thought to the thing about the crown?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:12 am (UTC)

"...not exactly, no."

abeance
2015-01-12 04:12 am (UTC)

"I mean, if you're thoroughly over it and I've been imagining the way you make eyes at his letters..."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:13 am (UTC)

"I do not make eyes!"

abeance
2015-01-12 04:13 am (UTC)

"Yes you do."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:13 am (UTC)

"Ugh."

abeance
2015-01-12 04:14 am (UTC)

"I can't figure him out as well as I can you but I have no strong reason to believe he'd laugh off the idea, you know."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:14 am (UTC)

"Do you have a strong reason to believe he wouldn't?"
Edited 2015-01-12 04:15 (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-12 04:15 am (UTC)

"He likes you? His dating history looks exactly like yours?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:15 am (UTC)

"What, 'desolate'? What kind of evidence is that?"

abeance
2015-01-12 04:16 am (UTC)

"Girls who want to date dukes are a little more common than boys who want to do the same thing, if you haven't noticed, it's a better sign than if he acted like me."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:17 am (UTC)

"On the other hand, if he acted like you it would be evidence that he was interested in dating anyone at all." He sighs. "I don't know."

abeance
2015-01-12 04:18 am (UTC)

"That would be the purpose of asking."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:24 am (UTC)

There is a meow from the floor.

"Oh, hello, Cath. We were just discussing my hopeless crush on Duke Reko."

Meow.

"You didn't know about that? I guess it hasn't come up. Well, I have a hopeless crush on Duke Reko. Jann thinks I've got a shot. Opinions?"

Cath considers this, then meows a few more times. Milo laughs.

"Well, it's good to know I'll have your support if I marry him, but I was wondering more if you thought he might like me back."

Meow, meow.

"He does play chess with me, that's true. And always responds very promptly. But so does Glynn, and I'm pretty sure Glynn doesn't like me that way."

She meows a conceding sort of meow and hops up into his lap to be petted.

abeance
2015-01-12 04:25 am (UTC)

Jann sneaks a pet. "How much of that are you just making up?" he wonders.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:28 am (UTC)

"None of it!" says Milo. "I mean, I have to do some filling-in, but Cath is very expressive."

Cath purrs.

"And she always lets me know when I guess wrong."

Affirmative meow.

abeance
2015-01-12 04:29 am (UTC)

"I'm very impressed. Anyway, if you want me to ask Glynn if he wants to date you, I can do that too, but that is obviously much less useful, in more than one way."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:30 am (UTC)

"I don't want to date Glynn," snorts Milo.

abeance
2015-01-12 04:31 am (UTC)

"Good, because he has way fewer hangups than you and I think if he wanted to date you you'd already know."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:34 am (UTC)

"Thanks," he says dryly.

Cath rubs her face against Milo's stomach. He sighs and pets her some more.

abeance
2015-01-12 04:35 am (UTC)

"Anyway. Let me know. Actually think about it."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:38 am (UTC)

"Yes. Okay. I will actually think about it," he says.

abeance
2015-01-12 04:38 am (UTC)

"There we are." Pat for Cath, and off Jann goes.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:40 am (UTC)

Milo snuggles his cat and mopes excessively.

abeance
2015-01-12 04:40 am (UTC)

Jann goes about business as usual, plus significant looks when Milo is looking at his end of the chess-by-mail game.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:45 am (UTC)

Milo lasts a week and a half like this.

Then: "Something to say, Jann?"

abeance
2015-01-12 04:45 am (UTC)

"Me? No. You?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:51 am (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-12 04:51 am (UTC)

"Not today, huh?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:58 am (UTC)

"I don't know. Cath thinks I should just ask you to go find an excuse to bring up marrying me as a possible solution to the crown, without bringing my hopeless crush into it at all. I'm waffling."

abeance
2015-01-12 04:59 am (UTC)

"That was my plan originally anyway. Perfect plausible deniability. 'Hey, Reko, know what I bet would fix the crown'."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:02 am (UTC)

"Reko's pretty good at drawing people out, are you sure you could actually leave my hopeless crush completely aside?"

abeance
2015-01-12 05:03 am (UTC)

"If he grills me? No. Do you think he's going to do that?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:04 am (UTC)

"I had a little trouble coming up with a plausible reason for you to ride all the way into Ferdinandia just to casually bring up marrying me if I hadn't sent you to do just that."

abeance
2015-01-12 05:07 am (UTC)

"You visit him sometimes," shrugs Jann, "I escort you because that's my job, you aren't in the same room as us all the time, ta-da."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:08 am (UTC)

"It's possible I'm overestimating his probable suspicion just because the ulterior motive is so obvious to me."

abeance
2015-01-12 05:08 am (UTC)

"Yep."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:10 am (UTC)

"It sure does feel excruciatingly obvious, though."

abeance
2015-01-12 05:11 am (UTC)

"According to my girlfriend," (this title is currently held by the sister of a knight school friend), "the twin princesses of the Enchanted Forest are both married to the same woman, which I think I'd heard before, and they have kids, which I hadn't, fancy that, Reko, hey, you know what occurs to me."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:29 am (UTC)

"...Okay. Sure. Fine. Let's go visit Reko."

abeance
2015-01-12 05:30 am (UTC)

So after arranging the scheduling with the object of their visit, they go visit Reko. Reko isn't very far away - Raxwell did use to be all one modestly-sized country - so it doesn't take that long to get there.

Jann waits for a moment when Milo happens to be out of a room that he and Reko both are in.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 05:33 am (UTC)

Such a moment occurs when they finish a game of chess and Milo goes to see where Cath has wandered off to.

abeance
2015-01-12 05:35 am (UTC)

"Have you seen him talking to Cath? It's amazing."

(Jann is familiar with the concept of not wandering directly into sensitive topics! Really!)

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 05:37 am (UTC)

"I've heard her say his name," he says. "Well, meow it. But very recognizably. Now that was amazing. Milo having a conversation in which he provides most of the words isn't anything new."

abeance
2015-01-12 05:39 am (UTC)

"They've got some sort of code worked out and he can understand her. I told my girlfriend about it and she didn't believe me, and when I insisted she told me that Milo was probably secretly a witch or something, and then she started talking about how one of the princesses of the Enchanted Forest - the one who married in, the twins both married the same woman - is a magician. Apparently they have kids, I didn't know that until she mentioned but she keeps track of that kind of thing."

Pause to gauge response...

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 05:42 am (UTC)

"I've heard."

abeance
2015-01-12 05:43 am (UTC)

Pause, thoughtful staring into space.

"You know what would probably fix the crown?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 05:45 am (UTC)

"Hmm?"

abeance
2015-01-12 05:49 am (UTC)

Doing a moderately credible job of pretending he just thought of this:

"I mean, the thing the Enchanted Forest princesses did would probably have to work, etcetera, but I bet if you married Milo that would fix it."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 05:51 am (UTC)

Reko splutters slightly.

abeance
2015-01-12 05:52 am (UTC)

Jann giggles like he's made a stupid joke as opposed to proposed something that at least one person is very serious about.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:03 am (UTC)

"The princesses of the Enchanted Forest have a few things Milo and I don't, Jann," he points out. "Even if it did fix the crown, it would only put the problem off for another generation, and then you or your heirs would be left to deal with the crown's opinions of nontraditional princes."

abeance
2015-01-12 06:05 am (UTC)

Jann shrugs. He is playing "this was a random idea, not important"; nitpicking about how they could actually look into that question would not fit. "Please don't make me inherit Raxwell. I wouldn't like it at all."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:05 am (UTC)

"I'm not planning to make you inherit Raxwell. Have you brought up this suggestion of yours with Milo?"

abeance
2015-01-12 06:06 am (UTC)

"Nope," Jann lies.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:06 am (UTC)

abeance
2015-01-12 06:08 am (UTC)

This was a bad ideaaaaa Reko has probably figured it ouuuuut Milo will be upseeeeeet.

"Why, should I?"
Edited 2015-01-12 06:08 (UTC)

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:09 am (UTC)

"I don't know," Reko says dryly. "Should you?"

abeance
2015-01-12 06:10 am (UTC)

Yeah, "Reko doesn't seem keen", that'll go over like a lead balloon.

"Eh, probably not."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:12 am (UTC)

"Because it seems," he goes on, "like you might know more than I do about Milo's opinions here."

abeance
2015-01-12 06:13 am (UTC)

Jann is beginning to feel grilled. He contemplates fleeing the room. He doesn't flee the room.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:13 am (UTC)

Reko waits.

abeance
2015-01-12 06:14 am (UTC)

Okay this isn't working new idea.

"Okay, look, you're a bright fellow, you know one of two things is happening, either I guessed something on my own or I was told, and either way, I'm talking to you and Milo's not. Can you leave it there?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:19 am (UTC)

...He sighs.

"But it is that you guessed or were told something, and not that you're just... amusing yourself by making suggestions."

abeance
2015-01-12 06:20 am (UTC)

"I am not very amused right now!"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:29 am (UTC)

"Yes. I can see that."

Reko contemplates him quietly for a moment.

Then he says, "If part of the reason you're so unhappy is because you think you're going to have to go back to him with a negative answer... well."

abeance
2015-01-12 06:30 am (UTC)

"Well what?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:31 am (UTC)

"Well - you don't."

Reko is much better at hiding it, but he's not actually all that much less uncomfortable than Jann.

abeance
2015-01-12 06:32 am (UTC)

"I... don't." Pause. "Because...?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:40 am (UTC)

Sigh.

"Because - if he knew about this little quest of yours - you can tell him that I've been in love with him for the last several months. If he didn't know, I'd really rather you didn't try to tell him anything at all."

abeance
2015-01-12 06:43 am (UTC)

"I talked him into permitting my quest and I regret doing so because it was excruciating but hey! Good results!"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:44 am (UTC)

"It wasn't all that much fun from this end either," says Reko. "On the other hand, I'm completely able to imagine both of us independently deciding to quietly pine for the rest of our lives, so..."

abeance
2015-01-12 06:45 am (UTC)

"Yes, that was more or less my thinking, do you object if I now bolt from the room to tell him the delightful news?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Not at all."

abeance
2015-01-12 04:46 pm (UTC)

Jann bolts from the room in search of Milo.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:57 pm (UTC)

Milo is reading to Cath. The story appears to be a tragedy.

abeance
2015-01-12 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Hello Milo," says Jann, interrupting, "never let me talk you into anything again, but, good news, he's in love with you, go kiss him or something."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 04:58 pm (UTC)

Splutter. "What!"

abeance
2015-01-12 04:59 pm (UTC)

"He's in love with you! Congratulations! I am sufficiently grilled to require a side of greens, but he's in love with you!"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:02 pm (UTC)

"What. Thank you? Really? How - you know what, I'm just going to go kiss him, that sounds like a great idea," says Milo, and he puts his book down and takes off running.

Cath jumps down from the arm of the chair and goes over to Jann and rubs her face on his leg and purrs. This is an established sign of Cath-approval.

abeance
2015-01-12 05:03 pm (UTC)

Jann flumphs heavily into a chair and picks up Cath and pets her. Petting cats is supposed to be calming, right?

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:41 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes it is. Cath purrs and snuggles him. Perhaps she has heard that humans are calmed by purring and snuggles.

Milo, meanwhile, should probably be a little more careful racing through the halls of Reko's castle. He does all right until he actually gets back to the room with the chessboard, and then his elbow clips the doorframe on the way in and he sort of falls into Reko's arms giggling nervously and cradling the shattered joint.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Hi, Reko."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Hello," Reko says dryly. "I see Jann found you. How bad is the arm?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Not the worst I've done to it," he says, prodding it with his other hand and wincing. "Pretty bad, though. Um. I confess I hadn't really planned this part out."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," says Reko. "I'm still adjusting to... anyone besides me knowing how I feel. I was very comfortable in my totally unacknowledged pining. I just about fainted when Jann brought up marrying you."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, at least I'm in good company."

He flexes his arm tentatively, hisses under his breath, and presses another loose bone fragment back in place. It's his right arm, too, this is going to be so annoying.

It belatedly occurs to him that he is sitting in Reko's lap with Reko's arms around his waist. He blushes fiercely.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 05:56 pm (UTC)

...Reko smiles.

first_and_final
2015-01-12 06:11 pm (UTC)

Milo clears his throat.

"...Um," he says, "so - we're going to have to think about the succession, aren't we."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Reko. "If we intend to marry. Do you intend to marry me?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 06:14 pm (UTC)

"The thought had definitely crossed my mind."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Jann brought up the Enchanted Forest princesses, but their solution obviously won't solve our entire problem, even if it would solve part of it."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 06:24 pm (UTC)

"True," says Milo. "...And while I'm thinking about it, I am going to preemptively rule that if there is any other option at all, I am not getting pregnant."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Reasonable," says Reko. "Other options are definitely to be preferred."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm so glad we agree."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 06:27 pm (UTC)

first_and_final
2015-01-12 06:27 pm (UTC)

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 08:24 pm (UTC)

first_and_final
2015-01-12 08:55 pm (UTC)

"...sooo," says Milo, "I actually came here with the intention of kissing you. Before I got distracted."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Hmm. How's your arm?"

first_and_final
2015-01-12 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Painful." He tries flexing it again. "Seems to be set all right, though, so all I have to do is be very careful with it for a week or so. That was the least subtle subject change I've ever seen."

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 09:00 pm (UTC)

"It was not my best effort, I readily admit. My heart wasn't in it."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

"...Is this your convoluted, endearingly shy way of not quite openly admitting you want to kiss me?"

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

"...maybe."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Reko," Milo says fondly.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 09:09 pm (UTC)

"All right, yes."

first_and_final
2015-01-12 09:09 pm (UTC)

Milo kisses him.

seewhathappens
2015-01-12 09:20 pm (UTC)

Reko kisses back.

There are a lot of important practical concerns here that they are temporarily ignoring. Right this second, he can't really bring himself to care. They can talk about marriage and children and politics later.

lake acuity

the_very_best

The other two lakes supposedly harboring legendaries didn't pan out. If this one doesn't either, Bella's going to have to befriend someone who's got a Pokémon that knows Dive so she can check out the lake bottom, or pick a new lead. Zag can happily swim her around all day long, but he can't get them under the water.

...Huh. She didn't know there was somebody living here. But that's definitely a building. She can only see it because she's high above the ground, riding Rachis, but yes, in the dense forest around Lake Acuity is a lone structure, definitely artificial.

She steers Rachis, and the Pidgeot obeys.

They land neatly outside the tower, and she turns the handle on the front door curiously.

poeticterms
2013-03-09 02:37 am (UTC)

The handle resists at first, but then the door swings open of its own accord.

toblameforit
2013-03-09 02:42 am (UTC)

Inside is a great big pile of angular blue-and-pink pokemon, with a boy about her age somewhere in the middle.

"You guys are pointy!" he protests, reaching out to gather them into his arms. "I love you, but I would rather love you one at a time."

"Poryporypory," they chorus, and he gives up with a laugh and hugs them some more. He hasn't noticed Bella yet.
Edited 2013-03-09 02:42 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-03-09 02:47 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Bella. "...How in the world do you have so many Porygon? Both in the sense of where did they come from and in the sense of why aren't they feral?"

Bella's approximately the sort of person you expect to invite herself into your house: obviously a trainer (five full, one empty Pokéballs on her belt; practical outfit decorated with designs of same; backpack; half a dozen gym badges pinned to one strap and her Ace Trainer guild pin attached to the other) but a cut above the usual hiker or backpacker who'd be likely to come through this area in a typical day. Her Pidgeot, sometime denizen of the empty Pokéball, is standing outside the door, looking very regal.

toblameforit
2013-03-09 02:53 am (UTC)

"Hi yourself!" he says, looking up in surprise. "Uh, I'm Tony. Tony Stark."

"Porporpory," say the Porygon, and he absently pats one on the head. It snuggles into his hand.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 02:55 am (UTC)

"Pidge," says Rachis, outside, peering through the door at the smaller Pokémon.

"Bella Swanna," says Bella, peering curiously at the flock of Porygon.

toblameforit
2013-03-09 02:59 am (UTC)

"My dad invented them," he explains. "I guess you could say they're friends of the family."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:01 am (UTC)

"...Ohhh, and I bet they're safe feral because as long as you're designing from scratch might as well put that in," nods Bella. She returns her Pidgeot to her Pokéball in a casual over-the-shoulder move. "Makes sense. How come you're all the way out here? I wasn't expecting habitation for miles around."

toblameforit
2013-03-09 03:06 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "Lived here all my life. Guys, could you let me up?"

"Poryporypory!"

Tony sighs. "Guys."

The Porygon reluctantly unpile from him. Two of them scoot over to investigate Bella, bumping their angular noses lightly against her shins. The rest disperse as Tony gets to his feet and dusts himself off.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:09 am (UTC)

"You busy? I expect to be around the lake for a few days - I'll camp, I'm not asking for a place to crash, but if you've been here that long anything you can tell me to supplement my map could be handy."

toblameforit
2013-03-09 03:13 am (UTC)

"I am... basically unbusy," says Tony. "What do you wanna know?"

He shoos three Porygon out from under a desk; they retreat with a chorus of "Gongongon..."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:16 am (UTC)

"Geographical pitfalls, what I should expect from the weather, any neat little hiding spots I might find Pokémon lurking in that would be easy to miss." Pause. "Also, if you are particularly unbusy and you've got anything that knows Dive, I'd like to peek at the bottom of the lake if my check of the surroundings doesn't turn up what I'm looking for, but that could easily be a bit much to ask and I can just poll the guild about a double-up if the answer's no."

toblameforit
2013-03-09 03:30 am (UTC)

Tony shakes his head. "Sorry, I don't think we've got anybody. Geography, though, that I can do."

He sits down at the de-Porygon'd desk and does something that calls up a three-dimensional holographic map of the lake area. It fills most of the large empty space in the middle of the room.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:33 am (UTC)

"Nice tech," approves Bella, peering at it and comparing against the map on her Pokétch. She swipes between the map and a notetaking application to take down the features that catch her eye.

toblameforit
2013-03-09 03:35 am (UTC)

An additional few keystrokes bring up a dotting of symbols across the map and a small legend explaining what sorts of notable features they mark.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:36 am (UTC)

"Thanks! Ooh, that looks like a good camping spot there."

toblameforit
2013-03-09 03:38 am (UTC)

"Hey, no problem," he says cheerfully.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:40 am (UTC)

"D'you just collect feral Porygon or do you train too?" asks Bella.

toblameforit
2013-03-09 03:44 am (UTC)

"Little bit," he says. "Nowhere near as hardcore as you."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:45 am (UTC)

"So you don't wanna have a little match, then? I'll pretend I'm not carrying half the team if it helps," Ace says.

toblameforit
2013-03-09 03:48 am (UTC)

He snorts. "Try upstairs," he suggests cryptically. "Half your team could probably still wipe the floor with me."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:49 am (UTC)

"Upstairs?" Bella asks. "Who's upstairs?"
Edited 2013-03-09 03:50 (UTC)

toblameforit
2013-03-09 03:53 am (UTC)

"Some...one who might take you up on a match?" he says hopefully.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 03:55 am (UTC)

"Half my team or the whole thing?" she asks with interest.

Some random kiddy trainers will battle her (truncated team list) just to see how an ace handles her Pokémon, but she can usually only pull out the stops against one of the Gym Leaders - there's two she hasn't gotten to yet - or other guild members. Sooner or later she'll sweep the Elite Four, but only when she's come up empty on all the leads in Sinnoh and wants internationally-recognized cred. (You beat anybody's Champ, you are good to go, here there anywhere.)

toblameforit
2013-03-09 04:00 am (UTC)

"Only one way to find out," he says, pointing at the stairs.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 04:01 am (UTC)

Bella laughs and ascends, tracing the outline of Zag's Pokéball's button.

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 04:03 am (UTC)

In the stairwell, the faint sound of violin music is audible from higher up.

All the way at the top of the tower, a boy who looks exactly like Tony is standing at a window with a view of the lake, playing beautiful music.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 04:08 am (UTC)

Bella waits for him to stop. Pretty music!

Presently he does stop.

"Hey!" Bella says. "I'm Bella Swanna. I'm gonna be around exploring the lake for a few days, introduced myself to your twin and the feral Porygon flock, he doesn't wanna match but he thinks you might?"
Edited 2013-03-09 04:08 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 04:10 am (UTC)

"He is correct," he says, turning to face her fully and putting the violin away in its case on a table under the window.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 04:12 am (UTC)

"Cool. What ruleset do you like? How many do you carry?" asks Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 04:13 am (UTC)

"Four. What ruleset do you like?"

the_very_best
2013-03-09 04:17 am (UTC)

"I like Ace standard all-out one-place full-team, with advance switch-trucing so people aren't showing off their encyclopedic knowledge of types all day wearing out the hinges on their Pokéballs. If you've got four full-team'd hardly be fair. So if you don't care, the only question is what've you got and how do we avoid swapping in an eternal cycle against each other's type weaknesses?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 12:27 pm (UTC)

"Ditto, Zebstrika, Dragonair," he says, "and, surprising no one, a Porygon-Z with the unfortunate nickname of 'You'. And yourself? I saw your Pidgeot as you flew in."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Yep, that's Rachis," says Bella. "Plus a Linoone, a Rapidash, an Umbreon, a Sawsbuck, and a Mienshao. Relay pick three on three?" she suggests. "I'll toss first, no switching till the show's over?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Agreed."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Linoone first," says Bella. "Name of Zag. I don't give out genders in advance anymore until I'm sure whoever I'm playing with doesn't have a strategy based on infatuating them."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Perish the thought," he says. "Dragonair first for me."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Hmm." Bella glances between Rachis's ball and Dusk's, then says, "Umbreon."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Zebstrika."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 04:46 pm (UTC)

Bella looks Tony's-twin-who-has-not-introduced-himself over assessingly, gauging the likelihood of something in his lineup knowing a gotcha move, then says, "Rapidash."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 04:51 pm (UTC)

Tony's-twin-who-has-not-introduced-himself smiles. "Porygon-Z."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 05:14 pm (UTC)

"All right then," says Bella, grinning. "Outside?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Certainly."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 06:20 pm (UTC)

Down the stairs! Ace goes ahead and releases Zag en route, and he heels without having to be told.

"Noooooone?" Zag says, sniffing the air and inspecting Sherlock.

"You're gonna knock his Dragonair around, Zag," says Bella. (She can't really understand what Zag says, but she can make good guesses.)

"Linlin."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 06:37 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

As they cross the ground floor, Tony is still working at that same desk, although he's shut down the map display. The Porygon are nosing into various corners of the room; several of them zoom up to Sherlock as soon as they spot him, and he gives each one a pat on the head before continuing.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 06:39 pm (UTC)

Zag sniffs at the Porygon too. "Linoone?"

"Leave 'em be, Zag," Bella says. "Hi again, Tony!" And: "You know, I don't think I ever got your name?" to Tony's unintroduced twin.

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock," says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 06:42 pm (UTC)

Bella likes old books, but not books that old. "Cool," she says, "nice to meet you, let's fight!"

She pushes her way past the door and stands ready. Zag, chittering to himself, stands in front of her and rears up on his hind legs.

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 06:47 pm (UTC)

Sherlock produces a previously unseen Pokeball and releases his Dragonair from it.

"Aaaair," she croons, bobbing her winged head up and down.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Ice Beam," says Bella smugly.

But she isn't smug for long; while Zag gets in the first hit, the Dragonair's first attack is one that does no direct damage but leaves him bewildered. He bites his own forefoot and scratches his own side - taking attacks all the while - before he gets another Ice Beam in. Said attack leaves the Dragonair hanging on to consciousness by a thread - and she does lose consciousness - by -

"Oh, that is irritating," sighs Bella as she naps and her various signs of damage disappear -

"I hate it when people do that," she exclaims, half-laughing, when the opposing Pokémon sleep-eats a berry and opens her eyes again.

Zag's in poor shape, due to his early misfortunes.

"Well," Bella says, "you can only do that once without wasting time -" and she pulls out a potion bottle, spritzes Zag, and says, "Snap out of it."

(Potions fix damage, but not mental scrambling, and saying "snap out of it" doesn't actually help - confusion is Bella's least favorite status problem and she has rigorously tested unorthodox methods of handling it with a cavefull of Goddam Zubats - but it makes her feel better. It is a complete coincidence that Zag does choose this moment to snap out of it.)

Two Ice Beams later, these consecutive and funneled through Zag's Metronome to give the second an added boost, the Dragonair is done for.

Zag's not looking so great, though.

"Who's next?" Bella asks.
Edited 2013-03-09 19:03 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Watson is next," he says, and sends out his Zebstrika.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 07:33 pm (UTC)

Watson the Zebstrika makes short work of Zag the Linoone, who does get one Headbutt in first but finally succumbs. Bella pulls him back and sends out her Umbreon.

Electric types are quick, Zebstrika no exception, and Dusk takes a hit after she tells him to Dig but before he's gotten safely underground.

The hit is -

"You're one of those, no straight-up power contests for you," she snorts, when Watson returns to his Pokéball of his own accord after Volt Switch and replaces himself with the Porygon-Z.

Dusk and the Porygon-Z "You" have a prolonged fight; You knows two offensive moves, one of which Sherlock knows better to use against a Dark type, and they're fighting defensively with plenty of uses of Conversion 2 to turn Dusk's attacks ineffective. Fortunately for Bella, no two attacks Dusk knows are the same type; if You turns psychic-type in response to Psychic, then next turn it gets a Faint Attack upside the head, and if it turns steel-type in response to that, she can order a Dig. Inconveniently for Bella, You also knows Recover. She doesn't resort to Dig after all, because You could recover more damage than the attack would do in the added span of time.

And of course it's getting in the occasional Tri-Attack through all this, and Dusk does not know Recover. Dusk faints, after Sherlock judges correctly that You can finish the Umbreon off in one more hit rather than spending the time on another recovery.

"You're good," Bella says as she releases Fireflower in Dusk's place.

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock. "I am."

You recovers itself some more.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 07:44 pm (UTC)

Fireflower takes it down anyway. While she has no movespace spent on recovery-type moves, she is carrying Leftovers to nibble on, and the defensive style and one lucky hit with a Fire Blast despite the chancy nature of that attack leave her fully intact and raring to go when it's time to send the Zebstrika out again.

"No more switching," says Bella. "Any more tricky bits up this one's sleeve?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 07:48 pm (UTC)

"No comment," says Sherlock.

But as it happens, no. Unless you count Thunder Wave.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 07:55 pm (UTC)

Thunder Wave is standard enough that it doesn't even get under Bella's skin. And Fireflower makes up for her reduced rate of attack - and Watson's relatively increased rate of attack - with overwhelming literal firepower and routine nibbles of her Leftovers.

It's close. The Rapidash wins.

"Good match," approves Bella, patting Fireflower's burning mane affectionately and then returning her to her Pokéball. "I almost lost, that hasn't happened in a while without me taking massive handicaps."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock. "I can tell."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:01 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Do you just hunt the wildlife for practice, all alone out here? I'd expect more straightforward strategy if that were it."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Largely yes. And then of course there is Tony, when he can be bothered."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:07 pm (UTC)

"He any good? He didn't wanna match with me."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Don't let him fool you—he's a brilliant strategist—but his team doesn't get much exercise unless I borrow them."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Got his mind on other things?" Bella asks, sitting down on the ground and looking up at the sky. "That's fair, I'm just lucky that my project requires a team that can take me anywhere so I've got a good reason to focus on them much of the time."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:14 pm (UTC)

"What, pray tell, is your project?"

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Looking for legends. That's why I'm here, it's supposed to have Uxie around somewhere."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:19 pm (UTC)

"Have you found any yet?"

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:22 pm (UTC)

"Nope, not a one. If this lake's a bust like Valor and Verity, I find another ace who's got Dive in their party moveset, we look at the bottoms of the lakes, if that doesn't turn up anything either I fly south, check Kanto and Johto and Hoenn."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:23 pm (UTC)

"And what do you plan to do if you find one?"

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Some of 'em can talk, and they're all smart, smarter than even particularly bright ordinary Pokémon like Zag, so, first port of call is striking up a conversation. I want to figure out how and why they're immortal."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:25 pm (UTC)

"To what end?"

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:27 pm (UTC)

"To see if I can replicate it. I have to display a creditable effort towards beating the region Champ to remain a member of the Ace Trainers in good standing, but my endgame looks more professorial than like retiring to a little off-league gym on an island," she laughs. "Beating the Champ would just be for the international passport that sort of accomplishment buys; I'd be able to go anywhere."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like fun."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, after a fashion. Lots of hopeful flying to this location or that, hiking for days, finding rocks and plants and wild 'mon, and giving up and going back to civilization for a tournament or to visit my parents or to restock on potions."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like it would be fun, if you managed it," he amends.

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes," agrees Bella. "Yes, it would. So that's me; what do you do, besides keep your Pokémon and Tony's too in shape and play the violin? Or is that the sum total?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:52 pm (UTC)

"You have more or less described my existence, yes."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Eh, at least it's not just one thing, gotta be well-rounded."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I also read books."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Me too, what do you like?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Elderly literature. But really, anything I can get my hands on."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 09:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it's a bit of a hike from here to the nearest bookstore, has Tony at least got something that flies?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Tony has nothing that doesn't."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 09:28 pm (UTC)

"So he doesn't have one of the flock of Porygon picked out special, or his is evolved all the way too?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 09:30 pm (UTC)

"He has a Porygon2 named Dummy. He built it a jetpack."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 09:32 pm (UTC)

"A jetpack? That's adorable," laughs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 09:33 pm (UTC)

"He was," Sherlock explains, "afraid it would get jealous of the other three."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Pfffft."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 09:36 pm (UTC)

"It is every bit as adorable as it sounds, yes."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 09:37 pm (UTC)

"It sounds ludicrously adorable. My 'mon aren't jealous of Rachis. I kinda am, but she lets me ride her, so it's not that bad."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Neither is Dummy. Tony, of course, argues that this is because he applied the jetpack before any such feelings could develop."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Does Dummy tend to use its jetpack much?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh, yes. It plays tag with Ampere—that's his Emolga."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Ha, that's probably what I'd have named an Emolga if I had one. I seriously considered it, they're a killer type combo, but ultimately I prefer stuff that evolves, and I had my balanced team of six by the time I was anywhere they could be caught anyway."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 10:14 pm (UTC)

"Tony did his rounds with an imported Charmander."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 10:15 pm (UTC)

"If it can fly now, without having its own jetpack, then I would expect he did all right in his time."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Yes indeed he did," says Sherlock. "We're not much for half-measures in this family."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Is it just the two of you?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry."

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 11:51 pm (UTC)

"Thank you."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 11:52 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. Can I ask what happened or would you rather not talk about it?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-09 11:54 pm (UTC)

"They left a few years ago, intending to be gone for a few days, and did not return. That is all we have ever been able to find out."

the_very_best
2013-03-09 11:59 pm (UTC)

"That really, really sucks," sighs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 12:22 am (UTC)

"Yes it does."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 01:50 am (UTC)

"I'm gonna go set up a campsite. I'd offer you a rematch against the other half of the gang but I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night with a Bibarel nibbling on my toes and all the gang tuckered out."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 01:51 am (UTC)

"You could stay in the tower," he offers. "Where the major hazard is curious Porygon, which can be excluded by closing the door."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 01:55 am (UTC)

"Oh, cool. Of course, yours are tired too, but maybe you could borrow a couple of Tony's."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 01:56 am (UTC)

"Indeed I could."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 01:57 am (UTC)

Bella plucks Juu's Pokéball from her belt and tosses it and catches it. "I'm stuck with what I've got, but if you tell me what you're going to swap in I'll know what to lead with and how screwed I am by my limited selection," she grins.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 03:07 am (UTC)

"Charizard and Skarmory."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:30 am (UTC)

"A little bit screwed," concludes Bella. "All right. I'll toss Rachis to start, you saw her, and the others are my Sawsbuck, Branch, and my Mienshao, Juu."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 01:06 pm (UTC)

"Candle and Spike," he says cheerfully. "Just a moment."

And in he goes to borrow some pokemon from Tony.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 04:39 pm (UTC)

Bella, and a preening Rachis too, are waiting for him when he returns.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 04:57 pm (UTC)

Presumably he has two more pokeballs on him somewhere, but like the ones he habitually carries, he's concealed them from view.

"Shall we?"

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Oh yes."

The Skarmory isn't as hard-hitting as some 'mon Bella's fought and beaten, but none of Rachis's attacks do more than lightly dent it; damn those Steel defenses and the fact that Fireflower and Zag are out of the game. Fortunately, Rachis - like everyone else on this half of Bella's team, as it happens - knows a healing move. And Spike the Skarmory does not. Bella settles in for the long haul. As an added bonus, using Roost leaves Rachis not-technically-Flying long enough to drastically cut the value of each Rockslide.

Ultimately, patience and roosting wins over solid defense - and Rachis knows one gotcha, of sorts. Bella sends her Pidgeot high into the sky, preparing to divebomb the Skarmory with Fly - the Skarmory predictably follows suit so as not to be there - and the Fly does not hit - but the ensuing Twister does. Dragon-type isn't any more effective against a Skarmory than Flying-type, but it can hit a nigh-invulnerable 'mon - and do double damage when it does.

Spike spirals dizzily to the ground, and faints.

"Nice, Rachis," Bella tells her Pidgeot approvingly.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 06:10 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

Out comes Candle.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:26 pm (UTC)

Candle's tougher than the Skarmory. Rachis tries and she gets in one solid Fly, but cannot recover enough with each Roost to stay conscious through a lucky Overheat, and she collapses before making much progress.

Out comes Juu the Mienshao. This is not a great type combination on Bella's end. But it's not going to be overwhelmingly to Sherlock's advantage either, because - as Spike so deftly proved moments ago - Flying types don't like rock. And Juu knows from rock. Bella can't afford to have Juu throwing type-ineffectual Drain Punches to heal herself by tiny increments, and half the Stone Edges miss when Candle's preparing to Fly, but Juu's the more experienced 'mon. Juu hangs on by a thread at the end. Candle faints.

Sherlock has no choice but to send out his Ditto, Mycroft, next. It's a Ditto, so Bella knows exactly what it's going to do, but before it changes shape - and type - Juu throws a Drain Punch. Fighting versus Normal, it's almost surprising that it's not a one-hit knockout of Mycroft. Juu looks better at the end of it. Then, Mycroft looks like Juu. And the Ditto can Drain Punch, too. They wind up in a fistfight. Juu loses.

Unfortunately for Bella, Branch the Sawsbuck has a Normal secondary type and Mycroft is now Fighting. Bella has heard that some Ditto can only be something they're looking right at. This one apparently does not have that handicap. At least Juu softened it up, because Mycroft has Drain Punch and Branch has a problem.

But Branch is not offensively handicapped against a Mienshao-transformed Ditto, and he holds a Big Root, that makes his every Horn Leech significantly better at restoring what he loses. The Pokémon end their battle in a healing-attack brawl. Branch's advantage beats Mycroft's.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Good match," says Sherlock. "I'll give Tony back his wounded warriors so he can hug them better."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Good match," Bella agrees. "Does hugging them help?" She hugs Branch 'round the neck, partially hiding her face in summer-leafed antlers, without waiting for a reply either way.

"Sawwww," says Branch.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Tony has never been inclined to let that stop him."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:35 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "So where am I crashing till the gang's ready to fend off wild'uns?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 06:36 pm (UTC)

"The top floor's ours, but you have your pick of the rest. We have an astonishing number of guest rooms for a tower in the middle of nowhere."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:37 pm (UTC)

"I'm astonished," deadpans Bella. "How come?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 06:38 pm (UTC)

"We used to have guests."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:41 pm (UTC)

"I guess that makes sense." Since her best guess is that they stopped coming after the absent parents died, she doesn't pry further. "Well, I really appreciate the place to stay. I camp 'cause I have to, I don't actually like it. When I'm in spitting distance of towns I'll fly an hour from my lead site to stay in a guild hostel or a Pokémon center."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 06:43 pm (UTC)

"You'd have to spit from quite a height around here to reach a settlement larger than the tower."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's why I have my camping gear on me, I did not expect you." She releases Branch from the hug and returns him to his Pokéball.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 06:45 pm (UTC)

Smiling, Sherlock steps back inside.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:45 pm (UTC)

She follows him and checks out the available rooms.

poeticterms
2013-03-10 06:47 pm (UTC)

The rooms are plentiful and very nice. There is also a fairly extensive library occupying an entire floor halfway up the tower.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:48 pm (UTC)

Ooh, a library. She picks a room just above that, divests herself of her backpack, and goes to have a look at the titles on the shelves.

poeticterms
2013-03-10 06:49 pm (UTC)

They're divided about evenly between fiction and nonfiction, and both collections are of excellent quality.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 06:50 pm (UTC)

Cool. She thinks nothing of helping herself to a nice old novel and reading it.

dash rapidash dash

the_very_best

Morning - early morning, as it's always possible some phenomenon will only appear before sunrise in a way that she can't find simply by staying up past dark - finds Bella having let herself out of the Tower (conscientiously not letting any Porygon out into the wilderness). She never walks if she can help it. Fireflower is much more surefooted, and enjoys the exercise more. She hauls herself up onto the Rapidash's back.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 07:31 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is outside, sitting by the shore of the lake. He glances back at her and waves.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 07:33 pm (UTC)

It's dark, so she doesn't see him right away, but the combination of motion and the firelight from Fireflower's mane and tail render his sillhouette visible. "Hi, whichever-one-of-you-I-haven't-yet-learned-to-distinguish," she says cheerfully. "Gonna go for a gallop around the lakeshore, see what there is to see, you want to hop on Watson and join us?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Happily," he calls back. A moment later, he's climbing onto the Zebstrika's back.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Since you had him in your pocket instead of having to go in and borrow him I'm betting you're Sherlock," says Bella, nudging Fireflower into a trot.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 07:37 pm (UTC)

"You are correct," says Sherlock, following.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Are there more obvious tells or should I just ask-and-guess till I know you well enough or I leave and it's moot?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 07:41 pm (UTC)

"We also dress and speak differently."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 07:57 pm (UTC)

"You do have a bit of an - is it an Unova accent? How'd you pick that up?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 07:58 pm (UTC)

"I spend a lot of time with the house computer."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 07:58 pm (UTC)

"...And how does that lead to an Unova accent?"

(Talking computers: not a commonplace.)

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 08:00 pm (UTC)

"The house computer speaks with one."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 08:27 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, it talks. Neat. What does it talk about? Is that better than a text display for some things?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 08:30 pm (UTC)

Sherlock does not immediately respond to these questions.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 08:32 pm (UTC)

Their Pokémon's hooves are making a fair amount of noise against the lakeshore. She repeats herself, speaking up a bit.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes," he says finally. "For some things, it is better than a text display."
Edited 2013-03-10 20:36 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-03-10 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Bella. "I like computers, but I travel too much to bother having one of my own even in my dad's house, I just have the Pokétch and my Pokémon Center PC accounts."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I honestly don't know what I'd do without the tower's computer."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 08:50 pm (UTC)

"What do you do with it? I believe you mentioned reading books and hunting wild 'mon and playing the violin, I don't see how the computer factors in."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 08:51 pm (UTC)

"...It's difficult to explain."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 08:56 pm (UTC)

"I haven't got anything else particularly intellectually stimulating to do while we circuit the lake, and it's a big lake," Ace points out, eyes scanning their surroundings for odd lights or uncharacteristic motion in the grass or the water.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 09:00 pm (UTC)

"I suppose not."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 09:05 pm (UTC)

"But we can talk about something else, if you want, do you follow tournaments or anything standard-small-talk-y like that?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Among the things the computer does is offer us regular reports on such goings-on. So yes."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 09:46 pm (UTC)

Bella turns out to have many and nuanced opinions on tournaments. She personally knows her guild's entrant to this year's Golden Apricorn Games, and doesn't like him very much, although she admits that he's the sort of person to have a shot at winning and give half the prize money to the guild after, so it's all right.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 09:47 pm (UTC)

Sherlock does not have such insight into the personalities of the entrants, but he listens raptly to Bella's analysis.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 09:50 pm (UTC)

This occupies them for the circuit of the lake, which takes until well after sunrise.

(Sunrise is beautiful. Bella interrupts her tirade about Apricorn Games rulesets and their dismissal of the skill element in team selection to comment on it.)

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes, I like them," says Sherlock, scratching behind Watson's ears.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 10:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm usually not up this early. Not such a morning person."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I am not always up this early, but when I am, I appreciate it."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 10:37 pm (UTC)

"I wish I didn't need to sleep. I probably still would sometimes, but not daily."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

the_very_best
2013-03-10 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Why would I rather not have to sleep or why would I sometimes do it anyway?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 10:51 pm (UTC)

"Both."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 10:56 pm (UTC)

"I don't like needing to do things - especially things that have no useful products, which sleep wouldn't if it weren't required for me to be properly awake the rest of the time. I'd do it anyway because I like dreams, and because sometimes there's nothing interesting going on and the next interesting thing will happen some time in the future and I could sleep through those occasions."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Your logic is sound."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 10:58 pm (UTC)

"It usually is!"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 10:59 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 11:02 pm (UTC)

And there's the tower again. "Nothing," sighs Bella. She slides off Fireflower's back, pats her neck, and returns her. "I'm going to check out the lake itself, d'you want to join me for that too or have you got other stuff planned?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 11:06 pm (UTC)

"I can think of no better way to occupy my morning," he says cheerfully.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 11:10 pm (UTC)

"What've you got that swims? It'd be a bit cramped for us to both sit on Zag." She sits down and pulls off her boots, because Zag's not even big enough for her to keep her feet dry.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Irene will do."

He similarly dismounts from Watson, gives him a hug around the neck, and switches him out for the Dragonair.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 11:28 pm (UTC)

Boots and socks go in Bella's backpack, her jeans get rolled up to above her knees, and she releases Zag. "Gonna go for a swim," she tells him brightly.

"Oone!" He trots obediently into the water; she wades after him and manages to perch on his back.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 11:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock leaves his shoes on the shoreline and hops aboard Irene, who undulates after the other pair.

the_very_best
2013-03-10 11:37 pm (UTC)

Bella leads in a wide spiraling pattern, from the outer edge of the lake to the center. "Which of your Pokémon was your first? I can't see importing a Kanto traditional starter for one twin and not the other, but maybe you traded yours or were already attached to something by the time you started?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I started with Ditto."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Childhood friend? Zag used to be my mom's, she caught him when I was eight, but he liked me better and she gave him to me." Bella scratches behind the pokey fur on Zag's cheeks and gets a contented "linlinlin" in reply.

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 11:46 pm (UTC)

"You could say that, yes."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Strategizing must be really tricky with a Ditto. Your opponent knows everything you can do and vice versa, the only question is which one's tougher underneath. And luck."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I like the challenge."

the_very_best
2013-03-10 11:53 pm (UTC)

"Yours can hold shape, I guess, some of them lose it as soon as what they're copying is out of sight, that gave you an advantage when Juu was down for the count and I sent Branch," says Bella. And then, smugly, "Just not an insurmountable one."

bitofafiction
2013-03-10 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Mycroft's very good," he says cheerfully. "I dream of teaching him to remember things he has previously copied."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:00 am (UTC)

"That would also be an interesting research project. Any avenues of investigation?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:02 am (UTC)

"Nothing has yet sprung to mind."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:04 am (UTC)

"How smart is Mycroft? 'Mon vary a lot - I don't just mean the legendaries some of whom are supposed to be able to talk, I mean even just from one - one Bidoof to another, some of 'em are dumb as rocks and can barely learn to interpret commands about which attack to use and some of 'em are very bright. Zag's my smartest."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:06 am (UTC)

"I have been blessed with unusually astute Pokemon," he says, patting Irene's neck. She arches it smugly.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:07 am (UTC)

"All of 'em? Lucky. Branch isn't even bright enough to react when I talk about how smart he isn't in front of him. The rest are somewhere in the middle."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:11 am (UTC)

"You is the low end of the scale for me, and it's still smarter than most of the Porygon."
Edited 2013-03-11 00:13 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:14 am (UTC)

"How did it come by that name, anyway? Did you name it when you were three or something?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:16 am (UTC)

"Tony did, actually. Dummy is the first Porygon successfully created; he's been naming them similarly ever since. Half the flock rhymes with Bob."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:25 am (UTC)

"Rhymes with - oh dear. I suppose it is rather a lot of all one species to have to come up with names for," giggles Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:26 am (UTC)

"In my humble opinion," says Sherlock, "that is no excuse for naming an innocent Pokemon 'Flob'."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:27 am (UTC)

This sends her into paroxysms of giggles. Zag thinks it's funny too.

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:27 am (UTC)

He grins.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:32 am (UTC)

"Do the feral ones even answer to their nicknames?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:33 am (UTC)

"The Bob contingent is chancy, but some of the rest of them do."
Edited 2013-03-11 00:33 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:35 am (UTC)

"Interesting. My mom used to try to tame wild 'mon with nothing but food and cooing and it didn't really work even insofar as getting them not to attack her if she got too close; I certainly wouldn't have expected any of them to answer to a name. I guess the Porygon are different from random Starly or whatever."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:39 am (UTC)

"They've known him all their lives. Enough exposure to Tony can make even answering to 'Flob' seem logical."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:41 am (UTC)

"For certain values of 'logical', anyway."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:49 am (UTC)

"I see you have not yet had enough exposure to Tony."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:49 am (UTC)

"Apparently not. I hope he's not going to start calling me anything that rhymes with Bob."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:51 am (UTC)

"You never know. I don't believe we have a 'Blob' yet."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:53 am (UTC)

"I will not answer to 'Blob'. It's not happening."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 12:54 am (UTC)

"As you say, then."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 12:58 am (UTC)

They carry on exploring the lake. By the time they're done, Bella's perfunctory breakfast is history; she turns Zag around from the lake center and heads back for the tower. "Nothing. Why is Uxie supposedly here? What made people say that? Even if it's completely mythical that it and Mesprit and Azelf live at the lakes and someone made it up because there's three lakes and three lake guardians, all the sources agree on Uxie being at this one, which I wouldn't expect if it were someone's fabrication. I guess I'll have to check the lake bottom after all. I wonder who'll come with me, if I can even find anyone who's up for it and has the right move in their party."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:07 am (UTC)

"Irene could learn it if she evolved," he mentions.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:08 am (UTC)

"Is she likely to do it soon, do you think? Would you make the move swap? You met me yesterday, if you weren't already planning on it it'd be a big deal."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:15 am (UTC)

"I was thinking of changing her lineup when she does, which should be any minute now, and it's among my candidates."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:17 am (UTC)

"Huh. Could have a rematch," suggests Bella, getting off her Linoone at the shore and opening her backpack to find some lunch. "I can lead with something not-Zag, although there is of course no question of letting you win, cooperative rolling over to boost somebody else's 'mon is just mean to one's own."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:18 am (UTC)

"I would love a rematch."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:22 am (UTC)

"One-to-one? Since it's all about Irene?" Bella asks. She produces a packet of soup mix, which a combination of Zag's helpful and carefully-aimed Surf and Fireflower's toasty tail render soupily edible inside of a few minutes. "I can toss Juu or Dusk or Branch and it'll be a fair fight typewise." Well, half Branch's attacks won't hardly dent Irene, but the other half will.

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:25 am (UTC)

"That sounds lovely."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:27 am (UTC)

Bella drinks her soup pretty quick, returns Fireflower whence she came, and produces Dusk's Pokéball. "Now, or do you want lunch too?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:29 am (UTC)

"Oh, I'll be all right until dinner, at which you are welcome to join us."

Irene, coiled in a contented loop nearby, lifts her head.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:31 am (UTC)

"D'you typically skip lunch?" Bella asks, opening the ball and responding affirmatively to Dusk's obvious wish to be petted. "Hey you, Irene over there's about to evolve, you're gonna make her work for it."

"Eeeeon."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:36 am (UTC)

"Air," chirps Irene, flicking her tail. Sherlock laughs.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:37 am (UTC)

"Ummmmbreon!" says Dusk, sounding annoyed and flicking his ears back at her.

"You wanna get her?" laughs Bella.

"Umbrrrrrr."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:39 am (UTC)

Irene slithers in front of Sherlock and bobs her head up and down. "Dragonair," she says firmly.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:45 am (UTC)

"Let's get this party started," says Bella, getting up and patting Dusk on the head to calm his hysterical fit of "eoneoneoneon".

It's a fair fight, in theory, and Dusk gets in a few shots that he clearly finds very satisfying.

But Dusk spends half of the fight mistaking his own tail for Irene's, allowing her to nap off the damage. He finally finishes himself off and collapses.

"Aww, Dusk, you tried," sighs Bella, scooping him up into his ball again, "when you're up we can go pick on some wild'uns, okay?" She looks up to congratulate Sherlock. "Nicely done."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:50 am (UTC)

"Yes indeed," says Sherlock, scratching Irene behind her headwings.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:51 am (UTC)

"Do you already have an HM for Dive lying around?" asks Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:51 am (UTC)

"Oh, of course we do."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 01:52 am (UTC)

"How is that an of course? I have to use the guild ones, those things are expensive," laughs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 01:59 am (UTC)

"One parent invented Porygon and the other made groundbreaking advancements in the field of Move Machines. We have plenty of money to go around and we're swimming in perfectly functional prototypes."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 02:00 am (UTC)

"...Sweet," comments Bella. "I'd hit you up for access, but the guild does have a full set of the HMs and I got the last TM I decided I needed a few months ago."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 02:03 am (UTC)

He grins. "It's very convenient, yes."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 02:06 am (UTC)

"My parents are kind of dull. My father is a cop and my mother teaches kindergarten and when school lets out for a break she tears around all over the country pretending to be a full-time trainer. She's not a very good trainer, but she's enthusiastic and her 'mon love her."
Edited 2013-03-11 02:06 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 02:07 am (UTC)

"Well, that's adorable," says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 02:10 am (UTC)

"She does have a bit of the adorable about her, yes. Charlie - my dad - has standard-issue cop 'mon, doesn't catch or recreationally battle. He's not that into it, doesn't name 'em or anything, but the standard-issues are all about the job anyway so that works."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 08:49 pm (UTC)

"What are the standard-issue cop 'mon?"

the_very_best
2013-03-11 08:55 pm (UTC)

"There's a few species that adapt well to the work. Charlie in particular has a Noctowl and a Machoke, pretty regionally popular evolutionary trees - I think down south Growlithe are a big deal for police."

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Oddly enough, I'd heard of the Growlithe, but not the others."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 09:00 pm (UTC)

"I guess you haven't tangled with cops much," laughs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Were you previously getting the impression that I had?" he laughs.

the_very_best
2013-03-11 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Not a bit. How'd you know about the Growlithe, do you watch those terrible Kanto procedural shows?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-11 09:17 pm (UTC)

"I have seen one," he says. "I gave up fairly early, but the Growlithe did make an impression."

the_very_best
2013-03-11 09:22 pm (UTC)

"They're by far the most charismatic characters. Charlie doesn't watch them, but Renée likes those shows now and again and I can't see the appeal at all."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 12:22 am (UTC)

"I am in your camp on this one."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 12:26 am (UTC)

"I watch tournaments, it's more fun when you can see them instead of just hearing the play-by-play, but otherwise I'm not much of a TV person at all," says Bella. "You've got a nice library, I found it yesterday evening. Helped myself to a copy of The Whispering Trees."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 12:30 am (UTC)

"We have a very nice library," he agrees. "Whispering Trees isn't bad. Have you read it before?"

the_very_best
2013-03-12 12:31 am (UTC)

"I read about two chapters of it once, and then something distracted me, and then I forgot about it. I managed to finish the whole thing last night."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 12:54 am (UTC)

"Congratulations. I hope it was enjoyable."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:00 am (UTC)

"Quite. I like old books. Even the weird genre fiction with no Pokémon anywhere. It's like authors a few thousand years ago resented them or something."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:04 am (UTC)

"Or something."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:06 am (UTC)

"You have a different idea?"

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:11 am (UTC)

"Some of the imaginary creatures from those old books are... oddly consistent."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:13 am (UTC)

"Some of the fictional Pokémon that appear in modern fantasy crop up in a lot of different authors' works, too," Bella points out. "If there's a way to evolve an Eevee into a Spectreon, no one's discovered it yet, but that doesn't stop every hack novelist from giving their special snowflake a way to do it."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:14 am (UTC)

"Never mind, then."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:16 am (UTC)

"I'm not saying I don't wanna hear your theory, I'm saying whatever your theory is probably isn't the only explanation."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:23 am (UTC)

He shrugs uncomfortably.

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:25 am (UTC)

Aw. She didn't mean to make him uncomfortable.

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:27 am (UTC)

Well, here they are regardless.

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:28 am (UTC)

"Sorry," she says after a silence.

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:28 am (UTC)

"It's fine," he says. "I am frequently reminded that I am oversensitive."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:31 am (UTC)

Would he appreciate shoulder-pats? Bella may have one or two or three going spare.

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:39 am (UTC)

After a moment, he smiles.

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:41 am (UTC)

"I do want to hear the theory, if you don't mind telling me," she says, tilting her head. "I can keep all my objections quiet if you like."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:49 am (UTC)

"Not right now, I think."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:53 am (UTC)

"Okay." Pause. "When I was little I thought that Pachirisu evolved into Emolga and no one could convince me different," she offers.

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:54 am (UTC)

...He grins.

"That is cute."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 01:58 am (UTC)

"I thought this," she goes on, "because I'd read a book about a Pachirisu that wanted very much to fly, and made friends with a variety of flying Pokémon but ultimately didn't stick with any of them because of this or that, and ultimately learned to be content with what it was, and I thought that was a dreadful ending and it really ought to be able to fly one day if that's what it wanted to do."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 01:59 am (UTC)

"If only it had found Tony," he says, "he would have built it a jetpack."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:01 am (UTC)

"See, there you go," says Bella. "That would've been a much better ending - instead of 'be the thing you got assigned to be in the cold hard lottery of life and don't go around wanting things you aren't natively able to do' it'd be something like 'a bad friend might give you a ride, a good friend will give you the power to fly by yourself'. Much better."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:05 am (UTC)

"I agree completely."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:06 am (UTC)

She grins at him. "I'm hoping that when I find an immortal Pokémon it agrees with us too. A bad immortal Pokémon wants to keep all the eternity to itself, a good immortal Pokémon wants immortal friends."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:08 am (UTC)

"Best of luck."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:10 am (UTC)

"I wonder why they're so secretive. If I were immortal I imagine I'd publicize it and write a book about how I did it so everyone else could be too. Maybe I'd be less complacent about it if someone could stuff me into a Pokéball without a by-your-leave. Maybe the immortal ones aren't as well-suited to the lifestyle."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:11 am (UTC)

"Maybe they're terribly selfish. Maybe they can't share it and they're tired of people asking. Maybe they're afraid someone will capture them and hurt them."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:15 am (UTC)

"Maybe they can share it but only a few times and they don't want to be reckless about who gets it. Maybe they don't like being immortal. Maybe they aren't, maybe the species I'm looking for are some combination of mythical and not-unique-just-rare and died-a-hundred-years-ago."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:16 am (UTC)

"I hope that one day you find out."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:21 am (UTC)

"Me too. Especially if the answer isn't any of those and is just 'maybe no one asked nicely before'."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:22 am (UTC)

"Wouldn't that be nice."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:23 am (UTC)

"It would. Nice things do happen sometimes."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:25 am (UTC)

"That they do."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:28 am (UTC)

"If you could have anything you wanted, what would you want?" she asks idly.

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:30 am (UTC)

"Immortality's a nice one," he says. "But only if I can take Tony with me, of course."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:33 am (UTC)

"Oh, yes, I imagine it would be terribly lonely if you couldn't take at least one other person along. I'd probably do it anyway, but I'd understand somebody else declining."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:33 am (UTC)

"I'd be all right with just Tony and the house."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 02:39 am (UTC)

"Is the house not already immortal in whatever sense houses are alive to begin with? Assuming you maintain it."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 02:41 am (UTC)

"Yes."

the_very_best
2013-03-12 04:16 am (UTC)

"You must be awfully attached to the house to bring it up anyway, then. It is a really nice house."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 12:56 pm (UTC)

"It is," he agrees.

the_very_best
2013-03-12 03:40 pm (UTC)

"My parents split up when I was little and I divided my time between them - I guess I still do, in the sense that when I take a break I visit whoever's more convenient to where I am. Maybe that's why I don't have any strong feelings about either house."

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps."

hospitality

the_very_best

Bella and Sherlock sit on the lake beach for much of the rest of the day, chatting about this and that, until it is dinnertime. Bella has not a bit of self-consciousness about taking him up on his dinner invitation.

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 03:49 pm (UTC)

Sherlock makes dinner.

Sherlock is a very good cook.

the_very_best
2013-03-12 03:53 pm (UTC)

Bella is effusive in her compliments, and she lets out Zag to give him small tastes of each dish on top of his daily Pokéchow, and he is likewise enthused.

bitofafiction
2013-03-12 03:58 pm (UTC)

It's terribly cute.

the_very_best
2013-04-12 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Since Irene knows Rest, she could be up and at'em in a minute if she wants a go against Juu or Branch," Bella comments.
Edited 2013-04-12 20:56 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-04-12 09:02 pm (UTC)

"True," says Sherlock. "I will consult her after dinner."

the_very_best
2013-04-12 09:03 pm (UTC)

Bella grins. And noms.

bitofafiction
2013-04-12 09:15 pm (UTC)

Irene, when consulted after dinner, affirms that she would love another round.

the_very_best
2013-04-12 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Got a preference between Branch and Juu?" asks Bella, producing the Pokéballs containing each.

bitofafiction
2013-04-12 10:07 pm (UTC)

"We do not," says Sherlock.

"Aiiiiiiiir," says Irene.

the_very_best
2013-04-12 10:17 pm (UTC)

Juu it is. Juu doesn't require an explanation for what she's doing here. She just wants to fight.

bitofafiction
2013-04-12 10:18 pm (UTC)

Funny thing, so does Irene!

the_very_best
2013-04-12 10:21 pm (UTC)

It's very close.

Juu's strategy relies on precisely aimed hits, though, and while she's got a helpful lens item, she doesn't get lucky today. She passes out in the end, before landing the punch that would have let her heal.

bitofafiction
2013-04-12 11:25 pm (UTC)

Irene coos triumphantly.

And then she begins to glow.

Sherlock grins.

the_very_best
2013-04-12 11:25 pm (UTC)

Bella returns Juu and applauds.

bitofafiction
2013-04-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

When Irene ceases to glow, she is taller and more orange. Also, she has wings.

"Dragonite," she says smugly.

Sherlock hugs her.

the_very_best
2013-04-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Spiffy," says Bella, beaming. "Congratulations!"

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 12:35 am (UTC)

He beams.

"And now to adjust your moveset," he says, petting her, "assuming you don't object."

"Draaaaaaagon," says Irene.

the_very_best
2013-04-13 12:38 am (UTC)

Ace beams. "Thank you, I really do appreciate it."

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 12:50 am (UTC)

"You are very welcome."

And off they go.
Edited 2013-04-13 12:07 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-13 03:39 pm (UTC)

Bella tags along to supervise, unless someone objects.

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 04:02 pm (UTC)

Bella is welcome to watch Sherlock consult the tower's Move Machine collection, select the HM for Dive, and administer it to his newly evolved Dragonite.

the_very_best
2013-04-13 05:46 pm (UTC)

"You want to head for the lake right now or wait till tomorrow?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Your project is a fascinating one but I do not think it is especially urgent. We may as well wait until tomorrow when we are all well rested and have the whole day ahead of us."
Edited 2013-04-13 19:47 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-13 07:47 pm (UTC)

"Sounds like a plan," says Bella. "I think I'll go raid your library again." Up the stairs she goes.

She is up bright and early the next day.

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 07:52 pm (UTC)

So is Sherlock!

the_very_best
2013-04-13 08:08 pm (UTC)

How convenient!

Off to the middle of the lake, then?

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 08:10 pm (UTC)

Yes indeed.

the_very_best
2013-04-13 08:33 pm (UTC)

The lake, alas, however deep they dive -

contains no evidence of Uxie.

"Rattata," says Bella.
Edited 2013-04-13 20:34 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Quite," says Sherlock. "I'm sorry."

the_very_best
2013-04-13 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Oh well," sighs Bella. "Thank you so much anyway."

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 11:06 pm (UTC)

"You are welcome."

the_very_best
2013-04-13 11:10 pm (UTC)

"I guess I'll go stay with Renée for a while and figure out what to do next. You want to swap numbers? In case you see anything or want a rematch or something," she adds with a smile.

bitofafiction
2013-04-13 11:11 pm (UTC)

"I would be delighted."

the_very_best
2013-04-13 11:13 pm (UTC)

And they swap numbers, and get out of the lake, and Bella waves goodbye and she's off on Pidgeotback.

gratitude

the_very_best

Bella flies away. She visits her parents, hits up the guild for matches and wins enough to pay her guild dues, and tools around random wilderness beating up on the wildlife.

She doesn't really expect to hear from Sherlock and Tony again.

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 12:16 pm (UTC)

Sherlock calls her exactly one month after she left.

the_very_best
2013-04-15 02:43 pm (UTC)

Bella answers. "Hey, Sherlock, what's up?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:10 pm (UTC)

"Nothing in particular. How goes your quest?"

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:15 pm (UTC)

"Not that well. Found a cryptozoological association that claims to have spotted Mew, concluded they're crackpots but only after getting suckered into reading a fair amount of their literature, that sort of thing. How've you been?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Fruitless literature. What horror," he says dryly. "I have been - living. You remain the most exciting thing that has happened here all year."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Well, that sounds dull, you want me to swing by again while I'm trying to think of other leads to grab? I can't promise I'll be as fascinating on a repeat visit."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:18 pm (UTC)

"We will appreciate it nonetheless."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Sure. Might take me a day or two if I take a guild chapter route instead of a straight shot, but I'd be happy to visit again."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:28 pm (UTC)

"I look forward to it."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Any particular reason you called today instead of last week or next week?" Bella asks, starting to roll up clothes and stuff them into her backpack.

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:32 pm (UTC)

"It has been exactly a month. I like to be exact."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:37 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "How're your 'mon doing? Does Irene like being able to fly?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Irene is continually delighted."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Are the others jealous?" asks Bella innocently. "Well, I suppose only the Zebstrika - sorry, I forgot its name - would have to be."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Watson," he supplies. "He considers himself above that sort of thing."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Not, I hope, literally. You did say you were blessed with clever Pokémon."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:52 pm (UTC)

"I mean to say that he is not in the habit of letting Irene's excessive smugness damage his composure."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:53 pm (UTC)

"I figured. Bad joke," laughs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:55 pm (UTC)

"So I observe."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Pfft. They can't all be gems." She zips up her backpack and swings it onto her back.

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 03:58 pm (UTC)

"I acknowledge the point."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:05 pm (UTC)

"We should all three of us race once I get there," opines Bella. "Flying, I mean, although if we wanted to do a landrace I could loan Branch to Tony since if I remember right he doesn't have anything appropriately quadrupedal."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:14 pm (UTC)

"I think that would be lovely."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:16 pm (UTC)

"And of course the fact that I'd loan Branch and not Fireflower has nothing to do with the fact that I know she's faster and everything to do with the fact that she doesn't know him well enough to decline to burn him," snickers Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:19 pm (UTC)

"If you put it like that, Tony will regard it as a challenge."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:21 pm (UTC)

"He's welcome to try to woo my Rapidash. I don't anticipate he'll have a lot of luck."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:22 pm (UTC)

"We'll see, I suppose."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Renée has tried it, many times, and doesn't get anywhere," Bella says, as she leaves the building, releases Rachis, and hops on. "Fireflower is not my friendliest."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:24 pm (UTC)

"Tony has astonishing powers of charm."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Okay, now I'm curious, this I've got to see," laughs Bella. "Up and away, Rachis."

"Pidge!"

"Like, how would he even go about it?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:30 pm (UTC)

"What has Renée tried?"

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Bribing her with treats into letting Renée pet her on the nose till she's sick of it and bites, and talking half-nonsense half-'you don't wanna hurt me do you' type stuff, and getting me to intercede on her behalf," says Bella. "I can get Fireflower not to bite her, but the properties of her actual fire parts are not in my control."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock. "No, that does not sound like Tony's sort of strategy."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:36 pm (UTC)

"What'll he do then? Or do I just have to wait and see?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:38 pm (UTC)

"I would not care to venture a guess, and I doubt Tony himself could tell you until the moment approaches."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. He can borrow her if he can talk her into it, that'll make things interesting."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Won't it just?"

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Fireflower actually lost a race the other day. Not with me riding her, just me and another Ace both had Rapidashes and we sent them around the block four times and she just barely came in second. She was mad."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:47 pm (UTC)

"My condolences to Fireflower."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that. And she'll appreciate winning even more."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:53 pm (UTC)

"No comment."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:56 pm (UTC)

"You think Watson'll beat her?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:56 pm (UTC)

"I have never seen her run."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 04:57 pm (UTC)

"She's fast," Bella asserts.

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 04:58 pm (UTC)

"So is Watson."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Well then," laughs Bella, "this'll be interesting either way."

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Indeed."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 05:08 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting up in altitude, it's gonna be hard to hear you. I'll see you in a day or two," Bella says.

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I'll see you then."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 05:32 pm (UTC)

A day later, Bella swoops in by the lake tower on Rachis.

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 05:33 pm (UTC)

Sherlock leans out the window and waves.

the_very_best
2013-04-15 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" calls Bella as she lands and returns the Pidgeot. "How goes?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Boring," calls Sherlock, and he un-leans and comes downstairs.

the_very_best
2013-04-15 05:43 pm (UTC)

"That's what I'm here to fix," laughs Bella when he emerges. "Haven't you got that awesome library? Have you already read everything in it?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-15 05:45 pm (UTC)

"Everything I strongly desire to read. Tony can keep the engineering manuals."

the_very_best
2013-04-15 05:46 pm (UTC)

"He building anything cool this week?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 12:18 pm (UTC)

"Not especially."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Man, what do you guys do all day when I am not around?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Tony works on his various projects and wages an eternal battle to get the Porygon to let go of him so he can do science. I talk to the computer and beat up the wildlife."
Edited 2013-04-16 18:59 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-16 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Those projects and that computer must be super-interesting to entertain you guys consistently."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps we are just eternally bored," he suggests.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Then why wouldn't you figure out something to do, and go do it?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 07:11 pm (UTC)

"All right, perhaps we aren't."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 07:14 pm (UTC)

"Where is Tony? Project-ing or shooing Porygon?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I believe he is currently drinking coffee."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 07:16 pm (UTC)

"Ah, I feel so misled. Next you'll be telling me that in addition to talking to the computer and fighting with the wild 'mon you also sleep."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 07:16 pm (UTC)

"I have been known to!"

the_very_best
2013-04-16 07:31 pm (UTC)

"Do you go into the nearest towns much, even? If I lived here - and I'd read everything in your library already - I'd get bored."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 07:39 pm (UTC)

"We do occasionally visit. But the towns are not all that much more interesting."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes there's seasonal events and the like. Fairs, local tournaments, shows."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 08:46 pm (UTC)

"I suppose."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 08:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, here I am to liven up the place. I think Rachis deserves a rest, but my quadrupeds are all ready to go."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Ah, yes. Shall we introduce Tony to Fireflower?"

the_very_best
2013-04-16 09:27 pm (UTC)

In answer, Bella releases her Rapidash and pats her neck. "If he's up for it as you predicted."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Good afternoon," he says to Fireflower.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Dash," Fireflower says.

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's a start," he says, amused. "Just a moment. I will fetch Tony and see if you like him any better."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 09:45 pm (UTC)

Fireflower snorts disdainfully and noses at Bella, soliciting treats. She receives a treat.

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 09:48 pm (UTC)

He fetches Tony.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 09:48 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Tony.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 09:59 pm (UTC)

Fireflower chews her treat and eyes him.

"Dash," she says after she has swallowed it.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 10:00 pm (UTC)

He glances at Sherry.

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 10:01 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head minutely.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 10:02 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Can I give you treats too?" he says to Fireflower.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Raaaapidash."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 10:04 pm (UTC)

"But of course he does. Go on, Tony."

toblameforit
2013-04-16 10:04 pm (UTC)

Tony produces treats!

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:06 pm (UTC)

Fireflower consumes them, flicking her tail. She doesn't even appear likely to bite him, although maybe that's because Bella's right there supervising.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 10:09 pm (UTC)

Tony beams.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:12 pm (UTC)

Fireflower finishes her treats and tosses her head.

Bella looks on curiously, particularly at Sherlock, who has been having a little more of a conversation with her Pokémon than she's accustomed to.

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Yes?"

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:15 pm (UTC)

"I sometimes guess at what my 'mon are saying but not usually in much detail."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 10:16 pm (UTC)

"I understand them," he admits.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Coooool. How'd you learn to do that?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 10:19 pm (UTC)

"I didn't. I always have."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:21 pm (UTC)

Bella tilts her head. "How?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 10:25 pm (UTC)

He spreads his hands.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Are you psychic? I never heard of a psychic who had that particular ability, but, you know."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 10:46 pm (UTC)

"I do not know if I am psychic."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Huh. Sounds like it to me, if you don't know how you're doing it. Cool."

Fireflower is bored. She folds her legs under her and lies down.

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 10:55 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 10:58 pm (UTC)

Tony sits down beside Fireflower.

"So, you're really pretty," he says conversationally.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Raaaa," agrees Fireflower regally, tossing her head.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

"What can I say, I like to state the obvious," laughs Tony. "I bet you're great in a fight, too, huh?"

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Raprapidash!"

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:09 pm (UTC)

Tony grins and nods.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:10 pm (UTC)

Fireflower nods back.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:12 pm (UTC)

"And fast, I hear you're super fast."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Radpidashdashdash rapidash."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 11:29 pm (UTC)

Sherlock murmurs a translation into Tony's ear - 'I am the fastest, that other Rapidash cheated!'

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I'll bet they did!" laughs Tony. "We were all thinking of having a race, you interested?" He offers her another treat.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Raaapid. Rapidash."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 11:34 pm (UTC)

'Bella's gonna win because I'm the best,' translates Sherlock.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:39 pm (UTC)

"You totally are," says Tony. "You're the prettiest and the fastest. But Bella was thinking of asking if I can ride you instead, what do you think of that?"

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:40 pm (UTC)

"Raaaaa? Rapidash! Rapidashdash."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 11:44 pm (UTC)

Sherlock murmurs, 'What? That would just leave her with the Sawsbuck. He is slow and stupid.'

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Tony. "But that's okay, 'cause you'd still win, right?"

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Raaaaapidrapidash."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 11:46 pm (UTC)

'But it would be silly of her to let you borrow me because I would win,' Sherlock relays.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," laughs Tony, "she only offered 'cause she wants to see if you'll do it. I, however, know that you are awesome, and I am awesome, and awesome goes with awesome." He holds out another treat. "We cool?"

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:49 pm (UTC)

Fireflower takes the treat and eyes him.

"Rapidash."

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:50 pm (UTC)

"You are so the awesomest," he agrees. He didn't even need Sherry for that one.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:51 pm (UTC)

Fireflower looks him over again, then says, "Rapid."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 11:52 pm (UTC)

'Fine, I guess I won't set you on fire,' Sherlock provides.

toblameforit
2013-04-16 11:53 pm (UTC)

"That," says Tony, "is because you're awesome."

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:54 pm (UTC)

Fireflower nods.

"This is really interesting," observes Bella dryly. "All right, I guess I'm on Branch, although I consider it misleading that you didn't tell me Tony would be wooing my Fireflower with translation help."

bitofafiction
2013-04-16 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I honestly believe that the other way would only have taken longer," says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-04-16 11:59 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. She tosses Branch's Pokéball and swings herself onto the Sawsbuck's back. "Shall we?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 12:04 am (UTC)

Sherlock produces Watson, who glances at the other two quadrupeds and inquires over his shoulder, "Strik?"

"Indeed we are," says Sherlock, mounting up. "Once around the lake, first one past the tower?" Watson positions himself appropriately.

toblameforit
2013-04-17 12:05 am (UTC)

Tony reaches out a hand to Fireflower, slowly to make sure she has time to decide not to burn him, and when he has verified her cooperation he climbs on her back.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 12:07 am (UTC)

"Raaapidash," says Fireflower haughtily. She doesn't burn Tony.

"Saw," says Branch. Bella nudges him into a fair starting position.

"I'm all set," Bella says. "What should our starting signal be?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 12:10 am (UTC)

"Countdown," says Sherlock, "start on the beat after 'one'?"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 12:12 am (UTC)

"Sure. Five... four... three... two... one!"

And Bella squeezes Branch with her knees and a pat to the side of his neck, the other hand hanging on to one of his antlers. He lopes forward with long leaping strides that have grace, if not exactly blinding speed.

Fireflower starts all by herself. She may be letting Tony sit on her but doesn't appear to care all that much if he stays that way.

toblameforit
2013-04-17 12:13 am (UTC)

Tony is fully capable of hanging on all by himself.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 12:20 am (UTC)

Watson starts at precisely the appropriate moment.

He - well - bolts forward, easily overtaking Branch.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 12:26 am (UTC)

"Ayep," mutters Bella. "Keep up, honey, go on." Branch goes on leaping.

Fireflower sprints. She's up to top speed in ten strides, and top speed is staggering.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 12:30 am (UTC)

Watson's top speed keeps pace pretty well, and he manages to put himself between the Rapidash and the lake.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 02:18 am (UTC)

Fireflower runs like she's got something to prove. She quite ignores Tony.

Meanwhile, Branch makes up some ground, when he's able to jump over a few tall rocks that the other two have to route around, but Bella falls far behind overall.

toblameforit
2013-04-17 02:22 am (UTC)

Well, okay then.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 02:25 am (UTC)

As they reach the opposite side of the lake, Watson begins to pull ahead. He is better able to navigate the contours of the shoreline and turn sharply around obstacles without losing speed.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 02:29 am (UTC)

Fireflower runs like a madmon on the straightaway portions, and occasionally temporarily overtakes the Zebstrika, but ultimately she - or Tony, depending on how one counts these things - comes in second.

Branch lopes in some thirty seconds later.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 02:31 am (UTC)

"Good show," says Sherlock, disembarking from Watson and hugging him around the neck.

"Zeb," says Watson, nodding.

toblameforit
2013-04-17 02:33 am (UTC)

Tony climbs off of Fireflower and sits down on the ground.

"Good game, everybody!"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 02:36 am (UTC)

"Raaaapidash," complains Fireflower, snorting at Watson.

"Nicely done," says Bella, sliding off Branch and returning him.
Edited 2013-04-17 02:40 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 02:44 am (UTC)

"Zebstrika," says Watson, unconcernedly.

"Our mounts desire a rematch," says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 02:45 am (UTC)

"Do they now. I'd be up for another lap."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 02:46 am (UTC)

"As would I."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 02:47 am (UTC)

"Count me out," says Tony.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 02:48 am (UTC)

"That's all right, I can ride Fireflower." Since Tony's already vacated her, Bella vaults up. "I bet you can do it, pretty one," she coos. "Yes you can."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 02:51 am (UTC)

Sherlock remounts Watson and guides him to the starting line.

"Shall we, my dear fellow?"

"Striiika."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 02:53 am (UTC)

Fireflower's a bit more attentive to Bella than she was to Tony. And she's smarter than Branch. She trots up beside Watson at a click of Bella's tongue and shoots the Zebstrika a challenging look. "Dash."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 02:54 am (UTC)

"Zeb," says Watson aloofly.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 02:57 am (UTC)

"Five," counts Bella, "four, three, two, one -"

She lets Fireflower react to the countoff by herself, but then she's helping. The Rapidash has better initial acceleration and her instinct is to seize the inside track with it, but given her inferior cornering Bella dissuades her. She also encourages her Pokémon over a jump that Bella knows she can make even if it looks forbidding, from far enough back that Fireflower sails right over it, and that saves them from having to go down around the little tidepool-like structures that gave her trouble before.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 03:02 am (UTC)

Watson and Sherlock have better knowledge of the terrain, but it's the same knowledge they had for the race that just finished. And Sherlock declines to push Watson over any jump with which he is not already comfortable.

They are not making up the time lost on the straightaways so well anymore.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 03:03 am (UTC)

Fireflower is insufferably smug and paws at the ground, tossing her head, after she's trotted to a stop at the tower.

Bella looks pretty pleased with herself too.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 03:05 am (UTC)

"Zeb, zeb," says Watson. Sherlock pats him.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 03:06 am (UTC)

"Rapidash," says Fireflower.

Bella slides off Fireflower's back, stumbles, and catches herself. "That was fun," she says breathlessly, trying to untangle some of her hair from the windblown state it has gotten into.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 03:08 am (UTC)

"Strika," Watson says agreeably. He does seem very even-tempered.

"It was!" says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 03:10 am (UTC)

"Raprapidash. Raprapidash?"

"Tony seemed to have been exhausted, so I guess we can do the aerial installment another time," giggles Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 03:12 am (UTC)

"Zeb," says Watson. Sherlock laughs and pets him.

"Yes, that does sound reasonable."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 03:14 am (UTC)

Bella pets Fireflower. "You did good, sweetie." And she puts her away. And she gets her hairbrush out of her bag and attacks her ponytail. "That was a rush, she's almost never running flat out when I'm riding her."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 03:15 am (UTC)

"I don't frequently get a chance to experience Watson's top speed, either," says Sherlock. "It was enjoyable."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 03:17 am (UTC)

Bella finishes disentangling her hair. "All right. Now what?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 03:17 am (UTC)

"Good question."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 03:19 am (UTC)

"Could have a non-racing type rematch. I dunno, I do other things, just I'm usually in other places when I do them."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:49 am (UTC)

"Other things such as...?"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Let Renée teach me to knit, wander into houses in arbitrary towns and get into conversations there, explore miscellaneous wilderness, I tried making my own Pokéballs from whole Apricorns once, I think about the best ways to address immortal Pokémon if I ever find any, I once went through a brief phase of entering Pokémon Contests but decided I didn't like it. Also I read a lot and do extensive self-analysis but neither thing is a particularly companionable activity."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 04:56 pm (UTC)

"And how did the Pokéball project fare?"
Edited 2013-04-17 16:56 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-17 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Well, I only made two, so I don't know whether to attribute the fact that they completely failed to work to poor craftsmanship or to luck."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 05:39 pm (UTC)

"How do Pokéballs in fact work? I don't actually know. Tony undoubtedly does."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't know about the mechanics of it. Let alone how people can get 'mon into PCs, which is part of why I don't do it and have never owned more than six. I was just using an instruction booklet on hollowing apricorns that gave step-by-step walkthroughs for various apricorn colors but didn't say anything about the whys and wherefores."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Hm," he says. "Any interesting conclusions about how to address immortal Pokémon?"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 06:53 pm (UTC)

"I figure I should come at the ulterior motive obliquely," Bella says. "Probably should spend some effort demonstrating myself harmless and indicating that I do not intend to try to catch them, because I bet they get that a lot and it hasn't yielded results so far anyway."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:17 pm (UTC)

"How does one demonstrate harmlessness to a legendary pokemon, I wonder. Perhaps you should bring Tony along. He's very charming."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:19 pm (UTC)

"And you too, maybe, in case I track down one that can't speak human."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:21 pm (UTC)

"I would be happy to help."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Awesome. The explorer and the charmer and the psychic translator."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Hm," says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Hm?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:29 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"'Psychic' sits oddly with me, but I cannot actually offer a competing explanation."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:30 pm (UTC)

"The magic translator?" suggests Bella archly.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:31 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:33 pm (UTC)

"The translator who studied audio of chattering 'mon in such exhaustive detail as to have learned what has eluded all linguists, for forever," she says with a dramatic gesture, "and who should really publish if it's that."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:34 pm (UTC)

"It is not that."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:35 pm (UTC)

"Then I can overlook your failure to publish! Do you know what it is?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:36 pm (UTC)

"I have my suspicions, but I don't imagine they are especially plausible."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:40 pm (UTC)

"You could tell me anyway."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I am a Ditto in disguise," he deadpans.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:44 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, I know I offended you last time you suggested you had an unusual theory about a thing, so I'm not even going to address that one."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:45 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Sorry."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:46 pm (UTC)

"No big deal."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Do you suppose it's dinnertime yet?"
Edited 2013-04-17 19:49 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-17 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Nah, not really, unless you guys eat really early."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 07:59 pm (UTC)

"Our schedule is flexible, insofar as it can be said to exist at all. But you're right, it's early. How shall we pass the time? Beat up the wildlife? Go ask Tony how Pokéballs work?"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:00 pm (UTC)

"I would actually really like to know how Pokéballs work, d'you suppose he's up for an impromptu lecture?" laughs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 08:06 pm (UTC)

"There is," says Sherlock, "one easy way to find out."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Let's go perform the experiment."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 08:08 pm (UTC)

Laughing, he heads for the tower.

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:08 pm (UTC)

Tony is on the ground floor, sitting at a computer with a Porygon in his lap.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Hey," says Bella. "Which one is that?"

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Bella, this is Bob. Say hi, Bob."

"Pory," says Bob.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Bob," says Bella. "So, we were wondering how Pokéballs work and Sherlock says you probably know."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I do know," says Tony, "but unless you understand five-dimensional topology and space-folding, the explanation is pretty much 'um, magic?'."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:14 pm (UTC)

"But you can do it with apricorns even if they don't work as well as the techy kinds, apricorns just - grow that way," laughs Bella, "are they magic?"

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:16 pm (UTC)

"The inner curvature of an apricorn has a natural—"

"Gongon," says Bob, and bails out of Tony's lap. Tony cracks up.

"I think I'm boring the Pokémon," he snickers.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:17 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "That," she asserts, "was cute."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:20 pm (UTC)

"In terms less likely to make my pointy cuddle-buddies abandon me: Apricorns just do the same thing naturally that manufactured Pokéballs do with careful engineering."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I should tell Renée about your issue with pointy cuddly 'mon, I bet she'd knit at least three fluffy Porygon-shaped sweaters before she got bored."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:23 pm (UTC)

He giggles again.

"You know what, do that, that'd be awesome."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Next time I call her, will do. I cannot guarantee that these sweaters will not be in garish colors."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:27 pm (UTC)

"It's not like Porygon are known for their fashion sense."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm just imagining poor Bob in something in two shades of green and red-orange. With a pompom on top of his head."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I promise you, if you send me fluffy Porygon sweaters, I will find Porygon who want to wear them."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I suppose you haven't got a shortage, there's probably three in the flock with taste as terrible as Renée's."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:41 pm (UTC)

"So if Pokéballs work by magic, how does PC storage work? I don't quite trust it for my 'mon but I know people who rotate out a few extra critters. I tend not to associate with outright collectors, but some people can be sincerely friendly with ten 'mon, or can only manage three out at a time and have to store three but love all six, you know."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:44 pm (UTC)

"PC storage works by more magic!" says Tony. "I don't totally understand it, but apparently the development process involved reverse-engineering Porygon. Dad got kinda mad about it."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Were Porygon harmed in the process?" asks Bella, frowning.

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:51 pm (UTC)

Tony spreads his hands. "No way to know," he says. "We don't track every single Porygon in the world. I mean, they said none were, but Porygon code is tricky stuff."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Oh dear."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. So. Not that I can prove anything, and maybe they didn't hurt anypory, and I'm sure the system works just fine, but - I don't use PC storage."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 08:57 pm (UTC)

"I had no idea there was anything dodgy about how it was invented. I just didn't think I ought to be taking possession of a creature I didn't plan to keep around."

toblameforit
2013-04-17 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I hear ya."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Slightly more tempted to devote some time to some sorta activism project, now, but I don't think I could actually make a dent, it's too convenient and like you say it works, the 'mon never seem traumatized - though I suppose I wouldn't know, I can't actually understand - you ever talk to a Pokémon that's been stored, Sherlock?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Not that they mentioned, no. Should I go and find some and ask?"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I'd be interested in the results if you ever did. I suppose you'd have to go a bit out of your way to hunt them up."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:04 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I like a challenge."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:05 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs a little. "Come to think of it, I think some of Charlie's standard-issues might've been boxed before he got them. I'd have to ask, but it wouldn't surprise me."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I will happily talk to them if so," laughs Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I'll call him after I talk to Renée about Porygon sweaters," says Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:13 pm (UTC)

"Perfect."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should just call now, Renée will be home now and by the time she lets me off the phone Charlie probably will be too," muses Bella, and she starts cycling through apps on her Pokétch.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:15 pm (UTC)

The boys leave her to it.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:18 pm (UTC)

Bella departs the tower to avoid disturbing them, although if they happen to be curious they could open a window. She phones Renée, makes small talk, listens to Renée talk about ill-fated baked goods, then explains that she has this friend who has this problem with these Porygon, and she was thinking sweaters. Renée takes the idea, squeals over it, and says she'll start figuring out a pattern right away. And she's going to let the kindergarteners vote on colors. Joy. There's a little more catching up - stories from the school, news about neighbors and Renée's Pokémon - and then Bella hangs up.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Did I hear that right about the kindergarteners?" inquires Sherlock, out of the window.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Ah-huh. Renée is going to pitch the idea of Porygon sweaters to twenty-four five-year-olds and get them to help her design them," sighs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Well, that is bound to have entertaining results."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Maybe some of the Porygon are in fact five years old?" suggests Bella hopefully.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:26 pm (UTC)

"I believe that some of them are!"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:27 pm (UTC)

"There we go, then, there should be relatively little trouble matching sweaters to wearers unless Renée has more attention span than I credit her with."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:31 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Is it, like, a secret that you can understand Pokémon? I can find some other way to tell Charlie that you want to talk to his," Bella says.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:36 pm (UTC)

"It is not something I would like the entire region to know, but I don't have an intrinsic objection to explaining it to Charlie as long as he is not the gossipy sort."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Charlie isn't. Renée is, but I had no reason to mention it to her," shrugs Bella, and she dials.

"Hi, Dad! Hey, before you got your team, were they boxed? He was? Okay, I'm asking 'cause - no, Dad, I did not switch projects. But I have this friend who can understand Pokémon, when they vocalize, and - Actually, no, that never occurred to me. I can ask him. But the thing I wanted to ask you is whether he could talk to yours about what being boxed is like. I know you can't easily pick up and travel, Dad, this would just be if he were in the area. Okay. Thanks!"

She hangs up. "He wants you to apply for a job with the cops to listen to Pokémon witnesses to crimes. And if you're ever where he is he's fine with you talking to his 'mon."
Edited 2013-04-17 21:42 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:43 pm (UTC)

"That," says Sherlock, "is an interesting notion."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:45 pm (UTC)

"It'd pass the time," laughs Bella. "If you wanted to. Obviously it's optional. You could probably even do it from here, as long as it works over the phone? Maybe it's body language or range-limited psychic powers, I dunno, that'd make it harder to work from home."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I have never tried it over the phone. I don't frequently have reason to phone a Pokémon."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:47 pm (UTC)

"Wanna try it? I'll go out a ways, toss somebody, call you? Zag's smart enough to understand phones."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 09:48 pm (UTC)

"By all means!"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 09:59 pm (UTC)

Bella wanders out of earshot, and tosses Zag and explains the experiment. And then she calls Sherlock.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:01 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Bella. Hello, Zag."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Bella.

"Lin, lin, lin," says Zag.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Crystal clear," laughs Sherlock. "Thank you, Zag."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Linoone."

"What'd he say?" laughs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:08 pm (UTC)

"'Testing, testing, testing' and then 'no problem'."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Noone! Lin linoone?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:11 pm (UTC)

"According to Bella, I am psychic," says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Did he ask how you do it?" Bella laughs.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes he did!"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:14 pm (UTC)

"I thought so. My Zag's nearly as curious as I am." Bella scratches his head.

"Linoooooone linlinlin."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:14 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:17 pm (UTC)

Bella hangs up the phone and wanders back towerward with her Zag at her heels, nuzzling the backs of her legs every few steps and threatening to trip her. She tolerates this with good grace. "So you work over the phone," she says.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:18 pm (UTC)

"Apparently so."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:21 pm (UTC)

"You want me to bring you a job application from Charlie's department, when I swing by with the Porygon sweaters?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I think that is a fine plan."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Charlie'll be thrilled."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Hooray for Charlie."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:24 pm (UTC)

"How amenable are the vocalizations to exact-words translation? That'll probably come up if the 'mon are being witnesses."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:32 pm (UTC)

"...How do you mean?"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Like, if somebody's Starly sees a couple of shoplifters arguing, and the conversation the Starly witnesses contains, like, proper nouns - names - times, little clues that could be used to identify them - will the Starly be able to reproduce those to you, assuming it's smart and has a good memory and wants to help?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Interesting. I wonder how that works."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I haven't the least idea."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Does it only work if you're reproducing meanings or could a Pokémon give you - song lyrics in languages you don't know? Outright nonsense words? Onomatopoetic sound effects?" asks Bella in fascination.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:50 pm (UTC)

"I have not studied these questions extensively."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:51 pm (UTC)

"I wanna try it and find out, d'you wanna try it?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Do you have an experimental protocol in mind?"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Um, I know the lyrics to one song in what is probably badly garbled Ancient Cinnibar? And I could make up sound effects and nonsense words. And I could go out in the woods and make a fool of myself with all three things with Zag and then come back and he can say 'linoone' at you a lot and we'll see if you can reproduce whatever I said."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Let's try it."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 10:56 pm (UTC)

"You don't speak Ancient Cinnibar or know any songs in it, right?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Correct."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay then." Bella wanders away with Zag again, and then they return.

Zag does his best to reproduce a verse of song, and the nonsense segment of a popular nursery rhyme, and Bella's chosen sound effect of the way Starly scream when they're just screaming and not repeating their names.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:21 pm (UTC)

Sherlock giggles.

"The experiment is a success!"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Prove it," laughs Bella, "what'd he say?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:25 pm (UTC)

Sherlock repeats the sequence. His imitation of Zag's imitation of Bella is quite good.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella, "I have no idea how any of that can be encoded in repetitions of various parts of the word 'Linoone', so I'm leaning towards the psychic-or-maybe-magic explanation again."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Has there been much study made of how Pokémon communicate with one another?"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Probably some, but most Pokémon aren't as smart as Zag, it doesn't need to be that dense with information to account for what we see."

"Linoone," says Zag contently.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:31 pm (UTC)

"You certainly are," says Sherlock to Zag.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Do you and yours want a rematch?" Bella asks.

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:49 pm (UTC)

"I am sure we could be convinced."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:50 pm (UTC)

"We could try random toss, would that be fun?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I believe it would!"

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I bet your smart computer can do random number generation. Three on three again?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:54 pm (UTC)

"I accept your terms."

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:55 pm (UTC)

"All right." Bella returns Zag, puts him on a spot on her string of them, names his ball, "One," and the one on the other end, "Six."

bitofafiction
2013-04-17 11:56 pm (UTC)

"One two three four," says Sherlock, producing four Pokéballs.

the_very_best
2013-04-17 11:57 pm (UTC)

"And - how do we get random numbers out of the computer?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:02 am (UTC)

"We ask nicely, of course," he says, loading a Pokétch app.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:04 am (UTC)

Bella waits. She doesn't think she has that one.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:08 am (UTC)

She doesn't!

Sherlock says, "Random number between one and four, please," to his Pokétch.

It displays 3.
Edited 2013-04-18 00:08 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:09 am (UTC)

"What do I get?" Bella asks.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:11 am (UTC)

"Random one to six," says Sherlock.

2, says his Pokétch.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:12 am (UTC)

"Okay. And our second and third tosses?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:14 am (UTC)

Bella gets 5 and then 4; Sherlock gets 4 and then 2.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:18 am (UTC)

"All right then."

Bella's first random toss is Fireflower, who is raring to go.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:19 am (UTC)

Sherlock tosses Mycroft, who copies the Rapidash complete with mimicking her attitude.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:23 am (UTC)

Fireflower is offended. She's fierce when offended. There is considerable stomping and attempts at poisoning involved. Fireflower's also the one holding the Leftovers, which is a slight edge, and more so in a prolonged fight.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:25 am (UTC)

This is definitely a prolonged fight.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:26 am (UTC)

Fireflower finally ends it with a vicious kick.

"Rapidashdashdash," she snorts.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:30 am (UTC)

"Don't be rude," Sherlock says mildly, and throws his Porygon-Z.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:32 am (UTC)

"Rapidash," snorts Fireflower, and she hits the ineptly nicknamed You with a gout of flames.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:35 am (UTC)

"We can't help the way we're made," Sherlock murmurs, and You hits back.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:39 am (UTC)

Fireflower goes down, but not without a fight. Bella's next toss is Branch. Branch knows a self-healing attack and can hang in there for a good long time, especially against You's defensively-oriented attack array. Long enough. Branch has no commentary on the situation, besides the occasional "Saw!" that roughly translates to "Rar! Gonna get you!"

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:40 am (UTC)

You holds its own nevertheless.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:54 am (UTC)

"Buck," says Branch unhappily as he succumbs to a particularly well-placed Tri Attack which outmatches the damage he was able to heal with his last Horn Leech.

Bella's next toss is Rachis. "Here's hoping your last toss is Irene and not Watson, but either way I can make you work for it," she says, and because You was most recently pretending to be Grass type to resist Horn Leeching, an Air Slash makes short work of the Porygon-Z.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 12:56 am (UTC)

Sherlock's last toss is Watson.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 12:57 am (UTC)

"Of course. Of course it's him. You get out of range, Rachis," says Bella, snapping her fingers, and the Pidgeot flies high.

Rachis does her best to stay out of range, but her timing's not perfect, and a Thunder Wave leaves her grounded when Watson Thunderbolts her, and it only takes two instances of that before she's out of commission.

"Almost," says Bella ruefully. "Rachis could've taken Irene."
Edited 2013-04-18 01:20 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 01:21 am (UTC)

"And yet," says Sherlock, collecting his Zebstrika.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 01:22 am (UTC)

"Mean old random number generator," laughs Bella. "Stuck my flier with your zapper. Oh well."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 01:23 am (UTC)

He laughs.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 01:29 am (UTC)

It is about dinnertime. Bella stays for dinner, and she starts talking about how she got all her Pokémon.

"I already told you guys how I got Zag, right?" she asks.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 01:31 am (UTC)

"If you did, I don't remember. Tell us again!"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 01:36 am (UTC)

"He was Renée's. Renée doesn't do a lot of battling, though, and Zag was always scrappy, and when I was eight he started following me around whenever she let him out of his ball, probably because I'd read him books and pet him and generally treat him like a stuffed animal except worth talking to. I got him as a present because Renée noticed he liked me, and I gave him the most juvenile possible nickname, and went off with nobody but him to start training when I was ready. Where'd you guys get your first? I guess that would've been Candle as a Charmander, and Mycroft? Correct me if I misremember."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 01:37 am (UTC)

"Dad imported Candle for me because I thought Charmanders were the coolest thing," volunteers Tony. "And I called him Candle because I'm not very creative."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 01:38 am (UTC)

"Tony caught Mycroft, actually, but he has always liked me best. I started a little late."
Edited 2013-04-18 01:38 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-18 01:41 am (UTC)

"How come?" Bella asks Sherlock. "I'm having a hard time picturing Tony being keener on training 'mon than you."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 01:42 am (UTC)

"I spent the majority of my childhood in the house library, which is why I have already read all of its good books and most of the bad ones."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 01:55 am (UTC)

"Huh. And then you scooped up Mycroft and went out - fairly standard after that? Did you catch your others yourself?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 01:59 am (UTC)

"I caught Irene and Watson. You came from the flock, of course."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:01 am (UTC)

"Of course," laughs Bella. "I caught Fireflower and Rachis myself, but those are the only ones, the others are trades. Through the Guild."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 02:02 am (UTC)

He nods.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:05 am (UTC)

"Some of the other aces think it's weird to spend a long time on personality matching - if you're good enough, any 'mon you own will do what you say, so, they figure what's the point - but I was really careful about getting ones that liked to fight but didn't live for it," Bella says. "Traded away some excessively peaceable critters and one bloodthirsty little beast of a Marill till I had a balance I liked."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 02:10 am (UTC)

"The peaceful ones went to like-minded trainers, I hope?"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:13 am (UTC)

"Well, I was working through the guild and it's a battling-oriented guild, I just couldn't think of any other way to find traders back then, but I did my best. There's a few people who are sort of alumni, like, they're no longer really planning to challenge the League but they keep paying dues and showing up to meetings. I had a lazy, easily bored Starly that didn't want to do anything, and that one went to a collector, I felt relatively okay about giving that one to a collector to get Branch."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 02:15 am (UTC)

Sherlock nods.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:18 am (UTC)

"Foreign collector," Bella adds, "or I couldn't possibly have interested her in a Starly. Of course, I think approximately the same thing was going through that one guy's head when I traded him the Marill back for Dusk - Dusk was still an Eevee then - I think Eevee must be really common where he's from or something and he thought he was getting a deal."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 02:20 am (UTC)

"Has Dusk received a change of name?"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:22 am (UTC)

"Previous owner didn't name him. I called him Poofball, for a while, he was so fluffy, but he evolved pretty quick and I knew what I was aiming for all along, I wasn't ever trying to get ahold of a stone or anything and I did have to tell him off for trying to evolve in the daytime once."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 02:23 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Eevee are extremely fluffy."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:26 am (UTC)

"Dusk was an above-average-fluffiness Eevee. In his winter coat if he curled up a little he was round, plus ears. Actually, you know what, I have pictures -" She flips through Pokétch apps, and finds her photo album, and navigates, and then displays her wrist with a truly poofy Eevee curled up in a large-eyed fluffball shape on a pillow. "I think he prefers being all sleek, though."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 02:30 am (UTC)

"Oh my goodness," says Sherlock.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:30 am (UTC)

"I want to hug him," says Tony. "That is the fluffiest thing I have ever seen."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:32 am (UTC)

"You can hug him if you want, but he's traded in the fluff," laughs Bella. She opens Dusk's ball, and there he is, smooth and dark. "Hey you. I'm showing off your baby pictures."

"Umbrrrrr!"

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 02:33 am (UTC)

"You were indeed cute," says Sherlock, "and are indeed beautiful."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:34 am (UTC)

"Can I hug you anyway?" says Tony to Dusk.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:34 am (UTC)

Dusk prances across the table to accept a hug.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:40 am (UTC)

Tony hugs him.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:42 am (UTC)

Dusk is quite cuddly in spite of having traded in his floof.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:42 am (UTC)

"You are super cuddly," says Tony, cuddling him.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:43 am (UTC)

"Eon!"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:46 am (UTC)

"You aaaare."

Petpetpet.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:48 am (UTC)

Bella decides that this also belongs in the photo album. "Smile!"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:49 am (UTC)

Tony beams.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:50 am (UTC)

Dusk perks up his ears.

Bella snaps the picture. It turns out adorable. "Awwww."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:51 am (UTC)

Tony giggles.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:54 am (UTC)

Dusk noses Tony's chin in a friendly sort of way, then gambols back to Bella and sits in her lap. She feeds him a bit of her dinner that she didn't quite have room for and he chews on it happily.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:56 am (UTC)

"Awwwwwww."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 02:58 am (UTC)

"Dusk does his very best to be the 'cute' element in my party," says Bella. When he's finished his food she puts him away again.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 02:58 am (UTC)

"He is really good at it!"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 03:00 am (UTC)

"He is! Helps that the others aren't really made for it," laughs Bella. "Branch was pretty precious when he was a Deerling, though."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 03:00 am (UTC)

"Do you have baby pictures?"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 03:03 am (UTC)

Bella does have baby pictures! Baby Branch apparently spent most of his time looking exquisitely confused about everything. A couple shots were taken by someone else and have Bella in the picture; Baby Branch looks at her like she holds all the wisdom in the universe.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 03:08 am (UTC)

"He is so cuuuuuuuuuute."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 03:10 am (UTC)

"He was. Now he's sorta doofy-looking when he's not striking regal poses by complete accident," laughs Bella.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 03:11 am (UTC)

Tony giggles.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 03:51 am (UTC)

Bella also has baby pictures of Zag the Zigzagoon, and Fireflower the Ponyta, and Juu the Mienfoo. She didn't get Rachis as a Pidgey, but she has Awkward Teenager pictures of her as a Pidgeotto.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 11:24 am (UTC)

Tony oohs and awws over all of them.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Have you got pictures of you and yours from way back when?" asks Bella, closing her photo album when she's exhausted the interesting parts.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Tony, and he brings up a video projected on the wall: tiny Tony meeting a tiny Charmander, and immediately receiving tiny cuddles.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Awww," says Bella. "Awww! Where's Sherlock?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 04:17 pm (UTC)

"I did mention I spent most of my childhood in the library. You will note that this is not the library."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:18 pm (UTC)

"You weren't even there when Tony got his first Pokémon?" asks Bella quizzically.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Should I have been?"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:22 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, I'm an only child, but I bet I would've been for my brother or sister if I weren't."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 04:23 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Let's see some more pictures-slash-videos?" says Bella encouragingly, peering at the projection.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 04:27 pm (UTC)

Tony has lots!

Sherlock is in none of them.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:28 pm (UTC)

Bella peers quizzically at Sherlock between awwwing at the videos.

The angle on these things is not right for him to have been standing behind the camera.

"Did you guys not get along when you were ten?" she asks.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 04:30 pm (UTC)

"It's complicated."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:31 pm (UTC)

"...Private family business?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 04:31 pm (UTC)

He nods.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:33 pm (UTC)

"...Okay."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 04:34 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles wryly.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:36 pm (UTC)

"I think I'll go raid your library and wind down for the night," Bella says, getting up from the table. "Tomorrow morning we can figure out some way to make an air-race interesting - maybe there's a bit of the woods gappy enough for everyone's wingspan to provide obstacles if they fly low? - we'll figure something out."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Tony, and he starts playing with maps on the computer.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:43 pm (UTC)

Bella grins at him and heads up. She finds a book, reads the book, and then crashes in the same room she did last time.

In the morning she comes down the stairs, whistling.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 04:48 pm (UTC)

Tony is still playing with maps.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Did you get up early, or just not get any sleep?" asks Bella.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Up early," he says cheerfully. "G'morning!"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Morning! Have you come up with a good place to go flying?"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 04:51 pm (UTC)

"There's options! Wanna see?"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:52 pm (UTC)

"Yes please!"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 04:54 pm (UTC)

Tony makes there be maps, hovering three-dimensionally in the air.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 04:58 pm (UTC)

Bella peers at them. "Oh, neat, this forest has a good ratio of tall skinny trees to low dense trees. We can agree on an altitude limit there, pick a spot to turn back at, race'll be to and fro? I think there's enough room between the one kinda treetops and the other for Rachis to get a wingbeat in, and her wings are the biggest."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Tony. "Sounds good to me."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 05:01 pm (UTC)

"All right." Bella can't really manipulate the maps from here; she picks a visible tree. "That far away enough to make things interesting, you think?"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Yep! Say we have to go past it and around?"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Tony.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Is Sherlock up yet?"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:22 pm (UTC)

"Who knows. I haven't seen him."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Oh well. What's the breakfast situation, should I eat something I packed or what?"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Your options are eat something you packed, grab something snacky from the kitchen, wait for Sherry to wake up, or get me to try cooking breakfast and I guarantee you he will run down the stairs and take away my spatula, possibly in his sleep."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 05:27 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "What happens if I try to cook something?"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:29 pm (UTC)

"No idea," says Tony. "You any good at it?"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine at some simpler stuff. But Sherlock doesn't know that."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:31 pm (UTC)

"You could always try it and see!"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, all right." Bella peers into the fridge. "You have an egg, are you saving that for something or should I make us a nice big omelette to split?"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:43 pm (UTC)

"Go for the omelette!"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 05:44 pm (UTC)

"All right." Bella hauls out the egg, and some butter and onion and other miscellaneous things that look like they'd be good in an omelette, and starts hunting for a mixing bowl and frying pan.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 05:46 pm (UTC)

Tony has no idea where anything is, and cannot help. But the kitchen is very tidily organized.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 06:21 pm (UTC)

Bella eventually locates everything she needs and sets about omeletting, humming to herself.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 06:22 pm (UTC)

Tony listens for signs of Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I had the impression he was an early riser," remarks Bella when the omelette is sizzling away.

toblameforit
2013-04-18 07:09 pm (UTC)

"Sometimes, sure. He's just not very consistent about it."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 07:10 pm (UTC)

"He's gonna get cold omelette if he doesn't wake up soon. Maybe you should try taking the spatula and attempting to flip it," Bella giggles, "just to get him out of bed."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 07:12 pm (UTC)

"But will it be worth the damage to the omelette?"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Just how much of a culinary disaster are you?"

toblameforit
2013-04-18 07:24 pm (UTC)

"It's pretty bad."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Good thing you have Sherlock, then."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

the_very_best
2013-04-18 07:27 pm (UTC)

Bella flips the omelette herself, and it finishes cooking, and she scoots it onto a plate and cuts it into three parts. She takes an end and gives Tony the middle. "Enjoy. I'm not as good a cook as Sherlock but I know omelettes."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Tony.

Nom nom nom!

the_very_best
2013-04-18 07:29 pm (UTC)

Nom nom nom indeed!

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 07:53 pm (UTC)

Sherlock trots into the kitchen with his hair looking mightily ruffled and silently serves himself the last third of the omelette.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 07:56 pm (UTC)

"Morning, Sherlock."

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Morning," he says. "Food, then speech."

Om nom nomelette.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 08:01 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs. "And then racing," she says brightly.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 08:02 pm (UTC)

Sherlock nods.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 08:04 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes her share of omelette and grins.

bitofafiction
2013-04-18 08:09 pm (UTC)

Sherlock continues to nomelette.

the_very_best
2013-04-18 08:10 pm (UTC)

"You going to fly Candle, or get somebody else to carry you, Tony?" Bella asks. "I know even little 'mon can, it just looks awfully silly."

toblameforit
2013-04-18 08:12 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna fly Candle."

the_very_best
2013-04-18 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Cool." Bella sits back to wait for the boys to both be ready to fly.

bitofafiction
2013-04-19 02:03 pm (UTC)

Eventually, Sherlock finishes his breakfast.

the_very_best
2013-04-19 03:25 pm (UTC)

"Shall we?" Bella asks. And she describes the course she and Tony picked out to Sherlock.

bitofafiction
2013-04-19 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Perfectly practical," says Sherlock. "Let's."

And out they go, and he produces Irene.

the_very_best
2013-04-19 03:33 pm (UTC)

Bella tosses Rachis, who trills and lets Bella onto her.

"Grounded start?" inquires Bella. "Or should we go have them all clinging to the roof of the tower?"

bitofafiction
2013-04-19 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Grounded start," says Sherlock, climbing onto the Dragonite's back.

toblameforit
2013-04-19 03:38 pm (UTC)

Tony releases Candle.

"Gonna have a race, buddy," he says, patting the Charizard on the neck. Candle nods enthusiastically. Tony climbs on.

the_very_best
2013-04-19 03:39 pm (UTC)

Bella counted down both times yesterday; she picks up the task again.

"Five, four, three, two, one!"

Rachis beats her wings on cue.

bitofafiction
2013-04-19 03:46 pm (UTC)

The other two 'mon also launch on time.

If this were a straight there-and-back flight with no obstacles, it would be no contest. Irene is a Dragonite. But although she accelerates handily and reaches the trees faster than anyone, she has to brake hard to avoid hitting any, and she flies conservatively between the spindly trunks.

toblameforit
2013-04-19 03:58 pm (UTC)

Candle has the median wingspan of the group, but he's spent more time flying than Irene and has a better sense of exactly how close to an obstacle he is capable of getting. Tony starts pulling ahead as soon as they hit forest.

the_very_best
2013-04-19 04:01 pm (UTC)

Rachis is not really on a level playing field with these two; she can go fast, and has been flying all her life, but she needs acceleration time to get anywhere, and Bella's fairly holding her down to the space among the trees so she doesn't have the chance. She does her best, anyway, but they were never going to win.

toblameforit
2013-04-19 04:26 pm (UTC)

Candle is the first to reach the designated turnaround point. He does a fairly wide swing around the tree, but still clears it before Irene passes him going the other way.

the_very_best
2013-04-19 04:29 pm (UTC)

Rachis could corner better if she were cheating by braking with an Air Slash, but that would, of course, be cheating. She and Bella swoop third around the tree and head back for the tower.

toblameforit
2013-04-19 04:30 pm (UTC)

Candle touches down and flaps his wings in a celebratory fashion while Tony clings to his back and giggles.

bitofafiction
2013-04-19 04:31 pm (UTC)

Irene lands beside him and shifts from foot to foot grumpily before she permits Sherlock to disembark.

the_very_best
2013-04-19 04:32 pm (UTC)

Rachis lands and trills "Pidgepidgeot." Bella slides carefully off her back.

"That was fun, even if I didn't have a prayer," laughs Bella, returning her 'mon.

toblameforit
2013-04-19 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Candle is the best," Tony says smugly, hopping to the ground and giving the Charizard a hug.

the_very_best
2013-04-19 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I bet Irene will be able to give him a run for his money when she's been a flying creature for longer," says Bella diplomatically.

bitofafiction
2013-04-19 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Dragon," says Irene, nodding. Sherlock laughs and hugs her.

yarn

the_very_best

Bella leaves in due time. She calls Sherlock a week later with one of her father's Pokémon on the other end of the line; it is learned that being boxed is sort of like having almost fallen asleep or woken up but not quite, a drowsy half-conscious state with little attention to the passage of time. It is not unpleasant, at least in this 'mon's opinion.

Three weeks later, Bella flies to Lake Acuity again.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:18 am (UTC)

Tony is eating lunch with Candle out front of the tower.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:21 am (UTC)

Bella lands. "Hi, Tony! Renée lost interest after four sweaters," she says. "Well, three and three quarters, I finished the last one for her because it seemed a waste, so it has one sock in a tasteful color but badly knitted."

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:25 am (UTC)

"Oh man," laughs Tony. "Go on in and show 'em the goods if you want, I'll be there in a minute. Or you can hang out with us first."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:28 am (UTC)

Bella opts to go inside and fit Porygon to sweaters. "Hey Porygon!" she calls. "I have four sweaters for four lucky 'mon!" And she starts unpacking the sweaters. One of them is burnt orange and white, with the adorable little hood finished in green because Renée ran out of white yarn. One is in three shades of teal, with puffballs in variegated pastel yarn. One is black and yellow and appears to have been designed as a sort of Umbreon costume for a Porygon, complete with ear attachments. And the last is red, pink, and purple, with one badly-knitted sock-part.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:30 am (UTC)

The Porygon converge from all directions to bump gently against her shins in their excitement.

"Pory! Pory! Pory!"

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:31 am (UTC)

"Hey guys! Who wants to dress up like an Umbreon?" she asks, brandishing that sweater.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:32 am (UTC)

"Porygon! Porygon!" says one at the rear of the pack, hopping up and down. The others make way for it and it scoots up to her.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:34 am (UTC)

Bella helps it into its new sweater. "Who wants this one?" she inquires, holding up the one with the inferior sock.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:36 am (UTC)

"Pory," says one Porygon, and "Pory! Pory!" says another. The two argue back and forth like this, gently headbutting each other; then one scoots back and lets its friend have the first turn.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:36 am (UTC)

Bella sweaters the winning Porygon and offers up the orange-and-white sweater with the green... accent.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:38 am (UTC)

This one is universally despised, apparently.

Then one small Porygon from somewhere in the middle of the pack says, "Gon?" and trundles forward.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:40 am (UTC)

Bella puts that Porygon in that sweater.

"And this is the last one," she says, holding up teals-and-puffballs enticingly.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:41 am (UTC)

About half the remaining Porygon become very excited about the puffballs.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:42 am (UTC)

Bella laughs and waits for them to sort it out amongst themselves.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:44 am (UTC)

Eventually they seem to come to an agreement, and one Porygon zooms forward and stops right in front of her, looking up, while the rest back off.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:44 am (UTC)

Bella puts it in the fourth and final sweater.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:45 am (UTC)

It bumps affectionately, and now puffily, against her shins.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:46 am (UTC)

She scoops it up and pets it. "There," she says. "That should alleviate the pointiness problem."

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:47 am (UTC)

"Pory pory," says the Porygon blissfully.

"That is the cutest thing I have ever seen," says Tony from the door.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:48 am (UTC)

"Porygon in terrible sweaters getting cuddled?" laughs Bella. "It's pretty cute, but I dunno, you saw Dusk's baby pictures."

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:50 am (UTC)

"Yes I did," says Tony. "This is cuter."

He comes in the rest of the way and scoops up the one with the funny sock.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:51 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Where's Sherlock?"

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:51 am (UTC)

"Sleeping!"

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:52 am (UTC)

"Well, I guess the sweaters aren't going anywhere. Who are the lucky four?"

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:55 am (UTC)

"Orange, white, and green is Flob," says Tony. "I'm holding Butterfingers," he gives the Porygon a pat, "you're holding one of the -obs but I'm not sure which one, some of them don't answer to their names anyway."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:57 am (UTC)

"Who's cosplaying an Umbreon?" Bella asks.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 01:57 am (UTC)

"I can't tell under there!"

the_very_best
2013-04-24 01:58 am (UTC)

"How do you tell them apart anyway?" Bella asks, gazing at the sea of less-distinguished Porygon.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 02:01 am (UTC)

"Um... I dunno," says Tony. "I just kind of do. I mean, there's distinguishing features, I just don't really think about them much anymore? Like, when you look at somebody you know, you don't go 'oh, she's dressed like a trainer on the road and she has a cute nose and her jaw goes in a little at the sides, she must be Bella'."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:02 am (UTC)

Bella feels her nose. "I have a cute nose?"

toblameforit
2013-04-24 02:03 am (UTC)

"You do!" says Tony.

"Pory," agrees the Porygon in Bella's arms.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:04 am (UTC)

"Aww." Bella pats the Porygon. "Thanks."

toblameforit
2013-04-24 02:06 am (UTC)

Tony giggles and hugs his armful of besweatered Porygon.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:07 am (UTC)

"The sweaters may be fashion disasters - well, actually the Umbreon one is kind of cute - but they sure solve the pointiness problem, huh?"

toblameforit
2013-04-24 02:10 am (UTC)

"They diiiiiiiiiiiid." Cuddle cuddle.

"Porporpor," says the Porygon in his arms, nestling contentedly.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:10 am (UTC)

"Renée will be pleased she could help. And hey, I have the pattern, if either of you guys wants to take up knitting and outfit more of the flock."

toblameforit
2013-04-24 02:12 am (UTC)

"Ooh," says Tony. "That would be awesome to have around, even though I'm totally not going to take up knitting."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:14 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Bella, and she calls up the file on her Pokétch. "Where do you want it sent?"

toblameforit
2013-04-24 02:22 am (UTC)

"To the house!"

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:22 am (UTC)

Addressed, and, sent.

poeticterms
2013-04-24 02:23 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says the house.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:25 am (UTC)

"...You're welcome."

poeticterms
2013-04-24 02:29 am (UTC)

"And polite, too," the computer says approvingly.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:33 am (UTC)

"...Nice to meet you. I don't believe you've talked to me before, what changed?" Bella asks, helping herself to a chair and setting the pompomped Porygon on her lap.

poeticterms
2013-04-24 02:36 am (UTC)

"I'm very shy," the computer says dryly.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:37 am (UTC)

Bella blinks slowly.

This is not a typical computer.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 02:39 am (UTC)

"His name is Jarvis," Tony says helpfully.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:39 am (UTC)

"...Hi, Jarvis."

poeticterms
2013-04-24 02:41 am (UTC)

"Hello, Bella. It's nice to meet you."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:44 am (UTC)

"Likewise. This explains all of Sherlock's odd remarks about his house."

poeticterms
2013-04-24 02:45 am (UTC)

"Doesn't it?" agrees Jarvis.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:51 am (UTC)

"Very. Erm, pardon me if the answer is 'enough that this question is rude', but how smart are you?"

poeticterms
2013-04-24 02:55 am (UTC)

"Pardon granted," says Jarvis.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:56 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "Thanks."

poeticterms
2013-04-24 02:58 am (UTC)

"One rude question is still taking it better than expected."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 02:59 am (UTC)

"What do you usually expect?"

poeticterms
2013-04-24 02:59 am (UTC)

"I usually don't. You're the first human I've spoken to outside the family."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:00 am (UTC)

"Oh!" says Bella, surprised. "I'm - flattered, I think, why me?"

poeticterms
2013-04-24 03:01 am (UTC)

"You seemed all right."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:02 am (UTC)

Bella snorts. "Well, good, I aspire to seem all right. Er, to what extent are you the house? 'Cause, I've stayed over here before."

poeticterms
2013-04-24 03:04 am (UTC)

"All the electrical systems in the tower are under my control."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:05 am (UTC)

"But you don't, like, have cameras in the bathrooms or anything?"

poeticterms
2013-04-24 03:06 am (UTC)

"No. Although it's most often safe to assume that if something is happening in the tower, I can hear it."
Edited 2013-04-24 03:07 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:08 am (UTC)

"...Noted. Thanks for letting me know."

poeticterms
2013-04-24 03:10 am (UTC)

"I can also, by request, stop listening," he adds.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:11 am (UTC)

"That's good to know."

poeticterms
2013-04-24 03:12 am (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:13 am (UTC)

"Any other exciting revelations?" Bella inquires, of either Tony or Jarvis, it's not clear since Jarvis has no obvious eyes to make eye contact with.

toblameforit
2013-04-24 03:15 am (UTC)

"...um... maybe," says Tony.

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:16 am (UTC)

"...Maybe?"

toblameforit
2013-04-24 03:18 am (UTC)

He sighs. "Sorry. Just. Some things are not really mine to tell."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:19 am (UTC)

"Whose are they, then, you've got me curious."

toblameforit
2013-04-24 11:04 am (UTC)

Tony shakes his head. "You'll find out or you won't."

the_very_best
2013-04-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs. "Yes. That is the case."

toblameforit
2013-04-24 10:48 pm (UTC)

So... awkward silence, then?

the_very_best
2013-04-24 10:53 pm (UTC)

Meh. "So did Sherlock tell you about the results of his conversation with my dad's Noctowl about boxing?"

toblameforit
2013-04-25 12:18 am (UTC)

"Yep! I'm glad it seems like it doesn't suck for them."

the_very_best
2013-04-25 12:22 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Although it probably doesn't compare that favorably to running wild for anything without natural predators."

toblameforit
2013-04-25 12:26 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

poeticterms
2013-07-18 07:07 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock is awake now," Jarvis mentions.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I'll go show him the sweaters," says Bella, and she carries the Umbreon-garbed Pory up the stairs.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 07:21 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is in his customary room at the top of the tower.

"Adorable," he says when Bella arrives with her cuddly Porygon.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Isn't it just? This is the cutest one, although the one with the puffballs is a close second. Did Jarvis tell you he introduced himself to me?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 07:24 pm (UTC)

"He did, yes. May I hug the... Umbrygon?"

the_very_best
2013-07-18 07:25 pm (UTC)

Bella bursts into a fit of giggles and hands over the Umbrygon.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 07:26 pm (UTC)

Hug!

"Pory," says the Umbrygon, and Sherlock cracks up.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 07:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna take a picture," giggles Bella, "unless you object."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Go right ahead," giggles Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Smile!"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 07:30 pm (UTC)

He grins.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 07:31 pm (UTC)

Picture taken! It is adorable. She shows him and the Umbrygon.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Gongon," says the Umbrygon. Sherlock puts it down, and it trundles away.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 07:33 pm (UTC)

"So now I understand all the odd remarks you made about your house," says Bella, patting the Umbrygon as it goes but not impeding its progress.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 07:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 07:49 pm (UTC)

"It's really amazing. And I bet it makes living all the way out here less lonely."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 07:50 pm (UTC)

"It does," he agrees.

The Umbrygon is gone. Sherlock is thoughtful.
Edited 2013-07-18 21:46 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-07-18 09:46 pm (UTC)

"Something on your mind?"
Edited 2013-07-18 21:47 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Do you remember," he says, "when we were discussing my ability to understand Pokemon speech, and I joked that I might be a Ditto in disguise?"

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:14 pm (UTC)

"And have you observed that I don't appear in any existing records of Tony's childhood?"

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:14 pm (UTC)

"I did notice that. I remarked on it."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I don't appear in records of Tony's childhood because I did not exist at the time," he says. "I am three and a half years old, and I am not Tony's twin; I am his clone. Patched with a little bit of Ditto DNA."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:23 pm (UTC)

Bella opens her mouth.

Bella closes her mouth.

Bella says, "Today is Fantastic Revelation Day, is it?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:23 pm (UTC)

He quirks a smile. "Apparently so."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:24 pm (UTC)

"You're very tall for a three year old. Tall and also articulate."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:25 pm (UTC)

"I had the normal amount of childhood in an abnormal amount of time, and caught up to Tony about when he turned fourteen."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Is it the patching DNA that lets you understand Pokémon? - Is it rude to ask questions about this?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:26 pm (UTC)

"That's my best theory, yes. And no, at least so far it is not."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:26 pm (UTC)

"Does it do anything besides that?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Oh, no, not a thing," he says, in an exact copy of Bella's voice.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:28 pm (UTC)

She blinks.

"Wow. That sounded - exactly like me, or anyway how I sound on recordings, not how I sound to myself."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:30 pm (UTC)

"It did sound exactly like you," he says, resuming his normal voice. "I can do that. With anyone I've ever heard speaking."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:30 pm (UTC)

"That's awesome. Does it do anything else? Not that that's not plenty."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:32 pm (UTC)

"Nothing so obvious. It might have had an influence on this or that other characteristic."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:33 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "Well, this certainly explains a bunch more odd remarks. I might actually be out of weird things about you to explain, now."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:34 pm (UTC)

"It is very likely that you are."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:35 pm (UTC)

"I -" Bella frowns, starts counting on her fingers. "I can't remember when you said your - Tony's? How does that work? - parents died. Did you overlap with them at all?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:36 pm (UTC)

"I never met them. And yes, they are Tony's parents and not mine. Insofar as I have parents, I suppose they are Tony and Mycroft, but Jarvis has filled that role more than either."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Mycroft. Wow." She glances up at the ceiling. "So Jarvis predates you?"
Edited 2013-07-18 22:41 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:42 pm (UTC)

He nods.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Does Mycroft get that this happened?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:44 pm (UTC)

"More or less. He's not very interested in what you might call the wider social implications."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:45 pm (UTC)

"That's fair, yeah. Wow. Why did Tony clone himself, or would I have to ask him?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:49 pm (UTC)

"He was an extremely lonely child with a talent for making things and a poor grasp of long-term consequences," Sherlock says dryly. "He did it more or less to satisfy himself that he could."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:50 pm (UTC)

"...How are you on the 'wider social implications'?" Bella asks.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Slightly uncomfortable."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose there's anything I can do about that, is there?"
Edited 2013-07-18 22:53 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"I can't think of anything, no."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you do, let me know?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:54 pm (UTC)

He nods.

"I will."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:55 pm (UTC)

"I think it's cool, though."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Really?"

the_very_best
2013-07-18 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! You can talk to Pokémon! You can sound like anybody you want! You managed to be a perfectly convincing teenager in three and a half years!"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 10:58 pm (UTC)

"None of which sound like very exciting accomplishments to me, but I suppose I take your point."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Come on, how is that not exciting?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:02 pm (UTC)

"Now you are just reminding me of Tony."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:03 pm (UTC)

"What, really?" laughs Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:03 pm (UTC)

"He also gets very excited about things."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:04 pm (UTC)

"I don't get excited about everything, but about this, heck yes. Although there goes any hope I had of just straight up learning to understand Pokémon."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Hah. Yes."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:06 pm (UTC)

"This is not information for public consumption, I assume, as far as my parents are concerned you understanding Pokémon is 'just one of those things'?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Correct."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I can do that."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Good."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Wow," says Bella again.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:11 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:11 pm (UTC)

"...Have you ever told anybody before?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:12 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I feel all special."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:13 pm (UTC)

He smiles again.

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh, this is probably why you have a Unova accent, isn't it, if Jarvis basically brought you up?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:19 pm (UTC)

"If you never met Tony's parents, did he name you, or did Jarvis, or what?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:19 pm (UTC)

"I did. Out of a book."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:21 pm (UTC)

"What book?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Several, actually. They are collectively 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Are they good, should I read 'em? I've never heard of them before."

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:26 pm (UTC)

"I like them. Obviously."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:27 pm (UTC)

"You could have just liked the sound of the name. It's a cool-sounding name," Bella points out.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:28 pm (UTC)

"True. But no. I am also fond of the books."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:28 pm (UTC)

"What does the book character do?"

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Solve crimes. Annoy everyone around him with his factually justifiable but socially inappropriate arrogance."

the_very_best
2013-07-18 11:32 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles.

bitofafiction
2013-07-18 11:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

investigation

the_very_best

Sherlock gets his first call from Bella's father asking for interpretation of a Pokémon the following morning. Charlie is on the line, but a Geodude can be heard muttering to itself in the background.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Good morning," says Sherlock.

sundayfish
2013-09-29 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Hullo," says Charlie. "Got a Geodude here who may've seen who spraypainted the public art on the bridge. I'll be able to start calling with more significant stuff if we can catch a few pettier criminals with 'mon testimony, but for now it's vandalism."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:00 pm (UTC)

"That seems entirely reasonable. I'll talk to her."

sundayfish
2013-09-29 05:01 pm (UTC)

There is the faint sound of Charlie trying to explain to the Geodude how to hold the phone; she either figures it out or Charlie holds it for her, because she commences chattering away. "Duuuuuuuuude. Dude geodude ge-geodude."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Oh, dear," says Sherlock. "You're right, that was terrible. Did you see who did it?"

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Geodude! Geodude dude duuuuuuuude. Geooooo."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:12 pm (UTC)

He listens intently.

"I see," he murmurs. For Charlie's sake, he translates, "She says he was taller than her trainer, and wearing a long brown leather coat with white stitching and a black hat with a large floppy brim and a red ribbon around it." And to the Geodude, "Anything else?"

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Dude," mutters the Geodude.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:13 pm (UTC)

"And he was ugly," Sherlock adds.

sundayfish
2013-09-29 05:14 pm (UTC)

Charlie snorts.

The Geodude continues. "Dude geo geo dude dude duuuuuude."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry to hear that," says Sherlock. To Charlie, he explains, "When the vandal realized she was not part of the statue he released a Wingull and she was more soundly defeated than she has been since - when was that previous battle, if you don't mind my asking?"

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Dude? Geodude. Duuuuude."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Before she was traded to her current owner. That must have been quite the Wingull."

sundayfish
2013-09-29 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Can she give us a time more constrained than 'between sunset and nine p.m.'? Did the Wingull have a nickname?"

"Dude," says the Geodude. "Duuuuuuuude."
Edited 2013-09-29 17:24 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:25 pm (UTC)

"The Wingull was nicknameless, and it was after sunset by the length of a small nap."

sundayfish
2013-09-29 05:27 pm (UTC)

"How many other occupied Pokéballs did he have on him?"

"Dude."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:27 pm (UTC)

"At least one; she couldn't tell if there were more."

sundayfish
2013-09-29 05:30 pm (UTC)

"All right. This should be helpful. Thanks, the both of you."

"Are you done with Tiffany?" calls a girl's voice from the background.

"Dude?" agrees the Geodude, who is apparently called Tiffany.

"Think so. Sherlock?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:32 pm (UTC)

He hesitates.

Then, "Yes. Thank you, Tiffany. You've been very helpful. I'm sure the police will be able to find the fellow who spraypainted you."

sundayfish
2013-09-29 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Dude!" says Tiffany.

"Thanks," Charlie tells Sherlock again. "You want to be kept updated on how it goes?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes, thank you."

sundayfish
2013-09-29 05:34 pm (UTC)

"All right. I'll let you know. Bye."

Charlie hangs up.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:36 pm (UTC)

Sherlock thinks for a few minutes.

And then he goes looking for Bella. The library seems a reasonable place to start.
Edited 2013-09-29 17:39 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-09-29 05:40 pm (UTC)

She is there, reading a book. "Hi, Sherlock."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I had the most fascinating call from your father just now. He wanted me to interview a Geodude named Tiffany about some vandalism she witnessed, and during the conversation she made reference to having been defeated by a Shaymin before she was traded to her current owner."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 05:43 pm (UTC)

Bella sits up straighter.

She closes her book.

"How long ago? Where?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:46 pm (UTC)

"I didn't ask. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to talk to Tiffany again, and I didn't want to complicate matters with Charlie in case he is particularly skeptical of supposed legendary sightings."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 05:47 pm (UTC)

"He is a little, yes. Well, I guess I know where I'm going next."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:48 pm (UTC)

"May I come with you?"

the_very_best
2013-09-29 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:50 pm (UTC)

He grins.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Way harder to get details from Tiffany without you. Do you think Tony'll want to come?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Potentially. We can ask."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 05:54 pm (UTC)

Bella nods, shelves the book she was reading, and starts looking for Tony, sidestepping a subflock of Porygon on the stairs precariously.

toblameforit
2013-09-29 05:56 pm (UTC)

Tony is downstairs, doing things with a holographic display that covers most of the ground floor.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Hey, a lead on a possible Shaymin dropped into Sherlock's lap and he's gonna come with me to check it out, do you want to join us?"

toblameforit
2013-09-29 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Ooh!" says Tony. "Nah. You guys have fun, though."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 06:01 pm (UTC)

"We will. I dunno how long we'll be gone."

toblameforit
2013-09-29 06:02 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Figures, on a trip like that."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Well, now I'm all antsy, I'm gonna pack." She pets the nearest Porygon and goes back up the stairs.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 06:07 pm (UTC)

Sherlock, it transpires, does not take very long to pack at all. He meets her in her room.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 06:08 pm (UTC)

Bella is evaluating her food supply. "I can restock at Solaceon and getting there won't take that long," she eventually concludes. She buttons her bag closed, makes sure all her Pokéballs are where they belong, and says, "You want to go right now?"
Edited 2013-09-29 18:27 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 06:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't see why not."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 06:28 pm (UTC)

"All right then." And down the stairs, and she waves goodbye to Tony, and opens the door and lets Rachis out.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 06:36 pm (UTC)

Sherlock produces Irene.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:25 pm (UTC)

Bella hops onto her bird and away they fly. "You ever been to Solaceon?" she asks.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I have not."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:28 pm (UTC)

"It's nice, if you like itty-bitty towns where nothing happens. There's some ruins and some towers not too far off from it."
Edited 2013-09-29 19:29 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 07:29 pm (UTC)

"Ah, ruins. Good old ruins. So dependably ruinous."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:35 pm (UTC)

"They're super ruinous, and there's about a billion Unown in there."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 07:39 pm (UTC)

"That sounds interesting. I've never met an Unown."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:41 pm (UTC)

"People occasionally catch them to try to get them to spell things, but of course nobody can handle more than six at a time, so the things they can spell are kinda limited even if a few people cooperate."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 07:41 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "I wonder if they could be otherwise persuaded."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Maybe! I mean, I assume they won't be as docile as the flock of Porygon, but perhaps. You could collect a tidy sum of money trailing a banner of Unown that spelled 'Eat At Joe's'."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I do have an unusual advantage in that area."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:46 pm (UTC)

"Very unusual indeed. Hey, does it make it weird to get into fights with wild 'mon when you can understand what they're saying?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 07:49 pm (UTC)

"Once or twice, I have successfully exercised diplomacy. But for the most part they don't have anything to say that I could not have guessed from context."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:51 pm (UTC)

"Diplomacy? Do tell."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh - placating a grumpy Staravia who just wants to chase me away before I trample her favourite berry patch, that sort of thing."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:58 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 07:59 pm (UTC)

"She was very surprised when I said 'oh, I'm sorry' and went the other way."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I'll bet!"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:00 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:01 pm (UTC)

Even held down to Rachis's speed, it's not a terrible journey; there's one pit stop and then they fly the rest of the way and there is Solaceon. It is a sleepy, pretty little town, full of people and their Pokémon leading sleepy, pretty little lives.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I confess I'm tempted to explore the ruins. On the way back, perhaps."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Sure, why not? If this trip goes well we have all the time in the world, and if it doesn't it'll be a comforting distraction and you can get the Unown to spell stuff."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:17 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I can teach them to read."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Good question. I don't even know if they know what letters they are."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:21 pm (UTC)

"Another good question."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Presumably they can tell that they aren't all shaped the same, at least?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:23 pm (UTC)

"I'd expect so."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Are there any Pokémon who can read? Zag can recognize a handful of whole words - I can tell him to find a Pokémon center and he can do it even if the building is shaped funny, based on the sign - but not letters or anything. I'm not sure if that's just for lack of trying." They are approaching Charlie's house, now.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:30 pm (UTC)

"I haven't tried with any of mine. I wouldn't rule it out, though."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:31 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

She opens the front door. "Dad, you home?" she calls.

Charlie does not appear to be home.

She puts her Pokémon away and walks in anyway.
Edited 2013-09-29 20:33 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:35 pm (UTC)

Likewise Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:36 pm (UTC)

"So this is Charlie's house. Let's eat something and then go meet him at the station, see if he can direct us to Tiffany's trainer." She shows Sherlock to the kitchen and starts investigating it.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:36 pm (UTC)

"All right."

Ooh, a kitchen. Those contain food!

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:39 pm (UTC)

They do! Sherlock can probably tell by the available food, even if he couldn't guess from knowing Bella, that Charlie does not eat particularly inspired meals when his daughter isn't around, and that she is around sometimes but not for long or regularly. Nonetheless, Bella collects pasta fixings. "Not really enough room in here for cooperative cooking, do you want to or shall I?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I'll do it."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:42 pm (UTC)

"All right." Bella yields the kitchen to him and gets some 'mon food out of a closet; she feeds her critters while Sherlock works on the human nourishment.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:49 pm (UTC)

The human nourishment, when it arrives, is impeccable. Sherlock takes his turn with the 'mon food after presenting Bella with her pasta.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:49 pm (UTC)

"This is really good," says Bella, after she has eaten about half of her pasta without pausing long enough to make any remarks about it.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I know," says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:50 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles and finishes her pasta.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock feeds his 'mon and himself.

"And now, the station?"

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:53 pm (UTC)

Bella nods, puts the dishes in the sink, and goes out; she rides Branch through the town rather than risk tripping.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:54 pm (UTC)

Sherlock walks.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:56 pm (UTC)

Branch doesn't go very fast, or get impatient like Fireflower would about not going very fast, so he has no trouble keeping up.

Presently they are at the police station, which is circled overhead by a Noctowl; it ignores them. Bella hops off Branch, puts him away, and heads inside.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:57 pm (UTC)

Sherlock follows!

sundayfish
2013-09-29 08:57 pm (UTC)

And there is Charlie. "Bella, hi. Sorry I wasn't home to meet you." He gets up and hugs her.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 08:58 pm (UTC)

"It's okay," says Bella. "This is Sherlock, Dad - we were wondering if we could talk to that Geodude? Tiffany?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 08:59 pm (UTC)

sundayfish
2013-09-29 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Nice to meet you in person, Sherlock. And I can tell you where the trainer lives; she's in the apartment block by the ice cream place."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Do you know the apartment number?"

sundayfish
2013-09-29 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Number... five, I think, I'll look it up." He looks it up. "Yep, five."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Sherlock.

sundayfish
2013-09-29 09:01 pm (UTC)

"No problem. Got a way to get the paint off the 'mon or something?"

the_very_best
2013-09-29 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Sadly, that is not it."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Actually, I do," says Sherlock. "Little-known fact - Ditto can eat paint off of most surfaces. It turns them colours for a little while. Mycroft finds it very entertaining."
Edited 2013-09-29 21:23 (UTC)

the_very_best
2013-09-29 09:23 pm (UTC)

"That sounds potentially very awkward for Tiffany, but sure," laughs Bella.

sundayfish
2013-09-29 09:24 pm (UTC)

"I think she'll appreciate it. She seemed pretty upset."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes, she was."

sundayfish
2013-09-29 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I've got an officer out checking out a suspect now, by the way," Charlie says, "I was going to call this evening."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:30 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 09:33 pm (UTC)

"Well, let's go unpaint a Geodude." Bella hugs her dad again and heads out.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:34 pm (UTC)

To Tiffany!

the_very_best
2013-09-29 09:37 pm (UTC)

To Tiffany! Bella rides Branch again and leads Sherlock to the apartment block with the ice cream place nearby. The ice cream place has several Miltank in an adjacent yard.

Up the exterior stairs is apartment five. Bella puts Branch away and climbs and walks right in, revealing a pigtailed girl with two Pokéballs who says, "Hi?"

"Hi. I'm Bella Swanna, and this," she gestures at the presumably following Sherlock, "is my friend Sherlock, and we think his Ditto can get the paint off of Tiffany."

"Oh, that's great, she's been so embarrassed," says Tiffany's trainer.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:38 pm (UTC)

"She sounded it."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 09:39 pm (UTC)

"Can you really understand Pokémon, that's awesome," says Tiffany's trainer, pulling a sticker-decorated ball from her belt and releasing a Geodude. Tiffany has many artful little designs in various colors of nail polish on her surface, and a streak of distinctly artless spray paint.

"He really can," says Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:41 pm (UTC)

"Hello again, Tiffany," says Sherlock. "It occurred to me that my Ditto, Mycroft, could probably polish off that paint if you wanted."

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 09:42 pm (UTC)

Tiffany stops trying to hide her painted face with her hands and says, "Duuuuude."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:49 pm (UTC)

Sherlock produces Mycroft.

"Mycroft, meet Tiffany. She has had an unfortunate encounter with a spray can."

"To," says Mycroft, with dignity. He wobbles up to Tiffany and slurps on the streak of paint.

The paint cleans away easily. Mycroft turns its exact shade of blue. "Ditditdit," he giggles, wobbling back to Sherlock.

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 09:50 pm (UTC)

Tiffany tolerates slurping with only a little squirming. There is now a conspicuous gap in her decorative nail polish designs but no spray paint. "Geo," she says.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Ditto," chirps Mycroft. Sherlock scoops him up and hugs him.

"While we're here," he says to Tiffany, "I wondered if I could ask you a few questions about that Shaymin you mentioned."

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 09:54 pm (UTC)

"A Shaymin?" says Tiffany's trainer, confused.

"Geodude?" says Tiffany.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:00 pm (UTC)

Of the two, Tiffany is the one Sherlock expects to get more information out of.

"Where were you when you battled it? Was it alone, or did it have someone with it?"

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Dude. Geogeogeodude. Duuuuude ge-geodude."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:12 pm (UTC)

"And what was he wearing?"

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 10:13 pm (UTC)

"Dude."
Edited 2013-09-29 22:16 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:19 pm (UTC)

"You certainly have an eye for fashion. Thank you."

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Geeeeo."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:31 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 10:32 pm (UTC)

"What did she tell you?" asks Tiffany's trainer.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:37 pm (UTC)

"That she fought a Shaymin in Unova, and the Shaymin's trainer was a man wearing an unfamiliar white uniform with pale green trim who didn't talk much."

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 10:39 pm (UTC)

"Whooooa, I didn't know the guy I got her from was up to anything like that."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:41 pm (UTC)

Sherlock shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-09-29 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Anyhow, I'm gonna re-polish her, thanks for getting the paint off!" says Tiffany's trainer, and she wanders off with Tiffany following and breaks out a case of assorted nail polish.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:43 pm (UTC)

"Shall we?" he says to Bella.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Unova, wow. That's a boat ride, unless Irene wants to carry us both, Rachis can't do it," says Bella as she lets them both out of the apartment.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I'll ask. I suspect she won't mind."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Do you think you can track down the Shaymin's trainer?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:47 pm (UTC)

"I'm very nearly sure of it."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Awesome." They are now out of the apartment building and down the stairs, where there is room for Irene to be called out and questioned.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Hello, Irene," says Sherlock. "How would you feel about flying us to Unova?"

"Dragon," says Irene.

"Just fine," Sherlock interprets.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 10:57 pm (UTC)

"Well, that's good then."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 11:01 pm (UTC)

"I might like to pack a few more things from home before we go. I came equipped to travel within the region, not necessarily outside of it."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure, we can swing back by the lake, check again if Tony wants to come - do you still wanna stop in the ruins?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Hmm." He considers the ruins. "Yes, I think so."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Okay. But let's not stay too long, I'm all excited now. A Shaymin! A Shaymin working with a human!"

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Just long enough to map them for Jarvis," he promises.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Sure." Bella lets out Rachis again; the ruins are more convenient to fly to than to walk.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 11:11 pm (UTC)

They fly there.

Sherlock loads an app on his Pokétch and commences traversing the building.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:12 pm (UTC)

Bella shadows him - aboard Fireflower; there are all manner of things to trip on, and it's dark and Fireflower is bright - keeping an eye out for any Unown that might choose to attack them.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 11:21 pm (UTC)

The Unown are apparently feeling shy today. None of them appear.

Sherlock maps the ruins carefully. At one point, he takes a second look at a rock on the floor and then shifts it aside.

"Do you have any use for a gold nugget?" he inquires.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Only for resale," says Bella.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 11:31 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Take it if you like, then. I'd just leave it for the next explorer."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:32 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't argue with him; she pockets the nugget. "Generous of you."

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 11:35 pm (UTC)

He replaces the rock. "I try. Back to the tower, then; this was the last room."

And he leads her back to the exit, navigating easily through the nearly identical hallways.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:36 pm (UTC)

Bella follows readily. And then they fly back to the lake, where they can update Tony and sock away more provisions.

toblameforit
2013-09-29 11:40 pm (UTC)

Tony still declines to come along.

But he does happily provide Sherlock with a few neat toys to take with him - a portable holographic projector, for one. Just in case.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Just in case what?"

toblameforit
2013-09-29 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," says Tony. "They're handy, though! Especially for looking at maps."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:43 pm (UTC)

"All right," laughs Bella. "All right, anything else we need to do before we fly to another continent?"

toblameforit
2013-09-29 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Tony.

He hugs Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:45 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs.

toblameforit
2013-09-29 11:46 pm (UTC)

"There. Now you're all set."

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Aww, I don't get a hug?"

toblameforit
2013-09-29 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Awwww. Sure you do!"

He hugs her too.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:48 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

And now it is time to crowd onto Irene and fly away.

bitofafiction
2013-09-29 11:49 pm (UTC)

Yes it is.

Irene is surprisingly comfortable, even at top speed.

the_very_best
2013-09-29 11:50 pm (UTC)

Bella compliments her appropriately.

bitofafiction
2013-09-30 12:07 am (UTC)

"Dragonite," says Irene.

"She's glad to hear it," says Sherlock.

the_very_best
2013-09-30 12:08 am (UTC)

"Of course," laughs Bella.

Dragonites are fast on straightaways. Once they have sustainable altitude, they are there in a very reasonable amount of time indeed.
Edited 2013-09-30 00:09 (UTC)

bitofafiction
2013-09-30 12:09 am (UTC)

Sherlock gives Irene a hug when they arrive.

the_very_best
2013-09-30 12:10 am (UTC)

Aww.

bitofafiction
2013-09-30 12:19 am (UTC)

Then he puts her away.

"Let's go exploring," he says cheerfully.

the_very_best
2013-09-30 12:20 am (UTC)

"All right. Any idea where you want to start looking?"

bitofafiction
2013-09-30 12:24 am (UTC)

"Not yet," he says. "I'm not even sure what I'm looking for."

the_very_best
2013-09-30 12:26 am (UTC)

"Okay. I'm sure there are tourist traps and hotels and stuff to interest us while we find out. I'm going to keep an eye out for a place to sell that nugget."

bitofafiction
2013-09-30 12:27 am (UTC)

"Perfect."

the_very_best
2013-09-30 12:28 am (UTC)

Bella hops on Fireflower to stroll the streets of Castelia City, where they have landed, without so much risk of pitching forward and chipping a tooth.

i am made of you

sparksflying

Antoinette is seven years old and already insisting in the clearest possible terms that she should be called Tony, Tony, with a y. Her parents have been known to joke that 'with a why' is exactly what she is.

She gets into everything. She talks to herself because there is almost never another option available. She runs full-tilt down the stairs and skids across the air above the floor, then smashes flat into the wall on the other side of the foyer. She stays up an entire night with a breadboard, a piece of black construction paper, and a box of assorted electronics, and in the morning presents to her father the Stark Industries logo picked out neatly in glowing blue LEDs that turn on one by one.

He pats her on the head and calls her his little rocketship and then disappears into the mythical lands of Downstairs, where little rocketships are not allowed to go.

She builds an actual rocketship - not a large one, granted. Her father laughs.

And then one day the door to the basement swings open when she tries it, and she rattles down the stairs to explore, she bets there's fantastic things to be had—

There's a workshop, and there's her father wearing a clear curved mask, and she remembers to be quiet because it's important to be quiet when her father is doing work, but she creeps closer because the red glow of hot metal is fascinating.

When he sees her, his hand jerks and the blowtorch leaves a sullen red trail down the side of whatever he's working on. He turns it off and bellows, "YOU GET UPSTAIRS RIGHT NOW, LITTLE GIRL!"

Tony blinks, shakes her head, opens her mouth. Her father points at the stairs. "Out!" he yells.

She turns and runs upstairs, and up the other stairs, and into her rooms and into her bedroom and finally she flings herself down on her bed in tears.

"It's not fair," she whimpers, "it's not, just because I went where I wasn't sposed to, just because he screwed up his thing, why's he so mad at me, it's not fair it's not fair it's not it's not..."

She buries her face in her pillow and hugs herself, because nobody else is going to do it, and complains to herself, because nobody else is going to listen, and

herself

hugs

back.

Tony blinks and stares into her own face, and herself stares back with equal confusion.

"Where'd you come from?" she asks.

"I don't know!" says the other person with her face. "You did it, not me!"

"I didn't do it on purpose," she mutters. (This is something Tony says a lot.)

The new person shrugs, then hugs her again. Tony sniffles. Questions, she decides, can probably wait.

Except—

"Do you have a name?"

"No-o," says not-Tony. "I don't think so."

"Well what am I gonna call you? Tony's my name, you can't have it."

Not-Tony blinks. Tony declares imperiously, "We'll think about it later."

doggerel verse

occluminous

Bella finds out that she can do magic when she is eight.

For a moment she thinks she imagined it. It doesn't help when she repeats her poem again and nothing happens. But maybe that poem is just used up. She makes up another, and that one works.

The rules aren't too hard to figure out. Poems don't always work. They have to rhyme, they have to scan, they have to be new, and even then they don't always work and they'll only do little things - but they usually work, if Bella doesn't overshoot.

And it doesn't matter if they're very new.

By the time Bella is nine she has a repertoire of spells that refer to the date. Some of them, which she likes to use more than once a day, she reworks to also refer to the time. She shows Renée, who finds her abilities fascinating and helps her with some of the wording, though no spell will work for her. When she stays with Charlie that summer she shows him, too, and he's less excited and more concerned but he doesn't tell her she has to stop.

The poems only do little things. She can clean her teeth by magic, and heal little scrapes and bruises she picks up when she trips and falls, and make herself not carsick or airsick, and - although since she cannot do this many times all in one day it is of limited use - move objects without touching them. But they make her feel special, and maybe one day she'll figure out how to make poems do bigger things, and then she can do anything, she is sure.

She gets two letters, the summer she's ten. They have strange shiny stamps and heavy vellum envelopes.

One says:

Dear Miss Isabella Swan,

We are pleased to inform you that your talents afford you a partial scholarship and a place at the Alta California Academy of the Arts Magical. Your dual residence has also qualified you for admittance to another institution, which will write you separately. Please reply by owl or return of post on the subject of whether you will be accepting enrollment with us or with the other school before August 10.

Should you choose to accept ACAAM's offer, you will enjoy a first-rate magical education particularly geared towards the seamless integration of Muggleborn students such as yourself, with a strong focus on Charms, Potions, and magic theory (see supplemental materials). You will be obliged to arrive two days before start of term for the SPAWN exams to determine your placement in skill level and for the subsequent guided shopping trip during which you will obtain your magical equipment (standard list below; may be supplemented depending on SPAWN results).

There follows a list of equipment ranging from "wand" through "robes" and "familiar (optional)", and supplemental material explaining what "Muggleborn" means and what the various subjects are and why she should prefer a Charms/Potions/theory focus to any other.

The other letter is much the same, except that it's from the Texarcana School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, and advertises a strong athletics program, Transfiguration curriculum, and Muggle Studies track.

There isn't any information on getting to visit either place. Bella carefully writes out her acceptance to ACAAM and her refusal to TSWW, and puts them in the mail.

Then it occurs to her that she'd really better tell her parents.

Charlie's at work, and this doesn't seem to her like an emergency, so she calls Renée, who is disbelievingly thrilled and says that this most certainly is something that warrants calling Charlie.

So Bella reads Renée the entire ACAAM letter, then hangs up and calls her father and reads it to him too, and he comes home early and reads it for himself, and says, "Well. I guess there's more to magic than those little poems, then, isn't there?"

"I guess!" says Bella with a brilliant smile. And she skips her plane to Phoenix and instead she waits at the end of Charlie's driveway on August 29, with a wheeled suitcase and a pocket full of spending money and all the excitement in the world.

vine and hazel

occluminous

The bus is much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Bella writes this down under magic I want to learn.

The other children here are Muggleborn, like her, or Muggle-raised, or simply have busy magical parents. They pick up nine more ten- and eleven-year-olds after Bella's stop, and then they go trundling down the magical highway at staggering speed headed for Oakland, California.

The bus lets them all out at what they are told is a magical enclave of the Bay Area, colloquially known as the Bay Cauldron. They get little colorful maps of the locations they'll need to visit and are sternly instructed to be back in four hours or they will be found and they will not like it.

It's not too hard for Bella to find her way around the Bay Cauldron. She plots out a path, shadows some of the students whose parents are merely busy and not Muggle for the first few stores - she doesn't care about customizing her robes, there is no room for variance in the currency exchange, and she wouldn't know where to begin improving on a Standard Student Potion Ingredient Kit. She leaves them behind at the wand shop, though.

They're served first, because Bella's looking around. She finds a wand box that shakes and rattles when she gets near it, and by the time the others have all got their wands she's carrying it up to the clerk. "I think this one likes me," she says.

The clerk agrees with her. He takes it out of the box for her. "Vine and phoenix feather, twelve and a half inches, whippy, ideal for nonverbal spells when you get to those," he says, and he hands it to her, handle first. "Give it a wave."

Bella gives it a wave, and the most exhilarating feeling pours down her wand arm and emerges in a shower of red-orange-gold sparks, and the clerk beams. "There you are, then! That's a fine wand." He takes Bella's money, the Lions and Eagles she's changed her Muggle money for at the bank. And he turns to the boy who's just come in and tries this boy on some thirty wands before the boy finds one that will spark for him, and then he notices that Bella is still there.

"Is something wrong, young lady?"

"I'd like another, please," Bella says politely.

"Another - another wand? Don't you like that one? It likes you."

"I do like it. I want two," Bella explains. "In case something happens to one. They're not very big, you see, and I don't think they look terribly sturdy, and it might take time to come back to the store if one were broken or stolen."

The clerk is confused, but he permits her to go through some more wands, and after a few dozen have gone by and the clerk is starting to make remarks like "there's usually not more than one wand in a shop that will choose any given witch", a wand doesn't just spark for Bella but glows, a large ball of light in that same red-orange-gold color sprouting and growing to the size of a watermelon at the wand-tip and engulfing half her arm.

"...Well," he says. "If you want it..."

"I do," says Bella firmly.

"Hazel and phoenix feather, thirteen inches, rigid, good for high-power spells," sighs the clerk, and he takes more of her coins and hands her the boxed second wand. "You be careful with those, young lady."

Bella thanks him, and she puts the vine wand up in her hair with a little twisting and fussing, and the other in the little pocket inside her robe sleeve that is designed for exactly this purpose. (She told the robe person she was right-handed, so she has this pocket only in the left sleeve. She wishes she'd thought ahead and claimed to be ambidextrous, but she decides she rather likes the hair solution after she passes herself in a mirror.)

She buys a schoolbag with a Lightening Charm on it, and she buys textbooks.

She has some coins left. Her parents gave her a lot of spending money, and her scholarship covers almost all of the standard student supplies; the extra wand did not put her far over. She knows she's not the sort to deeply regret it if she doesn't have the pocket money to buy snacks and so on later so she doesn't think she needs to be too cautious.

She goes to the Menagerie and looks at owls.

The big owls are probably more practical - for packages and things - but these are magic owls, and even the little ones are rated for much heavier burdens than Bella would have guessed. And the little screech owls are the cutest, and that one seems to like her nearly as much as her wands do.

"Hey you," she says. The owls are in sections, but mostly of their own accord; this one can fly right up to her and land on her arm and show off the tag on its leg that says Eastern screech owl, rufous morph. And it does. "Oh, you're cute, can I pet you?"

The owl makes a funny trilling noise, which Bella takes for assent, and it doesn't bite her when she pets it.

She carries it up to the register. "How much is this owl, please, and is it a boy or a girl owl?"

"That's a girl," says the shopkeeper, and she names a reasonable figure - denominated in Lions, but still within Bella's spending power - for the owl and a semester's worth of food "if you let her out to hunt most days".

Bella purchases the owl and the food, and puts the owl on her shoulder, and says, "Now I've got to name you."

The owl can not only trill but also whinny. This is not particularly helpful. Well, maybe it's a little helpful. "How about Euterpe?" Bella has been reading Greek myths lately.

Euterpe trills.

"Wonderful," says Bella. "Good owl." She feeds Euterpe a treat, crosses off "familiar (optional)" from her shopping list, and goes to the meeting place with twenty minutes to spare.

arts magical

occluminous

Bella has been living in the dorms for two days when the term properly starts. The buses begin arriving and discharging the students who didn't need to arrive early just in time for them to join the early attendees for lunch. Bella is sitting at a half-full table, reading her Charms textbook and prodding at one of her notebooks with the hazel wand. The vine one is still in her hair; she uses it for most things (to the extent that there is a 'most things', but she's getting a jump on her assignments) but she's giving the hazel a try for this particular charm. It's supposed to make the notebook refuse to open for anyone but her. Poke. Poke. "Claudo!"

Her notebook snaps itself shut abruptly. She opens the cover, closes it, passes it to the girl on her right and gets her to try, observes that it does not open. She puts the hazel wand back in her sleeve.

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 12:32 am (UTC)

A pair of very nearly identical children walk in the door and stop, looking around. One is a girl with her long black hair in a ponytail; the other is a boy with his robes open over blue jeans and a white T-shirt.

The boy spots Bella. The twins confer. Then they head for her table.

occluminous
2013-03-30 12:34 am (UTC)

Bella waves in a friendly sort of way. She hasn't made particular friends with any of the other Muggleborns, and she's more interested in learning about the wizarding world (she has taken to calling it "Fantasia" in her head, after the musical film by the same name) than about commiserating over knowing what a television is.

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 12:37 am (UTC)

"Hello," says the boy in a crisp English accent. "I'm Sherlock. You're interesting."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 12:38 am (UTC)

His twin plops into a seat across from Bella and hooks the chair next to her with her leg, pulling it out for Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-03-30 12:39 am (UTC)

"Hi," says Bella. "I'm Bella. How can you tell I'm interesting?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 12:42 am (UTC)

"You have two wands," he says. "Vine and hazel. Introspection, self-control, clear-headedness, foresight."

occluminous
2013-03-30 12:43 am (UTC)

"I didn't realize they meant things," Bella says. "I just wanted two because it seems like they'd be easy to lose or break and inconvenient to do without."

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 12:48 am (UTC)

"Few people do," says Sherlock. "Mine's fir. It's for focused, stubborn people." He indicates his twin. "Tony's is blackthorn. It's rare. A warrior's wood."

occluminous
2013-03-30 12:50 am (UTC)

"And this isn't one of those things like astrological signs where people can just make up anything and it sounds right?"

sparksflying
2013-03-30 12:52 am (UTC)

"It partly is?" says Tony. "But wandlore's pretty serious. They do choose their owners, the good ones anyway. I wanna be a wandcrafter when I grow up," she adds proudly.

occluminous
2013-03-30 12:54 am (UTC)

"This one rattled around in its box when I walked by," Bella says, tapping the one in her hair. "The other one I found the regular way. The guy acted like it was weird to want two, but I don't see why. I don't know what I wanna do when I grow up at all," she adds to Tony.

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 12:56 am (UTC)

"Most people make do with the one until something happens to it," says Sherlock. He glances at his sister. "We should get a backup set."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 12:57 am (UTC)

"Yeah," she snorts, "'cause we had so much fun with the first ones."

occluminous
2013-03-30 01:00 am (UTC)

"Did you have a hard time finding them?" Bella asks.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 01:01 am (UTC)

"Sherlock took like half an hour, and I took three."

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 01:03 am (UTC)

"But perhaps next time it will be better," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-03-30 01:04 am (UTC)

"I don't know, my second one took a lot longer to find," Bella says. "Maybe if you go to a different shop with a different selection? I don't know how many there are, but there must be wizarding places besides the Bay Cauldron."

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 01:10 am (UTC)

"There are many. We will go to another one."

occluminous
2013-03-30 01:18 am (UTC)

Bella smiles. She's glad she had a useful idea. "Where do you guys live?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 01:21 am (UTC)

"New York, until recently," says Sherlock. "And yourself?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 01:25 am (UTC)

"Historically Phoenix during the school year, and a nowhere little town in Washington State otherwise, but they're going to have to work out how to divvy up my summers and vacations now that I'm boarding here, I guess," says Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 01:26 am (UTC)

"Which nowhere town would that be?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 01:28 am (UTC)

"It's called Forks, why?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 01:31 am (UTC)

"Because I wanted to know."

occluminous
2013-03-30 01:49 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "I see. Hey, what kind of class schedules do you have?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 01:50 am (UTC)

Sherlock recites them from memory, and add with a smile, "Why do you ask?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 01:52 am (UTC)

"'Cause I have Charms and Potions with you guys," she says.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 01:53 am (UTC)

"Fun!" says Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-30 01:55 am (UTC)

"I'm looking forward to Charms especially. All the cool things seem to be Charms."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 01:58 am (UTC)

"Hey, don't you talk any crap about Potions," snorts Tony. "Potions are awesome."

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:01 am (UTC)

"There are some very cool looking potions," acknowledges Bella. "But they mostly seem to be really advanced, and they all take forever to make. Even complicated charms don't take that long. I'm kind of impatient."

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 02:09 am (UTC)

"I can't think of anyone else with that particular flaw," Sherlock deadpans.

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:13 am (UTC)

"If I thought it was a flaw plain and simple I'd get rid of it," says Bella, waving a hand.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 02:14 am (UTC)

"He's talking about me," says Tony. "What do you mean, get rid of it?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:16 am (UTC)

"I mean I'd make it go away, or at least not make me do things anymore," says Bella. "I'd have to really believe it was all bad before I'd try, though, or I'd just be hacking at my personality for no good reason."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 02:17 am (UTC)

"No but I mean like how," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:17 am (UTC)

"I - what, could you not do that? If you really really wanted?"

sparksflying
2013-03-30 02:18 am (UTC)

"Nooooo?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:19 am (UTC)

"But it's not even magic."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 02:22 am (UTC)

"I'm still stuck on the 'how', here."

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:23 am (UTC)

"I'd just have to figure out where it was and where it came from and how it was making me do stuff, and then dig it out, like a plant," says Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 02:33 am (UTC)

"Fascinating," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:36 am (UTC)

"Is it? You really don't know how?" Pause. "Are people just how they are because they don't know how to be different, then? They don't all just like being who they wound up being?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 02:37 am (UTC)

"That is nearly always the case," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:40 am (UTC)

"That explains a lot," says Bella thoughtfully.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 02:41 am (UTC)

"Like what?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:42 am (UTC)

"Like why so many people still have all kinds of traits that I can't see why anybody would want to have," Bella laughs, "even when they've had a long time to get rid of them."

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 02:43 am (UTC)

"Such as?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:45 am (UTC)

"Oh, like people who are really mean, not even in a catty way that makes their friends like them but just plain mean so they don't even have any friends, there's no reason I can think of to want to do that," says Bella. "I thought maybe I was just missing something but maybe they don't know how to stop."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 02:46 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Tony, "turns out they actually can't!"

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:47 am (UTC)

"Huh. Okay. That's not what I was expecting to learn at magic school but it's still interesting!"

And she opens up her notebook and writes it down and then closes it again.

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 02:48 am (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:50 am (UTC)

"So you guys have magical parents, since you arrived today instead of on Friday, right?"

sparksflying
2013-03-30 02:51 am (UTC)

"We have," says Tony, "a magical parent."

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:53 am (UTC)

"Well, you probably still know more about how all this stuff is going to work than me," says Bella. "My parents are both Muggles. I'm just lucky they weren't totally surprised since I've been doing little poem spells since I was eight."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 02:54 am (UTC)

"You have?" says Tony, interested. "Cool. I've mostly been running into walls."

occluminous
2013-03-30 02:55 am (UTC)

"...Magically?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 02:58 am (UTC)

"She can levitate at speed," Sherlock puts in, "but she hasn't got the hang of stopping."

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:03 am (UTC)

"Oh. Well, maybe we can learn that here," says Bella. "My poems can only do little things. They don't work on anything like flying, I tried a lot."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:05 am (UTC)

"I don't really fly," says Tony. "I can't get any higher than I can jump. But I can zoom pretty good, except, like he said, I tend to crash."

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:06 am (UTC)

"It still sounds like fun! I crash plenty even just walking around, it'd be a better deal if I got to be airborne first."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:07 am (UTC)

"When you're airborne first," says the voice of experience, "you crash harder."

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:08 am (UTC)

"I fell down the stairs and broke my arm once," offers Bella.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:10 am (UTC)

"I've never broken any of my parts!" says Tony. "I've broken furniture."

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:11 am (UTC)

"But how do you do it? Is there a poem or can you just do it whenever?"

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:13 am (UTC)

"I just... do," she shrugs. "And sometimes it doesn't work and I fall flat on my face."

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:15 am (UTC)

"Sometimes a poem doesn't work. Especially if I try to use the same one more than once," Bella says.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:16 am (UTC)

"I think you can't repeat them or something?" says Tony. "I'm bad at rhyming on the spot, I never use 'em myself."

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:17 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah, making them up on the spot would be really hard, that's why mine all have spots in them for the date," says Bella.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:18 am (UTC)

"...Genius," declares Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:19 am (UTC)

"Thanks!"

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:21 am (UTC)

She beams.

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:22 am (UTC)

Something occurs to Bella.

"Is Tony short for something?" she asks.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:24 am (UTC)

Tony rolls her eyes.

"Antoinette," she says, "and don't ever let me catch you using it. Why?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:27 am (UTC)

"Because my orientation packet says my roommate's name is Antoinette," explains Bella.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:28 am (UTC)

"Well now you know better."

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:31 am (UTC)

"I'm informed," Bella agrees. "And yours probably says I'm Isabella, which is true, and I won't really care if you use it, but I prefer Bella."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 11:59 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Tony. "I forget stuff all the time, so just keep reminding me of the right one and we're good."

occluminous
2013-03-30 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Bella. "Do you guys know any wanded magic yet? I'm trying to teach myself some things. I didn't do that well on the SPAWN - it doesn't really seem designed to measure aptitude, just whether you've met lots of wizards before, it's kinda stupid. I want to advance quick."

sparksflying
2013-03-30 03:59 pm (UTC)

"I don't," says Tony.

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 04:00 pm (UTC)

"I may have picked up one or two things," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-03-30 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Like what?" Bella asks Sherlock, bouncing in her chair.

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 04:03 pm (UTC)

He hesitates, then shakes his head.

"I'm not sure I've got them right. I'll wait until I know."

occluminous
2013-03-30 04:06 pm (UTC)

Bella frowns. "But you're allowed to do magic, here. I just did some. Why don't you try it and see right now?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Because I don't know if I have it right," he reiterates.

occluminous
2013-03-30 04:21 pm (UTC)

"But - that's why you'd need to try it. If you don't have it right it won't work and then you'll know you have to change something."

nobodyelse
2013-03-30 04:21 pm (UTC)

He says nothing.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 04:23 pm (UTC)

"We'd rather not do our experimenting in the lunchroom," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-30 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

sparksflying
2013-03-30 04:26 pm (UTC)

"What if something blows up?"

occluminous
2013-03-30 04:26 pm (UTC)

Bella frowns. "Is that likely?"

sparksflying
2013-03-30 04:27 pm (UTC)

"Around me? Yes."

occluminous
2013-03-30 04:28 pm (UTC)

"Oh. So I shouldn't try the other things on my list of things to try while you're around? That's going to be awkward if we're roommates," muses Bella.

sparksflying
2013-03-30 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Well, okay, not quite," says Tony. "It's more like, when I do experiments, it's on the kind of stuff that likes to blow up or catch fire or whatever, so we picked up the habit of not doing any experimenting on anything even vaguely dangerous without proper safety protocols, and it's still a good idea even if you're trying to do mostly-harmless magic because even mostly-harmless magic can set something on fire if you screw it up bad enough."

occluminous
2013-03-30 04:33 pm (UTC)

"I should learn the safety protocols," says Bella promptly. "What are they?"

sparksflying
2013-03-30 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Probably too complicated to tell you about over lunch," says Tony. "But if we're rooming together, you're gonna see 'em anyway."

occluminous
2013-03-30 04:42 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why there wasn't anything about it in the orientation packet. They just told us that we're allowed to use magic here but not at home anymore, and that we shouldn't hex each other."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 01:42 am (UTC)

"Most people never screw it up that bad."

occluminous
2013-03-31 05:56 am (UTC)

"Are you trying especially hazardous experiments or are you just really accident-prone?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 12:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm used to experimenting with electronics, not magic," she explains. "That stuff catches fire regularly when you don't know what you're doing. But Mom says it's a good idea to get in the habit of being safe about stuff, even when it's less dangerous."

occluminous
2013-03-31 02:51 pm (UTC)

"That does make sense," agrees Bella. "They did go an awfully long way to reassure us about how competent the school healer is..."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 02:59 pm (UTC)

"...huh," says Tony, "you know, I didn't realize until just now, but Muggles are way more concerned about people getting hurt than magic people are."

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:00 pm (UTC)

"The reassurances about the healer did sound very, um, magical," says Bella. "I guess he can do a lot better and a lot faster than a Muggle doctor, so that makes sense."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 03:01 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, exactly. But I mean, from the point of view of the experimenter, it makes a lot more sense to try not to get hurt in the first place."

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:04 pm (UTC)

"Right. Otherwise your experiment's ruined and also you spend some time being hurt."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 03:05 pm (UTC)

"Exactly!" she repeats.

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:06 pm (UTC)

"So I will stop casting unfamiliar spells over lunch, I think, even if the ones I tried so far worked okay without exploding or anything," Bella nods to herself.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 03:09 pm (UTC)

"I mean, probably nothing's going to explode even if you get it wrong," says Tony, "but there are spells that do, and you don't always know which ones are which without trying it."

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:11 pm (UTC)

"You'd think they'd annotate the textbooks. Little symbols. 'May explode if done wrong'. 'Type A blood types allergic to this spell'. Whatever."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 03:13 pm (UTC)

"There should be safety data sheets," Tony agrees. "But there's not. 'Cause that's a Muggle thing. Around here they just send you to the healers if you accidentally melt your face off."

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:18 pm (UTC)

"Because that's a Muggle thing? I sorta got that wizards and witches are weird about Muggles, but so weird that they won't take good ideas from them even?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 03:22 pm (UTC)

"According to most magic people you'll meet, who aren't actually married to one, and sometimes not even then, there's no such thing as a good idea from a Muggle. And then they don't think of stuff like SDS because the healers are so much better it doesn't even really look like a concern. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. It makes sense, right?"

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:24 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I've only had a couple days to look at the culture, and almost all the other kids who came before today were raised by all Muggles like me. That sounds bad, though, if magic people are rejecting good Muggle ideas just because of where they came from and not anything about the idea."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 03:26 pm (UTC)

"That's life," shrugs Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:27 pm (UTC)

"But it's bad. Well, maybe that's what I'll do when I grow up, is find all the ideas that magic people are dumb not to use and dress them up so they can look at them right? And I'm a witch, not a Muggle, so maybe people will listen to me, when I'm grown up."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 03:28 pm (UTC)

"You're Muggle-born," says Sherlock. "Unfortunately, that seems to make a difference."

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:29 pm (UTC)

"...That's just racist."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 03:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:31 pm (UTC)

"I probably need to know more about that, I guess. What kind of difference? To who, everybody?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 03:33 pm (UTC)

"...I have conclusions but I can't articulate them," he admits after a moment.

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Can you turn the conclusions directly into advice?" asks Bella. "I mean, I'd also like articulation but I'll take what I can get."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 03:49 pm (UTC)

He hesitates again, then says, "Pointing out the obvious prejudice that everyone displays and denies is usually counterproductive."

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:52 pm (UTC)

"...That's going to be hard," muses Bella, "leaving it be."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 03:53 pm (UTC)

"It is not universally counterproductive. But often."

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:56 pm (UTC)

"What are the signs for when it's worth saying something? Besides, like, somebody telling me useful things like you are doing now, not that there's anything to say something about in your case."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 03:57 pm (UTC)

"Nothing I am confident describing."
Edited 2013-03-31 15:58 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-03-31 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Keep me posted as you think on it?" asks Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 04:00 pm (UTC)

"I will tell you of solid conclusions when I have any."

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:03 pm (UTC)

"I can use tentative conclusions, too," Bella points out. "They'll at least give me something to go on even if I can't - trust my weight to them."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 04:04 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head.

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Nothing you can put in words?" sighs Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 04:17 pm (UTC)

He nods.

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Oh well." Bella finished eating a while ago. "After lunch do you want to see our room?" she asks Tony. "I took the bottom bunk, I hope that's okay."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:25 pm (UTC)

"I didn't bring any decorations or anything, or a lot of stuff besides school supplies, but I have an owl so her stuff is in there. Do you guys have familiars?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 04:26 pm (UTC)

"I've got an eagle," says Tony. "Her name's Nike."

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:27 pm (UTC)

"An eagle, ooh," says Bella. "Does she do letters or is she just a pet? My owl's called Euterpe."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 04:28 pm (UTC)

"She'll do letters if she feels like it."

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:30 pm (UTC)

"Is that usually?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I haven't had her that long."

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Has she ever done a letter or do you just figure she would if she were in the mood since that's what being in the mood means?" laughs Bella.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I asked."

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:37 pm (UTC)

"...Do magic eagles talk? Euterpe's pretty clever but she can't exactly answer questions."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 04:48 pm (UTC)

"She doesn't use words, but she can make herself pretty well understood."

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:50 pm (UTC)

"How? Maybe I need to pay closer attention to Euterpe."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 04:53 pm (UTC)

"...I dunno, she just... does stuff," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:54 pm (UTC)

"Maybe she'll show me sometime," says Bella.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 04:55 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs.

occluminous
2013-03-31 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Euterpe makes musical little noises. It's why I named her that. I thought owls just hooted till I was in a shopful of them."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 05:25 pm (UTC)

"I wanted a raven," says Sherlock, "because ravens speak, but the shop was out and there hasn't been time to go back."

occluminous
2013-03-31 05:41 pm (UTC)

"That's a pity they were out," says Bella. "Are you going to go back later? Can you mail-order them? I wonder how mail-ordering a mail-delivering bird would work. Maybe you borrow somebody's owl and then later you get two owls back, with a receipt on your new owl's leg. How much do ravens know how to say? Is it like parrots or are they really smart?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 05:43 pm (UTC)

"...The way that they speak is similar to the way that parrots speak."

occluminous
2013-03-31 05:44 pm (UTC)

"That's an awfully complete sentence," observes Bella. "Did I say something insensitive about parrots? Are parrots smart?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 06:07 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea how smart parrots are. I have never spoken to one. Nor to a raven."

occluminous
2013-03-31 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

Bella is quiet for a moment, then says, "I wonder if I ought to be a vegetarian or something. I didn't think owls were smarter than chickens, before I met Euterpe. I'm still not sure if owls are smarter than chickens, but they're brighter than I expected."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 06:11 pm (UTC)

Sherlock shrugs.

occluminous
2013-03-31 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I bet there is a book on it in the library." Bella writes down that she should check this out.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 06:28 pm (UTC)

"It's weird that everybody's not vegetarian, though," says Tony. "If chickens are as smart as owls."

occluminous
2013-03-31 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't think it's that weird. There used to be, like, slavery, with slaves who were actually humans," says Bella. "If chickens are smart as magic owls, then it's bad for people to eat them, but not weird."

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 06:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock nods.

occluminous
2013-03-31 06:38 pm (UTC)

"But I don't care about whether I'm weird or not if being weird would make me better," says Bella. "I mean, I might care a little, if people made fun of me, but I think being a vegetarian is probably not strange enough to be a big deal there."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 06:53 pm (UTC)

Tony opens her mouth.

Tony closes her mouth.

Tony says, slowly, "...Has anybody told you about house elves yet?"

occluminous
2013-03-31 06:59 pm (UTC)

"...No?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 07:20 pm (UTC)

"They are a species of magical creature with humanlike intelligence, significant magical ability, and an obsessive need to act as servants."

occluminous
2013-03-31 07:21 pm (UTC)

Bella stares at Sherlock openmouthed for a long, long moment.

"...Go on?" she manages finally.

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 07:23 pm (UTC)

"What more do you want to know?"

occluminous
2013-03-31 07:27 pm (UTC)

"How did they get that way? Are there lots? Do they like it or just have to like some people have to wash their hands and stuff?"

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 07:30 pm (UTC)

"I have never met an elf," says Sherlock.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 07:32 pm (UTC)

"They're a lot rarer than humans, but not that rare," says Tony. "A lot of the old pureblood families have a few around, and some big institutions like schools or the wizard rail."

occluminous
2013-03-31 07:33 pm (UTC)

"So there might be some here," says Bella.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Probably," says Tony. "If food appears in front of you at meals, that's elves."

occluminous
2013-03-31 07:40 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah, it does. I should meet some elves and find out if they're okay and if they need help and if they need help I'll learn how to help them," says Bella, writing this down in her notebook too.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 07:42 pm (UTC)

"Good luck," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-31 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! D'you want to help, if I find something that needs doing?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 07:47 pm (UTC)

"...I guess? I mean, I don't really know how. Or even what I'd be helping with."

occluminous
2013-03-31 07:52 pm (UTC)

"Well, me either, that's why I'm going to find out," says Bella.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Okay. So if you come up with something I actually can help with, and there's no good reason not to, I will."

occluminous
2013-03-31 07:54 pm (UTC)

"Cool!" says Bella. "What about you?" she adds to Sherlock.

nobodyelse
2013-03-31 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh, as Tony, of course."

occluminous
2013-03-31 08:13 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," Bella grins. "Tony, you done eating? I can show you where we live."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 08:16 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

occluminous
2013-03-31 08:19 pm (UTC)

Through the halls they go! "Our hall is called Analisa Hall," Bella says. "Which one is Sherlock in? Maybe he's close by."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I forget," laughs Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-31 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh well. Here we are."

The door has construction paper stuck to it with magic, and the construction paper is markered up with: ANTOINETTE STARK, ISABELLA SWAN.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Aw, man," says Tony. "I almost wanna fix it, but that would probably be like, vandalism."

She compromises, and sticks up a post-it over 'Antoinette' that says TONY.

occluminous
2013-03-31 08:51 pm (UTC)

Bella laughs and opens the door. They don't have keys, just wand attunements; she has to tap the handle first, though no spellcasting is involved. Her vine wand and not her hazel one will open this door. She supposes she'll be in trouble if something happens to the vine.

Euterpe greets them with a trill.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 09:13 pm (UTC)

Tony immediately opens the window, but no eagle swoops in to greet her. She shrugs.

occluminous
2013-03-31 09:16 pm (UTC)

"The little info sheet I got with Euterpe says she should be able to find me even if I go someplace and don't tell her," says Bella. "Are eagles the same?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 09:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Tony. "Nike's kind of in and out - she sleeps on her perch maybe two nights in three. But she always finds me when she wants to."

occluminous
2013-03-31 09:24 pm (UTC)

"When did you get her?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Two weeks ago?" she hazards. "Ish?"

occluminous
2013-03-31 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Say, if you live in New York, how come you're going to school here? I got the idea it was geographical. My letters said because of dual residence I could pick between here and Texarcana. I picked here because I didn't have much to go on but it sounded more my speed."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's a... yeah," says Tony. "It's complicated. But the short answer is my mom's rich and she wants us to go here so we do."

occluminous
2013-03-31 09:31 pm (UTC)

"How come she wanted you to go here?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Because... of things," Tony says vaguely. "Look, sorry, it's just that it's not entirely my story."

occluminous
2013-03-31 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Okay." Bella shuffles the orientation papers that are stuck into her notebook till she finds her schedule. "Do you happen to know what Brooms is, is there going to be some kinda chore rotation?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Brooms," Tony says cheerfully, "are for flying."

occluminous
2013-03-31 09:45 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks. "Flying? Really, I get to learn to fly?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 09:45 pm (UTC)

"Really really!"

occluminous
2013-03-31 09:50 pm (UTC)

"Wow. If I knew 'athletics' might mean 'flying' I would've more strongly considered Texarcana," marvels Bella. "Of course with my luck I'm probably just as clumsy in the air as I am on the ground, but maybe not!"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Only one way to find out," Tony says cheerfully. "Mom won't let me get a broom until I learn how to fly one in school, because she says I'm going to crash for sure and the school's got faster access to healers."
Edited 2013-03-31 22:11 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-03-31 10:17 pm (UTC)

"So they're generally dangerous, or she just knows you and flying?" Bella asks.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Um... yes," says Tony. "I think 'yes' is the answer to that question."
Edited 2013-03-31 22:20 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-03-31 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Heh. Still. Flying. That's gonna be awesome. ...Are brooms really expensive? Do you think we'll be allowed to use school ones outside classes?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Brooms are kinda like... bicycles," says Tony. "Good ones are expensive, crappy ones not so much."

occluminous
2013-03-31 10:28 pm (UTC)

"And crappy ones have one speed and look dorky but they still work?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Yep!"

occluminous
2013-03-31 10:31 pm (UTC)

"Awesome. I know what I want for Christmas. Probably not enough notice for it to be a birthday present, since that's in less than two weeks."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Aww, your birthday's in two weeks?" says Tony. "I should get you a present. I'll get you a broom!"

occluminous
2013-03-31 10:38 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks. "Uh, really?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:40 pm (UTC)

"...Sure, why not?"

occluminous
2013-03-31 10:44 pm (UTC)

"A, um, bicycle-sized present is kind of big, isn't it?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, they're not as big as bikes," Tony assures her brightly. "Well, some of 'em are a little longer, but they're not as tall, they're pretty much one-dimensional. Mom's eagle owl could carry one no problem."

occluminous
2013-03-31 10:52 pm (UTC)

"I mean - sized as in significance? ...Price?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:53 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Tony. "Right. Yeah. I mentioned we're super rich, right?"

occluminous
2013-03-31 10:54 pm (UTC)

"And that means you're allowed to buy your brand new roommate a flying broomstick for her birthday in a week and a half?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 10:55 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-31 11:04 pm (UTC)

"...Okay, I won't owl my parents about it then," laughs Bella. "When's your birthday?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 11:05 pm (UTC)

"April twelfth!"

occluminous
2013-03-31 11:07 pm (UTC)

Bella writes this down: Tony and Sherlock's birthday April 12.

"So is Sherlock just something wizards name their kids, are there gonna be six in our class?" she asks conversationally.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 11:08 pm (UTC)

"No-o," says Tony. "Wizards do name their kids all kinds of weird shit, though."

occluminous
2013-03-31 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Like what?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Lots of Latin and Greek and constellations and stuff like that," she says. "I dunno, I can't think of any examples, you'll see what I mean."

occluminous
2013-03-31 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I did notice some weird names on the hall doors but I thought it might be a coincidence," says Bella. "Clytemnestra and Libra and Prima and stuff."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, see?" says Tony.

occluminous
2013-03-31 11:27 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why. Your name's relatively normal."

sparksflying
2013-03-31 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, my mom's family is pretty modern that way, her name's Maria."

occluminous
2013-03-31 11:33 pm (UTC)

"The funny names are an old-fashioned thing, not just a magical person thing?"

sparksflying
2013-03-31 11:35 pm (UTC)

"They're a 'magical people are old-fashioned' thing. Kind of."

occluminous
2013-03-31 11:48 pm (UTC)

"Whereabouts besides names?" asks Bella curiously.

sparksflying
2013-03-31 11:50 pm (UTC)

"...You've noticed the clothes, right?" she says. "And, like, the architecture? And the cars? Oh, man, the cars."

occluminous
2013-03-31 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't pay a lot of attention to people's clothes, but now that you mention it... I didn't know if the architecture was old-fashioned or just elaborate and not compromising for things like air conditioning. I wasn't paying a lot of attention to car models on the Automagicka."
Edited 2013-03-31 23:57 (UTC)

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:02 am (UTC)

"Magic people's cars tend to be old," says Tony. "And not even, like, vintage. The crappy kind of old. I mean, once in a while you get a classy old 'Vette or something, but most of the time it's sixty-year-old crapmobiles."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:04 am (UTC)

"I know almost nothing about cars," shrugs Bella. "My mom has a station wagon and what I know about it is it's white. My dad just drives his police car."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:06 am (UTC)

"I know lots about cars," Tony says proudly.

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:07 am (UTC)

"Are cars interesting? Compared to magic?" asks Bella skeptically.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:09 am (UTC)

"...Uh..."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:10 am (UTC)

"Well, maybe they are, I wouldn't know," says Bella, "but you have a magic mom, if my mom was magic I don't think I'd know a single other thing, I'd just spend all my time reading about it and asking questions about it."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:11 am (UTC)

Tony is now frowning.

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:12 am (UTC)

"What?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:14 am (UTC)

"...Nothing," she sighs. "I don't know."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:16 am (UTC)

"I didn't, like, offend you, did I? I don't want to go around offending people just because I was raised by Muggles and don't know what's okay to say."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:20 am (UTC)

"That's the weird thing," says Tony, "you were raised by Muggles but you're talking like a clueless pureblood. I shouldn't have to tell you that Muggles are capable of inventing some cool stuff that magic can't handle as well, that should be something you already know. You've seen a computer before, right?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:21 am (UTC)

"Computers are cool, sure," says Bella. "But magic - magic is just cheating at cool."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:24 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Tony. "To you. To me they're both ordinary levels of cool."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:26 am (UTC)

"I guess that's fair," agrees Bella. "Maybe I'll get all used to magic and then it'll only be about like computers." Pause. "I think that would be sad, though."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:29 am (UTC)

"In no way would that be sad," Tony says definitively. "You just think that because you don't appreciate how cool computers are."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:31 am (UTC)

"No, I mean - I don't feel amazed about computers. If I got less amazed about magic, that would be sad. Maybe it would be okay if I got more amazed about computers instead."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:32 am (UTC)

"I'm amazed about both of them!" says Tony. "But only a little, 'cause I'm used to them both."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:34 am (UTC)

"I want there to be, like, more and more coolness in my life, and more and more feeling amazed about it, not less."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:35 am (UTC)

"The trick is, it takes cooler and cooler things to get the feeling, but all you have to do is keep learning how to do cooler stuff all the time."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:37 am (UTC)

"Exactly. And now I'm going to magic school and I get to, and, I mean, I could have learned computers, too, but I'd have to spend a long time just getting to be able to understand stuff that isn't new to me as a finished thing even if I didn't already know how to put it together. All magic is new to me except my little poems which they don't even teach here because they're too trivial, so it starts sort of at full speed, you know?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:38 am (UTC)

"Yeah," she says, nodding, "I get what you mean."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:40 am (UTC)

"Tomorrow I get to learn to fly," says Bella, squirming with joy.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:42 am (UTC)

Tony giggles. "You're really cute!"

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:43 am (UTC)

"Well, I'm excited! I didn't know people could fly. Why did I have to take a bus here, anyway, why didn't we all go on a - a train of broomsticks or something?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:49 am (UTC)

"...Because that would be hilariously impractical?" she suggests.

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:50 am (UTC)

"Not so good for mass transit?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:53 am (UTC)

"The latest in flying mass transit is still Thestral-drawn carriages," says Tony. "Those're flying winged horses you can only see if you've seen somebody die."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:53 am (UTC)

"Why can you only see them if you've seen somebody die?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:55 am (UTC)

"I dunno," she says, "because they're magic and that's how they work?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:56 am (UTC)

"Is there nobody who figures this stuff out?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 12:57 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Tony, "but I am not that person."

occluminous
2013-04-01 12:59 am (UTC)

"Oh. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time in the library, I think. Can thestrals see each other? Can animals see them?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 01:02 am (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure they can see each other or I have a hard time imagining how you'd get new Thestrals," she says. "No idea about other animals."

occluminous
2013-04-01 01:03 am (UTC)

"But you have to see a person die to get to see them, not, like, a spider."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 01:05 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

occluminous
2013-04-01 01:06 am (UTC)

"That is weird. Do people who aren't humans count?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 01:09 am (UTC)

Tony shrugs helplessly.

occluminous
2013-04-01 01:10 am (UTC)

"Sorry," laughs Bella. "Just, you're there, and the librarian isn't back from vacation till tomorrow morning so I can't go look it up in the library right now."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 01:11 am (UTC)

"It's cool," she laughs.

occluminous
2013-04-01 01:12 am (UTC)

Bella writes all of her questions down for later. "It would be only fair if you interrogated me, but I suppose I don't even maybe know anything you really want to know."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 01:34 am (UTC)

"I don't really have that many pressing questions about, like, stuff," Tony admits.

occluminous
2013-04-01 01:38 am (UTC)

"Well, if you think of any, you can ask me," Bella says.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 01:41 am (UTC)

"Deal."

occluminous
2013-04-01 01:42 am (UTC)

"I'm going to go to the kitchen and see if there are house-elves in it, as long as I can't go to the library," says Bella. "You want to come?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 01:45 am (UTC)

She hesitates, then shakes her head.

"Nah, go ahead, I better unpack. And I wanna be here in case Nike shows up."

occluminous
2013-04-01 01:48 am (UTC)

"Okay." Bella points at Euterpe. "You be friendly with her eagle, okay?"

Euterpe whinny-hoots.

"I'm going to take that as a yes." And she's off to the kitchens.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:00 am (UTC)

The kitchens are moderately difficult to locate.

They do contain elves - small large-eyed floppy-eared personlike creatures wearing a ragged but meticulously clean assortment of (sometimes not very) clothing-like items.

They also contain one human, not very much older than Bella. He glances up once when she enters the room, and then goes right back to washing dishes by hand while the elves cluster around her.

"Is miss lost?"

"Does miss want something to eat?"

"There are lots of snacks for miss if she wants them!"

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:09 am (UTC)

"I'm Bella," Bella tells the elves. "I don't need a snack, I just wanted to meet some elves. I've never met any before, you see, and I only found out about you a little while ago." She peers at the human, but doesn't address him.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:13 am (UTC)

"Now miss has met some elves!" says an elf.

"Would miss like a snack anyway?" asks another.

"There are lots of snacks for miss," a third reminds her.

The human boy continues to wash dishes; one of the elves who is at the fringe of the Bella-centric cluster darts away to help rinse and dry.

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:18 am (UTC)

"I'm not hungry," says Bella. "Are you all very busy? I don't want to interrupt you if you don't have time to just talk."

"Us is kitchen elves, miss, kitchen is always busy except when it's time for sleeping," says an elf.

"Library elves," says one derisively, "sometimes have spare time."

"Oh," says Bella. "Well, all right, thank you for letting me know."

"Would miss like a snack to take to the library?" asks an elf. "There is gingersnaps and fresh potato chips!"

"...I will try a little bit of each," Bella says, tempted. "I can't go to the library, though, it's closed till tomorrow."

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:21 am (UTC)

"I helped with the gingersnaps," says the human, not looking up from his washing but smiling down at the dishes. The elf who's helping him gives an exaggerated sniff of disapproval, then looks up at him with a smile, as though sharing some private joke.

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:23 am (UTC)

Bella accepts the offered snacks in their little Chinese takeout style boxes. "You just like to cook?" she guesses. She eats a gingersnap. "They're yummy."

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:26 am (UTC)

"I love to cook," says the human, grinning.

"Feral Orphan comes and helps every chance he gets," says the elf who's drying dishes. "But only when he is allowed."

This is clearly another joke between them.

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:27 am (UTC)

"...Feral Orphan?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:28 am (UTC)

"Yep," says the human. "You can call me Feral."

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:30 am (UTC)

"Is this just another case of magic people naming their kids funny things, because that doesn't sound Greek or old-fashioned."

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:31 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Feral. "Muggle-born. The name says it all."

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:34 am (UTC)

"It... really doesn't," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:35 am (UTC)

"Does too," he snorts, and goes back to his dishes.

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:35 am (UTC)

"Well, I mean, it's a phrase, it means a thing, but it doesn't explain why you'd be named that."

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:38 am (UTC)

"'Cause I am one," he says. "No name, no parents, gotta have something to write on the forms."

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:39 am (UTC)

"And they didn't just call you the wizard equivalent of John Doe? Seriously?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:41 am (UTC)

He grins. "Well, they could've. But Feral Orphan's what they wrote down first, and I like it better."

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:42 am (UTC)

"You've got funny taste, Feral," laughs Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-01 02:44 am (UTC)

"You are not the first person to say that!" says Feral, grinning. "Now scram or start helping with dinner, we've got sh—stuff to do around here."

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:45 am (UTC)

Bella laughs, and she thanks the nearest elf for the snacks, and she scrams.

bedknobs and broomsticks

occluminous

After dinner, while Bella is squirreled away in her and Tony's room reading her History textbook as though it's a fantasy novel (for the two bear significant resemblance)...

Artemis Burberry is in her room, on Patricia Hall, lamenting to her great horned owl about the lack of relatively private fireplaces for Floo calls here, and wondering where her roommate is.

(Who names their daughter "Sherlock", anyway?)

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 02:56 am (UTC)

The door opens.

occluminous
2013-04-01 02:59 am (UTC)

Artemis glances over her shoulder.

"Wrong hall," she says. "You probably want Parker Hall, they're right next to each other in the directory."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 03:00 am (UTC)

"My wand opens the door," he observes quietly.

occluminous
2013-04-01 03:01 am (UTC)

"Well, they screwed up, then, didn't they, I'm rooming with some girl named Sherlock."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 03:02 am (UTC)

"I am Sherlock," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-04-01 03:03 am (UTC)

"What, there's two people in the same year named Sherlock? No wonder you got mixed up. Look, I got here early because my dad was too busy to take me shopping, I know my way around, what's your hall called?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 03:04 am (UTC)

"Patricia," he says with enforced calm.

occluminous
2013-04-01 03:05 am (UTC)

"But - that's this hall." Pause. "This is a girls' hall."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 03:05 am (UTC)

"I noticed," he says flatly.
Edited 2013-04-01 03:06 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-01 03:07 am (UTC)

"So... you're a girl?" ask Artemis dubiously. "Merlin's knees, are you some kind of cross-dresser? Eugh, I knew I should've gone to Charmbridge..."
Edited 2013-04-01 05:00 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 12:17 pm (UTC)

"If it is your opinion that I should have been given a room in a boys' hall," he says, "I can only say I agree completely. Unfortunately the administration does not."

occluminous
2013-04-01 04:35 pm (UTC)

"What are you, though, what kind of demented freak did they put me with, I will complain, Dad will sue the place, you shouldn't be around people till you've been a few years at the hospital to get straightened out in the head, did you get in the way of a Confundus or what, eugh," and, clutching her wand with what might be nervousness, Artemis surges to her feet and marches past him, heading for the stairwell to find someone suitably official to object to his presence at.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 04:46 pm (UTC)

Sherlock stands very still until she is out of the hall.

Then he also leaves.

occluminous
2013-04-01 04:53 pm (UTC)

It's not quite twenty minutes later when a gray-haired woman with a badge labeled Residence Director, accompanied by a recently-crying sixth grader, knocks on Tony and Bella's door.

Bella hops up to get it, and blinks.

"Miss Stark?" says the Residence Director. Bella sits back down, as this isn't about her, but she listens.

The recently crying sixth grader points at Tony. "That's her, they're identical, it just makes it even more ridiculous -"

"Miss Stark, I was wondering if I could have a word with you about your sister?"

Bella blinks.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Talk," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-04-01 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Well, first of all, Miss Stark, at ACAAM we have a policy about politeness to staff, but I understand you're probably confused, so I'll let this slide. Your sister apparently has some - habits - that have distressed her roommate - and I was wondering if you could shed any light on the matter before I have to call your parents about it? I'm sure you can see Miss Burberry is distressed."

Miss Burberry does look reasonably distressed.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 04:59 pm (UTC)

"You put my brother in a girl's room," says Tony. "I'm not surprised somebody ended up distressed."

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:02 pm (UTC)

"The enrollment records are magically maintained, Miss Stark, and it clearly indicates that your only sibling here is your sister Sherlock."

"She thinks she's a boy? She's got you convinced? Were you playing with your parents' wands or something to mess her up?" Miss Burberry mutters.

"And to complicate matters, the other Miss Stark is not currently in any of the locations designated for student access," the Residence Director adds.

Bella is frowning now.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Tony. "Still not surprised. What do you want me to do about it?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Well, perhaps you could explain exactly what the matter with your sister is and we can work out some sort of plan to make sure she isn't alarming anyone?"

"Why didn't you just room Tony and Sherlock together?" asks Bella.

"Miss Swan, this conversation isn't about you," says the Residence Director.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 05:08 pm (UTC)

"My brother doesn't like it when people call him a girl," says Tony. "Why don't you try giving him a single?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Miss Stark," says the Residence Director, "if you have a brother, he is not in attendance at ACAAM. We are talking about your sister Sherlock. She cannot have a single because the limited number of available single rooms are all occupied, and most of them are on the halls reserved for the higher grades."

"Why didn't you just room them together, though," Bella says, "is there a rule against putting siblings together?"

"Yes, Miss Swan, as a matter of fact there is," says the Residence Director testily, "because one of the advantages of schooling over home education is integrating with the broader magical community, meeting more types of people, and coming to the understanding that one cannot stick solely to the company of one's family. The Miss Starks will not be rooming together. Ideally we will discover the issue with Sherlock's reference to herself as though she were a boy - and Antoinette's too, come to think of it - and we will find a way for Sherlock and Miss Burberry to room together peacefully."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 05:18 pm (UTC)

Tony turns to Bella.

"Would you room with him?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:19 pm (UTC)

"I was just thinking that," says Bella. "But that leaves you with Miss Burberry, doesn't it?"

The Residence Director frowns.

Miss Burberry looks at Tony dubiously.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 05:22 pm (UTC)

Tony looks at Miss Burberry.

"Yep," she says. "Which won't be fun for either of us, but it'll be better than the other way around by a long shot, right?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess," says Bella. "Can we do that, Ms...?"

"Fish. Ms. Fish," says the Residence Director. "Miss Burberry, will that be acceptable to you?"

"Is she going to keep calling her sister a he," Miss Burberry mutters.

"I believe that will be a matter between her and the school healer. Will Antoinette be an acceptable roommate, Miss Burberry?"

"Yeah, I guess," grumbles Miss Burberry. "But I don't want to move."

"Sherlock had no opportunity to settle into her originally assigned room, so I imagine it will make sense for you to stay where you are and for this Miss Stark to take her sister's assigned place. I have every confidence that you will be able to arrange this without adult help. I, meanwhile, need to find where the other Miss Stark has gotten to - unless you know, Miss Stark?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Tony. "Not a clue."

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:37 pm (UTC)

Miss Fish sighs. Then she taps the doorknob with her wand to adjust which wand-taps it will respond to, and the papers on the door to change the post-its and construction paper into an adjusted version reflecting its new occupants. "Miss Burberry, perhaps you would like to lead this Miss Stark to her new room."

"Sure, fine," says Miss Burberry.

"Point Me Miss Sherlock Stark," says Ms. Fish, laying her wand flat in her palm. Her wand spins helplessly. "I said, Point Me Sherlock Stark!" This time it gives her a direction, and off she goes.

"Come on," Miss Burberry sighs at Tony, "it's on Patricia Hall."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 05:43 pm (UTC)

Tony packs up her stuff. She didn't bring a whole lot of stuff, so it doesn't take much packing. Her eagle gear is last; she just hooks the perch over her shoulder and follows Miss Burberry out.

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:46 pm (UTC)

Miss Burberry shows her to the room in Patricia, revealing in so doing her first name. Ms. Fish's change to Bella's room's door apparently propagated to Artemis's door too, which now says it is occupied by Artemis Burberry and Antoinette Stark instead, and the door will presumably open to Tony's wand now.

Meanwhile, Ms. Fish is making unsteady progress to what turns out to be the roof.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 05:47 pm (UTC)

Tony corrects her name with another post-it and unpacks her stuff. She doesn't talk to Artemis at all.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 05:51 pm (UTC)

Sherlock has found himself a cozy little space between two chimneys, just barely large enough for him to tuck himself into, and he is sitting in it completely motionless with his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around his knees.

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:53 pm (UTC)

A non-interaction policy seems fine with Artemis.

"Miss Stark," says Ms. Fish from the little outlet from the attic to the roof. "Students are not allowed on the roof. Come here now."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 05:54 pm (UTC)

Sherlock does not respond.

occluminous
2013-04-01 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Miss Stark, if you do not come off of the roof at once, there will be disciplinary consequences. That would certainly not improve the already inauspicious start to your first year at ACAAM."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 05:57 pm (UTC)

Sherlock continues not to respond.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:02 pm (UTC)

Ms. Fish sighs, and casts a Summoning Charm with sufficient force to unwedge Sherlock from the chimneys and call him into a sprawling heap at the stair landing. "In the future, perhaps you will be more responsive to faculty instructions. You will spend your next afternoon free period assisting Mr. Rothschild in the greenhouses with whatever he asks you to do; this will appear on your schedule in case you forget. At any rate, Miss Stark, your sister has generously agreed to exchange roommates with you. Perhaps you will find Miss Swan more amenable to your - habits."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:03 pm (UTC)

He looks at her.

He says nothing.

He starts down the stairs.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:06 pm (UTC)

Ms. Fish follows him. "I am making an appointment for you with the school healer, which will also appear on your schedule," she says with a flick of her wand. "I will leave it up to his discretion whether your parents should be contacted or not."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:07 pm (UTC)

Sherlock has no response to that, either.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:08 pm (UTC)

Their paths diverge after they've descended the flight of stairs from the attic to the topmost hall. "Do you know the way to Analisa Hall, Miss Stark?" inquires Ms. Fish.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:10 pm (UTC)

He keeps walking.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I advise you in the strongest possible terms, Miss Stark, to adjust your attitude," Ms. Fish snaps, sticking Sherlock's feet to the floor with a jab of her wand and marching around him to glare down at his face. "Your continued presence at this school is contingent on acceptable behavior. You have already antagonized your assigned roommate past endurance, earned a detention in advance of the beginning of your very first sixth grade classes, and obliged me to use magic to receive compliance on two occasions. I will not assign you further punishments for your rudeness if you will answer my perfectly reasonable question now. Do you know how to get to Analisa Hall?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Thank you. That will be all." Ms. Fish releases his feet and goes the other way down the corridor.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:18 pm (UTC)

Sherlock goes to Tony's former room, which is now his.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:19 pm (UTC)

Bella is still there. She puts her book down when Sherlock appears. "Hi," she says. "Wow, you got a terrible roommate, didn't you? But now you've got me instead. I'm not terrible."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

"You are not terrible," he agrees.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Is this just," Bella says, "another thing magic people are old-fashioned about?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:21 pm (UTC)

"It seems that it is."

He finds a chair not in use and sits on it.
Edited 2013-04-01 18:30 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:31 pm (UTC)

Pause.

"Do you want a hug?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:32 pm (UTC)

Somewhat longer pause.

"...Yes."

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:32 pm (UTC)

Bella gets up and goes over to him and hugs him.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:32 pm (UTC)

He leans into her a little.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:33 pm (UTC)

Bella is good at hugs. This one goes on for a bit, and then she lets him go. "So, I took the bottom bunk, and I don't have a lot of things but I'm not all that neat with them, do you care?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:34 pm (UTC)

"No."

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:35 pm (UTC)

"Okay, good. Where's your stuff? Do you need help unpacking or anything?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:41 pm (UTC)

"It is all with me," he says. "I do not need help unpacking."

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Do you have even less stuff than I do, or is it magic?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:42 pm (UTC)

He considers this question, then concludes, "Yes."

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:43 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "What kind of magic? Is it like - is your little bag like the school bus, bigger on the inside?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:43 pm (UTC)

He nods.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Cool. I love magic," sighs Bella happily.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:46 pm (UTC)

He smiles slightly.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:46 pm (UTC)

Bella picks up her textbook again and reads.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:53 pm (UTC)

After a while, Sherlock leaves his bag on his chair and climbs up to the top bunk.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:54 pm (UTC)

Bella reads very quietly. And takes notes very quietly. She doesn't want to disturb him.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:55 pm (UTC)

Sherlock makes absolutely no sound at all. Apparently he sleeps like the dead.

occluminous
2013-04-01 06:56 pm (UTC)

At the sensible hour of nine thirty p.m., Bella turns out the light, closes her book and her notebook, and changes into her pajamas and slips into the bottom bunk for the night.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 06:57 pm (UTC)

When she wakes up in the morning, he is not in the room.

Early bird, apparently.

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:00 pm (UTC)

So it would seem!

Bella changes into her school clothes and consults her schedule and packs up her morning textbooks and materials, and she's off to breakfast. Is there anybody she recognizes around?

sparksflying
2013-04-01 07:05 pm (UTC)

Well, there's Tony!

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

Awesome! Bella collects her breakfast and goes and sits with Tony. "Hi. How's Miss Burberry to live with, are you doing okay?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 07:08 pm (UTC)

"We pretty much ignore each other. Working out fine so far. How's Sherry? Have you seen him?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:10 pm (UTC)

"He was gone when I woke up. Morning person, I guess," Bella says. "He did go to bed before I did."

sparksflying
2013-04-01 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Tony. "Okay."

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:16 pm (UTC)

"We'll see him in Charms and Potions, anyway," says Bella. "And whatever you two have together without me. I have Magical Defense first, what about you?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Brooms," she says smugly.

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Lucky, I have to wait till after lunch for brooms," says Bella. "But I'm sure all my other stuff will be cool too. Next semester we get electives, I have no idea how I'm going to decide on anything!"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 07:21 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles.

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:22 pm (UTC)

Breakfast om nom nom.

And then Bella consults her map and looks for the Magical Defense classroom. She's decided that she doesn't like the sleeve holster for her second wand; they're both up in her hair now, crossed.
Edited 2013-04-01 19:23 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-01 07:28 pm (UTC)

The Magical Defense classroom is on the second floor of another building.

Correction: it is the second floor.

The number of students in the class is barely enough to fill a third of the enormous room.

Also, there's another familiar face present.

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:29 pm (UTC)

Bella waves to Feral.

pythbox
2013-04-01 07:30 pm (UTC)

Feral waves back, grinning.

Class begins shortly afterward. Despite the room, the teacher seems much more interested in imparting the theory of magical defense than the practice.

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:31 pm (UTC)

That's fine with Bella. She takes notes. For all she knows, this is essential for not defending oneself into a crater of misfired spell.

pythbox
2013-04-01 07:53 pm (UTC)

Feral fidgets. And he doesn't take notes. But he does answer a question, once, when the teacher asks if anyone can name the three Unforgivable Curses.

"...Yes?" she says, seeming a little surprised.

"Imperius, Cruciatus, and the Killing Curse," he says.

"And where did you pick up that information?"

He shrugs carelessly. "Read it somewhere, I guess."

"You are correct," says the teacher. "And who can tell me the reason why they are called Unforgivable?"

No takers this time.

"It is because," she says, "in every lawful wizarding society in the world the use of any one of these curses is punishable by death or worse."

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:55 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks. Or worse? Maybe she'll ask in social studies; it seems potentially off topic here.

She writes her best guess on the spellings of the curse names in her notes, though. She's pretty close - imperious is a word she knows and crushiatus reasonable for a ten-year-old.

pythbox
2013-04-01 07:58 pm (UTC)

The teacher goes on to outline the effects of each curse - mind control, torture, and death - but soon returns to less horrifying topics. Feral doesn't say anything for the rest of class.

occluminous
2013-04-01 07:59 pm (UTC)

Well, those curses sure all sound pretty horrifying. (Although Bella thinks that about half the charms in her Charms book, not to mention certain transfiguration applications, could all certainly torture or kill somebody if used creatively, those are not their only purposes; that's something.)

Bella has magical theory next, which is mostly vocabulary words this early in the year but promises some cool stuff later in the semester. After that she has transfiguration, and she successfully turns a chip of wood into a similarly shaped chunk of iron after spending an entire hour trying (she is neither fastest nor slowest).

Then lunch!
Edited 2013-04-01 20:05 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:10 pm (UTC)

Lunch, indeed!

When she arrives, Feral is there, sitting all alone at a table by the wall. Nobody else in the admittedly sparsely populated room seems interested in talking to him.

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:12 pm (UTC)

Bella looks for the Starks first, but, finding them not in evidence, she goes and sits with Feral. "I thought you looked old enough to be a seventh grader but you're in my Defense class," she observes, plunking down her tray.

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:13 pm (UTC)

"I am a seventh grader," he says cheerfully, "but I'm a really dumb seventh grader, so I'm in a lot of remedial classes. Hi!"

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Hi," says Bella, blinking. "Okay. Is that how you knew about the curses?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "Somebody mentioned 'em and I wanted to know what was so Unforgivable about 'em, so I looked it up."

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:30 pm (UTC)

"They do sound really bad. I don't know about the mind control one, but the other two don't sound all that special, so I'm confused about why they've got their own name all together. There's first-year spells that could hurt or kill somebody," she muses.

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:38 pm (UTC)

"The Killing Curse is unblockable," he explains. "In the whole history of magic there's apparently one guy who's ever survived it, and he did it when he was a baby and nobody knows how. And they don't have guns in magic land, so that really freaks people out."

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:41 pm (UTC)

"Guns are blockable, anyway, that's what bulletproof vests are for," says Bella, but she writes down this information. "I don't suppose you also know what execution or worse is supposed to mean? I thought about asking in social studies but I think it might give -" She glances at her schedule. "Mr. Li the wrong idea."

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Oh, there's these things called Dementors and they can suck your soul out through your mouth," he says brightly. "They're banned six ways to Sunday over here, but in Europe they still use 'em to execute really nasty criminals. You end up with a body walking around with no mind in it."

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:44 pm (UTC)

Bella makes an undignified eep noise.

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:45 pm (UTC)

Feral grins. "I know, right? Magic is nasty sometmes."

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Why are you smiling about it?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Because I think scary stuff is funny," he shrugs.

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:47 pm (UTC)

"Why?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Because I've seen more of it than most people?" he suggests.

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't get how that'd follow."

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, "how about: because I'm screwed up in the head?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I... guess that would be a reason, sort of," acknowledges Bella. "Do we have any other classes together?" She shows him her schedule.

pythbox
2013-04-01 08:55 pm (UTC)

He scans it.

"Charms! Right after lunch."

occluminous
2013-04-01 08:56 pm (UTC)

"So you've taken this level of Charms before, right? What can I expect?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember," he says with a shrug. "Guess we'll find out in a bit!"

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:03 pm (UTC)

...No wonder he's in remedial classes. Bella snorts softly. "My roommate and his sister are in Charms with us," she volunteers.

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Oh, cool," says Feral. "Maybe I'll have friends this year."

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:06 pm (UTC)

"How come you don't have any already?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:09 pm (UTC)

He gives her a look. "Be...cause my name is Feral Orphan and I think Dementors are funny and I can see Thestrals and I hang out with house elves?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I guess that would make it tricky," acknowledges Bella. "Do you have a hard time getting along with your roommate?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:15 pm (UTC)

"Not anymore!" he says cheerfully. "I went through three last year because I set the bed on fire in my sleep sometimes, so they put me in my own room right above the healer's wing."

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:17 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks. "That sounds like a reasonable thing to do if you set things on fire in your sleep," she says, "yeah."

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:19 pm (UTC)

"I never set my roommates on fire," he says, apparently feeling that this is an important distinction, "but they kept claiming I was trying to."

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:20 pm (UTC)

"If you were asleep I don't see how you could've been trying to," says Bella, "but I don't blame them for being scared."

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," he snorts. "Waking up in a burning room is scary."

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Isn't there a magic equivalent of an automatic sprinkler so you could wake up wet instead of surrounded by fire?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Guess not."

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:26 pm (UTC)

"So basically this entire building wouldn't pass Muggle fire code," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "But when practically anybody with a wand can put out a fire, I guess that's less of a problem."

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know how to do it, how do you?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Extinguishing spell," he says. "I can't really show you, though, I'm not supposed to set stuff on fire on purpose."

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:32 pm (UTC)

"You could just not hold your wand and tell me what the incantation and the movement are," she points out. "I've been able to do a couple spells just out of books."

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:34 pm (UTC)

"Look it up in the library, then," he says, "that way I can't get it wrong and screw you up."

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:36 pm (UTC)

"All right," laughs Bella, and she writes this down on her growing list of things to check out in the library when she has a chance after Social Studies, her last class of the day.

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:40 pm (UTC)

It's not very long until Charms. Feral does remember where the room is, and it's the same one, so he offers to walk her there.

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:40 pm (UTC)

Bella goes with him agreeably.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 09:52 pm (UTC)

Sherlock and Tony catch up with them on the way.

"New friend?" inquires Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Bella. "Feral, this is my roommate Sherlock and his sister Tony, Sherlock and Tony, this is Feral, I have Magical Defense with him and he's in Charms with us too."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 09:55 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock, scrutinizing him.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Tony.

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Hi," beams Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-01 09:57 pm (UTC)

Bella opens the door to the Charms classroom and picks a desk in a cluster of empty ones and gets out her textbook.

pythbox
2013-04-01 09:59 pm (UTC)

Feral plops down next to her, textbook-free. The Stark twins, with textbooks, occupy the desks in front of them.

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:06 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you have a book?" Bella asks Feral in an undertone.

pythbox
2013-04-01 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Forgot to bring it," he shrugs. "Can I share yours?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but switch seats with me, then, if you're on my right then my notebook will be between you and the textbook," shrugs Bella, getting up.

pythbox
2013-04-01 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says, and he switches seats.

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:17 pm (UTC)

She sets up in her new seat and arranges her materials and awaits the teacher.

This lesson is on levitation; after various students are called on to read textbook paragraphs aloud and the teacher comments on the described features of the spell, they get assorted light objects (feathers, bits of tissue paper, leaves) to attempt to levitate. The teacher demonstrates - she's working with a book instead, but assures them that the principle is the same and the light objects are just about psychological barriers - and then has them set about their work.

Bella swishes-and-flicks with great care at her provided feather. She doesn't get it right away, so she tries again.

pythbox
2013-04-01 10:18 pm (UTC)

Feral tries once, and his feather rockets right off his desk and hits Tony in the back of the head. "Sorry," he says, giggling.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 10:20 pm (UTC)

She gives him a look over her shoulder, then cracks up and picks the feather out of her hair to hand back to him.

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:22 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles once, not unkindly. "Better than nothing?" she suggests. "Wingardium Leviosa..."

Her feather twitches. Encouraged, she repeats herself.

pythbox
2013-04-01 10:28 pm (UTC)

"Wingardium Leviosa," says Feral, with the appropriate wand movement. His feather leaps straight up into the air, spins madly, and catches fire.

He slashes his wand at it and says, "Exstinguo!" and the fire abruptly goes out. The charred remnants of the feather drift back down onto his desk in a shower of ash.
Edited 2013-04-01 22:28 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:33 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks.

She writes this incantation down, then says, "Is that a hazard of this spell or of you?"

pythbox
2013-04-01 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Me," says Feral. "I do that a lot. I got really good at extinguishing spells over the summer."

He sighs, and tries levitating his charred part-feather. It flips over on the table and breaks in half, scattering more fragments of ash. Without comment, the teacher comes up to provide him with a leaf instead.

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:41 pm (UTC)

"That sounds really inconvenient. No one knows how to make it stop? Wingardium leviosa!" Bella's feather rises two inches, then settles gracefully back on top of her desk.

pythbox
2013-04-01 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Nope. Wingardium leviosa!"

His leaf achieves liftoff - six feet straight up in about a second, then a gentle drift back down. Feral reaches up and catches it gently, saying, "Apparently some people are just like that, and I'll probably grow out of it."

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, good luck." Bella switches wands, vine to hazel, and tries again. The hazel wand is apparently better suited here, and she gets her feather to go several feet into the air and hold still for four seconds before it falls, and then she wafts it upwards another foot, and the teacher comes by and pastes a gold star into her notebook without asking, which puts an expression of extremely mixed feelings on her face.

pythbox
2013-04-01 10:48 pm (UTC)

"What's wrong?" says Feral, setting up his leaf for yet another try. At least it hasn't caught fire yet.

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:50 pm (UTC)

Bella wafts her feather up a bit harder and peels at the sticker; it threatens to tear the page and she smooths it back down. "I don't like people doing things to my notebooks without me saying it's okay." She's only practicing now, not notetaking; she closes the notebook and gives her feather another waft before it touches down and ends the spell.

pythbox
2013-04-01 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Feral. "Okay."

He tries again. This time the leaf ascends more gradually, and holds still for a wobbly half-second before falling.

occluminous
2013-04-01 10:54 pm (UTC)

Bella wafts her feather till she's sure she can do it every time, then she lets it settle, levitates it again, and wafts it some more. After a few repetitions of this she begins to attempt to move it sideways, and has considerably less luck.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 11:05 pm (UTC)

By this time, Tony has managed to get her feather off the table, but not keep it there.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:06 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is still staring motionlessly at his scrap of paper.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:06 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock, are you okay?" Bella asks softly.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Hm? Yes," he says, blinking and shaking his head. "Fine. I'm fine."

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:09 pm (UTC)

"Are... you going to try levitating your bit of paper?" (Waft, waft, c'mon, feather, go horizontally - did it, just an inch? She's not sure - waft, waft.)

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Probably not."

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:14 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:17 pm (UTC)

He doesn't answer.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:18 pm (UTC)

Well, okay then. Bella concentrates on her own feather. She can get it to spin around. It seems maybe easier to get it to go in a direction when the quill is facing in that direction.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:19 pm (UTC)

Sherlock continues to do absolutely nothing.

pythbox
2013-04-01 11:22 pm (UTC)

Feral lights his leaf on fire by accident and Extinguishes it immediately. The teacher comes by to replenish him again.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:26 pm (UTC)

Bella coordinates spinning and lifting her feather so that it does both at the same time, and this proves comparatively simple, but she doesn't manage to get it to also go sideways before the lesson is over.

"I have brooms next," she says, just by way of conversation. She can ask Sherlock why he was so spacey later; he is after all her roommate. "But potions after that, I'll see you guys then?" This last is directed at the twins.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Yep!" says Tony, flashing a grin.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Later," says Bella, and she hurries as quick as she dares to the broomfield.

It turns out that she is not clumsy on a broomstick. She's not a prodigy, either - the title of best in class belongs to this one boy - but she's not clumsy. And once the teacher has been satisfied that they all know how to hold on, they are allowed supervised flight with an altitude limit of forty feet and a speed limit enforced by the school broomsticks themselves, and oh, she can fly, she can fly.

Bella does not actually skip to Potions, but she looks like she would if she'd stay upright in the process, and she's beaming.
Edited 2013-04-01 23:30 (UTC)

sparksflying
2013-04-01 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Awesome, right?" says Tony, when they encounter each other on the way. Sherlock is not currently in evidence.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Yes," say Bella gleefully. "Where's Sherlock?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Oh, he stayed to ask the teacher a question. Did you know Feral's in our Transfigurations class? He's really good, but the teacher barely cared."

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:40 pm (UTC)

"I didn't know that. If he's good why's he in with sixth graders?" Bella asks. There are instructions up on the Potions chalkboard about initial setup; she starts fetching the things she needs.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Don't ask me," snorts Tony. "Is he not a sixth grader?"

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Seventh in a lot of remedial courses, he said," says Bella.

sparksflying
2013-04-01 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, lemme tell ya, he does not belong in remedial Transfigurations."

Tony sets herself up beside Bella.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:44 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what he's doing there then. I guess I'll ask him." Bella squints at the handwriting on the blackboard and takes out her potion kit's little box of newt eyes, and checks that the magical flame under her tiny cauldron works and then turns it off. "What did Sherlock want to ask the teacher?"

sparksflying
2013-04-01 11:45 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, he didn't say."

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:46 pm (UTC)

Sherlock comes in and takes the seat on the far side of Tony.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Sherlock," says Bella. "What did you want to ask the Transfig' teacher?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:47 pm (UTC)

He doesn't appear to hear her; he's setting up his cauldron with excessively particular focus.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:48 pm (UTC)

Bella frowns. He's being peculiarly unfriendly today.

She decides she'll let him ignore her until they are both back in their room this afternoon and then she will ask if she did something to upset him.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:50 pm (UTC)

At least in this class he actually does things.

But he does them with that same overcareful attentiveness, as though the relatively simple task is immensely complex or dangerous.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:52 pm (UTC)

The potions book actually does have some warnings - variously dire or mild lists of problems that will happen if you spill the potion at various stages onto yourself, or other materials that are likely to be nearby, or if you make assorted common mistakes - and all of the warnings about the Moisturizing Unguent are in "this is harmless" blue - it doesn't even stain clothes - so that's weird.

Bella mixes her moisturizing unguent with care because she wants to get it right, but Sherlock is really overdoing it, isn't he?
Edited 2013-04-01 23:53 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:53 pm (UTC)

Yes. Yes he is.

occluminous
2013-04-01 11:57 pm (UTC)

Okay then.

While the students mix, the teacher comments on the properties of the individual ingredients and what each of them is doing to the moisturizer, and Bella takes notes during the simmering stages of the potion when she doesn't have to add anything or stir or anything but keep time and mind the color.

At the end of the lesson, when everyone's potion has been inspected and graded (Bella's is "approximately perfect", but so are most people's, unless they forgot ingredients) the teacher passes around a bunch of vials of optional scents, and jars for them to scoop their unguents into, and Bella makes hers vanilla-cinnamon and jars it and dabs some on her nose and puts it away in her bag.

The teacher uses the last few minutes of classtime to advertise Potions Club. Bella is not particularly interested; there are sure to be other clubs, plus an entire library she hasn't gotten a look at yet.

nobodyelse
2013-04-01 11:59 pm (UTC)

Sherlock's approximately perfect unguent goes into a jar, and Sherlock goes away.

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:01 am (UTC)

Tony dithers over her optional scent past the official end of class; she's still in her seat when Sherlock leaves the room.

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:02 am (UTC)

"I was thinking of doing lemon and raspberry," offers Bella, "if you can't decide and want a suggestion. I have social studies last, what about you?"

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:03 am (UTC)

"Magical Defense."

She goes for lemon and raspberry, and heads off.

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:07 am (UTC)

Bella heads for Social Studies, which is interesting - this class, unlike the others, is actually sectioned by upbringing, and so she's mostly other kids she met on the bus, Muggle-raised ones who need to be brought up to speed, rather than a mix. They are going to spend the first month in a crash course on everything that wizards take to be utterly basic about wizarding society. Then they're going to rush like they're being chased by dragons through the rest of the standard curriculum trying to catch up to the other kids, who for fairness are going to spend some time dawdling over long-term projects and a little Muggle Studies even though proper Muggle Studies as a course is an optional specialization that can be taken in seventh grade.

Bella decides to prioritize reading ahead in this book more than the others, because what she learns is fascinating and also surprising and also the sort of thing that could be extremely practically important. She has been thrown into a very different culture.

She's going to go to check out the library next, but first she stops at her and Sherlock's room, to drop off her things.

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 12:09 am (UTC)

Sherlock is nowhere to be found.

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:11 am (UTC)

That's disappointing. She goes to the library and spends the hours before dinner reading up on her various topics of interest. She doesn't spot the elves, but she figures this is likely to mean that they do not, at this moment, have (gasp) spare time, so she'll try again later.

Maybe Sherlock will be at dinner.

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 12:12 am (UTC)

Sherlock is not at dinner.

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:12 am (UTC)

Tony is!

pythbox
2013-04-02 12:12 am (UTC)

So is Feral!

They're not sitting together.

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:13 am (UTC)

Bella goes and sits with Tony. "I haven't seen Sherlock since Potions, have you?"

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, we had Magical Defense together, then I went back to my room and he went somewhere."

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:15 am (UTC)

"It wasn't our room," says Bella. "Or he's a lot faster than me and didn't leave a trace. Did I offend him or something? He was much friendlier yesterday."

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:19 am (UTC)

"Nah, he just gets like that," says Tony. "It's not anybody's fault. He'll cheer up eventually, it helps if you're nice and don't bug him when he's not feeling talky."

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:19 am (UTC)

"Oh. Okay. I guess it's good I found you first, then, I was going to ask him about it."

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:21 am (UTC)

"I usually just hug him and tell him I love him and then leave him alone," Tony says cheerfully. "Your mileage may vary."

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:22 am (UTC)

"I did hug him yesterday, but there was no declaration of love," snorts Bella.

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:22 am (UTC)

"Hugs are still good," Tony says wisely. "Hugs usually are."

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:23 am (UTC)

"Yep! He looked like he needed it."

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:24 am (UTC)

"Sherry needs hugs a lot," sighs Tony.

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:25 am (UTC)

"If only he'd be around to get them," says Bella.

sparksflying
2013-04-02 12:25 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

occluminous
2013-04-02 12:40 am (UTC)

Bella finishes dinner, and bids Tony goodbye, and waves to Feral, and heads back to her room.

Sherlock makes no appearance at all, but lights out for the sixth graders isn't until ten and Bella wants to go to bed earlier than that, so she assumes he's off somewhere doing something and she goes to sleep.

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 03:20 pm (UTC)

In the morning, there is no sign he was ever in the room.

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:24 pm (UTC)

That's really strange.

Bella gets dressed and packs for morning classes and goes to breakfast. Who's at breakfast?

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:24 pm (UTC)

Feral is at breakfast!

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:25 pm (UTC)

Okay! He probably can't help her with explaining her roommate but he is fine to sit with. She sits there. "Hi," she says.

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:26 pm (UTC)

"Hi! How're you doing?"

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:28 pm (UTC)

"I'm okay, but something's up with Sherlock, I haven't seen him outside of class since the evening before classes started and he's been unfriendly all of a sudden in classes. How're you?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:29 pm (UTC)

"Same old, same old," he says. "Wonder what's up with your roommate."

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:30 pm (UTC)

"Tony says he just gets like that sometimes, but that doesn't tell me what exactly 'like that' is."

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:30 pm (UTC)

"Hide-y?" suggests Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:31 pm (UTC)

"And uncommunicative, like, I wouldn't be dwelling on it if I never saw him outside class but he still talked to me in class."

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:33 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs. "I've had moods like that too. It's probably not the same thing, though."

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:33 pm (UTC)

"What is it when you do it, then?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:36 pm (UTC)

"When I don't wanna talk to anybody? I dunno," he says, "I just... get fed up. Or scared, sometimes."

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Scared of what?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:43 pm (UTC)

"People," says Feral. "They can be pretty nasty, y'know."

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I mean, I don't know know, but I know. If that makes sense."

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:45 pm (UTC)

He grins. "Perfect sense!"

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:46 pm (UTC)

She giggles. "But not everyone's nasty. If somebody's nasty to me I might not want to be around them, but I'd be around other people just fine."

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:48 pm (UTC)

"You don't always know who's gonna be nasty until they whip it out," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:49 pm (UTC)

"I guess. I know some people pretty well, though. I'd be really surprised if my parents did anything bad to me. I mean they aren't perfect but it doesn't ever get bad."

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:51 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"I don't know anybody that well. Except maybe the kitchen elves, and I'm not even sure about them."

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:53 pm (UTC)

"I went looking for library elves yesterday but I didn't spot any. Maybe you can tell me stuff about the elves since you work with them sometimes? Do they like being how they are? Are they okay?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 03:55 pm (UTC)

"They want to be how they are," he says. "They want it a lot. I dunno if that's the same thing as liking it, though."

occluminous
2013-04-02 03:56 pm (UTC)

"It might not be," Bella agrees.
Edited 2013-04-02 15:58 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:01 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "So yeah. Don't go offering them all clothes unless you want a tiny little riot on your hands."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Clothes?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:04 pm (UTC)

"...If you give an elf clothes it sets them free," he says, "if you have the right to, and it's the worst thing in the world for them, it's like - like you'd probably feel about burning down your house and running away and living on the street."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Oh. What do the freed ones do?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:06 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I dunno, I've never met one."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Where do house elves come from? I don't mean where do individual ones come from - unless it's not the way I can guess - but where does the species come from?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:12 pm (UTC)

"It just seems kind of - too convenient," says Bella. "I wouldn't do it, but I bet some people would, if they could, just make a whole species on purpose that wanted to be slaves. And I don't know how it'd happen without anyone doing it on purpose."

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:13 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"Yeah, it's pretty twisted when you look at it," he agrees. "But what are you gonna do?"

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:15 pm (UTC)

"I don't know yet," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:15 pm (UTC)

"...Are you gonna do something?"

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:16 pm (UTC)

"If I can find something to do. And I'm going to look for something to do. There might not be anything that'd be right to do or that I can learn how, but I bet there is."

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:17 pm (UTC)

He looks at her warily. "How do you tell what's right?"

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:17 pm (UTC)

She blinks. "By thinking about it," she says. "I don't want to hurt anybody."
Edited 2013-04-02 16:18 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Uh-huh," says Feral. "See how far that gets you."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to. I just said," Bella says. "Is something wrong?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:20 pm (UTC)

"You can't not hurt anybody," says Feral. "Unless you're dead."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:21 pm (UTC)

"Do you think I'm hurting somebody right now?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:22 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Maybe. If you are I can't tell."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Then how do you know I can't not hurt anybody unless I'm dead? I'm not dead now and I don't think I'm hurting anybody and you can't tell if I am."

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:30 pm (UTC)

"I mean in your whole life," he says. "The only way you can not hurt anybody, ever is if you're dead."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:31 pm (UTC)

"If I died I think that would hurt some people, mostly my parents," Bella observes.

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:34 pm (UTC)

"But not by something you did, unless you killed yourself," he shrugs. "But it's like... okay, it's like Transfiguration," he says, apparently hitting on an analogy. "Have you had that class yet?"

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, yesterday, third period," says Bella. "We turned wood chips into iron. It was hard."

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Feral. "Well, you know how sometimes when I cast a spell on something it lights on fire? I failed Transfiguration last year because we had to Transfigure live mice and stuff and I wouldn't do it."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:39 pm (UTC)

"And they failed you?" exclaims Bella. "Because you didn't want to kill the mice? That's awful! And Tony said you were too good at Transfiguration to be held back in it, too, and that's just not fair, they should give you different tests to make up for it if they really think you'll grow out of it anyway or you'll be farther behind than you have to be."

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure," says Feral. "My point is, the whole world is like that. It's just full of that stuff. Where everybody thinks you should be doing something, and you get in trouble if you don't, and it's something messed up like setting mice on fire. But I don't think it's always as obvious as setting mice on fire. And people can think they're doing good stuff, think they're helping, and really they're lighting up mice. You know?"

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:46 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't set mice on fire, either," Bella asserts. "And I think about things, I don't just do obvious stuff. Like, I'm going to find out whether other animals are as smart as magic owls and stuff, before I eat meat again."

(Her breakfast has been toast and scrambled eggs.)

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:47 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs. "Then maybe you'll do okay. But I bet you won't get it right every single time. The world is just not that nice a place."

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you spot me messing up you should tell me and then I'll fix it."

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay," Feral says agreeably.

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:49 pm (UTC)

Bella smiles. She eats her last bite of toast. "Want to walk to class together?"

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:50 pm (UTC)

Off to Magical Defense they go!

pythbox
2013-04-02 04:51 pm (UTC)

Indeed they do!

This time, Feral doesn't answer any questions.

occluminous
2013-04-02 04:57 pm (UTC)

Bella continues to take notes and wonders if they are ever going to learn to cast the useful little spells in the book. The sixth grade Defense course is geared towards protecting oneself from curious or hostile Muggles, simply because Muggles are the easiest likely threat to a young witch or wizard and any more complicated threat like werewolves or hostile wizards will require more power than they know to safely put behind spells at this age. At some point they're supposed to learn to jam phones, summon police, and cast minor jinxes, as well as start practicing aim in general. Bella lets the theoretical lesson pass without comment.

On to Transfiguration. They are not making them transfigure live animals today; they're still on solid materials. Bella turns a sheet of glass into a sheet of cardboard, though this is much harder than yesterday's exercise and it takes her the entire class to do it and it's not even difficult in a particularly interesting way.

She has lunch next! Who's around?

sparksflying
2013-04-02 07:44 pm (UTC)

Not Sherlock!

There's Tony, though.

occluminous
2013-04-02 08:41 pm (UTC)

Bella sits with her. "Hullo," she says.

sparksflying
2013-04-02 08:44 pm (UTC)

"Hi! What's up?"

occluminous
2013-04-02 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I found out why Feral's in remedial transfig'. You know how he sets stuff on fire? He won't work with live animals. So they failed him."

sparksflying
2013-04-02 08:46 pm (UTC)

"...That completely sucks," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-04-02 08:48 pm (UTC)

"I know! They shouldn't want to set mice on fire."

sparksflying
2013-04-02 08:50 pm (UTC)

"No one should want to set mice on fire," Tony says firmly.

occluminous
2013-04-02 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Actually, transfiguring live animals sounds like a weird thing to be doing even if they don't catch fire," muses Bella.

sparksflying
2013-04-02 08:54 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs. "I guess."

occluminous
2013-04-02 08:55 pm (UTC)

"Well, they might not like it, and we're only starting out and we could make mistakes."

sparksflying
2013-04-02 09:02 pm (UTC)

"I guess," Tony repeats.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:04 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I'll ask Ms. Kuai about it."

sparksflying
2013-04-02 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, do that."

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:07 pm (UTC)

Bella writes this down and eats her lunch. She's still eating vegetarian just to be safe since she hasn't turned up anything definitive about animal intelligence yet.

"Want to walk together to Charms?" she asks when they've both eaten.

sparksflying
2013-04-02 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:11 pm (UTC)

Charms ho!

pythbox
2013-04-02 09:11 pm (UTC)

Feral catches up with them on the way.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:12 pm (UTC)

Bella waves to him.

And is Sherlock present, when they all take their seats?

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:13 pm (UTC)

He arrives at the classroom precisely on time.
Edited 2013-04-02 21:14 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Sherlock," Bella murmurs, but there's no time for anything beyond that before they start learning to make teacups (or, in some cases, as there are not enough teacups to go around, shoes, or, in Feral's case, as he needs disposable materials, a piece of cardboard) dance.

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:20 pm (UTC)

Sherlock stares intently and motionlessly at his teacup.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:29 pm (UTC)

Bella is seriously concerned about him at this point. She decides she'll prod gently next time she sees him out of class. She'll have to catch him in their room eventually.

The teacher has no such constraints about addressing students in class. "Miss Sherlock," she says, compromising between formal address and the presence of twins in the class. "Are you planning to provide your teacup any motive force, or are you hoping to glare it into dancing?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:30 pm (UTC)

He continues to stare at his teacup.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:31 pm (UTC)

"Miss Sherlock! Wake up!" says the Charms teacher, snapping her fingers in front of his face.

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:34 pm (UTC)

He blinks several times and looks up at her slowly.

"Yes?"

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:35 pm (UTC)

"I asked you if you were planning to attempt today's lesson. You have been staring at your teacup and have not even produced your wand. Miss Swan has already convinced her own teacup to go back and forth across her desk and spin."

Bella winces; she didn't really want to be the point of comparison, but she has in fact gotten her cup to do those things.

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:36 pm (UTC)

After a few seconds of carefully considering his reponse, he decides on: "Sorry."

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:38 pm (UTC)

"I do not want your apologies, Miss Stark, I want your attention and effort. Wand out. The incantation is saltare. Try it now."

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:40 pm (UTC)

He gets out his wand and... stares at it.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:41 pm (UTC)

The teacher snaps her fingers in front of his face again. "Miss Stark. Are you quite well? Do you need to go to the healer's office?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:42 pm (UTC)

He blinks at her again.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:45 pm (UTC)

The teacher frowns, and inspects Tony's progress, and then says, "Miss Swan, as you are doing well, will you please escort Miss Sherlock to the healer's office? We will be doing this charm for two consecutive days and you should not fall behind."

"I - sure," says Bella, sticking her vine wand back in her hair and catching the teacup when it threatens to clatter off her desk. "Sherlock. Sherlock, let's go, okay?" She puts her hand on his elbow.

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:46 pm (UTC)

He puts his wand away and lets Bella lead him.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:46 pm (UTC)

Bella has to consult her map to find the healer, but it's not a complicated route. "What's wrong?" she murmurs.

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:48 pm (UTC)

"I haven't slept," he says softly.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:49 pm (UTC)

"Why not?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:50 pm (UTC)

Still softly, "I can't."

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Well - maybe the healer can help, I know there's sleeping potions, I saw one in our syllabus for in December," Bella says encouragingly. "I thought you were sleeping, the first night - you were really quiet - you were just lying there?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:53 pm (UTC)

"I can't... sleep... with anyone... there," he says haltingly.

occluminous
2013-04-02 09:55 pm (UTC)

"...Oh. Why didn't you ask me to go have a sleepover with Tony - or at least ask when I would be in the library so you could have a nap in the afternoon?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 09:56 pm (UTC)

He blinks hazily at her.

occluminous
2013-04-02 10:01 pm (UTC)

She bites her lip. Here's the healer's office.

"Healer Song!" she calls, gleaning term of address from the plaque on the door.

A middle-aged Asian wizard in white robes emerges from the recesses of the infirmary, currently unoccupied by damaged children. "Yes, Miss...?"

"I'm Bella Swan and this is Sherlock. Ms. Muller sent us because Sherlock spaced out in class. Sleep debt," she adds. "Can't sleep with anyone there. We're roommates, what should I do?"

Healer Song tuts and peers at Sherlock. "How long have you been without sleep? Two days?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 10:02 pm (UTC)

"I think so," he murmurs.

occluminous
2013-04-02 10:03 pm (UTC)

"All right. Well, for the immediate problem -" He fetches a dark brown potion from one of the cupboards. "Drink up. One won't hurt you. And then perhaps you'll be awake enough to tell us more about how your roommate can help you with getting to sleep at night."

nobodyelse
2013-04-02 10:04 pm (UTC)

Sherlock looks at the potion.

Sherlock drinks the potion.

Most of that dazed, distant look goes out of him.
Edited 2013-04-03 23:27 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:28 pm (UTC)

"There, that's better. Now. What can your roommate do that will allow you to get sleep? Do you know if sleeping potions are sufficient to solve the problem, or do you wind up fighting them off?" Healer Song asks briskly.

nobodyelse
2013-04-03 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I've never tried sleeping potions," he says quietly.

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, please tell us everything you can about your sleeping problem, and we can get a better idea of what combination of solutions might work, because even if potions do the trick it's not a good idea to rely on them nightly for long," says Healer Song. "How long has it been going on? How does it manifest?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-03 11:34 pm (UTC)

"I can't sleep when anyone else is there," he says. "Except my sister. I've never had to share a room with anyone else before, so I didn't know it was this... bad. I tried to sleep the first night and I couldn't. The second night I... still couldn't."

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:36 pm (UTC)

The healer nods sympathetically.

Bella pipes up. "There's hours of free time in the afternoon. I could be in the library from four to lights out every day, and that's not a whole night's sleep but it's some? Why didn't you nap when I was in the library before?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-03 11:36 pm (UTC)

"I tried," he murmurs. "But I didn't know if you would come back."

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:39 pm (UTC)

"I think," says Healer Song, "that I should give you a pass to skip your remaining classes, Sherlock, and you should catch up on proper sleep until your roommate returns to your room this evening, which it sounds like she's quite willing to avoid until late in the evening, and tomorrow you should come by after your classes and I'll give you a sleeping potion. If it doesn't allow to sleep while your roommate is present we'll have to work something else out, possibly a single occupancy or overriding the rule about placing siblings together for medical reasons. Does that sound good to you?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-03 11:41 pm (UTC)

Sherlock nods.

"Yes. Thank you."

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Should I knock, or something, before coming in tonight?" Bella asks.

nobodyelse
2013-04-03 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Yes. Please."

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

"Bella, why don't you take Sherlock back to your room - I'm sure you know the way, Sherlock, but two days without sleep is no small thing for an eleven-year-old and the potion only helps so much - and I'll make excuses for the teachers."

Healer Song has actually been avoiding gendering Sherlock throughout this entire conversation. Perhaps this has something to do with the appointment Sherlock has with him at the end of the week.

"Sure," says Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-04-03 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Sherlock. Again.

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:48 pm (UTC)

Off go the kids.

"I thought I'd upset you or something and you were being unfriendly," confesses Bella as they leave the infirmary.

nobodyelse
2013-04-03 11:49 pm (UTC)

"...oh," he says. "I'm sorry. No. I was just..." he shrugs, gestures helplessly, falls silent.

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Well, now I know better," says Bella. "How come you didn't tell me, though, I would've at least told you when I was going to be in the library even if I didn't have the idea of going to the healer..."

nobodyelse
2013-04-03 11:51 pm (UTC)

He struggles with words for a moment, then shrugs again.

occluminous
2013-04-03 11:53 pm (UTC)

Bella purses her lips and allows the rest of the journey to their room to pass in silence. She collects the books she'll need for her remaining classes so she doesn't have to stop in after brooms, and says, "Euterpe won't count, will she?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 12:21 am (UTC)

He hesitates.

"I don't think so."

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:22 am (UTC)

"Do you want me to close the window so she can't come in?" asks Bella uncertainly.

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 12:22 am (UTC)

"...I... I think so," he says, looking down at the floor. "I'm sorry."

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:23 am (UTC)

Bella shuts the window and ruffles his hair. "I will be completely not here until just a little before ten at night," she tells him. "Cross my heart. You get sleep, okay?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 12:32 am (UTC)

He smiles. Very slightly.

"Thank you. I'll do my best."

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:35 am (UTC)

And Bella is off, just in time to make it to brooms. It would not do to miss brooms. Brooms!

And then potions.

sparksflying
2013-04-04 12:36 am (UTC)

Tony is in Potions!

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:38 am (UTC)

"Sherlock hasn't been sleeping," Bella tells her as they sit down. "He can't sleep with somebody in the room. He's catching up now and the healer is going to give him a potion tomorrow night to see if that works."

sparksflying
2013-04-04 12:39 am (UTC)

"...Oh, Sherry," Tony sighs.

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:40 am (UTC)

"Yeah. If the potion doesn't work the healer might find a way to give him a single, or I'll just spend every afternoon in the library like I was probably going to do anyway and he'll have to sleep then even though it's not really enough time."

sparksflying
2013-04-04 12:42 am (UTC)

Tony makes a face. "Sucks to be him. Give him a hug for me, would you? You'll see him before I do."

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:43 am (UTC)

"Sure, when I go back tonight," says Bella, setting up her cauldron for the day's potion. They are making a water purifying elixir.

sparksflying
2013-04-04 12:45 am (UTC)

Tony's elixir is successful! Also, fun.

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:49 am (UTC)

Bella's turns out all right too, though she does come close to boiling it over when she corrects for an early misjudgment in quantity by doubling the recipe, and the teacher warns her that not all potion recipes respond with a mere volume increase to attempts at doubling them. "This isn't a batch of iced tea," she admonishes.

"Sorry," says Bella. This potion, they don't get to keep; it's all graded, then collected for a representative from the ACAAM Charitable Crusaders to pick up and ship to somewhere in the Third World where sixth-grader water purification potions are apparently in high demand.

Bella raises her hand to ask if they should make more, for the Third Worlders who need it, and is told that this is a class, not a meeting of the ACAAMCC.

The representative from that organization hands her some promotional material on his way out.

sparksflying
2013-04-04 12:51 am (UTC)

Well, that's... very Bella, isn't it.

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:52 am (UTC)

Very!

"See you at dinner?" Bella asks Tony.

sparksflying
2013-04-04 12:52 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:53 am (UTC)

And Bella's off to Social Studies, and then she hangs out in the library doing her homework until dinnertime, and then she goes to the cafeteria.

pythbox
2013-04-04 12:55 am (UTC)

Feral's there, sitting by himself at a deserted table, as usual.

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:56 am (UTC)

Huh. No Tony? Maybe Tony got hungry earlier or something. Bella sits with Feral. "Hi!"

pythbox
2013-04-04 12:57 am (UTC)

"Hi!" says Feral. "How's your friend?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 12:58 am (UTC)

"Sherlock can't sleep with somebody else in the room," Bella says, "is what turned out to be wrong. He's catching up on sleep now and tomorrow the healer's going to give him a potion to try."

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:12 am (UTC)

"Oh, wow," says Feral, wincing. "Hey, good for the healer."

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:14 am (UTC)

"Yeah, and he also gave him some - something that woke him up enough to have a conversation about what the problem was. Wizard coffee," says Bella, "I guess."

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:15 am (UTC)

Feral laughs. "Wizard coffee. Awesome."

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:15 am (UTC)

"Well, he didn't say what it was. I should've asked. Maybe I can describe it to the potions teacher and find out." She writes this down.

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:18 am (UTC)

"You write stuff down a lot," he observes.

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:19 am (UTC)

"Otherwise I might forget it," Bella explains.

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:21 am (UTC)

"Smart!" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:22 am (UTC)

"Lots of people write some things down. Like grocery lists and class notes. I just write more things down, like what I want to look up later and what I'm thinking."

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:23 am (UTC)

"What you're thinking?" he repeats, curiously.

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:24 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Because if I don't write it down, then it goes away, and then I don't know for sure what I thought, because I might remember it wrong. And then I wouldn't even know who I was pretty much because I'm what I think."

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:27 am (UTC)

Feral gives her a funny look.

"How could you not know who you are? You're you, aren't you?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:31 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah, but I could be me and not know who me was," she says. "If I forgot enough stuff."

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:37 am (UTC)

"You'd have to forget a lot," he says dubiously.

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:53 am (UTC)

"I don't even want to not know little bits about myself, though. I think I'm interesting," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:56 am (UTC)

"I think you're interesting too!" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:56 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "I don't let other people read my notebooks, though," she says. "Sorry."

pythbox
2013-04-04 01:58 am (UTC)

"That's okay," he says. "I like finding out about you other ways."

occluminous
2013-04-04 01:58 am (UTC)

"What d'you want to know?" inquires Bella brightly.

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:07 am (UTC)

"Well," he says musingly, "who are you, if the answer's not just 'you'?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 02:09 am (UTC)

"Well, English speaking people don't have to talk about a lot of me, so there aren't great words for it," Bella says. "But I know things about what I'd do if different stuff happened."

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:13 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Feral. "I like knowing that about people. But most people don't, until the stuff happens."

occluminous
2013-04-04 02:16 am (UTC)

"I do," says Bella. "But most people don't do what I do."

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:25 am (UTC)

"How do you know?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 02:28 am (UTC)

"I know how all the parts of me work 'cause I catch them when they do stuff."

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:29 am (UTC)

"Hmmm," says Feral. "That is interesting."

occluminous
2013-04-04 02:29 am (UTC)

"Yup!"

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:31 am (UTC)

He giggles.

occluminous
2013-04-04 02:32 am (UTC)

Bella takes out her ACAAMCC literature and looks at it. "I wonder how many clubs there are here."

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:33 am (UTC)

"No idea," says Feral. "What's that one?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 02:37 am (UTC)

"Charitable Crusade. One of them came by Potions and took our water purifying elixir to send to Burma."

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:37 am (UTC)

"Huh," shrugs Feral. "Good for them, I guess."

occluminous
2013-04-04 02:37 am (UTC)

"I thought so, that's why he gave me this."

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:38 am (UTC)

"So are you gonna join?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 02:39 am (UTC)

"Maybe. I want to know more about all my options, I can't be in a million clubs."

pythbox
2013-04-04 02:40 am (UTC)

"There's not a million clubs here, I'm pretty sure," snorts Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-04 06:09 am (UTC)

"Then it probably won't take me that long to learn all about them," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-04 11:54 am (UTC)

He giggles.

occluminous
2013-04-04 03:39 pm (UTC)

Eventually dinner concludes, and Bella heads back to the library, to stay and read things until it's nearly lights-out and the librarian shoos her.

When she gets back to her and Sherlock's room, she knocks instead of tapping the doorknob.

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 04:12 pm (UTC)

It takes about five seconds for the door to open. Sherlock looks somewhat rumpled, but considerably less haggard than he did this morning.

occluminous
2013-04-04 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Bella. "Tony wanted me to hug you for her. Are you feeling better?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 04:14 pm (UTC)

"I would not object to secondhand hugs," he says, summoning up a smile. "And yes, I am."

occluminous
2013-04-04 04:17 pm (UTC)

She hugs him. "Oh, and," she says, "you missed dinner, I brought you some cookies, I didn't see anything else I was sure would keep." She produces a napkin with several oatmeal cookies, mostly broken, and hands it to him. "If you wind up keeping a funny schedule instead of working something else out you maybe want to keep snacks around but for today I thought they might help." She sets her schoolbag down on her chair and sets about changing into her pajamas.

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he says, and he eats the cookies.

occluminous
2013-04-04 04:19 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes changing and says "You don't need the light on, do you?" as she flops into her bunk.

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 04:21 pm (UTC)

"No."

occluminous
2013-04-04 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Nox." Even a wandless incantation will operate the cooperatively enchanted roomlight; darkness falls. She rolls over and goes to sleep.

Sherlock might or might not have noticed this on the first night, but Bella talks in her sleep. "Mice. Iron. Aphid. Silver."

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 04:26 pm (UTC)

He does notice, yes. He wonders if she knows.

It's a long night.

occluminous
2013-04-04 04:28 pm (UTC)

Bella is up at seven the next morning. "If you want a nap," she says as she changes into her robes, "I don't need to be back in the room till ten, but then you'd miss breakfast."

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 07:56 pm (UTC)

"I'll go to breakfast," he decides.

occluminous
2013-04-04 07:57 pm (UTC)

Breakfast-time! Who else is there?

pythbox
2013-04-04 07:59 pm (UTC)

Feral! Feral is there.

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:01 pm (UTC)

Bella goes and sits with him. Sherlock can come too. Hash browns, om nom nom. "Morning!"

pythbox
2013-04-04 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Morning," Feral says amicably to Bella.

And to Sherlock, also amicably, "You look like hell."

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 08:17 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Sherlock, are you going to be okay in classes, you've been up all night even if you got sleep before that," muses Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 08:21 pm (UTC)

"I will do my best."

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:23 pm (UTC)

"You're behind in Charms at least, unless you spent last night catching up. I sleep pretty soundly, by the way, if you wind up spending a lot of time in our room while I'm asleep you can cast spells just fine after I've dropped off."

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," he murmurs.

"Did you know you talk in your sleep?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:31 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks. "I didn't! What do I say?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Mainly nouns."

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:34 pm (UTC)

"...Nouns? Just nouns?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 08:35 pm (UTC)

"'Mice, iron, aphid, silver,'" he recites. "And similar."

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Those aren't even related to what I was dreaming about. That's weird."

nobodyelse
2013-04-04 08:38 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:41 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes her hash browns. "Magical defense," she announces, and off she and Feral go.

pythbox
2013-04-04 08:46 pm (UTC)

Magical defense is all about the theory again. Feral does some eye-rolling as the lesson progresses.

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:47 pm (UTC)

Bella hangs back to ask for a syllabus. She is told that there is not a syllabus. She asks if they're going to be doing any practicing. She is told that they will do practicing when they are ready.

She sighs, and goes to catch up with Feral. "We get to practice when we're ready," she reports.

pythbox
2013-04-04 08:48 pm (UTC)

He snorts. "Maybe I scared her off the practical stuff," he jokes.

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:51 pm (UTC)

"Well, if we start learning hexes practiced on each other, or anything you'd have to sit out," Bella says, "but the Transfig' teacher doesn't stop handing everyone else mice just because you won't work with them, right?"

pythbox
2013-04-04 08:52 pm (UTC)

Feral smiles crookedly. "Nah, I mean 'cause I knew what those curses were."

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:54 pm (UTC)

"Why would that do it? He asked, didn't he?"

pythbox
2013-04-04 08:57 pm (UTC)

"People get scared if you know stuff they don't expect you to," he says. "Especially if it's nasty stuff. Anyway, I gotta get to class."

He waves and heads off.

occluminous
2013-04-04 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Bye!"

Bella turns to head for Theory.

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:00 pm (UTC)

A seventh-grade witch in the uniform of the Junior Regimental Officer Corps blocks her path.

"Do you know who you were just talking to?" she hisses.

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:01 pm (UTC)

"...Uh?" says Bella. "That was Feral, why?"

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:06 pm (UTC)

"Feral is right!" she says. "He's dangerous! He bit somebody last year, I mean Mark drew his wand but that's no excuse for jumping on somebody like a rabid Muggle."

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Um, if Feral drew his wand back then Mark might have caught fire even if Feral didn't mean him to," Bella says. "I don't know what they were fighting about, but as long as they were already fighting, biting him probably was safer."

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:10 pm (UTC)

The JROC witch sniffs. "Oh, I've heard about the fires," she mutters darkly.
Edited 2013-04-04 21:10 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:11 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah, so've I. He doesn't do it on purpose. He's waiting to grow out of it," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Are you sure?" she says. "Did you know he can see Thestrals? That means he's watched someone die," she adds, in case Bella did not know this. "I think it means he's killed someone."

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:16 pm (UTC)

"Um, I don't think most people who've watched someone die killed them personally, but why are you telling me all this stuff anyway?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Um, so you don't hang around with him and end up getting murdered?" she says.

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:20 pm (UTC)

"He doesn't even risk hurting mice," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:21 pm (UTC)

The JROC witch stares at her with an expression of mixed confusion and worry.

"I guess I can't stop you," she says. "But... be careful."

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:22 pm (UTC)

"I'll ask him about the thestrals," suggests Bella. "Um, thanks for warning me?"

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:27 pm (UTC)

"I think it's my duty," the JROC witch says seriously. "And I have to get to practice."

She heads off in yet another direction.

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:28 pm (UTC)

Bella hurries the rest of the way to theory, which passes uneventfully, and to transfiguration, similar, and then it's lunchtime.

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:30 pm (UTC)

Guess who's sitting all by himself again!

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:31 pm (UTC)

Is it Feral? Bella bets it's Feral. There she plops herself. "Some girl thinks you might murder me," she says. "She thinks you can see thestrals because of having killed somebody and that it's not safe to hang around you. Also she said you bit someone, but she said he drew his wand on you so I think that was probably the best thing you could've done if you couldn't just run away because otherwise he might have caught fire and that's worse than getting bit."
Edited 2013-04-04 21:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:38 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says, "you figured that one out, all right. I don't duel, I fight. Gets me more detentions, but nobody catches fire, so I'd call that a win, wouldn't you?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 09:39 pm (UTC)

Bella nods firmly. "I don't understand why the faculty is being how they are about the fire thing. I hope you grow out of it soon, it sounds awful."

pythbox
2013-04-04 09:48 pm (UTC)

"And I'm not gonna murder you," he adds, in case she was wondering.

occluminous
2013-04-04 10:07 pm (UTC)

"I didn't think so. How come you can see thestrals, though? I didn't ask last time it came up."

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:16 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I killed somebody," he says casually.

occluminous
2013-04-04 10:20 pm (UTC)

"That's what the girl said," Bella says slowly. "I didn't think it was true."

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:22 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure she only got it right by accident," he says. "I didn't tell her. It is, though."

occluminous
2013-04-04 10:23 pm (UTC)

"Um, why did you kill somebody? Who was it? Why aren't you in trouble?"

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:34 pm (UTC)

"My dad," he says. "Way before I came here."

occluminous
2013-04-04 10:36 pm (UTC)

Bella awaits the answers to the rest of her questions. She is not sure if she believes him.

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:39 pm (UTC)

He looks and sounds more serious than usual, but not with the kind of strong emotion you'd expect from somebody confessing to the murder of a parent.

"He used to hit me," he says. "I didn't like it. So when I figured out I could set things on fire with magic, I burned him to death."

occluminous
2013-04-04 10:41 pm (UTC)

"...On purpose."

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, on purpose," Feral snorts. "I lit him up by accident a couple times before that, but he just put it out and then beat me some more."

occluminous
2013-04-04 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Oh."

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:52 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Do you regret asking now?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 10:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if I believe you, but if it's true I'd rather know and if it's not true I'd rather know that it's the kind of thing you'll say," Bella says after a moment. "Why aren't you in trouble, if it's true?"

pythbox
2013-04-04 10:54 pm (UTC)

"In trouble with who? The school? I was out of there for years before they found me, I don't think they even know."

occluminous
2013-04-04 10:58 pm (UTC)

"The law. Magical law enforcement. It exists, I saw it in my social studies syllabus."

pythbox
2013-04-04 11:03 pm (UTC)

"What the fuck does magical law enforcement care about one dead Muggle?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 11:04 pm (UTC)

She blinks.

"It doesn't?"

pythbox
2013-04-04 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Not as far as I can tell."

occluminous
2013-04-04 11:06 pm (UTC)

"...Oh."

pythbox
2013-04-04 11:07 pm (UTC)

"...What, is that a surprise?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I have known there was more to magic than me personally being able to do doggerel verse spells for like two weeks and I've only been systematically learning things for a few days and we don't get to magic law enforcement in social studies until unit three," Bella says. "Muggle law enforcement cares a lot when people die, I would know, my dad is a policeman! I thought magic law enforcement would be sort of like that, with magic in."

pythbox
2013-04-04 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Magical law enforcement," says Feral, "cares a lot if purebloods die, and halfbloods mostly count, and Muggle-borns do if anybody was looking. If you fuck up a Muggle, they only care if you did it publicly enough that they have to wipe a bunch of memories. They'll tell you different if you ask, but that's what's true."

occluminous
2013-04-04 11:14 pm (UTC)

"That's awful," says Bella. "And also you just told me that nobody official would care if you did murder me as long as you were quiet and there weren't any witnesses."

pythbox
2013-04-04 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Probably," he agrees. "But I knew that already, and I don't wanna murder you, so what difference does it make?"

occluminous
2013-04-04 11:39 pm (UTC)

"It's just disturbing." Pause. "And that girl who decided to warn me about you seemed to care if I got murdered. Maybe she doesn't know I'm Muggleborn or maybe you're just wrong about that."

pythbox
2013-04-04 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Did I say people wouldn't care? I didn't say people wouldn't care," says Feral. "It's the whole system that doesn't. People are people, they care about all different stuff."

occluminous
2013-04-04 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Is magical law enforcement not done by people?" asks Bella dubiously.

pythbox
2013-04-04 11:50 pm (UTC)

"...It's like the mice," he says. "I bet you when you start on live Transfiguration, if you walk up to the cages and say you're gonna set the mice on fire, you'll get in huge trouble. But when we start on it in my class and I say I'm not gonna point my wand at anything I'm not willing to light up, I'll fail the class again. Caring about mice getting set on fire isn't one thing that works the exact same way everywhere for everybody all the time, or even the same way for the same person all the time, and neither is caring about people dying."

occluminous
2013-04-04 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Hmmmm."

pythbox
2013-04-05 12:01 am (UTC)

He lets her think about it.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:03 am (UTC)

"There are a lot of things I am going to have to learn how to fix," sighs Bella, taking down some notes. "I better learn to live forever. I think that would be nice anyway."

pythbox
2013-04-05 12:06 am (UTC)

"Sure it would," snorts Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:07 am (UTC)

"It would! Then I could learn everything I want to know, and by then, there would be more things to know about," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-04-05 12:08 am (UTC)

He giggles.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:10 am (UTC)

"Some magic animals can do it, right? So it's not impossible."

pythbox
2013-04-05 12:12 am (UTC)

"Sure is impossible for people, though," says Feral. "Or at least I've never heard different."

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:14 am (UTC)

"People invent new things all the time. I bet someone can invent a way to live forever and maybe it'll be me. Or maybe somebody did it already and then I can get to work on everything else that much sooner."

pythbox
2013-04-05 12:15 am (UTC)

"If somebody did it and it worked, wouldn't that be big news?" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:16 am (UTC)

"Well, it would be if I did it, 'cause I'd want to share, but maybe somebody did it and doesn't want to share, or even can't share, or something," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-05 12:17 am (UTC)

"Maybe," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:18 am (UTC)

"I'll work on it," Bella says firmly. She eats the last of her mushroom soup and then she is off to Charms!

pythbox
2013-04-05 12:20 am (UTC)

Well, so is Feral!

sparksflying
2013-04-05 12:20 am (UTC)

Tony and Sherlock join them on the way.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:22 am (UTC)

Hurray, friends! Also teacup-dancing! Bella is not in the five best kids in class anymore, since she missed half of the previous lesson, but she's not bad, and she sets about catching up with a will and will, if Sherlock looks like he wants, attempt to help him since he missed the entirety of the last lesson.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 12:27 am (UTC)

Sherlock's teacup executes an elaborate dance routine across the surface of his desk.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:28 am (UTC)

Well then! He does not need help. Bella concentrates on her own work. "Were you practicing all night or something?" she murmurs to him in an undertone when she starts paging through her textbook to look at the diagrams on wand motions again.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 12:30 am (UTC)

"I practiced until I got it right," he murmurs back.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:31 am (UTC)

Well, she supposes he had plenty of time to do it in. She looks at the wand motions and convinces her teacup to spin on the tip of its handle and right itself with a flourish.

sparksflying
2013-04-05 12:43 am (UTC)

Tony works diligently at her dancing teacup.

Diligently enough that it spins right off the edge of her desk.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:45 am (UTC)

Bella tries to catch it, but she does not succeed, probably because her reflexes are still connected to her body and not her wand and she is about as coordinated as a three-legged drunk giraffe. The cup breaks and the teacher replaces it with one of the shoes (Tony gets a left ballet flat), as the teacups have all been distributed.

sparksflying
2013-04-05 12:47 am (UTC)

Tony sighs, and shrugs, and makes the shoe dance instead.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 12:47 am (UTC)

Sherlock collects the pieces of the teacup.

occluminous
2013-04-05 12:49 am (UTC)

The teacher takes them from him when he's got them all, and begins to painstakingly repair the cup - Bella remembers a repairing spell from the November part of the syllabus but apparently it's not good enough for teacups or something, because this one only knits one piece to one other piece at a time.

Nothing further of moment happens in Charms. It is time for brooms brooms brooms wheeeee!

And then Potions!

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 01:57 am (UTC)

Potions!

Sherlock is flagging a little, but still looks reasonably awake.

occluminous
2013-04-05 01:58 am (UTC)

"Just this and one more period and then you get your potion. Are you going to want to try it with me around right then to see if it helps?" Bella asks him as she sets up her cauldron.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 02:00 am (UTC)

"Yes."

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:02 am (UTC)

"Okay, can do." Today they are making shampoo. Literally. Shampoo. A fair number of the sixth grade potion curriculum appears to be toiletries. There's a footnote in the recipe about customization options; Bella looks at them and decides to try one. The teacher tells her that she wasn't supposed to do that, but it's too late to change; she is permitted to go on with her variant that will cause her shampoo to double as conditioner.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 02:03 am (UTC)

Sherlock's potion is standard, and meticulously assembled.

sparksflying
2013-04-05 02:04 am (UTC)

Tony manages not to fuck hers up any!

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:06 am (UTC)

They are graded, given optional scents (Bella takes lilac) and bottles as before, and sent on their way.

Magical social studies passes without event, although Bella is now attempting to judge the teacher's receptiveness to questions like "is it true that magical law enforcement, as a system, doesn't care if Muggles or Muggleborns get killed as long as it's not inconvenient to cover up". Her initial impressions are tentatively favorable, but not enough that she ventures inquiries today.

She heads for the healer's next, attempting to meet Sherlock there.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 02:09 am (UTC)

There he is!

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:10 am (UTC)

"Did you get your potion already?" she asks him, inspecting him for evidence of potion possession.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 02:11 am (UTC)

"I did."

He has a potion! It is in a bottle in his pocket.

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:13 am (UTC)

"Off we go!"

Off they go.

Bella sits in her desk chair and is present, as is necessary for this experiment.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 02:15 am (UTC)

Sherlock takes his potion, and he goes to sleep.

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:17 am (UTC)

Well, okay then! That seems useful. Bella does some homework. She's supposed to write two pages for Magic Theory.

nobodyelse
2013-04-05 02:18 am (UTC)

The next morning, he has disappeared again.

But he left a note on her desk that says, Slept well.

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:19 am (UTC)

Yay!

Is he by any chance at breakfast?

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:19 am (UTC)

No, but guess who is!

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:22 am (UTC)

Is it Feral? Why yes! Bella goes and sits there. She's pretty sure he's not going to murder her.

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:24 am (UTC)

"Morning," he says cheerfully.

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:26 am (UTC)

"Morning. What's up?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:26 am (UTC)

"Still haven't murdered you," he jokes.

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:27 am (UTC)

"You know, I was wondering about that, I just woke up this morning and was not at all sure if I had been murdered," she says.

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:30 am (UTC)

Feral snickers.

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:31 am (UTC)

"How did you survive being, well, a feral orphan, for - you said years, right? Before magic people found you and put you in school?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:36 am (UTC)

"...Why's that a question?" he asks, blinking.

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:38 am (UTC)

"I want to know. I don't know how I'd do it, especially if I was littler than I am now and didn't have my library of doggerel poems."

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:42 am (UTC)

"I just... did stuff," he says. "I stole a lot. Sometimes somebody'd take me in for a while, but if they started talking about looking for my parents I'd skip town."

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:43 am (UTC)

"What happened to your mom, anyway?" He doesn't seem offended by the questions, and even if he were she's never been good at repressing curiosity.

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:44 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "I didn't stick around to find out."

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:45 am (UTC)

"Was she awful too?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 02:49 am (UTC)

"Nah," he says, shrugging again, "she was just... she didn't help, you know?"

occluminous
2013-04-05 02:49 am (UTC)

Bella nods.

pythbox
2013-04-05 11:35 am (UTC)

"So I don't care about her much. And I don't ever wanna go back."

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:03 pm (UTC)

"What do you do over summers?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:22 pm (UTC)

"Stay here. With the house-elves. They kinda tried to find me some fake parents but nobody wanted the job, and I like it here, and the elves keep me outta trouble."

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:24 pm (UTC)

"What do the elves do summers, when there's so many fewer people around?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:32 pm (UTC)

"I dunno what they usually do, but this summer they taught me to cook a bunch of stuff!"

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:33 pm (UTC)

"I only know how to cook a little. And only the Muggle way, I wouldn't even be able to do an omelet in a magic kitchen."

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:35 pm (UTC)

"I have to do a lot of stuff the Muggle way anyway because otherwise things catch fire," he admits. "That's why I usually just wash dishes when they're making something important."

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Aren't there, like, magic appliances that you wouldn't have to cast spells to use? Or do you catch things on fire even when you wand-tap them?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:39 pm (UTC)

"I lit up my doorknob once," he says. "The new one doesn't lock like that."

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:40 pm (UTC)

"Pfffft. Wow. At least they're making some accommodations?" says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he snorts, "only so I don't burn the place down."

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Place does fail fire code," snorts Bella. "I suppose if I told my parents about any of your stuff and they complained they'd get ignored because Muggles?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Probably, yeah," he says. "You can if you want, but I don't think it'd help, and somebody might decide to wipe 'em if they cause too much trouble."

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:45 pm (UTC)

"...Wipe them?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Erase their memories. That's what magic people do when Muggles find out too much about wizard stuff," he explains. "If they have magic family or friends they're mostly allowed, but if they get pushy or try to go public..." He spreads his hands.

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:54 pm (UTC)

Bella goes very still.

"Does it work on non-Muggles?" she asks quietly.

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Works on anybody."

occluminous
2013-04-05 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Anybody anybody or is there something I can do to make it not work on me?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Get really good at dueling and hex anybody who tries?" he suggests. "I dunno, I'm not an expert on Memory Charms or anything."

occluminous
2013-04-05 04:00 pm (UTC)

Bella writes this down in LARGE LETTERS in her notebook and picks at the rest of her meal.

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:07 pm (UTC)

"You okay?" murmurs Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-05 04:07 pm (UTC)

"People shouldn't be able to do that."

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says, "but there's lots of things people shouldn't be able to do, and they do them all the fucking time."

occluminous
2013-04-05 04:18 pm (UTC)

"This one especially much."

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:20 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

occluminous
2013-04-05 04:23 pm (UTC)

Pick pick pick, and then Bella gives up, wraps some brownies in a napkin for later, and scurries away.

Bella goes off to the library.

She looks up memory charms (defenses against).

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:26 pm (UTC)

Mainly there's nothing.

One solitary footnote mentions that memory charms may fail 'if the target is a skilled Occlumens'.

occluminous
2013-04-05 04:30 pm (UTC)

She looks up Occlumenses.

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:54 pm (UTC)

Occlumency is apparently the skill of guarding one's mind against intrusion and tampering; an Occlumens, plural Occlumentes, can resist such things as Legilimency (Legilimens, Legilimentes, the art of mindreading) and Veritaserum (a potion that compels the drinker to answer questions truthfully).

The material on Occlumency doesn't seem to have anything about Memory Charms at all.

It is a rare and difficult skill, and not commonly taught at wizarding educational institutions.

occluminous
2013-04-05 04:57 pm (UTC)

Bella wants to learn it. Memory Charms are bad, Legilmency is also bad. This is her top priority. Only the fact that she doesn't suspect anyone of actively being interested in the contents of her mind will allow her to do homework or anything before she has this mastered. She wants introductory exercises and ways to check her progress that don't involve inviting somebody to point a wand at her; can she have them?

pythbox
2013-04-05 04:58 pm (UTC)

No.

occluminous
2013-04-05 05:00 pm (UTC)

Rrrgh.

Well, what about just the exercises, then, maybe she doesn't have to benchmark her progress, maybe she can just work like her brain depends on it and get as far as she can -

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:02 pm (UTC)

Some of the techniques are described, but never in detail; none of the available books on Occlumency are instructional.

occluminous
2013-04-05 05:07 pm (UTC)

Bella goes up to the librarian. "Excuse me," she says. "Do you know if there's any way to get lessons in Occlumency?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:08 pm (UTC)

The librarian blinks.

"Not for a sixth grader."

occluminous
2013-04-05 05:08 pm (UTC)

"What grade do I have to be in?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I know of a school that teaches it," she says. "It's almost like a Dark Art."

occluminous
2013-04-05 05:18 pm (UTC)

"It's defensive," says Bella, puzzled, holding up one of the books she found. "How is that a dark art?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm not really sure," says the librarian.

occluminous
2013-04-05 05:23 pm (UTC)

"I really want to learn it. Is there a correspondence course or anybody on the faculty who knows about it? The books aren't - aren't instructional," pleads Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:24 pm (UTC)

"...I'll look into it," the librarian says reluctantly.
Edited 2013-04-05 17:25 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-05 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bella. "Do you need my name so you can tell me if you find something?"

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes, please."

occluminous
2013-04-05 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm Bella - Isabella - Swan, and I'm in Analisa Hall room four," Bella says. "Thank you so much!"

pythbox
2013-04-05 05:31 pm (UTC)

The librarian writes this down.

occluminous
2013-04-05 05:33 pm (UTC)

Bella continues reading on the subject of Occlumency - and Legilimency - and Memory Charms - and then she notes the time, blazes through her homework, and makes it back to her and Sherlock's room just in time for lights out.

philosopher's stone

occluminous

Bella doesn't hear anything from the librarian, and, when she checks in, is told that there is nothing - no expert faculty, no further available books, no correspondence course, nothing. The librarian does at least seem sympathetic. Bella is unhappy. She reads all the books on Occlumency, finds no clues, and tentatively gives up in the face of so much else to do. Her theory teacher, a Scottish import who takes a liking to her, calls her "his little Ravenclaw", which Bella looks up and determines to be a compliment.

She meets the library elves - Mith, Kay, and their small child who nonetheless does a prodigious amount of work, Hazzy. They are friendly, but don't seem to really understand her questions about them; at any rate no one seems to be gratuitously abusing them beyond allowing them their work, so she solicits their invaluable services in book-hunting.

Meanwhile, Sherlock settles into an unschedule. He's allowed the sleeping potion twice weekly to avoid dependence and excess side effects, and uses it Tuesdays and Thursdays; on weekends, Bella tries to absent herself from the room as much of the day as possible to let him catch up, and she does the same thing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in the afternoons. Sometimes she sleeps over in Tony's room, but this leaves her with an awful crick in her back even after she learns a Cushioning Charm, and she doesn't like to do it more than once or twice weekly.

Bella's birthday arrives, and Euterpe comes in with gifts from home - arm-warmers and candy and a calligraphy kit from Renée, a book and money "because I don't know what you need where you are" from Charlie. She does not get a broom from Tony. She did not really expect a broom from Tony, especially after ceasing to be her roommate, so she doesn't sulk or even comment.

Sherlock gets her a present, though, and if it's not quite better than a broom it's at least close. It appears on her desk, which narrows down the suspects, and he admits it when she asks, and it's a book on something called -

The Philosopher's Stone.

It doesn't have a recipe. No one knows the recipe. But it has lots of stuff about it.

Bella makes up her mind to become much more attentive in Potions.

And Sherlock gets very, very hugged.

nobodyelse
2013-04-06 01:17 am (UTC)

"You are very welcome," he says.

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:18 am (UTC)

"This is the best present, I don't even mind that Tony was kidding about the broomstick after all," says Bella gleefully.

nobodyelse
2013-04-06 01:19 am (UTC)

"Tony promised you a broomstick?" says Sherlock. "She was not kidding. She forgot. If you remind her, you will get an embarrassed apology and a broomstick."

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:20 am (UTC)

"She didn't really promise," Bella says. "...Really?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-06 01:24 am (UTC)

"Really," says Sherlock. "Try it and see."

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:25 am (UTC)

"It wouldn't be - I dunno, taking advantage of her having said something silly when she knew me for like an hour?"

nobodyelse
2013-04-06 01:26 am (UTC)

"She meant it when she said it, and she is better friends with you now than she was then."

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:27 am (UTC)

"Okay. I will, then."

At dinner, she does. "Sherlock says I should remind you about getting me a broomstick for my birthday," she says.

sparksflying
2013-04-06 01:32 am (UTC)

"...Crap," says Tony. "I totally forgot to get you a broomstick for your birthday! Lemme owl my mom before I forget again."
Edited 2013-04-06 01:33 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:34 am (UTC)

Bella giggles. "Okay. Thank you!"

sparksflying
2013-04-06 01:36 am (UTC)

"Seriously," she says, "I'm going right now."

And she does.

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:38 am (UTC)

Bella squirms with delight and nibbles on her chile relleno.

pythbox
2013-04-06 01:40 am (UTC)

Feral takes a seat beside her and says, "Where'd your friend go and what's got you in such a great mood?"

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:41 am (UTC)

"Tony went to owl her mom. It's my birthday! She said she was going to get me a broom and she forgot but Sherlock said I should remind her so I did."

pythbox
2013-04-06 01:42 am (UTC)

"Rich friend," comments Feral. "Nice rich friend. Lucky you. Happy birthday, what'd you turn?"

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:44 am (UTC)

"Eleven," says Bella. "I was just inside the cutoff to get into sixth grade here this year instead of next."

pythbox
2013-04-06 01:45 am (UTC)

"Cool," says Feral. "I dunno how old I am, I forgot my birthday, but I'm probably twelve-ish."

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:46 am (UTC)

"You could make up a birthday," Bella says, "so people would know when to get you presents."

pythbox
2013-04-06 01:51 am (UTC)

"I'll think about it," he says.

occluminous
2013-04-06 01:52 am (UTC)

She smiles and goes on eating. "How's my eleventh birthday been treating you?"

pythbox
2013-04-06 01:58 am (UTC)

"Pretty good!" he says. "Maybe I should steal it."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:01 am (UTC)

"Then it would be your birthday and I wouldn't have gotten you anything," Bella points out.

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:02 am (UTC)

"So?" says Feral. "I didn't get you anything either."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:03 am (UTC)

"I guess, but I would get you something if I knew your birthday was coming. I'm not sure what though."

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:08 am (UTC)

"You're gonna have a hard time getting me a birthday present if you don't know what to get," he giggles. "Maybe I should wait until next year to make one up."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:10 am (UTC)

"Well, I mean, I could think of something! Or you could tell me something you want," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:10 am (UTC)

"I don't think I really want any stuff," says Feral. "But I'll let you know if I think of anything."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:12 am (UTC)

"Okay," Bella says. "If nothing else, Christmas is the same for everyone!"

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:12 am (UTC)

"...who celebrates it," he tacks on.

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:16 am (UTC)

"Even people who don't celebrate it are not-celebrating on the same day," says Bella. "I just meant the date."

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:20 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Feral. "Don't get me Christmas presents."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:21 am (UTC)

"Okay, if you want," Bella shrugs.

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:22 am (UTC)

He smiles at her. "Thanks."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:23 am (UTC)

"How come you don't want Christmas presents, though?"

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:25 am (UTC)

"'Cause I don't," he says. "I don't really like Christmas."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:27 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:33 am (UTC)

"I just don't."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:34 am (UTC)

Bella shrugs. She writes down no Christmas present for Feral in her notebook. "Okay. Guess what Sherlock got me!"

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:36 am (UTC)

"No idea!" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:38 am (UTC)

"It's a book about a thing called the Philosopher's Stone and it does immortality! It doesn't say how to make it, but it has lots of other stuff about it, and it sounds like it's probably real," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-06 02:50 am (UTC)

"Cool. I wonder what's wrong with 'em."

occluminous
2013-04-06 02:52 am (UTC)

"It does say they're very hard to make and the only known maker gave it up and died a few years back," says Bella. "So it doesn't do immortality immortality, just, like, eternal youth if you keep using it. But he lived to be more than six centuries old first, with his wife, so I don't think it can be too bad."

pythbox
2013-04-06 03:18 pm (UTC)

"Six centuries ain't bad," he agrees. "Think you can make one?"

occluminous
2013-04-06 03:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, but I'm going to work really hard in Potions."

pythbox
2013-04-06 03:32 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Good luck!"

occluminous
2013-04-06 10:08 pm (UTC)

"I don't think making soap and boil cures is going to be all that applicable to making a Philosopher's Stone but there's probably some underlying principles that will be handy," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-07 01:37 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Feral. "Plus, if you live forever, you're gonna need a lot of soap."

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:17 am (UTC)

Bella laughs. "I won't need it faster than usual!"

pythbox
2013-04-07 11:28 am (UTC)

"Yeah, but if you get good at making it yourself you'll probably like it better than stuff you just buy, right?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, there's that, all kinds of stuff I could custom-make instead of having to find a kind I like in the store," says Bella. "I like the shampoo we did, it makes my hair behave itself really well. Magic in general is really convenient, I'm gonna be upset when it's summer and I'm not allowed to do any, I think that's a dumb rule."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:07 pm (UTC)

"It is a dumb rule," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:08 pm (UTC)

"Is there a reason for it besides magic being sorta dangerous?" Bella asks. "Because if that's all it could be that we can't try new spells that we haven't mastered, maybe, but we could still do things like Light Charms."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:10 pm (UTC)

"Something called the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy," he says. "I think."

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I knew about that, but then we could do magic at home with our families who already know about it," Bella sighs.

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:11 pm (UTC)

"Nope, 'cause they don't trust you not to fuck it up and show somebody who's not supposed to know."

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:13 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs. "At least that goes away, but not for years. Are they trying to make us ones who go back to the Muggle world find it a huge disappointment every time?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:14 pm (UTC)

"Probably," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess that seems like the sort of thing they might do. I like magic, but I'm really not thrilled about all the social studies type stuff, you know?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:18 pm (UTC)

"...Whaddya mean?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:23 pm (UTC)

"Like how the government seems to work, and what magic people seem to care about, is kind of screwed up."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:26 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Feral. "It's the same way with Muggles."

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:27 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Bella agrees. "But - but I think maybe it's worse with magic people, like Muggles at least pretend to care about some things that magic people don't and magic people are just as bad in the ways that Muggles are bad. I'm not sure yet, but that's what it looks like so far."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:28 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs. "Maybe so."

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:29 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure if pretending to care about stuff is actually better," says Bella after a musing pause. "But I have more practice arguing with people about really doing things they say they think they should than about arguing with them that they should care about things."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:32 pm (UTC)

He shrugs again. "Not like I do much of either."

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:33 pm (UTC)

"What kinda stuff do you care about?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:33 pm (UTC)

"...I dunno," he says. "What do you mean?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Like, I care about people not having to get hurt and die, and having the stuff they need, and about nobody messing with my brain even though it turns out there's no good way to learn Occlumency that anybody knows about, and about knowing who I am," says Bella. "What stuff do you care about? Specially so, that most people don't, I mean."

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:42 pm (UTC)

"Uh... I don't really compare what I care about to what most people care about," he says. "I don't really think about what I care about, like that."
Edited 2013-04-07 15:43 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-04-07 03:44 pm (UTC)

"What do you do instead?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 03:47 pm (UTC)

"Instead... of sitting around listing stuff that matters to me? Uh, I do all the other stuff I do with my time?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 04:03 pm (UTC)

"No, I mean - how do you - maybe you just don't," says Bella. "Know what you'd do if different stuff happened. Maybe people who aren't me just don't."

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:07 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"I know what I'd do if some stuff happened. But not unless I've thought of it. And not unless it matters."

occluminous
2013-04-07 04:08 pm (UTC)

"How do you decide which things matter?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:10 pm (UTC)

"...How do you?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 04:10 pm (UTC)

"By knowing what I care about, and which of those things I care about more," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Feral. "That makes sense, I guess. I don't do that."

occluminous
2013-04-07 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Then what do you do instead? If you know some stuff matters and some stuff doesn't."

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, if I think of it, I know if it matters or not."

occluminous
2013-04-07 04:15 pm (UTC)

Bella decides she's not going to get a satisfactory answer to this question. "Sure."

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:18 pm (UTC)

"I just don't have a list anywhere," he explains. "It sounds like you've got a list of stuff that matters to you, with a bunch of stuff on it, and it's all orderly and everything. I don't have one. But there's still stuff I care about, it's just not organized like yours."

occluminous
2013-04-07 04:52 pm (UTC)

"I don't have, like, a master list," Bella says. "With everything all outlined neat. Maybe I should, but mostly it's all scattered around between notebooks and I have the general idea memorized and know where to look for details if I can't come up with them."

pythbox
2013-04-07 04:58 pm (UTC)

"Okay," laughs Feral, "then I'm even less organized than that."

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:00 pm (UTC)

"I get the idea," she says. "It sounds - confusing."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:02 pm (UTC)

"It's not really," he shrugs. "Your way sounds like it'd confuse me more. What happens if what you care about changes while you're not looking?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Then I notice that when I look again, and then I figure out why, and try to find out if it's going to happen again and if I want to let it."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:04 pm (UTC)

"But if something came up before you checked, would you go with what was on the list, or what you really wanted?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:08 pm (UTC)

"What I really wanted - if I was sure about what that was. Sometimes I might not be. If I was scared or mad or something, I might feel like I really wanted to do something that I'd know was a bad idea if I was thinking clearer. And then I'd have to sort of - step back and remember why I wrote what I wrote, and see if those reasons are still there, and see if I trust my brain however it's being right then."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Feral. "Huh." He smiles. "If you write out that list, can I see it sometime?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:13 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks about this. "Maybe not all of it," she says. "But some of it sure."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Why not all of it?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Because some of it might be private."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:15 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Okay."

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:16 pm (UTC)

"I care about privacy, that'd be on the list," she says with a little laugh. "That's why I wanna learn Occlumency."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't care much about privacy," offers Feral. "Well, mine. I care some about yours."

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Huh. So you wouldn't care that much if somebody Legilimencied you and could see - all your memories - and what you were thinking?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:25 pm (UTC)

"...Well, depends on the somebody," he says. "If it was somebody I didn't know that well, or didn't like, I bet I'd get mad. If it was you or the elves I wouldn't mind."

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:26 pm (UTC)

"...Hmmm."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Why, you wanna learn mindreading? You can practice on me," he says generously.

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:28 pm (UTC)

"Not just to mindread," Bella says. "I don't want to mindread anybody who doesn't want to be mindread. It's just, I can't find out how you're supposed to learn Occlumency, and I could make stuff up but I don't know how I'd tell if the stuff I was making up was even sorta right, without - testing it."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Oh." He shrugs. "Okay, that's fine too."

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:34 pm (UTC)

"So if I find anything about how to do Legilimency and I have an idea of how Occlumency might work and I think it's all safe I'll ask you and you can be my test subject."

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:37 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" he repeats cheerfully.

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I actually did find a how-to book on Legilimency but I didn't read it. I'll do that," says Bella, and she writes this down.

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:43 pm (UTC)

Feral grins.

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:46 pm (UTC)

Bella grins right back.

And that is that for this meal! She scampers off to the library.

pythbox
2013-04-07 05:50 pm (UTC)

That evening, there is a long thin package waiting for her in her room. It looks distinctly broom-shaped.

occluminous
2013-04-07 05:51 pm (UTC)

She pounces on it! Carefully. She doesn't want to snap a straw.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:14 pm (UTC)

The broom in question has twigs, not straw, as most modern flying brooms do. It's not especially sleek or shiny, but the twigs are straight, the handle is polished, and the binding is gleaming brass.

occluminous
2013-04-07 06:16 pm (UTC)

Eeeeee. She wants to fly it right away, but it's almost lights out. She hugs it and props it up gently in a corner instead.

nobodyelse
2013-04-07 06:16 pm (UTC)

Sherlock returns from the bathroom.

"Happy birthday."

occluminous
2013-04-07 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! Broom broom broom, the teacher even said at the start of the first class that if we have our own we can bring them, this one's way nicer than school brooms, Tony is getting so hugged tomorrow!"

nobodyelse
2013-04-07 06:19 pm (UTC)

He laughs and hugs her.

occluminous
2013-04-07 06:23 pm (UTC)

Sherlock can also be so hugged.

"I came up with a way to maybe learn Occlumency, sort of," she says chattily when the hug ends. "I mean it's not perfect, but Feral says he doesn't care if I read his mind, so I'm going to make up ways to learn Occlumency and he can try them and I can do Legilimency to see if they work, since there is an instructional book on that, which is weird and creepy but oh well."

nobodyelse
2013-04-07 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Best of luck," he says.

occluminous
2013-04-07 06:30 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

And it has been a long and lovely birthday, and so Bella goes to bed.

The next day she reads the book on Legilimency. It's not long, and the spell isn't hard - creepy - but apparently the intrusion is the sort of thing you notice, so unless someone has been also memory-charming her, she doesn't think she's a victim. Apparently there's no serious risk associated with the spell, either, except for the parts that are actual nigh-intentional components of the mindreading itself.

She presents this information to Feral at lunch. It is a Sunday, so she has been able to spend all morning reading. "And I don't know what it will look like without any Occlumency at all, so I won't know if anything's working unless I have a baseline," she says.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:31 pm (UTC)

Feral smiles. "So... you wanna read my mind, or what?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Your room? I try to stay out of mine during the day on weekends." She stashed her new broom in the student broom locker before breakfast so she could clear out and let Sherlock sleep.

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay!"

Nom nom lunch!

occluminous
2013-04-07 06:35 pm (UTC)

Om nom lunch. "Okay, let's go, unless you have something else you need to do nowish?"
Edited 2013-04-07 18:47 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-04-07 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says serenely, and leads her to his room - a single-occupancy in the same wing as the infirmary, whose door opens by password instead of by wand-tap. He murmurs the password too low for Bella to hear.

occluminous
2013-04-07 07:08 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't try to listen for it, she just follows him in and sits down and peers at her wands before stuffing the hazel back in her hair and aiming the vine. "You ready?" she asks.

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:15 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs. "Sure."

occluminous
2013-04-07 07:15 pm (UTC)

"I need eye contact," she adds, when it doesn't materialize.

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:16 pm (UTC)

He looks at her.

occluminous
2013-04-07 07:19 pm (UTC)

She stares into his eyes, and focuses like the book said.

"Legilimens."

pythbox
2013-04-07 07:23 pm (UTC)

Feral is wondering idly what reading someone's mind is like, and noticing that her eyes are very pretty, and she has a bit of dust caught on an eyelash, and he wonders if blinking would mess up the spell, and how long he should go without it if it does.

occluminous
2013-04-07 07:44 pm (UTC)

Reading someone's mind is to curiosity like candy is to hunger. Instant gratification, packed as dense as possible, like his eyes are a direct funnel to his thoughts, like - as is in fact the case, as long as she holds eye contact - all she has to do is want, and she'll have.

(She'd tell him that blinking would mess up the spell, but as new as she is at it, she thinks talking would also mess up the spell. She can always do it over again.)

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:04 pm (UTC)

...Feral giggles. He doesn't know why, exactly, but something about the sensation of her reading his mind feels funny, like a joke he's just on the edge of getting.

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:06 pm (UTC)

Bella blinks first. The spell ends.

"I didn't expect it to work the first time," she remarks. "Maybe I just got lucky. I do need eye contact to sustain, but the book says later I'll only need it to establish."

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:07 pm (UTC)

"That was fun!" says Feral. "Wanna try again?"

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! This time I'll see if I can do memories, I'm supposed to be able to do memories, what should I look for?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:10 pm (UTC)

"Cooking," he says immediately. "Look for me cooking with the elves, it's super cute."

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay!" She blinks a few times, reestablishes eye contact, and says again, "Legilimens."

She looks. It's like squinting, to get memories instead of just surface thoughts, but -

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:14 pm (UTC)

- there he is, measuring ingredients into a mixing bowl as the kitchen elves chatter about proper pancake technique.

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:15 pm (UTC)

She grins, and watches till her eyes itch and she has to blink again. "Neat. Now I know how hard it is when you don't know any Occlumency," she says. "What if you try to fight me off without any Occlumency practice, want to try that?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Legilimens."

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:26 pm (UTC)

He tries to just - push her away, but in his head.

It pretty much doesn't work at all.

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:28 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Bella. "Is there anything you don't want me to see - I mean I won't look for it if you really don't, but anything you could be more energetic about shooing me away from?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:30 pm (UTC)

"...Not... really," he says. "Well, kind of. But most of it's stuff you probably don't wanna see either."

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:33 pm (UTC)

"...Oh. Yeah, there's that. Okay. So, the Occlumency books aren't very - stepwise - but they talk about having a clear mind, and about moving like water away from the attack, and one of them mentioned meditating. Can you work with that or should I invent something with more detail for you?"

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:34 pm (UTC)

"I can try to work with that!" he says.

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay! Lemme know when you think you have something. I'm gonna go outside and play with my new broomstick," beams Bella.

pythbox
2013-04-07 08:35 pm (UTC)

"Sure," shrugs Feral. "See ya!"

occluminous
2013-04-07 08:38 pm (UTC)

"Bye!"

And Bella runs off and plays with her new broomstick. She decides it needs a name, and goes with Terpsichore, to match Euterpe.

hidden arte

occluminous

Bella doesn't find a spare moment to practice with Feral again for a week and a half, which is just as well, since he does need time to try his hacked-together Occlumency strategy. Bella fills the time by reading her Philosopher's Stone book, twice, and following up on the leads in it, but apparently either the author did her research very thoroughly and there's nothing else to be found, or the ACAAM library just isn't that great.

The library is pretty great in some other respects, though. Whenever Bella finds herself at a loose end, she reads ahead and outlines essay assignments for the courses that are kind enough to offer syllabi so she'll be able to dash off and work on other things if the fancy takes her. She is strict about holding herself down to no more than one hour of outside-class flying a day, two on weekends, even when the weather is really nice (which it virtually always is). She got sufficiently nasty (and, for that matter, pleasant) surprises about features of the wizarding world in her first few days of immersion that she thinks it's probably a higher immediate priority to get a lot of reading in.

Then it's a Wednesday afternoon, Bella is between books, and she spots Feral at dinner.

"Hey, did you practice?" she asks him brightly.

pythbox
2013-04-11 04:19 pm (UTC)

"Kinda sorta!" he says. "I'm as ready as I'm gonna get, anyway."

occluminous
2013-04-11 04:22 pm (UTC)

"D'you think you managed to do anything? I mean, we'll test it, but how has it been going?"

pythbox
2013-04-11 04:23 pm (UTC)

"I can't really tell if anything works without, you know, trying it," he shrugs.

occluminous
2013-04-11 04:25 pm (UTC)

"All right. After dinner, d'you wanna try it?"

pythbox
2013-04-11 04:25 pm (UTC)

"Yeah!"

occluminous
2013-04-11 04:27 pm (UTC)

And lo, after dinner, they retreat to his room; it's Wednesday and she's staying out of her room till curfew. She sits and produces her vine wand. (She's developing a fairly good intuitive sense of when she'll get better results with one or the other, though she doesn't consider herself to have mastered a spell till she can do it with both.) "Ready?" she asks, looking into his eyes.

pythbox
2013-04-11 04:36 pm (UTC)

He nods.

occluminous
2013-04-11 04:37 pm (UTC)

She blinks, so she'll be able to maintain the read long enough to learn anything about his success or failure. "Legilimens," she says.

pythbox
2013-04-11 04:42 pm (UTC)

He tries to... be not there, wherever she is.

It doesn't work.

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:02 pm (UTC)

She looks, curiosity bridging seamlessly and unobstructed into seeing - what is he trying to hide?

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:13 pm (UTC)

He's trying to hide a lot of things. Most of his memories, for a start.

The one that comes up first involves him running in terror from his father.

His father caught him.

What followed was not pleasant.

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:13 pm (UTC)

Bella jerks her head backwards and closes her eyes. "Nng."

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Aww, shit," he says with a wince. "Sorry."

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:15 pm (UTC)

"I'm - I'm okay. Are you?"

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:16 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "I mean - no, but yeah. It's not fun to remember what he was like, but I'm used to it."

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:17 pm (UTC)

Bella nods slowly. "So - that didn't work."

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he agrees.

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Can you tell me more about what you were trying exactly?"

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:20 pm (UTC)

"I, uh... no," he says. "Not really. I mean, I was trying to do what you said the books said - clear my mind, move away from where you were."

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:22 pm (UTC)

"I mean - what were you trying when you tried to clear your mind?"

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:23 pm (UTC)

"...Not... think things?"

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:25 pm (UTC)

"I don't think that's - I'm making this up, but I have a sort of idea that what it's supposed to be is more like not feeling things? Like, focusing really hard on nothingness and if you have feelings about stuff then it just paints big arrows at stuff I could look at."

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:34 pm (UTC)

"...I am going to be so bad at that," says Feral. "So, so bad."

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:36 pm (UTC)

"You are? Why?"

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I have a lot of feelings," he says with a wry grin.

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:38 pm (UTC)

"And you can't put them on hold for a little to avoid making paths for me?"

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:42 pm (UTC)

"About as well as you could put not wanting your mind read on hold, I bet."

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I might be able to do that but it'd have to be really, really important," says Bella after a moment, "and it would be hard."

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Feral. "I mean, I kind of am my feelings, I don't even know what I'd be like without 'em."

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should see if Sherlock or Tony will help," muses Bella. "...I don't know if they'd be up for it, though."

pythbox
2013-04-11 05:52 pm (UTC)

"I could keep trying," he says doubtfully.

occluminous
2013-04-11 05:54 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure I can get good data out of you," Bella says, shaking her head. "If you have that much trouble with the basic principle, then if it doesn't work for you I still have no idea if I'm on the right track for me."

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:07 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Okay."

occluminous
2013-04-11 06:11 pm (UTC)

"Thanks for trying, though," Bella says earnestly, "it was really nice of you."

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:16 pm (UTC)

"What are friends for, right?" he says with a crooked grin.

occluminous
2013-04-11 06:17 pm (UTC)

She laughs. "Please don't try to read my mind just because we're friends."

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Not unless you asked!"

occluminous
2013-04-11 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I will. I guess I might if I thought somebody was definitely going to try to do it for bad reasons or was going to modify my memory? Because then I'd want to really know if I could fight them off or not and better you reading me for two seconds and not wanting to learn anything too private than somebody else doing worse. But even then I probably would ask Sherlock instead because I don't want to catch fire and because he's pretty close to mindreading sometimes anyway."

pythbox
2013-04-11 06:24 pm (UTC)

Feral giggles. "I don't want you to catch fire either," he says.

occluminous
2013-04-11 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm gonna go flying before it gets dark," Bella decides. "Thanks again."

pythbox
2013-04-11 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Have fun!"

occluminous
2013-04-11 07:08 pm (UTC)

Bella goes flying until it gets dark, then stows Terpsichore, reads about the history of the Statute of Secrecy in the library until it's nearly curfew, and then heads back to her and Sherlock's room.

nobodyelse
2013-04-12 01:49 am (UTC)

Sherlock is present.

occluminous
2013-04-12 05:50 am (UTC)

"Hi, Sherlock! So apparently Feral makes a lousy Occlumency test subject because he has really intense feelings about most everything and can't calm them down and stop painting me big glowy arrows towards his thoughts, so I don't have a good way to figure out if anything I have him trying would work for me."
Edited 2013-04-12 05:50 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-04-12 01:42 pm (UTC)

"I see," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-04-12 04:20 pm (UTC)

Yeah, Bella's not sure she wants to outright ask on this one. If it weren't a big deal she'd be having someone try reading her directly. But: "If you ever feel like getting your mind read lemme know, but goodness knows I'll get it if you don't."

nobodyelse
2013-04-12 04:20 pm (UTC)

He nods slowly.

occluminous
2013-04-12 04:25 pm (UTC)

Bella flops onto her bed. "I think I'll try practicing clearing my mind anyway so I have half a chance if somebody surprises me. I guess I'm not short on other important stuff to occupy my time if I can't think of anything else to do there, though."

nobodyelse
2013-04-12 04:27 pm (UTC)

He nods again.

wizard coffee

occluminous

Healer Song's first appointment with Sherlock, as ordered by Ms. Fish, was spent entirely with Sherlock napping in Healer Song's locked office with its spare cot and Healer Song elsewhere fiddling with his sun-drying herbs and checking his bandage inventory and fixing a broken ankle.

Ms. Fish, however, seems to think that as long as Sherlock continues to behave as though he's a he, he should meet regularly with Healer Song.

It is now his second such appointment.

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:04 am (UTC)

Sherlock enters Healer Song's office, and sits down, and says nothing.

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:06 am (UTC)

"Hello, Sherlock," says Healer Song. "I rather suspect Ms. Fish will check on me if I just clear out and let you catch up on sleep again. And I like my job and there's no such thing as tenure for me. So as long as we're here, is there anything you'd like to talk about, or shall I read a magazine?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:09 am (UTC)

Sherlock regards Healer Song with mild suspicion. But considering what he has gathered from their previous interactions, it is only mild suspicion.

"You do not then regard me as the victim of some unfortunate magical accident?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:10 am (UTC)

"Not as far as I know," says Healer Song pleasantly. "I've never heard of magic that could do it, and on the other hand it's often naturally occurring."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:15 am (UTC)

"Yes, so I've heard," he says. It's possible there may be a hint of humour to it, and then again there may not.

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:18 am (UTC)

"I do regret to inform you that most of the Muggle methods of addressing things will be of no use in a wizard metabolism," says Healer Song quietly. "But perhaps you've already done your own research; as I said, or perhaps merely implied, the reason for this appointment having been made is farcical, so if you don't need to ask any questions, I can see what the Los Angeles Quodpot scene is up to."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:21 am (UTC)

"Are there wizard methods?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:23 am (UTC)

"In a word," says Song, "no. I could go into more detail, but ultimately - no."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:26 am (UTC)

"Well, that's not as surprising as I'd like it to be," says Sherlock.

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:26 am (UTC)

Song spreads his hands. "I'm sorry," he sighs.

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:29 am (UTC)

"It is not your fault," he says. "Unless it is, in which case I am very upset with you."

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:30 am (UTC)

Healer Song laughs. "I admit nothing."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:30 am (UTC)

Sherlock giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:31 am (UTC)

Healer Song smiles back.

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:32 am (UTC)

"Read your magazine, then," he says. "Next time I will bring a book."

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:33 am (UTC)

"Very well," says Healer Song, and he picks up his magazine from the desk. "I have a handful of books about but I don't know that they'll interest you. You're welcome to them for the duration, in any case."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:36 am (UTC)

"It can't hurt to try one, can it?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:37 am (UTC)

"Some people find illustrated medical texts distressing. I'd skip the section on dermatological ailments and their corresponding spells and potions."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:39 am (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:40 am (UTC)

Song winks, and reads his copy of Wizard Sports Monthly.

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:40 am (UTC)

Sherlock, of course, now that the challenge has been put before him, reads an illustrated medical text.

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:41 am (UTC)

Healer Song raises an eyebrow at his choice of material but makes no comment.

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:43 am (UTC)

He actually finds it more fascinating than he expected.

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:43 am (UTC)

That will pass this hour rather effectively, then, won't it.

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:44 am (UTC)

Yes it will! He may need to be reminded when the hour has passed.

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:45 am (UTC)

Healer Song notes the time, when it's time. "You'd be welcome to stay, except Ms. Fish has assigned me more than one patient to occupy my afternoon, and not all of them as preposterously as you," he says. "Do you want to borrow the book?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:47 am (UTC)

"No, thank you," he says. "As long as it is still here next week."

alicornucopia
2013-05-11 02:48 am (UTC)

"I doubt anyone is going to wander off with it," says Healer Song. "I shall see you then."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:49 am (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

He leaves.

He is in an unusually good mood.

occluminous
2013-05-11 02:51 am (UTC)

Bella is in their room when he gets there.

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:51 am (UTC)

"Healer Song is unexpectedly pleasant company," he says.

occluminous
2013-05-11 02:52 am (UTC)

"That's good, it'd suck if he was awful and you still had to see him all the time."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 02:53 am (UTC)

"He let me read his illustrated medical texts."

occluminous
2013-05-11 04:55 am (UTC)

"Were the pictures gross?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:44 am (UTC)

"Not especially."

occluminous
2013-05-11 03:55 pm (UTC)

"That's good too, then."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:27 pm (UTC)

"He advised me not to look at the dermatological ailments, but I hadn't reached that section when I had to go. Perhaps next time."

occluminous
2013-05-11 11:28 pm (UTC)

"I bet a lot of those are icky."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Probably yes."

occluminous
2013-05-11 11:33 pm (UTC)

"I'm glad he's not being horrible about - the thing, is there a word for it?" says Bella. "Does he know stuff about it beyond just that you're, you know, a boy?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:36 pm (UTC)

"He knows that I am a boy. Apparently some of the Muggle solutions to the obvious imminent problem conflict with a wizard metabolism, and there are no wizard ones."

occluminous
2013-05-11 11:37 pm (UTC)

"That sucks."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:37 pm (UTC)

"It does."

occluminous
2013-05-11 11:40 pm (UTC)

"I would've thought someone could just - wave a wand. There's shapeshifting magic, human transfiguration - doesn't work? Why not?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:40 pm (UTC)

"He didn't offer details. I will look into them."

occluminous
2013-05-11 11:45 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "I'll help, if you want. So will the library elves I bet."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:46 pm (UTC)

"So will Healer Song, I expect, if I ask him."

occluminous
2013-05-11 11:49 pm (UTC)

"If I eventually decide to be slightly less ambitious I might be a healer when I grow up," says Bella. "Instead of an everything-useful-I-can-think-of."

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Thought of anything else useful so far?"

occluminous
2013-05-11 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Lots of stuff. Did you know there's artifacts that will send you hours back in time?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-11 11:54 pm (UTC)

"I've heard. They seem dangerous."

occluminous
2013-05-12 06:56 am (UTC)

"Yes, and you still age during that time, so it won't make you live longer, but if you really needed something done in an objective hurry it'd be handy. It might be possible to do just about the same thing with, like, rapidity potions or something."

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 11:56 am (UTC)

"Temporary self-duplication might have some practical applications, for that matter."

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:13 pm (UTC)

"You're not supposed to interact with yourself while you're time-turned. I'm not sure why. It says you'd be confused, but if you don't time-turn to before you got the time turner I'm not sure how that could reasonably happen."

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps because one of you would already remember the interaction."

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:16 pm (UTC)

"There's that, yes. Maybe you could choreograph the whole thing ahead of time."

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Interesting notion."

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:22 pm (UTC)

"It did say in the book I read about this in that it doesn't cause a paradox if you interact - things always happen the same way the second time you go through a period of time."

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 07:23 pm (UTC)

"...I should never time travel," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Because you'd stress-test that assertion?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Yes I would."

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:24 pm (UTC)

"I'd be tempted too, honestly."

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 07:28 pm (UTC)

"It would be so easy to change small details without affecting the ultimate outcome."

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Unless of course it was impossible after all."

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but how? Are the laws of magical physics enforced through mind control?"

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:35 pm (UTC)

"It was just a two-page spread on a book about various magical artifacts," says Bella, "I don't know. If I had to guess I'd say it'd work by extremely insistent coincidence." Pause. "Which, I wonder if you could harness that. I should probably also never time-travel except in direst emergency."

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 07:38 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Should I clear out and let you catch up on some sleep?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-12 07:40 pm (UTC)

"Always appreciated."

occluminous
2013-05-12 07:40 pm (UTC)

Bella scoops up enough objects to entertain her during her exclusion from the room and scurries off.

wand and shield

occluminous

The semester wears on. Bella studies and flies and reads through the library elves' recommendations and accommodates Sherlock's sleep schedule. (Artemis Burberry is actually tolerable enough on any subject but Sherlock, and is more than happy to avoid him on occasions when Bella is around to sleep over with Tony for a night.) She gets A's in everything except Transfiguration; she gets a B there, because she eventually compromised with the teacher on the subject of live animals. Bella will work with bugs, but she wants to be very good at bugs before she messes with mice. Some of the mistakes the other students have made with their rodent subjects made her want to throw up, however easily they were put right.

She explains this compromise to Feral, when the semester changes over. She's just in the next segment of each of the core curriculum courses - no electives till seventh grade, when the brooms course is over with - but they'll have all different teachers and schedules and classmates. (Feral is still in her Defense course, and now so are Sherlock and Tony; she has the twins in brooms and theory, too, and Feral in potions.) "Bugs are really stupid and they have really simple nervous systems. You could probably get a B like I did if you would work on bugs."

pythbox
2013-05-12 08:14 pm (UTC)

"I don't really wanna set bugs on fire either," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Do you squish them when they get in your room?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:12 pm (UTC)

"...Sometimes, why?"

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:14 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure why you'd squish them but not want to burn them. They can't feel much of anything."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:15 pm (UTC)

"I dunno," he says, shrugging. "Maybe I'll find a bug and set it on fire and see how I feel about it."

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Makes sense," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:18 pm (UTC)

Feral laughs.

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:18 pm (UTC)

"What's funny?"

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:19 pm (UTC)

"...It's funny that I'm going to set a bug on fire to see if I want to or not?"

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Well, if you worked out doing bugs instead of mice with the teacher like I did ahead of time and then it turned out you didn't want to that'd be a wasted effort. You can just find a spider somewhere outside and check real quick."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Okay." He shrugs again. "I'll do that, then, I guess."

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

"And then you won't have to be held back in transfig' any more."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:28 pm (UTC)

He grins. "Yeah, that'll be good."

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if they'll skip you up to grade level or what."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Bet you they won't," he predicts.

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, probably not, unless there's standardized tests for it later that I haven't heard about yet."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:34 pm (UTC)

"And if the standardized tests involve mice, I'm back to square one."

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:35 pm (UTC)

"...That's true, I guess that's probably part of them being. Standardized."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:39 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Well, you could at least stop having to sit out entire lessons. You can get really really good at sixth grade stuff," she snorts. "And practice outside of classes, if you want to catch your own bugs and read other years' textbooks from the library, I dunno if you care enough."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:42 pm (UTC)

"I probably don't care enough," he says.

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh well. At least I found a way around the problem. I'll even do mice once I'm good enough - I guess you can too when you grow out of the fire thing."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:45 pm (UTC)

"If I grow out of the fire thing," he snorts.

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Did you ever ask the library elves to help you find stuff about it?"

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:49 pm (UTC)

"Nah."

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I might. Maybe there's something you can do to make it go away and none of the teachers have bothered looking for it, for some reason."

pythbox
2013-05-12 11:58 pm (UTC)

"Knock yourself out," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-05-12 11:59 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. She writes it down.

pythbox
2013-05-13 12:00 am (UTC)

He grins.

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:12 am (UTC)

New semester classes!

Mr. Phelps is the new Magical Defense teacher for the new mixed-up class that includes Bella, the Stark twins, and Feral. They all sit in a cluster close to the middle of the room, Sherlock and Bella in front of Tony and Feral.

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 12:12 am (UTC)

Mr. Phelps has them all take out their textbooks and begin reading the section on the distinctions between hexes, jinxes, curses, and lesser known categories of baleful spell. He wanders up and down the rows with his arms folded and his wand in his hand, peeping past his elbow, making sure everyone is reading.

Stroll.

Stroll.

He is also making preparations for a certain demonstration.

He passes in front of Sherlock.

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 12:14 am (UTC)

Sherlock blinks.

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:17 am (UTC)

When Mr. Phelps takes his next step, Bella seizes up in her chair.

It feels rather like a part of her body she didn't know she had has been thrust into unfriendly weather.

But it's wearing a raincoat.

She swats away the - spell, some kind of spell - and Mr. Phelps's eyes widen in surprise and his mouth opens a tiny bit - and she stands up out of her chair -

"What did you just try to do to me?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 12:18 am (UTC)

"A Memory Charm," Sherlock says softly.

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:19 am (UTC)

Bella shrieks.

"You tried to Memory Charm me? Why?!"

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 12:20 am (UTC)

Mr. Phelps sighs and puts his hand over his eyes. "I did not single you out, Miss Swan, it's part of a demonstration -"

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:22 am (UTC)

Bella screams at the top of her lungs, clenching her hands in her school robes. "You can't do that! For - for a stupid demonstration - you can't just Memory Charm us - I don't even know how I stopped you - what if I hadn't, what were you going to steal -"

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 12:26 am (UTC)

"The last few seconds," says Sherlock, his tone carefully even.
Edited 2013-05-13 00:26 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 12:27 am (UTC)

"Yes, Miss Swan, there's no need for this stridency, I was hardly -"

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:27 am (UTC)

"Those seconds are mine!" she screeches. "You can't have them! You can't! How dare you!"

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 12:29 am (UTC)

Sherlock stares expressionlessly at the teacher.

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 12:29 am (UTC)

"Miss Swan! Compose yourself at once!"

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:30 am (UTC)

"Or what? You just tried to do one of the worst things I can think of already! Without warning, without asking for a volunteer, you were just going to casually -" She emits a nonverbal sort of howl and clutches at her head.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 12:34 am (UTC)

"How about," Tony pipes up from behind Bella, "you don't ever do a 'demonstration' like this again, and I don't write my mom about not feeling safe in your class."

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 12:36 am (UTC)

"I've been doing this for second-semester sixth graders for nine years," says Mr. Phelps. "I am not an unsafe practitioner of the charm - none of you would have suffered more than a moment's disorientation similar in effect to inattention or drowsiness that children invariably experience in school anyway -"

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:37 am (UTC)

"The charm isn't safe because it's designed to do something bad!" shrieks Bella. "That's like saying the Killing Curse is safe because apart from being dead its victims suffer no side effects!"

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 12:38 am (UTC)

Mr. Phelps sighs and rubs his temple. "Perhaps one of Miss Swan's friends would like to take her out of the room to compose herself."

sparksflying
2013-05-13 12:40 am (UTC)

"Sure," says Tony, and she picks up paper and pen off her desk in a deliberately conspicuous way.
Edited 2013-05-13 00:43 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:44 am (UTC)

Bella is still clutching at her head, near where her wands stick out from her bun. But she'll follow Tony out.

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 12:45 am (UTC)

"This does not constitute an excused absence; I expect you back and prepared to conduct yourselves appropriately in the next fifteen minutes," says Mr. Phelps.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 12:46 am (UTC)

"Uh-huh," says Tony. She's already writing the letter to her mom.

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:47 am (UTC)

Bella sits by the door to the classroom in the hall, breathing hard.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 12:49 am (UTC)

"You okay? I bet I can get him fired if you want," Tony offers.

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:50 am (UTC)

"That sounds fantastic. Let me double-check that impulse," mutters Bella, and she puts her notebook on her knees and starts scribbling, pausing occasionally to scrub a tear away from her face. "But he's been doing it for years, I don't know how your mom would do it."

sparksflying
2013-05-13 12:53 am (UTC)

"She's a rich pureblood mom. If she yells loud enough, the school will probably listen. Even though she married a Muggle."

occluminous
2013-05-13 12:54 am (UTC)

"Maybe. But that just implies that no one else has a rich pureblood parent who chose to yell about it." Bella pauses. "Or that Mr. Phelps has been Memory Charming extra people. But - apparently he can't do it to me - so - will you believe me if he tries to cover it up?" she asks dubiously.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 12:57 am (UTC)

"I'm sending this letter before I go back to class," says Tony. "And if I forget all about it afterward, Mom's going to raise some hell for sure."

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:00 am (UTC)

"That's a good idea."

Write write write.

"Yeah. I do want him fired. He's been doing this for nine years. He had plenty of time to have an attack of conscience."

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:05 am (UTC)

"He thinks there's nothing wrong with it," says Tony. "But he's, you know, wrong. I'm gonna run and see if I can find Nike. You coming?"

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:05 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Bella.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:06 am (UTC)

Off she goes!

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:08 am (UTC)

Bella follows her, getting her tears under control.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:11 am (UTC)

"...Seriously though, are you okay?"

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:12 am (UTC)

"He didn't actually do it. But I could feel him trying. I - don't know how I stopped him. And it felt bad."

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:13 am (UTC)

"Weren't you trying to learn how to do that kind of thing? Maybe it worked," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:15 am (UTC)

"I didn't even come up with anything good to try. Feral was going to test stuff for me because he didn't mind me trying to break through, but eventually we figured out he wasn't a good subject. I've been working on other stuff. And a little bit of made-up Occlumency practice, here and there, but it's supposed to be really hard to get to be a good Occlumens."

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:18 am (UTC)

"I guess you're just lucky, then."

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:19 am (UTC)

"Maybe. Have you ever heard of someone just doing it automatically?"

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:25 am (UTC)

"Me? No," says Tony. "But I don't know that much about Occlumency."

It turns out that Nike is in Tony's room.

"Hey, buddy," she says. "I need to send a letter to Mom, you up for it?"

Nike bobs her head regally.

"Cool," says Tony, and she ties the letter gently to Nike's claw with a bit of ribbon.

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:26 am (UTC)

"My parents couldn't do anything, I guess," Bella says gloomily.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:29 am (UTC)

"If there's a lot of people yelling, it might help if yours are too," says Tony. "But if it's just my mom... yeah."

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:29 am (UTC)

"Nobody else in class seemed fazed. Except Sherlock."

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:30 am (UTC)

"Honestly, I didn't care that much either," says Tony. "But it is kind of creepy and weird, and I care that you care."

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:31 am (UTC)

"It would be one thing if he asked for a volunteer and Feral raised his hand and then didn't remember doing it. But he just went and cast it on everybody."

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:32 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:33 am (UTC)

"Tempus." Bella sighs. "We should probably head back. In case he doesn't get fired."

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:38 am (UTC)

"Yeah," Tony repeats. "...Do you want a hug, or something?"

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:39 am (UTC)

"Yeah." Bella hugs her.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 01:40 am (UTC)

Hugs.

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:40 am (UTC)

And slow, reluctant return to class.

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 01:41 am (UTC)

The class is in the process of receiving a lecture about how many hostile moves - actually hostile, not a teacher with their very best interests at heart making a point - can be subtle and that their best defense is their perceptiveness!

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 01:45 am (UTC)

Sherlock is staring unblinkingly at him while he makes this speech!

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 01:48 am (UTC)

"In fact," says Mr. Phelps, "as happens in about half my classes, someone - welcome back, Miss Swan, Miss Stark - was able to identify what happened, although I don't know how much of a part the subsequent outburst played in providing clues. Nicely done, Miss Stark - can you lead us through your thought process as you came to realize what I'd done?" Mr. Phelps asks Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-05-13 01:48 am (UTC)

Bella hisses under her breath as she resumes her seat.

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 01:52 am (UTC)

"A few seconds of my experience of the world went missing just as you were passing by me," he says. "And then Bella yelled, just as you were passing by her - it seemed obvious that you were Memory Charming us to make a point and she had thrown you off or at least noticed."

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 01:55 am (UTC)

"Thank you," says Mr. Phelps. "Unfortunately, allowing the front half of the class to try their respective hands at noticing something amiss would require more editing than I ever perform on students at this point, but do notice that everyone behind Miss Stark here, who was charmed, merely assumed they'd 'spaced out', re-read the paragraph that had gone missing, and otherwise went on undisturbed. In other words, 'spacing out' - making a general habit of it - is a hazard to your ability to react to your surroundings. Attention, and the readiness to react, are the core of Defense."

pythbox
2013-05-13 01:59 am (UTC)

Completely inexplicably, the end of Mr. Phelps's sleeve (opposite his wand hand) starts smoldering.

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 02:00 am (UTC)

"Exstinguo," says Mr. Phelps, and he repairs the scorch. "Case in point, but there will be no more of that. This is my classroom and points are mine to illustrate."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:03 am (UTC)

Feral grins.

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 02:05 am (UTC)

"Should I develop cause to believe that this was not one of your accidental pyrotechnic outbursts, Mr. Orphan, you will not have a pleasant afternoon. Now -"
Edited 2013-05-13 02:21 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:22 am (UTC)

"I won't?" he inquires brightly. "You sure?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 02:23 am (UTC)

"Do not interrupt me," says Mr. Phelps. "Now, if you'll all turn to chapter two."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:24 am (UTC)

Feral turns to chapter two.

Feral has to Exstinguo his book.

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:25 am (UTC)

"Are you okay?" Bella murmurs under her breath to Feral.

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:26 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:26 am (UTC)

"What's wrong?"

alicornucopia
2013-05-13 02:27 am (UTC)

"Read the first section," says Mr. Phelps, "and produce a list of examples. At least three per person."

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:27 am (UTC)

"Didn't like the way he was talking to me," he murmurs. "I'll be fine."

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:29 am (UTC)

"Okay," murmurs Bella, and she reads the section assigned.

Class is otherwise uneventful.

pythbox
2013-05-13 02:29 am (UTC)

Feral successfully manages not to set anything else on fire.

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:33 am (UTC)

Bella and the twins have brooms next. She falls into step with Sherlock.

"Are you all right?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 02:34 am (UTC)

He shrugs. Not dismissively, but as though he has considered the question and cannot produce a satisfactory answer.

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:44 am (UTC)

Bella catches his hand and squeezes it, then lets go.

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 02:44 am (UTC)

He smiles hesitantly.

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:45 am (UTC)

"I bet it was scary," she murmurs.
Edited 2013-05-13 02:46 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 02:48 am (UTC)

"Scary is not the word I would use."

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:48 am (UTC)

"I was scared. What were you?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 02:51 am (UTC)

"Angry."

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:53 am (UTC)

"I was that too. After I was sure it was gone from my head."

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 02:57 am (UTC)

"It was not especially damaging, but it was - obvious. And obviously an attack, once I knew it was of human origin."

occluminous
2013-05-13 02:59 am (UTC)

"Tony wrote to your mom and thinks she can get him fired," says Bella, declining to sound optimistic.

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 03:01 am (UTC)

"So I gathered."

occluminous
2013-05-13 03:02 am (UTC)

"Do you think she can?"

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 03:05 am (UTC)

"I think she could. But I'm not sure she will. Try, yes, succeed - maybe."

occluminous
2013-05-13 03:08 am (UTC)

"I'm going to find someone who's taken his class before and find out if that's the only nasty surprise," Bella decides.

nobodyelse
2013-05-13 03:15 am (UTC)

"Wise."

occluminous
2013-05-13 03:16 am (UTC)

"I'll let you guys know what I find," she adds, expanding her address to include Tony.

sparksflying
2013-05-13 03:17 am (UTC)

"Thanks."

occluminous
2013-05-13 03:18 am (UTC)

"You're welcome."

And here they are at brooms!
Edited 2013-05-13 03:22 (UTC)

sparksflying
2013-05-13 11:04 am (UTC)

Brooms!

Tony is really good at brooms, it turns out.

natural occlumency

occluminous

Tony's mother is not successful at getting that teacher fired, although he does look stressed for the rest of the semester and conspicuously ignores Bella and both Starks.

It is decided, with considerable owling and eagling, that Bella should visit Tony and Sherlock at home, and vice versa, in July - first all of them at Charlie's house, then all at the Stark house, then all at Renée's, with Mrs. Stark providing transportation.

Term comes to an end.

Bella steps out of the bus, all her possessions plus her animal in tow, and the bus pulls away, and she tromps toward Charlie's door. (ACAAM admitted her on the basis of this residency, so this is where she is let off.)

And then she hears someone say, "Stupefy," and that's the last thing she knows for a while.

----

When she wakes up, she's in some kind of mostly white room, her eyes are dry like they've been open for much too long to the point where it's hard to see and hard to blink, and she can't move.

"Did you bring her around?"

"Yes, see?"

"All right, let's re-run the tests with her awake, follow the checklist -"

"I would've followed the checklist -"

"I know, I know. Go on."

"Open your eyes, girl."

She has them closed; she's crying moisture back into them. When she doesn't obey, there's the sound of a wand swishing through the air and they open again. It's still hard to see, but there's someone leaning over her; a man, judging by the voice.

"Legilimens," he says.

It's not wholly dissimilar from the attempted Memory Charm, but more piercing, and she can see it coming. She chucks him out of her head, almost without effort but not without pain - like she's deflecting a gently tossed beach ball, a big easy target, that happens to be covered in spines. It feels like her thoughts sting. "Stop it!" she shrieks. "You can't!"

"Yes, that's the curiosity," says the man, and he tries it again: "Legilimens."

She never stops batting him away, and he goes down a long, long list of spells, most of which she doesn't recognize, all of which fail, all of which hurt in their own unique ways. The Confundus burns, and when she howls at the attempt, they seem to be done for the day.

They leave her awake, paralyzed in the chair she's propped up in, and she still can't move.

Questions. She has questions. Somewhere in her aching, battered head are questions.

She wants to get out.

She has - her eyes, her voice, her mind.

She whispers doggerel, trying poem after poem to free her limbs so she can try to get more things; nothing takes. Doggerel is weak and the paralysis was cast with a wand.

What else?

She swallows - they could have given her water, couldn't they? - and says:

"Mith?"

The library elf pops into place, round-eyed and confused. "Miss Bella needs a library elf in the summer time?"

"Mith. I need help," says Bella desperately, "I'm stuck here, I got kidnapped, can you get me out?"

Mith peers at Bella. "...Mith is not allowed to fuss with wizard magic, Miss. Very very not allowed."

"Could Kay - or a kitchen elf?"

"No, Miss," apologizes Mith.

"Could you get me one of my wands?"

"Mith is not knowing where they is, Miss Bella," says Mith, wringing her hands, and if Bella doesn't come up with a way for this elf to help her soon she's going to start peeling the skin off her ears or something.

"I need help - a teacher?"

"Mith wishes she could, Miss Bella, but elves is not allowed to be bothering teachers in the summer time."

Bella swallows. "Can you bring someone else here? Mrs. Stark maybe - or - Healer Song's not a teacher -"

Mith shakes her head, eyes watering. "Mith is not knowing where to find them unless they call her."

"Feral?" tries Bella, and Mith lights up.

"Mith can bring Miss Bella Feral Orphan," she agrees, and she pops out again, and she goes looking for Feral.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:36 am (UTC)

Feral is in his room, reading a book about Thestrals.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:37 am (UTC)

"Feral Orphan!" says Mith. "Miss Bella is needing help."

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:40 am (UTC)

He puts the book down, instantly alert. It is comparatively unlikely that Bella dragged a school elf to her house in the summer because she wants Feral to tie her shoelaces.

"What and where?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:42 am (UTC)

"Mith is not knowing where, Feral Orphan, but can go there because Miss Bella called, and she is spelled to one place without her wands," Mith says.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:43 am (UTC)

Feral's wand is on his bedside table. He picks it up.

"Can you take me there?"

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:43 am (UTC)

"Yes, if Feral Orphan will go," says Mith, shifting from foot to foot.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:43 am (UTC)

He nods.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:44 am (UTC)

Pop.

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:45 am (UTC)

Here is Bella, red-eyed with tear tracks down her face, sitting as though perfectly comfortable in an armchair but oddly stiff.

"Feral - some guys kidnapped me - they've been experimenting on me," she says in a hush, "I'm sorry but Mith couldn't get me any grownup wizards -"

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:46 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry too," he says wryly, "I don't know how to spell you out of there and I'd probably set you on fire if I tried." He glances at the door. "Bet you I can give whoever put you here a surprise or two, though."

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:48 am (UTC)

"I was hoping you could find one of my wands - if you know a Summoning Charm or something - there's two, if one catches fire there's another try - although I couldn't aim like this anyway, I suppose - so never mind."

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:50 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

"How many of them are there? Did you get any names? What did they look like?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:51 am (UTC)

"Two, I can't see that well right now because they had my eyes open while I was unconscious and they got all dried out but I think they were both white men with brown hair, one of them kind of pudgy - no names."

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:52 am (UTC)

Feral hisses under his breath.

"Want me to go looking for somebody, or stay here and keep you company until they come back?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:53 am (UTC)

Bella swallows. "If you could stay - they don't seem to have heard us, you can still surprise them that way - do you know how to do water, is there anything to put water in here that can't catch fire? -" Her eyes are moving around, but they're kind of unfocused.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:54 am (UTC)

"I - might be able to do water," he says, "I think I remember the spell..."

He looks around the room for a container to put it in.

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:55 am (UTC)

There's a tumbler on the desk.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:58 am (UTC)

Feral takes a deep breath, calms himself down a little, and murmurs, "Aguamenti." A jet of water splashes out of his wand and into the glass.

He carries it to Bella, keeping his wand in his other hand and half an eye on the door.

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:59 am (UTC)

"I can't move anything except my eyes and my mouth, you're going to have to pour it for me," she says, trying blurrily to refocus on him.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm getting that," he says.

It's kind of awkward; he ends up having to stuff his wand up his sleeve so he can hold the water in his right hand, because otherwise it just spills on her face.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:02 am (UTC)

She drinks as fast as she can. "Thanks," she says, licking a droplet off her lip. "I needed that."

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:03 am (UTC)

"Anytime," he says wryly. "Want some more? I'll try not to set the glass on fire."

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:04 am (UTC)

"Yes. Please. But go right ahead and drop it in my lap if those guys come back."

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:05 am (UTC)

"Deal," says Feral. He puts the glass on the desk, takes out his wand - "Aguamenti" - and returns to Bella to go through the whole routine again.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:05 am (UTC)

Drink-drink-drink-

Something creaks, in the hallway.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:08 am (UTC)

Feral has time to put the glass down on one of the reasonably flat arms of the armchair and take out his wand. He does those.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:09 am (UTC)

The door opens.

It's the pudgy one.

"Wha -"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:16 am (UTC)

Feral glances at Bella to check her reaction. It doesn't take more than a glance.

"Incendio."

The pudgy man goes up in flames with such violent force that a wash of heat smacks into Bella and Feral halfway across the room, and when the column of fire dies down a few seconds later, there is nothing left of him but a few drifting flakes of ash and a large char mark splashed onto the ceiling.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:17 am (UTC)

"Wow."

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:19 am (UTC)

Feral grins a little. It is not an especially pleasant expression.

"One down, one to go?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:20 am (UTC)

"I - wonder if maybe it might be important to know what they wanted to do with me," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:22 am (UTC)

"I can try intimidating the next one," he says, "but I'm not very scary." He glances up at what's left of Pudgy. "Usually, anyway."

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:23 am (UTC)

"The scorch mark probably helps."
Edited 2013-06-27 03:25 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:28 am (UTC)

"That's what I'm thinking," Feral agrees.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:29 am (UTC)

Presently there are more footsteps. "You forgot the checklis-" When Not Pudgy stops in the door, he double-takes at Feral, and the scorch mark, and the lack of Pudgy, and goes for his wand.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:36 am (UTC)

"Incendio," he says, and this time it's not spontaneous combustion, it's a laser-tight bolt of magical fire that slashes across Not Pudgy, leaving a smoking streak along his arm and charring his hand to the bone.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:37 am (UTC)

Not Pudgy falls to the ground and screams.

Bella winces.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:39 am (UTC)

Feral walks over, picks up Not Pudgy's wand, and tosses it across the room.

His terrible little grin is back.

"Hi!" he says brightly.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:40 am (UTC)

Not Pudgy screams some more.

Bella closes her eyes.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:41 am (UTC)

Feral can wait.

He stuffs his wand up his sleeve again, in case he needs both hands.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:41 am (UTC)

Eventually Not Pudgy is not screaming, just huffing and puffing and crying and cradling his destroyed arm.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:42 am (UTC)

"Hi," Feral says softly, crouching down to get on his level.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:43 am (UTC)

Not Pudgy looks at him like he's some kind of nightmare monster.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:44 am (UTC)

That is a pretty reasonable way to look at Feral right now.

"You wanna tell me what you were doing with my friend?" he inquires.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:44 am (UTC)

"Who the blistering fuck are you?" whimpers Not Pudgy.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:46 am (UTC)

"I asked you first," Feral reminds him, grinning his horrible grin.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:48 am (UTC)

Not Pudgy shrinks away. "We weren't hurting her!"

"It doesn't hurt for other people maybe but it did for me, I told them," says Bella, eyes tightly shut still.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:52 am (UTC)

"Tell me your name," says Feral, "and your friend's name," he gestures up at the scorch mark, "and what the fuck you wanted with Bella, and what you did with her wands, and I might not kill you."

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:53 am (UTC)

"Preston! Martinez! Scientific curiosity! With her other things and her owl in the front hall!" exclaims, apparently, Mr. Preston.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:55 am (UTC)

"And why were you scientifically curious about my friend?" he asks next.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:55 am (UTC)

"She's a natural Occlumens!"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:56 am (UTC)

"Which you found out... how?" he says patiently.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:56 am (UTC)

"I don't know, Martinez found her!"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:59 am (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"Anybody else around here gonna give me trouble if I go get my friend's stuff?" he asks next.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:59 am (UTC)

"No!" says Preston, peering with panicked eyes at Feral's wand.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:02 am (UTC)

"Mmkay," Feral says cheerfully.

He stands up.

"Anything else you wanna know, Bella?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:04 am (UTC)

"Are they working for anybody - where are their notes - where are we - did they do anything to my parents - how do I unparalyze," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:04 am (UTC)

Feral turns his smile on Preston and waits.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 04:06 am (UTC)

"I - ah - Martinez might've been working for somebody but I was just working for him, I don't know - notes are in the desk, top drawer to the right - Nashville - Confunded but not hurt - the incantation's just a finite."

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:11 am (UTC)

Feral considers taking the guy prisoner.

He could do it. Maybe. But it would be risky and inconvenient, and probably get in the way of going and getting Bella's stuff.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:13 am (UTC)

"What's the wizard equivalent of nine one one, or isn't there one?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:13 am (UTC)

"Bet there's not," snorts Feral. "That would make too much sense."

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:16 am (UTC)

"Is there a phone in the house you could call regular nine one one with? He doesn't have a wand and I bet wizards have some way to notice and take wizards who wind up with Muggle police - and the police could probably call the Starks for me, their dad is a Muggle, I bet they have a phone? And maybe Mrs. Stark could come get me and take me home?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:17 am (UTC)

"Good question," says Feral. He eyes Preston.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 04:17 am (UTC)

"...Martinez had a car phone. There's not one in the house."

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:20 am (UTC)

"Figures," sighs Feral. "All right. Bella, you wanna take your chances on my counterspelling?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:29 pm (UTC)

"Uh - after that guy - not - really - I'd rather get Mrs. Stark to do it - maybe you can march him out at wandpoint and make him call?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:29 pm (UTC)

"Hey, what I did to these guys, I did on purpose," says Feral. "But okay. Mmmm, what do we say if we call, is the next question. Gotta be something the Muggles will actually buy. You know, it might be easier just to send Mrs. Stark an owl."

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:30 pm (UTC)

"They're fast, but not very - are you sure you want to hang around for hours waiting for Euterpe to find her and for her to find a way to get here?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:32 pm (UTC)

"What else am I gonna do?" he says practically. "Besides, you hate when people get Memory Charmed, I bet if we call the Muggle cops to this scene then whoever has to clean it up will be handing 'em out like candy."

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:33 pm (UTC)

"...That's true, they probably will. Okay. I guess that's the best plan going, then."

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:34 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Feral.

He looks thoughtfully at Preston.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:34 pm (UTC)

Preston whimpers.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:35 pm (UTC)

Feral giggles.

"You can come with me," he says generously. "Up you get. Show me where you're keeping Bella's stuff."

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:36 pm (UTC)

Preston gets to his feet, with some difficulty, since he only has one hand to haul himself up with, and shows Feral to the front hall, where sit Bella's bag, broomstick, and owl cage.

Euterpe trills at him and closes her beak around a bar of the cage to rattle it.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:44 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Euterpe," says Feral. "I'm gonna borrow you to send somebody a letter, okay? It's for Bella."

Seeing as this is Bella's stuff, he assumes there will be notebooks. He tears a page out of the back of one and writes:
Bella got kidnapped and she's stuck to a chair. I took care of the kidnappers, but I can't unspell her without risking setting her on fire. We're in Nashville. Bring your mom.

Feral
Then he rolls it up, addresses it to Tony Stark, and opens Euterpe's cage.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:46 pm (UTC)

Preston is very docile through this process.

Euterpe has apparently been caged up long enough to be pissed off at everything, and she bites Feral's hand, but then takes the letter and zooms out.

Flying flying flying looking for Tony.
Edited 2013-06-27 14:46 (UTC)

sparksflying
2013-06-27 02:47 pm (UTC)

Tony is at home!

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:48 pm (UTC)

Euterpe lands on her head and shakes a belettered foot.

sparksflying
2013-06-27 02:49 pm (UTC)

"Wow, okay, hi," says Tony, reaching up to obtain the letter.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:49 pm (UTC)

Euterpe goes on sitting on Tony's head. It is comfortable.

sparksflying
2013-06-27 02:50 pm (UTC)

Tony reads the letter.

Tony reads the letter again.

Tony goes looking for her mom.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:50 pm (UTC)

"You have an owl on your head," Maria observes.

sparksflying
2013-06-27 02:51 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it's the new look."

She hands her mom the letter.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:51 pm (UTC)

"...That is Bella's owl, right?" says Maria, eyeing Euterpe.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:52 pm (UTC)

Euterpe trills.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:52 pm (UTC)

"And this is not some kind of elaborate practical joke, is it?"

sparksflying
2013-06-27 02:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure it's not."

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:55 pm (UTC)

Maria sighs.

"No return message," she says to Euterpe, and she Apparates to Nashville. Half a minute of triangulating Point Mes later, she appears next to Feral in the front hall.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 02:56 pm (UTC)

"Ack!" says Preston.

pythbox
2013-06-27 02:58 pm (UTC)

Maria looks at Preston's hand and raises her eyebrows.

"Hi, Mrs. Stark!" says Feral. "Bella's down the hall, can you Finite her out of the chair?"

"Yes I can," says Maria, and with a last glance at Preston she heads for the room with Bella in it.

She can't help looking at the scorch mark on her way in.

occluminous
2013-06-27 02:59 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Bella, whose eyes are having a much better time of focusing, now. "You must be Mrs. Stark, thank you for coming!"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:01 pm (UTC)

"Finite Incantatem," says Mrs. Stark. "You're welcome."

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:01 pm (UTC)

Bella gets up immediately, and stretches out sore limbs, and says, "Did you see a bathroom on your way in...?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:02 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't looking."

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella, and she goes looking on her own, and finds one.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:04 pm (UTC)

Maria heads back out to the front hall.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:05 pm (UTC)

Preston is still doing his best not to provoke Feral into setting him on fire.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:05 pm (UTC)

Congratulations to Preston.

(It's working, but only because at this point it would be more trouble than it's worth.)

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:06 pm (UTC)

Preston is both wary of Mrs. Stark, and reasonably confident that she is less likely to set him on fire!

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:07 pm (UTC)

"Do you feel like explaining anything?" says Maria to Feral.

"I dunno, I think the letter pretty much covered it," says Feral.

"The letter," says Maria, "did not mention fire."

Feral shrugs.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:08 pm (UTC)

"He killed Martinez!" says Preston! "He's a scorch mark now! And my hand!"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:10 pm (UTC)

"And I'm sure you have a perfectly good explanation for why there was an eleven-year-old girl charmed to a chair in your office," Maria says dryly.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:11 pm (UTC)

"We weren't hurting her!"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:12 pm (UTC)

Feral makes a buzzer noise.

Maria looks inquiringly at him.

"They were throwing a bunch of mind spells at her, and she says it hurts, and she says she told them that," says Feral.

Maria looks at Preston as though she is now contemplating setting him on fire.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:13 pm (UTC)

"Well - we weren't - injuring her!"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:16 pm (UTC)

"What spells were you casting, exactly?" asks Maria, still giving him much the same look.

alicornucopia
2013-06-27 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Just - memory charms, legilimency, confunding charms - there's notes, Martinez took notes."

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:18 pm (UTC)

Maria turns to Feral. "Is there a reason this one is not also a scorch mark?"

"Bella wanted me to ask him some questions," shrugs Feral.

"I see," says Maria. "I'm going to go see what's taking Bella so long."

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:20 pm (UTC)

What's taking Bella so long is that she's found some saline potion in the medicine cabinet, and she is debating with herself whether to try it on her eyes. She suspects inadequate current saline is not her problem, but it's tempting.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:23 pm (UTC)

"There you are," says Maria.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Everything is kind of blurry still and my eyes still hurt, they had my eyes open for a long time, do you think this will help?" She holds up the bottle. "Or do you know a spell?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:30 pm (UTC)

"I don't know a spell, but I do know a healer," she says. "We can get you straightened out no problem."

(There is a faint whoosh from the direction of the foyer.)

"Do you want me to Apparate you there?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Did Feral just kill that one too? Aren't there police? Is there some wizard equivalent of 911 that they never got around to telling us?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:33 pm (UTC)

"There is no wizard equivalent of 911, but there are wizard police of a sort, and your friend would not have been in for a nice time of it if the kidnapper decided to go after him for what he did to the other one," says Maria. "So I suggested that he take care of the problem. Healer or no healer?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:34 pm (UTC)

Bella shifts her weight uncomfortably, but says, "Healer."

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:38 pm (UTC)

Maria puts her hand on Bella's shoulder and Apparates them both to a cozy little office somewhere. A little old lady with frizzy white hair and a wrinkled face peers at them.

"Oh, Miss Lalonde," says the healer. "What have you brought me today?"

"She had her eyes open for a while and now she can't see very well," says Maria.

"Mm, hm," hums the healer, and she putters behind her large oak desk and retrieves her wand, then putters back out.

"Close your eyes, dear," she says to Bella.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:39 pm (UTC)

Bella obeys.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:39 pm (UTC)

The end of the wand taps her just under each eye, while the witch murmurs something inaudible.

"There, how's that?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:40 pm (UTC)

Bella opens her eyes again.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:40 pm (UTC)

The elderly witch bestows a clearly visible smile on her.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:41 pm (UTC)

"That's better," says Bella, "thanks."

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:42 pm (UTC)

"No trouble, no trouble at all," says the witch.

"Thank you," says Maria. She Apparates herself and Bella back to the front hall.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:42 pm (UTC)

Bella winces when she sees the new scorch mark.

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:43 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"So can we grab Bella's stuff and go, or what?"

"Apparition doesn't do luggage very well," says Maria. "We'll have to take the train if we want to bring any stuff."

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:44 pm (UTC)

"Then how did they get me all the way here with everything - what day is it?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:53 pm (UTC)

"They could have used a Portkey," says Maria. "Which we could also do, but they're a pain to enchant and I usually don't bother. It's Saturday."

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Okay, so I haven't been out for ages - okay, train - does the train go to Forks or near enough?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 03:55 pm (UTC)

"I'm not even sure I know where Forks is," says Maria.

occluminous
2013-06-27 03:57 pm (UTC)

"It's in Washington - uh, I guess Alta California - and the closest city is Port Angeles. My mom lives in Phoenix if that's easier but then I have to explain what happened and why I'm at the wrong house."

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, we can definitely get you to Alta California," says Maria. "And I'm sure we can work out the details from there."

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Okay. Thank you for coming," Bella adds earnestly.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:05 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome," she says. "Pack up everything you want to bring."

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:06 pm (UTC)

Bella collects the experimental notes - unethically gathered or not, they are experimental notes, about her - and her bag and her broom and Euterpe's cage.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:07 pm (UTC)

And Maria leads them all to the nearest train station.

"You'll want to go to ACAAM, won't you?" she says to Feral. "Can you find your own way from the station?"

Feral snorts. Maria buys him a ticket. She buys slightly different ones for herself and Bella.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," Bella says again.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:09 pm (UTC)

"No problem," says Maria.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:09 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs Feral, before anyone gets on any trains.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:11 pm (UTC)

Feral hugs her back. Hug hug hug.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:12 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for coming," murmurs Bella. (Even if two people are dead now, nicer people than them die all the time, and the alternatives were probably worse.)

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Anytime," he murmurs back, hugging her tighter. "You're my friend."

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:14 pm (UTC)

Hugs hugs hugs.

And eventually it's time to let go.

"I'll see you in September, hopefully I won't need to summon you via elf again before that," Bella says weakly.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:15 pm (UTC)

Feral grins.

"Here's hoping! See you then," he says, and off he goes to his train.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:15 pm (UTC)

Bella follows Mrs. Stark.

"Why did the healer call you Miss Lalonde?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Because that was my name when she met me, and she doesn't feel like learning the new one even though I've had it for fifteen years," says Maria.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Oh," giggles Bella.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:18 pm (UTC)

Maria laughs.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:20 pm (UTC)

Train!

"I think I could find the house from my broom if I were any place in Forks, but not from Port Angeles, and also I'd be seen," Bella muses. "But I could call him and ask him to come get me from the station, maybe? Except that guy said they Confunded him, I don't know what that will have done. I don't know if there's a bus and taxis are expensive."
Edited 2013-06-27 16:26 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:27 pm (UTC)

"I can get you a taxi," says Maria.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:27 pm (UTC)

"You're really nice," declares Bella.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:31 pm (UTC)

Maria smiles.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:32 pm (UTC)

"What does Confunding do? Is my dad going to be all right?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:34 pm (UTC)

"It clouds the mind a little - makes people more accepting, less likely to worry about things. It usually wears off without extensive lasting effects. Whoever did it to your father probably came up with a superficially reasonable explanation for why you weren't going to be home."

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:35 pm (UTC)

"That was the worst thing they tried on me," Bella says, shivering. "It doesn't usually hurt?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:35 pm (UTC)

"I've never heard of it being so much as uncomfortable for the Confunded person, no."

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Okay, I guess that's good."

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:36 pm (UTC)

Maria shrugs.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:37 pm (UTC)

Bella pulls out the experimental notes and starts reading them.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:37 pm (UTC)

Maria doesn't bother her at it.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:39 pm (UTC)

For the most part they just say things that were already pretty obvious: Bella is a natural Occlumens, she automatically deflects a long list of mind-affecting spells even when unconscious, she is aware of such intrusions as they happen, and she complains a lot more than a learned Occlumens doing the same thing.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Anything interesting?" says Maria.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:40 pm (UTC)

"I can throw off the Imperius Curse," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:41 pm (UTC)

"That is interesting," says Maria.

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Bella agrees. "And a lot of other things but that's probably the most interesting one."

pythbox
2013-06-27 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Not that the rest of it isn't collectively pretty interesting too."

occluminous
2013-06-27 04:47 pm (UTC)

"And useful," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-06-27 05:21 pm (UTC)

"Although not always convenient."

occluminous
2013-06-27 05:22 pm (UTC)

"It's not?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 05:25 pm (UTC)

"Unless you think that they were kidnapping you for some other reason."

occluminous
2013-06-27 05:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh - no, that was pretty much the reason I think, but they decided to do it, it didn't happen as part of being a natural Occlumens."

pythbox
2013-06-27 05:27 pm (UTC)

"You are the only natural Occlumens I've ever heard of," she says. "People with unusual abilities get all kinds of attention, and it's often not the nice kind. That's what I meant."

occluminous
2013-06-27 05:28 pm (UTC)

"But at least I can't get the kind of attention that ends up with me being confunded and memory charmed and imperiused and stuff," Bella says optimistically. "Not so it does anything but sting, anyhow."

pythbox
2013-06-27 05:41 pm (UTC)

"True."

occluminous
2013-06-27 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for trying to get that one awful teacher fired."

pythbox
2013-06-27 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm just disappointed I didn't manage it," she says. "But he'll be on his toes for a while."

occluminous
2013-06-27 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, he looked nervous all the time by the end of the term, and he didn't try anything else like that."

pythbox
2013-06-27 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Good enough."

occluminous
2013-06-27 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I guess. I don't know if he's going to do the memory charm thing again next year though."

pythbox
2013-06-27 06:43 pm (UTC)

"He'll probably think twice about it," Maria says dryly.

occluminous
2013-06-27 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Maybe." Bella is done reading the experimental notes; she folds them up and puts them away. "I wonder if I should tell Charlie what happened."

pythbox
2013-06-27 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Is he likely to make a stink? Because we don't want that."

occluminous
2013-06-27 06:46 pm (UTC)

"He'd - want to know where the magic police were. He's a police officer."

pythbox
2013-06-27 06:49 pm (UTC)

"If magical authorities get involved, there's a chance your friend Feral could be executed," says Maria. "Not that big a chance, but a chance. I'd do my best to steer things in his favour, but you might have noticed things don't always go my way."

occluminous
2013-06-27 06:51 pm (UTC)

"He - really? Even though they were hurting me?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes, really. He killed one person, maimed another, and then killed him too. And he has no family to speak of. In magical society, that matters a lot more than it should. The fact that he did all this while also being twelve will just make people more scared of him, and the fact that he did it in defense of his Muggle-born friend won't help much. Although it could end up putting the spotlight on your unusual abilities."

occluminous
2013-06-27 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Bella, wincing.

pythbox
2013-06-27 06:57 pm (UTC)

Maria shrugs.

"There it is."

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:01 pm (UTC)

"And I guess if I told Charlie we couldn't trust magic police he might not think it was safe to send me back to school. What would happen if my parents tried to not send me back to school?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Nothing you'd like," says Maria. "You could end up considered an orphan, or someone could decide to change your parents' minds for them. The best you might get is your wand taken away until you can pass a twelfth-grade equivalent S.P.A.W.N."

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:15 pm (UTC)

"How would I pass a S.P.A.W.N without being able to practice magic?" Bella asks. Her wands are in her bag; she affixes them to her hair now.

pythbox
2013-06-27 07:17 pm (UTC)

"That would be your problem."

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:17 pm (UTC)

"So school is - really really compulsory, huh."

pythbox
2013-06-27 07:17 pm (UTC)

Maria nods.

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Maybe my parents would be better off not knowing. I guess it's good I mostly like school, huh?"

pythbox
2013-06-27 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I guess it is," Maria agrees.

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:19 pm (UTC)

Bella sighs and watches scenery go by.

pythbox
2013-06-27 07:20 pm (UTC)

Maria doesn't say anything more.

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:21 pm (UTC)

Bella gets her taxi home, generously paid for; Maria gets thanked with utmost mannerliness.

Bella goes home, and tells her father she's home now, and apparently he was well and thoroughly Confunded, because he doesn't ask why she's home past dinner when she was supposed to arrive in time for lunch.

She unpacks, and starts on her summer homework.

pythbox
2013-06-27 07:24 pm (UTC)

A few weeks later, announced beforehand by owl, a taxi drops Tony and Sherlock off in Forks.

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:25 pm (UTC)

Bella lets them in. "Hi guys! Dad, Tony and Sherlock are here!" she calls.

"Welcome!" calls Charlie, and he comes into view. "It's nice to meet you both."

sparksflying
2013-06-27 07:26 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" beams Tony.

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 07:26 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.
Edited 2013-06-27 19:27 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I'll show you around," says Bella, and she leads them through all of the rooms of the house, ending with hers, which has Euterpe's cage hanging by the window (currently open and empty of owl) and her school things strewn around.

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 07:35 pm (UTC)

Sherlock studies the house, and Bella's room in particular.

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:36 pm (UTC)

"Figuring out anything cool?" giggles Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 07:37 pm (UTC)

"Define 'cool'."

occluminous
2013-06-27 07:46 pm (UTC)

"I dunno. What are you figuring out?"

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 10:51 pm (UTC)

He looks around.

He says, "You didn't tell your father what happened."

occluminous
2013-06-27 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Your mom convinced me it'd be a bad idea."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 10:52 pm (UTC)

"It probably would."

occluminous
2013-06-27 10:53 pm (UTC)

"What'd she tell you guys, about what happened?"

sparksflying
2013-06-27 10:55 pm (UTC)

"She said you got kidnapped and Feral rescued you halfway but he couldn't get you free without almost setting you on fire so he owled me and I got her and she rescued you the rest of the way," Tony summarizes.

occluminous
2013-06-27 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that's all true. I was getting experimented on by, like - mad wizard scientists."

sparksflying
2013-06-27 10:56 pm (UTC)

"...Holy crap," says Tony. "Are you, like, okay?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 10:57 pm (UTC)

"I'm fine. Your mom took me to a healer after for my eyes - they were stuck open for a really long time and got all dried out," says Bella. "And I don't think the experiments did anything that lasted."

sparksflying
2013-06-27 10:58 pm (UTC)

"What... I mean, what happened?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 10:59 pm (UTC)

"I got off the bus, and I got Stunned, and when I woke up I was in their place in Nashville paralyzed and stuck to a chair and they were talking about re-running the experiments with me awake and they tried lots and lots of mind-affecting spells and none of them worked like they're supposed to but it hurt all different ways - the Confundus is the worst. And then they left me alone but I was still awake and they had me able to talk, I don't know why, and I tried doggerel but it didn't work, and then I tried calling one of the school elves."
Edited 2013-06-27 23:00 (UTC)

sparksflying
2013-06-27 11:00 pm (UTC)

"Wow," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:01 pm (UTC)

"And she came, but she's not allowed to interfere with wizard magic, or bother teachers, and she didn't know where any of the other faculty or your mom were, but I know Feral stays at school over the holidays and I thought maybe he could do something, so she went and got him."

sparksflying
2013-06-27 11:02 pm (UTC)

"I guess that worked!" says Tony.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah - he couldn't unstick me, not without maybe setting me on fire. But, uh, he's really good at setting things on fire, and that - includes mad scientist wizards. And he got Euterpe for me to owl you."

sparksflying
2013-06-27 11:03 pm (UTC)

"...Whoa," says Tony.

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:04 pm (UTC)

"I had wondered what we weren't being told," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:06 pm (UTC)

"So after the first one was gone the other was really scared of Feral, and Feral burned his hand so he dropped his wand and then he answered all our questions, and your mom came and she unstuck me and took me to a healer and Feral killed the second one. Your mom says he could get in a lot of trouble if people knew, though, even though he's just twelve and they were hurting me - so - don't tell."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:10 pm (UTC)

"We won't," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:11 pm (UTC)

"And, uh, I guess don't kidnap me and do mad wizard experiments on me, because it makes Feral mad, but I don't think you were going to anyway." Pause. "I have their notes though."
Edited 2013-06-27 23:12 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:12 pm (UTC)

"I would like to read their notes," says Sherlock.

sparksflying
2013-06-27 11:12 pm (UTC)

"But not do mad science to you. Because that would be wrong," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:13 pm (UTC)

Bella fetches out the notes and offers them to Sherlock. "Yeah. But as long as they already did the mad science I'm glad I get to know what they found out. It's better than not."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:17 pm (UTC)

"True," says Sherlock.

He reads.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:19 pm (UTC)

Bella is immune to quite a lot of things, invariably "responds in a manner consistent with awareness of intrusion, including spells cast silently and out of sight", and appears to "instantly and instinctively, but with more negative affect, respond to mind-affecting magic in the way the most highly trained Occlumenses might".

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:20 pm (UTC)

"The Imperius Curse?" says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:21 pm (UTC)

"They tried it. It didn't hurt nearly so much as some of the others, actually, it was more like accidentally putting my face in a spiderweb than anything."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Do you think the sensation correlates with anything about the spell?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:24 pm (UTC)

"...Maybe. All the spells were definitely the same every time, I'd recognize them if someone did them again. I don't know enough about most of these spells. I'm going to look them all up when I get back to school. They didn't write down anything I said about how they felt but I did, so I have all of that, here -" She produces a separate page of notes, which has a brief paragraph of recollections about the synaesthetic sensations corresponding to each attack, including the spiderweb Imperius, burning Confundus, spiky-stinging Legilimency, and battering Memory Charm.

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:26 pm (UTC)

Sherlock compares these sets of notes in fascination.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:27 pm (UTC)

"At least it was interesting mad science."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:29 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:31 pm (UTC)

"I don't know how they found out I'm an Occlumens but I guess I did throw off that Memory Charm in front of an awful lot of people, and then more people would've found out when your mom was trying to get the teacher fired."
Edited 2013-06-27 23:31 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Also true," says Sherlock. "But I would like to know with more certainty. What else can you tell me about them?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:36 pm (UTC)

"I didn't see them very clearly because by the time my eyes were all better they were both dead. One of them said his name was Preston and the other one was Martinez. He could've been lying, but he seemed really scared of Feral. And the house was in Nashville and they were both white people with brown hair. Feral got a better look at their faces."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps I'll have to ask Feral, then," says Sherlock. "What did you notice about the house?"

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:40 pm (UTC)

"It was one story, and the medicine cabinet had wizard eye drops in it that I thought about trying before your mom offered to take me to a healer. The room I was in was mostly white, even the furniture, kind of like an interior decorating magazine room, but the rest of it looked pretty normal. Uh, there was a glass on a table in the white room, Feral charmed water into it to give me when I asked him, before Martinez came back. Preston said something about Martinez having a car phone but we didn't wind up using it and I don't think there was another phone in the house."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:42 pm (UTC)

"Nothing useful springs to mind out of that," he murmurs.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:43 pm (UTC)

Bella closes her eyes and tries to remember. "The chair probably would've been comfy if I hadn't been stuck to it - there were carpets everywhere I saw except the bathroom - it must've been pretty well soundproof because they didn't hear me and Feral talking."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Hmmm."

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:48 pm (UTC)

"And they must've been waiting for me because they got me right after the bus drove off, does that help?"

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Somewhat, yes," he says. "Still nothing concrete."

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Your mom might be able to Apparate you there, if that's the sort of thing she would do."

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:51 pm (UTC)

"I will ask."

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Do you think she would?"

nobodyelse
2013-06-27 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I don't know."

sparksflying
2013-06-27 11:58 pm (UTC)

"I bet she would, unless she thought it'd be dangerous," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-06-27 11:59 pm (UTC)

"They're both dead. I guess someone might have noticed that by now and started looking around the house and they might not be friendly."

sparksflying
2013-06-28 12:00 am (UTC)

"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking."

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:03 am (UTC)

"So that's what happened during my June, how about yours?"

sparksflying
2013-06-28 12:04 am (UTC)

"Boring things," laughs Tony. "To me, anyway."

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:04 am (UTC)

"I read several books," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:05 am (UTC)

"About anything good?" Bella asks Sherlock.

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:06 am (UTC)

"Muggle medical textbooks. Fascinating stuff. And a little bit of science fiction."

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:06 am (UTC)

"What were you reading the Muggle medical textbooks for?"

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:08 am (UTC)

"Idle curiosity."

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:10 am (UTC)

"I don't know a lot about either kind of doctoring, but I bet if I'd gone to a Muggle doctor about my eyes, say, it would've been a lot more unpleasant and slower and probably wouldn't have worked as well."

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:15 am (UTC)

"Likely yes."

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:16 am (UTC)

"Are there any things Muggles are better at, do you know?"

sparksflying
2013-06-28 12:29 am (UTC)

"You mean medically? No idea," says Tony.

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:29 am (UTC)

"There is the obvious," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:31 am (UTC)

Sherlock's idea of the obvious is not Bella's, but she figures it out eventually. "Huh."

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:31 am (UTC)

"I have not found anything else of note, but then I have not finished looking."

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:34 am (UTC)

"Anyway, what do you guys want to do while you're here?"

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:42 am (UTC)

"You don't seem to have the facilities to tinker with electronics and we would be likely to bore each other if we all sat and read books, so that's Tony's and my major hobbies both out of the running," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:47 am (UTC)

"And we can't practice magic either. Uuuum. There are... board games and playing cards? And movies, and... this is a really boring town, we'd have to go to Port Angeles to find anything worth doing outside the house unless you want to go fishing with Charlie."

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:48 am (UTC)

"I perceive that you do not want to go fishing with Charlie," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:49 am (UTC)

"It's really, really boring," says Bella. "You just sit there and talking 'scares the fish'."

nobodyelse
2013-06-28 12:50 am (UTC)

"I believe I would enjoy this pastime."

sparksflying
2013-06-28 12:50 am (UTC)

"Bring on the board games," says Tony firmly.

occluminous
2013-06-28 12:51 am (UTC)

"Maybe on Sunday when Charlie goes you can go with him and me and Tony can braid each other's hair or something," snorts Bella, and she runs to the board game shelf and comes back with an assortment of the classics.

sparksflying
2013-06-28 12:52 am (UTC)

Tony is still giggling.

Board games, woo!

animated photographs

occluminous

The Starks' place is much more interesting than Charlie's house. For one thing, the backyard is secluded enough that they can fly in it.

They do a lot of flying in it.

Zoom!

sparksflying
2013-08-06 12:53 am (UTC)

Flying is the beeeeeeeeeest.

pythbox
2013-08-06 12:56 am (UTC)

It is pretty great.

Mrs. Stark decides to take pictures.

occluminous
2013-08-06 12:57 am (UTC)

Bella smiles for the camera!

Later, she wants to see the photos.

pythbox
2013-08-06 01:02 am (UTC)

Mrs. Stark tucks them into a nice little photo album and displays them to the children.

occluminous
2013-08-06 01:04 am (UTC)

Bella watches them move.

Then, slowly, she frowns.

"That," she says, suddenly, pointing at herself as she turns around midair. "I didn't do that."

sparksflying
2013-08-06 01:19 am (UTC)

"Course not," says Tony. "It's a wizard photograph, not a video."

occluminous
2013-08-06 01:20 am (UTC)

"...I thought wizard photographs just did video."

She is starting to scrunch in uncomfortably towards herself.

sparksflying
2013-08-06 01:22 am (UTC)

"No?" says Tony. "They do - that." She waves illustratively at the photo album. "What's wrong?"

occluminous
2013-08-06 01:22 am (UTC)

"How does it do that? It's not something I did but it's the sort of thing I'd do, how does it know what I'd do?"

sparksflying
2013-08-06 01:25 am (UTC)

"...Magic?" she suggests.

occluminous
2013-08-06 01:26 am (UTC)

"But the mad scientists found that magic that looks into people's heads doesn't work on me, so is this doing something else, or...?"

sparksflying
2013-08-06 01:36 am (UTC)

"It's not looking into your head," says Tony, "it's just - I don't know, actually, I never thought about it."

occluminous
2013-08-06 01:37 am (UTC)

"Mrs. Stark? How does it work?" asks Bella, looking at the photos with deepest suspicion. When it turns out that Mrs. Stark has left the room she hops up and goes looking for her.
Edited 2013-08-06 01:47 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:04 am (UTC)

She hasn't gone far; she's sitting in a comfortable chair in another room, typing on a laptop.

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:04 am (UTC)

"How do wizard photographs know what I would do when I didn't do it?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:06 am (UTC)

Maria looks up from her computer.

"They guess."

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:08 am (UTC)

"How do they guess?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:11 am (UTC)

"With magic," she says dryly. "I don't know any more off the top of my head, but someone might have written a book about it that I could find with a little digging."

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:11 am (UTC)

"I would like to read that book."

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:12 am (UTC)

Maria shrugs. "All right."

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:12 am (UTC)

"But it's not reading my mind somehow?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:16 am (UTC)

"If they could read minds, they would guess a lot more accurately," she says. "Now, portraits, portraits are a different story. A magical painting with the right infusions can preserve a more or less accurate copy of someone's personality, and they can talk and remember things. I don't know how it's done, but I don't think Legilimency is involved. There might be some of the same magic that goes into Pensieves... do you want me to look that up, too?"

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:18 am (UTC)

"Yes please. Are there any portraits I can talk to around here?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:23 am (UTC)

"Not any you'd want to meet," says Maria. "The last Lalonde to get her portrait done before she died was a nasty old lady with strong opinions about blood purity; I've had her frozen in an attic since my wedding. And then there's Grandma Antoinette, but she only speaks French."

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:24 am (UTC)

"...And she hasn't learned English? Why not?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:36 am (UTC)

"She... lived in France?" says Maria.

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:36 am (UTC)

"Right, but if she's recorded and she can talk sense at all shouldn't she have been able to learn English?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:39 am (UTC)

"No one's ever suggested it," says Maria. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard of a portrait learning a language. They probably can't."

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:39 am (UTC)

"...Can they learn anything?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:40 am (UTC)

"Oh, people's names, who's married who, that sort of thing," she says.

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:42 am (UTC)

"Hmmm." She produces her notebook and scribbles a note-to-self about portraiture. "What's a Pensieve?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:43 am (UTC)

"A device for storing and examining memories," she says. "I have one upstairs I could show you, as long as you promise to be careful with it."

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:53 am (UTC)

"I will. How do you store and examine memories with it?" asks Bella. "Does it only work on your own? I wonder if mine even come out."

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:55 am (UTC)

"There's a spell, but it might be a little beyond you," says Maria. "Did the mad scientists not try it already? Maybe they didn't have one on hand."

occluminous
2013-08-06 02:58 am (UTC)

"I guess they didn't. This is something people can do to you? There just keep being more horrible things."

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:59 am (UTC)

"It's convenient for double-checking my math," shrugs Maria.

occluminous
2013-08-06 03:00 am (UTC)

"Double-checking your math?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 03:02 am (UTC)

"When I'm working on something complicated, I pull out the memory of writing it all down, watch it again, and check for mistakes."

occluminous
2013-08-06 03:03 am (UTC)

"It takes objective memories?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 03:04 am (UTC)

"Yes," she says, setting her laptop aside. "Yes it does."

occluminous
2013-08-06 03:05 am (UTC)

"So not thoughts, just - what was actually going on around you?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 03:07 am (UTC)

"From a third-person perspective - you see yourself doing whatever you were doing at the time; you don't see it out of your own eyes."

occluminous
2013-08-06 03:08 am (UTC)

"Oh. That's not so bad at all. I want to try it."

pythbox
2013-08-06 03:11 am (UTC)

"You can try looking at mine," says Maria. "Please don't experiment. There are easy wordless spells and tricky wordless spells; pulling out memories is one of the second kind."

occluminous
2013-08-06 03:11 am (UTC)

"Okay. I don't want to mess up my memories, definitely."

pythbox
2013-08-06 03:14 am (UTC)

"It's one of those things that's easy once you have the hang of it, but dangerous until you don't. Like Apparition."

occluminous
2013-08-06 03:15 am (UTC)

"Okay." Phoenix heads in the direction of the stairs to go have a look at the Pensieve.

pythbox
2013-08-06 03:21 am (UTC)

Maria corrects her course; the Pensieve is up a different set of stairs, spiraling up the middle of a round stone tower near the kitchen. After two landings, on the floor below the top of the spiral, there is a door leading to a little workroom with a green chalkboard taking up most of one wall and a set of cabinets taking up most of the opposite one. Between those two and opposite the door, the curved outer wall of the tower supports a surprisingly large window with a nice view of the grounds.

Maria opens up one of the lower cabinets and pulls out a flat rolling tray just exactly the right size to support the grey stone basin on top of it. Silvery liquid swirls inside, under a gentle silver mist.

occluminous
2013-08-06 03:22 am (UTC)

Bella crosses her arms carefully behinds her back and peers into the silver stuff. "It's pretty," she says.

pythbox
2013-08-06 02:35 pm (UTC)

"It is," she agrees. "See the little streaks? Pick one and watch it for a while."

There are indeed small blots of a slightly brighter silver chasing each other through the silver fluid, moving with the endless soothing swirls. Watch one for long enough, and it starts to take on colours - chalkboard green, in most cases. Watch it a little longer, and the colour spreads across the surface until the Pensieve is showing a snippet of memory.

occluminous
2013-08-06 04:56 pm (UTC)

Bella staaaaaares.

pythbox
2013-08-06 05:51 pm (UTC)

"If you touch the surface, you can enter the memory and walk around in it," Maria murmurs. "But it's almost as useful from out here, for what I do."

Her remembered hand scribbles equations across the remembered chalkboard.

occluminous
2013-08-06 05:52 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't understand the math, but she's fascinated by the magic. "How far can you go from where the person whose memory it is is?"
Edited 2013-08-06 17:52 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-06 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Depends on the memory, and the person. Usually not very far. The next room, or shouting distance in an open area, is about the limit for most recordings."

occluminous
2013-08-06 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Can you see farther than that? Can you see things the person didn't know were there even at the time, like somebody hiding? Can you look behind and under stuff? When you walk around are you your same size in the memory?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you try it and see?" she suggests. "The memory's not long, and you'll come back out when it ends."

occluminous
2013-08-06 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

Carefully, Bella reaches for the image.

pythbox
2013-08-06 06:59 pm (UTC)

When she touches the surface of the Pensieve, there is a momentary coolness against her fingers and a disorienting whirling sensation—

And she is standing in this very room, just behind the past Maria, watching her begin to write those equations on the board. The whole scene has a kind of ghostly, unreal quality, but wherever she turns her attention, individual details are sharp and clear.

occluminous
2013-08-06 06:59 pm (UTC)

Bella inspects the contents of the room. She tries touching things.

pythbox
2013-08-06 07:04 pm (UTC)

Touching things to examine their textures works just fine, but her fingers won't smudge a line of chalk or press down the peeling label on the eraser; if she exerts enough force to move something, it resists, and if she exerts still more, her hand will go right through it.

occluminous
2013-08-06 07:04 pm (UTC)

That's interesting. She tries sticking her head through a desk drawer to see if she can inspect its contents.

pythbox
2013-08-06 07:06 pm (UTC)

It's dark in there.

occluminous
2013-08-06 07:07 pm (UTC)

Of course. She pulls her head out and goes on checking out the way the memory works; she tries holding her hand still in the path of Mrs. Stark's moving elbow.

pythbox
2013-08-06 07:08 pm (UTC)

The same rules apply in this case: it will push her hand out of the way, and if she declines to be pushed, it will go right through her.

occluminous
2013-08-06 07:09 pm (UTC)

She starts looking behind things, and at things that would not have gotten Mrs. Stark's attention - dust motes swirling in the light, objects under the desk.

pythbox
2013-08-06 07:10 pm (UTC)

It's all right there, perfectly visible.

occluminous
2013-08-06 07:12 pm (UTC)

Interesting. Is there an open door? She wants to test the boundaries of the memory.

pythbox
2013-08-06 07:17 pm (UTC)

She could always walk through the closed one.

occluminous
2013-08-06 07:19 pm (UTC)

She does that.

pythbox
2013-08-06 07:27 pm (UTC)

She can stand just outside it and everything looks fine.

If she takes another step, things get misty around the edges.

Another step after that, and when she looks down the stairwell, everything is blurred and silvery; the door behind her, and a bit of the wall around it, is the only clear and solid thing remaining.

occluminous
2013-08-06 07:28 pm (UTC)

She tries walking into the silver.

pythbox
2013-08-06 07:31 pm (UTC)

All sensation is blurred and muffled. The world is silver mist, slightly cool to the touch, completely undifferentiated.

That remains the case for an unknown length of time.

Then the whirling sensation from before fades in slowly, and she is flung out of the memory to land on her feet with considerable backward momentum.

occluminous
2013-08-06 07:39 pm (UTC)

Bella overbalances and falls on her rear. "Ow."

pythbox
2013-08-06 08:03 pm (UTC)

"The exit can be rough," Maria says sympathetically. "Although not usually that rough."

occluminous
2013-08-06 09:07 pm (UTC)

"I'm not very graceful. I'm okay flying," says Bella. "Just not on the ground." She hauls herself up. "That's really cool. Are they expensive?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 09:09 pm (UTC)

"More than they probably should be," says Maria. "In theory, you can keep your memories in any old bottle or dish, but a proper Pensieve comes with preservation spells and that handy preview you saw."

occluminous
2013-08-06 09:10 pm (UTC)

"Can you go in and look at them if they're in a dish? Can you put them back after you take them out? Do you still remember them, in your head, when they are in there?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 09:12 pm (UTC)

"You can go in and look at them in a dish - oh, that's another thing the Pensieve does, though: stabilizing spells to make entry and exit a little less rocky and ensure the vessel doesn't break when you come out. You can put them back after you take them out, no matter where you put them. How much of the memory stays in your head depends on how good you are at pulling them and whether or not you want it to; if you're not very good, it'll still be there, just with most of the detail faded. If you're good and you want to, you can pull one out completely or copy it without affecting the original at all."

occluminous
2013-08-06 09:13 pm (UTC)

"How do you learn without messing up your head?"

pythbox
2013-08-06 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Very carefully," she says dryly. "About the same way you learn to Apparate, actually."

occluminous
2013-08-07 01:58 am (UTC)

"Do you have to be seventeen for this too?"

pythbox
2013-08-07 12:32 pm (UTC)

"There isn't an official age; not nearly as many people use Pensieves as Apparition," she says. "It would be a good idea to wait a few years, until you have a solid grasp of charms."

occluminous
2013-08-07 03:55 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Bella. There are certainly other things she can learn in that time. "Thank you for explaining."

pythbox
2013-08-08 01:33 am (UTC)

"No problem."

occluminous
2013-08-08 01:39 am (UTC)

Bella proceeds to be lost in thought.

pythbox
2013-08-08 01:41 am (UTC)

She can be lost in thought downstairs. Off they go.

occluminous
2013-08-08 01:41 am (UTC)

At the bottom of the stairs, she asks, "Ghosts are real, right?"

pythbox
2013-08-08 12:02 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Maria.

occluminous
2013-08-08 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Can they learn things?"

pythbox
2013-08-09 03:12 pm (UTC)

"I don't personally know any."

occluminous
2013-08-09 03:59 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Is there a good way to meet one?"

pythbox
2013-08-09 04:02 pm (UTC)

Maria shrugs.

occluminous
2013-08-09 04:04 pm (UTC)

"Hmmm."

Bella goes to write down some notes to self about portraits and ghosts.

pen and paper

occluminous

Bella is picked up from Charlie's house at the end of the summer, her visits with various people and her other parents having concluded a couple of weeks previous. She feels very worldly as she gets on the bus and is inspected by the new sixth-graders. The bus trundles along to the Bay Cauldron, and she does her shopping, and helps one of those sixth-graders pick an owl, and then they all arrive at ACAAM.

She goes to her and Sherlock's room to drop off her belongings and let Euterpe out.

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 04:39 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is there, unpacking some books out of his bag.

occluminous
2013-08-20 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Hi, Sherlock! How was the rest of your summer?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 04:42 pm (UTC)

"Largely unremarkable. And the same with you?"

occluminous
2013-08-20 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, pretty much. Did you get your schedule, do we have anything together this year?" She digs hers out and hands it over for inspection: Charms, Herbology, Potions, Magical Defense, lunch, Social Studies, Transfiguration, Magic Theory. (Brooms as a class is for sixth graders; flying will be on their own time, or as part of an organized sport or the JROC drills.)
Edited 2013-08-20 17:05 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 05:37 pm (UTC)

Sherlock's schedule matches in several places: Charms, Potions, Social Studies, Magical Defense, lunch, Divination, Transfiguration, and Magic Theory.

"And Tony's matches mine with one transposition - she has Transfiguration and then Arithmancy after lunch."

occluminous
2013-08-20 05:38 pm (UTC)

"You'll have to tell me if Divination is any good. It doesn't sound terribly teachable but maybe I'm wrong."

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 05:48 pm (UTC)

"I intend to find out."

occluminous
2013-08-20 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I'll take it next year if it's cool and I don't love Herbology. Or maybe I'll take magizoology, that was my second choice for this year."

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 05:51 pm (UTC)

"What put Herbology in the lead? Its applicability to Potions?"

occluminous
2013-08-20 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Magizoology is applicable too, I'll take it eventually, but it would mostly be - conversationally helpful, not academically, you know? I could stop asking people things like 'wait, are nundus really that big or are you exaggerating for effect'."

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 05:54 pm (UTC)

"And what was the quoted size of the nundu in question?"

occluminous
2013-08-20 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Quote, 'the size of Lake Erie', end quote."

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 06:07 pm (UTC)

"Exaggerated. But by less than if it had been, for example, any of the more common species of dragon."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Dragons are cool. Magizoology would probably be more fun. I just think Herbology with the Potions applicability will be more useful, so that's a reason to do it earlier."

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 06:09 pm (UTC)

He nods.

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Come on, let's go to the welcome feast." And off she skips.

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 06:10 pm (UTC)

He follows.

sparksflying
2013-08-20 06:11 pm (UTC)

Tony is at the welcome feast too! And she is already sitting with Feral, which means they have plenty of space.

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:11 pm (UTC)

That is depressingly convenient! Down sits Bella. "Hi, Tony, hi, Feral! How're you?"

sparksflying
2013-08-20 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I am awesome," says Tony.

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Me too," says Feral. "The elves let me help with the feast."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:13 pm (UTC)

"Cool, which stuff did you cook?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Desserts!" he beams. "Cupcakes and brownies. They're really good."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:15 pm (UTC)

"I will save room for dessert, then."

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Good plan," says Feral.

sparksflying
2013-08-20 06:17 pm (UTC)

"But the rest of it is good too," says Tony. "Man, decisions are hard."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:18 pm (UTC)

"I bet if you go to the kitchens later and say 'those tea-infused pork medallions looked scrumptious but I didn't have room for any', the elves will make you some."

sparksflying
2013-08-20 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Ooh."

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:20 pm (UTC)

"They totally will," says Feral. "I better go with you, though, or they'll be sending you back to your room with a cart. They get kind of enthusiastic."

sparksflying
2013-08-20 06:20 pm (UTC)

"It's a deal," giggles Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Do they have carts?" laughs Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Yup," says Feral. "For moving stuff around, not specifically food."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:27 pm (UTC)

"I guess that makes sense, they're pretty little and they have to make a lot of food, an elf would probably have trouble with a fifty pound sack of flour."

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Yeah - they can lift it no trouble, but only with magic, and it gets pretty hectic if everybody's levitating ten things at once. Carts are easier," he explains.

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:30 pm (UTC)

"I bet," laughs Bella. "Oh, and you couldn't even levitate the flour, doesn't flour explode or something, not just plain burn, if it catches?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Feral. "Kaboom. Under the right circumstances, anyway. But these days I can just pick them up, they're hard to lift but not tricky or anything."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:33 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "So none of the cupcakes will have previously exploded flour in them."

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:34 pm (UTC)

Feral giggles. "One hundred percent explosion-free!"

sparksflying
2013-08-20 06:34 pm (UTC)

"Just how I like 'em," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:35 pm (UTC)

"It is undoubtedly the best way to have cupcakes."

sparksflying
2013-08-20 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Because otherwise they might explode."

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:39 pm (UTC)

Feral snorts.

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:40 pm (UTC)

"And that wouldn't be at all fun. Feral, what does your schedule look like this year?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Dunno," he says. "Haven't looked."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Well, you should look, we can find out if we have anything together this year. What elective did you pick, at least?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Herbology," he says. "What about you guys?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Divination."

sparksflying
2013-08-20 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Arithmancy."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm in Herbology too," says Bella. "I think it'll be useful for potions. I thought about magizoology though."

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, magizoology looked fun," he says. "But so did a lot of things, so I just picked one."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:49 pm (UTC)

"I'm waiting for Sherlock to tell me whether Divination's any good. It looks cool if it can really be taught but the books I've seen are divided on that."

pythbox
2013-08-20 06:50 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure it's mostly crap," says Feral. "But who knows."

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Not me. Yet."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:51 pm (UTC)

"I guess you have a while to swap out if it's obvious crap from day one, what would you take instead if it was?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 06:59 pm (UTC)

"Quite possibly Herbology."

occluminous
2013-08-20 06:59 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles.

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 07:05 pm (UTC)

Sherlock smiles.

occluminous
2013-08-20 07:08 pm (UTC)

The feast is delicious, including the parts Feral helped with, none of which explode.

The following morning, everyone turns out to have Charms together!

pythbox
2013-08-20 07:10 pm (UTC)

Feral is determined not to set anything on fire!

occluminous
2013-08-20 07:10 pm (UTC)

But will he succeed?

pythbox
2013-08-20 07:26 pm (UTC)

Yes. On the other hand, he Scourgifies a teapot so hard it rockets off his desk and slams into the wall in a blast of soapsuds. Luckily it is a metal teapot, and the teacher fixes the enormous dent with a flick of her wand and vanishes the excess soap with another. She doesn't even bother asking him what went wrong; this teacher has taught Feral before and knows that is not the worst thing that could have happened.

occluminous
2013-08-20 07:28 pm (UTC)

Avoiding worst-case scenarios is pretty good. Bella likes the cleaning spells they are starting the year with - certainly it is more fun than scrubbing things and tidier than stubbornly waiting while dust gently heaps itself on everything - but she would like them more if she were allowed to use them at home.

pythbox
2013-08-20 07:32 pm (UTC)

The remainder of class is uneventful. Afterward, Feral follows Bella to Herbology - held in a building where neither of them has had class before - and Sherlock and Tony head off to Potions in the same room where they had it last year.

occluminous
2013-08-20 07:53 pm (UTC)

Herbology is taught by a wrinkly bald fellow called Mr. Rothschild, with whom Sherlock once served a detention at the beginning of sixth grade. He welcomes the class, finds them all mismatched chairs in the corner of the greenhouse occupied by the safest plants, speaks sternly to some affectionate ivy when it curls around some girl's leg, and says, "Mr. Sutherland, the former Herbology teacher, will be giving a brief introductory lecture on Greenhouse Safety."

Mr. Sutherland turns out to be a ghost. He floats in through the wall of the greenhouse, looking dour and transparent.

pythbox
2013-08-20 07:57 pm (UTC)

...Feral looks suspiciously at Mr. Sutherland. He can't help thinking that there is an obvious reason for a teacher's ghost to be giving safety lectures.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:06 pm (UTC)

Feral's not wrong.

"Hello, class," drones Mr. Sutherland. "Some people believe that Herbology is a soft option, and that you will spend class time messing around in the dirt, tending to harmless plants. Magical plants are often not harmless. Every year I send several students to the infirmary, and some accidents are even fatal. For example, the cry of the mandrake will kill if not muffled by an earmuff, easily knocked loose. You must pay careful attention to the safety rules that apply to the plants you will work with in this class."

He proceeds to list some dangerous plants for introductory herbology and the safety equipment they will need (gloves, earplugs or earmuffs, appropriate boots, goggles, etcetera) to avoid the hazards.

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Did you die of a mandrake?" asks Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Interruption is rude," says Mr. Sutherland. He proceeds with his speech from there, up to and including, "Finally, mandrakes, such as the ones which killed me: ensure that your hearing protection is secure and thorough."

Bella is frowning.

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:12 pm (UTC)

"Cool," say Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:13 pm (UTC)

"How is that cool? I didn't think this class was going to be dangerous," Bella murmurs under her breath.

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:14 pm (UTC)

"It's cool to me," he murmurs back, grinning.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:15 pm (UTC)

"I might switch," Bella whispers.
Edited 2013-08-20 20:15 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:17 pm (UTC)

"Suit yourself," shrugs Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:24 pm (UTC)

"I want to talk to that ghost sometime though."

The teacher passes out syllabi, gives them a tour of the greenhouse, and sends them on their way.

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Why?" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:26 pm (UTC)

"To see if he is any good at being a person."

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:26 pm (UTC)

"...Huh?" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:27 pm (UTC)

"If ghosts are people, then dying isn't so bad, as long as you can be one - it's still inconvenient and if you can't be a ghost it's still really bad. But maybe ghosts are more like portraits, which don't seem to be people properly as far as I can tell - there's one in Tony and Sherlock's house but she only speaks French, she doesn't seem able to learn a language, people can pick up at least some of new languages if they're around them a lot."

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Oh," says Feral. "I don't think anybody's figured out how to make a ghost, though, so where's that leave you?"

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Still trying not to die," says Bella. "But maybe with different research interests."

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:32 pm (UTC)

"So are you going to drop Herbology?"

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I mean, you've seen me walk, you think I can keep earmuffs on even if my life depends on it? I'll take magizoology. There aren't any interactions with live animals until the second year of it, it's not like Magical Animal Husbandry."

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:35 pm (UTC)

Feral laughs. "Okay. I'll tell you if we learn anything interesting."

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:37 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "No problem."

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:41 pm (UTC)

Next is Potions. Bella and Feral have this at the same time, but he's at grade level there since it requires no wandwork; they go to adjacent classrooms with separate classes. Bella learns to make "wizard coffee" of the sort that woke Sherlock up last year when he was dead on his feet (apparently its proper name is "Perking Potion"). She then proceeds to Magical Defense.

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:42 pm (UTC)

Everyone has Magical Defense together!

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 08:42 pm (UTC)

"How was Herbology?"

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:44 pm (UTC)

"I'm switching out. I didn't realize my life was going to depend on my nonexistent ability to reliably keep earmuffs on, or not spill substances up my sleeves, or trip facefirst into flesh-eating thorns," says Bella. "Magizoology it is."

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 08:45 pm (UTC)

"I knew about mandrakes; I didn't know about flesh-eating thorns," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:47 pm (UTC)

"We weren't technically going to be working with the flesh-eating thorn thing this year but it was awfully nearby. You've watched me, you know, walk."

nobodyelse
2013-08-20 08:48 pm (UTC)

"Yes I have. Have fun in magizoology."

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:50 pm (UTC)

"I will!"

And then it is Magical Defense time. They are learning Disarmament. There is not really a good way for Feral to practice this without aiming his wand at fellow students.

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:56 pm (UTC)

He's just fine with being practiced on, however.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:56 pm (UTC)

Bella collects his wand many times after she gets the hang of the spell.

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:57 pm (UTC)

Feral giggles the whole time. Also he has a habit of hugging his wand every time he gets it back.

occluminous
2013-08-20 08:57 pm (UTC)

"Why are you hugging your wand?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Because I missed it," he says, snuggling it some more.

occluminous
2013-08-20 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Expelliarmus," Bella snorts.

pythbox
2013-08-20 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Hey! I was hugging that!" exclaims Feral, chasing after his fleeing wand.

occluminous
2013-08-20 09:01 pm (UTC)

Bella catches it and hands it over, giggling.

pythbox
2013-08-20 09:02 pm (UTC)

Feral hugs it some more.

occluminous
2013-08-20 09:02 pm (UTC)

Bella steps back to appropriate distance, and swipes it once more.

pythbox
2013-08-20 09:04 pm (UTC)

Feral lunges after it again, and this time manages to catch it on its way to Bella.

occluminous
2013-08-20 09:07 pm (UTC)

And on proceeds the lesson. They can all go to lunch together!

"If we're doing a lot of spells like that they might keep you behind another year," Bella worries to Feral.

pythbox
2013-08-20 09:16 pm (UTC)

"They probably will," says Feral, shrugging. "Not like I can do much about it."

occluminous
2013-08-20 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Have you noticed any patterns about when it happens and when it doesn't?" Bella asks, finding them a table.
Edited 2013-08-20 21:26 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-20 09:37 pm (UTC)

"Kinda," he says. "It happens more when I'm distracted, and it happens a lot when I'm angry."

occluminous
2013-08-20 09:45 pm (UTC)

"So maybe when they say you'll grow out of it what they mean is you'll learn to concentrate and calm down?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 10:38 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just weird," he says. "I'm already starting to get the sense that nobody expected me to still be doing it after two years."

sparksflying
2013-08-20 10:40 pm (UTC)

"I've heard of kids having problems with spontaneous magic and spells backfiring and stuff," says Tony. "It's not that rare. But I don't think it usually works the way it's going with you."

occluminous
2013-08-20 10:41 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if Healer Song knows anything about it, have you asked him?" Bella inquires.

pythbox
2013-08-20 10:43 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Nah."

occluminous
2013-08-20 10:46 pm (UTC)

"It is not always obvious to me if you really want the fire thing to go away," muses Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-20 10:46 pm (UTC)

"...What do you mean?" says Feral, cocking his head quizzically.

occluminous
2013-08-20 10:48 pm (UTC)

"Well - you don't seem to like it, I bet if I could wave my wand and make it go away you'd let me, but you don't seem to spend much time trying to work on it. Maybe you do it when I'm not looking or something."

pythbox
2013-08-20 10:50 pm (UTC)

"Depends," he says. "I like being able to set things on fire. I don't like doing it when I don't want to. So if it's all part of the same thing, then I don't want it to go away. I'd lose just the lighting things up by accident part in a second, though."

occluminous
2013-08-20 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Any witch or wizard - why is there not a collective term for that? Besides 'magic folk' which is clumsy? - can set things on fire."

pythbox
2013-08-20 10:58 pm (UTC)

"'W'," he suggests whimsically. "No, I mean set things on fire like I set things on fire. Anybody can cast spells; most people can't do what I can do."

sparksflying
2013-08-20 10:59 pm (UTC)

"You mean like what you accidentally-on-purpose did to that guy's sleeve last year?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 11:01 pm (UTC)

"Exactly," he says. "And when I cast a spell to light something on fire, and I really want to, it goes up like flashpaper. I'd miss that if I lost it."

occluminous
2013-08-20 11:02 pm (UTC)

"It did come in handy that one time," acknowledges Bella. "I wouldn't make the tradeoff, though."

pythbox
2013-08-20 11:03 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I am getting better at the accidental part."

occluminous
2013-08-20 11:04 pm (UTC)

"How fast?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Not that fast."

occluminous
2013-08-20 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Like, how many times per hundred spells do you set a thing on fire?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 11:08 pm (UTC)

"...I don't really keep count?" he says. "And it matters how hard I'm trying not to?"

occluminous
2013-08-20 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but is it more like fifty or like five?"

pythbox
2013-08-20 11:34 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"Who knows? I told you, I'm not keeping count. It happens more when I'm not paying attention, and almost never when I'm trying not to, now that I've figured out how to try not to. But trying not to is hard and I can't always do it right. Especially when I'm upset. And I still light up the bed sometimes - I thought for a while I'd stopped, but then I did it again."

occluminous
2013-08-20 11:35 pm (UTC)

Bella settles for this description. She nibbles her sandwich. (She found enough information about animal intelligence last year to be comfortable eating non-magical meat again; her sandwich is turkey.)

pythbox
2013-08-21 01:35 am (UTC)

Feral munches lunch.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 01:36 am (UTC)

And then off everyone goes. Bella has Social Studies and Sherlock has Divination; the other two have Transfig.

The Transfiguration teacher is all for jumping right in on Day One. They will be turning firecrackers into fireflies.
Edited 2013-08-21 01:37 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-21 01:37 am (UTC)

"...Seriously?" says Feral.

sparksflying
2013-08-21 01:38 am (UTC)

Tony pats him on the back. And goes and sits somewhere far away.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 01:39 am (UTC)

"This is a simple exercise, and a year behind your grade level," the teacher tells him. "There is sympathy between the firecracker and the firefly according to Corbetti's Third Principle. Carry on."

pythbox
2013-08-21 01:45 am (UTC)

Feral throws up his hands in exasperation and takes a seat at the back of the room, two rows behind the nearest other student.

This turns out to have been a good idea.

He manages a firefly on the first try, and turns it back without a problem.

On the second try, the firecracker goes up in smoke and takes most of his desk with it. Feral calmly Extinguishes the smoldering remains.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 01:47 am (UTC)

The teacher was near enough to get a faceful of smoke. She stares at Feral as though he's an intrusive snail in her garden, clearing away the smoke with a wave of her wand. "You are still having your pyrotechnic incontinence issue?" she says. "At this age? This is ridiculous. Go see Healer Song. Don't bother coming back to my class until he's cleared you."

pythbox
2013-08-21 01:49 am (UTC)

"Fine," says Feral. "See ya."

He didn't bring any books to class, so he just gets up and walks out.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 01:50 am (UTC)

Healer Song is in the infirmary, of course.

pythbox
2013-08-21 01:53 am (UTC)

Figures.

"Hi," says Feral. "I blew something up in Transfiguation and Mrs. Vasquez says I'm not allowed back in her class until you've cleared me."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 01:55 am (UTC)

"Hmm," says Healer Song. "Can you tell me more about the problem? I know you have that nearby room with the fire detector, but since you've never actually put anyone in the infirmary with fire - as opposed to with your teeth -" he raises an appraising, but not instantly condemning, eyebrow - "I don't have a lot of detail."
Edited 2013-08-21 02:01 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:08 am (UTC)

Feral grins unrepentantly at the mention of the biting incident.

"Hey, he got better," he says. "If I'd lit him up, he might not have."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:09 am (UTC)

"Yes, speaking of which, please tell me how that goes. How often? Is it more with particular spells or at particular times than others?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:11 am (UTC)

"I dunno how often. Less than I used to," he says. "More when I'm distracted or in a hurry, a lot more when I'm pissed off. And that's casting spells - if I get upset enough, sometimes something goes up without me even touching my wand."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:12 am (UTC)

Healer Song frowns, slightly.

"When was the first time wandless fire happened?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:13 am (UTC)

Feral gives him a slightly suspicious look. "I don't remember exactly. Sometime when I was little."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:14 am (UTC)

"When your wand isn't involved to pick out a target, what things tend to go up?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:15 am (UTC)

"Just stuff. Whatever's nearby. Things I'm looking at or touching. Not people." He hesitates, then amends, "Not most people."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:16 am (UTC)

Healer Song waits invitingly.

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:17 am (UTC)

Feral raises his eyebrows.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:19 am (UTC)

"Has someone caught on fire before?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:20 am (UTC)

"Depends," says Feral. "What are you gonna do about it if they have?"

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:21 am (UTC)

"Diagnose you," says Healer Song dryly.

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:22 am (UTC)

Feral rolls his eyes.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:22 am (UTC)

"I'm obligated to inform if you are a danger to yourself or others. That's are, in the present tense."

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:24 am (UTC)

"Then yeah," says Feral. "Somebody's caught on fire before. Way before - before I ever got here, before I knew anything about magic except 'stuff catches fire sometimes'."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:25 am (UTC)

"And I surmise you were upset at the time."

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:26 am (UTC)

"Extremely," Feral agrees, with a not particularly nice little smile.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:27 am (UTC)

"Now - the puzzle pieces aren't aiming this way so far, but I have to ask - you were not upset at this person for anything along the lines of copying off you in class, throwing a hex in the corridors, or name-calling."

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:27 am (UTC)

"Nope," says Feral.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:31 am (UTC)

"All right. What I think the other faculty have been assuming this is is just particularly neotenous, thematic accidental magic - that means it's the same thing as when children levitate their toys or turn their hair pink, only continuing longer than usual and themed around a specific thing - but I think it may be something else; am I right that if you deliberately cast a fire spell you get dramatic, intense results?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:32 am (UTC)

He nods.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:41 am (UTC)

"Sometimes," says Healer Song, gently, "if a wizard whose magic is still forming spends a lot of time in a state of panic, his magic will try to find an outlet to do something about that situation, early. But the reason magical education starts at ten or eleven is because magic used before that age isn't reliably controllable, and if too much of it is forced out, it leaves a sort of - wound, in the magical core. It's called a premature spillway."

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:42 am (UTC)

"So... what?" says Feral. "Am I just gonna keep lighting things on fire?"

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:46 am (UTC)

"Not necessarily, but controlling it will never be effortless, and if you let up on the effort even a little, it will mean you'll need to redo some of the work to assert control. This happened because fire was the only thing your immature magic could come up with to do. Continuing to use uncontrolled fire - the spells are fine and you'll always have the extra affinity; this is just the uncontrolled, especially wandless, kind - sort of tells your magic that it still needs to do this, that you are still in situations where the only thing is to react instantly by igniting something and there isn't other recourse."

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:49 am (UTC)

"But I can figure out how to cast spells without burning anything I don't wanna burn," he says. "Can I stop lighting up the bed, too? Or would I have to give up wandless fire? Is it just wandless fire I don't mean to use that's the problem?"

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 02:50 am (UTC)

"Any wandless fire, whether you mean it or not, runs the risk of keeping the wound open, and as the wound closes all of it should be easier to avoid, sleeping and waking alike - but - I haven't actually heard of other cases where there was much voluntary, deliberate use of the spillway to speak of; how much control do you have?"
Edited 2013-08-21 02:53 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-21 02:57 am (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"If I want something on fire, I can make it that way. Easy. Easier than casting spells. I can't set things as on fire that way as I can if I use my wand, but I can still light 'em up pretty good."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:00 am (UTC)

"That's - uncommon. It's otherwise very much a textbook premature spillway, but there might be a complicating factor somewhere I'm not seeing," muses Song. "At any rate, I have no way to directly observe the spillway, so I can't definitively say if wandlessly setting things on fire deliberately will prop it open as much as accidental cases will, but my best guess is that you shouldn't use any wandless fire you can possibly avoid."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:03 am (UTC)

"Damn," snorts Feral. "So what do I have to do to get back into Transfiguration?"

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:04 am (UTC)

"Well," snorts Healer Song. "How do you get along with your classmates and your teacher in that section? Considering the nature of the problem I can authorize some shuffling to put you with people who won't rub you the wrong way as badly, at least for this year while you start getting your spillway more firmly in hand."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:09 am (UTC)

"I don't have that much trouble with the teacher, but we were doing firecrackers to fireflies today and she didn't seem to get that that might be a bad idea for me, which did tick me off a little," he says. "Would somebody else be any better about that, though?"

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:12 am (UTC)

"She expected you to have grown out of it; I can give you a signed note you can show to anyone who continues to expect that."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:14 am (UTC)

"That'll help," says Feral agreeably.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:15 am (UTC)

"And of course anything that would be a disaster to set alight shouldn't have your wand aimed at it. Have you checked how you stack up against fire suppression spells?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:27 am (UTC)

"Nnnno," he says slowly. "Should I? And - I got to swap out bugs for mice last year, but someday I might need to cast a spell on a person I don't want to kill."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:30 am (UTC)

"Your spillway should close up as you go longer and longer without using accidental and/or wandless fire," Healer Song says. "And then it will be safer and safer to cast spells on people and nondisposable objects. But for the short term, while you're still working on it, maybe a fire suppressant will work. Are you capable of relatively gentle deliberate wanded fire - about the same strength as your accidents? We can test it here without making anything worse if so, I just don't think I have a good way to test an overpowered Incendiary Charm."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:31 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "Yeah, I think so."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:32 am (UTC)

"How much do you think so?" Healer Song asks, glancing around at various things he would rather not see go up in smoke.

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:39 am (UTC)

"Well, maybe we shouldn't do it near any stuff you don't want on fire? But I don't actually think I'm going to light anything extra on fire. And I'm really, really fast with Extinguishers."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:39 am (UTC)

"Perhaps we should go outdoors and put a leaf on a boulder for you."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:40 am (UTC)

He laughs. "Sure."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:41 am (UTC)

And out they go, and Healer Song puts a leaf on a large rock, and casts a fire suppression on the leaf.

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:42 am (UTC)

"Incendio," says Feral.

The leaf is unperturbed.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:43 am (UTC)

"All right. So that should help as long as the target in question is a relatively replaceable object and not, for instance, a human. You can ask your teachers to perform it for you; I'll put it in your note. I cannot imagine why no one did this before even if they thought it was neotenous accidental magic."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:45 am (UTC)

"Search me," snorts Feral. "People just don't think of stuff sometimes. Anyway, two years back I probably still wouldn't have gone near the mice."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:45 am (UTC)

"Yes, that's fair. But this should protect your next firecreacker or equivalent."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:50 am (UTC)

"Sure, okay," says Feral. "Thanks. You're less useless than I was expecting."

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:51 am (UTC)

"My career ambition is to be less useless than anyone expects," remarks Healer Song, and he heads back into the infirmary to write the note.

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:51 am (UTC)

Giggling, Feral follows him.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:54 am (UTC)

Write-write-write. The note explains the spillway (without reference to the suspected trauma-related cause) and what should be done about it. Healer Song signs the note and hands it to Feral. "Here you are, then." He coughs slightly. "You can always make an appointment if you would find it helpful to have me be surprisingly useful on any other matter."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:55 am (UTC)

Feral grins.

"Uh-huh," he says. It does not sound like the uh-huh of someone who plans to take him up on that.

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 03:56 am (UTC)

"Well, as you like," shrugs Song. "Too late for today's Transfiguration, but you can probably make your next class if you go now."

pythbox
2013-08-21 03:57 am (UTC)

"Bye."

And he's off.

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:01 am (UTC)

During the middle afternoon period, Bella and Sherlock have transfiguration together. They are also doing the firecracker exercise.

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 04:02 am (UTC)

Sherlock successfully transforms his firecracker into a firefly and back.

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:04 am (UTC)

So does Bella! Her firefly is not very energetic and can't seem to turn its butt off, but it is totally a firefly, and then it is a firecracker again.

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 02:06 pm (UTC)

Firefly. Firecracker. Firefly. Firecracker. It's almost meditative.

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:38 pm (UTC)

Bella is not as quick as her friend, but she earns a good grade for the day anyway, and then they're off to Magical Theory, the last class of the day.

sparksflying
2013-08-21 04:41 pm (UTC)

Tony is there!

"Feral got kicked out of Transfiguration 'cause he blew up the firecracker," she reports.

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:41 pm (UTC)

"Someone had Feral point his wand at a firecracker. Wow."

sparksflying
2013-08-21 04:43 pm (UTC)

"And then she got mad and kicked him out of the class," says Tony.
Edited 2013-08-21 16:43 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Of course she did, realizing that she'd made a mistake would just be silly. I wonder what's going to happen with him and his fire thing."

sparksflying
2013-08-21 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Who knows? She sent him to the healer. Maybe it's, like, medical."

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I hope the healer can fix it."

sparksflying
2013-08-21 04:53 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs. "The healer's pretty good."

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:54 pm (UTC)

"He's always nice when I go in with a split lip or a nasty bruise from tumbling down the stairs, but I've never gone to him about anything more serious except when I brought Sherlock about the sleeping. He seemed good then though."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 04:55 pm (UTC)

"He was."

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Maybe he can help Feral. I wonder why nobody sent him there before if that's at all likely, though?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Perhaps they didn't know."

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:57 pm (UTC)

"I guess. There are a lot of things to know, and most people seem to miss some."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 04:57 pm (UTC)

"It would be hard not to."

occluminous
2013-08-21 04:58 pm (UTC)

"I guess that's what specialization is for and it took a long time for anyone to notice that Healer Song's specialization might be useful."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 04:59 pm (UTC)

Sherlock shrugs.

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:00 pm (UTC)

And then they sit through their magical theory lecture, and then classes are over.

"I," Bella tells Sherlock, "will be out of our room until nine thirty and I'll knock before I come in. I have to talk to a ghost and say hello to the library and its elves."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:01 pm (UTC)

"Have fun," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:02 pm (UTC)

"I will."

And off Bella traipses, insofar as she can safely traipse.

She is back at their room at nine-thirty. She knocks.

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:02 pm (UTC)

Sherlock answers the door.

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:03 pm (UTC)

Bella is sober-faced. "Hi."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:04 pm (UTC)

"You did not have fun," Sherlock observes.

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:04 pm (UTC)

"Well, the library is as nice as always and the elves in it are too, but I don't think the ghost is a person really."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:05 pm (UTC)

"How do you know?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:08 pm (UTC)

"I don't know for sure, but - I don't think so. I think he's like a - a really good record of a person that you can voice-operate. He doesn't know about things that have happened since he died - he could remember my name for the length of our conversation but he couldn't tell me the name of the current Herbology teacher. And if I waited quietly for five minutes after asking him a question and then repeated it the exact same way I got the exact same answer, and when I asked him if he'd give me the Herbology safety lecture he didn't even wonder why I wanted it or whether I hadn't heard it well enough this morning or about how didn't I say I was going to drop it, he just recited it all the same. And I asked him what he did with his time and he just said he was an herbology teacher - and if I asked him point blank if he was dead he'd say yes and explain what killed him but on every other subject he talked about his lifetime like it was nowish."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:11 pm (UTC)

"Well. That makes me question how current the Herbology safety lecture can possibly be," he says after a moment.

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:11 pm (UTC)

"I suppose the idea is that the plants don't change very much," shrugs Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:14 pm (UTC)

"But procedures do. Or they should, considering who they have failed to protect."

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:15 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Feral probably doesn't even care, but I'll tell him anyway," snorts Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:15 pm (UTC)

"It won't do him any harm to hear it."

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Tomorrow in Charms." She writes this down, after the notes on her conversation with the ghost. "It's a pity about Mr. Sutherland. I was hoping ghosts would be good enough and then the problem would be figuring out how to leave one and coming up with ways to go on interacting with stuff, but it's not good enough at all."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Has it occurred to you that the problem you intend to solve might not be solvable?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:19 pm (UTC)

"Yes, but I think it would be premature to decide that while I am eleven."

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:23 pm (UTC)

"Of course."

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:23 pm (UTC)

Bella puts her things where they belong, and then she gets ready for bed and flops thereinto.

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 05:30 pm (UTC)

And Sherlock, as usual, doesn't sleep.

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:32 pm (UTC)

At Charms the next morning, Bella finds Feral and tells him about the results of her conversation with the ghost. "So I don't think he's really a person," she concludes sadly. "Also Sherlock pointed out that the safety lecture can't be very up to date."

pythbox
2013-08-21 05:41 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"Oh well," he says.

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I changed classes. I bet you're going to stay anyway, though."

pythbox
2013-08-21 05:42 pm (UTC)

He grins. "It's like you've met me or something."

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:43 pm (UTC)

"I have totally met you," giggles Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-21 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Anyway. Did you hear I got kicked out of Transfiguration?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Someone wanted you to point a wand at a firecracker, I'm not surprised it was a disaster. What happened after?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:01 pm (UTC)

"I went to Healer Song," he says. "He told me I've got something called a premature spillway. Like using all that fire as a kid burned a hole in my magic. He wrote me a note to get the teachers to quit giving me crap about it."

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I hope that works. What are you supposed to do about it, just wait? Does it go away?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:09 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "The affinity for fire doesn't. The lighting things up by accident might. If I'm a good boy and don't use wandless fire. Like that's going to happen. Well, he said he didn't know if deliberate wandless fire would hurt anything or not, because he's never heard of it working like that in the first place."

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Well, as long as you've got your wand on you, why do you need to do it wandless, if it might make it worse?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Because it's more fun?" he suggests.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:15 pm (UTC)

"You're creative, I bet you can come up with other ways to have fun that don't mean you can't aim your wand at anybody you like or anything you can't replace."

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:16 pm (UTC)

"Skip it," he says. "We're missing Charms here."

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:17 pm (UTC)

Charms ensues. They're doing Cheering Charms. Bella tentatively agrees to allow one to be tried on her after frowning at the description in the textbook for several minutes, but it doesn't work.

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:18 pm (UTC)

No one tries a Cheering Charm on Feral. Feral does not try a Cheering Charm on anyone.

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 06:20 pm (UTC)

Sherlock allows Tony to Cheer him.

It seems to work, although it's hard to tell.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Do these stack?" muses Bella, peering at the book. "Maybe you better hit him again, Tony."

sparksflying
2013-08-21 06:21 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles and casts another one.

nobodyelse
2013-08-21 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Ha. Ha, ha, ha," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:22 pm (UTC)

Bella sticks out her tongue at him. "Tony, can I try on you?"

sparksflying
2013-08-21 06:23 pm (UTC)

"Sure."

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

Bella points, waves her vine wand, and speaks the incantation.

sparksflying
2013-08-21 06:24 pm (UTC)

Tony is cheered!

alicornucopia
2013-08-21 06:26 pm (UTC)

The Charms teacher has read Feral's note from Healer Song, and says that he can get a passing grade for the day's assignment if he submits a one-page essay on Cheering Charms that is not "conspicuously plagiarized from the textbook".

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:27 pm (UTC)

"...Seriously? Okay, fine," says Feral.

He starts writing.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:29 pm (UTC)

The other three continue their practices. Bella tries both wands; it's easier to get the spell off correctly with the vine, but the hazel has more oomph. The charm continues not to work on her, but she seems to be having a good time anyway.

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:31 pm (UTC)

By the end of the class, Feral is the only student who has not successfully cast the charm, but he does have his essay written.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:32 pm (UTC)

Bella peers over his shoulder.

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:36 pm (UTC)

His handwriting is terrible.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:36 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles. "Is there a handwriting-fixing spell the teachers know?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:37 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:38 pm (UTC)

"It's a pity computers don't work here or we could type our written assignments."

Class comes to an end. The teacher collects Feral's essay.

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:38 pm (UTC)

Feral cheerfully heads off to Herbology.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Take notes for me?" Bella calls after him. "...Neatly?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 06:49 pm (UTC)

He laughs.

occluminous
2013-08-21 06:49 pm (UTC)

She takes that as a "maybe" and goes to Magizoology.

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:00 pm (UTC)

Classes pass. The four of them have Magical Defense together, and they're doing Disarmament again, which means Feral gets to show off his note and then be Disarmed a lot.

Then, lunch!

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:01 pm (UTC)

"Did you take me Herbology notes?" Bella asks.

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:02 pm (UTC)

"Kind of," he says. "We didn't learn much. I wrote down some stuff."

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:02 pm (UTC)

"What not-much did you learn? Magizoology was about Kneazles today."

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:14 pm (UTC)

"Dittany," he says. "It's not dangerous or anything. Has a bunch of uses in healing potions and stuff. The teacher was vague about some of them. But we learned which parts are called what, and how to tell if they're okay, and some stuff about how to take care of the plant properly."

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:15 pm (UTC)

"I like dittany. It's easy to shred for potions."

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:23 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs. "So, that."

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Do you think you're going to keep wandlessly firing things on purpose even though it might make your thing worse?"
Edited 2013-08-21 20:24 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Of course I am," he says. "I like wandlessly firing things, and I'd sure be fucked if I couldn't do it anymore and I lost my wand and got into trouble."

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:25 pm (UTC)

"Maybe you should get another wand, like I have? Or maybe there's other wandless magic you could learn that would be just as useful."

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:29 pm (UTC)

"I like my wand," he says. "I don't want another one. Anyway, same difference, having two wands just means you have two things somebody can take away. Wandless fire isn't something anybody can take away from me."

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:30 pm (UTC)

"But what about my second idea?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:32 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Wandless magic like what? Where am I going to find it, what's it going to do, how am I going to learn it, can I kill somebody with it?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:33 pm (UTC)

"I don't know, I'd have to look it up. I just want to know if I should even bother."

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "But I might not bother learning it unless you find something good."

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:41 pm (UTC)

"I would already not bother bringing you anything if you couldn't learn it, but does it have to be able to kill someone?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:47 pm (UTC)

He considers. "Nah. I'd rather have something that could, but I won't not learn something useful just 'cause it's not deadly."

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:48 pm (UTC)

"The idea is to find something that will make you okay with not wandlessly firing things."

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Sure," he says, "and the more other useful fun wandless magic I have, the less I'll need to use fire."

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll see what I can turn up. I'm worried you're going to fail things and then we won't have classes with you anymore."

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:58 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

occluminous
2013-08-21 08:58 pm (UTC)

"What?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 08:59 pm (UTC)

"Nothing," he says. "It's just weird that somebody wants to have classes with me."

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:01 pm (UTC)

"We're friends," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Guess so," laughs Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Did you not notice till just now?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, sure," he says. "You read my mind, remember?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I remember. You've had a while to get used to it, why is it weird?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:07 pm (UTC)

He starts a sentence, stops before the first syllable, does that a few more times, then settles on: "I didn't know being friends came with wanting to be in my classes."

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Why wouldn't it?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:09 pm (UTC)

"Why does it?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:10 pm (UTC)

"I like having you around," explains Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:12 pm (UTC)

Feral laughs. "Okay."

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:13 pm (UTC)

"So I'll look up wandless magic, this afternoon when I'm letting Sherlock nap."

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:14 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:16 pm (UTC)

The rest of the day of classes goes by, and Bella goes to the library, and then she knocks on Feral's door with a stack of books.

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:16 pm (UTC)

Feral opens it.

"Ooh," he says. "Books. Anything good?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. There's Apparition, but we're not old enough to learn it yet. And Legilimency can be wandless and some people can learn to move things or change their colors without wands, but not everyone seems to be able to pick it up and you can't move the stuff very fast or from very far away. The thing I think you will like best is this." And she takes from the top of the stack a book entitled "Animagical: Unlocking Your Animalian Self" and hands it over.

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:19 pm (UTC)

"...ooh," says Feral.

He takes the book.

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Animagi can turn into animals - particular ones per Animagus, and you don't get to pick it, but you get something that suits, and then apparently you can get a really good guess what yours will be by checking your Patronus except I don't know what that is so I'll have to look it up later. They don't need their wands to do it and they can do it at will. It does take a long time and you have to be good at Transfiguration."

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:21 pm (UTC)

"I am good at Transfiguration," says Feral, grinning. "Cool. Thanks."

And, book in hand, he hugs her.

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:21 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:23 pm (UTC)

Bookhugs.

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:24 pm (UTC)

"What do you think you'll be?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Who the hell knows?"

He lets go of Bella and hugs the book instead.

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:26 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm going to go look up what a Patronus is. You could sit with me in the library if you want."

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Feral. He tags along, hugging his book.

occluminous
2013-08-21 09:29 pm (UTC)

In the library, Bella plops the other books from her stack of wandless magic information on a little table between two armchairs, gets help from Mith, and finds a book on Patronuses, which she proceeds to read in one of said chairs.

pythbox
2013-08-21 09:30 pm (UTC)

Feral flops into the other chair and reads about Animagi.

occluminous
2013-08-21 10:02 pm (UTC)

Bella finishes her book first, and then she flips back to the page early on where the spell itself is described, and starts trying to cast it. "Expecto patronum."

Nothing.

pythbox
2013-08-21 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Whatcha doin'?" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-21 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Trying to make a Patronus. They're a sort of guardian spirit thing made out of happy memories, that take the shape of an animal - it's usually the same as your animagus form if you can do both, that's what that thing meant - and they're useful for fighting off some dark creatures. It's supposed to be advanced but the spell isn't actually very complicated and it's not dangerous to get wrong." She shows him the page.

pythbox
2013-08-21 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Oh, huh," says Feral.

He tries it. It doesn't work for him either.

occluminous
2013-08-21 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I just didn't pick a happy enough memory, or something." Bella carries on trying.

pythbox
2013-08-21 10:37 pm (UTC)

Feral gives it another shot. This time he gets a wisp of silver mist.

"This is fun," he says.

occluminous
2013-08-21 10:38 pm (UTC)

Bella copies the spell into her notebook and flicks the Patronus book away onto its shelf with her wand. "Do you want to check out the Animagus book and then go practice outside? I think Kay is giving me dirty looks from behind the history section."

pythbox
2013-08-21 10:40 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Sure."

occluminous
2013-08-21 10:42 pm (UTC)

And out they go, with a brief pause at the librarian's desk so Feral can take custody of the book without Bella being on the hook for it.

"Expecto patronum!" Bella insists to her wand, and nothing. She tries her other wand. Nothing.

pythbox
2013-08-21 10:45 pm (UTC)

Feral tries again and gets a good solid mist blob.

"I like this spell," he says. "It's fun."

occluminous
2013-08-21 10:46 pm (UTC)

"What memory are you using?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 11:08 pm (UTC)

"Different stuff every time," he says. "Cooking, stuff I did before I came here, you reading my mind..."

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Hee." Bella reconsiders her available slew of memories. She lives a happy life, but it's a level happiness, without many obvious peaks; she's been using various moments related to learning to fly, but maybe these are somehow an incorrect form of happy memory. She tries her other eleventh birthday gift, the book on the Sorcerer's Stone.

That gets her mist. Weird.

pythbox
2013-08-21 11:13 pm (UTC)

Feral practices some more. His mist is rapidly gaining form and definition. It's still not a recognizable creature, but it moves around as a coherent blob.

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:15 pm (UTC)

"You are so much better at this than me. I wonder if it's just because you're older, the book did say people don't usually learn it early. Maybe I'll go find Tony and see if she wants to come try." Sherlock, of course, is asleep, but she can show him between when she gets back to their room and when she goes to sleep if he's curious.

pythbox
2013-08-21 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Go right ahead," says Feral. He tries it again. This time the short-lived mist-blob has something that could definitely be limbs.

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:26 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," comments Bella, and in she goes to Tony's room, at which she knocks the perfunctory knock of someone who during the school year crashes there at least once weekly.

sparksflying
2013-08-21 11:27 pm (UTC)

Out pops Tony.

"Hi! What's up?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Me and Feral are trying a spell I found in a book called the Patronus, do you want to try?"

sparksflying
2013-08-21 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Sure! What's it do?"

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:29 pm (UTC)

"It's supposed to make a spirit guardian animal thingy that's good against some Dark creatures. The book says it's really advanced and I haven't gotten anything better than mist but when I left Feral his kind of had limbs."

sparksflying
2013-08-21 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Cool," says Tony. "Sign me up."

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:31 pm (UTC)

"C'mon." Bella shows her out to where Feral is, and shows her the copied spell description from her notes on the way.

sparksflying
2013-08-21 11:32 pm (UTC)

Tony tries it.

Tony gets a wisp of mist.

pythbox
2013-08-21 11:32 pm (UTC)

"Hey, good going!" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I didn't even get that on the first try." Bella concentrates as hard as she can. "Expecto patronum!"

pythbox
2013-08-21 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Expecto patronum!" says Feral.

Yep, definitely a blob of mist.

sparksflying
2013-08-21 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Your blob is bigger and shinier than my blob," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:41 pm (UTC)

"He has a head start," Bella says, shaking her wand as though to dislodge a blockage and trying again. Mist, nothing but mist.
Edited 2013-08-21 23:42 (UTC)

sparksflying
2013-08-21 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Yep," says Tony.

She tries again. Her blob darts in a little circle before dissipating.

pythbox
2013-08-21 11:44 pm (UTC)

Feral continues to produce bigger, shinier blobs.

"I feel like I'm missing something," he comments.

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:45 pm (UTC)

"What kind of something?"

pythbox
2013-08-21 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Some kind of something. I'm gonna sit and watch you guys for a bit," he declares, and sits down on the ground.

occluminous
2013-08-21 11:49 pm (UTC)

Bella continues trying. She varies between getting mist and nothing at all, depending on whether she tries the mysteriously correct birthday present or anything else.

sparksflying
2013-08-22 12:07 am (UTC)

Tony improves slowly but steadily with practice.

occluminous
2013-08-22 12:58 am (UTC)

Bella gets nowhere.

She quits at dinner, and reads other things, and then at nine-thirty knocks on her own door.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:00 am (UTC)

"Hello," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:01 am (UTC)

"Hi. We've been practicing Patronuses but I can't get anything more than mist and I only get that much if I specifically concentrate on the book you got me when I turned eleven, nothing else does it. Feral and Tony are both way better at it. Do you want to see the spell?"
Edited 2013-08-22 01:02 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:02 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:05 am (UTC)

Bella shows it to him from where she copied it into her notebook. "It's supposed to make a spirit animal guardian. Feral's definitely had, like, limbs, before I gave up. They're good against Dark creatures and also you can send them with unfakeable messages, when they're all formed up. I don't know why mine won't work."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:05 am (UTC)

"I see," he says. "Do you mind if I practice this tonight?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:06 am (UTC)

"As long as you don't start till I'm asleep saying random words, it shouldn't wake me up. You aren't shouty with your incantations," shrugs Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:07 am (UTC)

"All right."

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:08 am (UTC)

Bella goes to bed shortly after, and doesn't take long to drop off and start saying things like "gray spire suet box".

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:09 am (UTC)

So Sherlock starts practicing his Patronus.

He's still at it when Bella wakes up the next morning - and therefore, uncharacteristically, still in the room.

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:15 am (UTC)

Bella peers at him to see if he's gotten a shape to his yet.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:18 am (UTC)

"Good morning," he says.

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:18 am (UTC)

"Morning. Were you patronusing all night?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:19 am (UTC)

"Yes."

But he is not patronusing right this second.

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:26 am (UTC)

"Did you get a shape?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:27 am (UTC)

He shakes his head.

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:27 am (UTC)

"Is that why you won't let me see?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:31 am (UTC)

He nods.

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:31 am (UTC)

"Well, tell me what it is when you know, I guess." She hops out of bed and sets about getting ready for the day.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:34 am (UTC)

"I will."

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:35 am (UTC)

"I dunno what I'm doing wrong," she mutters. She tries the spell again before heading out to breakfast. Only mist.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 01:36 am (UTC)

Sherlock has no comment on that subject.

Breakfast! They're a little early; Feral and Tony are nowhere to be seen.

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:39 am (UTC)

Bacon and waffles!

The rest of the first week of school progresses without much incident. Bella's friends make progress with their Patronuses. Bella does not.

pythbox
2013-08-22 01:42 am (UTC)

Feral is the first to get his.

Bella will find this out when it appears next to her one afternoon - a tall, skinny horse with dragonlike wings folded neatly on its back and a bony crest with an exposed-vertebrae look running from the top of its skinny dragonlike head to the tip of its skinny dragonlike tail. The silvery spectral look of a Patronus helps tone down the ghastliness somewhat, but it's still not something you'd want to meet suddenly in a dark alley.
Edited 2013-08-22 01:51 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:52 am (UTC)

Bella startles, briefly, then laughs. "Tell Feral his patronus is weird-looking and I want to know what it is," she instructs it. (This one is way too big to be Tony's and it doesn't look Sherlocky at all; it is definitely Feral's.)

pythbox
2013-08-22 01:55 am (UTC)

It dips its head and vanishes, returning a few seconds later to relay in Feral's voice, "It's a Thestral, duh! Isn't she pretty?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 01:56 am (UTC)

"Tell Feral, 'I've only been taking magizoology for a week.'"
Edited 2013-08-22 02:02 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-22 02:03 am (UTC)

It vanishes and comes back to deliver a giggle.

occluminous
2013-08-22 02:03 am (UTC)

"Tell Feral, I'm jealous and happy for him."

pythbox
2013-08-22 02:04 am (UTC)

Feral's response: "Awwwwwwww. I'd hug you if I knew where you were."

occluminous
2013-08-22 02:05 am (UTC)

"I'm in the little courtyard behind the library."

pythbox
2013-08-22 02:07 am (UTC)

Another giggle.

occluminous
2013-08-22 02:08 am (UTC)

Bella giggles, doesn't send an answer, and puts her feet up to read her book.

pythbox
2013-08-22 02:09 am (UTC)

Pretty soon, Feral shows up and hugs her.

occluminous
2013-08-22 03:30 am (UTC)

Hugs!

"Congratulations."

pythbox
2013-08-22 12:02 pm (UTC)

"Patronuses are awesome," says Feral. "Whatcha readin'?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 04:47 pm (UTC)

"About goblins. They have a lot of rebellions, especially in Britain."

pythbox
2013-08-22 04:55 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Feral. "That sounds interesting."

occluminous
2013-08-22 04:57 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. This book isn't really answering all my questions, I'm going to have to find another one, but I have the impression that either the British Ministry steals from goblins a lot or goblins have weird notions about property compared to humans?"

pythbox
2013-08-22 05:00 pm (UTC)

"...Explain more?" he says, sitting down.

occluminous
2013-08-22 05:03 pm (UTC)

"Well, the goblins keep having rebellions over wizards having stolen their stuff," says Bella. "Except this book is adamant that wizards know better than to cheat goblins and they always pay for their stuff. There aren't any interviews with goblins or anything in this book, but that seems weird, I read a book about centaurs last year and it had a section about the herds in Britain and when they say wizards have stolen from them the answer is 'well that was other wizards', not 'no here's the receipt'."

pythbox
2013-08-22 05:08 pm (UTC)

"That is weird," says Feral. "I wonder what's going on there."

occluminous
2013-08-22 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Dunno, I'm going to see if I can find out. I'm definitely going to take Being Studies when social studies goes into specialties."

pythbox
2013-08-22 05:27 pm (UTC)

"I'm probably gonna drop it," says Feral. "Magic's more fun."

occluminous
2013-08-22 05:28 pm (UTC)

"I don't know what I'm going to be able to stand to drop. Maybe I'll just make do with the one elective slot," says Bella. "I want to take Healing and I can probably get in bits of everything else I need before I qualify for it."

pythbox
2013-08-22 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting out of Social Studies as soon as I can," he says. "Dunno about the rest. I might have to drop Magical Defense if I want to stay in school - there's just too much having to point a wand at somebody under pressure - but maybe I can work around it with the teacher."

occluminous
2013-08-22 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to specialize into wards or maybe countercurses when I can," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-08-22 05:35 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs. "Maybe that too."

occluminous
2013-08-22 05:36 pm (UTC)

"And I'm going from theory into spell development the second I'm allowed, I want to make my own spells."

pythbox
2013-08-22 05:48 pm (UTC)

Feral laughs. "Yeah, I'll bet. Maybe you'll make a Patronus you can actually do."

occluminous
2013-08-22 05:49 pm (UTC)

"Wouldn't that be nice. The book said that people who are unhappy - like, as people in general, not just at the time they try to cast the spell - sometimes never can, but - I'm not. Unhappy in general."

pythbox
2013-08-22 05:54 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Feral. "Are you sure? Maybe it doesn't mean unhappy the way you're thinking it."

occluminous
2013-08-22 05:55 pm (UTC)

"Like depressed, it said depressed. I'm not depressed."

pythbox
2013-08-22 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Feral. "So what are you?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:10 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. I'm happy a lot of the time. But I can't get a Patronus past mist."

pythbox
2013-08-22 06:22 pm (UTC)

"So maybe you have a different problem," shrugs Feral. "Are there other kinds of people who don't get Patronuses?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:23 pm (UTC)

"The book said they could all be chalked up to being depressed or, like, not trying hard enough - it is supposed to be advanced but you got it and Tony is getting it and Sherlock is probably getting it."

pythbox
2013-08-22 06:26 pm (UTC)

"So maybe the book is wrong," says Feral. "Or maybe you have the same problem with Patronuses that depressed people have, but you don't know it because you're not depressed. Or maybe you're not trying hard enough." He pauses, then adds, "No way, can't be that one."

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:27 pm (UTC)

"Why would I have a depressed person's problem without being depressed?"

pythbox
2013-08-22 06:28 pm (UTC)

"What is a depressed person's problem? Do they actually know, or do they just know that depressed people are bad at Patronuses?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:29 pm (UTC)

"Well, you have to make the Patronus with a happy thought so they think depressed people are bad at concentrating absolutely on happy thoughts."

pythbox
2013-08-22 06:31 pm (UTC)

"Doesn't sound like that's you," he says. "So maybe we're just getting it faster because we're older, or maybe the book is wrong and you've got some other problem."

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:32 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I guess if I still don't have any progress before Sherlock and Tony have theirs I can ask teachers."

pythbox
2013-08-22 06:33 pm (UTC)

"Guess so," Feral agrees.

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:41 pm (UTC)

Bella goes on trying.

Bella goes on not getting anywhere.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 06:42 pm (UTC)

One morning, in the middle of the following week, there is a little silvery owl circling the room when she wakes up.

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Oh, pretty," she sighs enviously, reaching out for the owl half-consciously.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 06:44 pm (UTC)

It perches insubstantially on her finger, gripping with tiny misty talons.

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:45 pm (UTC)

"Congratulations," says Bella, pretending to pet the owl insofar as she can do so when it has no solidity.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 06:46 pm (UTC)

Little swirls of silvery mist eddy off it at the contact.

"Thank you," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:46 pm (UTC)

"What kind of owl is this? It's so cute."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 06:52 pm (UTC)

"An elf owl, I think."

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:53 pm (UTC)

"If you were an animagus you could probably turn into one of these."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 06:53 pm (UTC)

"So I've heard."

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:55 pm (UTC)

"You don't sound that enthusiastic."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Do I ever?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, no," Bella giggles. "I might want to be an Animagus if I could be something cool. I don't think I'd go through all the work to turn into - I don't know, a peccary. But if I could be a bird I might. I just have no idea because I still can't -" She focuses, picks up the nearer of her wands from the nightstand. "Expecto patronum!"

Mist.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:00 pm (UTC)

"And you still don't know why," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea. Or why I can get mist from the one memory but nothing from any other nice thing that ever happened to me. I'm not depressed."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:02 pm (UTC)

"You are not," he agrees. "Have you tried to find out what it is about the book?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:06 pm (UTC)

"I could come up with a pattern if it were the book and something else, but it's not. It's just the one thing, not any other book I've ever gotten, or the other present I've gotten from you, or anything else that happened on my birthday, or anything else to do with Potions."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:13 pm (UTC)

"This reminds me of a game I play with Tony," he says. "Using pieces stolen from other games, mostly. One of us creates a rule that accepts some arrangements of pieces and rejects the rest - say, 'only green pieces', or 'only a single stack of pieces' - then provides one example of an arrangement that follows the rule and one example of an arrangement that breaks it. The other has to guess what the rule is, submitting as many arrangements as necessary first to see whether they follow or break it. You've gone in thinking that the rule is 'happy thoughts', but that doesn't seem to be true. So perhaps you should start submitting other kinds of arrangements."
Edited 2013-08-22 19:14 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Why would Patronuses work differently for me than for anybody else?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:16 pm (UTC)

"I have no idea, but they clearly do," he says. "Maybe I should get you another book about the Philosopher's Stone."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:17 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," giggles Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:18 pm (UTC)

"I will, then. And I will convince Tony to do the same."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Are there that many books about it around?" muses Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Of course. The trick is finding good ones."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:20 pm (UTC)

"If even a bad present about the Philosopher's Stone can get mist out of my wand when learning to fly can't, then I will be very annoyed at my psychology or my magic or whatever."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm sure it will be terribly sad about that."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:21 pm (UTC)

"My psychology totally will." Pause. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:22 pm (UTC)

"...Yes?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:22 pm (UTC)

"What do you think about to get your owl?" It's still sitting on her finger, prettily sublimating.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Tony."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Aww."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:24 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:25 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what Tony does. Even though she's not done yet." Bella puts the owl Patronus on her shoulder and Euterpe trills curiously. "I will ask her at breakfast or Charms." And she sets about getting ready for the day.
Edited 2013-08-22 19:27 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:28 pm (UTC)

The owl Patronus dissolves; Sherlock goes to breakfast with Bella.

sparksflying
2013-08-22 07:28 pm (UTC)

Tony greets them with, "You did it, didn't you?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:28 pm (UTC)

"I did."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:29 pm (UTC)

"It's a cute tiny owl!" Bella reports. "Hey, what do you concentrate on when you're practicing?"

sparksflying
2013-08-22 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Thing...s," says Tony vaguely. "Stuff."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:32 pm (UTC)

"All different stuff like Feral?" Bella guesses.

sparksflying
2013-08-22 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Yyyyes. Sure. Yeah."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:34 pm (UTC)

Bella is not convinced that this is the whole story, but it's kind of a personal question, so she drops it.

patronus charm

occluminous

Tony's patronus doesn't take much longer to finish - hers is a gigantic eagle, nearly as big as Feral's thestral. (It can sit on Bella just as well as the elf owl can, since they're weightless.)

Bella makes no progress. New books on the Philosopher's Stone, received on her birthday, get mist just like the first one did, if a little more anemically. (The books are not as good as that first one.) Feral works on being an Animagus; he doesn't have it down before winter break, though. He also keeps telling Bella about what's been going in Herbology, although she has to translate his ramblings and half-formed written scrawls into usable notes by herself.

Bella does not get Feral a Christmas present, per request, but she gives Sherlock a book about prophecies and Tony a book about various failed attempts to integrate magic and technology. Euterpe can't carry them both at the same time and Bella wants her free for sending letters anyway, so she just brings them with her to hand over after winter break.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 07:56 pm (UTC)

Sherlock, it turns out, has also gotten Bella a book for Christmas.

He hands it to her wrapped in plain brown paper when she walks into their room.

"Merry Christmas. I didn't want to trust this to an owl," he says. "Owls can be tracked."

occluminous
2013-08-22 07:57 pm (UTC)

That makes Bella intensely curious! She raises an eyebrow at Sherlock and then shreds the wrapping paper.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:02 pm (UTC)

It's called The Eternal Dark: Studies in Forbidden Immortality, and it is about various unsavoury ways people have tried to become immortal.

"I don't think there is anything in there you would want to use," he says, "but it might be useful to know about, all the same."

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Ooh." Bella promptly turns the cover white, and casts the same refuse-to-open-for-arbitrary-people spell she uses on her notebooks. "Thanks!"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:06 pm (UTC)

He smiles.

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:07 pm (UTC)

"I don't know if this will work before I actually read it, but," says Bella, and she hugs the book to her chest and pulls her vine wand, "Expecto Patronum!"

She gets a barely visible sneeze of mist.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:08 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:09 pm (UTC)

"Any conclusions?" she asks, sticking her wand back into her hair.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:11 pm (UTC)

"Not yet," he says. "But at least I know I'm looking for information in the right places."

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:12 pm (UTC)

Bella chuckles and settles in to read a chapter before the welcome feast.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:26 pm (UTC)

The first chapter is an overview, mentioning a few highlights without going into detail and talking about some of the things that Dark Arts immortality methods tend to have in common. Particularly, that they all - or all of the effective ones - involve causing irreparable harm to some person or creature.

And then it is time for the welcome feast!

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:27 pm (UTC)

Feasting!

Bella finishes her book after dinner, and tries the Patronus again. It gets worse mist than the best Philosopher's Stone book and better mist than the inferior ones. It's all, still, mist.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:33 pm (UTC)

A few days later, Sherlock leaves another book on her desk for her to find in the morning, with a cheerful yellow ribbon tied around it in a bow.

It's about a set of artifacts called the Deathly Hallows.

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:36 pm (UTC)

Bella reads this one, partly over lunch and partly after classes, and tries again under Sherlock's supervision. Mist yes, but worse than the inferior Philosopher's Stone books.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:36 pm (UTC)

"I am sensing a theme," says Sherlock. "Are you sensing a theme?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:37 pm (UTC)

"Well, yes, but this is also the only theme we've investigated; there could be something neither of us has thought of that would also work, or it could be some kind of placebo effect."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Why this placebo effect?"

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:40 pm (UTC)

"I don't know. It's a very weird placebo effect. I mean, it does make me happy that there has been prior art on immortality and only some of it is obviously a failure or harmful to others? But - it's really weird."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:45 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:46 pm (UTC)

"When I asked a teacher about it the other month he just offered to make me an appointment with Healer Song if I wasn't feeling 'emotionally comfortable'," says Bella. "If there's something other than being depressed or incompetent that can block a Patronus it must be very uncommon."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:49 pm (UTC)

"Clearly," says Sherlock. "And yet, here you are."

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:54 pm (UTC)

"I am very uncommon, I guess," shrugs Bella. "... I just realized I completely forgot to give you and Tony your Christmas presents, I was going to do it right away but then I got distracted." She dives into her bag and produces a thick volume of onionskin paper. "Here. I hope you didn't think I just forgot. Actually one time when I was falling asleep I managed to mostly convince myself that you would have figured out what and where your present would be and just quietly collected it but by the time I woke up I had forgotten again and didn't think to check."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:55 pm (UTC)

Sherlock laughs.

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:56 pm (UTC)

The book is entitled "Prophetic Utterances and The Surrounding Events: A Comprehensive History". It is divided by time period, nationality of prophet, and prophecy subject matter; there is a chunky index in the back.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 08:57 pm (UTC)

"It's beautiful," says Sherlock. "Thank you."

occluminous
2013-08-22 08:57 pm (UTC)

"You're welcome. You didn't think I forgot, did you?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly."

occluminous
2013-08-22 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Not exactly?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 09:03 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head. "Never mind."

occluminous
2013-08-22 09:03 pm (UTC)

Bella frowns.

But she drops it.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Speaking of things we have forgotten to mention," he says, "Tony and I got our second wands over winter break. Spruce and cedar, respectively, and unicorn hair. They'll be coming by owl any day now; they were still being fitted for handles when we saw them in the shop."

occluminous
2013-08-22 09:08 pm (UTC)

"Ooh, nice. What do those woods mean?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 09:35 pm (UTC)

"Cedar: loyalty, perceptiveness," he says. "Spruce: boldness and a sense of humour."

occluminous
2013-08-22 09:35 pm (UTC)

"But not so much perceptiveness that you noticed your present."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 09:36 pm (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-22 09:36 pm (UTC)

"Aww." She hugs him.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 09:36 pm (UTC)

He hugs her back.

occluminous
2013-08-22 10:19 pm (UTC)

School swings back into session. On the second weekend Bella unilaterally declares that she and all of her friends should spend Sunday morning flying around.

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 10:20 pm (UTC)

This is an excellent plan and Sherlock fully supports it.

pythbox
2013-08-22 10:20 pm (UTC)

Feral doesn't have a broom! But he can borrow one from the school.

sparksflying
2013-08-22 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Why don't you have a broom? I should get you a broom," says Tony. "Sherry, remind me to get Feral a broom."

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 10:21 pm (UTC)

"Will do," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-22 10:22 pm (UTC)

Bella giggles and kicks into the air. Wheeeeee!

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 10:23 pm (UTC)

Whee.

pythbox
2013-08-22 10:24 pm (UTC)

Feral chases after Tony and attempts to hug her in midair.

sparksflying
2013-08-22 10:24 pm (UTC)

Given that he's on a school broom, she'd have to let him catch her on purpose.

She does.

occluminous
2013-08-22 10:26 pm (UTC)

Awww!

Then it is lunchtime.

And then Bella and Sherlock head back for their room, although Bella will clear out so he can catch up on sleep after she has put her broom away.

"So I know I got you a Divination book, but how's the actual class going?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-22 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Far less interesting than the book," he says. "There's enough evidence to strongly suggest that prophecy is a perfectly legitimate phenomenon. Tea leaves, less so."

occluminous
2013-08-22 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Can you learn to do any of it or do you just have to be born prophetic?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 12:17 am (UTC)

"No data, but I suspect the latter. Because there is no data. Genuine seers are often but not always people with the obvious set of related interests. It's not quite clear whether or not being one makes the rest of the trash actually work."
Edited 2013-08-23 00:31 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-23 12:33 am (UTC)

"I don't suppose you've gotten any of the trash to behave interestingly."

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 12:35 am (UTC)

"Not that I'd give any weight to. But then, I have no indication that I am a prophet."

occluminous
2013-08-23 12:37 am (UTC)

"What are the indications, anyway?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 12:40 am (UTC)

"Giving a prophecy is considered a pretty clear sign. Beyond that, nothing especially consistent. But prophecies themselves are interesting. They have recipients, did you know that? As far as anyone can tell, each one is intended for a specific listener who is present at the time the prophecy is given."

occluminous
2013-08-23 12:54 am (UTC)

"Weird. Is it usually one person per prophecy?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 12:57 am (UTC)

"Only one recipient per prophecy has ever been clearly identified, but sometimes there are too many people present and not all of them follow up afterward. In the clear-cut cases, it seems the recipient always gets something useful out of the prophecy, although not always soon enough to do any good. And of course they all come true, but some of them are vague enough that that's not saying much."

occluminous
2013-08-23 12:57 am (UTC)

"I had heard about the vagueness thing," says Bella. "I wonder why they're like that."

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:00 am (UTC)

"There are competing theories. One of the better ones is that they are meant to be useful to the recipient at a specific moment, and too much clarity would lead to them going off early. But prophecy is not a voluntary exercise, so the seers aren't much help in figuring it out; they don't choose the wording. Some of them don't even remember it afterward."

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:02 am (UTC)

"Huh."

Here is their room. Bella taps the doorknob to let them in.
Edited 2013-08-23 01:02 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:11 am (UTC)

In they go.

"Good night," he says wryly, climbing up to bed.

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:11 am (UTC)

Bella puts her broom away and leaves him be for the rest of the day.

She is back that evening.

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:13 am (UTC)

Sherlock is a little slower waking up than usual, and his hair is a mess when he answers the door mid-yawn.
Edited 2013-08-23 01:22 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:26 am (UTC)

In comes Bella. "Sleep well?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:27 am (UTC)

He shuts the door.

A voice barely recognizable as his, speaking as though from the other end of a vast empty room with exquisite acoustics and considerable echo, says: "The light of hope will erase the shadow of death."

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:29 am (UTC)

"Beg pardon?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:31 am (UTC)

"...What?" says Sherlock. "Is someone throwing Memory Charms again? I just lost another few seconds."

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:32 am (UTC)

"I would never. You just said, um, 'The light of hope will erase the shadow of death".

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:32 am (UTC)

"...Did my voice sound strange?"

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:33 am (UTC)

"Extremely!"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:35 am (UTC)

"I just gave a prophecy," he says, blinking. "I was not expecting that. Write it down - exact words - you can't extract your memories yet and it might apply before you can."

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:36 am (UTC)

Bella promptly writes down the exact words. "I have no idea what it means, though."

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:40 am (UTC)

"Nor do I. But I am not supposed to. You're the one who is meant to understand it - not now, but at some future time when it will either be of some use to you or let Fate say 'I told you so' after the fact."

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:41 am (UTC)

"I guess it at least sounds - promising?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:42 am (UTC)

"That's not always a reliable indicator. But yes, it does."

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:43 am (UTC)

"Huh. Do you think we should tell anybody else?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:47 am (UTC)

"No. Well, we can tell Tony and possibly Feral. We should not tell any adults. I don't want anyone knowing I'm a seer yet."

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:53 am (UTC)

"I didn't mean adults, I don't think they'd be useful about it at all," shrugs Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 01:55 am (UTC)

He snorts. "They so rarely are."

occluminous
2013-08-23 01:55 am (UTC)

"And this isn't anything like Healer Song's specialty."

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 02:04 am (UTC)

"It is not."

occluminous
2013-08-23 02:54 am (UTC)

"How secretive do you want to be about your prophetude? Like, can we tell them at breakfast or do we have to draw them aside and swear them to secrecy?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 02:57 am (UTC)

"Secretive," he says. "Definitely secretive."

occluminous
2013-08-23 02:57 am (UTC)

"Okay. Secrecy-swearing it is. After classes tomorrow?" proposes Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 02:58 am (UTC)

He nods.

occluminous
2013-08-23 03:00 am (UTC)

So after classes the next day, Bella (presumably accompanied by Sherlock) pulls aside Feral and Tony someplace nice and quiet, hopping with excitement.

pythbox
2013-08-23 11:03 am (UTC)

"This has to be something good," says Feral, gesturing to Sherlock, "or you'd be in bed, right?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 11:04 am (UTC)

"I might debate 'good', but it's interesting. And important."

occluminous
2013-08-23 04:32 pm (UTC)

"He gave me a prophecy," says Bella, after making quite sure they are unobserved, and she opens to that notebook page and shows them. "We don't know what it means though."

sparksflying
2013-08-23 04:33 pm (UTC)

"Whoa," says Tony. "Seriously?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 04:34 pm (UTC)

"As far as I can tell," says Sherlock.

sparksflying
2013-08-23 04:34 pm (UTC)

"Which is pretty far. Wow," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-23 04:35 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. We aren't telling any grownups," Bella adds.

sparksflying
2013-08-23 04:37 pm (UTC)

"No kidding," says Tony.

pythbox
2013-08-23 04:38 pm (UTC)

Feral snorts.

occluminous
2013-08-23 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Do either of you have a guess what it could be about?"

pythbox
2013-08-23 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Nope," says Feral.

sparksflying
2013-08-23 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Well... it sounds like it's about your immortality thing," says Tony doubtfully. "But it's pretty vague."

occluminous
2013-08-23 04:42 pm (UTC)

"My immortality thing also vaguely seems to be related to when I do and don't get mist trying to cast a Patronus," Bella muses.

sparksflying
2013-08-23 04:44 pm (UTC)

"That's weird," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-23 04:45 pm (UTC)

"It's really weird!" agrees Bella. "But I still can't get more than mist, or mist with anything unrelated, so - I don't know what's going on at all."

sparksflying
2013-08-23 04:45 pm (UTC)

"Me neither," says Tony.

pythbox
2013-08-23 04:46 pm (UTC)

Feral looks at Sherlock.

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 04:46 pm (UTC)

"Insufficient data," he says, shrugging.

occluminous
2013-08-23 04:47 pm (UTC)

"But I get lots of interesting presents while he data-collects. Best kind of experiment."

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 04:47 pm (UTC)

Sherlock grins.

pythbox
2013-08-23 04:47 pm (UTC)

Feral giggles.

occluminous
2013-08-23 04:48 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs Sherlock.

nobodyelse
2013-08-23 04:48 pm (UTC)

Sherlock hugs back!

dark chocolate

occluminous

The semester goes on. The Patronuses - the three of them that exist - are useful for remote communications, though they're too conspicuous for chatting in class. And even Bella can send return messages. Feral gets mauled by the carnivorous thorn plant and is sent to Healer Song with a disturbing grin on his face, and tells Bella all about the properties of the plant in question. Sherlock produces no further prophecies, but gets excellent grades in everything, including Divination. Bella gets him to read tarot for her and he gravely informs her that she is fated to be the ruler of the world, before sweeping up the cards and allowing her laughter to be contagious.

Tony draws brooms with jet engines, and jets with tail-twigs. Bella learns about Crups and Grindylows and dragons and unicorns and hippogriffs and Puffskeins (these are handled in-class; she likes them until they try to lick her). Feral works on Animagery and Bella collaborates with Tony on a Transfiguration project for a change and Sherlock gets cornered by Artemis Burberry's cousin and sends him to the infirmary with superficial cuts, stuck-shut eyelids, and a distinct case of unconsciousness.

Bella attempts to invent a broom-based sport that doesn't involve anything exploding or a disproportionate amount of scoring being performed by a single team position, but it turns out she's very bad at catching and throwing balls even when she's in the air and she gives up. The JROC courts the twins and gets nowhere. Feral's fire problem diminishes enough that between that and fire-suppression from the elves he can use magic in the kitchen; he learns to make cheese souffle. It is delicious. Bella loses her hazel wand for a day and a half before it turns up and feels very smug about her backup idea; she finds the missing one under the ingredient cupboard in Potions.

Renée meets her at the exit from the wizarding hideaway of the Bay Cauldron, and she goes roadtripping to Phoenix for the first half of the summer.

pythbox
2013-08-23 11:44 pm (UTC)

One evening, there is a tapping at Bella's bedroom window.

occluminous
2013-08-23 11:44 pm (UTC)

Bella peers out.

pythbox
2013-08-23 11:46 pm (UTC)

There is a Thestral hovering there!

occluminous
2013-08-23 11:46 pm (UTC)

That is surprising!

But only for a moment.

"Feral?" guesses Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-23 11:47 pm (UTC)

The ghastly dragonlike head nods several times.

occluminous
2013-08-23 11:48 pm (UTC)

She opens her window, but: "I don't know how to take the screen off. If I let you in the garage you can turn back there. Hang on just a minute."

And she closes the window again - won't do to let the nice air-conditioned air out into the Arizona summer - and goes down and clicks the garage door open.

pythbox
2013-08-23 11:52 pm (UTC)

Feral enters the garage.

His shape blurs for a moment, and then he's standing there in human form, fully dressed. He beams and hugs her.

"I did it! I did it! Being a Thestral is awesome, it's way better than riding a broom!"

occluminous
2013-08-23 11:53 pm (UTC)

She hugs him back, laughing. "I bet! That's awesome! But did anyone see you? Are you, um, invisible like Thestrals when you do that? I don't want you to get arrested for letting a Muggle spot you or something."

pythbox
2013-08-24 12:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I am," he says. "I checked with the elves before I left."

occluminous
2013-08-24 12:05 am (UTC)

"That's good, it means you haven't been photographed at least and if anyone did see you they probably couldn't get it confirmed," says Bella. "And I guess you can find places like thestrals do too, what's that like?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 12:53 am (UTC)

"It's fun! I found you with it," he says. "It's like... I don't know what it's like. It's like something."

occluminous
2013-08-24 12:53 am (UTC)

"I'm so informed. I wish I could turn invisible, then you could fly me around."

pythbox
2013-08-24 12:55 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "I could fly you around anyway. If it was late and dark out and we didn't go anywhere much with people, nobody'd have to know."

occluminous
2013-08-24 12:57 am (UTC)

"I don't think I'd risk it. Well - maybe if Renée drove us out to the desert, first...?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 12:57 am (UTC)

Feral laughs. "Yeah!"

occluminous
2013-08-24 12:58 am (UTC)

"And pulled over and it's okay if she sees... Are you allowed off-campus?" Bella asks suddenly.

pythbox
2013-08-24 12:59 am (UTC)

Feral shrugs expressively. "Nobody's ever told me I'm not."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:00 am (UTC)

"...I guess that's a kind of a defense if someone gets mad at you for it. I can ask Renée if it's okay for you to stay here for a while if you like."

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:01 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "I probably won't set anything on fire in my sleep, I haven't done it in most of a year."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:02 am (UTC)

"We can keep a fire extinguisher by your bed," says Bella. "And our house does have a fire alarm."

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:03 am (UTC)

"—oh, yeah," he says, "I'll get in trouble if I just," he makes a wand-waving motion.

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:04 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I mean, you could maybe get away with it if you're just putting out a fire, but I bet it also gets you escorted back to school." She closes the garage door and leads him into the cute little house.

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:05 am (UTC)

"Which I don't wanna do. Okay. Your house is cute!"

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:07 am (UTC)

"Thanks! MO-O-OM!"

Renée appears from the kitchen. "Hello - oh, who's this?"

"This is Feral, I told you about him, he's one of my school friends. He flew here," Bella says blithely, "can he stay for a while?"

"...Which one? You've mentioned several people with odd names -"

"This is the one who cooks and is a grade ahead of me and stays at school normally over holidays," Bella specifies. "Maybe he can come with me to the Starks' place when Mrs. Stark comes to get me, I don't know, I'll have to owl her."

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:11 am (UTC)

Feral offers a friendly grin.

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:17 am (UTC)

"I suppose that's all right," says Renée, "if it's okay with whoever's acting as his guardian."

"Is there technically a one of those?" Bella asks Feral.

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:19 am (UTC)

Feral shrugs. "Mostly it's just me and the elves in the summer, and they were fine with it."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:21 am (UTC)

"Elves," muses Renée.

"I'm pretty sure it's fine, Mom," says Bella. "We can put him in the attic - is the attic okay, Feral?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:23 am (UTC)

"Sure," he shrugs, "no problem."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:28 am (UTC)

And so Feral is put in the attic and stays with Bella for the next two weeks.

He eats an awful lot, charming the socks off Renée and coming along on grocery trips to fetch things from across the store and then, once she is buttered up, remarking on being hungry, taking seconds at dinner, sneaking snacks.

"Do you like my mom's cooking all that much? It's nothing compared to the elves," Bella asks after day three.

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:29 am (UTC)

"Huh?" says Feral, blinking at her.

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:30 am (UTC)

"You don't eat this much at school," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:33 am (UTC)

He spends another second or two staring quizzically, and then laughs.

"Oh. Man, I didn't even notice I was doing it. It's just - this," he gestures around at the house, "reminds me of before I came to school. I used to stay with nice people like your mom for a little while, when I could, and I'd never know when I was gonna get easy access to food like that again, so I just got in the habit of... well, like you noticed. Begging for treats."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:34 am (UTC)

"Aww."

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:36 am (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"Yeah. I guess I don't need to do that anymore. It's handy, though, I bet she wouldn't like me nearly as much if I wasn't being cute at her."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:37 am (UTC)

"You are very cute at her. She is terribly charmed," says Bella. "If you'd shown up when you were like eight she probably would've adopted you."

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:39 am (UTC)

He gives a little exaggerated shudder. "Ew, parents." Then, grinning, "She's nice and all, but you can keep her."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:39 am (UTC)

"I think I will," says Bella. "I like her."

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:40 am (UTC)

Feral laughs.

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:42 am (UTC)

After a few more days, Bella casually informs Renée that, by the way, Feral can turn into an invisible flying creature and he wants to give her a ride, can she drive them out to the desert after sunset some night so they can try it in relative privacy?

"An invisible flying creature," repeats Renée, bemusedly, glancing at Feral.

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:43 am (UTC)

He grins.

"Yeah! It's really advanced magic - took me all last year to learn it."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:45 am (UTC)

"I might do it eventually but I don't know what kind of animal I'd get, so I'm not sure if it's worth the bother when there are so many other things to learn," Bella adds.

"I suppose I can drive you out tomorrow night," says Renée. "How long will you want to be - flying around?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:46 am (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"I dunno. Bella, how long do you wanna fly around for?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:47 am (UTC)

"Do you suppose it's better than a broom even for a passenger?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:48 am (UTC)

"I have nnnno idea," he says cheerfully. "Might be kind of uncomfortable, actually, you might wanna bring a pillow - Thestrals don't come with Cushioning Charms."

occluminous
2013-08-24 01:50 am (UTC)

"So probably not more than, like, three hours," Bella tells Renée, "and maybe less than one if he's really uncomfortable to sit on."

Renée laughs at the idea of Bella sitting on her friend. "All right. Tomorrow night, then."

And the following evening they drive out to some uninhabited desert, and Bella ties a pillow to Feral, and it doesn't seem to occur to Renée to wonder how she's doing this with an obviously invisible creature, and Bella hops on.

pythbox
2013-08-24 01:59 am (UTC)

Away Feral flies, invisible to anyone who has not seen death, with a very visible Bella sitting on a very visible pillow tied around his invisible middle.

With the pillow between her and that bony ridge, it's not that bad. The up-and-down motion of flight is minimal, especially when he gets enough altitude to coast. And there is something to it that's different from brooms. Something about the wings, maybe, or maybe the fact that brooms aren't your friend.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:01 am (UTC)

Bella gets tired of it after about two hours, but has a grand time before that eventuality.

pythbox
2013-08-24 02:02 am (UTC)

And despite ranging far over the desert, Feral carries her back unerringly to Renée's car when she asks.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:02 am (UTC)

Bella slides off, then says, "Hey, what happens to the pillow if you change with it tied to you?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 02:06 am (UTC)

Feral shrugs his wings and tries it.

The pillow falls off, tangling him in yarn that is rather looser on a thirteenish-year-old boy than it was on a Thestral.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:08 am (UTC)

Bella giggles, and scoops up pillow and yarn both from the sand, and hops back into the car. And home they go.

pythbox
2013-08-24 02:09 am (UTC)

Feral hugs her before they get in the car.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:10 am (UTC)

And when Mrs. Stark arrives, both children go with her.

pythbox
2013-08-24 02:13 am (UTC)

Mrs. Stark is perfectly fine with this.

Conveniently, it is absolutely permissible to fly magical creatures around the Stark mansion; the grounds are warded against uninvited Muggles, and invited ones come with advance warning.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:14 am (UTC)

That is convenient, although Bella would just as soon use the privacy to ride her broom.

pythbox
2013-08-24 02:15 am (UTC)

Feral, on the other hand, barely touches the ground at all on his first day there.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:20 am (UTC)

"Weren't you going to get Feral a broom?" Bella wonders to Tony idly, late the first day.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:22 am (UTC)

"...Yes I was," says Tony. She squints fruitlessly into the sky; Feral is currently invisible to her, and even if he wasn't, he's high enough to be barely more than a speck. "I'll go do that, huh?"

And she dashes off to locate her mother, returning triumphantly a few minutes later.

"Broom's in the mail!"

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:23 am (UTC)

Bella giggles.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:27 am (UTC)

"Ooh, speaking of presents, has anybody got you a book recently?"
Edited 2013-08-24 02:27 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:28 am (UTC)

"Not recently recently, my mom got me some last month from the library sale though, why?"

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:30 am (UTC)

"Because I'm in a getting-people-stuff mood."

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:30 am (UTC)

"That's adorable," giggles Bella.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:32 am (UTC)

Tony beams.

"And you like books! So I'll get you a book. About... something. I dunno."

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:32 am (UTC)

"Unicorns," suggests Bella.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:33 am (UTC)

"Sure."

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:34 am (UTC)

Eventually Feral's broom appears. It is of course immediately necessary that all four kids go on a broomflight. To test it out.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:34 am (UTC)

It might be defective! It might be insufficiently fun. There is only one way to know for sure.

pythbox
2013-08-24 02:35 am (UTC)

"This is awesome!" crows Feral. "Almost as good as wings!"

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:36 am (UTC)

Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Wheeeeee.

Whee.

Whee?

pythbox
2013-08-24 02:37 am (UTC)

Wh...at.

"Something's weird, guys," says Feral, slowing down a little further and edging closer to the others.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:38 am (UTC)

Bella clusters nearer, too.

"Yeah," she says distantly.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 02:39 am (UTC)

Sherlock seems to be drifting aimlessly away.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:39 am (UTC)

"Sherry! Hey! Wake up!" says Tony, zipping after him.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:40 am (UTC)

"Something's wrong," murmurs Bella, quiet-quiet-quiet.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:41 am (UTC)

"No kidding—"

She leans off her broom to grab Sherlock by the arm and haul him around.

"We should go home. Like, right now. C'mon, Sherry."

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:43 am (UTC)

And then, from the trees under them, rises the thing that is wrong.

It is wearing a black cloak, and its hands look like they've died and half-rotted, and it is lifting itself into the air.

The wrongness becomes wronger. Bella's shivering, now.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 02:44 am (UTC)

Sherlock is entirely unresponsive.

pythbox
2013-08-24 02:47 am (UTC)

Feral is shivering, too, clinging to his broom with his eyes squeezed shut.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:47 am (UTC)

"...Shit," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:48 am (UTC)

Up, up, up climbs the Dementor. It could probably move faster. It seems to want to take its time.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 02:51 am (UTC)

"Expecto Patronum," says Tony, in a very small voice.

She gets a blob of mist. It streaks quaveringly toward the Dementor.

occluminous
2013-08-24 02:58 am (UTC)

The Dementor bats it aside like it's a mosquito. Maybe as threatening as a bumblebee, even.

It continues to rise until it is level with the children, and it looks directly at Bella.

And Bella makes eye contact - such as it is, when the Dementor's face is the sucking void of eternal nothing.

And she knows exactly what she is staring at.

She is not ready it is not time yet she was going to fight it but from safety with help surrounded by books tools weapons when she was older smarter more competent more capable -

She is not ready -

No one has ever been ready, and when Death comes to the unready - they die.

Death does not play fair, and she is deliciously vulnerable, and she is not ready.

The books say that when you are close to a Dementor you cannot think of happy things.

Bella can think of happy things, twisted with the deep wrench of loss - they march across her thoughts - these are the possibilities that will be taken from her, these are the people she will never speak to again, these are the things she will never learn see do try gain taste share have be -

Because she is not ready, and Death found her anyway, in a black cloak and a face like the infinite void.

Bella falls.
Edited 2013-08-24 02:59 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-24 03:44 am (UTC)

Feral feels - like he's being eaten alive from the inside out, like some external force is dipping its claws into his soul and pulling him out in pieces, like he's struggling uphill against a freezing cold wind - like -

He smells fire.

(he is six years old again and he doesn't know how he did that to the chandelier but he knows what's going to happen to him because of it)

No - he's here, now, holding onto his broom so hard his hands are cramping, and whatever's on fire got that way by magic and he needs to put it out. Feral winces his eyes open.

The thing that is on fire is the tail of his broom. And the air, flickering with flames that blot out his vision everywhere he turns. He takes a deep breath, doubles over coughing, and gets thoroughly lost in another flashback for a split second, during which time his broom starts to spin. He opens his eyes again.

His broom is headed for the ground, and he can see Bella ahead of him.

He doesn't even think, which is good, because this is a colossally stupid idea even by his standards. He just whips out his wand, wrenches his broom around to try to halt the spin long enough to aim, and casts a spell. He forgets the name, but he remembers the shape the words make in his mouth and an afternoon spent watching rocks sink toward the ground as though through invisible molasses.

Bella slows down. Feral doesn't.

Hitting the ground is very painful, very briefly.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:48 am (UTC)

Tony does not have any more bright ideas.

She screams.

pythbox
2013-08-24 03:49 am (UTC)

From the direction of the Starks' house, a silvery bird arrows through the sky, aiming its long narrow beak directly at the Dementor.

Maria is not far behind it.

alicornucopia
2013-08-24 03:50 am (UTC)

The Dementor finds this one a bit more threatening. It leaves off chasing the fallen children and zooms away into the distance.
Edited 2013-08-24 03:54 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:01 am (UTC)

She dives to put out the small fire started by Feral's broom.

Feral is not looking good. He'll live, though. Wizarding children are tough. She immobilizes him and floats him into the air, then does the same to Bella minus the immobility, collects Tony and Sherlock, and hauls them all back to the house to get some chocolate into them as fast as possible.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:04 am (UTC)

Bella is not, exactly, unconscious.

She is just in a state of expecting death with such certainty that it may as well have happened already.

She does not react to falling, to floating, to being tucked into bed, to the smell of chocolate, to the instructions to eat the chocolate. If she could be doing anything she would be saying goodbye. The cold is gone; cold is just another thing she will not even have the chance to miss when she is dead.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:07 am (UTC)

The healer puts some chocolate in her mouth in between fussing over Feral, who between the broken bones from falling out of the sky and the burns from doing it on a broom that was on fire would be having a pretty great day if it weren't for the fact that he... isn't.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:08 am (UTC)

The chocolate melts there. She doesn't register the taste.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:10 am (UTC)

Chocolate works just fine on Feral, once he's awake to eat it. The healer turns her attention to Bella, sits her up, and endeavours to get her drinking some chocolate milk, murmuring quietly to her the whole time - it's all right now, you're safe, you're going to be fine.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:11 am (UTC)

Bella can be made to swallow, if the healer puts the effort in.

It just - doesn't seem to do anything.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:21 am (UTC)

Sometimes it does take a while. The healer is concerned, but apart from chocolate and time there really isn't much in the way of treatment for Dementor exposure. She tucks Bella in again, checks on Feral, fixes his sling for the fourth time where his fidgeting was starting to fray the edges, gives him another dose of bone-strengthening potion, turns out the light, and leaves the room.

As soon as she shuts the door, Feral is out of his bed and limping over to Bella's. He means to give her a hug. He succeeds in doing that, and then he falls asleep, snuggled up on top of the blanket with his broken arm flopped over her.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:22 am (UTC)

Bella's hand moves a little, after a while.

She licks stray chocolate from her lips.

She picks up her hand. She puts it in Feral's hair.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:23 am (UTC)

He makes a vague mumbling noise in his sleep.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:27 am (UTC)

Bella closes her eyes.

She drifts into sleep, herself.

But she doesn't speak.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:30 am (UTC)

Feral is going to be out for a solid twelve hours. But he's not going to set the bed on fire.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:31 am (UTC)

Bella wakes up a little sooner than that. She doesn't feel like moving right away, though. She just looks around.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:32 am (UTC)

There is the empty bed Feral is supposed to be sleeping in, and there is Feral sleeping on Bella instead, and there is a mountain of chocolate and chocolate-related products on a table within reach.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:33 am (UTC)

Bella reaches for a wafer. She nibbles on the wafer. That seems like it will do for now. She puts her hand back in Feral's hair.

pythbox
2013-08-24 12:35 pm (UTC)

Feral mumbles again. It is a happyish mumble.

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:21 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks. Slowly, carefully, quietly.

pythbox
2013-08-24 03:22 pm (UTC)

Feral sleeps.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:23 pm (UTC)

After a little while, Tony pokes her head in the door.

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:23 pm (UTC)

Bella waves, with the hand that is not entangled in Feral's hair.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:25 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Tony, coming the rest of the way inside. "Are you guys okay?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:25 pm (UTC)

"I'm - better. He's asleep, I guess that's good. How are you? How's Sherlock?"

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:28 pm (UTC)

She comes and sits down beside Bella's bed, absently picking up a brownie from the table.

"He's sleeping too. But he told me I should check on you in the morning, so here I am. Wow," she says on closer inspection of Feral's injuries, "I'm surprised he got all the way across the room like that. Unless they just put him to bed with you. They didn't, right?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:29 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so. I wasn't paying a lot of attention then."

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:30 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure they didn't. That would be kind of weird," says Tony. "It's cute, though."

She noms on her brownie.

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:31 pm (UTC)

"It is, yeah. I mean, the covers on the other bed are rumply and there's chocolate near it," observes Bella. "Probably he was in it and just sort of - flopped on me. I don't mind."

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:33 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind either," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:34 pm (UTC)

"How do you kill a Dementor? Or - destroy it, anyway?"

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:34 pm (UTC)

"...Huh?" says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:35 pm (UTC)

"They need to go away, how does a person kill one?"

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Um... I'm pretty sure you don't," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:37 pm (UTC)

"Oh." This is disappointing but not surprising.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Even Patronuses just kind of... scare them off. I mean, maybe if you got one to hold still while your Patronus ate it, there has to be some reason they're scared of them, right? But I don't think anybody's ever done it. I can ask Mom, I guess."

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

"I would but I am stuck," Bella says, gesturing at Feral.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 03:41 pm (UTC)

Tony giggles softly.

occluminous
2013-08-24 03:42 pm (UTC)

"I want to make them all go away," says Bella. "It seems like it might be important for ending death. They're - I don't think they're all of it, but they are parts of it."

sparksflying
2013-08-24 04:05 pm (UTC)

"Uh... good luck with that?" says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Bella seriously.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 04:08 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs.

"Anyway, I should go tell Sherry you're doing okay. He's probably awake by now."

She grabs another brownie.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, thanks." Bella looks at the mountain of chocolate-related food. "Am I allowed to eat anything that doesn't have chocolate in it for the next while?"

sparksflying
2013-08-24 04:10 pm (UTC)

"You can if you want. But chocolate is tasty and it helps, so why would you?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:11 pm (UTC)

"It's just weird to have it for breakfast." Bella shrugs and takes a cookie.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Says who?"

Tony leans over and hugs her.

"See you later," she says, and goes.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:13 pm (UTC)

Bella continues to munch on things. She tries some of everything there is within reach, in little pieces. For variety.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:14 pm (UTC)

Feral yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawns.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Hi," says Bella, scritching him on the head since her hand is already right there. She offers him a coconut cream filled chocolate truffle.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Ooh," says Feral.

Nom! Snuggle.

"Wow, did I fall asleep? I didn't mean to fall asleep. I hope I didn't drool on you. Or set you on fire. I didn't set you on fire, right?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:17 pm (UTC)

"You didn't set me on fire or drool on me, but you did definitely fall asleep," says Bella. "How are you doing? I have decided to kill all the Dementors that there are."

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:19 pm (UTC)

"S'posed to be impossible," he says, flopping his head onto her shoulder because lifting it up is hard. "Mm. I think I'm kind of high, actually, I bet they gave me painkillers."

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. You are pretty injured."

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:22 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says. "I set my broom on fire. And it was so nice, too."

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:22 pm (UTC)

"And brand new, that sucks. I wonder if the other brooms are okay. I - think I fell."

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:24 pm (UTC)

"You did," he says. "I caught you. Well, not like caught you - I cast that - I forget what it's called, the charm that makes things fall slower? That."

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:24 pm (UTC)

"The Deceleration Charm?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Don't think so."

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:26 pm (UTC)

"Oh. Well - I don't seem to be on fire, so thank you."

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:28 pm (UTC)

Feral giggles.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:29 pm (UTC)

"I want to go see how Sherlock's doing. You probably aren't supposed to move around, though, I don't even know how you got all the way over to flop on me."

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:31 pm (UTC)

"Painkillers," Feral says vaguely. "Except probably not, I don't think it'd hurt that much."

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Even on painkillers it's got to be hard to balance on a broken leg. Well, it would be for me, maybe that's not a fair comparison." Bella slips out from under the covers.

pythbox
2013-08-24 04:33 pm (UTC)

Feral flops into the space she left.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:33 pm (UTC)

She scritches him again, takes a stick of Pocky, and ventures out of the room.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 04:35 pm (UTC)

If she looks for Sherlock, she will find Tony guarding his door. Or at least sitting on the floor in front of it with a sketchpad and pencil, drawing brooms.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:35 pm (UTC)

"How is he?" Bella asks her.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 04:36 pm (UTC)

"Not awesome. Mostly okay. Sleeping again," she says.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:37 pm (UTC)

"I wonder why some of us were worse affected than others."

sparksflying
2013-08-24 04:38 pm (UTC)

"It's not like Sherry's a happy person most of the time," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-24 04:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I am though - but then there's whatever's wrong with me that makes me not able to cast a Patronus, I guess."

sparksflying
2013-08-24 04:43 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." Tony shrugs uncomfortably. "I dunno."

occluminous
2013-08-24 05:05 pm (UTC)

"Where's your mom? I want to ask her if she knows if there's a way to kill them."

sparksflying
2013-08-24 05:06 pm (UTC)

"I did. She says there's not."

occluminous
2013-08-24 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Oh. I guess I'll have to figure it out, then. Because it is not okay for them to be."

sparksflying
2013-08-24 05:09 pm (UTC)

...Tony doesn't say anything.

occluminous
2013-08-24 05:09 pm (UTC)

Bella sits down with her. "Where did it come from? Do they just run wild? Do British wizards seriously use those things as prison guards?"

sparksflying
2013-08-24 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I mean, there's not supposed to be a lot of them running around, but - they can fly, and you can't kill them, and they're hard to trace until they start draining people..."

occluminous
2013-08-24 05:15 pm (UTC)

"How hard to trace? I wonder if Feral can find them for me once I know how to kill them," Bella muses. "He can find stuff when he's changed."

sparksflying
2013-08-24 05:17 pm (UTC)

"...I have no idea if anybody's ever tried getting on a Thestral and saying, 'Find me the nearest Dementor'," says Tony. "I know I wouldn't. Those things are nasty."

occluminous
2013-08-24 05:17 pm (UTC)

"That's why I have to exterminate them," explains Bella.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 05:19 pm (UTC)

"...Okay," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-24 06:13 pm (UTC)

Bella heads to the household bookshelves and looks for books on dementors.

pythbox
2013-08-24 06:22 pm (UTC)

There are books that mention dementors, here and there.

The available knowledge looks something like this:

Dementors are highly dangerous Dark creatures. They cannot be killed, but may be driven off with the use of a strong Patronus. Under observation they have been known to bud new Dementors, but there is some evidence that they also just appear spontaneously in the wild. They take the form of a corpselike figure in a tattered black cloak with a deep hood. They have some ability to recognize individuals; the ones in use at the British prison Azkaban can accurately tell one prisoner from another. They can fly, not as fast as a good broom but much faster than a running human. Chocolate and a good rest are the best known treatment for brief exposure; with enough of those, persons who have been in the company of Dementors for up to a month have been known to make a full recovery.

Also, they can suck out your soul. There is no treatment for that. The Dementor's Kiss is still widely used in Europe as the ultimate death sentence, but has been banned in the Americas for more than a century.

occluminous
2013-08-24 06:25 pm (UTC)

So not only are they unkillable (she's going to fix that) but there are more of them sometimes, appearing, budding. They might have a slow-growing population but it's growing. That's not okay.

She looks for more general information on destroying Dark things.

pythbox
2013-08-24 06:33 pm (UTC)

Most Dark creatures can be damaged or destroyed using relatively mundane methods - weapons, curses. There are some, such as dragons and trolls, that have special resistances to some or all kinds of magic, and some such as Dementors and Lethifolds that don't seem able to be destroyed at all.

occluminous
2013-08-24 06:34 pm (UTC)

How hard have people even been trying?

pythbox
2013-08-24 06:34 pm (UTC)

If a comprehensive answer to that question exists, it's not here.

occluminous
2013-08-24 06:35 pm (UTC)

Hmm.

How about theory on how Patronuses work? Her book where she found the spell was not so much about that part.

pythbox
2013-08-24 06:36 pm (UTC)

Nope.

occluminous
2013-08-24 06:37 pm (UTC)

Hmm.

Bella goes and gets her notebook. She makes lists of things to check on when she has access to the school library again.

And then she looks for something that isn't dessert to eat. She's gotten kind of tired of chocolate.

seeking thestral

occluminous

Feral goes back to school. Bella goes to Charlie's house for the rest of the summer. She studies her textbooks and does her summer projects and owls her friends.

She thinks about Dementors.

pythbox
2013-08-24 06:51 pm (UTC)

A few weeks after the visit to the Starks, Feral decides to visit Bella again.

There's a tree in the way of tapping on her bedroom window, so he knocks on the back door instead, as quietly as his hoof can manage, after peering in to make sure that there aren't any adults immediately visible.

alicornucopia
2013-08-24 06:52 pm (UTC)

There is apparently an adult not immediately visible.

Bella's dad opens the door.

He can, apparently, see Feral. His hand goes for his gun at his belt.

pythbox
2013-08-24 06:54 pm (UTC)

Feral—freezes.

alicornucopia
2013-08-24 06:54 pm (UTC)

Charlie draws, and aims, and stares Feral down, waiting for him to make a move.

pythbox
2013-08-24 06:58 pm (UTC)

Feral shuts his ghostly white eyes and ducks his dragonlike head and folds his dragonlike wings, shivering uncontrollably.

alicornucopia
2013-08-24 06:59 pm (UTC)

Charlie doesn't fire.

He says, projecting enough to be heard through the house: "Bells. Magic thing. Back door. Don't come too close."

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:00 pm (UTC)

Bella's footsteps come down the stairs, and -

"Dad - Dad don't shoot - Dad put the gun down -"

alicornucopia
2013-08-24 07:01 pm (UTC)

"What is it, Bells, do you know?" Charlie asks, not lowering the gun.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:01 pm (UTC)

"That's my friend, he can turn into -"

alicornucopia
2013-08-24 07:02 pm (UTC)

"You said you had a friend turned into something invisible, Renée said -"

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:02 pm (UTC)

"Some people can see them, Dad - but he's my friend - put the gun down, now!"

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:03 pm (UTC)

Feral continues to shiver.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Turn back?" Bella suggests.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:04 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head rapidly back and forth.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:04 pm (UTC)

"Are you stuck or someth- Dad for crying out loud stop pointing a gun at my friend!"

alicornucopia
2013-08-24 07:05 pm (UTC)

Slowly, Charlie lowers, and holsters, his gun.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:05 pm (UTC)

Feral hears it. He blinks his eyes open, and takes a few steps back, still tense and shivering and with his wings tightly folded.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:06 pm (UTC)

Bella pushes past Charlie and hugs Feral round the neck. "Are you okay?" she murmurs.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:08 pm (UTC)

He unfolds a wing and drapes it around her, nuzzling her shoulder. Slowly, the shivering fades.

And then he turns back, and he's a fourteen-year-old boy in slightly old-fashioned and very beat-up clothes, clinging to Bella and crying.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:09 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Hugs hugs. "Dad," says Bella, "go away."

alicornucopia
2013-08-24 07:09 pm (UTC)

Charlie goes.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:12 pm (UTC)

"I didn't think," Feral mumbles into her shoulder, "I didn't think he was there, I didn't think he'd see me, I didn't think he'd - and then I was just afraid I was gonna set him on fire - that's why I didn't turn back, I didn't know if it was just being a Thestral that was stopping me. Last time I was that scared I lit up my broom."

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Bella, hugging him tight. "If I thought you were going to come here I would've warned you he might be able to see you - I'm sorry."

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:14 pm (UTC)

Feral clings some more.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:14 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hug hug.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:15 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hug snuggle hug sniffle hug.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:15 pm (UTC)

"Do you want to come in or are you so spooked you're going to fly home as soon as you're done hugging me?" asks Bella weakly.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:16 pm (UTC)

"...dunno," he says. "Not done hugging you yet."

Hug.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:16 pm (UTC)

Hug.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:18 pm (UTC)

Hug.

"I'll come in as long as your dad isn't gonna shoot me," he half-jokes.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:19 pm (UTC)

"He won't shoot you," Bella promises, and she ushers him in, and closes the back door, and plops them both onto a sofa.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:20 pm (UTC)

Plop. Snuggle.

"Should I, I dunno, apologize or something?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:20 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't know if Charlie's going to."

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Figures," shrugs Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:26 pm (UTC)

"I'm just glad he called me down to identify you instead of shooting you on sight."

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:28 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." Feral hugs her some more.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:28 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"Charlie's going to be way less happy about having you crash here than Renée was but I could maybe get him to let you stay a night or two."

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:29 pm (UTC)

"No big deal," he says, "I can just sleep outside."

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:30 pm (UTC)

"Well, he might not like you hanging around even if you don't technically sleep here, but that'd probably get you at least a week."

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:32 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs. "Okay."

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:34 pm (UTC)

Snuggle. "He let Tony and Sherlock stay for a long time but they didn't turn into scary-looking critters first."

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Feral. "Not the best first impression."

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:43 pm (UTC)

She scritches his hair. "Kinda. I wonder who he's seen die. I knew Renée wouldn't be able to see you but I wasn't sure Charlie would."

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:44 pm (UTC)

"Maybe he shot somebody," snorts Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't think so, but it's not impossible."

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:45 pm (UTC)

Shrug. Snuggle. Together, do they make a shruggle?

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:46 pm (UTC)

Perhaps they do.

Ultimately Charlie allows that Feral may sleep on the sofa for one night but after that he should be on his way. He does not produce an apology for responding to Doorstep Monstrosity with an aimed but not fired weapon.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:47 pm (UTC)

Feral doesn't really expect one.

He sleeps on the sofa. He hangs out with Bella. He hugs her a lot.

occluminous
2013-08-24 07:48 pm (UTC)

Hugs are nice to have.

pythbox
2013-08-24 07:49 pm (UTC)

They are. They are very huggy. Feral likes them a lot.

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:11 pm (UTC)

Charlie doesn't evince an objection when Feral makes his own outdoor sleeping arrangements and hangs around. Bella gets Feral to quiz her on Potions and lets him go through her Muggle book collection. And then he flaps away back to school and she waits out the rest of the summer and busses back.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:13 pm (UTC)

There is a book waiting for her on her desk in her room.

The Deathly Hallows again - this time with a more comprehensive history, including biographies of the Peverell brothers.
Edited 2013-08-24 20:15 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:16 pm (UTC)

Oooh.

Bella hugs Sherlock when she first sees him.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:20 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

"Not that I expect the information to be of much immediate practical use," he says. "Unless Feral has managed to get his hands on the Elder Wand. But I doubt it; rumour suggests it was destroyed."

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:20 pm (UTC)

"It doesn't have to be practical to be a good book," says Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:22 pm (UTC)

"True. I'm glad you like it, anyway."

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:23 pm (UTC)

"Is it an early birthday present?" inquires Bella.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Only if I can't find another good one by the time it is your birthday."

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:25 pm (UTC)

"I want to figure out how to destroy Dementors, if there is anything about that around. I haven't checked the school library yet."
Edited 2013-08-24 20:25 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:26 pm (UTC)

He nods.

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Of course if someone already knows how then I don't see why there would still be any, but maybe there have been options ruled out."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Or it could take some incredibly nasty bit of Dark magic," Sherlock suggests.

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:30 pm (UTC)

Bella contemplates this, then decides, "It would have to be ridiculously nasty to not be worth getting rid of one of those. Especially the wild ones that can suck out souls whenever they feel like it. At least the domesticated kind only prey on a certain short list of people."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:32 pm (UTC)

Sherlock shrugs. "Would you sacrifice a person to kill a Dementor?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:34 pm (UTC)

Bella thinks about this, and then says, "I bet I could find at least a few people I would trade in, particularly since Dementors kill people anyway just roaming around. I'd rather not. But people include, like, the people who decided to domesticate them and use them as prison guards. And people who are already dying of something."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:37 pm (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:39 pm (UTC)

"I bet it's possible to do it another way, though. We break the laws of physics all the time, and there aren't that many wizards compared to Muggles and so it wouldn't be that surprising if there was a way to do it that didn't hurt anybody that no one had run across yet."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:45 pm (UTC)

"What do the laws of physics have to do with it?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:46 pm (UTC)

"Well, up until I found out about magic I didn't think the laws of physics were breakable," explains Bella. "I don't see a strong reason to think there's only one layer of breakable but really convincing laws."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 08:49 pm (UTC)

"What we really need is a physicist who understands magic," says Sherlock. "Until then it's all guesswork. It'll still be guesswork afterward, but less so."

occluminous
2013-08-24 08:50 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

The first day of classes, she goes to Transfiguration, seeing as it's first.
Edited 2013-08-24 21:15 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-24 09:17 pm (UTC)

Feral is there! Feral waves.

occluminous
2013-08-24 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Bella. The teacher isn't here yet. "So are you still taking Herbology in your elective slot?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 09:19 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," he says. "And Social Studies is branching out this year, so I ditched it and took Arithmancy."

occluminous
2013-08-24 09:20 pm (UTC)

"Why Arithmancy?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 09:21 pm (UTC)

"No wands."

occluminous
2013-08-24 09:23 pm (UTC)

"I guess that makes sense. I mean, Social Studies isn't wandy either. Didn't want to learn about Muggles or Beings or History?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 09:23 pm (UTC)

"Nope."

occluminous
2013-08-24 09:24 pm (UTC)

"Why not? I'm really looking forward to Beings."

pythbox
2013-08-24 09:29 pm (UTC)

"I just really don't like the class," he says, shrugging.

occluminous
2013-08-24 09:30 pm (UTC)

"Okay," she shrugs.

Transfiguration! Teacups into rats!

Charms!

pythbox
2013-08-24 09:30 pm (UTC)

Feral also has Charms!

sparksflying
2013-08-24 09:30 pm (UTC)

Everyone has Charms.

occluminous
2013-08-24 09:32 pm (UTC)

"We always all have Charms together," observes Bella.

sparksflying
2013-08-24 09:32 pm (UTC)

Tony shrugs. "Yeah, guess so."

occluminous
2013-08-24 10:17 pm (UTC)

And classes ensue fairly unremarkably. Bella is in the second level of Magizoology, which is fun, and of course all the standard courses. They learn a nifty bruise-healing potion; she makes two extra batches on her own time to keep around for when she falls down stairs or otherwise finds it useful but doesn't want to go all the way to Healer Song.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 10:24 pm (UTC)

That Friday at lunch, Sherlock sits himself down next to Bella and says, "Boggarts."

occluminous
2013-08-24 10:24 pm (UTC)

"Gesundheit."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 10:29 pm (UTC)

"Ha. No. They're a magical creature that turns into the thing you most fear. You'll be seeing one in Magical Defense today."

occluminous
2013-08-24 10:30 pm (UTC)

"Oh." Bella frowns. "Are you okay?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 10:30 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "It was survivable."

occluminous
2013-08-24 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Obviously, you're alive. Are you okay?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 10:35 pm (UTC)

"You could make a case for it."

occluminous
2013-08-24 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Which you are conspicuously failing to do."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 10:41 pm (UTC)

He shrugs again.

occluminous
2013-08-24 10:42 pm (UTC)

"What'd you see?" Bella asks softly.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 10:56 pm (UTC)

"Tony, dead. And so did the rest of the class. The Boggart's form is not a personal illusion."

occluminous
2013-08-24 10:56 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs him.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 10:59 pm (UTC)

He hugs her back.

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:00 pm (UTC)

"I wonder what I'll see."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:04 pm (UTC)

"It varies."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I guess it could show me myself dead? But since I would be conscious and looking right at it I don't know if that would be scary so much as disturbing."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:10 pm (UTC)

"Or perhaps it will show you something that you might expect to kill you."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:11 pm (UTC)

"If it gives me a Dementor does it just look like one or feel like one too, do you know?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:12 pm (UTC)

"It did a remarkably lifelike dead Tony. So to speak. I don't know if it can mimic the effect of a Dementor."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:12 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I should ask the teacher ahead of time just in case."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:13 pm (UTC)

"Probably a good idea."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:14 pm (UTC)

"What do you do with them after they turn into things?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:16 pm (UTC)

"Laughter repels them. There is a spell that will alter the Boggart's form into something more humorous, and then you have a good giggle and it tries to run away and the next person has a go. I did not successfully cast the spell."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:17 pm (UTC)

"I wouldn't think most sincerely terrifying things would be very funny," objects Bella. "That doesn't make sense."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:18 pm (UTC)

"And yet, there it is."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:21 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I'd be scared if I saw a very convincing image of myself dead and knew full well what was going on. But I don't know what I'd do to it to make it funny, either. And I know I don't function very well around a real Dementor but if the boggart is bad at faking it I guess there could be something funny that could happen to it."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:23 pm (UTC)

"The teacher recommends party hats," he says dryly. "As a catchall. They looked particularly fetching on the giant spider."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:27 pm (UTC)

"Corpse in a party hat," muses Bella. "No, I think if I had that to work with I'd make it look like I'd died cartoonishly. Put it under an anvil, tongue sticking out, X's for eyes, about to pop back up as soon as the plot demands. Dementor I think I'd put in tie-dye."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:29 pm (UTC)

At that, Sherlock actually does giggle.

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Death to good taste," intones Bella, holding a clawing hand out at him. "I will suck out the soul of fashion sense."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:30 pm (UTC)

He snickers.

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Thank you for warning me," she adds more seriously.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:31 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Of course."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:34 pm (UTC)

"I assume you already warned or are about to warn Tony; I can tell Feral if you haven't."

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:34 pm (UTC)

"Yes. I have warned Tony, but not Feral."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:35 pm (UTC)

"- Is this why you weren't in Charms?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Yes."

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:40 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs him again.

nobodyelse
2013-08-24 11:44 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:45 pm (UTC)

Bella doesn't have another class with Feral until Magical Defense, so she runs off to find him while lunch is still ongoing.

pythbox
2013-08-24 11:50 pm (UTC)

Feral is in his room!

"Hey, what's up?"

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Sherlock warned me about what's in Defense today. It's these things called boggarts that turn into your worst fear when you look at them."

pythbox
2013-08-24 11:53 pm (UTC)

"...I should probably skip Defense," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:53 pm (UTC)

"I'm going to warn the teacher that mine might be a dementor and if boggarts are good at faking effects like theirs I should skip my turn. What's with yours?"

pythbox
2013-08-24 11:54 pm (UTC)

"Uh... when I get really scared, everything catches fire?" he says.

occluminous
2013-08-24 11:55 pm (UTC)

"That's true," allows Bella. "But like - the other thing I think mine could be is just myself dead and that would be unsettling but not scary, are you sure you'd get something that would scare you out of context?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 12:11 am (UTC)

...He gives her an incredulous look.

"Yes? And even if I wasn't, why the hell should I risk it?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 12:12 am (UTC)

"Okay, okay," says Bella, "skip if you want, it's the terrible memory charm teacher, goodness knows I wish I were comfy skipping classes. I'll tell you how it went after."

pythbox
2013-08-25 12:12 am (UTC)

"Great," he says. "See ya."

occluminous
2013-08-25 12:42 am (UTC)

Bella goes to Theory. She goes to Magizoology. She goes to Potions.

About a minute after Defense is due to start, she pounds on Feral's door again.

pythbox
2013-08-25 12:43 am (UTC)

He opens it almost immediately.

"Huh?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 12:46 am (UTC)

"He says boggarts can do the thing but he doesn't believe I've seen a dementor," Bella says desperately, "and he wants me to go in front of the boggart anyway."
Edited 2013-08-25 00:46 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-25 12:47 am (UTC)

"...Fuck," says Feral. "And I'm supposed to what, back you up?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 12:53 am (UTC)

"If you don't I have to skip and I don't want him to flunk me. He saw me, he knows I'm not sick, and he already doesn't like me from the memory charm incident since Mrs. Stark didn't get him fired."

pythbox
2013-08-25 12:55 am (UTC)

"Okay," sighs Feral, "I'm game."

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:00 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry," says Bella apologetically, and she heads back to Defense with him.

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:03 am (UTC)

Feral follows. He's pretty sure that him setting a bunch of things on fire would do less damage than a Dementor showing up in the middle of the classroom, so he doesn't hang back when they get there.

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:05 am (UTC)

"I did meet a Dementor over the summer and Feral can confirm," Bella says, "and the boggart might well turn into one if you throw it at me and you can't do that to a whole room full of people."

alicornucopia
2013-08-25 03:07 am (UTC)

The teacher looks skeptically at Feral. "Were you even planning to show up? Miss Swan should not have had to fetch you."

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:08 am (UTC)

"I wasn't, actually," he says. "I have this problem where when I get scared things catch fire."

alicornucopia
2013-08-25 03:20 am (UTC)

"You use that excuse to get out of a considerable amount of work," snaps the teacher, "but you've had more than enough time to grow out of infantile accidental magic. If you do the exercise correctly you will experience scarcely a second of actual fear - the incantation is Ridikkulus, you must think of a way to render your fear humorous, and if Miss Swan cannot then she at least has the history of classwork to conceivably make up for it. You on the other hand -" He flicks his wand, and Feral scoots forward in front of a cupboard, and the cupboard opens.

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:25 am (UTC)

A man steps out of the cupboard - somewhere between forty and fifty, well-dressed by Muggle standards, with a passing resemblance to Feral and an expression of cold anger on his face.

Feral flinches back.

The Boggart goes up in flames with an unearthly scream. The cupboard does likewise, unearthly scream not included.

And Feral spins around, snarling, to give the teacher a venomous glare.

alicornucopia
2013-08-25 03:26 am (UTC)

The teacher puts out the fire with a slice of his wand, expression unreadable.

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:27 am (UTC)

"Feral," warns Bella in his ear, putting a hand on his elbow.

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:31 am (UTC)

There is not much left of either the Boggart or the cupboard; of the former, a cloud of nasty-smelling smoke, and of the latter a charred frame and a pile of ash.

"Do you fucking believe me now?" Feral growls.

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:32 am (UTC)

"Feral," pleads Bella.

alicornucopia
2013-08-25 03:34 am (UTC)

"You've ruined the lesson for everyone. I don't have another boggart," says the teacher. "What is wrong with you? You are fourteen years old! Accidental magic is for children!"

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:36 am (UTC)

Feral takes a deep breath, shakes off Bella's hand, and stalks out of the room.

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:38 am (UTC)

Magical Defense's exercise having been ruined, it lets out early.

Bella knocks quietly on Feral's door.

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:40 am (UTC)

After a few seconds, he opens it.

It is fairly obvious that he has been crying.

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:41 am (UTC)

Bella hugs him.

"That teacher is horrible and he should have been fired in first year," she mumbles into his shoulder, "I'm sorry."

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:45 am (UTC)

"I could've fucking killed him," says Feral, cling-snuggling. "I almost did. And fuck, if he does that every time - I can't be the only kid in the whole school who's got somebody they don't wanna meet like that. It's fucked up."

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:46 am (UTC)

"Are you gonna be okay?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:52 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says. "Maybe not today, but I will. I just—" He shivers, bites his lip, and hugs her tighter. "I didn't know it was going to be that bad," he murmurs. "I thought it would be more like when the Dementor hit me - but - that was all in my head. With the Boggart, he was there. It's a whole different thing."

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:53 am (UTC)

Hugs. "Do - do you need to talk to Healer Song or something?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:54 am (UTC)

"Fucked if I know," he mutters.

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:54 am (UTC)

"Who was - you probably don't want to talk about it."

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:55 am (UTC)

"My dad. And yeah, I don't."

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:57 am (UTC)

Hugs.

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:57 am (UTC)

Yes. Hugs. Hugs are good. Feral likes hugs.

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:58 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry."

pythbox
2013-08-25 12:39 pm (UTC)

"I'll be okay," he says, hugging her some more. "...If you wanna stay and snuggle me for a while, though, that would be good."

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:33 pm (UTC)

"I can do that," agrees Bella, and she does precisely that.

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:56 pm (UTC)

Feral curls up in bed and snuggles her. It does help; he doesn't start crying again, or feel like he might set anything on fire.

occluminous
2013-08-25 03:58 pm (UTC)

Snuggle, snuggle. "Transferring into a different section wouldn't even help," mutters Bella. "I wonder if they'd let me test into ninth grade Defense or something."

pythbox
2013-08-25 03:59 pm (UTC)

"You could try," he says. "I'm probably fucked."

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:00 pm (UTC)

Nuzzle. "I'm sorry."

pythbox
2013-08-25 04:01 pm (UTC)

Snuggle-shrug. "Oh well. He's probably not gonna try another Boggart on me, anyway."

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, he doesn't have another one. I'm not sure whether I wish we were in an earlier class or not. I mean, it didn't look like the room had been previously partially demolished, but that doesn't mean much."

pythbox
2013-08-25 04:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. When most people get really scared, stuff doesn't start burning."

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:08 pm (UTC)

Bella nods.

Snuggle.

pythbox
2013-08-25 04:11 pm (UTC)

Snuggle.

"It's so bad," he says. "I bet he doesn't even know, and if he does he obviously doesn't care - there's people who have real things to be scared of, things where it doesn't matter if you only see them for a second, it'll still fuck up your whole day. And some people might not even be able to guess what they are ahead of time, or they might think it's something else, or there might not be a way to make it funny to them, or if there is they might not think of it."

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:12 pm (UTC)

"He's very terrible," says Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-25 04:13 pm (UTC)

"He really is," says Feral. "I'd try getting him fired again if I thought it would work."

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:14 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we can accumulate enough convincing material," says Bella. "The memory charm by itself didn't do it, but that plus the boggart plus I don't know what else might."

pythbox
2013-08-25 04:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. I bet if we tried we could get him in some serious shit," Feral says musingly.

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:18 pm (UTC)

"What were you thinking? I don't know what Mrs. Stark tried when she tried."

pythbox
2013-08-25 04:20 pm (UTC)

"Write down all the fucked-up stuff he does, see if any of it will get more people mad than just Tony's mom. Maybe try to catch him breaking a rule the school will have to care about, or get him to break one."

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:21 pm (UTC)

"I have all of it written down already," says Bella. "I mean, not organized, but I could get it that way. Most of it was small stuff."

pythbox
2013-08-25 04:32 pm (UTC)

"Like what?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:37 pm (UTC)

"Like - I'd need to get my notebooks to find a perfect example but after the thing with the memory charm he didn't like me, he spent the rest of sixth grade making little snide remarks whenever I was about to practice something, asking if I was sure it wasn't against my religion or did I want a minute to paint a protest sign against throwing signal sparks or whatever. He was very quiet about it, I could ignore it, I'm not sure anyone else heard."
Edited 2013-08-25 16:38 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-25 04:38 pm (UTC)

"Wow, what an asshole," says Feral. "Probably no one will care. But he's still an asshole."

occluminous
2013-08-25 04:39 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

delicious snacks

occluminous

Bella is about to turn thirteen! This is exciting.

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:08 pm (UTC)

Feral volunteers to make her a tasty picnic for her birthday.

nobodyelse
2013-08-25 05:08 pm (UTC)

Sherlock volunteers to help.

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:10 pm (UTC)

They emerge from the kitchen on the big day carrying an enormous picnic basket between them, which neither one could manage on his own. Well, they could levitate it, but Feral is still not keen on pointing his wand at things he'd like to keep and Sherlock assures him that this way is more fun.

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:11 pm (UTC)

Bella has found a nice picnic spot on the edge of the grounds, and turned a napkin into a picnic blanket which should last long enough.

sparksflying
2013-08-25 05:14 pm (UTC)

Tony provides her charming company!

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:15 pm (UTC)

Tony's company is very charming.

Sherlock and Feral set the basket down on the edge of the blanket. Feral distributes hugs.

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:17 pm (UTC)

Hugs are appreciated!

So is the food. Wow, food. Mmmmmmm, food.

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:20 pm (UTC)

Feral is proud of the food.

nobodyelse
2013-08-25 05:21 pm (UTC)

So is Sherlock.

sparksflying
2013-08-25 05:22 pm (UTC)

"You guys are the best," says Tony. "There should be more birthdays around here."

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:24 pm (UTC)

"Feral, did you pick one yet?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:27 pm (UTC)

"Nope," he says. "Do I need one? I could just make picnics whenever. Picnics are fun."

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:29 pm (UTC)

"Maybe we should do a picnic on some kind of regular basis. This is California, it's not like it's going to have unpicnicky weather one day."

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I'd love that!" says Feral.

nobodyelse
2013-08-25 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Hear, hear," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Once a month maybe," says Bella.

sparksflying
2013-08-25 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Hell yes."

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:34 pm (UTC)

"Awesome!" Bella flops onto her back on the blanket, looking up at the sky, and pops another strawberry into her mouth.

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:35 pm (UTC)

Flopping is a great idea. Feral flops into Tony's lap. It is comfy there.

sparksflying
2013-08-25 05:35 pm (UTC)

She ruffles his hair and feeds him a cookie.

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:37 pm (UTC)

The picnic food dwindles, and they talk about random topics ranging from Herbology to the Australian exchange students in the twelfth grade.

It gets a little chilly.

Maybe the sun is just not so high in the sky any more. Maybe there's more cloud cover.

(There's not more cloud cover.)

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:44 pm (UTC)

Feral shivers.

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:45 pm (UTC)

Bella recognizes this cold.

She's got her hand on her hazel wand in a moment, and she's on her feet, and she's facing the direction it's coming from.

There's nothing visible through the trees, yet.

She shakes but doesn't fall.

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:48 pm (UTC)

Feral recognizes it, too.

His first instinct is to hide in Tony's lap, which is warm and snuggly and contains zero Dementors.

occluminous
2013-08-25 05:54 pm (UTC)

The Dementor glides out from behind the trees - distant shadow nearing them.

Bella is still standing up. She checks her wand grip.

She says, "I don't know if this is going to work."

And then she aims at the Dementor and snaps, "Expecto patronum."

That's not mist.

It's light, pouring out of her wandtip, and forming a very definite shape.

It's not an animal. It's a person, two arms and two legs, indeterminate sex, compact enough that it's not even necessarily a human but could be an elf or a goblin or a hag, its shifting glow and fog obscuring where it would have features. It's the idea of a person.

Bella keeps her wand raised, biting her lip so hard that she's starting to bleed, and her blindingly silver person warms the air and lifts the oppressive dark -

And it darts forward almost too quick to see, and its hand shoots towards the dementor as though to strangle the monster -

Which dissolves on contact.

Leaving a tattered cloak, falling into a heap at the feet of the glowing Patronus.

pythbox
2013-08-25 05:56 pm (UTC)

"...Holy shit," says Feral.

sparksflying
2013-08-25 05:56 pm (UTC)

Tony is also staring.

nobodyelse
2013-08-25 05:57 pm (UTC)

Sherlock is curled up next to Tony, not doing much of anything at all.

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:04 pm (UTC)

Bella unbites her lip, breathing hard.

She looks at her glowy person, which turns around and regards them.

The glowy person doesn't have discernible eyes, but it crouches by the picnic blanket, and reaches out and puts its hand on Sherlock's forehead.

nobodyelse
2013-08-25 06:07 pm (UTC)

Sherlock flinches.

Then he uncurls. It feels like sunlight. Like getting a hug from sunlight.

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:09 pm (UTC)

The glowy person touches Feral's forehead, too, with its other hand.

Bella's breathing normalizes, meanwhile, and she is watching what her Patronus does.

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:11 pm (UTC)

Feral emerges from Tony's lap and attempts to give the glowy person a hug, despite the obvious insubstantiality problem.

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:12 pm (UTC)

The glowy person is, of course, insubstantial, although not quite as much as a typical Patronus. It does not resist the hug attempt.

Eventually, it dissipates.

Bella sits down, hard, on the picnic blanket.

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:14 pm (UTC)

"What the fuck just happened," says Feral, hugging her.

sparksflying
2013-08-25 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. What he said," says Tony, hugging Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:14 pm (UTC)

"I killed it," Bella says. "It's gone."

sparksflying
2013-08-25 06:15 pm (UTC)

"How, though."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:15 pm (UTC)

"With a - super-Patronus. I wasn't sure if it would work but it worked."

sparksflying
2013-08-25 06:19 pm (UTC)

"What did you actually do, is what I'm trying to get at here," says Tony.

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:20 pm (UTC)

"I sort of - you know how I got mist when I thought about the right books - I just thought about - I'm not sure how to put it in words."

sparksflying
2013-08-25 06:21 pm (UTC)

"...Oookay," says Tony. "Bella has Special Patronus. Got it."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure I could do it again, now that I know I can."

sparksflying
2013-08-25 06:22 pm (UTC)

"...You're gonna want to go around slaughtering Dementors now, aren't you."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Of course!"

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:25 pm (UTC)

Feral hugs her some more.

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:26 pm (UTC)

Hugs. "I will need to think of a way to go to that British prison without getting arrested. And then I have to find out how to find wild ones. But I'm going to get them all."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:27 pm (UTC)

"...I could fly you places," Feral offers. "Thestrals are good at finding."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:27 pm (UTC)

"That would be great," Bella says.

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:31 pm (UTC)

Hug hug hug.

"I mean, Dementors are fucking terrifying, I don't wanna go near 'em - but I don't want anybody else to have to go near 'em either. You know?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:32 pm (UTC)

"I wonder if I can work from far away. Maybe I should try sending my glowy person to Azkaban from here. You know, with a message. For the dementors. 'Goodbye forever'."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:33 pm (UTC)

Feral snorts. "I'm not stopping you."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:34 pm (UTC)

Bella contemplates this, then casts her Patronus again. It waits while she tells it, "Tell the Dementors in Azkaban, 'Goodbye forever.'"

The glowy person doesn't do anything.

"Well, I guess that won't work." She dismisses the glowy person.

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Gotta do it the hard way, then," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:38 pm (UTC)

"Suppose so. Summer project, maybe, I will read up on United Kingdom wizarding law. I wonder if it is even technically illegal to destroy their dementors."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:42 pm (UTC)

"I bet they'll find something to charge you with," says Feral. "Or somebody'll just kill you. in the middle of you trying."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Hmmm. I should probably practice on wild ones first, anyway, I'm not sure how well Glowy Person holds up against groups of Dementors or anything."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Feral. "Clear out those first, then hit the big one. Makes sense."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:47 pm (UTC)

"Unless someone notices the wild ones are disappearing and gets nervous about Azkaban."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Who the fuck tracks wild Dementors?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:48 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know, but I bet someone notices when souls start getting sucked out, maybe there's someone keeping statistics who'd notice a drop."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:51 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Feral. "But I still don't see them getting nervous unles somebody actually catches you killing one. It's supposed to be impossible."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:52 pm (UTC)

"They might get nervous for other reasons. If they thought the Dementors were, I don't know, collecting somewhere they didn't track and being obvious."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:53 pm (UTC)

"Sure. But they wouldn't, like, tighten security on Azkaban to stop you breaking in."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:54 pm (UTC)

"They might ask the Azkaban Dementors. They have some way I don't understand of communicating with them, I don't know if other Dementors can tell what just happened to this one." She gestures at the cloak. "Speaking of which I don't know how to dispose of that."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:54 pm (UTC)

Feral shrugs.

"I could burn it."

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:55 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, okay," she says, and she holds her wand ready to put out the fire if it threatens to spread to the trees.

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Incendio," says Feral, flicking his wand at the cloak.

The cloak burns, quick and bright and tidy without any extraneous damage to grass or weeds.

occluminous
2013-08-25 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Thanks."

pythbox
2013-08-25 06:57 pm (UTC)

Feral grins. "Anytime."

occluminous
2013-08-25 07:34 pm (UTC)

Bella rummages around in the picnic basket. She finds some chocolate cookies that they didn't get to. She presses one into Sherlock's hand, takes one, offers the others to Feral and Tony.
Edited 2013-08-25 19:34 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-25 07:38 pm (UTC)

Om nom.

nobodyelse
2013-08-25 07:38 pm (UTC)

Nibble nibble.

sparksflying
2013-08-25 07:38 pm (UTC)

Tony eats her cookie with one hand and hugs Sherlock with the other.

occluminous
2013-08-25 07:39 pm (UTC)

"Are you okay? Should I bring back my glowy person to pet you more?" Bella asks Sherlock.

nobodyelse
2013-08-25 07:42 pm (UTC)

"I will be fine," he says, snuggling Tony. "It was much worse last time."
Edited 2013-08-25 19:42 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-25 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Okay." Bella munches her cookie. "Let's go in."

nobodyelse
2013-08-25 07:50 pm (UTC)

"Good plan."

pythbox
2013-08-25 08:52 pm (UTC)

Feral unhugs from Bella and packs up the basket to bring it back to the kitchen. It's light enough by now that he can manage it himself.

occluminous
2013-08-25 08:57 pm (UTC)

Bella goes to the library to see if she has missed any Dementor or Patronus books (she hasn't) and then to muse on what exactly she did to make her Glowy Person, and then to brainstorm about extermination procedures. (Sherlock could probably use a nap.)
Edited 2013-08-25 20:58 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-25 09:17 pm (UTC)

After a little while, Feral comes looking for her.

occluminous
2013-08-25 09:17 pm (UTC)

Here she is, tapping the end of her pen on her notebook. "Hi, Feral."

pythbox
2013-08-25 09:18 pm (UTC)

"Hi," he says, flopping into the nearest chair. "So are we gonna go kill things or what?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 09:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm making a list of things I need to find out before we start. And I don't think we'd better do it during school, and can you even find things like 'whatever Dementor is nearest within the continental United States'...?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 09:24 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I dunno. I know I can find a person, or a place, but not a thing, like a book or something. I don't know if I can find Dementors or not. I don't think I can find you the nearest one, like that, but does it actually matter if you get the exact specific nearest Dementor or not?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Crossing international borders is complicated and long trips require more packing. There are an estimated fifty wild dementors in the whole world - I think the one I killed must have followed us specifically, or it'd be too weird to find one again so soon - so there's maybe a handful in the States at any given time, and you fly fast but going a couple hundred miles an hour is still a day trip if we have to go to Denver, let alone Boston."
Edited 2013-08-25 21:46 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-25 09:49 pm (UTC)

"I should figure out how fast I actually am, probably," says Feral. "It didn't take me all that long to get to your place, either time, but I wasn't really paying attention to how long. And I've never seen somebody quote miles per hour on how fast Thestrals fly."

occluminous
2013-08-25 09:50 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember what time it was you got to Renée's, but it was a little before dinnertime when you got to Charlie's, when did you leave?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 09:51 pm (UTC)

"I don't really remember," he says. "How far is it, anyway?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 09:51 pm (UTC)

"It's like eight or nine hundred miles, I think."

pythbox
2013-08-25 09:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that's far," laughs Feral. "It didn't feel like nine hundred miles. It just felt like - some flying."

occluminous
2013-08-25 09:53 pm (UTC)

"But like when you left had you had lunch already?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Maybe?" he hazards. "I think so. But I don't eat lunch at the same time every day in the summer, so that could've been anytime between ten and four. And I don't know how long after lunch I left."

occluminous
2013-08-25 09:58 pm (UTC)

"Well, I'm in the eighth grade now, I can leave campus on weekends, let's see how long it takes to get to - oh, Santa Cruz? We can go over the water so nobody much will see me flying, that's allowed on brooms as long as you have plenty of altitude so it should be allowed on you. And get lunch and time our way back."
Edited 2013-08-25 21:58 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-25 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Feral. "It'll be fun!"

occluminous
2013-08-25 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Although I should probably see if I can learn an invisibility charm of some kind since we'll have to go overland to find Dementors, probably."

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:03 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, good plan."

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:05 pm (UTC)

"Is the finding the sort of thing you could experiment with without actually going anywhere? Sit in your room, be like 'okay which way would I go if I were about to squeeze out the window and look for Bob The Nearest Dementor, and how far away is it'?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, no problem," he says. "Well - I can't tell distance exactly, like, I didn't know it was eight hundred miles to your dad's place. But I can tell whether one thing is closer or farther than another thing."

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:08 pm (UTC)

"Okay. We'll time to Santa Cruz and then you can compare Bobs against Santa Cruz."

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:08 pm (UTC)

He laughs. "Sure."

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:10 pm (UTC)

"And you can check after classes and if there is a nearby Bob we can go kill it and if there is a farther Bob it will have to come closer or wait till a weekend when I know how to turn invisible."

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says agreeably. "How do you kill 'em, anyway? It is a special you thing, or a learnable thing? Because I mean, if I can learn it, I definitely want to."

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:13 pm (UTC)

"I... don't know if you can learn it. I am pretty sure it has to do with how I couldn't do the regular kind before. It's a mindset thing. I can try to explain it if you want?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:25 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "Sure, okay."

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:27 pm (UTC)

"Dementors are a death thing," says Bella. "Obviously people die other ways, almost all of the time, but Dementors are sort of - about death. Almost like how unicorns are about purity - except you aren't in magizoology - I don't know. Does that make sense though, that Dementors are about death, bad in the way death is?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:28 pm (UTC)

"...Yeah," he says thoughtfully. "Yeah, it does."

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure what casting a regular Patronus is like so I don't know if my guesses about regular ones are right, but they're all animals except mine, mine's a person, mine is shaped like a kind of thing that can know what death is and that it's coming if it thinks about it. Thestrals and eagles and owls can't do that. I think a regular Patronus is saying 'not yet' - kind of -" She sticks her fingers in her ears, "la la la, I can't comprehend mortality, I am a happy cartoony creature!" - she puts her hands down. "And Dementors aren't death itself, they're just about it. You can stop thinking about one thing if you think about another thing hard enough, you can stop being scared if you think about happy things hard enough, regular Patronuses seem to me like they might be the magic version of that?"

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:34 pm (UTC)

"Maybe," says Feral. "I dunno. That part doesn't make as much sense to me."

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Well, I don't know," shrugs Bella, "I can't do a regular one, this is me speculating about why mine is person-shaped. I bet you I don't turn into a Generic Humanoid if I learn to be an animagus."

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:36 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, probably not," snorts Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:37 pm (UTC)

"So regular ones are, 'la la you can't scare me I am a guardian animal'. And Glowy Person is like, 'I got a good look at you, and you know what, fuck you'."

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:38 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Because seriously," says Bella, "fuck dementors."

(Mith, going by with a cart of books, coughs into her hand.)

"Sorry," Bella tells Mith, and to Feral, "Let's go hang out in your room."

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:41 pm (UTC)

Feral laughs. "Sure," he says, unflopping out of his chair.

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:43 pm (UTC)

To Feral's room.

Bella re-reads her musings, and says, "So that's most of what I think I'm doing. That and concentrating on how - I'm going to fix it. All of it. The Dementors first since I know how to do that now, but everything else too, I'm going to figure out how to live forever, because why shouldn't I, magic is real, and then I will fix everything else."

pythbox
2013-08-25 10:47 pm (UTC)

"...huh," says Feral. "And that does it?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 10:48 pm (UTC)

"I concentrate on how I'm going to fix things, most especially Dementors, and I cast the spell and I get a glowy person," confirms Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-25 11:46 pm (UTC)

"How'd you figure that out?"

occluminous
2013-08-25 11:50 pm (UTC)

"I wasn't sure it was going to work," says Bella. "I thought about the Dementor a lot after we first saw it, though. What it looked like and how it made me feel and how I wanted to kill it. And once I was full up on chocolate - I didn't even eat that much of it - I felt kind of - like - like I was a critter it's a really bad idea to corner, does that make sense? You know how some kinds of animals won't attack you but if you hem them in you are not going to make it home intact - the Dementor sort of had me cornered, or Death did, or something, and that was a bad move. I'm rambling - just - it was the thing I thought of that seemed like might work. Especially based on what thoughts gave me mist when I was trying to do a regular Patronus."

pythbox
2013-08-26 12:00 am (UTC)

"Huh," says Feral. "Yeah, I have no idea how to do that. It kind of makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for me, you know?"

occluminous
2013-08-26 12:01 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I mean, if this was a systematized thing lots of people could do and figure out and teach then probably it would have been done already."

pythbox
2013-08-26 12:02 am (UTC)

"We're both a little weird," says Feral, with an affectionate grin. "You definitely win Most Weird, though. Having an Animagus or a Patronus be a magical creature is rare, but it's happened."
Edited 2013-08-26 00:19 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-26 12:26 am (UTC)

"Do I get a prize for winning?"

pythbox
2013-08-26 12:27 am (UTC)

"Sure," he says, and hugs her. "There's your prize."

occluminous
2013-08-26 12:27 am (UTC)

She giggles.

pythbox
2013-08-26 12:27 am (UTC)

He grins.

disillusionment charm

occluminous

Bella teaches herself the Disillusionment Charm. She isn't perfect at it - you can totally see a shimmer where she is, a bit of outline, if she turns around fast you can spot the ends of her hair flying through the air. But it's enough that she won't be discernible from a few hundred yards off the ground on Thestralback.

The next weekend, they pack snacks, she disillusions Feral in case there are people who can see them who'll happen to look up as they pass, and Bella dutifully signs them off-campus and estimates that they'll be home by dinnertime - she expects them back much sooner - and they are off to Santa Cruz.

pythbox
2013-08-26 01:22 am (UTC)

Feral, when he's putting in the effort, is fast.

They could've got there in a comparable time flying by commercial airplane, if they had had a commercial airplane to fly in.

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:44 am (UTC)

Bella wishes she had braided her hair or something first. She's going to have to see if there's an untangling spell; it's never going to behave again otherwise.

She notes the time, she and Feral find a nice park to sit in - visible, both human shaped - and have their snacks, and then it's back north again.

pythbox
2013-08-26 12:50 pm (UTC)

Mm, snacks.

"So," he says, after they land back at ACAAM. "How fast am I?"

occluminous
2013-08-26 02:44 pm (UTC)

"About five hundred and fifty miles an hour," says Bella, "wow. So, really really fast."

pythbox
2013-08-26 02:46 pm (UTC)

Feral giggles. "Awesome. That should make it easier, huh?"

occluminous
2013-08-26 02:47 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. And now you know how far away Santa Cruz is."

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:06 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

He shifts back for a moment and looks around, stretching his wings and pawing at the ground with a hoof, then turns human again.

"Okay, so the nearest Dementors are... about twice as far away as Santa Cruz," he says, "one a little closer, off that way," he points, "and one a little farther, more that way," he points in a different direction. "The rest are way farther away than that. And I'm pretty sure I found Azkaban too. Really far away, far enough it would be faster to fly there through a tunnel if you had one handy."

occluminous
2013-08-26 03:08 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, Britain's really far away. Do you want to nip out and kill the closest Dementor right now?"

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:09 pm (UTC)

Feral grins. "Sure, why not," he says, and shifts again.

occluminous
2013-08-26 03:10 pm (UTC)

Bella hops on, doesn't bother doing anything to her hair because it's already nesty beyond nonmagical repair probably, and crouches low across his neck.

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:12 pm (UTC)

Feral takes off.

Not quite fifteen minutes later, there is a noticeable chill in the air, and he slows down.

occluminous
2013-08-26 03:13 pm (UTC)

"You can land. You don't have to get that close," Bella says, drawing a wand.

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:14 pm (UTC)

He utters a horselike snort and descends for a landing, then shifts.

"I still wanna see it," he reminds her.

occluminous
2013-08-26 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah." She doesn't know how close she has to be to destroy the dementor, but she can cast her Patronus now, anyway. "Expecto patronum."

Here is Glowy Person.

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:18 pm (UTC)

Feral hugs Glowy Person, despite Glowy Person not being especially solid.

occluminous
2013-08-26 03:26 pm (UTC)

Glowy Person unsolidly accepts hugging.

Bella and Glowy Person advance towards the Dementor.

There are some cows around; if the Dementor bothers them it's not obvious.

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:29 pm (UTC)

Yep, that's... definitely a Dementor.

But with the Glowy Person right there, it's not so bad.

Feral follows.

alicornucopia
2013-08-26 03:37 pm (UTC)

The Dementor does not like Glowy Person.

It starts to circle around, as though it wants to find a way to get at Bella and Feral without having to go past Glowy Person.

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:40 pm (UTC)

Feral turns to track it. Glowy Person or no, he really doesn't want the Dementor swooping around behind him.

It's hard to get a good look, with Glowy Person shining like that and the Dementor flying in circles.

So he gets out his wand and steps away from Glowy Person.

occluminous
2013-08-26 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Feral?" Bella asks, as Glowy Person chases the Dementor. "What are you doing?"
Edited 2013-08-26 15:43 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:45 pm (UTC)

"I'm trying to get a good look at it!" he says. "Can you get your Patronus to back off for a second?"

occluminous
2013-08-26 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. I don't exactly direct it moment to moment -" She pulls Glowy Person back closer to herself; it fidgets but doesn't go after the Dementor, which resumes circling. "I don't want the Dementor to get you, though, why do you want to look at it?"

pythbox
2013-08-26 03:49 pm (UTC)

"So I can figure out the spell, why else? It's not like I get a kick out of these things!"

occluminous
2013-08-26 03:49 pm (UTC)

"...Okay." She keeps her focus on Glowy Person. The dementor drifts nearer, then farther again.

pythbox
2013-08-26 04:06 pm (UTC)

Feral heads straight for it.

Nothing catches fire.

He'd be surprised if he had room to be; this is not pleasant.

But under everything—

She's right, that Dementors are a death thing. He's not sure he'd say they're bad in the same way. Death is bad, but it has its uses. There are people Feral is willing to kill - people he has killed, and he doesn't regret any of them. There is no good use for a Dementor. There is no one Feral would put in front of a Dementor when he could just light them up instead. Of all the things in the world he is willing to take out of it, Dementors are at the top of the list.

It's edging closer. It could probably get him now, if it's fast; Feral doesn't actually know how long it takes to suck out a soul. But he's not afraid of that. Being near it hurts in every way it is possible to hurt; he can feel it, almost like tangible pressure against his skin, the positive charge from Glowy Person behind him and the negative charge from the Dementor ahead.

He takes another step forward.

Eliminating death is Bella's thing, not so much his. He thinks it's a fine idea in theory, but he doesn't expect it to work. Magic is real, but magic being real doesn't make the world a nicer place, it just gives it more ways to be nice or nasty as random chance and people's choices drive it.

Why not, though? Why not try? If death is the thing he sees when he looks under a Dementor's hood, then he is just fine with wiping it out. And if it's the thing that makes setting people on fire a convenient way to get rid of them - well, he's not that attached. He can deal with losing it along the way.

"Expecto Patronum."
Edited 2013-08-26 16:32 (UTC)

alicornucopia
2013-08-26 04:47 pm (UTC)

The dementor shrinks away; it was willing to try going around one glowy person, but two are above its pay grade. It starts to rise into the air to fly away.

pythbox
2013-08-26 04:48 pm (UTC)

Feral's glowy person—who looks more like a blurred, glowing copy of Feral than anything—leaps after it.

Feral giggles.

alicornucopia
2013-08-26 04:49 pm (UTC)

Feral's glowy person is just as effective as Bella's more abstract one.

The cloak falls.

occluminous
2013-08-26 04:49 pm (UTC)

Bella applauds.

pythbox
2013-08-26 04:50 pm (UTC)

"Incendio," says Feral. The cloak is gone before it hits the ground.

He walks back to Bella, still giggling. There are tears running down both sides of his face; he doesn't appear to notice them.

occluminous
2013-08-26 04:51 pm (UTC)

Bella hugs him.

pythbox
2013-08-26 04:53 pm (UTC)

Hugs.

"You wanna go back, or get the next one?"

occluminous
2013-08-26 04:53 pm (UTC)

"Let's get the next one. Heh, you don't even need me along to do this, now, do you?"

pythbox
2013-08-26 04:56 pm (UTC)

"Probably easier with you, though," he says. "We wouldn't even have to land, now that I've had my good look. If it was just me I'd have to turn human again to cast the Patronus."

occluminous
2013-08-26 04:57 pm (UTC)

Bella nods. "We can just strafe them."

pythbox
2013-08-26 04:58 pm (UTC)

He cracks up and hugs her again, a little shakily.

occluminous
2013-08-26 04:59 pm (UTC)

Hugs. Her glowy person fades out. "You okay? You have tear marks on your face." She digs around in her pocket for leftover candy from their packed snacks-in-Santa-Cruz.

pythbox
2013-08-26 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Do I?" He wipes his face with the hand that is not still holding his wand. "Yeah, I do." He shrugs. "I'm fine - I just - " and he grabs some chocolate out of her hand.

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:01 pm (UTC)

She lets him have all of it; she was near her glowy person the whole time.

pythbox
2013-08-26 05:02 pm (UTC)

He wolfs it down, hugs her again, and turns back into a Thestral.

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:03 pm (UTC)

She recasts his Cushioning Charm, hops on, and says, "Giddyup."

pythbox
2013-08-26 05:10 pm (UTC)

He makes a noise that is surpisingly like his usual snicker and kicks off from the ground, wheeling around as he climbs into the sky.

It's only a few minutes at top speed until they find the next Dementor.

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:11 pm (UTC)

Bella tries strafing it, taking aim and firing her Glowy Person directly at it.

Flumph goes the cloak.

pythbox
2013-08-26 05:14 pm (UTC)

Of course, now they have to deal with the cloak.

Feral looks at it.

It goes up in flames, and by the time it drifts to the ground, there is nothing left but a few threads of crumbling ash.
Edited 2013-08-26 17:15 (UTC)

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:16 pm (UTC)

"You're not supposed to do that. We could have landed," Bella chides.

pythbox
2013-08-26 05:17 pm (UTC)

He snorts.

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:18 pm (UTC)

"Anyway, unless there's another one really nearby, let's go back to school."
Edited 2013-08-26 17:22 (UTC)

pythbox
2013-08-26 05:28 pm (UTC)

Feral nods, circles, and heads off.

A quarter of an hour later: school!

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:29 pm (UTC)

Bella reverses the Disillusionment, and does some homework, until it is evening and she heads back to her and Sherlock's room.
Edited 2013-08-26 17:32 (UTC)

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:35 pm (UTC)

And there is Sherlock.

"Did you have a nice trip?"

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:35 pm (UTC)

"We killed two Dementors! And Feral can do a glowy person now!"

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:36 pm (UTC)

"That is interesting."

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:36 pm (UTC)

"He had to get a good look at one, though. And I don't think that can be it because probably plenty of people look at Dementors."

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:37 pm (UTC)

"What is your theory, then?"

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:37 pm (UTC)

"I don't know exactly. Some combination of - feeling like I do, or like Feral does because apparently that counts - about them, and - getting what they are?"

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:38 pm (UTC)

...He waits for her to elaborate.

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:40 pm (UTC)

"They're a death thing, about death or pieces of it or something," Bella explains. "They aren't okay the way death isn't okay. I think the animal Patronuses are sort of going - 'la la, you can't scare me, animals cannot comprehend cessation of existence'. And the glowy persons are about - hope instead of distraction."

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:40 pm (UTC)

"Hmm," says Sherlock.

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Feral didn't seem to think it made all that much sense when I explained it but he put it together after he got a look at the first one we found. The second one we just strafed."

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:42 pm (UTC)

"I am not sure I understand," says Sherlock. "And the parts I understand, I am not sure I like."

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:43 pm (UTC)

"What's not to like? I mean, regular Patronuses still work for doing regular Patronus things."

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:47 pm (UTC)

"I am not very good at hope," says Sherlock. "I am even worse at - personal illusions, of the cognitive rather than the magical kind. If your theory about the animal Patronus is close to the mark, then knowing that, I don't think I will be able to cast one."

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:48 pm (UTC)

"...I could be completely wrong though, I never even did an animal one..."

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:53 pm (UTC)

"You could," he says.

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:55 pm (UTC)

"So - I guess you don't - feel like trying one now, but - I hope I didn't break yours or something, even animal ones are useful, maybe I'd better not tell anyone else my theory."

nobodyelse
2013-08-26 05:56 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

"I'll tell you tomorrow."

occluminous
2013-08-26 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

And Bella hugs him, and she goes to bed.

nobodyelse
2013-08-27 12:24 am (UTC)

In the morning, there is a note on her desk:

It did not work.

occluminous
2013-08-27 12:25 am (UTC)

Damn.

Bella goes to breakfast, dragging her feet a little.

pythbox
2013-08-27 12:25 am (UTC)

Feral is there!

"Hey, what's wrong?"

occluminous
2013-08-27 12:26 am (UTC)

"I - I broke Sherlock's Patronus. I was explaining it to him and - he can't even get an owl now, let alone a person."

pythbox
2013-08-27 12:27 am (UTC)

"...that's not good," says Feral. "Wow. How'd that work?"

occluminous
2013-08-27 12:27 am (UTC)

"I don't know!"

pythbox
2013-08-27 12:30 am (UTC)

He hugs her.

occluminous
2013-08-27 12:31 am (UTC)

"But I guess I'd better not try to explain to anyone else, huh?" mumbles Bella into his shoulder, hugging him. "You were lucky, Sherlock wasn't - I don't know what the odds anybody else will be are. I don't want to break Tony's or anybody else's. Regular Patronuses are better than nothing."

pythbox
2013-08-27 12:33 am (UTC)

"Yeah."

So much hugs.

"That really sucks."

occluminous
2013-08-27 12:35 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Maybe he'll get it back sometime but I don't know, he probably just tried and tried all night after I fell asleep without a break, if it was going to come back he might've managed it then."

pythbox
2013-08-27 12:38 am (UTC)

"Maybe I should try helping him," says Feral. "I mean - it's hard to imagine how much worse it could get from here."

occluminous
2013-08-27 01:38 am (UTC)

"Maybe," says Bella uncertainly.

pythbox
2013-08-27 03:04 am (UTC)

"Like, if you can think of a way I could actually fuck him up any worse, I won't," says Feral. "But the damage is done now, and if we can fix it we might as well try, right?"

occluminous
2013-08-27 03:05 am (UTC)

"I mean - ask him if he thinks more trying could get the owl back, I guess," says Bella. "I don't think there are other spells that work on the same principle, or anything."

pythbox
2013-08-27 03:06 am (UTC)

"Yeah. Or something. I dunno. I'll talk to him sometime."

occluminous
2013-08-27 03:07 am (UTC)

Bella nods. "It was such a cute owl. It sat on my finger."

pythbox
2013-08-27 03:09 am (UTC)

Feral smiles sadly. "Yeah."

occluminous
2013-08-27 03:10 am (UTC)

"I didn't know it was even possible to break somebody's Patronus," she says in a small voice.

pythbox
2013-08-27 03:10 am (UTC)

He hugs her again.

occluminous
2013-08-27 03:11 am (UTC)

Hugs.

pythbox
2013-08-27 03:11 am (UTC)

Yes. Those. Hugs are good.

wind shield

occluminous

Bella finds a spell to fix her hair. She starts looking for another spell that will divert the intense wind generated when Feral flies top-speed. If it just works well enough to let her keep her eyes open, that will do, but ideally she'd like to be able to perch on him and read a book; then they could potentially go very long distances on Dementor-hunts, on weekends. Mith is helping her look through indices for candidate spells. (She is definitely specializing from magical theory into spell development, when she can.)

pythbox
2013-08-29 12:54 pm (UTC)

Suddenly, Feral!

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:31 pm (UTC)

Bella waves. "Did you talk to Sherlock?"

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:32 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Feral. "He wasn't interested." He shrugs. "Whatcha doing?"

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Trying to see if there's a way to keep the wind off me while we fly."

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Ooh. Got anything yet?"

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I might be able to get the Wind-Manipulation Charm to do it if I practiced a lot, but it's not really what it was designed for and it might make it hard for you to steer, plus I'd have to be controlling it continuously."

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Huh," says Feral. "A shield or whatever won't do it? Guess not."

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:36 pm (UTC)

"Defensive shields? They're hard to move along with you and they're also not really for wind, they're for blocking spells and projectiles."

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:38 pm (UTC)

"Hence the 'or whatever'," says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:40 pm (UTC)

"I haven't thought of a good whatever, yet. You can help look if you want."

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:42 pm (UTC)

"Sure!" says Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:42 pm (UTC)

She hands him a book she was about to go through the index of and continues scanning the shelves herself.

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:43 pm (UTC)

Feral dives in.

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:45 pm (UTC)

Eventually Bella finds a spell that is cast on the actual windshields of wizarding vehicles. "This one needs a physical object to be cast on," she says, showing him the page, "but I think it can extend past the dimensions of the object - there would just have to be something on you and in front of me that I could cast it on. You could wear a little hat."

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:45 pm (UTC)

"I will totally wear a little hat," snorts Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:46 pm (UTC)

"It'll have to stay on you by itself, since it'll be the windshield, not protected by it. But it can have a string on it or something."

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Sure," says Feral. "A party hat."

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:47 pm (UTC)

"Thestral in a party hat hunting Dementors," giggles Bella.

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:48 pm (UTC)

Feral cracks up and hugs her.

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:49 pm (UTC)

Hugs!

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:49 pm (UTC)

"We're awesome," giggles Feral.

occluminous
2013-08-29 05:51 pm (UTC)

"Yes," Bella agrees. "We are."

pythbox
2013-08-29 05:52 pm (UTC)

He beams and hugs her some more.

all who bend the air

roc_on

Airbenders are pretty thoroughly repopulated now, but they're still minorities anywhere but the handful of enclaves that have retaken the open temples or integrated into the populations that have woven into them. Beila doesn't live in one of those enclaves. She lives in Republic City. Benders are a minority, airbenders more so. She's the only one in her class. It could still be a coincidence that she's supposed to do her history project on Avatar Aang, her some-number-of-greats grandfather, and not casual stereotyping. Whatever. Her partner's not a bender at all unless he's very quiet about it, he's just a random cute boy who sits to her left. Dao, that's his name.

"Hey," she says. "When's good for you to meet up and work on this thing?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 12:30 am (UTC)

"I'm not sure," he says, smiling shyly. "Um, the weekend probably, unless you have - I don't know - plans?"

roc_on
2013-04-13 12:32 am (UTC)

"Bending lessons are all on weekdays, everything else can move," Beila says, shaking her head. "Day after tomorrow, after lunch? My house or yours? Or I guess we could use the library."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 12:33 am (UTC)

"Library!" he says. "Definitely the library. Unless there's some really good reason not to use it that I don't know about. Squirrelbats nesting in the walls?"

roc_on
2013-04-13 12:36 am (UTC)

"Far as I know the library's uninfested. They're just strict about quiet and I'm not quite automatic enough with anything as complicated as soundbending to let us talk above a whisper anyway."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 12:51 am (UTC)

"Oh," he says. "Yeah, there's that. I don't know, I don't think it'll be a big problem, do you?"

roc_on
2013-04-13 12:54 am (UTC)

"Not if you don't mind whispering. But I think I actually have enough books to do the whole project at home. My mom teaches at an airbending dojo, we live about a block away from it, and they do history lessons there once a week, most particularly about Aang."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 12:57 am (UTC)

"Oh!" says Dao. "Well, then I guess we can go to your place!"

roc_on
2013-04-13 12:58 am (UTC)

"Okay! It's not that near here, I usually fly - have you got a shuttle pass or do you want me to pick you up or do you really like walking or what?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:01 am (UTC)

"I do have a shuttle pass," he says, "although if the other option is riding a roc I'm a little tempted to suddenly and mysteriously lose it."

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:02 am (UTC)

Beila snorts. "Goodness gracious, how could you be so careless. Where do I fetch you from?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:08 am (UTC)

Dao giggles.

"Number 807 apartment four, Dragon Flats."

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:10 am (UTC)

Beila writes this down. "Can do. I'll see you then."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:15 am (UTC)

"Then!" he says. "Yes. Then. After lunch. The day after tomorrow. At that time."

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:19 am (UTC)

Beila giggles. He's cute. "Well, I'm off," she says, and she gets up with the gentle breeze that she always has accompanying her. She's tried to walk without doing any airbending at all and it doesn't go well.

Outside the school building, Liqing isn't there yet, so Beila emits a piercing whistle, and a minute later, there's her roc, landing on the courtyard and scaring the little kids. Silly kids don't even know that rocs eat fish. Beila mounts up and directs the bird home.

She's in Dragon Flats, scanning building numbers, at the appointed time. When she finds Dao's, she lands Liqing, then slides from her back and goes up to knock on the correct door.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:20 am (UTC)

The correct door has Dao sitting outside of it.

He hops to his feet and waves.

"Hi!"

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:21 am (UTC)

"Hi! All set?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:23 am (UTC)

"Yep!" he says.

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:24 am (UTC)

"All right - now, getting on her's a little tricky without any airbending, will you freak out if I just waft you up?" Beila asks, demonstrating this wafting.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:25 am (UTC)

"I think I will probably survive wafting!" he says optimistically.

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:38 am (UTC)

Waft!

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:42 am (UTC)

"I feel very wafted," he declares.

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:44 am (UTC)

"Good. All your waft-detection is working correctly. Hang on!"

She must mean to her, because there's not a whole lot else up here.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:46 am (UTC)

He nevertheless feels compelled to ask: "Um... to what?"

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:48 am (UTC)

"Just sorta hug me 'round the waist. You'd pull her feathers out if you held on to those. I'll steady us both as we go but it's good to have an extra layer of caution, you know?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:48 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says dubiously, and he hugs her 'round the waist.

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:50 am (UTC)

Beila whistles, Liqing takes off, and up they go!

It's not far, if you're a roc. They land on a roof, Beila wafts them off the bird, Liqing gets a treat and goes to do whatever rocs do when they aren't ferrying airbenders, and Beila leads Dao down a staircase into the house.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 01:52 am (UTC)

"That was awesome," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-13 01:56 am (UTC)

"Liqing's great! People keep asking me why I don't have a sky bison, like everybody has a sky bison, they have no idea how much those things eat, the ancient nomads could only keep them because they moved around all the time," says Beila. "Liqing, on the other hand, fishes for herself, and the bay fills itself up with fish neat as you please. So. Have you got any thoughts about our topic? 'Cause 'Avatar Aang' is a pretty broad subject."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 02:00 am (UTC)

"Well, everybody knows about all the famous stuff he did after he got out of the iceberg," he says. "But I kind of wonder more what his life was like before that, you know? Do we know much about the time he spent with the original Air Nomads?"

roc_on
2013-04-13 02:09 am (UTC)

"Not all that much. He wasn't much of a writer, himself, all the primary sources are people who knew him and most people who knew him then were dead by the time anyone knew he needed to be written about. Basically we know the general biographical details - which temple, what years - and some things about the people he visited while he was traveling. And what he taught his kids and the Air Acolytes about the culture. Much of which, mercifully, has been discarded since, I wouldn't really want to shave half my head. The tattoos would probably look cool, though," she adds thoughtfully.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 02:10 am (UTC)

"Think that's enough to make a history project?"

roc_on
2013-04-13 02:13 am (UTC)

"It'll depend on how liberally we interpret the assignment, if we count Air Acolyte practices, but you know what, Aang totally founded the Acolytes, they count. And they were really good recordkeepers even if they've basically died out as a separate-from-airbenders thing." She heads for the bookshelf and starts scanning titles. "Good idea."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 02:16 am (UTC)

"I had a good idea," he says, bouncing happily.

roc_on
2013-04-13 02:23 am (UTC)

She almost tells him he's cute out loud.

Instead she finds them books - she hands him one on Air Acolytes and she takes one that's a general Aang biography with a few chapters on his early life. "You got something to take notes with on you? I have some actual paper around, but we don't have a spare screen or anything."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 02:27 am (UTC)

"Yeah, I'm covered."

He did in fact bring a screen. It's not a very good screen, but it's a screen.

roc_on
2013-04-13 02:30 am (UTC)

Beila fetches hers - she breezes it and catches it rather than getting up and crossing the room - and detaches the chordpress into her hand and starts typing up an outline as she scans the book in her other hand. "If you wanna divvy up the books differently, speak now," she adds.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 02:32 am (UTC)

"Nope, I'm good," he says. Typetypetype!

roc_on
2013-04-13 02:33 am (UTC)

Typetypetype indeed! She sets her book down briefly to turn on update protocols so his screen will have a remote copy of her work. "Need your screen number," she says, and she rattles off hers, although she has to consult the spot it's written in the corner.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 02:45 am (UTC)

"Oh, uh..."

He comes up with a number.

roc_on
2013-04-13 02:48 am (UTC)

She taps it in.

"Error," she says, "version model not compatible with your FireFerret system. Well, that's annoying, I don't think I even have a cable to do it hardware-style. I guess we can check each other's work the old fashioned way."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:53 am (UTC)

"Sorry," Dao says ruefully.

roc_on
2013-04-13 03:11 pm (UTC)

"No big deal." Typety-typety. "You want to go with the presentation or the essay? Essay's longer but some people don't like public speaking."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 03:18 pm (UTC)

"I bet I can handle public speaking!"

roc_on
2013-04-13 03:20 pm (UTC)

"Cool. And the test of whether the teacher is elementalist or not will be whether he confesses that he was hoping I'd do a demo after we go up and we talk about slides."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 03:25 pm (UTC)

Dao giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-13 03:27 pm (UTC)

Typety-typety. "Lemme know if I'm distracting you," she adds.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 03:29 pm (UTC)

"Nope!"

roc_on
2013-04-13 03:32 pm (UTC)

"Awesome, I'm good enough at multitasking that I'd rather also chat intermittently while writing about how Aang always spoke fondly of airball and the thing he most regretted about having only one airbender kid was that he didn't have anybody to play with later in life."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 03:38 pm (UTC)

He giggles again.

roc_on
2013-04-13 03:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't think I've had a class with you before this year. What do you do with your time?" she asks idly, turning a page and adding a bullet point.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Um... not... much?" he says cautiously, like he expects this to be the wrong answer.

roc_on
2013-04-13 03:47 pm (UTC)

"No hobbies or electives or anything?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 03:48 pm (UTC)

"I, um... woodcarving," he admits. "Woodcarving is a hobby."

roc_on
2013-04-13 03:56 pm (UTC)

"Totally a hobby!" agrees Beila. "What kinda stuff do you make?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 04:06 pm (UTC)

"Stuff! Just... stuff. Little stuff. Turtleducks and squirrelbats and stuff."

roc_on
2013-04-13 04:08 pm (UTC)

"As opposed to table legs and wooden whistles," says Beila. "Neat."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 04:14 pm (UTC)

"I could make table legs, but I don't have a table to stick them to," he laughs.

roc_on
2013-04-13 04:20 pm (UTC)

"So they'd be quite useless," Beila says. "It is wise of you to skip it."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 04:30 pm (UTC)

Dao giggles some more.

roc_on
2013-04-13 05:45 pm (UTC)

"How d'you get into woodcarving? Doesn't seem like the sorta thing they put you in lessons for when you're three."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 05:57 pm (UTC)

"...I dunno," he says, "I just kinda... did."

roc_on
2013-04-13 07:43 pm (UTC)

"Had a knife and a random brick of wood and a squirrelbat happened?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 07:53 pm (UTC)

"Well, the first one probably wasn't a very good squirrelbat."

roc_on
2013-04-13 07:59 pm (UTC)

"I would hardly expect it to be, no."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 08:04 pm (UTC)

"But I'm all right at it now."

roc_on
2013-04-13 08:07 pm (UTC)

"Being good at stuff is more fun," asserts Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 08:09 pm (UTC)

"That's true," he says, "it is."

roc_on
2013-04-13 08:23 pm (UTC)

They carry on pretty uneventfully with their project, occasionally swapping screens to read each other's notes, and knock out a reasonable presentation by dinnertime. Beila gives Dao a ride home, and they are scheduled to speak two days later when school reconvenes. This all goes without incident. The teacher does not confess to having hoped for an airbending demo. (Beila's a walking airbending demo anyway, if you know what to look for.)

Also, the teacher announces that tomorrow, the thirteenth of Breath, is Beila's birthday, which the teacher always does whenever someone is about to have a birthday, in case anyone wants to bake the birthday individual bean-filled pastries or something.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 08:24 pm (UTC)

"Happy not your birthday yet!" says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-13 08:26 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!" says Beila.

She doesn't mention the fact that she's a female airbender about to turn sixteen. There's not that many people answering to this description, but it's a couple dozen. She's not really expecting any special news.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 08:26 pm (UTC)

He smiles at her.

roc_on
2013-04-13 08:28 pm (UTC)

She smiles back! He's cute. She should write about that, decide if anything needs doing. "You gonna bake me mooncakes?" she teases.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 08:29 pm (UTC)

"Man, you don't want any mooncake I'd bake," he laughs. "Maybe I'll carve you a present. A little tiny roc."

roc_on
2013-04-13 08:32 pm (UTC)

"Aww, that would be adorable," says Beila. "I would love a tiny little roc."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 10:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay! Then you will have a tiny little roc," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:06 pm (UTC)

She grins and waves at him.

Of course, the next day, her birthday turns out to be global news.

She is - mercifully - the first to know. The monks from the nearest temple show up at the crack of dawn on a sky bison and report to her in grave voices about a day she can't remember when she was a year old when she grabbed the right three toys out of a selection of hundreds.

Beila's not that surprised. She didn't expect this, but there wasn't such a huge candidate pool, really, she knows four other airbender girls close in age. She nods, and agrees to find herself a waterbending teacher immediately, and she's supposed to check in with a nun periodically and she carefully reserves judgment about whether that's going to happen.

Then they make the general announcement and the whole world knows.

She doesn't even ride Liqing to school, arriving there on her glider instead, because she fears the crowds will spook the birds.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:13 pm (UTC)

When she gets to class, there is a little tiny roc waiting for her on her desk.

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:15 pm (UTC)

Awww! She pockets it. Where's Dao?
Edited 2013-04-13 23:15 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:19 pm (UTC)

Two seats away!

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:21 pm (UTC)

"Don't you usually sit here?" she asks him, pointing at the vacant chair right beside hers.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Uh - yeah," he says.

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:28 pm (UTC)

"It's not like I'm any more likely to start accidentally firebending than I was yesterday," she points out. "Thanks for the carving, by the way, it's really cute."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:31 pm (UTC)

"It's. Um. ...You're welcome," he says, with a brief flash of a hunted-looking smile.

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:34 pm (UTC)

"You okay?" Beila asks.

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Y...es?"

No.

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:37 pm (UTC)

"No, seriously, did something happen, is something wrong, I totally have license to go around fixing wrong things now if something is wrong."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:40 pm (UTC)

He smiles weakly. "So I've heard."

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, it's all over the news, I glidered in, Liqing would freak with all the reporters, I'm just glad they're keeping out of the school building proper," laughs Beila. "What's the matter?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:43 pm (UTC)

"I guess I just don't think I'm friends-with-the-Avatar material," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:46 pm (UTC)

"I'm still the same person. I've been the Avatar since I was born," Beila says. "They just didn't tell me till this morning."

thinklikethis
2013-04-13 11:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Dao, "well, I guess I am not really handling it that well."

roc_on
2013-04-13 11:53 pm (UTC)

Beila sighs. "Well - well, why not?" she asks.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 12:02 am (UTC)

"Because... of... stuff?" he tries.

roc_on
2013-04-14 12:06 am (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 12:08 am (UTC)

Dao blushes.

"Sorry! Sorry. I'm just... Sorry."

roc_on
2013-04-14 12:11 am (UTC)

"I'm not, like, overwhelmed with people who wanted to be my friend before knowing I was the Avatar," Beila points out. "I'm not saying I can never make new friends, but they'll be a little trickier to vet, you know?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 12:13 am (UTC)

"...yeah. I guess," he says.

roc_on
2013-04-14 12:15 am (UTC)

"But okay," she sighs, "if you wanna sit over there, you wanna sit over there."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 12:16 am (UTC)

He smiles tentatively.

roc_on
2013-04-14 12:35 am (UTC)

"So is this a - a 'I am concerned in spite of your reassurance that you may unexpectedly firebend' or a 'I want some distance from your incipient fan club' or a 'get away from me, spirit-touched creature, I certainly do not want to go flying with you next weekend' or what?"
Edited 2013-04-14 00:37 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 12:39 am (UTC)

"Um... it's not really any of those," he says. "...Did you want me to go flying with you next weekend?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 12:41 am (UTC)

"I had considered asking you," Beila says. "You seemed to have fun. It's better when it's not commuting."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 12:42 am (UTC)

"Flying with you was... fun," Dao admits.

roc_on
2013-04-14 12:43 am (UTC)

"Yeah?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 12:43 am (UTC)

Shyly, "Yeah."

roc_on
2013-04-14 03:53 am (UTC)

"But now I'm the scary Avatar, woooooo?" She waggles her fingers. "I mean, if you don't want to sit next to me in class you probably don't want to sit behind me on a roc."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 12:37 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I just - need some time to get used to it," he says hopefully.

roc_on
2013-04-14 03:43 pm (UTC)

"I guess," sighs Beila, and then class is starting - they have literature first today.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 04:16 pm (UTC)

Dao pays attention to class.

roc_on
2013-04-14 04:47 pm (UTC)

Beila does too. Especially to the significant looks the teacher keeps casting in her direction. That could get annoying before it gets useful.

After school, Beila hangs around talking briefly to a handful of reporters. She agrees to be interviewed on video in a couple of places at times in the future and makes generic statements about looking forward to serving the people of Dìqiú. She dismisses everyone politely after half an hour and takes to the air, where mercifully none of the reporters can follow her.

She glides for a long time, and doesn't go straight home, but eventually she gets there, and does her homework, and hugs her parents, and goes to bed, and in the morning she glides to school again. Liqing's going to feel so neglected.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 04:49 pm (UTC)

Dao is sitting two seats away from her again.

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:05 pm (UTC)

Of course he is. Fine.

School things school things school things, the schoolmaster wants her to give a little speech in front of the entire student body at lunch, she wishes he'd warned her so she could have written something, whatever.

"Hello, everyone!" Beila says to the entire student body at lunch. "I'm Beila Guxiao, and, turns out, I'm also the Avatar! I have my first waterbending lesson this afternoon, and I'm going to be working on developing my spiritual powers, too, so it shouldn't be long before I'm able to help with anything that needs doing in this city, or anywhere else in the world. I've been lucky enough to be born in a time of peace, so, like I told those reporters the other day, I'm on the lookout for other ways to help people than were available the last time an Air Avatar was called. If you have ideas, just put them into my public filebox - the nuns are going to set one of those up for me, the screen number will be advertised during my video interviews." Is that enough things to say? That should be enough things to say. "I look forward to serving you!" Korra's iconic line, one of the first things said by any Avatar to be recorded for posterity, reiterated by the intervening two and now Beila's picking it up again, may as well.

She wafts dramatically off the stage, buys her lunch - the cafeteria worker tries to give it to her for free; she declines - and sits at an empty table which is immediately mobbed.

Beila declines to talk with her mouth full.

She starts learning waterbending. The water moves for her, in case there was any doubt; she picks up the skill quickly, as if there was any doubt. She gives her interviews; they go well, if blandly, and she stirs the interviewer's ice around in his drink with a small smile.

She goes to school again. The nuns have been talking about pulling her out, which would be neat.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:07 pm (UTC)

Today, it seems he has gotten up the courage to sit next to her.

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:07 pm (UTC)

"Hello again."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:09 pm (UTC)

"Hi."

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Got used to the idea?" she asks mildly.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:10 pm (UTC)

"Trying to, anyway."

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:13 pm (UTC)

"Can I help?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:13 pm (UTC)

"I'm... really not sure," he admits.

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Okay, well, lemme know if I can."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:31 pm (UTC)

"Okay."

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:35 pm (UTC)

Schoolthings occur. The area around the school is clear enough today that Beila whistles for Liqing and rides her home instead of glidering; the handful of photographers get a few nice shots.

She hasn't even done anything yet and she's already a world-famous celebrity. One of the interviewers wanted to know her favorite dessert. There's no sense in which that's relevant to anything Avatarish, but Beila supposes the title has been deprecated some with the advent of technology.

She'll be more comfortable with fame when it can be about something.

First, though: she's learning waterbending.

She goes through the basics as her teacher instructs, but she wants to be on the healing track, not the combat track - she can learn to combat-waterbend later, but her priority is healing powers, because those sound useful. Especially since she'll be learning firebending later and it will be easy to get hurt.

School again the next day! She gliders in since she has no way of assessing the reporter density in advance. She carries a little bottle of water with her to practice between teacher-rotations.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:36 pm (UTC)

Dao sits next to her again. He seems more comfortable today.

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:37 pm (UTC)

Beila smiles at him.

And flicks a droplet of water precisely onto his forehead. "Hi."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:41 pm (UTC)

"Pff, what was that for?" he says, giggling and rubbing at the droplet.

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:44 pm (UTC)

"'Cause I can!" she says. "Waterbending's fun. Shifu Hayaka says at the rate I'm learning I can get out of basic exercises and into healing inside a month." She caps her water bottle. "Which'll be potentially useful."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay, well, as long as you don't do the same thing when you get to earthbending," he says wryly. "Or fire. Please do not hit me in the face with fire because you can."

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:50 pm (UTC)

"I will not hit you in the face with rocks or fire just because I can," Beila promises, clasping her hands earnestly.

Then she blows a puff of air in his face.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:51 pm (UTC)

Dao cracks up.

"You are mean!" he accuses, giggling. "You are a mean Avatar."

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Noooo," denies Beila. "I am a playful fun Avatar! I'm very nice."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Dao. "You're a nice playful fun mean Avatar."

roc_on
2013-04-14 05:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm not mean," laughs Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 06:00 pm (UTC)

Dao giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-14 06:03 pm (UTC)

"Seriously, I'm gonna solve people's spirit problems and avert natural disasters and, I dunno, build a giant bridge across the ocean, and work with scientists to figure out what makes bending work. I'm gonna be awesome and everyone'll love me." She chews her lip. "I'm reasonably popular now, but it's for no reason, which kind of bothers me."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 06:04 pm (UTC)

"That would bother me too!" says Dao. "It seems like it would be - really weird."

roc_on
2013-04-14 06:08 pm (UTC)

"It's like how there's still technically an Earth Monarchy," suggests Beila, shrugging. "Like, the politics of the entire world are all folded into the United Republic of Nations and the Earth Queen only ever does anything ceremonial anymore, but you can bet if she gets married it's on the news, if she gets pregnant it's on the news for weeks. Avatars regardless of what we do are a focus point for everyone's gossipy attention. I mean, I get it, it's just - I'm going to do awesome stuff, I feel like everyone could stand to wait a few more months till there's something to talk about besides what color I painted my bedroom and what my favorite subject in school is?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 06:15 pm (UTC)

He nods. "Yeah, I see what you mean. Well, I guess it also means that when you do start doing awesome stuff, you'll have plenty of attention already?" he offers.

roc_on
2013-04-14 06:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I suppose. On some level I'm concerned that the questions about where I get my hair cut and whether I'm showing too much favoritism to Republic City by not going to the North Pole for my waterbending training will ever be completely replaced with 'so how did you go about designing that awesome bridge, huh?'"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 06:19 pm (UTC)

"Bridge across the ocean," he muses. "How would you do it?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 06:20 pm (UTC)

"Spirits, I don't know, that's an earthbending-slash-architectural question," laughs Beila. "I'd get help, that's how, I'd talk to some people who know bridges and by then I would know rocks and we would do bridge-rock-things to figure it out."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 06:39 pm (UTC)

"Well, you better make sure you know your stuff by the time you're getting interviewed on it," laughs Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-14 06:40 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, no kidding, that would be embarrassing - 'So, Avatar Beila, how do you plan to build the proposed bridge?' 'With... rocks?'" she says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 06:43 pm (UTC)

"Big rocks," Dao says solemnly.

roc_on
2013-04-14 06:44 pm (UTC)

"Super big rocks, probably from the ocean floor," agrees Beila, nodding sagely.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 06:54 pm (UTC)

"Sounds press-ready to me," he says, totally failing to keep a straight face.

roc_on
2013-04-14 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Future Avatars -" Beila makes a slight face, that has only just occurred to her - "will say 'super big rocks' the way everyone since Korra announces that they look forward to serving you."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 06:59 pm (UTC)

"...Is there a problem with future Avatars?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:00 pm (UTC)

"I have to die first," Beila points out. "Not looking forward to that."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Well, sure, but it happens to everybody," says Dao. "And then you get to, like, hang around in the spirit world and tell them how to handle their rocks, or something. Don't you?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:05 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I do, but, like, then I miss everything except for a handful of special occasions once Random Water Tribe Boy is running the show. I suppose it's comforting that I will still exist, but I don't think the spirits of past Avatars are - fully conscious, or I'd expect them to have more effects on things. They can do some stuff, but, like, Avatar Meixing wrote a lot about the landscape of the spirit world and it didn't look like the previous incarnations were all hanging out someplace having fun. My impression is that they pretty much sleep and lend emergency power and advice and then sleep again. Maybe I'll ask them when I figure out how to talk to them."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:06 pm (UTC)

"Still a better deal than the rest of us," Dao points out.

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:08 pm (UTC)

"I suspect you'll get to persist in some sort of spirit form too, just not with a convenient line of succession so that people can talk to you. But I'll look into it," Beila says. "It sucks for anyone to have to die."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:09 pm (UTC)

"...Wait, really? You'll look into how death works?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:10 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, and see about putting a stop to it. I'm supposed to be able to do spirity stuff, right, not just move elements around, maybe I can."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:13 pm (UTC)

Dao looks... slightly stunned.
Edited 2013-04-14 19:17 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Come to think of it I don't know why it hasn't been tried before. Is it not obvious that dying is bad? Maybe previous Avatars have been more inclined to count reincarnating, but, come on, I'm nothing like any of the previous Avatars I know about, that's not hardly living on."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:22 pm (UTC)

"Maybe somebody did try," he suggests, "and it didn't work, and now whenever a new Avatar tries it Avatar So-and-So shows up to tell them all about how death is inevitable, but nobody tells people because it sounds depressing and nobody else is thinking about it anyway?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:23 pm (UTC)

"Maybe. Guess I'll find out. I'm sure thinking about it, though."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:24 pm (UTC)

"Well... good luck, anyway."

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:25 pm (UTC)

"Thanks!"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:25 pm (UTC)

He grins a little.

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:26 pm (UTC)

"So having worked up to sitting next to me in school do you think you'll be in a roc-sharing sort of mindset by the weekend?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:28 pm (UTC)

"One way to find out!"

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:29 pm (UTC)

"When shall I swing by to conduct the experiment?" snorts Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Uhhh, good question. I'm pretty much free all weekend," he says.

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:32 pm (UTC)

"Same time as last week, then?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:33 pm (UTC)

"Sure!"

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:35 pm (UTC)

"I'll try not to schedule any interviews for then."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:35 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:44 pm (UTC)

The reporters spread. Beila refuses to schedule more than one interview per week, outright blacklists a news company whose photographer was found hiding in a tree outside her bedroom window, and has to get her metalbender-cop father to intimidate some people who are camped out on their street.

The morning before Dao is supposed to go flying with Beila, a reporter who has apparently been more creative about finding info on the Avatar than anyone else knocks sharply on his door.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:50 pm (UTC)

Dao opens the door, looking a little fluffy; he hasn't combed his hair yet, and it shows.

roc_on
2013-04-14 07:57 pm (UTC)

"Hello, I'm with the Republic Newscorps! Are you Dao Jukai?" says the reporter. He's wearing one of those eyepieces that will relay what he's looking at and hearing to a computer somewhere on his person and record it.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 07:59 pm (UTC)

"What the hell?" says Dao.
Edited 2013-04-14 19:59 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:00 pm (UTC)

"Are you Dao Jukai?" repeats the reporter.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:02 pm (UTC)

"No, me first," says Dao, "what the hell?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:02 pm (UTC)

"I'm with the Republic Newscorps," repeats the reporter patiently, "and I'm looking for Dao Jukai."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:05 pm (UTC)

"Is there a reason you're looking for Dao Jukai or were you just really bored this morning?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:06 pm (UTC)

"According to some of the students at Northwest Secondary, he's dating the Avatar," explains the reporter. "Are you him?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:18 pm (UTC)

"Wow, you're good," says Dao, "you found out I was dating her before I did, that must be some kind of record."

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:19 pm (UTC)

The reporter smiles winningly. "So tell me about Avatar Beila! What's she like on a personal level?" he says, apparently heedless of the actual content of Dao's statement.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:20 pm (UTC)

"Go away," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I won't take but a few minutes of your time," says the reporter.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:21 pm (UTC)

"You've already taken more of my time than I want you to have," he says, and shuts the door.

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:22 pm (UTC)

The reporter knocks again.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:23 pm (UTC)

Dao ignores him!

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:24 pm (UTC)

The reporter carries on badgerdoggedly knocking at irregular intervals.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:25 pm (UTC)

The house has a back door.

He leaves through it.

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:27 pm (UTC)

The reporter spots him coming around the corner of the row of houses. "Dao!" he calls, like Dao is his old friend who has inconveniently managed to miss this visit he would surely wish to receive. "Dao, just a few minutes, please." He jogs to catch up.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:28 pm (UTC)

He's carrying a smallish bag over one shoulder.

He ignores the reporter some more.

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:28 pm (UTC)

The reporter follows him.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:40 pm (UTC)

Dao finds a public park, and sits down on a bench, and gets a knife and a block of wood out of his bag, and starts carving.
Edited 2013-04-14 20:40 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:41 pm (UTC)

The reporter watches him do this for a while, then says, "I'd just like to talk to you for a few minutes about your relationship with the Avatar, Dao."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:42 pm (UTC)

"Go away," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Now, there's no need to be so unfriendly," coaxes the reporter.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:46 pm (UTC)

"You spent two hours knocking on my door after I closed it in your face, I think that's actually a really good reason to be unfriendly," Dao points out.

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:47 pm (UTC)

"You could've gotten rid of me in five minutes," the reporter says. "What're you hiding? Did Avatar Beila ask you to keep the relationship a secret? Is she ashamed of you?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:50 pm (UTC)

Dao looks up from his carving.

"Okay!" he says. "I have a serious question for you! What is actually wrong with you as a person?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:52 pm (UTC)

"Just doing my job, Dao," says the reporter. "How long have you known the Avatar? Were you and she together before she was named, or only since?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:55 pm (UTC)

"I am just gonna stay here and carve this lizard crow," says Dao, returning his attention to his block of wood, "and if you want to stand there and ask me stupid questions while I do it, then I guess I can't stop you."

roc_on
2013-04-14 08:55 pm (UTC)

The reporter stands there and asks him stupid questions while he does it.

"Why hasn't Avatar Beila mentioned you in any of her interviews?"
Edited 2013-04-14 20:58 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 08:59 pm (UTC)

...He starts laughing.

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Is something funny, Dao?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:00 pm (UTC)

"Yes. You," he snorts. "You are what's funny."

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:01 pm (UTC)

"I'm just an extension of the curiosity of Republic City," says the reporter. "Come on, talk to me, I'll get out of your hair."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:02 pm (UTC)

"Nuh-uh," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:05 pm (UTC)

"I can be patient. Sources say you gave her a birthday gift. When you picked it out, did you already suspect that she'd also be celebrating being named Avatar?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Did you know the otterpenguin can hold its breath for up to six hours?" says Dao, going back to his carving.
Edited 2013-04-14 21:29 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:29 pm (UTC)

"...What does that have to do with anything?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:30 pm (UTC)

Dao just smiles.

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:32 pm (UTC)

"Do you feel that otterpenguins are in some way emblematic of your relationship with Beila?" attempts the reporter gamely.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:46 pm (UTC)

"The panda carp almost died out four times in the last sixty years," he says conversationally, "but last year somebody managed to get a population established in the wild again for the first time since 495."

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:46 pm (UTC)

"..."

The reporter decides to give up. He turns around and walks out of the park.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:47 pm (UTC)

Dao snickers to himself.

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:48 pm (UTC)

Beila shows up after lunch at his place on roc-back.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:51 pm (UTC)

He's sitting outside the door again, with his half-carved lizard crow.

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:51 pm (UTC)

"Hi!" says Beila, wafting off Liqing with a gratuitous midair spin and making a three-point landing. "How're you?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Uh, a reporter showed up at ugly o'clock in the morning and followed me around asking intrusive questions because some people at school told him we're dating," he says. "But I started answering all his questions with totally unrelated trivia and he gave up."

roc_on
2013-04-14 09:57 pm (UTC)

"That's one way to deal with them. Spirits, I'm sorry, I have no idea who told him that," says Beila, shaking her head. "I haven't been bothered all that much at home but I think it's mostly because my dad is a cop."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 09:59 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, that'd do it," snorts Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:00 pm (UTC)

"If it happens again tell me and I can ask Dad about getting, like, a patrol around this neighborhood to shoo them if they get annoying?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:01 pm (UTC)

"I think I'm good for now," he says. "If the next guy doesn't run away when I start talking about panda carp, then your dad can help."

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:02 pm (UTC)

"Panda carp?" snorts Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:03 pm (UTC)

"They almost went extinct a bunch of times, but they're doing pretty good now!"

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:04 pm (UTC)

"Hooray for panda carp!"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:04 pm (UTC)

Dao giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:09 pm (UTC)

"Are you waft-ready over there or do you want to finish what you're working on?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:19 pm (UTC)

"Nah," he says, stuffing the lizard crow and carving tools back into his bag. "I'm good."

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:20 pm (UTC)

Beila breezes the both of them up onto Liqing at the same time. "Anywhere in particular you want to go or d'you just want a scenic tour of the greater Republic City area?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:22 pm (UTC)

"Scenic tour sounds awesome!"

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:25 pm (UTC)

"Scenic tour it is!" She waits for the securing waist-hug, then whistles Liqing into a takeoff.

Liqing can fly fast when she clears the city skyline and can freely trade height and speed, but they're high enough in the air that the scenery still crawls by slowly enough to be admired. They soar over the beachtown suburbs, and swing around the bay, and the greenbelt separating the city from the next nearest towns.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:30 pm (UTC)

"This is... very scenic," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:31 pm (UTC)

"I know. You haven't seen the city till you've gotten a look at it from the sky."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:32 pm (UTC)

"I am starting to see that!" he agrees.

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:33 pm (UTC)

"Side effects include finding all other forms of transportation dreadfully dull, though."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:34 pm (UTC)

"I think I can live with that."

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:45 pm (UTC)

"I bet!" She grins. "How d'you feel about fancy flying?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:47 pm (UTC)

"...Kind of scared I'll fall off!" he admits. "You won't let me fall off, right?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:49 pm (UTC)

"Well, you should hold on, and I'll steady us, and I'd have plenty of opportunity to catch you if you did fall," Beila says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:52 pm (UTC)

"Okay," he says. "Then sure."

roc_on
2013-04-14 10:55 pm (UTC)

Beila leans a bit forward over Liqing's neck.

She whistles.

Liqing dives. Fast.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 10:57 pm (UTC)

...Dao maybe squeaks.

Also he hangs on tight.
Edited 2013-04-14 23:02 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:03 pm (UTC)

Liqing pulls up still well above the ground and they're both pressed into her feathers as she heads steeply upward. Beila's got both hands firmly on the strap around the bird's neck, holding on, and she whistles again, and Liqing banks, ascending in a broad spiral.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:03 pm (UTC)

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," giggles Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:06 pm (UTC)

Liqing doesn't actually know that many tricks, but she repeats the ones she has.

"I can do fancier stuff on my glider, just not with as much raw speed," Beila comments. "And I can't take a passenger on the glider. Although supposedly I'll be able to put way more power behind my bending than a regular person, so I should be able to learn to move stuff around any which way I want, glider or no glider."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:07 pm (UTC)

"I think this is exciting enough for me," he laughs.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:08 pm (UTC)

Beila grins and pets her roc. "I love my Liqing," she says happily.
Edited 2013-04-14 23:08 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:09 pm (UTC)

"I think I love your Liqing too!"

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:10 pm (UTC)

Liqing trills.

"Ooh, that's a hungry noise. Better land her and let her go fishing," laughs Beila. "I can drop you off at your house unless there's someplace else you'd rather be?" She steers the bird towards the city.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:11 pm (UTC)

"Nah, my house is fine," he says.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:13 pm (UTC)

Flying flying flying! House. Beila lands them and detaches her glider from the strap around Liqing's neck and sends the roc off on her fishing expedition.

"Sorry again about the reporter," says Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:14 pm (UTC)

Dao shrugs.

And... maybe also blushes.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:15 pm (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:16 pm (UTC)

Blushing harder: "What?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:16 pm (UTC)

"You're blushing," Beila says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I hadn't noticed," he lies transparently, scrubbing at his cheek with the corresponding wrist. It does nothing to erase the blush.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:18 pm (UTC)

"I'm so glad I could enlighten you," giggles Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:19 pm (UTC)

He splutters a little.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:20 pm (UTC)

"Why're you blushing?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:23 pm (UTC)

"No good reason," he groans.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:24 pm (UTC)

"Do you just have no idea?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:25 pm (UTC)

"Yes. That. Yes."

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:26 pm (UTC)

Beila's not fully convinced.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:28 pm (UTC)

"...I could probably figure it out if I put my mind to it but I really don't want to because you're standing right there paying attention to me and my blushing," he mutters.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Would it help if I turned around?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:28 pm (UTC)

"Not really!"

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:29 pm (UTC)

"I guess I could just leave and suffer through an itchy mystery till I see you at school again."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:29 pm (UTC)

Dao buries his face in his hands and says, "Aaaargh."

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:30 pm (UTC)

"Sorry, I'm being pushy," laughs Beila. "I'm a pushy Avatar. I'll leave you be." She flicks her glider open.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:31 pm (UTC)

"Thanks," says Dao, somewhat muffled on account of the hands.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:32 pm (UTC)

"No problem." She takes a running start, bends wind under the glider wings, and flies away.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:33 pm (UTC)

And Dao goes back inside to do his blushing in peace and quiet with no one bothering him.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:34 pm (UTC)

Beila attends school at the start of the next school week. She is practicing maintaining ice; she has a bit of it in her water bottle and she's refreezing it whenever it tries to melt.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:37 pm (UTC)

Dao sits beside her again, but eyes her nervously when she shows up.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:37 pm (UTC)

"Hi."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:41 pm (UTC)

"Hi."

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:42 pm (UTC)

She feels bad about being pushy, so today she's not even going to start.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:43 pm (UTC)

After a few seconds, he smiles tentatively.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:43 pm (UTC)

"Have a good weekend?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. You?"

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:46 pm (UTC)

"Pretty good. Played with ice. Talked to the nun who's supervising me about spirit stuff. She taught Avatar Meixing airbending."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:47 pm (UTC)

"Oh, wow," he says. "Cool."

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:48 pm (UTC)

"It's all right, but she wants me to spend a lot of time meditating, like, a lot, like I'd have to drop out of school, which maybe I should do anyway."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:49 pm (UTC)

"...oh," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:50 pm (UTC)

"Hmm?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:52 pm (UTC)

"I think I would probably miss you," he says. "If you dropped out of school."

He seems to have some difficulty admitting this.

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:53 pm (UTC)

"...well, if you wanted, we could still hang out sometimes. I'd have some free time, just not enough to do school."

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:54 pm (UTC)

"I'd want!"

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:55 pm (UTC)

"I thought I might've overdone it the other day," she admits.

thinklikethis
2013-04-14 11:55 pm (UTC)

"Um... it was kind of uncomfortable," he says. "But, you know. You stopped."

roc_on
2013-04-14 11:56 pm (UTC)

"I do try to be nice. I'm not perfect. I'm only human. That and an ancient reincarnated spirit-person."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 12:00 am (UTC)

He giggles softly.

roc_on
2013-04-15 12:01 am (UTC)

Beila smiles at him, and refreezes her ice.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 12:01 am (UTC)

Are they cool?

They're cool.

So to speak.

roc_on
2013-04-15 12:02 am (UTC)

They are.

Beila pays fairly minimal attention in class; she's about half checked out already.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 12:07 am (UTC)

Dao pays lots of attention.

roc_on
2013-04-15 12:12 am (UTC)

And school ends, and Beila's idly reshaping her ice in its bottle: now it's a cube, now it's a sphere, now it's a triangle, now it's a lopsided star. "I think I'll stick out the term," she yawns. "It's only a few more weeks, and that'll put me at a better stopping place."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 12:14 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-15 12:15 am (UTC)

"I feel like going and buying some juice and seeing if I can turn it into a tasty slush," she says, "want to come?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 12:15 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 12:17 am (UTC)

"Cool."

They walk; Beila's clothes (she does wear a traditional airbender outfit, if only because otherwise she'd have to pick something) ripple with the occasional steadying breeze. She gets herself some apple juice and concentrates on it, moving her free hand in a wavy waterbender form. She freezes about half of it solid and leaves the rest liquid. "Well, that didn't work," she remarks.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 12:19 am (UTC)

Dao giggles.

"Well, can you melt it and try again?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 12:21 am (UTC)

"Yeah." She releases the ice from its crystal structure and it reintegrates with the rest, and retries. This time she manages to form some bits of apple ice spread out a bit more evenly through the juice, but not to the point where it could qualify as a slush. She frowns at it and tries again and gets the texture she had in mind. "Awesome. You want it?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 12:29 am (UTC)

"...Sure!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 12:29 am (UTC)

She hands over the apple slush and buys a lemon juice to repeat the trick with. This one she slushes on the first try and drinks herself, grinning.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 12:57 am (UTC)

Slurrrrrrp.

"Mm, slushy," he says. "Good job."

roc_on
2013-04-15 12:59 am (UTC)

Slurp. "Thanks!"

Then the person selling the juice recognizes her and wants her autograph, and she sighs and blocks out four characters for him on the napkin he offers and starts down the street.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:02 am (UTC)

Dao follows, enjoying his apple slush.

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:03 am (UTC)

"I want," Beila says, "to talk about something besides Avatarhood, and bending, and the media, for once this week. I dunno what. Read any good books lately?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:04 am (UTC)

"Nope. I did finish that lizard crow, though!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:05 am (UTC)

"Yeah, how'd it turn out?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:06 am (UTC)

"One wing is kind of obviously bigger than the other," he admits. "I'll try again."

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:07 am (UTC)

"You can't just - carve down the bigger wing? I don't know how this works."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:10 am (UTC)

He shakes his head. "I could've if I'd caught it earlier, but now that it's finished, no. Because, like... the wood that's where the too-big wing is isn't in the right place, physically, to be part of a wing that's small enough."

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:12 am (UTC)

"Huh. I wouldn't have guessed that. Supposedly waterbending can move plants but I think that's only live plants so I don't think I can fix it for you."

Bending live animals has of course been illegal for more than four centuries.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:15 am (UTC)

"Most people don't! But think about it," he says, holding out his arm with the elbow bent. "Imagine if I was a statue, and my arm was too big so you had to carve it down." He hunches the arm in a little closer. "See how everything moves? It's even worse with wings because they have all those feathers."

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:18 am (UTC)

Beila peers at his arm. "Yeah," she concludes, "that makes sense. That's a pity. But you can always try again. The roc is perfect - I've been thinking about trying to string it onto a necklace or something but there's no natural place to put the string and it'd be kind of horrible to have it drilled."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:20 am (UTC)

"Aww," he laughs. "I can try making you another one that fits on a necklace!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:20 am (UTC)

"But it's not going to be my birthday again anytime soon," she replies. "Speaking of which, when's yours?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:24 am (UTC)

"Fourth of Spark! What, I can't make you stuff because I feel like it? I make stuff because I feel like it all the time."

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:25 am (UTC)

"I guess you can make me stuff because you feel like it if you feel like it," giggles Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:28 am (UTC)

He cracks up.

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:29 am (UTC)

"And I made you an apple slush," she realizes, nodding, "so there we go."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:31 am (UTC)

"You did! And I appreciate that! Because this is one tasty slush!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:32 am (UTC)

Beila slurps her lemon one. "Well, I can't take credit for the flavor," she laughs.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:33 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "You gave it to me, I think you can take credit for all of it."

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:34 am (UTC)

"All right. I totally invented apples," says Beila, nodding importantly. "Also, I domesticated them, picked the specific specimens involved in that juice, juiced them, invented cups, made that one by hand, and then slushed you a slush."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:35 am (UTC)

"You sure are accomplished!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:36 am (UTC)

"So accomplished! My interviews should all be about apples and plastic from now on."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:37 am (UTC)

Dao laughs.

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:38 am (UTC)

"But augh, I didn't want to talk about the media. Bleah. Okay, what else do you do besides carving and school? What do you like, in school?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:43 am (UTC)

"...I want to be a structural engineer when I grow up," he confesses.

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:43 am (UTC)

"Ooh, you can help me with my bridge across the ocean," Beila says, grinning.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:44 am (UTC)

"I was thinking that, yeah!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:46 am (UTC)

Beila grins. "Cool. You need tertiary school for that, right?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:47 am (UTC)

"Yep. So I'm not gonna join you in dropping out," he laughs.

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:48 am (UTC)

"I'm a little concerned people are going to think that, like, being Avatar's an excuse to neglect my education, but it's really just going to be concentrating on - and there I go with forbidden topics again, wow, I'm going to turn into a boring one-note conversationalist if I do not curb this habit immediately, let's, I don't know, let's go see a movie and then we can talk about the movie?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:49 am (UTC)

...Dao blushes!

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:50 am (UTC)

Beila sighs. "You're doing it again," she says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:51 am (UTC)

"Stop that," he says, attempting not very successfully to address his own face.

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:52 am (UTC)

"Are you telling your face not to blush?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:52 am (UTC)

"Y...es..." he admits, and then he starts laughing.

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:53 am (UTC)

"Why would you do that? It's cute," laughs Beila. "Even if I don't know why it's happening."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:55 am (UTC)

"Maybeit'sbecauseIwannadateyou," he mutters.

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:56 am (UTC)

"Say again?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 01:58 am (UTC)

He covers his face with both hands and repeats, "Maybe it's because I wanna date you!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 01:59 am (UTC)

"Is why you're blushing?"

Beila takes a moment to process this. She sips her lemon slush.

"Okay, it's a date," she says. "Movie and talking-about-movie."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:01 am (UTC)

Dao blinks.

"...What, really?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:02 am (UTC)

"Yeah? Why not?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:03 am (UTC)

"I just - I'm surprised! That is a good surprise," he says. "That is the best surprise. Let's go see a movie!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:04 am (UTC)

"Sure! I have - absolutely no idea what's playing! We will find out," she says, nodding. Also, she transfers her slush to the hand that is farther away from him so that the nearer hand will be available for holding, if he opts to take a hint.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:06 am (UTC)

Dao - doesn't seem to take the hint.

He does glance at her hand. Several times.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:06 am (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:07 am (UTC)

He blushes.

He does not tell his face to stop that.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:08 am (UTC)

Beila decides about halfway to the nearest theater to just hold his hand herself.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:09 am (UTC)

His blush intensifies, but he doesn't pull away.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:09 am (UTC)

"You're adorable, d'you know that?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:10 am (UTC)

"No," he says, blushing some more. "I had no idea."

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:11 am (UTC)

"Well, now you do," Beila says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:12 am (UTC)

"You are pretty cute yourself," he dares to mention.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:13 am (UTC)

"Thanks!"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:14 am (UTC)

Dao beams.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:15 am (UTC)

Here is the movie theater! "What's your genre?" Beila asks. "I'll watch most anything as long as it's decently written and doesn't have Neko Li in it." She scans the listings on the wall critically.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:17 am (UTC)

"What's wrong with Neko Li?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:18 am (UTC)

"He gets typecast and I hate the type. Strong stupid hero accomplishes victories against villains who are much smarter than him by hitting them with sticks. I want my good guys to win for good reasons."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:19 am (UTC)

Dao laughs. "Okay, no Neko Li. Uh, I dunno, I guess horror's my favourite but - whatever, I'll watch pretty much anything too."

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:21 am (UTC)

"Horror, horror... you wanna watch Return of the Bloodbender? I haven't seen the original but it never matters with this kinda movie."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:21 am (UTC)

"Sure!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:25 am (UTC)

Beila buys the tickets (she has seen the neighborhood where he lives, and besides, if she ever wants money now all she has to do is write to some company that makes some thing she likes and tell them they can say she likes it) and in they go to see the next showing of Return of the Bloodbender.

It's quite horrifying. Everyone who gets bloodbent spends the entire process looking like they're in quite a lot of pain and twisting in bizarre puppety ways as they do the bender's bidding. Beila jumps in her seat when startling things happen, but doesn't seem too fazed by anything else.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:29 am (UTC)

Dao does not jump quite as much.

He fidgets, though, shifting in his seat when gruesome things are happening.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:30 am (UTC)

"You itchy or something? Mosquitoticks been at you?" Beila asks when the movie ends and the lights come up.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:30 am (UTC)

He is blushing, is what he is!

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:31 am (UTC)

"You're blushing again," Beila says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:36 am (UTC)

"Stop that, face."

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:37 am (UTC)

"I don't think it's listening. The part of your face that can hear is not the part that is blushing."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:39 am (UTC)

He giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:40 am (UTC)

"Do I need to just try to stop ever wondering why you blush when you do?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:41 am (UTC)

"Um... well I don't always know," he says.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:42 am (UTC)

"That must be weird," comments Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:43 am (UTC)

"Do you always know why your face is doing things?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:44 am (UTC)

"I would if I got a picture of my face at the time and took a minute to think about it," Beila asserts. "Writing it down helps; thoughts are slippery little snakenewts sometimes."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:45 am (UTC)

"Weird," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:45 am (UTC)

"Thoughts being slippery little snakenewts is weird, or me being able to catch 'em is weird?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:54 am (UTC)

"That mental image is pretty weird!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:56 am (UTC)

Beila snickers. "Well, what can I say, I have a lot of snakenewt-trapping practice. But anyway, that was a decent movie as mediocre horror goes, nicely acted, everybody looked convincingly like they were living through nightmares, well done Extra Number Twelve."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:05 am (UTC)

"Yeah!" he agrees.

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:08 am (UTC)

"Of course, the bloodbender's only motive seemed to be that she was, you know, a villain, she didn't seem to have any goals, but that's par for the course," shrugs Beila. "You know there's some suggestion in some histories that Katara of the South dabbled in bloodbending? But no one talks about it because it's Just So Evil and Katara was Good And Virtuous."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:09 am (UTC)

"...I did... not know that," Dao admits. "But I mean. Bloodbending is pretty evil, isn't it?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:10 am (UTC)

"Well, yeah, no kidding," says Beila. "I don't think I know how to hate somebody enough to want to bloodbend them. But if I were ever going to be tempted to, I'd have some end in mind, I wouldn't just want to send puppets lurching through a city in a vaguely cinematic fashion. Killing people is evil too and killers have motives."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:12 am (UTC)

"Well, do we know why Katara supposedly did it?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:15 am (UTC)

"It's all very speculative, but they think she learned it in the Fire Nation around the same time a Water Tribe criminal who escaped prison was found capturing and storing people in a cave with the power. So possibly she bloodbent that lady, and possibly also the guy who killed her mom."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:16 am (UTC)

"...Well, if you're gonna bloodbend somebody, 'killed my mom' is a pretty good excuse."

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:17 am (UTC)

"Mmm - no, I don't think so. It's higher on the list than 'someone with a video recorder was nearby and the lighting was right and the music cued me', but it's not like he was about to kill again, he was retired."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:19 am (UTC)

"...Yeah but like," Dao says, "people get mad about stuff."

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:20 am (UTC)

"Yes, but that's not a good reason to do things, it just makes you have to think harder to not do them. Bloodbending isn't time travel. It wasn't going to help her mom."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:22 am (UTC)

"Okay," he says, "I don't exactly mean it's a good excuse, I just mean - I'd believe that somebody would do that."

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:23 am (UTC)

"Oh, sure. Realistic character motivation. Which," she adds with a gesture, "the movie villain lacked. Unless they set it up in the last installment that I didn't see? Did you catch it?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:24 am (UTC)

"Nope, I didn't. Maybe she just liked watching 'em twitch," he snorts.

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:25 am (UTC)

"They do twitch a lot, don't they. I wonder why," muses Beila. "For that matter I have no idea if it's accurate, it's not like they could do a lot of fact-finding, is it."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:26 am (UTC)

"Guess not," he laughs.

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:27 am (UTC)

"I feel like people might get nervous if I started asking for books on the subject."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:28 am (UTC)

Dao giggles.

And... blushes.
Edited 2013-04-15 03:28 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:29 am (UTC)

"You're blushing again."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:30 am (UTC)

"Stop that, face!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:31 am (UTC)

"You say that, but you won't tell me what's making you blush so I can help you avoid those situations or anything productive like that," observes Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:52 am (UTC)

"I tell my face to stop that when I'm thinking things I don't want anybody to know about," he explains, rubbing his face again. "Telling you what they are so you can avoid them isn't going to help."

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:41 pm (UTC)

"I don't suppose you could tell me what's prompting all these displeasing thoughts."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:45 pm (UTC)

"It's not all the same things! I have a lot of displeasing thoughts," he says.

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:46 pm (UTC)

"That sounds difficult."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:47 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:51 pm (UTC)

She pats his shoulder. "Well, doesn't look like the situation is set up to let me help, so I will just be over here benefiting from how cute it is when you blush," she says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:52 pm (UTC)

...Dao giggles.

"Sure, okay."

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:54 pm (UTC)

They were going to talk about the movie, weren't they. "The music was pretty good," Beila says, spotting a trash can and taking his empty slush cup out of his hand so she can waft both of the two into it neatly. "I think the same composer did Moon Spirit's Lament, which is not really similar at all, I guess she's versatile. Have you seen that one?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 02:56 pm (UTC)

He shakes his head. "No, I haven't! What was it about?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 02:59 pm (UTC)

"It was one of those surreal poems-in-movie-form that was only in the loosest possible sense about anything. Ranyi - that's my mom - took me to see it, she likes that kind of thing. Lots of disjointed visual imagery of the moon and fish and water and North Polar scenery. It was sort of soothing - and the music was good - but it didn't have a sensible plot."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:08 pm (UTC)

"Any panda carp?" he inquires brightly.

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:09 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember if there were panda carp specifically, this was a couple years ago," Beila laughs.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:10 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:12 pm (UTC)

"Did you like the movie? I keep issuing opinions about it and you're riffing on them but I don't know what you walked out of the theater thinking."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:15 pm (UTC)

"I liked the movie!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but, what about it? 'I liked that' 'yeah me too' is not that much of a conversation," laughs Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:18 pm (UTC)

"I don't know," he says. "I guess I don't have interesting detailed opinions like you do."

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Oh well." They're still sort of loitering in the theater lobby; she heads for the door. "If you don't know why you like things, how do you ever figure out what other things you'd enjoy?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:24 pm (UTC)

"Well... it's not that I can't tell what I liked about it," he says, "it's just that I'm not sure how to turn it into a conversation. Things like 'the way that one guy screamed that one time was really well done' and stuff."

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:25 pm (UTC)

"It was, though, the camerawork was good," Beila says, nodding. "Fit very nicely into the movie's visual language."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:28 pm (UTC)

"Sounded good, too."

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:30 pm (UTC)

"Good sound quality, good acting," Beila translates.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:31 pm (UTC)

"Sure. How come you can make my opinions sound more interesting than I can?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:36 pm (UTC)

"I read movie reviews sometimes when I'm trying to decide what to see before actually showing up to the theater," Beila says. "That's the sort of thing they say. Talking about the sound quality."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:39 pm (UTC)

"A-ha," he says, and laughs.

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Of course, then they go on about things I don't actually generate opinions on, like, historical accuracy - they're movies, not textbooks - but yeah, that's where I picked that up."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:43 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's probably good to know how historically accurate they are," he says. "Because I bet they mostly aren't. But yeah."

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:45 pm (UTC)

"That's the point, they mostly aren't, you shouldn't be drawing conclusions about history based on the movie version anyway; it doesn't matter that much if this is a hundred percent true or only seventy percent true because they had a vocal coach train everybody to speak in genuine Foggy Swamp accents."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:47 pm (UTC)

"But if you don't know anything else about that period of history you're going to end up drawing conclusions based on the movie version, people's minds are kind of bad at empty spaces, aren't they?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:51 pm (UTC)

"People's minds are bad at that," Beila acknowledges. "I don't put my weight down on conclusions I'm not pretty confident in, but even I don't have much choice but to accept random stuff I heard wherever as possible hypotheses, even if they could have been completely made up."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:53 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! So it's good to pay some attention to historical accuracy just to kind of... clear out the dirt a little."

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:55 pm (UTC)

"All right, you've convinced me. I shall decline to see Kyoshi Versus the Merpeople. Everyone knows that Kyoshi was actually friendly with the merpeople."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:56 pm (UTC)

He cracks up.

roc_on
2013-04-15 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Man, in six hundred years I bet people make absolutely terrible movies - or holos or virtual realities or whatever - about me. That's kind of uncomfortable to think about. Yet another reason to live forever, so I can complain if anyone depicts me fighting merpeople."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 03:59 pm (UTC)

"I would not really care if people made bad movies about me five hundred years after I died," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Dao Jukai, Structural Engineer, Versus The Structural-Support-Stealing Gnomes," suggests Beila. "They'll give you a sword and terrible one-liners."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:02 pm (UTC)

"See, that would be awesome!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:06 pm (UTC)

Beila laughs. "Why would that be awesome?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:11 pm (UTC)

"Because somebody'd be making a movie about me?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:11 pm (UTC)

"But by stipulation it is a terrible movie!"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:13 pm (UTC)

"A historically accurate movie about me would probably be really boring. I bet Dao Versus The Gnomes would be fun."

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:16 pm (UTC)

"Aw, you might do movie-worthy things yet," says Beila. "You're only sixteen, like me, right?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:17 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. But I don't really want to do anything anybody would make a movie about," he says. "Besides date the Avatar, I guess."

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:19 pm (UTC)

"There's movies about Katara of the South," Beila points out. "I mean, she accompanied Aang on various noteworthy adventures in addition to marrying him, but there's movies that focus on her."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:21 pm (UTC)

"So people in the future will make movies about me if I marry you, is that what I'm hearing?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:23 pm (UTC)

It is Beila's turn to blush now. "Well. I mean. That is probably a strictly true statement."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:23 pm (UTC)

"Now you're blushing!" says Dao. "That is cute. You are cute."

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:25 pm (UTC)

Beila giggles. "Thanks."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:29 pm (UTC)

He grins at her.

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:30 pm (UTC)

Beila thinks for a moment, and then leans forward to peck him on the cheek.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:30 pm (UTC)

He beams.

Also blushes a little.

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:36 pm (UTC)

"You," she says, "are adorable."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:40 pm (UTC)

"You keep saying that!" he laughs. "It's nice, I like it, say it all you want."

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:43 pm (UTC)

"I will," Beila says, grinning.

There is a camera flash.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:44 pm (UTC)

Dao scrunches his eyes shut.

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:50 pm (UTC)

It is his old friend, the annoying reporter!

"Hello! I'd like just a few minutes of your -"

Beila turns slowly in his direction, folding her arms across her chest.

"...time. What is -"

"Delete the picture," Beila says.

"Now, Avatar Beila, you're in a public place -"

"You can delete the picture voluntarily now or you can argue about the lawfulness of having taken it with my father, Chief Guxiao of the Republic City Police Department."

The reporter swallows. He fiddles with his camera.

"You'll want to let me see that, now, to make sure you aren't trying to sneak off with a picture I don't want you to have," Beila says.

"Avatar Beila -"

"Or I could just wreck it. I could also do that. And then we could go discuss the lawfulness of my doing that with my father, Chief Guxiao of the -"

The reporter hands over the camera. Beila checks it over, then unscrews the lens. "I'm going to go give this to the ticket taker in the theater," she says pleasantly, "and ask him to let you have it back only after we've left the area. Does that sound fair to you?"

The reporter swallows hard.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:52 pm (UTC)

...Dao beams at her.

roc_on
2013-04-15 04:54 pm (UTC)

Beila returns most of the reporter's camera to him, leaves the lens with the ticket-taker, signs an autograph for the ticket-taker, and comes out of the theater to rejoin Dao. "Goodbye," says Beila to the reporter.

"Avatar Beila, I just -"

"What news organization are you with?" she asks, stopping, folding her arms again, and turning to face him.

"...Uh..."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 04:58 pm (UTC)

Beila is the best. Dao is just going to admire her some more now.

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:00 pm (UTC)

"Are you with the Republic Newscorps?" asks Beila.

"I - well -"

"Because I blacklisted them after I found one of your photographers in a tree outside my house looking into my bedroom, and everyone else has been very scrupulous about behaving themselves, since."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:07 pm (UTC)

...Dao stares incredulously at the reporter.

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:11 pm (UTC)

"...I'm a freelancer?" offers the reporter.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:12 pm (UTC)

"Funny," says Dao, "you said Republic Newscorps the other day."

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Of course he did. Ugh. Okay. I'm going home," says Beila, "to talk to my dad - Dao, you wanna be a corroborating witness?"

"Look, please, just one guy independently went and hid in the tree but the whole newscorps is in trouble if everyone else has material on the Avatar and we don't -"

Beila ignores him.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:14 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'll come with," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:16 pm (UTC)

Beila emits her piercing roc-calling whistle. A few moments later Liqing glides to a landing outside the theater and Beila wafts herself and her date onto the bird. They leave the reporter behind.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:29 pm (UTC)

Dao hugs her around the waist.

"You're kind of awesome, you know that?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:30 pm (UTC)

"I do know that! I wish I didn't have to demonstrate it on obnoxious reporters. That's the same one who was deterred by panda carp?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:30 pm (UTC)

"Yep."

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:31 pm (UTC)

Beila sighs. "Well, we can tell Charlie about him, we'll see what he can do."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:33 pm (UTC)

"Good plan."

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:34 pm (UTC)

"I have those," Beila says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:39 pm (UTC)

"I'm getting that!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:42 pm (UTC)

Here is Beila's house! She hops off Liqing and helps Dao down too and sends the bird on her way. "Chali might not be home yet. Might be -" She opens the front door and looks at the clock. "Ten, fifteen minutes. You okay to wait?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:46 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:48 pm (UTC)

"Dad?" calls Beila. Nope, no Chali. She dumps her schoolbag on the stairs to take when she wants to go up, and plops onto the cushions lined up under the window. "Ranyi won't be home till dinner, she teaches afternoon-shift introductory school some terms including this one. She likes morning shift better but can't always get it. What do your folks do?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:50 pm (UTC)

"Oh, Dad works for Cabbagecorp," he says vaguely.

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:51 pm (UTC)

"...Just him, then?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:52 pm (UTC)

"Yeah. Just him."

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:52 pm (UTC)

Beila is on her guard about being pushy. She pats the cushions next to her, indicating that Dao can sit there.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:55 pm (UTC)

Dao sits there!

Dao smiles.

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:57 pm (UTC)

"Chali might quiz you a little about what you are to me in spite of not being a reporter, fair warning."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:58 pm (UTC)

"Will he get mad if I start talking about panda carp?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 05:58 pm (UTC)

"If his question is not about panda carp? Yeah, probably."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 05:59 pm (UTC)

"Maybe I better let you do the talking."

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:06 pm (UTC)

"Chali will probably let me do most of the talking. You'll have to say 'hi' and answer yes-or-no questions, pretty sure. What do you want me to say if he asks me if you're my boyfriend?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:08 pm (UTC)

"Um... I don't know, am I?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:08 pm (UTC)

"That's why I'm asking."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I can be your boyfriend, I guess!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:18 pm (UTC)

"Such enthusiasm," she teases.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:19 pm (UTC)

He blushes.

"I've never been anybody's boyfriend before," he says defensively.

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:20 pm (UTC)

"I've never been anybody's girlfriend before," she says. "So there's that."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:21 pm (UTC)

"Awesome," he says, "so you won't know if I mess it up."

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I think I might be able to tell if it's anything egregious," she giggles.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:22 pm (UTC)

"I can probably manage to stay away from egregious!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:23 pm (UTC)

"That's good. Are you expecting to screw up in small ways particularly?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:25 pm (UTC)

"I've never done it before, how am I not going to screw up?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I dunno, some people are just naturally talented at things."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:28 pm (UTC)

"Not me."

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:28 pm (UTC)

"How do you know?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:29 pm (UTC)

"That I'm not naturally talented at things? Um, by watching myself screw up a bunch?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:30 pm (UTC)

"But you have not tried all the things that there are to try."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:36 pm (UTC)

"I've tried a lot! And screwed up most of them!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:37 pm (UTC)

"That sounds like it could lead to interesting stories if you didn't mind talking about those occasions. Anyway, you can carve things," she points out, "you don't screw that up."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:39 pm (UTC)

"I screwed up carving a lot before I got good at it. Like, I don't think I'm doomed to fail at everything forever, I just know I'm not ever gonna be perfect at something right from the start."

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:41 pm (UTC)

"Fair enough. Practice makes perfect. Heck, I'm the Avatar and I couldn't slush a drink on my first try." Beila flops her head onto his shoulder. "You're in luck, though, most of the ways to screw up being somebody's boyfriend involve either not trying to make them happy or not knowing how, and you can just ask me about the second part."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:42 pm (UTC)

...He smiles down at her newly flopped head.

Then, tentatively, he puts his arm around her shoulders.

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:44 pm (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:48 pm (UTC)

Dao considers for another moment, then flops his head onto her head.

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:49 pm (UTC)

Beila giggles.

And this is how Chali finds them. "...Hello, little bird," he says. "Who's this?"

"Hi, Dad, this is Dao," says Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:50 pm (UTC)

"...Hi," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:52 pm (UTC)

"Mm-hm," says Chali.

"We're here to tell you about another Republic Newscorps person who's been bothering both of us," Beila adds.

"...And this person is bothering Dao because...?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 06:56 pm (UTC)

Dao looks nervous and uncomfortable.

roc_on
2013-04-15 06:57 pm (UTC)

"Some people at school told him we're dating," Beila says. "It wasn't true when they said it. Is now, though."

"Ah-hm," says Chali. "Well. Can put in a restraining order against the Newscorps, now they've got two strikes. Where d'you live, Dao?"
Edited 2013-04-15 18:59 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:01 pm (UTC)

"Dragon Flats. Number 807, apartment four."

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay. I'll get the order put in first thing tomorrow," says Chali, pulling out a pocket screen and a chordpress and making a note to himself. "If it continues to be a problem we can get you police pagers."

"Thanks, Dad," says Beila earnestly.

"So, Dao," says Chali. "Tell me about yourself."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:04 pm (UTC)

"I, um, I'm really kinda boring," he says. "I have no idea why Beila likes me so much."

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:08 pm (UTC)

"Little bird?" Chali asks his daughter mildly.

"If you want a list I need twenty minutes alone with my screen," Beila says. "Off the top of my head, he's cute and he liked me before I was named the Avatar and carves cunning little animals and he did a competent his half of our history project and stuff."

"Stuff," says Chali.

"Yes. I said, if you want a list, I need twenty minutes alone with my screen."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:11 pm (UTC)

Dao smiles fondly at Beila.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:13 pm (UTC)

"Well, I suppose you can look out for yourself," says Chali. He looks at Dao. "Of course, it will be most comfortable for everyone if no such looking out is necessary."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:14 pm (UTC)

...Well, he'll just go right back to 'nervous and uncomfortable', then.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:15 pm (UTC)

Beila puts her arm around him and squeezes. "Dad, I will be fine."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:16 pm (UTC)

He leans into her gratefully.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:18 pm (UTC)

"Good," says Chali gruffly, and he heads to the television in the next room over.

"Sorry about that," Beila murmurs to Dao.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:19 pm (UTC)

"I survived!" he says optimistically.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:19 pm (UTC)

"Is that your standard for things being okay?" laughs Beila.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:21 pm (UTC)

"Well, it's a pretty good start, isn't it?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:22 pm (UTC)

"It is the best start. An entirely necessary start."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:23 pm (UTC)

"See?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:25 pm (UTC)

"And you even have all your limbs!" she says, applauding lightly.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:30 pm (UTC)

He giggles and hugs her impulsively.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:30 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Beila approves.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:32 pm (UTC)

Huuuuuuugs. Huggy snuggy huuuuugs.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:34 pm (UTC)

Yaaaaay!

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:39 pm (UTC)

They are huggy and snuggy!

And - suddenly nervous!

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:40 pm (UTC)

"...You okay?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:41 pm (UTC)

"Um... yes?" he says, like he is not quite sure and just hopes that's the answer.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:42 pm (UTC)

"You tensed up all of a sudden. I'm actually asking, I'm not just randomly uttering questions, you know, if you're not okay I want to help."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:43 pm (UTC)

"I think I just... randomly got scared of screwing up," he says hesitantly.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:47 pm (UTC)

Beila pets his hair. "Odd timing."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:48 pm (UTC)

"I guess."

Hair-petting! Hair-petting is cuddly. He relaxes a little.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:53 pm (UTC)

Pet pet pet.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:54 pm (UTC)

Okay, yeah. He can do this.

Snuggy hug.

roc_on
2013-04-15 07:57 pm (UTC)

It's really good that he can do this; inability to snuggle would be a serious boyfriend deficiency.

Snuggly hug with another one of those little cheek-kisses.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 07:59 pm (UTC)

Awwww aww aww aww awwwwwwww.

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:00 pm (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:01 pm (UTC)

Aww!

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:02 pm (UTC)

Kisses can also go in other places!

How about over here?

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:03 pm (UTC)

That is surprising! Dao is surprised.

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:03 pm (UTC)

"Okay?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:04 pm (UTC)

He takes a few seconds to think about it.

Then he says, "Very okay!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:04 pm (UTC)

Yay! Very okay kisses!

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:06 pm (UTC)

Awesome!

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:07 pm (UTC)

Yes, quite. Neither of them is particularly accomplished, but they will soon fix that.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:08 pm (UTC)

Dao is okay with taking his time to get this one right.

learn the healing arts

roc_on

Beila studies waterbending, and when she has the basics (waves, ice, the water whip, other relatively simple forms) she's permitted to specialize in healing.

Later on she'll be able to volunteer at a hospital and get her practice in that way, but to start, her teacher advocates practicing on oneself - just a few times, to get a feel for what one's healing bending is doing on both ends at the same time. This dojo produces more and better healers than most, so Beila's inclined to agree with the practice. It's only a few minor injuries, the teacher will be right there to patch her up if Beila doesn't manage the trick by the end of the lesson, and - it's not like she minds, in the right mindset.

Beila gets this faster relative to other students than she did the ordinary waterbending forms. The teacher says she has a natural aptitude. Over the course of her three-hour lesson she heals several burns (these are the easiest injuries to handle with waterbending) and then moves on to slicing her palm shallowly and then pressing healing water into the cut.

It's almost meditative, almost hypnotic. The teacher is satisfied she doesn't need immediate oversight and has gone to see to another student; Beila loses track of time. She's sitting in the dojo courtyard with her bowls of water (one bloody, one clear) and slicing her hand open again at the time her boyfriend is supposed to pick her up.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:20 pm (UTC)

Dao shows up right on time.

Dao is surprised.

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:24 pm (UTC)

Beila doesn't notice him right away. She holds her hand over the blood-tinted bowl and pulls up a blob of water from the clear one. It glows when it heals; she tilts her head back with a relaxed hmmm. When the cut is gone she lets the water drip into the bowl under her hand.

Then she notices him.

"Oh, hi! I finally got to healing lessons," she says with a bright smile.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:29 pm (UTC)

"...I can see that!" he manages after a second or two. "Hi."

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:30 pm (UTC)

"Did I spook you? It's all very safe, Shifu Hayaka is a master healer if I messed up somehow and besides I'm apparently really good at this."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:32 pm (UTC)

"I am maybe a tiny bit spooked," Dao admits. "But I'm glad you're really good at this!"
Edited 2013-04-15 20:36 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:36 pm (UTC)

"Yeah! After today there's supposedly no added benefit to continuing to practice on myself instead of other people except that I'm, you know, convenient, so I'll be volunteering at a hospital for a while, which'll be the first real usefulness I'll get out of anything Avatar-related."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:39 pm (UTC)

"Congratulations, I guess!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:43 pm (UTC)

"Thanks! I'll go dump these bowls and we can go dance." Off she traipses with the bowls, and then she comes back to hold hands with him. (He gets the same one she cut.)

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:45 pm (UTC)

Dao squeezes her hand gently.

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:47 pm (UTC)

The dance club is walkable distance from the waterbending dojo; she doesn't bother to whistle for Liqing. "How's your afternoon been?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:50 pm (UTC)

"My afternoon has been pretty good."

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Do anything cool?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 08:56 pm (UTC)

"Not as cool as you!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 08:58 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, but I already know what I've been doing for the past three hours."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:01 pm (UTC)

"Three hours, really? Doesn't it... you know... hurt?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:03 pm (UTC)

"The healing part actually feels really pleasant! And it was only little injuries, anyway. I can handle it." She looks like she's considering saying something else, but appears to decide against it.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:06 pm (UTC)

"...Pleasant? Really?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:07 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I was surprised too, I've never been badly injured enough to get water healer attention," Beila says. "But it does. All cool and soothing."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:08 pm (UTC)

Dao considers this.

Then he says, "Wanna practice on me?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:10 pm (UTC)

"You wanna see what it feels like? I can do that, although you'd only be useful practice if you were really wrecked, now I know how to do the simple stuff... Don't have the knife anymore, it's the dojo's... I know the water whip, a little one would do a shallow cut?" she says, thinking.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:12 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, sure!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:14 pm (UTC)

Beila pulls out her water bottle, and threads a bit of water from it. "Pick a hand," she says as the water sways like a cobrapython.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:14 pm (UTC)

He offers his left.

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:17 pm (UTC)

The water swats down across his hand and opens a little cut, nothing serious, barely bleeding. Beila then forms the same water into a blob.

As advertised, it's cool and soothing, like pouring chilly water over a burn or kneading a tense muscle or scratching an itch.

"See?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:21 pm (UTC)

"Nice," he marvels, and hugs her impulsively.

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:22 pm (UTC)

Hugs! Yay! "Isn't it neat?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:26 pm (UTC)

"It is awesome and you are awesome," he declares.

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:29 pm (UTC)

Beila grins and kisses him and they proceed onward to the dance place.

She has to cheat with airbending a lot to be able to move how she wants without falling, but she has a lot of practice, and she loves it.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:32 pm (UTC)

Dao is not very good at dancing, but he is both enthusiastic and trainable!

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:33 pm (UTC)

Beila is happy to train him!

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:36 pm (UTC)

That works out nicely, then, doesn't it.

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:38 pm (UTC)

It does! Whee! This club has a high ceiling and attracts airbenders for that reason; Beila and a number of other patrons spend a while close to the ceiling.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:43 pm (UTC)

Dao admires his flying girlfriend!

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:45 pm (UTC)

The crowd thins out a bit after an hour; people are leaving to get dinner.

"Want me to take you up too?" Beila asks, landing near him and taking his hands in hers.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:45 pm (UTC)

"...Sure! Please don't drop me," he laughs.

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:46 pm (UTC)

"I won't." She hugs him and sweeps one leg out and up they waft, spinning and surrounded by wind.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:47 pm (UTC)

"You are so awesome," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:48 pm (UTC)

"It's good that you know that." She kisses him as they spiral gently down again.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:51 pm (UTC)

He kisses back, beaming happily.

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:53 pm (UTC)

"Want to get dinner?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:55 pm (UTC)

"Yes I do!"

roc_on
2013-04-15 09:56 pm (UTC)

"Awesome. How does South Polar sound? I could go for a sea prune right about now."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 09:57 pm (UTC)

"South Polar sounds fine to me," Dao says cheerfully.

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:04 pm (UTC)

They find a nice South Polar restaurant and are seated at a little table in the back. Beila orders the sea prunes.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:05 pm (UTC)

Dao orders something else!

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:11 pm (UTC)

Om nom. "Do you have anything planned after dinner? There's something I wanna talk about. Not in a crowded restaurant, I'm not that good at soundbending."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:11 pm (UTC)

"Nope! We can totally go talk somewhere after dinner."

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:12 pm (UTC)

"Is your dad going to be home? My parents will be."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:19 pm (UTC)

"My dad will probably not be home."

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:20 pm (UTC)

"Okay then, we can go to your house."

Om nom nom prune.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:21 pm (UTC)

Om nom nom food!

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:22 pm (UTC)

And then they go to his house, on Liqing. Beila is clearly edgy but determined to go through with telling him - whatever.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:28 pm (UTC)

Dao opens his front door and leads her inside.

It's a small place, and not very well decorated or maintained, but it's clean and has chairs and tables.

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:31 pm (UTC)

Beila sits.

"So, this is kind of awkward, and given that we aren't even having sex yet maybe it's premature, but I really like you and it would be harder to find out in a month than right away if we're not going to work long term, so I decided to go ahead and tell you today. Um." She sighs. "I'm - sorta kinky?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:33 pm (UTC)

"...Define 'sorta kinky'," Dao says slowly.

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:37 pm (UTC)

"Like, I did not mind slicing my hand open as long as I was in the right headspace first," Beila says. "I'm not sure how far it goes. I only just learned to heal today so I haven't, um, played with it much, and naive introspection only goes so far. Oh, and stereotypes aside, I might be a masochist but I'm not ocean-aspected, like, at all."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:39 pm (UTC)

"...I am not even sure I know what that means," says Dao. "Ocean-aspected, I mean, I know what a masochist is."

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:40 pm (UTC)

"Ocean-aspected means liking to be bossed around. Contrasted with moon-aspect. Moon pulls, tide follows." She makes a wavy gesture.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:41 pm (UTC)

"Gotcha," says Dao. "Okay. Um. You're kind of awesome, have I mentioned that recently?"

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:42 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, not long ago. You're taking this well," she remarks.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 10:44 pm (UTC)

Dao blushes.

roc_on
2013-04-15 10:45 pm (UTC)

"Aaaaaand now you are blushing."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:07 pm (UTC)

"Yep," he says, still blushing.

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:08 pm (UTC)

Beila waits.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:16 pm (UTC)

"I am blushing because you're a masochist," he says. "Is why I am blushing."

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:17 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but why does that cause blushing?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:22 pm (UTC)

"Um because I like it," he mumbles.

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:23 pm (UTC)

"Ooh."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:25 pm (UTC)

Blushy blushy blush.

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:26 pm (UTC)

Beila's going to sit here and enjoy the cuteness and wait for him to elaborate.

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:33 pm (UTC)

He seems to just be blushing a lot!

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:35 pm (UTC)

"Were you going to be any more specific?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:36 pm (UTC)

"How much more specific do you want me to get?" he asks, half-laughing.

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:37 pm (UTC)

"I dunno. I guess there's no rush."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:38 pm (UTC)

"Well - good. I guess."

He covers his face with his hands and hangs his head.

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:39 pm (UTC)

"Are - are you okay? I was worried you'd be weirded out, but you seem to be having some completely unrelated reaction that I don't understand."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:40 pm (UTC)

"You don't weird me out," he says. "I weird me out."

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:41 pm (UTC)

"...Why?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:44 pm (UTC)

"Because I am weird," he mumbles into his hands.

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:44 pm (UTC)

"So'm I."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:45 pm (UTC)

"Yeah but you're okay weird," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:46 pm (UTC)

"'Okay weird'? What does that mean?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:54 pm (UTC)

"It means you are weird in a way that is okay," Dao says to the insides of his hands, "and I am weird in a way that is not okay, is why I was scared when you turned out to be the Avatar, is why I blush at weird times and then don't want to talk about why, is why horror movies are my favourite kind, is why I like it that you're a masochist."
Edited 2013-04-15 23:54 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:55 pm (UTC)

Beila blinks.

"I'm not sure what me being the Avatar has to do with anything? I don't have - kink sensing powers. And if I did I wouldn't be judgy."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:56 pm (UTC)

"Aargh," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-15 11:57 pm (UTC)

Beila reaches out and pets his hair. "I wanna help you but I don't really get what the problem is. Like, so far, this sounds really convenient, except you're all distressed on top of that."

thinklikethis
2013-04-15 11:59 pm (UTC)

"I'm distressed because the things I think about doing to people sometimes are distressing," Dao says helplessly.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:00 am (UTC)

"Okay, but, that's just thinking. You haven't hurt anybody, have you?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:02 am (UTC)

"No!"

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:03 am (UTC)

She slides her hand off his hair and takes his hand in hers instead. "Then it's okay."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:05 am (UTC)

He intertwines their fingers and leans his face against the back of her hand.

"Man, you make it sound so easy," he sighs.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:07 am (UTC)

"Well, why can't it be?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:12 am (UTC)

"Because I've been hating myself over it for years and it has, like, momentum now?"
Edited 2013-04-16 00:13 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:14 am (UTC)

She kisses the top of his head. "Well, I don't hate you for it. I think it's convenient. Unless you have enough issues around it that you're not going to let it be convenient when we get there?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:16 am (UTC)

"You do have those super spiffy healing powers," he reminds her. "I think I can maybe handle some convenience."

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:17 am (UTC)

"They are super spiffy! I had not gotten around to deciding what to do about not having them, before I got named, and now I don't have to."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:18 am (UTC)

He smiles a little.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:18 am (UTC)

"Like, I imagine kinky couples where neither party is a waterbender must figure something out, but drowned if I know what."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:19 am (UTC)

"Um - maybe they - do things - that heal pretty well by themselves," says Dao, blushing furiously.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:20 am (UTC)

"Maybe. You are so blushy and it is so cute."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:22 am (UTC)

"I am pretty blushy!" he agrees. "And I guess if you think it's cute I'm not complaining!"

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:23 am (UTC)

Beila giggles and squeezes his hand.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:25 am (UTC)

He smiles tentatively.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:26 am (UTC)

"Well," says Beila. "This wasn't really how I expected this conversation to turn out, but it's better than 'okay, I can't deal with that, we should break up', right?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:26 am (UTC)

"It is way better than that!" says Dao. "Way, way better."

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:27 am (UTC)

She kisses him.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:28 am (UTC)

He kisses back.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:29 am (UTC)

Oh good, it would be so awkward otherwise.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:29 am (UTC)

Well it is maybe a tiny bit awkward.

But kisses!

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:32 am (UTC)

Kisses! Yes. It is not yet the time for any significant amount of convenience. Beila wouldn't exactly mind if he pulled her hair or something but he's never been the type to make guesses and that's fine too.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:34 am (UTC)

Definitely not a guesser.

Kisses, though. Those he can do.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:37 am (UTC)

"So -" says Beila, after a suitable number of kisses have been exchanged. "When you said you were spooked did that mean something other than spooked?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:41 am (UTC)

"...yep," he admits.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:43 am (UTC)

Beila giggles.

And then: "After that did you just want to see what getting healed felt like, or...?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:44 am (UTC)

"Moooostly," he says, ducking his head a little.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:45 am (UTC)

"Mooooostly," she echoes softly, and she kisses his forehead. "And the rest?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:46 am (UTC)

"Um. The rest. Yeah. There was some... rest."

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:47 am (UTC)

"Don't wanna talk about it?" she asks, puzzled.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:50 am (UTC)

"I'm just not as good at catching snakenewts as you are," he snorts.

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:50 am (UTC)

"I had to practice," she says gently.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 12:53 am (UTC)

"Well - I still don't really know what the rest is, I just know it's there."

roc_on
2013-04-16 12:54 am (UTC)

"Yeah, when I first got the idea there was something to find when I was thirteen I had to spend a lot of time sitting with my screen staring at the ceiling making guesses and seeing if they sounded good or not-good and in what ways," Beila says, "it's not like the snakenewts all line up and I just have to put them in a basket."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:05 am (UTC)

"...Like what kind of guesses?"

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:12 am (UTC)

"How much do you wanna know?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:13 am (UTC)

"...I think I want to know lots!" says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:17 am (UTC)

"Okay. Unsupported by experiment, I think cuts and burns and hair-pulling are good, strangulation and having my movement restricted and actual hitting are bad. For instance."
Edited 2013-04-16 01:19 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:21 am (UTC)

"...Was healing practice not enough experimentation to figure out your feelings on cuts?"

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:29 am (UTC)

"And burns! But no, not really, these were little, I don't think I had to be kinky, especially since I'm not attracted to Shifu Hayaka. I mean I haven't messed with those things in context."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:31 am (UTC)

"Okay," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:32 am (UTC)

"Questions, comments?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:33 am (UTC)

"I really like you, you know that?"

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:34 am (UTC)

"I am happily reminded on a daily basis."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:35 am (UTC)

He grins. "Okay."

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:39 am (UTC)

"But I meant questions or comments about the details."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:40 am (UTC)

"Um... I dunno," he says, blushing.

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:41 am (UTC)

"Or you don't wanna say."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:43 am (UTC)

"No, like - I have to let myself think about it first, and I have all this practice doing the exact opposite of that, so it's hard."

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:47 am (UTC)

"I don't suppose I can help?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:50 am (UTC)

"Uh... I dunno," he says. "Still getting used to the part where I can talk about it, at all, to anybody."

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:51 am (UTC)

Beila pats his hand.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:52 am (UTC)

He smiles a tiny little smile.

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:54 am (UTC)

"Do you want to talk about it or d'you want me to go away for a while and let you get some processing done?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 01:56 am (UTC)

"Um... is there a third option?"

roc_on
2013-04-16 01:58 am (UTC)

"I could... sit here and read stuff on my screen while you think?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:04 am (UTC)

"I mean an option where I am hanging out with you and not thinking about... conveniences," he says.

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:06 am (UTC)

"Oh." Pause. "Yeah, sure, if that's what you want to do, we can talk about - I dunno, that book we started in Literature, it looks terrible, I don't think a single thing anyone wrote during the Hundred Years' War was not terribly depressing."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:08 am (UTC)

He laughs. "I'm sure there's some book somewhere from around then that's not, but you're right, it's a theme for sure."

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:11 am (UTC)

"I wonder what the Literature class book selection process is like. Like, are the teachers all sitting in a room at some point between terms going, 'Okay, let's flip a yuan, and if it lands elements we'll use this story about an earthbender coming of age under Fire Nation rule, and if it lands statue we'll use that one about the same exact thing."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:13 am (UTC)

Dao cracks up.

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:16 am (UTC)

"I mean, I'm sure there are six interesting ways to handle that premise. But there aren't forty, and there aren't forty plus a hundred-odd sequels, and it's not a particularly landmark feature of literature, it's just something that got a lot of attention for a century. But because it got so much attention we have to read one. Could be worse, we could be reading terrible thinly veiled political rants about bender/nonbender conflict early in Korra's time."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:17 am (UTC)

He giggles.

"Terrible thinly veiled political rants are nobody's friend!"

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:19 am (UTC)

"That entire segment of history actually really bothers me. I think it deserved, like, a better class of villain, if that makes sense. The nonbenders had legitimate grievances but they had to wait thirty years to make any progress on them because of Amon and the fallout from the mess he made of things."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:21 am (UTC)

"...yeah, I see what you mean."

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:29 am (UTC)

"Korra didn't handle it that well, either. She had every opportunity to play that whole situation but she got pushed around by politics and scare tactics. I mean, I'd be terrified if someone were threatening to de-bend me, but the solution to that situation is not to throw in with the ass who's curfewing random nonbenders. I disavow identity with her," Beila adds, nodding to herself.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:30 am (UTC)

"Can you even do that? I mean, she was the Avatar, you're the Avatar, you're not the same person but you're... kind of the same person."

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:34 am (UTC)

"I dunno. I inherited her powers, but, I'm really not seeing any personal similarity. Between me and her, or her and Aang, or any of the three of us and Meixing or Tendo or Roku or Kyoshi, or - we're different people. We're all lined up neatly and we have this particular relationship to each other, but the parts of people that make them people aren't the same between us. I mean, there are animals that bend, having the same bending powers does not make me Korra any more than it makes me a skybisondragonbadgermolemoonspirit."
Edited 2013-04-16 02:34 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:38 am (UTC)

"...I'm just gonna take a moment to appreciate that mental image," giggles Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:39 am (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:41 am (UTC)

"I don't really know what a moon spirit looks like, so I'm just imagining something... long and undulatey with big whiskers and a lot of limbs. And very fluffy. But with a scaly underbelly. I might have to carve this," he snorts.

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:42 am (UTC)

"That," says Beila, "would be hilarious, and you should totally do it."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:44 am (UTC)

He giggles some more.

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:45 am (UTC)

"I've never seen a badgermole. I've seen sky bison, and once I saw a dragon, but never a badgermole. Should probably arrange to do that sometime when I get to earthbending."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:48 am (UTC)

"I've seen, like, pictures of all those things!"

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:49 am (UTC)

"Have you not even seen a sky bison? People fly them to and from the city sometimes. The folks who came to tell me I was the Avatar showed up on one."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:50 am (UTC)

"Not up close. I might've caught sight of one off in the distance once or twice."

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:51 am (UTC)

"I could take you to the nearest air temple sometime and you could meet a bunch. They might lick you, though."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 02:58 am (UTC)

"I think I'll pass."

roc_on
2013-04-16 02:59 am (UTC)

"You don't want a gigantic sky bison to slurp you? I'm astonished."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:00 am (UTC)

"Astonishingly, I am not into being slurped by large animals! Actually, make that any size animals!"

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:01 am (UTC)

"Not even cute little puppykittens?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:02 am (UTC)

"No!" he says firmly. "No slurping."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:03 am (UTC)

"Awwww, I can't believe you wouldn't let a fluffy little puppykitten lick your hand."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:04 am (UTC)

He covers his face with his hands and giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:05 am (UTC)

"Or a goatpuppy, those also lick people," Beila says. "Ranyi sometimes goes through phases of wanting a goatpuppy."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:07 am (UTC)

"I have never wanted a goatpuppy in my life."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:08 am (UTC)

"Me either, I'm generally the one to argue her out of it. I don't mind playing with ones that belong to other people but I prefer my nice low-maintenance non-licking-inclined giant bird."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:09 am (UTC)

"Rocs are cool," Dao agrees.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:10 am (UTC)

"Especially my roc! I was so thrilled when I got her - I had to be certified glider-safe first or Chali wouldn't hear of it - and I got my own egg and rented an incubator and I checked on her three times a day to see if she'd hatched yet, it was constantly exciting even though nothing was happening."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:11 am (UTC)

"Spirits, that's adorable," snorts Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:13 am (UTC)

"It was! I was a very cute nine-year-old. And then she did hatch, and she made this little peeping noise and she was only about as long as my arm - wrist to shoulder - and I had to feed her till she was old enough to fish on her own, but that only took a couple months."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:14 am (UTC)

"Awwwwwwwwww," says Dao, and he hugs her.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:15 am (UTC)

Hugs!

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:16 am (UTC)

Snuggy hugs.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:16 am (UTC)

Snuggy happy hugs. Kisses?

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:17 am (UTC)

Kisses!

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:18 am (UTC)

Yay!

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:19 am (UTC)

Snuggy happy kisses!

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:20 am (UTC)

Lap-sitting? Happy snuggy lap-sitting hugs?
Edited 2013-04-16 03:20 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:21 am (UTC)

...You know what, yes. Absolutely.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:22 am (UTC)

Oh goody.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:24 am (UTC)

Also kisses.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:24 am (UTC)

Those are one of Beila's favorite things!

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:27 am (UTC)

Awesome! Because Dao is pretty fond of them, too.
Edited 2013-04-16 03:27 (UTC)

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:29 am (UTC)

Good, good. Pleasedness with the situation all around.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:34 am (UTC)

Yaaaaaay.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:35 am (UTC)

"We at any risk of your dad walking in and wanting to know why there is an Avatar in your lap?" Beila murmurs.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:36 am (UTC)

"Nah, probably not."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:37 am (UTC)

"We at any risk of him showing up and already having a very good idea why there might be an Avatar in your lap?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:39 am (UTC)

"I think if he shows up he will probably figure it out all by himself," snorts Dao. "But I don't think he'll show up."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:42 am (UTC)

"Wait, does he know about me," wonders Beila, "or would there in fact be figuring to do?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:52 am (UTC)

"Nah, he doesn't, why?"

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:53 am (UTC)

"I dunno, we've been dating for a while, my parents know."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 11:42 am (UTC)

"Well, mine doesn't."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:21 pm (UTC)

"Is he going to continue to not till you come up in an interview or some amateur photographer takes a picture of us or something? Like, if you have reasons to keep it quiet, that's okay, but my life is not set up to make that indefinitely possible."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:27 pm (UTC)

Dao blinks at her.

Then he says, "I, uh, don't actually think he'd care. Which is why I haven't bothered telling him. It's not like you're a secret."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:28 pm (UTC)

"...Oh." Pause. "That's... unusual."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:29 pm (UTC)

"I guess." He shrugs. "Dad just doesn't care about much."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:30 pm (UTC)

"That sounds hard." Beila leans her head on his shoulder.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:32 pm (UTC)

"I'm used to it," he says, snuggling her a little. "No big deal to me. It'd be weird if he started paying attention."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:34 pm (UTC)

"If you say so. I'm used to my parents wanting to interact way more than I do. I love them but they're not that interesting."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:36 pm (UTC)

Dao snorts.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:39 pm (UTC)

"Like, Chali and Ranyi are both really sweet, and they probably are actually reasonably interesting when they're at work - I took introductory airbending lessons with Ranyi, she's a good teacher even if she's not qualified enough in airbending to handle higher levels - but when they get home they just argue about whether it's fair for airbending to still be excluded from league-level probending, or talk about how the neighbor's sparrowkeet got loose and if you see it please tell her, etcetera. Fine in small doses, nice to come home to, not how I want to spend all my time."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Why do you call them by name all the time?" he wonders.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:44 pm (UTC)

"I don't always, I address them to their faces as Mom and Dad, now and then I'll do it other times too. It just seems natural to me to default to using their names. Those are their names, I'm the only person in the world who'd be expected to call them anything different outside a professional context. Like, Chali wouldn't ask you to call him Chief Guxiao, even, not unless you got arrested."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Okay, that makes sense."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:47 pm (UTC)

"I'd probably call them Mom and Dad all the time if they called me Daughter all the time," Beila laughs.

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:48 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:50 pm (UTC)

"I think you're actually the first person to ask about that habit of mine, and now I'm wondering if half the people at school quietly think I'm adopted and keeping my guardians at arm's length or something. Which isn't it at all. It'd be weird and distancing if they called me Daughter and not my name. I don't see why it'd be different the other way around."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 03:54 pm (UTC)

"Well... it's different the other way around because people expect you to call your parents Mom and Dad but they don't expect your parents to call you Daughter. So if you're not calling them Mom and Dad, people will feel like there must be some reason you don't do that, and if they don't ask you, the easiest thing to assume is that you're not calling them that because you don't want to call them that - because you don't want to relate them to you that way."

roc_on
2013-04-16 03:58 pm (UTC)

"Sure, I'm not conforming to the expectation, I get that. I just think the expectation is weird. Ancestor relationships are the only thing we do that to. No one expects me to call you Boyfriend or my friends Friend or if I had a sibling to call them Sister or Brother, but a parent or grandparent gets titled, all the time."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 04:01 pm (UTC)

"Maybe it's because ancestor relationships are more important," he suggests. "Theoretically."

roc_on
2013-04-16 04:04 pm (UTC)

"If I had a sibling I think I could easily be more close to him or her than to my parents," says Beila. "Maybe that's not supposed to be true, for some reason."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 04:08 pm (UTC)

"Well, and you might have a lot of sisters or brothers, but you usually only have one mom, two grandmas, and so on."

roc_on
2013-04-16 04:09 pm (UTC)

"Me and Ranyi are technically descended from Avatar Aang, and this is important because he's famous and the reason there are still any airbenders, and stuff, and there's only one of him, but we don't count the intervening generations and call him some-number-of-greats-Grandfather, we just call him Aang," Beila points out.
Edited 2013-04-16 16:09 (UTC)

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 04:12 pm (UTC)

"...well, yeah," says Dao. "There's only one Avatar Aang. You probably have a lot of dead great-great-great-and-so-on-grandfathers. But there are a whole bunch of people named Ranyi, probably, and only one of them is your mom. See what I mean?"

roc_on
2013-04-16 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Lots of them are somebody's mom. Way more people get called Mom than get called Ranyi."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 04:13 pm (UTC)

"Only one of them gets called Mom by you," he counters.

roc_on
2013-04-16 04:15 pm (UTC)

"Okay, but that wouldn't necessarily be the case, if Spirits forbid they divorced and Chali remarried some nice lady, if I liked her enough I might start calling her Mom, at least to her face."

thinklikethis
2013-04-16 04:15 pm (UTC)

He shrugs. "I guess."

the mighty spirits

roc_on

Beila has been volunteering at the hospital for a week now. About four percent of the population can waterbend, and all benders have to be trained some just to control their powers instead of being plagued by constant accident, but most don't acquire significant skill, and most don't specialize in healing. There is always more demand for waterbenders than there are waterbenders to be had, so Beila's working alongside nonbending and other-element doctors and nurses and techs. They start her in the burn ward, because burns are easiest and Avatar or no she's a novice, and she washes away hurts and refuses to sign autographs and takes her legally required twenty-minute breaks at regular intervals and then heals more.

The school term ends. Beila withdraws from classes. She writes an open letter about that, thanking the teachers and so on for their time and attention, explaining her decision, and she puts it up on the public-facing official Avatar screenserver that the nuns set up for her. She divides her time between classes with Shifu Hayaka, volunteer work at the hospital, intensive meditation, reading, and Dao.

She's with Dao when the earthquake hits, sitting on her roof while he does homework and she reads.

The ground shakes like gelatin, and Beila's been airbending to keep from falling over too long to react with anything other than an instinctive shove of air; but the air is sluggish, reluctant, something is wrong.

The roof has a view of the sea, and the sea is bubbling - no steam, it's not boiling, it's just angry -

And the air is too warm.

Something has the elements spectacularly agitated.

And Beila doesn't know what.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 11:20 am (UTC)

Dao yelps.

roc_on
2013-04-26 04:26 pm (UTC)

The earthquake doesn't last forever. And Beila's house is structurally equipped to withstand it, although there is some ominous ongoing rumbling and trembling from distant parts of the city. The sea settles.

The air is still hot. And Beila experimentally blows a puff at her hand. It obeys, but not eagerly.

"Something's wrong," she murmurs.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 04:34 pm (UTC)

"I can tell that much by myself," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-26 04:40 pm (UTC)

Beila chews her lip. "The earthquake is the most immediately dangerous part - if earthbenders weren't able to calm it, it must've - DAD," Beila calls, making with wobbly inadequately-supported steps for the stairs down. "Dad - that quake - did it feel normal? - you've been in quakes before, haven't you -"

"Wasn't touching the earth, little bird, and you know I mostly work in metal," says Chali, troubled. "...Bigger than most though. Didn't feel becalmed at all."

Beila tries another puff of air. She turns the faucet - nothing, apparently the pipes were disturbed in the quake - she spits into the sink and tries to bend that, and it'll go, but - not readily.

"Not just an earthquake - something else - has somebody been annoying a spirit, a big spirit - or several spirits -" she mutters.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 05:10 pm (UTC)

Dao trails around after her, looking worried and confused.

roc_on
2013-04-26 05:13 pm (UTC)

Chali's pager goes off. He's supposed to go downtown and help with crowd control and rescue efforts.

"Little bird," he says as he picks up his armor from where the quake knocked it, "should you be at the hospital?"

Beila shakes her head, looking at her clenched hands. "I'm one more half-trained healer, there, they'll be triaging like mad and I'm not qualified to help with the worst of it - and my bending's not working right anyway -"

Chali nods. "Stay safe," he mutters, and he's out the door.

"I need to try to go into the spirit world and find out what's wrong," Beila tells Dao.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 05:35 pm (UTC)

"Um... okay," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-26 05:36 pm (UTC)

"I need you to be - present, and sort of - look after me, because if this works I'm not going to be in my body and something could fall on me if there's another quake and I could die."

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 05:39 pm (UTC)

"...okay," he repeats. "I guess I'll try not to let anything fall on you, then."

roc_on
2013-04-26 05:48 pm (UTC)

Beila gives him a quick kiss, and assumes the lotus position on a cushion, and closes her eyes.

Breathe. (Though the air comes too slow, too hot, she's sweating now.)

Feel her heartbeat. (It slows as she calms herself, steadies.)

Reach for spirits.

There's a spirit!

She's never done this before. She doesn't recognize it till she's already reached out and touched it, and then she opens her eyes and this is not her house that she's in.

That they're in.

"...Oops."

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 06:04 pm (UTC)

"Yeah," says Dao. "Oops is right. Well, I hope the roof doesn't collapse on us."

roc_on
2013-04-26 06:07 pm (UTC)

"It shouldn't," says Beila uncertainly. "Earthquakes aren't uncommon exactly, just that was an unusually bad one, and the house survived that - I'm sorry. Figuring out how to put you back in your body could take a while, I know how to go back myself, at least in theory, but I don't even know quite how I brought you along for the ride. The spirit could start throwing around more power any moment and I need to find it now."

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 06:10 pm (UTC)

"So what do I do? Follow you around and try not to get in the way?"

roc_on
2013-04-26 06:14 pm (UTC)

"Or stay here by our bodies, up to you, but we could run into any number of things I have a better shot at defending against than you do so you might want to stick with me," Beila says uncertainly.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 06:22 pm (UTC)

"...I think I'll stick with you," he decides.

roc_on
2013-04-26 06:53 pm (UTC)

Beila nods once, takes a step, and immediately falls on her face.

"...She told me, she warned me," Beila mutters, picking herself up with difficulty, "no bending in the spirit world, bending doesn't work in the spirit world, I did not think this through -" She gets on her feet, takes three more steps, and trips again and catches herself on a spirit tree only with great difficulty. "I've been using airbending to get around since before I could walk. Cinders, cinders and dust -" She tries again, gets a little farther, trips again. "I am apparently unable to walk without airbending. Do you suppose you can carry me or do I need to go get us out of here and find a way to bring Liqing in?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 06:54 pm (UTC)

"I can probably carry you," says Dao.

He picks her up.

roc_on
2013-04-26 06:58 pm (UTC)

"Thank you," says Beila. And she looks around, and thinks, and concentrates, and points in a direction.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 07:00 pm (UTC)

Dao goes that way.

roc_on
2013-04-26 07:02 pm (UTC)

Beila is alert, and thoughtful, and tense in his arms. She redirects him a few times, following clues that are not obvious to anyone but the Avatar.

It's a long walk, and on their way, the world shakes - only visually; there is no instability under Dao's feet - and Beila winces.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 07:03 pm (UTC)

He has to put her down and rest once or twice, but mostly, he just carries her.

roc_on
2013-04-26 07:11 pm (UTC)

Eventually, they come to a sort of... pit. While the spirit world looks like wilderness through and through, they are presently in the part of town that corresponds to a neighborhood of refineries.

From the bottom of the pit is a low-pitched rumbling moan that starts up when they approach and dies down a moment later.

"Put me down," Beila murmurs.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 07:12 pm (UTC)

Dao puts her down.

roc_on
2013-04-26 07:58 pm (UTC)

Beila gets down on the ground and creeps forward - sensible of her, given that she can't walk very well and it's a long way down - and peeps into the pit.

"Hello!" she calls.

The moaning starts up again.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 08:00 pm (UTC)

Dao hangs back worriedly.

roc_on
2013-04-26 08:20 pm (UTC)

"I'm the Avatar," Beila calls into the pit. "Are you upset? I want to help."

"Avatar," rumbles the thing in the pit.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 08:21 pm (UTC)

Dao worries some more!

roc_on
2013-04-26 08:53 pm (UTC)

"Yes," says Beila. "I've come to find out what's wrong."

"Tell them to stop," rumbles the spirit.

"I will carry messages for you, but I must know who to carry them to," Beila says.

"They who promised me."

"You've been promised that someone would stop something and they haven't?"

"Yes," growls the voice.

"Who is it? What do they need to stop?"

"Pouring."

"Someone is pouring something somewhere and promised to stop and didn't."

"Yes."

"Is this happening - here? In this corresponding place in the physical world?"

"Yes."

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 08:55 pm (UTC)

...Where are they? Dao looks around, although he isn't sure that's going to help.

roc_on
2013-04-26 09:04 pm (UTC)

It's really not. They didn't walk far enough to be out of Republic City, and this is clearly a giant sinkhole in a forest with ludicrously enormous trees.

"What are you?" Beila asks the spirit.

"The pocket," says the spirit.

"A pocket of - something under the ground? Magma, water, air -"

"Yes."

Beila gulps.

"Who promised you?"

"Humans," says the voice. "Lying humans."

"Names. A company, an individual, a group -"

"Humans," repeats the spirit.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 09:13 pm (UTC)

Maybe he'll pay attention on the walk back. If direction and distance even mean the same thing here that they do in the material world.

roc_on
2013-04-26 09:25 pm (UTC)

"Do you manifest?" Beila asks.

"Yes."

"What are you, when you do?"

"I am myself."

"Has anyone named your manifestation?" Beila tries.

"No."

"Do you look like an animal? A human?"

"No."

"I will carry your message. Please calm down while I do it. It is harder to travel in the physical world while a powerful spirit is upset."

"Lying humans."

"I'm the Avatar," Beila reminds it.

"Avatar," it muses. "Yes."

"Will you be calm for - three days?" offers Beila. "And I will spend those days looking for the humans who lied to you so I can pass on your message."

"If you lie I will listen to no more promises," rumbles the spirit.

Beila swallows again.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 11:11 pm (UTC)

Dao hangs back and frets.

roc_on
2013-04-26 11:15 pm (UTC)

"Is there anything else you want to say?" Beila asks the spirit.

"No," it rumbles. "Make them stop."

"I will carry your message," Beila says.

It rumbles without words and falls silent, and Beila creeps back from the edge of the pit and manages to stand up and position herself near Dao for picking-up. "I'm going to try to count your steps while we go. I'm pretty sure we traveled north and a little east; help me out and mind the sun when we can see it. It'll be a start at finding what place matches the pit."

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 11:18 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I was thinking that," says Dao. "Will do."

roc_on
2013-04-26 11:22 pm (UTC)

Beila counts steps, and peers at the sun when it's visible, as they go back the way they came.

thinklikethis
2013-04-26 11:41 pm (UTC)

Dao does likewise.

roc_on
2013-04-27 12:45 am (UTC)

When they get back to the spirit-shadows of their bodies, which appear to have fallen on their sides in the second quake but aren't obviously injured, Beila says, "Okay, um, I have a set of instructions for how to get back into my body. Which I really, really hope apply to you. You have to line up with it, and then - we aren't actually breathing, here, it's just easy to feel like we are because breathing feels like normal to us, but there's no air to breathe and no real bodies to need it even though we're sort of pretending on both counts. You focus on breathing, which you are doing in your body and are not doing here, and this should, on top of being lined up with yourself, put you back in your body. Try it, I'll wait for you."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 12:47 am (UTC)

Dao tries it.

It takes him some trying, but then - poof. He's back in himself.

roc_on
2013-04-27 12:56 am (UTC)

Beila follows, and sits up. The air feels normal again.

"Okay," she says, "now we - walk thataway, I guess," and she rummages around under fallen objects for her screen so she'll be able to do some simple geometry on the way to compensate for not being able to walk in as straight a line as the forest permitted. (The trees in the spirit world are huge; they are none of them the size of city blocks.)

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 12:59 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Dao.

Off they go.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:00 am (UTC)

"I didn't know bringing you into the spirit world with me was even possible," Beila muses, counting steps, pausing to account for an office building in the way, counting more steps.

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:02 am (UTC)

"Me neither," he says wryly.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:02 am (UTC)

"I guess I'll ask the nuns about it. You're okay, right? You feel normal?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:03 am (UTC)

"Yep! As far as I can tell, anyway."

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:04 am (UTC)

"Okay, well, tell me if that proves to be - temporary or anything. I would be upset but not surprised if I'd managed to accidentally kill you, doing that, I would've taken precautions falling-over or no falling-over if I'd known it was a remote possibility."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:06 am (UTC)

"I'm so reassured," Dao mutters.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:06 am (UTC)

"I'm sorry!" exclaims Beila. "To the very best of my knowledge it's never happened before!"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:08 am (UTC)

He smiles and shakes his head. "Okay."

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:09 am (UTC)

Eventually she's coming up on the right number of steps, and she slows down. "Tell me if you see a sinkhole, anyone looking shifty, or - anything weird," she says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:09 am (UTC)

"Will do!"

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:12 am (UTC)

Beila switches to something of a grid search pattern here. There's a fair amount of earthquake damage, and she has to waft them over some rubble, but it's not unnavigable.

There's not exactly a sinkhole over there, but there are some long boards latticed over an area in an empty lot.

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:14 am (UTC)

"...That looks like a thing," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:16 am (UTC)

"Yes," says Beila. "Yes it does."

She heads for the thing.

She peers at the lattice of wood, then nudges aside one board with her foot. It moves readily. Under it is a deep, dark pit.

"Okay," she says, "my guess is whoever owns this lot met the spirit's manifestation and agreed to cover it up but didn't do it well enough and people are dumping things in here and the spirit of the underground river slash cave slash magma pocket is pissed off."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:17 am (UTC)

"So... solutions?" says Dao. "Cover it up better? Put up a sign? 'Do Not Dump Here, May Cause Earthquakes'?"

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:19 am (UTC)

"Sign draws attention to it. I think it just needs to be thoroughly covered up. And also I explicitly agreed to pass on the spirit's message so I need to find who owns this lot. I'll call Shifu Hayaka, failing that the nuns, I'm sure one of them knows an earthbender who can handle it. I don't know how to handle it myself yet. Here, you borrow my screen, look up the address in the recordhall files." She hands over her screen and chordpress and pulls out her phone.

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:24 am (UTC)

Dao looks up the address.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:27 am (UTC)

It belongs to some dude! His home address is on file. It's about a twenty minute walk from here.

"Hi, Shifu Hayaka. Yeah, it was, I figured it out. I need an earthbender - no, I don't have to do earthbending myself, just a specific job that needs doing. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes once whoever it is gets here. No, my father mostly works with metal, I need structural integrity. Do you know someone who - Shifu Hayaka, I've told you that it really bothers me to be interrupted. It's fine. Okay. We're at -" Beila rattles off the address. "We can wait."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:28 am (UTC)

He gives her the address.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:29 am (UTC)

"That's where the owner lives? Okay, he gets a visit after this place is shored up, then." Beila sits at the edge of the sinkhole to stand guard and wait. "Well, this has been an unreasonably exciting day."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:32 am (UTC)

"Yep," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:37 am (UTC)

"I'm going to call the nuns."

She calls the nuns.

"Hello, Master Dechen! Yes, I heard. Yes, I'm solving the problem. Yes, I'll tell you all about it, but first, I have a question. I went into the spirit world, and I had my boyfriend nearby, to watch my body. I accidentally pulled him in after me. No, Master Dechen, I didn't know that was possible, that's why I'm asking you. He got back in just fine, yeah. He seems all right. Yeah. No, just like normal, like me. Okay. You're sure? Okay."

Beila hangs up. "Master Dechen doesn't have a clue what happened either, sees no reason to expect you to suddenly keel over, and will look up some references to double-check."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:38 am (UTC)

Dao snorts.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:39 am (UTC)

"Please don't suddenly keel over, I'd be sad."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:40 am (UTC)

"I would be sad too," says Dao. "Well, no, I'd be dead. But I'd be sad about being dead, if that was an option."

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:41 am (UTC)

"Just don't be too sad about being dead or you'll be a mischievous kinda ghost. Shoot for a gentle melancholy."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:42 am (UTC)

He giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:43 am (UTC)

"And whatever you do, don't be angry about being dead! Especially not at me."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:44 am (UTC)

"Why, would I haunt you?"

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:44 am (UTC)

"You might! It would be really inconvenient. I could not at all miss you properly if you were haunting me, being obnoxious."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:48 am (UTC)

He snorts.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:51 am (UTC)

"Better yet, be alive," Beila says, reaching up from her sitting position for a hug.

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:51 am (UTC)

Dao sits down beside her and hugs her.

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:52 am (UTC)

Snuggles!

"I wonder how long it'll take to repair all the damage those quakes must've done," Beila muses.

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:55 am (UTC)

"A while, I bet."

roc_on
2013-04-27 01:58 am (UTC)

"Yeah. I hope they get the plumbing mostly handled promptly or it will be harder for waterbenders to help with disaster relief. I wonder how far those shocks spread, if it got the suburbs much..."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 01:59 am (UTC)

"I hope my place still has water."

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:01 am (UTC)

"If it doesn't you can crash with me for a few days, if nothing else I can ask Shifu Hayaka to teach me to separate salt from seawater, it doesn't look too hard."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:03 am (UTC)

...He hugs her.

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:03 am (UTC)

Hugs!

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:04 am (UTC)

Hugs.

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:14 am (UTC)

Eventually Hayaka's earthbender friend shows up. Beila explains the problem to him, and together they carefully remove all the wooden boards, and the earthbender sinks the entire lot to provide a good, thick covering for the sinkhole that should stand up to casual weight.

"I'll have to tell the guy not to build on this lot, at least not anything heavy," says Beila. "Or it'll just re-open."

"You could sit a house on this," says the earthbender. "Not an office building, I'd have to sink it deeper to give it that."

"Thank you very much for your help," Beila tells him.

"No thanks necessary, that earthquake was the spookiest thing I ever felt," says the earthbender, shaking his head. "If you say this'll stop it, I'm satisfied."

"It should," says Beila. She wafts up to a standing position. "Dao, d'you want to come along to talk to the owner?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:16 am (UTC)

"Sure," shrugs Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:17 am (UTC)

Thataway they go.

"You are very supportive," says Beila. "It's nice."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:18 am (UTC)

"Aww," he says, smiling.

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:20 am (UTC)

"Have you ever - interacted at all with spirits in any way, shape, or form? I'm trying to come up with a hypothesis about why you could've been dragged along with me," Beila wonders aloud as they walk.

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:20 am (UTC)

"Um... not that I recall? Maybe something knew you'd need me to carry you," Dao suggests.

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:21 am (UTC)

"Maybe," muses Beila. "I don't think Avatar transitions into the spirit world are mediated by anything that knows stuff, though."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:22 am (UTC)

"Some dead Avatar watching over you?"

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:25 am (UTC)

"...Possible. Maybe I should work a little harder at learning to get into the Avatar State and ask them."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:34 am (UTC)

Dao shrugs.

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:35 am (UTC)

"If you had past lives you could talk to what would you say to them?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:37 am (UTC)

"I... have no idea," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:37 am (UTC)

She laughs. "What would you say to somebody a hundred years from now who was using your soul?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:38 am (UTC)

"Probably 'good job, you're making better use of it than I ever did'."

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:41 am (UTC)

"I don't think you're doing badly. Do you?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:45 am (UTC)

He shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe. I guess."

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:46 am (UTC)

"But - how so?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:47 am (UTC)

"I don't know," he sighs.

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:48 am (UTC)

Beila takes his hand and squeezes it. "You live a pretty ordinary life, plus, you just helped prevent an angry supervolcano spirit from going unappeased," she points out. "I don't think that adds up bad."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:49 am (UTC)

"...okay, yeah."

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:50 am (UTC)

"You don't look completely convinced."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:52 am (UTC)

"I'm not not convinced."

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:54 am (UTC)

"You sound kinda not-convinced."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:57 am (UTC)

"You're very convincing. I think maybe I just... don't know what being convinced would be like."

roc_on
2013-04-27 02:57 am (UTC)

"Hmm."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 02:58 am (UTC)

He shrugs.

roc_on
2013-04-27 03:02 am (UTC)

"What is it like to - feel like whoever has your soul next will automatically be doing a better job with it? I mean, I would instantly press a button that made me immortal, stopped the entire Avatar Cycle right here, I would not feel a moment's conflict over it, if I talk to Random Waterbender Boy assuming I fail at producing such a button in my lifetime I'm probably going to mostly want to say 'give me my soul back, jerk'. I don't know what the other way of thinking is like at all."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 03:21 am (UTC)

"...I don't know what your way of thinking is like at all," says Dao. "Well, it's not hard to imagine you thinking like that. But it's hard to imagine me thinking like that. I just - I've been like this for a long time."

roc_on
2013-04-27 03:23 am (UTC)

Beila squeezes his hand. "It's like you don't even like yourself. If there were two of you would you just sort of stare resentfully at each other wondering why they were taking up space?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 03:33 am (UTC)

"...If there were two of me we'd probably make out," he says, and then blushes.

roc_on
2013-04-27 03:35 am (UTC)

"Ooh."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 03:39 am (UTC)

Dao laughs.

"Storing that one for later?"

roc_on
2013-04-27 03:40 am (UTC)

"Maybe. If there were two of me we wouldn't make out. We'd probably plot."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 03:48 am (UTC)

"I think you'd definitely plot."

roc_on
2013-04-27 03:49 am (UTC)

"There would be so much plotting! It'd be great. But if you'd get along with another one of you - so to speak - why don't you get along so great with just the one?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 04:12 am (UTC)

He shakes his head. "I don't think it works that way."

roc_on
2013-04-27 04:13 am (UTC)

"Why not?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 04:16 am (UTC)

"Because it doesn't?"

roc_on
2013-04-27 04:16 am (UTC)

"I am enlightened."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 04:19 am (UTC)

He snorts.

roc_on
2013-04-27 04:20 am (UTC)

"Not liking yourself sounds really uncomfortable."

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 04:21 am (UTC)

"It is."

roc_on
2013-04-27 04:22 am (UTC)

Beila squeezes his hand again. "I like you," she offers.

thinklikethis
2013-04-27 11:21 am (UTC)

"I like you too!"

roc_on
2013-04-27 03:12 pm (UTC)

"Oh good! It would be kind of awkward if we were dating and didn't like each other."

thinklikethis
2013-04-28 12:15 pm (UTC)

He giggles.

roc_on
2013-04-28 04:57 pm (UTC)

Eventually they reach the address at which the owner of the lot is supposed to live. Beila rings the doorbell. There's no immediate answer; she taps her foot.

thinklikethis
2013-04-28 06:24 pm (UTC)

"Maybe he's out."

roc_on
2013-04-28 06:26 pm (UTC)

"I sure hope not, because in that case I pretty much have to sit here all day," says Beila. "If he's on vacation we're in trouble, especially if there's any work already scheduled on the lot to take place while he's gone."

thinklikethis
2013-04-28 08:20 pm (UTC)

"You could try to find his number and call him...?"

roc_on
2013-04-29 03:36 pm (UTC)

"Was there anything like that in the directory you found?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 03:41 pm (UTC)

"No-o. But maybe there's another directory?"

roc_on
2013-04-29 03:41 pm (UTC)

"Maybe." She pulls out her screen and starts hunting.

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 03:44 pm (UTC)

Dao waits.

roc_on
2013-04-29 03:46 pm (UTC)

"Nothing," Beila sighs. "At least nothing easily accessible. I suppose it's probably on file somewhere less public and I could storm into city hall and demand it. But I'll give him another hour to come home first, I think."

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 03:48 pm (UTC)

"Okay," says Dao.

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:06 pm (UTC)

Beila plops down on the owner's front steps and carries on poking around for a phone number. "As long as we're waiting," she says, "tell me something. A story," she suggests. "Fiction or non, whatever, fill the silence." She waves a hand imperiously, but she's smiling.

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:09 pm (UTC)

"Sorry, I'm all out of facts about panda carp," he laughs.

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:10 pm (UTC)

"Fact about panda carp aren't stories, anyway," Beila giggles. "I dunno. How did you spend the year you were eight years old?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I don't remember. Probably I went to school and stuff."

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:12 pm (UTC)

"I bet you'd remember if you'd spent the entire year truant, yeah."

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:14 pm (UTC)

He giggles. "Yeah, that'd be a story. Not that I have any idea what I would've been doing if I had."

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:15 pm (UTC)

"Petty theft, long days at the beach, buying a little scooter and zipping around unsafely?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:19 pm (UTC)

"That sounds way more fun than the year I actually had, which was apparently so boring I don't even remember it."

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:19 pm (UTC)

"What's your first memory?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:21 pm (UTC)

"I'm not sure," he says. "You know how people tell you things about when you were young and then you don't remember if you remember them or just remember the stories?"

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:22 pm (UTC)

"Yeah, I wasn't really serious about writing stuff down till I was seven and halfway competent with a chordpress, and even then there's still the question of whether I naturally remember what I wrote or if I'm reconstructing it from notes, just like if I'm remembering something because I do or because Ranyi told me about it later."

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:26 pm (UTC)

"Yeah."

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:28 pm (UTC)

"But what is your earliest plausible memory?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:31 pm (UTC)

"I wish it was my mom, but it's probably not."

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:38 pm (UTC)

...Beila decides to wait for a silent moment to see if elaboration is forthcoming.

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:40 pm (UTC)

"I feel llike I remember her, but I don't know any details, I just know she must've existed once because babies don't fall out of thin air."

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:41 pm (UTC)

"They don't," agrees Beila. "Do you know anything about her?"

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:42 pm (UTC)

"Not really."

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:43 pm (UTC)

"I'm sorry."

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:48 pm (UTC)

He shrugs.

roc_on
2013-04-29 06:54 pm (UTC)

A man approaches the house.

He doesn't seem to recognize Beila.

"You, this is private property, shoo," he says.

thinklikethis
2013-04-29 06:56 pm (UTC)

"Do you live here?" wonders Dao. "'Cause if so, we're here to talk to you about that spirit you pissed off."